Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.
Sorry for the delay, hope everyone had a lovely New Year.
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In a bedroom in the Cullen house on the outskirts of Portland...
Edward's point of view...
Edward lay on his leather couch, arms folded behind his head as he frowned up at the ceiling. A new indie band played on his expensive sound system and he tried to concentrate on the music, unraveling the complex drum beat, listening for the subtle sounds that humans would struggle to hear, but it was hopeless; his mind was too much on other things.
He sighed and screwed his eyes shut. It was nine thirty in the morning and as the cloud shifted across the sky a weak ray of sunlight fell struggling through his window. He felt it settle on the toes of his bare feet. Edward knew his skin would be reflecting the light and perhaps any other time he would have entertained himself awhile, wriggling his toes and watching the rainbows bounce around the room, maybe try to make shapes and patterns from them. But not this morning.
It was fourteen hours since he'd left Bella Swan's apartment. For ten of those hours he had been running, speeding through the dark to the border of Idaho and back again, trying to clear his mind. For the last four he'd been just like this, lying on his couch, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling and listening to music and still trying to clear his mind.
But for all eight hundred and forty minutes of those fourteen hours, whether running or staring, his mind had been stuck on one thing...
He opened his eyes. A rainbow crept into the periphery of his vision. Edward moved his foot and the rainbow disappeared. He didn't want to see rainbows. He didn't want anything, except...
He groaned now. And for perhaps the thousandth time he wondered how this had happened. He rubbed at his chest absently, not even realising he was doing it.
The music ended. The remote control was on the floor by the couch and without looking Edward swung his foot down and hit the replay button with his big toe, using just the right amount of pressure to start the indie band playing again and the sounds of percussion surrounded him. He shut his eyes once more.
For almost two years Edward had struggled and now, just when he'd thought he might have been finding his way again, his whole world had been thrown into disarray and doubt and confusion.
The incident in the woods outside Seattle had changed him. It had left him without his gift, without part of his memory, and without the place he thought he held in the world. His confidence had been shaken and his self-image had been shattered. With his mind-reading, and his position in the Cullen family as a sort of first-born son, Edward had held a unique place. But that wasn't the case now. Two years ago he'd been broken and humbled and there was nothing unique about him any more. Nothing special. Unless you counted the memory loss - that was pretty unusual for a vampire.
Now, in his own mind at least, he held no important role in the family; he was no longer the one they looked to to keep them safe from exposure. The special bond he'd always shared with Alice had become strained; it had always felt to Edward that they were something of a team except these days he'd been relegated to the bleachers. And now that he couldn't read her mind, Alice's occasional visions of his future felt like an invasion of his privacy. The boot was on the other foot, Rosalie had said. And though they still talked and teased and now she played chess and scrabble with him, Edward no longer shared confidences with Alice. He figured she probably knew what he was thinking before he did.
But it wasn't just with his family that Edward had felt humbled - suddenly humans had presented a whole new mystery that was as complex and confusing as it was alien. Their expressions, their body language...Edward had had to learn. Starting almost from scratch, like a newborn, he had to read people with his eyes and his ears and his emotions. He'd had to analyse and try to understand. And he had realised how little he had used his instincts around them in the past.
And he'd felt so terribly alone and so incredibly angry.
It was only now, in the last few months, that he had slowly come to terms with who he had become, and though he hoped that one day his gift would return, if he was honest, there were times when he enjoyed the peace.
But any peace he'd felt had shattered when Bella Swan had literally fallen into his life.
Edward groaned once more and flopped his arm over his eyes.
He heard Esme come through the front door, making her way up the stairs towards his room, and he focused on the rhythm of her steps for distraction, trying to fit them to the music.
Step, beat, step, beatbeat, step, beat, step, beatbeat...
"Come in, Esme," he said softly.
The door was standing open anyway and Esme Cullen peeked around its edge.
"Some mail for you," she grinned and held up a large white envelope. "It's from the good people at Jaguar."
Edward stood and came to her, taking the envelope and setting it down on his desk.
"Thank you," he smiled, but the smile didn't fool Esme. She watched him walk to the window.
"I thought you'd be more excited. You usually are when you're choosing a new car."
