A/N Twilight series and all recognisable characters are owned by Stephenie Meyer. I just love messing with them.

CHAPTER 5

BPOV

Rose was uncharacteristically quiet as she marched me from Dr. Bitch's office. The mid-morning rush of traffic impeded our conversation and not a word was said until we reached Joe's Joe, our favourite coffee haunt.

We ordered blueberry pancakes and thick, dark espresso. I relished the bitterness on my palate and welcomed the subtle caffeine-related buzz as I watched Rosalie warily, waiting for the interrogation I knew was coming.

She didn't say a word.

Not a goddamn word.

Was she waiting for me to speak? Perhaps hoping the incessant silent treatment would trigger a heartfelt confession on my side? Hmm, passive-agressiveness was never Ms. Hale's style.

Yet....

I sipped my coffee, fingernails gripping into my thigh as I waited her out.

Tick tock tick tock.

The sun had risen fully overhead, orange whirls and ruby lines, pricking through the cloudline and treating Seattle to a rare kiss of sunshine. I briefly debated telling Rose of my most recent delusion, intensified when I was sure I was being followed as we left Dr Clearwater's office.

I grimaced as I imagined the conversation.

Oh, by the way Rose, I think an unseen masked wanderer has been stalking me through the streets of Seattle for the last two months. I'm pretty sure he wears a fedora and flinches every time I snap my camera. Incidentally, I feel safe when I know he's following me. So what do you think?

Hmm, maybe not.

Then I considered telling her of Dr Bitch's accusation that I had yet to cry. Not true. Tears had been shed over the past.

But you've never wept, Bella, have you? You've never clung to yourself and cried for what's lost. The occasional tear slipping through the barrier simply does not count.

Then the pancakes arrived and I tucked in, relishing the heavy thickness of carbohydrates across my tongue cut with the sweetness of the blueberries and the syrup. Still Rosalie didn't speak, merely watching me above the lip of her coffee cup withy steely eyes as I devoured the cafe's offerings.

"Okay, enough 'silent treatment', Rose. What the hell are you thinking?"

She arched a perfectly plucked blonde brow at me, her expression deceptively innocent. "Why, what do you mean, Ms. Swan?" Her inflection and tone could have been transplanted directly from Austen.

I growled.

She chuckled to herself, wiping the remnants of syrup from her lips and tucking her napkin back in her lap. Her question hit me out of left-field.

"So how's the photography going?"

I shifted in my seat, abruptly feeling as if I was back in a session with Dr. Bitch and the heat of the limelight scorching my skin. "Fine," I answered tersely.

"When is your exhibition planned for?"

Ah, the showing of my pathetic offerings. My agent had put back the date time and time again, bending to my semi-hysterical pleas ever since...it...happened. But Heidi's patience had grown short, and she had commandeered gallery space for a week on Friday and would not hear my complaints to the contrary.

"The twenty-second," I responded, hoping the brevity of my response would procure a similar reaction in her.

No such luck.

"So when can I see the photographs?"

I scowled, gulping my coffee down, relishing the burn on my tongue that cauterised all feeling away.

"It's no time to be shy, Bella. Half of Seattle will see it when Heidi hangs in for their avarice. The shock will be lessened if I see first." She paused, her eyes unusually concerned and soft. "If I help you choose."

I wanted to say no, to tell her to go to hell and she'd never see what my camera captured. But she was right - better to parade it before Rosalie before cutting my teeth on Seattle's reception.

"Fine."

Rosalie merely nodded, her self-restraint impressive. Her next question was softer, "Beyond the exhibition, are you looking for another photography job?"

I knew the root of her question. The majority of the pictures Heidi was intent on showing were taken before... Only a handful had been contributed in recent months, each drawn out painfully.

"Perhaps." I fiddled with the lip of my coffee cup. "I've been considering looking elsewhere for work, maybe a more functional position."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked.

We both knew it was about money. Apart from the exhibition before, which had earned both myself and Heidi a pretty penny, the insurance policy took care of my rent for the next decade. The price was about time.

