A/N: Hey, you. Yeah, you. You. Are. So. Beautiful. To meeeeeee.

Edward pulled into the garage, turned off his car, and ran out of energy.

He'd had an awkward conversation with Peter Damon, his business partner and Charlotte's brother. All the conversations between them had been awkward ones of late. That was to be expected. Of course he'd had to tell Charlotte's family about his marriage.

They were happy for him in that wistful way. Like his own family, they'd been worried about him, but it wasn't easy. He understood that. Still, they prided themselves on their manners. They did their polite duty and asked him about his new wife, their wedding, and their life together.

Funnily enough, it was easy to talk about Bella. He genuinely enjoyed her, and she'd been so lovely on their wedding day. There was very little to lie about when it came to Bella.

He was the lie. It struck him how much of his life was an act. Pretend to smile. Pretend to have interests. Pretend he didn't ache all the time, and he didn't want to spend all day in bed. The lethargy seeped into every corner of his body, making his limbs heavy and his thoughts slow. But he pretended he still cared about his business. Pretended he was a good boss, a good friend, a good son.

That particular day, he pretended until it was just after noon. That was the nice part about being the boss. It was easy to find an excuse to slip away. He was a fastidious person by nature. How strange. He found it difficult to have a conversation some days, but he could keep a company running smoothly, could manage projects, and keep up with paperwork.

Edward rested his head against the headrest, his mind blank for a few heartbeats as he listened to the garage door roll down. When it was done, the garage plunged into silence, he remembered.

This was how it was supposed to end. That day, if he'd been able to check that last box off his list, this was how it was going to happen. Drive home from the cemetery. Pull into the garage. Close the door. Breathe and wait. It was the closest thing he could find to what he wanted—to just fall asleep, fade into nothingness.

A rap on his window made him jump, and brought him out of his dark reverie. He blinked rapidly, half wondering if he'd acted without thinking. Had he turned the car back on? His thoughts wouldn't coalesce, wouldn't make sense of reality in that moment. Was he dying now? His brain turning to mush as consciousness slipped away?

"Edward?"

He blinked again, and his thoughts—only sluggish—turned concrete. It was Bella rapping on his window, looking at him with concern. He opened the door enough so he could hear her. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You've been sitting out here for a while."

Was he okay? He thought about that for a few beats, getting distracted as he looked at her face. She was so beautiful. And strong.

When he opened his mouth, he might have told her anything. He might have told her how he ached with an exhaustion that went to the marrow of his bones; the weight that settled on his shoulders, and how he couldn't remember how to sit up straight. He might have told her about his macabre thoughts and the letters he'd never thrown away. He wouldn't leave her. He'd made a promise to help, and he was going to keep it, but that didn't mean he'd stopped thinking about the letters.

The words that actually came out were nothing Edward was even aware he'd been thinking. "Would you be interested in going for a drive with me?"

~0~

It occurred to him only once they were on their way how trusting Bella was. She hadn't even asked where they were going. She sat in the passenger seat, a calm presence as always. In the five days they'd lived together, he'd noticed she was easy to be around. She'd noticed his silences, but never commented. She'd noticed his habit of forgetting to eat and said nothing, just set a warm breakfast or filling dinner in front of him. Today, she'd rushed back in the house to grab the sandwiches she'd made just in case he came home from work for lunch.

He loved his family. Of course he did, but they just took so much energy.

Their destination wasn't far. It was pre-traffic hours, so the freeway turned into the city's main drag in no time. "Newport?" Bella asked, looking out the window. "Are we going to the beach?"

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah." Bella huffed in laughter. "I always think it's so funny. We live so close to the ocean, and yet I think it's been years since I've seen it." She sighed. "Not since Mac was a baby. She was so funny, squealing and kicking at the waves."

Without thinking, Edward reached over, squeezing her arm in comfort. They were working on their plan, researching attorneys. A few days before the wedding, Liam had finally relented, giving Bella back her daily phone calls with her daughter. The little girl was confused. She knew only what her father told her, and that he hated her mother. She only remembered Bella as a voice on the phone. Their conversations were stilted, but children were trusting creatures. McKenna was opening up again. Slowly. So slowly. Completely unaware of how much she was breaking her mother's heart.

