I don't own, obvi.

Chapter Nine: The Repercussions

I tell tales tall as cliffs
You've got a lisp
Kid, those things are hard to miss

Like my cripple cough
All your weekends lost by the lake
Well you said I needn't be afraid
Of all those devils on the wall
That make a fella small
When he's feelin' brave
They take his wine away
There were posters on the wall
I swear my mother saw
And I've been up all night

And you came well equipped
With a gun on your hip
And some poison on your lips
But when we wake up in our make-up
We'll be clean
And we won't have nowhere to be

No I can't talk to you
The way I've wanted to
I've been tellin' lies
But I'll tell you the truth

Darlin', I'm tired
And I should be leavin'
You know I'm tired
And I should be leavin'
Leavin' tonight

And you'll hang like the rest
We'll leave a noose on
The attorney's desk
Take to the streets
Chant like an army
And doctor up this disease

Bella didn't move when I kissed her, just stood tenser than before. I didn't care. If this was the one chance I had, than I was going to give it everything I had. I didn't know what made me kiss her, as she screamed and yelled at me, as she spouted off these things that I would never think, these lies and notions that made me want to scream back at her, but I did. I kissed her because it was the only proper response. It felt foreign and awkward, her lips tight beneath my own, searching for any sort of response.

It hit me hard then, that I had just ruined everything. I needed her, and by saying it I made it true. I was about to pull away, defeated, until her hands pulled at my hair and pushed me closer than I though possible. I tasted the salt of her tears, mixed with what can only be described as Bella. Her tiny body was against my own as she looked for more from me.

As she stood here now, staring at me after our cryptic exchange, I wanted to kiss her again. My lips felt cold not on hers. She finally came to her senses and let my antagonized scalp have some reprieve as she slithered away from me. I wanted to hold her, but I didn't push my luck.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, distancing her body from my own.

"I'm not," I responded. "I've wanted to do that since I saw you in your apartment."

"Stop it," she scolded me. "This isn't happening." She motioned between us. "You're going all over the place, an actor. I have a kid. I won't let Maya get hurt again. So just stop it. I hate you."

Her words felt like knives. I only wanted to hurt her more, so I kissed her again. I held my face mere inches from her before letting my fingertips brush along her cheeks, to her eyelids, gently closing them. I let my lips trail along hers, tasting her failing breaths, feeling her soft lips below my own. This time, when I kissed her, she responded immediately, moving with me, opening to let me taste her, to feel her deeper than before. It was my moment.

I was conquered in that moment. I was spoiled. I was taught that everything I'd ever known didn't matter. Everything fell apart, everything that kept me as the douchebag actor, the guy who made millions and threw women away like old pieces of gum, evaporated. I became sustained.

"You don't hate me," I ventured to introduce as her lips sought my own.

"I do," she nodded, kissing me this time. It was short, it was sweet; it was a kiss you give thoughtlessly in the morning as you send the other off to work, absent and something perfected over years of reassuring, needy, throaty kisses. It was a contradiction.

"Why do you hate me?" I asked, becoming less confident, my eyes searching for the answers on her cheeks.

"Because you make me feel." Bella took another step backwards, away from my touch. "I'd rather not feel."

"What if I swear to never let either of you get hurt, ever again," I offered, quite seriously. I hoped I could keep the promise. Bella scoffed. "I love Maya, with all of my heart."

"No," Bella shook her head. "I love Maya, with all of my heart. You are a babysitter." She was trying to hurt me, to make me run away. There would be no more kisses tonight. Now, there would be words that were sharpened to a point for a reason. Bella was waving fire, I was a wild animal on the prowl.

"You know you are just trying to make me afraid of you," I stated. "I don't need you to believe me tonight. I'll show you."

I didn't look back at Bella, but made my way back to the house. When I reached the door, I found her sitting on the beach again, as if everything that had just occurred never came to pass.

I had no idea what I was doing, honestly. I threw myself on the bed, hoping to let sleep take me away from this state. I had work in the morning, the cast and crew meet and greet and some table reads. I should have gotten some sleep.

Time had other plans though, running quickly away from me as I was stuck thinking about Bella and Maya. The kiss, was like a switch, making me want her even more. When I had watched her, all yesterday, just like every day, she oozed this sexiness that she was completely unaware of, whether it was the way she constantly wiggled against me, or sat on my lap as we hung out with everyone and there were no more open seats, or when she applied sun tan lotion to my back. It was tortured, to feel her touching me, and not looking at me the same way I looked at her. When I actually got to touch her, I could feel her respond to me, giving me hope that she might have some hidden feelings. Tonight, as I kissed her, it came rushing back to me that she never noticed me. Bella never gave me a second glance.

