If Angels Cry, a twilight fanfic

The Jukebox contest

PenName: Jessie Chase

Song choice: Rule the World – Take That

Rating: T

Word Count: 2782

Pairing: Edward/Bella

Summary: Going from friends to more can be complicated, but it can also be easy. Sometimes, life can be a fairy tale, even if it has low points. E/B, AU/AH, fluff.

Disclaimer: All characters recognisable from the Twilight Saga belong to Stephenie Meyer. The song belongs to Take That. I claim the plot and can be blamed for the toothache it causes.

She fit into my arms perfectly, like no one else ever did, would or could. Nothing had ever felt as right as the feeling of my fingers on the silky white fabric surrounding her waist as we swayed to the music coming from the speakers. Yet I was acutely aware of the fact that we nearly didn't make it here, that her head resting on my shoulder could've so easily been just a dream of mine like it had been all those years ago.

You light, the skies up above me

A star, so bright you blind me

Don't close your eyes

Don't fade away

"Hey Bella?"

She turned to me with a raised eyebrow and while I knew she'd listen to me, I expected to have a hard time stating my plea convincingly and getting her to go along with my suggestion.

"Yes, Eddie?"

Eyebrow still up, her lips formed an amused smirk as she watched my face contort into a painful expression. I hated that nickname with the passion of a thousand suns and had it been anyone but her saying it, they'd be on the ground writhing in pain. Bella, of course, knew this and never failed to tease me with the name, ever since she'd first heard my cousin Emmett say it.

"One of these days, I'll forget that you're my best friend and you'll go down for that, Clumsy," I growled at her, unamused.

"That'll be the day, Edward," she laughed, "it's hilarious how it always gets the same response."

"You know I hate it," I rolled my eyes at her, "why you insist on annoying me with it is beyond me."

"It's fun," she shrugged her shoulders and threw a 'D'oh' expression my way.

"Not for me it isn't."

"Well I never said you having fun was the point, E. Now, did you have a question to ask?"

She knew I'd almost forgotten what I was going to say, like she planned to when that name came out of her mouth. However, when she said the words, I immediately jumped back to what I originally planned to talk about. Stupid girlie diversion tactics.

"It's about the graduation ball," I said, staring at my shoes, suddenly feeling intimidated, "I don't know if you got asked by someone, but I was wondering..."

We had a fairly strict "don't ask, don't tell" policy between us when it came to dating. It made our friendship far more simple when we didn't deal with completely inappropriate significant others or flavours of the day. I'd made a stupid mistake of asking her about a boyfriend once and listening to her gush about details. While they hadn't been of the sex kind, it had been painful enough to make me suggest the ban on boyfriend/girlfriend/conquest talk and unsurprisingly, B went along with that. I didn't try finding out how serious she was with the guys she went out with and simply waited until they hit the "oh hell no, get out of here and don't bother calling" stage. She didn't ask about any of the girls that snuck out of the apartment while I was pretending to still be fast asleep, generally mumbling someone else's name "in my sleep". That way our friendship was intact since we met in Bio in Junior year and we were still going strong now, hitting the final months of our Masters. That way, she didn't know that the name I chased them all off with was hers and that many of those girls had asked me whether she'd be fine with my flirting with others the moment they started talking to me.

I knew by asking her to go with me to the ball, I was opening a can of worms that may have always been there, but that I never dared talk about. I told myself it was perfectly OK to ask with no secondary thoughts... and continued telling myself that I had no other motivation than spending an evening with my best friend.

Yeah, not convincing myself either.

"I didn't get asked, E," Bella whispered, "I didn't want to ask anyone else either."

"Oh," I froze, momentarily caught off guard by both her shyness about it and the fact that she'd not been asked by anyone, "well, would you... would you like to go with me, B?"

Our eyes met and we both reeled in the question, Bella's possible answer and what it could or would mean if she said yes. Neither of us was fooling the other or ourselves that going to something as significant as the grad ball was not going to impact our friendship. In our school, it had the significance of catching the bouquet and the garter belt at a wedding or walking the red carpet holding hands in Hollywood.

