The Twilight Twenty-Five
Prompt: Fragments
Pen name: Cass189
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: M

Definition of Fragments:

1. a piece broken off or detached fragments of rock

2. an incomplete piece; portion fragments of a novel

3. a scrap; morsel; bit

Fragments

BPOV

As I looked at the dark blue sky, memories from an almost forgotten past assaulted my mind. One after the other, they filled my senses and made me go back to a different time.

Edward used to love standing outside, looking at the night sky.

I could remember, not clearly anymore as time had altered my memories and transformed them into a simple fragment of what reality had truly been, all of the times we stood at the balcony of a random hotel or one of his apartments looking at the stars.

We would stand there, his arms wrapped around me, his hand spread open on my stomach and my back pressed to his chest, just observing the night and not saying a word. There was nothing we wanted or could say at those moments.

He would ever so often kiss my shoulder and nuzzle my neck and I would smile at the intimacy of it all.

I could hazily remember all of the mornings spent in bed, making love, sharing a little bit of ourselves or simply looking at each other. I could always just get lost in his deep green eyes and the emotions portrayed in them. He had long ago learned how to mask his face and his feelings, but his eyes could never lie and they often looked at me with pure love and desire.

I could also remember making love in front of the fire, running around in the rain as he chased after me and always caught me, standing in his arms in the middle of the living room as he twirled me around, seeing him lean in so he could whisper sweet nothings in my ear, so he could tell me he loved me.

Every time I thought about his love declarations, I was once again invaded by an intense feeling of loss. Even after all this time, I still loved him so much!

I just wish I could still clearly remember his smell, his taste… I wish I could still have him and not just a memory.

There were many things we did together, many moments I could no longer recall as clearly as I wished to, probably because I had spent so much time forcing myself to forget him, but there were two memories that weren't mere fragments. There were two memories I could remember with complete precision.

One was the night I first realized I was in love with him, the night we made love for the first time.

The other one was the time I allowed myself to believe that we could somehow make it together. That there was a chance of us being happy, that we could just run away and live happily ever after, raising our own little family.

As for the first memory, it didn't matter much how we had ended up in that position, all it mattered was how alive and wanted he made me feel.

His hands roamed along my body, caressing every inch of skin he had access to as his lips trailed wet kisses down my throat to my breasts and then back up.

I gripped his shoulders as we started to move faster and wrapped my legs tighter around him, wanting to feel him as close to me as possible.

Our rhythm was increasing more and more and it was quite obvious by the sounds escaping both out mouths that neither of us would last for much longer.

That was when he stopped kissing and nibbling on my neck and looked straight at me. Without ever stopping or decreasing our pace, he brushed the hair away from my face, pressed our foreheads together and whispered.

"I love you, Bella. Did you know that?" I could swear that for a second I stopped breathing and everything was suddenly so clear, so obvious.

How had I not seen it before? Who was I trying to fool by pretending I didn't know what was happening to me?

It was impossible for me to keep on lying to myself.

I pulled him even closer to me, wanting to crawl inside of him if possible as my whole world, my whole being, shifted with the knowledge that, despite all odds, I was in love with him too.

He loved me. I loved him.

I raised a trembling hand and touched his face, moaning when he nibbled on my lower lip.

"I love you too, Edward." He simply smiled and leaned in to lightly kiss my lips as we both reached our peaks and came crashing down together.

It was a lovely memory that even to this day made my whole body shiver. I would never forget that night.

When it came to the second memory, I have never been able to forget it because for a split second… it had made me hopeful.

We were just lying in bed, me on my back and he on his side. His hand was tracing random patterns on my bare stomach and I was just content to be like that.

We were comfortably silent for a long time until he finally spoke.

"Bella, what would you say if I told you I want to leave all of this behind?" I moved my head a little so I could look directly at him and raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I want to change for you, so I can be with you. I know you love me, but I want more than random meetings every now and then. I want to be with you, really be with you, forever. I want to go to sleep and wake up with you. I want to, damn it, I want to share my life with you." I stood there just looking at him for what seemed like forever before I could finally speak.

Could we really change everything? Could we really share our lives completely?

"You do?" He slowly nodded.

"Yes, I do. I even want to start a family with you, if you're up to it. I think we can find somewhere safe to be and…" I didn't allow him to go on.

"You want to have kids?"

"One day, when my life is less chaotic and I'm a better person, yes." I smiled at him, allowing myself to imagine just that. A happy family.

A family. I had never thought about having one. It was almost impossible for me to have one considering what I did, but now… Well, if we could just start all over somewhere else, now it seemed like a lovely idea.

"I'm listening…" He chuckled at me and shook his head.

"Well, I was thinking we could find a nice house somewhere far away. Somewhere no one from our past could find us. You can do whatever you want with it. We can, I don't know, adopt a dog or something and then… We can think about starting a family." I rolled onto my side so I was facing him and ran my hands through his hair.

It all sounded so good. A lifetime spent with him without having to worry about anything or anyone.

He traced my face with his fingertips and brushed the hair away from my face before continuing.

"I think I would like us to have a girl. A little girl who looks just like you. Does it sound good? Do you want that?" I simply nodded and kissed him lightly.

I truly wished we could have that.

"Yes, I want it."

Those two were the only memories that weren't fragmented. The only ones that neither time nor my own doing could erase.

I closed my eyes and sighed again.

Everything else was fragments of memories and it was all I had of our time together—Snapshots of a time when, against all odds, I had been happy with the most unexpected person.

But what we had couldn't last. In a world where everything was black or white, truth or lie, right or wrong… love, no matter how strong it was, just wasn't enough.

We were too different. We were on irreconcilable sides and so, could never be together.

The good agent and the criminal… Who would've thought I would ever go for such a cliché?

But that day… That day it all came to an end. That day, despite what my heart was saying, I left without saying anything and knowing perfectly well I could never look back.

If only he had decided to stay in bed with me until later like I had asked him to that day.