Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, it belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

A/N: Yes, another story from Nicky! :P What a surprise, I seem to be shooting out ideas all the time, and this one came really randomly, which is surprising. I'm not sure if it's been done before, and if it has, maybe not quite like this, but I happen to love the idea, and I think I know where I'm going to take it. :)

The thing is, I'm not even sure if I'll continue with this, because it honestly depends. So, I'd lovelovelove if you'd give me some feedback and let me know if I should go along with this.

Mmkay, so go on and read the first chapter (which is really more like a prologue, but oh well), and tell me what you think.

Btw, this is in third person, to stop any confusion.

I know, I know, 'why not first person?!' yeah, sorry. This is my comfort zone, and when I wrote 'I' I kept writing 'she', so I think you'll like it better this way. ;)

Reaaad on.

Her ears perked up almost instinctively as she listened carefully to the noises in the room adjacent to hers, sure she had heard something. She had been lying awake for a few hours, scared to fall asleep for the fear that she’d have those dreams again, the dreams that never seemed to stop. The Cullen’s soft bed always made it easy to fall asleep, and harder to fight it, but somehow she managed. Her head sunk back into the pillow when she was certain there were no more noises from the other room, a gentle sigh escaping her lips.

Her eyes had fluttered closed some time ago and she had reluctantly fallen into a light sleep, but it wasn’t like it mattered much, because she had always been a light sleeper. She was able to hear it when the door to her bedroom creaked open and she didn’t have to open her eyes to know who it was that walked in. Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open and were flooded with light from the lamp he had turned on by her bedside table, and she flashed him a small smile.

“Nightmares?” she questioned simply, her tone casual and simple, as if she was talking to a small infant and not a grown teenage boy.

His messy bronze hair was flying in any which direction, framing his beautiful face, the one she had never quite gotten used to. He had ivory skin that seemed to glow in the faint light of the lamp, illuminating his features. His eyes glowed a beautiful emerald green while the rest of his sharp features accented them. His jaw was rugged and square, his cheekbones were high and angled, and his nose was perfectly straight. He could be a model, but to her he was just Edward, and that was all he would ever be, really.

He nodded his head simply, and this was protocol by now, it was to be expected. She raised the blanket so he could lay with her, and though they were both completely unrelated and both the prime age of seventeen, it was not anything past platonic. This was not the embrace of lovers, and it didn’t mean anything, not at all. It was the simple fact that they did not want to be alone that brought them together.

The honest truth was that Edward Anthony Masen Cullen made her blood boil, and not in a good way. He could aggravate her more than anyone, and at school he was a selfish bastard who always seemed to get his way. He used people and he manipulated them, and he did things he shouldn’t – he smoked and drank and swore and he was everything she had sworn not to b in life, and she wasn’t about to change that.

No, she did not love Edward, but she needed Edward, and he needed her. He had been rude to her from day one, but that night when he had pulled her to his bed and hugged her tight, she couldn’t complain, because the nightmares, if only for that one night, had stopped.

They used each other, they were each other’s fix, and they couldn’t quit now, it had become too addicting. They snuck into each other’s rooms and lied about how they slept the night before to Carlisle and Esme, their adopted parents, because that’s the kind of relationship they had.

They had no relationship. It was just a way to keep the nightmares away, to share a few moments with someone who understood the other. The beautiful bronze haired boy in her bed held no interest for her, but he needed her with him. It was a co-dependant relationship that was destined to come crumbling, but they seemed to maintain it just fine.

Yet when she pulled the blankets over his body and he hugged her closer, it wasn’t Edward Anthony Masen Cullen who she was holding and shushing, it was just Edward, the boy with the eyes full of moisture from a pain she understood, the vulnerable one who slept in her bed every night, or she his.

“Was it another dream about your mother?” she whispered quietly, her voice calm and soothing, like a mother would speak to her child.

“No, it was a dream about back home in Chicago,” he sighed, his head nestled near her shoulder, his arm wrapped around her waist. “And I was helping my mom cook dinner, and she was commenting on how I could be a chef someday. And my father was there, and he commented on how good it was, and everyone was laughing and smiling. Then my mother hugged me and told me she loved me, and I woke up.”

Her forehead scrunched in confusion, because his quiet voice was filled with pain, and yet the dream painted a perfect picture of a beautiful little family. She almost smiled as she thought of a little boy with bronze hair running around the kitchen with his mother, and tried to understand where the nightmare came in. If his reality was like this dream then perhaps he wouldn’t have turned out as screwed and damned as he did. Usually, he dreamt of his mother’s death and the way his father had treated him afterwards, but this was different, and this was odd for her.

“It sounds like a good dream,” she murmured, turning so she could see his face in the light illumination of the lamp. He smiled, but she knew that smile anywhere, and she was knew it was bitter and full of hate and regret and fear and pain, and only she knew that smile, only she understood it.

