I apologize for the lateness in the update. Real life gets in the way more often than I would like. So, here we go, the second to last chapter! Enjoy and please review! Again, sorry for the lateness!

Chapter 18

I love thee with a love that shall not die, till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old.

~ William Shakespeare

It seemed funny to me how things always seem to work out, how the intricacies of your life fall away and return full circle. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me and I suppose in a way that I wasn't. I knew I would see him soon, I knew that he would still love me and I knew, somehow, that everything was going to be ok. I don't know how I knew, but I did.

Waking up in Esme and Carlisle's bed was just something that I accepted, although I knew that over the past few days I had been waking up in strange places far too often, but one thing was the same. Waking up at Angela's, I was safe. It was the same here at the Cullen house. It could just be something I never really took the time to realize before. There were people who loved me and I could trust them with my heart. I knew that now.

I pushed the covers away and wiped the hair out of my face, having to pull a little bit due to the long layers that had stuck to the lip gloss I had forgotten to take off the night before, following the long conversations that Edward and I had. I was happy that we had moved beyond the past and I was positive that there was still a future for us together. Of course it wouldn't be the one I had planned on long ago, nor would it be the one that he had hoped for over the past few years, but it would suit us perfectly. The great love between us would never diminish, never fade. It would simply transform into a friendship that would always be there.

A quick succession of rasping knuckles at the door woke me up the rest of the way and I pulled the covers up to my chin. Not that I was indecent, I just didn't think it would do good for Edward to see me in my tank top and shorts, while the rest of my clothes were piled on the floor next to me. Call me old fashioned, but I couldn't see the need to make things worse for him, no matter how comfortable I would be in our friendship.

His crazy auburn head peeked in first before the rest of his body followed him in through the door, a tray was balanced on one hand. He had an easy smile on his lips, one that softened the tense lines that had always been present in the past.

"Morning, sleeping beauty." Edward said in that velvety voice of his.

"Good morning," I replied cheerily, much to my surprise as I had never been much of a morning person, but today was different. I would see Jasper today and finally begin to live the rest of my life. I could feel it deep in my soul, it was a growing resonance of sound that thrummed through my veins and made me feel alive. "What have you got there?" I asked gesturing to the tray he balanced perfectly with his hands.

"Carlisle's famous English breakfast." He chuckled, sitting down on the bed and positioning the tray over my lap. "Honestly, it's only famous because it's the only thing he can really make."

I looked over the heaping plate of bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes, toast and mushrooms and snickered in agreement.

"You out did yourself on this, but as a last breakfast, this is just right." I said, not bothering to conceal my hope that things were about to change.

I watched a sad, haunted look flicker across his face for only a moment and then it was gone.

"Eat up," he urged, handing me a fork. "You're going to need your strength today."

I beamed up at him, knowing that I was finally going to get what I had been running away from for so long.

"Have you called Charlie yet?" He asked, his voice taking on a more paternal tone, reminding me of the way he used to watch out for me all those years ago when we were just two teenagers in love, although technically Edward wasn't a teenager at the time and I doubted that he ever really had been.

"I actually should have called him last night, well, the other night to let him know that I was coming." I said sheepishly. "It was kind of a quick decision for me to come out here."

"Not that quick," he added. "Alice had enough time to see what you were going to do so that I could get out here before... well, I think that she just kind of knew that it was time."

"She's good like that." I laughed, shoving a bite of eggs into my mouth and chewing quickly. "She doesn't need her sight to see. There are just some things she knows."

He didn't comment, only giving me a toothy grin before getting up from the bed and leaving the room.

I finished up the food on my plate, which was quite an achievement considering that I rarely ate more than a few bites of food at a time, and grabbed my cell to call my dad.

After getting the machine at the house and the voicemail on his phone, I gave up and called the station. While Mark explained about Charlie, I caught myself grinning at my reflection in the mirror that rested on the dresser. The end of every good story has all the ends tied up in a nice little bow. That was just how it worked.

"Thanks, Mark." I said into the receiver.

"Hey, no problem kid." I could actually hear his easy laugh through the phone. "You know, I worried about your Dad for the longest time. Charlie, he's a good man, always has something nice to say, always willing to lend a hand. It hurt to see him alone for so long."

I shook my head in agreement, although I knew that Mark couldn't see that through the phone.

"Rebecca... I tell you Bella, that woman is the one for him. The man walks around with a smile on his face for days after he gets home from visiting her up in New York."

Rebecca will do that to you." I remarked, fondly remembering how the woman had taken me under her wing and showed me what it was to simply be nothing but yourself.

"Well listen, you take care of yourself and don't be a stranger."

I hung up a minute later and laughed quietly to myself. My father and Rebecca. She would be good for him. If anyone could give Charlie a new life, it was her. I quickly redialed his cell and left a message, letting him know that I was safe and that I loved him.

"Hey Bella, did you want to hop into the shower?" I heard Edward yell from the stairs. "If you do, I need to reset the water heater and turn up the temperature."

"Yeah," I called back, even though I didn't need to shout that loud. With Edward's sensitive hearing, I could have whispered and he would have heard me.

"Give it fifteen minutes before turning the water on."

