A New Beginning ~ Chapter 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Bella hadn't planned ahead for swimming, so the best she could do was strip to her bra and panties and dive into the water while Edward's back was turned. Alice would not be amused that the nice underthings she'd purchased were being drenched in lake water, but Bella couldn't make herself care. She was too busy watching Edward strip to his boxers. She laughed at him for not complaining about the double standard, but wouldn't tell him what was so funny as he stepped into the water. Naturally, he dunked her. Not that it mattered. The water neither felt cold, nor prevented her from breathing. She came up laughing instead of sputtering.
They played in the water for a long time before Bella got around to mentioning why she'd wanted to drag him out of the house in the first place. She was on her back, her lungs as full of air as she could make them, so that she would float. Edward was floating, too, his toes curled around her feet so she wouldn't float away from him. Bella's eyes were closed, so she hadn't noticed that he was staring at her. He'd never seen her in so little clothing before. He liked it quite a lot, and was planning on mentioning to Carlisle that wherever they were going next, it was going to have to be near a lake.
When Bella started to talk, she also started to sink. Kicking to stay afloat wasn't tiring at all, though, so it didn't bother her. "Is anyone nearby?" she asked. He paused for a moment to listen before answering.
"No." Edward let himself sink down into the water as well.
"I've been trying all week to think of a way to get you out of the house to talk. Someone's always listening. Irina..." she trailed off. She really DID pity Irina. She knew what it was like to lose the man she loved. She counted it a victory that her compassion remained, even if it was tempered now by her newfound, well, temper.
"Irina will recover," Edward said, hearing the worry in Bella's voice and misinterpreting it.
"I know. But I'm concerned about what she might do before then. She follows me, sometimes."
"Yes, I've noticed that," Edward said darkly. "I spoke to Carlisle about it. We'll be leaving as soon as we can without seeming impolite. Maybe early next month."
Bella nodded. She'd been hoping that would be the case, ever since Jacob had said he was visiting early. She reached for Edward’s hands. Neither of them really needed to paddle to stay above water anyway. "I need to tell you about my last conversation with Jake," she whispered, resisting the urge to scan the shore. If he said no one was nearby, she would believe him. "I called him the last time I went hunting."
She felt Edward go tense. The water around him seemed to shiver, and he pulled her a little closer to him, then seemed to change his mind. "I wanted to warn him not to come at Thanksgiving as we’d planned. I was afraid Irina might attack him. She already knew when I was expecting him. But when he figured out that was why I was worried, he said he was coming early."
Edward took all this in silently, trying to force himself not to tense further. "When will he arrive?" he asked stiffly. Esme and Alice's concerns about the nature of Bella and Jacob's friendship pushed their way to the forefront of his mind, and he couldn’t seem to force them away again.
"He's leaving after school on Friday night. He'll be here late on Saturday. I was planning to hunt -"
"I'd like to go with you." The formal tone wasn't doing him any favors and he knew it, but he couldn't seem to modulate his voice any other way.
Bella was shaking her head. "I don't think that would be a good idea." She bit her lip worriedly. Edward didn’t respond, but she could see the censure in his eyes, so she figured she’d better explain. “He saw what I was like after you left, Edward. I don’t think he likes you very much, and his temper is at least as bad as mine. Maybe worse. Besides, I was hoping you’d help me by keeping Irina at home.”
When he still didn’t answer, she began to think this had all been a big mistake. Maybe it would have been better if he’d never known Jake was coming. She’d set a precedent for hunting alone, she could have slipped away. “What are you thinking?” he asked, watching the expressions that crossed her face.
“That maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” she answered honestly. But she hadn’t wanted to keep secrets - not from Edward. It didn’t bother her to hide things from the others, but she wanted to be honest with him.
“I’m glad you did,” he assured her quickly. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like she had to lie. He felt too distant from her as it was. “It’s just difficult for me to let you go.” …to him, he wanted to add, but he refrained. He tried not to meet her eyes. Was his tendency towards jealousy emblazoned on his soul where she could see? He didn’t know. The pain of it certain FELT soul-deep.
They didn’t discuss it any further that day, instead making their way back to the shore and back to the house in silence. Bella felt guilty for mentioning it at all and Edward felt only worry. He resolved to talk to Alice and Esme about what exactly had sparked their concerns.
“Do you love him?” The question came out of nowhere, and from the least likely source possible.
Rosalie had found her alone in the room she and Edward shared while he was busy discussing their imminent departure with Carlisle and Esme.
“Of course I love him, why else would I be here?” Bella replied, confused. Rosalie’s hard expression gave way to amusement, and she pushed the door open a bit further and came into the room to sit down beside Bella on the couch.
