A/N: Going back in time a bit. Remember them swimming naked in the lake watching the stars? Where if Edward wasn't wet, he'd be nervous sweating? Yup. That part. Let's continue there. Thank you for the reviews. Love to read them smiling and happily cross-eyed.

Chapter 26 - Go Find Him

BPOV - Two years ago, after their lake swim

Bella dreams every night of dark water on skin. She dared to do it. She bites her lip in class to keep the fitting giggles at bay.

His face. He was so speechless. Guys. She rolls her eyes. They're all the same. Any male, even unwilling, let their jaw hang, maybe a little tongue with it, at the sight of skin. He was so transfixed the moment Bella pulled off her dress at the dock, the last night of summer.

That night, as Renee stacked up all the bags and boxes by the door to take home, Bella hurried to finish gathering her things from her room. She needed so badly to go back to him one last time, to tell him she would be leaving for the summer.

She learned so much from him these past few months. She meddled and pushed until he actually spoke to her. Her beach chair created a dent on the soft ground right by his tent; it was her escape every morning; to watch him, to talk to him, ask him questions he never answered. Until he did. He began to speak. Now her notebook is full of information about him, ready to be researched. Among those pages are words describing the night she slept in his arms on July fourth. The mortification she felt waking up and remembering the terrifying noises at night and her willingness to crawl out of his bed and curl up beside him on the floor.

It was heavenly.

Bella smiles this time remembering. The high school calculus teacher spitting out formulas on the board, and Bella only sees Edward's reaction to her body.

She sighs. That was the most perfect night, swimming naked in a lake, hand in hand with Edward. Him turning to look at her every once in a while. The silence around them, but the loud feelings.

Oh, she knows he felt something. He felt her presence for the first time all summer. His eyes opened. His loneliness sought out companionship; a coupling. He wanted her that night in that water.

Bella should feel guilty. Maybe she does a little. She smiles again, flipping her pencil in her hand. No. She loved every second of it. Taunting him. She dared to, and she did. Leaving him with the memory of her until she goes back to him. And when she goes back, he won't resist. He'll take her in his arms and kiss her. He'll tell her how crazy she made him all winter.

Her secret.

She can hardly wait for finals to come, graduation, and spring to end. She wants so badly to go back.

Class ends, and she gathers her things. Blissful Bella doesn't know that at home, as she'll walk up to the house, an ambulance will be there pushing her very ill mother on a gurney.

All giddiness will melt to worry.

...

"Bella, don't fret," Renee says, yet there are tears in her eyes. "Everything will work out."

Bella is bent over Renee's hospital bed, her hand in hers. She cries. The doctor just left the room. The diagnosis, a hard pill to swallow.

A death sentence.

Charlie stands by the window and stares out. All the raging thoughts in silence.

Renee reaches out a hand toward him. "Babe," she calls. He doesn't turn. Her hand drops to the mattress. Renee knows he won't be the same. Anger has taken over. She always needs to give him room to process. It was the same the day she told him she was pregnant with Bella. They were so young. Charlie heard her confession and took a walk. When he came back, he melted at her feet and gently placed a kiss where a tiny Bella matured and grew.

This is the opposite of life. How will he live without her? He can't. He won't.

Charlie walks out of the hospital room to take that walk. Renee sighs. She knows he'll be back. He always comes back.

"We need to hope and fight, it's all we can do," she says to Bella—to the air, the universe. She will fight. This cancer will not take her.

So, it's what she does. She fights, and she hopes. Charlie and Bella do too. As the day the doctor said would be her last, comes and goes, the Swan family gains more hope. Renee is still herself.

Summer comes and all of Bella's anticipations in seeing Edward again fade. She isn't thinking of him as much. She just worries and keeps busy caring for her mother.

Graduation passes; a day Renee couldn't make. Charlie kept the phone live and streaming just so she could watch Bella walk across the stage to get her diploma. Then, at the end, when she stepped off the stage, Charlie was there to hug and congratulate her. All they did was cry over each other's shoulders.

Bella dedicates her summer to her mother. Then fall. Then winter. The appointments, the hand holding while chemo seeps through her veins at the hospital on a recliner. Bella reads her excerpts from the books she buys.

