I had the next eight chapters written. It was the entire rest of this part of the story. I wrote it all on Word with autosave on, but my five year old computer decided to crash and I lost like thirty pages of it, so I've kind of just been sitting with this chapter and the next six that I didn't lose. I know it's been over a month since I posted an update, but idk it just didn't feel write to post without finishing it all. But now the words aren't coming, so I'll post the next couple of chapters and wish for inspiration.

Just To Be With You- Muddy Waters

Before It Breaks- Brandi Carlile

"Hey," Edward said, gaze fixed at him feet as he kicked a piece of gravel. There was a stain of rosy pink splotching across his cheekbones, and a marked purpling under his eyes, but otherwise he looked fine.

Well, not fine. Perfect. Exquisite. Gorgeous. He looked tired, but he felt like home.

And I suddenly knew how I was going to manage being in Italy. As torturous as being apart was- especially the last several hours in waiting for them to get home- seeing Edward again was beyond bliss. It was as if absence had indeed made the heart grow fonder, an escalation I hadn't realized was possible.

I rushed into him faster than I knew I could move, pressing my ear to his chest and wrapping my arms around his waist to crush him into me. I was encircled in his warmth, a heat radiating all around me as his heart pounded in my skull.

"I'm s-sorry," he murmured into my hair, and I knew what he was trying to apologize for.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for," I promised, then pulled away from him so I could look up at him. He was finally looking at me, eyes the same familiar piercing green. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He turned even redder, the blush reaching the tips of his ears and spreading down his neck. "It's been a l-long w-weekend. Do y-you think I could j-j-just go to bed n-now?"

He did look remarkably tired. Emmett had zipped past us and left Edward's clothing in my room, and Esme followed behind and took what needed to be washed. Carlisle took the Jeep to one of the garages to unpack the camping equipment- much of it I imagined would go unused and be given away when it came time to move. I didn't think another camping trip was in the cards after this.

"Do you want something to eat first?" I asked. "Esme made enough food for a football team, though Alice did eat like half of it.

Edward threaded his fingers through mine and followed me inside, tripping on the threshold of the front door before I righted him. "Alice was here?"

In the chaos, I had remembered that he of course didn't know what had happened in Forks while he was away. "She slept over," I started, but Edward interrupted.

"She s-slept here? Is that safe?"

"We weren't going to eat her!" I defended, dropping his hand to pile food on a plate for him.

Edward brushed me aside, taking the plate from me and picking through the food himself. "I didn't mean th-that, it's j-j-just th-that Alice is… I don't know how t-to describe it, b-but she's observant."

We sat at the dining room table, Edward eating with one hand while the other rested inside my sleeve as his warm fingers traced the empty veins on the inside of my wrist, and I told him what had happened. "Obviously I didn't have much of a choice. Can you imagine what Charlie would have said?"

Edward scoffed, scraping the leftovers from the bottom of the plate. "I can't b-believe Alice would do s-s-something like that, though. It just d-doesn't s-sound like her."

Esme materialized with a new plate of the items he hadn't managed to fit on one plate, setting it in front of him and taking the dirty dish to the kitchen. "Have you noticed anything different about Alice lately?" I asked, and Edward grimaced and began tapping his foot, an overt tell that my observant mate had picked up on the change.

"What have you n-noticed?" he asked, flipping the question on me.

"Don't be mad?" I asked, chewing on my bottom lip.

Edward laughed, a melodic and smooth chuckle that made me feel alight inside. "I don't know how that would be possible."

"I didn't tell you. I didn't want you to worry. But, she hasn't really been sleeping well the past few months."

"Nightmares?"

"It sounds like that."

"Every night?" Edward asked, brows knitted together and concern dripping from his voice.

"Most nights."

He sighed deeply, which turned into a wide yawn. It wasn't yet nighttime, but it had been a beyond tiring few days, even for me. I couldn't help but be marginally grateful that they had come home a day early, giving me a night here with Edward instead of needing to go right back to Charlie's. Rose was with Alice, and everyone else had apparently cleared out without a word- Carlisle and Esme likely to spend time together privately, and Emmett setting out to find Rose to do the same.

"She's b-been quiet lately. I get the f-feeling that she's a-anxious a-about s-s-something, well, something bad. I j-just don't know what," he told me. I pulled my hand back so his fingers moved from my wrist to my hand, and I squeezed his palm softly in comfort.

