Riiiggghht...so.

Someone commented that they think posting an update schedule has blocked me. To that I say, I have always been defiant and rebellious...go figure.

*fist in the air*

Also, I kind of got trapped reading a fic that was so profoundly poetic I literally drown in a sea of my own inadequacy and refused to open Microsoft Word for over a week. I can't even apologise for it, it was that beautiful. It left me bawling for a plethora of reasons. Let's call it hormones and pretend it never happened, mmmkay?

Now. As for THIS fic. Yes, we are snowballing down the end rapidly, watch out for trees.

Also, we're backtracking into the end of the last chapter a bit here. I know it was, like, 3,784 weeks ago so, try to keep up.

*sinfully sweet smile*

xox

"Holding me back! Are you completely retarded, Edward? Why do you always do this?"

She grabbed her plate of lasagna and stood before I could react, let alone fully process what it was she was saying. The little teal dining chair crashed behind her to the floor. It reminded me of the time I stormed away from the dinner table in a similar fashion at Christmastime all those years ago. That was pretty much the only other time Bella had ever screamed at me and meant it. I did not want a repeat performance, so I was quick to jump up and go to her, nearly tripping and falling on my face as I leapt over the fallen chair, not bothering to right it.

Bella was scraping the remaining lasagna from her plate into the trash bin when I finished shaking my foot free from the stupid chair and rounded the corner into the kitchen. She dropped her dish in the sink so hard it took everything I had to not check over the edge to see if it broke. It wouldn't save the poor plate from its misdirected death and it would probably only irritate her more. I blinked and kept my eyes on her instead.

"Bella?"

Nothing.

Well. Not nothing. There was a lot of cupboard slamming and silverware throwing, huffing and growling. Meanwhile, I stood awkwardly at the entrance to the small kitchen shuffling my feet and not knowing what to do with my hands.

"Bella?" I tilted my head down to try and catch her eye.

She glared at me.

I swallowed. My throat was so tight I almost choked. My mouth opened and closed possibly four hundred times all to no avail. I couldn't think of a single goddamn thing to say.

I'm sorry. I love you. That's not how I meant it. Will you please calm down and talk to me?

She deserved better than any of that shit. Besides, I knew better from growing up with the half-Tasmanian Devil Alice that you never asked a girl to "calm down" unless you were wearing body armour or had good medical insurance. So, I did nothing–which was significantly worse.

It was my fault she was so upset and yet…Bella and I never fought. I was unequipped at handling it.

I stood there staring at my feet like a moron when she whirled around on me, the pie knife from the lasagna tray in her hand. It was a coincidence and I tried not to eye it...or to laugh at the situation...but angry, knife-wielding Bella was kind of comical.

Although, it was also frightening considering she was overqualified at maiming herself with much blunter objects. I remained still. I was pretty sure neither laughing nor gawking would help my cause or the really fucking deep moat I had dug all around myself, so I mashed my lips together and waited, like a good little boyfriend.

The flame in her eye was waning. I knew that I offended her. I appreciated the situation for what it was and I planned to apologise profusely once I could think of how to better explain what I actually meant to say, but at that moment I knew she wasn't quite finished, so I was quiet while she continued.

"Look, I know I just had a mini-freak out when you said we needed to talk, but that's different. That's because you do...this...this shit, whatever it is you want to call it. This in-your-own-head bullshit and you don't even try to talk to me first. I try to be patient. I try so hard, Edward, you have no idea. But it's easier to sit back and wait for you to work it out on your own when I can tell it's something that doesn't directly involve me. And, I mean, Lord knows you have been patient enough with me whenever I needed it. But when it is about me. Fuck!"

She threw the knife into the sink. It clanged loudly against the dishes that were already there and I silently second-guessed the whole "she's calming down now" assessment. Her lower lip trembled and I was still just standing there–growing infinitely more inept as each minute passed.

"You need to share things with me. You need to talk to me. And you need to stop thinking that you know what's best for me without even speaking with me. That's not who you are. You're not that guy, Edward. Not with me. You talk to me. You trust me. You need me. So let me be that person for you. Don't deny me that, dammit."

I don't know if I had ever heard Bella swear so much in such a short amount of time. I felt wounded for being the reason. I must have looked wounded. I knew she had every right to be angry and say the things she was saying. As well, when Bella spoke, I listened attentively, because everything she ever said was important to me, whether she was ordering ice cream or crying her eyes out.

And there she was venting her legitimate frustrations about me, my behaviour, and my short-comings that I genuinely never realised affected her so much. She was upset over something entirely avoidable. That was why I found the whole situation so upsetting. I never wanted to cause Bella any grief. I had dedicated my entire life to just the opposite. I knew my brooding tendencies frustrated my loved ones at times, but to hear Bella yell, and swear, and slam things around...well that just wasn't who she was.

Unfortunately, I was still frozen in place. My mind raced, my heart sank, my mouth flapped like a fish, but I couldn't unite any of them into something coherent. Her eyes never left mine. And somehow I knew. I just felt it–that I did not need to explain anything. Bella knew me well enough. She knew me better than I knew me most of the time.

She saw the pain, she recognised it as disappointment in only myself. She saw the concern, and knew it was only for her. She saw the fear, and knew I would do anything, change anything, try anything, to make her life easier. She knew I always heard her words. And for that, I was eternally grateful.

"I'm going to bed, now," she whispered. For some reason, a full-strength voice would have seemed deafening.

