Song: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hidden track after "Modern Romance" on Fever to Tell

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the Twilight universe, this plot belongs to me.

'I see in myself, Lucilius, not just an improvement but a transformation.' – Seneca the Younger, translated by Robin Campbell

Chapter 35

"Orpheus and Eurydice," Bella said, answering Edward's question about the myth he'd been trying to recall. The one about the man who travelled to the Underworld in search of his wife.

"What happened in the end?" Edward asked.

He and Bella had been talking for hours. They still had a shitload of problems to still get through, including a collection of anxious relatives nervously waiting outside of Edward's hospital room (among whom was a stepsister who may or may not have been trying to eavesdrop).

They weren't going to solve everything that day. But it was a start.

Bella's forehead wrinkled. "Eurydice had to stay in the Underworld. Orpheus didn't listen to what they said."

"No, I mean after that. What happened to Orpheus then?"

Bella's eyes widened. "Oh. It didn't go very well for him."

"What happened?" Edward asked again.

"Remember those women from my lecture who went crazy?"

Edward nodded.

Bella looked uneasy. "Um, they tore Orpheus apart."

"Are you serious?"

Bella shrugged.

Edward shook his head. "Anyone ever tell you that the Greeks were a little messed up?"

"Maybe I'm a little messed up, too," Bella confessed.

But Edward didn't want to hear that. "Bullshit."

She shrugged again.

Edward glared at her. "Don't give me that. Besides, I think it's all propaganda."

"What?"

"The idea that we're so civilized. It's propaganda. Because we're still animals. We're all still a hairsbreadth from losing it."

Bella looked skeptical.

"I'm serious," Edward said. "What if that's the point of all those Greek myths? Yeah the Greeks came up with great philosophy and great architecture, but they were still bat-shit crazy."

Bella smiled weakly, not wanting to fight. But she felt a little punch-drunk. "I'm sure that's just what your family wants to hear you saying right now. Thank God I didn't bring the Seneca. They'd throw me out of here."

"Fuck 'em," Edward said, then paused, cocking his head to the side. "Now if you'd brought Terese, The Philosopher, that would've been a whole other story."

He smiled, well aware of the fact that he was being a little manic. He was just so fucking, fucking happy that Bella was there, talking to him.

"You didn't, did you?" he asked. "Bring the Terese? Because if you did, I wouldn't mind being read to sleep."

Unbeknownst to either Edward or Bella, Alice was standing in the hallway outside of Edward's hospital room just then, scowling petulantly as she pulled her ear away from his door. "Now they're laughing."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Esme asked, not really caring what Bella and Edward were talking about, as long as they were talking.

"But I couldn't hear what they were laughing about."

Edward and Bella didn't say anything definitive about the future that day, or confirm the exact status of their relationship. But they were, indeed, talking.

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"This university just has so much power over us," Angela said. "I've given five years of my life to this place and God knows how much money. Dr. Volturri's got my entire future in her hands and what—I'm just supposed to tell her to go to hell? She's one of the few scholars in this field with real name recognition. Do I really want to be known as the woman who accused her of sexual harassment? What if they don't believe me? What if they do? It's hard enough in this day and age to get work without a reputation like that. People always blame the victim. They say 'a grown ass adult couldn't refuse?'"

"So you just let her get away with it?" Bella asked.

Going to Angela for advice had paid off in more ways than one for Bella. Not only was Angela was sympathetic, she didn't question whether or not Bella was telling the truth, because Dr. Volturri had already pulled the same shit on Angela.

But Angela was reluctant to go through with a complaint. "You say that like we have a choice. Dr. Volturri's sleeping with the fucking Provost."

"How do you know?"

"How do you think?"

Bella stared at Angela in shock. "This isn't right. What they're doing to you is wrong. You don't deserve this."

"I let them do it, don't I?" Angela snapped, wiping away a tear. "And heaven help me, sometimes it even turns me on. That's going to be the really humiliating part, just warning you. The fact that you sometimes have a good time."

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"How do you feel about that?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bella stared at the counselor, Siobhan Rourke. "That's a stupid question."

