4,166A/N: This is the second thing I ever wrote for Of Kith and Kin, back when I was calling it "that love story" in my head. As I found my way forward, things obviously changed. I gave Jasper a bakery, not a diner, and Edward and Bella did not speak there. So while this section didn't end up making the cut, it did help me find my way in the telling of that tale.
Of Kith and Kin – Outtake 1 – Edward Comes Home
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Edward
It never changes, I thought to myself, driving the winding highway that leads to Forks. I knew the chunk of 101 between Forks and Lake Crescent like the back of my hand. I'd kissed so many girls, parked next to that lake. Funny how just driving past it brought up the ghosts of girlfriends past, all of them smelling like fruit and flowers, awkward and unsure and trusting me to give them what their bodies told them to want.
I flipped the blinker and took my exit. I hoped the diner's coffee was still in good. I knew from experience that the hospital stuff would be wretched. I looked at the clock again. Alice, Alice, Alice, I thought, and pulled into the lot.
The diner was packed, typical for a Saturday morning. I just wanted a cup of coffee and maybe some eggs, something light on my stomach. I'd been dreading this day for six years. I'd been eager for it for just as long. I hadn't planned on the circumstances, but then, none of us had.
I scanned the crowd inside, looking for familiar faces. It's a small town and while so many people had moved away, trading Forks for Port Angeles, or even Seattle, so many had stayed as well. I picked Jessica Stanley's curly mop out of the crowd. Her back was to me, but there was no mistaking that mane of hair. A half-finished plate was across from her and I wondered if it belonged to Mike Newton – if they'd managed to pull it out and stick together or not. Not that it mattered. I was only feeling nostalgic, curious about what the world I'd walked away from had become without me.
"Jacob Black, you stop that right now!" The voice behind me shrieked and the giggle that followed twisted in my stomach like a virus. Only one person had ever been able to affect me that way, against my will, despite everything my head and heart might have told me.
It was too soon. I didn't want to see her yet.
I fled toward the back of the restaurant, to the men's room. There, among the smells of industrial strength disinfectant and urinal cakes, I gasped for breath, bent over the sink. Six years. Why the hell did I care? What did it matter? It had been so long.
The toilet flushed and I turned on the water, patting my face with cold palms, trying to bring myself back into order. I looked up in the mirror and saw Mike Newton coming out of the stall, towing a small, curly haired boy. His mama's hair and his daddy's eyes.
Newton looked up at me, recognition dawning on his face. I nodded at him, then turned and left.
It's just Bella, I thought to myself. This will be easy. Just Bella. I tried to picture the girl with braces and braids, my kid sister's best friend, so close she was practically my sister too. Instead I got the woman who stood next to Rosalie at her wedding, all creamy skin and dark hair, whose hand laid atop mine as we walked down the aisle as I fought to keep from growing hard in front of 200 hundred of the Hale's and McCarty's closest friends and family.
I walked toward the front of the restaurant. Bella's back was to me and I saw Jacob Black, all six-foot impossible of him, towering over her. He stooped, one hand to the small of her back, the other to her stomach. His face was flushed with adoration.
You have got to be fucking kidding me. After everything, she's with him?
A moment later he caught sight of me and straightened, his posture slightly defensive over Bella. She looked up at him, then turned, saw me, and froze.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth popped open, closed, then opened again. Fishmouth, my old nickname for her bubbled up from the back of my throat, but I bit it back, my teeth cutting into my tongue. Instead, I took her in – the sweetheart face, the long, graceful neck. Her hair was longer now than ever before, completely covering her breasts. Her waist –
Her waist.
My stomach twisted again and I thought I'd be sick, heaving up the half cup of gas station coffee that I'd bought on the road from Seattle to Forks. I gaped at her, gaped at Jacob. He stared back, bringing his frame up a little higher, squaring back his shoulders. With his long hair tied back and wearing nothing more than jeans and a white t-shirt, his muscular stance said one thing: don't even think about it.
"Hello Edward," she said and I shifted my eyes back to hers. I expected her to be defensive, and it didn't shock me to hear her cautious voice, the one that probed and gave nothing in return.
"Bella, ah…." I had no idea what else to say. There were a hundred words lining up in my mouth, and none that could be spoken now.
"Excuse me, I'm – I have to go." I lit out of the diner and was buckled into my rental car before she could even respond. Fuck, I'd practically run out of there. I turned off of Main Street and pulled off to the side of the road, under a tree. My hands were shaking.
Bella Swan was pregnant.
Regret hit my body like an ocean wave. I wanted to go back there, to have her tell me it was a mistake, that I was seeing things. I wanted her to be sad and miserable and lonely without me, without us. But she did exactly what I'd asked her to do. She'd moved on.
It took me forty minutes to get myself together enough to get back on the road. I needed to push this out of my mind. I had more important things to worry about today, and couldn't spare any more time for Bella Swan.
A/N: Next up are some of Carlisle's thoughts, particularly those he had over a dinner with his son, a long time ago, in L.A.