Sunday, 7:45pm

"Hello?"

"It's me….wait, Rosalie?"

"Yeah. Hey, Edward," Rosalie said through Bella's intercom. "I'm just about to leave. You can come up."

"'Kay. Thanks," Edward replied and Rosalie answered the door when he reached it a couple of minutes later. "Hey," he greeted, when she let him into Bella's apartment.

"Bella's in the kitchen making popcorn for you guys," Rosalie told him and Edward nodded, making his way there, but she put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Uh, she's in a foul mood, just so you know," she said in a low voice. "Brunch with her mom this morning was pretty brutal. We spent the rest of the day watching Pretty Little Liars and eating takeout."

"Yeah? Takeout from where?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Japanese and it doesn't matter, because there's none left anyway," Edward looked disappointed and she continued. "Just don't push her or say anything that'll set her off, okay?"

"Would I really do that?" Edward asked innocently and Rosalie gave him a flat look and he grinned. "Relax. It'll be fine. I love cranky Bella."

They walked together to the kitchen and found Bella leaning back against her countertop of the island in her kitchen with her arms crossed over her chest, looking fixedly at her powering microwave.

"Evening Doctor Swan," Edward announced cheerfully and Rosalie gave him a 'what did just say?' look.

"Evening," Bella muttered back, still staring at the rotating popcorn bag in her microwave.

Rosalie picked up her bag on the kitchen stool. "Well, I have dinner plans with Emmett at eight thirty, so I'm gonna go Bella."

"Okay," Bella said to her microwave. "Thanks for coming today. I'll call you later this week. Bye."

"Alright. Bye Edward," Rosalie mouthed 'good luck' to him and he nodded.

"See ya," Edward replied and she let herself out.

The microwave beeped its completion and Bella took out the popcorn, emptying it into a large yellow bowl. She glanced at Edward to see him bent over a little with his head inside her fridge. She stretched her leg out, nudging the back of his knee with her foot and Edward buckled slightly.

"What are you looking for?" Bella asked, shaking the popcorn bowl and he straightened up at the waist, still looking into the fridge.

"Nothing. I'm trying to see that if I stare a little longer," Edward widened his eyes at the shelves in the fridge. "Maybe some real food will appear in here."

"Well, there's popcorn for you right here and could you shut the door?" Bella ordered grumpily. "You're wasting energy and bringing up my power bill."

"Sorry," Edward shut it and then took something out of his back pocket, placing it on the countertop and picked up the bowl of popcorn. "Movie for us to watch tonight."

Bella glanced at the title on the DVD and then shook her head straight away. "No," she emphasized heavily and Edward shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth. "No, no, no. We're not watching this."

"Yesh vee arr."

"No!" Bella shot back loudly, remembering when the movie was released and her students would talk about the movie in class. In graphic detail. "I don't want to watch The Human Caterpillar."

Edward swallowed. "It's Centipede."

"I don't care," she snapped. "We're not watching it. Watch it in your own time."

"No, come on!" Edward urged and she glared at him. "Bella, it'll be fine. No big deal, it's just a movie," he tucked the bowl of popcorn in the crook of his arm and picked up the DVD. "Take it like a man and let's go."

He started to move away when Bella made to snatch the DVD out of Edward's hand, but he dodged it easily. She let out a sound of frustration, trying again and he blocked her. This was repeated two, three more times with zero success, so Bella starting hitting him.

"Are you fighting me?" Edward said, amused as she thumped his chest. "You're miniature…you fight like a hamster!"

"I don't want to watch this stupid MOVIE!" Bella exclaimed in exasperation, shoving him hard and he laughed, barely moving, which angered her even more. "Fine. Fine! Watch your stupid movie. But just so you know," she added smugly, knowing it would annoy him. "I'm gonna talk through the entire thing."

Edward shrugged. "Talk through the movie. I don't care."

"Are you sure?" Bella questioned with raised eyebrows. "Because I'm gonna talk and talk and talk. During the whole thing. Talktalktalktalk."

"Then I'll just put the volume up over you. And also, do this," Edward retorted and threw a handful of popcorn at her. Bella gasped, stumbling back slightly and then straightened her spine, flaring up.

