"Stay out of sight of the door for a moment," Alice whispered to me as we approached the Cullens' vacation house.

I obediently flattened myself against the brick wall to the side of the porch while she threw open the front entrance. I was more than a little nervous about what the rest of the family would think when they saw me.

"Guess what!" she called. I heard the light steps of five vampires dashing to the foyer, then the sound of Alice being lifted off her feet as someone–presumably Jasper–swung her around enthusiastically.

Edward stood behind her in the doorway, smiling slightly sheepishly, and she beckoned him forward.

Esme was the first to speak. "Oh, Edward, you're home!" She threw her arms around him. "Are you here to stay?"

"I am," he confirmed. "I missed you. All of you."

"Welcome back, son," Carlisle greeted Edward warmly. "You look… much better."

What did that mean? Had Edward been unhappy in my absence? Or had the unfinished business with Victoria been wearing on him?

Miranda was next through the door, and Alice enthusiastically introduced her. I listened as everyone greeted the new addition. If Alice said she was one of the family, that was good enough for the rest of them. I imagined some of them must be sneaking glances at Edward, wondering at his relation to Miranda, and I had to clamp down on the surge of jealousy that ripped through me.

As the introductions died down, several of the Cullens turned to look toward the porch. It had not escaped anyone's notice that there was another unfamiliar scent. I bit my lip nervously, waiting for my cue.

Alice grabbed my hand and pulled me through the door frame. "Surprise!"

There was a shocked silence for a tenth of a second.

Emmett's booming laugh reached me first. Then Esme was hugging me tightly, her face lit up with happiness. "Bella! Welcome home!"

Carlisle took my hands between his. "I didn't want to interfere in Edward's life," he admitted, "but I am so glad he didn't leave you behind permanently. Welcome back to the family."

Jasper held out his arms next. "Now that you're more durable, I finally get to hug my little sister," he enthused. As I embraced him, a wave of contentment and family love washed over me, calming my previous nerves. Emmett rushed in to join the hug, trapping me in the middle. In the midst of their genuine joy, I almost managed to forget about the one family member who wasn't delighted to see me.

Rosalie stalked toward Edward. "I can't believe this!" she growled.

"Rose–" he tried.

"You swore you were leaving her behind for good. We had to pick up everything and move again when we had just finished high school. And I went along with it, because I thought you really loved her. I thought you were going to do the right thing, you selfish moron. But no, first you moped around for six months and made the whole family miserable, and now we're all supposed to be thrilled"–she hissed the word–"that Bella's back, and one of us. You weren't just too weak to stay away from her, you couldn't even let her live her human life?!"

"I didn't–"

"That's some way of showing your love. Tell me, did you take away all her options deliberately, or did you slip up and bite her when you needed a snack?"

Edward flinched, but he kept his tone even. "I didn't turn Bella. I didn't even know she was turning until these two showed up in Rio."

Rosalie rounded on Alice, but Edward was quick to defend her. "It wasn't Alice, either. It was someone else."

"Who?" she snarled.

"Bella won't tell us. She insists it was necessary, because Victoria was hunting her."

Five pairs of vampire eyes widened at this revelation, but it was the least important part of the conversation to me. A dangerous hope was growing in my heart, and I needed to quash it before it consumed me.

"Back up. What was Rosalie saying?" I demanded of Edward.

"She thought I had given in and changed you," he explained.

"No, I got that," I said, exasperated. "But she thinks you left because it was best for me? Is that what you told them?"

"Yes–and it was the truth. I wanted you to experience everything that a human life had to offer. I needed you to be safe from all the dangers of my world."

I frowned at him, and he quickly added, "Obviously, that didn't work out so well. It was silly of me to think you could ever be safe–you're a magnet for trouble."

"Says the man who was about to get himself killed when Alice and I showed up." I fired back. Behind us, I could hear Alice explaining the whole sequence of events in hushed tones.

He chuckled. "Touché."

"Why didn't you tell your family the truth?" I whispered. "That you didn't want me anymore?"

Edward took my hands in his own. "Nothing could be further from the truth, Bella."

The electric feeling of his touch overwhelmed me. I felt like I was drowning in sensation, simply from his fingers tracing the backs of my hands. His skin had always been icy and hard to my human perception, but now he was warm and soft against me. I shook my head, disoriented.

