Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns it. I'm just playing.

Author's Note: It takes a lot of heart to re-write a chapter you're nearly done with when you lose it in a computer crash. The Kills' new album might have been the only thing that got me through it, to bring it to you very, very late...but at last.

The Words

It was dark by the time I got home; the house cast in eerie blue from the moon, with only a single splash of white burning under the beam of my headlights. To my left, the solitary welcome of the silver car. Ahead of me I could see a single window lit up, cross-hatched square of light.

The rest of the house was untouched, the rooms black and silent and waiting for me.

They weren't the only ones.

I knew he would be at the house before I pulled into the driveway.

Still, my hands shook as I released the wheel of the truck. I dropped my keys as I was stepping out and fumbled for them briefly on hand and knee and pavement. Nervous energy coursed through me as I climbed the porch stairs, trying to place each step to wood as quietly as possible. I pushed the front door open and flinched away the creak.

Then I was standing at the door of the kitchen and I wasn't nervous at all.

Edward was at the stove, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair messed and sweaty brow, staring intently at the pot he was stirring in a slow, hypnotic motion. He didn't notice when I entered the bright light of the room, absorbed and unreachable. An exotic smell permeated the air, one that I recognized but couldn't identify.

Not when I was looking at him.

So easy. So calm.

Every fear and insecurity, every tremble and lump in my throat was gone in the instant my eyes fell on him. There was a quiet around him, in the way he had held me and my tears earlier, silently stroking my hair; it had remained in the way he had driven here, had made a meal for us; in the way he was standing by the stove, not noticing anything but the motion of his hands.

"You made dinner." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, before I could keep my voice from cracking the hush. The phrase was not incredulous or accusing or questioning. Standing on the other side of the kitchen, stating fact so that we could both hear the weight of the words.

Edward's head snapped up at the sound of my voice, his eyes widening for a moment as they fell to me. I could see his expression, wary and wondering, trying to decipher my own. As if he had assumed that he could be here – that he should be here – and now, snapped forward into reality, he was forced to question his actions.

Now I was easy. Now I was calm.

He saw it in an instant.

I watched him relax only a fraction, turning away from me with reluctance and glancing back down at the pot balanced over flame.

Quietly, he responded. "I don't know your favorite meal."

"Did you want to make my favorite meal?"

He was silent.

I smiled at him – soft and reassuring – and walked over to the stove.

He took a small step back, giving me room.

I noticed.

"This is lovely," I told him, looking down at the lamb Korma and the small pot of rice.

I looked back up at him, close and eyes forcing contact. Edward blinked at me for a moment, as if he had been expecting a very different reaction.

"You always ate something different when we went out," he said at last, with a shrug. I could see him trying out a small smile, waiting apprehensive. "You were completely unpredictable."

"I didn't have a favorite," I replied, my eyes narrowing, expression closing. I felt myself grow rigid. "I still don't. Still looking."

Edward's smile grew a little and he nodded, as if my words held more significance than I realized.

He thought I couldn't see.

I arched a brow at him, stepping back and leaning against the counter. My hip pressed against cold stone, grounding me as I crossed my arms over my chest and faced him. My chin tilted up slightly. Daring him to back down.

"Thank you for doing all this, Edward," I said cordially, motioning to the stove. "It's…"

"You're welcome," he said quickly, interrupting and looking away.

I watched his focus shift pointedly back to the meal he was currently poking, avoiding my eyes.

My chest stirred and clenched at the difference in him, not really understanding it. He had been cruel and calm and aloof; he had been tentative and apologetic and calming; he had been kind and helping and contemplative. He had become the incarnation of so much of the unexpected in my life in the past few months. He had been a source of fear and of comfort. Always forefront in my mind and stepping up into my face. Anger heated and easy confidence.

That had all gone away when I had kissed him.

And now he danced around me, even more elusive, even more shut down. Afraid of what I might do or say. And every inch of his body suggested that he was here only because he had forced himself to be here, standing prone before me. Just as he had when we first met.

"Why are you here?" I asked him, my voice quiet, wondering and wishing as he refused to look back to me.

Edward hesitated for only a moment before reaching out to the other side of the stove and pulling an empty bowl towards him. He began slowly scooping the lamb, taking his time, dragging it out. He took a deep breath through the steady motion. "I thought we could talk…" he said softly, his voice trailing off.

"You want to talk to me?" My eyebrows shot up incredulously. I felt an apprehensive clench deep in my gut, hope and nerves twisting together inside me. "About what?"

Edward ran a hand through his hair, his finger clenching and catching around bronze strands, tugging and smoothing as he considered his next words.

They were not what I expected.

"The divorce papers were sitting on the kitchen table when I got here," he told me shortly. My eyes followed his as flicked to the empty table momentarily, before returning to the stove. I felt a jolt of panic, wondering where they were, and then the embarrassment of his seeing them; evidence of sleepless nights. I couldn't stay embarrassed for long, though. His voice was too quiet, his shoulders braced.

