Thank you so much IamTheAlleyCat for beta'ing and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading.

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Chapter Ten

Edward

None of us spoke during the journey to the house my family had taken in the forest. I passed the short drive examining the glimpse of Bella I had seen from every angle, trying to find more that I had missed in the awe of seeing her for the first time since leaving. Now that I reexamined it, I recalled seeing the slight downturn of her mouth. She had been unhappy about something; I wondered what. Her hair was a little shorter than it had been when I had last seen her, and her curves were more pronounced. She was, in short, more dazzling than ever before.

"You might want to wipe away the drool before Emmett sees you, Edward," Jasper said, then laughed when my hand came up to my chin.

"Very funny," I said dryly.

"Seriously, though. We're almost there, and if you're still looking all moon-eyed when you see him, he's going to have a field day."

I shook my head, temporarily banishing the vision of my Bella to the back of my mind, and looked at my surroundings. We were turning onto an unpaved road between trees. Like our Forks house, it would be difficult to find if you weren't aware of its presence. I sat silent as Jasper steered us along the track toward the house. I wanted the surprise of my return to last just a little longer.

Oh, Alice and Jasper must be home. I wonder if they remembered to… Esme's mental voice, so wonderfully familiar, was the first to reach me as she heard the car approaching.

Awesome, Jazz is home, Emmett thought. Wonder if he'll be up for finishing our bout. I could attack when he gets in, but I bet Alice will warn him. Hmm… I'll work something out.

Rosalie listened hard for a moment, searching for my voice, and then sighed when she didn't hear it. Stubborn jackass.

Jasper pulled the car to a stop in front of the house and spoke in a whisper. "Ready?"

I nodded and climbed out. "Esme, Carlisle, Rosalie, Emmett," I called their names as if I was returning from a trip to the store rather than years of self-imposed exile.

There was a sharply indrawn breath from upstairs, and then Esme's face appeared at the window. "Edward!"

I smiled as she lost all decorum and ran from the house, out of the door, and into my arms. She clung to me with her not insubstantial strength, and broken sobs burst from her in the vampire approximation of crying with happiness. I soothed her and patted her back, relishing the contact and comfort her embrace brought me.

Carlisle appeared behind her. He laid one hand on her back and the other on my shoulder. His smile was wide and pleased. Welcome home, son.

I returned his smile. "Thank you."

Alice? he asked.

I cast my eyes sideways to Rosalie, who she stood at the top of the porch steps, her expression of satisfaction not entirely hiding her happiness.

I should have known.

As I handed Esme into Carlisle's waiting arms, Emmett whooped and ran at me. His intention was to grab me in a headlock and ruffle my hair, but I was too fast. I caught his arm and dodged away from his grip.

"Man, I missed this," he said at the very moment he thought the exact same thing—always transparent.

"Come in," Esme said, fluttering her hands at me. "There's so much we need to talk about."

We all gathered in the lounge, and I took a seat on the couch, braced on either side by my parents. Alice and Jasper sat close on a loveseatת and Rosalie perched on the arm of Emmett's chair.

"I assume you know what's been happening," Carlisle said.

"I know a little," I said.

"Have you seen her?" Emmett asked.

"Yes, only for a moment, from a distance."

"She's different, right?" Emmett asked. Our little Bella grew up.

"Very," I agreed.

"Wait till you talk to her," Alice said with a laugh. "Then you'll see just how different she is."

Emmett grinned. "Talk? Wait till he sees her in uniform!"

I frowned. "Uniform?"

In the equivalent of a mental bellow, Emmett flashed me an image of Bella in the navy uniform of a police officer. It couldn't possibly be real. Bella, a cop? The idea was ludicrous.

"I'm not kidding," Emmett said. "Bella—or, I should say, Officer Swan—is badass."

I looked to Carlisle, sure he would refute Emmett's words, but he nodded.

I sat, frozen in shock for a moment, and then a laugh bubbled from me. "I guess that really does count as different."

"Getting a gun pointed at you counts as different, too," Rosalie said, pressing her lips together.

"That wasn't just a way to get me home, then?" I asked hopefully.

"I am afraid not," Carlisle said regretfully. "Naturally, she is fine, but in the course of her work, she dealt with an attempted robbery, and she was forced to shoot." Seeing my horror, he hurried on. "The robber wasn't killed. In fact, Bella acted against protocol and only injured him."

He presented me with an image of a grubby looking man in a hospital bed, shouting for morphine.

"I hope you didn't give him any," I growled. The man that dared to threaten my love deserved pain. I would happily deliver.

"I assure you, in the course of his treatment and rehabilitation, he's suffered," he said.

