Edward's POV
"Careful," Bella called up from a few steps below me.
We were carrying the six-foot Douglas Fir up the steps to our apartment. I'd started up first, moving backwards, and Bella was reminding me to be careful every other step. By the time we reached the top, I was more than ready to be done with this whole day, and we hadn't even really begun decorating for Christmas yet.
"Tell me again why we had to get a real tree when I have a perfectly good fake one in a box downstairs?" I huffed, pulling my keys out of my pocket and unlocking the door with one hand.
"We're in the middle of the Evergreen State, for crying out loud!" Bella laughed. "Besides, Rose and Alice are doing real trees. We couldn't be the only ones to do a fake one."
She smiled innocently when I looked over and rolled my eyes, chuckling at her. She'd certainly fit right in with my family and our competitiveness!
As we carried the tree inside—barely fitting through the doorway, thanks to the large, full tree Bella had insisted we buy—I thought back to the past two weeks.
The Friday Bella agreed to move in, almost two weeks ago exactly, we'd spent the afternoon with my mom, watching movies and just hanging out until the rest of my family had arrived—dinner in hand—that evening. My parents had stayed in town with Alice and Jasper, and the next day, everyone had come over and helped us switch the needed furniture and things.
My mom had worked on cleaning up the bedroom, while Bella, Rose, and Alice had worked at bringing over most of the kitchen stuff from her apartment to mine. It'd been kind of a madhouse, as my brothers and I moved furniture and the girls carried armloads of small appliances and dishes back and forth. My dad had stayed in the bedroom with my mom, patching the hole I'd made in the wall and helping dismantle the bed after Emmett had carried the ruined mattress out to Jasper's truck. After everything was moved, Jasper had run all the trash to the dump.
With all of us working, it had taken only a few hours to get everything moved, and by three that afternoon, Bella had been officially all moved in. We'd kept her sofa, bookshelf, kitchen table, and chairs, as well as her area rug, which she really loved. We'd also moved over her washer and dryer, since mine was a couple of years older. In my apartment, we'd kept my recliners, bed, dresser, and bedside tables. Everything else from my place had gone to hers for Sasha to use when she moved in.
Life was pretty calm for the two weeks after Bella moved in. She'd had a few nightmares off and on at first, but they hadn't been too bad the last week or so. Bella had only kept some of her clothes. The ones in the closet that Laurent hadn't touched had been okay. Most of the stuff in her drawers had been okay too, aside from all her underwear and what not. But my sister, in all her wisdom, had come back from Black Friday shopping with nine bags full of clothes, including three bags solely of intimates. Bella had been in tears, and I'd never been more grateful to have a sister who seemed to always know just what was needed without having to be told.
Sasha had agreed right away about moving into Bella's old apartment, happy that she would be paying less than her current place—and for a better layout and location. She would officially be moving in on January first, but Bella had already given her the key, and Sasha had begun moving her clothes over.
"Edward?" Bella asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I chuckled. "Sorry, was just thinking about the last couple of weeks."
"Good thoughts, I hope," she said as she helped me stand the tree up by the wall.
"Always, love," I promised. "Okay, you hold that upright while I make sure everything's ready."
I spent several minutes checking the plastic under the tree skirt and stand. That was really all I had to do, since we'd cut the tree fresh from the tree farm not an hour earlier. I'd even trimmed the lower branches there at the farm, so all we had to do now was put it in the stand, bolt it in, level it, and fill it with water.
"All right, Bella," I started. I moved her hands toward the top of the tree. "Hold it here while I grab the base. We'll carefully lift it just enough to clear the top of the stand. Let me guide it; you just hold it so I don't let it fall."
"'Kay," she said, smiling and grabbing a hold of the tree in two places near the top.
We slowly moved it the three feet to the hunter green stand and then carefully lowered it into place. Bella held it steady while I secured the bolts.
"Okay, now, let go slowly," I told her.
She let go, and I was very proud of the fact that the tree didn't even move an inch.
"I think it's tilted," Bella said, and I looked over to see her narrowed eyes as she moved around, looking at the tree from several different angles.
"Which way?" I asked, wondering which bolts I needed to loosen.
"Right," she answered immediately.
I laughed. I was facing her, so her right and my right were different. "Your right, or my right?" I asked.
"Oh! My right needs to go up." She chuckled. "Sorry."
I made some adjustments, and when Bella declared it perfect, I backed away slowly and moved to stand beside her. It was, indeed, straight and beautiful.
"Looks good," I agreed. "Why don't you fill the stand with water while I drag the boxes over and start getting the lights out?"
"Yup, will do," she said before walking out of the room toward the kitchen.
We each had a small box of special ornaments we'd collected over the years, and then we'd also gone to the store and gotten a bunch of new stuff before getting the tree. I dragged over the two boxes of personal ornaments and the three bags of stuff from the store. When Bella came in with the water pitcher, I already had one strand of small colored lights out of the box and had begun unwinding them from the bundle they were in.
"Lights first, right?" Bella asked, bending low to pour in the water.
"Yes, ma'am," I answered, standing up with the lights in my hand.
We spent the next ten minutes arranging the two light strands around and around the tree before plugging them into the wall. I wrapped my arm around Bella's waist and pulled her back a bit so we could take it all in and make sure the strands were placed correctly when it was lit up.
