Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Another sad one, take a second to prepare, and then enjoy!

P.S. They're still not out of the woods, sorry.

BPOV

We parted ways, and soon I was at the edge of the woods, watching what seemed like the whole town gather for my funeral. It gutted me seeing my parents' and Phil's anguished expression, but I know there was nothing I could do to console them. I wanted to run to them, to tell them not to worry, that I would spend eternity with my love, but I couldn't.

The service didn't last very long, and soon it was time for Edward's eulogy, he hadn't let me see it beforehand.

"And I believe Bella's boyfriend has prepared a eulogy for her."

I scoffed, Edward was so much more than a boyfriend, and even though most people didn't know, he was my husband. I watched Edward walk up. I heard his uneven deep breath.

"I was Bella's husband, not her boyfriend," Edward clarified loud enough for the crowd to hear him.

I chuckled lightly at Edward's clarification. For a moment his gaze remained on my casket before turning to face everyone.

"She would have hated this, all this attention on her," he chuckled sadly.

EPOV

I took another uneven breath and tried to tune out everyone's thoughts.

"I was going to read this letter that Bella had wrote for me, but I think I'd like to keep that between the two of us."

"For what seemed like a very long time, I was alone. I believed it was because I deserved to be alone. Then Bella came in and showed me all the best parts of me, but even at my best I paled in comparison to Bella," I laughed half-heartedly.

"Bella had it all; there are very few people in this world that are actually noble and pure, that can find and draw out the light in people, and that is Bella. And for some unknown reason she chose to see the light in me, even when I made it incredibly difficult for her. I showed her the darkest parts of myself, and she loved me anyway. Of course, Bella saw the good in everyone, but she didn't just see the light in me, she created the light in me."

"When Bella was sick, she was in the hospital and I snuck in while she was still unconscious. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale, but her hands were still her hands, and I just sat there and held them. And I willed myself to imagine a world without her, and what a dreadful world that would be. When I surfaced from the realization, I was not the same man I had been. My life was an unending, unchanging midnight, but the sun rose with Bella. I didn't understand how the sun could be rising in the middle of my midnight, but now I know, she brought forth an incandescent glow."

"And the universe will be a darker place without you." I knew most people wouldn't understand my words but she would.

Then I looked to her parents, they were the exception, I saw their glassy, sunken-in eyes, and I wanted them to understand. I wanted them to know how much I adored Bella, how truly loved she was, is, and would always be. I started improvising my next words.

"There are so many ways that she'll always be here with us, in the way she changed all of us, the memory of her that I will carry with me for the rest of time. She was so selfless, brave. She was truly my complete opposite. God, I love her. It is completely irrational just how much I love her. But I love everything about her, they way she furrowed her eyebrows when she was thinking, her laugh, her smile, her terrible, sarcastic, sometimes morbid sense of humor. I am so privileged to have loved her. I know you don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but I do believe we have some say in who gets to hurt you. I liked my choices. I hope she liked hers. She always said that to me, that loving her would only lead to heartbreak and pain, as if I had a choice to do anything except love her. I had no business reaching out and taking her hand but I truly couldn't help myself, and I'm so glad I did."

"Bella, my love, it was an honor to have my broken by you. I'll always love you. You are the only one who has ever touched my heart. It will always be yours. Rest now, my only love."

I could feel the emotion knotting in my throat, the only thing that kept me upright was the fact that I knew she was in the woods somewhere watching. I kept trying to block out everyone's thoughts, but I could hear the muffled sobs coming from Renee and Charlie. There were a wide range of thoughts, ranging from 'aww...they really loved each other' to 'I can't believe they got married'.

Esme embraced me as I walked away from the empty, closed casket. It was agony watching the casket be lowered into the ground. We each passed to place a handful of dirt on the ground. Renee was right behind me, she nearly crumpled to the floor as she walked past the casket. It was Charlie and Phil that kept her from falling to the ground. My family along with Renee, Charlie, and Phil stood in a line after the service as people approached us to pay their respects. Charlie was hosting people at his house afterwards. As people passed by, I could hear whether they were genuine.

Jessica and Lauren walked up to us next. I kept myself rooted in place. I knew they never really cared for Bella, they envied her, the envied how people were drawn to her.

"I'm so sorry Edward, she meant so much to us," Lauren spoke, she didn't know that I knew her words were lies. I kept the scowl off of my face. 'I don't know why he chose her, all these people came out for her.' Even in Bella's 'death' they still envied her. She reached for my hand, and in an awkward move she tried to caress it, she was put off by the intensity of my gaze and the cold feel of my skin. If it didn't infuriate me as much as that move and her thoughts did, it would have been laughable. Lauren, a girl I had very minimal interaction with, was trying to make a pass at me, a 'widower' at the funeral of his wife. I couldn't even begin to contemplate how one would begin to justify those actions. Jessica was more subtle with her flirtation, if I couldn't hear her thoughts one would think that she was just being over-friendly. I was beginning to think that they had lost their minds in their hormone-fueled lust. They didn't even notice that I didn't return any of their insidious flirtations. My gaze hardened enough to subconsciously scare them away, but I knew from their thoughts that they weren't sure why they were scared just that they were, I was glad when they scurried away.

Wretched Mike Newton was up next, he was genuinely upset by Bella's death, this eased my disdain for him, but he still thought he was in love with Bella. I suppressed my scoff. He didn't even really stop to speak to me, just to Charlie, Renee and Phil. He introduced himself as a 'really good friend' of Bella's, I once again had to resist an eye-roll, especially because their last interactions were so incredibly patronizing and cringe-inducing. He stopped in front of me because of social protocol, but he still saw me as the reason Bella had never returned his affection. I knew Bella well enough to know that even if I hadn't been in the picture, she wouldn't have returned the sentiment. I could, however, understand his and every other male student's natural affinity for Bella, that damn magnetic pull she had, it had been impossible for me to resist, and I couldn't really blame others for not being able to resist either. The difference was Bella had only and would only ever love me, and I would only ever love her.

