Hey lovely peeps! So last week, FAME was a top five fic of the week at the Lemonade Stand. Thank you so much to all of you who voted. I'm arranging a virtual party very soon; please bring drinks and strippers ;)

Thanks to SunflowerFran3759 and Katjs11 for beta and pre-reads.

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Previously:

Bella puts her notes down on the bed, and then crosses her arms over her chest, as I pull my shirt back on.

"I've been good."

I blink.

"What?"

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Chapter 20

Bella

I'm not sure what makes me take this tiny but monumental step forward.

Perhaps it's Grace's card, which has haunted me like a voice whispering incessantly in my ear.

Thank you for loving him more than I do.

Tell him.

Reach out to him.

Care.

Or perhaps, the realization that if something had happened to Edward today, he would never have heard these words from my mouth.

He pulls his shirt down to cover the sliver of skin below his belly button, his gaze completely focused on me.

"I said I've been good. You asked if I had been okay at Rose's party. You wondered if you had made the right decision by keeping away. "

He's looking at me much too intensely, his eyes penetrating through the fiber of my being.

"I stand by what I said. I am glad you didn't climb to my window to say you were sorry. I wasn't ready to forgive you then. At the same time, I would have hated myself if I hadn't. The guilt would have killed me, so I told myself that you didn't think about me at all and it helped me live."

Edward doesn't say anything.

He just takes me in, with a bumpy, bruised head.

I want to rub my hand over his forehead like I would have many years ago.

"I know you've worried about me, and I wanted to tell you that I've been okay. I've missed you. The memories of us come back sometimes and they're so perfect that it can get unbearable... yet despite all of that, I'm in a place where I'm okay. I wasn't sure if I would be, but I am."

My words run into each other and somehow all of this is much easier to say than I ever thought it would be.

"I've had fun with my friends, dated other boys, spent time with Charlie watching probably too much Family Guy," I snort out a smile, thinking of how close Charlie and have grown over the last three years. I never had that with him before.

"I'm most likely going to graduate with honors... um…" I look at my fingers. "My final year research paper will be published in the medical journal in the summer."

"Congratulations." Edward smiles tentatively at me and despite his shock at my on-going confession, I know he's completely genuine.

I nod. Thank you.

"I'm excited about it."

Probably much too excited.

Whatever.

Both Edward and I acknowledged a while back that my journey to geekdom would be all encompassing.

"I did what made me happy and I felt like I could do it without constantly having to think and wait for you."

I know they're hard words for him to hear, yet he also needs to hear them.

"That's good, Bella. Good." He's saying it like he's reassuring himself.

Then his hand goes to reach for his hair, trying to self-soothe, telling himself that despite my words, it'll be okay.

Probably like he's tried to soothe himself over and over through the years.

I move forward and take his hand in both of mine, clasping on to it tightly before it reaches his head.

You're okay.

Edward eyes fly open, but he doesn't pull away or show any hint of pain as I hang onto him much too tightly.

His hand feels exactly the same, soft and big, not hardened with time.

"I have regrets too…" I say slowly, opening up some more because it's easy and I'm still speaking and not disintegrated into nothing but raw emotion.

"I've been thinking about what might have happened if I gave you more time. Would things have been different?" I bite my lip.

"The changes in your life were immense. Sometimes I wonder how things would have panned out if I had let you come back home that day to make things right like you planned to. What if I had tried to understand more and maybe just stood by you?"

I swallow.

'What if's' bombard me.

What if I had dealt better with the paparazzi intrusion in France? Would it have made him feel more secure about me and how I might handle his fame in the future?

What if I hadn't been in love with my privacy so much that I demanded we leave France and the bar at his co-stars birthday? Could we have avoided some of our arguments and mistakes?

What if I had just given him some more time and stood by him just a little longer so he could come home instead of leaving that note and walking away?

Edward

Her words and confessions are like an ice cold shower.

I'm not sure if it might have been better not to hear them at all.

I hurt her.

She was strong, like I always knew she was, and in the end she did okay without me. But is she also telling me what I wanted to hear all along…

That she's better off without me?

If she is, I'm not ready to hear it.

I don't think I ever really was.

"Bella. I pushed you away. Any sane person wouldn't have stayed with me," I say simply, in response to her lamentation about what could have been.

She presses at my fingers harder, but I don't really notice the pain.

