So I think that it had been ages since I last updates, I honestly can not remember. Anyways, this really is just a filler, again, sorry. But the next chapter will be more interesting.

When I awoke, I could feel Bella still as stone and I wondered what was wrong. I wondered if she had had a bad dream but then remembered that she did not sleep. Just awake me wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, if you get what I mean.

"Bella, what's wrong?" I muttered groggily. I opened my eyes to see her staring in shock at the door on the other side of the room. Still not catching on, I turned my head so that my eyes could follow hers.

I immediately and completely understood why she was so shocked.

My mother, still dressed in her pajamas with her hair all frizzy around her pale face, was standing in my door way with a look of surprised shock on her face, her emerald green eyes widened with recognition and what seemed to be acceptance.

Oh shit.

Acceptance. My mind knew immediately what she was accepting. Of course, she had jumped to conclusions. Bella and I 'sleeping' in the same bed without my mother knowing that she was here. Me going to bed straight away even though I almost never got to sleep before twelve.

Add to that the fact that Bella was still wearing the midnight blue dress from yesterday. The one that had really thin straps that right now her hair was covering, so it could quite easily look like she was not wearing anything. And I slept without a shirt on.

She knew that we loved each other, and she saw the way that I kissed her, the way that I looked at her.

Of course my mother would think that we were having sex. She wasn't an idiot. She knew that almost nobody waited for marriage to have sex these days, even though she knew that that was something that I had always wanted.

But oh shit, she thought that we were having sex!

Have fun explaining your way out of this one.

I could easily show her that we were dressed, but proving that we hadn't had sex would be harder. I think that she would trust me though, but then again, by letting Bella in without her knowing I had more than likely broken the trust that she had always put in me.

Explaining exactly how the fuck Bella got over here would be another thing completely.

She was turning to leave, and I still had not said anything.

"Mum, it's not – "

"We'll talk about this tonight." She gave me a stern look as she closed the door. My head moving slowly, I looked at Bella, who met my wide eyes with equally wide ones.

"Should I….?" I let my question trail off, nodding towards the door.

"Yes! Go!" She said, sitting bolt right up, and pulling on my arm to get me to sit up quicker then pushing me off of the bed. "Oh she's going to be so angry!" She said, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes still wide. "She's going to completely hate me now!" She did a soft scream/squeal thing into her hands and rubbed them over her face.

"She's not going to hate you." I said, grabbing her hands and pulling them off of her face. She was biting on her bottom lip and I kissed them, trying to get her to stop. "One day, you're going to chew that off." I joked.

"Go!" She pointed towards the door, obviously angry that I seemed so calm about this. Inside, I was screaming.

I had promised my mother, am myself, that I was going to treat Bella with the respect that she deserved. I was trying, and I thought that I was doing alright. But my mother thought that the two of us had been sleeping together.

Which, in mother terms, meant that I had been treating my girl like shit.

And possibly that Bella was easy.

I really didn't want mother to think either of those things.

Standing in the hallway, I couldn't hear any noise from anywhere in the house but assumed that she was in her bedroom. The kitchen had crappy flooring and you could hear whenever somebody was there. Her bedroom was the only logical solution. I made my way to her room, trying to come up with possible excuses.

I knocked on her door lightly. "Mum?" I said softly. The silence in the house was daunting, seeming to press in on me. "Can I come in?" She didn't answer but I pushed the door open slowly, still thinking that she was in there. And so she was, sitting on the bed staring at nothing. Her eyes slowly came up to meet mine, still shocked, but now calculating.

"You promised that you would treat her well." She sounded passionate, but she spoke softly, as if she too were intimidated by the silence, unwilling to break it.

"I did! I am!" I exclaimed, louder then her, moving closer into the room.

"Not from what I just saw!" She stood up now, and even though I was a good foot taller than her she could still intimidate me. But not this time, not when I had done nothing wrong. Maybe my inner teenage was rising up and asking 'why should I be punished when I had treated Bella with nothing but respect?'

"You jumped to conclusions!"

"You two were in bed, in my house, when I did not know that she was here and neither of you had any clothes on!"

"Yes we did! I never sleep with a shirt on," I gestured to my still bare chest but my pants. "just my pajama pants, and Bella was still wearing the dress from yesterday. The straps are thin and her hair was covering them. We are not sleeping together, we are just, well, sleeping together. As in actual sleeping. We are not doing anything else. You know me better than that, shit, you raised me better than that."

