This is ridiculously over due but if any of you are from Australia, you might understand me when I use my next excuse:

Over the past month, I have been writing non stop until my little fingers go see through to the bone, to complete an entry for a competition that we in the West of the Land Down Under like to call the Tim Winton's Young Writers Award. This is a highly sort after, highly coveted award that looks great on university applications and is a really great start for a writers' career.

I've been trying to write an entry for years now and since the dead line is May thirtieth, I've tried increasingly hard to make it the best yet. And that means I made sacrifices such as fanfiction and even turning down some of my friends offers to go out.

I'm sorry that it's hindered my update rate but I keep feeling like this is something I need to do, not only for my future but just to prove I can do it.

Please, please, forgive me but it's been a personal thing and I hope you can find it in your hearts to reinstate me as a favourite story, if not a favourite author.

X.o.x.o

Tress Blues.

P.S. I thought you might like to see how Bella is viewed through the eyes of her best friend: No not Jacob; her vampiric Jacob, Chen.

Chapter 20. Bella the Almost Angel.

Chen's POV

"Chen?" Bella whispered through my door. I'd gotten back only minutes before and my vision was still tinged in red. We'd just met the vampires who had single handedly fucked up Bella. Bella the one who took me in, Bella the most fundamentally good vampire in the world, Bella the almost angel. The one who did not deserve any of it.

It was so difficult not to loose it during the meeting. I wanted to avenge the heartache they put my best friend through but that wouldn't help. I was a little more protective of Bella than others. I knew what it was like to be broken, even though I'd inflicted the pain on myself and she'd had it done to her. Vee and Andrew, Jenna and Max…they were together. Maybe not in the same relationship title but they were together in immortality because they had some kind of human connection remaining between them. Bella and me…we had no one but each other, two fugitives from connections.

And now, she had connection with her human life again: these monsters. But Bella was so desperate to save others and herself from pain that she wouldn't deal with any of it. Personally, I liked this plan of action because I could not stand the Cullens. Someone who hurt her so terribly was no longer worthy of any kind of respect in my opinion and I'd barely managed to hold the fury I had for the Cullens in.

But we all slip up now and then.

"Come in." I said and Bella slipped into the room, a horrified look on her face. It sent me flying off the couch immediately and I sat her down on the faux bed. I didn't use it for anything more than meditation or thinking. It felt nice to have something other than a canvas mat to sleep on, as I had had in my old life. "Bella, what's wrong?"

She looked at me with round, terrified gold eyes. "Chen I did something really bad." She whispered. Vampiric ears would've had trouble catching it.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and hugged her. "What's wrong Bells? It can't be too bad, you're practically a saint at heart." I joked but she didn't laugh. It worried me further because Bella always laughed at any of my cruddy jokes. "Really, though what's wrong?"

She let out a deep breath and I could smell the scent of freesias in the air. Delicate and pure and pretty…like Bella actually. "Chen, I've completely ruined everything."

I sighed and hugged her again. "You haven't Bella, relax." Occasionally, Bella worked herself into a frenzy that she'd ruined someone's life or messed something up but it never turned out to be anything bad. She simply tended to think the worst about herself.

"No, no." she gave a short, desperate laugh. "Really, I've single handedly ruined everything."

I frowned. This wasn't like Bella. Not the Bella I knew anyway. "Isabella- hey why d'you do that?" I asked, distracted. She flinched when I said her full name.

"No reason." She replied, evasively, flicking her hair back over her shoulders.

I eyed her. "Isabella." Flinch. "Isabella." Flinch. "Isabella Marie Swan." Flinch-

"Stop that!" she snapped, looking paler than usual. If that were possible.

I stopped and eyed her again, trying to determine what was off about her today. The day had already left us and the moon was shining through the window, lighting up the alabaster of her face and turning the gold of her eyes silver. Bella was beautiful, as all vampires should be and it made me sad that she never found anyone who thought of her that way. Never found anyone to appreciate her, to love her…unless you count that total prick Edward. "Bella, please, what's wrong?" I asked calmly.

