A/N: Hey, look! I'm back.

Thank you for your continued patience!

The path Bella had marked for them kept them on the high road where it would be easiest to see what was going on below. The trail could be rougher, but it was smooth enough for a strong young man to make good daily progress even with a baby strapped to his chest.

It had to be exhausting thinking the way she did, planning for every eventuality. Even now, years into their new world, Edward was tempted to call her the wrong kind of paranoid; unreasonable. Dangerous, even. Hadn't her over-analyzation almost gotten both Aaron and himself killed?

But, she wasn't wrong. Not really. As much as Edward wanted to believe this new world was at least as safe as it had ever been, he knew almost better than she did how truly lawless and wild things were. Being part of a stationary compound, they'd had the benefit of collecting something akin to data. From the travelers who'd come near enough to the island to talk to as well as the expeditions like the one Edward had been on, they'd been able to determine a huge percent of the population who had survived the virus had died as a result of the ensuing violence. It was most of the reason —why technology had been pushed back to the Stone Age. Whoever had the potential to control things like electricity had a great deal of power. Power plants, dams, water supply—they were all hubs of death and destruction.

Edward was self-aware enough to recognize his privilege kept him from truly understanding what it was like to be so afraid. He had no uterus, so no one would ever target him as being a valuable commodity. His compound was well protected and run by good, honest people. The violence he knew was out there had never touched him personally.

She hadn't been wrong about Aaron either.

Travel with a toddler was a challenge. He was heavy, generating heat that left a big patch of sweat against Edward's front. He wiggled and whined when he wasn't content with being in his carrier. He was loud. He couldn't be left alone, and that stymied Edward's ability to hunt, fish, and gather food.

Four days out of Yellowstone, vulnerability and paranoia were already beginning to creep around the edges of Edward's psyche.

From his vantage point he'd spotted a small group of people traveling together. Though he was well above them and some distance away, his heart sped. He continued walking, thinking over his options. Finally, he decided it wouldn't hurt to stop long enough to collect as much information as he could.

Edward knelt, palm flat on the rock slab. He'd been right. There was a decent view from here. He leaned forward, one hand on the ground as he peered over the ledge into the distance.

Beneath him, Aaron crawled between his arms and legs, babbling to himself. Edward chanced a glance down. Aaron peered up at him, grinning winningly. "Hi," he said cheerfully.

Edward grinned, relaxing in spite of himself. He straightened up, bringing the baby with him as he settled with his back against the rock. "Hey, buddy. You want to hear a story from days long gone?"

Aaron tilted his head to the side as though perplexed. Taking that as agreement, Edward began his tale. "There was a game we used to play called Ye Olde Oregon Trail." He snickered at himself. "Basically a bunch of people traveling to Oregon, which isn't that far from where we're headed. They had some different challenges than we do. We don't have any of those oxen, for one thing. Don't have to worry about fixing wagon wheels."

He nodded in the direction of the strangers he'd been watching. "This was one of the things that could happen. You come across some strangers in the distance. What do you do? Approach them slowly? Wait and see what they do?"

The sound of a gun cocking near his ear sent ice down his spine, a stone sinking in his gut. "Or drop your guard so the strangers have an easy time gutting you," said a menacing voice.

"Mama!" Aaron exclaimed, wiggling out from under Edward and crawling in the direction of the voice.

Edward swung around. Sure enough, Bella stood behind him, her father's gun pointed skyward and her face set in a hard expression. "You're too damn easy to sneak up on."

He got to his feet and pointed a finger in her face as she reholstered her weapon. "Are you out of your goddamn mind? You almost gave me a heart attack." His heart was still pounding, and his skin was covered with a clammy sheen of sweat. "And what the hell are you pointing that damn thing at me for?"

"I didn't point it at you."

"That's how people get killed. Jesus Christ, I thought you didn't even like guns."

"Would you lower your voice?" she hissed. "I hate guns. I've always hated guns. You weren't going to die. I took the bullet out. If anyone is going to get anyone killed, it's you. You're not paying attention, and now you're screaming at the top of your lungs."

"Don't be dramatic."

"Dramatic." She shook her head. "You don't take your safety seriously. You don't take his safety seriously." She pointed at Aaron who sat between them looking up, his fingers in his mouth.

"I wasn't yelling, and I was trying to figure out if those strangers were a threat. How is that not taking our safety seriously?"

"You—"

"Stop it. Fine. I can admit I'm not capable of splitting my attention in five different directions at once. You aren't either. I snuck up on you once."

"I was able to defend myself."

