The first thing Bella was aware of upon waking was an all-over soreness. Despite a full night's sleep, she felt wrung out, spent. The next thing she noticed was the familiar cottony taste in the back of her throat combined with the twinge of nausea that always showed up the morning after she used Renée's sedatives. She groaned and stretched, her mind running through its old "real or dream?" regimen.

Real or dream? Her ex-husband was a werewolf now.

Real.

Real or dream? She'd yelled at him and cried with him and cut herself off from his family for good.

Real.

Real or dream? She'd come home, taken pills, and gotten into the bathtub.

She stopped there; wasn't sure about this one. All of her memories after she walked in her front door – the freezing cold, the bile in her throat – were pretty fuzzy.

She kept her eyes shut and tried to remember. Yes, she'd found the pill bottle. Had she taken one, or two? Yes, two. Stupid, she thought. And, yes, she had decided to take a bath afterward. Really stupid.

But what after that? An awful chill worked through her.

Oh my god, I don't know how I got out, she thought. How am I alive? She imagined herself, not in this bed, but still in that tub, lying still under the surface of the water. A bizarre thought occurred to her: God, Renée would never manage to sell the place after the stories got around Forks about that.

Bella realized that she was naked, even though she rarely slept without pajamas.

Naked.

Another image surface from her fogged mind. The bedroom around her, the bed beneath her, and Edward's face before her.

Real or dream?

That couldn't possibly be real. It had to be one of the drug's more colorful moments of performance in her mind. There was just no way.

God, I need some coffee, she thought.

She rolled over in bed and saw Edward Cullen sitting on floor in the corner of her bedroom.

She shrieked and jerked back, pulling the sheets up to her chin.

"Good morning," Edward said. He looked tired.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. Her heart pounded as her mind reconsidered its previous belief that Edward Cullen was strange but harmless. She thought of her phone, and of the Forks police. They would come quickly if called to the late police chief's address, and they would rain down hell itself on someone threatening Charlie Swan's only daughter. But had she brought her phone upstairs with her last night? Bella didn't think so. She thought it was probably downstairs in the messy pile of purse stuff on Charlie's couch.

Edward wore a rumpled white dress shirt over khakis. He was slouching against the wall with his knees up. His wrists rested on them loosely; his hands were clasped together. When he spoke, his voice was calm and even, but there was a note of effort in that calm.

"I'm sorry to scare you. You won't believe me, but the fact is that you're in no danger from me. I'm going to explain what happened, and after that, I'll leave if you still want me to. Okay?"

He waited patiently for her to answer.

"O-okay," Bella said, unsure of what else to do. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for something she might use as a weapon, but the room was almost entirely bare.

Edward nodded and went on.

"Around ten last night, Jasper got a call on his cell phone from your number. No one spoke, but he could hear you crying over the connection. It sounded as though you were in a car. He and Alice were… having dinner a ways out of town, but I was nearby. Alice had a bad feeling about the call, so she called and asked me to check on you.

"When I got here, your car was in the driveway, but no one answered when I knocked on your door. Most of your lights were off. I figured you must be asleep. I almost left. God, Bella. I almost left." He clenched his hands for a second, took a long, ragged breath. When he was calm again, he continued. "But Alice's feelings have been right more than once, so I decided to try your door. It was unlocked. No one answered when I called out inside. I came upstairs, and your bathroom door was open. I got there just as you went under the water." He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "I got you out of the bathtub and helped you to bed. Nothing else happened. I thought of leaving… You might not have remembered any of it. But I wanted to make sure you were okay during the night."

Bella felt a tear run down her cheek. Yes, she remembered now. She pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Thoughts of the police were forgotten. Edward was not her enemy today.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I don't know how I could have been so stupid. Thank you."

Edward stood. He came across the room to the bed and sat down beside her.

"Bella," he said, leaning toward her, "I know that you don't know me. And I know that I can't truly understand what you've been through. I've… never had a child, and I don't really remember my birth parents. But I do know what it is to not want to live, or to not care if you die. I do understand that." His eyes were far away for a moment; then he refocused on her. "And so I know that there's nothing I can say to you, no pep talk I can give you, that will make you happy again. That will happen for you in its own time, or it won't, or more likely, something in between will happen. Until then… This place you're in… As I said, I know it. It's dark and empty, and no one can go through it for you. But I also know that it's a bad idea to be alone too much while you're in it. Other people… They help, Bella. Not because they change anything, but just being around… It helps, maybe just enough."

Bella sat for a long moment, considering this strange man.

"What do you want from me, Edward? Who am I to you?"