Regularly, Bella wonders if Edward would like the book she picked out at the bookstore. She roams through the aisles and finds the most eccentric subjects he would find fascinating. Thinking of him is the only way to keep him close. She always wonders what he was up to, what he ate; if it was enough, did he lose weight? She reads to Renee and pretends all the smart, broodingly handsome protagonists are him.

Charlie always seems to keep busy. It's how he learns to cope. He goes back to the camp that summer without Bella or Renee to make sure the cabin made it safely through the winter. He goes with Renee's yearly supplies and photos in his hand to adorn the walls.

Bella wants so badly to jump in the back seat of the car as she watches him go. She lets the tears flow as she watches the car grow smaller in the distance.

Every night she cries. The tears are for her mother, but also for the pain she feels in her heart for not making the trip. She can't send word. She can't let him know she thinks of him. She hopes that with will and might alone, he could sense her apology for not making it to him.

Renee hears her daughter sniffle and cry at night. At first, she thinks it's because of her. She feels defeated, guilty that she's letting her only daughter down. She feels her health deteriorating and is powerless to stop it. There is nothing she could do.

But then, Bella's crying nights happened too regularly, too frequently. She'd watch her daughter get lost in thought for hours. She knows her like a muscle memory, like the involuntary actions one takes to breathe or blink. Renee blinks and notices Bella doesn't as she stares out at trees outside the windows.

Bella has a secret.

She doesn't ask. Renee lets it settle like dust in corners of places. She waits for Bella to open up. It'll burst. She knows it. It's only a matter of time.

When she ends up in the hospital again that winter, Renee feels like time is slipping from her fingers. Still, Bella doesn't confess what she waited patiently to hear.

It must be something monumental. It must be life changing or heartbreaking. Why else would Bella not budge?

"Sweetheart," she calls her. Bella finally blinks out of her daily reverie. "I can't hold on much longer. You have to tell me."

Like words could ignite a fire in her, Bella bursts into tears. Renee figures this is worse than she expected. She thinks of all the tragedies it could be. Did she kill someone? Did she commit a crime? Is someone after her? Or worse, is she pregnant?

"Spit it out," she encourages. "You're scaring me."

Bella sighs and takes a breath. "I'm in love," she finally says.

Renee breathes a sigh of relief. She knows she doesn't speak of Jameson. They haven't spoken for the longest time. It must be someone else. "Then why do you constantly look so depressed, isn't it a good thing?" Bella doesn't laugh. This must be bad.

"Because he's far away. He's difficult to reach, and I can't see him."

Renee hmphs. "Long distance relationships," she says, staring up at the ceiling. "I get it's hard, but not impossible." She interjects. "What's the problem?" Her daughter is quiet. She pushes. "Where does he live? Did you meet him online?"

Bella laughs slightly, but it's twisted with grief and humorlessness.

"He lives in the campsite."

Renee furrows what little is left of her brows. A bandana is wrapped around her head to keep the balding spots from view. Charlie has kissed them and said how beautiful she looks anyway. Bella thinks so, too.

"Lives there? But it's a vacation spot. Which cabin?"

Bella stays quiet.

Renee gets it. "You're mad because you couldn't go with your father. You should've. I would've been fine."

Bella sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes. "No. It's not that." Then she melts into more tears. "You'd kill me."

"I won't. I couldn't if I tried. Keeping hands to self. No hair pulling or yelling. I promise." Renee lifts her arms from the bed, trying to lighten the mood. Bella doesn't even crack a smile.

The pit in Renee's belly gapes. She's dreadfully worried now. Bella was never the type to feel this hard. Bella is a spontaneous, free-spirited, realist. She doesn't brood or hide in silent hurt. She is loud about what she feels.

"I know you, baby. If it's this much, it has to be a good story. Tell me a story." Renee encourages.

Bella sighs. "You've heard of him already. Everyone has. Even the camp sheriff. For years he's been infamous, yet, no one can seem to find him." Bella blinks up at her mother whose lips have gone round with question. "What do they hatefully call him, Mom? What's his name?"

Renee is speechless.

