S. meyer owns twilight

Time to push ahead

If you really want to learn anything you have to put yourself out

Alex wasn't getting any better. And if he was he was doing it so slowly that not even Edward's constant and intent vigil was picking it up. He was asleep more than he was awake. His lungs sounded like a small truck idling and his proud smirk hadn't been seen in days.

Three days in fact.

And Edward hadn't gone into the studio in two.

He sent Alice to tell Isabella and Nicolai that he was sorry, he really was, but he just couldn't leave his friend. Alice came back and said she embellished a bit with a few words like last hours and it could be any time because Nicolai had thrown up his hands in frustration. Edward didn't ask how Isabella reacted. He only nodded and looked back into Alex's pale sleeping face that seemed to hollow by the second more and more as the sickness dug holes in the fevered earth under his cheekbones.

But Alice told him anyway.

"The girl...What's her name?"

"Isabella."

"She looked worried, Edward. She honestly did. And as I was leaving I heard her sticking up for you. She said you were a good friend and a hard worker and if you were missing rehearsal then it must be serious. Then as I was leaving, she asked for the address of the house and I-"

"Tell me you didn't."

"Well...I did." Edward shook his head in frustration and Alice immediately puffed out her chest in defense. "I didn't see any reason not to!"

"Because there are a lot of dangerous people around her! People who don't consider the likes of us an asset to their beautiful city and all it takes is one slip before the police will be around cleaning house! Do you remember why we had to leave the last house? Do you remember what happened to Seth? And what set that off, huh? Do you remember? Well I do! It was because someone opened their mouth one time to the wrong person."

Jasper was now standing in the doorway with wide eyes watching Edward tremble and Alice's eyes tear. He stepped forward and gently led Edward from the room. Alice walked to the window and stared out it like there an armed force could storm up the back alley at any second. She remembered that night. The night when they were woken by pounding on the door and flashlights in their eyes. They were drug from their beds by men with clubs and pushed out onto the cold street, falling to their knees, grasping for each other with hands still clumsy from sleep. There was so much shouting and chaos that they didn't hear Seth being beaten to death after he was pulled from the fence he was trying to scale to escape. He was only sixteen and none of them had ever gotten over it. They knew the dangers of living in groups like this. They were considered thieves and pickpockets and as much a threat to society as wild dogs. And just like wild dogs they were feared most when they packed together.

It took them several months to find each other again. They had been carted off in all directions, sent to every corner of the country and dropped off in small towns, at farmhouses where they were expected to work as servants in return for food and the hope that they wouldn't freeze to death in the cold Russian winters. But they all came back, migrating like fragile birds back to the warmth of each other. This house simply fell into their laps. Jasper's father, who never had an ounce of interest in him, finally gave into a deep parental guilt on his death bed. And although the grand house he owned in the market district went to his daughter, a school teacher with as many children as most people have teeth and an inherited disinterest in her brother, the large drafty falling-apart house on the outskirts of the outskirts of the slums, went to Jasper. The deed sits in a metal fireproof box always in the middle of the dining table where most people have flowers or candles. They don't fall into the trap that it keeps them safe, the house could be taken and burned with no reason needed, but seeing it there at least helps them sleep. And the carved wooden horse always beside it helps them remember Seth.

"You can't take care of him if you don't take care of yourself." Jasper's gentle voice woke Edward from his thoughts and he leaned back against the wall behind him suddenly feeling like his knees might give way. "When was the last time you slept?"

"A few hours ago."

"For no longer than a few minutes, I assume. …I know you're worried. We all are. But if you don't start sleeping and eating and...living...then you'll be in the bed next to him within the week. Who'll look after Alex if you're sick as well? Because I, for one, am not spending every waking second worrying over you two."

Edward glanced up and saw a soft smile and a mischievous twinkle in Jasper's eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but tears drew a lump in his throat. He was exhausted and the tears seemed to come so easily and without real cause these last few days. His stomach rolled with hunger.

"It's alright, Edward, I know. You'll sleep in my bed tonight and I promise I'll stay with Alex. If he asks for you I'll come get you. You have my word. Now go and have some tea. I managed to bring home a few scones and apples this morning and you have to eat. Tomorrow I want you to go back to your brother's house. It's your off day at the studio, right? Go home and get some sleep and eat. Alex will be fine without you for a night. You can come back after work the next day."

A few scones. A few apples. It seemed like the most food they'd had in the house at one time in months. It seemed like a king's feast but there still was never enough. Edward nodded because he was too tired to argue and hobbled down the dull wooden stairs skipping over the very last one that everyone knew squealed like a dying cat.

