Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse.

A/N: Okay, so most of you wanted to strangle Bella in the last chapter…and me for writing it that way. Let me reiterate that my characters control this story—I just do what they tell me :)

And to that point, let me apologize for taking so long to post this chapter. Yes, my life has been busy, but I couldn't hear Edward's voice for a while. And if he doesn't speak, then I can't write...so blame him for the delay, LOL!

Chapter 36: Waiting

Edward's POV

"Tell Edward that I love him."

As Bella's parting words to my mother floated downstairs toward me, I sucked them into my chest and let them penetrate my every aching nook and cranny, closing my eyes as their sweet peace invaded my very soul.

Esme herself soon appeared on the landing, her knowing smile indicating that she had guessed my thoughts. She had been watching me carefully since arriving home a few hours ago but hadn't yet decided what to say. And out of respect for her private processes, I stayed out of her mind as she descended the stairs.

She walked over to her husband who sat on the edge of the sofa. His brow was furrowed in concentration, but it instantly relaxed when Esme placed her lips against it.

"You always know what to do," he smiled, my presence in the room briefly forgotten.

"Because you're so easy to please." She rubbed his back. "What's on your mind?"

"Everything," he said. "Charlie, Bella"—he glanced at me—"our Alaskan cousins."

Esme sighed. "Have they finalized their plans?"

"No," Alice said as she entered from the kitchen. "They haven't even left the field yet."

"I should have stayed with them," Jasper said from his post by the window. "Done something to help."

Alice sped to his side and took his face in her hands. "You did everything you could. It was out of our hands."

"If not for you, Bro," Emmett added, "things would have been a hell of a lot worse."

"Man, that was a lot of work!" Rosalie exclaimed as she burst through the front door. "I need a serious shower!" Her eyes smirked at mine. "And apparently I'm not the only one."

Carlisle cleared his throat. "How's the cruiser?"

"It has seen better days." She glanced my way again. "But I doubt it will see another one like this for a very long time."

Alice giggled as Rosalie removed her boots and tossed them in the corner. Esme frowned at the ensuing trail of mud and dirt, cutting her eyes at Rosalie.

"Sorry," Rose muttered, still grinning as Esme walked toward the kitchen to retrieve her cleaning supplies.

Carlisle was determined to stay on point. "The car, Rose."

"Sorry," she said again as she flopped next to Emmett on the loveseat. "I did the best I could out there, but it still looks like it was ravaged by wild animals. Or perhaps by a newly mated pair looking for a safe place to copulate."

Carlisle rolled his eyes as Esme entered with the Swiffer. "Rosalie," he chided.

"Oh, come on, Pops!" She laid her right leg across Emmett's lap so he could remove her sock. "We're not allowed to have a little fun today?"

Carlisle hid his surprise at the new moniker. "Now is not the time," he simply said.

"Why not?" She elegantly switched sides and leaned back against the cushions. "The red-headed witch is dead. Charlie has been rescued, and Bella and Edward are fine. I think now is the perfect time."

Her lighthearted opinion went uncontested, so she prepared her next jibe in her mind. But when the uncomfortable silence dragged on, she sat up. "What?" she demanded.

"Rosie," Emmett tried to wrap his arms around her. "Why don't we get that shower you were asking for?"

She shoved him and fixed her eyes on me. "What the hell is going on?"

"It's been a long day," Esme said gently. "And we all have been given a lot to deal with."

Rosalie ignored her. "Where is your wife?"

"At her father's bedside."

She didn't appreciate my clipped reply. "Has she come down yet?"

"There was no need," Alice chimed in. "I took her food upstairs so she could stay with Charlie."

"Really?" Her eyes narrowed as she turned back to me. "Why didn't you do it?"

I did not want to get into this with her. "As long as Bella eats, Rose, does it really matter who—"

"Wait!" She was on her feet, and I was held captive by her glare. "Are you telling me that she's mad at you?"

My face must have betrayed me, but I still tried to deny it. "Bella has been through a lot today."

"Bullshit!" she shouted.

"Rose!" Esme interrupted. "Volume and language."

"No!" She was fuming a trail back and forth across the rug. "There is no fucking way that even that insipid human can be that fucking…"

"Rosalie Hale McCarty Cullen!" Esme hissed. "You will watch your language in this house, especially after everything we endured today."

"But that's my point!" She said with slightly less volume. "We all endured Victoria's madness today. We all did everything we could to make sure that every one of us got out of this safely, and…"

"We failed," Jasper said quietly.

Rosalie whirled around to him. "What?"

