Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

Many thanks to Jadsmama and Ladysharkey1, my amazing beta team for this story. You ladies rock!

I updated the blog with Bella's outfit for this chapter and some pictures of the woods surrounding Forks. You can find the url on my profile.

14.

The fight.

"You're late!" Rachel smiled as she playfully reproached him. "I was almost starting to think I was being stood up!"

If only she knew. Another wave of guilt crashed over him as Edward considered how close he had been to bailing. In fact, it had been the only thing on his mind as he'd sat there in the hospital parking lot for almost half an hour, trying to work up the nerve to either cross the street to Rachel's' driveway, knowing it would forever close the door on something that might be good.

Might be good. It was the whole problem he had with being there in a nutshell. Might be, when he had the inkling something else would be better.

"I'm sorry," he chuckled guiltily. "I was with a patient." It wasn't even a lie per se. He had, after all, been forced to delay his departure from the hospital when, fifteen minutes before the end of his shift, a guy had been brought in with a nasty gash to his left temple.

Not that it had delayed him for long, though, since Banner had taken over from him as soon as Edward had assessed that there was no damage done to the poor guy's brain. He'd only been five minutes late when he left the hospital. The rest was all on him.

"Well, come on in!" she urged, stepping aside to let him pass. "I hope you like Italian food? Pasta is about as far as my cooking skills go."

"Well, then you're lucky because I love it!" he grinned back, the tension and doubt slowly leaving his body now that he was face to face with the cause of them. She was just too easy to be around for him to worry about his own conflicted feelings.

Yes, this is a good thing. He smiled to himself, wondering how something so easy and seemingly effortless as spending time with a beautiful woman could ever get so complicated. It wasn't like it was rocket science or anything, just a couple of dates and the promise of sex-without-strings.

Why is he even thinking about backing out? His shoulders slumped again as soon as he'd asked himself the question, the answer popped up in his mind in the form of two brown eyes on a pale, perfect face. Ah, yes. There's that.

No matter how hard he'd tried over the past couple of days, even to the point of being rude to her at his weekly visit to the Harrisons', for some reason he just hadn't been able to banish her from his thoughts quite like he had been determined to. It was like the damn girl had wriggled her way into his brain, never to go away again, no matter what he did or how hard he'd tried to focus on Carlisle's words.

And even if there had been no Carlisle or James or career to take into consideration, he would have been crazy to even think about pursuing her. Not only was she about ten years younger than he was - which was only an estimate since he still hadn't seen any proof of her age - she was also the sole caregiver to a dying man, not to mention a woman who seemed to think that every word or gesture aimed at her was a challenge to prove how well she could handle herself, even if it was very clear that she couldn't. Besides, he knew deep down being with her would come with so many strings of attachment, it would be impossible to walk away when it was time for him to go back home.

No, he was doing the right thing by putting a stop to all of that malarkey before it got out of hand. Rachel was the one to go for.

Rachel. Isabella. Rachel. Isabella. His mind was spinning from his own indecisiveness; unable to let go of the thing it most wanted even though he knew it wasn't a viable option. No, he had to let go of the idea of Isabella and him. It would never happen. It could never happen.

And as if to emphasize his decision, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, chuckling when she gasped with shock at his sudden action. "You taste like marinara sauce," he grinned, handing over the bottle of wine he'd only just remembered to pick up on his lunch break.

She fanned herself theatrically, though she would have been lying if she claimed to be unaffected by Edward's charm; the pounding of her heart so loud she was almost afraid he was going to hear it. "Well," she finally purred, her legs not completely steady as she trudged after him into her apartment, "feel free to have a taste any time you want."

Edward smiled, pushing the last of his gloomy thoughts out of his mind as he walked into Rachel's small but cozy living room, the smells coming from the adjacent, half-open kitchen making his mouth water.

"It's not much, I know," Rachel muttered, feeling slightly awkward as she caught Edward checking out her place. She knew a little bit of the wealth he'd grown up in and, though she was by no means poor, knew it was a far cry from the lifestyle she lived.

"It's better than any place I've ever lived," Edward shrugged, taking in the brightly colored wall hangings and small personal touches that Rachel had added to make the place hers.

"Somehow I find that awfully hard to believe, Mister Moneybags," Rachel snorted. "I bet in your last home the bathrooms alone were larger than my entire apartment."

