Midnight Rounds

Disclaimer: Characters and events from the Twilight Saga are owned and copyrighted by Stephanie Meyer. The following stories that I create involve these characters, therefore I am claiming entitlement for the published material. Please enjoy and comment.

Warnings: N/A

Chapter I: Lost it

It's been months since I've last seen her. Heard from her, acknowledged her or even bothered to contact her.

It was moments before she was supposed to give birth to that thing in her stomach. The hybrid that Vamp Face gave her on her honeymoon, I guess. It was irrelevant at this point really. It's not like I lost control over it anymore. Just-It just sucks having to live without seeing her for so long.

I remember leaving that vampire house in a fit like nobody's business. Carlisle yelled at me to come back and claimed that Bella needed me,but I didn't believe him.

Seth looked at me like I committed a crime when I ran out, but I told him to get over it and leave at once. Leah followed too.

The next few weeks I spent helping out Pops at the reservation.

Man, that place became a mess.

"Hey...Hey?" I heard a voice, casually distant but nothing too cautious sounding so I shrugged it off.

"Oh come on...Jacob!" the voice screeched, causing me to sit up and crash my head into the side of the porch. "God dammit...What?" I turned to stare at the irritation plaguing me. It was Leah.

"You're supposed to be helping out too, you know?" she stared at me with a firm, overbearing look of "kindness." That made me shoot her a warning glance and took my position back on my side and waved my hand at her. "Jared and Paul can take care of it" I replied. "They don't need me to babysit, Leah. Go do something productive."

I heard a grunt followed by Leah shuffling away pissed. "You're unbelievable sometimes, Jake...but fine."

I thought about it for a moment, and considering I couldn't fall back asleep I vaulted off my feet and pressed on forward, passed Leah, to help Jared with a piece of wood for tonight's ceremony.

It was that "but fine" that got to me. Hearing Leah actually react to me like that gave her too much credit.

I know it was her tie to me, I guess. Her fault for splitting with Sam and tagging with me. I grinned.

Jared took a glance at me but continued to walk over to the edge of the council wall.

" You didn't have to help, Jake. " he muttered quickly, to which I responded with a happy grunt. " What? I got tired of playing the part of Sleeping Beauty, okay?" I laughed. That made Jared grin a little. We then dropped off the rest of the pieces before I detoured back inside the house where I took a seat on the couch next to our new retro phone.

Billy was with Sue giving a tour to visitors and said he'd be back in time for tonight so I wouldn't have to do anything special. I wasn't worried-Sam usually took over anyways with that booming speaker of a voice he had.

I stared casually at the phone for a moment before propping a hand against my head in frustration. " She's not going to call, Black.." I reminded myself loudly.

" She as in Bella.." someone spoke before he found himself inside my house and next to me after taking a chair from the table. " ..or some girlfriend I don't know about?" Sam smirked.

I gave him the obvious stare before tossing the pillow at him from next to me, wishing I had something better in my arsenal to chunk at the guy.

"It's not like I magically expect her to come asking for me or anything." I spoke casually. "I would just like to see if she was okay." That made Sam look at me for a moment before staring off to the side.

"I'm guessing you didn't know the Cullens left town again, Jacob." he let out simply, looking back at me as if he expected me to bust a vein or something. I just gave him a mental shrug with my eyes.

"Not like I didn't think they'd just get up and leave town." I admitted, tracing a finger through my dirty denim jeans. " I mean Charlie left too, didn't he? She had no reason to stay here anymore." I gulped.

That was a bit much in my opinion, but it kind of almost felt like I got over her, Bella Swan, but it also felt like she severed our friendship too at that point. For good.

I couldn't blame her. I kind of did just leave her when she was doing something out of choice with her vampire, and watching his attempt to change her in time made me sick. I would've felt a little better hadn't I run into Little Miss Psychic of the Year on my way out.

" She'll be fine, Jacob."

"Yeah? Well good for her. Good for all of you, you got her! Finally, huh?"

"Jacob she still loves you. Don't think she doesn't."

"A little too late for that." I managed to choke out before pushing her aside and ran past Seth and Leah.

"Short end of the stick, Jacob" I reminded myself before ordering Seth and phasing out back into the forest.

Sam at this point was gathered next to me and smiled briefly.

"You know, Jacob" he whispered, even though it came off as casual talk, " You helped us all more than we can have imagined. With the Cullens and the rest of the Cold Ones. It's like they just disappeared...and even though Bella is your good friend, don't think that she'll forget you." he finished, wrapping his arm around my shoulder tightly.

"You're too hard to forget." he grinned. "With that big sappy heart of yours and all, right?"

That made me smile for a second, and I playfully threw him off.

"Thanks, Sam."

"Don't mention it, Jacob. I'm here whenever you need me." he reminded.

I gave him an approving nod before stepping over to put Billy's dishes up. Thinking about everything that happened this past month.

With Bella and I separating ourselves from communication, we thought that it would be a matter of time before she at least called. That wasn't the worst of it all.

The worst part was everything having to do with Emily and her dying in her sleep. We still haven't so much as finished grieving, but it was tolerable.

Sam was a train wreck in an action movie played over and over again though. He stopped talking, refused to eat, and didn't want to return to us as a human for a while. Sounded like something Sam would do when he was in a losing battle...but I felt for him.

Losing an imprint is like having the world fall on you and disappear right before it took you with it. He told me he considered killing himself, but that it would be dishonorable to the rest of us, and he never wanted Emily to know that he lacked his loyalty to the tribe.

We talked plenty around midnight where I'd phase and run off to go find him.

He slowly started to return to some kind of sense of peace until I mentioned to him one day,

"Do you think you'll be able to find someone else for you?"

He didn't say a thing. That was the scary part. Just stared, stared at me and didn't do anything else. I didn't know how or what to do to make him feel better at that point, because I knew my words were like death to him and I wish I could have taken them back.

Strangely enough, that same night he decided to return to La Push.

I asked him if he was sure and he said not to worry about it, but requested me to move in with him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid the next few days. I didn't mind and before I knew it I was sleeping on the best couch in the whole wide world!

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but still I didn't mind. I spoke to my dad and he agreed to it so long as I could see him more and help out during the council meetings. Something I thought I would never have to do. I agreed though.

I wanted to give Sam his peace, and before I knew it he was better, although there were nights where he cried for her.

Watching him cry was like seeing your father cry. You think it never happened, and when you finally saw it happen you felt useless and broken for them. Like you couldn't do a thing.

"Jake.." he croaked out after the tears began to stop. It looked like he was thinking too hard at that point, but I just continued to look at him.

"Yeah Sam?" I took a seat next to him and he proceeded to wrap his arms around me.

I couldn't think of what to say...I couldn't react. He was burning up and the sensation drove me wild. I just clasped my hands as firmly around his sides before closing my eyes.

"I had a dream about Emily and she spoke to me."

A minute later...

"Oh yeah? What did she say." I asked hesitantly, from which he then adjusted his head on my shoulder and sighed.

Another few minutes later,

"I couldn't make out the words." he admitted. " It's like I lost everything I had with her...and it scared the living hell out of me."

I pushed myself back just slightly so I could look at his rough features, his deep complexion that was, at this point, covered in a salty mass of dried tears.

"She would want you to be happy." I let out and bit my tongue. He just grinned.

"That's funny..."

"What is?"

"I had a feeling that's what she was trying to tell me."

A/N: There's nothing graphic in this chapter besides one or two words. Most of the story will be conducted through Jacob, but it will shift between him and Sam respectively. / Pairing: Jacob/Sam.