Roswell Fanatics

Disclaimer: Of all the things I own in this world, neither Roswell nor Twilight are included in the count.
Category: XO with Twilight
Pairings: UC: Liz/Jacob
Rating: Mature, for language
Spoilers: Twilight and New Moon, All seasons of Roswell to be safe, though this goes AU around Alex's death.
Summary: when Liz Parker moved to Forks, Washington it was to get away from aliens and back to normal, too bad Forks isn't exactly normal.

A/N: The whole timeline is gonna be different for example Jake's gonna change earlier than how Meyers wrote it.Two warnings before this starts: one, it's probably going to be slow going as I have a lot of stuff on my plate at the moment and I'm not so sure where this is going. Two, I've never been a huge fan of the Twilight series. I actually only read the books because my sister wouldn't leave me alone until I did but I definitely fall into the Team Jacob category. Edwards character just rubs me the wrong way. So, I am focusing on the friendship between Liz and Bella then later the relationship between Liz and Jake, I don't know if Edward will be returning to Forks within the timeframe of this story. Though I have no idea who else I'd pair Bella with.
Bella was never actually aware of the passage of time. Somewhere a part of her knew that she got up every morning, went to school, went home, went to sleep, repeated the cycle over and over again. There was nothing, just existence. She could close her eyes and when she opened them, everything would be the same. Life had stagnated, any potential had been ripped apart when Edward had left.

Left and taken her heart with him, leaving her broken on the forest floor.

He had been so sure that he could make it like he had never existed, so sure that he could just wipe himself cleanly from her life. Arrogant vampire. Perhaps he had forgotten what it was like to be human with such an easily destroyed life. Vampires were supposed to feel attachments deeply, permanently. With all of eternity before them what could they know of having to passionately attach themselves to someone with everything they had because life was brief and tomorrow was never sure.

It was like all the air had been sucked out and she'd been left existing on what was left in her lungs.

She shuffled her way into the cafeteria, ignoring the way some of the people she went past followed her with stares and whispers. She had gotten used to it. The people of Forks liked nothing more than good gossip and apparently the daughter of the Chief of Police was an excellent source. They never seemed to get enough. Everything she did seemed to spread like wild fire.

First she'd moved to Forks then she'd almost gotten crushed by Tyler's van then she'd dated the illusive Edward Cullen then she'd disappeared to Phoenix to return injured then she'd gone missing for a day as she'd gotten lost in the fog of loss and now she existed in some sort of between. Half alive. Half dead. She wasn't like the Cullen's, she would never be a part of them. She was worse. A zombie. A shell.

Because of Him. Because of Edward. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed away the flood of tears that was threatening to pour out of her. These days she was always on the verge of tears. Hot, burning, stinging, crushing, raw sobs. Always a hair away from the surface. Bella was attached and detached to the world around her. Anything could set her off but nothing could reach her.

Charlie was at his wits end. She knew that and she wished she could comfort him, tell him empty lies about how she'd work through it and it'd all be ok in the end but she couldn't make those sort of promises. Even if he knew they weren't true.

Letting out a deep breath she pulled out the cheese sandwich Charlie had made for her. It was his attempt at making sure she would eat since someone had told him that she wasn't getting lunch off the line anymore even though he gave her money for it. So now her period consisted of half heartedly nibbling at whatever he'd bagged for her instead of just staring at the table.

“Excuse me,” Bella started, dropping her sandwich barely even registering that the cafeteria had gotten a shade quieter as all the residents of Forks High yet again turned their attention to the Chief's daughter. “Can I sit here?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

The words were horse and it made her wonder how long it had been since she'd spoken to anyone. No one bothered her at school and at home Charlie was easily put off. She let herself soak in the girl sitting across from her but couldn't place her. Not that she knew everyone in the school but Forks was a small town with an even smaller high school. The face should've been familiar... and it was but not because she'd passed the girl in a hall way or on the street.

Dark, almost black hair hung around her small face like a curtain blocking out the world because it hurt too much to let the world see how little life there was in her features. Deep brown eyes were bruised from a lack of sleep and there was a stressed pinched look about her. It was like looking in the mirror and for the first time in months Bella was terrified, not because she wouldn't ever see Edward again but because of what was happening to her life. She was wasting away, drowning in sorrow and eventually it would destroy her.

It'd kill her.

“You're new,” again her voice was almost a croak and she quickly sipped the juice Charlie had packed to wash it away.

“Yeah,” the girl gave a forced little smile like she was answering a completely different question. “I just moved from New Mexico.”

Another terrifying similarity.

“I'm from Arizona,” they sat in awkward silence for a moment before she could think of something new to say. Had it really been so long since she'd had a conversation? “So do you miss the weather yet?”

The girl smiled again this time with a hint of pained amusement, “From the moment I stepped off the plane.”

Bella's face crinkled into a matching smile. It felt weird, “Bella Swan”

“Liz Parker,” the luke warm hand stiffened in hers “They talk about you a lot.”

“Uh, my dad's the Chief of Police.”

“No, well yeah, but... you got dumped,” Bella felt the flinch before it showed. “Sorry, it's just, I did too.”

They lapsed into silence. Thick and unsteady.

Liz cleared her throat, “So, um, what was yours?”

“Vampire,” the answer had come without a thought, passing her lips even as she recognized that it shouldn't. Her hand tightened on her juice, “Yours?”

“Cloned half-human alien king,” Chocolate brown met dark brown and the pair let the mirth bubble out.

It felt good to laugh even if it did have a hysterical edge to it.

*

Charlie braced himself as he walked into the house, waiting for the heavy silence that had been his home since that bastard Cullen had left his daughter by herself in the woods and disappeared without another word. He took off his jacket, hanging it up in the closet before stepping more fully past the threshold.

He barely made it to the living room before he froze in shock.

The television was on and there was a girl he didn't know sitting next to his daughter. His Bella was sitting on the couch with a small smile on her face talking, actually holding a discussion as if he hadn't spent every day since September 16th trying to accomplish the same thing.

“Hey dad,” she gave him that sad little smile that he'd gotten too used to, “this is Liz. Is it ok if she stays for dinner?”

Liz didn't talk about her ex. Ever. That was one of the first things Bella learned about her new friend. She'd make jokes about men being an alien species or sucking the life out of the women in their lives but she avoided any direct mention of the boy who had so obviously turned her life inside out. She did a better job than Bella pretending everything was fine.

For her, the sorrow was in the details. In tightened fingers and crumbled features in times of exposed weakness. Wrapped up in tiny grief filled frowns and far reaching stares meant for visions long removed. It was shown in a complete unwillingness to put up with even sideways mentions of heartbreak: which was why they were trying to choose the second movie of the day without finishing the first.

They'd been watching Under the Tuscan Sun but they'd turned it off around the eleventh minute because Sandra Oh's character had started talking about empty shell people.

As two individuals, that could be categorized as being on the verge of being empty shell people - despite the general happy message of the movie – it was an unwelcome reminder of their unsavory status and as such, vetoed quickly.

“So Princess Bride or Labyrinth?” Liz held up both of the vhs cases. They were old, back from when she'd spend the summer in Forks with Charlie instead of meeting him somewhere else for a couple of weeks. “We get either 'my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. Or, 'nothing, tra-la-la.'”

The mocking accent that Liz adopted made Bella laugh or at least let small tremors of amusement through her lips, something that was happening more regularly between the half-assed and concerted efforts of her friends. Liz, as someone who had had her heartbroken, understood the need to avoid mentions of the stigmatized ex. In their joint effort to avoid the mentioning the past they spent a lot of time hovering over amusing anecdotal stories about the people around them and on the television.

Bella didn't know if it was a new development or not but Liz seemed to regard most things in life with a dark sarcasm that almost bordered on amused disdain. It was hostile and desperate and nothing like she'd ever been around. Renee had always broken down in tears when life took a turn she hadn't expected and didn't want. Charlie retreated into himself just as Bella did.

She didn't know how to deal with someone who seemed to be through with silent suffering, instead having resolved to let the venom soak through to the rest of the world. So she just made faces with an acceptance she was only half faking. A part of her, no matter how minute, wanted to be like that. She wondered, especially when her emotions were on a hair trigger, what it'd be like to refuse to bow to the need to reassure the people around her.

When she'd been in her zombie like state, the one Jake called the pre-Jacob era and the one she'd classified as pre-Liz, the needs of others hadn't been a part of the formula because she hadn't been aware enough to care. Now she was. Sometimes she wished she wasn't. She didn't like that.

Liz pushed Labyrinth into the ancient vcr and flopped down beside Bella.

It was yet another rainy day in Forks and as neither of them had the desire to either venture into town or spend time locked away in their respective rooms: a movie day had been decided upon. Or rather: Liz had called Bella and Bella had decided that she'd rather have her friend join her than listen to either Charlie or Jake chastise her in a couple of days for being alone when she didn't need to be.

Jake would be at her house in less than twenty minutes if she needed/wanted him. Though it had been a twist of fate that had brought Jacob back into her life for the first time since he had delivered his fathers warning the night of the prom, she didn't regret it. What was there to regret? He was funny and caring and was there for her. It sounded cruel but when Liz wasn't around, Jake kept Bella afloat. Liz was empathy. Jake was a balm. She didn't think she'd survive if it wasn't for them.

Thanks Harry Clearwater. His fish fry really was a life saver.

Thanks Uncle Parker and whatever random desire had moved him to her rainy little town years before.

The front door opened followed moments later by Charlie poking his head into the living room. He showed no surprise to find Bella seated on the couch with company. Lately Liz or Jake had been over nearly daily. She knew he liked that she was being social but that he also worried that she'd revert back to what she had been. It was always there simmering between them. His fear. Her fear.

Bella didn't want to be that again either.

“Hey Chief Swan,” Liz waved from her position at the end of the couch, her dark head turned to grin at him.

Liz was very good at brushing off parental concern. As someone who couldn't lie, Bella had asked her once how she did it. She'd gotten very quite, dark unfathomable eyes had stared out into eternity before she'd responded: necessity.

“Liz,” Charlie nodded the way he always did but didn't walk out of the room. Instead he paused, carefully studying Liz's face. Bella too had started when she'd seen the state of Liz's eye. Swollen and slightly purple it wasn't pretty to look at.“What happened to your eye?”

She was surprised at the venom of Charlie's inquiry. Bella hadn't realized that her father could've already become attached to the newest visitor to their household. But then, maybe it was just the police officer in him showing through. She didn't think that was the case.

“Hm? Oh, I was working outside with my uncle and I got stung by something. I think it was a mosquito but I'm not sure.”

“You should take some benadryl. Get that swelling down.”

“I will later. Otherwise I'll end up sleeping through the day,” Charlie nodded and told them he'd be upstairs if they needed him.

There was too much estrogen in the room for him to stay.

They turned back to the movie as David Bowie danced around his throne room recklessly tossing the doll that was supposed to be Toby. It was done with a graceful effortlessness that left the perpetually clumsy girl enviously and for a moment her mind slipped to thoughts of the boy who had moved so elegantly it had been hard not to be drawn in time and time again.

Edward wouldn't have gotten the movie. Not really. It was one of those films whose appreciation usually stemmed from childhood adoration. He predated Jim Henson and creepy goblins who stole children.

“I never got how this was a kids movie.”

Liz turned to look at her, “What do you mean?”

“It's just: Bowie's... bits are always right there. That is a seam away from indecent exposure.”

Despite the blatant effort to redirect her thoughts, it was true: the leggings were indecently tight,“David's allowed to do these things.”

“David huh?”

“Yep, me and him are on a first name basis. I'm expecting his secret love child any day now. He just doesn't know it yet.”

Bella gaped for a moment before tossing her half eaten grilled cheese at her friend. The butter from the sandwich would probably leave a grease stain on the couch but at least she wasn't thinking about him. Right now she wanted to forget that she was missing a vital part of herself. He could wait until later.

I apologize for the delay, I'm looking for a job so my days have been filled with writing cover letters and trying to schedule interviews but I managed what is one of the longest chapters I have ever written for you.

The more I think about what to do about Bella the better it sounds to pair her with someone other than Edward. I'm trying to build her up as a stronger character than she was in the books, meaning that I want her to seriously consider the consequences of having Edward in her life and I want the experience of losing him to shape her more than just in the development of a fear of him leaving her again.

So, opinions: between Kyle and Michael who do you see the person my Bella becoming, forming a lasting bond with? (if you want to recommend anyone else, I'm open to that too)
Two coughs, a sneeze, and the deafening crash of lumber hitting the concrete floor ushered Bella into the back shop of Parker Woodworks. Shuffling her feet in embarrassment, she tried to nonchalantly make her way through piles of wood, stacked furniture, tools, and mountains of saw dust to wherever Liz was hiding.

How Mr Parker got any thing done in such a place was beyond her.

The loud whine of some variety of power tool filled the air forcing her to clamp her hands over her ears. Parker Woodworks had been a staple of Forks for about a decade. Ever since Mr Parker had moved up to Washington from New Mexico or wherever he had been before settling down. Bella didn't remember the shop but apparently it was popular enough that Mr Parker owned a store on South Forks Ave, the location of the small working/storage area she was navigating, as well as a larger shop and home just outside of town.

Most of the furniture and items sold were completely handmade sans electric tools which meant that orders took a while to fill but some of the cheaper stuff was quickly assembled and almost immediately bought up. She didn't think she should have been as surprised as she was that a town known as the Logging Capital of the World was so enamored with wood.

It wasn't that much of a jump.

Bella sneezed as saw dust tickled her nose, her hands clamping down over her face before returning to her ears. Liz lived above the store by herself and worked for her Uncle almost every day. Mostly she was in the front office, taking orders or doing her homework but occasionally she helped out in the back.

Charlie would never trust Bella around the sharp blades or pointy ends of the tools that Mr Parker obviously let Liz use. Hell, Bella wouldn't trust herself around those things. Even being in the same building as them had her on edge, cautiously studying each step before she went forward. If she didn't make it through the maze she was either going to damage a three hundred dollar dining room chair or end up in the hospital. She would rather avoid both.

