Edward licked her arm one last time before adjusting his position to move to her leg. For a variety of reasons, they hadn't reached this point of contact yet, and Bella was mindful of the anxious feelings brewing in her gut. Edward's touching her neck and her arms had been intimate, but it had felt . . . safe. His trajectory now did not.

"Not there," she said, making him pause as he knelt.

"Okay," he said softly, waiting for her further direction. She noticed that he looked away briefly, visibly swallowing before turning back to face her.

"My stomach," Bella said, pulling up her camisole. The jersey fabric ruched up easily, staying in place under her bra.

She'd been sitting on the edge of the bed, and Bella realized she'd need to lie down for him to do what he needed to. She did so nervously. Lying down near anyone didn't feel safe, Edward included. It helped to remind herself that he hadn't hurt her and that past behaviour was a good predictor of future behaviour. Physically, he had never been anything but gentle and careful around her.

Edward moved onto the bed, lying perpendicular to her, one arm positioned over her for leverage. He licked in long, slow strokes, distributing the secretions of his tongue over as large an area of skin as possible.

It was a bizarre activity, and there was no escaping this perception, so Bella stayed in the safe place in her head, the part that only observed, gathering data on the tiniest details of the room around her. The ceiling was helpfully textured, whorls of white plaster resembling a teeming pale sea, and she focused her attention there, trying to make a pattern of its unpredictable shapes.

Edward continued with his work.

In the moment that she took to close her eyes and open them again, Edward had changed position, though. His body wholly straddled hers, one knee wedging apart her legs.

But it wasn't Edward anymore. It was Demetri, and he was naked, as was she. "It won't hurt this time, my Bella. I promise."

She woke up from the nightmare, screaming.

It took many breaths and several uncounted moments before she realized she was awake, the other voice in the room assisting in this process.

"You had a bad dream, Bella," Edward said. "You're safe. No one will harm you here."

A bad dream. A bad dream. She kept repeating this until her breathing slowed.

Edward hadn't moved from his habitual seat beside the bed, but his posture was stiff, his muscles taut. She imagined he didn't want to alarm her by moving.

"I'm okay," she said. She was, sort of. Pushing herself up, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. No dizziness. It was still dark outside, and Bella found herself hunting for a clock in the room.

"It's just after four a.m.," Edward said softly, "on Tuesday, the thirteenth of June."

"Thank you," she said. It was good to feel grounded by time. Tuesday. The thirteenth of June. Four a.m.. She was alive. He was alive.

And Edward believed that he still loved her. And he'd promised the Volturi he would change her. She didn't know where to begin with either of these earth-shifting revelations.

"Rosalie would like to speak with you," he said, frowning. "It's your choice, if you want to."

Rosalie. Bella recalled Edward's sister's resentment and anger towards her. Because she was human, Bella had been a danger to the Cullens, and clearly she still was. Weren't two members of the family currently serving the Volturi in her place? And wasn't Edward under orders to change her at some point, the end of his own existence the price for failing to do so? She looked at him now. The thought of tackling his professions of love again exhausted her. Rosalie's acidic remarks would at least require less energy on her part.

"Sure," she said.

Edward eyed her warily. "You don't have to."

"It's fine." If anything, it would make her feel less guilty, being berated by a Cullen. She deserved it.

After hobbling through her morning routine in the bathroom, Bella changed into clean clothes, pleased that she could at least accomplish this alone. She brushed her hair and teeth slowly, wanting to look decent before confronting the terribly intimidating beauty of one Rosalie Cullen.

But Rose surprised her with a friendly smile and a quiet, "Morning," when Bella emerged from the bathroom.

"Morning," Bella said. She eyed the bed where a tray of food sat along with an aromatic carafe of coffee.

"He's left the house, just so you know," Rose said.

"Okay." Bella sat down on the bed, looking at the tray.

"Please, eat," Rose said.

Again, this friendly Rosalie was one Bella didn't quite know how to react to. She nibbled on the bacon and then the toast and eggs. It all tasted so good. The coffee was fresh, strong, and hot, its own kind of restorative.

"Thank you for breakfast," she said. She wasn't sure who had made it.

"You're welcome. Esme's been helping me with my cooking skills." Rosalie looked genuinely pleased.

Rosalie had made her breakfast. Wow. Maybe she'd poisoned it? It was an errant thought and not one she gave much credence, but this Rosalie—part of her wondered what had happened to the Rose she'd known.

"Edward really does love you, Bella. He always has."

Bella stared at her.

"I'm sorry. I know I must seem very rude to intrude like this, but we couldn't help but hear you talking. There are no secrets in our family."

It wasn't new information for Bella, but she was still so shocked by Rose's bluntness that she said nothing, wondering what else Edward's sister was here to tell her.

"I know you think he's traumatized by what happened to him, but he isn't. I'll explain more about that later, but let me start with when we left."

Bella looked down at the bedspread, fingering the pattern of vines and flowers. Even with them here presently, it was still difficult to think about when they'd abandoned her.

"After your birthday party, Edward was distraught. And he was so angry with himself. It was awful and tense, and it was worse because Jasper felt awful, too, so we all experienced that. It wasn't a surprise, what Jasper did. It could have been any of us. We knew there was always a chance, but there's a really big difference between entertaining a possibility and actually seeing it occur. We were all horrified by how hurt you were, and we could see Edward struggling again with how easily it could happen. I know he reconsidered his choice about changing you. Even I reconsidered it. But he ultimately decided it was too selfish an act, and I agreed with him."

He'd reconsidered changing her? So that they could be together? And then he'd . . . left. And Rose had agreed with him. She recalled the words he'd spoken to her in the woods all those months before: She was a distraction. He didn't love her.

"Of course," she mumbled.

"I'm not done yet. And, no, you don't understand." This sounded more like the Rose she knew. "I was never given a choice about being changed," Rose said. "And if I had been, I would have said no. I never asked for this, and the only thing I ever wanted in my human life was to have children and be a mother, which will never happen."

Nor would it for Bella. There was both relief and sadness in this. She had never really planned on being a mother, but she understood now more than ever just how young she was and how long eternity could be, given the right or wrong circumstances.

Rose continued. "But my views are different now. I have Emmett, and I have my family. It isn't the same, and it still hurts that I can't have my own children, but I have love, as do you . . . and I know that you have that love, because I see it clearly now. I didn't before." She shook her head a little. "I owe you a much-belated apology. I . . . I was the one who told Edward that you were dead. I thought you were because of Alice's vision. She, of course, went to investigate what I thought was a foregone conclusion. I really thought I was doing Edward a favour, ending his misery." Her lips twitched, forming something between a smile and a frown. "And I thought I was doing him a favour because I didn't think you and he had a mate bond."

Bella listened, rapt. This was not a Rosalie she'd ever known, and she wasn't sure if any sort of movement on her part would make her disappear, so she stayed still, her gaze fixed on Rose's face.

"I couldn't have been more wrong. It's so clear now that you and he are mated, Bella. We nearly lost him because of my mistake. Edward loves you. And this is where I can speak to the truth of this. Vampires can't experience change—or trauma, not like humans. We can carry our human trauma into this life, but that's it. Our minds simply can't change the way a human's can."

She recalled Demetri's speech, so similar, given so many months ago. She did not appreciate the parallels, but she listened nonetheless. Edward's family must fear for him, she decided. After only just getting him back, they would be eager to let him have whatever he wanted even if they knew it was part of some misguided sense of obligation born of guilt. Given that Rose hadn't ever really liked her, it would be easy for her to lie to protect Edward's well-being.

Or it could be her who was being paranoid. "And how would you know this?"

Rose didn't speak right away, looking aside for a moment. "I was dying when Carlisle found me. I'd been raped and beaten by my fiancé and his friends and then left for dead."

Oh. Bella really wished she hadn't asked. "I'm sorry," she said softly, truly aware now of how inadequate such words would be.

Rosalie gave Bella a wan smile. "Me, too, for a variety of reasons. I held onto the memory of the rape rather than let it go. Our memories in this life are permanent, but our human ones are—"

"Fuzzy," Bella said, recalling what she'd been told in Volterra. She avoided thinking about who had told her this.

"Yes, unless we purposely recall them into this life. If I can give you some advice, when you are changed, don't think of anything that you don't want to permanently remember."

It was a glimmer of hope in a very dark future. Though she would be transformed into something she abhorred, she could at least forget what Demetri had done. She closed her eyes. Forgetting seemed so impossible right now. "Okay."

"The only thing that can harm our minds arises through harm to our mates. And when I saw Emmett being mauled by that bear"—she shuddered—"I knew what he was to me immediately, and I carried his bleeding body over a hundred miles to Carlisle because I was so terrified I would kill him if I tried to change him." She shook her head. "I was pretty stupid before, not seeing that it was exactly the same for Edward except that you weren't dying. You were alive, and that was so much more terrifying for him because you are so fragile for simply being a living human being. He wanted a human life for you. Whatever else my brother is, he is noble to a fault . . . and I never disagreed with his choices."

Bella studied Rose's face. She knew the emotions there. She had no cause to doubt Rose's feelings for Emmett and certainly not Edward's sense of nobility, which she was sure was driving him now.

"Edward loves you, Bella. He is not saying it because he feels obliged to or because he needed something to hold onto in Volterra. He is, however, terrified by seeing you unwell. I can't imagine what he went through, having to hear and see what happened to you there. I do hope that all of that will fade for you someday, but he will have . . . all of it in his head forever. So if you love him, and I think you do, then believe him, because your disbelief is torture for him right now."

It could not possibly be true even though she wanted it to be. "He can't—"

"What's the worst thing that could happen if you believed what I'm telling you?"

He could leave again. Reject her again. Break her heart again. She shook her head. The possibilities were so painful now with this tantalizing idea before her of his love being real.

"It's not Edward who is protecting himself, Bella. It's you protecting your own heart. You have every reason to do that, but he really does love you, and he won't leave again. I don't think he's physically capable of it."

Bella let the bedspread's floral design absorb her attention again, tracing a vine to another flower and then to another. "You can't know that."

"Well, besides the fact that he tried to get himself killed rather than live without you, he's promised the Volturi that he'll change you, and if he breaks that promise, we're all dead. And while we're at it, they expect him to supervise you until then." She snorted, whether at the Volturi's requirement or the idea of Edward's doing so, Bella wasn't sure. "He can't leave you unless he wants us to face the Volturi. Given how emotionally tortured my brother already is on other fronts, I doubt he'd want to add our deaths to his conscience, too."

It was mind-boggling, everything Rose was telling her, and she felt exhausted just trying to hold onto it all.

"Do you believe me, Bella?"

She met Rose's gaze. It made sense. It made sense because she was aware that her mind had not allowed her to think clearly during the last brutal months. "I want to."

"That's good enough for me." Rose stood, reaching for the tray. "Are you ready to tell him that?"

No. Yes. Maybe.

Bella worried her lower lip and nodded before her courage failed.

"Good, I'll call him back." Then she turned and walked away, and Bella stared after her, wondering still who this Rosalie was and where the other one had gone.

A/N: My two betas, Chayasara and Eeyorefan12, and I are aware that there is a pronoun case error in the text "Or it could be her." but we elected to keep it, as replacing it with the correct subject-pronoun, "Or it could be she," would be too jarring for most readers, who, given colloquial speaking patterns, would assume the word was incorrect.

- Erin

DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.