"But I loved you that much. I would have done it. If I knew that in time we would have worked it out and that things would have gotten better, I would have stayed. I just didn't see a way out."

I take a deep breath, taking her in.

Even now, everything about her is all-fucking encompassing. I'm forgetting to breathe.

It hits me with utmost clarity. I never stopped loving her.

Somewhere along the way I got lost and I stopped showing it in the way that she deserved, but I never stopped.

I probably never will.

"I know," I say softly. "Though I have to say, too, the day that you walked out brought me to my senses. I was on the straight and narrow to self-destruction and if you hadn't walked out, I don't know where I would be. Don't ever think that you didn't do the right thing for you… it was."

Bella's still holding my hand tightly and then brings it her chest. I squeeze my hand into a ball surrounding hers so that its my knuckles that brush her breast, not my full palm. Is she even aware of what she's doing? Fuck.

I look at her and realize she isn't.

She simply clinging, her thoughts are elsewhere, somewhere in the past, in the years long years gone.

"Edward…" she says my name tenderly, like I'm the one causing her all the agony, yet I will be the one to cure it, too.

"Is it stupid that I still wonder about us? Sometimes I fantasize about you leaving everything for me, coming back to me before you became so well recognized, deciding that you hated all of it…"

"Bella."

I swallow the lump in my throat, feeling like the most fucking deplorable human being in the world.

"And you know what? None of it has a good ending," she continues, barely noticing me. "You wouldn't have been happy scrounging and living as meagerly as we did. You would have detested it if I became the main provider. We used to argue about that so much. How could we have lived like that? It would have ended badly."

I move closer to her.

"God, I'm…sorry." My head is bowed, my hand clasped hard against her heart. "It was never meant to be a choice..."

Bella was supposed to be in my life forever. I was never meant to choose, but unknowingly I did. I chose the wrong thing.

Just…shit.

Pain fries me.

How the hell did I end up here?

Life wasn't supposed to end up like this. Not without Bella.

How do I make this right?

Can I even make it right?

"Don't be sorry for loving what you do," she says simply and there's no regret in her voice. "I've seen you on stage, Edward. It's not just what you do. You come alive. You're free. It's a part of you like the beating of your heart, and I've never believed anyone was made for this as much you. You would only have lived half a life without it."

But I have been living half a life without you.

Bella lets go of my hand and the loss makes my whole body ache.

"How was it, your first year."

She means after she left.

I tell her the truth.

"The first year was…demanding. I went along with it. The schedule, I mean. It was routine in the chaos."

I did what I needed to.

I became the protagonist I played.

Some of it I remember, a lot of it I don't - all blurred and marred in the land of make-believe. I know I got by somehow.

"And now?"

"I still crave normalcy sometimes.…you know, just being able to go the gym or out to eat without having to pose for a bunch of photos? Walking down the street without a hoard appearing out of nowhere. Having a life that is my own."

"That's absurd. You're not public property." There's fire in her eyes.

I absorb her irate reaction because I am pretty much public property. Little pieces of me are claimed by everyone, yet I belong to nobody.

I embrace the fire anyway, willing it to ignite and overhaul me. It's like she cares. Like she would fight them all off if they got in my way.

It tugs in a place only Bella can wriggle in to.

It feels … fucking great.

She self-consciously touches her face, suddenly aware. "Er, I mean it can't be easy."

"It got better over time. Later, when things got less chaotic, Rose was more involved in my life. I was visited Nan more, and it felt like I could breathe again. Or maybe I couldn't really remember when all the craziness wasn't a part of my life."

Bella gives me a small smile. "Sounds… crazy."

"Crazier than you might think."

She nods. "Yeah…crazy."

Bella

I want to ask him more.

About how he handled all it.

If there were others with him that helped, or who he called when it got overwhelming.

There's so much that I still need to know. Like how he got that small scar above his eyebrow, how many times he purposefully avoided me.

Does he still mumble incoherently in his sleep?

But I don't.

None of that seems appropriate now. Although something else does.

"About Grace, Edward. I miss her. I grew to love her so much. She had such fire… she was like a fire that kept me warm when I was cold and sad. I'm sorry for your loss."

I'm sorry for all of it.

For not standing by him, for letting him go through what he did all alone. For not loving him in the way I once did.

Edward nods and looks down. Not before I see the flicker of pain in his eyes.

"There are so many what ifs," I say, looking at my hands.

