A/N

Oh, my...this was a much longer wait than I'd hoped for. My apologies. I got this very strange job writing hotel descriptions, and literally lost three weeks of my life while I did it. But, I'm out the other end of the rabbit hole now, and I'm thrilled to finally bring this to you guys. Thanks for your patience. :)

All my thanks, as always, to my amazing PTB betas, Tiffanyanne3 and Batgirl8968 and my Twilighted validation beta Strider.

I want to send special thanks in this chap to my friend and the best story cheerleader in the world, SunKing, who not only has a host of her own Twi-fic stories, but also has a novel being published this week. For real. Find her at ff (dot) net or on Twitter sunkingff . She's made of all good things.

The wonderful venis_envy has started a Little Slugger thread on the Twilighted forums - I'd love for you to check it out and chime in.

Can I also give out a quick shout to the ladies who organized The Fandom Gives Back? Wow. Just wow. What an amazing outpouring, from everyone involved. Further proof that our entanglement with this is so much more than a guilty pleasure. I'm such a chicken for not putting something in. :(

On Twitter? Follow me! realimaginary .

Two songs for this chapter, both by The Smashing Pumpkins - Bella, Snail and Edward, Rhinoceros. Two peas in a pod, in both respects. Chapter title has been blatantly ripped off of Billy Corgan. Enjoy! :)

Little Slugger - 8 - Flower Chase the Sunshine

"You done with this?" Rosalie asked as she whisked by Bella's chair, grabbing her quarter-full juice glass into her own hand as she cruised by, not waiting for an answer. Bella murmured something unintelligible in response, barely glancing up from her notebook. Rose slugged down what was left of the juice and stood leaning against the counter for a moment, eyeing Bella with a smile. "So...what's the news in open mic-land?" she queried.

Bella continued scanning the list written in her notebook with her pencil and didn't look up.

"Um...no news. Lots of really, really bad singing, terrible lyrics, some squeaky guitar notes, one guy barfed all over the front row and another girl did a strip tease while playing a pink flying-V ukulele and a rape whistle at the same time. That was actually pretty awesome...but no, no Edward," she sighed, drawing a quick star next to one of her listings and tossing her pencil down on the old 1950's-era kitchen table they shared. It made a tiny mark on the surface and Bella smudged it away with her thumb before looking up at Rosalie. "I'm beginning to think it's possible he really did leave town. I've been to nine different open mic nights over the last two weeks, Rose. I don't even like going to open mic. I don't know why I'm doing this any more."

Rosalie looked at her directly and raised her brow. "Sure you do."

"Ugh, stop doing that eyebrow thing, it's making me crazy! No, seriously Rose, this is starting to get stupid," Bella frowned, "and embarrassing." She looked down, focusing on the strange, amorphous retro shapes that seemed to exist only to decorate vintage Formica tabletops and chose one to trace around with her pinkie nail.

Rosalie shrugged and turned towards the sink, filling the juice glass with water and scrubbing it quickly twice before rinsing and popping it back in the cupboard above.

"Of course, it's your choice," she began. "But I haven't seen you immerse yourself in a project like this in a really long time. It's fun, watching you be all focused and passionate." She singsonged both the words "focused" and "passionate," making Bella roll her eyes. But before they made a complete rotation, she felt the blush begin to spread.

She covered her face with her hands in a moot gesture. There was no point in trying to be sly around Rosalie.

Rose took two short strides across the kitchen to Bella, and touched the notebook with her perfectly manicured fingertip, sliding her finger down the list 'til she got to the one that Bella had starred before.

"This one."she tapped it twice with her nail. "When is it?"

Bella separated her fingers just enough for her eyes to peek through. She looked down at the one Rosalie was referring to. "Tonight," she garbled through the crack in her palms.

"Great. I'm coming with you."

Bella shook her head vigorously, hands still covering her face, waiting for the stubborn blush to subside. "It's Thursday, you and Em have snooker."

Rosalie leaned in close and squinted at the notebook, memorizing the listing. "It's no problem. Garrett's girlfriend Kate has been dying to utilize her role as 'sub' on our team for two months. I can tell by the way she stares that she's trying to will the lighting fixtures to fall on me while I'm shooting. I've actually been worried for my safety. How about I give her a chance to play, and give you a little company, alright?"