Edward kept the smile on his face as he leant against the window frame and folded his arms casually across his chest.
"It's just the paperwork for the custom specs I've ordered. It's probably wrong, it usually is on the first draft." He smiled again and turned his head to look out the window.
"I had a call from Rosalie while you were out last night," Esme said. "They're going to stay in Alaska with the Denali's a little longer, Emmett wants to make the most of the bears before they go in for hibernation."
Edward smirked. "Lucky bears," he murmured.
"I spoke to Kate too. She asked after you."
Edward's smirk dropped and so did his eyes. He'd almost made a mistake with Kate and the thought of what could have happened made him wince. He was glad now that he hadn't acted on his loneliness.
"Kate is very kind," he said quietly.
"She is." Esme folded her hands in front of her. "Is something wrong, Edward?"
"No." But Edward knew Esme wouldn't be put off so easily - she'd known him too long. He shrugged and turned to her again. "You mean apart from the lost memory and the missing mind-reading?" he smiled and she smiled back.
"You know what I mean. I don't want to pry, but I worry about my family."
Edward looked down at his feet. The sun had disappeared now and there was no sign of rainbows.
"You've already had to worry about me more than you should have over the last eighty years."
"I wouldn't say that, Edward."
He shrugged again and stared harder at his feet. And Esme waited.
Was something wrong?
Yes.
No.
"I don't know," he finally answered.
Esme smoothly rolled the chair out from under the desk and sat down. "No-one else is home," she reminded him quietly and Edward was torn. Part of him didn't want to talk about this at all, ever. Another part of him felt an almost overwhelming need to spill his guts. He lifted his eyes, wondering which way he would go because he truly didn't know, but a second later he had his answer; it only took one look at Esme's warm, affectionate smile and Edward was talking, the words tumbling out almost faster than he thought them, pacing now with his hands in his hair. Suddenly it felt so good to talk.
"You ask me if something is wrong but I really don't know. Some things feel right, but then I think that they shouldn't...they shouldn't feel right, it's wrong that they do. Am I making any sense?" He stopped for a fleeting second and looked at Esme but then kept going again before she could answer. He cupped his hands behind his neck now as he stalked around his room. "Everything is so confusing. I feel out of control. And lost. I feel like the rest of the world has changed direction and I've missed a step somewhere along the line." He stopped by the window again, braced his hands either side of the frame and glared out at the garden that led to the woods beyond. "I thought I was back on track. I thought I knew where I was goingagain," he slammed an open palm against the wood and the glass rattled. "But now, now..." He exhaled sharply, turned quickly and sat on the deep window sill, his long fingers curling tightly around its edge and looked at Esme through his lashes. "I've met a girl," he whispered.
"Oh, Edward..."
At the obvious delight on Esme's face Edward shook his head and looked down at the floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his toes digging hard into the rug.
"Please don't."
"Don't what?"
"Smile like that. It's not something to smile about."
"Why not?" Esme wanted to know.
"Because she's human and I shouldn't even be thinking about her. I don't even understand why I'm thinking about her."
"But you do think about her?"
Edward sighed heavily. "All the time." There was silence while he screwed his eyes shut again.
"I've always hated it when people describe someone as amazing..."
"But this girl is amazing?"
He nodded slowly. "I think she might be."
His eyes opened and he released his death grip on the window sill. He stood and began pacing again, calmer now.
"It's her mind," he said. "The way she thinks is...I don't know...different, somehow. She says people don't look up. I know she's not the first human to make that observation, but not many do. And she thinks it's too simple to write Henry the eighth off as a sociopath. She sees wing nuts instead of butterflies. She's kind. She's patient. She seems older. She has a very dry sense of humour. She likes a capella music. And snow globes. She reads Douglas Adams. She's incredibly clumsy, but even though she's one of the most fragile looking humans I've ever seen there's a strength about her. And her eyes..." his words stopped and so did his pacing. His brow furrowed in a frown. "Her eyes are deeper than most humans'." He moved to his couch and sat down, legs spread, elbows on knees, face cradled between his hands as he stared at the floor again.
"That's quite a list," Esme said quietly.
"It is."
"What's her name?"
Edward lifted his eyes.
"Bella. Her name is Bella."
