Hello, there! Thank you for taking the time to check out my new story. This is my first Twilight, but I've been writing fanfic for a while, formerly under the name R. Grace. I lost access to that account, so I started this new one for my newer stuff.

Does anyone care about Twilight anymore? I first read the books in my late teens. Back then, I was decidedly Team Edward. For some random reason, I decided to reread the books recently. Now, as a 30-year-old with some real life relationship experience under my belt, I am now Team Jacob, all the way! In fact, it bugged me so much that Bella made what, in my mind, was clearly the wrong choice, that I talked about it in my sleep one night, and my boyfriend refuses to let me live it down. (True story.)

This is the result of my obsessing. It's the New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn I really wanted to read. This scenario has been done to death by other amazing authors, but I couldn't get this particular story out of my head. Plus, no matter how many Bella/Jake stories I read, I can never seem to get enough, so why not throw my version on the pile?

I pick up in New Moon during the (you guessed it) cliff diving scene. Jacob is hot on Bella's heels as she jumps, changing the path of the story in a way that gives Jacob and Bella the real chance at happiness and a full, human life together that they both deserved. I'll try to update once a week, so please review and follow! Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Diving In

The first surges of adrenaline began to pulse through my limbs as I lined the toes of my

sneakers up with the cliff's jagged edge.

"Don't," the angel's voice in my head pleaded, his voice. "Don't do this."

I closed my eyes and inhaled, letting the delicious velvet tones wash over me. The wind

swirled around me, pushing gently against my back, whipping my hair around my face. I leaned

into it.

"Bella, stop! Please."

The voice in my head was begging now, but I had already surrendered to the anticipation curling inside my belly. There was no turning back now.

One…

I started counting in my head. The lovely voice growled.

Two…

I lifted one foot. The voice snarled my name.

Three…

I was flying. Moist sea air rushed past my ears, mixing with the dulcet tones of his voice, now inarticulate with anger and panic. And then…

"Bella! No, Bella!"

Another voice, further away but still loved. Still beautiful.

"Bella!" both voices shouted at once, and my eyes popped open just as the water's surface hit me like ton of bricks.

The water was cold and so, so dark. I was pulled, tossed, and flipped around like rag doll in the churning waves until I didn't know which way was up anymore.

While the larger, instinctual part of me fought vainly to reach the surface, a smaller part of my mind searched for his voice. I was, at this moment, in more mortal danger than I had ever been on my most clumsy day riding bikes, yet he was strangely silent.

It was the other voice, the more distant one, that had distracted me. Kept me from finding his voice.

The current heaved against me, and my back collided with something hard and unyielding. A rock, my adrenaline-soaked brain managed to conclude, as the breath rushed out of me in a flurry of dancing bubbles.

Then I was caught in the strongest current yet. It was pulling me down, down towards the ocean floor. Salty water rushed into my mouth, filling my nose and searing its way down my throat.

I couldn't possibly have felt more disoriented than I did when my head broke the surface. I could have sworn I was headed further down.

"Bella!" the other voice rasped, no longer distant. I could feel the speaker's warm breath on my ear. "Breathe, honey!"

Something hard slammed into my back again - another rock? - and suddenly I was coughing uncontrollably, the unforgiving sea water burning my throat anew on its way back up.

"That's it, Bella. Breathe."

Something warm and smooth brushed against the side of my neck, and another gust of warm breath sent little shivers dancing down my spine.

"Jesus, honey, you scared the sh…You scared me."

As the fog started to clear from my mind, it managed to put a name to the second voice. It was Jacob.

Jacob had snatched me from the grips of the unfightable current and was now holding my head above the churning waves with one strong, burning arm around my waist. It seamed a fitting analogy for the past few months.

A large hand wrapped around my arm, turning me to face him. His dark eyes were wide with alarm.

"Are you all right?" Each word was punctuated by a firm shake.

"Ye…" I croaked, my raw throat refusing to obey. I nodded.

Relief transformed Jacob's features, and he pulled me into a crushing embrace.

"Don't you ever scare me like that, Bells. Why didn't you wait for me? I was right behind you."

"Sorry," I forced my protesting vocal cords to squeak out. The word was barely audible, but I knew he could hear it just fine, even above the crashing waves.

