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no more talking from me. enjoy.
part 3
Bella’s mouth fell open and her breath blew out in a sharp gust.
“What’s wrong?” I asked worried. I thought back over what I had said. Wolves. Dammit, those stupid dogs. The only way I could hide my disgust was to keep my face blank and cold. A word that should never be said in front of a lady passed through my mind before I gave a stiff apology.
“Oh. Never mind the wolves, then, if the idea is offensive to you.” My words were formal, my shoulders rigid. A string of profanities ran through my head, all related to those stupid dogs.
Bella looked at me, sadness clouding her beautiful brown eyes. “He was my best friend, Edward.” She muttered, flinching slightly with the past tense. “Of course the idea offends me.”
“Please forgive my thoughtlessness. I shouldn’t have suggested that.” I still couldn’t relax. I hated these conversations.
“Don’t worry about it.” Bella said, very quietly, focusing on her clenched fists.
We were silent for a moment, and I realised what I was doing. I was making it worse, not better. Whatever animosity I felt towards Jacob Black, I had no excuse to take it out on Bella.
I placed my finger under her chin, her warm skin feeling lovely against mine. I coaxed her chin up, before apologising properly.
“Sorry. Really.”
“I know. I know it’s not the same thing. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. It’s just that...” she became more cautious as she spoke. “well, I was already thinking about Jacob before you came over.” She hesitated, gauging my expression.
part 4
I tried not to react, but she saw something in my eyes. Her voice turned heartbreakingly pleading in response.
“Charlie says Jake’s having a hard time. He’s hurting right now and...it’s my fault.” She looked so sad.
That stupid mutt! Why did he have to do this? Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Bella.” I managed to get out.
She took a deep breath. “I need to make it better, Edward. I owe him that. And it’s one of Charlies conditions, anyway—” she stopped suddenly, staring timidly at my face.
Now he had Charlie in on this? My anger bubbled to the surface. That dog, that mere pup was threatening to take Bella away from me. I wouldn’t allow it. The only problem was that I had to placate Bella.
“You know it’s out of the question for you to be around a werewolf unprotected, Bella. And it would break the treaty if any of us cross over onto their land. Do you want us to start a war?”
She looked at me horrified. “Of course not!”
“Then there’s really no point in discussing the matter further.” I pulled away.
My eyes scanned the room, hoping for a subject change. If I could keep her mind off it...
I noticed Wuthering Heights still sitting were Bella had left it, the pages creased and the binding splitting. I turned back to her, smiling as naturally as I could manage.
“I’m glad Charlie has decided to let you out—you’re sadly in need of a visit to the bookstore. I can’t believe you’re reading Wuthering Heights again. Don’t you know it by heart yet?”
“Not all of us have photographic memories.” She replied curtly, trying to dismiss my attempts at a topic change.
“Photographic memory or not, I don’t understand why you like it. The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others’ lives. I don’t know how Heathcliff and Cathy ended up being ranked with couples like Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. It isn’t a love story, it’s a hate story.”
Bella looked at me annoyed. “You have some serious issues with the classics.” She snapped at me.
“Perhaps I’m not impressed by antiquity.” I smiled, sure she was sufficiently distracted.
Unfortunately my attempt at distraction had lead to me becoming distracted myself. I desperately wanted to understand her, but it was so much harder not being able to hear her.
“Honestly, though, why do you read it over and over?” I reached across the table to cradle her face, making it easier to see her eyes.
“I’m not sure.” She replied, a bit dazed. “I think it’s something about the inevitability. How nothing can keep them apart—not her selfishness, or his evil, or even death, in the end...”
Well that had not been the answer I’d been expecting, but with Bella, which I was constantly forgetting, nothing was as I imagined. I smiled teasingly.
“I think it would be a better story if either of them had one redeeming quality.”
Bella became caught up in the conversation. “I think that is the point.” She disagreed. “their love is their only redeeming quality.”
I hope you have better sense than that—to fall in love with someone so...malignant.”
She smiled. “It’s a bit late for me to worry about who I fall in love with.” She pointed out. “but even without the warning, I think I've managed fairly well.”
I laughed quietly. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Well I hope you’re smart enough to stay away from someone so selfish. Catherine is really the source of all the trouble, not Heathcliff.” Her smile grew.
It was almost laughable, her talking of herself as selfish. She had no idea.
