I don't own anything New Moon/Twilight *sniffle*

So sorry to keep you all waiting so long, but now I'm on break so I'm going to work faster I promise! Don't worry, it's coming along!

Enjoy this chapter! Review por favor!


I So Do Not Need Stiches!

Yeah, that whole thing about everyone not being calm except for Carlisle is so not true.

Everyone was scary calm, staring at me with eyes just like in my dream, sort of. They weren't completely evil like in my dream, but it was close enough and it was freaky! It reminded me of the calm that my mom gets at time when she really wants to be scary. This was like intense mom scary calm. No one moved, breathed, batted an eyelash, nothing! It was absolutely maddening!

Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, Edward, and Angel were all creeping me out to the max. They just kept on…staring…What…do…I…do…?

The only thing I could do was pick myself up from the ground since no one else made any moves to help me.

Okay, I moved a centimeter, no not even a centimeter, like a millionth of a centimeter and everyone erupted!

Jasper's eyes were still wild with thirst as he launched himself in my direction, but was swung back by his feet into one of the trees by none other than Emmett in his giant teddy bear costume.

I chocked back a laugh since it wasn't really the time or situation to be laughing, but come on, he was dressed as a giant teddy bear! A giant teddy bear sumo wrestling! Ava and Edward both sent me incredulous looks, and suddenly I was swept up in a blur of purple fabric and pale hands.

Edward set me down on the kitchen table with Carlisle and Ava standing nearby. Suddenly Alice came around the corner with a first aid kit and a washrag. Angel was suddenly in the room with his arms tucked around Ava, who was chocking out tearless sobs. "Ava, you can leave if my leg oozing is too much for you. I understand." She's still a newborn no matter how many times she's told herself that human blood doesn't smell good. I guess she's upset that her control isn't all that great.

She rolled her eyes at me before moving around a growling Edward to give me a hug. "So not the problem, Sarah!" Whoa, she reverted back to my other name. "I'm perfectly in control, Edward, stop freaking out! I'm upset I couldn't stop Jasper! My powers don't work anymore and you could have been killed out there!" She sobbed into my shoulder. She hardly ever cries, but when she does, she really falls apart. With the ways she's going, she might just be the first vampire who cries actual tears.

"Ava, don't worry about it. No harm done except some scrapes on my hands and knee, nothing out of the ordinary." I sent Angel a look so the he'd help me out too. I really don't need a newborn vampire, despite her being my best friend, being this close to an open wound. I'm still careful when I need to be. And with Edward's emotional state probably being in a whirlwind, I'm not going to push him any further.

Ava looked up to me and whispered, very intensely, "He's not going anywhere," before going back outside with Angel. Okay, good news! Bad news, she's afraid her 'powers' don't work. How's she going to make him stay?

Carlisle was looking over my scraped knee and his golden eyebrows creased unhappily. "I think you've got some gravel embedded in the wound, Bella. I'm going to have to use tweezers to get them out. Alice, could you go get my bag, that is, assuming you want me to get these out here and not at the hospital, correct Bella?"

"Correct-a-mundo, Carlisle. I'm not going to die if I have rocks inside of me, am I? You know, just to make Ava feel better." She yelled something incoherent from outside. It sounded like she stopped crying and now was very mad. At me. At least my sarcasm is good for something. Although, it may not help everyone…Edward was standing about as stiff as anyone, human or vampire, could. "Edward, if this is making you uncomfortable..."

His eyes were emotionless, not a good sign. "I'm fine." Alice came back with Carlisle's bag while he poured disinfectant over my knee. I cringed at the burn and unconsciously squeezed Edward's hand. "It's okay, Bella, it'll just sting for a minute." He soothed in my ear. It was soothing enough not to shoo him out of the room. If I left him alone for just a minute, he could come up with the plan to leave. Plus I've got to make sure Alice doesn't get to sneak out of the room either…

"I know, I've been through this before. Are you sure you're okay?" His eyes had turned pretty much coal black with a little gold edging. Even when he's thirsty and his eyes are black, they're usually molten onyx. Now they look like rock-hard stones.

"I can handle it." His grip on my hand tightened the same time Carlisle used the tweezers to grab the first piece of gravel. I had to squeeze Edward's hand so hard to stop myself from screaming. I'd fallen and done the same thing with the gravel before, but doggone, it didn't hurt this much in my memory.

More blood oozed out when Carlisle got the first rock out, causing Alice to run out of the room. "Alice! Come back!" No! If she leaves the room, I won't see her for another like six months!

