So when I donated this Bella and Edward outtake for Fandom 4 LLS, I had to think about it for awhile. I had to make sure that it fit in Lessons of the Heart where I am going to have the outtake taken but also it could be tied into a future chapter I have an idea for. And then it came to me one night when I was playing around with my brother. Needless to say, I hope you enjoy it!

Playlists for this outtake (in no order): "Radio Ballet" by Eluvium, "Expression" by Helen Jane Long, "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World, "Let's Get Together" by Al Green, "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, "Pretty Wings" by Maxwell

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight neither do I not own Monopoly, however I do own three different versions of the board game and dearly wish I could have one of those chocolate games. Yummy!

Lessons of the Heart
By Nollie Marie

Outtake
Bella and Edward

Monopoly

Bella's POV

I could hear the rain pelt against the window. It had been cloudy for the past week, giving the normal day a dark, and depressed feeling and making locals plead for it to rain already. It was better for it to be raining than for the clouds to just remain there.

A bright flash laminated the room followed by a rumble of deep thunder. I remember my grandmother telling me to always count the time between the lightning and thunder and that was how far away the storm was. Of course, it wasn't entirely true, but it did give me a sense of ease knowing that the lightning strike was nowhere near me.

I inhaled and closed my eyes, listening again to the rain.

I wasn't sure how long I had my eyes closed until a light rap of knuckles on the doorframe brought them open again.

"Rain against the window always brings me back to the time when I would visit my Granny down on her little Texas cattle ranch," Jasper said, holding a tray of covered food and looking at the window.

"Yeah?" I asked, curious where he was going with this story.

Jasper turned, smiling slightly at me. "There is nothing more relaxing than rain against a tin roof."

"They have tin roofs in Texas?"

Jasper laughed and walked towards me, placing the tray on the standard hospital bedside table.

"No, but Granny had this old tool shed out back, and when it rained I used to like to hide in there just to hear it," he said, swinging the table over the bed so that the food was in front of me.

I flinched at the smell of the food, feeling nauseated. Chemo would do that to a person.

"Here," Jasper said, handing me a small paper cup. I didn't need to look down at it to know that it contained anti-nausea medication.

I tipped the medication from the cup and into my mouth as Jasper poured ice water from the pitcher on my tray. I took a sip, letting the old water sit in my mouth for a moment before swallowing. Medication aftertaste was horrible, but I liked the feeling of relief the water brought sometimes.

"Try to eat, Bella," Jasper said, taking the cup from me before helping me open my juice carton. "Dr. Harper doesn't like how much weight you have lost."

"I just don't feel like eating," I whispered, eyeing the jell-o cup.

"I know, but you don't want to waste away, Bella. You can't let this cancer do that to you," Jasper said, putting down the juice carton to lay a hand down on mine resting on the bed. "You need strength to fight back or else the cancer will just win."

I bit my lip and closed my eyes to stop the sting of tears that threatened to form.

"Knock, knock."

I opened my eyes, and Jasper took a step to the side so I could see the door. Standing there, holding something behind his back was Edward, looking oddly nervous.

"Can I come in for a moment?" Edward asked, rocking slightly.

I don't recall Edward looking nervous before. He has looked arrogant, embarrassed, unsure, but never really nervous.

"Sure, I was just leaving," Jasper said. He gave me a pointed look as he lifted the lid to my plate before leaving me alone with Edward.

"How are you feeling?" Edward asked, dragging the chair that was across the room to sit down beside me.

"Not worse than yesterday, which I think is a good thing," I said, reaching for the spoon to eat some of the jell-o.

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Edward said.

I raised an eyebrow as I noted that Edward still had his hands behind his back. Well, that, and the fact that I could see a corner of a box sticking out from over his shoulder.

"What are you up to?" I asked, tilting my head to see what he was hiding behind his back.

He twisted his torso so that whatever he had remained hidden.

"Edward?"

"So I know that you have been bored here lately, with no school work to keep you busy, TV being mind numbing, and with Chemo, so I figured I would bring you something to keep you entertained."

"Entertained?"

