Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd be driving Rosalie's car. Not my junker.
A/N: A little shorter than usual, but it's a semi calm before the storm type thing. Lots of lovely fluff and Bella/Edward arguing. Keep up the reviews; they're keeping me from being too pathetic at the moment. Enjoy!
………………………………………………………………………………………………
It was dark outside when I woke up from my nap. I was alone in my room for once, which was odd. I didn't have too long to ponder about it, though. The door opened silently and Edward came in, easily balancing with one hand a tray that held a bowl of creamy potato soup and some fruit. "Good evening, love," he told me with a smile. "You look better. Would you like something to eat?"
I stretched luxuriously, yawning, and sat up. "I feel a little better, I guess. You'd think I'd be feeling stronger by now, but c'est la vie. Thanks for the dinner. I'm feeling a slightly hungry for once. Shocker, huh?"
"Shocking, forsooth. I'm pleased to see you finally showing some semblance of an appetite again. I'd never thought I'd see the day when I'd be glad to even see you eating some of that disgusting cereal mess you're so fond of, but I believe it has finally arrived." He shook his head in disbelief.
Edward sat down carefully and proceeded to feed me himself. I laughed at first, but I soon saw that he enjoyed it as much as I did. Perhaps it should come as little surprise to anyone that I submitted to his ministrations without complaint.
When I was done with my meal, he picked me up and carried me to the rocking chair that sat next to an enormous window in our room. I liked nothing better than to be rocked in the chair by that window with Edward. I loved to watch the world I thought I'd left forever still go on past the glass. We were far enough away from any cities that the stars shone brilliantly in the night sky. I was able to see constellations that I'd only read about in books. It was absolutely beautiful.
We sat quietly for a while before Edward said slowly, "So, I've been thinking."
"That's good," I teased. "We wouldn't want the old noggin to get atrophied. I'd hate to see you with needles all over you like they did to Neo in The Matrix."
He rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha, Bella. It's nice to see that sleep and food rejuvenates your sense of humor. Now be quiet, please, I'm being serious."
I sobered immediately at his words, or at least I tried to. It was so hard to be good when I was feeling marginally better. "All right, Edward, I'll bite. Oh, the irony!"
He glared at me. I looked at him with all the innocence I could muster and asked contritely, "What were you thinking about?"
He sighed. "I was thinking that you were right, yet again, and that I'm wrong. Every time I've tried to act in the way that I think is best for you and your happiness, I've hurt you. I've hurt you over and over again, so deeply that I'm surprised that you can still love me as much as you do. But I do see that you love me…so you're right. I can't live without you, and I know that you need me, too. We should be together for all time. If that's what you want, then who am I deny you your happiness? You should be in charge of your own life and fate. I figure if we give you enough morphine beforehand, it shouldn't be so bad." He shuddered, but held me close.
I went as still as Edward did sometimes, absorbing this wonderful news that still didn't seem quite real to me. "Edward, I truly don't know what to say."
He peered down seriously at me. "If this is what you really want, I won't keep it from you. I want you just as much as you want me, you know. I merely didn't want to be the cause of your damnation. I do have a few….requests about this whole procedure, though."
I nodded. "I can't promise you anything before I hear them, but I'll do my best to listen objectively. What are your requests?"
He ran a hand over the hollows in my cheeks. I truly was too thin now, but I just hadn't been hungry lately. "I really would like to see you a little stronger before you are changed," he told me. "You're so weak now, Bella. That wouldn't matter in the long-run, I suppose, but vampire venom, while it does heal a person, at the same time it intensifies every wound, enflames every ailment, and multiplies every ache by a thousand times. I want to reduce the pain of your transformation as much as possible. The healthier you are, the easier it will be for you. The stronger you are, the least amount of torment you'll suffer. If I can save you even that much pain, I will."
Despite his brave words, he still tightened his hold on me at the thought of my coming trial. This would have annoyed me before, but I knew now that that was just his old protectiveness. It warmed me rather than warned me.
I tilted my head up at him. "I'm no sadist, Edward. I'm as afraid of pain as the next person. I can accept this condition fairly easily, love, as long as it doesn't keep my change away for too long. I'm already so much older than you. I feel like I'm in some kind of time warp—my life's on hold while body just keeps getting older and older. I want my life to start again, Edward, and it won't unless I'm really and truly yours. Can you understand that?"
His golden eyes were sad. "Unfortunately, I can. I won't ask you to wait too long. Shall we say…six months will be the absolute limit?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, Edward. No deal; I don't want to wait that long, pain or no pain. I'd be twenty-two by then, and that just makes it worse. After all, the pain only lasts for three days. Even I can live with that, with you beside me. I was thinking more along the lines of a month, actually."
"A month? That's absurd. I offer three as an extremely generous compromise."
"Two," I countered. "That's my final offer."
He grumbled. "Oh, all right. Sold!"
After glowering darkly at each other for a long minute, Edward and I burst out laughing. "I can't believe that we're bargaining for your humanity. All right, then," he sighed. "By the end of two months' time, you'll be a monster like the rest of us Cullens. Congratulations." He still sounded depressed.
I knew what he was thinking and I intended to nip it in the bud. "Edward, don't you dare start up the guilty-I'm-stealing-her-life bit again."