She lay down the dish towel she had in her hand and then slowly made her way by me at the mouth of the tiny kitchen. She turned sideways to scoot past. My eyes hadn't left my feet as I processed more things than I could keep up with. Memories of all the times I isolated my own worries–internalizing them, warring over them alone, afraid to include her and cause her unnecessary anxiety. All the times I acted impetuously, believing I did know best.

How I ever thought any unilateral thoughts or actions were "best" in what was such a team relationship, I would never again understand. Clearly, I had been slowly hurting Bella. And knowing that devastated me.

Her fingers slid across my shoulder and into the hair at the nape of my neck. She pulled on me to balance herself as she rose up onto her tiptoes to kiss my cheek.

"I love you," she whispered before kissing the shell of my ear and then turning to go upstairs to bed.

I had a lot to do. I had a lot to think about and real changes to implement. I also needed to work on my paper, which was my plan for the evening before I opened my big mouth and fucked everything up. But my stupid degrees were already dictating every other facet of my life, and so that was all the control I was willing to allocate them. I hammered out a few key points into a blank Word document so I wouldn't forget them in the morning and then shut down my laptop and followed after Bella.

When I got to the top of the stairs I could see that she was all curled up in the fetal position facing the far wall…and on my side of the bed. I put a lid on all the emotions and thoughts I was still trying to process, the promises I was trying to formulate for both myself and for Bella, and climbed across the bed to very slowly make amends to the woman I loved.

Slow merged into fast, which somehow drifted into rough, and then mercifully found its way back to the tender. That was just how Bella and I were. No matter how much ferocity we began making love with, in the end, we made love. We genuinely didn't know any other way. As I sat on the edge of the bed with her wrapped around me, clutching me, I never wanted the moment to end.

My mind scared me. I didn't know how to combat its nature. It was what it was, and what it always had been. It imploded on itself occasionally and I had always felt powerless to control that. But for Bella, for us, I would try. Or at the very least, I would involve her in the process, which I knew was all she was asking.

Bella was a big girl now. She was an adult. She was the most inspiring and courageous woman I had ever known. That was saying something given the competency of the women in my life.

Bella was the strongest. She was no longer the red-eyed little girl cowering in the corner of a kindergarten classroom, or the muddy-faced child who cried on my shoulder at night. She wasn't the awkward teen in sneakers and a hoodie, clutching a battered leather notebook in the hallways that was too afraid of being hurt to put herself out there for too many people.

She was the girl whom, once I saw the way the carnival lights sparkled off her dark hair at night as the Ferris wheel tangled it around her porcelain cheeks and she clutched my arm, giggling into my shoulder that night in Santa Monica, I would forever be a changed man. She sparked something inside me then and always. A fire. A fire I couldn't help feel because her own burned so brightly it was infectious. She was the most awe-inspiring combination of resilient and fragile that I would ever know.

She still looked at me with eyes full of the same wonderment and innocence she had the first time she whispered, "It should be you, Edward," but they meant something so much more now. She wasn't naïve. She was just pure and genuine right down to her soft, warm soul, and she always would be.

However, she had grown a great deal. I admired her. She always knew what she wanted and now she had the voice and the confidence to demand it. She was my partner. And while it may have once been inappropriate for me to unload my own stresses onto her fragile state, it was no longer necessary to shield her. Nothing about Bella was weak.

As it was, we were stuck together. Literally–blood, sweat, and tears pressed against one another, bound by her riotous hair and bed sheets. Her arms held around my neck, her legs clamped behind my back as she sat on my lap. We finished what felt like forever ago, but neither one of us had the will or desire to move.

My forehead rest against the top of her sticky shoulder and my chest shook against hers. I think I was the source of the trembling, but given our entanglement, it wasn't easy to know for sure. Her fingers ran through my hair and her head lifted as I placed several small kisses against her clammy skin.

"Don't be sorry," she whispered into the dark, feeling the repentance through my lips as they touched her. "Please."

I lifted my head, dragging my nose along her neck and jaw until my eyes were in front of hers, our foreheads pressed together. As she spoke, her lips brushed mine and I breathed her in. Her hands came up to clasp my jaw firmly.

"Edward, you've been my protector for as long as I can remember, and I still sometimes need you to be that. But other times I don't. It has to be confusing to realise the difference and it's a hard habit to break at all so...just...don't be sorry, okay? Never be sorry for everything that you have always been for me. You're the only reason I ever made it through anything. Ever. So…"

"Move in with me."

I was a bona fide idiot. My head was a whirlwind of chaos, reverence, and exhaustion. There were a hundred and one thoughts I needed to articulate in that moment. A hundred and one emotions I should have explained and approaches I should have taken or questions that needed to be asked. And that was what I blurted out. Apparently the marathon sex only further exacerbated my ineptitude.

It was too dark to see her face clearly, even being as close as we were. I was still inside her. My arms were shaking from the effort it took to hold her against me. And that was what I said.

Move in with me.

It's not that it wasn't what I wanted. It was precisely what I was hoping for. I just should have been a little more graceful in my approach. I should have prefaced the idea with reasoning about how many job opportunities there could be for her in the city, and how two years spent building an impressive resume there would help open doors for any job she could ever possibly want in silly little Washington State. I should have told her that the thought of watching her get on an airplane without me ever again made me want to dissolve into the ground and cry until my soul was raw. That my heart and my will wouldn't survive another elongated separation…it just wouldn't.

I should have said that if she was so desperate to move back to Washington right away, I would happily pull out my bags and begin packing my own shit immediately, saying fuck it to everything I had been working for over the last seven years. I could transfer. I could make do. I had a lot of accreditation behind me and a last name that meant something in my chosen field, especially in Washington. I would survive.

