Chapter 21 - Fish

I didn't care that it was six in the morning; I called the Cullen house right away after discovering that Edward didn't come.

"Hello?" Esme answered.

"Mrs. Cullen, hi….um, is Edward there?"

"It's six in the morning Bella, I'm sure he's sleeping."

"Oh…uh….do you mind waking him up?" I asked like a moron. I should have known she's say no but I was anxious and desperate.

"Is something wrong with Em?" she asked worriedly.

"No, but…uh…I just really need to talk to him."

"You know, he was up late last night sick, so I think it's best to let him sleep for a little while longer."

"He's sick? Oh no, I was too," I said, somewhat relieved that there wasn't a more serious reason as to why he didn't show.

"Are you feeling ok now?" she asked, and if I didn't know any better, I'd think she almost sounded concerned.

"Oh, I feel much better this morning, thanks for asking. Were you up all night with Edward?" I asked, assuming her over protectiveness would keep her by his bed side.

"Well, I probably would have been, but he yelled at me and then locked me out of his room," she said with a little laugh. "I'm glad you feel better Bella, and I'll have Edward call you when he wakes up."

"Thank you," I said politely.

I went to hang up the phone, but before I could lift my hand from the receiver, I was grabbed from behind.

"Ah!" I screamed startled by the unexpected embrace.

"It's just me," Edward hushed me.

"Edward? Oh my god, what are you doing here? I just called your house and your mom said you were sick in bed."

He laughed. "I was sick, but I promised I'd be here, so here I am."

"You shouldn't have come if you were sick, how long have you been here?"

"I got here around one."

"One this morning? Why weren't you in bed with me?"

"I climbed through your window but you were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you. Besides, I was still throwing up every hour or so and thought you might catch it if I laid with you."

"I was sick too. I must have just fallen asleep right before you got here," I said while wrapping my arms around him and hugging him tightly. "What were you doing downstairs?" I mumbled into his neck.

"Uh," he said with a laugh. "Your dad caught me going in and out of the bathroom and said I could just sleep on the couch if I was worried about waking you and Em."

"Oh," I said while hugging him even tighter.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked me.

"Yep, you?"

"I am now," he said while kissing my hair. "Is Em up yet?" he asked after a minute.

"She wasn't when I first came down; I better go up to check on her."

"I'll go," he said eagerly, so I smiled and waited there as he rushed up the stairs. It was obvious that he had a hard time being away from her as well.

"Well, that was an interesting night," Charlie grumbled as he walked into the room to make some coffee.

"Sorry dad, Edward and I were both pretty sick last night; we didn't mean to wake you."

"It's not a problem. Just curious though, was his midnight visit going to be a regular thing?"

I thought about fibbing, but Charlie didn't deserve to be lied to so I nodded sheepishly.

"Now Bells, you know I support whatever you kids need, but I am a cop and he's only seventeen, so…" he sighed. "I really have no idea where you found this," he said while sliding me a small silver key over the counter.

I raised my brows at him.

"Now don't look at me like that; this isn't easy for me but I think keeping you apart will only do more damage than good. I figure he'll be coming over here whether I like it or not, so we don't need him breaking his neck while climbing up the tree to get in through your window.

I smiled and then hugged him. "Thanks dad."

"I have no idea what you're thanking me for," he grumbled.

"Right," I played along.

"Hi!" Em said excitedly as her and Edward came into view.

"Hi baby!" I said just as excitedly back.

Edward was helping her walk down the stairs, which she was absolutely getting a kick out of. "This," she said, pointing down to show me what she was doing.

"I see baby, those are stairs."

"Well, I'm going to be late for work," Charlie said while going over to kiss Em's head, before kissing mine. "Edward," he said with a nod.

"See-ya, Charlie," Edward replied. "So…what are we going to do today?" he asked me.

I shrugged and smiled. "How about…nothing?"

He smiled back at me. "Sounds perfect."

Edward and I still didn't feel well, so we fed Em but opted to skip breakfast ourselves, then the three of us curled up together and watched a movie, but of course it wasn't long before the phone rang and I had a pretty good idea who it was.

"Hello?"

"Bella, its Esme…Is Edward there?"

I looked over at Edward and he looked absolutely irritated, but he held his hand out for the phone anyway.

"Yes mom, I haven't been kidnapped, I'm here so you can call off the police…..Well, that's nice, I wanted to spend the day with my kid, so that's why I'm here instead of there….Yep, sure," he said sourly before hanging up the phone.

