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Song Inspiration: In My Life
Title of One-Shot: The Story of Us
Pairing: Edward & Bella
POV: Bella
Rating: M
Word Count: 3,679
Summary or Description: Over the last twenty-five years, Bella and Edward have written their story together. Now she looks back over their life and remembers all the things that made them who they are.

This one-shot is being posted in participation with the All You Need is Love contest hosted by Camoozle, Emerald_Rosalie, Lightstardusting and Miztrezboo. Please see the contest profile for full details.

The Story of Us

The sunlight streams through the bedroom window this morning, they way it did all those years ago. I roll over and reach for him, but I am alone. I forgot that he isn't here.

I remember when we first talked about this, decided what we wanted this day to be, he said we would each pick a song. It had to be the Beatles, because that was just so…us. He taught me all about the poetry of their lyrics. I never liked them and he made it his mission to convince me. He was so right. I never had to think about which song I would choose. I knew the one that told our story.

I love the story of us, even the bad parts; we were made, not just in the moments of joy and happiness, but also in the moments of darkness and loss. There are lines that stand out in our story, as if they are in bold face type on the page.

I have so much to do today, but I want to just sit and remember for awhile all the things that brought us to here.

"Hello, I'm Edward Cullen." The first words he spoke to me.

I recall him the way I first saw him, all cocky smirk and mess y hair. I loved him then, in the high school crush way, without really knowing who he was. Everybody loved him though. He wasn't mine.

I still remember sitting next to him in Junior Biology. Just being close to him I would find it hard to breathe. He was such an asshole then, Big Man on Campus, broody and dark, but always with an air of sadness. I was in my awkward phase, and he never gave me a second look. I sat next to him for a year, and I think we spoke ten words to each other. We had no classes together the next year, and after watching him deliver his valedictorian speech, I asked him to sign my yearbook. He just nodded and then he wrote the lyrics to "Hello, Goodbye." I didn't see him again for five years. I thought about him from time to time, wondered if he was happier now.

"Isabella Swan? Is that you?" The first time he spoke my name.

I was home visiting my dad for Christmas and he was walking into the coffee shop as I was walking out. He recognized me and stopped me, asking if I wanted to sit and catch up. I didn't really understand what he wanted to catch up on, we had never been friends. He was easy to talk to, and coffee turned into dinner. He was so open, telling me all about his marriage and his divorce. He told me he felt like he had failed, and he looked so lost. I put my hand over his and something magical happened.

I told him things too, even though opening up was hard for me. I told him about the relationship I'd been in for three years that had just ended. I told him how I wanted a family, wanted children, wanted someone to come home to. He smiled and told me he had faith that I would get everything I wanted, and I believed him.

"Goodnight, Bella." The first time he kissed me.

We stood under the street light, neither of us wanting to leave. It started to snow and he brushed a flake off my cheek, his fingers lingering on my skin. When he bent his head to kiss me, everything in me lit up. So many memories have faded, but not that one. I can still feel how soft his lips were against mine. I remember what he smelled like, how his hair, wild as always, tickled my face; how he hugged me afterwards and I didn't want to let go.

He walked me to my car and asked if he could see me the next day. Before I knew it, we were together all the time. I moved back to Forks, because I could write freelance from anywhere, and I wanted to be near him. My dad was so happy to have me home. I didn't know then how little time I would have with Charlie.

"My father's gone." The first time I cried in front of him.

Charlie died that winter. He was shot while apprehending a suspect. Edward was the only thing that kept me together. He held me while I cried for days. He clutched my hand at the funeral, and I remember thinking that he was the kind of man my father had wanted for me. That was the moment I realized how much I loved him.

I wipe a tear from my face. I know I need to get going, but I can't stop remembering all of the parts that made us.

"I've never loved anyone as much as I love you." The first time we made love.

He wanted everything to be perfect, laying out candles and rose petals and playing 'And I love her' from Hard Day's Night. He kissed me and peeled away everything until it was just us. A candle fell over, catching fire to the curtain, sending Edward running for the fire extinguisher. The sight of him, naked, hosing down the curtain with white foam and scowling set off a fit of giggles in me that lasted for hours. He finally calmed down enough to laugh with me and when the laughter quieted, he made love to me, silently, his eyes never leaving mine. I had never felt so complete before.

We craved each other all the time, sneaking away from dinner parties early to come home and just be together. We were so passionate, making love in the morning before work, in the kitchen while we cooked dinner together. We never had make up sex, we never fought. We were still in the honeymoon phase of our love and we thought it would last forever.

"Will you marry me?" The words that changed everything.

He asked me that summer, in the meadow. It wasn't all wine and candles and strolling violinists. He brought a picnic basket and a blanket and a portable radio. He played "Hey Jude" and it made me cry. He wiped the tears off my face with his fingers and asked if I would be his wife. He didn't even have a ring, but I didn't care. I could barely speak, but I whispered my 'yes' and we made love amid the wildflowers.