Edward glanced away from her.

"I don't know," he said.

He's a terrible liar, she thought.

"Edward…" she began.

"It's not acceptable to me for you to die, Bella," he cut in, and this time she believed him. His eyes looked intently into hers. "It's not acceptable to me for you to be without help right now, not if I can give it to you. It's not acceptable to me for you to be alone, not if you'll have me around."

He leaned forward, lightly brushing his fingers across her cheek.

"Do you want me to leave now?" he asked.

There were so few things that Bella knew for sure anymore, but she knew this.

"No, Edward. I really don't."

Edward waited for her downstairs while she showered and dressed.

I have no idea what I'm doing, she thought as she pulled a brush through her hair.

The alternative, though, was empty hours in this empty house, and she just couldn't face that. Not today.

But it was more than that. It felt to her as though, just maybe, Edward was more than just a nice guy who was in the right place at the right time. Some crazy, hopeful part of her, the part of her that really had no business surviving the last year, thought that Edward might be living proof that something greater in the universe was actually on her side.

She really needed that proof today.

When she came downstairs, Edward was staring into Charlie's refrigerator. He closed the door and turned to her.

"I can't cook, Bella. At all. I thought being in here might inspire the ability, but I'm afraid not. Will you let me take you out instead?"

"Well, sure, but I wasn't expecting you to feed me, Edward," she said.

That was when she noticed the prescription bottle sitting, open and empty, on the counter next to the sink. He saw her looking, and met her eyes. His expression challenged her to object to what he'd done. She did not.

"I can just have some cereal," she said intead. "Or I could make us some eggs or something."

"Let's just get out of here," he said, picking her coat up off the arm of the couch and holding it up for her. "It'll be good for you. And they're saying it might not even rain for the whole day."

He offered to drive, and she let him. She expected him to head for the diner in town, but he turned the other way onto the highway, heading away from Forks.

"I thought we could use a change of scenery," he said. "There's a brunch place in Port Angeles that people say is good."

"Okay, sure," she said.

Edward leaned forward and pressed a button to turn on the car's stereo. A familiar song filled the interior of the car.

"Hey, I know this. It's Neil Young," Bella said. "I was just listening to it the other day; Charlie really liked him."

"I like him, too," he said, a bit too casually. "Sometimes I forget how good he was, and then I hear one of his songs somewhere, and then I can't stop listening to him."

They rode together in silence for a while, listening to Neil invite them to open up and let the light back in. Bella wiped tears away with the back of her hand.

"I keep wanting to say that I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry and thank you. I feel like I need to say that more."

"You don't need to," Edward said. "We were both lucky, that's all."

"Well, I guess that's a change for me, at any rate," she said with a bitter laugh. "Beating the odds in a good way."

"The world is more awful than most people would ever guess," Edward said. "I'm sorry that you know that now. You never get to stop knowing it."

"Until last year, I had no idea," she agreed. "Nothing really bad had ever happened to me. I mean, my parents divorced, and I thought that made me, like, incredibly deep and experienced because of all my important suffering. Teenagers think about things that way, I guess. I wrote a lot of angsty poetry, wore black clothes for a while. Now I look back... I had no idea what suffering was."

"I remember you from back then," Edward said, smiling. You were so serious, so… intentionally complex, the way young, smart girls are sometimes. You did such a good job of it; the other kids worshipped you. They saw you sneaking cigarettes out by that old truck of yours, scribbling in that diary with your hair falling all over your face, and they were just smitten."

Despite the years between Bella and that memory, she felt her face flush.

"God, really? I can't believe you remember me at all. We were at the school together, what, a couple of days? One day? And from what I remember, I hardly had the market cornered on the whole brooding teenager thing."

"Fair enough," he said, inclining his head. "That was a rough time for me. I'd been dealing with some things for a long time, but everything just came to a head right then. I sort of came apart for a while."

"Is that why you left?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Where did you go?" she asked. It was probably a rude question, but she figured that polite boundaries change a little after someone's seen you naked and drugged.

"I went to stay with some family up north," he said. "I needed to be out of school for a while, be somewhere peaceful with people who understood and cared for me."

"Were they biological family, or relatives of Carlisle and Esme?"

"Hmm, neither," he said. "They're old friends of Carlisle and Esme's. Chosen family."

"Chosen family," Bella repeated with a sigh. "That sounds so nice."

The restaurant in Port Angeles was a cozy café with a French name and attractively mismatched furnishings. The hostess seated them near the front window where they could look out and see the water, a flat gray expanse reflecting a flat gray sky.

