Hey! So sorry about the late update!

Life has been so crazy for me. Work is kicking my ass and my fiance and I were a bit rocky for a bit and yesterday my doctor freakin' poisoned me!

So enough of the excuses.

Thank you so much for your reviews, I love you all!

Enjoy chapter 5! There's something a little different about this one ;)

The sounds were soothing. They filled the house. I followed them down the stairs. I was going slowly but I didn't know why. There was something about the sounds that were so... fragile? Yes, I think that's the right word. They were like the waves I saw on the TV. Waves on the beach with the moon. It was in the sky and in the water. Just like the stars. Everything sparkled when the moon came out. The sounds sparkled like the moonlight.

I walked slowly towards the sparkling sounds and as I did, I noticed that everyone in the house was going about their business. Couldn't they hear it? Why weren't they drawn to it like I was? I kept walking and when I found my sparkling sounds, I sat and listened and watched them being made.

Edward's fingers were gently touching small rectangles of black and white. The rectangles were making the sounds. I put my chin on my knees and smiled. Edward's eyes were closed. He couldn't see me. I looked around and wondered when everyone else was going to join me. It wasn't possible to ignore the beauty of this big wooden sound-making thing, and even more impossible to ignore the way Edward's fingers glided over the rectangles to make those beautiful sounds.

Beautiful.

It was a word I had heard so often; a word that Carlisle had tried to explain to me so many times. I never understood until now. It was something that made your breath stop in your throat – something that made your heart feel like it was filling up with something warm... Something that made goose-pimples stand up on your arms even though you don't feel the cold. I closed my eyes like Edward. Beautiful, sparkling noises were all around me.

I looked around again. No one else was coming. No one else was going to hear it the way we could. It made me sad for them. My eyes filled. I blinked until they went away and closed my eyes again. I listened to the waves. I listened to the stars. I listened to the moon. I listened to the beauty of it all.

I opened my eyes again when I heard a quiet thud. Edward had closed the lid on the machine – I couldn't see the rectangles anymore. I smiled at him and pointed at the machine. He smiled back. His smile was nice. It was bigger on one side and it meant he was happy. The light from outside made his hair look bright and his eyes look greener than they normally were. He shook his head but kept smiling – he was going to play a game with me. I smiled bigger for him.

"I'll play the piano again if you ask me to," he said. He held his hand out and I used it to stand. I kept holding it and took him over. I pushed him onto the chair. He shook his head and dug his fingers into my sides. It tickled and I laughed. "Only if you ask, Bella." I frowned at him, forcing my eyebrows together and pushing out my lips. He seemed to think it was funny. I didn't think it was funny. "I know you can talk, you've done it before," he told me. I frowned harder. I didn't want to talk. I didn't know how. I could understand words when everyone spoke, but I couldn't do it. I tried, I really did. I tried in the shower every night. Small words were easy. The bigger words were difficult. No matter what I did those big words wouldn't come out right. I couldn't even say my own name without a struggle.

Emmett called me Leeloo when no one else could hear him and I could see why. She had trouble with words. She didn't know who she was or where she came from. Just like me.

I shook my head. I can't talk. I won't. Not until I know what I'm doing. "Then no piano," Edward shrugged, getting up and walking away. He had that look in his eyes that he got a lot lately when I wouldn't talk for him. It wasn't a look that I'd seen in anyone before, but I knew that it was a bad look. It wasn't that it was hurt or angry or sad... it was all of them at once. I didn't like it. It made my heart hurt to see him like that so I took a deep breath and tried to call him back. It didn't sound anything like his name. I closed my mouth quickly when he turned around. "What did you say?" he asked. I pulled my knees up – my face felt hot. "Bella, say that again," he urged, coming back to me. I didn't want him to. I wanted him to go away and leave me alone. I shut my mouth tighter and shook my head, hiding behind my hair. "Please, Bella..." his voice was quiet. I looked up at him and his eyes were doing that begging thing. I couldn't say no to him. I took a deep breath again.

EPOV

"E- waht."

As soon as she'd done as I asked, Bella went back into hiding behind her knees. I reached over and lifted her chin gently with my finger.

"Watch me. Watch my lips," I instructed. I said my name slowly, emphasizing the shapes my mouth made with each sound.

"Ehhht-wahhht," she tried again, blushing further when it still didn't come out quite right. I smiled encouragingly, telling her how well she was doing. I couldn't deny that I was completely thrilled that the first thing she tried to say was my name. I felt a strange kind of bond with her and I took her constant attention as confirmation that she felt it too. It was like she belonged to me, and I had to protect her. I hated to admit it, but it was a bit like Corbin and Leeloo... only I didn't want to bang her.

"You're doing so much better already," I smiled, sitting beside her on the piano stool. I played another song for her and she leaned her head on my shoulder, watching with that ever-wondrous stare of hers. "This is a piano," I explained as she trailed her fingers over a few of the keys. I explained music, playing examples of every kind that I could. She giggled and applauded, and then I helped her play Mary Had A Little Lamb. She was so proud of herself that she pushed me off the stool so she could make a show of it. She looked so goddamn adorable with her hands in the air at the end of the song - huge proud grin lighting up her face.

