As the snowflakes drifted lazily about their heads, Renesmee and Jacob sat beneath an overhang of stone and frozen soil in the mountains. She sat snuggled up close to his chest to keep warm.
Nessie's palm was pressed lovingly into the smooth surface of the Alpha's cheek. His onyx eyes were closed and his head was leaned back, allowing the images she showed him to rush unchecked through his mind. A small smile played about his sensuous lips.
She observed her soul mate's peaceful countenance with interest. Emotions constantly intrigued her. She sometimes thought of Jasper, and how lucky he was to deal exclusively with feelings. She wished she had that ability. Nessie knew she would give Jacob as much joy as she could, and would stay near him often to erase the pain from his brow as some remembered phantom left the past and invaded their present, troubling him.
Now, though, Renesmee knew that she could give him that in their silent moment in the snow, using memories as a gift instead of a weapon.
Rustling sounds disturbed the still; Jake opened his eyes, and Ness removed her hand. They knew it was her parents, but habit forced them alert.
Bella and Edward appeared just above the snow bank before them, sliding down the white powder and grinning at each other, love struck, even after all this time. Jacob snorted, leaning back again, bored. But Ness kept her wide brown eyes trained upon the vampire pair.
They were beautiful; shapely brows stark against their white skin, easily comparable to the snow they played in. Their full lips were red as the blood they had just enjoyed. Their teeth gleamed with delight. Their brilliant tawny eyes stood out in sharp relief against their pallor, like gems in marble. They were gentle gothic versions of models on the cover of a fashion magazine, dressed in Alice's latest expensive buys. Bella's long dark tresses swirled about her, giving her a mysterious air. Edward's disheveled bronze hair shone in the pearly dim, saturated with snow. They were breathtaking; it was almost too difficult to hide that they were inhuman.
Renesmee sank further into Jacob's lap. His capable arms encased her, and bands of heat warmed her skin where they touched it.
Would they one day be like her parents? He was, after all, as handsome to her as Edward. He was rugged and not as refined, but he was magnificent.
Her family constantly crooned that she was simply exquisite. Humans, also, seemed stunned at her appearance.
However, she was not fully vampire. It was hard for her to accept that she could ever attain the grace and gorgeousness her family so easily carried.
Renesmee was delicate, certainly. But strikingly attractive? She wasn't sure.
She watched Bella and Edward position themselves against an aging evergreen, coming together for a kiss. Their bodies formed an affectionate shape, like eternal swan lovers bent together, almost a valentine's heart…
It was a shape that Nessie hoped to duplicate with her Edward…eventually.
Jacob tugged on Renesmee's caramel-colored curls, teasing her. She looked away regretfully from the couple and into the face she so cherished. She held that shape, so intimate, in her mind where it burned.
He yanked on her tiny hand; she followed him into the woods.
---
"Edward's coming," she tells them. "He'll be here soon; he left an hour ago. No one picked up the phone so he jumps a plane! There is no trust in this family," Bella kids, flashing a set of flawless teeth.
Carlisle sits upon the burgundy leather chair in the corner, sinking as its fabric gives way. "You know Edward, Bella. He's concerned. I think at this point we all need to be. I can't believe you would keep what Jacob did a secret."
Bella bows her head, ashamed. "I'm sorry. But you have to understand: Jake's my best friend. He always will be. And he's going through some hard times right now."
Emmett grunts, dissatisfied. "Bella, he tried to…I can't even say it." He sneaks a quick glance to his blonde wife, whose ethereal face is shadowed. She meets his gaze with wounded amber eyes. She's haunted by her own demons now.
Alice steps forward, clutching Jasper. "I can't see anything. I'm so scared. I've never been this blind!" She sways, and her fair-haired partner supports her with a tense expression.
"This is taking its toll on her. And if she can't see, we're helpless." Jasper whispers urgently, hugging his thin wife to him with his scarred arms.
"The wolves would never harm us!" Esme chides her son, dropping elegantly into Carlisle's lap.
Carlisle strokes her round cheek and answers, "No, but they might have to hurt Jacob. And he is a part of this family."
The burliest of them angrily smashes a vase. "Screw that!" Emmett cries. "Jake isn't Jake anymore! It's us or him now- and I choose us!"
"But would others second that notion, Em?" Carlisle replies sadly.
The discomfort in the room builds to a breaking point. "Jazz! A little help?" Bella pleads desperately, rubbing her smooth forehead with her hands.
Jasper, preoccupied with his frayed and frantic Alice, nods and floods the room with warmth and fills them with ease.
