She didn't know how long she lay there in the dark, sobbing into her thoroughly soaked pillow, before the lights clicked on and she heard Charlie's footsteps approaching.

"Bells? You okay?"

Bella wasn't exactly in the mood for fatherly concern at the moment, but she doubted he would go away unless he got some response from her, so she grudgingly straightened herself out and rolled over to face him.

As soon as he got a look at her tear-streaked face, his concern escalated to full-blown worry. "Honey, what's wrong?"

"It's Edward."

"Edward? Is he okay?"

"He's fine…or if he's not, it's my fault. I told him I needed a break," Bella said woodenly, as fresh tears began leaking from the corners of her eyes. "From us. Being a couple."

Charlie appeared dumbfounded at this news. "You broke up with Edward?"

"No, it's just a break, not a breakup." Her voice became a bit less lifeless as she rushed to clarify that point. "I hope we can still be together; I've just realized there are some issues we need to work out first."

"Really? I thought you guys were pretty solid," Charlie said with the bewildered air of a man who realized he was out of his depth, but still felt that he should try to figure out what was going on with his daughter. "I'll admit I had some doubts about him at first, but he helped you out a lot after…after you got hurt down in Phoenix."

"I know he did. That's sort of the problem, actually – I think he's been helping me out a little too much." At Charlie's increasingly perplexed look, Bella elaborated, "He's overprotective. It's like he thinks I can't do anything for myself… You know how Bo's been teaching me self-defense? Edward didn't like that; he thought it was too dangerous, so I guess he just expects me to cower in the corner while he fights all my battles for me…figuratively speaking. And that's just the most recent example of what was wrong between us; it's actually a lot more pervasive than that."

"Ah. Well, obviously I don't want you doing anything dangerous either, and I don't ever want you to be in a situation where you need to protect yourself, but of course you should be able to. It's always better if you can rely on yourself, just in case there's not someone else there to look out for you."

"Thanks. You know, I really appreciate how supportive you've been." She reached out for his hand and squeezed it lightly, taking care not to bring too much of her new strength to bear. "I just wish Edward's attitude was more like yours, because I really love him, Dad. I can't be with a guy who sees me as some kind of damsel in distress he has to save all the time, but I miss him already."

"Well, hopefully he'll come around. If not, I'll just have to knock some sense into him." This promise earned a weak smile from Bella, but Charlie could see she was still deeply depressed. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything else he could do besides pat her hand, assure her that she didn't have to worry about making dinner tonight, and resolve to call in reinforcements first thing in the morning.

###

Bo was subdued after Bella's abrupt departure, and spent the rest of the evening fretting over whether her sister was okay and debating whether to call her, despite Kenzi's insistence that Bella was probably fine, just having some serious relationship talk with Edward. As the hour grew later and Edward didn't come home, Kenzi just shrugged and said they must have needed a really long talk, but Bo's worry continued to nag at her.

Eventually, when it was very obviously too late to call Bella or drop in on her unannounced, Dyson finally convinced Bo to go to bed, though she was clearly still distracted even as she curled up in his arms.

"What exactly are you worried about anyway?" he asked while running his fingers soothingly through her long locks.

"I'm not sure," Bo admitted. "All I know is that I've never seen Bella so upset, and I can't shake this feeling that something big is happening and I should be there for her." She lifted her head from where it was resting on his chest and peered anxiously into his green eyes. "Does that sound crazy?"

"No, it sounds like you're a good sister. You need to take care of yourself too, though. Get some rest; you can't do anything for Bella if you're exhausted."

"Good point. Thanks, Dyson." She pressed her lips to his tanned skin before settling back into his embrace and doing her best to relax. He and Kenzi were right, after all – there was no reason to think Bella was in any real trouble, so whatever else might be going on between her and Edward, surely they could wait until morning for Bo to swoop in and do damage control.

###

When Bo woke up the next day, the first thing she did was check her phone, which validated her feeling of foreboding when she saw that she'd received several missed calls and messages from Charlie. Before she could even begin listening to the numerous voicemails he'd left her, the phone rang again.

"Hey, Charlie. Is Bella okay?"

