Stay (Part 2)

Banner by: EnjoyYourJacob is posted with the first part below.

Rating: MA (language, sexual situations)

Pairing: Jacob/Bella

Genre: Romance

Universe: AU

Beta: Mist

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Summary: This is the sequel to the original one-shot that I did for the Tricky Raven Silent Auction. This second part was donated to Fandoms4Animals first and is now being posted for all to read. In this new one-shot, Jacob reflects back on various parts of his life with Bella while perusing the collectibles in the hutch their children have set up in their living room. While it can be read alone, reading the first one helps to lead into this one.

**********Stay (Part 2)**********

(Jacob POV)
You know, I often hear people say things like “She’s staying with him because she has nowhere else to go,” or “Oh, he’s staying with her for the kids’ sake,” and those kinds of remarks always make me feel bad for the person involved. Those remarks always make me feel so grateful that it would never apply to me and my family.

Bella and I had celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in style, at least according to those in our cozy little Quileute community in La Push, Washington. Since our wedding had been held on the beach, so had our anniversary party. Bella had looked radiant in her peach, knee-length, satin dress while I had worn soft khaki pants with a peach t-shirt that matched the color of her dress. Yet, halfway through the party, true to form, Bella had discarded her sandals and I had removed my shirt since I had arrived barefoot.

Everyone else had been just as comfy as we were, getting more comfortable as the evening wore on. We had all enjoyed the food that Emily and Embry’s wife, Nicole, had made for all of us until it all ran out. Then later, we had danced by the light of the bonfire and the moon until sleep had begun calling for all of us.

Our youngest daughter was the only one who still lived with us since she was fifteen and in high school, but tonight she was staying with one of the twins and her family so that Bella and I could have some privacy. We were grateful to Emma for taking in Beth despite the fact that her and her husband already had a full house with their own kids and a mother-in-law. Thankfully, the other twin, Ava, was married to a man who was able to afford a comfortable hotel room that could fit not only the two of them, but their baby girl and our son, Logan, who was down from college.

In comfortable silence, Bella and I made the walk to our home, which wasn’t really that far from the beach. As the sprawling one-story log home came into view, I thought about how far Bella and I had come from that night in Charlie Swan’s house when she had asked me to stay.

Not only had I been able to start a relationship with the girl I loved when I had only been sixteen to her eighteen, but our relationship had been encouraged by nearly everyone who knew us. Our staunchest supporter to this day was Charlie, who had been extremely grateful that his daughter had left Cullen in favor of the boy he’d always thought of as his son. Charlie had made no bones about how he had always thought Cullen was a master manipulator and controller of those around him.

Leave it to the Chief of Police to figure that out through observation, just like he had figured out that there was something not quite…human about the Cullens or me. When he had first told us his thoughts on Cullen, we had stared in shock until he had scoffed, “Hey, there is a reason why I’m the chief, you know.”

“Then why didn’t you ever say anything?” asked my father.

“Because it was Bella’s choice and we all know how much she tends to listen to me. Sure, I could put my foot down, but she would have still found a way to be with him. So, rather than lose my only child, I played along, hoping something would happen to make her come to her senses. Thank God something did!” He had looked at me with a huge smile and pride in his eyes when he’d said the last part.

Needless to say, Bella and I had rarely been apart since we had gotten together, getting married as soon as I had graduated from high school with the complete blessing of both our families. Along the way, we did have some bumps in the road of our lives, but it was never anything we couldn’t handle together. Never once did we face a time where we ever became that “staying together for whatever reason” kind of couple.

Because of my wolf side, I had never been able to leave the reservation and Bella had refused to leave me even if it was only for a few years of college. Instead, she had commuted when she had to, then finished off the rest by internet. We had planned to wait a few years to start a family, but the twins had not wanted to wait to join us. Despite our precautions, Bella had become pregnant almost as soon as we were married, making me a father at the ripe old age of nineteen.

We had been living with my dad at the time, but I had begun to build the log home with the help of the rest of the wolf pack. Originally I had planned to make it smaller, like a starter home, but once we found out that Bella was pregnant with twins of all things, I had decided to make it big enough to hold a family of five at least. Over the years it had been expanded or remodeled, so that now it was a huge sprawling home, but it still exuded the wealth and comfort that having a huge extended family brings.

