A/N:

Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns the plot and characters of Twilight, not to mention all the money it makes. I make nothing but fanfiction.

I wanted to wrap it up this chapter, but this was long and I had trouble with the end and I didn't want to make you all wait any longer.

I'm totally sucking at responding to my reviews right now, and I am so very sorry for it, RL has just been busy as all get-go and I haven't forgotten you and I read them all and they make me squee and giggle and nice things like that. Thanks for those of you who take the time, especially those that reviewed to every single chapter. The win you people are made of, it's wild.

Brace yourselves, children.

Chapter 15 – Mind Over Matter aka "Murphy's Law"

When I got to school the next morning, Alice threw her arms around my neck and sobbed into my shoulder. I held her tightly, seeking comfort as much as giving it. I had to bend down, and when I straightened her feet lifted off the ground. She was so small, so tiny in my arms, and she was hurting so much.

Rosalie had her hand on Emmett's arm, eyeing us with a strange expression on her face. Jasper was nowhere to be seen. Bella wasn't there either.

Bella. At the thought of her I lowered my own head into Alice's neck and clenched my jaw. I was done hurting for her. I was done bouncing around at her whims. I was done. I held Alice tighter and she cried harder.

"Let's get out of here," I murmured, and she nodded immediately.

"Wait!" I looked up and Alice tightened her grip on me, cutting off most of my air supply. Jasper was taking quick strides towards us, his face determined, and I growled.

"Not this anymore." I extricated myself from Alice's grip and pushed her behind me, and she clung to the back of my shirt like a child. Locking my jaw, I lifted my chin and stared at Jasper. "What do you want, now?"

"I need to talk to you, Alice, please," he dropped suddenly to his knees and I blinked.

"Fuck off," came her muffled voice from behind me, the sentiment behind the words only half-hearted.

"I'm begging you, Alice, give me a chance to apologize, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you I swear if you just give me the chance to."

"Let's go, Edward," she tugged on the back of my shirt again and dove into my car. Jasper watched her with devastated eyes. I considered kicking him in the face for a few seconds, but dismissed the idea in favor of driving off with the love of his life instead.

He got back up to his feet slowly as we drove out of the parking lot, and Alice gave sad sniffles from her seat next to me where she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth.

"The bastard. The stupid stupid bastard."

I nodded. Honestly I had expected him to go after Bella now that he was free to. I wasn't sure what to make of his newfound loyalty to Alice. "Where do you want to go?" I asked her, my voice distant and weak.

She shrugged. "Home."

I nodded. I would take her home. Then take myself someplace. Not home. Not where the vision of Bella in my bed and in my life was so vivid. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Outside her ridiculously large mansion, Alice looked at me expectantly. "You coming? My mother never manages to keep track of the liquor cabinet because she always gets too wasted to remember how much she's had."

Did I want to? I looked at Alice, pale and tiny and red-faced with tears. She kinda looked the way I felt. Why the fuck not?

I followed her into the foyer and up the stairs. She gestured to a door and I went in to wait for her while she grabbed something to drink. It was her bedroom, I realized, bright and vivid and flowery and so Alice I could've picked it out of a lineup. I sat at her vanity, which was littered with little bottles of cosmetics with French names. I picked one up. Gold dust moisturizer? Fucking insane. Bella would laugh.

I violently pushed the thought of Bella out of my head and placed the bottle back in its place. Fuck Bella. She was probably laughing now. Laughing at the new kid she managed to fuck over royally. Sighing, I saw my senseless accusation for what it was. She wasn't laughing. She was probably back in Seattle, forgetting me the way she always wanted to. Was she hurting? Heartbroken? Probably. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, though the gaping hole in my chest told me she deserved it. She had it coming. She did it to me first.

I looked at my own reflection in the lit mirror in front of me. It felt like I hadn't really looked at myself in so long. The past four months had beaten me down. I was a wreck. My cheeks were hollow, my skin papery and dry, my chin covered in stubble because I only shaved when I absolutely had to. My hair was dishelved and too long. I needed a haircut. I needed to eat and I needed to sleep. The shadows under my eyes were so purple it looked like I'd been punched in the face. I looked the way I felt, too. I wanted to feel worse. I wanted to look worse. I wanted it to stop and I wanted to feel ok again.

