I have a beta. If I could write poetry, I would write about how wonderful my beta Rick is. He's my beta from The West Wing fandom and when I had a meltdown writing in a new fandom he was kind enough to tell me to get a grip.

This is my first time posting in the Twilight fandom. I have another story that I have about 7 or 8 chapters of that I was writing first, but then got blocked on because this one popped into my head.

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Bella lets out an unladylike yawn as she crawls onto the couch in Edward's room and burrows under the covers there. It doesn't look like it's going to take her long to fall asleep. Esme called Charlie with a fabricated story about how she fell asleep here while I was helping her with her paper.

There are easily five or six blankets on this couch. I think Esme went a little overboard. Bella's never slept over here before. It's November and our house tends to run a tad cold for a human, but since she's started coming around, Esme and Edward have turned the heat on when we knew she was coming. We didn't know today and so it's taking a little while for Edward's room to warm up. Quite honestly, before Edward met Bella, I didn't even know this house had heat.

Her eyes get heavy and she smiles at me like the child I know is in there somewhere. I chuckle down at her before sitting down on the floor in front of the couch.

"You're staying in here?" she asks surprised.

"For a little while, yes," I say. "Then I'll probably go back downstairs with Peter and Charlotte. You don't sleepwalk, do you? I don't have to worry about you taking a header out the window or anything?"

"Ha. Ha."

"Well, it could happen. Look at tonight, the one day that our non-vegetarian friends choose to drop by unexpectedly, you deliver yourself on a silver platter."

"They didn't look like they want to eat me."

"Well, I'm just going to keep you out of the way of their temptation, if it's all the same to you."

"You don't have to," she says quietly. "I know it must be difficult for you right now."

I pause before answering her. I can feel her embarrassment and reluctance at bringing this subject up and I have to admire her for her bravery in doing it anyway.

"Actually…I'm completely fine now. It's when it's not my job to keep you alive that I have to struggle."

"Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know," I confess. "But it's interesting, don't you think?"

It's kind of strange talking to her like this. I've never really talked to her like this before, just her and me. It's kind of nice.

"I've learned to expect the unexpected in this house," she replies.

"It's funny you say that," I smile. "It was so monotonous before you stumbled into our lives."

"Jasper, really. Why don't you go down and talk with your friends?" she says. "You really don't need to put yourself out because of me."

"First of all, Bella, I don't sleep, remember? I'll have plenty of time to talk with Peter and Charlotte. Secondly, I'm not putting myself out. When are you going to finally understand that you are not an inconvenience to us?"

"As long as I'm human, I don't think I'll ever truly understand," she whispers.

"I have enough as it is to explain to Edward tonight, you're not taking me down that road, too. Besides, I am definitely not the right one to change you."

"How do you know it won't cure you?"

"Don't make me think about it, please, Bella."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"What was it like back then, Jasper?" she asks with a yawn. "I always read about all this honor and loyalty everyone had then, and how much more polite everyone seemed to be."

"Well, I was in the army. We were only polite when a lady or a superior officer was around."

"But see that right there is my point. You were polite around a lady. Boys today aren't like that. I can't believe all the fart jokes and swearing and all sorts of things that come out of boys' mouths around me on any given day." I hold back my laugh because, well, I'm in the presence of a lady. Her voice gets even quieter as she continues. "You and Edward are a lot alike, you both wanted to be soldiers. You both wanted to fight for your country, but your country wasn't this country, yet it kind of was. Hey, do you think you'd be considered a veteran of a foreign war?"

"Are you always like this right before you go to sleep?" I ask and she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. She shoves at my shoulder for good measure, and the only reason why I know that's what she was doing is because I can feel the warmth of her fingertips through my shirt.

I hear her breathing even out and I stare aimlessly at Edward's wide array of music. I'm not sure how long exactly I sit there, listening to Bella breathe. It's oddly comforting. It kind of mellows me out a bit. It's interesting that someone other than Alice also has a calming influence over me. Of course, when I'm not responsible for her, I suspect that influence will fade.

She mutters something about covered wagons and hardtack, and I shake my head with a smile.

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I beat my brother and sisters home by quite a few minutes. Esme's call has had me frantic for hours. Of all the dumb luck…

Correction: Of all Bella's luck. Of course Peter and Charlotte pick the weekend I'm all the way down in California to visit Jasper. I called Esme a few times en route. Peter and Charlotte must think I'm certifiable. Between their last visit and this one, I certainly haven't given them many reasons to think otherwise.

"Peter. Charlotte." I greet them briefly as I fly through the living room where they're seated with Jasper, Esme and Carlisle. I need to check on Bella. I need to make sure she's all right, even though Alice already saw that she was. I need to never go away again.

I also need to stop being a complete lunatic.

"Edward, she's asleep!" Esme laughs from the living room.

Of course, she's asleep. It's 2 o'clock in the morning. Humans sleep at 2 o'clock in the morning. This is normal. It's also completely normal for Bella to stumble upon two non-vegetarian vampires when I'm a thousand miles away.