"I can assure you, you're very much mistaken." Edward chuckled as he followed her into the kitchen. "I live quite humbly." Grabbing the bottle opener she handed him, he opened the bottle of wine he'd brought along before giving it and the opener to her.

"What? No Liberace-style diamond encrusted toilet seats?" Rachel fake-gasped, her smiling eyes flittering briefly towards his as she poured each of them a glass of wine. "I'm shocked!"

"Nope, no diamonds." Edward shrugged, taking the glass of wine Rachel offered. "It would have been pretty wasteful, not to mention stupid as hell, to throw away my whole paycheck on bling."

"I would have thought that to the son of the illustrious Edward Masen Senior, his meager salary was like pocket change or something," Rachel snorted, arching her brow as she added some more spices into the pasta sauce. "Some pittance you give to a homeless guy while you wallow in the luxury of your cushy eight figure trust fund."

"Nah," Edward shrugged, playing it off light though in reality he always felt quite frustrated when people were quick to make assumptions about him just because of who his father was. "My dad and I don't exactly see eye to eye. I don't want anything from him, especially not his money."

"Good for you," Rachel nodded, clinking her glass to his. "Not a lot of guys would have done the same if they'd have been in your shoes."

He shrugged. "I'm not like 'most guys', I guess."

"No," Rachel smiled, feeling that familiar flutter in her stomach as her eyes made contact with his. "You're definitely not." She turned back to the stove, stirring the sauce and only stopping to take small sips from her wine until the timer went off on the pasta.

Edward leaned back, watching her bustle about in the kitchen with a smile on his face. If he needed any more proof of the rightness of his decision, he had it right there. "Do you need some help?" he asked, feeling rather guilty for leaning back and sipping his wine as he watched her. "I'm not that good in the kitchen but I guess wielding a kitchen knife can't be much different than handling a scalpel, can it?"

"Do I have to explain the difference between an onion and a human being to you?" Rachel joked, handing over the knife so that she could drain the pasta while Edward finished slicing the tomatoes for the salad. "Not good in the kitchen, eh? I'm disappointed."

"Don't worry," he immediately countered, flashing the grin he knew was most successful with the ladies. "I more than make up for my lacking kitchen skills by being very talented in other rooms of the house." He winked, his ego getting a huge boost as he noticed that his words had the desired effect on their audience.

"Is that a promise?" Rachel quipped, though where her words were teasing, her voice was breathy and her eyes darkened by lust.

He merely shrugged, popping half a cherry tomato into his mouth. "Perhaps."

They kept up their light flirtatious banter throughout dinner, only relieving the building tension by discussing stuff about work or their lives before they met, only to go back to teasing the minute the opportunity came.

Yet as much as he shared about his life, he didn't tell her much, not about the important things at least. He told her about Tanya except why they got divorced. He told her about his work at St. Mary's, however, not about why he chose to leave for a small, nameless hospital in the middle of nowhere. He told her about his family, but not about Claire.

It felt wrong, too personal, to let her in on the deeper aspects of his life. If he would have searched his soul a little deeper he would have known that she – Rachel – felt wrong; the wrong girl at the wrong time. But he didn't. As long as there was food on the table and teasing to lighten the fact that he blocked every attempt of her to get to the deeper waters of his soul, he would be content. He wanted to be content.

"So…" Rachel let her voice trail off suggestively as she spooned the last bite of store-bought chocolate mousse into her mouth, making sure the angle of the spoon emphasized the fullness of her lips. "What do you want to do next?"

"I dunno," Edward smiled, leaning back as he scratched his full stomach. "I guess I should help you do the dishes, right?"

She shrugged. Doing dishes was about the last thing on her mind at that moment, not to mention one of the most unwanted ways for their date to come to its conclusion. "I'll do that tomorrow. Do you want to hang out for a while?"

"Sure." Edward nodded, groaning as he got out of his seat to follow her to the comfortable corner sofa. "You would have thought that by my age I would have learned not to overstuff myself like a fucking Thanksgiving turkey, wouldn't ya?"

She grinned, shrugging as she cozied up to him, her head leaning on his shoulder as she rested her hand on his pecs. "I guess I should take that as a compliment on my kitchen skills?"