"You said I was no good for you," I reminded him.

"You are the essence of all that is good," he insisted. "It is I who was no good for you."

"So… what, you lied to me?" I tried to process this, but it didn't make any sense. "What would be the point? Just to hurt me?"

"Yes, I lied," Edward admitted. "I thought it would be easiest for you to move on if I could convince you that I no longer returned your feelings. But how could you believe it so easily?" He threw up his hands, and I ached at the absence of his touch. "I've told you a million times that my heart belongs to you. How could one moment of untruth convince you otherwise?"

I gritted my teeth. "Well, when you moved away and left me with no evidence of our time together, that was pretty convincing."

He cupped my face with his hand, moving closer to me. "I am so sorry, Bella. I know that I must have hurt you deeply when I left. If your experience was anything like mine… well, I was miserable every moment of every day without you. These past few days, I've been so wrapped up in processing my own emotions, that it didn't even occur to me you might still be laboring under the misapprehension that I didn't want you. I suppose I assumed Alice had told you, or that you would simply have understood what is to me the most obvious and fundamental truth. I love you, Isabella Marie Swan." His eyes shone with sincerity as he spoke. "I lived a life of eternal twilight before I met you. You were the sun that rose into my life, and my whole world orbits you. I will never not want to be with you," he vowed.

I wanted so desperately to believe him, but it was too good to be true. Edward had always been too good to be true–which was why it was so easy to believe him when he left. Was this whole thing a cruel joke? Or was I dreaming? Vampires couldn't dream, but perhaps the entire past week was a figment of my imagination. It would have been plausible, likely even, except that I could not possibly have dreamed up the pain of my transformation.

Jasper intervened, sensing my inner turmoil. "Bella, I know it's going to be hard to recover from all of us abandoning you. But please trust me when I say: Edward loves you. He's been desolate ever since he left. His love for you is every bit as strong as your love for him, and it has never diminished." An aura of trustworthiness and warmth accompanied his words, and it washed away all the barriers I had put up against hope.

For the first time, I let myself really think through the possibility that Edward loved me. I imagined him still caring, still wanting, having to force himself to go. I remembered his face the day he left: cold, closed off, but for that one desperate moment when he asked me to keep myself safe. I remembered his pain each time I'd been in danger, and I remembered his passion each time we kissed.

Everything clicked into place, and suddenly, I didn't know why I had ever doubted. If he were the human one, I would love him every bit as much. And if I believed that leaving him would save his life, I would be gone in a heartbeat, no matter what pain it caused me. I could see in his eyes that he felt the same.

"Don't you ever do that again," I admonished him.

"Never," he promised.

I threw my arms around him. He returned the hug, squeezing me with all his strength for the first time.

"Thank you, Jasper," I mumbled through Edward's shoulder. "You have quite a talent for reassuring people."

He chuckled. "While I'm at it… Miranda's not interested in men. Not that you'd have any competition for Edward's affections either way." I was confused for a moment–how could Jasper have known about my earlier worries?–until I realized he must have felt my jealousy while I waited on the porch.

"What?" Miranda blinked. "You think I'm… a lesbian?"

"Aren't you?" Jasper raised his eyebrows. "You had a much stronger reaction to meeting–ahem. Never mind."

"I don't… I hardly met any female vampires until now, to be honest." She reflected for a moment. "This explains a lot, actually."

"You were jealous?" Edward asked me disbelievingly, pulling back to look me in the eyes.

I buried my face in my hands. I liked Miranda, even if I had been a bit envious of her. I didn't want her–and the entire family–to think worse of me for an emotion I couldn't control. It seemed small and silly, now that I knew Edward loved me.

"Sorry," Jasper grinned apologetically at me. "There's not much privacy around here, is there?"

"At least you only have your emotions and future decisions on display, and not your every thought," Rosalie grumbled.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of catching up with the Cullens. Everyone wanted to hear the full story of our fight with Victoria. We all crowded into the living room, and I made sure to position myself next to Edward, who wrapped an arm around my waist.

There was never a good time for me to talk privately with Miranda. I still needed to ask for her help with Laurent's favor, but pulling her aside would be suspicious–Alice was nosy enough to look for what we were discussing, and Edward couldn't help knowing what Miranda was thinking whether he wanted to or not. I resolved to wait for an opportunity when the two of them were off hunting.

