Chapter Twenty-one: The hunt is on.

Edward and Bella go hunting. Let's count all the things that Bella is good at!

1. Bella is super graceful, even for a vampire.
2. Bella is extremely good at jumping over rivers on her first try.
3. Bella is great at running at sparklepire speed without hitting trees.
4. Bella is good at hearing and smelling elk from far away.
5. Bella is better than any other sparklepire ever at not eating people (she smells some, and runs at them, but then freaks out and stops).

Actually, this last one event makes Edward laugh, because it's so preposterous that a newborn vampire could feel bad about thinking about eating a human. Which brings us to...


6. Bella is great at ignoring the awful thirst for blood in her throat.
7. Bella is good at killing mountain lions and drinking all their blood.
   
8. Bella is really hot. Edward mentions this a lot, especially after the mountain lion tears up her dress a bit.

So yeah, that's pretty much the chapter in a nutshell. I'm sure you wanted to read more, but it's all about how awesome Bella is at everything.

At the end of the chapter, Edward is all over Bella, mostly because there isn't very much dress left after the hunting was over. But what Bella wants to do -- just a tiny bit more than having vampire sex in the woods -- is see Renesmee. Who is with Jacob, which seems a little strange to Bella, though her super-fast vampire mind hasn't come up with any theories yet. As you'll see over the rest of this book, for minds that are supposed to work unbelievably fast, it takes a very long time for vampires to figure things out.

Chapter Twenty: Bella, Queen of the Sparklepires

Bella is now in full sparkling glory, and as it turns out, the world is too. Everything she sees, she sees a bazillion times clearer than she did before. She can see dust motes, and notes that they're much more attractive than the dust moats Meyer wrote about in one of the earlier books (in fact, she writes the phrase "dust mote" three times in the first two pages of this chapter, as if to prove she's learned how to spell it properly). She can breathe, and even though she doesn't need to, the air tastes really good, because she can taste everything. She can hear everything. Basically, she's fully aware of everything going on within a huge radius, because she's a full-blown sparklepire of the highest order.

Edward touches Bella. It's not cold anymore, because she's cold too! And now that she can see so much more clearly, he's even hotter than he was before! And guess what -- she's even hotter than she was before too, because vampires just...are. I mean, they're actually cold, but you get the picture.

Bella's a little confused, because she has lots of emotions right now. Wasn't she supposed to be an emotionless killing machine for a year or so before they came back? Bella hugs Edward, and actually manages to hurt him, because one of the other benefits of being a newborn vampire is increased strength, even compared to other sparkle gods.

Edward and Bella make out in front of the whole family, with Bella basically mounting them. Then they remember that these aren't things we do in front of your parents and siblings. Oops.

Everyone is surprised by how much control Bella has. Of course she does! Why would she have to go through anything difficult? That would get in the way of her wish fulfillment. Oh sure, she still has mood swings and feels like she wants human blood, but you can pretty much count on these "challenges" being cosmetic, at best. Bella is going to be the best. Sparklepire. Ever.

Assured that Renesmee is fine (other than the stupid name), Bella is convinced by Edward that they should go hunt to take care of her thirst. Of course, Bella wants to see her baby first, but the rest of the family isn't so sure. After all, she's half-human, so newborn Bella might eat her for her first post-sparkle snack. So she agrees to be patient, at least for the moment. What surprises her most of all is that Jacob is still around. Hmm, how peculiar...

Alice demands that she gets to make Bella look in a mirror before they go, so she can be there for the "first time." Bella looks, and sees that she's really, really hot. Maybe not Rosalie hot, but definitely at the Esme/Alice level, which is still way above human, apparently. It freaks her out a bit too, because she has those awesome blood red eyes that are just a bit of a change from her human days. A steady course of animal blood will clear that up, but it'll still take a few months.

This is all a bit much for Bella to handle, but she manages...which shocks all the other vampires. Newborns aren't supposed to be able to do this! Bella has the advantage of knowing what to expect going into the whole sparklefication procedure, but still, this is above and beyond what any of them thought was possible. Yes, Bella's not just a vampire, she's a magically special vampire!

After Edward assures Bella that she's really hot (but that he's disappointed that he still can't read her mind), Jasper's uneasiness with Bella reaches a boil, and they agree to let her go hunt once so that they can be even more assured that she won't flip out and start attacking everyone in sight. Bella's a little worried about attacking wild animals for the first time, but with Edward with her, what could possibly go wrong?

More Posts Coming Soon!

Sorry about the lack of updates, guys -- work has been keeping me very busy. I'll be pumping out updates as fast as possible in the next week or so, because I need to get Breaking Dawn done soon!

But that won't be the end of this blog. Oh no, there's plenty more bad Twilight writing to suffer through...

Chapter Nineteen: Return of the Bella

Bella's back to her role as narrator. She's better at it than Jacob, much in the same way that having a finger cut off is better than losing an entire arm.

Bella is in a lot of pain. Yes, we're picking things up just as her body begins to react to all the Edward venom coursing through her body, attempting to keep her alive long enough to turn her into a sparklepire. Bella's body is trying to protect her from the agony, but nonetheless, it feels like she's being tortured in a dozen different ways all at once. That's not actually happening, which is a slight disappointment to me as a reader, but what she's going through is bad enough to give us at least a little satisfaction.

It's understandably confusing to be Bella right now. If we back up a few minutes to when she was giving birth: she knows something is wrong with the little baby boy who is totally a boy inside of her, and she slips constantly between numbness and excruciating pain. Bella is kind enough to take us through the same birth we've just seen from Jacob's perspective, only this time, instead of Jacob telling us that Bella looks like she's in tons of pain, Bella tells us that she actually is in tons of pain! It's a whole new angle!