He looked so, so sad.

My mouth was suddenly dry. "Oh."

"I hate that they hurt you so much," he exhaled, every word deliberate, breathy. Needing me to hear him. "That I hurt you so much."

I shook my head, unwilling to hear him apologize for one more thing. A million times, over and over. Every day and with every anguished expression. "It's not your fault."

"Bella…"

"No." I was the one to interrupt this time, my voice sharp and unbending. "I understand why you gave them to me; where you were coming from; what…what they mean." I swallowed and took a breath. "I'm just not ready."

I saw Edward shift closer to me. He didn't take a step - it was barely a movement - but I saw it. Felt it. He was leaning towards me, as if he was trying to hear me better. As if being closer to me would bring him closer to the truth.

"Not ready for what?" He wanted to know.

"For any of it," I replied with a shrug, holding my arms out helplessly, surrendering. "The independence and the self-reliance and moving and the working and…" I stopped, shaking my head as I broke my gaze from his, ignoring the sharp, stinging prick at the back of my eyes.

Edward didn't say anything for a long moment.

Then I felt him close to me, I felt the light warmth of his hand against my upper arm. Not holding, just pressing. "But you are ready." His voice was stronger now, daring me to listen. "You're already doing those things."

I looked back up at him.

He wanted to hear it, so I would tell him.

"I'm not ready to lose you."

Edward blinked once, twice, three times.

Then he smiled at me softly. "I'm not going to magically disappear off the face of the earth if you sign them," he told me, his tone noticeably easy.

"Then what will happen?" I demanded to know.

"I'd like to get to know you," he replied. "The real you."

I hesitated.

"I'm not sure I'm ready for that, either."

"You awake?"

"I am now. What are you doing?"

"Just talking to her."

"It's girl now?"

"Yeah. And she looks exactly like you."

"How do you know what she looks like?"

"She told me. She's very descriptive, she's got a way with words. She'll be a poet someday."

"You're a dork."

"A happy dork."

"Think you can tear yourself away from my stomach? It's hot in here."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. We're just…on a tropical island. There's a little too much body heat in this bed."

"I'm sorry. I'm just...it's like I can't stop touching you. And I don't really have to anymore. This all just feels so surreal."

"Yeah. Yeah, it certainly does."

"Tell me you're as happy as I am right now."

"I'm going to go take a shower."

"Bella, is something wrong?"

"What could possibly be wrong?"

The following weekend, Edward called me and, with my permission, came up to work on the house on a grey, overcast Saturday. When he pulled into the driveway, I was waiting for him with the rain; little tiny drops falling every minute or so, spitting onto my skin slow and sporadic.

We barely greeted each other, knowing we were on borrowed time with the looming weather. We worked quickly and consciously, waiting for the downpour to hit and determined to get as much done as we could before we were forced to retreat. We painted the roof and floor of the porch, the railings and columns with tentative strokes. Silence was heavy in the air, thick against the humidity of the day.

There was no tension.

The day ended with our exhaustion in the late afternoon, barely a word having been spoken between us; the rain never having fallen.

"Want to go for a walk?" Edward asked me suddenly as I was gathering up brushes on the tarp. I looked up at him - as flushed and as tired as I was - and I smiled.

"Sure."

We walked away from the house, from our work, into the grey evening.

The grass was wet from the moisture in the air, and it stuck to our shoes as were walked across the field on the west side of the house. My thin shirt was damp from sweat and did nothing to keep me from feeling every gust of warm breeze that stirred over my skin. I walked beside Edward, letting him lead me along a path I had never taken before. The unfamiliar land grew less grass green and rockier as we continued away from the ranch house.

"You know," Edward said abruptly, his voice quiet and contemplative, the broken silence feeling natural rather than forced. "If we really buckled down, we could probably finish painting the house in the next few weekends."

I bit my lip. "I'm scheduled to work next Saturday."

Automatically, my eyes sought out his for a reaction; for some sign of annoyance that always seemed to appear when I mentioned my work.

His face was impassive.

"I see," he said with a nod.

"But maybe Sunday?" I hedged quickly.

Edward turned to me, one corner of his mouth curving upward minutely. "Maybe."

We walked for a little longer, finally stopping when we reached a small creek cutting through the land like a vein of blood, the water black against the dark clouds of the day. Edward stood on the edge, looking down into the water, thoughtful and quiet once more. I leaned against a rock nearby, feeling my arms still tingle aching.

"What's going to happen when we're done?" I asked Edward then, finally giving voice to a question that had been nagging away at me for days.

Edward turned towards me.

"What do you mean?" he wondered, sounding curious.

I shrugged and looked down at my hands, twining them together on my lap in slow twists and bending fingers. I took a deep breath and said quietly: "We'll never see each other."

