(no subject)
Hello dears. Back again, bearing fic.
Title: Apologies
Ship: Jacob/Bella [obviously]
Rating: PG-13 for language and sex
Spoilers: Eclipse
The night before the wedding, a wolf howls outside her window.
Edward tenses, his tawny eyes flashing down to her instinctively, and Bella rises, padding barefoot to the window that hangs open to admit the slightest summer breeze. She stands there, bathed in silver moonight, and feels the ache in her chest become so agonizingly dominant that she thinks she may die from the loneliness; feels the plaintive cry pierce through a heart that beats all the more rapidly for the knowledge that its hours are numbered.
Unconsciously, she stretches out a hand, leaning out the open window. Her fingers extend slowly, reaching for a future she sacrificed for the ring that throws the light of the moon back at her, for the cold statue that waits in her bed. A future that now seems as unattainable as eternity once had.
In the calm of her mind she breathes his name, knowing what must be done.
The ring slides from her finger with an ease that whispers it never belonged there. Edward's eyes as she presses it into his palm are sad in a way that would have killed her a year ago. But his acting skills rival any award-winner's, and he smiles crookedly, and presses his lips to the now-naked hand one last time. And when he slips out her window a few minutes later, Bella knows she will never see him again. Her one chance at forever, gone.
It would have broken her before. Tonight she's too numb to feel the blow. All she can do is stare out the window again and try to justify herself with thinking eternity might not be for everyone. Or maybe it just isn't for her.
As soon as the sun's visible, Bella runs downstairs. Charlie's already in the kitchen, and his eyes (bloodshot, but not possibly as badly as her own) tell her he knows there'll be no wedding today, the lines of his face sympathetic. So much so, in fact, that she wonders fleetingly what they've told him. But it doesn't really matter, after all.
Neither of them try to speak. She sweeps her keys from the counter, attempts a smile, and panics as her truck rattles and groans all the way to La Push. It's never been such a relief to see anything as it is to lay eyes on Billy's house now, and she clambers out of the truck. The door opens, and at the sight of russet skin and dark hair, her heart stops, but only temporarily, before it restarts in an erratic, jerky rhythm. Embry, Quil, Sam, and Jared file out of the house to stand before her.
Their expressions range from tranquil to furious, and a new dimension joins them as Leah Clearwater, twisting her fingers through hair cut below her ears, glides out the door, smirking. Bella's eyes search their faces frantically, but whatever emotions any of them harbor towards her, none of their faces betray the answer to the question she's so desperate to ask. Finally, she whispers his name, fingernails biting half-moons into her palms. Embry snarls convulsively, spinning away, and Bella turns back to Sam, wrongness screaming in the pit of her stomach. Sorrow washes his face, and it's all the answer she needs.
Bella wavers, and then her knees buckle. Sam catches her just in time to stop her hitting the ground, but it's still too late. Darkness has already claimed her, taken her to a world free of sunlight or moonlight or stars, and oh God, it's so dark. And she's so alone.
X
How do you recover when the very air around you swims with the memories you're trying so desperately to forget?
You don't. So she runs. First to Renee for the summer, then to a small college just far enough from Forks that commuting is impossible. Charlie doesn't question her decision, just nods and smiles and doesn't even show alarm when he finds her methodically shredding all her other acceptance letters. The day she leaves, the sun comes out for the first time in weeks.
The apartment she rents is small but airy, in a building full of her fellow students and completely free of memories. She visits Forks only when Charlie asks. Christmas happens to be one of those occasions, and she spends her first Christmas Day as a college student preparing a dinner of which she doesn't take a bite, but Charlie eats three helpings, and that's good enough. Because after all, she's only here for him. As she's clearing up dishes he mentions off-handedly that Jacob's back from his extended stay with family in California, and that they saw each other a few days ago. Bella abruptly drops a glass, which fortunately isn't really glass but plastic, and shoots Charlie a warning glance that tells him the topic is closed.
That night she hears a wolf howl outside yet again, but closer this time, as though it were coming from right underneath her window. Pulling her shoes on frantically, Bella runs down the stairs, out the door, onto the porch, knowing that any minute he'll be there, stepping out of the trees - but there's nothing. Walking deeper into the forest, she calls his name, only to hear it reflected back at her. Her voice escalates to a scream, then wears to a hoarse rasp, until she's left broken and sobbing on the frigid ground, arms curled around her knees, still whispering his name. Charlie finds her an hour or so later, carries her quietly up the stairs to her room, pauses as though considering saying something, but then shakes his head and shuts the door on the way out. The only possible reason Bella can conjure for his lack of questions is that he already knows.