Skipping past all the repetitive stuff, Bella talks about how she wouldn't have been able to struggle very long for herself...but for Edward, and for Jacob, and for Renesmee, she can do anything! Sure, it's really their faults that she's in this mess in the first place, but if they got her into it, they can get her out.

Bella feels some new heat heading into her heart. Oh, that must be the sparkle venom! It gets hotter and hotter, until it's much too hot. Then it gets even hotter than that. And there's nothing she can do about it, since the heat is coming from inside of her. So, umm, ouch? This is going to suck for Bella.

Yeah, now she wishes she had just gone and died. Every other pain she's ever felt in her life is nothing compared to all the venom going through her body. Becoming a vampire isn't quite as fun as you imagined now, is it Bella?

What really confuses her for a moment, though, is why she can't scream and thrash about like her instincts are telling her to. And a moment later, she realizes the answer: it's the morphine. It seems like an understandable mistake; Carlisle and Edward were hoping that by getting enough morphine in her quick enough, it would dull the pain of the venom. But instead, it's just making Bella paralyzed in her horrific pain.

But wait a second...Bella points out that she more or less knew this would happen! They gave her morphine after James bit her in the first movie, and she knew that it hadn't helped at all. And instead of giving her vampire doctor this very, very important information, she decided to keep it to herself so that Edward wouldn't stop her from becoming a sparklepire. You know, Bella, I don't think the relative amount of pain you're going to feel for a few days is really what was driving Edward to keep you human for as long as possible. Use your brain!

Besides, it's important to point out a few obvious logic issue here: Bella has no idea if the morphine is helping or not. It might be making things more bearable than she realizes. Maybe without the morphine, it would be ten times worse, and she'd be killing herself by contorting her near-dead body because of the pain before the venom could kick in. Do we have a control Bella somewhere who tried this without painkillers? These are the things I wonder about.

Bella wants to die. How do I know this? well, this is a line from this chapter:

Let me die, let me die, let me die.

So, yeah, I think she's less than happy with the process so far. But then things change! The venom repairs Bella enough so that she can feel her lower body, so that hurts too. Awesome.

After a while, things start "improving," in so much as that she can begin to feel the ability to move again as the morphine begins to wear off. Of course, now she can feel the pain event more that before too (hah, told you Bella!), but at least she can sort of think about the agony a little more clearly now. Still, she doesn't want to scream, because it might upset Edward. Sigh.

Eventually, she gets control over her body...but does nothing with it, since she doesn't want anyone to worry about her. Then she can start hearing, and she can hear her heart beat, which gives her time to count. She can hear people asking questions that she refuses to answer, because she knows she'll start screaming, and she certainly can't do that. I mean, they all know she's being tormented anyway, but if she screams, then...umm, something. I don't know. I guess, to be fair, that it's hard to stay rational when your body is being absorbed by vampire venom.

She pretends to stay paralyzed even when people touch her. She can hear Edward berating himself; since Bella isn't moving, he thinks something must be wrong. But Bella's heart is doing so well that Carlisle is sure he did everything right. Of course her heart is bouncing along at a record pace -- Bella is going to be the most perfect sparklepire ever, and don't you forget it!

Bella continues hearing conversations, now about some sort of crazy situation that could lead to bloodshed. Oh, Bella, when you wake up and see that your best friend is in love with your baby, that's going to be awesome.

Alice comes into the room a bit later. She's sure it's almost over, because she's starting to see Bella clearly again. She can see humans and vampires, but not in-between, so Bella must be almost up to 100% sparkle!

Bella already has super-hearing at this point, and can listen to the Mariners play on the TV downstairs. Why she wants to endure even more pain this way, I don't know.

A little later, the pain begins to fade slightly from her extremities. Unfortunately for Bella, at the same time, it gets worse in her heart, and she starts to feel really, really thirsty in her throat. Oh yay, she's almost ready to eat some people! As the pain starts moving from her arms and legs directly into her chest, her heart starts beating even faster. She realizes that her heart is her last human organ, and the venom is moving to finish it off. Go venom, go!

Bella's heart stops. But alas, she's not dead. No, she's now pain free and more alive than ever. Well, technically, more undead than ever...but you know what I mean. In our next installment, Bella adjusts to her new life as a sparklepire. Here's a spoiler: it goes well for her.

Chapter Eighteen: The most amazing thing I've ever read.

The official chapter title (remember, it's from Jacob's perspective, and the chapter titles reflect this) is "THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR THIS." Jacob is damn right about that, but I'm going to try. This is the big one, folks. If you have read these books, this is the chapter you've been waiting for me to write about. This is the chapter you want to know how the hell they're going to film when it comes time to make the Breaking Dawn movie(s). For this is the chapter in which Bella gives birth. Game on!

We start the chapter with a blood-soaked Bella convulsing all over the place. Normally, the convulsions would at least mean her body was doing something, but Jacob notices that it's mostly whatever is trying to get out of Bella that's causing the commotion.

The vampires take Bella up to the hospital-esque room that they've set up for her care, and Rosalie rips Bella's clothes off to prep her for, umm, surgery. Jacob feels a little conflicted by this. I mean, he doesn't like that his best friend is dying and covered in her own blood while a monstrous creature is attempting to claw its way out of her womb, of course...but at the same time, he DID spend a lot of time imagining her naked. How ironic that now that he gets his wish, it's during a time when, on balance, it's not something he can be happy about. Poor Jacob! And Bella too, since she's near death and all that.

Carlisle isn't around -- remember, he's conveniently out getting more blood, which they put off just long enough to risk this happening -- but it hardly seems to matter, since Edward and Rosalie apparently have no problem diagnosing exactly what's going on. The baby is suffocating! The placenta detached!