Besides, what good were fancy degrees framed on a wall and a dark wood desk with a flat screen in my sky rise office if at the end of the day that was all I had? That wasn't the life I longed for. I would flip fucking burgers all day long if it meant that at night I came home to Isabella, a warm house with pictures of my family on the walls, and sticky-fingered children running to greet me at the door.

Visions of little girls dressed in tutus and fairy wings, clacking plastic princess slippers on the hardwood plagued my subconscious. Bella's complicated brown eyes with the soft green flecks on chubby faced babies. Handprints on stainless steel refrigerators. A tee ball coach ball cap. Sinking into the mattress at night from utter exhaustion, but doing it alongside the woman who literally tethered me to everything real in the world. Holidays with my mother's homemade tiramisu and Alice demanding we all gather around the living room to play charades.

That was our real life. That was all I had ever wanted, ever. And I should have explained that better instead of spitting out a few asinine words in haste, considering she had only just made the request for me to work on speaking my mind better.

"Okay."

Bella broke through my reverie with her gentle voice. A voice that seemingly didn't give a flying fuck about my endless justifications or meanderings or how I should have explained myself more articulately–she simply agreed. End of story.

I pulled back the only inch I could without shoving her off my lap and onto the floor, so I could try and focus on her features through the black of the room. The pale blue glow from her iPod dock just barely illuminated the line on the bridge of her nose and the dark circles that were her eyes. Otherwise, I saw nothing. No blush, no worry lines, no lip-biting. There were no obvious signs that she was unsure about what she had just agreed to.

"What?"

"I said 'okay', I'll move to New York. I mean...I've already started looking around on employment websites and stuff to see what's out there right now in the area as well as around here. I can ask Gary if he can help me or if he knows of anything, even outside of The Tribune Corp. I mean, Edward, the east coast has the most journalistic opportunities of anywhere else in the entire world short of a warzone. There has to be a million and one things I can do with myself for the next twenty-six months without 'holding' myself back."

I did see the dark slits that were her eyes narrow as she threw my own words back at me. She had every right. I didn't even flinch. I was on cloud-fucking-nine.

"I was just scared," I whispered, not missing a beat. It was both an explanation and an apology for earlier–whether she was asking for one or not. I was more than happy to let her in. There was nothing I would ever be embarrassed or ashamed to admit to Bella. I was just too overprotective for my own good.

"I know." Her fingers holding onto the back of my jaw softened and her head tilted to the side a little. I knew she was offering me a sweet little smile, even if I could barely see it.

"I just... I know you miss home and never really planned on being out here, so I thought, I mean, I figured..." I sighed and released one arm away from her back to drag my hand through my hair in frustration. The whole speaking your mind thing wasn't that easy when your mind was a chaotic black hole. "I don't know..."

Bella pressed her warm lips to mine to shut me up gently. "You need to learn to stop over-thinking things. And I need a shower," she said and slowly tried to unhook her legs from around my waist.

I steadied her as she stood, her joints looking like they may have fused in their previous position as they cracked and protested. She stretched and tried to work out the kinks, taking a stiff step toward the bathroom only to wobble and groan.

"Or maybe a bath," she joked as she flipped on the bathroom light, stabilizing herself against the door frame with a tired giggle.

I blinked against the abrupt light change, and when I reopened my eyes the second time she was gone, having disappeared around the corner into the bathroom. I heard her rummage around for a moment and then the bathtub began to fill. When I got in there she was opening and closing cupboards looking for something.

I leaned against the door jamb watching her in the narrow space, bent over in front of me inspecting the drawers underneath the sink, completely naked. I cocked my head to the side appreciatively, the corner of my mouth lifting in a devilish smirk. My toes twitched with the desire to poke at her.

"Uhm...what are you doing?" I sing-songed playfully at her.

"Looking for something," she replied with her head inside a cabinet.

"Clearly," I chuckled.

"You'd think I'd have a candle of some sort in here somewhere, wouldn't you?" she grumbled, giving up and shutting the final cupboard. She stood and leaned against the vanity, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling downward at nothing in particular.

Her ass cheeks were all cute and squished against the countertop and fully visible from the mirror behind her. Her hair was a teased and wild mess. I couldn't help further giggling at the sight of her. Her eyes met mine and she narrowed them, and then kicked her leg out at my shin.

"Ow!" I joked with a wink, the little kick not really hurting and thankful it was just my shin given everything that was on display and vulnerable. "Why do you have a flashlight in here?" I reached beside her to pull the little black thing from a drawer.

"I don't know," she shrugged and stepped over the tub, filled with sweet smelling bubbles, and turned off the faucet.

She sunk into the water, steam rising off the top, and moaned in appreciation of the heat as it saturated her weary limbs. I flicked off the bathroom light, leaving the room pitch dark, and then pushed the button on the flashlight.

"What are you doing?"

"Making a candle." I shrugged and stood the flashlight on end in the far corner of the vanity. The white light was sharp where it reflected off the mirror and hit the ceiling, but on the other side of the room where the bathtub was, it was just enough to dimly cast shadows against the piles of bubbles and ring Bella's cheeks and wet shoulders with a pale glow.

"Ahh. Perfect." She grinned over at me and scooted forward, giving me room to climb in behind her.

The water was amazing. The scent was sweet and reminded me of all things Bella. The bubbles raised high above the waterline, shining iridescent. She settled against my chest in between my legs, the tops of her knees poking out in the gaps between the bubbles. I wrapped my arms around her stomach and stretched my palms flat against her with my chin on the top of her head. She wriggled a little against me, getting more comfortable.