Esme smiled, a soft smile that was something almost like relief, Edward thought.
"Is it Bella's eyes that drew you to her?"
"No," he shook his head. "There was nothing at first, nothing at all." It had been a slow awakening for Edward, if three weeks could be called slow. "She was just like any other human, except the first time I saw her she was holding the bookmark I'd lost."
Esme's eyebrows rose. "How could you lose something, Edward?"
Edward gave her a wry smile. "It wasn't actually me who lost it," he said and explained briefly about the girl in the library who asked to copy a chapter from his psychology textbook and then returned the book without the bookmark. "I went back to the library to look for it and she...Bella, I mean...had found it."
He talked about how he must have scared her, coming out of the shadows as he had, how her heart had raced crazily and the colour drained from her face as he'd thanked her and walked away, and then how irritated he had been when she'd called after him and introduced herself. Another one who's learned my name, he'd thought. And though he'd been polite and smiled and said pleased to meet you, he'd been so eager to get away.
"But I must have scared her more than I'd realised, because as I walked back to the car I could hear her breathing shallow out and her pulse change and I knew she was going to faint. No-one else was around so I thought I should probably go back to help her." He shrugged. "Her friend arrived as she was coming round and I left."
"As first meetings go that one is certainly different," Esme smiled.
"I suppose it is," Edward smiled back, just a small one. He shifted, leaning back against the wall. "I didn't give her another thought until I saw her a week later. She was studying in the library and I thought I should probably ask how she was feeling." His query had been for no other reason than for appearance sake. Edward remembered how she had startled again, and then how she had stared so hard at him, almost like she was trying to see inside him. "That was the first time I noticed her eyes," he said. But he'd looked away again quickly. She'd wanted to buy him a coffee and he'd extracted himself from the invitation as politely as he could. Fortunately, her study-partner Alex had arrived and Edward had said goodbye and Bella Swan had faded from his thoughts as soon as his back had turned and he'd gone to borrow a book at the loans desk. But as he'd waited in line he'd heard her tell Alex that people don't look up. He'd been surprised to hear her say it and it had made him smile. Observant, he'd thought and listened closer for a moment to hear if she said anything else that was interesting, but she hadn't. So he had borrowed his book and forgotten about her as soon as he'd walked out the library door.
"What happened next?" Esme prompted gently.
"She works in a music store." Edward tilted his head back and spoke to a crack in the ceiling. "I didn't know she would be there. There was a long line of customers, she and the other sales assistant were rushed off their feet. Her voice was just background noise with everything else, I was paying no particular attention."
He'd been selecting CDs at the time, including the one that played on his stereo now. He had merely registered Bella's presence, in much the same way he'd registered that her colleague was a Goth and that Meatloaf was playing through the speakers...until she'd served that man in the Def Leppard hoodie.
"She had a difficult customer," Edward said softly. "He was trying to return a CD because he didn't like it, even though he'd played it. His voice was getting louder but Bella was so polite. She apologised but told him they didn't refund for change of mind if the CD had already been played. He told her he didn't give a sh..." Edward stopped and glanced quickly at Esme. "Sorry."
She waved his apology away with an indulgent look. "You think I haven't heard you and your brothers when you're fighting, Edward? Just keep going."
He gave her a sheepish smile and continued. "This guy wasn't interested in what Bella had to say, he just wanted his money back. He was belligerent, and obnoxious, and rude to her, and..." Edward frowned now as he remembered. "And suddenly I wanted to walk over there and plant myself in front of her."
It had been such a strange, almost overwhelming urge, like nothing he had felt before. Ever. So strong, so powerful, it had shaken and disturbed him like nothing he could remember. He'd let Beethoven drop to the floor.
"He sounds awful," Esme broke into his memories.
"Hm? Oh, he was. But Bella handled it," Edward said slowly. "I looked around the edge of the shelves and she was very calm, still polite, but there was the slightest tremor in her hands so I knew she wasn't completely uneffected. She told him she was sorry if he'd had difficulty understanding the returns policy but she'd be happy to get the manager to explain it to him, if the other customers didn't mind waiting."
Esme chuckled softly. "Sounds like she put him in his place."