We got married a year later in the same spot. His sister Alice was furious that we didn't allow her to plan a big wedding for us. His parents were thrilled, telling me that they already considered me their daughter. Carlisle walked me down the makeshift aisle and told me that he knew Charlie would have been so proud of us. In front of a handful of friends and family, we told each other how we belonged to each other and how we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. We both cried when the justice of the peace called us man and wife. When he kissed me and called me Mrs. Cullen, I felt whole.

"Let's have a baby." The words that would set off the hardest years of our life.

We began trying to start a family right away; making love every day, any time we could. We had such love for each other, and we told ourselves that the babies would come soon enough. But they didn't. We thought it would be easy, but before we knew it another year had passed. We started seeing specialists and having tests and planning sex for the optimum times we might conceive. It took a lot of the magic out of things, but I still loved him and I knew he loved me. We saw it as something to get through, and we told each other we could make it through anything as long as we had each other.

I remember his face when we took the test that came back positive. He looked so happy, and so scared. I knew exactly how he felt because I felt the same way. He was so adorable, bringing home little things for the baby every day. He would lay his head on my stomach every night, and he swore he could hear him. We found out that we were having a boy, and he said he wanted to name him Charlie, after my dad.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing we could have done." The words that broke our happy world.

It was an uneventful pregnancy until the day that it wasn't. I was six months along and I woke up in agony. I called him at work and he told me he would meet me at the hospital. He called Carlisle who came for me and brought me to him. They hooked me up to monitors and ran tests, and by the time the doctor came to tell us, we already knew. I was so far along they told me I would have to deliver him anyway. I lost a piece of myself that day. He did too.

We held our son and cried and said our goodbyes. I can still see him holding Charlie, telling him how we loved him. I remember how his whole body shook with sobs after they took him away, and how he held me so tight I couldn't breathe. He told me we could get through it together, but I couldn't hear him over the sound of my world crashing around my ears.

He cleaned all of the baby stuff out of the house before I came home. I found a sock that he had missed a week later, and I cried so hard he had to give me medication to calm me down. I don't know when he started drinking; I was too lost in my own grief to even notice him. Once I figured out that he was drunk every night, I couldn't even blame him. I was too busy blaming myself.

I'm crying now at the memory of those days, and the days that followed. I should stop, I have things I have to do, people waiting for me, but part of me needs to remember every part.

"I can't do this anymore." The words I said to try and make him leave.

I could feel us ripping at the seams, but neither of us did anything about it. He hadn't wanted to touch me since it happened, and I don't think I could have stomached it if he did. Grief was our whole world. His family came by sometimes and tried to talk to us, together or separately. Alice's husband Jasper told me he was worried about Edward's drinking. Edward's sister Rosalie told him that she thought we should start trying again. His parents sat us down and told us they thought we needed help.

I don't remember deciding to walk away from him; I just couldn't be there anymore. I didn't want to sit in that house with him and watch our love fall slowly apart. I found someone who let me forget for a while that I was losing everything.

"Please don't leave me." The words he said that kept us together.

I was careless about lying; I think I wanted him to catch me. I still loved him; I always had. I was so afraid he stopped loving me because I couldn't save our son. I was so sure that if I'd noticed something sooner that there would have been something I could have done.

He saw me with the other man one afternoon, and he was waiting on the front step when I got home. He was sober for a change. I remember screaming at each other in the driveway, not caring if the neighbors heard. I waited for him to tell me he hated me and that he was leaving. But he didn't. He stopped yelling and just stared at me. He cried and begged me not to leave him and then I was in his arms. I told him that I loved him, that I always had, and he told me that what happened wasn't my fault and we cried and held each other all night.

We took time to heal. We got help. He stopped drinking and I stopped beating myself up for things I couldn't have stopped and couldn't change. We never officially started trying to get pregnant. We were focusing on just being together. When I was late and we took a test, I panicked that it was positive.

He treated me like glass the entire time I was pregnant, insisting I stop working and rest. His mother and sisters were a huge help, coming over to cook and clean and keep me company. We did it without all the fanfare this time. No baby shower, no announcements. The doctor monitored me closely, but I think it was to keep us calm more than anything. They said what happened last time was a freak thing and the likelihood of it repeating was small.

And they were right. Our daughter was born in the fall and she was perfect. She had his hair and my eyes, and we named her Charlotte, with plans to call her Charlie after my father and her brother. She didn't replace him; I still thought of him every day. But she made us complete, and healed us in a way we hadn't known was possible.

There are stunning moments that stand out over the course of her childhood, although he was a great father every day. We took her to the meadow and the sight of him swinging her around the way my dad used to do with me made me cry tears of sheer bliss. I knew how lucky she was to have him. I remember him teaching her to ride her bike. I watched his eyes fill with tears of pride when she took off on her own. He gave her 'the talk' when the time came; he said she should hear it from a man. The first time she got her heart broken, it was him she ran to. Not that she and I weren't close, we were, but she was every bit Daddy's Little Girl.