It was phrased like a question, but Rosalie never really asked. She told with a question mark.

Bella nodded, resigned, and slowly brought her hands down from her face despite the lingering heat. She looked up at her most beloved friend with solemn eyes. "Fine, but this is it, Rose. I am burned the hell out on this. If he's not there, I am calling the search party off and me and Dot are gonna brush the dust off and move on. Deal?"

Rosalie firmly held out her hand to shake. "Deal."

"Seriously, I don't know why you're coming with me tonight Rose. The music's going to suck, and he's not going to be there and..."

"Listen," Rose commanded without looking over to Bella as they walked along, their hands stuffed in their pockets, chins tucked tightly under their necks. "Let's just forget all of this. Let's just think of it as hanging out together. We haven't done that enough lately, and I miss being with you. So don't think about anything but getting a drink and just chillin' with your girl Rose, 'kay?" Bella glanced over and nodded slightly. "And you're right, the odds are that he won't be there." She shifted her sight across to her friend, gauging her response. Bella didn't say anything, but her eyes narrowed and her shoulders rolled backwards, and she stood tall as she walked. Rosalie smiled.

They walked in silence for another minute before Bella stopped and yanked the notebook from her bag. She looked at it and then up. This was it. The North Star. The irony of the name wasn't lost on Bella. Pocket Nancy Drew thought it was a huge clue and had been cartwheeling over it all afternoon. Bella thought she was being silly. And fanciful. Two things Bella just couldn't bring herself to be at this particular point of this particularly strange quest. After nine fruitless attempts, it was possible that she had heard one out-of-key ballad too many.

As they walked in the door, Bella felt a surge of excitement, though. The same one she felt every time she went to open mic. Some might call it nerves, others might refer to it as pure unadulterated terror, but she preferred to think of it as excitement, or she'd U-turn right back to the cute family-owned pharmacy down the street and order up an aspirin and a milkshake.

"Waitaminute." Bella stopped dead in her tracks before the door had even closed behind them and grabbed the fuzzy wool arm of Rosalie's purple coat with her mittened hand. "We never talked about what was going to happen if he's actually here." Her eyes were wide with semi-panic at the realization.

"But Bella," Rosalie argued with mock severity, "we already decided that he's not going to be." She unbuttoned her coat as she stepped forward to assess the space and the crowd.

Bella grabbed Rosalie's shoulder forcefully and yanked her back. "Okay. Fine. So we wouldn't be here if there wasn't some possibility of it. And yes, I hope he is because this is my last attempt at this and I have invested a really bizarre amount of personal thought and time into this. Are you freaking happy now?" Her eyes were blazing, but soft, vulnerable.

Rosalie wagged innocent eyes at her and nodded sweetly. "I am. And...since you asked," she continued, "if he is actually here, this is what's going to happen. I am going to look him up and down and over and around, in every pocket and behind each ear, and then I am going to make him look me right in the eye and tell me in straight US English that he is deserving of all this. And of you. And if at that point I am satisfied, then I'm going to stand in the shadows and scrutinize every move he makes and every word he says."

"He doesn't really say much. At least not that I know of." Bella said quietly, looking thoughtfully at the floor. Then she shook her head clear and glared at Rosalie as if she'd heard the last part first and the first part last. "Rose! No! No, you're not! God!"

"Relax, darlin'," Rosalie chuckled at her. "That was the As Rosalie's World Turns version. But you know I would if I could." She sighed wistfully. "I do wonder, though, if perhaps I should ask you the same question? What are you going to do if he's here?"

Bella slipped out of her coat and hung it on her arm, taking in the room for the first time. It was one huge space, separated down the middle by a heavy red velvet curtain. They were on the left side of the curtain, which was a bustling cafe and espresso bar with leather chairs and love seats with coffee tables situated in small groups around the space, creating miniature living rooms and filled with people of every sort, or, at least every sort of person who used a Mac Book Pro.

"Do you smell something kinda...funky?" Bella asked, beginning to get anxious about what might be on the other side of the curtain.

