So I know that this chapter is shorter, it's six pages and far cry from the original twenty plus that they used to be, but this was the perfect way to end this chapter I thought.

I kissed her goodnight on the cheek when we got home, saying that I was tired from the big day and from getting up so early. She called me lazy but went to bed too.

Bella was there, sitting on my bed and fiddling with her hands. "So," She said as I walked to her with the presents in my hand. "Wanna see what I got you?"

"Yes." I smiled at her. She was beautiful, her pale face illuminated by the moonlight. I watched as she leaned over to turn on the lamp.

I put the presents on my desk, putting the baseball the right way up and smirking as I out the box next to my laptop. Emmett was going to install it the next time that I came over, hopefully soon. The only gift that I did not put on the desk was Bella's, which I took over to the bed with me.

I watched as she turned around so that she was leaning on the headboard, and I sat with crossed legs opposite her, twirling the present in my hands.

"Do you know why Alice stopped me from opening this in front of everyone else?" I asked her. This had been bothering me for a while now, I couldn't understand why she would stop me. Unless the gift was something embarrassing like a sex book from 1910, which I doubted, then I didn't see what the problem was.

"Apparently she saw you getting a paper cut. She wouldn't tell us exactly what happened, but I can guess that the results would have been, erm…."

"Unsavory?" I chimed in, trying to be helpful.

Her soft laughter rang through the room. "That's a good way of putting it."

"So when is this from?" I asked her after she had become quiet, shaking the gift a little bit so that she would know what I was talking about.

"The collection started in 1908 I think, but when Renee got over her interest she gave me what she had because she knew that I had enjoyed it. When I started to work these were some of the things that I would allow myself to buy, and some of them were what Carlisle would get for me when I was unable to go to town, and some of the ones that we got after that."

Now I was really curious. I looked at the gift in my hands and then back up at her, the excitement building and my heart starting to beat a little bit faster. "Can I?" I asked her.

"That's why I gave it to you." She rolled her eyes. I put my finger under the wrapping paper but then thought better.

"Maybe you should," I said, holding the package to her, but I could tell that she was confused. "just incase." Understanding lit up her eyes and features and she took the present from my hands, putting her finger like I had and quickly ripped. Once she had that done she passed me the present back and I unwrapped the rest.

When I took off the packaging, I saw a number of old records and a blue manila folder. Each of the records were covered in a protective plastic wrap that had a label on them. The names of the composers were old artist, some that I did not recognize but some that I did, Debussy being among them.

I ran my fingers across the plastic, able to feel the groves on the antique records.

I opened the folder and found sheet music – most of which were yellowed with age.

"You won't know all of the composers, or all of the songs. There are works from even the more popular artists that you can still hear today that are in there that you never would have heard of, either because they had no more records of the music to turn to CD's or they didn't think that doing so was worth while. Over time the music has been lost to everybody that doesn't still have an original record of the sheet music. I have not been able to find another copy anywhere that I have looked, but I thought that you might like these. Something new to play, new people to hear…." She trailed off nervously and I realized that I had not said anything in a matter of minutes.

"Bella this is...thankyou so much, I love it."

I looked her in the eyes as I said this, and saw her own light up.

"Really? It wasn't a stupid idea?"

"No!" I exclaimed, probably a little bit to loudly. I looked towards the door, as if I could tell that my mother was awake by doing that. "Honestly, I love it, and now we have a reason to use the record player." I grinned.

"I hadn't even thought about how you were going to use them." Bella laughed. "I really should have thought that through."

I put the papers and the records on the bed so that I could lean over them to kiss her. She responded eagerly, sucking my bottom lip into her mouth and running her tongue over it. I moaned but as soon as I did she pulled away. I fell back onto the mattress with labored breathing, shocked again at the amount of power that she had over my body.

Though that power was also sort of unfortunate. "I should go and have a shower." I muttered, getting up off of the bed but angling myself so that she could not see my front. I found my towel and pajamas and heard her laughing as I left the room. "Very funny Bella." I muttered.

After an eventful shower where I know that I made a fool of myself because I know that I groaned to loudly when I came and I knew that she heard me, I went back to my room, trying not to show that I knew that she knew on my face.