I swallowed the pancakes, considering my words. "One where I'd be taking pictures at someone's direction, for another's purpose. I think my artistic vision is suspended for the moment."

If not destroyed.

Rose nodded at this, taking another bite of her pancakes. "Check out the Tribune then. They advertise for photography freelance work every few weeks."

I nodded, not answering as I speared a forkful of blueberries. But the thought settled within me, making home in my psyche. A new start? There would be something liberating about simply pointing and shooting at another's direction, no ambiguity or self-doubt.

I gulped more coffee, scalding my throat. I welcomed the burn.

"I'll think about it, Rose."

~ * ~

The next morning I went out hunting for fresh landscapes and vistas.

My collection for the gallery was complete in all but name. Given my previous work there was enough material to keep Heidi off my back, but that did not sate the hunger I felt to capture the perfect picture.

Night after night I trawled the streets of Seattle, searching for that perfect moment of sublime poignancy and perfection that would reflect the tatters of my damaged soul.

I would take pictures mainly in twilight, my angle and focus purposefully random. I did this especially during the rain. The rain always made me feel closer to him, made me remember the light patter of silvery arrows that danced against my skin and washed the blood down the alleyway.

The night air smelt of petrol and dust and anonymity. Sometimes I would stand in the shadows, watching civilization scurry by as I surreptitiously stole shots of the twilight wanderers.

Other times I would simply watch, motionless. Lamenting what was lost.

I took a different route home tonight, angling away from the cathedral and the oh-so-familiar spot across the road. I strode down unfamiliar roads, breathed the sporadic scents from gardens I passes. Honeysuckle, rose, lavender. Each tormented and soothed me in equal amounts.

Then I smelt jasmine, sweet and heady in the night air.

It stopped me in my tracks, my feet stumbling over the cobblestones. A traitor tear threatened to spill, but I blinked it back. I gasped the night in.

I looked up.

A tree stood before me, skeletal in the encroaching winter, its black fingers piercing the sky around it. Mistletoe curled around its branches, forming mock birds' nests, and at its base sat...

Jasmine.

I feel as if a hand has reached into my chest cavity, squeezing my shriveling heart and attempting it to beat as a human heart should. It is a strange combination of exquisite pleasure and gripping pain.

I touched the long-fingered white blossoms delicately, almost reverently, inhaling the heady scent. "What is it? It smells so sweet."

"Night-blooming jasmine," he murmured, taking me in his arms and curving my back against his chest, warmth and love swallowing me. "It only blooms and scents at night. I know how you love to watch the stars, and I thought you'd appreciate the companion."

I lurched towards, feeling heady and almost intoxicated. With trembling fingers I unloosed my camera and readied the shot, kneeling on the frosty street and choosing my frame. A ribbon of orange sunset remained, offsetting the picture I was about to take.

Click.

I rose from my stance, ignorant to my ripped stockings, replacing my camera to its bag. Strangely, irrationally, I felt better. I turned and began walking home with the odd ghost of a smile on my lips.

I barely noticed the tall, messy-haired figure watching me from across the way. But before I even turned to see him clearly, he was gone.

EPOV

I walked into the office, Alice momentarily grinning as she realised I'd followed her advice on clothing. Then their agenda overtook her, and her expression smoothed and glowered at me.

They'd talked at me, long and endless. Starting me a slow introduction summarising the agency's current cases (as if I did not already know) before ever-so-subtle probing of where I was spending my free time.

I tuned out of it, imagining Bella's curls draped over my bed. I could hear her sigh, her scent intoxicating and decadent as it stained my pillow, hips bucking and eyes rolling in the night. Then Jasper's thick, meaty fingers snapped with alarmingly intensity before my vision.

What the fuck? Are we auditioning for Jerry Springer right now?

"What, Jazz," I grumbled, shifting defensively on my seat. Everyone was glaring at me. It was a novel position: usually Emmett was the token fuck-up. "I was listening."

