It was one of the most awkward interviews Charlie'd ever conducted.

Interviewing Billy Black.

Trying to find out where Jacob might be.

The...man? boy?...that had raped his daughter.

Mike had offered to go and ask the questions, but Charlie'd refused. He'd made this mess, and he'd clean it up himself.

"You want me to help you find Jake, so you can put him in jail." Billy had stared at him like he was nuts.

"She said he raped her, Billy," Charlie said softly.

Billy's paternal loyalty wanted to deny it, still, but didn't. The pack had spoken, with a squeamish level of detail that skewered the last possibilities of denial.

Jacob'd done it. Not a question there. Billy just couldn't quite understand it.

His son loved Bella.

The pack had understood that too.

That's what made the assault even more horrific.

"Think you got a case?" Billy asked, knowing just how small the possibility was. Just how dangerous it would be for Charlie to get involved in this.

Charlie thought before answering this, speaking softly, "he needs to face what he did, Billy."

Billy wasn't so kind in his own response. "Or you need a way to redeem yourself? Kinda fucked up on that front, huh?"

Charlie's expression hardened. "You wanna help, or go sit in a cell on obstruction charges?"

Billy snorted. "You ain't got nothing on me Charlie Swan, and you know it. You won't find Jake, for all the names I give ya, so leave and save yourself the paperwork."

He was partially right. Charlie had the flimsiest of pretexts to take Billy in, and knew it wouldn't help find Jacob.

They sat, staring at the table, each stymied by the other's intent.

"I'm sorry for it, Charlie," Billy said quietly. "I really am." His voice shook here, "it's...hard to believe."

"Tell me about it," Charlie said, just as subdued.

"You want answers about where Jacob might be, ask Sam."

"Sam Uley?" Charlie asked, reaching for his notepad.

Billy nodded. "They're...close. He'd know better than me." He knew it wouldn't hurt his friend to ask, and that Sam would have few answers. It might keep Charlie out of trouble though.

They made their stilted farewells, each wondering if there would be a friendship to resurrect when this was all settled.

Or if there would just be bodies to bury.

Bella was sitting in Angela's living room, playing with her much younger siblings. Mrs. Webber'd had to run out, apologizing profusely to the girls as she did, thanking them too, for taking the twins so she could help the parishioner who'd called.

Angela hadn't said anything, but she'd noticed the ring on Bella's finger, the thinness of the hand that it protruded from, and the shrunken posture Bella held.

She'd brought out tea, and cookies, swatting small and sticky hands away, trying to save some for Bella, who'd giggled, watching her efforts.

Angela was helping her parents at the church over the summer, enjoying her last one doing so. She'd be off to college in the fall, excited and nervous for being away for home.

When Bella had finally eaten something, Angela's curiosity had exhausted her patience.

"That's a beautiful ring," she offered mildly, refilling Bella's cup.

The answering blush confirmed Angela's suspicions.

"Do you have a date yet?" she went on, just as softly.

The intensifying of the colour in Bella's cheeks was confusing.

Oh, she thought...oh no. Was she pregnant? Her own face paled with regret and remorse for asking.

"Um," Bella said, "no date, because we already got married."

"Oh!" Angela said, an excited and clearly relieved breath escaping her, "Oh, that's wonderful! Congratulations!"

"Thank you," Bella said, having read, in Angela's face, exactly what she had thought. "It's OK," she said, "I get that most people are going to assume I'm pregnant."

Angela blushed herself, feeling badly for thinking as much.

"Really," Bella said, "it's OK."

"It isn't," Angela said, "but thank you. I'm glad for you. Surprised, though."

"Yeah," Bella said, wondering how much to say.

What would it hurt? She asked herself, to tell her. Really?

The sudden blankness, and then sadness on Bella's face was alarming to Angela.

"Bella? What's wrong?" She reached out a hand to pull apart the twins, handing them each a toy.

Bella shook her head a little. "A friend of mine, he um," she didn't want to say the word, so husked out, "he hurt me."

Angela's eyebrows pinched together, and she went still, watching, nodding for her to go on.

Bella was almost embarrassed to continue, "my Dad," she swallowed, "he didn't believe me, and he made me go see him."

Her friend's eyes widened at this, but her lips were tight. She'd seen enough of her parents to know how to walk through such a disclosure.

"He hurt me again." Bella's intonation was all wrong. It sounded like a half-bred question, uncertain and dangling. "So I moved out after that. With Edward. I got really sick, was really out of it, and my Dad," she cleared her throat. "He got a court order, and took me, and put me right back with the guy that hurt me." Her throat closed up there, and Angela pulled her into a hug.

"I'm so sorry, Bella," she whispered.

Bella was trying really hard not to cry.

Angela scrounged around on a side table, coming up with a container of diaper wipes, frowning at them, and Bella laughed, seeing what she was being offered.

"Thanks," she managed, taking one, making her face only more evenly wet with it.

"He thought Edward was hurting me," she explained. "He knows now he wasn't." She shrugged, "I was afraid he would try something like that again, so we got married. He can't." More shrugging.

Angela took her hand, and so much like Edward, rubbed it with her own. "Gotcha," she said. "Still, congratulations. No doubt you two are meant for each other."

