A/N - Here is chapter 2 in Edward's point of view. I would like to thank goldenmeadow for helping me throw this up last night and recommend that you all check out her amazing writing talent. She is an accomplished author of 6 stories here on FF and over on Twi. Dead Confederates and Comeuppance were reviewed and recommended by The Fictionators. These stories, along with Windows were nominated recently in the Indie Twific Awards. Her other stories, Rebelward without a Cause (outtakes and Eddie-isms from Dead Confederates), Cake, Woman King and Good & Plenty are fabulous one shots that ooze sexy times and witticisms sharper than Edward's pearly whites.

Chapter 2

EPOV

The sun was coming up and I was making my way back to the cabin after hunting when I caught her scent.

What is she doing way out here?

I froze. It's too close. She's too close. She will find me. SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO FIND ME!!!!! I can't have that. She can't know after so many years, that I've been camping out here on the sidelines of her life and watched as she collapsed in on herself.

I picked up my pace and followed her scent towards the cabin.

Oh god!

The cabin?!

How did she...?

I worried it was too close when I finally decided to settle there. I couldn't rely on my sister's visions to help me with any more decisions regarding Bella as Alice had long ago refused to help me, she believed me a stupid fool for leaving her in the first place. She has yet to forgive me. The very need to be near Bella burned away my better judgement. The time I was away from her was so painful... I could never have anticipated it, the only thing comparable to it was my conversion. However, this burning razed my heart to ashes every second I was away from her. The only thing that kept me away was the obligation that I had: to find and kill Victoria. To finish the nightmare James had started. We had learned from the Denali Coven that she had set her sights on Bella since I had killed her lover. Mate for mate. Laurent and Irina had fallen in love shortly after his arrival and he pledged his loyalty to her family. Victoria was unaware of the depths of his fealty when she asked of him a favor concerning Bella. I'm sure Victoria believed herself to be so cunning as to not come after me directly. She was unable to fathom she had only made me deadlier by going after my heart, my love. Bella was fused to my very soul, whether we were together or apart. The threat of losing her awakened that primal beast within me that would protect her with everything I had.

Emmett, Jasper and I caught up with her in Seattle; she was creating an army of newborns. The purpose of this was never discovered, it seemed overkill for just one accident prone, fragile human, but Jasper assured me I would never want to find out what that hellish army was capable of. We alerted the Volturi, anonymously, to her plans. We hid behind the scenes and watched the Volturi Guard dispatch of Victoria and her minions in eight minutes and forty-five seconds. It was swift, merciless and sickening to watch...but watched I did only to make sure it was done, and that Bella would be safe. Bella. My Bella. Always. Then I went back to her.

I could not stay away any longer.

The first time I saw her, my dead, unbeating heart was ripped right from my chest. I had been lying on my back on her rooftop, figuring out how to approach her finally, considering the delicacy of the situation and the pain I had left her in, I knew it was not going to be an easy reunion. I heard a vehicle pull in the driveway; I rolled over onto my stomach and watched this intrusion as it pulled into the drive. The car looked all too familiar.

Jacob Black.

A low growl resonated in my chest as I saw how close Bella was sitting next to him. Her head was leaning on his shoulder.

They kissed.

My world crashed in on itself. I leapt off the roof and ran into the woods at full speed. I wanted to gouge out my eyes. I wanted to howl. I wanted to run back and rip that dog to shreds for daring to touch her.

It was my fault and I accepted that, I left her.

She found the strength I knew she would have and she moved on. I had led him right to her. I might as well have covered her in dog kibble. What right did I have to her now that she seemed happy? What right did I have to her ever?

I was so selfish. I was so masochistic. I still loved her. I needed to be near her. If only from afar, then so be it. My cold hard existence was nothing without her.

I again had to remind myself...this was how I planned it to be for her. All I wanted for her was to live a normal, happy, human life, to marry and to have children. To grow old and enjoy the twilight of her years with someone who loved her. But hell! Jacob Black?! Oh...the irony.

That was never what I wanted. Werewolves, especially young ones, were dangerous..unpredictable. I had to make sure she was safe, even though it was sheer torture seeing her with him.

This was a different Bella than the one I had left. A darker, more dangerous spirit that seemed hell bent on testing her limits. She broke her promise to me to stay safe, so I broke the one I made to myself to stay away. I rationalized that if I could stay out of sight..that perhaps I could pull it off.

I watched them cliff dive at La Push beach. It took everything I had not to zip in before her toes left the ledge and run her to a safer location. I watched her open her fragile, lithe arms and plummet into the ocean. It was horrifying and beautiful all at the same time. My Bella, falling to the earth like the angel she is…I could even picture wings. When she finally emerged from the water unscathed and newly baptised within her bravery, I exhaled the breath I had been holding that my vampire body didn't actually require. She resurrected so much of the human in me.

I watched her drive that damn motorcycle all over hell's half acre. I cursed Jacob for ever indulging her in that foray into her "danger" fetish. The first day she wrecked the bike I nearly turned myself into a moving Disco ball to get to her to make sure she was okay, but Jacob was too close. Determined to ride that death trap, I was unable to leave her unchaperoned during her Easy Rider moments. I would fly through the tops of the trees along the highway to make sure she safely completed the ride between her house and La Push. The better she got at driving the old beast, the prouder I became of her. She was emerging into this powerful unending mystery of a woman. She still managed to surprise me...it's what I love most about her.