Emmett wanted a chance to arm wrestle me while I still had my newborn strength–it was rare for him to have a serious challenge. To my delight and his immense frustration, I won.

Rosalie pulled me aside briefly. "I want to apologize for what I said earlier," she began awkwardly. "I never wanted to be a vampire. I wanted a life where I could have a family, and grow old together, and not be trapped in this cycle of eternal high school." She sighed. "I was incensed to learn that all those things had been taken away from you, too. But please don't think that I was upset at you. From what I've heard, you did what you had to… and I'm very grateful to you for saving my idiot brother from Victoria." She smiled, and her whole face lit up with ethereal beauty. It was a face that could have launched a thousand ships.

"Thank you, Rosalie." I smiled back hesitantly. After hearing her story from Alice, I could understand a little better why Rosalie detested life as a vampire. "I know you were just… standing up for me." It wasn't quite the right phrasing, but it would do. "Sisters?"

"Sisters," she agreed, and offered me a hug.

Meanwhile, Alice had decided it was her sisterly duty to acquire new wardrobes for me and Miranda. Since I didn't trust myself to walk into a department store without exsanguinating the cashiers, Alice planned to pick up a number of options for us, and then we'd try them on at home.

"Don't you already know which things we'll like?" I grumbled. "Why do we have to play life-sized Barbie?"

"I only know which things you'll like because you'll try them on," Alice countered. "I'm not going to spend the time to search through your entire future for whatever day you happen to wear something, when we could just test them all out this afternoon."

"This had better be at most ten outfits," I warned.

Alice made puppy eyes at me.

"How about this," I realized. "If you don't have any foresight of whether I like the clothes, then I promise I'll try them on. But after you see something, all bets are off–I don't have to put them on. Your visions don't account for themselves–they always show what will happen if you don't get any visions, which means you'll see the world where I do play dress-up. And then I won't have to."

I was very proud of my solution, but Alice looked dissatisfied. It suddenly occurred to me that she had already thought of this strategy–in fact, she probably used it all the time–and she simply wanted me to participate in her fashion show.

I sighed. "If you get to envision me wearing whatever you want, why do you care whether it happens again in real life?"

"I enjoy real-world experiences more than things that only happen in my head," she complained. "You might as well ask me why I do anything fun, instead of just deciding to do it and watching what happens."

"I wouldn't mind playing dress-up with you, Alice," Miranda offered. "It's been a century since I owned more than a couple outfits. Why don't the two of us do that, and let Bella spend some time alone with Edward?"

I could have kissed her.

At the sound of his name, Edward appeared at my side. He pulled me away from the other two, and I went with him happily. Once we were at a polite distance, I wrapped my arms around him, craving his touch. He let me embrace him, his fingers playing idly with my hair, but I could feel that his mind was distant.

I wanted to stay there forever, holding him in silence. I was afraid to ask what he was thinking–his distance reminded me too much of those final days together in Forks, before he left me. I was afraid that if I demanded to know what was on his mind, his answer would hurt me… and I was even more afraid that he would refuse to tell me, passing it off as nothing and leaving me agonizing over the question.

Before I could muster up my courage, he bent, brushing his lips against my ear. "I spoke with Jasper," he murmured. "He insists that we sit down with him and talk through some things. You know, couples' therapy."

I froze. I had heard of couples' therapy before–but always in the context of partners about to divorce. Was Edward that pessimistic about our relationship?

"Not like that," he clarified. "He's talked with Carlisle and Esme, and Rose and Emmett, when they had things to work through in the past. He sees how much we love each other–but we've also had a lot of miscommunications, and he wants to help us get back on the right footing."

I thought about it. It was true that Edward and I had a lot to talk about, but I wasn't sure I liked the idea of involving a third party.

"It's not entirely altruistic of Jasper," Edward added wryly. "He absorbs the emotions of everyone around him–so he's extra motivated to see us as happy as possible. I just about drove him crazy when I was apart from you… which is one reason I went off alone. But from what I've seen in everyone else's minds, that same talent makes him very effective at resolving miscommunications and helping people stay calm."

"Alright," I agreed. "Let's try it."