Thanks as always to my beta's - AddictedtoEdward and Ms. Ambrosia.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight.

This outtake takes place between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 in After All.

EPOV

It had been a long twenty-four hours.

The three that had passed since I saw Bella in the E.R. had been the longest yet.

As soon as the clock hit eight, I was out the door. On the way home, I called Tanya from the car and told her that I couldn't make the date we had planned for that night.

She was irate and demanded answers.

I had none to give her.

So I apologized and told her I would see her at the hospital tomorrow morning when my next shift began.

I entered the condo, hoping that Emmett was somewhere else. Work, Rosalie's, even at Alice and Bella's…

Bella.

I slammed the front door, locking it before striding up the hallway. Marching into my bedroom, I started stripping as soon as I hit the bathroom door. Naked, I walked to the shower and turned on the water so it would warm up.

Walking over to the double sink, I leaned on the counter. I stared down at the gleaming porcelain countertop, not really seeing it. I could only think of one thing…

Bella.

I sighed, running my fingers through my hair. I'm sure if I looked in the mirror I would see it standing on end, and I'm positive my face would be pale, with dark circles below my eyes. Turning, I entered the shower and ducked my head under the pulsing water. All I could do was think of the last few hours, could think only of her – her panic, her pain, her relationship with that Jake guy, my reaction to her. She consumed me.

Bella.

I shut the water off and grabbed a towel from the bar next to the shower. Moving back into my bedroom, I ran it absentmindedly over the drops running down my body. I scrubbed the towel over my hair, and then tossed it to the floor by the bathroom door. Opening my armoire, I pulled out a t-shirt, a pair of sweats and a hoodie, throwing them over my still damp body.

Making my way through the apartment to the bar Emmett and I had put in the corner of the living room, I grabbed a bottle of Fat Tire beer from the mini fridge. I used the bottle opener to twist the cap off, before walking through the living room and out onto the rooftop terrace. The night was cold, but clear and it was just what I needed to think.

About Bella.

Seeing her had brought back feelings I had forgotten over the years. Or more accurately, feelings I had purposely ignored by burying myself in the demands of my schooling and my job.

Because it fucking hurt.

She had hurt me and she didn't even know it.

I was going to need something stronger than beer if I was going to get through tonight and the thoughts and feelings I had been suppressing of her.

Tequila.

I left my beer sitting on the table next to my Adirondack chair and went back to the bar. Grabbing the bottle of Patrón and a shot glass, I sent up a silent wish hoping Emmett would stay gone. If I was going to deliberately think about what I'd been ignoring for ten years, I needed to be alone.

I settled back down into the chair, pouring a shot and swigging it back. It burned as it went down, but it was a burn I welcomed. I closed my eyes and thought back to the first day I had seen Bella. How her blush stained her cheeks, and the way that she bit her lower lip. There was something that drew me to her that I didn't understand, but I just knew that I wanted – no, needed – to be closer to her and soak her in. When my mother came storming in, yelling my name, the moment had been lost and I didn't get the chance to see her again before she left for her summer in Jacksonville.

I'd tried to forget the girl with the beautiful brown eyes and the long, milky legs. She was obviously just out of high school and I was about to be a senior in college. I was also a little afraid of the wrath of Chief Swan if I attempted to date his little girl. The fact that I lived across the country also deterred any thought of pursuing Bella, but the age difference and her father's possible reaction didn't hurt.

A year later, I returned to Forks for the summer before I was scheduled to begin medical school. I tried to blame the excitement for my visit on my graduation from Dartmouth, summa cum laude, or that I would be able to reconnect with friends from high school.

I had been lying to myself.

My family had come out for my graduation from Dartmouth and following the dinner we'd had after my graduation ceremony, Emmett, Alice and I had gone out to celebrate. We had been drinking and dancing the night away and I decided I could ask the questions that had been on my mind for the last fucking year – questions that I had been too cowardly to ask before then. Emmett had been chatting it up with the blonde DJ, so Alice and I had been left at the bar by ourselves, knocking back shots of SoCo and lime. As Alice had taken her third shot, I'd casually asked her how her friend Bella was and what she was up to those days. Alice told me Bella had been attending Sacramento State and was supposed to be spending the summer with Charlie in Forks.

It'd been extremely hard not to stand up and dance on the goddamn bar when I realized that not only would Bella be in Forks all summer, we would also be less than two hours away from each other when she returned to college and I started medical school in the fall. I had been accepted at the University of California – San Francisco three months before.

It was fucking fate.

