A/N: Thank You to LightStarDusting, ms-ambrosia, mpg and MissWinkles for... pretty much everything. Thank you also to my long-suffering WC girls for putting up with my neurosis.
Thank you, gracious reader, for the time you've given me. I hope you've enjoyed my story. I've loved writing it.
I am writing an outtake for Fandom for Texas.
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Eventually, the outtake will be posted as another chapter to the Outtakes story- add it to your alerts if you are so inclined and would like to read it down the track.
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Any words are welcome.
Edward takes the stairs three and four at a time, and still it's not fast enough to get to Bella.
She's screaming like the world's ending, a drawn-out wail full of anguish and pain. She needs him, and fuck, he's running, leaping to the top of the stairs.
His bare feet slide on the landing and he crashes awkwardly into the balustrade at the top of the stairs, recoiling from the pain in his hip.
He dreads with his whole being whatever evil has found her, in what he thought was the safety of his room. Irrationally, he imagines the guy from her apartment following them here after some kind of a miraculous recovery, though it's completely ridiculous.
Finally, he gets his feet under him and races on toward Bella's screams. Sliding on the waxed floor, Edward crashes into the door of his bedroom, which bursts inward from the impact, and he's still running to the en suite and to Bella.
The sight that greets him is at once worse than he dreaded and better than he hoped from the intensity of her distress.
Sitting with legs splayed awkwardly on the floor, dressed only in a black tank and underwear, Bella hacks at her hair with a pair of glinting scissors. She yanks great chunks of it with her clawed hand as though to rip it from her head.
"Get it off, get off me, get it off, off, OFF! Get off me, get it off me," she chants, hiccupping and yowling, keening and yelping through her tears. She saws at her beautiful hair like it's living, writhing snakes attacking her.
Most of it is already gone and limp on the floor in dark wispy puddles, but still she slashes and carves at it, not even looking at what she's doing. Her face is beet red and shiny wet from the effort and the tears.
Edward has never seen a more desperate act, and he stands rooted to the tiled floor, just senselessly gaping at her. Suddenly realizing that she might hurt herself, he raises his hands in a calming gesture and approaches her slowly, like she's a frantic animal and he, the tamer.
The screams subside as he nears but the desperate panic in her eyes continues right along with the metallic shearing until he finally, gently removes them from her shaking hand. He tosses them out of their reach, scared that she's not done, that she wants to bleed herself dry over this trauma she has survived already. He takes both wrists into his hands and folds her arms in, hugging her closely, disarming her.
"Don't let go, don't let go, don't let me go," she cries, clutching at him, grabbing blindly at whatever skin she can reach. Even if she begged him to, he wouldn't let go of her right now.
He's cooing and shushing, rubbing her arms and back with a fistful of her hair in his hand and he's not even sure if it's still connected to her head or if it's a tuft of the chopped remains from the floor. They're both covered in it, it's all over Bella like black angel-hair confetti and stuck to Edward's jeans in big dark clumps.
Pulling and lifting, he settles her on his lap, holding her like a precious child as she howls into his neck, digging her nails into his skin. He's looking at the damage Bella did to her hair but he's not even seeing it. He is just trying to soothe her somehow, though he doesn't know what to do.
He does the only thing he can.
On the floor of his bathroom strewn with the remains of a cataclysm, he holds Bella close to his heart while she cries herself out.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
"Can you stand?"
Nothing.
"I'm going to lift you back into the shower, okay? Wash it all off you."
There is no acknowledgement, but Edward goes ahead as if she has agreed. Gently but purposefully, he half guides and half lifts Bella into the shower again once the water is just right.
Not trusting her stability, he's half in there with her, adjusting the shower head and brushing stray hair from her back and her arms. She's still and docile now, pliant in his arms, her body still hiccupping with leftover tremors.
He tries hard not to see the things that his eyes are greedy for, but he can't help it. Even if he turned away now, it's too late- his mind's eye would still resonate with the glistening water on her pale skin and her hacked up hair stuck to her face and neck like waterborne black ribbons.
He would still be seeing her sodden black tank top, one thin strap sliding from her shoulder with the force of the shower, a valley created in the wetly clinging neckline anchored on two firm and perfect nipples. He might be seeing that sight forever.
Jesus Christ.
Her scent is familiar but so new at the same time and he can never have enough, never get close enough; he knows that now.
Warmed by the shower, her skin glows pink and fragrant, and it's killing his resolve to let her be, to let her heal.
He makes himself take his hands off her.
Making sure she's firm on her feet, he forces his eyes away from dangerous things and looks at the tracheotomy scar instead, a puckered, shiny pink crescent moon between her clavicles, but even that blemish looks enticing; a lure.
Come closer, it whispers, lay down your head.
Stop fighting.
He wants her so bad he can almost taste her.
Oblivious to his struggle, Bella stands under the hot jets with her underwear on, looking as fragile as a porcelain doll. Water courses like tears over the bruise on her face, and stray strands of butchered hair wash away like sins.
Edward tries to curb his greed but his eyes are cataloging her, storing her away in the safest places inside himself. She's startling and beautiful, and his hands shake, aching to see how she fits inside them with her perfect pink skin over curved, sleek softness. Hands that want to unfurl over her breasts clench into fists at his sides instead.
He grits his teeth and kneels on the floor, beginning to clean up the debris.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
"Do I have something on my face?"
"Huh?"
"Bella. Do I have something on my face?"
"What?"
Mortified, Bella blinks rapidly and realizes that she has been staring at Edward's mouth as he eats. Looking down, she notices the cutlery resting lightly over his plate. He's done. How long has she been staring at him?
Oh my God, I'm such an idiot.
For the umpteenth time, she touches her new hair. Her head feels about ten pounds, hell, ten years lighter.
Earlier, Bella observed him silently as he combed out the lifeless remains of what almost became her noose. A little snip here and there and chunks of it plopped heavily to the floor around them in black swathes, still wet from the shower and limp like dead eels.
Edward licked his lips and surveyed his handiwork while she sat on the high kitchen stool he had fetched, swathed in a fluffy, cream-colored towel. Underneath it, long, pale legs hung slackly almost to the ground.
"It's a little bit Sex Pistols, but I like it," he had joked, trying to lighten her up, snip-snip-snipping away. She said nothing, just watching him. He was being so careful, and not just in his attempt to take the edge off her awful butchery.
"Leave it like this," she had told him, voice cracked but determined.
"It's still uneven-"
"I like it."
"Yeah?" He was sceptical.
"It kind of looks like I fell under a lawnmower."
Edward had stilled completely, not knowing what reaction he was supposed to have, then abruptly, both of them had succumbed to a fit of giggles that descended into big barking guffaws. They laughed until tears streamed down their faces and both their bodies lost the careful stiffness.
