This is the fourth chapter. I noticed a few typos in the first few chapters and will try to do better in the future. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Once again, all glory goes to Stephenie Meyer. We're just happy to borrow her creations for a little while.

Vows

"Writing my own vows was never a part of the arrangement, Alice," Bella snapped at the angelic face settled on her side on the sofa. She scrunched up her face in an effort to appear menacing and furious and hurled a crinkled ball of loose leaf notebook paper across the room to join others of its kind.

"Why would you not want to write your own vows?" she questioned. "If you use the standard recitation then you're just that – standard."

"I don't want to get married at all," she shot back. "If I had had my way, I would have been changed weeks ago. Instead I'm sitting here drafting out vows to marry someone I've already pledged eternity to. Why can't we use the traditional vows tomorrow?"

"Edward wants this to be special, Bella," Alice intoned quietly. "He's afraid that if he gives in you'll look back fifty years from now and wish you'd done it different."

"Still – "

"Do it for Edward."

"Don't pull the Edward card on me, Alice Cullen, you've done it everyday since he proposed."

"And it's worked beautifully everyday since he proposed," she laughed and rolled onto her back to stare up at the ceiling.

"I can't do this," Bella ranted and sent her pen flying across the room. It collided with the wall and fell to the ground with a click. There was a faint ink spot on the wall.

"Just pretend you're talking to him. In the actual ceremony, you will be. When you write them pretend that you are gazing into his eyes and that this is your one chance to level the playing field and profess in front of everyone that you love him as much as you say you do."

"That was almost poetic, Alice. I'm impressed."

"Just write the vows."

There was silence in the room, save for the sarcastic edge of a new felt tip pen scratching across a piece of paper.

"Edward – "

" – my love, there is nothing in this world that I love more than hearing your beautiful laughter or seeing your face light up with a smile. You say that I dazzle you but no, Bella, you dazzle me. I – "

Edward glanced down at the stack of stapled papers in his arms. He sighed and slumped onto the leather couch in his room. He focused in on something in front of him.

"You don't think that was a little too obsessing, do you?"

Silence.

"Yeah, I thought so too."

"Well it's nice to know that the mannequin I had Alice steal from the mall in Port Angeles went to good use," Rosalie laughed as she entered the room. "Writing your vows, I assume."

"I've known what I wanted to say to her since the day I decided I was going to propose but now that it's come to writing them, I'm at a loss."

"It doesn't seem like you're at a loss to me," she teased motioning to papers in his hand. Before he could register what she was doing, she had them clutched in her own white fingers. "Eleven pages, front and back, typed in pt 11 font and practically no margins."

He grumbled under his breath. She handed the pages back to me and stood up. "I'll send Esme in here. You need help."

"Thanks a lot, Rose." His words dripped with sarcasm.

"Do you think I can go back through and make the contractions two words? That'll make it longer."

Alice groaned in frustration. They had moved to the kitchen table for better lighting. "Is that all Edward is worth to you?"

"Look Alice, Edward means everything in the world to me. I don't see why I'm trying to write vows when there are no words that can express how I feel. Emotions can't be put on paper," Bella fumed.

Alice was smiling. "That's what you should write down."

"Huh?"

"Write that there are no words. Express yourself that way."

"Isn't that cliché?"

"Nothing about the two of you is cliché, that's the problem. You two have wandered about as far into uncharted territory as is possible. That's why no one knows what they're doing anymore."

"What if I lapsed into Spanish? Would that be better? We could do the traditional vows in another language. That's it! It's standard and unique at the same time."

"Bella," Alice moaned.

"Edward, I think you should cut out the French poem," Esme noted. She fell onto her back, propping her head on the armrest. His papers were in one hand and there was a red ink-pen in the other. "And page nine. It disrupts the flow you created on page eight."

"All of page nine?"

"All of it," she agreed. "I think most of twelve and thirteen are going to have to go too."

"But twelve and thirteen are where I describe how our relationship has conquered all of its challenges," he protested.

Esme sat up and put the papers and the pen on the table in front of her. Edward sat at the piano, playing Mozart mindlessly, while staring at the wall in deep thought.

"Every page is important to you, dear," she acknowledged, "because you love her. But vows are a promise that you announce before other people. It is not necessary that they know the hows and whys – only that you love her and swear to love her forever. Whatever is important on these papers, make them each one small thought. Everyone who really matters knows what lies between the lines."

"I guess you're right," he admitted. She stood up and came over to where he sat. She patted him on the shoulder before exiting the room.

"I have to get things ready for tomorrow," he heard her say. He closed his eyes. Tomorrow…Tomorrow was the day he had been looking forward to for so long. It was the day that every confession that had ever passed between them would solidify into a promise that would withstand anything the future thought to throw at them.

Hope you enjoyed it... next chapter "Almost"

QUOTE FROM ALMOST:

"Don't look so betrayed, Bella."