Bella nods. "I found him. I've known him for two summers now. You've cooked meals for him that I served in bowls, remember those? He's been in our cabin, in my room, in yours. He's even borrowed things from Dad. He's already part of the family," Bella says sarcastically.

Bella glances at her mother. "Don't worry. He's harmless. I might be the worst thing that's ever happened to him."

Renee swallows this heavy load. She breathes. Her eyes drift closed, and of course, her daughter would be involved in something like this. She couldn't just be a normal kid. She had to go for the unexpected.

"Where does he live?"

"Not in a cabin. He only takes from them to survive."

"Where, Bella?"

She wipes her tears and looks over at her mother. "In the middle of the woods. Alone. For nearly ten years."

Renee let's out a breath. She pulls her arms over her head and watches the ceiling. Bella can't help but feel tears springing again. She knew no one would understand.

"Bella, do you realize how …"

"Don't. Don't you dare lecture me," she interrupts. "I've met a human who is the kindest, most passionate I've ever had the honor to meet. He's good. He's …"

"A criminal," Renee finishes.

Bella melts by her mother in her sorrow. She sobs. Regretting ever opening her mouth.

Renee's heart breaks. For hours, it seems, Bella cries. Never has her daughter felt this much.

"Okay. Get up," she orders her. "Look at me." Bella slowly does. "You're in love, you're a woman now? Fine. Help me understand. Tell me everything. I want every detail."

So Bella does. She tells her about the time Sam and Charlie hiked one morning. "Remember, when you made me go with them or scrub the floors? Well, Sam told us about this young guy living in the woods. Sam knows who he is and what he's been doing all these years," she says as a way of justifying her secret of a wanted man. She tells her how she went out every night to go find him, and when she did, she fell.

"I woke up in his … campsite."

"Jesus, Bella," Renee complains. "Have I taught you nothing?" Bella rolls her eyes.

"I was fine!" she says with a huff. "I … terrified him. He's not crazy. He just wants to be alone." Renee's expression is blank. "Look, I've done the research. There are documented people all through history just like him. Monks are among them. He's not doing it for religion, he just … felt like he never fit into society.

"Mom, you know I'm not normal. You've known it all along. How many times have you thought to yourself that your daughter isn't typical like her friends?"

Renee gives her a side eye. "What, now you're telling me you'll go off into the woods to live with him? Forget college, forget normal living? You commit crimes together?" Bella seems to have her eyes swimming in her sockets with how many times she rolls them.

She stands to walk away. "If you're going to be this negative, I won't say anything else." Renee lifts her hands in surrender. She keeps quiet.

"He's different. I … understood him. I was the first person he's ever spoken to in the time he's been there. Do you know how hard it was to read him, get him to open up?"

"Why is this suddenly your job to do?" Renee deadpans.

Bella looks at her mother square in her eyes, and with all that she can muster, she tells her the honest truth. "Because I'm crazy about him. I can't stop thinking about him. Winters go by, and I wonder if he even made it, if I'll find him dead. And I'm the only person who would ever care."

Renee watches her daughter's life flash before her eyes in an instant; Bella, living in a cabin, waiting for a man for the rest of her life who won't ever commit. Sadness strikes her. Bella will never give this up. She'll run over anything or anyone in her path to do what she wants. Her dedication for another person never was this passionate. Renee fears for everything that will happen when she's no longer on earth.

"And tell me," she says to her daughter. "Does he feel the same for you?"

Bella sighs tiredly. She slouches in a chair and gives up. Tears fall silently. She knows he does, she just has to see him, talk to him, make him see the feelings have always been there for him as well.

For days Renee watches her. She takes in all she's said time and again. She always knew she'd have to let Bella fly on her own one day, and maybe this is the perfect time. When she's gone, she won't be here to coddle, encourage, or warn. Her child will make mature decisions, and she'll have to learn from them alone.

The day Renee's health turns for the worst, all she can think about is leaving an unhappy child behind. She accepts. She lets go of fear and grabs hold of Bella's hand desperately.

"Life is short. You know exactly what to do with yours. Not many ever get the chance. So, go, Bella. Go find him."

Bella sobs. Never in all her life did she think her mother's last words to her would be those. Relief and elation seep through her bones. She promises her mother with a goodbye kiss and a final declaration of love.

….