We lay there in the odd lighting and in silence for a long time, enjoying the warmth, the contact, and the sweet scent swirling in the air around us. Rolling my head to the side and looking down at Bella, I could see her eyes closed and her face relaxed, but I knew from her breathing that she wasn't quite asleep even though it had to be close to two in the morning.

"Do you ever just feel like we're caught in a hamster wheel or something?" I asked quietly, not wanting to disrupt the serenity too much, but making a real effort to include her inside the bedlam that was my perpetually overactive mind. "I don't know…that's just how I feel. Like everyone else is going forward and were just stuck running in circles waiting for the planets to align or something."

Her head lolled to the side as she listened. Her fingers wiggled against the outside of my thighs under the water, settling underneath my knees, hugging them to her.

"I do feel like that sometimes, for sure. But, I don't know, sometimes I also just feel like maybe we've been spoiled. Like we're just impatient and we want everything all at once."

"Obviously." Despite the warmth and my improved mood, I sulked behind her.

"It makes sense," she continued. "I mean, who wouldn't want it all right now when we've known for so long what we want…and who?"

I made some sort of snorting noise behind her. My eyes closed and I hugged her more firmly. She relaxed against me again and it was silent a while longer before she spoke up.

"It's not a wheel though. It's one of those little hamster ball-thingys. Because, technically, we go places. We've both accomplished and experienced a lot, priceless things, really. It's just that there are so many other things that are somehow always out of reach. Like we're trapped running around in one of those silly clear balls, looking at it all but not able to have it…yet."

Again, she proved herself much more capable with analogies and the English language in general than me. That was the perfect description. A stupid fucking hamster ball.

That night, in the tub with our eyes closed holding each other as the warm water held us, we came to some agreements about the main issue at hand. Bella was going to stay on the east coast, regardless of the specifics about where and what she was going to be able to do for work. And as frustrated as I was that we couldn't have everything all at once, knowing that she was staying near me, possibly even moving in with me, was enough to allay me.

After that night, Bella began trolling want-ads and casually mentioning to her employers at The Sun that she was hoping to stay in town a little longer and would need a job. She knew the paper she was currently at was already at full staff and that once her fellowship ended the likelihood of her being offered a full-time position there was low, however, she poked around anyway.

When it came time for her final review for the fellowship, her direct advisors mentioned that there was a position open in one of the company's smaller papers in Hartford, Connecticut. That weekend over dinner, I congratulated her on the amazing written evaluation and signed recommendations she was given from the man who originally hired her, who was also in charge of The Tribune Company's corporate relations. We discussed the idea of the job in Hartford, but ultimately, Bella knew it wasn't for her and I agreed. It just wasn't worth the ease of the transfer and the name attached to the newspaper compared to all the drawbacks.

Bella would have to move, and not in with me in Manhattan, because at best that train ride would have been well over two hours each way. She would have to move to Connecticut and start over completely, just for a small morning publication which happened to have a big name behind it. Thus, she continued her job hunt elsewhere.

There appeared to be an abundance of positions available with the Washington Times, but she grumbled about working with a narrow-minded and conservative publication. I just smiled and nodded whenever she went off on some tangent about how she couldn't see herself working there, given that I knew absolutely nothing about the different publications on the east coast or their political and social associations. I did however, think she was incredibly cute when she got all fired up and her words collided together as she stamped around in her tank top and underwear.

In the end, Bella submitted what seemed like a thousand resumes to various publications scattered across the area, both big and small. I was not-so-secretly hoping she would land something in either New York or Philadelphia, because then it would make sense to move in with me. I was selfish like that. I also began slowly shifting things around in my closet to make room for more of her stuff.

While Bella scoured on-line job-postings and finished off her work with the Sun, I continued with my dissertation. I had a meeting with my thesis committee In late April which easily could have gone better for me. It left me frustrated and exhausted just thinkingabout the wasted hours and work as well as the time and headaches involved with recomposing the trouble areas they wanted me to redo. One thing was for sure, Columbia University did not simply hand out their doctorial degrees to just anyone, they actually wanted me to slave for it.

Before I knew it, summer was upon us. I had been dreading the summer for months since our discussion about what Bella would do once she completed her fellowship. She was aching to go home and visit and I knew it was inevitable, not to mention that she deserved the break.

She begged me to come spend the summer in Washington with her. Unfortunately, after my train wreck meeting with my advisors I knew that it just wasn't feasible if I was going to try and rework such large portions of my thesis and still maintain my original timeline for completion. In Washington, I would inevitably be distracted and fall into a lazy pattern of doing nothing but enjoying my family and lounging on my parents' sofa all day while entertaining myself with Bella all night. As appealing as the idea was, I had to prioritize a little. It helped knowing Bella would be returning to me in what was still sure to be eleven very long weeks.

Bella left at the beginning of June. She was still unsure of to what and where she would be returning in September, but she had it narrowed down a little. She had several promising leads and before she left she interviewed with several different publications for a variety of positions.

Saying goodbye to her in the airport again definitely made the top five shittiest moments of my life.

The plan was for me to take a week off at the end of August to come home, hang out for a bit, celebrate Olivia's second birthday with my family, and mercifully retrieve Bella. Still, the separation was going to be horrendous. It took everything I had not to punch the pillar that always seemed to mock me in terminal eight as I walked away slowly breaking inside.

By the end of June, my birthday, all it took was one little phone call at midnight my time and a sultry-voiced birthday serenade followed by a round of cute giggles for me to slip back into the old state of auto-pilot depression.