"Tequila, gin, whiskey." I turned to look at Alice and she immediately recognized the anguish in my face. Her own face crumpled and she walked over to me, putting the bottles down on the vanity and sitting in my lap. She threw her arms around my neck again and I held her tightly to me, longing for something, anything that can chase the memories and the hurt and the games away. "I know," she whispered.

And she did.

I sighed. Alice smelled like geraniums and something exotic and French. It wasn't Bella, but it was nice. I would have enjoyed it if I hadn't been so consumed with thoughts and images of Bella. She'd taken over my life. If I'd thought I was obsessed before, I was doubly so now. Obviously I'd been voodooed or something. Obviously.

"She said she loved me," I whispered. I knew Alice heard me because she stiffened minutely in my lap. "She loved me from the moment she saw me."

"I know."

I pulled back and looked at her. "You knew?"

She shook her head. "I said I know. I just found out last night. Rosalie said Bella was at her house, and she was a mess. I was kinda surprised to be honest. I figured she'd go to Jacob or something." Did Alice know about Seattle? "I told Rosalie to deal with her on her own. I wasn't going to take the time out to comfort her."

My initial reaction was to defend her. I was shocked at how quickly the impulse rose in me. I bit back the words and nodded at her to continue.

She looked at my chest for a moment before meeting my eyes again. "Rosalie said she was more broken than she'd ever seen her before."

I blinked and looked away quickly. So she wasn't laughing. Good.

I inhaled her some more, trying to push the scent of Bella out of my mind and resting my forehead on her shoulder. She played with my hair absentmindedly, and I knew she was someplace else.

"I think I did it, too." She stopped playing with my hair and tried to look at me, but I stubbornly kept my head on her shoulder so she wouldn't see my face. "I loved her from the moment I saw her. I think it just took me longer to figure it out. It's probably why I let her get away with being such a bitch to me."

Alice laughed, a haunted tinkling sound that held no humor. "So you're meant to be then. What a waste."

I lifted my head at last to look at her. "What are you talking about?"

"You're soulmates, like me and Jasper. You can't fight it any more than I can. You knew on some level from the moment you saw her that she was itfor you. you were drawn to her and she was drawn to you, and no matter how much shit went on in between you two love each other, don't you?

My jaw worked. "It's not like that, ok? She fucked with me. She played me like a fucking toy."

"She loves you the best way she knows how. It's not ok but it's not her fault either."

Because she loved me. She had laid it out, the truth in all its fucked up glory, bared her flawed and imperfect soul to me, and it hadn't been good enough for me. She had been so scared of loving me, and in the end it had fucked her up. She had been right. The whole time I told myself I was in love with her and she was perfect. But she wasn't perfect. I just thought she was because I loved her flaws as much as I loved her good qualities. And as soon as I saw how imperfect she really was I'd pussied out. I'd hurt her. I'd fucked up.

I was such a fucking shithead.

But she was such a fucking bitch.

"Don't think about it so much right now," she shook her head, and I looked at her with new eyes.

Alice was stylish, and cute, and fun, and witty, and she was so sweet and caring and full of energy and life. "Why couldn't I have loved you instead?"

She smiled at me, and it looked semi-real. I couldn't help it. I smiled back. "Because that would have been too easy, Edward."

I nodded though I didn't understand, and she ruffled my hair playfully and got up from my lap. With something new stirring in my recently awakened consciousness, I poured us each a shot of tequila, and we let the ancient charm of inebriation take us away from the things that would hurt us.

***

Carlisle came by to pick me up. I wasn't sure how or when it happened, but Alice must have called him to tell him I was too drunk to drive. He half pulled half carried me into the backseat of his Benz, and I complained that he smelled like hospital the whole time. Had I been more sober, I would have applauded his patience with me.

There were other conversations, but I couldn't remember a word later.

I probably fell asleep before we got home, because the next thing I remembered was waking up in my bed with the curtains drawn and two little white pills on my nightstand next to a glass of water. I didn't even want to know what time it was. I didn't think I could bring myself to care.

Studiously ignoring every timepiece in the house, I dragged myself downstairs and set up the coffeemaker. With sticky eyes, I sat at the kitchen table and waited for something to come back to me about what had gone wrong. Why was it so hard? Loving Bella had always been hard, but did it have to be so hard to get over her, too? I could think of so many reasons to hate her, and yet not one of them made me love her an iota less.

