How Quickly is Forever - Chapter Five
A/N: Thanks to my amazing beta, Raindrop Soup. And thank you to the readers who know me and trusted me enough to give this fic a chance, even though Renesmee is a part of this story. I really wanted to explore post Breaking Dawn and the mess that Meyer claimed as a HEA. Thank you for trusting this in my hands enough to continue. I am trying to be true to all the characters and treat them with respect, but at the same time know that I would never put Jacob and Renesmee together in anything remotely resembling a romantic situation.
Chapter Five
BPOV
She’d been slinking around the house for the last two days. Moping was probably a better word. Human ears would not have heard her silently pad into the room, but nothing could sneak up on me anymore. Except maybe Alice and Edward, who both seemed to defy gravity when they moved.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“He wasn’t there. Where do you think he could have gone?”
Jacob had been missing for two days, ever since our encounter in the woods. No one knew where he had gone. He had a room up at the big house that he never used. He said the smell from more than two vampires at a time was stifling, and trying to sleep there was impossible. His room above the garage was empty as well. In fact, that was where Renesmee had just come from. She’d been checking everywhere for him non-stop.
“I don’t know, sweetie. He’ll show up soon. Don’t worry.”
She came over to the chaise and cuddled into my side. She hadn’t done that in ages. I put my arm around her and pulled her in close. She sweetly rubbed her cheek against my arm, nuzzling the satiny material of my blouse against her face. I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the floral scent of her hair.
In the old days, she would have put her hands on me and let me see what she was thinking, what she felt. But she’d become very guarded, and aside from the obvious sadness generating from her, her thoughts and feelings were successfully closed off to me.
After a much too short amount of time, she pulled away, a slight shiver shaking her slim frame.
“You’re cold.”
She sighed heavily and plodded up the stairs to her room.
I knew she was missing his warmth. I knew this because the last two days I’d been drawn to the kitchen, a room in my home that I hardly had use for. I kept guiltily creeping to the kitchen, looking all around, even though I knew I was alone, before turning on the burner and holding my hands over the heat. I was desperate to find something that could replicate his warm touch on me.
It wasn’t the same, but I kept trying nonetheless.
I stared out the window at the rose bushes, as they wound their way around the trellis across the patio. I went back to the place my mind had been before she’d interrupted me. Where it had been for the past two days.
There was so much emotion and too many buried feelings between Jacob and myself. That must be why every time they erupted into a physical act, it was angry, almost violent. Our moments of physical communication were so few and far between that every ounce of emotion that had been stored burst through in a mad torrent, overwhelming us both.
I was so deep in thought, I almost jumped when I felt two arms wrap across my shoulders and around my neck as Edward came up behind me.
“Miss me, love?”
“Edward!” I forced a smile on my face. “Of course. How was it?”
“Oh, you know. Lions and tigers and bears.”
“Oh my.”
He chuckled at my joke. “Not really, of course. No tigers.”
He walked back to his canvas bag, full of his things that would have to be thrown away. Hunting was not easy on clothes. What the blood stains didn’t ruin, the rips and tears from bear and mountain lion claws did. There was usually a large bonfire on returning night from hunts where we’d toss our used wardrobes into the flames to dispose of the evidence.
He turned back to me as he made his way to the stairs. “How were things here?” he asked.
He was expecting an answer of “fine” while he continued toward the stairs.
I pressed my lips together tightly. “Jacob is missing.”
It was just a matter of time until he heard about it from someone else. Probably Renesmee, as that was practically her only topic of conversation since Jacob had been gone.
“What?” He set his bag down, his brows knitting together in concern. “What do you mean, missing?”
“Well, no one has seen him in two days, and we have no idea where he’s gone.”
“That’s not like Jacob.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”
“Did he say anything to Nessie? Mention he might be taking a trip or visiting his father?”
“No.”
He paused for a few moments, thinking, but then he shrugged, repeating what I had said to Renesmee less than an hour ago. “He’ll turn up. I’m sure if there was any foul play, we would know by now, right?”
I nodded briefly. “I think so, yes.”
He came to me and kissed my cheek. “I missed you,” he murmured before he headed up the stairs.
I wanted to return the sentiment, but the words wouldn’t come.
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JPOV
I wiped the sweat off my forehead, and lined up a fresh board. Holding a nail in place, I hammered the board securely. I was far enough away from the house that no one could hear the hammering and sawing I’d been doing.
