Yikes. Another stupid gap between updates. Le sigh, but hopefully the fact that the next chapter is very, very close will make you forgive me .... maybe?? I both intended and planned for this chapter and the next to be one, but, incase you didn't know, I like to go on, and if those chapters were combined it would be so, so long and nobody would make it through alive ... not even me. So, though I sort of like how this one ends I don't intend to keep teasing and delaying, honestly, which is why the next chap is going up the very second it's ready.

This chapter is quite heavy I think, it's the very last of the emotional work and growing up before everything starts to end ... or begin, depending on whether you're glass half full or not. After this, though it won't be exactly light, there's less time for pausing and thinking and more action and occurance, which is how I like it.

So, thanks to a pledge I made on Twitter, (if you're not on there yet, you're missing the party!) here is Chapter 26. Enjoy! (B.T.W Bitches-who-know-who-they-are! TWO, count 'em TWO! ref's in here, you know that's why I'm the Gen. Oh yeahh.)


Chapter Twenty-Six: The Ties That Bind

In.

Out.

And again.

In… and Out.

Over and over I did this. In and out, and in and out, but nothing seemed to happen.

Nothing moved, nothing functioned or snapped.

In and out and in and out but I could still only focus on one single thought as the air heaved at my chest.

Jacob.

And every second his name, his face his voice and scent burned in my memory it got faster, until I could hear the stress of it as it passed through my lips; too quickly and too franticly so that my legs turned to jelly and my head began to fuzz.

"Oh God." Not my voice. My lips were too preoccupied with shaking and going dry to have spoken those words so breathlessly. "Ness. Nessie?" Something tightened and pulled around my stomach but I could still only think two things; in and out, and Jacob. "Ness, sweetheart it's fine, listen to me it's fine, you need to be calm, okay." A stinging came to my cheek and I shrunk from it. My eyes came into focus and I saw that it was a hand, a pale delicate hand. Behind it I focused on a pair of deep gold eyes gilded with a frame of long eyelashes.

"Cora?" The eyes widened a little before focusing. I could tell what she was doing; I always could read Cora like a book. She was staying calm and focusing; thinking logically about right, wrong, what was good for a situation and what was bad; things I never found myself able to do. "What have I done?" Her head shook a little at my question but it was all I could think.

What mess had I made?

What was going to happen now?

What was I going to do?

What had I done?

When something warm pooled at my eyes her hand returned to my cheek and I saw the dark figure behind her move closer; Brice kept silent, though his uneasy gaze darted between Cora and I.

"God, Ness you're shaking. Al, get her up to the house, quickly." My weight disappeared immediately and I was buoyant, lifted so gracefully by a pair of strong arms.

Al.

What had I done to Al?

I'd sucked the love so selfishly from his pure heart, knowing full well I could never, would never be able to return it. Like a leech. That's what Leah had always called me.

Cora kept her hand in mine, Brice less than a step behind her as we ran up to the hill. Sonny's panicked yell came after us,

"What? What's wrong with her? Smee!"

{--}

Al's eyes didn't meet with mine when he lowered me onto my bed, my back against the headboard as he slid away. I reacted so quickly to the loss of his contact it seemed to startle him when my hand lunged for his forearm just as it withdrew.

His stare rose to meet mine quickly and I remembered. He wasn't mine. I didn't deserve him, I didn't deserve anyone. I let go as quickly as I had seized him and his eyes sunk again as his body rose, backing to stand against the wall.

Cora knelt beside me and Brice stood behind her. She stroked my face and chanted,

"Everything's going to be fine, Ness. Nothing bad is going to happen."

Everything was not going to be fine. Nothing could be fine whilst this permanent bad thing existed in this world. This coward, this child, this leech. This Renesmee Cullen.

There was noise and commotion, thumping and banging as Sonny threw himself through the front door and up the stairs to us.

He stood in the doorway, his hand in Leah's and his chest rising and falling quickly.

"Seriously … what the hell is going on?"

Leah had composed herself. She'd been crying and screeching the last time I saw her face but now she seemed focused as she stomped past Sonny and hopped on the bed to kneel beside Cora, her eyes fixed intently on mine.

The pooling in my eyes became a thick blur as my insides burned and ached.

Jacob, all I could think was Jacob.

Every moment with him, every moment without him. His smile, his warmth.

That was all I could think.

"Ness, breathe sweetheart, breathe." Cora leaned over me, wiping the trails of liquid that streamed down my cheeks.

I'd forgot the in and out, only focusing on the Jacob and when my mouth opened so that the build up of air in my lungs may escape, out came a deep, shaky weep.

Cora crawled closer quickly at the sound, dropping beside me and wrapping her arms around my shoulders. Sonny, Al and Brice took a step towards the bed, all freezing when the front door crashed open.

"Why did I just hear a howl?"

Somewhere behind the screening of my strongest memories with Jacob replayed the pained noise that had come from Leah after she phased. Oz must have heard it from wherever he was too.

Brice and Al stared at each other before Brice nodded quickly at Sonny,

"He needs to be calmed, Sonny. You do it." Sonny didn't protest. He nodded and spun quickly, throwing himself down the stairs to confront his bellowing brother.

Cora pulled me tighter as another uncontrollable shriek escaped my pressed lips.

"Oz, calm down. Don't be a jackass right now, okay. It's seriously not the time." I could hear the reserved force in Sonny's tone but the panic ran through it too, which is probably what caused Oz to pause, his returning voice not a booming shout as it had been when it entered.

"Why, what's going on?"

"It's Smee … and Leah. I don't know. Leah's okay now I think but Smee's not. I have no idea Oz, something to do with a guy called Jacob and now Smee's crying and you have to stay calm, just don't be an idiot you got it?" Sonny's voice trailed as I heard Oz take the stairs quickly.

A look of shock froze Oz's face as he turned the corner into my room, focusing immediately on where I was on the bed. His eyes moved around us quickly before he took quick strides to the side of the bed and leaned over me, one of his hands falling on top of mine and gripping it lightly,

"Smee, who's this Jacob and where do you want me to bury him?"

