Still back in time and filling in some gaps I'd like to give a trigger warning for the next two chapters knowing that statistics prove that this has happened to some of us reading this. It's only mentioned in a conversation in the very beginning, but if child loss is a trigger for you, you can skip this first scene right here at the beginning. Hugs to all of you.

And again, thanks to Hollynn28 for making sure all foster care policies in here are accurate! Any mistakes are mine!

We lived and learned

Life threw curves

There was joy

There was hurt

Remember When

"You're on grill duty today?"

I slid the sliding glass door closed and walked out onto the deck, joining Emmett as he fired up the grill. Nodding, he picked up the brush to clean the grill before we loaded all of the makings of a proper summer barbeque onto it.

"Yeah, man. I'm starving. Figured we'd be eating sooner if I do the cooking," he replied, the heat in the air amplified with the combination of the propane tank and the hot, summer sun. I reached into the cooler of ice and pulled out two beers, opening one for myself and placing the other next to Emmett on the railing near the grill.

"You don't mind?" I asked, not caring at all that he was manning one of my favorite parts of The Rec: my grill. We were hosting Sunday dinner that night and I didn't want him to feel obligated to cook just because I was a zombie on my feet.

He shook his head and continued scraping the grill. "Nah. Sit," he said, motioning towards the table. I nodded and took him up on his offer.

"Thanks, Em," I replied, plopping down into a cushioned chair at our table on the deck. I ran a hand through my hair, placing my hat back onto my head backwards when I was finished. "I'm exhausted." I exhaled loudly, tilting my head back to angle my face towards the sky.

"I can see that" Emmett chuckled. "Relax while you can."

His comment had us both looking out onto the open field in front of us, watching as Benjamin and Sam, Alice and Jasper's son, ran back and forth on the green grass in the backyard of The Rec. Having just turned one a month ago, Sam wobbled back and forth on his feet as he tried to chase after Benjamin, his newly acquired skill of walking still in need of some practice. The combined laughter of a one year old and six-year-old boy bounced off the towering trees around all of us.

"Maybe I should say the same to you," I said at the sound of their laughter, offering my beer in a congratulatory cheer. "Congrats, man."

Emmett smiled at my words, even though he tried to hide it with the bottle of his beer before taking a generous sip. "Rose doesn't like to talk about it too much," he said, placing the bottle next to him near the grill when he was finished. He sighed loudly and went back to scraping the grill again. "Afraid we'll jinx it or something."

I nodded, thinking of the dark shadow following Rose and Emmett in the weeks following the loss of their baby. Attachment is not measured in weeks, as Bella had told me one night in bed after she had spent a particularly trying night trying to console her friend during her miscarriage. I didn't like thinking of their loss and sadness, especially since Emmett had always radiated light and fun into everyone's lives.

"Understandable." I continued tentatively. "But everything's good, right?"

"Everything's great," Emmett smiled again, unable to hide his happiness, even if the smile on his face was covered in caution. "How about things here?"

He pointed towards Benjamin who was now trying to show Sam how to kick a ball across the field.

I smiled at the sight and took another sip of my beer. "We take it one day at a time but pretty good, I think. For the most part."

Benjamin's transition here at The Rec was not an easy one. Sure, he was happy and respectful and loved the constant stimulation from the kids and events here, but sometimes realization of his past caught up to him and there would be days when Bella and I would stare at the ceiling in bed at night and wonder if we had done the right thing by bringing him here.

Even at our most difficult times, we always knew we did the right thing when it came to Benjamin. And always would.

"And no word from his parents?"

I shake my head.

"Just through whatever we hear from the courts. They're still trying to do what they need to do to get him back."

In the four months that Benjamin had been with us, we had heard frequent updates from the court regarding the necessary information for Benjamin's care. Naturally, since Benjamin was staying with us until his parents were able to have him back, I was no longer permitted to have him on my case load, and he was assigned to a different case manager. We spoke to his case manager regularly, all of us moving forward with Benjamin's best interests in mind.

"He's a great kid," Emmett added, smiling at Benjamin in front of us and at the memories of Benjamin over the last several months in his head. "Do you think they'll get him back?"

