A/N: I must apologize again for the long time between updates. I am hoping to move to updating every two weeks going forward.

So far, I have yet to make assume Stephanie Meyer's identity so these guys, and her millions, still all belong to her. Thanks much to Branchirps and Saritadreaming for whipping this all into shape; any errors left are solely my own. Enjoy!

Bella POV:

Thankfully, the rest of the day passed without incident. Since no one slaughtered me in the parking lot, I still had to make dinner; I headed to the local grocery store to get food and then pointed the truck to home. Keeping busy seemed to be the only way I could get my mind off the fuckery that my life had become. I cooked up some chicken and veggies as part of my constant effort to keep my dad's waist line at a healthy size. He ate absolute garbage while at work, a stereotypical cop's diet of coffee and donuts.

As usual, we didn't talk much during dinner other than a couple words about the food. He knew I would have no interest in rehashing the previous several hours since, even under normal circumstances, the first day at a new school was something to be forgotten as soon as possible.

After dinner, I went up to my room to start homework. While I was working, my dad poked his head in and asked if I wanted to go with him to the Quileute reservation on Saturday. I'm sure going to the beach with my dad on a Saturday would make me the coolest kid on the planet, but I agreed anyway so I could check out the beach. I'm sure it wouldn't compare to the beautiful places I left behind, but I would accept the loss of sunny, sandy beaches as part of my penance for the ridiculous stunt I pulled that got my dad fired.

Since my concentration was wrecked now anyway, I decided to take a break from my homework and find out more about the Quileute reservation. Googling "Quileute" brought up some links that looked promising. Pictures of the beach showed it was actually very beautiful with daunting cliffs along the crescent shaped coast. There wasn't a lot of information dedicated to tourists, which made me hope that the land was untarnished by the need to bring in travelers' dollars. There was a bit on the history of the Quileute, showing them to be intensely spiritual and believing in a type of temporal bond with wolves. My curiosity was peaked and, oddly enough, I looked forward to the visit on Saturday.

Reluctantly going back to my homework, I diligently plowed through what remained, trying to be organized for once. Regardless, I knew within a couple of weeks everything would end up a mess no matter how hard I tried. Finally, I could avoid it no longer; my eyes would barely stay open, and I needed to sleep. No longer did I bother hoping for this night to be the night that I did not have the nightmare. It came every night. The only saving grace was that I had eventually, over the years, learned to control my screams so my father was no longer awakened by the noise.

The dream was always the same: chasing after my mother before me, pursued by the monster behind me. Always caught just as my fingers came close to touching her soft skin once again. I was dragged, yelling and screaming, to where, I never knew, as I always woke up before finding out.

Some would think being taken by the monster would be the worst part of the dream. By far, it was really the crushing disappointment of being so close to her, but never actually getting to feel her arms around me again. There was nothing on this earth I wanted more than to have one last moment with my mother. I missed her so much; it was like being stabbed through my heart each time I thought of her, creating a larger hole in my chest. She had been my best friend; had loved me, taught me, comforted me and simply enjoyed being with me more than anyone else. She always had time for my questions and games and was right there with me letting me experience things for myself while keeping me safe. I didn't know what my life would have been like if my mother had never been killed, but I knew what was taken from me was something infinitely precious that could never be duplicated. It only seemed to get worse as I got older.

Tonight was no different, and I woke from the dream screaming and crying into my pillow to muffle the sound. Please, someone, anyone, if you're listening…take me, take me so that I can be back with her! There's nothing for me here; I just don't belong.

Every night my prayer…lament…was the same; as always, it went unanswered. No, I was not suicidal, but that did not mean I didn't long for the end of my life, to be reunited with the one who knew me best.

Since my first day at Forks High had been on a Wednesday, the rest of the week was nice and short. FHS was remarkably free of bitchy chic-cliques; for that I was supremely grateful. I treated the other kids as if they were snakes; I left them alone hoping they would leave me alone, and it worked. Still, there was always that moment of regret that I couldn't turn things around for myself—this time—and make a friend.

The only time I had to interact with one of the Cullens was during Biology. My time sitting next to Edward was easily the hardest part of the day; I didn't know whether to be thankful or pissed, that I had something to dread more than gym class. Thursday, he didn't talk or look at me. It wasn't the same as being ignored, though; it seemed deliberate, not due to disinterest. Friday was the same until just before class ended. A determined look came over his face and then…

"Bella?" he asked in that voice that made me want to crawl out of my skin…or share it with him.

