A Fragment of Light (6/?)
Title: A Fragment of Light (6/?)
Author: jacyevans and cinnamon_kisses
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: PG-13
Summary: New Moon AU - Bella's inner Edward has convinced her not to be reckless, and she is about to give up entirely - when she finds something that changes everything.
Time had never ticked by so slowly in all my years of existence. Flying was faster than driving, but the idleness of sitting in an airplane was nearly unbearable. I wished I was behind the wheel, at least, with a task to attend to. The nerves were unbearable…I didn’t know what I would do when I saw her, how she would react to seeing me, how I would keep my emotions under control.
A young couple sat in front of me, newlyweds as far as I could tell - the woman had a sparkling diamond on her left ring finger, with a band alongside it. They had the air of young love about them, smiling, laughing, thoughts full of each other, oblivious to anything else around them. Before Forks - before Bella - I had looked upon such couples with something like skepticism. Human relationships were so fleeting. How could they compare to the bonds my family had formed? How could they ever reach the same level of commitment?
Now, though…now I would give anything to be human just to have all those experiences locked up in their short lives. I wanted only the ability to give Bella what she deserved - a real human life, marriage, children, someone to grow old with, rather than someone to watch her grow old…. More than anything, I wished I could live out my years with her, and then have the ability to die with her when those years were over. Unfortunately, I had nothing to offer her but pain.
The flight landed, and I watched the couple leave the plane hand in hand, with nothing to fear ahead of them. I, on the other hand, had to drag myself off the plane as my body grew heavy with dread.
Outside the gate, I found Esme waiting for me, and the look on her face told me I was in far more trouble than I’d ever imagined. Nevertheless, she greeted me with her usual motherly hug.
“Welcome home, Edward,” she said, smoothing down my disheveled hair. I could hear the disappointment and sadness coloring her thoughts, and I looked away in shame.
“Is she here?” I asked, unable to put it off. I had to know.
“Yes,” Esme replied, and in her head, told me what she knew I couldn’t ask. She’s not good, Edward.
I avoided Esme’s eyes, knowing they would only make me feel guiltier with their forgiveness. “Do you know why she’s come?”
“I do, but if you want to know, you’ll have to ask her.” She deserves the chance to tell you herself. You owe her some answers, Edward.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get any clues from Esme’s mind as I followed her to the car. Alice isn’t pleased with you, she told me, probably more to keep me from her thoughts than anything.
“What have I done now?” I asked softly and quickly, so that the others in the elevator to the parking garage couldn’t hear.
Nothing exactly; she learned what you told Bella before we left. Edward…why didn’t you tell us?
I sighed, the guilt weighing on me heavier than ever. “I’m not proud of myself, but it was the only way. That’s my burden to live with.”
The elevator opened to our level and I followed her out. You don’t have to live with it, Edward. You always had a choice. She was willing; I think she still is.
“That’s not an option,” I growled with more force than I’d intended. I fought to soften my tone. “I can’t do that to her, Esme. She deserves better.”
Keep an open mind, Edward, please. You must remember that not everyone has the same opinions that you do, and you could very well be wrong.
“Do you think I’m wrong about this?” I asked, sliding into the passenger seat. When I had made the decision, I hadn’t asked Carlisle or Esme for their opinions, nor had I asked since. To ask their advice was to doubt my decision, and I could not afford to question my resolution. Now, though, on my way toward a confrontation that I knew could break me, I needed her guidance.
“Edward,” she sighed, speaking out loud to distract me from her thoughts as she gathered them, “I’d never seen you so happy, so at peace with yourself as you were with Bella. And since we’ve left, I’ve never seen you so lost, not even when you left us all those years ago. Now, having seen Bella, I can’t believe that anything which separates you is right. I know how you feel about our kind, Edward…but you also know how Carlisle and I feel. There is so much goodness in you, and so much love. I wish you would trust in that to be your redemption - and Bella’s as well.”
I watched the countryside of upstate New York fly by. “How can I be redeemed if I turn the love of my life into a monster?”
“Do you think Carlisle is beyond redemption?” she countered.
“I - no, I don’t think so. But he was trying to save us,” I argued.
“And he succeeded,” Esme said with the fierceness that only came out when those she loved were concerned. “You may have wished he hadn’t changed you in your lifetime, but it was a blessing, Edward. He gave you the chance to know love, to know her. That is a gift, Edward, a precious gift, and that’s what you’re taking from Bella.”
