Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns everything Twilight. I own nothing.

A/N: This chapter was a little later than I wanted it. It didn't come out the way I wanted because we're still laying the foundation. It'll pick up with the next chapter. Please review! Big thank you's to those of you who did! BTW, Bella and the Beast should be updated sometime this week.

One: My Safe Haven

Thirteen Years Later

"Okay, Bella. Let's go over this one more time. Did you hear me? Bella?"

The seventeen year old girl sitting nervously on the green plush sofa in the center of the room looked into the stone cold eyes of the therapist in front of her. She supposed the blue orbs had been beautiful once, before the effects of stress and the demands of the job kicked in. The bags under her eyes indicated more than one night's bad sleep. Her neatly pressed black dress suit fit perfectly on her slender body. Her frizzy red hair was in tight bun on top of her head.

Nothing about her said carefree or fun.

"Bella?" The woman asked again, more impatiently. "Did you hear me?"

Bella nodded once, but she didn't want to go into the story again. This woman, like everyone else in her life, thought she was crazy. She didn't know how repeating it would make that any less likely. Nothing Bella said would change anybody's opinion of her.

Bella sighed heavily. "You mean Edward?"

"Yes, Bella. Tell me about Edward," the woman replied. Her face looked strained, like she was doing her best to suppress an eye roll.

Bella looked down at her feet and began wringing her hands. Edward wouldn't like her talking about him to random strangers. He was angry enough that her father and everyone else thought she was crazy. He didn't talk about the fact that Bella was ignorant enough to bring him up in conversations, and she was grateful for it.

"I don't know what to say," she admitted grudgingly, looking at her lap.

"Why don't you tell me how you two first met," the therapist suggested. She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them, balancing her clipboard in her lap. "What were the circumstances in which Edward came to you?"

Bella shrugged. She honestly couldn't remember. He had always been there with her for as long as she could remember. She couldn't imagine a life without Edward, and she didn't want to.

She told the therapist as such.

"Edward is family. He's always been there for me. I don't know what I'd do without him," Bella said in what she hoped to be in a final sort of way.

The therapist visibly tried to hide her sigh. "Bella. Surely you understand that a man only you can see is a little...well, imaginary friends are perfectly normal with children. Given all that you've been through, it's understandable that you may have regressed a bit."

"Regressed?"

"You know. Everything that happened with your father...you may have taken a few steps back to a more innocent time in your life that is helping you to deal with all that's happened. Edward was you childhood imaginary friend that you have brought back as a coping mechanism," the therapist hastily explained, as though this answer should have been obvious to the teenage girl sitting in front of her.

Bella stared at her, disbelieving. "You're saying that I'm making him up?"

"Honestly, Bella? Yes. Edward is nothing more than a figment of your imagination. It's my job to help you to come to terms with all that has happened during this past month and to help you move forward." The therapist took off her glasses and leaned forward in her seat to meet Bella's eyes. "But in order to do that, you need to accept that Edward is not real."

Bella frowned, confused. "But he is real."

"Then why can't anyone else see him? We spoke with your father the other day. He said he used to hear you in your room from time to time. He said he would hear you talking, as if to someone else, but there was no one else in the room," the therapist replied. Bella could tell she was trying not to scream at her.

"Edward has a soft voice."

"He never saw or heard anyone entering or exiting your house."

"Well he wouldn't, would he?" Bella shot back. "He spent half the night passed out on the damn couch!"

"Watch your language around me."

"Look," Bella said. She hoped that using reason would help her sound less crazy. She was already fighting the urge to call for Edward just to prove that she wasn't crazy, but she knew that wouldn't really help her case. "Edward is real. I've seen him my whole life. My father was a drunk who could never remember anything that happened last week. It would've been only too easy for there to have been someone else in the house without him noticing. As you know, Charlie wasn't exactly father of the year."

"So you're saying that Edward was someone you were sneaking into your house for the better part of fourteen years?" The therapist sounded condescending now.

Bella sighed. "No. He comes in through the window."

The therapist rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was making her frustration well known now. "I'm trying to help you. But you're making it very difficult. Why don't we leave it at that for now and maybe tomorrow you'll feel like cooperating."

Bella watched as the woman stood up and walked over to her desk. It was only then that Bella saw her brown nameplate. Victoria Wilson.

Bella stood up and followed Victoria Wilson out of the office. There were a handful of people sitting in the lobby; some read magazines or books, others just sat there with their arms crossed, looking like they had better things to do than talk about their problems to a stranger. Bella empathized.

She reluctantly walked over to the man in the wheelchair, parked in the corner of the room closest to the door. Billy Black looked about as happy to be there as she did. When he saw her approaching, he plastered on a fake smile. Bella reluctantly managed to give him one of her own.

"How'd it go?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

Bella shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Bella shook her head. "No, not really."

Billy smiled grimly and nodded. "Okay. Let's go home."

As they walked out of the building towards the parking lot, Bella couldn't help but think that home was a relative term.

~O~

The Blacks were old family friends of the Swans. Billy was Charlie's best man when Charlie and Renee, Bella's mother, got married. After Charlie was arrested, Billy stepped up to take Bella in. Bella was grateful despite the fact that she hadn't spoken to him much. She knew that his wife, Sarah, had been killed a while back in a car accident. His two daughters no longer lived with him, but his son Jacob still did.

Billy pulled into the driveway and stopped the car. Bella got out almost robotically, stepping out slowly and slamming the door shut behind her. She walked around back to help her new guardian get into his wheelchair but Jacob had beaten her to it. Billy was settling into the chair when Bella caught sight of the two of them. When Jacob saw Bella he offered her a shy smile.

"Hey, Bella. How...How'd it go?" he asked.

