A/N: Hey all, sorry for the delay...this chapter did not wind up anywhere near it's original outline, but hey, sometimes it's best to let the characters lead the way, so that meant rewrites upon rewrites. I would like to thank you all so much for all your reviews (squee!!), and all your suggestions for the "morning after". I know most of you are going to be disappointed, but I hope to make up for it in the upcoming outtake...SOFT. Watch for it soon! Thanks again to zgirl21 for her beta skills!

As always, I own nothing of Twilight. I do own a decent tax refund which will magically transform itself into a paved driveway in the near future (yeah! no more shovelling gravel next winter!!), a very expensive deck design that is waiting for a Home Depot "never never" plan, and a backyard full of litter that the kids have promised to help me clean up this afternoon.

On to the chapter...

EPOV

After cleaning up the dishes from dinner and polishing off the last of the wine, I debated what to do to occupy myself. I'd slept most of the morning after nightshift, so I wasn't tired, and just laying here on the couch wasn't going to accomplish anything, considering all my thoughts were drifting down the hallway to my bedroom, with Bella sleeping in my bed. Flipping open my laptop, I had just started reading my e-mail when I heard Bella mumbling in the bedroom. I wandered down the hall and stopped in the doorway, trying to discern what she was saying. It was obvious she was having a disturbing dream as I watched her toss and turn, tangling herself in the bedsheets. I still couldn't make sense of the mumbling, but her voice was getting louder and in the faint light filtering into the room from the hall, I could see her brow was furrowed, her face drawn up in a scowl.

When she began to whimper in her sleep, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets, my heart ached for her, and I felt I had to do something to try and soothe her. I crept slowly onto the bed opposite her, not wanting to disturb or frighten her, and I was afraid I had done just that when she started mumbling.

"Don't touch me."

I froze, watching her face for any signs that she was awake and aware of my presence, but she was still asleep.

Again she whimpered, "No, just stay away from me, James." Tears appeared at the corners of her tightly shut eyelids, and her lips were trembling.

I laid on my side, scooting as close to her as I dared, gently brushing my fingers lightly on her cheeks, wiping away the tears.

"Shhh, Bella. It's okay, you're safe here," I whispered.

She tossed her head back and forth on the pillow, her forehead creasing in worry. I ran my hand down her arm, rubbing it lightly.

"Don't leave," she mumbled. "Please, don't leave me."

I didn't know whether she was referring to me or this James character, but decided to go with the flow.

"I'm not leaving Bella, I'm right here. Shhhh, everything is going to be okay."

She rolled towards me slightly in what I hoped was response to my voice.

"Edward," she mumbled, and I was momentarily relieved and encouraged that she recognized my voice, even in her fitful slumber.

"Yes, Bella, I'm right here."

When she moved closer to me, instinctively I wrapped my arm around her, and she snuggled her head into the crook of my arm. I pulled the sheets back up around both of us and kissed the top of her head softly. Whatever stressful dreams she had been having seemed to subside, and I felt her relax into my side, her breathing evening out again.

It wasn't how I pictured winding up in bed with her, but at that point, nothing mattered more to me than holding her close.

"I'm right here, Bella," I whispered, closing my eyes.

BPOV

As I slowly awoke the next morning, I sensed the light streaming in from the window was wrong. Why am I upside down in bed? The window is on the other side of my room. My eyelids fluttered open, and I struggled to clear the sleep from my eyes. Blinking a few times, the room came into focus, at which point I realized I wasn't in my room, nor was I in my bed. Looking down I also realized I was not in my pyjamas, but rather a loosely tied bathrobe that was now revealing nothing but my bra and panties. My eyes went wide. Oh! What the hell happened last night?!

Squeezing my eyes tightly shut, I reached out hesitantly behind me in the bed, sighing in relief when I discovered I was alone. Not that it would have been such a bad thing to find someone, particularly Edward, there beside me, but considering I couldn't remember how I wound up in his bed in the first place, it wasn't something I was ready to face just yet.

