A/N: Many thanks to my group members for helping me find a nice (REALLY nice) house for Eddo on the island.

Thanks for sticking around, everyone!

It was the absence of noise that woke him.

Edward blinked, caught for a moment in that blank state between dreams and wakefulness. He tilted his head up and hissed, ducking back down just as quickly. The bitter cold bit his exposed skin, and he shivered, pulling the blankets tighter around him. This house had wood burning stoves in each of the bedrooms, but the fire had died during the night, and if he ever wanted to be warm again, he knew he'd have to leave his little cocoon.

Wakefulness settled in, and with a sigh, Edward sat up. He pulled the thickest blanket around him and up over his head. For the briefest of moments, he lamented his old life and the loss of heaters. It was only November. The worst of winter was ahead, and while it didn't really snow in the Pacific Northwest, with the slightest wind, the rain may as well have been ice. No heater. No electric blanket. No dryer he could put his clothes in for a few minutes so he could slip into the warmth.

But there was a metal kettle, a wood burning stove-top, instant coffee and powdered creamer.

When he did get up, rather than set about the task of getting himself warm again, Edward began pulling on clothes. Long underwear. Jeans. A thick sweatshirt. His jacket.

Sometimes, he could feel just how empty this house was. The rain that had sheeted down the last three days had stopped. After days on end of relentless pounding, the silence was deafening.

The house was ostentatious. He couldn't say it didn't suit him. In his old life, he'd had a penchant for fine, luxurious things. The house, though, was far too much for him. Despite its size and grandeur, it was too frigid and musty with disuse to be considered luxurious. On top of that, it was far from the island's beating heart. He had a horse to get him into town when he needed to be there, and that would never stop being strange to him.

But worth it he thought, as he stepped outside, fixing his gaze a short distance away to where the expansive backyard met the sea. Specifically, he spotted a lone figure standing there, her back to him, leaning on her cane.

He'd had a house closer to the center of town before. His brother had helped him move the few things he owned over to the much larger house before Bella made the decision where she wanted to spend the winter. He'd attempted to play it off—of course he would choose a free multimillion dollar estate. Didn't he seem the type? But somehow, he didn't think she'd bought it.

The reality was he thought Bella could use the space. The estate rested on several acres of beachfront property, which gave them a good bit of distance between potential neighbors—not that anyone else had moved to this little corner of the island yet. Bella hadn't reacted well to the inundation of people who'd tried to greet her when she first stepped out of the hospital. A lot of people were curious about her, especially after the tales of her heroics had spread through their tiny community. Most of them were genuinely trying to welcome her into the fold, which he knew was more than Bella was prepared to consider at the moment. Best for everyone to keep them separate; to give Bella room to settle in slowly to the idea of being part of a society again.

The property was also fenced and gated, albeit tastefully. It was nothing someone determined couldn't conquer, but it was just one more layer of protection. The house was so huge, Bella could have her own wing if she wanted it and he'd still be close enough to help.

"Worth it," he muttered to himself again, his eyes ever watchful as she took a few steps closer to the little dock. All these months into her convalescence, reading her body was a habit. He was always wary of when she was pushing herself too hard, when the strength of her legs would fail her, or when she just needed a steady arm to help her balance. Her gait was slow, but she didn't falter. She was working so hard to regain her strength and get better.

So she could leave him?

But he didn't have to think about that for many more months. They were surviving day by day. It was a different type of surviving than being out in the wild, but no less difficult in some ways.

He watched Bella sink down into a bench perched on a hilly piece of land overlooking the water, watched her shoulders slump the slightest bit. He cleared his throat as he approached—better to let her know he was coming. She sat up straighter, her head tilted up to watch him come around to meet her.

"I thought you were going to sleep all day," she said by way of greeting.

Hands on his hips, he turned to the horizon and the breaking dawn. "Sun isn't even up."

"It's almost December. That means it's past seven."

"Oh no," he said, deadpan. "We're going to be late for work."

She screwed up her face, eyes narrowed at him, and then she stuck out her tongue.