"Why? Your friend tells you that she's being harassed. That it's been going on for a long time. Information like that can spark a whole array of conflicting feelings."

"What conflict?" Bella asked. "It's disgusting. That's it. I'm horrified."

"For your friend?"

"Of course."

Siobhan nodded.

Not for the first time, Bella reflected on just how much she hated Siobhan. Always acting all sphinx-like, like she had some secret and she wasn't sharing. Always prying into all of Bella's secrets. It was an invasion.

Unfortunately, Bella had no choice but to finish the appointment. Even had Edward not insisted that Bella start seeing someone, she would've ended up in Siobhan's office. The university was paying for it—was insisting on it—before they'd let Bella return to her duties as a TA.

"It's just a coincidence, isn't it?" Siobhan asked.

"What?"

"Your friend was put in this situation. You were put in this situation."

"You mean this professor—" Bella still refused to give Siobhan a name.

"I mean your boyfriend and his old girlfriend."

Bella's mouth fell open. She had never intended to tell Siobhan about any of that. It was only by accident that the details had come out. Siobhan had been going on and on about the shooting, and it was just getting on Bella's nerves. Because yeah, it was fucking horrible, and Bella felt like shit for the way she'd failed James, for the way she'd failed her students. But that was just one problem of many. "I've got so much on my plate right now," Bella said. "You have no idea." Naturally, Siobhan couldn't just let it go at that—couldn't just respect a person's privacy—so Bella had to tell her about Edward's accident. And Bella insisted that it was just an accident, too because that was none of Siobhan's business. But when Bella mentioned that Edward was going to be getting counselling, Siobhan had to know about all of that too, at which point Bella had to admit that he was depressed, but Bella didn't like the way that sounded, like there was something wrong with him, so she added that he had a lot going on. Siobhan wanted to know if Bella felt betrayed by what Edward had done—hurting himself like that—and Bella had to admit that she did (Who wouldn't?) but at the same time, Bella acknowledged that she had hurt Edward too. Bella had made mistakes. Like what? Bella didn't want to say—it was none of Siobhan's business—but if Siobhan really had to know, Bella had maybe, just maybe, been using Edward for a while. Only at first. Before she really knew him. It wasn't really Bella's fault anyhow, because Edward's ex-girlfriend had put her up to it. And Bella knew it was wrong—using someone like that—but at the time she felt like Edward deserved it. She still felt guilty about that now. "But I refuse to feel guilty about the rest of it," she said. The rest of what? Bella shrugged. "The way it happened," Bella said, skirting the details. But then Bella realized that the fact that she had to skirt those details was bullshit. "Not that there's anything wrong with it," she said, her arms crossed. "It was how my mother made a living." Her mother? Bella shook her head, knowing what Siobhan was thinking, so fucking judgmental. "It was only her body," Bella snapped. "It wasn't like it was her soul. Like all of those fucking politicians, who just sell their souls to whoever's buying. And no one says a thing about them." If Bella thought that would put Siobhan off the scent, she was woefully mistaken, because Siobhan was like a rabid dog after that, going after every scrap of meat. Which was just bullshit, because that wasn't the reason that Bella was here. Bella was only in Siobhan's office because of an incident with a student. A regrettable incident. James had nothing to do with her mother or with Edward or with her father, for that matter—who had just died—nothing at all. And it wasn't any of Siobhan's business how Bella was getting along with Edward now. No, Bella didn't trust him. Not entirely. But she never had. That was why she had preferred it when he was rough—and who the hell was he to make such a big deal about something like that? Like there was something wrong with Bella just because she didn't like it when he was gentle? Well, why didn't she like it? What kind of a question was that? She just didn't. That was all. Did it scare her? Why the fuck would it scare her? How weird would she have to be for something like that to scare her? And anyhow, so what if it did? Maybe it scared the ever loving shit out of Bella whenever Edward was too conscientious and considerate. Because maybe he was trying to take her off her guard. Like he actually thought she was going to trust him after the way he just gave in to Tanya's games. The way he and Tanya just used Bella.

Which wasn't at all like the way that Angela had been used by Dr. Volturri. Because Angela was a victim.

Bella chose it. She wasn't a victim.

She wasn't.