Bella fiddled with the edge of my green-as-grass bedspread before sighing and looking anywhere but in my eye. "Okay, Chen, before I tell you, can you promise you won't completely verbally murder me?" she asked, weakly. I nodded, cautiously. "Well, I- I found out you guys weren't here when I came back," she cast angry eyes at me. "and I guessed where you went. So I took a run. And I went back to the meadow."

"The meadow?"

"The meadow." At my continuous blank look, she sighed, impatient. "THE meadow. You know, the one I told you about. The meadow." It clicked into place and I closed my eyes, resigned. The meadow was a Cullen place. The one that held the most feeling, the most memories for Bella, the one that would be the most painful to visit…the meadow was to Bella, what the cave I'd hidden myself in was for me.

"Crap."

"Yeah. It brought everything up. All the memories, all the pain…" she took a shaky breath. "But I went there and…he was there." I let out an involuntary growl. I shouldn't have let him out the door of their house. "It was fine Chen," Bella reassured me. "Really. The only thing was that…he told me why he left."

"There was no excuse Bella." I said quickly. "There's no excuse for what he, for what they did to you! They ruined your life Bells, there is no justice or reason for it!" It'd be just like Bella to blame herself or take an excuse for honesty. She was too naïve and Edward must have known that. Must've used that.

But "Chen, he left to protect me." was all she whispered and I turned to her in shock.

"Protect you?" I spat, suddenly viciously angry.

"Yes, he thought without him there, I would be safer from his world. There were no distractions. He said he still loved me." Bella's wind chime voice was faint in my ears.

"Fat load of good that did you." I snarled although I could see his reasoning. I could see how, in desperation, he might try something so stupid and reckless to save the love of his life…ugh, I thought. I sounded like Vee.

Bella smiled weakly. "That's what I told him, essentially. But…then he asked if there was anything he could do to make it right and I told him no." Pride soared in my chest. There was the Bella I'd been trying to pull out for all these years. Occasionally you saw parts of her, but never the whole person. This Bella would stand up for herself and wouldn't take anyone's shit.

"Damn straight Bells." I agreed and suddenly her face went wary.

"There was something else."

"What?" I asked, almost amused. Bella couldn't have done anything bad. 'Bella the almost angel' couldn't have done anything terrible.

"He asked me if there was anyone else. Someone that had taken his place." She didn't look me in the eye.

"And?" I finally probed.

"I said yes."

"What!? Bella what were you thinking?" I hissed, jumping up from the couch and pacing to the window. How on earth could she pull this one off? Assuming that Vee, Andrew, Jenna and Max could convince her to stay in Forks, how were we going to make the Cullens believe Bella the almost angel had a partner, who didn't actually exist?

Bella bit her lip and curled her legs under herself. "I wasn't thinking," she sounded horrified at what she'd done. "I was just so angry. I just…I just wanted to make him hurt too."

I sighed and sat back with Bella on the couch. We'd have to leave then. Now, immediately, before anyone found out… "Let's go tell the others, we'll be gone by the morning, we'll sort the paper work out over the phone." Bella stared at the ground as I leaned back on the bed. "Don't worry so much Bells. The rest won't mind too much, we'll head off for a year abroad or something. You know, go skiing in the Himalayas or something." I grinned at the thought of Jenna and Max in the snow.

"Chen, there's something else." I didn't hear her, I was too busy thinking of the possibilities a year abroad could bring.

"Or we could hide out in the Amazon, that'd be good, wait it out there, enjoy the sun."

"Chen,"

"Do you think Australia would be too hard on Jenna and Max? Cause I reckon we could head out into one of the deserts and just live without the people. Kangaroos taste kinda nice."

"Chen, I told Edward you were my partner."

I heard that.