He chuckled, the movement making her raise her head again to look at him. "I guess you should."

He knew what she expected and, to a point, he was more than willing to even give it to her. He was a guy after all. But still, as his lips touched to hers, the panic was back; that same feeling that had made him sit in his car for half an hour, wondering what the hell he was doing. And, more importantly, with who.

His body still performed; the dance so common his lips or his hands didn't need his mind to kiss or feel, especially not when they were so eager and she was so pretty. It has been so long. Too long.

"Hmm, you really are better outside the kitchen," she chuckled, coming up for air, her body sneakily easing even closer to his until she was so close she was almost sitting on his lap. "What other rooms do you perform in?"

He knew it was wrong, he knew it felt wrong, but still he went along with it, his mind screaming at him every step of the way. "Well, that depends on what room you want to see me in?" he crooned, his voice low and husky and garnering just the kind of reaction he should have been aiming for. But he wasn't.

"Come on," she smiled, tugging him along as she got up from the couch. "Let me show you around."

There was no doubt about where they were going. From what he'd seen, the apartment wasn't that big and so unless she had a desperate urge to show him her bathroom, the bedroom was definitely where they were headed. And it completely freaked him out.

Rachel, unaware of his inner panic, leaned seductively against the bedpost, her hand trailing along the wrought iron foot of her bed. "So, how good do you think you're going to be in here?" On any other guy, the low, husky tones of her voice would have worked, but on Edward, they only served to underline his panic.

Part of him still wanted to go along with it. It was the selfish part; the part of him that craved the kind of satisfaction he hadn't felt ever since his marriage had gone sour, the kind that wanted to forget the madness around him as it sank into soft, warm flesh and found distraction in the arms on another. The kind that was still denying his true feelings….

It was that part which slowly moved towards Rachel, his steps no longer self-assured and his smirk lacking the cockiness it had sported before. Instead he looked like a high school freshman, called into the principal's office for the first time.

Rachel, quick to pick up on his change of mood, frowned, her two feet back on the ground as she put a cautious step in his direction. "Is something wrong?" Looking at him she was starting to get the awful suspicion that maybe her evening wouldn't go as she hoped it would but at that moment, worry still overclouded the frustration that thought might have made her feel if it hadn't been for the look of devastation on Edward's face.

"I…I…" he stammered, still battling his own mind until finally he had to concede victory to the more rational part of his mind; the part that had been nagging at him all along. "I don't think I can do this." He sighed, his shoulders slumping as he trudged back to the living room, his feet halting as he debated to make a run out of the door or stay and explain himself. "I'm sorry."

"Wha-" Rachel started only to have understanding dawn on her face in the middle of her question. "It's her, isn't it?"

Edward paled, his whole body tensing in panic as his eyes shot up to hers. Does she know? How? "W-what do you mean?" Could it be that he hadn't been as stealthy about his conflicted feelings as he thought he had been? Had he unwittingly dropped something to make her realize the unlikely competition she was facing, even if he was reluctant to admit that he even had feelings Isabella in the first place?

"Your wife," Rachel explained, watching with a growing curiosity as Edward's shoulders seemed to slump in relief. "Your ex. You still love her, don't you?"

Edward nodded, only feeling half the guilt and self-loathing he should have felt over his lie. It was for the better, for both of them. At least, he thought it would be. "I'm sorry, Rach. I wish-"

"Let's not do this now," Rachel interrupted him, backing away to put some distance between them until her back was against the wall. "Or even better, let's not do it at all. I think we both understand what's going on here."

"But-" His second attempt at explaining himself was as quickly shushed as his first; the awkwardness mounting as they stood on opposite sides of Rachel's living room.

"I'm a big girl, Edward," Rachel muttered, willing her eyes not to drop their tears until he was out the door. "I can handle rejection just as well as the next girl." She shook her head, willing herself to remain calm as she lifted her eyes to his. "What I don't need, though, is to go over the technicalities right now. You're still hung up on your ex-wife, which is okay. I may not like it but I get it." She sighed, her shoulders faintly rising as she tried to shrug it off. "Let's just forget this ever happened."