Edward let out a quiet breath, grinning at her. That was the sign he needed. Today was a good day, and it would be okay for him to sit next to her. Still, he sat slowly, gingerly.

It was, his father told him, a good sign Bella was displaying symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome. He'd hypothesized she wasn't in pure survivor mode anymore. Her psyche thought the trauma was over, and it was now processing the damage.

Then again, while his father had done a mental health rotation many years before, he was no psychologist. It could, Edward thought, be a natural extension of the paranoia she'd built up over years on her own. She was only too aware her body was too weak to fight. She was cornered; stuck on an island and, theoretically, at his mercy. It made sense she was, even months later, still jumpy. To him, it seemed like she was in a constant state of fight or flight with no ability to do either. He hated the possibility the trauma was ongoing in her head.

But today was a good day. Bella watched the water and he watched her. She tilted her face up, eyes closed to enjoy the rare sunlight on her skin. He sighed quietly, wishing he could tell her how beautiful she was.

She glanced to the side and gave him a look when she caught him staring, but he didn't look away. Instead, he tilted his head down, daring her to tell him off. He liked her. He admired her. His eyes dared her to object.

Her cheeks flushed. She pressed her lips into a thin line, but they tugged up at the corners. Just a little. She also let her gloved hand rest on the bench between them.

Before he could puzzle through whether or not that was an invitation, she cleared her throat and nodded toward the water. "Maybe we can take the boat out today." She sighed quietly. "For some fish."

"Wow, you sound like you're totally into that idea."

She screwed up her nose. "Just not feeling fish today. I was hoping for some actual meat, but there was nothing in the traps. I looked."

"Hmm." Edward debated his next words. His heart picked up an erratic beat, but he worked to make his tone light and even. "We can go into town."

She stiffened but said nothing, so he continued. "The hunters usually have a fair amount of luck, and we haven't used our meat tickets at all this month."

Families and individuals were, of course, free to hunt, fish, and grow their own food. Any excess was accepted into the society's coffers if they offered it. However, there were people whose job—the way they contributed to the whole—was to hunt, fish, or grow. The bounty was shared by all through a system of meal tickets only because they were dispersed over so many miles of land. The tickets assured everyone would have the basics of what they needed each week in fresh meat, veggies, fruit, eggs and the like.

No one was going hungry in their society; not when there was enough to feed them all.

"We could go to the warehouse," he said, babbling now. The Warehouse of Random Things was where everything they'd gathered was stored. Furniture. Clothing. Odds and ends. Anything usable—and plenty of things that really weren't—could be found there. "I picked out most of your winter clothes. I'm sure I missed something. We—"

"Edward." She said his name quietly, and he pressed his lips together to make himself shut up. She sighed and swallowed audibly. "Okay. Town sounds good."

~0~

It had been one of Emmett's first projects to help figure out the transportation problem on the island. Everyone knew gas was a finite resource, and it was better used in anything but a car. He'd been part of a team that worked to make carts and buggies out of whatever they could find. The team had included a number of ranchers who trained horses to carry the light carts.

Because Bella's body couldn't handle riding a horse just yet—and she wasn't experienced anyway—Edward had hooked his horse to a small wagon. Bella had harvested as much as she felt they could spare from her garden. That had been the project she'd insisted on taking on even in her early convalescence. Their house was enormous—far too big for just the two of them. She'd turned the back room, with its long wall of floor to ceiling windows, into an indoor garden. They weren't hurting for fresh veggies. So she'd filled several baskets with onions, fennel, and other winter vegetables.

"I keep thinking there has to be a point where life stops seeming so surreal, but then I end up in a horse drawn cart on the way to town. Like you do." Bella shook her head. "I didn't know the post-apocalyptic world could look so much like Little House on the Prairie with paved roads."

"We'll have to look into getting you a bonnet."

She snorted, but didn't comment at that. Then, some minutes of companionable silence later, she surprised the hell out of him by scooting over and winding her arm through his. He glanced at her, fighting a wide smile.

