It Don't Mean a Thing. Chapter 31: A Prediction
Title: It Don’t Mean a Thing Ch.31 A Prediction
Author: clara-eloise
Rating: M
Summary: Jacob takes Bella swing dancing. Edward is the instructor. A struggle for her affection begins that could start a war. Eventual Bella/Jacob.
Validation Beta: likexaxdove
Genre: Romance/Drama
Status: work in progress
Type: Multi Chapter
Bella watches anxiously through the kitchen window as she sees Jacob and Charlie talking outside. Just in case of emergency, she's taken the key to Charlie's gun cabinet and popped it in her jeans pocket.
It's inevitable this discussion - has been ever since they returned from Florida. She and Jacob had talked it over on the plane. Occasionally he would smile and touch her stomach with wonder.
"Do you think Jasper could pop over and be there in the background?"
Jacob had laughed at the suggestion, but frankly Bella thought it might be the only way they would escape from this showdown unscathed.
Charlie has been especially quiet since their return, and more mysteriously, has also been talking on his cell phone to someone who keeps calling at all hours of the day and night. The fact that Charlie has even bought his own phone, let alone knows how to text, is an entire source of mystery to Bella. He's always been keen to point out that he has folks calling and yacking to him all day on his work phone, so why would he want one at home when he has a perfectly decent land line?
It is just another thing to add to her general unease.
Outside, Jacob is slumped against the side of the red truck, hands in pockets. He looks far too relaxed.
"Quit talking about the weather Jake and just spit it out."
Then she sees her Dad's face change. He gesticulates, points to the sky and then gestures with both hands as if to mime an explosion.
Jacob looks stunned. He's shaking his head, then shrugging, then nodding.
Charlie has his hand on his shoulder and he's shaking him gently.
How Bella wishes she could lip read.
When a few minutes later, they enter the kitchen, Charlie's face is pale, but Jacob actually looks quite relieved.
"Well, it sure explains a few things…" Charlie is saying drily.
"I wanted to tell you sooner, Charlie."
"Well, I found out anyway," He barks a short laugh, then turns to his daughter, shaking his head.
"I just can't believe you've been going through this and you didn't tell me. There's secrets and then there's secrets, Bells. No wonder I was going off my head with worry. When I saw you two coming out of the woods with Jacob butt naked..."
Charlie is shaking his head, smiling. Then he laughs, an incredulous laugh, and Bella sees that look upon his face that has been there quite often since her return: ponderous, full of wonder.
"Uh, Dad?" Bella wonders if the news has actually pushed him over the edge into Crazy-Ville.
"Are you…okay with this? You don't think we're too young to be parents?"
Jacob is makin abort! abort signs behind Charlie's back, but it's too late. Charlie sways, holds onto the kitchen counter and seems to lose all control over his facial expressions which range from anger to shock to dismay to terror all in a fleeting moment.
"You-" He stares at Bella, then turns to Jacob
"You." He growls in a low voice.
"Well, what on earth were you two talking about outside?" Bella protests
As the day that will forever be known as Charliegate comes to a close, Bella curls up under her purple covers and switches off her bedside light. She lets her hands rest on her stomach, touches gently, imagining the little life growing inside of her. It feels like she's carrying this infinitely precious burden. Right then, she knows she would do anything for this little person she's going to mother.
Next door, she can hear Charlie talking on his cell phone yet again. He's probably had the worst week of his life. Finding out that his daughter's boyfriend was a mutant wolf was bad enough, but then discovering that said mutant wolf had knocked up his daughter was heart-attack territory. Funnily enough he seemed to be coping much better with the whole monsters-are-real thing than the scandal of the daughter-is-pregnant part.
Just as well they are saving the whole vampires-on-the-loose story for another day.
As she's lying there, starting to drift off, Bella feels a sudden surge of adrenaline, and then a wave of emotion tides through her. It's such a startling feeling that someone might as well have fired a pistol to get her attention.
Jasper.
She pulls back her bedclothes and opens her curtains. There he is down below under the tree, chalk white face and blonde hair. He nods and gestures for her to come down.
Pulling her dressing gown around her, Bella creeps down the stairs, past Charlie's room and the murmur of his voice.
This had better be important.
But then, with vampires, it usually is.
She opens the front door and Jasper is there.
"Um…do I have to invite you in for you to cross my thresh-hold?"
Jasper's mouth twitches into a smile. "Hardly. But we do need you. Carlisle asked if you would come."
"Now?"
"Yes, m'aam."
"Well, okay, but maybe I should change…"
Before she can act on this, Jasper has scooped her up and he's buckling her in to the Mercedes.
"Jasper, where are we going?" Bella is breathless, suddenly scared. Of all the Cullens, it's Jasper she's been most wary of.
"Our place."
"Do I get to ask why?"
He turns and raises an eyebrow.
"Alice, of course."
The Mercedes purrs out of the drive to the low sound of Carolina Chocolate Drops on the CD player.
