A/N: Well, this chapter is a grand 8500 words, and that's just the chapter, not my notes as well. Which makes it by far our longest chapter yet, by 1500 words or so :-D I'll warn you in advance, if you've found parts of the last few chapters confusing, this probably peaks it. Edward…rambles, I suppose :-P Chaos is taking over. I think you'll understand why though, by the end of the chapter. This chapter is…big, and I'm not entirely happy with parts of it, but I am mostly with the parts that count. I'm a little worried that the middle may be kind of unedited :S Lol…so if it seems that way, please hold out! :S (haha, that doesn't sound too promising, does it? :P I hope it's not that bad :P)

But yeah, the last six pages of this chapter have been in the works a looooong time, lol, a very long time…I really hope you enjoy it. (and if there's stuff that needs editing, please tell me! I couldn't stay awake enough to edit properly today, so I've done the best I can and am posting, lol. But please let me know if anything needs help :-) )

Okay, stopping author noting now :-P This chapter means a lot to me, I guess.

(and I was really, really tempted to call it "Because I had no idea that Florida was sunny." Edward disagreed :P)

(and I have to add one more note – it's two minutes 'til midnight here! I actually have a chapter going up on Australian Thursday for once! Hehe ;D)

o

Chapter 11: Heartbeat

The edge of the forest was a tangible relief. I slumped inside the tree line, let go breath, let my face fall, knew I was doing something closely akin to human hyperventilation and didn't really care. I needed to compose myself. Bella wouldn't want Charlie to see her arm, which cut my time to a few minutes at most before I should be in her room. I focused my eyes on the window and let it calm me. This place was familiar, the shape of the sky and the way the wind moved through the clouds and each leaf and the patterns of the bark on every tree. The reflections in the glass of Bella's window, the way the paint peeled, each twig of the tree outside her room. Here I had stood hundreds of times, night after night after night. I knew the air here. The dirt. The familiar rumble of Charlie's thoughts and the easily ignored wash of further down the street. The steps creaked almost inaudibly as Bella approached the door. It was unlocked, but I heard the twist of the handle, the working of the hinges, the separation from the frame and the way the exit changed the airflow. The sound of Charlie's game on television a fraction louder. Seattle was losing badly. It was a local station—the commentator was trying to make the best of it. Charlie's thoughts were grumbling about Boston.

"Bell?"

"Hey, Dad."

I could almost have sworn that Bella's breath caught, and the need to just go in—Charlie would hardly be bothered, if I said that I was parked down the street—just to check that she was alright, that the stitches were still fine…

"How was it?"

But it would be foolish. Bella would be upstairs in a minute. I could wait that long—could have a shred of consideration for Bella. If I came in, there'd be talk, and questions, and obligatory politeness that meant Bella and I sitting in front of the Mariners for at least ten minutes, when Bella needed to be upstairs, in bed. Recovering from severe shock. Probably with painkillers.

Bella laughed quietly, strained. She had become a much better liar in eight months. I was an outstanding model. "Alice went overboard. Flowers, cake, candles, presents—the whole bit." Thirsty vampires, pools of blood, arms slashed open and rows of stitches and a smashed cake and a 'boyfriend'—the idea was slightly hysterical—who couldn't stay in the same room…

"What did they get you?"

It was simple to hear that he wasn't watching Bella—most of his thoughts were still on baseball. I was relieved, despite myself, and I wasn't sure whether I should be or not—Bella didn't want him to look at her, and it would be easier, much easier, if he saw nothing wrong, but she saw nothing wrong, and maybe if Charlie would turn around and stop in shock at the rows of stitches clear down her arm, maybe, maybe she might stop for a second and think about the fact that she had been grievously injured tonight, that had Carlisle not been as he was she would have been returning from the Forks Hospital emergency room tonight. Put there by me. Bodily thrown, and roughly, dangerously roughly, into a pile of glass…

"A stereo for my truck." Her voice dragged me from my thoughts and, stupid as it was, a corner of my pride bridled—my entire family had not given Bella just a stereo for her truck. I shuffled the remainder in one hand. Really, with her restrictions on presents, we hadn't given her a whole lot more, which was completely ridiculous. How did I 'respect her wishes' when she asked to be disregarded but drag her against her will into…this was pointless. I knew that this was pointless. But what did that help? What else could I do?

"Wow."

"Yeah."

Apparently the complete lack of gifts did not seem ridiculous to Bella and Charlie. I didn't really have it in me to be surprised. There were days when I thought that Bella's father understood her so much better than I did. It was a highly depressing prospect.

Charlie's thoughts were back on the game. The conversation was at its end. My eyes flickered back to the upper window. I needed to get up there, soon. Now, something inserted helpfully, since there was absolutely no reason besides my own cowardice not to be in there already.

"Well, I'm calling it a night." Bella's voice was falsely cheerful—maybe her lying hadn't improved so much—and I heard the shift as she began to turn away. Deep breaths. Long, deep draws of fresh air. The calm before the storm. Anticipation and the sensory recollection of an everyday schedule of agony.