"She did. And he looked around at the line of grumbling customers, the guy behind him told him to just get going, so he shoved the CD in his pocket and stalked out. And Bella went on working like nothing had happened."
He had stood behind the racks, watching her as she smiled and helped the rest of her customers while he had tried to get a handle on his feelings, because now that urge to protect had combined with a soft admiration. The girl, Bella, had a resilience about her, a strength that belied the fragility of her appearance. So strong for one so breakable, he'd thought. And though he had tried to fight the feeling, he had realised then that he wanted to know more about her and he'd known he couldn't leave the store without speaking to her.
He'd watched the line dwindle down to a single customer, a teenage boy who couldn't decide about a gift for his mother. Edward had waited for his chance as Bella patiently helped the boy and kindly offered suggestions, and Edward had wondered what on earth he would say to her. He had tried to think of things to ask, rejecting each conversation-opener as he thought of it. He'd almost abandoned the idea altogether at one point, but suddenly the teenager was gone and Edward found himself in front of Bella's register.
"I only had a couple of CD's in my hand," he told Esme. "So I grabbed more as I walked towards the counter, I wanted to have as long as I could with her and I didn't even know what I'd picked out until she commented on my interesting collection." He winced now at the memory. "I'm sure she knew I was embarrassed, and she joked around with me about it, trying to make me feel better, I think. And she made me smile." Even now he sounded incredulous. "Then I found out she liked The Chimes...not everyone enjoys a capella and I wanted..." He stopped, remembering the conflict he'd felt as he'd stood before Bella, feeling things he couldn't fathom.
"You wanted what?"
"I wanted too much," he hissed, letting his head drop back against the wall. "I was staring at the CD's, watching her scan them..." The skin of her hands was so fair, he remembered, the veins so fine, creating delicate patterns of blue as her life pulsed through them. "And the pile was getting smaller and smaller and I didn't want her to get to the end, but I knew I shouldn't feel that way, I shouldn't care if she got to the end. I shouldn't have grabbed a pile of polka CD's just so I could talk to her."
"Polka?"
Edward nodded and waved a dismissive hand. "And Glenn Campbell. Some Willy Nelson. The Monkees Greatest Hits. There might have been a Streisand compilation."
Esme began to giggle. "Oh, Edward..."
"I know," he groaned and shut his eyes.
"But you did talk to her."
"I tried to. But I didn't do very well..." he shook his head "We barely said anything really, I think I frowned a lot, and I came away even more confused." He shook his head some more and rubbed his hands over his face. "I wasn't just curious about her anymore, I was interested."
"What happened next?" Esme asked.
"I went away," he mumbled through his fingers. "Hunting."
"Oh, yes, I remember. I thought at the time you seem distracted."
Distracted? Edward smiled wryly; distracted was one way to describe it, he supposed.
"I thought if I got away I would realise what I'd felt was just an aberration. I thought I'd come back and everything would be like before, my interest in Bella would have waned and she'd be just like every other human again."
"But she wasn't?"
Edward shook his head.
He had gone back to school and watched her from a distance, determined to discover that she was actually boring and dull and not the silver lining to his constant cloud cover. But he had discovered just the opposite. She was different. And she was special...to him. He realised that the first time he saw her stumble over a tree root and his hands shot out reflexively to catch her, even though he was on the other side of the campus lawn. And the realisation was compounded when he heard her laughing with some other students in the corridors of the history department. The sweet sound warmed him like nothing else, he'd found himself wanting to know what she found so funny.
But sometimes she looked sad, he thought. His vampire eyes would see expressions in her eyes and on her face that he didn't understand...but he wanted to understand, and that confused him as much as anything else.
Why did he care what she felt? Or how often she tucked her hair behind her ears? Or that she seemed to bite her nails? Or that her rusted, red truck looked like it would fall apart if it drove over a speed bump too quickly?
He'd thought about following her home to see where she lived. He'd even trailed her out of the school parking lot, but when she'd turned left he'd turned right. He couldn't do it, somewhere deep inside him he knew it was wrong.
"I decided yesterday that I'd speak to her again," he told Esme. He rubbed absently at his chest once more. "I thought if I spent longer with her, got her into an actual conversation, just the two of us, I'd see there was nothing special about her after all and the feelings I'd had really would go away. So I waited for her in the library."
