Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or its characters; Stephanie Meyer does. I also do not own the words or music to "Barracuda" those belong to Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Roger Fisher, Michael DeRoiser, and Sue Ennis. In my humble opinion the song was best preformed by Heart.

A/N: Greetings. I'm totally serious about Heart performing it best. Don't even think of coming at me with Fergie. I decided to shake things up a little with this chapter; you'll see what I mean. Still no beta, so againI apologize for any mistakes you may come across. Special thanks go once more to Jessica for being my biggest supporter in this endeavor. Thank you also to lovedreamlust3 for the review. No champagne or victory beer today, I'll be celebrating with a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. Yum.

So this ain't the end

I saw you again- today
I had to turn my heart away
You smiled like the sun- kisses for everyone
And tales- it never fails!

You're lying so low in the weeds
I bet you're gonna ambush me
You'd have me down, down, down, down on my knees
Now wouldn't you, barracuda? -"Barracuda" by Heart

Epov

I was one lucky son of a bitch. All the classic signs were there, but just to be safe I ran through the checklist one last time.

Flushed cheeks? Check, but inconclusive.

Weaving and walking into things like walls and doorknobs? Check, but again not extraordinary. Bella wasn't exactly a bastion of balance and grace.

Alternating between mumbling and almost yelling? Check, now that was a pretty clear sign.

Wild hand gestures accompanying the talking? Check, Bella had always been a bit of a "hand talker" but when she got drunk or wound up about something, the gestures got totally out of control. I tried to contain my laughter as I watched her tug her poor mutt around, she didn't seem notice that the handle of the leash was clutched tightly in her right hand.

No shoes? Big check there. Whenever she'd gotten drunk in college she'd always taken off her shoes. It had quickly become a sign amongst her friends, when the shoes came off it was time to cut off her access to the alcohol or else the next step in the night would be holding her hair back while she threw up in the bushes. One of my all favorite memories of Bella was when she'd drunkenly tried to explain, with wildly exaggerated gestures, that her feet needed freedom. She'd argued that freedom was the right of all feet and if I didn't believe her I should check the constitution. It had been so damn cute that I hadn't bothered to argue with her. The only downside of her pedal freedom was that it was such a colossal pain in the ass to get her to put them back on when the party came to an end. It wasn't impossible but more often than not she'd ended up getting a piggy back ride back to her room. She was lucky she was such a little thing.

I shook my head to clear out memories of her wrapped around my back with her strawberry scented hair blushing against my neck as her tequila laden breath caressed my ear while she whispered to me. The last thing I needed was to be sporting wood when I talked to her.

The great thing about drunk Bella was that she talked, a lot. Sober Bella usually kept her thoughts to herself and had only revealed little parts of what she was thinking. Drunk Bella was totally open and brutally honest, she didn't hide and she didn't try to spare anybody's feelings. It was awesome and hilarious.

As I watched her get closer to my door I wondered if it made me a total bastard that I was going to use her drunkenness to my advantage. I knew there was no way she could resist talking to me and that she'd probably end up telling me something or if I was really lucky quite a few things that she'd regret in the morning. Then I decided that since my beer has probably contributed to her condition it was only fair that I reaped the rewards. I opened the door and watched her approach.

"Asshole, assface, assmunch, asshat, asslicker."

Well that certainly wasn't what I'd been expecting to hear.

"Asswad?" I threw out as both a greeting and a peace offering. I didn't know why she was making a list of words that began with "ass" but it couldn't hurt to help right?

She stopped and cocked her head to the side. "Asswad? Asswad." She repeated trying the word out. Then she started laughing hysterically and I got a bad feeling. "Assward!"

"No! No, Bella! I said 'asswad!'"

"Too late, Assward."

Shit. Less than two minutes in and the conversation was not going as I'd expected.

I heard growling and looked down to find her little beast was regarding me with doggy distain. I curled my lip back at the dog and distantly wondered if I was about to get into some kind of pissing contest with a wiener dog.

