CBWR? Chapter 33

Everybody freaking out over ketchup soup - we used to eat that in college when we were broke! Now I feel worse about it than I did then... :)

This is a really short one, but I have to head out soon and probably won't be able to post again until this evening. This isn't the one with the end that cracked me up - that will be the next one.

It had to change.

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Chapter 33

When I awoke, I was in a cold sweat with a single thought in my head.

She's my responsibility.

The final images of the dream did a few cartwheels in my conscious mind before fading – Bella, out in the sunshine wearing absolutely nothing, and Aro standing beside her, offering her a toothbrush.

"Sorry, Edward…you didn't take care of her, so I'm afraid I'll have to take her back…"

"You have no idea what you are doing," Dream Bella told me. "It's for the best, Edward…Edward….Edward…"

"Edward?"

I opened my eyes to her voice and the warmth of her hand on my cheek. She was holding herself up with her other hand and hovering above me, though I could just barely make out the outline of her head and shoulders in the darkness.

"You were dreaming," she said in a whisper.

My responsibility. Just mine. Mine.

I was fucking this up so bad, how could I ever make anything right with her? Even if I killed every one of them that hurt her, I still I hadn't gotten her enough clothes. Even if I saved her mother, I had no idea what she wanted and needed. Wasn't there like…shit she needed for the bathroom to be found in the drugstore aisles where men dare not tread? How was going to figure any of that out? It was the crux of the problem, wasn't it? I had no fucking idea how to deal with women – what they wanted and needed, how to talk to them – and that hadn't changed.

It had to change.

I had to figure this shit out, and make her the priority – all the time. I couldn't just think that she needed clothes, and then forget about it. But how do I figure out what she needs?

Maybe you could ask, asshole.

Okay, yeah – I guess I could. It was kind of like stopping and asking for directions, which hit some sort of anti-instinct bone. It made me want to drive around in circles on purpose, just to make some kind of obscure and indefinable point. I owe her, though, and I always will. I had never asked her what she wanted or needed, and that was going to change.

I reached up and grasped her face in my hands, immediately loosening my grip when she jumped, but not letting go.

"I'm going to take care of you," I told her in a harsh whisper.

I felt her fingers trace over my jaw, and then the backs of her fingers ran over my temple.

"I'm going to take care of you, too, Edward."

My ears had to be messed up, right?

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Chapter End Notes:

Someone needs to reevaluate the meaning of the term "care". I think Doofusward is missing a couple of the definitions.