A New Beginning ~ Chapter 2
Chapter 1
They stayed in their room for several more days, comforting each other just with their presence. Few more words were exchanged. Bella still struggled with her temper occasionally, and Edward noticed. Instead of talking, he made good use of his stereo, and they lay together on the bed Alice had chosen for them, content to hold one another. Bella resisted the urge to spend all their time staring into his eyes. It almost felt like an imposition, to let herself become too acquainted with his soul. But the glimpses she managed made her feel more secure in his affection. The love he was capable of! And it certainly seemed to all be focused on her. For his part, Edward was perfectly content to hold her close to him for the next several weeks, if she would allow it.
Bella, however, could not go as long without sustenance as Edward could. The sun had just gone down on the third day when she lifted her head. "I need to hunt tonight."
Edward, confident again that he had her love, if not yet her full trust, pulled her up from the bed with a smile. "Great! Let's go!"
Bella held her ground, however, when he turned to pull her toward the door. "I think this would be a good time for me to be alone, Edward." She felt ridiculously guilty as his face fell. "I'll be back in a few hours. It doesn't have to be a camping expedition, like it would be if we were in Forks. The wildlife is all nearby."
"I'm not sure I can stand to have you out of my sight," he admitted, trying to speak gently when all he felt was worry. He didn't want to anger her, but he didn't want her to leave and not come back, either. The irony of the situation didn't escape him. HE was the one with a history of disappearing without notice, and yet he was afraid she might do the same. He reached up a hand to trace her cheek and she smiled at him.
"I think that should be my line. I'm not going to disappear. I just want some time to think."
"About how angry you are with me?"
Bella wanted to reassure him, but wasn't sure how to go about it. That WOULD be one of the main things on her mind. That, and how angry she was with the rest of them for listening to him when he said they had to leave her. And also, how unlike her it was to BE so angry, and whether she could deal with being the sort of person who GOT so angry, and if not, how she could go about changing her temper. All of this flashed through her mind in the span of a non-existent heartbeat, but Edward noticed her distraction.
"Can you ever forgive me?" he whispered dejectedly.
Bella smiled again. "Yes. I can." She was able to say this with a fair amount of certainty. Truly, she was halfway to forgiving him right then, and it had only taken a few days of companionship, and the knowledge that if he ever pulled something like that again, she'd be more than equipped to hunt him down and MAKE him come home. It troubled her to know that as a human, her forgiveness would likely have been instantaneous and complete, but she felt fairly certain that if he'd gone through the same thing with Rosalie, he'd have been groveling for months, not hours. "But you're going to have to give me some time. Things aren't just going to be what they were before - not right away. I'm," she paused for a long moment. "I'm not that girl anymore, Edward. I'm not what I used to be. I want to be with you, but I need some time to learn how to be with ME, first."
Edward smiled tentatively. This was something he could relate to. Although his memory of his human life was dim, he recalled vividly how he'd felt in the first years after his transformation. He too had perceived the differences in himself and had to come to terms with them. He resolved to help her in any way he could, even if it meant giving her space. He nodded. "I'll be here when you come home," he said quietly.
"You had better be, Edward Cullen." She was only half teasing, but he let himself grin anyway, before stepping close to her again and pressing his lips to hers gently. Her hands came up to cup his cheeks, and she kissed him back reverently, slowly. "I love you," she whispered, when she finally pulled away. She was out the door and down the stairs while Edward was still recovering. Kissing her was far more intense for him, now, and he didn't manage to return her sentiments before she disappeared. But they were in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't like any humans might overhear.
His shout shook the windows and made the furniture rattle against the hardwood floors. "I LOVE YOU, BELLA SWAN!"
He heard her answering laughter from two floors below, and then let his eyes fall closed. The joy of having her back seemed to war in his head with the agony of knowing she was leaving, even for just a few hours. He turned up the stereo and settled himself back on the bed to wait, tuning out the rest of the house again.
Bella left the staircase grinning, and ran into Alice for the first time in days. Alice also looked amused, but Bella’s smile was gone. "I got you this phone while I was in town last week," Alice said, putting a small blue cell phone into Bella's hand quickly. "I'm really glad you came back."
Bella put aside her anger for a moment - Alice had deserted her just as surely as the others had - and forced a smile back onto her face. "Thanks, Alice." She slipped the phone into her pocket and hugged the shorter girl quickly before darting out the door.
The forest was familiar to her now in a way that Tanya's house was not. She set off for the pine grove but stopped halfway there, at a better altitude. She singled out the scent of bear and began. The hunt was over quickly. One large game and a few deer, and she was ready to go back, but she hesitated.
