It was the summer of 1860. Abraham Lincoln had not yet been elected president, but the popular opinion was that he would win the election. When that happened, seven states would secede from the Union in the three months afterward, setting in motion a war that would tear families, friends, and the nation itself, apart.

But though those threats lingered in the foreseeable future, Edward Cullen had spent the first year at West Point hearing of his friend Jasper Whitlock's home on a cotton plantation in Texas. When Jasper invited him to stay for the first few weeks of summer, despite being a Northerner - Chicago born and bred - Edward hadn't hesitated.

The South was definitely a whole other world. Edward was used to the hustle and bustle of the city where even he - the son of a well to do doctor who lived on a large lot - could look out the window and see three to four of his neighbors' homes. The buggy ride from the train station in Houston to Jasper's family's plantation took them through the countryside. Signs indicating what property belonged to whom were sometimes spaced half an hour apart. It was several miles of tree lined road leading up from the entrance of the Whitlock plantation to the front door of the house. And that was just the beginning.

The boys had been home for only a couple days when Edward got to experience his first Southern party. Continuing his internal comparison, Edward entertained himself by noting the difference between this party and his mother's society parties back home. He found a quiet perch at the top of the staircase where he could sit, mostly unnoticed, and watch the guests stream in.

Jasper had been informed in no uncertain terms that he was expected to be a dutiful host. Edward watched, highly amused at how many of the young ladies that came through door simpered at Jasper, batting their eyelashes. Ever the charmer, his friend would flash them a wide grin, nodding and chatting politely with his hands clasped behind his back. Edward smirked, noting how the girls' eyes often drank in his friend's tall form and the way he looked in his Westpoint uniform.

After about half an hour, a woman - a girl, really - bounded in the door at a pace that didn't even resemble ladylike. Her hat came flying off her head releasing a gorgeous tumble of mahogany waves down her back. Edward was startled and amused as he watched the girl throw her arms around Jasper. His friend seemed surprised as well but hugged her back, twirling her a little while other ladies look on with scandalized expressions. Edward wondered if this was Maria - a girl who'd come up many times in conversation over the last year and who he was nearly positive Jasper was sweet on.

But no. Jasper's voice wafted up to him with another name.

Bella.

Before he even knew he was moving, Edward had stood from his comfortable chair and leaned on the banister. Bella turned slightly, and Edward was inexplicably struck by her happy grin. She said a few words to Jasper, and Edward couldn't seem to keep his eyes off her.

As she turned to move further off into the party, she suddenly stopped. She spun, her eyes cast upward as if she knew he was watching. Though he knew his mother would have had his head for being so rude, Edward couldn't stop staring even after he was caught. It was just that her eyes - toffee brown and full of life - captured him. His lips pulled upward into a full smile as their stare lingered for many moments longer than was proper.

At first, her grin faltered, but after a moment of what looked like uncertainty and before Edward could tear his gaze away, Bella looked back up at him from under long eyelashes and she smiled back.

~0~

"Sorry," Jasper said early in the afternoon when he finally found a moment to spend with Edward. "It seems a host's duties are never done."

"My mother says much the same," Edward allowed amiably. "You know me. I don't need to be entertained."

Jasper relaxed, sitting back on the step and dusting a speck of dirt off his otherwise immaculate pant leg. Surveying the party like he was an artist picking out imperfections, Jasper laughed suddenly.

"What is it?" Edward asked, perplexed because he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He thought perhaps someone had become a tad too drunk for polite society, but as he looked out at the gathered guests, he didn't see anyone making an ass of themselves.

"It's Bella," his friend answered.

Instantly, Edward sat up a little straighter. Of course, he knew where Bella was standing. Despite his best efforts, his eyes had strayed to her more than once throughout the party. In fact, before Jasper came up, he'd been trying to figure by sight alone if the blond-haired boy who kept pestering Bella - his eyes so wide and ridiculous - was courting her. She seemed young to be betrothed but it wasn't unheard of.

Though why that idea bothered him, he couldn't say.

"Bella?" Edward said questioningly, hoping his voice was as unconcerned as he should have been.

"Isabella Swan," Jasper corrected himself. "We grew up together. Well. I was ten when she came here, which would have made her eight. She's from somewhere in the West, but her father brought her here when her mother died."

"And you find her amusing?" Edward pressed, a flicker of irrational irritation making his blood warm in his veins.

Jasper chuckled. "I find Bella highly amusing, yes." He nodded in her direction, where the blond boy was still clamoring for her attention. "That there is Michael Newton. He's been sweet on her, lord since we were kids. Bella gets impatient about him." He shook his head. "There's nothing about Michael that could handle a gal like Bella. Between you and I."

