Disclaimer: I don't own twilight Stephenie Meyers does. Now the real disclaimer. For anyone here because they read my stories at Zosie where Ed and Bella always have a Happy Ever After and there are often quick fixes if the story begins with them apart, and you like that lighter stuff, stay there and don't read here. This is a separate user for a reason. This story will not have a quick fix, so don't ask for one. It will contain people with fucked up lives, and human tragedy and a disturbing cat story. You have been warned.

Safe In Alternate Arms

Chapter One

BPOV

For some people, life is like a big adventure, and they scurry along their life path, pausing at alternate detours and maybe even follow a dead end and end up someplace they were never meant to go, but for all that, it's exciting. It's filled with unexpected thrills and people they never imagined they would meet and maybe they get so distracted from their real life path, they forget to return, and instead they make the best of where they end up.

That's not to imply they can't be happy there.

They do say we have seven soul mates so chances are, maybe this one is just as good for you as the one the Universe had in mind originally, anyway, had you stayed on track.

That's how it is for many people. They meet a few of their seven and maybe one sparkles a little more than the others, and even though he may not be as good for you as a less shiny new toy, you hitch your cart to his and head off to a great adventure into the unknown.

Good luck to you, I say.

Me, I have known my soul mate and my life path since...since time began. I can't put a date on it because I have always known.

Where my other six possible matches are is completely irrelevant, because I know the path I will walk and the man I will love and spend my future with and nothing else matters.

I love him already, and he loves me.

We were destined to be together and nothing can change that fact.

"Bella, Edward's here," my father Charlie says, standing at my bedroom door. I close my Diary and put it inside my bedside drawer.

"Okay. I wasn't expecting him today. I'll be right down."

"You might want to get changed," Dad says gruffly and I look over my outfit in surprise. I have on the usual sweat pants and cami I always wear when just hanging out in my bedroom; which will soon be empty and hopefully converted into a guestroom that a visitor would want to stay in.

I'm seriously considering delaying my departure to the city long enough to do the makeover myself. Let's just say Charlie is great at coming up with plans and colour schemes and ideas for how great various rooms in his house could look with a little money and effort spent on them, but he lacks the drive to follow through.

I want to come back here now and then, to visit.

It's just the thought of my soon to be husband and I, crammed into this tiny bed I've slept in since I graduated out of a crib, being forced to lay here and see the memento's of my childhood tacked to the walls that horrifies me.

My Mom may have escaped being trapped here in Forks forever but for me, it's been a long struggle to make the same move and I guess as much as I want it to happen, there's still some pull to remain in the safety of the familiar.

Nope, no way. I want to go. I want to live in the city. I want the freedom and anonymity it will provide. I want to walk past people who won't make eye contact and won't care what 'Police Chief Swan's daughter' is up to.

I've had a lifetime of that already and it was my years away at college that introduced me to a different way to live. The simple joy of having strangers barely glance at me when I was rolling drunk, out with my bff, and know nobody would dob to my Father was just heady. I felt like a grown up.

If Jacob hadn't been here, waiting my return, I sometimes think I would have simply phoned my Father and told him to pack up everything I own that I left behind and ship it to me at NYU, because I would take one of the job offers at one of the large, glitzy, amazing magazines that had offered me a career..

So,instead, frustrated and and helplessly hating my Fate to have to always have to live here, in this Hellhole, I'd come home again myself after graduation, and prepared to resume my mediocre life in this mediocre damp, dank, dark little town.

And then a miracle happened.

The morning after my reunion with my beloved.

He was in no hurry to go back to the home he shared with his father, Billy, on the Res.

Instead, Jacob was helping me unpack all my awards and letters of recommendation from my tutors, and assignments I'd kept out of sentimentality, not because I'd need to add them to my CV to secure a job on Forks only newspaper, and he saw the letters offering me various futures far brighter than any lived here could possibly be.

"Bells, really? Metropolitan Magazine Monthly offered you a job? I hope you accepted."

I grimaced.

"The commute from New York to Forks is kind of long. Even if I got a little studio apartment there, what would be the point? We've been apart for four years, Jake and I'm sick of it. I don't want us to be a long distance couple any longer. It's over. We lasted, against the odds, and now is the beginning of forever. I never want to sleep in another bed that you are not sleeping in beside me."

"Then let's both move to New York," Jake replied, grinning.

"Oh, if only it was that simple," I growled. "If only we could afford to do that."

"We can," he said , catching me into his rather large, muscular arms. "Sam's company has succeeded far past his wildest hopes and he's offered me a contract to work with him in the Big Apple, for the next five years."

To say I was struck dumb is understating things badly.

