Disclaimer: The Twilight universe is the brilliant creation of Ms. Stephanie Meyer. I am just twisting her vision a bit for my own amusement.

Chapter 7

"Well," Bella said nervously, "what now?"

What now? I had not considered a specific plan of action beyond convincing her to accept my suit. We had already determined that we could not resume our previous relationship so a new strategy was most certainly required.

"I intend to court you," I announced firmly as I took her hand into mine and began to lead her back to the house.

Bella snorted. It was a delicate little sound but it was definitely a snort. I chuckled at her amusement.

"Court me?" she asked incredulously. Her brow was knitted in adorable confusion.

"Yes," I replied with conviction. We arrived at the entrance to the house and I sat on the front steps. I gestured for Bella to join me.

"Don't you have to ask my father's permission for that?" she asked with a smirk as she sat beside me on the step.

I could feel the look of consternation on my face. "We may have to amend that rule a little. Charlie is not likely to grant his permission. I have already informed him of my intentions. That will have to do for now, I suppose."

"You informed him of your intentions? What exactly did you tell him? Did you tell him that you are staying in town?" she asked curiously.

I rolled my eyes. "That conversation was more about my refusal to leave than my intention to stay. He was quite determined that I should leave town without seeing you, now or ever."

"I gave Charlie a pretty hard time for a few months after you left," she said with guilt in her voice. "He's probably really worried about my reaction to seeing you again."

"Charlie doesn't think that you gave him a hard time. You were suffering a great deal and he not only understands but he empathizes. On some level, he relates what you went through to his life after your mother left." I took a deep breath and gave her hand a squeeze. "I saw his memories and I heard his thoughts about the last few months. You were in so much pain, Bella."

My voice broke at this point. I became even more crestfallen when Bella gently extracted her hand from mine. I needn't have worried as she then scooted closer to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I put my arm around her shoulders to hold her more tightly against my side.

"I forgive you, Edward," she whispered in my ear.

I was not able to suppress the sob that erupted from me. I covered my mouth with my free hand and tried to keep my emotions in check. I knew that I would never deserve this angel holding me. It was not possible for anyone to deserve her.

"Thank you," I whispered brokenly. "I promise that I will never cause you to regret that."

Bella tightened her arms around me for a moment and nodded. I knew she was not yet able to express confidence in my promises but I had hope that her trust in me would someday be restored.

"Charlie could never blame you for your distress," I continued after a moment. "He places the blame for your pain squarely where it belongs, on me. I owe your father almost as much penance as I owe to you. Considering what I now know about our time apart, I find it difficult to believe that he did not shoot me at first sight. I intend to have a long conversation or two with the chief and I hope that I can at least alleviate his fears about the future. I have accepted that I may never be able to gain his forgiveness for the past."

"Charlie may be a bit more reluctant to listen than I was," she stated seriously.

I chuckled. "You were reluctant?"

"Sarcasm duly noted, Mr. Cullen," Bella said lightly with a raised brow.

"Just a little," I replied with a grin.

Bella continued to sit with her arms around me and her head resting on my shoulder. I was almost entirely content. Almost. There were still so many questions that I needed to ask but I was loath to disturb this peaceful moment.

"Bella?" I asked softly.

She raised her head to look into my eyes. I leaned over and softly kissed her temple before resting my forehead against the side of her face.

"Bella, I need to ask you about what happened yesterday," I began carefully. I wanted her to feel free to be honest with me rather than becoming defensive. "In the moments before I approached you and Jacob, he was remembering that you nearly drowned that morning after jumping from a cliff into the ocean."

Bella's hold on me tightened but she said nothing.

I continued in the most soothing tone I could muster, "Later, at the hospital, Dr. Carter implied that he treats you regularly for serious injuries. I need to know, Bella, how seriously have you been hurt? Have you been hurting yourself … purposefully?"

Bella took a deep breath before responding. "I guess that would depend on how you look at it."

"Oh, God," I moaned. "Charlie definitely should have shot me."

"That wouldn't have helped. You just would have had to explain why the bullet didn't hurt you," Bella said with a nervous laugh.

I pulled away from her slightly and shot her a dubious look.

Bella released her hold on me and turned to face me directly before she spoke. "Okay, that wasn't all that funny but, Edward, I promise that it's not what you're thinking. I wasn't trying to kill myself or hurt myself. Sometimes I did get hurt … that's just how some things turned out."

"Bella, love, what happened?" I knew I sounded desperate.

"Would you believe I was trying to induce hallucinations?" she asked hesitantly.

"Bella, please …" I began before she interrupted me.

"I was being serious that time, Edward," she asserted.

