**BPOV**
I slept fitfully that night. If I wasn't tossing or turning, I was plagued by dreams that seemed to have come from the darkest depths of my deepest insecurities.
I dreamt of Charlie, depressed and despondent. He looked older, thinner, and his dark curls had turned mostly gray.
"Charlie, I hate to see you like this, my friend. It's been 6 years since you've heard from her. Maybe it's time to let go," Billy Black placed a consoling hand on Charlie's shoulder.
"SHE'S MY DAUGHTER, GODDAMNIT!" Charlie exploded, shaking off the hand from his shoulder. Then in a softer voice, "Would you give up looking if it was one of your kids, Billy?" Charlie seethed.
"You've got to go on with your life, Charlie. She obviously did," Billy's eyes were mournful.
"SHE WOULDN'T JUST DISAPPEAR! Something must have happened to her. She wouldn't do that to me and her mother. That's not Bella!" Charlie fumed, his voice cracking with emotion.
"Isn't it though?" Billy gently reminded. He didn't need to say more. It wasn't as if I didn't have a history of running off.
The scene changed then.
"Bella," Edward beamed in his tuxedo, "I'd like you to meet my mother, Elizabeth. Mother, this is Bella."
Elizabeth Masen was a tall, stately woman, dressed in a corseted gown that would have been the peak of fashion in the early 1900s. She donned elbow-length calfskin gloves and an elegant wide-brimmed hat embellished with tall plumes of ostrich feathers and fastened in the back with a wide taffeta bow.
Her dress actually quite closely resembled the gown that I was wearing as a tribute to her for our wedding ceremony, though hers was in a shade of powder blue. The other difference was that she looked like she was born to wear that gown, while I looked like a cheap imitation in a Halloween costume.
With piercing green eyes she shrewdly looked down her long, straight nose at me.
"How do you do?" Elizabeth asked flatly, bowing her head so that the brim of her enormous hat dipped down momentarily obscuring her eyes. Not bothering to wait for my response, she then turned to Edward.
"I suppose she'll do," she sighed impatiently. "Edward, dear, didn't you say there would be lemon cake? You know it's Masen family tradition to serve lemon cake at a wedding reception! It's good luck...unless you don't want to be blessed with children, that is," she finished snidely, looking back at me.
Edward looked at me then with a matching look of disdain. He then offered his mother an arm, and they walked away from me while I sobbed and cried for him to come back, chasing after him but tripping and falling over my gown and never quite managing to reach them.
The scene changed again. This time, it was like I was outside of my own body.
I could see myself waking up with pale skin, red eyes, a burning throat, and an unfamiliar, newly fortified body.
I looked around the cold, sterile room for Edward, but could only find Alice. She smiled at me sadly knowing hers was not the face I'd hoped to see.
"He just needs time, Bella," she answered before I could ask.
**EPOV**
When Bella started tossing and turning, I slipped out of her bed giving her some room to move around, and went to sit in the rocking chair.
When she started mumbling in her sleep, I eagerly listened. As always, I was keenly interested in the inner workings of her subconscious mind.
"Charlie...I'm here. Charlie! I'm sorry," she cried, her face twisted with regret. I frowned and considered waking her, but then she went quiet again. Though, her body was still restless.
Some time had passed before she started talking again. She muttered nonsensically about cake. I smiled, thinking she was thinking about our upcoming wedding, but then she started begging in a panicked voice "Pleeease. Come back!" she sobbed. My blood ran cold...or would have if I had any.
In an instant, I was by her side. I gently shook her shoulder, but she was still deeply out.
"But...I died for him," a desolate whisper.
"Bella! Bella, wake up!" I pleaded, shaking her harder now. She finally started to come around.
She groaned and rubbed her eyes, squeezing them tightly shut before they finally started to flutter open.
"Bella, I'm here. I'm right here. It was just a dream," I said in an urgent whisper, rubbing small circles on her back.
"Edward?" Bella reached for me, and I helped her sit up.
"You were having a bad dream. Everything is fine, I'm here, love," I rushed to reassure her.
"I gathered as much," she said irritably. I stifled a laugh at her snarky tone.
"Do you want to talk about it? That's supposed to help," I urged. Though truthfully, I wasn't sure if I could stand knowing what caused such heartbreak in her voice. I was pretty sure I already knew.