If Edward hadn't already thought of himself as one of the most selfish, despicable human beings on the planet, he would now. She deserved someone so much better than him. She deserved someone who would be with her for who she was, not for what she could offer his troubled mind. "Okay," he sighed, his hand closing around the doorknob. "If you want…I can do that. Will you be okay?"

She somehow managed a faint smile as she looked up at him. "I will be. Big girl, remember?"

"Of course." He too forced his lips to curl upward as he managed one final glance at her, his heart hurting for the pain he'd caused as he looked at her. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

And this, right here, is why they always warn you not to get involved with one of your co-workers. Rachel sighed as she barely managed to suppress a smirk. "Yeah, I guess so." Inwardly, however, she was already starting to think of who she could call to cover her shift.

Edward, meanwhile, was walking back towards his car with lead shoes, the knowledge that, in spite of the pain he had caused Rachel, he'd done the right thing, though, not giving him nearly as much relief as maybe it should have.

Or maybe not. He grimaced, thinking about the hurt look on Rachel's face just before he'd backed the fuck out of her bedroom. What he'd done...no, there was no being proud over 'doing the right thing' because all in all his behavior had been despicable, even if he'd never intended it to be.

How selfish could a person be though? Dropping listlessly into the driver's seat of his rented Volvo he sighed deeply, his hand rubbing his face as he tried to get his act together. In all of his considerations, he'd only thought about himself, his own pleasure and needs, about how he could benefit from a stingless fuck with a nice girl. He'd never thought about how he was stringing one woman along in a desperate attempt to push another out of his mind.

Not Tanya. Isabella. And yes, there was his other reason for thinking back on the past couple of hours with nothing but shame. Not only had he selfishly led Rachel to believe he was interested in her when, looking back on his dealings, he had never really been into anything but friendship with her. He'd also used his ex-wife as an excuse to break things off. If Tanya would hear of it, she'd rip his head off. And she has every right to do so.

Shaking his head he started the car, his usual calming music doing nothing to make his shoulders less tense of his mind less frustrated. No, there was no escaping what he'd done; not within the solace of his music, not through excuses and certainly not in avoiding the whole situation.

"Dammit man, how stupid can you be?" he growled at himself, his hands clenching around the wheel as slowly self-reproach gave way to anger. "She's a fucking colleague, for goodness sake! Wasn't the first lesson they taught you in med school; never to shit where you eat? God!"

Venting helped, his mood slightly calmer when he pulled into the Cullens' driveway, the house bathing in light as he sat in his car for a few more moments, composing himself to the point where he was fairly sure he could withstand his sister's scrutiny.

He should have thought better of it, though; his sister's keen eyes immediately picking up on his mood the minute he tried to sneak in through the kitchen door. "You're home early!" she remarked, her voice casual and light, though her eyes were anything but.

"Yeah," Edward mumbled, trying to duck under her radar by keeping his eyes firmly on the floor. "Things didn't really work out the way I thought they might."

Esme didn't press the matter, knowing instinctively not to bug her brother about it. Not that she was willing to drop the matter entirely, though. No, she was quite determined to get to the bottom of it, just not yet. "That's a shame," she offered, smiling sadly. "I'd hoped the two of you might hit it off." She sighed, watching as her brother shrugged like a petulant school boy. It was then she knew that he'd been the one to put a stop to things. And she had a pretty good hunch as to the 'why' of it.

Later, she told herself. She reminded herself that patience was the way to go with Edward. So she pulled herself back into a lighter state of mind, grabbing the huge bowl of popcorn she'd come into the kitchen for. "Do you want to join us in the living room? I think we finally managed to find a movie all of us like. Even Rosalie, believe it or not."

"I never thought I'd see the day!" Edward joked, though his smile didn't reach his eyes and his shoulders remained stiff with tension. "I'll pass, though. I'm wiped out and I promised Alice I'd call her today."

Esme nodded, knowing an excuse when she heard one. "Then you'd better, because if I were Carmen, I'd have the girl in bed by now. That is, unless she and dad are living it up at some snooty party and are leaving the poor girl to decide her own timetable."

"Es," Edward warned, "cut it out! Your inner bitch is showing." Part of him could understand his sister's bitterness towards Carmen who, after all had broken their family apart even more than their father's coldness already had. Still, to him, she had been the only one, apart from Esme, who'd giving him any sort of real affection during his childhood; the only real parent he'd ever known, even if Carmen hadn't been all that much older than he was. "You know Carmen's a better mom than that."