He remembered how he'd watched every flicker of her eyes as she'd sat opposite him, feeling himself getting lost in their depths, wanting to know the secrets they held. He'd listened to the rhythm of her heart, the thud of her pulse and the nervous jiggling of her leg beneath the table. His own foot had been tapping frantically on the floor .
She hadn't seemed frightened of him though. Her heart had had a different beat that he couldn't decipher - it wasn't the pound of fear or the race of lust that he heard so often from humans.
"She was studying Tudor England," Edward went on. "She said she thought it was too simplistic to attribute Henry the eighth's actions to possible sociopathy alone. She thought culture and environment and superstition had roles to play."
"And you agreed?" Esme smiled.
"No, not at all," Edward grinned. "I think the style of Henry's rein was fuelled purely by sociopathy, otherwise he would have lost his throne before his first year was out. But it was fascinating to hear her theories, and she looked at a much broader picture than most humans. Henry as a sociopath is a common enough idea, but she looked beyond that, she tried to understand him. She didn't take things at face value."
Esme's eyes were very gentle.
"I think that shows a young woman with a great depth of understanding," she said.
Edward pulled a hand through his hair.
"Maybe. But while we talked, I could just feel myself...I can't explain it."
Edward could explain it, he just didn't want to - he wanted to keep it all to himself, that feeling like he was falling from a great height, like the world had dropped away and he was spiralling through space, not knowing where he was going...or where he would end up. And that Bella was falling with him.
"We talked about a song she recommended," he said quickly. "And later I found I liked her taste in music and books, too - I discovered that when I was in her apartment."
"You've been in her apartment?" Esme's eyebrows were up but there was a smile tugging at her lips.
"There was no impropriety," Edward was quick to assure her.
"I didn't think there would be," she assured him just as quickly. "But I thought that if you were trying to convince yourself you weren't interested in Bella, you wouldn't be going to her home."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" He shook his head. "I asked her to help me with a psychology assignment."
The request had come out of his mouth without any thought at all. He'd almost hoped she would say no, but she hadn't. She'd said yes. And a few hours later he'd found himself parked outside her building, debating with himself. He hadn't wanted to think about the fact that the cell number she'd written down for him was already programmed into his phone. His fingers had pummeled lightly on the steering wheel as he'd stared at her building, guessing which apartment was hers. He'd been early, ten minutes, and he'd turned on the radio for distraction and to pass the time but The Clash had crashed through his speakers...Should I Stay or Should I Go...and he'd groaned and got out of the car and decided to debate his actions in the hall outside Bella's door instead. A minute later he'd stood, hugging his satchel, listening to her moving around inside.
Twice he'd turned around and headed for the stairs.
Twice he'd come back again.
Finally he'd lifted his hand to knock.
"And then I found myself wondering...what if she doesn't like me?"
Edward looked up at Esme and pain and confusion were there in his face. "And that thought had come from nowhere, and I didn't know why it would matter if she didn't. I've never cared before if a human liked me or not. But now it did matter." Suddenly he pushed off the couch and stalked across to the window again where he began ticking off a new list as he stared outside and fisted his fingers in his hair. "She makes me smile, she intrigues me, her thoughts are challenging...I wanted to know her better and I wanted her to like me." He sounded almost angry. Then he turned to look at Esme. Her smile was very warm and gentle but there was something in her eyes he couldn't read.
"What did you do?" she asked calmly
Edward took a deep breath and let go of his hair. He slouched back to the couch and dropped onto it, sprawling over the leather.
"I knocked on her door."
Bella's apartment had been neat and compact and smelt like her...the delicate, almost floral, scent had filled his nostrils as she'd invited him inside, but the tickling smoulder in his throat had barely registered.
His eyes had gone straight to Bella's bookshelves, devouring the titles there, and he'd been surprised by what he'd seen. Among the standard classics, Bronte and Austen, she'd had a mix of philosophy, some thrillers, textbooks and...science fiction? She hadn't struck him as a science fiction sort of girl, but Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's series had caught his attention - the five books were favourites of his - and he'd smiled. He'd found himself wanting to discuss them with her, wanting to know if she had a favourite, and then that thought had bothered him, so he'd moved on to her CDs.