"I..um..your mother?" Bella said, her voice still thick with sleep.
"Esme?" I asked incredulously.
"No, your mother. Elizabeth. She didn't like me. There was no lemon cake at the wedding. And you left me because I couldn't give you children," Bella explained, barely coherent.
"My mother didn't like you? And I...what?" I said, completely bewildered.
Her eyes flooded over with tears and her shoulders started to heave with her sobs.
"Bella!" I cried anxiously, surprised by the sudden onslaught of her grief. There were few things that made me feel as powerless as when Bella cried. "It's alright," I consoled, wrapping her in my arms and rocking her, desperate to stop her tears.
Finally, her sobs ebbed into hiccups and sniffles, and then she went quiet.
"For what it's worth, my mother would have loved you, Bella, because I love you, and more importantly, because you love me. That's all that would've mattered to her," I told her in my most gentle voice while stroking her hair.
Bella smiled weakly and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "She sounds like Esme."
I reached over to her bedside table for a tissue and handed it to her.
"Esme and my mother would have been fast friends if they had ever gotten to meet," I mused.
"Bella, did you-" I hesitated. There was clearly more to Bella's dream than that. It was certainly possible that she didn't remember, but the idea of her feeling like she couldn't tell me nagged at me.
"Did I what?" She prompted me to finish asking the question I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to.
"Did you dream about anything else? You were talking up a storm," I cracked a smile, trying to keep my tone light.
"Ughh," she groaned, embarrassed. "What did I say?"
I looked at her appraisingly. She wouldn't look me in the eye. "I asked you first," I nudged.
Bella looked at me like a deer in headlights. Then she looked down at her hands folded in her lap and sighed anxiously. Her shoulders sagged forlornly.
I tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her face upward until she was meeting my concerned gaze. She sighed again.
"Tell me, Bella. Please," I entreated her.
"I dreamed of Charlie. He was sad and old. He hadn't heard from me for a long time and was worried about me. Billy told him he needed to move on because I already had," Bella shrugged, clearly editing her thoughts, but I didn't press the subject.
I nodded. "Is that all?"
Another heavy sigh. "I woke up as a vampire and you weren't there."
Confusion crossed my face. "Where was I?"
She shrugged again. "I don't know. Alice was there. She just said 'He just needs time.' And then you woke me up."
I took her face in my hands, and spoke slowly and clearly. If she didn't yet understand what I was about to tell her, well damn it, she was going to!
"You know that there is nothing in heaven or hell that could keep me away from you when you're changing, Bella. Or ever again. You know that, right?"
"Yes," she answered too quickly. I studied her face.
Ignoring her answer to the contrary, I asked, "What is it that worries you so?"
"Just what I've already told you...that you won't want me anymore, afterward," Bella's eyes fell, as did my hands from her face.
I knew the words were coming, had heard them so many times, but the blow to my dead heart never seemed to lessen. How to make her understand?
Bella had a knack for making me see things from her side by flipping our perspectives. I wondered if she'd respond to the same tactic.
"Bella, if I could become human for you, would you love me any less for losing my strength, or speed, or ability to read minds?"
Without missing a beat, she quipped, "Well that depends. Would you look 105?"
My tone hardened, "I'm serious, Bella!".
"No, of course not!" she huffed, sounding offended.
"Well, then WHY would I love you any less for becoming more like me?" I furrowed my brow in exasperation.
"I already know what I'm getting," she gestured toward me with an open palm like she was a model on The Price is Right showing off a new Cadillac. "Who knows what kind of monster you'll be stuck with once my upgrades are done? My gift will probably be being supernaturally clumsy. Oh, wait." She rolled her eyes at herself self-deprecatingly.
I didn't know whether to laugh or shake her. I wanted to do both.
"First of all, upgrades? That's an interesting way to put it." ...If you're a duplex, I thought dryly.
"Second of all, I know what I'm getting, too. I'm getting you. And if you end up being a clumsy vampire, then I'll blissfully spend eternity catching you when you fall." I picked up her hand and kissed it.
Bella looked at me contemplatively.
"What are you thinking?" I asked when I couldn't stand not knowing any longer.
