Falling To The Sun | B. Swan + E. Cullen

soixante-deux

The arm draped across her waist drew her back, pulling her in closer as a face nuzzled into the crook of her neck. Honey-suckle and sweet lavender surrounded her, clouding all of her senses as she sunk back into Bella.

The night was the perfect time to just be with her, to feel like she was complete and solid and real. There was so much that was going on, so much that was rushing around them as time suddenly became a matter that she feared, that she despised, that she needed the grounding -- needed the reminder from her wife and husband that they were in the same boat, on the same team.

It was one of the few nights that it was just the two of them. Edward had stayed back to research with Carlisle and the children were staying at the main house. After having read them to sleep, Esme and Rose were more than willing to watch them for the time being, and Edward was there in case they asked for their parents.

It was one of the few nights that she had let herself be completely torn from them, that she had let herself be pulled away for so long, but it had been weeks since she and Bella had gone hunting just the two of them, and, well, they had always been insatiable just the two of them.

The sun would be rising soon, the light beginning to glow just outside their still open window. Roman didn't feel the urge to move just yet. She was a clingy mother, that much she knew. She wanted to be near them all the time, always watching, always looking, scared to miss a moment.

When she had imagined having children, back when everything was still within the realm of normal, the world of humans, it had always been with flushed, rosy cheeks and a glow that couldn't be missed. She always thought that she would be the ordinary sort of mother, the one that stayed around and had more free time than Edward or Bella.

She had imagined them as these highly successful, proudly educated people that had just a little less availability than she did. In her fantasies, she was still and had always been, a forest ranger, a park ranger, that was never going to grow tired of the great outdoors.

Roman was never going to grow tired of the great outdoors, but things weren't always what she expected them to be.

Nothing was as she had naively expected it to be and there was nothing she would ever change about any of it. Her family meant everything to her. Her wife and husband and children and imprinter and in-laws. They were all she had, all she was ever going to want.

Bella hums against her, fingers dancing across her bare stomach to tap a rhythm against her ribs, fluttering over her skin.

"You're thinking about it again. You promised that you would take a break from it all tonight," she whispers, breath washing over her as the words brush against the shell of her ear.

"I'm not thinking about it, Bell, I'm not."

"You are. You have to have faith that we'll find something."

She swallows thickly. "You don't even have faith yourself. You're more worried than I am."

"I know, but you need to take a break before it drives you crazy. You can't spend all your time worrying."

"You see how fast they're growing, Bella, you see how quickly their minds advance. I am in a constant state of worry that I'll leave for an hour and return to find them writing sheet music or doing pirouettes around the living room."

"Carlisle will figure something out, he'll find an answer."

"I know that he will, I have no doubt that we'll have forever with them. I'm scared that I won't get to see them have a childhood."

Bella kisses her shoulder, pulling her back with strong arms that constrict tightly around her, squeezing but never tight enough. "They never had a chance at a normal childhood, Ro. All we can do is make sure that they're happy and that they know that they're loved."