He looked at me far too innocently, and I shook my finger at him. "Don't bother trying to deny it, buster, I can see you thinking it. You saw me in that meadow. Did that look like a girl with a lot of options? Did it look like a girl with a beautiful life in front of her? I did what you wanted me to do, Edward, to the very best of my ability. I graduated high school. I went to college and studied literature there. I even got married. I had all those frivolous human experiences that you think I was missing out on, and they were totally empty without you. Whatever you may think, I'm ready, Edward, truly ready to join you, like I was never ready when I was younger. Renee's all right with Phil, and I have hopes for Charlie. Jacob has Dani, and the other wolves are all as okay as they possibly can be, perhaps even better now that I'm not a liability for them anymore. They have their own lives to live. I'm not putting my life on hold for anybody else any longer. It's my turn now."
I considered my words, but shrugged and continued despite them. "That may be extremely selfish, but I don't see how I could sacrifice my will for everyone else's good any more than I already have."
"I'm sorry, Bella," Edward said, appropriately chastised, looking down. With the tip of my finger, I lifted his chin so that I could look at his face and see what he was really thinking.
To my surprise, I could see a little bit of peace come into his eyes as he conceded my points. "You're right, of course. You've given enough. Now it's your turn to gain. I promise you that as soon as you're a little stronger, you'll become a Cullen. I'll even do it myself, if that's what you'd like. After all, it only seems right that I should be the one acting to make you my own." Hope flooded my entire being, and our lips met in a kiss that sealed the deal far more effectively than words.
The moment we broke apart, a strange chorus of yells and howls of joy and triumph were suddenly ripping through the enormous house. The door slammed open, and suddenly my room was swarming with the graceful bodies of Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie. They were all congratulating me and making plans and berating Edward and shouting over one another. I'd never seen them in such an uproar, acting in a way totally foreign to their usually graceful ways. It was thrilling, and the only thing I could do was laugh.
"Finally!" crowed Alice as she did some kind of strange polka around my bed with Jasper. "I thought you two would never get there! If I hadn't had my vision of this, I would have completely lost hope."
"Hey!" I protested, blushing. "You guys weren't supposed to hear all that. Can't a girl have any privacy around here?"
Emmett tapped his own ear. "Vampire hearing, Bella, remember? I assure you of the fact that we don't want to hear you guys gushing anymore than you want us to hear it. Don't get all mad and stuff at us, though, you might trip." I glared at him as hard as I could, and he laughed at me. I imagine I wasn't nearly as intimidating as a bear could be, and he'd faced them down on numerous occasions. "We're just happy to see you guys finally come to an understanding, that's all. It's been a long time coming. You've both been pretty dense in my opinion," he explained.
He was right, of course, as only Emmett could be in such a situation. He delighted in pointing out the stupidity of others and was gloriously blind to his own. I loved him for that personality quirk, as often as it annoyed me.
An unfamiliar feeling of jubilation was seeping into my body, and I glanced slyly over at Jasper with a curious grin. "Sorry," he apologized when he caught me looking at him. I felt a rush of calm which my poor heart definitely appreciated. The happiness had sent it rushing madly. Edward's concerned glance in my direction pointed out the fact that he'd heard it all. Jasper quickly defended himself to us both, even though I wasn't mad. "My ability is hard to control when I'm surrounded by so much joy—it kind of washes out all reason or sanity. I think I should point out, though, that what you just felt, Bella, is what all of us feel at this precise moment."
Despite the sincerity in Jasper's voice, I wasn't so sure about that. I glanced over at Rosalie. Edward had told me yesterday about Rosalie's own personal history by her own request, and she had apologized through him, and personally a little later, for her past rudeness. I still wasn't sure where that put us in the whole relationship…thing. We hadn't really reconciled anything, as much as I understood why she had acted the way she had when we'd first met and after.
She smiled at me now as if she knew of my thoughts. "Yes, even I feel that way, Bella. Alice and Edward and Carlisle have told me about what happened back on La Push. You had that other life that I thought I wanted so badly, that I was so jealous of. I can't even imagine being ripped from it as you were. I can tell you I would have acted exactly as you did, but without nearly the same amount of consideration for those around me. I probably would have taken as many of them with me as I could have, rather than preparing the way for my usurper. I'm truly glad—no, make that honored—that you're going to be my sister. I don't think you'll have as many regrets as I did about becoming a vampire, and that makes me very happy for you. Watching you go through all this has been a real wake-up call for me. I could have found happiness and lost it just as easily as a human. I can never, ever lose Emmett. We'll be together for all the endless ages of the earth, and I'll never know what it is to be alone again."
She gazed fondly at Emmett, and he trotted over to kiss her soundly. When he let her up for air, Rosalie smacked his backside fondly. "Later, honey, let me finish this." He grumbled, but shifted to her side and put his arm around her waist, waiting.
She turned back to me. "Anyway…I want to thank you for showing me all that, Bella. I needed it, more than you'll ever know." She smiled again. She was as stunningly beautiful as always, but it was somehow in a friendly way now that I wasn't afraid of her biting my head off anymore. "Welcome to the family."
That did it. The floodworks opened as I carefully got up and walked over to where Rosalie stood with Emmett. Edward stayed right by my side the whole time, supporting most of my weight as anxiously as a mother hen gathers her chicks about her.
I wrapped my thin arms around Rosalie's hard waist and hugged her. "Thank you, Rosalie." I couldn't have been any more sincere.
It had finally happened. I'd been accepted. I belonged, and it was the sweetest gift that they'd ever given me. Here, even though I was still the drab little sparrow among the doves and hawks, nobody seemed to notice or care about my inferiority. I'd come home to stay, a true member of the glittering and constant constellation.