A/n Here it is, the last "real" chapter. The epilogue will be coming soon. I will be editing and reposting some chapters as I've found an error or two here and there. Some outtakes will be available eventually on a separate story on my profile page.

Twilight is the property of Stephanie Meyer. If you haven't figured it out yet, my name isn't Stephanie.

Music:

Cheri Macgill, "To the Ground"


I allowed Jasper to get her to her feet but I practically pushed him out of the way to look at her. I rubbed my hands up and down her arms, checked her neck, her shoulders and finally cupped her face. She was in one piece. Jasper hadn't hurt her.

I told you she's fine. I just had to distract her. Chill out Edward.

"I'm fine Edward. I just lost control." She forced a smile. "Jasper was much more gentle with me than I deserved. I'm more concerned about you."

See, you're worrying her because you're a melodramatic fool. You couldn't have just stayed back? Jasper continued to chastise me mentally.

"I've had worse," I breathed.

"I'm so sorry. Are you sure that I didn't hurt you?" She wrapped her arms around me and did her own inventory to make sure that I was in one piece.

"Don't worry about it, you didn't hurt anyone."

Speak for yourself. Your woman is strong. Did you see how hard she shoved me? Emmett complained but at least he didn't do it vocally.

"Thanks to Jasper." She was going to take this hard. Her face twisted into a grimace and I knew that she was disappointed in herself. After a few calming breaths she turned her attention back to Sam.

"I'm in control now, Sam. I'm sorry, this is... Well, it's a lot to get used to."

You will speak for us vampire.

My heart sank because I knew that Bella would take this personally. I didn't want to have to speak for him. I felt like it was a conflict of interest where Bella was concerned.

"He understands, but he prefers to speak through me for the time being," I explained.

"When does this get easier?" She let her frustration and disappointment show when she turned to Jasper.

"It's different for everyone. You need time. You're a newborn, Bella. This is to be expected." Yep, she's your perfect woman. She's just like you now, self deprecating and serious. We seriously need to lighten the two of you up a bit.

"Be patient." I couldn't keep my arms from wrapping back around her. Her control seemed to have improved since her outburst. She no longer clawed and struggled to fight the wolves even though her instincts must have been screaming at her to go after them.

Through me, Sam outlined the differences in the treaty to her. To say that she was shocked was an understatement. Bella was flabbergasted that Sam would still consider her a member of the tribe and would extend her additional freedoms where the treaty was concerned. There was no doubt in my mind that it wouldn't be long before she exhibited sufficient control to use those liberties. The question was whether or not she would take him up on it. Bella was frightening when she lost control but she was still in control enough to strategize while she fought with Jasper. She wasn't a normal newborn.

When he had finished outlining the changes in the treaty pertaining to Bella, essentially creating an entirely new treaty for her. He moved on to trying to absolve her of her guilt. She was shocked by the changes in the treaty alone but the tribe's acceptance of her even though she felt that she had caused them so much pain brought her to her breaking point. Jasper eyed me with a warning to be cautious.

"No one blames you for anything that has happened Bella." Sam's sentiments echoed my own. She wouldn't listen to me but perhaps from him... "We know that you would never intentionally put anyone in danger. It's time that you moved on."

"Sam, Jacob was my fault, if I hadn't..." Bella was so stubborn.

"No," This has to stop now. "Jacob, Seth, Brady, Paul... all of us made our choice to defend you regardless of how you came to be in trouble. If you had stayed instead of running perhaps we could have talked about this before. You are not responsible for our decisions and if you had left or given yourself up, we would have fought anyway. We would have done that much for anyone." Edward, we are sorry that she left us without that understanding. Please help me try to make this right.

I nodded.

"But Jake in the very least..."

"Bella, he knew before that night. Jacob Black always knew that you would never be completely his." I had to work to translate for Sam and cut her off. None of us wanted to hear her continue to blame herself. Bella dropped to the ground as she left the words sink in. I allowed her to slip from my arms; I knew that I could offer no comfort for this.

Edward, would you translate for me also? Embry asked. I may be able to shed a unique light on the situation for her. Quil should have done this last week.

"Embry wants you to know that Jacob told him as much, days before the attack," I knelt down next to the tragic yet beautiful woman beside me. I indicated for him to continue and I left the words flow from his mind to my mouth. "He knew that no matter what, the best that he could hope for was to keep you alive and well. At first he thought that he could make you happy, but before the end he knew that it was a dream. You were too far-gone. He had already given up by the time you argued with him the morning of the battle. He was irritated and angry and he regretted those words as soon as he left your tent but he didn't know how to tell you."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her body trembled with emotion.

