After Your Heart Stops Beating OneShot Contest

Story Title: Use Me to Live

Penname: Restlessxpen

Summary: Even when Bella's world is torn out from beneath her, Jacob will always be there to help her through the pain of tragic loss and death. Even if it goes against everything ingrained inside of them.

Word Count: 4,108

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Disclaimer: All characters and the world of Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Jacob hadn't always known who he would fall in love with as he was growing up, but he'd known it as soon as she'd moved back into town, known it even when he thought that it would never be a mutual feeling, at least not one of the same ferocity. He had lost Bella so many times that he had stopped keeping count.

He had thought that he had conceded defeat at least once in their relationship, but he had never been able to keep himself from trying again. He would keep trying and keep trying and keep trying, forever.

He had told her once that he would fight for her until her heart stopped beating.

Later, he had promised he would keep fighting, even after.

Her wedding to Edward had been nearly unbearable. The knowledge that she had planned to become one of them had killed him slowly every day. He'd beaten himself senseless over all the ways to stop her, but none of those plans had ever been acted out, because she'd come back from her honeymoon pregnant with a baby that had left no alternatives.

Bella would have to die to survive.

He could remember how his chest had seemed to squeeze in on itself, suffocating him, the pain so bright that he had nearly been blinded, but he had persevered, hadn't he? He had fought for her, and she had survived, in a way.

Only to disappear into the night.

When he had stepped off of the plane, his boots crunching his first snow in Alaska, he had felt Bella's presence, miles away, in the small town she had holed up in. He had waited four long years for her to get her shit together before he had chased after her, and now he was done waiting.

He wanted to see her, pale, sparkly skin be damned.

The drive into town had been long and excruciating, the tires of the pick up eating through snow-covered gravel so slowly he had considered running the rest of the way. He would have phased and made faster time, but he didn't want to share his mind with the pack. They had been disapproving about his vow to wait Bella out. Leah, in particular, had told him that he was a moron for torturing himself.

She hadn't understood that, as long as Bella existed away from him, he would live in torture. The torture wouldn't stop until the pickup rolled to a stop outside of what he'd been told was her house, until he was walking up her walkway, which had an inch thick sheet of ice on it.

It was cold and dark outside of her house. He had been told that it would remain dark for another several months, and he didn't know how she could live in the darkness, the constant night, except maybe that she saw it as a blanket.

She had come to Alaska to hide, after all.

And she was an idiot for thinking that he wouldn't find her.

He fisted his hand and pounded heavily on her front door, rattling the blue shutters of her white-paneled little house. It was the little house that Alice had seen in her visions, that small slice of reassurance that she could give to Jacob and Edward and Charlie.

Bella was okay, but she didn't want to be bothered. She needed space. Give her space.

It irked him that she thought she was the only one that had ever suffered. Could she even begin to guess how he had suffered? Worse, because no one felt that he had the right to suffer. She was Edward's wife, not his, but she had left without him, hadn't she? And he was the one here now, loving her so much that he had to chase her.

The door opened, and Bella didn't seem surprised to see him. Of course, she had probably smelled him coming, sensed him. But he was surprised to see her, mostly because he had idiotically imagined that she would look different, as if he had forgotten that she would no longer age.

She didn't say anything. She just stepped back, holding the door open, and so he stepped in past her.

"Jacob," she said, "it's been a long time."

She paused, and then said his name again, as if sighing, "Jake."

Her house was small and warm, hardly furnished. He turned toward her.

"Four years," he responded.

FORKS, Four years previous

"Bella."

The pain started in waves, rolling, cresting—escalating to tremors that shook her violently. The table underneath her was a cold, hard sheet that warmed unbearably underneath her feverishly hot skin, like a frying pan, sizzling the yolk of flesh. She wanted to cry out, but her jaw had forcibly closed, grinding her teeth together, strangling her words. Not that she could find the breath to speak. Broken ribs seemed to be prodding her, piercing her.

Another minute gone by, and she was sure that she'd be dead.

And death would be the sweet release, erasing her thoughts, her pain, relieving her of even the reason why she was fighting. She'd closed her eyes in the struggle, but she could feel how full the room was. It was suffocating: all of the Cullen's and Jacob Black, the freezing cold touch of Edward's hand against her forehead that almost hurt as it contrasted with the heightened temperature of her own body, fighting to stay alive.

She could smell the mint of his breath whispering across her face as he murmured reassurance, begged her to hang on. His words were jumbled, too soft to be understood. There was only on voice that she could discern over the sounds of her own close-mouthed howling—a growling sound that resonated inside her throat.

"Bella!"

Her body tried to respond, to fold itself into the voice, but there were hands on her, holding her down. The pain had melted together so seamlessly that she could no longer tell where it began or ended or which part of her body hurt the most.

"Edward. Now."

