Okay guys… Here it is, as promised, chapter seventeen.

It's a pretty critical chapter. So I'm not going to say that much just: Thank you zgirl21 for giving me the idea… I hope it lives up to what you were expecting… and thank you NoMoreThanUsual for your support and excitement about the story!

Heads up that after Monday, updates might be few and far between as two friends from London are coming to CA for two(ish) weeks (June 8-23) and a third is coming not long after that during the same period (June 17-21)… Tie that in with a trip to LA with them (June 12-14) and it leaves a busy month… Still I'll try my hardest.

I hope to have another chapter to you by Saturday!

You Found Me
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

Chapter Seventeen

In the still of the night it shines so clear
And the comfort of finding it here
And as I walk the night gets colder
And I know that I don't know
And it seems as I get older
My life goes over
In the winds of change

I guess nothing turned out like I planned
Everything's sure to fall out of hand
And it takes a lot to find it
And it takes a lot I know
To believe that there is meaning
Inside this moment
In the winds of change

As it turns you upside down
As confusing as it seems
Keep your head high and your feet on the ground
And turn and chase your dreams
In the winds of change

"Winds of Change" by Lifehouse

----------

Rose looked down at the number stored in her phonebook. She wanted to call it, mainly because she knew that he was probably curious, but she wasn't sure it was her place. Before, when things were different, the simple act was nothing that she had to think twice about, but everything had changed since then and it was hard. She missed him and she knew Emmett did too; the four of them had become a small, tight knit family. But that was to be expected when keeping secrets of the magnitude of theirs.

Aiden giggled and she stood up, making her way towards the crib that they had set up in the family room.

"Did you have a good nap?" she cooed, picking him up and rocking him gently in her arms.

The child seemed appeased to be back in his mothers arms and she sat back down on the couch, still contemplating what she truly wanted to do in that moment. She missed their family, and being honest with herself, she missed Edward as well. He had been a delightful addition and both she and Emmett had grown so close to him over the past few months it bothered her that he felt he couldn't still come to them. Still, part of her seemed to understand why he might be harboring apprehension in contacting them: they were Bella's friends first.

Heavy footsteps came from the hall and her head snapped up to her husband who was walking towards her. Even after seven years of marriage, she couldn't help but smile brightly at him. He still had the ability to turn her into a puddle of goo with just a smoldering glance.

"And how was your nap?" she teased as he flopped down onto the couch beside her.

"Missing one warm body." His lips found her neck and he kissed her there, smiling against the skin when he felt the shiver that her body created. "You looked awfully deep in thought… What's bothering you?" He pulled away and slipped his arm around his wife, bringing her closer towards him as he gazed down on his family.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before resting her head on the back of his arm and rolling her head up to look at him. "Have you heard from Edward?"

Emmett snarled and she regretted even bringing it up. "No… But I'm still in the right mind to rip that boy a new one if I do ever see or hear from him again."

"What do you mean?"

"He fucking promised not to hurt her and now she's all kinds of messed up… I have no idea what to do anymore."

She cocked her head to the side. "What are you talking about?"

"What, do you not see what I see? She's gone all depressed and somber… She's not the happy girl she was when they were together. He left her Rose… He promised me that he wouldn't do that. He fucking swore it to me and now he's gone and she's fucking gone and everything… I don't know."

She shook her head. "You don't know the whole story… Em, what would you have done if I had been married when we met?"

"Fucked you senseless… Then I would have made you leave him," he chuckled and she used her free hand to slap his chest.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

"He was hurting… I should have seen it but it was too late… He did what he had to do to protect himself and I don't blame him for that. I just wish that I had seen it sooner and I wish that I hadn't been so cavalier about the whole thing."

"Babe, this isn't something you could have changed. He knew what he was getting into when he signed up for the relationship with her. He knew she was married."

"Yes… It is. I was so damn adamant that Bella leave Jake that I pushed her into something that she wasn't ready for. I should have gotten her help before this and they could have remained friends and when she was finally ready I could have told her to go for it. Their feelings haven't changed for each other. I pushed her too hard. I messed this all up, if he should be angry with anyone, it's probably me."

