Dark Haired Children, Chapter 2.
title: Dark Haired Children, Chapter 2.
author: channings.
rating: T.
type: multi-chapter.
status: work in progress.
description: Jacob Black is haunted by vivid dreams of the girl he loves - pale, furious, deadly. But she knows her feelings now and despite her approaching nuptials, Jacob is convinced he can save her. 'Until your heart stops beating' was a promise.
A/N: Sorry this is late! I have NO internet in my dorm. :( I'm updating this from my friend's laptop. Here's the link to the FF.NET version.
run and tell all of the angels
this could take all night
think I need a devil to help me get things right
The monster that lived beneath the hood of Bella's truck roared as it powered through the rain. Within its cab, Jacob gave Bella a very pointed look - Are you sure nothing’s living under there? He wanted to say. Maybe you should check just to be safe. Though they'd left the rez 'to talk', there was a timid silence between them that not even the music trilling from the CD player or the squeaking of her windshield wipers adequately covered.
I'm going to kill you, she'd threatened. He gulped but the sound was swallowed by the truck's sad attempt at functioning.
“I definitely need to fix this thing up,” Jake said finally, when the quiet was too much for him to stand. “It sounds like a cement mixer every time you press the gas.”
Bella scowled. “No point, anyway,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Edward's buying me a new car.”
Jake coughed. How could he forget? His shoddy repair work could never compete with Cullen's bottomless wallet. It was like he and the vampire were playing an elaborate game of chess but Cullen was always six steps ahead. “Right. Silly me. I thought you were attached to this baby.”
“Oh, Jake,” Bella turned to glance at him for a second before averting her eyes to the road. No other words followed but he knew what she meant: stop making this so hard. As if he could. There was a trace amount of bitterness in him that he couldn't get rid of, and it only sat inside him, corroding him.
“You wanted to talk?” Jake said to change the subject. Not harsh enough, he decided. “Talk, Isabella.” He rolled his eyes at the absurdity of using her real name. She had never been Isabella, had always been Bella, sometimes Bells. The name was lead on his tongue.
She raised her eyebrows. “Isabella? Wow.” She squinted through the rain ahead. A few more silent minutes passed before, “I can't believe I'm getting married in a week.”
Jacob smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. “Is it everything you imagined? Married right out of high school.”
Bella honestly said, “No. I thought I'd go to college, of course. Figure out a career. But I'll have forever for that.”
“Not for a career,” said Jacob, “You'll always look like a girl fresh out of high school. That's what you'll always be.”
Bella grimaced. “I could always be a writer. There's no age requirement, no experience needed.”
“The writer who never ages? Not suspicious at all.”
“Well,” Bella said, frowning, “I don't think that's me, anyway.”
“What is? It's not like you have any dreams or aspirations besides turning into a leech.”
Silence returned, and Jacob remembered a time when they had had too much to say. Endless days in his garage where conversation was easy...
“I don't know.”
Be harsh, Jacob reminded himself. “Well, I hope you're not a one-hundred-and-something-year-old vampire when you finally know.”
He expected it to be quiet, after. He knew she wouldn’t have a thing to say, expect perhaps that he was making things difficult. Says the girl who wants to die, he thought miserably.
What Jake did not expect, however, was for Bella to swiftly pull over to the side of the road. They sat seemingly in the middle of the nowhere with nothing but swaying branches and leaves for company, Bella’s eyes getting glassier by the second until she hunched over the steering wheel and cried. He wanted to apologize but for what? Making her see how truly stupid she was being? Not likely. Instead, he reached out and patted her back reassuringly.
“Bells,” He used her nickname this time, “Are you okay? Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“I want him,” She heaved, “I'm scared to be old, ugly, even more undeserving of him.”
This time, he wrapped his arms entirely around her, pulled her in against his chest. “Never say that,” He whispered, “You deserve better. He's killed people. How could you ever be undeserving of him?”
“He's a good person, Jake.”
Jacob rolled his eyes, though she couldn't see as she cried into his chest. “Right, so good a person that he's forcing you to change yourself?”
Bella scowled. “He's not forcing me into anything.”
“This is just like when you came to Forks for your mother-who never asked you to leave her. You decide what's best for people and just do it, even if it damages you. That's selfless, sure, but you need to live for yourself sometime. At least once before you're dying for him.”
Bella sounded like she was choking. She coughed and sniffed, leaving wet trails of tears and mucus on Jacob's shirt. Then, finally. “Can you show me how?”
***
if heaven and hell decide, that they both are satisfied,
illuminate the 'no's on their vacancy signs
if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
then, i'll follow you into the dark
Jacob wasn't sure how he'd ended up in such a situation. His phone buzzed with phone calls from Sam and Billy-he'd deal with the voicemails of Sam's roaring protests, Billy's quiet disapproval later-but in the meantime he was only focused on the sleeping girl in the passenger seat of a truck that could barely drive a mile, much less across state lines.
Maybe once he would've told her ‘no.’ Maybe there had been a point in his life when he could have looked Bella Swan in the eye and disagreed. But that time was so far gone it didn't even make sense to remember it. There was only a present where Isabella Swan said, lets go, and Jacob Black said, okay, where? Neither of them knew where they were driving, just that it was a straight path away from Forks, away from what they had always known. The rest could be figured out later.
“Driving my truck is an honor,” she pronounced tiredly, “You better-” yawn, “-appreciate it.”
Around four the following morning, Jacob pulled into a motel parking lot. He prodded Bella gently in the ribs. “I need to sleep. Motel?”
Bella jerked upright, looking horrified. “Like, a motel room?” she asked.
“No, like a motel ice cream cone,” he deadpanned.
Bella scowled and swatted at his arm. “I don't know, Jacob. I hardly think that's appropriate.”
“We'll get two beds. I'll even sleep in the bath tub if that's more comforting.”
“I don't know,” Bella insisted, “Still.” But she pushed open the car door and stepped outside. Arm in arm, they strolled into the motel and asked for a room.
First thing, Jacob collapsed on one of the beds and shut his eyes tightly.
“Mine,” He said gruffly, hugging a pillow in his arms.
“Nice try,” Bella teased, “but the tub is yours.” Jacob opened one eye to glare at her.
“Wouldn't that make your showers a bit inappropriate?” he asked. “Not that I mind.”
Bella eyed him sternly. “Behave. I'm engaged.”
“And I'm a werewolf,” Jacob muttered. “What else is new?”
Next: Chapter 3