Here she was, potentially in the midst of her very own Wizard of Oz moment. Didn't it figure she'd be too nerved up to enjoy it.

"I'm pretty sure what you are smelling is the aroma of delicious Fakin' Bacon crisping in the fryer, my dear," Rosalie answered, scrunching her nose towards the open kitchen. "Vegan restaurant, what luck. And don't go changing the subject on me like that. I showed you mine, now you show me yours. What are you planning to say to this young lad should your opportunity arise?" She raised both brows this time.

"I don't know," Bella answered simply.

Rosalie jerked backwards and stared at Bella with incredulous eyes. "So. Let me get this straight. You've done this ten times over the last three weeks and you haven't even planned what you're even going to say to him?"

Bella furrowed her brow, and she grabbed hold of a piece of loose yarn popping out of her scarf, fussing with it. Anything to keep from having to rival Rosalie's bewildered stare. "I am depending on the universe to bring me to where he is, right? So...I figure I'll also depend on it to give me the right words when the time comes...if the time comes...which it isn't going to." She paused a moment, biting her bottom lip as she assaulted the tiny piece of free yarn between her thumb and forefinger. "Don't you think..." her voice vanished to a whisper. "Don't you think that making a plan is just a little...presumptuous?"

Rosalie barely waited until the question was all the way out of her mouth before she sauntered forward toward the curtain with speed, her hips shifting side to side like windshield wipers, leaving Bella behind. "I think you're putting way too much faith in the universe," she said as she walked away, loudly enough for Bella, and most of the cafe patrons, to hear.

Worried but determined, Bella took a deep breath, reset her face, and raced after her friend. Rosalie was waiting for her at the back corner of the room, next to the curtain that would lead them to the club side, where open mic night was already underway.

"Shall we?" she asked.

Bella didn't answer her. She didn't acknowledge her at all, in fact. Instead, she reached over Rosalie and yanked the curtain aside, scooting around her and stepping over, letting the heavy fabric fall onto Rosalie's face as it swung backwards, smudging her lipstick and dislodging her carefully situated hair comb. Rosalie smiled.

In her hurry to show what she was made of, Bella inadvertently bumped into the table closest to the curtain, making the guy who was sitting there spill beer on himself. A trail of whispered "sorry's" and "excuse me's" and "pardon me's" finally led them diagonally across the large room, to the closest of the available tables, near the wall about twelve feet in front of the bar.

The performance and bar half of the North Star was remarkably different from the other side. It was hard to remember that it was a shared space, even. It was extremely dark, aside from the stage lighting hitting the wall opposite the curtain, and the thin crevice of light that escaped from the top of the curtain. Round bistro tables with two and three chairs around them littered the wide-open space in front of the stage in no particular pattern, most of them occupied. There were probably thirty people seated, watching a trio of 50-something year old men singing what sounded like a cover of a 70's rock tune. But because covers were usually frowned upon at open mic (she had learned a few things over the last three weeks), she assumed that it was some sort of original cover inspired by the whole of 70's rock.

Rosalie scanned her eyes around the dark room, glancing at the faces glowing the stage lights and then to Bella, eyebrows raised in silent question. In response, she looked around the room vaguely, protecting herself from heartache by looking too hard as her eyes moved around the room, just sort of absently breezing over the anonymous faces. Until she...

She stopped.

But she didn't stop, stop, because the moment she saw him, full profile, sitting alone at a table two back from the stage, his head tilted back at a sharp angle as he finished what was left of his Guinness, keeping one eye on the trio, his messy hair pointing in all directions, she made the instantaneous, and very firm, decision that she was not planning to let Rosalie in on what she'd just seen. And it was going to require her very best in faux aloofness to get away with it. Rosalie might think that she had Bella's number in every situation, but Bella had a tiny little reserve of no-way-in-Hale-can-she-take-this-from-me in her arsenal. But only enough to get through the night.

Assuming the night didn't last very much longer.

Knowing Rose would presume worry and disappointment, Bella put on her disappointed-with-a-hint-of-worry face, tinged it with just a fleck of understanding and acceptance, and looked back at her, shrugging her shoulders. She reached down into her bag to retrieve her sketchbook and trusty Mr. 2, the only man in her life. 'Til maybe now.

