[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

[A/N] Welcome back, my lovely readers. Thanks for taking the time to read & review my little project here.

I'm so happy that I managed to create an Edward that is so hard to hate for you. I love his character in this story.

Also, thanks for all your thoughts on the whole Rosalie/ Emmett situation. I can't wait for your reaction once the whole truth comes out.

FAQ's

Would you write their first time from Bella's POV?

I don't think it's good when you retell the same chapter from another characters POV. But I will definitely do a lemon from B's POV in the future.

This chapter here is dedicated to sarCHRIS2012 – I admire people with a great imagination. Your theory is wrong but it totally made me smile when I read it.

**14**

God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled

(Author Unknown)

I didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to wake up to realize that everything what had happened last night was nothing but a dream.

Warm lips pressed against my neck, gently at first but then a bit more eagerly, probably leaving crimson marks on my skin. You couldn't get a hickey in your dream. It was impossible.

"Hey," I whispered, blinking tiredly into the lightness of my bedroom. Bella snuggled a bit closer against me from behind and chuckled.

"Are you finally awake?"

"No,"

"Are you talking in your sleep?"

"Yes."

She laughed and leaned over to plant a wet kiss on my cheek. "You snore too and pretty bad to tell the truth."

Why do people always make up that I snore? First my brother when I was a child. Then Charlotte insisted on always having earplugs in stock when I crashed at her place and now Bella was telling me the same. I did not snore! I would know it if I did.

"Did you sleep okay?" Bella asked me, sitting up straight in the bed before she leaned against the headboard. Somewhere in the middle of the night she must have gone to her room to get the long shirt she was wearing now. I liked her better when she was naked.

"I slept fine. Thank you." I muttered while I tried to comb through my hair with my fingertips to tame its mess a bit.

Bella grabbed the bottle of water from my nightstand and took a big gulp. She pulled her knees against her chest and exhaled loudly through her front teeth.

"Something like that has never happened to me before."

I nodded, while I tried to wrap the blanket around my body like some kind of toga. It was too cold here for sleeping naked. It had been her who had kept me so pleasantly warm last night. There was so much that Bella and I needed to discuss now and I was terribly nervous about the upcoming conversation.

"I know." I whispered after a few moments of awkward silence.

"How?"

"Well, you were married with a guy and I know that you've not been with anyone else apart from your husband."

"I wanted to do this with you. I mean…even before I met Emmett but I was scared. It's not normal to feel this way about your best friend."

Oh Bella, if you knew, if you only knew….

"You never told me that you like me. I mean, you never told me that you me like this." I stuttered. My head was spinning. Bella loved me too? It hadn't just been me who had felt attracted to her. The feeling was mutual. She and I were like two magnets that kept getting pulled towards each other. The, what if, questions in my brain started racing. If I had told her how I felt about her. If only she had told how she felt about me. If only—

"Alice, are you still here with me?"

"Yes, of course. I'm just a bit agitated. I didn't expect you to be interested in me like this."

"I'm scared. I mean, I'm not supposed to feel that way about you. I love Emmett. How can I do this to him?"

I made my hand a fist under the blanket, balling it together with so much force that my bitten fingernails cut into my palm. She loves him? Well, of course she loves him. They were married.

Bella placed her hand on my knee and sighed. "No one is as important to me right now as you are. The last weeks, I couldn't have made it through them without your help."

Am I supposed to be some kind of rebound for her now? The thought was painful. It cut through my heart like a knife through soft butter. She could hurt me so easily. She could hurt me because I loved her so unconditionally that it made me vulnerable.

"Please, Aly, look at me." Bella pleaded, putting her fingers carefully under my chin to lift it up. I hadn't even realized that I'd been staring down at the sheets the entire time.

"You are only with me because Emmett is dead." I whispered, trying to blink away the tears. I was going to cry. My nerves were not strong enough to fight them off.

"Don't say that. Please, don't say something like that."

"Why not?" I snapped, bursting out into tears. I grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of yoga-pants together with some underwear before I rushed off to the bathroom. Here I cried and sobbed under the shower while I washed off the traces of Bella's scent from my body. What I couldn't wash off were the memories. How her fingers had felt against my most intimate parts. How she had tasted in my mouth as I pleasured her with my tongue.

There was a hammering against the bathroom door. It was so loud that I could hear it even through the sound of the shower water running down on me.

I washed my hair and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my head and a second one around my body.

The knocking on the door was louder now. I tripped over to unlock it.

"Alice! You can't do this to me." Bella sobbed. "You can't just run away from me. I love you."

"You said you love Emmett." I croaked. My throat felt raw as I spoke.

"Yes, I do love him. He was my husband. He was the father of my children. I will always love him."

She pulled me backwards until my knees touched against the tub behind me. Here I sat down. Bella kneeled down in front of me and wrapped her hands around my right wrist.

"You are special to me. I feel so blessed that God brought you back to me. I love you."

"I doubt, God had anything to do with me returning to Seattle. Actually, I'm pretty sure he doesn't like the way I feel about you."

"God wants us to be happy. That's what Edward always tells me."

The doorbell started ringing downstairs and Bella quickly planted a soft kiss on my mouth before she jumped up.

"That's Rose. She's here to bring some papers. Isn't it great that I've managed to find such a nice nanny for the twins? I really like her."

Bella rushed downstairs to open to door and I took my time to towel dry my hair and apply some concealer and mascara to brighten up my eyes. They were red. You could tell that I'd been crying. I hated that.

I didn't know what to make out of the situation with Bella. It was too overwhelming. I needed to call Charlotte and hold some kind of emergency meeting with her.