The rain started falling just before the waitress took their orders. Bella raised an eyebrow at Edward when he only ordered coffee.

"Not hungry?" she asked.

"Not too bad," he said. "I'm on a special diet. It's easier for me to wait and eat later when I'm home."

She nodded. Back in Seattle, it seemed as though half her friends were on one special diet or another. Paleo, raw, low FODMAP, gluten-free… She'd become well-practiced at not asking too many questions about such things, lest she find herself on the receiving end of a critical analysis of her own lais sez faire eating habits.

"So, you already know what I've been doing," she said as they waited for the food to arrive. "Death, divorce, depression, all that fun stuff. What have you been up to since high school?"

"Traveling, mostly," he said. "I worked with Alice on Second Sofia for a while, networking with designers and manufacturers in Malaysia and India, mostly."

Bella stared at him. "Alice's clothing site is Second Sofia? That's huge, Edward. I had no idea she was behind a business that large."

"Yeah, they're doing quite well. I think even Alice is a little surprised by how quickly things took off."

Edward's casual discussion of his sister's ownership of one of the largest online clothing sellers in the country made Bella feel a little disoriented. Sometimes she could almost forget how different their worlds were, but the fact was that the Cullens were wealthy in a way that she'd never really get her mind around. Luxuries that were unimaginable to most of the residents of Forks were simply normal for the Cullens. Back in school, they'd stood out, almost garish in their designer clothes and pricey new cars, but the Cullens themselves hardly seemed to notice how different they were from the others.

"When did Carlisle and Esme come back to Forks?" she asked.

"From Seattle, you mean? Back in the spring. The clinical trial Carlisle had been working with was wrapping up, and they decided to come back here so he could practice at Forks Community again. He missed it, and I think Esme missed the house here. We had a lot of good memories here."

Bella nodded. "Well, I guess we were just lucky with the timing of the study. I don't know what Jacob and I would have done if Carlisle hadn't been at Seattle Children's last year. The other doctors were okay, but they never explained things well enough for us. And it just helped so much having someone we trusted helping to care for David."

"I can imagine," Edward said. "Carlisle said David had a complex heart defect?"

"Yeah," Bella said. "Diagnosed at one of the ultrasounds. The big one, you know, where you find out the sex? They didn't know how bad it was then. They did a few more ultrasounds before he was born, but they couldn't tell us for sure how it would come out. We didn't know if he would be relatively okay and just need a surgery later, when he was bigger and stronger, or if he'd stay in the hospital for the whole time, or…" She swallowed against the tightness in her throat as her food arrived. She turned her attention to her eggs Benedict, stabbing at them with her fork.

"Carlisle said he was a beautiful baby," Edward offered.

"He was," Bella said, her eyes shining. "So beautiful. He had so much hair. It was so soft. And his chin, it had that little cleft that looks like a butt." She laughed a little.

"Did he look like you or like Jacob?"

"Well, his skin was darker, like Jacob's, but Charlie said he looked just liked I did when I was a baby. I think he just looked like himself. David William Black, the one and only. He was amazing. We were so proud of him."

She took a bite of her eggs, a sip of juice.

"If you like, I'll show you his pictures sometime," she said, her voice carefully casual, her eyes on her breakfast.

"I'd like that very much, Bella."

He took her to a movie after that. It had been so long since she'd been in a theater, not since before David, that the whole thing felt very novel, as though the two of them were kids ditching class together. Just wanting to escape the rain, they bought tickets to the next show starting without checking the title. The film, which featured Keanu Reeves playing a samurai warrior, was predictably terrible, but they had a wonderful time nonetheless. It being a matinée in the middle of the week in a small town, the auditorium was empty but for them. The movie's unintentional funniness provided all the entertainment that the intended drama could not.

Bella couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so much.

When they came out the front doors, the rain had gone from a steady drizzle to a full-on downpour.

"Wait here, and I'll bring the car," Edward said.

"You don't have to do that," Bella said.

"Right, because I'm going to let you walk out in the rain," he said, shaking his head. "I'll be right back."

He strode out into the rain then, leaving Bella under the awning in front of the theater. Just as he turned the corner, she heard a voice beside her, suddenly close.

"You got a dollar I can have?" the man asked. His clothes were dirty, his hair and beard long and tangled. He hugged a thin coat around himself. Bella reached for her purse and realized she didn't have it. It was still back on the couch in Forks, empty beside everything she'd dumped out. Edward had paid for the food and the movie.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't have any money."