And fuck anyone who tried to suggest otherwise.

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It became obvious pretty quickly that Edward and Bella hadn't resolved a goddamn thing, really, other than the fact that they didn't want to be apart.

Not that either of them was quite clear on what that meant.

Edward agreed to try therapy again. He didn't hold out much hope that it would make a difference, and he had to go through three therapists before he finally found one that he could tolerate, but he was giving it a try.

He was also very happy to hear that the university was sending Bella to a counselor.

Then he realized that Bella's counselor might very well tell Bella to break up with him.

Cue panic attack.

Trying to get a fucking grip, Edward told himself that counselors weren't supposed to say shit like that.

Except that they did and would say shit like that if they thought that their client was in danger.

Not that Edward would ever hurt Bella.

Except that he had hurt her, hadn't he? In that bathroom. And afterwards. Not physically, but psychologically.

"We're not here to talk about Bella," therapist #1 made the mistake of telling Edward. "We're here to talk about you."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Edward asked. "I'm only here so that I can figure out how to avoid being an asshole. So that I can fix things with Bella. And with my family. This is what I'm paying you for."

"You're my primary concern," therapist #1 said. "You might need to break up with Bella if she's impeding your recovery."

Therapist #2 was willing to work within the parameters Edward set out, but he wanted to focus on Edward's depression first.

"Bella makes me happy. If I can just work everything out with Bella, I'll be happy."

"I'm just concerned that you're using her as a crutch."

Therapist #3 didn't beat around the bush. "Well, you were right. Bella's therapist might tell her to break up with you."

"No." Edward could feel the panic setting in. "She can't."

"Why should she stay with you? If it's in her best interest to break up with you, shouldn't she do just that?"

Edward opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. Because if it was in Bella's best interest to break up with him, then yeah, that was what she should do. "I want what's best for her."

Therapist #3 nodded. "And if she did break up with you, what would that mean for you?"

Edward rubbed his chest. "I don't even—." He swallowed. "I don't know how I can do this without her."

"But if she decides to stay with you only because she thinks that you need her, wouldn't that be a kind of blackmail?"

Edward decided that he fucking hated therapist #3. "So what're you saying? I have to break up with her?"

Edward would break up with her, if he had to, but he really, really, really hoped that therapist #3 wouldn't think it was necessary.

"What would you think of a joint session?"

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"This is humiliating, you know," Bella said, wiping away a tear. "Sitting here, talking about it, in front of a stranger."

"I'm sorry," Edward said for the tenth time since they'd entered the room.

"Everyone appreciates that you're sorry," therapist #3 said. "But the real problem is that you would even think of doing something like that. Sex isn't supposed to be degrading."

"Exactly," Bella said, feeling a little better, hearing the therapist say it like that. Bella had been thinking the same thing, but she couldn't put it in words. "It wasn't what you did, it was how you did it."

"Can you talk some more about that Bella?" the therapist asked.

Bella pursed her lips. She didn't like the ball being passed completely to her. "It's just." She shrugged. She didn't want to have to sit through a lecture about how she should respect herself more. She got enough of that from Siobhan. "In another situation, if it was just me and Edward, I might have said I didn't like that. Don't do it again. But I wouldn't have been hurt. I wouldn't have felt so cheap."

"And why did you feel cheap?"

"Because his parents were right in the next room!" Bella snapped. What was so complicated about this? "Because he did it to hurt me. Because of what he said afterwards."

"I'm sor—" Edward started again.

"Who does that?" Bella interrupted, looking at Edward. "Who does that to someone? I would never do that to you."

Edward didn't reply.

After a moment, the therapist cleared his throat. "I'm not defending what Edward did—"

Bella snorted, because that meant the therapist was going to do just that. Men.

"But you admitted that you used sex to hurt Edward too, Bella."

"It wasn't the same thing."

"No. But you used sex as a weapon."

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"They know about the deal with Tanya," Bella said, her face in her hands.

"And they still think that I'm the moral degenerate in this relationship. That should tell you something."

Edward's cavalier attitude was pissing Bella off. "This isn't a joke," she said. "How am I supposed to look them in the eye?"

"Picture them naked."