Bella manages to come around during all this, and starts screaming at them to take the baby out now. Her screaming causes blood vessels in her eyes to burst, just adding to the bloody mess. Then there's more blood, which stops her from continuing to scream. Really, if Stephenie Meyer wants you to get one thing out of this part of the chapter, it's that Bella has lost about eight people worth of blood already.

Edward wants to wait for the morphine to spread before they attempt to take the baby out, but Rosalie is convinced there's no time: they need to act now. In an attempt to be demonstrative about this, her hand lands on Bella's stomach, and you guessed it...more blood! This time though, it comes as a bit of a surprise to Rosalie, and causes her to lose focus. In one sense, it might not be a big deal, since the plan is to eat the baby out of Bella anyway; but since they'd rather not eat Bella during the process, this is not a positive development on the whole. Jacob tackles Rosalie, who doesn't put up much of a fight as Alice drags her out into the hallway.

With Rosalie out of the room, there's a new plan; Jacob performs CPR while Edward tries to get the baby out. Hurray for Jacob, now he gets to pretend he's making out with Bella again AND potentially save her life. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Then another crack rips through Bella -- it seems that the baby loves her so much, it decided to break her spine so she couldn't feel the pain of it ripping its way out of her womb. Aww! Jacob also points this out, telling Edward that he really doesn't have to worry about the morphine anymore since Bella won't be able to feel a damn thing anyway.

Edward gets started on delivery while Jacob deals with keeping Bella going. He can hear her heart beating softly, but she's not breathing, so he tries to breathe for her. The first thing he notices? That Bella's lips taste like blood. Funny, that; maybe it's the geysers of blood coming out of her.

Edward starts with the delicate surgeon's touch of the scalpel. Then he decides that that subtlety needs to be thrown out of the window, and dives in face first, ripping apart Bella's insides with his own teeth. Jacob remarks that it sounds like metal being torn apart as Edward bites his way into the womb; somehow, this observation is among the least traumatic imagery in this chapter.

Jacob keeps Bella's heart beating and lungs breathing as Edward pulls the baby out. It's a girl, maintaining Bella's record of being wrong about everything ever. Her name is Renesmee, which will unfortunately doom thousands of children over the next two decades to being given that awful name by terrible parents. If your name is Renesmee, and you're reading this in the year 2025 or so (either in its original blog form, the sure bestselling book that will follow, or in some sort of 3D format, since that's what all the kids are into now), it's nothing against you, of course. I blame your parents for naming you after a fictional half-vampire, that's all.

Bella, momentarily calm, wants to hold her daughter -- a perfectly reasonable thing to want, of course. But in a matter of seconds, she's gasping again, because the baby has just bitten her, causing yet more blood (how much more can she have left?) to come pouring out of her chest. Edward scolds his daughter for this. It's not right to be biting people and drinking their blood without asking properly first, Renesmee!

Bella's eyes roll back into her head, and she heads off near death again. Jacob goes into full CPR mode, trying to keep her heart and lungs moving for as long as possible. He gently reminds Edward that this might be a good time to start vampirizing Bella, but he needs somewhere to put Renesmee down first. After Jacob suggests throwing her out the window, they reluctantly settle on giving her to Rosalie, who promises not to eat Renesmee.

Edward momentarily gets Jacob to stop pumping so that he can have a turn. He injects a syringe of Edward-grade sparklepire venom directly into Bella's heart, hoping that it might speed up the process a little. Then Jacob goes back to pumping, hoping to spread the venom around her body as fast as possible, while Edward starts biting Bella in every place you can imagine, and quite a few that you can't.

But at some point, Jacob decides that this is all futile, because Bella isn't responding at all. From his point of view, they're working over a corpse, and while playing doctor is sometimes fun, it's less so when the patient is your dead best friend. Jacob feels a pull to be elsewhere, anywhere but in the room with definitely dead and not about to be a perfect sparklepire Bella; hearing his thoughts, Edward invites him to leave then, and reiterates his confidence that Bella's going to be just fine.

So Jacob leaves. He's tired and broken, so when he sees Rosalie on the couch downstairs playing with the baby, he kind of loses it. Maybe this is what she wanted all along, to let Bella die and take the kid as her own. Come to think of it, that would have been a pretty clever plan on her part, and now, no matter what this book tells me, I'm going to assume that was exactly what she intended. It certainly makes the story more interesting!

Jacob hears Renesmee feeding on blood, and declares her a little monster. Not just any monster, the monster who killed his best friend who is definitely NOT going to be saved at the last minute. No, the baby needs to die. Rosalie's too distracted to stop him, and so what if her, Alice and Jasper would kill him after he did it? At this point, he's not all that concerned about what anyone thinks or feels. The only sensible course of action is to kill a newborn baby. Totally justifiable, even if it was the exact same idea that caused him to leave his wolf pack just a couple weeks earlier. But this is different, because he's mad, and therefore infanticide is a perfectly rational plan!

Stupid or not (and it is stupid), Jacob proceeds with operation Kill the Baby. He moves in for the kill, when Renesmee gets one good look at him from over Rosalie's shoulder...and it's all over. Remember that pull Jacob had to Bella's bulging stomach? Remember how the werewolves are all imprinting on people...even infant people?

Yeah. You can put two and two together. Jacob feels a million giant steel cables connecting him to Renesmee, meaning he will forever be connected to her. Yes, he's basically in love with a baby that's less than five minutes old. Imprinting isn't creepy at all!

On the bright side, Bella's dead, right? At least we won't have to deal with her for the last twenty chapters or so. Wait, what's that? Jacob hears a new heart beating furiously again upstairs? Sigh -- we should have known we'd never get that lucky. On the bright side, this really is the end of werewolf-vision; Bella's going to narrate the rest of our journey. The rest of our sad, boring journey of wish fulfillment.

