Edward heard the car long before it rounded the corner of the road that brought it within sight of the house. Jacob always drove these days, on the increasingly rare occasion that he actually visited. Edward had been worried about the decrease in Jacob's appearances in his house, worried that Jacob had taken offense to something that he'd said, or that the wolf was just more uncomfortable around him than usual. Edward had worried for the friendship that they were slowly forming. He had remembered Jacob's promise, that night in the tent; that nothing pleasant could ever exist between the two of them. Edward had hoped that that promise had changed.

Jacob had been happy and friendly when he did come around, so Edward had supposed that there was nothing to worry about. Jacob was just busy. Or tired. Or something.

Jacob was, at the moment, pulling the car into Edward's driveway.

Edward didn't see the need to go out and welcome him in. One of these days, perhaps when he was a little more confident about their budding friendship, Edward would lock his doors, just to see what Jacob would do. As it stood between them, the glass doors that granted entrance into the house were still constantly unlocked, though Edward saw it as a small victory that he no longer wished for some unknown enemy to come gliding through them.

The ghosts stayed, but Edward thought that they were starting to grow weaker, to fade into the haunted corners of the rooms and his mind. Edward knew now that it wasn't her.

Edward wondered if Jacob remembered what day it was.

A clatter downstairs brought Edward back to the present, and he realised that, while he'd been staring out of the window, Jacob had come in and started to poke around in the kitchen downstairs. Edward smelled the sharp pang of something that he recognised, but couldn't initially place. Everything else about Jacob smelled familiar.

Edward would figure out the enigma of Jacob's new scent one day too.

He found Jacob in the kitchen, staring grumpily into one of the cupboards. When he reached the doorway, Jacob turned around and glared at him.

"I was looking for a cup to use, but then I remembered what you guys drink. How am I supposed to know if they've been used before?"

"You can use any of them. We don't use cups, and the ones that were used have been thrown out."

Jacob grimaced, no doubt remembering exactly how those cups had been used. He recovered quickly, however, and pulled a small glass out of the cupboard. Edward moved closer to see what he was doing.

"Can you even get drunk?"

Jacob was concentrating on pouring the aromatic liquid into the glass. "Not really."

"How much do you have to drink to even feel tipsy?"

"I've never drunk anything alcoholic before."

Edward was shocked. Sure Jacob was externally trapped at the young biological age of too-young-to-drink, but the man was older than he looked. Edward watched Jacob who, despite his steady pouring method, looked extremely unsure of himself. Then it hit him. Jacob did remember. Jacob obviously remembered what today meant.

Edward knew that in the past, for Jacob, his anger had been enough. Just like self-loathing had been for Edward. Now, though, Edward had the strangest feeling that Jacob was trying to… well, celebrate.

Then he was struck by an idea. The diluted lolly water that Jacob had brought with him wouldn't do anything. Either he was drinking to forget or Jacob was drinking to remember, either way, Edward could probably help him at least experience it. Like a normal teenager.

"Never? Well, we've got some pure alcohol around here somewhere. Do you want to find out?"

Jacob looked surprised, then unsettled. He was even more unsure of himself then before. Edward wondered if he would opt out.

"Ah…I guess. What about you?"

"I drink blood Jacob. Human stuff makes me sick."

"Have you ever mixed alcohol and blood?"

"No." The look on Edward's face clearly showed his disdain for the idea. Animal blood was bad enough without adding lumps or extra vomit inducing flavours.

"Let's give it a shot."

Edward's eyes widened at the wolf's new found enthusiasm.

"You want to go out and slaughter some poor animals so you can get me drunk?"

"Sure."

"That's so macabre."

(...)

Edward hadn't thought that Jacob would go through with it, let alone that it would work, but here he was, sitting on his piano stool, feeling a bit tipsy. Jacob was worse off, though he'd been sipping undiluted ethanol and should, by all rules of nature, be dead right about now. Edward hadn't enjoyed the drinking at all, though he wasn't minding the dulling sensation that the alcohol was having on his senses. He'd never drunk anything before, at least nothing that he could remember, and never enough to make him feel like this. It was like water had been filtered through his brain, making it difficult and slow to think. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for Edward to feel the difference.

Jacob was sitting on one of the couches again. Nobody should drink what Jacob had been ingesting. Even Edward had had his doubts about giving the wolf the pure alcohol, though he was sure that he himself would be the worse off in this situation. After he had gotten over his stomach's revulsion, though, he had found that it wasn't too bad. Watching Jacob drain some forest creature had been the second most surreal experience of Edward's life, the most that he'd been fully conscious of, at least.

Edward rested his hands, in no particular or planned configuration, on the piano keys, pulling from them a cacophonous, prolonged muddle of individual tones. Jacob looked up at the sound, but it didn't startle him.