"Calm down, Bella, I'm just getting a rag for a tourniquet just in case you need one." Alice calmly walked back into the room. Her face was pretty much blank. She's probably worried about Jasper. Or she's worried I'm mad at her because I specifically instructed her to make sure that Jasper was in complete control, but I'm not. I don't know what it is about Fate, but I think it hates me! Fate is hell-bent on making Edward leave. I didn't do a thing to Fate and now it just really hates me anyway.

Carlisle quickly tied the rag around my calf which made the blood in my leg stop flowing so quickly. Edward's eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of his head. He just kept staring at my knee. He's going to lose it soon, but I don't want him to get any ideas to go. But if he doesn't get out of the room, he'll probably start licking my leg. "Alice? Will you please watch Edward for a few minutes? Outside?" Since she knows very well what Edward could be thinking, she'll keep him from getting any bright ideas.

"Come on, Edward, she'll be fine. Carlisle won't hurt her." Alice grabbed his arm and tried to lead him out of the room, but he shook her off.

"I'll stay here." I don't think he's taken a breath since I started falling. Which reminds me, I don't I have either. Maybe that's why I felt like Emmett was sitting on my chest.

"Go on, Romeo, I promise, I won't be dead when you get back." I'm starting to feel underappreciated in the sarcasm department. No one even laughed a little. Bummer, you'd think they would since it's my birthday.

"Edward, you may as well go find Jasper before he gets too far. I'm sure he's upset with himself, and I doubt he'll listen to anyone but you right now." Carlisle threw in, as expected.

"But come back," I had to say. "I may need to squeeze your hand again." Please, crack a smile, someone! I may just go into a depression if someone doesn't even smirk.

"You might as well do something useful. Ava tried to talk to Jasper, but the fact that she's a newborn and was able to resist made him even more revolted by himself. Let's go talk to him before he does something drastic." Edward allowed himself to be led out this time by Alice. Before she turned the corner she mouthed I'll keep the thought out of his head. She'd better…

Carlisle and I were all alone now. He'd finally gotten five little pebbles out of my leg, which felt completely numb now from the pressure in the tourniquet. "Well, I can sure clear a room." I tried to break the silence with the only thing I could think to use.

"It's not your fault. It could happen to anyone." He chuckled. Sweet relief, someone finally laughed!

"Yeah, mostly clowns and toddlers who are having trouble walking. Most normal people don't usually fall over while walking with a group of vampires surrounding them and scrape their knee and get gravel embedded into said knee. That sort of thing only happens to me…" Carlisle just laughed at my joke as he cleaned the area around the scrape which seemed to be a little deep to be just a scrape. "Jeez, why did this have to happen?" I thought I was going to start crying sitting here alone with Carlisle.

"Bella, calm down, it's not your fault. Really. It's no one's fault." He tried to console me with his doctor-ly charms.

I needed a change of subject. Stat. Alright, it's time for a little Bella-Carlisle heart to heart. "Kind of like you becoming a vampire wasn't really anyone's fault?"

He smiled. "Right, and just like everything in life, I just had to decide what to do with what I was given."

"Out of curiosity, why did you think of some other way to live other than the traditional one?"

"Haven't you both heard and read the story?"

"Yeah, but neither Stephanie Meyer nor Edward could tell me what you were thinking at the time that everything happened." Not entirely true, but we're moving on.

"You know my father was a clergyman," he put the finishing touches on my knee, sticking a huge bandage across it, "he had a rather harsh view of the world, which I was already beginning to question before the time that I changed." He jumped around the table to the counter, where he pulled something out of a large bag in the cabinet. When he jumped back towards me, he held out a lollipop, you know, the kind that doctors always give to kids after they had their yearly checkups. "Anyway, I didn't agree with my father's particular brand of fait. But never, in the nearly four hundred years now since I was born, have I ever seen anything to make me doubt whether God exists in some form or the other. Not even the reflection in the mirror."

"You guys are lucky that real vampires are able to see their reflections. I mean, think of all the bad hair days you could have and not know anything about them!" I was feeling a little more upbeat now. I guess talking about Carlisle's past was keeping my mind away from the present danger of losing Edward.

Carlisle laughed before continuing. "Yes, a very good thing in Edward's case. But back to what I was saying, I'm hoping that there is still a point to this life, even for us. It's a long shot, I'll admit. By all accounts, we're damned regardless. But I hope, maybe foolishly, that we'll get some measure of credit for trying."