Rosalie scowled at her. "So, he's not here, and this means that you're going to draw pictures on our date? Sheesh, at least let me buy you a drink first."

Bella grinned up at her apologetically. "A Guinness." Rosalie curtsied and trotted off to the bar, which was situated behind their table.

Rosalie suspected nothing. It was a miracle. This was her chance.

C'mon, universe, you know you love me...she summoned.

She looked back at Edward and she stared. With everything she had, she stared, knowing she had a minute, two at the absolute most. She drilled holes into his temple with her eyes, begging him to glance over her way. Completely sure that if he actually did, he very well might knock his chair over backward and run out of the room with his arms flailing around in the air in sheer horror. It didn't matter to her anymore. This was it, her last try, and she had seen so much bad open mic she could cry, and oh my God, he was actually freaking here, and she was going to go all the way if it killed her.

So she stared like a supervillan with laser beam eyes, searing into the good guy's skull...

Before he even had the conscious notion that he had eyes on him, he looked over to the energy coming from diagonally backwards. It wasn't until after that he'd recognized that he'd known someone was staring at him before his head had moved to meet the gaze.

To meet her gaze.

'Cause yeah, of all the people in the Goddamned world, there she was. The girl. Her dark hair was pinned up in a little round bun on top of her head with a few sharp, wayward pieces sticking out, her far too familiar brown eyes staring at him with such intense ferocity, he wasn't even sure that she'd yet registered that he was looking back at her.

And then, after a moment, her face cleared of the voodoo cloud, and she looked at him in a way not at all like he'd imagined she might in all the many times he'd imagined it over the last month. Not with surprise, or shock, or fear, or even shyness. Instead, her eyes were bright and wide, and her mouth was fighting the allowance of raised edges. She looked...amazed, and in awe, not totally unlike the last time he'd seen her. But determined. Damn, she looked really determined.

He couldn't even collect his thoughts enough to know what his face might possibly look like to her. He'd been sitting there finishing his beer, deciding between having another or bolting for the night. He liked coming to preview a new open mic night after it had a few months to establish itself. And he'd been beyond desperate to find a new place to play after the undoing. That's what had brought him here tonight. He liked this room, dark and confined-feeling, despite its large size, and he'd already decided that this was the place where he would break his vow to himself and step back up on the stage.

And he'd been feeling pretty damn serene in that moment, too. That moment of tranquil peace that comes right after a decision has been made. Because for all the complications he forced upon his own life, he needed this to borrow against them. Performing was the only thing that made his life feel simple. The only thing that made him feel simple. And after the emotional roller coaster of the last five weeks - Christ, who was he kidding, the last ten years - he was feeling desperate for some simple.

And just as quickly as he'd let the simple in, it suddenly exploded into ten thousand splintered shards of exquisite complicated, and she was there.

It was just like that day at work, so long ago, when she'd popped up over the top of that cubicle wall and they'd just stared at each other, as if it were the most natural thing on earth for them to do. But after all he'd put himself through since leaving Vitamin Direct, he felt surprisingly unafraid seeing her again. He'd been weakened to a point of breakage, and the sight of her did not bear down on that so much as it maybe relieved it a bit.

This feeling of ease was wildly unlike him, and ironically that threw him completely off ease. But that's not what he was thinking about at that particular moment. Right then he was wondering what his face was revealing to her.

The last week especially had been so difficult, he could only assume that the very sight of her was portraying nothing but pure relief. That mortified him. His stomach flipped. Did this mean he would now have to speak to her? Because that was surely asking too much. Inwardly, he began to panic and considered just jumping up and leaving, as was his way.

But something moved over her face just then that was strange, breaking him from the thought. She looked away and seemed distracted. His heart sunk. Had his expression given her the wrong idea? Had his indecision about talking to her shown through? What should he expect really? The last time he'd seen her he'd gone to great lengths to get as far away from her as he possibly could. It had made sense to him at the time, but now he...argh...his thoughts were wildly scrambled as he realized this may literally be the last chance he...