Neither of them had said much since the alcohol had been distributed. Neither of them had said anything at all to mark the occasion. Edward wondered if he should say anything, of if Jacob was enjoying the silencing buzz, the dull drone that seemed to push memories further away, as much as he was. He didn't know what he should say anyway. Serendipity, or some odd form of coincidence, had aligned the days so that they meant too much, all at the same time.

Looking down at the black and white keys, a memory shrank into Edward's mind. He was surprised by the energy of it, it was as though his laden mind had decided to break into a sprint for no apparent reason, and for a second it made the rest of his foggy consciousness stagger.

Edward wasn't drunk, nowhere near it. Neither him, nor Jacob had drunken enough to get them to that stage. But Edward wasn't in the mind to fight off the grogginess, and it gained strength from his lack of resistance.

Now that the memory was foremost in his mind, Edward couldn't believe that he had forgotten it. At the time, surely it must have been pushed aside by other things, but to have gone so long unnoticed, in Edward's mind no less, it seemed ridiculous.

His whole mind narrowed in on this single thing, and suddenly it became so much more important that it should have been. He wanted to release it, to share it with Jacob. All of his objections towards a conversation on the subject were quickly disappearing. Jacob would know how he felt. Jacob would know.

"For her last birthday, her eighteenth birthday, I wrote her a song. I never got the chance to play it for her. We had an accident."

His voice was rasping as it broke the fragile silence. Jacob turned more of his attention to Edward. The thoughtful look on his face blossomed into a small smile, as he seemed to be recalling things of his own now.

"That sounds like Bella."

"Yeah. It was only a little while after that that we left."

Just before I left. Just before she found you. Just before you found her. Just before…

"What about when you came back?"

"There was always something else going on."
Edward paused, wondering just when the song had disappeared from his mind. He'd always written music for Bella, more than that, she'd been in his music. In the runs, in the pauses, in the notes. She had inspired him. Giving them to her was the least that Edward could do. He'd loved the look she'd get on her face when she listened to him play. She said that she didn't like presents, and even thought they had all gotten her things anyway Edward had wanted to give her something that she would love, and that she would accept regardless. He'd been planning on playing her the song that afternoon, but then she had cut herself, and his music had been lost in the terrifying excitement of the day.

"You should play it now. In celebration of her birthday."

Edward looked up. Jacob was staring at him earnestly. Edward suddenly wondered just how much Jacob had had to drink. Then his eyes returned to the keys beneath his fingers, and he remembered that the piano did actually have a purpose. He would have kicked himself for his own stupidity, but the piano had long since stopped inspiring him to play. The beautiful instrument was nothing without the music, and Edward didn't have the music any more. As things were, the piano was no longer an instrument at all, merely a decoration. It hadn't uttered anything more than the dreadful humming muddle since her heart had stopped beating.

Edward twisted a little in his chair, until he was facing the expanse of familiar shiny tiles, dulled by the dust of years. No doubt the instrument would be out of tune, dreadfully so. Placing his fingers lightly, deliberately, in position Edward thought about what he would play. Just a little pressure on the keys and the piano would sing for him.

But he couldn't do it. He couldn't release the last strains of symphony that he had left, not while they existed within his mind and her memory.

He was embarrassed by his own discomfort. After all, playing was a mechanical skill, not spiritual. He shouldn't have this kind of aversion to a task that was basically just an exercise of muscle memory. Still he could not force his fingers to press down. The flimsy materials could break under a fraction the strength in just his smallest finger, but he could not make them bend to his will.

He turned back to Jacob in defeat. The alcohol would likely take hours to work its way out of his system, but he wished that it would take longer. He didn't feel everything as keenly in this state.

Jacob appeared to be understanding, though. He sat back in his chair again, as Edward moved away from the stool. Whether intentional or not, a single thought escaped from Jacob's mind, into Edward's net.

That's okay.

Edward had forgotten the tone of Jacob's mind, the deep rumble of his thoughts. It was so odd, to have no insight at all into what had once been as open as a book. He'd never known Bella's mind, but he had known Jacob's.

As it had earlier, another thought jumped into Edward's mind. It was as sudden as the first, and similarly surprising. That he had forgotten this seemed far too incredible.

"I've got a digital copy. On a CD. I recorded it for her."

"Okay then."

"It's up in my room, with the sound system."

Edward began calculating, with a foreign slowness, how he was going to play the CD for Jacob, but Jacob had already risen and taken a step toward the stairs. Edward shrugged to himself, and followed Jacob up to his room. Jacob stopped at the doorway.

"You can come in. Or do you need to wait for an invitation or something?"

"I thought that was you guys."

"Only in the legend."

Edward passed Jacob and went straight towards his CD collection. While he found what he was looking for, Jacob entered and looked around. Edward turned back to him for just a second, just long enough to pass him a nondescript disc.

