time_lights made the made fantastic banner for this story which you can see here: t[dot]co/mlKYVzb. Really, I've not stopped staring at it since last night. Oh also, someone pointed out that they're reading this as more of a "dramedy", which is perfect categorization, in my opinion.

As always, thanks so much for reading and thank you, Dru, for writing all the hard (and good) parts.

A Matter of Life and Death

"Alright, Edward. You are... something. Maybe Death. Let's talk."

Chapter Two

"Let's not.," Edward replied, crossing his arms and feeling the first modicum of satisfaction he had, thus far in their interaction. "Unless it's a conversation that consists of me telling you to immediately cease this experiment and you agreeing vigorously. Given your tendency for tenacity, I'm suspecting that's—"

"Stop my experiment?" Bella asked. If she had hackles in place of her slim, sloping shoulders, they would be raised. "Because some nut job who dresses like Johnny Cash and has the ability to bend time and space asks me to? Fat chance."

"—unlikely," Edward concluded. "Clearly, you are hard to impress. You make it sound like you run into someone who has the ability to bend time and space everyday. Nevertheless, either you halt your experiment or I'll be forced to burn your lab down to the ground. In short, Ms. Swan, I will make this as simple as possible for your tiny human brain."

He watched her fists ball at her sides, to which he replied with a short, condescending laugh.

"Let me rephrase." As he spoke, his hand swung pompously in the air. "Either you quit your research this instant, or I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your lab down. With fire."

She snorted. "My hairless chinny-chin-chin doesn't give a damn. I don't tolerate threats. How about I give you a choice—either talk to me like an adult or teleport your ass out of here, you... you... whatever you are."

"'You whatever you are'. Your words are so cutting, Ms. Swan," he taunted.

"I apologize. How about 'you monochromatic freak of nature?'''

For the briefest of moments, her words wounded him. He was Death—dark and dangerous, famously feared. And this woman was treating him with no respect whatsoever. In fact, she had already turned away from him to resume her work.

He wouldn't endure this insulting treatment. Desperate for some kind of reaction, he dissolved and reappeared an inch from her face. She jumped, and he smirked.

"I mean it," he said, keeping his voice low and slick. "I'll turn this place to ash."

"You'll do no such thing, Mr. Colin," she said coolly, focusing her attention on evening a stack of papers.

"Cullen," he grumbled through his teeth. "It's Cullen!"

She started humming disinterestedly. Over her shoulder, he saw her flip open her cell phone and scroll down to a number labeled "Security."

"Oh no you don't." He stole the phone from her hand with one lightning fast swipe.

"Give that back!"

"I think not." He stuffed it in his pocket and gave her an impressive eyebrow lift. Then, imagining the glory of his victory in advance, he snapped his fingers. The stack of papers next to her computer immediately erupted in flame. He almost skipped with glee. That will show her, he thought.

Bella, however, was not nearly as pleased by this development. He figured this out fairly quickly, since she was suddenly hefting the thickest textbook he had ever seen. It was also the only textbook that had ever become intimately acquainted with the side of his head.

"Ow!" he gasped as he staggered backward. His hand flew to the sore spot on his temple. "That hurt!"

Before the sparkly prickling had left his vision, she slammed the book into the side of his ribcage. "Make it stop!" she yelled. "Put that fire out right now!" She held the book ferociously above her head, like Moses with his commandments.

"Fine! Fine!" he exclaimed, trying not to sound panicked. Death didn't panic.

He snapped his fingers again, and the fire disappeared with a wheezing puff of smoke.

"Thank you," she said, poking her burnt stack of papers. She tried to lift the top sheet, but a large piece of the stack broke off and crumbled to the floor like flaking plaster. "Delightful."

Edward pressed his fingertips to his head, testing the damage she had done to his lovely pale skin. He didn't think it was possible for him to bruise, but by the throbbing sensation, he began to wonder if that was a fallacy. "Little beastie," he muttered.

Before he had finished pawing at his wounds, she appeared just in front of him and stuck her hand right into his pants pocket.

"Ack!" he shrieked, his eyes springing open. "What are you doing? Don't violate me!"

Her expression was cold as she stepped away from him, her retrieved cell phone in hand. "So…" she drawled, irritation suffusing her voice. "Do you want to talk now?"

Edward's pride had never before been wounded. It was a peculiar feeling, and he imagined that if someone were to wax his left eyebrow right off his face, it would feel about the same. Instead of sullenly stalking off, however, he absorbed the tantalizing challenge she had presented.