"Hmm," Edward murmured, still feigning disinterest. "Could you? Handle her, I mean?" The words sounded coarse - too coarse to apply to such a girl, but the boys were used to talking frankly around each other. He didn't want Jasper to pick up on his distraction. The other boy was far too perceptive at times.

"You're asking if I'm interested?" Jasper asked, arcing and eyebrow. He laughed. "In Bella? My father'd be fit to be tied if I expressed an interest in courting her. 'Not a good match, not for you,'" he imitated his father. He grinned - the smile much more that of the boy he was rather than the gracious host. "I'd be surprised if her daddy was able to find a husband for her at all, to be honest."

"Why?" Edward couldn't help but ask. His heart gave an odd twist. For a girl to not be marriageable was, to him, no laughing matter. The idea of that devastation applying to Bella seemed abhorrent.

"She's plenty pretty," Jasper said easily. "So perhaps on that merit, Charles will be able to find her a suitor. But she isn't what you would call biddable. Hard headed and hot headed, that one. She has an Irish nanny who calls her Katie-Bella because she's as stubborn as a red-headed Irish girl, or so she says."

Edward had the strangest urge to knock his friend from the step like they were children. Instead he folded his hands carefully on his lap and changed the subject. "So if not Bella, who would be a match for you?"

That caught Jasper off guard. His face flushed slightly, something Edward was certain had little to do with the heat, and rubbed his hands fitfully against the side of his pants. Seeing his friend's typically blase exterior crumple at the mere thought of a match chased away Edward's irritation. He grinned roguishly, elbowing Jasper lightly in the side. "There is someone, isn't there?"

Rolling his eyes, Jasper nodded his head in the direction of a young girl of obvious Spanish origin dancing with an older man who was likely her father. Her smile was beatific, her long black hair held at bay by a wide, pretty hat. She was a beauty - that could not be mistaken.

"That is Benito Salazar and his daughter, Maria." He spoke the girl's name, as always, with the reverence of a young man with a fascination.

"Do you ever think about marriage, Edward?" Jasper asked, his voice a little far away.

"Marriage?" Edward repeated, the word sounding as most of life had since he was a little boy - very far away. "My father always taught me that marriage came in due time - perhaps by my mid twenties." He smirked. "Then again, he married my mother when they were 16 so what, I ask you, kind of role model is he?"

Jasper laughed. "And my father, who encourages a young marriage, didn't marry until he was nearly 40."

"So it goes," Edward said, amused. When his eyes wandered, inevitably, back to Bella, he wondered if he had been remiss in not considering the merits of marriage sooner.

~0~

In the later afternoon, when the women had gone to nap and the men had gathered to talk, Edward quietly sneaked out of the grand plantation house. In the back of his head, he could hear his mother chastising him for his poor manners, but he was quite sure that getting into a shouting match with his host's guests was quite a bit worse than leaving a party without paying his proper respects.

Edward knew from experience that the conversation would inevitably turn to politics. Most of the South was hot around the collar and talk of secession was rampant. While the other guests had been perfectly polite to that point, Edward ventured a guess that their tone would get quite a bit more heated in a political discussion and he would be the only Northerner in a room full of Southern gentlemen. Edward wasn't known for holding his temper under the best circumstances, and his mother had taught him it was better to be a little rude and take a walk than it was to start a fist fight with his host.

Well, she had implied anyway.

Keeping his gait casual, Edward headed for the trees as if he were just taking a leisurely stroll now that the worst of Texas's heat was past. He breathed a little easier once he was out of line of sight.

As he walked, Edward loosened the buttons of his shirt, fanning it out to cool his overheated skin. He thought he heard the sound of a tripping brook nearby and headed in that direction, eager to splash cold water on his face.

His thoughts as he walked were distant, wondering if the south did secede, would there be a war. It was likely. His father was worried about it. When Emmett and Edward has expressed excitement over the possibility of battle, he'd stood silently and left the table.

The day would come when Edward would understand his father's quiet disgust over their bloodthirsty attitude and the very real worry that his sons would fight. Carlisle Cullen had known war and knew what it could do to the body and mind. Of course, that was supposing the boys would come back from battle at all. Many men did not. If they did, there was also a high probability they would not come back whole.

But that day, as he walked further into the wooded area that surrounded Jasper's house, Edward imagined only the glory of battle. Not so far away from the days he played with toy guns and soldiers, Edward pretended he was already in the midst of the war. It didn't feel as much like imagination as it had before, with a year of formal training behind him and the threat of real war looming. He stepped softly, his eyes ever alert and his hand on the pistol he carried at his waist. He drew it several times, glancing around trees to catch his 'enemy' unawares.

He climbed stealthily to the top of a small outcropping of rocks and scanned the valley. Sure that he was in the clear, Edward jumped down to the ground.

