A/N: My last story... well I lost all interest after I posted it. I guess I was just excited to submit something. I had no clue where that was headed. But this one... I've been working on this for a few days. I wanted the first chapter to be pretty long considering BS's first chapter was less than 2000. BS felt... like a chore to write. I wasn't having fun. But writing Forks was so much different. I actually enjoyed it. I was writing scenes to myself in my head whilst walking from the bus stop. That's how much I loved writing this. I didn't feel pressured or anything. It was relaxing. I would really appreciate any feedback on this. I can't really associate a song with this chapter. I looked through my iTunes though, but nothing fit. If you have any suggestions, though, offer them! So... on with it all.

Disclaimer? Anyway. Don't own Twilight, the lucky Stephenie Meyers does. I just play with the cast occasionally (: Oh and River Flows In You is all Yiruma.

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Chapter 1

(BPOV)

I was running late, again.

As I flew through the crowds of Sky Harbour International's terminal four, I felt anxious, for my flight, but oddly free. As much as I loved my father and mother, Charlie and Renee often became quite tiresome, quite easily. The eccentric free-spirit of my mother was difficult enough to keep up with as it already was, throw in a family gathering and she could easily wear you down. It's hard to remember how I got through my first 18 years in that house with her every single day. My father, however, was so laid back he may as well have been horizontal. Charlie is a huge and obsessed sports fan, and I mean that in every sense of the word. I spent four days with my parents in Phoenix for Thanksgiving, and not once did I see him out of his recliner.

Thinking back to the past several days, I couldn't help but grimace. I was only 20 years old, but my mother seemed to be under the misapprehension that I needed a man in my life and had taken to parading every eligible bachelor in a ten mile radius through our front door. I had met countless accountants, insurance salesmen and store managers since Wednesday afternoon, when I arrived. As it was a family gathering, Charlie had called and invited up his old friend Billy Black and his son Jacob, over from Long Beach for the holiday. They pair had grown up together in Tacoma and Billy was the only brother figure my father had. At nineteen, the pair had met their wives on a Christmas trip to Portland, and Jacob and I had shown up within months of each other the following year.

But instead of growing up together as our fathers had, my mother insisted on moving south. I was raised in Phoenix, Jacob in Tacoma. We saw each other every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that was about the height of our social contact. I actually had not seen him since we were seventeen, after he had moved to Long Beach following his mother's death, when I arrived home to find him sprawled on our couch. I guess my mother was convinced that seeing Jake three years older and handsome would cause me to fall in love with him and give her grand-babies and a wedding to plan, but she was so dead wrong it was laughable. He, however, seemed to share her view on me and I was hit on more times than I could count. But we just never had that good and lasting of a friendship, and I told him I was not interested. He sulked, predictably, but I decided not to dwell on it and focused my will on surviving the visit.

I was glad to return to Seattle, where I had called home for the past two years, and intended to for a long time. I attended the University of Washington, where I studied English literature and French. It was my dream to become a college professor myself, and I felt I was well on my way on doing so. I escaped from Death Valley like a bat out of hell, one week after my high school graduation.

I shook my head and brought myself back to the present. I was dashing clumsily past various gates in the terminal. I was so close, but the plane was to leave in only 10 minutes and I was beginning to panic. I rounded the corner and my eyes zoned in on the large, yellow lit up number on the left wall. At last.

I threw myself at the desk, and the bored employee seated behind it sneered at my dishevelled state. I was already flushed, but my face turned even more beetroot as he could so easily hear my laboured breathing. Without a word, I handed him my passport and ticket, then proceeded to make my way towards the plane.

I was relieved to find the stewardess who greeted me outside the cockpit was smiling cheerfully at me as she checked my seat number. "There's always one. Right down at the back dear, on the left." She acted at least two decades older than myself, but her soft, beautiful face begged to differ. Wavy, caramel hair was swept gracefully over one shoulder, and I caught a glance at her name tag. Esme. I made a mental note to only ever ask her for any help when I eyed the only other visible stewardess. This woman however, was very intimidating. She towered five inches above myself, and was peering at me down her perfect, angular nose as if I were nothing more important than any dirt on the underside of my shoe, because of course, her own heels would be spotless. She had long and beautifully natural blonde hair that looked styled to perfection. Her physique rivalled even the most famous of models. Why was she stuck on a plane? Rosalie. I was definitely going to stay away from her.