His natural mien was much like a petulant child who insisted on winning every game, even if it required cheating. In fact, he did win every game, and he always had the last laugh, because in the end everybody dies.

And that's precisely when he realized that Bella Swan was not only winning this particular game, but that she had it in her mind to win all of his future games as well. With her clever little anti-death serum, she was scheming to make him irrelevant.

When his mind had snapped together all of these puzzle pieces, he smiled wickedly. This woman planned to put him out of work. He could easily snap his fingers again and set the entire laboratory on fire instead of a few papers, but he suddenly craved this competition. He was confident to the point of cockiness, and he wondered how difficult it would be to make her change her mind.

He watched her petite, attractive body seethe with anger, and felt the challenge roll over him. "Yes, let's talk."

"Why don't we start with why you feel the need to burn my lab down?" There was an edge to her voice so sharp that she might as well have waved a knife around instead of speaking. Edward was certain that the medical research field did not often produce such fierce specimens. Something else had made her this way, he was sure, and his mind drifted off into that particular puzzle.

"Is your boyfriend an ass?" he said, absently voicing his current thought.

"Excuse me?"

Edward blinked a few times, realizing that he had, in fact, said that aloud. "Uh… I mean—"

"If I had a boyfriend," she snapped, "he wouldn't be half the ass that you are."

A smile twisted its way into Edward's expression. "I have quite the ass, if I do say so myself."

"What does this have to do with my lab?"

"Everything." He crossed his arms and leaned back against her desk. "I am an important guy, you see. Probably the most important guy in the universe. And you've made a serum to eliminate me."

"Well, you're certainly the most arrogant prick in the universe."

"Do you really think it's a good idea to taunt Death?"

"As you might suspect by my research, sir, I don't think your importance is deserved at all. You serve no purpose except to cause suffering."

This comment made him uncharacteristically clumsy in finding a reply. No one had ever insulted him so deeply, which was incredible, since the human race liked to curse him quite a bit. "How would you like it if I made an anti-Bella serum?"

"You're just scared that you won't be the top dog for all of eternity."

Edward realized that her statement was shockingly true, but he was absolutely unwilling to admit it. "Scared? Ha! I'm merely playing nice because you're hot."

Her eyes widened. Edward laughed devilishly, realizing that he had found something that made her react. He was surprised that such a statement should surprise her. He mused that her attractiveness was brilliant enough to be the subject of many conversations.

"And besides," he said, trying to ignore her pretty frown. "Don't go around calling me arrogant when you're ready to promise the world everlasting life. You've had some predecessors in that department, you know."

"Calling me a hypocrite doesn't prove your point, Mr. Cullen," she said. "I'm not trying to create the Church of Bella Swan. I'm trying to help people."

"Putting me out of work isn't going to help people." He felt a spark of anger move him toward her and stooped to look into her eyes, as if resorting to height to prove his superiority.

She accepted his challenge by stepping toward him in return. Her heels left the ground to meet his gaze directly. "Prove it."

Their current position might have looked like the pause before a kiss to an observer. Had this observer known what would have befallen poor Bella Swan were she to kiss Edward Cullen, the scene would have appeared far more dramatic.

For a split second, Edward considered dragging her face forward to fill the inch of space between them and kissing her angrily, and just a little indulgently. It would have been the easy way out of this mess, all things considered, but he was loath to let the game end that quickly.

Instead, he rocked back on his heels and released her from the death sentence he had planned. Ignoring the daze that had come over her face, he withdrew the Blackberry from his coat pocket and scrolled through the list of names that popped up, briefly selecting a few and following chains of information until he found the situation he had wanted.

This was the way the executive board, as it were, contacted him. It was a never-ending stream of humans about to kick the bucket, with just enough information to get him where he needed to be. Technically, he wasn't supposed to resume his normal duties until he had dealt with Isabella Swan, but he thought giving her a night in his shoes might win him a little respect.

Without seeking any permission from Bella, he swung his arm around her waist in a vaguely bawdy manner and then sent them hurtling straight to the seats of his car, which he kept parked in Le Mans, because there was no better place to park a car.

Bella, of course, had no idea that she had just been zapped to France. It appeared that she didn't much care where she was, since her focus seemed to be on shrieking at him.

"This is kidnapping!"

"No, my dear," he sighed. "It's Take Your Belligerent Business Rival to Work Day."

Her eyes darted to the window, taking note of the morning light of their time zone shift. "Where are we?"

"In my car."