"Does she want you to go back?" I asked concerned.

"Don't really care what she wants," he said evenly before changing the subject. "Look at Em completely mesmerized by the TV, maybe there's truth to the whole 'TV rots the brain' thing."

I laughed. "I doubt it; I never watched much TV and I was still pretty stupid before."

He looked at me disapprovingly. "You were never stupid….Misguided, but not stupid."

"I think we were both a little misguided by our mothers," I said suggestively.

"Touché," he agreed.

"It's kind of funny if you think about it, we both became completely different when we were away from the people who influenced us the most."

"Yeah, well, who will we be now that we're back?" he asked absently.

"We are who we are," I said, confused as to what he meant exactly. "I mean, we may change a little, but we'll always be us…right?"

"I hope so," he mumbled.

"You don't sound too sure?"

"If the island has taught me anything, it's that nothing in life is certain. I mean, the future is always changing and I'm just not sure where we're going from here. On the island it was simple, we were us and that's all we could be, but here…." he let his words trail off.

"It doesn't matter where we are or where we'll go…we're a family, so we'll be together," I stated – It wasn't a question in my mind, except the longer he hesitated, the more I doubted he felt the same way. "Right?" I prompted him when he still didn't reply.

"Of course we'll be together; we have Em," he said with a forced smile.

"And we have each other," I told him strongly.

He looked at me strangely and I felt like he said a million things in that one look, except I didn't understand the words. After just a few days off the island, were we already back to speaking a different language, and it absolutely terrified me.

"Each other is still all we'll ever have," I reiterated, much quieter and praying he'd just nod or give me some kind of sign that he felt the same way.

He still didn't respond verbally, but he wound his fingers into mine and then lifted our conjoined hands to kiss my knuckles. My chest tightened as a response. I expected him to put my hand down after that, but instead he pleasantly surprised me by kissing my wrist next, and then left a trail of kisses up my arm and onto my shoulder before tucking his face under my hair to kiss my neck.

I shuddered….in the best possible way.

"How lone until Em's nap?" he whispered before kissing behind my ear.

"An hour or so," I said with a longing sigh.

"Ok," he said unfazed. He pulled back and lifted Em off my lap before moving her to the other side of him. She didn't protest the move, she didn't even seem to notice; she was still completely engrossed in the television.

Edward scooted closer to me, and I couldn't help but smile as he leaned in to attach his lips to mine. We weren't about to leave Em to go have sex, but we could definitely use her distraction to our advantage and make out like a couple of teenagers.

God I wanted him. It had been far too long since we had sex last, and I just needed to have that feeling again. Civilized life was hard, but add in the fact that something was always getting between us and physical intimacy, and I was about to go crazy. He was my soft spot, my safe place, and sex was more than just sex for us - it was comfort - the feeling of being whole….We needed to be whole again.

I wasn't paying attention to the clock so I had no idea how long we were making out for, but something made me glance at Em and thankfully she had mercy on us and fell fast asleep.

"Make sure the door is locked," I said in a rush. Edward jumped up to check the door while I put couch pillows all around Em so she wouldn't get hurt if she fell in her sleep, and then Edward and I rushed up the stairs.

We didn't even make it to my bedroom before we had to stop to kiss again. He pushed me against the wall and pressed his pelvis into mine, showing me just how much he wanted me. I could easily feel his erection through our respective sweatpants, and it made me whimper with desire even more.

Every inch of me was a live wire, so when he pushed his hand down the front of my pants to grab a hold of my sex, I nearly exploded.

"We…need," I couldn't even talk, but he understood well enough so he pulled his hand out so we could complete our whirlwind journey to my bedroom.

Our clothes seemed to peel away from our bodies as we finally made it to my bed, but the bounce and squeak that the mattress made as we fell onto it suddenly made us both laugh. It was an odd sound for us, something we had definitely never heard from our time on the island.

"This is too soft," I told him.

"Definitely," he said huskily before lifting my naked body up, and plopping me down on the carpeted floor next to my bed.

I giggled, but the anticipation was driving me crazy so the need to laugh quickly dissolved.

Except…

"Crap!" I said remembering something.

"What?" he asked, sounding just as desperate as I was feeling.

"My doctor said I couldn't start the pill until after my period."

