A/N - I'm throwing these up here fast as they are short chapters and I'm very excited to bring you along to Chapter 6 quickly. Time for another reccomendation as well!

Bad Habit is AmeryMarie's first fanfiction, but you would never know it. Her writing is lush in it's imagery, rampant with sexual tension and her Bella is extremely sharp witted. It's an AU Human fic that was recently reviewed and recommended by The Fictionators and nominated for an Indie Twific award. It can be found here on FF or on that other site, which interestingly enough, won't show up here if I name it, which kinda makes me want to put a tinfoil hat on in regards to posting here.

Please review! I'm an absolute whore to know what you think.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BPOV

I was reeling. Incredulous this was happening. Was this really happening? The morning after Jake leaves me, I wander into the woods like a melodramatic fool and I find the one thing I was subconsciously looking for? Unreal! I was stunned. I was near to passing out again.

Confusion at how I got here, smelling that smell so strongly again now, looking at the sublime tortuous specimen that was my vampire ex boyfriend, I was flooded with emotions... confusion, heartbreak, anger. Definitely anger. Just how long has he been within my reach?

Reality check Bella! Like he would want me. If he was within my reach, but hadn't reached out to me yet...then,yep, I'm a hopeless case. Perhaps I'm just a distraction. Hasn't he hurt me enough? I'm barely hanging on here.

I finally gathered the courage to speak. He would stay as still as fetid air and not utter a word unless I did first. He was probably too worried about freaking me out more then I already was and trying to give me a "human moment." How very Edward.

Fuck the human moment. There have been too many human moments over the years that have bled away between us. Time to staunch the flow.

I let him have it. He got all cryptic and cool with me of course. How aggravating and expected, until he mentioned the part about me dying..which I was, "slowly from the inside". Yes. So slow, I barely noticed how far down the rabbit hole I've fallen.. a long drawn out soul sucking death. I caved in. I let him know just how raw I was from being left. Again.

He actually had the gall to tell me he left because he cared so much about me, that he wasn't good enough for me. That he was wrong.

Damn right he was wrong.

I needed him so many times over the years..especially when Charlie died. I lost Charlie within 2 years of losing Edward. It was too soon. Much , much too soon to lose such significant men in my life.

I needed him heart ,body and soul the night before I was to marry Jacob.

I had been consumed with thoughts of him since I agreed to marry Jacob. We had a very short engagement. Three weeks. Jacob was anxious to seal the deal as I wanted to remain a virgin until we were married. I put on the negligee I had bought for mine and Jacob's honeymoon..I didn't buy it for Jacob. I bought it with Edward in mind. I knew he would love it. It was simple and sweet, but womanly. I was to fully become a woman tomorrow night, to a man that I had settled for. I should have backed out of the wedding. The guilt of not loving him as much as he professed to love me had pushed me into the depths of apathy. So, I did nothing.

I leaned out into the night..thinking of Juliet looking for her Romeo. I couldn't resist. I was overcome with foolishness and dramatic nostalgia, for after tonight, I had to put away the ghostly fantasies I still clung to that my true lover would return. I don't know just how caught up in the fantasy I was, because, I swore I heard him that night. Humming my lullaby with me. It seemed like a dream, did I float downstairs? What was that sound I followed? A soft rustling in the trees...

I called for him. I called him out like a lone witch summoning her devil in the dead of night. I fantasized I was calling on the monster, not the man. The man was a coward hiding behind his "gentlemanly" strait jacket of morality and martyrdom. The monster knew what he wanted. Was it not he that found me in the first place? I lured the monster with my blood before I ever was given a glimpse of the man.

Take me, take me, take me

I'm yours!

Devour me

Swallow me whole.

Just take me away.

I waited.

Nothing came. The trees groaned and creaked with the wind.

Devils begone.

I began to cry. I wept myself to sleep in the soft moss. What had become of my sanity? I was a lost soul obsessed with a being that should not even exist! He would never return, I was fooling myself. I was not wanted.