The truth was evident in my exhale. "They're great people, Heidi and Marcus. They always manage to do what's best for Benjamin."

It was the truth. When they were at their best, when they had the support that they needed to raise their child, Heidi and Marcus were exactly the parents that Benjamin needed. Deserved. It was all short lived, however, and when things became overwhelming for his parents, Benjamin was never forgotten. His needs just became overwhelming to his parents with needs of their own that were delicate and special. That was when Benjamin had to leave for a while, so his parents had time to regather themselves, remember what it took for him to remain in their care, and have Benjamin back under their roof again.

Emmett chuckled, shaking his head and motioning with his hands to the beauty that surrounded us. "How can this not be what's best for him?"

He wasn't just talking about the fresh air or open space. He was talking about Sunday dinners with our friends that were family, with all of Benjamin's friends here at The Rec that he had made over the past months. He was talking about our car rides to drop him off at school, his bus ride home from school to The Rec, his wet head full of bubbles from his nightly bubble bath, his brand new bedroom that Bella had designed perfectly for a six year old boy.

"It is," I agreed with him, swallowing my deepest fears down in my throat. "For now."

Emmett shook his head, looking away from Benjamin and Sam. He kept his eyes down on his feet, both hands leaning on the railing as he looked away from it all. "Losing a child…" He trailed off, unable to finish his sentence. He had firsthand knowledge of what I feared most when it came to Benjamin.

"I know." I didn't understand, or know, the way he did, but I still felt my heart break.

"I don't want Bella to hurt like Rosie did. Does," he corrected, brave enough again to look at the boys still playing.

Hurt is heavy. It's a concept that is easy to understand to everyone, yet it's different from one person to the next. What hurts me might not even bother the next guy. What brings others to their knees may not even be a blip on my radar.

I've been hurt before, of course. Mostly unintentionally. Sometimes purposely. I remembered sneaking outside once when I was Benjamin's age, hoping that everyone in the house was sleeping by the time I made my way into the midnight sky. I had tiptoed through the hallway, careful not to disturb the man who came home from work angry each night and had prayed I would make it to the garbage cans outside unnoticed. I was starving, and if I was caught eating more than the others, hurt would again become a companion I was familiar with.

Hurt was, unfortunately, part of being in the system. Maybe the hurt was in the form of physical bruises, or an empty stomach. Sometimes hurt was on the inside too deep and raw to even attempt to make an appearance.

There were some who tried to quell the hurt I felt as a kid, and I still remember them and think of them with fondness.

Paying it forward wasn't just an option. It was a necessity.

"When you foster," I relied to Emmett, "it's not about us. It's about him."

Nodding again, Emmett reached into the cooler for another round of beers. He twisted the caps off and handed one to me before holding his up in the air. "To Benjamin," he toasted.

Smiling, I clinked my bottle with his.

"And Baby Bean? Is that what I heard Rose say earlier?"

Laughing, Emmett shook his head. "Fuck if I know, dude. She gives the baby a new name each day."

The weather was in our favor as the six of us regulars plus our two boy-additions and the unknown gender inside of Rose's belly sat down at the table outside on the patio of The Rec. Different from when we were growing up, I made sure The Rec was closed on Sunday's.

Family dinners was something that I hadn't experienced until Bella and I had started dating in high school. It was so common for Bella to want to blow it off to do something else, but for me, I loved every minute of it. I loved every part of it. The chatter. The jokes. The laughs. The food. The way Charlie and Renee asked me questions and actually cared to hear my answers.

It continued once Bella had left for New York, but instead of eating dinner with the Swans, Carlisle and Esme took over the simple thing I had loved so much. It held everything that the Swan's family dinners had held.

The one thing that was missing, that nothing could replace, was Bella.

I looked over at her as the thought crossed my mind, smiling as she patiently waited while Benjamin adamantly insisted on cutting his own hot dog into the little pieces he liked so much. Maternal instincts had kicked into gear the minute that I had introduced them to each other, and even though she wanted desperately to take the knife away from him to avoid injury, she smiled and let him do it anyway because his happiness was her Achilles' Heel.

"Don't worry," Benjamin insisted as his hot dog began to resemble something inedible, "it's a better knife. I won't cut myself."

