155Hi everyone! It's a short chapter, but we're basically right at the end here, there's only so much domesticity I can think of haha. Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. I can't believe we have only the epilogue left now. It feels like yesterday that I started this fic. I appreciate all of the support that it has gotten and the readers that make it worth sharing! Thank you!
I'll write your name on the winds with my eyes
I'll reach out and grasp your shadow with the hands of mine
You are the centre of love
Around which, on all four sides,
I'll build a safe haven from my own arms
Alana had heard it said that time heals all wounds. She'd attempted to give herself just that - time. Time to grapple with her new reality, with her hopes for the future. In the many months that had passed, she'd laughed and cried and felt every emotion she could have possibly imagined. She'd loved deeper than she'd ever dreamed she would. Love was such an interesting thing, it was capable of inflicting such wounds while also becoming a salve.
Jacob had been a constant in these months, his presence steady and comforting. She knew she was blessed beyond her understanding that she had him, that she had this wonderful family around her. It was difficult to imagine what this time might have looked like without them. Truthfully, she never would have found the strength to be able to heal without them. Alana shuddered to imagine what life would have looked like if she hadn't come back, if she'd let herself keep existing rather than living. If she'd spent the rest of her days living a half-life, unhappy, unfulfilled. She would have spent her days aching for something she would never understand. It was a bleak imagining, one that made her squeeze Jacob a little bit tighter during the nights she'd spend tucked beside him, safe from the world. Completely and utterly protected.
What would she do if she lost him too? If one day she woke up and he was gone. If one day the danger he protected so many from got to him first. He said it himself often enough, that anything that wanted to get at them would have to go through him - what if it did one day? That wasn't a loss Alana thought she could survive. Surely the universe couldn't be so cruel as to separate them - it would lead her wherever he went. And she would happily follow. She knew better than to attempt to discuss that with Jacob, it was the one topic he refused to talk about. It bothered him, she knew. This mantle of hero he carried without ever being aware of it. He didn't think he deserved it. Alana knew better. He was so many people's hero, even the people who didn't know it. It was an odd thought that there were people out there who didn't even realize they owed their lives to this man. Her man.
She had decided that it was up to her to show him how much she appreciated him, to make sure that he knew just how much he meant to her. It started off as small things. Hugging him a few moments longer before he left. Letting a kiss linger for longer when he returned. He wasn't complaining but it didn't seem to be working. It wasn't that he didn't notice the change, but he didn't seem to equate it with having anything to do with him.
"Someone's in a good mood," he chuckled, his hands tracing an easy path up and down her back when she pulled away from a kiss to nuzzle his jaw.
"Maybe you're just amazing," Alana hinted, fitting her head into the crook of his shoulder.
Jacob made a low noise in his throat, one that she felt reverberate through his chest. "Nah."
Stupid boy.
She would cook for him and he would tell her it was amazing and delicious and would eat enough to make her feel vaguely ill just watching him, but still would thank her and tell her she was too good to him. She wasn't though, that was the entire point. Alana knew she had to take some kind of drastic action, something that really showed him how important he was. Obviously, physical touch and acts of service were not cutting it. What was left? She could try gift giving? But what gift could she give someone who maintained that he had everything? There had to be something he wanted, something he yearned for. Any attempts to discuss it were unfruitful.
"I have everything I could ever want," Jacob shrugged, running a towel through his wet hair before tossing it on a chair. He glanced at Alana, where she lay huddled in the covers waiting for his body heat.
"Come on," she cajoled, shifting over to allow him to slide into bed next to her. "There has to be something that you dream about."
He was silent for a moment, wrapping his arms around her and settling her over the expanse of his bare chest. She was immediately enveloped by his warmth, a comforting heat that seeped into her bones.
"I dream about you," he finally said, his voice was casual as if he were discussing the weather. "I have my dream right here in my arms."
Stupid boy. Stupid, idiot, loveable boy.
"I'm already lucky beyond belief to have you. What more could I possibly ask for?"
Alana wanted to hit him with a pillow. Just smother him and make him stop saying such wonderful things that tipped the scales further in his favour.
"I don't know," she grumbled, shoving her face into his shoulder with a belligerent sigh. "Perhaps something tangible."
Jacob laughed, pulling gently on her hair to make her look up at him. "Don't you go wasting any money. I'm more happy than I can describe just to have you."
Alana leaned up to kiss him, hoping she was able to pour every bit of love she had for him into that kiss. He responded in kind, tightening his arms around her and hauling her up higher on his body so her chest aligned with his. Her legs adjusted so that they rested on either side of him. She straddled him as he tangled his fingers in her hair, one hand drifting down her torso to toy with the hem of his t-shirt that he'd worn to bed. Alana pulled away long enough for him to pull the shirt over her head and toss it into a corner of the room, leaning back into his kiss, her body responding to the feeling of his skin on hers. She trailed her fingers over the expanse of his torso, tracing the ridges of the muscle there, delighting in feeling them flex as her fingers ghosted over them.
"You're going to drive me crazy," Jacob growled against her lips, grabbing her hips in a rough motion, his fingers digging into the skin above her underwear.
He didn't even know the half of it. Alana made a senseless noise in answer, pushing against him, desperate to be as close to him as she possibly could.
When he lifted her off of his lap, tossing her back onto the bed and moving to hover over her, one thing became immediately obvious to her.
