Caution- Swearing.

Hope you enjoy!

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

For the first time in Bella Swan's life, she was yelling at her boss. Not to mention enjoying it, screaming with enough rage that she could somehow feel him sweating on the other end of the phone. Luckily for her he'd always been a pathetic excuse for an authority figure- he thoroughly deserved her tongue-lashing.

In her defence, it was three o'clock in the morning. What woman wouldn't be livid if she was woken up in her freezing cold apartment by her boss' whiny voice telling her he needed her to come into work?

"Mike Newton, I don't care that you pay my wages, find someone else so I can go back to sleep!"

"But Bella!" His voice grated on her nerves even more, oddly weak for a boss in charge of a team of two hundred people. "Angela Weber called in sick, I have no other free attendants for the flight!"

Bella bristled, roughly tugging on her robe.

"What gave you the impression that I'm free? I'm sitting in bed at home, twenty miles away from the airport, and I've been working all week! You promised me this break, Newton, even if I am on reserve!"

"Bella, look, be reasonable." Mike sounded like he was about to faint. "I need you to cover the five o'clock flight to New York, that's all. Besides, the pilot requested you specially!"

That was the wrong thing to say.

Bella was pretty sure she was about to start breathing fire.

"Newton, who's the pilot?" She asked dangerously, the phone clutched in a vice grip in her hand.

"Er...Um...Edward Cullen. Why, is that a problem?"

The shrieking and cussing that followed that revelation was enough to make Mike Newton squeak like a little girl. He had no idea of the sore subject he'd just touched on, and was likely to need therapy to deal with the consequences dealt by his pretty employee.

It was when Bella's yelling of dire and extremely unlikely threats reached the pitch that only dogs could hear that her door banged open, crashing into the wall opposite. It revealed a furious looking blonde brandishing a hairbrush with an expression of sheer doom.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" She shrieked, cutting Bella off mid swear word. "I'm a model, Swan, you can't wake me up at three in the morning with your caterwauling!"

"Rosalie." Bella said irately, turning to face her fuming roommate. "My stupid boss is making me-"

"I know what he's making you do." Rosalie cut her off loudly, crossing her arms over her lurid pink pyjamas. "So does half the state, including the baby downstairs that's been screaming its lungs out ever since that bloody phone rang!"

Bella felt a small flash of guilt before turning back to the phone. "Alright Mike, I'll do it." She sighed, dragging her suitcase from under her bed. "But so help me god, if you ever make me work on my birthday again I will-"

"Tear off your balls and feed them to Satan." Rosalie interrupted, rolling her eyes as she grabbed the phone from Bella's hands and hung up. "You already told him that."

Bella shot the blonde a glare, hopping around the dark room as she tried to apply makeup and chuck her clothes into the small suitcase at the same time. "Thanks Rose. You can go back to sleeping or...entertaining Emmett or...whatever you were doing when Newton called."

"I sent Emmett home." Rosalie said stiffly, perching on the end of Bella's messy bed. "I wanted to be up early and give you my full attention for your birthday. Not this early though." She added, throwing a sour glance at Bella's alarm clock as if it had personally insulted her.

"Oh." Bella was wrong-footed, as she so often was when her friend did something nice for her- it was a rare occurrence. In fact, the last time she'd done it was three months ago when her boyfriend of two years decided he 'wasn't too fussed' about marrying her, and she'd left him. Rosalie had bought enough ice cream and tissues to supply a small European country, and had let Bella ruin more than a few of her expensive cashmere sweaters with her sobbing. "Sorry Rose, I-"

"It's fine." Rosalie said with a long-suffering expression. "I'll make you some breakfast before you go. Happy birthday." She gave Bella a brief hug before gliding out of the room. "And when you get on the plane," Her voice echoed back from the kitchen, "Give that Cullen git a slap from me."

"Done!" Bella called back, dragging a brush through her unruly locks as she checked herself over in the mirror. She was looking better, thankfully. The whitening of her skin, effects of fast weight loss and sadness in her eyes had faded somewhat since the break up, but that didn't mean she had healed on the inside. Both her heart and her mind were screaming at her to do something, anything, to get out of flying with Edward Cullen, the pain would be way too much for her to bear.