Bella shrugged then turned to head inside the house. She wasn't in a very talkative mood. She never was after her visits to the therapist. Instead she hurried into the house and went upstairs to her room.

It looked nothing like her old room back at Charlie's house. Technically it wasn't her room since it had once been Rebecca Black's room, one of Billy's twin daughters. When Bella first came to the house, Billy welcomed her to decorate the room however she wanted, but Bella hardly touched anything. She didn't think Rebecca would like the thought of a strange girl invading her childhood home and messing with her things. Bella knew if their roles were reversed, she wouldn't.

She slammed the door shut, the anger of her little talk with Victoria Wilson finally catching up with her. Who the hell did she think she was, talking to her like that? She never met Edward, so how could she possibly say that he wasn't real? Who was anybody to say he wasn't real?

She wanted so much to see Edward, but she would have to wait until later that night. He never visited during the day. She needed to see him and tell him all about what had transpired.

A knock at the door caused Bella to jump, startling her out of her thoughts. "Bella? Dinner will be in about ten minutes. Want me to tell you when it's ready?" It was Jacob. Was it Bella's imagination, or did he actually sound concerned?

"No. I'll be down," Bella replied hastily, hoping he wouldn't be in the mood to chat.

"Okay..." he sounded unsure. Bella fervently wished that he would go away. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm fine," Bella snapped, not intending to sound so harsh. "Thanks."

"Okay." Jacob's footsteps gradually grew dim as they retreated downstairs.

Bella sighed in relief. Finally she could be alone.

~O~

Bella's eyes snapped open at the soft knock at her window. She jumped out of bed and went to unlock the latch. Edward breezed inside easily, gliding at a speed that caused him to look like nothing more than a blur. Bella smiled at the sight. It was such a welcome, familiar sight that tears nearly sprang to her eyes at the comfort it brought her.

"Hello, love," Edward whispered in his usual greeting, kissing Bella on her forehead.

Bella closed her eyes and let the feeling of his lips on her skin wash over. "Hi."

"How was it today?" Edward asked as he went to sit on the edge of her bed. Bella didn't need him to clarify what he was talking about.

"Awful." She walked over to sit next to him and rested her head on his upper arm. She was always surprised at how hard and stone-like it was. It made her feel even smaller than she already was, but she didn't mind it. She always felt safe whenever he was around.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Edward reached up to tuck a loose strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear.

Bella sighed. "It'll just make you angry."

Edward laughed his cool, crisp laugh. "Nothing you can say will ever make me angry. Whatever it was, I can take it. I promise."

Bella hesitated. She knew that he would want to know how her visit with the therapist went, but she hadn't expected him to bring it up so soon. Couldn't they forget about her life for a minute? Couldn't he be satisfied by just being with her?

"They...the therapist told me that you...that I sorta made you up," Bella admitted. She was too ashamed to look at him as she spoke.

To her surprise, Edward seemed more amused than upset. "What else did she say?"

"Nothing much. Just that my seeing you was a result of everything that happened with Charlie. She said that I was regressing, going back to the imaginary friend stage to help me cope with everything stressful that's been going on," Bella explained.

Edward put his index finger underneath her chin and brought it up so that she was looking at him in his eyes. "Is that what you believe, beautiful girl?"

"Of course not!" Bella was affronted. "I've been seeing you long before my situation with Charlie became serious! I see you every night. You climb through my window, you touch me, kiss me..." Bella blushed unintentionally at that last part. "How could I have imagined anyone even half as beautiful as you?"

"Bella..." Edward sighed and wrapped his arms around her in a comforting gesture. "You know how much you mean to me. I hate that you're suffering like this. If it were possible, I'd go to your therapy sessions and prove to everyone that you're a healthy, normal girl. I want so badly to take you away from all this."

"Then do it." Bella looked up at him hopefully. She could see in his eyes that he'd hoped this topic wouldn't be brought up.

"You know I can't, love. Not yet."

"But you always say that," Bella replied, hating how desperate she sounded. "Why can't you? What's out there that could possibly be worse than all this?" She gestured around her.

Edward sighed. "I want to, Bella. I want to more than anything. But the timing isn't right. If I were to take you now, it would prove to everyone that their reasons for being concerned were justified."

"I don't care!" Bella exclaimed.

"I do," Edward murmured, holding her close to him. He began stroking her hair, as he had done so many times before. It made it hard for her to stay mad at him, and he knew it. "I want you to be happy, love. But now is not the time. It's not safe for you where I come from. I wouldn't be able to protect you as much as I can here."

Bella looked down, feeling more helpless than ever. "I hate it here," she whispered into his chest.

"I know, beautiful girl. And one day, I'm going to take you away from it, if that's what you want. But not yet. Please trust me on this."

Bella didn't answer. She didn't have the strength to fight with him anymore. She didn't want to. His visits were too precious to waste. For now she was content to let him hold her, stroke her hair, and whisper in her ear how much he loved and cared about her.

Eventually- Bella wasn't sure if she'd fallen asleep in Edward's arms or if she'd simply lost track of the time- Edward gently lifted her off his lap and stood up. "Time for me to go, love."

"No. Please. Stay just a little longer." Bella knew it was pointless to plead with him, but she kept hoping that maybe one day he would change his mind and say yes.

"I can't, Bella. You know that," he said, sounding amused. Bella could see his lips curled in a lovely smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow though, right?"

"Of course, love. Keep your window open," he said. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head then without another word he jumped onto the windowsill and was gone.

Bella waited for a second, hoping pointlessly that Edward would change his mind and come back. When he didn't, she reluctantly closed the window, shivering at the cold air, then crawled into bed, wiping away the stray tears from her cheek.