Bella was about to tell him to go to hell when Siobhan interrupted. "Bella's concerns are real, Edward. She's worried about how your family sees her."

"But that's just it," Edward said, shaking his head. "She shouldn't. They love her. It's me they can't stand."

Though it might not have been obvious, Edward was on his best behavior. He was still worried that Siobhan might tell Bella to break up with him, and he wanted to seem like he was worthy of keeping around.

The idea that his family would think less of Bella, though, was just too fucking ridiculous.

"They know about your father," Edward reminded her. "They understand what you did."

"No. It shouldn't matter why I did it. It's none of their business anyways."

Bella knew that she wasn't making any sense, but she was still so conflicted.

She felt bad about hurting Edward. But she also thought that this—hurting him—should be the only point of contention. There was nothing wrong with prostitution in and of itself.

She told herself this over and over again.

But she couldn't help feeling like she had done some irreparable harm to herself by making that deal with Tanya.

"So we tell them that," Edward said. "We tell them that it's none of their business and I promise that they'll never witness another scene like that again."

"They're your family. If anyone deserves an explanation, it's them."

And around they went.

There was no magic moment when everything clicked. No wonderful point of enlightenment. Edward and Bella just kept going to therapy and talking to each other.

They finally had dinner with Edward's family. And as awful as Bella was afraid that that dinner was going to be, it was just fine. Awkward, but fine.

It was followed by more dinners, and other meals, and longer get-togethers. And it got easier every time.

Two years later, Esme and Bella would be standing in a department store, and Esme would be asking Bella about some curtains that Esme thought would look good in the apartment that Edward and Bella would be sharing by that point, and Bella (who was a little stressed out at the time, with everything that was going on) would snap that she didn't need Esme's help, because Bella always got along just fine without Esme, and Esme would say that she was sorry, that she was just trying to help, and Bella would laugh and say something along the lines of "You're really good at that," and Esme would ask "What does that mean?" and Bella would try to blow it off, but then decide—What the hell?—to just put it out there, and it would all come out, in the middle of a department store, how Bella had felt so abandoned all of those years earlier, and Esme would apologize and say that she had tried—but that she wished that she had tried harder—it wouldn't be the first time Esme had tried to talk about the past with Bella, but it would be the first time that Bella would be honest with her, and that day, in a department store, it wouldn't really fix everything, but it would help.

Carlisle was both easier and harder for Bella to face. He had already apologized to Bella for not intervening when her mother came to town, and Bella had shrugged the apology off. She had never blamed him for anything, in part because she had never really felt that close to him. No, the problem with Carlisle was that he reminded her of her father. And it turned Bella's stomach to think of her father knowing the things that Carlisle knew about her.

On the anniversary of her father's death, Bella would be rushing around, trying to keep as busy as possible, lest she be completely consumed by that gutted feeling that was still inspired whenever she thought of her father, and she would be putting the finishing touches on a salad, because she and Edward were hosting a dinner party, and Carlisle would be suddenly standing next to her in the kitchen, telling her how proud her father would be of her, and it would be like a fucking knife to the chest, because how could Carlisle say something like that, and then she would be crying with her face in her hands and Edward would be demanding to know what the fuck Carlisle had said to her, and Carlisle would ignore his son and tell Bella that her father loved her, no matter what, no matter what, and it would occur to Bella that, as ashamed as she still was by everything she had done, she had done it for love, and there was nothing to be ashamed about for that.

Emmett and Rosalie were easier for Bella to manage. If anything, they were just surprised (and maybe a little disappointed) that she was sticking with Edward.

Alice and Jasper were a different story. Bella had actually hurt Alice with her lies, and Bella was beyond mortified about everything that Jasper had witnessed. But then Jasper told Bella about his cousin who was married to another cousin, and about the uncle who was in jail for making moonshine. She was pretty sure that Jasper was lying about all of this, but it made her feel better. Alice was indeed hurt that Bella had lied to her, but she was also determined not to let that impede the restoration of their friendship, especially since Alice didn't have the greatest record herself. More than anything, Alice was worried about Bella, worried because Bella had agreed to do something so fundamentally self-damaging.

