Author's Note: Quick clarification - the italics in the prologue are not anything Edward was watching or remembering, it was all in his imagination. More at the bottom.

Two: Sentinel

Where did you grow up?

What do you do for fun?

What was the last thing that really made you laugh?

When is your birthday?

What book are you reading right now?

I started a list when I woke up on Friday, and then added to it at work, when I got home, and when I woke up in the middle of the night. It went on for pages, even while purposely using cramped and dense handwriting.

Saturday morning I woke up before dawn and recited questions in the shower. If you could live anywhere, where would it be? What's your favorite movie/color/flower/time of day? There was another one, something I wanted to ask, but standing in the shower I couldn't remember it. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think of it, pressing a hand into the cold tiles; they were white, or they used to be. What is – no – where was the…how – what was, if you…My hand fisted of its own accord a slammed into the shower wall. I yanked my hand back and held it close to me; the swelling had gone down, but the bruises on my knuckles were still a very dark purple and painful to the touch. I didn't want Bella to see them, but I had no way of covering them up. She couldn't see me that way – violent and unhinged, so making a good impression today was vital. I had to leave her with a better memory.

In my bedroom, I pulled out clothes that I'd washed the day before – jeans, grey pullover sweater, normal. It was something a person being seen with her might wear, I hoped. In my coat pocket, I stuffed my list.

I walked to the coffee shop we'd agreed to meet at; it was downtown, a block off of the law office I'd seen her at; I wondered if she lived nearby. I was very early. To keep my seat at a little corner table, I had to order something, so I got a black coffee. The barista noticed my hands, but didn't say anything.

Out the window, I watched for her and ignored the waitress that stopped by more than once.

Bella showed up between a crush of people, a flash of blue coat among all the black. She was an angel, better than I remembered; she glowed, moving through the people like they weren't there. At the last second before she got to the door, a teenage boy ran into her and I jerked upward in my seat, but Bella only smiled and said some quick platitude before walking around him.

She wasn't alone; it took me until then to realize it. Some small girl walked with her, short hair; they almost looked like sisters. I reached into my pocket, gripped my list of questions. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, we should be alone. It made no sense that she'd want someone else here. I would never hurt her.

Bella opened the door for her friend and then looked around for me; I stood and waved. They both smiled at me and the friend hurried past the customers, much faster than I thought was necessary. Bella was about a step or two behind her.

"Are you Edward?" The girl asked. She was very little, but lacked Bella's fragile beauty; she took up a lot space, it seemed.

"Yes, I'm -,"

She threw her arms around me and instinctively, I raised my arms away from her as if in surrender. "Thank you so much," she whispered into my shirt. She pulled back, but didn't let me go. "If you hadn't been there…," her eyes watered and then she smiled and shook her head. She stepped back.

Bella was standing just behind her, the smallest smile touching her lips. "This is Alice; she wanted to meet you."

Hearing her voice and the explanation made me feel better. It wasn't that she didn't feel safe being only with me; her friend just wanted to come too. I could live with it for now. And if today went well, Bella and I would get our chance for privacy soon enough. I cleared my throat and introduced myself properly and offered them the seats across from mine. Bella sat down diagonally from me, but Alice excused herself to order.

"Sorry for the surprise, I would have called, but…,"

"Here, let me have your phone; I'll put myself in."

She fumbled for a second, but then found it at the bottom of her purse; instead of handing it to me she set it on the table. I took it and hit a button to light up the screen.

"Your hands."

I looked up and saw that she was staring, her eyebrows pulled down. I wanted to reach up and massage away the crease that formed between them, but I just held the phone more tightly, my fingers working over the buttons quickly. When I was done, I slid the phone over to her and hid my hands under the table. "They look worse than they feel." She had a hand out like she might have reached for me and I cursed myself for hiding them so quickly.

Bella shrugged out of her coat and it hung loosely around her slim figure; underneath she wore a simple chocolate colored shirt. "Are you sure?" She was still frowning.

I smiled and tried to reassure her that it was only a few bruises, but Alice returned with two covered cups; she set one in front of Bella and said she got her "the usual."

"What's the usual?" I asked too fast.

"Hot chocolate, I don't drink coffee, low caffeine tolerance."

"Oh," I tried to fix it. "We could go somewhere else if you'd like or…just go for a walk or something."

"No, no, it's fine," she smiled and I noticed barely visible creases at the corners of her eyes; Bella was someone who smiled a lot. I leaned back into my seat; in my pocket, my hand felt along the folds of the papers like a talisman.

Alice was the natural leader of the conversation; she was uninhibited and fired off question after question which I answered with increasing anxiety. I wanted her to leave, to have some emergency that called only her away, but that was impossible, I knew. If something took her away, it would inevitably take Bella away as well; she was that kind of friend. So I was polite and asked questions back, though I wasn't as good at it. Her husband was a police detective, she did something in finance. Bella listened quietly, her arms crossed on the table; I could smell this very soft flower smell and tried to lean into it without being obvious.

"Yeah, Bella's a big reader too," Alice said offhand to something I'd said.

"Like what?" I turned as fully as I could to face her.

"Um," the question seemed to fluster her, "it'd be hard to narrow it down…," she thought for a minute. "Classic literature, the Bronte sisters, Austen, Shakespeare, um, I'm not sure what else," she smiled again, but kept her eyes down.

Bella was smart, very much so, I realized. Of course she was; would I ever be able to keep up with that? Not likely, but I would try.