Enjoy?

Bonus: for a shorter, more visual summary of the birth, this animated .gif may help.

Chapter Seventeen: It's almost game time!

Edward didn't just give Jacob the keys to any old car. Jacob's got the reins to an Aston Martin Vanquish! Jacob drives around being angsty for a while, before finding himself somewhere in the area between Seattle and Tacoma. His goal? Find a girl to imprint on, because that's totally how it works. Right?

Eventually, Jacob decides to hang out at a park. He shows he's a real rebel by parking the car across two handicap spaces! Jacob's plan for today is to be as creepy as possible by noticing every little thing about every girl who walks by. But after a while, he gets even creepier -- he starts to notice the things in the other girls that remind him of Bella.

Just when he's decided that he's had enough of acting like a creepy old man, Jacob is approached by one of the girls he was semi-stalking earlier. She asks him where he picked up the stolen car. Jacob tries to explain that it was given to him by a sparkling vampire because his best friend who he's in love with is having a mutant half-vampire baby and will probably die during childbirth, but that explanation doesn't quite fly.

Turns out that the girl's name is Lizzie. She's smart, pretty, funny, and knows cars. Basically, the perfect girl if you pick your mates by filling out a checklist. But alas, neither love nor imprinting works that way, so Jacob is out of luck. He's pretty much resigned to being alone, especially since everyone agrees Seth should stay in La Push when the werewolf tiff is over with. At least Jacob will always have Leah to mope with!

Heading back to Cullen Manor around dusk, Jacob finds Edward waiting for him. Jacob remembers that he had planned to wreck the car. Oops! Maybe next time.

Edward wants to chat about a few things. First, there's Leah. She came in and basically raked Bella over the coals for making like tough on Jacob. She did that by...existing, I guess? It's not her fault she has some sort of feelings for Jacob. It's not like she came up with the "sleep with Jacob on the weekends for procreation purposes" plan. But Leah was pissed, and Edward wants Jacob to use his Alpha powers to shut her up. Jacob won't do that, but he's willing to talk to her. Besides, it's probably out of her system by now anyway.

Other than the Leah madness, Bella's doing better. Apparently, the baby is already pretty intelligent. What a surprise! It can even understand other nearby people, at least to some extent. It's even trying its best not to hurt Bella, because it loves Mommy soooo much.

On the downside, the baby is simply getting too big, and when Carlisle gets back from acquiring more blood, Edward wants to convince him to deliver the baby now. Edward is now convinced that Bella will make it, with the cooperation of Superbaby.

Which brings him to his next point. Of course, Edward wants to save Bella by turning her into a vampire, which is pretty much Bella's dream come true. But there is still the nasty business about that treaty thing. Edward wants an official exemption for Bella, since it's her choice and they'll be saving her life and not eating her even a little bit. Jacob thinks he wants Sam, since he's the main Alpha dog, but Edward points out that Jacob is the true heir to the Alpha position, and thus the only one who can really change the original treaty terms.

Jacob takes a little time to think about this. He chats with Seth, he gives Bella a quick hello. She apologizes for stuff, because that's her biggest skill. And finally, he agrees to give Edward permission to vampirize Bella if necessary.

So everything's fine now, right? Not so fast, my friend.

Bella tries to take a little walk, and is rewarded with a ripping sound from somewhere inside her body. This is followed by shrieking, vomit and fountains of blood. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this baby is coming out right now, and that you do not want to miss this.

Chapter Sixteen: Werewoman problems.

Leah and Jacob go run one last patrol just to make sure it's safe for the sparkly ones to go hunting today. With no scent of the La Push wolves, they seem to be in the clear. Even better for Leah, she's officially become less annoying to Jacob than Paul was. Good job, kid!

Leah's pretty hungry, so Jacob suggests they hunt. Leah hates eating that way, but Jacob tries to remind her that it's just what wolves do, and it's pretty natural. Of course, when you've spend the first 16 or however many years of your life eating things that have come out of a microwave, you have to question just how natural it is to eat wolf style. In any case, it's not that she won't do it, it's just not very fun.

In with all the hunting conversation, Leah admits that Jacob is a good Alpha, and that she wants to stay with him. And, as it turns out, Seth does too. They're a lot happier with Jacob than they ever were with Sam. Jacob's not sure how he feels about all this; being Alpha wasn't really something he was considering taking on as a full-time job. He's more of a freelance middle-management werewolf. But he says he'll at least consider it.

Anyway, Jacob and Leah take down some deer and have a little feast. Jacob lets his brain go as wolfy as possible, which in turn infects Leah's brain, making it easier for her to eat raw venison. When mealtime is over, Leah and Jacob decide it's time to have a nice intimate chat.

You see, Jacob thinks that maybe Leah shouldn't stick around. Should she really have to listen to Jacob whine about Bella in his head all day long? But from Leah's perspective, it's easier to listen to that then be in her own head, whining about Sam all day long. It's not quite as bad for Leah, because she sees how happy Sam is, and if you really love someone, that does a lot to make things easier. But she can at least understand where Jacob is coming from.

Then things get a little weirder. Leah says she can see where Rosalie is coming from. That's enough to piss Jacob off, but she wants to explain. See, Rosalie is a genetic dead end, unable to have kids. Leah kind of thinks she's the same way. The pack never wanted to listen to her "woman problems," as my mom might put it, but being a werewolf hasn't been easy on her. In the first month, she thought she was pregnant, but it quickly became apparent that she wasn't going to be having a period or a baby. No, her body pretty much stopped -- just like it did for the guys, but a little more traumatically. As she puts it, she's 20 years old and menopausal.

