Edward made his way down the stairs to find Jacob sitting comfortably on one of his couches. Edward finished towelling his hair dry and discarded the wet cloth onto one of the other seats. As soon as he had done it he felt guilty and knew that he would have to pick it up later. Esme wouldn't like it if he ruined the fabrics on all the chairs, and he had already done enough damage where his family was concerned. If he looked really closely, even a small thing like keeping the house pristine could be viewed as repentance.

He sighed as he looked at his visitor. Jacob had turned up at his house, as promised, about fifteen minutes ago, the wolf's new smell announcing his arrival about five minutes before his selected thoughts pervaded Edward's head. Edward had been having a shower in one of the barely used bathrooms, and hadn't seen the point in answering, or in rushing. Jacob wasn't going to leave. He'd made that abundantly clear. At least this time wolf-boy was fully clothed.

"Since when do vampires take showers?" Jacob seemed to be asking too many questions in that strain lately. What did it matter to the wolfling what Edward decide to do with his time?

Edward thoughts he may as well answer. Not that he owed Jacob anything, but it was nice to talk to someone who wasn't a ghost, and wasn't a figment dancing around in his imagination.

"Since rather recently. I was wondering what to do last night, after you'd left, and the shower was right there. I figured I may as well, there was nothing else to occupy my time."

"So you've been in the shower since last night? That's weird."

Edward could feel Jacob's eyes on him as he sat down in another of the empty chairs.

"Is it?"

"Yep." Edward couldn't bring himself to care. He considered asking Jacob what he was doing here, but he already knew, and besides, Edward just felt like he was repeating himself.

So he'd made it on to Jacob's suicide watch as well. Perfect. Just perfect. Why were all these people trying to tell him what he could and could not do?

He didn't want to live in a world where Bella's ghost continued to torment him. He couldn't. He just wanted to sleep. But it seemed like that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon.

"Okay. I'm obviously living. I haven't tried to off myself today, and I see that it would be pointless to continue to plan to. You came, you saw, could you leave now?"

Jacob just shook his head.

Edward allowed his posture to relax. There was no point trying to be polite. Jacob had never responded well to that kind of persuasion. Edward wanted to go back upstairs and hop back in the shower. It had been calming, relaxing even, to stand under the warm spray of water. Even when the water had run cold, a problem that Edward intended to have fixed as soon as possible, it had still been warmer than his skin. The steam had filled the room, and Edward could almost imagine that he was still whole. That his mind hadn't shattered like safety glass, spilling into a thousand pieces that could never be put back together. Edward could imagine that nothing else existed beyond the swirling whiteness and the heat. There were no ghosts, as he stood under the spray from the shower head. He had escaped them.

They weren't here now. Not when Jacob was here. The man's presence was enough to stay the frightful monsters of Edward's mind, to force him to cling on to a final remaining shred of sanity. The shred that, in the moments where he was at his worse, burned like white hot coals and Edward wanted to throw away. Out into the darkness of the windy night.

Jacob hadn't said anything as he looked at Edward, but as he leaned forward, Edward could tell that this visit was more than just a check-up.

He sighed and lolled back in his chair, unwilling to hear anything that Jacob had to stay. Edward might not mind the man's presence, but he would prefer that he stay silent.

"Kids on the reservation are changing."

Edward didn't react to Jacob's statement, but his mind began racing.

He hadn't thought of that.

Of course, if there were more wolves, inexperienced and blood thirsty, maybe he still had a chance-

"They don't know about you, and I'm not going to tell them unless I have to. I'm the alpha, none of them will be able to hurt you without my say so."

Edward's heart fell. He must have let some of his hope show on his face, and Jacob had shot it down. Again.

"I said that I would keep coming back. And I meant it, but I can't do this for long. You should go back to your family. The pack will stay wolfed out until you leave, and there's no reason for them to be torn away from their normal lives for any more time than they already have. If you leave, they can go back to being who they were."

Edward considered it. The thought of leaving this ghost house left him feeling worse than ever, empty and ripped open. He remembered what it had been like living in a house where her name had been avoided like a curse. He couldn't live like that again, without even the ghost of her warmth that gave him the strength to give up. He didn't want to leave her again. A tiny voice somewhere in his subconscious spoke angrily, insidiously telling Edward that Jacob was trying to get between him and Bella. Again. Edward pushed it back.

"And what about you?" Edward asked Jacob, trying to find a chink in that armour so that he could insult Jacob into leaving him alone. "Will you just go back to your 'normal' life when I leave?"

"I don't know what I'll do. I don't know what I'll do without a purpose and without the makeshift family that I'm trying very hard to do the best for." Edward was shocked by the honesty of Jacob's answer. Whatever he had been expecting, this was not it.

"But I know what I won't do. I won't drown myself in her memories again. I'm going to live like she would have wanted me to live. I'm not going to give up, because if I do, than I may as well say that I never loved her. She would have wanted me-she would have wanted you to be happy." Jacob was still leaning forward, face losing the half bored/half amused façade that he had adopted upon walking in. Edward listened to him draw parallels between the two of them and felt his anger growing.

"Do you think-" Edward began, but he was cut off by the floodgate protecting Jacob's mind was lifted and memories and thoughts began to flow into Edward's mind. All sorts of things, from childhood memories to newly found hope for the future. It assaulted Edward like shrapnel, confusing and painful. He couldn't make any sense of the information as it bombarded him. He realised too late that he had been unconsciously reaching out, trying to pick the lock to Jacob's brain, find out why he was unable to hear the wolf. When Jacob had let go, Edward's mind had been open, ready to receive, but this was too much.