"Yeah, well my doctor gave me these," he replied with a huge grin as he pulled a bunch of condoms out of his pocket and sprinkled them on the floor next to us.

It felt like Christmas.

"Open one!" I said eagerly.

Edward quickly tore one while I put the rest on the side table, but then he just kind of stared at it.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Um…not really sure how to put it on," he admitted.

I laughed once. "I thought you aced Sex Ed?" I joked as I grabbed the condom from him and slowly rolled it down his length.

"I thought you didn't?" he asked me strangely.

"I didn't ace anything, which is just one more of the million reasons why I'm glad we were on that island."

I wasn't about to let any more awkward moments invade our time, especially not right then, so I bent down and kissed his lower stomach before kissing up his body towards his mouth. When my tongue met his, his momentary strange mood disappeared like it was never even there. He flipped us over so he could be on top, but when I playfully refused to open my legs for him, he growled making me shudder…in the best possible way – I loved it when he got all assertive and primal.

He entered me slowly, savoring the feeling; of course it didn't feel as good as it should with the barrier, but he was still inside of me, and there wasn't a better feeling in the world than that.

We moved together with the perfect blend of pushing and pulling, giving and taking, but as the sensation continued to build, I felt a brief second of that aggressive possession that was in his kiss the day before. He didn't hurt me and he wasn't physically forceful in any way, it was on an emotional level, which I couldn't even begin to understand.

Edward was the sweetest most compassionate person I had ever known….except, maybe there was something buried inside of him, something dark, something I was only getting the tiniest glimpse of but had the potential to erupt and destroy everything in its path.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little scared – not of him, but for him.

But all those thoughts and uneasy feelings only lasted a second, and then I was right back in the moment with Edward. It didn't matter what I thought I saw or what I wasn't sure I felt, all that mattered was that we were together in the present, and I was definitely going to enjoy it.

The heat devoured me, searing through every vein until I was nothing but a pulsating languid ragdoll, lying helplessly in his arms. After he climaxed, he collapsed on top of me, covering every inch of me with his perfect form; it was absolutely bliss.

We held each other for awhile, before finally convincing ourselves to pull away and get redressed so we could go back down to check on Em.

"We're going to do this again later today, right?" I asked him, unsure if I could stand to leave the room if he wasn't one hundred percent positive we'd have sex again that day.

"Oh yeah," he said with his crooked smiled that I loved so much.

"Promise?"

"I promise," he assured me.

"Ok."

We walked down the stairs hand in hand, and then cuddled quietly on the Lazy Boy, just watching our daughter sleep and waiting for her to wake up. We didn't need to really speak right then, just being together and continuing to bask in the afterglow of finally making love again was enough for us. But after a while, he began playing with the twine ring on my finger.

"You don't have to wear this anymore," he mumbled unexpectedly.

"You made me this ring; it's a symbol of our perfect lives together on the island, and I'm going to wear it all my life," I told him doubtlessly.

"Yeah, but eventually something made like that, something so fragile and organic, it's going to fall victim to the harsh elements of living here, and it's going to break down until there's nothing left," he said emotionlessly.

My heart jumped, and then suddenly I became defensive. "It most certainly is not. It's strong, and it'll be absolutely fine."

"I hope that's the case."

"Well, I know that's the case," I told him assuredly.

Em woke up a little while later, and Edward and I decided we better attempt to eat some lunch, though nothing sounded good whatsoever.

"Charlie really needs a personal shopper," Edward said as he looked through the pantry.

"I think he mainly eats at the diner."

"Ok, what do you feel like?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I can't think of anything."

"We could go to the store and buy something," he suggested.

"Oh, well, Charlie said he'd leave me some money, but I think he forgot."

"I have money," he said while pulling a wad of cash out of his pocket to show me.

"Where did you get all of that?"

"I did….things," he said, playfully cryptic.

"Oh please don't tell me that you've turned to stripping," I teased. "I mean, I would pay to see you take your clothes off, but I don't want anyone else to."

"I made this money before we were on the island, and I highly doubt anyone would have paid to see me strip back then."

"So where did you get it?"

"You're going to laugh at me."

"I would never," I said, trying to force myself not to smile.

"I recycled cans….and did all my chores."

"Wait…this was your allowance savings?" I asked humorously. "What did you have to do for it, keep your room clean and do the dishes?" I couldn't help it, I started laughing.

"See, I knew you were going to make fun of me, but this is hard earned money; you try making your bed when you have a rather large gut in the way."

