All things Twilight belong to Stephanie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.

Song for this chapter: Claire de Lune by Debussy. (All you Twi fans know it)

After getting home to an empty house again, I made pasta for dinner and late a plate in the refrigerator for Charlie. Once my stomach was full I decided to do my homework. I left my english till last and after spending just over an hour and a half on my other homework I gladly pulled the sheet with On Raglan Road out from the middle of one of my books.

I grabbed an A4 pad and a pen and started to write. I knew exactly which line was my favorite and which ones I liked least and it only took me ten minutes to finish the assignment. I couldn't wait to hand it in. God I'm such a loser, actually excited to hand in a piece of homework.

I laughed at myself I couldn't deny that it had more to do with who I was handing the assignment over to rather than the actual assignment itself. Either way I was still a loser.

I needed to get over this whole Mr Cullen thing. It was just a stupid crush that's right a crush it would pass eventually just like my past crushes. I eventually got over My Johnny Depp and David Boreanez infatuation.

So maybe there werent exactly the same. I couldn't deny that Mr Cullen was way better looking than Johnny and David. I mean that hair and those lips and eyes and that Jaw god that jaw, you could cut glass on it...Damn it I am so totally and utterly screwed.

Charlie didn't arrive home too late that night. I was sitting in bed reading my book of Patrick Kavanagh poems- Yes I know i'm pathetic when I heard him come in.

I didn't leave my spot from my bed, I could hear him opening the refrigerator and then the microwave about fifteens minutes later I heard his steps up the stairs.

This is the way it's been the last few nights he came home, ate and went straight to bed. The fact that he wasn't staying up to watch any games on the television showed me just how exhausted Charlie really was. I guess these early mornings and late nights at work were taking it's toll. I was worried about him.

He popped his head in the door and looked surprised to find me awake.

"OH!...em Hi Bells, just checking in, everything Okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine dad, just reading." I said waving my book in the air to prove my point.

"Okay well, I'll let you get back to it." He smiled tiredly.

"Okay!...hey Dad, Are you okay?" I asked concerned.

"Yeah just tired, I'll see you tomorrow, I'm in late to work tomorrow." he answered.

"That's good, goodnight Ch..Dad." I smiled awkwardly.

With that he closed the door and I listened as his footsteps walked across the hall and stopped. I knew that he was probably standing outside of Daniel's bedroom. It seemed like he did this a lot. A few minutes later I heard his footsteps retreating back down the hall to his bedroom.

I had yet to go into Daniel's room, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I looked around my room and noticed my sketchpad sitting on my desk next to my computer. There were no sketches in it.

I haven't drawn in a few months, I just haven't been able too for some reason. I've tried believe me but every time I put the pencil to the page nothing would come and if it did and I did manage to draw something it was usually pretty bad which resulted in me throwing it in the trash.

It sucked because drawing was one of the things I was actually good at, it used to be effortless, there was a time that I always had a sketchpad in my hand, I was constantly drawing but lately it just seemed as If I'd lost my inspiration, my muse. I was in a funk a drawer's block if you will and I didn't no how I was going to get out of it.

With a frustrated sigh I put down my book and got under the covers of my bed, trying to fall asleep, knowing that in a few hours I would be awoken by another nightmare.

At 4.30 am just as suspected I awoke from another nightmare. it seemed that these nightmares were becoming part of my daily routine, which can I say totally sucked.

My day at school was normal, meaning completely and utterly boring. It wasn't until English class came around that I became more...energetic and excited. In all honesty the lack of sleep was getting to me and despite feeling more energetic than I had all day, I struggled to stay awake.

The last thing I wanted was to fall asleep and drool all over my desk in front of Edward, so not attractive. I was just so tired. it was nearing the end of the day and I was just so worn out.

I didn't want to fall asleep. So during the class as Edward asked people to read out bits of their homework, I concentrated solely on staying awake. I was doing well if I do say so myself.