She's calm now, so calm that she's almost catatonic. The violent catharsis, so like the one she endured alone in a hotel room a lifetime ago, has numbed her inside. Strangely, though her soul feels bathed in a soporific, her brain is on, alight like a bulb. In the fallout, she can see everything clearly even if she can't feel it. She has become her own clinician.
She hardly remembers picking up those scissors. Edward probably thinks that she's broken inside, a conquered Samson.
He'd be shocked if he knew that within, Bella's more alive than she's ever been.
She's alive, and this is proof.
This is her, controlling the thing that almost killed her.
This is Bella taking charge.
Now here they sit across from each other, and Edward smiles uncertainly and works flexing hands over imaginary octaves, unaware of Bella's internal epiphany. She used to think that he always fidgeted, but now she realizes that he's playing silent music over any available surface, all the time. It's astounding to think that in his head there is always music.
He clears his throat. "Can I ask you some questions? You can say no; I won't mind."
"Go ahead." Bella's voice sounds so even and calm and her hand finds itself in her new hair again. Inside it's bile rising and nausea. Shouldn't have eaten. Rib hurts. Please God, don't let him ask the hard ones.
"Do you know where you lived here in Forks?" Edward gestures outside with a subtle tilt of his auburn head.
She sighs, hanging her head in quiet relief, hands worrying each other mercilessly over the remains of her meal.
"No. I mean, I remember certain things but nothing all that concrete. No address or anything." She remembers a house, dust motes floating in a beam of rare sunlight in a bright kitchen. Yellow. Laughter. A plastic dog with a concertina belly and... Mister Biscuits, the little monkey, sitting propped up on a crocheted apple green cushion. These are the things she has brought with her. Little colorful treasures.
"Maybe we could look into it while we're here. See if we can find out where you lived."
"Maybe," she says quietly, not sure how to feel about his offer. She stores it away to think about later.
"But you must have some records?"
"Not even my birth certificate," she scoffs. "I've got nothing." She realizes that this is true for much more than personal documents to prove her identity and to mark the passing of time. She ran from herself in so many ways. Bella lifts the glass of red wine that Edward poured for her and nurses it. It's still full but now as warm as her own hands.
"What happened when your Dad died?"
Stick to the facts, Bella reminds herself, while she tries to clamp down on the memories which even she isn't ready to unearth.
"I went to an orphanage. I don't know how long I was there. A few months, maybe."
"And then a foster home?"
"Yeah, a few," Bella admits ruefully.
"You told me that you'd been in hospital before... will you tell me what happened?"
"It's not pretty, Edward. You don't have to know these things." Bella can't even look him in the eye, but his voice doesn't waver when he answers.
"If you want to tell me, then I want to know."
No regrets, she reminds herself and sees only sincerity in his wide, serious eyes.
"It was a heroin overdose."
She pauses, and watches as Edward picks up his fork again and starts to build little left-over mashed potato hills on his plate. She's afraid to smile at his cute whimsy.
"You were a user?"
"Not really," she snorts, knowing that she should elaborate rather than making him ask for details, but still hopeful that he'll let her skip over them.
Should have known better by now.
"What do you mean, not really?"
"I was hanging with this bunch of people and it's just... what they all did. I snorted it a few times at first, except this one time. So lame, right? I didn't even shoot it myself. Someone cooked it and-" Bella pauses, drawing a harsh breath.
They cooked it, tied off my arm, sat on me to keep me still and punched that needle into my arm so hard I thought it'd come out the other side.
They all thought that her resistance was hilarious. Until her eyes rolled back into her head and her heart slowed to a stutter so faint that they thought she'd gone down the wrong rabbit hole. After that, it wasn't so hilarious any more.
She finds Edward's eyes to be intensely focused on her. Despite a thorough search, she finds no disgust in them, only that quiet and disconcerting intensity. The darkness that tints his every expression.
"I'm not a junkie, Edward, I wasn't. Not ever. I mean, not that it makes it any better, but-"
"Bella, relax! I believe you. I'm not gonna judge you for something that happened to you when you were seventeen!" He sighs and scrubs his face, considering. " Are you up to telling me what happened next?"
Under the table, Bella's hands twist and torment each other restlessly.
"They didn't give me much. I mean, what junkie shares their stash, right? But I'd never had it like that before and it just completely wiped me out. One minute I was there and the next I'm in hospital... apparently they didn't even take me in, they just dumped me out the front and drove off. Good friends, huh?"
"Yeah, great people." Edward's jaw is clenched so tight that the skin ripples with tension.
"I never saw any of them again. For all they know, I'm dead." Bella pauses and looks up into Edward's eyes, unflinching, facing her truth.
She's definitely not ready to tell him that she lived in fear of HIV for weeks afterward, never knowing if they even used a clean needle. There's no way she's telling him that. He looks nauseated as it is, and just the memory makes her feel disgusting.
He exhales heavily. "So, what happened? You said that you just walked out of the hospital? Where did you go?"
"I didn't want to go back to the home. I knew they'd found my mom but she didn't want to have anything to do with me, so they were sending me back into foster care. I just couldn't do it. Something snapped inside. I just got up and walked out into the street," she says quietly, finally looking at Edward.
"You know, for the longest time I couldn't even take an Advil. I was scared of any drugs! Isn't that ridiculous?"
Edward's breathing deeply through his nose and staring at the creamy potato mountains on his plate.
Is this it? Is this the moment that he decides this is a mistake?
Bella has stilled completely, her body frozen into immobility while she waits on his reaction.
"I should be dead, Edward, even if it was an accident. But this time... If it wasn't for you, I would be dead."
He lowers his head like he's scared she's about to thank him, which immediately makes her want to do it.
"I mean it, Edward. You and I both know what he would have-"
"Yeah... about that," he interrupts huskily. "You're probably wondering how that happened. It's not like I knew what was going on or that you were being watched, or even where you lived for that matter..." Edward presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and sighs. "Look, I was in that tree hoping to see you. Well, not you exactly. I didn't know it was you. I just thought I had a neighbor who liked to dress up. Not that I climbed up there specifically to spy on her. You. Fuck!"
Bella stares and waits for him to continue, her mind a dead silence.
"It was a pretty big fluke. I went up there to clear my head. I used to do that here, as a kid, I would just climb until I couldn't hear anyone else's bullshit, you know? It always seemed so noisy here with Emmett and Dad and football or whatever they were watching on TV. Always sports."
Bella's eyes follow Edward's out into the garden where night has finally fallen. Even though the view is a reflection of the kitchen, she can still see the gentle sway of black tree silhouettes against the dark skies. Even though it's black on black, the movement is calming.
"It was easier to find peace up there."
"I can imagine it would be." She thinks back to how she would find peace on the back porch of Shelly Cope's house at night, wishing that a long-lost relative would someday realize that a horrible mistake had been made. She smiles sadly, remembering the library book that helped her obscure her reality as she imagined herself the embodiment of Sarah Crewe.
