Hello! Sorry for the long wait in between chapters even though I have them pretty much all written up. (I have this habit of changing things too many times.) Anyways, I was in a somewhat bad car accident a few weeks ago, so I haven't had much time to even think on TM or edit and post. So thank you all for being patient.

With that said, I'd like to thank Darcysmom for betaing and my pre-readers Nikki and Everydaybella.

Enjoy!

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Cullen. She wrote Cullen. Not Swan, but Cullen.

I re-read the note again and again as my smile grew bigger, and my dead, cold heart felt fuller.

She wrote Cullen.

I sat in amazement. How could one word, one name, bring such a profound change and the feeling of complete peace. No more worries. That one word gave me the faith I needed in our future, a future I wasn't so sure I'd have, but now I wanted to work even harder in earning her forgiveness.

It was the tiniest of gifts she gave me that mean the most, and most of the time I wasn't even sure she realized she had even given me one. Like her writing Cullen. Her heartbeats, for I cherished every one. Every time she said my name with love shining in her eyes. Tiny, simple things that I took for granted by running away in September. But this one, profound gift of her adding Cullen to the sign off of her note was the best gift she had given me so far besides her heart.

I wanted nothing more than to go back to her house and wrap myself around her, but I had to be patient and let her sleep, and wait for her call.

Not even an hour had passed and the wait was already killing me, figuratively speaking of course. With each tick of the clock, I grew more and more impatient, hoping she'd call. It felt like everything hung on this one phone call. Everything. The future was everything, and without her in it with me, I didn't see a point to enduring it. I stared at my phone some more, willing it to ring. But nothing came.

You do realize that a watched phone never rings.

I looked up and noticed Jasper had slipped into my room and made himself comfortable during my musings.

"You do realize the more you think about it, the longer the wait will be." Jasper said out loud, raising an eyebrow.

"Is there something you needed, Jasper?" I asked, not even bothering to look into his thoughts. I already knew he was shielding me.

"I think we are overdue a much needed talk." His voice came out harsher than it had before.

"And?" I asked, standing up and shoving my hands into my pants pockets in a defensive way.

"And I am going to do something I should have done ages ago." He suddenly walked up to me, his fist raised. I knew it was coming, and I deserved it, but this was so unlike Jasper to show his anger in such a manner. His fist barely touched my face, instead it scraped my ear before it connected with the wall behind me.

"That is mostly for Bella and your sheer stupidity." He said, returning back to the spot he was in moments before. "That felt somewhat gratifying."

He turns his back towards me as his shoulders hunch forward. "You know, even fifty some odd years on, you never really hide your emotions? Not as well as you try to block yourself from hearing our thoughts. And you know, I may not know you as well as Alice or any of the others, but the hate that comes off you sometimes, the darkness, self-loathing is so easy to read." He said as he paced the room, only looking at me a few times. "I was used to it throughout all of these years, but then Bella came, and it was like she erased all of your dark emotions. That was a breath of fresh air to me. I was happy for you."

I watched him pace back and forth, wondering what he was getting at with all of this.

"But then that night happened, and all those dark emotions you carried so well barreled into me all at once. But only one was prominent more than the others. Hate-with a dash of blame. But mostly pure hate…and it was all aimed at me."

He stopped pacing and stared at me head on.

"You hated me for endangering your mate, and you hate me even now for everything you have gone through. What you both have gone through. You blame me just as much now as you did then. I could and can still feel it." The sadness I could see in his eyes as he said this, it made me realize that it hurt him that I felt this way. I didn't even realize I was feeling those emotions at the time.

Just as I had let Bella down, I had let Jasper down.

