Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Chapter 51 Can't Help It

BPOV

We were poised on a knife edge for a moment, the one where our vampire natures and hot heavy kissing could have gone either way. Fortunately for my future sanity our ardour gradually cooled enough for common sense to prevail and eventually, breathless and smiling awkwardly, we fought our way out of our impromptu tent to a round of applause from the bystanders.

Ergo, extracting ourselves from the Skydiving Center with our certificates was mortifying, even when the Instructors told us we weren't the first students to have made out under a canopy and that at least they hadn't had to throw a bucket of water over us.

Jules and Sasha good naturedly informed me I was 'a lucky bitch' and Edward loaded me, still giddy with I don't know what, back into the car and sped away.

...

"You ready to go home?" He asks as we head into the rapidly gathering darkness.

What would I do at home? Work? Hunt? Read twenty books? Cyber stalk my former life? Bathe, clean house, do the laundry? Referee the usual Cullen antics? Obsess over the fact I kissed him first like the mad over thinker I actually am?

"Um, not really?"

He laughs, twining our fingers together on the center console.

He has such long fingers . . . .

"If we were human I would definitely take you for a romantic candlelit dinner right now."

"You can't make hunting romantic?" I tease.

"Maybe."

Oh god help me. He couldn't, could he?

"Definitely not ready to go home?" He asks, taking his gold eyes completely off the road so he can fix me into my seat with them.

Oh god.

"Definitely."

The tires squeal as he makes a one eighty on the empty road, taking us back the way we came . . . .

...

"It's a meadow." Well done Bella, no flies on you.

"Yes." He answers quietly. "I found it a little while ago. It's not quite our meadow but I like it."

"It's beautiful."

And it is. The encroaching winter hasn't quite killed off the wildflowers and we've run so far from the road it's surprisingly silent. I can smell deer and mountain lion but no humans and none of the toxic pall of civilisation. Is that why he appreciated our meadow so much? And I bet he can't hear anyone at all out here . . . .

"What do we do now?" I ask.

"Anything we want." He answers, removing his heavy coat, balling it up for a pillow and stretching out on the springy flora.

I hesitate for a moment and then copy him.

It's a clear night and the stars are mesmerising, cold and bright.

"Are you hungry?" He asks solicitously.

"Did you bring any candles?"

"No." He chuckles. "Em wanted to try candlelit hunting on Rose once. Esme , Alice, Jasper and I spent the whole night chasing around with candles, which are hard to keep alight a vampire speed let me tell you, but in the end Rose sent us home claiming our constant swishing about was killing the romance and throwing her eye off her hunt."

"Ah. It doesn't sound terribly romantic to be fair."

"What do you find romantic?" He asks suddenly.

"Oh, um . . . . I've never, I mean, I'm not a romantic person, really . . . ."

"I wasn't a very good boyfriend was I?" He muses. "Aside from the whole danger thing the only proper date I ever took you on was to Prom and you didn't actually want to go."

"You took me to play baseball."

"That was a lovely date." He snorts sarcastically. "I'm surprised you didn't to reprise that instead of skydiving."

"You bought me dinner."

"Mushroom ravioli." He chuckles. "But I'm still not sure it counts, I was more worried about you going into shock following your brush with human danger."

I remember how terrified I was to be alone in a dark street with those men closing in on me and how my heart leapt when Edward appeared and rescued me. There was never any question in my mind that I was safer with him, no matter what I suspected he was at the time.

"You saved me from being squished by Tyler's van. That was romantic."

"You always were happy with the strangest things." He laughs.

"You Edward, only ever you."

Ah crap . . . .

He reaches between us and takes my hand . . . . I'm not ready for this . . . . wrapping it gently in his . . . . and says absolutely nothing.

My unfiltered words have filled me with a sudden tension that's pulling at my muscles but his innate understanding when not to push slowly draws it out of me like air from a tire and after a few minutes it's just the two of us again, side by side, hand in hand, watching the occasional cloud cross the stars.

It's surreal. A night, a moment like this, Edward and I together and perfectly content. This is one of the clearer images my adolescent mind could conjure up as a 'still' for our happy ever after.

And I'm not sure how to feel about it. It probably ought to make me sad, I could lose everything to this. The rest of the Cullens. Carlisle. Edward. Freya. She belongs here with Jasper, what if I can't stay . . . . but I don't feel sad . . . . I feel . . . . right.

"Talk to me." He murmurs.

"How do you know I need to?" I sigh with resignation.

"You're abusing your lip."

"I'm scared." I confess.

"So am I."

"Then why? We could end up worse off than we are now."

"Do you want to hear my reasoning?"

"Please."

"You've already know most of it. And you let me off the hook, which surprised me, with the whole what happens if it doesn't work out thing. But I had thought about it." He pauses, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. "I believe you're right when you say we'll always love each other. So much so that I cannot see for one moment that if it doesn't work out we'll end up hating each other instead. And if you didn't want to be around me, I'd leave, I know we could see each other when I visited and it would get easier over time. I also know that you'd think you'd forced me to and hate yourself for it, that you'd want to leave instead. So I'm going to tell you something I shouldn't. Freya and Jasper have talked about it and agreed, if you leave, they'll go with you. And Carlisle, he'll do whatever he needs to do to make things easier for you.

It's a risk Bella but I love you and I want to be with you. Always.

I have faith that we can all find a way to be happy together. I have hope that I can be, and make you, the happiest of all."

I swallow thickly.

"You only promised me what I asked for Love, one date, and I won't ever forget it, but if you want to go home now and call time with the memory of the good day we shared I'll understand."

I don't.

Say it.

I can't.

Stop chewing your lip and say it!

"This morning?" I begin.

"Yes?" He asks softly, rolling so that he's almost hovering over me.

I blink because his close proximity still has that affect on me.

"I said I'd psyched myself up for this."

"Yes?"

"I wasn't just talking about pitting myself against gravity at the mercy of a few pounds of flimsy fabric."

He rolls fully on top of me, pressing me into the ground and joining our lips together.

There's no desperation in this kiss, just a continuation of his words.

Faith.

Hope.

Love.

...

"So." He murmurs as he helps me out of the car. "I have a free evening on Wednesday, would you like to do something?"

I nod and the smile I've been wearing for a few hours now widens dramatically.

"May I choose this time?" He asks, eyes twinkling with mirth.

"You may." I reply in an equally formal tone.

He pecks me on the lips and then releases me, wheeling away into the trees at top speed.

"There you are!" Freya howls, leaping off the porch and into my personal space. "Where the fuck, sorry Mom, have you been? I've been going out of my mind . . . ."

...

The fact that I laughed like a loon at the irony of her words did nothing to cool her ire. After all, she wasn't worried about me coming to any harm, she's just nosey and desperate to know that she was right and I was wrong on the whole Edward and I 'destined to be' front.

She quizzed me.

I played the Mom card, Jasper bore her away to work out her irritation in private and I decided the tub was the best place to over think . . . .

...

"Jesus." I sigh, surveying the office area. "How could they make so much mess in so little time?"

Beside me Carlisle chuckles and toes a towering stack of papers with one of his ludicrously expensive leather shoes.

"I can help if you want." He offers.

"No." I whisper. "You go make nice with the cars, this is your first visit since they opened."

"I don't like cars." He whispers back.

"Tough." I inform him, prodding him back toward the workshop.

"This is my day off." He objects sotto voce.

"Go be a good Daddy."

One final push and his pleading golden countenance is obscured by the door swinging shut behind him.

"Good Lord. Rose! Is that a Plymouth Fury?" He exclaims enthusiastically, clapping his hands together.

He's such a ham . . . .

...

"No jeans."

"Why not?" I demand, shaking a pair of my new ones in Rose's implacable face.

"I know where he's taking you and they aren't appropriate."

"How come you know and I don't?"

"You do understand the concept of 'surprise' don't you Bella?" She drawls.

"Yes. I just don't necessarily approve of them in specific relation to me."

"If it's any consolation neither do. Now stop being difficult and let's pick out a dress . . . ."

...

A rap at the door.

"Mom, Edward's waiting downstairs."

"Okay."

This time my date is waiting at the bottom of the stairs sporting an enormous bouquet of flowers and a somewhat cheesy grin.

...

We drive into Portland, parking the car and wandering for a while, seemingly aimlessly, through the early evening crowds.

Our conversation flows easily from where we are going, he won't tell me, through the random subjects of most repulsive human food, Em's hobbies over the years, what the sixties were really like and finally on to whether or not Shakespeare is remotely relevant in the twenty first century.

It's eclectic and I love it, another night, strolling hand in hand, that my adolescent mind could have easily conjured up.

"We're here." He announces.

"This is a dance class." I observe in my own redundant way.

"Yes it is." He confirms, attempting to use our joined hands to propel me forward.

"I can't dance." I object, resisting.

"I believe that's the point of taking the class Love." He laughs.

"You know you said before that you were a lousy boyfriend?"

He nods.

"Taking me dancing when I can't dance isn't really enhancing your performance."

He shrugs, still looking ludicrously happy.

"What?" I huff.

"You just implied that I was your boyfriend."

"How old are you?" I snort disdainfully to cover how absurdly thrilled I am to think of him as such.

"Old enough to know better. Young enough not to care. Shall we?"

"Fine, but if I crush your toes you're only getting what you deserve, no whining about it afterwards."

"I wouldn't dream of it." He promises, tugging me forward.

...

Turns out it wasn't any old dance class. It was an Argentine Tango dance class.

I have some prior knowledge of these, Bren had dragged Ted to a few when she was trying to unlock what she called his 'suppressed inner sex fiend' in the early days of their relationship.

Surely the Edward I had known and loved wouldn't be harbouring similar thoughts, would he?