I half ran to the rear end of the plane, my bulky carry on causing the need to turn sideways as I stumbled between the two sets of chairs. The seats were in threes on either side of me, and as I neared to back, I prayed for an aisle seat. I was a klutz enough on safe, non-moving land but on a moving container, 30,000 feet in the air, I was a disaster waiting to happen. I'd rather save myself any extra humiliation of climbing over other peoples laps to reach the restroom. As I finally approached the final row of seats, my heart sank. The only available space was at the window to the left of me. I sighed. Typical.

I glanced up as another steward appeared from behind the small toilet cubicle. He was tall, over six foot at the very least, deeply tanned and had the most beautiful easy smile on his face. He gestured toward my bag.

"Shall I stow that over-head for you, ma'am?" His voice had this low and sexy southern drawl to it, that immediately made me feel at ease. I smiled back timidly. "Ye.. yes, thank you." I felt the oh so familiar warmth flood my cheeks and I glanced awkwardly toward my seat. Big mistake. Or, best thing ever.

Sitting on the seat directly next to mine, was God's gift to mankind, and boy was that God known to make miracles. He looked around my age, as far as I could guesstimate, and had the most stunning emerald eyes, framed by soft, dark lashes. His skin was a pearly pale colour, slightly more coloured than my own near-albino tone. Turns out that even the constant sunshine in Phoenix could do absolutely nothing to my skin tone. Oh, and a factor 40 lotion tends to help.

And oh my, his hair. I never felt a desire so potent than the need I felt now to run my fingers through those soft, shiny locks. They were the most intriguing shade of bronze, not quite brown but not quite auburn. A peculiar, yet immensely sexy, mix of the two. It was so naturally all over the place, he looked as if he had just rolled out of bed and threw on a pair of jeans and stepped on the plane, as the tight black t-shirt he wore left little, and I do mean basically nothing, to the imagination. The desire to feel his hair dropped considerably lower to his defined, sculpted and marble chest. My finger tips twitched.

His face was totally relaxed and calm as he stared aimlessly out of the small, circular window. Just like the rest of his body, his face looked like it had been chiselled to perfection into shining marble by freaking Greek Gods. Subconsciously, my tongue ran itself along my own bottom lip as I feasted my eyes on his own. What they must taste like… Wait, what the hell was wrong with me?! Snap out of it, Bella. Just an hour ago I was convincing my damn mother on how a man was just not what I could deal with right now. I was far too busy with my studies and my measly salesgirl job that I basically half-assed most of the time. I did not have the time or… the desire… to ogle a man. I was better than that, I was no-where near as shallow.

Oh hell, right now, I was. He was… perfect. I could deal with this kind of perfect for the next few hours, and then be that strong, unbreakable and independent chick when I got home.

In the time it took my now mushy brain to process him and my thoughts, he had noticed me standing there, shamelessly staring. He coughed lightly. I blinked. Then blushed. Hell, what didn't make me blush nowadays…

I fumbled for a few seconds before I attempted to manoeuvre myself in front of his knees. I sucked in with all my might and practically melded my body to the seat in front as I moved, but the fates were against me and the bulk, muscle and curls that made up the guy in the chair I was clutching shifted his weight and slumped his head backwards. Without even thinking, I removed my hands from where his head would eventually hit, totally not realising they were supporting my body above the gorgeous guy.

I couldn't help myself, I squeaked. Then landed with a loud thump on his lap.

His hands instinctively flew out and latched onto my waist as I landed, and god help me, I squeaked again, just a little. My entire head was a furnace and I shut my eyes in pure humiliation.

"Oh… god. I'm sorry, I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I landed on you like that. Ah… crap…"

I, Isabella Marie Swan, am a rambler. When I get nervous, my mouth firmly latches itself shut, but when I am embarrassed, I just cannot stop. The word vomit continued to spew every where until I heard the most beautiful sound. He was laughing. His head was thrown back against the headrest and his sparkling green eyes were firmly on me as his chest and shoulders shook with mirth. Hmm… his shoulders looked so strong and sure and hmm... Dammit, Bella! Focus! Yeah, Bella. Focus on the delicious fact you are seated on his big strong legs. Focus on how you've been there for a whole of 20 seconds and he has still to remove his hands from your hips.

I was so screwed.

Then he spoke. And I was officially right, everything about him was perfect. His voice was low and melodic, I could listen to him speak for hours.

"Are you okay?" Gorgeous andconsiderate.

