A/N: Sorry, loves. I didn't mean to leave you so long. Infant, work, sick. LIFE, you know what I mean? It's not nearly as exciting as these two's lives but DAMN is it a time suck.

I mean, BABIES. Amirite?

Edward woke up with a start. He blinked rapidly, looking around the dim light of the cabin, already on the defense though he couldn't tell why.

His spidey sense was tingling.

The baby sighed in his sleep, whole and unbothered. The cabin was quiet except for the whisper of the wind outside. He looked around the cabin again, struggling to push himself upright with his bound hands.

Bella was gone.

That wasn't what was wrong. The woman defined restless sleeping. She was up with the sun if not before it and would probably be back with breakfast and maybe a car she made from the materials she found in the forest.

Edward wiggled, managing to get his feet firmly on the floor so he could stand without the use of his hands and without waking Aaron. He peered out the cabin's front window, brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what was wrong.

Looking out at the tranquil scenery, Edward figured out what was wrong. It was quiet. Too quiet.

In Bella's survival lessons, she had harped on constant vigilance. Being aware of his surroundings at all times would give him a vast amount of information. Notice everything, she'd said more than once. Broken tree branches could indicate a place where a large mammal had passed. There were tracks and droppings.

In this case, the answer was in the silence. The birds weren't chirping—a strong indicator that there was a predator nearby.

Even though he knew Bella knew the signs better than he ever would, Edward couldn't help but be worried. Hell, in all likelihood, she was the predator the birds were reacting to, but still. He would feel a lot better when she was in front of him again, safe and sound. He peered harder through the window, scanning the forest. He just couldn't shake the eerie feeling there was trouble about.

He tugged at his binds and looked out again. He glanced at the sleeping baby. "Fuck this," he muttered under his breath. He hurried over to the counter where Bella had left one of her hunting knives. It took some doing, but he managed to get the door open and keep the knife in his hand.

Once outside, he went to a tree he knew had a fork he could use to his advantage. He stopped dead at the noise he heard. An unmistakable growl.

The noise was too quiet to be near enough to be a threat to him. The growl echoed a bit as though it were nearer to the open space. A bear? Maybe. He drove the butt of the knife into the fork in the tree, wedging it in the fork, blade up. He raised his hands, pulling them apart as far as the rope would allow. Carefully and quickly, he cut through the rope and let it fall to the forest floor. He wrenched the knife out of the fork, thanking Bella's meticulous planning for keeping it razor sharp.

Breath left him in a gust just before he went charging into the forest. He glanced back at the cabin, thinking about the sleeping baby and all the things that could kill or maim him in the cabin. After all, he had no proof anything was wrong. Bella had more than proven she knew how to handle herself in any given situation.

But his goddamn spidey sense.

The growl came again, and Edward took off, hoping like hell he was making the right decision. This woman was going to kill him for doing this, but what if…

He skidded to a halt, startled by a godawful sound—some snarling, growling, bellowing noise. Not one beast, he realized, but two. He picked up his step, moving faster now though he was sure to stay aware of his surroundings. He scanned the forest, and was careful to dodge branches and foliage that would have made more noise than was necessary. Though, with the racket, there wasn't much chance of him being heard by whatever was making those awful sounds.

He saw the commotion first as a blur of dark colors. Trees shook and cracked. Dust kicked up in clouds in the air. Then, the image resolved itself and Edward sucked in a sharp breath.

It was a fight to the death between a moose and a bear.

His first thought was that Bella was right. This was the first moose he'd ever seen in real life. Moose were ginormous. The beast was easily taller than a van; just massive. And it looked as fierce as Bella had promised it would when it reared up, bellowing, and kicked its massive hooves at the bear just as the beast took a swipe at it.

Bears, Bella had said, were just as eager as humans to avoid each other. They wouldn't attack just because. They would, however, attack when startled, when cubs were present, and when defending a meal. In those cases, the bear would fight viciously.

Edward's blood ran cold as he took in the scene. It seemed that, in this case, the rearing moose—itself bellowing, making a horrendous racket—might have been in trouble because it had interrupted the bear's meal. Its meal being the woman sprawling on the ground near the melee, her eyes closed and her face streaked with blood.

Every time the massive bodies landed near Bella, Edward flinched. He clutched the knife in his hand, unsure what to do.

