So this is my first crossover to someone else's POV. It just felt better flowing from someone else's eyes, though I'm pretty sure after this, I'll be returning to Bella and Edward. That said, I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope you all enjoy reading it.
Disclaimer: Nothing about Twilight is mine.
Chapter Twelve, When It All Falls Apart (Jacob's Side)
Jacob
Bella wouldn't talk to me – she would just sit in a corner and look depressed. How I wanted to do something to cheer her up: hold her in my arms, stroke her hair, tell her that everything would be alright…anything to get this miserable expression of hers off her face.
The only problem was, the one thing she wanted me to do, I couldn't.
"Take me home, Jacob," she said coldly to me the second night we had been on the run.
"We can't go back now," I told her. "We're already here. We might as well try to make things work while we're out here."
"And what exactly is that Jacob?" she snapped. "What exactly did you want to make work, that you had to carry me out into the middle of nowhere?"
"You know what I'm talking about," I said quietly.
She scoffed, and turned her head back to the darkness. "Yeah, right," she murmured.
Since that moment, Bella hadn't said anything to me. It was our fourth night on the run: I left Bella alone in the woods momentarily to use the nearest pay phone to call my dad and have him cover for Bella's absence for me. He was in complete agreement with my reasons for taking off: that cleansing Bella of whatever vampire poison she had been corrupted of was a major priority. He told me not to worry – to take my time even – and he would hold down the fort, and have Sam in charge of the pack while I was gone.
I had been contemplating this arrangement for a while now. I knew that Bella's relationship with Edward could not continue for a moment longer – she was changing right before my eyes, and I had to do something before it was too late. I even kept a bag of necessities packed and ready by the door for when I was ready to put the plan in motion. But it wasn't until I heard her say those words – "I've decided to become a vampire" – that I knew that I was truly running out of time.
I had to make her understand the dangers of what she was getting herself into. She was too swept up in vampire hypnosis to realize the gravity of things.
I had to convince her to remain the Bella I know and love, instead of the supper of that fucking monster.
I was running out of time.
Bella wouldn't speak to me, but she had long realized that there was no point in leaving me. I had made a point to only travel by night, making it harder for her to decipher exactly where we were going, and during the day, we were already so deep in the thicket that there was nowhere for her to go.
This wasn't the way I wanted things to pan out, but I couldn't change things now – we were too far in. Tonight would be our final night of movement, before we could finally come to rest in one spot. Truly, we had only been circling our resting spot a couple of times – I did this to throw off the bloodsuckers. I knew that if I kept on my feet long enough, it would confuse the Cullens to give me more time with Bella.
And all I needed was time.
Once the night fell, Bella reluctantly climbed on my back before I took off for a final time. She held me tightly around my neck, as if she wanted to choke me, but I didn't take much notice of it – she wasn't strong enough to hurt me anyway. I just kept my focus on our final destination.
We were going to the top of the mountains. I had spent a lot of time recently atop these mountains, thinking about how everything with Bella had gone so haywire. I had thought – I had been so sure – that if I revealed to Bella the true nature of the Cullens, it would be enough to pull her away from him. But instead, she was more succumbed to the fucker's poisonous schemes.
And then for her to want to become one of them?
I felt like killing the bloodsucker for that alone.
When we reached the particular cave I had spent many a night, I let Bella down. As soon as her feet were on the floor, she shoved me hard and walked away ferociously to the furthest corner of cave.
"Bella," I called to her, but she said nothing. "Bella, come on. Are you still not talking to me?"
She glared at me in a way that read: obviously.
I sighed in defeat: I had figured that after a while Bella would feel compelled to say something to me – that humanly nature to speak would finally overpower her. But she had been quite content to stay silent for the past two nights, and clearly she wasn't prepared to say anything yet either.
But I could wait.
I had to.
"I'm gonna get something we can burn, to keep you warm," I told her. "And then I'll make us something to eat."
I had said that last part tentatively, because along with being on speaking-strike, Bella had taken up a hunger strike following our last vocal interaction. I had carried a numerous amount of instant meals in my backpack, but Bella wouldn't touch any of them. She simply turned away from me and curled up, presumably, to sleep.
But I hardly needed sleep.
And I could hear her sobbing quietly to herself each and every time she pretended to be.