As they pull in to the Cullen place, all white and lit up, Bella shivers with trepidation.
"It's alright, Bella. Edward's not here."
Bella nods sharply. Is she that transparent?
Feeling a little self-conscious in her dressing gown, she's even more embarrassed when Jasper once more picks her up and speeds inside the house vampire-style.
"Very cute, Jas." The little voice of Alice pipes up as Bella is carefully placed on the white sofa.
Everyone is there: Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper and Alice. Everyone except Edward.
Bella sighs with relief, then catches herself - realises that she should probably feel at the very least intimidated at basically being kidnapped in the middle of the night by a family of vampires. How strange life is.
"Bella, Welcome," Esme smiles.
"Thank you for coming at this late hour," Carlisle adds.
"Sure. It's the least I can do after…everything." Nursing me after a vampire attack. Killing said vampire. Protecting me and my family night and day. Looking after Jake when the imprint kicked his butt, even when you know I've not chosen Edward. Flying his rival down to Florida just so he can be with me. Mopping up the mess when our pregnancy hits headline news...
Carlisle nods. "I'm not sure how much Edward has told you about our kind. Did he ever mention the Volturi to you?"
Bella shakes her head.
"They are the closest we have to what you might call Kings. They are very powerful rulers, who enforce our laws and our way of being. Mostly just one law - that we are discreet."
Carlisle pauses, looks pained.
"It appears that we have not been discreet enough. Before Emmett killed Victoria, she was working with the Volturi. We never saw it - they hid well from us."
Bella feels her heart pound and her mouth go dry.
"Aro - the leader of the Volturi - is somewhat a collector of vampires with - special talents. He's often hinted that he wishes myself and my family to return to Italy with him to bolster his rule."
At this Esme puts her hand on Carlisle's arm, as if to comfort.
"And Victoria told them about the wolves? And me? And…Charlie?" Bella surmises, feels the full horror of it hit her.
"I would imagine he's fascinated by it. He's never come across anything that could challenge a vampire before. Knowing Aro, he'd like to see the wolves as pets sitting around his marble throne."
"No!" Bella cries out.
"It's alright, Bella. It's only one possible outcome." Alice puts her cold arm around Bella's shoulder.
"Tell her," Rosalie says, angrily. "For once tell her everything. She deserves to know it all. No mind games, Alice."
Alice shares a look with Jasper.
"I've seen the Volturi come to Forks. They find the wolves and Bella. They attack Bella. The kill one of the children-"
"Children?" Bella's eyes are wide.
"You are having twins, Bella. A boy and a girl. In this version of events your son is killed and your daughter is saved by Edward."
Bella rocks back, hands on her stomach, a low moan emitting from her mouth.
"Alice, it's too much for her." Esme leans forward in concern.
"Keep going" Rosalie warns. "You saw that she won't miscarry if we tell her."
"The Volturi attack Bella. She's dying, and they change her into a vampire. Edward and you end up going with the Volturi in exchange for Jacob remaining in La Push with your daughter."
Bella's cries are strangled. Alice pauses, then the last part comes out in a rush.
"I said I saw you and Edward together, Bella. But it wasn't quite like I thought. You would be together - a long time after Jacob and all the wolves and all your family, and your daughter's daughter are all dead and gone. Then you would be together, forever, for all eternity. As Isabella Cullen."
"That's enough, Alice. She knows. She can decide now." Carlisle frowns.
"Decide what?" Bella chokes out. "When have I ever been able to choos anything hat's happened to me?"
She looks around at the room of vampires, all sitting too still and too quiet. All looking at her expectantly.
"You said this version of events, Alice. Is there another?"
Then she realises.
"Where is Edward?"
"He's gone. Gone to Italy and the Volturi. Gone to be one of them…to appease them. He's sacrificed himself for you." Alice smiles sadly.
Bella sits, shocked beyond belief.
"Will that work?"
"Yes. It's him they want most of all, apart from me. And Aro knows I would never join him."
"But what about the wolves? Charlie and me?"
"While Edward serves the Volturi, he safeguards your lives," Carlisle explains. "You are the bargaining chips. If Aro destroys you, he turns Edward against him, loses the possibility of gaining all of us as allies. I would hazard a guess that Aro will love the idea of Edward loving a 'mere mortal.' It appeals to his sense of the absurd."
"So Bella," Alice leans forward. "Will you allow Edward to do this for you? Or will you come to Italy with me to try to stop him?"
Rosalie snorts, shakes her head in fury. "Alice, you ask too much."
Alice looks at her, imploringly. "He loves you, Bella."
"I know," Bella nods, her voice quiet, and her eyes shining with tears. "I love him too."
Alice smiles in triumph.
"But I love Jacob more. I love-" Bella cups her stomach through her dressing gown "- my children more."
As Alice's face falls, Rosalie nods and smiles in satisfaction. She rises up and glides over to Bella, places cold lips on her forehead.
"Live and be happy, Bella.