nature

I'd been staying at the cabin for just over two weeks when Edward had shown up there. I hadn't expected him to come looking for me. I truly hadn't, even though I knew he loved me.

It had been the hardest part of what I'd tried to sort out while I'd been in Europe, of course. I knew he loved me and I knew I loved him, but I rarely saw what defined that love – on either side. We'd both made mistakes after I'd been changed, we'd both expected more of the other than we should have, we'd both sought something from the other that we weren't fully prepared to give.

When I'd been human, what my blurry memories had allowed me to focus on with him, had been the idea of the avenging angel – from the first day in class when he glared at me to when he saved my life, first from a van, and then later from a group of criminals. Throughout it all, he'd been more than – for lack of a better word – human.

Then I became a vampire, and those first few weeks after I'd become a vampire had been close to perfect. The problem was that as weeks passed and became months, Edward was still, in many ways, treating me like glass – and not just Edward, but the whole family. I'd lived my whole human life as a relatively independent person. It wasn't Renee that took care of me, I'd been the one to take care of her, to pay the bills, to make the food, to organize the plans for her – too numerous to mention – harebrained schemes. And when I'd moved up to Forks, Charlie had been a little more self aware, a little more capable, but he'd still needed me to do the cooking. I'd still been more of the caretaker than the dependent.

I had never, as a human, lived in a world where I required or even wanted any kind of a codependent relationship. I'd never lived in a family unit. The Cullens though, were a family unit; a well working and oiled machine with seven individual gears that ground together to make a whole. From Rosalie's unique personality to Emmett's vibrance for life to Carlisle's infinite wisdom and Esme's unending love to the numerous gifts of Edward, Alice, and Jasper. Then they'd tried to add me as an eighth gear, but I wasn't used to being a single gear in part of a larger unit – and I'd had no clue how to get used to it.

To me, when they told me I couldn't be alone yet, and when they insisted on doing everything with me all the time, I'd ultimately been unable to match what they were doing as belonging to a show of love. It hadn't made sense, consciously, with how I'd always lived before.

I'd always known it wasn't their fault though, it was mine, I was the one that had always been in the wrong. I was always the odd man out. It was why I'd tried to lock it away and keep it tamped down, at least while I was with one of them. I usually succeeded, when I was with Edward, as he always brought out the best in me.

It was during the hours that I was alone in the room that they'd given me, that I'd had doubts and concerns, that I'd give in to the monster in my head that told me they didn't trust me.

But, though I hadn't quite been able to accept Edward truly loved me, I had been able to see his concern and his passion for me. I knew he cared for me, and I'd always known that I wanted him forever – and not because he was handsome or rich – but because he was the best part of my life and he was so good and pure. I'd always known he was beautiful on the inside, in spite of his own beliefs of possibly being soulless.

But then they'd left and those doubts and concerns had had four months of uninterrupted festering. I didn't even dare imagine what would have happened to them if they'd returned before Sam had found me... If they'd returned before I'd formed a bond with Jake. That, of course, was a large part of what I couldn't explain to any of them. Jake hadn't only saved my life. He'd saved theirs too. I knew that without a doubt. I'd seen how monstrous I really was in Europe.

It was why I hadn't returned to Edward though, because I knew how good he was, from the inside out... and I couldn't taint that – especially not without his consent. But for him to truly accept me, he'd have to know what I'd done, and all I could see him doing if I told him was hating me and leaving me again. And while I knew I should tell him anyways, that he deserved the right to make that decision, that that would be for the best, I couldn't do it. Because I knew, if he left, I wouldn't follow as I didn't have any right to. And if he wasn't here then I couldn't protect him. Victoria was out there still, but even more frightening than Victoria was the reality that if my actions were discovered by the wrong party than he'd need my unique brand of protection if he was aware of what I'd done – even though I still couldn't figure out how I'd made my shield expand outside of myself the first time.

It was why I wasn't ready to see Edward, because I knew I couldn't give him that someday yet. I wasn't sure I'd actually ever be able to, but I definitely knew I wasn't ready yet. It was why I was so shocked to see him. I'd given him no indication at that point that I was ready to.

Still, when he walked in the door, it was as if everything righted itself, at least for a minute. "Edward... I love you." The words were out before I'd had a chance to console my mind on that decision – but it was the complete truth, even if I wasn't with him, I knew that I loved him. It was about the only thing I was a hundred percent certain of.

He smiled even as he looked around the cabin. "I love you too," he said softly.

I knew what he was seeing as he looked around the cabin. It was in bad shape. There were a couple of cracks where the ceiling met the walls, the wood wasn't entirely together the way it should be, even the roof leaked when it was raining. It wouldn't be inhabitable, if I was human... but I wasn't human.

"You should come home, Beau."

