Not too much to say today, apart from thanks to my fabulous beta, CoppertopJ. I'll let you get on with the story. Enjoy :)
I awoke the next morning, the ghosts of my dreams so close to my mind but just out of reach. For a few minutes, I forgot everything that had happened the previous day, but I soon realised I was lying naked with two strong arms surrounding me.
I opened my eyes and turned to look up at him, a smile on my face, but it faded quickly when I saw the sadness in his eyes.
"Edward, what's wrong?" I asked, cupping his face in my hands.
"Nothing," he said, though I knew something was bothering him. I arched my eyebrow at him.
"You just had a few nightmares," he sighed, pulling me closer to him in an attempt to not look me in the eyes.
"Ah," I said, sitting up and forcing him to look at me, "I'm sorry. What did I say?"
"I'm should be the one apologising, not you," he said, "You were screaming, pleading for me to stay. I couldn't wake you, but you seemed to calm down when you heard my voice. Does that happen often?"
"All the time in the beginning," I admitted, "A little less after I started hanging out with Leah and a lot less often after I got your letters and realised you still loved me. I suppose finding you brought a lot of stuff back to the surface."
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, "Are you sure you can forgive me after everything I put you through?"
"Yes," I answered instantly, because there really was no question about it, "I'm not saying it's going to be easy. It's going to take a while before I will feel secure that you won't leave again, and I'm not sure when the nightmares will stop, but I love you and I want to be with you."
"I love you, too," he replied, "More than words can express and I vow to spend the rest of my life making it up to you and showing you that I'm never leaving you again."
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Alice has booked us all flights back to Rochester for tonight," he said, "Before that, there's something I'd like to do with you if that's okay?"
"Sure," I said, jumping out of bed and heading to the bathroom to take a shower.
~~~TTOGILB~~~
Just under an hour later, we were sitting in a taxi headed across the city but I had no idea where he was taking me.
"Are you going to give me a clue?" I asked, looking out the window to try to work out where we might be going.
"We are almost there," he said, running his fingers lightly over my hand as he held it, "It's something I had thought about...before." His hands had barely left me since I'd found him the previous day. Besides when I needed human moments, he had constantly been holding my hand or touching me in some way. I definitely wasn't complaining. I needed his touch, to know that he was real and I think he was feeling the exact same way.
Just then the taxi pulled up outside a row of houses. I climbed out of the car, looking around as Edward paid the driver, before taking my hand once again.
We had stopped in front of a tall, red-bricked, Victorian-style house. It had large arched windows and a pointed roof. It was surrounded by a small garden, consisting of bushes and flowers in every colour imaginable. There were a few steps that led up to an ornate door.
"Is this...?" I gasped, as I realised where he had taken me, turning to look up at him.
"The house I grew up in," he answered, confirming my suspicions, "I always thought that someday I'd bring you to Chicago to show you where I grew up. Since we were already here, it seemed like a good time." He looked down at our joined hands, as though he was afraid of my reaction. I hadn't really thought much about the fact that we were in the city that Edward had grown up in. I had been too focused on finding him, that it just hadn't really crossed my mind.
"Oh, Edward," I gushed, "Can we go in?" Now that we were here, I was very excited to see the home he had grown up in. I had often wondered what his life had been like when he was human, but I never thought I would actually get to see his house.
His face lit up at the excitement that was obviously clear on my face, as he pulled me up the steps that led to the door. Pulling some keys out of his pocket, he opened the door and gestured for me to go ahead of him.
I walked into the foyer, the interior of which consisted of dark wood and cream walls. There was a wooden staircase to the right and a large ornate archway to the left. Edward gestured towards the archway and I walked through into a beautiful living room. There was a large burgundy-coloured sofa along one wall and a pair of antique chairs sat facing it. It looked exactly how I imagined a house from the early 1900's to look like.
"I've kept almost everything the same as it was when I grew up here," he told me, "Esme helped me update the bathroom and heating system in line with today's standards, but other than that it's all the same."
"It's beautiful, Edward," I said, "It's amazing to see where you grew up."
"Come on," he said, towing me into the next room, "I want to show you around."
He gave me the grand tour, telling me snippets of stories that he remembered from his childhood. He reminisced about baking cookies in the kitchen with his mother, playing with his school friends in the garden, and eating dinner around the dining table with his parents every Sunday when his father had some time off work. He showed me the piano that his mother had taught him to play on and the table he had sat at every day to do his homework after school.
When we finally got to his childhood bedroom, he reached into the closet and pulled out a small trunk, and gestured for me to sit on the bed.
"I want to show you some things," he said, sitting facing me on the bed, placing the trunk between us. He opened the trunk and pulled out a few photographs, handing them to me. I took them, looking down at the first one. It was a photograph of what could only be his mother and father on their wedding day.
