Chapter Two – Communication

Title:Through the Window Came the Wind

Author: lifelesslyndsey

Disclaimer: It might not mah sandbox, but I'm building castles. But I'm not profiting from them.

Pairing:SamxBella

Rating: NC-17

Warning: language, and adult concepts in probably graphic citrusy detail.

Summary:He fought to do what was expected of him and she did the opposite. If love was less about finding that perfect someone, and more about finding that someone who makes you perfect, you never know how you might find it. Love might bring out the best in us, but first it brings out the worst.

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"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

- George Bernard Shaw

"I wouldn't have agreed to come with you if I'd known you were going to be an asshole," she said quietly, pale fingers curling over my oak counter top. She tapped her bitten-nails against the polished wood, and gave me a pointed look. "Well? Give me the phone."

I handed her my land-line phone, leaning against the fridge as she dialed. I could hear the worry in Charlie's voice as he answers. "Sam? What is it?"

"It's me Dad," she said at once, eyes fluttering to a close. She rubbed her temple tiredly, forcing the words to come out right. "I was walking to Jake's, when it started raining. Sam picked me up. Figured I'd hang around here, since we were closer to La Push than Forks anyway. Gonna wait the rain out."

"What were you doing walking, Bella? You knew it was going to rain. Hell, it's always going to rain here. It's Forks," he replied, forcing a chuckle. "I told you I'd get your truck fixed this weekend, kiddo."

"Yeah well, I just needed out of the house okay?" she gritted, tension creeping into her voice. Her fingers flattened against the counter, knuckles white. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it? I just...I wanted to see Jake."

"Bells," Charlie began, his voice suddenly strained. "You know Jacob isn't feeling so hot; you heard what Billy said. You gotta give the boy some time to heal. He'll be right as rain in no time and you two can get to getting, with...whatever it is you, uh...do with him."

"God, Dad." Her breath shuddered out as her mouth drew tight. She read like a book, every little emotion right there on her face. "It wasn't like...that. Jesus. You know it wasn't like that. I'm just not...ready, or whatever since...yeah. Ugh. Shut up. You know Jake is just my friend."

"Alright, Bells," Charlie said, laughing a little lighter. "Just...don't you go bugging him. You need me to pick you up?"

Her eyes flickered up to me, narrowed but bright. "No," she said slowly. "No, I'll hang around here for a while, like I said, wait the rain out. Sam doesn't mind."

I raised a brow at that, but all I got in return was a smug grin.

"Love you, Dad," she said, thumbing the off button. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic," I replied. "How drunk are you? Need-to-eat-drunk or need-to-puke-drunk?"

"I'm somewhere between tipsy and shut-the-fuck-up," she replied blithely. "You said you'd spill, so fucking spill. This isn't a courtesy visit."

Her attitude grated on me, my mind screaming for harmony where there was only discord. But I wouldn't beg; I'd promised myself when I first fell to all four paws that no matter what I was, I'd always be me. She might have been made for me, and she might have been mine, but I was still a man, and I had my dignity. No soaking wet ninety pound girl was going to treat me like dirt. Her teenage shit-fit heartbreak sob story might have worked on her daddy, and even on Jake, but I was in just deep enough to be sick of it.

"Listen up," I said, pushing up from where I had been leaning against the fridge. "I don't have to tell you shit, so get off that fucking pedestal before you fall off. You think because I'm not a vampire, not fighting to keep myself from sucking you dry, that you can treat me like shit?" Her eyes widened, black pupils dilating wide into the brown as I stepped into her light. "Well I got news for you, Little Red," I said, tugging the frayed collar of her jacket's hood. "Your Cullens? They weren't the only monsters in these woods."

She licked her lips, heart hammering in her chest so hard I could see it, thumping beneath her skin. "You don't scare me," she said, shakily. "And the Cullens weren't monsters."

Leaning back with a dark laugh, I shook my head at her, before tossing her the threadbare dishtowel hanging off my oven door. "I'm glad you think so," I said, as she caught it. "It'll certainly make my life easier. Get cleaned up, and we'll talk. I'll bring you something dry to wear."

"Can't you just tell me?" she asked, towel hanging limp in her hands. "Fuck the niceties. I just want to know what's happening to Jake."

"And I'll tell you," I replied, watching her clench her teeth. "After you get dry and sober up a bit. So, the sooner you just fuckin' do it, the better. The bathroom is the only door on the left."

It was a snap decision and maybe not one of my best ones. I wasn't thinking clearly, instinctively thrilled that I had found my mate, while being at a complete loss on what step to take next. So while she disappeared into the only door on the left, and after I had left her dry things to wear, I peeled off my clothes, letting them fall to the floor in piles as I phased. Seeing was believing, after all.

I could smell the rain on her skin. Like a dog in my goddamn kitchen, I sprawled out on the floor into what I hoped was a harmless position; the tiles were cold against the warm skin of my belly as I lay waiting for her return. It didn't keep her from screaming when she saw me, stumbling back against the refrigerator, eyes wide in terror. "Sam. Sam? Sam!" she bellowed, eyes flickering across the kitchen as I pushed to my paws. She scrambled out of the way, crab-walking backwards as I disappeared behind the other side of the kitchen counter. Phasing back, I raised to my feet, peering down at her where she sat, nothing but cabinetry keeping me from indecent exposure.