Fuck, it hurt so much for things to have to be this way. I hated to listen to Bella cry to herself, and to know that she would never cry in front of me anymore. I hated that she was being so bottled up towards me, when there was a time when she sought me out whenever she needed to talk. And to know that this time was not so long ago, and that the fault of this change was that of my mortal enemy's….
I grabbed a couple of stray branches and brought them back to our resting spot. Bella was leaning against a cave wall with her head tucked slightly down on her chest and her eyes closed. I wondered if she was really asleep, or if now she had taken up yet another strike against me. I started stirring a pack of instant noodles anyway.
But the silence was eating at me.
"You awake Bells?" I called from over my shoulder – my back was facing her.
I received no verbal response, but I heard her shifting behind me – coming onto her feet. I turned just in time to see her walking towards the cave exit.
"Where are you going?" I asked her.
She fixed me with a glare, one I couldn't place, before continuing on her way out.
I abandoned the noodles and raced to catch her, grabbing onto her wrist firmly. "Why don't you cut all this silent shit out Bells? It's not very productive for you, or for me. And as you can see, I'm making you something to eat, so it doesn't make any sense for you to leave right now. And where would you go? You have no idea where you are."
Bella just pushed me in response, her expression livid. "Fuck Bella!" I growled, my temper taking control of me. "Fucking say something. Anything!"
"Fuck you Jacob Black! You sick, sadistic, fucked-up son of a bitch!" She seethed at me.
Inside, I sighed with relief. Words, even if they were ugly, were still words.
"Listen," I said in a calmer tone. "You and I both know it doesn't have to be this way–"
"Fuck you," she spat.
"This could be good for you, good for both of us. We can talk up here. No one is going to find us up here."
"I'm done talking to you Jacob. I'm fucking done with you, if you haven't noticed."
"Well you might as well talk to me anyway," I told her. "Because I'm never taking you back to that fucking bloodsucker until I know that you're done with him."
"I'm in love with him Jacob," Bella said in a clear, angry tone. "I will never be done with him. And if you won't take me back, I'll find my own fucking way there."
"You're prepared to wander around in a forest, filled with danger, with no idea of which way to go, for fucking Edward Cullen?"
"Did I stutter that first time?"
I ripped myself away from her and took two steps back – I was so angry. "That's exactly what I'm talking about Bella! This freak has clouded your better judgment – you're willing to put yourself in danger for someone who just wants to feed on your body. I bet that fucking asshole was the one who put you up to becoming…." I couldn't finish the thought.
Bella gave me a defiant smirk. "That was actually my idea, if you must know. Edward had nothing to do with it. In actually, he didn't support the thought of me wanting to end my life."
The words surprised me. "He didn't want you to become a vampire?"
"Nope," Bella said. "But it isn't his decision, it's mine."
I mulled for a moment. This certainly didn't make things any better – Bella had been contaminated so far that she was making this destructive decisions all by herself. But at the same time, the fact that the bloodsucker was against the very decision….
….No, he was still just as much to blame for all of this. If he had just left my Bella alone in the first place, none of this would have even come to her impressionable mind. And then none of this would have had to happen.
Bella was standing at the mouth of the cave with her arms folded, but in the next moment she was heading back out into the night again.
"You can't just leave!" I roared at her.
"Why not Jacob!" She screamed at me. "I have legs. I can just leave if I fucking want to!"
"We haven't even talked yet."
"Are you confused you stupid fucking mutt?" She snapped. "I don't want to talk to you! I'm done trying to talk to you! I don't give a fuck about whatever you have to say because I am fucking done with you. Got it?"
Her words were ripping me into shreds, but I had to fight through my pain. "At least have something to eat before you leave," I said, trying to coax her into staying for a little while longer.
"I don't want any of your guilt food," she replied. "When I get back to Forks, I'm going to report you to my father and make sure that you get charged for kidnapping."
"Bella–"
"And then following that, I'm going to find Edward – the one guy who cares about me – and he's going to change me and then we're going to live happily ever after."
"You don't want that!" I yelled at her. "You can't possibly want that!"
"You don't know anything about what I want! You don't know shit!"
"No, Bella: you don't know shit. He's not going to change you, he's going to fucking kill you!"
"You. Don't. Know. Shit!"
The noodles began to burn.
*
Bella waited for me to cook up a new pot of noodles – she was clearly hungrier than she was willing to let on. I cooked noodles for myself as Bella slowly ate the bowl I had given her. She had gone back to not speaking to me – it had been a long three hours.