"You can teleport. Why do you have a car? Plus, according to the Apocalypse, you're supposed to be riding around on a pale horse with Hell following close behind."

"I switched from the horse to the sports car when automobiles were invented. Driving something that poops is so passé, Bella. Get with the times."

"But the carbon emissions! You don't have to drive anything. All you're doing is polluting the environment."

"So what? You humans don't need a shitty atmosphere to kill you. You take care of that all on your own."

"You're busy proving my point, not yours," she declared archly.

"Let's go for a drive." Frowning, he twirled a set of keys on his finger and then ignited the obviously hefty engine. He shoved the car into gear and sped off down the road. Bella wondered if he took souls by driving like a maniac until his passengers died in epic crashes.

After a minute or two, he opened his window and draped his arm out over the side. "Come on, old boy!" he said, while patting the metal. He blinked, and they were on the road in Tennessee, nighttime back in the sky. Unfortunately, Edward's teleportation powers, which he treated as his car's special sixth gear, had landed them almost on top of a tour bus. He swerved dramatically, laughing at the same time.

Bella had covered her eyes, but she had stopped screaming. It seemed to Edward that she was having too much difficulty breathing to devote much energy to expressing her terror. It was probably for the best, he thought, since he had never had much regard for the lines on the road.

Edward was rather fond of driving. He wasn't really allowed the time to have hobbies, since people never stopped dying, so driving had become his excuse for recreation. Back in the olden days, he had been quite the equestrian, but as soon as he had discovered the joys of the gas pedal, he used every opportunity to press it to the floor.

Whenever he could afford the time to drive, he did. He liked to arrive at deathbeds in style, after all. On days when he was feeling particularly buoyant, he made a point to emerge from his Aston Martin wearing dark sunglasses and a matching smirk. In fact, he was fairly certain the mysterious bright light that everyone claimed to see before death was only his high beams.

Since driving was Edward's only pastime, he made every moment count, particularly by weaving through other vehicles at the fastest possible rate. It was all a grand obstacle course to him, even if poor Bella Swan failed to appreciate the exhilaration of the game.

"I'm going to die!" she screamed at him, finally working up the courage to protest his wild maneuvering.

"Nah. I would know." He spun the wheel wildly and the car skidded around a sharp corner. After pulling a little on the handbrake, they lurched to a stop beside the guardrail. "And here we are!"

Bella's face had dropped to her hands. Through the gaps between her fingers, she muttered, "Where did you learn how to drive?"

"I'm self taught," he announced proudly.

"Clearly."

Edward glanced at his watch and then at his Blackberry. "Now, Bella, pay close attention."

It turned out that Bella's attention didn't have to be too close, since the moment that Edward had been waiting for arrived with a quite a bang. Along with the bang came the sharp screeching of tires, the jingling spray of shattered glass, and the low rumble of buckling metal.

Just in front of Edward's car, a tiny sedan swerved toward the guardrail and then straight into a semi truck. It was only after a fair amount of flipping and rolling that the car, mangled beyond recognition, skidded to a halt.

Bella watched this scene unfold with an admirable degree of composure. She did, of course, look like the sort of feckless wide-eyed animal that might cause such a crash, but the fact that she wasn't gasping in horror inspired a tinge of respect in Edward.

"You've taken me to watch someone die…" she breathed, stating rather than asking.

"Well, he's mostly dead already, so you won't have to endure a dramatic death speech. Those are never fun."

"How can you possibly be so insensitive? Some poor guy is dying in a terrible car wreck and you're here cracking jokes!"

"Comes with the territory, Ms. Swan." He stretched his arms out over his head and yawned loudly. "Some things are just bad enough to deserve my humor."

Bella heard the smallest hint of despondency in his voice, which nearly shocked her more than the crash had. She turned to him with serious eyes and tried to examine his face.

Before she could decide whether or not she had actually heard genuine emotion in his words, he slid his hand across her thigh. She yelped and he slowly retracted his hand to unbuckle her seatbelt. "Ah, there's the buckle," he said, taking no care to mask his naughtiness.

He narrowly dodged a slap to the face by disappearing from the driver's seat and materializing outside the passenger door.

"You and your stupid Death party tricks," she hissed as he opened the door.

He sniffed dramatically. "My powers are much cooler than party tricks. Reaping souls requires immense talent." Unwilling to listen to any more snide remarks about his profession, he took her hand and sent them both to the middle of the street. Police cars had begun to appear, turning the highway into a light show of blue and red, sirens piercing the night.