She looked at me skeptically, as if part of her believed me, but the other part didn't.

"Look, I know that I can't prove that, and I know that I've broken your trust, but you've gotta believe me. I am still the same boy, I still don't believe in sex before marriage, and neither does Bella. Esme and Carlisle are both old fashioned and they raised her like you raised me."

Mother raised and eyebrow again but I could tell that I was winning her over. "Then what is she doing here?"

"Sleeping." I shrugged, trying to seem casual.

"She has her own bed, at her own house."

"But we prefer to sleep together. We both get a better nights sleep when we do, and we don't do anything that we should not be doing."

"What do you mean that you both get a better nights sleep? What was wrong with the way that you sleep?"

This was the tricky part, the part that I felt like shit about because I hated having to lie to my mother.

"You know that it used to take me hours to get to sleep. That I would go to bed and just lay there for ages. Whenever I am with Bella I can get to sleep within the hour." At least that part was true.

"And Bella?"

I sighed. "That's for her to tell you and not me."

"Why?"

"Because it's her business." I urged. "I can't tell you anything that she might not want other people to know."

My mother was instantly alarmed, and I internally groaned. I had brought out her inner social worker.

"Is there something wrong with her? Does she have a condition?" Her voice went from concerned mother to politely detached yet still caring social worker. That voice pissed me off.

As did the way that she phrased the question. 'Is there something wrong with her?' As if having a sleeping problem meant that there was something wrong with her. And who cares if there was actually something wrong with her? Why does that matter?

"No, there's nothing wrong with her." I said, my voice tight and no doubt showing some of m anger.

"I don't mean that in a bad way Edward, I simply meant does she have some sort of sleeping disorder?" She still managed to make her statement a question.

"She has bad dreams." I said slowly, knowing that this was risky, and a real asshole move to both Bella and Elizabeth, but this was the only thing that I could think of that would get my mother to stop questioning this, and stop questioning about Bella's pre-Cullen past. "But she doesn't have as many bad dreams when she is with me."

"Do you know why?"

"I feel safer." Came a quiet voice form the doorway. Bella was standing there, her hair wavy and her dress crinkled but still looking beautiful on her

My mother quickly appraised the state of Bella's dress. "Safer form what?" She eventually asked.

"Everything." Bella said shrugging and giving a weak laugh. "My parents, my birth parents that is, they were pretty shitty people." She sighed, her eyes flickering over to me. I quickly made my way to her, wrapping my arms around her because I knew that talking about this would be hard for her. That, and I knew that she hated to lie.

"They did stuff to me that I would rather not talk about, if that's alright with you, but I used to get pretty bad nightmares. I thought that they would go away after Esme and Carlisle adopted me but they didn't. Before Edward they were so bad that I almost never slept. Being with him helps, I almost never get bad dreams and I'm finally getting a solid amount every night. I am sorry that we went behind your back though, we just didn't think that anybody would understand."

"This isn't the first time that this has happened?" Mother was getting angry again.

"No." We both shook our heads.

"Do you ever go to Bella's house?" Mother asked me.

"No." I answered her. "It's easier for Bella to come here. I can't go out the window and I would have to go past your bedroom to leave. Plus, you would notice if I was missing. There are so many more people at Bella's house that even if she is home late in the mornings Esme and Carlisle are distracted by the others. Alice and Jasper know so they can distract them if necessary."

Mother sighed heavily the straightened up. "I need to get ready for work. Edward, you will be here when I get home, in fact, you're grounded for this week." My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to protest but then though better. How would she know if I left anyway? "And I will get Mrs. Mart form across the street to make sure that your car is still here. We will be talking about this later tonight." She nodded her head and Bella and I left the room and made our way back to mine.

"Well that sucks." I said as I closed the door. She plopped onto the bed looked shocked still. I walked over and starched out on the bed, barely feeling the bed move as she went to lay next to me.

"How didn't I hear her?" Bella said, her voice confused.

I hadn't even thought of that. How hadn't Bella heard her.

"I mean," She continued. "I knew that I was distracted, but surely not that distracted." She sighed. "But why today of all days does she check! I mean, she never usually does, not even on school days!"

"Maybe she heard something, or needed to tell me something." I suggested, trying to be helpful.

"Probably needed to tell you something, I did not hear anything form you – mind you, I did not hear anything from her either…." She grumbled.