"Well, then maybe I'll just yell over it!" she took a deep breath and then started shouting as loud as she could. "YOU KNOW, MAYBE LIKE THIS? JUST TALKING REAL LOUD. LOUD NOISES! LOUUUUUDDD NOISES!"

"Please don't," Edward said seriously, throwing more popcorn, but she ignored it.

"MAYBE I'LL EVEN START RECITING THINGS. NERDY THINGS, EVEN. LIKE THE PERIODIC TABLE. YEAH, I THINK I WILL. I'LL START WITH NOBLE GASES: HE-HELIUM, NE-NEON –"

"You're making me waste precious food!" Edward shouted, hurling more popcorn at her.

"– POST TRANSITION METALS. AI-ALUMINIUM, GA-GALLIUM – AHH!"

Bella cut off with a loud shriek because of two things happening in quick succession. One – the bowl of popcorn was upended over her head. And two – the light bulb in the kitchen popped and died, with the only source of light in Bella's apartment coming from her bedroom some feet away.

"I'm going to kick you. Really hard."

"Can't do that if you're wearing this," Edward placed the bowl on top of her head and the rim slid down over eyes, stopping at the bridge of her nose. He cracked up, knocking his knuckles against the top of the bowl. "This is a good look for you."

In spite of herself, Bella laughed too, feeling all the strain from her day fade. She let out a long exhale, lifting the bowl off her head and slid down against the cabinets to the kitchen floor.

"What a mess," she commented and gathered up some popcorn, putting it back in the bowl. Edward sat down against the cabinets opposite her, stretching his legs out. "Sorry about all the hitting…and the yelling," she added sheepishly.

"You should be. You hit really hard for a hamster," Edward mocked and then paused for a moment. "It felt good to yell though, right?"

"Yeah, it did," Bella admitted and leant her head back against the cabinets, some stray popcorn falling from her hair and stared up at the ceiling. She felt a headache coming on, but the fact that they were now in almost complete darkness helped some. "God, today was the worst. I don't know why I let Renée get to me so much. She's such a piece of work."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nah. I think my stupid yelling tantrum was enough for now. But I don't want to watch that movie either though," Bella said sternly and she heard Edward huff at her in the dark. "Talk about something else instead."

"Alright. Ask me what happened today."

"What happened today?"

"I got offered a job," Edward declared. "And it's not a temp job. It's a semi permanent one."

"Really? That's great!" Bella replied sincerely.

"Ehh. It's great, but it also isn't," he mused and then explained. "Good because of the money which I could use to pay off some things and plus, I'd get housing and travel expenses."

"Housing and travel expenses? Where is this job?"

"California," Edward said. "That's the bad part."

"Oh," she frowned, confused about why California would be bad. "Well, what's the job? What will you be doing?"

"Construction mostly. This guy that I worked on the last job I did, Sam, he knows someone that needs workers for a company that's bringing up all these housing divisions across the state. L.A, Sacramento, San Francisco, all over."

"That sounds pretty cool," Bella commented and then squinted at Edward in the dark. "So, I'm confused…why is California bad exactly? Did you have a bad experience at Disneyland? Did you freak out when Mickey Mouse's head fell off and there was a human being inside? Did one of those chipmunks touch you in your special place?"

"Funny," Edward muttered dryly and Bella waited for him to continue.

"No, seriously," Bella prodded when he didn't. "Why is California bad?"

"What do you mean, why is California bad?" Edward asked curtly.

"I mean...what I mean. Why is California bad?"

"Uh, because I hate it?" Edward replied sarcastically. "Duh."

"Since when do you hate California?"

"Since forever…?" Edward said slowly.

"Why?"

"What the fuck? Bella!" Edward snapped and Bella was taken aback by his sharp tone. She'd never heard him use that voice before or in fact get angry about anything. And in the dark, he sounded especially harsh.

"What?"

"Why are you asking me about California?" Edward asked coldly.

"Because I'm confused! Why are you getting so mad at me?"

"Because you're making it seem like you don't know anything about it!"

"That's because I don't!"

Edward and Bella sat there in the dark for a few moments – Bella feeling hurt and Edward angry, but both of them feeling confused at the same time.

Bella took a steadying breath before she spoke again. "I really don't know anything about California, Edward. Why do you hate it so much?"