She traipsed back to the lake and climbed the rock to her diving platform, smiling. Then she pulled the cell phone from her pocket. It had signal. It had been a while, but she was pleased to realize she recalled Jacob's telephone number. Important things slipped away daily, but goofy details she'd never expected to need were there when she needed them. And Edward thought the HUMAN mind was a sieve! She programmed Jake's number into the phone and then called it.
"Hello?" She was relieved that it was Jacob who picked up. Explaining to Billy who she was when she wasn't sure he was in the loop would have been tricky.
"Hi, Jake. It's Bella."
There was a moment of silence, and she could feel the tension stretching across the miles.
"How did you get near a phone?" he demanded in a whisper. "Bells, what have you done?!" Pain clawed at her briefly when she realized that he thought she'd harmed someone.
"I ran into the Cullens. They're here in Alaska. They bought me a satellite phone, Jake. I'm nowhere near civilization." She took a deep breath. "I promise. You know I would never -" She stopped. Never what? Never admit it to him if she'd murdered an innocent human? Because they both knew she would kill someone if she got too close.
"I know," he said anyway, sounding relieved. Bella hung her head and kicked her feet a little into the air over the ledge. Yeah, he knew. "So you ran into the Cullens?" he prompted haltingly after a few moments.
"Yeah. They're staying with some friends. That's why I'm calling." She fell silent again, reluctant to say what she had to, to keep him safe, because it meant she wouldn’t see him at Thanksgiving. He waited. "One of the others was close to Laurent. She isn't dealing well with losing him. Before I realized, I had already told them you were coming for Thanksgiving, so you can't come. I think she's dangerous."
Jacob snorted into the phone, clearly amused by this assessment. "If you think one angsty vampire is going to keep me from visiting -"
"Edward is here," she admitted quickly. She hadn't meant to say it so bluntly, but she needed Jacob to understand. He couldn't come here. He had to stay home. This earned her another long silence.
"You would rather I didn't visit," he said finally, sounding resigned.
"No, of course not! Jake, I miss you. But you can't come up here. It isn't safe."
"Isn't safe for me, or isn't safe for you?" She could hear the accusation in his tone. He clearly thought that she was more worried about protecting her renewed relationship with Edward than in protecting Jacob. But it really wasn't about either of those things.
"It isn't safe for Irina. If she attacks you -"
"So, you're protecting Laurent's mate, who wants to kill me?"
Bella closed her eyes and tried to convince herself that crushing the phone would punish only Alice and not Jacob. It was good to know that she could be this angry at someone other than just Edward. "I just don't want to have to kill her to protect you," she whispered finally. Again, silence.
"No, I don't want that either," he responded, sounding more humble than she'd ever heard him.
"Jake, I want to see you. But I don't want to create a fight where there doesn't need to be one. And I don't want you in danger. I'm alright, now. I miss you, but I don't need you to come up here anymore. Please, will you stay home? So I don't have to worry? When I'm ready, when I'm safe to be around, I'll visit you, okay?" She could hear the desperation in her own voice. She really did want to see him. Waiting until she got herself under control might mean they didn't see one another for years. She had no idea how long it might take her to learn to resist the scent of human blood.
"You don't want me to come at Thanksgiving because she's expecting me?" he asked after a moment, ignoring her pleas. "Then I'll come next weekend. Meet me at our pine." He hung up quickly, before Bella could manage a response. She clicked the phone closed gently, aware that her annoyance might cause her to break it if she wasn't careful.
She sat a little longer, looking up at the stars, contemplating the conversation that had just taken place. Jacob was coming this weekend. She wasn't even sure what day it was. She'd have to check when she got home.
Bella paused a second to smile over that thought. But she wasn't going to be able to tell anyone that he was coming. If Irina was paying attention, and Bella suspected she was, she would overhear. She climbed down to terra firma and ran back to the house. Back to Edward. She could keep this one secret for Jacob's sake.
Emmett looked at her oddly when he caught her in the kitchen, looking at a calendar that no one had turned for months. "I realized I didn't even know the date," she explained quietly. He nodded, pulling up a chair backwards and straddling it with a smirk.
"Got time for a rematch?" he asked. He'd been asking every few hours since the first time, when he'd lost spectacularly.
"She doesn't. You can't arm wrestle every three hours until you win," Edward said quietly from the doorway. Neither had heard him come downstairs. Bella grinned. Emmett swore good-naturedly.