She was polite and didn't say anything though, and I wondered if she had heard me before or if I had said anything in my sleep about us having sex before.

Do you really even need to ask that? That is so fucking obvious….

It's called wishful thinking asshole.

With other people, yes, but you're just an idiot.

My internal monologue was such a bitch.

Sighing, I stretched out on the bed next to her. She was still sitting but her legs were stretched in front of her now and she was looking through the pictures on the birthday present camera.

"Your mum took some great photos." She said approvingly.

"She used to take photography classes. She liked what I was doing at school and got interested. She went really well too, but she stopped when dad got killed."

Bella stilled at my words, become like a statue again.

"Are you alright?" I asked her, moving my hand up to stroke her cheek.

"I don't know what to ask first." She laughed breathlessly, but the sound was still forced. "You did photography at school?"

"Erm yer, my last two years of middle school and at high school in Chicago." That was not what was really bothering her.

"And your dad – he was…. I – I thought that your dad just died." Bella stuttered. I felt like an asshole now.

Told ya so.

Shut up, not the time.

My internal monologue stayed quiet after that, so I knew that even that part of me felt bad too.

I still had not told Bella, or any of the Cullen's, about how my dad had died. If I had been able to decide, my old friends in Chicago would not have known either, but dad had been a well-respected figure in Chicago and had been well known as one of the best lawyers around. Dad's death had been publicized in every newspaper in the city and had even been on the news a few times. The killers were caught and were still in prison – they had also been found guilty for the other crimes that they had been accused of, which made dads death even more pointless. But when I got to Forks, no one knew about dad. No one knew what had happened. Maybe Elizabeth was a divorcee, maybe dad had had a heart attack, no one knew. And I had liked that. Sure, in Chicago people had eventually moved on to new gossip, but I had suffered months of sympathy and sad stares. My few friends and acquaintances had treated me with kiddy gloves since dad had died and that was one of the reasons that I spent most of my time by myself. So, like that jackass that I was, I let people think whatever they wanted, I think that some of them were even under the assumption that my dad was still alive but just did not work in town, which made sense because mum worked in Port Angeles. Bella and the Cullen's all knew that my dad was dead, but they never questioned me or mum about dad. They respected that it was my story and that I would let them know what I was ready. And I was ready, I had been ready since I first met them. I trusted them enough to tell them, and I knew that I would not get upset by telling them, a little grossed out maybe, but not angry or sad.

But I was an asshole, and I never told them.

But in my defense, I had not really thought about telling them lately.

"You don't have to tell me," She said quietly. "I get that you would not want to talk about – "

"No it's fine – "

"You don't need to – "

"Bella! It's fine, honestly. That was an asshole move just blurting that out like that when you didn't know, I just keep forgetting that you don't know. I don't mind telling you, I just avoided doing so I guess. What happened isn't exactly something that I like to talk about, even if we weren't so close, but you deserve to know."

"Are you sure?" She asked me quietly.

I nodded, not saying anything and trying to gather my thoughts.

"My parents got married when they were eighteen," I started. "They had me twelve years later when they were both thirty. Mother was already an established silicate and my dad was already an established lawyer. He was, and I quote, 'about two steps away from making partner by the time that I was two', which apparently was really good considering that he had not been with the firm for that long. So, dad's main focus was to gain partnership, it was what he had wanted since he was a kid: to be some big successful lawyer," I rolled my eyes. "and eventually, by the time that I was five, he got just that. He made partner. I remember that I always used to call him a 'superhero' because to me, he was. He was the big good guy that way putting all of the bad guys in jail. I didn't really mind that dad was never home, because he was making the world a better place for me and mother, he was taking care of us. But then by the time that I was nine, I realized that that wasn't what was actually happening. Dad wasn't some superhero, he was just a regular guys that liked work more than me. And that just sucked because I'm his son, ya' know, my dad was meant to want to spend time with me. I stopped calling him 'superhero' and he never seemed to mind. Mum said that he did though, she said that he was confused and didn't understand what he had done wrong. But dad never said anything to me about being upset, so I never called dad superhero again. Then, dad started to work more and more, was always home later than he said that he would and started working more and more on the weekends. Eventually, we stopped talking altogether, whenever we did we were awkward and argued."