“Liz!” her voice barely carried over the sound of the saw but her friend heard and switched the machine off.

“Hey,” Liz smiled at her and pushed her safety glasses to the top of her head. She had sawdust stuck in her hair and a tool belt buckled backwards around her hips, she tossed the newly cut pieces of wood on to what appeared to be the beginnings of a table.

“I didn't know you could do this stuff.”

Liz shrugged as she hung the belt and goggles she'd been wearing by the door, “Its a skill that will come in handy when I need to hide a body.”

It was said with such a serious frankness that Bella opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before settling on, “You ready to go?”

“Actually, there's been a little change of plans,” they stepped out into the frigid December each pulling their jackets closer to their bodies. “I know you were looking forward to seeing that new vampire movie but it's my uncle's anniversary and the babysitter bailed. Do mind watching the offspring with me?”

There was pessimistic hope in her voice and Bella found herself wondering how the petite girl in front of her could be the same person that had had told their English teacher that she was an incompetent spinster who should know better than to try and pass off her own brand of insanity as educated rhetoric. She didn't have English with Liz but the confrontation had spread through the school like wildfire. Apparently the principle had made Mr Parker come down to the school and Liz's uncle had fiercely backed his niece.

This was all at some point after Liz had told Mike Newton that he was a misogynist ass. Angela had told Bella that Mr Parker had laughed at that one and told the principal that he was going to take his niece out to dinner in celebration of her intelligence.

In addition to the fact that Bella hadn't ever spent much time around children, unless her eternally young mother was counted in the number, the prospect of finally meeting Mr Parker was enough to make her want to say no. The man had been a part of the search for her when Edward had left her, had Charlie's unfailing respect for a reason her father wouldn't talk about, and was a well-liked member of the town of Forks.

While it was one of her better days, meaning she didn't have the dragged depressed look that made adults worry about her, as always, the prospect of meeting someone who had seen her that day terrified her. Still, Liz gave her a half smile that had almost the same effect as Jake's just because it was so rare to get a genuine smile out of her.

“I can do that.”

“Great,” they climbed into Bella's truck the seats already freezing although she'd only been inside a couple of minutes, “you were my only ride.”

They rode in silence to the three acre, two story gray house with navy shutters and a bright red door. The sun was basically set and the warm glow of the lights from the house welcomed them inside. Bella hung by the door as Liz walked in and tossed her jacket on one of the chairs. A woman, who looked only slightly taller than Liz, rushed into the kitchen her black dress hanging off curves that would turn the attention of most of the males she knew.

“Lizzy,” a voice boomed out, big hands quickly pulling her friend to the body they belonged to and mussing up her hair.

“Wal,” Liz whined trying to fix the mess her uncle had made. Mr Parker wasn't what Bella had expected. A large man, his features were softened by laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. His salt and pepper hair was starting to lean more towards salt but there was a youthfulness in they way he held himself. Despite herself she found she couldn't stop the upward curving of her lips as he teased his niece. “Bells, this is my uncle Wally. Wal, this is Bella.”

“Ah, the infamous Miss Swan,” calloused hands wrapped around her much smaller appendage. “It's nice to finally meet you.”

A blush worked its way across her cheeks and she had to fight the desire to run back to her truck, “It's nice to meet you too, Mr Parker.”

“Call me Wally. I'm not Mr Parker until my daughter thinks she's old enough to date.”

“Wally, stop trying to charming the poor girl,” the woman – Liz's aunt – smiled up at her husband as she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Creepy old man.”

“Only for you hot cakes.”

The couple kissed and Liz buried her face in her hands even as Bella's cheeks went redder, “Get a room.”

“Not a bad idea,” Mr Parker – Wally, wiggled his eyebrows prompting his wife to lightly smack his backside.

“In your dreams horn dog.”

“Every night, even when I get lucky.”

Mrs Parker shook her head, “You know the deal by now Liz. Emergency numbers are on the fridge, Caty and Shane already ate dinner and have their pajama's on, when Dylan wakes up you can give him one of the bottles in the fridge. Let the dogs out for a bit before you lock up and -”

“Call if there are any emergencies, I know. Go have fun. Try to remember why you married each other ,” Liz pushed the couple out of the back door before briefly leaning against it as if the act of taking control of the household took more energy than she had. The moment was quickly over and Bella found herself jumping as Liz clapped her hands, “Alright, you ready for this?”

Not particularly but she didn't think that's what Liz wanted to hear, so instead she nodded and followed her friend into the living room. There were two dogs, a golden retriever with a face white with age curled up in front of the gated wood burning stove that Bella learned was named Watcher and a great dane puppy named Mickey that when he stood was taller than the toddler that had been sitting on him.

Mickey bounded over to the two of them, slobbering happy hellos as Liz tried to push him off. Watcher merely picked her head up looked at them and put it back down. They weren't interesting enough for the dog.

Two of the three Parker children were in the living room when they entered. Caitlin, the five year old princess who found them less appealing than the dog had and Shane, the not so terrible two year old. He had been sitting on Mickey when they had come in, and though the dog had spilt him onto the floor, he was merrily laughing, his short blond hair flattened down on one side where Mickey had obviously licked him. Liz had told her previously that the haircut was the result of Caitlin thinking she could get away with cutting her little brother's hair and then covering his face in stickers.

“Lizzy!” the little boy yelled his tiny legs carrying him across the room.

“Shaney!” Bella watched as her friend scooped the boy up into a bear hug which was enthusiastically returned. It was a side of Liz that she hadn't seen before. “Hey Bells, sit down make yourself comfortable.”

She shrugged her coat of and lowered herself on to the couch next to Caitlin. The little girl scooted closer to the arm of the couch, her attention never wavering from the TV screen, “What are you watching?”

Wide amber eyes glanced at her before turning back to the movie, “Nemo.”

Bella sighed and leaned back into the cushions, content for the moment to sit in awkward silence with a five year old while half watching her friend play with her cousin and half watching Finding Nemo. It wasn't exactly the ideal way to spend an evening but as the hour wore on and the movie wound down, she found herself content.

Caitlin had shifted positions so that she was now leaning on Bella, Shane and Liz were laying next to each other on the floor with Mickey almost on top of them, and Watcher was still sleeping. It was peaceful. And homey. As an only child of a divorced couple, she had never experienced what it was like to share a family like the one the Parkers were a part of. While Charlie had done for her what Wally had done for Liz, it was different in the fact that Charlie was her father. He wouldn't turn her away because he was her father. Wally was Liz's uncle with a successful business and his own family and he had opened up his life to her without question.

He had renovated the space above the store for her to live in because he knew it would be too crazy for a teenager to live in a house with three young children and two dogs. He taught her new skills and let her work so she could keep herself busy. He dealt with the principle on her behalf when she got in trouble. Despite whether he knew it or not, Bella recognized that he was helping Liz heal.

With fifteen minutes left to the film, crying down the hall prompted Mickey to hurtle himself down the hallway. Liz untangled herself from a half asleep Shane and Bella watched as she went to retrieve the third Parker offspring. Dylan, the one who was affectionately referred to as the Oops child.

Liz came down the stairs holding the crying infant, bypassing the living room in favor of the kitchen and the milk in the fridge. Which left her in charge of getting the elder two children up into bed as the credits started to roll. Suddenly it wasn't so peaceful anymore.

“Ok, it's time for bed.”

Simultaneously, too voices filled the room each tinged with the telltale whine that signaled the need for sleep, “Noooooooooo.”

“You've got to go upstairs now.”

Shane looked up at her, eyes filling with tears as his sister let out a defiant, “NO.”

Bella whipped around at the sound of a small laugh and with a sigh of relief saw that Liz had returned, Dylan safety tucked against her sucking on a bottle.

“How about you take this fella,” she nodded towards the swath of blankets that covered the baby “and I get those two to bed?”

As much as she was loathed to attempt to get Shane and Caitlin into their beds, Bella had next to no experience with infants. Their frailty kind of scared her.

“I don't want to go to bed,” Caitlin cried slipping off the couch and running from the room.

“Sure,” the baby was easily transferred to her arms as she made herself comfortable on the couch. Though occupied with the bottle, Dylan stared up at her. Unlike his siblings, he had a tuft of brown hair only on the top of his head – not on the sides which made his father continuously style it into a Mohawk - and bright blue eyes which weren't expected to change.

He sucked on the bottle and stared at her and she stroked his cheek and stared at him. As all infants were, he was perfect. Tiny fingers. Tiny toes. Dylan wrapped his fingers around one of hers and Bella found herself falling a little bit in love. This is why people obsessed over babies.

She felt rather than saw the couch dip next to her. He was so small. His whole existence at the moment depended on everyone else. He had been created in love and she knew without a doubt that in his developing consciousness that he knew his parents, loved them. For the first time, she realized that at some point in the distant future she wanted a baby. She wanted to love a little someone as unconditionally as the Parkers loved Caitlin, Shane, and Dylan.

As much as Charlie and Renee loved her.

Needing to shift her attention to something other than the baby in her arms, Bella asked the first thing that came to her mind, “How did your aunt and uncle meet?”

She moved her eyes away from Dylan, though she kept stroking the back of his hand as it gripped her finger, and listened as Liz started to share what she called 'the Saga of Wallace and Grady Parker'.

Grady Moynahan had been born and raised in Port Angeles, Washington. A bright student from a lower middle class family, she had easily received plenty of scholarships and financial aid to attend any number of Universities around the country. Including NYU and Duke. Unfortunately for the well being of Mr Moynahan, Grady came with an overly intense relationship she didn't want to part with. So despite dreams of the east coast she chose Seattle University.

Five years later she was married, had graduated with a bachelors in education and mathematics, and that intense relationship had transitioned into violence. Grady stopped seeing her family because the possibility of them finding the bruises her former high school sweetheart were responsible for terrified her. Mr Moynahan found out anyway and organized for his daughter to get an opportunity she wouldn't be able to refuse: a contract teaching in Columbia. The night her father knocked on her door and told her, she cried herself to sleep.

It wasn't because of the depression.

So Grady had packed what little belongings she owned. All she left for her husband was the Salvation Army furniture, her key, and a note telling him she wouldn't be returning until well after he had signed the divorce papers. Two years into teaching, at an Independence Day gathering at the Embassy she'd been guilted into attending, Wallace Parker stepped into her life. The DEA agent was 16 years her senior and made her heart sing.

Wally only spent a handful of days in Columbia each month but it was enough that Grady quickly found herself irrevocably head over heals in love with the man. The feelings were returned. Back in Washington, Mr Moynahan suffered a stroke that put him the hospital for over a month. As Mrs Moynahan had passed on years previously and Grady was an only child, she moved back home to care for her father. It was a move that forced her leave behind the man she loved. She didn't think she'd get to see him again.

Then Wally did something that made it so she would never be able to love anyone else: he moved to Washington just for her.

While the move set the couple down the quick course towards happily ever after, it also spelled the end of Wally's career. Not because the agency didn't approve the move, the Seattle office had been more than happy to gain such an experienced field officer, but because Grady's recently ex-husband - who'd only signed the paper when Mr Moynahan had put a little extra pressure on him - couldn't just let his ex-wife go. And Wally couldn't just let him hurt her.

Ten minutes after the drunk man had started banging on their apartment door, Wally found Grady hiding in the bathroom. Twenty minutes later an ambulance arrived to take her ex-husband to the hospital because Wally really just didn't like men who pushed around those weaker than them. Despite testimonials by several friends that the man was violent, the severity of the injuries sustained were such that the agency felt the need for Wallace Parker to resign.

In the wake of all that, the couple decided it was time to move and they found the Forks house they still lived in. Grady's father lived with them too until he passed quietly in his sleep shortly after he had met his second grandchild, the one named after him.

Just as her aunts tale had let Liz understand her fathers reaction to her intense relationship with her ex, Bella found herself accepting Charlie's too. Even without being a vampire, Edward was dangerous. He held too much influence over her life. Something that was still held true. It had been an unequal relationship. Even without meaning to, he had held all the power. Her will, in basically all instances, had bent to his. She had been willing to give up anything for him and he hadn't needed to surrender anything.

And while she had been crippled by the loss of the boy she'd loved with everything she'd had, he had walked way. He hadn't loved her. He left her as if she was just another silly little girl. Maybe she was, maybe he played with the hearts of dozens of girls just like her as he moved from town to town.

Bella was severely and completely furious. At Edward.

Sorry for the delay, I've been kind of out of it lately. I'm going to try to post at least once a week for now on because I'm afraid that if I wait too long I'll loose the point of the story. Kyle is going to be in the next part. I'm still not sure of the pairing so I figured I'd give him a shot and see how we like it. I don't have my notes with me but I believe Jake is in the part after that. Fingers crossed I'll have the next part up by this time next week.

Happy Thanksgiving/Holidays “Watch it bitch.”

“Excuse me,” there was danger in the cold steadiness of her friends voice that made Bella trip and bang into the row of lockers to her left. Given that the tone alone made the hair on the back of her neck stand up it wasn't surprising that the students around them would stop and turn in their direction.

Looking between Liz and Lauren, for some reason the latter strongly reminded her of the little engine that could. Except that she couldn't because Liz had one thing that the past-life debutant didn't have: a deep seeded anger at life that coupled with her apparent apathy made her more than likely to triumph in any confrontation. Physical or otherwise.

While Bella had just started to understand how angry people who have been used could be, it gave her an edge on Lauren. The poor girl had never had her world turned upside down and couldn't understand what it was like to have so little left that every attack on her persons would make her want to lash out to protect herself.

“You heard me.”

That poor poor little fool.

“I did. I just wanted to make sure I heard correctly,” Liz was shorter than Lauren by a good couple of inches and Lauren seemed to swell with misplaced indignation. She had after all been the one to collide with Liz, not vice versa. Stepping into the taller girls personal space, Bella watched as her friend refined her cold glare, “Back off Barbie.”

Lauren had had it out for Liz since she'd moved to Forks, just as she had been less than welcoming for Bella as well. Except for with her it had manifested in snide remarks and dirty looks, it seemed as if the blond decided that Liz required harsher behavior.

