A/N: Thanks for all the lovely comments on the last chapter!
I'm sure you're all far too busy to read on a Saturday night, but for those of us not at comic con and who have little social life, have fun!
These characters are not mine.
Chapter 8: Confronted by a Giant Puppy
EPOV
"Why don't you come back for a visit?" Emmett asked.
"I don't know. I don't think I'm ready."
"It's been months, E. We all miss you." It was a particularly vulnerable statement coming from Emmett, but he'd never been ashamed of his emotions. He wore them on his sleeve. I'd always been a little jealous of his ability to just put himself out there in that way. My own emotions had always been carefully guarded.
"You know it never works all that well for Rose and me either, being on our own. I mean it's fun, and I like the privacy. Believe it or not, Rose actually screams my name even louder. Plus I don't have to worry about putting pants on all the time when Alice isn't around to throw a fit about the condition of my underwear. But it always feels like something is missing. It's weird isn't it? How much we all balance each other? Good weird, I think."
How could you not love Emmett? He said what he thought, and it was usually stating the obvious, but behind it was something so true it cut right to the bone.
The truth was I did miss them. All of them.
"Why don't you come here?"
"Actually, I've been trying to convince Jasper to come out there with me? Thought a guy's weekend would be cool. I think we could both stand to get away from here for a while. Between Alice's moping and Rose's crabbiness, it hasn't been much fun around here."
"What's going on with Rosalie?" I knew Alice was upset. She hadn't been hiding it from me at all, but Rose's mood was news to me.
"I don't know. Ever since you left, she's been pretty pissed off at the world. Well more than usual anyway. She won't talk much about it. She didn't like having to follow your human around, but I thought her mood would improve now that we've backed off. Anyway, I guess since things are calmer here lately, that's why I thought maybe you could come back, at least for a while."
"I didn't know Rose was having issues."
"Yeah, well, I couldn't exactly talk about it when she was around. She's fine. She's Rose, but whenever something is wrong with one of us in the family, it just seems to throw everyone else off too."
"I know." My thoughts were heavy. I couldn't lift any better response. I hadn't thought my presence mattered much to any of them. I had felt like an extra wheel for so long that I didn't know how to react to the idea that I mattered. So I said nothing else for a minute. Then I asked quietly. "How is she?"
"The girl?"
"Bella."
"Oh yeah, well, she seems . . . okay. She keeps to herself at school now, and then she's pretty much over at La Push all the time."
I exhaled slowly. It had taken some time for anyone to tell me about her spending time on the reservation. Logically, I knew her dad was friends with Billy Black, so she was likely to have friends there, but I'd just never noticed before. Ultimately, we hadn't had a lot of time together, so it was easy to miss things. The first time Alice mentioned it, I swear I got chills. Carlisle was less concerned. None of the younger generation appeared to really believe the old legends, and he figured if she was going to ask questions, that was as good a place for her to ask them as any. I wasn't sure. All I knew was that she'd stopped following my family around. She'd stopped nudging people at school and asking if the "noticed anything weird about the Cullens." She didn't even seem to be writing as much.
"She's still dating him then?"
He didn't answer immediately, which was an answer in and of itself. "Yeah, I think so. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's what I wanted right? She needed to move on." Emmett was the only one willing to talk to me about Bella. Alice didn't think I deserved it, and I sure as hell wasn't going to ask Rosalie. Jasper couldn't manipulate my emotions over the phone, but he was a still a good judge of my mental state, and he would call me out on it. So I avoided him too.
Though Bella stayed away, and no rumors flew about the Cullen family of aliens, my family's tenure in Forks ended sooner than expected.
It wasn't long after the phone call with Emmett that things took a different turn. Something happened. More than one actually. No one expected it.
The La Push boys started turning into werewolves.
We wouldn't have known except for a near run in Emmett and Rosalie had near the treaty line. To say we were shocked was an understatement. We assumed the line had died out a generation ago, but Carlisle began discussions with Billy Black and the other elders immediately. They claimed everything was under control. At the time of that first discussion, only three had turned. By the time my family left, there were seven.
No one knew what had sparked it. The elders argued our return had to have been the impetus since it had skipped a generation, namely, the one in which we had never arrived. It didn't explain why it took so long after our arrival. Carlisle wondered if it wasn't somehow linked to Bella—her interaction in both worlds or something drove their need to protect. Ultimately, we'd never know.
Everyone decided it was better to leave. The tensions were mounting. The wolves were volatile, and the stress just got to be too much for everyone, especially Jasper. When they moved, I rejoined them. I had mixed emotions, but I didn't really have a choice at that point.