And of course her music collection was interesting too - so many of the titles on her shelves also sat on his; from classical to current. And then he'd seen the snow globe, and he'd re-discovered a lost memory from his human childhood.
As he'd held the plastic souvenir from Phoenix and watched the silver glitter float around the little green cactus he'd wondered what it was about this girl that made him not just remember, but talk about trips to the zoo with his parents. It was probably the same thing that made him want to protect her, the same thing that made him want get to know her better. And he didn't know what that thing was. He'd put the little globe down and decided to focus on what he'd come to do - show Bella blots of ink on pieces of cardboard.
"Every time she said something I wanted to know more. Every answer she gave just had me wanting to ask another question or fifty," Edward sighed as he looked at Esme. "We ended up talking about her mother and I could see why she's more mature than the average sophomore - she's had a lot of responsibility from a young age. But then I upset her."
"What did you do?" Esme's eyebrows were up, her eyes wide, clearly ready to reproach him.
"Nothing intentional," Edward answered. "It was a word association test. One of the words brought up a bad memory. I had no way of knowing...but she became upset."
Birthday...
Gone...
He wouldn't give Esme details, he had the feeling the birthday incident was a very personal thing for Bella and she wouldn't want him telling others.
"I didn't know what to do," Edward winced at the memory. "I don't think I've ever felt so helpless."
Bella had walked away to the kitchen, her back to him as she'd dabbed her eyes with tissues and he'd stood, hands in his hair, heart in his throat, aghast at what he'd done...even though he had no idea what that was. He'd apologised, she'd waved his apology away. But as she'd given him a vague story of a destroyed birthday, an anger had built in him. His hands had curled tightly into fists, the steel of his fingernails digging into the granite of his palms. He had felt so terribly sorry, and so incredibly angry. And his quiet rage on her behalf had shocked him.
He didn't know what had happened to Bella, but the thought of anything, or anyone, ever hurting her, was unbearable. The pain of it had seared through him, he'd felt as though he'd been sliced open and burned.
"She was crying," he whispered.
At the scent of her tears Edward's fists had fallen open. He had reached out, his hand trembling, wanting to protect and comfort, but not sure how. Not sure that he should. Not sure it would be welcomed.
Now he rubbed at his chest again.
"What did you do?" Esme whispered. Her eyes could almost have had tears as she watched him.
"I didn't know what to do," he shook his head. "I thought I should leave, but Bella convinced me she was fine to finish the assignment. There was only one more question, anyway." It had been the resolve in her eyes and the calm in her voice that had persuaded him. Strong, he'd thought. She's strong. "And after that there really was no need for me to stay but when it came to it..."
"You couldn't leave?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't leave. And I wanted to make her smile again...when she smiles..." He dropped his head. "I like it when she smiles."
Esme reached over and covered his hand with hers, giving a gentle squeeze before pulling away again.
"I couldn't leave until she was happy again but I couldn't think how to do it, so I took my time putting everything back in my satchel and in the end the only thing I could think of..."
He paused and scrunched up his face.
"What? What did you think of?" Esme was eager to know.
"I told her some of Emmett's knock knock jokes."
Esme's hand flew to her mouth but she wasn't quick enough to stifle her chuckle.
"I know, I know..." Edward shut his eyes and banged his head softly against the wall.
"Which ones?" Esme pulled her hand away from her mouth.
"I did the psychologist with the light bulb..." Edward grimaced.
There was a small bubble of laughter from Esme.
"And I told the story about the man with the parrot..."
"Oh, Edward..." she giggled now.
"And..." he pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I did the interrupting cow," he whispered.
Esme didn't bother to stifle her laughs now.
"No! You didn't? Did you really do the interrupting cow?"
"I did."
"That joke is dreadful!"
"I know," he groaned and banged his head back against the wall some more, eyes closed. "I can't believe I told it to her. I can't believe I told her any of them."
But that was the thing with Bella, he was beginning to realise - she made him do, and feel, things he never had before.
"Oh, Edward...I wish I'd heard you. You've never..."
"Yes, I know, I never tell jokes," he said briskly and waited for Esme's laughter to fade. He had to wait a while but he wore an amused smile as he watched her. At last she was able to speak again.
