"You have to be fucking kidding me," Edward groans. I smile weakly at Esme, trying not to show my distate for the pile of books she's just set in front of us.

"Now you look here, son of mine," she chides. "I've spoken with your school, and they've agreed that if you can pass the revised finals they set you, you'll be able to get through without having to repeat a grade. If Bella can pass them, they'll admit her for next year and you two can be together, which I know is important to y'all."

If only she knew.

"It took a whole mess of sweet-talking for me to swing this for you, so I think you should be a little more grateful to your momma, considering how much she does and how much she loves you."

She pinches his cheek lovingly and he pulls away, wiping at the spot with a scowl on his face.

"Thank you, Esme," I murmur, perking up a little at the idea of being able to attend school with Edward next fall.

"Yeah, thanks Mom," he grumbles.

"You're welcome, my loves. You two are going to have to put your heads down and do some work so that you can pass these things. Don't make me look like a fool for doing this for you."

She points at us accusingly for a moment, then laughs delicately and leaves us in the dining room, surrounded by a mountain of books and a large plate of fresh cookies. I realise the effort it would have taken her to coordinate this, especially considering it's June and we've missed almost three full months of school. I stare at the books for a while, then reach for the first study guide I find.

Biology.

Great.

Edward sees the one I've picked up, groans again, and rifles through his pile for the same one. I look at him questioningly.

"At least this way, we can help each other. By which I mean, you can help me, because I cannot be fucked with this bullshit."

I giggle, then pause abruptly when I hear Esme's voice through the slightly open door.

"I hear laughing, but I don't hear any learning!" she calls. Edward rolls his eyes and I try to hold back more laughter by opening the printed guide in front of me.

I'd always thought myself to be a fairly capable student, but this all looks like jibberish to me. How could knowing about the cellular structure of plants possibly be important now?

I try as hard as I can to submerse myself in the menial facts, to absorb as much as I can, but it's near impossible, especially with Edward sitting so close, making irritated noises and tapping his pen against the table. I just want to laugh at him... and kiss him, but I persist with the work.

"This is such bullshit," he grumbles for what feels like the millionth time. I hold back an eye roll.

"I know, but it's normal. It's real life. We're doing something totally mundane and normal, and that's a good thing."

He sighs.

"You're too fucking smart sometimes, do you know that?" he asks, reaching under the table to clasp his hand in mine. Edward is left-handed, and I'm right, so we're able to continue working while touching each other. Just another reason why he's perfect.

Well, perfect for me.

Checker sits at my feet, entertaining himself by playing some game with his tiny little feet, watching with rapt attention as he moves them around. I smile down at him, oblivious to his surroundings and I envy his life for a moment, then abruptly feel like an idiot.

Emmett strolls into the room, taking us all in, then laughs.

"Suckers!" he crows. "I was jealous you got out of so much school, but not anymore!"

Edward scowls and gives him the finger. Emmett notices Checker sitting on the floor and chuckles to himself.

"Is he doing that thing with his hands again?"

I nod and smile reflexively. Emmett looks at his own hands, turning them this way and that with a contemplative expression.

"I wish my hands were as interesting as him seem to be. Come here, Chubs!"

Checker totters over excitedly, thrilled to be receiving attention. They trot out of the room together, and I can't help but laugh at a little, despite scowling at the nickname, which seems to have caught.

"Finally, Emmett has met his match, both in looks and intellect," Edward muses.

"Rosalie will be heartbroken," I add, and he chuckles under his breath. We try to refocus on our studies, but Edward's fingertips are trailing up my wrist and forearm as he writes. The look on his face would make it seem like it's an absent thing, but I think he knows exactly what he's doing. It's impossible to focus when he's touching me like that and he knows it.

Eventually I begin to get annoyed and drop the pretense of studying altogether.

"Let's do something, this is boring," I whine playfully. He scoffs.

"So much for little miss 'let's be normal and study'."

"I'm sick of that now."

He makes a show of slamming his workbook shut and throwing it across the table.

"Fuck yeah, let's go."

He reaches out a hand for me and we sneak out of the house, pausing only to grab his car keys before Esme can catch us. Knowing her, she probably wouldn't mind at all, but it's fun to be playful even for a little while.

"Where to?" he asks once we're what he dubs a safe distance from his house and the parental authority within.

"Take me somewhere awesome," I say snottily, leaning back in my chair and waving my hand in a dismissive gesture. I can almost hear him rolling his eyes as he turns up the music and the car accelerates. I consider asking him where he's taking me, but I trust him implicitly so I don't bother. My normal need to have all the details before I'm taken anywhere doesn't exist with him.

That thought almost makes me sigh aloud.

After my session with Dr Reynolds, I'd been trying to force myself to become as self-aware as possible of the effects of my time away. It's by no means an easy feat, because the behaviours - the distrust, the irrational terror - seem so natural to me. I'm supposed to be keeping a mood diary for him, writing down when I start to feel frightened and what triggers it, but it's hard for me to tell when I'm being reasonable and when I'm not. He'd spoken to Esme via phone just after my session and apparently I was to write it all down, but I'm so used to the residual discomfort - the paranoia - that it's hard to differentiate what's noteworthy and what's not.

I open my eyes a little and peek at Edward, completely relaxed as he drives and taps his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the music. He looks so at ease - so happy and unguarded. Trusting. Guilt consumes me.

I hate that I'm keeping things from him, as necessary as it is for me to do so. I just don't see an alternative that won't result in him pushing himself into something he's not ready for. As much as he complains, I'm confident the gym sessions are helping him, if in no other way than giving him a way to get out all the anger and rage he feels about everything that happened to us, and the fallout afterwards .