"Oh yeah, sure. If he's so broken up about it then what's up with that chick he's been photographed with lately?" he snorted.

"I don't know really but I don't believe that they're really together."

"Oh yeah, sure Baby. I'm sure they're just friends."

"You do know it's entirely possible to hold your friend's hand… To go out to dinner with your friend. And well, most importantly, to be friends with the opposite sex."

"Sure it is."

"Something else is bothering you," she stated and he shook his head. "What is it?"

"The four of us were supposed to be friends…" he said dryly as his gaze shifted to the ground. "Why would he just stop being friends with us because of Bella? And even more so, Bella barely comes around anymore. What the hell happened to us?"

"There's the cancer," she sighed and reached her free hand up to run her fingers through his hair. "I think it hurts him too much… I think it hurts her too much."

He sighed and pulled her closer, right now, he just wanted to be near her. He hated that everything that he had come to know for nearly a year now was crashing down. He hated knowing that two of his best friends were hurting and there was nothing he could do about it, nothing that he could do to save them.

----------

"So what have you been doing when Jake's not around?" Charlotte probed one afternoon, nearly a month since they had began their sessions.

"I go the National Gallery a lot." Bella was hedging the questions, uncertain if she should come clean about the affair she had with Edward. Desperately she wanted to talk about it, but she knew she was afraid of being judged for her actions.

"And?"

Sighing, she knew it was now or never. "I met someone nearly a year ago."

"Tell me about this person."

"He was like… a breath of fresh air. For the first time in a long while, I was able to forget about everything, the pain that I felt from the accident… the neglect… all of it ceased to exist and it was just… us."

"Keep going."

"I fell in love with him," she said softly, her eyes on the ground. "And I was a coward and I've hurt him beyond any kind of repair. I want to make it right but I don't know how, especially because I don't even know how to right the situation that I'm in to begin with.

"He gave me everything and I couldn't give him a thing. No, I take that back. I did give him open ended promises." She reached for the tissues and pressed one against the corners of her eyes that were now pooling with the salty liquid.

"What do you mean open ended?"

"It's not a lie that I'm unhappy with Jacob… But I know I can't leave him until he is taken care of. He's been nothing but supportive and well… I don't want to cause him pain and I know that ultimately I will but it would be easier if I knew that he had the one thing he wanted more than anything else, even more than he wants me."

"Which would be?"

"This promotion at work."

Charlotte sighed for a moment. "I need you to think about something Bella… but I don't want you to react, just think. Are you maybe confusing supportive with controlling?"

----------

Though he should have been writing songs, he couldn't find the muse to do so, and instead he was writing lists. All kinds of lists: his top ten favorite songs, his top ten favorite foods, his top ten favorite bands… All in an attempt to clear his mind and the more he wrote the easier it became and soon his lists began to change. Now he was scribbling the ten things he loved about Bella Swan, his ten favorite memories involving Bella Swan, ten things about Bella Swan's smile that he loved, ten things about Bella Swan's eyes that he loved and finally, ten things about Bella Swan that broke his heart.

He didn't know what had prompted the list making, but he knew that it was helping. Slowly he was purging his heart of all the pain that he had been storing and his heart was getting a bit lighter. This didn't mean the pain was gone, by no means was that the case, he knew that the pain would always be there unless she was with him, but it did keep it from hurting quite as bad. Thinking about her, he had determined, was the only way. He knew it made the memories more clear, especially as he dreamed, but he wasn't fighting it anymore because he knew that it didn't matter.

The more he thought about her, the more he started to think about Jane's advice. He knew that he could be happy with Bella if she ever did come back, but he was still uncertain as to whether he would ever be able to trust her again. The wounds ran so deep and the seemingly empty promises that she had made him and failed to follow through on had ripped into him so deeply that it was hard to even trust his friend's promises anymore.

