This is another addition to my group of Nessie free AU one shots and short stories dealing with the Bella's and Edward's year at Dartmouth and their final decision to change Bella. You don't have to read those to enjoy this one, but if you want to check them out, I have them list chronologically on my profile page.

As for this story, I never cared for how Bella seemed so nonchalant over leaving the human world, and especially leaving her parents for good. I'm trying to find a way to have them both face their fears and come out okay on the other side.

So, here it is

Going to Jacksonville

Planning for my wife's last visit to her mother had been tricky. We could not seem to find a suitable flight... one that didn't make me look like a walking prism when we exited the plane... so instead we decided to drive to Jacksonville from New Hampshire. It was the optimal way to get her two nights and two overcast and rainy days to say good bye. In all actuality it wouldn't take that much longer for the Vanquish to drive straight through to Florida, considering how early one now had to get to the airport these days. It was an eighteen hour trip by car for humans. I was planning for around ten for us, not including a stop in the Shenandoah Mountains so she could rest and I could get into the shade. Being mid June, nights were short and unfortunately the entire east coast was going to be bathed in sunshine for the next couple days, leaving us few options but to travel at night and hide out during the day.

She interrupted my thoughts, walking into our bedroom from the bathroom, clad only in her underwear, adding her toiletries and blow dryer to the still open suitcase lying on our bed. I don't know who expensive lingerie was for, certainly not me. Nothing was sexier than her little polka-dot cotton panties and white bra.

In spite of the fact that we had just made love two hours ago, I eyed her hungrily as she bent over the suitcases, checking what she had already packed, making sure that she hadn't forgotten anything. She left briefly and returned moments later carrying the old quilt that she kept in her truck, freshly laundered for the trip, tossing it unfolded on the bed beside our luggage.

She moved these days in a state of quiet determination, as if every shift of her body or word from her mouth was to be her last. It had been this way since we set the date for her change. My mood shifted, still longing for her touch, but for reasons having nothing to do with intercourse. I turned toward our bedroom window, my hand holding on to its frame and pressed my forehead against the glass. I stared out into the darkening forest, trying to pull myself together.

It had taken me a long time to believe that this was the right thing to do, and her behavior was not helping. I had originally agreed to change her, though it went against what I thought was my better judgment. The joy we had this year at Dartmouth had began to convince me more and more that it indeed would be a mistake to change anything. But when she told me in May she was ready and the reasons why, I no longer had a defense for keeping her human. She was right; had always been right, and deep down I had probably known it all along.

What would she do if I were not with her? Narcissistic through and through, I had never thought about it, only how her absence would impact me. Even after the disastrous lessons learned when I tried to stay away to keep her safe, I hadn't considered what would become of her in the after life, were I not there to be by her side. She had given me hope, hope for something more than this earthly predatory existence. But as she had said lying in my arms on top of our stripped bed, faith and belief in something didn't necessarily make it true. The one thing I did know for certain was that we had to be together to exist. It wasn't right for us to risk going on as we were.

Now that I was convinced that we were on the right path, what racked my brain these days was pain. She had already said goodbye to her mother and father once. When she decided on a year at school, it had felt like a reprieve to both of us. Now the pain was back again, but this time with no wedding to distract us. She would have to live it all over again, and I would have to witness it. I truly didn't know how we were going to do it a second time.

Then there was the pain of transformation. It was constantly in the forefront of my every thought ...the burning ...the agony. Carlisle and I spent hours on the phone while she slept, thinking and planning, the safety of her body pressed up against me my only comfort. How could we make it easier, faster? If the morphine worked, and we had no idea if it would, the window of its effectiveness would be six to eight hours at most.

Six to eight hours... it did nothing to ease my stress.

Burning usually lasted about three days. Carlisle, because he had only been bitten once and quickly had taken almost four. My conversion had been long also. He had never tried to transform anyone, and going by how he had been changed, had only bitten me once too. It put more venom in my system than he had received, but not much more.

By the time Esme had come along he had put more thought into it, even discussing the idea with me in the abstract. He and I theorized that maybe the more venom in the body of the victim, the quicker the process might be. I don't think he had ever planned to do it again. But it had happened again, and it had happened two more times after that. When Carlisle found Esme lying beside the door to the morgue he bit her in several places, infusing venom in several pulse points. It had shaved hours off the burning. Rosalie and Emmett were faster still. We both felt the theory had been well tested and planned to take steps to ensure an abundance of available venom.

Carlisle's experiment with Emmett and the morphine had been less successful. He has been slipping away fast, so fast that my father couldn't wait for the drug to work, or so we believed. Bella will be different. She will be completely healthy and we will have plenty of time for it to work... if it does work.

Six to eight hours... it was all I could offer.

Though I was fully aware of her presence in the room, I still jumped as she came behind me and kissed my shoulder blade.

"Didn't think I could do that to you." She said with a smile in her voice.

"Love, I could write a book about the impossible things that you have done to me."

I turned to look at her. She was now half dressed in thin cotton shorts, her shirt in her hand. Her eyes widened as she took in my expression. Was the terror that clear on my face?

The shirt fell to the floor as she wrapped her arms around me tightly, burying her herself in my chest. We stood there for a long time, rocking each other, calming and comforting each other.

"We have to stay on schedule." She said finally, pulling away from me.

I couldn't let her continue to see the agony in my heart. I turned toward the suitcase to close it while she picked her shirt up off the floor. "You have everything you want in here?"

Waiting for her reply, I turned back and looked into her tear filled eyes. I could feel the pulsating aura of need emanating from inside her, every bit as strong as mine, bursting from her soul, staggering me.

