A mother's love for her daughter cannot be explained.

Nor, can you catch it in between your fingers.

And for the ones who have complained,

The feeling of regret always lingers.

-Cvaboda-

I stood there motionless, letting the wind play with my hair. Eventually the note flew away, and appeared to transformed into a butterfly. My awestruck expression turned into the smallest of smiles. I looked up and around, turning in two small circles. The tall trees loomed around me like the quiet guardians of peace. I mouthed two words: Thank you. Closing my eyes, I listened to the music of the forest. Even when the forest seems quiet, it is still buzzing with activity. The trees gently rustled in the wind, and the bees flew around in their routines. All of a sudden, the comforting noise vanished. My eyes snapped open, as my senses coming into the alert mode. The forest had simply disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the wind.

Africa.

Desert.

Airplane.

I felt as though I had been slapped in the face. Disappointment buried itself deep in the pit of my stomach. Before me was a barren desert, with nothing to be seen but some stubborn shrubs that had refused to find a more comfortable place to live.

Where exactly was I?

"Hello? Anyone there?"

My words sounded papery thin and as insubstantial as a dust cloud. There was no sign of any intelligent life around me. My heart clenched painfully. At the training school, I had been prepared for any kind of stranded situation. Unfortunately, the only thing that they told me to do when you had absolutely nothing but the clothes on your back was to keep walking and pray to God that someone will come and rescue you. So I started to walk. The dizziness returned from the previous events, and my stomach absolutely screamed for nourishment. My brisk walk turned into a slow trudging. I couldn't really go on for much longer, because I was left weak from Emmett drugging me almost to death. My senses told me that I had been walking for about an hour and that, judging from the position of the sun, it was about five o'clock in the afternoon. Three more hours until sunset.

"I am walking in the desert, the desert, the desert, the desert, I am walking through the desert, aaaaaall alone." I sang to the tune of The Bus Song.

I stopped as a wind blew into my face, and with it, a truckload of sand.

"What was that for?" I shouted, stomping my foot angrily. The wind ceased momentarily but then blew again with a newfound vigor in tormenting me.

Time passed, in slow lurches that seemed to match my footsteps. One foot in front of the other, that was my new motto. I didn't look around me, for fear that if I did, my spirits would sink lower. The sun sank lower and lower but its heat never left. I was praying to everyone to make it go away. I even went as far to pray to Santa to give me an early Christmas gift of purifying night. My sweat was starting to stick to my face. It wouldn't be so bad, but this only worsened my situation because it meant tht I had stopped sweating. When someone's body was so hot that it stopped cooling itself, very bad things could happen. In my state, I struggled to remember exactly what they were. I couldn't. My feet felt like lead walking through molasses. Keep going. Keep going.

"Help me," I whispered to the moon which by now was casting a soft glow on all of the sand formations all around me.

My mother's voice cut through the stillness, Calling my name. My head sluggishly turned trying to find the source of the voice. It turned out that my mother was standing right next to me, in her favorite blue sundress that she had worn only when there was absolutely no danger of strange men with guns or for that matter women with guns. Depending on the situation, they could be police or bakers. All were out to kill my mother, and whomever she had with her.

"Mom? What are you doing here?" I asked, barely having enough strength to say even those words.

"Hush darling."

Then she hugged me to her. My mother was dead. Yet, here her touch was as strong as it had been when she had been alive. I melted into her, as I had done as a child.

"Are you a hallucination?" My question hung in the air. I grew a bit impatient because in real life my mother had always had an answer, she never skipped a beat, and she never left me hanging. Selfish, of me, I know.
"That depends on how you look at it. You need rest, Bells. Why are you out here all alone without any water or food?"

My mom liked to turn the conversation to me instead of her. I knew that even if I tried I never would get a straight answer.

"Long story that I can't tell in one breath." I yawned.

My mother's eyes suddenly widened.

"Scratch that, Bells stay up. Don't you dare close your eyes. Don't you-"

She slapped me in the face making me jump to alert. Tears stung my eyes, and my cheek probably would have a bruise. Even to this day my mother didn't know just how hard she could slap.

"What was that for?"

"Your safety." She said rather nonchalantly. I clutched my face, stepping away from her. "Don't worry, I won't do it again."