You knocked into me. You stole my seat. You're an evil little twit with a brain the size of a pea. That last one was Bella's, well in her head at least. One day she'd say it to the girl.

“Make me,” a chorus of oh's filled the hall without teachers there to temper the argument or the crowds interest.

Where the hell were the teachers?

Liz shook her head and moved away, a laugh lacing her voice, “You are quite possibly the stupidest person that I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. Considering some of my acquaintances, that's saying something.”

It was with acute relief that Bella followed her friend away from Lauren both of them ignoring the disappointed grown of their peers. With a small grin, her friend nudged her and made to push the door open. There was more than relief that Liz had been able to walk away. Maybe, just maybe it meant that the festering hurt that had forced her to move to Forks and kept her so angry was finally fading.

Maybe Bella's could to.

“No wonder your parents got rid of you. Who would want an unreliable bitch like you for a daughter?”

Oh crap, the uncouth thought fluttered through her head a moment before she watched the small dark figure launch herself at the self proclaimed princess of the high school.

_+_

She couldn't do anything.

Nothing.

Bella watched as Liz ran as fast as she could, pushing her small body harder than it was meant to be pushed in order to escape the menace bearing down on her. She could feel her friends fear as her own and it ate at her, pressed into her chest threatening to drown her. Whatever it was that was following the panicked girl was just playing with her. Both she, Liz, and the hunter knew that.

It's powerful presence lent to little else but games, pain, and blood.

She was filled with an overwhelming prophesy that Liz would not live through the encounter. Bella wanted to scream, force the creatures attention away from her friend as she struggled through trees and over patches of dirt. There had to be someway to help.

Please.

Liz tripped, her knees and hands hitting the damp ground with enough force that it jarred through her. Bleeding, she stood and continued. Bella tried to warn her that the creature was closer, still invisible but close enough to send a cold shiver down her spine. She stopped breathing afraid that any movement would jeopardize what little chance Liz had.

Unsteady feet stumbled into a clearing, THE clearing, adrenaline and exhaustion warring for domination. With a thrill of uncontrollable terror, Bella watched Liz collapse. Her friend wearily turning to face the creature and her fate. Shaky hands raised to wipe blood from her face.

Bella lowered her hand. It was bright red. She looked around for her friend but she was alone except for the creature stepping away from the line of trees.

The girl was her, not Liz.

With growing horror, a familiar figure entered the meadow. Red eyes and skin sparkling like diamonds in a stray ray of elusive sunshine.

Before the scream could escape her throat, Edward lunged.

Bella woke with a choked cry, her heart pounding against her ribs and sweat making her shirt stick to her skin. It took a moment for reality to encroach on the fading grasp of the dream but even as she fully grasped that it had been a dream, her whole body was shaking.

Closing her eyes she breathed in.

She heard Charlie move past her door, hurrying down the stairs and she realized that the pounding wasn't her heart but someone at the door. Carefully, she slid out of bed. From the stairs she heard Charlie grumble about inconsiderate people and open the door.

“What?” Whomever was at the door spoke to low to hear but she heard Charlie's reply, “Liz? What's wrong?”

Some how Bella managed to make it down the stairs without tripping and was met by the sight of her father awkwardly patting the back of her sobbing friend. As soon as Liz saw her, she found herself struggling to stay on her feet as the smaller girl wrapped herself around her.

With help from Charlie, they walked to the couch where Liz continued to cry and sob, “He's gone. He's gone. He's gone.”

_+_

Two hours later Bella woke with a crick in her neck, Liz was gone. In a panic she searched the house and had just about given up when she caught sight of a figure in front of the house. Fighting the fear that it was a vampire, she stepped outside a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to block out the cold.

Liz stood still, her only movement the quiet swaying she was doing whenever a breeze whipped across the yard.

“Liz?” she pulled the blanket tighter around herself. “Liz, you need to come in side. Liz?”

She placed an already cold hand on her friend and gently shook her, already afraid that she had been out long enough for hypothermia to set in, “Liz?”

Dark eyes turned towards her, “He didn't deserve it. No matter what he did. He didn't deserve this.”

Not knowing what to say, Bella guided her friend back into the house and up into her room where she wrapped her in a quilt and laid down next to her. Some where between silent tears and acceptance, they drifted to sleep.

When Wally picked Liz up the next day they learned why Liz was so upset. Max Evans, the boy that Liz had loved and left behind in Roswell, was dead.

posting on scheduale is easier in my head.

When Mr Parker had knocked on his door the day before and asked if he had heard from Liz because his brother had called and told him that she wasn't doing so good, it killed him that he hadn't been able to say yes. They exchanged emails and occasionally talked on the phone but for the most part, since leaving Roswell, Liz had effectively cut herself off from her former friends. Kyle didn't like that they had basically let her.

So after Mr Parker had left, he had broken the bank with a flight from Albuquerque to Portland then a rental car to take him Forks. A five hour drive to Albuquerque, two layovers, a six hour drive from Portland, and he'd finally arrived at Liz's uncles place.

He had been ushered inside by a small worried woman as she juggled a baby on her hip and had been pointed towards a small home office in which he found a Murphy bed with a mass of blankets that he quickly realized was hiding his tiny friend.

“Hey there shorty,” a dark head peaked out and he forced a smile on his face.

Large black stains under her eyes, usually olive skin with an unhealthy pale pallor, and with the drawn look of someone who had neither slept or eaten, Liz Parker terrified him. Mentally comparing the image of his friend as she was before him to the one she had been the last time he had seen her before the Alien Abyss had imploded, Kyle opened his arms. He couldn't do much to help her but he'd be there for her and maybe he could make her laugh too.

“Kyle!” Slightly tangled in a quilt, he easily caught Liz as she jumped from the bed to his arms. “You know, sometimes I think I've got you figured out but then you do something completely unexpected.”

Face buried in her hair, holding her as tight as he could without hurting her, Kyle smiled, “It's part of my charm.”

A small laugh quickly turned into a sob and he found himself awkwardly patting her back. Despite the fact that he had spent an increasing amount of time with Liz, Maria, Isabel, and - before her betrayal – Tess, he was still a guy. A very masculine guy who was a football star, played basketball and baseball. There was just something about crying girls. They were all wet and emotional.

Liz started talking, her voice muffled against his shirt. He had to concentrate to understand her and even then he missed half the words “- he was a jerk – didn't deserve – loved him.”

Confused it took him a moment to understand what she was upset about. Of course no one else would make sure that Liz knew what had happened: Maria was oblivious, Isabel was an emotional wreck, Tess didn't care, and Michael, well he was acting a little odd. Gently pushing her away so he could see her face he decided that blunt was the only way to deliver the news, “Max isn't not dead Liz”

“What?” she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand in a gesture so childish that he forgot for a minute that she wasn't much younger than he was.

“Apparently you've got to try harder to kill his highness.”

She snorted and looked up at him with eyes wide with the hope that he was telling the truth, “Really?”

“Yep, guys' got more lives than a cat.”

Over the next few hours, Kyle explained what had happened over the last week. An older blond woman reeking of love for her sugar daddy had somehow managed to track Max down. She'd demanded that Max heal the her husband, the crypt-keeper. Max had initially said no but Max being the self-sacrificing ass that he was had eventually given in to save everyone else. Jump forward, mostly dead guy became Max, offed his wife, tried to kill Tess, and they were all pretty sure that he was going to come after Liz – which was why Michael had let it slip to Mr Parker that Max was dead, between tracking down his brother, dealing with Jesse's melt down over his wifes alien status, and trying to save Isabel from her bullet wound without a healer, after all Liz was smart enough to run the other way when a dead guy came knocking.

“It's all very daytime tv.”

_+_

“Bella Swan!” she looked up at the shortish man stepping out of the car with Liz and had absolutely no idea who he was. Since her breakdown, Liz hadn't contacted Bella and any calls to either her cellphone or her uncles had been turned away. Just like all her calls to Jake.

All in all it hadn't been a good week for Bella. Not only had Liz stopped talking to anyone, and had in fact missed several days of school, but after a disastrous night out at the movies with Jacob, and Mike, during which Jake had promised not to disappear like Edward and shut down like Liz, he had done the same.

“Hello?” she held out her hand but it was ignored in favor of a strong hug that brought her to her tippy toes. It was reminiscent of Jacob's bear hugs and it made her miss her friend even more. Which is probably why she hugged him back as tightly as she could.

“I've known you for too long for handshakes.”

Stumbling as she was released, she looked between Liz and the stranger, “Who are you?”

“Me? I'm Kyle, Liz's favorite ex.”

Liz snorted and shoved him good-naturedly, “because there are so many to choose from.”

“Well, there's me and Max and that blind date guy and we can't forget Sean.”

“Sean's not an ex he's an annoyance.”

“You sound like Maria,” Kyle gave her a bright smile, “but it's true, you always did have more people in love with you than you actually dated.”

“It is not my fault that guy seem to like what they see.”

“Oh yes, so many men so little time.”

“Don't listen to him Bells,” she was surprised to feel that there was a smile on her face identical to the one on Liz's as she watched her friend joke. “He'll have you think I'm some sort of tease but I'll have you know that when we were dating over half the cheerleading squad had a crush on him and it only got worse after we broke up.”

Kyle rubbed his hands on his chest, “Why wouldn't they want this sexy body?”a surprised laugh bubbled up coming out of her mouth as a half strangled giggle. “What you don't think I'm sexy?”

Wide eyes reminded her of Shane when Liz had scolded him for jumping on Mickey. Bella tried to keep her face straight as she answered but ended up laughing, “You're actually sort of beautiful.”

He was, light brown hair was short but long enough that it brushed is forehead. Bright blue eyes twinkled with humor and intelligence. He had the build of an athlete that complemented his easy smile.

“You hear that Lizzy,” he swung his arm to rest on her shoulder and she let him, “some one appreciates me.”

And he smelled good too.

“Is he always like this?” Liz unlocked the door to her apartment and they followed her up the narrow stairs. Kyle still holding her close.

“When he's not being philosophical and talking about Buddha.”

“You're a Buddhist?” he let go of her to slip through the narrow apartment door.

Though Liz still lived in the apartment above the shop, the place felt abandoned as if she hadn't spent much time there which Bella could believe was the truth. Wally didn't seem like the kind of person that would leave his niece alone when she was having a break down.

“We all have to find our Zen, I found mine with Buddha.”

Bella half wished half wondered if she would ever be able to find anything that would let her accept the pain that Edward had left her with. While she had gotten better, and was at least able to think his name without feeling as if she would be swallowed whole by the grief, she wondered if it was possible that at some point in the future she'd be able to look back at the relationship with the fondness she'd seen others exhibit over their first loves rather than with pain.

It'd be nice to not feel as if her life had come screeching to a halt when he'd abandoned her.

“I've got a surprise for you Liz,” Kyle reached into the duffle bag he'd carried up. Pulling out a red dvd case, he held it up with a flourish.

“You didn't.”

“I did,” Liz gave him a large hug, her expression open and joyful. Bella was coming to notice that Liz laughed more freely, smiled more often, and was all together calmer with Kyle. She felt as if she was really seeing her for the first time.

“I really do love you Kyle.”

“You couldn't have figured that out before you left me for he-who-will-not-be-named?”

Liz gave him a cheeky little grin, “Voldemort?”

“Haha, you're so funny. Really, I'm dying here,” he said it in such a deadpan manner that Bella couldn't stop from laughing. It was unexpected and the shock of the act left her oddly confused but it felt so good she was giddy for it to happen again.

“What is it?”

Kyle once again drew her near, she could feel the fleece of his jacket against her cheek. It felt nice, he felt nice. She shoved the thought away. He might be warm and kind and might not treat her as if one wrong word would make her break down, but no matter how cute he was, she couldn't stop seeing Edward.

“This my pale little friend,” her smile froze and she tried to remind herself that she was pale. Few people ever believed she was from Arizona, even when she had lived there. The comment had nothing to do with the Cullens, “is the best Christmas movie ever made.”

Her voice was full of skepticism as she replied, “Honestly?”

“It's got the Muppets and Michael Caine, what more do you need?”

“We're watching it now,” Liz decreed, grabbing a bag of chips and a box of cookies from the kitchen before popping the disk into the player and settling into the arm chair leaving the couch open.

“The Christmas after my mom died my dad was a mess so my grandfather asked the Parkers to watch me for a while. Liz had gotten the Muppet Christmas Carol as a gift, we watched it and it became a tradition to watch it together every year.”

Bella learned quickly that they weren't lying when they said it was a standing tradition. In fact they had memorized most of the film, including the songs. Their rendition of the Muppets girls choir in the first song, had her in stitches, especially Kyle falsetto crooning.

“He must be so lonely. He must be so sad. He goes to extremes to convince us he's bad. He's really a victim of fear and of fright. Look closely and there must be a sweet man inside,” they looked to each other and in time with the movie, “nah”

They continued like that, randomly speaking along with the characters as Scrooge went along with the ghost of Christmas past. Kyle particularly enjoyed “Light the lamp not the rat” as he alone performed the parts of both Rizzo and Gonzo. Scrooge had just had his heart broken and was breaking out into a particularly disturbing version of 'The Love Is Gone' when Liz got out of the chair she'd been cuddled into.

“You want me to fast forward this?” Kyle asked, not bothering to move from the couch or even move his arm from where it had been sitting on the couch behind her since she'd sat down.

“No, I've got to use the bathroom.”

Feeling slightly uncomfortable at how comfortable she was, Bella quickly thought of a reason to get up, “Liz, do you have a sweatshirt I can borrow?”

Kyle pulled her closer, “I can keep you warm.”

She pretended to consider it before responding, “I think I'll stick with the sweatshirt.”

“Ah be still my wounded heart,” he dramatically grabbed his chest as she stood, her face flushed pink.

Was it possible that she'd just been flirting with Liz's ex? No, she couldn't have. He was friendly, kind, and just trying to make her feel better. That was it. Still Liz's knowing look set her on edge.

She followed her friend into the small bedroom and went to the closet as directed as Liz ducked into the bathroom. Gray and lined with fleece, the sweatshirt she choose had obviously belonged to someone else. It was much too large for Liz to have bought it.