A startled, feminine scream caught him by surprise, and as he spun, he lost his balance, falling backward on his ass. With his heart pounding, Edward looked up, finding himself staring into wide, beautiful eyes. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, wavy from being styled all day. Her hands were pressed to her mouth, likely keeping in another scream.

She was covered only by her underclothing, her dress lying draped across a branch nearby. It seemed she was merely trying to escape the relentless heat, like he was, but Edward didn't give himself more time to consider the notion before he stood and quickly turned around. "I apologize," he said instantly, trying not to think about the fact that he'd glimpsed pieces of the girl he'd been eying all day that only her future husband should get to see.

Though, in her chemise and slip, she was very well covered. Still. It was inappropriate.

He heard rustling behind him and the girl huffed. "What were you getting at, jumping off the rocks like a mountain lion?" she asked, her voice highly irritated.

Edward bristled, slightly embarrassed that he'd been caught playing soldier. "I didn't expect anyone to be out here," he said.

"Sakes alive. I was just trying to cool off away from those other ninnies, and here you come like a peeping Tom-"

"A what?" Edward protested with an incredulous laugh. "Miss, I assure you that I had no intention of coming across you. I was just taking a walk."

She chuffed. "Walking makes noise. You were sneaking around, is what you were doing."

It bothered Edward that he couldn't deny her allegation. As his surprise subsided, it also bothered him to no end that she was outside alone at all. "You shouldn't be out here without an escort!"

~May, 1865~

"... and what you were doing out there without an escort, I have no idea," Jasper's voice became clearer as the dream-memory faded away, taking the past with it.

Trying to latch on to something besides the pain, Edward concentrated on the heated discussion happening somewhere in the same room. He heard a woman's exasperated sigh. "We have been over and over this point; it's not going to change the past. I know I shouldn't have tried to go to town yesterday, but I can't wait for you for every thing I need."

Edward's hazy thoughts solidified then, and he remembered how he came to be injured. The war had ended only scant weeks before. Confederate soldiers returned home to find themselves penniless. Naturally, desperation led to desperate acts. Much of the South was in a general state of lawlessness. The chaos was a breeding ground for for the worst of humanity.

It was no surprise then that he'd happened across three men pushing a young woman between them. She was putting up a valiant struggle, but it was clear that she would lose.

Could it really be the girl - Bella - from his memories? Is that what the dream was trying to remind him of?

More importantly, had she sustained any injuries?

Edward forced himself to drag his eyes open, wincing against even the low light of approaching evening. The simple act nearly robbed him of what little energy he possessed, and he had to rest before he could consider moving his head.

"Bella," Jasper began, "you could have-"

"For heaven's sake, hush. You're scaring your son," Bella admonished. "Everything's fine, precious," she said, her voice soft as one spoke to a child.

"I swore to my son that he'd never have to see a Yankee in my house again," Jasper said vehemently, though his tone was considerably softer.

"Well, this is not your house. It's mine, so you may keep your promise," she retorted, a note of finality in her tone.

Finally, Edward was able to focus. The blurs he saw moving about the room became people. Familiar people.

It was Bella he saw first and, despite the incredible pain he was in, he was unbearably happy to see her. She was much changed from the child she'd been before the war began, but the same was true of everyone, it seemed. She wore her long brown hair in a braid coiled at the back of her head - a no nonsense do designed to keep it out of her way as she worked. She held a blond haired, blue eyed boy, perhaps two or more, against her side as she glared across the bed at someone - presumably Jasper.

The child spotted him first. His teary eyes were curious and a little wary. He ducked his head against Bella's breast and pointed a finger, calling attention to the fact the conversation was being overheard.

Bella followed the little boy's silent tattle, her eyes meeting his. Edward looked her over carefully, trying to see if her skin was marred in any way.

She was perfect - completely unharmed that he could see. He hadn't been sure. The scuffle happened so quickly, all he really remembered was pulling her from their hands as he called for them to stop immediately.

As she looked down on him, a relieved, gentle smile spread across her face. "There you are, Mr. Cullen. Rest easy. You're safe and we...I am taking care of you," she said softly. Looking across the room, she handed the child across the bed. "Jasper, take Peter so I can tend to our friend."

"He's no friend of mine," Jasper snarled, but he took the little boy from her arms.

Bella frowned. "He was-"

"He's not my friend. Not anymore," Jasper repeated firmly.

Edward rolled his head, finding his former friend and roommate in the doorway with a dangerous glower on his face. Like Bella, Jasper was also changed. His face was thinner though his body was unmistakably more muscular. His blond hair was longer and obviously heavy with sweat. Every inch of his visible skin seemed to covered in dirt. He'd been working in the fields, Edward was more than sure of it.