"Over the years, Edward, I have come to love you as a brother should. And you are my brother, in every way. I consider you one of my dearest friends. But above all, you are my family, even if you want to shelve the blame and hate on to me. I can take that, all of it, because I love you. And I love your mate, Bella, just as much." Jasper's voice wavered towards the end as he came and stood right in front of me. "I am sincerely sorry for that night, and everything that transpired, but I am not some shield, I can't block what all of you feel. Every single one of you felt thirst that night when she cut herself. Everyone. So, I will gladly take the blame and hate for the whole family if it means that you can forgive me, even though it just as much as your fault as it is mine."

He clasped me on the shoulder as we stood face to face.

"I need your forgiveness, Brother, and know that I forgive you, too, for feeling how you did, because I know now that you have served your penance. You still have a long way to go with Bella, but I forgive you. I forgive you, Edward, okay? I forgive you for everything."

I fell to my knees, not at all realizing the weight that was pressing down on me, and how freeing those words felt when he said them. I knew I carried around the guilt of leaving Bella, and forcing the family to leave. All the lies, and everything that had transpired from then to now. Jasper had lifted all of it off of me using one, simple sentence.

It felt freeing.

I looked up at Jasper, like a man saying his last words when he had reached the gallows. "There is nothing to forgive, Brother. You've done so much for me and Bella, as well as the family. All of that hate and blame that I put on you was meant for me. I was selfish and needed to blame someone. I am sorry for everything." I said, standing up to grab him into a hug. I stood back again, and faced him once more. "I know how freeing forgiveness can be, and if you think you need that, then I forgive you, although, you deserve so much more from me. Hopefully, I can make it up to you in the years to come."

He nodded, and I could see the weight that he had been carrying fall off his shoulders. His eyes seemed lighter, happier, more carefree.

"You should know, Jasper, that Bella never once blamed you. If I know Bella, she blames no one."

He bowed his head, lightly nodding.

"Thank you, Edward. That truly means a lot. Maybe when you and Bella talk and work things out, we could all talk? I know you say she doesn't blame me, but I need to hear it from her. I hope you understand."

I nodded, and offered him a smile.

"Hope Bella calls you soon, for your sake as well as your phone's." He said as he walked out of my room.

I sat back down on my couch and picked up my phone again, lighting up the screen in the hopes of seeing at least a text message or something from Bella. But after noticing the time, and seeing it was still pretty early, I knew she wouldn't wake any time soon.

I've never had to be that fumbling, excited, nervous teenager who sat by the phone, constantly checking it as I waited for a phone call. I had never willed a phone to ring so badly as I did waiting for Bella to call me back after she woke up and hopefully read the journals.

I sat and waited and watched as the sun moved across the sky agonizingly slowly, giving way to twilight.

And for the first time in over century, I swear I felt my dead heart flutter when the phone finally rang.

Her soft voice came through, causing a smile to break free. "Do you honestly mean centuries? You truly want me forever?"

"Yes, always, love. I plan to keep you until the sun refuses to shine."

I could hear the hitch in her voice as I said that, the falter in her heart beat as I gripped the phone tighter, not wanting to miss a single second of the phone call.

I listened as she sighed long and slow. My eyes forced themselves shut as dread filled me. Has she changed her mind? Does she not want to be with me?

"I am not so sure If I should be changed. As much as I want and need to be with you forever, I'm not in as much of a...rush as I was before...before you left me." Her voice became softer, breaking with emotion.

She was incredibly quiet for a bit before she whispered, "I'm scared, Edward."

My brain was scrambling to find the right words to say in such a delicate moment, my emotions seemed wild and out of control, because unlike before I left her, my biggest fear was her becoming the monster that I was. But now my biggest fear was her not wanting this life, not wanting me. And it seemed that my fear was coming to fruition.

I breathed in long and slow, as I brought the phone down to my still heart to collect my thoughts. As I brought the phone back up to my ear again, I was hit with the strongest emotion of wanting to go to her, be with her, to hold her.

I could hear her soft heartbeat through the phone, her breaths going in and out before I spoke. "Bella...I just—I can't do this talk so far away from you. I need to hold you." I sighed, clenching my eyes close. "Can I do that? Come over and just hold you and hopefully take your fears away, Bella? Please?"

