A.N. So, ladies and gents (however few there are of the latter), this story on is not an original piece as I used characters taken from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. This is an AU fic in which there are some living people and some-not-so-living people, as you, reader, will soon find out... Not everyone is as they should be according to the Twilight Universe, but, AHA!... cry about it. No extreme OOC-ness personality wise (at least I don't think so), but there are bits and pieces that are disputably different. DISCLAIMER END.

So, sooner update than you thought, huh? : ) Well, it won't always be like this. But, well, I just got the urge to scratch/type something out, so I hope you'll enjoy.

Any response is welcome and lovely, so don't be bashful. Despite the disclaimer, I'm actually quite a hospitable person.

Thanks much!-- sheep's out to pasture


[Chapter Two]--It Goes A Long Way

End One:

With a resolute breath, Bella slowly peeled back the starched fabric from over the late Edward Masen's face.

- - - - -

"Oh my."

A quiet, choked gasp echoed off the metal walls, the humming of the freezers swallowing up Bella's sound of shock.

She let the sheet fold over onto his chest, baring him from the top of his coppery hair to the protruding arches of his clavicles.

She had to pause, just trying to take in what she was seeing.

"You," she whispered in devastation, "You are too, too young."

And just like that, she started talking with a stern reproach in her antics.

"You, young man, are just... too young! How did you do this to yourself?! You look as old as... as me! What... How did this happen?" And, again, the devastation was back in her voice.

He didn't respond to any of her questions, unsurprisingly.

"You, Edward Masen," she addressed, once again sounding more like a nanny than a tailor's apprentice (or an eighteen year old girl in the presence of a dead body, for that matter), "were just... irresponsible, I hope you know! I... I won't apologize if I stick you with a pin, I swear it!..." There was a pause. "Though I probably won't," she conceded, looking at him from under her lashes albeit petulantly. "You're very still, you know."

She stared intently at him, unconsciously waiting for some reaction. Then she sighed finally and rubbed her face. "What am I doing? What am I doing here?"

Perhaps she meant more the situation of her talking to a clearly reposed body rather than her actual, physical presence in a mortuary preservation room for the deceased.

Bella felt like crying. It scared her, and she began to tremble.

When her gasps started to come more frequently and harshly, she found that she had to turn away from the gurney for a minute or two just to breathe.

Edward Masen's death was choking her.

She looked back at him. She obviously hadn't known him before, because she knew she would've remembered that face. God, he was so pale... She didn't know if it was the being dead thing or something else, but his face looked ridiculously hard, strong, like... he was a statue carved from granite. Stepping closer once again, her instincts told her that he would be cold and rigid to the touch, visible sinews under skin immoveable in Fatality's grip. He was beautiful creation, muscle, bone, and blood all wrapped up in stone.

His face was smooth, she saw, his cheeks hollow with the way he lay back, chin tilted upward, eyes completely closed. She observed that he didn't look particularly peaceful. He was much too tense, too... stiff.

And now she felt really bad, realizing that all those stories about sleep-like death were just that: stories.

"Uh, hey," she she murmured to him, trying to get his attention. He waited patiently for her to speak (at least, that was how Bella liked to think of it). "Do you... do you think that you only look... unrested because I'm projecting my own insecurities about death onto you?"

He was still.

"No, I mean... like, if I was more comfortable now, do you think you would have that sleep-like quality to you? Or, at least, I would perceive that you did?"

No answer.

She frowned, biting her bottom lip. "'Cause, no offense intended... you look really... uptight?"

He appeared unimpressed.

She sighed and rubbed at her face again, this time with the heels of both of her palms. "Ugh! This is not healthy!" Her hands seemed to spasm in front of her as she waved them about in an attempt to reassure herself. "This is... th-this is..." Bella gripped the ends of her hair in frustration, unintentionally yanking her pony tail. Her eyes widened in delayed shock. "Ow!"

Rubbing her scalp (she always did have sensitive hair), she decided that enough was enough. When the back of her head finally turned to a dull throb, she pulled out her tape measure from her overalls' denim pocket, unrolling it slightly before taking a deep breath.

"Okay. This is gonna be a pretty painless procedure—for the both of us, hopefully." Another breath. "I'm gonna start..."

Belatedly (much belatedly), she realized that she had no way to move him if she needed to. And, even if she could...

...she was going to have to touch him!

"Oh dear... I'm gonna start with," she breathed faintly, "with... your a-arms..."

Then, again belatedly, she realized that she was going to have to lift the sheet.

"Oh dear!"

She gulped, her throat seizing in a dry heave... because his order consisted of a full suit. Full suit. That included the pants.

"I-I... I don't want t-to-to compromise you or anything! You... You're dead!"

She moaned in overwhelming frustration. "Why'd you have to go and order a full suit?"

While she whined, groaned, and mumbled (peculiarly not unlike those she'd had to measure in the past), the body of Edward Masen lay passively on the gurney, white sheet of death draped up to his chest, in want of a proper suit which Bella was severely delaying the making of in her reluctance. "I mean," she continued, "I need to get measurements that neither of us is comfortable with me taking! For one, you're dead, and, for two... you're dead and naked! And I've never... I've never even..."

Once more, there was a humming quiet to the room.

"I'm not letting a dead guy be my first lesson in the male anatomy is all I'm saying." She thought her protest to be quite reasonable, and she linked her arms firmly across her chest, over the beginnings of her bibs and a colorful, striped shirt.

All in all, she looked quite like the inexperienced child she was appearing to be.

Bella turned to look at him, projecting a smile on his face, eyes still closed.

"What are you laughing about?! It's not funny! This is horrible! I mean, I'll feel like I'm taking advantage of you or something. This is... this is..." She trailed off, distress muddling her brain. In desperation, she lashed out.