"I'm fine!" Dammit, Bella. What did we say about the squeaking.

"That's good…" His eyes shifted lazily downwards. "Comfortable?"

I was even more mortified to realise I had made absolutely no attempt to remove myself from my awkward position. I shot upwards and apologized. He was laughing again and I was drawn into the depths of those magnificent eyes as he smiled. The final nail in my coffin. Compared to this man, the sexy southern steward paled in comparison. Where his smile had been calming, this smile was positively breath-taking. I almost gasped. Not quite, but I was so very, very close. And I was dazzled.

I grinned back at him, apologized once more and took my seat and latched the belt across my waist. The area under my t-shirt that his hands had held so tightly was burning lightly, like an electric current was buzzing just below my skin. What this stranger could do to me, and he had absolutely no idea.

The three stewards came together, then all dispersed to various spots along the aisle and began their safety demonstration. I had been on planes a lot, I knew this stuff backwards. So I let my mind focus entirely on not making a fool of myself beside this unearthly stranger, and I focused my gaze at some point beyond the clouds and sighed.

I suddenly felt a very close presence, and the faintest of pressures against my left shoulder, and the warmest and sweetest breath on the back of the ear. Oh god.

"You really should pay attention." The velvety loveliness of his voice was soothing and I was tempted to let him continue before I turned my head to face him. Holy shit, he was a lot closer than I thought. His angel's face was only half a foot from my own, give or take an inch or two. Sarcastic Bella and the hazy fog that appeared to be female Bella fought for dominance. Luckily, the regular side won.

"Oh really? What break-through could they possibly tell me that I don't already know?"

"Well, with you're apparent moving issues, it seems you should take all the help you can get."

Instinct got the best of me, and I laughed. It felt good, easy. I hadn't laughed much, or at least genuinely, in the past few days. "True."

He smiled again and my breathing hitched. He held out his left hand.

"I'm Edward." I wondered happily how much more of him I could end up touching before we landed. Then my mind went straight to the gutter. The thought started innocently, I swear. I grasped his hand softly and marvelled internally at the warmth. It didn't feel awkward, it felt natural. His head swooped forwards and he raised our hands to his lips and lightly kissed a knuckle. My heart was going about a mile a minute.

For one brief, crazy moment, I forgot my own name. It finally came back to me and I stuttered, like the ass I am.

"B…Bella." Nice, Bells. Real smooth.

"It's nice to um… meet you, Bella. Despite the unfortunate circumstances." The corner of his lips lifted ever so slowly into a crooked and gorgeous grin. I was not sorry at all.

"Yeah well, we have four hours. Get used to it. I tend to fall, a lot, Edward." I loved the feel of saying his name, as if it held some huge secret only for me. The feel of him saying my name however, was even sexier. The tall blonde stewardess, he didn't know her name. Well I hope to god he didn't. As the plane continued northwards, we fell into easy conversation. I told him of home and my parents, and my English literature course at the university. He told me of his parents back in Chicago, the aunt he had been visiting in Tucson and his passion for music. He even retrieved his ipod from his jeans pocket and let me listen to one of his piano pieces. I was beyond stunned. It was named "River Flows In You", he told me his aunt had named the piece, and I was almost in tears. He noticed, of course, and smiled faintly when I blushed.

We were really enjoying each other's company, when the captain came on over the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. There has been a slight delay in landing." There was a collective groan throughout the compartment. I, however, was secretly delighted. I now had some extra time with this glorious stranger. The captain continued.

"With the bad weather south of the Peninsula, our intended runway was covered by ice through the afternoon. The clean-up of the concrete has taken longer than anticipated so Air Control has advised us to circle west, fly across Canada, and then come in from the north to a separate runway. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We shall arrive in Seattle in approximately two hours."

A low buzz of conversation gradually picked up when the captain's speech came to it's close. I turned back to face Edward to find him seemingly unfazed by the news. I realized quickly that you conversation hadn't broached the topic of why exactly he was in Seattle, as I knew now that his parents were in Chicago still. I decided to ask him.

"Edward?"

"Hmm?"

"What's waiting for you there. In Seattle, I mean. I just realised I never asked before." I was once again privileged to be on the receiving end of one of his gorgeous grins. His eyes positively lit up as he spoke.

"Alice." He said it with such sincerity, he made it sound as if we knew her mutually, as if one word could summarize all the cheer his face now seemed to radiate.