"How could you let someone do that to you?" Alice asked.

"No one did it to me," Bella argued. "I agreed. It was my decision."

But Alice didn't look convinced.

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Edward had been understandably incensed when he learned that some of the parents of the students were threatening to sue Bella for the incident with James. But that was nothing compared to his reaction when he learned about Dr. Volturri's harassment.

"I knew that there was something wrong her," he snapped. "Who the hell sends a college student to Breaking Dawn?"

Bella didn't like the way that sounded. Like maybe she was stupid for going along with Dr. Volturri.

But she didn't want to argue with Edward, especially now that Angela had changed her mind about submitting a complaint.

Unfortunately, Bella's attempts to record Dr. Volturri saying something incriminating had fallen through. But the professor had dropped her guard with Angela, who was able to get enough evidence to squash any doubt about whether or not the professor had crossed a line.

As news of Bella and Angela's complaint spread, more and more students came forward with their own complaints. In the end, the Provost and Dr. Volturri were both forced to resign and it looked as if civil suits were going to be filed.

Meanwhile, the so-called lawsuits against Bella evaporated. One student after another appeared on television thanking Bella for saving their lives. Not only had she distracted James so that the students could text for help, but she had grabbed the gun and held onto it. Bree, the young woman who had mistakenly proclaimed Bella's death to the world on YouTube, was particularly outspoken about what a great TA Bella was.

The university decided to start a program to provide comprehensive training for TAs about detecting the signs that a student was at risk for crisis and the classroom procedures should violence break out.

Pleased though she was by her students' support, and by the university's decision to start a new program, Bella still felt immensely guilty about her role in the incident with James. She felt like she should have done something more. But she wasn't quite sure what that was.

Should she have tried to talk to him more?

Even with the new training, TAs just weren't qualified for that. And it wasn't really their job.

Should she have reported James to the crisis center?

But James wasn't Bella's first odd student. Hell, she used to be one of those alienated students. Not that she would have shot anyone, but she definitely had problems. If someone had reported Bella to the crisis center when she was an undergrad, she probably would have dropped out of school altogether.

Bella was obviously struggling. She was happy that the university gave a few options to the students who were present during the shooting.

They could finish the semester with Bella (in a different room of course), they could switch sections, they could take the final early based on what they'd already learned, or they could just take the grade that they'd had at the time of the shooting.

Bella was surprised by the number of students who decided to finish the semester out, and by the fact that of those who remained, none switched out of her section.

It was a complete coincidence that Kate, Garrett, Riley, and Vladimir all happened to receive an A in Introduction to Ancient Western History.

As for James, he pled "Guilty" in exchange for a fifteen year sentence at a mental hospital.

Edward was none too pleased at the outcome of the case, but Bella just wanted James to get the treatment he needed.

That Bella's guilt over this situation folded so neatly into her guilt regarding her treatment of Edward and her failure to notice Edward's depression was neither here nor there.

But it was certainly a good thing that Bella won the departmental dissertation award, thanks to which she'd have a whole semester to concentrate on her dissertation, with no teaching obligations.

"It's like they don't trust me with students anymore," she complained to Edward.

"If that was true, they wouldn't have let you finish out the previous semester," Edward said, trying to get comfortable.

He had returned to his work at the hospital despite his limited mobility, his leg still being in a cast. But at the moment, he was laid up on the couch, working on an article—or rather, procrastinating, enjoying a phone call with Bella.

His time with Bella was fairly limited these days. Therapist #3 had expressed some concerns regarding co-dependency, and much to Edward's disappointment, Siobhan had seconded these concerns.

As a result, Bella and Edward saw each other only a few times a week. This was particularly frustrating given that Bella's scholarship meant that she didn't need to be at the university every day. She could have been working on her dissertation at Edward's apartment as easily as hers.

But they were trying to follow the advice of their therapists. Most of the time anyhow.

Bella sighed. "I just can't help thinking that maybe James was right. I get off on fucking with students' heads—in making them question assumptions."

"James wasn't right about anything." Edward was trying to be patient with Bella. But they'd been over this issue again and again.

"Plato said that teachers were dangerous, you know. He said they shouldn't be trusted near young people. Because we make them think crazy things."