Emmett walked toward his wife as Carlisle sighed. "Irina's dead," he said.

Rosalie paled at Carlisle's words, but he continued. "Victoria destroyed her before she left Bolivia."

"But…" Rosalie's mouth dropped open, her thoughts struggling to congeal. "But how could she have done that? Tanya must have had proof that Irina was still alive. Otherwise she never would have seen this all the way through."

"Victoria found a vampire who could imitate voices," Emmett said as he reached her. "And she used her to keep Tanya in line."

"How do we know this isn't a trick?" she asked, her voice shaking toward the end. "She could be lying just to prevent Irina's rescue."

"I heard Victoria's thoughts before I snapped her neck," I explained. "She was wondering if Laurent had mourned Irina's death and then decided that she didn't care."

Rosalie shook her head as her mind filled with memories of her dearly departed friend, and the air became taut with grief. She laid her head against Emmett's shoulder for a moment, and then she laughed.

"That's just fucking great," she snorted. "Irina is dead and has been for the past we-don't-know-how-long. Tanya now knows that she did all of this for nothing. Charlie is upstairs lost inside himself, and Bella is pissed at her husband." She laughed again, the harsh and humorless sound clanging against the walls. "For all of that, we might have been better off had we just stayed out of it."

"Rosalie," Carlisle said with a minor edge in his voice. "We are all mourning Irina's death, but that's no reason to be unfeeling toward Bella's suffering."

"Her suffering?" Her eyes were blazing when she pointed at me. "What about his? Does she think it was easy for him to pretend that he was going to kill her after everything he has suffered just to be with her? Has she learned nothing after all this time? I mean, what the hell does he have to do to prove how much he loves her? Throw himself on a fucking pyre?"

Rosalie had stunned us all with the focus and ferocity of her tirade, but no one more than me. In part, her thoughts had drifted to that long walk home after she decided to save Emmett. That experience gave her a unique empathy for my temptations with Bella.

But mostly, I was shocked to realize, Rosalie was angry because Bella was ignoring me.

I was grateful that she'd kept her voice low enough for Bella not to hear, but my heart was warmed by Rosalie coming to my defense. My moody older sister who had not even given me a sincere compliment in more than a half-century was angry with my wife for not appreciating me?

Would wonders never cease?

I could not allow her to speak so cruelly about my bride, however. Not even on my battered behalf. And I would find a way to convey as much as I thanked her for her well-intended rant.

But as Rosalie's mercurial mind began to catch up with her mouth, she realized just how scathing her rebuke of Bella had been. And as her words hovered in the heavy air, she became acutely ashamed of herself.

I didn't think any of us needed another emotional explosion, so I changed the subject. "Where did you leave the cruiser?"

"In the garage." Rosalie avoided my gaze, but her thoughts revealed her relief at my diversion. "Until we know what to do, I figured that was the safest place."

"Thank you," I said with feeling.

"Why don't you get out of those clothes now?" Esme suggested as Rosalie stared at me. "I just changed your linens."

Rosalie nodded and allowed Emmett to take her hand. And as he led her upstairs, she silently addressed me.

Bella can be a royal pain in the ass, but she's human and can't help it. You two have been through so much already, and it would suck if you survived Victoria only to fall apart afterwards. So don't fall apart, okay?

For the second time tonight, Rosalie touched me with her sentimentality.

Now get the hell out of my head.

I did as she instructed and looked up in time to see Carlisle rising from the arm of the couch. "I'm going to inspect the car and brainstorm cover stories for its condition."

"I don't think you should do that," I shook my head once. "Bella is Charlie's daughter, and these are her decisions to make."

Carlisle looked at me, understanding lighting his eyes. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Why don't you check on our cousins?" Esme suggested as she marveled at me in her mind. "They should have been here by now."

"They're still in the field," Alice said soberly. "But we'll come along to help."

"We won't be long," Carlisle replied to the wariness in my eyes. "And I'll check on Charlie before leaving." Bella, too, he added.

"We'll meet you outside, then," Alice said as they passed me. She winked in acknowledgement of her promise not to look for my future with Bella, and I blew her a kiss, which Jasper intercepted, threw to the ground, and stomped on.

I laughed as the front door closed behind the Whitlocks, suppressing my envy that I could be so playful and free with my mate right now. Rubbing my forehead to erase the thought, I forced a smile as Esme came to sit beside me. She leaned on my shoulder and patted my cheek. "How are you?"

I covered her hand with mine. "I'm fine, just worried about Bella."

Esme nodded. "And?"

"And I'm hoping that Charlie wakes up soon."

She sat up and waited. "And?"