"Maybe you should bring it up in therapy?" I suggested. "You do share a therapist. If she's not talking about it, her doctor should know."

"That's not a bad idea," Edward said, but I could tell he didn't find solace in the idea. He yawned again, covering his mouth with his free hand, and I asked if he wanted to go up to bed.

He flushed inexplicably but nodded, and I was momentarily mesmerized by the way his hair tousled when his head moved. Each strand glimmered a different color under the soft light in the dining room, and the sky had cleared from the day of storming so the sunset shined through the front of the house.

Edward followed me up the stairs, never losing contact with my hand, my hip, my elbow. We only parted for him to use the bathroom, and I could hear him rushing through his nightly routine. He scrubbed so roughly in the shower that his skin was bright pink when he came out, and his hair a wet and matted mess with a bubble of shampoo clinging to the nape of his neck.

"Come here," I said, holding out my hand to brush the soap away, and he leaned back into my touch as I massaged his scalp and brushed through his hair.

Esme had changed the sheets out so it smelled of laundry detergent instead of Alice, and we curled around each other, sinking into our own little bubble of the world on the warm mattress. The house was quiet and deserted but for us, with the rest of my family gone, and it was beyond comforting to hear only the sounds of the forest around us and Edward's heart thumping. I buried my face in his chest, matching him breath for breath and inhaling his intoxicating scent.

Edward was drumming some tune on my back, a playful rhythm that I wished I could place, and eventually his tapping slowed, then stilled as he fell asleep, rolling closer to me so he was almost entirely on top of me. It was a position I didn't resent, being completely encapsulated with the soft pressure of his body weight on mine, but as often as he slept like this I didn't know how he was comfortable. Where he was soft and pliable, I was hard and unyielding, like laying on living stone.

That fact made the day even more confusing. If Carlisle hadn't corroborated, I would have thought Emmett was just joking, trying to tease me in an uncouth and unwelcome way.

But it was real, which meant that Edward was thinking about it, and suddenly the position we were in was eliciting thoughts I had been consciously suppressing for months.

Edward slept soundly, not even stirring, which made sense. He was always overtired after a panic attack.

But of all the things to have a panic attack over, of all the triggers…

I didn't blame Emmett. Maybe, in the instant he told me, I felt a flash of rage, but it wasn't his fault no matter how many times he insisted it was over the phone, and given the incessant apologies, I knew he wasn't just joking around with Edward.

A panic attack wasn't wholly surprising. They weren't as frequent as they once were. It was a wonderful thing, the progress I could literally bear witness to. Edward seemed so much more secure, so much more sure of himself. There had been no sort of self-harm in months, nor mentions of being 'undeserving', and the only actual panic attack of the summer had been that day in the kitchen.

That wonderful day.

I could only assume that was what had prompted Edward to start thinking about it, but talking? And of all people in the world, with my brother? He would have been the absolute last person I would discuss something so intimate with.

From what Carlisle described over the satellite phone, Edward had dissociated for several minutes, which had only made it worse. I hated when he got like that, his green eyes turning glassy and unseeing, his body stiff and still. Once, just after I had come back from Seattle, he had actually stopped breathing, and I had to physically shake him back to me before he made himself pass out.

But this wasn't like that. At least, not from what Emmett and Carlisle described. And, after prompting him and begging him to tell me, Emmett was quite clear. They had been sitting around the campfire the evening before, and Carlisle had stepped away to retrieve an animal for Edward's dinner.

"I just wanted him to try some of the local game, you know? Like one of the family," Emmett had said. "But Carlisle went because he said I would have done too much damage to make the meat salvageable, and he was probably right, so he went himself." That was understandable, as Emmett had a tendency to play with his food, and wasn't exactly gentle in the first place.

Emmett was stalling, rambling about what they had been up to during the trip, where they had gone. "We saw the glaciers, went swimming in one of those crystal clear lakes. Edward was having a good time, too. He's a funny kid, when he can get out of his own head.

"Well, I was showing Edward how to start a fire without a match," Emmett continued, "He wasn't getting it, you know, human strength and all, but he kept trying and trying, and eventually it sparked, which was good enough. And he got all quiet and looked at the fire, and I let him. I didn't know, maybe he was proud of it or something. Guy didn't exactly have a Boy Scout childhood, you know?"