"Won't someone stop us?" said Bella apprehensively, tugging back against Edward's hand as he tried to lead her toward the wreckage. He sensed that she was balking for a different reason, but he humored her with the answer she had asked for.

"Only the dead, or the nearly so, can see me or my…" He looked her over and smiled crookedly. "…companions."

"But I can see you, and I'm not dead! Unless… I'm not a ghost, am I? Like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense? Because that would just be awful, and you should really tell me if I'm already dead and you're just screwing with me."

"You're not dead. A living human can see me if I decide to reveal myself. But generally, it requires a very dull sort of person to un-see me after I've given myself away."

"Oh God. Does that mean I'm going to see you for the rest of my life?"

He shrugged. "Probably. Lucky girl."

Bella might have provided a sharp retort, but she suddenly realized that she was looking down on a corpse. Her eyes followed the line of the lifeless arm dangling out the broken window of the upside down car. She began backing away when she noticed that the pavement was much redder than it should be.

It was suddenly real to her. Edward Cullen really was Death, and she was actually looking at his handiwork. She wasn't dreaming or hallucinating or losing her mind. She was staring at a dead body, and she had just been back-talking Death himself.

"Why did you bring me here?" she said, her insolence markedly absent. "Take me back to my lab. Now."

A woman's voice had begun sobbing from within the car. Police officers and paramedics were swarming.

"Take me back!" she yelled, attracting no one's notice but Edward's. She struck his chest hard and made to sprint back to his car.

Edward was surprised by his own reaction to her distress. "Wait just a minute," he said quietly, grabbing her arm before she could get away. "The story isn't over yet." He gently took each of her shoulders and held her before him, facing her away from the crash. "There is a point to this. I promise."

She closed her eyes tightly and took a breath.

"The fact that you can handle death a little too well for your own good is what made me bring you here. If you were just a little weaker than you are, you would've backed down when I tried to set your lab on fire. You can handle this. Now stay put for just a moment."

She nodded once, her eyes still closed.

"And if you're nice to me," he said, letting the smirk show in his voice. "I'll allow you to buy me a drink later."

That statement made her eyes open, and she momentarily forgot to be disturbed by this scenario. She swiveled and gave him a scowl, just in time for him to reward her with a wink. Having turned to face the crash, however, she found herself unable to look away. Strangely fixated, she watched as Edward walked through the throngs of bystanders. Somehow, he didn't need to push or shove at all—everyone just moved out of his way as if they saw him without even knowing it.

Without pause, he bent down, snatched up the limp arm, and gave it a kiss. Bella gaped. Edward had indeed planted a kiss on the corpse, like Cinderella's prince. "What in the hell?" she muttered to herself.

When Edward returned to her, he was no longer alone. Behind him followed a translucent figure which looked sort of like a reflection in a fogged-up mirror. This ghost-like being, who Bella assumed was the original owner of the limp arm, staggered along behind Edward with tenuous stability.

"Do souls always stumble like that?"

Edward shook his head. "Nope, this guy thinks he's still drunk." He waited for the dead man to catch up and then set a jovial hand on his shoulder. "Jimmy, old pal, I hate to tell you this, but your coordination shouldn't still be impaired, since you don't really have a body left to coordinate."

"Huh?" said the soul, scratching his insubstantial hair by force of habit alone.

"You're dead, Jim."

"Dead?"

"As a doornail."

"Then who are you? Are you God?"

Edward smiled proudly. "I get that a lot." He saw Bella roll her eyes, and cleared his throat. "But no, I'm Death. With a capital D."

The dead man seemed to consider this without much consternation. "Okay. Then who's she?"

Edward brought his other arm around Bella's shoulders. "This is my friend Bella. Bella, this is James. He had a drinking problem, it seems."

"She's pretty," said James, still looking a little drunk.

"I know, right?"

Bella sighed loudly. "You promised me this had a point, Edward."

"Oh, it does. But we mustn't rush art, Bella." He wiggled his fingers in the air with flourish, as if preparing to play a piano. "Now, James, let's chat, shall we?"

James' wispy eyelids blinked a few times.

Edward nodded in the direction of the wailing woman, who was presently being extracted from the vehicle by paramedics. "Who's your lady friend?"

"That's Victoria—my girlfriend," he said, suddenly appearing both sober and upset. "Is she going to be okay?"

Edward spun his Blackberry around between his fingers. "Yep. She hasn't made my list this time, kid. You, on the other hand, really shouldn't have mixed beer and car keys."