Most heartbreaking of all, Edward could see that the war had not been kind to Jasper. There was a long, old scar across his cheek and a smaller one over his eyebrow. Another scar on his arm disappeared under his shirt. There was no telling what other injuries he might have suffered.

Part of Edward wanted to apologize - both because he'd survived the war with none but minor scars and because, though he was sure he had not been the one that injured Jasper, more than one Confederate soldier bore the mark of his blade.

Then again, Confederate hands had killed his father, and that thought brought an all too familiar scowl to his lips.

"If that's what pleases you," she said brusquely. "Just take Peter out of here. I need to check Mr. Cullen's wound."

"I'm not going to leave you alone with-"

"For heaven's sake!" Bella exclaimed, cutting him off. "What is it you think - that he saved me from those men just so he could have me himself right there on the side of the road?"

Jasper winced and Edward would have as well if he wasn't so surprised. He'd never heard a woman speak as such.

"Even if he wanted to, the poor man's as weak as a newborn kitten." Edward frowned at this but didn't have the strength to protest. "If he tries to attack me, I'm fair certain I can fight him off."

"Great balls of fire, you are the most stubborn woman I have ever met, you know that?" Jasper seethed, throwing his free hand up in the air. "Have it your own way, but I'll be right outside." He pointed a finger at Edward, his glare deadly. "You watch yourself," he warned before striding quickly out of the room.

Letting out a long breath like steam beginning to hiss out of a tea kettle, Bella stood over him with her hands on her hips. She closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them again, her expression was gentle. "It's good to see you awake." She breathed deep. "It was touch and go for a while there."

Edward nodded slightly and swallowed hard, trying to find his voice. "He's right, you know," he finally rasped. "We should not be alone. It's not proper."

Bella groaned and shook her head, quickly and efficiently pulling up the shirt he wore. "I know a man and a woman being alone in a bedroom together is scandalous," she said, sounding amused. "But really - is this so different than if you were in a hospital right now? I worked as a nurse during the war and tended to many patients much worse off than you." Her mouth tightened into a thin line with the memory. It looked like it took some effort, but she relaxed again. "Besides, as I told Jasper, you can hardly move. The most you'll accomplish is bleeding on me."

"I'm a menace," Edward grumbled petulantly, breathing hard with the exertion of helping her unwind the bandages wrapped around his midsection.

She patted him lightly on the shoulder. "Why, you're quite fierce, of course," she assured him like a mother might soothe a scowling child.

Bella worked in silence for a few minutes after that, applying something that stung like the dickens to his wound. Edward gritted his teeth, determined not to swear in front of a lady. Bella clucked in sympathy. "I'm so very sorry."

"For what?" Edward whispered, confused and so tired.

"I was losing that fight," she said quietly. "You saved my life...and God knows what else." She sighed. "Here, lift your head a little, and I'll give you something for the pain."

She propped one hand against the back of his head. Despite the agony in his body, Edward felt an odd thrill at the feel of her fingers against his hair. It was one small comfort, at least. He tilted his head up as much as he was able, dutifully sipping at the spoon she held to his lips. He didn't recognize what he was being fed – opium, perhaps – but he trusted her implicitly.

When the medicine was gone, Edward lay back again, utterly exhausted. "Try to rest. Sleep is nature's best healing tool," she said, tucking the blankets back around him.

Edward's eyelids were drooping, and it was hard to concentrate long enough to form a sentence. He wanted to ask if she remembered him, if he was losing his mind by thinking they'd known each other once upon a forever ago. He wanted to know what happened that she had wandered away without Jasper. Was Jasper her husband? Was Peter their little boy?

Less importantly, did his commanding officer know where he was?

And what had happened to the men who were attacking her?

Of all the questions and thoughts shooting around his mind like snowflakes in a flurry, only one made it passed his lips. "Did you really drag me here?"

"There wasn't much of a choice," she said. "You're a bit more solid than I can carry on my own, and I couldn't leave you to die."

Remembering Jasper and the Doctor's words, Edward's lips twitched. "You'd probably save yourself a world of trouble by letting me die."

"I could say the same for you," Bella pointed out. She smiled at him, a hint of sadness in her eyes. "My father always told me I should be more obedient. I suppose he was right. If I did what I was told, I wouldn't have been out there alone today. Then neither of us would have stared death in the eye."

Guilt made her tone heavy and Edward wanted nothing more than to comfort her. As it was, his eyelids were too heavy. He only barely mumbled, "Thank you for saving me," before he slipped back into a deep sleep.

A/N: Thanks to all of you for your response so far. I'm thrilled. I'm so excited to continue this story finally. Thanks to my girls. You know who you are.