Suddenly, she glanced back, lifting her delicate pointer finger to him then, as if to say "one moment," and her head turned towards the bar behind her, where a tall, buxom blonde type wearing ridiculously high heels had her elbows up on the bar and one foot balancing in the air, leaning in towards the bartender and laughing at him. With him. At him. With him. It was hard to tell with girls like that.

Bella looked back to Edward, this time with authority and purpose written all over her face. Business. He felt relief that she hadn't abandoned him, but incredible anxiety as she nodded slightly towards the stage and then back at him, raising her brows. She was asking if he was going to perform tonight. It felt so...bizarre to be having this interaction with her, HER, especially like this, with yards of weeks and darkness and furniture and strangers between them. And this music, the soundtrack of this strange moment, gah! When were these dudes going to stop trying to summon up the ghost of Lynard Skynard?

He shook his head no in response to her and slowly raised his arm, holding up his empty beer bottle and wiggling his wrist. Despite himself, he felt half his mouth turn up in a bit of a grin. And, of course, she smiled back gloriously in return, nodding in understanding, and then her face quickly fell back into its determined posture. She took a breath so deep it stretched her three inches taller for a moment.

And then, they stared, with some purpose, it seemed. What scientist could have such a mind and heart to create a translator for this particular conversation? Edward had a sudden interest in the field of quantum telepathy.

After a moment of looking at her, marveling in her very presence there before him, and wondering what the hell she could possibly be thinking, her eyes went cold and her head fell, her hands quickly going to work on something in a notebook placed on the table in front of her. The room immediately looked and felt different after that, and he felt as if he'd been yanked straight out of bed in the midst of a lucid dream.

The blonde arrived at their table then, with a glass of red wine in one hand and a Guinness in the other. She offered the beer to Bella and held the glass up high, admiring her lovingly, as she recited some sort of lengthy, dramatic toast. Bella smiled at her, laughing at times, and watched her with great affection. They clinked and drank, and then Bella industriously went back to work on whatever was in front of her, occasionally taking a sip from her beer.

They seemed so unlikely a match, those two, whatever their relationship was. The blonde appeared so refined, conformed, cosmetically engineered and defined by the mantra of Maybelline. And Bella appeared so...the opposite of all that. But however odd it seemed on the surface, it very obviously functioned well in the deep down. He felt a pang of envy in their connection for a moment, and then smiled when he forced himself to think about Alice and Jasper, at home, likely napping, wound around each another on his bed like a yin yang, awaiting his arrival home.

Bella and her friend sat for some time, chatting, sipping, giggling as Bella was drawing - she was definitely drawing, he could see now - with fast, confident strokes and occasionally she looked up at the blonde, always smiling. Perhaps even beaming. But she never once looked in his direction while she worked. Edward tried to mind his own business, pretending to watch the young songstress who had taken the stage, still holding his empty bottle, turning it around and around in his hands and still considering another. And still considering making a swift exit, out of pure, raw stress.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do. What she wanted him to do. For some reason she was keeping the interaction with him from her friend, he understood that much. The idea of leaving the club without at least one more attempt at silent conversation with her didn't feel right, but the very notion of approaching her at the table with her friend looking on was one hundred percent out of the question. So he sat, quietly drumming his foot on the floor and waited, hoping with patience that the answer would find him instead of him finding it.

Eventually, it did.

Thirty uncertain, empty beer bottle fondling minutes later, Bella slammed the notebook shut and said something definitive to the blonde, smiling sadly. Her friend nodded and touched her hand tenderly, holding it for a moment and telling her something that made her nod solemnly, and then she lifted the blonde's hand and kissed it, smiling warmly at her. The whole interaction was utterly tender and completely fascinating. Edward knew that Bella knew that he would be watching every move she made. And that is what she showed him.

Her friend stood up and pulled her coat off the back of her chair, asking Bella something that made her shake her head vigorously no. Bella waved her on ahead and then grabbed for her own jacket, slipping it over her arms. Edward swallowed hard at the sight, and was attacked by a surge of emotion he was so well acquainted with it was practically family. Fear. But he wasn't sure exactly which scared him more - the idea of her walking out the door without acknowledging him again or the idea of attempting an actual conversation with her.