"I guess I just wish I knew what worries you, too. It feels like you're always the strong one, the one that's always talking me down when my fears get the best of me. It would help if...what I mean to say is...I would feel more like an equal partner if you leaned on me from time to time, too."
Bella's admission caught me off guard. My eyes widened in surprise.
"You don't feel like an equal partner?" I asked, trying to hide the alarm in my voice. I was no relationship expert, but I did know that these sorts of feelings didn't bode well in the long term for a young relationship.
It was Bella's turn to look exasperated. "For someone with supernatural intelligence, you can be incredibly obtuse," she smirked, taking some of the sting off of her barbed statement.
"I wish everyone would stop calling me obtuse," I muttered in a low voice.
"You are filthy rich and insist on paying for absolutely everything. You use your Jedi mind tricks to manipulate people to get whatever you want. You kidnap me when you don't like the company I keep. Can you see why I might think the balance of power is a little lopsided?" Bella asked sounding just a smidge patronizing.
"So what you're saying is that maybe Charlie should stage that intervention after all," I summarized bleakly, feeling like the biggest cad imaginable.
Bella rolled her eyed. "Obviously not. But I do think it would be better-for both of us-if you remind yourself from time to time that I'm not a child for whom you can make executive decisions. I'm an autonomous adult who is about to be your wife.
"It's like when Charlie tries to control me and I do the exact opposite of what he wants just to spite him. I can't help it; it's how I'm wired," she added with a shrug.
"Don't I know it," I agreed with a weary sigh. "I'm so sorry, Bella. My behavior in the past has been reprehensible. I know you're not a child, but that doesn't stop me from feeling the overwhelming need to protect you. You are the most precious thing in my world, and also the most fragile. The thought of losing you makes me go a little crazy sometimes," I admitted sheepishly.
"I freely admit I haven't always gone about it the right way. I won't apologize for my protectiveness. You need protection," I said sternly with a furrowed brow. "But I am sorry for the times I mistook control for protection. I never want to do that, and I hope you'll continue to take me to task if I do," I shamefully hung my head in apology.
"See, that's the stuff I want to know! You worry about losing me. Tell me that, and we'll talk about it and figure out a solution. Don't disable my truck or kidnap me or make far-reaching decisions without my input. That's the kind of crap that makes me wanna-" she made a face and shook her fist at me. It was adorable.
"Got it, loud and clear," I nodded once.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I remembered Carlisle warning me about resentment building if I continued to assume that I knew best, and here we are. I sighed. What a fool I was.
"I will make an appreciable effort to open up more about my concerns. I just didn't want my worries to become your worries. But if you'd like to know, I'll tell you.
"As you know, my biggest fear is something happening to you. I like to think I'm pretty rational about that most of the time, but God only knows sometimes I'd like to wrap you in bubble paper and hide you away in a meteor-proof panic room until you're not so breakable," I cracked half a smile.
"And for a long time, I worried about Jacob," I scowled. It would seem I had some resentment of my own. "For a while there, I wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, and the thought of losing you to him scared me almost as much as losing you to death.
"I can't be without you, Bella. I tried. And I never want to have to even think about trying again," I swallowed thickly. "I will never forgive myself for causing you that trauma. For breaking your trust in me. But the thing is, you worrying about me leaving you is like...worrying that the sun won't rise.
"It's an impossibility. I can't leave you any more than a wolf could leave the subject of his imprinting. I'm yours, Bella. Now and forever, for as long as you'll have me."
Without warning, Bella threw her leg over my middle and pushed herself up to straddle my hips. She fisted the fabric of my shirt in both hands and pulled me closer to her.
"You're mine, huh?" Bella asked with hooded eyes and a low, throaty voice.
"Truly," I beamed at her. Sitting up against the headboard, I rested my hands on her legs and stroked up and down her thighs through the fabric of her sweats.
Bella put her hands on either side of my face and brought her face very close to mine. "You're pretty sexy when you're being all vulnerable." And then with parted lips, she planted a soft, lingering kiss on my all-too-eager mouth.
My hands skimmed up the sides of her legs until they were curled around the gentle curve of her hips.
"I love feeling your hands on me," Bella growled in my ear. The sound of her voice, low and husky and dripping with sex appeal, made me instantly hard. Until recently, I shied away from letting Bella feel my arousal, but I could tell that at that moment, in this bed, there was simply no room for my antiquated notions.
