A/N:

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN THESE CHARACTERS, WE ALL KNOW THIS


EPOV

Forty-eight hours locked up in a holding cell with the douchebag for our own safety...check.

Ten hours locked away in an interrogation room spilling my guts out...check.

Spending half a day in said interrogation room hiding out with the rest of our convoy...fucking bullshit but check.

At least being able to have my girl in my arms while sitting in that damn stuffy room...yeah our lives weren't some fucking Mastercard commercial or some shit but finally being able to have her in my arms was definitely fucking priceless.

It had been three days of fucking straight up hell. As if I wasn't stressed the fuck out enough with everything that had happened and adding in all the shit P.D. threw in my face...I got to top my fucking little iron-barred vacation off with what seemed like Carlisle trying to play Daddy-of-the-Year.

Seriously...the fucker would not back the fuck up off me for like just five goddamn minutes.

I'd seen more of his ass in the last seventy two hours than I had in the last two and half fucking years combined. He was driving me up a fucking wall...but I fuckin' swallowed that shit down and dealt with it. The man was fucking trying...for once.

I think he was trying anyway. Fuck, I had no idea what his motives were...but if they got us the fuck out of here...I didn't give a shit.

My head had been all over the goddamn place over the last few days. That first morning, after spending an entire fuckin' night giving Eleazar - and yeah, it fucking floored me to get the news that he was like my fucking uncle or some shit - every last bit of information I could fucking think of, I laid on my cot in my holding cell, listening to Jasper's goddamn fucking chainsaw snoring and let every last bit of everything that had happened just sink into my fucking head.

It fucked me up something fierce.

I'd never needed Bella more than I did when all that shit came down on me like a motherfucking avalanche. It broke me...there was no fucking way around it. Knowing how close we'd come to dying even though I'd done every fucking thing I could to ensure our safety...only to be saved by the last people I'd ever have thought would have given a single shit about a dickhead street hoodlum like myself...the whole thing was a total goddamn mind fuck.

And the worst fucking part...was knowing there was little to no fucking chance that I would make it out of that goddamn building alive.

Breaking down in that fucking cold ass dingy white walled cell marked the fucking beginning of Carlisle's Daddy-of-the-Year Campaign. How the fucker even knew I was falling apart was beyond me, but he was down there and in the cell within like five fuckin' minutes, pulling me into him and telling me repeatedly that everything was gonna be alright.

Part of me wanted to punch him right in the fuckin' face because his ass was just as responsible for where we were sitting as I was, and for the fact that he was lying straight to my fucking face. I fucking knew shit wasn't gonna be okay. Everything was as far from being fucking okay as it goddamn could be. I was sitting in a fucking jail cell staring at my goddamn illusionary hole in the dirt of a grave...shit was not okay.

The other part of me just wanted to fucking cling to him and believe every goddamn word he was saying. It was when he started apologizing repeatedly, his voice wavering with overwhelming sorrow, that I gave up fighting against him.

I wanted everything to work out. I wanted to make it the fuck out of this building alive and be given my second chance at life. I wanted to make it out alive so I could have the goddamn chance to change everything that was fucking wrong with my life, to make something of myself that Bella could be proud of...that I could be fucking proud of.

It's a motherfucking bitch when you're facing the last few hours of your life and all you can think of is all the shit you still fucking want out of it.

And being in my father's arms was just making that shit worse.

He was giving me a glimpse of the man I barely remembered from my childhood, a fucking sneak peek at what we could have had if we'd been able to fix shit...and it sucked because I'd never get the chance to even try to fix our shit...and I wanted to.

God I fucking wanted to.

Two days straight of wrestling with all that bullshit in my head had drained the fucking life out of me. By the time Eleazar moved us up to the interrogation room I'd been in the first day, I was almost praying for one of Jared's guys to break into the precinct building and put my ass out of my misery. Almost.

That shit ended the second I spotted Bella through the window on the door into the room, all nervous and fidgety and shit as she waited for me. I don't know which one of us moved quicker once her eyes locked on me, but once I had her in my arms...I didn't give a shit. It was the first moment in three goddamn days that I had the slightest bit of hope that we'd make it the fuck out of there.

I think I'd been in the room all of five damn minutes before Eleazar informed us of "the plan"...and I wigged the fuck out. I mean, come the fuck on...were they really stupid enough to expect me to react rationally or some shit after keeping my girl and I apart for three goddamn days? Fuck no...I wasn't havin' it. She was finally back within my grasp and there wasn't a fucking chance in hell I was letting go of her again.

I'd already spent three days cooped up with the fucktard across the room. I wasn't about to spend another entire day stuck next to his moody ass in cars and planes, so yeah, I pitched a fuckin' fit...and Carlisle jumped at the chance to earn some more brownie points for his fucking "DotY" campaign. Motherfucker didn't even put up a fight...just sighed in that tired and fucking resigned way and told Eleazar it was fine...that it'd probably be best for everyone involved if Bella and Jasper switched.