She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to her. Her heart beat, was slow and steady, comforting. I listened for a few moments, knowing that even if this was my last time to be with my mother and hear her heartbeat, I wouldn't pity myself and make this moment bittersweet. My mother started to hum. I smiled remembering that she would always hum when she was content, much like a cat would purr when it was happy. We stood there almost clutching each other.

"A mothers love for her daughter, cannot be explained." she started.

"Nor can you catch it in between your fingers." said I.

"And for the ones who have complained," she smiled "The feeling of regret always lingers."

A small breeze blew at her hair. She literally glowed in the moonlight: I was afraid that she might actually overpower the moonlight.

"Our time together grows short."

Her voice had changed, taking on a mystical tone. It sounded like a waterfall, and it felt like the purest of crystals. Can voices have a feel to them?

"Isabella, whatever happens you cannot lose hope. You cannot lose your love, and you cannot forget your empathy. There are dark changes coming for mankind, and you have the chance to repair what will be broken."

I nodded, finding that even if I tried I wouldn't be able to say anything. My mother caressed my cheek, and with a flash of blinding light she was gone.

"What's next," I muttered a bit crossly, "The Ghost of Christmas Future?"

Suddenly in the distance I heard an anguished cry.

"Beeeeeeelllla."

I dropped to my knees in the sand, thoroughly exhausted.

"I'm here." I croaked. My head felt as though it was going to split open, in part because of a migraine and the other part trying to process the amount of information poured into my brain. Like I said, having a photographic memory really didn't help me. Having a stomach did not help much either.

"Bella. Bella."

Suddenly Edward was next to me, holding my body in his arms. He held me away from him, as though I might break any moment.

"I am not as fragile as you might think, Edward. I was trained to disassemble a bomb in a matter of four point eight seconds. I think I can walk just fine."

Those were the last words that I said, before peaceful darkness came over me.

What was going on? The third time in about a week that I had fainted.

"All this blackout time is seriously not good for you, Bella."

Emmett' s voice cut through the perpetual stillness. I struggled to open my eyes. My mouth had other ideas.

"Says the man who knocks me out then dopes me with enough drugs to make an elephant go to sleep."

I heard a deep sigh coming from my right. Finally, my eyes of molasses opened showing me, gasp, more darkness. Utter darkness. Except, there was a scuttling in the right corner of my non-existent vision, and a breeze seeped through the flimsy walls.

"Where am I?"

My question went unanswered. There was clapping from where it seemed that Emmett was sitting.

"Of course she asks, exactly when no one can answer."

I tried to sit up, but fatigue made me lie back down. My bones and muscles felt like they had been used for one thousand years instead of only twenty-four.

"Go back to sleep, Bella. You need to recover. Carlisle will be here soon to check up on you." said Emmett.

I followed his advice, gladly.

When I awoke again, I felt energized. Jumping from the-. Never mind that, I was lying on a floor. To tell the truth, I started tangled up in the thin blanket and it took me at least two minutes to free myself. Then I crawled around while trying to figure out where in the universe I was. Finally, I decided that I needed to get outside. I crept aroun on my hands until I found an opening in the tent.

A tent. That was where I was. The ground illuminated with soft moonlight, was covered with huge, hairy, spiders.

I froze.

Then started to run and scream like a maniac.

"SPIDERS! OH GOD, HELP!"

There were a few things that slipped my mind. First, I was wearing a very long dress that went past my feet. Second, there was someone watching with a very amused expression on his face.

Let me tell you, running around in circles when spiders surround you doesn't help b too much because if you want to get away from the spiders, then you have run in a straight line. I tripped at least four times over my own dress. The problem was that as soon as I got up, I forgot again that I was wearing a dress leading to the same outcome as before. Finally I jumped up ontoa tree. It was only when I was in midair that I realized that since I was in the middle of the desert, there was no such thing as trees here. So what the heck was I jumping on?

Edward turned around and caught me. Quite the gentleman, I see.

"The sleeping kitten finally wakes up."

I would have come up with a deliciously witty retort but I was staring at the ground. After a few tries I manage to say, "Get away from big spider."

I could take guns, bombs, knives, and serial killers just fine. But if you wave one of those eight-legged demons in front of me, I would be on the other side of the world in a few moments, believe me.

"They are just passing through, they mean no harm." snorted Edward. I just stared at them as they passed. With a jolt, I realized that I was holding his neck in a death grip.