Still, he knew that if she was sincere, if she truly was able to show him that she had changed, and that she really did love him and want to make him happy and enter into an equal partnership, that he wouldn't pass up the opportunity. He just didn't know how he would know if she was sincere or not. Then again, he knew it was something that he would have to deal with when, or if, the time ever came. He hoped that it would and that it wasn't too far down the road. He wasn't sure how much longer he could live without her.

He heard the familiar sound of his ringtone and reached for his phone and glanced at the caller id.

"Hello?"

"Hey Edward," her voice resonated and he smiled, thankful to have someone to take his mind off the thoughts that he had been having while he sat alone in his flat.

"Jane. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Just fucking bored… I thought I'd see what you were up to." There was a pause between the both of them. "You're fucking moping aren't you?"

"No. Well, not entirely. I've been thinking as well."

"Thinking about what?"

"What we had talked about… About what I would need from her."

"How about we meet up and you tell me what you've been thinking," Jane replied.

"Sounds good. The usual?"

"The usual," she replied.

----------

Bella walked into the Waterstone's in Piccadilly. It was one of her new favorite places in London and probably because of the sheer size of the bookstore. Five whole floors, nearly all of them devoted to books. In so many ways it reminded her of home, of being at the University of Washington library, though these books were brand new and didn't have the old, musty smell that the ones she was remembering had.

She also figured that the place was large enough that she could hide there. And often, that's what she would do. She's scan the books until she found one, then she'd purchase it before going to take a seat and lose herself in whatever world it was that she was reading about. Plus, she knew that it was one place that she wouldn't run into Edward. Or rather, she assumed she wouldn't run into him.

What she didn't know, however, was that at the very moment that she was running her fingers on the bindings of the books in front of her, her ex-lover, love of her life, was on the fifth floor, enjoying a drink with the woman who was quickly becoming his best friend.

"So," Jane asked as they sat down with their usual two pints of the lager that was on tap, "what have you been thinking about?"

He sipped the drink for a moment before looking at her. "She has to prove herself to me."

Jane laughed, "No shit. But what does she have to do?"

He shrugged unable to really give her the answer that she was looking for because he himself didn't really have an idea as to what the grand gesture would have to be. "I have no fucking clue. I suppose I'll know it when I see it."

"Why do you like this place so much anyhow?" Jane asked, changing the subject, knowing full well that he was right; that there was no way that he could have a definitive answer. What was important, and she was happy he realized it, was that she would have to prove herself.

"I suppose it's because she loves books… I don't know, part of me always hopes that I'll run into her here."

"Does she come here?"

"No idea, we didn't go to bookstores together."

"So why would you assume she would be here?"

"Because I know she probably doesn't go to the National Gallery much anymore because it became our place… And she loves books… I mean, truly loves them Jane. I've never seen a single person tear through a novel like she does." He smiled and closed his eyes, in his head he was reliving the moment when he had watched her pick up her copy of Wuthering Heights for the first time.

Jane wanted to encourage the talk about her, noting that he had seemed to relax as he did so. "What was her favorite?"

"The classics. God, she had this old copy of Wuthering Heights, she had probably read this particular one twenty times, at least. It was in a state… The binding was nearly falling off…" he chuckled. "We got into this huge argument about Catherine and Heathcliff… God… And then Romeo and Juliet…"

"What about them?"

"Her idolization of the relationships… Such a positive understanding of them… Heathcliff and Catherine got what they had coming to them. Both were too selfish and too prideful, but she loved them… I think she was always rooting for them to come out of it together… And well, Romeo and Juliet, another one that she was so adamant about… She would cry every time she read the end. It was adorable and I loved watching her and I could never convince her that they were doomed from the beginning. Not to mention the boy was seriously flawed. Was he not at the ball because of another woman?"

"Love at first sight."

"Okay, I'll give you that… But neither relationship ever stood a chance. Love could have existed between them both but maybe that wasn't enough."

Jane furrowed her brow for a moment. "Did you ever think that maybe, being that she loves literature like this, that she thinks that as well?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… She loves these stories and she always roots for them to work out, but they never do," she said and watched as he cocked his head to the side, listening to her words. "Maybe the thought that what she had with you was doomed to fail as well. It's obvious how happy you too were… If I haven't heard it, I've seen it in the pictures. But if she believes what she reads, she probably thought that the happiness wouldn't last. Isn't that what life has taught her?"