I looked up at Bella, and she looked sad. I did not want to see her sad, or her sympathy, so I looked back up at the ceiling and kept on talking.

"We argued about everything, I think that we even stopped talking for a week because we had an argument about whether it was quicker to walk to the park on way or the other. They were such stupid arguments, but at the time, even if I knew that they were dumb, I was so angry that I couldn't talk to the guy, and he certainly did not put forth any effort.

He didn't like who I was. Everything that I liked, what I wanted to do after school, my few friends, he could find problems with everything. He was angry that I did not have more friends and that I did not have a girlfriend, but I think that he would have liked you." I grinned.

I laughed when I heard her scoff. "Honestly, he did in my dream anyways." I mused.

"Your dream?"

"Long story, later."

"Alright….."

"Anyway, I was about fifteen and a half when he died. He had been working on a case. One of the main crime families in Chicago had been caught, and dad was the main lawyer of the prosecution. Sounds cliché, I know, lawyer gets knocked off by mob or crime family or whatever. Apparently, they had warned dad before that night, told him to back off and leave the case alone or to plant false evidence or something that will help to prove them not guilty. But dad would not, dad was determined to put them away. They had been working for years but had never gotten any jail time for anything big, just a few small robberies or assault cases. He was determined that they would go away for the murders that they were accused of.

I think that he knew that something was going to happen though." I whispered. "He started to come home sooner, he absolutely pampered mother that last week, and he tried to make emends with me. He kept on trying to talk to me and go somewhere with me, I remember that he was trying to convince me to go to a baseball game with him the morning that it happened and I asked him why. He said that 'he wanted to get to know his son'. He told mother that he was going to get food that night so that she didn't have to cook. We had this favorite restaurant. It was this little take away joint and that was in the backstreets, but there was a car park on the main road. If you parked there and walked through the alleyway you could get to the restaurant quicker. They knew that he was going to be there – I have no idea how, but they did. They shot dad, they didn't beat him up or take his wallet, they just shot my dad and then ran. The cops told us everything that they could, I think that they knew him."

We were quiet for a few moments, and I think that she knew that I needed that. "I went to the alleyway, after they were starting to let people through again. There was blood that they could not get off on the walls and the dumpster. The whole scene was absolutely disgusting." I shuddered. She moved from her sitting position and lay next to me, putting her leg over mine and her arm over my chest.

"Mother was a mess. She didn't do anything for weeks. She wouldn't eat or anything, she just laid in the bed and wouldn't let me in for the first week, she had locked the door. Eventually I broke down the door so that I could get her some food. I got her to have two showers a week for three weeks and then I got sick of everything. Of bringing her the food that she would never eat and trying to clean and getting her screaming at me for touching dad's stuff.

I threw open the drapes, put her in the bathroom by herself with some clothes and told her to wake the fuck up. We went grocery shopping and eventually, she got better. She's still not completely happy though, she only just stopped crying whenever Van Morrison comes on but she still makes taco's and but the beer that he loved." I sighed. "I do not know how to help her."

"You have done enough, she never would have gotten this far without you." Bella whispered, her little hand running through my hair. "And I am so sorry that you had to go through all of that." I shrugged.

Suddenly I was exhausted. I could feel my eyes dropping.

"What was that that you said about a dream?"

"What dream?"

"You said before that you had a dream where your dad liked me. What did you mean?"

"Oh, that dream that I had last night when I went all strange." I muttered, turning my face into her hair.

"I was dreaming about the house and the dad was there and then I remembered all of this other stuff and then the two of us were in the meadow and we were talking, or dad was talking really, but he said that he liked you and that I did a good job."

Bella hummed. "Let's get you to bed." She said. I helped her move the blankets without getting off of the bed but as she was about to get on top of the blankets, as she sometimes did depending on how cold the night was, I stopped her, pulling the blankets so that she could get in with me.

"Stay with me." I muttered.

"Always." She kissed my cheek.

I drifted off to sleep with my arms round her torso and her leg, like before, over mine and her arms over my torso, her head resting on my heart.