Carlisle's command was not as loud as the sound of Jacob's voice shouting for her, calling her back, but it held the authority to be heard even over the noise of her own fevered breathing. She wanted to sob, to ask him why it still hurt. He was supposed to save her.

"The needle. The needle, where is it?"

A handful of vampires and one very large werewolf shuffled around, searching. Desperate hands slung papers aside, rattled drawers, knocked something to the floor that bounced loud and hard but seemed not to break. The strong alcohol smell of sanitizer filled Bella's nostrils as she fought to drag air into her broken body.

"There's no time," Carlisle said. "Someone, just do it. Now."

Teeth in her wrist, near an old wound.

Not again. Not again.

The pain was sudden and violent and incredibly direct. There were no doubts in her mind as to where it began, only as to where it ended. It seared through her veins like electricity, lighting her insides up like a Christmas tree. All at once, her jaw sprang free, dropping down, emitting a scream that tore the skin of her throat, and, when she began to lash—her body becoming ferociously animated without her consent—there were more hands on her, holding her down.

The pain that had always been present, but much less distinct, flared in her stomach, her hips, and she could practically feel the blood oozing out of her, burned or drained away.

"It's not working! It's not fast enough!"

"Jacob-!" Edward warned.

"No," Carlisle said. "No, he's right. It's not going to work. It's not fast enough. We have to choose. Edward?"

There was a horrible silence, broken only be her screams, by the howl that gurgled up her throat as her spine arched until it felt like it would break—a horribly tall, bowed bridge over the top of the table on which she sprawled. Her insides were pushing out and caving in.

The baby. That baby was killing her.

Stop, baby, stop. Please.

And then there was Edward's voice, so quiet and flat she barely recognized it, "Save her."

And Rosalie wailed, "No!"

The pain rocketed toward a peak that she couldn't follow, finally tumbling over the wall of her boundaries, turning everything grey and then black. The shadows ebbed inward, though she continued to scream, sucking her in with their shapeless, deep-pitted mouths. Bella tried to warn them—It's coming. I'm dying. I'm gone—but her voice failed her, her throat too raw to withstand speech. She felt herself lifting, floating, as hot hands gripped her.

"Jacob! What are you doing?" Carlisle demanded.

"Get away!" he roared.

She felt herself gathered, lifted and collected, even as she felt herself spiraling down into nothingness.

()()()()()()

It seemed as if much time passed before she opened her eyes again. Her face felt swollen and hot, and then suddenly very smooth and cold—the room around her only gradually swimming into view. She smelled musk and pine, knew that she was in Jacob's house before she saw the wood paneling, the messy mound of clothing heaped against a wall, or the night stand with a chunk of wood absent from the top corner. The wolf carvings on top of the stand were all Jacob. Bella could envision his hands and a blade working the wood, tenderly.

She shifted on the bed, feeling absurdly light. She breathed in, tasting the room, the scents. Blinking, she saw them maybe more clearly than she ever had. She sat up, swinging her legs—weren't they suddenly so long and graceful?—over the edge of the bed, and she could hear movement in the other room, moving down the hall.

And then there was Jacob, somehow squeezing his large frame through the doorway, staring down at her, a look of mingled apprehension and adoration on his face. The frown that tugged his lips looked pained, and so he made a heroic effort to smile, so she thought. He looked as if he hadn't slept in awhile. His hair was matted, his shirt stained, and his shorts seemed to have an army of wrinkles riding up the legs. But it was his face that said it all: there were lines there that she couldn't remember seeing before.

So serious. Alpha Jacob.

"You're all right," he said, as if he had doubted it.

Like the bat to a piñata, his words broke the surface of her momentary amnesia, spilling memories down onto her head like candy, each one hard and unyielding. She jerked with the memory, springing to her feet, feeling, all at once, the differences, and understanding why they were there.

"Jacob," she breathed, voice catching. "Jacob, am I-?"

Jacob grimaced. "Yeah, Bells."

She lifted her hands to her face, felt the contours that were now so sleek and polished, and then to her breasts, which were much firmer and slightly larger. From there, she touched her hair, which felt like fine silk. Jacob watched her take herself in by touch, the look of uncertainty back on his face. Of course, it would be. She was a bloodsucker now—the one thing he had always hated.

She saw the way that his nose was slightly wrinkled, knew that he was smelling her, and she could smell him too. He did smell like a wet dog, but maybe it was more bearable to her, because she had cared for him before then.

"How?"

How had she survived when taken out of Carlisle's care? She had been so certain that she was going to die, that she had died. Jacob folded his arms over his chest, leaning against the door frame.

Was he afraid of her? Keeping his distance had never been his style.

"Did you think the Cullen's were the only ones with a doctor?"

She shook her head, though it was exactly what she had assumed. The Cullen's had always seemed different to her, more special, maybe even elite.