"Yes, Edward. My window is open."

"Thank you, Bella. I promise, I will fix this."

She sighed into the phone. "Just hurry over, Edward. I'm sorry."

What could she possibly have to be sorry for?

I ran through the forest and crossed the exact spot I had once told her goodbye. Being back there, seeing it all again simply made me that much more sure that I would not lose her this time and wanted even more to make a new memory there for the both of us.

I finally made it to her open window, jumped up, and made my way into her room and noticed she was still sitting on her bed, her phone by her knee and the journals laid across her bed in front of her.

I was fighting for our future as I crossed the room and sat at the end of her bed.

"I guess you read it all, then?" I said, looking at my journals, and then up to Bella.

She nodded as she looked up at me, her brown eyes inviting me in.

Not able to help myself, I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug as I breathed in her scent to calm me.

"Can I ask why you are scared? Like I said in my journals, I will never leave you again, unless you send me away."

She pulled away from me and studied my face before she spoke. "I'm afraid that if I say I want you to change me, that you will no longer want me. Which I know is stupid, but it leads into another fear of what if I do change and years down the road you leave me? I know that in your world, I'm your mate, but you still left me, what would stop you from leaving again?"

I pulled her over to me, onto my lap as I wrapped a stray hair behind her ear that had escaped from her pony tail. "I can tell you, promise you that I will never leave you. Only you can order me away from you. I meant everything I said in those journals, love. Everything. I know you don't trust me or my words right now, but I have plans, so many plans for us. I just hope you can be patient and let me prove to you that I will always be here." I said, kissing her cheek softly, which caused her eyes to close and her breath to hitch. "I plan to be by your side until the world ends."

Eventually, we went back to sitting face to face. I watched Bella run her fingers over the journals, opening and closing each one and flipping to certain pages.

"Did you enjoy reading all of them?"

"Yes. I love your words, just about as much as I love you." She said as she looked up to me, a smile gracing her face. "Just like you always wished you could get into my head and know what I was thinking, I wished the same with you. And these journals kind of gave me that. I think, without truly knowing it, you gave me exactly what I needed."

She shut the journals and stacked them one on top of the other. "You not only gave me a place inside your heart, but your beautiful mind as well." She said as she picked up the journals, handing them back to me.

I shook my head and placed them back on to her lap. "The minute I wrote the last word on the last page, they became yours."

She whispered a quiet 'thank you' as a beautiful blush spread across her cheeks.

"So..." She sighed, tugging at her shirt as she looked from the journals back to me. "I was missing and you came back for me only to find I was still gone?" She sat up closer to me, her hands reached out, gently touching my face. "I can't even imagine how that must have felt, how you must have felt, even if it was all in your head and a hallucination.

"To have most of your fears come true during your time away from me during your hallucination... I just... I'm sorry. I just can't imagine. It seems we both had a rough go of things these last few months.

"It seems like fate handed us both due punishments, I guess you could say. All I dealt with was missing you, my other half, my love. Laurent finding me in the meadow, the wolves killing him, Jacob, me being stupid with motorcycles, and cliff diving all while you were in some house down in South America literally falling apart. You went through so much more than me, Edward. You've honestly been through Hell and back."

Bella pulled me down to her, wrapping her arms around me, my head laid on her chest and I listened to her heart beat its beautiful rhythm in my ears. We had never laid like this, but I was glad that we were. It was intimate, and perfect and felt nice that I could just let things go. I think I may have even purred as she ran her hands through my hair, softly tugging on some strands. We lay there in the quiet, watched as the room grew darker and enjoyed being with each other.

"Can I ask you something?" She whispered, knowing I would hear it.

I nodded against her chest, kissing her right where her heart was, causing her heart to skip a beat or two.

"In your hallucination we made love?" I nodded again. "You bit me and drained me? Another fear of yours?"