I quickly rehashed in my mind three hours worth of conversation, searching again and again for her name. As I did so, my heart and stomach began to plummet inch by inch. But of course, a man such as him would not be on his own, surely. I mentally scolded myself. I could not think like this, as if I had some sort of claim to him. In two hours we would separate, go lead our own lives once more.

He seemed to misconstrue my silence for confusion, not sadness or jealousy, so he quickly updated me on this new person. I was immediately relieved, then once again scolded myself for feeling so.

"Alice is my baby sister. Well, twin sister really. But if we get technical, I am actually 6 minutes older. We both go to school there. She's studying in the Art Institute down at Belltown near the bay. She's hoping to become a fashion designer. I however, am also studying at UW. I'm doing a psychology course, she says I'm great at reading people apparently. I play my music at a bar round the block from our apartment. Alice is great, she's meeting me at the airport. You could actually meet her, but I warn you now, she's a hurricane of energy…" His voice trailed of wistfully as he smiled at the thought of his baby sister, he really seemed to have missed her.

"How come Alice didn't come down to Arizona with you to visit your aunt?" It seemed odd to me that he speak of her so well, but that they were apart for Thanksgiving. Actually, come to think of it, why were the both of them away from their parents at this time of year? He answered both of my questions at once.

"She got picked up by some agent a few weeks ago, some hippie who showed up on campus. I thought he looked a bit… off… when she dragged me along to meet him for coffee. But apparently he's some big-shot designer who's hosting a Christmas fashion show in Los Angeles. He was in Washington when he was told he had the job, so he went scouting for some fresh talent to help him out. And he found Alice. She's ecstatic, of course, but the past few weeks have been so hard on her. He give her a December deadline to prove she had what it takes and create all these different looks. She's barely had a chance to sleep. She begged me to miss out on the vacation so she had a few extra days. It's hard to say no to her. We don't really… talk to our parents often, so that's why we didn't plan to spend the week in Chicago. We love them, of course, but what we wanted didn't exactly amount up to their expectations of us. Dad wanted me to be a Doctor of Medicine, like him. Mom wanted Alice to be a lawyer, like her. They thought our dreams were unimportant. Lets just say we applied over here in secret, got the acceptances, rubbed it in their faces and were moved out within the week."

He chuckled lightly at this but I could detect the underlying pain and tension at being so closed off from the people that raised him. I placed my hand lightly on his forearm.

"I'm sorry." I didn't really know what else to say. As much as my parents were tough to handle ordinarily, they had loved me unconditionally and accepted my dreams without protest. They just wanted me to be happy. As much as it hurt them that I was moving so far away, they just got over the distance and were always happy to hear of north-western life. Charlie often seemed nostalgic.

Edward shook it off. "It's okay, really. We talk. We go for Christmas. But we limit it really to that. You'd think that after two years that they would just accept where our lives were headed. But apparently not."

He seemed to be deliberating something, then he smiled again. Without warning he stood and made his way to the aisle. The man who had been seated to his left was in the restroom. His arms reached for the over-head compartment and I was briefly stunned as I marvelled at the smooth contours and the strong muscles of his stomach as he stretched. The t-shirt inched up slowly and I caught a quick glimpse of pale hip bones before he slumped back to normal, a small back-pack on one shoulder. He sat down again and rummaged for several minutes before producing a wallet. He flipped it open and retrieved a slightly worn Polaroid.

"This is Alice and me, when we first moved here two years ago. The guy who took this photo lives next door to our place. His name's Mike, a bit of a player but he's still pretty cool."

I gazed in wonder at the photograph. For twins, Alice and Edward could not appear any different. By comparing Edward to the room he was in, the door he leaned against, he couldn't be anything less than 6 foot. A faint, yet glorious, sheen of sweat coated his grinning face. He wore old, faded jeans and a pale blue shirt, sleeves rolled up and open to reveal a white tee. One muscled arm was bent awkwardly around a cardboard box labelled "Alice's Shoes", the other was wrapped around the shoulders of said Alice. She was small, very much so, and thin in the extreme. The top of her head barely made it to Edward's shoulder. She was atleast 4 foot 10. She was smiling happily, and had both arms encased around her brother's waist. She wore tight blue jeans, and a white and light grey sweater I immediately recognized was Abercrombie and Fitch. She exuded cheerfulness. I would have loved to meet her.