Charlie was barely listening. "I'll see you in the morning."

One footstep, another. "See ya."

And then a flash of thought—turning, Bella's face, tired, an image in Charlie's mind that didn't bother him but ached in me, and then her arm, pinned to her side as the other waved briefly, more a half-salute, and even Charlie could see that the stiffness, the way she held it against her body wasn't natural. I froze, though there was no good or bad I could do from out here. "What happened to your arm?"

But there was no real suspicion. In the casual demand, the narrowed eyes, the space of silence where Bella fumbled for words, there was no anger. No horror. There was no…anything. Sixty, eighty per cent of his thoughts were still on baseball. He was…unsurprised.

I saw in his eyes the way Bella blushed, embarrassment—shame?—I saw the way he was amused, barely, and suspected nothing.

"I tripped. It's nothing."

Nothing. And he believed it, believed it without a second's thought as he turned back to the game, 'Bella' sighing from between his lips in barely concerned resignation that of course Bella would be hurt, Bella was always hurt.

The footsteps picked up again. "Goodnight, Dad."

And Charlie's thoughts were back on the game, Bella barely a ghost and then nothing at all.

She was on the steps now and distracted as I was, I had done this two-hundred times and my eyes took themselves back to Bella's window. My cue. Small things, insignificant heartbeats startled as I crossed the lawn too quickly for human sight, jumped vertically up, opened the glass one-handed—Bella's gifts were still in the other—and swung inside. The sound that I made on landing was audible only to me. She was half-way up, one heavy foot and another, and it was my job to be sitting, already here, by the time she opened the door. It made her smile—it had made me smile, five months ago, the way she startled, jumped and her breath caught and her eyes widened and she blushed bright red and warm—and it made us both smile, now, her face lighting up for no reason but that I was here, I was always here, just as I promised, and I never wanted to be anywhere else. When she slept and woke, wherever she needed me, wanted me, I was already there, never gone, just the same every day and night, always. I tried. I meant all of it. And I made Bella smile. And when Bella smiled it was impossible not to.

I placed the gifts in the centre of the bed as she almost stumbled on the top steps, the slide of her foot and then the quiet touch as she caught herself on the rail with her good hand. She could open them before she slept. Distract her from the evening, perhaps. And it'll be so easy for her to forget being attacked by two fighting vampires, some mocking voice in a less silent corner of my mind muttered.

I perched on the edge of the bed beside the silver packages and let myself feel the way the blankets pressed into the underside of my legs, hanging off the mattress. She didn't come down the hall. A hand on the knob of the bathroom door, latch and frame and swing and close again behind her. I stayed on her bed as her jeans slid off her legs and I could hear the denim pile on the floor, and the fresh pants she pulled out and the slide of the fabric up her legs, quiet friction on skin. I tried harder than I ever had to try anything not to think about that, since I shouldn't have been there at all, let alone hearing her undress. I heard the catch of breath as she raised her arms above her head, the hold and the tense and the sharp intake again as she pulled her shirt off over the wound, and I focused on that, and that was no trouble at all. It would almost have been a welcome distraction—I was never exactly at my best when Bella insisted on getting changed so loudly in the next room—if it hadn't been Bella in pain. Which, naturally, was not welcome. Ever.

The shirt was Esme's, not hers, since hers was stained and soaked with blood, her blood that I'd sworn I'd never spill, discarded. I listened to it hitting the floor instead of to Bella's skin, soft breathing shallow, probably with pain. She held her breath again as she pulled on the tank top she wore to bed. It was hurting her. I would have to watch carefully. I should definitely get painkillers. She would have some in the house, so there was no need to leave. I would suggest it when she came in. I was here to minimise her pain. To look after her. I was here tonight to look after her, since she would never look after herself.

In the bathroom, the faucet turned with metal on metal and shifting rubber and the rush of liquid. Downstairs, the crowd cheered and the commentator declared that "the Boston fans think they've won it, but the Mariners are still in the game…". Charlie's thoughts were almost uniform. Bella had left his mind altogether. The bandage had left him unconcerned, then. Bella had tripped—her own fault, naturally. So clumsy—always getting injured.

It was hardly Charlie's fault. She was clumsy. She was…endearingly clumsy. Well, amusingly clumsy, perhaps. But she wasn't clumsy enough to tear half her arm off by tripping, just like she sure as hell wasn't clumsy enough to trip down a flight of stairs and through a window and break half the bones in her body. No one was that clumsy. That was just Bella conveniently taking all the blame for me. And Charlie just bought it. Everyone did. It was stupid, it was irrational and childish and stupid but God I wanted him to suspect me. I wanted someone to. How could anyone protect her when no one saw anything wrong? Then, how could they if they did? When it was me? It was hopeless, completely hopeless, and someone had to hate me for this, surely. Wasn't that fair?

