A/N for 2018-10-11: Odd, you know, but I have a lot of empathy for Jacob - but from your reactions, I am obviously not writing him in a way that displays this! I feel similarly for Bella, who is starting to edge out of mentally defensive crouch she's been in. Other expressions of trauma and recovery coming soon.

Thank you, as always, for doing what you do best: reading, reacting and reviewing.

~ Erin

Everyone but me

She kept trading hands on the wheel. One would come off and wipe her eyes, and then the other would take its twin's place, and so she drove, a series of ineffective swipes smearing wet feelings across her face.

She was about fifteen minutes from Forks when the singular, but distant figure came into sight on the road's shoulder. Its form was unmistakable, and she pulled over. He was in the truck before she next blinked.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sliding his hand under hers.

She almost laughed. Almost. A vampire killed my father? The tears were refreshed by this thought.

"Bella?"

"My Dad. He didn't die in an animal attack."

"No." He said it quietly.

Her hand felt colder, and not for his touch. "You knew?"

He nodded.

After a moment, she said quietly, "Everyone knew. Everyone but me." She closed her eyes and wondered what else she'd find scuttling under what felt like the ground. "Were you going to tell me?"

"Yes, when we found the responsible parties."

Her face had been twisting in frustration, but now it froze, and she glanced up. "When—?"

"When we kill them, Bella."

Her face seemed to fold in on itself, and she sucked in more air. "You're going to—"

"Offer you justice."

She sputtered out the next words. "Justice? You just said you're going to kill them. You didn't think that maybe you might ask me what I wanted?"

"They're not human," he muttered, as if this explained it. Then, frowning at her, "Do you want them to live?" He was utterly serious.

"I don't know." The hand that remained on the wheel trembled. "Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice shook.

"Because it would have been cruel, Bella. It wouldn't give you back your father, and it would only give you more to grieve for."

She pulled her hand away, but he reached for it again. "I'm sorry for not telling you. Please let me show you that I mean that. Please."

Breathing in and out for a few minutes, she reminded herself of the balance of things their relationship had been, of all the good that he had wrought not just for her, but within her, too.

"You can't keep things from me, Edward. I can't—I need to know. Is there anything else? Anything?"

He shook his head. "There isn't, and if there is, I'll tell you."

"Do you know what happened to him? My Dad?" Her tone asked for more than generalities.

He didn't answer for a moment, and when he did, it was slowly. Carefully. "Yes. There was a nomadic pair that came through here." Seeing her look, he explained. "It's rare for our kind to stay in an area so long. Most travel widely, and rarely stay in the same location. We're unique that way. So, when others come, they know by scent that we're here. You could say it attracts them." He looked at her, and from the pained expression he was holding in a fine balance, she understood the unspoken message.

"You feel responsible, for my Dad."

"We are responsible for his death, Bella. They wouldn't have come here if we hadn't been here."

"Maybe," she muttered.

"Maybe?"

"You can't know."

He shook his head. "Carlisle and Esme warned them off, and they did go to leave, but hunted on their way."

"My Dad."

"Yes." His clenched his jaw shut.

She thought sometime about her next question. Her voice was quiet when she asked. "Is it painful? To die that way?"

Edward's eyes closed, and then he nodded. "Usually, yes. Bella, I'm sorry, we—"

"It's OK. You can't stop all the bad things, Edward. People die—most not nicely." She had troulbe sucking in her next breath, not quite a sob, thinking of her mother, and Phil, and now Charlie.

He moved to touch her and she put up her hand in refusal.

"I know that bad things happen, Edward, and that trying to hide from that knowledge only makes things worse. I cannot be with someone who tries to protect me from that. Do you understand?"

His face was all seriousness. "I understand. I won't keep anything from you." Now his other hand came to rest in her hair, his thumb brushing her cheek. "How did hear about this?"

She sighed, trying to let the bitterness out with the air. "Jake told me."

"Not kindly, I take it."

"No," she said, "it came on the heels of a warning to stay away from you."

"I'm not surprised."

"Why are things so bad between you and them? You have a treaty—"

"The treaty prevents war, Bella, but it doesn't make trust, or erase bad feeling. Our presence is not benign for them, and our latest arrival altered things in ways we had no way of knowing."

"How?"

"The wolves. They only change when we're a threat to them. Jacob's father never did, and Jacob never would have, if we hadn't been here. Sam never would have." He looked at her meaningfully.

"Emily." She understood.

"There's more to it than that, Bella. I'd prefer not to say. It's personal, and I only know because of my abilities."