"I suppose I never thought of it that way."

Jane just shrugged. "Sometimes, you have to look at the little things before understanding the big picture."

While Edward and Jane drank on the fifth floor, Bella was still standing on the third floor, her eyes and fingers raking over the different books, trying to find anything that was catching her attention. Finally, her eyes fell on the name of an author that she had recalled Rose talking about: Jodi Picoult. She pulled out the first one the saw, a book called Picture Perfect, and slowly opened it, careful not to crease the binding.

The woman looked into the sky. She did not know where she was, but it was quiet; and since her head was pounding, she was grateful. She tried to remember how she got there in the first place… She stared at a bus sighing at the corner stop. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know the closest police station. She didn't even know her own name.

Carefully, she closed the book and scanned the back.

To the world, they had everything. Cassie Barrett was a renowned anthropologist. Alex Rivers was a respect actor. They met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they returned to California, something altered the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern took shape—a cycle of hurt, denial, and broken promises, thinly veiled by glamour. Torn between fear and compassion, Cassie wrestled with the questions she never dreamed she would face. Why did she stay? And how could she leave?

It was a far cry from the normal things that Bella would read, but something about the situation made her decide that it was something that had sparked her interest. So instead of putting it back on the shelf, like she so often did when it came to contemporary literature, she cradled it in her arm and proceeded to find the queue to pay.

And when it was paid for, she found her chair and sat down and flipped it open. Each word on the page seeming to describe the very nature of how she was feeling: the husband who hurt her and the lover who possessed her in ways that were indescribable. But she was Cassie, and Jacob was Alex and she knew, without a doubt, that Edward was Will.

Cassie was lost, she was confused but she knew she loved Will, she knew deep down. And it was painful to admit, and it was confusing as hell but deep down, the love and passion that didn't exist in her own marriage was there in the stranger who had taken care of her. The stranger who loved her deeply regardless of how she saw herself and of how little she had to give. He knew her, and he knew that he was taking a chance, but he did everything he could to show her that.

I did not tell her that he was so gentle he sometimes made me cry. I did not tell her that afterward, he would hold me so tightly the breath was driven from my lungs, as if he were afraid I'd disappear. I did not tell her that every now and then, as he prayed to me with his hands and his heart and his mouth, I felt as cherished and as blessed as a saint.

Everything was solidified as she read Will's words, "You're too much a part of me… If you cut yourself free…then I bleed to death."

Bella was crying quietly as she sat in the chair. The tears falling from her eyes and landing on the white paper underneath her leaving stains on the book. She wanted everything to be clear, she wanted to see herself as these characters but she still had trouble relating Alex to Jacob. Jacob had never clubbed her over the head, he still was better than Alex, and she still felt guilty for loving Edward.

The paths of the lovers did not cross that day, though it seemed, they were getting closer.

----------

Rose finally gathered the courage to call Edward three days later. She had put Aiden down for his afternoon nap when she saw her phone resting on the coffee table. It had been in the back of her mind to have a get together between her husband and her best friend's ex-lover but she still was unsure as to how she could truly broach the subject. Throwing caution to the wind, she decided that it didn't matter. Bella was her friend yes, but so was Edward and she wanted to help him as well. She, after all, knew that this was partially her fault.

What she hadn't anticipated was for him to pick up. She had the voice mail message all planned out in her head, exactly what she would say and how she would say it. His voice, startled her.

"Rose?"

"Oh… Um… Hi," she managed to stutter, surprised at her lack of confidence in the situation. She was always so confident.

"Is everything okay? Is Bella…" his voice trailed, as though he was afraid to ponder the possibility that something was wrong with her, that she had been hurt or damaged in a way and he hadn't been there to save her, to help her, to protect her.

"Oh… Yes… She's fine, I suppose. I was actually, um, calling to talk to you."

"To me?"