"Be nice to Cooper! He's my baby. Aren't you Coopy Poopy?" She cooed at the dog.

"You named your little dog Cooper? As in Mini Cooper?"

"Yep. I'm that damn clever." She was clearly proud of herself.

"Well I guess it's better than Rover."

"You're damn right it is. Here hold this, it's too damn hot in here." She threw the leash to me, which I caught thanks to my ninja quick reflexes, and proceeded to strip off her sweatshirt. Holy hell. Under that sweatshirt she was wearing a thin cream camisole; I could clearly see her bright red bra underneath. I'd always liked how she'd looked in blue, but red was by far my new favorite color on her. Focus Edward! Now is not the time to get caught staring at her breasts or admiring her new curves.

"Why were you wearing a sweatshirt anyway? It's August. Even in Seattle, late summer isn't the right season to wear a sweatshirt."

"I can't figure out how to work the air conditioning control panel thingy."

"I could help." Yes, a chance to show off manly technology skills and spend some more time with her.

"Don't want your help, Assward." Dear God, please let her be too drunk to remember the new nickname that I'd unintentionally given myself. I resolved to just ignore it and hope that she'd move on.

"Oh, umm okay. Well let me know if you change your mind, you know where to find me." I waved at my apartment with one hand while giving her back the leash with the other. I was about to head back into the apartment to lick my wounds when my protective instincts kicked in. I did some quick mental math: half-dressed barefoot drunk Bella + stairs + wandering around our apartment complex alone = not good. Our complex was actually really nice and pretty safe, but Bella's ability to get into trouble was unmatched. I bet if I just let her walk away she'd trip down the stairs, go through a window and break her leg.

"Hang on! I'll go with you." I could see she didn't like that idea very much, this was bad. Drunk Bella was also super feisty Bella. "I need to check my mailbox." There that was plausible. I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

"Whatever." Okay so she wasn't thrilled but I at least she'd agreed, sort of. I checked my pockets to make sure I still had my keys and shut the door.

She made it down the stairs fine, although I had walked pretty close behind her with my hand out ready to catch her in case she needed it.

When we arrived in the lobby I walked over to the wall of mailboxes so I could "check" for mail. Shockingly there hadn't been a second delivery made today. I made a big show of sighing dejectedly and shrugging so that she'd believe my ruse from coming down with her, except when I turned around she was already outside. I quickly followed her and scanned the immediate area for possible dangers; broken glass, dirty needles, poisonous snakes, big foot, whatever, if it was possibly harmful and in a thirty foot radius Bella was sure to find it.

"I'm not a child you know. I don't need you watching out for me Assward." I told myself to take the high road and ignore her new favorite word.

"I'm your friend Bella, that's what friends do. Stop trying to cut me out like this." Oh fuck, talk about speaking before thinking.

"I'm cutting you out? Seriously that's the way you want to spin this?" Damn it! Now was so not the time to get into all that shit. I quickly thought of a distraction.

"Oh come one Bella, I just want us to be friend again like we were before. Why can't we go back to freshman year? Remember how much time we spent together and how much we had in common?"

"How much we had in common? Yeah that was tons. Let's see: we were both rejected from our first choice schools, we both had crap roommates, we both had to park our cars in the freshman lot, and we were both double majoring, which shouldn't even count since it's not like we were majoring in the same subjects. That's less than the number of fingers I have on this hand." She waved her left hand at me for emphasis. I briefly thought about arguing that thumbs weren't fingers, but as it probably wouldn't help my case at all I decided to let it go.

"Well it seemed like a lot back then I guess and don't forget about the swimming." How was drunk Bella talking circles around me?

She snorted at me, not even bothering to mention that she'd only ever come to that one practice.

I made myself look dejected; it was a little too easy. "I'm sorry we lost touch. I know it's my fault, it's just that you were such an important part of my life back then and now that I've found you again I can't stand the idea of losing you." I peeked up through my eyelashes to see if she was buying any of this. She was facing away from me and toward her dog while he took care of business, but I could see her watching me out of the corner of her eye. Her body language clearly showing that not only was she listening to me, but she was starting to soften up a bit. I quickly looked back down, the last thing I needed was for her to realize how thick I was laying it on.