"I do know, Em," I snapped. I had been frustrated with him. Carlisle called me and told me about the panic attack, and the only word I had managed to get out of Edward was my name before he cried softly over the line. I stayed with him, whispered softly about how much I loved him, how he had nothing to worry about, and desperately wishing I had a more useful gift that my stupid shield- something like teleportation. When he grew quiet, he passed the phone back to Carlisle, who told me they were packing up the campsite and heading home, a day and a half before they had planned on leaving.

They called me from the car, far enough into civilization that a cellphone was functional. Carlisle had offered Edward alprazolam, and he was apparently sleeping in the backseat. Not being able to talk to him amplified my anxiety, and I paced the living room like a caged animal while Esme watched on, my steps in rhythm with Alice's heartbeat as she slept the night away in my room two floors above.

Emmett paused for a moment, letting me reign in my anger. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Through gritted teeth I answered. "Please, just tell me what happened."

Emmett sighed, and I could hear as he drummed his fingernails against the steering wheel. "He was quiet for a while. But, um, I was taking a page from your book. Being patient and all that. So I just kind of sat there, kicked at the fire to get it going. Then, out of the blue, he looked up at me and says, 'Can I ask you something?' And I don't know what I was expecting, what I was thinking he was gonna ask, but it wasn't what he did."

Emmett stopped talking in the middle of his recounting, and I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip until I could feel the pressure nearing actual pain. "What did he ask?" I asked, keeping myself from crushing the phone. It was going to be horrible. Edward wanted to leave me, break up with me. He had finally come to his senses and seen how much was out there for him to experience, and I was only holding him back. Emmett and Carlisle were both uniquely phenomenal, Emmett in his strength and optimism, Carlisle in his compassion and profound empathy. I was beyond plain in comparison. I was also incredibly wrong.

"Well, he asked me about…" Emmett trailed off, and I could hear him rubbing the steering wheel with his spare hand. "I don't know if I should be telling you, Bella. It was personal."

"This is my mate, Emmett," I growled, my temper running short in my hypocrisy. How many times had I reaffirmed Edward's right to privacy? Even with the lack of boundaries in my family, Edward had been the exception- an exception that I had imposed.

"I think he waited until we were alone on purpose, Bells. Like, he wanted some privacy."

"I don't think it would hurt to tell her," I heard Carlisle say, and Emmett sighed deeply.

"She's going to assume it's worse than it is," Carlisle warned, not wrong. I had been waiting for this moment. All of the scenarios were flipping through my head, hundreds upon hundreds of possibilities of how Edward broached the subject of leaving me- I could think of no other topic for them to discuss. Maybe Edward wanted to be a vampire, just without me?

I couldn't totally blame him for that. Eternal life, indestructability, it could all be very enticing. Asking Emmett was a little odd, since the immortality wasn't something he could help with, but they had a relationship I wasn't privy to, a sort of brotherly comradery.

I wanted to scream, cry, go numb. I wasn't sure which first. I was in the midst of deciding what I would do next- leave and wander for a while, stay and subject myself to seeing Edward and not being able to have him, just going to Italy and getting everything over with- that I almost missed what Emmett said.

"He asked me about sex."

I felt a superfluous breath caught in my hollow chest. "What?" I asked for the umpteenth time in one night.

"I, uh, I don't know what to tell you, Bells. He asked me about sex. More specifically, how it works."

"How it works?" I repeated, feeling a phantom lightheadedness.

Emmett was silent. The only sounds from his end of the call were the engine and Edward's steady breath and heartbeat, both slightly depressed from the medication.

He continued, speaking uncharacteristically softly. "I don't think he actually knows much, beyond the part p in slot v bit."

Still stunned, I almost stammered on my next words. "I don't understand."

"It seemed to me like he's given it some thought," Emmett said helpfully, and I laughed, not at him, but in relief.

"He had a panic attack over a sex talk?" I asked, regretting my incredulity immediately. Of course sex would make him uncomfortable, and was certainly triggering. It had happened before, though. That day in the kitchen… I treasured the moments before Edward panicked. I had been seated on the counter, my legs wrapped around Edward's waist and holding his warmth to me. At just the memory of it, I felt a tightening in the pit of my stomach, and unfamiliar but not unpleasant phantom warmth radiating in my chest.

It had been, I guessed, his first remotely sexual experience. Mine as well, if one didn't count when I was human, which I didn't. A few minutes with an absent husband that I didn't remember and only knew occurred because I was bitten on the birthing bed shouldn't count. Besides actually knowing the mechanics, I was as inexperienced as Edward, and suddenly I felt nervous.