My stomach churned, and the stench of coffee suddenly made me sick. I dragged myself away from the kitchen and went back upstairs, determined to shower the sickness off myself. I took longer than I usually did standing under the water and trying not to think, and only turned off the water and grabbed my towel when the hot water ran cold. In my room I went through my pockets and found my phone. Six missed called. Four voicemails. Three messages.

The calls were mostly from an unknown number. One from Alice, and one from, of all people, Jasper. The voicemail from Alice asked if I was ok and told me to call her. There was another one from Alice that had almost the exact same message, and I figured she was drunk and had forgotten that she'd already called. Jasper's voicemail was a lot of awkward silence and throat clearing and a strained apology. Right, like that fixed anything. The last voicemail was from the unknown number.

"Edward, this is Charlies Swan, Bella's father." I fumbled and dropped my phone, and I had to rewind the message and listen to it again. Why the fuck was Charlie Swan calling me? I panicked as I listened. "Now I've been speaking to Dr. Cullen here about some things you've told him and I wanted to thank you for bringing them to my attention. I assure you that I'll be handling the situation with your father's help and we're going to make sure things like this don't happen again. I'd like to ask you to keep an eye out for Bella and make sure all her friends do the same. We need to get her better, you know?"

I swallowed and shut my eyes. When the hell did I tell my dad anything about Bella?

I groaned. I had been so so very inebriated last night. And I was such a talkative drunk.

"Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. If you ever need anything, my door is always open."

I shook my head in disbelief and stared at my phone, flipping open my new messages. Rosalie telling me she'd picked up my homework for me. Dad asking me to call him soon. And one from Bella.

Open your door.

Open my door? Sluggishly, I got off my bed and took the stairs carefully. There was no way. That message must have been sent hours ago. I took a deep breath and opened my front door.

And she was sitting there on the steps, her back to me, but she turned her head to look at me with her big brown eyes when she heard the door open. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe she was here.

"Hey."

Oh fuck no. "Oh fuck no." I moved to close the door but she was sober and faster, and her hand was on my arm sending electric currents up and down my spine. "No, Bella, no. No more fuckery, I'm done."

"Edward, please, I'm sorry, please let me in." The sincerity in her voice shocked me so much, I dropped my arms from the door and she pushed past me into the foyer. I turned to her, my head still crawling through my hangover, and waited for her to do something else that would hurt me. When I made no move to do so she shut the door, locking it once for good measure before walking towards my kitchen. "I'll make you some coffee. You must feel like hell."

In a stupor, I followed her, and like a baby I let her put me on a stool while she awkwardly moved around my kitchen looking for mugs and cream. "Does your dad know you're here?"

Her shoulders stiffened as she placed a steaming mug of coffee – complete with sugar and cream – in front of me. She sat in a stool opposite me and shrugged. "He dropped me off."

I nodded, stirring my coffee and avoiding looking at her, because I knew if I looked at her I'd get weak.

"I was kind of surprised when your dad showed up last night."

I looked up at her through my lashes. "It wasn't my idea."

She nodded and blushed. I wondered what she was thinking. "He told us you hadn't been yourself for a few months. He hadn't really known why, but we talked last night."

I snorted. "You talked to my father?" I wouldn't believe it even if I saw it on tape.

"He's a stern guy. Very firm. Nothing like Charlie. No one's ever really talked to me like that before…" she trailed off, picking at her sleeve and hiding behind her hair. I wrapped my hands around my coffee to keep from reaching out to brush it out of her face. I was done going down that road with her.

It's too hard.

"I think Charlie was mostly relieved that someone came out and said what probably everyone's been thinking all along. And in practically the same breath offered a solution. It's kinda like…" she trailed off again, and I took a long sip of my coffee to keep from saying anything to encourage her. She looked up at me, her blush so prominent, more beautiful than I'd ever seen in my life. My heart raced. It hurt. I clenched my jaw. "It's almost like no one cared enough to say anything, and no one cared enough to fix me."

I snorted and she dropped her eyes. "You didn't give people much of a chance, did you?"

She shook her head slowly, and I hated seeing her so sad. "You cared, though."

Fuck.

"You probably cared more than anyone had ever cared, didn't you? And I fucked up, didn't I?"

She really did.

"Edward I'm sorry." She lifted her head so I could see her face, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. "I'm so so sorry."

"You need help."

She nodded. "Your dad gave Charlie someone's number. I'm going to see her next week." She ran her hand through her hair a few times, chewing her lip. "I'm probably not going to be attending anywhere this fall. I might need to take some time out to figure things out here. Not just me, with Charlie, too."

