Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Stephenie Meyer the creator of Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended.

Promises

After years apart, Edward finally catches up with his wife. Edward/Bella. AH.

"Say it and I'll leave you alone," Edward repeated. "Tell me you want to fuck me."

"Why do you even need to hear it from me? You seem to be saying it enough for the both of us."

"I like the way your mouth looks when you say the words," he winked.

She chuckled despite herself and for a moment, everything was exactly the same as it was when they first got together.

His eyes softened and he moved to cover her hand with his own. The instant they made contact, Bella felt that spark. She felt it the first time she laid eyes on him, the first time she kissed him, the first time they fucked. But with the deep awareness of him also came fear.

She hastily removed her hand from his grasp, refusing to give in to the painful emotions he just incited.

"Do you want money, Edward? I'll give it to you. Promise me you'll leave and I'll even give you half," she offered, trying to sound firm.

"I remember a time when you made me promise not to leave."

"That was a long time ago."

"Why did you leave me?" he demanded, sounding angry all over again. "Was it because I was too hard? Too difficult? Did I complicate your life, Bella?"

He used the same words she used all those years ago and the devastated look in his eyes shattered her on the inside.

"Because you broke my heart, you bastard," she bit out, trying to stop the tears that threatened to overtake her.

"What are you talking about? I'm not the one who gave up on us," he reminded her.

"You're not getting off that easily," Bella snapped. "I stood by and watched you destroy yourself but I'm not doing it anymore."

Edward laughed bitterly, taking in her hard face and the fresh tears in her eyes. "If you had issues with the wedding vows, you should have spoken up, honey. We could have edited out 'for worse' since you only wanted to stick around for the better times."

"And you didn't?" she interrogated, leaning towards him. "Where were you when I needed you? When Dad died, why the hell weren't you there?"

The pain of losing her father to an unexpected heart attack was still fresh in her mind. She missed him everyday and seeing Edward after all these years only served to bring up the painful memories even more.

"What the fuck are you talking about? I was right beside you. I was there with you every single day. Can you say that about yourself?"

"Drinking all day doesn't constitute as being there for me, Edward," she pointed out, bitterness lacing her voice. "I needed my husband, not a fucking drunk who I had to track down almost every night."

"Give me a fucking break, Bella," Edward raged. "I had just lost the man I thought of as a father. I was grieving."

He still remembered how lost and alone he felt without Charlie in his life. As hard as he'd tried, he couldn't work through his grief or get past his sorrow, as a result he'd sunk deeper and deeper into depression and for a long time, drowning in alcohol was the only thing that had dulled the pain.

He'd tried to turn to Bella for support, share their mutual pain but she'd seemed so cold and detached after Charlie died, Edward felt guilty for unburdening his grief on her.

"He was my father too but I didn't get drunk every day for over a year. Do you even remember that or did you just conveniently block that out?"

Bella had thought the bitterness she felt would have slightly faded after all this time but clearly, she was still resentful towards him. As if losing her father wasn't bad enough, she had to put with Edward's antics for months after, making things worse for them.

Her hopes of him reaching out to her had all been dashed, she'd wanted so desperately for him to comfort her, tell her things would be eventually okay but instead, she had to stand back and watch Edward self-destruct. He'd been too busy drinking to even notice her pain.

"I would've gotten better if you'd just been patient and stuck around."

"I waited… and I waited. I told myself you'd change. You'd be you again. You'd be the guy my dad wanted you to be. The guy I fell in love with."

If he'd only known how she felt back then, Edward mused bitterly, things would be completely different now, he could have avoided all the mistakes that he made.

With Bella lost to him, he'd started taking risks and doing extreme things just to get her attention, he planned high-risk heists with Emmett that almost got them caught on more than one occasion. He didn't care if he was captured or if he brought down Emmett with him… all he wanted was Bella to notice him, to reach out to him.

"Why couldn't you have told me this then?"

"I told you in every which that I could." Bella screamed, causing the other patrons to look at them.

"You couldn't have just said 'shape up or I'm leaving?' That would have been too easy, right? Then I might have straightened up my act and you wouldn't have had an excuse to run away."

"Fuck you," she cried. "You abandoned me. Maybe not physically but you weren't there. Not the way I needed you."