"Oscar!" Cora seethed and pushed him from the close space he'd filled when he leaned over to me.

"Oz, this is not the time." Brice followed Cora and continued in steering Oz further from the crowded bed over to stand beside Sonny who slapped him across the chest,

"Yeah, what did I saw about staying calm, moron!"

"I don't care. I want to know what's upset her right now! Who's done this?" I whimpered again, shrinking further into Cora and trying to conceal the sound as Oz yelled.

I'd done this. Nobody else deserved the blame but me. Every mistake I had made ran through my mind leaving a burning trail of regret. Each decision felt alien to me, ones I couldn't understand anymore, but I had made them nonetheless.

"Look," Leah stood, her body only covered in Sonny's thick coat which only hung to the middle of her thighs. "Just go, leave Ness to calm down. No more talk of burying anybody." Leah leaned in Oz's direction, her poisonous glare met with a rumble that rose in his chest. Brice moved quickly between them,

"Leah's right. Come on, let's go." I buried my head deeper into Cora, the build up of tears and the unease of my breath making me feel overly warm in the space. I heard each of them leave, Oz's footsteps more a forced shuffle than anything else. When I looked up they were gone, I could hear them begin to bicker about who knew what as the made their way down the hill into the woods.

But Leah had stayed. I didn't think she would. And for a moment she seemed surprised herself. She stood still, watching the empty doorway as though unsure whether to go through it or remain. With a look over her shoulder her body relaxed and she took the few steps toward the bed, stopping when Cora nodded in the direction of a pair of my sweats, hung lazily across a wooden cabinet. Leah's eyes rolled and she went and pulled them on quickly before hopping back onto the bed by my feet. I just watched her, it felt as though I was only eyes now. Nothing but an observer of my own consequence.

Slowly Cora lifted me straight, until my body sat by itself and her support was removed. She just watched me like Leah did. And I did nothing.

Another tear trickled down my cheek, but every emotion, even the ones that had caused it to fall were blocked to me. I tried to think but could find nothing to think of, nothing to grasp onto that was real or sure or definite. The state I had inflicted on myself in the past months, the numbing I had used to paper over any memories or pain, had taken over and had switched everything off.

Jacob was coming.

Leah had phased, and when she did so the pack connection was made with Jacob's mind.

My thoughts raced. Why was Jake in wolf form? How far away was he? When would he arrive?

Each question just made me shake harder and squeezed ever more tightly at my lungs.

I replayed what had just happened. Leah had gone off to phase to relieve the stress of living with vampires. I was sat on the hill with Sonny and Al when she left, and watched Sonny race towards her when her violent scream of pain filled the air, and she stumbled from the trees, crying.

Mostly she had only chanted things I had hardly understood, that was, until she looked me dead in the eyes and told me he was coming. Jacob was coming here.

"What hurt?" Leah stared at me for a second. The girl that had been so painfully honest with me on that beach in La Push only a few weeks ago was not here now. This Leah was no longer angry and full of resentment, I'd even gotten the feeling that since she got here, she didn't hate me quite so much. But I could still, and would always expect nothing but complete honestly from her. Despite the way her eyes lingered across my face for a moment, testing the air for what it would be right to say, I knew she'd tell me whatever the circumstances. "When you came out of the woods, you said it …. You said it hurt."

"Yeah, yeah I did didn't I." She blew a long breath through her lips, squeezing her eyes shut and flexing the fingers of both hands as though attempting to expel even the memory of the pain.

"How? Why? Was it .. was it Jake?" Cora hushed me gently pulling my shoulders back down to rest on the pillow when I moved eagerly forward. Leah spoke with her eyes still tightly shut,

"It was just … being in his head was so horrible." Her fingers rolled into fist as her lips pressed into a fine line and she shook her head. "It hurt, so much and I just couldn't … I just couldn't take it for another second, that's why I phased back. I couldn't even talk to him all I could think of was the pain." I lunged forward again, frantic and scared.

"Who? Who's hurting him Leah … who?" For once, she seemed reluctant to answer. Her eyes, now open, were unsure. When she spoke again it was slow and filled with caution, the words being processed carefully before they left her lips.

"I've felt it before, not the pain but the knowledge that it could come. But never understood it, I never knew what it was because it was always there. Every time we phased, echoes of it rang through the pack from Sam and Paul and Quil. All of them had this pull. We could to be two miles from La Push and something, something inside them hurt." Leah's palm pressed over her chest, the tips of her fingers bending inwards, tugging at the material of Sonny's coat, right over her heart. "To me it was nothing. Just distance, just … just how you miss someone, you know? It reminded me of how I feel when I think of my Dad. That little tug." She pulled at the coat lightly, "But that was when I didn't know what it was. I didn't understand. But now, I have Sonny, and it's not some little tug anymore."

It felt like my body had dissolved, leaving me only as a conscious presence. But my heart still thumped and was, as of now, located further North than it should be. Thumping in my throat, it expanded until I had to force the air past so I could speak.

"It's me." I'd left to avoid this, to avoid him and the others I loved coming to any pain. But now I knew that in being away from Jacob, I had tortured him.

"You weren't to know." Leah shook her head, though she didn't appear entirely convinced. "You didn't know. You didn't know what imprinting was until you left, and you only understood it when I came here. You weren't to know, Ness."

"But, but I left him!" I bent, doubled as the tears hit harder with the gravity of the truth. He'd been bound to me and cared for me since my first breath, and I just left him without a word. Cora stroked my back and Leah shuffled closer. "That's the last thing I wanted." I sucked the tears back and coughed out the whimpers that interrupted my speech. "I wanted his life to be better ….without me. When all the time me being gone just hurt him … I didn't know that would happen." Leah was right, I hadn't understood imprinting. I still didn't, apart from the fact it was more powerful than I had expected. It had put Jake in physical pain to be parted from me. I'd left so Jake may find some escape from the imprint bond, it now seemed there was no such thing.