“I wasn’t talking about Edward,” she explained. “Esme is worried that you might have feelings for Jacob Black, and Alice is concerned because your future disappears in a few days and she doesn’t know why. Edward has probably heard them thinking about it -”
“So, they elected you to come and ask?” Bella said skeptically. “And please keep your voice down, if Irina hears -“
“Irina’s hunting with her sisters. And no, they didn’t elect me. If Edward was paying attention, he’d already be up here throwing me out of the room.” Rosalie said all of this with an air of superiority while Bella stared into her eyes and studied what she saw there. Rose WAS haughty, but she also loved her brother and wanted to protect him. And this was how she was going about it - by forcing Bella to think about something she’d been avoiding since movie night with Jake and Mike. She was also, clearly, waiting for an answer.
“I suppose that’s something Edward and I should discuss,” Bella said finally, dodging the question.
Rosalie frowned prettily. “I suppose so,” she allowed, though she was obviously unhappy with that answer. Perhaps she would have preferred reassurance over honesty, but Bella was fairly certain Edward would rather have the honesty. And Edward was her main concern.
“Thanks, Rosalie,” Bella said quietly, standing up. And the taller girl understood. She was on her feet also, an instant later, and she left the room with a curt nod. Bella watched the door close behind her before she sat back down, but she didn’t go back to her book. Instead, she placed it carefully back on the shelf, knowing she’d remember her page without difficulty, and began trying to decide what she needed to say to Edward.
It was fortunate that her mind worked so quickly, because Edward must have passed Rosalie on the stairs. It was only a few moments before he appeared, smiling tentatively. “Carlisle says we’ll go in two weeks. He and Tanya were already discussing it. She understands.”
Bella smiled grimly back at him and as he registered her expression, his smile fell away. “What’s wrong?” She reached out her hands and when he took them, pulled him down to sit on the bed facing her. He sat without resistance.
“I want to talk to you about Jacob, but I don’t know how.” As she spoke, he turned his eyes away abruptly. “Especially when you won’t even look at me when I bring it up,” she finished, raising an eyebrow.
She watched Edward swallow, and tried to duck her head to the right to meet his eyes, but he didn’t allow it. Finally, she released his hands, and forced his face back towards hers. “Why are you looking away?” she asked, though she suspected she already knew the answer.
Edward let her cool hand turn his chin and met her gaze as evenly as he could manage. She didn’t give any indication of what she could or could not see in his eyes, so he didn’t have anything on which to base his fears. Still, the only way to find out what she was seeing was to ask, which amounted to telling her what he didn’t want her to see. He wasn’t very pleased to be in this predicament, and his mind was already listening closely to every other brain the house to see who had caused it. Bella, after all, had not been particularly keen to discuss Jacob before this moment. SOMETHING must have happened.
“Because I’m afraid you might be able to tell just how jealous I am every time you say his name,” he admitted finally, defeated. He tried to look away again, but Bella held him tightly, tilting her head as though considering, and staring deeply into his eyes.
“I can. And I think that’s why it’s important that we talk about it. I just don’t know where to begin.”
“At the beginning?” he suggested, some annoyance finally creeping into his voice.
“But then you’d have to wait through the whole conversation to hear what I’ve already concluded,” Bella teased, smiling a little. Edward didn’t return her smile.
“Better start with that, then.” The chill in his voice reminded her a lot of the day he’d left her in the forest behind Charlie’s house. It occurred to her for the first time that perhaps his fear of her leaving was more due to Jacob than to her initial anger with him.
Bella forced down the annoyance - after all HE was the one who’d left, saying he was pursuing distractions! How was it that he was now the jealous one? She shook her head to clear out the returning anger and tried to smile. “You are so stubborn,” she commented quietly, and immediately felt him stiffen. She let go of his chin and let her hand fall back into his, where he made no move to take it. He turned away from her again. She entwined their fingers, a little hurt by his distance, but comprehending the reason.
“What I’ve concluded is that no matter how angry you make me, or who else might enter or leave my life, I don’t ever want to be without you again. I do care about Jacob a lot, and maybe if Victoria had never attacked me, and you had never come home, there could have been something between us. But so long as you want me, Edward, there won’t ever be anyone else.”
When he turned back to look at her cautiously, she smiled again and put a hand to his cheek. “When I said I loved you, I meant it,” she assured him quietly.
Edward felt himself release a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding, and then quickly gathered her up into his arms and held her as tightly as he could. In the back of his mind it concerned him that she’d known exactly what he’d needed to hear - but he didn’t allow himself to consider that that might be the only reason she’d said it. Several long minutes passed. “Now, will you start at the beginning?” he whispered in her ear.
