"Night Dad," Bella called from upstairs, closing her door. The light was finally fading, and she welcomed the dark, knowing Edward would arrive with it.

She wasn't disappointed.

"Hi," she said, when he appeared, his suddenness always mildly startling, but more so now. She'd been sitting, unusually, at her desk, and he took her hand softly.

"Feeling more yourself?" he asked quietly. He'd know if Charlie heard his voice, but he kept it low, not wanting this conversation to be interrupted for anything.

"Yeah," she said.

He nodded, as if taking this in. It was pure artifice. He'd spent the last hours plotting the nuanced paths of this conversation.

"I frightened you," he said, "earlier. In the meadow."

"It was nothing," she replied hurriedly, shaking her head. She didn't want to dwell on it. Too dangerous.

"Mmm," Edward said, allowing her to think he accepted this dismissal.

He pulled her hand, sitting on the bed, inviting her to join him, but she didn't move. She didn't trust herself to not panic, in such proximity, not after this afternoon.

This was completely out of character for her. "Doesn't seem like nothing," he said, eyeing the empty place beside him.

"Don't want to fall asleep just yet," she said, reaching for her lamest excuse yet.

The bed was close enough to her desk that he could reach across and touch her hand. He did so, hooking his thumb under the soft cuff, and pushing it upward, revealing the bruise on her wrist.

He could hear her heart, resembling the rotors on a helicopter, fluttering in uncertainty.

She felt the panic starting to threaten in the blood pooled at her feet.

Edward was glad she was sitting. He was certain she'd have fallen over if she hadn't been.

"How'd this happen?" he asked gently, holding her gaze.

Watching her blush, while the blood was draining away was something he hoped he didn't have to see again.

She was trying to breathe regularly.

Lie, the voice was screaming. Just lie. Say anything but what happened.

"I'm not sure," she mumbled, tongue stumbling over the letters.

Edward held her hand up, turning it gently to one side, and then the other. The bruise ran the circumference of her wrist and lower forearm.

"Someone would have had to put their hand around you here," he said, showing her, just brushing her skin, "with considerable force." He paused, to let her absorb this. "I don't think you'd forget, Bella." He kept his eyes on hers, which were scattering over the floor, as if looking for answers.

"I think," he said softly, "that someone hurt you."

"That's ridiculous," Bella said, "who would want to hurt me?" She looked at him, daring accusation. Her heartrate underode every word, though, and he gave a smile that was small, and weary.

"I don't want to think anyone would, love," he said, "but clearly they have."

She had begun to shiver.

"I won't do anything you don't want me to do, Bella," Edward continued, speaking softly, rubbing his thumb over her hand, again and again, and again.

Her fractured gaze traced the patterns in the floorboards.

"I know you have another bruise on your upper arm. It's dark, and it too shows that someone grabbed you hard enough there to hurt you."

She said nothing, her breaths now short and uncertain.

"Are you afraid of me now?" he asked, hoping for the truth.

Hoping for a lie.

"No," Bella said softly. She wasn't afraid of him right now.

She was afraid for him.

What would he do if she did tell him someone had hurt her? Just in this small way? And how much more it would be, if he knew further?

"How?" She asked, grasping an evasion, trying to think. "How did you know?"

"Charlie," he said simply, that uncertain expression still on his face. "He was...surprised." Then he pressed his question again. "Who?" he asked, and then with greater concern. "You know that I will always protect you. No matter what."

Bella said nothing.

"Charlie thinks I hurt you," he said. "He didn't want to say anything, because he thought you would protect your abuser."

Bella stared at him, utterly flummoxed.

"And you are," he murmured.

"Don't," she said, "please," and closed her eyes.

"Don't what?" he asked.

He slid down to his knees so he could be closer.

"Who?" he asked.

Oh God. She would have to tell him.

There were no other plausible evasions, and she wouldn't risk an innocent name for fear of what might do.

Flickering images of Mike Newton, or Taylor Cowlie, broken, or well blooded, or effectively disappeared, occupied her mind.

The very ugly truth was that she was afraid. Of Edward. Of what he might do.

Jacob had made certain she would fear most men, and especially the ones she loved.

You just never really knew what they would do.

She couldn't lie.

"Jacob," she whispered, closing her eyes.

"He hurt you?" Edward asked.

She nodded.

A slithering chill, that went up his spine, and then down it again, flared out over his limbs.

"When?" His tone was cool now, too.

"The last time I went to see him," she answered, swallowing. Hoping.

"And your other hand?" he asked in a quiet voice, touching it lightly. "You didn't fall, did you?"

She shook her head, standing, backing away from his touch.

He frowned to her turned back. "How'd you hurt it?" he asked.

"I punched him." Her voice sounded so small. She leaned her hand and forehead against the window.

"Why?"

Her breath fogged the glass.

She swallowed before answering, voice shaking. "Because he kissed me. He wouldn't stop."

The pit of Edward's stomach disappeared.

The cavity left by it was boiling with rage. Jacob hadn't just hurt her. He'd frightened her. Badly.

"What happened?" His voice betrayed none of his feelings.

The breathing was shifting into muffled sobbing, and he turned her towards him into his arms. He was holding off the worst possibilities that threatened active imagination, but just.

"He told me he loved me. He told me that I loved him. And that I was lying. That he needed to show me—what I wanted. He—"

She stopped there, hoping she didn't need to say the words.

Edward had heard her, and forced himself to be calm, to remember what was between his hands. "Did he hurt you anywhere else?" he asked, afraid, oh so afraid of what the answer would be.

"Yes," she said, shaky but sure.

He prepared himself with a mixture of hope, and fear, to ask, "where?"

She touched her ribs on both sides, and he nodded.

