So... I was stressing over the chapter. Rewriting it, writing it, erasing it completely, rewriting it, almost adding, then thinking about how boring this chapter was, going with my original idea, getting off my butt to write it, watching a whole lot of Daria while writing it, seeing the real life 2 year old Cammy and getting an idea, then finishing it off with some foreshadowing and stressing about BD.

Still I was scared to add it.

Then I thought, screw it. It's good enough and I'm excited for the movie. I'm going to go with my gut on this one. NOT BETA'd.

Special shout-out to my facebook pals and everyone who is still reading this despite my flaky behavior. I'm not worthy!

You know, I'd been so used to being screamed at by Edward, that I never really considered how Jacob posed the same annoying threat. At least not until I picked up the phone. The nice thing about Jacob though was that as Paul's friend I knew I could toy with him a little.

"Barney's Beanery," I answered.

Confused pause.

"Cammy?"

"Yeah," I said closing the House and Home magazine that I had come in the mail last week. If I had to read another word from Eclipse I was going to have a psychotic episode, and occupying my time otherwise was difficult when all of the vampires were busy. I was actually grateful for Jacob's interruption.

"Why did you let me say that to Bella?" Jacob griped.

Oh no. I rubbed my temples as it all came together. Jacob had told Bella that he would rather see her dead than a vampire. Here it comes...

You weren't there to stop me. You said you knew I was in love with her. Why are you letting me torture myself?"

Oh, he was so like Edward, without the attempt of appearing gentlemanly.

"Jake..."

"Ugh! I'm sorry. I'm just... such an idiot. What was I thinking? How do you woo a girl? You tell her you want to kill her," Jacob said sarcastically.

Oddly enough, that same principle had been applied to Edward's wooing of Bella, if you really think about it.

"There was no other way for me to convey to her how much I don't want her to do this to herself. She means so much to me. I love her, Cammy. I really do."

That was the problem talking to a werewolf about love. It sounded too much like Paul. Tortured, frustrated. At least with Edward I could easily dismiss that he was just being himself. Jacob was a naturally happy person.

"Jacob, don't worry. Friends forgive each other," I said.

His pause was comforting.

"Where were you yesterday? I needed you," Jacob said quietly.

Guilt stabbed me.

"A lot of people need me. Especially in this book." I was needed everywhere, all at once, babysitting and reassuring. The very thought of it was driving me to the medicine counter for an aspirin. "Paul needed me then."

"I need your help now," Jacob said.

I sighed, looking at my empty house and remembering that the Cullens were having a family meeting on the other side of the town. There really was no need for me here. Especially since I was sure I was going to be barraged by questions of who the mysterious intruder was. I guess it would be better to be over there.

"I'll be right there," I promised. "Are you at home?"

"No. At Emily's," Jacob said.

Sam's truck wasn't there when I pulled in, which told me that Emily was probably using it since I knew for a fact Sam had more convenient ways of travel.

But this was like my second home, and I could tell I wasn't the first person to let myself in. I immediately went to the kitchen where Quil and Jacob were.

Quil seemed to have moved in ever since Emily took on babysitting Claire for the summer. It was probably the easiest favor in the world since Quil was always volunteering. She was perched on Quil's shoulders when I entered. Jacob was moping over a plate of uneaten food with his head in his hands and a cordless phone on the table top.

He sighed and looked up at me. Claire also perked upon my arrival.

"Hi!" she cried.

"Hiya Claire. Comfortable?" I asked.

She didn't really answer from her place on top of Quil's shoulders. She just suddenly became shy and stuck her fingers in her mouth.

"Hey," Quil greeted oblivious to the string of drool stretching dangerously close to the top of his head. I would warn him, but that wouldn't be much fun. Clearly Jacob was thinking the same thing since he glanced at the two and then back at me without mentioning it.

I sighed at the all too familiar sad features, and pulled out a chair. I found myself slumping over the table top like him, already exhausted with calculating events about what I could and couldn't say.

Jacob, and Quil for that matter, seemed tired from running long shifts on top of it. Quil was trying though for Claire's sake. She helped him out, pulling his ear when he was getting droopy.

"Why did I say that to her?" Jacob asked again.

He seemed truly convinced that I knew the answer to this.

I sighed.

"I don't know, Jacob. I'm not really in your head very often," I said.

"I am. Dude, you were just caught off guard. We all lose it once in a while. You're lucky that you have good control. It could have been much worse," Quil added. Jacob grimaced and wrapped his thick arms over his face.

Claire made a sympathetic noise and reached out toward him. I didn't blame her. He looked like hell, and Jacob had one of those faces you couldn't stand to see upset.

I changed seats so I was next to him.