“I’ll be on my guard.” I promised.
She sighed, her smile fading and her eyes becoming serious again. Damn.
She placed her hand over mine, effectively holding it in place.
“I need to see Jacob.” She said firmly.
I closed my eyes. I needed to take it easy with her. This wasn’t her fault; she didn’t understand how dangerous werewolves could be. “No.” I said a little more softly.
“It’s truly not dangerous at all.” She began, breaking my still heart with her pleading. “I used to spend all day in La Push with the whole lot of them, and nothing ever happened.” I might have almost believed her—almost –but she slipped up, her voice faltering at the end as realisation hit her. Her breathing hitched in her throat and her heart accelerated.
I nodded slowly. “Werewolves are unstable. Sometimes, the people near them get hurt. Sometimes, they get killed.”
She tried to find her voice, obviously trying to contradict me, but the realisation reappeared in her eyes.
I sat there, grimly triumphant, waiting for Bella to find her voice.
“You don’t know them.” She whispered quietly.
I almost sighed. “I know them better than you think, Bella. I was here the last time.”
She looked at me, confusion swimming in her eyes.
“The last time?”
“We started crossing paths with the wolves about seventy years ago...” as soon as I began, vivid memories overtook me, instant recall making every detail appear as it had seventy years ago. “We had just settled near Hoquiam. That was before Alice and Jasper were with us. We outnumbered them, but that wouldn’t have stopped it from turning into a fight if not for Carlisle. He managed to convince Ephraim Black the coexisting was possible, and eventually we made the truce.”
Bella looked at me, startled.
“We thought the line had died out with Ephraim.” I muttered, more to myself than Bella. “That the genetic quirk which allowed the transmutation had been lost...” I broke off, staring at Bella accusingly. “Your bad luck seems to get more potent every day. Do you realise your insatiable pull for all things deadly was strong enough to recover a pack of mutant canines from extinction? If we could bottle your luck, we’d have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands.” I expected a smile and maybe a shove but all I got was surprised look.
“But I didn’t bring them back. Don’t you know?” she looked at me, taken aback.
“Know what?” I immediately asked.
“My bad luck has nothing to do with it. The werewolves came back because the vampires did.”
I looked at Bella, stunned.
“Jacob told me your family being here set things in motion. I thought you would already know...”
This was their theory? It was our fault? I narrowed my eyes. “Is that what they think?”
She looked at me, defiance clear in her voice. “Edward, look at the facts. Seventy years ago, you came here, and the werewolves showed up. You come back now, and the werewolves show up again. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
Huh. When you put it like that. “Carlisle will be interested in that theory.”
“Theory.” Bella scoffed.
I thought it through. It made sense, as improbable as it was. But how would the presence of vampires trigger such a transformation?
I looked back to Bella. “Interesting, but not exactly relevant.” I murmured after a moment. “The situation remains the same.”
Bella’s face twisted with annoyance, but straightened out into what I could only call understanding. I knew that she would not give up, but neither would I.
She looked at me, biting her bottom lip nervously. She stood up, walking around the table to me. I opened my arms and she sat on my lap, nestling into the contours I provided. Her warmth felt extraordinary against my stone skin and her scent engulfed me.
“Please just listen for a minute.” She said quietly. “Jacob is in pain.” Her voice distorted around the word. I desperately wanted to see her face, but she kept it hidden from me, hiding beneath a curtain of mahogany waves.
Her heart was too kind. She couldn’t help but feel for Jacob. And the stupid mutt was bound to know this.
She went on quickly, her hands pressed together. “I can’t not try to help him—I can’t give up on him now, when he needs me. Just because he’s not human all the time...Well, he was there when I was...not so human myself. You don’t know what it was like...” she trailed off, obviously noticing that I had frozen. My hands were clenched into tight fists, and my breathing stoped. My fault, all my fault. The pain I had caused her was too painful to even think about. I don’t know how she could forgive me. She never blamed me. I did.
“If Jacob hadn’t helped me...I’m not sure what you would have come home to. I owe his better than this, Edward.” My eyes were closed by the time she finished talking. I could hear in her voice the echo of pain that had been her constant companion throughout the time I left her. She was so kind, so forgiving, that she held me unaccountable to the blame that I so greatly deserved. I however, could never forgive myself. If I hadn’t left, nothing would have happened to her, and Jacob wouldn’t be involved at all.