Damn fuckin' straight it was better for everyone involved. Bella had suffered enough with watching me battle the side effects of detoxing. She didn't need to be stuck watching that shit again with Alice, and after three days in the slammer, Ali was a fucking wreck. Jasper's ass wasn't much better off, sitting right next to her with his face in his hands like the weight of the world was draggin his ass down...or he was about to spew again.

To hell with that shit. My detox was still fresh in my fuckin' mind...I didn't wanna watch anyone else go through that bullshit and I sure as fuck didn't want Bella having to witness it any longer than she had to either.

"Are you really gonna be stuck in rehab for three months?" Bella whispered as I ducked my face into the crook of her neck. I kissed the side of her neck and then nodded, whispering, "Yeah. It's part of the deal to keep my record clean."

"How long will I be in there?" she asked quietly, turning her head to look at me. "Will we be able to see each other in there?"

"I don't really know, baby," I sighed, tightening my arms around her. "I don't think you'll be in there for long though. You don't have a fuckin' drug addiction or anything so this shit is pointless for you. Don't worry about it though...as soon as you get out you'll be able to come visit me. Shit you better come visit me or I'll go out of my fuckin' mind."

"I will...but, Edward...where am I even gonna go after I get out. I have no place to stay...no money...what am I gonna do?" she asked worriedly.

"It'll be okay, baby...we'll figure it all out together," I whispered in her ear, because that shit was the goddamn truth. No matter what happened after we walked out of this goddamn interrogation room, we'd deal with that shit together.

"When you're released you'll be staying with us, Bella," Carlisle spoke and my eyes shot in his direction, kind of pissed that he was eavesdropping and shit in our conversation. His expression sombered as my eyes narrowed at him and he sighed, shaking his head just fuckin' barely. "I promised, Edward...and I'm going to keep that promise."

His eyes shifted from me to Bella after he said that shit and he gave her a slight smile, I guessed to fucking reassure her or comfort her or some shit as he spoke to her, "You'll be welcome to stay with us as long as you'd like."

"Thank you," she mumbled, her face flushing slightly as she watched her fingers pick at a loose string on her jeans.

He nodded and kept his gaze leveled on us for a series of moments before I had to look away. The fucking hope in his eyes was too much to fuckin' take. It made me feel like he was expecting by his doing me a favor by keeping her safe while my ass was locked away in rehab, that it'd magically fix everything that was still fucked up between us. As if once I got out it'd be like we were starting with a clean slate...but no matter how much I wished shit could be that simple...it just fuckin' wasn't. There'd been too much damage done over the years to be able to just start fresh like nothing had ever happened. Like there had never been an unconquerable distance wedged between all of our fucked up asses.

It wasn't gonna be easy and I didn't have a fuckin' clue what it was gonna take to fix all of our goddamn issues...but the one thing I did know was that I wasn't gonna bitch out this time around. I couldn't go through what I had over the last two shitty years again.

Nearly being fuckin' murdered, getting arrested, and narrowly missing spending half of the rest of my fucking life in prison...had been like getting smacked in the face with a goddamn giant ass brick of "wake the fuck up." I'd turned my life into a goddamn fucking diaster with the crap ass choices I'd made and it was gonna take a fuckton of work to dig my ass out of the piles of debris I'd left in my wake...but I'd fuckin' do it.

I'd had my fair share of life altering moments...and every goddamn time I'd had one, my stupid ass had taken the path that lead further down into the bowels of the fucked up world we'd been saved from. I wasn't gonna jack that shit up again...I couldn't. This chance I was being given to start over was the last one I'd ever get. There wouldn't be some long lost family member in some high up P.D. position to save my ass if I fucked my shit up again. It'd be over. Those fuckin' iron barred doors would slam behind me and, when and if, they ever opened again...it wouldn't matter anymore because my life would be permanently fucked.

My head raised and my eyes opened as I heard the door to the interrogation room open just in time to see Eleazar and another officer step into the room.

"It's time," Eleazar said simply, and for who knows what the fuck reason, I actually looked to my father as Bella crawled off my lap. He looked down at me as I continued to sit on the hard ass floor, one side of his mouth turned up in a half a grin...that goddamn hope, or whatever the fuck it was, still shining in his eyes as he nodded and stood from his chair.

In three strides he was standing in front of me and I watched in stupefied fucking silence as he held his hand out to me, "This is it, Edward. Whatever happens from here on out is what we choose to make happen."

My eyes locked on his as I fought against the natural instinct to slap his hand away. Part of me wanted to believe that his gesture was empty, that it meant nothing more than helping me up off the floor, but as that hope still fucking glimmered in his eyes...I couldn't. His gesture wasn't part of his stupid ass campaign or just a fucking friendly helping hand or some shit. He was asking me to make a choice, the same choice he'd made by offering me his hand in the first place.

His outstretched hand was an invitation to be a part of his life again, a gesture to show me he wanted me to be a part of his life again...and by taking it...I'd be inviting him back into my own. I could take it and fight to let him in again, or leave it and shut the door in his face like we'd always fuckin' done to each other in the past...

...so I took it.

I took it because within the last few days some part of me had begun to understand that our fucked up past wasn't as black and white as I'd always envisioned it.

I took it because I'd spent the last ten fucking years of my life hating a man I'd once loved and admired...and in the last few days I'd witnessed glimpses of the man I'd believed for so long didn't exist.