"What do you mean?" I asked with alarm.

"The first time was an accident, sort of," she began. She paused to gauge my reaction. When I did not speak, she continued. "It had been a couple of months, more or less, since you left and Charlie was bugging me to spend time with friends. Not having any 'friends' who I really wanted to spend time with I just took the first opportunity that presented itself. I made plans with Jessica to see a movie in Port Angeles."

She did not seem anxious to continue her story.

"What happened in Port Angeles, Bella?" I prompted.

She chewed on her lip nervously for a moment before carrying on. "While we were there, I saw a group of guys that I thought I remembered. When I was walking over to them, I heard your voice. It wasn't like I was imagining it or remembering it. It was like you were standing right beside me speaking into my ear. You were telling me not to approach them. When I did it anyway, I started hearing your angry voice. I realized that you weren't there but I had no idea what was happening. It turned out the guys weren't who I thought they were but I got the idea that in certain situations, maybe I could trigger your voice in my head."

"You heard my voice in your mind?" I asked carefully. My mind was frantically trying to process this information.

"Yes," she replied. Her expression was expectant but fearful. She was waiting for my reaction but was not at all sure she wanted to see it. I did not yet know how to react so I moved on to my next question.

"What does that have to do with your injuries?" I asked.

"Turns out," Bella responded, "that the more dangerous the situation, the more likely I was to hear you. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush or something but whenever I did something really stupid, I could hear you yelling at me the way you used to when I did something risky."

"Wait," I interrupted. "If this only happened when you were doing something dangerous, why did it happen in Port Angeles? Who did you think those men were, Bella?"

"I thought they were the guys who tried to hurt me that first night that you found me in Port Angeles," she said.

"And you were approaching them?" I demanded angrily. "Why would you do something so reckless?"

"See, now that right there is the voice I heard in my head," she said dryly.

"Bella! Why?" I insisted impatiently.

"Because I wanted to break my promise to you! You made me promise to be safe even while you were breaking your promise not to leave me. I didn't really want to get hurt, I just didn't want to honor that pledge." Her face was reddening with anger or embarrassment, I could not tell which.

"So you were going to get hurt or killed to spite me?" I asked skeptically.

"I said it was idiotic. I know that now, and I realized it then to some degree, but I wasn't exactly thinking clearly," she said with a grimace.

I could not suppress the growl that I emitted. "What else did you do?" I asked gruffly.

"On purpose? I learned how to ride motorcycles." She turned her face from me then but continued to speak as she stared out over the front lawn. "It worked for a while. When I got good enough, I guess it wasn't dangerous anymore and your voice stopped. That's what the cliff diving was about yesterday. I had seen the boys at La Push do it and I wanted to try it. I wasn't thinking about the water, just the fall. Jake pulled me out in time."

Bella turned back to me with tired eyes, her expression apprehensive. I wanted to know why Jacob Black had allowed Bella to put herself in such danger but I knew that anything I said in that vein would be construed as an accusation against him. I decided to keep those thoughts to myself for now. I remembered Bella's strange initial reaction to my appearance yesterday.

"Yesterday when I found you and Jacob, you looked directly at me but acted as though I was not there. I wondered about that at the time. What were you thinking?" I queried.

"After jumping yesterday, when I hit the water, I didn't just hear you. I saw you, too. You were pleading with me to fight, to swim, not to die. When I saw you at my house, I thought maybe the hallucinations were getting worse." At this point, Bella exhaled a tiny laugh. "Of course, I was kind of happy about that. I thought if I got to see you, too, then maybe it would be like you were really here. Lord knows what I might have done to trigger getting to see you."

I shuddered at the thought. I took her hand back into mine before speaking. I kept my voice as level as I could manage. "You said that the motorcycles and the cliff diving were 'on purpose'. What else happened to trigger the voice?"

"Not 'the' voice, it was your voice. Always your voice," she said in a dispirited tone. "It was strange. Your voice always knew when there was danger, even when I didn't. I went to our meadow and found Laurent there. The last I heard of him prior to that was that he had become a vegetarian but your voice knew that he was dangerous. He would have killed me if Jake's pack hadn't found us. They killed him."

"Why was he here? What did he say to you?" I asked.

"He was scouting for Victoria. She plans to kill me to punish you for James' death. An eye for an eye, a mate for a mate …" Bella frowned. "She didn't know that you had left me."

I was not surprised by this news. I knew of Victoria's presence from Jacob's thoughts yesterday. I just had not known why she was pursuing Bella until now. I was incensed and more than a little frightened. "I will not let her hurt you, Bella."