"Please, miss, I need bus fare so I can get back over to the shelter later. They don't let you in if you get there after six, and it's been so cold." He took a step closer to her, and she backed up reflexively, bumping into the brick wall of the theater behind her.

"Really, I don't—" she started to say, but a sudden sound and movement cut her off. The sound was a car door, but it couldn't have been Edward's car door, because the same instant she heard the door close, he was there, standing between her and the homeless man. Edward's entire body was tensed; he had one hand against the man's chest. The other clenched and unclenched in a fist at his side.

"I wasn't going to hurt her," the man said, fear flashing in his eyes.

"No, you weren't," Edward said. His voice sent a chill through Bella. He drew a deep breath, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. He reached for his wallet, took out some bills, and put them into the man's hand. "Here. You can still make the four o' clock bus if you start now."

"Thank you," the man said, and turned and left. He walked quickly, then broke into a run without looking back.

Bella looked at Edward uncertainly.

"Edward, how did you—"

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine. He just wanted money. He didn't touch me. But, Edward, you weren't anywhere near us, and then you were just there. And how did you know he needed money for the bus?"

Edward looked away from her.

"We should get going," he said, ignoring the question.

"Edward…"

He looked at her then, his expression somewhere between frustration and panic.

"I was closer than you thought, Bella. And I heard what he said to you. I can move quickly when I think you're in trouble."

He turned away then, going to the car and opening the passenger door for her.

She looked at him warily for a moment, then walked over and got into the car.

As they were driving back toward Forks, Edward's cell phone rang. He glanced at it, then picked it up and answered. Bella tried to pretend she wasn't listening to his end of the conversation, but, really, they were inside a car together. He had to know she couldn't help but hear him.

"Yes, Carlisle. I'm fine. Yes, she is, too… We're in Port Angeles. I took her to eat, and we saw a movie… I'm fine Carlisle. I know what I'm doing… I will, later… Yes, soon… Yes, I promise. Goodbye."

He ended the call and set down the phone with a sigh.

Bella sat stiffly in her seat, more than a little uncomfortable.

"He's, uh, involved. Protective?" she said when she couldn't bear the silence anymore.

"Yes, of both of us," Edward said in a low grumble.

"What do you mean?"

He glanced over at her.

"He was reminding me that I needed to eat soon," he said. "And I'm afraid to admit that he's right. I'm going to have to drop you off at home."

"Oh, okay," she said. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

When they arrived home, he insisted on walking her to her door, despite the driving rain and his lack of umbrella. She unlocked her front door, and turned back to him, smiling.

"Thank you for today, Edward," she said. "And, again, for last night. You don't need to worry; I won't be so careless again."

"Yes, please don't," he said. "And thank you as well for today. I enjoyed it." He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a business card and handed it to her. It just had his name, phone number, and email address.

"Edward A. Cullen," she read. "What does the 'A' stand for?"

He smiled. "Anthony. What about you, Isabella Swan? Do you have a middle name?"

"Marie," she said. "Me and half the other girls my age. I like yours better."

"Then I guess we're even, because I prefer yours."

He turned and left then, moving through the falling rain with that odd combination of speed and excessive deliberateness that was becoming so familiar to her.

Edward A. Cullen, she thought. The world's most graceful awkward person.

She went inside the house. Charlie's ancient but reliable stove clock told her it was just past five. She decided she would make lazy food, canned soup, maybe, for her evening meal and then read in bed until she was tired. The weather seemed to demand it, and she was exhausted after the day out with Edward. For someone who hadn't been out of bed much in the last year, brunch and a movie is a very busy day.

She looked around for a place to put Edward's card, then decided to just get the number saved into her phone before she lost it. She wasn't sure how she felt about spending more time with him, but she'd worry about that later. For now, it just felt better to have a way to reach him. After all, he was her own personal sign that maybe the universe wasn't trying to destroy her completely. It wouldn't do to lose track of him.

She found her phone where she thought she would – in the pile of things she'd dumped from her purse the night before. The battery was low but not dead. She tapped over to her contacts list and added Edward. She was about to put her phone into her purse and start to clean up the rest of the mess on the couch when a thought occurred to her.

It was bizarre. It was crazy. But she just had to check.

Bella scrolled through her log of recent phone calls.

The last one recorded was yesterday afternoon, when Billy had called to arrange the dinner at La Push. There was no accidental call to Jasper logged later that night.

Bella stared at her closed front door and shivered.

A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing (if you're so inclined). I'm on Facebook as Bethesda Gray if you'd like to chat me up there. I twitter now and then, at bethesdagray.