"How is anyone ever supposed to think something new unless they're challenged? Teachers are supposed to fuck with kids' heads. That's in the job description."

Unfortunately, this wasn't the only thing that Bella was worried about.

"I just—" she paused. "I just wanted to earn it. I don't want this scholarship if they only gave it to me to keep me out of the classroom."

"You earned it."

"Or maybe they gave it to me because they feel bad about Dr. Volturri."

"You earned it," Edward repeated.

"You don't know that."

"Oh, I know that."

"How could you poss—"

"I've been reading your draft."

"What?"

Edward shrugged even though Bella couldn't see. "You left a hardcopy here."

Bella was baffled. "Why would you want to read something like that?"

"You're still writing about virgins. I thought we agreed that I was obsessed with them."

"I have to read this stuff. I have no choice. But you're choosing to do it. That's not normal. You know that, right?"

Edward chuckled. "I was especially interested in that guy who said men were incapable of virginity."

"Of maintaining virginity," Bella corrected. "Chastity."

"Yeah that. And the hermaphrodite in heaven."

That last sentence was out of Edward's mouth before he had a chance to really think about what he was saying. And when he realized what he had done, he wished that he had kept his mouth shut.

Bella recognized the story he was talking about. The Exegesis of the Soul.

"It was androgynous, not a hermaphrodite," Bella said. "At least, when it was in heaven. Then it fell to earth and acquired genitalia. Male genitalia."

Edward was trying to figure a way out of this conversation.

"Then the Soul becomes a prostitute," Bella continued. "Because why not?"

"Bella—"

"But it's miserable. He's miserable. So he cries out for help. And God comes to the rescue."

"I didn't mean—"

"God turns the Soul into a woman and He sends her a husband. It's all very nuclear family. They all go back to heaven together."

"I just thought it was romantic," Edward said, trying to explain himself.

"Romantic?" Bella didn't sound angry.

But Edward was well-aware that they were treading a sensitive issue.

"I don't know, I just—" He felt dumb. "I know it sounds stupid, but if someone loves you, they love you, no matter what. And they're there for you."

Bella was quiet for a minute. "But you've missed the point of the story."

Edward was wary. "I have?"

"If guys are incapable of virginity and the Soul only makes it back to heaven as a woman, then men are definitely all going to hell."

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Bella huffed. "What two consenting adults agree to do is between them. It's for no one else to judge. And now you're telling me that if it's not vanilla, that if it's not what—missionary?—that it's fucked up? Screw you."

"That's not what I said," Edward clarified.

"Bella," therapist #4 interrupted "let's give Edward a chance to express what he's feeling."

"Thank you," Edward scoffed, a bit heated. "What I'm saying is, I just worry sometimes that when we're having sex that it's not about expressing our affection for each other—"

Because of therapy, Edward had learned that sex was supposed to be a demonstration of affection. Who knew?

Edward continued. "—I worry that sometimes we're using it to express other things. Like my stress over work. And I worry that you like being hurt because you think that you deserve it."

Bella couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Screw you," she said again, quickly wiping a tear from her eye.

"Bella, do you feel like you deserve to be hurt?" therapist #4 asked.

"That would be just too fucking clichéd, wouldn't it?" Bella asked. "How sad—I can't even be original enough to avoid a self-hating stereotype."

"Just because we rationally accept that something is illogical or is, as you put it, clichéd, doesn't mean that we aren't affected by it."

Bella wiped another tear from her eye. "And I guess I feel guilty because of what I did to Edward. And because of James. And oh, what else? My dad. I guess him dying's my fault too. And Edward probably wouldn't have run off into those woods if I would've been smart enough to figure out that he was depressed."

Edward didn't have a lot of patience for self-victimizing bullshit. His mother had pulled that shit. "Get over yourself."

"I think we need to take a timeout," therapist #4 said, trying to defuse the tension.

Disastrous as that session was, it was another first step.

Over the course of several months, Bella came to realize that her attitude towards sex was in some ways as fucked up as Edward's. Bella wasn't a submissive by nature. A little role playing now and then could be healthy, but the way she was using it was unhealthy.

