[Disclaimer] All things Twilights belong to Mrs. Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] Hi everyone. This chapter was difficult for me to write and I hope that I didn't mess up. Cheat-ward is starting to get on my nerves and that's weird because I'm the one who made him that way….

I would like to dedicate this one here to aquarius127 and SOfisticated1. Your reviews were really helpful, so thanks a lot for them.

**Chapter 25**

"Edward, I don't think that Ali should move right now. That might be too much stress for her heart, don't you think?"

"Hmm,"

"She can sleep in our bedroom with me, if she doesn't mind." I stumbled out, trying to keep my voice sound casual, like it didn't matter at all.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind that, Bella." She answered cheerfully while her caramel eyes sparkled in different shades of gold.

Edward raised one eyebrow.

"Are you sure about that, Mary Alice? You have to know that Bella snores terribly."

Asshole, I thought, that's not even true or is it?

"And I sleep like I was dead. It won't disturb me when she snores…,"

"Fine, so you'll stay here, how wonderful…"

"How long will you be here? Didn't you tell me that you had to stay in Anchorage for longer?" I asked him and started braiding Lilly's hair absentmindly.

"I'll I have to fly back in a week. That will give me enough time to arrange all the paper stuff that is necessary for the divorce."

"That's good to hear."

"And just for your information; I'm serious about the full custody thing."

"No!" I called out and accidentally pulled too much on Lilly's copper hair.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry, sweetie…"

"I like it better when Auntie Ali braids my hair. She's much better at it than you and Auntie Rosie." She told me reproachfully and jumped from my lap.

"Yeah, I know, Lilly." I mumbled halfheartedly before I turned to her father again.

"Why should the court give you full custody for our daughter? As far as I know the custody normally always goes to the mother."

"And you have your juristic knowledge about that from where? Watching re-runs of LAW & ORDER or what?"

"Don't be mean to her, Edward. Just because she didn't went to some crappy law school like you did, doesn't mean she's stupid."

"Bella is actually right about the custody thing. You should be glad if she agrees to joint custody." Rosalie stated calmly and pulled out her cell to type a text.

"Rosalie, Mary Alice, both of you should keep your stupid mouths shut. Who gets or doesn't get custody for Lilly is none of your damn business."

"Would you please stop being so rude to your sisters, Edward."

"Don't tell me how to talk to anyone. All of this is your fault, Bella, because you're insisting on getting divorced."

I rolled my eyes at that and sighed deeply.

"Edward, I'm too tired to argue with you right now. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

XXXX

Somehow it felt weird to me sleeping in the same bed with Alice while my hopefully, soon-to-be ex-husband stayed in the guestroom.

"Ali?" I whispered into her ear and hugged her tightly from behind.

"Hmm,"

"Are you okay?" I asked her and put one hand on her chest to feel her heart beating peacefully against my fingertips.

"Yes, I am. You don't have to worry about my heart. Like I said before, as long as I don't try to participate in any sports I'll be fine."

"That's not what I meant, Ali. I'm way more worried about the whole situation we're in right now."

Slowly she turned around and cupped my face between her dainty hands.

"Yeah, I know. I'm worried about that too, Bella. I don't want my brother to hurt you, because you're in love with me."

"And I don't want him to hurt you either. He was so rude to you and Rosalie today and he doesn't even know the true reason why I want to divorce him."

She leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on my trembling lips. I stiffened next to her and pulled back a split second later.

"I'm sorry, but I can't…," I croaked out and felt the tears starting to burn in my eyes.

"That's okay, Bella. I understand that you're not in the mood for that right now. Can I just hold you?"

I nodded my head as she wiped away a few tears from my cheeks.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can. What do you want to know?"

"Do I really snore?"

A low chuckle left her throat.

"Yes, you do, like a drunken sailor." She stated.

"God, that's so embarrassing." My face blushed into a crimson red.

"No, it's not. I actually think it's cute, Bella."

Someone knocked at the door and we instantly pulled apart. Lilly's little head appeared in the doorframe.

"Mommy, can I sleep here with you and Auntie Ali tonight?" she asked me anxiously and walked into the room. Her tiny hands wrapped tightly around her teddy bear.

"Why don't you want to stay in your own room, Lilly?"

"Because I don't want to sleep alone there, Mommy..."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and starting biting her fingernails nervously.

"I'm scared that the evil witch will come back for me. What if Daddy has given her one of the new keys?"

"Honey, I'm pretty sure that your father didn't do that. You really don't have to be afraid of her anymore. Mommy won't let her hurt you."

I wrapped my arms around her and planted a soft kiss on her cheek.

"Mommy, are you and Daddy angry at each other?"

I cleared my throat before I spoke up again.

"Yes, we are, Lilly, but that has nothing to do with you, sweetie. You don't have to worry about it." It's bad enough that I have to…

"But I don't want you and Daddy to fight."

"I know, honey. I'm sorry that we yelled so much in front of you. We shouldn't have done that."

I pulled her closer to me and started stroking her back comfortingly, until my eyes felt too heavy to keep them open.

XXXX

"Mom, you don't have to show Bella these embarrassing pictures." Ali stated and emptied the glass of water in front of her.

"I'm sure they're not that interesting for her and Lilly."

"Oh, Mary Alice, don't be like that." Esme told her youngest daughter and opened the photo album on her lap.

"See, Lilly that was your aunt when she was your age."

My eyes captured the face of the little girl that was framed with a curtain of long, ebony curls. It was a pretty face, but she looked much too fragile to be healthy. She seemed almost like a little bird that had fallen out of the nest to early.

"Auntie Ali, why do have wings on your back?" Lilly asked her curiously.

