AN: Well...um..it's Chapter Four!

This is quite a short chapter...the little EPOV at the end did it for me, I felt like I had to break off then, I could really start talking about something else.

Y'know I find it quite sad that people never review..it doesn't take very long and it will cheer me up a hell of a lot.

Disclaimer: SM owns Twilight and any characters you recognise. The song lyrics are Fire by Kasabian and so belong to Kasabian.

Aphy is mine, Chris is mine, Jessica Lewis is mine, Maria is mine, Jaelle is mine; mine, mine, all mine!!! ha ha ha

Enjoy X

Chapter Four: Blessed Are The Cheese Makers

APOV

We talked for hours, making up for all the time we'd missed, learning every inconsequential detail; favourite colour, favourite sweets, favourite birthday present from when we were small. At every new discovery we grew closer.

I was curious about his family, his parents were nothing like I was used to; they were so…parent-like. Esme was a housewife, she'd been a nurse when she was younger, but when Alice was born, she decided to stay at home to look after her three small children. I don't have much faith in housewives, as I told Edward; being a feminist I feel women shouldn't feel the need to give up their careers to be a mother. He assured me that Esme was happier than she'd been as a nurse, because she had the chance to pursue her other interests, namely helping the poor and teaching. I didn't see why anyone would actually choose to teach bratty little five year olds, but each to her own. Carlisle, it turned out, was a doctor; he worked in the local A&E, of course Dr Super Life Saver Cullen to the rescue. I could imagine Carlisle racing about yelling "he's tachycardic" and "shock her" like they do on Casualty.

I told him about my family as well, the little of it that there is. There was no family on mum's side as far as we knew; which wasn't very far at all seeing as mum hadn't spoken to anyone in Russia for nearly twenty years. As for our dad, he upped and left when I was six, bastard, and we hadn't heard from him or any of his family since. Apart from Maria, that is. Maria was my Italian cousin; getting the Italian bit from her mum and the cousin bit from her dad, my uncle. I used the term 'uncle' quite lavishly here, seeing as we hadn't heard from him in ten years. Maria was twenty years old and had her own apartment in Venice, we emailed each other once a month, and we'd been to visit her a few times.

Neither of us were really keeping track of the time, so it wasn't until my stomach rumbled that we realised it must be about lunch time. We both laughed as my impatient stomach cut Edward off mid-sentence.

He glanced at his watch "It's going on for two" he said in disbelief "we've been up here for three hours"

God, fuck knew what Chris would be thinking. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines as me.

"I think your brother really will kill me now" he did actually look quite worried, man he's so hot when he's worried.

"Don't worry; he'll just think we've been having a three hour fuck-a-thon"

"How does that stop me worrying exactly?"

"Because I can bring up Jessica Lewis"

"Jessica Lewis?"

"Yep, she and Chris were at it for five hours"

"Five hours!" shock was written all over his face, as solid and unmoving as the Ten Commandments on the bloody stone tablets.

Chris was never going to live down the whole Jessica Lewis fiasco, even though it was over two years ago. People rarely spoke about it to his face, but that didn't stop them when he wasn't around to beat the crap out of them.

"No one actually knows if they were having sex for all that time" I continued "but that's the rumour. The real scandal of it was that it was all this big bet the boys had going. Jessica was one of the exchange students from America and they were betting who would be the first to get in her pants. Chris denies they were at it for that long, and Jessica isn't here to say either way."

EPOV

Her eyes were alive from the story telling, lit up like fairy lights. What was it with girls and gossip? This was exactly how Alice got after imparting a precious gem of scandal. I could really imagine Chris getting pissed off about that. He seemed like someone with a short fuse, quite like Aphy really.

I sighed. "Come on then. Let's go face the devil hand in hand"

"Good" she agreed "I need some food"

She grabbed my hand and led the way out of the door and down the stairs.

The house seemed pretty quiet. Maybe Chris had gone out.

"Chris?" Aphy called, wandering into the living room. There was no reply. "Mum? Anyone?" silence.

"Looks like we're home alone" she said beckoning me into the kitchen.

"Have a seat" she pointed to one of the chairs at the table.

"What are we eating?" I asked

She gave a nonchalant half shrug as she began to search through the kitchen cupboards. "Whatever I can find. Right, we have Coco Pops" she brandished the packet.

"Breakfast" I replied

"True, true; well Mr Cullen you seem to know your grub, what will be deemed acceptable for your table? Wagon Wheels? Pringles? A can of tuna?"

As she said each item she removed them from the cupboard and lined them up along the counter.

"Do you have bread?"

"Probably." She rooted through the end cupboard "Ah hah!" she waved half a loaf of sliced bread at me.