"A better knife?"

"Yup. It's a better knife."

No one had the heart to tell him it was really a butter knife, so it was officially renamed as such for the remainder of time.

Our first summer with Benjamin will always be one of my favorite reflections. We had taken a big risk that spring and invested in our first pool, the hole in the Earth painful to see until it transformed into a haven for children and adults alike here at The Rec. Bella and I had watched Benjamin pour his heart and soul into his swimming lessons, and by the end of the summer, he was jumping off the diving board like all of the other kids.

It didn't take long.

For everything, really.

For him to find his place here at the The Rec. For him to understand his role with me and Bella. For his days and nights to be filled with laughter, love, and routine. Reliability.

For the tantrums. For the tears. He loved us and the life we gave him, but his heart was split in two with guilt and loss. He grieved for his parents, but he craved the aspects of parenting that they couldn't provide the way that we could.

Some days we learned to play in the rain. Sometimes literally.

Despite the hard times in the beginning, we couldn't deny how hard and fast we fell in love with Benjamin and the life the three of us created.

Together.

Each day brought on new feelings and memories we would treasure forever.

"Did you lock the doors?" Benjamin asked one night as Bella snuggled down with him into his bed. His story was read, his one last sip of water was devoured, his bright light was turned off while I was turning on his softer light to keep some of his demons at bay.

"Yep. All of them," I replied, satisfied with the light in his room so I could take my place next to him at the side of his bed. I rested on my knees, reaching for his hands, bending down as if I was thanking God for letting us keep him with us another day.

"Even the door to the shed outside?" He asked sleepily, his eyes closing as he went down his nightly checklist.

"Even that one," Bella answered, fixing his blankets around him as he got himself situated in her arms. He yawned, his childlike actions in complete juxtaposition to the adult questions he asked every night.

We caught on relatively quickly that these were questions he asked Heidi and Marcus each night before bed.

"What about the stove? Is it all the way off?"

"All the way," Bella responded. "I even remembered to get all the ingredients ready for breakfast tomorrow morning. You asked for Confetti pancakes, right?"

His eyes closing didn't stop the small smile to spread on his face. "Oh, yeah. They're my favorite."

"Can I tell you a secret?" Bella asked, her whispered voice causing his eyes to fly open and his smile to grow even wider.

"Always!" He whispered back. My heart warmed at the two of them.

She leaned down to whisper in his ear, but I was still able to hear her every word to him. "You're my favorite, Benji."

He snuggled deeper into her arms, his smile reaching its peak before sliding back into its sleepy place.

"Goodnight, Mommy Bella."

-tr-

"Okay, so their goal is right here," I said, using my one hand to point a few feet behind me and the other to place a whistle between my lips. I pointed down field. "And your goal is down there."

I could hear the ugh in his voice before he even spoke. "All the way down there? That's so far!"

I ruffled the hair on his head in an attempt to distract him. "Are you forgetting how fast you are?" I reminded him, still not able to forget the incident in the grocery store last week when he took off down the aisle to get his favorite box of cereal. Poor Mrs. Cope never saw him coming.

As Coach of his soccer team, I didn't get to sit in the stands with Bella but I was able to hear them all cheer him on his way as Benjamin ran his way up and down the field in whatever damn position he wanted.

Bella. Charlie and Renee. Carlisle and Esme. Jasper, Alice, and Sam. Emmett, Rose, and the baby brewing inside.

They came every week to watch him play.

"No, Benjamin! The other goal! That's their goa – "

"I scored! I scored!"

None of us could tell him that he had scored the winning goal for the other team.

-tr-

"Okay, Bella will be home waiting for you after school," I said to Benjamin from the front seat of my car as we headed towards school on a rainy morning at the end of September. It had only been fall officially for a couple of days, but the trees around us were changing with each passing hour. The leaves had already begun to decorate the road in reds, oranges, and yellows as we drove towards school. I reached down when we were at a traffic light to take a sip of my steaming cup of coffee that helped make me feel human each morning.

"Okay."

I looked back at him through the rear-view mirror, a funny look on my face when I saw him staring out the window in silence. Normally the thought of Bella waiting for him at The Rec when he got off the bus put a smile on his face and a pep in his step.