Despite the curiosity she felt brewing, she only nodded. She knew what it was to have secrets that wanted keeping. "I understand."

"Jacob," he went on, "is young, and impulsive. I don't doubt he's already regretting the way he told you this."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you defending him?"

"Hardly. Just hoping he's smart enough to apologize, and that you'll find it in you to forgive him."

"And why would that matter to you?"

"Your happiness matters to me. You live with him, Bella. I want your...home to be a good one for you."

While she agreed with the sentiment, something about the way he said it made her wonder about his satisfaction with her current living arrangements.

"I 'spose so." She looked down, sliding her own hand up to join his at her cheek, leaning slightly into it. Closing her eyes, she took in the sweetness that was his own natural cologne. She could feel her body relaxing just smelling it. Turning her head, she pressed her lips to his palm. The taste wasn't so strong as it was on his lips, but there was the promise of cinnamon and anise, vanilla and honey.

Her head was suddenly cradled between his hands, their lips pressed together. She had to remember to make her lungs contract and expand, a forced repetition that only wanted to end, and leave all her energy for the magic his lips were conducting.

Traversing the line of her neck, shoulders, and back his hands reached the width of her hips, and slipped her onto his lap, their legs perpendicular to each other.

He was better than breathing—on this, both her mind and body seemed to agree.

So when his hands gently, but with a force she could not possibly resist, pulled her away, the air returned in large, and unsatisfactory gulps.

"The sheriff has just pulled up behind us."

While her mind understood that these were words, they didn't quite catch the significance of them.

"Bella?" Edward asked.

"Hmm?"

He slid her onto the seat beside him, rolling down the driver's side window where he now sat.

When Sheriff Mark Barclay's face came in view, Bella felt like she was surfacing from an ocean she only wanted to submerge herself in again. The air around her felt cool against her flushed cheeks.

"Morning. License and registration, please—no, not yours, Bella," he said, watching her reach for wallet. "Yours." He looked at Edward, and not kindly.

Edward pulled out his wallet and handed over his license, and then the registration that Bella fished from the glove compartment.

"You're not insured for a secondary driver, outside your household, Bella."

"He wasn't driving." This was technically true. He hadn't driven her truck today.

"Oh?" He looked pointedly at where Edward sat, and then more shrewdly at Bella.

Her hand went to her hair, pushing it back behind her ear, uncomfortable under his gaze. She was trying not to remember the last time she'd seen him. Stuffing her hands beneath her legs, she hoped no one noticed the tremble in them. She could see the handcuffs at his waist, shining dully under the overcast sky.

"We were just talking, officer," Edward said smoothly.

"Talking. Sure," Mark said, "hadn't heard that term for it yet—can I talk with you privately, Mr. Cullen?" Mark pushed himself back from the window, and made space for Edward to get out.

"Certainly."

They stepped away from the car, their backs to Bella.

She couldn't hear all the words, but she could hear enough.

"She's been through a lot, and it doesn't fill me with confidence to find her with a man three years her senior, pulled over by the side of a nearly deserted road. You're pushing the limits for consent—"

The shake in her hands ended abruptly. Her ears rang with anger.

The passenger door thumped against its hinges when she banged it open, snapping back painfully against her injured arm as she got out. She didn't feel it.

"Are you kidding me?" she hurled at Mark. "You yank him out of the car to talk statutory rape, when you cuffed me after I told you I'd been forced into prostitution? You wouldn't even believe me when I told you, but you're hassling him because we're sitting here TALKING?"

The rest of what she said wasn't as clear, the ringing in her ears filling the space in her head.

What brought her back to words, and hearing, and logic was a cold hand squeezing hers. Edward's voice seemed to operate a frequency that pierced all the rage she wanted to keep yelling at the sheriff.

"Bella, let's go." His grip became a pronounced force of gravity, slowly pulling her towards her truck.

Her mouth was still moving. There were sounds uttering from it.

Mark's face looked pained and confused to her. His mouth moved, but she couldn't catch the words he spoke. Then he turned and walked away back in the direction of his squad car.

On the passenger side of the truck, Edward turned her into his body, wrapping his arms around her.

Her mouth had stopped moving now.

"You're safe, Bella. Nothing bad is going to happen to you."

"No," she mumbled. The tremble in her voice made it sound like two syllables.

"You're upset, and you have every right to be," he murmured. "How can I help you?"

It took her some time to find words again. "Let's go somewhere quiet."

"OK," he said softly, and held the door for her. When Mark's car moved away, he watched it reach, and then slide over the crest of the small hill before sitting down on the driver's side.

DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.