“Oh,” she turned to see Liz staring at the sweatshirt as if mesmerized.

“Is this ok?”

Her dark haired shook stopping Bella as she'd moved to take it off, “Nah it's fine. I just forgot I had that.”

“Was it his?” the elusive ex Max. She supposed that everyone tried to keep something of the person they loved. Even if it was only a piece of clothing.

“Hm, yeah,” Liz blinked and smiled at Bella. “Are you sure you didn't want to invite Jacob? I haven't gotten to meet him yet and Kyle wouldn't have minded having another guy around.”

Bella felt her face crumble. She would have liked to have Jake come with her. He would have liked Kyle, the two of them would have joked together as if they'd known each other for years and she'd like to think that he would make Liz as happy as he made her.

“What happened?”

“I don't know,” she swallowed trying to keep herself from crying, “I haven't seen him in over a week. He won't even answer the phone.”

“And you don't know why?”

“No, at first Billy said he was sick. Now, he keeps saying that Jake is busy and I shouldn't go down to La Push.”

“Well I think that's bull,” Liz gave her a big smile like she had worked out a solution to at least one major problem in the world. “We'll go tomorrow.”

“I don't know. He could be busy, it's the holidays. What if he'd just doing things around the rez or trying to buy Billy a gift or...”

“Ok, ok we'll wait till after Christmas but we're going as soon as the holidays are over.”

She conceded with a nod, feeling better now that Liz was determined to help but feeling worse because she still wasn't talking to her other best friend. The song was done when they walked back into the living room. Despite what she'd feel about it later, Bella allowed herself to be pulled back down on the couch with Liz. His arm wrapped around her tightly bringing them flush against each other.

He smiled down at her widely, “Just in case you get cold.”

_+_

It was cold in Washington. And wet. Altogether, after growing up in Roswell, living in Forks was kind of miserable. At least weather wise but Liz liked to think that she'd adjusted over the last couple of months. She wore plenty of layers, owned a heavy duty pair of boots, about a dozen pairs of wool socks, five pairs of long-johns, and fleece sheets.

Wally laughed when she came over wearing two sweatshirt and her winter jacket but it kept her warm so she didn't really care. However, when there was running involved even the brisk chill of the desert winter was better than the biting cold of Forks.

Tears from the wind stringing her eyes, froze to her cheeks and her fingers were numb as she struggled to get the door to her uncles shop open. She'd left Kyle unconscious behind the grocery store where they'd gone to pick up diner but she wouldn't let herself worry about him. The man with Max's face was following her, his greatest enemy was the cold.

Rough frigid fingers yanked her away from the door she'd just opened. She staggered trying to keep her balance as the ground of her uncles shop rushed at her. Struggling to her feet she didn't move fast enough to avoid being grabbed again. Black dots swam across her eyes and pain laced through her body, stretching out from her back as she was slammed against the on top of one of the tables she'd been working on.

Unemotional brown eyes burned into her as familiar hands squeezed at her throat. Breathing became harder and harder as she fought to push him off. Head, arms, legs, chest, she hit and scratched anywhere she could reach but still Max held on.

“Ma-Max,” Liz managed to rasp out, her hands grasping at a two-by-four just out of reach, “p-p-please.”

His grip loosened slightly, just enough that she managed to wrap her hand around the wood and swing it at his head as hard as she could. It connected solidly, sending Max back. She kicked at him, putting as much of her strength into it as she could. He fell back and in horrified silence she watched him fall back on to the table saw.

There was a loud racket then quiet. Frozen in disbelief it took Liz a moment to process what happened. When she did she quickly scrambled over to Max's crumbled form, petrified by the dark pool of blood she could see gathering on the floor under his fallen form.

“Max,” she turned him over and pressed her hands against the wound on his side. The blade on the table saw was very sharp, it needed to be and it had cut through his skin easily. She couldn't tell how bad the wound was, not with all the blood. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP!”

“Liz,” his voice was faint but it was his. There was none of the distant disdain of before.

“I'm here,” she tried to be soothing but her voice shook. “I'm here.”

“Liz,” his eyes dropped shut, head lolling slightly to the side.

“Max! MAX!”

_+_

Before any solid conscious thought, Liz closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around him. Max was solid and warm and alive, so very alive. He didn't hesitate from returning the embrace. There was nothing that would ever keep him from being there for her, nothing but herself alone. She knew that which made it more painful.

Keeping herself from sinking into him permanently, Liz regretfully stepped away. It had been a close thing, saving Max. She'd kept pressure on the wound until Kyle had run headlong into the shop, followed closely by Michael and Isabel who had followed Max to Washington. As they'd worked together to heal Max with the stones, all she allowed herself to think was: please don't let Bella come over.

She had no idea how she'd ever be able to explain what her life had been.

“Liz,” she looked up at Max and remembered what it had been to love him before everything had fallen apart. Not very long ago she would have given anything to go back to then. “Please come home.”

“I can't.”

“Liz -”

“Don't Max,” he was looking at her as if she'd ripped out his heart. It would've been kinder for him to kill her. She wouldn't go back to all the fighting, let alone Tess. If she never saw the blond again it'd be too soon. “I can't go back to Roswell. I won't.”

“It'll be better. I promise.”

“No Max, just no. I love you, I do but there is nothing we can do to make this work and it'll only hurt us if we try.”

“It won't be easy -”

“But it shouldn't be this hard. Please Max, you need to let me go,” she choked on the words slightly, “and I need to let you go too.”

“Don't do this,” he looked like he was going to cry. It took everything she had not to fall apart with him.

Liz reached up and kissed him lightly, not bothering to struggle as he deepened it. She wanted that kiss too. His gentle coxing brought feelings to the surface that she had struggled to bury. With a sob she broke away, “I'm sorry.”

She was in the car and on the way home before she could make herself turn around.

Just a quick disclaimer: there are lines directly from New Moon in this one.

A note: I've given Michael a quick cameo to be fair. I still can't choose between him and Kyle.

And a heads up, despite my desire to keep this sucker on some type of schedule I'm gonna have to be lame and resort to my original A/N - Until my life is back on track, posting is gonna be a bit haphazard. Please stick with me, it shouldn't get worse than it has been.

Working at Newton's Outfitters was every bit as monotonous as a functioning human being as it had been as a drone. Sort, price, stock, repeat. Occasionally she was even allowed to ring up a customer; four out of five either glared at her or ignored her completely. The other singular persons would attempt to make polite conversation while she tried not to screw up on the fancy new cash register they'd just put in. If Bella didn't need the money, or if she had a marketable skill besides acting as a target for irritable vampires, she would've quit. Maybe even asked Liz if her uncle needed someone to man the counter at Parker's.

While not particularly manually capable, she was a quick learner and she'd be able to pick up the expertise needed to take orders. But then, her wide streak of independence wouldn't let her accept perceived slights on self-sufficiency. Even if Wally offered her a position – and she had no doubt he would if he thought she needed it – she wouldn't take it.

The Elizabeth Bennet in her, even as small as the literary heroine was, wouldn't let her.

“You're Bella Swan.”

She looked up from the stack of fly fishing reels she had been shelving and blinked against the florescent lights. The boy, closer to a man by his bearing and manner, was about her age and towered over her, tall but not as tall as Jake had been the last time she had seen him. His sandy hair hung about his head in wild waves, bright eyes staring through her. Intense and precise, it felt as if he was reading her soul.

“Uh, yes?”

“Liz told me you were working.”

“Ok,” as discretely as she could she glanced around the aisle for a customer or coworker. Mike was working too and he never left her alone for long.

The man-boy seemed to realize that he was unnerving her and brought a decidedly awkward hand up to scratch the back of his neck before extending it for her to take which she did though with more caution than she normally exhibited, “Michael Guerin. I'm driving Kyle back down to Roswell.”

“Oh,” he choked over the excuse but despite the sign that he wasn't being completely truthful she accepted what he said with a smile, feeling better that she distantly knew who he was. Liz had mentioned him on the phone the night before. “Do you need anything?”

“A few things,” he glanced down briefly and she realized that he wasn't wearing a shirt under his sweatshirt which was crusted with dirt and what she thought might've been blood. She stopped herself from thinking too hard on it or glancing at the similar stains on his pants. “I lost my bag and Kyle's a couple of inches from being a legal dwarf.”

She didn't think that was exactly true but shrugged anyway.

“One employee discounted wardrobe coming up,” his voice was gruff and a little abrasive but not completely unkind, something about him made her trust him. On some level she found herself empathizing with Michael though she couldn't begin to fathom why.

“You don't have to.”

She gave him her best placating smile. The one that always settled Charlie, “I know.”

Like many men he was a quick shopper and they had gathered all the necessities within twenty minutes. The whole process was painless and with little conversation. She asked for sizes, he responded. Easy. Taking him to an empty register she began the process of ringing him up, sure that Mrs Newton wouldn't mind her use of the usually useless employment perk of a thirty percent discount.

Without using it for Michael, and maybe for Charlie's birthday, Bella had no use for it.

He paid for his pack of white shirts, Carhart sweatshirt, boxers (she still couldn't rid herself of the blush from being present when he'd grabbed those), and a pair of no name jeans, with cash; the simple leather billfold fitting everything else about him. She stuffed the items in a plastic bag and handed it to him.

“It was nice meeting you,” he nodded at her, took the bag, but didn't leave. Instead he pinned her to the spot with the same stare that had unnerved her so severely before.

“Liz told me what happened to you,” her mind jumped from Edward leaving her to Jacob ignoring her wondering which he meant. Not that it mattered, it all hurt. “He didn't deserve you.”

With that he turned and left.

Michael wouldn't know, not really, but she appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

+_+_+_+

“Ready to go?” Bella nodded against the frog in her throat, foot steady on the gas as she pulled on to the street. It was rainy, cold, and every bit as miserable as Forks could possibly have managed. All-in-all perfect for her downtrodden depressed mood.

The small bundle of energy in the seat next to her occupied herself with butchering Johnny Cash songs – as she usually did when Bella drove since she still couldn't bring herself to fix the gaping hole from ripping out Emmett's birthday present. Liz's excitement did little to improve her mood, if anything it made her more nervous. What good could come of confronting Jacob's recent lack of communication? He didn't want her anywhere near him. It would just upset him more to have to face her.

Even with the petite part of herself - which sounded a bit like Rosalie for some reason - that cheered at the thought of causing hurt to the person that had caused her pain, she couldn't bring herself to hurt Jake.

“Maybe we should forget about this.”

Liz was turned around in her seat, glancing back at Mickey and Watcher. She'd told Bella that the dogs had come along 'just in case' but Bella wasn't really sure she knew, or wanted to know, what that could mean, “You've got to face him Bells.”

“Not really,” her friend shot her an amused look and shook her head.

“Yeah you do. Even if it's not a misunderstanding, you deserve to know why he's being a jerk. He owes you that much.”

“But he doesn't owe me. I owe him.”

“Fine,” Liz drew her features together as if she was trying to figure out a particularly difficult equation, “then you owe it to yourself. You've come too far to let him do this to you with no explanation.”

“You know,” Bella said feeling herself swell with some foreign emotion, her mind wrapping around something her mother had told her during the zombie months: there is nothing in this world baby, that has the right to make you feel like you aren't worth it, “I think you're right.”

“Of course I am,” the look on her face was such a mix of disconcerted and incredulous that it set Liz off into hysterics. Face red, tears down her cheeks, and occasionally squeaking as she tried to breath against her mirth, she painted such a picture of happy abandon that Bella couldn't help but join in – though not nearly as wholeheartedly.

They laughed and smiled and she let the atmosphere reimagine their goals. She pretended that she was just taking Liz to meet Jake, at least she tried to. Their merriment lasted until Liz moaned slightly and pressed a palm to her temple.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just a little light headed. Laughing is hard work,” her friend gave her a look meant to be reassuring but turned to the window and fell into silence.

Bella used the quiet to try to sure herself against the doubt that was gnawing at her mind. It didn't work.

-=-=-

“What are you doing here, Bella?” the voice usually full of some degree of amusement was instead a harsh growl that left her reeling as she froze in terrified fascination. There was nothing of Jacob, her Jacob, in the boy in front of her.

Not his hair, his beautiful long dark hair was gone; replaced by a military cut that brought it close to his scalp. The childhood roundness of his face had flattened out to adult angles and planes. Long limbs not used to new height had been replaced by muscle and self-assurance. This man, whoever he was vibrated with energy: fury directed at her.

The last year and a half had taught her a lot about the hidden elements of life. Pain, suffering, needless cruelty but none of it terrified her quite like the golem staring at her, tense and angry.

“Jacob?”

Four others, all part of Sam Uley's gang stood in the periphery of her vision; imposing and dangerous. What the hell was she thinking? Distantly she heard the door to her truck open and close but her focus was limited to the man with Jacob Black's face.

Leave Bella.

She winced as the voice washed over her, confused by the sting that accompanied it. Her body wanted to recoil from the sensation that was as good as a slap. Edward wasn't wanted. Any other time she would have rolled around the thought distraught and ecstatic over possible meanings but right now, that wasn't a possibility.

“What do you want?”

Feeling a stab of anger at his tone, she grasped onto. When she responded her voice was just as sharp, “I want to talk to you.” Once again the silky wash of Edwards voice whispered in her ear, Run Bella. Without meaning to she answered aloud. “Shut up.”

“What?”

The bubble of hysteria that rose up almost made her laugh, “Not you.”

Jacob gave her a confused look and she smiled at him. That was her Jacob shining though. He was still there. As quickly as it came it slid away, the mask of hostility slamming back in place, “Talk.”

“Not here,” Bella's eyes narrowed into slits. He wanted to be a jackass, she could play that way too. “The minions don't need to watch.” That he looked to Sam for permission almost made her sic Mickey and Watcher on him. Now she understood what Liz had meant by them being back up. “So glad to see you're making a nice addition to the puppet-master's collection.”

Sam must of giving a sign of agreement because next thing she knew she was being dragged towards the Black house by a very large very angry boy with a grip that hurt.

