A/N: Hi, everybody! Long time no see! So, after some fairly extensive surgeries and a bout of trouble with my pain medication, I'm back to writing. I'm truly sorry it's taken so long. I hope you guys are still with me. I was really hoping I'd be able to meet you guys at the TFMU in Atlanta as it's probably the closest the meet and greet will ever get to me, but it doesn't look like it's in the cards for me this year.

So while I sit here in the Florida panhandle waiting for TS Alberto to make landfall, I thought I'd go ahead and get this chapter uploaded. It's been a while, so here's a recap.

After Bella's attack at the hospital, Edward (with Jasper's help) rescued her, whisking her away to his home, where Alice later joined the party. Once Bella woke, she explained why she believed she was attacked and her fears of a predator at the hospital. Against Edward's better judgment, he agreed to help Bella induce psychosis with Adderall. The attempt was successful, and Itsy made a rather awkward appearance, pushing Edward to his breaking point. Jasper refused to give her any other medication for at least a day to give her body a break, but everyone seemed anxious to begin unraveling the incident at the hospital. However, Itsy keeps pushing buttons that shouldn't be pushed.

As always, I don't own Twilight, Stephenie Meyer does.

EPOV

With Bella's hand clasped tightly in mine, I pulled her through the open gate and into the small park several blocks from my home. Her sweet smile blazed like the sun, warming me from the inside despite the cool September wind licking my cheeks. She refused to wait for me and took off like a rocket toward the swing set, kicking up dead leaves in her wake. She dropped down onto the cracked rubber seat and gripped the chains. Digging the toes of her shoes into the dirt, she reared back and sailed through the air, her legs pumping her higher and higher into the nearly cloudless sky.

I stood mesmerized, watching her hair blow back and forth as the wind carried her laughter to my ears. My heart ached at the sight of her, more carefree than I'd ever felt in my whole life.

She took her hand off the chain just long enough to beckon me toward her with a curl of her fingers. "Edward! Fly with me!"

I laughed and shook my head no. "I'm too big, Itsy. My feet will drag."

She scowled playfully and leaned back on the upswing, turning nearly upside-down. She was daring and reckless but free and fearless, and I suddenly realized that I'd follow her blindly to the ends of the Earth just to protect her.

Inching closer, I shoved my hands into my coat pockets, content to watch Itsy in all her glory as she swung higher and higher. Reaching the top of yet another high-flying arc, she suddenly let go of the chains and pushed away from the seat, sailing through the air only to land in a heap with a sickening thud.

Time seemed to stop as I willed my feet to move. I wanted to call out to her, but my pounding heart lodged in my throat. I raced to her side, skidding to my knees in the dirt as my hands flew over her still form, sweeping away leaves and sticks as they went. "Itsy! Are you hurt?"

With a suddenness I wasn't expecting, she turned and lunged, knocking me backward into the cold earth. Perched on my lap with her thighs on either side of my waist, she giggled and dug her fingers into my side beneath my coat, searching for some torturous sweet spot to use to her advantage. Unfortunately for her, I wasn't the ticklish type.

I reached out with wriggling fingers and attacked her waist with fervor. With an almost inaudible screech, she slid to the side, trying fruitlessly to swat my hands away. She curled into a ball, laughing and squirming until tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes.

"I yield, I yield!" she shouted to the sky, prompting a quick end to our impromptu tickle war.

Brushing the loose strands of hair from her face, I grazed her cheek with my thumb and sighed. "You shouldn't be so careless, Itsy. You scared me jumping like that. I never want to see you hurt."

Her lips quirked at my easy admission, but her eyes dimmed in apology. Rising to her feet, she pulled me up and then wrapped her arms around my waist, burying herself beneath my coat. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she muttered against my sweater, her hot breath permeating the cotton to tickle my skin.

I rested my cheek on the top of her head and breathed her in, content to simply hold her in my arms where she was safe. If I had my way, I'd live in this moment, but just like everything else in life, it ended all too soon.

"Spin me?" she asked, stepping out of my embrace and pulling me toward an old merry-go-round that had seen better days. Climbing onto the rusty platform, she sat near the edge and wrapped her jean-clad legs around an outer metal post.

Eyeing the creaky contraption, I stepped up and placed my hands on one of the paint chipped bars, careful to mind my injured palm. "Are you sure you don't want to scoot back closer to the center?"

She shook her head and smiled her mischievous grin before wrapping her fingers around the post until her knuckles turned white. With wind-blown cheeks and chapped lips, she whispered one breathy word. "Go."