"As Edward will put it, holding grudges is not one of Bella's many talents. I can forgive Paul for the things he's done, Emily and Sam." I looked around belatedly making sure neither of them were in the room.

"You're imprints," he said. Jacob looked away. "If only she were an imprint."

"I, for one, am sort of glad she's not. That's a guaranteed war right there," Quil said. He reached across the table for a napkin, catching Claire's drool at the last second. She looked disappointed, but was quickly distracted by Quil's fingers.

"There is a guaranteed war," Jacob said. "They're going to bite her." Jacob stopped in mid sentence to take two deep breaths. "There's nothing any of us can do about that." The boys looked to me at confirmation.

I opened my mouth to deny a war. But then something stopped me.

I suddenly realized that I hadn't exactly been telling the truth. I didn't really know about anything beyond a newborn war. In fact, I had no proof that Bella would turn into a vampire at all. I didn't know what would happen when Bella was bitten.

I went completely still, suddenly narrowing my eyes in concern.

When was Breaking Dawn supposed to be released again? The date must be somewhere in the advertisements in the back of the book somewhere.

Suddenly remembering that I was being stared at I squirmed in my seat, holding my book against me.

"Why are you looking at me? You know I can't say anything," I said. My voice squeaked at the end of the my sentence.

It hasn't done that in a while.

I waited until they looked away to really start to worry. Even with Eclipse in my hand, I was in no position to look up anything now. Suddenly anxious I was grateful when Claire decided that she wanted down from Quil and attempted to leap off of him in a single bound.

"Claire, be careful! You'll kill yourself!" Quil scolded as he caught her and set her down. As soon as she hit the ground she took off down the hallway towards what was now Paul's room. Jacob and I watched after them for a while.

I sighed.

"You're right, Jake. I should have been there for you yesterday. I'm sorry," I said.

He smiled a little.

"That's okay. I shouldn't have given you a hard time. Sometimes I forget that you have a life too," Jacob said. I brightened so suddenly that it surprised me. I reached over and squeezed his hand.

"You're a hard guy not to like," I said. He smiled a flashing boyish smile. As much as the old me would have hated to admit it, he was really was attractive. It was a shame he probably overlooked all the girls gawking at him in school. Why Bella?

There wasn't much else I could do to help Jacob. I just had to sit back and watch him fail.

"When's Paul getting back?" I said, distracting myself.

Jacob gave a coy smirk.

"I'll tell you if you tell me when Bella's going to stop being mad at me." He'd meant for it to sound joking, but the desperation sunk into his words. Ugh... Paul most have showed him that sad puppy dog look.

"Forget it," I said standing up. I ruffled his long hair once, his haircut being only one long that I could do that too. I took the phone and pushed it toward Jacob. "All I can tell you is that Charlie is your best ally. I'll hang out for a while. Paul's bound to show up eventually."

Jacob looked at the phone.

As soon as I walked away I heard the beeps of dialing from the kitchen. I smiled to myself. It shouldn't be so satisfying knowing that a suggestion I made was going to leak into Bella's life and annoy her and Edward to no end. But it kind of was.

I couldn't help drifting into the room I used to occupy. It was the only place I could get privacy when I lived here and now it was all Paul's. I pushed the door open, expecting to feel the cool breeze of a room with an absent wall, but it was the same temperature as the rest of the house.

I looked in, feeling my brows go up in surprise.

Where the opposite wall had been in shambles, there was a gray unpainted piece of drywall. I walked in, unbelieving that somehow in the matter of a week it had been completely repaired. I'd heard that there was a "Protectors" fund for the damages the werewolves caused, but I didn't think they could fix something like that so quickly.

"The guy is a hot head and an emotional eater, but I gotta admit, he can be amazing," Quil said from behind me in the doorway.

He had Claire in his arms, who was squirming and making a game of trying to escape his hold. Quil was amazingly patient with her, righting the two year old when she somehow ended up upside down reaching for the ground.

It took a while to register what he meant by that.

"Paul fixed the wall? By himself?" I blurted.

Quil laughed.

"Mostly. He picked up some tips trying to repair his apartment last year and he felt bad about Emily's wall. Sam helped too," Quil said tossing Claire up so he could readjust his grip. Claire squealed and giggled as I walked into the room.

The bed was still unmade, and I could swear that I had been the last person that was in it. However, Jasper's old chair was on its last leg. Literally. Was he still sleeping in that thing? He had an entire bed to himself now.

"Weird," I commented.

What was weird was that moving out had made me learn so much more about him. His birthday, his family, his skills. Now Paul was a carpenter? Can he walk on water too?

There was a sudden eruption of noise from the other room. Quil was suddenly ramrod straight, which alerted Claire as well.