The next morning she packs her things, kisses Charlie on the cheek, says a mental goodbye to the place that holds everything she wishes she could forget, and drives away for good.
Almost two years of her life pass in a fog. She gets a job at a clothing store at the local mall - oh, if only Alice could see her now - that brings in enough to cover her rent and keep her fed. Whe she's not working she's in class or asleep. The girls that could have been her friends stopped advancing after a semester of unresponsiveness. The men are a little harder to dissuade, and it takes nearly a year for them to process the fact that she, Bella Swan, simply does not date. She's sure they chalk it up to different things amongst themselves, but the truth of it is, when you've loved first perfection and then imperfection in its most glorious form, no one else can quite measure up.
She is alive. But barely more than that.
On her 21st birthday, she walks into her apartment from morning classes and finds Jacob Black sitting on her kitchen counter.The sight of him is almost like a physical blow, and her notebook drops from fingers gone limp, hitting the ground with a dull thud. "Happy birthday, Bells." he says, unsmiling.
At the sound of his voice, the glue that's held her together for the endless months melts, and she gasps fruitlessly for air, sitting hard on the sofa, veins standing out in her clenched fists. He's at her side immediately, tipping her chin up with fingers so impossibly warm, eyes worried. "Oh, damn it. Breathe, Bella, breathe. It's just me. It's Jake."
As if she needs to be told that. Grasping frantically for the last vestiges of her self-control, she manages to pull herself together. Something tells her this is not the time to break down sobbing and throw herself into his arms, no matter how perfect that sounds at the moment. "Well, say something." he mutters self-consciously, running a hand through the hair that falls almost to his shoulders again. This is simply too much. Bella considers it a feat to be commended that she's even capable of moving and breathing independently right now; conversation is far too much to ask for. Rallying herself, she manages a simple where the hell have you been and it's barely out of her mouth when he kisses her.
She'd forgotten how warm he was. Heat burns from his mouth, searing trails of vitality through a body that feels as though it hasn't known heat or life in so long. He whispers her name like a dark secret, cradles her to his chest like she's the most precious thing he's ever laid eyes on. Her words come fast and soft and choked against his shoulder, and he matches them with his, missed you, want you, love you, love you, love you. He breathes apologies into her mouth in between brushes of his lips but she stills them; their mutual atonements can come later, just kiss me again, always loved you.
When he has to duck to carry her into the bedroom, they both realize, perhaps simultaneously, that he twin-sized bed doesn't stand a chance. Every blanket in the aparment is consigned shortly afterward to a pallet so large he has to move the living room furniture to make room for it. There are no words from either of them now, because where she envisioned a life of loneliness suddenly there's warmth, and where he expected humanity, there's a woman as cold as the future he sought to keep her from, frozen from months of living as though dead.
So he works the faded blue jeans down her legs, she peels the t-shirt over his head, and when it's just the two of them, he lays her on their makeshift bed and makes love to her on the living-room floor. She gasps a soft hiss of pain at his first movement, and he looks down at her, startled. You never -
She shakes her head quietly, a smile touching her lips, and he kisses her fervently, a desperately passionate light in his eyes. Her back arches, ever so slightly, and his mouth brushes the soft skin of her throat. They move together now, the rise and fall of their bodies gentle and rhythmic, his arms braced on opposite sides of her. Bella strokes back the dark silk curtains that fall around his face and gives herself over to the heat around her, inside her, tingling through every nerve in her body. The silence is broken only by their breathing: hers is escalating, she can tell, and Jacob's is too, a sheen of sweat touching his forehead, the hollow of his throat.She whispers an oh God Jake and he sighs deep in his throat, kissing her again. There can never possibly be enough of him, holding her, touching her, warming her, loving her, and it rushes overwhelmingly over her, sending her eyes flying open to hold his. When she climaxes, back arching to press her almost completely against him, she cries. Not from grief or pleasure, but from him. Jacob. From him, and from her own glorious humanity, the body that allows her to feel everything he's doing, and knowing how painfully close she had been to giving it up.
Jake groans low and throaty and collapses, bracing his weight on trembling arms before sinking with a shuddering sigh that sounds almost like a sob. They shift until he's holding her back against his chest, fingertips brushing over her collarbone, her jawline, her stomach, her hands. She feels the encircling warmth of his arms around her and nestles down into the blankets and him with a small sigh of completeness.There's so much they should say. So much they should talk about, so many things still unsaid between them. But he rests his cheek on her hair and breathes God, my Bella, and she responds with a quiet always, and it seems a mutual decision that the things unsaid will remain that way. At least for a while.