"Ta-da," he said, bringing the box out from behind his back.

"Monopoly," I said, reading the cover to the box. "You brought me Monopoly?"

Edward shrugged and set the box down on the bed.

"I figured I couldn't go wrong with Monopoly," he said.

"I haven't played Monopoly in years," I said, smiling. The last time I played was with my mother, and she hated the game for some reason unknown to me.

"Neither have I, but I figured we'll master it together in no time," he said.

He looked at the table and my tray and frowned.

"Just move it to the nightstand," I said, nodding to my left where a nightstand stood.

Edward was still unsure.

"Hold on one second," he said, holding up one finger.

I watched as he left the room, leaving the box with me. I spooned another bite of the red jell-o as I eyed the box. It looked like it had never been played before, remembering how beat up that box we had at Charlie's.

As I ate the bite of jell-o, I heard a squeak that grew louder as if getting closer.

"Here we go," Edward said, rolling in another table.

He situated the table containing my tray to my right and rolled the second table before me.

"There, now you can eat and play at the same time," he said, sitting back down.

I took another bite as I watched Edward set up the board. I noted with amusement as he opened an unused packet of paper money.

"Why do I have a feeling that you haven't played Monopoly on this board before?" I asked as my spoon scraped the bottom of the cup, despite the fact there was more jell-o within the cup.

Edward blushed and said, "That's because I haven't. The only Monopoly boards we had in the house were British editions."

"Are you serious?" I asked. "How do you have British editions but not an American board game?"

"They were gifts from friends we had in the UK," Edward said, looking up at me as he poured the game pieces out onto the board.

"Huh," I said, looking down at my jell-o cup to eat the last few bites as he finished putting out the chance and community chest cards out.

"Pick which piece you want," Edward said, straightening the car.

I noted how he left his fingers on the piece a bit longer than he did with the other pieces. Smiling, I decided to tease Edward and pick the car.

Just like I thought, I noticed how he looked sad as I claimed the car.

"Why such the long face, Edward?" I asked, knowing already that he probably wanted the piece for himself.

"I usually got the car when Alice and I used to play," he said, even pouting somewhat.

"Well, I think you should pick something else because it's my piece now," I said, placing the car on GO!

Edward looked at the rest of the pieces before picking up the top hat.

"Okay, I thought you would pick the battleship," I said as he put down his piece.

"What? Don't think I'm a gentleman?" he said, pretending to tip an imaginary top hat in my direction.

I snorted. "You are no gentleman," I said, smiling.

"Little witch, you," he said, dividing up the money.

"Um, what are you doing?" I said, eyeing how he divided the five hundred dollar bills into two stacks and was currently doing the same with the hundred dollar bills. "We're only supposed to be getting two of each."

Edward looked up at me, a glint in his eye, as he said, "Eh, it's more fun if we have more money. This way we can't cheat by taking two of the bills instead of one."

"It is cheating by dividing up the bank," I said, but let him continue. "And why do I have the feeling you would cheat by taking two bills instead of one before?"

"I plead the fifth," he said, laughing.

"Mmhmm," I said, putting aside my empty jell-o cup.

"You should eat some more food before it gets cold," Edward said, finishing up with the lesser bills.

"Later," I said. "I'm not really hungry right now."

He gave me a look, which made me pick up my fork and spear one of the green beans on the plate.

"There," I said, chewing it. "Happy now?"

"It's a start," he said, picking up the dice. "Let's figure out who goes first."

"I figured you'd be one who always went first," I said, taking one of the dice from him.

"No, that was generally Alice who wanted to go first." Somehow, I didn't quite believe that.

Edward and I rolled the dice around in our hands, him with a little more vigor than me, and let the dice drop onto the board.

"I get to go first," Edward said when he rolled a six and I rolled a five.

We played in silence for a few moments, each playing three turns. Edward had three properties to my one railroad and one property, when, during his role of the dice he looked up at my tray.

"You haven't eaten anything, Bella, outside of the jell-o and the single green bean," he said, nudging the tray in my direction.

"I'm not hungry," I said, watching him move his piece and take New York Avenue.

