Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: This story was originally posted as part of Ms. Kathy's Haiti compilation, and I'm posting it a day early as part of the Fic Bridge's Reader Appreciation Day. So, you know what that means, right? Yep, I'm going thank you crazy! ;)

THANK YOU to all my readers. Your support and feedback mean a lot to me, and I am glad so many people enjoy the stories I write with SM's lovely characters.

THANK YOU to everyone who donated money to Haiti relief. The response to the drive was tremendous and a sign of what our fandom can do together.

THANK YOU to everyone who loves TBW and has rec'd it to others. I especially want to thank erikasbuddy and mskathy, who have been HUGE TBW cheerleaders.

THANK YOU (again) to erikasbuddy, who is not only the best beta a girl could have, she's also the bestest buddy, too!

THANK YOU to all my wonderful friends in the fandom who are supporting me during another hard time with my Crohn's disease. My bad days have been outnumbering my good lately, and I'm forever grateful to everyone who has tweeted or emailed me, sent me Rob porn, and continued to send me get-well wishes. P.S. I can never receive too much Rob porn ;)

THANK YOU most of all to my DH, who has been here before and will be here again. He bears it all with love and devotion that I truly don't deserve. I love you.


This Year's Love

This year's love had better last.
Heaven knows it's high time,
And I've been waiting on my own too long.
But when you hold me like you do,
It feels so right
I start to forget
How my heart gets torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Feeling like you can't go on.

~ This Year's Love (David Gray)
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=pcvz3kmI3_k

Twenty days.

That's how long it had been since I kissed Bella the first time.

I'd made it a point to kiss her every day since. Well, except for Christmas day, which she spent in Forks visiting her parents.

Christmas in Redmond never felt so lonely.

We talked on the phone, though, and I finally got to thank her father for teaching her that her eyes and hair weren't simply brown. In return, he thanked me for making his little girl smile again. I wasn't sure what the "again" was about, but I accepted his gratitude all the same.

New Year's Eve was always a big deal at my parents' house, and it seemed to be more so this year. My parents were nervous wrecks, fussing over every detail and fretting that Bella might not have a good time. They seemed to love her as much as I did.

Yep, I said it. Yep, I know it had only been twenty days.

But when you know, you know.

The last time New Year's Eve was this stressful was the one before I lost my sight. My family, knowing I'd likely have surgery early the next year, strove to make the night extra special just in case it was the last one I'd see. We watched Dick Clark count down the seconds until the ball dropped in Times Square, then we shot off fireworks once it tolled midnight in Seattle.

It was the second most wonderful night of my life. It was once the first...until the Christmas party and Bella.

I spent the day helping my mother ready the house for her guests, and, every few minutes, I opened the face of my watch to tactually check the time. I'd stopped pressing the button that announced the hours and minutes after my mother threatened to strangle me if she heard the robotic voice one more time. I was just anxious to deliver my kiss for the day and have Bella in my arms. When the doorbell chimed at 6 o'clock, I couldn't get to the door fast enough.

Yanking the door open, I noticed there were too many blurs for it just to be Bella. "Hello?"

"Well, hello there, little brother!" Jasper clapped his hand heavily on my shoulder.

A soft kiss fell on my cheek. "Happy New Year, Edward!" Alice had been trying to reign in the unannounced attacks, and I missed them.

"Hey, guys," I said, trying not to sound disappointed.

"And guess who we found wondering aimlessly in the front yard?" Jasper slapped my back as he and Alice walked past me into the house.

I realized there was one last blur remaining...a strawberry-and-honeysuckle-scented blur. I held out my hand, and, as she took it, her warmth infused me. I might meet a million women in my lifetime, but I was sure I'd always know her touch and the softness of her skin apart from them all. Her hand slowly brushed up my arm as she came closer, and we enveloped each other in a tight embrace.

"I'm ready for today's kiss," she whispered.

Me, too, baby. Me, too.

She pulled back, and we began our ritual. Feeling her breath on my face, I knew she had tilted her head up to me. I felt her nose, chilled from the cold December air, rub softly against mine. Home was just a few centimeters lower, and I dipped down, pressing my lips against hers. The fullness and comfort I found there always made me groan, no matter how many times I kissed her. Burying my fingers in her silky hair, I tilted her head, and she opened up to me. Our tongues met, the sweet taste of her overwhelming me as it always did.

Lost...I was always lost when we were like this, but I knew one family member or the other would soon invade our perfect cocoon. Plus, we would have time alone later.

I reluctantly broke our seal, kissing her once more on the forehead. "Are you ready to usher in a new year with my crazy family?"

"Definitely. Especially if you promise to kiss me like that at midnight." Her face, buried in the crook of my neck, was on fire, from her blush or her desire, I wasn't sure.

"Do I have to wait?" I placed one more gentle kiss on her hot cheek and turned, taking her hand and leading her into the house.

I instantly began counting the seconds until midnight.

~*~

I clicked my cane impatiently against the wood floor as I barreled down the hall, dragging Bella behind me.

Her feet shuffled rapidly, and she giggled. "Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere private...finally."

Dinner with my family was great. Cringing as they told embarrassing stories from my childhood was great. Gathering around the TV and listening to Ryan Seacrest count down the seconds until midnight in New York was great. But I was tired of great.

I was ready for wonderful.

"How do you keep from getting lost in this place?" She was breathless.

"Why?" I teased. "Because I'm blind?"

"No, because this place is freakin' huge."

We made the final turn, and I pointed toward the end of the hall. "That's where we're going."

When I reached the heavy wooden door, I swung it open, standing aside and motioning her ahead of me. She gasped, and I knew I was right to bring her here.