If he was talking about it with Emmett, he was thinking about it. We had discussed his boundaries, which I religiously adhered to, but those boundaries were made to be pushed. And pushing forward…

"It was pretty clear why he's never looked it up in a book or anything. It was fine, at first. He asked if it felt good, so I told him. He asked if I remembered what it was like as a human, and if it was different as a vampire, so I told him I didn't remember anything specifically from when I was human, just that I knew my first time with Rose wasn't, like, my first time.

"And that was all well and good. Went fine. I didn't go into details because, you know, Rose would kill me, but I gave him the gist of it- best thing out there for one of our kind besides human blood. Not that you would know, huh?" Emmett tried another joke, and I mustered a weak smile, not that he could see it over the phone.

"So what was the problem?" I asked.

"Well, he asked about the… mechanics of it, and when I started to tell him, he started to hyperventilate, and then it was like what Carlisle told you. Total shutdown. I tried talking to him, I tried nudging him- I don't know, maybe humans spontaneously fall asleep with their eyes open?- but it was like he wasn't even there anymore. That's when Carlisle came back, and he like checked his vitals and stuff and that was all fine, and then he called you."

I went quiet. Esme had stopped kneading the dough she was working on the counter, listening in on Emmett's explanation, but I couldn't manage a word with my bottom lip between my teeth.

Vampire brains work differently than human ones. Normally, I have a few threads of thought centered on my family, several on Edward, and any number thinking of books to read and films to watch, reciting novels and replaying plays I had seen. There was so much to think about at all times.

Somehow, though, my mind had gone blank but for one thought. Edward.

Edward. Edward. Edward. Edward.

His silky bronze hair, the thick lashes framing his gorgeous green eyes, his full lips and how they felt molded to mine. And especially the feeling of him pressed against me. The feeling of all of him pressed against me, much the way he was sleeping on top of me.

Emmett had spent the rest of the call apologizing, and they called me a few more times, but each time Edward was suspiciously occupied. He was either sleeping, or using the bathroom, or, when they stopped for breakfast in a small town in western Washington, was busy eating. In the dining room over dinner had been the first time I had gotten the opportunity to actually speak with him, but I wasn't going to broach this subject until he did. There was a reason he waited and asked Emmett, away from me and out of Carlisle's earshot.

The thought still sat in the back of my mind. My deepest worry.

What if it wasn't me he was asking for? Emmett and Carlisle had seemed to think it was so obvious, but maybe it wasn't so. There were a lot of women out there. Women who would surely be a better match. Someone soft and young who could bear children and grow old with him. Or even, vampires who could match him in beauty in a way I would never be able to. Just let it please not be my sister. I knew she was the most beautiful, most alluring woman in the world, but if it was her Edward wanted, I might become the first vampire to shed tears.

I fretted the whole night under him, keeping entirely still and wishing beyond all reason that I could be what he wanted. It seemed impossible. It defied all logic. But Edward had given me no reason to doubt him.

Sex? I mean, honestly. Sex?

Esme and Rose seemed so sure that I needed to be prepared. I had gone for a long run the night before, after hanging up with Emmett. I needed to burn off the excess energy, and I knew I wouldn't have been able to focus on a book, so I circled through the park.

I trudged back home slowly after dawn broke, jumping back up on the balcony and sliding the door open to the dining room. Esme was sitting in the kitchen, waiting and surrounded by baked goods. The counter was covered in baking sheets and trays of an assortment of treats and snack- glistening with candied strawberries and chunks of chocolate. It was so artfully done it almost looked appetizing, though the smell was unignorable.

"This is a bit overboard, isn't it?" I asked, breaking the silence. Esme stared at me, golden eyes warm and sympathetic.

"I enjoy it. It's nice to have something to do with my hands."

"I know how that feels," Rose added, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen, hands black with grease and oil that she wiped on her unstylish coveralls. I shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the clock.

"Alice will be up soon," I noted. It was only a few minutes past day break, but she tended to be an early riser, and her breathing and heartbeat had quickened.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Esme asked.

"About Alice waking up? Sure, I think we need to make a good show of also waking up. You know, pajamas, messy hair, pretend to eat breakfast. Alice is almost as observant as Edward, it's not safe to slip up in any way," I rambled, stalling.