"Shaddup," she muttered. "It's damn cold. This is just for warmth."

"Uh huh."

She grunted and then sighed as she rested her head on his shoulder.

He bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to do what he very much wanted to.

He lost that battle.

He hummed a note and took a deep breath. "Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry," he sang.

Bella sucked in a breath. "Really?"

"When I take you out in the surrey."

"Which this is not."

"When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top."

Bella put her hands over her eyes and sighed.

~0~

She'd fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder.

He gazed for a moment, appreciating the small miracle that she trusted him this much. He never took these moments for granted—these little signs that she knew she could let her guard down just a little with him.

"Hey," he whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Wake up."

Bella started just slightly and blinked as she raised her head. Her arm, wrapped around his, tightened as she looked around. "Are we here?"

"Relax. This is Emmett's place."

"Emmett?" She was still a little disoriented as she looked at the house—a nice two story with a huge yard.

"Yeah, he always does a nice breakfast on the days he's off. I thought it would be a nice—"

"To crash his party?" she finished.

Edward flashed a grin. "It's the brotherly thing to do." He gave a shrug. "And I thought you might want to see Aaron."

Her expression softened. "Oh, Aaron." Visits from the little boy and his new adopted brother always brought her joy. Edward knew it gave her great satisfaction that he was safe and cared for. And that was one more thing Edward counted among his small miracles. Bella counted his big brother among the people she could trust at least a little. His whole family had made the list, in fact. She trusted them all about as far as she could throw them. She was a strong woman, so that was saying something.

Strong as she was, though, when she found Emmett wasn't alone with the boys, she clutched Edward's arm just a little harder.

"Bella." Carlisle greeted her as Emmett stood aside to let them in. "It's good to see you." He gestured to the statuesque blond sitting across the table from him. "This is Tanya. She's on the council with me."

"I remember the name." Bella took a deep breath before stepping away from Edward to extend her hand to Tanya. "You're the one who convinced those assholes not to kill Edward."

Tanya grinned. "They wanted his head on a platter." She winked at Edward. "I told them he was too pretty to kill."

Bella shifted, standing up straighter and gripping his arm just a little bit tighter. She gave her hair a toss, and Edward had to work not to smirk. Was she just a little bit jealous of Tanya's naturally flirtatious nature?

Bella cleared her throat. "Takes a lot to keep him alive, doesn't it?"

"We should start a club."

Before Bella could respond to that, there was a commotion. Emmett had reappeared with a child on each hip. Both the boys began clamoring, and when he set them down, Henry and Aaron both ran for them. Bella let go of Edward's hand, picking Aaron up as he jumped at her. Edward leaned down and picked up Henry.

"Uncle!" Henry cried, throwing his arms around Edward's neck.

"Hello, Nephew 1." He ruffled the boy's hair and looked to Bella. He watched the scene for a handful of beats as Henry babbled in his ear a stream of excited little boy happenings—did he know about Thanksgiving next week? Was he coming? Was Bella coming? Was Edward already working on his Christmas present? Did he even know Christmas was after Thanksgiving and they had to make it special...for Aaron and Bella, of course.

In the meantime, Bella had her arms wrapped tightly around Aaron. Her face was bent toward the little boy so they were nose to nose, her smile wide as he babbled in high-pitched baby language, as though catching her up on all she'd missed since their last visit. Edward smiled at the sight. Bella had been right; she couldn't be the little boy's mother, but she loved him. No one who watched the two of them together could doubt how much she cared for the boy—a pure love, unfettered complications or fear.

"Aunt Bella," Henry called to her.

"Hey, Henry." Bella gave Aaron one more squeeze and then loosened the vice grip the boy had around her neck.

"Switch?" Edward asked.

She nodded, handing Aaron over as Edward stepped closer, taking the brunt of both the boys' weight until Bella could properly brace herself. Then, he watched over Aaron's little head as Bella gave Henry a tight hug. He smiled into the little boy's hair. Henry and Aaron had been a packaged deal since Emmett told his son he was getting a new baby brother. Bella never failed to show Henry just as much affection and attention as she did Aaron. She was easy with them, natural.