She ignored it, of course, snatching a couple of muffins fresh off Rosalie's tray as she dragged her exhausted body out of her apartment.

What an utterly crap start to her birthday.

"Hey Tyler."

"Bella? What's wrong!" Her new boyfriend's voice switched rapidly from exhausted to panicked, and she sighed, thankful he couldn't see her over the phone.

"Nothing's wrong, per se." She said grumpily, rubbing her eyes. She was stretched out on one of the lumpy blue sofas of the employee lounge in the airport, trying desperately to relax herself before she'd be called to organise the flight. "Look, they've got me working on the morning New York flight, so I can't have dinner tonight." She said softly, pulling her uniform skirt a little further down to cover her thighs.

"But Bella, tonight's your birthday! We were going to dinner!"

"I know." She smiled tiredly, Tyler could be so simple sometimes. Then again, he was a model- one of Rosalie's colleagues in fact, who she'd been set up with when Rosalie declared she couldn't take anymore 'self-indulgent, whiny ass moping'. She'd dragged Bella into her agency, grabbed the best looking guy hovering around and ordered them to date. Surprisingly, it worked, and Bella and Tyler were enjoying the beginning of their month-old relationship.

Bella liked him. He was cute, funny and kind.

But, and she hated herself more and more every day for thinking it, he wasn't Edward.

She would find herself staring absently at Tyler when they were at dinner, just comparing him to her insanely perfect ex like a crazy person. Tyler had those rugged model good looks, but he could never be as angelically, heart-breakingly beautiful as Edward. He was funny, but only because whatever came out of his mouth was so stupid and childlike Bella couldn't help but giggle, he would never have the sexy, acerbic wit she loved. He was kind, he pulled out her chair occasionally, but he hadn't driven over to her house at one o'clock in the morning because she'd seen a massive spider crawl under her bed and Rosalie hadn't been home to get rid of it for her.

No, don't go there, she thought, shaking her head as she pressed her cell a little closer to her ear. Apparently, Tyler had been babbling the entire time she was thinking.

"-And the Abercrombie and Fitch campaign got pushed back a couple of days so-"

"Uh huh, that's great, sweetie. I've got to go, see you soon, bye!" Bella hung up the phone without a second thought, leaping out of her seat with renewed energy as another flight attendant glided into the room.

"Alice!" She exclaimed, pulling her tiny friend into a hug as she went to check in. "How was the honeymoon? How was Jasper?"

Alice laughed, a cheerful, lilting sound that immediately brought Bella's spirits up. "It was amazing. He's amazing." She gushed, her eyes glistening. "But still, back to work." She straightened her perfectly tailored jacket. "I've missed you so much Bella, how've you been with...you know?" She wrinkled her nose.

Bella caught sight of the sympathetic expression of her friend beneath her hat, and rolled her eyes.

"Wow, we made it nearly fifteen seconds without mentioning him, that's got to be a record." She said dryly, scraping her hair back into a ponytail.

"Have you seen each other?"

Bella shrugged as they hurriedly made their way into a conference room. Woe betide any employee who was late for the crew briefings presented by the frightening Head Flight Attendant, Lauren Mallory.

"We were on the same flight last week. I threw a drink in his face."

"Bella!"

"Relax, Alice, it was just water." Bella said nonchalantly, shivering as she remembered the pure anger that coursed through her at the moment she splashed him. His reaction had infuriated her further- he'd laughed, and said he'd forgotten how sexy she was when she was angry.

That may or may not have been the point where she kneed him in the groin and stormed off.

"Girls, shut up over there!" Permanently orange, peroxide blonde Lauren Mallory barked at them as she stormed into the room. Bella looked up to see that all the other flight attendants had gathered around them and were now staring at their superior with mixed fear and dislike.

"Right." Lauren slammed a file onto the desk in front of her. "It's too early in the morning for me to remember your names, so I'll refer to you by whatever physical attributes jump out at me. Okay, hook-nosed wolf-man, tell me what we're doing here."