X
Title: Apologies
Ship: Jacob/Bella [obviously]
Rating: PG-13 for language and sex
Spoilers: Eclipse
The night before the wedding, a wolf howls outside her window.
Edward tenses, his tawny eyes flashing down to her instinctively, and Bella rises, padding barefoot to the window that hangs open to admit the slightest summer breeze. She stands there, bathed in silver moonight, and feels the ache in her chest become so agonizingly dominant that she thinks she may die from the loneliness; feels the plaintive cry pierce through a heart that beats all the more rapidly for the knowledge that its hours are numbered.
Unconsciously, she stretches out a hand, leaning out the open window. Her fingers extend slowly, reaching for a future she sacrificed for the ring that throws the light of the moon back at her, for the cold statue that waits in her bed. A future that now seems as unattainable as eternity once had.
In the calm of her mind she breathes his name, knowing what must be done.
The ring slides from her finger with an ease that whispers it never belonged there. Edward's eyes as she presses it into his palm are sad in a way that would have killed her a year ago. But his acting skills rival any award-winner's, and he smiles crookedly, and presses his lips to the now-naked hand one last time. And when he slips out her window a few minutes later, Bella knows she will never see him again. Her one chance at forever, gone.
It would have broken her before. Tonight she's too numb to feel the blow. All she can do is stare out the window again and try to justify herself with thinking eternity might not be for everyone. Or maybe it just isn't for her.
As soon as the sun's visible, Bella runs downstairs. Charlie's already in the kitchen, and his eyes (bloodshot, but not possibly as badly as her own) tell her he knows there'll be no wedding today, the lines of his face sympathetic. So much so, in fact, that she wonders fleetingly what they've told him. But it doesn't really matter, after all.
Neither of them try to speak. She sweeps her keys from the counter, attempts a smile, and panics as her truck rattles and groans all the way to La Push. It's never been such a relief to see anything as it is to lay eyes on Billy's house now, and she clambers out of the truck. The door opens, and at the sight of russet skin and dark hair, her heart stops, but only temporarily, before it restarts in an erratic, jerky rhythm. Embry, Quil, Sam, and Jared file out of the house to stand before her.
Their expressions range from tranquil to furious, and a new dimension joins them as Leah Clearwater, twisting her fingers through hair cut below her ears, glides out the door, smirking. Bella's eyes search their faces frantically, but whatever emotions any of them harbor towards her, none of their faces betray the answer to the question she's so desperate to ask. Finally, she whispers his name, fingernails biting half-moons into her palms. Embry snarls convulsively, spinning away, and Bella turns back to Sam, wrongness screaming in the pit of her stomach. Sorrow washes his face, and it's all the answer she needs.
Bella wavers, and then her knees buckle. Sam catches her just in time to stop her hitting the ground, but it's still too late. Darkness has already claimed her, taken her to a world free of sunlight or moonlight or stars, and oh God, it's so dark. And she's so alone.
X
How do you recover when the very air around you swims with the memories you're trying so desperately to forget?
You don't. So she runs. First to Renee for the summer, then to a small college just far enough from Forks that commuting is impossible. Charlie doesn't question her decision, just nods and smiles and doesn't even show alarm when he finds her methodically shredding all her other acceptance letters. The day she leaves, the sun comes out for the first time in weeks.
The apartment she rents is small but airy, in a building full of her fellow students and completely free of memories. She visits Forks only when Charlie asks. Christmas happens to be one of those occasions, and she spends her first Christmas Day as a college student preparing a dinner of which she doesn't take a bite, but Charlie eats three helpings, and that's good enough. Because after all, she's only here for him. As she's clearing up dishes he mentions off-handedly that Jacob's back from his extended stay with family in California, and that they saw each other a few days ago. Bella abruptly drops a glass, which fortunately isn't really glass but plastic, and shoots Charlie a warning glance that tells him the topic is closed.
That night she hears a wolf howl outside yet again, but closer this time, as though it were coming from right underneath her window. Pulling her shoes on frantically, Bella runs down the stairs, out the door, onto the porch, knowing that any minute he'll be there, stepping out of the trees - but there's nothing. Walking deeper into the forest, she calls his name, only to hear it reflected back at her. Her voice escalates to a scream, then wears to a hoarse rasp, until she's left broken and sobbing on the frigid ground, arms curled around her knees, still whispering his name. Charlie finds her an hour or so later, carries her quietly up the stairs to her room, pauses as though considering saying something, but then shakes his head and shuts the door on the way out. The only possible reason Bella can conjure for his lack of questions is that he already knows.