Even if she could walk away from him, she wouldn't walk away from the boys, would she? She was their beloved aunt now.

But he wasn't going to think about that.

"Grub's on," Emmett said.

Henry, who'd been chatting Bella's ear off, hopped down from her arms to the floor. "That's my cue," the five-year-old quipped. He reached up, looking at Edward expectantly. "Come on, Aaron."

Aaron leaned down from Edward's arms toward his brother. Edward handed him over and watched in amusement as the little boy carried the littlest boy over to the table and got him settled in the booster seat. Henry loved being a big brother. He told Aaron what a good boy he was for not throwing his spoon that time.

Edward met Emmett's eyes over the table and they shared a smile. It could have been a scene from their childhood. Emmett was a good big brother.

Edward swallowed hard, missing their sister, their missing piece.

But that was another thing he wasn't thinking about right then.

He held his arm out, concentrating on Bella as she eased herself into the chair next to Aaron. Though he was glad she was here, he was hypervigilant, making sure she wasn't in any distress. She was jumpy, starting just a little at louder noises or when someone got close. Her eyes darted back and forth, aware of everyone in the room. But for all that, she was dealing, breathing.

"What did you say?" Bella asked, looking across the table at Tanya and Carlisle.

And listening, apparently.

Tanya glanced and Carlisle who nodded at her. Tanya nodded back and looked to Bella. "Council is trying to make some decisions about law enforcement. A man hit his wife hard enough to bruise. She said she understands why it happened." Tanya's expression was as rigid as Bella's back had gone. "She doesn't want to press charges, so to speak. They both say everything will be fine if we just move one of them to the opposite side of the island."

"The council is divided," Carlisle said. "In the world before, the police could have pressed charges if the victim wouldn't. Some see the sense of justice in that because that's what they know."

"And because if you hit someone, there should be consequences," Tanya said sharply. Her features softened and she waved her fork in the air. "But it's not like the criminal justice system worked when we had one."

"And you don't have one," Bella finished, nodding.

"Every complaint is addressed," Carlisle said. "You know better than most how it works in other places. Your attacker faced no repercussions back in Forks, but another group would have hung Edward's head from the gate for stealing a car. We're trying for fair and compassionate justice here. We had some problems with theft in the early days, for instance, but we weren't harsh on those offenders. It was understandable. We've all lost everything. People seek to regain what they lost."

Bella's lips were pressed into a thin line, but her voice was quiet when she spoke. "Jacob's people lost nearly all their women; most of the tribe. You think it's understandable they were trying to regain what they lost?"

"There's a difference between understandable and allowable. That's what I'm trying to say. The people who were stealing...they didn't feel safe. They had a need that wasn't being filled. Rather than punish them, we worked to fill the need and create some measure of normalcy. Possessions are what they happened to focus on. If they were able to possess ֵsomething again, things, it gave them some measure of control. We have things. We have plenty that other people aren't using. We just gave them access. That was justice in that situation."

"The Council has a pretty low tolerance policy about violence," Emmett said.

"We didn't want to have happen here what happens in so many other colonies," Tanya said. "We didn't want power struggles to separate us into have and have nots. We've only had to banish five people, which isn't so bad for a colony of this size."

"Banish?" Bella asked.

"I helped out on one of those teams," Emmett said. "We take the person off the island, get them a fair distance in any direction and leave them with a backpack of supplies."

"Out of sight, out of mind." Bella scoffed lightly. "And they probably join up with your potential trade partners who aren't so averse to violence."

"We do all we can to keep our little piece of the world safe," Tanya said. "None of us have all the answers."

"That's an honest assessment," Bella said with a nod. She looked to Carlisle. "So you think there's a chance you wouldn't banish a wife beater?"