The rest of the day was spent with Bella in her lessons with Carlisle. He was teaching her to read, and trying to get her to talk again. I didn't tell anyone that she'd spoken to me that day – it was something special between us that I didn't want to share with anyone. I knew Carlisle could probably help her more than I could but she trusted me more than anyone else and even if I didn't quite know it myself, there was a reason why she wasn't talking. I trusted her reasoning just like she trusted my silence.

***

"Now sweetheart are you sure there isn't anything I can get you?"

Esme was sitting on the edge of Bella's new bed. Bella had insisted on having her own for some reason. Apparently she was learning independence as quickly as she was learning everything else. She was insisting on doing things by herself a hell of a lot more since her lessons with Carlisle began to include more complex subjects. The day he taught her about sex – Esme didn't approve – she started wanting to lock the door when she showered. And it was funny as fuck when she left his office that day. I was waiting for her outside the door and her gaze fell straight to my crotch, her mouth forming a little 'O' of realisation.

"You're sure now?" Esme wasn't too confident about leaving Bella alone at night, so far away from anyone. I tried to assure her that both Emmett and I were only down the hall and Alice was only one flight of stairs down, but she was still stressing out. Bella only smiled up and her and reached up from under her blankets, like a kid looking for a hug. Esme hugged her tight and kissed her on the top of her head. "Okay baby, goodnight. Remember just call out if you need me." Bella nodded and grinned, snuggling down into her blankets. Esme brushed past me, letting me have the last goodnight.

I shuffled across the room and knelt beside the bed. She turned on her side so our faces were only a couple of inches apart. I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead, just because.

"I'm two doors down," I whispered. She nodded. "Emmett is across from me." I didn't know why I was telling her all this; she already knew where we were. I guess I was really telling myself that I wasn't going to be too far from her. The wind blew the curtains apart a little and the moon bathed her skin in a soft glow. She looked beautiful and trusting, all wide eyes gazing up at me, hair fanned out all over the pillow. "Beautiful," I murmured, stroking her cheek. She lifted a hand and stroked my cheek back.

"Eht-waht booti...full," she whispered. It was a simple compliment, but my heart melted right there on the floor. If any other girl in the entire world had called me beautiful, I'd laugh in her face. I mean seriously, beautiful is not the kind of word you use to describe a guy. But with Bella...

She could call me beautiful, she could call me cute, she could call me pretty if she wanted to. As long as she was happy with me, I would continue to melt into a puddle of beautiful, cute, pretty goo right at her feet.

"Goodnight, my Bella," I whispered, when I found my voice again.

"Night, Eht-Waht," she whispered back.

***

It was three in the morning when I heard her sneak in. I know this because I heard her going into Emmett's room first, and I checked the time. It kind of bothered me that she went there first but I suppose for the sheer size of him he'd be the one I picked to shield me from whatever monsters Bella was afraid of.

But anyway.

Thank god he's a heavy sleeper.

She padded softly across the room for god only knows whatever reason because she was about to try and wake me up anyway and sooner than I thought, I felt her little fingers prodding me softly. I pretended to be deep in slumber, just to fuck with her a little bit. I heard her let out that cute little huff she made whenever she was annoyed and god bless her little soul if she just climbed on it, gently rolling me over to make room. I opened my eyes and chuckled at her, pulling her into a bear hug but soon realised that my chest was a little sticky or.... something. I pulled back and held her at arm's length, switching on the lamp. She was bleeding from her lip and crying. I scooped her up and rushed her to the bathroom, pressing a damp cloth to the wound.

"What happened?" I asked, my hands running through her hair, hoping it was soothing her. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she muttered something I didn't really understand except for 'door'. "You ran into the door?" I pressed. She nodded and after a few more uneasy questions and answers it was established that she heard something outside the window that scared her, so she went to run into Emmett's room so he could kill it but she ran into the door on the way. It didn't hurt and she was too scared to go back to bed.

So we tip-toed downstairs and into the kitchen. Still bleary-eyed, Bella lifted herself onto the counter while I made us some hot cocoa. We took our mugs to the couch and curled up together. We didn't really do anything at all. We just sat together, her head resting on my shoulder while we sipped quietly, enjoying our drinks in a comfortable silence. It reminded me of something Esme once told me; she said that the best friend that you can have is someone that you can do anything and nothing with, and still have the greatest time. I thought that I'd understood that kind of friendship with Jasper, but the truth was that when we had nothing to do we were both bored as fuck, and we entertained ourselves with trying to think of things to do. With Bella, I was never bored. I didn't need to find anything to do. I would have been happy to stay there forever, with our steaming mugs of cocoa, staring out the window and watching the sunrise and the blanket draped over our shoulders.