My voice came out half strangled by the time I decided to speak. Everyone was staring at the auburn haired hottie holding me in his arms. Although their expressions varied from shock, jealousy, lust and to just plain creeped out. A sea of faces, watching us like we were on stage. But they didn't register completely in my mind.

"Edward?" I said shakily.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm in your home room. I just came here to see what it would look like and then I saw you on the ground," he said, glaring at Jessica. She looked away guiltily.

For some reason I had the feeling that his story was a load of crap. Maybe it had something to do with the remarkably accurate timing that I begged for help, but his story seemed well practiced. Like he had rehearsed it before coming here so he wouldn't get in trouble. I raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously.

"Excuse me, I don't know who you are, but you have disrupted my class!" Mr. Banner chose this moment to break up our little reunion.

Edward immediately set me back on my own two feet and snapped into a more authoritative frame. He looked my teacher directly in the eyes before answering, the startling green of his eyes seeming to make Mr. Banner woozy. "Hello, Mr. Banner. This is my new homeroom. I just moved here."

I suddenly noticed a white piece of paper clutched in his hand. He held it up for inspection, letting Mr. Banner snatch it from him. It seemed to pass the test, because he nodded grudgingly at the paper and set it down on his desk.

"Alright," he admitted. "Your story seems to match up. Take a seat in the empty desk next to where Ms. Swan sits. She'll show you the way." He then turned to me. "I shall forget the incident that occurred here; as long as it doesn't repeat itself. Am I absolutely clear?"

I nodded. As he returned to the chalk board, apparently satisfied that I wasn't going to fight anyone, the class broke the silence that had been in the air with a gentle hum of murmurs. Jessica was in a serious discussion with Eric regarding the "hot yet freaky Goth guy". An underused feeling of jealousy shot through me, but I ignored it. People were going to talk about him whether I said anything or not.

I suddenly had a brilliant idea. I walked over to my teacher and dropped my voice so no one could hear what I was saying.

"Mr. Banner, Edward is a friend of the family; is it okay if I take the time of homeroom to show him around the school? I mean, the school is fairly large, and he might get lost. . . ."

Mr. Banner seemed thrilled with the thought of having me leave his classroom and bringing his new, ever-suggestive pupil along as well. He grunted and eagerly handed me a pass. I caught Edward's eye from where he was standing and gestured to follow me out the door.

Jessica's beady little eyes followed his moving form and rested onto me. Something made me think that the hell I went through this morning was only a fraction of what was in store later on.

"Mr. Banner? Can I show our new student around instead? I've been around the school longer then Bella has," she suggested sweetly.

"Yeah, but after all the times you and your crones shoved me in lockers, I know this school inside and out." I didn't try to hide the poison in my voice. She gave me a sour look, which immediately dissipated into an innocent smile when Edward turned around to see who I was talking to.

"No. Sit down, Ms. Stanley," Mr. Banner ordered.

Jessica reluctantly sank back into her seat as I closed the door behind us. I took Edward's hand and led him down the hallway. There was a furious silence on my part, but Edward seemed oddly at ease. I stopped every now and again to see if a room was occupied, and each time I checked, it was. Finally, I was able to secure a broom closet. I shoved him in there roughly, sending him straight into an empty janitor's bucket, and squished myself into the space as best I could.

He got out of his 'chair' and brushed off the seat of his pants.

"Edward," I hissed in the darkness. "What are you doing at my school?!" I reached up and pulled a cord to turn the light bulb on, casting a dim glow over us.

He blinked. "I'm making you happy."

"You call scaring me out of my wits, 'making me happy'?!" I shook him by the shoulders to emphasize how freaked out I was.

"Hey!" He knocked my hands out of the way and held them still. "It was a good thing I even came here! You said the summoning words at a very good time; I heard them the moment I set foot into the building."

"I was going to handle the situation!"

"Bella, you were plummeting into depression."

"I was going to fight her as soon as I got over it!" I argued.

He shook his head disappointedly. "Fighting never resolves anything."

"Oh, that's rich; coming from a guy who punched out Mike Newton."

"That's only because I had to," he pointed out.

"You could have threatened him; violence wasn't necessary."

"He was going to hurt you. I wasn't going to let him get away with just a threat."

"Good point, although I can't see the difference between you punching someone out and me punching someone out."

"I'm your guardian angel and it isn't the other way around." He smiled crookedly, arching an eyebrow. Even though I was in the midst of an argument, I couldn't help but pause and admire his beauty.

"Well . . . alright, you got me there," I muttered, unhappy. "But what's with the sensual get-up? I thought I dropped you off at Hot Topic, not a Whores-R-Us!"