He rolled his eyes. "So, what? You wanted me to stab you?"

"You would have seen it was me before you stabbed me, but you should have been ready to."

Edward surged forward. In one quick movement, he had had her pinned up against the rockface, an arm thrown up across her chest. He had his dagger in his hand, the blade at her neck and his nose a fraction of an inch from hers. Her startled puff of breath was hot on his face.

"Is this what you want?" he demanded, his voice pitched low and gravelly. "You want to see what I can do?"

Several seconds ticked by in a breathless space. Though he'd been the one to grab her, he was shocked to find her so close. He had no business touching her like this, not for any reason, yet he didn't let her go. Her eyes were wide, frozen like he seemed to be. They stared at each other.

A high pitched giggle at their feet sent them moving again. Aaron seemed to have decided they were playing. He'd hauled himself to his feet and barreled into Edward's legs, wanting in on the game. Bella sucked in a breath and shoved Edward backward. "Get off me."

Edward stooped, gathering Aaron into his arms and giving Bella space. He swallowed hard. He knew he needed to apologize. She was aggravating, but manhandling her was inexcusable, particularly given that he knew what she'd been through. He should never have touched her, but he couldn't get his tongue to work right to say so. His pulse raced too fast. He was dizzy, he realized. Just a little off center.

"You were too easy to find," she muttered.

The fog was beginning to clear from Edward's head. It occurred to him that Bella was there. Bella who had sworn she was going in the opposite direction. Bella who had released him to care for himself without her help. Bella who had sworn he and Aaron would be out of sight, out of mind. She was in front of him, shaking her head as she gathered her packs from where she'd put them down when she attacked him.

And wasn't that interesting?

"You were the one who marked my path, Bella," he said, calm now. "Of course you found me. You knew where I was going to be."

There was silence again as she shouldered her bags. Then, "You're not traveling fast enough. You should have covered at least another five miles by now."

"We have time to get where we need to be."

"No, we…You don't. Don't you see by now? The baby is less of a liability to you, but he's still dangerous. You need to get home as soon as possible."

He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, fighting a smile. It wasn't funny. He knew it wasn't funny. He couldn't imagine what it had taken for her to abandon her plan to come after him. He knew what a risk she was taking.

Curiosity screamed in his head, but he swallowed it down. He wasn't going to ask questions, and he wasn't going to rub her face in it. "You can set the pace if you want to," he offered, his voice soft and unassuming. As though she'd been traveling with them all along and hadn't just appeared out of nowhere. As though he had never feared she would disappear out of his life forever.

She didn't say anything at first, fiddling with the ties of her main backpack. That alone was telling. Her hands were usually swift and sure. Now, her fingers shook, and it took her several tries to tighten the strap.

Aaron pitched forward in his arms, reaching for her. "Mama."

Bella took a deep breath and let it out, lifting her eyes at least to Aaron's. She managed a small smile for the boy and reached out to touch his hair briefly. "Bella," she said."My name is Bella."

"Mama." Aaron made an insistent noise, swinging his hands at her.

She sighed and took him into her arms, hugging him close. She closed her eyes tightly and breathed him in.

If Edward didn't know better, he'd have sworn she was trying not to cry.

When she opened her eyes, her look was resolved. "Let's go."

~0~

It was almost the end of the day before Bella offered any explanation whatsoever.

They were walking along, everyone quiet. Aaron slept peacefully against Edward's chest.

"When I found Aaron, what I decided made sense," she said when she slowed down enough so they were walking side by side.

A jolt of shock went down Edward's spine. He stumbled but corrected almost instantly. He cleared his throat. "What?"

"What I was going to do." She stared straight forward, her voice toneless. "It made sense when it was just me. And it wasn't just about me. What I needed to survive. If it was just about me and what I needed, I would have left him there with his parents. The most I could give him was an easy death—no pain, no fear. Full belly. It was all I could do. I do have humanity left, and it was the humane thing."

"I know that, Bella," he said quietly, putting a hand to Aaron's hair.

She paused a few more beats before she spoke again. "I think you were right. You do have a good chance of surviving. If I were you, since you could risk getting near one of the closer compounds, I would have left him there. He would have been taken care of." As she spoke, her words got faster, tripping into a full-on ramble. "But since you insist on taking him to your island… It just changes things. I saved him. I'm the reason he didn't die with his parents. I wanted to do everything I could. With you in the equation, everything I can do includes helping you get home. You know, since you suck at surviving on your own. It's the right thing to do."

