a/n: Ok, just to warn you, this is un-beta'ed. Proceed at your own risk of reading my atrocious grammar and ninja words.

"It is some time since I have been

to what it was had once turned me

and made my head into

a cruel instrument."

The Hill

Robert Creeley

Journal of Edward Masen
November 22, 2010

Marcus has what humans call "a new lease on life." After centuries wallowing in the soup of his misery after the loss of his mate, he suddenly was reenergized as he enthusiastically planned and negotiated a détente with us.

Carlisle idealistically suggested that there was no need for an organization like the Volturi, that it had simply fed and encouraged Aro's hunger for power, that any such organization couldn't help but abuse it's power.

Alice interjected then and explained what would happen if there were no one to police our kind: immortals would become careless, we would be dangerously exposed, others would attempt to fill the power gap. We managed to convince Carlisle that a governing body and a "police force" of some sort were necessary.

So it was agreed that Caius and Marcus would continue to lead a smaller, less centralized governing body and that one of the Greeks would join them, first Andreas and then Nick when he was a little "older." Carlisle and Alice would join them in making major decisions, something that would necessitate them meeting quarterly and on an ad hoc basis.

Members of the guard who had been forced to join or who no longer wished to serve would be allowed to leave without consequence.

Demitri, surprisingly, chose to return to Italy. He decided that his problem with being a member of the guard had been the lack of freedom and his resentment of Aro. Now that these conditions had been eliminated and he felt he had a role in the coup, like any revolutionary, he felt committed to the cause.

After the negotiations were complete the majority of the guard left Greece, leaving only my family, including Alice and Jasper, the Greeks, Bella, Demitri and Marcus behind. Bella had kept her distance from my family and she and I had been circling around each other's orbits like fighters in a ring for days.

I was behind the ramshackle stone house trying to decide when to make my move and try to speak to Bella when I heard Demitri approach. We had exchanged few words over the last few days but we always spoke to each other with exquisite, awkward gentleness.

He had the weathered pack he had brought with him and he raised a hand to me tentatively. I could hear from his thoughts that he wanted to speak with me and I nodded my acquiescence.

"Edward, I apologize for keeping things from you…I didn't feel like it was…I felt like it was personal, like you would rather not have Nick hear some things." He was examining his perception of me as sheltered and emotionally inexperienced. I shook my head at him.

"I understand. It's awkward, I know. I can't blame you for the fact that she chose to be with you."

Demitri snorted and his face took on an angry, impatient expression as he spoke, shaking his head at me.

"You are deliberately choosing not to understand me. Is it easier for you to pretend not to know?" I looked at him, bewildered.

"Have you any idea what it's like to be with the other half of a mated pair?" he said, frowning. "It's like being in love with a ghost. It's like making love with a woman who's staring over your shoulder looking for someone else."

"You're wrong, Demitri. She's not…"

"Listen, Edward, you don't know anything." He took a second to calm down and began to speak to me again. His voice started out quietly but grew in intensity as he spoke.

"Aro sent Bella and I out together on a job in 1986. He sent Jane and Alec with us to make sure we didn't make any mistakes." Demitri eyed me, making sure I knew he was referring to what had happened in Aspen. "We were in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, following up on a rumor about a large coven."

"A man approached me and asked me if I was interested in art. I told him off and walked away but he said he had a painting of a woman that looked like my girlfriend." I winced at Demiti's casual word. "Girlfriend." What an expression to apply to her.

Demitri looked at me apologetically. "She and I were no longer together…in that way. That had stopped after…after seeing you in Aspen. I was curious so I asked to see his paintings. He explained that he was the great-nephew of an important artist who had died many years before."

"Salvador," I breathed.

"Yes. The paintings had been left with a note that they were a gift for a young man who had rented a house from him in the 1950's. He had expected the young man to come back and he had painted him with his…intended."

I understood then what I had seen in Demitri's head the day before, it was a painting of Bella and I.

"You have to understand, Demitri. That never happened. Bella and I were never... It's just a painting."

Demitri looked at me with irritation and then continued. "I bought the painting from him. I never showed Isabella. Aro knew about it, no doubt, but he never mentioned it." Demitri reached into the dark leather pack and pulled out a tube wrapped in an old piece of fabric. He unwrapped it and slowly unrolled a stiff, painted canvas. It was, as I suspected, the image that I'd seen in Demitri's head.

It was Bella and I, reclining together in a forest or jungle, surrounded by green. She lay in between my legs with her head and shoulders on my chest and my hands were tangled up in her long, dark hair. We looked…peaceful and intimate in a way that were had never been. I experienced a sharp feeling of longing in my empty chest.

"It isn't real," I said to him flatly, not taking my eyes off the canvas.

"I'm not saying that she's in love with you or you her. I'm saying that I saw this and it all made sense. The things that she did when you were around. The way she acted when you and Carlisle visited in the fifties, the girl in San Francisco."

My mind went back to Bella's predatory kiss with a dazed flower child in a room full of dancing and music and smoke. I looked at him, confused.

"Bella doesn't feed on young girls. Ever. I couldn't figure out why she would pretend that she was going to kill that girl." I stared at him.