"We need to do something," Emmett says calmly, tugging Rosalie onto the bottom staircase step beside him.
Bella barely listens as they discuss useless options. Her panic is just out of her reach, but strong enough and close enough for her to taste it. She feels horribly alone, and wants Edward so badly she can hardly bear it. She needs him kissing her fears away, taking charge of the situation and solving their problems.
Her hands come forward automatically, habitually to touch Renesmee's hair. But where there should be a small daughter there is empty space.
"Why isn't Nessie back yet?" she blurts, disturbing the dialogue.
Six pairs of yellow eyes stare blankly at her.
Suddenly, the mansion is full of movement.
"Nessie!" Alice shouts up the stairs, four granite fingers on her temple. Jasper rushes past her, blurred with speed. "Ness!" he calls, checking each room.
"It's no use! She'd hear us- we'd smell her!" Bella races onto the lawn and around the large house twice, becoming immediately soaked.
Dripping, water obscuring her vision, she chokes out, "The cottage!"
The Cullens sprint toward the fairy tale retreat, lofting themselves recklessly over the river. The sound of howling increases the closer they get.
Edward and Bella's home is empty, devoid of any recent raspberry scent.
The rain has washed her away.
Falling to her bare knees, muddying herself in despair, Bella yells with frustration into the storm.
"Bella, Jasper and I will go looking for her. You have to go back to the house." Alice demands firmly. She's wincing with the throbbing headache her lack of sight provides.
"No! I have to find my baby! What if…with his mindset, Jake is capable of anything!" Bella shakes her head, sodden strands of hair tearing through the air like knives.
"Bella, you have to go. If I allow anything happen to you, Edward will kill me. Jazz, go with her. And take Rosalie, she's falling to pieces."
Clutching her own curvy sides with a claw-like grip, Rose's eyes are golden orbs of fear. Her attachment to her niece is apparent.
Alice and Esme take off to the right. Carlisle and Emmett race the opposite direction.
"Come on, Bells," Jasper urges. She remains glued to the wet ground, agonizing. He throws her over his shoulder with stunning speed. Grabbing his other sister by the hand, he tugs them back the path they came.
---
Nessie is well aware by now the search is on for her.
But her search is almost finished. She can sense he is very close. After circling the river many times, even taking an unwise run down La Push beach, where his brothers nearly interfered, Jake had spun around and is now racing through the forest, one paw on the boundary line.
She knows that his caution is a sign.
If he was still fully beast, there would be no rationalization, nor any feel for self-survival. She had anticipated as much. She only hopes his change in behavior would not deter him from carrying out her goal.
Renesmee slides down the next hill, narrowly avoiding the trees sticking up from the earth like tall towers. As she bursts through the bushes at the bottom of her descent, a low growl freezes her movements.
She smiles sweetly, sadly, as a large paw drags her down into unconsciousness.
---
That face. The face he could never hate for long. The face he gazed into for the first time some years ago, neatly signing over the power on himself with his action.
Porcelain, perfect...pitying.
It was too much for him in his ravaged, confused condition. The beast took hold again and secured her between his teeth, altering his direction.
He knew the end was close.
---
Bella, Jasper, and Rosalie near the Cullen mansion, despair still etched into their flawless features. But as the wind and the rain turn toward them, each vampire stops dead in their tracks.
The door is no longer merely ajar- it's ripped from the hinges.
And the scent drifting along fills them with an unknown fear.
"Jacob!" Bella shouts, reaching the house before the others, "Stop! You don't realize what you're doing!"
Jacob, menacing and eerily familiar spits, "No. For the first time in a long while I do know what I'm doing."
Striking his own forehead in discomfort he says, "Don't you understand? If I kill her now, we can be together. These wasted years will mean nothing. It can just be you and me again, and this time you'll let me love you."
Bella, horrified, shakes her head in denial. "You're not well. Let me help you." She steps forward cautiously, restraining her siblings as she does so. "Just give me back my daughter."
And as he moves, there lies Nessie.
It is the scene from her daughter's dark dream, Bella realizes with dread.
Jasper and Rosalie fly across the room just as Jacob exchanges his human form for a far more dangerous one.
Their fight is momentary; wolves and family are on the way.
Jasper wraps his scarred arms around the werewolf's neck, his lips pulled back in an animalistic snarl. Rose goes for Nessie.
Jacob twists and rears, throwing Jasper off him. Jazz lunges forward again, raking his hands unexpectedly along Jake's stomach.
Esme's prized Venetian rug is drenched in red.
Bella barely notices how her child stubbornly resists Rosalie. Her golden eyes are firm upon the wounded wolf, and her senses are filled with his roar.
