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CHAPTER NINE

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A/N:- Banner by FatesLoveQueen http:/yfrog(dot)com/oed60p

I own nothing. Boydblog helped me with this and I'll be forever thankful.

She fixed. I fiddled. Any mistakes that remain are on me.

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Recap:

I was asked for a quick recap by one reviewer, was going to do it in a PM but then I thought maybe some other people would like one too, so here is the best (spoiler-free) recap I can do:

Edward left Bella (as per New Moon) but she fought back and fell in the forest as she fled. Edward took her back to his house before leaving her there.

Bella woke into a world where she was married to a human Edward. Since she discovered herself in that world, she has been falling back and forth between the two, unaware of and unable to determine what is real and what is not.

Within the all-human world, Edward and Bella are largely estranged from his family and she feels that she has no-one to turn to. She met Kieran while working in her job at Renee's, an old-school cafe. He offers her friendship and a job, amongst other things. Before long, she discovers she is pregnant to Edward and life takes an unexpected, but not unwanted turn.

Within the vamp world, she started on a course of anti-depressants and sleeping tablets to help her cope. She feels guilty about what she is putting Charlie through and wants to get better, but doesn't know how. At least until Jacob comes back into her life.

End Recap

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I struggled desperately to push myself out of the water.

I forced myself upright, gasping for air.

"Are you alright Bella? Are you okay?"

A hand rubbed my back gently.

I breathed deeply, almost waiting for my heart to stop.

"Bella, will you look at me please?"

I blinked my eyes open and twisted my head, meeting a pair of black eyes, staring at me with a mixture of confusion and concern.

"Jacob!" I croaked.

He frowned. "You just jumped a mile and frightened the hell out of me."

I looked around. I was in Charlie's living room. The TV played a movie about the ocean or drowning, or something. I tried to remember what I was doing only moments before. Movies and idle chatter with Jacob were at the forefront of my mind. Somewhere in the recesses though, at the very edge of my memory, I could have sworn I'd been talking to Edward.

I shook my head. I was trying, but failing, to fight off the tears that threatened. All I could think about was what I'd lost by returning to this harsh reality.

Why can't I stay cemented in one place? Why can't I stay in the other place, where Edward's human? Where we're expecting a baby together and would be a happy family?

Just thinking about everything I had there, compared with everything I had experienced in Forks, made me desolate.

Why is this happening to me?

I knew without doubt that I was losing my mind. Then I wondered whether you could actually be conscious that you'd lost your mind?

Does the knowledge that you are insane preclude you from actually being insane?

I wished I knew what I needed to do to stop the visions. I wish I knew for certain which world was real. Part of me hoped it was the other world. That place held so much more—a promise of a happily ever after with Edward—and while it wasn't perfect, it was preferable. I had Edward and we were expecting our baby. I could see clearly the life I would lead there in a way that eluded me in my Forks existence.

It was all too confusing. While I was there, I was certain it was real; it didn't feel like I was dreaming. I could touch and I could feel. Gosh, how I could feel.

Yet, when I was back in Forks, it felt genuine too. I could feel, and I could hurt. A new pain stabbed at my chest where my heart lay in tatters, as testament to the agony I'd endured by Edward leaving me. Proof of how much I had hurt.

Jacob's heat surrounded me as he pulled me backwards, drawing me effortlessly into his arms and trying to offer whatever comfort he could. He wrapped me tightly in his warmth, just as he had previously. There was nothing different in the way he touched me. It was the caress of friendship. Only the feeling of his skin against mine reminded me of being pinned against my bedroom wall.

My heart began to pound and my eyes began to water. I wanted to scream and shout at him to release me. I wanted to shout that he wouldn't get away with what he'd done to me. I knew I was crazy because it hadn't really happened. Had it?

Jacob was my friend and I knew that he'd never hurt me, but I couldn't shake the images of everything the other version of him had done.

"Let me go," I whispered, twisting in his arms.

"What's the matter?" His voice was filled with confusion, but he didn't move to release me.

I began to feel clammy and hot. I needed to be free from his hold.

Desperately.

I tried to shake him off, but his arm was heavy around my shoulder and I felt trapped.

"Let me go!" I demanded.

He dropped his arm from my shoulder.

I pushed away from him and off the couch quickly. I tried to remember that this boy was my friend. He wasn't the man who had threatened me, but it didn't matter. My mind rebelled against our friendship and I couldn't even look at him without feeling sick.

His head tilted to one side. He emanated an aura of concern that only seemed to increase by the second. When I looked at him again still sitting on the couch, he seemed almost buckled under an invisible weight. I knew I was the cause of it, but I couldn't help him. I could barely help myself.

Seeing his concern and how my behavior was affecting him should have calmed me, but it didn't.

He stood, reminding me just how much bigger he was than me physically. He extended his arm to cover the distance between us. I retracted immediately.

"Don't touch me," I hissed.

"Bells?" He took a step to close the distance. Even as he reached for me, his fingers curled into his hand, away from my body, as if he needed to protect himself from an invisible fire. I knew I was the flame, burning him with my panic, but I couldn't stop it. I just couldn't help but see the man who pinned me to my bedroom wall and kissed me against my will until my body shook with terror.

"Don't come any closer!" I cried.

"What's wrong?" His voice was desperate and needful.

"You need to leave. Now."

"Why?"

I shook my head. I couldn't think clearly while he was near me, my mind kept returning to his doppelganger. "Just go!"