"Put that in, would you?"

Edward went back to looking through his collection. It was beginning to look seriously outdated, he hadn't added to it in the slightest in the last fifty years. Edward wondered just how many of his new CDs had become classics without ever having been played. He would need to update. Most of his family members had taken their own collections and belonging with them when they had left. While he hadn't thought much about it at the time, Edward wondered if leaving everything had been a sign that he would return.

(...)

"Um...where?" Jacob looked around himself in a confused mini-panic. This was a full on sound system, one that Jacob should never be allowed to touch. He'd known that Edward had something like this, after al it wasn't the first time that he's seem the guys room, but he'd never realised the full extent of it until now. He was surrounded by dials and knobs and things that he didn't even know the name for. Holding the CD carefully, he tried to locate just an input slot, but couldn't really tell from the symbols what he was looking at. He was not game enough to take a guess.

Luckily, Edward took pity on him and relieved him of the disc, slotting it in where it obviously belonged.

Nothing happened. No sound came from any of the speakers. Edward cursed, something that Jacob still wasn't used to, and went about checking the cables and connections, trying to pinpoint the problem. Jacob would have just given up. It was probably a single speck of dust that had somehow squeezed itself between two hidden bits, never to be found, yet wreaking absolute havoc.

Jacob looked around him slowly. The room was nice, he decided, even nicer from the inside than it seemed from the outside. He ignored the huge bed sitting in the centre.

Jacob was uncomfortable. Sure, the room was nice and Edward didn't mind him being there, but all of that wasn't helping to make him feel like this was a place he should be. He felt like he was ten years old again, visiting a friend's house. No matter how well you know someone, or how comfortable you are with them, being in their room for the first time was never easy. Even with alcohol in his body.

At least the room didn't smell bad, as Jacob had half expected it too.

Jacob continued standing awkwardly in the space between the bed and the door way.

Edward must have found and remedied the problem, because music began pouring out of every corner of the room. It was soft and slow, and immediately filled Jacob with images of Bella. He'd never been into classical music, never really into music at all, but she was so obviously there that Jacob couldn't help seeing her before him. He stared wide eyed at its creator, who stared back, but neither really saw the other. The music was beautiful, haunting and clear. It wormed its way into the corners of Jacob's mind, drugging him in a way that even the alcohol hadn't been able too. The song carried on, altering tempo, tone, and key; but throughout it all was the assurance that its subject was undoubtedly Bella Swan.

Eventually the song ended, and Edward seemed to awaken from some spell. Jacob had never known that music could have that kind of power, but he felt himself rising from a similar state. Edward had something more than a talent. It was amazing.

Edward reached over and turned a dial, the music, as it moved on to the next track, faded a little into the background.

"I wrote all of the songs on the CD for her, but the first was the one I was talking about."

Jacob nodded, unable to find his voice. Edward sat down on the bed, as if he had just discovered it there. Jacob finally found words again.

"That was stunning."

"Thankyou."

"No, truly."

"Thankyou." Edward repeated, and Jacob could tell that he was making the vampire uncomfortable with his praise. Edward looked embarrassed, and it didn't take a lot of imagination for Jacob to know that the vampire would be blushing, if such a thing were unachievable feat.

Jacob didn't know what else to say, but he felt like he should say something. He had been granted entrance into Edward's room, after all. He owed the vampire some form of conversation. Jacob looked around him, trying to find something to comment on.

"Nice carpet."

Edward looked at him as he had downstairs, when Jacob had suggested playing the tune, like Jacob had lost his mind. Jacob tried to overcome his own embarrassment. Nice carpet?

Music was still playing in the background.

"It's not like you haven't seen the carpet before."

"I never had time to actually look. It looks to soft. Do you mind if …?"

Edward blinked rapidly a little when he realised when Jacob was stalking about. Then he nodded.

Jacob's shoes were off and thrown aside in a matter of seconds. Jacob tried to rank this idea in the strange scale of his decisions lately, but it didn't really rank anywhere. Besides, he was under the influence of pure alcohol. Surely a little eccentricity was understandable. Never mind that his rapid metabolism had worked most of the alcohol out of his system already. Jacob was just glad that his feet didn't smell as he buried them in Edward's soft carpet.

"It is really comfortable."

"Really?" The question was spoken like a statement, as if Edward was still trying to wrap his head around Jacob's strange behaviour.

"You've never stood barefoot on your own carpet?"

"Of course I have."

Edward paused, but then continued.

"But only for a few seconds while I get my shoes."

Jacob laughed. Leave it to the prim and proper vampires to always be immaculately dressed, even in the comfort of their own home.

"Well, come on then."

"What?"

"Shoes off."

"…what?"

(...)

Jacob had been right. Edward could hardly believe that he hadn't noticed before. The feeling of the rug underneath his bare feet was fantastic.