"We have to stay on schedule." she repeated in a voice so sad it hurt.

"No, we don't."

She attacked, leaping at me and wrapping her legs around my waist. In my own desperation, I spun and slammed her against the wall. She gasped as the air was forced from her lungs. In spite of her heart pounding against my chest, I froze horrified, staring into her face.

"I'm s…"

"Shut up and fuck me Edward."

Now I couldn't speak either. She had never spoken to me that way before. I don't think I had ever heard that word come out of her mouth.

My body restarted as she disengaged her legs from me and I put her back down on the floor. Her lips were at my chest, tears saturating my shirt as she sobbed, while her fingers began to unbuckle my belt.

I didn't know what to do. Was she trying to prove that I had not hurt her? Or was it something else, something she wasn't telling me making her cry? I pulled her shaking hands away, held them together in one of mine as I lifted her face up with the other, forcing her to meet my gaze.

"I'm so sorry, Edward."

"It's alright." I said trying to calm her down. "We don't have to do this now."

"But I want to… please… I need to have you inside me..."

"… more than anything in the world." I finished her thoughts, our thoughts.

Releasing her hands and pulling my shirt over my head, I listened with my eyes close to the mixture of sounds… the snap of my jeans popping… the teeth of the zipper parting as she pulled down the slider… my own moan of pleasure as she reach in and took me coinciding with the soft rustle of fabric falling to my feet. I was relieved that the sound of her weeping had ceased. Sliding her little shorts down her legs silently and stepping out of own my pants, I lifted her into my arms, kissing the trails of spent tears that had rolled down her cheeks and laid her gently on the bed, the closed suitcase banging noisily as it hit the floor.

She sighed in relief as I placed myself down beside her, arms reaching out immediately to pull me closer. Anxiety ebbed from her lips as they brushed at my jaw, moved over to my ear and began sucking on the lobe, sending a shiver from my scalp to my sock covered toes. Her leg wrapped around my hip, pulling her warm body on top of mine as my fingers went behind her to remove her bra. Teeth at my neck, she seemed determined to gnaw on every part of me she could get her mouth around as she slithered her way down my chest. Dragging her nails across my ribs, my stomach muscles tightened as her fingers clawed lower, over my hip bones, down almost to my knees, before retreating back up my trembling thighs and wrapping themselves around her own breasts that now sandwiched my erection. Venom laced semen and sweat from her body lubricated her bosom as she rocked back and forth on her knees, my hips thrusting up to meet her. I growled in delirium as our heart pounded against my hard shaft.

"You taste so good…" she moaned, as her hot moist breath dampened my stomach, licking and tugging on the few hairs that early manhood had bestowed just below my navel.

It was her voice that brought me back to sanity. I had almost hurt her only moments ago and once again my body had cut itself off from my brain, allowing her to do things I deemed unsafe. I reached down under her arms and pulled her back up to me, rolling us back to our sides and returning her mouth to mine.

"Didn't you like that?" she panted, her fingers refusing to give up, sliding down to the base of my erection, fondling my testicles.

"Too much… way too much…" This was damn near too much.

She gave me a worried look and her hand froze where it was. I reached down and took it in my own, raising it to my face and rubbing my nose against her wrist.

"It's okay." I murmured, pressing my lips to the pulse point. "I'm fine. I was just having a bit of a problem... thinking straight."

Her thumb slid down my nose toward my waiting mouth. As she rolled it side to side along the bottom lip, my tongue could not help itself, sliding between my teeth and stroking up and down over the soft flesh before it. Drunk on her flavor and her intense aroma, I rolled us over, pressing her into the mattress. I began my own decent, kissing her collarbone, fingers cupping her breasts, inhaling the floral bouquet with my nose before succumbing to its sweet and salty taste. Pinning half of her body down with my own, my hand slid toward the warmest part of her, playing on the outside, thrilling to the site of her writhing and grinding against the tips of my fingers.

"Damn it, now Edward!" She wailed.

Her aggressiveness stole the last of my reserves. My fingers parted her and I thrust myself inside the wet folds of her loins, relieved that as worked up as she had gotten me, I hadn't came on the spot. Scorching sweet breath blew down my throat as she kept us held close, her fist clenched in my hair. The tension in her legs wrapped around me was palpable as I moved inside her. She cried out, begging me to push harder. It was a fine line that I always walked, trying to satisfy her without hurting her. Gasping and grunting our heart pounded joyfully as I gave us what we both needed, riding that edge, and relishing the beat that grew ever stronger and faster inside my own being. Her eyes bore into me as her free hand yanked the pillow out from behind her head and wrapping it around a spindle on the headboard, bracing herself as we moved.

"Yes Edward... Yes…!" She shrieked as her chest, throat and cheeks flamed red, clamping down on me. I yanked my hands and mouth away from her just in time as her orgasm ignited my own, sending us spiraling into euphoric bliss.

It was now completely dark as we held each other on the bed under the old quilt I pulled out from under us to keep her warm. I didn't want to think. I didn't want to care. Nothing in the world would have pleased me more to be mindlessly unaware, lying quietly at her side, skin against skin. But we jeopardize her time in Jacksonville the longer we lingered. With one last kiss, I lifted the blanket that covered us and tore myself from her warm embrace.

"We have to get going." I said handing my wife her clothes, and picking up my own pants, began to put them on.

She rose from our bed as well and began to dress.

"Thank you." She said, kissing my bare shoulder, shirt back in her hand once more.

"For what?"

"For being you."

OoOoOoOoOoO

Hope you liked it. Things get a bit lighter from here on out.

As Always, reviews are greatly appreciated.