A/n Thank you all so much for the reviews, when there are fewer I feel it. I know that many of you are dying for me to pick back up where we were on "The TA" and I promise that it will happen shortly. Writing Edward's POV has been very helpful so far in getting a basic outline set up in my head (I kind of jumped in without one) and I'm still bouncing between a couple of possibilities.

Music

Sugarland – Just Might

The Calling – Wherever You Will Go

Modern Skirts - Pasadena

I entered her little apartment and surveyed my surroundings as she put her bags on the table. The bookshelves were exactly as I'd expected; they were packed with the classics and a precious few contemporary novels. It seemed that she had taken up a passing interest in Russian literature, a shelf was devoted to them but each one appeared to have only been read a couple of times. He shelf of books devoted to English literature was at her eye level and almost every volume was tattered and well worn.

The furniture was shabby and old, none of it matched and many pieces looked as if they had been destined for the trash heap before making their way into her apartment. Everything was clean but the fabric on the couch was threadbare, the coffee and end tables were mismatched and damaged, the bookshelves were cheap fiberboard. She had a very small TV perched on another mismatched, damaged table. I glanced at her kitchen table very briefly it was an old round wooden table that appeared to be the only item in her apartment not in danger of falling apart. Bella stood in front of it, her back to me as she silently debated something.

It was as I turned my head to keep Bella from realizing that I was looking at her again that I noticed her unique artwork. Her walls, which one would have typically expected to be decorated with the banal Monet posters that were commonly present in college apartments, instead held large poster size pictures. I studied them attempting to place what famous photographer she was following when it occurred to me that these were originals, not commercially made posters. A particularly interesting series of three hung behind the couch. The first was a picture of the light-bar on a police cruiser; the angle was interesting and cast the bar in a aesthetically beautiful light. The picture on the end was of a large Native American man poised on the edge of a cliff as if to jump. The scenery and the man looked vaguely familiar. However, the picture that interested me was the one in the middle. It was blown up slightly larger than the other two that flanked it, and contained a close up of a wildflower. I instantly recognized the scene behind the flower as our meadow.

She had to have taken these herself. Bella had been hiking on her own or she had brought someone else to our meadow. I had already known this because of the incident with Laurent. I had hoped it had been an isolated incident but I supposed that that was too much to ask for. There were quite a few broken promises between us.

I was suddenly aware of Bella, she was looking at me apprehensively over her shoulder as if she feared my reaction to the pictures of all things. I looked at them for a moment longer and it occurred to me that these three were a series of abstract portraits. Her father, Jacob Black, and myself hung in front of me. The third was obviously the grand child of Ephraim Black; he looked exactly like him even at a distance and slightly out of focus. Charlie shied away from pictures and I had taken the only pictures that she had of me when I left. Bella was nothing if not inventive.

She crossed the room to me as slowly as she could cross such a small space. There was only a few steps space between where I stood and the dining table. I smiled at her interpretation of me. A flower in the meadow certainly fit our relationship, it had been beautiful and too short lived, but given the chance I would fix that.

"The meadow." I sighed as she came close to me. "Did you take this picture?"

She merely nodded and I put an arm around her. The photo evoked memories of spring and summer afternoons spent in the sun, the smell of freshly fallen rain intensifying her scent around me, and my skin shimmering in the light. There were also kisses in the damp grass as moisture seeped up from the ground into our clothes.

"It's beautiful." You're beautiful, and I'm still desperately in love with you, just in case you've forgotten. I satisfied myself with thinking the words for now and buried my nose into her hair. She nestled into my side as if she knew my thoughts. Her arms wrapped around my waist and I relaxed into her warmth. I continued to breathe in her burning scent. She had to be getting sleepy again.

"It's getting to be early morning. Do you still want to talk?" I was concerned about her lack of sleep.

"I don't know what I want." Her voice was muffled because she had buried her head into my chest.

"Perhaps I should go and let you sleep?" I started to pull away but Bella resisted. She wanted me to stay even if it meant sacrificing rest.

"Please stay tonight." She brought her brown eyes up to meet my gaze and my heart melted. I wanted nothing more than to stay with her.

"If you want me to, I'll stay forever." I brushed the hair back from her face to get a better look at her. Instantly I knew that forever had been the wrong concept to bring up. Bella tensed briefly but shocked me when she ultimately seemed to take the concept into consideration. Her eyebrows scrunched together slightly forming the ghost of a 'v' between them. I wanted to smooth her forehead with my fingers and tell her not to worry about it but then she spoke.

"Let's not talk about forever yet. I'd like to get through a much shorter period of time first." She mumbled and appeared suddenly weak.