I tried to reason that however fooled the good people of Forks might be, I was being watched by Heaven, and no one escaped the wrath of God. But I was already damned. I'd been damned for eighty-seven years, so it was hardly new. It was hardly punishment. It hardly made up for this, for all of this, all of everything that I inflicted on Bella every day…and would tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Because what could I do? This hadn't been a stupid mistake, a slip, a major flaw. It had been a paper cut. I'd meant well. I'd thought that the party would be good. I couldn't have foreseen…even Alice couldn't foresee…and still…so what could I do about anything? If this was all it took, then what could I possibly do? Things would just keep on this way. We'd go to school in the morning, and Bella would blush and explain that she'd tripped, and Jessica would moan overstated sympathy while snickering in her head, and Newton would be just concerned enough that he could still try to use it to his advantage, and Lauren Mallory would make some sniping comment and Bella would ignore it and bear it and carry on with her day. And I would smile and follow her and take no credit, because everything was Bella's fault, not mine. That made sense. That made all the sense in the world. If you were as sick and as wrong and as pitiful as me.

This time the footsteps stopped outside the door. It opened slowly. I couldn't look up. Her voice was quiet, the same whisper as every night, if touched a little—concern, recognition, all the unspoken things we couldn't touch—but not by anger, never by anger. "Hi."

It was a measure of how disturbingly routine that forgiveness had become that I wasn't surprised. At all. "Hi."

She crossed the room more quickly than usual, but honestly trying to analyse what Bella did and why she did it was an empty pursuit that I had long since given up. I let go the gifts as she reached for them…and then was completely lost when she put them back on the bed. It wasn't until she was sitting almost on top of me that I looked up from my own knees and realised that was exactly her intention. I had gotten better at this, much better at this, over the incredible six months I'd spent with Bella, but she still glared challenge right through my eyes as she climbed very deliberately into my lap, and I focused on holding her gaze and not looking perturbed and wished my mind was more human, because focusing on that didn't distract me at all from all the everything that came with Bella shifting around on my legs and settling against my chest and being so unimaginably full of heat. I deliberately bent my face into her hair and took one long, agonising breath as she finally stopped moving, barely a weight, but a million sensations of warmth and movement and softness and just Bella…so I breathed in, deliberately, and let the pain be the distraction that just trying to think wouldn't. The thirst burned through me like hellfire and eternity and a thousand other things and it worked, it worked brutally well. The rest of my body felt oddly disconnected as I drowned in the feeling from dead heart up, searing throat and searing tongue and searing lips and the battle that was saying no. I let the feeling die away slowly, held my breath, found coherent thought once more. Bella had stopped moving, at least. Mostly. Her fingertips traced all sorts of bliss and damnation across my chest, warmth and the hint of moisture and impossibly light touches pressing through the too-thin cotton of my shirt. "Hi," she whispered again, and I could feel it this time on my skin.

It was a strange thing, to be completely aware of just how weak I had become.

She looked up, and I watched from the corner of my eye instead of looking down to meet her.

"Can I open my presents now?"

Well, that was something. Opening presents had to be less…distracting…than laying herself on top of me. Thank God for small mercies. "Where did the enthusiasm come from?" I asked, almost paying attention. It was difficult to wonder anything past whether she was deliberately tormenting me, shifting and reshifting and reshifting again in my lap like that wearing barely nothing, in the dark, in her bedroom, when I shouldn't even be there at all, let alone touching her, let alone thinking that way…

"You made me curious." She grinned what I could have sworn was wickedly, but almost certainly wasn't. I was delusional as well as completely void of any moral fortitude whatsoever.

I steeled myself to be patient as she picked up Carlisle and Esme's gift—it was hardly anything massive, but she'd refused to talk to me over the suggestion of far less. I didn't realise what I wasn't thinking about until she'd already slid the tip of a finger under the paper.

"Allow me," I cut in, maybe a little quickly, but what I considered admirably calmly, all things considered. I even took the damn thing from her at human speed, once it was clear she had stopped trying to open it. There had been more than enough disaster for one night. And I felt a long, long way from my strongest just this second. I checked the corners of the small box carefully before handing it back to her. I was developing a new respect for rounded edges.

"Are you sure I can handle lifting the lid?" she muttered under her breath, and I had to smile, a little—she hadn't seen me checking. It was so easy to forget human blindness. I fixed the smile in place as she opened the box—I knew myself well enough to know I would want to argue when she protested the gift, and I knew her well enough to know that she'd accept it more quickly if I restrained myself and let her exhaust her objections. I was, however, beginning to worry when ten seconds passed and she was still staring in silence at the tickets. By the time she spoke I was almost ready to use my hands and turn her back to me before I went mad.

"We're going to Jacksonville?"

I couldn't read her tone—I had never realised how poorly developed my skills were in such basic, basic areas until I'd met Bella. There was no need to read a person's face or voice when their thoughts were clear as day.

I went with caution, kept my voice carefully neutral. "That's the idea."

