The Moment In Between

A/N: This is just a quick scene in my head from a possibility I thought of when I first read the end of Breaking Dawn.

Her small book-case was full to capacity with books from a time I remembered very barely. Some of them were from before my time on Earth, but some were also from around the time I was born. I always find it charming when Bella refers to them as 'classics'. To her, I suppose she is right.

I traced my finger down her jaw-line, noticing that the muscles there seemed to be contracting under my touch, almost as if fluttering. Leaning in closer to her hair, I inhaled deeply, taking in the beautiful sensation that shocked my very being. It was sweet and still lethal, if I let it be. I was tamed in the way that I knew I could control the overwhelming thirst that had once sent me into bewilderment over her. I tamed myself for her.

She sighed, turning over and over again in her sleep. The usual mumbling started; the same incoherent mumbling that always started before she spoke in her sleep. Yet another endearing quality that I love so very much about her. A slow smile crept up on her lips, not accompanied with her ever-present blush, this time. There were times when she would confess her love to me, in the end of the night or the beginning of the day- whichever way you looked at it. To this day, there were exactly twenty-nine instances of this.

Twenty-nine times. Twenty-nine nights of lying in her bed with her. Unbeknown to anyone else.

These moments in between, when I could almost hear what was on her mind- I lived for them.

There was a pleasant buzzing that seemed to be floating around the room, causing Bella to stir in her sleep again. I wondered where it was coming from; I couldn't really detect any other life-form save from Bella & myself. Perhaps an insect outside her window? No, the sound was very familiar, yet I wasn't sure I could place it.

The buzzing was getting louder and shifting sound, taking on a whisper-quiet tone, that I was sure I should be able to recognize. Suddenly it stopped. Bella rolled over, grabbing onto my chest tightly. I hoped she wasn't having another nightmare. It was very difficult for me to see her face and body react to them. As though they were real, still going on outside of her mind.

Wait- NO!

The yell was loud enough to make me flinch uncontrollably when I heard it. Scanning the darkness, my eyes searched for the voice.

I tore out of her bed in an instant, quietly enough so that she didn't notice I'd moved. I threw up her window, looking out onto the ground below, still searching. I'd heard that voice before...it was so close that I wasn't entirely sure that I wasn't imagining it. But of course, our kind do not imagine pretend things that aren't really there.

The buzzing returned, louder and more distinct this time. Confused as to what was going on, I crossed back over to her bed, ready to wake her from her not so peaceful sleep.

My mind felt as though it had been underwater, finally emerging from the depths of the ocean. Now I realized that I was taking in a fully coherent stream of thoughts. In a voice that I knew so dearly.

But you...you can't. It won't work. It won't.

You can choose, Bella. You can choose life. And real love. Not some fairy-tale crap.

I can't choose. You don't understand. I won't do it!

My head snapped back down to where Bella lie sleeping, not moving an inch now. Her face was ranging between fully blushing and joyous to frightened and grief.

I understood what was going on now. Bella was dreaming and in some rare event, I was able to read her mind.

But it wasn't like I'd imagined it to be. It was almost like her mind was a radio transmission and I kept losing the signal. I'd hear her dreams, then they would suddenly snap out of my hearing range. It was queer that I'd be able to hear her thoughts at all, but the way they kept coming and going was really an oddity to me.

I listened to the bits and pieces of her thoughts, the best I could.

And I want it all...I want it bad, Jake. But I didn't choose that path. I chose Edward.

You could change your mind. Please stay, Bells. Please don't let him turn you.

I want it bad. So bad. The life here. The possibility of kids. All of it. Black-haired kids.

I'd give you whatever you needed. Keep you safe. The air, the sun. Healthy.

Then the scene changed and I was finally able to see the images in Bella's mind. Images that I wished in the instant I saw them, that I'd never seen them. Images that might haunt me for the rest of my days:

Bella in a beautiful white dress. A turn-of-the-century wedding gown with modest lace. She was ripping the train off of the back and hitching the bottom of it up, so that she could swing her leg onto a large motorcycle. Her and the dog were now racing down a road where only dust and moutains were visible. She laid her head on his back, with the look of contentment I'd only seen her reserve for myself.

In an instant, the dream was gone and Bella rolled back away from me, mumbling something about it being 'too hot, Jake. Move over some.'

If there were still blood left in my veins, it would be boiling right now. The night in the tent before Victoria...that was nothing on the jealousy and hatred I was feeling at this very moment.

Obviously, the wedding part hadn't happened, since there wasn't a wedding yet.

But the parts before? How many of those were memories and how many were just thoughts?

I seethed for the next hour or so, contemplating how I could go about finding this information out. Bella shivered, grabbing back onto me, nestling her head into my chest and side.

"Edward. Mm. Love you."

Sighing, I resign in actively pursuing these possible memories from them. I run my fingers through Bella's loose curls and begin to count again.

Thirty. Thirty times she's thought of me and her love for me came seeping out through her mouth, betraying her.

One. One time, where she's thought of him and her love for him came rushing out in her thoughts, betraying me.