Footsteps in the hall caught my attention, and I snapped up, instinctively pulling the bathrobe tightly around me. Edward came into the room, dressed in a t-shirt and flannel pants, his hair wild and messy, carrying two steaming mugs. His eyes met mine, and he smiled that gorgeously crooked grin, instantly making me melt.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." He perched himself at the foot of the bed and handed a mug to me. "I guessed cream and sugar."

"Thanks." I stared at him, trying to read his facial expression, searching his eyes for any clue as to the circumstances of last night. He must have read my mind and sensed the burning question at the forefront of my thoughts.

"No, we didn't sleep together. Not that I would have been completely opposed to the idea." He smiled sheepishly but didn't meet my eyes. I felt my cheeks flush, but couldn't help mirroring his smile, as I wouldn't have been opposed to the idea either. "You fell asleep on the couch while I was making dessert, so I carried you in here. I slept most of the night out on the couch." He motioned to the living room, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Most of the night?" I asked, arching an eyebrow suspiciously.

He chuckled lightly. "Well, when you started mumbling in your sleep, I got curious and came to check on you. You were having a bad dream I suppose, so I stayed beside you for a while until you calmed down."

I hung my head, trying to hide the embarrassed blush while I frantically scoured my memory for what I had been dreaming about, mortified at what Edward could have heard me saying, what with my famous sleep-talking, but I came up empty.

"What did I say?" I asked hesitantly, squeezing my eyes shut. He got up and came around to sit beside me on the bed, taking my coffee out of my hands and placing both our mugs on the nightstand.

"Nothing too serious, although it was fascinating to watch you sleep, the way your nose crinkles up," he replied, leaning in close and kissing my nose gently. He moved across my cheek, leaving a trail of kisses down my jaw to my neck.

"Edward?"

"Hmm?" he replied, nuzzling his lips in the crook of my neck, causing my pulse to speed up.

"Why did you leave? I mean, you didn't have to sleep on the couch. You could have stayed..." I started, my voice trailing off as he kissed his way across my collar bone.

He stopped kissing me and raised his head to look in my eyes.

"I could have. Trust me, I wanted to, but I just didn't know how you would have felt. I didn't want to rush things with us without knowing if it was something you were comfortable with," he replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

I placed both my hands carefully on either side of his face and held his gaze with my eyes.

"Edward, you make me comfortable, probably more comfortable than I've ever been with anyone. I feel like we've known eachother forever, like we were together in a past life or something."

His eyebrows raised and he grinned. "Past life? Really? I didn't know you believed in that kind of stuff, Bella."

I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean."

His hands covered my own, drawing them away from his face, dropping a kiss on each of my palms.

"I think I do," he whispered, leaning in, brushing his lips with mine softly. He brought one hand to rest on my neck, caressing my cheek with his thumb and I leaned into his touch, closing my eyes.

"Bella?"

"Hmm?" I mumbled in reply. There was a long pause, and I opened my eyes to look at him. He dropped his gaze and toyed with the hem of the sheet.

"Who is James?" he asked quietly. My breath caught in my throat and my whole body tensed. When I didn't reply right away, Edward continued.

"It's just that you said his name last night while you were dreaming, and not in a good way. I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't feel comfortable."

Of course my subconscious would betray me by replaying my tumultuous relationship with James in my dreams just when Edward could witness my bad habit of talking in my sleep. Putting James out of my mind to enjoy my time with Edward obviously had back-fired, providing a perfect breeding ground for all my insecurities to multiply. Perhaps it was better this way, to let Edward see that I was damaged, to shatter this perfect image of me that he seemed to have, to remove the facade and let him see how unworthy of him I really was, before the situation got too clouded with emotions.

Taking a deep breath, I chanced a look at Edward. Seeing him sitting there, hesitant, yet with a genuine look of care and concern in his eyes, his smile soft and encouraging, I knew that I was past that point already. I was falling for Edward, and it scared me to death, but if I was going to have a shot at making this work, I knew I had to be honest with him, and with myself.

"James was my fiance. We broke up last spring." I heard him draw in a sharp breath, but he remained silent, patiently waiting for me to continue. "He met someone else, and forgot to tell me about it." I smiled weakly, trying to lighten the situation, but Edward's eyes were dark, his lips drawn into a thin line.