There was what felt like a very long pause, though it was probably imperceptible to Bella, then she was turning back to me, a completely unexpected grin on her face. "I can't believe it," she breathed, clearly having difficulty remaining quiet, and the smile looked real, very real. "Renee is going to flip!" she exclaimed in a whisper, and I felt the smile touching me, though mostly I was just feeling something like shock. I hadn't seen Bella happy like this, excited, enthused since a month before her birthday. The last few weeks had been one long string of misery and doubt and arguments and guilt and fury and while there'd been plenty of times Bella wasn't angry at me, she was generally either just subdued, or distracting herself by tempting me more than I would once have believed possible. This…happiness, bright eyes and her glorious smile…her happiness had always been a revelation to me, but it was cool water and tangible relief after weeks on edge. I tried not to glow too obviously.

"You don't mind, though, do you?" she rushed, words tripping over themselves in her haste. "It's sunny, you'll have to stay inside all day."

Because I'd had no idea that Florida was sunny. I held back my grin. "I think I can handle it." The smile was curving my lips despite me, and I still felt a little dazed by the sudden change in mood—if Bella could have done anything more surprising to me, I didn't know what it was. Understanding her was…I shook my head, trying to catch up with my own mood. "If I'd had any idea that you could respond to a gift this appropriately, I would have made you open it in front of Carlisle and Esme." Though there was a lot to be said for the way one hand had come back to rest on my chest, her face almost peaceful, excitement, real joy in her eyes, and for once, for once I had really made her happy, I'd managed not to screw something up…she rested her cheek once more against me, blazingly warm through my shirt, and I shook my head clear, minutely. "I thought you'd complain."

She laughed quietly, and I could feel her head moving in time against me, and the breath rushing unevenly from her lips, and beneath it the pulse in her flushed cheeks "Well, of course it's too much," she qualified, looking up at me without moving away. "But I get to take you with me!"

My mind was blank. Dazed did not even cover it. She was still in my lap, warm and soft as water and the pressure of her palms and her cheek pressed against my chest and she leaned back, just a little, and the warmth was a flinching loss but her smile was so very, very worth it, and the look in her eyes, like everything would be alright, like somehow nothing mattered, and peace would be here as long as we just sat, together, and I watched her smile…

I laughed a little unsteadily and tried to reaffix my head to my body. I felt a lot like what I knew teenage schoolboys sometimes did, and I couldn't really object. "Now I wish I'd spent more money on your present," I murmured, inches from her face, and soundly wishing I'd bought her Canada, or at least a large group of islands. She glared half-heartedly, and it made the smile breaking through underneath all the more glorious, because I'd seen the real glare, the one that shot me through, more than enough times this past month. But this was real too. The happiness was just as real. "I didn't realise that you were capable of being reasonable," I laughed quietly, and she smiled at me again, burning into my eyes, teeth pressing her bottom lip just barely as she looked right at me, held me there, knew me.

This time I caught her hand before it had lifted far off the bed, and carefully eliminated all risk of paper cuts. The gift inside looked pitifully small, and it was enough to thoroughly dampen my mood—it was almost physically painful to give it to her, like this was all she was worth. It was an effort not to cringe away. A harsh reminder that Carlisle and Esme's gift, not mine, had made her so happy. My gift for her had cost all of forty cents.

"What is it?" she asked, puzzled, and I could hardly blame her.

I didn't know how I could sell this—how I could avoid the reality that I'd gotten Bella nothing, and she was suddenly feeling receptive. But I had put thought into this. Bella loved my music, loved it more than I could think of any other possession she'd like. That was it. Very simple. So, I stayed simple. I reached slowly, carefully around Bella to her disk player, which was about as functional as her truck. I couldn't help holding my breath, still twisted around Bella to reach the player—everything sounds different on different systems, and I was nervous about the horrendous speakers, though I knew logically that it would take a fair bit to completely destroy these tracks given the quality of my recording equipment.

Then the music began.

It was strange, very much so. I had recorded my music before, but not often, and I'd listened to it even more rarely. Twice, I thought, and not in more years than a human would ever remember. The strangeness of disconnecting this music from my fingertips, music that had only ever been played by me, because none of the others would touch it, it was mine, and it grew from my hands…I knew my hands were moving, just minutely, but I wouldn't completely give up my focus on Bella, not now, and this was about her, not me, so I kept the movements small but it was natural, unstoppable, the shifting of my fingers that on my keyboard, the only one I had played in years, excepting our cousins' instrument in Denali, because I couldn't help myself the foolishness that was carting my piano with us when we moved. This was my music, soaring around us so quietly, impossibly quietly, perhaps more quietly, I thought, than it was actually possible for me to play it…though probably not. It was mine. This air, every breath of this was mine. And it felt good, and it brought my eyes naturally back to Bella.

And Bella was crying. I wished it would not be so completely futile to kick myself.