"That's not true," Edward said immediately, so quickly that my eyes flashed up to his automatically. He turned his whole body around to face me now, his back to the water, his full attention trained hot and hard on my face. He continued with a wave of his hand, "I can come over anytime. You can come to the city."

"I know," I assured him, feeling foolish. "It's just…" I stopped, unsure of how to phrase it, unsure of what I should or should not say to him.

After a pause, Edward nodded his understanding. "Changing the context," he finished for me.

I shrugged again. "Something like that."

Suddenly Edward was right in front of me, his face inches from mine, his hands flat against the rock on either side of my hips, his entire body bending over mine, breath hot and more moisture on my skin, careful not to make contact.

"I want to see you," Edward said slowly, his voice deep and sincere. Begging, tempting, forcing me to believe him. "I want to talk to you. I want to spend time with you without the house as an excuse or a distraction." Then he was leaning back, standing upright again and crossing his arms in front of his chest, cocking an eyebrow at me. "How's that for context?"

I swallowed, willing my heartbeat to slow, my heart to not burst out my chest. "Okay."

Edward smiled a little at my weak answer.

"Bella, we have to start being honest with each other," he told me, his expression losing its playfulness, suddenly serious and imploring. "If you want to see me, just call."

My heart was still beating loudly in chest as I imagined it: being able to call Edward on the phone, invite him over, spend time with him without any crippling doubt or unease. I could pick up the phone like I used to and demand his presence and he would appear, every time. We would be casual and friendly and we would talk about our lives and our thoughts. We would laugh and grow closer and sometimes he would kiss my cheek. Nothing would ever be so easy.

I shook my head. "It's not as simple as you make it sound."

"Why not?" Edward demanded, his eyes fire stubborn.

I looked back at him helplessly, watched the capacity for optimism that he had always had – that I had lost so quickly from my life, eradicated from childhood. Envious and terrified. Neither of us had forgotten how we got here, no matter how often we tried to. Apology after apology, forgiveness after forgiveness, and it couldn't be erased.

Imagining it didn't make it real.

"You say you want me to be honest, but there are some things that I just don't know if I can say to you," I told him quietly. "And there are things that I do know you don't want to hear."

"I want to hear everything." I was startled by the intensity of his words.

"No, you don't."

The images rose up before my eyes, beating and burning into my mind until I wanted to cry out in frustration; in futility.

His eyes sad and agony watching me with Jacob.

His shoulders slumped and scared on the plane ride to New York.

His head shaking and turning with my finger jabbing into his chest.

His voice loud and wild following me out into the snow.

His hands firm and strong pushing me away.

The last image so fresh I could still feel it on my lips, refusing to be forgotten; cast aside.

"Tell me why you kissed me, Bella."

"I…you…" I spluttered, shock and confusion, embarrassment and nervousness, stealing away my voice, making off with my composure. "What?"

For a moment, I thought I had imagined his voice, speaking the last words I ever expected him to say to me. The words that meant he could read my mind, see into my thoughts. The words that were deep and reaching in my brain – heels dug into the dirt – that he would avoid saying at all costs. But then I saw his eyes, hard and unwavering on my face; waiting with a steady patience like a man about to be executed – I saw and I knew that I hadn't imagined anything.

"Tell me," he said again; an order. "And tell me honestly."

Immediately, I thought of all the reasons I had conjured up since it had happened; since I had kissed him. All the promises of passion and love that I whispered to myself at night, my hands shaking around divorce papers. All the ways that I had changed, that I had become someone worthy of his love, and that he had always been someone worthy of mine. All the differences I had seen in him, the strength and compassion I had ignored; been too blind and broken to see.

I dreamed of this chance to tell him, to explain to him, to make him see what it had meant to me.

Tell me honestly.

"I wanted to."

The moment the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were true.

I knew that they were more true than any other reason I had calculated and measured for worth. I had kissed him that night out of grief and frustration and envy and admiration, tangled and impulsive against his lips. I hadn't planned it, hadn't thought of it or dreamt of it; in the moment, it was right. Unplanned and spontaneous. And when he had pushed me away, all I had felt was rejection; bitter, burning and instinctual. It was familiar and frightening. There was no thought of him, only of me. When he spoke to me after, there was still that pounding in my brain, drowning out his words with a drumbeat mantra: he doesn't want you.

I had spent all my time thinking about the reaction instead of the reason.

I can't believe we're here again.

He doesn't want you.

You were bound to me the way I used to feel bound to you.

He doesn't want you.

I want to see you happy...

He doesn't want you.

That night, I hadn't been able to hear him.

But I heard him now.

Honest with myself, and all I could hear were his words, looping and screaming in my head.

And I understood.

I felt a small ache in my chest as I realized that – in spite of all our months here, in spite of all the ways my views had shifted, in spite of the fact that he had been the one to push me away – that kiss had still meant more to him than it ever had to me.