Bella laughed, and he felt himself smiling in answer as she pulled away and made herself comfortable on the bed. “I want to hear everything that happened while I was away,” he warned her, trying for a teasing tone, but hearing the anxiousness in his own voice even as he spoke.
“I’ve forgotten some,” Bella admitted. “But I’ll tell you everything I remember.” And she did, nearly. It was a very long conversation, followed - to be fair - by a rather shorter explanation of exactly what Edward had spent all those months doing.
In the end, Edward did the only thing he could do. He agreed to help her keep Irina at the house while she said goodbye to her best friend. As the words left his lips he was sure that if he’d needed his heart to survive, he’d have died on the spot.
Bella left to hunt alone on Saturday afternoon, glittering in the sunshine before she disappeared among the trees. Edward was monitoring Irina’s mind closely, but he was also standing at the window, watching Bella leave. She turned to wave at the tree line and he waved back, and that was it. He wondered if this was how she’d felt when he left her in the forest - thinking he was off to distract himself.
For her part, Bella was both excited and sad. It would be great to see Jacob again so soon, but she knew that this was goodbye. The Cullens were getting ready to leave Alaska, and she would be going with them. It might be years before she saw him again. It might be never. She had a few idle hours, which she spent hunting, and then she parked herself under the tree in the pine grove beneath which she had weathered her change. It was hours before she caught Jacob’s scent, and several minutes more before he actually appeared, clad in his usual cut-off sweats and nothing else. She launched herself toward him when he was ten yards away, laughing as they collided.
“Easy, Bells! If I go home with frostbite, the pack will talk!” Jake exclaimed, hugging her back in spite of it. Bella laughed again and let him go. “So you DID miss me. I wondered,” he added before she could say anything.
“I’m sorry about that call. I was panicking.”
“Clearly. But it’s good to see you. You look -” Bella’s smile faltered as he spoke. “You look happy,” he finished soberly.
She stared into his eyes for a fraction of a second. Not long enough that he’d realize what she was doing, but long enough to learn something important. She’d been able to see his soul in his eyes all along, even when she was human. THAT was why she hadn’t noticed her ability until she’d encountered others. There was something transparent about Jake that had made him an open book to her from the very beginning. She smiled again. “I am happy.”
Chapter 4
Chapter 2
Bella hadn't planned ahead for swimming, so the best she could do was strip to her bra and panties and dive into the water while Edward's back was turned. Alice would not be amused that the nice underthings she'd purchased were being drenched in lake water, but Bella couldn't make herself care. She was too busy watching Edward strip to his boxers. She laughed at him for not complaining about the double standard, but wouldn't tell him what was so funny as he stepped into the water. Naturally, he dunked her. Not that it mattered. The water neither felt cold, nor prevented her from breathing. She came up laughing instead of sputtering.
They played in the water for a long time before Bella got around to mentioning why she'd wanted to drag him out of the house in the first place. She was on her back, her lungs as full of air as she could make them, so that she would float. Edward was floating, too, his toes curled around her feet so she wouldn't float away from him. Bella's eyes were closed, so she hadn't noticed that he was staring at her. He'd never seen her in so little clothing before. He liked it quite a lot, and was planning on mentioning to Carlisle that wherever they were going next, it was going to have to be near a lake.
When Bella started to talk, she also started to sink. Kicking to stay afloat wasn't tiring at all, though, so it didn't bother her. "Is anyone nearby?" she asked. He paused for a moment to listen before answering.
"No." Edward let himself sink down into the water as well.
"I've been trying all week to think of a way to get you out of the house to talk. Someone's always listening. Irina..." she trailed off. She really DID pity Irina. She knew what it was like to lose the man she loved. She counted it a victory that her compassion remained, even if it was tempered now by her newfound, well, temper.
"Irina will recover," Edward said, hearing the worry in Bella's voice and misinterpreting it.
"I know. But I'm concerned about what she might do before then. She follows me, sometimes."
"Yes, I've noticed that," Edward said darkly. "I spoke to Carlisle about it. We'll be leaving as soon as we can without seeming impolite. Maybe early next month."
Bella nodded. She'd been hoping that would be the case, ever since Jacob had said he was visiting early. She reached for Edward’s hands. Neither of them really needed to paddle to stay above water anyway. "I need to tell you about my last conversation with Jake," she whispered, resisting the urge to scan the shore. If he said no one was nearby, she would believe him. "I called him the last time I went hunting."
