Author's Note: Thanks to domfangirl for the beta. If you want to read Ch. 4 as well, it's posted at my LJ (). I always post a chapter ahead there. You'll need to introduce yourself and friend me to read. Thanks for your reviews and encouragement!

Chapter 3

It's a good thing that breathing is optional, because Edward realizes now that he had been wholly unprepared for this first (albeit second-hand) glimpse of Bella. He wants to cry out, but he doesn't. Instead, he clamps his jaw closed tightly, one fist pressed hard to his mouth. Anyone else would have tasted the tang of blood. He wants to weep, but he can't. He settles for silently shaking; the leaves on the branches above him quiver and fall in a silent shower.

In the hallway--and in his mind's eye--Bella is still blushing, and in his thoughts, Mike is noticing. "You're in a good mood today," he ventures, his tone oddly buoyed. To Edward's convenience, he mentally he rounds out this analysis. She's like, almost 90% here today. He and Edward both watch as she trips over her feet as she resumes walking. Or at least 80%.

If Edward hadn't known better, he'd say Mike sounds surprised. Why? Is a good mood an anomaly for Bella these days? He can't decide whether that possibility lifts or deflates his own disposition, and immediately hates himself for it.

Mike hastens to keep up, and he and Bella walk in stride for the length of the hallway. From the unpleasant vantage of Mike's point of view, Edward takes in everything he's been missing for the past interminable months…the tone of her skin--ivory over pale pink--the warmth of her eyes, the hesitant curve of her lips in a smile. He's never been so grateful for the way the Newton kid looks at her like…well, like she's something to eat, actually.

Unbidden, his mouth waters.

And his throat tightens with a phantom sob. It occurs to him suddenly why this simple exchange has been so hard to watch: Bella's human. And she's acting every bit as human as Edward had told her she would. Adapting. Healing.

Forgetting.

While all the while, he'd been able to do little more than curl up in a ball.

He'd never known self-fulfilling prophecies could feel so cruel.

*****

The day is just as long as she had anticipated it would be, just as long as every day before it had been, but it's ok now, because she has something at the end of it that she can grasp onto like the lifeline it is. He'll be there, after the last bell. He'll be out front of her house, waiting.

He doesn't let her down. (Does he ever?)

When she emerges from gym class to more unseasonable sunlight, she crosses the parking lot to her truck at a speed walk. Five minutes later, she's pulling into her driveway, and he's grinning at her before she can even cut the engine, the red bike idling underneath him.

"Hey."

"Heeeey, Bells." He draws out the greeting in one long note, his deep voice channeling the hum of the bike. Grabbing her backpack and locking her truck, she climbs on behind him. He's grown too tall for her to rest her chin on his shoulder like she once did, so she settles for wrapping her arms around his waist. Her thighs grip the metal of the bike, and then they're in motion, the tires skidding slightly over the perpetually wet asphalt.

*****

Something's wrong.

He's missed something while killing time in the shaded outskirts of the school grounds. He'd had a plan, which was, in a nutshell, to keep his distance…for now. Said plan was clearly backfiring now. He'd afforded her a decent head start--too decent, it turns out--to get out of class, get to her truck, and drive home. The only trouble is…she's not here.

Her truck is, but he's been staring at her bedroom window from the edge of the forest for half an hour now, and no doubt about it: no one is home. No Bella…and no way to track her.

He's having Port Angeles flashbacks.

Perhaps he missed something at school…a conversation, a clue. Perhaps she's at Angela's or Jessica's, though the latter seems unlikely, considering how harsh Jessica's thoughts had been toward Bella throughout the day. His jaw clenches.

He could make the rounds by foot, listening in at various houses until he's found her--he's been avoiding any other means of transportation; the last thing he needs is for someone to spot his Volvo in Forks and start gossiping--but in light of his other, easier, option, it seems tedious. He dials Alice's number.

"Ok," he tells her when she picks up before the first ring has sounded. "I give in."

Her delighted voice trills in his ear. "I can visit?"

"No, you can track. Specifically, you can tell me where she is right now...or five seconds from now, or whatever works for you."

There's a long pause. "You've already lost her?"

"I never had--never mind. Where is she?"

Another pause. Edward hears his own teeth grind together as he prompts her again in a low growl. "Al-ice?"