I didn't know which one she was dating, or whether he had become a wolf, but leaving her in that environment with no one to watch out for her hurt like hell.
Carlisle reminded me that in many ways, a girl that curious was safest with them. They had secrets too. They were as possessive of them as we were. That silence might just be her protection.
So I went home to my family. And in some ways I felt more alone than ever.
Out of sight; out of mind.
Time heals all wounds.
Plenty of fish in the sea.
Whoever coined those phrases never met Bella Swan.
I didn't have a picture, or a voice mail, or souvenir from a date. I didn't need them to help me remember her. I hadn't forgotten a single detail of her face. The sprinkle of faded freckles by her nose or the shade of pink her lips turned when she bit them. I had memorized every inch of her body—the curves, scars, the way her imperfections made her perfect.
I recalled every second we'd spent together with perfect clarity.
No she was not out of my mind. Time had healed nothing, and she was the only fish I wanted.
I had to let her be. At times I could almost convince myself that I wanted her to fall in love with someone else. That I would be happy if she got married and had babies.
I could be very persuasive when I wanted to be. Apparently just not with myself. Because time only made me miss her more.
I managed to go more than a year without any contact. In the grand scheme of thing, a year was nothing. A blip, a blink. In my reality, that year was forever.
On numerous occasions, I sat with my finger on the button that would call her. I didn't even know if the number would be the same, but I could never do it. I had no idea what I'd say if I reached her, and it wouldn't be fair to her to re-engage.
We weren't that far from Forks. We had moved far enough to start over, but not so far that I didn't have access to her. It was the one concession we made.
Only once did I make the mistake of trying to visit.
It was a couple of months after I'd rejoined the family. I was out hunting with Jasper, and I didn't feel like going back to the house when we were done. It wasn't that I needed time to be alone. I just didn't need to be around couples. The re-immersion back into the house had been a double edged sword. I could accept that holing myself up in dives wasn't doing much for my mood, and I needed balance. I did laugh with them. I did enjoy having hunting partners.
But I had grown used to the silence. In particular, I didn't miss hearing love. Not just sex, though I could do without that, but I just the constant sound of being in love. It added a layer of disappointment I didn't need.
Jasper didn't have to ask me what was wrong; he understood. Maybe even better than Alice. So I took off running. I didn't have a course in mind. I lost track of my location. A stupid thing to do, I admit, but I just gave myself over to the wind and the dark and the lack of voices in my head.
I began hearing noises of civilization about an hour outside of Port Angeles; only I honestly had no idea that's where I was. I hadn't run much in this particular area, so it wasn't incredibly familiar, and I didn't feel like entering town, so I kept going. It was only a matter of minutes before my location hit me. It was another fifteen before I'd made any decision. I could clock that before it was the same time Alice called.
I didn't pick up. I was running and didn't want to stop.
She left a voice mail; I heard the familiar indicator beep. I didn't listen to it either.
She texted. I could feel the buzz in my pocket letting me know.
I didn't stop for it.
I didn't slow my pace until I was about a mile from her house and was beginning to concentrate on the sounds around me, hoping to pick up her voice or perhaps I'd get lucky and listen in on a dream state.
I pulled my phone out. Maybe Alice knew something I didn't.
The text was simple.
Thinking of you.
It was the oddest comment. The kind of thing you said to someone when something bad had happened or you didn't know what else to say. But there was no warning. I shook my head and moved closer.
But all I got was silence. Her father was snoring, but his mind was blank.
Her room was silent. No dreams. No whispers. No crumpling sheets. No breathing
That made me angry. What kind of father was he that he could be sound asleep while his daughter was out traipsing around in the middle of the night? Didn't he know what teenage girls did when they stayed out? I thought about causing a ruckus, creating a scene just to see if he knew she was gone.
But the fact was. I knew. I knew exactly where she was spending the night and why he probably didn't care.
I decided I wanted more anyway, so I opened the window. The scent that hit me was a mixed bag. Yes, I could smell Bella, and it caused my thirst to flare despite my recent hunt. But there was an underlying stench as well. It had been a long time since I'd caught a whiff of that pungent odor, but I could never mistake the smell of that kind of dog. It was faded; he hadn't been in here today at least.
It confirmed what I had feared. She was with a wolf.
He was going to know I was here. I wondered if he would say anything to her. Did she know what he was? Couldn't she smell it? If she did know, had she learned the truth about me?