"It's not your fault," I sighed. "You were distracted, and I am the one that asks you to stay every night." I said, then paused. "What did have you so distracted?" I asked curiously. What could distract a vampire so much that they did not know what was going on in their surroundings?

"Vampire can relax themselves into a state of….well, not unconsciousness, but the closest thing that we can get to sleep. Usually, only those of us that are really calm by nature, like Jasper and Carlisle, or really old can do it. Or those of us that are mated. Being with our mates calms us enough. I was never able to get to that state until after I met you…." She trailed off. Meanwhile, I was just happy that I could relax her, though it seemed to be the only thing that I actually could do to help her.

"Sorry I got you grounded." She looked up at me.

"It's all good, besides, as long as we don't take the car and leave out the back then how will she ever know?"

Bella's eyes lit up with a mischievous gleam, but when she spoke she tried to be stern. "You are a horrible influence, you know that right?"

"You're older, aren't you the influencer and I'm the influence?"

"Not this time." She shrugged.

No matter what she said, I still knew that she would help me leave.

TNB ~ TNB ~ TNB

When mum got home that night, she was still angry. I didn't really get why, I mean, she never said that Bella couldn't sty the night.

Alright, so that was bullshit, and I knew it. I knew that I had done the wrong thing, but I was a teenager and I was allowed to think that my grounding was unfair and unreasonable.

I had made Bella go to the Cullen house, telling her that she didn't need to be here for this conversation. She, of course, argued, saying that the whole situation was her fault so she should be here too. Also, she was under the impression that my mother now thought her to be some sort of hussy and wanted to correct that misassumption. She finally relented after I assured her that my mother didn't think that she was a hussy, with the promise of returning that night.

Being the good son that I was, and being a kiss ass, I had dinner on the stove when mum came through the door. I had made her favorite in the hopes of softening her up, but did not know how well that was going to work.

We ate in relative silence, and it was only when I was starting to stack the plates that she said anything.

"Why didn't you just ask me?"

"Because you would have said no."

She sighed. "Probably, but eventually I would have agreed, given that a few rules were in place."

"You would have?"

She sighed again. "Yes, but I do not think that each others reliance on each other to sleep is healthy, the two of you need to be able to cope on your own." Part of me wanted to remind her that she still had trouble sleeping without dad, but that would be a really ass-ish move. "Do you plan on, for lack of better words, continuing to sleep together?" She frowned, still not looking at me.

"Will you let me?"

"Would you stop if I told you too?" She came back.

I pursed my lips. "You know, I know about the kid of stuff that you and dad used to do behind your parent's back and this really isn't that bad, practically compared too – "

"So I can take that as a yes." She sighed. I did not say anything. "I want to know the days that she comes over, and there will be none of these, gatherings, whilst you are grounded, and you will not be staying in the same room as each other when we go to Chicago."

"It would be so much easier if we could." I said, whilst my inner monologue told me to shut the fuck up and be happy that I was not in more trouble.

"Do I have to come and sleep in one of your rooms?"

"No ma'am, we will behave." I said respectfully.

"Good, no go to your room, I can do the dishes." I nodded and made my way to the stairs. "And you are still grounded!"

I think that she knew as well as I did how difficult that that would be to enforce.

When I got up to my bedroom, Bella was already there. She didn't look as put out as before. "She would actually continue to let me stay the night." What she said sounded neither like a statement or a question, but rather a mixture of the two. "She doesn't hate me!" Bella giggled, jumping up off of the bed to throw her arms round my neck. I hugged her back, sighing, trying to sound irritated but there was too much amusement in the sound.

"I told you that she would not hate you, even if we were, in fact, sleeping together, I doubt that she would – She would just be super pissed at me."

"And I can still go to Chicago!" Bella acted as though she had not heard me, but I was used to that by now, she had a one track mind sometimes.

"So what are we going to do tomorrow?" I asked her as we lay on the bed.

"What is there to do, we are stuck here."

"Why?"

"Grounded, remember?" She looked at me pointedly.

"Meh," She scowled at me. "I was kinda hoping to talk to Emmett, they leave the day after tomorrow and I was wondering if he would tell me his story."

"I don't know if we should push our luck – "

Just then Bella's phone went off in her pocket.

Emmett says yes, the message read, and I can keep a look out for Elizabeth. Love Alice xo.

I grinned, sometimes it was just so convenient to have a physic friend.