Edward drove them to the beach and found a place to park with relative ease. It was early Spring and a weekday besides. The beach wasn't crowded.

"Random, I know," Edward said as they started to walk across the sand. "You're right. For living so close, I don't get here enough either."

He paused a safe distance from the water and toed off his shoes. There was something about this he liked—the tactile feel of the sand on his feet; the steady pound of waves on the beach; the light whistle of the wind, cool on his skin.

Beside him, Bella sat on the sand, her eyes out on the water as she started to take off her shoes. "I've always wanted to jetski."

The comment amused him. There were no jet skiers out. There were a couple of persistent surfers—crazy asses, the water had to be freezing—and a few large ships further out, but no jet skis. "If I was rich, I think I'd own a boat. One of those ones just large enough that you could spend a night out on the ocean if you wanted to."

Bella drew her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and settling her chin on her knees. She wiggled her toes in the sand. "I always wanted to take a cruise. Actually, I want to take a lot of cruises. I want to travel, and I think that would be the most fun way. You take your hotel with you. Amazing food. Nightly entertainment, shopping, and gambling."

"Plenty to drink."

She grinned up at him. "And you wake up every day with a brand new place to explore."

Edward nodded. "It was nice. I've been on a couple. I like finding a spot with a window to sit and read with a cup of coffee while the waves roll by outside. In Alaska, it was easy to see a whale tail or them blowing their stacks in the distance."

Bella hummed, her expression far off, and he wondered what she was thinking. He recognized how privileged he was. His dreams, when he'd had dreams, the things he'd wanted, were never far out of reach. He'd worked hard, but so had she. She skirted the edge of poverty, struggling at times to keep a roof over her head and food on her table. A cruise might as well have been a fairy tale for how unattainable it was.

Bella stood up suddenly and marched toward the surf. Edward sat on the sand, watching her with curiosity. He mimicked her earlier pose, drawing his legs up and resting his chin there.

She walked a few steps out, teasing one toe in the water as the sea retreated. It , and Bella squeaked, dancing backward to keep the waves from catching her feet. For minutes, she played chicken with the waves until, inevitably, nature won.

"Oh, my hell!" Rather than run away, Bella stood in the water, stomping one foot as she found herself ankle deep. "It's freezing!"

Edward laughed. It burst out of him as his lips spread into a wide grin. For a moment, just a moment, he could take a deep breath. He laughed again, because the sight of her was delightful. This woman with so many problems, so much weight that should have pinned her down on the floor, and here she was, dancing in the surf with a carefree smile on her face. She took her moments of complete happiness where she could find them, and she was beautiful for it.

She turned to him then, her eyes lit up and her grin mischievous. She darted out of the water and bent down, taking his hands and tugging. "Come on."

"What?" He arched an eyebrow.

She tugged again. "Come on," she insisted.

Edward let her pull him to his feet. "What?" She started to tug him toward the water, and he resisted, though not enough that he unwrapped his hand from hers. "Oh, no."

She turned around, rocking back on her heels as she used both her hands to pull one of his. "Don't be afraid. You have bare feet."

"I'm not afraid. And look at your jeans. You're going to be freezing."

"Ooooh yeah. I'm going to freeze to death in the spring in Southern California."

He rolled his eyes, but let her tug him forward. Near the waterline, he stuck his foot all the way out, dipping a toe in the water, and hissed. "That's cold."

She took his other hand, holding both of them out. "Your whole foot. Two feets."

As though he could resist her happy smile. He feigned reluctance, but teetered forward a few steps until the water could lap at both his feet. "Gah!" The water really was cold. They must have been a sight, still dressed in warm, open sweaters, standing in the cold ocean up to their ankles.

Bella tilted her head up, grinning at him, and Edward had an overwhelming urge to kiss her. He swayed with the power of it, remembering the feel of her warm back beneath his hand as he'd leaned in to kiss her on their wedding day. His wife. He'd liked kissing her. Liked the feel of her lips and the way her touch sent a pleasant thrill through his body. It felt right—the want to kiss her, the satisfaction in doing so. He even put his hand on her hip, as though he were going to pull her up against him.

Her eyes darted to his lips, but then she ducked her head. Her titter of laughter was nervous, and she took a step back, letting go of his hand. "It feels good, though."