Edward was smiling.

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"I made us breakfast. For three."

"Cute, Edward."

"Was your shower refreshing?"

"Yeah, it was."

"So, what would you like to do today?"

"I don't know. Maybe elevate my ankles. Take a nap. Eat inappropriate amounts of food."

"I'm all for staying in. We have plenty of time to explore the island later."

"Hey, get off. I didn't mean staying in for…that."

"It's our honeymoon, Bella."

"Yeah, and I'm a whale."

"You're beautiful. I told you last night and I'll tell you for the rest of our lives."

"Give it rest, Edward."

"Give what a rest?"

"All this constant flattery. You won, okay? You got the girl."

"I won? Bella, I didn't know there was a contest going on."

"Oh, don't pretend to be so niave. I'm not. There's no need to keep up the nauseating wooing."

"This…I'm not wooing you. I'm in love with you. You're my wife. You're carrying our child."

"Not our child."

"Bella..."

"Just...stop, okay?"

"Bella, I love you. Please, won't you just let me?"

"I want to introduce you to someone."

I could feel my entire face lighting up and pulling sideways into a small smile that was almost a smirk as I looked at Edward standing outside the barn door. He was staring back at me, eyebrows raised, arms crossed over his chest. I leaned against the side of the stall, pitchfork propped up beside me, handle resting against my ribs. I had just started cleaning the horses' stalls when Edward had called me, telling me he was on his way to Hartsel for the day.

I had been in the middle of calculating whether or not I could finish all the stalls, run back to the house, shower, and be ready to meet him when an idea struck me, halting my thoughts and slowing my movements.

I told him to meet me at the barn.

"Is that so?" Edward replied with obvious curiosity. "Who?"

My smirk transformed almost immediately, a smile so wide and genuine it was painful pressing upwards on my cheeks. I pushed the pitchfork away from me, leaning it against the wall to my left as I took a step out of the stall and towards Edward.

"Come with me," I said as I moved past him, grabbing his hand instinctively and pulling him along behind me as I walked out of the roofed shade barn into the bright sun of midday.

I felt him behind me, following without the resistance of hesitation. His fingers wrapped around my hand warmly, pleasant pressure thrumming his pulse into mine. His steps kept pace easily, effortlessly letting me lead him around the side of the barn towards the large, fenced field. I tried not to think of the breath I was holding, feeling his skin on my skin. Instead, I imagined him smiling at my back.

When we reached the paddock my hand dropped back down to my side, his hand dropped back down to his side. And then he was standing at my shoulder, looking down at me, still curious. His smile was lopsided.

With only a momentary pause and a significant look indicating he should follow, I ducked beneath the top rail of the fence, slipping between the slats of wood with practiced ease.

My heart beating a little harder against the wall of my chest, I strode up to the large red horse who was grazing quietly, ignoring everything else around him with teeth tearing up grass and clover. For some inexplicable reason, I felt a sudden apprehension, cold and daunting, churning in my stomach. I knew Edward had followed me silently, and I put my hand lightly on the copper of Santana's neck to steady myself. It was all electric intensity standing between the two of them.

With a deep breath, I turned to face my husband, who was looking down at my feet, his eyes trained on the large head that was slowly wrapping around my ankles to get grass on the other side of me.

No matter where I stood, that horse always needed to be eating the grass I was standing on. Now.

I smiled, comforted by the familiar gesture.

Then I tapped lightly against the firm muscle of the neck beneath my fingers. "This is Santana."

Edward looked up at me, nothing but amusement on his face now.

"We've met," he reminded me before he looked back down at the horse. "Hello, Santana," he greeted, humoring me.

Santana, rather than looking up, gave something between a snort and sneeze. I chuckled as hot air washed over my legs. He then shifted, moving away from us slightly. My hand fell away from him reluctantly, allowing the distance.

Edward shrugged, his face apologetic. "I don't think he likes me much."

"Oh, he likes you fine," I replied, rolling my eyes. I motioned Edward forward and grabbed his hand once more, this time placing it against the warm fur of Santana's back. "You should have seen the dirty looks he used to give me."

This time, the horse raised his head and swung it around to look at the pair of us, curious now that there were two people close enough to touch him. I held my hand out to him, grinning when he pressed his nose to my palm and dropping his head slightly so that I could reach his ears.

"Seems fond of you now," Edward commented.

When I turned back to him, he was looking pointedly between Santana and my own outstretched hand, scratching gently at fuzzy ears and silky forelock.

"Oh, he just tolerates me because he knows I adore him," I said with a grin, then adding, "And that I feed him."

Edward laughed a little at that, his eyes locked onto his own hand as it trailed softly along Santana's side, careful to move with the pattern of the hair.