"How could you think that was possible?" Leah grabbed my wrist and I looked up to face her, "You should have known that couldn't have happened." Though she didn't quite look angry, Leah's expression was severe. She sighed, her features relaxing a little as did her grip around my hand, "When you left him, it hurt didn't it? It always hurt?" Undoubtedly, despite the fact my memories of Jake had been hidden so long, it was agony when I let myself remember, the anguish never really faded from those first days where the separation tore me apart from inside. I nodded and felt more tears fall as the sting of shame and pain throbbed through me. "Because you love him." Leah whispered and I coughed out another whimper. I'd loved Jacob Black with every single beat of my heart from the moment I first heard his voice. That had never been in question.

"But he doesn't love me … not really." Leah's fingers tightened around my wrist once again, now she was angry. In doubting Jake's love for me, I was doubting hers for Sonny, and she didn't like that. I pulled in a deep breath and summoned all my strength to voice the thoughts I hadn't dared consider for a long time. "I wasn't his choice Leah. I was what he had to settle for, he wanted my Mother and he got me! He got stuck with me." Leah sunk back, sitting and just watching me calmly,

"You weren't second choice, Ness. Don't say tha-"

"He wanted me dead! … did you know that?" Cora's arms returned around me as I felt my body grow weaker and weaker and the tears grow more powerful. The thought, the image of Jacob and my father plotting to have me killed was torture. But I understood why they would want it. On my Father's part, I even accepted it. I knew he loved me very much, but also that his existence was my Mother. Losing her would end him. It must have been the same for Jake. "He wanted me dead because I was killing my Mom. You can't say that doesn't make me second choice, Leah."

Very calmly, she just watched me before speaking quietly.

"I've never liked Bella." She left a pause before continuing. "You know that, everyone knows that. I never liked what she did to Jake. I think perhaps, I thought it was unfair. When your Dad left her, Jake saved her. But when the person I loved left me, nobody came, nobody rescued me." I'd never fully heard the story of the time my parents were separated, but had ascertained it was the period in which Jake and my Mother became close. "Everyone loved her and she was so smart and beautiful and … and jut not me. I always knew she wouldn't pick him … Jake that is. She loved him, but not in the right way, and not enough. Never enough. Which is why it made me so mad to see her pulling him back again and again, and it made me even madder to watch him run to her like the obedient puppy every goddamn time.

"So yeah, I knew what Jacob and your Dad were thinking of when they found out she was pregnant. I was there. Which means I also saw Jake then. He was a mess, he was desperate and he was depressed. He had been for a while, and I had no idea what was going to happen to him, what he was gonna do." She stopped, staring at me and smiling a little. "Then there was you. And for reasons I didn't understand, you saved him. All you had to do was look at him and nothing else mattered, nothing but you. You took his pain away, Ness. You saved him. And if … if you've caused him pain it's not because you've been selfish like Bella." Cora shushed Leah and nudged her leg, and though I appreciated why, I knew Leah wasn't trying to upset me or deeply insult my Mother. "It's because you left to save him, you left to set him free."

There was no such thing as freedom with Jake, and it tore me apart to finally accept it.

"He doesn't have a choice does he?"

"Oh, Ness." Beside me Cora sighed, "Nobody has a choice, Baby. Not really. I certainly didn't. When I saw Brice … I don't know, I just knew. I didn't decide I wanted to love him, it wasn't a choice, it just happened. And what about your parents? Do you think your father chose to fall in love with a human? And you, surely if you could choose, your heart would have forgotten Jacob long ago and you wouldn't have had to suffer while you were apart. I know that if I couldn't see Brice, if I was separated from him, it would torture me too, Love's not a choice, not for anybody."

I sat quietly for a second, staring into Cora's deep topaz eyes before it hit me all at once.

How much I loved him and missed him and hated myself for doing so. I was scared and angry, but in the pit of my stomach was a twist of excitement. A part of me that rejoiced in the fact the separation would soon be over and I could touch him and hold him, his smell would be real and those wide, brown eyes of his would be before me and not just in memory. Leah was wrong, I was selfish, I couldn't set Jacob free, not really. He was always all I wanted and needed. I sunk again until my head fell on my knee and the tears streamed quickly.

"Renesmee, if we need to talk you into this, if we need to convince you that you're meant to be with him …" Leah paused, her brows furrowing before she continued quietly, "then I need to go. I need to tell him not to come here." She had a stare it was difficult to keep up with. When her eyes met yours, so much sincerity and strength lay behind them you had to struggle not to avert. She stared now, gently but surely. I wanted him here. The mere thought of Jake being turned away tugged at my insides desperately. But it wasn't about if Jake was right for me, that wasn't in doubt, he was all I wanted, it was if I was right for him.

I didn't answer, there was nothing to say that could surmise just how much I did want him here, but also how scared I was of that. So I just lay back on the pillow and Cora started running her fingers gently through my hair.

Soon, I would see Jake. It hardly felt real, but it was. And as my mind tried to come to terms with that, I drifted to sleep.

{--}

The driveway was bright.

Everywhere was bright as the blue sky above glowed. The trees were green and fresh, the lush grass at their bases trimmed neatly into shape as it flowed out onto the gravel my bare feet rested on.

There was noise as the leaves bristled gently in the warm breeze and the birds at their branches sang.

And the Cullen house was silent.

I stood before it and it the daytime it possessed none of the horror it had in the darkness of memories passed. It was just a house. A home.

My home?

A sound came from behind the building and the trees and the birds fell silent as though pausing to appreciate it. It really was a beautiful sound and it made my rapid heart flutter.

That laugh, that most beautiful melodic sound could only belong to one.

The ground felt like air beneath my feet as I moved hastily around to the wide, open field that was the garden.

My mother, stood with her back to me as I rounded the corner. She laughed again as she watched my Father and my Uncle Emmett dancing around each other, feigning aggression as they fought playfully. The sounds of her amusement were joined by ones from those gathered a few feet from her. Alice giggled and fell affectionately into Jasper's chest as she watched her brothers.