"Edward spoke to Emmett," Rose observed, her brows arching expectantly.

"But see, I understand the mechanics, given that I've been listening to you two for the past eighty years. Also, the medical degrees help."

"There's more to it than that," Esme said.

"Completing your bond and solidifying that connection… There's nothing that compares, and you need to be prepared for this."

I huffed a sigh, hoping that Alice would wake up so I could avoid my very own sex talk, but she was still fast asleep.

"I'm as prepared as I need to be for something not happening in the immediate future," I said.

"Emmett made it seem like it could be sooner than you think," Rose said.

"It's not going to be as soon as you're implying. Neither of you know the details of our relationship, and I'd like to keep it that way."

Rose pursed her lips and looked prepared to launch into an argument, but Esme stopped her, resting a hand on her arm and giving her the maternal stare that was the universal sign for 'stop talking'.

"I think," she said, "You should at least speak with Tanya, just to be safe. Neither of us has any experience with humans, and while Tanya doesn't understand the mating aspect, she can perhaps provide some insight into sex with a human."

"Yeah," Rose agreed, "They did kill the first few, like, thousand, so that seems important."

I hesitantly agreed, promising to call Tanya if it meant that this conversation could stop. Rose rolled her eyes and traipsed up the stairs for a shower, two drops of oil dripping on the tile with her whirling departure. Esme jumped up and wiped it up, careful to use cleaner so the noxious smell wouldn't linger.

"You can talk to me, you know," she said softly, wringing out a rag over the sink.

"I know," I assured, "It's just… I think Edward and I need to talk first, you know? He's so… private it can border on being closed off. I don't want to violate that."

"I understand. We won't talk about it again unless you bring it up," she promised, wrapping me in a hug I didn't know how desperately I needed.

I trekked upstairs as well, following in Rose's steps for a shower, dipping into one of the spare bedrooms and changing course almost immediately. Tyler's mother's blouse and shoes were still in the guest bathroom, and I needed to return them, as it had already been over a day since I had borrowed it.

I had to dodge the early work crowd, but I deposited the items back in the master bedroom of the Crowley home without incidence, and hopped in the shower the moment I got home. Alice was awake, up early but seemingly well-rested after spending most of the previous day sleeping away a hangover.

The heat of the water reminded me of Edward, and I was selfishly glad to have him come home early, though I wasn't sure how he would be feeling about me when he got here.

It wasn't that I was uncomfortable, or embarrassed. Those were difficult emotions to experience after living for centuries with no privacy among my kind. I had heard just about every intimate encounter in the book, and the next morning I could look my sister in the eye with no problem, and talk philosophy with Carlisle without skipping a beat. What we overheard never infringed upon our relationships with one another, and there were certainly no secrets.

I just… I wanted to keep something sacred. Something private. Maybe it was a holdover of my time, some kind of antiquated old-fashionedness that made me more conservative than I had thought, but I didn't want to just casually talk about such an absolutely intimate moment as my first time with Emmett in our kitchen on a Monday morning. It felt like sacrilege.

By the time I padded downstairs, dressed in cotton pants and a sweater, Alice was already on her second plate of pancakes. The sky turned cloudy and the rain poured down, so Alice left after breakfast, insisting that a nice, quiet day at home in pajamas was what she needed.

It wasn't cloudy anymore, though. Somehow, we were graced with another sunny morning, and Edward's eyes sparkled in the light when he opened his eyes. He was humming as he awoke, fingers moving along my arm as if I was a keyboard to the same light tune he had fallen asleep to.

"It's mine," he answered when I asked what the song was, mouth twisting up into a crooked grin.

"You wrote this?" I asked, and he nodded and continued to hum the fluttering tune as he played in on a phantom keyboard. "Can I hear it on the piano?"

Edward laughed and rolled over, off of me and onto his back so I was graced with the perfect view of his profile- the curve of his jaw, the sharpness of his cheekbone, the bump on his otherwise straight nose from that disgusting foster father he had.

"Give me a h-human minute and I'll give y-you a show."

After he showered and dressed in the clean clothes Esme had left in the bathroom, he made good on his promise. He played that tune he had been tapping on me the night before and humming when he woke up, staying mostly in the sixth and seventh octaves as his slender digits moving across the keys as fast as humanly possible so it almost sounded like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings. This blended right into the song I recognized as the one he had written for Alice, Edward frowning as he played something so light and playful.

