A/N: Any characters from The Twilight Saga are property of Stephanie Meyer and her publisher, I claim no ownership of them, blah blah blah and other standard small print mumbo-jumbo bullcrap. I just thought it'd be cool to mess with their morals and egos.

I've spent the past 6 months writing, editing, rewriting, reediting, reading, revising, reediting, rereading and reediting this some more because I'm OCD like that but still too lazy to search for a beta. I'm to the point, though, where if I don't post it now I'll be stuck in the reread-reedit cycle forever. Needless to say, I hope you enjoy it. It makes sense in my head, hopefully it makes sense in yours, too.

JUST DESSERT:

A Short Story

"Some lessons are only learned the hard way."

"Late, Garrett!" Ash called over his shoulder as he stepped through the service door into the alley. "Tell Theodore I've gone for me, will ya?"

"Oh I'll tell Teddy Dearest, all right. I'll tell the ruddy puff right upside his loaf! Ha!" Garrett grabbed at the mop handle with both hands to steady himself as he doubled over, roaring with laughter.

"Cheers, Ash!" He managed to choke out, wiping tears from his eyes.

Ash waved then smiled and shook his head, weaving his way around puddles and crates and scattered rubbish. Garrett was the oddest man Ash knew, but that was why he loved him. They were best mates going on ten years now, and not a day had gone by that Garrett couldn't make Ash smile.

Adjusting the strap of his messenger bag so it rested more comfortably on his shoulder, Ash paused at the street corner and glanced at his watch.

01:48

A curse that would raise even Garrett's eyebrows slipped between Ash's lips as he fidgeted with the bag strap again and darted towards another alley. Time always got away from him when he let Garrett talk him into drinks and now he would have to take the shortcut back to his flat and hope that Charlotte wasn't still up waiting for him. It was the third time this week Garrett had talked him into staying late at the bar for a drink and Char would surely have him by the jewels when he finally made it home.

Curious why his girlfriend hadn't actually ripped him a new one yet, Ash reached into his pocket and retrieved his mobile. Another curse escaped into the night; he had forgotten to turn it back on after his last set. Theodore was obsessed, to put it lightly, about his pianists being distracted by personal calls so he made them lock up their mobiles while on the clock. Ash thought he had turned it on after he collected his things from the locker, but he must have been too distracted by Garrett.

Jamming his finger into the power button, he made a quick right, deviating from course, and headed for the corner shop he knew would still be open at this late an hour. If there was anyone on Earth that would help keep him from the doghouse tonight it was his two other best mates, Ben and Jerry.

Flooded with new messages, the small phone started beeping loudly into the still, damp night, startling Ash and causing him to trip over a crack in the pavement. The phone slipped from his fingers and skittered away into the shadows behind some overflowing trash bins.

Dropping his head back in defeat, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. For the third time that night, Ash was unabashed in his choice of words, muttering them angrily at the heavens. Finally, he swung his messenger bag around to his backside and squatted down, his back to the alley and its thick, tar-like shadows that concealed the stone figure watching nearby.

The sudden silence of the night rang loudly in Ash's ears. His hands slowed then paused in their search for his dropped mobile as gooseflesh crawled up his arms and the small hairs at the back of his neck prickled. Slowly straightening his back, Ash steeled himself to turn his head and caught a movement in the shadows to his left with the corner of his eye. His heart raced and the palms of his hands broke out in sweat. Counting his phone lost, he prepared to make a run for it. The mobile was replaceable, and Char didn't really need the sweets anyway, not if it meant he could avoid being mugged.

Just as Ash was about to launch into a full sprint, his phone loudly beeped at him from right next to his foot, causing him to jump and lose his balance. Reaching out to catch himself, his hand struck the edge of an unsteady pile of crates that toppled over and around him into the alley. A stray cat that had been sitting on a bin to the side licking itself screamed and ran off into the night.

The alley went silent again. Then, laughing incredulously at what just happened, Ash scooped up his mobile and stood. He glanced around the empty side street using his phone for a torch; if there had been a mugger, the ruckus surely scared them off.

Ash turned once more toward the corner shop doing his best to brush the mud off his slacks, mentally drawing up the list for damage control. Chunky Monkey for the late hour, Walnut Whips for the extra dry cleaning trip Char would have to make tomorrow and Carlsberg for the unavoidable headache he'll still have to deal with despite his best efforts to avoid one. Before Ash could even take a step toward the safety of the light coming from the neon signs and florescent overheads of the 24-hour corner market, a cold steel band of an arm reached around his mid-section. At the same time, an equally cold and hard hand clamped over his mouth and nose, effectively cutting off his fourth and final curse.