I drifted off to sleep as the sun came up, thinking of Bella, of her in that sinful white bikini that clung to her hips and chest, begging to be untied. I dreamt of tasting her, fresh out of the water as she lay on a beach towel in the twilight, her skin glowing and radiant, her hands on me.

I woke to Emmett knocking on my door. I was on top of my comforter, still in my clothes. I gave up and followed him downstairs, not opting to change.

Bella's bedroom door was open, and it looked as if no one had ever been there. For a second, I thought that it had all been a dream, that Bella never existed, that I had made her up completely. I followed Emmett, almost hoping that I wasn't completely infatuated with a woman who refused to notice me.

"How long do you think we'll off at this shoot?" Emmett asked as he walked towards the kitchen.

"Probably all day, but I'll get us out of there as soon as I can," I mumbled, catching an open room I hadn't noticed. "Come get me when you're done with breakfast," I shouted as he kept walking down the hallway.

I sat down at the piano bench, surrounded by windows and stacks of books. I didn't hear his response as he continued towards the food. I let my hands fun along the ivory keys. I continued along with the false notion that Bella was just a dream, and none of it were real, and that I could be happy, right here, right now. I played a few notes, allowing them to ring out in the silence of the room. They were absolute, constantly the same noises that I could mold, that I could change.

It might have been lack of sleep, it might have been emotional exhaustion, it might have been the fact that I was completely crazy, finally, completely, but I gave up at that moment. I forgot about yesterday, about kissing Bella so hard I felt it still, about the fact that I was wrapped so tightly around a little girl's finger that I would gladly give my left arm for her if she asked it. That didn't exist.

I let my fingers wonder over the keys, playing familiar melodies and lacing them with new ideas as my mind drifted back to the beach, to Bella's body beneath me. I played it all until my fingers ached, not used to playing much anymore.

"That was pretty," Bella's voice pulled me from a trance as I sat, still and unwavering until the last hint of the last note disappeared. I turned to find her grinning at the door. I gave her a weak smile and moved so she could sit beside me on the bench. Her vanilla strawberry scent consumed me for a second.

"I thought you and Maya left," I muttered, my hands still gliding over the keys reverentially. Last night never happened.

"We're spending the day at Charlie's after breakfast. He doesn't get to see her nearly enough, and I miss him," she sighed.

"That'll be nice," I added.

"About last night, Edward," she finally started, the speech I knew would come. I sighed and shook my head before letting my fingers drop to my lap.

"You're going to tell me it was a mistake, and it shouldn't have happened," I started for her. "That you don't think of me as anything more than a friend, you have too much baggage, and I'm, well, I'm me. You're going to say that we have no future except one of pain and potential hurt, and that you are beyond repair and only have room in your life for Maya."

"Yes," she nodded, her lips tight.

"And I'm going to respond that none of that matters," I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm Edward Cullen, actor, and I'm completely infatuated by you, Bella Swan, humanitarian and English teacher, as well as your daughter, Maya. You make me do things I don't ever do, and you make me feel things I've never felt. I'd rather feel hurt than nothing at all. I don't want to take you away from Maya, I just want you, and for the life of me, I have no idea why."

Bella sat there as she ran through the conversation I animated for us to save time.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "My answer is final. If you can't be around us after this, then I understand."

"I couldn't be away," I responded. She stood to leave, kissing my cheek as she did. It was a goodbye.

"If it makes it better," she started, pausing at the door and running her small hand along the crown molding. "I wish the situation was different. A different life, and I'd be yours."

"It doesn't," I whispered, so low she walked away without hearing.

Bella's parting words echoed through my mind like a sick joke that everyone continues to repeat until it's lost all meaning and you're just forced to laugh along anyway. No one wants to be the one who doesn't understand the joke.

So I did, I laughed along anyway.

But I never wished for a different life, or a resolve to our situation. I could never wish for that, for something that would take Maya away, that would make Bella less raw, or less of whoever she was. I still held onto that hope though, that she'd be mine.

I got up and went to work. I did that again the next day. I even went as far as to do it again the day after that and decided I could make a habit of it. We returned to Seattle, and the day in the sun, where Bella's body called to me as it sparkled with water droplets, where Maya learned to swim like a fish, that day disappeared. The night though, the night that tore me apart, remained.