Edward squeezed her knee, his eyes darting to his father, but he should have known better than to think Carlisle would take offense. He tilted his head, meeting Bella's eyes before he spoke. "I've always believed every human being was capable of every awful act under the right set of circumstances. The Council promises to hear every nuance of every complaint before we judge. There are no hard and fast rules here. The context that led to this incident has to be taken into consideration."

Carlisle cupped a hand under his chin, looking thoughtful as he continued. "I'm sure you've speculated as to what makes us all immune to a virus that killed most of the world. Genetics is the easiest and most likely answer. It's a guess, but it's an educated guess. Is that the reason I kept all my family?" His expression tightened and his lips quirked down. "Well. That I know of, in any event," he said softly, no doubt thinking of Alice. "But all of us are alive when so many families were wiped out completely. The virus either kills you or it doesn't. And as we receive our genes from both our parents, we might also assume that immunity can be passed on from either parent."

He waved a hand. "In any event. The couple in question lost their only child."

"Oh." Bella's shoulders slumped slightly at that.

"Since both parents survived, there was… speculation about the true parentage of the child. There are plenty of scenarios I can think of that would have made it so both parents survived when the child didn't, but there had to be some truth to the speculation.

"Take that revelation and put it in an extraordinary circumstance. They were on our cruise. There's no way for them to get back home to Australia where they might have friends and family. Despite the tension, neither wanted to let each other go. The only way they could fathom surviving was together. But neither of them have the support system they would have had if this had happened before. There are no friends and family who know and care about them both to help them navigate any of it—their grief over their lost son, the betrayal, the having to get used to this new life. The animosity and anger boiled over."

Carlisle sighed, shaking his head. "It's not that it's an excuse. There's no excuse, but there should be compassion and rationality in our response. The wife is adamant that she doesn't fear her husband. According to them both, he's a good man who's never lashed out before. He's a good neighbor. He's an asset to the community; one of our few veterinarians." He looked Bella in the eyes again. "He seems to be a good man who had a very bad moment in a situation no one could have prepared for."

Bella studied his face another beat and nodded slowly. She glanced at Aaron. "I can understand that, I think. If you judged me by my most heinous moment…" She swallowed hard. "Maybe you would vote to kick me off the island, too."

For the rest of the meal, Bella was quiet. She ate enough. She played with a doll Aaron brought her to inspect and laughed at Henry's antics, but he could tell she was lost in her thoughts.

Tanya asked Edward for his help with a box of machinery parts she'd salvaged from a shed she'd found. She wanted to know if any of them were worth saving, and he had a knack for parts.

Bella sat beside him in Tanya's wagon, idly looking through several boxes of clothes. Edward looked up from his work when she chuckled softly and was surprised to find she was running her fingers down a gown of some sort—something deep blue and slinky.

"When we left Yellowstone, when I was on my own for a while, I spent the night in a house." She traced the elegant design sequined onto the bodice of the dress. "There was a gown laid out on the bed; like whoever lived there was getting ready for some event they never made it to." She laughed wryly and looked up at him, a strange but soft gleam in her eyes. "I had this weird thought. Like maybe…" Even in the cold air, her cheeks grew noticeably pink with an inviting warmth. "Maybe it would be nice, in some other world, to dance with you."

Edward had to repeat the words in his head, making sure he understood. He scooted closer to her and, moving carefully and slowly, cupped his hand to her cheek. "We can do that in this world if you wanted. There's a wedding the first week of December."

She looked up at him, expression both shy and dubious. "Whose?"

"Does it matter?" He scooted just a little closer, dropping his hand to take one of hers. "People like an excuse to dance and celebrate. Weddings are community events around here. Everyone's welcome." He gave her hand a squeeze, keeping his tone even. Now that she'd put the idea in his head, he wanted it badly. He wanted her in his arms as they danced to live music underneath the star-streaked sky.

It was such a pretty image. She'd seen and experienced so much ugly; he wanted to be the one to bring beauty to her life again.

Bella let out a shaky breath. "Maybe," she said in a near whisper.

And that was more than enough for him.

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day. I heart you.