"Bedtime for the human." I lifted her small fragile body effortlessly, and carried her into what I presumed would be her bedroom. I laid her on the bed and she removed her boots, wincing slightly as she bent her leg to pull off the right. I covered her with a blanket and she removed her jeans dropping them carelessly on the floor. I didn't know what to do. As an answer to my indecision she patted the bed next to her and I lay down on top of the covers and pulled her blanket wrapped body into mine. Without thought I hummed her lullaby; I had not even dared to think of anything close to it for years but the sound was suddenly coming from my vocal cords. She drifted off into a deep dreamless sleep.

I held her until a dim gray light crept in through the window, ignoring the hum of my cell phone in my pocket. She awoke slowly and gently this time. Her skin slowly warmed to it's regular temperature, her heart rate and breathing moved gradually into a normal rhythm and then she rolled over in my arms to face me. She seemed both shocked and pleased to find me still holding her. She brought her hand up to rest it lightly on my cheek and her heart skipped a beat. I would stay with her in her room all day but she might not be happy with me if she missed class.

"I'll let you have a human moment." I touched my lips to her forehead and reluctantly untangled myself from her to seek out breakfast for my angel. No sooner was I out of her room than my phone rang. I silently cursed at it pulling it from my pocket.

"Yes Emmett." I groaned.

"You stayed overnight." His voice was on the edge of mocking.

"She asked me to stay with her, what was I to do?" I feigned innocence as to what my brother was insinuating, as if Alice wouldn't have told everyone if his suspicions had been true. I heard Bella turn on the shower so I rushed into the kitchen to make her some breakfast. "You know that nothing happened Emmett, Alice would have told everyone."

"How is she?" He was suddenly uncharacteristically serious. After the way we left the night before the whole family was probably livid that I didn't answer my phone all night.

"She invited me in to talk and then I realized that she was too sleepy for conversation so I put her to bed. She asked me to stay so I did." Relatively little had occurred since we left them. I wasn't about to tell my brother that I had decided that I liked the idea of Bella on a motorcycle, nor was I going to share my revelation about the pictures on her wall, or any other delicate, sweet detail from the early hours of the morning.

I opened Bella's kitchen cabinets only to find them completely void of food. My next step was to check the closet just off of the kitchen, as it turned out that housed the laundry room.

"Emmett, could you put Esme on?" I needed to ask my mother a favor.

"Sure," He pulled the phone away from his ear and called slightly louder. Esme must have been outside. "Esme. It's Edward... No, she's fine. He wants to talk to you." He relayed information to her as she came into the house. "Later Bro. Wait, you're coming to get us for school, right?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'll be there in a bit. I just need to take care of Bella first."

"Edward!" I could hear the satisfaction in Esme's voice. She had heard my last comment as Emmett passed the phone over.

"Esme, I'm running into a bit of a problem over here at Bella's." I kept the concern out of my tone and opened the fridge and freezer to confirm my suspicions.

"What's wrong?" Esme was truly concerned. I found phone conversations difficult because I couldn't read other people's minds over the phone.

"I'm trying to fix breakfast for Bella and it seems that she has no food."

"NO food or just no healthy food?" She asked for clarification.

"There's a spoiled half gallon of milk and that's it. I think that your suspicion about her having an eating disorder may have some merit." I frowned at the empty space where food should be. "If I text you her address would you come stock her fridge while she's out today?"

"No problem. Don't worry Edward, we'll get her back to normal." I could hear her smile. "I'll see you later son."

"Bye mom." I hung up and closed the fridge just as I heard Bella open the door to her room. I noticed one last cupboard and hoped to find food there. I opened the cabinet as Bella discovered my whereabouts. My ears pricked up as she leaned on the cabinet at the edge of the kitchen.

"Looking for something?" She asked sweetly.

"I was going to make you some breakfast but as it turns out there's more human food at my house than yours." I smiled at her and opened the fridge using my hand to indicate it's empty state.

"I've been eating out or on campus." She offered an explanation but at that moment she ran her fingers through her wet hair. She had forgotten the way water accentuated her scent. It hit me full force and surprisingly my reaction wasn't blood-lust. Instead, I had to remind myself that I was not going to make the first move in this relationship again. I was waiting for her to kiss me, or to ask me to kiss her. I pulled myself together in short order.

"No, you haven't been eating." I pointed out.

"I eat! I just don't cook anymore. It seemed kind of pointless with no one around to eat it other than myself." She shrugged her shoulders defensively and leaned into a cabinet.

"I called Esme while you were in the shower. She's bringing you some groceries later." Her face changed and a few tears built up in her eyes. I didn't think that I'd been harsh. Had my voice been too rough? I had had so little contact with humans recently that I thought perhaps I had lost the ability to communicate appropriately. "What's wrong?" I rushed to her as she took a shaky breath.