By her side Carlisle's arms were coiled around the waist of my Grandmother and Rosalie stood with them, her beauty was more radiant now in the early afternoon glow, as my eyes appreciated her for the first time in so long. My memory had not done my aunt justice.

Not one of them noticed as I watched them, and my mother didn't turn to look at me as my body ached to be held by her. .

"Mom?" Everyone stopped. Emmett straightened and stared over to where I was, each doing the same quickly as my weak voice made my presence known. My eyes stayed on the figure before me. Slowly she turned, her gently curled chocolate locks moving as she did. Her wide, topaz eyes punched the air from my lungs as they met with mine. Her rosy lips bent into a polite smile, the amusement of the family moment remnant in her eyes and features.

"Can I help you?" The world froze. The sensation of weightlessness that had covered me when I first saw what was before me now was replaced with a throbbing solidity that pulled my quickly and painfully down to lonely earth. Behind Bella's patient expression, the others watched with quiet bewilderment, Alice hovered on tip-toes to see over to where I was.

It was as though they didn't know me.

"Momma …" The word choked from my dry throat and I took a step forward, my hand reaching for hers. Those behind her moved quickly, showing panic at my attempt to touch her. Edward appeared at her side and there his face was almost alien to me. His eyes were not the ones that had looked at me and been filled with such all-powerful devotion since the day I was born. They were narrowed into a glare as he held tight to my Mother's shoulder.

They each stared at me, similar scowls at their faces as though I was an intruder. I realised that I was. "It's me." I whispered. The weight setting in my chest so that I could barely breathe. "It's Ness." One of Emmet's eyebrows arched and for the first time I saw that he wasn't the big teddy bear that played with me tirelessly as a kid. He was huge. He could crush me easily and right now I saw none of the loveable playfulness in his eyes that would have made even the thought of that impossible to him. He didn't know me. None of them did.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" I froze, and the weights grew heavier. My eyes dropped to the floor as breathing became impossible, the sound of that voice had rolled through the air as though a cannonball and struck me, obliterating all things that kept my body functioning. The Cullen's were silent, still and unresponsive like they had been frozen. I hardly noticed, and everything moved slowly as I twisted to face the voice that had come from behind me.

His wild fur hung from a frame much gaunter than the one I had known. Each paw was scratched and battered, signs demonstrating long durations of momentum and force through harsh terrains. Against the sun that had made the caramel and golden hues of Rosalie and Esme's hair shine in the sun his fur looked worn and aged. And his eyes, so black, so empty, so lifeless. And angry, really angry.

I gulped, still not able to find a fitting supply of air I was sure would soon be necessary.

"..to have them forget you?" He spoke, though his tired looking framed didn't move his voice was in my head. Deep and coarse it ricocheted through the caverns of my conscious and filled every gap until he was my mind. He filled it with his hurt and his anger, with what I had done to him.

"Jake." I snivelled, the wolf just growled, the voice in my mind growing more powerful.

"You got your wish, Renesmee. They forgot you, they were lucky." My body cried out, weak and lost, for some comfort, but none would be received from those who would have at one time crawled to the ends of the earth just to see me smile. "I on the other hand … had no choice." My mind flooded with the bond, and the pain of its break. Leah had been right, it was crushing.

My body stood strong but inside I was destroyed. No joy, no relief or comfort could come while this tie was severed. There was only pain and desperation for it to be restored.

No happy memories were such anymore; no peace could exist or be remembered. The ecstasy of the moments when that supreme link held turned to ash that dried out in the heart, echoes of what was causing the organ to burn.

This was what it was, this was an imprint.

The highest planes of elation could turn into the deepest pits of darkness all because of distance. Because the lights go out and the world stops spinning when the union is broken.

Nothing is right when the soul's mate is gone.

I keeled over, struggling with the agony and the loss of any prospect of anything but constant torture. Tugging at my shirt I threw my head up, panting and shaking. The wolf just stared back at me, his eyes the deepest black.

"Jacob." He growled at the name, be it because of the recall of the life, the memories that had tortured him or that it was being uttered by me. My insides swelled and a distant ringing sounded in my head as I forced the words from my dry, shaky lips. "I'm sorry."

{--}

"Smee!" My hands thrashed quickly, working of their own instinctual accord to remove the grip that had been placed around me.

The wolf had leapt, snarled before it jumped forward onto my weak body, propelling with anger and the need for revenge.

My mind and heart said to be still, to accept this and let the torture of the broken bond that now eroded my soul be numbed by death. Let Jake kill me if it was what he needed.

But my body wasn't listening, it tossed and crawled and kicked as I was wrestled with. "Calm down, it's me. It's Al."

My eyes flew open, the darkness of my bedroom not as dense as the one that had blanketed everything beforehand.

Al sat on the bed, the covers of which I had managed to wrap tightly around myself with my movements. I wriggled from them quickly, their proximity suffocating and crawled tighter against the headboard.

It was a dream. The intensity of Al's golden eyes as they followed me, the stifling heat that set my skin at a discomfort and the very familiar thrum of Sonny's heartbeat from across the house told me that.

But I had felt it all; I could still feel it all.

There was a stinging in my temples and an ache in my stomach, a pain in my mind that had me shaking and weak.

All was dark, and painful and morose. Just like it had been in Jake's mind in my dream.

Nothing was right.

"Are you okay?" Al looked cautious, he didn't just wrap his arms around me like he had so many nights before, he sat at the end of the bed and watched me, looking unsure of what to do. I nodded, but the movement just made the pain intensify until it was so strong it made my head feel light and I curled up, cradling it in one hand. "Take deep breaths." Al crawled quickly across the covers and sat at my side. I leaned towards the coolness of his body; it seemed that for the first time mine was feeling its own temperature. I did as I was told and pulled in shaky breaths through my dry lips, the air felt cold as it entered my lungs and contrasted with the fire that was raging through me.