When I left Bella in the forest a few days ago, I went into a panic. What had I done? How was it going to affect my imprint? How was it going to affect Bella? How was I going to keep it from Edward? The damn leech dipped into my thoughts like a bear with a honey pot.
Jesus.
As I ran through the woods, I had remembered seeing a small cottage out beyond the ravine behind the garage. Hidden away in the trees, it was remote enough that I knew no one would come looking for me there. It had been a nice place at one time, but it looked like someone had taken some of the walls down, and the roof had a few leaks, leaving some water damage on the hardwood floors inside.
I’d found the place a few years ago, and had actually begun to fix it up then. I liked the idea of having my own space away from the Cullens. But I’d been side-tracked with Nessie at the time - she was growing so fast - and after only a little sporadic work on the place, I’d kind of forgotten about it, resigning myself to living above the garage.
But now was the perfect time to make the place livable again. It must have belonged to one of the Cullens at one time, but they’d really wrecked the place. Waste of a nice space. I shook my head in disgust. Once those bloodsuckers got enough use out of anything, they just tossed it away.
I was just about done; my hard work had paid off. I’d repaired the broken side walls and the two holes in the roof. Luckily, the windows were intact, and once I cleaned them, they’d be good as new. All that remained was putting a finish on the hardwood floors, and I could do that before nightfall tomorrow.
I looked up at the sky. It was mid-afternoon, and thick white clouds were moving in over the sun. I’d have to go back soon. I really hated the way I’d left things with Nessie the other day. Geez, I’d really screwed up. First with Nessie and then with Bella.
Bella.
I thought I’d regret what happened, and I might have if she had seemed remorseful at all. I hadn’t seen her since then, maybe she was now that it had time to sink in. She sure hadn’t seemed reluctant at the time.
It wasn’t how I’d thought it would be. Whenever I’d imagined making love to Bella - and I’d imagined it a lot through the years - she’d been soft, warm, and smelling of strawberries. Human.
She was different now. Not bad, but … different.
I still loved her, though. I knew that much.
Different.
Hell, everything was different.
I grabbed the last remaining nail and slammed the hammer down on it so hard, the foundation of the whole house shook.
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RPOV
I thought I would lose my mind in the three days that Jacob was gone. I must have paced the floor of my bedroom a million times, and looked out my window at least that many. I was scared he wouldn’t come back. I was afraid I had ruined everything. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?
Late afternoon of the third day, I was lying on my bed at the big house, trying to read one of the books Auntie Rose had to sneak past my mother to give to me, when I heard the roar of a motorcycle far in the distance. My hands froze, and I held my breath as the sound grew louder and closer.
When there was finally no denying that the bike was pulling up to the house, I ran to the window. A shot of adrenaline coursed through me, and I jumped up and down, squealing, when a large figure in black leather, blue jeans, and no helmet pulled up to the front door.
I ran down the stairs, practically knocking poor Uncle Emmett down. He smiled at me and started to say hello, but I barreled past him, flinging the door open and running down the porch steps.
“Jax! Jax!” I threw myself at him, full barrel. I heard his husky laugh as I hugged him, still jumping up and down. He hugged me back, chuckling at my enthusiasm.
“Watch out, Nessie, the tail pipes are hot. You’re going to burn your legs.”
“I don’t care,” I told him, still clinging to him.
“Come on, we’ll go for a ride.” He disentangled my arms from around his neck, and I got on behind him. “We’ll go down to the garage and grab you a helmet. I want to show you something.”
I buried my face in his jacket and closed my eyes, hanging on tight. As we pulled away, I looked back at the house.
My mother was standing in the window, watching us as we drove away.
Once we’d picked up a helmet and it was securely strapped on my head, Jacob steered his Harley toward a path that led down the rocky ravine.
“Hold on tight. It’s a little hairy till we get to the bottom.”
“Okay!” I hollered back at him over the roar of the motor.
The narrow path was steep, and the tires spun and slipped a few times on the small rocks, but Jacob took his time until the hill evened out before taking off through the dead grass. We went through a crop of trees that had a small clearing just on the other side, and I could see a small house just ahead of us. He pulled up to the separate garage directly alongside the house and killed the engine.
“What do you think?” he asked me. He ran his hand through his shiny black hair and shook it into place.
It was a cottage similar to the one I lived in with my parents. It was painted blue and had a lot of brickwork in the front, as well as a bricked wall with an iron gate you had to pass through to get to the front door.