I sometimes couldn't believe how much I still loved him, after all the time and all that we went through. Our love changed over time, but I loved him more every day. We weren't as passionate as we were when we were young, at least not all the time. We still had our moments, like when I would break out the black lingerie for his birthday, or when he would take me up to the meadow in the summer and make love to me on the ground, the way he did the day he asked me to marry him. Most days we are content just to sleep in each other's arms.

"I'd do it all over again, you know. It was all worth it for having you in my life." The first time we talked about what we would do today.

Charlie grew up and went away to school and it was just us. We became like teenagers; making out in the front hall for half an hour when he got home from work. We travelled, loving being able to spend time together without soccer games and parent teacher conferences to schedule. He brought me flowers and we had date nights and we tried to do all the things we wanted to do.

We lay in bed one night when he brought it up, the plans he wanted to make. He asked what I thought about it and told me what he wanted. He talked about the song, about choosing one that said everything we wanted to say. I knew right away which one I wanted. There were so many great ones, but this one told our story. It was as if the words were written just so that we could say them to each other.

"Thank you…for everything." The last thing he said before he left.

I have to hurry now, the car will be here soon and I'm not even dressed. I look in the mirror and the woman looking back at me looks older than I feel. I've just started coloring my hair this year. His started going grey years ago, but it looks good on him. It's hard to believe it's been twenty-five years since the day I said my vows to him in the meadow. It flew by in the blink of an eye.

I dress quickly and walk through the silent rooms of our house. Why is every memory so clear today? It's like the past is in sharp focus. I can see him in his study, reading. He's in the den with Charlie, letting her win at Candyland. He's in the kitchen singing off key while he makes breakfast. He's everywhere. I understand now why today was so important to him.

I hear the car out front, and I walk out, checking myself in the mirror one last time. We drive through the streets of Forks and can feel my dad watching me. He would have loved that we stayed here to raise our daughter. She doesn't live here anymore, she moved to Seattle for college, but she's here today, of course. She wanted to come over this morning and help me get ready, but I told her to stay with her grandmother. I wanted to be alone, except that I wasn't alone. My memories had been with me all day.

As I get out of the car, it strikes me that the weather is the same as it was then. Uncharacteristically warm, even for summer. I walk toward the rows of people, and I know they are there, but I only see him. He's so still, his hair a little too perfect. He looks uncomfortable in the suit Alice picked out, because she says she's better at the little details. He smiles at me then, and I can't help but smile back.

"In my life, I loved you more." The words I will say to him, the ones that tell the world the story of us.

I didn't truly understood why he wanted us to renew our vows until this moment. I want to tell him everything he means to me. When I was little, I used to envision love like the paper dolls you cut from folded paper, all the same and ever connected. I know now that love is like the paper dolls you punch out of a book, not the same but one piece fits into the empty space in the other, making a whole. He is the other half of me.

There is talking, other people talking about me and him and our love. It surprises me how well they know us, and yet I feel like only we really know how much we love each other. Only we remember all the parts, the little pieces that make us. I would never have words enough to tell them what it had meant to me to be with him, and I don't think he would either. I'll start myself, like we decided, and then he'll tell me. We'll let Lennon and McCartney tell them the rest for us.

They're different than our first vows, because we aren't new and shiny anymore, making promises about our future. We've already loved and honored each other, been with each other through sickness and health, lived through better and worse.

My voice shakes as I speak, but the look in his eyes brings me peace. "Edward, thank you. For my life. I can't imagine having lived it without you. For our daughter. She is the best thing I have ever done. For your family. They have become my family, and I love them like I was born to them. For you. You have been more than I ever expected. For us. "

He speaks and I can't keep the tears from falling anymore. "Bella, thank you. For my life. It has been the most wonderful world because of you. For our daughter. She is the best gift I have ever received. For our family. We are who we are because of you. For you. You were all that I ever needed, and more. For us.

It's time to let Paul and John take over now. We picked the same song. Of course we did.

"There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better. Some have gone and some remain." Some of our places are gone now; the coffee shop is a dry cleaner and the first apartment we lived in has been torn down, but I still smile every time I walk under the street light where he first kissed me and this meadow, this place where we became an us, is still here.

"All these places have their moments, with lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living, in my life, I've loved them all." Our families. Our daughter. My father. Our son.

"But of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you. And these memories lose their meaning, when I think of love as something new." It was always us, even when we were new, even when we were broken.

"Though I know I'll never lose affection, for people and things that went before. I know I'll often stop and think about them." We have a lifetime of memories together, wonderful happy times and horrible things that stripped us bare. We have so much living left to do, so many more dreams to fulfill. So many people that love us, so many people that we love.

"In my life, I love you more."

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