"Yes, Edward." Please don't eat me, please don't eat me…uhm, well…please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me.

"I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?"

I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing. It was so unexpected and out of character for him. The Princess Bride had long been one of my favorite movies, not exactly something I had expected to have in common with one of the undead. Everyone was staring, but for once, I didn't care. I managed to choke out the next line in between chuckles.

"Do you always begin conversations this way?"

He gave me a wink before gathering up his books and darting out the door in that creepy, graceful way he had.

I had to admit, for a vicious, blood sucking monster, this particular vampire did not seem all that bad. Of course, the fact that he seemed to have no interest in harming me helped a lot. I wasn't quite sure what to do with those other feelings that seemed to creep up on me when he was near. Take away the scary, and all that was left was a male more attractive than any I had ever seen. The sensations tingling my body, the thoughts appearing in my head, were all new to me. The fact that I was experiencing them due to him was really fucking with my head. Fear…loathing, that was all I ever expected to feel toward a vampire. Lust? Not so much.

Saturday finally arrived, and I actually woke up feeling a sort of cautious, pleasant anticipation for the trip to La Push. It was so rare that I approached anything with enthusiasm; I took a moment to enjoy the feeling.

The fifteen minute drive to the reservation was quiet and uneventful as neither my dad nor I felt the need to spend time on idle chit chat. We pulled up to what looked like a good-sized community center: a long wooden building with a huge corkboard on the front covered in fliers and business cards. It had wide double doors with both a handicap ramp and stairs for access. As we got out of the car and approached the building, the doors opened to reveal a man in a wheel chair coming out to greet us.

"Hello, I'm William Black, chief of the Quileute Nation. You must be Chief Swan?"

"Yes, sir," my dad said. "And this is my daughter Bella. She came to spend some time at the beach while we talk, if that's okay?"

"Bella is certainly welcome to explore our beach. It's a great time of day for it. I'll get my son, Jacob, to show her around," Chief Black replied.

Now I felt bad; I didn't want anyone to have to babysit me while I was here. Before I could say anything, though, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out for his son.

"Jacob, come on over here! There's a girl here for you!" He winked at me, and all I could do was blush and sigh inwardly. I was hardly any guy's idea of a fun surprise.

The front door of the community center slammed open, and this huge guy loped out. He had to be at least 6' 5" and was built like Arnie back in his Terminator days. The only clothing covering his body was a pair of beat up sweat shorts that really didn't leave anything to the imagination. Yeah, a guy like this was not going to want to waste anytime on a plain Jane like me…

He gave me a quick once over and appeared confused as he addressed his father. "Hey," he said, "What'cha need, dad?"

"Jake, this is Chief Swan from Forks and his daughter Bella. I have some business to go over with the Chief. Can you take Bella over to First Beach?"

"Sure, sure. Hello, Chief Swan," Jake said, extending his hand.

My dad shook Jake's hand; it was weird seeing his hand swallowed by Jake's. The boy had some serious size on him.

Jake then turned his huge hand to me. "I think you'll like the beach," he said. "The tide is going out right now, so the pools will be really full."

Looking at his hand, I couldn't help but think about the old adage linking penis size to how big a guy's hands or feet were. Not really caring on a personal level, my interest was purely intellectual. A quick glance down revealed feet that, to my untrained eye, seemed much larger than average. Since he was in those clingy shorts, it wasn't too hard to sneak a peak as my eyes travelled back up his legs. Crap, the fabric's draped wrong; I can't tell. Unfortunately, I neglected to remember that we don't stare at men's crotches in our society, and it wasn't too long before I noticed an uncomfortable silence around me. I looked up to see my Dad, Billy and Jake all kind of watching me with funny looks on their faces. I immediately blushed again and started to fidget nervously. My odd sense of curiosity was always getting me into trouble.

"Sorry...I uh..I got distracted thinking about tide pools. Sounds great! When can we go?"

Jake gave a kind of funny chuckle and let me know we could leave now. He must be used to girls ogling him. I said a quick goodbye to my Dad and then followed Jake as he headed towards the back of the parking lot to the woods.

"There's a short path we can take to the beach from here," he said.

"Uhm, is there a way we can go without cutting through the woods?" I asked.

I hadn't been in the woods since…that day…and I wasn't going to start now with some stranger twice my size.

"I guess so...it will take a lot longer, though," he commented. "We'll have to walk on the road for about a mile. Why don't you want to go through the woods? Tourists usually love to hike our trails."