Edward looked down at his ensemble with a confused expression on his face. I myself gave him another once over. His pale skin seemed to illuminate the space we were in, his bright clothes adding to the effect. Although they were made of leather, the tight bondage uniform did look pretty good on him. But the fishnet shirt was a tad too much, I had to admit. If it had been long sleeve and he had worn a black tank top or something, then I'd have been okay with it.

He noticed I was looking at him. "Most of the teachers here gave my tattoos bad looks; were you lying to me when you said they looked good?"

"I doubt that they were staring at them because of the artistic ability; more like the fact that a teenaged student had them in the first place. They were probably wondering if you were a jailbird."

"Oh." He paused. "Well, I can't change right now. I didn't bring any back up clothes. So I guess I'm stuck like this. Not that I really mind—the male Dominatrix look is in, according to the man working at Death Shrouds."

Lesson learned; never take fashion advice from a guy who wants you to model condoms.

"Yeah, but not for school!"

"Where could I have worn it then? Church?"

"No," I said quickly. "You wear that outfit when you . . . uh, well, when you . . ."

I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him that he was wearing a sadomasochist's uniform. I couldn't defile such innocence—who knows? Maybe if I told him what event it was worn to, he would want to go through with it. The thought made me shiver. I had just met him, and doing that at the moment seemed really creepy.

"Just, um . . . never mind," I said. He looked at me quizzically but didn't argue.

"Can I ask you something, Edward?"

"Sure."

"How is it that you were able to cook a prize worthy meal but you decided to wear . . . that to school? And further more, what are you doing here? Besides attempting to make me happy?" I cocked my eyebrow at him.

I was surprised to see a sheepish grin spread across his face. "I cooked that meal with some of my magic. The outfit I did myself. Did you honestly think I could actually cook after I just came from a place where people don't eat?"

"So basically you cheated."

"I wouldn't call using magic cheating, but I didn't do it myself," he admitted. "I used a cooking spell. They are quite easy to memorize. It was a good thing I studied those spells in my purgatory classes." He looked thoughtful. "However I never did pay much attention; if I did I am sure I could have made the food better."

"There are classes in purgatory?" I asked him, bewildered.

"Of course; where do you think we prepare for our jobs?" He looked at me like it was the obvious thing to do. "I already told you that I'm a healing guardian. I also told you about the others. Death is the second most common position to be stuck with. Most of my friends deal in that arena."

I shook my head. "Alright. Let's talk about this some other time. All I really want to know is what possessed you to sneak into my school. How did you get the paperwork? Who's paying tuition?"

He laughed. "I told you that to; it causes pain for me to be away for too long. I don't think I have the stamina to wait several hours for your return. I thought of a plan in only a few seconds. All I did was ask Master to make a few documents, wash a few minds and make me a student. Simple task for him."

I was shocked. "Master? As in, God?"

Edward pursed his lips. "Duh."

"Well excuse me for not being familiar with your angel terms," I said icily.

Outside the confines of the stuffy broom cupboard, a bell rang, signaling the end of home room for the grateful student population. The flow of traffic could be heard all around us as doors opened in the halls and leaked the sounds of chattering and papers fluttering.

"Okay," I said quickly, irritated. "You're stuck here with me now. I have to get to class."

"Excellent; we have all the same classes together. You can show me the way."

Somehow I wasn't surprised that we had matching schedules.

As I opened the door to let us out, I hit someone from behind and made them drop their binder on accident, the contents scattering in random directions. Edward bumped into me when I stopped to look at the unlucky person I had hit, which caused me to temporarily loose balance and land on top of the guy I had slammed with the door.

Blinking wildly, I righted myself and turned away from my victim's face. I couldn't bear to look who ever it was in the eye, I was so embarrassed. "I'm so sorry for that! I really didn't mean to do it; it was a total accident. Here, let me help you." I reached to pick up a few pencils.

A Nike sneaker crushed my wrist as I grabbed the pencil. The sound of a bone cracking reverberated off the walls. Pain ran up my hand and to my shoulder blades. Dammit, my wrist was broken! I bit back tears as I heard an all too familiar voice greet me.

"Fancy meeting you here, Freak," Mike sneered from above.

That's all he got to say before Edward chose this moment to make his presence known. The tears were streaming down my face and onto his shirt and chest as he picked me up and cradled me there.

"That wasn't very nice," he commented woodenly. Mike jumped a little when he noticed who was holding me. He recovered from the shock though.

