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I couldn't believe my ears. I couldn't believe he was actually going through with this. We were all back at the Denali's, all crammed back into the sitting room. Emmet and Jasper were sprawled across the sofa, and Carmen was watching them out of the corner of her eye, sniffing every time their feet brushed across the spotless white cushions.

I was stood beside Edward, Silver asleep in my arms, my expression furious.

"This is rudic…" I began again, but, as before, neither Edward nor Carlisle let me get a full sentence out.

"Oh for Gods sake!" I huffed, exhaling in an impatient noise through my mouth.

"I'll go with you, mate," Emmet offered lazily from the sofa. "If it'll put Bella's mind at rest."

I leapt at the opportunity eagerly, but Rosalie shook her head firmly.

"No way." She growled. "Edward can go and act like an idiot for all I care, but you're not going with him."

"There's no danger!" Emmet rolled his eyes.

"And that would never work anyway." Edward added. "It has to be me, and I have to be alone."

Carlisle nodded and clapped his hand on Edward's back. "Best get going then," He said, glancing at his watch. "It's getting late, and you don't want to fight her in the dark."

"Fight." Emmett scoffed, then raised his voice a little to call to Edward over the noise of the television that Jasper had flicked on. "See you later, man."

"Yeah…" Edward muttered, his eyes on me. "Don't look so worried." He begged me, his hand coming down to cover mine.

"I can't help it." I mumbled, my head down.

Edward's finger coaxed my face back up, and his leant in to whisper into my ear, his cool breath tickling my cheek. "I'm doing this to prove to you that you can trust me again."

My mouth opened noiselessly in horror, but he mistook my expression, and quickly moved away from me, dropping his hand.

"I will make you trust me again." He vowed. My eyes closed as I wished I had never spoken those words. There was a disturbance in the air around us, it blew a little harder into my face suddenly. I opened my eyes in alarm- but it was too late. He was already gone.

And if he didn't come back, then it was more my fault than I had ever dreamt.

My knees felt weak all of a sudden, though I knew that my newly strong legs would never give way. I swayed a little on the spot, until Esme's soft hands steadied me.

"Bella?"

"Stupid." I whispered.

"Yes," Esme agreed in a tight voice that was so far from her usual tone. "He is stupid. I could expect this from Emmett, but Edward…"

"Hey!" Emmett said, sounding hurt.

My head shook; she had misunderstood. "No." I whispered. "Me. Stupid, stupid, stupid."

"Bella?" Esme repeated uncertainly.

"I thought I could live without him again." My voice was less than a whisper, but Esme was the only one paying me any attention now. The others eyes were glued on the television screens- all apart from the one they called Tanya, whos smug eyes were on me.

"I…I thought that…When he was here it was so easy to…I didn't realise that…" My sentences knocked into each other, none making any more sense than the one before it had to Esme, but, to me- it was blaringly obvious.

Before Edward had come back, I had been struggling with life. I had thought that I was winning the battle, thought that having a baby and marrying meant that I might have been just a little over him.

But I was wrong.

When he left again, at the hospital- no, I corrected myself- when I made him leave, I still didn't get it properly, still didn't feel it properly. My worry for my Lyra had over powered everything else, made my own pain seem insignificant to the scars that she bore.

And then, before I could start to miss him properly again, I had stumbled right back into his arms. And he had welcomed me. Against all the odds, against every thought that I'd had in all the years he was away- he had wanted me back. He had left loving me, left for me.

With him stood in front of me, safe and touchable once more, it was too hard, too over whelming to face the facts already, so I had got mad at him instead. I had shouted, yelled at him every thing except the one thing that I really needed to say- that I was still in love with him. That still, even after all the time that had passed, that even though he was still stuck in a seventeen year old body- I still loved him with every single ounce in my body, that just by standing near to me, he could set alive every single cell that I possessed.

Knowing how he had hurt me before, I hadn't wanted to love him again. I had wanted to scream and shout at him and make him feel just a tiny quarter of what I had been hiding for so long, but all that had been fake, a cover up so that I wouldn't have to face the confusion that came with the truth. That I loved him. I hadn't realised how much, thought that if I had decided I didn't forgive him, that I could live without him again. I had done it before, so why not do it again?

But I had grown so much in the last seven years. My heart had expanded so much, to let Lyra in, and I had even grown to love Jacob in his own way, in a sort of brotherly, family way- and now I was even more in love with Edward than I had been when I was seventeen.

But it could already be too late. Edward could already be facing his death right then, all because of some silly words that I spoke while clutching at reasons to hate him for.

I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't, wouldn't, loose him again.

I didn't care about Victoria anymore. We had a family of eight vampires now- how much harm could she do to us?

"Bella? Bella!" Esme called me back to the present, shaking my arm. "Bella- are you okay?"

"Um…yeah…" I murmured, my mind far away, with Edward. How far had be gone already? He could run very fast. Would he be with Victoria now? My stomach reacted to the thought, tying into a knot, and at once, my mind rejected the pain.

Of course not. I comforted myself. He'll be just outside.

I tore my arm out of Esme's, and threw myself towards the front door, tugging it open and falling out onto the porch.

My trained eyes searched the darkness outside, noticing every little piece of movement, every stir of the leaves that coated the floor.

"Edward?" I called uncertainly, then raised my voice. "Edward!"

"He won't be able to hear you. He's already too far gone." Said a smooth, almost smug voice behind me.

I jumped, and turned to find that Tanya had followed me noiselessly outside. She was watching me curiously, her eyes openly scrutinising my face.

I opened my mouth to reply, but she spoke over me.

"You're not what I expected."

I blinked, surprised. "Oh." What was I supposed to say to that?

She stepped towards me, her thin arms crossing across her chest. "The way they all talked about you, I expected you to be…" She trailed of, searching for the right word.

"Stunning?" I supplied weakly.

She tilted her head to the side, her lips pursing. "No, I always knew you were going to be pretty. But I thought you'd be…strong. I thought that after everything you'd been through; Edward leaving you, getting married to a man you didn't love, having a baby- that you'd look strong." She raised her eyebrows a little. "But you don't. You look little and frail…as if one puff of smoke will just blow you away." As she spoke, she walked right up to me, so her breath was blowing into my face.

"How did you know about all that?" I demanded, my fists clenching, though I knew I would never punch her. The last person I ever punched was Barry Newman, and that was when I was eight, and that was so slight I didn't even leave a bruise on him.

"Edward was talking about you before you arrived." Tanya shrugged my question away.

"What was he saying?" I asked before I could stop myself.

Tanya smiled mockingly. "You're not what I expected." She said again, ignoring my question. I was too wimpy to ask it again.

"I'm glad." I said instead. "That's good."

For a moment, her face went dark and I thought she was going to really hit me; my shoulders tensed and my fists clenched, but then, to my surprise, she burst out laughing.

"You know, you're really not so bad." She chuckled.

I looked at her warily. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Her face calmed, the laughter dying in her eyes. "That means let's hope you're a fast runner." And then she raised a single thin, snow white arm, and pointed at an almost invisible path through the forest.

For a moment, I was side tracked as I tried to work out whether Tanya had actually just said something nice to me, and then a terrible scream filled the air. It was ear splitting, deafening- and filled with a desperate pain.

My head span towards the direction of the noise, at the same time as the front door was flung open.

"Bella- wait. It might not be him…" Jasper had less than one second to try to reason with me. Just enough time for me to shove Tanya out the way, jump down off the porch, taking the four steps in one leap- and start to run in Edward's footsteps.

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