Wow guys. I'm beyond grateful for your lovely comments and messages. Thank you so much.

.

.

They rode hard and made good time, winding their way up the mountainside enveloped in a strange, loaded silence. They were tired, people and horses all, but the urgency to leave Forks as far as possible behind them made them eager to push on.

They'd exchanged hardly a handful of words and at first Edward had put it down to shock - they'd both suffered a fright at their near-miss, perhaps Isabella was still upset. The further away they rode, however, the more he realized there was more than residual nerves to the thick blanket of awkwardness hanging between them. There was sticky-sweet anticipation, too.

Edward had never been so intensely aware of another person before. He felt as though he was trapped between two strong impulses, the first to pull Isabella closer, to fit them together and tuck her firmly into his embrace, to make her real by putting his arms around her and learning how she fitted there.

The second impulse, just as strong, was to push away from her intoxicating presence, to clear his mind and remember how to breathe again. Caught in her nearness, he thought surely this was how it must feel to drown. His eyes were drawn to her again and again; he couldn't help it, a moth drawn to her bright flame.

She looked exhausted; they'd both kept vigil through the night, and she had done so on horseback. Edward felt like a boor for making her endure so much on his behalf.

"You're tired. I am sorry."

"I am not sorry. Not one little bit," she replied, then reached for some inner reserve of strength, drew herself up in her saddle and rode on, sending him a smile that lit his path. This was no delicate flower. This was a true frontier woman, and her courage would outshine his at every turn.

Edward's hands felt unsteady as he flicked Henry's reins. He clenched them hard around the leather and followed in her wake.

.

.

They finally broke through into Edward's clearing as the afternoon began to turn grey. Rain was coming. Edward was surprised it had held off this long.

He unsaddled the horses and wiped them down, then led them a little way away behind his cabin leaving Isabella to make her inspections of the place he'd called home for so many years. He would not look to see the thoughts writ on her face, though his heart had climbed into his throat and now sat there like a cold stone. He could neither swallow it down nor disperse the anxiety which had put it there.

He twisted a loose hobble around the horses' legs and set them to a well-earned rest in the meadow, then quickly walked the perimeter and checked that all was as he had left it. No matter how he ached to be with her, he would see them both safe, first and foremost. Distant thunder rumbled through the sky.

It was falling dusk when he finally came into the cabin to find Isabella already half asleep, wrapped in a huddle of blankets and furs on his own narrow cot bed.

He stilled in the doorway with her saddle in his arms.

She had set a small fire burning in the hearth but it hadn't yet had time to warm the place, though there was a pleasant glow about the room. And that's all it was, he realized, suddenly unbearably ashamed; one small room. Barely a house at all. He'd brought his love to a tacked-together shack in the middle of a forest and expected her to live there with him. He was the worst kind of fool and she was probably already regretting—

"I can hear you thinking," Isabella said, her voice cracking with exhaustion. Somehow she had managed to lace it with fondness.

Before he'd entered, he'd been unsure of what to do. Would she prefer it if he slept outside? Edward was certainly no stranger to sleeping under the stars, but he was loath to leave her to make do by herself in a strange place, far away from home and in much less comfortable conditions. Perhaps he could sleep right outside the doorway, he'd thought, so that if she needed something, he would hear. Somehow for all his agonizing, he had never imagined what it might actually be like to walk through the threshold of his home and see her right there, just . . . being. Sleeping and eating and working beside him. Simply living.

Edward closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Slowly, he opened them once more, and tried not to see only the limitations of his offering to her but the truth and earnestness of it too.

Isabella's sturdy boots were tucked away by the bed and her hair fell unbound around her, firelight from the hearth dancing upon the black coils on Edward's own pillow. And truly it hit him then like a ram, the beauty and trust of what she had brought him in return.

He stood frozen, watching the orange flickers play upon her hair until a small movement startled him out of his reverie. Isabella held the edge of the blanket open to him. Fatigue sat heavy and dark under her eyes but there was no uncertainty to be read in them. He'd not insult her again by asking if she was sure.

"Come," she said quietly, piercing the cloud upon his thoughts.

And so it was that as twilight gloamed upon the cabin, Edward let the saddle slip from his hands to the floor, shucked his boots and holster and went, climbing in beneath the furs and burying his face in Isabella's neck, and his fingers in the folds of her shirt.

.

.

He held her just so until the trembling in his hands had subsided a little. His heart would not be calmed so easily, beating rabbit-fast against the confines of its cage. Breathing her in, he let his hands drift up into her thick hair, threading his fingers slowly through its dark softness. Isabella sighed and he felt her smile unfolding against his face.

"I can scarce believe you're here," he whispered, mouth barely an inch from her throat. He pulled her scent deep into his lungs and shuddered, nosing at her soft skin and feeling it pebble. "I have wanted you for so long. So long, you cannot know."

He moved back a little to see her face and the shadows cast upon it by night fast approaching. Already she was more dear to him than anyone.

"I can. I do." She brought her hand up to his face and Edward - want flushing through his whole body - put his mouth to the sweet work of kissing her palm again and again, then slowly the tips of her dear fingers, pressing a lingering caress to each one.