After a moment my vision steadied, and despite the pain I straightened, dropping back against the headboard and rolling my head to face Al. "You haven't had one of those in a while." He reached up and pushed the strands of hair that had fallen across my forehead back. Despite no contact I could feel the cold radiating of his flesh and sighed.

"I feel so strange." The words were and effort and I let my eyes drift close once I had uttered them. His palm pressed against my forehead, momentarily numbing the heat, but not the sting inside.

"You look fine, I think you're just in shock a little." I whimpered,

"It hurts." Al rose to his knees and moved to climb from the bed.

"I'm gonna go get Brice." As quickly as I grabbed his wrist I could feel the weakness in the attempt, but Al still stopped.

"No, don't." Whatever this pain was, was here for a reason and was deserved. It wouldn't be right for Brice to come and take it away. Al hesitated as my hand dropped lazily back down, I saw the indecision in him and attempted to sit straighter. "I'll be fine. You're right, it's just shock." He dropped back onto the bed, crossing his legs to sit opposite me. His brows were furrowed and his eyes studied me closely. "It was just a dream." It was, no more real than the hundreds that had come before it. But none had left the mark on me this one had, it felt as though someone had crept in and twisted my insides, placing them back in my body in a mangled state. It felt like the wolf of my dream was attacking, clawing away at me from within.

"A particularly bad one by the looks of it." With a deep exhale and a clench of my eyes I tried to push past the pain, it would not budge but I couldn't just sit here and drown in it.

"How long was I asleep?" The room was dark, yet it was only afternoon when I had been placed in this bed.

"A while. We though it best to leave you to rest."

"Did anything … what happened while I was asleep?" Al stared down at the mattress, skating his fingers along the sheet, not looking at me as he spoke.

"Well, when you were up here with Cora and Leah, I sort of explained everything to Oz and to Brice and Sonny. Y'know I just … I just told them about Jacob and, and who he was. But I didn't tell them everything, I would never …" Al shook his head and sighed, lifting his eyes a little to meet with mine. "All the things I know about you, I wouldn't ever tell anybody. I just thought it would be easier if I explained to them all, especially Oz." Al's head dropped again and he was back to drawing circles in the creases of the sheets. I'd felt sorry for him this morning. Not a patronising pity but one dragged from self-hatred. One that hated what I had done to him. I still did, I could feel the thought of that in the back of my mind somewhere, a distant memo that I had hurt him, that I should feel ashamed for that. I could hear it, but I couldn't feel it. It was walled back by the black cloud of suffering I'd woken into.

"What did they say?"

"A lot. Well, very little at first, but once they'd digested it they were quite vocal." I grimaced, yes, I deserved this pain for causing so much trouble. "Oz was … well, imagine how he'd react." Al's eyes drifted to mine, "then times it by ten." All the air left my stomach and I dropped back against the pillows with a whimper,

"Oh God."

"It's fine he just, he just doesn't like the idea. He's very protective of you and it's like the Sonny situation all over again. But … but it's worse this time for him because of how he saw you today. You really have no idea how much that scared him." Al appeared utterly sincere, but part of me couldn't help but doubt him. "The way Oz works just to protect the people he loves completely. It's a way of protecting himself I guess, there's very few things in the world that faze Oscar. But if anything were to happen to any of us, it would crush him. So just … remember that though he may seem like an ass sometimes, he really is just trying to take care of you."

Again, some distant notification on my mind told me to feel warmed by this, but there was no response that could smash through the numbing cold. I couldn't feel a thing. "Sonny didn't seem to mind. I mean he was shocked, of course, but he's just like you really. You're in the same boat, and I think he likes that. Then Brice was just Brice and seemed to take it as it came, I think he'd accept anything in terms of you so long as Cora gave it the green light."

Al looked up and shrugged, signalling he felt there was little left to say, but I could see it in his eyes.

He'd left one person out. He hadn't told me how he felt about Jacob coming here. For a second I searched for the words to ask, I noticed his eyes flicker to my lips as they moved in an attempt to get something out.

"Then what?" was all I could manage.

"Then …, then you fell asleep. Cora and Leah came out and we just, talked. We made some decisions but, but we appreciate that this has little to do with us…"

"No." Slowly I leaned forward, my body protesting. I was about to reach for Al's hand but settled with just strengthening our eye contact instead. "No, don't say that. This is our home, all of us and we should all be able to be happy here." Al frowned, shaking his head in almost disapproval and stared back down at his fingers.

"So we made some decisions. Oz's isn't allowed in the woods on his own." He chuckled, "just as a precaution. Leah doesn't want to phase again, not yet at least and Sonny's adamantly against the idea too. So I'm afraid we don't really know when he'll be arriving." He spoke very matter-of-factly, I hardly recognised him. "Cora says she has some … arrangements to make but I don't really know what, and all we're really doing is waiting. The rest is up to you." His eyes met mine again and he shrugged. "You should sleep." Dropping back, cautiously, on the bed I watched him, he felt very unfamiliar.

"I can't." Al's eyes rolled and the sight of it stung, another pain on top of the swirling others and I felt the sting rise up and pool as liquid below my eyes.

"You always say that." My shoulders moved pathetically in a shrug. I really couldn't sleep now. The pain wouldn't allow it and I dreaded what dream may await me this time. Plus, how could I sleep knowing Jacob could be minutes away. Al sighed, "So how was this dream different from the rest?" He stared at the floor and I didn't answer. "The ones where everything you've ever cared about is taken from you." He met my stare quickly then went back to scrutinising the wooden panelling below us. "I never thought … all those nights when I'd hear you cry and I'd run to come and comfort you, I never thought about what it was that was making you so upset. But now I know, now I've seen it …" Al shook his head and released a long, shaky breath.

Every thought and memory my head possessed had spilled into Al's through my fingertips that day in the woods. He'd seen every nightmare.