"Cheese?"

She handed me the bread and wondered over to the fridge. She retrieved a small, square item.

"The magic of our fridge, this went in an ordinary lump of mature cheddar and came out as Stilton" she held it up to her nose "Bloody hell! Take a whiff of that!"

The strong aroma of mould drifted up my nostrils. "Smells expensive"

She laughed and patted the fridge "Good boy Brian"

"Brian?"

"Blame Monty Python"

"Blessed are the cheese makers?"

"Yep. So, bread plus cheese equals…cheese on toast?"

I nodded.

"Okey dokey lets get toasting"

Three quarters of an hour later we were walking up the path to my front door. I fumbled in the back pocket of my jeans, searching for the key. Success; I slid the key into the lock and turned it to the right, shoving the door at the same time with my shoulder. I held the door open for Aphy, ushering her in ahead of me.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, listening to the silent house.

"They've probably gone out somewhere; we normally go on a family outing on Sunday"

"Oh dear" she replied "I've stolen you away from them." She giggled.

"I don't think they'll mind too much, they all love you"

"They do? I've only met them twice, and not for very long on both accounts"

"Alice and Esme tend to love everyone, Emmett thinks you're hilarious, and Carlisle just…"

"Goes along for the ride?" she offered.

"I suppose. Come on."

I led the way through to the kitchen. On the table was a folded piece of paper. I picked it up and gave it a quick read.

"Gone to Blenheim palace, back about three"

Aphy glanced at her phone. "It's quarter to three now, they should be back soon. Why don't we go wait in your room?"

I led the way up the stairs. On the landing Aphy grabbed my hand, making me pause.

"Let me guess which room is yours" she said.

"Go ahead"

"That one?" she pointed down the corridor.

"No, that would be Alice's"

"What about that one?" she pointed to the door in front of us.

"Bathroom" I laughed.

"Ok, I'm not good at this guessing, so let kitty out and tell me which one it is"

I took her hand and guided her down the corridor.

APOV

His bedroom was at the front of the house, so it had those lovely bay windows that all the houses around there had. There was a little window seat with dark green cushions that matched the curtains. The walls were turquoise, and they brought back childhood memories of visits to the Cornish seaside, staying in little white washed cottages, waking up each morning to the smell of salt and seaweed. Those were memories tucked away in the dark recesses of my mind, back when we were a proper family and did the things that families do. We went back to Cornwall the year after my dad left; it was the last time. Jaelle always said it was because it was too expensive, but the truth was there was too much pain there. The past can hurt just as much as the present.

"Are you ok, Aphy?" Edward's soft voice brought me back to the here and the now. He was looking at me rather worriedly, probably due to my rather vacant expression.

I shook my head slightly, in an attempt to clear my head and get the past under lock and key. It didn't work; as Bob Marley said "in this bright future you cannot forget your past".

I looked up at Edward, my future was dazzling.

"I'm fine." I replied "Everything's wonderful"

I stretched up on tiptoe and kissed him briefly, marvelling at the softness of his lips and the way they moulded to mine so perfectly.

I broke away and turned around to continue my survey of the room. I leant against him and he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me in closer and resting his chin gently on my head.

"You share with Emmett" I stated as I took in the twin beds on either side of the room.

"Yep"

"That's slightly shitty" I said turning to look at him again.

He was frowning slightly "We get on fine, so it's not…"

"I was thinking about us, darling" I interrupted.

"Oh" he chuckled.

I unlocked his arms from around my waist and wandered over to his rather impressive hi-fi system.

"Bet this cost a bundle"

He shrugged. Typical, obviously no money issues in the Cullen household.

I glanced to the right...fuck…I had never seen so many CDs in my life, there were shelves and shelves of them. I ran my fingers down them, scanning the titles.

"You have quite a collection"

"A lot of them are Carlisle's"

That explained all the oldies and the classical.

I gave up trying to take any of them in, it was too much.

"What's in here at the moment?"

I pressed play.

Take me into the night

And I'm an easy lover

Take me into the fight

And I'm an easy brother

And I'm on fire

I let my body take control as I moved with the music, letting it surround me, feeling it flowing through me.

EPOV

I watched Aphy dance; I couldn't get over how beautiful she was. I hadn't felt like that for so long, not since…oh god, I promised myself I wouldn't think about that. Whenever I was with Aphy I couldn't help but think about it, in some ways being with her was helping me move on and forget, but then she would do something that reminded me, driving the pain even deeper into my heart.

I felt her take my hands and I glanced down and met her eyes. The thoughts were pushed from my mind and all I could think about was the here and the now, with Aphy.

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