"Sorry," she shrugged, not looking very sorry at all. "I know you like her and all that, but I just don't think she and I could ever get along. We don't have the kind of history the two of you share."

"You seemed to get along well enough when it came to securing my place here," he countered, remembering what the two of them had told him about their joined efforts to secure his place at Forks General, get him licensed to practice medicine in Washington and get the in-crowd at St. Mary's to accept their carefully constructed plans. Sure, his father's money had done most of the talking, or so Edward assumed, but to get it all done? It would have required a lot of teamwork.

"Desperate times, Ned," Esme shrugged, grabbing fresh drinks from the fridge and balancing them on top of the popcorn. "I'd better get back, though. We've managed to keep the peace so far but I'm afraid that if they pause the movie for much longer the body count in the living room is going to rival that on the screen. And mind you, we're watching Kingdom of Heaven for crying out loud."

"Yeah, you'd better get back in there." Edward chuckled, shaking his head as his sister disappeared through the door, his ears picking up on the sounds of swords clashing and people shouting as he wandered up the stairs, shedding his work clothes as he entered his rooms, unbothered by the fact that his expensive suit would be all wrinkled from the way he idly dropped it on the floor behind him.

He groaned, only feeling how tired and worn he was as he stretched out underneath his sheets, the added benefit of not making the bed meaning that he could just slip back in without having to bother with turning the sheets down. Why bother with all the extra work when all of it will only go to waste the minute you actually want to use your bed for what it is made?

The rest he was yearning for did not come, though, not even after an almost hour-long conversation with his little sister about fashion trends and boys, both of which he had a very fixed opinion about. Where her voice and constant babbling cheered him up as long as they were both sounding in his ear, the tension came back the minute he put down the phone, making him toss and turn in his bed as the hours slowly crept by.

By the time the sun started to rise on the horizon, he was so pent up and frustrated that he could only see one way out of his mess: run it off.

He hadn't been out there for a while now, the thought of running into Isabella again like he had that morning keeping him back. Or, more accurately, the effect seeing her dancing around so freely in that damned clearing had on his mind, among other parts of his body, on alert.

He'd missed it though, the freedom of running through the forest; the wind pulling at his clothes and the freshness of early morning invading his system with every breath he took. Somehow working out at the gym never felt quite as satisfying as an early morning run, no matter how much he was starting to enjoy the company of Emmett on his visits. The boy was smarter than he gave himself credit for and through him, Edward had learned more about the local community than he ever wanted to know.

Quickly donning his sports gear he made his way downstairs, this time bypassing his family successfully before tearing off into a frenzied sprint the moment he was out the door, not wanting to take the risk of someone trying to engage him in conversation he was clearly in no shape to conduct.

The track was barely lit, the trees whooshed by as he pushed his body to the limit, his lungs burning and muscles screaming for relief by the time he slowed down. He gasped, bracing himself against a tree as he tried to catch his breath, not realizing he wasn't alone until the sound of a twig snapping right next to him scared the shit out of him.

"Jesus!" he gasped, his breath still coming in pants as he turned around to look at his intruder.

"I was hoping I might run into you." Isabella acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary, her smug grin at making him jump immediately kindling Edward's anger. "I have to admit I'm slightly disappointed with the infrequency of your early morning runs. Don't you know the effect of exercise is wasted when you don't follow through with it?"

His eyes narrowed as his frustration over what had happened with Rachel the day before. He found an outlet now that a more than suitable scapegoat had popped up right at the opportune moment. "Well," he sneered, "maybe that has something to do with the fact that I get disturbed every damn time I'm here."

She arched her brow in silent mockery, her voice every bit as sharp as his as she replied. "It didn't look like I was disrupting anything just now. Other than you wheezing like a grandpa." She shrugged. "As to the other time…I seem to remember that it was you disrupting my peace and quiet. Not the other way around."

"I don't have fucking time for this!" he snapped, his fists clenching by his side at the coolness of her voice as she put him into place like he was a fucking five year old. He'd never hit a woman but damn, if something wasn't going to happen real soon, he'd have to hit something.