“I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you.” I whispered to her. “Not if I live a hundred thousand years.”
I felt her hand on my cheek, the warmth spreading from her fingers across my skin, raising the temperature slightly. I kept my eyes closed, relishing the warmth. I calmed down slowly, her even breathing and heart beat working better than anything else could. I sighed and opened my eyes, looking down at my precious Bella.
“You were just trying to do the right thing. And I’m sure it would have worked with anyone less mental than me. Besides, you’re here now. That’s the part that matters.”
“If I’d never left, you wouldn’t feel the need to go risk your life to comfort a dog.”
I noticed my mistake when Bella flinched. I needed to remember to hold my tongue around Bella. She hated it when I used such derogatory slurs.
“I don’t know how to phrase this properly.” I said, my voice bleak. “It’s going to sound cruel, I suppose. But I’ve come too close to losing you in the past. I know what it feels like to think I have. I am not going to tolerate anything dangerous.”
“You have to trust me on this. I’ll be fine.”
Her pleading broke my heart, but I wouldn’t back down. I couldn’t.
“Please, Bella.” I whispered, staring straight into her eyes.
She looked at me, slightly stunned. “Please what?” she whispered back.
“Please, for me. Please make a conscious effort to keep yourself safe. I’ll do everything I can, but I would appreciate a little help.”
“I’ll work on it.” She murmured.
“Do you really have any idea how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I love you?” I pulled her tighter against my chest, tucking her head under my chin.
I felt her soft, warm lips press against my neck.
“I know how much I love you.” She answered.
“You compare one small tree to an entire forest.” I whispered lovingly.
I could imagine her rolling her eyes. “Impossible.” She said.
I kissed the top of head and sighed. “No werewolves.”
“I’m not going along with that.” She said stubbornly. “I have to see Jacob.”
“Then I’ll just have to stop you.”
“We’ll see about that.” She bluffed. I could hear the lie in her voice. She was such a terrible liar. “He’s still my friend.” She finished.
No matter how many times we had this conversation, it never failed to end this way. I would stop her, even if I had to dismantle her truck.
there we go, hope you enjoyed :)
please, please comment. that might sound desperate, but i'm not taking it back!!
no more talking from me. enjoy.
part 3
Bella’s mouth fell open and her breath blew out in a sharp gust.
“What’s wrong?” I asked worried. I thought back over what I had said. Wolves. Dammit, those stupid dogs. The only way I could hide my disgust was to keep my face blank and cold. A word that should never be said in front of a lady passed through my mind before I gave a stiff apology.
“Oh. Never mind the wolves, then, if the idea is offensive to you.” My words were formal, my shoulders rigid. A string of profanities ran through my head, all related to those stupid dogs.
Bella looked at me, sadness clouding her beautiful brown eyes. “He was my best friend, Edward.” She muttered, flinching slightly with the past tense. “Of course the idea offends me.”
“Please forgive my thoughtlessness. I shouldn’t have suggested that.” I still couldn’t relax. I hated these conversations.
“Don’t worry about it.” Bella said, very quietly, focusing on her clenched fists.
We were silent for a moment, and I realised what I was doing. I was making it worse, not better. Whatever animosity I felt towards Jacob Black, I had no excuse to take it out on Bella.
I placed my finger under her chin, her warm skin feeling lovely against mine. I coaxed her chin up, before apologising properly.
“Sorry. Really.”
“I know. I know it’s not the same thing. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. It’s just that...” she became more cautious as she spoke. “well, I was already thinking about Jacob before you came over.” She hesitated, gauging my expression.
part 4
I tried not to react, but she saw something in my eyes. Her voice turned heartbreakingly pleading in response.
“Charlie says Jake’s having a hard time. He’s hurting right now and...it’s my fault.” She looked so sad.
That stupid mutt! Why did he have to do this? Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Bella.” I managed to get out.
She took a deep breath. “I need to make it better, Edward. I owe him that. And it’s one of Charlies conditions, anyway—” she stopped suddenly, staring timidly at my face.
Now he had Charlie in on this? My anger bubbled to the surface. That dog, that mere pup was threatening to take Bella away from me. I wouldn’t allow it. The only problem was that I had to placate Bella.
“You know it’s out of the question for you to be around a werewolf unprotected, Bella. And it would break the treaty if any of us cross over onto their land. Do you want us to start a war?”