"California is where I went to rehab," Edward told her flatly. "Along with a whole heap of other shit I did there too." Bella was stunned into silence, not expecting that answer and Edward added exasperatingly, "I swear to God, if you say that you didn't know I was in rehab –"

"No, I knew. I knew," Bella interjected hurriedly, vaguely remembering.

It had been three months after they had met and Bella was hanging out with Alice, just the two of them at her and Jasper's apartment. Edward had been in between apartments and living with them for a little while and the phone rang while Alice was in the bathroom.

"Bella! Could you get that?" Alice had called out.

"Are you sure?" Bella called back, uncertain.

"Yeah, it's fine! Just take a message! There's a notepad and a pen next to the handset!"

"Okay!" Bella approached the phone cautiously, feeling nervous for an unknown reason and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hi. Could I speak to Edward Masen please?" a polite, male voice answered.

"He's not here right now," Bella replied. "But I can pass on a message to him if you'd like?"

"Yes, thank you," the voice responded and Bella clicked the pen, hovering over the notepad. "Could you let Edward know that Doctor Grenady from The Sanctuary House would like to talk to him and to call me back when he has the chance? He has my number."

"Doctor Grenady from The Sanctuary House," Bella repeated, scribbling it down. "Okay. I'll make sure Edward gets this."

Bella ended the call and read over what she had written, hoping that it was legible enough when Alice walked out of the bathroom.

"Who was it?" Alice asked and Bella passed the message to her. "Oh, yeah. This guy," Alice nodded, reading. "Edward's 'recovery coach' from when he spent time away on a 'retreat,'" she stated, making air quotes and Bella blinked at her. "Translation – he's one of the counselors from when Edward was in rehab. He's probably calling to get payment that Edward still owes them," Alice explained and then took the pen from Bella, adding 'Hey douchebucket – a call came for you today:' to the top of the message Bella took. She stuck the message to the fridge. "Thanks Bella."

"No problem," Bella replied distractedly, eyeing the message. When Alice changed the subject to something else, Bella mentally stored the message away to ask Edward, but then it slipped her mind. And whenever she did remember, she never knew how to raise the subject, and it never hindered anything that she and Edward did, so him being in rehab was never a big concern to her. Until now.

"I knew you were in rehab," Bella said to Edward now. "I just never knew the when, where, why details."

"So, basically…" Edward commented dryly. "We've been friends for over a year, and all you know about me is my name. And nothing else."

Bella nodded, even though she knew he couldn't see her in the dark. "Pretty much. I know your name is Edward Masen, but I don't know your story."

"You forgot my middle name."

"You have a middle name?"

"Anthony."

"Edward Anthony Masen," Bella recited. "Huh. That's kinda nice."

"It was my father's name," Edward muttered and then she heard him let out a sigh and shift on the floor. "I'm sorry I got mad before," he said seriously. "That was a colossal asshat move, lashing out at you like that. I thought you were making fun and California is the one thing I'm kinda touchy about."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better," Bella said lightly, hoping to lighten the serious tone that was between them. "It's partly my fault as well for knowing about you being in rehab but never making the effort to ask."

"Yeah. Let's put the blame on you for being a shitty friend and not caring enough to ask," Edward teased.

"Yes, exactly."

"Except you're not a shitty friend," Edward said. "You're actually a really really really really really awesome friend."

"Thanks. And you're a really really really really really awesome friend too," Bella replied, grinning and then added, "I feel like we should trade life stories now."

Edward hummed. "Except I already know your life story."

"Really."

"You don't believe me?" Edward prompted, catching Bella's dubious tone. "Alright. Let's see…" he paused and Bella waited, feeling both amused and intrigued as to how much Edward knew about her.

Edward began, putting on a voice. "Born Isabella Marie Swan, you grew up in Washington in the small town of Spatula –"

"Forks," Bella corrected with a laugh. "I was born in Forks, not Spatula. What kind of town name is Spatula?"

"What kind of town name is Forks?" Edward scoffed and Bella rolled her eyes. "Anyway. You're parents, Charlie, the mayor of Forks –"

"Police chief."

"Right, yeah. Forks probably isn't even big enough for a mayor anyway."

"Excuse you," Bella sniffed. "We have a Target, thank you very much."

"Oh, you have a Target," Edward mocked. "I didn't know that. That means you get to play with the big-kid towns, right?"