Suddenly, the cabin pressure shifted to the extent that my ears popped. People began to speak louder, alarmed. The southern steward behind us began to walk swiftly toward the cockpit, often having to latch onto the chair head-rests to steady himself. The plane was not big, so he quickly grouped with the other female stewards, Esme and Rosalie I remembered, and they rang through to the captain. Something was wrong. The voice of the captain quickly filled the plane, but something wasn't right. He didn't address us, or make any acknowledgement we were listening. But he was frantic, yelling into another radio. From what I could gather in background noise, the other radio gave off only static. He began to speak, panicking, to the other pilot.

"Carter, what the hell was that? Did you feel that? What the… we lost contact. I can't get through to SeaTac. It's as if they're not there. Hold on a sec, I'm gonna try Port- God, they're gone too. What the hell is happening down there? We gotta…" The scream that emitted from further down the plane was so deafening that the captain even shut up. The voices of panic and confusion immediately ceased. The woman who had screamed, began to yell.

"Oh my God! Oh my God, what is that out there?" The entire right-hand side of the plane, myself and Edward included, looked out our windows. We were heading north over Portland, so from our viewpoint we could make out the distant cloud of black smoke and fire that had erupted somewhere east of Seattle.

Back home in Phoenix, I had picked history to study in my last two years of high school. However it was only to appease the pleas of my best friend Casey, who was in love with the subject but did not want to go at it alone. So I submitted and told her yes. I detested the work we were learning, up until we began the topic of World War II. Pearl Harbour was one of my favourite movies at the time so I was eager to properly learn the history of the event. When we were told of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was shocked at the images included in the text book. Over both cities had hovered the distinct, mush-room shaped collection of condensed water vapour and debris. Well that was the text-book definition. To me, a mushroom cloud was basically defined by the destruction it left.

Now, looking at one that was 30,000 feet taller than our altitude and growing, I was in shock. I faintly registered Edward's presence as he sucked in a gasping gulp of air. I had simply stopped altogether. I began to tremble as I took in what exactly this meant. I remembered again my own definition. I remembered history class. This… this cloud, meant death. Meant destruction. I found my left hand grasping tight to the arm-rest between me and Edward, I felt his own warm hand encase my own.

The body of the plane suddenly shuddered, and I felt us losing height quickly, too quickly. We continued north, through the think fog of my shocked mind I figured the captain was getting us as far away from this disaster as he could, but we were descending too fast. The cock-pit door was finally kicked open by a petrified steward, and the gentleman beside us leaned over the aisle and gasped in fear at what he must have seen through the front windows at the nose of the craft. I couldn't quite see all the way over by the window, but Edward could and what he saw caused his face to contort in horror and he looked back over at me, firmly grasping my hand in both of his. The plane had began to rattle slightly, and through the scenery whipping by below us, I could see towns and forest. We were going to crash, of that much I was sure. What Edward had seen could not be good. We began to veer left and the right wing of the plane tipped upwards and I could finally see what Edward had seen, what the captain was trying to have us avoid. The Olympic mountains. I recognized Mount Olympus vaguely from a postcard I had sent Renee, and gathered from that that we were maybe 3000 feet above ground as we headed west. But I also knew that much further west and we would hit ocean.

Tears sprung to my eyes as I remembered Renee. Charlie. My family. University. I remembered what I was now about to lose. I also thought of Edward. We had only known each other for a few hours, no where near enough. We were skimming the tree-tops now, it was almost over. Twenty years of my life, twenty years of hard work had led to this point.

Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, and I was able to absorb in clear detail several different things. It was odd, how here I was, facing death, yet I could so easily see all these random details of where I was. I noticed that the large, muscled bodybuilder sitting in front of us was sobbing into his hands, how the oxygen masks had fallen, but not one person bothered to use theirs, as if they knew it was a lost cause. I noticed the utter silence of the two-year old who was shielded within his mother's arms across the aisle from us, how the stewards had made their way to the back of the plane just before we had begun to drop and were secured behind the partition. I also noticed how Edward was looking deep into my eyes. As the final seconds were drawing to a close, I lifted my right hand and placed it in top of the hands already holding my left. We didn't speak, we simply looked at each other, into each other. It was if he too was acknowledging the loss of what we had shared and gained, how it all now meant nothing.

I didn't shut my eyes as we hit the trunks of the forest. We were being jolted so dangerously my vision had blurred. I wanted my last image to be of his face, of the last good person I was privileged to know, so I continued to look at him, as he did to me. There was a final sickening, metallic, fateful crunch and powerful jolt and everything went black.