"So I need to come clean and tell you that after you left Blondie's that day, I needed something to help me find my peace." He's still not looking at her, but Bella couldn't look away from him if she tried.
"I went home and I climbed that tree, feeling pretty sorry for myself." He snorts and shakes his head before continuing. "Then I remembered one time a few days before when I was up there and I saw this woman leaning out of the window, and I kept climbing hoping to see her again."
Bella knows the night he means, remembers almost crawling into her corset and mask like a desperate snake wanting to cram itself back into the old skin. She remembers looking out the window that night.
"You were... in the tree?"
"Pretty sick, right?" He snorts.
Bella can't believe he's feeling bad about this. Sure, it's a little strange, but...if he hadn't been there, she wouldn't be here now. Swallowing her insecurity, she straightens.
"No, what's sick is that I gave you the impression that I didn't want to date you. That was bullshit."
"Really?" He looks at her sideways, grinning at her disarming admission.
"I would have given my spleen," she continues, spurred on by his grin. "No, hang on, something I need. I would have totally given my arm to go out with you." Bella's eyes are smiling, but her mouth is tense.
"Not your arm. I like your arms."
"My leg then."
"Most definitely not your leg," he murmurs.
Now, they're both grinning like idiots.
"You want me to stop?" Bella teases.
"For the sake of propriety, yes. I like pretty much everything you might give."
If she drilled her eyes into him any harder, Bella's eyes would be lasers, setting Edward on fire.
"Even now?" After everything? Even with everything you know?
"Yep." Edward returns her gaze frankly. Unflinching in his reply.
Bella's heart is in her throat while her hands twine endlessly over each other under the table. There is no other way to take that except as a declaration.
"Also, you don't have to give anything. Just, you know, an affirmative answer." Edward clarifies.
"Well it's pretty much a given since I'm here at your parents' house with you, right?"
"Nothing's a given in this world, Bella."
"Right. Well, I'd better put you out of your misery then. You have my affirmative answer."
Edward smiles so big that he makes the lights dim. Then, he clears his throat, and says, "I take antidepressants."
Bella stares, open-mouthed. "What?"
"And I smoke pot." Edward shrugs, smiling crookedly. "I just thought, as long as we're sharing."
"Antidepressants?"
"Yeah. All the cool kids are doing it."
Bella starts to giggle and Edward's skin rises in goose bumps at the wonderful sound, his mouth stretching in a big grin.
"And pot."
"Yeah. Sometimes. It's nice. I like the mellow." Edward's sheepish grin makes him look rueful. "Does that bother you?"
Bella begins to laugh, shaking her head. As if. As if anything he could do or say would make her love him less violently, or with less abandon. And then, there are the adorable mashed potato hills...
She sobers. "I called Sparky earlier."
"Oh yeah?"
"I was wondering, would it be okay for them to come up here in a couple of days? They can drive up on Friday night, maybe."
"Yeah, it's fine. It'll be great for you guys to have some time."
"She said they can stay in town."
"That's probably good, we don't want to incur the wrath of Esme Cullen."
"No, I definitely want her on my side," Bella quips, nodding sagely.
"Oh, I think she's already on your side, Bella."
"Really?" Now it's Bella's turn for the big sunshine smile.
"Yeah. She said she likes you."
They don't look at each other through the silence that ensues, but there are small smiles beneath the awkwardness, as they push long-cold food around on their plates, talking about everything and nothing now that all the secrets are fair game.
Later, when she climbs the stairs, he holds her hand like he still wants to and it's enough to give her faith in humanity.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
As the days unfold, she feels his eyes on her, and he's not hiding it well anymore.
Maybe he doesn't want to.
That thought warms her at night as she cocoons herself in Esme's beautiful linen.
Sometimes, Bella's skin prickles under her bulky autumn clothes, the tell-tale indication that Edward's watching her. She feels it along the curve of her shoulder, like the tingle of static making the fine hairs stand up in concert with her stomach clenching.
Sometimes, he's the one to stiffen and still, turning toward her slightly as if to check her in the periphery, and she knows that he feels her eyes the way she feels his. His most mundane, most banal actions make her chest feel like it's imploding, but she's becoming increasingly aware of Edward's glances too, the ones he doesn't try so hard to hide now. The incendiary ones.
A strange, empyrean atmosphere hangs over the entire house, and it feels to Bella like they've ceased to live in the real world. There is only Edward and herself in his parents' house, and beyond the doors, the world is a figment of their imagination; it simply doesn't exist.
They float, watching each other closely for signs of reciprocated attraction, the heat between them flashing like solar flares at every accidental-on-purpose touch, every overlong glance.
And they talk, these people of few words, they talk with their eyes as much as their mouths, ravenous for every piece of the other's story.
Esme's garden is beautiful at this time of year. Bella finds herself there in the afternoons, giving herself, and Edward, some space. Two days have passed since they arrived, and though they've spent much of them in each other's company, she needs these moments alone. For a solitary creature, it's surreal to be with someone else all day and night, eating and talking in such close proximity.
Bella thinks that Edward feels the same way.
She kneels among the low beds with her fingers in the dirt, feeling small under the boundless sky, and liking it for a change.
She feels lighter without all that hair to weigh her down and colder, too, but somehow safer. Somehow more there.
Sometimes, she can see the moon like a ghost in daytime, hanging above the clouds. She lies on the ground with grass under her shoulders and marvels at how closing her eyes for a few short moments finds that daytime moon rolling across the sky.
She feels like that moon sometimes, like her whole life until now has been the blink of an eye.
Even here in the garden, she feels Edward's magnet pulling at her insides, even when she's the one to walk out of the house and into the overcast afternoon, needing some solitude.
Sometimes she hears music. He plays a guitar, but only when she's outside, and Bella knows it's because he's exercising his hands and his injured arm. He's getting better each time- she can tell he's surer by the increasing strength of the cords he plays, and the better projection of sound.
When they eat, she looks at the calluses on his fingers, wondering at their texture on her own skin, the roughness against soft down at the nape of her neck or against other, slicker skin.
Sometimes he sings too, and Bella's happiness has never been simpler to achieve; she lays in the grass among swaying autumn color and lets her eyes reflect the sky. Even the rain doesn't dampen her with its sudden appearance. Bella's learning that it's a constant in Forks, and she likes it.
Friday arrives without fanfare and settles around them both in their newfound routine. Bella's heart is in her throat as she steps into the white kitchen and finds a dishevelled Edward poking around in the pantry. His outrageous thatch of bed hair glows in a bright sliver of the morning sun and a threadbare t-shirt hangs from his shoulders in perfect folds as he reaches for the high shelf.
Bella can't tear her eyes away from his waist, where secret skin is revealed between his shirt and faded jeans. The sinuous lines of his back are completely masculine, pale skin so neat over spare musculature. A little dark freckle lives just above the waistband of his jeans, and the thought of dimples low on his narrow hips is enough to flush her skin tomato red.