"Yeah, I'll go," Bella's voice was barely audible but I heard her as clearly as ever.

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star

If you stay with me girl, we can rule the world

We didn't discuss us before the ball, but going together certainly got things rolling in a certain direction. There was a little awkwardness between us in the days from the night I'd asked and the evening of the ball, but I talked myself into believing it was because of our Finals stress and not nervousness about the significance of the ball.

Bella took my breath away when I picked her up that evening, even though I'd seen her dressed up various times through the years that we were friends. She'd enlisted my sister Alice's help in picking a dress and all the accompanying girlie things that I had no clue about, which resulted in me getting instructions on what to wear too. It wasn't the first time Ali-cat had been the one to "whip me into shape" as she'd called it, so she met less resistance from me than from B, who was always the T-shirt and jeans, comfort over fashion kind of girl.

The fuss was worth it in the end and I was lost in a sea of blue as I watched her walking down the stairs to me. It was only in photos that I saw a few days later that I noticed how the tie I was given by Ali looked to be the same blue as B's dress. Once we got to the ball, I wasn't the only one with my eyes on her, though I tried really hard to not give in to my inner caveman. I felt I had no right, since we weren't anything more than friends as we arrived. What I didn't expect, even though I hoped for it was for the status of our relationship to change right there on the dance floor.

Yeah you and me we can light up the sky

If you stay by my side, we can rule the world.

It was what we decided to be our last song for the night, since Bella started feeling the effect of her heels. I had just started liking them by the time the slow songs came on, as the height of the shoes made her just tall enough to fit snugly into my arms with her head resting against my shoulder. It was one of those slow songs that we were dancing to when she lifted her head and looked me in the eyes, an unspoken question written all over them. When her tongue darted out to swipe over her bottom lip, and she promptly bit it as her face dipped down again, I couldn't resist anymore.

"Bella," I lifted her chin to meet her gaze again.

She shivered and tightened her hold on me, bringing us the tiniest little bit closer and I couldn't fight the urge to bring my lips to hers. The kiss lasted until the song ended and without speaking, we left the ball and headed back to her place where we spent the rest of the night on the porch, trying to figure out our relationship in between stealing kisses.

If walls break down, I will comfort you

If angels cry, oh I'll be there for you

We'd moved in together once we both graduated and were lucky enough to find jobs in nearly the same area. Ali laughed that when we finally got together it was like the stars had aligned and everything was right with the world. Every time she mentioned it, I had a strange feeling that agreeing with her would jinx the luck that we had, so I always frowned at her happy-go-lucky attitude a little.

As is usual with bad feelings about destiny and future, I was unfortunately proved right, much to my dismay. First it was little things, like the small mishaps in our apartment that gradually turned into major flaws that caused us to move out. The big, life-changing stuff came quite a while later, usually at moments when both of us just started thinking we were over the worst of it.

Ali's diagnosis was the first one that caught both of us off guard. Despite her clear results now that she's officially in remission, I still feel nauseous anytime the memory of her telling us hits me. It still does occasionally in nightmares, though it's been years since then and since her chemo and radiotherapy and various other hospital visits before she'd been given the all-clear.

B became withdrawn when it turned out that Ali wasn't going to be able to have children after that and it was only at my sister's constant nagging that Bella admitted that was the reason for her being an only child. Ultimately the reason her Mom left her Dad for a while, thinking she had to give him the option to have a bigger family. Alice's struggle brought it back to Bella's mind and everything she'd worked through before we even met was back on the surface.

I, on the other hand, reacted with anger. If you'd asked me then, I wouldn't have been able to say what or who I was angry at, all I knew was that I desperately wanted to punch holes into anything and anyone that came my way. My little sister was going through the scariest time of her life and I more than occasionally ended up in bars and getting into fights for no other reason than someone looking my direction when I didn't want them to.

It took nearly two years before both of us were even remotely in the same place as when we first got together. We went through a fight for each other, for our relationship, but also for our own independence, as we'd started clinging to each other a little bit too tightly. We finally found the balance with the help of Alice herself, who unsurprisingly had an extremely positive outlook through everything. I was willing to place a bet on her optimism being connected to a certain Jasper, her now-husband whom she met while in post-treatment therapy.