This is possibly the conversation that Jacob has least wanted to have in his entire life. Nonetheless, he attempts to be helpful, saying that it's likely that when she stops being a wolf, she'll go back to having her normal womanly cycles. Leah's not so convinced, especially since she hasn't imprinted yet. And every cool werewolf is doing that these days, so there must be something wrong with her if she hasn't, right? Oh, sorry Jacob, forgot you were here too.

After Jacob gets over the awkwardness of all this, Leah steers the conversation back to Rosalie. She thinks that what Rosalie wants, more than anything, is what she can't have -- a child. That's why she's so driven to protect the baby (and to a lesser, sort of tangential extent, Bella). And it's not like Rosalie is killing Bella, that's just a side effect! She's just more than happy to do anything Bella wants to give her the chance to have what Rosalie never can. Aww.

Anyway, Jacob thinks this is a load of crap, and leaves Leah behind to go back to Cullen Manor and hang out with people who see things more his way. He runs into Alice right away, who is definitely on Team Hate-the-Baby. She reports that the baby might have broken Bella's pelvis now. How pleasant! Just then, it turns out that there wasn't actually any breaking involved, which leads to Rosalie gloating a little bit. Alice speculates that Edward is going to tear Rosalie apart; Jacob offers to help if Alice is in too.

Jacob suggests that it's safe to hunt, even if they leave fewer people behind to guard Bella, and Carlisle defers to his advice. Jacob also tells a blond joke that Rosalie hasn't heard before. Success!

So it's just Jacob, Edward, Bella and Rosalie hanging around the house, having fun times. Jacob settles down to sleep, but as usual, weird shit starts happening, meaning he can't go to bed quite yet.

Edward hears a voice that nobody else can. Come on, Meyer, it's a little late to be introducing ghosts into the story! But no, it's not a ghost...it's the baby. Edward can now hear the baby's thoughts, adding a whole new level of weird to the proceedings. The baby likes the sound of Bella's voice. It's not exactly the most exciting thought, but still: that's something, right?

Next thing they know, the baby is sending out happy thoughts into the world, and Bella is calling it EJ. Remember, she's absolutely sure it's a boy! Edward Jacob is a very nice, very creepy name. I know that if I had a boy, I'd want it to have the middle name of the other guy she was in love with as a constant reminder. Oh, and just in case it's a girl, it'll have an even better name: Renesmee. you see, Renee, plus Esme...yeah. Get used to it.

And then Edward realizes the baby loves its mommy, and Jacob realizes he's really, really outnumbered now, because there's no way Edward will be anti-baby now that he's sort of having conversations with it. And holy crap, does that hurt Jacob that he has to be alone, the only one suffering in a sea of happy sparkly people.

Edward does the only thing he can think of when he sees how Jacob feels: he gives him a set of keys to one of their very fancy sports cars. Jacob's emotions may be coming apart at the seams, but at least he can go zoom zoom in the meantime!

Chapter Fifteen: This chapter is awful and boring.

You know what the name of this chapter is? Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock. No, really, that's what Meyer came up with. And it's strangely appropriate; all anyone is doing in this chapter is counting time, and boy, does it move slowly. I'm really not even sure what to write about, but here goes my best shot.

Seems like Leah is blending in okay with the new pack, other than her distaste for the vampires. Jacob even ate some of Esme's food, but she wouldn't touch it. Instead, she hunted for elk, even though she's not a big fan of eating in wolf-form.

Jacob's starting to think he should suggest a new plan to the Cullens: take the Bella and run. Not only would it be safer for them, but it would be less painful for Jacob if she weren't nearby. But Seth's already asked about that, and it seems that between the medical access Carlisle has in Forks and the danger in moving Bella, moving doesn't seem prudent.

Seth gives the reader a full report on Bella's current condition. It's what some writers call "exposition," and what other, more clever writers would call "something that should be done with a lot more subtlety." The mutant baby has broken another rib, but overall she's doing better; after all, even human non-freak babies have been known to break a rib or two. Bella is running a low grade fever though, which is a minor concern.

Turns out that Bella's actually talking to her parents on the phone once in a while now that she's feeling better. Jacob (and apparently, Edward), don't like this. If Bella's likely to die, they shouldn't be giving her parents false hope. I mean, how dare she want to talk to her parents while she still can? As usual, Edward and Jacob just want to tell her what's best for her, and Bella has the nerve to have her own wants and opinions.

Jacob decides to head back to Cullen Manor so that he can warm Bella as needed. Not that he was jealous of the job Seth was doing, or anything, of course. He's just being helpful. And torturing himself, but mostly helpful. Most of the vampires are actually glad to see Jacob again; it seems as though they've grown accustomed to having a werewolf around. But nobody is happier than Bella, who has both a friend and a space heater she can confide in.

Since Jacob needs food to like, live and stuff, Alice suggests that Rosalie round up a meal for him. Edward promises to tell Jacob if Rosalie poisons it. She doesn't, but she does bend a bowl into the shape of a dog dish with the name Fido on it. Vampires are really, really mature. But the food is apparently good, and Jacob is -- much to his chagrin -- getting used to the vampire stink.

The next piece of business is when exactly Bella's going to give birth to the hellish creature inside her. There's no real due date, considering the freakish nature of this pregnancy, but Carlisle's best estimates give Bella about four more days. We're almost to something happening! Meanwhile, Jacob notices that Bella's pull on him has been getting stronger and stronger as she gets more and more pregnant. It's almost like there's a gravitational pull, and not the kind related to a fat/pregnancy joke. Something creating a strong, gravity-like attachment in a werewolf? Now where have we heard that phrase before...