"I liked you better when you were yelling at me," I said to her finally. As usual, I was met with silence. I continued on slowly, hoping to provoke her into conversation: "At least when you were yelling, I knew what you were thinking."
She made a snorting noise, but still remained stone silent – even the way she slurped her noodles was deathly quiet.
I let out a small, singular laugh. "At least I got you to eat something, right?"
"Shut the fuck up Jacob," she hissed.
I was silent at her request, focusing on stirring my noodles. Once they were done, I ate them out of the pot – Bella had the only bowl I had brought along.
"Do you remember the first time you had ramen noodles?" I asked her quietly, after some silence had passed.
Bella didn't reply right away: her expression had gone from stone cold anger to somewhat sad. As she stirred the contents of her bowl, she finally said, in a quiet voice, "Yeah."
"You were in Forks for one of your many summer visits," I started slowly. "I had been visiting you at Charlie's and we were both starving. Charlie didn't have any money for pizza so he told us to come up with something in the kitchen. And all that was in the cupboards was–"
"–beef ramen noodles," she finished quietly. She laughed a little, and the sound made me smile. "We didn't even know how to cook it correctly. We were just so hungry that we ripped open the packet and ate them as is."
"Between you and me, I sometimes still eat them uncooked," I told her. "It's almost like chips."
"Except not," Bella said with an eye roll, but the gesture didn't contain the usual malice I had been getting from her recently.
We sat quietly after that exchange, but for once, I didn't feel like she was quietly hating me. I certainly didn't think that all was better now, but it was nice to have her upgrade from disgust to content. I pushed on slowly with conversation.
"You know Bella, I miss you," I told her softly. "Every time I wanted to pick up the phone and call you, I didn't know what to say. Somehow I felt like tell you that I missed you wouldn't be enough."
"You would have been right," Bella replied quietly. "It wouldn't have been enough."
I sighed. "All I want to do is make things right between us, and keep you safe."
"I'm not in any danger."
I let out a low snort. "That's an understatement."
Bella sighed. "You just don't understand."
"I understand more that you do," I said in a raised voice.
She looked at me, the fierce anger back in her eyes. "Actually you don't understand. And what makes it worse is that you don't want to fucking understand."
She tossed her bowl, still half full with food, and then stood up. "Bella, wait, I'm sorry!" I said quickly before she could walk away from me.
She went over to my bag and pulled out a large T-shirt I recognized as one of my own. "Is there some body of water around her that I can rinse myself in? I feel dirty, and I haven't had a real shower in days – thanks to you."
"Uh, yeah," I said slowly. "Um, yeah, there's a spring a couple of feet down." She nodded once before turning away. I couldn't help myself, and I called to her: "You'll come back won't you? You're coming back, right?"
She stopped, and looked at me over her shoulder. "Yeah, I'll be right back."
And she was – twenty minutes later, her hair damp and looking fresher. But she still looked incredibly frustrated with me, so I didn't say anything to her immediately. We must have sat around for another hour in silence before Bella spoke.
"I don't know what your plan was for taking me out here, but it's safe to say that it's not working," she said. "I think it's time you take me back home. If you do it right now, I won't even press the charges against you that you so rightly deserve."
I sighed. "How can you just let things be this way?"
"How can I let things be this way?" Bella said in an angry chirp. "If you want to blame someone, you should blame yourself."
"How could you say that?"
"Jacob, I've been trying to talk you for weeks," she said. "Every time I came to see you, even four nights ago, it was to come and talk to you. All I've wanted to do was talk to you, but all you do is yell and scream and behave stubbornly. So I'm done trying to explain things to you, and I'm done trying to get you to understand."
"I could say the same thing about you," I said. "You refuse to try to understand where I'm coming from."
Bella rolled her eyes at me, but I pressed on anyway. "You never had to hear your family tell you about the dangers of vampires, you were never formally warned about the evils they possess. All you have to go off is dumb fantasy fiction novels, but I learned about the real thing. I learned and saw firsthand about how your particular coven massacred innocent people just to feed themselves. I may have been not much older than six, but I was old enough to learn what was good and what was bad. And my father never allowed me to forget it.'