"I don't know," he replied quietly, the strain in his voice coming through loud and clear despite the low volume. "Something happened between her and Edward last night, and she hasn't come out of her room since then, not even to eat. Look, I know it's early, but can you get here as soon as possible?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there." Hanging up, she looked up to find Dyson already out of bed, dressed in a pair of dark jeans, and holding out her favorite leather pants and boots.

"I'll give you a ride. Meet you downstairs."

"Okay…" As soon as she agreed, he strode out of the room without even giving her a chance to ask whether he thought it might be a good idea to put on more than just his jeans. Shaking her head, she pulled on her pants and boots, then went to the closet for an appropriate top to complete her look; as comfy as Dyson's t-shirt was for sleeping in, it didn't quite go with the rest of her outfit.

Once she was fully dressed according to her customary style, she hurried down the main staircase and found the entire Cullen family, minus Edward, gathered in the front living room, apparently engaged in an intense debate over whether they should go out searching for their missing member or wait for him to return of his own accord.

"-Doesn't feel like he's in trouble," Alice was saying. "His future's kind of fuzzy right now because I think he's just wandering aimlessly through the forest with no clear plan of exactly where he's going or when he's coming home, but I'm not getting the sense that he intends to leave this general area. I think he just needs to be alone for a while."

"Then perhaps we should give him space and trust that he'll come back when he's ready," Esme suggested.

"Hey," Bo said as she paused in the doorway, drawing their attention to her. "Still no Edward, huh?"

"Nope, he's still AWOL," Emmett confirmed. "Did he and Bella have some big blowup yesterday after he butted in on her training or what?"

"I didn't see them fight, but I think she was keeping a lid on the blowup until they were alone. She kind of walked out of here looking like Mount Vesuvius right before the eruption, you know?" Bo answered before turning to Alice. "And you said you never saw what was going to happen after that?"

The spiky-haired vampire shook her head. "No, I saw that Bella had made up her mind that they needed to have a serious talk about how overprotective he is, but beyond that point things got hazy. I can only see actions that are planned in advance, you know, and you know how it is when people argue – emotions get heated, they say things they don't really mean, and it's all just a huge mess of spur-of-the-moment reactions. Have you heard anything from Bella?"

"No, but Charlie called; whatever went down, it sounds like she's not taking it well either, so I'm on my way over there right now, and I'll let you know what I find out. Dyson said he'd give me a ride, but I don't hear him revving up his bike…"

For some reason, this statement seemed to greatly amuse Edward's siblings. "I don't think he's planning to take you on his motorcycle," Rosalie said with a smirk, as if telling a joke that Bo wasn't in on.

"What? How else would he…?"

Her question trailed off as Jasper opened the front door, revealing an enormous gray and brown wolf waiting outside. "You can get there faster if you cut straight through the woods, bypassing the roads," the empath explained, his quiet voice tinged with barely suppressed mirth at her stunned expression.

"Oh." Bo supposed that made sense, and Dyson's wolf form certainly looked strong enough to carry her with ease – in fact, she was pretty sure he was bigger than some of the draft horses she'd seen in her childhood days as a farm girl – but there was still an inherent weirdness in the situation. It's not like I haven't ridden him plenty of times before, but not like this!

Then she shook off those irrational reservations, reminded herself that what mattered now was getting her butt over to Bella's house as fast as possible so she could help her sister, and marched out to where the wolf stood watching her with a mixture of impatience and amusement. "Quit laughing at me. You know, I've never actually seen you as a full wolf before, and it's kind of a lot."

Dyson nodded understandingly, though his gold and black eyes still held a spark of humor as he pointed his snout down at the neatly folded jeans next to his right forepaw.

"Right, you'll need those when you change back."

Bo picked them up, and he bent his forelegs, lowering his front end to the ground so she could more easily climb onto his back – but before she did so, she couldn't resist sneaking a quick peek at the wolf junk Kenzi had crowed over seeing after the time he transformed in order to track Bo to a kappa's cave, because it really wasn't fair that Kenzi had seen more of him than her, his actual girlfriend. Okay, she thought as she settled herself behind his shoulder blades and curled her fingers into his thick fur, now I totally get what all the fuss was about.