“Hey!” The relief that filled her at the sound of Liz's voice was surprising by its lack of surprise. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Bella watched as Jacob's features morphed into a confusing mass of soft longing. She would have taken some hope in it, seeing it as a sign that he was just being an idiot, but he wasn't looking at her.

-=-=-

The Quileute Reservation at La Push gave the feel of a place with too little money, a sliver of desperation, and a bit of hectic hope that both puzzled her, put her at ease, and made her heart pound. Similar, different, and all together more than she expected when she had told Bella that they were going to confront Jacob Black for his shoddy treatment of her.

In all honesty she'd brushed off his behavior as that of a hormonal teenager, after all it was obvious to everyone besides Bella that Jacob had a thing for her; this misconception was quickly reassessed as soon as they passed into Quileute land.

There was too much tension in the air.

Which was why she was more apprehensive than Bella when the truck came to a halt. Where as her usually passive friend propelled herself from the ancient truck towards the frankly huge boy walking towards the small house, she stayed seated and watched as four other boys – each commanding a large physical presence – held back but not so much as to give the illusion of privacy, they were too alert for that.

Bella and Jacob, four steroid popping adrenaline junkies, and Liz in the middle with the rust-mobile (and two basically useless dogs. One napping the other yapping excitedly). How exactly had she ended up acting as some half-assed shield? When they got back, she really need to talk to Bella about her lack of self-preservation instincts.

Shaking her head she got out of the car as one of the boys made to advance, “Not so fast cowboy.”

The boy wasn't as tall as Jacob Black nor did he have the same aura of command as Black and who she would guess was Sam, but the twitch of his eye and the curve of his lip gave away the hair trigger temper that simmered under the surface.

In a just-in-case moment, Liz filed away the tidbit for future reference. Manipulating short tempers could be dangerous but it was an advantage that given the need she would press for all it was worth.

“Your friend shouldn't be here. Now is not a good time,” despite Sam's reasonable tone she found herself drifting away from the level headed and logical response she would typically give.

“And why exactly is that?”

“She's not welcome,” the temperamental one was too easy. Even Michael wasn't so thick: blunt but intelligent enough to know the rules of the game and manipulate what he wanted when he needed to.

“Got that but why? Unless,” she drew out the word feeling reckless as her own temper threaten to fray. Her head hurt, her sight was swimming, and she was nauseas. Now wasn't the best time for anyone to push her, “you're just bigot. Tell me is it because she's a woman or because she's white?”

Temper-boy lurched forward just as she had known he would, his progression stopped by Sam and one other. Liz didn't even flinch, too full of her own brand of liquid stupidity to care. Her skin was humming, her mind sluggish, and if he wanted to fight so be it.

The black duct tape on her fingers, used because it stuck better than band aids, felt as if it was stifling the appendages and she swallowed against a gag. What was wrong with her?

Sam was talking to her, asking her to get Bella away from Jacob, telling her that it was for her own good and that Jacob needed to work through somethings. He didn't answer anything, just molded the words to his purpose. Liz only half heard him against the ringing in her ears. Only half saw the near imperceptible nod of permission towards where Bella was.

Fighting lethargy and growing painful spasms, she managed to turn her back on the four boys. It was stupid. She'd learned early enough not to turn a literal or metaphorical back on an opponent. Struggling to focus on what was unfolding around her, she watched Bella wince as she was dragged away.

“Hey,” her voice cracked across the empty space filled with command and electricity. No one would guess that all she wanted to crawl up in a ball. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

One face open in relief. One morphing from illogical rage to a softness that tugged at her, making her stumble from the force of it. Easy to read brown eyes were struggling to hide themselves even as they didn't leave hers. Russet skin gave off a healthy warm glow against the intense heat of his eyes and the dark, barely graspable, tuft of hair acting as an anchor to prove he didn't stretch forever.

He was beautiful.

“Bella” her voice came out as a rasp with none of the strength it had held previously despite Liz's new grasp on panic. “Bella!” heart pounding she tripped over lead feet as she yanked herself towards the truck. “Get in the car!”

“Liz?”

“Get in the fucking car!”

-=-=-

Amber. A dark amber that bordered chocolate.

The curve of full lips, the slow dip of dark lashes, olive skin flush with the unknown, he could feel it all burning through him. Not painful. Bright.

Jacob struggled to understand the dizzying shift in emotion even as his world unraveled before him. One by one the things that had been most important to him were ripped away. First with resistance then with ease as he felt his life realign. Gravity had no place in his universe, it would let him drift. She was the only thing that would keep him tied to life.

He drank her in, memorizing every feature and mannerism that she let pass. He knew her.

Was he even breathing?

“Liz?”

His mind grasped at the name, filed it, learned it, made it as much a part of him as his own. Liz. Liz Parker, he remembered now. Bella's friend, the one with her own broken heart.

-=-=-

Caught between pity and exasperation, Sam reacted with the speed of someone used to shouldering the responsibility of leadership. Jacob had imprinted and the girl was about to run. Despite his unusual level of control, phasing was still new to Black and being removed from an imprint so suddenly could force the transformation, exposing the tribe and putting both girls at risk.

Giving a subtle sign to Jared, Embry, and Paul, he made sure the girl couldn't leave.

“We need to talk.”

A bead of sweat dripped from her temple despite the freezing weather, “No.”

“Let's go into the house.”

She stepped back, closer to Paul and Bella Swan's truck, her head shaking, “No.”

“Liz,” he tested the name she'd responded to and answered the low growl with a sharp glance at Jacob. He meant no harm, he wouldn't let the newest addition to the pack lose control so easily. “Lets go into the house.”

“Why?” she gritted her teeth and he couldn't tell if it was from annoyance or pain. “I don't care about anything you have to say. Keep your secrets, I don't want them.”

Sam saw the what was going to happen before it did but couldn't stop it. Liz made to push past them for the perceived safety of the truck, her move stopped by the grip of a large hand. Paul glared down at her small form as she tried to squirm free, pain etched across her features.

He stepped forward to reign in Paul. Jacob moved to protect his imprint. Jared and Embry tried to hold back Jacob. The two dogs who had been sitting in the bed of the truck watching events unfurl leapt out, hackles up and teeth bared.

The situation was beginning to spiral out of control.

“Let me go,” he felt himself bristle at the command, the Alpha in him feeling the challenge.

“I can't.”

With more strength than she should have had, Bella Swan's tiny friend shoved Paul off of her and ran towards the truck. The Swan girl helped her in before turning to stand between them, “You stay away from her Sam Uley.”

-=-=-=-

She was on fire.

Not the good kind.

A distant part of her noted Bella's protection and the sounds of their departure. Liz was vaguely aware of Mickey and Watcher in the back and the rumbling of the truck as it bounced down the road closer to Forks. The part of her that knew more than the pain, understood that the Quileute gang had let them go despite their protests.

Those things were little observations far removed from her person. They would matter later but now, now her mind was on the heat and a boy she knew but didn't know.

With Jacob Black.

It felt as if she was voluntarily ripping her soul out, and his with it.

The truck screeched to a halt, the door opened, Liz grabber her head and screamed.

I honestly can't believe the response to the last chapter. Wow, just wow. Thank you so much.
“What the hell did you get me involved with?” surprisingly Bella didn't wince or flinch away from the harsh tone of Liz's voice.

Despite the razors edge to the words, there was underlining desperation to the words that she felt more acutely. She opened her mouth to respond but found she didn't know what to say, she didn't understand what had happened over the last hour so she couldn't even bring herself to attempt to formulate a coherent response.

What had just happened?

“I don't know.”

The response seemed to help settle Liz's frantic energy, shocking her away from the internal swirl of thoughts that Bella couldn't hear but on some level knew nonetheless. Her chest ached slightly, not in the sharp crippling way that thoughts of Edward had brought. It was a new ache. One that told her that things were changing too quickly for her to keep up with. She'd seen the way Jacob had looked at Liz, understood the intention in his gaze.

And despite the anguished confusion that her friend had shook with from the moment their dark eyes had met, she knew that the same spell that had fallen over Jake had grabbed Liz too.

Soon it wouldn't be Bella and Jacob, Bella and Liz; it'd be Jacob and Elizabeth. No matter how her friends would want to avoid it, she'd become the third wheel.

What had she involved them in?

Liz half laughed, half sobbed, “Well, that sucks.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Not sure what to do, because she really did look sick – her skin was chalky white and fevered, Bella waited as her friend removed her jacket and toed off her boots.

“Hmm, yeah. I'm going to take a nap. I just need to sleep. For a little bit. Just sleep.”

She followed the smaller figure into the bedroom, watching as Liz was cocooned herself into the thick layer of blankets on the full size bed until only her hair was visible, “Liz?”

“Nigh' Bells,” the words were muffled by pillows and exhaustion, and Bella's worry increased just a little.

“Are you sure you're okay? Do you want me to call Wally?”

The blankets shifted where her head was, “Nnnn, 'm fine. See y'tomorrow.”

In what was probably an unnecessary precaution, Bella stayed with her until she was sure that Liz had fallen asleep then carefully straightened out the blankets and pulled off the damp jeans that hadn't been removed in the wave of exhaustion that had crippled her. Ignoring the steady gnawing of concern, she walked out of apartment, locking the door behind her and trying not to think the worse as she drove home.

The day had not turned out how she had anticipated.

-=-=-

She woke with a hiss, a moan, and a wave of nausea that rocked her off the bed and on to the floor. The freezing roughness of wood floors that hadn't been refinished in thirty years was comforting enough that she found herself struggling to wiggle out of her sweatshirt so that she could press as much of her body into it as possible. Liz breathed the dusty scent in, still too warm but shaking from the chill, wondering how her pants had gone from her legs to the laundry pile on the other side of the room.

With her temporal awareness temporarily on the fritz, she wasn't sure how long she laid there on the floor shaking and baking – gods she needed to get her head on straight – before she pulled herself up. There was a pair of mesh shorts hanging off the bathroom doorknob and she pulled them on, hissing as the material rubbed against sensitive skin.

Liz closed her eyes and steadied herself on the sink ledge, simultaneously pushing away the painful tremors that had started as soon as she'd stood and trying to trace their origin. She hadn't felt well the last day and a half but it hadn't felt more than the build up to the flu, at least not until she had reached La Push. Another tremor shook her frame. It had hurt when Jacob Black's friend had grabbed her. Not because he'd gripped her too hard, he'd actually been surprisingly gentile, but still pain. She tried to remember how it had felt and realized that through the fog she'd been in, it had felt vaguely the same.

While she'd like to blame it all on La Push, she had a sickening feeling that some of it had started years ago.

Opening her eyes, she reached out to the medicine cabinet to get her toothpaste and caught sight of herself. Her sweat damp hair stuck to her face and neck, dark bags stood out against blood shot eyes and paler than normal skin. She looked like crap but that didn't matter. What mattered was that everything she knew about herself was changing as she watched thin green lines dash about under her skin.

It looked vaguely like electricity.

Realizing that she'd stopped breathing, Liz gulped down too much air and stumbled from the bathroom: away from the mirror and any images it might share. Stumbling towards the living room she tried to remember where she'd put her phone simultaneously cataloging the acidic bite at the back of her throat and the darkness she couldn't blink away.

Even as her legs gave out under her, the scientist in her told her that by hyperventilating she'd made her carbon dioxide levels were too low and her oxygen level too high. A burst of white erupted behind her eyelids as her head collided with the ground and she was happy, for a moment, that she didn't have to feel anymore.

-=-=-

His hackles were still raised.

“I wanted to let her go,” Sam wasn't sure how to fully explain what had unfolded on the Blacks front yard to the Council. Under normal circumstances he'd try to minimize the involvement of any member of the Council, while he respected their input they couldn't understand what the transformation was like, these weren't normal circumstances.

“Of course you did. Crying females have that effect.”

“It was more than that,” the words stuck in his throat, the alpha in him bristling at the idea of admitting a weakness, “she told me to release her and I almost did.”

He tried not to remember the compulsion, if he brought himself back to the point he would not be able to stop the transformation. Emily met his gaze from across the room and he felt the beast calm, even as the members of the council listened to parallel reports from Jared and Paul.

“Billy,” Jacob's father turned to him but he kept his eyes on Emily as she gave him her silent support, “we need to find out more about the Parker girl.”

The older man nodded, “I don't like this.”

“Neither do I.”

-=-=-

It was the scratching against the window that woke her. High screeching lines of fear that pinned her to the bed. Breathing deeply she pushed it away the same way she had kept herself from thinking of the danger of Edwards presence for all those months. She had crippled herself against him but Bella wouldn't do that to herself again.

Careful to hide herself in the shadows she slipped from the bed, hands reaching for some type of weapon in a room where sharp objects had always been entrusted to other areas of the house. Picking up the first solid thing she could find, an old picture frame she'd found in the attic but hadn't found a picture for yet, and waited.

The man, or creature she couldn't be totally sure, launched itself into her room through the window it had managed to push open – she'd have to talk to Charlie about getting something to keep it from opening so wide – and she swung the frame down, finding satisfaction in the sound of shattering glass and splintered wood.

“Bella! Ouch, dammit. Stop!”

She swung the remaining piece of wood again, managing to hit the head of the man hard enough that it moved back away from the prospect of another blow.

“Hey! It's Jacob!” Bella stepped forward and swung the piece of wood again, connecting solidly with his midsection before letting it fall to the floor. “What the hell was that for?”

“Like you don't know!”

Charlie let out a particularly loud snore down the hall and they both stilled aware that if her father woke up to find them in the same room the shotgun would be pulled out. Not that Bella thought that was a terrible idea at the moment but she didn't think that Billy Black would forgive her father if he killed his son.

“I came to apologize.”

“I don't accept,” she pointed at the window annoyed at the pang of concern that he'd fall. “Get out.”

“Bella.”

“No,” his skin felt warm under her hands as she tried to shove him towards the window. He shouldn't have been that warm, not shirtless after having been in the cold. Jacobs large hands – when had he gotten so big? - clamped down on her shoulders and gently pressed her down to the bed.