I felt, more than heard, his answering sigh. He released me slightly, pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against mine. While one hand tightened around my waist, the other broke the water's surface to tangle gently in the sodden hair at the nape of my neck.

Intellectually, I knew the water was freezing, but I felt as comfortable as if I'd been soaking in a warm bath in Jacob's arms. He filled my senses, and for an unnamable stretch of time, he was all I could focus on.

All around me was heat, suffusing my skin everywhere it touched his. Heat against my forehead, neck, my waist. Under my palms where, I realized, they'd come to rest without my conscious direction on his solid shoulders.

"All right," he finally breathed after…had it been minutes? Hours? "Let's get you dry."

I nodded, still trying to shake off the last of the fog.

He held me gently with one arm as the other one towed us, more swiftly than I would have thought possible, towards the shore.

My knees bucked slightly when we reached sand, and I was wordlessly swept up and cradled against his solid chest. He walked with his head down, trying to shield my face from the tiny pinpricks of rain that had started to fall.

When we reached Billy's house, he set me down on the small couch. I had a moment of concern for the ancient upholstery but was too drained from my near drowning to protest.

Jacob grabbed the shabby afghan from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around me before striding swiftly into the kitchen, returning with inhuman speed with a glass of water.

"Drink," he commanded gently, placing the glass in my hand, which I hadn't realized until this moment was shaking.

I brought the cool water to my lips. It burned my throat, but felt good at the same time. I gulped down the entire glass in one long pull.

"More?" Jacob asked with small, encouraging smile, and I nodded appreciatively.

He returned with the second glass just as quickly, and I sat sipping quietly as he pulled us both back against the sofa, his burning arm finding its way around my shoulders again.

While I sipped, my mind wandered back over the events of the past hour. Mainly to how Jacob's voice had drowned out…Edward's - I forced myself to think the name - in my head.

The hole in my chest started to ache around the edges, and I reflexively wrapped my free arm around my middle.

Jacob didn't miss a thing. His warm hand moved immediately to cover mine, holding me together better than I could ever do on my own.

And then there was the other thing. The reason Jacob hadn't been waiting for me when I'd gotten here earlier. Victoria. I shuddered involuntarily.

"You okay?" he asked.

I shook myself out of my reverie. I started to nod but decided it was time to test my vocal cords instead.

"Ye…es," I croaked. My voice sounded like I'd just smoked a whole carton of cigarettes. "I just…did you find her?"

"No," he answered with a sigh. "She managed to reach the water, and we don't follow them there."

"Why not?" I asked, curious.

"The leeches have the advantage in the water," he answered, "because they don't need to breathe."

"Oh." A chill ran through me as I pictured the russet wolf - my wolf - being tossed in the unforgiving current I'd just been battered by, choking on salt water as marble-white hands pulled him down.

"When my dad told me you were headed for the beach, I nearly lost it, Bells," he continued, his voice breaking slightly on my name.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, my eyes dropping to our overlapping hands at my waist.

Jacob sighed before continuing. "Please, don't ever scare me like that again, Bella Swan. Just wait for me next time you want to do something crazy, okay?"

"Okay," I nodded, meeting his dark eyes again, their expression warm and pleading.

As I continued to hold his gaze, something else flickered across his expression. Sadness?

"There's something else," I said with certainty. Jacob's face had become easier for me to read than one of my beloved classic novels that I'd read so many times my mind anticipated the next words before my eyes reached them.

"When we got back to Emily's, she told us that Harry Clearwater had just been taken to the hospital. A heart attack. It doesn't look good."

I gasped. "Oh, no. Poor Sue. And Leah. And Seth."

"I know." It was Jacob's turn to look away then. His warm fingers traced fiery circles on the back of my hand. "Our dads are both at the hospital now."

We sat in silence for several minutes while I internally berated myself for being so stupidly reckless. What if Jacob hadn't gotten to me in time? Charlie might have lost his daughter and his best friend in one day, and it would have been all my fault.

Stupid. Selfish.

"Do you think you can stand now?" Jacob asked, interrupting my self-loathing.

"I think so."

"I'll drive you back to your place, then."

An inarticulate noise of protest rose in my throat, and I leaned almost convulsively closer into his side. I couldn't be away from Jacob. I knew I was being selfish, again, but he was the only thing holding me together right now.

Jacob couldn't help the satisfied grin that appeared at my obvious reluctance to leave his side.