"Someone—Someone from the reservation saved me?"

Jacob winced, moving his gaze to the floor just in front of her bare feet. She looked down as well, realizing, only now, that she was naked. She thought to lift her hands and shield herself, but Jacob had already obviously seen more than his share of her body.

"Saved you," Jacob repeated, his voice somber. "Sure, but there wasn't much left to do. Carlisle… Carlisle finished everything. After Edward bit you, you changed. Your body healed itself."

Bella's hands fluttered abruptly to her stomach, pressing the cold, firm plane of her belly.

Nothing there.

"Oh. Oh my God."

The baby was gone. Of course, it was, because she was here, and so obviously it couldn't be. Hadn't she known that? Rosalie had failed her. That had been the deal: save the baby, not her, because, even if everything had happened very quickly, she had loved the baby in the short time they had shared. It had been a part of her, and of Edward.

"Bella."

He saw her desperation, the way her knees looked as if they were about to buckle. She wanted to lift a hand to ward him off—

My baby. I failed my baby.

—but she ended up sagging into him as he reached for her, collapsing into his arms. She felt his hands—so hot—on her back, rubbing up and down her spine while she burrowed her face into the crook of his neck.

"I have to go back, Jake."

To yell, to scream, to demand to know why they had chosen for her to live when she had so clearly stated her desires. As a vampire, Bella felt her first real, hot flash of anger, so strong that it could have been deadly, could have curved itself into a blade. How could Edward choose her over their baby?

"No. No, Bells. Please, stay with me."

She tried to pull out of his arms, but he wouldn't let her. He held her firm, exerting some of his real strength now that she had her own to match. She didn't want to be held or comforted. She didn't want to be touched, not right now, as the pain was only beginning to seep in, followed closely with guilt.

She wanted to get away, away from everyone.

How could this happen?

"No, Jake, I have to see Edward."

She felt him tense, knew that it would hurt him, but she didn't really want to see Edward either. She wanted to step out of Jacob's house and disappear, maybe dissolve into the Earth. What kind of person was she that could let her baby die for her? She knew—without question—that she suddenly wouldn't be able to bear looking at Edward's face, imagining that it was the face of their child.

Jacob cleared his throat. "He's in the living room. I tried to make him leave, but he followed me here. The rest of the Cullen's are waiting there too. They're persistent."

She felt dread in the pit of her stomach. What would they expect of her now? Though she would have preferred to have been alone, dealing with it in solitude until she knew how to handle it, she could stand Jake's presence. He had been a third party, not directly related to the point she had reached now.

"Can I borrow some clothes?"

"Sure. That shirt there on the end of the bed is for you. And the gym shorts. I'll just wait in the hall."

"Jake, will you tell them I need a few minutes? Just a few minutes alone. Please?"

His lips were on her forehead, very briefly, as if the cold had startled him into recoiling. He covered it by squeezing her arm, carefully.

How could he stand her?

Infallible Jacob. Always too eager for her. Had he even considered what she was now?

"I'll tell them. Whenever you're ready."

He shut the door behind him when he left, and Bella went directly to the clothes, slipping them on, tying the shorts, because they tried to slide right back off again. As she dressed, she could smell the other Cullen's in the house, and she detected Edward easily.

Her stomach turned with love and humiliation and, for some reason she couldn't explain, betrayal, and, when they all fell away, her stomach felt only empty. That was the worst feeling of all, the feeling that drove her to the window, where she shoved the glass up. A warm gust of night air washed across her face, playing through the billowy slack of Jacob's oversized shirt as she nimbly lifted one leg and pulled herself through the open window.

She didn't know, for sure, what she was doing, until her feet touched the grass outside.

She had to leave. No more games, no more pain, no more choices. Her mortal body had withstood it all and perished. She wasn't sure that her immortal body had an endless capacity to endure the same, but she felt that it would be a long eternity enduring the single loss she had already suffered.

Love fell away and was lost underneath her newfound grief, unable to tie her strongly enough to Edward to stay. Perhaps the biggest promise between them was dead, and now there was nothing left but to leave, to endure alone, and so she disappeared into the night.

ALASKA, four years later

"I'm sorry."

"For what? You needed the space, and you took it."

She looked good in her gray sweatpants, her white sweater, her feet in socks and nothing else. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy bun that left her narrow, newly aristocratic-like face exposed. She was still Bella, but sleeker and more polished.

"And you understand?"

Jacob shrugged, feeling massive in the little house, compacted as he was pinned between Bella and her stuff. The urge to reach out and touch her was so fierce that he had to twine his arms together in front of his chest to resist. He couldn't overwhelm her. He'd spent a lot of time planning.

"Edward's devastated," he said.

"He is?"