I sighed. "And Rosalie was wrong."

"I see," my mother said.

"I understand her perspective," I continued, unsurprised to find her expression as guarded as her thoughts. "And I based on that, I understand how she managed to judge Bella so unfairly."

"As do I," Esme agreed. "But I also understand that it cannot be easy for you to stay down here when all you want is to hold your wife and relish the fact that she's still alive."

"This is far worse on Bella than it is on me." I kept my tone neutral despite my rising annoyance. "She only just realized that you guys didn't abandon her." Esme's mask slipped, and regret ghosted across her face. "She still doesn't know that she was the key to our success today. And she doesn't know that no matter what she had decided or done, I would never have taken her life."

Esme didn't say anything, and I raked my hands through my hair again. "I honestly expected this from her," I added at length. "With everything she has been through since last night, I knew all of that negativity had to come out at some point."

"But directed at you?" Esme's displeasure hardened her voice.

"I am her husband," I said. "And as far as she knows, I just tried to kill her."

"To save her life!" Esme cried, and then she covered her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said with better control. "I know that Bella has a lot on her plate, none of which she requested. And I also know that as a human, her psychological limits are minimal compared to ours." She took my hands and rubbed them with maternal concern. "But this is a critical time for both of you. And you guys need to be together, talking and working it out. Not suffering all alone on two different floors of the house you share."

"I know, Mom." She softened at the endearment. "And as soon as Bella is ready, I will go to her. But if she needs space right now, then that is what I will give her."

Esme's hands rose again to my face, her eyes shining with anxiety and pride. "You are a good man," she said as she kissed my cheeks. "And Bella should count herself blessed to have you."

I blushed under her bias and started to protest, but she silenced me with a look. "Don't argue with your mother."

I ducked my head. "Yes ma'am."

She patted my cheek again. "And please go hunting soon. Your eyes are too dark."

"You can grab a quick bite," Alice added from the porch. "I don't see Bella leaving Charlie's side until after one." I'm sorry I looked, but you've got to go sometime. Better now when she's not speaking to… She grimaced and ended her thought. Just go now.

I considered passing on the opportunity, thinking that if Charlie woke up, Bella might need me here. But as soon as Esme had mentioned a hunt, I couldn't quell the scorching burn in my throat. With a swift check of the time, I bolted from the living room and out the front door, thanking Alice as I sped past her into the woods.

I was definitely the quickest Cullen, but it was love that spurred me on as I darted among the trees. It was the sound of Bella's laughter that sharpened my focus as I chased the first young deer, overtaking it with ease. It was the dream of hunting with Bella sometime this summer that made me drain its warm body respectfully with scarcely a drop dropped. It was the desire not to leave her again until absolutely necessary that prompted me to find and finish off the elder two bucks.

And it was the need to be within earshot of the most beautiful sound in my world that sent me flying toward the house as swiftly as my reenergized limbs would allow.

I closed my eyes as I came to a stop in the living room, the magnificent sound of Bella's heartbeat erasing every apprehension I'd had when leaving her. From its reduced speed, I could tell that she had begun to calm down. And I found unspeakable relief in the absence of her tears.

I collapsed into the chair I had earlier occupied and sighed, suddenly weakened by the reminder that Bella was hurting because of me. Rosalie and Esme meant well, but their assessments were flawed by their inadvertent ignorance of one fact.

Once again, Bella had been the odd one out.

Even though she was my wife, a full-fledged Cullen, and had sworn on her skin to become a vampire in a matter of months, Bella had not known our plans or how they came about.

Bella had not known that while Victoria was flaunting her ingenuity, Tanya had opened her mind and told me everything that had transpired since her arrival in Bolivia. Bella had not known that heedless of Victoria's warnings, Tanya had shown Alice exactly where Charlie was located. And until Emmett caught her in midair, Bella had not known that the argument between Alice and Rosalie had been completely staged.

The idea for the diversionary maneuver had been birthed during the roundtable discussion after our return from Phoenix. Jasper had expressed his frustration with a major weakness in the Cullen defense: Although Alice and I could communicate telepathically in the presence of an enemy, the advantage was useless because we couldn't include the rest of the family in the discussion. So Emmett had suggested that we all learn an obscure language, and Esme perfected the notion by insisting that we create one ourselves.

But it was Rosalie who had provided the means to implement our invention during battle.

"I'll pick a fight with Alice," she had said as she inspected her nails.

Alice laughed. "You've been waiting decades for a legitimate reason to do that."