"Did it work?"
"Well, she didn't throw me out."
"But did Bella smile?"
Did Bella smile?
"She did," Edward grinned, and his voice still echoed his disbelief, but his smile reflected his joy. Inside his chest his heart almost felt like it was beating. It had felt that way last night, too.
It had been so beautiful. Watching Bella throw her head back, hearing her laughter, seeing her wipe at her eyes and how she clutched her stomach when it became too much and she begged him to stop. Knowing it was him who'd made her happy.
"They were the worst jokes," he said, shaking his head. "But then she told me some which were just as bad, if not worse. And we just went on."
"Telling jokes?" Esme had recovered from her laughter, but her face still wore a smile.
"Telling jokes. It was fun." Edward said this like it was the greatest puzzle in the world. "I had the most fun...since I can't remember when. Just telling bad jokes and it was one of the best evenings of my existence." He could have shared the same jokes with any other human on the planet and been bored witless.
Esme was beaming at him, but suddenly Edward's smile faded and he was scowling as he stared towards the window. The sun was struggling to come out again, and failing.
"But I know nothing good can come of it," he said suddenly.
Esme leant forward now, Edward could feel her keen eyes on him. Alice might be able to see his future, but Edward had always felt Esme could see through right through him.
"Why not, Edward?" she asked and Edward turned sharply, meeting her gaze straight on.
"You've seen my red eyes," he whispered.
There was a moment of heavy silence, then Esme nodded and sat back again.
"You're right. I have seen them. I hugged you when you came back to us and I sat with you while you told Carlisle and I what you'd done. I've heard your confessions and seen your remorse, Edward. And I've seen your eyes turn gold again, and stay gold for the past seventy four years."
Edward looked away out the window. The music had finished but he felt no need to hit the replay button again. The silence had a beat all its own.
"I crave control," he admitted softly. "Without the mind-reading...I can't describe to you how out of controlI felt at the beginning, and still do feel sometimes. And vulnerable, I felt unbelievably vulnerable. But with this girl, Bella, any control I've clawed back over the past two years has just...vanished. I'm vulnerable again. But this time I don't feel so empty."
"Empty?"
Edward nodded. "Without my gift it's been as if a part of me was missing, but the last week or so, that space hasn't felt so hollow."
"Do you think it was just the loss of your gift that made you feel that way?" Esme said lightly. She was playing distractedly with her sleeve and Edward frowned.
"Of course, what else?" He wondered if there was something she was keeping from him. He'd wondered that a lot over the past couple of years.
"I wondered...maybe some memories?"
Ah. The memories.
Edward shook his head. "No. Any memories of Forks that I've lost are inconsequential, meaningless. I can base that easily on what I do remember." He dismissed Forks with a wave of his hand.
Esme chewed on her lip as Edward let out a slow breath now. "If I could read one mind, just one, it would be Bella's. The number of times I've wanted to know what she's thinking..." He sighed, shut his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. "I should leave her alone. I should stay away from her...I keep telling myself this, over and over again, I should stay away..."
"But why?" Esme cut in. "Do you think you might be a danger to Bella?"
Edward opened his eyes and looked at her from between his fingers.
"No." He shook his head. "Never. I know that." He didn't how he knew it but he did. He knew as surely as he knew his own name.
"Then what is it?"
Edward dropped his hands from his face and stood up. Pacing again. Esme watched him as she might watch a tennis match, her head swivelling back and forth as he strode from one side of the room to the other.
"She's human. I'm not. That's a pretty big what is it. I can't tell her what I am and if I did she'd probably go running and screaming and we'd have to pack up and move. Again. But..." Edward stopped... the memory of Bella, crying in her kitchen, laughing at his jokes, filled his mind. And his heart. He rubbed at his chest. "But she doesn't seem frightened of me," he whispered. That was something else about her that had him curious...if most humans got too close he could smell the fear
There was a small sound from Esme. Edward turned and saw her throat working and her lip trembling.
"Esme?" She blinked hard and pulled herself together quickly as he knelt in front of her, concerned. "What?"
"Nothing," she smiled and touched his cheek, pushed the hair out of his eyes. "I just want to ask you one thing...do you like Bella, Edward?"