"Wow," I gasped, "You look just like your father, Edward."
"I had my mother's green eyes," he said softly, looking down at the photograph in my hands, "I wish I had more pictures of them. There's another one of me with them."
I flicked to the next photograph. A young, human Edward, around 14 or 15 stood beside his father with his mother sitting in front of them on a chair. I couldn't take my eyes off Edward. He was still handsome, his hair was just as unruly as a human, but he had a boyish look about his features that immortality had taken away. I tried to imagine what he had looked like with green eyes, but my mind kept bringing me back to the gold eyes that I loved.
I flicked to the last photograph, Edward as a baby, maybe only a year old, sitting on a blanket, staring up at the camera with big eyes. I had never been a baby person, but I had to admit, he was a cute baby.
"Very cute," I said teasingly. He looked down a little embarrassed and I reached over to tilt his head back up so I could look him in the eyes, "Thank you for bringing me here. This was amazing." I leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips.
~~~TTOGILB~~~
I rubbed my chest, as I sat on the bed in the hotel room, waiting for Edward to return. He had gone out shopping with Alice to get some new clothes. He hadn't been thinking when he left all those months ago so hadn't even brought a change of clothes with him and was now borrowing some of Carlisle's until he got something of his own.
Despite the hole in my chest having disappeared once I had found him again, being away from him now was causing my chest to hurt again. Not anywhere near as bad as when he'd been gone, but a dull ache at being away from him. I wanted with all my heart to trust him completely and know that he would definitely return to me, but I couldn't. Somewhere deep down, I still expected him to leave me again when he got the chance. I guess that was going to take time to get over.
He had offered to take me with him shopping but I declined, knowing that I needed to phone Leah and I definitely didn't want to do that when he was within earshot. She was going to want all the details and she had a way of making me talk, even when I didn't want to. I had been keeping her up to date with the search through text and she knew that we had found where Edward was staying but that was it.
Carlisle and Esme were nearby to keep an eye on me since Victoria was still a threat somewhere, but Esme had told me that they would give me as much privacy as possible. With one last rub at my aching chest, I lifted my phone and dialled her number.
"About time!" she yelled into the phone as soon as she answered, "I've been going out of my mind here!"
"Sorry!" I said, "We had some catching up to do, so you weren't exactly the first thing on my mind."
"I'm sure you did!" she teased, "Some horizontal catching up!"
"Ummm...well..." I stammered, not really sure what to say.
"Oh. My. God," she said slowly, "You did, didn't you?! I was only kidding! Tell me everything!"
"Oh, God," I groaned, "You know I hate talking about this kind of thing."
"This is what girlfriends talk about, Bella," she chuckled, "So suck it up and give me the details."
"Ugh, fine," I moaned, knowing that she wouldn't give up until I told her and it was better to get it out of the way while Edward wasn't around, "I'll start at the beginning."
"So, Alice finally saw Rosalie and Emmett finding the right building and we all rushed over to meet them," I began, "I told everyone that I wanted to go in to see him on my own first. I needed to know how he was going to react to me, without him seeing that I was there in their minds first."
"And they were all cool with you walking into a starving vampire's den on your own?" she scoffed.
"He wasn't starving. We knew he had just fed a few days earlier," I told her, "Though Carlisle was a little wary, but Alice could see that everything went fine. In fact, I'm sure she saw that everything would be more than fine." I groaned at the thought of what Alice had seen and Leah laughed so hard she could barely breathe.
"If you've quite finished laughing at my embarrassment," I mumbled when her laughter died down a little.
"Sorry, sorry!" she said, finally getting her laughter in check, "But you have to admit, it is kinda funny."
"Anyway, I went in by myself, with the rest of the family staying close by, just in case," I continued, "I had to climb in the window he had been using to get in and out so I could try to catch him unawares and get his truthful reaction."
"Oh, Leah," I sobbed, thinking back to finding him, "He was in such a bad way. He was curled up on the bed and he didn't look up or even move when I entered the room. I spoke to him and still he said nothing. When he eventually spoke, he said he thought I wasn't real." I took a deep breath. It was hard remembering how bad he had been when I found him.
"He hadn't been feeding and he was so starved that he had been having hallucinations of me," I continued, "He thought it was happening again. When I finally convinced him that I was real, he pulled me in for a hug. Then I kissed him and...one thing led to another..."
"Wow," she breathed, "I thought you said he was dead set against that before."
"He was," I replied, "I brought it up ages ago before he left, and he said that it wouldn't be possible for us. Then, anytime things were getting...heated between us, he stopped it, pulled away, before it could go any further."
"That's what I was expecting again this time," I said, "But he just kept going and I certainly wasn't going to stop it." Leah chuckled at that.