It turned out to be one of the stickiest, balmiest, most miserable summers I had ever spent in New York. My clothes stuck to me in places that no fabric had any business sticking. Sweat poured down my forehead and back before I even finished drying myself off every time I stepped out of the shower, making the task nearly impossible. I longed for the cool, tepid summers of Washington–my parents' lush, grassy backyard with the pool and the double chaise lounges and mom's sun tea steeping on the garden ledge at the back of the yard. The breeze would billow around me, ruffling my hair and smelling green and refreshing but, more than anything, I longed for the girl who would be lying on that chaise with me.

She was probably there reading a book at that very moment as I was being slowly tortured to death on the east coast. Well, it was Bella, so odds were she would be lying on the grass next to the five thousand dollar luxury outdoor furnishing and not actually on it. That was just Bella. She loved the feel of grass in between her toes.

Meanwhile, I didn't remember the last time I had even as much as seen a large patch of grass in the sweltering city. Nonetheless, I had to keep trucking along. It had been a grueling seven years since we first parted ways after high school, but we were finally settling into a comfortable relationship with a mutually recognised future. We knew what we were and what we wanted to be. We knew what we could live with, and more importantly, what we could notlive without. It was leaps and bounds of progress given that several years ago we weren't even speaking to one another. Now, we were on the downhill stretch to getting everything that we ever wanted and smashing that goddamn hamster wheel once and for all.

I just had to survive the summer alone first.

Mid July, the day started out the same way they all did that summer. I woke up, stuck to the damp sheets and glowered ferociously at the inadequate fan wedged in the open window that rattled more than it blew. It wobbled precariously on the sill laughing at me as I swore and peeled myself out of bed.

Long strands of hair stuck to my forehead and temples and my boxer briefs were twisted and annoying the fuck out of me. I showered, cursed as I tried in vain to get dry, got dressed in clean clothes that were going to be rank in less time than it took to get to the coffee shop and purchase my first cup of coffee, and then left my bedroom in a foul mood.

I grumbled a '"good morning" to my roommates who were hovering over a computer screen on the couch like teenagers, more than likely watching porn of some sort. I grabbed a stale doughnut from the open box on the countertop even though I couldn't remember precisely how many days ago they were bought, and headed out with my laptop slung over my shoulder. I confirmed as I walked by the guys that it was in fact porn they were looking at.

Jesus Christ, it is too early for that shit, I thought as I pulled the door shut behind me and headed toward the stairs, trying to block out the images I had just scene.

It never made any sense to me how two perfectly straight guys could feel comfortable practically circle jerking each other over internet porn. Still, my dick pulsed in rebuttal, longing to be manhandled by someone who wasn't me for a change. I had gotten awfully accustomed to regular sex over the last year spent with Bella in the same time zone as myself, and the eleven weeks were slowly trickling by, killing me in more ways than just the one.

The nights were long. And sticky. More often than not I was just too tired and miserable by the time I got home to do anything but beat my head against a pillow and grumble at the fan. I was certainly never in the mood to jerk off in a stuffy bathroom.

I always spoke to Bella before I officially rolled over and shut my eyes for the night, but the conversations were kept short so we wouldn't run up our cell bills any more than necessary. We just needed to hear each other's voices in our ear at least once a day. It was amazing how cathartic something so simple could be.

The sun blistered as I walked up to the library where I would spend the rest of my day and what would probably turn into the better part of my evening, feeling sweat drip down small of my back. At least the library was air conditioned. Not that I had a choice as to where I wanted to spend my day. Trying to cram a PhD program into five years when it usually took students six to seven to complete definitely had its drawbacks. So, I poured myself into my dissertation with a frenzied desperation while I was alone all summer. What the fuck else was I going to do?

Luckily, at the end of the day, I knew why I was working so hard. It made the late nights of nothing but hours spent at the library with a stiff neck from being hunched inhumanly over books and my laptop that much more tolerable. Even though my body was fatigued, my neck and back throbbed, and my heart trembled with absence, I could handle it. Or at least, that was what I kept telling myself.

Walking back to my car as the sun slipped down over the city's skyline, my body ached and my heart hurt. I paused and looked out at the pink sunset spattered with black buildings as the sun washed out their details, melting them into a smooth blackness as it glowed behind them.

I was so tired. I was so lonely. It had only been about seven weeks since Bella left, and technically, I would be going home and seeing her in just over four. But in that moment–that sticky, tired, head-pounding, back-aching, pink-skied moment of utter despondency–I needed her, and four weeks may as well have been four years. I wasn't going to make it. I was done trying.

Without thinking, I pulled out my cell and surfed around on a few websites, completely obliterating my cell bill with its shitty data plan and relegating all my abbreviated phone calls with Bella futile. I stood in the middle of the abandoned parking lot with not a car in sight, nor had I passed a living person as I exited the building. No one in the city was stupid enough to waste such a beautiful summer evening, complete with a light breeze and firecracker-pink skies, inside the dark library.

A few minutes later, armed with the information I needed, I dialled the number that had always been my cell phone's preset number one.

"Hello?" Bella breathed into the phone, sounding winded. Her voice shook with movement as she panted into the receiver.

"And what exactly are you doing, Isabella?" I scolded, my tone a little accusatory but mostly kidding, as my mind ran with the idea of what could cause Bella to be out of breath.

I was exhausted and miserable and grumpy.

"Uhm...hello to you too, darling," she chastised me in a light voice, completely appreciating the strain she knew I was under and never holding it against me. I truly didn't deserve her.