With my wife’s hand in mine, we walked up the front steps onto the long porch that led to the front door. Bella waited patiently for me to unlock the door, then let out a soft squeal when I swung her up into my arms to carry her over the threshold.

“Jake! You don’t have to do this! The tradition only holds when you first get married, not anniversaries!”

I beamed down at her. “So? We can make our own traditions, right? Besides, I love carrying you!”

She chuckled as I shut the door with my foot then carried her to the couch in our living room. Setting her down, I curled up next to her, pulling her into my arms as she settled against my chest with a sigh.

“It was a great party, wasn’t it?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Mm hm,” I replied as I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling her familiar and comforting scent.

We sat that way for a few moments until my eyes caught sight of the children’s memory hutch that still remained in our living room. I smiled as my gaze landed on the displayed photo that was a close-up of Bella’s pregnant belly covered in a plaster cast. Bella had gotten the idea from her friend Angela, who had in turn gotten it from someone in her pottery class.

I remembered Bella had told me that some first time mothers had liked to make a cast of their pregnant bellies as a way to immortalize the birth of their first child, sort of like other parents liked to have their children’s feet or hands pressed into cement. Granted, we had done that too, but the plaster cast had been something new and rather intimate to the both of us. Back then, we had displayed the cast up on a high shelf in the living room, but once our daughters were grown and out of the house, the cast had been stored away in the attic.

Still, no one but Bella and I knew exactly what had happened during the making of the cast. Most people, including our twins, thought Bella had simply sat somewhere and applied the plaster herself since the photo we have shows her hands smoothing over the plaster. While she had done some of it, I had helped too, in more ways than one.

That day, Bella had only worn a pair of panties and a tank top, lifting it up so that only her breasts were covered and her stomach was bare. I had joked that since it was just the two of us, she didn’t even have to wear any clothes at all. She had blushed and said she felt more comfortable that way. I had known she was a bit self-conscious about her body ever since her pregnancy had started showing, so I had let it go even though I had constantly tried to let her know just how beautiful I thought she was even while carrying my children.

Once she was ready, I had begun to apply the strips of plaster to her stomach with care, enjoying every chance to put my hands on my wife’s body until she would insert her own hands beneath mine. We had continued that way, me putting the strips on, then her finishing them off until her entire mid-section was covered up to her sides. Once she was satisfied that the cast was thick enough, I had helped her lie back on the bed then lay besides her as our hands still smoothed over the cast, waiting for it to dry.

One thing had led to another, as it usually did when I got my hands on her, so that eventually her tank top and panties had come off along with my own clothes. I had then given her my version of a full body massage, starting with her limbs, shoulders and breasts. Then when the cast was mostly dry, I had carefully removed it before finishing with her torso, back and finally between her legs. By the time the cast had been fully dry, we were both very sated and Bella had fallen asleep while I had cleaned up the mess we had made.

Every time Bella and I looked at the picture or the cast since that day, we shared a secret smile about it. I was already smiling as Bella lifted her head from my chest to glance up at me.

She tilted her head to the side. “What?”

I kissed her forehead before gently setting her aside so I could retrieve the photo. Holding it up so that she could see it, I smiled some more.

“Just remembering,” I said.

She laughed as she got up to join me near the little hutch. “That is a great memory, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I set the photo back into its place.

Bella leaned against my side as her eyes roamed over the various collectibles in the hutch. “We’ve had so many great memories though, some of which we’ve shared with our family, our children.”

I wrapped my arms around her, leaning down to whisper against her ear. “But, you know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“None of them would have been possible if I had left that night.”

She leaned back to look up at me. “That night?”

I nodded. “Yes, when you asked me to stay.”

I watched as her smile lit up her face. “Ah, now that was a night to remember.”

“Yep,” I paused for a moment to get my thoughts in order. “You know, all night during the party, I kept thinking about that one word, stay. I thought of how you had used it that night at Charlie’s. How you asked me to stay, so you could love me forever. You told me that you would stay by my side back then and you haven’t left it since.”