She was alive. He could see her chest rise and fall from where he was. Her body was twisted at weird angle, one leg up off the ground. He cursed under his breath when he saw why. Her ankle was caught in a snare. His snare. A snare he'd set without telling her—a little larger than the ones she'd taught him to make to catch rabbits. The tracks he'd spotted were larger—definitely not moose and bear large, but maybe some kind of cat. He'd wanted to surprise her with enough meat to feed them for a few days.

She was definitely going to kill him.

But she'd have to be alive to do it.

Brandishing the knife, Edward crept forward. The closer he got, the more he thought he had to be insane. The bear's claws were sharp. It's teeth, dripping with saliva as it roared, were as big as his fingers. The moose screamed as it caught a claw across its chest. The air smelled of blood.

The bear crashed backward into the branch that held Bella, twisting her leg higher. She came awake with a cry looking like something out of a movie—blood running down her face in rivulets, dirt everywhere, fear in her eyes as another roar rang out through the forest.

As the distinctly non-CGI bear and moose thrust their battle to the death in the opposite direction of Bella's very breakable body, Edward darted forward. The snare wasn't very thick, and it only took a solid whack with the knife to get Bella loose. The branch that had held the snare flung upward, making way too much noise for Edward's comfort. The bear turned its head to assess the new threat, but the moose kicked it right in the throat, distracting it back again.

"Holy hell," Bella muttered under her breath, struggling to pull herself upright.

Edward threw the knife to the ground and gathered her up in his arms. "We're out of here."

In retrospect, Edward had no idea how he had enough breath in his body to run with her as fast as he did. Adrenaline hummed in his veins, and he darted through the forest like he didn't have to breathe. Like he was some supernatural creature with limitless strength and stamina.

He got to the cabin and set her down on the floor, slamming the door behind them. He peered out the window, scanning the treeline.

"A bear isn't going to pursue us," Bella said, her words slurred. "We're safe here."

He turned away from the window, his mind clearing a bit. He blinked rapidly, more information seeping in.

The baby was awake. He was sitting in the mess of blankets, crying hysterically. Edward realized he hadn't even processed the noise as it matched his chaotic mind. He took one step toward the boy and then remembered.

"You're hurt." He dropped down to one knee beside Bella who was, again, trying to get upright. He pushed her back down gently. "Let me see."

She sighed but settled down, both of them catching their breaths as Edward tried to find the source of the blood. He'd been expecting to find the bear had gotten its claws into her, but that didn't seem to be the case. Bella hissed in pain as he touched a place up near her temple that looked swollen and bloody.

"You hit your head," he realized out loud.

Aaron had toddled over, his cries turning to whimpers and then back to cries. He tugged at Edward's side.

Bella opened her eyes and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Hey. Hey. It's okay, little guy. Look. I'm awake. Not like your mom and dad."

"Mama," Aaron said plaintively.

"Did the bear get you at all?" Edward asked, feeling his way around the back of her head.

She looked perplexed. "There was a bear?"

He froze and looked in her eyes. Her eyes seemed hazy. "There was a bear," she said, her voice scratchy. "Shit. I thought that was a nightmare."

Edward's lip twitched. "You have a concussion."

"Well. That sucks."

"You know, the best thing for a concussion is to not use your brain as much as possible for a few days. You're going to have to let me do all the thinking for a little while."

She stared at him and groaned. "Shit. We're all going to die."

~0~

Unlike on television, concussions in real life weren't something from which one could recover from one minute to the next. Edward hadn't been kidding about Bella not using her brain for a little while. In the world before, patients were advised not to read, write, or engage in social media, among other things. Also unlike television, it wasn't necessary to keep the concussed awake. Sleep and rest could only help her state.

Of course, Bella being Bella, she fought it. She tried to get up, only to be forced down by dizziness and the sprained ankle she'd suffered. Because he'd known she would exert herself and what would probably happen, Edward was ready when nausea overtook her.

"I can keep us alive in this cabin for a few days," he said as he helped her back to bed and knelt at her side. He brushed a strand of hair away from her clammy head, careful not to upset that bandage over her wound. "You push this, you're going to be weaker for longer."

"Gotta be vigilant," she muttered, though her eyelids were already drooping. "We made so much noise. They'll know we're here."

He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, checking that she wasn't feverish—a sign of possible infection. "You're not alone right now, Bella. I'm being careful. I promise."

She grunted, obviously not too satisfied, but drifted off.

She woke some hours later, panicked and disoriented, calling his name.