I swallowed past a wave of shame. She did think I was wrong, which meant Carlisle probably did as well…all of the Denali clan shared their opinion. Alice was furious with me, and Jasper almost always agreed with Alice. The weight of their disapproval added up to something I wasn’t ready to face yet.
“I don’t know how I can do this…seeing her…”
Esme reached over to squeeze my shoulder. “You’re stronger than you think, Edward. You’ll manage.”
As we pulled up to the house, I prayed she was right.
The house had changed dramatically since I’d last been there, thanks to Esme’s restoring and decorating efforts. Had I had room in my mind, I would have been more impressed. As it was, I could think only of what lie inside the house - my redeeming angel and my personal demon, combined to test and tempt me in every way.
Esme let me out in front of the house and went to put the car in the garage. I steeled myself to enter. It was early evening; I would surely see Bella right away. I could handle this. If only I know exactly what I meant to do…
I forced my body up the stairs and through the front door. The quietness inside was a blessed relief. Bella’s heart didn’t beat in this room - oh, the sound was not far off. It echoed down the stairs, steady and slow with the even rhythm of sleep.
She was exhausted, Alice told me, and I realized she was glaring at me from the loveseat in the living room, with Jasper beside her. Carlisle wasn’t around; he must be at the hospital.
Alice stood and came toward me with the same look Irina had in her eyes right before she slapped me. I backed up automatically.
“You,” she said, emphasizing the word with a jab at my chest, “have a lot to answer for. Bella, she’s - I’ve never seen - she’s so - Jasper couldn’t even sense her!” she cried, throwing up her arms with the force of her anger.
“He what?” I questioned, looking to Jasper for confirmation. I’d expected Alice to say any number of things, but that wasn’t it.
“I couldn’t sense her at first,” he said. That’s never happened before. “It’s like she wasn’t there.” It’s like she was dead. “I didn’t feel anything from her until…”
“Until what?” I prompted as Jasper and Alice exchanged glances. Their minds were infuriatingly clear of any answers.
“Until the subject of you and how you left her came up, and then she broke down completely,” Alice said. I winced.
“Then it was like a flood,” Jasper said, shaking his head. “It’s like she kept her emotions so tightly bottled up that even she couldn’t feel them - until she couldn’t avoid them anymore. And when they did come out…they were…intense.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Intense how?”
Jasper sighed. “Devastated. Hopeless. Empty.”
All your fault, by the way, Alice added, by all appearances attempting to set me on fire with her eyes. She needn’t have bothered; I was inclined to set myself on fire at the moment.
“Is she…is she getting better?” I asked, full of contradicting hopes. My selfless side hoped she was healing, getting on with her life just like I’d intended, but that selfish part of me longed to hear that she ached as much as I did, that my attempts to save her were all in vain.
Jasper shook his head. “If that’s better, I don’t want to know what she was like to begin with.”
“I can’t believe you let her think you didn’t love her,” Alice hissed. “If you had to leave, couldn’t you come up with something…nicer?”
I sighed and offered my defense. “She wouldn’t let go. If she’d thought there was any chance for us, she would have held onto it…she needed to be able to move on. That…that was all I could give her.”
Alice rolled her eyes and shared a telling glance with Jasper. “What makes you think she can move on? It’s not like you’re doing a fantastic job of it.”
“Humans aren’t like us,” I argued. “They change so easily -“
“But Bella’s not like most humans, is she?” Jasper cut in softly. “When has she ever reacted like you expected, like a normal human would?”
I was considering this idea when a cry rang out from upstairs. I looked to Alice questioningly.
She’s been doing that ever since she fell asleep.
“Is she in some kind of trouble?” I asked, wondering what could be haunting her dreams to make her scream like that. And then I caught the exasperated expression on Alice’s face and I realized. Of course, I was her nightmare. I would always be the monster haunting her dreams, no matter how I tried to save her.
“Go to her,” Jasper urged, pushing me along with a little burst of serenity and courage. “You’re the only one that can do her any good.”
I knew I could not put it off much longer. She would wake soon, and I would have to face what I had done, for better or for worse. I followed Bella’s scent up the stairs, slowly, like a shy animal approaching the unknown. It occurred to me that I was truly terrified, and that Bella still held the power to hurt me in ways that no one else could. And I had no idea what I was going to do.