When Edward held out his hand to her, she crossed the room as quickly as she could to take it, and he laughed happily, pulling her into a hug.
It had been two days since her solo hunting trip. Edward and Jasper had been hunting since then as well. Sunday was still three days away, and she was fairly certain she could get away.
Being apart from Edward wasn't as hard for her as she'd expected. Edward, on the other hand, didn't handle it well. While he hunted (which he'd done in less than an hour) Esme had mentioned that he had gone a little stir crazy waiting for her during HER hunting trip. She, on the other hand, had blown six hundred dollars on bookshelves and books she'd ordered online while he was out. She blamed that entirely on Kate. Between Kate and Alice, she was going to have to shop for herself, or they'd constantly be buying her things she didn't want. Like the clothes. She shook her head as she thought back on it.
Edward, being even more observant these days than she remembered, noticed her reminiscing at once. When he asked what she was thinking, she explained and he laughed again. As a human, she'd thought the sound of his laughter beautiful. Now, she found it exquisite. Everything she'd loved about him seemed more intense to her now than it had before. She and Emmett both laughed with him.
"Come on," she said, pulling him towards the front door, and away from the still-disappointed Emmett. It might be another six months before he could beat her at arm wrestling, but that didn't dampen his enthusiasm to try.
"Where are we going?"
"For a walk." Edward raised an eyebrow, but continued to let himself be led outside. When she caught his expression, Bella grinned. "You remember walking. We used to do it all the time. Hiking? Trailblazing? Let's do that."
"Bella, we walked because asking you to run was more dangerous than poking you with a pitchfork, and you came home with more holes."
Bella rolled her eyes at him as he laughed, but he was right, so she didn't disagree. She HAD been the world’s biggest klutz. "Let's ... go swimming, then. Let's go to the lake."
Edward's joviality melted away, to be replaced by intensity that still took her breath away, though she thought she ought to be used to it. "I'll follow you anywhere you want to go. Lead the way." He'd paused and brought his hand to her cheek. It seemed clear to Bella that he was about to kiss her, and her lips parted in anticipation, but he pulled away abruptly. "Irina is watching from her window," he whispered. "She seems angrier than usual."
Bella closed her mouth, but didn't reply. Instead, she pulled him into the trees at a run, holding his hand more tightly than usual.
Chapter 3
They stayed in their room for several more days, comforting each other just with their presence. Few more words were exchanged. Bella still struggled with her temper occasionally, and Edward noticed. Instead of talking, he made good use of his stereo, and they lay together on the bed Alice had chosen for them, content to hold one another. Bella resisted the urge to spend all their time staring into his eyes. It almost felt like an imposition, to let herself become too acquainted with his soul. But the glimpses she managed made her feel more secure in his affection. The love he was capable of! And it certainly seemed to all be focused on her. For his part, Edward was perfectly content to hold her close to him for the next several weeks, if she would allow it.
Bella, however, could not go as long without sustenance as Edward could. The sun had just gone down on the third day when she lifted her head. "I need to hunt tonight."
Edward, confident again that he had her love, if not yet her full trust, pulled her up from the bed with a smile. "Great! Let's go!"
Bella held her ground, however, when he turned to pull her toward the door. "I think this would be a good time for me to be alone, Edward." She felt ridiculously guilty as his face fell. "I'll be back in a few hours. It doesn't have to be a camping expedition, like it would be if we were in Forks. The wildlife is all nearby."
"I'm not sure I can stand to have you out of my sight," he admitted, trying to speak gently when all he felt was worry. He didn't want to anger her, but he didn't want her to leave and not come back, either. The irony of the situation didn't escape him. HE was the one with a history of disappearing without notice, and yet he was afraid she might do the same. He reached up a hand to trace her cheek and she smiled at him.
"I think that should be my line. I'm not going to disappear. I just want some time to think."
"About how angry you are with me?"
Bella wanted to reassure him, but wasn't sure how to go about it. That WOULD be one of the main things on her mind. That, and how angry she was with the rest of them for listening to him when he said they had to leave her. And also, how unlike her it was to BE so angry, and whether she could deal with being the sort of person who GOT so angry, and if not, how she could go about changing her temper. All of this flashed through her mind in the span of a non-existent heartbeat, but Edward noticed her distraction.
"Can you ever forgive me?" he whispered dejectedly.