I turned my head so slowly; I might've been a statue for each position. Shock sunk in, every inch of my skin was numbed down. I blinked at Bella, then blinked again. And then, "WHAT?!"

Bella winced and covered her face with her hands as I flew upwards and hovered over her. Bella did lots of things on impulse. Some were good, some not so good but she'd never done anything so…so…stupid. "Chen, I didn't mean to, it just-"

"Came out?" I supplied, menacingly. She cringed. "Bella, what were you thinking!?!?!?"

"I wasn't!" she repeated, weakly protesting. I growled and ran a hand over my head. How could she have done this? We weren't partners, we weren't even close, we were friends! Logically, one side of me commanded me to think about it: She couldn't say Andrew because he's already so close with Vee and Max was too young, not to mention the fact that either of the girls were out of the options indefinitely…think Chen, you were the last one!

The other, less rational side of me growled at that voice and told it to shut up. "We'll have to leave immediately, they'll find out otherwise, it'll be impossible to fake-"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." She stood up, sounding a bit more sure of herself. I cast angry slitted eyes at her. Not the time to put on the leader hat Bella…"It's going to be difficult to come up with a place to live this late in the year, with enough cover at least to hide us and Vee and Andrew have already decided to try and get Jenna and Max into a college. We can't do that unless we have credentials and the kids are so set on going to college. If we hide out for a few years somewhere else it's still going to be vaguely impossible to find somewhere with enough rain and enough of a reputation to get them into a good school." Bella paused, biting her lip nervously.

"No." I said, shocked as it fell into place. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Please Chen, just for a year and then it can all go back to normal, we'll move away to Alaska or somewhere, we'll be fine! But just for this year, could you please, just try to…you know." She begged, pressing her hands together unconsciously.

"Bella," I groaned. "You're asking me to pretend, under the noses of a mind reader, a psychic and an empath, to be your boyfriend…and get away with it?" This was going to be impossible.

Bella winced. "Well when you put it that way it sounds pretty bad but anything sounds bad when you say it like that!"

"Bella this is impossible! No, you listen," I said when she made to interrupt. "The psychic is going to see us doing this or at least see us apart when we go to college in the future-"

"She won't see this, its spur of the moment. And besides, Alice will simply think we fell apart." She waved her hand dismissively.

"He's going to be able to read my mind, if not yours and the empath is going to be able to tell how we feel about each other!" I finished, my eyes alight, challenging her to try and think of a solution.

"Not," she began, quietly. "If I'm careful."

"Excuse me?"

"Chen, power of rejection, remember?" she said, playfully pointing to herself and slapping my shoulder. "I just have to concentrate on keeping Edward," Bella winced and my fingers formed talons. "and Jasper's powers at bay. If they can't feel it or hear it, nothing can go wrong."

"So what?" I laughed, dryly. "Your going to concentrate twenty four seven on not letting them get to me? What about everyone else huh?"

Bella smiled a little. "I won't be trying to keep them away from just you, I'll just neutralize their powers in general when they're around us. Besides, it isn't that hard. I neutralize them away from me all the time, I'll just have to expand it a little further." She explained, a little smug.

I groaned and flopped onto the bed. "This will never work." I stated, matter-of-factly.

"Yes it will." She determined, carefully. "I just have to be careful about it. But," she paused again and I heard her shift onto the pillows beside me. "Will you do it? For me?"

I rolled over and stared at her. She looked fearful and determined and sad and happy all at the same time. Maybe it was a good thing she was going to neutralize the empath. I'd hate to be feeling her emotions. I sighed though. I couldn't deny Bella anything. She'd done so much for me. "Of course I will Bella. I owe you big time."

She grinned and her entire face lit up at the prospect of making the kids happy, even though it would cause her so much pain. I couldn't help but marvel at how inspiringly good she was. Bella the Almost Angel, indeed.

Hope you like it,

Please review,

Tress.