###

As Jasper had predicted, Dyson did indeed cover the distance to Bella's house in a fraction of the time it would have taken by road; although he'd never been there before, Edward had made the trip often enough that he was able to follow the vampire's scent trail without even stopping to sniff for it. This allowed him to run at a speed that easily outstripped even the wildest rollercoasters Bo had ever ridden, so that when he finally halted and she dismounted on slightly shaky legs, all she could say was, "Wow, Jasper wasn't kidding about you moving faster without wheels. Is my hair a federal disaster area now?"

The giant wolf eyed her critically for a moment before shaking his head; her dark brown tresses may have gotten a little messed up during their breakneck run, but on her it just looked like that artfully windswept look models used strategically placed fans to achieve on photoshoots.

"Great. Thanks for the lift!" Leaving the cover of the trees, she circled around to the front of the house with Dyson following as soon as he'd shifted back and pulled on his jeans, catching up with her just as she stepped onto the porch.

The door flew open almost before she had time to knock, revealing an obviously relieved Charlie. "Bo, thank goodness you're here. Come on in." He moved aside, holding the door open for her and Dyson, though he barely seemed to notice her companion.

"So what exactly happened last night?"

Charlie quickly explained how, after coming home to find the house so dark and quiet that it had appeared deserted even though the presence of Bella's truck outside indicated that she was there, he had discovered her curled up on her bed, in tears. She had then related how she and Edward had argued over his failure to support her efforts at becoming more self-reliant, and she had decided they needed to take a break from their relationship but was clearly miserable without him.

"I don't know what to do," he finished with a worried frown. "Listen, Bo, I think meeting you has been great for Bella, so I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but finding out about the adoption…well, it was pretty rough on her. Renée and I tried to help as much as we could, but neither of us really got through to her, probably because we were the ones that made the mess in the first place. Edward did, though. You know, sometimes I got this feeling that there was more going on than I knew about…that on top of being upset that we didn't tell her the truth sooner, the whole thing shook her up in a way I couldn't really relate to…"

Yeah, realizing you're not human will do that to a girl, Bo thought wryly.

"When she was going through all that, it seemed like Edward was the only person she could talk to. I'd hate to see her lose that, especially since… Well, the last time those two hit a rough patch, that was what caused her to run off to Phoenix and get hurt in the first place. I mean, so far she hasn't shown any signs of wanting to bolt again, but…"

His voice trailed off again; he was clearly not a man who found it easy to put his feelings into words, but it was plain to see from his distraught expression that he was terrified of losing his daughter again, maybe for good this time now that she knew she wasn't actually his daughter in the biological sense, and afraid that the fracturing of her relationship with Edward might be the last straw that pushed her over the edge once she got past the initial shock of it.

"Don't worry, I'll talk to her. She's not going anywhere," Bo assured him. Having already heard the true story behind Bella's abrupt flight to Phoenix and the injuries she'd suffered there, Bo didn't think she would want to run away from home for real now, but she was still determined to be there for her sister, to help her cope however she could.

"Thanks, Bo," Charlie said gratefully. "I would've tried talking to her again myself, but I thought you could handle it better, you know, woman to woman." (There was also the fact that, aside from his earlier promise to knock some sense into Edward if he didn't come by it on his own, he had no idea what to say.)

"Say no more. I've got this." With that, Bo headed upstairs.

Charlie was aware, in a peripheral sort of way, that someone else had come in with her, but only now, after he was satisfied that he had done everything he could for Bella and she was in much more capable hands, did he fully register that there was a shirtless, barefoot stranger in his house. Now that he had noticed, he felt that he should address the situation, which he did by pointedly clearing his throat.

The other man, whose eyes had followed Bo as she ascended the staircase, turned toward Charlie as if he too was just noticing him for the first time. "Hey."

"Hey." Charlie waited a moment to see if the stranger would offer an explanation for his presence, but when none was forthcoming, he said, "Not to be rude here, but who the hell are you?"

"Dyson. Bo and I, uh…"

"Yeah, Bella told me about you. This wasn't how I pictured us meeting. Thought you'd have a shirt, for one thing," Charlie said dryly.

"Sorry; I'd just finished my morning run when Bo asked me to bring her over here."