"I'm just not used to being taken care of anymore." She swallowed hard. "I really am fine on my own. You don't have to worry so much about me." Bella didn't want to be a burden on anyone and saw my assistance as just that, her placing a burden on me. That assumption couldn't have been further from the truth.

"Please let me do this. I know that you don't like it when I take care of you but I've really missed doing it." I placed my fingers under her chin and dazzled her. "Since there's no food here, do you want to hit the dining hall?" She was about to submit when a look crossed her face. Bella had never been good at hiding things, that look had been panic. Did she really have some sort of eating disorder and didn't want to eat that badly?

"Edward, what are we going to do about school?" She pulled slightly away but I wasn't going to let her wander off. I took her hand and led her to the table indicating with my free hand for her to sit. I placed myself opposite of her without releasing her hand.

"I can drop the class if it makes you more comfortable." Or we could skip all of this awkwardness and I could take you to Vegas and marry you today. I discarded that thought, that would qualify at too fast in almost anyone's book. "Or, we could leave. We could go somewhere, just the two of us." That seemed like another viable option, if we left I could arrange to be in graduate school with her, or I could change her without suspicion.

She laughed at that. Her laughter hurt just a bit because I had been serious about leaving and taking her with me. I was a greedy selfish creature and didn't want to share her with her assistantship.

"Why don't we start with you dropping the class?" She looked at me through her lashes in a way that I couldn't refuse her.

"If that's what you want." I sighed, it was too much to ask for, too soon, and I knew it.

"Did you really expect me to just drop everything and leave?" She hadn't thought that I really meant it, but I did. It hadn't quite been twenty four hours and I knew that I wanted an eternity with this enchanting creature.

"I'm just being a bit greedy. It's been so long and I really want you all to myself." I couldn't prevent the lustful tone from manifesting itself in my voice. She blushed and I instinctively reached up to feel the warmth in her cheek. She turned and kissed the palm of my hand setting my insides on fire.

"Maybe we could go somewhere for the weekend." She was giving me something, the weekend. She ran her hand down my arm and I took in a quick breath once again fighting the urge to kiss her.

"I don't want to be away from you for any reason." I whispered.

"I think that you're asking for a lot after four years of being apart. I've changed a lot and I don't know if you're going to want to hang around. Asking me to give up this scholarship and walk away is a big commitment for only one day." Bella didn't believe that I was going to stay for the long haul and that was painful.

"I never should have left." I let go of her hand, perhaps I had been misreading the situation but I had thought that I was doing well. I turned away from her to hide my pain.

"No, you shouldn't have but you did." She sounded desperate.

"Whatever it is I have to do to convince you that I'm not going anywhere, I will do it." I folded my arms and pledged to make things right with an all new determination.

"There's more risk involved in this for me than for you. You have to understand that you have advantages that I don't. I don't have unlimited time or resources to go to school." That was something that I was willing to fix permanently.

"You could, I would give them to you." I turned around to gauge her reaction.

"If everything works out but if things don't work, then what?" She rose from her chair and turned to her bags on the table. Did she really think so little of me? Did she think that I would waste her time and then not take care of her? Was she doubting her feelings or mine?

"It's going to work out." I approached her slowly and rested my hand on one of her surprisingly muscular shoulders. At the back of my mind I wondered what she had been doing to gain this extra muscle while still seeming to waste away. "Do you want me to check with Alice?"

Her responding laugh was beautiful this time. I would make her happy again; I had a chance.

"Edward, I just feel the need to use caution this time around. You can't fault me for that." She wouldn't turn around even though I tried to gently coax her by the shoulder.

"No, I suppose that is one of the consequences of my actions." The multiple injuries and trauma's that she's suffered since meeting me came to mind. I moved my hand to her hair and brushed my fingers lightly through it, avoiding getting caught in any tangles. The conversation wasn't going well but she was responding to my on a physical level. Her breathing changed almost imperceptibly when I touched her. She turned to me and pulled me into a hug, I held her lightly, unsure of her intention with this contact.

"Can I just ask – What are you afraid of?" It occurred to me as she turned that the look in her eyes wasn't apprehension or doubt but fear. We could face fears, those could be overcome so long as she was willing to be honest with me and tell me what they were.

"It's hard to put a finger on it but I'm not sure I believe that this is real yet. I'm afraid that if I close my eyes you'll disappear again. I'm also a bit afraid of becoming a vampire if things do work out." The irony of the situation struck me. I had spent all of that time trying to convince her that we were monsters and just as I was willing to change my mind and make her one of us she suddenly seemed to get it. There was always 'plan B'. I could live with 'plan B', as she had dubbed it. That was my original idea for how our lives together would work, she would live out her life as a human and I would stay by her side until she died, at which point I intended to find a way to end my own existence.

