A/N: Hi everyone. I am, once again, sincerely sorry for taking so long to update.

Thank you to everyone reading this and reviewing. Special shout-out to brokentragedy2. Your reviews honestly keep me writing this.

Enjoy…

We played, the rolling mist damp night air making our skin slick and my hair frizz. But I didn't care because I felt happy. Or at least as close to happy as I'd been for awhile. Seeing Edward like that, free and childlike was amazing. It was honestly something I never thought I'd see. I wondered if he had ever played like this as a child. Did they even have playgrounds back then? I must have been staring at him in wonder because he questioned me.

"Bella?" he asked, with a slightly goofy grin.

I hopped off the swing I'd been on and turned to face him.

"I was wondering what you were like as a child. If they had playgrounds…"

He laughed. "Yes, there were playgrounds but not many. It was a new concept but Chicago was a big city even then. I don't remember much though." His face turned sad when he said that last part.

I started walking towards the old Shay engine hoping to escape the sour note of the conversation. I hadn't intended to make him sad and I frankly couldn't bear it at the moment. I could hear his footsteps behind me and knew he was doing that on purpose. I climbed up onto the old engine and Edward squeezed in next to me while I gazed at a break in the clouds, the silver light of the moon streaking through and casting us in its ethereal glow.

"Would you really have done it?" he whispered.

"Done what?" I asked, looking at him.

"Traded the sun for the moon and the stars?"

I thought back to yesterday morning when we quoted poetry to each other, each of us trying to convey our fears and our love through the words of others and I smiled, feeling a momentary tenderness towards him.

"Edward," I said, cupping his cheek, "the moon and the stars are still sunlight."

He looked perplexed as though I were speaking another language and it made me smile more. To think that such basic truths were out of his grasp was actually somewhat endearing and I loved the idea that I could perhaps teach him something. Not the science of it of course. Edward was far beyond me in that department. But it was like seeing the forest through the trees. He just couldn't do it when he wound himself so tightly in the details as he was wont to do.

I pulled my hand back and raised my sleeve exposing the slender pale length of my wrist to the moonlight.

"That light," I said, nodding at the moon, "is nothing more than reflected sunlight. And those stars," I said, nodding at the sky, "are but a billion suns shining down on us. I wouldn't be trading anything. And yes, I would have done it." I almost said, in a heartbeat, but then thought better of it.

"Bella those stars are dead."

I didn't have to look at him to know that his face would be filled with anguish and self-hatred.

"It doesn't make them any less beautiful." I replied, finally looking at him.

"Bella, how can you…?"

But I cut him off.

"Edward, you've always thought yourself a monster."

He made to speak but I clamped my hand over his mouth and his eyes softened.

"You think of yourself as not human, as less than human but you couldn't be more wrong. You're a butterfly Edward. You are to us as a butterfly is to a caterpillar. You transformed into something more. Something different yes, but something still innately human. Not alien, not ugly, and most definitely not a monster."

I let my fingers fall from his lips so that he could speak.

"How do you do that Bella?" he asked in wonder.

"Do what?"

"See the beauty in everything?"

"Because it's there Edward. All you need to do is look."

And look he did. Straight into my soul and for the first time since our reunion I felt myself slipping into him and losing myself. He leaned forward, backing me up against the cold steel of the empty engine.

"Edward…" I stuttered. "I know you think I'm beautiful…" The words came out as a whisper.

"Do you?" he asked, amused, as he inched his body closer to mine.

But I was determined to be, well, determined. "I'm trying to tell you that there are other beautiful things in the world Edward." I spoke in a jumbled rush as he leaned in.

"Oh, I don't doubt it." He said matter of factly. "But I don't much care at the moment." His lips were mere inches from mine now. "I'm going to kiss you now Isabella. Unless you tell me not to, I'm going to kiss you."

He waited for the barest of seconds and when I didn't protest his lips were on mine, possessive and fierce and so different. Gone were the chaste kisses. Gone was the fear. Gone was the desperation born from separation. This was pure heat and desire and love and though technically he was taking and not giving I was glad for it, glad that he let down his guard. It felt normal. This is what teenagers do. They make out in public places on Saturday nights. For the first time in our relationship I felt like a girl. A normal girl out with her normal boy and the only danger I could fathom at the moment was getting caught necking by a townie or one of my Dad's co-workers.

I'm not sure how long we embraced but I know it was long enough for even Edward to appear out of breath despite that being impossible. When he pulled back a new kind of hunger was alight in his eyes and his voice was filled with need.

"Let me stay with you tonight Bella. Please."

I couldn't deny him. I wanted to. I was scared and angry and sad and yet I also knew this was the last night we had before Charlie came home and if I let it pass without Edward there with me I'd question myself forever after.

He was running his fingers over my kiss swollen lips so I merely nodded my reply and before I knew it I was wrapped tightly around him as he sped us home. His mouth never left mine the entire way.