"Haven't you been told that this is my jail for the time being?" I knew he had been, because Jake had become surprisingly chummy with the Cullens during the time I'd been in Europe. Oh, Jake claimed it was all to stop Victoria, but I wasn't a fool. If Jake didn't actually like them, at least a little, he wouldn't be going there, at all.

"Yes, Jacob has made us aware that you are jailed here for the time being – unless you decide to come home. So why haven't you come home?"

"Because –" and for half a second, I considered telling him – I truly did – but then I remembered the crushing pain the letter had caused the last time he'd left and I rejected the idea "– I'm not there yet. I still need to find some sort of peace or atonement for the things I've done."

"What can you possibly find here that you can't find at home?"

"They're teaching me restraint and control, Edward. It's not something I can really explain, but it's something that they intimately understand in a way vampires don't. They have to have control, all the time, or they risk losing their tempers and harming people in a moment of weakness. Our kind is ruled by bloodlust, and even though we possess a basic realization that we can't give into it all the time, we do give into it. Any time we hunt, we are ruled completely by instinct. I need to be able to hunt while in a hundred percent control."

"Carlisle can help you to learn control if you're really worried, Beau, but you're fine. You made a dietary change to human blood and managed to go off of it in less than a month. It took me four years to go back."

He didn't understand though, so I looked away. "It's about more than just bloodlust for me, Edward. I need this. Just give me time."

"You can have time at home."

I flinched. I'd been trying to have time at the Cullens house – for a different reason, of course – when they'd left the first time. "Perhaps you should move on without me, Edward. I can't give you what you're looking for right now."

– – –

The door to the little cabin opened, pulling me out of my memory, and I looked up. Jacob was there.

"Jacob, what are you doing here?"

His reaction wasn't exactly what I was expecting, though I shouldn't have been surprised given how well he got me. "You aren't supposed to be here." He looked closer at me, probably noting the state I was in. "What did he do?" His words, this time, were a growl.

"It's what I did, not him. I made a mistake." My voice was cold, monotone, and I hated myself for it. I hated myself for treating my only friend badly, hated myself for the fact that I couldn't give him the relationship he wanted, and I hated myself for hating him being there – in that moment, it wasn't him I wanted in that doorway, it was Edward.

He came in the little cabin, shutting the door.

"I doubt that. What happened?"

"I don't... even really know. I was ready to go home, even though I'm still all kinds of twisted – but something I said, or something I did, sent the wrong message. I have no clue what." I looked away from him and out the little side window. "I admit, I'm not really better. I know my thoughts aren't really right, but I don't know how to let them go. They left, as you know, as you remember – and they left me no real hope that I'd ever see them again. Though I suppose I could have followed them... Alice's suggested in the past that I would have – if I'd never been given that letter. I don't know. I can't see myself having done that. Of course... three months ago, I never would have seen myself taking even one life, so I clearly don't know myself very well.

"Carlisle apologized for leaving the way they did, and I know he meant it. I know he was honest, but I'm still conflicted about it. I know it was my fault they left, that I have no right to be angry at them, but I am. I can forgive Rosalie as she's never liked me much to begin with, her and I are pure animosity, and I don't see that ever changing. I guess you could say we're two negative battery posts... Emmett is easy to forgive, because he's impossible to stay mad at – he's sort of like you in that respect. I can forgive Jasper as I need his skills, and I know it's a horrible reason to forgive someone, but it's all I got. I don't blame Edward, at all, as I said, it was my fault to begin with. Carlisle and Esme I'm not angry with anymore, but they're hard for me to forgive, because they both should have known how bad an idea it was...

"Then there's Alice, who – to some extent – I can forgive, because it's not her fault she relies so heavily on her visions. She's so used to them, that it's natural for her. I can get that, sort of. But, she wasn't there when I did what I did in Europe. She should have been there, or sent Edward, or something. She should have stopped me. And I know it's wrong to think that. I asked her not to look for my future, so it's my own fault, again, but she told me in the past that she was attuned to me and visions just sometimes come. So why wasn't she there? Did she see me do that and just think it was ignorable? Or what?" It was what I hadn't put into even a solidly formed thought before.

He stepped over to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. "You're wrong. Them leaving was their fault, not yours." He kept talking even as I shook my head in denial of his first words. "You said you were ready to go home with him. Why didn't you tell him?"

"I was about to. Then he admitted that you and him had plotted together to get me out of town – that neither of you told me why you really wanted me gone." I turned my head to glare at Jake, but there was no heat in the glare, as I'd said, I couldn't really stay mad at him. Besides, I wasn't angry at Edward about it either. In the grand scheme of things, it just wasn't that big of a deal. I sighed. "It briefly upset me and I couldn't make myself say the words I'd initially planned, but if he'd asked me to come home, or told me he loved me, or anything... I'd have returned in that instant. It didn't happen."