"And when I finally became to new pack leader, I now had several other young wolves to look after. Wolves who were looking up to me for guidance and protection from our sworn enemies. And with my father's stern words still ringing in my ears, and now leading the pack, the last thing I needed was for any fuck-ups on my part. When I found out you were meddling with the Cullens, I wanted to protect you. I told you about their nature, hoping that you would pull away from them. Hoping that you'd understand how dangerous they were on your own. But you didn't."
"They're not what you think they are Jacob," Bella said softly.
"Bella, one of their own murdered innocent people!"
"It was an accident," she replied weakly. "Jasper isn't like that anymore."
"That's what they all say."
"Jake," Bella said quietly, and instantly, my heart warmed. I hadn't heard Bella call me 'Jake' in what felt like forever. "Even if you don't trust them, you trust me, don't you?"
I couldn't answer her, but I knew that she could feel that I did trust her immensely. She continued as if I had answered. "If you do trust me, then you need to trust the decisions I'm making. I wouldn't do anything that I wasn't sure of, or that I thought was going to hurt me in the end."
"But becoming one of them–"
"Jacob, I love Edward," she said simply. "And I want to be with him forever."
"But if you become one of them Bella, our relationship would be finished. I could never speak to you or see you again. You'd become just like them: an enemy to my kind."
"They aren't like other vampires, Jacob," Bella replied. "They don't feed off of human blood. And I understand that you were there while Jasper was struggling with his thirst, but none of them are like that anymore. You need to forgive and forget."
I sat quietly for a moment, mulling over her words. "But my father," I said finally. "He would never forgive me for letting you do this to yourself. He was the one that suggested that I take you away like this, and get you to see straight. And my pack, for them to know that I was once best friends with the recent addition to the Cullen coven? They would never let me live it down."
"Jake, you're their leader."
"Exactly," I said. "You have no idea the pressures that I'm under right now. Just because you think you love this freak."
"I know I love him," she said quietly. She placed her hand on my shoulder and stroked in gently with her thumb. "You're right Jake, I didn't understand. I didn't know what you were going up against. And I wish I could take it all away. But the only person who can do that is you."
I glanced up at her, and her expression was one of kindness. "You're the leader – the Alpha. The pack looks up to you and respects your decisions. If you decided that the war between the wolves and the vampires could come to an end, they would respect your choice."
"No they wouldn't–"
"Yes they would," she insisted. "If I guess right in saying that Quil, and Embry, and Seth are all a part of the pack, well, those are some of your best friends Jake. And you're right, they do look up to you. But not for you to follow in your father's outdated footsteps – but for you to be yourself, and to lead the pack they way you wanted to."
She touched the side of my face ever so gently, and I leaned into her palm. "Jake," she said sweetly. "You're my best friend. Even with all that's been going on between us right now, I've never stopped missing you, and I've never stopped wanting to make things better between us. Even when I was so, so, so mad at you – I still missed you." She paused for a moment, and then added. "I don't want to lose you, just because I want to become a vampire."
"You're so sure about that, aren't you?" I asked her.
"Yes Jake, I'm sure," Bella replied. "I've been sure for a while now. And I'm not going to change my mind. But I still don't want to lose you."
"You wouldn't have to if you just forget about this vampire thing," I said, pulling away from her forcefully.
"I can't just forget about it, Jake," Bella said. "I'm in love with him, and he's in love with me. We want to be together, and this is the one way to make it work forever."
I buried my face in my palms. This was so frustrating. "I just want things to go back to the way it was before you met him," I murmured.
"Well I don't," Bella said carefully. "He makes me so happy Jake. He makes me happier than anyone else I know."
I already knew this. I could see just how much it was eating her inside to be away from him, and I already knew what she was like when she was around him. "I want you to be happy Bella," I told her. "I don't want to come between you and your happiness anymore."
Bella's eyes were shiny with tears as she leaned forward and threw her arms around me for a warm hug. "You make me happy too Jake. I love you just as much as I love him. It's just a different kind a love. But it's still a love that I don't want to have to lose. I don't want our relationship to have to diminish the way it has been just because of some outdated and irrelevant pact."
I put my arms around Bella, enjoying the feeling of her being so close to me, and realizing just how long it had been since I held her like this. "I don't want to lose you either Bella," I told her. "I'll do something. I'll figure something out."