"Ahh, honey," I said with faux sympathy. "Come here." I pulled his head down so it was resting on my shoulder, and I rubbed the back of his neck soothingly.

"Doing chores is a respectable way to earn money when you're fourteen," he mumbled into my shirt.

"That's right, it is…and recycling cans."

And like all the other times Edward and I embraced, Em came over and hugged my leg to be part of it.

"Awww, look how cute the three of you are together!" Renee's voice squealed as she unwelcomingly barged into the kitchen through the back door.

"Um, mom, you don't live here anymore, so shouldn't you…you know, knock?" I asked, bitter that she interrupted us.

"Nonsense, your dad would never ask me to do that….Hell, I was the one who painted that door, so why should I have to knock on it?"

I rolled my eyes. "What are you doing here?" I asked irritated.

"I came to see my girls…and their hunky guy," she said with a wink towards Edward. "Oh, and here, I filled your prescription for you."

I took the brown bag from her hands and peeked inside at the best little pills in the world.

"Now remember, you start taking them on the first day of your period, got it?"

"I got it, thanks mom," I said with an excited grin.

Renee offered to take us to lunch, so we piled into her old Vista and headed over to the diner.

"So, where's Boy T – I mean Phil, where's Phil today?" I asked as we were seated at a table and I noticed for the first time that she didn't have her arm candy with her.

"Oh, he's watching some sporting event in the hotel. You know, we're thinking about getting a little place here to be closer to you guys, what do you think?"

"Uh…you don't have to do that," I said uncomfortably. I loved my mother and all, but I honestly believed seeing her a couple times a year would be more than enough.

"No, it would be great. I can work only part time at the boutique and then watch Em when you're at school."

Edward looked at me stunned. "You're going back to school? Why didn't you tell me that?"

"What? No, this is the first I heard about it. I'm not going back to school," I told Renee assuredly.

"What do you mean; you have to go back to school. How are you ever going to get a decent job and help support your family if you don't graduate? You have a daughter to think of now."

"Dad said we can stay with him as long as we want, and when Edward turns eighteen he'll come move in with us," I told Renee.

"Ok, but then what? You can't live with Charlie for the rest of your lives."

"Um, we can get our GED through independent study," I told her.

"Yeah, but I talked to the Forks High principal and he said it would be a good idea for you to take some elective classes at the school in addition to independent study, that way you can catch up on the necessary credits faster."

Edward shifted his weight in his seat uncomfortably, and then it returned - the tension. I looked at his face and he was looking past me vacantly, but his jaw was set in a hard line as he stewed over whatever was bothering him.

Renee must have sensed his discomfort as well. "Well Edward, how long until you turn eighteen anyway?" she asked him.

"What month is it now?" he asked unsure.

"September…Your senior year just started so if you go back in the next couple weeks, you won't be too far behind."

"We're two years behind," I corrected her, but then I thought about something. "Hey, my birthday is in September."

"Yeah, honey you'll be eighteen next week."

"Wow," I said in disbelief, and then I suddenly became excited. "I always wanted to be eighteen."

Renee and Em laughed at my enthusiasm, but Edward just seemed to get more distant.

"How about you, sweetie, when's your birthday?" Renee asked him.

"My birthday is on the twentieth."

"Oh, that's close!" Renee said excitedly.

"Of June," Edward added.

"Oh," Renee and I said at the same time.

"Ha, I am older than you," I teased, but he didn't feel like joking. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said evenly.

"Something," I disagreed.

"No, I just hate that I have to wait nine more months to be eighteen."

But then I realized something else. "You're like….barely seventeen."

"So?" he said defensively.

"Wow Bella, you're a cougar; like mother like daughter," Renee joked, but Edward and I just glared at her. "What? What did I say?"

But the truth was that it did freak me out a tad bit. Edward was almost a year younger than me, which meant he was barely sixteen when Em was born, which also meant he was just barely fifteen when we first got stranded. It didn't seem like it should make much of a difference, but for some reason, it just did.

"Well, ok, what are we getting for lunch?" Renee asked, trying to break the tension.

"Fish," I said, without even looking in the menu.

"Fish!" Em repeated excitedly.

"I'm not sure yet," Edward said with a strange undertone, and then he put his menu down to look at me. "You're not even going to see what else they have before you decide what you want?"

"I don't need to look, I already know."