Not today.

I cleared my head and tried a different approach. "Maybe we'll make some apple pie with those apples we picked last week. Sound good?"

"Okay."

Hmmm.

"Everything okay?"

"Everything's fine."

I rolled my eyes and stopped to look at him at another light. "Benji. Come on. You can't tell me nothing is wrong when you usually talk more than the Morning Show," I laughed, hoping to bring out some laughs of his as well.

When I got nothing in response other than a shrug of his shoulders, I sighed and decided to table it for now until I could discuss it with Bella later. Maybe she had an idea what had set him off.

"I'll see you after work, okay?"

"Okay."

I watched him grab his bookbag that was almost the size of him and lug it out of the car and up the steps into school. From where I sat in the car, it looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, more so than just the lunchbox zipped safely inside of his bag.

"Hey Benji!" I called, rolling down the passenger side window so he could hear me. He turned at the sound of my voice, his body turning to look back at me in the car at the curb. "Do you want me to pick you up from school instead?"

Maybe someone on the bus was bothering him, I didn't know.

When he answered with another detached shrug and turned back to head into the building, I watched his retreating form until a honk behind me startled me back into focus. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach, and I tried to shake it as I made my way to work, even though it was strongly persistent.

A few hours and a phone call from the school later, Bella and I sat in the office of Principal Robbins.

-tr-

"What do you mean, 'physical restraint'?"

I sat next to Bella in one of the leather chairs in the Principal's office, worry plaguing our thoughts and faces. I had my hands clasped together between my knees, my elbows resting on my thighs as I sat forward in the chair, Principal Robbins delivering one blow after the next.

A woman of great respect in the community, she held her head high in confidence and authority, her years of experience exuding from her very presence on the other side of the desk from me and Bella.

"It's not one of the best practices, I agree," she replied, her fingers woven together in place on her desk before us, "However, it was necessary in regards to the safety of himself and the other students."

Bella shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. "Can you walk us through this again, please? This is completely new for us."

"Right before lunch, Benjamin was in his classroom with his teacher and classmates and something, apparently, upset him." Principal Robbin paused for a moment before continuing. "He ended up ripping his assignment, ripping the teacher's model of the assignment off of the wall, and then ran out of his classroom and down the hall towards the nearest exit."

"Where is he now? Is he okay?" Bella asked, her voice wavering with concern.

"He's fine right now in the Nurse's office," Ms. Heiss, the school's Guidance Counselor, chimed in from a place adjacent to Principal Robbin. "He fell asleep when you were on your way here."

"Is anyone else hurt?" I asked, my voice finally returning as if my hands had brought it back to life when I had run them down my face.

"Luckily, no. There was a class of Kindergartener's in the hallway when he tried to escape, but he didn't do any harm to them." She gave us a small and reassuring smile. "Now to Mr. Jefferson, that's a different story, I'm afraid."

"Your security guard?" I ask, looking at the teachers and administrators in the room for confirmation.

"Yes, Sir. Mr. Jefferson tried to block the exit so Benjamin couldn't escape and that was when Benjamin used his hands and feet to try to get through him and to the door."

"I assume this was why you thought physical restraint was necessary," I acknowledged with a slow nod of my head, gaining more understanding of what happened as we sat in this office. Regardless of the situation, someone putting their hands on Benjamin didn't sit well with me.

"Like I said, it's not what we practice here nor something that we feel we need to practice here. Benjamin is an important part of our school, regardless of what happened today, and our intention from here on out is to make his education and his emotional well-being a priority."

The Guidance Counselor took this opportunity to slide a fresh piece of paper across the desk for us to look at. I gently picked up the paper from its spot on the table, knowing that with Bella still in the midst of obtaining her license to foster, I was the legal guardian appointed to make the decisions regarding Benjamin's education.

I looked over the paper as Ms. Heiss spoke again. "We've created a plan for him to follow here at school," she said, motioning towards the paper I held in my hands. "Prioritizing his goals in a positive way."

The paper in front of me was no shock to me. I had come across papers similar to these for years. It hit a little differently when it was about my son.