"It's a phobia of mine," I replied in a curt tone to discourage other questions. "I don't like to talk about it, but the last time I was in the woods, something really fucking horrible happened."

He looked surprised at my language but seemed to take it in stride.

"Sure, sure," he said. "The road is nice, too. Not much traffic, and you'll get to see some flower gardens we have planted."

I was lucky that Jake was so easygoing. Some people were much harder to dissuade from a topic of conversation. A certain Biology partner came to mind...

The walk to the beach was nice, and Jake kept up a running commentary as we went. It seemed he'd played tour guide before. He offered a short history of the Quileute people and fit in the stories with the land around us. I especially enjoyed hearing more about the connection with wolves; seemed a lot more impressive than the monkeys the rest of us were linked to.

We arrived at the beach, and I had to admit there was a unique beauty here; it was very different from the beaches back home. The cliffs were amazing, the rock faces sheer and daunting. Churning waves below were enough to challenge any So Cal surfer.

Jake and I walked on the sand for a bit before sitting on a piece of driftwood that lay in our path. The log must have fallen long ago; it was weathered to a soft, silvery patina. Normally, I would have been incredibly nervous sitting next to a strange guy this way. Something about Jake, though, put me at ease, and I was quite comfortable sharing the seat and beach with him.

Making conversation seemed like the normal next step, but I wasn't sure what to say. I certainly didn't have much experience talking to buff guys like Jacob. Maybe cars? I really like cars...he's a guy...maybe he likes cars, too…My frantic musings were interrupted when Jake ended up speaking first.

"How long did it take to get here in the cruiser?" Jake asked. "That thing must fly with that police super charger package Ford uses."

Bingo.

"I wouldn't know," I replied, "too many people slowing down to a crawl when they see the lights. My truck doesn't do more than sixty, and I still probably could have gotten here faster in it."

"You have a truck? That's cool. I just sold one I rebuilt. It came out okay, but I couldn't make that one go over 60 either...couldn't afford the right parts."

"Yep," I replied, "a '57 Chevy, already orange—which is nice so the rust doesn't show. Whoever fixed it up did a great job. I might try a different air intake to get the speed up a bit. I'd have to save up for it, though."

"You work on cars? That's awesome! Wait a second...an orange '57 Chevy? That's what I just sold! Did you buy it around here? Can't be mine, though, I sold it to the Phillip's kid..."

"Holy shit! That's the one! His parents sold it out from under him before he even got it registered. He flunked some big test or something. Seemed like a real crappy thing to do, but they sold it super cheap, so I wasn't complaining." I know I was probably over reacting to the funny coincidence; it was just so rare that I had anything in common with, well, anyone.

"Yeah, I gave him a really good deal. I wanted to get rid of it so I could start my next rebuild. I found a Volkswagen Rabbit in great shape at the local tow yard. It's gonna fly when I'm done with it!"

"Nice. Are you rebuilding the tranny? Please tell me it's a stick."

Who would've thought? I was holding my own in a conversation with a guy I would have considered way out of my league. He was so easy to talk to; I felt myself starting to relax next to him.

"So, you're going to Fork's high?" he ended up asking me after we had exhausted car talk.

"Yeah, seems like an okay school, you know, other than all the damn vampires." I said, jokingly, figuring he wouldn't have a clue what I meant and write it off as a joke.

He didn't reply, and when I turned to look at him, he was staring back at me with an incredulous look on his face. I didn't understand what was bothering him; he couldn't possibly think I was serious about that…could he?

"Is something wrong, Jake?" I asked.

"Why do you say there are vampires at your school? Are the kids that bad?" he replied.

There was something off about his tone of voice, like he was trying to associate a normal meaning to what I said, while not really believing it himself. His speech was stilted, not relaxed like before. I felt my pulse race a little bit at the thought of someone else knowing what really dwelled in this small part of the world. Still, I wasn't quite ready to come out of the "I believe in vampires" closet yet either.

"It's kind of from a movie," I replied. "The Lost Boys; did you ever see it?"

"Oh, ah, no, can't say that I have. Didn't that come out in the '80's or something?"

"Yeah, '87. I'm kinda into vampire movies."

I could admit that much; I just left out the part where I obsessively watched every one I could find trying to learn more about vampires, even though I knew the chances of Hollywood getting such information correct was slim to none.

"Really? Why would you find those blood suckers interesting?" he huffed. He actually sounded angry.

A bug was starting to turn in my brain; I couldn't quite get my finger on it yet, but there was something there. I chose my words carefully, frantically trying to think of what I could say that would hint at the origins of my obsession without actually giving anything away. For the moment, I chose to ignore the tone of his voice and just respond to the question.