"Bella?" Jasper asked. She dangerously close to rage again.

"I'm in control," Bella sobbed and quieted the tremor.

Wow, she's catching on. Did you see that the way I did?

I didn't see it. My mind was not focused on Jasper's. I knelt on the ground next to my Bella with my knees getting soggy from the damp earth and focused my attention on telling her what she needed to hear.

"You shut down Bells; we didn't know how hard you had taken his death until you destroyed his car and by then you were near catatonic again. No one wanted a repeat of..." Embry stopped.

I'm not sure if I should explain. He was concerned about her mental state and fed me the same images of her distraught that I had seen before as well as her fight with Jasper. There was a question overlaid on the memories. He wanted o know if she would snap.

I looked up to reassure him, "it's fine Embry. I'll tell her."

"No one wanted a repeat of what happened when the Cullens left and Sam found you in the woods. We were afraid to bring it up, particularly the argument. I'm sorry that I didn't say something sooner but you haven't returned anyone's phone calls other than Quil's in years. We thought that you had moved on." Embry stepped forward cautiously. "For my part, I am sorry." He bowed his large head.

"There's nothing to forgive, Embry." Bella sounded broken.

"Then you need to afford yourself the same luxury." I had to hold back my amusement at his words and keep it out of my voice.

"Are you blackmailing me into forgiving myself?" She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Would it work?" He began to tease her.

"Probably not," She pulled herself together and got off the ground. "I will try to move on Embry."

"Bells, if Jake were here, he would want you to be happy." The two had forgotten that I was translating for them and spoke directly to each other. I felt like I was intruding. "Just remember that. He wanted you to have a chance to be happy again. So don't blow it."

"We need to leave," Sam spoke. "Do you accept the treaty and the modifications as we've laid them out?"

"Yes," Bella accepted in a quiet voice.

"Then we will leave you to hunt in peace. Please visit when you are able." The wolves retreated back into the forest and I wrapped my arms back around Bella to comfort her. She let me give her a hug before she pulled back to speak to us.

"Edward, Jasper, I'm -"

"Don't be," Jasper smiled with that odd quirk to his lip that he gets sometimes. "Your heart wasn't in attacking me. Face it, you're too tame little sister." If you tell her or Emmett how close that really was, I will make you suffer little brother.

I smiled, Jasper and I were fairly equally matched. However, knowing that we were equally matched I wasn't about to let Emmett know that Bella had a good chance at taking him down.

"Do I have to add you to the backyard brawl list? I'm already planning on facing off with Emmett." She grinned widely at the challenge.

"Ooooooh, I do believe that I can handle anything you can dish out little missy," Jasper's southern accent came back full force when he teased her. "But for now, we need to get you fed." Like right now. She's so thirsty that it's affecting me.

Bella raised her eyes to mine and I stretched out my hand. This hunt was hers and she should lead the way. She ran fast and almost carefree like a child. She was enjoying the speed and the feel of the trees whooshing past. Her changeable newborn moods seemed to be helping her deal with her past a little. She could escape just a bit. I hated to stop her but she wasn't looking for prey. Jasper and Emmett were fairly far behind us when I smelled a herd of deer and pulled her to a stop. She looked at me incredulously until she inhaled deeply. She cocked an eyebrow at me and I indicated once again for her to lead the way. I walked rather than ran after her because I didn't want to loose an appendage due to her feeling threatened. If there was one thing that I could glean from Jasper's memories and take seriously it was that I didn't want to threaten a newborn vampire's kill. She had a buck down and was in the process of draining it when I caught up to her. Emmett and Jasper weren't far behind me.

Dude, six points not bad. Too bad Esme won't let us put that on the wall.

I stifled a laugh at Emmett's remarks.

Bella righted herself. She was surprisingly clean for a first kill. Her dress was a bit rumpled and dirty at the back but that occurred during her fight with Jasper. She brought the back of her hand up to her mouth and wiped away the blood that stained her lips.

"Not bad for your first try. Let's see if we can find a bear." Excitement colored Emmett's words and I couldn't help but feel a bit irritated.

"I don't think that finding a bear will be necessary," I challenged Emmett.

"Oh come on Edward...." Stop being a pansy; she's a vampire.

"Bella does not need to take down a bear on her first hunt." All I could think of was claws and hair and teeth. These were all things that I wanted far away from Bella.

"But it'd be cool." Jasper sang.

"Jasper, you are not helping matters!"