I bit my lip as I watched his hand, my cheeks flushing violent cherry as I remembered the same soft, slow motion against my own body; against my skin. The caress of satisfying a curiosity, of learning dips and rises and contours. I watched him – flustered and embarrassed – as he attempted to learn Santana's body with all the devoted attention of a scientist.

The same way he used to crave to learn every inch of mine.

"So, do you ride?"

I was jolted from my blush by his voice and the fear that he would be able to read the expression on my face. Instead, when I looked up at him I saw that he still wasn't looking at me. His face was quiet and subdued, all attention still on the horse or on the question and the subtle fear of my answer.

"Not him," I told him weakly, still captivated as I watched Edward's fingers dance across the smooth line of Santana's spine, stopping in the place where someone would sit. I cleared my throat a little and continued, "I've ridden Dash. He's Jasper's, over there." I motioned out into the field. "And Dollar. He was…"

I stopped abruptly, my words cutting short, dying in my throat.

Edward turned to me, his eyes locking on mine, filled with a wondering intensity; jade uncompromising.

He cocked his head slightly, one eyebrow arching.

"He was what?" he wanted to know.

I swallowed against my fear, reminding myself that everything was different.

We were honest now.

And so I told him: "He was Carlisle's."

Edward's hand immediately dropped from Santana's side and he turned his entire body to face me in a motion so smooth and abrupt I barely saw it. His face was cleared of all expression, even his eyes which had not moved from mine were completely unreadable now.

He was holding everything he didn't want to release; everything he didn't want to show me.

He was holding his breath.

Without saying a word, I turned around and walked slowly through the grass, my steps measured and weighted; like a procession. My feet led me to the jet black horse, strong and lithe, only a few inches shorter than Santana. Muscle rounded and powerful to Santana's angles and lines.

I heard Edward following me, understanding where I was leading him.

I stopped in front of the horse, watching as Edward moved past me. He was motionless for a long time before he lifted his hand, running it inches above the strong, black body before settling it on one coal shoulder, muscles tensing and quivering beneath too-light fingers.

"What's he like?" Edward asked me, his voice quiet and so different.

I stepped forward so that we were shoulder to shoulder once more, his question was an invitation.

"He's very smart," I said, my words little more than a whisper but strong, forcing Edward to listen, knowing what it meant to him. "Smarter than I am," I added with a small smile. Edward's head turned toward me slightly, only the smallest inclination of movement, his eyes still fixed on the ink black in front of him. I continued, "He's comfortable and kind hearted, but he lets me know when I've made a mistake. As inexperienced and unbalanced as I am, he's never let me fall."

Edward was silent.

Then, "Sounds like my father."

I felt a sharp pang, the ache of feeling Carlisle's death again through the eyes of his son: through the feel of his horse under me and his firstborn at my side. The house we were so close to finishing. The legacy of the man who meant everything to this land, these people. The regret and the guilt and the anguish of never knowing him, of having ever let anything stand in the way, keeping me from him.

"Alice says that a person's horse is their mirror," I whispered, hardly able to make the words come out steady.

Then Edward's eyes were on mine, looking down at me with an emotion that I didn't recognize. Unsure, I reached out and touched my fingers lightly against his shoulder, trailing them down along his arm. I didn't know if it was meant to comfort him or me, but for a moment it didn't much matter. I felt the warm through cotton and his eyes softened infinitesimally.

"Would you like to ride with us sometime?" I asked him, my hand against the back of his hand.

He didn't move to entwine our fingers. He didn't pull away.

"That would be nice."

"I don't want to argue with you, Edward."

"Argue? I'm not arguing. I only meant..."

"I'm just not in the mood to talk about how beautiful I am or how much you love me right now, okay? So just back off."

"Back off? Bella, what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. I'm just…I'm exhausted."

"I'm sorry. I know last night was…we probably stayed up a little longer than…in your condition…"

"I'm not talking about sex, Edward. I'm just…I'm tired of all of it."

"All of what?"

"I feel like I'm suffocating."

"Bella, I never meant…"

"I know. I know that, Edward. You never mean to do anything."

"Please, Bella, tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing. It's probably just hormones."

"I never want to do anything to make you think that I don't love you. Or that you have to…work for that love; that you have to earn it somehow. I'll love you always, with all of me, unconditionally. You don't have to be afraid of me, that I'll leave you. I'm not him. I'll never stop loving you. Not ever."

"Believe me, I know just how stuck with you I am."

"This food is truly disgusting." My face pinched up in disgust as I placed the hamburger back on the plate, soggy bun and ketchup running. "I don't know why I agreed to this."

Edward was smiling back at me from across the table. I didn't think, after everything we'd been through in the past year, that I'd ever get sick of seeing him smile.

"I'm sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. Rather, he sounded incredibly amused. "I made no promises about the quality of the food. If you had come to the hospital, the food would have been much nicer."