"We used to have so much fun together and you were always challenging me trying to make me smarter, better. I could really use that in my life again." The scary thing was that part was actually true. Now it was time to hit her with the big guns. I looked up to find that she'd not only turned to face me and was openly looking at me, taking in every word that I said. Gotcha. I gave her the puppy dog eyes that had always melted my mom and gotten Bella to drive me wherever I wanted to go that semester I was without a car, and just let the words flow.

"I just don't understand why you don't want me around now that we've reconnected. It's not like I was horrible or cruel to you."

There was no God. In that moment, I knew it to be an absolute fact. If there was a loving creator out there surely he would have stopped me from saying that last sentence; an earthquake, her dog chasing after a cat, me having a sudden stroke, anything would have been better than bringing up that. The best and worst thing I had ever done, or perhaps the worst thing I'd ever done for the best reason and I'd just brought it up, by basically saying it hadn't happened. I really was the world's biggest bastard.

"Fuck you!" She screamed at me and stomped towards the door, little dog in tow. I hoped for his sake that all he'd needed to do was pee. I looked down at my feet because it was easier than watching her walk away.

"You know Edward," I would have preferred Assward at this point. I looked up to find that she had become the cool stranger with a familiar face and sweatshirt from earlier. "There was a time when all I'd wanted to do was push you down and fall on top of you. Now I just want to push you down, onto a pile of dog shit." Then she turned away from me, opened the door and walked away. That was the second time today she'd shut a door on me and left me speechless.

Apov

I loved it when Bella drunk dialed me; she was just so darn funny when she was wasted.

"So Bella's toasted huh?" Jasper poked his head out of the kitchen. I couldn't help laughing at his sudden appearance.

"Yeah, I'd say she's had a fair amount of beer this evening. She says 'hi' by the way. How's my dinner coming?" Jazz had taken over all the cooking in the last few weeks, it was sweet but kind of a pain in the butt as he'd become a total food Nazi. I was really starting to miss Burger King and Hamburger Helper.

"It'll be done in about fifteen or twenty minutes. So did she have a particular reason for calling or did she just call you because your name is first in her phonebook?"

"She saw Edward Cullen today. I guess he lives in her building."

"Edward Cullen? Seriously? Oh man that guy had the best pot connections on campus."

"Jasper!"

"What? Don't be such a prude; you know I wasn't a saint in college. Plus, it's not like you never got high."

"Alright, touché but that's all in the past now, you hear me mister?" I smiled up at him and rubbed my belly. Taking the cue from me, he walked into the room and gave me a quick kiss before putting his hand over where our baby was growing. I was just over two months pregnant and wasn't showing yet, thank God. I so wasn't looking forward putting on the weight, even if it meant that I was going to be a mommy. We were planning on telling everyone at Bella's housewarming. Jazz had been worried when I'd told him about my announcement plan, but I'd assured him that Bella wouldn't mind. She'd always hated being the center of attention even if it was at her own party.

"So how's Bella with seeing Edward again. I know she's always had a thing for him."

"Actually she said that she realized he was a total douche."

"Hey, are you going to be kissing our baby with that mouth?!"

"You bet your ass I am." I said with a grin. "I'm a little worried about this whole Edward situation though. He's the only person I know of who can really mess with her head like that."

"Well Bella's a grown up now. I'm sure she'll be fine, but if it will make you feel better Emmett and I could always slip out of the party and talk to him, make sure he knows we still have her back. Now why don't you come and help me make a salad to go with dinner?" He said and shepherded me into the kitchen.

We were cuddling on the couch watching a DVD after a delicious dinner of lasagna and salad when my phone rang. I checked the id and saw that it was Bella again.

"Hey, you know you already called me once tonight right? Everything okay?"

"We shall call him Assward." She said and hung up.