Bella spent the remaining days before classes wandering the streets of downtown Seattle, a mouse in a glittering, shifting maze. She found several grocery stores that, although small, carried many of her favorite cooking ingredients. She made a circuit of the Space Needle, craning up at it dizzily as she went. She stood carefully back from the curb when waiting to cross the industrious streets.

After the incident at the library, she'd planned to cocoon herself in her small apartment all day and read the books she'd checked out, to fill her thoughts with the stories of others' lives. But something compelled her each morning to get up, take a shower, and garb herself against the chill that was beginning to steal over the city like creeping mist.

She told herself that she was going out because she needed to get to know the city's pulse, its pattern, its people. She told herself that she would be caged inside the austere buildings of the UW campus once school started, so she should take advantage of the crisp, chill air while she could.

But all the while, Bella knew that her aimless wandering wasn't aimless at all. She was hoping to find something. Or, rather, someone. She waited on their street corner at various times during the day and watched the bus, that same bus, with lingering trepidation as it rumbled down the same street. She watched as the bus passed again and again, unchallenged.

As she walked the increasingly familiar streets, she felt the ear-tingling, flesh-scalded feeling of being watched. She glanced surreptitiously into the faces of young art students in retro clothes as she passed groups of them, lounging and smoking.

But all her searching was to no avail; Bella did not find Edward.

He found her.

Her first week at the University of Washington, Bella felt like she was trying to board a train moving at top speed, clawing and scrabbling her way to keep up with the pace of the research study for which she'd been hired.

The professor under whom she would be working, Dr. Jenks, was the head of the UW psychology program. As such, he was apparently very busy. Before the semester had started, her correspondence with him consisted of a single, cryptic e-mail about the fact that he had a hectic schedule planned for them the first week of the semester.

Monday morning, she sat in a large, neat office with a lake view and watched a white-haired man with thick glasses digging through various filing cabinets and drawers as he gave her a five-minute overview of his life's work and how he expected her to help.

She listened to him talk until it became increasingly clear that she was in the wrong place.

"I'm sorry," she ventured when he paused for air, "but I think there's been some mistake."

Dr. Jenks inclined his head and looked at her for the first time over his glasses. "What do you mean?"

Bella nearly wilted under the intensity of his coke bottle gaze, but she pressed on. "I'm sorry, sir," she repeated firmly. "But I don't think I have the level of experience required for this position. Surely you received applications from other, more qualified candidates."

Dr. Jenks cocked his head at her slightly for a long moment and then said abruptly, "You took a class under a Dr. Ezekiel Martin."

Bella nodded hesitantly at the non sequitur, unsure why Dr. Jenks would have remembered that name on her transcript. One of her senior-level psychology courses had been under Dr. Martin.

"Dr. Martin was my mentor. He taught me everything I know. And he spoke very highly of you."

Bella was floored that the grizzled old professor who had not so much as looked at her while he handed back her liberally inked papers had remembered her name, much less repeated it to one of the premier research psychologists in the nation.

Reading her expression, Dr. Jenks said, "You received an A in his class, correct?"

Again, all Bella could do was nod. Nothing she'd done in the class had seemed good enough, and it had been the only class in which she'd been in danger of getting a B. She'd had to work her tail off to scrape by with a low A.

"Dr. Martin doesn't give A's," he said, cocking his head at her slightly as if inspecting a complicated crossword puzzle. "Hell, he didn't even give me an A the first class I took with him. Apparently, in your case, he made an exception."

He studied her for another moment and then waved a dismissive hand. "Besides, I can't tell you how many applications I sifted through from pompous academics patting themselves on the back for even the most lackluster achievements. In my book, if you don't think you're the right person for this job, you're exactly the right person for this job."

Bella spent the rest of the week proving to Dr. Jenks that his trust in her would not be unfounded. She did everything he asked, and then some. The work hours were much longer than she was used to, certainly much more time required than when she'd been a mere undergrad at a community college in the middle of nowhere. The one benefit of such a hectic week—she didn't have much time to think or to sit and stare at her apartment walls. She could almost forget about the owner of a misplaced Velcro wallet.

It helped that the research project she was involved in was absolutely fascinating. Dr. Jenks had received a large grant to conduct the first human trials of an experimental new drug that was showing promising results on increasing the mental capacity of animals. Every spare minute she had was taken up with assembling test materials for Dr. Jenks or screening applicants for Dr. Jenks or sitting with Dr. Jenks as he interviewed candidates.

Late on Friday, they stood and stretched while waiting for the final scheduled candidate of the day to be sent in to Dr. Jenks' office. Bella rolled her aching spine like a cat and watched as the professor's frustration seeped out in his tight movements, his increasingly terse comments. He had started hunting for promising test subjects at the start of the summer and had reviewed nearly 5,000 applications. The posted fliers and radio spots were kept purposefully vague, so as not to unintentionally limit the cross-section of candidates.