She sighed. “That’s right. You still don’t know how terrified I was that you weren’t going to listen to me that night. I was prepared to beg as long as it took to get you to stay with me. And then you crawled into my bed and stayed the night with me.”

I smirked. “Yeah, and after that, not even the threat of Charlie’s gun could pry me from your bed.”

She laughed and I knew she was remembering all the nights I used to sneak in her window to sleep in her bed with her even under Charlie’s nose. There had been times we were certain Charlie knew, but he had never said a word in all these years nor had he ever prevented me from being with his only daughter.

Bella turned to look at the hutch again and I leaned my forehead against her temple. “But I was also thinking that we’ve been so lucky. That all these years, we’ve stayed together not because we don’t have a choice or because of the kids. We’ve stayed because we love each other, because our lives have been fuller, happier with each other.”

“And because I can’t live without you, Jacob. It’s like I’ve always told you. You mean everything to me, you’re everything I’ve always wanted. Everything I’ve always needed, but I was too blind and too stupid to realize that until it was almost too late.”

I held her closer, “I’m so glad you figured out that you loved me before it was too late.”

“Me too,” came her soft reply.

She let go of me to walk over to the hutch. I watched as she let her fingers trail over the dream catcher that I had given her for her eighteenth birthday. It had remained over her headboard until I had made her a bigger one as a wedding present. That one still hung over our bed and the original one had been dug out of our closet by one of the twins when they had been scrounging for stuff to put into the hutch.

When Ava had found the dream catcher and gotten the story out of Bella how it had came to be, she had begged to use it in the hutch. It had been a staple ever since. So had their Grandma Renee’s old camera and several black and white photos she had taken of Charlie and my parents back before Bella and I were born.

Bella’s fingers continued to trail over the things in the hutch from the pictures of us dancing during our wedding, over the few candid pictures of us cuddling at the beach or on the front porch, to the doll with the blue jumper that resembled Emma since she had been the tomboy of the twins. There was even a doll with longer hair dressed in a white shift that resembled Ava, who was the twin who loved frilly, feminine things.

Bella’s fingers touched the white toy car that Logan had added to the collection while saying it looked like Grandpa Charlie’s car without the lights, when really it was far from it. Three-year-old Logan had simply found the car in the sandbox at the playground and decided to bring it home with him to add to the collection just so he could say he had done so. Over the years it had been left in the hutch as a joke that someday that car would be Logan’s when he was old enough to drive.

Bella picked up the red car that resembled the 1968 Camaro SS that I had rebuilt a few years ago and still owned to this day. She grinned as she wriggled it in her hand at me. “Remember when you and Logan added this to the hutch?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Beth never liked it when Logan and I argued with each other.”

Bella chuckled. “No she didn’t.” She shook her head as she began to retell the tale. “Logan had just turned sixteen a few months before you finally finished rebuilding the Camaro, it had taken you a couple of years to get all the parts and to find the time to finish it, yet he thought you were building it for him.”

“Well, he had been by my side while I rebuilt the thing. I think he thought he was entitled to a piece of it after all that time.”

Bella laughed at my statement before adding, “Even when all he did was hand you the tools, he still claimed that he helped you build it.”

I nodded as she went on. “And then when we both had sat him down and tried to explain why that kind of car was too much responsibility for a teenager…”

“…not to mention a huge temptation to get into trouble,” I added.

“He had been so furious with you! I was right there backing you up, but it was you that he was angry with. He kept trying to say that he was responsible enough because everyone kept telling him that he was just like his father, so there was no way he would wreck the car.”

I rolled my eyes as Bella continued. “So you gave him your old Harley Sprint as a way to appease him, but he promptly went out and totaled it. Thank God it was only the bike that was totaled.”

“Yeah,” I replied with a shudder as I remembered the close call our son had on that bike. Logan had barely walked away from the accident with a broken leg, but the bike had been put to rest for good. It was while he had been in the hospital getting the cast that ten-year-old Beth had dragged Bella to the toy store and found the toy Camaro to give to Logan.