"We're here to listen to your crew briefing before the flight." The man said unctuously, leering at her. Alice and Bella shared a look of despair at the brown-nosing of their colleague.

"Good. Now, Bambi-eyes, tell me why this is important."

Bella stared, open-mouthed at the other woman while she tapped her foot impatiently.

"Er...what?"

"Can you not understand a simple question?"

"Yes, but, that's such an odd question." Bella said, her voice coming out in a squeak. "I mean, you've never asked it before."

"Indeed, random-employee-I-don't-care-about. I just wanted to make it apparent to each and every one of you that I have noticed you sneaking in late, talking during my briefings and not listening to what I am telling you. You may think you know everything there is to know about this business, but I'm here to tell you that you don't, you're nothing more than a bunch of overly complacent fools who are lucky they haven't yet caused a plane crash. Understood?"

Bella, caught on the fact that Lauren had not blinked once during that entire speech, nodded dumbly with the others.

She felt herself zone out as Lauren launched into another boring lecture about safety procedures and emergency manuals, occasionally shaking herself back into reality when she took in something she hadn't heard before.

It was only when she heard Alice's brisk intake of breath beside her that she truly snapped back into the situation.

"Ah yes, our pilot, Edward Cullen. I see you've finally deigned to join us." Lauren said sharply, staring at the ceiling with a 'why-me' expression.

Edward paid no attention to her, his eyes fixed on Bella, who was staring at the carpet with the rapture of a connoisseur, her face tomato red.

He looked good, too good, delicious in fact. His hair was still a messy bronze, his eyes as bright green as ever, his body lean and irresistible in the standard issue uniform. Bella could barely refrain from leaping on him when she caught a whiff of his addictive scent, but was calmed by Alice, who laid a comforting hand on her arm.

"Good morning competent flight attendants. Oh, and Bella." His voice was as rich and deep as ever, but Bella scowled at the childish insult. Instead of acting like adults, this was the way they'd been behaving towards each other ever since they broke up, with petty put downs, glaring and drink-throwing. It was pathetic.

Bella would have loved to say she was above it, but in truth she'd spent the whole of their previous flight together telling the other attendants intimate details of her sexual exploits with Tyler in her loudest possible voice. The news came to her a little later via the flight engineer that Edward had snapped the control switch to the lights in two toilets during her speech.

"Edward," Lauren said darkly, turning towards him with a flick of her hair. "I know you're my superior. But if you and Swan start letting your personal issues get the best of you again I will wait until we are up 30,000 ft and kick both your asses out of the emergency exit, understand?"

Edward stared amusedly at her for a moment, before nodding his head briskly. "Right. We have a slight issue in the weather today which may lead to turbulence, but I'm sure that..."

He grinned at Bella as he continued in his speech, her arms crossed so tightly it was a wonder she wasn't bruising herself.

She frowned at her shoes, this was going to be a hell of a long flight.

"Swan!"

Lauren's loud bark made Bella jump, spilling water on the carpet of the aisle, though thankfully not on the lap of a passenger. She stalked out of the cabin to find Lauren with a frown.

"Can I help?"

"Why else would I call you?" Lauren eyed her like she was an idiot, before shaking her head. "I need to start getting the breakfasts out, take these drinks up to the cockpit."

Bella groaned as she picked up the tray, sidling into the cockpit with a grim expression. Edward, looking unusually serious at first, lit up when he saw her.

"Hey, Bella."

"Yes." She said briskly, she still hadn't forgiven him for his jibe about her earlier. She handed a soda to Eric, the co-pilot, with a smile, and slammed Edward's water on his console. The liquid almost sloshed onto the controls with the force of it.

"Easy Bella." He said lightly, flicking a switch above his head. "Let's not destroy millions of dollars worth of equipment and send us all into fiery oblivion."

She glowered at him as Eric laughed before murmuring something into a microphone.

"So, Bella." Edward swivelled round to face her. "How's life with loverboy?"

"Loverboy?" She rolled her eyes, feeling her irritation rising. "It's great, thanks for your concern."

"So is he as good as me?"

Bella glowered as Eric choked into his soda.