The two were now sitting cross-legged, facing each other and listening to the soft tones vibrating out of his sound system. They had almost worked their way through the entire CD, laughing a little at some of the happier songs. Jacob had been inspired, by one particular piano riff, to share with Edward one of his memories of Bella. While Edward had already seen them all, in Jacob's head, he'd enjoyed listening. Jacob told him about Bella as a child, playing in her backyard while their father's had laughed and joked about subjects beyond their childish comprehension or short range of interest. Jacob told him things about Bella that he had never known. In return Edward did what he could to share his own Bella with Jacob.

It was her birthday. Would have been her birthday. A few days ago, only a few days, was the anniversary of her death. It hadn't really occurred to Edward that the two were so close. It had been so easy to be consumed by one and forget about the other.

Somehow it felt right to spend the hours with Jacob. It felt like they were truly remembering her, in a way that neither of them had been able to do in a very long time. Jacob was the only person who had known Bella the way that Edward had. The way that Bella existed now, that belonged to the two of them. She had brought them together before, and she held them together now.

Edward was still feeling lightheaded. He cursed his practically stagnant body. He no longer needed the dampening effect of the drugged blood. He no longer needed the borrowed strength of imposed irrationality to either remember of forget. He had Jacob. Jacob who was currently halfway through a story about the time when he and Bella had found a small family of baby ducks, and had begged their fathers to let them keep it. Edward smiled at Jacob's descriptions of the fuzzy balls of duck down. There was a new light in Jacob's eyes, a new enthusiasm. Jacob was rediscovering what he had forgone to remain angry. Edward was rediscovering all of the things he thought he was willing to leave behind.

It hadn't been the music that had gotten through to him. It still played in the background, familiar and yet so new. It had been Jacob, with his recollections of childhood hijinks, with the snippets of memory that he would unconsciously allow to flow into Edward's awareness. The wolf's voice banished the ghosts from the room and encouraged Edward to hope that they were gone for good.

Edward closed his eyes. A flash of memory, Bella pleading with Charlie to let her keep just one of the ducklings, caused both Edward and Jacob to chuckle. Edward smiled as the music continued to wash over him. Almost unconsciously, he leaned forward, lips still lifted at the corners, and gently kissed Jacob.

The instant his lips met Jacob's music poured into Edward's head. New music, new chords, new phrases. Beautiful, bittersweet and overpowering. It played intoxicatingly around his head. The contact of their kiss awakened in Edward all of the creativity and passion that he had thought dead and gone. A new song filled his mind, almost distracting him from the boy he had just kissed.

Edward's eyes were still closed, but he could feel Jacob, feel the air around the wolf remain completely still. No stirring, no movement at all. Jacob hadn't reacted at all the Edward's movement. Edward could feel his ice cold lips warm under the heat from Jacob's.

Only seconds had passed. A part of Edward's mind wondered at his loss of sanity. Why had he leaned in? Why was he not moving now to correct his mistake, salvage what he could from the wreckage this situation would surely become? The voice was silenced by the symphony Edward was constructing from the incredibly unusual sensations moving through his mind. What ever felt wrong or even dangerous was overshadowed by the shocking revelation that this was somehow right.

Then another melody poured into his mind. It wasn't originating from himself, but from the room that he had almost forgotten existed. The CD had completed the final track and had cycled back to the first song. The sounds, so redolent of Bella, had broken though his unconscious reverie. The flow of music within his mind, the melody that had kept him still, kept him from reacting, was suddenly conflicting horribly with the familiar notes of Bella's song. It didn't make sense, it was all wrong, all broken and suddenly Edward was completely lost again. He didn't know what to feel, or what to do. The new melody had fallen into disastrous cacophony.

Opening his eyes he flinched back. Jacob's eyes were also open and he was staring with a look of half wonder, half horror. Edward felt a flood of guilt and remorse overcome him. He no longer understood any of what had always been so clear to him. He loved Bella. He always would. But he couldn't explain what had happened when he had kissed Jacob. What he had felt…he no longer knew anymore.

There was a look of pain on Jacob's face, amongst the confusion of emotion that the man must surely be feeling. Edward briefly considered whether it had been caused by the kiss, or by Edward's recoil. Either way, he had no time to find out.

As suddenly as Edward had pulled back, and as soon as Jacob could recover his wits, the wolf was standing and out of the door. Edward thought of calling him back, of apologizing and assuring the wolf that it would never, never, happen again, but he found that he was unable to do so. He'd done something stupid, again, and now he was going to have to suffer the consequences. He couldn't believe his lack of presence of mind. What had come upon him?

His mind was swimming with what had just happened, but as Bella's song ended, and the next began, Edward couldn't help but notice that the new melody was still there, still trapped in his mind. Jacob inspired it, Edward thought, but that didn't help him to understand the situation any better.