Now a beta-ed version.

D o o r s. C l o s i n g. S l o w l y.

Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, "Did you bring joy?"
The second was, "Did you find joy?"

Leo Buscaglia

o o o

"Quil?"

Embry's deep voice breaks through the silence like a small thunder, like the moving of a chair during an exam or the sudden cry of a seagull over the calmly breathing ocean.

Quil shows no reaction to his best friend's call, silently staring ahead into the emerging sunset; yellow and orange streams breaking the grey blanket every now and then, igniting the waves beneath, causing them to shine like teardrops on pale skin.

Wordlessly and slowly, Embry sinks down next to Quil on the edge of the cliff, his feet dangling in the air, his stare now focused straight ahead like Quil's.

For a second he thinks about the argument he would get at home for sitting on a rock with his brand-new suit, but then he thinks screw it and who cares – his wish to ever wear it again relatively small, anyway.

Minutes pass and the two friends just sit there in silence, listening to the breaking waves far beneath them, the rush of water, the sounds of moving leaves behind them.

In their heads they are screaming…

o o o

It's wrong – it's not – it is – no, it's not – it has to be wrong – no, it doesn't… it is wrong but it does not feel like it… at all.

Bella's mind was spinning, spinning around and around, unfocused and confused – she felt overexposed, too sensitive. And most of all, she felt good. Too good. She felt better than she ever remembered feeling

It was the expression of pure bliss etched onto Jacob's features, mixed with the slightest hint of remorse that was mirrored in her own heart. It caused twitches in her chest every now and then, a reminder of how wrong this really was.

Pain she knew she deserved.

In fact, pain seemed omnipresent, every muscle in her body aching and sore, including her heart and also muscles which she had not even known until that moment.

But it was such a good pain…

Every rise and fall of her hips, every brush of skin against skin, the friction, each soft sigh, heartbeats getting more rapid, sweat erupting from every single pore, touches and chaste kisses – during these blissful moments Bella was sure she would be willing to trade the entire world just to keep this feeling alive for one more minute.

They both went slow and deliberate, suppressing the boiling coil of emotions inside of them – anger, love, lust, passion, grief, doubt.

First because of Jacob's injuries – they just had to be careful – and second because they wanted it to last. Knowing that no matter how right this felt, it did not change anything any more, was too late and practically in vain and only had the power to make it worse for both of them to say goodbye later on.

They tried to keep this short moment of time for as long as they possibly could…

o o o

Embry was never the silent type of guy and so the thick silence soon starts biting his nerves, tearing at fresh wounds – wounds not even the werewolf inside of him could ever fully heal.

"It's a nice day. Sunny…"

"Yeah," Quil sighs, breathy and husky – heavy with the weight of today's darker sides.

"Emily sent me. She said she'd have dinner ready in about half an hour."

"I'm not hungry."

Embry snorts, the sound foreign to his ears these days and Quil tears his eyes away from the sky to look at his friend.

"You are always hungry, Quil, so don't tell me you aren't."

There is no smile on Quil's face, but Embry can see the hint of humour, a fleeting shimmer in his dark eyes. The sight almost has a nostalgic touch to it.

"Well, I am. But… I can't go there. It's… strange. I don't feel comfortable. Why do people do that? Celebrate at times like these?"

"It's not a celebration. I guess they do it to be together, to gather and… share the weight. Grief. Most people handle that better when they share it."

Quil sighs and turns his head back straight, this time letting it drop downwards, facing the purple waves, coated with a foamy white blanket.

"Well, I don't."

o o o

When Jacob woke up the next morning she was gone.

His gaze wandered through his room, looking for any kind of sign that indicated that the previous night had been real.

But in fact, he realized that nothing in his room proved that she even existed.

Nothing.

No pictures, no birthday presents, no postcards… and there were many reminders scattered across Jacob's room.

A pink card with little yellow flowers glued to the front, some already a little loose, which he had made for his mother's birthday when he was six years old. A postcard from New York City which Embry had sent to him a couple of years ago. A cactus that Rachel had bought him for his fifteenth birthday. Many reminders of a young past but there was nothing there that could be related to the very most important part of it.

It was when Jacob tried to turn from his back onto his healthy side when something small poked his ribcage and he managed to catch it with his damaged hand, careful not to destroy it – whatever it was.

When he saw it - small, delicate - pinched between his thumb and index finger, a tear welled in Jacob's eye, slowly dripping down his russet cheek which was the exact colour of the tiny wooden wolf in his hand.

It was the first and only tear he ever shed for Bella Swan.

o o o

"You've been sitting here all day?"

"Since noon. Ran a little before I came here."

"You phased?"

There is no answer. Only more silence.

"Does Sam know?"

"Why should I tell him?"