You've saved my soul

Don't leave me now

"She'd stayed with me through it all, despite her own problems and I couldn't love her any more than I do now. What I had in her was my salvation, because if it wasn't for my Bella, I probably wouldn't have made it through Ali's ordeal and come out the person that I am now.

Fortunately, it didn't take me too long to realise that and once I did, I wasted no more time on anything that could've kept us from each other. I woke and got out of bed for her, I fought to be a better person because she made me want to be the best I could.

Hopefully now I am somewhere close to being the person she deserves to be with, because if I'd learned anything in my years with her, it is that Bella deserves the best. I'm probably the last one to see that clearly enough and I know there are some who still don't think I'm good enough for her, but for some strange reason, she picked me. I'm here to stay until she decides to leave."

I took a deep breath and looked around the room full of our friends and family members, then gazed over to the beautiful woman next to me.

"Bella, love, you are everything I could ever wish for and I will forever be grateful to that one song that played at the grad ball that finally helped me see how much you really mean to me. Can I have this dance, please?"

My hand reached out for hers and I watched her wipe her eyes before she rose out of her seat and allowed me to lead her to the small dance floor between the guests' tables. Once again, we clung to each other but I didn't find it suffocating anymore as I used to in our worst days. Bella was my life and I wasn't going to fight it anymore, because losing her was not something I was willing to even think about, let alone genuinely consider.

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star

If you stay with me girl, we can rule the world

Yeah you and me we can light up the sky

If you stay by my side, we can rule the world.

"Are you watching the video again, E?"

Bella's voice startled me from my reverie. I turned to the door she was standing in and allowed myself to let my eyes slide over her features, comparing her to what I saw in the video. She'd acquired a few wrinkles besides the laughter ones that we both attributed to our friends, her hair had a few grey strands in it, though no one else but her really noticed. Those were to be chalked up to our two little miracles, Marie and Masen, since the grey started showing the moment they both hit their teens.

We'd ended up having honeymoon babies, despite Bella's insistence that we weren't in any rush. However, a bout of food poisoning during our two weeks in Rio had rendered her pill useless and when her nausea had continued for weeks after we came back, a check up at the doctor's which I had to basically force her into revealed the news.

"I was just going to play the song," I shrugged, "but then I got caught up in everything else."

"That's what you always say," B laughed and sat down next to me, "I could swear you just like looking at my younger self and reminisce how hot I used to be."

"Fishing for compliments, my dear?" I nuzzled her neck as she moved closer, "you know you don't need to ask for those, beautiful."

"Mom, Dad, get a room!" Masen walked through the living room with the remark and slammed his bedroom door behind him.

"I can't believe they're nearly adults now," my eyes caught sight of our daughter quietly sneaking around the room, without doubt trying to avoid the sight of anything that made her brother throw out his earlier comment, "you guys are out of the house for college so your Mom and I can get some privacy!" I shouted in the direction of their rooms.

A groan from that direction made me laugh a little and I felt Bella shaking with giggles along with me.

"Like you were going to let Marie live in the dorms, E," her eyes rolled, "and give up the chance of threatening every boy who comes to pick her up for a date."

"Hey," I protested, "I don't do that!"

"Oh yes, you do," B snuggled closer to me, "but it's pretty adorable."

"Ugh, Bella, I'm not adorable! Men don't do adorable."

"OK, sweetie," she reached around me for the remote control, "now let's look at your handsome old self in a tux."

"Oh, is that why the video was at the top of the pile today?" I teased her before the first notes of our song started to play from the speakers.

All the stars are coming out tonight

They're lighting up the sky tonight

For you

For you,

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star

If you stay with me girl, we can rule the world

Yeah you and me we can light up the sky

If you stay by my side, we can rule the world.

"I love you," I whispered into her hair as we both lost ourselves in the memories.

"Love you, too," Bella mumbled back and her lips found mine.