He pursed his lips as I reached for the dice and rolled. I rolled a four and landed on New York Avenue.

"How about this," Edward said as I reached to pay him the rent for New York Avenue. "Instead of paying me, you eat the same number of things from your plate as the first number of what you owe me."

I groaned, "Can't you just take the money?"

He folded his arms across his chest and refused to give in. Sighing, I lifted up my fork and took the same amount of green beans as the first number of the rent.

The game continued on with both of us buying property, paying rent, or in my case, "eating" rent. After awhile, Edward pulled out his phone, actually looked up the history of Monopoly on Google, and started reading me some of the history behind the game.

"Did you know that Monopoly first came about in 1904 when a woman named Elizabeth Magie created the name titled 'The Landlord's Game' which was later published in 1924?

"Did you know that during World War II, the British Secret Service used the name to hide things that were useful for escaping like maps, compasses and money to POWs captured by the Nazis? Did you know that also during World War II that instead of dice, a spinner was used, because the lack of material?

"Did you know that the edition we're using has $5,440 more than the original board game when it was created?

"Did you know that Neiman Marcus created an all edible chocolate edition of Monopoly that cost six hundred dollars?

"Did you know that you could buy a One-of-a-kind Monopoly set for $100,000? It has things like a rosewood board, street names in gold leaf, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and real US currency. The Guinness Book of World Records, however, states that the most expensive Monopoly was created for the game's 50th anniversary and is worth two million dollars."

I had to stop him after the last one. I could not believe that someone would have created a Monopoly board game worth two million dollars.

Instead of listening to Edward read Monopoly history, we played a game similar to twenty questions. He'd ask me a question, I would answer it, and then demand that he answer the question back. It could be anything fun or serious.

It was sometime around three in the afternoon when all the property titles were bought, and Edward and I decided to finally finish the game. Edward had to pull out his cell phone to help total up the amount of money we had in the paper cash, property titles, and hotels.

Surprisingly, I had won.

"How the hell did you win?" Edward asked, watching me flip through the stack of paper cash I had.

"Well I didn't really have to pay rent like you did when you landed on my properties," I stated, motioning to the now empty tray.

Edward shook his head.

"Knock, knock," Jasper said, poking his head into my room. "How is it going in here?"

"Bella ate all her lunch," Edward said, pointing in the direction of my tray and me.

Jasper walked into the room and picked up the tray, nodding at it with approval.

"It's good to see you with a smile, Bella," Jasper said, smiling me.

"Well it does help that I thoroughly kicked Edward's ass at Monopoly."

"Edward never loses at Monopoly," Alice said, skipping into the room.

"Hello, Alice," I said, fanning the paper money at her.

"I didn't know you were here, sister dear," Edward said, pouting slightly as Alice sat down on the edge of the bed to hug me.

"I just arrived, brother," she said, running her hand over my cheek. "It's good to see some color in your cheeks, Bella."

I glanced down at the paper I held in my hands for a moment and then at Edward. He was staring back at me, his face expressionless, though I could see an emotion swimming in his green eyes.

"Yeah, well I had a good time," I explained, staring at Edward before glancing back at Alice.

She smiled, and I couldn't help but smile back.

Today was a good day. And I needed to live each day like that.

Okay, you have no idea how hard it is to write something when you don't have a model. I went looking for our Monopoly game at home and all we have is an old British version, the Deluxe British version and the Wii version. I also want to think a NFL one but I couldn't find it. Needless to say, I had to research what an American version of the game looked like and came across some of the trivia that Edward had read in the chapter. Interesting facts, right?

I hope that you enjoyed reading this and thanks to all those who donated to Fandom4LLS. LLS is a good charity and the disease is particularly close to us at work since one of our co-worker's daughter is leukemia. But good news is her cancer is in remission! Yeah!

Huggles,
Nollie

PS- Huge thank you to the Project Team Beta for editing this! I totally owe them a few cookies for being so wonderful and patient with me. As well as to IllicitWriter for creating the wonderful banner for this outtake!

Happy New Year!
May it be one filled with love, joy, and happiness!