CHAPTER 25

*****BELLA POV*****

HAVING A MEAL with the wolf pack was always a loud, joyful, and sometimes rowdy, affair, and today was no different. The craziness I had just witnessed was a prime example. Quil had taken the last chicken leg, only for Paul to snatch it off his plate when Quil reached for another roll. That led to a struggle to get each other in a headlock, sending a fork flying, narrowly missing Seth's head, and both of them toppling their chairs and ending up on the floor, both of them laughing. It was a miracle that Emily's kitchen table and chairs had held up against the ruckus day after day!

To avoid the mayhem, Jake and I always sat in the living room to eat… the last thing I needed was to accidentally get knocked around. Emily usually joined us… Kim and Angela too, if they were there. I've always enjoyed watching and listening to the pack's jubilant banter, though.

At one point, as I was watching the guys at the kitchen table, I met Leah's gaze for a moment, or more accurately, her glare. I tried to smile at her, but she looked away too quickly and I don't think she saw my gesture. I wished I could figure out what to do, not only to ease the tension between us, but to help her heal.

Embry had finished eating before the rest and he came in to sit with me, Jake, and Emily.

"How was Angela after the bonfire last night," I asked him.

"Good," he said with a smile. "She liked hearing about our histories. I had already told her about vampires, but we talked a lot afterwards and she had questions about the treaty, so she now knows about the Cullens. She was pretty shocked with that revelation and is anxious to talk with you about it."

"I'm sure she is," I responded unenthusiastically, not sure how I felt about having that conversation with her, though I knew it would need to happen at some point. I silently hoped that she wasn't too weirded out that I had dated a vampire. I imagined she was going to have a lot of questions about that.

I suddenly shuddered at the thought of the next question, and it came out in a whisper. "Have you told her about Victoria yet?" Jake sensed my anxiety and drew me a little closer to comfort me.

"No," he answered quietly, "just knowing that vampires exist scared her, so I didn't want her to scare her more by telling her that there was one hunting her good friend. She'll need to know eventually, but since she's only with you down here on the Rez right now, I didn't see a need to tell her yet.

"She's handling everything pretty well so far. I think she's enjoying spending time with me. I know I'm enjoying it. She's someone I would have liked being around regardless of the imprinting, so I like that also."

Seth and Quil came to join us then and the subject shifted. I just listened as they lamented about the newest video game that just came out, but none of them had been able to get yet, and smiled to myself.

It was very comforting having the whole pack there together, knowing they were all safe for the moment. Even with all of the loud chatter and laughter I started to doze, leaning contentedly against Jake with his arms around me. When I was well on my way to sleep, but still hanging in that in between world, some quiet talking came through to my consciousness.

"How's Bella really doing Jake?" one of the guys asked quietly…maybe Embry.

"Better than yesterday, I think. It still takes a lot out of her when I have to be apart from her for even a few minutes. She's strong though. Sometimes maybe a little too much. She can be her own worst enemy sometimes… trying to do more than she should."

"How are you doing?" the same voice asked.

"I'm good," he answered sincerely. "I hate seeing her in pain, that's the hardest thing… that and trying to protect her from her own stubbornness, but other than that I'm enjoying the time we're getting to spend together. There's a small part of me that can't wait to be able to be able to run with you guys again and to finally get that red-headed bloodsucker, but for now it's over-ruled by the need, and desire, to be with Bella."

"Has Sam told you about the new plan we're working on? Trying to figure out where the red head goes when she leaves the area? Seeing if we can track any patterns?"

"Yeah, he did. We came up with the beginnings of it while Bella was in the hospital, but it's shaping up to be a really good and feasible plan. Anything to help us get an edge on her."

I continued to hear voices, but no longer comprehended what they were saying as I slipped farther into sleep.

When I awoke again the house was quiet, everyone either off on patrol or gone to rest. Jake and Emily were talking softly and greeted me warmly when they noticed I was awake.

"I'm surprised you were able to sleep with all that racket," Emily said.

"It was sort of calming in an odd way," I said, looking at her and she nodded, understanding my meaning. The burden we felt for the well-being of the pack was lessened while they were all here and we knew they were safe.

"I was thinking we could head over to my house," Jake suggested, "to see if we can find those photo albums. You up for that?"

"Yeah," I said, getting excited at the idea. "That sounds good." I was still hopeful that some of the pictures would jog my memory about his mom.

When we got there, Billy wasn't home.

"Maybe he went over to Sue's for lunch," Jake guessed as he sat me down on the little sofa. "I'll have to dig around in the closet, so you'll probably be more comfortable here. I'll hurry though."

"I'll be okay," I said as I settled myself back further into the couch for support and nodded to him.

It didn't take him too long to find the albums, but I was hurting pretty bad by the time he got back, trying to breathe through it… I hadn't had any pain medicine since breakfast.

"I'm sorry baby, he said softly as he sat down next to me. "I should have asked my dad to set them out for us."

"It's okay, I'm fine now," I assured him, feeling the relief from his presence.

He quickly figured out which of the two albums was the oldest and we started with that one. The beginning was before he was born, so we flipped through that a little faster, but still enjoyed seeing the pictures of his sisters when they were babies and toddlers. His mom was even more beautiful than I remembered.

I stopped Jake's hand as he was about to turn the page, suddenly seeing something more familiar. I pulled the page closer to my face to make sure, then pointed to a young woman holding a tiny baby in one of the photos and looked at Jake.