"Hey, I'm right here." He knelt again by her side, catching the hand she waved in the air. She wasn't really awake, he saw. "Shhh. Just rest. Dinner will be done soon."

"Edward," she mumbled, but her eyelids drooped.

He rubbed her knuckles, shushing her as she calmed. Aaron ambled over and, adorably, joined in, whispering, "Shh. Shh. Shh," though with considerably more spit bubbles than Edward.

When he thought Bella had drifted off again, Edward started to pull away. She grabbed his hand, surprisingly strong, and when he looked back, her eyes were wide open. "I don't want to be alone anymore," she said.

He gripped her hands in his, surprised at the vulnerability he saw. "You don't have to be. I told you."

She held his gaze for another moment and then rested her head on the pillow, asleep again in a heartbeat.

~0~

A couple of days later, Edward watched Bella cross the cabin, favoring her tender leg. He gritted his teeth, glad Aaron was sitting on his lap as he had the urge to go to her and shake her.

"Bella—"

"We've been over this," she snapped. "This was always the plan. You go your way. I go mine. We have everything we need. It's time."

"You're injured."

She laughed, the sound somewhat bitter. "I've been injured before. My leg will heal. It's not broken."

"You and I both know you don't want to go at it alone anymore."

She glared at him, eyes flashing. "Why? Because of something I said when I was barely conscious?" She shook her head. "Nothing's changed."

"There's safety in numbers. If you'd been alone when that bear came, you would have been dead."

"If I hadn't stepped in the snare I had no reason to think was there, the snare that you set, I wouldn't have been in trouble. I would have seen the bear coming. If I had been alone up here like I was supposed to be, I'd have been fine."

Edward winced. She had a point. "But you—"

"Why do you care? Why does it matter so much to you that I don't want to go with you?"

"Because I… I…" He furrowed his brow. Why did he care so much?

He huffed out a breath and tried again. "Because that's what we're supposed to do. Care. I get why you think you can't trust anyone, Bella. I get why you think you're better off alone. I get that you can't just walk into a compound or up to a group of strangers and expect it'll turn out okay. But that isn't what happened here. You already know me. We're friends, aren't we?"

"I stabbed you."

"And I trapped you in a snare, remember?"

She scoffed and shook her head, turning back to what she'd been doing—filling their packs with supplies. "We're not friends. I took care of you because it was my responsibility."

"And I took care of you because that's what you do. You're supposed to take care of one another." He bounced the restless baby on his knee. "You don't have to watch your back every second of every day if you have good people with you."

She was quiet, and he sighed. "You still don't think I'm good people."

For long beats, she said nothing. Then she swallowed hard and looked up at him, that same vulnerability he'd seen briefly flashing through her eyes as she met his gaze. "I think when the world goes crazy, even good people do bad things."

"I think you're right. I know you're right. But the world went crazy years ago. If I was going to change who I am, become a rapist or whatever else you're worried about, I would have done it already." He shifted the baby as he stood and stepped closer to her. "You want an honest answer? We know about each other now, and we can help each other. Isn't that the definition of humanity? I don't want to live the rest of my life wondering if you survived this."

"That…" She took a steadying breath as though calming down, and didn't look at him. "That sounds like your problem."

He bounced the baby on his hip. "Would it be different if he wasn't here?" He nodded at Aaron.

She scoffed. "I think you probably won't make it back to your family because he's here." She shook her head. "It's not his fault he's even less equipped to survive than you are. That's why you want me to come with you, right? You said it yourself. You weren't the survivalist of your little party."

He chafed. "I wasn't doing too badly before we met."

Her eyes drifted to his hand where he'd burned himself, but she said nothing.

"I think I can survive long enough to get back home," he said firmly. "And that's what I'm offering you. A home."

"Pass."

"You can be a part of a community that's moving everyone forward. Toward a new normal. You can—"

"Pass." The word came out harsher now, and she stared hard at him. "Imagine that. A man who doesn't want to take no for an answer. Who thinks his is the only way that'll work."

They glared at each other, words poised on the tip of Edward's tongue.

Then, his shoulders slumped and he took a step backward, away from her, nodding. "You're right. Who am I to assume I know what's best for you? You can make your own choices."

She said nothing but returned to her task.

"For what it's worth?" he said after a few minutes. "The offer stands. You know where I live. Where my family is. The door is always open if you want to come in."

A/N: Oh, Bella, Bella, Bella.