Now, he was behind schedule, burning through the grant money like it was dry kindling. In the past week alone, Bella had helped him sift through nearly 500 applications and had sat in on 30 in-person interviews. None of the candidates was "the one." Many of the people who had responded to the study were either homeless or were college students looking to make a quick buck. Some had deep-seated emotional imbalances that would require more extensive treatment than Dr. Jenks and his team could give. Others were physically handicapped, a fact that would unnecessarily complicate the treatment.

While Dr. Jenks had earmarked some of these people for the control group that would be given the placebo, he still needed the primary candidate. The current most viable candidate was a young woman named Mary who was a patient at the El Rey mental facility. Bella hadn't met her yet; she'd just heard Dr. Jenks mention her as the planned back-up candidate, the long-shot with an unusual psychological disorder that might benefit from the treatment. She and the eventual primary candidate would be the only two to receive the actual treatment rather than the placebo.

Dr. Jenks removed his thick glasses and palmed the back of his neck with a sigh. She was sure that, like her, he was wishing that the long week would end and they could both go home to their well-deserved weekend.

When someone stepped into the door frame, Bella looked up, preparing to welcome the five thousandth candidate as graciously as she had all the others, despite her emotional exhaustion.

Instead, her mouth opened soundlessly, and the blood in her veins turned to pinpricks of ice.

It was Edward.

…

…

…

The Edward.

…

…

…

Edward, who had dropped a cheesy Velcro wallet that was inexplicably empty. Edward, who had saved her life and then bolted like his hair was on fire. Edward, whose wraith's face and depthless eyes had been persistently absent from her dreams.

Edward was now hesitating at the door to Dr. Jenks' office like a shy toddler afraid to leave the safety of his mother's legs.

"Come in…" Dr. Jenks paused to look down at his paperwork for the name. She'd noticed that he couldn't see very well without his glasses.

"Edward," Bella whispered.

The green eyes flicked to hers once, confirming that she did, indeed, have his correct name. But his eyes did not soften with recognition; he gave no sign that he had ever seen her before, much less that he had saved her from being pancaked by a bus.

He didn't remember her.

She had spent every hour of every day since the almost-accident—both waking and sleeping— wondering who he was, what those brilliant eyes were seeing, what those lips were saying, what emotion tinged his cheeks.

And yet her face had fled from his mind like dandelion fronds on the wind.

"Come in, Edward," Dr. Jenks said in a soothing tone, beckoning. "Please sit down. This is Bella Swan, my assistant."

Bella choked out a poor excuse for a greeting and promptly dropped the stack of files she was holding. They flew out of her hands like a taut pack of cards released into the air, spreading chaos over Dr. Jenks' artfully organized mahogany work space.

While she scrambled to stack the test materials back into the requisite neat piles, Bella was hyperaware of Edward's every movement as he sat himself stiffly on the edge of the visitor's chair, as if his flesh rippled and bent the air toward her. Although one of the folders had fluttered to land near his pair of well-worn Chucks, he made no move to pick it up. Instead, he sat still, his gaze darting fitfully between the odd knick-knacks that Dr. Jenks, being the accomplished psychologist that he was, displayed as conversation-starters.

As Bella collected the final errant folder near Edward's chair, he raised a tentative hand to one of the items on the desk in front of him—a silver humanoid that was swaying in a cradle under the influence of two magnets.

"May I have a look?" he asked. His voice cracked, as if rough with disuse.

Dr. Jenks smiled and nodded. When Edward touched the humanoid with a single finger, it stopped swaying, and he frowned and removed his hand as if he'd been burned.

Having cleaned up the mess she'd made, Bella retreated to her customary spot in the corner of the room, behind Edward, while Dr. Jenks gave his little song and dance about what they would be doing today. Bella could probably have lip-synched to it by now she had heard it so many times. Edward remained impassive and silent. As with many of their other respondents, she suspected that many of Dr. Jenks' big words were like paper airplanes whizzing above Edward's head.

Bella tuned Dr. Jenks out until his voice was a faint drone and studied Edward's profile for the first time. She remembered his face as though she'd seen it through water rippling soundlessly in the dark. This living, breathing likeness, with its sharp planes and vivid color was so much more than a memory.

And yet somehow less.

In her memory, in her dreams, his face was alive, his eyes sad yet knowing, responding to her voice, her gestures with a quirk of his lip or brow. But this face before her now, while startling in its odd beauty, was impassive and dull, a rock not yet polished to its potential luster.

Bella found herself hoping against hope that Edward was yet another bored college student looking to score some quick cash that research studies often afforded. He certainly looked the part, with his retro long hair scraggling down past his ears and neck and pre-owned clothes that had probably come from the nearest Goodwill.

He didn't look like someone with an IQ of 70 or below.

But looks can be deceiving.

As Dr. Jenks put Edward through the tests, her stomach retracted into an increasingly smaller lump. From the moment Edward received the first Rorschach card, it was clear that his mind was anything but normal. A normal human would have asked a few clarifying questions and then breezed through the cards with answers like "animal" and "bear" and "two people."