"Shut up," Bella drawled and he snickered. "What else you got?"

"Okay. Your dad Charlie and mom Renée split up when you were young. By the time you finished elementary school, you're parents realize how smart you are and put you through highly academic, grade accelerated private schools. There, your intelligence grew to monsieur level –"

"Mensa. 'Monsieur' is 'sir' in French."

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Edward said. "Anyway. You were valedictorian at your school, graduating at fifteen and got accepted into Harvard. Because you took college level courses for early credit in high school, you powered through your double degree in education and science and graduated summa-cum-laude at nineteen. Then you spent eighteen months traveling around Europe and England on a working holiday before returning back to the States and back to Harvard. You did your doctorate in science and once you finished that, you got a job teaching at a highly academic, grade accelerated private school in New York. You made friends, one of them being particularly handsome, blablabla you know the rest. The end," Edward declared and Bella laughed. "So? How'd I do for knowing your life story?"

"Not bad. I especially liked the 'blablabla' part," Bella said, amused. "That was a fun time in my life."

"It was. I was there for the whole thing," Edward said as Bella scooted over to his side of the kitchen, because he had his back to the sink. She placed the popcorn bowl in the sink above him and stayed next to him on the floor.

"I would do your life story," Bella remarked hesitantly. "Except I don't have much to go on."

"That's probably a good thing," Edward replied. Even though it was still dark in her kitchen, from this angle next to him and in the faint light coming from her room, she could make out his dark expression, like a shadow had fallen over him. "It's a long and crazy story."

"That's okay. You can tell me whatever you want to tell me."

"I don't even know where to start." He muttered.

"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end. Then stop."

Edward cracked a reluctant smile. "Alice in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter?"

"Actually, the king said it," Bella told him and then paused to think. "How about if I ask you questions and we'll go from there?"

"Yeah. That sounds good," Edward said and then took a deep breath and nodded at her. "Hit me."

She eyed his arms. "Do the tattoos mean anything?" Bella began with that because she was genuinely curious about them.

"The ones on my back I got when I lived above a tattoo parlor for awhile. But they don't really mean anything." He pulled at the collar of his blue hoodie and slipped it over his head, with a faded grey t-shirt underneath. He raised his left arm up, the one closest to Bella so she could see. "The ones on my arms I got to cover the track marks, but they don't mean anything either."

She squinted, trying to see, but the light wasn't bright enough to see what he meant by 'track marks.' "I didn't know you had ink on your back," she commented. "How many do you have?"

"A lot," Edward answered. "It's not just one or two. My whole back is covered in ink."

"What about family?" she prompted. "You've never mentioned them before."

"I don't have any," Edward said. "When I was born, I got left behind by my mom in a Chicago hospital. She never came back to claim me and neither did my dad. They couldn't track them down and all they had was my birth certificate so I got put into the foster care system."

He caught Bella's grimace and shrugged one shoulder. "I think I do have family, someone, somewhere. I vaguely remember some guy wanting to meet me when I was about fourteen years old. But I was a bratty little shit and wasn't keen on listening to what he had to say. I think he might have been an uncle, wanting to take me out of the system and adopt me, I don't know."

"What was it like?" Bella questioned curiously. "Being a foster kid?"

"It was okay," Edward answered. "Not the greatest way to grow up, but most of the families I got sent to were good people. I think they just couldn't handle the way I acted out as a kid. I did all the things you shouldn't – lied, scammed people, stole, drank and did drugs. Then it spiraled out of control and landed me in rehab."

"For drug addiction?"

"Yeah. Substance abuse, specifically crystal meth," Edward gave a sideways glance at Bella and then he looked amused. "And judging by the look on your face, that's not what you were expecting me to say."

It wasn't but she tried to hide the surprise in her voice. "I've never seen you with a drink. So I just...I assumed that it was…"

Edward hummed, nodding, his face clouding over again. "I did drink a lot. But it was more of a secondary thing compared to the drugs. When I decided to get clean, I wanted to see how far I could stretch myself. To see if I could handle it. So far, so good."

"How long have you been clean?"

"I've been clean and sober for three years."

"Three years. That's really great," Bella told him sincerely and then took a deep breath, taking it all in. "Crystal meth. That's not so great."