"That's just your problem, isn't it?" she countered, quickly maneuvering in his path, cutting off his only way forward on the narrow track. "You don't have time for anything these days!"

"Is that what this is about?" he snarled, his eyes fuming as they glared into hers. "Is this about me not staying for fucking tea and biscuits the other day? Well, I had shit to do at the hospital."

"Of course you did." Her smile only added fuel to the fire as she met his anger tit for tat. "You're such a big, hotshot doctor…it would be foolish of me to think that you could spare a few minutes of your precious time with an old fruitcake and his obedient little slave, even if the old man had been looking forward to your visit all fucking week!"

The anger flashed from her eyes made him subconsciously take a small step backwards; the fury unexpected and, quite honestly, scarier than a tiny woman had any business being. "Personally, I don't give a fuck whether or not you show up at all..." She paused, her chest heaving as she sucked in a few sharp breaths, "but when you piss off the old man, he turns my life into a fucking hell and that is something I don't feel all that happy about."

"So this is all about you?" Edward mocked. "I should have known."

"Don't make this into something it's not," she growled, and for a moment Edward almost thought she was going to slap him, his feet scrambling backwards to put a safe distance between him and her. "This is about how you can be all caring and wanting to be our friend one moment and acting like a cold bastard the next."

"Which is the kind of behavior you've never been guilty of," Edward spat back sarcastically, enjoying the way her cheeks changed color as her expression briefly flashed from anger to guilt. "Your fucking mood swings are enough to give me a whiplash!"

She quickly regained control of herself, though, her small fists were trembling by her side as she met his gaze, looking calmer than she had before. "You need to decide what the hell it is that you want, because I'm not letting you near James again if all you want to do is confuse the guy. His time on earth is short enough as it is without you throwing your shit into the bargain."

This time it was his turn to look guilty, knowing that she'd had a point. He had been negligent in his care for the man lately; not that he was going to admit to it, though. "I'll make sure he gets all the care he needs."

"No," she countered, her eyes narrowing as she tried to stare him down, "that's my job. You're just here to take the credit for it."

The air cackled around them as they stared, the only sounds heard being those of birds, trees and other natural inhabitants of the forest as Edward and Isabella fought out their silent screaming match. After a while, though, something changed; the battle no longer being about James and their mutual disagreement over his care, but about something else, something intangible….something dangerous.

In the intensity of their stare down, they hadn't noticed how they'd both crept closer to one another until Edward's raised hand was hovering over Isabella's blushing cheeks, both their eyes widening as they realized what they were about to do as panic made them jump backwards.

"Then go do your damn job and stop harassing me!" Edward growled, his anger back in full force as he all but ran from the scene of the would-be mistake, the sound of twigs snapping cuing him into the fact that Isabella was probably doing the same. What the hell was going on? Had he really been on the verge of, what…kissing her?

He didn't slow down until he was back at the house, not trusting himself to look back or even think about what had nearly happened until he'd sprinted past a baffled Esme and found himself in the security of his own rooms.

"Edward?"

"Fuck!" he yelled, making his sister jump as he turned round, his eyes wild and his nostrils flaring. She'd never seen him like that, not even in his darkest hour right after Claire had passed away, and she would have been lying if she didn't admit that it scared her to death.

"E-Edward?" she stammered, only allowing herself a much needed breath as she watched him slowly return to his usual self; the feral look on his face seeping out and being replaced by the brother she knew and loved.

"Sorry, sis," he sighed, running a hand though his hair as he sagged down on the bed. "I didn't mean to bark at you the way I did. It's just…I have a lot on my mind right now."

"Are you sure you're holding up, Ned?" she asked, her voice still a little shaky from the shock. "If it's starting to be too much, I could always ask Carlisle-"

"I'm managing," he interrupted her, though his body language contradicted him. "I had a rough couple of hours, that's it."

"If you say so," Esme sighed, not believing him one bit, though she really didn't have another choice. "I just came up here to give you a message." Edward looked up, his eyes still remorseful as he waited for her to go on. "Carlisle called while you were out. He'd just been over to the Harrisons for a quick visit this morning and asked me to pass on a message from James. He was wondering if you'd like to join him and Isabella for dinner tomorrow night."

Uh-oh. Do you think Isabella will take revenge for Edward's assaholic behavior in this chapter?