He heated the kettle and took a few bites of a scone, a few of an apple, while the water heated, but the whistle told him it was time to stop and he left the rest. Everyone was hungry.

**

The next morning a knock at the door pulled Edward from a deep sleep. At first he didn't know what was waking him. He rolled to his back and listened so hard that his ears throbbed. There it was again. A heavy knocking at the door. Throwing the covers off he collided with Jake in the hallway and without words they sprinted down the stairs having a wordless argument with their eyes about who should answer it.

Edward cracked the door but no one was there. He cracked it a little more before swinging it open.

He was just about to swing it shut when Jake caught the corner with his foot.

"Edward, look."

At their feet was a polished wooden crate and in that wooden crate appeared to be food. Not just food. It was as if someone had robbed the picnic basket of the gods. Just on the surface they could see held bread, eggs, a few bottles of milk, what looked like the corner of an entire ham.

"What the...Where did this come from?"

With the other members of the house soon pressing their back to peek Edward's blood ran cold and his heart swelled as realization swept over him like a cold wind. She asked for the address of the house.

"Don't touch it. Send it back. We don't need it."

"Are you insane?! Edward, that's enough food to feed us for weeks!" The girls were reaching down trying to heft its weight into the air. Edward took one hand and pushed it back to the ground.

"You have no idea where it came from."

"What's wrong with you? Do you think it's poisoned?? I'll take my chances if it's all the same to you. I'd rather die of poisoning with a full stomach than hunger."

"We've never accepted charity and we're not going to start now."

"So you'll steal but you won't-"

"That was one time!"

The bickering was interrupted when Jake pulled a white folded piece of paper from the edge of the crate. Everyone stared while Jake read the name on top and then held it out to Edward between his two fingers. Mystery solved. Even though Edward had never seen Isabella's handwriting he knew the second he saw Edward scrawled on the surface in that prep-school-created but still girly, perfect script who the mystery sender was.

"Are you gonna stare at it all day or read it?"

He turned his back to the others so they couldn't see the thin, elegant paper shaking in his hands as he unfolded it like it could shatter to pieces.

Good morning Edward,

Send it back, right?

I knew you were going to say that.

But I also know that a friend is sick and probably as hungry as you looked the last time I saw you. So don't consider it charity. Consider it an advance in pay. I know what it is to be proud but I also know what it is to be hungry. You told me once that you would do anything for me. If that's true then I want you and your friends to go to bed tonight with a full stomach.

Please.

Yours,
Isabella

He read it three times through, his eyes widening every time he passed over the word Yours.

Yours, Isabella.

"Well??"

He sighed heavily, reeling at the gesture of kindness. He let a smile creep up his face.

"It's...from a friend. It's ok."

The whoops from all around him surely woke the neighborhood and it took three of them to lift the crate and carry it into the kitchen. They crowded around it on bony knees like children at Christmas and started pulling things out, smelling, showing every item around like treasure. Milk, eggs, bread, cheese, ham, bars of chocolate, colorful tins of hundreds of tea bags, coffee, pears, apples, canisters of soup still warm from the cooking pot, butter, and more. Jake held a pineapple in front of his eyes murmuring that he'd "never even seen one of these before" and was on his feet scrounging in every drawer for a knife. When they got to the bottom, tucked away in a corner was a medicine bottle. Jasper snatched it up and turned the label around. The first word he saw was penicillin and he had to wipe tears out of his eyes before he saw the name of the original owner.

Prescribed to Isabella Swan. 500 mg. Twice a day for ten days.

Without alerting Edward he stood and walked over to where Jake had attacked the leathery skin of the pineapple. Look at the name. Everyone in the room was shown the bottle before Jasper walked over to the stove. Edward was watching the kettle with his bottom lip pulled into his mouth. He grabbed Edward's hand and put the bottle in it, closing Edward's fingers around it.

Jasper leaned in to his ear and whispered…

"Tell your friend, Ms. Swan, that we thank her from the bottom of our hearts. …I do believe she's saved our Alex."

The sounds of rejoicing filled the room. Pots and pans banged that hadn't been touched in over a year. The air filled with the smells of a real breakfast feast. All the arguing had come to an abrupt end and Edward stood in the middle of it all, staring down at the bottle in his hand, even more resolute than ever that the woman he loved was quite possibly the most beautiful and unpredictable soul he had ever known.