"And, well, just as it happens, I think double-breasted suits are ugly! There, I said it! They're ugly!"

Immediately feeling guilty, Bella took back her words with a mumble. "Well, I guess they're just... old-fashioned, not ugly... I'm sorry."

He didn't seem to accept her apology.

"I... I don't really think they're ugly... I promise. They remind me of older days, yesteryear if you will. I quite like old things." Arms still crossed, she smiled at him in a fond complot. "You know... that black you wanted might be a bit dark, but... in a double-breasted suit, I bet you'd look a bit... a bit like... Dorian Gray or someone. Well, before he was corrupted. And I know he was blond, but... Well, it's not like I should be comparing you to someone like that anyway. I mean he was beautiful, sure, but, trapped in youth? Never-ending youth?... You don't seem the type—the perpetual beauty riddled with evil. I mean, you'll have people there at your funeral, missing you, missing how good you were. I just know it. You're a... a 'willful sunbeam of life,' aren't you? I'd like to think so."

She examined his still face, quite expressionless, remorsefully. "I... I'm really sorry... about everything... You being dead, me harassing you after the fact, me going to harass you with a tape measure... Maybe, in a different life, we could have been friends." She frowned as she turned introspective. "Well... I don't know if I could be doing this if we were friends. Measuring you, I mean. I don't think I'm strong enough of a person. I get a little bit weepy sometimes, especially when I read Austen novels or I watch The Lion King..."

And she really did want to let a few tears drop when she waited for him to say something and he never did.

She laughed with a watery smile. "I guess you're really lucky you got me, huh?" she snorted derisively, inconspicuously dabbing at her eyes. "I mean, normally I'm not this all over the place, but I'm trying to make conversation for the two of us, and it's just going horribly. I'm really s-sorry." Here, she had to hold back a sob.

She turned away for just a moment with a sniffle. "God..."

Pulling herself together, perhaps not-so-valiantly, but with still a tremendous amount of effort, Bella fingered her tape measure yet again. She shook her head quickly, rubbed out a few more tears, and grabbed a small, purple pocket notebook from, yet again, her overalls (she found it was easier wearing overalls to work rather than carrying a bag; nothing was misplaced, and everything was on hand). Reaching behind her ear, she groped about her hair for a few seconds before she could finally find the pen she had stuck there (frustratingly, she had also found that her ears weren't quite big enough for a pen to sit there securely, hence her reverting to pony tails and "hidden" writing utensils). She jotted down a few abbreviations for each measurement she needed for a double-breasted suit coat, deciding to worry about the pants predicament later.

"Right arm first, it looks like," she breathed. Taking a breath, she slowly shifted the sheet nearest her side over onto his chest, exposing inch by inch the milky skin stretched over lean muscle, shoulder deltoid, bicep and tricep, moving on to the brachiora... something or other...

Wow.

"Wow." Bella gulped. "You, uh... have a nice arm on you there... Right hand dominant, huh?... Oh, dear, what am I saying?" She blinked. A lot. For about a minute. Luckily, no one was there to witness her make such a fool of herself.

"Uh—um... I should... start here, I think... Yep..." Carefully, she reached out to rest her tape measure at the top of his shoulder. "Now, um... hold your arms like you normally would... Yep..."

Her fingertips tingled as they brushed his skin. "You're really cold, you know that?"

Reaching his wrist, she held the tape to it. "I believe it's the... supinator muscle that controls forearm movement in relation to the palm. That's right around here. Cool, huh?"

Biting her lip, she breathed out against him and was momentarily distracted at the rustle of the dark hair on his forearm as she did so. Jerkily, she wrote down the numbers she needed, continuing to prattle on about how shirt-sleeve exposure should be from a quarter to a half inch and how getting this measurement right was key to cuff placement. When she was done, she just drew back and looked at him.

"Um... should we move across the body or would you rather go symmetrical? I mean, the left arm is... on your left side, so... But the collar..." She fiddled with her bangs nervously. "We could go either-or, you know?"

Deciding that it was too much of a risk to her pride to go about shifting the sheet again, she went with the across-the-body approach.

"Okay! So, now I'm going to get your, uh, shoulder measurements. I mean, uh, neck to shoulder. 'Cause, if this one's not right it can..." she placed one end near the dip in his neck, a perfectly formed little hollow there; her pinky brushed his Adam's apple, and she blushed. "It can, um... make your shoulders really uncomfortable... too much, and the suit'll swallow you whole... too little, and you can't raise your arms. This measurement is a really big determining factor in overall fit and wearability."

As she lowered the tape to the edge of his shoulder, the hand nearest his neck slipped. "Oh!—sorry! I'll just..." She shifted closer to the gurney, leaning against it and putting the tape back in place.

She was definitely not prepared for the cart to move as she pressed forward.

She screeched as she lost her balance, gripping, for a moment, Edward Masen's gorgeous right arm and an edge of his white sheet of death. Then, suddenly, she fell further and was only gripping the white sheet of death. She fell on her bottom, and the gurney rocked frighteningly. When it settled, Bella tried not to lean back against it in relief. Bella clutched the sheet to her face, trying to hide her flaming cheeks.

Oh... God...

Bella slowly looked down at her hands.

She was holding the white sheet of death.

That meant...

"Um... Dr. Cullen!"


A.N. I'll take this moment to shout out to Abbie Lynn. All I can say is this; whether or not Edward is 'alive' is his own decision. A funeral is obviously a very important part of any death, and this suit is important to his funeral. That's what I'm willing to say about the matter, so, I apologize. : ) And, just so you know, things will only get more confusing... *shrugs innocently*

Thanks again to Abbie Lynn and anyone else who's willing to comment and/or read. Shout out, people! Go on... be a sheep! Join (well, at this point create) a mass!