She looked at me horrified. “Of course not!”
“Then there’s really no point in discussing the matter further.” I pulled away.
My eyes scanned the room, hoping for a subject change. If I could keep her mind off it...
I noticed Wuthering Heights still sitting were Bella had left it, the pages creased and the binding splitting. I turned back to her, smiling as naturally as I could manage.
“I’m glad Charlie has decided to let you out—you’re sadly in need of a visit to the bookstore. I can’t believe you’re reading Wuthering Heights again. Don’t you know it by heart yet?”
“Not all of us have photographic memories.” She replied curtly, trying to dismiss my attempts at a topic change.
“Photographic memory or not, I don’t understand why you like it. The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others’ lives. I don’t know how Heathcliff and Cathy ended up being ranked with couples like Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. It isn’t a love story, it’s a hate story.”
Bella looked at me annoyed. “You have some serious issues with the classics.” She snapped at me.
“Perhaps I’m not impressed by antiquity.” I smiled, sure she was sufficiently distracted.
Unfortunately my attempt at distraction had lead to me becoming distracted myself. I desperately wanted to understand her, but it was so much harder not being able to hear her.
“Honestly, though, why do you read it over and over?” I reached across the table to cradle her face, making it easier to see her eyes.
“I’m not sure.” She replied, a bit dazed. “I think it’s something about the inevitability. How nothing can keep them apart—not her selfishness, or his evil, or even death, in the end...”
Well that had not been the answer I’d been expecting, but with Bella, which I was constantly forgetting, nothing was as I imagined. I smiled teasingly.
“I think it would be a better story if either of them had one redeeming quality.”
Bella became caught up in the conversation. “I think that is the point.” She disagreed. “their love is their only redeeming quality.”
I hope you have better sense than that—to fall in love with someone so...malignant.”
She smiled. “It’s a bit late for me to worry about who I fall in love with.” She pointed out. “but even without the warning, I think I've managed fairly well.”
I laughed quietly. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Well I hope you’re smart enough to stay away from someone so selfish. Catherine is really the source of all the trouble, not Heathcliff.” Her smile grew.
It was almost laughable, her talking of herself as selfish. She had no idea.
“I’ll be on my guard.” I promised.
She sighed, her smile fading and her eyes becoming serious again. Damn.
She placed her hand over mine, effectively holding it in place.
“I need to see Jacob.” She said firmly.
I closed my eyes. I needed to take it easy with her. This wasn’t her fault; she didn’t understand how dangerous werewolves could be. “No.” I said a little more softly.
“It’s truly not dangerous at all.” She began, breaking my still heart with her pleading. “I used to spend all day in La Push with the whole lot of them, and nothing ever happened.” I might have almost believed her—almost –but she slipped up, her voice faltering at the end as realisation hit her. Her breathing hitched in her throat and her heart accelerated.
I nodded slowly. “Werewolves are unstable. Sometimes, the people near them get hurt. Sometimes, they get killed.”
She tried to find her voice, obviously trying to contradict me, but the realisation reappeared in her eyes.
I sat there, grimly triumphant, waiting for Bella to find her voice.
“You don’t know them.” She whispered quietly.
I almost sighed. “I know them better than you think, Bella. I was here the last time.”
She looked at me, confusion swimming in her eyes.
“The last time?”
“We started crossing paths with the wolves about seventy years ago...” as soon as I began, vivid memories overtook me, instant recall making every detail appear as it had seventy years ago. “We had just settled near Hoquiam. That was before Alice and Jasper were with us. We outnumbered them, but that wouldn’t have stopped it from turning into a fight if not for Carlisle. He managed to convince Ephraim Black the coexisting was possible, and eventually we made the truce.”
Bella looked at me, startled.
“We thought the line had died out with Ephraim.” I muttered, more to myself than Bella. “That the genetic quirk which allowed the transmutation had been lost...” I broke off, staring at Bella accusingly. “Your bad luck seems to get more potent every day. Do you realise your insatiable pull for all things deadly was strong enough to recover a pack of mutant canines from extinction? If we could bottle your luck, we’d have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands.” I expected a smile and maybe a shove but all I got was surprised look.
“But I didn’t bring them back. Don’t you know?” she looked at me, taken aback.
“Know what?” I immediately asked.
“My bad luck has nothing to do with it. The werewolves came back because the vampires did.”