I thought my brain was playing tricks and my hearing had been compromised. I thought I was listening to the voices in my head and they were saying the words I longed to hear, rather than what my soul mate was really saying.

"Say that again," I said, reigning in my exuberance until I heard the words for a second time.

"Sam wants me to go work for his Ad Agency in New York for a minimum of five years."

"Oh My God," I almost screamed, throwing my arms around his shoulders as he lifted my body and smashed my lips against his.

"Is there a reason you didn't tell me this yesterday when I got home?" I asked, unable to believe this news was not the first thing he had said to me after the kissing and hugging at the Bus Station.

"I wasn't sure what you wanted to do. You downplay how amazing you find New York so much, I was starting to believe you were sick of living there and you wanted a simpler life here, with Charlie."

"No way in Hell," I cried, crying real tears of hope and joy.

We were getting out of Forks!

It was as heady as if we had just avoided a life long prison sentence and instead, were free.

"I can't believe this. How could you ever think for one second I'd want to live here? Seriously, Jake, what have you been smoking? The only attraction I ever felt to Forks was the fact you lived practically on our doorstep. I want to get out of here. I want to be a city slicker and stand on line, instead of in line. I want to be able to walk out my apartment door at any time, day or night, and be able to buy a meal or a coffee and be around people. God, I want everything that city has to offer. When are we leaving?"

Needless to say, I took the job with the magazine and I start in one short week. We had planned to go to the city together but then Sam needed Jake to go early, so he had.

"Bella, I'm sure Edward has better things to do than to wait all day for you to come downstairs," Charlie hollered.

I decided not to change clothing after all, it wasn't as if Edward hadn't seen me dressed like this a thousand times.

We'd known one another since his parents moved here from Boston just in time for him to begin High School. I'd never figured out why he seemed to love living here, because I was pretty sure nobody else did.

Apart from Charlie, but let's just say my Father is different to most humans and somehow settles for less than practically every other person in America.

He loves Forks. He loves the rain and the green, and the forest. And the lack of decent shops, and the fact we have a diner and not a restaurant. And that the only tourists who ever come here are the ones who got lost on their way to somewhere else. Somewhere better.

He would never move unless the entire place burned to the ground, and there was no tiny town of Forks left, though, I suspect, even then he would stay here and rebuild it.

"Hey Edward. What's happening?" I asked as I skipped down the staircase.

"I just heard you and Jake are moving to New York. Tell me it's not true."

I laughed a laugh so joyous it left no doubt in his mind. It was true and I was thrilled.

"How did this happen?" he asked, looking both lost and bewildered.

"Sam's 'silly little business that he didn't think out properly, considering how many Ad Agencies have gone under since the economic downturn' has gone against the odds and flourished. And he's asked Jake to go work with him."

"But what will you do?"

I snapped my fingers on both hands and did my happy dance that Edward was very familiar with.

"I got hired by Metropolitan Magazine. I'm their newest reporter and columnist. Yes, Cullen, I am that good and finally somebody noticed my talent."

"Wow," he replied, a little flatly. "That's great,of course. I always knew you had what it takes to bowl them over and I bet you are Editor in five years time. But New York? It's so far away."

"Hmm," I agreed. "It is. You will have to come visit us whenever you get the time. So, are you going to work with your dad at Forks Hospital, like you always planned?"

Edward is almost a doctor. He's done all the doctor training stuff already and he managed to finish it two years faster than the other medical students he enrolled with. Now he just has to do the Residency thingey, or whatever it's called. The bit where he works on actual patients and cops the blame whenever anything goes wrong and somebody dies.

I'm proud of him. Proud of my best friend, for achieving so much so fast.

"I start in two weeks time," he answers.

xxxx

Edward and I shared an apartment in New York while we went our separate ways and he did his doctoring and I did my journalism-ing, and we barely ever saw one another, in truth, because Edward was Hell bent on cramming and reducing his medical degree to match the four years I had to study.

Weirdly, I don't think he liked the idea of living there alone if I left first. He'd have no trouble replacing me, there must be a thousand prettier girls in the city who would give their right arm to be his flatmate. Although he is fuck hot gorgeous, he doesn't ever take advantage of that fact.

Sure, he notices girls, but he never dated the whole time we lived together, because every spare second was spent studying.

Come to think of it, he never really had a girlfriend in High School, either. Jessica Stanley used to pretend he was her boyfriend and he did accompany her to school dances and such, but I never saw them so much as kiss. She was willing, we all know that; Jess had a reputation of being very friendly and willing to various male students; but Edward always looked like he was only there with her out of politeness; because his Mom raised him to be a gentleman. Unlike all of Jess's other suitors, he wasn't with her for what he could get from her.