"Hospital food is nicer than clinic food?" I asked with an arched brow, nibbling at a French fry tentatively.

Edward nodded. "Undoubtedly."

"Well, I certainly feel shortchanged."

"On the bright side, the clinic is much more interesting on other areas, cafeteria excluded."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, but I'm not allowed to see these interesting areas, am I?"

"Well…no." Edward's answer was chuckled and shrugged it off. "Confindentiality issues and all."

I threw a fry at him.

It had been over a week since we had added the final touches to the outside of the house, the weather switching from pleasant warm to blood boiling hot in the course of a single week. The shift into June, and the steady creep into July saw us sweating and groaning and drinking buckets of water, trying desperately to finish what we had started in the forgiving weather of spring.

Ten days after he had driven away from me in Hartsel, house bright white and sparkling new, without any assurance of his return, I called him and invited myself into the city. I had told him that since I had introduced him to the horses, the least he could do was introduce me to his coworkers. The truth was that I was desperately curious about his work. And honesty found me admitting that I simply missed him.

My musings were interrupted by Edward clearing his throat, looking at me expectantly. The small suggestion of humor had not been erased from his face completely, he looked to be on the verge of laughing at me.

"What?" I asked, when I realized he had been talking to me.

"I asked you how work has been," Edward repeated slowly, a smirk following his dancing eyes.

I hesitated, looking for some kind of hostility or agenda, some resistance that I usually saw when I mentioned the store…or Mike.

I saw only kind patience.

"Fine. Good. I like it," I stuttered word after word, awkward and quick. After a few seconds I found that I couldn't help but elaborate."There's so much I don't know, about everything. I don't think it's what I'll be doing forever, but I love the work. The learning is fun."

At my enthusiasm, Edward's face lost expression.

"I'm glad," was his short reply. He sounded sincere, thoughtful, but stilted somehow.

"Why did you act so weird when you found out?" I asked him suddenly, my entire body shifting forward attentively. I no longer felt afraid to wonder, and I couldn't quell the curiosity. "About the job," I clarified at his confusion. "Was it just Mike, or…?"

"It wasn't Mike," Edward said shortly, his voice quiet and I didn't think he was lying. "He's…very different from when I knew him. He seems to have matured a lot. He's grown into a very nice person, I think."

His words were slightly hesitant, as if he was unsure; as if he needed to convince himself as he said them.

His face was contemplative, though, like someone seeing a truth for the first time.

"So, then, what was it?" I wanted to know.

"It was nothing," Edward replied with a shrug. "I was just…surprised."

"And now?"

"Now?"

I crossed my arms, unwilling to be brushed off. "You still don't want to talk about it."

Edward looked at me, slightly shocked. Then he tried on a small smile that didn't reach his eyes, shaking his head and holding his hands out in supplication. "It really is nothing."

"I thought we were going to be honest with each other."

"Yes, but this is…" Edward sighed, running a hand through his hair in mild frustration, obviously baffled by my persistence. "You'll be annoyed. Or angry."

"I won't," I said quickly, shaking my head. "I promise."

"You can't promise that."

I couldn't imagine anything he could say that would make me angry with him.

"I won't be annoyed or angry, Edward." I said again. When he looked as though he didn't believe me, resistance still apparent on his face, I continued, my voice pleading: "I feel so tense whenever you or I bring it up, because I'm never sure how you're going to react." I looked directly at him, unyielding. "I just want to know what my job means to you."

Another sigh, this time louder, and then Edward was holding his head in his hands, shaking his head with a humorless laugh.

"I'm such a hypocrite," he scoffed quietly.

I watched him incredulously as he held his head: propped by arms, elbows, Formica.

"What does that mean?" I wanted to know.

"That job…" he said slowly, raising his face from the clutches of his fingers to look at me. "It's a petition for divorce. Yours, to me."

I choked on my own breath.

"What are you talking about?" I coughed, spluttering. "Edward, I never asked for…" Then I stopped, began again with an inhale and slow words. "What are you saying? You don't want a divorce? Because we could just…"

"No," Edward cut me off quickly, his voice loud; I knew he was trying to eradicate the hope he could see on my face. "I'm not…Fuck." He was mumbling and stuttering, just as much as I had. His breaths long and low and steady, trying to regain control. Then he was looking at me – square – and he was making me listen. "You told me you were different, that you'd changed, that you were stronger and better and…" He trailed off.

I finished for him. "You didn't believe me."

"It's not that." He shook his head, his voice gentle again. "I wasn't lying. I really was just…surprised."

"About what?"

"About how quickly it happened. About how much it's changing you." Edward was shrugging again, his face flushing slightly. "About…how it made me feel."

I was shaking my head, wordless confused, asking the question that my lips couldn't form.

Tell me how you feel.

And for once, he did.