"I don't know what you mean." She said dangerously. Edward raised his eyebrows meaningfully, his expression joking.

"Is he as good as me?"

Her face exploded in colour as she figured out what he meant.

"Shut the fuck up, Edward!" She exclaimed, crossing her arms.

"Lovely language there. Do you want to open that curtain so the entire plane can hear you?" He said jovially. She shook her head bitterly at him.

"Do you enjoy ruining my life?"

He didn't reply, merely lifting an eyebrow at her.

"I can't believe you." She hissed. "I can't believe you would stoop so low as to make me work on this flight on my birthday, and then insult and humiliate me during it. Why would you do that?"

He appeared a little guilty, avoiding her eye, "If I said it was because I wanted to spend time with you on your birthday, would you believe me?"

"No."

"Really?" He raised his eyebrows, looking searchingly at her. "Why not?"

"I thought you wouldn't be 'too fussed' about my birthday, or anything else to do with me, for that matter."

She didn't miss the pained look he took on, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "Bella..."

"I don't want to hear it, Edward." She said tiredly, staring morosely at the floor. "Besides, shouldn't you be focusing on flying this thing?" She gestured at the cockpit controls spread out behind him.

His eyes never wavered from hers, and she shivered at the intensity.

"Eric's got it, haven't you Eric?"

"Sure thing, boss." Eric shot a grin at the two of them, clearly delighted to be in charge.

"SWAN!" Lauren burst into the cockpit with a murderous scowl. "Get back in that cabin or I swear to Lucifer I will grab the small child sitting in aisle three and beat you to death with it!"

The fact that Bella was running as fast as she could somehow detracted from the dignity of her exit. In fact, she was tearing through first class so fast she tripped and smacked the chest of a passenger with her arm.

A male passenger.

A very good-looking male passenger.

A very good-looking male passenger sporting stupid sunglasses.

A very good-looking male passenger sporting stupid sunglasses and a stupid smile.

"Tyler!" Bella exclaimed, nearly falling over again in her shock. Luckily, she grabbed the headrest of a grumpy business man's seat just in time as she stared at her boyfriend. "What are you doing here?"

He bounded out of his seat like a puppy, enveloping her limp form in a hug. "Surprise! Happy birthday!" He kissed her frozen lips.

She wiggled slightly out of his embrace, turning to see Alice leaning over her trolley, laughing so hard she was crying at the dumb-struck expression on Bella's face. Bella, however, was not so amused.

"How...but...what?"

"Bella." Tyler grinned widely, aware that they had the complete attention of the whole cabin. Bella could feel her cheeks burning with embarrassment as he took her hands in his. "I came to the airport as soon as I heard you had to work. I needed to tell you. I love you."

"Ungh." Was her eloquent response. Her blood seemed to be moving sluggishly through her veins, making everything around her occur in slow motion. A crowd of people were staring at her with wide smiles, her friend was laughing at her reaction, and she was standing thousands of feet in the air, on her birthday, with her boyfriend of a month telling her he was in love with her.

Oh God.

The only possible way this could be worse, she thought, is if he...

Oh, shit.

"How's everything going back here?"

Both Edward and Eric cringed at Lauren's nasally voice as she came to stand behind them, scanning them both with eagle eyes.

"Weeell." Eric said loudly, rolling his eyes. "I'm just having the time of my life here. The plane's running fine under my command, but I can't even enjoy it cause of this morose git." He gestured at Edward, who continued to stare angrily out of the front window. "He's just mad because he lost the love of his life to a six-foot Abercrombie model because he was scared of commitment." Sarcasm dripped from his last words.

"Oh for Christ's sake." Lauren snorted. "That girl is far more trouble than she's worth. You know that new boyfriend of hers is in our first class cabin, babbling about how much he loves her. I think I actually saw him getting down on one- Cullen? Oi, where the hell do you think you're going?"

Edward appeared not to be listening to her in the slightest, tearing his way out of the cockpit and into the first class cabin with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. He didn't care that he'd left his post, that he was probably going to be severely punished for it. All he knew was the fact that he'd make Bella furious with him and sent her straight into the arms of a model guy. A model guy with an engagement ring.

