Epilogue: Journal of Dr Edward Masen

December 25

I guess it's appropriate to christen a new journal, and a soon to be new year on a proverbial day of rebirth.

Things have finally quieted down. Gifts have been opened, dinner consumed, and everyone has gone home.

I never really understood the appeal of the holidays until now. My family never made a big to do about it. This year Mum and Dad were off in Australia visiting friends, so I made the impromptu decision to have everyone over to my flat.

I'd not taken into account how spending Christmas with three Americans might change my perspective on the holiday. Their approach was quite different from mine. Tons of presents were added to our usual fair of food and drink. Bella insisted on watching a god awful movie called A Christmas Story. She insisted it was a tradition, but I found it bloody terrible.

Complain as I might, I do have a lot to be grateful for this year, and today was living proof. I woke up to hear Bella banging around the kitchen, singing Christmas carols off tune while making coffee.

Jasper and Alice arrived around 10, loaded down with wine and gifts. It seems that my sister was bitten by the conspicuous consumption bug, and decided to go blow for blow with the American contingent. By the time Emmett and Rose arrived, the gifts were spilling out from under the tree and into the middle of the room.

The presents were fun, but the laughter and enthusiasm were even better.

At one point during a lull in the conversation, Emmett and I managed to sneak away so that I could slip him the keys to my car. He had a little surprise lined up for Rosalie in the way of Christmas drinks at Dukes. Apparently she had quite the thing for James Bond, and he thought it would be fun to take her to Dukes for a martini in an Aston Martin. That boy is so head over heels it is cloying. But I can't begrudge him that.

When I gave him the keys, I also handed him a small envelope. When he opens it later, he'll find a news clipping. I figured it would be better for him to have it, and decide how to tell Rose in his own way. Apparently Asian authorities are not as lenient as British ones. Royce couldn't bargain his way out a second time.

Everyone gets what they are due one way or another. It may have taken more time than any of us would have hoped, but Royce will be spending a few years as a guest of the Japanese government after his arrest for beating and raping a woman at nightclub. Dare I say it; I do think the Hon. Royce King would tell you that the British penal system is much preferable to that of the Japanese one.

Speaking of getting their due, the project that Emmet and Rose were assigned to announced that they are ahead of schedule. It should be wrapped and complete by the end of January. That change in schedule was all the reason Emmett needed to finally sit down and talk about the future with Rose. They will be going back to Chicago together, although Emmett insists that he'll always be a southern boy at heart.

I bet Bella 20 quid that they'll be married and pregnant within a year. Bella laughed at me and said no way. I upped it to 40 quid and threw in that Emmett would stay at home with the baby. She took my bet.

As much as we laugh about it, Bella took the news hard. I think that deep down she always hoped that Rose and Emmett would stay here in London. But knowing that where ever they go, they will be together was enough to quell the sense of sadness that she felt at seeing her friends go...

She's asleep on the couch right now. Life has been insane for her. Working full time at the foundation and waiting tables a few nights a week has run her down to the quick. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Her role at the foundation will be a full time salaried position starting in January. She can stop waiting tables and focus on what she really enjoys, which ironically enough is writing critical assessments and analysis of Victorian works. She's already had two articles published in literary magazines, and is seen as quite the revolutionary. She and Jasper have even joked about writing something together.

We were up late last night celebrating that and the fact that after months of jumping through hoops, she finally got the go forth on her HSM Visa. A letter from the foundation was the final nudge to tilt things in her favor. She has the official blessing to stay in London now.

Everything seems to be falling into place. In January Bella will have a full time, decent paying job, legal sanction to stay in the country, and no place to live.

Which is why I haven't given her my present yet.

I intentionally wrapped it up in a way that will drive her crazy. Boxes hidden one inside the other like Russian nesting dolls. Some are empty. Three are not.

She'll laugh when she opens the first box, but won't be surprised. From the moment I saw it, I knew there was only one photo that could go in her picture frame. She never had given me back that tie.

The second, smaller box will throw her off, and I anticipate that her hands will shake as she pries back the velvet lid. The jeweler had worked over time to reproduce a smaller copy of her grandfather's ring. It didn't help matters that I'd only given him a week's notice.

We still shy away from titles. We know what we are to each other. Definitions don't change that. We've agreed that we'll wait a full two years so that we don't run into any grief when we make it legally binding. But to me, it's just a formality.

I haven't told her because she already knows how I feel, but I am writing it down here so that I can always remember.

The photo of her in all her glory, my tie around her waist and the plane ticket to London in her hand is a reminder of what hope and faith can do. The ring is an endless link, that when placed on the ring finger of the left hand, rests against a major artery that runs straight to her heart. That simple gold band will tie us to the past and takes us to the future. It goes on infinitely.

Just like we always will.

We've both come such a long way. Things aren't always 100 percent perfect, but what relationship is? We have arguments, we're both too stubborn not to. But then we talk through it, and if necessary I admit that I am wrong (because I usually am), and then clothes are thrown across the room as we end up shagging each other senseless. I'd teased her once about the fire that she needed to let loose. That's not an issue anymore, and it's bloody fekking brilliant.

It's perfection looking at her right now. She's curled up in a little ball, her hand tucked under her cheek. Periodically she'll smile or frown in reaction to whatever dream is diverting that fabulous imagination.

The last year has changed so much for all of us. It's truly amazing to think back on everything that we went through, everything that we survived. But we grew from it. We all evolved, and I'd like to think that we are stronger for it.

No, we are. I know we are.

And more importantly, we are better people. With bright futures and people who love us.

There was a line in Bella's written dissertation about intent. So long as the intent was just and done in love, that was all that mattered.

We'd all been destructive in our quest to protect ourselves. We'd lied, we'd run, we'd assumed when we should have asked. And yet it all had turned out for the best. All because the intent had been good, simply the execution flawed.

Bella had been right about that after all.

Maybe someday I'll tell her that. Or maybe not. I do still try to throw her off balance when I can.

Which was the gift in the third box.

Her own membership to the zoo.

She'll laugh and say that technically it's a gift to myself.

And in a way it is.

But I'll never admit to that.

I do have to maintain some air of mystery after all.