I wandered around the room. I lazily picked up items and put them back down. I felt the need to be connected to her somehow. These were her things. This was her room.
I realized I was snooping, and it was wrong, but at the time it seemed harmless.
Her room wasn't messy, but it wasn't spotless either. Her pajama bottoms were strewn across her bed. The bed taunted me. I wanted to pull back the covers and climb in, but I didn't belong there. I never really did.
She had a few books out on her desk, and she'd clearly been writing a paper for American Lit on Fitzgerald. I figured she'd be unhappy with that. He wasn't really her style.
Her closet door was open, and her dirty clothes were piled in the laundry basket. Her sent would be strongest there or in her bed. But I couldn't go to the bed.
I leafed through some of the papers on her desk, finding nothing of consequence.
There was a bulletin board above the desk with random artifacts, ticket stubs and pictures. Right in the middle was a picture of her and with a boy. I'd never seen him before, but I knew his last name would be Black. He bore a striking resemblance to his grandfather.
In the picture they were smiling. She was happy. She looked the same. . . and different. Her eyes were off somehow. They'd seen more, felt more. Eyes changed that way as people aged.
I almost didn't see it. It was tucked back a bit behind some other papers. A little scrap that simply said, "Just in case" and had my number scrawled on it. She wanted a back up or she wanted to hide it from the Quileute boy. I wasn't sure which.
Nothing in the room told me that I should stay. She had a life here. She moved on. It was what I wanted.
I don't know why it felt so bad.
I looked around for anything I could take. Something small. In the end I decided I might be a stalker, a peeping tom, and a snoop, but I was not going to be a thief.
I waited in the tree outside her window until shortly after sun up. Charlie didn't even check her room before he left for work. Her not being there on a school night didn't seem to bother him.
I found myself in the woods, near the treaty line. I couldn't cross. I knew what would happen if I did. It would be a war. I wasn't sure I could hold my own against seven of them, and my death would certainly bring my family here for revenge. Emmett and Jasper would certainly come.
But I wasn't here on a suicide mission or to start a war. I just wanted to see her. I wanted to make sure this wolf was being responsible. About more than sex.
Alice's text suddenly made more sense than I could have imagined.
"Thinking of you."
What else could she say really? I didn't belong here right now.
I heard his approach a mile away. A branch snapped, and he told someone to "Watch it!"
By then I could hear the distinct footsteps and breathing of three of them. Their thoughts were more difficult to decipher because they appeared to be sharing them somehow.
Thinking of my family, I took a stop back to ensure I wasn't crossing the line. "I'm here alone," I announced. "I'm not a threat."
I heard him give a command to the others to stay back, and he walked forward. It was the boy in the picture.
"Hey man, can we take a walk?" he asked.
I tilted my head slightly, a reluctant agreement.
"I'm Jake, by the way," said, as we began a slow path, each on opposite sides of the treaty line.
"Edward," I responded.
"I know," he answered quietly. "Look, you should know the pack can hear my thoughts now."
That was interesting. I had never known the pack connection was so strong.
"Good to know."
"It doesn't freak you out that we can read each other's thoughts?"
I laughed.
"I can read yours as well."
"Really?" What number am I thinking of right now?
"Five, Jake."
"Can you all do that?"
"No, just me."
"Huh, I guess we didn't have any reason to walk away."
"It feels better man to man thought doesn't it?"
"Yeah." He bent down and picked up a blade of grass and began chew on the end. "I would like to kick the shit out of you."
"I understand." I was taking things slowly. I wasn't sure where this was supposed to go. The next question he asked surprised me, but I didn't have any clearer an answer for him than I did for myself.
"Do you love her?"
"It's hard to explain."
"Nah, that's bullshit. You do or you don't," he argued. He scratched his face and looked down at his feet. "I've loved her since I was 8."
I looked at him, but he had shifted his gaze up toward the sky.
"She used to visit Charlie every summer. I don't know what it was about her. We played by the tide pools down by the beach. She fell in so many times, I lost count, but she still went. Every time she'd say, 'I won't fall in today.' And she always did. But she got up, dried off, and tried again. She's so damned determined."
He picked up a rock and threw it as far as he could. I heard it ping off a tree farther away than any mere human could throw, but not as far as I could have.
"You know what I hate the most? You've made her determination a bad quality. It's not fair. That's not how it's supposed to work."
"You know how things are supposed to work then do you?"
He snickered and let his head fill with pictures of Bella I didn't want to see. Naked on his bed. Legs wrapped around him. His sweat dripping on her.
