Chapter Two: Clarity.

I held on to him for a long time, letting his cold touch bring the feeling tingling back into my limbs, feeling his sweet breath banish the numbness.

After a few moments, some of my reality came rushing back. I removed myself from him, my breathing still ragged from the exhaustive emotion of the reunion. I explored my misty mind for the right words. However, those words were doing a very good job of concealing themselves behind my newly rediscovered thoughts.

"Erm…why…why are you here?" I asked. I seemed unable to regain my breath.

Despite his previously befuddled expression, he…Edward…answered steadily enough, not even taking the time to think about it. "I'm here because I couldn't stay away," he answered. "I couldn't survive without you. I didn't have the courage. I'm here because I couldn't focus on anything but you, couldn't shut down for one second, couldn't let you go. Because I love you. Because my love for you occupies the very core of my being. Because I am a monstrous creature who is unable to control his selfish desires. Because you were written into my every thought, and I couldn't remove you. Because if I were human, I could have died for love of you. Because love isn't a strong enough word. Because I just said all of that without even bothering to check if you wanted to hear it…" his voice trailed off as his pain smothered it.

My heart was a battering ram against my fortified rib cage, beating with the strength of a hundred men…no, a hundred vampires. I could barely breathe. I looked at him with amazement. For the second time, I was unable to find the words to answer him. My answering comment was hideously, idiotically moronic…

"Pinch me," I breathed. I cursed myself. Couldn't I even find breath for an "I love you, too"? Couldn't I confess what being without him had done to me? How I wanted him with me forever, never to leave me for one moment? No. All I could manage were two stupid, blasé words. He backed away a little bit, clearly trying to conceal the pain in his eyes.

"I could never hurt you again, Bella," he whispered. At the agony in his voice, speech suddenly came back to me.

"What are you doing, backing away like that? I've been holding my breath for months, waiting for you. You can't take away my air again. I might suffocate." I stood up again, impressed with my borderline-poetic words, and crossed the new distance between us. Now that my feelings had returned, there was room for more passion in our embrace. When I held him I could feel myself burning, melting against the ice of his chest. At that moment, I realized something. All these months I'd been secretly afraid that I'd lost my ability to express emotion; I'd feared that I might have lost even this, the most important part of my existence, my love for Edward. Now I realized that I'd never stop loving him. That there was no way in Hell I would ever let anyone—even Edward himself—tear us apart again. I braided my fingers into his hair, forgetting to be careful, and felt a flame consume me. I pulled myself up toward his face.

In the moment that our lips met, Edward erased the universe. He was the only thing in my world, the only thing there was room for. How could there be space for anything besides his immeasurable beauty? Edward's name filled my thoughts, my senses engulfed by the feel of his hair, the smell of his skin, the unbearably delicious taste of his lips…

It was just like Edward to pull away. Just like him to tighten the line of his jaw and put out the fire in his eyes. His eyes stayed soft, though, and his gaze held only love and adoration, no hint of disgust or uncertainty or rejection of any kind. I shuddered to remember his words that night, the words that had haunted me, the words that brought a question boiling to my lips now.

"What happened to 'I don't love you'?" I asked him, my voice quiet and tentative. I really didn't want to discuss this, but there was so much doubt left over, so much shrapnel from when he dropped that bomb…I just had to know.

He winced, the pain coming back to his eyes.

"That was never true, Bella. How could I stop loving you? How could you ever doubt my love for you? It was inconceivably hard to say those words…and even harder to see that you believed every one of them. How could you believe the lie and not the truth? Do you really think so little of me?"

"I never deserved your love to begin with. It was easy to believe what I'd been telling myself the entire time. That you didn't love me, that you couldn't love me. It's not doubt when you never believed it at all." Edward looked at me incredulously.

"Isabella Swan," he said simply, "that is the most foolish excuse I've ever heard. I could never let you go. There is nothing so incredibly important as you…nothing so incredibly beautiful. I don't know how you could doubt that for one second…"

"Why'd you leave, then?" I asked bitterly, almost harshly, and felt him stiffen in my arms. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Well, that's exactly it…you are the center of my universe, and I wanted to protect you. I thought I was strong enough to protect you. I thought, maybe, if I could remove myself from your life completely, could make you forget…that you might be able to lead a normal, human life, away from danger, away from…I thought that maybe you could just be you. I want the best for you, Bella…and I am the worst possible choice for you." I looked up at his face. It was filled with incredible sincerity. What kind of creature was he? How had I gotten so lucky?

"You know, Edward," I began as I pulled him closer to me, unable to bear the slightest distance between us, "you're not right all the time. Just then, for instance, when you said you were the worst possible choice for me. You are in fact the only choice for me."

This time he kissed me, and there was more than just a physical response. I felt real excitement bubbling up inside of me, thinking of the time we could have, a thousand more days like this, a thousand more kisses like this. I gulped the smell of his breath, savoured his taste. I had my own walking, talking, loving copy of Perfection, and this time I wasn't going to let it get away.

"So does this mean you're staying?" I asked, just to be sure, "For good, I mean?"

The look he gave me was so amazed, I had to laugh. I tried to hold it back, but it soon became a chortle, then a giggle, then morphed into full-blown hysterics. Edward continued to stare at me with wonder as I laughed like that, convulsively, at the top of my lungs. I just couldn't seem to stop. I collapsed on the bed, gasping for breath, fighting my insuperable mirth. It was several minutes before I could gain control of myself.

In one of his blurry quicksilver vampire-movements, Edward was on the bed next to me. The speed with which he moved felt natural to me, more comfortable than the lead-footed movements of my human peers.

He looked worried.

"I'm sorry," I said, working to choke back another round of hysteria, "I seem to have gone a bit insane."

