You guuuuuuuys! I'm really happy that so many of you have made this story your favorite and/or added it to you alerts… which is why you get another chapter!

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"I should really learn to just shut the fuck up," I grumbled. I huffed as we stood at the door of the girl's apartment. Alice was fumbling through the messenger bag until she unearthed a set of keys with a weird-ass keychain in the shape of an old-school Nintendo controller.

"Seriously?" Alice held the keychain away from her as if in disgust. Both of us turned to look at the quiet girl standing behind us. She was fiddling with a tie-dye print scarf, returning our stare quizzically.

It had been another ordeal getting her into the Porsche. She only acquiesced when I squeezed into the backseat with her, blindfolded, and held her hand on the ride over to her apartment.

I couldn't have felt more like a fucking stalker. I had casually mentioned to Alice about the existence of the messenger bag, just lying uselessly on the floor of the girl's room. Her eyes lit up and she immediately tore through its contents, pulling out a regular brown wallet. She yanked a driver's license and proceeded to explain her plan.

With Jasper's blessing, we were about to break into the girl's apartment, in the hopes that being in her own home environment would finally trigger her memories and her present life consciousness.

"It's not breaking in… not technically. She does live there," Alice had argued.

"No, this girl, Isabella Swan lived—lives—there. She is a completely different person." I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I swear, the little pixie was going to make me go prematurely bald.

"Since when do you care so much about the Crazy Chick, as you so wittily call her?" she said hotly, shaking the messenger bag in front of my face.

I ripped it out of her hand, and everything had come spilling out. I threw the contents back in hastily, only barely noticing what I was holding: some tissues, loose receipts, a few coins, keys, the wallet (sans license), dead cell phone, purple iPod, and a notebook thing with thick leather covers. My hands paused over that last item; for some reason, my fingers itched to rifle through its pages. I shook my head and tossed it into the bag.

So that was how we came to stand in the threshold of the girl's apartment. Alice had managed to turn the key in the lock and pushed the door in. We lingered at the doorway, peering inside timidly. The girl still wavered behind us, not even slightly curious as to what was beyond the door.

The air smelled slightly stale from having been shut in. It was an oddly comforting scent, like warm cookies, vanilla, and flowers I couldn't identify. It was relatively neat, though I appreciated how none of the furnishings in the living room really matched. Yet they seemed to belong together; maybe it was simply the color palette, soothing and cool.

Alice stepped inside with a bit more purpose, making her way into the kitchen. There were a few dishes on the draining rack, and not much else. I turned to take the girl's hand and led her into the apartment. She followed easily enough, looking about her in mild interest.

But no mind-blowing revelatory trigger or anything. Shit.

"Alice!" I hissed. She was busy poking her head into all of the doors and cabinets. She didn't even falter in her stride towards the bedroom.

"Edward, chill. Even if she found out about this later, I really don't think she'd mind. We are trying to help her, after all." Alice pulled a door open and found herself facing a tiny linens cupboard. The bedroom door was next.

I let go of the girl's hand as something caught my eye. It had to be the biggest fucking collection of DVDs known to man. I walked over to it as though hypnotized. I trailed my fingers over the titles. It was such an eclectic taste. I caught glimpses of chick flicks like The Lake House tucked in amongst fuckawesome movies like Shaun of the Dead. Hell, there was even a copy of Fight Club. It was like Isabella was a girl after my own—

"Donde estamos?" Her voice broke through my thoughts and I whirled around. She stood in the middle of the living room, gazing at the small TV set in the corner. I remembered what Alice had told me about the 'tiny people in a box' comment and I snickered.

"You live here," I told her, stepping closer. "Alice?" I called out.

"What?" she replied, appearing around the corner to join us.

"Snoop much?" Alice gave me the finger. "She wants to know where we are. I told her that she lives here."

"You understood what she said?" Alice asked, confused.

"Uh, I did?" I said, taken aback. I went over her words to me in my head, and my answer. Fuck. I'd understood her. I'd even answered her question, although not in Spanish.

"Well. Interesting." Alice coughed and turned on her heel, heading to the back of the apartment. I grabbed Isabella's hand and pulled her with me behind my sister.