Unfortunately, Edward's pushiness on the subject of Bella facing this particular demon backfired. Bella's unsubmissive nature balked at the prospect of probing just why she was so willing to accept a submissive role. It was her choice, wasn't it?

If Edward was a tad too pushy on this subject, it was because he was afraid that she was only with him because she was somehow damaged. As awful as that sounds, it was the truth. And as much as he would've hated losing Bella, Edward thought that she deserved to be "normal," even if it meant that she ended up with a guy like Cheney.

To Bella, that just sounded like Edward thought that he had somehow broken her. And fuck him for thinking that. For thinking that he had that power over her.

Bella got better at recognizing her impulses towards self-harm. She got better at learning the difference between the things that she could control and the things that were beyond her power, the things that she should take responsibility for, and the things that she should forgive herself for while learning from her mistakes.

Not that she stopped blaming herself for her everything she had done, or not done, but instead of letting those feelings of guilt consume her or give rise to any masochistic behavior, she just promised herself to do better, to pay better attention to everyone and everything—to Edward and her students and everyone else—and to make better choices.

And as time passed, she and Edward learned to trust one another. It wasn't easy. In addition to their own lapses, they had to contend with the scars of every other lapse of every other person, because while Edward, for instance, wanted to trust Bella, he couldn't help remembering all of the times he had been betrayed by everyone else in his life, unconscious memories triggering defensive mechanisms. It wasn't enough to say that Bella was different, that she'd never do that (again). Edward had to know it, deep down in his core. As for Bella, the task was in some ways even harder, because she felt an added pressure, as if she was doing Edward some harm by not trusting him, so she kept pushing herself when she wasn't ready, and it kept backfiring, her panic kicking in as she realized just how utterly terrified she still was of the idea of letting anyone in, even Edward.

It was a work in progress.

Fortunately, Tanya—or "She who shall not be named"—was not an issue, having left Seattle soon after the shooting. As much as Edward wanted to confront her—fifty cents my ass—neither he nor Bella wanted to have anything to do with her again. Tanya had clearly left the message about the shooting on Bella's phone in a lame attempt to worm her way back into Edward's life, to console him during his hour in need. But there was no point in trying to find closure with her now that the dust had settled. Tanya wasn't worth the effort.

Unfortunately, there was another problem.

"You're just agreeing to see her because you always bend over backwards for other people," Edward argued. "You have to stop letting people use you."

Apparently, Bella's mother had been clean and sober for two years. She had a job in Portland, working at a coffeehouse. She said that she understood if Bella didn't want to have anything to do with her, but it was part of her twelve step program to make amends. She said that she wanted to meet Bella in person, and that she was willing to come up to Seattle to see her.

Edward was adamant that this was a very, very bad idea. But Bella was not convinced.

"Is it that I'm bending over backwards for my mother, or is it that I'm not bending over backwards for you?" Bella wanted to know.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't want me to see her. And I'm not giving into you."

"She's going to hurt you. That's all she ever does."

"Are you worried that she's going to hurt me or that she's going to hurt you?"

Edward scoffed. "What could she do to me?"

"You tell me."

Edward thought about what Bella was asking him. His reaction to the situation was a bit extreme. Concerned though he was for Bella, that alone couldn't explain it.

The truth was, Edward didn't want Bella to see her mother because it was a reminder of the person Edward used to be. Even though he knew that he had never touched Bella's mother, he had been convinced that he had done just that for so long—he had hated himself for so long—it was hard to think of Bella's mother reentering their life without remembering all of that.

"She's all the family I have left," Bella told him.

As much as Edward tried to reassure Bella that the Cullens were her family now, he knew that such reassurances could only go so far.

So he decided to support Bella, regardless of her decision.

It turned out, he needn't have worried. Bella was extremely wary of her mother.

They met in a crowded coffeehouse. They kept the discussion light, Renee saying how happy she was that Bella wasn't hurt by that boy—Renee had heard about James—and how proud she was of her daughter for getting her doctorate. Bella accepted the sentiments as graciously as she could, asking about her mother's new job and her life in Portland.