Isabella's tongue darted out to wet her lips as she watched him with her eyes overbright and Edward groaned, mouthing at the delicate turn of her wrist, the shape of which he'd coveted from the very first day. Her quiet gasp made his stomach tighten. Dear God, but she was beautiful.

He reached to brush a stray lock of hair from her face and she closed the small distance to lay her cheek against his palm, eyes glinting black from beneath heavy lids. Leaning in, he nosed gently at the apple of her cheek, mouths so close they were breathing each other's air. Edward thought he could die in this very moment, hanging suspended on the tautest thread. Coils of heat gathered deep in his belly, soaking through every pore until he ached with need for her.

He came in slow and sweet and finally kissed her mouth, softly at first, lips lingering, then with desperate hunger, both of them trading smearing kisses that took his reason away, made him open his mouth and let her in.

With a shudder, he came away from her lips, breathing like he'd been running for miles. Isabella's gaze was glassy and hot, her mouth parted and breath coming just as fast. Edward squeezed his eyes shut and thought about horses and nosy old men and the coming rain, anything that was not how he'd just made her mouth glossy and puffy pink.

Isabella had wound her arms about his shoulders and began to stroke his hair. Edward shivered from head to toe as her fingers scratched and soothed him, bringing both relief and the sweetest agony. Her arms were warm and heavy, holding him so close he imagined he could melt into her every curve.

Edward wanted more, so much more; he wanted to fall in so very badly, wanted to kiss and kiss and kiss her all night just like this, slow and deep until they were both insensible but she was exhausted and desperately needed rest, to say nothing of the things which still needed saying. He could take no more uncertainty. The rest would keep.

"You must know we cannot stay here now."

Isabella's hand paused briefly at his nape, then resumed its petting, deft fingers playing with his hair. Edward shivered in her grasp like a wild thing unused to any kind of touch. He supposed he wasn't at that.

"Neither of us will be able to travel into Forks anymore." Their near-miss at the Swans' home had changed everything. At least two people knew - and still more suspected - that Anthony Masen was alive. "They'll know me now."

"It doesn't matter. We don't need to go back." She sounded so entirely certain. It was a sure sign she hadn't considered the implications of being unable to access John Banner's General Store and other Forks conveniences.

"We might, for provisions. For trade and such. We ought to be close to where folks will trade for things we need. Look around you. This is all I have. My stores won't even see us through the winter." Edward felt her eyes upon him as he tipped his face to the fire cracking smartly in the hearth.

"We need nothing more."

Edward could not hold back the bark of panicked laughter. Perhaps she hadn't understood. "I cannot give you a decent future, a safe life. Don't you see, Isabella? I cannot- I cannot give you what a good man should give his wife."

There. He had said it; at once proclaiming his intentions and his unworthiness. Isabella began to tremble and his heart dropped right through his feet, thinking he'd brought her to tears of disappointment of all she had given up and for nothing, but when he looked up, she was stifling laughter into her hand.

"Oh, my dear," she said after a moment, having collected herself. "If I'd wanted that? If all I wanted was a man to take care of me so I could play at being the little lady, to darn socks and keep house, why, I'd have agreed to marry Pastor Newton."

Edward blinked, fearing he looked like a fish out of water, but unable to help it. "You'd. What?"

"I chose you," she said. "I want you. You chose me so I'll assume you want me just the same until you tell me otherwise."

She looked at him with such frankness on that lovely face, he could do nothing but nod mutely, spring crocuses unfurling within him, hopeful seedlings pushing through ice. Oh, there were more stories to be told between them, he saw. Enough stories to last them a long, long time.

"Well now. Here we are, choosing and wanting each other even though you're you and I'm me, and neither one of us is unmarked by life and death, neither one of us comes to each other perfect and—"

The widest yawn he'd ever seen caught her mid-word, and he felt his anxiety begin to lift along with the corners of his mouth.

"—pure. And in the morning when I'm not half asleep we can talk about it some more and you will be reluctant and shy and I'll use all my—" Another yawn, "—sweet words to talk you into giving up your virtue, and we shall ride horses and you will teach me to hunt. And if we need to go, well, so be it, but damn, Edward, I haven't climbed a tree since I was a girl and if there's one thing you have a good heap of in your yard it's trees for climbing."

Edward snorted a shocked and delighted laugh. "You just go on ahead and climb as many trees as you like, Isabella."

"Bella." Her voice became quiet and serious. "That's what my father called me. You can too, if you'd like."

He tested it in his mouth. "Bella, then. My Bella."

She smiled, all dark eyes and dainty wrists, hunks of gorgeous hair spread on his pillow and a fire in her belly that lit her from within, and Edward was overcome with thick emotions it was far too soon to name. Outside, the weather had finally arrived, rain beginning to pelt on the roof above them.

"And when you're done climbing trees, well, there's that virtue you mentioned."

Her laughter was low and rough and Edward kissed her red mouth again and again, desperately at first, then slowly, languidly, taking them down from burning, licking flames to glowing embers set aside for later. He held her while her eyes drifted shut and watched her fall into a true and trustful sleep until he too had succumbed to bone-deep exhaustion and drifted off, held safe in her embrace.

.

.

A/N: Thank you for reading. On the home stretch now x