I leaned on him, head on his shoulder as we sat on the piano bench together while his hands danced across the ivory. He played a remarkably complex rendition of YankeeDoodle, giving it what he called a romantic arpeggiated section like a Schubert impromptu- not that I had any idea what that meant, and I laughed when he pounded out the first notes of Rossini's Gallop.

I stopped his performance when his stomach rumbled, laughing when he blushed and pulling him off the bench and up the stairs to the kitchen. Esme flitted in, her first time home since the night before, and I could see the fresh blood from a recent hunting trip under skin and in her clear, bright golden eyes. The separation from Carlisle had taken a toll on her, too, just one I didn't notice until she was back to normal, piling a plate high with baked goods for Edward.

"Perfect timing," I commented, pouring a cup of tea from the prepared kettle.

"I didn't want to interrupt the concert," she said smilingly, ushering us out to the balcony. "It's too nice of a day to be inside."

"Yeah, we had great weather the past few days," I added, closing the door behind us. "You missed probably the only nice weekend until next summer."

Edward set his plate on the table outside and slid a chair out for me so we were both sat in the shade, but able to look over the sunny Olympic National Forest that was in our backyard. Wind rustled the leaves to nature's song, and a flock of birds chirped and flew playfully in the clear sky, weaving under the fluffy white clouds that dampened the harshness of the sun.

"Montana was nice too," he said. "I've never d-d-done any of that stuff b-before. C-camping, hiking, fishing."

"We should do something outside today, too. Don't want to waste it," I said, looking out over the lawn. Edward nodded, chewing on a bite of something that I guessed were eggs based on the color, but smelled offensive. "Esme and Rose usually spend time in the garden on days like this," I suggested.

Edward wrinkled his nose, and it seemed that gardening was not one of his interests. "I guess there's n-not a pool in t-t-town or anything, right? Emmett was s-s-supposed to take me s-swimming, before…" he trailed off. Emmett must have been planning to go to one of those isolated lakes in the middle of the park on their last day, and as glad as I was that he was home, I felt bad that Edward had to leave his camping bonding trip almost two days early because

Well, because of sex.

I was still in disbelief.

"Even if there was a pool in town, I think I'd draw a bit too much attention," I reminded him, sticking my hand into the sunlight. I was already sparkling in the shade, but I supposed it looked muted to his human eyesight. There was nothing inconspicuous about the brilliant glittering of my hand, though.

Esme slid open the door to the balcony, stepping out to collect Edward's cleaned plate and empty glass of water the second he finished. "A pool isn't the only place to go swimming,. It's not like Emmett was going to take him to one," she said, "You should find one of those swimming holes or hot springs."

"That's not a bad idea," I said, leaning back in the chair. "There's a stream that drops into a waterfall not far from the meadow, but too out of the way for any humans to be there."

Edward seemed more than happy with the idea, and Esme took him to her room to find him a bathing suit and suitable clothes of Carlisle's while I rifled through my own closet for something to swim in.

I was immediately regretting my suggestion. On most days, we just spent time together, whether we were reading, or watching a movie, or sitting in the meadow and watching the stars on a clear night. That was comfortable, it was safe.

This, I was realizing, was not. I had never so much as worn shorts in front of Edward- my entire family stuck to a uniform of long sleeves and pants in muted colors to try our best to blend in and hide our unnatural skin. And suddenly, I was flipping through the drawer of bathing suits I had never worn but let Rose pick out for me, and I was terrified. If it was possible for a vampire to actually vomit, I would have been doing just that.

I flicked through the nylon fabric, piece after piece of stringy material of every pattern and every color, and each seemed to be more revealing than the last. They were all tiny triangles strung together, some looked more like floss than anything an individual would dare to wear in public.

Of course, none of this was meant to be worn in public. The only time we put on something specifically to swim, it was while travelling on vacation, typically Isle Esme. And then, it was just the five of us in isolation, no one around for miles and miles.

And my family was different. This was different.

I mean, sex? I couldn't wrap my mind around it, but dug around for the largest bathing suit I could find and tied it on. Edward hadn't dressed yet, either. They were moving at the slowness of human speed down the hall, and Esme was still showing Edward the Fabergé egg that she had purchased the year before. Edward seemed nervous, but he was turning it around in his hand and examining the gold and rose diamonds that decorated the outer shell of the egg. Esme was planning on donating it to a museum, but had held on to it for a little while to just enjoy it while she had it, and Edward was more than appreciative of the imperial egg.