Jacob darts out and swipes at Jasper, clawing him, tearing his normally impenetrable skin with his mighty jaws.
For the first time in her existence as a vampire, Bella feels cold.
Rosalie pulls at Nessie, who in turn wraps her small arms about Jacob's legs. Distracted, he turns and snaps at her.
In defense, Rose jumps on his back and thrusts her white hands deep inside the flesh of his back.
Screaming, Jacob shakes her loose and pins her against the wall.
Just then, Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, and Alice break through the window, scattering glass among the carnage. The wolves are not far behind them.
But Jacob swiftly releases Rose and takes Renesmee in his teeth.
It doesn't matter that he is more injured now than he ever has been in his life, his coat bathed with blood. It's of no consequence to him that his guts are dangling from his split belly, or that his spine is jutting out his back. It's only physical pain, and his agony comes from the heart.
He sees black spots, obscuring his vision, and his legs tremble. Yet he keeps the girl in his jaws.
They cannot help her for risk of hurting her.
Bella inhales needlessly and closes her eyes.
There is nothing left…he is gone, and she is gone, and her whole world has exploded into unfixable chaos. Her body is wracked with human-like tremors. It's over…
It's finished…
It's hopeless…
It's…
Edward.
Glowing golden and pristine in the doorway. His eyes are a blazing fire, his perfect teeth bared…
Jacob drinks in the sight of him with the part of his mind that remains intelligent, while slowly, unknowingly, dropping Nessie to the floor.
He is snowy white, entirely innocent. His flawless features are simply…incomparable.
He must know now: he's no longer the monster. Jacob is.
Jacob is…
He whines like a kicked puppy as a jolt of pain rocks his large body. His brain is ripping, torn to shreds with the serrated edges of the knives of his memory.
Edward's face softens, his noble brows crease, and his wonderful tawny eyes melt the iced-over caverns of the human Jake's heart. Edward's sorrow is stranger than his sympathy.
It is so hard not to blame him. He is the source of anger brewing beneath Jake's skin all this time. But now…
He questions his identity. Does the beast still lurk in the shadows of his soul? No, Edward has absolved him of sins, washed him clean with forgiveness.
The vampire smiles.
Weakly, Jake gives his wolf form up for an easier, final body.
He turns his gaze to Bella.
Her golden eyes are wide and bewildered. Her full ruby lips are tremulous. She clutches her daughter and strokes her bronze hair.
Renesmee is crying. She struggles against her mother's grip, her small arms outstretched to him.
He offers a tiny smile to them both.
He needs them like he needs air to breathe.
The rain stops pelting the roof, and the sun shudders into the sky. Each marble-skinned being sparkles. Only one truly dazzles him.
His past ghosts screech.
"I used to think of you that way, you know. My own personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely."
Jacob's pain is distant now. He looks to Edward.
This is who she wants. This is who she chose. And Jacob understands.
"Thank you," he whispers to him.
Bella's shape, so dear to him, fills his head. Long and thin, with silken hair down her back. And her eyes…now Renesmee's eyes, are chocolate brown and blameless. It's dizzying.
His phantoms fall silent.
A beast can't feel what a human can. It can never feel the love Jacob enjoys as his spirit passes from his ravaged body and travels…beyond.
He doesn't have to run anymore. Finally, he can fly.
And she will never leave him.
THE END
Whew. Sorry for the ridiculously long first and last chapters, as well as the heavy angst and long period between updates. I want to thank everyone who reviewed or added me to their various fav/alert lists. I really appreciate anyone who took the time to read my first, semi-decent fanfic. I'm moving on to bigger and better stuff soon. I've got some great ideas, and I hope you'll watch out for new fics from me in the future. Please continue to review, so I may continue to dance.
Playlist for: Phantoms and Beasts
Kelly Clarkson, Green Day, 3OH!3, Aly and AJ, The All-American Rejects, and the Twilight Soundtrack.
Author's Recommendations:
'If You Twist and Turn Away' by blueandblack
'Then Direct You Into My Arms' by blueandblack
'Dawning Sun' by Pink Paramore
'Breaking Day' by Pink Paramore
'Dawning Sun' by omigiluffbleachvampires
'Hands on Me' by IndependenceIndividuality
Also, please check out the Indie TwiFic Awards website if you want quality fics. Voting closed as of Monday, August 3rd, and though not all of my favorites won (actually, not any of them), they are still listed elsewhere as nominees. And of course, the winners have been determined as 'the best'- so I'm sure they're great reads as well.
Thanks for everything!