"Well, my dear Bella, that was more than one question." I said, laughing. "But yes, that is another fear. It is still a fear, but not as big as it was. Now that I have somewhat seen the outcome, I don't think it would ever come true. I think I could make love to you and hold the monster in me in check."

She sucked in a breath, her heart began to beat faster at the mention of making love. "Is that something you want to do...with me?"

"Yes, very much so." I wasn't going to hold things back from her anymore. When she asked, I would answer. No more secrets. "If I am honest, I've wanted it since that first day I saw you and knew you were meant to be mine."

She pulled my face up to hers and began to kiss me, barely allowing herself to take much needed breaths. It was heaven, and I enjoyed every connection of our lips, and tongue sweep across my bottom lip that begged for entry, her short pants and sucking in breaths as she began a new kiss. I didn't want to bring myself to stop, but eventually she pulled back from me, her eyes no longer held sadness and worry, instead they held happiness and passion, but most of all: love.

Her fingers softly caressed my face. "And knowing what happened in your hallucination, do you still want to change me?"

Silly girl, of course I do. I was a fool before. "I'd change you right now if you truly wanted me to. I was an idiot Bella, trying to prolong the inevitable. I want you with me always," I said as I kissed her nose, cheeks and finally her soft, sweet lips.

She gave me the most radiant of smiles. "Thank you, Edward. I'm not saying I want it now, or anytime soon, but I do want it. And when I do feel truly ready, you will be the first to know. But I can promise I won't make you wait longer than three years." Her lips found their way back to mine again, never stopping their sweet assault on mine.

It felt like with each kiss, we were slowly healing ourselves. I knew she didn't want any more apologies but I poured all of my sorry's and I love you's into every kiss, hoping it would help make us whole, and maybe back to what we used to be, but better.

I wouldn't allow my worries for the future, her change or anything else bother me until I knew we were on a good road, a much better road.

Reluctantly, I was the one to stop the kisses, and unlike all those time before I left, she didn't look at me like I was rejecting her. She looked so beautiful and happy.

I brushed her hair away from her face and gave her one last kiss. "Why don't you go and have one of your human moments and take a hot bath while I make you some tea and a snack. I can at least do that." We both laughed, and it felt so good to do just that. "I'll go start the bath for you."

As I made her tea, I'm sure I had one of the goofiest smiles on my face. It felt nice to finally be happy and home, but most of all, with her.

Trudging up the stairs, tea and snack in hand, I tried not to listen in on her bath. I rounded the corner to her room, and waited for her on her bed. It felt like so many nights ago when I first waited for her after she discovered my true nature. I had the same jittery feelings as I did that night.

Once she returned, ready for bed, I handed off her tea to her and we talked about anything and everything, even planning for life after Forks. Sometime around one in the morning, she finally allowed herself to give in to her yawns. I watched as she burrowed down into her blankets, her hair splayed across her pillow, as I bent down to my knees and gave her a sweet goodnight kiss.

She patted her bed and moved over so I could lay beside her. As soon she wrapped her arms around me and laid her head on my chest, her soft snores filled the room.

"Goodnight, my sweet Bella. Tomorrow is the first day of our forever."

As I laid next to her, my arm cradled her head as she slept on, and I thought back on all of those nights I spent in this room watching her sleep, but nothing could beat this night. As she dreamed on, I daydreamed of our future.

Before the sun rose, I kissed her softly on her head and listened to Charlie make his way into the house and make himself breakfast, thinking about Bella and what her plans were for the day before he finally made his way upstairs to sleep off his overnight shift.

I wrote her a note to let her know that I would be back as soon as Charlie went back to work and that I loved her.

I kissed her softly one more time and whispered, "The future looks promising, Bella Cullen. So very promising."

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I just want to point out that yes, Edward and Jasper had a somewhat similar conversation in Edward's hallucination, but since he's out of it, you get that confrontation.

I can't thank you guys enough for reading, adding TM to your faves, following and reviewing. It really means a lot to me!