She felt Edward go tense. The water around him seemed to shiver, and he pulled her a little closer to him, then seemed to change his mind. "I wanted to warn him not to come at Thanksgiving as we’d planned. I was afraid Irina might attack him. She already knew when I was expecting him. But when he figured out that was why I was worried, he said he was coming early."
Edward took all this in silently, trying to force himself not to tense further. "When will he arrive?" he asked stiffly. Esme and Alice's concerns about the nature of Bella and Jacob's friendship pushed their way to the forefront of his mind, and he couldn’t seem to force them away again.
"He's leaving after school on Friday night. He'll be here late on Saturday. I was planning to hunt -"
"I'd like to go with you." The formal tone wasn't doing him any favors and he knew it, but he couldn't seem to modulate his voice any other way.
Bella was shaking her head. "I don't think that would be a good idea." She bit her lip worriedly. Edward didn’t respond, but she could see the censure in his eyes, so she figured she’d better explain. “He saw what I was like after you left, Edward. I don’t think he likes you very much, and his temper is at least as bad as mine. Maybe worse. Besides, I was hoping you’d help me by keeping Irina at home.”
When he still didn’t answer, she began to think this had all been a big mistake. Maybe it would have been better if he’d never known Jake was coming. She’d set a precedent for hunting alone, she could have slipped away. “What are you thinking?” he asked, watching the expressions that crossed her face.
“That maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” she answered honestly. But she hadn’t wanted to keep secrets - not from Edward. It didn’t bother her to hide things from the others, but she wanted to be honest with him.
“I’m glad you did,” he assured her quickly. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like she had to lie. He felt too distant from her as it was. “It’s just difficult for me to let you go.” …to him, he wanted to add, but he refrained. He tried not to meet her eyes. Was his tendency towards jealousy emblazoned on his soul where she could see? He didn’t know. The pain of it certain FELT soul-deep.
They didn’t discuss it any further that day, instead making their way back to the shore and back to the house in silence. Bella felt guilty for mentioning it at all and Edward felt only worry. He resolved to talk to Alice and Esme about what exactly had sparked their concerns.
“Do you love him?” The question came out of nowhere, and from the least likely source possible.
Rosalie had found her alone in the room she and Edward shared while he was busy discussing their imminent departure with Carlisle and Esme.
“Of course I love him, why else would I be here?” Bella replied, confused. Rosalie’s hard expression gave way to amusement, and she pushed the door open a bit further and came into the room to sit down beside Bella on the couch.
“I wasn’t talking about Edward,” she explained. “Esme is worried that you might have feelings for Jacob Black, and Alice is concerned because your future disappears in a few days and she doesn’t know why. Edward has probably heard them thinking about it -”
“So, they elected you to come and ask?” Bella said skeptically. “And please keep your voice down, if Irina hears -“
“Irina’s hunting with her sisters. And no, they didn’t elect me. If Edward was paying attention, he’d already be up here throwing me out of the room.” Rosalie said all of this with an air of superiority while Bella stared into her eyes and studied what she saw there. Rose WAS haughty, but she also loved her brother and wanted to protect him. And this was how she was going about it - by forcing Bella to think about something she’d been avoiding since movie night with Jake and Mike. She was also, clearly, waiting for an answer.
“I suppose that’s something Edward and I should discuss,” Bella said finally, dodging the question.
Rosalie frowned prettily. “I suppose so,” she allowed, though she was obviously unhappy with that answer. Perhaps she would have preferred reassurance over honesty, but Bella was fairly certain Edward would rather have the honesty. And Edward was her main concern.
“Thanks, Rosalie,” Bella said quietly, standing up. And the taller girl understood. She was on her feet also, an instant later, and she left the room with a curt nod. Bella watched the door close behind her before she sat back down, but she didn’t go back to her book. Instead, she placed it carefully back on the shelf, knowing she’d remember her page without difficulty, and began trying to decide what she needed to say to Edward.
It was fortunate that her mind worked so quickly, because Edward must have passed Rosalie on the stairs. It was only a few moments before he appeared, smiling tentatively. “Carlisle says we’ll go in two weeks. He and Tanya were already discussing it. She understands.”
Bella smiled grimly back at him and as he registered her expression, his smile fell away. “What’s wrong?” She reached out her hands and when he took them, pulled him down to sit on the bed facing her. He sat without resistance.
“I want to talk to you about Jacob, but I don’t know how.” As she spoke, he turned his eyes away abruptly. “Especially when you won’t even look at me when I bring it up,” she finished, raising an eyebrow.
She watched Edward swallow, and tried to duck her head to the right to meet his eyes, but he didn’t allow it. Finally, she released his hands, and forced his face back towards hers. “Why are you looking away?” she asked, though she suspected she already knew the answer.
