Thanks again to WhatsMyNomdePlume for helping me puzzle this one out.

This is super-short. Just a peek down the road into the future.

*0*0*

It turns out that you really can't go home again.

Forks worked for us for a little while. Edward settled into Shelly's basement apartment, I stayed on in my house. But he spent almost all of his time at my house when I wasn't working at the coffee shop. We passed through that first winter and spring together in a haze of art and work and each other.

He was right about being able to paint anywhere. We turned the bedroom that used to belong to my dad into Edward's studio and he painted up a storm either there or out on the back porch, which was another of his favorite places. He was also right about the change being good for his art. He went in whole new directions once he was in Forks, and turned out canvas after canvas of brilliant work.

But Edward's career was jump-started by winning the fellowship and the interest in his work was hard to manage from a tiny town at the dead end of the country. Since he was now a Pacific Northwestern painter, galleries in Seattle started inviting him to exhibit. Eventually, he was making trips there two and three times a week to deal with his work. By spring, I was accepted into the graduate program at UW anyway, so the choice was clear. We moved to Seattle together in the late summer.

Neither of us went back to New York until two years after we left and when we did, it was just for Alice and Jasper.

As I feared, Alice had to face a lot of misery because of him. Her otherwise completely absent family suddenly took a rabid interest in what she was doing once they knew she was serious about him. Her parents couldn't be persuaded to come back from Europe to deal with it, but her grandparents went on the attack. When they threatened to disown her if she didn't give him up, she took the portion of her trust fund that was already under her control, bought herself a townhouse in Boerum Hill, and called their bluff.

There were long months of no communication except through lawyers, but Alice held her ground and Jasper moved in with her. When she sent her grandparents the invitation to their wedding at St. Ann's in Brooklyn Heights, they finally caved. That was the first trip back for Edward and me. It was fun to watch Alice's lock-jawed, blue-blooded grandparents stand stiffly at the back of the church trying not to stare at Jasper's heavily tattooed and pierced friends and neighbors. They'll never truly warm to him, but in the end, they chose not to lose Alice, and I have to give them a little credit for that.

My mother didn't make that same choice. I never spoke to her again after that morning in our apartment. She moved to Florida and got married again, to some guy that ran a chain of low-rent law firms that specialized in quickie divorces. It was a big step down from Phil, but a gold-digger of her advancing years couldn't be too choosy. I heard about it through Alice, not from her and sometimes it bothered me, the way she turned away from me without a backwards glance. But Edward helped me to see that there was never much of a relationship there to begin with, so there wasn't much to mourn.

Some things just can't be fixed, and she and I were one of them.

Phil was true to his word and became a friend to me…to us. I didn't see him often, but whenever business took him to the West coast, he'd always make a detour and we would meet him in Seattle for dinner. He was kinder to Edward than I ever expected, and in the end, that's what made me trust, and eventually, love Phil. He never judged us or our choices. He really only wanted to see me happy.

And I am happy. We're happy.

Edward and I may have started again in Forks, but Seattle is where we really build our life together. I throw myself into my studies in grad school, and Edward throws himself into his work. Even though he denies that he was ever bored in Forks, Edward likes being in a big city again. It's the perfect fit for both of us. Big enough to feed our hunger for culture, but still far, far away from New York.

Phil never gave up about my trust fund, and while I will never take all of the money back, I am finally caving a little. It's been five years since we moved to Seattle, and Edward has stumbled on a studio space that he's fallen in love with. The entire building is for sale. It has a storefront downstairs, an apartment on the second floor, and the whole top floor is a sprawling, open studio with a skylight and a wall of windows, flooding it with fantastic light. Phil has managed to convince me to take what I needed from my trust fund to buy the building. He says it's his gift to us.

We rent out the storefront for a couple of years, but eventually I'm able to pursue the dream I hatched in graduate school: I open a little gallery of my own.

It's a smaller life than either of us would have had in New York, but it's just the right size for us. Things in Seattle are quiet and simpler than New York, and Edward gets to focus on the one thing that always mattered most to him; his art. There are still agents and patrons to deal with and sales to make, but the pressure is less and I'm there to deal with it with him.

He's free most days to just paint. I'm free to work in the gallery downstairs, choosing the paintings I want to exhibit and the artists that inspire me. The rest of the time, it's just him and me, finally free to be what we were always meant to be.

*0*0*

A/N: Thanks again, all you lovely readers, for coming along with me as I told this story. It's been such a fantastic experience. A few people have asked if I'm working on another story and yes, I am. I have something percolating, but I like to have quite a bit written before I post, so it will be a little while before anything goes up.

I know I've mentioned writing an Edward POV outtake and I've decided to do it as my contribution to the Fandom for Sexual Assault Awareness compilation. It's a really good cause and a donation as small as $5 will get you the entire compilation. There are over 90 fantastic authors writing one-shots and outtakes for it, so please check it out and consider contributing.

http : / / fandom4saa . wordpress . com /

Thank you for reading!