Drawn forward by the pull in her gut, she approaches slowly so as not to startle him and just breathes him in. He is unrestrained laughter and pollen on the wind, the rare sun's reflection on the Sol Duc and the Early Blue Violet growing along its banks. He is all the things she didn't know she was missing in her life until he happened upon it.
He finds her standing there with awe on her face and grins, handing her the Special K.
Feeling like her life depends on the next few moments, Bella takes the box and sets it down on the bench, never taking her eyes off him. She takes his hand carefully in both of her own and explores something real with reborn fingers.
She traces the Fate line to the Girdle of Venus and rubs over the calluses on his fingers. Her fingers loop around Edward's knuckles, and she presses the heel of his palm with her thumb. They both watch her fingers follow the lines and roughness with such care, softly, then firmly as she grows surer.
"Thanks, Edward." Bella murmurs lowly, not really sure what she's thanking him for. The cereal? The kindness he has shown her?
Her very life?
She releases Edward's hand and steps away with fire still creeping under her skin, elated at making a declaration of her own. He looks awed; they must make a pair right now with matching looks of shock on their faces.
This is the first time she has initiated this kind of tender contact with him, and it's not lost on either of them that things must move forward now.
They stand at the precipice.
When they step away from each other, the delicious anticipation flutters in both their bellies.
It's only a matter of time.
The right time.
Later, Edward watches Bella rise from among the chrysanthemums, twisting to dust herself off. He spies Jasper's car, color flashing between the trees and carving its way through the forest road. The doors open and Bella secures her hands in the back pockets of her jeans but Mary Alice isn't having it; she comes to her with her arms outstretched and just gathers her up, the rolled-up cuffs of her denim jacket so wide around slim wrists.
They hug, awkwardly at first, then with meaning. Edward smiles, watching them leave Jasper to unload a couple of backpacks from the trunk.
He passes them in the hall on the way to help his friend, and there aren't any easy words. No girlish giggles and chatty banter. They both feel the gravity, it seems. Bella shoots him a look of trepidation and he feels fingers brushing his arm as she breezes past, setting tingling trails on his skin that throb long after she's gone.
Leaving the men to their own palaver, they straight away ensconce themselves in the cocoon of Edward's old room, crawl onto the bed and sit talking with their heads close together like teenage girls.
Edward finds them like that hours later, when he knocks lightly and receives no answer. Wanting them to have their pizza hot and fresh, he carefully opens the door and finds them on the bed. Mary Alice has sunk into the piled-up pillows with Bella's sleeping head in her lap, and she's gently stroking and smoothing Bella's crazy new punk hair.
Mary Alice acknowledges him with a small, kind smile, then turns back to her study of the woodland through the window.
They look peaceful. Warm.
Feeling like a thief, he closes the door and steals away with that image, making his ribcage feel too small for the feeling exploding within.
God knows, she needs this in her life.
When they do eventually come down, night has fallen and both women have that look about them, that sad, unburdened look. They look lighter for having each other and heavier for the words they've exchanged.
Later, with Mary Alice and Jasper dozing on the couch and the TV projecting color and light onto their faces, Edward looks for Bella and finds her in the kitchen, sitting at the island with a laptop open in front of her. Japanese cherry blossoms reach their elegantly turned fingers to caress the cover. It must be Mary Alice's.
Bella looks up, her eyes deep and warmed by the bronze and copper of the pots and pans hanging above her.
Wordlessly, she turns the laptop toward him.
Edward, worried now, pads closer to the island and scans the page. It's Google Maps, a house on a street like any other house, on any other street.
He leans in closer and reads the address; 775 K Street, Forks, WA.
"I feel like I have... unfinished business. I've had this feeling before, I guess, but I think I know what it is now."
Looking up, he finds Bella's sad eyes trained on the picture of the little white house on the screen.
"Edward, I was wondering if you'd take me for a ride tomorrow."
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
The old Swan house isn't vacant, but it is still a cenotaph, shades from the before-life lingering under the eaves. It's much smaller than she thought, though her memories are vague at best.
Just feelings, really.
Clinging to Edward's back, Bella lays her cheek on his shoulder blade and grips his jacket harder. The leather is cold but fragrant under her skin, a musky version of Edward's own masculine scent. She can feel the cords of muscle underneath, flexing and moving as he takes off his helmet and resettles his body weight to kick down the stand. He doesn't get off, staying within her embrace with his long legs braced on either side of the motorcycle.
"Do you want to go up?" Edward asks, his voice rough on the breeze.
"I don't know," she mutters under her breath, unmoving.
The house is in good repair, with signs of occupancy: a child's bicycle rests against the side and several pairs of shoes and boots lie strewn on the porch.
The building itself is not much to look at, though it's one of the few houses in Forks with a second story. The setting, however, makes it beautiful, transcending the wood and metal, concrete and glass. The woodland is right there in the backyard, lush and green, a presence bigger than man. Everything reflects the sheen of rain which fell earlier in the morning, making the air heavy with the scent of the local flora and giving off an aura of freshness and life.
Bella tries hard to sift through her memories, but comes up blank. She doesn't really remember the house, which is probably to do with the fact that as a small child, she never looked at it like this, outside and from a little distance. Inside, it might be a different story. There might still be yellow cabinets in the kitchen, though so many years later, this is unlikely. They were dated back then, let alone now, when white and stainless steel are the new black.
There might be more memories waiting inside, but they're not hers- they're this other family's. All the brief snippets, the moments that she has been able to keep, they don't live in this house.
They live in her past, and in Bella herself.
There is nothing in this house for her.
"No, I'm done. Just wanted to see it, I guess," Bella murmurs against Edward's back, not sure if he can hear her. For the first time, she wonders what happened to all of Charles Swan's possessions. Were they sold? Stored somewhere? How would one find that out?
She tries to focus on the real and the tangible while standing on the precipice of the unknown world of ghosts past.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
A leftover Memorial Day flag flaps and cracks in the stiff wind, a synthetic movement among the lovely greenery that weaves between the stones.
Such austere markers for entire lives lived.
Bella meanders between the graves, reading the stones and plaques and feeling the weight of expectations dissipate. Nothing really matters here.
There is no time.
There is no failure.
Every single one of these people have endured the most they ever will.
The air here feels omniscient and remote. Distant from human concerns.
Nobody here cares about her past or future. Nobody here looks down on her.
She knows where to go- the Forks Cemetery website has a name search function, which returns a gravesite location; Charles Swan rests here on the plain, under a spruce taller than three stories.
She approaches slowly with her eyes trained on the little plaques that pepper the ground here, looking for the right one.
It's small, no bigger than a shoe box.
A landscape is acid etched into the stone; tall, straight trees stand immortal, cut in on either side of the inscription.