After a while Alice began to beg off, saying she and Bella had some things to do. I stood, fighting disappointment, to say goodbye; when I did, my list fell out of my pocket, but I didn't notice right away. Alice shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me. Bella smiled, looking into my eyes this time, and took my hand much more lightly than Alice. I covered hers with my other hand.

"What's this?" Alice reached down to something near our feet – my list. She straightened and looked at the folded bundle of paper.

I snatched it out of her hands. "That's mine." I realized belatedly that I'd startled them both so I stuffed it back in my pocket and rubbed the back of my head. "Just a grocery list."

"Pretty long grocery list," Alice said.

I shrugged, "yeah."

We said goodbye again and I walked them outside before they went one way and I went the other. I wasn't sure how that had gone; I was worried that I'd scared them. Bella had smiled at me though, four separate times, and she'd reached for me twice, taken my hand once and she didn't flinch when I put her hand between the both of mine. Her skin was thin and soft and I could feel the small bones underneath. She didn't speak much, she observed; I could tell her dark eyes would miss nothing. I understood that I would have to step up my game.

When I looked up from the sidewalk, I saw that I'd turned around. I was walking toward Bella and her friend rather than away from them like I'd started; I just couldn't stay away, even unconsciously. They weren't anywhere I could see, but they'd gone in this direction; so I slowed my pace, glancing in store windows.

Another ten yards or so I saw them coming out of a department store, Bella was carrying a tiny white bag and I wondered what kind of clothing would fit in a bag that small. Lingerie, surely. Something silky and white that tied together with a thin ribbon in the front just so and when you pulled on the little knot, the two sides would fall open across her perfect skin.

My face was hot. I walked with the two women from across the street, trying not to look at her little bag, trying not to think anymore about what might rest inside it. When they walked inside a different building, I walked into its mirror opposite on my side. A bookstore first – I bought up Shakespeare and Austen and ignored the looks I surely got from the cashier, and then went into some kind of modern art gallery. I waited for Alice to leave her, imagined ways of facilitating that end.

I sat on a bench next to a trash can when I was tired of pretending to look at whatever was in the last place; I watched the windows across the street instead. The sun was at my back, shining as well on the glass, reflecting myself back at me. It was hard to see through, but if Bella moved to just the right angle, not impossible. She browsed a display shelf of something, her fingertips brushing over it; I thought of her hands on me again, clutching, pulling at my coat, trying to take me with her. I thought of my hands on her.

And then, just like that, they were saying goodbye on the sidewalk. Alice hugged her quickly before finally departing. Bella kept walking and I moved too, tethered to her with very thick rope; I counted to one hundred.

Jaywalking, I squeezed between two cars parked in the street. "Bella?" It was difficult, pretending to only run into her; the lie felt unnatural and ill-fitting.

She stopped mid-stride and her expression changed to one of friendly surprise. "Edward? Hi," she paused, no doubt searching for words. "I…keep running into you."

I moved to a spot out of the direct traffic flow. "Hopefully, this time is better." She smiled, but didn't say anything. "So," I wanted her away from other people, "heading this way?" I gestured the direction I already knew she was taking.

"Yeah, just – going home."

I raised my eyebrows, "I'll walk you?"

Bella switched her bag from her right to left hand; inside it, all I could see was tissue paper. "Sure."

I matched the pace she set and tried to stare, inconspicuously, at what the sunlight did to her skin.

"You know," she said after a minute, "I feel like I haven't really been able to thank you -,"

"But you did, that night," I reminded her.

She shrugged, "I guess, I - that's not very much, you know?"

I smiled at her. She was so grateful; she wanted to do more for me, but I couldn't take advantage of her kindness. "I'm just glad you're alright."

We walked past the park, the one I'd first seen her in, but this time we used the sidewalk that ran around the perimeter. Her pace was leisurely and I believed maybe, that she was increasing our time together. I opened my mouth to ask her to dinner, but the words wouldn't come.

"Well, I'm right up there," she looked in the direction of a two story brownstone; there were two houses between me and it, five steps up to the front door, rounded windows on one side; the street was named Parkside Lane.

"Alright then," and then I said, "oh, how did your job interview go?" I realized my error when I saw her face change.

"It was – did I tell you about that?" That stress crease formed between her eyebrows.

I tried to recover, tendrils of panic tightening around my insides, "yeah, at the coffee place this morning."

She was staring at the ground as if replaying the day in her head; I knew she didn't believe me, but that she was too good to believe the worst. "Oh," her whole body was different now. I wanted to explain - that first meeting had truly been a coincidence. I thought about how close I'd been to her home then, how close I'd been to her every time I ran that path. So I didn't say anything. "It was fine," she cleared her throat, "I haven't heard anything yet." I could see her thumbnail picking at the braided handle of her bag; the rest of her body was frozen, like a deer caught in the middle of the road.

"Um -,"

"I should get going, it was nice seeing you today," she smiled at me while taking a step back.

Don't go yet, I was thinking, but instead I told her goodbye, that maybe I'd run into her again. What must have been going through her head, I couldn't say, but she didn't understand I was sure. I wasn't some deranged lunatic; I had happened upon her by chance twice and fate had looked my way. I'd protected her; she'd needed me there and I was there.

That was the first night I kept watch over my angel's home.

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone reading and thanks to everyone who donated to MsKathy's Haiti relief effort, donations were up over 75 thousand last time I checked; I don't even have words to express how incredible that is. You guys are pretty awesome.