AN: Thank you guys again for the many kind reviews, just a sec to address some thoughts—there is indeed a much more graphic version of Chapter 28, but it still needs tweaking. It'll be part of the larger CYOA fic on my lj once this one is done (and I'm still unsure when that will be). I wrote all of it, nothing borrowed, and I really appreciate the reviews on that chap since it's still one of the ones I'm least comfortable with.

*****

"You are both in serious trouble," I said in a low voice. Anger saturated every syllable. "If there isn't an incredible reason for you to be here, Edward, than you are welcome to leave—and Jacob Black, you know me better than to think it would ever be okay to start fighting in my bedroom." My eyes opened. They were both standing in front of me, visibly shaken. Edward's obsidian eyes stood out starkly in his white face; Jacob leered at him in menacing stance wavering somewhere between human and wolf while Edward's face was turned hopelessly towards mine. Even my threat hadn't gotten Jake's attention, and resentment fortified my anger.

"I apologize for my imprudent appearance," Edward began. His words were clipped, sparse. His pupil-less eyes raked my face, searching, searching, searching…Edward knew. He knew Jacob and I had been physical, had committed an act together that was forever denied him…at least with the one person he'd believed worthy of it, and we weren't even married no matter the charming current of our foreplay. But I didn't have time to indulge his archaic sense of propriety; I had nothing to apologize for. What was wrong with them? How could they have behaved this way in my father's house? Jacob, I assumed, was just reacting to Edward's sudden and unannounced presence in my bedroom, but the mystery would have to wait. We couldn't talk here, not with Charlie so close by.

"Get out," I said again in my low, unfamiliar voice. I stared at Jake, who had not yet noticed. "Both of you."

That got his attention. He abruptly returned my stare, all the snarling and rippling muscles on his dense body suddenly pulled in my direction as if I'd become his center of gravity. I glared back at him. "What do you think this is," I said—"high school, or some parallel dimension where you can just ignore me and have pissing matches in my bedroom?" I looked back and forth between them, disgust choking me. "Do you really think violence could solve this problem—or anything at all?"

"Bella, I am afraid you vastly underestimate the problem," Edward said, his voice as low as mine. Jacob's expression was devastated. He now hunched inward, reminding me of that first night and his submissive position when he thought I was rejecting him. The effect was alarming, but I found I was too enraged to care.

"I don't care about your reasons," I said. "Get out, both of you. Now."

"Bella," Edward exhaled deeply as I stood abruptly and pointed to the window. "Bella, love, please—we all three of us need to speak. Immediately."

"Not. Here." I was moving from anger to icy fury. I could already tell that Charlie's light was out in his room, and I tried to remember that I was the one who'd woken him last. If I kept my tone low, perhaps we could avoid him seeing….this. Whatever this was.

"She's not your love," Jacob hissed. His posture was now more of a crouch, and menace lined every word—I knew that voice. The beast in him uncoiled out of his chest, wicked and terrifying. But Edward did not disagree. He rapidly closed his eyes and turned his head as if he had been slapped; I saw that his fists were tightly balled. Jacob's jaws snapped. "Get out of my mind," he hissed again, and his body was suddenly low to the ground, preparing to pounce.

Edward still stared at me beseechingly with those black eyes, as though frozen. "Please," he whispered. Just then, Charlie's light came on.

Instead of speaking, I pointed resiliently towards the window, swinging my arm so hard the joint in my elbow clicked. When Jacob's face joined Edward's, flooded with suffering, I found myself slightly undone and snapped under my breath—"Downstairs, five minutes." I would need at least that long to cool off. Jacob watched Edward leave first through the open window, and then started to move towards me. One look at my face told him to go and he did.

I walked in to the hall at the same time Charlie started moving towards me from his room. "Sorry Dad," I said. I couldn't manage a smile. "I just scared myself earlier, I'm going to go down and watch some tv," I said. He nodded, looked at me strangely, and then went back in to his room. It was only eleven, I thought. I guess that was really late for the Bella in his memory.