***

Bella's eyes snapped open then came together in a glare as her gaze canvassed the spacious hotel room. Aside from the recently settled dust motes, everything was exactly as it had been before she sat down to meditate that morning. There was no reason for it not to be; if anything had changed, she would have known the instant it happened. Nothing caught Bella off guard anymore, yet still, her intuition prickled and made her uneasy. Something was not quite right; she could feel it in the air.

Brushing it off as a bit of cabin fever, she glanced to the window to her left. Judging the brightness of the curtains, the sun was only minutes away from abandoning the city to darkness. Taking lead from the sun, Bella got up from the large bed, abandoning her daydreams of a life no longer within reach. Grabbing a cigarette from the pack lying on the nightstand and pulling her Zippo from her pocket, Bella drew the curtains aside, threw open the window and sat on the sill.

Inhaling deep the first drag of the night, her lungs reacted indifferently to the poisonous smoke. The cigarettes did nothing for her, yet she smoked them anyway. Unable to become addicted to the small object, she still became addicted to the action.

Her mom had smoked when she was younger. Renee had always tried to hide it from Bella, but secrecy was never one of her strong points. Still, Renee never actually became addicted herself; she only smoked when something was troubling her. The buzz took the edge off, Renee had admitted once to Bella.

Now it was Bella's turn to be troubled. She had been for the past five years, and while none of the six hundred ingredients wrapped up in the little cancer stick smoothed any edges, the act of smoking it did. It became a link to her mother, her former life. A reminder of everything she had had and all that she had thrown away.

Protected from the sun's last rays by the building surrounding her, Bella looked down on the evening circus of the street below as she slowly sucked on her cigarette. She watched the business men and women making their way to the Underground or hailing cabs, the tourists shuffling along in large groups, stopping frequently to gawk and point at their surroundings; preserving the moment on their cameras and creating traffic jams on the pavement that rivaled those in the streets caused by the local youths that passed between moving cars, calling out to friends and strangers alike, gradually making their way to nearby pubs and clubs, paying no mind to the speeding vehicles or designated pedestrian crossings.

All dressed and pressed in their Friday-night-best, these youths were Bella's favorites. They were the easiest targets. Not only being complete lushes, they were more often than not also on some form of illegal, mind-altering substance that further alleviated them from the burden of their natural instinct to fear and avoid her, making picking them off like taking candy from a baby.

But as abundant as the candy was that night, Bella curbed her sweet tooth. Her time as Amica Lincoln—a relatively plain but ultimately feisty woman when it came down to the end of it, who had moved to the city from across the country to start a fresh, new life—was coming to an end. And while Mica had been able to provide Bella with a place to stay much longer than most of the others, Bella didn't want to invite suspicion by over-staying her welcome. At any rate, she was ready to move on and make her way south. Staying in one city too long made her antsy, plus, it had been a while since she had seen the ocean and she missed it; its grace, its power, its ability to cleanse and destroy at the same time.

Bella pulled on her cigarette a final time before flicking the spent butt away. The faintest, honey-sweet flicker of flavor carried in by an all but unnoticeable breeze flowed across her tongue, mixed in and muddled almost unrecognizable by the putrid cancer-stick smoke, causing her eyebrows to twitch down slightly. Exhaling the smoke more forcefully than necessary to rid her lungs and mind of the impossible taint, she watched as the remains of her cigarette arched over people, cars and treetops, rocketing across Green Park before finally losing momentum and dropping in the center of the palace's courtyard.

"Nothin' but net."

Back inside the room Bella made her way to the closet. Flipping the lid of her lighter open and closed with one hand, the other unceremoniously pulled clothes from the hangers and tossed them behind her until she found something suitable to wear. Tonight was more about business than pleasure, so she would need something more sophisticated than the usual trashy garb used to attract the drunk, stoned and witless locals. Tonight she would need to find a new identity.