He'd never been regularly overcome with lust like the rest of them.

I even suspect apart from that one incident we had both sworn to never reveal to any other living soul on the planet, that Edward has never slept with anyone else.

xxxx

He was my first, and I was his, technically. It hadn't meant anything, apart from the fact that naive, unsophisticated eighteen year old Bella Swan should not drink Vodka Cruisers, because although they may taste like pop, they are lethal. You can't detect that there is any alcohol in them, but after six or so bottles, they do have an effect and Edward kept warning me to slow down and drink water between drinks, like he was doing.

The other girls at the party were so much more worldly than I was, and I felt like a small town hick beside them. They all had the right clothes and the best shoes and purses and even the few that did speak to me and let me join their conversation soon blanked me when they realized I had no idea Manolo's were a whole world more desirable than Chuck's.

Or that the new Louboutin's had just been released, and I wasn't sure what a Louboutin was.

Alcohol helped, as back after back was turned on me and eyebrows were raised. Like they thought I was suddenly struck deaf as they huddled and looked me over with distaste, and whispered to one another.

"Is she for real? How could anyone not know who Christian Louboutin is? What rock did she live under? The man is a miracle worker. Of course, I dare say judging her dress, she hasn't got a trust fund or a private income, or even a rich Daddy. Poor thing. I bet she's here on 'scholarship'.

Charity case. That has to suck so bad."

Edward pulled me away and took me back to sit beside him.

"Ignore those bitches. The only way they'd get into any college was if Daddy paid for a new library or something. They haven't got the brains to recognise a person's real worth is not measured by her bank balance."

They didn't seem to be judging him by his money, although they'd have been shocked if they knew just how wealthy his father Carlisle really was. They definitely were judging him by his amazing looks instead. I guess you can be poor so long as you are exceptionally good looking.

We sat there together but alone, not daring to chat about our 'hick' hometown, so limiting the conversation to how we each liked our new classes, and the professors that taught them.

Every time some girl came up and started flirting with Edward, I'd sneak away and grab another Vodka Cruiser, and down it as fast as I could, then stash the empty before he caught me. He'd come find me and shake his head like he was my Guardian Angel or something.

None of what followed was his fault in any way. It had been one of those things that just happens when you don't have your wits about you. We stumbled home from the party arm in arm, trying to keep one another upright and out of danger as cars whizzed past on the road we were attempting to cross.

Edward had been a little tipsy as well, and Jake was too far away and New York was big and new and strange and scary and we managed to get home to our off campus apartment and somehow things just got out of hand.

We started kissing; correction: I started kissing him, just being silly and we were suddenly clinging to one another because we didn't actually know another person there yet, and he actually tried to push me away and told me to remember who I was and behave. I have never liked males telling me what to do, so I pushed him back and he fell onto his bed and I fell onto him...

I remember just wanting him so badly. Wanting somebody, anybody, to hold me and love me and tell me this had been the right decision. We were so far from home and everything seemed overwhelming. The only thing safe and familiar was Edward.

He was there, and suddenly that meant more than all the years of dating Jacob.

I should be ashamed of myself, but I assure you, my conscience was entirely absent that night as I tore at Edward's clothes and freed our bodies so we were both naked. He didn't resist a whole heap once he realized he had a needy naked woman straddling his body, exciting parts of him nobody but his parents had seen before.

Hopefully they'd never seen him in that urgent, lusty state.

I was yet to even see my boyfriend naked, so Edward's body was a revelation to me, and I liked what I saw, and reached out to touch with my hands. He may have mumbled and pretended what we were about to do was wrong, but once I lowered my lips and tasted him, he wanted to do everything as much as I did and he surrendered.

It had been kind of raw and primal but at the same time, Edward somehow managed to hold himself back and keep things sweet and gentle. He even said pretty words and kissed me a hundred times while he was inside me, like it really did mean something to him, and he didn't just think I was some whore who couldn't save herself for the man she loved.

Afterwards he led me to the shower and washed away the blood I had not been expecting. He explained it was nothing, just something that sometimes happened during a girl's first sexual experience, then he led me back to his bed and held me in his arms all night long. In the morning he thanked me for my 'gift', assuring me no matter how it had come about, he was actually proud and even happy to have been my first. And he never got impatient when reality hit me and I wept against his chest and hated myself for what I knew I had done. I had been reckless and selfish and it was all my doing. I'd cheated Jacob out of the one thing he really wanted.

We talked about it and he agreed to swear nobody would ever know. Edward Cullen and Bella Swan were still untouched as far as the world was concerned.

It was silly and long forgotten and I'd managed to fake still being a virgin the first time I went home in a break to visit my Jake, so no harm done.