His palms rolled up tightly into fists, the strain visible along his arms. "I don't know how you coped with them. Your family, you love them so much and your mind tortures you with images of them being slaughtered. Every fear you've ever harboured turned into reality as you sleep. And us …" He exhaled and flexed his fingers, squeezing his eyes shut in attempt to calm. "I'd rather die than have any of that happen. Just the thought of it … the thought of someone hurting my family. My little brother." The dreams of Sonny had always been particularly horrifying. So defenceless, yet surrounded by such powerful creatures. Another numbed memory went off; I too would rather die than let anybody hurt him. "… and you." Al's head turned, he looked gentle now, and I remembered him. "So many dreams where people come for you, to hurt you." He leaned closer and lifted his hand to place it on my cheek, "Never."

{--}

Despite Al's best efforts I didn't sleep.

He left me to try but I just sat and attempted to acclimatize myself with the new sensations that streamed through me.

Maybe I was sick?

I'd never been sick before, perhaps this was what it was. I didn't care, my mind was like a tunnel. A long black tunnel with a single glint of light far in the distance. All I could feel, all I could see, was the end.

When the first light flooded my room I rolled from the bed. Cora was in the kitchen Brice sat on one of the stools opposite where she stood and he watched me closely as I entered.

"You want some breakfast?" The thought of food prompted no reaction from inside so I shook my head, he smiled and nodded. Before him Cora fussed over what looked like a package, folding the corners and sealing it several times with tape.

"What are you doing?" She looked up briefly at my voice, her eyebrows rising as though the sound of it worried her, but was quickly composed and back to her work.

"This .." She reached forward and patted a pile of pre-wrapped packages. There were two piles of what appeared to be clothes wrapped in thick plastic paper. ".. is Leah. And this is Jacob." The pain thrummed, like a heartbeat shocked back into beating by a name. The feeling didn't worry me, so I attempted to put Cora at ease.

"No. They're plastic bags." Brice smiled but Cora didn't react. Instead she folded the last piece of plastic and dropped the parcel onto the 'Leah' pile.

"They're clothes. I can't say I'm crazy about having naked teenagers running around the place so to make it easy I'm going to put these in various places in the woods. One pile for Leah, one for Jake. That way if either of them goes exploding in their clothes, they needn't worry." She smiled quickly at me before lifting both piles and disappearing from the building.

I watched her go and felt lost. Everything was very strange.

"It's just for you, you know." When I turned Brice was still sat at the counter, though he stared in the direction Cora had left.

"What is?" Without his eyes moving, Brice spoke slowly.

"In the short time I've known her I've come to realise that Cora can be quite … unpredictable." He smiled and it lit up his entire face. "She can zig-zag through the deepest depths of emotion in a way I've never known before. Always impulsive and expressive. But she's like a different person when it comes to you." His narrow eyes switched to mine, and they appeared a lighter shade of gold as the morning sun was reflected in them. "When you need her she becomes so stable and strong. She thinks with her head, and only about what's best for you." I watched him as he smiled at me, and then returned to staring out of the window as though desperate to catch a glimpse of her return.

"You love her very much don't you?" Brice had done so much good in his immortal life. He'd saved Al and Oz, bringing them into this new life without pain and taught them to be strong and good. He'd raised Sonny like he was his son, but was always respectful the was not. And he's taken me in, despite knowing little about me, he'd always been fighting my corner.

"More than I could have imagined possible." Quickly and quietly I did something I had never done before, I moved over to him and wrapped both my arms tightly around his neck.

Brice was a virtuous and peaceful person who loved without question, as he laughed and hugged me back, I tried to grasp onto the happiness of him finally finding Cora, but it slipped away into the darkness of the tunnel in my mind.

{--}

As the days went on I grew anxious, two days later and nothing.

Sonny really didn't want Leah to phase again, and I respected that, though she had quietly promised that if Jake did not arrive soon she would slip into the woods and find out why.

The time seemed to pass impossibly slow as my body remained submerged in agony. I had not slept, and would spend the night hours just thinking and hurting, and waiting.

What if he wasn't going to come?

Perhaps he had changed his mind, perhaps the link on his end had broken and he was free. Selfish as it was, the thought of that plunged my mind deeper into despair.

"Triple word score! Oh yeah!" Sonny whooped and punched the air, Leah, sat at the opposite end of the coffee table, grinned and rolled her eyes.

"Babe, the word is "sit", that's three points, hardly a cause for celebration."

"Three point trebled I think you mean. Don't try and deny I'm rocking your world with my scrabble skills right now." Leah's head fell back as she laughed, Sonny watched her and it was easy to see the joy he got from making her smile. I'd watched them from the couch, drifting in and out of concentration through three games of Jenga which ended 2:1 to Leah, who had also won the ensuing Monopoly. Game three was scrabble. Sonny had been insistent it was played after complaining that he had "let" Leah win those before.

Despite his awareness that Leah bettered him at most things, Sonny seemed to enjoy injecting a competitive edge into their relationship. Of course she would beat him in all things that called upon strength or speed, but over the past weeks it was becoming a little obvious Leah's skills surpassed his when it came to board games too.

He didn't mind though, not at all, but I couldn't help but notice the suspension in their day to day activities. Board games one day, swimming in the lake the next, TV the day after that then just a repeat of the same cycle with various little differences. They weren't living, not really. Not yet.

"Don't you think, Ness?" I lifted my head, dragged back into concentration by Leah's utterance of my name.

"Oh, don't ask her. She doesn't think it exists." Sonny flapped his hand, leaning over the board and studying the layout of the letters.

"What don't I think exists?" Sonny chewed his lips as he sunk back to the floor to examine his collection of tiny plastic squares, leaving Leah to answer lightly.

"Fate, apparently. Sonny said he always beat his brothers at Monopoly, so me showing up and being better than him could not happen. And I said it could, fate just decided to deliver me to Sonny to stop his head getting any bigger." Sonny mock laughed as he dropped a few squares into place on the board and grinned with satisfaction at his work. I remembered a conversation, not too long ago but before Leah arrived where I'd told Sonny I didn't believe in fate. He shared the opposite opinion however, and believed it was what had brought me to him, and what had brought Cora with me so that she and Brice could meet. At the time it had felt like a foolish thing to depend on, to blame; too mystical and abstract to be what controlled life. But now, as some phantom hurricane tore me apart on the inside for reasons I couldn't grasp, the idea was not so implausible.