And all the while, I was there, and more terrified than I had been in a long, long time, and that feeling of complete insecurity was bubbling to the surface. Theoretically, I was flawless to the human eye. Smooth skin, symmetrical, relatively proportional. All the features that comprised beauty.

And yet, as I stared at my reflection in my closet, I composed of a list of things Edward could find displeasing and unattractive. My curves were subtle, my hips slender instead of full, there was that imperceptible curve of my stomach where my dead uterus tilted outward.

My hand trailed up to the pad of my bathing suit top, and I fingered the small strap that held the two triangles together. They could always be bigger. From what I knew, most men who were attracted to women were focused on breasts and mine… well, they were there. They existed.

I stopped my indexing when Edward was ready, and debated between shorts and jeans before picking my comfort and slipping on the jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. The alternative was just too revealing.

But somehow, fate intervened, and I was saved. I ran down stairs to the kitchen where Edward was dressed in a plain T-shirt and his own jeans, his scarred forearms bare and enticing. But outside, the sky had darkened, the rounded white clouds parting to make way for grey ones heavy with rain.

"Well, there goes that idea," I said lightly, concealing my relief. Edward frowned and looked out the kitchen window where the pattering of rain was beginning.

"We're p-probably not going to get another d-day of nice weather f-for weeks," he sighed.

"It changes on a dime. Who knows, maybe it'll even clear up in a half an hour," I offered, and Edward arched a brow skeptically.

"Edward, would you play again?" Esme asked pleadingly.

"I'd like to hear you play," I volunteered.

"It's settled," Esme decided, ushering us out of the kitchen and down the stairs to the piano. Edward pulled me along, and I took my place beside him on the bench. Edward was smiling at our insistence, and looked over his shoulder to see Esme standing in the doorway expectantly.

"I'm n-not very good, you know?" he said, stalling my faking an itch and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "If you w-want someone to p-play f-for you, you should ask Rosalie."

"Rosalie doesn't compose," Esme said.

"And the only reason you think she's better is because she can move faster. You should know that's not the most important component in music. If it were, then even I would be a virtuoso."

"I s-s-still don't know why you can't g-get it," he chuckled, opening with some simple scales before flowing into a pleasant composition. "Just follow this," he said, trying to get me to follow his movements.

I could replicate them, of course. That wasn't hard. The difficulty came in when he expected me to maintain a harmony with the melody Edward was playing, and I couldn't anticipate and match his movements.

He eventually gave up trying to show me, again. Every time, he thought I would somehow magically become musical, no matter how many times I told him that it was a talent I didn't have. And I never would. Music isn't like language or math, it can't be learned and memorized, and it wasn't something I was born with, nor a skill I developed while human, so it wasn't something I brought into this existence.

He played more seriously this time. In the morning, it was joking tunes and plucking at keys, but now he was really working the piano, the way he did when he sat down with Rose. And it was a remarkable and marked difference. He was reading the sheet music propped up on the rack, actually reading it and following the notes. The stumbling and mishits were becoming less frequent, replaced instead by a smooth and fluid rendition of a few more complex Haydn sonatas.

He was actually sweating when Esme called him over for a late lunch, the tiny droplets of perspiration dotting his forehead and collecting at the nape of his neck. I brushed them away and laid my hand on his head, and he leaned into my cool touch.

"That really is impressive," I told him.

"I guess I'll take the c-complement where I can g-get it."

"You should," Esme interjected. "Bella's seen some of the greatest composers in person. She has a high bar for this type of thing."

"She c-could b-be humoring me," he said.

"Does that seem like Bella?" Esme retorted, and suddenly I was feeling invisible.

"Yes," Edward laughed. "It absolutely d-does s-s-sound like Bella."

"Hello," I said. "I'm sitting right here."

"Sorry, dear," Esme apologized sheepishly, quickly refilling my cooled mug of tea from the morning and heading up to the office to reorganize the mess I had left over the weekend.

"Do you really think I would lie to you?" I asked.

"I know you edit."

"I don't!"

"You try to sp-spare my f-feelings."

"I'm sensitive to your feelings," I corrected.

"Enough to drive m-me insane."

"I don't mean to," I promised. "If you ask, I'll tell you."

Edward looked down at his half-eaten sandwich, plucking apart the crust. "If we've l-learned anything, it's p-probably th-that I shouldn't hear it."