"Sorry, I was only joking," I sighed into the phone, raking my fingers through my hair and off my forehead. I was way overdue for a haircut, more so than usual.

"I know." I could practically envision her smiling and my fingers twitched with the very real need to lace themselves through hers and breathe in her sweet scent. The idea was enough to both shatter my heart and make me smile.

"There's a flight that leaves Sea-Tac in 5 hours. Be on it." My voice held such pain that I almost felt bad for calling and forcing her to shoulder some of the burden. But of course, it was her pain too.

"Okay," she whispered, no further explanation necessary. I needed her. She needed me. Everything else could be sorted out later.

I hung up and drove straight to a strip mall to hurry and get a haircut before they closed at nine. However, as I walked toward the salon, I passed an urban fare market and quickly decided my hair was superfluous. I went in and bought everything I would need to treat Bella to a picnic on the rooftop of my apartment building the next evening after it had cooled down for the night, inspired by how truly surreal the skyline and the surrounding area was against that backdrop of fluorescent pink.

I didn't sleep at all, even though Bella's plane wasn't going to arrive until after nine in the morning. Instead I paced, and lay on my bed listening to music loud enough to try and drown out my thoughts. Unfortunately, that did nothing but make me even more anxious. I just missed her so fucking much. I ached for her. I tried to work on my thesis but gave up after an hour of staring at the white screen with blurred streaks of black across it as my eyes glossed over and my body hummed with anticipation.

Centuries later, it was finally time to leave for the airport. I took a cab and bit my tongue about the route he chose in the middle of morning chaos because that was how happy I was.

Nothing else mattered the moment Bella rounded the corner of her terminal and saw me. She dropped her bag and ran as fast as she could in her little flip flops. I winced a little inside watching her, hoping she wouldn't trip over the flimsy rubber things and fall. She didn't.

Her deep blue summer dress fluttered around her thighs and my heart sang. I opened my arms and she jumped right into them. It was exactly where she was always meant to be. I buried my face into her neck, inhaling the sweet comfort of sugary coconut. She wrapped her legs around me and I clung to her, squeezing her probably a little to tight, but she wasn't complaining

We stood like that for a long time, probably looking like a cheesy movie re-enactment. I didn't care. My heart felt at home, the location had fuck all to do with it. Home was everything I held in my arms in that moment.

"Hi," she eventually whispered into my ear, her face still buried against me.

I laughed, feeling light for the first time in almost two months. "Hi."

"Your hair is a disaster," she giggled, running her fingers through it, gripping it as her little elbows dug into my shoulder blades. I welcomed the feeling.

"I know," I smirked at her because she was right, it was a fucking wreck. I may have not even combed it before I left the house, I couldn't remember. Neither of us really cared.

Eventually, we made our way to a cab and across the city to my apartment where Bella could change. Then we were going to walk to a little cafe that we loved by the house to grab a late breakfast and relax over waffles that nearly rivalled the ones at that place she had taken me to in Arizona. It didn't matter what we did over the next four days, it only mattered that we did it together. Our life wasn't about filling the days with the most exhilarating activities or posh events–just the buzz that hummed through my body whenever she was near.

My roommates snickered and greeted her when she came trailing in behind me. They were used to her visits. They were probably the only two people in the world who knew me personally and knew the sordid extent of my relationship with my "best friend". It was kind of a given considering how many times loud slams and screams had been heard coming from my bedroom when she visited. It had become something they incessantly mocked me about, but usually not too badly in front of Bella. She belonged in that tiny, stuffy apartment just as much as the rest of us.

We spent the next several days wrapped around one another to a severe degree, regardless of what we were doing. Walking down the sidewalk hand in hand as the heat radiated off the cement and through our bodies. Intertwined in bed, slipping against one another bathed in sweat and lust in the most beautiful and delicious way. Sprawled out on a picnic blanket pretending we could see the stars above despite the lights from the city, wine glasses nearby. It was a perfect weekend. It was precisely what I needed, minus the fact that it was destined to end too quickly. I hated the familiar, nagging tear at the back of my mind over the impending separation, wishing like hell we were entirely over it.

The day before Bella had to leave, we gathered my roommates and some buddies and headed over to the weathered baseball diamond across the street from our apartment building. We had a mishmash of busted up mitts and an ancient wooden bat in tow as we ran across the busy street to play in weather that was definitely too hot for any outdoor activity. We didn't care.

We split into teams, Bella and I on separate teams because our friends were assholes like that, and we played for hours. We enjoyed the camaraderie and good-natured rivalry, everyone laughing and goading on their opponents mercilessly. Bella and I were screamed at by both teams on several occasions for abandoning our posts to sneak in some soft-core porn against the make-shift dugouts on the sidelines.

Bella came up to bat and I eyed her from my place as shortstop. Sometimes her beauty was staggering even in the most unorthodox circumstances. Her short denim cut-offs were filthy and flipped up once at their shredded hems, making them even shorter. Her long legs were caked in dirt covered streaks of sweat and she wore my old tee ball t-shirt, the one she pilfered from my mother's attic several years ago and liked to sleep in.

She wore tattered All-Star sneakers and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swished against her shoulders as she walked up to the plate, dust being kicked up with each footfall. The sun was beginning to sink in the sky and the dirt field was bathed in gold. I smiled, mostly to myself, as I watched her.