"Yes, but this will work," Rosalie insisted. "I will make comments during the confrontation or whatever, giving you assorted opportunities to engage me. Once you finally do, that will let us know that you have something to share. We will start arguing, and when things start to escalate, you will yell at me in Cullenese and tell us what you know. If the others need to chime in, they can do so in English, as long as our intelligence isn't compromised."

"Cullenese?" Jasper asked, full of admiration for her strategic thinking.

"Carwardian," Emmett had grinned at Carlisle and me. "In honor of the great inventors."

Whatever we called it, none of us had expected to need the weapon so soon. And as I'd spent most of the summer trying not to think that leaving Bella would be the safest thing for her, it had never occurred to me to share our emergency language with her. So she had believed everything she'd heard and seen today, believing until she belatedly realized that the breadth of our trickery. As a result, my beleaguered bride was sitting upstairs on a stool next to her equally traumatized father.

The sound of familiar footsteps confirmed that I was mistaken. She was no longer at Charlie's bedside but walking out of the room.

Was she…

Yes, she was…

She was heading upstairs to my old room, to the room in which I had idled as a bored and brooding bachelor until she came and brightened up my life.

But why was she going upstairs? Did she forget that she…that we have an apartment downstairs? Did she think that I was down there and hoping to avoid me? Or did she think that I was upstairs and wishing to see me?

I closed my eyes and concentrated on her movements, counting the seconds until she climbed the fourteen steps between the second and third floors and reached the entrance to my former bedroom.

She didn't pause as she entered and turned on the light, but her sigh was long and so complex that I hardly knew on which feeling to focus first. It was sad, scared, weary, confused, irritated, and most distressing of all, lonely. As it was now after midnight, we had technically been married for one full week, and Bella already felt as if I had abandoned her.

A sharp stab of betrayal surprised me as I was forcibly reminded of my own pain. For as much as I wanted to disagree with Rosalie, the part of my soul that had been forced to pretend that I could kill Bella was seething with anger at her audacious refusal to see me now. I had saved her life by pretending to take it, and she hated me for it.

This was truly the blackest of ironies and something about which Victoria would be proud had she only lived to learn of it.

For Bella to think that I could kill her…for her to believe I was capable of such a thing…

The notion was so offensive that I scarcely had words for it.

From the moment we entered the clearing, I had not given a moment's consideration to the possibility of Bella leaving there any other way than alive. And once Victoria revealed the diabolical details of her scheme, I had secured Alice's complicity in a contingency plan to save Bella in case the Whitlocks and I failed to do so before the deadline. It would have been my body proffered as the sacrifice, my life coming to an end, not hers.

Never hers.

But because Bella did not know this—and seemed incapable of deducing as much in her present condition—I had no choice but to allow her isolation, to settle for stalking her from my post on the couch in a mollifying attempt to respect her wishes. As I began to drown in a bottomless sense of futility, Angela Weber's advice came back to me, those sage, sacred words that had paved the way to my first reunion with Bella. And so armed with that sweet remembrance, I prayed for serenity, courage, and wisdom for us both.

I whispered an "Amen" in time to hear a second light come on, followed by the padding of her bare feet across the ceramic bathroom tile. She must have removed her socks while I had zoned out, and I hoped that the floor wasn't too cold.

She was undressing now—I could hear the unzipping of her jeans, the dull thud of her hand gripping the sink as she removed them. I almost smiled at her refusal to sit in the provided chair, preferring to balance on one bent leg like some sort of exotic bird. An exotic bird of incredible strength, beauty, and heartache.

I listened with rapt attention as she turned on the water to brush her teeth, missing the idle hum which usually accompanied the activity. She skipped the mouthwash and floss, and I suddenly couldn't remember if I'd replaced them when she'd run out on Christmas Eve. So many wonderful things had happened since then that my attention was wholly diverted from triflies like toiletries: our Christmas Day engagement, our brief underground vacation, the surprise wedding, our blissful honeymoon…

The sound of running water in the shower was perfectly timed to my personal replay of our first one together in the cottage, and a primal groan escaped me. I physically ached with the need to hold my wife, and the two-pronged attack of my perfect memory and the real-time audio was bringing me to the brink of…

What was that?

My thoughts sobered at the new sound, and I blocked out everything peripheral to the human in the bathroom.

Was that a sniffle?

I held perfectly still, waiting.

And my heart sank when I heard it again.

One sniffle…

Then two…

And then…

The smell of salt.

She was crying again.

The urge to protect my mate overtook my senses, and I was outside the bathroom door before she could take another breath.