I sifted through my clothes, hoping to find something that would lend me the confidence that I would need to stand next to the man I loved and know that I was as much his as he was mine. As I stepped into the shower the words from the elderly man who worked at the hotel in Paris came back to me. I understood now, all the things he had been trying to tell me then.

With my shower done and my hair finally dried I cleared off the remaining steam from the mirror and set myself to arranging my hair into a loose chignon and applying a minimal amount of makeup. I stepped back from the mirror and clicked my tongue as I shot myself in the mirror. This was the woman I had always wanted to be. My eyes were bright, my skin glowing and an easy smile on my lips. I was a woman who knew what other women laid awake night after night dreaming of.

"Ready, set, action." I whispered as I opened the door from the bathroom into Esme and Carlisle's bedroom suit of cream and white.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight that meet my eyes as I opened that door. All the years of holding onto his memory didn't do him justice in the least. In my mind, he had seemed to of transformed into some golden god, but what sat before on the bed was just a man, a handsome man and a vampire none the less, but he was just a man, the man I loved and my memories would never do him right.

His hair was still that golden blond that burned liquid in the sun. His eyes were still the beautiful color of amber that had captured me from the first moment I had seen his face. He was still tall, still solid, but most importantly, he was still here, looking at me like a man who had just seen the light at the end of a tunnel.

Time stood still as I drank him in, everything from the slight curl of his hair to the precise cut of his wool pants.

"If you would only take a few steps, you could be in my arms." Jasper said softly, breaking the spell that had fallen over me. His voice, that deep baritone laced with honey was a melody that sang in my heart, beckoning me forward, but I couldn't move. "Just two steps and I'll hold you close, tell you how much I love you, tell you how much I've missed you, how I've thought of you every moment of the day since you left. Just two steps separate us, two steps."

The I love you was all it took. I launched myself into his embrace, finally feeling what I had been missing for so long, this man that belonged to me and I to him.

His name was a broken cry on my lips as my hands clawed at his chest and arms, trying to bring myself closer to him, to feel every line in his body as it met with mine. I needed to feel his strength to reassure myself that it was real, that he was real, that the love I had denied myself for so long was actually standing next to me. He murmured words of love softly into my hair as I clutched onto him with all my strength. My tears poured, scalding my cheeks and soaking his soft shirt, but I didn't care. The fabric would eventually come clean just as my tears were cleansing my heart and soul.

I wasn't the only one struggling with finally being together once again. Jasper's body was wracked with ragged breaths and he was mumbling incoherent words breathlessly into my neck, my hair. His hands roamed over my skin, causing delicious shivers to run through me. He was re-memorizing me, just as I was him. I wanted to tell him that everything would be fine, that I wouldn't and couldn't leave him again. I knew that I would never be able to lose that part of myself that resided solely in his heart, without that slice of myself, I was incomplete. I just simply couldn't get the words out. One day I would, but for now, I knew that he knew.

"I love you," I cried against his neck in a desperate whisper. "I've loved you for so long."

I pulled away from him to look him in the eyes and I wasn't disappointed, they shone with his love.

His thumb rubbed against my cheek, his touch feeling warm even though it was cold. I watched the slight struggle in his gaze as he worried his bottom lips between his white teeth. I knew what he wanted, how could I not? I wanted it too. In the moments between his look and his kiss, my heart stopped and my breath came out labored, causing my chest to heave from the pressure. There was such a burning intensity between the two of us. His fingers wrapped into my hair and he pulled me closer, our bodies melding together perfectly. I cried out with tortured agony until he finally lowered his lips to mine, ending the terrible clutching of my heart.

I relaxed into his kiss and brought my hands up to delve into the silky hair at the nape of his neck. I knew, no matter how long I lived, that I would never be able to formulate into words how I felt at this moment. No poet would ever be able to express the love I felt towards this man. There would never be words because it just was. No phrase would ever be able to explain the multitude of my feelings and his combined.

As we sank to the floor, his lips pressed to mine and our hands now entwined I smiled.

"I love you, Bella." Jasper said, breaking the kiss. "I've wanted to tell you that everyday. Your face, your laughter, your voice. It was before my eyes every day."

I smiled against his throat as we lay down onto the carpet, my head coming to rest at the crook of his neck, a spot that had been made just for me. I pressed a kiss against his throat and inhaled his wonderful scent. I was home, he was home.

Rebecca used to quote a poem by Edward Teller whenever I showed the slightest unease about life. I could hear her voice echoing in my head as my hand rested on the gentle rise and fall of Jasper's chest as we lay there together.

When you come to the end of all light that you know, and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: Either there will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.

There was no need for explanations for the past, no need to plan for the future because it was all set.

Fate had been kind and had given me both, a man who would keep me grounded when the world became too much and a man who would teach me how to fly with his love held close to my heart. Everything would be forgiven, there was no need to hold on to anything else, it wouldn't matter. We both new how it would always be. There would always be me, always be Jasper and without a doubt, there would always be us together.

We would have our good days, we would have our bad days. We might not always agree on everything and there could be moments as time wore on, where the passage of days might be too much for us, but there would still be us. He pulled me from the dark and into the light. Rescued me from the torture of living an incomplete life. I could feel warmth on my face in just a look from him and a fullness in my heart from just his touch. There would no longer be a me without him. I knew that and planned on showing him, every day for the rest of our lives.

One more chapter to go!