James seemed to experience a moment of clarity. His face, particularly in its vague, filmy state, didn't appear to be one very well suited to emotional expression. Still, Bella could see reality catch up to his translucent eyes. "Holy shit…" he gasped. "I'm really dead."

The emotion behind his words hit Bella with a cold stab. She wanted to comfort James, despite his air of dimwittedness, but all Edward did was give him a firm slap on the back. Bella wasn't sure how Edward could make audible contact with someone who appeared so ghostlike, but it didn't seem out of place. She figured she had only seen the tip of the iceberg when it came to his abilities. She somehow knew that he had endless things hidden up his dark sleeve. If he wasn't such an asshole, he'd sort of be impressive. Of course, Bella would never give him the satisfaction of hearing her say so out loud.

Nevertheless, Bella was unsatisfied by the way he brushed off James' death with a frat-brother slap on the back. She wasn't sure what Edward was trying to demonstrate, but he was failing miserably.

"You really are dead," he confirmed jovially. "But, look, here's the bright side—"

"There's a bright side?"

Edward nodded back toward Victoria, who had been placed on a stretcher. "Look at Vicky over there." His eyes darted to Bella's as he spoke. "She likes to party, doesn't she, James?"

A small smile appeared in the cloudy image of his face. "Yeah. She's a fun girl. Never frowns. The best part of every party."

Bella wanted to cry, but Edward seemed to think he was winning. She watched the victory invade his posture. "Victoria's not going to take your death too well, I'd gather. She'll regret a lot of things about tonight. She'll regret it enough to change her habits, probably. She'll never booze and cruise again." He tapped the screen of his Blackberry. "You've kept her off my appointment list for a good long while, eh James?"

He nodded somberly, watching the paramedics cart Victoria away into an ambulance. Bella thought she saw James' wispy body flicker and grow fainter, dissolving like a mist at daybreak. Edward stood by with his eyes on hers, waiting for his lesson to sink in.

Bella wasn't stupid. She saw what Edward was trying to teach her—that one man's death might change someone else's life for the better. Perspective, mathematics, blah blah blah. Bella didn't care. She had thought enough on this subject without being subjected to this. She had endured enough tragedy in her life already.

She shot Edward a burning glare and moved over to James. Lifting her hand a little, she tried to set it on his shoulder, but it fell right through him as though she had tried to touch a shadow. This made the tears well in her eyes, even though James didn't seem nearly so upset.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice showing more irritation than anything else. "Death is a little… insensitive. And sort of an asshole."

James laughed, and his diaphanous body seemed to grow a little brighter. "Well, no one really likes death, so I guess it fits."

"You know, I'm standing right here," grumbled Edward, tapping his toe.

Bella turned to him and made an ugly face. She had plenty of things to say to him, none of them pleasant, and most of which would be best accompanied by nasty gestures. For now, though, all she wanted to do was ease James' passing.

But when she turned back to James, he was walking away from her. She tried to call after him, but he didn't even look back. Instead, he walked on as if in a trance, slowly and steadily, the mists of his body dispersing.

Bella held herself still, unsure of what was happening. Before long, she felt Edward's presence by her side. "Where's he going?" she whispered.

She felt Edward's arm move against hers as he shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just the messenger. The cosmic mail carrier. Supernatural slave to the man."

"Wow. That almost sounded like humility."

"That's me," he muttered. "Humble old Death. Kissing hands and holding doors. Speaking of which…" He suddenly disappeared from Bella's side and popped back into sight ahead of James. As the dead man walked on zombie-like, Edward reached into empty space and seemed to turn an invisible doorknob. With practiced ease, he opened a strange, ethereal gateway in the middle of the street.

Bella remained frozen in awe as the edges of the spectral frame began to glow. Edward winked at her before bowing down and presenting James with an embellished gesture to pass through the door. At that moment, a stream of light cut through the darkness in front of James, twisting and spiraling outward as though alive. Soon it was joined by another curl of light, and then another. Before long, the surreal illumination wrapped around James, as if embracing him with arms of light, until all Bella could see was a blinding whiteness, a miniature star on the side of the highway.

And then the door slammed itself shut. It swallowed up every hint of its own existence, save Edward, who stood alone on the street like a empty shadow, smug in his own intangibility. But Bella didn't pay attention to him. Instead, she stared at the spot where the door had been, rattled by how quickly everything had turned dark and ordinary. Cars rushed by and Victoria's ambulance flew off into the darkness, siren blaring. Bella folded her arms around herself, suddenly cold.

Annoying co-worker stories, anyone? Thanks for reading!