"How was it?" she asked.
"It was amazing," I sighed, "Better than I ever thought it would be. It all feels like a dream. Like I'm gonna wake up any minute and that it's not real." I rubbed my chest again, pushing down the thoughts that he may not return.
"But it is real," she reminded me, "I'm so happy you've found him. As much as I should hate all vampires, with them being my mortal enemies and all that, I'm just so glad you are happy again."
"Thanks," I said, "I mean, it's not all going to be plain sailing. I still don't completely trust that he's not gonna leave me again. I even hate that he's away now and there's a part of me that thinks he might not come back. But I am happy, happy that I found him, happy that he's not hurting any more. It's just gonna take a while before things get back to normal, whatever that is in a vampire/human relationship."
We chatted a little about life at home. Things were still quiet on the Victoria front, Charlie was spending a lot of time fishing with Billy in my absence and a few new wolves had phased, including Seth, Leah's younger brother, so she was busy keeping him under control.
We had just hung up, with promises to keep each other updated with any news, when the hotel door opened and in walked Edward, looking very handsome in his new clothes, meticulously selected by Alice, I'm sure.
I jumped up off the bed and bounded over to him, leaping up into his open arms. He smiled down at me, pleased with my reaction to his return.
"I missed you too," he chuckled, pulling me close to him and burying his face in my hair, "Everything okay with your friend?"
"Yeah, about Leah..." I started, thinking that I had better tell him about her before he heard it all in his family's minds, "I need to tell you about her."
He set me down on my feet, a worried expression on his face, and led me by the hand back to the bed, sitting down and pulling me onto his lap.
"That sounds ominous," he said, "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"Well, maybe, but just hear me out before you react," I said. He nodded, but the worried expression never left his face.
"So, Leah is...a werewolf," I said quietly, looking down at my hands, a little worried about his reaction to the fact that I was friends with yet another dangerous creature.
He removed his hands from me, balling them up in a fist, muttering, "Danger magnet!" under his breath.
"Don't worry, it's fine," I told him, "Leah is very controlled and would never hurt me. She has been my rock these last few months. I honestly don't know where I would be without her."
He relaxed a little at that, his worried expression replaced with one of guilt.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry I put you through all of that. I just wish you didn't have to turn to the werewolves for comfort."
"Don't judge her before you know her," I scolded, "She's an amazing, kind, funny, sarcastic person and she picked me up and put a smile on my face when I honestly thought I'd never smile again." I hated to make him feel even worse by describing how my life had been without him, but it was something he was going to have to deal with.
"You're right," he said contritely, "I'm sorry for judging. When it comes to you, I can be a little overprotective..."
"A little?" I scoffed.
"Okay, fine, a lot overprotective," he chuckled, "And the thought of you hanging out with werewolves is hard to think about, but you're right. You've never once judged me or my family, so I will try to do the same for your friends."
"Okay, so one more thing I need to tell you," I said, wincing because his reaction to this news was going to be bad, "And this is definitely going to trigger your overprotective side, but just remember that I am sitting here in your arms." He stiffened at that, readying himself for what I was going to say.
"While I was in Rochester with your family," I began, "The wolves came across a vampire scent. They followed it and chased a red-headed vampire."
"Victoria!" he seethed.
"Yes," I continued, "They chased her as far as they could but lost her trail in the water. Her scent was all over town, but mainly concentrated around my house." I closed my eyes, waiting for his reaction. I expected it to be more volatile, but he just sat there statue still. I looked up at him, his eyes were closed and his hands were balled up into fists again. I stayed quiet, giving him time to get his anger under control.
After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and looked down at me. I could still see the anger in his eyes, but I could also see his love for me there.
"I'm okay. I'm right here," I told him, reaching up to cup his face in my hands, "Your family hasn't left me alone since we heard and the wolves are keeping an eye on Charlie."
"I know," he whispered, "But I can't help but think of the what-ifs. What if she'd come earlier and you were at home? What if the wolves weren't around? What if I had lost you and I didn't even know about it? All because of my stupid idea that you were safer without me in your life." He buried his face in my hair, breathing in my scent, trying to ground himself in the fact that I was here in his arms. We sat like that, wrapped in each other's arms, until Alice called us to leave for our flight.
Recommendation:
I'm not normally one for AH fics, but I came across this one when I was searching for something else and was hooked.
Twilight on the Blue Lagoon by knicnort3
Bella was one of the popular sophomores in her high school, but when a class trip goes awry she finds herself marooned on a tropical island with Edward Cullen, the resident school geek. The two must overcome their differences and learn to work together in order to survive. If you're a fan of 'Twilight' and 'Blue Lagoon', this is the story for you! *more info inside* AH, AU, E/B