He let out a short laugh, letting go of my shoulder.

"What are you laughing about?"

He shook his head. "I'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole, Beau. I'm not. You two need to figure out your issues with pertinacity on your own. But Alice, I might be able to help with..." He paused looking at me speculatively. "If you tell me what you did that you think is so bad."

I shook my head. "I don't want to tell you."

"No. You don't want to tell Edward. We both know that my opinion doesn't matter that much. Lying doesn't work between the two of us, so let's not go down the road of you being worried about my reaction. We may yet have our two minutes, Beau, but you'll never see me the way you do him. Besides, we both know I'm not going to do anything drastic. If that was going to happen, it would have been when you showed up two months ago." He took a breath, looking away. "I can control my thoughts around Edward, Beau. He'll never know. Neither will my pack... and on the chance they do discover it, I can order them not to think about it."

I looked at him for a moment before I stepped away from him, going out of the cabin. I could hear him following me. He was wrong about one thing though, I truly didn't want to tell him. It was true, I didn't see him the same way I saw Edward, but that didn't mean that I didn't care about his feelings, because I did.

But keeping it to myself was impossibly exhausting, so I spun and faced him as I told him.

…

Jake had walked a little ways away from me, turning his back to me, about halfway through my story. I knew when he did it, that it was so I couldn't see his reaction.

When I'd finally finished, he didn't turn to face me immediately, instead he spoke with his back to me. "Well, I'll give you this one, I'd have never believed you were even capable of it, Beau. And you're right, what you did is definitely the kind of thing I can't forgive... it would go against everything that I am, as a shifter, as a human... and if you'd told me that – and you know which part I'm referring to – when you'd first come to La Push seeking to die... I might have actually done it, though I'd like to say I wouldn't have.

"But the thing is, I'm pretty sure what you did goes again what you yourself believe in, at the very least the human part of you." He turned toward me again, his eyes were calm. "I could hear your regret, Beau, and I've seen your guilt every single day for two months. So though I can't forgive the action, that doesn't mean we can't move past it. You are more than the sum of your worst moment, Beau. I know that. To regret is to be human, surely you haven't forgotten that. So just because, for a moment, you gave into a nature you probably didn't even realize you were capable of... it doesn't make you the bad guy."

"How do I move on from it?" I asked softly.

"You don't move on, because you will always remember – even if you didn't have perfect recall, I'm quite sure you'd never forget that – instead, you move forward. And if you truly think that Edward would never understand and accept it – then maybe you move forward in a direction other than him. I get why you're hesitant to tell him now, I do. It sort of goes against what they believe in, doesn't it?"

I nodded mutely.

"As for Alice, I can tell you that she didn't see it. She worked hard to respect your wishes, Beau."

"Okay." I looked past him at the trees, not sure what else to say. Finally, I changed the subject. "So what happened here with Victoria while I was in Alaska? Since I haven't heard any cheers, I'm assuming it was yet another fail."

"We caught her scent a few miles north of La Push. It was where Alice scent us as a starting point – the Cullens were waiting for her a little ways south from our starting point. We chased her in that direction... Embry managed to race ahead and slam into Victoria, it slowed her down almost enough for Leah to get on her and rip her apart, but she's slippery.

"When we caught up with where the Cullens were waiting, she managed to weave around rocks and trees like she'd lived in the area for centuries. She used every ravine, creek and hill to her advantage. If we didn't want her dead so badly, I must admit, I think I'd admire her evasive technique. It's one hell of a gift..." He shook his head. "She managed to get to the ocean and dived in. The Cullens could have followed her, or at least tried, but it's my understanding that fighting underwater doesn't exactly work very well."

I would have laughed at the visual his words provided, except something else struck me that he'd said. "Maybe it is a gift. As in a supernatural talent. It would explain why she's so hard to kill."

"You think that could be a talent?" He asked, curious.

"Well, it's basically the opposite of what her mate did. Her mate could find people, so I don't think it's really out of the realm of reality that she could avoid people."

"Ugh, I'm really starting to hate all of your gifts," he grumbled before lapsing into silence for a minute before he let out a little grunt that sounded disturbed. "There's something I've been avoiding telling you for awhile. It's completely unrelated to Victoria, but it's still something you really should know. I didn't tell you before because the Cullens didn't want you to worry, but as I said, lying doesn't work for us. Wait here."

He went back to the cabin, stepping inside for only a couple of seconds before coming back out with a rolled up newspaper. He unrolled it and handed it to me. It was a Seattle Post-Intelligencer paper. The title on the front page read:

DEATH TOLL RISES

I looked at Jake.

"Trust me, Beau. Read it."