"Uh-huh." Charlie supposed that explained Dyson's half-dressed state, though he couldn't help wondering what kind of person went running in jeans and no shoes. Then again, Bo was from Canada; maybe they did things differently up there. "Want some coffee?"

"Sure."

They went into the kitchen, where Charlie poured two steaming mugs and set them on the table, then jumped to his feet when he realized he'd forgotten to get out cream and sugar, only to sit back down upon being informed that Dyson also liked his coffee black. They chatted for a bit about the similarities and differences in police work in Forks versus Toronto, but since neither of them really cared much for chitchat, it wasn't long before they were sipping their coffee in silence – which suited both of them just fine.

###

Bella was still curled up on her bed in yesterday's clothes, trying to convince herself that she really should get up and change, brush her teeth, do something, when she heard footsteps coming down the hall. Not Charlie's – the tread was lighter, and somehow she was able to tell that the person was wearing high heels. That'll be Bo, she thought, wondering exactly when she had learned to recognize her sister's confident, purposeful stride – and, for that matter, when her senses had sharpened enough that she could hear people coming before they even reached the top of the stairs. It must have come on gradually, like her increased energy levels and improved physical dexterity. I doubt I'll ever be able to smash through concrete walls like Edward can, but I'm definitely not frail and helpless anymore. If only he could see that…

In spite of that depressing thought, her sister's imminent arrival finally motivated her to get herself upright, and when Bo rapped on the door and called softly, "Hey, Bella, it's me. Can I come in?" she didn't hesitate to allow her entry.

Bracing herself for what she was about to see, Bo slowly pushed the door open. What she found on the other side wasn't quite as bad as she'd feared, but it was still obvious from Bella's disheveled condition and puffy, bloodshot eyes that she was experiencing significant emotional distress.

As she took in the stricken expression on Bo's face, which gave her a pretty good idea of how wretched she must look, Bella's own face crumpled as her eyes grew wet again, to her surprise; she had thought she was all out of tears. Seeing her cry broke through Bo's shock-induced paralysis, and the next thing Bella knew, her sister's arms were around her, holding her tightly. "Oh, sweetie…"

"I told Edward we needed a break, Bo," she sobbed. "I had to do it – I knew I had to – but it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life and now… I don't know what to do now. How am I supposed to live without him?"

"I'm sorry; I know it hurts when someone you love lets you down." At the time she'd had her respective fallings-out with Dyson and Lauren, she hadn't been invested enough in either of her potential lovers to wonder how she would go on without them, but there was no denying that their betrayals had cut her deeply.

"I do love him; I've never loved anyone like that, I didn't even know I was capable of loving someone that much until I met him, and I know he loves me too…but it's not enough. I need him to think of me as his equal too, to understand that I can take care of myself… Is that selfish? I mean, the kind of love Edward and I have, the kind I really thought would last forever… How greedy does a person have to be for that to not be enough?"

"Don't think like that," Bo said sternly. "It's not at all greedy or unrealistic to want respect as well as love – and how can someone really say they love you if they think they have to run your life because you're not strong enough or smart enough to do it yourself anyway? That's why I walked away from Lauren, you know; she wasn't physically overprotective the way Edward was yesterday, but she tried to manipulate me out of doing something she decided was too dangerous even though it meant taking my choice away."

Bella sat up straighter; somehow, hearing that Bo had been in a similar situation and had made the same choice she had gave her a sense of affirmation. "Edward did that too sometimes – made decisions for me. When we first met, he gave me the cold shoulder for weeks because he decided it was better if we weren't friends. Okay, part of that was because he was fighting an almost irresistible urge to kill me-"

"I guess we should cut him some slack for that," Bo said with a wry grin.

"Yeah, but that just set the tone for our whole relationship; I always felt like he was the one in control, everything was on his terms, and I was so dazzled by him and so floored that he wanted to be with me, boring old Bella Swan, that I just went along with it. I didn't even realize just how imbalanced our relationship was until…well, until I saw what you have with Dyson. And I realized Edward and I weren't remotely like the two of you. You're partners."

"Oh. Uh, sorry? I didn't mean to wreck your relationship."