Deciding that they were just about perfect, we then sat down on the floor and began to go through the two boxes of personal ornaments together.
"What's this one?" I asked, holding up a little disc with a small hand print set in the stone and then painted pink.
Bella smiled and took it from me. Placing her fingers over the entire hand print, she explained, "I was two, and it was the last Christmas before my parents divorced. Mom spent hours trying to get the consistency right and then another hour trying to get me to cooperate. Apparently, the stuff felt so weird, I was afraid to put my hand on it long enough to get an impression."
I laughed, able to picture that in my head: my stubborn, beautiful Bella, a stubborn, beautiful two-year-old, refusing to touchy the "icky stuff."
She stood and added it to the tree, next to the little grand piano ornament my grandmother had sent me the Christmas before she died.
Also in the boxes were several roughly crocheted stockings, picture frames with little Bellas and Edwards, wreaths, and other Christmas-y items. There was also the requisite reindeer made from clothespins and pipe cleaners and various other ornaments that made both of us laugh.
There were a few beautiful glass ornaments with gold embellishments that Bella had gotten from her mother's things when she died. She ran her fingers lovingly over each one, telling me some stories and tearing up a few times.
By the time both boxes were almost completely empty, the tree was quite full. All that was left were some pretty strands of tinsel—the kind in ropes, not the individual strands like we'd used when I was a kid—and the tree topper. We added the ropes of gold tinsel, which matched Bella's glass ornaments perfectly, and then Bella pulled the last item from the box beside her.
"This was my grandmother's," she said softly, fingering the delicate ivory and gold fabric of the angel's gown.
The bottom layer was gold, with a white overcoat, white faux feathers, and words—Peace, Hope, Joy, and Noel—written in gold along the white part of the gown. There was also faux fur cuffs on the ends of her sleeves and along the bottom trim of the gown.
"My grandmother had brown hair, a lot like mine," Bella explained. "When my grandfather saw this angel not long after they got married, he thought it looked just like her. He bought it and gave it to her for their first Christmas as a married couple. When she knew she was dying from cancer, she gave it to my mother."
"It's beautiful, love," I told her honestly. "She does look a little like you, as well." The hair was almost the perfect shade, slightly wavy, and her eyes were the same chocolaty brown shade as my Bella's.
I pulled the step stool over by the tree. "You wanna do the honors?" I asked, motioning toward the top of the tree.
She took my hand before climbing the three short steps up and carefully placing the angel at the top of the tree.
When she was back on solid ground, she moved to flip the light switch, plunging the apartment into semi-darkness. I stepped over and plugged the end of the lights into the socket.
The Christmas tree lit up, bathing the room in a soft, colorful glow of red, green, blue, and yellow.
"It's perfect," she breathed, a peaceful smile gracing her beautiful face.
"Mmm," I hummed, but shook my head. "Not quite."
She looked at me with curiosity.
I turned and pulled a small, nondescript box from the shelf beside the TV. Keeping my back to her, I pulled out the ornament I'd gotten from the store the last time I'd gone by myself. I kept it hidden in my palm as I moved over to the tree, finding the perfect spot for it front and center before stepping back.
"Now," I murmured, reaching back for Bella's hand, "it's perfect."
She moved up beside me, and I heard a slight intake of breath as she saw what I'd hung on the tree.
~*~*~CIBD~*~*~
Bella's POV
For a moment, I stood frozen, staring, unable to truly comprehend what I was seeing.
The ornament itself was pretty. A sterling silver open heart with the words "Our First Christmas" inscribed on one side in a pretty script. A small, heart-shaped charm dangled from the top inside it; the year "2010" right in the middle. The entire thing was hanging from the tree by a pretty red ribbon. Yes, the ornament was beautiful. But that wasn't what had made me gasp.
Hanging from the same red ribbon was a beautiful diamond ring.
I swallowed hard, trying to catch my breath, and slowly turned back to Edward...to find him down on one knee, still holding one of my hands.
"E-Edward?" I said, my voice cracking.
His face was partially in shadow, with the other half lit up like a, well, like a Christmas tree, but even through the tears suddenly gathering in my eyes, he looked so handsome, so sincere. So mine.
"Bella, love, I know it's only been a few months. We've been through a lot in that time," he murmured, closing his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing, "but I wouldn't trade one moment of that time together. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that you were special. You were someone I had to meet. Had to get to know.
"A couple of months ago, when I made the trip to Forks to bring home my parents, I stopped in and saw Charlie." His lips curled up in a sweet, sexy half-smile. "I knew even back then that we had something special, something that I wanted to last. I've never been more certain of that than I am right now.
"Isabella Swan, I promise to love you forever—every day of forever. Will you marry me?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but all that would come out was a breathy squeak. When Edward raised an eyebrow in question, I decided to hell with words and threw myself into his arms.
Had it only been a few months since we'd met?
Yes.
Was I more than sure that Edward and I belonged together for the rest of forever?
Hell, yes.
"Yes," I mumbled into his neck, holding him tightly as the tears I'd been holding in check began streaming down my face. "Absolutely, Edward. I'd love nothing more than to be your wife."