I was unprepared for my slip, even if I didn't speak the word out loud for anyone else to hear. Sighing, I placed the paper back on Principal Robbin's desk in an effort to distract myself from my own mind, still completely caught off guard by how easy it was to see him as my own. "May I ask what the assignment was?"

His teacher spoke up for the first time throughout our whole meeting. "Since it's September and we're all still getting to know each other, we've been focusing on making new friends and sharing interesting facts about one another to create a classroom community." It was her turn to display another piece of evidence on today's events. "This is what we've been working on yesterday and today."

She handed me another piece of paper that appeared completely harmless, until I inspected it a little further. What I saw made perfect sense and explained everything.

"I see." I added, "I think I understand."

"We're aware of his situation, Mr. Cull – "

Not trying to be rude, as everyone in the room had been cordial throughout the whole meeting, I cut Principal Robbins off before she could finish her sentence.

"So, you understand why this would be difficult for him then." I pointed to the spot on the paper where Benjamin had started writing something only to erase it. It was easy to see that he had started, and erased, only to start again and erase again over and over. The process was evident just by looking at it.

Still pointing, I turned to look at the team on the other side of the desk. "This question, 'I live with _', is something that he's been unsure of his whole life. I understand the reason why this is important, and I appreciate you having these kinds of activities in your classroom, but we would appreciate the chance to talk to him about these kinds of topics before it's taught. I think if we'd had the chance to discuss questions like these with him in advance, it could avoid situations like these in the future."

His teacher hastily agreed with me and reached for a paper and pen. "I could easily do that for you, Mr. Cullen. Let me give you my contact information."

"Can we take him home?" Bella asked. I wanted nothing more than that. The three of us, upstairs at The Rec with our private door locked, cutting and seasoning and cooking apples for our apple pie.

I nodded at Bella's question. "His situation explains his behavior, but it doesn't excuse it. We'll speak to him tonight about what happened today, and he'll be here in the morning ready to apologize for his actions and accept his consequences."

And Benjamin did just that. He apologized to all involved and completed his assignment in a way that made him feel like he belonged.

But not before having the most delicious apple pie we had ever had.

-tr-

The house was quiet, the only exception was the rain falling down on the roof above us as the world drifted off to sleep. All the children of The Rec were at their own homes for the night. Homework was done, dinner was eaten. Benjamin was sound asleep in his bed, hopefully, for the night.

Tonight, I wanted to be with my wife.

A few weeks had passed since Benjamin's incident at school, and after some heavy discussions with everyone involved, including Benjamin, it was decided that supervised visits with Heidi and Marcus would be helpful for Benjamin's well-being.

He had been seeing them and had been receiving supports here at home and at school, and he was making remarkable strides.

So much so that I had come home from work to find a pink and red striped bag on our bed, opening up a variety of different scenarios that ran on a loop in my mind throughout the course of the whole evening. The secret contents inside of that bag tortured me the whole night.

I couldn't wait to get her into our bed tonight.

Aching at the thought of her, I watched as she emerged from the bathroom in our bedroom, the moonlight being the only light to guide her towards me. She was wearing a midnight blue in silk, and the sound of it slipping upwards against her skin when I had my mouth exactly where I had wanted it was heaven to my ears.

The sound of her whispered cries in the dark, careful not to wake the sleeping boy in the room down the hall, was even more heavenly as my tongue tasted everything she offered to me.

And later, when we were sweaty and sated and whole again instead of the shattered pieces we had reduced ourselves to when we were lost in each other, we slipped apart and made room for him between us like we did every night.

At some point in the night, when Benjamin's bed was vacant and his body was spread in every direction of our bed, I looked over at her and smiled.

Three hundred and sixty-five days and each day was always better than the last.

I reached for her hand in the dark to find her waiting for me.

"Happy Anniversary, Bella."

See you next week! Thank you to those who voted for Pursuing the Proposition. We made it to Number 3!

Join my Facebook group, Lily Jill Fics, to discuss my next upcoming story that I'll be writing after this one. According to my outline, this one is halfway completed already!

Chapter 6 Sneak Peek:

Remember When old ones died and new were born

Life was changed

Disassembled

Rearranged