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Scenario: You've been offered a once in a lifetime opportunity

Edward stood from the table and bowed to me. "Miss Swan, if you would be so kind to accompany me to the library so we may discuss this?" He then turned to the others as my mouth fell open. "And if you would forgive the interruption to your breakfast?"

"We don't have a library, Edward," Maman said, trying not to smile and failing. "Feel free to use the room you slept in."

Edward's eyes grew wide and he swallowed. "It is most unseemly. However," he added, straightening and holding out a hand to me again, "I will of course leave the door open for propriety's sake."

"Of course," I said as I took his hand and stood from the table. As soon as we touched, a feeling of completion washed over me. It was like the piece of me that was missing, a feeling that was stronger when we weren't together, suddenly fit into place.

I glanced back at the table as I followed him from the room. Alice and Maman had huge grins on their faces, Carlisle looked like he was trying to solve a puzzle, a mixture of what appeared to be excitement and frustration on his face.

When we reached the mid-point on the stairs to the bedrooms, Edward paused. It was a good thing since I was out of breath, and it seemed he was as well. If my face was as ashen as his, I'd swear strangers would think we were ghosts.

"It seems I'm not fully healed, and neither are you," he said as he leaned against the bannister.

"What I don't understand is why I was sick at all. I wasn't before the ceremony."

He stared at me, his eyes boring into mine as his breathing slowed. "It seems we have more than marriage to discuss. If you are recovered enough, we can continue?"

I nodded and preceded him up the stairs. Never had I been so happy that the bannister was all but welded to the wall. My hands were almost sore from grasping it so tightly and using it to pull myself up when my legs didn't want to cooperate. We were both out of breath when we reached the top, my heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest from the exertion, but we pushed on to his room. Just as he said, he left the door wide open as he offered me a seat in the only chair and then sat on the edge of the bed.

Taking a deep breath he asked, "Why did you agree to do the ceremony?"

I darted a glance at him while my face heated, then looked out the window. "I didn't think it would work."

"But you knew it might?"

I laughed. "No, I honestly believed it wouldn't. It hadn't ever worked before."

"Previous failures are not predictors of future failure when one of the parameters is altered, namely the person being used in the ceremony." I looked back at him and saw that his head was tilted to one side and his eyebrows were drawn together. "Did you hope it would not work?"

"Hoping for that implies I believed success was a possibility," I said, shaking my head. "I didn't. I was just appeasing Alice."

He watched me for a few minutes more. "No, I don't believe you." At my gasp of outrage he held up a hand. "I think you were worried it might work. Something in the way you look at me says that you feared I might appear."

I shrugged and gave him a sheepish look. "You have to admit it was something to worry about."

"Why? The blessing of the curse is that we are the others' true love. What is there to fear in that?" He stood from the bed and walked closer. "We have a once in a lifetime opportunity that most aren't given, the knowledge that our marriage will be a happy one."

I shook my head and stood. As he drew closer the desire to touch him grew, like two magnets whose pull magnifies the closer they become until they touch. I needed distance to keep my head, so walked to the window. "No, true love isn't a guarantee of happiness. Besides, they didn't perform the ceremony for almost a hundred years. There might have been a woman then that should have been your true love."

He stopped and folded his arms. "Whether the ceremony was performed in the past or not does not negate that it worked with you." He looked down at my hands as I twisted them in my skirt. With a sigh he unfolded his arms and extended a hand to me. "Come, if you feel it not too improper, take my hand."

"Why?"

He tilted his head and smiled. "An experiment."

I stared at his hand as if it were a cobra about to strike. There was no doubt what it was that I would feel when we touched. Was that what he wanted to test? He wiggled his fingers as I hesitated, drawing my eyes up to his. All I could see was longing and knew I felt the same.

Closing the distance I reached out my hand and grasped his. Both of us relaxed at once, the tension of separation broken. "Do you feel what I do?"

"Yes," I whispered.

He stepped closer and lifted his other hand to cup my face. Feather-light touches danced across my cheek as he traced from my eyes to my lips. "You are right, true love doesn't guarantee happiness, that is up to us. It does guarantee that if we put forth the effort we will have joy. Are you willing to try?"

Gazing into his emerald-green eyes I whispered, "Yes."

Yes, I was able to get another chapter done. You have my total disinterest with comparing testing methods in the USP to thank.