I nodded in response. I was glad. I was relieved she'd be taking the time out to do whatever it was she needed to do to get better. But I was angry at her, and angry at Carlisle. Why did it have to be now that it was too late for us?

"Is it too late for us?"

Had I said it out loud? No. But she was thinking it, too. Her phone rang, something I didn't recognize, and she sighed and answered.

"Hey. Yeah I'm here inside with him now. Ok. Hold on." She held her phone out to me and I eyed it warily. "It's my dad. He wants to talk to you."

I swallowed, taking the phone from her with cautious fingers. "Hello, Sir."

"Hey, Edward. Sorry about this, I just wanted to make sure she was still there. I can't keep an eye on her every second, you know, but I can do what I can to at least try and keep her safe."

I nodded though he couldn't see me. "Yes, Sir. I understand."

"Thanks, son. Can you put Bella back on please?"

I handed the phone back to Bella, and she listened with sorrowful eyes to her father. I couldn't hear him, but I imagined he was giving her orders. A minute later she hung up. "Sorry."

I shrugged. Of all the things she could be sorry for, and there were many, this wasn't even close to the top of the list.

We sat in awkward silence while I finished my coffee, and she got up wordlessly to wash the mug. She poured herself one, loading it with sugar and cream before bringing it back and sitting across from me again. We sat a foot apart, silent and empty and utterly exhausted. When I looked at her face I saw the shadows under her eyes, I saw the sunken skin of her cheeks, and I knew she was suffering. I tried to imagine how long she'd been suffering, ignoring her problems and going through the most painful of motions, again and again for years. What had I told Carlisle last night that had Charlie Swan so trusting of me instead of threatening me with a gun?

"I'm scared, Edward." I looked at her in disbelief. She just doesn't know what to do with herself, Rosalie had tried to explain, and I saw it so clearly now it was a wonder I ever missed it before.

"You were horrible to me." I was embarrassed at the naked pain in my voice.

I knew she heard it, because she winced. "I was so wrong and so selfish. I'm sorry, Edward."

She was sorry. It wouldn't give me all that time back.

"I know I can't ask you to forgive me. But I love you, and nothing that's happened has changed that."

"You watched me stumble around like a zombie for four months. Why didn't you try to fix it?"

"I thought you were better off without me," she whispered, and I heard her shame. "I'm so sorry."

I stared at her, and I knew she meant it. It was shitty, but it was what it was. She had simply loved me the best way she knew how, and it wasn't ok, but it wasn't her fault. We sat in silence, and the sound of the garage door opening and closing had us both staring at the countertops instead of each other. Carlisle walked into the kitchen, eyeing us suspiciously. "Bella, your father asked me to take you home."

She nodded, glancing at me and sliding off of her stool. "Bye, Edward." I stubbornly looked away. Because I was a shithead and I couldn't forgive her yet.

Carlisle gave me a look that clearly communicated we would be having a long conversation when he got home later, then they were both gone.

It was weird, knowing Bella and my dad had engaged in a heart-to-heart of sorts. I wondered what they would talk about on the way to her place, and I hoped it wasn't me. Or maybe I hoped they would talk about me. I didn't know.

I called Alice, and she asked me to fill her in. I told her a sketchy outline of my day and asked her about hers.

"Jasper came by to talk. I kinda threw him out, but he'll be back if he knows what's good for him."

I chuckled and she laughed, too. "Do you think you can really forgive him, Alice? He was a pretty big dick to you for a pretty long time."

She was quiet, and I could almost hear her thinking. "I know he isn't perfect. But I've already forgiven him. I just want him to take the time to think about how much he wants to be with me. He doesn't love her, not really. He just feels like they have unfinished business because they had to end. She was his first love, and he failed her, and he doesn't know how to fix that and stay friends with her."

I thought about her words. They seemed to make sense, and almost fit in with Bella's dismissal of his attention as a guy who couldn't get over the girl that was his first. "So just like that, you can forgive him?"

She tsked. "There's no 'just like that' to it at all. It's not easy. Maybe in a perfect world real love is easy, and it makes sense and all the pieces fall into place. But this is it as far as I'm concerned. We fell in love with hideously imperfect people, and it's just hard sometimes."

"I thought it was too hard loving Bella."

"And now?"

"It's still too hard."

She sighed. "I can't make you forgive her, Edward."

"I know, Alice."