The pitch came at her and she swung hard, the bat connecting perfectly with the heavy softball and cracking loudly. For a second, I looked to see where the ball went until I realised it hadn't gone anywhere. The bat snapped where it met the ball, tossing Bella forward awkwardly from the force. She caught herself on one hand as it hit the dust near the home plate, but the upper half of the splintered bat she was still holding in her right hand hit the ground before her, and she toppled against it, driving its splintered edge into her bicep. I ran to her with inhuman speed, seeing blood running down her arm and mottling the dirt at her feet.

"I'm okay," she laughed, shaking her head, baffled at the extent of her clumsy misfortune.

"No you're not," I growled at her, reaching for her arm to clamp down with my thumb and forefinger to slow the blood loss.

"Yeah, okay," she answered as if I had been asking a question when I wasn't. It was obvious that she was going to need medical attention.

She looked down at her arm, a jagged cut running about three inches along her muscle, the tip of the wound looking very deep and dirty. My buddies had all gathered around, a mixture of poking fun at the woman they knew to be a great klutz and murmuring ideas on how to stop the bleeding. Someone handed me a bandana to wrap around her arm. It was filthy and sopping wet with sweat. I looked back at my idiotic roommate and shook my head.

"What," he muttered, shrugging.

I decided it would have to do until the cut could be properly disinfected and dressed. I wrapped it around her arm as delicately as I could before having to cinch it tighter to tie off. I used the bottom of my own tee shirt to wipe away the trickles of blood that flowed down her arm and had gathered in the crook of her elbow. I wiped my bloody palms on the ass of my jeans then kissed her softly at the temple, muttering under my breath.

By the time I had her cleaned up enough to be moved almost everyone had dispersed back to the game. It wasn't actually as bad of a wound as I initially thought–it was just dirty and had a few points that would probably need stitches. There was nothing they could do anyway.

I shouted to my roommates that I was going to walk Bella up the street to the urgent care clinic to get it treated, given that a flat full of idiot guys didn't really have much by way of first aid essentials. Though, with Bella visiting so regularly, I was baffled as to how the fuck that had not become an issue sooner. I guess there weren't many ways to injure oneself during sex or while eating, which was more or less all we did during our stolen weekends together.

I sat, drumming my fingers impatiently against my knees as I waited in the uncomfortable orange chair in the urgent care waiting room. Bella had gone in with the nurse to get her arm disinfected and stitched up. I wanted to go in with her to hold her hand or something, but the nurse refused to allow me in. Bella shrugged and followed her, completely unphased by her magnetism for harm.

Much to the growing annoyance of the lady beside me, I continued to tap my toes in an alternating beat and drum my fingertips against the side of my chair, anxious to see Bella in one piece again and hating that she was being stitched up somewhere back there without me. She hated needles and was probably going to require an anesthetic before the sutures. I tried not to think about her digging her teeth into her lower lip and wincing with pain as she looked away, but every minute was possibly more painful for me than it was for her.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket becoming a very welcome distraction. I yanked it out and saw it was Emmett. Figuring it would be a while before Bella returned, I decided it was safe to answer.

"Hey."

"Hey buddy, you busy gettin' all smart and stuff?" he joked.

"Nope, just twiddling my thumbs in a clinic waiting room while a certain someone gets a very gnarly wound stitched up," I laughed, although technically, it wasn't a joke.

He laughed loudly back at me and I smiled into the phone. Bella wasn't the only one I missed while I was away at school. And with her near me it was a lot easier to remember that my heart longed for everyone else just as badly.

"Dude, honestly. What the fuck is with you and klutzy women? Do you find that helpless shit a turn-on or something?" He was still laughing boisterously.

"Huh?" Did he honestly not realise there had only ever been one klutzy woman in my life...ever? "Whatever. Where are you?" I asked, wondering how he could have missed the obvious fact that Bella left for New York three days ago.

"Denver. Work sent me out here to check on some shit. Pissed Rosalie the hell off. We were supposed to be spending the weekend at her grandmother's cabin in Port Orford for her eightieth birthday."

"Oh, I'm sure you were really bummed about missing that one," I joked, imagining Emmett serving small slices of sheet cake to a bunch of elderly people while Rosalie watched him intently to make sure he was smiling civilly.

"Pffft! I fucking volunteered to come out here and pretended to be pissed off about it. But if you ever tell Rosalie that I will kill you, you little fucker."

I laughed. Fuck, I loved him.

"So...is your little girlfriend fixed up yet?" he asked and I still wasn't sure if he realised who he was asking about.

Note to self: have desperately serious talk with Emmett in four weeks.

"I never said it was a girl, you know," I retorted.

"Edward, with you, it's always a girl." So deluded. "So, what happened anyway?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know…a softball injury," I muttered, laughing a little under my breath, the comedy in the incident being far more apparent once Bella was being properly attended to.

"How the fuck...? You know what, never mind," Em trailed of, chuckling. "Listen, I have to get back to work. I just called to tell you myself before Allie or mom called and ruined all the fun. I just got off the phone with Rose after she sent me a very unexpected text message with a picture of a little white stick with two pink lines. I nearly fucking choked on my meatball sandwich."

"Again," I spat into the phone, not meaning to be offensive but being caught off guard completely. Olivia wasn't even two yet for crying out loud. But really, I was so proud, and excited, and fiercely jealous.

"Yeah, well, you know. Once you have one..." he replied.

No. I didn't know.

"Well, congratulations. And good fucking luck with that," I joked, but it was obvious by my excited tone just how happy I was for my brother. I loved Olivia fervently and couldn't wait to see the family expand, even if I had nothing to do with it.

"Thanks. Okay, I have to go. Good luck with the girlfriend," he mumbled into the phone sounding suddenly very distracted.