When Alice finally answers, her voice is soft. Strangely hollow. "I…don't know."

She sounds as confused as he feels. "How can you not--"

"I don't know!" she repeats, her voice losing its melodic chime in her distress. "It's like I said before: every so often--well, quite often--she just disappears, like she's fallen off a page or…dropped off my radar."

A sense of dread--old and familiar--rises in his gut and turns his stomach. Superhuman strength and speed, the most perfect predator on earth, and it's not enough--has never been enough--to keep her safe. And safe from what? Herself? Not last time…and certainly not this time.

His own long-ago observation echoes in his mind. A magnet for danger, remember?

"Edward, she'll be back."

He can hear the now false cheer in his sister's tone, and wants none of it. He issues his next words in sharp, staccato bites. "But the question is Alice, where is she while she's gone?"

*****

The bikes thunder down the highway neck-and-neck; out of the corner of her eye, Bella can see the blue of the Pacific on one side and the gleam of Jake's left-side cylinder on the other. Generally though, she's learned to keep her eyes on the road.

And her mind attuned to the ever-appealing auditory illusions.

What is it exactly, Bella, that you think you're trying to prove with this stunt? Pushing 45 on a hairpin turn? Slow. Down.

She beams.

Riding together today had been her idea. After returning to Billy's garage for Bella's bike and two pairs of gloves (it's freezing adjacent to the ocean at this time of year, or really, any time of year on the Olympic Peninsula) they'd driven through the La Push town limits at a crawl then let loose. First Beach had passed in a blur, and now, at least ten miles later, Bella's eyes are watering severely enough to impede her steering ability, upping the danger quotient a bit more than even she would like.

She signals Jake to pull over at the next turn-out, and his brake lights flash in the muted light of the late afternoon. She slows as well, then pulls up behind him at a scenic vista overlooking the ocean. Jake flips his kickstand, and then hers, and sits down at the very edge of the turn-out. His long legs swing over the cliff side.

Bella joins him, albeit a bit more carefully.

She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging herself. She almost asks Jake if he's cold, then thinks better of it. Even so, his sweatshirt is off his torso and slipped over her own head before she can blink.

"Better?"

She smiles.

"So." Jake idly tugs a narrow shoot of grass out of the earth and bends it around one finger. "Spring Break coming up. Are you going to see your mom or anything?"

She frowns. "I hadn't really thought about it."

"Yeah, I guess the last time you were there things didn't go so well." He looks pointedly at her leg.

Bella stares out at the ocean. The wind is picking up; she can see the foamy specks of white caps forming. Jake looks up from the grass to her face, and they speak simultaneously. "I know you don't like to talk about it--"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Jacob looks as though he's considering disregarding this fact, then thinks better of it; his intake of breath cuts off abruptly then morphs into a sigh. "Yeah, ok."

Almost immediately though, he inhales bracingly again. "But you know things are different now, right?" One big hand covers hers. She instantly stills as the heat of it penetrates her jeans to warm her knee and thigh. "You don't have to go anywhere on your break; in fact, I'd love it if you stayed right here…always. You know that, right?"

She closes her eyes, but not to shut out the dizzying drop to the water below.

This--this Jacob--is danger of the greatest kind. She wonders where her protective angel has retreated to in her true hour of need.

"You don't have to be hurt like that ever again, Bella."

She nods slowly, because essentially, he's right: her happiness is in his hands…in his ability to be the antidote to her despair. And dependent upon her ability to block out all the rest.

But what he doesn't understand--what he can never understand--is that her feelings for Edward, present or not, are bigger than both of them. Bigger, it seems to Bella, than the entire ocean before them.

Which, miserably, leaves her unable to do anything but tread water.

*****

Edward stands in the Swan driveway and waits. He's tempted to shimmy up the outside wall to her window and wait in the comfort of her room, but he can't bring himself to breach his self-imposed boundaries quite that blatantly.

Surely she'll be home before Charlie, home in time to start dinner and complete her homework. Surely there will be an explanation to all of this. And if not? If she's somehow found her way toward some and unforeseeable danger?

Well then the upshot is that he's found his excuse to stay. He's found his reason to turn her life upside down once more.

She needs him. And God knows he needs her, and so he's decided: when she gets back from wherever she's been, he'll be the first thing she sees.