I absorbed that and nodded. I supposed it would have to suffice. For now.

"So," I asked. "How did this happen?"

Carlisle cleared his throat. "We met at the hospital after the shooting. She escorted the robber. I can't tell you how shocked I was." He cast his mind back to their meeting for me, allowing me to see her in a clean, white hospital room in her uniform, a gun on her hip—a gun! "After that, we met occasionally and… Well, you know the rest. She's here."

"And so are you," Rosalie said triumphantly. "And you're staying."

I could see it all in her mind: how happy she was to have me home, her family together, and her complete confidence that it would stay that way. It was what she had been hoping for since we left Forks, the reunion of the people she loved, and to her mind, Bella was the crux of that, little as she wanted to admit the power a human had over our family of vampires.

"I…don't know," I said.

"Pardon?" Though her tone was calm, her eyes raged.

"I don't know if I will stay," I said, feeling the disappointment of the room as if I had borrowed Jasper's gift for a moment.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because I don't know if I will be wanted."

"Of course you are!" she said angrily. "Dammit, Edward, are you blind? Can't you see what you have done to us by leaving and staying away for so long?"

She sent me images and memories of the years the family had spent apart: Esme and Carlisle's sadness, Emmett and Alice's disappointment as the months slipped into years, her own frustration with what she thought of as my stubbornness. What she didn't mean to show me—but I saw anyway—was a conversation with Carlisle in that this very room only days ago. "Even if Edward was here, if he was to lay his heart down at her feet, she would not have a place for it beside hers anymore."

I felt the bottom drop out of my world. Four years ago, I had received confirmation that Bella had done the human thing and moved on from my love, and I thought I had made peace with that. Apparently, I hadn't. It physically hurt me to hear Carlisle's remembered words through Rosalie's thoughts. It seemed I'd always had hope in my heart that Bella held a place for me where I had once belonged.

Irritation surged through me. Rosalie knew as well as any of us what it meant for a vampire to meet their mate; she knew the way your whole life switched to accommodate them in your heart. The unchanging nature of a vampire was only altered by that huge moment. She had experienced the same thing while Emmett was going through his change. As the venom burned through him, she had changed, too.

I'm sorry, she thought.

My irritation passed with her words. She had meant no malice when she had called me. She merely wanted me home. I would have felt the same had she been the one that had gone, but I would not have done this to her. I loved her too much to risk causing her pain.

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter." It did, of course, but she didn't need me to tell her that. I saw my sadness reflected in her eyes. She knew already.

"You will stay a while though, right?" Emmett asked. C'mon, man, you can't just up and leave. Look how happy Esme is.

I frowned at him. Using Esme to make me feel guilty was a low blow in my opinion. He wanted us together as much as anyone, but I thought he was better than that.

"I will not leave immediately," I conceded, smiling when I saw Esme's obvious glee. I loved my mother and wanted her to be happy, but I wasn't sure she would be after too long in my company without Bella.

"Good," Emmett said happily. "In that case, we should hunt."

"I've fed, Emmett."

"Yeah, but when you see Bella again, you're going to need to be as sated as you can be."

"Who said I will be seeing her again?" I asked.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Edward, it's Bella. Fate never did have a chance of keeping you two apart. What makes you think that's going to change now?"


Bella

I hummed to myself as I walked the halls of the hospital. One of the best things about visiting Carlisle was the all-night coffee stand in the lobby. It was engineered to keep night-shift doctors and nurses alert, but it worked just as well for cops.

I was a familiar face in the hospital during the night, and I had a friendly relationship with some of the staff. Amanda, a nurse I had met during Max Brier's admission, waved to me as I passed and called, "He's in his office."

"Thanks," I replied.

Of all the Cullens, Carlisle was the one I was most comfortable with now. The disappointment that my reunion with the rest of the family had been didn't seem to matter when it came to him. Perhaps Jasper had been right; they were reacting to the danger I had been in as opposed to the changes wrought in me. It still didn't improve the memory of our meeting.

I was looking forward to seeing Carlisle, though.

When I reached his office, I knocked and smiled at his soft reply, "Come in, Bella." Of course, he knew it was me. He probably recognized my footsteps before my scent even reached him.

I entered and then stopped dead in my tracks. He wasn't alone. His company was once my reason for being. Edward.

"Bella," Edward breathed, his golden eyes darkening to coal black.

My muscles locked down in panic, and my breath froze in my lungs. I knew that look. I remembered. He was hungry. I didn't know what to do, though. If I ran, he might follow. If I stayed, he might strike.

I saw Carlisle shift in my peripheral vision, coming to stand beside me and resting a hand on my shoulder, "Are you okay, Bella?" he asked.

