AN: We're getting there. Just a little bit longer.

My eyes felt dry and itchy when I opened them. Too much crying and not enough sleep.

It took me a moment to remember where I was and why I wasn't in my room. Why my arm was draped around Edward's shoulders. At some point during the night the pillow he'd pulled over his face had fallen. His brow was still tense, eyes squeezed tightly shut, but he was asleep.

I didn't want to startle him, he needed that sleep, so I allowed myself to curl back around him. I laid my cheek against his back and tried to take stock of everything that had happened and how I felt about it.

Poor Edward. Poor Alice. It was all to easy to imagine what they were going through. What they had been going through for a long time. All that pressure, the burden they had both been carrying. It was a miracle they'd managed to make it this long. Hopefully now we could help them. That was if they wanted to be helped.

A low moan came from Edward. I rubbed his back, hoping that I could ease his entry back into the real world. He rolled over, rubbing his eyes, before looking at me and attempting a smile. It didn't reach very far. "You stayed," he croaked.

"Of course I did." I brushed my knuckles along his jaw, feeling the day old growth there. His eyes drifted closed, and he leaned into my palm. "How are you feeling?" He took a moment to glare at me. "Yeah, I know. Stupid question."

He grunted, eyes drifting closed again. His lips were drawn into a thin line. After a moment of silence, he whispered, "I don't know how I feel."

"That's to be expected." I pushed hair off of his forehead. "Why don't we get something to eat?"

He nodded but he didn't make any move to get up. I pulled him up with me out of bed and dragged him down the hall to the kitchen where I sat him on a barstool. Once there, he began tracing the grain of the marble countertop with his fingertip. His heavy eyes never looked up from the counter.

I let him sit quietly while I fixed some dinner. I figured as soon as the smell of food spread out through the house, Jasper and Emmett would show up. The three of us could then try to wake Edward up.

The red sauce was simmering and the spaghetti nearly done when Edward spoke again. "What are you singing?"

I turned around, startled. I hadn't even realized I'd been humming. "It's just a song my mother used to play when I was little."

"It sounds pretty." His voice was flat, uncaring.

"I'm sure it's been better. I'm practically tone deaf." I grinned, hoping that he would tease back or at least say something, but he only curved his lips up, barely, before turning back to the marble.

I knew that look. Edward was shutting down. I didn't expect anything less. It was a self-defense mechanism. A way to come to terms with Alice's attempted suicide and the reemergence of their pasts. The problem was that he needed to talk to somebody. He couldn't just revert into himself. It wasn't healthy.

Breaking him out of this shell wouldn't be easy.

Fortunately, I had help. If there was anyone that I trusted to break out of his shell Edward it was Emmett.

Emmett and Jasper were subdued at least, or as subdued as Emmett ever was.

"Is that food I smell?" Emmett asked, grinning as he slapped his brother's shoulders.

I plated spaghetti for Edward before telling the other boys, "It's on the stove. Help yourself."

While Emmett and Jasper fell over my cooking like they hadn't eaten in a week, Edward just picked at his plate. He took only a few tiny bites while moving noodles around his plate. He had to be hungry. He hadn't eaten anything since the wedding reception almost twenty-four hours ago.

I nudged his shoulder. Edward got my unspoken message, took one bite, and went back to staring morosely at his plate.

I sighed and suddenly my own food didn't taste so good. I didn't know what to do to help him. I knew he was hurting. I knew he was likely lost in own sea of pain. I knew how easily it was to get lost in that kind of suffering, how easy it was to think you were alone in it. I would do anything to make him feel just a little bit better.

I had an idea. It wasn't one I particularly relished, but it would help, of that I was sure.

"I'm serious. That Rose is crazy." Emmett grinned at me wagging his eyebrows. "She can a dance a jitterbug better than anyone I know. She wore me out."

"She's good for you." Jasper said, a wicked spark in his eyes. "Keeps you on your toes."

I was certain Emmett was going to agree but Edward stood abruptly. "I'm gonna go call Alice. She has to talk to me."

We watched him go silently.

"Should we stop him?" Emmett asked. Jasper and I both just shook our heads. "But, she's not gonna wanna talk to him."

"He needs to deal with it." Jasper said quietly. "We can't do it for him."

It only took about five minutes before Edward wandered back, head down, fingers wrapped around his cell phone. "She, um, she wasn't awake."

The three of us didn't say anything, although it was clear just by looking at him that wasn't the truth. Alice had just refused to talk to him again.

I patted the seat next to me, and he sank onto the stool like he was carrying the weight if the world on his back.

I wasn't going to just stand by anymore. This was going to hurt us both, but he needed to hear it more than I needed to keep it hidden.

"She'll come around." Emmett's voice was unusually soft. "You remember that time when our cat disappeared after you hit it with a stick?"

"I was ten." Edward muttered in a completely dispassionate voice. "What's your point?"

"Well, you were all upset 'cause it ran away, and you thought it was your fault, which it totally was by the way. I mean, who hits a cat with a stick even if the stick was a lightsaber and the cat was a stormtrooper? Anyway, it showed up a couple days later and it was like nothing had ever happened. It blew over."

"This isn't just going to blow over, Emmett."

"No." Emmett agreed. "But you did the right thing, and she'll see it too."

Edward pushed his plate away and focused back on the grain on the marble.

"Don't you two have some trouble to get into?" I asked Jasper and Emmett.

I tried to show my true intent with with my eyes. I just needed a moment alone with Edward.

Jasper nodded, said something about playing Halo, and all but pulled Emmett out of the room.

I turned to Edward, who wasn't even pretending to eat anymore. My heart twisted at the tears glistening in his eyes once again. I took a risk and reached out to grab his hand. He jumped and looked up at me.

"I'm going to tell you a story," I told him.

Before he could say or do anything I took a deep breath. I tried just to let the words fall from my lips and not think about them. If I didn't think about them, then I wouldn't feel them.

"When I first started teaching I taught high school. Teenagers are very emotional humans. There was this boy. He was troubled, but he wasn't that troubled. He wrote this poem about death and dying. I thought about reporting it, but I didn't. Then he was just gone. Afterwards, it was so obvious. I mean, there was no way not to see it, but I didn't do anything. That makes it my fault."

Edward didn't say anything. He just squeezed my fingers. I squeezed back, and for a moment we weren't alone.

Okay, how are we all feeling?

Thank you to my Kris for putting up with my craziness. Thank you to dizzygrl28 for her help too.