"Congratulations…" she said softly, "I wish we could have been there… or at least gathered the courage to call you sooner."

"Thank you… It does mean a lot and I wouldn't say that you're to blame for all this. I could have called as well."

"Yes… you could have but I don't blame you… It's a difficult situation… It's just… we miss you."

His heart stalled as he heard we. "We?"

"Emmett and I," she replied and then her voice dropped a few levels, "and Bella."

There was silence on both ends of the phone for a while. Edward was trying to calm the beating of his heart at the mere mention of her name and the fact that she missed him; he couldn't help but wonder if there was hope after all. He was beginning to fix himself but he knew that the missing piece of it all was her. Rose on the other hand was mortified that she had even mentioned Bella's name and took his silence as a negative, fearing now that she had managed to alienate him even further.

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have," she finally managed.

"No really… It's okay, I've… well I've been wondering about her…"

"I still shouldn't have," she replied. "I guess what I wanted to know… what Emmett and I wanted to know, was if you were free to meet with us… Dinner or something. We miss you Edward."

"Of course… I'd love to see you both. How is Thursday?"

"Thursday will work just fine. Come here to our house, I'll cook… or rather, I'll order take out."

"That sounds nice Rose."

"Thank you Edward."

"No… Thank you Rose… I really am happy to hear from you." She could hear the truth in his voice and she smiled as she said goodbye and hung up the phone. She knew that it was another step in the right direction.

----------

She slid into the driver's seat of the BMW Jacob had purchased for her a year ago that she had only driven on that same day. It still smelled new and for a moment she just sat there, leaning against the leather seat as she closed her eyes and tried to mentally prepare herself. The telltale signs of her anxiety began to resurface as she tried to calm her mind: the shallow breaths and the heavy chest. She had to remind herself that it was merely a panic attack and that she wasn't going to die, even if it felt like she was. Deep down she would have preferred to have been in the house or walking on the streets but Charlotte had insisted that one of the steps to conquering her demons was to get behind the wheel again.

She reached forward and listened as the car turned over. The purr of the engine filled the small space and she quickly opened the garage door. She didn't know where she was going, but her 'homework' was to drive for at least a solid hour. An hour. It was easily accomplished in London, what with the horrible traffic, but she knew that Charlotte didn't mean sitting, waiting; she would have to get out of the city and into the country to drive. Thankfully the car was equipped with a GPS device.

An hour and a half later, she found herself on the M6 driving past a Birmingham exit. Taking notice of where she was and in what direction she was heading in, she found an open patch on the side of the road and pulled over, shutting off the engine before allowing herself to just sit there. This was life for her and she closed her eyes and fought back the tears when she realized for the first time that every attempt to fight her demons led her right back to him, the one person she knew understood her even though she didn't understand herself.. Unconsciously she had led herself halfway to his childhood home and she wondered how she could even attempt to move forward when her mind wouldn't let her.

Without thinking, she flipped on her blinker and continued on the M6 knowing full well where she would find herself, but not really caring, not if, if only for a moment, it brought her closer to him.

----------

Leah's guilt had taken her this far, now all she had to do was step off the plane at Heathrow and figure out how she could tell Bella the entire truth. In the six hours she had spent in the air, she had come up with nothing. Everything still was a jumble and she knew that regardless, Bella would hate her. Though she had every reason to. For months she had hid the fact that she had slept with her husband and she had become her friend on top of that. Friend's didn't do that and Leah was a terrible friend.

To say that AEG wasn't too thrilled with her need to go back to London would have been an understatement. They couldn't understand what it was that she needed to finish that required her to take more time off of work, it was then that she realized that she was miserable at her job and quit. There had been a long time ago when she thought it was everything, but the job had really brought her nothing more than undue stress and problems. Maybe now, she thought, she could figure out what she really wanted to do with her life. Besides, the one good thing that had come out of the job had been the savings account that she had managed to acquire. She wasn't worried; she would have plenty of time to figure things out.