"But I think you should try."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Were you there at all when she was fucking me over?"

"Oh don't be so melodramatic." The irritation in her voice shocked me almost as much as the fact that she was defending Bella. "I saw what she did to you, but I saw what she went through to do it. Maybe boys are just blind or stupid or braindead or something, but Bella Swan hurt when she hurt you, and even though you were the target she didn't get to walk away unharmed."

"So you'd sympathize with a perpetrator as much as the victim?"

"Don't be naïve. Bella is a lot of things but a perpetrator isn't one of them."

I waited for her to say something else, and she waited for me to respond. I couldn't. I was too angry.

"Get some rest, Edward. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Sure thing."

And I'd see Bella, too.

***

We sat squared off in his study, Carlisle behind the desk, me in the seat facing him. I felt like he was trying to intimidate me by initiating this conversation on his turf, but I only felt resentment, both old and new, bubbling up inside me.

"Edward, I've been an absent father."

I snorted. Yeah, no shit.

"But that doesn't mean you get to be a troubled teen."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not troubled, Dad. I just had some girl trouble."

He eyed me sternly. "Are you on drugs?"

"Carlisle!"

"Answer me."

I bristled and grit my teeth. "No."

He stared at me for a beat longer, almost as though he could pick the truth out of my head like a file from his cabinet. "Fine. Is there a drinking problem I should be worried about?"

I rolled my eyes again, slumping in the leather chair. "No. I drink socially, but it's not a problem."

His mouth became a thin line and he shook his head slightly, but he said nothing. "Bella Swan. You've been in love with her all year. Why didn't you tell me?"

I wanted to say something rude and snippy, but something held me back. "I didn't think you'd be interested."

"Of course I'd be interested, son. Did you ever doubt that I cared for you? I know I've been busy but I'm still your father."

"I don't doubt that you care for my well-being."

He stopped, understanding dawning on his features and I shifted, uncomfortable. I wasn't good at this shit. "Edward, I-"

"What did you tell Bella's dad?"

Carlisle stared at his hands folded in front of him at his desk. "I told him she had classic signs of clinical depression. She used drugs because she didn't know how to self-soothe. She has text book abandonment issues, and her outbursts were the only self-preservation she knew and understood. I talked to him about treatments, and possibly some medication. I referred him to Tanya. She's the best teen-therapist in the state."

I nodded. It sounded about right, but it was all mumbo-jumbo to me. "What did you tell him about me?"

He sighed and looked at me cautiously. "I told him you were in love with her, and that you were concerned for her, but that she pushed you away and you weren't trained to deal with this kind of behavior."

"What did you tell Bella?"

He continued to look at me, searching for something in my face before shaking his head and standing up. "That is between the two of us."

I stood up too, seeing that the conversation was over.

"I can't say I'm not disappointed in you, Edward. But I want to make one thing very clear. You are my son. You're the only family I have left in the world. And whether or not you see it or believe it, I do care about you. All of you." He shifted from one foor to the other and I did the same. We were probably more alike like that than I ever noticed before. "Will you promise to talk to me the next time you feel like you're struggling with something? I may not always approve, but I'll always listen because I'll always care."

I nodded, embarrassed for him. It couldn't have been easy for him to say any of that.

I was at the door when he stopped me again. "Edward, I've been meaning to tell you. I'm thinking of asking Esme to marry me."

I turned around to face him, shocked. "Marry you?"

He shuffled some papers around his desk to avoid my gaze and nodded. "I haven't felt this way about anyone since your mother. I don't know that I ever will."

I leaned against the door and stared at my feet. "She makes you happy."

"She does."

"And the two of you are in love."

"We are."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. My initial reaction was to be angry, but I knew it was just loyalty to my mother that fueled that ugly emotion.

Carlisle had always been a dumbass about this, sacrificing years of his own happiness to wallow in his grief over my mother. This was a big step for him. He wouldn't have even considered it if it weren't truly serious.

"At least someone around here would be able to cook," I said lamely.

Carlisle chuckled, seeming to release a lot of his tension. "Yes, it would be a pleasant change, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, Dad. It would."

And I left quickly before he could think of anything else to throw at me.

***

The chief dropped her off in his cruiser, and she didn't glare at anyone on her way to her class. She caught my eye once, and quickly looked away in embarrassment. She sat slumped in her seat next to me during lunch, avoiding Jasper almost as much as he was avoiding her.