Women like Mica were the best: all alone in a strange, new city with no ties, no responsibilities, no one to raise suspicion and no rush. Nevertheless, women like Mica were also rare. Mostly Bella made due with tourists. If she couldn't find someone traveling alone, Bella would find a couple—young honeymooners were usually the most receptive. Their feigned love and happiness made her ill. Partially out of pity, partially out of disgust, the women received a swift, painless death via a broken neck; they never even realize their fate until it's already been delivered. The men, however, were more often than not pigs and got nothing short of what they deserved.

Others of Bella's kind would call it a waste; taking two humans and then simply snapping the neck of one of them, but Bella didn't have much of a choice, feeding off both was simply too much blood for her smaller frame anymore, now that her newborn bloodlust had died down. She had learned that the hard way years ago: being in such an uncomfortably gluttonous state caused her to become sluggish and nearly got her caught. She couldn't just feed from the women a little bit, either; use them to top off so to speak. In her world, it was all or nothing, lest she wanted to have to train newborns constantly. No, snapping their necks offered the least amount of hassle, even if it was a waste.

…Her world.

Bella thought back to her former life as she stepped into the shower. Back when the thought of hurting someone else, let alone taking a life, purely for personal gain seemed ludicrous. Back when she had been the most harmless, selfless, naive person in the world. Perhaps too selfless... her selflessness put her into this position, after all, when you boiled it all down. If she had just stayed...

Bella shook the thought from her head. What was done was done and she needed to focus tonight. She put the final touches on the doorframe then stood back to survey her handy work. The room was thoroughly trashed and the damage to the doorframe made it look like someone had forced their way in. Picking up her Zippo and the pack of cigarettes from the bedside table and placing them into a small handbag, Bella once more opened up the window. She scanned the windows in the adjacent building and the courtyard between for anyone that might see her, and then made her way out onto the ledge before closing the window. Amica Lincoln was officially checked out.

She had originally planned to just step off the ledge and land inconspicuously in the courtyard beneath, but tonight was an unusually warm night for September and there were far too many people out enjoying it.

"Plan B."

Surveying the area one last time Bella turned, crouching slightly, and effortlessly leapt up the thirty feet to the roof of the hotel. She tapped another cigarette from the pack and made her way to the rear of the hotel to drop down silently in the back alley. The still, stale air between the buildings gradually gave way to the fresher night air as Bella emerged from the shadows and blended into the growing crowd on the main street, ignoring the cautious sideways glances and more blatant stares cast in her direction.

She still could not place the source of her unease, but if she dared to put words to it, it almost felt as if tonight would be a night of retribution... but for whom?

***

Edward nodded pleasant greetings to the maître d' and servers as he purposefully made his way to the raised platform that held a stunning Steinway Model A. He stepped up and walked a full circuit around it, his fingers trailing behind across the smooth, polished surface; caressing, familiarizing and harmonizing with the parlor grand. Sitting, he leaned in and breathed deep the scents of the maple and spruce body, the steel and copper strings, the polymer coated keys; focusing on the instrument before him, the catalyst for his long awaited reunion; ignoring the warm, sumptuous bodies that surrounded him and called to his ever-present thirst.

He had spent the past year searching for this piano, this bar. When he first started on his search it had been the first time in four years he had left the house of his own accord. Esme had implored him ceaselessly for years to go on a trip somewhere, anywhere, just as long as he got out of the house and at least attempted to enjoy himself again. Finally giving in and agreeing had been the best decision he ever made.

Smiling at his good fortune, Edward briefly closed his eyes and fired out a chromatic scale then let his fingers dance through a few different runs to check the tuning and petal response before beginning. It would be unlike a Steinway to be so out of sorts, but who knew what kind of incompetent amateurs had laid their hands on it before him. Satisfied, he started with Esme's Song, in honor of her insufferable pleading paying off for once.

The vision came so unexpectedly and was so intense Alice had been unable to hide it all from him, but what he had seen was enough. What he had seen was she.

It was the first solid vision Alice had had of her since she had left him for the Volturi four and a half years ago—the first that really offered anything of value. The rest had just been specters of visions, watery and fleeting, and invalid as soon as they came. She had remembered and learned well from Victoria.

Edward was only able to catch a second and a half of the vision before Alice gained control of her gift and locked him out of her mind, but it was more than enough. He was out the door and in his car before anyone else in the room had even realized anything was happening. A few seconds later Alice had called out to him in a panic, begging him to wait, trying to warn him of some implausible fate, regretting that she had shut him out from the rest of the vision, but she was a few seconds too late. His mind was set and he was finally going to find her and Alice knew there was nothing anyone could say or do to stop him.