When she finally did step off the plane she felt a sense of dread that hadn't existed. Bella had become such a good friend to her and part of her wondered if she was truly doing the right thing. She never wanted to cause her pain but she knew that ultimately, that was exactly what she was doing. Well, that and the fact that she knew she would lose her friend forever. It was a difficult situation and she was wrong in the first place for even thinking she could live with the guilt.

As she stood in line at boarder control, she remembered to turn her phone on. There had been no missed calls, though she hadn't assumed there would be, not when she wasn't employed anymore.

"Where are you staying miss?" She snapped out of her reverie and looked up at the eyes of the man who was patiently examining her passport.

"The Dorchester."

"And why are you visiting the country?"

"Vacation."

He nodded and pressed the stamp down on the paper. "Have a pleasant trip."

"Thank you," she muttered under her breath and gathered her things. The trip, she knew, would be anything but pleasant.

----------

Bella sat at the Edge in what she remembered to be the very same spot where Edward had held her and she told him that she would be leaving Jacob for him. They were the best memories that she had with him, and she cherished them though she seldom allowed herself the delight of reliving them. It felt wrong not doing that here though, here things were different. Here they were Edward and Bella and she could vividly recall each and every detail of their relationship without guilt. But it didn't keep her from feeing upset with the way things had ended, with the fact that they hadn't managed to persevere the way the land here had, the way the legends had, the way the magic of this place had. The sky seemed to mimic her own emotions: the darkness telling of rain to come just as she could feel her own eyes clouding over and the tears threatening to spill if she continued to ponder where things had gone wrong.

And just like that, the cloud began to pour and so did her tears. She sat for a little while longer though, still not willing to part with the area though she knew she was risking her heath. It didn't really matter anymore. This was the only place that she had been since they had parted that she truly felt at one with him. It was almost as though part of himself was tied to the land, and she knew for a fact, that part of them was tied here. She only wondered if she could ever have that back, if they could ever have that back.

Willing herself up, she stood and walked back to the car. She still had a long three and a half hour drive, and that was if the rain didn't impede traffic, which she knew, it probably would.

Nearly an hour outside of London, the rain grew more violent and she could feel her heart as it pounded in her chest. This was the type of weather that brought back everything from the past to her mind and the fact that she was driving only made her more anxious. She flipped the wipers on a higher speed and decreased her own, just to be safe. In her mind, she was cursing Charlotte, but she knew that if she managed to conquer this, then she was on the right path.

The radio played a soft song that seemed to relax her a bit though her knuckles were still white as she gripped the leather wheel. Something didn't feel right and though she was relaxing, she couldn't relax completely.

"This is crazy Isabella," she told herself out loud. "It's just rain."

She tried to busy her mind with other thoughts: the fact that she hadn't seen Rose or Emmett in weeks and how she should call them up, the fact that she hadn't heard from Leah since she had moved back to New York and how she felt that maybe their friendship hadn't really meant anything to her at all, but ultimately, her mind continued to go back to the book that she had bought only a few days ago at the bookstore.

She despised Alex, hated him and the character and everything he represented. She hated that someone so cruel could exist, even in a fictional world. And, in many ways, she hated Cassie and how she was so blinded by Alex and the glamorous lifestyle that they lived, how just because every other woman in the world wanted to fuck her husband, she felt that she should be happy with the life she was living. But what hurt her the most, was how much she related to the woman. She hated that she couldn't find the strength the leave Jacob and the strength to love Edward the way he deserved to be loved. She hated how she took everything form Edward but had so little to give back to him. She hated that she had allowed him to fall for her and be unable to catch him, and she hated, that she loved him just as passionately but felt that she couldn't do a thing about it.

As she relaxed into the seat, she pondered her own situation more. She thought about the way Jacob had treated her and compared it to the way Edward had. She thought about Jacob's needy and greedy touches and kisses and Edward's worshipping and loving ones. She thought about their words and the way Jacob's usually hurt her and how Edward had always managed to bring a certain joy to her day. She thought about how unfair she had been to Edward and how she gave everything to the man who gave her so little and nothing to the man who gave her everything.

