A/N: And at last we come to the final chapter. Thank you so much to everyone who came along with us on this journey. I am deeply grateful to everyone who took the time to follow, favorite, or especially review. Thanks so much for the encouraging comments on facebook which Sophia conveyed to me, and especially to those of you who were kind enough to recommend our writing on other sites. We are simply blown away by your kindness and enthusiastic welcome. You are the people who keep us going and encourage us both to write fanfic.

Of course, special thanks are due to our beta, SunflowerFran, who fixed so many of our errors. Any mistakes are mine.

~.~

She trotted alongside the train as it gradually picked up speed, a gamine smile on her lips as she repeatedly insisted she would be fine without him.

He stared at her, all too aware that these were the last moments that he would see her.

Suddenly, he couldn't bear it any longer. He couldn't bear to be parted from her for a second. It didn't matter that it wasn't right, that she could surely find someone better than him.

He was going to keep her beside him, no matter what. Abruptly, he leaned out from the train, holding on to the bar with one arm. He reached out and swept her up into his arms, lifting her off her feet as though she weighed nothing. He carried her into the train corridor and set her down in a compartment. She blinked up at him with astonished eyes.

"Monsieur Cullen, whatever are you doing?" she asked, looking into his brilliant green eyes from only inches away.

Then he was kissing her, tasting the salty tears on her lips and vowing to himself that he would never make her cry again. He would give up everything, would beat his inner beast into submission to keep her happy. He would never look at another woman because this one was all and everything to him. He had been wrong, so wrong, to almost let her go. If his mother had been here, she would have slapped some sense into him earlier. What had he been doing with his life, trying to fill the emptiness in all the wrong places? The floodgates of his emotions opened, and he pressed her to him, acknowledging what he had been trying so desperately to deny; she was the only one who could fill him, could complete him. She was the only one. He kissed her again, stroked her hair back from her face as the tears streaked her skin, and a confused murmur escaped her lips.

He found that suddenly, even his inner self, the part of himself he thought couldn't be trusted, the part he thought would have to be suppressed, even that part of him seemed to be clamoring in agreement, that all that mattered was for Bella to be with him, for her to be happy, forever, in this lifetime, and beyond.

"Shhh, Bella," he murmured, saying her name for the first time, running both thumbs over her lips as she made a surprised, incoherent noise at the sound of it from his lips. "Be quiet; don't worry anymore." She turned her gaze up to him, her eyes wide and soft. He held her face tightly between both hands and kissed her again, his lips meeting and taking hers as though he were desperate and couldn't get enough. Her mouth was warm and sweet and tasted of something utterly precious, and at that moment he again felt that connection he had shut out years before in fear and panic and loss. And he realized that there was something ineluctably familiar about kissing Bella; it was like coming home. He was coming home, and their kiss was not something new but something he remembered from deep, deep within, as he realized anew what she meant to him, what she had always meant to him and what she would always mean for him. He kissed her repeatedly, and as he drew back for a moment, she blinked up at him in dawning hope.

"Bella," he said, "I love you."

~.~

Investigator's Final Report

And so it happened that on Monday, July 7th, 1952, the case of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen came up before the superior judge in Cannes. It came to a successful resolution, and they are now married for life in New York.

Respectfully submitted,

Charlie Swan

~THE END~

A/N: So... what do you think? Those of you who've seen the movie, did it compare?

As always, we have a number of outtakes and epilogues we could post. Any interest in those?

And finally, what do you think of the drabble format and every-day posting?

EDIT: We are honored and thrilled to discover that this story was voted #3 in the Top 10 Completed Fics of August 2016 at twifanfictionrecs dot com. Thanks so much to everyone who voted!