I rested my fingertips on her cheek, carefully. "Does your arm hurt?" I couldn't believe I'd managed to forget my poorly laid plans, that Bella needed to lie down, that she needed painkillers…

"No, it's not my arm." And she almost laughed it, quietly. I was confused. One would think that after nine months I would be becoming used to 'confused' but it didn't happen, it just became more and more infuriating by the day, because a normal person would understand Bella, but I was so conditioned to rely on thoughts, so totally reliant on my abilities that I simply couldn't, I just didn't have the basic perceptions that any human on the street could boast. With Bella, my mind reading was a disability. I was completely inadequate to look after her, that much was strikingly clear…

"It's beautiful, Edward." Her voice so soft I might have been too distracted, if it hadn't been her voice, that I knew in every syllable, every sound. I tried not to look too panicked as I met her eyes, searched them, and she smiled quietly, gently, as though I needed to be handled with care…

"You couldn't have given me anything I would love more." Each word deliberate, choked a little through the tears that weren't quite falling, but that I always, always saw. Her smile broadened into a glowing, warm, still shining-eyed grin, and she laughed quietly once more. "I can't believe it…"

She was…happy? She was crying because she was happy? I didn't dare believe it. But…it did look like that. Even to my pathetic understandings of anything much, she was smiling, and brushing at her eyes again, and glowing, eyes shifting slowly from me to the CD player to shut softly with a gasp in of breath and open again on me with a look in them that said more than I could let myself accept, more than I could allow myself to believe was really…she liked it. No—not just 'she liked it'. It was right. She was happy. Happier even than with Carlisle's gift, I thought. She was laughing, and grinning, and glowing, all so quietly, with a look of something like awe in her eyes, a look I only recognised because I knew it in my own face, knew it when I looked at her and understood nothing but that I was luckier than I could ever have deserved to be.

She met my eyes again, briefly, and I stuttered out the first thing that came to mind before I could lose it altogether and take her in my arms and never let go. "I didn't think you would let me get a piano so I could play for you here."

Her smile settled softly into something more prosaic, if 'prosaic' had been possible for Bella. "You're right."

I took a long, deep breath of agony and bliss and tried to ignore the agony part. Maybe I really, truly hadn't completely ruined this. "How does your arm feel?"

"Just fine." She winced a little when she said it, and while it was encouraging that she wasn't writhing in pain, I was almost certain that I didn't believe her. "I'll get you some Tylenol."

Her face transformed almost instantly, and her protest sounded remarkably genuine for Bella, but that wasn't saying much. I shifted her gently, quietly away from me and stood.

"Charlie." Bella's voice was all breath, hissed almost, protest in every sound of it, but her annoyance was preferable to her pain. I had to smile at the panic on her face—of all the things to panic about, in the day we'd had…

I put on my most reassuring smile—if I couldn't read Bella's facial expressions, that didn't mean I wasn't significantly masterful with my own. "He won't catch me," I murmured, making sure I spoke the words right into her eyes…then grinned to myself, and decided that it might be altogether more fun to do this fast, really fast.

I took a moment, more brief than Bella could perceive, to picture where I'd seen the painkillers in Bella's bathroom. Second shelf of the small cupboard. And the glass from the bench, and water, to take them with. I was a little pleased with myself for thinking of that. And then I pushed the door, just enough that it would open all the way but not quite hit the wall, and ran, something that was usually highly impractical in a space as small as Bella's house, retrieved the items in a move that was instinct with their positions already in my head and couldn't help but grin as I caught the door coming back in, only halfway through its reverse arc.

Bella glared at me very half-heartedly. I didn't lose the grin as I handed over my pickings. I held the glass 'til I was sure she had it in her good hand, and waited for her to extend her other for the pills, slowly, being careful, which was good. She was being sensible, and taking the painkillers without arguing, and the pain didn't seem to be bothering her yet. I noted it all to pass on to Carlisle. And she raised her hand to swallow the pills, and I saw her arm shake, the torn arm, as she lifted her hand to her mouth. Then shake more violently, and every muscle in her body tightened. Her smile slipped. Her breath was still shaking as she swallowed. I tried to keep my own stupid, idiotic grin in place for her sake and it half worked, but not really. Not really at all.

Everything felt painfully, emptily silent. She smiled very deliberately as she shifted to put the glass on the table, and I didn't miss now the way she stiffened each time something moved her arm, the arm that had been pouring blood an hour ago. How I had missed it at all I was not quite sure. Perhaps if you weren't quite so busy being pleased with yourself, chimed that helpful voice that I was fairly sure was the pathetic, undead version of a conscience. And, as usual, it was right. Of course I hadn't noticed how much pain Bella was in, that Carlisle's anaesthetic had worn off, that she really did, funnily enough, need to be in bed, asleep, like Carlisle has specifically told me. Of course I hadn't noticed, because I was too busy congratulating myself for making her smile, something that should hardly have been an achievement for the man who loved her, who claimed her, because I had been too busy grinning about proving I could run a few metres faster than a door, when this clearly didn't interest her because she was too busy being in pain, pain that I had, after all, caused in the first place, but that I had somehow, conveniently managed to forget. Lucky me. If only Bella could be so lucky, we'd be set.

What was wrong with me? What had happened to all the focus I'd had outside the window? If I couldn't keep my mind on what was important for ten minutes without Bella distracting me, then how could I possibly be adequate protection for her, how could I possibly look after her like this? I scrabbled furiously for focus. This was not unsalvageable. There was a plan, after all. Bella needed sleep, and now that I had rediscovered a shadow of sense, I was going to get her to sleep in the shortest possible space of time. Words were not coming to me. I gave up. "It's late."