"Don't worry," he soothed. "I won't leave. I'll just wait downstairs while you shower and change. Then, we can watch a movie or something."

"Okay," I rasped, and allowed him to remove the almost empty glass of water from my hand. He pulled me to my feet, pausing to make sure I was steady before taking my hand and leading me back out to the truck.

We drove the twenty or so minutes to Forks in silence, his ever-present arm around my shoulders still warding off the chill I knew would come as soon as he let me go.

My inner chastisement started up again almost as soon as the truck roared to life.

I could only imagine what a wreck Charlie must be right now. There was a good chance, though I wished fervently otherwise, that my father would lose his dear friend today.

I couldn't, in good conscience, keep putting myself in danger on purpose. Though I needed to hear Edward's voice like I needed to draw my next breath, I couldn't do that to Charlie.

My thoughts flitted back to the moment when my feet first left the cliff's edge, to the way Edward's voice had faded into Jacob's as he called my name. I remembered the endless moment when Jacob held me in the water, his warmth and his presence driving everything from my head that wasn't him, numbing the pain to an almost bearable ache.

The hint of a smile ghosted across my face as I realized I'd never hit a rock at all. It was Jacob. He was my rock, literally and metaphorically. Maybe, just maybe…I could make it through, could give up hearing his voice, if I had my rock to cling to.

And while I was recognizing my own selfish nature, I had to acknowledge that none of this was fair to Jacob. Because he wasn't my brother, as I had so often wished. He was my best friend, but I knew he wanted more. He hadn't made much of a secret about it. I knew, if I asked, he would give me whatever I wanted, give until I'd sucked him dry. An emotional version of the monster I'd once hoped to become. I couldn't do that to him.

Jacob was too important, too precious to me. His pain was my pain, so hurting him like that wasn't an option. But was there any way for me not to hurt him? Even if I tried - and right now, it seemed like a pretty big "if" - if I tried to give him more than just friendship, I could never give him enough. I was just so broken.

The idea had taken root though, and try as I might to brush it aside, it continued to prod me, refusing to be silenced.

I was broken, but could I give Jacob the pieces? Did I have enough life left in me to make him even a little happy?

As an experiment, I turned my head where it rested on his shoulder, nuzzling ever-so-slightly against the side of his neck.

Jacob sucked in a surprised breath and pulled me closer into his side, turning his head to press a lingering kiss on my hair. I felt his lips curve up in a smile just before he turned his attention back to the road, and that "if" at the forefront of my mind got a little bit smaller.

Being close to him like this, sharing little touches and caresses, holding his hand…All of that felt natural, easy. Right. Not only right, but vital to my very existence. Just like Jacob was.

If only I had some claim on him, some legitimate reason for asking him to stay with me.

Before I could go any further down the rabbit hole of my thoughts, we were rolling to a stop in front of my house. Jacob cut the engine, suddenly plunging us into silence.

His slightly strangled groan broke through the quiet, and his other arm came around me, crushing me to him. He turned his face to nuzzle against my hair, kissing that same spot again.

"Bella," he began, his voice thick with feeling, "I…I know that you know how I feel about you, and I know you can't feel the same right now."

He was quiet for a moment, his hands gripping me, holding me almost desperately, as if he was scared I might run.

"But, for a few minutes today, I thought I might lose you," he continued. "And then Harry… I just…I think life's too short to let things like that come between us."

I sighed against his warm shoulder as my heart fluttered in my chest at his words. How could he have been so perfectly in tune with what I'd just been thinking?

My face was pressed against his warm neck, so close that I could feel the steady beat of his pulse under my cheek.

It would be so easy, so simple, to press my lips against the throb of his pulse and feel it quicken. That's all I would have to do, except maybe slide the hand that was now squished against his side around to caress the firm planes of his chest. Jacob would do the rest.

Surely, Edward didn't expect me to pine for him forever. I would, of course, but he clearly didn't want my love, my affection. Would it really be so wrong to give what was left of it to my best friend?

I licked my lips, picturing what would follow if I pressed that one significant kiss just there, and my pulse quickened, a delicious rush of anticipation coiling deep in my belly.

As if to confirm my thoughts, the voice in my head, his voice, whispered, "Be happy."

I closed my eyes briefly as I savored his words, quite possibly for the last time.

Then, I took a deep breath and turned my head.