I ran my fingers through her hair and rest my head atop hers. I didn't want this to be the last time I had to hold Bella – but I was going to keep her as close as possible just in case it was the last time.
*
I woke up with Bella in my arms and her hair around my nose. In all honesty, it did smell a little dirty. As I pulled away from her to sit up, Bella awoke from my movements as well. She glanced up at me, her face tentative.
"We're going home today," I told her. "I think we've done all we can out here."
I was about to stand up, but her hand on mine stopped me. "I just want to tell you Jake," she began, "is that even though I'm upset that it had to come down to this for us to talk, I am glad that we did finally talk. Even if it doesn't change things, at least we understand each other a little better, right?"
I nodded, giving her a small smile. "Right."
I packed us up quickly before pulling Bella back on my back. I took her straight to the one place I knew where she would want to be right now – the Cullen house. By the time we had finally reached Cullen property, I could sense activity going on inside the house. I was only a couple of feet away from the door when it flew open and Edward came rushing out. Before I could completely register what for, Bella was off of my back and off in Edward's arms.
Damn, I didn't know he was that fucking fast.
I turned around to see Edward holding Bella so close, it almost appeared as he wanted to fuse her into his body. His forehead was pressed against hers, and his hand was on her cheek, stroking her face. I'm pretty sure that if he could cry, he would be doing so right at that moment.
"I'm okay, Edward," Bella was telling him in a soft voice. "I'm fine."
"I missed you so fucking much," he said. "I was worried out of my fucking mind. I didn't know what to do with myself, I….You promise you're okay? Nothing is wrong? Cause we could have Carlisle look over you and–"
"I'm fine," she assured him. She pulled him closer to her, resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm fine."
Edward returned her embrace, his hands caressing her back. It was becoming too much for me to watch: I had brought Bella back, now it was time for me to go.
Bella finally broke away from Edward and walked back over to me. Her eyes were filled with so much emotion that it was hard to even keep her gaze. Gently, she reached for my hands and laced them with hers. I relished on the warmth of her palm, knowing there would be a time when it would be no longer there.
"It's too soon Bella," I told her. "Don't ask anything of me yet, because it's just too soon."
Bella nodded understandingly, giving my hands a squeeze. "You'll always be my best friend," she said. "I'll never stop loving you, and you'll always be my best friend."
She took a step further and we hugged tightly. "Just don't kidnap me next time, okay?" she murmured.
I laughed. "Can do."
We released each other, just as the rest of the coven appeared at the front door. Two females came running down towards Bella, concern laced in their expression. I could only recognize one of them – the pixie. "Bella, thank god, sweetheart, you're alright," said the other vampire.
"I'm fine, Esme," Bella said to her. "Just a little dirty, but that's all."
"Well, let's get you freshened up," The pixie said, before leading Bella back towards the house.
Now just Edward and I were left standing on the lawn. Edward still seemed to be composing himself, as if he was still in disbelief that Bella had just been in his arms. It was then I noticed the darkness of his irises, the slight appearance of bruising under his eyes. I knew enough about vampire lore that this was a sign of not feeding. And I realized that Edward had been so consumed with worry that he hadn't fed…I could easily picture him tearing through the area, desperately, searching for any glimpse of Bella.
"I'm sorry to have put you through this," I said to him, and I meant the words.
Edward looked at me, not with the malice I deserved, but with appreciation. "Thank you Jacob, for bring her back," he said.
"She loves you," I replied.
"I love her."
"I know that now," I said quietly. I approached him slowly. "You better take care of her," I warned. "If you do anything to hurt her–"
"I couldn't, even if I wanted to," Edward said to me.
I damned myself for shaking the way I was, but it hurt so fucking much. I felt like I was giving up a piece of me that I wasn't ready to part with yet.
"I would never keep you from Bella," Edward was saying, as if reading my mind. "I understand how much she cares about you and how much you care about her. I would never try to come between that relationship."
"And I will never try to come between you two again either," I said. "And because of that, I can't stay here any longer."
Edward nodded once, with understanding. Afterwards, I took off, phasing effortlessly into my wolf form and making distance between myself and the Cullen home. I raced to the very cave I had just left, needing, again, time to think.
Reviews are well received and appreciated.
I finally have the free time I need, so I'm trying to churn out these last few chapters. In my head, I see two more chapters with a possibility of an epilogue:: just to keep you all in the know.
Until my next update!
--Brin--