Bella blinked at me like I'd suggested the sky was falling. I was not going to be distracted again, however. I knelt pressed against the side of the bed and lifted her as gently as I could with one arm, gritted my teeth at the very, very obvious way she tensed, almost flinched, pulled the covers back as quickly as I could and laid her back down, trying my hardest to be more wary of her arm. I tucked the blankets around her painstakingly, made absolutely certain to put no pressure on the wound and she didn't flinch, at least, though that was hardly a major victory when I'd been the one to cause the injury in the first place. She was warm, and she was safe, and she was in bed. This was okay.

I contemplated my next move, unused to leaving her still awake, thinking of the chair across the room…and she made a quiet noise of who knew what—warmth? Pain? The utter dependence that was so sickeningly clear in her eyes, in the way she looked up at me now, with every expectation that I would climb into bed next to her despite all I had done? But her eyes glowed with it and what could I do? That gaze, the gaze I couldn't drop, made it quite clear that she wasn't going to sleep if I crossed the room and restrained myself, if I didn't lie with her. Was now really the time to try to start fixing things? When she was already in pain? For better or for worse—or worse, or worse—I had made her this way, I couldn't escape that. It would be cruel now to step away, however wrong it was to stay.

So I lowered myself to my knees on the bed, slowly, distributing my weight so as not to move the mattress, and stretched out, carefully, slowly, and held that gaze a moment longer before swallowing the hate and the pain and the everything wrong in my throat and putting my arm around her.

This was wrong. My skin tingled with her warmth and my throat burned with her scent and my mouth was slick with venom ready to seep through her skin and cause her the unsurpassed agony that would keep a monster of proportions never seen in this world distracted enough to feed from, hardly necessary for a helpless, weak, already defeated human.

I felt sick. And it felt so…peaceful, like being in the eye of a storm. Bella had always been that way for me—the still, unnerving silence in a universe of white noise. This, though…this calm, still destruction…this was so much, so almost like peace. And was this all this could ever be? A moment of peace to treasure, a moment of love, so short in the years of an immortal life, to live for and then die for when she passed and it was over? There was a peace even in that thought. There was a peace in that purpose, in that end. To breathe in the ecstasy of a love I no longer deserved, then to pay for it in death or damnation by fire, to burn to the ash that would stop my body reforming, take me from this world or leave me floating on the breeze. A moment of love to become dust for. A moment of love…surely that was a worthy reason to live.

She shifted closer to me, minutely, and I felt the moment's pain as her arm moved and had no idea what else I could do to relieve it. Her face nudged against my shoulder before she lifted it minutely to lie against me, cheek pressed to the front of my arm, throat curving around the side, pulse throbbing directly against my skin in a way she certainly wasn't aware of, like so many nights. It was hard to think with that pulse beating against my skin, so full of sensation that it was almost a creature of its own, not Bella's, a creature like any other I might kill and drink of and relieve the screaming, searing pain that filled me, that burned through me always, always, always…

"Thanks again."

God. God help me.

There was nothing else to say, and I kept my voice quiet. She didn't need to share my agony. "You're welcome."

I felt ill. I felt more than ill—I felt disoriented, both things I hadn't felt in more than eighty years. My mind was rushing ahead of me, I could tell, because most of it was no longer at my disposal. The feelings from the forest were back, the strange feeling of something hidden, of bizarre alienation from half my brain. But it had changed—I had given up my attempt to reclaim my thoughts while I focused here on Bella, and it was different now to what it had been half an hour ago. There was a quality of…urgency. It put an edge to my disgust, an edge that I didn't want to admit was fear, 'cause I couldn't explain why I should be afraid. I had nothing to fear from anything, so if I was afraid, it could mean a threat to Bella, and tonight, of all nights, surely she had suffered enough.

I put all the force of my will back into reclaiming the closed sections of my mind. I could feel it clearly now, the rest of my multi-functioning brain working, searching, reasoning. Processes running on autopilot while I looked after—or rather, failed to look after—my angel. Assessing options. Making plans. Trying to dissolve the aching that was ripping at my ability to think straight, the need to punish myself for this, the impossibility of inflicting punishment on this cursed body. It was easy to fall back in—I was almost relieved, the conscious part of me, that while I may have been so busy grinning like an idiot that I'd somehow forgotten everything that was wrong, the rest of my mind, my infinitely capable, multi-focused mind had not.

What was I doing? How could I lie in bed with her and say nothing while she gracefully accepted that having already ruined her birthday, I had pushed her into a pile of glass, slit her arm open in an injury that would horrify anyone but her, and exposed her to…I couldn't think about this now. Bella's still here, I reminded myself. Take care of Bella. That's your job. You can think once she's asleep. It was somewhere between the conscience voice and my conscious voice and something else, but the workings of my mind were not important right now. Wherever in my mind it came from, it was right, and I did what it said. For once in my life, I needed to stop being such a despicable, self-absorbed idiot and just focus on Bella.