I scoff internally at my euphemism.

Self-aware.

I don't bother to correct myself though.

Weak.

Rather than let myself descend into a spiral of self-loathing at my various inadequacies, I focus on the music around me and reach for Edward's hand, letting the calm soak into my pores. My eyes drift closed and I bask in it, the confined space of the car only helping me to forget the rest of the world outside.

Eventually we come to stop and my eyes open. We're at a tiny, seemingly abandoned beach. It's nearing dusk and the place doesn't seem like it ever hosts alot of visitors, especially not now. Edward climbs out of the car and goes to the boot, pulling out a large blanket that I suspect lives in there.

He takes my hand and leads me down an uneven set of stone steps that lead to the sand, then throws out the blanket, spreading it on the ground. We're quite a ways back from the water, nestled in a small enclave in the low, vine-like plants that grow on the dunes. Small yellow flowers litter the area, and it's absolutely beautiful.

I step onto the blanket, then pause before I sit, narrowing my eyes at him.

"This isn't like, your outdoor sex blanket, or something, is it? I don't want skank germs on me." I'm teasingly suspicious and he just rolls his eyes before flopping down onto it. He looks up to see my still-skeptical expression, and yanks on my arm, throwing my balance off and making me collapse down beside him. I pinch his forearm but settle against him when he wraps his arm around my shoulder.

For a long time, we just sit, the sound of the gentle waves and some nearby birds the only noise we can hear.

"Do you ever wonder what happened to them?" I ask after a while.

"Who?" he asks, leaning back to look at me. My expression must give something away because realisation lights his face at once. "Oh."

"Yeah." Them.

"I... Carlisle told me. After everything that happened with Emmett, he told me that they'd all been arrested and were awaiting trial."

"And you didn't tell me?" I ask, moving away slightly as the lie seems to phyiscally sting me. I know I'm a hypocrite, but it hurts me in a way I can't imagine. This seems like such an important thing to disclose.

"I wasn't sure you wanted to know," he says, running his hand down his face as he heaves a frustrated sigh. "I just... I know it was a dick move, but I was trying to protect you, you know?"

Of course he was.

"You didn't want to hear anything about it, so I didn't say anything."

He looks so penitent, and I feel terrible for pulling away from him. I lean back into his body and he runs his hand down the side of my face, tiltling it towards him. He's sorry, I can tell, and he was only trying to protect me. Honestly, I really didn't want to know, but now that I'm forcing things up with Dr Reynolds, the knowledge makes me feel better.

"I hope they get the crap beaten out of them in jail," I say simply, snuggling into him. He laughs and tightens his arm around me.

"I have no doubt your dad pulled a few strings and they're having a pretty rough time in there," he muses and the thought makes me smile. I'm by no means a violent person, but I can't help but be pleased by the idea that they might be suffering just a fraction of what they did to us. That someone out there is taunting them, putting them through that hell.

Especially the blonde.

"Carlisle knows more," Edward tells me after a little while. "We can talk to him if you want. I didn't really ask anything after he told me they were gone. That was all I was really worried about."

"You aren't curious about why they took us?"

"Not then, I wasn't." I could understand that. Freedom had been so overwhelming, it hadn't even occured to me to inquire as to why it had been snatched from us for so long.

"And now?" I press.

"I guess so, yeah. The whole thing was just so completely fucked up... there's no legitimate reason for all the shit that happened to us, and I really didn't think that hearing whatever justification those assholes gave to try and save their asses would make me feel any better."

As bizarre as it is, his logic makes complete sense to me. He sighs, then leans back again to study me, obviously checking my comfort level because of the subject matter.

Worrying, always worrying.

"I didn't know that you wanted to know, otherwise I would have mentioned it sooner," he says. I shrug awkwardly, my body still half wrapped around his.

"I just... maybe it'll help, you know?"

He refocuses on the ocean before us and hugs me closer, pulling my frame as close to his as possible. One of his hands slides into my hair, rubbing gently at the nape of my neck.

"Maybe."

He's not ready for it. This bolsters my reserve that witholding the therapy thing is the right choice. I won't force him to confront his various demons before he's ready, especially now that his gym sessions are helping him channel his aggression. I won't make him hurt for nothing, especially since I survived my session on my own.

I turn my face into him and press a kiss to his t-shirt covered chest. He sighs again, but the sound denotes contentment, rather than worry. He wraps me around him as best he can, taking back all the comfort I normally get from him. I can't stop smiling, knowing that I can do this for him as well. I can make him stronger, just like he does for me.

I shift myself upwards, throwing a leg over his body so that I'm seated in his lap. My ankles cross behind him and I rest my hands on his shoulders, just looking at his face. He smiles softly at me, trying to disguise his discomfort. Always trying to protect me, so often at his own expense.

"You know, as awful as it all was, at least we found each other in it," I offer, pressing my forehead to his. "I don't know how I would have survived without you."

"So you're saying we focus on the silver lining?" he asks, his voice a little teasing.

"Silver?" I scoff, "not even close. Nowhere near valuable enough."

He laughs, and it's half-hearted and a little husky, but it's still there and that's enough. I kiss him, just a whisper against his lips, but it reaffirms everything we haven't said that we know hangs in the air around us.

I'm here. You're here. And I'll wait every second it takes until you're ready to face this.

He kisses me back, more firmly this time, and I know he's acknowledging my silent declaration.

He's not ready yet, but he will be.

AN: Nawwwwwwwwwwww .

And, more info for you! Happy New Year lovelies - get extra trashed, because i'm starting at 8am NYE and going til 10pm NYD... beat that.

*smooches*