His breathing caught as their eyes met over Tyler's head.

Edward had left his post.

Bella almost snorted, but the enormity of her situation prevented her, he was always so impulsive, so quick to break rules without a second thought.

She could see her name framed on his lips as he stood frozen at the front of the cabin, but no sound came out. She turned her stunned gaze back to Tyler, who was cracking open a box to reveal the most garish pink diamond ring she'd ever seen in her life. Hadn't she told him that she loved subtle elegance, and that she'd lose anything valuable or precious?

Evidently, he hadn't been listening.

"Bella Maria Swan-"

She saw Edward cringe. He and she were the only ones to notice her boyfriend getting her middle name wrong as he proposed to her.

"You're so cute and smart and great at taking care of me. Will you make me the happiest man on Earth? Will you marry me?"

She felt like she'd been hit in the face with some kind of blunt object. She waited for the swell of love, of pure and simple delight to hit her, but it never came. This was wrong, this felt wrong.

She looked up to see that Edward had disappeared, and felt a strange ache at the sight. She'd half expected, like a silly little fool, that he would fling Tyler aside and tell her he was the only one she could ever marry, and they'd live happily ever after. But he'd never do that, that was the problem.

She couldn't meet anyone's eyes as the silence stretched on. She gulped.

"Tyler. Thank you." She said softly. "Could I...have a sec? I mean, this is a bit of a shock."

Grinning at her polite expression, he nodded, winking at various members of the crowd as he shoved the ring box into Bella's hand and sat back down.

She streaked out of the cabin, dodging Alice as she muttered something about needing to be alone. Unfortunately, that wasn't about to happen as the door to the toilet slid open and she was tugged in with a yelp.

She gasped as she came face-to-chest with Edward in the small space, his scent mixed with her confusion overwhelming in the small space.

"Bella." He groaned, staring at the ceiling, his jaw clenched tightly. "Tell me what you're going to do."

She answered after a pause. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" He said incredulously, running a hand through his hair. "How could you not know, Bella? Do you even love him?"

"Er..."

She was cut off as his lips pressed ferociously against hers, lighting a fire within her as she gasped before pulling away.

"No, Edward, don't try to manipulate me. It isn't fair."

He laughed darkly, making no move to step back from her. "You know what isn't fair? Me having to watch you being proposed to by some bimbo of a guy on my plane."

"Look, Edward, you have no right to-"

"I have every right!" He exclaimed, his eyes bright in the darkness. "Bella, I love you, I always have. If I were the one proposing to you I wouldn't tell you you're cute, I'd tell you you're so beautiful it makes my eyes hurt."

"Edward-"

"I'd tell you that I'd go through hell anytime I'd be away from you, that I can't imagine a life without you nagging me not to fold down the pages of books and to pick up my socks. I'd tell you that I'd never get tired of arguing with you about any subject 'cause you're so damn intelligent I can't stop being fascinated by you. I wouldn't get your fucking middle name wrong-"

"Stop it, just stop it!" She'd started crying, hot tears trailing over her cheeks and lips as she pressed her hands against her ears, staggering back against the sink. She couldn't take anymore. "Yes, Edward. You'd tell me all those wonderful things and, you know what? I wouldn't be able to say yes fast enough. But you're never going to do it, Edward, I'm never going to be enough for you to want to spend your life with!"

"Bella." He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her hair. "Please. Just go and tell him no, and I'll show you how wrong you are. I've had time to think, and I know now that I can't stand another minute of you hating me. I want to be with you, please."

She inhaled sharply as he pressed his lips against her neck, and her arms looped comfortably around his shoulders. At once, the rush of delight hit her, and she smiled.

"Alright." She breathed, relaxing as he hugged her tightly to him. "Now get back to the cockpit before Lauren rips your throat out."

He brushed a hand over her cheek. "Good idea." He said. "But first..." He reached into her hand and grabbed Tyler's ring box. He wrinkled his nose in horror as he got a good look at it. "Bloody hell, he doesn't know you at all, does he?" Without hesitation, he dropped it on the floor with a clatter, pulling her back into his arms.

Frankly, there was no place she'd rather be.