Jacob hadn't planned well enough for this Bella. He could see that already now. She wasn't the emotional mess that human Bella had been. She was matured and aloof, almost as reserved as a stranger. He itched to reach out and touch her and draw her back into her old self. This wasn't Bella. She had run away in order to make herself colder, harder.

In order not to deal with her pain.

Hadn't he done the same thing once?

"Yeah."

If she wanted to know more about her husband, she could call him. He wasn't the only one that had been devastated, and it only made him feel slightly better than she seemed so unmoved by Edward's pain. How cold had she made herself?

"Do you want to sit down?"

She gestured with a lift of her chin to her only furniture: a leather couch and a recliner. He shook his head.

"No. I don't want to sit."

He wanted to bundle her into his arms and warm her.

"Me neither," she said, and she smiled, just slightly.

It was a glimpse of her—of Bells—that he latched onto. For a moment, he saw warmth in her eyes as she studied him, folding her own arms across her chest, as if she was resisting reaching for him too.

"You ran away from us."

Bella shrugged. "From things I wasn't equipped to handle. How could I face anyone when I didn't even know how I should feel?"

"I'm not judging you."

Bella looked at him. "No, or you wouldn't have come to find me."

The emphasis in her voice seemed to imply who hadn't come looking for her, and, for some reason, it made Jacob want to explain.

"We all knew where you were. Alice saw. Edward's still the selfless bastard that wants to give you what's best for you."

She didn't seem moved by this, and he couldn't blame her. Edward had ditched her before, and maybe she'd had enough of handling his tendency to play the martyr.

"Is that why you're here?"

To save you, he wanted to say. To prove that I love you most, that you're mine.

"I don't know. Am I best for you?"

She smiled, didn't answer.

"You're different," he said.

"Yes."

She was a woman, even if her body hadn't matured. She was a woman that had felt true grief and survived the only way that she knew how: by being selfish and leaving. And he had been selfish and followed her, because he wanted her. Before Edward had come back, before his whole plan had been shot to shit, he knew that Bella had wanted him too. She loved him. Edward simply masked that. For whatever reason, she had been mesmerized by the vampire.

Maybe all masks were off now.

Jacob breathed out. "Can I touch you?"

Her nod was almost imperceptible, but he saw it, because every part of him was in tune with Bella, no matter what had changed.

She was against him, her body cold through the material of her sweater, colder as his hand slipper underneath it, running, first, across the plane of her stomach, and then cupping her breast. She breathed in deep, her eyes closing.

"Kiss me, Jake."

He closed his mouth over hers, startled by how cold she was, how different. The scent of vampire—the usually rotten aroma—curled into his nostrils, but was smothered in the smell of strawberries, because his love for Bella outweighed what she had become. Half-dead or not, he needed her, wanted her so badly he ached. As her lips parted, he ran his tongue along her teeth, over her tongue.

She pushed his jacket off his arms, worked his sweater free of his pants and over his head. When she started working at the button of his pants, he got the idea and undressed her as she undressed him, lips pressing hungrily together, bumping each other as they maneuvered their clothes until they were both naked.

When they were undressed, she grew still, pulling back slightly to look at him.

"I've tried for four years not to feel anything. It was the easiest way to deal, but I'm tired of being alone now. I was waiting for someone to come and find me."

"And if it had been Edward?"

Her eyes were open, nothing hidden in them.

"I wanted it to be you."

She wouldn't give him the answer he needed.

"Why?"

"You never asked too much of me."

"I always asked for everything from you."

"I don't have all the answers, Jacob. Can we just let this be what it is for right now? You're here. I want to be touched. I want to feel alive again."

It wasn't the confession of love that he'd come for, but he would take anything that Bella was willing to give him. He was a starving man, a drowning one. He needed her to survive, and, even if she asked him to stay forever, just touching her, never really letting her love him, he would do that before he returned to La Push alone.

So he touched her, letting his hands slide over her, letting her guide him when she wanted to. He grazed her skin, squeezing when she asked, scratching softly when she needed it. When she guided his hand lower, he cupped her, one finger working her.

When she asked for him to be inside of her, he was inside of her, gently. Long, languid, gentle thrusts that slid almost gracefully between them. He kept his teeth clamped over the three words he wanted to say, and he let her live through him.

And, when it was almost over, he was suddenly inside of her thoughts. He blinked in surprise when he heard her voice, saw her thoughts, but her hand lifted to his wrist and squeezed gently, to show him that this was something that she wanted. Was it her vampire gift, like Edward's?

He closed his eyes as her thoughts enveloped him.

Be with me, Jacob, she said to him. You're the only one that can make me whole again.

"I'm here," he said, out loud, to let her know.

Drifting down, he pressed his lips to hers, his hand found her hand, twining fingers.

He would always take whatever Bella would give him, even if he had to sacrifice himself.