I stared at Rosalie and wondered if she knew what was going to happen with her mom and my dad, and decided she needed to work it out with her mother when it came. I was no specialist. I wasn't trained to deal with these dumbasses.

In biology I saw Bella stare at the back of Lauren's head. I wondered what new method of humiliation she was cooking up and feared for Lauren a little. This was going to be a tough time in Bella's life, and I imagined a punching bag would have been nice for her to have around. I made a mental note to suggest it to Carlisle.

After class she gingerly touched Lauren's shoulder, and they spoke in hushed tones before Lauren suspiciously followed her to the girl's bathroom. I winced for Lauren, but I'd saved her from Bella once before and it wasn't going to become my full-time job.

After the last bell rang I was looking for Lauren to make sure I didn't have to report a body when I saw Bella standing next to my car, looking exhausted and put out. I took careful steps towards her and waited for something monumental to happen. She smiled at me weakly, toeing the grass with her sneakers – no socks – and drumming her fingers against the hood of my car. "Can I get a ride home with you? Charlie said to stay at your place until he could come get me."

She sounded nothing like she'd sounded that first time, confident and cocky and so sure she was getting what she wanted that I had no room to even consider turning her down. She was meek, shy and utterly helpless, and some caveman instinct in me roared to life. "Sure."

She beamed at me, a dazzling smile that had me reeling. Fuck. She hadn't dazzled me in a while.

Hesitantly, she put on some Mars Volta for me in the car. I knew she wasn't into it, and the small gesture was surprisingly touching. It was the first time in months I'd listened to music. Somehow it seemed appropriate that it was with her.

"Do you think Alice will ever speak to me again?"

I nearly drove through a red light. Taking a moment to collect myself I looked at her, and she was blushing again. I had never seen her blush so much. "Alice isn't speaking to you?"

She shook her head, staring straight ahead.

I tried to be honest and think about what I knew of Alice. "Yeah, she will. She just needs to sort it out with Jasper first."

She nodded. "He's planning a big romantic gesture."

"Is he?" My lip twitched in amusement.

"He's going to propose."

"He's going to what?!"

Bella nodded, and I saw her own lips curling into a smile of her own. "He asked Rosalie to go ring-shopping with him. Of course the bitch called him a dumb fuck the whole time, but he told her he didn't care they were so young. If they waited it would just be delaying the inevitable."

I smiled at that. "So he really does love her?"

"Yeah, he just had a shit time showing it."

And just like that, we weren't talking about Alice and Jasper anymore.

We were silent by the time I pulled into my garage, and we were silent as we walked into the house. It was odd having her here, her oranges and flowers saturating everything in my kitchen and in my living room.

"Do you want me to order Chinese or something?" I was suddenly embarrassed by the emptiness of our fridge.

"You mind if I make something?"

I looked at her incredulously. "We don't have much."

"I'll manage."

I shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

She began moving around the kitchen, uncertainly at first then with growing confidence, filching that or the other and fiddling with the burners. She hummed as she worked, almost mindlessly, and I recognized the melody of an old Pixies song I had never liked. I watched her, enraptured by the ease and grace with which she worked. Wherever else she was clumsy – and I had seen her trip on nothing at all too often to deny it – she was at home in a kitchen. It was so out of whack with the rest of her, the bad ass free-loving-car-bashing-drug-binging girl that everyone saw, and I realized she must have been doing this for her whole life. Her mother wasn't around, and I certainly couldn't picture Chief Swan waltzing around a kitchen making anything edible. So it was all her, then.

"Tell me about your life growing up," I murmured, and she looked at me with surprise, as though she'd forgotten I was even there.

She shrugged. "There's not much to tell. I lived here my whole life. Only left once a year or so, to go see Renee."

"Did Charlie ever have any girlfriends?"

Her eyes hardened, almost reflexively, before I saw her take a deep breath and toss some noodles into a pot of boiling water. "No. He still has pictures of Renee all over the house, their wedding photos and everything else. His bedroom is almost exactly the way she left it. He's so hung up on her it makes me sick."

I nodded and tried to think analytically. Her father still loved the woman that had hurt her irreparably. She probably resented him for it. It was probably why they weren't very close against all odds. "How did he feel when your mom got remarried?"

She stiffened again, then ran her hands through her hair before wiping them against the thighs of her jeans. "He shut down for a bit when he first heard about it. After the wedding, I don't really know how he handled it. I wasn't there."