"I thought you said you weren't afraid of me," I commented loftily, grabbing my jeans off the floor. I slid them over myself, snapping the button as she gaped at me. "Well?"

"You're a...you're a..."

"A werewolf," I finished, watching what little color remained in her cheeks drain away. "So are Jacob, and Paul, and Embry, and Jared. Quill, soon."

"Holy shit," she breathed, back against the wall. She hung her head in her hands, heart hammering on her chest. "Holy fucking shit. I mean...just...Fuck. This is...this is why Jacob won't see me?"

I dropped down to the floor next to her, ignoring the way she flinched. Sure, it stung, but I expected as much. "Billy is why Jacob won't see you. This...we're wolves because of the Cullens. No one knows why, but our people hadn't changed in centuries, before the Cullens came, when my father's father was young. When they returned, decades later, it set the change in motion for my generation."

"What does that have to do with me?" Bella asked, looking up from her palms. "I mean, what did I do?"

"You crawled into bed with them," I said simply, shrugging my shoulders. "You knew what they were, and you didn't care. Billy...blames them for his son's curse. And you for your affiliation."

"That isn't fair," she replied, and I had expected as much.

"It isn't. None of it is. Billy has to watch his son suffer; sacrifice his future for the sake of our Tribe. What's worse is that the Cullens left before it ever came about for Jacob; stayed just long enough to fuck every one over. Yourself included, I should think."

"Yeah but I mean...what they did to me, it wasn't like this," she said, sympathetic. "I mean..."

"A broken heart isn't exactly the same as a life altering curse?" I asked, raising a brow. "You'll get over the Cullen boy. But we'll never really be quit of this."

She gave me a cold look, head tilted to the side. Her hair had begun to curl again, twisting into frizzy, damp waves. "I know what you think," she replied, glaring at me through her lashes. "What every one things. That it wasn't really love. That this...thing, with me...is just some...high school romance, but it isn't. I loved him. No one gets that. No one understands how you could wake up one morning, and find yourself in love. To know that you found that one person in the world made for you,"

It startled a laugh out of me, and her scowl deepened. "I'm not laughing at you," I assured her, springing up from my crouch and pulling her up with me. "I'm... well. I'm laughing at me, I guess."

She wobbled slightly, hiking up a pair of my old sleep pants, drawstring pulled tight around her painfully narrow waist. Her palms were still cold where she pressed them against me. "Whoa, you're like burning up."

"It's a werewolf thing," I replied, letting her steady herself on my arm. The urge to grab her and hold on was bubbling beneath my skin, but I'd suppressed worse urges in my time. "The warmer the core body temperature, the faster we regenerate. Right now, Paul runs the hottest, and heals the fasted. He's also the quickest to...snap. It all correlates, I'm sure."

"Snap? What do you mean snap?" she asked, leaning her back against the kitchen counter. I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and tossed it to her. "The anger issues, right? Jacob was so touchy last time I saw him."

"Which is why you can't see him now," I replied, watching her hands shake as she twisted of the cap. "Jacob isn't especially aggressive, but young wolves have no tolerance for upsets. They're quick to anger, and quicker to strike." I swallowed, visions of my own mother, bloody and scarred, always there, in the back of my mind like a constant reminder. "There is a real possibility that he will hurt you."

"Alright," she accepted, taking a short drink. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and gave me a deep look. "But it's not forever. Right? I mean, he'll get a handle on things and then it'll be fine."

"In time," I replied. "But your...connection with Jacob won't be the same as it was. Whatever you expected from him...from the pair of you, won't happen. Not now." It was selfish, but I had no inclinations to allow any possible relationship between them flourish in anyway. "He can't love you like that."

"I don't love him like that," she snapped back, slamming the plastic bottle onto the counter. "He's my friend. My best friend. I love him, and he does love me, nothing can change that, but it will never be like that between us."

I wasn't particularly sure that Jacob saw it as such, but I also wasn't inclined to disagree with her sentiments. They suited me just fine, actually. "I'm glad you agree."

She blanched, head reeling back. "I wasn't...I wasn't agreeing. I was stating a fact."

Shrugging, I bit back on the grin tugging at my lips. She was pissed, too deep in her own mess of rebellion to admit defeat. "Sounded like you were agreeing, to me."

"Well I wasn't," she bit out. "Why are you telling me all of this anyway?"

There were enough answers for that question to fill a pool, but I settled on something simple, something honest, for now. "Because you're special."

She spent the night, sprawled out on my couch while she slept off her buzz. I'd passed on my morning patrols, handing them off to Paul and Jared, in trade for the weekend. Morning burned bright in bursts of orange and pink over the ocean; I'd always been an early riser. I folded myself cross-legged on the coffee table and watched as she woke.

"You know," she said, eyes closed as she raked hand through her tangled hair. "I never realized how creepy the sleep-watching thing really was."

The insinuation that I wasn't the first to watch her sleep grated against my nerves like sandpaper but I kept myself still. "You're sleeping in my living room. It isn't as if I was hiding in your closet, or something."

She laughed, snorted really, throwing an arm over her face. "You're something else, Sam Uley."

A/N Hope you new readers enjoy the story, and any re-readers, glad to have you back!