“See,” she had announced in a voice still wobbly with tears, “this way you and daddy can both have a Camaro and everyone can be happy again.”

The close call had made Logan realize that he wasn’t as responsible as he should have been, plus his little sister’s tears had made him feel even guiltier for trying to fight with me. Beth had always been a daddy’s girl and by default, she had also loved Logan as much as she loved me. Since people had always said that Logan was the spitting image of me as well as sharing my personality, it had gone to his head as well as Beth’s.

Growing up, Beth had followed Logan around like a little puppy when she wasn’t following me. So whenever Logan and I had butted heads, Beth had always been the one to come between us to try to calm us down.

Beth was the romantic of us all, the perfect combination of the best things from Bella and I. She was the one who always wanted everyone to be happy and went out of her way to make it possible. She was constantly trying to make everyone smile or trying to make sure they had what they needed to do so.

Sure she was only fifteen now, but from the moment she was born, she thought of everyone else before herself. That’s why she had gotten the toy Camaro for Logan. She thought if he had a Camaro of his own, even though it was just a toy, he wouldn’t be angry at me anymore.

Her gift and her words had definitely done something to Logan because he had accepted the toy car while trying to hold back tears. After he had left the hospital, he had immediately apologized to me for being ungrateful and reckless. Honestly, I had known how he felt since I had been a teenager too, plus I had witnessed Bella’s strange recklessness back then. Still, I had accepted his apology after a heart to heart talk with him, then we had placed the toy Camaro in the hutch as a way to say all was right in our world again.

From that moment on, Logan had begun to shed his teen years, growing into a smart young man who was now in his third year of college, striving to get a degree in Engineering. Once he may have been just like me, but these days he was surpassing all of our expectations, making both Bella and I extremely glad that there had never been a reason for him to be tied to the reservation the way I had always been.

I moved closer to Bella’s side to peer into the hutch, smiling at the evidence of the time when I had shared my body with a wolf. There was a picture of my wolf standing next to Bella who was in a hoodie. I remembered when that picture was taken. It had been a cold day when Christmas was just around the corner and Bella and I had decided to finally look for a tree to put up in our new home.

She had insisted on coming with me, but as the day wore on and we had yet to agree on the perfect tree from the woods, it had gotten too cold for Bella to handle. The twins had been just infants then, safely in their bed with Charlie watching over them.

When I had noticed that Bella was shivering, I had phased into my wolf form before quickly curling my body around hers. She had leaned against me, giving me a grateful smile while trying to talk through chattering teeth.

“I know you think I’m crazy for coming with you in this weather, but it’s going to be our first Christmas in our new home, Jake. I just wanted to share these things with my husband. I wanted to make this wonderful new memory with the man I love.”

I had nudged her cheek with the tip of my nose before slightly nodding my head to let her know that I had understood and that I wasn’t upset with her. We had stood like that for a while, until the color came back to Bella’s cheeks and her teeth had stopped clicking. It was just as I was about to unfurl myself from around her when we had heard the camera go off.

I had known it was Seth immediately since he had become the resident shutterbug after taking a photography class one summer during high school. After graduation, he actually went off to college to study it more before traveling to photograph the world. Before he had left though, Bella and I had been his favorite subjects. We were constantly being caught in candid poses, some of which were now visible in the little hutch.

Aside from the one of my wolf next to Bella, Seth had also taken one of the wedding photos, as well as the one where I had just phased back into my human form after a particularly nasty fight with a stray vampire. All the photo showed was my face and Bella’s, so close together that our foreheads were touching. Bella had been hugging me, her relief that I was still in one piece had been clear for all to see.

Besides me, Bella chuckled, making me look her way. “What?”

She reached down to pick up the little plaque that was near the toy Camaro. The plaque read, “Never Let Mom Brush Your Hair When She’s Mad At Dad.”

I couldn’t help but grin at that one too. Ava had put that there after making my dad carve it for her. She had been twelve at the time, but the incident that it referred to had occurred years before that. It was something Ava had never forgot since her hair meant everything to her.