In the center, words are engraved into the granite: Charles Christopher Swan, 1964-1994.
No Beloved Father or Son of Geoffrey and Helen. No Resting under wings of Angels.
No unnecessary sentiment for the young, tragic Chief of Police; old enough to keenly feel his responsibilities, but young enough not to fear his mortality.
Bella stares at the plaque, willing herself to understand it. She stares until the letters make no sense. She stares until she can't read them anymore.
"You're not here either, are you?" She whispers into the void. Wind stings her eyes, and she closes them, clenching her fists.
Crisp navy uniform against white satin padding. Sprigs of lavender tucked between bloodless, clasped fingers. Mister Biscuits hanging limply from her hand and Daddy doesn't smell right. Why doesn't he move?
The memory stabs her in the chest like a metal spike, and she folds to the ground, kneeling at her father's grave.
"You're not here, Daddy," she says, sighing. It's not a question anymore.
The granite plaque feels ice cold under her fingertips, and she traces the smooth stone beneath the lettering. A rich green moss has begun to claim the corners, and the texture is such welcome softness- a reprieve after the hard stone. Bella picks a few stray blades of grass and fallen pine needles and flicks them away.
"I could have had you with me the whole time, couldn't I?"
She sits back on her heels, looking out over the cemetery. The breeze is fresh almost to the point of being painful, and with no long hair to hide behind, Bella's ears are beginning to ache deep inside with the intrusion of the unrelenting wind.
There are many things she would say to her father, but the recognition, the spiritual presence she was looking for, isn't here.
She feels the weight of all the years wasted on neglecting herself, and on wilfully suppressing her memories. Charlie Swan was real, and she spent years pretending that he was an unimportant flash in the pan, a make-believe invisible friend. She wasted years brushing him, and herself, under the rug, when she could have carried him with her.
The realization that what's left of Charlie is within herself vitrifies her spirit with a layer of warmth. One day, she might be equal to the task of honoring his life and of understanding his death.
With one last look to the etched pines standing vigil over her father's name, Bella returns to the land of the living.
Wordlessly, she climbs back on the motorcycle, seating herself behind Edward. She doesn't look back as they ride away.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
Abruptly, Bella is awake.
It's barely Sunday.
The dark is absolute; the night moonless outside. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then, she's suddenly aware of the music.
Someone is playing the Rolling Stones, and she recognizes the song. It permeates her senses until it's all she can feel.
It can only be Edward; Jasper and Sparky left hours ago.
Bella can't leap out of bed fast enough.
Padding on bare feet, she follows the sound down to the ground floor, beyond the kitchen and into the den.
...childhood living is easy to do...
There are stairs here, leading down to the music, and she follows them. One at a time, slowly, softly, Bella makes her way down until she reaches a door.
A sliver of flickering light glows from beneath, and she ignores a final pang of conscience that reminds her she probably shouldn't be here. One last deep breath, and she raises her hand to the door, opening it soundlessly, a white hand against the darkness.
The flickering sliver turns into a warm glow that reaches for her in welcome. She feels her face and body bathed in that orange light, transforming her from Bella into a sensual, ethereal being with a candlelit halo.
Inside the darkened cellar room, Edward sits cross-legged on the floor, listening to the song with his back to the doorway. Beyond him is another of those amazing windows that lets the woodland right into the house, except that this one is at ground level and the dense forest slopes slightly away from the house here.
...you know I can't let you slide through my hands...
This window is like an entrance into the underworld, with low-lying ferns and mosses lining the ground outside, shielded from sunlight by the tall canopy above. It's like looking into a forest burrow, a secret place where the only sound is a soft rustling of evergreen leaves and the time of day is perpetual dusk. Dark green shadows prevail here, and hide everything from prying eyes.
Edward sits facing the window, but he's not looking at it- if he were, he would see the reflection of Bella standing in the now open doorway. His hands are in his hair, elbows braced on his thighs, and he rocks gently while the music plays around him.
It has always been one of her favorite songs, but whatever it has meant to her before now, Bella knows that for the rest of her life, whenever she hears it, this image of Edward will burn in her memory.
The words resound in her head with the fury of a tornado on the outside, while the calm eye of the storm touches down over her heart.
For the first time, she's close to believing that he was telling the truth when he said he cared for her. Suddenly, she recognizes the honesty of his words, and beyond them, his feelings.
He loves her.
Edward loves her.
And what's more, there is proof all around him, in this safe, dark place he has called home for days now, so that she could have the comfort of his own childhood room.
...wild horses couldn't drag me away...
Bella's mouth falls open as she absorbs the stunning, frightening and exhilarating evidence of his devotion. Her own eyes stare back at her from all over the room, witnessing her enlightened astonishment.
Edward has been busy.
Huge sheets of paper are tacked onto walls all over the room, each wearing Edward's heart on the surface for all to see. A narrow futon mattress on the floor near the window looks pathetically sad in this basic room devoid of furniture, and she swallows hard, thinking about Edward sleeping here, surrounded by these effigies of her.
Some of the drawings are downright violent, made with bold, sweeping black strokes, uncompromising in their declaration, her face wrestled from the monochrome with such passion.
BELLA!
Others are soft and tender, inscribed to rest lightly on the surface of the paper as though the slightest breeze could blow them away into whispers; as though her face was an imagined daydream.
bella.
Bella. BELLA. bella...
Bella.
Drawing upon drawing stares back at her as she stands stunned in the doorway of the basement room, finally beginning to understand.
She finds herself wondering if she really looks like this, if she's really this beautiful, because if there is one word that can be used to describe these drawings, it's this: beautiful.
Perhaps it is his hand that makes her like this, and she could never have imagined that he might house such a talent.
The sheer volume and force of it should make him explode from within into winding ribbons of color and light.
His work is skilled, the likenesses of her are nothing short of incredible.
There is one in particular where he has drawn her sleeping face with such care, capturing so perfectly the feeling of peaceful calm, that it makes her want to weep for knowing that there are moments where she is so untroubled.
Has he watched me sleeping?
Perhaps he did so at the hospital and has drawn this from memory. It's absolutely astounding.
She has never been more surprised by another person in all her life. People are capable of the worst kinds of behavior, nothing base and hideous has ever really shocked her.
But this, this has caught her so completely unaware that she's almost shaking at the discovery.
From every corner of the room, her own features look back at her, chanting: look how he loves you, look how he sees you! ...and it's obvious that he does care for her. Is the curve of her mouth really so sensual? Are her eyes this solemn?
There are drawings of her with a long, dark mane, winding around in curlicues, and there are drawings of her since she chopped it all off, too, the hair bold and sharp, angular against the soft curve of her cheek. It's obvious that he has been here, daily, adding to this collection.
He has given her such power over him in this room.