"You can put me down now." I said, loosening my grip and reaching for the ground.

"What if I don't want to?"

Pressed up against his chest, I could feel almost a vibration coming from him. Was he purring? There was no heart beat. It hadn't really hit me yet. I knew very well that I was in denial at that moment. The Cullens were humans, they were people just like I was and just like my mother was. They ate and they laughed and they danced and….

The problem was that I hadn't seen any of them eat. Not one morsel. Were they fasting? How long were they going to fast?

I pressed my head to his chest, listening but my hope to find a steady rhythm was all in vain. There was only that purring, but no thump of a beat. When I finally looked up, I saw that we weren't in the same place. We were in a small green clearing, surrounded by trees. An oasis, perhaps?

"Are you dying?" I asked suddenly. It dawned upon me that he could be in the very last minutes of his life, just seconds before his brain would shut down and then followed slowly by his other organs. This scared me to no end, although I didn't really know him at all. I have had missions that failed, before, and innocent people were killed. But their deaths hadn't given me such a tidal wave of emotion, as though a tsunami wave had slammed down on me with all the force that it could muster. Those people had been perfect strangers: why was he any different?

"Far from dying, actually," he said matter of factly. There was a wistfulness to his voice that made me wonder if he was having suicidal thoughts. As I looked into his eyes they seemed to darken in the moonlight.

"Then do you have a birth defect? I have heard of those, people whose heartbeats aren't audible because it's so weak. Although if you do an ultrasound, the heartbeat is quite hearable. Then again, if you did have such a birth defect you would not be allowed to skydive, or go into other countries because a bad heart beat could mean a bad immune system and other countries have different bacteria and different food." I babbled on and on.

Edward was watching me with a small half smile. I fell silent and he spoke in a very amused way.

"I don't have any birth defects: I was born into perfection. Just as every one of my kind has been born and will always be born."

Just as every one of my kind.

"Just what exactly is your kind? Russian? They are renown for their mood swings. Not to mention the perfection."

I had dealt with Russian agents before. They had kicked my sorry butt until I was crying, but that was when I was still a trainee. Edward laughed, but it was a ghostly laugh because I could see him no more. I couldn't track his movements. He stopped behind me. Wrapping his arms around my waist he breathed in deeply as though he was smelling me.

"You are such a fragile creature." he breathed, even more deeper now. I was about to say that I wasn't, but I was paralyzed. I couldn't move or speak.

"I am a natural predator. The human inside of me is almost gone, and the monster that replaces him thirsts for your blood."

So that was what Emmett said, but in that moment I hadn't been sure. Vampires. At this moment, I wasn't sure if I should laugh at the ridiculousness or scream in fear at the obvious truth. At this moment I knew that my life truly in danger.

"You are my weakness, the tear in the armor. You are my own personal brand of heroin, and I don't think I can resist."

"No." I said, my voice shaking. "You speak as though there is only a monster inhabiting your body. You truly believe that you have no soul."

I turned to face him, my mortal eyes locking with his crimson eyes. I saw deep, burning emotions in his eyes. Agony, lust, love- I couldn't even possibly read all of them.

"They say that the eyes are the mirrors of the soul. You, Edward, have the most beautiful eyes that I have ever seen. I don't care if you think that you are the demon of hell himself, but inside you are more caring and human than I am. If you kill me right now, I hope someday you will learn from your mistake. Fate has dealt a cruel card to you, hasn't it? All you have to learn is to turn on fate and wink at it. In reality, fate is on the same footing as you are, for you have the power to change it."

I finally took a breath. His eyes lightened to a golden butterscotch, and they were wide with wonder. My heart clenched in emotion, because my mother had give me the same speech when I had been thirteen. Tears were coming from eyes: I rushed to brush them away. Edward stopped me though. He leaned down and kissed me, right on the lips. Electricity went through me, and I felt as though I was walking on air. After the initial shock, I slowly melted into him. At that moment, I knew that I could take whatever the universe would hurl at me.

A/n: Thank you, 4MeJasper for beta'ing this. I have so much to learn. Just, thank you. Since 4MeJasper was soo wonderful, all mistakes are mine. :)

Twilight is by Stephanie Meyer, not me.

How did you like my version of the meadow scene?