He gave an exasperated sigh but bit his tongue before he could argue. Her insistence that he was incapable of surviving on his own grated. He sensed, though, that this was the story she was telling herself—the reason it was okay to risk everything. Despite her words, she was putting her trust in him, that he wouldn't hurt her, and that his people wouldn't hurt her.

"It'll make things easier," he said, keeping his tone light. "It's hard to do everything with a baby underfoot as just one person. This way one of us can keep an eye on him while the other does what needs to be done."

"Sure." Leaves crunched on the forest floor beneath her feet. "You get babysitting duty."

He glanced to the side, his eyes narrowed at her. "You know, I'm decent at hunting."

"If you're as good at hunting as you are at snares, one of us is going to end up with a bullet or a spear through the heart."

~0~

Raspberries, Edward decided, were amazing.

Two days into their journey together, they'd cut through a neighborhood in yet another tiny, deserted town. In the backyard of one of the houses they ducked into, they'd found an overgrown fruit and vegetable garden. It was such a feast, Bella had been convinced it was okay to spend an afternoon lolling on the back porch out of the warm sunshine. They watched, each stretched out on lounging sofas, as Aaron toddled through the garden.

Well. Bella watched the little boy. Edward had to admit he was highly distracted.

Raspberries.

He'd never thought much about them. He thought back but couldn't remember if he'd ever bought a carton or had reason to eat them by themselves.

Now, though, he had a newfound appreciation for the fruit. Or rather, if he was being honest, how Bella was choosing to eat it.

She had one berry pressed to her lip, just resting there, her tongue occasionally darting out to lick. Now and then she would close her eyes and sigh, the soft sound sending a thrill down his back every time it reached his ears. She was savoring the sweet, tart flavor or else she was distracted, deep in thought—obviously oblivious to his eyes on her.

He pushed his tongue into the divot at the fruit's center, teeth and tongue pressing into lush skin, teasing juice out from beneath the surface. The berry was still warm from the sun, and that didn't help the tone of his thoughts. He licked along the inside, feeling each of the tiny ridges and imagining…

Well.

He was glad she couldn't read his mind.

"The world got bigger again."

He heard the word bigger and not much else at first. He sat upright, shifting his legs, guilty and…

"What?" he asked, blinking hard.

She turned to look at him, resting a head on her palm. "You know how people used to say the world was getting smaller and smaller? Because of the internet, cameras watching you everywhere you go." A wistful smile played at the corner of her lips. "I had friends in so many countries. People I'd never met who I talked to almost every day. Everyone is just… gone. Totally inaccessible to me."

Edward lay back on the couch staring up at the cloudless blue sky and the vibrant evergreens around them. "I get that. Feeling how big the world actually is, I mean." His heart ached and he rubbed a spot on his chest. "It swallowed my sister. If she's alive, she's on the same continent, but she may as well be on Mars." He shook his head. "We're all off the grid now."

"You want to hear something weird?" she asked.

"Sure."

"Even though it's been years without so much as a lightbulb, I still had to stop myself from asking if you wanted to Facebook. When we left Yellowstone, I mean."

His lips quirked. "I get that. I told you before we left. It felt wrong—that I would never know what happened to you. All these lost people. It felt so wrong to let you get swallowed up by the world once I'd found you."

She was quiet for a moment, but then she scoffed. "Not all those who wander are lost," she quoted Tolkien.

"I didn't mean it that way," he said. "Like you needed to be brought in from the wilderness." Though he thought she did. It was still a choice she needed to make for herself.

"I'm not staying, you know."

"I know." He tapped his finger against the couch. "You can, though."

"I know."

Silence fell between them again. There was no noise but the light breeze through the trees until Aaron giggled—the sound sweet, free, and high-pitched—as he chased after a butterfly. Bella tensed, sitting up to scan the treeline. Edward smiled, sad but strangely charmed.

"I will be your Facebook friend though," he said.

She looked at him, brows furrowed. "What?"

"I'll add you to Facebook. When I can."

Her expression turned bemused. "Okay. Sure."

He sat up again and tilted his head, ignoring the impulse to reach across and take her hand. "The world will shrink again, Bella. I know all this, living off the land with whatever we can get our hands on is hard, but it's not forever. We're never going to start from scratch. Technology still exists. Everything will get turned back on. So, I'm making you a promise. When we get electricity, the internet… When I find another computer, and when Zuckerberg 2.0 gets their act together, the first thing I'm going to do is send you a friend request."

She stared at him a beat and then laughed. It was a loud laugh, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. She shook her head, but smiled at him. "Yeah, okay. Me too. When the world comes back online, I'll accept your friend request."

A/N: See you soon, my ducks.