Bella shook her head. “You know, to this day, Ava has never let me live that down. She still won’t let me get near her hair. In fact, last year it was up to Emma to make sure Ava’s hair was perfect before her wedding.”

I gave her a sympathetic grimace, “Sorry. I mean, I know it was partly my fault that it happened, but look on the bright side, Emma still let you touch her hair. So did Logan and Beth.”

She rolled her eyes. “Logan doesn’t count. He’s a boy.”

I shrugged. “So? He had long hair as a kid. Hair which you were able to brush and braid and all that other…stuff.”

Bella laughed at my look of fake horror before she bumped shoulders with me. “Oh come on, Jacob! You used to braid your hair too!”

“Yeah, but I did it myself! And it was for traditional reasons, not to…look…pretty.”

Bella continued to laugh at my stricken expression which I couldn’t hold because seeing her so happy always affected me. Soon, I was laughing along with her. We continued to laugh as we remembered the incident that had produced that plaque.

Ava and Emma had been six while Logan had been just a few months away from his first birthday. Bella had already brushed Emma’s hair out for the night and was just about to start on Ava’s when she heard Logan’s wail. I had been in the garage when I heard the wail too, but the instinct that had me running for Logan’s room was different than the one Bella had.

See, Bella was a mother, so her protective instinct was always constant for her children. My instinct that night had been prompted by the fact that I had sent Embry and Quil inside with Logan since Embry had insisted that he could put the baby to bed without a problem while I finished the new headboard I had been constructing for Logan’s first birthday.

My supernatural speed had allowed me to reach Logan’s room just as Bella had begun screeching at my two best friends. “What the heck are you two doing?”

Looking back, the scene I had slid into was comical, though at the time I had feared for Embry and Quil’s life.

Wide-eyed Quil, face covered in white baby powder, had been holding a screaming Logan up and away from his body. His huge hands had been folded around Logan’s torso while Logan’s little arms flailed in the air. Logan had been completely naked, yet looked like he had been dipped in a vat of baby powder. Not an inch of him had escaped the white stuff, even the black of his hair had been completely hidden by the white powder.

Embry had been holding a dripping towel in his hands that were outstretched towards Logan. While he hadn’t worn the same deer-caught-in-the-headlights look as Quil, he had grimaced slightly.

He had tried to diffuse the situation with a, “It’s not as bad as it looks, Bella.”

At that moment, Logan had turned his head towards his mother, wailing even more. It was then that I had seen what had prompted Bella to suddenly gasp.

“Oh my God! It’s in his mouth!” She had rushed towards Quil. “Are you trying to suffocate him? Give me my son, you idiot!”

As Quil had quickly handed Logan to Bella, Embry had tried to wrap the towel around the baby’s body. Bella had twisted away as she glared at him.

“Bella,” Embry had said, in a voice meant to soothe a wild animal, “I wet this towel to get the powder off of him.”

“It’s already too cold to put on him,” growled Bella. That sound and the way she had been glaring at both of my friends had almost made me believe there was a wolf inside of Bella too. In any case, she had certainly been acting like a mama wolf protecting her cub.

“I’m going to give him a bath, you two get out of here. And where is Jacob?”

Knowing what was coming, I had swallowed. “I’m right here.”

She had whirled around to aim her glare at me. “Where have you been? You were supposed to be watching our son! Instead I find him with these two clowns!”

I had winced as her voice rose with every word. “I was in the garage finishing the headboard and Embry offered to change his diaper for me. I trust Embry.”

“Really?” she had snapped. “Just because he’s your Beta doesn’t mean he can take over your duties as a father, Jake!”

Quil had stepped forward despite the fact that Embry had been frantically trying to gesture to him to be quiet. “Bella, Embry didn’t even…”

“Not another word from you!” interrupted Bella. She had then turned to look at Embry. “Since you’re so responsible, you get to clean up the mess in this room while I bathe my son.” Turning back to Quil, she had ordered, “And you get to leave right now or you’ll leave in pieces.”

As she had turned towards me standing in the door to the hallway, she snapped at me. “As for you, too bad we don’t have a doghouse for you to sleep in. As it is, you’ll take the couch.”