Right. Her first venture into Seattle's creepy and shady. The man had probably been devastated, losing the woman he still loved and, for all intents and purposes, losing his daughter in rapid succession.

"Will you tell me about your life?"

I heard the strain in her voice and recognized the pleading tone. The old Bella would have decked me for the first question, and she was trying to be open and honest with me. But it was hard on her. I took a deep breath. "Carlisle was never around much when I was a kid. I was such a little Momma's Boy." She laughed dryly, dropping some tomatoes into a pan to let them simmer. They smelled divine. "When she died, Carlisle kinda freaked I think. He didn't know much about being a dad. But he did the best he could." I smiled wryly. Yeah, I supposed he had. I'd never thought of it that way before, not really.

"How come you moved here?"

I shrugged. "Carlisle sold the old house, the one where he and Mom got married. I don't think he could have handled being in it anymore. He never dated after she died, ever, but then he came here and met Esme, so maybe it really was just the house that was holding him back."

She nodded, peeling some potatoes. "Maybe he needed the change."

She finished up dinner quickly – noodles in a sweet and sour tomato sauce with large chunky potato bits everywhere, weird but surprisingly delicious – and I had two full plates of the stuff. She watched me, amused. "You don't eat much around here?"

I shrugged, embarrassed by my gluttony. "Esme sends something to eat once in a while, but generally speaking cold cuts are the staple diet of the Cullen household."

She giggled, and I smiled despite myself at the sound.

"You seem so different to how you were when I first met you." The words were out before I had the chance to think about them, and I put my fork down gingerly.

Bella cleared her throat, twirling and retwirling the same noodle and not looking at me at all. "Is that a good thing?"

I was puzzled by her blushing. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, you're nicer. You smile and laugh a little. I like it." I blushed at the admission and was glad she wasn't looking at me.

She smiled, dropping the noodle to poke at a potato. "You never did answer my question from before, you know." I swallowed, knowing what was coming. "Is it too late for us?"

Well fuck, was it? "I don't know," I blurted. "What if you go to therapy and get your shit together and you don't even love me anymore? I mean fuck, you're beautiful and smart as hell and just so much fun and when you're nice like this I mean, what guy wouldn't want you?" I growled in an attempt to stem the word vomit but it came out regardless. "Even after all the most fucked up shit happened I still love you, and I know that whatever changes you make in yourself will just make me love you more. If I could love you with all your flaws and imperfections, I can't imagine what I'll feel for you when you're gentle and kind and sweet, and I already know you're all those things underneath the bullshit but now the rest of the world is going to know it too." I slammed my palm on the table, biting my lip to just shut up already, but I knew as the worlds tumbled out that they were true, that I was losing her and it wasn't going to be because I was too angry to forgive her, it was going to be because she wouldn't want me anymore, and a thousand other guys will want her in my place. "I'm nothing special. I'm notoriously saying the wrong things at the wrong times, I shut my own father out, I have no special skills or talents, I can't play any sports or instruments or do anything even remotely unique. And I hurt you."

I dropped my head, exhausted, too vulnerable to see the hurt or the anger or the disgust in her eyes. She must think I'm pathetic. See what happens when the inner pussy takes over?

"I love you." I was so shocked by the tenderness in her voice that I actually looked at her, and there was a quiet joy and peace in them I had never seen there before. "If you'll still want me, after I get my baggage sorted, it would be the most amazing thing for me." She wasn't blushing, and she wasn't crying. She was calm, stating it like a simple fact. "I want to be with you. I thought you'd never want to be with me again."

Blindly, a drowning man reaching at long last to comfort, I gripped her little hand in mine. It was warm from all that cooking, nothing at all like that night she'd come into my room and given me the best sex of my life. "I do. I will." It sounded like a vow, and somehow I meant it as one. I got a sudden glimpse, Bella in white, smiling up at me the way she was smiling now. Mine. Forever. Complete and whole and together. My Bella. Mine.

We ate in silence until her father picked her up, with her warm hand under mine, shy and unsure but relieved we were doing it together. After she left I sat in my room and played the Smiths CD she had made me hear so fucking long ago. It made me smile rather than cringe.

And I knew then that we would be alright.

AN/

There's one more chapter after this. I'm getting emotional. A lot of you have told me you're attached to the characters, and I understand completely because I love these little guys like they were my family. Saying goodbye to them is hard, so please be patient while I churn out my farewells.