"Don't be," Bella said firmly. "You didn't wreck anything. The problems were already there; all you did was hold up a mirror and show them to me in a way that I couldn't ignore any longer. The thing is, as flawed as what we had together was, I still want to be with him. I just want us to be…better."

"Then you'll get him back," Bo declared with absolute certainty. "You're going to reinvent yourself as the fae you want to be, and then you'll make him fall in love with the new you, and I'm going to help you do it. Starting with getting you off this bed."

"That'd probably be a good first step," Bella agreed as Bo took hold of her wrists and pulled her onto her feet. "Right now I don't even feel human, much less fae." A glance in the standing mirror beside her bed confirmed her worst fears, and she quickly turned away. "Ugh, I'm gross."

"Nothing a hot shower and a hairbrush can't fix," Bo said encouragingly. "Except for the eyes, and I can help with those."

She blew out a red stream of chi which Bella instinctively took in, turning her eyes blue. She looked in the mirror again to watch them turn back to brown – and as their unearthly hue faded, so did the redness in her sclerae, the dark discoloration around her eye sockets, and her blotchy, tearstained complexion, leaving her as bright-eyed and fresh-faced as any actress in a skincare commercial. Even her tangled hair seemed to smooth out a little, though the shower Bo had mentioned still sounded like a good idea.

"Thanks, Bo. I'll go get cleaned up and we can start planning what to do next." She practically skipped down the hall to the bathroom, feeling revitalized not just by the boost Bo had given her, but also by hope that everything really would work out in her quest for self-improvement and fixing things with Edward. With Bo there to guide her, how could it not?

###

Bella didn't see Edward for the rest of the weekend. Feeling that it would be unfair to make him deal with her presence in his own home, she steered clear of the Cullens' house even after Alice confided to her over the phone that he hadn't been there in more than twenty-four hours. Although his extended absence worried her, her anxious inquiries were met with assurances that her psychic friend had seen him showing up for school on Monday.

Bella received this news with a tangle of conflicting emotions that left her feeling like every nerve in her body was literally tingling with nervous anticipation as she pulled into the parking lot of Forks High on Monday morning, her eyes automatically scanning the rows of vehicles for his silver Volvo…only to be severely let down when she didn't find it. Instead, Rosalie's red BMW was parked in its usual place, leaving her to wonder whether Edward had changed his mind about attending school today or if he had just decided to come alone to avoid his concerned siblings.

Now plagued by uncertainty as well as apprehension, she reluctantly entered the high school, where someone was waiting for her – but not Edward. Jessica Stanley jumped her the minute she walked through the front doors, grabbing her arm and practically shrieking in her ear, "Bella! I heard the craziest thing yesterday – my mom ran into Mike's mom at the grocery store, who talked to Angela's dad when he went to Newton's to replace some fishing tackle he'd lost or something, and I guess he saw your dad while he was actually out fishing and lost whatever it was, and anyway Mom told me that your dad said you broke up with Edward!"

"What?" It took Bella a moment to sort through the dizzying barrage of information about how gossip circulated among the parental population of Forks, but once she identified the pertinent part of Jessica's babble, she immediately corrected her. "No, I didn't break up with him. We're just taking a break."

"You know, I've never understood what that whole 'break versus breakup' thing's about; like, you're still together, but you're not really together, so what's the point of still saying you're dating somebody if you're not doing any of the fun parts? But it was you that asked to put things on hold, though, right? Not him?"

"No, uh, it was me."

"Bella!" Jessica exclaimed again, shaking the arm she still had her fingers dug into. "Why would you do that? He's Edward Cullen!"

"I'm aware of that." Bella didn't know what else to say – she definitely didn't want to share any more personal details with Jessica, and it was true that she was well aware of Edward's identity – but Jessica clearly did not find her response satisfactory.

"It's fine, Jess," Angela broke in before she could press Bella further. "Bella doesn't have to talk about it if she doesn't want to."

"Thank you," Bella said with a grateful smile at her fellow introvert.

"Fine," Jessica huffed, frustrated at having her interrogation cut off. "But you should know, Bella, Mike seemed pretty happy when he heard you're at least semi-single again, so brace yourself."