I found her in a spare bedroom on the second floor. I had to fight against her scent. I’d thought it was fresh in my memory, but the real thing was infinitely more powerful. My vampire instincts fell to the background as I took in her sleeping face. There were so many little changes in her face, more than I’d expected. Her face had grown fuller in those five months we’d been apart, more womanly. I wonder if she had noticed, if she still agonized over her age. Maybe she didn’t want to become a vampire anymore. The thought brought on a pang of sadness, and it shouldn’t have.
Her eyes were dark, ringed with purple circles, from too many nightmares or maybe too many nights without someone to sing her to sleep. And those little lines, the ones in her forehead that appeared when she was distressed or unhappy, seemed to be permanently etched on now. Those marks were my responsibility; I could not avoid that knowledge. But could I still make her happy, and was there any way to keep her safe?
She whimpered softly in her sleep. I reached out instinctively to touch her face, trying to soothe her back into sleep. It didn’t work like it used to. Bella jerked away instead, and her eyes collided with mine. In that moment, I hated myself, because she looked at me like a doe about to be slaughtered, vulnerable and helpless and terrified…and the worst of it was that it wasn’t the monster she feared, just the man that had broken her heart.
I pulled my hand away and waited for her to say something. Instead she got shakily out of the bed, still dressed. I feared she would leave, but she went to the end of the bed and reached into her duffel bag. Her hair was mussed from sleep; I wanted to be at liberty to smooth it down again. The longing overwhelmed me as I watched her. I missed having the right to touch her; would I ever have that right again?
She pulled out a small bundle and tossed it on the bed. I sat and looked at each object. The airline tickets Esme and Carlisle had bought for her birthday, the CD I’d made for her, pictures of me…all the evidence of my existence that I’d tried to hide away under her bed as if that would make any difference. As if that would really keep a part of me with her, when it was all too apparent that I’d been far, far away from her all this time.
“How did you find these?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to explain myself.
She blushed. “I fell by my bed. I saw the loose floorboard, and I thought it was strange because I knew Charlie had secured them all before I moved in, so I looked, and…well.” She gestured helplessly at the pile. “I don’t understand. You obviously didn’t want to leave me any reminder of you. Why did you hide them? What was the point?”
I could have lied. I could have told her that I’d only left them there because I knew they meant something to her, and she would have been gone from my life for good. But Bella’s eyes were full of desperation and sadness and angry tears, and I could see what she needed to hear. I could feel the lonely months battering my insides like currents in the ocean, and I knew what I needed. I needed her to know the truth; I needed her forgiveness; I needed her to look at me like she had before. No, I couldn’t close that final door. I would come clean, consequences be damned.
“I left those things because I wanted to stay. Bella, I was lying when I said I didn’t want you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
Author: jacyevans and cinnamon_kisses
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: PG-13
Summary: New Moon AU - Bella's inner Edward has convinced her not to be reckless, and she is about to give up entirely - when she finds something that changes everything.
Time had never ticked by so slowly in all my years of existence. Flying was faster than driving, but the idleness of sitting in an airplane was nearly unbearable. I wished I was behind the wheel, at least, with a task to attend to. The nerves were unbearable…I didn’t know what I would do when I saw her, how she would react to seeing me, how I would keep my emotions under control.
A young couple sat in front of me, newlyweds as far as I could tell - the woman had a sparkling diamond on her left ring finger, with a band alongside it. They had the air of young love about them, smiling, laughing, thoughts full of each other, oblivious to anything else around them. Before Forks - before Bella - I had looked upon such couples with something like skepticism. Human relationships were so fleeting. How could they compare to the bonds my family had formed? How could they ever reach the same level of commitment?
Now, though…now I would give anything to be human just to have all those experiences locked up in their short lives. I wanted only the ability to give Bella what she deserved - a real human life, marriage, children, someone to grow old with, rather than someone to watch her grow old…. More than anything, I wished I could live out my years with her, and then have the ability to die with her when those years were over. Unfortunately, I had nothing to offer her but pain.
The flight landed, and I watched the couple leave the plane hand in hand, with nothing to fear ahead of them. I, on the other hand, had to drag myself off the plane as my body grew heavy with dread.
Outside the gate, I found Esme waiting for me, and the look on her face told me I was in far more trouble than I’d ever imagined. Nevertheless, she greeted me with her usual motherly hug.
“Welcome home, Edward,” she said, smoothing down my disheveled hair. I could hear the disappointment and sadness coloring her thoughts, and I looked away in shame.
“Is she here?” I asked, unable to put it off. I had to know.
“Yes,” Esme replied, and in her head, told me what she knew I couldn’t ask. She’s not good, Edward.