"That's me and Renee!" I said, surprised. I didn't expect to see myself in his family's albums when I was just a baby, and I especially didn't expect to see my mom. Renee was holding me, and Sarah was smiling down at me, my tiny hand grasping one of her fingers.

"Look at your chubby cheeks and tiny fingers, Bells."

"I must have only been a few weeks old." I pointed to his mom's very pregnant belly and laughed. "Because there you are."

Jake was smiling wide and took a closer look at the picture too. After a couple more pages we were about halfway through the album and the first pictures of Jake showed up, just a few days old. Under one of the pictures, written in a pretty script handwriting, faded but still legible, was his birth information: Jacob Daniel Black, 01/14/90, 6 lbs 7 ozs, 19 inches.

"You were so tiny!" I exclaimed, "and sooo adorable. It's hard to believe that tiny little thing grew to be so big."

On the next page was the first picture of me and Jake together, held by our smiling mothers. We slowed down as we continued to flip through the album, which went until Jake and I were about three years old. Every now and then there would be a picture of me and Jake playing next to each other.

When we started with the next album it seemed to skip several years because we looked to be about six or seven in the first few pictures.

"Dad said he thought my sister had one of the albums with her in Hawaii."

"You were such an adorable little boy. Look at that smile."

"And you were a beautiful little girl." He was pointing to a close-up picture of me hugging a doll to the side of my face. "Your eyes were so big and expressive. I remember you were always so serious, and it took a lot to get you to smile. I always made it a goal of mine to try to make you smile. And if I got a laugh out of you, I felt like I'd conquered the world."

I shook my head and smiled at him. Even back then he was trying take care of me. Coming to Forks every summer had never been my favorite thing. That's probably why I had blocked so much of that time from my memories. I felt kinda guilty about it now. If I'd only realized I was missing out on one of the best friendships I could ever hope for, I might have felt differently.

As we went through this album Jake started telling stories about some of the pictures since he was old enough to have more memories of them. Every few pages there was one or two of me, sometimes with Jake and sometimes with Charlie. It was so weird to see myself in Jake's family photo albums.

We then came to a picture that made me pause again. It was a close up of Sarah and Billy together, but it was her expression that made me stop. Most of the other pictures before this were candid action shots, so she wasn't even looking at the camera half the time, usually playing or talking with her children. But in this one she was looking straight at the camera, smiling widely, and looked so joyful, her eyes sparkling.

I looked at Jake. "You look so much like your mom, it's just crazy," I said. "But your smile is identical to hers."

"You think so?" he said, looking closer.

"I'm positive. And she was so beautiful Jake."

Jake lingered on that picture for a while longer, tracing his finger over his mom's face. He was still smiling gently, but there was sadness in his eyes now.

"You okay?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah, I just still miss her so much sometimes Bells. I wish she could be here to tell us the stories behind some of these pictures that I don't remember." He looked up at me and touched my cheek. "I wish she could meet you now and tell you other stories that aren't pictured here. To be able to share my life with her and have her see that I found love and happiness, even in such crazy times." He looked back at the picture again, his voice tight with emotion. "There's just so much she doesn't get to be a part of… it's really not fair."

A single tear rolled down his cheek and I reached up to wipe it away as a few slid down my own face. It wasn't fair at all. I linked my arm through his and laid my head against him.

"I'm sorry Jake. Do you want to stop looking for now?"

He took a deep breath and shook his head. "No, I'm okay. It feels good to do this. There's sadness, but there are also so many happy memories in here. Hopefully my dad will be able to talk about her again someday."

Jake started flipping through the pages again and then he stopped after about four more pages.

"Holy crap!" he exclaimed. "This is it, Bella. This is that day I told you about a couple days ago in the clearing. Mom must have had a friend there that I don't remember."

He was pointing to a picture of his mom on the beach, with a partially built sandcastle. There were a lot of pictures, and I was in almost all of them, there in the sand with his mom. Just behind us was Jake with his little stick sword and a little further back were the girls and one other child, presumably the child of the person taking the picture, playing at the edge of the waves.

There was one picture that was closer up of me and Jake's mom and we were looking at each other and laughing. How I wished I could remember that day, but even with the pictures, I couldn't pull up any memory of it.

On the next page were two of my very favorite pictures that we had looked at so far. The first was a close-up of me and Jake. He had his arm wrapped around my neck, nearly choking me, and was smiling his big bright smile and I was looking at him sideways, not nearly as enthusiastic about the situation. Jake pointed at that picture at the same time and we both laughed loudly.

"You look very put out to be in such close proximity to me," he said, joy shining in his eyes again.

"If I only could have known," I said.

I then pointed to the other picture that had caught my eye. This one was of us with his mom behind the completed sandcastle that we had built. She was kneeling in the sand with an arm around each of us and we all had giant smiles on our faces in that one, Jake holding his stick sword aloft like a conquering hero.

"That sandcastle was pretty impressive," I said. "I think this is my favorite picture of all of them. Whether I remember it or not, I love that there is this record of our time together as kids."

"Me too."

We inspected those pictures for a little while longer then flipped through the last four or five pages.

"Can we take these with us? I think Charlie is coming over on Sunday afternoon to spend some time with me. Maybe he can share a few more stories with us from these pictures while Billy isn't there."

"Sure, I like that idea."

"We should probably head back. Angela will be coming by soon."

Jake nodded. I picked up the albums and Jake picked me up and headed out to the truck and back to Emily's.