"... there's just so much regret." Edward says softly.

I look up at him, tears stinging painfully at the corner of my eyes.

"So don't? just let it go?"

"Can you?"

He's asking for forgiveness.

We both need to be forgiven.

"Yes," I say simply. "I can let it go."

"Then I can, too."

I bite my lip and realize in a strange way this is closure.

It's the end of what we had.

In a weird way, it's a relief to let go of the past.

It's time.

But I need something else.

"Edward?"

He looks up at me.

"I need to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" He looks so sad.

"To our past. To what we had." To the sixteen year old that is still holding on.

He looks stunned.

Then I move forward and clasp his stubbly jaw, ignoring the jolt that goes through my body for touching him so purposefully after so many years.

I run my fingers over his soft lips, pressing and touching them like I've wanted to do since the moment I saw him today.

I take in how pouted his red his lips are, how beautiful he is, and regret the changes that time has made to him without me.

I pull him down to me, I place my lips to his and I'm crying.

I'm letting go.

Of something beautiful, but broken.

His head bent to me, he doesn't move his hands from his side. "I'm sorry for all of it…I just…God… Bella…if only I could…"

"Shh…." I murmur, clinging onto his neck, because I know, I get it and I'm ready to forgive and forget finally.

I push into Edward harder because I need this. He opens his mouth, allowing me to molest his senses.

Let me in.

Let's close it.

My hands are in his hair, tugging and pulling at tufts of bronze. I run them over his stubbly cheeks, his soft neck, and I breathe him in.

Familiar. Arousing.

Edward.

His skin is soft, tepid. I scrape my fingernails down his arms and that's his undoing.

Edward makes a heated noise and tugs at the cotton of my scrubs, roughly pulling me to him.

His hard dick presses against my stomach, and I whimper.

Teeth clash, tongues battle, and once again I'm overtaken by how easy this is.

It was always this easy.

I don't realize we're moving until we hit the door behind Edward with a gentle thud.

I pull away and look into amber diamond eyes, burning with intensity.

So easy to lose myself in them.

All I can hear are our harsh, hurried breathes as I reach behind him to lock the door with a firm click.

He watches me hypnotically as I pull at the hem of my scrub top and t-shirt underneath and throw them off.

Then I'm standing in front of him in a lace bra.

"Oh. Are you - we shouldn't…" He swallows.

His eyes try not to stray from my face, but I can see that he's lacking control.

"I want this."

One last time.

I want this moment with him.

I want to remember us and I want to mourn.

The long gone years, our demise, the hurt, the change, the loneliness, our failure to end and close it.

I push my fingers underneath his shirt and run my hand over his taut stomach and the thin matting of hair on his chest.

He shivers, his reaction instantaneous.

I knew it would be. I know the effect I had on him earlier, even though I wasn't touching him sexually at all.

He sighs."God, Bella. This is all I've wanted for so long, but …"

"Trust me," I cut him off and tug at his still unbuttoned jeans, then simply go all the way and push my fingers into his boxers and cup him.

"Fuck," He grits, like something glacier cold has touched him.

I place my hand on his dick and use the wetness gathered at his tip to slide it up and down his length.

His breathes are harsher, labored. His mouth drops open and his eyes cling to mine.

He's losing control.

Knowing that I can still do this to him makes me wetter than I already am.

I cup his face in one hand and as the other speeds up, our eyes never leaving each other.

I've missed you.

I loved you.

Let us end this hurt.

"Stop, "Edward whispers suddenly. "Stop."

I look at him in question and stop.

"This… if you want this... " He manages a small, anguished smile. "Then you have to stop that."

Oh.

His gaze fall to my breasts, charting the lace of my black bra. Finally.

"Can I?" He asks through short, rough breaths, his eyes touching mine and then flickering to my tits again.

Why do I find it so incredibly sweet yet erotic that he's asking permission to touch me?

"Yes."

Edward

She wants me to touch her.

Is this a dream?

Because never in a million years…

I should probably end this even though three years of need and separation are congealing, overtaking and crushing me to her. Instead, I surrender.

Slowly, tenderly, my finger traces her thin, black bra strap. The skin of her shoulder is so beautiful, flawless.

I finger the lace covering her heaving, perfect tits.

Bella watches me, entranced, as I gently tickle the outline of one bra cup, stroking between hot skin and thin material, and move to the other.

Everything about her is indescribable, so… Bella.