Then she gestured briefly to between her legs.

He made himself nod again, keeping his hands light, their touch lighter.

"When?" He asked again.

Bella didn't see why it would matter. "The same day."

Edward made his head move up and down, forcing himself to focus on the smallest minutiae, so he wouldn't lose complete control.

"Is that why you're bleeding?" He asked.

He expected her silent, and affirmative response. He'd so easily rationalized the evidence his nose and throat had presented him with over the last days. The reality was numbing.

She'd been suffering, and he hadn't known. She'd been utterly alone in this.

He had failed her. Given her over to a creature whose control he doubted, and whose feelings he knew to be suspect.

He held her, saying nothing, letting her tears exhaust themselves. Stewing in his own guilt. When she'd calmed somewhat, he tucked his thoughts and feelings under more practical concerns.

"You haven't seen a doctor." It was a statement, not a question.

She shook her head.

The buzz of his phone could not have been more inopportune.

"It's Alice," he said apologetically, bringing it to his ears. His "Yes?" was curt.

"Don't leave her alone," Alice said. "Not tonight."

He didn't need to be told why, and he didn't ask if she knew.

"Thank you," he murmured, and hung up.

"Come spend the night with me," he whispered to Bella, who was still grappling with what she'd said, let alone what had happened.

There were responses she expected from Edward. This was not one of them.

"What?" She asked dumbly.

"Come spend the night with me, at our house," he elaborated.

"But Charlie—"

"Just come with me. Alice can come get your truck, and leave a note for Charlie from you. I'm sure she can invent some sort of plausible emergency." This practicality was the least of his concerns.

She was still trying to understand that he was still there. He hadn't run in rage, or out the excess of any other feeling.

He had stayed.

"OK," she said, holding tenuously to this unbelievable hope.

Then he picked her up, and they were flying, she with her hands clutched to the fabric of his shirt, eyes squeezed shut against the terror of their movement. Too fast. Always too fast with him.

Edward did not stop to greet his family, or even use the door. He entered through the window he'd left open in his room, slowing himself only to walk, still carrying Bella into Carlisle's office.

She looked at Edward, stricken and panicked.

He hadn't said anything about involving Carlisle.

Nothing.

Then she saw that Edward's lips were moving, but she couldn't hear what he was saying. This only alarmed her further.

Edward had set her down on an exam table. She slid off of it, moving towards the door, fresh tears warring for space on her already briny cheeks.

She jumped back when Carlisle stood near her, almost in her path. "Bella, Edward tells me your ribs might be bruised?"

She looked at Edward, confused, and, she realized, angry.

"That's all I've told him," he said, face twisted in worry.

She said nothing, not quite certain which one to speak with.

"Do you want me to look at them?" He was looking at Bella, but she could tell there was a silent conversation with Edward unfolding behind his focused gaze.

"No," she said, deciding on a course of action, and began to walk out of the room.

Edward blocked her path. "Bella," he said, "please."

Her cheeks were flaming. Uncomfortably hot. She found herself not just discomforted by the sensation, but unnerved too. Jittery.

"I didn't come with you for this, Edward," she said quietly, trying to make her voice inaudible to Carlisle. The rational part of her brain knew it was pointless, but if there was ever a time that she craved privacy, it was now. "I'd know if my ribs were bothering me."

"And the bruises on your arms?" Edward asked.

"They're just bruises," she said, the tears free now, moving to push past him.

Then, distraught beyond where reason would reach him, he reached to take her arm. The sudden grip, gentle as it was, made her gasp and start, pulling back.

The panic was written in the tight pull of her lips, her eyes, already large, wide, and the flare of her nostrils.

Edward let go immediately.

She stood, several paces back from him, now visibly shaking.

Jasper's sudden appearance only inflamed the feeling.

"Bella," Jasper said calmly in greeting, evaluating her rapidly changing emotional state. He eyed Edward, whose distress had been evident from the minute he came in the house. The distinct flavour of Carlisle's confusion and curiosity were growing, insinuating themselves into the already heady mix around him.

Bella wanted to leave, but was now blocked by three vampires, and she backed herself up to the wall, hands feeling for purchase. Or a weapon.

"We'll be outside if you need us, Bella," Jasper said, looking meaningfully at Carlisle, who nodded, and then Edward, who shook his head at this suggestion.

"I think Bella could use a moment alone," Jasper tried again.

Carlisle walked out, Jasper following, looking back worriedly at Bella, and then Edward.

"Bella," Edward said, "I won't hurt you. You know this."

He stepped forward, and she flinched.

"Don't," she said, "just—Jasper's right. I could use a minute. Or two."

Edward looked down, frustrated hands working their fingers at his sides. "You're hurt," he said. "You're bleeding." This alone made him anxious on any given day. The others were well under control now, but still. He didn't think she'd be so opposed to having Carlisle treat her. "Please let Carlisle make sure you're OK."

"No," she said, voice unhinging itself. "I think I should just go home."

"No," he growled.

She wanted to crawl up the wall, or bury herself in it.

"Edward." Jasper's voice was sharp to Bella's ears. She didn't need to hear his thoughts to know the warning he was giving Edward. She's distraught. Frightened. Terrified. Of you. Back off, before I make you.

Edward only growled in response, head turned cursorily to his brother.

Jasper just raised an eyebrow, jutting his chin towards Bella. She'd slid down the wall, curling her arms around her legs.

When Edward moved towards her, she pushed him away with frantic hands, and he wisely, finally, listened.

"Enough," Esme called, walking into the door, "everyone out."

Edward only glared.

"Out!" she said, finger pointed imperiously to the door.

Then she sat down in one of the chairs, that faced the wall where Bella sat and waited.