A/N: Sorry for the short length of this chapter. Fanfic's episodic nature makes it difficult to figure out the pacing sometimes. If this was a book, I'd put the first chapter and this chapter together because they end up being pretty cohesive.

Anyway. Let's go.

On second thought, heading back into the mall wasn't the best idea Edward had ever had. It took him all of three minutes to be brought up short when a flashing ad board caught his eye.

Rosalie tossed her hair, staring out at him with a come hither stare. Goddamn perfume ads never made sense. He scowled at her and flipped her the bird.

"You really don't like perfume?"

Edward whirled around, startled. He found himself face-to-face with a familiar looking woman. It took him a moment to place her. She wasn't in her jolly elf costume anymore, but her face was still somewhat garishly painted—bright red cheeks and glittering eyeshadow. She smiled at him, and he was struck once again by…

Something.

Pretty. Beautiful.

She quirked an eyebrow and made a show of looking around. "You lost something, I think."

Edward laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Kind of." He sighed and gestured at the board. It was showing an ad for Cinnabon now, but he was sure the woman would understand. "That was Hadley's mother."

The elf had her head cocked, her right ear pointed toward him. She furrowed her brow, looked toward the ad, and then back to Edward. Her hands moved, and it took Edward a second to realize she was signing. Her hands moved way faster than he was used to, and none of the words came to him.

"Oh. Um." His mind wasn't used to shifting easily into translation mode. It took him a few awkward seconds to remember what little he knew. "Sorry. S-t-i-l-l learning," he signed. "Remember?"

She studied him a moment, nodding slowly. "You look like you want to talk. It's loud where we are." She pointed to hear hearing aid. "Hard to hear. Harder than usual." She flashed a grin. "And I'm on lunch. Want to join me?"

He was shocked by the straightforward invitation. His lips quirked up and down, and he laughed. A thrill went down his spine. "You don't even know my name."

"You could tell me."

He laughed again. "Edward."

The pinched expression on her face told him she hadn't quite caught that, so he signed it instead. "E-d-w-a-r-d."

She smiled. She had a great smile. Her eyes lit with a challenging glint as she signed back. "B-e-l-l-a."

He found himself murmuring each letter as she signed. "Bella." He nodded. "Talking would be good."

~0~

Bella led him to a hot dog restaurant that was quieter than the rest of the mall. They found an unoccupied corner of the restaurant. Edward nursed a beer, wondering what the hell he was doing, complaining to this total stranger.

Maybe it was the idea she might understand, really understand, what he was struggling with. Hadley was so young—an age when every child was really learning their language. He struggled to make the people in his life understand sign language, American Sign Language or ASL specifically, was not the same as spoken English. You couldn't just translate word for word. Even if he could, his sign vocabulary was severely limited. Fighting this battle mostly alone—his family was supportive, but they were all busy people with their own lives—could get so lonely.

So, because this kind stranger asked, he found himself telling the whole story. How this had happened. How he ended up with a daughter he couldn't live without, but a baby Momma he had barely anything in common with.

He'd been a minor celebrity on his college campus. He'd hosted a student produced, late night sketch show.

"I ran in the same circle as Rosalie. You can't miss that she's hot, and she damn well knew it." He rolled his eyes.

"Yes. And you're a troll. So ugly." Bella raised a challenging eyebrow.

Edward huffed. He liked the way she looked at him—assessing. Approving. It was distracting enough that she watched his lips so intently. He understood she was filling in the gaps of what she could hear by lip reading, but it made him think of other things.

And damn. Why did she have to be eating a hot dog?

"A lot of people were trying to push us together," Edward admitted. "And that last spring break before we graduated, when a group of us went to Cabo, it worked. I don't know what it was. We didn't like each other enough to be anything. We weren't really even friends. But we were, uh… together that week."

The in between was relatively simple as these things went. Edward and Rosalie were never going to be good friends, but they were civil from the get-go.

"We were different people. I graduated with a mountain of debt. Rosalie actually got a modeling job for maternity wear because of course she did. She's always been successful, but she also comes from money." Edward passed his empty bottle between his hands. "Anyway, we were getting along okay until we found out Hadley is Deaf."

Bella pressed her mouth into a hard line. "She doesn't want a Deaf daughter, " she guessed.

"It's not…" Edward frowned. "Rosalie is who she is. It's not so much that she didn't want Hadley. She thought she couldn't have kids. She would love any child she got, and she loves Hadley. She's a good mother in most ways.

"It's just that her reality is different, or she sees reality differently than I do, anyway. She has a different truth. She can't fathom not doing anything and everything to achieve the concept of perfection." Edward shook his head, remembering an offhand comment Rosalie had made when she was pregnant. If she had to get pregnant accidentally, she was glad it was him. Not because she wanted to be attached to him for the rest of their lives, but because he was attractive and smart—two qualities she wanted her child to have in spades. "Rosalie knows that Hadley will be able to speak and read lips. To pass as normal." He spat the last word. "She just doesn't understand yet why anyone would want to embrace a flaw rather than correct it or do their best to pretend it doesn't exist. She doesn't get that it's not a flaw. Hadley is perfect the way she is. She's healthy and brilliant. She's also Deaf. There's nothing wrong with that. She is normal."

Bella reached across the table, putting a gentle hand on his. He realized he'd been babbling, and that he was clenching his jaw. She smiled at him and signed something. She gave him an apologetic look and tried again, signing while she spoke this time. "I said, how dare you call me normal? We're not normal. We're extraordinary."

Edward couldn't help but grin back. His heart beat warm in his chest. His skin tingled.

He didn't even think about the next words came out. "Do you think maybe we could get a drink. Or a cup of coffee. Or dinner and a movie?"

Her brows furrowed. She cocked her head toward him and tapped her lips. "I didn't get that."

Of course she hadn't. All the words had come out in a jumble, run together and mumbled. It must have looked like, "SKjkhwqjhdh," to her. He ran his hand over his face, laughing and blushing furiously. What in the everloving hell was happening to him?

For a moment, he considered taking the out. She didn't need to know he was trying to ask her out. But then he made the mistake of looking at her again.

Getting a date used to be so easy for him.

"I said, would you be interested in going out with me? By chance. Sometime."

She laughed and ducked her head. Then, her head snapped up, and she held a hand out in a placating motion. "I'm not laughing at you. Did Hadley tell you what she asked for?"

He shook his head.

"She wants her own computer... and she wants you to marry an elf so she can visit the North Pole on holidays."

Edward stared and then he burst out laughing. "Santa tried to set you up with me, didn't he?" he asked, putting the scene from earlier together.

"Santa is my father. He likes embarrassing me."

"It's in the handbook. It's the duty of all dads with pretty daughters."

Her cheeks turned pink, and she looked at him. Their gaze held, and Edward's heart skipped a beat.

"What d-a-t-e?" He huffed, hating how clumsy he was. His sign vocabulary sucked, and on top of that, it was limited to what he needed to communicate with a four-year-old. Why was he making a fool of himself in front of this woman? He made his face open. Questioning. As though merely curious. Playing it cool. "Word. Sign. For d-a-t-e? How sign?"

The pink of her cheeks deepened to a red hue. "I'm off at five. Tell you then?"

He knew his grin was goofy as hell, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "I'll be there."

A/N: Next up! Date time.