I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's, personality, background, and the plot of my story.

Bella smiles and nods her head along to whatever Cece's friend's mum is saying even though she is tuning her out. They sang Happy Birthday, cut the cake, and opened the presents and now the kids are searching through the yard for the chocolate.

She looks around while listening to the woman and alarm bells start ringing in her head once she spots who Edward is talking to. "Excuse me," Bella tells her and walks quickly toward them.

"I am just saying that I might not be her biological dad, but if you hurt Cece, or Bella for that matter, I won't punch you. I will kill you and since I am an FBI agent I know how to make it an accident," She hears Marco telling him.

She fights the urge to go and punch Marco as something in her tells her to stop in her place and listen to what Edward replies. "I never thanked you for what you did for Bella and Cece by extension. You were there for them when they needed someone and I wasn't there. I can't thank you enough for that."

Marco is silent for a moment before he answers him, "There is no need to thank me. They were like a ray of sunlight in my life."

Bella then decides to interrupt before their talk turns sour. "What are the two of you talking about?" Bella states appearing from behind them.

Edward turns to look at her in surprise before Marco answers her, "About Cece. I was just telling him how brave he must be to arrive to her birthday before her gift."

Edward rolls his eyes with faux irritation before he complains, "I will never live it down, will I?"

Marco barks a laugh before answering him, "No you won't. Cece will always hold it against you, but you will probably do another atrocity along the road of parenthood and she will forget all about it and hold the new thing against you."

"Atrocity?" Edward asks in alarm. He knows that he will make mistakes along the way. He is human after all, but atrocity? That sound like a lot.

"She is seven man. Everything is an atrocity in her book," Marco replies nonchalantly.

Edward nods his head and seems to have something to think of as he excuses himself to check on Cece leaving Marco and her alone. "So, what did you hear while eavesdropping?"

Bella looks at him in surprise. "Dont give this look. I know you too well. Plus, I am an FBI agent. You can't sneak on me," he tells her shrugging.

She nods her head and smiles wistfully while looking at the kids playing and tells him, "It's interesting how we were together as long as I was with him, yet you know me ten times more than he did."

He places a hand on her shoulder and rubs it softly as he tells her, "I think we already established that you weren't the problem person in that relationship."

"But I was the problem person in ours," she finishes.

He shakes his head and tells her, "Dont say that. We were two traumatized people who were slightly fucked in the head. We were equally the problem person. We were two people who tried really hard until it no longer worked for us. You know what they say."

"A successful relationship isn't measured by how long it was. It's measured by how happy the couple were throughout it," she finishes. This was a line they heard while watching a show together and have never forgotten since then.

"And we made each other happy, didn't we?" he asks looking down at her with eyes sparkling with nostalgia.

"The happiest," she replies fighting back tears.

In a way it almost feels like they are saying goodbye now. They were finally getting the closure they deserved. Throughout the divorce process, Bella couldn't see beyond her anger. She couldn't see things in retrospect. The last time they saw each other, during Cece's last birthday, Bella avoided him like the plague. She was still very angry at him because she couldn't understand how he was okay with being away from her when it felt like all she could do was miss him.

"Did you miss me?" she asks him quietly the question she wished she asked him a long time ago.

"Of course I did," he tells her laughing a humorless laugh. "There isn't a day that passes by without me missing you. What's grief if not love preserving?"

She nods her head in understanding looking at the ground trying to collect her thought and have an expression on her face that is less manic than the one she has right now. "But we did the right thing by ending it."

"Yes we did."

"Amanda, she seems like a sweetheart," Bella states after a couple of minutes of silence.

He nods his head and an enchanting smile breaks on his face. "She is something else," he tells her and then pauses for a second to glance at her before continuing, "She will never get me like you did. Trauma isn't quite understood by people who haven't experienced it and at the beginning I thought that it would be a problem, but it's not. I will be frawning at the news and she will tell me that I should smile more, or I will be complaining about the paperwork and she will tell me to think of three things I should be grateful for. She has gotten me to volunteer with her weekly, and I know volunteering is about helping others, but I honestly can't remember a time I felt better about my life than when I volunteer with her. She makes everything better."

She smiles as she tells him, "I am happy for you."

"You will have that someday," he tells her knowingly.

"Yeah. Sure," she mutters dismissively kicking at a stone near her feet.

"Bella look at me," Marco demands and once she looks up and meets his eyes, he tells her, "Don't let what happened with Edward and me stop you from experiencing love again. You deserve to love and be loved again. You are one of the most loving people I know. You have so much love to give. If you don't find someone to give it to, you will end up smothering Cece," he adds at the end jokingly.

She laughs at that and tells him, "Got it. Love Cece less than I want to."

"Bella," he tells her in a warning tone but she ignores it and decides to change the topic. "Where is Amanda? I briefly talked to her when you two came in, but I would like to get to know her better."

Marco rubbs the back of his neck as he tells her, "I don't know. She told me that she needed to use the bathroom, but it's been fifteen minutes."

"I will find her for you," Bella tells him finally finding her escape.

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