"Not so much," Edward muttered and then ran a hand over his head before continuing. "When that uncle guy, whoever he was, came and talked to me, he said he was going to take me back to where he lived in Washington or Wisconsin, I can't remember where, and told me all about how great it was going to be with my other cousins. He told me all about how I was going to get my own room and be enrolled in this great school and all this other super awesome, happy, fantastic stuff that I was going to get," he remarked and gave a short, sardonic laugh, making Bella blink. She'd never heard him do that.

"So what happened?"

"I freaked. My head went –" Edward made an explosion like noise, along with hand actions near his head, "–at everything he was telling me, so I ran away. The foster family I was with lived near the city, so I took off there and lived on the streets or on people's couches and in homeless shelters. Wherever.

"That's where it all started. About three months after I ran away from home, some guy offered me some heroin and he taught me how to take it. How to find a vein and told me not to share needles with other people so I wouldn't get HIV. Eventually I started dealing too. I started with heroin and then moved on to pot, then cocaine, then ecstasy, and then I stopped being fussy and took anything I could get my hands on. When I was sixteen, a guy I knew was moving to California and asked if I wanted to go with him. So I said yes, moved from Chicago to California, where I lived above a tattoo parlor…and also where I discovered meth."

From there Edward went into garish detail about what his life was like in California. From an uncomfortable, drug fueled threesome with a violent paranoiac on his nineteenth birthday, to a thirty three year old single mother shooting meth into his neck while her kid watched Sesame Street in the next room. Then he moved on to being in rehab and going through their very brutal detox program.

Bella lived her life in a good way. Apart from her parents splitting up when she was young, she had never suffered any hardships. Because of this, life had mostly brought her good things. She believed in goodness. She believed that things would work out. Even the worst things would work out.

She believed in a happy ending.

The good in her life made her that way. She spent so much time on the bright side that she didn't believe that the other side existed. But now Bella watched Edward tell his story and it was too much, too real. It made her uncomfortable, as if her chest were going to cave in. As he spoke, Edward's face was a mask, his demeanor stiff. There were no easy smiles, no happy eyes—just planes, angles and grimness.

Bella blinked twice, realizing that Edward had stopped talking and was now staring at her.

"I'm saying too much, aren't I?" His voice sounded thin.

"No," she answered too quickly and Edward noticed.

"You look like you're about two seconds away from yelling and kicking at me again."

"I didn't kick you," Bella corrected automatically and Edward just stared at her. She added, "but yeah, okay. It's a little much," and then shifted closer to Edward so she could lean against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm still here though."

Edward thawed and smiled faintly, resting his cheek against the top of her head. "You can handle listening to your friend's stories about his shitty past. Which means I'm pretty sure you can take –"

"We're not watching The Human Centipede, Edward."

"Dammit," he muttered and they sat in silence for a moment before speaking again.

"When you went to rehab," Bella stated and she picked her head up from his shoulder and turned to face him again. "Was that forced or did you admit yourself?"

Edward shook his head. "You can't get forcefully committed unless you're a danger to yourself or to other people."

"So it was voluntary then?"

"Yeah. I cut myself off at first, went cold turkey. That lasted all of three weeks and then I was back to shooting up in trailer park bathrooms and banging female junkies in dirty hotel rooms. I could have probably kept going and going until I died. I was twenty-four by then, not a kid anymore. No one was going to stop me. No one was going to do anything.

"And then it got bad," Edward said, staring at the cupboard in front of him with glassy eyes. "I hadn't slept for five days. I had always managed to keep things under control, but it was getting harder and harder. It felt like there were all these things piling up, the drugs and the dealing and the sex, and I felt like I was going to explode.

"I was out of my mind, but I can remember picking up a copy of the Yellow Pages, getting the address of the first place listed under 'drug rehabilitation' and driving there. I walked in and went to the front desk and I think I said something like, 'Hi, I'd like to go to rehab please.'"

"How polite," Bella commented with a half smile and then added, "How long were you in rehab for?"

"It took about eighteen months for me to get completely sober – physically, mentally, orthodontic-ly.

A surprised laugh slipped out of Bella's mouth. "Orthodontic-ly?"

"Meth fucks up your mouth worse than sugar," he informed her. "I injected more than smoked, but my mouth was still gross. Took thousands of dollars to get it to what it is now, hence why I need the money to pay it off."