It took him a minute to figure out what she was talking about. The water. The chill of it climbed further up his legs, the splash of the waves hitting his fingers. "Yeah," he agreed, his thoughts thick for much different reasons than they had been this morning.

A particularly rough wave caught them both by surprise. Edward gasped, his head clearing. Bella pitched forward, thrown off balance because she was shorter. The wave had hit her at just the right spot to make her unsteady.

"Whoa." Edward reached out, bracing her arm. A charge rushed between them as she touched a hand to his shoulder, straightening up. Their eyes met again, and Edward felt the heat of blood beneath his chilled cheek.

Another wave hit them, reminding him they were in just a little too deep. He squeezed her shoulder. "Come on. Let's get out before we get carried away."

Chafing her shoulders against the cold, Bella followed him back toward the dry sand.

Then, the world shifted beneath them. Literally. Edward flung his arms out to keep his balance, and Bella, who had been bending forward to pick up her shoes, toppled to the ground. The earth shook, and the wood of the pier nearby gave an loud creak that echoed through the air.

It was over in a few seconds. An earthquake. Not a big one, but enough that Edward's heart now thumped with an erratic rhythm. He looked out at the water. The ocean didn't seem bothered, but that didn't make him feel better.

"Are you okay?" he asked, taking Bella's hand to help her up.

"Yeah," she said, voice shaking with the same residual fear.

Acute anxiety stabbed at Edward, putting an edge of panic to his thoughts and words. "We need to move. Away from the beach. Just in case." This was plain fact. With such a small earthquake, a tsunami wasn't likely, but that didn't mean he felt comfortable near the water. Instinct put him in a protective mode. All he knew for sure was he wanted Bella far, far away from the power of the ocean.

Luckily, Bella didn't argue. She kept up the pace he set as they hurried away from the waves. The smattering of other people that had been milling about had the same idea. They all made their way for the boardwalk.

Back on terra firma, with the sidewalk underneath his feet and the ocean a decent distance away, Edward felt better. The itch of urgency still thrummed beneath his skin, but he felt like he could contain it then.

"Hey, it's okay."

It wasn't until he heard her soothing words and felt her hand stroking his back that Edward realized he'd pulled Bella close against him. His stance was protective—as though he was ready to fight the wave if it came at them. "Just a little quake," Bella said.

Edward closed his eyes, momentarily dizzy. Rationally, he knew there was nothing to worry about. Earthquakes, for the most part, weren't a big deal. Oh, sure, at any given moment they could be. But in his lifetime, they hadn't been, and this one definitely wasn't.

He really should let Bella go. He had no right to hold her the way he was.

"Are you okay?" She touched the back of her knuckles against his cheek in a gesture that was tender and, in the position they were in, intimate. Edward's breath caught. He raised a hand and threaded his fingers through hers against his cheek. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

She was looking at him. The space between their eyes seemed alive and heated. "I'm okay," he said, his voice lower than normal. "Just adrenaline."

He very much wanted to kiss her.

Bella shivered then, violently enough that it shook both their bodies. He dropped her hand and took a step back. She wrapped her arms around herself. "Are you okay, Bella?"

She'd started to shiver, but she laughed wryly. "Speaking of adrenaline…" It must have left her, bringing on a mild shock.

"I told you you were going to be cold," he said lightly, teasing. He draped an arm over her shoulders. To keep her warm, of course. "Come on. We can run the heater in the car. Maybe have those sandwiches you made."

"That sounds good," she said between chattering teeth.

He didn't let her go until they got to the car. "You're not cold?" as she sat in the passenger seat, arms wrapped around herself again.

Having had her tucked up against him, how could he be? "Adrenaline," he said again. "It'll wear off."

He got in the car and turned on the heat, as promised. Bella's shivers subsided quickly, and she reached in the back to grab the lunch she'd prepared.

They ate in companionable, peaceful quiet, staring out at the water from a safe distance.

A/N: Theoretically, if there were to be a tsunami, the parking lot of the beach would NOT be a safe distance away. But, this was a minor earthquake, and all is well.

It would freak me out to be in an earthquake on a beach tho. Not as much as if I was on Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland (it's UNDERGROUND, yo), but still.