"The pack has been keeping watch over me and Charlie. Every time that she's come close, they've chased her off. She's gotten away from them so far, though." Bella stopped to ponder this for a moment before continuing, "Can we not talk about this anymore?"

"We don't have to, if you would rather not," I responded. I had the distinct impression that there were more instances where my voice warned of unexpected danger. I wanted to know about those occurrences as well but there was no point in pressuring her.

"I would like to speak to the wolves about Victoria soon. Perhaps they would be willing to share information," I speculated.

She snorted again. "Even if they're not willing to share, all you've have to do is bring it up and you'll hear everything they know in their thoughts."

I gave her a wan smile. "Regardless, I will ask first. It is only polite."

Bella smiled sadly. "How polite are you being right now?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" I responded in confusion.

"I've just told you that I hear disembodied voices in my head and you've barely reacted. Are you just trying to keep me calm until you can have me committed or are you biding your time until Carlisle gets here with the drugs?" Bella seemed resigned to an unsympathetic reaction from me.

"Bella," I began softly. I was now holding both of her hands in both of mine. I caressed her knuckles with my thumbs in an effort to soothe her as I continued to speak, "I don't know what caused your experience with my voice but I do not think that you are mentally ill ... far from it, actually. You and I have a deep connection, deeper than I ever thought possible. When I was in South America, I could not close my eyes without seeing your face. You were always calling to me, beckoning me home. My conscious actions were so at odds with my most cherished desires that I could not function at all. The only thing I could manage was to curl up and hide from life. I can only assume that you were going through a similar experience and your mind found a way for you to function without me."

Bella was watching me intently as I continued. "That is the most plausible explanation that I have. When I try to mull other possibilities, I continually come back to the connection between us being something much more than it seems. That theory is just too much to contemplate at the moment."

"So you don't think I'm crazy?" Bella marveled.

"No, you are not crazy. You just love me so much more than I could ever deserve," I answered.

Bella's answering blush was absolutely beautiful.

"Is it completely ridiculous of me to be a bit glad that a part of me was still here with you?" I asked guiltily. "You were in tremendous pain, almost constant danger, and I'm so selfish that I am happy that it was my voice you heard when you needed comfort or protection."

"It's no more ridiculous than me liking the fact that you thought about me while you were away," she replied with a hesitant smile.

I lifted her hands to my lips and placed a gentle kiss on each. "I missed you so very much, Bella."

Bella's eyes filled with tears again but she smiled when she said, "I missed you, too, Edward."

All I wanted to do at that moment was to hold her and to kiss her again. I had promised that I would not pressure her but the urge was too strong to suppress. Even as I was arguing with myself, my body began to lean towards her. "Bella," I whispered with longing.

Bella's eyes widened as she sensed my intent. I could hear her heart pounding with either anticipation or fear. I chose to believe it was anticipation.

I leaned closer, my eyes trained on her full lips.

'Edward!' Alice's voice rang through my brain. 'Don't press your luck!' I quickly withdrew from Bella, dropping her hands back into her lap. Without the lure of Bella's lips as a distraction, I could clearly hear Alice approaching the house from the forest. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration.

"What's wrong?" Bella asked timidly.

"Alice," I practically growled.

"Oh," Bella replied with a nervous laugh.

I rolled my eyes and slowly stood from my seat on the front steps. Bella accepted the hand that I then offered to assist her in rising. After she was on her feet, she gave my hand a gentle squeeze and peered at me playfully through lowered lashes, her bottom lip jutting out just so. My heart would have skipped a beat if it were possible. I stepped closer to her and bent forward slowly in search of a kiss.

"Where is she?" Bella asked a little breathlessly as she backed a step away from my advance.

I raised a brow in exasperation. 'She's going to make you work for it, Edward." I could hear Alice's tinkling laughter ringing in my mind. 'That old-fashioned charm of yours is a wee bit rusty. If you're going to court her properly, you'll have to loosen up a lot. Have fun with this, brother dear. You can be all broody later!'

Bella was watching me expectantly, waiting for my response to her question. Her eyes were full of mischief. She knew exactly what she was doing and I found that I did not mind a bit. I had never had the pleasure of pursuing an agreeably reluctant romantic quarry and I found the idea very appealing. If Bella needed time to build trust, I would give her all the time necessary. I would just concentrate on making that time enjoyable for both of us.

"Alice?" Bella asked again.

I pointed to the edge of the forest to our left, using the motion of my arm as an opportunity to sidle up to closer to Bella. "She will come from right over there," I said softly directly into her ear. I did not even try to hide the satisfied smirk on my lips as I watched her shiver. Her skin broke into gooseflesh and her cheeks flamed.

Yes, this was going to be fun.