When Renee started to apologize for everything she'd put her daughter through, Bella somehow managed to stop herself from interrupting, letting her mother get it all out. Afterwards, Bella admitted that she wasn't ready to forgive and forget, but said that she appreciated her mother's efforts.

Before parting, they made vague plans about getting together again sometime in the future.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

There were bumps in the road.

It took Bella another year to finish her dissertation. Meanwhile, Edward was still trying to repair his relationship with his family. And Bella was still trying to figure out just how she was going to fit into that family. Fights were had, some of these within the confines of the sacred space of a therapy session. Cullens & Co. weren't a perfect family by any stretch of the imagination, but they'd yet to give up on each other.

As for Bella and Edward's sex life, that had taken a somewhat comical turn.

They needed to ask their therapists' permission any time they wanted to so much as hold hands.

That was an exaggeration, of course, but not by much.

Six months after Edward's "accident," Bella was still living in her apartment and, although she had a key to Edward's place, they had a set schedule to which they were expected to comply. Talking (aka, foreplay) had never been a problem for them, but they were now required to carry on conversations without any promise of the discussion leading to sex, which was a decided step back.

They had a lot to talk about, including not only full disclosure about their pasts (which may or may not have devolved into a competition of "Who's Childhood Was Worse") and debates over just who was responsible for firing the first shot when they were teenagers.

Was it a little fucked up to be making a game of all of this? Yes. But they laughed, not because they were trying to deny the shit they'd gone through, but because they were finally getting through it, for real.

Interestingly, Edward found it far easier to address issues associated with the bedroom than his depression. Given the choice, he would have ignored the latter altogether, but as his therapist argued that the two were inextricably linked, Edward found that he had no choice but to deal with both.

It was hard fucking work, and Edward wondered sometimes what the fuck he was doing.

But he was making it. He was probably never going to be a hundred percent. But who the fuck is?

As Edward recovered from his addiction, Bella and Edward began to enjoy sexual relations on a more regular basis. If they weren't engaging in as much role play or experimenting with new positions as much as they used to, their sex life certainly wasn't vanilla.

When Bella told Edward how the scene in the bathroom had reminded her of what happened to her in Port Angeles—how she had already been thinking of that particular activity in the context of the attack—Edward took the activity in question completely off of the table, prepared to shelve it for good. But Bella wasn't interested.

"I'm not doing this because someone's making me," she said. "Or because it's somehow bad for me. I'm not doing it because I've got someone else in my head. It's just you. And I want this with you."

It took Bella a while, but she finally convinced Edward to give it a try.

And it took Bella even longer, but she convinced him to try another certain activity they'd been putting off.

"It's not nihilism if it's an expression of our love for each other," Bella insisted.

So Edward gave in.

And when Bella came across a flash drive filled with certain pictures stuck in between the cushions of Edward's sofa, an excited Edward (who thought that he'd lost all of his old photos of Bella) suggested they reenact some of his favorites.

Bella happily agreed.

THE END

AN:

In reference to Dr. Volturri's harassment of Angela, the line "a grown ass adult couldn't refuse?" is taken from a guest reviewer who asked: "bella, a grown ass adult, couldn't refuse?" The review's been deleted, because Fuck that. But I included it in the story because Holy shit, assholes like this really exist? I know that people still blame the victim, but I mistakenly believed that Fanfiction's audience was better than that. I'm sad to see that's not the case.

On a somewhat lighter note, Achilles Tatius refers to the impossibility of male virginity when his hero, the sexually promiscuous Clitophon, declares to the heroine (named Leucippe): "I have imitated your virginity, if there be any virginity in men" (Achilles Tatius 5.20.5), and later clarifies, "If there be any such thing as virginity among us men, then that I have preserved with respect to Leucippe" (Achilles Tatius 8.5.8). Achilles Tatius Clitophon and Leucippe trans. S. Gaselee (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1917). The hero has been having sex (cheating on Leucippe), but if there is no such thing as male virginity, Clitophon isn't to be blamed for his lapse. Meanwhile, Leucippe has been going through a lot to preserve her virginity. It's a double standard. Surprise surprise.

The Exegesis of the Soul is from the Nag Hammadi gospels.

Thank you for reading.