Jacob wonders why Bella wants him around so much, considering Seth can do the heating job and actually enjoys being around the Cullens. Bella says that Jacob's like a part of her family, so having him around makes things whole. Jacob says this is a crap answer, and "I get a kick out of your pain" would be a better way for her to answer. Werewolves are dumb.

Bella gets some sleep, which gives Jacob and Edward a chance to chat again. As expected, Edward isn't down with the whole "giving Charlie hope" plan. But Bella is, and they're not about to upset the pregnant lady at a time like this. Here's how she sees it: yes, she's not going to live as a human, but she'll probably survive as a sparklepire. Then, she can see Charlie after the one-year uncontrollable killing machine period is up, stalling through the use of telephone calls for the time being until she's sure she probably won't eat him.

Oh, but the plan gets better. Obviously, Charlie will figure out something's different with his daughter when her eyes are turning dark every couple of weeks, and her skin is rock hard, and she's never aging or anything. But even though she can't tell him the truth, she's banking on him coming to his own, incorrect conclusion, which would both keep him safe and allow her to see her dad whenever she wants.

Now here's the thing. That's a crazy plan, right? One that would never work? Well, don't worry, because they don't use that plan later on. No, what ends up happening is crazier by at least two orders of magnitude. But we'll cross that sparkly bridge when we get to it.

Next question: what do they do when Bella's ready to give birth? It seems that Carlisle, Jasper and Emmett have been doing research on that topic. From the myths and legends they've uncovered, it sounds like the devil spawn will chew its way out of the womb. Mmm, delightful! Rosalie isn't convinced that these myths are even real, but if they are, she makes a decent point: they're way better set up to deliver the baby and save Bella than any of the women in these legends, what with a vampire doctor and a house full of caretakers. Actually, Rosalie seems possibly more interested in saving the baby than in Bella, which upsets Edward, so Jacob does the smart thing -- he throws his dog bowl into the back of Rosalie's head, getting food in her hair. Oh yes, these people are ready to help raise a child!

Carlisle has some other speculations to make, too. Jacob and the baby have some similarities: the accelerated growth, the fact that Alice can't see them, the way they're both really dragging the plot down right now. It makes him wonder if they're genetically similar too -- perhaps both having 24 chromosomal pairs. I'm not geneticist, but I know that makes no sense whatsoever! Clearly though, it makes sense to Stephenie Meyer. After all, if Bella has 23, and Edward 25, they can just split the difference, right?

But while the vampires have a completely unscientific genetics discussion, Jacob does his own figuring. Here are the facts of the matter: the evil monster inside of Bella is protected by something hard like vampire skin. Rosalie says they have a plan to deliver the baby safely. The myths say that the babies eat their way out of the womb. And not many things can cut through vampire skin...

Except for werewolf teeth. Or vampire teeth. So how do they plan to get the baby out?

Oh.

OH!

Well, this should be fun.

Chapter Fourteen: Vampire Hospitality

It seems the Cullens feel they owe the werewolves a debt of gratitude, because they do all sorts of nice things for Jacob, Seth and Leah in this chapter. In fact, that's pretty much all that happens.

WHY WON'T YOU END, JACOB SECTION OF THIS BOOK? ARGH!

Ahem. So, we start with Edward laying out some new clothes for Jacob, who tore up the last of his phasing during the previous chapter. For the moment, there's a sense of normality; Bella is full of energy/human blood, and the vampires are milling about instead of looking entirely morose. Bella looks really, really happy to see Jacob, which pisses him off. She's married, how could she possibly be happy to see him, too? Doesn't she know how much he wants to completely stay away from his best friend and never see her again? What nerve she has.

In other news, Edward can hear Jacob from farther away now (he's getting used to reading his mind), and Jacob enjoys making blond jokes at Rosalie's expense. I imagine that Stephenie Meyer literally typed "blond jokes" into Google and picked out a few to use for this "subplot."

Jacob really, really wants to go to sleep, but Edward has one last thing to ask him about. It seems that Esme's motherly instinct has set in, and that she feels really bad about Jacob's mini-pack being essentially homeless. She wants them to have all the comforts of home -- the human food they keep around, smelly vampire clothes, or anything else they need. Jacob isn't sure the wolves will really want to take the vampire hand-me-downs, but he politely says thanks for the offer, and prepares to finally, FINALLY go to sleep.

And then they hear Bella make a painful moan, and it's back in the house for our supernatural heroes. Seems that the little baby inside of Bella has gotten stronger along with her, and that it's kicking -- hard enough to break a rib. Bella needs to go take an X-ray, leaving Jacob downstairs, where he meets up with Alice. At that point, he notices that Alice hasn't been around Bella at all, which is strange, considering they're vffs and all.

Turns out that Alice hasn't been hanging around Bella because she has a headache. In a strange way, I can see the Bella/Alice shipper crowd seeing this as innuendo, but in reality, it's the fetus. Something about it doesn't let Alice get a good view on it or Bella, and even when she tries really hard to concentrate, she can only see a few minutes out. Jacob is actually a bit of a relief for Alice; since she can't see anything to do with him anyway, it lets her clear her head for a bit and relax. He's like her very own ibuprofen!

Jacob finally gets to sleep, for about half a page. He wakes up, only to smell lots of food. Human food! Human breakfast foods, which are, in general, the most delicious of all foods. Esme is serving breakfast, which Seth -- who came to check on Jacob -- is partaking in with much enthusiasm. Turns out Edward is quite the chef! Seth's also been keeping Bella warm, which Jacob is totally not at all in any way jealous, because she doesn't belong to him, and he is NOT JEALOUS, OKAY?