But as I reached for the doorknob, I hesitated. Bella had not invited me up here. She hadn't even spoken to me in more than eight hours. She probably knew that I could hear her, but would she want me to see her this way? Could she trust me that much right now?

But I was her husband, the one to whom she had already bared herself in every possible way. It was certainly my honor to be here, but was it not my responsibility also? And hadn't she once reproached me for trying to leave when things became too difficult? So even if she didn't want me here, should I really be anywhere else?

The crying continued, but the sound had turned strange, as if something was blocking it. And as I listened more carefully, I realized that she was covering her mouth, trying to muffle her grief. With a silent sigh, I released the knob, my decision effectively made. I would not dare leave her, but neither would I intrude on a moment that she intended to be private.

Chagrined and uncertain, I began my retreat, resolving to wait downstairs until she came looking for me. Trying to concentrate on anything other than her would be an utter waste of time, but perhaps I could play her lullaby, remind us both of a happier season when we had been…

"Edward…"

Her strangled cry froze me at the door. She had clearly said my name, but that could mean anything. The female mind was complex under normal circumstances, and stressful situations only made it more labrynthian. She could be beckoning and bemoaning me in the same breath, and there was no way to know without asking her.

But could I really leave her when she was crying for me?

"Edward…" Her voice crumbled with tearful sadness. "Oh, Edward…"

Impossible.

She had barely finished the second syllable of my name when I flung open the bathroom door.

Her heartbeat stuttered at the shock of my arrival, but that didn't stop her tears.

"Edward…" She was trembling as I slid open the frosted door, her moist eyes gaping at me. "I'm so…"

I closed the door behind me. "It's okay, love."

Bella shook her head as she took in my full state of dress. "You didn't have to…"

"Yes, I did." Standing away from the water, I pulled her into my arms. "Yes, I most certainly did."

Her sobs reached their peak as she laid her head on my shoulder, and I kissed her hair as she let them all out. I held her there as she slowly returned to herself, thanking God for answering my prayer so quickly.

She stepped away after a final sniff and frowned at the damp marks she had left on my clothes. But before she could comment, I reached for the shampoo.

"Turn around."

Her eyes shone with gratitude, and I thought I saw the beginnings of a smile toying with her mouth. But at this angle, she couldn't hide the slump of her shoulders, and I added a full-body massage to my list of planned ministrations for my lady love.

"Lean your head back."

Bella released herself to my care, and with deliberate, delicate strokes, I lathered her damp tresses from root to end. My senses became inundated with her presence—from the sweet strawberry scent to her satisfied sighs—and I was intoxicated. She was practically purring with pleasure, unaware that it truly was all mine. I was profoundly grateful for the knowledge that for every awful thing I could not undo, I could and would do this.

I lifted the hand shower from its cradle on the wall, and Bella further relaxed as I rinsed her hair. The suds snaked their way down her exquisite back, and I paused in appreciation before adding and rinsing out the conditioner. With sudden inspiration, I carefully combed through her damp locks with my fingers and separated them into three large strands. And as I gently wove her hair into a single braid, Bella exhaled in surprise, the soft sound curling itself around my aching heart.

Pleased with my efforts, I fished her lavender loofah from its hook and her fragrance-free body wash from the adjacent shelf. By now, my clothes were soapy and soaked through, but I didn't care. From her neck to her navel, her fingertips to her feet, not a sliver of Bella's skin went untouched as I bathed her with love.

Wrapping her up in a thick, oversized towel, I carried her into the bedroom and laid her down, trying to not to saturate the bed myself. Her eyes were hooded with the need to sleep, so I made quick work of patting her dry. As I rubbed and lotioned her body, I resisted the suffocating urge to lavish her beauty with kisses and forced my thoughts to remain chaste.

But when I reached for the pile of bedclothes she'd laid at the foot of the bed, I felt her hand on my wrist.

"Not now."

Something in her voice made me look up, and I was leveled by the longing in her stormy eyes. I could hear the acceleration of her heartbeat, feel the heat rising from her pores, but still I paused. Her emotions had been in a thousand different places in the past hour alone, and I didn't know which ones to trust.

Then, as if she could read my mind, she lifted my hand and pressed it to her left breast. "Please, Edward."

Her murmured plea filled me with added ardor, and I removed my hand from her supple flesh just long enough to undress and dry myself. I pulled back the covers and followed my wife as she slid between them. And when she threw her warm arms around me and pressed her soft lips to mine, I lost all sense of time and space. For as far as I could tell, in that house, in that town, in the universe as a whole, only Bella and I remained.

And that was as it should be.

So Bella and Edward still have some things to work out, but at least they're in the same room again ;)