Her bare feet make no sound as she steals into the room and comes to stand behind Edward, mesmerized by the beauty he sees in her face echoing in his artwork. Her movement, reflected in the window, attracts his eye and he looks up from beneath burnished auburn hair that has flopped down over his face.
In silence, he watches the reflection of her inky silhouette against a rectangle of brightness that is the doorway, light from the stair blocking her slim shape through the short cotton shift she wears to bed.
With the light behind her flaring over the softness of her thigh and her narrow waist, she's seraphic. The transparency is deceptive, showing everything and nothing, but the hint of the Man Ray muse outlined in the bright light of the doorway is so perfect that it hurts his eyes.
...no sweeping exits or offstage lights could make me be bitter or treat you unkind...
From the beautiful drawings that surround them both, Bella lowers her eyes to the man at her feet, and knows that he watches her reflection just as she watches him. His hands are blackened from the charcoal he's been using- the evidence of a new drawing on an easel close by. Strangely, the drawing is of a pair of feminine hands, the fingers entwined together, palms facing up as though making a woven basket.
What will he place in those hands?
She creates her own answer.
Her fingers straighten and reach for him, touching down lightly in his thick, soft hair. Edward is motionless beneath her hand, sitting as though petrified into stone by her touch.
Emboldened by his still acquiescence, Bella thrills at the way his thatch of hair folds down softly beneath her palm, and she moves closer still, gathering him into her.
Edward comes willingly, finally softening into her hand and turning his face into her thigh. Bella can feel his warm breath coming thickly, through the thin fabric of her cotton shift.
Slowly he kneels and reaches up his arms, fisting handfuls of her shift at her hips, and she can't help the shiver that raises her skin into goose bumps all over her body.
Her skin feels energized and alive in his presence alone, but his touch makes her breathless and steals her reason.
...let's do some living after we die...
Edward rubs his face gently into her thigh and she can feel the growth of his stubble through the thin fabric, deliciously rough and harsh against her skin.
"Bella," he whispers urgently into her thigh while her hand kneads and tugs his auburn hair.
Can this really be happening?
The sensation of his panting breaths on her belly and her breast as she lowers herself down to the floor is incendiary, the waves of heat are so intense that they threaten to immolate them both.
Sinking down to him, she wraps her whole arms around him like vines, fingers splayed into his hair and palms on his skull like she might be able to absorb his thoughts and his goodness into herself.
Edward, Edward, Edward... chants her skin, and the thrill of feeling the texture of his hair is like a flash of lightning all over her body until his name spills from her mouth as breathy as a whisper. "Edward," she says over and over.
"Edward..." I love you.
"Edward..." I need you like air.
Edward.
She had no idea she could be this passionate about anything... anyone.
Bella eases down slowly until she's sitting across Edward's lap, bare feet curled into each other. With her arms around him like this, she's close enough to notice that he smells of coffee, worn-in cotton and warm skin. She wants to bury her face in that scent and never come up for plain air again.
Instead, she hovers so close and feels her chest jump like a bass drum, her heart a galloping, runaway Mustang. The fluttering that she always feels in her gut when Edward is near her has intensified into an ache, and she shivers, wondering at her audacity to be sitting in his embrace like it's no big deal, when it's the most amazing thing that has happened ever, ever, ever.
His nearness is stupefying.
It takes decades to get there but suddenly, their faces are so close together that every fiber of Bella's being wants to close the gap and be safe, be home.
Her hair feels like it's standing on end as she watches Edward's mouth form her name through a sigh. It sounds like relief.
Edward's eyes are heavy-lidded as he stares at her mouth.
Come closer.
Stop fighting.
Bella can't bear the intensity, can't live through this moment intact.
Her eyes flutter closed while Edward's gravity pulls her in and finally, slowly, she feels her nose brush against Edward's in the sweetest moment of electric torment.
How can the breaching of such a small distance as the one between their entwined bodies feel so huge and momentous?
She teases the tip of her nose against his, buoyed by the tiny momentum of every breath while Edward's hair flops down over their eyes.
One more shattered breath and it's subtle, this meeting of her all consuming fantasy and her reality, the worlds converging at the place where their lips whisper against each other, yielding up the truth of their bond.
The kiss is as light as the fluttering of eyelashes on the palm of a hand- barely a touch, but it explodes over Bella's skin like a Molotov cocktail, and she gasps against Edward's mouth at the concentrated bliss spreading through her every pore.
She's oblivious to Edward desperately clutching her shift along with a handful of her hip, hard enough to bruise. His other hand is splayed flat against her back, holding her to him, hard.
Lips caress and part, hover and alight, pressing hotly against each other, testing and coaxing.
They plead and entreat, beg and harass each other, sweetly torturing her senses and she dies there, right in his arms.
Everywhere he touches her, he clasps and grabs and grips hard, except that one place where his mouth is the moist, decadent softness of a peeled grape.
Her mouth opens just as her eyes close, and her head is completely void of any thought that doesn't include Edward's mouth on her mouth and her hands in his glorious, chaotic hair.
It doesn't matter how many times she has dreamed of this moment, because she could have never imagined the visceral need to be closer, to take more and give it all which tugs on her insides.
Edward's soft mouth coaxes hers once, twice, three times, setting off a chain of firecrackers in the pit of her belly- the heat is volcanic.
Then, he takes her top lip between his own and begins to exert the slightest pressure while she uses all her facilities just to keep breathing through this relentless, heavenly assault on her senses.
He smells divine, like a man should, and it's not a fragrance as much as the warmth of his skin just radiating at her like the hottest summer sun.
Beneath his clothes, his shoulders and back feel powerful, muscular, strong and lean, just as she thought they would.
Her hand drops to his forearm, and she gently traces his healing scar, whispering thank you, thank you, thank you into his mouth and against his kisses, which become firmer and more desperate with every breath, insistent on her mouth.
"Thank you for saving my life," she whispers, clutching at her tattered presence of mind, wanting to be coherent now, at least to say these words before she falls completely.
Thank you for loving me.
Edward smiles against her mouth and it's addictive, this huge, expanding feeling. He peppers her face with kisses, light and fleeting over her eyes and healing cheek, hard and nuzzling over her jaw and throat, until she lifts her face up to heaven and gives him all of her white skin to adore.
Somehow, they've found themselves on the futon against the window to the dark woodland underworld.
With the silent sentinel forest protecting them from the outside world, they're oblivious to everything but this.
"I need to know that you're alright." Edward's words are halting, his voice hoarse. "With me. With this."
He tightens his grip on her hip to accentuate his meaning and she marvels at the contradiction; he holds her tighter while creating breathing space between them. "Are you?"
"God yes," she breathes an invocation into his skin and digs her fingers into his shoulder. Daring, her tongue darts out to taste the salt at the base of his throat.
Groaning, he burrows into the crook of her neck and shoulder and nuzzles the soft flesh there, searching out the scar. Gently, he kisses that crescent moon, that imperfect lure.