Not only had I brought Cora to Brice, but I'd brought Leah here, to Sonny, to the only person in the world who could pull her from the depths in which she'd spent years of her life. Leah Clearwater had hated me when I was last in Forks, yet she followed the pull that led her to come here with me, and now, she was the reason Jacob was coming.

"You really believe in fate, Sonny?" He watched Leah's hands as she positioned three more squares before he turned to face me.

"Yup. I don't think it controls everything, I just think it's a nice thing to believe in y'know." I tried to detach myself from the discomfort inside me as I watched him, tried to feel the happiness that, if it could be brought by anyone, it would be Sonny.

"And why is that?" He puffed his cheeks as he surveyed his letters again; it was written on his face that this game was not going to be won by him.

"Well, what's the point of mistakes if you don't learn from them? Sometimes you gotta be lost to be found or you have to get hurt to realise why you don't want to hurt, or why you don't want to do that to other people…" Finally finding a suitable square, Sonny picked it up and placed it, not noticing Leah's interest in the game was lost and she just sat watching him as I did. "I mean, what's the point of life and all the ups and downs if it's not to lead to somewhere? What's the point in having one soulmate in a world of billions of people without fate? You'd never find them otherwise. I just think that some things are meant to happen for a reason. Sometimes you have to go through bad stuff to get to the really good stuff at the end. Resistance."

"Huh?" Sonny looked puzzled as his eyes switched between Leah and me, both of us equally confused by how he had ended his flow of words.

"Resistance. R-E-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E." He moved his finger over the letters he had placed as he spoke and Leah shook her head,

"Oh! Resistance, right, nice one Sonny."

"Not really, they're pretty much all one point letters. Sucks." Leah giggled as she jotted down the points and I rolled onto my back on the couch.

Fate. Though I found it hard to believe some exterior force controls my actions, the thought that choices, mistakes can be stepping stones on the road to something bigger, was a comforting one.

Leaving my family was a childish mistake. But could I say that everything that had happened since was one too? If I hadn't, Cora would still be in Victor's clutches, Leah would still be miserable in Forks and Sonny would have only his brothers and the cabin walls around him. And what about me? Who would I be if I had never left? I found it hard to remember what I was before, what life was before. But I was sure I'd changed, perhaps that was supposed to happen.

Quietly I hopped from the couch and walked from the house, not bothering to pick up a quicker pace as I made my way into the woods. How far could fate stretch? Could it have been what nudged my Mother to choose a life in quiet Forks with my Grandpa instead of sticking it out with the Mother she had always been so close to?

My feet moved slower still as I considered what else Sonny's idea of fate could have dabbled with.

I would refuse to believe that before I had even come into existence I was pulling the strings of my Mom's relationship with Jake. It was neither feasible nor fair to say I was what made them care about each other so much. But it was a comfort. The mere thought that fate would push Jake to love my Mother so much that he would be right there when I was born, that he would be one of the very first people I laid eyes on, was wonderful.

"Boo." When I looked up quickly into the trees, I saw Al perched on a branch not far up. Surprise flashed across his face when he saw that he had shocked me, I hadn't even notice he was there.

I grimaced, for once the climb looked daunting, and the sting in my head pulsed as I sprung into it. With a grunt I reached the branch, throwing my legs over and leaning back as a sharp wave of dizziness came over me. Squeezing my eyes tightly shut I tried to push past it, as well as return to my state of reconciled drowning in the pain rather than the feeling of splashing for the surface, only making it worse. "Are you okay?" I peeled my eyes open as slowly as I could so as not to disturb my composure, Al looked startled and I could only nod in an attempt to ease his concern.

He smiled, shaking his head and muttering, "Such a liar."

I released a short, sharp sound of offence as my mouth fell open. Al raised his palms, "You are! You think just because you have that little shield of yours I can't tell you're not telling the truth. Come on, Smee, don't insult my intelligence." I stayed still, I'd found it the best thing, and also the worst to do lately. Stillness was the best way to try and shut down, block out the pain and the thoughts and the waiting. But it made the time tick by slower and made the pain more noticeable as the thoughts and memories were the only company, the only focus.

"It's not a bad lie. I don't do it to be malicious or deceitful. It's not a bad lie."

"Did I say it was? You don't tell bad lies, I know that. You tell dumb ones, but not bad ones." His face relaxed and he watched me. I felt nothing under his scrutiny only the thrumming and beating of my insides and the darkness of the walls that shrouded my mind. "I wish you could see yourself how I see you." My eyes had fallen closed and as the wild wind beat against my face, I could not find the strength to open them.

"Why?"

"Because you'd maybe understand better, not beat yourself up over the mistakes you've made because you'd realise why you made them, because you were only trying to do what was best." Alvar's voice was shrouded in the sound of the woods and the violent bristling as the leaves of the trees shook in the wind, but it was soothing, despite the fact I could not even manage to register his words. There was a pause where I drifted deeper and deeper into the blackness, the sounds fading as the dark consumed everything. "It doesn't hurt me to think of you with him." Quickly I was pulled out. Dragged from the depths by a pop of light and the sounds of the trees were back and Al's eyes were waiting when mine pulled open. He smiled, and for a moment the numbness was a good thing, stillness didn't cause me to dwell or drown, just to be at peace for a moment. "It just," He smiled again, his eyes bright and true, "it just doesn't."

Still smiling he dropped his head back against the tree and staring to the sky. He appeared startlingly young. I'd never noticed before, it was almost as though it was never there. But he was, he had an air of peace and purity to him that radiated almost as luminously as the sparkle that ran across his skin in the early afternoon sunlight. I watched him, not caring if he noticed and attempted to draw some peace of my own from him.