With a deep groan, I flexed my hips pressing my erection into the apex of her thighs. This elicited a loud gasp from Bella, who threw her head back and pressed herself up against me even harder. Watching her face carefully for any sign of disapproval, my hands slowly slid around to her backside, squeezing her perfectly rounded ass.
Her breath came in pants and she rocked herself against my straining erection. Her blush extended from her cheeks, down her neck where it bloomed across her chest. The sweet scent of her blood mixed with the earthier scent of her arousal was overwhelming. Her petite hands were splayed across my chest, at times gripping my shirt for leverage.
Then her eyes were on mine, and she reached down for the hem of her t-shirt and started to pull it over her head. Her fiery stare dared me to stop her. I didn't.
Her heated skin was peaches and cream. Alabaster fire beneath my cold stone hands. Once again, she took my hands and placed them over her breasts. I could feel the sublime pressure of her nipples hardening against my palms through the thin fabric of her white sports bra. Not wanting to seem overly interested in groping her breasts, my hands retreated to the more neutral territory of her waist.
"I want to try something," I whispered.
"Anything," Bella agreed, it was almost a beg.
"Touch yourself, Bella. I want to watch your face as you cum," I said in a hard whisper. "Do you think you can do that?"
Her mouth was agape, clearly surprised by my suggestion, though she nodded enthusiastically.
Without another word, her hand disappeared into the waistband of her sweatpants and her wrist started making rhythmic circular motions as she continued to unabashedly rock herself against me.
Her eyes were screwed shut and she was biting her lip in the most delicious way. She was the sexiest creature I'd ever seen. Her breath started to come in shorter gasps now, and sometimes she went several seconds at a time without breathing at all.
My mouth set out to explore the creamy expanse of her chest, heaving with her accelerated breath. I placed tiny kisses from one side of her clavicle to the other while pausing to nip and suck at each and every hollow and freckle I came upon.
All the while, her heart galloped away in her chest, barely protected by her twig-like ribs and translucently thin skin. It was all the reminder I needed to keep my hands balled up into fists at my sides, at least for now, until I was sure I could control myself.
Bella started to moan in earnest now, a thin sheen of sweat forming on her forehead.
"That's it, Bella. God, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Don't stop."
A deep groan ripped out of Bella's throat as she rode out her climax. Her lips were in the shape of a small 'o', her head was thrown back, and her eyes were tightly shut. The hand that wasn't between her legs was gripping her breast, pinching her nipple between her thumb and the side of her finger. She was an absolute vision.
As she was coming down from her bliss, I used just my fingertips to lightly graze the silky skin on the backs of her arms, shoulders, and back, exciting the hypersensitive nerve endings there and drawing out her pleasure.
She finally giggled and jerked away from my touch, oversensitive after her release, and sort of wilted back down to the bed by my side, as if all the bones had been removed from her body.
"How was that?" I ruffled her hair with a grin.
"Oh, ya know, not bad," she said in a neutral tone, but her glowing face gave her away. She was radiant, smiling from ear to ear, dewy with perspiration, and her chest was still heaving from the exertion. All that was missing was a cigarette to complete the cliché, I mused with a lighthearted laugh.
"That was the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed, Bella, and I've seen Halley's comet twice."
Suddenly, she turned toward me looking concerned. "What about you?" Her eyes glanced down around my groin and started tugging at my clothes. I took her hands in my own, gently but firmly halting her movements.
"Next time," I said simply, with a sincere smile. I certainly wasn't about to tell her about the humiliating sticky mess already inside my pants.
She looked somewhat disappointed but accepted this and snuggled back down into my arms with a contented sigh. It wasn't long before her breathing evened out, and soon she was sound asleep in my arms.
Just then my phone vibrated in my pocket. Jarring Bella as little as possible, I was able to slide it out of my pocket and read the text. It was from Alice. It read:
90/10, followed by the thumbs-up emoji.
I smiled despite myself and tucked my phone back into my pocket. I flipped open Bella's copy of "Go Set a Watchman" that had been sitting on her bedside table and waited for the sleep talking to resume; I just hoped that her dreams would be more peaceful this time around.