Okay, so I was definitely not listening.

Alice smirked, as if she followed my internal monologue like sheet music. "What were we just talking about, then?"

Shit,. When it doubt, revert to sarcasm. "Sorry, honey, business is reserved for the real detectives." I smirked. "Need to know; you understand."

Alice threw a file at my head. "Ow, Alice, crap! What is your problem?!"

Jasper chimed in then, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "This is exactly what I'm talking about, Edward. You're not yourself anymore. You've been missing time for the past two months. Yeah you're meeting your case load, but you're still absent for long patches of time elsewhere."

"I don't need to account to you for my free time, Jazz. In fact, I don't need to account to you for anything. Need I remind you whose cash founded this agency?"

Jasper ignored that last barb, though his expression darkened. "What the fuck is going on, Edward? Are you seeing someone? I don't see why you're so desperate to hide it - you know we've all be rooting for you to move on since -"

"Don't even say that bitch's name," I growled.

Jasper flinched, inclining his head in the closest approximation to a 'sorry' I would get. "Your private life is your own," he acknowledged, his tone deliberately careful. "We're your friends, your family...but what you do outside the office is your own business."

Alice snorted at this, clearly skeptical that anyone could have private business that would exclude her, but the others ignored her.

"But," Jasper continued, clearly choosing his words carefully, "Your behaviour has started impacting office business."

"Like how?" I spat.

The last trace of sympathy left Jasper's face at my tone. "Like the Crowley case."

I scoffed. "That spoilt bitch had it coming. She wants us to trail her husband to trap his mistress while she bangs the gardener like a nymphomaniac on death row? Give me a break."

Emmett slammed his fist on the table, nearly buckling it beneath his anger. "That's not the point, Edward. Shit! If we were going to make moral judgments on our clients we'd all be out of business. This never used to bother you. What is going on with you?"

I crossed my arms, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. But Emmett wasn't done.

"You sprint out of here every night. You don't answer your phone until midnight and then you claim you're tired with no mention of where the hell you've been. You're always tired, brooding worse than usual and you sometimes stare at your computer like its a demon about to attack you."

The last comment made me flinch slightly. Ever since I learnt Bella's name I'd fought an endless battle with myself. The red-horned avatar on my shoulder enticed me to put her name into the system, to discover her past and her secrets and find out what made her shiver in a cathedral in the early hours of the morning.

I'd compromised with my angelic traveler, convincing myself that if I confined my actions to straightforward stalking (ah, the hypocrisy) and omitted computer digging from my actions, it was somehow okay.

Emmett's tone softened slightly. "We just want to know what's going on with you, man. We just want to help."

Three pairs of concerned eyes pinned me to my chair.

"Nothing is going on with me." I snarled. Lies, all lies. "So why don't you all mind your goddamn business and find another hobby beyond pissing me off. How is that for an office strategy, hmm?"

The three pairs of eyes were now shocked. Sarcastic, superior and subversive they were accustomed to...but outright hostility? Less so. I cursed myself, knowing that not only had I hurt then but I'd also raised their suspicion levels further.

Shit.

"Yes, Edward, congratulations." Pixie sounded pissed, yet unsurprised. "We're all now much more suspicious. Your deflection tactics have flopped, so just give it up already."

Creepy, psychic pixie. Would Jasper really miss her if -

"Yes he would!"

Seriously creepy. How the hell does she know all this shit?

A charged and heavy silence crept between us all. Jasper leaned against the doorway, long and blond and leonine, his eyes never shifting from Alice's figure by the desk. Emmett sat in the lone office chair, his usual joviality replaced with concern and confusion, eyes burrowing into me as if they could read the letters of my betrayal under my skin.

And Alice. Ah, Alice.

She had barely moved since I had came into the office. Thin limbs and furrowed brow, spiked hair and steel eyes. Eyes that had not left me since I arrived.

Eyes that I shifted uncomfortably before, for they were eyes that knew too much. What would she challenge me with now?