"Remember when you said that you thought this divorce was the end? That you didn't want to lose me from your life?" Edward asked gently. Then he smiled soft. "Well, I don't want to lose you, either."

I could feel the irrational flush, coursing from my chest out to my fingertips, heat beating off my cheeks and the tips of my ears.

Excitement and agony twisted together, as it always was when I was with him.

"How's work been here?" I inquired with a clear of my throat, quickly shifting focus; embarrassed and unable to respond, avoiding his eyes and the heavy weight of his words on my chest, stifling my breath.

Edward leaned back in his chair when he heard the question, his shoulders relaxing slightly and his eyes growing distant faraway.

"Life changing." He said it in a whisper; reverence.

I was surprised at his voice, at the depth and scope of it as it rounded those two familiar words.

I knew that he loved his work, I knew that what he did now had been part of the change I had seen in him; that he had finally been free to follow the one thing that could make him truly happy: his heart. Still, I felt a bittersweet pang, the longing that came with looking at someone who knew their purpose to the absolute when I was still struggling with mine. The ache that came with knowing that his purpose in life no longer involved me.

"Working with these people, talking to them, taking care of them, their families…" Edward told me slowly, still not really looking at me. "There's just so much grief and happiness, so much life."

"I'm glad you're happy here." My voice was sad, but my words were not a lie.

Edward was looking at me then, right at me; seeing nothing else.

"Thank you."

"Please stop trying to kiss me."

"What's going on, Bella?"

"I already told you: nothing."

"Will you please tell me what he said to you? What he wanted?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Please."

"He just wanted to congratulate me. Us."

"You were talking to him for a long time."

"Was I?"

"Yeah, you were. I want to know what he said to you, if he upset you. If you're…having doubts."

"Why would you think that?"

"You're suffocating?"

"Look, he's my best friend, Edward. We talked. It was no big deal."

"Your best friend? Even after everything he did to you?"

"It's not that simple."

"It's not?"

"I can't cut him out of his child's life."

"His child's life…or yours?"

"Oh, don't look like that, Edward. You're my husband, he's my friend. Don't be so melodramatic."

"Shouldn't your husband be your best friend?"

"How should I know? You're the only man I've ever married and you're certainly not acting like my friend right now."

"I…Jesus, Bella…I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Edward. Let's just forget about it, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. I love you, Bella."

"This your first day as a married man, Edward. You should smile more."

"You know, I wasn't sure about that green when you picked it out in the store. But it really does look wonderful," Edward said, glancing around at the room around us. "You have an eye for this sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?" I asked, cocking my head.

"I don't know. Colors? Decorating?" He shrugged, waving his hand around, gesturing emphatically. "You saw how it would look on the walls before you painted the first stroke."

"I didn't see anything. I just got lucky," I said, ducking my head with embarrassed pleasure. Then, looking down at my hand my bashful blush faded into a wicked smirk. "And I'm about to get lucky again."

I placed one card face up in front of me, the other face down on the pile in the middle of the bed before raising my arms triumphantly.

"Dammit!" Edward cursed vehemently, slapping his own cards against his thigh in frustration.

He grabbed his glass of wine from off the bedside table and took a long gulp, his expression the picture of irritation.

Remembering his enthusiastic insistence to play Rummy 500 after dinner, I couldn't really bring myself to feel guilty at all. I was sure he had expected to win easily; I couldn't help it if he hadn't considered me a particular competent opponent.

We had dragged full bellies and wine glasses up to the cold room where we settled cross legged, facing each other on the double bed and started the game with laughs and jokes as the violent summer thunderstorm raged around us, just outside the window panes.

"I think that puts me over the top," I told him, adding up my points and knowing before I finished that I would end up with more than five hundred.

"Yeah, yeah," Edward grumbled, not arguing or demanding to know my actual score.

I could only imagine he had been keeping track as well.

I gathered up the cards as Edward turned his body so his back was up against the wall, his legs stretched the width of the bed and hanging off the side. When I had collected all the cards and put them back, I grabbed my own glass of wine and imitated his position, our shoulders only a few inches apart.

We sat in companionable silence for some time. I could feel Edward's short-lived competitive streak slowly relaxing into the haze of pinot noir and the seductive rhythm of pounding rain and rumbling thunder. Our breaths were calm and matched, synchronizing in the quiet without our realizing it.

"I come up here all the time now," I told him without prompting, my voice slow and easy.

Leisurely conversation, more simple and comfortable than it ever had been.

No intensity, no agenda.

I simply wanted him to know.

"Yeah?" He didn't look over at me – his eyes were travelling the walls, furniture, ceiling of the room – but he sounded interested; calmly fascinated.

"Yeah," I confirmed with a nod.

Suddenly, I was looking at him and I wanted to tell him everything.