“I'm sorry Bells. I'm so sorry.”

“I don't need an apology Jake,” his eyes clouded with hurt and she swallowed against tears. “I need to know why.”

“I can't.”

She nodded, “Then you shouldn't have come.”

He shoved himself away from her, an action that hurt more than it should have given he had been ignoring her for so long. Frustration making his body taunt as he paced like a caged animal, Bella couldn't bring herself to be afraid of him even though some forgotten part of her mind was telling her that he wasn't safe.

“I'm not allowed to tell you Bella. I want to but I'm not allowed to tell anyone,” he was in front of her again his brown eyes boring into hers, “I know you've had a secret like that before.”

Her mind ground to a halt. He knew. Confused if she should be relieved that it wasn't just her secret anymore or worried over what his knowing could mean, she just stared in shock. How had he figured it out? Had he been attacked? She choked over a breath, had he been bitten?

No, he had been hot to the touch.

Jacobs face brightened as if he'd figured out a problem, “You already know.”

“Know what?”

“Everything,” he tried to grab her but she slipped from the bed to the other side of the room.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Think about the day we met,” she moved further away as he became more animated. “What did we talk about Bella?”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“Please.”

Her mind drifted back to that day on the beach. The smell of the ocean, the slight chill in the air despite everyone thinking it was a beautiful day, a much smaller Jacob Black making small talk with her as she tried to get the answers she wanted. Answers about the Cullens, drawn from legends that had set her on the right path. Legends of vampires and ...

“Jake.”

He gave her a smile that was only a shadow of what it used to be, “Say it Bells.”

“Werewolf.”

-=-=-

She wanted to scream. Every time she moved, breathed, thought, or cried it hurt more than anything she had ever experienced before. Liz tried once more to roll to her stomach and push herself up. If she got up she'd be better. She'd call Kyle or Michael or Isabel and they would come and help. Together they'd figure this out.

If she could get up.

Again the green lights picked up speed as they danced across her skin. Damn Max, she would have been better off dying on the questionably clean floor of the Crashdown rather than suffer through what she was. First he broke her heart then he killed her, slowly and painfully.

-=-=-

Giving up on finding sleep, Jacob rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. If he couldn't get any rest he might as well eat. His stomach rumbled at the thought. While he had always, and would always, enjoy eating always being hungry wasn't something he enjoyed. He'd like to be legitimately full long enough to bask in the feeling.

Pulling out some left over fish fry, he put it in the microwave and rolled his shoulders trying to ease the tension out of them. His muscles were tight against his shoulder, skin sensitive where goose bumps were raised, and his mind racing as it analyzed incoming data. It wouldn't take much to trigger the change. He was too keyed up to know how to calm down.

He had thought that talking with Bella, helping her find the secret so it wouldn't stand between them, would be enough to ease the stress but it hadn't. Jake rolled what little information he'd gotten from Bella around in his head hoping that it would relax him. Anything that brought him closer to Elizabeth Parker was something good.

Bella hadn't been very willing to talk, wary of what he was and what he wanted. She hadn't easily forgiven his behavior. But she had told him that Liz was living in Forks, above Wallace Parkers shop. She was top of the class and was better coordinated than Bella, not that it was hard to be.

She hadn't said much more than that. At the time it had been enough and he hadn't wanted to test the bounds of their newly healed friendship. His muscles twinged as he moved to pull the fish fry out, they were still painfully taunt. He wished that he had asked for more.

He finished off the fish without tasting it, his stomach still mostly empty. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep Jake dropped onto the couch and turned the television on. His leg bouncing and the hair on his arms standing straight, he groaned, buried his face in the cushion of the couch, and tried to push away the feeling that things weren't right.

-=-=-

Bella sighed in annoyance and glared up at the second story window once again. Fifteen minutes of knocking and numerous attempts at yelling up to Liz's bedroom later and she was still standing in the same spot. They had planned to meet each other at nine thirty so they could make the hour drive up to Hurricane Ridge, apparently the plans were being postponed.

It would have been nice to be in the know.

Since Wally and his family were out of town for the day, they'd decided to take the drive to let the dogs get some exercise while they huddled in the visitor center with some hot chocolate. Mostly it was a waste of time but just a little of it, the part where they were surrounded by snow draped mountain tops and serene silence, was therapeutic enough that braving the cold was worth it. It had been Liz's idea and she couldn't bring herself to believe that she had just over slept.

Giving up on the idea that she would be heard, Bella walked around to the side of the building to the small electrical box and the spare key that was taped under it. Wally had taken her aside and shown her where the extra set was hidden the first opportunity he had had. He'd told her that he wanted her to know she was welcome whenever she wanted to be and had promised to get her her own set. Given that he ran his own business, was active in the community, and had three growing children, she didn't expect to get the keys any time soon. She was perfectly fine with relying on Liz to answer the door.

Which she usually did.

“Liz?” she yelled once again, hoping that her friend had just been in the shower or that the stress from the day before had caused her to over sleep.

With everything that had happened with Jake... No, Bella pushed away those thoughts. She didn't want to think about giant furry animals and all the trappings that came with them.

The stairs creaked under foot as she shifted her weight to unlock the apartment door, it opened easily to an eerily quiet room. Feeling tingles of unease drip down her back she stepped in, her body's flight response fired and ready to carry her away from harm.

“Liz?”

Again no one answered.

Bella rounded the couch and barely kept herself from screaming though the reaction was more from shock than anything else. There was no blood around Liz's prone form, no marks of any kind save for the fading bruises on her neck that she'd repeatedly asked about but never got an answer for. Remembering the vague details of the first aid class she'd taken during Renee's field hockey phase, she dropped to her knees and quickly checked for a pulse.

It was there, strong if not slightly erratic. The blood pounded under her fingers at the speed she'd expect to find on someone exercising not unconscious. Not finding anything wrong with Liz and unable to wake her, Bella did the only thing she could think of: she called for help.

I'm back! With one of the longest (if not the longest so far) chapter yet! Lo Siento, Vaifeal
“Bella. Bella, you need to calm down. I can't understand what you're saying,” it was testament to the level of his control that Jake managed to keep himself from vaulting out of house without allowing the rest of the conversation to play out.

Though Bella was independent, she was also the type of person that found herself in situations far outside the expectations or experiences of the average person. Find a dangerous creature within a hundred miles of Forks and it would be drawn right to her. The thought made the muscles in Jake's whole body tense, each ready to propel him from the room. It was unusual for her to seek help regardless of personal danger.

He took a deep calming breath and shoved his thoughts in another direction.

She was also a person trying to keep a promise to be more aware of the danger she placed on and to practice some self-preservation. This new resolve could have prompted her to call over a minor difficulty. For anyone else that would be a realistic expectation but Bella was too used to relying on herself to ever easily bring someone else into a problem that didn't concern her truck.

He pulled off his shirt and toed off his new shoes knowing that they would only be ruined when he transformed.

“What happened to Liz?” his fathers voice was laced with confusion and concern as he tried to work through what little detail he was being given.

Jake didn't know that his dad was comforting Bella and telling her that his son was on the way or that the next call he made was to Sam Uley to make sure the patrol knew that there was a problem and that his son would probably be a danger to anyone who tried to approach him.

He was already a half mile away.

-=-=-

The serasoft lined down quilt was heavy in her arms but its soft weight was a comfort. Bella knew she wasn't strong enough to lift Liz off the floor without any assistance a fact that limited what she could do for her friend. Though her skin was warm, there was no fever or any other sign that Liz should be mostly unresponsive, except for the nagging feeling that – despite the happenings of the last year – she was out of her depth and the possibility that she wasn't seeing things and that Liz's skin was occasionally flashing green.

With extreme care, Bella tucked the comforter around the slim form of her friend and gently bushed her dark hair away from where it was sticking to her forehead. Liz grimaced at the contact but otherwise showed no other signs that she knew what was occurring around her. Filing away the response and comparing it to the hitched breath from when she'd checked her pulse and the moan when she'd tried to drag her off the floor, Bella reached out to lay her hand against Liz's damp neck and watched her friends expression shift from unease to pain to outright agony.

Fighting back the urge to get sick, she scooted back and waited just as Billy had told her to.

She still wasn't sure if calling the Blacks had been the best thing to do but she wasn't sure who else would know what to do. Carlile and the rest of the Cullens were no longer around to ensure that the more exotic injuries went undiscovered, Charlie had no idea of the creatures that existed in the world, and anyone from Liz's past were half a country away. Besides even if Kyle or Michael would come, and she had no doubt that either one would in a heart beat, what would they be able to do? Whatever was happening to Liz was so far past normal, not even Bella herself could wrap her mind around it.

So she supposed, that the Blacks had been the only real choice. Not only was Jake a werewolf but they were Quileute and as such used to the idea of the unusual. Besides, she remembered the way Jacob had looked at Liz. The expression alone would ensure that he kept her safe and in the end that was all she could really ask for.

The door crashed open with enough force that the doorknob punched a whole in the sheetrock and still bounced back. Startled Bella dove to cover Liz from danger, trying not to wince at the whimper her friend let out as her hand glanced her cheek.

“Jake!” she cried out in relief, climbing to her feet and launching herself at him. He merely caught her and moved her off to the side - the hug he would usually give her nonexistant; his concentration focused solely on the figure on the floor, “Jake?”

She didn't keep the hurt out of her voice as he continued to ignore her for someone he didn't even know. The light played off his bareback as he crouched down, his cutoffs riding low on his hips, a hint of pale skin exposed at the top of his shorts, and bare feet telling her that he had most likely just transformed.

Slowly, with the caution of someone about to touch a priceless artifact, he reached out to her even as Bella moved forward to stop him.

“Don't,” he turned Liz over and rested her against him. Her head on his thigh. Though she knew he was still focused on Liz she wouldn't let the warning pass unsaid, “It hurt her when I touched her.”

He drew his hand back as if it was burnt and glanced over at her before gently laying his hand on Liz's cheek. Dry chapped lips separated to let a small sigh of relief escape, her eyes fluttered briefly, her content writ clearly across her harassed features. Bella smiled and reached forward to tuck the blanket back around her.

Later, she still wouldn't be able to clearly say what exactly happened. Her fingers glanced Liz's bare arm, Liz let out a small yelp, and before she could blink Jake had Liz in his arms on the other side of the room.

“Is that her car outside?”

Bella fought back her tears, “Yeah.”

“Where are the keys?” What had she done? Why did she have to bring pain to the people she loved? No one wanted her around them. Edward had left her. Jacob barely looked at her. Liz couldn't physically stand to be around her. Even her own mother hadn't put up much of a fight when she'd been told of her daughters decision to move across the country. “Bella! Where are her keys?”

Numbly she walked over to where she'd seen Liz drop her jacket the night before and dug them out. Jake had taken them from her before she'd even stretched her hand out. More calmly then she felt, Bella locked the apartment door and followed him outside to the beat up car that Liz drove to school every day. She reached for the passenger side door but was stopped by the unforgiving terseness of Jake's expression.

His voice was a low growl that cut through her as he closed the door on any hope she'd had to stay with Liz, “Go home Bella.”

Standing alone on South Forks Ave, she wished that she didn't feel quite so alone.

-=-=-

If Billy had any say in who his son would be compelled to be involved with he would have chosen Bella Swan over Elizabeth Parker any day of the week, blood sucker connections and all. He watched his only son storm into the house, arms wrapped around the slim figure of the woman he would never be free of and without even a nod of acknowledgment proceed to his room.

At least with Bella he knew exactly what his son, and himself by extension, was getting involved with. They knew her parents and every little detail of her life. She was a good girl from a good family, even if she had made the unfortunate decision to become involved with that Cullen boy it was over now. She'd take good care of his boy.

Elizabeth Parker was a question mark. New to the community of Forks she was quiet enough that she hadn't attracted too much attention. He knew what Charlie had told him. Whatever time Bella didn't spend with Jake was with Elizabeth and she seemed to do Bella good. Charlie said it was because she'd had her own heart broken but then there'd been some confusion a while back about whether the boy she'd been involved with was dead or not.

Billy would believe it if he was told the kid had mysteriously disappeared. Those things seemed to follow what he knew about that family.

He knew more about the aunt than he did the niece but that didn't help much. Grady Moynahan had been that family's chance to make something of itself before she'd married her high school sweetheart and though she and her second husband were doing well for themselves, the Moynahan's were not known for their easy temperaments or their forgiveness.

Then there was Wallace Parker. The girls blood. He didn't know the girls parents but he knew that Wallace Parker was not one to cross. He respected the man but if he had his way, Jake would not be anywhere near that family especially if Elizabeth's father was anything like his brother.

Any father would have those concerns about the girl his son was getting involved with but Billy had one other major problem most didn't have: Elizabeth Parker might turn out to be a very real threat to the pack.

-=-=-

It was warm, warmer than it had been since she moved to Forks and she was laying on something soft. Liz tried to blink away the exhaustion that was threatening to overwhelm her again especially as the smoothness of the sheets was like a balm on skin that felt as if it was suffering from a bad burn. Only the overriding hum of energy lacing her limbs got her to fight against the desire to curl into the warmth and sleep for a little while longer.

Even before she had opened her eyes she knew she was not in her own bed, hers was a full while the one she was in was a twin but more importantly she knew she was not alone and it wasn't Bella or one of her cousins besides her. The figure besides her was large and solid, smelling of evergreen and ivory soap. He, whoever it was, was holding her firmly but gently against him ensuring that she didn't roll off the bed.

Blinking awake, she tried to make out the details of the room. There was limited light in the room and she struggled to see across the space to the pile of laundry in the corner and the small dresser haphazardly piled with a mound of belongs she couldn't decipher. By the way the light was either waxing or waning, it early morning or early evening. Liz hoped that it was the latter, it scared her less to have slept through the day than to have slept through both the day and night.

She rolled within the confines of the arms that were wrapped around her, holding her breath more out of nerves than any altruistic motives concerning her sleeping mate. Not that there could have been any such motives, as her partner was not only awake but watching her every move. Liz shifter her weight again as she felt her body tip precariously at the edge of the small bed, moving them close enough together that she could see the skin at the curve of his neck move rhythmically with his pulse.