Throwing caution to the wind, I pulled with all my might, spinning the disk too slowly at first, but with each pass, I grabbed a bar and spun it faster until Itsy was merely a giggling blur of chocolate and cream. Breathless and burning, I stepped away and brushed the rusted paint chips from my hands, watching in amusement as Itsy continued to squeal in delight, barely hanging on as she whipped around. I laughed aloud at her pleas for faster and stepped up twice more to keep her moving, before leaping onto the platform on the final pass. Hanging on for dear life as the merry-go-round creaked and groaned under the added weight, I inched closer to the center where the centrifugal force wasn't as strong and watched my wild-eyed girl.

Her eyes never left mine as we turned round and round, eventually slowing to a stop after several minutes. With a sweet smile, she unwrapped her legs from the pole she'd been clutching and shuffled to my side, wobbling a little as she fought to regain her bearings.

I pulled her down next to me with an arm wrapped around her shoulders, watching the leaves fall around us until we were both steady enough to climb down. We spent a while longer in the park, chasing each other through the trees and climbing the jungle gym, until the clouds began to roll across the sky, leeching the warmth and color from the air.

Shivering from the cold, I pulled my coat tighter around me and watched Itsy scramble the wrong direction up a slide. I walked around to the back side near the ladder just as she crested the top with a triumphant grin. Without a moments' hesitation, Itsy jumped from the top of the slide and straight into my arms. Pressing her forehead to mine, her eyes slipped closed as she rubbed her cold, red-tipped nose against mine, her cloudy breath warming my lips.

It took every ounce of my restraint to keep from kissing her senseless. Instead, I pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek and lowered her to the ground, leaving my arms wrapped around her. "Are you ready to go home? It's almost two, and Alice and Jasper should be back by now."

Itsy grinned and nodded, interlacing her fingers with mine. She seemed content not to speak and tugged me back across the playground and through the gate. Our pace was leisurely until the last hundred yards or so, at which point our trek turned into an all-out race to see who could make it back to the house fastest.

My stride was longer, but Itsy was smaller and quicker, so we reached the back deck at almost the same time. Barreling through the back door, we fell into a giggling heap in the kitchen, only to find Jasper and Alice staring at us with amused expressions. Somewhat embarrassed by my juvenile display, I struggled to regain some modicum of composure as Itsy disentangled herself from me and climbed off the floor. Dipping into a quick curtsey, she grabbed Alice's hand and headed into the living room.

With a hearty snort at my expense, Jasper turned and grabbed two beers from the fridge, passing one to me as he pulled me up off the floor. "Well, I'd ask how things went, but it seems rather obvious by that grin on your face." His eyebrows scrunched together as he looked around the kitchen, taking note of the remnants of our disastrous breakfast before glancing back down at my bandaged hand. "Although, I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. If I was a betting man, I'd say you lost a fight."

Unsure of how to explain the events of this morning without sounding like a bumbling idiot, I shrugged and took a seat at the kitchen table, keeping my eyes trained on the amber bottle in front of me while Jasper claimed his own chair. Taking advantage of the quiet moment, I shifted the subject away from me and back to him and Alice. "Everything go okay at the doctor? Babies okay?"

"Everything's right as rain," he replied, leaning his chair back on two legs and taking a long pull from his beer. "The doc wants to induce, but Alice refused."

"Do you think that's wise with everything that's going on?" I asked but quickly reconsidered my words. "Never mind…I forgot who we were talking about for a second." My eyes drifted toward the living room where Bella sat with her cheek pressed to Alice's protruding belly, her lips moving in whispered conversation. I couldn't help the smile that crept across my face at the sound of Alice's laughter and Bella's answering giggle.

Jasper followed my gaze with a grin of his own, before turning his attention back to me. "Exactly. Besides, I'm much more interested in just what in the blue hell happened here after we left, doc." He tipped his beer in my direction and winked. "I've seen you cook, doc. Pretty darn well, in fact. So what's with the charcoal briquettes in the kitchen sink and the dismantled smoke alarm?"

I glanced up at the wall, only just noticing the smoke detector hanging precariously by its red and yellow wires, its battery mysteriously absent. I chuckled a little at that, recalling the events of the morning and wondering how I could've been so distracted as to have missed Itsy dismantling the smoke detector. "Shit, I didn't realize…that's just…damn."

I could tell by the glint in his eyes that Jasper had no intention of letting this go, so I begrudgingly recounted the gritty details of my morning with Itsy in the kitchen, leading into our foray into the music room, and ending with our adventure at the park.

Jasper absorbed it all, seemingly delighted at this turn of events despite my own reservations. After a fair amount of ribbing at my expense, he'd finally calmed enough to address the elephant in the room. "Something's eating you, doc. I can tell. Did Itsy say something to spook you already?"