Ah, so that's why she's so interested. The last Bella had heard was that Mike and Jessica were currently in the 'off' phase of their on-again, off-again romance, but it appeared that Bella wasn't the only one who wasn't ready to completely let go of the guy she was no longer officially dating. "Don't worry, Jess; Edward's and my break doesn't include either of us seeing other people. Besides, Mike may have a weirdly persistent crush on me, but deep down, his feelings for you are stronger. He just needs to stop chasing a fantasy and wake up to the fact that what you two have is the real thing."

"You really think so?" Jessica asked, sounding skeptical yet hopeful at the same time.

"Yeah, I've kind of developed a sixth sense about this stuff."

Still, some part of her couldn't help thinking that, if Mike wasn't with Jessica at the moment, his pheromone-fueled infatuation with her might come in handy. After all, taking a break from Edward meant she had lost her food source, and while human chi was sure to be a poor substitute, Mike was a young and perfectly healthy specimen who would probably do at least for a snack… Then her rational mind, the part she still thought of as her human side, reasserted itself, clamping down on the strange and sometimes disturbing new instincts that had insidiously insinuated themselves into her thought process.

No – bad succubus! I don't know what I'll do next time I get hungry, but I'll figure out something that doesn't involve taking advantage of one friend and hurting another…somehow.

###

Edward didn't make an appearance until lunchtime, when Bella walked into the cafeteria to find him sitting with his siblings just like he used to in the early days of their acquaintance, when he'd tried to pretend she didn't exist. Now it was almost like she'd stepped back in time, because he looked exactly the same as he had then, sitting with his back facing her, seeming totally oblivious to her presence…or maybe not. As she stared at him, she noticed a change slowly coming over him – a gradual stiffening of his spine as his participation in the conversation his brothers and sisters were holding dwindled, then finally stopped altogether.

Seeing the effect her observation was having on him, Bella wrenched her eyes away, feeling guilty. After the way she'd hurt him, the least she could do was let him have some peace. She threw herself into the ongoing dialogue at her own table, resolving to ignore Edward as thoroughly as he was trying to ignore her. Five minutes later, however, Jessica interrupted the talk about what everyone was planning to do as the end of the school year approached with a loud burst of laughter.

"I can't believe this – first Bella was looking at Edward, and as soon as you looked away, he started watching you. Did you two coordinate this or something?"

Bella laughed and assured Jessica that she and Edward had not worked out a schedule for watching each other, though she couldn't deny the flash of pleasure that warmed her insides at knowing he still felt the same pull toward her that she felt for him.

At the end of the lunch hour, she had just put her trash in the garbage can when the contents of five untouched trays landed on top of hers – trays that had been unloaded by a very familiar bone-white hand. With an odd feeling of trepidation churning in her gut, Bella raised her eyes from the detritus of a hundred-plus students' meals and faced the person she'd been semi-avoiding all day.

"Hey, Edward."

"Hello, Bella."

They gazed silently into one another's eyes for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say, or perhaps just afraid to say what was really on their minds, until at last he settled on, "Is it too soon to ask how you are?"

"How am I? Well, I'm…not fine, obviously, but I'm getting by. You?"

"The same."

Silence fell between them again, and Bella felt a pang of sadness that they had been reduced to such painfully stilted interactions when she used to feel that she could tell him anything. Now she wanted desperately to tell him how much she missed him and plead with him to adjust his attitude so they could just put all this behind them, but before she could find the right words to adequately express the longing and frustration swirling inside her, if there were any words that could do that, the bell rang, and she realized with a sinking feeling that their time together was at an end. "Well, I guess we should get to class."

"Yes, I suppose we should. Take care, Bella."

Then he was gone, leaving her wondering how they were ever going to work things out if they could barely even talk to each other.

###

When Bella arrived at school the next day, Mike was waiting for her outside the main building. She checked his aura, which was a lot brighter than she would have liked, and fought to keep her jaw from clenching. Clearly, he had not yet reached his moment of epiphany regarding who he belonged with. She tried to be understanding – after all, Bo had warned her that succubus pheromones could have a strong effect on humans, and the fact that she'd consistently rebuffed Mike's advances since the first day they met had probably given her the added allure of unattainability – but he was starting to try her patience.