Unfathomable dark eyes that were just light enough that they bordered on a deep warm amber met her own chocolate iris's and she felt her heart stumble, stop, and start again furiously. It was pounding against her chest so fast and so hard that she was certain that Jacob Black knew exactly what was coursing through her blood.

It was unmistakable. The treacherous connection that she had only glimpsed was flaring between them, completely tangible and threatening to suffocate her with its desire to be acknowledged. Liz held Jacob's gaze even as her mind was waring with her heart. One sobbing. One singing.

She wanted to believe it was terror holding her in place but as his arm slipped from behind her, briefly exposing her to a disappointment deeper than anything Max had ever caused, before gently settling on her exposed shoulder. The callouses on his hand sent shivers burning through her body and she felt herself blush as she realized that she was wearing no more than the camisole and shorts she'd had on earlier.

Like other females who had woken up in similar situations, Liz was overwhelmed by the desire to be able make him understand exactly what was going through her head, every little nuance of emotion setting her heart pounding and pulse fluttering wildly.

“We're in bed together. I mean, of course we're in bed together. Not that I should assume that we should be in bed together but you should be in your bed but if you put me in you bed then you'd have no bed so I guess in some way it makes sense that we're in it at the same time because sleeping on the floor is really too much to expect and I'm not even sure why I should be in your bed. Last I remember I was at home. Not that that's either here or there, well no, it is actually here. It does have bearing on our current situation though not on our most immediate condition with me talking and you just staring. I think what I was trying to say, or at least what I'm now trying to say, is that I'm sorry for hogging your bed?” She said it as if it was a question, not sure why she had even opened her mouth in the first place. In an attempt to set her head on straight she opened her mouth, changed her mind, and ended with. “Hi.”

His expression went from confused to so genuinely and openly happy that she felt herself smile back at him, basking in the glow of the small grin that lit up his features.

“Hi,” there was so much joy in that little word that Liz knew that it'd always be one of her favorite memories.

-=-=-

He knew right away that she was awake and he could already feel the difference. She had been unconscious for most three nights and three nights and he had suffered through every minute of it wishing he could do something but knowing that the only option open to her was remaining by her side. Jake never wanted to feel as helpless as he had from the moment he'd seen her lying prone on the floor of her apartment.

Looking down at her, she'd shifted herself so she was partially under him, he let his hand wander up her arm to lightly trace the bruising around her neck. Anger coursed through his veins directed towards whoever had laid a hand on his mate. When he had the chance, that person would be lucky to be alive after the confrontation.

Liz's gaze didn't falter as his hand continued its journey up to tug at her dried cracked lips. Three days of pain and events he couldn't begin to understand. He'd stayed at her side the whole times, couldn't do anything else but stay with her. Every time he walked away she'd moan under her breath or even scream.

Her screaming would haunt him forever and he didn't think he would ever forgive Sam for making him leave her for a pack meeting. Jake hadn't made it down the hall but he hadn't wanted to leave in the first place. The only thing that had kept her calm was his touch which both reassured him that she needed him as much as he needed her and terrified him. What if he couldn't be there when she needed him?

He shivered as he realized that her eyes had darkened at his casual perusal of her featured and knew that she felt it as much as he did.

Trying to calm himself, Jake leaned back reaching towards the window for the cup of water he kept there. He had tried to keep her hydrated, coaxing water down her throat at every possibly opportunity, still he knew it hadn't been enough. She'd be hungry too, more than he was, but retrieving food from the kitchen would require him to leave her.

Their hands brushed as he handed her the cup and he found himself holding it for a moment longer than necessary. Being in such close quarters for so long had taken its toll.

“Thanks,” a light blush spread across her cheeks as she gulped down what was in the cup. He felt a rush of guilt at not ensuring she'd gotten a drink as soon as she'd woken. “How did I get here?”

She blurted out the words, her face becoming contrite as soon as she realized that her tongue had escaped her again.

“Bella found you and called. She thought we could help.”

Her blush became more pronounced against skin that still had the tinge of sickness, “Thank you, uh, for everything.”

“It was nothing,” though he never wanted to experience the kind of crippling fear she had subjected him to, Jake would never say no to spending so much time so close to Liz.

“So,” she scooted up in the bed so she was leaning against the wall, her tank top momentarily pulled low but he kept his gaze on her face. He was rewarded with a small happy smile that let him know he had made the right decision to resist the temptation to take in the expanse of skin she'd shown. Though, to be truthful, while he hadn't acted like a pervert during his time caring for her, he had seen his share. For now at least, “the thing that was between you and bells, did you two work it out? She called you and I'm here...”

“Yeah, it was -”

Liz tensed next to him, “I don't need to know.”

“But -”

He needed to tell her, she needed to know what had come between him and Bella. She needed to begin to understand what his life was like and what tied them together. Her hand came up and covered his mouth as her eyes bored into his, “Please.”

“OK,” because she was Liz he would give her time.

The silence between them, bordering on awkward, was broken by the sound of her stomach rumbling. Jake smiled, an easy expression that had been rare for too long.

“I'll get us something to eat.”

-=-=-

When Jake left it felt as if the all the air in the room had been sucked out or as if she were breathing for the first time. It was hard to determine which. Liz's mind was cluttered with contradictions and half formed assumptions. There were so many things that need to be done, not the least of which was to call Roswell and let them know what had happened to her. She had no doubt that whatever it was belonged to the alien abyss.

Of course it was because of Max. It was always Max.

There was a sharp crack and Liz was surprised to find that the picture frame she had been absently staring at was splintered. Tremors shook her body at the implications of what had just happened as her mind dryly observed that it definitely had to do with Max.

With this, whatever it was, there was a very real possibility that she would need to return to Roswell. If she did, what would Wally say? Who would help him at the shop or help Grady with the kids? What about Bella? She was just getting better, what would happen when she was left alone again? Liz could already feel her life pulling apart at the seams.

Taking a deep breath she tried to organize what little she knew from the time she'd collapse to the time she'd woken. They'd want to know, especially Michael with his insatiable desire to know every risk that the Pod Squad would possibly have to face and Kyle who might end up in the same boat. All she could clearly remember though was the pain. Confusion, the feeling that she was burning alive, and a presence guiding her through it all.

She knew it was Jake.

Jacob Black with his heart on his sleeve, responsibilities to bare, and secrets that might very well consume her. They always did. Why did she have to be attracted to men that would redefine her whole existence?

Despite it all – his ability to crawl into her skin, his secrets and hers, and that her life would never be the same – Liz found herself reluctant to leave the house, or even his room. Being there was like being in her room in Roswell. Like home.

Stealing herself against overly sentimental thoughts, Liz stood and walked out of the room intent on finding a shower. As much as she felt to the contrary, she didn't know these people. She wasn't Bella, they were strangers and she was a stranger to them. It would be unwise to open up her self and her life to them without any consideration.

Jacob Black might have cared for her when she was sick but there was every possibility, every probability, that there was an ulterior motive for his actions. There was more to him that at first glance and despite what Bella had tried to make her believe, there was nothing innocent about him. Not in the way he looked at her, invaded her personal space, or behaved. His whole existence was a slow seduction tailored specifically for her.

Liz Parker didn't fall for those traps.

Not anymore.

-=-=-

Jake's stomach plummeted when he walked into his room to find it abandoned. Her smell hung in the air but beside the mussed sheets, there was no tangible sign that Liz Parker had been in his room. Shoving the plate of sandwiches he had thrown together on top of the mess on his dresser he checked the window for signs of use. The lock was still in place, the dust on the sill undisturbed.

Tremors shook him, letting him know that the transformation was close. Whatever damage he might do to the room in wolf form, his senses where heightened then, he'd easily be able to track Liz's movements and, if he had to, warn the pack of danger.

The sound of water broke through his single minded focus on the feel of shifting limbs and the whisper of a shared pack mind. Stilling, it became clearer as thoughts of abduction faded to be replaced by annoyance at himself that he had panicked and irritation at Liz that she couldn't have waited a couple of minutes to let him know she wanted a shower.

Adrenaline faded from his system leaving him open to feel the combined exhaustion of the last few days. Jake collapsed heavily onto the bed and buried his head in his hands. Imprinting asked for too much. While he had always known that when he fell in love he'd dedicate himself to his partner, the complete lack of choice given by the biological imperative made him want to fight against it.

At least, think about fighting against it. Even those thoughts only lasted as long as Liz wasn't on his mind.

Liz.

He tried not to let his thoughts drift to where she was. Naked in the room next door, water cascading across her slender form. Jake groaned and closed his eye tighter. Days in close quarters hadn't only frayed his emotions, it had tested his control. He would never be the type of person to take advantage of a woman but he had wished several times that the situation had played out differently. If she had only been there by choice... no he wouldn't go there.

The door to his room creaked open and Jake looked up, struggling to breathe as the air became too thick. Thick brown hair, nearly black from the shower, hung down her back in a heavy wet mass. Drops of water had soaked the white shirt that hung to her knees, his white shirt.

Jake groaned again. She was going to kill him.

-=-=-

There was no clearly delineated line between when she was across the room and when she was standing in from of him, her fingers lightly tracing each of his features. They flitted over his strong jaw and around eyes that were burning into her setting her on fire, down his patriarchal nose to his full lips. Liz licked her own, her hand drifting down his neck feeling his pulse race under it.

It was strong and steady and so very fast. Trying to control the subtle tension lacing her figure, she pushed away the thought that his heartbeat matched her own.

Breathing shallow, Liz laid a soft kiss to his bare shoulder reveling in the feel and taste of his skin. Barely pulling back she dragged her lips to his pulse point and the sensitive area behind his ear. Pausing, she inanely wondered if he knew how hard it was for her to stand so close to him.

Liz could feel each rise and fall of his chest, every pound of his heart, and every sliver of restraint that she wanted to break. Taking a deep breath, she stared into eyes that had nearly turned black. The rational part of her mind was still wondering why she was even wandering down this path as she kissed the corner of his mouth, lingering longer than she had meant to. It was playing with fire with someone who was well aware of their own weaknesses.

Large hands pulled her into his lap and before she could second guess herself, had pulled her into a hot bruising kiss. She could feel them sending her body into an overdose of sensation, calloused palms and finger tips explored the soft expanse of skin, tracing patterns along her spine as his mouth teased her into submission. Clever fingers worked there way forward and Liz gasped against his mouth, opening hers to him.

Desperate to get closer, she arched her back and tightened her thighs around his hips while her own hands switched from exploring the hard planes of his body to using his cropped head to mold him to her. An aggressive part of that she hadn't known existed wanted him to bite her \lips as they fought each other and themselves for control. She wanted him to make the salt between them sting with little bites, and leave purple bruises that she’d feel whenever she spoke, drank, or parted her lips.

She wanted him to mark her. If she were capable of thought, it would have terrified her.

Sorry about the delay. I finally finished this chapter - after having rewritten it a couple of times - and the computer it was on broke. Luckily I had a good chunk of it backed up. My ride is very late so here you go, a whole day earlier than I expected.
She was sitting directly on the border of Quileute land.

Jacob stood to her left, tall and dark. Everything strength and joy needed to be. Farther behind, hidden in the shadows of the trees was another figure. Smaller and familiar but in a distant way that confused her. They were important the two of them. One because he was Jake, one of her two best friends. The other because the light touch of his presence inexplicably calmed her inner turmoil.

To her right she could both feel and see Edward. Silent, cold, peace and love, and every emotion that she had ever felt. Bella's heart simultaneously skipped a beat and throbbed, sending overwhelming pain though her slight frame. Bronze hair, gold eyes, porcelain skin, with a calm that oozed from every pore. He was perfect.

They were both just standing there.

Waiting.

For her.

What did they want her to do? Looking from her knees to Jake to Edward and back again. Did they want her to choose? She couldn't do that. They both meant too much to her. A light breeze wrapped around her form as tears burnt her eyes. There wasn't anyone present that she could loose.

“Bells,” she looked up watching as Liz crouched down to her level.

“I don't want to do this.”

Gentle hands lifted her face from where she was focusing on the way her feet dug into the dirt, “I know.”

“I can't do it. I won't.”

“You can. You have to,” Liz stood and pulled Bella up with her so that her feet were straddling the treaty line. She stood shaking as her friend took a step so that she was firmly on Quileute land.

“Please.”

She came forward again and pressed a kiss to Bellas cheek. A low growl filled the air and her eyes jumped to Jacob. His hackles were up, his whole body visibly tense. Without looking she knew Edward had matched him.

“I'm sorry.”

Liz stepped back and Jacob ran forward, his arms wrapping around her waist. Together they moved back. Bella opened and closed her mouth trying to tell them that she needed them but before she managed to get more than a syllable out, she felt the frigid press of Edward against her back.

With tears rolling down her face, she watched Jacob, Liz, and the Stranger fade away leaving her alone with Edwards cold comfort.

The scream was strangled by the way her face was pressed into her pillow and it took her a minute to realize that she had stopped, that the continued high pitched sound was not her but the phone.

“Hello?” her voice was thick with exhaustion and she fumbled with her alarm clock trying to see what ungodly hour she'd been woken up.

“Where you asleep? It's after eleven. You never sleep this late.”

“Hm.”

“Earth to Bella, anyone there?”

Bella took a sip of water from the glass on her bedside table and blinked away the remaining sleep, “Sorry.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just didn't sleep well last night.”

Her legs were tangled up in the blankets so it took her longer than she had wanted to free herself. Liz was right, she hadn't slept so late in a long time. It left her feeling even more tired and groggy to the point that she couldn't seem to shake the the desire to crawl right back between the sheets and wrap her nice comforter around her.

“You sure? I can come right over if you need me.”

“Aren't you supposed to watch your cousins today?”

“So?” Liz let it hang in the air so that she could say something if she wanted to but she kept her mouth shut. They hadn't really talked in a couple of days and she was already starting to feel awkward. A part of her was telling her that Liz was trying but she was also hiding something and Bella was tired of secrets.

“Do you have them all?”