I had closed my eyes with a whispered, “Shit” before turning to follow my wife. Unfortunately she had never stopped stomping to the bathroom where she had slammed the door in my face, locking me out despite my pleas for her to talk to me.

While Bella had bathed Logan, I had helped Embry clean up the baby’s room then saw both him and Quil out, after trying to reassure them that I’d be fine. I had decided to go back to the garage to put things away, thus giving Bella a little time to calm down. By the time I had returned to the house, Logan had been clean and lying contentedly in his crib watching the baby shadow animals dance on the wall from the revolving lamp, all while gnawing on his favorite baby blanket.

I had left him there and went to find Bella. She had been in the twins bedroom, brushing Ava’s hair, but I had been able to clearly see that she hadn’t calmed down a bit. Poor Ava had tears in her eyes as she winced in pain, her little hand reaching back to try to push her mother’s hand away from her hair while Emma had huddled under her blanket in the corner of her bed as far away as she could get from them. Bella had been in her own world, muttering under her breath while ignoring Ava’s hands and sniffles.

I had winced at a particularly loud whimper from my daughter after Bella had nearly yanked the hair from her scalp. Stepping into the bedroom, I had tried to get my wife’s attention before she had completely scalped Ava.

“Bells, honey? Why don’t you go have a nice, long soak in the tub and I’ll finish Ava’s hair for you.”

She had glared up at me as she once more yanked on Ava’s hair, making Ava cry out as a tear finally made its way down her cheek.

“Don’t you dare try to smooth talk your way back…”

I had moved closer, waving my hands towards Ava. “Bella, you’re hurting Ava.”

Whether it had been my words or my actions, something had registered with Bella enough to make her remove the brush from Ava’s hair before turning the girl around to look at her face.

Bella had gasped, “Oh Ava! Oh baby, I’m so sorry!” She had wiped the tears off of our daughter’s face with her thumbs before pulling her into her arms. “Are you okay? I’m sorry!”

Ava had sighed as she hugged her mother back. “I’m fine mommy, but daddy is right. You should go soak and he can brush my hair.”

It had taken a few more moments for Ava to reassure her mother that she was fine before she would leave the room. Bella had handed me the brush without looking at me, then walked out of the room.

As I had sat behind Ava, she’d turned her gaze up to me and said with a tiny grin, “I’m glad mommy can’t handle tears coz my hair would be gone now.”

I was grinning at the memory as Bella set the plaque back down. Waiting until she was looking at me, I asked, “Did I ever tell you what Ava said after you left to take your bath?”

Bella shook her head. “No, what did she say?”

I chuckled. “It seems she was smarter than she let on…or at least she was in tune with you.”

When Bella tilted her head in question, I told her what Ava had said. “She turned to look up at me with this sly grin and said, I’m glad mommy can’t handle tears coz my hair would be gone now.”

Bella’s eyes widened. “She did not!”

I nodded. “Yep. I remember it clear as day because as soon as she said it and I saw the grin and heard Emma giggling from beneath her blanket, I was laughing too. The three of us spent a good amount of time laughing about it before I could settle Ava down enough to finish her hair, then get both of the girls to bed.”

Bella shook her head with a grin. “I never knew that! By the time I had gotten out of the bath the girls were fast asleep.”

I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me. “And before the night was over, you had forgiven me.”

Bella swatted at my shoulder. “Well, geez it’s really hard to stay mad at you when you give me those puppy dog eyes.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t because of my super seduction skills?” I said, smirking.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please, you know I’m the one with the seduction skills.”

My smirk turned into a full smile. “Hm, you do have a point, your skills definitely have staying power.”

She giggled as I nuzzled her neck, letting my hands wander up her back in a slow caress. I trailed my lips up to her jaw, then moved to tease her lips with mine. When I pulled back to gaze at her, she looked at me with love in her darkening eyes.

“I love you, Jacob Black. Stay with me and let me love you forever. Please, stay.”

“Forever,” I agreed as I scooped her up into my arms to carry her into our bedroom where I intended to spend the rest of our anniversary in the arms of the woman I loved.

We both knew that it was a given. At her side, I would forever…stay.

THE END