It seemed once my mouth was open, I couldn't shut it, and out spilled the entire story of my life with James. I told him how we met, dates that we went on, about moving in with him, getting engaged, and all the while Edward never looked away.

"I think somewhere along the line I suspected he was having an affair. I mean, all the signs were there, the late nights going out with friends, the gifts he would bring home to placate me, pictures he'd taken on trips with the guys that never actually showed any of the guys. The time we spent together got to be less and less. I blamed it on him being busy at work, or me being preoccupied with school. His family stopped visiting, the few friends we had in common stopped calling, and we fought all the time. We stopped... being intimate, and even when we did, it was different, he was different, distracted, like it was an obligation he was fulfilling. I kept making excuses, kept telling myself that this was just life, that this was normal for couples to get a bit preoccupied. I even suggested that we go away together, sort of a pre-wedding vacation where we could be alone, away from work and school, away from all the pressure, where we could reconnect and fall in love all over again.

I was going through some papers one night, trying to find one of the travel brochures he had picked up before and I happened upon his cell phone bill. There were hundreds of calls to one number, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. I just stood there, for what felt like forever, staring at this piece of paper in my hands, and everything clicked into place. All the suspicions, all the things in my mind that didn't seem quite right about the last few months, everything just came into focus. Before I even realized what I was doing, I picked up the phone and dialed the number. I had no idea what I was going to say, I wasn't even certain who was going to pick up on the other end of the phone, but then there was a click and I heard a woman's voice faintly in the background.

'Honey, would you grab my phone? I'm waiting for a call from my agent.'

'I've already got it babe...Hello?'

I recognized his voice immediately, so casually greeting whoever was calling. My whole body went numb for a split second before I found my voice, although it sounded so foreign to my ears, like someone else had graciously stepped into my body to deal with this whole situation for me, knowing I wouldn't be able to.

'It's me...it's Bella.'

'Bella? What...how did you get this number? What are you doing calling me?'

'Um...can you come home? I think... I need you to come home.'

I heard a long sigh before he replied.

'I'm busy right now. What do you want?'

Right there, that moment, my world stopped. The train that had been my life, meandering down the tracks, so straight and sure of it's course, suddenly derailed, and crashed into a fiery display of twisted steel and mangled wreckage. Sometimes I feel like I really was in that train wreck, bruised, broken, lifeless."

I didn't realize that I was crying until Edward brought his hand to my cheek and brushed a tear away with his thumb. Inhaling a shaky breath, I stared right at him, making certain that I had his attention before continuing in barely a whisper.

"I thought I loved him, I allowed myself to trust him, and I let him change me into someone I didn't even recognize because I thought that's what I needed to do to make him happy. I let it happen, it was my fault. I'm broken, Edward, and I'm no good for you, I'm no good for anybody. You deserve so much better, someone whole, someone who's not me."

I closed my eyes and straightened my slumped shoulders, bracing myself for his reaction, preparing myself for him to finally realize the truth about me and my past, for him to come to his senses and pull away.

"Bella...I...." he started in a low, hushed voice, but then cleared his throat and spoke again. "Bella, look at me."

Opening my eyes, I swallowed hard, wiping away the remaining tears and steeling my resolve, vowing not to cry anymore in front of him. When I gazed up into his eyes, what I found there caught me by surprise and my breath caught in my throat.

"I don't care about your past, Bella. He hurt you, betrayed you in the worst way, and so help me God, if I ever cross paths with him, I may not be able to hold back the anger that is coursing through me right now, but I don't care about that. What I care about is you, this beautiful, intelligent, determined, amazing, stubborn woman who is sitting right in front of me. Who you are, it isn't defined by James or what happened between you two. Who you are is the woman that survived, and came out stronger on the other side, who took a chance on life again, who took a chance on love again."

His gaze was piercing as he took my hands in his.

"Take that chance with me," he whispered.

A/N: So, no lemon...but I have the distinct impression there may be some lemony goodness in the next chapter??? Hmmm??? And I have heard through the grapevine at work that the calendar contestants are rehearsing their acts, and it looks quite yummy. Can't wait to work that into an upcoming chapter.

So, hopefully you are all still loving this story. Let me know what you think by dropping me a review!