I nodded. Carlisle looked from me to Edward, and he seemed to understand the problem at once. "Edward," he cautioned.

Edward closed his eyes, and when they opened, they were a little lighter. "I apologize," he said with a wry smile. "That was unforgivable."

So the dramatic streak hadn't changed. "No blood, no foul," I said, remembering an overheard conversation from a long time ago.

His smile became pained. That should not have surprised me, either. It did, though. He was still so much like his old self. I was so different from how I had been at eighteen. I had expected him to be different, too. I'd forgotten what he had once told me about the unchanging nature of a vampire. He had always been more person than vampire to me, though.

"I can leave," I offered. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"No!" he said quickly. "Please, stay."

"Why don't you sit down, Bella," Carlisle said.

I took my accustomed seat in front of his desk and folded my hands in my lap, feeling oddly formal in the place I was usually so comfortable.

Edward and Carlisle locked eyes, and I knew they were communicating in the silent way only Edward could. After a brief moment, Edward took a chair from under the window and set it down beside mine but a careful distance apart—perhaps far enough to reduce temptation.

"So," I said to break the silence, "how have you been?"

As soon as I asked the question, I wished I could take it back. Carlisle had told me just how he had been, and it wasn't good. I was being insensitive.

"I have been well," he replied, surprising both me and Carlisle if his raised eyebrows were anything to judge by.

"Italy, right?"

"Volterra. I told you once about the Volturi, didn't I?"

"They police your kind?"

"Yes. They have been gracious to allow me to stay with them in Volterra," he said. "It's a lovely city, beautiful and steeped in history. They have an incredible library. I have been educating myself."

Carlisle looked at him incredulously, and I sighed that we had come to this. Where once we had exchanged vows of love, now we discussed Italian cities and reading. It was sad but, I supposed, to be expected. What else was left when the adoration and passion were gone?

Sad and disappointed, I got to my feet again and smiled apologetically at Carlisle. "I should get going. I have some paperwork to do. I just wanted to say hello."

"Of course," Carlisle said, though he looked disappointed, too. "I have the night shift all week, so come whenever you like."

"Will do," I said lightly, turning to Edward. "It was good to see you."

"You, too," he said, standing. His hand moved from his side to midway between us and then dropped again.

I wondered at the motion. Was he going to offer me a hand to shake? Had our relationship really decayed to that point?

I hurried from the room and along the corridor until I came to a restroom. Ducking inside, I walked to the row of sinks. I splashed my face with cold water and then looked up into the mirror. I was wild-eyed and flushed, a perfect match to my emotional turmoil. I was grateful that Jasper wasn't there to feel and challenge it.

I was sad our meeting had been so…uncomfortable, though I knew it was more than that. Seeing him again had affected me. My memories had not done him justice. They had been pale in comparison to the beauty of his face, his mesmerizing eyes, and his flawless skin. He was gorgeous. How could I have forgotten so many details of him?

I had imagined seeing him again at some point since Carlisle came back into my life and yet, naively, I had never imagined it would be so awkward. I almost felt like crying at the loss of the Edward I had known.

My eyes burned, and I forced my tears back through sheer stubbornness. I was not going to walk out of here looking like my world had imploded. That had happened a long time ago. This was not that bad. This was just…sad.

I wiped a hand over my face and checked myself in the mirror again. My eyes were a little red, but they were not wild now. I could pass as normal. I drew a shaky breath and left the room, coming to an abrupt stop on the threshold.

Edward was standing there.

He looked apologetic and embarrassed but also determined. "Bella," he said in a rush. "Are you okay? I am sorry for how I behaved. I wasn't expecting to see you, and it caught me off guard."

"No problem," I said.

"I would very much like to see you again," he said. "To make amends as it were. Perhaps we could go somewhere alone."

"Can you handle that?" I asked. "You seemed…thirsty back there."

His lips turned down at the corners. "Not thirsty, Bella. I am in perfect control of that side of my nature."

"Okay, then," I said. I trusted that he would not put me at risk knowingly. So much else had changed, but not that. I thought it better to make it an open-air meeting, though, to make things easier on him. "There is a place called Warrenton a little along the coast. They have a few beaches that are usually deserted. How about we meet at the West Street parking lot around seven tonight?"

"That sounds perfect," he said. "I will see you then."

I nodded and smiled. "See you, Edward."

I turned away and made for the exit, feeling his eyes on me as I walked. I felt a thrill of anticipation at the thought of our next meeting.

I could only hope it went better than the last.


So… That was awkward. They will have their meeting in the next chapter though, and things will be a little easier.

Until next time…

Simaril xxx