"You only think you know because you haven't looked yet," he argued.

"I was sick all night last night from being forced away from my normal diet," I said slowly, wondering why he cared so much. "My stomach knows fish, it wants fish."

"Ok, well how long before your stomach wants something else?" he asked unexpectedly.

Uh…. "What makes you think it will ever want something else. I've already convinced my body that I can only eat fish for the rest of my life, and every part of me has accepted it."

"But that was before, when you didn't have any choices. We've had fish every day, three times a day, for the past two years, and now that we have a whole menu of options, it's only natural to want something different."

"But I don't."

"Well, once you've accepted that we're never going back to the island, you'll get different cravings."

"I have accepted that we're not going back, but…"

"But fish is just what's comfortable, right? Well someday you're going to remember that once, not that long ago, you didn't even like fish. You thought fish was disgusting. And then you're going to wonder what else is out there and you'll realize that you've wasted your time eating plain fish when you could have had something better."

"Wait, you lost me….Is Bella the metaphorical fish here, or are you?" Renee asked him hesitantly. "Please don't tell me you guys are already" - she covered Em's ears with her hands – "having relationship troubles?"

"What?" Edward asked incredulously. "I just know that if she thought about it for a few minutes, she'd want something other than fish, that's all."

"Fish," Em repeated again.

I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest and pumping numbing morphine throughout my entire body. Even though I refused to admit it out loud, I knew that conversation was about much more than just fish, but I was so confused by the entire thing and that just scared me even more. What was Edward really talking about? Maybe it was a lot simpler than I was making it out to be, but I just couldn't wrap my brain around it and I refused to dissect his words to make sense of it. I was happy in my bubble, and I wanted to stay there.

Edward seemed ok for the rest of lunch, and even joked around a bit with Renee, but there was definitely something off with him.

Later on Esme practically begged us to come over for dinner and that invitation included my parents, but Renee decided to meet back up with Phil so she just dropped us off at the Cullen house, and Charlie met us there a little while after that.

Dinner was fine, there were no arguments or attitudes, but it still wasn't exactly comfortable. Charlie took Em and I home afterwards and Edward secretly promised to meet me later, but with how odd he was acting, I wondered if he'd follow through.

But Edward always kept his promises, and at eleven fifty five PM, I heard him coming up the stairs towards my room.

"You used the key?" I asked groggily as he entered the room.

"Yep," he said before crawling into the bed with me. "Is it just me, or is this way too soft?"

"It's way too soft…especially before you got here."

"Are you saying I'm not soft?" he asked playfully.

"No, you're not, you're hard and boney…just the way I like it," I said before snuggling into his chest.

I knew he was tired from his trip over, hell I was tired just from the late hour, but I couldn't stop my desires and I found my hand creeping towards the waistband of his sweats.

"Oh, my Bella, always thinking with your vagina," Edward mumbled, already half asleep.

"Yeah, well you promised me we'd have sex again today, and we only have four minutes left before midnight."

"Well, we better hurry before I break my promise then," he said with a sudden burst of energy.

Edward never broke his promises, and he certainly didn't break one that night. Of course our love session ran all the way through the next day, which was the perfect way to start any and every day.

….

The rest of the week continued on much like that day had gone - Edward, Em and I would spend our mornings together as a family, Renee would pick us up for lunch, and Charlie would meet us at Esme's house for dinner. Then Charlie would bring Em and I back to his house to wait for Edward to return to us around midnight, thus starting our daily routine over again.

It wasn't an ideal arrangement, but it was the best we could hope for at the time until we could figure out something more permanent. The tension was still there between Edward and me, but we didn't have any more disruptive subliminal arguments, and tried our best to ignore the discomfort that neither of us were willing to face.

But that Friday evening, after Charlie, Em, and I had gone back to his place after dinner, I got a phone call from Esme - She wanted to arrange a time the two of us could have a private talk - a 'heart to heart', as she called it. I had to admit, I was nervous, but I couldn't help but wonder if she knew what was really going on with Edward, so I was definitely willing to meet her.

I had spent three days lost at sea before washing up on an uninhabited island, faced the prospect of spending the rest of my life away from civilization, got bitten by a poisonous snake, gave birth without any medical aid, and was taken into custody by foreign language speaking men who could have been pirates for all I knew at the time, but having a solo talk with Esme Cullen was definitely one of the most nerve-wracking things I ever had to face….