"Hey, Bella," he said with a rather determined air. "Look, I was wondering, since you and Cullen are on a break, if you'd like to catch a movie sometime? I mean, I can't this weekend since we're visiting my grandma – she moved to a retirement community up in Olympia last year – but maybe next Saturday we could go to Port Angeles, see that new Marvel movie that just came out…"

Bella had only the vaguest idea of what he was talking about – with everything that had been going on recently, keeping up with the latest superhero flicks was the last thing on her mind – but then a dim recollection surfaced, and she smiled brightly. "That's a great idea, Mike. You know, I think I remember Jess, Eric, Tyler, and Angela saying that they wanted to see that one too, so we should all go together. Maybe I can get Bo and Kenzi to come along too; I haven't had a chance to introduce them to any of my friends yet."

Somehow, she doubted Dyson would be interested in a group outing with a bunch of high school students, but she thought Bo could be persuaded, and if she went, surely Kenzi would follow her. The prospect of finally meeting Bella's mysterious sister should be enough of an enticement to get Jessica on board, and if Bella could maneuver her and Mike into sitting next to each other in a darkened theater, maybe even hit them both with a subtle pulse of her power to get them in a suitably romantic mood…

Perhaps it was meddlesome of her, but after her own relationship had imploded so spectacularly, she needed a little reassurance that happy endings were still possible.

###

When she told Bo about her plan, her sister was more amenable than she had dared to hope for, though she did caution Bella to be very careful when attempting to use her touch to influence others' feelings. "Usually we can do it without messing them up too badly, but there was this one time when I was just trying to comfort a woman I thought was being victimized by a fae, and I ended up making her obsessed with me. Of course, she turned out to be a serial killer with shelves full of the severed heads of her ex-lovers, so she probably wasn't very emotionally stable to begin with."

"Well, hopefully nothing like that will happen with Mike and Jess; after all, neither of them has a collection of severed heads. Not that I know of, anyway," Bella joked. "Now, about that other issue I mentioned…"

"Right, that issue of you needing new feeding arrangements now that you don't have twenty-four-seven access to hot and cold running vampire chi. Are you sure you don't want to try doing what I did before Dyson showed up and we worked things out?"

"Picking up half a dozen strangers in a bar? No thank you," Bella said with a grimace. "Besides, I've never tried feeding on a human before. Sure, in theory I know how to stop; I've even done it before, but it was different with Edward since I never came anywhere close to draining him. I don't know if I trust myself yet, you know, if someone's life actually depends on it."

Seeing that she felt self-conscious at admitting as much, Bo gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. "I understand. It took me a while to get comfortable with the idea of feeding on humans too, and you're absolutely right – when a person's life depends on our self-restraint, it's definitely better to err on the side of caution. Anyway, I've been thinking about what else you could do, and I have an idea. You've been saying you want to explore your identity as a fae more, so why don't we do that? Dyson says there's a pretty big fae community in Seattle; we can go this weekend, and I bet you'll be able to find a safe source of chi or two – or three – while you work on the whole self-discovery thing."

Bella thought it over; she supposed it made sense that there would be places like the Dal Riata in major cities all over the world, places where fae could gather and be themselves without worrying about blending in, and although she'd never considered seeking out such a place, now that Bo had brought it up, she found herself growing curious. What would it be like to fully immerse herself in the strange new world she felt she'd barely dipped her toes into, to be among her own kind and not have to pretend she was still the same old Bella, still human? Would it help her finally figure out who she was now?

Whether Seattle's fae enclave held the answers she was seeking or not, the prospect of a weekend trip with her sister was undeniably exciting, much more so than her plans for the following Saturday. "Sure, Bo, that sounds great." Acting on a sudden impulse, she leaned forward and hugged her sister. "Thanks – it'll be good for us to get out of here and have some quality time together that doesn't involve headlocks and fake rubber knives. I'm really looking forward to it."

Hope you guys enjoyed this look into how Bella's handling the break; at least she didn't go catatonic for more than a few hours. At some point I will show Edward's thoughts on it, maybe even rewrite their cafeteria scene from his POV, though I'm not exactly sure where that'll fit in. Probably in the next chapter, or if not, definitely the one after it.