“It reminds me of the three little pigs,” I told him.
“The three little pigs?”
“You know, the three little pigs. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. The third little pigs’ house was made of brick. Like this one.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “There’s always a big, bad wolf.”
“Only in the best ones.” I smiled and followed him up a walkway that led to the iron gate. It looked like there had been a lawn and some flowerbeds beside the windows in the front, but it was all brown and dead now.
“Who lives here?” I whispered as we approached the front door.
He leaned in and whispered back in my ear. “I do.”
“You do?”
“Yes. So we can stop whispering. No one can hear us.”
I giggled. “Did you build this?”
I followed him into the empty house, my shoes echoing on the hardwood floor. There was a front room immediately inside the entry, with an expansive brick fireplace taking up nearly one whole wall.
“No,” he told me. “I found it here a while ago, and I’ve been fixing it up the last few days.”
“This is where you’ve been?” I’d gone back to whispering, afraid to talk about his disappearance.
“Yep. Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
There was a cute, sunny kitchen with a huge picture window over the sink. It had two bedrooms, one with a bathroom attached and a sunken tub with jets. I hopped into the empty tub with a big grin.
“Oooh, can I test drive your tub?”
“Sure, sure.”
“So whose place was this?” I asked him, laying my head back against the porcelain.
“I don’t know. One of your aunts’ and uncles’, I suppose. Or maybe your grandparents’.”
“Huh. It’s nice.” I shut my eyes and made my voice as casual as possible. “Can I stay here with you?”
He didn’t answer me right away.
“There are two rooms,” I added quickly. “I might even let you have the big one,” I joked.
“Ha-ha. You can visit me sometimes.” He leaned against the marble sink counter.
“So …” I studied the brass bath knobs across from me intently. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”
“I was never mad at you, Ness,” he said softly.
“Then why did you run away?”
He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “Because I’m a coward, and an idiot, that’s why. Ness, look at me.”
I slowly lifted my gaze to meet his.
“I was never mad at you. I know you’re growing up, and I know you’re confused. So am I. Our lives are bound. We have a connection that will never go away. But we can define what that connection is.”
He repeated his last sentence as if he were trying to convince himself of it. “We can define what that connection is. I know we’ve never really talked about all this. But that’s only because we don’t know that much about it - why it happens, what it means, what the purpose is …”His voice trailed off.
“But you’re not going to leave?”
“No. I don’t know that I could, even if I wanted to.”
He ran his hand over his face, looking at me and then looking away. “I’m going to tell you something. I don’t know if I should or not, but I’m trying to be honest with you. We were all led to believe that what we… that when I …” He growled, fighting to find the right words. “We all assumed that imprinting was for finding the right mate. That all of us who had imprinted would become a couple with our imprints. But, I don’t know if that holds true for all of us.”
“You mean for you and me,” I said softly. “That’s why Aunty Rose …”
“That’s why Rosalie, what?” he asked sharply. He and Aunty Rose weren’t exactly the best of friends.
“She said something about you …” I stopped, embarrassed. He had practically told me he didn’t think he’d ever see us together that way. “She said you would be giving me a diamond ring one day.”
His lips tightened angrily, and he shook his head in disgust. “That really wasn’t your aunt’s place to tell you something like that. I’m sorry, Ness.”
I felt something wet drop onto the back of my hand and realized my face was wet with sudden tears.
Jacob came and squatted beside the tub and wiped the tears off my cheek with his thumb. “Aw Ness, don’t cry, angel. I’m not saying that one day my feelings won’t change. But right now, you’re still a little girl to me. All I know is what I feel right now. I love you, Nessie. And I am always going to be here for you. That I do know. Okay? Please, let’s just go back to how things were, all right? Don’t cry.”
He put his arms around me, and I leaned across the cold porcelain and sobbed against his neck. My head was screaming No! But I nodded my head in affirmation, because I knew that’s what he wanted.
It took everything I had not to let him see what I felt and what I’d been through while he was gone. The older I got, the less and less I used my gift. Instead of perfecting it like the others in my family did, I’d taught myself to dull its strength. What was useful and even cute as a child had become a burden and an embarrassment as I got older. I no longer liked to wear my heart, my emotions, and my soul on my sleeve, so to speak.
But sometimes, like now, I felt that nothing I could say would convey what I really felt inside. My heart is breaking sounded so cliché without actually feeling the physical pain of the knife twisting in your chest.
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