Just as quickly as they'd come, the memories stopped. Edward hadn't felt himself move, but he was no longer lying lazily over the chair. His back was pressed hard into the cushions, and Edward could feel the hard backboard behind them, almost at the point of cracking. His hands were clenched on the arm rests, which had splintered in his fingers.

Jacob had moved too. He was kneeling by Edward's chair, looking worried and whispering softy. As the echoes of thoughts dissolved into silence in his head, Edward was able to hear what Jacob was saying. The wolf was apologising, over and over, his voice sounding sincere. Edward caught his gaze. Softly, Jacob released a single thought from his head, tentatively reaching out to Edward as if he were truly afraid that he would hurt him.

It wasn't words that Jacob let him see, but emotion. Jacob's shock and worry at seeing Edward tense, his urgency to make sure that Edward was okay. Through it all, the mix of feelings, Edward could see Jacob's apology, knew that it was real. The thoughts had not been an attack, they had simply been Jacob trying to let Edward into his head again.

Edward didn't realise that he was still tensed until Jacob touched him. He recoiled in shock as the hot skin touched his own. Jacob wasn't dissuaded. He removed his fingers, but only so that Edward could watch their slow path back toward his hand. He considered attacking, every fibre of his being was telling him that Jacob was dangerous, Jacob was only here to try and trick him into something, but Edward didn't move. He stayed completely still, waiting for that touch to once again sear his marble skin.

Jacob let his fingers touch the back of Edward's hand, slowly moving them to pull at Edward's stiff fingers, Edward realised that he was still destroying the furniture and allowed Jacob to move his fingers away from the splintered ends of the armrest. Once he was a little more relaxed, Jacob moved away, going to sit back down on the couch. Giving the man his personal space.

As Jacob had leaned close, Edward had recognised the smell that he had picked up when Jacob had come to kill him, and then smelt again yesterday. It was pleasant, not the dusty odour of the closed up house, and Edward inhaled in deeply into his lungs. It wasn't like anything that he had smelt before. Since he had been turned, the only things that smelt his good had been edible, but Jacob didn't smell like that. Jacob had never smelt like something Edward would ever want to smell, let alone drink, but this was so different.

Edward exhaled the breath to ask a question. The thoughts Jacob had sent his way were trying to arrange themselves in the back of his mind, he couldn't stop sorting through them. A voice in the back of his mind told him that something was wrong, but he ignored it. When had anything ever been right lately?

"Why do you care?"

Jacob shrugged, and Edward could see that the man really didn't know.

"I guess it's because Bella cared about you so much. She wouldn't have wanted you to be in pain. Maybe she kinda taught me to care about you."

Edward snorted, but couldn't deny the sense of peace hearing her name had brought him.

"You were hell bent on killing me."

Jacob shrugged. "That's true. But I guess I changed my mind."

Edward nodded. Jacob had been able to put Bella to rest or at least begin to. Edward doubted that he would ever be able to do the same. To see her ghost disappear forever.

"If you're not going to leave Forks," Edward crinkled up his nose at the suggestion, which Jacob took for agreement. "I will be coming back to see you tomorrow."

"Okay Doctor. What's your suggestion? A prescription maybe?"

Edward didn't know why he was joking, but he found encouragement in the smile that crinkled the corners of Jacob's eyes. The hint of wrinkles, non-existent as they truly were, was enough to remind Edward of exactly how old Jacob was. Of how long he had waited for Edward, and how quickly he'd been able to turn his life around.

If Jacob could do it, Edward couldn't help but feel hope for himself.

Jacob thought for a moment.

"Another long shower. If I were as lucky as you, I would never get out of the shower. And besides, you smell a lot better today."

Edward chose to ignore the last part of Jacob's advice. His mind fixated on a single word. Not a word anyone had used to describe him in a long time. Not one that really fit.

"Lucky? Why's that?"

Jacob smiled, obviously glad that Edward was playing along.

"You're hands and feet don't go all old and wrinkly. You should see what we human's look like when we stay in the shower for too long. It ages you about twenty years."

Edward shared a little bit of Jacob's smile as he looked down at his smooth skin. The pads of his fingers were the same as always. It hardly made him consider himself lucky. He thought that it was a stupid thing to be grateful about, but he was surprised to find that he was grateful anyway.

Staring down at his fingertips, focusing on the feeling of his bare feet on the floor, trying to figure out what it would be like to have wrinkled skin, something resolved itself in the corner of his mind. He turned back to Jacob, who was still looking at him with a wacky grin plastered onto his face.

"You don't think about her?" Jacob's smile faltered, and there was a sharp glint in his eyes that Edward was pretty sure hadn't been there before he had spoken.

"I think about her all the time." Jacob answered.

"But in your thoughts. You let me see everything, and I didn't see her."

Jacob didn't answer straight away, but sat staring across the room, at nothing in particular, seemingly lost in thought. When he did look at Edward, he seemed a bit more resolved, and the edge in his gaze was gone. It was softer.

"I'm sorry. About what I did when I came back here that night. I used her to hurt you. I don't want to hurt you any more Edward."

There was an open look about Jacob, and suddenly Edward wanted to reassure him that it was okay. Jacob had saved his life, and yet the boy was here now, trying to apologize. Edward didn't deserve it.

But he was unable to push the words past a lump that had risen in his throat, so the words stuck there. He hoped that one day he would be able to thank Jacob, congratulate him, and apologize to him. For now, all he could do was nod.

(...)

Jacob had gone, saying something about his 'boys', but Edward hadn't really been paying attention to him. He paid attention now though. Without Jacob there, the house felt a little emptier, but more alive than it had felt in months. Edward was surprised to find that he was almost glad that Jacob had come over, and stayed a while. It made the emptiness a little easier to face when the house smelled like dirt and outside, and salt and a whole lot of things that Edward barely recognised.