I should not be doing this. I should be preparing an application for a PhD grant call that is due in 5 days. But this came to me a couple weeks ago and it has been distracting me, so I wrote it. I hope you enjoy it. Updates will likely be sporadic, but I will try my best.

Rating: M

Pairing: Bella/Carlisle

Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns whatever you recognize. I own the plot (which doesn't actually include apples; sorry if you were looking for some fresh fruit action). Unbeta'd.

Warnings: There might be some language, but that will probably be minor compared to the sexual content.

Chapter 1: The higher the climb

A somewhat poorly engineered rollercoaster. That's how Bella would describe her life in the past few months. It all started with her elated state following the successful defence of her master's dissertation. To her, it felt like the culmination of her entire academic career, her reward after years of hard work. Her supervisor had been happy with her performance, and her opponent had been impressed to the point of offering her a PhD position at his group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Of course, in the current academic job market, it wasn't an optimal position; there was no funding allocated for her. However, positions were few and those that piqued her interest were especially far between. After discussing her options with her prospective boss, they had found a solution; combining a stipend for TAing her boss' classes with another for lab work she would already have to do, she could provide for herself by adding only a casual part time job to her workload.

Albeit concerned, her father had been thrilled. Previously, she had been studying in Seattle, close to her father's home. In fact, she would go down to Forks to visit him almost every weekend, as often as she could; that would be harder to do from Alaska. She would dearly miss her time with Charlie. Her mother, however, did not have the same concerns. When Bella called with the news, Renée had offered a quick congratulations and promptly moved on to talking at Bella about her weekend with Phil. And her previous weekend with Phil. And her plans for the following weekend with Phil. Yes, Bella was not heartbroken over Renée. From Seattle to Arizona or from Alaska to Arizona, the distance between mother and daughter would stay the same.

After a final weekend of celebration with her father and her friends from uni, Bella promptly moved to Alaska. Her boss was welcoming, and the other members of the research group were also friendly. She spent the first couple weeks planning her thesis projects and looking for a part time job. She was honestly looking forward to working on her thesis, which would focus on interesting questions and employ a mix of computational and lab work. It didn't take her long to find a job working at a bar on Friday and Saturday nights. She earned enough to rent a small studio apartment that, luckily, had central heating.

With everything sorted, Bella settled into her new normal. She honestly loved her thesis work, which focused on interesting questions and employed a mix of computational and experimental work. Everyday, she would come home feeling fulfilled. Everything was looking up as Bella climbed higher and higher.

Then, her rollercoaster of a life took a turn downhill. The pandemic forced her entire group to stay at home. While she continued TAing from home, she could only work on her computational projects. Her group's lab work was considered non-essential, so they were all barred from continuing experimental work. Along with the group's lab work, Bella's pay as a lab assistant also disappeared. The bar she worked at closed and she, along with pretty much every other part-time staff, was let go. With her now scant income, Bella was stuck trying to choose between paying her rent or buying food. In only a few weeks, things got bad enough that she knew she was, at most, two weeks away from being kicked out of her home.

On a gloomy Alaskan morning, Bella got an email that, unbeknownst to her, would break her fall. One of her friends from Seattle, Alice, sent her an in-house communication by one Dr. Carlisle Cullen. Alice had always had a penchant for the peculiar, and this was very peculiar; it was an email sent from a UAF account to a university mailing list (one Bella had yet to sign up for). How Alice, a student at the University of Seattle, got hold of an email sent to the staff of a completely different university, she did not know. But she also did not care. Dr. Carlisle Cullen was, simply put, looking for a roommate. Free of charge – well, the "charge" would not be monetary. He simply wanted his new roommate to take care of cooking. No splitting bills, no paying rent. Bella vaguely remembered Professor Cullen, as she knew him, from a physiology class she had taken when she was an undergrad. He was polite, intelligent, and quite competent, from what she remembered. And pretty. Definitely pretty.

His email had not made any reference as to whom he would find appropriate as a roommate, and Bella figured she had nothing to lose. She felt awkward about emailing one of her former professors so informally, but she sucked it up and did it. She introduced herself and reminded him of their previous interactions, years ago. She exposed her precarious situation and assured him that she could cook, and that she was not the raucous, noisy type. After sending the email, Bella focused on her work. She was severely behind.

A few days later, Bella had not heard back from the Professor. There had been no word from him, either in the affirmative or negative. She tried to put it out of her mind, to forget about the likely death of her little flicker of hope. When her phone dinged with the notification of an email, from a sender that she did not recognize immediately, Bella was confused. She frowned at her phone for only a few seconds, before realization downed on her. She quickly opened the email and scanned its contents. She could not believe it. He picked her. Wanted to move in as soon as possible, even. In a heartbeat, she went from being on the cusp of homelessness, to being fine. She was crashing and he caught her.

Drop a review if you are so inclined. And worry not, the spicy content will come soon.