It didn't work. Everything still hurt, though my mind did fall slightly quieter. Some of the fears and worries calmed by Alvar's presence.

He drew a long breath through his nose, smiling when I did the same.

"Guess we should go." He leapt to his feet and I frowned, his movement breaking my meditation.

"Why?" Al looked down, his brows sinking before he sniffed at the air. I copied, but found nothing significant. The wind was particularly wild today.

"Rules are rules, Smee. No Oz on his own in the woods for a while." I frowned deeper and sniffed again, Al crouching before me. "You can't smell him?" My head shook and Al shrugged, "Probably because of the wind. Come on, before it takes away his trail altogether."

I ran a way behind Al. Partly so he could lead on the trail I was struggling to find, but also because I just couldn't keep up.

When we found Oz he was sat on the flat top-section of a huge rock. The wind blew at the tips of his thick hair and his eyes narrowed and rolled as we approached.

"This babysitting crap is getting old." Al laughed, clapping his brother on the back as we dropped to sit either side of him. As my body pulsed with my heightened heart rate, I tried to hide the squeeze at my lungs to suck in more breaths.

"Quit complaining, Oz. We both know we could never catch you if getting away from us is what you wanted. Stop trying to act the badass."

"I daren't go." Oz barked, "God knows what I'd come back to. Al, in the past few months you've racked up a half-breed, a disappearing lady and a girl-slash-puppy. I leave and you'll probably add some acrobatic monkeys, a few fire breathers then dress Sonny up as a clown, have him train elephants and call yourself a circus." Al laughed deep and hard,

"No. We're like a bad horror movie, all we need are some zombies. Then we'd have the whole set." Al laughed again and he appeared so at ease as his body leaned backwards, the smile at his face setting his eyes alight. Oz was quiet however, and it was then I noticed he was watching me.

"You okay?" Quickly, perhaps too quickly I replied.

"Yes." Oz's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine." He stared at me the way everyone had stared at me at least once in the past few days. He looked at me like he knew I was lying, as though what I was going through on the inside was written plainly across my face and could be read in my eyes and heard on my voice.

"You look tired." The way Oz was studying me so carefully put me at unease so I just shrugged, hoping the subject would slide.

"She is." Al leaned past his brother so I could see him to, "You are. You're weak, Smee, it's obvious. You haven't eaten or slept." Oz's frowned and grunted, and though I felt neither hunger nor any desire to sleep, I was aware that my body was not performing at its best. Oz nudged me lightly and nodded out into the distance,

"Go, get your strength up okay." I kept my eyes with him and when Al wasn't looking I grimaced and shrugged, Oz got the message that I could hardly smell anything and sniffed at the air discretely. "But don't go too far! No following your nose past the lake, take that trail there." With a wink he pointed in a direction through the trees before us, "Quick. Before the wind takes it away."

{--}

It was difficult, and it had never been difficult.

A fatigue set at my limbs like concrete, the stinging in my mind was irritated by my momentum and my senses felt numbed. This was the longest I'd been without a hunt since I'd started, perhaps my state was reverting. Though, I could never remember being this … human.

The wind whirled furiously all around me and I caught the faint hint of a deer and threw myself in its direction.

The power of the gusts meant the buck's scent wasn't strong to me until I caught it in my eyeline and began my approach.

The muscles in my thighs protested as I leapt, but I kept the catch clean. I gathered my dwindling strength into restraining the beast before my arms encircled its neck and with a snap, it was still.

My teeth tore through the skin at the base of the neck. Animal blood, deer blood in particular, though necessary, held little satisfaction. As the animal lay still in my arms it's warm liquid filled my mouth. I took it dutifully and felt my body react even before the first gulp. As the dying fire of my second nature was fanned the flames quickly rose. The ache in my muscles was forgotten, my body no longer as affected by the lack of sleep as it had been before. The sensitivity of my skin picked up a notch, every current and direction layered on the wind was distinguishable as it passed my flesh. And the senses of which made finding the animal in my arms a struggle, exploded to life.

Through my forearms I began to feel the tiny vibrations as the blood left the tiny tubes inside the body they were wrapped around, and I felt as those vibrations grew stronger as I took the blood less dutifully, more desperately.

As my taste was restored something new rose up in the bland, dry blood. I sucked, only the faintest hint of it far from enough. It was ecstasy as it played along my revitalised taste buds and flowed down my throat to fuel me. It was the taste of light, the faint glow that had been the focus of my mind for days now, melted down into the sweetest nectar. It was home, it was the ocean breeze and the smell of morning condensation on the tips of wild, forest greenery. It was the taste of human, but so much more. The more I pulled from the wound and the more it danced along my tongue the stronger it grew, the taste becoming smell becoming thought, becoming memory and then it wasn't fuel to further my existence, it was my existence.

With a splutter my throat sealed, it would not take anymore. It would not take anymore of the bland tasting liquid that now only trickled from the neck of the lifeless animal in my arms, for that was all it was.

The taste had been in the air. It had flowed into my nose and mouth and been so intoxicating that it overshadowed all sense, the desire for more beating all.

I breathed in and felt everything inside me stammer. It was on the air, the wild air that lapped at me now pushed with it the smell of wildflowers and the barks of trees as they heated in the summer sunlight.

Everything about me knew he was there, I could feel him, but the tightening of my stomach would not easily allow my eyes to check for sure.

Behind the raging thunder of my heart was the sound of another, just as fast, and that was a rare thing.

The rhythm was identical to my own and so familar I could feel the pulse in my fingers against the cooling skin of the buck as though I could strum it.

With the moisture still at my lips I battled with myself to move, to look up.

When I did, the while light exploded. Just a few yards away stood a stone still wolf with deep, russet fur.


All the next chap is done but for bits of the whole Jake/Ness reunion I need to finish, so fingers crossed it should be up in less than 24 hours.
Next chap is what a lot of you have been wating for, I know, and I promise it will be there, no more teasing, Jake & Ness, face to face FINALLY!

Peace out.