I run my thumb over a nipple.

"Oh… God… Edward…"

Hearing my name on her tongue like that has to be the sexiest thing I've heard in years.

Amazing.

Then I put both hands on her shoulders and drag her closer to me.

Her eyes watch mine tentatively, in question. Why did you stop?

I clasp her head in my hands, leaning forward to drop a delicate kiss on her forehead.

Then her nose, her soft, pliant lips.

Her beautiful eyelids.

The underside of her jaw because she's a fucking deity.

I pull her hand to me and press a kiss on her knuckles and then turn her arm up and kiss the soft skin on the inside of her arm.

I meet brown eyes with her arm still outstretched in my hand.

She smiles at me in a tormented and beautiful way that only Bella can; a stunning contradiction.

Love me and leave me she says.

I want to remember everything we were, and then let it go.

I can bare the pain, but please don't forget how fragile my heart is…

Then I just know that I'm not going to be able to walk away from all of this scot free.

I'm too deeply imprisoned in this gulf that pushes me down and brings me to life. I'm too lost in her. I've tasted too much and come too close to just let her go all over again.

I kiss the fleshy skin above her bra and then each her of her stone-hard, erect nipples.

"Edward… Please." Bella moans and my rock hard dick aches to give her exactly what she's asking for.

Then I'm worshipping on my knees, dropping butterfly kisses on her stomach, her belly button.

Her hands are tugging insistently at my hair, and she's sorely lacking patience.

So am I.

Then it happens too fast. I tug at her pants. Bella clambers out of them. My jeans and our clothes are thrown around us in disarray.

She falls on top of me, her hot, dripping core rubbing my aroused dick and I push into her hard, without warning.

She arches and lets out a high-pitched whimper and all I can feel is tight, wet Bella. Clamping me, engulfing me as she moves - in frantic, rapid movements.

Yes, that's it. Perfection.

I'm on my knees, offering her arched back support as she gyrates, her searing, turbulent breaths on my neck, and she starts to cry my favourite sounds. I'm not sure where she begins and where I end.

My eyes find hers and search inside. She's letting me in to shut me out.

Her face changes from pleasure to pain to love to desolation. She triumphs and loses, all because of me.

Her arms fit easily around my neck, her chest brushing mine with each frenzied move. Small torrid breaths, her hot core fastening around me.

She takes it at her own pace, I sync to her every need. I still know exactly how she likes it, where she wants to be touched, held and kissed at the right moments.

I can hear her heartbeats, smell her all over me. Her sticky body on top of mine is the most beautiful sight in the world.

Heaven.

I watch her every movement, every expression. I want to remember every single second of this, imprint it in me forever.

Bella's eyes start to flutter closed as she gets closer. She's slowing, clinging and pulling, and then I'm on top of her.

I touch her sweaty face as I thrust faster, deeper and her legs tighten and clamp around me.

"Oh…oh… Edward!" She peeks into my eyes, like it might be the last time she ever see's them.

Then she comes.

She moans and vibrates everywhere and I swear right then, there's magic in her, and she's taking me to that place, too.

"Fuck... Bella..." I hurriedly drag myself out of her and warm liquid pools onto her stomach.

She's holding my neck still and looking at me sadly, as tears fall down her face. Mourning the loss, accepting the death of what we had.

"Don't cry," I say softly in her ear, dropping a kiss on the underside of her jaw, wanting her to stop.

"I'm okay." She sniffs softly and then looks at me again with wide, wet eyes, and instantly parts of her shift and close off.

Don't.

Stay with me, I want to say.

Yet they're words she's heard from my mouth before. How to say them again so she'll believe?

She sighs, her shoulders harden and she puts her hands on my chest and pushes me up but still clings to me, reaching for a tissue from a drawer to her side.

She wipes at the residue on my stomach and then hers, like she's cleaning me away forever.

She licks her lips, gives me a small smile, then turns to grab her clothes strewn amongst mine on the floor.

Her body leaves mine and the warmth turns to a hallow chill in every place our skin touched.

I watch her get dressed.

For her, it's the ending of what we had.

For me, it just feels like the beginning.

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There's not long to go with this fic now, so I got a little nostalgic and wasted some time putting together random photo shizzle that inspired and reminds me of this fic. If you're bored one day, the link is on my profile called FAME ALBUM.

Thank you all for sticking with this and see you soon!