Turns out Jacob slept all night and into the next morning, which is why everyone's enjoying their meal together. Even Bella is having an omelet, albeit with a blood chaser. Seth tried to give food to Leah, but no matter how scrumptious it is -- and Seth assures us that it's really quite good -- Leah won't have any of it. Jacob seems a little reluctant too, but he's very, very hungry, so he'd have to be a real idiot not to give in soon. I mean, they have cinnamon rolls!

Jacob says he'll go hunting with Leah, which reminds Carlisle of some pressing business. It's about time for the Cullens to hunt, and he doesn't want to accidentally start a turf war with the La Pushers. So he asks Jacob for some insight into what Sam might be planning. After suggesting that the Cullens will probably be fine, but should go in the opposite direction of La Push just in case, the plan becomes to go in shifts of three, so that Bella isn't completely unguarded and the hunting party can defend itself, too. Alice can even tell which paths might be dangerous, since those ones will disappear as soon as werewolves become a possibility.

In the meantime, Esme has prepared even more food -- she's really getting into the worried mother thing with Jacob. She sends Jacob out with a platter of food, which he promises to take to Leah even though he actually plans to dump it under a tree somewhere. Really, Jacob? Can't even eat any food that's been in the same room as a vampire? Get over yourself!

Bella wants to know if Jacob will be coming back, but he doesn't make any promises. Esme makes him take some clothes -- freshly washed as to have as little vampire smell as possible on them -- to Leah. Feeling his guilt rise to critical levels, Jacob runs out of the house, right before Esme can tell him to bundle up before he catches a cold, or before Carlisle can remind him to call his grandmother.

Only four more first-wolf-perspective chapters to go. We can do this, guys!

Chapter Thirteen: I'll take a small blood, in a sippy cup.

The vampires have a lot of important philosophical debates about how Bella should be given some drinking blood. Should they warm it up? What color should the cup be? For something that could save her life, they're sure taking their time hammering out the details.

In the meantime, Jacob keeps Bella company. She's surprised to find that Leah is hanging out with Jacob now, since Leah has never been a fan of the vampires. Jacob doesn't tell her all the sordid details, but assures Bella that Leah probably won't come in and kill her in her sleep.

Finally, Bella gets her cup of blood, complete with a bendy straw! Everyone is concerned that she won't want to drink it, but she promises to try. She sniffs it and recoils...not because it smells bad, but because it smells good. Then she takes a sip and moans...because she's embarrassed that it tastes good, too. Bella wants to know if this will count against her record of drinking from humans; Edward says they'll have to consult the judges later.

Bella sucks down the whole cup, and it immediately makes her feel better, because that's just how blood works. She has more color, better breathing, more strength! With Bella on the mend, she decides she wants some eggs with her blood -- it's a traditional vampo-human delicacy.

Satisfied that Bella won't be dying in the next few minutes, Jacob wanders off to finally get some sleep. But no dice -- he hears Seth and Leah howling, and has to phase to have a wolf-chat with them. Seems that three other wolves are headed their way. They eventually realize that it's one wolf-person back in human form, along with three still being their wolfy selves. It doesn't seem like an attack, but they're probably not here to challenge the vampires to a game of baseball either.

Jared is the one in human form, while Quil, Paul and Collin stay back as wolves. It seems they all want Jacob to come back into the fold. They're even willing to slow down their "murdering Bella" plan. Instead, they'll just maaaaybe kill the baby if it's a threat. Maybe! Actually, a perceptive Leah thinks she knows the real plan: wait for Bella to die, then let a pissed off Jacob lead the attack. Sneaky!

There's a little aside here to talk about werewolf nudity. No, really. You see, it really wasn't a big deal for the pack when they were all boys. Slightly awkward and sometimes hilarious? Sure, but nothing they couldn't handle. Then Leah came along, and that made things weird. It was fun to watch her be all nude, of course, but less fun when she caught you thinking about it to the rest of the pack. Fun times!

In the end, Jacob explains his decision to the old pack: he's not just there to protect Bella anymore. He'll protect anyone that should be protected, and that includes some of the vampires, too. I mean, if they want to specifically kill Rosalie, that's negotiable. But Carlisle, no sir! Jared tries to guilt Seth and Leah to come back to the pack with the old "your mom is worried sick, especially with your father being dead and stuff" trick, but it doesn't work.

Then Jared really pulls out the big guns on Leah. He tells her that the pack wants her pack, and that Sam really, really wants her. He even uses Sam's old nickname for Leah, the very imaginative "Lee-Lee." But rather than getting Leah to feel sympathetic, it causes her to mentally throw a string of obscenities at Jared.

And at that point, Operation Win Back Some Wolves is at an end. Jared agrees to take a message back to Sam: leave the Cullens alone, and at least for the time being, stay in La Push so that there aren't any accidental brawls or disembowelings. Before they leave, Quil scampers up to say goodbye to Jacob, and the two of them basically make out (at least according to Leah) before the old pack wanders off.

In summary, the werewolf stuff has somehow managed to be even more boring than the vampire stuff or the Bella pregnancy. This book has definitely hit a low point -- will it recover?

Oh, yes, yes it will. In ways you can't possibly imagine.

Chapter Twelve: Werewolf Soap Opera Theatre

At the beginning of the chapter, Leah shows up. Jacob doesn't really want her around, but she sees it as a better alternative than staying in the other pack with the whole Leah-Sam-Emily drama. Jacob reluctantly lets her hang around with them.

There, I just summarized almost ten pages of damned werewolf drama. My god, that was a hell of a way to get back into reading this thing. Maybe the rest of the chapter will be better?

Jacob goes back to Cullen Manor to check on Bella. Carlisle says it's just more of the same -- she's preggers with a mutant baby, nothing new. He's also very grateful towards Jacob for not letting his whole family get killed, which is one of those things that has the tendency to slip under the cracks.