The blonde turned, leaving their table, and walked to the very back of the room, pushing on a door and disappearing into the room behind it. She had to pee. Bella was still at the table, and the moment her friend was out of sight she looked immediately back to Edward and smiled, mock swiping the sweat from her forehead off in a gesture of relief. Phew, she mouthed. Edward was too unsettled to smile back, though he tried, but was quite sure it looked like nothing less than a petrified twitching grimace.

He watched intently as she then reopened the notebook, pulling out a page and folding it in half, then tossed her things into her bag and rising to leave, glancing over to him one more time and smiling slightly. He felt that sudden urge to bolt again, feeling satisfied with the silent conversation but completely unsure about the idea of having one with actual words.

But instead of approaching his table as he feared she might, she slung her bag over her head and across her shoulder and walked towards the bar behind her, stopping briefly to chat with the bartender. She laid the folded paper down on the lacquered wooden surface and turned just once to point in the direction of his table. Edward jerked his attention to the stage, horrified at being caught watching, but immeasurably grateful to realize that she seemed to understand his limitations. However bizarre and unreasonable they may be.

He didn't look back again. Instead, he set his sights intently on a small white athletic tape "X" on the stage and made a plan. He would count to one hundred. Slowly. If by then he had seen no sign of the paper, he would stand up and run home as fast as he could. He was afraid of what the paper said. He was afraid she would want to see him. He was afraid she wouldn't want to see him. He was afraid that if they saw each other, she would expect him to act normally. Though, really, how could she expect any of that after the nonsensical interactions they had already had?

With trepidation, he realized that he couldn't even remember what his life had been like before all of this insanity began. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen...

What little confidence he had wavered as he counted. Maybe she hadn't meant for the paper to be for him after all. How had he gotten so bad at reading behaviors? Was this girl bewitched? Had she been sent to shoo him from his resident cave of comfort and avoidance? At this point it wouldn't be long before he was forced to trade its protection for the psychiatric ward.

Forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven...

Feeling like a freaking lunatic as he approached seventy-two, the bartender sidled up to his table, lowering to a squat next to his chair. Even while expecting it, Edward jumped backwards in his seat and eyed the man carefully. He was carrying the folded white paper from Bella's notebook in one hand and a fresh Guinness in the other and set them on the table before him.

"Compliments of the brunette who was sitting over there," he spoke in a low, friendly voice. He raised his eyebrows twice and patted him lightly on the back, casually reaching to take the empty bottle from his hands.

Edward reflexively retracted from him, having a brief, irrational moment of not wanting to let him take the bottle. He wanted to keep it. At some point during the evening he had come to think of it as some sort of twisted souvenir.

He realized after a moment that there was absolutely no sane way of explaining that to the barkeep, and he reluctantly handed it over, missing the security of its touch within seconds. And leaving him alone with...it.

The bartender nodded once and turned tail back to his post at the far end of the room. Edward stared at the new contents of his table, too terrified to touch either for several minutes. First, he grabbed the beer, chugging half of it down in the first sip as preparation for what was coming next.

The paper sat folded on the table, white against black, a single hope floating in an ocean of despair. He was not naive. He was aware that there was some possibility that the note merely scrawled in big messy writing, "GET A FUCKING LIFE, MASEN, I WAS JUST HERE HAVING A DRINK WITH MY FRIEND." And that would be the truth.

He had nothing to lose, not even a life. There was nothing in that note that could make anything worse than it already was. So slowly, he reached for it, touching it lightly at first, as if it were a delicate lace doily instead of a heavy-duty artist quality sheet of paper. He held it, still folded, in his hands for a moment, admiring the tattered edges where she'd torn it from the spiral binding and recognizing the irony of it serving as a symbol of his best last hope. For whatever.

He slid his finger under the fold and lifted it up quickly, like ripping an old band aid off a particularly painful wound.

When his eyes feasted on what she had presented him, he sucked in an audible breath and instinctively brought his hand to his mouth. And he might've laughed, if only the urge to cry hadn't been so strong.