And I took it because I wanted to believe he did.

He'd said whatever happened from here on out would be what we chose to make happen...so I chose. I chose to take his hand and allow myself to fucking hope that we could find our ways back to a time when shit hadn't been so goddamn fucked up between us. Back to a time when I'd still had a father and mother and they'd still had a son.

When I made it to the door, I turned to look back into the interrogation room one last time. Into the very same room where I'd relived every fucked up and horrifying moment of violence and crime with each word I spoke...each word I'd once vowed would go to the fucking grave with me. The words that saved me from the goddamn grave and gave me a second chance at life. Looking in that room, the only thing I could think of was how goddamn hard it was going to be for all of us to turn our lives back around now that we'd hit a fucking dead end.

On average, three out of every four convicted felons will commit another crime within the first year of being released. I'd almost been a convicted felon...in the eyes of most, I should be a convicted felon, serving time for the shit I'd done wrong instead of having been given a second chance.

On average, only one out of every ten addicts will be successful in lifelong sobriety. Three out of the four of us are addicts. Out of the three of us, only Ali and I had attempted sobriety in the past...and thus far, both of us had fucking failed miserably. Yeah, I hadn't touched a single fuckin' thing in about eight days or so...but eight days meant absolute jack shit in the timeline of a recovering addict. To put shit into perspective...the longest I'd ever gone without even so much as a single hit of weed, was two and a half weeks. The longest Ali had ever gone was thirty two days...twenty eight of which she'd spent in rehab.

The odds of all of us making it out of the lives we'd been living were straight up shit, but I didn't give a fuck what the statistics said. I was going to be that one goddamn person. I was done traveling the dead end route. It was time to find a new fucking path to walk...the one that would keep me miles the fuck away from where I'd found myself...but to do that, I was gonna have to go back to the beginning and find that first fucking goddamn wrong turn. I needed to find my way back to that first fork in the road of my life so I could look down the road I'd chosen the first time...give it the motherfucking finger and never look back as I started making my way down the one I should have chosen.

What my life should have been...would begin right fucking there on that road not taken.

Whatever awaited us in our futures, I had no goddamn way of knowing, but looking in that room and knowing it held the secrets of where I'd been and all the fucking shit I'd been through in the last two and a half years...I shut the fucking door and left all of it behind me. I pulled Bella into my side and together we took our first steps toward our new lives. We walked out of the building doors into the barely lit lower level of the parking garage and slid into the backseat of an unmarked sedan with black as fucking night tinted windows.

"Ready?" my father asked, turning in his seat to look back at me as Eleazar put the car in drive.

Seventy two hours before, I'd been convinced I was standing on that metaphorical fault line of the end of my life...the one where if I opened my mouth, it would bring the fucking gust of wind that would toss my ass over the ledge to my death. I'd been convinced it was the end...and in some ways, it really fucking had been. All the carefully laid plans for survival that Kyle and I had made, had gone up in fucking flames. What remained of my life on the streets was nothing but an easily disposed of voice recording of detailed information that would give the cops all the evidence they'd need to put more than two dozen people away for life. That goddamn tape marked the death of the person I'd been forced to pretend to be just to survive on the streets...but it also marked the beginning of the person I'd become in the future.

It was the first step I'd taken in doing something right for a fucking change...the first step I'd taken toward finding that first goddamn road not taken...toward figuring out who I was really supposed to be and what the hell I was meant to do with my life after I figured that shit out because I didn't have the slightest clue who that was or should be...but I really fucking wanted to.

In the two seconds since my father had asked me that question, I'd looked at Bella and instantly known my answer as she briefly tightened her hold on our joined hands. Five years from now, our lives might be completely different. Five years from now, we might be completely different...but five years from now was a lifetime away, and getting to where any of us actually wanted to be was going to be a fucking uphill battle all the way.

Whether or not we'd all succeed in making it to the top of that proverbial hill...more like a goddamn giant fucking mountain...only time would tell. Without a second glance behind me as our convoy of vehicles rolled out of the cover of the garage and into the fading light of the end of another day, a day I didn't believe I'd make it to alive, I looked up at my father and nodded as I answered.

"Yeah...I am."

Whatever lay ahead of us and who we will become because of it, is anybody's guess. We may or may not succeed in fixing all of our bullshit problems. We may or may not succeed in turning ourselves into anything remarkable, or have fucking happily ever after fairy tale lives or some shit...but for all the unknowns we face...I'm certain of just one fucking thing.

Five years from now, regardless of my surroundings, I'll be able to wake up with a shit eating grin on my face...because five years from now, my ass will be anywhere but here.

And so the journey begins...

Life starts now.

I've watched the weight of your world come down
And now it's your chance to move on
Change the way you've lived for so long
You find the strength you've had inside all along.

Cause life starts now.
You've done all the things that could kill you somehow and you're so far down
But you will survive it somehow because life starts now.

All this pain
Take this life and make it yours.
All this hate take your heart and let it love again.
You will survive it somehow.

Cause life starts now.

*Lyrics from Three Days Grace song "Life Starts Now"*