"And this," he said, pulling an old, slim tie out of the bag. It was black silk with blue flecks. Esme had bought it for me in New York in the late forties.

"Bella had it," he says to my questioning eyes. "Isabella doesn't have anything and she had this. She has a few items of clothing. She refuses to keep anything else. I've given her jewelry; she's refused to take it or she's given it away. Aro gave her books and she burned them. But she had this." I took the tie from him and stared down at it.

"It's yours, isn't it?" I nodded. "I don't think you two are in love with each other," he repeated. "I don't even think you know who she is. I know her better than you do. But I think that you are her mate and she is yours. I don't know why she did any of this but maybe she'll tell you. Or maybe that little psychic will. I know Alice has something to do with it. But you'll have to stop her from going back to Italy."

"She's going back to Italy?" My mood blackened at his words. I guess, without acknowledging it I had hoped that she would stay here, that I would have a chance to talk with her. Resigned, I said to Demitri: "Well, if she still wants to be part of the guard, that's her right." Demitri shook his head at me and I saw his response in his head before he spat it at me.

"She's not going back to be part of the guard. She asked Marcus to destroy her."

"What?" I couldn't let this happen.

"He argued feebly but who wants to have someone around who…you saw how she turned on Aro. She bided her time for sixty years while pretending to be his loyal pet. As thankful as Marcus is he can't trust her. He only told me out of sympathy." Demitri's eyes pleaded with me.

I got up to go, to try to catch her. But I couldn't help but turn and ask one more question.

"Why did you tell me all this?" I gestured to the painting, the tie.

"If I have a mate out there, I would want someone to do the same." He shrugged. "And just because she couldn't love me doesn't mean that I don't love her."

I nodded and murmured my thanks as I made my way back into the house. I glanced around the rooms quickly, increasing my speed as I made my way through the old house with no sign of her.

I encountered Alice in the big front room we had first made the Greeks' acquaintance. She made eye contact with me and gestured towards the front of the house, the broken stone circle where we had confronted the Volturi.

I broke into a run, only slowing as I saw Bella making her way towards the road, halfway across the circle. I could tell from her minute change in posture that she knew I was there but she didn't stop or turn around.

"Bella," I said, my voice sounding more commanding than I felt I had a right to be.

She took one more step and then stopped, stiffly, still not turning around. I caught up to where she was.

I walked around her until I was facing her, positioned between her and the exit. She refused to look at me, staring into the distance with her jaw tensing.

"Where are you going?" I said, my surprise coming out in my voice. I hated to expose this weakness to her but it slipped out.

"I don't belong to you," she said, monotone, refusing to look at me. I still couldn't read her mind but her words lacked conviction.

"Lies," I said. She looked at me furiously.

"I don't want you!" she spat. I reached out and grabbed her chin so she couldn't look away.

"You're lying," I said, looking down at her. She practically trembled with fury under my fingers.

She reached up and grabbed my biceps, pushing me away from her path. She was so much smaller than me and weakened by what was probably hunger that she wouldn't have been able to budge me had I resisted. I let her move me, however, but quickly stepped back into place, wrapping my arms around her to contain her.

She fought me, again trying to throw me off. This time she pushed me farther and tried to make for the opening at the far side of the circle.

I caught her immediately from behind but she ducked down and tossed me over her. I landed easily on my feet. When I approached her again she reached for me and tried to dig her fingers into my neck. I tossed her off balance and away but she flew much further than I had intended, rolling and hitting the stone wall to our side.

I moved to her immediately, thinking that she would leap back up and try to get away but she was clearly jarred by the impact and it took her longer than I expected to get her feet under her. Her eyes were black with hunger and she seemed…exhausted.

We locked together again when she was on her feet and this time we both gripped each other closely and tumbled together several times over, like fighting cats, her teeth and fingers trying to tear into me. I tried to hold her close without hurting her or allowing her to hurt me too much. I know at one point her teeth dug into my cheekbone and I tasted the skin of her upper arm under my mouth as I struggled to restrain her.

There were shreds of clothing littering the ground and we were covered in dirt and disheveled from our struggles when she got away from me again and regained her footing. She tried to escape again but I caught her after a few feet and spun her around to face me. She looked feral and desperate

She stood, gripping my sides as if to try to attack or to throw me again. She seemed poised to tear into me, the tension radiating off her straining arms. And then, suddenly, the resistance left her arms and she collapsed into me, going limp against my chest. Then her knees seemed to give out and she slumped to the ground.

I dropped with her to my knees and wrapped my arms around her again. Her face was buried in my chest and she trembled, using every bit of strength she had to cling to me. She seemed exhausted and demoralized, starved and battered. She had given up.

After six decades, Bella Swan had finally stopped fighting me.

a/n pt deux: My eternal thanks to Liz3615 for pre-reading this. You should probably thank her, too. This was originally twice as long but the second part, where Bella resumes her story, was apparently did not give off the romantic, optimistic tone I was hoping for. I don't want to break anyone's hearts so I'll post it when it meets with her approval! Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu