The most confusing, frightful and yet glorious feeling imaginable. The taste of him, the pure energy of his scent that clung to my skin, to every breath I took, inhaled sweet and deep into my lungs. The pure motion of my senses flickering and unfurling within me. My craving for him and my terror of him engulfing me, feeding on me.

With surely only enough me for one to survive…

And then Alice was by my side, strangely back though I'd watched her leave, her cold fingers digging into my arm, shaking me.

I was sprawled where he'd left me, the towel flat on either side where his body had ground it from my flesh. But this time she didn't bother trying to cover me, and in her eyes I could see a sheer terror that, if not a mirror, was at least a decent likeness of my own.

Her words came out in a rush.

"You need to fix this Bella – I'm so sorry he left – I'm sorry we all left – this is my fault as much as his - I KNEW he loved you, knew he couldn't stay away - and I knew how much you'd suffer too and still I let it happen, Bella! – I did, I let it happen because I thought I had to let him figure it out for himself – figure out once he did leave why he would never – could never – leave you again - but I fucked it up, I know I did, I should have told you, should have said something, but I was so scared of changing things – somehow screwing up the way it would work by telling you - but now it's just fucked anyway – and I know you don't deserve this, you really don't Bella, you don't deserve any of this, and I don't know if this is right for you – I wish I could see but I can't, I can't see a fucking thing!"

Her voice had risen, hysteria causing bubbles of spit to form on her perfect red lips. Her musical voice ragged, rotting.

And yet I was somehow beyond her, awake but back in my dream, hanging from the rope, once more in danger of slipping to my death. In some part of my mind I knew that Alice's grip on my arm was painful, that her usual care with my oh-so human form had vanished in the face of her fear, but I had no connection to the pain which, just like her words, fell beyond me.

The voice below is a hollow wail that seems to swell beneath me like a black hole. I struggle to block it out, to hear only the wind that is suddenly no match for that long, haunted echo…

Above me, Alice continued, oblivious.

"But I have to put him ahead of you one more time – I have to, I'm so sorry but I have to, and I need you to get out there, you have to get out there and stop him, Bella, you've got to convince him that you still love him, that it isn't all over, that he hasn't killed it all – oh god even if you don't – even if you really don't - even if it's a lie - because otherwise he is dead - and he's my brother Bella and I can't help him – I can't even see him – and I love him and please… please!" She broke off with a sob, her words so splintered, so fragile they passed through her lips like powder.

But there is no blocking it out and suddenly I know it; its timbre and length lights up a particular colour in my mind that has languished unseen for so long. The colour spills from me, floods my body, and without question I know why I am afraid, why I am so utterly petrified of letting go…

As though I were emerging out of a long underwater tunnel, a great gasping breath tore through me, so violently that Alice released her grip, the continuation of her pleas a soundless parting of her lips.

In that rush everything came back to me - everything – it was like the worst case of pins and needles imaginable, somehow sped up and intensified – sensation tearing through my mind and my heart with such force I lurched up and forward beneath the pressure.

And then release. And suddenly I'm going down, falling like water. The tree is rushing past my eyes, as is the rope to which I'd once clung. Below me the ground soars up to embrace me, and I feel my throat close in horror, because I know when it touches me, HE will touch me and then I will be lost.

Because there is no distance when he is upon me; no way of cleaving that part of me that is his and his alone.

And as the wind screams in my ears, I try to bring myself to order, because the closer I get the less I can remember how I got to where I was, whether I found the rope, or the rope found me. But already it escapes me, and I can feel heat blooming in my skin, defying the wind that chilled me so high above and tears into me now. And as the wind reaches its highest pitch yet, I hear something else, not his voice but a voice, somehow so small and yet so powerful it feels as though it can destroy me with a single word.

Edward.

And just like that, the little voice I'd thought I'd lost exploded into my mind – denied a voice for what felt like a lifetime her scream took up every part of me, propelled me to my feet, the pain inside me as intense as though I were hitting the ground time after time.

I staggered forward, lurched towards the door. Alice reached for me but I shrugged her off as easily as though she were a fragile branch that I cut through on my long fall down.

My legs felt disconnected, but I forced them to move, crashing through the hall, back to the bathroom where my clothes lay in a damp puddle. My fingers moved stiffly to dress myself, like clothes pegs left too long on the line, but somehow I managed, the little voice urging me to hurry.

Back down the hallway and through the lounge I staggered, graceless as I had ever been, the little voice now screeching like a demented cheerleader. The front door was closed and if my hand hadn't found the door knob on the first try, I felt sure I would have smashed through it – torn that wood to shreds as though it were paper.

But the door swung inward at my touch and I was through; into the dark envelope of night where Edward stood, his back to me, facing the woods.

He turned to me immediately and at that moment when our eyes locked I felt the ground rushing up to meet me one more time; knew that this time it really was now or never. That perversely, if I didn't collide, didn't hit the ground, I might as well be dead.

The little voice had reached a crescendo in my head, and as the hard earth grew massive in my mind, I let my heart swell and open, and rather than cringe from the collision I embraced it, clawed towards it, suddenly accepting, once and for all, that if it hurt, it was ok – even if it killed me, it was ok.

And as I hit, my voice soared, finally in unison with the one inside me:

"Edward!"

"Bella?" My name was a ragged strip of sound torn from his throat, his features stretched taut into a ferocious, yet hopeless, mask. I could see from his eyes just how far gone he was; they were the black of newly mined coal, simultaneously opaque and diamond-bright.

He shifted and the idea that he would move even an inch away from me brought me lurching towards him, surging forward to fling myself against him, my fingers seeking his flesh, clawing through his hair. His body was motionless and icy beneath mine, but it was solid and it was there and my limbs twitching convulsively against him.

But then just as it seemed as though he might loosen, might twine his arms around me, he was torn from me, the cause of our sudden separation a massive, shaggy shape.

Together they tumbled, end over end, a vicious tangle of russet fur and marble-white skin. The impact had knocked me from my feet and I screamed where I lay, knowing even as I did that nothing could penetrate the sound that already echoed around the clearing – so feral in its wildness, so imbued with pain and rage.

And then Alice was flying from the cottage and into the fray. My heart flung itself repeatedly against my ribcage as I watched her tiny frame seem to dissolve into the sprawl, as though consumed by a fight for which there could be only two. But then somehow – and though my eyes never left the scene, I was blind to how – she emerged, the wolf that was Jacob shoved before her, Edward sprawled on the earth.

I screamed again, and this time the sound swelled loud and uncontested on a scene that was suddenly and awfully quiet.

But then he was rising, slowly, to his feet.

"Alice, don't."

I felt her hiss before I heard it, but she remained where she was.

Jacob turned and made a move as though to come to my side, but before I could even breathe, Edward was in front of me, his body locked in defensive rage.

"Don't come near her."

With a snarl that was somehow high-pitched, Jacob stayed put. Behind him Alice stook a step forward so that the three of them formed a strange, awkward triangle.

Jacob continued to growl, now low and deep in his throat, a continuous, coiling sound that reverberated in the still night air.

Edward hadn't taken his eyes from Jacob. "You..." he paused as though seeking a better way to say what needed to be said, "You. Will. Not. Take. Her." His lips twitched as though to skin back from his teeth.

Jacob's glare said everything his wolf lips could not.

I met Alice's eyes, reaching for Edward at the same time.

"Edward –"

"Alice, take Bella into the house."

Before I could even look to see what Alice's reaction would be, shock and fury engulfed me – come from a part of me that could still think clearly, still form words.

"Take me – what?! No you won't – Edward I won't. You won't do this, this is stupid – unnecessary – I –"

"Alice!" His voice was so sharp it rent my words down the middle.

To my left, Jacob had lowered into a blunt crouch.

"Listen to her Edward – please, she –"

"No!" The word was sharper still and so loud it flattened any hint of sound from the surrounding woods.

"Take her Alice! Take her or –"

"Or what?!" And her scream was every bit the match for him. "What, Edward? What?"

For a moment, Alice looked like she might attack him herself. Her anger was so intense I found mine falter in its stead. I cast a glance at Jacob – his wolf-face looked angry but confused, his head shifting from Edward to the woods, his great, bronze-coloured tail held in a stiff line from his tailbone.

"Edward…" The stress had left me hoarse, but I was sure the sound had carried, saw the way he flinched, the tremor running from his mouth to his fingers, which clenched as though around rare coins.

I wanted to stand, to go over to him, to tell him this didn't have to happen, tell Jacob in the same breath that there was no wrong here for him to right – that I was safe in the only way I would ever be safe: with Edward by my side.

But at that moment, four wolves burst from the trees, fur spiked in angry Mohawks on their backs.

Alice hissed viciously, her tiny body tensing into a series of sharp points, but

Edward remained motionless. I took a step towards him and Jacob growled. Immediately the wolf nearest to him sprang forward to stand by his side. I froze in my stride, terrified of doing the wrong thing.

"Alice." Edward said again, this time quietly, calmly. "Please take Bella into the house."

I saw Alice turn from the wolves to Edward and back again, her eyes a fix of helplessness, rage and defiance.

She won't do it, I thought to myself - even while I wondered why I couldn't just speak up and solve this whole awful mess.

But I was still jarred by my fall to the ground, and my lips that would say the words could only curve into the shape of his name, as though that action alone could convey everything I needed to. And a new terror raged within me, made stronger because of the obvious fragility of the situation – the feeling that everything could go oh so badly with just the flick of the wrong finger. I screwed up my face, tried for the life of me to focus, to say the words that would stop the awful from happening.

"Don't leave me."

Immediately I wanted to recall them. Indeed I could barely recognise them, saw no relation in them to what I had wanted to say. Edward's face ripped around to look into mine, and the pain I saw there tore through my guts like shrapnel.

The little voice wailed inside me. He doesn't know what you meant! He'll think you're reliving the woods - hating him, dead to him, even now! Speak! SPEAK!

But my voice seemed to have its own mind, settled on its own course. And perhaps in some way I was reliving that awful day. That being forced now into this moment where he was setting himself in place for a battle he could not win – where losing meant death – I had only one plea left inside me. It didn't make sense, held no strategy to it, no guidance on how to avoid such an outcome – but it was all I could feel. All I could express.

"Don't… Don't leave me."

"Alice…" This time his calm was gone, and the quiet voice that spoke her name was haunted, ravaged.

Alice moved. Faster than the wolves could react she was by my side, her tiny hands pressing into the small of my back, to guide me away.

"No!" I screamed and that was enough for Jacob. He let out a snarl so sharp it could have cleaved phone books and tore across the clearing, the other wolves close behind.

Alice let me go, whirling to face them. I seized my chance and threw myself at Edward. I hit his chest so hard I winded myself, but still my fingers twisted into his hair, my legs wrapped around his waist.

Jacob hit us full-charge, and together, the three of us tumbled down. I vowed I would not let go, clung to his icy frame, forcing my fingers to mirror his strength, to lock into him to a point where nothing could force us apart.

But it wasn't enough. With frightening ease Edward tore me away from him, his black eyes glittering with tiny red lights.

Jacob rushed him again, this time with no me between them they went down.

I didn't think, just threw myself after them, landing hard on Jacob's side which had twisted with the impact.

"Stop – stop!" I screamed desperately. "Jacob, stop!"

Immediately he rolled away, His muzzle curled back from sharp teeth.

Beneath me Edward jerked to his feet his flint-hard fingers already seeking to remove me from him, but this time I knew I couldn't let him go – that to do so would mean my final chance had come and gone; that to be separated from him but once more, would mean the end of it all. So I shoved my arm beneath his shirt, my hand clasping his neck, his hair, and all the while my lips pressed against his ear, begging him to stop, crying 'no no no no no' over and over, my eyes locked on Jacob, beseeching him to listen - even if Edward wouldn't – and to stop playing into Edward's hands.

Behind Jacob Alice was a blur of colour flitting between the other wolves, distracting them, infuriating them, doing – I suddenly realised – everything she could to keep them from Edward, keep them from over-running us and bringing this whole awful night to a bloody end.

Edward was still, but his body hummed with tension, with fury, his eyes never leaving those of the wolf. When he spoke his voice was low, seductive.

"You're absolutely right, Jacob. You were right to come here. If you hadn't I would have kept her here forever – whether she wants it or not, whether she loves me or not. You've got me pinned, Jacob, I am a monster and I deserve to die. But Bella does not need to see this. Just let my sister take her away, Jacob. This is between you and me – your pack and me – not my family, not Bella. I don't want her to see this Jacob. Don't make her see this."

Jacob let out an eerie keening sound and suddenly the wolves surrounding Alice became still.

"Alice" Edward said again, still in that low, dangerous voice, "please take Bella into the house."

And suddenly it was all too much for me; the notion that Alice would walk me quietly into the house, would keep me there while her brother was butchered outside. Butchered because he loved me and thought I couldn't love him in return.

I let go and lurched away from him, his image and all that he represented suddenly too terrifying to touch. He seemed to expect it, his eyes flicking briefly to mine and then away. That he would do this, that he would throw everything away, waste everything we were, infuriated me beyond all possible recall. I took a deep breath, knowing even as I did that it was just fuel to the rage swelling beneath my skin.

And then I exploded.

"You promised me – you promised me! You said you would never, ever leave me again – well what the hell do you call this? What do you call this? You're going to kill yourself – make Jacob kill you – so not only will you leave me again – forever this time – you'll make me hate my best friend!" I whipped my head around to Jacob, to the wolves who stood silently behind him.

"And you know I will Jake – I don't care what you think you're doing, I don't give a f*ck what you think is the right thing or the wrong thing or your thing – I will hate you so bad I'll wish you dead every day for the rest of my life."

But I wasn't finished there.

"And you –" I turned on Alice. "You knew, but you left me to it. And then you had the nerve - the nerve - to beg me to make things right. Well f*ck you Alice, f*ck you for wanting to wait for Edward to realise his mistake, f*ck you for making me think you had all left me – all given up on me - not just him. And f*ck you now for even thinking of doing what he wants."

I turned back to Edward.

"So if you think, even for a second, that I'm going to walk, or be carried or get dragged into that house and listen to you throw yourself on your own sword because you're too much of an idiot to stop for one second and consider – just consider…" My voice hit a crack and stuttered. "That I can't stop loving you – that I can't - even if I wanted to, which I d-don't."

I choked and suddenly I was crying hot, horrible tears. "I can't, don't you see? Not ever! And if I can't, then you can't – I mean it Edward, you can't. You can't give up on me. You owe me – you owe me more! So don't you do it, Edward." I flung my head around, to Jacob, to Alice, to the other wolves, speaking to them all.

"Don't you do it!"

A flicker of something touched his face, a tiny breeze that seemed to ruffle the agony that gored his skin. In my periphery, Alice, Jacob and the other wolves were as motionless as though they were but figures on a stage backdrop.

I didn't know I was on the ground, didn't know until his knees buckled and he dropped down before me. This close I could see the hope, so fragile against his pain it seemed too insubstantial to live. Desperately I wanted to nurture it, to cradle it in my palms and blow more life into it.

"Don't…" But my voice was gone, and all I could do was stare into his face, let my eyes speak for every part of me.

He grasped me to him, suddenly, almost violently. To my left I heard Jacob shift, the sharp rasp of his breath. But whether he stayed his ground or was stopped by Alice I was not to know, for suddenly I was clinging to him, entwined in his icy grip, my face crushed to his neck and then his face, where I could not stop myself from parting my lips, the shudder that ran through me at his taste so extreme I felt sure I would dissolve.

"Bella." I heard my name through my own skin, felt the reverberation penetrate me, just as his fingers penetrated my hair. And then suddenly I was speaking, could not stop speaking. The words that came out were not angry now, they were garbled and urgent and shamefully raw, but I could feel from his arms, his fingers, his very skin, how they affected him – how they fed him. How they took that tiny spark and simply yanked it into life.

He gave a guttural moan and I felt his arms tense around me then grow strangely fluid, as thought they could mould to every curve of my body, enclose me like a second skin. His fingers still twined deep within my hair, but his mouth was open, pressed against my forehead, the breath that he didn't need to take inhaling savagely. I reached my own hands up, within the circle of his arms, trying to tilt his face down, wanting to see him, wanting to be only centimetres – millimetres even – from his lips – from a kiss I'd thought to never know again. But still he wouldn't move, wouldn't stop breathing me, gasping for my scent as though I were his very last breath.

Everything else vanished: Alice, the wolves, the house, the clearing – everything other than the sensation of being held by him. I felt boneless, weightless, and slowly, slowly, as he held me in his arms - held me as though he would hold me forever – the awful terror – both his and mine – faded away.

* * *

A thousand, perhaps even a million years later, I realised we were sprawled on the grass, twined together like vines. I raised my head slightly, towards the woods.

Alice, Jacob and the wolves were gone.

I looked back down at Edward. His eyes burned into mine, as though unwilling to break even the slightest contact. For the first time in months, I felt a dark blush spread rampant across my cheeks.

"Oh…" My voice cracked on the sound and a hint of a smile curved his lips.

"Oh?" he questioned, his eyes brightening, as though under some inner sliver of dawn.

Now it was my turn to smile, my lips hesitant and shaky as though rising from a Rip Van Winkle-style sleep.

"Oh." I said again, foolishly, happily.

His face, which seemed as though on the verge of breaking into his familiar crooked smile, became suddenly serious.

"Bella, I –" But my hand against his mouth silenced the words, told him that there was no more forgiving to be done, that he need not promise to never do it again – that I knew he could never do it again. That even though he feared his love for me might kill me - he had no way of living without me.

And in accepting that, it was unbreakable – we were unbreakable.

And then his smile truly did break and I traced it with my fingers, part of me certain this was all just a dream, the other convinced that nothing my mind could put together in sleep could possibly match this moment.

It was then that I realised the dawn was not just inside him, but all around us, lighting the clearing with a pale violet glow.

"We should go inside." He murmured, his fingers tracing gentle circles on my shoulder and up to the side of my neck.

"Yes." I breathed. "We really should." But neither of us moved, and when Alice emerged from the tree line, her hands filled with tiny blue and white flowers, the sun was tipping the horizon, staining the tree-tops pinkish-gold.

"Still here?" she twinkled, her skin luminous against her dark cloud of hair. Suddenly the words I'd said to her came back to me and I cringed, another dark blush creeping to the fore.

"Alice, I –"

But she cut me off thrusting both hands of flowers down in front of my face.

"Left or right, Bella? White or blue?"

"Uh –"

But she had no patience with my hesitation, brandishing the tiny bouquets under my nose and letting loose a cloud of pollen to coat my dawn-damp shirt.

"Well – which is it?"

"I – well, blue, I guess." I muttered.

"I knew it!" She pulled the flowers back and twirled in perfect circles, her arms high above her head. "Blue is just perfect!"

"What is she talking about?" I whispered to Edward, my cheeks still flaming crimson.

"I have no idea." But when I looked at him there was a strange depth to his eyes, and the slightest hint of a smile hidden in the deep corners of his mouth.

Alice stopped twirling at his words, mischievous annoyance on her face.

"What was it you said to me before, Bella?"

I cringed again. Here it was: it had of course been too much to hope that I could just offload all that stuff without some sort of retribution.

"Alice, I'm so sorry –"

"Oh no, don't be sorry Bella." She did another quick twirl, the annoyance on her face vanishing as thought it had never been. "You were absolutely right. I did know and I did leave you to it." She shrugged, grimaced and then grinned.

"But I certainly won't be making that mistake again."

"Meaning…?" I couldn't help but ask, even though a little trickle of fear was pooling in my stomach.

"Your wedding of course – yours and my stupid brother's."

I felt my mouth fall open, my face surely a mask of shock and not a little horror. Beside me I felt Edward tense.

"My what?!"

"Wedd-ing. Wedding. You know, bride, groom, gorgeous dress." Alice did another big twirl, the little bouquets blurring in bright spots of colour.

"I know what a wedding is, Alice." I turned my head to look at Edward, shocked to find he wasn't looking at Alice in annoyance but was rather looking quite seriously at me.

"No." I said shaking my head, one foot kicking into the ground with emphasis. "Oh no – you can forget that."

But Alice was already speaking again.

"Actually, Bella, it's you who can forget it – or maybe get used to it is the better term" she mused.

"Get used to it? Get used to what? Edward!" I shoved at him with all my strength. "Tell her – tell her I don't do weddings." I could hear the desperation saturating every word.

But Edward just looked at me, his seriousness taking on a certain intense edge, a determined edge, I thought.

Oh no…

I turned back to Alice.

"If you think I'm just going to sit back and let you bully me into – into – marriage."

"Actually, Bella, I'm not going to have to bully you at all."

"Well then that settles it." I forced myself to smile smugly at her. "No bullying, no..." I couldn't bring myself to say it. "No nothing!"

Alice didn't reply, just twirled around and around, her teeth flashing white on every rotation.

Oh no…

And then she stopped twirling, instead taking a couple of steps towards the cottage before pausing once more.

"Whatever you say Bella, but there's something you should know."

"What, that you've lost your mind?" I flung at, my sarcasm hanging heavy and somehow cheap in my mouth.

Alice tilted her head to one side. "Oh no, nothing like that."

Beside me I could feel Edward shaking with laughter.

"Well what then?"

She paused, a witchy little smile creasing her mouth. "I can see again."

I gaped, unable to speak, the gravity of what she was telling me routing my tongue to the ground.

"But don't worry." She continued. "Like I said, this time I'm not just going to leave you to it. I mean after all – can you imagine what sort of mess you'd make of it without me?"

And then, before I could reply, before I could threaten to blind her for life or choke her on a blue dress, or any of the other things that suddenly raged through my head, she ducked a neat little courtesy, turned to the door and vanished inside the cottage.

Edward had stopped laughing, but when I turned to look at him, my face etched with indignation, his smile seemed still to teeter on the edge.

"Don't worry," he murmured, his face tilting close to my own. "I'm not going to ask you to marry me."

"Good!" I snapped, harsher than I felt, my anger suddenly so fragile against the drug of his scent.

He leaned in closer, his cool lips brushing mine and then parting, so he could graze his tongue across my cheek to the lobe of my ear.

"Don't worry." He said again, this time in a whisper that barely carried sound, but filled me with heat.

"It's you who's going to ask me."

The end.