The only problem was that I was concentrating so hard on keeping my eyes open that I failed to pay attention to anything that was being said. Listening to Edwards voice made it harder to stay awake.

Not because he was boring but because his soft velvet voice seemed as if it were made to relax me, thereby causing me to fall asleep. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I told myself that if I just shut them for a minute, then I'd be fine so I gave into temptation and allowed my eyes to close.

The next thing I knew I was being shaken awake. I jumped in my seat with a start. As I looked up to see who had woken me I almost died right there on the spot, I wanted to die because standing right on front of me was Edward Cullen looking really annoyed.

I blushed the deepest red of my entire life and subtly wiped the corner of my mouth with my hand praying that I was at least drool free, I was..thankfully.

"Am I boring you Miss Swan?" Edward asked clearly annoyed. I'd never seen him so pissed off, as I looked into his eyes I could see all of his emotions, annoyance, anger and something else...hurt maybe, but that made no sense. So I knew I must have been reading him wrong, why would he feel hurt?

"I..I..I'm, No, No I'm not bored." I stuttered out panicked.
He raised an eyebrow as if to say "Really... are you kidding me"

"The fact that you have been asleep for the last ten minutes tells me differently, Miss Swan."

"Erm..No, no I, I wasn't...asleep." I tried to cover. He clearly wasn't buying it.

"Really? so what was I just saying to the class?" he asked obviously knowing I wasn't able to answer.
There was no point trying to make something up that wouldn't work and I obviously hadn't heard one word he had said for the entire class so I kept my mouth shut.

"Exactly" Was all he said.

"Detention after school today Miss swan." he said.

"Yes sir...I'm sorry." I mumbled as he walked away towards his desk. I felt like such an idiot. Falling asleep in the middle of class. Worse than that I felt extremely guilty that I had fallen asleep in Mr Cullen's class.

He seemed really upset, I couldn't blame him, Had I been in his shoes I would have been upset as well. He probably thought I didn't like the class, that I found i boring, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

I kept quiet and awake for the rest of the class and when the bell finally rang I practically ran from the room with my head down, not looking at anyone, especially Edward.

when the school day finally ended I couldn't express how exhausted I was and I still had to go to detention. On my way there I stopped in the bathroom and after doing my business I went to the sink, washed my hands and then glanced at myself in the mirror.

What I saw there made me freeze. I looked like crap, my skin was paler than usual, my eyes bloodshot from the strain of trying to keep them open. I had large dark circles under my eyes from a lack of sleep.

I looked so exhausted. I was slumped over as if I was too tired to hold my shoulders up. I grabbed a fist full of water and splashed it on my face in hopes that it might wake me up a bit. It didn't really do anything.

I ran my fingers through my hair and forced myself to stand up straight there was no way I could go to detention with Edward looking like I did. I looked slightly better but I still looked terrible with a sigh I exited the bathroom and walked towards Mr Cullen's room.

When I arrived it was awkward to say the least I entered the room to find him sitting behind his desk reading a book, I wasn't able to see the title. I was so focused on him that I tripped over the door frame, fortunately I didn't fall...this time. However my trip alerted Edward that I was there.

I stood awkwardly for a minute just staring at him until he broke the silence.

"Ah, Miss swan take a seat." He said pointing to the row of chairs closest to his desk.

Once I was sitting down I looked up at him he was staring at me. He no longer looked angry or annoyed his face was emotionless. For a minute we just stared at each other.

He stood from his desk and picked up a sheet of paper before walking towards me and placing it om my desk. I looked down it was another Kavanagh poem and underneath it were questions.

"Those are essay question, there are 6 of them, it should take about two A4 pages to answer them, I want them complete by the end of detention. You have an hour and a half. Understood!" he said in a firm tone.

"Yes sir." My reply was barley more than a whisper. With a sigh I looked down at the poem and got to work.

An hour later I had four questions complete and was halfway through my fifth one when my vision started to blur. You know when you are reading late at night and your so tired that one minute you reading and the next thing the words are all blurry and you can't read a thing, it's usually then that you realise it's time to give up and go to sleep.