"You know, Carlisle, I have a theory about all of that. I think, by some measure at least, that you guys are already in heaven. Metaphorically, at least. I mean, what I think about heaven is that I'll be surrounded by all the people who love me and that I'll have the true love that I always dreamed about forever. So, my theory is, that vampires are waiting for their soul mates, but once they find them, like you and Esme, you're allowed to stay and live with them forever here. Silly, I know, but I'm trying to figure it all out. But I totally agree with what you said, there's no way any of you guys don't have souls. "

Carlisle nodded appreciatively. "I can see where you're coming from, I suppose. You know, you're the first one to agree with me."

"What?!? How could Alice or Esme or even Emmett believe that they're soulless? Or Ava and Angel for that matter? And what about Edward?" My darling Edward had a soul! He gave it straight to me!

"Edward agrees with me to up to a point. God and heaven exist…and so does hell. But he doesn't believe there is an afterlife for our kind." Pssh, Edward, of course there is. I fully expect when the end of the world comes around to still be with Edward up in heaven. No questions asked.

"That's why he doesn't want me to become a vampire, right? He thinks my soul would be gone?"

"I look at my…son. His strength, his goodness, the brightness that shines out of him—and it only feeds that hope, that faith, more than ever. How could there not be more for one such as Edward?" I didn't interrupt. "But if I believed as he does…If you believed as he did. Could you take away his soul?"

"No." Darn, I sound dejected. I am dejected. Jeez, I sound like Edward whenever I trip and he's not around to catch me. "But it's my choice."

"It's his, too. Whether he is responsible for doing that to you."

"He wouldn't do it. But I know at least three other vampires who would."

I just scared the crap out of Carlisle. Like really, I think he's about to go into shock. Since I said three, he's probably thinking that I meant the Volturi. "Three?"

"Yes! You, Ava, and Alice, of course." Ava would if I went and asked her right now. Alice, probably not, but she knew that I considered her an option.

"Oh, no! You're going to have to work this out with him. That's the only part I can never be sure of. I think, in most other ways, that I've done the best I could with what I had to work with. But was it right to doom others to this life? I can't decide."

"I'm glad you did. I would have never met…" I don't think Carlisle even heard me. He's looking back into the past to the night when he changed Edward. Just the thought of Edward lying almost dead somewhere in Chicago still gives me the creeps.

"It was Edward's mother who made up my mind." Elizabeth Masen has been and will forever be my hero. She kept Edward alive long enough for Carlisle to change him. If it hadn't been for here I wouldn't have ever met Edward either.

"Elizabeth, right?"

"Yes. Her name was Elizabeth. Elizabeth Masen. His father, Edward Senior, never regained consciousness in the hospital. He died in the first wave of the influenza. But Elizabeth was alert until almost the very end. Edward looks a great deal like her—she had that same strange bronze shade to her hair, and her eyes were exactly the same color green. Elizabeth worried obsessively over her son. She hurt her own chances of survival trying to nurse him from her sickbed. I expected he would go first, he was so much worse off than she was. When the end came for her, it was very quick. It was just after sunset, and I'd arrived to relieve the doctors who'd been working all day. That was a hard time to pretend—there was so much work to be done, and I had no need for rest. How I hated to go back to my house, to hide in the dark and pretend to sleep while so many were dying."

I was hardly registering what he said anymore. I suddenly pictured myself walking through a long row of beds with people dying all around me. Then I spotted Carlisle next to a bed with a woman on it. She looked so startlingly like Edward I thought it was him for like a second until I told myself it was his mom. "Save him!" She said to Carlisle, who looked exactly as he always did.

"I'll do everything in my power." I looked around for any sign of Edward, but I guess my daydream didn't have any further scope than Carlisle and Elizabeth Masen.

"You must! You must do everything in your power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward." Then she passed out. I need to be more creative than that in my daydreams because I don't think she just keeled over like I just imagined. Carlisle in my daydream walked over to another bed now. This one had Edward in it. Carlisle glanced at him for about a minute before wheeling him and his now-dead mother what I'm guessing my mind conjured up to be a morgue. Then he jumped out of the window, probably to wherever my mind thought his house was.

"Bella?" A strong voice right next to me jerked me back into the present. Carlisle was watching me curiously.

"Huh?" What a stupid response! I must sound like a mental patient.

"Are you okay? You looked pretty zoned out there for a minute."

"Oh, yeah, I'm just…umm, just…thinking about what you said. About Edward and his mom. I could almost picture it."

He looked relieved. I must have really scared him for a minute. Hell, I was scared myself. I thought I was going to conjure up some twisted scene when Edward got turned. I don't think that would have been too pleasant a sight. "I suppose I should take you home now."

"I'll do that." Edward swept back into the room. I hope he wasn't mad that Carlisle and I were basically chatting about his life story. If he could read my mind, he'd be able to tell there wasn't much listening on my end. Alice came in too and was glaring at me like suddenly everything was my fault.