He didn't know when the scene from the vision would take place, or where. All he knew was that it would be in an upscale place with red leather chairs, marble top tables and a piano. Even more, he knew that he would not give up until he found it. He began his search in Italy, her last known location, then spiraled out to the rest of Western Europe, meticulously scouring every bar, pub and restaurant he came across. It wasn't until he crossed over to England that he finally found it in an old Victorian building in Soho, London.

Of course.

Carlisle had been talking with Esme about the two of them taking a private vacation to his homeland, which in turn had spurred another of her begging sessions. England had been on Edward's mind when he made the decision to give in to Esme. He should have realized the connection right away, but in his determinate haste, it went overlooked.

All of that was water under the bridge now. He was there. He had finally found the bar from the vision. The puzzle was nearly complete. The more he played the tighter the pieces pulled together and the more confident he became in that tonight would finally be the night—his night—and oh, how he was going to enjoy it.

As one of the more stylish restaurants in Central London, not just anyone could walk in off the street and sit down at the piano to play. Only the finest pianists were booked to play in the Champagne Bar and the bill was always full. Conveniently for Edward, a series of very unfortunate events involving a trash bin the previous night prohibited the man originally billed to play from fulfilling his duties. Being the gentleman that Edward was he took it upon himself to stand in for the poor soul.

Right as predicted, an average looking man in an expensive silk suit came out of the back and made his way towards Edward, smiling and greeting patrons along the way, inquiring on their dining experiences, making sure everything was exceeding expectations and all-around acting like nothing was amiss. Along the way, Edward caught his name as Theodore Ellington—emphasis on the Theodore—Manager of the Oyster and Champagne Bar and, quite typically, an all-around supercilious prat.

"Pardon me, sir, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to cease and desist."

Theodore kept his round face calm and cordial so as not to worry any customers that may be watching and his voice private yet stern so that none but Edward's ears may overhear but the point would not be missed. In his mind however, he was screaming and throwing a fit like a spoiled child denied biscuits and clotted cream before bed. Edward took an unnoticeable pause amid his playing to school his own waning temper before answering the man.

When Edward's dark, measured gaze met Theodore's pompous hazel eyes, the manager's breath caught in his throat and the pulse in his neck skipped a beat before picking back up in double-time. His pupils dilated and the first hints of sweat broke out across his forehead as he struggled to keep his calm façade.

"Actually," Edward started in a friendly yet equally stern voice, as a teacher would to a misbehaving student, "I'm here to fill in for Mr. Partington. He came to find himself in a rather awkward position and he's going to be unavailable for an indefinite amount of time. I can promise you he felt rather torn about the whole ordeal. Surely he phoned ahead to inform you of the situation, Ted."

Stumbling through an array of incomplete, exasperated thoughts, Theodore's face turned red and his jaw worked without sound for a moment before he regained his composure and found his voice. Breaking eye contact, he glanced down and smoothed his tie.

"Ah, it's Theodore, actually, Mr...?"

"Cullen," Edward stated simply as he seamlessly and elegantly transitioned from Esme's Song into a well-known contemporary piece.

Theodore's eyes wandered to Edward's hands then up his arms, noting the caged power behind his graceful moves; a deeply closeted fantasy snaked its way up behind the fear.

"Well, Mr. Cullen, I never received any such message from Mr. Partington. But, seeing as you're already here playing," his gaze slid across Edward's broad shoulders and paused on the muscles flexing in Edward's jaw, "and we have no one else to fill in on such short notice..."

Theodore cleared his throat and rolled his hand in a vague gesture over the piano keys, bouncing slightly on his toes. "You may continue."

"I was so hoping you'd say that, Ted."

When Theodore opened his mouth to correct Edward on his name again, Edward casually locked eyes with the man once more and smiled.

"If that's everything, Ted, I'd like to focus on my playing."

The fantasy recoiled quickly to its closet, which then retreated even deeper into the depths of shamed denial as fear dominated the manager, flashing across his features and through his mind. He had to clear his throat twice more before he could breathe properly again. After nodding absently a few times, Theodore finally backed away and walked off woodenly.

Growing tired of the modern piece and impatient for his long-awaited reunion, Edward skipped to the ending, earning many displeased thoughts and glares from the customers.

But their thoughts meant nothing as his breath quickened and he started in on her Lullaby.