Searching out her hand, he intertwines their fingers and brings them to his breast like they're dancing, and she soars in his arms even as he holds her closer to his chest.
He smiles against her throat and kisses her clavicles, pressing chants of Bella, Bella, Bella into her skin like the lines he pressed into paper all around them.
"Have you been waiting for me, Edward?" She whispers, still scared of saying these things out loud in case she's imagining this, upstairs somewhere, in the depths of a sleep fantasy.
"Yeah," he murmurs, his voice a thrilling hot breath into her cheek as he kisses it softly with his warm, red mouth. "I was hoping you'd come soon."
Looking down between them, she can see the trail of where he has touched her by the sooty smears of charcoal.
Edward's fingerprints are all over her body, white cotton and skin.
It thrills her to see this evidence of him all over her.
If she could crack open the cavity of her chest, his fingerprints would be all over her heart, too.
Edward looks down as well, and then they're both watching as he releases her hand and trails over her arm, pausing at the crease of her elbow.
So lightly he touches her that goose bumps rise along the trail too, marking his progress with her changed landscape.
Upon reaching the strap of her white shift, he slowly hooks his blackened finger under it and pulls it down from her shoulder. Bella's breath has been stolen, and she cannot look away from his determined face. Edward's eyes are greener than the woodland outside, but they're burning hotter than the sun as he stares at his own fingers making dark dents in her flesh.
Haloed auburn hair falls over his face as he lowers himself to her, swapping fingers for lips- he kisses the exact spot where his fingers have just been, near her bare shoulder.
As light as a feather, he kisses her a little lower toward the swell of her breast and her heavy eyelids sink to oblivion.
Another kiss, lower still, placed so lightly on the hem of her shift as it caresses the curve of her, and Bella's reason has fled. She can only feel.
Edward turns his face into the flesh of her breast, nuzzling the sensitive skin and razing it with his stubbly jaw.
Slowly, he passes over her, nudging the edge of her shift aside with his nose.
Light and tender kisses follow, and where the roughness sets her skin to burn, so the delicate pressing of his mouth soothes it.
Teasing the cotton aside insistently with his nose and mouth, he finally exposes her breast, assailing and then calming, attacking and then subtly stroking her with complete abandon; he is as lost as she in the sensation.
Time has lost meaning and neither of them hears the music anymore, they're both oblivious.
The universe has contracted down to the place where Edward's mouth finally exposes and then closes over Bella's tightened nipple, both of them jolted by this affirmation of life.
"Want you," he rasps into her flesh, and there is nothing in this world she wants more than him. Like the climbing vine, Bella extends her fingers over Edward's arm and shoulder, gathering him closer, breathing too fast. They're flying and crashing, soaring and diving over each other, grasping fingers digging into flesh, hungry mouths breathing words of love and need into hot skin.
Possessed and possessing, they rush in their need to gift themselves, one to the other, believing now that there is more of this to come to them, so much more.
There will be slow and wanton, languid and teasing. There will be adoring and lavishing and taking and giving, but tonight in this makeshift shrine, the need to connect is greater than anything either have ever felt and they're ready, so ready.
They rush, pulling and pushing each other out of their clothing, greedy eyes and gasping breaths, until that perfect moment, that ultimate pause, where just a deep breath will dissolve two into one. The rap at the gate before the storm of the keep.
Edward looks over the flushed woman beneath him and doesn't see the hacked hair or the bruised face, the haunted past or the desperate child. He sees only Bella, with her wise eyes and that mouth... that mouth slightly open with his name on her tongue, and he feels impelled, he must take that final, deep breath.
Jesus Christ. Right there.
And so he does, with lips hovering open over her mouth as he slowly pushes himself inside the reality, so much more than the dark muse fantasy. She's hot and soft and pliant and oh God, the sounds she makes, the perfect shape and sheath of her, everything kills him little by little.
"Oh God, Bella..." His broken sigh is a revelation.
They pause, foreheads together, adjusting and breathing, until he can't stand it anymore, until he must have her, must move, must feel. Almost involuntarily, he flexes those slim hips into her body and the pleasure is blinding- he groans into her shoulder. When Bella's head falls to the side with a breathy, rich gasp, he nips at her neck, beginning to create the ebb and flow of their bodies, with their fingers woven together on the mattress beside them, the holy palmers kiss.
He swallows her sounds and gives her his own, as his eyes memorize new moments, new expressions. Her mouth, her mouth, like a butterfly, like a ripe peach, a soft mystery- he can't get enough of her. Edward's eyes are not open enough, his arms are too few to take all he needs from her and his heart too small to be the only offering in return.
There are more moments like this for them, and it makes him smile to know that they can't revoke this, it's undeniable. She's the journey and the destination, right there beneath him- his place in the world, and the world itself.
Bella thought she knew her own body, but here it is, singing in pitch-perfect key for the first time.
He does this, only he.
Dim light flickers over Edward's face as he traps her hand under his, grinding them both into the mattress, again and again with deliciously intense friction. She arches beneath him, unable to be still and he gasps as his eyes are drawn to where the shift is pushed aside over her barely-draped breasts, taut and heaving with her panting breaths full of his name. Looking down between them, the black finger-shaped smears of charcoal over her roseate nipples ignite desire like napalm and they both oscillate in the dim light like things possessed.
Wanting more, always more, Bella meets him when he comes at her and ebbs the tide when he recedes, somehow perfect, somehow right.
Kneading softened flesh with his calloused hands, he makes her ache, makes her moan. When he moves in her, the thin band of green fire around solid black pupils flashes like lightning and she can see that he feels it, too. It's not just good. It's spectacular. People live entire lifetimes without ever experiencing this, without riding this perfect storm.
She invokes all the deities to witness the act of their love, and when there are no more words, she breathes to live, only to survive these perfect moments of clarity.
When at last they spend themselves, it's relief.
Sweet, peaceful relief.
It burns beneath Bella's skin like a layer of invincibility.
They doze, entwined, the dark woodland outside a silent sentinel over their exhausted bodies.
Later, in the dark, they find each other again. Whispers and tentative, needful touches turn into wanting, then into having.
"I might never sleep again," Edward rasps thickly into her nape, hands sliding under her arms to cup her white breasts from behind and torment her puckered nipples. He nudges her leg with his own and finds her like this, thick with sleep and long and slow this time, now that the storm has receded.
"You don't need sleep," she whispers, licking her lips, dry and stung as they are from adoring his stubbly jaw and throat and from being kissed senseless. She watches their reflection in the window, barely outlined shapes moving, claiming, primal.
"I only need you," he agrees, nipping lightly at her shoulder as he lets her have all of him, too.
Much later, Bella opens her eyes to feel even, deep breaths in her ear, fanning lightly across her cheek. It's still dark outside. Time has passed, but she doesn't know how much. It's not important.