Instead, Edward stared down at a bat-shaped ink blot like it was a complicated Calculus problem, his face blank except for a slight furrow between his dark brows.

"Tell me what you see, Edward."

Dr. Jenks pulled monosyllabic answers out of him one at a time, like thorns from a dog's paw. Bella watched Dr. Jenks put on his glasses and lean forward in his chair, the pace of his notes increasing like a steam engine. But her own pencil hovered uselessly above her page after writing down the only two words that Edward said. "Paint" was his number one response, although he alternated with "blood" for any of the cards with red blotches. As the tests continued, Bella's unofficial estimate of Edward's IQ fell like a thermometer's temperature in a cold front.

Bella knew from her earliest psychology classes that the average person has an IQ of 85-114. For the purposes of his study, Dr. Jenks was looking for someone with an IQ of 70 or below, someone who was medically considered to be mentally retarded. Someone whose brain worked so slowly that it would be all the more impressive when it kicked into overdrive.

Part of Bella hoped that Edward would qualify for the study, that he would at last have a chance at a normal life. The other part of her ached for the sad, lonely little boy living in a grown man's body. She fervently wished that her assessment of him had been flawed, that he was merely quiet and slow but was more capable than anyone suspected. That he could be taught. That he could, in fact, learn.

She was wrong.

Dr. Jenks passed her a paper with his final assessment.

Sixty-eight.

He estimated Edward's IQ at sixty-eight.

After finishing a final test, Dr. Jenks fairly shooed Edward out of the office with a promise to call him on Monday, the first such promise that Bella had heard him make.

"He's perfect," Dr. Jenks beamed. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Bella agreed, but only because by "perfect" Dr. Jenks meant "less than whole."

"I'll take these up for final scoring," she said, slipping through the door with Edward's test materials and hurrying in the direction that he had gone.

She saw him down the sterile hallway, recognizing the hunch of his shoulders, fists balled in his pockets, even the ratty brown jacket. She was watching him walk away from her again, but this time, she was going to stop him.

"Edward, wait!" she called out to his retreating back. After a beat, his strides dwindled, and he shuffled his body in her direction, looking askance at her chin through his unruly hair as if to verify that he was, indeed, the Edward she meant.

"I think this belongs to you," Bella said, holding out his wallet in the center of her palm like it was a sugar cube.

She'd been carrying it with her, the only tangible reminder of her guardian angel.

He stared down at it for a second as though she were offering him something as odd as a frog to kiss. Jerking his head once to scatter the tangled hair from his face, he at last reached for the wallet, and it disappeared into the folds of his oversized coat.

For a moment, his shoulders tensed as if he were preparing for his rote, marching exit.

Instead, he smiled—really smiled.

And Bella was taken back to that epic moment of her childhood when she was five years old and first saw the Wizard of Oz burst into Technicolor. Edward smiling was like the first glimmerings of a multi-hued rainbow after a storm. Edward smiling was like the sun fracturing across the surface of a diamond.

Edward smiling was her favorite.

But while it was the best of smiles, it was also the worst of smiles. The best—because his face when he smiled transformed from dull granite to polished bronze, all sun and grass and gleaming marble. The worst—because his eyes, while verdant, were like bay windows thrown open in welcome on a house that had been abandoned for years.

Edward smiling was day and night, sun and moon, abundance and destitution. Then his smile dimmed, and she was left with stars in her eyes, the residual of a camera's flash.

"Miss Bella," he said, shaping the words softly and carefully, like he was fondling a downy baby bird. "I didn't do so good, did I?"

His soft voice mesmerized her, until she realized what he was saying.

"You did great, Edward. Just perfect," she said sadly.

He smiled a small smile and inclined his head formally, and although she knew that he did so because he didn't know better, in that moment, she could pretend that he was a gentleman of a bygone era.

Then he was gone, and Bella was left trembling in his wake.

Her Good Samaritan was not a Good Samaritan at all. He remembered her name, but he didn't remember saving her life. He'd saved her life, but he hadn't really known what he was doing. She was standing here only by the grace of God.

The thought nearly brought her to her knees.

Bella had found her savior at last, yet he remained lost to her forever.

Author's notes: Now is the point that you need to be aware of one little detail that I did not include in my story summary due to space constraints. This story is a mélange of three concepts: (1) Twilight, (2) the independent film How to Be, in which a pre-Twilight Robert Pattinson plays a rather odd and useless—yet somehow still lovable—character named Art, and (3) a published short story and longer novel that shall remain nameless. For now.

Two points and a lifetime of Edward smiles to the person who can correctly name the short story/novel given the plot so far. And if you beta'ed this through PTB, you don't get to play. :)

The title of this chapter is an oblique reference to the fact that Catherine Hardwicke looked at approximately 5,000 candidates before choosing Robert Pattinson to play Edward. I thought it would be appropriate for Edward to be the five thousandth candidate for this research study as well. Nice little tie to real life. :)

Also, I've created a promo video for this fanfic. The link is in my profile.