BELLA

"How is he?" I was careful to keep my voice low as I found Esme in her gourmet kitchen. The Cullen house was huge, easily considered a mansion, but there was no telling where Edward was. Alice had assured me that he was sleeping almost 24 hours a day since coming home from Walter Reed, but there was no such thing as too careful.

"He's just woken up," Esme smiled at me, but it didn't reach her eyes. Of course not, her youngest son had just come very close to death, "Edward will be glad to see you."

"Oh, I don't think he would. I just wanted to check in and make sure he's okay. He doesn't need to know I'm here, I just wanted to bring this," I motion to the large container of chicken noodle soup from my grandmother's recipe, "he always liked this when he got back stateside. He said it was comforting."

"I think he found it more comforting because you had made it," she said in her wisdomly way, "I know you've broken up or whatever, but I think he would enjoy your company."

"Esme..."

"Nonsense, either go say hello or I'll make sure to put coconut in everything I serve on your next visit." I knew she'd do it too. She knew I was allergic, but she knew I'd only break out in itchy hives. It wouldn't be life threatening.

"Fine, but if he chases me out of here with a baseball bat, I'm blaming it on you." She laughed as if I were joking, but I was completely serious.

"He's in his room," she shooed me out of the kitchen.

I took a few deep breaths at the bottom of the stairs and then went up. I could find his room with my eyes closed. I'd been here so many times as a kid, as an adult, it was practically my childhood home as well as his.

I knocked softly on the door, hoping he had fallen asleep again, but no such luck.

"Come in." His voice was still velvety smooth, but it sounded exhausted, pained.

I slowly opened the door and waited at the threshold, waited for his reaction. No one had prepared me for mine.

His hands and arms were bandaged up to his elbow. It looked like he had extremely thick mittens on. His face still held the tell-tale yellow of bruises fading. His head was shaved in a patch just behind his left ear and his left leg was in a cast to just above his knee. There were healing cuts and scrapes scattered across his body.

"Bella..." he was taken off guard. He didn't expect to see me. I should have known better. I did know better.

"I'm sorry, Esme sent me up. I'll leave, I'm just... I'm glad you're... alive," I turned to race back downstairs but his voice caught me before I could really take a step.

"Don't go, Bella. Come here... I mean, If you can, come here."

I turned to face him, "If I can?"

He shrugged, then flinched in pain, and I saw that his shoulder was bandaged underneath his t-shirt, "Everybody seems to find it hard to come in here. They don't say it, but I can tell. They're uncomfortable."

"Well, it is kind of hard to see you like this," I slowly walked over and sat on the side of the bed as softly as possible so I wouldn't jar him, "I mean, you're supposed to be bulletproof, ya know?"

"Apparently I'm not bulletproof afterall," he tried to smile, but there was something else, something behind his eyes that prevented him from doing so.

"I was scared when I heard," I confess, and immediately hate myself for it, but I'd never been able to keep anything from Edward. Not even when I got my period at 13 and he'd asked why I was being so bitchy. There were never any secrets between us.

"I was scared when I heard, too."

"You don't remember it?"

"I remember going in for the landing but..." he paused, as if there were something else he was going to say, and then thought better of, "I don't remember the actual crash, which wasn't exactly a crash. It was merely a flip of a jet."

"Oh, just merely a flip of a jet? Huh. Well, looking at you, it seems more like you got ran over by a mack truck."

"Can't win 'em all."

"You know what I don't get? Your job basically consists of you being in the equivalent of a soup can with wings, built by the cheapest guy, flying through the air while sitting on top of enough jet fuel to get you hundreds of miles, and you can't wait to get to it. Doesn't seem very safe to me," I teased him.

"Says the girl that's still driving that hunk of junk truck of yours. I don't even think it's street legal."

"Hey, my truck is reliable."

"So is my jet... well, until I fucked it up, but that wasn't the jet's fault. It was the weather's... and mine."

"When will you know if you're going back?"

"I'll go back, Bella. As soon as all of this is healed up. There's no lasting damage. Some scars, but nothing that can take my wings."

I nodded.

"I know you hate that."

"No, I don't hate it. I mean, I hate that you'll be going back. I'll only worry more now, but I'd hate it more if they took your wings. You'd die without your wings."

"You don't need to worry about it."

"Because you're going back?"

"Because I'm not really your concern anymore. Bella, I am glad that you came. I was scared that things would never be okay between us, so I'm glad to see that we can be around each other, but it'll never be the way it was. You don't need to worry about me anymore."

"Edward, you're my best friend..."

"No, I was your boyfriend, fiance, actually. Maybe I was your best friend too, but I was the other things more than anything, and now I'm not."

"...I'm sorry."

"I'm fine. A little beat up, but fine. You came to check on me, and now you've seen with your own eyes. You can leave."

"I don't want to leave."

"Bella..." he wouldn't look at me, which bothered me to no end. He couldn't even look at me?"

"I didn't ask for this."

"You asked for space, did you not?"

"Yeah, but..."

"I gave you an entire ocean for four months."

"I know, but..."

"You don't understand why I love my job so much? My tin soup can with wings? Well, I don't understand how a person can just wake up one day and not know if they love the person they've been with practically since birth anymore or not. How all of a sudden, after 7 years of supporting that person in their career, you're not game anymore. I don't understand that."

"I'll go. Esme will be mad that I've upset you."

"Esme will be fine until she realizes that I'm going back as soon as I get this fucking cast off."

I walked towards the door, pausing in the frame, "Edward, I never said I didn't know if I loved you or not. Of course I love you. I always have. I always will. I said I didn't know what it was that I wanted anymore, and I think that can be expected from anyone that's been with the same person since birth."

"Don't come back," his voice was suddenly acidic.

I nodded, "I'll just leave this here, then."

I silently unlatched my necklace and pulled the ring off the chain, the ring Edward had given me when he'd asked me to marry him, and sat it on the small table just inside of the door.

"I'm glad that you're going to be okay. I hope that you stay that way."

I turned to go down the hallway, and while I'm pretty sure he didn't mean for me too, I heard him softly say, "I'll never be okay again."