This room had been my sanctuary when I was sick and even more so during the dark months after I lost my sight. I wasn't always well-adjusted and accepting; I'd once been a dark terror who wanted to punish everyone for things they couldn't control or fix. It was in this room, when I was ten, that my parents sat me down and told me I had cancer. In this same room, a year later, they told me they loved me and that the pity party was over.

My mother hadn't changed the room much since then, and I could imagine what Bella saw. Dark wood paneling lined the far wall, while floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, loaded with tome after tome, made up the right and left walls. Directly in front of us was a plush leather sofa and, to the northwest of that, a baby grand piano stood.

As I followed her into the room, I felt the heat and heard the popping of a fire. I asked Jasper to build it, and, forever the loyal brother and wingman, he didn't let me down.

"It's beautiful!" Bella's voice was full of awe. She pulled me forward, wrapping her arms around my waist.

I kissed the top of her head, stealthily sniffing her hair. "I thought you might like it. It's my favorite room in the entire house."

Releasing me, she moved around the room, and I imagined her running her hand over the spines lining the shelves. "So many books," she whispered. Her footsteps stopped, and I was pretty sure I knew which shelf she was browsing. "Braille books. Wow, there's a lot of them."

"I loved to read as a kid." I walked to the familiar point in the room and held out my hand for hers. "I don't get much time to read anything except computer manuals now."

Taking my hand, she placed it on a book. "What's this?"

I ran my fingers lightly over the bumps. "That's Dune, and the next five are beside it."

"And this?" She lifted my hand and raised it to the shelf above.

"That is A Separate Peace. A pretty great book, if you ask me." I remembered reading it in my high school advanced English class and made a mental note to read it again soon.

"Will you read something to me?"

It only took a few seconds to know which book I'd pick. "Well, if this is A Separate Peace then..." I moved down two shelves and touched until I found it. "Exactly where it should be."

I pulled the book from the shelf and handed it to Bella. We made our way to the couch, hand in hand, and I sat first, folding my cane and dropping it to the floor. I patted the spot next to me and immediately felt the cushion shift as she sat down. I held out my hands and felt the weight of the book placed there.

Braille books are much larger than their traditional print counterparts, and, open, it covered my entire lap. Flipping through the pages, I finally found the passage I wanted to read. I placed the fingertips of both hands at the beginning of the first line. I had practically memorized the words when I first discovered them in college, but I enjoyed feeling the raised dots form letters and words and sentences against my skin.

Taking a deep breath, I began to read.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

With the last word still reverberating in my chest, I rested my hands, palms down, on the pages. I couldn't look at her. I knew if I did, she'd see how much I already loved her, and I had an irrational fear that, if she didn't feel the same, I'd somehow be able to see that when I could distinguish nothing else.

The book was slowly pulled from my lap, and its heft was replaced with the familiar weight of Bella straddling me. My hands wandered over her thighs and rested on her hips, urging her forward until our bodies pressed tight against each other. Her fingers laced through my hair and tilted my head.

The instant our lips touched, whatever patience we'd had dissipated. We became a tangle of limbs and tongues, tasting and touching in a desperate way new to us. The desire wasn't new; I felt it crackle like static between us every time we were in the same room. But the expression of it was different. She clung tightly to me, her soft body melding with mine. Her mouth moved along my jaw and down my neck, her warm lips parting against my skin and gently sucking my flesh. I just wanted her to consume me until there was nothing left. But first I needed to tell her...I had to let her know.

"Bella, I..."

My words were stopped by the gentle pressure of her fingers against my lips, and I felt her breath caress my ear. "I love you, Edward."

Twisting my hand in her hair, I tugged her face toward mine, swallowing her sighs as I kissed her again and again. "I love you, too," I whispered in the brief moments our lips weren't touching.

Going tense in my arms, she buried her face in the crook of my neck. "Feeling this way...it scares me. I've been so hurt before." Her voice was meek and far away.

"Never. I'll never hurt you. I promise." Cupping her cheek, I leaned down and met her lips with mine.

My kiss, meant to be soothing and reassuring, quickly transformed into a needy, intense claiming of each other. She felt and tasted so good, and I was quickly losing what little control I walked into this room with. Running my hand down her neck, I nudged her shirt down to reveal her shoulder, and my tongue quickly followed to lap against her salty skin.

Before I could register the creak of the door and the footsteps entering the room, my mother's voice sounded behind me. "Hey, guys, you're going to miss...oh!"

More footsteps, these rapid, followed her. "Esme!" Alice cried. "Geez, Edward, I'm so sorry. I tried to stop her."

"You know, if you'd just keep the 'rents in the loop and quit trying to keep everything on the down low, you'd still be getting busy right now," my mother said, laughing.

I let my head fall back on the couch. "Dear God, kill me now."

Bella's gentle kiss on my cheek and soft giggle in my ear made me smile. "Come on, handsome, we're busted."

I reluctantly released her, and she slid off my lap. Standing, I smoothed my clothes and found my cane, while my mother and Alice laughed their way down the hall.

"Really," my mother said, "it must be a Cullen tradition to seduce their women in that room."

Alice guiltily coughed in response.

My entire body shuddered, and I shook my head vigorously to rid myself of the mental images. "Yeah, I'm never coming in here again."

Bella threaded her fingers through mine and tugged me toward the door. "Like hell you aren't. We're not going against tradition." She kissed me hard and quickly, a brief promise of things to come. "Now come on, we don't want to miss the Cullen countdown to midnight."

As we left our sanctuary behind to join the others, I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her into my side. My Bella. And now I was her Edward. Someday, maybe soon, we'd start to make our own traditions. Together.


A/N: The poem Edward reads is by E. E. Cummings.

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/E_e_cummings