"Hey! It's you; the dude who punched me in the mall! No one does that and come to this school without getting something back in return. You have a lot of nerve—"

"Just like you have a lot of nerve to attack a girl, I presume?" Edward cut in. Mike's mouth snapped shut, a purple tinge in his face. "I wonder; what man does that to a woman trying to help him out? What man does that to a woman in any situation? A man trying to hide the fact that he's a pathetic sadist, no doubt. Although your actions only prove that you cannot function in society without trying to hurt someone. I think that's how serial killers start out. By any chance, you don't kill animals, do you? Because that's another starting trait to a serial killer's path."

Mike looked dazed as Edward's speech went on. Edward didn't seem to notice that Mike wasn't able to understand anything he said. Or maybe Edward just wanted to preach to him some more. Either way, you could see Mike's brain strain under the pressure of processing too many words at once.

"Listen," he finally said. "Don't you ever refer to Bella as a "freak" again. Or else what I did to you in the mall will only be a small fraction of the pain you will receive." Hid voice was completely serious. He meant it. Hopefully Mike would be able to detect Edward's threat and his truthfulness behind it.

Oh, he found the threat alright.

"Did you just threaten me?" he asked, his eyes slitting.

"I didn't just compliment you on that boil on your nose." Edward rolled his eyes and turned his back on him, carrying me bridal style. "Come on, Bella, let's go and fix up that wrist. It looks serious."

I blinked. Somehow I just realized that I had been so wrapped up in their fight that I didn't pay much attention to my wrist. Maybe breaking it so often had made me immune to too much pain. I didn't protest as he walked with me in his arms however. I liked the feeling of being in them. It was like I was a toddler again, and I very much liked the feeling.

And of course, there was the fact I couldn't argue because his eyes were looking down on me like twinkling emerald stars. That crisp sense again. That cool clover color that made me want to never look at anything again. It made sense he was an angel; those eyes could only ever be holy.

Leaving Mike behind was easy. Over Edward's shoulder, I watched as Mike stood there fuming. It was amusing to see him throw his binder against a classroom door and get dragged inside by a very angry teacher for attempting to damage school property. The look of pure hatred he gave me was we left the hallway I could have done without though. I shivered against Edward's chest, causing him to clutch me closer to his torso in an attempt to warm me.

We were outside the front doors and in the elementary school's playground without any other hassles. No one was around to stop us as we—well, basically Edward—hopped fences and cut through yards to get to a desolate place. And that place just so happened to be an elementary playground. I was shocked no kids were out running around like the little cannibals they acted like.

Edward rested me on the swing, making me loose my very comfortable place against his chest. My hand touched the chains beside me, and I winced. His brow furrowed. I tried to smile at him, but it came out more as a cringe then anything. He turned away from me, crossing his arms and exposing the purple tattoos of his wings on his back.

"I'm sorry, Bella."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Oh, come on! Not this crap again! Listen, Mike's an evil bastard, it has nothing to do with you."

"First off, don't use profanity in front of me. Second of all, yes it is my fault."

"Care to elaborate as to why it is your fault that Mike decided to hurt me today?"

He sighed, completely cheesed off with me. But he did turn around and kneel before me to get eye level at least. "I was right there when it happened. But I didn't stop it from happening. What kind of messed up guardian am I? It makes no sense; I say I'm going to protect you and came to your school to do so. And I can't even stop you from falling. In fact, I caused it."

His fingers traced my wrists, gently as a butterfly's wings. A soft purple glow slid onto my hands as he touched them, the light pinpointing my damaged wrist. It took less then a minute for my wrist to feel refreshed and snap back into place. I shouldn't have been surprised that he could fix me up so quickly by now, but his magic never failed to amaze me.

"Wow," I said. "You should have dropped from the sky sooner. I could have certainly used you before."

He smiled slightly. "It's the least I can do for not protecting you sufficiently. Healing wounds is not my purpose here, but it helps to make you happier I suppose."

"Fixed wrists would make anyone happy."

"True."

"And besides, healing wounds is exactly what you came here to do."

"But I wasn't planning on fixing bones. Just a heart."

"Of course," I said. "Heart surgery is no problem compared to mending a few broken bones."

He smiled crookedly, sending my heart rate into a frantic dance. Geez, how did he do that? Was this just an angel thing, or could a human do this—playing with a person's pulse—too? I hoped that it was just a celestial thing.

"You know what I mean," he said. I tested my wrist by bending it back and forth gingerly. I was pleased to feel fantastic.

"You do marvelous work in the medical field," I commented lightly.

"Thank you. It was my God-given talent."

"It's a shame the talent of common sense wasn't given to you."

He glared. "You should be nicer to me, considering I just helped you out. Besides, I already explained myself to you. I don't need to do so again."

This angel was certainly a stubborn one.