So my excitement about being home in Forks had very little to do that I was newly graduated or catching up with old friends and had everything to do with the fact that the girl of my dreams would be in the same town. I could finally have the chance to have a real, non-interrupted conversation with her. I could casually mention our proximity come August and suggest that maybe we find a way to see each other and hang out. I thought it was a fool-proof plan.

Except she never came to Forks.

Alice was devastated that she was going to be separated from her best friend for another year, but Bella had been offered the opportunity to study abroad in England for the summer. Alice would have to wait until winter break to see Bella again. It was another missed opportunity for me.

I could have – should have – called her when I got to San Francisco. Alice would have given me her number and I could have passed my call off as something like "Hey, just moved here, you're two hours away. Want to help your best friend's older brother get used to the California lifestyle?"

But I never asked for her number, so I never called her. I was a fucking coward, completely unsure of myself when it came to Bella. I had never lacked for female companionship, but I'd gotten used to having girls approach me. I couldn't remember the last time I actually had to initiate a conversation with someone I was attracted to; they usually found me, made it clear they were interested and I went along with the ride if the feeling was mutual. I was in over my head when it came to actually approaching someone I was interested in.

I was also completely overwhelmed with medical school.

School had always come easily to me. Even at Dartmouth, I had to put forth little more than minimal effort. It was just too easy. Medical school changed that. I found myself studying at all hours of the day. Sometimes I forgot to eat, and I fell asleep more than once at a table in the library, drooling into my immunology book.

The next time I saw Bella was three years later, at Alice's college graduation party. We exchanged small talk when she first arrived and her beauty had still amazed me. She'd projected a sense of confidence and sexiness that she must've grown into while away at school. It took everything I had just to focus on forming coherent sentences while we spoke. My mother had stolen her away after just a few minutes, and it was then that I'd decided that I was going to ask her out. Thanks to Alice, I knew we'd both be in town on vacation for the next week and I figured it was about time to, as Emmett would say, "nut up or shut up."

I spent the rest of the party trying to find a moment where I could catch her alone, but fate had been against me. Every time I got a minute to myself, she would be talking to someone. Every time she was alone, I was busy being introduced to yet another one of my mother's friends' daughters. I tugged on my hair in frustration so often I was surprised I had any left on my head.

I'd finally had enough, and even though I could see Bella speaking to some douchebag – Newton, I think Alice had said his name was – I decided it was now or never. Her back was to me and as I walked toward her, I took in the beauty of her long hair falling down her back and the smooth curve of her ass. I was going to do this. I had to do this. I'd spent four years pining after this girl, and I wasn't about to waste a second more.

Then I heard her tell Douchebag Newton that she had a boyfriend and she wasn't interested in dating anyone else. She and Joe were very happy together.

Well, fuck.

It didn't stop me from hoping. For another two years, I questioned Alice carefully, wondering how serious she was with this Joe guy and silently hoping I'd hear they broke up. When Alice told me they moved had moved in together after Bella's graduation from Graduate School, I stopped asking.

Because it hurt.

I could probably count the number of sentences we had spoken to each other on both hands. Our conversations had always been very brief and formal, but it didn't change the fact that that day in my parents' kitchen, I had taken one look at Bella Swan and had fallen head over heels in love.

Taking another shot of Patrón, I finally admitted to myself what I had spent the last ten years denying.

I loved Bella Swan.

There was no logical explanation for my feelings. From the moment Alice had mentioned her name in the restaurant three months ago, the feelings I had for Bella – feelings I had thought I buried good and deep - had come to life. At the time, I had no idea what they were; I couldn't put a name to how I was feeling or everything that was going through my mind. I didn't want to think about them and explore what they might mean, so I buried myself in my work and in Tanya, trying to drive whatever it was out of my system.

I thought it had worked, because Bella had stopped being someone I thought of every five minutes. I wasn't flashing back to that moment when I had first seen her in our house in Forks or the devastated feeling I had when I heard her say that she was happy with her boyfriend. I had mentally and physically exhausted myself, convincing myself that my life hadn't changed – wouldn't change – with the fact that Bella was living back in Washington. It didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything.

That shit reasoning flew out the window when I heard she was hurt.

It became a moot point when I looked into her deep brown eyes and touched her smooth, pale skin.

Running from it, hiding from it and pretending it didn't exist hadn't worked.

I had fallen head over heels for Isabella Swan ten years ago.

I stood up and stretched, leaving the bottles of liquor and my shot glass on the terrace. Stripping down to my boxer briefs, I climbed into bed, feeling the weight of world slide off my shoulders. Consciously or not, I had come to a decision.

I was done acting like a coward, hiding from and ignoring what my heart had been trying to tell me for the last ten years.

I loved Bella Swan.

Now that she was back in my life, I was going to do everything in my power to keep her there.

And make her mine.