I do not own Twilight.

There's only about three more chapters left in this story and I'm hoping to get them out either today or by tomorrow evening the latest.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me through it all.

"It's not a big deal."

I stare across the table at Edward. We're in Emmett's apartment with Rose and Em and we've been having this debate for the past half hour. I down some of my drink. "It really is a big deal."

"No," Emmett cuts in. "It's really not."

I roll my eyes at the two brothers who are, as always, on the same page. A different page from the rest of the world who have had at least one functioning parent. The alcohol in my hand is making me brave and I'm about to debate when Rosalie slams her bottle down. "How can you say that? You visit your suddenly sober father after not being in contact with him for two years and it's not a big deal? We want to know what happened!"

I can't blame her comment on alcohol; this is her natural personality.

We've all had a bit too much to drink. Emmett's apartment has turned into a no-tongues-held sort of zone for the week Edward has been here. Really, I think it's Emmett's own fault. He's the one supplying the alcohol.

I down the rest of my drink. It was a sunrise until Rose decided I needed a bit less orange juice and a bit more tequila. Edward's smiling at me. It's that smile where he's trying not to smile but he's too drunk to stay serious. "I just want to know what happened," I relent.

He rolls his eyes. "I already told you."

I scoff. "You told me it was fine and that he didn't have any grease stains on his shirt."

Emmett laughs and opens another beer. "Yeah, man. He was surprisingly clean. Smelled pretty good in there, too."

Rosalie tips her beer towards me. "He fed them."

I stare, wide-eyed at Edward. Well, it takes a second for my eyes to focus. I put down the glass. I think I've had enough for a while. "You didn't tell me that. Did he cook for you?"

He snorts. "Take out."

"I don't think he's picked up cooking just yet," Emmett laughs.

Rose pushes against his shoulder. "You're one to talk."

He pulls her closer. "I didn't hear you complaining last night."

"Well that's because you put me in a good mood before dinner."

"Ew." I stand quickly and grab the bottle from her. She's clearly had plenty and neither Edward nor I want to hear about any of this. "Okay, that's enough."

Edward laughs and it's good to hear. He's been in better spirits since I visited him in Portland and I don't want to bring things up unnecessarily, but the curiosity is eating away at me. "Can you at least tell me what he said?"

"Jeez, Bells, you should have just come with us if you were that concerned," Emmett says but I know he's just putting up a front. He wouldn't let Rosalie go as much as Edward wouldn't let me go.

Edward sighs and reaches over to wrap his arm around my waist. I stand next to his chair and he looks up at me with his emerald eyes. They're slightly blood shot, but not bogged down. "He said that he knows he can't make up for being a shitty parent for the first twenty years of our lives but that he'd like to start trying."

I stare, wide-eyed. "What does that mean?"

He shrugs and that's my answer. I know that's as much as I'll get out of him right now.

Emmett gets up to toss the empty bottles on the table into the recycle. "Who knows," he says. "Who knows if he'll even stay sober."

It's a somber end to a relaxing evening and I feel bad for bringing anything up, but later that night, lying in Edward's bed in the room Emmett's saved for him, Edward shifts behind me. I'm halfway asleep, in between that stage of wakefulness and uncertainty when he kisses my ear. "He asked about you."

That's enough to pull me back to consciousness.

I turn around to look at him over my shoulder. I can only see the outline of his profile in the light from the alarm beside the bed, but I can tell he's looking at me. "He did?"

"He always liked you," he pauses and the sound of a motorcycle accelerating down the highway takes over the quiet. "When you broke up with me, he told me it was about time you came to your senses."

I move to lean back on my elbows and look down at him.

He smiles a little. "I punched him in the face"

I gasp and say his name because it was things exactly like that that I had always been terrified of in high school, especially after his mom left. His dad is—was—dangerous and I had never put it past him to hit back harder and faster.

"And he told me that's exactly why you left," he continues as though I wasn't fazed at all, "Told me if I didn't straighten myself up, I'd turn into him." I manage a small sound of surprise. Edward fingers the hem of the shirt I'm wearing. It's his. "He was self-aware, Bella. He's just…diseased, I guess. At least, that's what all my therapists have tried telling me."

We both watch his fingers as they disappear beneath the fabric, smoothing along the skin just above my hip. We're too distracted by his words to appreciate the movement.

"You would never turn into him," I say quietly.

"I think I came close," he whispers. "That night I showed up at your school? I was fucking wasted, Bella. I couldn't even think straight. All I cared about was fucking up whoever thought they could take you from me. But you're not an object. You're not something that can be taken from me. You don't belong to me."

I start to object, to say that I do belong to him; that he has all of me, but he shakes his head.

"In that sense." He sighs. "Knowing that…I know I'll never become like my dad. He saw everything and everyone as an object to be played with as he pleased. My mom was nothing but a girl he knocked up. He owned her. He owned us. At least, he thought he did. He looks up at me and I know his eyes are glistening. "I don't own you. I never had a right to fight for you like that. It was your decision to move on and I should have respected that and I didn't, and I'm sorry."

As he's speaking, he's moving up on his elbow and reaching for my face. He pulls me down to him and kisses me. When he pulls away, my face is wet.

"Don't cry," he whispers and nudges his nose against mine.

"I just wish we could erase those two years," I say and I can feel the sentiment in my heart, in my blood, in my very bones. I want for the last two years of school to have never happened. I wish I had never ended things with him; I wish I had trusted my instincts.

Edward's shaking his head and sitting up even more, the sheet giving way to his bare chest. He holds my face and kisses me once, carefully. "No, it's good they happened. I was a rough kid, Bella. I grew up defensive and distrustful and thinking everyone was against me. And then when you showed up…God, you were like an angel. You trusted me and you protected me and you believed in me." He let's his hands wander and I'm caught between need and heartache. "With this face and this hair and these legs and this body." He shifts his hands from my bare skin to cover my heart over my shirt. "And this mind and this heart and these fucking perfect eyes that could see right through my bullshit. I've said it before and I'll say it again—you leaving was the best thing for us."

I don't know if I can fully agree with him, but he does a good job of trying to convince me as he kisses his way from my lips to my jaw to my throat, and when he uses his knee to spread both of mine, I fall into him like I always do. And when he connects us and moves over me, I hold on as tightly as I can because I want him to feel me in his every pore as I can feel him in each one of mine.

The words that he whispers to me and the ones that I reciprocate with tell each other what we've always known, even if it was hard to believe at times: that I love him, and he loves me. That there is only me, and there is only him, in the world. That if the past three years have shown us anything, it's that we'll stick by each other through thick and thin.