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't. He cast me one more sorrowful glance before leaving. As soon as he'd passed through the front door, I pushed it shut and locked it behind him. I rested against it, taking huge gulping breaths.

When did I become a lunatic who throws her friends out of her house?

I felt bad for the way I'd treated Jacob, but each time the thought of calling him entered my mind, images of everything he'd done in the other world swam through my memory. I felt vulnerable and lost. All I wanted was something to give me the strength I felt I was missing. I had no idea where I could find it.

I wanted a friend, someone to help me understand what was happening to me. I was terrified by the fact that I'd thrown out the one person I was even partly able to confide in. Tears pricked my eyes as I realized I was alone, completely alone again.

I trudged up to my bed and climbed under the blankets on my bed. I hoped that in their depths, I would find some escape from the mess I'd made. I wanted to go back to the other place, where I was with Edward. He wasn't perfect, but he was there for me when it absolutely counted.

I closed my eyes and prayed to be in the other world when I opened them.

All I got was darkness and guilt instead of the shift in reality I wanted. When I realized my mind wasn't going to be kind and release me from my pain, I embraced it and wrapped it around my being. My tears began to fall heavily in the soft cocoon surrounding me.

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By the time Charlie came home and found me, I was curled in on myself and sobbing loudly under my blanket.

I heard him move around downstairs for just a moment. Long enough to take off his boots and hide the bullets from his gun no doubt. His heavy footfalls hit the stairs and I tried to hold my breath for a moment. Moments later, a shuddering sob wretched my body.

I felt the bed shift as Charlie sat on the edge of it. His quiet breathing seemed louder to my own ears than the uncontrollable sounds ripping from my chest.

"What happened today?" He asked finally, so quietly I almost missed it. "Did you and Jake have a fight?"

I shook my head, because we hadn't actually fought. Not really. I'd just thrown him out without a single explanation.

"Billy called me at work. Jake was really upset when he got home. I called, but you didn't answer."

I felt guilt for hurting Charlie again. I never wanted to. If I could spare him and Renee from enduring pain because of me, I would have done almost anything.

"I tried to get home sooner, but I couldn't get a replacement in at such short notice."

My stomach twisted with guilt, but alongside the guilt came flashes of being pinned to the bedroom wall by Jacob. Part of me still reasoned that it hadn't been my Jacob in Forks, but the memory of it was as strong as the horror of Edward leaving, and equally unshakable.

"Are you alright?"

I drew in a deep breath and released it, shaky and pained. At least the sobbing had abated for the moment.

"I thought you were starting to get better." I wasn't sure I was meant to hear his words, but I did.

I nodded. I'd thought that too.

I took a deep breath. "I'll call him tomorrow," I promised.

Charlie sighed and stood. "I don't want you to do anything you don't want to."

"I want to," I whispered.

"I just want my daughter back." His words were once again nearly silent, almost certainly meant for himself.

I didn't need to tell him I was trying. In fact, I was certain that statement would only have hurt him more.

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I drifted off to sleep shortly after Charlie left my room, only to wake less than an hour later. Nightmares of Edward leaving intermingled with the horror of what Jacob—the older, sinister Jacob—had done to me. The two images twined themselves around each other in my mind until I felt my throat constricting as Jacob held me against the wall while Edward whispered words of hatred against my cheek.

Cool hands caressed my face when I woke. A cool, sweet smelling breeze gave me air. A weight on my bedding signaled I wasn't alone. I reached my hand up to touch the cool skin resting against mine, but it was gone by the time my fingers had finished their slow, groggy path. In the same moment, the weight lifted off my mattress and I was left wondering if it was just a delusion.

There was no moon hanging in the sky to light my room, so the darkness felt absolute. I stared through the inky blankness, trying to recall the words that had been whispered against my skin. In my dream, they had been horrid words whispered by Edward, but in that blissful moment between slumber and consciousness, I could have sworn I heard other words; words of comfort.

When I saw and felt nothing further, I sat up. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, I looked through it, but didn't notice any movement.

"Hello?" I whispered into the black night. I felt like a fool for even entertaining the thought that someone else was with me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched.

I sat with bated breath for a few moments more.

Was that something over by the lamp? Or maybe there, by the window?

"Who's there?"

There was no answer.

I hadn't necessarily expected one, but I felt disappointed by the silence.

"It's okay," I whispered. "I know you're here."

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw movement, but when I focused, everything was still.

"Edward?" I asked.

My heart pounded in my chest at the thought. The mere possibility that he—or a member of his family—might be back was almost too much for me to consider.

I waited for something, anything, to happen that would confirm my suspicion.

Nothing came.

Eventually sleep began to press itself upon my unwilling body until my heavy eyelids began to slip closed and I sank into my bedding.

It was then—when I was balancing on the precipice of sleep—that a beautiful, velvet voice whispered quietly in my ear. "Sleep now, my beauty. I'll see you soon, in your dreams."

I wanted to fight my way back into consciousness to see his face, but I was too far gone. I was unable to resist his instructions and I fell into a heavy slumber.

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*peers out from between fingers* still with me?

I wanted to get this up as quickly as possible because, well I heard the pitchforks and torches being pulled from their shelf. Chapter ten is also written and has literally just hit my inbox back from my beautiful beta. I will work on editing it & finishing chapter eleven as soon as possible to keep things moving.

I would love to hear your thoughts.