Bella smiled again. "Yes. I can." She was able to say this with a fair amount of certainty. Truly, she was halfway to forgiving him right then, and it had only taken a few days of companionship, and the knowledge that if he ever pulled something like that again, she'd be more than equipped to hunt him down and MAKE him come home. It troubled her to know that as a human, her forgiveness would likely have been instantaneous and complete, but she felt fairly certain that if he'd gone through the same thing with Rosalie, he'd have been groveling for months, not hours. "But you're going to have to give me some time. Things aren't just going to be what they were before - not right away. I'm," she paused for a long moment. "I'm not that girl anymore, Edward. I'm not what I used to be. I want to be with you, but I need some time to learn how to be with ME, first."
Edward smiled tentatively. This was something he could relate to. Although his memory of his human life was dim, he recalled vividly how he'd felt in the first years after his transformation. He too had perceived the differences in himself and had to come to terms with them. He resolved to help her in any way he could, even if it meant giving her space. He nodded. "I'll be here when you come home," he said quietly.
"You had better be, Edward Cullen." She was only half teasing, but he let himself grin anyway, before stepping close to her again and pressing his lips to hers gently. Her hands came up to cup his cheeks, and she kissed him back reverently, slowly. "I love you," she whispered, when she finally pulled away. She was out the door and down the stairs while Edward was still recovering. Kissing her was far more intense for him, now, and he didn't manage to return her sentiments before she disappeared. But they were in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't like any humans might overhear.
His shout shook the windows and made the furniture rattle against the hardwood floors. "I LOVE YOU, BELLA SWAN!"
He heard her answering laughter from two floors below, and then let his eyes fall closed. The joy of having her back seemed to war in his head with the agony of knowing she was leaving, even for just a few hours. He turned up the stereo and settled himself back on the bed to wait, tuning out the rest of the house again.
Bella left the staircase grinning, and ran into Alice for the first time in days. Alice also looked amused, but Bella’s smile was gone. "I got you this phone while I was in town last week," Alice said, putting a small blue cell phone into Bella's hand quickly. "I'm really glad you came back."
Bella put aside her anger for a moment - Alice had deserted her just as surely as the others had - and forced a smile back onto her face. "Thanks, Alice." She slipped the phone into her pocket and hugged the shorter girl quickly before darting out the door.
The forest was familiar to her now in a way that Tanya's house was not. She set off for the pine grove but stopped halfway there, at a better altitude. She singled out the scent of bear and began. The hunt was over quickly. One large game and a few deer, and she was ready to go back, but she hesitated.
She traipsed back to the lake and climbed the rock to her diving platform, smiling. Then she pulled the cell phone from her pocket. It had signal. It had been a while, but she was pleased to realize she recalled Jacob's telephone number. Important things slipped away daily, but goofy details she'd never expected to need were there when she needed them. And Edward thought the HUMAN mind was a sieve! She programmed Jake's number into the phone and then called it.
"Hello?" She was relieved that it was Jacob who picked up. Explaining to Billy who she was when she wasn't sure he was in the loop would have been tricky.
"Hi, Jake. It's Bella."
There was a moment of silence, and she could feel the tension stretching across the miles.
"How did you get near a phone?" he demanded in a whisper. "Bells, what have you done?!" Pain clawed at her briefly when she realized that he thought she'd harmed someone.
"I ran into the Cullens. They're here in Alaska. They bought me a satellite phone, Jake. I'm nowhere near civilization." She took a deep breath. "I promise. You know I would never -" She stopped. Never what? Never admit it to him if she'd murdered an innocent human? Because they both knew she would kill someone if she got too close.
"I know," he said anyway, sounding relieved. Bella hung her head and kicked her feet a little into the air over the ledge. Yeah, he knew. "So you ran into the Cullens?" he prompted haltingly after a few moments.
"Yeah. They're staying with some friends. That's why I'm calling." She fell silent again, reluctant to say what she had to, to keep him safe, because it meant she wouldn’t see him at Thanksgiving. He waited. "One of the others was close to Laurent. She isn't dealing well with losing him. Before I realized, I had already told them you were coming for Thanksgiving, so you can't come. I think she's dangerous."
Jacob snorted into the phone, clearly amused by this assessment. "If you think one angsty vampire is going to keep me from visiting -"
"Edward is here," she admitted quickly. She hadn't meant to say it so bluntly, but she needed Jacob to understand. He couldn't come here. He had to stay home. This earned her another long silence.
"You would rather I didn't visit," he said finally, sounding resigned.
"No, of course not! Jake, I miss you. But you can't come up here. It isn't safe."
"Isn't safe for me, or isn't safe for you?" She could hear the accusation in his tone. He clearly thought that she was more worried about protecting her renewed relationship with Edward than in protecting Jacob. But it really wasn't about either of those things.
