I looked over at her, taking my eyes briefly from their focus on the wet, empty pavement ahead of me. She was staring out of the window, watching the gray landscape of trees blur past us. She hadn't spoken since I picked her up. I wanted to ask. I had so many questions pressing against my lips, scrambling to escape. But she was here, and wasn't that enough? She was not this moment on her way to Italy to die. Something, and I don't know what, had stopped her from getting on the plane.

I was certain I would never see her again. I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, finally understanding what she meant when she said there was a hole in her chest. I thought I was going to die from the pain, when Billy opened my door and said, "Phone. It's Bella." I hadn't even heard the phone ring, but I had it against my ear in a moment, my breath coming out in rasps as her quavering voice whispered, "I'm at the airport. Come get me? Please?"

I have never gotten anywhere so quickly in my life. I didn't even know the Rabbit could break 110mph. When I arrived, she walked right into my arms, and I half carried her to the car. And here we were.

"He could be dead right now," she whispered. I could hear the tears breaking behind her words. One hand left the wheel to creep across the seat and take her small, cool hand in my own. After a moment, her fingers closed around mine and I could feel her clinging to my hand as if it were her lifeline.

"Maybe I could have saved him." She paused, before adding, "But maybe I would have died with him instead."

The thought of Bella, lifeless, made my heart leap painfully into my throat.

"He's already killed me once," she muttered to herself. I gently squeezed her fingers. She looked down at our interlocked fingers.

"You are always bringing me back to life, Jacob." My breathing got deeper. "You can fix anything."

I savored the feeling of our hands connected. My thumb wound circles on the back of her hand. I hoped that communicated everything that there were no words for. I heard her sigh and reveled in the sound. She was still here, still breathing. I couldn't help rejoicing in the simplicity of her presence.

She looked over at me, her eyes full, and said quietly, "I'm sorry I left you."

(But she had come back!)

"And then you come rushing to me when I needed you, no questions, no anger." She was looking at me as if seeing me for the first time. I could see something change behind her eyes, something that moved me into permanency.

"I just couldn't do it. At the last minute, I just couldn't get on the plane. I watched Alice board. The plane took off. And I wasn't on it."

I had pulled the car over to the side of the road and we sat there, surrounded by trees and fog, and my eyes never left her face.

"I sat there and imagined seeing Edward again. I imagined bringing him back to Forks and resuming life as if nothing had changed. As if he never left. As if by saving his life I could win back his love and he'd want me again."

The vision of Bella and Edward reunited made my heart throb with a dull pain. But it was accompanied by a vision of glowing, happy Bella. And if returning to Edward is what it would take to make her come alive again, I would let her go. But I had seen glimpses throughout the past few months that made me believe that I could be the one to revive her. I had seen her radiant and happy. But then she'd have a look of guilt for laughing too loudly or leaning into my touch and I knew she felt she was betraying her vampire.

"It wasn't what I wanted." Her words snapped me back to the present. What? What wasn't what she wanted?

"I longed for something more," she said meaningfully. "His love had broken me. And I wanted something more than him in my head."

She looked up at me slowly, pleadingly. But I couldn't trust what I had heard.

"I sat in the airport," she continued, "and all I wanted was you."

She moved slowly closer to where I sat, frozen, my mind scrambling to understand what she had just told me. She wanted me because I would always be there for her, because she could rely on me to heal her, because she needed her best friend? Or she needed me because she chose me? Could she want me the way I wanted her?

She clasped my hand in both of hers and slowly raised it to her lips. The moment I felt her whisper-soft kiss, my free hand moved to her cheek, brushing my thumb over the smooth skin there. Her tentative eyes met mine and I searched her face. She looked at me so openly, there was no mistaking the love in it.

"When did I fall in love with you?" she marveled.