After getting dressed I walked back into my bedroom and pulled out my cell to dial Charlotte's number. It took forever until she finally picked up. Her voice sounded so raspy as if she had just fallen out of her bed.

"Hello?"

"Charlotte, honey, it's me? Did I wake you up?"

"I didn't even sleep one minute. My throat is sore. Stupid air condition on the plane." She grumbled into the receiver.

"I'm sorry. That really sucks. I will come over later and bring you some soup."

"I don't feel like eating."

"But you need something warm. Do you want me ask my Dad to have a look at you?"

She sniffed and a moment later I could hear her blowing her nose loudly. Sick Charlotte was the whiniest person on earth. When she twisted her ankle last winter, she got so on Peter's nerves that they almost broke up with each other.

"It's not that bad, just a stupid cold, I think. Besides, isn't your Dad a pediatrician?"

"A doctor is a doctor."

"Can I have Dr. McDreamy to come and take my temperature then?"

I laughed. "He's not real."

"You're breaking my heart, woman." Charlotte croaked between two coughing fits. "Talking about heart breaks, how are things with you and Jealousella?"

"She was really angry."

"That's good."

"In a way, I don't want her to be jealous. Nobody knows better than me how much that hurts."

"Oh, sweetie."

"Last night…last night…we kind of had sex with each other."

"Wait!" Charlotte called out before she cleaned her nose again. "You had sex? With Bella? Oh my god, you need to tell me everything about it."

"No,"

"You're a bad friend. I would tell you everything about my sex with Peter. Recently he bought me some plugs and then—,"

Yuck! I really didn't want to imagine my friends jumping each other's bones.

"Charlotte, I don't want to know what you and Pete are doing in the bedroom."

"You Americans are all prudes. Anyway, sweetie, I'm glad you got some. Was it good?"

"Charlotte!" I warned her.

"Okay, okay. I won't ask again. Are you together now? Or was it just a one night thing?"

"I'm not sure."

"Did you talk with her about it?"

"Yes, we did talk but it's so complicated. She said she still loves her husband."

"Isn't he dead?"

"What does it matter?" I snapped. My nerves were tensed. I felt like the situation was terribly messed up. It seemed impossible to handle.

"Well, Aly, it matters because he's dead and you and she are still here."

"I don't understand."

"Maybe you will. Try not to worry so much all the time. I will pop in some Aspirin and crawl into bed."

"I'll come to visit you later." I told her before I hung up and went downstairs.

Rosalie was sitting next to Bella on the couch. I noticed that Bella was holding some silver-framed picture of Emmett between her hands.

"Hey, Rose. Good, Morning."

"Good Morning, Alice. How are you today?" Rose greeted me before she leaned down to pick up Em.J's pacifier from the ground. "We need to sterilize that. It's full of dog hair."

Everything in this house is full of dog hair, I thought. How could one animal loose that many of them permanently? No matter how often you brushed Jake's fur, it still ended up on every surface in the house.

"I'll do that later." Bella stated before she placed Emmett's picture on the table in front of her.

I looked down at it. He was smiling, or more like grinning. My cousin had been such a joyful person, always up for a joke and taking life the easy way. He was so much unlike Bella who, just like me had a tendency to worry a bit too much. Maybe that was the reason the two of them had gotten along so great. Opposites attract or something like that.

"Your Emmett was such a handsome guy, Bella. I'm sorry you lost him." Rose whispered, letting her fingertip circle almost tenderly over the edge of the picture. "The kids look like him."

"I think Julie comes more after Bella." I stated, sitting down in the arm chair across from Bella and Rosalie.

"Did you bring your papers with you?" Bella asked Rose. The tall blonde nodded and handed Bella a folder. "I'm afraid I don't have that much experience."

"You have a degree in preschool teaching? Wow, that's great. But what did you do during the last three years?"

Rose rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I was very sick for a while and spent a lot of time in hospitals."

"Oh I see. I'm sorry to hear that. Are you better now?" I asked her.

"Yes, yes, I'm perfectly healthy again." Rose whispered, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "It wasn't something contagious, if that's what you are concerned about."

"Being sick for so long must be awful." Bella mumbled. "Anyway, I think those papers are fine. Are you sure that you'll be okay with the money? I can't pay you much."

"It's perfectly enough. I'm so glad that I can help you with the kids. Money is not of any value for me. It can't buy you any of the things that really count in life, love…health."

Bella nodded her head. Then she stood up to put Julie's jacket on. "Are you sure that it's not too much stress for you to take the twins to the park?"

"Park! Julie, Park!"

Rosalie laughed and lifted the little girl up, before she took Em.J's hand in hers.

"Twins say by to your Momma and Aly."

"Bye Mommy. Bye Aly." Julie squeaked and waved her hand simultaneously with that of her brother.

"The kids love her." I told Bella when I had heard the door close behind Rosalie. "That's great."

"I know. I like her too. It's somehow as if I'd known her my whole life. Isn't that weird?"

"Maybe a bit," I mumbled. "Do we have the ingredients for chicken soup here? I want to cook some for Charlotte. She caught some bug on the plane."

Bella's facial expressions hardened. "This Charlotte girl, was she your girlfriend in Australia?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Would it matter?"

"Yes, it would. I think she wants you back. Please, tell me you don't want to get back together with her."

"Jealous?"

"I'm not jealous." Bella stated, emphasizing the word a bit too much to really mean what she was saying. I didn't want her to be jealous. Jealousy was able to destroy so much. Yet, I loved the fire in her eyes when she told me she couldn't stand Charlotte.