I wanted him to know me the way he wanted to know me. I felt safe in this place, at this time. It was alcohol and humid and late at night. It was weeks of talking and growing easy with him, with his presence at my side and constant, constant in my mind. I wanted to tell him everything he ever wanted to know in just that one moment – looking at the room we made, drunk and mad that he had lost at Rummy.

Still, I knew I couldn't tell him everything; anything.

Not yet.

So I just told him one.

I reached over to the bedside table where the wine glasses had been and I pulled open the single, small drawer with the brass handle. With a deep breath, I pulled out the little leatherbound book that had been my companion for months and months; his voice, his hand, his love when I needed it the most.

"I found this when the roof started leaking. It was in one of the boxes I pulled out of the closet," I said quietly and held it out to him. His eyes flicked down to it immediately, his expression remaining calm and unchanged, like he hadn't seen it at all. "I come up here sometimes and just read it."

Slowly, with an odd amount of hesitation, Edward took the book from my hands lightly.

He flipped it open without a word, his eyes not rising to meet mine.

I had no idea what he was thinking.

"I had forgotten, until I saw it on the kitchen table that day," he said quietly, his voice very nearly a whisper, still looking down, reading snatches of poem here or there before flipping the pages again and settling somewhere else. Then, he clarified, "The day you broke the lamp."

I remembered.

What did you do?

I remembered his face on that day; angry and scared and horrified and shocked.

I remembered being so afraid of him, then.

So afraid.

What were you trying to fucking do, Isabella?

"You thought I was trying to kill myself," I said before I could stop my voice, keeping my eyes locked on his downcast face, still reading.

He still didn't look up.

His hands halted at my words, though, and I saw him swallow.

He continued as if he hadn't heard me, even though he had. "I took it off the table, put it in a box with my old journals."

I could hear the question in his voice.

"I didn't read them," I told him quickly, assuring. Then I took a deep breath and spoke strong, "But this was for me. You wrote it for me."

For you and no other.

Edward nodded his agreement, still impassive. "Yes, I did."

I could see the page where his hands had faltered and settled, his eyes seeming to be stuck on the words, reading them over and over.

I narrowed my vision, squinting to force the writing clear as he held it away from me in his lap.

Light, so low upon earth / You send a flash to the sun / Here is the golden close of love / All my wooing is done / Oh, the woods and the meadows / Woods where we hid from the wet / Stiles where we stay'd to be kind / Meadows in which we met!

I recognized the poem, it was one called Marriage Morning.

I saw the date at the bottom and smiled through the dry of my throat.

"You wrote it on ours," I said quietly, reverently.

There was a smile in his voice as he quoted softly: "'For this is the golden morning of love.'"

"Edward…"

"I wrote it before you woke. You were still sleeping and you told me once that you liked Tennyson."

My voice was so quiet when I answered shaky, "I still do."

I knew what he was thinking; I knew exactly the thoughts in his head. That if he had waited until I had woken up, he never would have written it. If he had known the words I would speak to him that morning, he would have felt differently. He always had to write in secret, when I was asleep or away, so that I couldn't ruin the beauty in what he felt.

I was sick to my stomach.

I saw a small smile crawling across Edward's face, even though his head remained downturned. I could see the misery of his memory, I could see the way it mirrored my own every time I relived what our lives used to be. What they were now. What they could have been, once.

Heart are you great enough / for a love that never tires / Oh, heart are you great enough for love?

"Edward, why didn't you give it to me?" I asked him finally, afraid to hear his answer.

So afraid.

He shrugged, closing the book slowly and resting it against his thigh, finger closing around it completely, as if he was trying to solder it shut with only the skin of his palm.

"I was waiting for the right time."

"You didn't think our wedding day was the right time?" I asked, trying to sound light.

Edward was quiet for a long moment.

Then, "If you hadn't found it, I'd give it to you right now. Tonight."

I blinked unexpected, entire body startled surprise.

"Why?"

Finally, finally, Edward looked up at me.

He looked at me and suddenly I knew that I had been wrong about him.

So wrong. All this time.

So wrong when I had watched him make me dinner and thought that he could ever be the man that I had married, the weak and unchanged boy who had let me walk all over him, who had let everyone else tell him what his life was going to be. So wrong, so vain, so insulting to think that his life was linked to my whims.

It would take more than a kiss, more than any word or gesture from me, to break him now.

He looked at me and emerald eyes sparked strong and confident, shoulders pulled up and back against the wall, neck long and chin tilted up, captivating.

Beautiful.

"I think I'd just want you to know," he said simply.

His voice hung in the air, I held my breath.

The kindest words he had ever said to me.

More than all the I love you and I want you and I need you.

Beyond all the promises of friendship and honesty and reconciliation.

This was him, letting me in.

My eyes were on fingers gripping leather then – fingers that painted this house and healed the sick and wrote every line of every poet I had ever loved – and without a word, soundless, I leaned over and pressed my lips to the back of his hand.