I looked at Bella, stunned.
“Jacob told me your family being here set things in motion. I thought you would already know...”
This was their theory? It was our fault? I narrowed my eyes. “Is that what they think?”
She looked at me, defiance clear in her voice. “Edward, look at the facts. Seventy years ago, you came here, and the werewolves showed up. You come back now, and the werewolves show up again. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
Huh. When you put it like that. “Carlisle will be interested in that theory.”
“Theory.” Bella scoffed.
I thought it through. It made sense, as improbable as it was. But how would the presence of vampires trigger such a transformation?
I looked back to Bella. “Interesting, but not exactly relevant.” I murmured after a moment. “The situation remains the same.”
Bella’s face twisted with annoyance, but straightened out into what I could only call understanding. I knew that she would not give up, but neither would I.
She looked at me, biting her bottom lip nervously. She stood up, walking around the table to me. I opened my arms and she sat on my lap, nestling into the contours I provided. Her warmth felt extraordinary against my stone skin and her scent engulfed me.
“Please just listen for a minute.” She said quietly. “Jacob is in pain.” Her voice distorted around the word. I desperately wanted to see her face, but she kept it hidden from me, hiding beneath a curtain of mahogany waves.
Her heart was too kind. She couldn’t help but feel for Jacob. And the stupid mutt was bound to know this.
She went on quickly, her hands pressed together. “I can’t not try to help him—I can’t give up on him now, when he needs me. Just because he’s not human all the time...Well, he was there when I was...not so human myself. You don’t know what it was like...” she trailed off, obviously noticing that I had frozen. My hands were clenched into tight fists, and my breathing stoped. My fault, all my fault. The pain I had caused her was too painful to even think about. I don’t know how she could forgive me. She never blamed me. I did.
“If Jacob hadn’t helped me...I’m not sure what you would have come home to. I owe his better than this, Edward.” My eyes were closed by the time she finished talking. I could hear in her voice the echo of pain that had been her constant companion throughout the time I left her. She was so kind, so forgiving, that she held me unaccountable to the blame that I so greatly deserved. I however, could never forgive myself. If I hadn’t left, nothing would have happened to her, and Jacob wouldn’t be involved at all.
“I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you.” I whispered to her. “Not if I live a hundred thousand years.”
I felt her hand on my cheek, the warmth spreading from her fingers across my skin, raising the temperature slightly. I kept my eyes closed, relishing the warmth. I calmed down slowly, her even breathing and heart beat working better than anything else could. I sighed and opened my eyes, looking down at my precious Bella.
“You were just trying to do the right thing. And I’m sure it would have worked with anyone less mental than me. Besides, you’re here now. That’s the part that matters.”
“If I’d never left, you wouldn’t feel the need to go risk your life to comfort a dog.”
I noticed my mistake when Bella flinched. I needed to remember to hold my tongue around Bella. She hated it when I used such derogatory slurs.
“I don’t know how to phrase this properly.” I said, my voice bleak. “It’s going to sound cruel, I suppose. But I’ve come too close to losing you in the past. I know what it feels like to think I have. I am not going to tolerate anything dangerous.”
“You have to trust me on this. I’ll be fine.”
Her pleading broke my heart, but I wouldn’t back down. I couldn’t.
“Please, Bella.” I whispered, staring straight into her eyes.
She looked at me, slightly stunned. “Please what?” she whispered back.
“Please, for me. Please make a conscious effort to keep yourself safe. I’ll do everything I can, but I would appreciate a little help.”
“I’ll work on it.” She murmured.
“Do you really have any idea how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I love you?” I pulled her tighter against my chest, tucking her head under my chin.
I felt her soft, warm lips press against my neck.
“I know how much I love you.” She answered.
“You compare one small tree to an entire forest.” I whispered lovingly.
I could imagine her rolling her eyes. “Impossible.” She said.
I kissed the top of head and sighed. “No werewolves.”
“I’m not going along with that.” She said stubbornly. “I have to see Jacob.”
“Then I’ll just have to stop you.”
“We’ll see about that.” She bluffed. I could hear the lie in her voice. She was such a terrible liar. “He’s still my friend.” She finished.
No matter how many times we had this conversation, it never failed to end this way. I would stop her, even if I had to dismantle her truck.
there we go, hope you enjoyed :)
please, please comment. that might sound desperate, but i'm not taking it back!!