"That was different," I said. It was. "And I've never, ever lied to you."

Edward didn't respond, and I worried that he was, in fact, going to ask for details. For the times I had edited, for elaborations on conversations he thought I was keeping something from him. I had been forthright, especially lately, especially since Rose had urged me to tell Edward exactly what had happened in Seattle, and what that meant for the future.

"Where is everyone?" He asked, looking around the kitchen.

"Esme's upstairs. Apparently I left a mess in the office, and the only place she tolerates disorganization is our personal spaces." I rolled my eyes, and I could hear Esme scoff from two floors above while dusting the desk. "Carlisle's at work, and Emmett and Rosalie are keeping an eye on Alice and… reuniting."

Edward nodded and returned to pick at his food again, popping a round piece of fruit into his mouth in a manner I couldn't help but find alluring. The way his full lips arched and wrapped around it, his long fingers, the bobbing of his Adam's apple as he swallowed… Not to mention the positively bewitching outfit he was wearing. Carlisle's shirt fit him well, if a little large, but the expensive fabric clung to his chest, and the way his arms flexed as he leaned his elbows on the table made me suppress the urge to lick the definition of his exposed bicep.

"I d-didn't know there could be messy v-v-vampires."

"Well, I guess I wasn't the neatest human, and like I've said, we don't change."

"You only change once," he corrected.

"Yes, but I don't think you have anything to do with how I organize my bookshelves," I laughed, thinking of the stacks of books I had strewn about my room. "Unless you don't like it," I panicked, thinking of how Edward's small room was always straightened, with every clothing item folded and put away and every pen in its place. "I can make a conscious effort. Keep everything straight. I'm sure Esme would appreciate it. I can get another bookcase for my room, and find some place for those papers I have. Maybe I can get them bound-"

Edward stopped my babbling with a kiss, leaning over the table to press his lips against mine and swallow my words with his mouth. He was gentle on my lower lip, and I found myself kissing him back, tiny sucking kisses on his mouth, and I subconsciously groaned aloud. The was the first kiss since he had come home, and it finally felt like I had come home.

I twisted up, leaning into him, and my hands snaked up his shoulders and into his hair, pulling myself closer to him. Edward opened his mouth to me, an invitation to meet him, mouth and tongue and his teeth, and suddenly I felt frenzied.

Sex.

He had been thinking about sex.

Edward leaned away, gulping in air, and I found myself panting in tandem. But he came back to me, and seemed just as desperate as I felt, whispering words against my lips that I couldn't make out, but I inhaled them all the same and let them sit in my throat, in my chest. His lips were warm, no, hot, thawing my own cold skin as they conformed and fit around me.

We explored for the rest of the day, barely parting to move from the kitchen to collapse on the couch and curl into one another while the rain poured around us, and only pausing for Edward to breathe. But even then, I couldn't bear to separate from him, and I found my mouth in the hollow of his cheekbones, the crook of his jaw, the soft, pulsating skin of his throat. It was a boundary I was pushing. Edward had told me weeks ago, asked that I keep my hands to the back of his neck and his upper back, and this seemed out of line. It seemed… risqué.

It seemed sexy.

It was Esme who interrupted us, though I could tell she didn't want to. She had paced for a few minutes, and I could hear her packing and re-packing, unfolding and folding, then taking Edward's bags to my car before she finally tiptoed down the stairs and poked her head into the living room.

"It's getting late, and Edward needs to be home soon," she said, speaking softly.

Edward was already flushed, but his cheeks stained a blossoming rouge, and he ducked his head down so his nose nestled into the hollow of my collarbone.

"We'll head out in a minute," I told her, and Esme nodded and, after a moment of a lingering smile, disappeared back upstairs.

Somehow, though, it wasn't so painful. My house had been a bubble since Edward came home to me, and I thought leaving that cocoon would be uncomfortable. We still hadn't spoken about why he had come home, and I didn't know exactly where we stood on such intimate matters. I didn't know how to broach the subject, but I wanted him to be comfortable with me, and I wanted us to talk about what he was asking Emmett about.

But I let the topic rest. The way I kissed him, and the way he was open to it, was enough for now. Besides, after depositing my car down the road and circling back, and after Edward had eaten and spent the appropriate amount of time with his foster father and sister, we pressed together on his tiny bed, cautious with the squeaking springs, and picked up right where Esme interrupted us.