Yeah that's what was happening now except I couldn't go to sleep.I put my pen down and brought my hands up to my face, rubbing my eyes. Shutting them for a few seconds in the hope that when I opened the my vision would be back to normal.

It worked for a minute or two and I'd get a few words written before it happened again and I'd have to repeat the whole process. My eyes were stinging and I could feel them swimming with tears.

"Miss Swan?" Edward asked. My head shot up to look at him, he was blurry for a second until my vision settled.

"Bella" he said again this time sounding concerned.

I'm not sure what happened then, maybe the day was catching up with me, maybe it was just lack of sleep, or maybe it was the way that he said my name, sounding like he was truly concerned which ever it was it caused me to cry.

I felt like a complete idiot, I wasn't full on bawling or anything, a few silent tears were just rolling down my cheeks but still, I was crying in font of my teacher...I was crying in front of Edward.

"Oh God, Bella, are you okay." He asked walking towards my desk. He pulled a chair up beside me and sat down.

"I..I'm so so sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep in your class, it's not boring, I love your class, I'm sss sorry." I said through my tears.

He put a hand on my back in comfort without a thought. It felt so amazing as if it was meant to be there, touching me. As if those hands were created for the sole purpose of comforting me and they did comfort me. He rubbed soothing circles in my back and I felt my stiff posture relax into his hand.

"Talk to me, tell me what's wrong." he asked in a soft caring voice.

" I I'm I'm just so tired." I said with a sigh.

"Why are you so tired?"

" I can't sleep, every night I can't sleep." I almost whispered.

"Why?" he asked.

I froze for a moment unsure of what to say, Should I tell him the truth, could I. I wanted to tell him, but what if he thought I was crazy, what if I was crazy. No I knew he wouldn't think I was crazy, I knew he'd understand or at least I hoped he would.

" I keep having nightmares." I whispered so quietly he had to lean in close to hear me. He moved his hand up to my shoulder and squeezed it, telling me silently to go on.

"About my brother, every night I have nightmares, they wake me up and I can't sleep, but I'm so tired I just want to sleep." I said quietly. I didn't know if Edward knew about Daniel.

I had hoped that nobody else in town knew, but I knew they did. It was a small town, The death of the Chief of police's son was big news. My moving here soon after it happened made it even bigger.

"You have a bother?" Mr Cullen asked surprised. I guess that answers the question as to if he knows.

"Yes..No..I...He died." I whispered. Edward squeezed my shoulder again.

"I'm so sorry Bella." he seemed genuinely sorry.
He didn't ask about him or how he died which I was grateful for, I couldn't talk about it now.

"Look there is only twenty minutes left, why don't you just leave early, go home, get some rest and forget about the rest of this essay work, your mostly done it anyway I don't mind." he said with a small smile.

"Are you sure?" I asked surprised.

"Yes, I'm sure" He smiled removing his hand which I realised was still on my shoulder. I didn't want him to let go, or stop touching me, I felt a sense of peace when he touched me.

I stood up from my desk on shaky legs and bent down to pick up my bag before putting my things into it. I left the poem and my answers on my desk.

"Thank you Edward." I said with a small smile.

"It's no problem." he said shoving his hands into his jean pockets.

"How are you getting home?" he asked curiously.

"Is someone picking you up?"

"No, I'm walking." I said with a frown just now realising that I would have to walk all the way home without falling asleep.

"What?..You can't walk home alone, you can hardly stand let alone walk all the way home. Also it's not safe." he said as if it should have obvious that there was no way in hell I could walk home.

"Here use my phone and ask someone to collect you." he said pulling his phone out of his pocket. I blushed.

"erm..I don't have anyone to call, My Dad's at work, and I don't know anyone else." I said with a shrug as if it was no big deal that I knew nobody and had no friends.

"I'll be fine walking, it's only about ten, fifteen minutes...and I can take a nap halfway through if I get tired." I half joked trying to lighten the mood.

He frowned.