Bella allowed a small smile to form on her lips, and they both turned, watching the twins at their play again, letting the stretch of their feelings subside, and relax into easier shapes.

"Sorry," Bella said, feeling like she was wading through an emotional swamp, "I didn't meant to come and bring you down."

"No, no," Angela said, shaking her head, "I'm glad you told me. Friends do that for each other, Bella." She squeezed her hand. "What's it like, being married?" She asked this softly, her open curiosity on her face.

"Wonderful," Bella said, her face transformed with a smile.

Outside, a short distance away, Edward smiled with her. Yes, he thought, it is.

"Must change your student housing plans for the fall," Angela added, more practically.

Bella hadn't even considered the fall. "Hadn't gotten that far ahead," she said honestly. Would she even be human then?

That thought came with a cold dose of fear.

And would the Volturi come to check again?

Perhaps.

"Not that you need to worry about it, I'm sure," Angela said, slipping another cookie onto Bella's plate. "Where did you get married?" she asked, trying to redirect her friend to happier topics.

Later, at home, she and Edward were outside, enjoying the warmth of the grass, his body a perfect compliment to heat of the day.

"I'm glad you saw a friend," he said, swirling his fingers through her hair.

"Me too," she sighed. She was playing with his other hand, a neglected book beside her.

"I was wondering," he said, "if you had given any thought to the fall. What classes you'd like to take."

Her fingers stopped moving, and she looked at him. "I didn't think...I'd be taking any," she answered, frowning a little. Had he changed his mind? About changing her? "Do you," she struggled, unwanted tears brewing, "not want me to—?"

"No, no," he said quickly, "you misunderstand. Whenever you're ready. I just...I thought you might want to go to college. Do the things you wanted to. Be...human, a little longer." He didn't name the thing she'd very much wanted to do, that he'd offered with such poor and ignorant timing in the meadow.

"Oh," she said, relieved, and then silently, oh, understanding. "Being human," she said, with voice. After a moment she whispered, "Yes, I still want that. With you. While I'm human."

"OK," he murmured, wanting to show her that he did too, but not certain how.

But she turned to him instead, saving him the worry, her hand curved to his cheek, and kissed him. The heat that stole up from her lips and fingers flared indiscriminately, and he fought to make his touch gentle and light, still tangling with her hair, but wanting to go elsewhere. Evoke in her what she did in him.

Then she moved her fingers from his cheek to his arms, lips still exploring the space of the kiss.

Edward let his own touch slide to her back, where he made it rest, exploring the wings of her scapula.

She found the curve of his breast bone, so their digits touched, on the other's body, the mirrored places of their hearts—his silent, and hers frantic.

His question to her had already let loose his memory of their wedding night. The beauty of her bare form, delicate over his, and her soft flesh pressed to his firm one, made suppressing his own body's wants almost impossible. Their positions didn't allow her to ignore this, and when she continued with the kiss, opening her mouth to let his tongue trace her lips, he growled in pleasure.

He fingers melted down the shifting heat of her back, curling into an embrace at her hips, digits spread out, massaging the larger muscles there, wanting to wake in her the sensations brewing in himself.

It was working.

Like his, her hands were sovereign in their reign, now pulling at the tails of his shirt, claiming the geography of his hips, and that unnamed space between navel and beltline.

He didn't risk reciprocation, afraid he would knock some memory loose. Then she took his hand, and slid it under her shirt, invitation most precise.

Leaving his fingers where she'd planted them, he moved his lips to her neck, tracing, with his kisses, the vein that ran the length of it, to the exquisite velvet just behind her ear. Hearing the pleasured gasp this elicited, he freed his hands, letting them make space between the soft texture of her bra, and the softer touch of her breasts.

Her reassuring sounds continued, as did the brave reach of her fingers, sitting just below his belt line, whispering tender promises to the extraordinarily sensitive skin there.

He didn't even realize he was growling, a low roiling, purr that grew in tandem with their proximity. It was only when it mated with a sharp movement, rolling her over onto her back that her own defensive sensibilities were woken.

He stopped, immediately, feeling her startle.

Her soft, "I'm OK," did nothing to reassure him, and he rolled slowly to the side, carrying the worry of her fear and potential hurt with him.

When he said, "I'm sorry," he'd already chastised himself silently, "I need to be more careful."

"No," she pouted, coming to rest her arm on his chest, frowning. She looked almost petulant. Childlike.

Almost.

"I'm fine. Why'd you stop?" she asked.

"I wasn't," he said, allowing himself to flutter his fingers through her hair again. He smiled apologetically. "It's...new," he said, angling his chest to face her more directly. "To be with you this way. I'm still figuring out how to…steer this desire for you."

She blushed.

He grinned, seeing it.

"Just like you are," he went on. "I suspect it's a bit more...consuming, for vampires, than humans."

"Cute," she said, rolling her eyes at the unintended pun.

"Hardly," he said dryly, but smiled.

"Practise does make perfect," she reminded him, tracing her finger over his chest, letting him appreciate her eyes through their half-dropped lids.

"Hmm," he said, interrupting her hand with his own.

"Practise," she said again.

The grin stretched wide. "Positively lascivious...I love it." Then he kissed her again, and they continued to exchange these small touches of their lips, the day winding on into this blossoming trust.