"Oh," Bella screwed up her face. "Sorry I laughed."

"It's okay. I meant for you to laugh," Edward told her.

"Eighteen months," Bella echoed, remembering Edward had moved to the city when he was around twenty-six and she did the math.

"So, you came to New York within a year of leaving rehab," Bella commented.

"Yeah, pretty much," Edward told her in affirmation. "One of the counselors told me that it would be beneficial for me to get as far away from California as possible, at least for awhile. My plan was to go to New York, do some grease-monkey jobs for a year and then go to Europe."

"What happened?"

"I met Tanya."

"Aww," Bella cooed and in the dark she could make out the incredulous look Edward gave her.

"What are you 'awing' about? We're not together anymore."

"I know," Bella remarked with a shrug. "It's still sweet though, y'know? A guy has a set plan in his life but it gets interrupted when he meets a girl. Like in a movie," Edward continued to look at her oddly and she was reminded of Angela and her antics the day before at the restaurant. "Never mind. It's a girl thing," Bella said quickly and then added, "anyway. Europe – is that still the plan?"

"Eventually, yeah."

"You know where you should go? Spain," Bella told him firmly and Edward looked amused. "They have the best food there. Paella, Chorizo, churros. Soo good."

"Those are some good names for food," Edward mused, nodding.

"Right?" Bella said in agreement. "Speaking of food, you want to order takeout or something?"

"Nah. Actually, what time is it?" Edward took out his cellphone and glanced at the time. "I should probably head home. It's past eleven."

"Wait, what? Did you just say no to food? Are you feeling okay?"

"You have school tomorrow," Edward told her, standing up and held out his hand, helping Bella up from the floor as well. "Plus, I should let you clean all this mess up," he added, stepping on some popcorn, making the mess worse.

"Don't!" Bella protested and she moved carefully over the piles of popcorn toward the cupboard that held her cleaning supplies and Edward stepped on more popcorn behind her back. "And this is your mess, not mine. You're helping me clean it up."

"What? You started it," Edward countered and Bella gave him a cold look over her shoulder. "You did. I was just trying to do your neighbors a favor and stop all that yelling."

"Edward, you turned a bowl full of popcorn over my head. And it was still warm." she emphasized irritably and then twisted her upper body. "Half of it is still down my shirt."

"Okay. That," Edward said to her chest, "I'm willing to help you with. Ah! Dammit, Bella," he whined, flinching away from her.

Bella had thwacked his shoulder hard with the handle of the broomstick, which he didn't see coming because he was distracted. They spent the next few minutes bickering over cleaning their mess up, with Edward finally giving in and helping out, then chatting normally as Bella walked Edward out of her building because she had to check her mail down in the main lobby. Outside, the air was cold and Bella could feel that it was about to rain soon.

"Should've grabbed a sweater," Bella muttered, rubbing her bare arms in the chilly air while eyeing the hooded blue sweatshirt that Edward held in his hand. Edward noticed and sighed, holding it out to her. "Thanks," Bella grinned, pulling it on and then hugged herself. "Comfy."

"You're not keeping that. I want it back."

"Yeah, yeah. You'll get your precious sweatshirt back," Bella dismissed, waving a sleeve at him, because her arms were swimming his long sleeves. "So when do you leave for a California?"

"They want me out there by next month," Edward answered, staring out at the road from where they stood at the top of the stairs into Bella's building. "Which gives me about three weeks to get ready, pack up my stuff and sublet my apartment."

"When will you be back?"

"Sam thinks that the housing project should finish up around mid-year. September maybe."

"September?" Bella repeated, staring at him with her mouth open. "That's eight months away. You'll be gone for eight months?"

"I'll be there during the summer," Edward told her with a shrug. "You can come visit me."

"Maybe," she said doubtfully, feeling dejected at the thought of him being away for so long. "I might not be able to though. I signed up to take on a couple of classes at NYU over summer break."

It was Edward's turn to be incredulous. "More studying? Seriously, how many degrees do you want?"

"I'll be teaching a class, not studying," Bella said, scowling. "And you make it sound like I have so many. I only have two degrees."