Edward let her cool hand turn his chin and met her gaze as evenly as he could manage. She didn’t give any indication of what she could or could not see in his eyes, so he didn’t have anything on which to base his fears. Still, the only way to find out what she was seeing was to ask, which amounted to telling her what he didn’t want her to see. He wasn’t very pleased to be in this predicament, and his mind was already listening closely to every other brain the house to see who had caused it. Bella, after all, had not been particularly keen to discuss Jacob before this moment. SOMETHING must have happened.
“Because I’m afraid you might be able to tell just how jealous I am every time you say his name,” he admitted finally, defeated. He tried to look away again, but Bella held him tightly, tilting her head as though considering, and staring deeply into his eyes.
“I can. And I think that’s why it’s important that we talk about it. I just don’t know where to begin.”
“At the beginning?” he suggested, some annoyance finally creeping into his voice.
“But then you’d have to wait through the whole conversation to hear what I’ve already concluded,” Bella teased, smiling a little. Edward didn’t return her smile.
“Better start with that, then.” The chill in his voice reminded her a lot of the day he’d left her in the forest behind Charlie’s house. It occurred to her for the first time that perhaps his fear of her leaving was more due to Jacob than to her initial anger with him.
Bella forced down the annoyance - after all HE was the one who’d left, saying he was pursuing distractions! How was it that he was now the jealous one? She shook her head to clear out the returning anger and tried to smile. “You are so stubborn,” she commented quietly, and immediately felt him stiffen. She let go of his chin and let her hand fall back into his, where he made no move to take it. He turned away from her again. She entwined their fingers, a little hurt by his distance, but comprehending the reason.
“What I’ve concluded is that no matter how angry you make me, or who else might enter or leave my life, I don’t ever want to be without you again. I do care about Jacob a lot, and maybe if Victoria had never attacked me, and you had never come home, there could have been something between us. But so long as you want me, Edward, there won’t ever be anyone else.”
When he turned back to look at her cautiously, she smiled again and put a hand to his cheek. “When I said I loved you, I meant it,” she assured him quietly.
Edward felt himself release a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding, and then quickly gathered her up into his arms and held her as tightly as he could. In the back of his mind it concerned him that she’d known exactly what he’d needed to hear - but he didn’t allow himself to consider that that might be the only reason she’d said it. Several long minutes passed. “Now, will you start at the beginning?” he whispered in her ear.
Bella laughed, and he felt himself smiling in answer as she pulled away and made herself comfortable on the bed. “I want to hear everything that happened while I was away,” he warned her, trying for a teasing tone, but hearing the anxiousness in his own voice even as he spoke.
“I’ve forgotten some,” Bella admitted. “But I’ll tell you everything I remember.” And she did, nearly. It was a very long conversation, followed - to be fair - by a rather shorter explanation of exactly what Edward had spent all those months doing.
In the end, Edward did the only thing he could do. He agreed to help her keep Irina at the house while she said goodbye to her best friend. As the words left his lips he was sure that if he’d needed his heart to survive, he’d have died on the spot.
Bella left to hunt alone on Saturday afternoon, glittering in the sunshine before she disappeared among the trees. Edward was monitoring Irina’s mind closely, but he was also standing at the window, watching Bella leave. She turned to wave at the tree line and he waved back, and that was it. He wondered if this was how she’d felt when he left her in the forest - thinking he was off to distract himself.
For her part, Bella was both excited and sad. It would be great to see Jacob again so soon, but she knew that this was goodbye. The Cullens were getting ready to leave Alaska, and she would be going with them. It might be years before she saw him again. It might be never. She had a few idle hours, which she spent hunting, and then she parked herself under the tree in the pine grove beneath which she had weathered her change. It was hours before she caught Jacob’s scent, and several minutes more before he actually appeared, clad in his usual cut-off sweats and nothing else. She launched herself toward him when he was ten yards away, laughing as they collided.
“Easy, Bells! If I go home with frostbite, the pack will talk!” Jake exclaimed, hugging her back in spite of it. Bella laughed again and let him go. “So you DID miss me. I wondered,” he added before she could say anything.
“I’m sorry about that call. I was panicking.”
“Clearly. But it’s good to see you. You look -” Bella’s smile faltered as he spoke. “You look happy,” he finished soberly.
She stared into his eyes for a fraction of a second. Not long enough that he’d realize what she was doing, but long enough to learn something important. She’d been able to see his soul in his eyes all along, even when she was human. THAT was why she hadn’t noticed her ability until she’d encountered others. There was something transparent about Jake that had made him an open book to her from the very beginning. She smiled again. “I am happy.”
Chapter 4