"It isn't safe for Irina. If she attacks you -"
"So, you're protecting Laurent's mate, who wants to kill me?"
Bella closed her eyes and tried to convince herself that crushing the phone would punish only Alice and not Jacob. It was good to know that she could be this angry at someone other than just Edward. "I just don't want to have to kill her to protect you," she whispered finally. Again, silence.
"No, I don't want that either," he responded, sounding more humble than she'd ever heard him.
"Jake, I want to see you. But I don't want to create a fight where there doesn't need to be one. And I don't want you in danger. I'm alright, now. I miss you, but I don't need you to come up here anymore. Please, will you stay home? So I don't have to worry? When I'm ready, when I'm safe to be around, I'll visit you, okay?" She could hear the desperation in her own voice. She really did want to see him. Waiting until she got herself under control might mean they didn't see one another for years. She had no idea how long it might take her to learn to resist the scent of human blood.
"You don't want me to come at Thanksgiving because she's expecting me?" he asked after a moment, ignoring her pleas. "Then I'll come next weekend. Meet me at our pine." He hung up quickly, before Bella could manage a response. She clicked the phone closed gently, aware that her annoyance might cause her to break it if she wasn't careful.
She sat a little longer, looking up at the stars, contemplating the conversation that had just taken place. Jacob was coming this weekend. She wasn't even sure what day it was. She'd have to check when she got home.
Bella paused a second to smile over that thought. But she wasn't going to be able to tell anyone that he was coming. If Irina was paying attention, and Bella suspected she was, she would overhear. She climbed down to terra firma and ran back to the house. Back to Edward. She could keep this one secret for Jacob's sake.
Emmett looked at her oddly when he caught her in the kitchen, looking at a calendar that no one had turned for months. "I realized I didn't even know the date," she explained quietly. He nodded, pulling up a chair backwards and straddling it with a smirk.
"Got time for a rematch?" he asked. He'd been asking every few hours since the first time, when he'd lost spectacularly.
"She doesn't. You can't arm wrestle every three hours until you win," Edward said quietly from the doorway. Neither had heard him come downstairs. Bella grinned. Emmett swore good-naturedly.
When Edward held out his hand to her, she crossed the room as quickly as she could to take it, and he laughed happily, pulling her into a hug.
It had been two days since her solo hunting trip. Edward and Jasper had been hunting since then as well. Sunday was still three days away, and she was fairly certain she could get away.
Being apart from Edward wasn't as hard for her as she'd expected. Edward, on the other hand, didn't handle it well. While he hunted (which he'd done in less than an hour) Esme had mentioned that he had gone a little stir crazy waiting for her during HER hunting trip. She, on the other hand, had blown six hundred dollars on bookshelves and books she'd ordered online while he was out. She blamed that entirely on Kate. Between Kate and Alice, she was going to have to shop for herself, or they'd constantly be buying her things she didn't want. Like the clothes. She shook her head as she thought back on it.
Edward, being even more observant these days than she remembered, noticed her reminiscing at once. When he asked what she was thinking, she explained and he laughed again. As a human, she'd thought the sound of his laughter beautiful. Now, she found it exquisite. Everything she'd loved about him seemed more intense to her now than it had before. She and Emmett both laughed with him.
"Come on," she said, pulling him towards the front door, and away from the still-disappointed Emmett. It might be another six months before he could beat her at arm wrestling, but that didn't dampen his enthusiasm to try.
"Where are we going?"
"For a walk." Edward raised an eyebrow, but continued to let himself be led outside. When she caught his expression, Bella grinned. "You remember walking. We used to do it all the time. Hiking? Trailblazing? Let's do that."
"Bella, we walked because asking you to run was more dangerous than poking you with a pitchfork, and you came home with more holes."
Bella rolled her eyes at him as he laughed, but he was right, so she didn't disagree. She HAD been the world’s biggest klutz. "Let's ... go swimming, then. Let's go to the lake."
Edward's joviality melted away, to be replaced by intensity that still took her breath away, though she thought she ought to be used to it. "I'll follow you anywhere you want to go. Lead the way." He'd paused and brought his hand to her cheek. It seemed clear to Bella that he was about to kiss her, and her lips parted in anticipation, but he pulled away abruptly. "Irina is watching from her window," he whispered. "She seems angrier than usual."
Bella closed her mouth, but didn't reply. Instead, she pulled him into the trees at a run, holding his hand more tightly than usual.
Chapter 3