I waited, tension thicker than syrup. Then...

"Okay."

Jasper didn't react other than to automatically agree; he was too in tune with his wife to variate from her. To disagree with her. His trust was simultaneously humbling and horrifying.

But Emmett scowled dangerously and whipped his head around. "What the fuck?"

"It's fine, Emmett," Alice spoke. Lowly, dangerously. Firmly. "We'll leave it for now. If Edward has a new hobby, I'm sure he'll reveal it in time."

Too easy. Way to easy. What was Madame Meg the Pixie up to now?

The rest of the office grumbled their acquiescence, shooting me irritated glares but unwilling to bet against Alice. My relief was such that I barely noticed her next sentence.

"...interviews next week. I already put the advertisement in the Tribune, so hopefully the position will be filled within a few days. Everyone okay with that?"

Jane had been fired a few days ago, so I assumed the position was for another admin assistant. I murmured my agreement with Jasper and Emmett.

"Excellent," Alice said, grinning. "I'll be interviewing in the next couple of days."

As she spoke she caught my eye, an unsettling level of knowledge and smug satisfaction there. What was she planning?

Trying to dispel the unease, I headed out on the pretense of getting fresh coffee, ignoring the Columbian bean blend in the freezer.

It was just past nine. I knew Bella would be buying bagels now.

I could feel Alice's laser glare waxing my back as I fled the office.

~ * ~

BPOV

"Mrs. Black?"

The name tore me. I gulped. By some miracle my voice was even as I replied, "It's Ms. Swan, actually."

"Ah." The single syllable spoke volumes. Embarrassed and haltingly attempting sympathy without pity; he failed.

"Ms. Swan, this is Detective Parker with the Seattle PD." He half-coughed, gulping audibly. "Yours and your...husband's case were assigned to me."

There was a pause. What did he expect me to say? Thanks for the homicide? I said nothing.

"Well," he stuttered, clearly uncomfortable. I suddenly realised from his tone and inflection how young he was. "There's been a new development in the case. We believe we've identified both assailants from that night."

I'd expected to feel elated, free, euphoric - but all I said was, "Oh?"

"The DNA sample taken from your husband's...um, person, was matched to a recent arrest in New York of a James Hunter. From your statement and the forensics we are certain that he was the one who fired the gun, and so the DA's office is in the process of getting jurisdiction to indict him for first degree murder in Washington."

I felt oddly numb and my voice was too calm when I asked, "And the other man?"

I heard him swallow, could almost visualise his Adam's apple bobbing down his neck. "The gun used by Hunter was traced to a man named Laurent Vandir, who we believe was the other man from that night. He was a known associate of James Hunter and known to the police for a history of drug use and petty theft before he -"

"Where is he now?"

Dt. Parker paused, and once again I heard the thick glug of saliva as he gulped his nerves down. Ah, the stress of dealing with an irrational and temperamental widow.

"Ms. Swan, it appears that Laurent Vandir is now....deceased."

Dead.

He's dead.

Dt. Parker continued speaking. "From what we've determined, it looks like he died the night of the attack. While fleeing the scene he was hit by a car and never regained consciousness. His life support was cut a week later."

I couldn't speak.

I remembered the blood, so warm along my legs as I held him. The trickle of his life meeting the life fleeing down my thigh in the aftermath.

Blood is so close to skin temperature that the wetness is all you can feel. I remember that knowledge as I cradled my Jake and waited for the ambulance that would never save him. Never save us.

And now I knew it was all for naught. A petty crime, meaningless and empty. A theft destroyed and pointless within minutes of its conception.

I hung up the phone without speaking.

It started to rain again.

~ * ~

After receiving the phone call from Dt. Parker I felt numb. There was no moment of epiphany, the absolution of closure still escaped me.

The detective's words haunted me, taunted me.

He'd died in a car accident. So random, so futile. The thirty bucks he'd taken from us when he stole our lives hadn't even bought him an evening of ecstasy. Instead, he'd ran into the road and his life had been dashed out on the cold streets. Just as he'd destroyed me.