"What are you thinking?" A whisper across my skin. God, she was so delicate. So…I set my jaw and forced myself to focus. Bella. Look after Bella. But…what was I thinking? What was my mind hiding from me, refusing to let me see? Why was I so confused? I approximated an answer—as inconsequential as would ever pass for truth. "I was thinking about right and wrong, actually."

Well, I had been asking how I could lie here so calmly…Bella shivered. I very nearly cursed as I tried to pull the blankets more closely around her. I was about to remove myself to the rocking chair where I couldn't hurt her any more when she lifted herself to look at me.

"Remember how I decided that I wanted you to not ignore my birthday?" Her voice was artificially light, and there was an edge of panic. I wondered vaguely what I'd managed to do now. I answered cautiously. "Yes."

She blushed, and venom spilled into my mouth, burned through my system, and I wondered furiously how I could possibly have accepted this as a reasonable reaction to the blood in her cheeks. What kind of delusion was I trying to work here? I was lying in bed with the most beautiful, pure, untainted creature the world could imagine feeling my mouth water because her embarrassment made me want to eat her!

"Well," she forged on, clearly nothing like aware that the man next to her was in fact a bloodthirsty monster who had difficulty focusing on her words through the desire to suck her dry, "I was thinking, since it's still my birthday, that I'd like you to kiss me again."

Venom flooded my mouth at the mere thought. I fervently, chokingly wished I were dead. But look after Bella, the mantra repeated itself in my mind. Don't let her know that anything's wrong. I dredged up a pathetic grin.

"You're greedy tonight."

She glared at me—it felt marginally more fair. "Yes, I am—but please," she huffed, "don't do anything you don't want to do."

I could feel myself cracking up; feel every word falling into the understandings hidden in the cracks in my mind. I laughed hysterically, forcing myself to cut it out before I scared her. Everything felt too intense. I exhaled heavily, trying to release the pressure in my head. "Heaven forbid that I should do anything I don't want to do," I forced out before I could process what I was saying. What part of my mind had spoken? And what did I mean? The unforgivable ease with which I did, had always done, exactly as I pleased, using her thoughtlessly, carelessly for my own pleasure regardless of the extraordinary risk to her life? The destruction of her happiness? And I would have believed whole-heartedly it was that selfish, hateful sin that I thought of, but for the dazed, cloudy dimness pulling at the corners of my consciousness, sending me off balance, hiding from me but unable to disappear. The awareness that something was coming. Something I didn't want to do at all.

I felt like I was tilting. I'm sorry, something in the corners of my mind whispered. I ignored it, suddenly afraid, hate for a moment buried in a terror I couldn't control. I felt myself tremble as I touched her skin, as I raised her beautiful, trusting, loving, needing face to mine. I felt the twin urges to destroy her and to destroy myself as my lips touched hers and the whole world filled with warmth. I closed in the instinct to twist her head, to take that luscious, heavy warmth pulsing at her neck and drown the screaming pain within. I harshly shut off the urge to open my mouth and take her right now, where I was, to sink my teeth effortlessly into those soft lips and I hated myself and I hated the world and I hated something in my mind that I couldn't quite grasp, but knew I would soon, horribly soon, with a dread that overwhelmed everything.

Bella.

Again and again in my mind.

Bella!

Like the pulse of blood, her name beating in my ears and my eyes and my frozen veins.

Bella. Bella. Bella.

Please.

Please.

Bella.

I felt my hands slide down the back of her head, my arms close around her, the length of my forearms press against her back, press her to me, and never let go, never…never… never in a million years of death and blood and silence and…and realised in horror what I was doing.

I loosed my hands, terrified for a moment when she didn't move that I had truly gone too far, that oh God no, no!—but she moved against me, and I found the willpower to shift her away before I did any damage. Any more damage. I lay by her side panting unnecessarily. The breathlessness was in my mind. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. What was I doing? What was I thinking? Strands of her hair tangled in my fingers, strands of her beautiful hair that I'd carelessly pulled out and she'd obediently let me. I couldn't think about the way I'd been holding her. Were there bruises on the pale, see-through skin of her back from my hands? Thoughtless, cruel marks that she would never protest, and my thoughts…the things I thought of when she held me that way…I disgusted myself. I disgusted myself more than I had the day Carlisle had forgiven me and welcomed me home with perfect love and the empty offer of redemption. Because this was love and my mind was all blood, and my touch was pain and sin and violence and this was above anything. Because this was unforgivable. This was beyond reason.

She was gasping unevenly, head fallen back on her pillow, neck exposed. What had I done? What was I doing? I deliberately, forcefully, slowed my breathing and observed her a moment. She didn't appear to be upset, or in pain. I forced myself to calm.

I took a deep breath. "Sorry," I murmured, hating that she would accept it and ask nothing more—that she would not have asked even that. "That was out of line." That she would give herself to me completely, that she would accept whatever damnation I gave her, that she would watch me trample over her life, tear her apart and smile shyly and forgive me. I wanted so badly to scream.