The next morning she packs her things, kisses Charlie on the cheek, says a mental goodbye to the place that holds everything she wishes she could forget, and drives away for good.
Almost two years of her life pass in a fog. She gets a job at a clothing store at the local mall - oh, if only Alice could see her now - that brings in enough to cover her rent and keep her fed. Whe she's not working she's in class or asleep. The girls that could have been her friends stopped advancing after a semester of unresponsiveness. The men are a little harder to dissuade, and it takes nearly a year for them to process the fact that she, Bella Swan, simply does not date. She's sure they chalk it up to different things amongst themselves, but the truth of it is, when you've loved first perfection and then imperfection in its most glorious form, no one else can quite measure up.
She is alive. But barely more than that.
On her 21st birthday, she walks into her apartment from morning classes and finds Jacob Black sitting on her kitchen counter.The sight of him is almost like a physical blow, and her notebook drops from fingers gone limp, hitting the ground with a dull thud. "Happy birthday, Bells." he says, unsmiling.
At the sound of his voice, the glue that's held her together for the endless months melts, and she gasps fruitlessly for air, sitting hard on the sofa, veins standing out in her clenched fists. He's at her side immediately, tipping her chin up with fingers so impossibly warm, eyes worried. "Oh, damn it. Breathe, Bella, breathe. It's just me. It's Jake."
As if she needs to be told that. Grasping frantically for the last vestiges of her self-control, she manages to pull herself together. Something tells her this is not the time to break down sobbing and throw herself into his arms, no matter how perfect that sounds at the moment. "Well, say something." he mutters self-consciously, running a hand through the hair that falls almost to his shoulders again. This is simply too much. Bella considers it a feat to be commended that she's even capable of moving and breathing independently right now; conversation is far too much to ask for. Rallying herself, she manages a simple where the hell have you been and it's barely out of her mouth when he kisses her.
She'd forgotten how warm he was. Heat burns from his mouth, searing trails of vitality through a body that feels as though it hasn't known heat or life in so long. He whispers her name like a dark secret, cradles her to his chest like she's the most precious thing he's ever laid eyes on. Her words come fast and soft and choked against his shoulder, and he matches them with his, missed you, want you, love you, love you, love you. He breathes apologies into her mouth in between brushes of his lips but she stills them; their mutual atonements can come later, just kiss me again, always loved you.
When he has to duck to carry her into the bedroom, they both realize, perhaps simultaneously, that he twin-sized bed doesn't stand a chance. Every blanket in the aparment is consigned shortly afterward to a pallet so large he has to move the living room furniture to make room for it. There are no words from either of them now, because where she envisioned a life of loneliness suddenly there's warmth, and where he expected humanity, there's a woman as cold as the future he sought to keep her from, frozen from months of living as though dead.
So he works the faded blue jeans down her legs, she peels the t-shirt over his head, and when it's just the two of them, he lays her on their makeshift bed and makes love to her on the living-room floor. She gasps a soft hiss of pain at his first movement, and he looks down at her, startled. You never -
She shakes her head quietly, a smile touching her lips, and he kisses her fervently, a desperately passionate light in his eyes. Her back arches, ever so slightly, and his mouth brushes the soft skin of her throat. They move together now, the rise and fall of their bodies gentle and rhythmic, his arms braced on opposite sides of her. Bella strokes back the dark silk curtains that fall around his face and gives herself over to the heat around her, inside her, tingling through every nerve in her body. The silence is broken only by their breathing: hers is escalating, she can tell, and Jacob's is too, a sheen of sweat touching his forehead, the hollow of his throat.She whispers an oh God Jake and he sighs deep in his throat, kissing her again. There can never possibly be enough of him, holding her, touching her, warming her, loving her, and it rushes overwhelmingly over her, sending her eyes flying open to hold his. When she climaxes, back arching to press her almost completely against him, she cries. Not from grief or pleasure, but from him. Jacob. From him, and from her own glorious humanity, the body that allows her to feel everything he's doing, and knowing how painfully close she had been to giving it up.
Jake groans low and throaty and collapses, bracing his weight on trembling arms before sinking with a shuddering sigh that sounds almost like a sob. They shift until he's holding her back against his chest, fingertips brushing over her collarbone, her jawline, her stomach, her hands. She feels the encircling warmth of his arms around her and nestles down into the blankets and him with a small sigh of completeness.There's so much they should say. So much they should talk about, so many things still unsaid between them. But he rests his cheek on her hair and breathes God, my Bella, and she responds with a quiet always, and it seems a mutual decision that the things unsaid will remain that way. At least for a while.
X