Esme chuckled softly and put a wisp of her granddaughter's copper hair that equaled her own so much behind her ear.

"I think, she thought that she was a pixie and could fly with them. It was so cute." She stated cheerfully.

"Awesome! Can I have some like that too, Grandma? I want to be able to fly too!"

"We can get you some wings for your birthday, sweetie."

Lilly smiled all over her face and I was glad that she was so cheerful today. I didn't want the discrepancies between me and her father to make her feel bad. I didn't want to be like Renee who constantly complained about my father in front of me when I was younger.

"Grandma, why does she have a plastic tube in her arm?"

Ali stood up from the sofa so quickly that it squeaked underneath her.

"Mom, please put the damn photo album away. Can't you see that this is embarrassing for me? I look like crap on some of these pictures."

"Mary Alice, you don't look like crap. You were sick back then. There is no need to be embarrassed about that."

"Yeah right, Mom. I would still prefer it, if you wouldn't show Bella the visible evidence of my heart condition. She was so worried that Lilly might have it too, when Edward told her that it's congenital."

Esme cringed slightly.

"Bella, you don't have to worry about that. If Lilly had the same…well, condition like Mary Alice you would have found out about it a long time ago."

"That's good to hear." I told her and pulled Lilly on my lap.

"I'm sorry about the divorce, Esme. I know how you think about that."

"Bella, you don't have to apologize to me. I just think that you should probably consider some family therapy before you go for the last step."

I shook my head and sighed deeply.

"Family therapy won't help me and Edward to solve our problems. We're just too different. He mainly lives for his career and then there's the fact that he had an affair with his secretary."

"I know, Bella, but can't you just try to see past that for Lilly's sake? She needs both of her parents in her life to be happy…"

"Esme, I don't know what Edward has told you so far, but he's the one who wants full custody for Lilly."

"Grandma, what's custody?"

"That's when a judge decides with whom you're going to live, sweetie."

"Am I not going to live with Mommy and Daddy at home anymore?"

"Of course, you're going to live at home with me, Lilly. But Mommy and Daddy won't live in the same house. So it probably means that you're going to have two homes in the future."

"Is he going to live with Uncle Emmett and Auntie Rosie?"

"Who is going to live with us?" Rosalie asked as she and Emmett entered the living room.

"Edward." Ali told them while she planted a kiss on her sister's cheek.

"Lilly obviously thinks that he could live with the two of you."

"Honey, you know that your father is terribly scared of Fido. He might not want to stay with us." Emmett told her and wrapped his arms around his blonde wife. Then he pulled her hair over her shoulder and whispered something into her ear that made her chuckle. I wondered why she was in such an excellent mood today; normally it wasn't that easy to make her laugh…

XXXX

"There is one thing that I really wanted to tell you the entire day," I mumbled into Ali's ear as I wrapped my arms around her delicate waist.

"You looked so damn cute with those wings on your back. I wished I could see you when you wear them. When you wear nothing but them…"

Slowly I pulled her closer and planted a soft kiss on her ruby tinted lips that felt like silk against mine.

Then almost too fast to understand what was happening at all her warm body was shoved off of me.

There was an awful cracking sound when she crashed against the bookshelf on the other side of the room.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here with my wife?" Edward croaked out, his voice sharp like a knife.

"Edward, please. This is not her fault."

Ali whimpered slightly as she stood up from the ground and placed her hand on her side. She choked loudly and small trails of blood trickled down her chin when she gasped for air.

I put one arm around her quivering shoulders.

"Damn it, Edward. You probably broke her ribs, you idiot."

"The little bastard should be glad that I didn't break her neck!" He growled angrily.

"Don't talk to her like that! God, I wished that you hadn't found out about it like that. I swear that we were going to tell you after Lilly's birthday."

"Tell me what?"

I took a deep breath before I spoke up again.

"That we love each other."

"You think that you're in love with her, Bella? Is this some kind of sick joke?"

"Edward, try to calm down. It won't help the situation if you lose it now."

"You disgusting little parasite, I wished they'd left you to rot in the gutter where they found you! I wished…,"

"What are you talking about?" I asked him in confusion, because his words, although they were clearly spoken out of anger, didn't make any sense to me.

Rosalie entered the room and inhaled sharply between her teeth when she saw the blood crusted mouth of her younger sister.

"What the hell did you do to her?" she snarled at Edward.

"What I did to her? What I did to her? How about asking what the little parasite did to me! She seduced my instable wife and made her all confused in the head so that Bella thinks she suddenly turned gay somehow!"

"Don't call her a parasite. What ever happened between her and Bella, it's not Ali's fault alone."

"I call her a parasite because that's exactly what she is, Rose…what she always has been…,"

"Edward, for heaven's sake, just shut up now before you say something stupid."

"Fuck you! Why are you still trying to protect the little bastard? Have you forgotten that I'm your brother?"

"And she's my sister! I won't let you hurt her like that."

"She destroyed my marriage! I don't give a shit what hurts the little parasite or not!"

"Lower your voice! Ali didn't destroy your marriage. You managed perfectly to do that without any help from the outside. So, for the last time now, shut up before you're going to say something that you will probably regret for the rest of your life!"

"Regret? Regret? There is only one thing that I do regret, Rosalie and that's allowing this sneaky little piece of shit to stay in my house so that the little bastard could seduce my wife!"

"You can't talk to our sister like that, Edward. Mom and Dad would be so ashamed if they could see you right now!"

"Our sister?" he chuckled sourly.

"Our sister? Damn it, Rose, you know just as well as I do that she's not our real sister!"

XOXOXOXOXO

[A/N] So the truth(s) are out finally. If you want to read more, you should press the little review button down there to motivate me to continue writing.