We entered her bedroom. I immediately felt strangely uncomfortable, getting to see what was often a very private part of a person's life. A bedroom could reveal so much about someone. Alice seemed to think along the same lines.

She started opening drawers and pawing through the clothes and shit she found there.

"Alice, it's like you're looking for drugs or something," I snorted. She ignored me and instead yanked out the bureau drawer next to the bed.

I felt the girl release my hand and she wandered about the bedroom as though in a trance. The long skirt Alice had dressed her in grazed the floor, airy and light. She went to the window, parting the curtains aside for a moment. It was almost as though she were expecting to find something… anything. But she didn't speak.

There were a few picture frames on the dresser. I picked them up, noticing the first one held two people about the same age as my own parents. The man in the picture held an obvious resemblance to Isabella; he was there in the curls and color of her hair. The expression on the woman's face was more akin to hers. It was then I remembered Jasper's retelling of her case—her parents had died long ago.

I set the frame back gently on the dresser. I was about to take another picture in my hands when the girl beat me to it. She held the image with shaking hands, and I leaned in closer to look at it properly.

There were three people in the photo. One was Isabella, and there was the woman from the hospital… Angela. The third person was a man, Asian, with wire-rimmed glasses who had one arm around each girl. As I tried to put my nose to the glass in order to better read the girl's expression, a trembling hand touched the picture.

The girl put her finger on top of her image, and the expression on her face was hard to decipher. She looked shaken, distraught even.

"Alice, shit, come here!" I grabbed the tops of Isabella's shoulders and dragged her back to the bed. She looked faint.

"Qué pasa?" Alice peered into the girl's face, noting the pallor that had seeped into her lips.

"Soy yo." I remembered her words from my studio—'it's me'. What I didn't immediately grasp was why she was so fucking scared of her own image.

"Sí, eres tú. Ella es tu amiga, Angela." Alice pointed to the woman. "Ella te acompañó en el hospital, recuerdas?"

"Pero es que yo no… quién pintó este retrato? Por qué estoy aquí? No recuerdo haber hecho esto!" Her voice sounded frustrated, but I did not understand a word of Spanish this time around.

"Alice, what is it?" I asked urgently. I sat next to Isabella on the bed, putting my hand lightly on her shoulder. She didn't seem to shrink away from the contact.

"She asked who painted the portrait—picture. She wants to know why she's in it, since she doesn't remember being there at all." Alice's voice sounded defeated.

I knew she had been really hoping that being back at her apartment, her home, would really be the key to bringing this girl Isabella Swan back. But if she didn't even recognize herself in a fucking picture… we were running out of ideas.

"Quiero irme a casa. Quiero a E—quiero a mi príncipe," Isabella sniffled. Shit, she was crying now. Alice translated for me: she wanted to go home, and she wanted her prince.

Her prince. Right. The girl—the 400-year-old princess—was engaged to a prince. Fuck this.

I suddenly wondered if there was a time limit on this thing. What if we couldn't bring her back, and she never remembered who she really was? I asked Alice this as we left Isabella's apartment.

"I really don't want to know, Edward. But we have to keep trying." Now her tone was fierce. Alice blindfolded the girl before stepping out into the burning sunshine. We put her into the backseat and I crawled in after her, trying to give her as meager comfort as I could by holding her hand again.

We were almost at the house when I spoke. "Alice, I want to read Isabella's notebook," I said, looking at her in the rearview mirror to gauge her reaction.

"Edward, I don't—" she cut herself off abruptly. She raised her damn eyebrow at me. "Isabella? What happened to Crazy Chick? To the girl?"

I turned to the woman sitting next to me. Her back was tense, held rigid as she tried not to topple over in the lurching car. The blindfold protected her from the outside world for the short ride. And an unbidden thought rose in my mind—I want to be the one to protect her.

And the girl—Isabella—held my hand a little tighter.

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Oh, you know Edward is going to read that notebook. Good things coming up, though sadly this is not a lemon kind of story. For that, I highly rec "Clipped Wings and Inked Armor" by hunterhunting. It's drawing to a close but so awesome it inspired me to get my 4th tattoo. Yeah, it's that good. So please, pimp me out to your friends. The more reviews, the faster I'll post the next chapter. Thanks for reading!