"Guess we both screwed up, huh?" he stated, his voice softening.

He could feel the pain vibrating from her as she sat in front of him, tormented. He wanted to soothe her - hold her - but knew she wouldn't allow it, his anger might be slowly dissolving but hers obviously wasn't.

"What you did to me was much worse than what I ever did to you."

The words hurt him, she could see it in his face but she almost didn't care, the bitter rage she'd held in all these years were finally ready to spill over. For months after her dad passed away, she'd turned a blind eye to Edward's destructive behavior hoping he'd snap out of it.

Unfortunately, he never did. It wasn't until he'd threatened her father's legacy did Bella even consider leaving him. Her dad had always believed that no amount of money was worth jeopardizing their lives over, for this reason alone he never took on high-paying jobs knowing the risks to their personal lives were greater. Unfortunately, Edward hadn't practiced the same philosophy when he took over her dad's work, he took jobs that were too risky and it seemed he almost wanted to get caught.

Emmett had confided in her about the dangers of what Edward was doing. How he was playing with their future and freedom. Knowing she couldn't trust her husband to protect her any more, Bella decided to take matters into her own hands.

With Emmett's help, she'd slowly started to move their money into accounts that Edward had no idea existed. Since he never concerned himself with their finances, it worked to her advantage. At the time, she hadn't known what she was going to do with the money, she only wanted to ensure it wasn't readily available for Edward to waste.

"You destroyed everything Dad worked for. I'm glad he's gone because he doesn't have to see how you turned out."

Her words had the desired effect and he felt pain surge through him. He wished he could deny her accusation, tell her she was wrong but they both knew it was a lie.

"Bella, I was a mess-"

"You killed Emmett!" she accused. "You might not have shot him but he died because of you."

Ironically, Emmett hadn't died during one of Edward's high-risk heists. They were in the middle of a routine job when they were caught in the act, he had barely managed to escape but Emmett was shot. He had always held himself responsible for his friend's death and knowing Bella felt the same, sharpened his guilt.

He avoided her gaze, his face overshadowed with pain. "I know it's my fault. I'm sorry!"

"Your sorry is just not good enough."

"You fucked up too, Bella. I was arrested after you left. Did you know that? Do you even care?"

She had known it was just a matter of time before the cops would follow the trail back to Edward and her. Within a few days of Emmett's death, she'd arranged everything and left Edward for good.

"Too bad the charges didn't stick."

"There was no evidence against me since the money trail all led back to you. They're still trying to track you down."

"How did you?"

"Charlie taught me a lot of things, Bella. You made it hard but it was never impossible for me to find you."

"I think I'd prefer the cops over you."

He chuckled, meeting her eyes again. "You're out of luck then. You did too good a job of disappearing for them to ever track you."

She drew in a difficult breath, her body tired and her mind emotionally exhausted from talking to him. She wanted to escape and go back to the haven she'd created for herself. Away from him.

Reminding herself how much she hated him for what he did and for what he took from her, she tried to steel herself. She repeated all the things she held him responsible for: Emmett's death, the breakdown of their relationship, for costing everything that was important to her. And yet as he sat in front of her, looking at her with hope and uncertainty, her heart cried out for him.

Bella missed him every single day she was apart from him and now that he was with her again, her buried feelings came rushing back. But she knew she wasn't going to risk her heart again. Not on him. He hurt her too much in the past to just forget about it and move on.

"Give me another chance, Bella," he pleaded quietly.

"No."

"We both made mistakes. I screwed up, I hurt you and you ran away like you always do. It'll be different this time, I promise."

"No."

"I should have talked to you, listened to you. We should have gotten help. Seen a counselor or something. We can do that now. We can get help."

"No."

"I'm not leaving, Bella. I'm here to stay. And I'll do whatever it takes to make you trust me again. You have to believe me."

"No."

"I love you," he confessed. "I know you love me too. I see it in your eyes."

"No," she whispered, her eyes softening.

Edward heard the tremble in her voice. Realizing their situation was far from hopeless, he reached out and covered her hand with his own. This time, she didn't shake him off or remove her hand. And he knew without a doubt she loved him just as much as he loved her.

"Forgive me."

...

finis