The images assaulted me, and my instinct was to fight back. I crouched low and growled.
He laughed. "Can't handle that huh?"
But his laughter relaxed his mind, and his defenses went down revealing another set of pictures, those he didn't want me to see. Bella curled up on his bathroom floor, crying after she'd lost her virginity. Writing frantically in her notebook, literally pulling pieces of hair out of her head when she would get frustrated by her own thoughts. Calling out my name in her sleep.
I knew why he hid them from me; they were more persuasive than any mind porn he could display. What had I done to her? How could I continue to destroy her?
Could I have been wrong all along? Was it more damaging to leave than to stay?
My growl faded to whimper; my crouch collapsed.
"That's right, bloodsucker, I've had what you didn't."
I'd failed. But I would have failed no matter what. I knew what her dreams were about. She was running from the monster. Pulling her hair out in fear. She just needed more time to come to terms. She would be okay. She had to be.
I wanted to curl up in a ball on the forest floor and scream. But I would not give Jacob Black the satisfaction. I had no reason to hate him, and every reason to envy him. He was there for her when I could not be. He loved her, while I merely lusted and longed for her and failed to name anything beyond that. But I resented the hell out of him. He was a monster too, a danger to her. He didn't deserve her anymore than I did.
I would protect the treaty. I would not use my teeth to make him bleed, but I would cut him.
"Ah, but not everything young pup; don't be so smug. Dogs go at it with a vengeance don't they? Pummeling until they get their fill. You don't know how beautiful she is when climaxes do you?"
I'd searched. Twisted through the dark alleys of his mind, but I hadn't once seen her throw her head back in the heat of the moment. No incontrollable jerk of her body. No screaming of his name at the pinnacle of the mountain. And there was no way he would be able to forget the site of bringing Bella Swan to orgasm.
"Fuck you." His eyes narrowed, and his fist shook slightly. "You left her. You don't get to think of her like that."
"I left to protect her, Jake. Don't forget what you are. It's not safe for her to be with you, anymore than it was for me."
"I don't want to eat her."
"But you can't control yourself yet. You're shaking now, and I'm barely provoking you."
"She's not a leech."
"Just be careful. That's all I'm asking. Does she know what you are?
"No." His mind flashed thoughts of some pack connection, and I understood he literally couldn't tell her the truth. "She's perceptive though, and she knows something is going on.
"I know you all keep your secrets. For her sake I hope you never let her figure out the truth.
"Think she can't handle knowing you're a vampire?"
The left side of my mouth slid into a smile. "Take a moment to look at popular culture, Jake. Not as many women lusting after dogs as vampires. No, my concern is about her safety. We do not live in a vacuum. Other vampires don't think or act like we do. And we have something of a governing body."
"Civilized bloodsuckers?"
"Something like that."
"So, what's the problem?"
"There is only one rule, and breaking it is punishable by death. No one can know we exist."
"So, if she knows and spreads it, you die?"
"Yes."
"Small price."
"She'd die too, Jake."
He nodded. He reflected.
"I could never hurt her. I won't. She's been getting better. It's not like it was in the beginning, and I'm going to take care of her. She'll forget about you someday."
"I'm counting on it."
We meandered a bit longer. He told me she was still obsessed. She had heard some of the tribe's legends, but she didn't seem to put anything together yet. I told him I wouldn't be back, and he thanked me for it. I gave him my phone number. I didn't really know why, but it made sense at the time.
Before I left the area, I walked slowly along the river and passed by the old house.
And I stopped at the meadow. I couldn't stay though. It hurt too much.
So, I went home to my family.
I spent the day pretending. I played video games with Emmett and Jasper. I downloaded music with Alice who kept looking at me funny. I knew she wanted to ask, but she never did.
If I told her, she'd convince me to go back. To fight. And I think she might have succeeded if she'd tried.
But she never got the chance because my phone rang.
E/N: I know many of us getting a little weirded out by Jake, so I'll be curious to hear what you think about him. We'll get more on the pack down the road. And who's on the phone? Guesses please!
Would love to hear your reactions. Next chapter is another blog. They are shorter, but if you review, I can give you a tiny little teaser.
Thanks so my partner in crime for beta skills and a fabulous week of writing. Update those author alerts folks, we'll have another collab coming very soon.
The wonderful jackbauer/staceygirl and wishimight/everwondering created Once Upon a Twilight, an interesting fairytale themed one shot contest. Check it out! http://www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net/~onceuponatwilightcontest