Typical.

"I'll be right back," I say, but the chuckling doesn't cease.

I'm completely silent as I enter my darkened bedroom. Her even breathing and steady heartbeat calm me more than Jasper's talent ever could.

As absolutely gently as I'm capable of being, I brush her hair away from her angelic face and press my lips to her forehead. She shifts a bit and I swear I see her lips quirk up a slightly. I think I really should get a bed in here for her. She's never slept here before. That's not true. She's napped here. She's just never slept over before. I'm always at her house. I don't have a curfew, or a father who will ground me…or who will shoot a boyfriend caught in his daughter's bedroom after said curfew.

My eyes roam over the parts of her not hidden by the mountain of blankets on top of her, which admittedly is not much. Esme must have turned the heat on in here for her. I frown as my eyes fall upon her hand. Her palm is scraped. She must have tripped. But I'm used to seeing her with the evidence of her mishaps. What's odd is her wrist looks a little bruised. I wonder what happened there.

Now that I am assured that she is, in fact, breathing just fine and her intoxicating blood is still, in fact, running freely through her veins, I rise up and with one more kiss on her forehead, I head back downstairs.

"What happened to her hand?" I ask announcing my return. The others have made it back and have joined the gathering in the living room.

"She fell, of course," Jasper says pointing to the front door. Emmett snickers.

"No, her wrist is bruised."

"It is? That might be from when I grabbed her wrist then. She wanted to shake Peter and Charlotte's hand and I thought that was a bad idea, so I grabbed her hand before she could. I'm not used to handling Bella! She's so damn breakable!"

I roll my eyes in response to Jasper's explanation.

I lean up against the stairway. I don't want to be rude to Jasper's guests, but I don't want to leave Bella by herself either. Of course, by keeping this post, Peter and Charlotte remain in my line of sight.

"So sweet." Esme smiles at me. "Jasper did very well with her tonight, you know. He even went up and talked with her until she fell asleep. I'm not sure he'll ever get over what happened on her birthday."

I glance away from her towards my piano. I haven't played it since and I know that makes her sad. And I do know the genuine pain and endless guilt that night has caused Jasper. Bella hasn't changed her interaction with Jasper at all over that incident. It's almost as if it never happened. I am equally torn between admiring her for it and wanting to lock her away somewhere for not having learned yet how truly dangerous we are.

Not myself, at least not in that way. I could never consciously kill her, but just her being around me is a completely different story.

I tried to leave her after it happened. I tried to convince myself that it was for her own good; that it was in her best interests; that it was what she needed. Though I knew I couldn't live without her and that I would spend the rest of eternity wishing for one single minute with her, I couldn't continue to put her in this kind of danger.

I was a nanosecond away from telling her that I didn't love her anymore. I was prepared to do anything I needed to do in order to ensure her safety. And as I turned away from her, she dropped slowly to her knees and whispered so softly I wasn't sure if she either didn't have the strength to make herself heard or wasn't intending me to hear, "I need you."

It was my undoing.

Exposure to my world left her too vulnerable. There was still the issue of Victoria to be dealt with. I'm still not sure that she wouldn't go to the Volturi out of spite. I couldn't, can't, leave her unprotected.

It took me hours to calm her down that night on the forest floor, and weeks for her to get past the fear I'd caused her and let me out of her sight for any length of time. And I will never ever get over, nor forgive myself, for the look of anguish, devastation and terror that I put on her face.

"She's just wonderful, Edward," Charlotte says, drawing me out of my reverie and back to the conversation. It's not often that I'm taken by any sort of surprise in a conversation.

"Yes," I say simply.

"She's so animated and full of life!" Charlotte continues and I flinch at her use of the word 'life'. She didn't mean anything by it, I can tell that, but still it's a reminder of one of the many reasons why I can't bring myself to agree to change Bella.

"We just adore her," Carlisle says. "She's brought us all great joy."

"I admit though, the situation does beg the question…" Peter begins.

"No," I say fervently with a hiss in answer to his thought.

"I'm sorry, but for those of us that can't hear what people are thinking," Emmett prompts waving his hand.

"He wants to know if we'll change her," I say darkly. "And the answer is 'no'."

Peter and Charlotte look surprised and look between Jasper and Carlisle for an explanation.

"I'm afraid you've stumbled upon a hot button issue in this house," Carlisle says with a smile. "Calm down, son. They're just curious. Naturally, they'd want to know why on Earth you'd keep her human and keep torturing yourself, or so they think."

"I can imagine," Charlotte says, raising her eyebrows and looking back to me.

"It's a touchy subject," Rosalie 'whispers,' though there's not a being in the room that wouldn't hear her.

I frown a bit as I see that Rosalie is actually on my side on this issue. That's certainly not something that happens much…or possibly ever.

Wanting to be away from this conversation, and giving in to my usual obsessive need to be in Bella's presence, I excuse myself from the room and escape back upstairs.