I watched him wearily as he sat down in the sand, not facing me. His pale fingers started drawing designs in the fine grains of rocks, twisting into what seemed to be a female symbol. You know; the one with the shape of a lollypop with a line drawn across it.

"Girl power?" I said to him. He looked up at me, bewildered.

"What?"

"Are you drawing the female symbol in the sand? Because that's what it looks like."

A dull rosy color rose in his cheeks. Even his ears seemed slightly pink. With the sunlight on him, his whole face seemed to glow more then usual.

"No! It was supposed to be an Ankh. I guess I'm not as good an artist as I thought." Edward looked back down on his design, seeming saddened that it didn't come out to be what he wanted.

"That's the farthest thing from an ankle I ever saw," I said.

He burst out laughing, startling me and almost making me fall from my perch on the swing. My eyes narrowed as he began to point at me while laughing. So much for angels being nice.

"It is pronounced "Ankh" not "ankle". It's supposed to symbolize something. Try to guess what it is supposed to mean."

I scrunched up my forehead, thinking. Edward watched me in amusement, chuckling all the while. It was very distracting to think of anything much besides the beautiful god in front of me. His bronze hair blew in the October wind, shining in the Autumn sun. A dull purple haze was almost tangible when he was in the sunlight.

"Before I answer your question, can I ask you one of my own? Are you glowing?" I asked.

He looked down at himself, inspecting for anything. He looked confused at first, but then a sudden burst of realization came through. "Oh! So that's what he meant by it! Ra warned me about this. He told me that if you aren't careful this could happen; I didn't believe him."

"Who's Ra?" I asked, puzzled. "Is "Ra" another name for "God"? Is Ra God?"

"What? No, Ra is a friend of mine. He works here to, over a similar case. Except his is slightly different. Anyway, he was here for a while before I came, and he told me about the effect sunlight has on us. Apparently our powers can be seen with a faint glitter, or in my case a glow. Depending on the power exerted, the glow or sparkle is brighter. I guess since bone mending is a skill of mine and I'm used to it, I only used a little bit of power. If I had tried to perform brain surgery, then I would be glowing up a storm right now."

Angels were confusing.

"Isn't Ra an ancient Egyptian god?" I asked.

"Yeah; he was named after the sun god. His mother was into that stuff, I guess." Edward shrugged. "His subject is named kind of like him as well. You might meet her sometime. I think I can arrange a 'coincidental meeting.'" He grinned.

"If she's like Jessica or Lauren, then no way."

"No—Ra's person is . . . just strange," he said slowly. "Stranger then you, to be honest. She works at a psychic shop."

"Does Ra have a specific duty to cure her of heart break, or something else?"

"Yeah; the duty varies from person to guardian. In this particular case, Ra is trying to lead Isis away from her total lack of faith at the moment."

"Again with the Egyptian gods . . . ." I muttered.

He shrugged. "They're connected; just like you and I are. But while I was summoned here with a locket, Ra had a more traditional summoning. He was sent here at the time she needed him most—and had a say in it. I, however, didn't have a choice." He gave me a pained smile.

"I'm so sorry you don't want to be here with me," I said flatly.

"It's not like that; it's just, if I had it my way, I would have come down here to look over you without getting noticed. But falling from the sky and into cars does tend to get a few looks."

"So this girl—Isis—has no clue that she is getting stalked by a guardian angel?" The thought made me shiver. I liked the idea of knowing Edward existed. It made me more aware of where I placed my bras now. I didn't feel like explaining their purpose anytime soon to him.

"The word 'stalked' is a bit harsh. We prefer the term 'looking out for'. But yes, Ra is looking over Isis right now. She is wavering in her beliefs at the moment and is starting to turn into an atheist. Ra is trying to make her happy enough to see reason and actually believe in something."

"Well that sucks," I snapped. "So if you don't believe in God, he sends his minions down here to 'make you see the light'? Well here's something you should know, Edward. I don't believe in God," I hissed in his face.

The only thing that I could see was his face explode in alarm at my words. He seriously looked as if someone had just slapped him. I felt a twinge somewhere in my chest for hurting him, but I got over it. Sure, he was my best friend, but he was not going to make me believe in some old dude who stares down at you from the sky.

"You realize," he said eventually, "that you're talking to an angel, right?"

"I believe in many things—Aliens, vampires, werewolves and now even angels—but God isn't one of them."

I had expected him to look furious. Maybe even horrified or sad. But what I had not expected was for him to break out in a naughty looking grin, like he just got an idea.

"I think I know of a way for you to meet both Ra and Isis, and get a little belief in your system," Edward said smoothly, not looking anywhere besides my eyes.

"Really?" My skepticism was heavily pronounced. "And how would that be?"

"That depends. What are your views on flying?"