"This is exactly what I was afraid of," Edward muttered. I obviously was not meant to hear that. That was okay with me; I lay back on the pillow, enjoying the sound of his voice.

"Well," I said reasonably, "You can't exactly leave me alone for several months, after turning my life inside out, and expect me to be the same when you come back." There was no anger in my voice; there would be time for anger later, if I was so inclined. Besides, I didn't want to scare him away when he'd only been here for a few short minutes.

He winced. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to reach out and rub the pain away from his face.

"You weren't alone," he said softly.

"I was more alone without you than I would have been if everyone else on Earth disappeared. You have can have no concept of how I felt when you were gone. No concept of what I went through."

He looked positively wretched now. That hadn't been my intention; he was far too hard on himself. "If I really do live until the end of time, I will never, ever forgive myself for what I did to you. But…I'm wondering…can you forgive me?" The look on his face was so earnest, so sincere, and so tentative that it almost started me giggling again. How could Edward, an invulnerable, immortal being of nearly one hundred and ten years, set so much store by the words of an eighteen-year-old girl? It was really quite ridiculous. I phrased my answer very carefully.

"My mind will forgive you in a few days, but the rest of me already has forgiven you," I said truthfully.

"Much more than I deserve," he muttered, and buried his face in my hair again. I said nothing. I was concentrating on the feeling of this embrace, the casual normalcy of it conflicting with the enormous importance of the occasion. It was obvious that, though Edward and I had both changed during our time apart, we would fall back into the routine of our love as naturally as breathing.

Finally, Edward broke the silence.

"So…what have you been up to the last eight months?" As if he didn't know. But with this line came the return of his mischievous crooked grin, stealing my breath and my coherence.

"I-I nothing," I stuttered, "You what do?"

Edward stared at me. He seemed troubled by how flustered I was. I wished I could explain to him why my brain wasn't working. Maybe I was going into shock…

"I mean, I want to hear about you," I clarified, sitting up.

"What do you want to hear?" he asked tentatively.

"Er…what did you do while you were…away?" I asked him, nervous now. His expression darkened, and a shadow seemed to pass over his face.

"I tried my hand at tracking," he said tightly.

"Who did you…?" I started. Then, I realized. "Oh." I waited for my suspicions to be confirmed.

"Yes," he said, "Victoria. I was close for a while, but eventually I followed a false trail to Brazil. I'm not a very good tracker, I'm afraid…it was purely by luck that I caught up with her in Panama."

"You caught up with her?" I asked faintly.

He nodded grimly. "I quickly realized I was moving in the wrong direction. Evidently she believed I'd be down there a bit longer…it was her plan, I believe, to go somewhere in South America, since that's the last place I'd expect her to be—where I thought she was. By pure chance, I caught traces of her scent in the forests of Panama… she died somewhere along the Canal. You're safe now. Or at least you were, until I came back."

I was silent for a moment. "So you…I mean, you…you know…" I was struggling with the concept—"killed her?"

He nodded again, his eyes fearful.

"Well then," I sighed, "that's a relief." He gave me a questioning look. "I mean, that there's…no more danger."

"Bella," said Edward seriously, "as long as I'm around you, you'll never be safe." I glared at him.

"Maybe," I said irritably, "but as long as you're gone I'll never be alive. You think you're a threat to me, but you're the only thing that keeps me human. I can't survive without you." There was a silence as the words sank in. This was the first time I could ever remember Edward being at a loss for words.

"So…Victoria," I said, letting my curiosity get the better of me, "what was she thinking?"

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to hear this," said Edward firmly. I just looked at him. "Mostly she focused on your destruction, almost up until the last." I shivered. "But do you know," he mused softly, "that was what led me back here. Victoria's very last thought. She realized she was about to die, you know. At the last second I heard her think, James—it was as if, right then, we shared the same mind. I could see why she had hunted you…I could understand how she'd felt about James—the same way I feel about you. And I realized she'd lost her mind completely. And it was that—her last thought—that told me I couldn't stay away from you."

Another silence.

"But there's one thing I don't understand," I whispered. "Why did she come back down? Why did she hide? Why didn't she…kill me…while she had the chance?"

"I think it was part of her plan," he said, "I believe she was planning to—" he broke off guiltily, as if he'd said more than he should have.

"Planning to what?"

"—take extreme measures," he finished lamely.

"Oh," I said, letting it go for now. I was sure he'd explain it to me in due time. I'd make sure of it. "So…her last thought made you realize…?"

"That I couldn't survive without you. That I would lose my mind, too. That in losing you I lost myself. And then I started to wonder if you felt the same way. I couldn't bear the thought of having hurt you as badly as I hurt myself. So I came back."

"So you're done martyring yourself?" I asked irritably. I couldn't suppress the anger any longer. "Did you ever think about my feelings?" He looked stunned. "Did you ever think," I asked him, "that maybe the change you'd made in my life was irreversible? That I wasn't going to do any better without you than you were without me? That you mattered to me more than my own health? To die would have been one thing, but this…this was…much worse…" I was crying now, for the first time in months. I pulled myself up against Edward's chest and just sobbed, feeling his cold skin against my cheek. It felt good to cry—like my soul was cleansing itself. I curled, I convulsed, I felt alive. It was pathetic, but my tears brought me some sort of strange relief.

Edward just held me, whispering my name over and over. I reached out all my senses, trying to feel him in every possible way. It was the best feeling in the world—the return of my self.

It was just like that, listening to Edward's voice, my soul curled up inside of his, that I slept soundly for the first time in months.

A/N: If I get 20 reviews, I will post the amazingly hilarious bonus chapter written by my hella'mazing friend o0AliceCullen0o. R&R plz?