"Sure. Alice? Are you okay? Or should I just beg for you not to hurt me?"

She still looked pretty mad at me, but her entire face fell as she looked down at my ensemble. "You. Got. Blood. On. That. Dress."

I looked down at the skirt of the dress, but I didn't see any blood on it. "Are you sure? I don't see any…"

She flipped up the skirt to show one single tiny drop on the inside of the hem. "See? Look at that! The whole thing is ruined now. I guess it's a good thing Ava and I made more than one."

"Alice!"

She smiled and started to lead me upstairs. "Come on, I nabbed some PJs for you to change into before you went home. I figured my special present was that you could be comfy on your ride home." I looked back towards Edward, but he wouldn't meet my eye. She rushed me upstairs and basically yanked my dress off before I even registered it was off. I flung on my favorite sweatshirt that she had so graciously got for me, along with super warm and comfy sweatpants.

"Alice? Did you keep the thought, you know, out?"

She frowned and looked like she was about to cry. "I don't know! I tried, Bella, believe you me, I tried! Ava too! But we'll keep trying, I promise. We'll definitely see you tomorrow at school, just so you know."

"Okay, but don't completely abuse Jasper. He's okay, isn't he?"

"I think you already know the answer to that. He'll be fine, though, he's just going to have to hang around the house away from you for a little while. Come on, let's go. You've got to make sure your problem doesn't get any worse."

Alice gave me a hug before I left with Edward, but I couldn't find Angel or Ava anywhere around. They probably went on an emergency hunting trip or something. Esme was spraying off the driveway when Edward led me around to my truck, which Alice had driven me in despite the fact that she practically hates it along with the fact that she's already yearning for her yellow Porsche. Esme and Carlisle gave me quick hugs as did Emmett, still in his very special costume. Everyone kept looking over at Edward, who had become a bit impassive as he walked me out. I still smirked and left the red ribbon on my dash board for my new stereo.

Edward pulled out of the driveway faster than my truck would usually allow. Even my truck is trying to make me get away from Edward faster. Well, I'm just going to have to make the most of my time then. "Not that I don't love sitting in awkward silence, but I'd rather hear your voice. It is my birthday after all. I should be getting special treatment, unless the whole silence thing is the special treatment in which case I would say screw my birthday. Talk to me."

"What do you want me to say?" Oh crap, detached voice. Not good. Okay, resort to the 'love' card.

"That you don't completely hate me for being so damn clumsy."

Good, a flicker of life—one that contained mad flecks, sad flecks, and a little loving tenderness that I was aiming for. "Bella, I could never hate you. You know that."

I sounded more vulnerable than I wanted to. "Do I? I mean, you don't seem that happy to be around me right now. Just look me in the eye and tell me you love me. It'll make me feel better."

We'd stopped in front of the house now. He got out quickly and ran around to the other side to open my door. When he did let me out, he stepped right in front of me and locked his now-molten eyes with mine. "I'll always love you, my Bella. Forever, don't forget that." Finally! I got some good emotion! And total blackmail if he even tries to leave me!

"I won't," I also think I'll borrow one of Kristen Stewart's lines, "can I ask for something?" He grinned a crooked smile and nodded. "Kiss me?" I even raised my eyebrow just like her, which caused Edward to crack up.

Thank goodness, he complied. The only thing that bothered me slightly was how passionate he got. He usually broke away as soon as I started gripping his hair, but once I did this time he just pulled me closer and started kissing me with more enthusiasm. Not that I entirely objected, but I knew what all that meant. I meant I was going to fail.

I broke away before things could really take a turn for the worst. "You are going to hang around, aren't you stalker?" I think it's become a habit to call him that. Not that I actually believed he was stalking me. Well, okay, if you really wanted to categorize him hanging around in my bedroom watching me sleep, I guess you could call it stalking. But I totally keep the window open so that he can come in the room. So I'm a willing stalkee.

"I should go home."

"I don't think so. It is my birthday after all. Alice has Jasper covered, so I think you should stay right where you are."

He sighed, the happy moment gone. Great, now I have to get back to work on cheering him up. "Alright, but I'll take your gifts upstairs. See you up there." He disappeared into the forest.

Uncle Charlie was watching some game when I got inside, along with Seth. Sue was probably already asleep and Leah was most likely moping around in her room. It's only gotten worse since I've gotten here. She hardly ever wants to come out and all because of Sam. She's never told me directly about it, but I wasn't going to freak her out by telling her or Seth about the whole Twilight thing. "You have fun, Bells?" Uncle Charlie asked me.