Embry thinks about that for a little while, trying to get his mind somewhere else, away from the pain – pain he knew he should not feel. And still it is there, everywhere, mirrored in each pair of eyes he looks into these days.

"Embry?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you ever… phase again, since…," Quil trails off mid-sentence, his index finger absent-mindedly fumbling with the button of his trousers.

"No. But I thought about it. Actually… I think about it a lot."

"Do you miss it?"

o o o

It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon when Quil ran into Leah Clearwater – in Jacob's garage, of all places.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked rather harshly, not out of anger but out of curiosity - his voice rather impolite all the time those days.

Leah just looked at him with a strange expression in her eyes and it took Quil a while to recognize it as compassion – a look so rarely seen on her face.

"It's so quiet in here," she whispered, her back resting against a countertop, tools still scattered across the surface as if only seconds had passed since they had been left there.

"Yeah…"

They just looked at each other, neither one of them saying anything for a while – all their emotions swirling around the air, tying them together.

Too much in too short a time.

It had been a month since the battle with the newborn leeches, a month since Bella Swan had moved away with the entire Cullen clan - a week since Jacob had disappeared.

"Do you think he'll come back?"

In some strange, foreign way Leah sounded desperate when she asked Quil that question, a question he was just as incapable of answering as she was herself.

And since he had no words to say, Quil remained silent.

o o o

"I don't know," Embry sighs, the memories of speed and strength, patrols and fights – adventures – playing behind his eyes like a vivid movie, endearing him into a kind of frenzy.

"Do you?"

Quil nods slowly, hesitantly but with determination.

o o o

Bella knew she made the wrong decision. She knew because all of a sudden everything had changed, felt different, was different.

When she looked into his golden eyes all she really wanted to see was the sun.

When she touched his marble skin all she really wanted to feel was solid rocks, crushed by wave after wave.

When she heard his perfect, melodic voice all she really wanted to hear was the metallic cling cling of tools working on a car, the tingling fizz of a warm soda being opened.

When she smelled his scent, once the most delicate smell in the world to her, all she really wanted to smell was salty water, grease and motor oil.

Three months after making her choice, Bella finally realized that she had left behind the only place that had ever felt like home to her.

Just in time.

Home was not the sterile, sophisticated apartment she lived in, intimidated by the heavy wooden furniture and clear structures, the glass and the lack of memories she connected to everything.

Home was where she left her heart behind.

For the first time, Bella was grateful for Edward to insist on her attending Dartmouth before she would become like him – would become the antipode of what she wanted, what she truly was.

And so, on a mellow Sunday morning, Bella's future turned into a cloud of black and nothingness inside Alice's head and no one tried to stop her when she packed some clothes and money. She wrote a letter to Edward who was hunting with Jasper, waved, hugged, shook hands goodbye to his family, to her family, inaudible words of apology coming from her lips. Silent tears welled in her eyes, spilling over the moment Carlisle carefully closed the cab door behind her in an act of kindness.

With a simple thud her life had changed – was over, somehow. A part of it.

A part she almost achieved.

o o o

"I feel so guilty," Quil says after another pause, his voice thicker than before – more suppressed emotions suffocating him.

"For what?"

"For how everything ended up. How everything went wrong, all that happened."

"That wasn't your fault. That was… nobody's fault, really."

For a short moment the sun breaks through the clouds after Embry finishes his sentence, light illuminating the two young men sitting on the edge of a cliff, both of them dressed up, the looks of burden and sadness on their faces such a contrast to their age.

"I know it wasn't my fault. It wasn't even really my business. But… I keep thinking… He was our best friend, for god's sake! We should have done more."

Embry's eyes are fixed on Quil who is tensed and unfocused, his fingers trembling – something Embry has not seen in a while.

It takes a minute or two for Quil to calm down, to regain composure and in the meantime the sun has been enveloped by heavy clouds again, the only debris being the yellowish glow on the surfaces of this place.

"What do you think we could have done?"

"I don't know. We… could have at least tried to keep her alive."

o o o

Nobody really believed it when Bella Swan was suddenly back, out of the blue.

She just stood there with a bag in her hand in front of Emily's door, her fragile body almost giving in under the weight, her eyes red and puffy, dark shadows surrounding them.

She stuttered, her voice almost inaudible and full of despair.

Emily started to cry when she saw her, the realization hitting her hard and she clung to Sam's shoulders for the rest of that day.

It was Billy who had to tell Bella in the end. Tell her that Jacob had run off almost two and a half months earlier and that no one had heard anything of him ever since.

Embry drove her home that night - to Charlie. Because it was the closest thing she had to home at that time.

"They hate me, right?" she asked weakly when Embry heaved her bag out of his trunk and set it onto the roadside.

He thought for a moment about how to answer.

"No. They don't hate you."

o o o

"It was an accident, Quil. There was nothing we could have done."

"You know that that's not what I mean, Embry."

o o o