What are you her father?

"Do you think that I could really take down a bear?" Bella sounded interested in the concept. "Well, let's go find one. I'm still thirsty."

I groaned.

"Bella!" I reached out and grabbed her hand before she could move.

"Jasper, can Alice take down a bear?" She asked.

I'm not lying to her. "Of course."

"I'm also bigger and stronger than Alice, right?" She had the nerve to look triumphant! Then Jasper nodded.

It seemed that everyone else was against my plan of easing Bella in to being a vampire gradually. A bear... She wanted to go after a bear.

"So, it would be logical to assume that I should be able to bag a bear, yes?"

"Heck yeah!" That's my girl.

I gave Emmett the evil eye. Bella was most definitely not his girl.

"I think that you've been outvoted love." She sauntered over and sweetly kissed my cheek.

"Ya know what, I kind of like the new and improved Bella." Emmett smacked me on the back and Jasper failed to conceal a laugh at my expense. I growled under my breath.

"Why don't you guys go on, and Edward and I will catch up with you?" Bella suggested and Jasper took off with an unwilling Emmett. He wanted to stay and watch the show.

She wanted to talk. My heart sunk because I knew that my behavior had most likely hurt her feelings. She was probably feeling like I didn't want her to be a vampire and that exacerbated her abandonment issues. I felt like such an idiot. I new that she was emotionally fragile and I allowed my opinion of her hunting dangerous prey to cloud my judgment. I didn't know why the fact that she wanted to hunt a bear mattered to me but it did. She pulled a page out of my own book and grabbed my chin. She forced me to look at her and I couldn't help the surge of panic that shook me. In a few months, she really was going to hate me. The fact that we were now in a relationship in which I could hide nothing had not escaped me. I had never hidden a lot from her, other than how deeply ingrained my overprotective nature was but what if she didn't like that. What if she didn't need me?

I tried to express my feelings as gently as possible and she didn't take it well. Even as a vampire she was insecure.

"I thought that you wanted this: the two of us, together for eternity..." She would have been crying if she were human. Venom glistened in her eyes.

"Bella, you don't understand. This is what I want. I'm relieved that we can be together now and I don't have to worry about hurting you and that you're never going to die again. That's not the problem -"

"Well, what is the problem Edward because you sure don't seem to be embracing this?" She kicked the tree next to her for emphasis and looked shocked when she caused a dent. She knelt down and ran her fingers over the foot-shaped indentation.

"It's just hard for me. You don't need me like you used to," I explained.

"I don't need rescuing but I still need you. I will always need you Edward." She looked up at me and her bright red eyes plead with me. "If I thought otherwise, I wouldn't have asked Esme to bite me. It's not just that I didn't want to die. I wanted to be with you, to have more time with you. Now, we have nothing but time."

"And the desperate need to find you a bear." I crouched down onto the forest floor with her and took her face in my hands. If she wanted a bear, then she could have a bear.

"I don't have to find a bear today if it makes you uncomfortable." She tried to make me more comfortable but pretending to be something that she wasn't wouldn't help us in the long run.

"Are you still thirsty?" I pushed my forehead into hers and took a deep breath. She still smelled like freesia, just less edible and more floral.

"Hmmmmm.... I could be easily distracted." She winked at me and I knew that she meant trouble.

"Bella I might not be able to read your mind but I can tell you that that is not going to happen here and now." She was suggesting some form of intimacy on the forest floor and I couldn't do that. Our relationship wasn't ready for the next step. We weren't ready for the steps we'd already taken. Intimacy would just mean taking advantage of her. I stood up to put a little distance between us.

"I don't see why not-"

"Well, we've only been back in each other's lives for a week. Don't you think that it's a bit too soon?" It seemed a far cry from my opinion the week prior when I wanted to drag her off to Vegas immediately but waiting would be better.

"Kill joy. I don't know how you do it..." She huffed.

"Do what?"

"That perfect self control of yours. For the record, I hate it." She folded her arms and tapped her foot on the ground.

"You think that my self-control is perfect?" She had never been more wrong in her life. "You think that it's not hard for me." Perhaps I needed to show her exactly how difficult keeping my hands off of her was. I stalked forward and backed her into the tree; my hands moved either side of her body. "It's taking all of the self-discipline that I've built up over the last hundred years to be a gentleman right now."

"What if I don't want you to be a gentleman?" She tried to tempt me. I groaned.

"Oh Bella, if I knew that you were saying that for a reason other than the fact that you're a newborn-"

"I wanted to before-"

"No Bella, not like this. Please just wait and we'll do things properly." I rested my cheek on hers and allowed myself to feel her breath in my ear.

