(Disclaimer- still no ownage.)

dfsdhjsdg. this one, too, was uploaded incorrectly and all messed up. so i'm still a little
aggravated. :) but oh well. i think its all good now. hopefully. otherwise i'll end up like dear little
anna here. :D insane asylum. woo. but yeah. soo uh. heres chapter six. i've finished seven already, but
i'm not going to put it up just yet. i may put it up later today, depending on whether or not anyone reads
these two by that time or not. so uh. read and review please. thanks.

Negotiation

"What?" My voice was flat and bleak as I stared at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He couldn't possibly be serious. He wanted to come with me? To Washington? How was I supposed to look for my imaginary friends with my father tagging along? This was impossible. He could not possibly be serious.

"I said if you want to go to Washington, I'm coming with you." His eyebrows rose, diminishing the shadows that had previously hidden his eyes. The morning was sunny and hot, humid and buggy. I could feel the intense heat leaking in through the cracked window, coiling around my bare arms and legs tangibly. I hated it. It wasn't a good heat. Nothing like Jacob. I couldn't wait to get to Washington, feel the cool rain wash over my face. But with my father? I looked back at my mom, eyes tight with suspicion. Why did she not have a problem with this? I reopened my now closed mouth to question her apathy, but my father cut me off. "Only for a couple of months, of course. I couldn't possibly stay all four years with you."

My teeth clenched in anger, allowing me to feel the hard edges of my jaw flex under the skin. My tongue throbbed. I had no idea what to do. I really only had one choice, to let him come with me. How else would I get to Washington? But did it even matter that I got to go to Washington if I wasn't able to look for them? For Jake, Edward, the rest of the people I loved? I sighed, slouching into the nearest chair, trying to think through my options, though I knew already the decision I'd make.

If I didn't let him come with me, I wouldn't get to go. I'd stay here, always wondering, writhing in pain with the intensity of my need to see them. I doubted I'd ever leave here if that were the case. Because, if in fact I did have to stay here, prisoner in my own home, one of three things would happen. Either I would go insane due to my inevitable longing and get stuffed back in that stupid little hole of a room, or I'd wind up losing my temper with my mother again and still wind up back in that padded, white crazy room. Or I'd wind up trying to commit suicide or something. But that was the very worst outcome of choosing this option. And I didn't plan on choosing this path, anyway.

If I did let him come with me, which I knew that I would, he would make it almost impossible for me to get away. But I could get away. I was faster, sneakier. I may have been clumsy, which would slow me down quite a bit, but I could still outsmart him. I'd had plenty of time going over ways to escape my parents when I was trapped in that hospital. There'd been nothing else to do with my time there, so I'd wound up stuck with hundreds of different scenarios in which I'd managed to run into the arms of my beautiful werewolf, away from the rest of the cruel world, forever safe in his grip. I supposed I could make use of one of those daydreams. I could get away from him, from my dad. I'd just…really go to college at first. I'd just have to really use the money for tuition…and then just sneak out during the middle of the night about a week in. I'd have to stay there for that first week, though, of course, act normal so he wouldn't think anything was up. So he wouldn't be suspicious of my plans. And then I'd just run like hell to La Push. Maybe hitchhike…

I wouldn't need the money to buy my own house this time, I supposed. For all I knew, I could have still owned that house. And if I didn't, I'd forever have a home with Jacob.

Right?

I shook my head quickly. Of course that was right. I was stupid to question it. Jacob loved me. He'd let me stay with him.

Shoving my shaking hand into my pocket, I stood from the chair, looking my dad in the eye. I let a tight smile flash across my mouth for a moment, signaling my acceptance to his negotiation, and ran to retrieve my suitcase. My mother continued to watch me expressionlessly.

The whole time we were gathering our things, I was doubting myself. Even though I tried hard not to question the possibility of finding them there in Washington, I still did. I just couldn't help it. I couldn't keep the thought from slithering into my mind like a deadly snake of apprehension. It was unnerving, thinking that I could be screwing my life up so irreversibly just to search for something that didn't even exist. Because, even though I tried not to think about it, there was the chance that they didn't. That I'd run away from my father in search of them and never find them, never find anything, and just wind up with a life-sentence in that cell, with no possibility of ever getting out.

Was it worth that? Knowing what my future would be like if I couldn't find Jacob? Would it be worth that hellish future just to attempt to achieve my purpose in finding happiness? My heart, which almost completely eclipsed my brain, had me itching for the door, ready for every little part of my dangerous plan to pan out. My heart wanted nothing more than to go searching for my knight in russet armor, to face that horrible risk of his not being there at all. Because my heart believed that he did exist. My heart knew it, and it ached for that moment, the moment I'd see him again.

But in my head, I knew that it wasn't worth it. That I should just continue the way I was going, forgive and forget, like my dad had said just yesterday. Forgive my mother, forget my dream. Forget about Jacob and Edward, as impossible as it was. That I should just lay back and let life take me where it may, pray that it didn't land me back in that loony-bin. That I should just sit in my room like a good little child and deal with what life had given me, make lemonade out of the lemon I'd been thrown.

The thought of lemons had me pausing in the middle of the hallway, hands on my abdomen. My suitcase crashed to the floor. That conversation with Jacob…it'd been so embarrassing, so uncomfortable. But more than anything, I'd give up this life just to go back to that moment, even if I was only permitted to relive that one second of that old life over and over again. It was better than this just because Jacob would be there. I would have given anything to go back to that time. Anything at all.

I sighed once more, picking up my suitcase and looking at my mom. She was staring at my father, and he was staring at her. They exchanged an odd glance, both of their eyes glimmering with some emotion that I didn't quite understand. I brushed away the curiosity I felt, though, deciding the look was due only to the fact that they'd soon be apart for months at a time. My mother had never done well with being alone. I wondered how she'd survive this.

I spun back to my father, reaching for his suitcase as to put it into the car for him, but he quickly pulled his hand back so that I couldn't touch the faded blue fabric of the case he was holding, his eyes tightening defensively for a second. I stood there, confused with his apparent lack of trust, marveling at what he could have possibly thought might have happened if I'd taken the bag from him. Did he think I'd take off with it? Steal it? Or did he think I'd use it as a weapon? That surely couldn't have been the case, because I already had my own suitcase, and I wasn't using that as a weapon. Why would his be any more effective than mine in such a belligerent act?

Before I could say anything about it, he reached out and snagged my bag from my hand instead, nodding at my mother before doing an about-face and sauntering out into the golden light of the morning sky. He tossed the bags lazily into the back of my truck, but I only heard the loud impact of one of them as they collided with the metal of the bed. My eyebrows met in confusion, but I didn't say anything about it. I supposed it was only because I'd packed for four years, whereas he'd only packed for a few months. Plus, I was standing pretty far away…

With one last glimpse of the home around me, my home, I followed my dad out to the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. He gunned the engine and sped away as I sat there in a daze, watching his movements with murky eyes, feeling like only a corpse in the seat of the truck, bobbing with the flow of nooks and crannies in the old road.

I felt like my real self was somewhere else, lost in the clouded sky of Forks, floating and high on hope. I was just days away from my perfect, rainy state. Just days away from love, from answers. In just days I'd be able to sneak away from my father, set off in my attempt to find true happiness, to figure out this entire mess.

Just days, and I'd be so close to the warmth of his skin, of Jacob's skin. His lips.

I closed my eyes, seeing his face expand in my mind, taking with it my every thought and sense, my every breath. Every single piece of me, body and soul, all of it belonged to Jacob Gabriel Black. And just like Renee had gone back to Charlie in the repercussion of my death, so would I find my dear Jacob again.