"Bella, I can't allow you to walk home alone, it's not safe, it will be dark soon, it wouldn't be safe even if you were fully awake and alert but at the moment you are neither of those things. If you can wait five minutes I can drive you home!" he said.

"What!..No you don't have to do that really, I'll be fine."

"I insist Bella." he said with a smile.

"I really don't want to be an inconvenience, I don't want you to have to go out of your way."

"It's not an inconvenience Bella, I would feel much better If you allowed me to bring you home, consider it an apology for how I treated you in class today, I was rude and overreacted. I should not have called you out like that in front of the class, please allow me to drive you home to make up for it."

"Okay" I said with a nod, it's not like it took that much convincing let me see, me in a car alone with Mr Cullen outside of school...yeah I really didn't need convincing.

"Great" he smiled.

"Just let me grab some papers and stuff and then I'm ready to go."

"okay"

He walked towards his desk and started putting paper's into his briefcase. It was a brown shoulder bag thing. It made him look even more sexy with his jeans and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He turned to me.

"Ready?"

"Yep"

He walked to the door and held it open allowing me to exit first. I slowly walked beside him to the exit of the school, my feet dragging me down as if they weighed a tonne.

When we reached the car park it was practically empty, there were only tree cars. Edward walked towards a shiny silver Volvo and pressed a button on his keys which unlocked it.

"Nice car." I said with a smile, and it was the truth it was a nice car.

"Thanks." he smiled before opening the passenger door for me I blushed and mumbled a thanks. No one has ever opened a car door for me before, it was strange but nice.

He shut the door and walked around to his side sitting down and shutting the door.I took a deep breath and was assaulted by the beautiful scent of Edward it was everywhere.

I took another sniff and sighed. Edward turned to look at me and smiled before starting the car and switching on the radio. The soft melody of Claire de Lune filled the car.

"You like Debussy?" I asked.

"Yes, you know claire de Lune?" he asked with an amazed look on his face.

"Yes, it's beautiful." I smiled. He smiled too before putting the car into gear and pulling away from the car park. We sat in silence for the remainder of the ride.

The wonderful scent and the calming sound of Claire de Lune soon lulled me to sleep and before I knew it I was being lightly shaken awake.

"Bella...Bella, time to wake up were here." Edwards soft voice woke me up.

"oh sorry I fell asleep." I apologized turning red from embarrassment.

"That's okay, your tired, go inside and take a nap, you need it." he smiled.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and put my hand on the door handle.

"Thank you for driving me home, Edward, and I'm sorry for today."

"It was my pleasure, Bella I want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to feel free to come to me" he said reaching over and placing his on top of mine on the door handle.

It sat there for a second until he realised what he had done and quickly pulled away.

"Thank You!"

I smiled before pulling the handle and stepping out of the car. I was reluctant to do so but I had to so I shut the door gave a small wave and walked towards the house.

Once inside I turned around and close the door, to see the Volvo still there waiting to see that I got in safely. It made me smile. I gave another wave and shut the door.

I went right upstairs and collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep fully clothed. I slept for a few hours nightmare free. When I woke Charlie was just arriving home, he was early tonight and felt bad that I hadn't made dinner, he assured me that it was okay and he ordered a pizza for us.

That night when I went to bed I dreamt of Edward Cullen. Although the nightmares didn't stay away I didn't have one until 6:40. My alarm was set for seven so I managed to get a great much needed sleep and it was all thanks to Mr Cullen.

A/N: I hope you can tell that I really have been working on making chapters longer. This chapter is the beginning of Edward & Bella's relationship from this point forward it is going to keep on growin :)

This story hasn't gotten that much reviews. To those who have reviewed thank you so much, you know who you are. To those that haven't please do, Even if I don't get reviews I'm not going to be one of those people who stops writing the story. I don't write for reviews. However saying that it is still nice to have feed back good or bad so it would mean a lot if you did review. I'm stopping this long ass a/n here before I bore you to death, then you wont be able to review :)

xxx Aoife