While she wouldn't necessarily get answers that night, she'd definitely get something out of it.
She hadn't gotten answers. Nope, nowhere close. She had, however, gotten … something out of it. At least there was that.
This still left her at square one. It was strange, she could say that she knew Jacob better than she knew herself. She knew his reactions, his quirks, his morals, his failings. But she didn't know what to give him as a motherfucking gift. What a world. Part of her wished they were teenagers again and it would be as simple as a wrench for a car or a helmet for that motorcycle of his - the motorcycle. He'd sold the motorcycle to fund his work on the rez. What if she found another one? This one would have the added benefit of not being gifted by Isabella Swan. Harleys didn't come cheap, that was for sure. It would be a slow process, but she was determined to make it happen. Maybe she'd get the number one item on her bucket list after all. She had, after all, accomplished a close second.
Alana fell into an easy rhythm in the next few months. She'd started working with the tribe on mental health initiatives, training programs for Forks Police. In her spare time, she worked with a crisis line. It wasn't the same work she'd done in Vancouver, this was different. This was fulfilling. It was work that let her reconcile the desire to make a change in a system that had wronged her with the desire to help people who struggled with so many of the same issues she did.
Her little world was small, warm, and comfortable. It was full of people who loved her, who cared about her, and who she loved and cared about in return. It was picturesque. Of course, there were times when it was less than idyllic, there were arguments and fights and upsets. But it was family. It was constant. It was… safe.
"I still can't believe you haven't seen any of the Marvel movies." Quil marvelled while Embry stared at her in disgust.
"I can't even look at you right now. You disgust me."
"Hey," Jacob frowned as he entered the room with a bowl of popcorn that looked miniature in his large hands. "That's enough, Embry."
"A PhD is not an easy gig," Alana defended herself, thanking Jacob when he handed her the bowl and settling in under his arm. "I didn't have time to be watching movies!"
"Yes," Paul drawled, linking his arms behind his head with a smirk, "that's the only difference between Dr Clarke and Embry. Time."
Quil snorted, averting his gaze when Embry glared at him. "I can't believe you laughed at that, traitor."
"You," he continued, glaring at Paul now, "are just an asshole. Speaking of asshole moves - where's my popcorn, Jake?"
Jacob blinked at him before arching a single brow in an almost perfect imitation of Paul. "In a box in the cupboard, make it yourself."
It was Paul's turn to laugh now while Embry gaped at Jacob. His sad eyes turned to Alana.
"Can you believe the way he speaks to me? He has to have some kind of psychological disorder."
Alana sighed, nodding at Embry in commiseration. "It's unfortunate, there's more wrong there than I can begin to diagnose."
Jacob shifted, pulling the bowl of popcorn out of Alana's hands in a fluid motion. "You can make your own too then, damn."
She rolled her eyes, leaning into his side, knowing he'd return the bowl to her in a matter of minutes, and sure enough, it was tucked back into her lap before the opening credits to Captain America had finished.
They were sitting in his silent living room, the others had departed when the movie ended earlier. Alana was content to bask in the silence. She knew that this silence couldn't be a permanent thing. One day, her comfortable world would be upended again when Somerville's case went to court, when trials happened, when sentencing happened. For now, she would enjoy this moment.
"I love you, you know," she whispered.
"I do know," Jacob replied just as quietly. "I love you, too."
Alana shifted, sitting up so she could look at his face, drink in the sight of him.
"No, like, I love you to the point where it's kind of weird."
A smile broke out across his face, quick and brilliant before he managed to smother it. She could've sworn the room lit up in response.
"You're talking to the king of weird, honey," he crooned. "I will always be the weird one, no contest."
"That's not true," Alana challenged, running her fingers through his hair with a grin. "You hang out with Paul enough that some of his coolness rubs off on you."
Jacob groaned, shifting so he sat up straighter too. "I will never escape Paul being cooler, will I? My own girlfriend thinks so too."
Alana laughed, faking a sympathetic frown for a brief moment. "Oh honey, everyone thinks so."
She couldn't deny that there was a part of her that did cartwheels of joy every time he said those words. My girlfriend. A dream that had felt so out of reach to her for so long. As a girl, she could have only dreamt that this ever would have been her life, be her future. She could have only dreamt that she would ever have this, have him. For the longest time, it had felt like an impossibility that she would ever be able to trust anyone enough to let them close to her, to trust that anyone could love her. That she was deserving of love at all.
"I wonder," Jacob began, and his voice had a tentativeness to it that caught her attention, "whether my wife would feel the same way."
Alana was silent for a moment, surprised at the lack of panic the words brought forth in her.
"I know it's early still, very early," he continued, shifting again in an uneasy motion. "But I just want you to know that I'm… I want that - that's where my mind is headed and I-"
"I would like that too," Alana interrupted, reaching out to grip his hand in a soothing motion. She squeezed it briefly. "That's… what I want as well."
Jacob squeezed her hand in return, pulling her towards him so she was settled in his arms. His heart thudded in her ear, a steady, comforting rhythm that she would never tire of hearing. There was something therapeutic about finally coming home. More than therapeutic, it was cathartic. That was something Alana Clarke could agree with.
She had heard it said that home was where the heart was, and if that was to be believed, then she was exactly where she needed to be.
She was finally home.