"Do you think everyone back at San Simon is alright?" Bella whispered one night as she sat on the hood of my car, staring into the Seattle skyline. I would be late for work, but when she told me the view was beautiful tonight, I sat there with her.

"Yes," I responded after thinking carefully. Bella nodded, as if my words were finalizing.

"I hope so," she mused.

"You don't talk about it much, you know?" I pried. The summer was passing, and as much as Bella avoided me, we still spent more time together than anyone else in her little family. She was usually always on guard around me, but through cracks and slips I came to have real moments with her.

"There's not much to say that you don't already know, right?" she snapped back.

"There's always more to a story that the words on the pages," I responded gently. Again she just nodded.

"Your heart feels good, dripping in pitch," she told me, turning her head on her knees, laying it there and staring at me in the night.

"Burn me," I whispered, staring back at her.

Bella smiled.

Bella never said anything about it, but I read into every word and action as if she still thought about it as much as I did. I watched her lick her lips, and I watched her watch me lick mine. I listened to her, picking up on times of sadness and times of pure joy. I could tell that at times, all she wanted was to be around Maya, and her daughter had the same need, as if they were soul mates, destined to save each other, and sensed the holes within each other. I watched as Bella found peace when she kissed Maya goodnight, and as she'd walk me out so I could go to work, she would be happier, almost willing life to stay that way.

"So, I think I'm going to apply for a teaching position at a St. Thomas' High School," Bella stated one day as I gave Maya a bath before I had to run to my shoots for the night. She sat on the edge of the sink, sipping from a bottle of water.

"That'd be amazing," I smiled, happy Bella was thinking about teaching again. She never talked about Guatemala, and I didn't dare ask.

"I'm nervous," she conceded, staring at me with a puppy dog pout that made me want to hold her until she knew she'd be fine.

"Don't be," I scolded her, tipping Maya's head back to rinse the shampoo from her hair. I listened to her whisper to herself about men who were sheep who were trees who were squids. "You'll get it."

"If only we got everything we'd want," she sighed, staring at Maya and smiling.

"'If only, if only,' the moon speaks no reply, reflecting the sun and all that's gone by. Be strong, my weary wolf, turn around boldly. Fly high, my baby bird, my angel, my only," I responded and smiled at her.

"I pity the moon," she stared at me now, the smile faint. "For all it has to see."

"It pities us for the same reasons," I concluded.

I worked at night, at first, spending hours and hours in front of cameras, followed by hours and hours around Maya in the mornings. I took to taking naps with her, and numerous times awoke to Bella leaning in the doorway watching us both snuggle against each other.

"Tell me a story," the tiny girl begged as we cuddled into Bella's bed for a nap. I was exhausted after having next to no sleep in the past few days.

"What story?" I asked, playing dumb as I stroked her hair. I was in love with this child.

"A good one," she answered with a small yawn.

"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE,"
I whispered this as I rubbed Maya's back, her breathing slowing as she fought against heavy eyes. I closed my own, letting the world go black.

"But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."

Bella's voice drifted into my dreams as she finished the poem. I felt her hand push hair from my face, in this dream of mine.

When I awoke, she was asleep beside me. Her mahogany hair fanned about around her, and somehow, Maya had ventured between us, her head resting on Bella's arm, her hand rooted in my shirt. We were connected, and for a sick, masochistic moment, I let myself pretend.

Life passed, and Bella fully resolved herself to forgetting me. She wrapped herself in Maya and her life, moving out and finding a full time teaching position at a private high school. She gave Seth's mother, Sue, her job as Esme's office. Bella grew and worked hard, and I merely followed like a puppy, waiting for her to notice.

"I got it!" Bella's voice made Maya hop off my lap at the kitchen table as we drew pictures and bolt for the door. I watched Bella swing her up, hug her, and put kisses all over her face.

"Mama!" Maya answered, not caring what Bella got.

"Maya, do you know what this means?" Bella danced with her daughter, dipping her and clutching her. Maya just smiled and shook her head. "We're figuring this out. It's getting better."

"Better!" Maya screamed, her laugh dominating.

"You got the job?" I asked, smiling happily as Bella tried to catch her breath. Before I knew it, she hugged me, Maya still on her hip. I hugged her back, tight.

"I got the job!" she whispered.

"Great!" I shouted, just as happy. We were a family, in the moment.

When I finally took a look in the mirror, I realized it was too late.

And life doesn't wait.

And neither does death.