She smiled, just a little, cheeks flushed, perfect lips softly curved. Breath coming too fast in and out like a beacon to my senses. "I don't mind," she smiled, laughed, forgave.

And I knew. God I knew. Like I always knew.

My mind was screaming. For the first time since that horrendous, unimaginable, unforgivable day in March when I had taken her blood and been despicable enough to enjoy it, I felt myself losing control. Not over my instincts—there was no danger to Bella—but over my mind.

Protect Bella.

I searched for a neutral expression. "Try to sleep, Bella."

"No," she pouted, and her face still made me fly. "I want you to kiss me again."

For a moment, I was blindsided by shock. Shock that filled with need—God did I want to comply. Clearly, she was not upset.

I was not that weak.

"You're overestimating my self-control," I reminded her, selfishly hoping that she might give up, go to sleep and remove the need to resist.

She grinned, blushing furiously. I felt the venom again and forced myself to calm. This was ridiculous.

Her voice was stupidly alluring. "Which is tempting you more, my blood or my body?"

Protect Bella, I chanted silently. Protect Bella. I grinned like I grinned every day. "It's a tie." A tie in so far as my body was ready to press her down on the bed, secure her wrists with one hand and feel every inch of her body against mine, press into her softness, feel her skin beneath my fingers, the smooth, silk softness of her palms and her waist and probably her legs, though I had never touched skin higher than her shins. And then, when I was done satisfying my foul, selfish desires, to slice through that soft, petal-thin skin, drink in her pain to sooth my own and drain away her life for the sake of a few moments' pleasure.

Lured in like the prey that she was. But was never meant to be.

Protect Bella. My voice was surprisingly smooth—always the perfect actor. "Now, why don't you stop pushing your luck and go to sleep?"

The prey that I had made her.

And suddenly I realised.

The dizzy, rocking tilt of my mind. The pulling at despair. The fog, the haze, the what my thoughts were hiding from me.

"Fine," she murmured sleepily, cuddling softly, affectionately, beautifully into my arms, pressing the livid slash that I had caused against my cold, inhuman skin. Trusting me. Loving me. Knowing that I would protect her until the end of the world.

No.

The need to touch her, the desperate need to kiss her and clutch her to me and never let go, to kiss her like I would never have the chance to kiss her again. She shuddered weakly in my arms, and I registered below the level of consciousness the change in vital signs that meant that Bella was asleep.

No.

No.

Because I would never kiss her again.

No! I felt myself scream in silence, eyes fixed on her peaceful, trusting face, eyes gently shut, delicate, soft eyelashes brushing her warm cheek, the smallest frown creasing her lips. No. No.

Protect Bella.

There had to be some other way.

She shifted minutely in her sleep and venom flooded my mouth once more. My hands were too hard on her body, and my teeth were too close to her blood.

I felt the cracks break.

Protect Bella.

"No." I breathed one more time, throat constricted and aching, arms still throbbingly warm around Bella's now sleeping body. "Please."

But the time had come.

And my mind had had the good sense to make the decision for me while I was busy with my angel.

I would not break her. I would not let her be the sacrifice to the animal that I was.

I would not destroy her life.

Protect Bella.

And as much as I longed to keep pleading, as much as my lips moved for the word 'no', they could form only one thing.

"Yes," I nodded stiffly, longing achingly, screamingly to weep. "Yes." I took a deep breath, and fixed my eyes on her beautiful face. "Protect Bella."

This was the end. This was the last time. Never again would I lie in the dark with my angel soft and warm in my arms. Never again would she laugh and blush and smile shyly at my words. Never again would her lips touch mine. Never again would my body urge me to take her. Never again would I all but crush her. Never again would she sweetly forgive me. Never again would I put Bella in danger. Never again. This was the end. This was the last time.

I set my eyes firmly on her closed lids and promised myself that this would be the last I would allow myself. Promised myself that I would not close my eyes all tonight. And promised myself that in the morning, when the sun rose behind the clouds, I would never look at her this way again.

Her warmth in my body.

Her skin on my skin.

Her face in the darkness.

I would remember these moments.

And I would leave her to live.

o

o

A/N: So this is the end of New Moon chapter 2, and you all know what that means. The decision is made. Hell has arrived. This was a fairly devastating chapter to write (I really should be posting quickly and going off to work on assignments, but I think I might have to go lose myself in FFVII Crisis Core fanfic to recover from writing this thing :P Or fall asleep (passes out)). Anyhow…there it is, for all it is. I truly hope it does justice to all of your experiences of Edward's decision.

Wish me luck for the coming chapters, 'cause I suspect they may just kill me (wry smile…) :-) :-S

And please review! You guys are the most awesome reviewers ever and I love you all lots :D

(oh, and sorry if there were lots of big blocks of text! I tried really, really hard! :S :D Draft 7 of this chapter had 2 pages of solid, completely unbroken text…twice :P So I really did work on it :D :S Hehehe…keep telling me, anyhow, I'll get it right eventually ;D)