He thought he had deflowered me and what the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.

Edward and I had never spoken of it again, and he'd congratulated Jake and I on our mutual cashing of our v cards like the rest of our friends had, and all was well with the world.

xxxx

"I knew you loved the city, I just didn't know you had plans to go back there," Edward said, puzzled.

"The only reason I had no plans to stay was because I never imagined Jake would get a job there and now he has. It's perfect when you think about it. Okay, I was resigned to making the best of things back here, and being employed at that joke of a newspaper, but suddenly everything has changed, Edward. It's like I have my cake and can eat it too. I only ever came back because this was where I assumed Jake would always be and just being with him was enough to make me willingly sacrifice all my career hopes and dreams.

Now we can have it all. I'm so fucking happy! I never knew it was possible to feel so filled with hope and joy about our future."

"I am happy for you, truly."

"You don't look it," I replied, taking one of his hands into my own and gazing into his emerald green eyes.

"Edward, I'm getting so much more than I ever expected. I'm getting the perfect man, in the perfect location, in the perfect life. I'm so freaking lucky. Be glad for me."

"I am glad for you, you deserve everything you ever wanted," he stated, lifting my fingers to his lips and kissing them gently. He reluctantly let my hand go and pulled me into a bearhug instead and I felt him softly kiss the top of my head. "I just don't know what I'm going to do without you," he whispered.

xxxx

"So, I had this idea," I said, wriggling free from his embrace after it went on long enough to turn awkward.

"What idea?" he asked.

"I'm going to paint my bedroom and make it look like a grown-ups bedroom so when Charlie has guests, they don't think he is assigning them to sleep in a teenager's crack den or something," I laughed. "Want to help me?"

Okay, I wasn't blind. Edward was my closest friend bar none. We'd shared a place for four years; he wasn't ready to let go yet. But if we did this makeover together, maybe he would get sick of me and be glad when next week arrived and I left town.

"Do you have the paint and stuff?" Edward asked, seeming a little cheerier.

"Nope, but I know where we can buy it. A little store called Newtons."

It was the only store in this town to sell paint and so forth, and I had worked there weekends while still at High School to save up money for college. Even though Edward had no such need, with a rich Dad and all, he had gotten a job there as well and we'd become close as we unpacked supplies in the stockroom and sat together in our coffee breaks, and thus when college loomed, he'd asked me to be his roomie. I couldn't even afford a dorm, in reality, so he unknowingly made it possible for me to have further education.

Carlisle owned the apartment, and although it only had one bedroom, Edward insisted I had to have it because I was a girl, while he slept out in the sitting room, which was large and airy and his bed didn't look that out of place. Student housing is full of beds crammed into weird places just to get in an extra student to help out with the rent.

It wasn't like either of us had friends to bring home anyway.

We'd sat together on his bed every Friday night, eating take away and watching some dvd on the one night Edward didn't study. In Winter, we were wrapped in his expensive down Continental quilt that made my own seem like nothing more than a thin blanket.

I had so many fond memories of us, it would be weird for me too, to live so far away. especially as New York had been a place I had lived with him and not with Jake, so many places would bring back memories. Edward had insisted we go and explore different parts of the city every Saturday morning, so it wouldn't be like we only ever saw NYU as our total experience there.

We had favourite eateries, and book shops where we'd found wonderful rare treasures, and preferred clothing stores where reasonably good quality clothes didn't cost an arm and a leg like they did in the big stores.

Edward bought me a new outfit every birthday, so by the end of college I had four city dresses that contrasted markedly against my other clothing.

xxx

"I'll drive," Edward announced.

Charlie was just about to leave in the cruiser and go do his shift, so that was useful. No parental interference about our colour scheme.

Mike Newton rushed to greet and serve us when we entered. Mike's parents owned the store and he was okay for a small town boy. He'd always given Edward and I the same shifts because he knew how nervous I got about new experiences, so having my Biology table partner work when I did was helpful to us all.

"Bella, is it true? Are you and Jacob leaving town? Like, forever?" he asked, looking crestfallen. I guess Mike counted Jake and I among his few friends that he really cared about, not just because we had all gone to the same schools together in our childhoods and teens.

"Yep. In a week's time, I shall be moving to the city. Jake's there now, Sam needed him to start last week because he landed some massive new account. They will be looking for an affordable apartment for us after work. There will not be many of those."

"Carlisle's place is empty. I'm sure he'd be happy to rent it out to you," Edward said quietly.

I wanted to jump at the chance to accept but wouldn't it feel kind of odd, living there with Jake this time, instead of Edward? But beggers can't be choosers.

A/N Please review.