"That fear? Of the woods? It's from something that happened when I was a kid. Like I said, I don't like to talk about it, but I've had this…obsession…with vampires since then. I think my kid brain made the association and it stuck."

"What happened?" he asked, obviously missing the part where I said I didn't like to talk about it. I guess I couldn't blame him too much since I brought it up.

"I'm sorry, I just have a lot of trouble discussing it. Not sure why I even got into it with a perfect stranger. You must think I'm a head case."

"No, no," he said. "I guess, you just sounded so serious at first, almost like you really thought there were vampires at your school."

He didn't sound mad anymore, more like he was ready to be done talking about this. Still, I decided to mention one more thing, in case he really did know what was going on.

"It's funny, now that I think about it, there's a family at the school who totally fit the vampire stereotype. They're all weirdly good looking and pale. If Buffy went to my school, they would definitely be the ones she went after first."

No response, just back to staring at me.

"You know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" I asked.

"Yeah, sorry, I've heard of it. Look, I have to go now. Can you find your way back? I forgot I'm supposed to be meeting up with some people about tribal stuff."

Guess I went too far with that one. I couldn't tell if he simply thought I was a freak now or if it was something to do with the Cullens. It seemed the wise thing to do would be to give it up for now. In the words of The Terminator: I'd be back. Maybe I watch too many movies?

We got up off of the log and began to brush ourselves off. I was twisting and hopping on one foot trying to reach a piece of seaweed on the back of my pants. Of course, I promptly started to fall over. Jake was still next to me, and I instinctively reached out and grabbed onto his arm to stop from hitting the sand. How embarrassing! But, wow, he was really warm...

"Having fun, Jake?" I heard a very pissed off female voice say.

Oh, great—of course a guy like this has a girlfriend, and she's not happy at the site of some chic hanging all over her man, accident or no accident. I turned and saw a beautiful Quileute girl coming out of the forest. She was super-model tall and had a punkish, short haircut. She didn't seem to have any more interest in clothes than I did since she was dressed in a dirty tank top and shorts. I'd bet money she could kick my ass with no problem, and I was a bit intimidated to have her glaring at me so fiercely.

"Calm down, Leah," he said. "Bella here just got a bit tangled getting up off the log. Bella, this is my girlfriend, Leah; Leah, this is Chief Swan's daughter, Bella. Chief Swan is talking with my dad today, and Bella wanted to see the beach."

"Great, Jake. I've been running for three fucking hours straight now with Sam and Seth while you've been here playing tour guide? You know I can't stand to run with them on my own!"

"Leah, give me a fucking break. Go back to Sam and Seth, and I'll be there in a minute."

I didn't want to be in the middle of this fight. It was actually weird to hear Jake swear since he'd been so polite the whole time we were talking, even when my own gutter mouth had made an appearance. I had no idea what type of running they were talking about, but it sounded like I'd overstayed my welcome.

"Jake, it's fine. I really can find my own way back to the center. Go with Leah."

Leah gave me a dirty look. Obviously, she didn't appreciate my peace keeping efforts.

"Fine, Jake," she said. "You owe me, though."

"All right, Leah. Look, I'll see you later. Just, for once, try to keep the peace with Sam?"

All I heard from her was a snort in response before she stalked off.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "Things have been a bit tough on her lately."

"Don't worry about it, Jake. I had a good time. Maybe I'll see you around."

"Yeah, see ya." He didn't sound delighted at the prospect of spending more time with me. Typical.

He turned and headed off for the woods in the same direction Leah had gone. I stared after him for a moment then headed back to the rec center to meet up with my dad.

The inevitable rain started up again on our way home, and I felt a serious afternoon nap coming on, followed by a long night's sleep. The events of the day had drained me, and I needed to shut down for a while to process it all.

A/N: So, if you've already read the old chapter 5, you may remember that it was very different from this one. I thought the old version was clunky and not flowing well, hence all the changes. I hope they meet with your approval!

If you can, head over to the Fandom For Texas Wildfire Relief site and make a donation. A donation of as little as $5 will get you a compilation of stories from over 140 authors: http: /texasfires. ysar. info. I plan to submit a story myself - a fun one shot exploring some late night office hijinks between E & B.

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Finally, there's a little link right below here that you can click on and it will allow you to let me know exactly what you think of this effort of mine at entertaining you. I hope you'll review! Thanks in advance.