"Only," Edward muttered and he jerked away as she smacked a sleeve at his side, moving down one step. "Okay. I've had enough violence for one night…or ever, actually. I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Bella nodded and before Edward turned away, she moved forward and did something they'd never done in the two years they've have known each other–she hugged him. Edward wrapped his arms around her, returning the hug instinctively, and laughed once.

"Is this a pity hug for telling you about my dragons?" he questioned, sounding amused.

"What dragons?"

"It's this metaphor they made us use in rehab. You know, like 'dragons' are the bad things that get you admitted; 'slaying' them is the process of getting better and the people that 'guard' against the dragons are the ones that help and stand by you post rehab."

"It sounds like you went to rehab in the medieval era," Bella mumbled against his shoulder just as a breeze went by, sharp and cold, hitting her in the face. She shivered against him. Edward squeezed her once before pulling away. He managed a slight smile but Bella noticed that he seemed tired or withdrawn, as if visiting the past had drained him.

"You should head back inside," Edward instructed, moving down a step. He nodded to the door behind Bella and widened his eyes. "If you get sick, then you wont be able to teach and nerd out on your students. And then you'd cry, calling me about it, still in tears, and–"

Bella moved to hit him again and Edward dodged her easily again, smirking. He jumped down the last couple of steps, saying goodnight over his shoulder as he walked away. Bella then realized that she had to back to a dark kitchen and probably should've asked Edward to replace the light bulb before he left.

She also realized that she still had his sweatshirt on; but feeling too warm and comfortable, she didn't bother calling him back. Instead, she watched Edward walk away until she couldn't anymore.

\\-\\

I wake up and I know that I haven't been asleep for very long. I also realize that I'm the only one in bed and I roll over on my back, squinting at the only source of light in her room. Bella's stands in front of her open closet, using the gleam from the screen of her cell phone to look for something.

"What are you doing?"

My voice startles her and she lets out a squeak and spins around to face me.

"Sorry. You okay?"

She nods. "I'm fine."

"Yeah. You are fine," she's wearing my shirt, with only two buttons around her middle done up and I eye her legs appreciatively.

She closes the door to her closet, making that snuffing sound whenever I say something dumb and explains. "You fell asleep but I couldn't, so I thought I'd check how my birthday present's doing," she tells me, grinning and climbs back on the bed, kneeling beside me.

I sit up and glance at the door that leads to her bathroom. "And is he okay?"

"He's asleep. It's so adorable," she uses the same voice from this afternoon and even now, it still makes me laugh. She ignores me, waving her cell phone. "I took about seven hundred photos with my phone. I'll show you later."

"Yay, fun," I deadpan and she hits me over the head with something. "Okay, ow. What did you just hit me with?"

"I remembered that I have something of yours," she makes her phone light up again and I recognize my blue hooded sweatshirt in her lap.

"I've been looking for that," I say, surprised to see it. "Where'd you find it?"

"You let me wear it and I forgot to give it back to you," she answers, and I try to remember. "It was just before you left."

Oh yeah. It was the night I found out I got the job with Carlisle's company and I told her all these stories on her kitchen floor in the dark, surrounded by popcorn and then she put her arms around me out in the cold. I remember wanting to hug her until my arms ached and the urge to kiss her when we pulled away. But I didn't because it would have been for the wrong reasons and I knew she'd hate me for it and that I'd hate myself as well.

But now I don't need a reason to kiss or hug her and I won't hate myself for doing either of those things.

While I was lost in my head, she's taken off my shirt and has started pulling my hoodie over her own head. I duck my head under the hem, stretching the fabric over my head and shoulders to be face to face so I can kiss her.

Before our mouths connect, she laughs and says, "Edward, what are you doing?"

Then I finally do kiss her, pulling the hoodie off and press her back against the bed. Touching Bella makes everything better and we get lost in lips, hands, hair and faces.

I don't know what I'm doing. But I know what I can give her. My lips move over every inch of her face promising her.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Of moments like this.


Okay, I know you're not supposed to ask for reviews but I'm nervous and anxious and worried about this chapter, so I would reallyreallyreally love some feedback on it. I just want to know what people thought - or about anything that's happened in the story so far. It can be good feedback, bad feedback, shouty caps feedback, I don't mind.

souplover9 is the cake-ball making Mushu of the world. True story.

Delicious, dropped on the floor cheesecake for everyone that reads/alerts/reviews etc. Hooray!