I shrugged and stared at my beer, watching the fat drops of condensation slide down the label. "It's probably nothing. I mean, I have no intention of actually…you know…she probably doesn't even realize…" With an exasperated sigh, I stared at the ceiling, trying to organize my thoughts into some kind of order that would make sense. "Fuck, Jasper, I just had to get her out of here. It was just too much…"

"What was too much?" he asked, concern coloring his expression for the first time in our entire conversation.

Pressure began to build behind my eyes, and a consistent ached took up residence at the back of my head, a telltale sign that a horrific headache was on the horizon. "Just some things Itsy said…about my mother."

The beer bottle that had been halfway to Jasper's mouth thumped back to the table instead. "Shit fire and save matches," he mumbled. "I know it's really none of our business, but Bella can't help what she sees, doc." He sighed and pressed his lips together in a thin line. "You know, the night she was admitted to the hospital…Angie wasn't the only one that spoke to her. That photo on your desk of you and your mother…well, you get the idea."

"I figured as much," I admitted with a heavy sigh. "Thinking back over our initial meeting and some of the things she's said, it just makes sense." Swallowing hard against the lump rising in my throat, I struggled to keep my voice steady against the onslaught of emotions churning in my gut. "I just wish she'd let it go, you know? There's nothing to be done."

"So, it hasn't even crossed your mind?" Jasper asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

"For fuck's sake, Jasper…of course, it's crossed my mind," I huffed, "but I'd never use Bella that way. I'd never ask her to use her ability to my advantage." This was not a subject I wished to discuss at great length. The pure coincidence of the situation had not escaped me by any means, but I had my reasons for not jumping at the chance to have Bella look for my mother, and despite my less than solid reasoning to Jasper, it had very little to do with Bella herself.

"But if she offered-"

"No!" I spat, pounding the kitchen table with my fist and knocking over the salt shaker. "You don't get it, Jasper. I know Bella wants to help. It's in her nature. But my mother left of her own volition. She was medicated…she was coping, but she chose to leave anyway. She left me. If she'd wanted to come back, she would have." Movement from the living room caught my eye, and I lowered my voice to keep from being overheard. "Now I've said my piece, and I'm done discussing this."

Jasper sat stoically in the chair across from me, his arms crossed in front of him, studying me intently, almost oblivious to the shadow encroaching the entryway.

"Some people believe spilling salt is bad luck, you know," Alice sighed as she moved effortlessly through the kitchen. Scooping the spilled salt into the palm of her hand, she tossed a small pinch over her left shoulder and dumped the rest in the sink. "You're in quite the precarious position, Edward. Misfortune always befalls the careless. I wouldn't tempt fate if I were you."

"Seriously, we're back to this cryptic bullshit?" I huffed, immediately regretting my words, but too angry to take them back.

"Hmm, cryptic indeed, GadJo," she replied with a smirk, vanishing from the room as quickly as she'd appeared.

Jasper barked out a sharp laugh at her remark, shaking his head in disbelief, but offered no apology on her behalf.

"What did she just call me?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"GadJo…it means outsider," Jasper smirked.

I rolled my eyes and rubbed my fingers along my temple. "Great, fucking great."

"Relax, doc. You're as skittish as a cat on a hot tin roof." Jasper chuckled and stood to retrieve another beer from the fridge, dropping one in front of me before reclaiming his seat. "She doesn't mean it in a bad way. More as a term of endearment. If you didn't matter, she wouldn't call you anything at all."

"Right…term of endearment," I mumbled under my breath. "Well, isn't that just peachy." My chair legs scraped harshly against the wood floors as I fled the kitchen, intent on escaping Jasper's inquisition. Stepping outside onto the back deck, I tilted my face skyward, disappointed by dismal gray clouds that seemed to color my mood.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I set out across the yard and headed down the street. I just needed to clear my head. The day had been a roller coaster of emotions for me, and I just wanted one damn second to think. Even though my morning had started out disastrous, the afternoon spent with Itsy had been the best time I'd had since I was a kid. For a few hours, she'd brought back that fifteen-year-old boy, and I'd forgotten what being young felt like. While I relished my unhindered moments with her, I had to continually remind myself that this version of Bella was only temporary, and that thought hit me like a wrecking ball. The differences between fully-medicated-Bella and unmedicated-Itsy were staggering. One was overwhelmingly serious but sweet while the other was child-like and sinfully innocent.

Despite the duality, I was completely enamored with her, and couldn't imagine a future without her in it. I wanted her with me always.

And there it was, the bare truth of it. Bella would eventually leave me.

Jasper would start her on that pharmaceutical cocktail tomorrow and the sweet girl from today would be gone, replaced by someone I'd yet to meet. Someone strong and determined in her resolve. And as soon as Bella solved this case, she'd be gone, and I'd be back to my singular existence, certainly better for having known her and yet worse for having lost her.

Staring up at the darkening sky, I shivered in the cold, my aching heart already mourning the loss of her.