I woke up the next morning in my bed..confused to how and when I had wandered back from the forest. My feet were still covered in the dirty, soft moss, my clothes still covered in dew. I awoke on my wedding day to Jacob still stained with the residue of dreams of my former lover. I awoke to the realization that I was a woman on the brink of insanity. The very insinuation of him in my mind had driven me to sleepwalking, carried away with deadly fantasies into the woods in the thick of night.

Now, I realized with a sickening turn in my gut, he was there that night. I know he was. Charlie died AFTER the honeymoon. This was the night before. He said he stayed after Charlie died.

He had heard me call for him.

He didn't answer me then.

And he's not answering me now.

" Well, it's quite obvious Edward,since you are holed up out here like some squatting, preternatural troll spying on me, that you knew I needed you when Charlie died. You knew I needed you before Jacob married me."

"Do you still need me now Bella?" he said evenly.

I felt a glimmer of hope amongst the ruins of my anger. Why did his inflection always have to be so flat? Of course I needed him! He has watched what I've become. A shadow of a nightmare.

"I'm fine." He hated that word and chose it deliberately. I caught his lightening fast wince, then his face smoothed over again. I couldn't help myself..I wanted to see pain on that perfect face. I hated myself for it. What had I become?

In a blink he moved within inches of my face. There it was. The pain I ached to squeeze from him, tossing about in the golden depths of his eyes. I felt relief ,then great sorrow for what I saw there.

" I don't think you are." he said softly, choked with emotion; "But, maybe now, since I've been discovered, we can turn this around and you can finally know I'm here if you need me. I'll always be here for you Bella, I'm sorry, so sorry I ever left you, I will never, never leave again.,,unless you want me to, do you want me to?"

EPOV

She looked down at the ground, biting her bottom lip. Tears shimmered again in those dark, haunted eyes. She swallowed hard sighing with resignation. Looking me at me but through me, her gaze was far away, void of emotion. I was losing her. Perhaps I already had.

" I want to go home. Take me home Edward. I don't even know how I got here. This has all been too much. My heart is tired. So tired."

Anything for her. Of course. It's been too much. Too much for my poor little lamb.

I reached out to cup her cheek. She turned into it and rubbed my palm with her velvety soft skin, her eyes were closed, but there was pain in her features. I knew I couldn't push her too far so I withdrew my hand and silently placed her on my back to run her home. She sighed into me. I felt her sobs soak my shirt. I was torn between the elation, the crackling intensity my body was consumed with from the feel of her, the weight of her, but the weight of her heart ,dear God! Her sorrow, was lead in my soul.

I moved faster so I could get the poor dear into her bed. She must have wandered for hours in the damp night before she discovered the cabin. Why would that dog leave her? Why would she come out here..so many questions. Stop it Edward. She's overwhelmed. Get her to bed. Let her rest so she can heal that shattered mind and heart of hers..

We reached her house and I placed her in her and Jacob's bed, which was in Charlie's old room. She started to cry and asked me to put her in her old room. I complied. I laid her on the daybed and pulled a blanket over her. I stood over her, aching not to have to leave her in this state, awaiting further instruction.

She looked blankly at me. Her eyes were glazed over a bit. Was she in shock?

"Edward" she said as she closed her eyes, a deep breath taken then expelled with a quiver of uncertainty.

"Yes Bella?"

Anything love, anything.

"Please don't go. Please hold me."

I eased my cold hard frame next to her warm fragile body. I was euphoric and trembling violently at the proximity I was being granted by her. I had yearned to be this close to my one and only love for years. If I could weep, I would have, without shame or regret.

I began to hum her lullaby, and within a few moments, she was asleep. I was adrift in the agonizing scent of her, lulled by the rise and fall of her sleeping form, my face burrowed in the strawberry scented blanket of her hair.

Home.

I was finally home.