“Nope,” there was a tone in her friends voice when she replied. The type that let her know that the not so subtle deflection had been noted. “I'm taking Shane to a birthday party so probably just him, maybe Dylan. I'll be done around five and I wanted to know if you'd be up to go out for dinner tonight?”

“That depends, will you tell me what's going on with you?”

There was a moment of silence and for a minute Bella thought that she had been hung up on. When the reply came it was slow and concise with a tinge of something she couldn't quite place, “Bells, you're my best friend if I knew what was going on with me, you would too.”

“Ok,” she was surprised that she wasn't disappointed by the response. “See you around five thirty.”

-=-=-=-

Liz wasn't exactly sure how she was supposed to deal with the situation she was currently in. What the hell had she done? Shane ran across the space in front of her playing some version of tag with a couple of kids from his class, ducking and weaving around the indoor playground. It had been a week and even though she had seen Bella and they spoke on the phone, she couldn't seem to bring herself to the point where she'd have to come clean.

How was she supposed to explain to Bella that somewhere between getting sick and developing powers, she had somehow entered a relationship she couldn't make heads or tails of. Not only that but the 'other' in that equation was her best friend. Liz was pretty sure she had crossed some cardinal unspoken rule between friends. Something like though shall not grope your best friends best friend.

What the hell was she doing?

Shane barely managed to keep from knocking his head on the slide, his little legs carrying him full steam ahead. She could imagine the conversation that she was going to have later that night with Bella, 'Hey Bells, I almost slept with your best friend. Only reason I didn't was because my stomach growled and I had to satisfy a different type of hunger. Oh and that key that I had made up for you, well I gave that to Jay because it turns out my brain takes a minor vacation whenever he's within twenty feet of my being.'

Yeah, that was gonna go over real well, right before Bella decided that she was madly in love with Mike Newton. The world was going to go insane. Pigs flying, rainbows shooting out of peoples asses, and all that jazz. Fantastic. And it was all on her because it turned out she was actually a hormonally driven disaster.

She adjusted her hold on Dylan, making sure that his binky didn't fall out of his mouth. He'd been a little monster all morning. It was the teething but it meant that she hadn't been able to put him back in the carriage since they had arrived at the party. So much for a relaxing afternoon trying to get her head on straight before dinner. Shane abandoned tag and jumped into the ball pit. She could hear him laugh from across the room. The kid had a great laugh.

A wave of calm washed over her, stilling her bouncing leg and thoughts that had been running a hundred miles an hour. She felt the smile on her face before she even saw him. It was instincts. He had arrived. She was happy.

Dammit, she didn't want to be happy. She didn't want to be starting down this path with someone she didn't really know. Hell she didn't want it with someone she did know. She was done with relationships, that had been the consensus after Max. No more putting her heart on the line. No more getting involved with men who turned her around so much she couldn't tell which way was up.

To hell with him.

“Hey,” her eyes closed to savor the sensation as he leaned down to kiss her, the smile still on her lips.

“What are you doing here?”

“Bella mentioned that you were here so I figured I'd drop by on my way over to her place.”

Shane was playing with a little girl now, sitting quietly in the corner with a group of tiny figurines between them. Liz knew that girl, she turned pink whenever her cousin was near. It had started already. She was going to have her heartbroken a lot over the course of her life if she was already getting crushes.

“You didn't have to,” she adjusted her hold on Dylan again. He was starting to fall asleep and the weight was getting to be a little much. “It's out of your way.”

“I know,” without asking he reached out and picked up her cousin, smiling widely at the sleepy grin the baby gave him. He had a great smile too. “I wanted to.”

Butterflies erupted in her stomach, the same way they always did when he did something sweet for her. Jacob was a great guy and when she was with him she didn't want to be anywhere else but when he wasn't around, dammit, when he wasn't around Liz felt like she was two different people. One who was quickly falling head-over-heels and one who was screaming to stop being so damn gushy and get the hell out.

When he wasn't around, she wanted to run away.

“Jay,” she wasn't sure what she wanted to say as she watched him cuddle the now sleeping Dylan. I love you? I want you to leave and never come back? Liz opened her mouth again but the words wouldn't come and, as she caught a glimpse of Shane being shoved to the floor, she was relieved by the distraction. “I'll be right back.”

She recognized the little boy standing over her cousin. He was a bully and unfortunately his target was most often Shane or Caty. The brat had made Caty cry the previous week and her Aunt had met with the principle about him. Matthew Downing was not supposed to be anywhere near the Parker kids. Shane pushed himself up off the ground, face full of defiance.

“No you don't,” she grabbed the little boy as he went to shove her cousin again.

“Hey!” Liz cursed under her breath but didn't let Matt go. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Keeping your gremlin away from my cousin,” no way in hell was she going to let this woman push her around. She'd faced down aliens, a prissy housewife was no problem.

Matt was torn from her grip, “Unhand my son.”

“If your son wasn't such a little bastard I wouldn't have had to touch him.”

“He was just playing.”

Shane started to yell from behind her and she calmly shushed him before turning back to the clearly delusional mother, “Mrs Downing, I don't care if you think your son is the second coming. You keep him away from my cousins.”

Two finely groomed eyebrows rose in condescension and Liz wanted nothing more to pull one of the caterpillars off. However, she was going to be an adult. What kind of impression would the kids get if she started a brawl?

“Or what?”

Screw being a good role model.

“Or I'm not going to touch him,” the woman gave her a cold triumphant smile, “I'm coming after you.”

“Excuse me?”

Liz felt the warm press of Jay's solid body against hers, “Do we have a problem here?”

Mrs Downing looked between them, taking in the intimidating build of the Quileute teen at her side. He would never lay a hand on a female but that didn't mean that the older woman didn't feel even a sliver of fear at the protectiveness displayed on his face.

“No.”

Looking down at their entwined fingers, Liz knew she was in so much trouble.

-=-=-=-

It wasn't hard to understand, it was hard to believe. No that wasn't right. Bella could believe it, she just didn't want to. Victoria was after her. She was out for blood. The only thing that was stopping her was the pack whose patrols had caught the red head in Forks time and time again. She'd gotten away each time but kept trying. They didn't know why the vampire seemed to be targeting the Swan house or who she was but they believed they could stop her. Bella knew Victoria and she wasn't so sure.

She knew what vampires where capable of, especially that one, and though she had faith in the pack, it wasn't enough. They would try to protect her and they would get hurt and then she would die. The blood drained from her face and rushed back as anger gripped her.

Where where the Cullens now?

They were the ones who had gotten her into the mess with James and Victoria. If she had never known them she would have been fine and now when she needed them, they where off somewhere still pretending they where a perfectly normal family. For the first time in her life Bella didn't talk herself out of being angry. Her hand wrapped around the soap dish on the counter and before she knew what happened, she'd hurtled it across the room.

“Whoa!” Jake ducked the flying fly pieces of porcelain. His brown eyes wide in surprise. “Calm down Bella.”

“Calm down! Calm down!” she advanced on him, knowing that he was only becoming a target out of an overflow of emotion rather than out of any true wrong doing. “I just found out a vampire wants to eat me and you want me to calm down!”

“What do you mean vampire?”

They both turned towards the quiet voice and froze.

“Vampires Bella!” Liz was pacing again. Back and forth. Back and forth across Bella's fathers cheap linoleum floor. Renee had told her once that that floor had been one of the reasons she'd left. Charlie had never changed it like he'd promised when they'd moved into the house. Somehow in her mothers emotionally driven mind, the unchanging pebbled white had come to signify the lack of freedom in her life.

Not that Bella couldn't understand that. Love, broken dreams, and misplaced hearts did funny things to people. Like make them rip out radios with their bare fingers.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Jake was sitting on one of the counters with a small grin. He was probably just happy that someone else was repeating the things he'd either outright expressed or thought to himself in the past. But then, no matter how mature he came across most of the time, like the rest of them he was just a hormonally driven teenager, it was completely plausible that he was just admiring his girlfriend in a temper that wasn't directed at him.

Lucky bastard. She wanted to send a nice snarky quip at him about it soon being his turn but as he wasn't ready to disclose his furry little problem (thank you Harry Potter) to Liz yet that particular discussion was off for the foreseeable future. Balanced between keeping the secret of one friends and keeping secrets from another, Bella figured she was safest ignoring the problem.

Hell the two of them hadn't even told her that they where dating. If Billy hadn't slipped when she'd called she wouldn't have had any idea that Jake had been spending a large chunk of his time with her daintily sized companion.

“Mike's hairy balls Bells,” she didn't bother hiding the wince at the mental picture but then that had been the point. Bella knew Liz well enough that she knew that those words had only sullied her lips in an effort to ensure attention was being paid. It was the shock factor.

She'd be angry-slash-disgusted if she wasn't so damn understanding. Turnabout was fair play and all that. She'd just handed over a fairly large pile of Holy Shit, a return shock here and there was just chump change. Liz stopped pacing and Bella finally saw the strain in her friends face.

There had never been that earth shattering moment for her. By the time she had figured out Edwards secret she had been so desperately in love with him she had pushed aside any repercussions of the new element in her life which, looking back, was just plain stupid especially as she was going on attempted eating number three (no matter if he'd meant to or not, Jasper counted – he'd just have to suck it up).

Looking back with a clear mind – detoxed if the voice in her head was anything to go by – she shouldn't have been in love with him when she'd thought she'd been in love with him. She hadn't really known him at all. He'd come across as manic and, at times, a bit of an ass. If he hadn't been the one to save her life, Bella didn't think that she would have thought anything more of him than that he was her insanely attractive bipolar lab partner.

If she'd had the ability to think around him at all. Edward had always been very nice to look at. And smell. Maybe he'd been right. Vampires were biologically designed to draw their prey (ie humans) in and she had been. Like a freaking fly to honey.

Fuck. The midst of a panic attack caused by spilled secrets and a blood thirsty sadistic vampire who wanted to enjoy a Bella-kebab was not the time for deep thoughts. Hell it wasn't the time for sane thoughts period.

“You do know that generally speaking when people come across mythical creatures bent on eating them, they run the other way not get all googly eyed with them. Its this thing called survival instinct.”

She probably shouldn't have told Liz about the whole my-blood-sang-to-Edward-like-vodka-sings-to-alcoholics-but-more-intense thing.

“We all know that's never been my strong suit.”

Both Liz and Jake snorted in agreement and Bella relaxed a little as her friends expression softened, “Anything else I should know before we start planning how to kill this bitch?”

Biting back a vaguely vindictive smile, she glanced over at Jake. Maybe that discussion wasn't so far off.

“Well...”

-=-=-

“It's only fair,” Liz really didn't want to do this. Sure Bella had dropped a huge bomb on her earlier but there was a marked difference between stepping into the middle of living myths that went as far back as human history and introducing the existence of not so little not so green men. “You've changed my world now I'm going to change yours.”

It wasn't nice or easy but Bella had a right to know the secrets that her friend been carrying around from day one especially since she'd already spilled her own. Though, thinking back to their first meeting, they'd both basically spilled their guts back in the day.

With a deep breath Liz carefully and frankly outlined her life from that September afternoon to the day she'd said goodbye to Max on that back road outside of Forks. She told her about the shooting that should have claimed her life, about the Special Unit and it's white room, about Nasedo and his machinations, she explained about the Skins – the threat they had been and the threat she still feared they where, she stumbled over letting someone else know the pain of Alex's death while dealing with the physical manifestation of Max's betrayal.

The words caught in her throat as she tried to tell Bella about her disbelief in the story of his suicide, her search for the truth, and the discovery of Tess's guilt. It was hard not to sound bitter as she told how their hands had been tied - where still tied - by the child the traitor carried and the knowledge that if she was let go she'd run to Khivar with stories of all their weaknesses and strengths.

They had killed in self-defense in the past but none of them where cold-blooded murderers.

There were things she didn't tell Bella, secrets that would stay with her till the grave. Future Max. Being in bed with Kyle. How she had craved for a life with Max so badly that she had almost been willing to let the world end. No words passed her lips about Michael killing Pierce or the bombing at the university or the second set of aliens in New York City. And she didn't say a word about Sheriff Valenti, they all owed him that much. Most of all she hid the Granolith. No one would learn of that through her.

Having to relive it all didn't make it any easier. She had gone into it with eyes wide open, she had known the danger and believed that it would be worth it. It wasn't, not by a long shot. Did Bella think the same thing about Edward? Not that it mattered, they had ended in the same place. Started in the same place too. Liz didn't know if it was funny or sad that they'd both fallen in love with the men who had saved their lives.

“So,” there was no word for Bella's expression other than overwhelmed, “I've got vampires and you've got people from another planet.”

“Yeah, seems like.”

“We should so write a book,” the comment took her off guard and she felt herself laugh before she truly heard it. “What Not to Date: A Guide for the Sensibly Stunted.”

“101 Signs That Your Boyfriend Isn't Human.”

“Bloodsucking, Hairballs, and Other Dating Quirks.”

She buried her face in her hands as the ridiculousness of the situation settle in, “I can't believe I'm dating a werewolf.”

Was he even a werewolf if he didn't change with the moon? But then was she'd never heard of a shapeshifter that could change species unless it was in a Charlene Harris novel.

“Why? Worried about fleas?” There was somethings hysterical about the conversation or at least Bella's dedication to avoiding what they had discussed. Where were the questions? She'd had thousands when she'd learned what Max was.

“Ugh, hadn't thought about that. Do you think he gets them?”

“I have no idea,” the smile slowly faded from her friends face as Liz settled more comfortably into the couch. No more secrets, finally no more secrets. “Is that what you're doing with Jake?”

“Hmm?”

“Dating?”

“I,” she gave a quick shake of the head to clear the metaphorical cobwebs. If only there was an definition for what they were doing, “I'm not really ready to put myself out there but it's hard not to with him. It's like my whole reality shifted the first time I saw him and I can't gather myself enough to change it back.”

That was the simplest she could put it into words. Liz didn't understand it, let alone explain it but she was slowly coming to terms with it. As they both sat absorbing their heavy day, she didn't think she liked the searching look Bella was giving her.