So deep in her thoughts, Bella was no longer paying attention to the road and the heavy rain so when the animal darted across the road, surprised, she slammed on the brakes, and turned her wheel, losing all control of the vehicle as it spun on the slick roads.

If your life is supposed to flash before you, Bella was upset with what she saw and how clear everything came to her though it was too late now to go back and change everything: she saw the way that Jacob had possessed her, the way he had made her feel guilty over something she really knew she had no control over, she saw the way his eyes had darkened when he grew angry, the impending danger of his behavior, she saw how his words were carefully chosen to hurt her feelings or make her feel less of herself, and she saw the way he belittled her and made her believe that she was worthy of nothing better than what he gave her. And before everything went blank and she slipped into her unconscious, she saw Edward and she smiled because he was there, like always, when she needed him the most.

----------

"Thank you, for coming," Rose smiled as she opened the door to see Edward standing there, a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

"Thank you for calling and inviting me."

He followed her into the house and handed her the flowers and Emmett the bottle and was surprised when he clasped his hand on his shoulder and drew him into a bone crushing man hug.

"It's good to see you again."

"I thought you wouldn't want to see me," Edward responded matter-of-factly. "I broke my promise."

Emmett shrugged. "Who's saying you broke it? There's still time to figure it all out. I think I was a bit too quick to judge anyways."

"I was going to ask if you'd seen her…" he said softly, casting his eyes down to the ground. "I haven't heard from her in so long… I just…"

"She's been on a road to self discovery, or at least, that's what Rose says. I'm not really sure though…"

"Does she…" He couldn't find the strength within himself to ask if she still thought of him, if she still loved him. He was pretty sure the answer was yes, but his own self deprecating personality wasn't willing to accept it. He sometimes hated the person he had become since finding true love.

"She does," Emmett replied, not needing any further prompt to know what he was talking about and watched as Edward merely nodded his head solemnly.

Rose had ordered take out from a small Italian place not too far from their home and half way through the meal, a phone call interrupted everything.

"Excuse me," she said softly to the two men as she stood and made her way to the phone.

Not taking much notice, Edward and Emmett continued their discussion about football and which team would go all the way that season: Emmett was insistent on Chelsea whereas Edward merely shook his head claiming it would be Arsenal. When they had finally managed to agree to disagree, they looked up and saw Rose standing there, her hand clutching the phone and her eyes brimming with tears.

"Baby what's wrong?"

"It's Bella."

Edward snapped out of his chair and rushed over to his friend's wife. "What's wrong? What happened to her?" He was frantic for information, his heart heavy as he thought that he might never be able to see her alive and well again, that they might never have the chance to be together again as he so often dreamed that they would.

"There was an accident…" she stuttered, the words coming out in a jumbled mess as she fought the sobs. "They're rushing her to St. Thomas'."

"I have to go…"

"Edward… You can't… Jacob will be there."

"I don't give a fuck… She's hurt Rose… I have to be there." His heart was pounding wildly and he was having a difficult time comprehending what was happening, all he knew was that he had to get to her, he had to let her know that he loved her, that he would always love her regardless of what had happened, he had to tell her that they could find a way to make it work because he didn't work without her, he just… Fuck, he just needed her.

Emmett approached him, resting one hand on his shoulder. "It's better if you don't… We'll call you… I'll personally keep you updated. But Jacob can't know... I'll tell her that you want to see her."

"I just… Can I…I need to be at the hospital. I'll stay away, I'll look inconspicuous, but I need to be there if she needs me."

Emmett looked to his wife who was cradling Aiden in her arms and she nodded her head. "If Jake asks, we'll tell him he's with us… It's the truth after all."

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Cliffhanger… Sorry guys… But you don't really believe I'd kill her right? I mean… I know most of you hate her… But I think she's figuring things out.

As always, I'd love to hear from you.

If anyone has read High Fidelity... You bet I took the list making from that... Damn... Such a good book. I love Rob... I shouldn't because he's so damn psychotic and pyschologically fucked... But he's got this amazing mind in so many different ways and he's such an entertaining narrator... The book far outshines the movie.