It's Tuesday in my world, and I'm feeling a bit sentimental for this story, so I'm posting the epi. Thank all of you who stuck with me through this one. I knew it wasn't as fun and pretty as I usually try to deliver, but it means a lot to me. I appreciate your support more than you'll ever know.

SMeyer owns the characters. I don't infringe. Thank you Southern Heifer for pre-reading and continuing to support the story. Love you, darlin'!

All mistakes are mine, but so is the sentiment. This is from the heart. It's short, but I believe it's sweet.

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10. EPILOGUE

EDWARD

I sat in a chair in the same hospital in which I'd awakened without a lot of memories, and I thought about my life after a lot of those memories had resurfaced.

I didn't remember everything, but I had a lot of things that had emerged. I remembered her. She was love, purely, simply, and beautifully.

When I saw her standing at the emergency room desk with her father, she completely struck me dumb for a moment. She was beautiful. She was trying to talk her dad into staying at the hospital to get checked out, and the nurse was giving her ten kinds of hell because we were busy…well, the ER docs were busy, but I'd just finished a consult, so I volunteered.

"What's going on?" I asked as I walked up to the desk.

"Oh, Dr. Cullen, this is Chief Swan. He fell off a ladder…."

"And he's fine," the man complained.

The beautiful young woman looked at me with a look of complete exasperation on her face. "He's not fine. He's broken or dislocated something," she offered.

"Well, let's take you to an exam room, Chief Swan. If you're fine, I'll cut you loose," I offered as I looked into those damn brown eyes of his daughter. I was lost. She owned my soul from that moment, and all I could think about was "How do I get this gorgeous woman to go out with me?"

She was it for me. I was completely over the moon about her, and over the months I remembered us spending together, I knew in my heart I was right. Bella Swan was my life. She was my 'one'.

I remembered the Valentine's dinner after we remarried, and she was giddy, which thrilled me. I loved to see my wife happy, and that night, she definitely was. I drove us to an Italian restaurant, led her inside, and took her coat. I couldn't help but notice how absolutely gorgeous she looked. She was glowing.

"Well, Dr. Cullen, you got the job done. I expect we'll have a new member of the family around my birthday. Congratulations, Daddy," Bella told me as she handed me a box wrapped in white paper with red hearts on it after we were settled at our table. I ripped it open right there in the restaurant and saw a Christmas ornament, much like the one we'd hung on the tree in memory of the baby we'd lost when my accident occurred. This one, however, was a glass heart with a stork and the year '2013' etched into it.

I kissed her and stood up in the restaurant that Valentine's night yelling, "I'm going to be a dad," to people we didn't know. Bella blushed, but the crowd applauded. It was yet another happy day in my life.

Every happy event…our second wedding in my mom's garden…our honeymoon to Italy we'd not been able to take the first time…Bella opening a design studio in PA as an extension of Mom's business in Forks…me walking Katie down the aisle when she and Charlie got married in a small church in Forks at Thanksgiving…all of those things served to erase the bad days when I was recovering.

Through a lot of therapy…many kinds…I was erasing the dark days, one-by-one. After numerous discussions with my family, Emmett and Rosalie, and Felix and Jane Banner, I realized how poorly I'd treated Bella when she tried to care for me during my recovery. I didn't have the slightest idea who she was when I woke up. I knew she was beautiful, and she was peppering the doctors with a million questions.

I remembered being a doctor, and while I didn't remember much about my practice, I knew I'd understand them a lot better than the little woman who wouldn't stop talking until she heard something she could latch onto. But, who she was, I didn't know. I could, however, tell she was grieving a loss. I had no idea how extensive that loss was. When she spoke of her husband who was missing, I was jealous. I didn't know in the slightest it was me she was grieving.

That was something I didn't think I'd ever be able to get through, but with Bella, hell, you just couldn't live in the past. She had a way about her that she'd drag you along. "Come on, Doc. The past is the past. We're living in the present and looking forward to the future. I made pancakes." As she'd stroke her swollen belly when she carried our baby, how could I not listen? She was so fucking incredible, so forgiving, so wonderful, I'd have to go to the bathroom and cry because I didn't deserve her the first time, let alone the second. Why God smiled on me, I'd never know, but when he brought Bella into my life, not once but twice, it was the most amazing miracle I never deserved.

As I thought about the road that led us to where we were, I wiped the tears when I heard the cry. I walked over to the clear bassinet, picking up our daughter. "Hello, beautiful. Mommy's sleeping because you took your own sweet time getting here. Twenty hours of labor was harsh, you know. She'll probably ground you when you become a teenager," I teased the gorgeous bundle in my arms. I picked up the bottle in the warmer on the nightstand and situated the nipple in my daughter's perfect mouth.

Bella was planning to nurse, but our daughter's birth had taken all of her energy, so I asked for formula so I could feed her and allow my beautiful wife to sleep.

"I promise you, my beautiful little angel, I won't let your mother saddle you with that horrible name. I'm used to doing battle with the woman, but I refuse to have my daughter named 'Esmenee'. It's awful, and she was delirious after you were born, so don't worry. I've got your back, Jack. Hmm, are you an Angela? I think you just might be," I whispered as I fed our daughter.

I removed the small nipple and moved her to my shoulder, gently patting her back to get a burp out of her. When I had one, which was really God awful, I moved her back to cradle in my arms, and I wondered what she'd face in her lifetime.

I knew how wonderful and horrible life could be with one decision. I made a great decision when I asked Bella out for a date after I cast her father's broken arm. Tanya Denali made a horrible one when she climbed behind the wheel of her car and drove drunk.

She took her own life and left behind a family. She also took a huge chunk of my life, my first child because Bella miscarried just after the accident, and any hope we could continue our life together without first blowing apart. I didn't know at the time how close she'd come to taking my Bella's life as well.

Would I endure the hell of the accident if I was guaranteed my life would turn out the way it had… beautiful wife who'd agreed not once, but twice, to marry me, and an angel in my arms sleeping peacefully? Knowing what I knew in that moment, I'd have to say yes. Looking back on it and all of the bad shit we trudged through, I'd have probably said no.

Thankfully, I had a woman who loved me so much she'd sacrificed everything to try to bring me back from the purgatory in which I existed for far too long. She saved my life. She was the most incredible person I'd ever met, and as I drifted to sleep holding her hand after I'd placed our sleeping daughter into her little plastic bed, I knew Bella had brought me back…she brought me home. She was home. I'd come home.

Come home
Come home
Cause I've been waiting for you
For so long
For so long
And right now there's a war between the vanities
But all I see is you and me
The fight for you is all I've ever known
So come home

("Come Home" by OneRepublic. Copyrighted 2009.)

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So, there we go. Again, thank you to all of you who read and reviewed. I know (trust me) everyone didn't like it, but it was what I had to give. Every story is a little piece of the writer, and we offer what we can when something strikes us. This was what struck me.

Thank you so much for reading.

For the last time (this time)…xoxo