I watched her accept Jacob the Wolf with quiet determination; she got along very well with the Pack and was respected by the Elders of the tribe. She managed to convince them all that my family was never and will never be a threat to the Quileute Tribe and the residents of Forks. When asked if we would return, I watched my love firmly tell them "no". It cut me to the core. I could still see the pain in those beautiful brown eyes..it was the same pain I had placed there when I committed the ultimate blasphemy and told her I did not want her. As much as I wanted to believe she had moved on, I knew then that she was just as affected as I. My absence still caused her pain.

I marvelled in her ability to adapt to the supernatural, even though it made me jealous and heartsick to think I wasn't the only thing in her life that was considered "supernatural". I truly doubted my decision to leave her when she was with the Quileute Pack. She was destined to run with Legends.

She was destined to become one, had I let her love me. Had I never left.

I still wanted her to be mine.

I would have taken her the night before she married Jacob.

She was in her room. She was looking out her window through to the forest. She did this often. But this night, I knew what night it was, and the dreaded inevitability of it ripped my already tortured soul to shreds. It was her last night as a single woman. The last night she could unashamedly even consider the thoughts of a past lover. Despite the pain building in my selfish dead heart, I managed to drag myself to the fire so I could watch her. How I loved to watch her. When I finally saw her my breath caught and my pain momentarily vanished. She was a Goddess. She was wearing a white chiffon nightdress that looked like it was from the nineteen twenties. From the time I would have been her age. Her long brown hair was blowing in the breeze from the open window. She was leaning over the sill with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth. My preternatural ears could hear her softly humming my lullaby.

I died again. I closed my eyes and hummed it with her, keeping to the trees. I thought I was far enough away that she couldn't hear me.

I was wrong.

Her eyes snapped open and her mouth formed an "O".

She disappeared from the window and I could hear her bare feet slapping down the stairs; she ran out the back door and towards the woods.

Towards me.

I froze.

She padded across the forest floor. I watched her from the trees. I was as still as a stone gargoyle. Only my eyes moved. My nostrils flared. I inhaled her scent and swallowed the venom that filled my mouth.

I was on fire.

Her heart thrummed like a hummingbird in a shoe box. Her breath was ragged. She looked up; searching for me in the trees...she spun around in a circle and closed her eyes. I drew in another breath, feeling like a junkie looking at their last hit, wondering how to make it last. I inhaled deeply. My stomach muscles coiled as the monster and man within me simultaneously realized...

she..

was..

aroused.

My Bella had a fetish for danger, as she had no idea the ferocity of the starved beast she was summoning within me.

She stopped turning in a circle and her head cocked to the side to listen carefully for me, and then she drew in a steadying breath.

"Please Edward, don't hide from me. If you are here...." her voice rang out clear and strong. No sound to me had ever been more beautiful. Her voice had taken on a deeper timbre, she sounded more like the woman I knew she would become.

Agony. I was frozen in my perch. Enraptured. Terrified.

"....please...." she cooed.

Suffering. Sweet aching suffering at her pleas.

"Edward." she spoke firmly.

Ahhh. The tough little kitten has now become a lioness. My stomach coiled again and my sex stiffened. I was taken aback by the unholy urges this woman could evoke from me. She was driving me to the edge with her brazen move of calling me out.

I burned. I will burn for this woman for forever and a day...

I stayed in that tree, above her. Wishing, willing, praying she would give up and wander back. I could still see the house from where we were, I would keep her within sight until she made it back. Just... please, Bella please! I can't! I won't!!

She hung her head and dropped to her knees and wept. I was aching inside with the soft sobbing coming from her. I don't know where I acquired the strength to remain locked in my stony silence in the foliage above her. A few times the tree would creak and groan from the pressure I was exerting upon it by staying still, when all I wanted, needed was to go to her. Comfort her. Hold her.

Oh god, to feel her again.

She lay down in the moss... as soon as she was asleep I descended upon her and picked her up. I burned like a comet streaking across the sky, holding her in my arms and rushing her to the safety and warmth of her room.

Her room.

It was steeped in her scent. Her essence. It was almost too much to bear in such close confines after being away for almost 2 years.

I laid her in the bed and covered her up. I trembled and fought with myself all the way to her window to not rush back over and pluck her from her bed, her life, possibly her existence, and run with her back into the forest, over the hills and far away.

It took all of eight seconds to get her from the forest to her bed. Five for me to get from her bed back out her window again.

Thirteen seconds that changed our fate, again, as lovers. Another decision made solely by me.

I'm such a selfish stubborn bastard. I don't deserve her. I'm a monster. She still loved me. Would have done anything for me. Making herself vulnerable and alone in the forest searching for me, after leaving her. Breaking her heart.

And now, after only 7 years of marriage to Jacob Black, Bella had become a shadow of her former self. A mother to a perpetual child that still demanded she be its lover too. I always knew that insolent pup would know nothing nor bother to learn anything of how to please her, care for her, provide for her, love her. I could not watch her during these times. It was safer that way. I would have killed him had I been witness to his half assed efforts in keeping her happy.

I was a fool. I watched my Bella become a crumbling beauty. After Charlie died, it all went downhill from there. That's when I made the decision to "settle in" and to watch over her. I truly feared for her sanity.

I discovered a cabin about ten miles into the surrounding acreage that Charlie owned. I do not think even he knew of this cabin. It had not been inhabited since the early nineteen hundreds. It was perfect for me. It was close enough to her. I needed no comforts. No bed. Just a chair, a place to put some books, music, my sketches of her. My walls were full of my devoted worship of her evolving beauty. My vampiric mind calculated every inch of her in charcoals and watercolors and oils. It was my shrine to her.

Which brings me to...

How the hell did she become laid out flat in my doorway?