I had always wanted to have that conversation in person with him, however, if it hadn't been for how preoccupied he was with being called back to whatever lame conference he was at, and knowing that Bella would be finished any minute, I would have had that conversation right then over the phone. I hated the ambiguity surrounding everything I said to my brother, especially when there was no need for it any longer. But I let him go with another round of congratulations and a promise to talk more in a few weeks.

Bella came out with a white gauzy bandage around her bicep and eyes that looked a little crazed. We settled everything we needed to at the front desk and I took her home. I wished we had the option of grabbing her things from my overcrowded apartment and going back to her place in Baltimore for a few days, but her landlord agreed to allow us to sublet the house over the summer to cover the cost of the rent, so that wasn't an option.

We forwent all things sustenance after that and retreated into my bedroom. I had no way of knowing if my roommates had ever filtered back in or not, the sound of the CD we had playing on repeat drowned out almost everything including one another. For some reason, a reason that seemed to be seeded deep inside ourselves, the night was beyond words. I just need to feel, to consume, to own and submit all at once. The combination of the weight of everything I carried throughout the day, the summer, the year together, an entire lifetime together, was converging into something unspoken yet that screamed all at once. Bella not only seemed to be feeling precisely the same way, but she was also a little dopey from the pain killers and antibiotics they gave her at the clinic.

The air was so thick in the shut off bedroom that our skin stuck to the sheets. The fan droned but was unheard and unfelt. I melted into her as she lay beneath me, naked, trusting, wounded, and fixed. I hated the bandage on her arm for all it could have been and was at the same time. I hated how short and yet how unbearably long life felt sometimes. I hated every moment spent not as I was spending that one. And for that very reason, I loved the one I was living in.

We'd made love hours ago. The sun had set. The CD had repeated itself upwards of seven times had I been paying attention to something that trivial. Still, we barely moved. I covered her with my naked body and never once felt vulnerable or exposed. I just felt like me.

Her thighs lay open, embracing me as I pressed my cheek to the skin just below her navel. My eyes closed and I enjoyed the sweet and tender way her fingers pushed through my thick hair. It was natural and only Bella's fingers could feel precisely that way.

My mind wandered. It strolled languidly down paths without reason. My hands cupped Bella's soft hips and I turned to press a kiss to the skin warmed by my cheek. Looking up at her from under the splotchy blanket of my own mottled lashes, I could see the shadows cast by the eerie yellowish gleam from the streetlamp outside as her own eyelashes lay flatly against the rise in her cheek. I could tell by the pattern of her slow, yet controlled breath that she was awake, coupled with the steady movement against my scalp.

"Rose is pregnant again," I murmured against her.

They were the first real words that had been spoken in hours. Her eyes fluttered open and found mine. My cheek was once again pressed to her belly but my left hand had drifted from the comfort of her hip to hover just beside where my eyes lay. My thumb rubbed deep circles into her flesh as I followed my own mind, sharing the path of it with her aloud the way I had always been meant to do. The way she wanted me to.

"What? When did you hear that?"

"Emmett called to tell me when you were in getting stitched up."

"Ahh," was all she said, and she needn't have said anymore. I understood. She understood. I kissed the warm, flat surface of her skin again. Her hand stilled in my hair but closed around my head to hold me tighter. Her eyes slid shut again.

A while later I climbed up her naked body and settled beside her, hugging her to me. She whined as I rearranged myself and disturbed her as she was nearly drifted off to sleep.

"Why are you moving? I like you down there," she grumbled, sliding her arm over my chest and curling against me.

"That's because you're greedy," I growled in jest, arching an eyebrow salaciously at her.

"Not like that." She made a faint movement as if to elbow me, but it fell short as her heavy limb barely made it off the bed.

"I know."

"Hamster ball?" she asked randomly, though I knew precisely what she meant.

"Hamster ball," I confirmed. "Why don't you just let me knock you up already?" I kissed her forehead gently and wondered if she knew how very little I was kidding.

She giggled. "I think you should probably marry me first."

"Pfft. Semantics." I held her tighter and combed my fingers through her hair.

"Maybe tell my dad about us?"

"Like he hasn't already threatened my life over you."

"Really?" She raised her head off my chest and looked down at me. "When?"

"Uhh…a million times since my third birthday. Including a year ago when he corned me at my parents' house and made a bunch of awkward and half-hearted threats."

The corners of her mouth turned down a little in contemplation and then she smirked at me and laid her head back to the little dip at the centre of my chest made just for her.

"Well at the very least you should buy me a ring first."

"I already did." I tapped the Chanel ring she hadn't taken off except to shower since Valentine's Day.

"A different kind of ring, Edward," she whisper-scolded. I smiled to myself.

Not gonna happen…

"Sorry, I'm broke." I pinched playfully at her ribs.

She shook with her giggles and I pulled a sheet over her shoulders just for comfort, it certainly wasn't cold in the muggy room.

"I love you, Isabella," I murmured into the top of her head, kissing it as we both drifted off again, sweet smiles on our lips.

"I love you too."

And for the moment, that was all there was.

MOTHER FUCKERS!

*kicks something*

WHY do they always end chapters like that?

Honestly, they always do. I try to change it, I write other things, I force shit, I swear I do...

But, in the end, it is always obviously forced.

And so...we're yet again left sighing over their cute romantic little perfection. The assholes. The least they could do is share.

I don't know when the next chapter will post. Soon I hope. But I'm making a tiny human here, be patient lol

Love me!

Air

~xox~