Angela and her family were next, she was thinking about the last time she saw Bella, she felt genuine sadness for Bella's death. It soothed me knowing that Bella had one real friend with no ulterior motivations. The people became faceless after a while, it felt like forever before we were done.

Bella's casket was being covered and her tombstone was placed. We had arranged for a tombstone to be placed today after the service. There was a little glass window where her picture had been placed.

Isabella Marie Cullen

September 13, 1997- September 13, 2014

Beloved wife, daughter, and friend

"The things of which I have seen, I can see no more"

I picked the quote myself. It was from William Wordsworth, one of the poets who went to the Lakes to never return. It was from an ode of his, Intimations of Immortality. I felt it suited the situation. I was the only person left standing in front of Bella's grave. I looked at the photo that was picked, it was from prom, it was a small picture of her face, but I could still make out all of her definitive features. I yearned to see her.

Carlisle was a few yards behind me waiting for me to walk away, but it felt wrong to leave, to turn my back on Bella's grave.

It wasn't long before I felt Carlisle squeezing my shoulder, "Edward, she's okay. She's not in there, you'll see her soon."

I nodded, and rationally I knew he was right, but it still took a tremendous amount of effort to walk away, it felt like I was turning away from Bella.

"They're waiting for you at Charlie's house, we should go." Carlisle stayed beside me until we reached Charlie's house. We said nothing, but his thoughts kept reminding me that Bella was okay, that she would be waiting for me once I returned home.

Charlie and Renee were slowly walking throughout the house, gracefully accepting people's condolences. Most people brought food, I walked in to see Charlie's kitchen overflowing with the assortment of platters everyone had brought.

Jacob Black and his father were both there. Billy was torn between mourning the human Bella had been, and keeping an eye on us.

'Edward'. My head shot up reflexively. Very people knew me well enough to know I could respond to their thoughts. I knew the voice but it wasn't one I was expecting to hear.

'Can we talk? Outside?' I nodded and excused myself, saying that I needed some air.

Jacob was in the woods waiting for me. I heard him swallow harshly.

"Give it to me straight. Is she okay?" Jacob wanted to know if Bella had really died or not. We were far enough into the woods that humans couldn't hear us.

I nodded. "She started vomiting blood. We didn't know if she'd pull through, but she's strong, she woke up yesterday."

"She," his voice wavered, "she was throwing up blood?"

"Carlisle wasn't lying when he said her respiratory system was shutting down. It was a close call," I explained. He started think back to that conversation we had in the hospital.

"So what do you want?" Jacob demanded. Though Bella had intervened our little argument in her room, she wasn't here to keep us from killing each other now, and he still detested me. I shook the thought away, no good would come from fighting Jacob, it didn't matter what I had against him, Bella was what mattered right now. Saving Bella, that was of utmost importance to me, and I would do anything even going to war with the wolves to do it. But I had to at least try to get Jacob to reconsider, to make this as easy of a transition for Bella, which meant I had to keep this interaction as civil as possible.

"Jacob, I wouldn't ask but she's dying. I'm going to change her no matter what, but I don't want an all out war with the wolves," I beseeched.

"So you'd turn her into a bloodsucker like you." I knew from Jake's thoughts that he didn't want Bella to die, but it was becoming clearer to him that she would not survive much longer. He could see it in the frailness, in the exhaustion in her face and eyes. She was officially out of time. My heart ached, Bella's borrowed time was out.

"Perhaps in a different life, I would have fought her becoming like me, but can either of us really just let her die? I know what you said to her, and I know you didn't mean it, but tell me now, is Bella six feet under really preferable to you? If it is, you're not the friend Bella made you out to be."

'I can't really let her die, not when I could stop it, right?' I could hear from Jacob's thoughts that he was beginning to see the inevitability of it all.

"So you change her and she lives?" Jacob asked. I took a deep breath, but Carlisle decided to reply instead.

"Even with the change, her heart it's already working too hard, she may not make it through." I felt my heart breaking at the thought of permanently losing Bella. I needed to focus, one problem at a time.

"What's the hold up then?"

"She wanted to give Charlie and Renee time, to say good-bye, to enjoy her last few months together."

"And now?"

"She needs to recover a bit more, but it won't be long now. Her respiratory system is failing. She has days, weeks if we're lucky," Carlisle explained.

"Do it, change her. I give you permission as Ephraim Black's descendant, save her." Jacob couldn't stand the thought of losing Bella either. We both nodded.

"Thank you, Jacob," I said. "We should go back, Bella is waiting for us." Jacob nodded slightly and followed me back into Bella's room.

"I feel like an ass that I said those things to her, that I hurt her," Jacob admitted.

"She doesn't hold that against you. I would not be so forgiving," I answered honestly.

"That's Bella. Too nice to hold grudges, she should hate me, at the very least." I could hear the grief in his thoughts, I knew Bella honestly didn't hold his cruel words against him.

"Can I show you something?" I would try to be the man that Bella thought I was, try to be worthy of her. He nodded, I ran to my car and retrieved Bella's journal. I returned quickly to where Jacob was standing.

"She wrote this when she got home after you said what you said. She didn't hate you, not at all," I flipped to the song written for Jake, Innocent.

"She wrote this for me?" Jake's voice wavered again, it was a reminder that despite his mature looks, he was only 15 or 16 years old, practically a child.

I felt her presence before I saw her.

"Turn around, Jake."