Edward dropped his eyes.
As he'd run through the night he had gone over every second of the time he'd spent with Bella...every word, every expression, every gesture. And he'd analysed how he'd felt each time, and as he'd analysed those feelings that had been so confusing and blurred in the beginning had gradually grown sharper and clearer - like a developing photograph.
Around the time he'd hit the border into Idaho some of his feelings had come into focus with alarming vividness. He'd almost stumbled as his epiphany hit him and his foot had scraped over a rock that normally he would barely touch.
"I care for her," he whispered, lifting his eyes so his hair fell into them again. "It's only the last few hours I've realised just how important her happiness is to me." More important than anything else in the world. Even more than his own life. Though he still wasn't sure why. There was still so much that was confusing, the photograph still wasn't fully developed.
Esme gave a soft smile.
"That hair," she murmured and he smiled too as she pushed it back again. "So you care for Bella?"
"I want her to be happy."
"That's the best start," Esme smiled.
"The best start?"
She nodded as Edward blinked at her, frowning. "I don't know if I'm the best anything. I keep telling myself I'm definitely not the best person for Bella to be around. But then I think..."
This was what he'd been warring over as he lay on his couch earlier. "But then I think that's not my decision to make."
Esme gasped. She reached out and gently took his face between her hands. Edward thought again that she might cry, her smile quivered.
"You're right," she mouthed. "It's not your decision." She took away her hands and put them, prayer-like, to her lips. "Just let it happen, Edward, please," she whispered against her fingers. "Let nature take its course, and if Bella likes you, let her."
Esme's reaction surprised Edward, the passion in her voice, the joy in her eyes, but the possibilities in her words were sweet and he found himself smiling. Could he just let it happen? Whatever it was? He still didn't know, he still didn't fully understand what he felt, but somewhere, some place so deep he couldn't reach it, suddenly something felt right.
"Okay," Edward whispered back. Esme reached out and touched his cheek again.
"And of course she'll like you, because you are so likeable, Edward."
Then she turned sharply to look over her shoulder. Edward heard it too. Alice and Jasper were back from hunting.
"Likeable? Edward?" Jasper's grinning voice floated up the stairs to them. "Yeah, I'd like to see that."
"Jasper!" Alice scolded, giggling.
Edward snorted. "Alice, have you let a damned Yankee in the house?"
It was Jasper's turn to snort. Alice giggled again and Esme rolled her eyes as she dropped her hand from Edward's cheek.
"Well, you can be likeable," she sighed.
Edward grinned as he stood up and held out his hand to Esme, helping her up.
"Thank you," he whispered and kissed her cheek.
She smiled and waved him away as Jasper appeared in the doorway.
"Not interrupting?" he looked from Esme to Edward.
"Just bringing Edward his mail." Esme pointed to the envelope as Alice walked in, too.
"Alice says a thunderstorm is rolling in towards the coast," Jasper grinned. "Want to go swimming off the cliffs? The cloud cover is staying put."
Esme left them to it as Edward debated. Jumping off cliffs and being tossed around in storm-ravaged seas was like the vampire equivalent of riding a roller-coaster. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck - the offer was tempting and he did so little with his siblings these days. And he could use the distraction, it might help clear his mind.
"Please?" Alice bounced up and down on her toes, puppy-dog eyes on.
"Alright," he grinned.
"Yay!" she squealed and began clapping her hands. Edward rolled his eyes.
"But I drive," he added firmly. He hated being a passenger.
Jasper and Alice agreed and then disappeared. Edward grabbed a pair of board shorts from his drawer and his car keys from the battered trophy cup on his shelf.
He bounded down the stairs three at a time, landing with a soundless thud in the foyer. He glided past the hall table where the rest of the mail lay waiting - a credit card statement for Rosalie, a catalogue for Emmett. He saw the letter for Carlisle and noted the Brazilian postmark but didn't give it a second thought - his vampire brain was too busy thinking of how to dunk Jasper under the waves...and how he could make up to Bella for her lost birthday because her happiness had become the most important thing in his world.
A/N: Thank you all so much for reading and supporting this story, your reviews make me smile and mean so much :)
Next chapter: soon I hope :)