In a way it was worse than if the attack had been the result of a long-carried grudge; at least then there would be some emotion and release. But the confirmation that it was simply pure randomness that produced those events, that shattered me and left me bereft.

I felt emptier than I had before.

My phone vibrated against my thigh, thrill and demanding. I knew without looking it was Rosalie's name on the caller ID. I ignored it, stumbling out from the cathedral and heading to the first fluorescent-lit sign I encountered.

Jeff's Bar.

I stalked through the door, my eyes targeting the bar like a robotic missile. I slipped onto a bar stool, oblivious to the predatory stares around me. The bartender approached, brow arched as he took in my ragged expression, but all he said was, "What are you drinking?"

"Cuervo." My voice was harsh, throaty and almost unrecognisable. "Straight up."

He didn't say a word as he poured two shots, but watched me semi-discretely from the corner of his eye. I knocked back the first shot without hesitation. Wordlessly, he pushed the second glass to me and I devoured that too.

Our eyes met. He still didn't speak, only pouring another shot and sliding across the counter to me. I closed my eyes and the detective's words scratched over my brain. I downed the harsh liquor, relishing the burn and welcoming the oblivion.

"Keep them coming."

Again, he didn't speak, only arched a brow. He reached beneath the counter and pulled out five shot glasses, filling them with a dishevelled style that left ribbons of alcohol dripping across the bar.

All he said was, "You know where I am." He walked away, leaving me to my debauchery.

I welcomed the abandonment, gulping breaths greedily as I forced shot after shot down my lips. The bar stank of cigarettes and loneliness and desperation. When I finished the shots I searched my purse for the bottle of Xanex. Blearily, for the alcohol was thickening my movements, I swallowed three tablets with a tequila chaser.

Time slowed and flowed through me like dark, viscous syrup. Shivers and shudders ghosted over my cheekbones. The burn of the alcohol settled in my stomach, tickling my lower belly and making the ends of my hair tingle. My fingertips were numb as I nodded harshly as the bar tender, who silently poured me more spirit.

My phone buzzed once more. Rosalie. I ignored it.

I had nothing left to say.

The edges of my vision were growing more hazy. In a brief, unexpected moment of clarity I wondered how I would find my way back home, but then had to choke back the bitter sob in my throat.

Home?

There was no home for me.

Not anymore. Perhaps not ever.

I drank and I drank. I smoked cigarettes purloined from opportunist patrons who gambled their luck before they were thankfully scared off by the barman's dark glares. I coughed from the unfamiliar tar in my lungs.

And I drank more.

Eventually, my vision was reduced to a pinprick and I knew I needed to leave. I rose from my bar stool, staggering slightly and gripping the counter for balance.

The bar man was there then, eyes narrowed as he steadied my shoulders with his hand. Despite my extreme level of intoxication I was not afraid of him - the look behind his eyes did not speak of lust or desire, but rather a grimace of saddened recognition. As if he knew who and what I was.

"Let me call you a cab." He paused, and I knew how much the extra word cost him, "Please."

I just shook my head. I would walk home. Stupid and irrational? Yes. Dangerous and possibly symptomatic of my pathological absence of self-preservation? Perhaps.

But I would walk home. I would put my fate in the hands of the night, and what would happen would happen. The fates will take me and I will dance in their despair.

He watched me go with a concerned frown, but was insightful enough to know I would not be dissuaded.

He recognised our mutual pain.

He abandoned me to the night as quickly as I abandoned myself. I staggered through the streets, bleary gaze following familiar landmarks home, fingers tracing rough bricks, wondering if I would make it.

Hoping that I would.

Yet half-hoping I would not. That the night would swallow me too.

~ * ~

A/N Despite the story alerts, I'm not getting much response to this fic. Should I continue?

I'd love to hear what you think, even if it's only brief and lacking inspiration. Please review!

Reviewers get cuddled from Stalkward and swallowed into the night.

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