Though it feels like she has been aware and half awake all night, somehow Bella is still surprised by the heaviness of Edward's arm across her body as he sleeps beside her. The moment that she becomes aware of it, it feels too hot and too heavy to stay there for long, though she would sooner bite off her own than ask him to move it. She can't believe that she's here, sleeping in his hot, safe embrace.
Hours ago, she snuck into this room, following the trail of music. Now, one by one, the sensations return to her and she draws a shaky breath, fluttering inside as she remembers what they did, how they loved. The clench low in her belly feels so primal and irresistible; it won't be denied. She wants him again, needs him, moving within and anchoring her to the earth with his body. He strips away all her masks without even trying, and she's more naked with him than she has ever been, even in her previous life.
It's an exhilarating rush to give up so many pretenses and to just be herself with him.
Nobody has ever done anything to gain her trust before. As far as she can remember, nobody has ever needed it.
She knows so much more now than the physical attraction which levelled her on that first day. He has given her everything, allowed her to be everything and accepted her as she is.
There is no reticence in his face, no guile. She has always been the author of her own guilt and shame, she can see that now. It's unfair to accuse him of the things she perpetrates against herself, when he has done nothing but help her to this moment of discovery, in a basement room filled with proof of his steadfast sincerity.
He had faith in her when she herself had none. He sat here and poured his faith in her onto these drawings instead of hating her for her base nature and blaming her for his injury.
Turning her head, she finds him awake, watching her intently. In the darkness, his eyes are black, smoldering coals.
He's beautiful. Intense and intent, his eyes devour her, and she feels it low in the pit of her stomach.
"Hi," she manages, her head full of cotton wool when he looks at her like that.
"Hi," he replies, his grin cocked to the side. How is it possible to want something this much?
"Can we stay here all day?"
"God, yes. I don't think I can actually walk, anyway." Edward's hand is no longer a weight across her body, it's busy returning to the places that make her eyes roll back and her mouth fall open. He cups her breast and fondles skilfully, teasing, kneading and pulling at her until she's putty in his hand.
"Good. Just...come here." Bella buries her fingers in the thick auburn mess and they soar to the sun, flying until all their feathers burn off and they fall like dead weights toward their sanctuary.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
Overlapping layers of paint speak in gold, blue and green to the rough brick surface, though their voice isn't as loud as Bella remembers from before. The colors are not as vivid, they're more earthy and not the cacophony she expected.
Above, new glass covers the window to Bella's old bedroom. Most of her possessions are already in Edward's warehouse, space created for boxes of books and clothes among his music. She still can't look at that window without something cold creeping over her skin. It's going to take some serious work to push it to the back of her mind while she stays at Edward's warehouse.
It's not a permanent solution, but it's the only way she can be free of the apartment and the memories it holds, at a time when they're still so raw and she has no income. Bella will stay with Edward for a time, and with Alice in Bellingham, too, until she can stand on her own feet and decide what to do long-term and how to live this new life.
Overhead, the cedar stands as it always has, a reminder of a time when all these suburbs were a swaying, breathing sea of such ancient guardians. Standing by the mural that was her only friend, it's all too easy to drift into a sweet daydream where she and Edward nimbly sprint across the branches from the apartment to the warehouse, spiriting her possessions lightly, efficiently away.
In reality, she's dusty and sore from packing and carrying everything down to her car, then driving around the block only to lift and move it into Edward's space. Bella looks at her hands and smiles, liking the gritty honesty of the dirt. She brings them together, rubbing at the sore spots that ache from the work, grateful that she's standing here at all.
"Wow, I had no idea this was here!" Edward's words fall lightly as he walks up behind her in the courtyard.
She sighs, thrilled to share this with him.
"It's amazing, isn't it? I love it. I wish I knew what it says," Bella answers, and although she has tried to decipher it and failed on numerous occasions, she still tilts her head this way and that, looking for the method to the pretty madness.
"Kismet," Edward says surely.
"Kismet?" Bella looks at him, then back at the mural. She looks for sense in the insane labyrinth of shapes and colors until she thinks her eyeballs are going to fall out.
Nothing. She still can't see it.
Suddenly, Edward is close. Real close. She feels herself being pulled into his orbit, and free-falls gladly, sure that he will catch her.
And so he does, encircling her with his arms like solid, warm stone.
He nods against the side of her face, his mouth sending a delicious breath over the shell of her ear. Bella stands, mesmerized.
"You can read this?"
"Sure," he replies, grinning. "It's a guy thing."
"Oh, a guy thing?" Bella snorts, "are you sure it's not a vandal thing?"
"It might be a vandal guy thing." Edward concedes.
"And this says Kismet. You're sure?"
"Uh-huh. It's probably the guy's tag."
"The what now?"
"His tag. His street name. The name he was known by among other... vandal guys."
"Kismet is his name... tag?"
Edward nuzzles her ear, warm breaths raising goose bumps on her skin, then nudges her with the tip of his nose. "Well, not his real name, obviously."
"Obviously!" Bella begins to giggle as Edward's insistent nudging tickles her neck. Giggles become breathless gasps as his lips relentlessly feather over delicate skin. Bella flushes to the tips of her ears with how wanted he makes her feel, and how beautiful.
"We're done here; let me take you out to eat," he mutters lowly in between kisses and gently pulls on her hand, but she resists him.
"Do you mind if I just take a moment here?"
"Want me to wait for you?"
"No. I'll catch up in a minute."
Breathless, she senses Edward stepping back and looks sideways at him in all his sweaty, dusty glory. Lifting boxes agrees with him, she thinks.
"Don't be long," he says, and gives her that sweet, quirky grin, the one that only creases one cheek but pulls at something deep inside her until she's thinking about the way his spare, flexing body looks when sweat beads upon it. He knows it, too, smiling wide and cheeky at her stunned mullet expression.
He walks backward, leaving her alone with Kismet's masterpiece.
Smiling and laying her face against the mural's rough surface, Bella caresses it with the flat of her hand, just like those weeks ago when she first had her soul-rending epiphany.
Textured, warmed brick answers her hand, whispering rough nothings. She remembers back to a night that she found comfort here as Edward played on the other side. She knows now, as does he, that they were so much closer than either could have suspected- not just in physical proximity, but in the spirit world, too.
Bella extends her slender arm and just like she did all those weeks ago, she carefully lifts the curtain of the creeping vine away from the wall.
The secret door existed here all along, but she couldn't see it with those old eyes.
She couldn't see it because it was within her.
Kismet.
Smiling, she allows the vine to spring back into its natural place, and follows her Edward from the shadowy courtyard into the light of the rare and beautiful sun.
-Ø-Ø-Ø-
"It was the heavenly Muse who led me on my venture down that dark descent, then led me up again, though the path was long and hard."
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 3.
~Fin~
A/N: Thank You.