"Well, I am not going anywhere and you don't necessarily have to become a vampire." I loved her and this was an option that I could live with so long as she was there.

"And exactly how is that going to work? What happens the next time I get a paper cut or worse? Are you going to flip out and leave me again? Are you going to move me with you all the time even when I'm an old woman? Not to mention the fact that there's no way for us to – to – well – be together without me becoming a vampire and I just don't think that this relationship is cut out for a lifetime of celibacy." She raised her voice but laughed weakly at the end of her rant. These were the fears she had about our relationship, this is what I was up against.

"Celibacy would be difficult," really really difficult, because just being around you it's all I can do to keep my lips off of yours at this moment, "but as for the other concerns Jasper has greatly improved his control in the past four years. He's blamed himself for my emotional state this whole time. I think he might have been as happy as Alice and I were to find you alive." I imagined Bella as a little old lady with a walker and an attitude and grinned. "As for the old woman thing, I think you'd be a very cute little old woman." She laughed mirthlessly and balled up her fist as I finished.

"No. I can't even imagine what it would be like for me to be all old and wrinkly and still in love with this young, hot, teenager at which all the girls are still throwing themselves. I don't think that my pride could deal with that." She started to try and slide around me but I couldn't have that...

"You're not leaving me many options." I put my hand on her hip and slid her back in front of me as I spoke. "I'll give you time. I'll give you all the time you want." Her face was very close to mine, tempting me when it happened.

Bella took the initiative and pressed her soft lips into mine. Before I knew that it had happened my arms locked around her body, there was no way this was going to end quickly. I had been holding out for her to do this and she had finally kissed me. It was a great release. I lifted her onto the table to get her at my level and she gasped opening her mouth. I kissed her more deeply as she both shook and puled me closer to her. If she wanted me closer than I would gladly oblige. Gently, I leaned her back onto the table avoiding the couple of items in the way without her knowledge. She needed to catch her breath so I moved to kissing her neck, she was still gasping for air and her heart thundered loud and fast.

Her breathing finally seemed to even out and I leaned further onto the table to reach her mouth again. Then, I heard it. A slight creaking sound jumped to the forefront of my mind. The table was about to break spilling Bella onto the floor. I acted quickly and pulled her into my arms just as it crashed to the ground. She panicked at the loss of the table underneath her and threw off my grip slightly. I held her with just my hands in the air as I attempted to regain control over the situation. As I placed her feet on the ground next to the now ruined table she was breathless.

"Rules?" She asked.

"We should definitely stick to the rules, and try not to break the furniture." I found it funny that she was suddenly interested in the rules. She hated them before. She must have been serious when she mentioned taking things slowly.

"It's time for school. I have a class this morning and you need to change your schedule." Bella was still breathless as she attempted to get me moving toward the door.

"Are you sure that you don't want to just drop out and stay with me for a few hundred years? School will still be there." I purred the offer into her ear on the off chance that her resistance might have been weakened.

"Do you ever stop?" Bella pulled away and collected her things. When she reached for her jacket I stifled a moan.

"Not the bike again!" After that kiss I couldn't handle the bike without exploding from frustration.

"What's wrong with the bike?" she expected this to be a fight, it didn't have to be one.

"You're just really crumbling my resolve here. Now that I know you can handle it, it's intensely... it's sexy and I have a really hard time controlling myself." I refused to believe that I was admitting this out loud.

"Oh! So, you like the motorcycle?" She grinned and moved her eyebrows like she always did when she thought that she was being devious.

"I really like the motorcycle. I just prefer not to think about it." I shoved my hands in my pockets.

"I'm finished at noon today. We could race." The tone of voice that she used to say this should be outlawed. I went weak in the knees and clenched my fists in my pockets.

"rules, rules, rules..." I reminded myself clearly enough for her to hear it. Bella seemed to think that my self control was infallible but she might learn that this was something I had difficulty controlling. I was positive that I would never lust after her blood again but these urges I had no practice reining them, I might just snap if she kept behaving like that.

"Come on, if you want me to hit the dinning hall before class we need to leave." She left the apartment and I stood for a moment trying to regain my composure. I met her next to the motorcycle as she was attaching her bags.

"You are very dangerous. You realize that right?" I attempted the same tone of voice on her now that I had my composure and turned her bringing her into a soft kiss before releasing her. "I have to go get the others, but I'll see you there." I heard Bella's heart accelerate and knew that I'd done my job. Perhaps getting her to accept immortality wouldn't be so hard with her impatient human hormones on my side. I just needed to keep my composure in this little game of 'chicken' that seemed to be playing. I drove off with her still standing next to the bike, heart flying and mouth agape.