"Uh oh," she said.

"Jared's here. I'm going to see what's up." Quil handed her over to me, barely giving me time to move Eclipse from my hand to my underarm to grab.

Claire went from calm to panic in a flash.

"NO!"

"Be back in a sec, honey," Quil said. For one crazy second I thought he was talking to me, but I realized that our eye contact had been Quil's way of making sure I knew how serious he was about leaving me with her. I fumbled with the screaming two year old now holding onto the door jam, trying to pull herself free to chase after him.

"Holy crap!" I hissed when I almost dropped her. I grunted, trying to sound patient. "Come on, Claire. Let go, kiddo."

"NO!"

I tried to find a way to hold her and pry her fingers off the door at the same time. The way she was fighting me, you'd think she thought she was being abandoned by her mother or something.

Claire dropped out of my arms and hit the floor painlessly. I cringed and tried to check her for a skinned knee. She swatted me away and ran toward the front door. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the book before I ran after her. "Quil! Don't leave me here like this!"

The werewolf was in the hallway in an instant.

Claire made a beeline for his leg and wrapped herself around it.

"I have to go," Quil told her. He putting a hand on her back and she gazed. He looked back up at me, this time looking angry. "I swear to God this is the last time we're listening to Paul. He thinks he found a vampire."

My jaw dropped.

"Again?"

Another false alarm from Paul? Didn't we just talk about this yesterday?

Quil sighed.

"This time he says Sam caught the scent too. They're going to need all of us. Jacob already left," Quil said.

My mouth fell open.

"I told him there was nothing out there," I said. But I had to second guess myself. Something else that Bella doesn't know? I rolled my eyes and looked down at Claire, who was still making a scene. When Quil leaned down to unwrap her from around his legs, she simply rewrapped her arms around his neck.

"Where's Emily?"

"She should be back from the store soon," Quil said.

I groaned. Quil put his face in front of Claire's and looked at her. His hand touched her cheek, the heat of it ended her tantrum immediately. Quil smiled at her.

"Hey. I'll be right back. I have to get the bad guys," he said.

Claire stared back at him. Her deep brown eyes seeming to take all of him in and understand what he was trying to convey. I held her in my arms, unused to the stillness. Quil touched her forehead with his own and left so fast that it startled her.

We watched as he raced out the screen door, pulling his shirt over his head.

He was out of sight.

Claire started wailing again. She squirmed until I had to put her on the floor so she could finish crying. Claire wriggled and kicked her feet on the floor, demanding in her own little toddler way for her werewolf back.

With a sudden new wave of sympathy, I sat down at the ground beside her, right in the middle of the hallway on the aged brown carpet and rubbed her back until the sobs turned into hiccups. Slowly the tantrum faded into defeat.

Poor kid.

I took advantage of her weariness and took her into the other room. I hadn't taken care of a kid since freshman year, so it still felt kind of funny. But a cranky two year old was better than being in Forks when the Cullens found out there had been a dangerous intruder. Which was, of course, why the cell phone was off.

Claire looked so peaceful when she was asleep. It was hard to imagine what kind of trouble she was capable of with her arm hanging off the end of the couch and the cushions squishing her cheeks.

Emily came home just as I throwing a blanket over Claire. She cringed as though she were making too much noise. I crossed the room and took one of her grocery bags from her arms.

"Where are the boys? she asked. Then belatedly added, "And Leah."

I rolled my eyes.

"Paul's convinced everyone that there is a renegade out there trying to kill us all," I whispered back, following her into the kitchen. Emily didn't share my annoyance, instead looking concerned.

"Is there?"

"No!" I hissed and dropped my bag on the counter. Then silently added that this applied to this very second. And there wasn't. Alice would definitely see something like that. Paul was being paranoid. Emily shrugged as though it didn't matter.

"Better safe than sorry, I guess," she said.

Emily walked over to the breadbox, catching a glimpse of Claire through the doorway to the other room.

"How was she?" Emily asked.

I shook my head.

"Your niece is a handful," I said.

She made a face.

"Let me guess. Quil left?" she said.

I looked over at the toddler again. She was frowning in her sleep.

"You know, I think she might already like him. Is that weird?" I asked. Emily stopped bustling for a moment to follow my gaze. Her head cocked to the side.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "Then again, I fell for Sam instantly. Kim loved Jared before he even knew she existed."

My heart plummeted.

I remembered the only time I saw Paul in his pre-werewolf stage. Even skinny and boyish he'd been beautiful. I hadn't even thought twice about having a crush on him. In fact I think I skipped the "crush" stage altogether.

The connection was instantaneous.