"Properly? We're vampires Edward. What do you mean by properly?"

She was about to figure out one of the major drawbacks of dating a Victorian Era male and she was going to make fun of me. I let out a sigh.

"The rules," she accused.

"What about the rules?" I pulled back to look at her face.

"They weren't just about protecting me from your teeth and your venom. You were concerned about your virtue." She figured it out and did nothing to stifle a laugh. She, like most modern women, didn't understand that this wasn't only about protecting virtue but showing her respect.

"I can't believe that I didn't see this before... All this time I thought that it was because I was a human, but that was just a convenient excuse!"

"Not entirely, and it's not my virtue I'm worried about woman. It's yours that concerns me." I pulled my arms away from the tree and turned my back to her.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"What if I'm not concerned?" She tried to jump on me playfully from behind and I sidestepped her.

"Bella, some people would consider what I'm doing chivalrous or romantic." She was absurd.

"I'm not some people," she stated.

"I know." The fact that she was different was blatantly obvious.

"So... in order for things to progress beyond kissing... you would want...?" She cocked her head to the side.

"Bella..." She wasn't going to like my answer..

"Edward," Bella mimicked my tone exactly.

"I would want you to marry me but we're obviously not at a point in our relationship where that can happen, are we?"

"Probably not... Although, I did just become a vampire for you so I think that that trumps marriage." She argued.

"Nice try." This was one point on which I would not be persuaded.

"Ed-ward"

"Bel-la"

"You're not going to give in are you?" She wasn't happy.

"I've waited for a hundred years." I really couldn't help myself, I walked over and leaned in so that our mouths were practically touching. Teasing her was too much fun. "I can wait however long we need to in order to do this right."

"I'm stronger than you," she warned.

"I'm saying no Bella, not today."

I sighed and leaned in closer to her. I didn't want her to feel unattractive or even worse that I didn't like her as a vampire because quite frankly Bella was breathtaking. Vampire or not, I loved her. She took me by surprise and pulled me down into a kiss. She was insistent and fierce. I could feel our bodies mold together, it was no longer her small fame conforming to mine but each of us gave to the other. My chest rumbled and I wrapped my arms around her. Being able to kiss her without worry was entirely new. I tried to be cautious at first but Bella wouldn't put up with it. She led and I followed. She pushed harder and I knew that this would have to end soon if I was to keep my word. I couldn't let things go too far too soon. She was incapable of controlling these urges and emotions but I could. Eventually, she became distracted enough that I could get a grip on her hands. I moved them slowly and gently into a position where I had more leverage before pulling away. She tried to fight me but my plan worked. I broke the kiss.

"Enough," I whispered. I looked down and she was still struggling with me.

"Fine!" She gave up and stormed around to the other side of the tree so that she wouldn't have to look at me. I counted to sixty to let her cool down before walking around and standing slightly behind her.

"I'm not refusing because I'm disinterested.." I rested my hand on her shoulder.

"I know." She sounded wounded and it broke my heart.

"Look at me."

"I can't." Bella continued to look down. She was retreating from me emotionally again and I couldn't allow that to happen. There had to be a way to get through to her that this was for the best. She gasped and sobbed and I knew that something had to be done immediately.

"No, you're going to listen to me Bella." I locked my hands around her shoulders and ducked down slightly to try to get eye contact. "I will say his as often as I need to but you are going to listen to it..." I attempted to turn her around but she refused to budge. Her little bare feet were planted firmly into the ground. "You. Will. Listen. To. Me." I did the only thing that I could, I picked her up and forced her to face me; she struggled but in the air she couldn't get away. "I love you. I want you. You becoming a vampire hasn't changed that."

"Then why are you acting like this?" She stilled and let me lift her chin up to face me.

"I'm..." I turned my head. These words needed to be right. "I'm waiting for us to be ready. You have to understand that physical intimacy changes a vampire and you and I need to be emotionally healthy before we make that step. I want everything to be right when we do."

"If we do," She sighed.

"When. Please just be patient. I want everything to be right before we take the next step." I hugged her tightly because if I kissed her then the entire debate would start over again.

"You are aware that newborn vampires aren't exactly known for their patience, or their restraint." She smiled coquettishly.

"Then let's just be thankful that our roles aren't reversed." I smiled at her. "Now, let's go track down my brothers and find you a bear."

She took my hand and I knew that we had a future. It could still be years away but we would eventually make things right. We just had to trust each other.