"Yeah, Alice and Av-I mean, Lizzie went all out for my birthday. I brought some cake back for you guys, too." I still have problems with calling Ava by her fake name. I especially have a hard time doing it whenever I talk to my mom on the phone about what's been going on with the Cullens. But Uncle Charlie or Seth didn't notice.

Seth perked up. "Cake? Let me at it." He'd gotten even taller over the summer. I'm not entirely sure when he was going to turn into a werewolf, but I guess having Edward around in the same house with Seth might be making the process go a little faster. That's probably not good.

I handed him the whole thing that Alice had given me, just because I didn't want him to practically attack me. "Alright, I've had too much fun for one night. I'm going to bed. Night all!"

"Night, Bella." Uncle Charlie and Seth chorused, not taking their eyes off the TV. I was still shaking my head as I walked upstairs to my room. Edward was sitting on my bed, of course, but looking like he was quite conflicted with something.

"Contemplating how to save the declining economy, Edward?"

He smiled, but this one didn't reach his eyes, which weren't molten anymore. Crap! "Hi."

"Hello. Are you going to act completely depressed all night or are you going to be happy for my birthday? Come on, Edward, please don't be so upset about tonight. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, except perhaps gravity's, but it'll hardly own up to it."

He looked mad all of a sudden. What did I do? "Enough sarcasm for tonight. It's making me feel even more disgusted with myself that you can just shrug it off." Snippy!

I ignored the fact that if Sue or Leah were awake that they could probably hear Edward and me arguing. "Well, what would you rather me do? Yell at you that I never want to see you again because I tripped. I think not. Don't be so ridiculous."

"Ridiculous? I would rather have you upset at me than not at all." He stood up now that he was getting more and more angry at me.

"Really? You want upset? Well, you got it! Now I'm mad you're going to blow this whole thing completely out of proportion! It's not a big deal!"

He was practically growling now, but then again, so was I. "Stop, please. Bella, you don't understand. What if you were with some of your other friends? What if you tripped and scraped your knee somewhere else? Even if you did get rocks embedded into the wound, the worst that could have happened was that you got blood on Mike Newton's car. You could have squeezed his hand while the doctors in the emergency room pulled them out and he wouldn't be fighting the urge to kill you the whole time he was there."

"Mike Newton, really?!? Just the thought of having to hold his clammy hand is making my stomach roll. Honestly, Edward, what is going on in your head?"

"I thought of him because he would be a hell of a lot healthier for you to be with." We were standing inches apart now. As our argument got more and more heated, the closer we got. So, I really couldn't help it that as soon as he was two inches away from me I started staring at his perfect lips, hoping he would kiss me again. I'm only human, after all.

"I don't think so. He might have let me bleed out on the floor if I'd fallen in front of him. Besides, he's no you. Now, knock it off before I start disciplining you! I swear, sometimes you're just so…"

He was staring down at me too, just like he was thinking along the same lines as I was. With the whole kissing thing, I mean. His eyes seemed to soften just a bit, though, and he whispered to me, "so what?"

I quickly compiled a list of every word I could think of that could describe Edward Cullen. "Amazingly masochistic, stubborn, protective, prone to overreaction, and all around annoying! But also completely charming, loveable, and sweet."

He completely stopped being mad. His eyes were dancing with amusement. "So my faults outweigh my redeeming qualities, do they?"

"Well, I could add such an amazing kisser that my knees always threaten to go weak to the good list, but you'd have to prove it to me." I wrapped my arms around his neck. This argument has suddenly taken a very good turn. Now he's not so mad, but actually looking happy again. But there's still the ever-present look in his eyes that scream he's thinking about what to do. Ava and Alice better be behind me on this one.

He actually cracked another smile, too. "Fine, I will prove it to you, and then I think it's time that you go to sleep. Remember we do have school tomorrow." He kissed me again with that over-zealous intensity that I was unaccustomed to. And again, I didn't mind it; it just made me feel like I needed to work harder and harder towards my goal. The goal that's going to keep me going for the next few days. I just have to keep repeating it over and over in my head.

Edward is worth fighting for. Even if it meant that I would be fighting him himself.


Ahhh! Not really a cliff, but still the tension is rising! Hope you liked it, review it even if you didn't!

Preview for the end…

"Come for a walk with me," he grabbed my hand, heading for the forest behind the house. Oh, no, no, no, no! I can't! This can't be happening! I thought everything was working out so well! NO!

We were about halfway into the forest before I pulled my hand away from him. "Actually, I don't think I'm in the mood to go on a walk." I turned around running back towards the house.

"Bella, we're leaving." I stopped running.