"Kim and her theories. You tell me this isn't fate. Quil himself couldn't pry a kid off of him despite super human strength."

Emily smiled as far as her ruined mouth would allow.

"We do crazy things for our werewolves," Emily said still looking at her. She smiled at her niece and set down the box of pancake mix in her arms. She turned toward me. "You know, I've always loved Sam. The moment I saw him I just knew that I would do anything for him."

Her smile faded. A heavy pause filled the silence.

My brows furrowed. She felt my questioning gaze and sighed quietly.

"I just wanted to be with him. It sounds insane, but I knew that he was feeling what I felt. I knew that he and Leah didn't have what we had."

Emily raised her hand to her ruined cheek thoughtfully, her eyes trained on some spot on the floor.

"And now that she's one of them. She has a relationship I can never begin to imagine," she said. I studied her expression with new interest. Jacob couldn't be inside Emily's head. He didn't know anything beyond Sam's guilt and Leah's jealousy.

Is it really possible to be an innocent bystander in a love triangle?

"Emily?"

She cleared her throat and forced a smile at me, as though suddenly remembering that I was there. Emily straightened her skirt and continued unloading the bags. She smiled over her shoulder at me as she began bustling again.

"I bet you've never heard any legends about the imprints themselves. Would you like to hear some?" Emily asked. My heart skipped and I quickly followed her toward the rest of the bags. I was about to settle myself in one of the chairs, eager to hear more stories that Bella might not have known about in the Twilight world.

The cordless phone in front of Jacob's seat rang, the ringing shattering the silence.

Emily halted, suddenly remembering something.

"Did your aunt call you?"

My eyes widened. I hadn't heard from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Bob in so long. Not since I went back to Forks.

I shook my head.

"I turned off my phone," I said. Not that I really needed to. The Cullens were probably still having the family meeting.

Emily made a face.

"That's probably them. She just called me in the store looking for you. I gave her your number," she said. I cringed. I hadn't told Aunt Debbie about the tragic fate of my previous cell phone, as it was the one thing that didn't survive the jump off the cliff. Well, that and hopefully the previous books.

She'd already probably tried the house if I didn't answer. Emily's was the next logical choice.

I snatched up the cordless phone that had Jacob had been using.

"Hello?"

"Cammy? Is that you?" Aunt Debbie asked.

I sighed and plopped myself in the nearest kitchen chair while Emily finished off the groceries.

"I am so sorry. I've been so busy with the end of the semester I completely forgot to tell you I got a new cell phone."

"What happened to your old one?"

I paused, thinking of how to explain my old cell phone's fate.

"Water damage."

Aunt Debbie sighed.

"I guess I'm not one to talk. I left my phone in my luggage. Must be hereditary. I'm just glad you're okay. I've been trying to tell that we're coming home soon. Just in time for the graduation ceremony," Aunt Debbie said. I leaned over the table, listening to the bustling background faintly hearing Uncle Bob trying to tell me hello over Aunt Debbie's shoulder.

I smiled fondly, listening to the light hearted bickering.

"You're going to see her soon."

"Just tell her I say hi," Uncle Bob whined.

"You can tell her yourself, silly." Uncle Bob mumbled something. Aunt Debbie sighed again. "Bob says hello." I smothered a giggle.

"Hi Uncle Bob."

"Cammy, we need you to pick us up from the airport. We've tried calling everyone, but no one seems to be home. Do you mind?" Aunt Debbie asked. I leaned back in my chair, somehow grateful for real world problems. I hadn't realized how much I missed them.

Even though I knew Jasper was watching over me in the night, the house was much too empty for my liking.

"Of course I'll pick you up. When are you guys getting back?"

"Actually, we landed an hour ago."

My eyes widened. How long had they been trying to call me?

"Oh. Well I'll be right there. Which airport are you at again?"

"Deb, I think they're finally unloading our bags. We gotta go," Uncle Bob said, his voice muffled by the sound of chatter and recordings designating loading areas. The phone creaked with the strain of pulling a cord. Aunt Debbie must be on a payphone.

"Sorry, honey. We have to go. We're at Sea-Tac," Aunt Debbie said.

As a Washington local, I knew exactly what airport that was.

I stiffened. Emily whipped around, somehow immediately aware that something was amiss. I opened my mouth to say something, but sudden terror strangled me.

And then I heard the dial tone. Emily took soft steps toward the kitchen table, suddenly wary.

"What's wrong?" Emily asked. I looked up at her, suddenly remembering to blink.

"Aunt Debbie and Uncle Bob are in Seattle," I said.

Shameless Plug Warning!: I'm going to start a new story under the same penname on by the end of the day. It should be... interesting, I guess. It's not Puppet Master related. Just a side project.