Jacob asks an obvious question: if Bella is like a daughter to Carlisle, why is he letting her die? Carlisle responds with a little spiel about free will, and how it would be wrong to force her to be sensible. In any case, Dr. Sparklepire gives her a 50/50 shot at surviving in sparkle-form at the end of all of this; vampire venom is basically magic, but how does magic stack up against half-vampire superbabies? Don't worry, we'll find out soon.

The biggest problem right now is that both Bella and the fetus are starving. Bella's body is rejecting everything they can give her, and Carlisle can't figure out what exactly it is that her pregnant body wants. Keep in mind that all of the following are facts (in terms of this series of trashy novels), and see if you can figure out what Bella's fetus wants, and if it's conceivable that Carlisle hasn't figured it out yet:

1. Bella's baby is a half-vampire.
2. Vampires want only one thing ever.
3. Carlisle and all the other Cullens are supposedly super-geniuses, with brains that move at incredible speed.

This does not compute at all, but hey, dramatic license and all that. We do get to learn that Carlisle enjoys doing genetic tests on basically everything. Humans, of course, have 23 chromosomal pairs that contain all of their genes. In contract, vampires get to have a whole 25! Shapeshifting werewolves apparently have 24. This is, of course, because MORE IS BETTER, which is why goldfish -- with their 100+ chromosomes -- are a dominant force in the universe.

Jacob thinks that he knows what the baby wants: blood. Well, duh. Edward overhears his thoughts, and finally connects the dots. Everyone agrees: it's time to get Bella to drink some human blood! Of course, Bella, who should probably be disgusted by this, pretty much shrugs. She's almost dead anyway, so why not do something that might make the baby happy? And it's Type O Negative, which everyone knows is the best gateway blood.

We don't actually get to see Bella try the blood in this chapter. I mean, reread this summary. Would you want to pack any more excitement into this chapter? We need some downtime first. Can't give it all away at once -- crafty, Meyer. Maybe something will happen in the next chapter, but I wouldn't hold my breath (though I would hold it while drinking blood, as a rule).

I'm in Pain!

...and not the kind of pain you get from reading about sparklepires. No, I'm going through some dental issues, and that's made it hard to write here (or anywhere else in the last couple days, actually).

But I will be back! In fact, I'm going to try to finish Breaking Dawn in the next month, so that I don't have to suffer the embarrassment of going to the post office and mailing Breaking Dawn to France. Stay tuned for some rapid fire updates coming, starting sometime in the next few days!

Chapter Eleven: There can be only one! Or two. Definitely not three.

Jacob really isn't taking to the whole "kill Bella and her devil spawn" plan. Everyone else in the pack (sans Seth, who has a hero worship thing going on with Edward) is getting pumped up for gametime, but Jacob continues to struggle against Sam's commands.

You see, nobody can dispute the Alpha's commands. But then a thought occurs to Jacob: hey, wait, wasn't he basically the Alpha by birthright? He chose not to take the position, but it was totally his if he wanted it. Screw you Sam!

And just like that, the chain of command is broken, and Jacob doesn't need to listen to Sam anymore. Sam is in shock, and wants to know why Jacob would choose evil morally ambiguous sparklepires over his good morally ambiguous pack family. Sam and Jacob have a quick little Q+A session for the benefit of the reading audience.

Q: You want to fight me, Jacob?
A: No, not really.

Q: Are you planning on taking the pack over in some other manner?
A: Nope.

Q: Are you breaking the pack into two? You are tearing me apart, Jacob!
A: Nah, just going my own way. You're still Alpha of everyone else.

Q: Well, Jacob, thanks for your time. I hope to have you back on the show soon!
A: The pleasure was all mine, Sam!

Basically, Jacob doesn't think anyone should be killing innocent people, even if they're innocent sparkly undead people. So he runs off to warn Edward psychically before the pack can get there.

But there's a new hitch! It turns out that someone else is following behind him, wanting to be a member of the Team Jacob pack. It's everyone's favorite spunky little werewolf, Seth! Jacob is pretty pissed off to have someone tagging along with him, but Seth refuses to go back and kill Cullens with Sam's pack.

One thing both Jacob and Seth notice immediately is just how quiet it is in the new pack. It seems that different packs can't hear each other, which makes perfect sense -- but wasn't really something anyone ever had to worry about before. Jacob still wants Seth to go away, but concedes that this isn't really the time to be dealing with that issue. They need to warn Edward, and fast!

So the two of them start thinking thoughts like "we come in peace" and "the other wolves wanna come kick your ass," hoping he'll pick up on them. When they reach Cullen Manor, Edward is waiting outside with Emmett and Jasper, waiting for the details. They don't take kindly to hearing that the rest of the pack wants to kill Bella, so there's some snarling and growling and the like. Carlisle and Esme are out, meaning the Cullens are separated and extra vulnerable, which would be dangerous if there were any chance whatsoever of this coming to violence, which we know won't happen because we're reading a Stephenie Meyer book and Bella loves all of these people and would be sad if they fought, so they won't. Yeah, that was a run-on sentence, but I was justified.

I don't think you want to read about Seth and Jacob running around in circles for several pages, so we'll skip that. Guess what? The pack doesn't show up to attack, at least not yet. Eventually, Jacob peaks inside and sees that Bella is pretty much in full-on hospital mode, complete with all the scary monitors and beeping things and IV tubes and such. Jacob makes the very astute observation that Bella is probably doing worse.

It would be very brave of Meyer to kill off her main character during childbirth, so I wouldn't be worried Jacob: it's safe to assume she won't, and that everything will turn out just okay. Relax and enjoy the ride!