“It wasn’t real,” came his bitter, matter-of-fact answer, and then he switched the lamp off and everything went black.

In the morning he’d be Edward Anthony Masen Cullen again, and everything would go back to normal. She hugged him tightly, laying her head on his as they fell asleep, their legs tangling under the sheets.

Her alarm was set for six o’ clock, and just like any other morning, that’s when she woke up. The spot where the bronze-haired boy had slept the night before was empty and the pillows were all propped around her head, the blankets secured tightly around her, like she was in a cocoon. She smiled at this, knowing he took care in making sure he left everything exactly the way it was when he came. He was precise, while she sometimes came close to getting caught.

Getting dressed and heading down to breakfast she saw him in the bathroom, fixing his hair in the mirror, though they both knew it did him no

good. He seemed to sigh in frustration at the way his hair stuck up on all ends, and she giggled quietly as she passed. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw the knowing look in his eyes, the smirk on his lips, and she knew that was her good morning. For the rest of the day there wasn’t going to be a kind word between them, and she was absolutely fine with that.

Esme seemed to making eggs and bacon, and the sweet smell of a new day engulfed the kitchen as she took a seat on the island counter. “Good morning, dear,” Esme cooed as she set a plate of eggs in front of her. “Hungry?” And she shrugged, because whether she liked it or not she was going to be eating those eggs before she went to school, a fact that made her smile wider.

Her pixie-like adoptive sister Alice had already taken a seat and seemed to be gulping down the eggs as fast as she possibly could, something that never seemed to amaze her. Alice had become the closest thing she ever had to a sister as well as a best friend and how the stick-thin girl could ever eat so much and not get any heavier was beyond her. Where did she put it all?

“Morning, Bella!” she chirped happily, a bright smile on her lips.

“What’s the rush, Ali?” Bella questioned, raising an eyebrow at the rate she was shoveling the eggs and toast into her mouth, like her life depended on it.

“Got to get to school early, I’m meeting Jazz,” Alice explained, and she only had to nod knowingly, because she knew how crazy in love Alice was with Jasper, and it was just that, crazy, insane, and obsessive, the both of them. Jasper and Alice had met a few years ago, apparently, and they just recently became a couple. They complimented each other perfectly, they understood each other, and they balanced each other out.

Alice was the little ball of sunshine who literally bounced everywhere she went and brightened up the room, whereas Jasper was usually off to the side

somewhere, never truly the star of the show. Alice had made sure to change that of course, but when she was around Jasper she just seemed more calm, and if she was being brutally honest, she seemed happier, too.

“Hey, don’t you have a project you needed to research for before school? I can drive you,” Alice suggested with a smile, and she knew it was just an attempt to get her out of the house quickly, though she didn’t know why at the time.

When one certain bronze-haired boy walked into the kitchen she had her reason.

It was automatic. There were people in the room and it set off a kind of energy, and they both knew what they had to do, so they did it. They glared and she threw herself off the chair, heading down the hall and following Alice to her car while Esme sighed in exasperation.

She didn’t understand why Edward and her hated each so much.

Neither did Alice.

Emmett, their other brother who had gone early for football practice, found it amusing but had asked her on several occasions.

She knew exactly why she hated him, though, and why he hated her. It was just protection, a protection they both needed. If one of them was friendly with the other then their bond could be broken, and it was something they could never bother to deal with. At night they solved their problems together, they curled up and shut out the world, but when the sun rose and reality set in they had to push each other away.

Edward didn’t let anyone in. He had spoken less than a few words to anyone, even Esme and Carlisle who had tried so very hard to be friendly with him.

Bella was different. There were people close to her, but they didn’t know her, not really. She talked but never really said anything. They knew the basics she supposed, but never as much as Edward. He was the one she cried to at night, he was the one who rocked her until she fell asleep and cooed and sang lullabies in her ear.

But it wasn’t romantic, and it didn’t mean anything, it couldn’t mean anything.

They used each other, and when the sun rose and the morning came and reality set in, they pushed each other away just like anyone else. It was for protection, and what they had to do to keep each other together. They protected each other, but not for each other, for themselves.

It was a natural defense mechanism, it was a symbiotic relationship, and they both got something out of it. No strings attached, no emotions, no questions, and no real relationship.

It was just that simple.

A/N: Mmkay, so I know this is a little out of the norm and right from the bat seems a bit angsty than what I normally seem to go for, but please just try and give it a chance for me. :P I'd really like to know what you think about it and if you think it'll be something I should continue, because again, the idea kind of popped into my head while I was lounging around with nothing to do, waiting to head off to work. :)

So, good, bad? Worth continuing?

I have my ideas for the story if I do decide to continue, and if I do, I can see this being a story I'd love to let develop.

Okay, I say that for every story I write, but I mean it for each and every single one.

You know me, I'd love you forever if you reviewed.

And I probably mean that literally, which is the sad thing. :P

XO,

Nicky