I went in to the bathroom and sat down for a minute, collecting my thoughts. Damn them, both of them—I was not a child! I swore at Edward for his shaming stare and Jacob for his possessive antics. I didn't miss this—the treachery of being unsure of young love, of being too inexperienced to know what people meant or said beneath what they were saying. My head fell in to my hands, and I felt a few tears slip in. You lost your chance, Edward, I said to myself. I am not going to apologize for trying to have some semblance of normalcy now, so many years later…it's not wrong to want to be with Jake the human way. The modern way. Its not wrong.

And as for Jacob Black….I swore again, startling myself. I was finished with his moodiness. I was finished with the possessive, unpredictable behavior of the wolf, and he was going to have to choose which of us he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And that was final.

The men were downstairs when I brought my body, still shaking, to the bottom of the stairs. Neither of them were sitting, instead warily watching me and ignoring each other as best they could, in spite of how their smells must have rankled each others' nerves. I stalked across the room and flipped the switch on the television, turning the volume to a reasonable, if slightly louder than usual level. I knew that Charlie would sleep through most anything…if he was ever able to actually fall asleep.

"I'm sorry," Jacob took a step towards me. I glared at him. Edward looked away from us both, as though we were doing something indecent. Again. Jacob continued on his hesitant trajectory towards me, slow and deliberate. Nothing seemed to be enough to compel Jacob to stop talking, and there was no shame in his voice as he began to repeat himself. I cut him off abruptly.

"Enough. We can talk about it later, Jake," I said, my hardness fading a bit by the time I said his name. It was difficult for me to stay angry with him when he apologized—but it had to change. Part of me was simply ashamed at my previous surety. I thought we were settled, I thought we were done—I told my father that we were together, we laughed about it…and now I felt like a fool. When had he actually said the words? If actions spoke louder, than we had a very confusing relationship. Jake and I desperately needed to settle some things, but not here, not now. Not in front of Edward, who was once again looking at me with a strangely ambivalent expression, as if he were grateful and bemused all at once. I glared back at him, and it faded in to wariness.

"Well," I heard myself say, and as Edward and I continued to look at each other I suddenly knew that he understood that I had seen his disapproval, and rejected it. Furthermore, I wasn't letting Jacob control me, and I wasn't going to let anyone. It struck me that part of what I was reacting to was Edward—not the man in front of me, here and now, but the one I had been so blindly in love with…the one who never left me alone, who never let me take risks, who refused to acknowledge that I might be capable of understanding the consequences of my actions…the one that Jacob had behaved exactly like earlier this evening. The fury inside of me once again felt like a volcano and I knew my emotions were storming across my face. Edward's eyes watched me curiously, and Jacob blinked rapidly and backed away again before the pale vampire slowly took his place in front.

"I also apologize, Bella," he said quietly. The music of his voice carried across the room in a different way than Jake's pleading tones. I felt his age in the words, as if each one were weighed down with long, lonely years. "There are urgent matters at hand, difficult decisions to be made…I wasn't thinking clearly when I made the decision to wait in your room."

"No, you weren't," I snapped. In the past, Jake might have looked cheerful, or at least interested in my outright refusal to sweep away Edward's flaws. Now, he looked at him bashfully, as though they were both young boys being scolded together. Still, it was better than the previous ferocity in the bedroom. Their odd unity helped to temporarily dismantle some of my rage. I sat down on the couch while they both stood, my very human bones clicking and popping with weariness all the way.

"Bella," Edward said again, and I saw the urge to come to my side sharply tug at him. I glowered in response and it relented, his body untensing, and his voice losing the subtle shiver. "Things have changed. A new development required that I speak to you immediately."

"Was your phone broken?" I continued to stare at him. "Were things going to change by tomorrow, magically?" My tone was vicious but ice began to trickle down my spine. What could it be? We knew the vampires were returning within a month. The horror grew in my stomach, and I knew the blood was leaving my face. Something far worse had just occurred to me….imprinting. I gasped. Both Jacob and Edward rushed towards me, and I held my hands out to stop them. They froze; Edward, ever the gentleman, slowly stood fully upright and took a step back. Jacob, once again brazen, came closer.

"Bells…." He tentatively reached out a hand to me, and I let him place it on my shoulder before I shook my head.

"What is it, Edward?" I stared at him. Jake's hand slipped from my body as he sat clumsily on the couch next to me. A deep hopelessness seized me; the wicked taste of the sea began to rise in my throat.

"One of the Denali clan has gone to the Volturi," he said.