I avoided Esme’s eyes, knowing they would only make me feel guiltier with their forgiveness. “Do you know why she’s come?”
“I do, but if you want to know, you’ll have to ask her.” She deserves the chance to tell you herself. You owe her some answers, Edward.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get any clues from Esme’s mind as I followed her to the car. Alice isn’t pleased with you, she told me, probably more to keep me from her thoughts than anything.
“What have I done now?” I asked softly and quickly, so that the others in the elevator to the parking garage couldn’t hear.
Nothing exactly; she learned what you told Bella before we left. Edward…why didn’t you tell us?
I sighed, the guilt weighing on me heavier than ever. “I’m not proud of myself, but it was the only way. That’s my burden to live with.”
The elevator opened to our level and I followed her out. You don’t have to live with it, Edward. You always had a choice. She was willing; I think she still is.
“That’s not an option,” I growled with more force than I’d intended. I fought to soften my tone. “I can’t do that to her, Esme. She deserves better.”
Keep an open mind, Edward, please. You must remember that not everyone has the same opinions that you do, and you could very well be wrong.
“Do you think I’m wrong about this?” I asked, sliding into the passenger seat. When I had made the decision, I hadn’t asked Carlisle or Esme for their opinions, nor had I asked since. To ask their advice was to doubt my decision, and I could not afford to question my resolution. Now, though, on my way toward a confrontation that I knew could break me, I needed her guidance.
“Edward,” she sighed, speaking out loud to distract me from her thoughts as she gathered them, “I’d never seen you so happy, so at peace with yourself as you were with Bella. And since we’ve left, I’ve never seen you so lost, not even when you left us all those years ago. Now, having seen Bella, I can’t believe that anything which separates you is right. I know how you feel about our kind, Edward…but you also know how Carlisle and I feel. There is so much goodness in you, and so much love. I wish you would trust in that to be your redemption - and Bella’s as well.”
I watched the countryside of upstate New York fly by. “How can I be redeemed if I turn the love of my life into a monster?”
“Do you think Carlisle is beyond redemption?” she countered.
“I - no, I don’t think so. But he was trying to save us,” I argued.
“And he succeeded,” Esme said with the fierceness that only came out when those she loved were concerned. “You may have wished he hadn’t changed you in your lifetime, but it was a blessing, Edward. He gave you the chance to know love, to know her. That is a gift, Edward, a precious gift, and that’s what you’re taking from Bella.”
I swallowed past a wave of shame. She did think I was wrong, which meant Carlisle probably did as well…all of the Denali clan shared their opinion. Alice was furious with me, and Jasper almost always agreed with Alice. The weight of their disapproval added up to something I wasn’t ready to face yet.
“I don’t know how I can do this…seeing her…”
Esme reached over to squeeze my shoulder. “You’re stronger than you think, Edward. You’ll manage.”
As we pulled up to the house, I prayed she was right.
The house had changed dramatically since I’d last been there, thanks to Esme’s restoring and decorating efforts. Had I had room in my mind, I would have been more impressed. As it was, I could think only of what lie inside the house - my redeeming angel and my personal demon, combined to test and tempt me in every way.
Esme let me out in front of the house and went to put the car in the garage. I steeled myself to enter. It was early evening; I would surely see Bella right away. I could handle this. If only I know exactly what I meant to do…
I forced my body up the stairs and through the front door. The quietness inside was a blessed relief. Bella’s heart didn’t beat in this room - oh, the sound was not far off. It echoed down the stairs, steady and slow with the even rhythm of sleep.
She was exhausted, Alice told me, and I realized she was glaring at me from the loveseat in the living room, with Jasper beside her. Carlisle wasn’t around; he must be at the hospital.
Alice stood and came toward me with the same look Irina had in her eyes right before she slapped me. I backed up automatically.
“You,” she said, emphasizing the word with a jab at my chest, “have a lot to answer for. Bella, she’s - I’ve never seen - she’s so - Jasper couldn’t even sense her!” she cried, throwing up her arms with the force of her anger.
“He what?” I questioned, looking to Jasper for confirmation. I’d expected Alice to say any number of things, but that wasn’t it.
“I couldn’t sense her at first,” he said. That’s never happened before. “It’s like she wasn’t there.” It’s like she was dead. “I didn’t feel anything from her until…”
“Until what?” I prompted as Jasper and Alice exchanged glances. Their minds were infuriatingly clear of any answers.
“Until the subject of you and how you left her came up, and then she broke down completely,” Alice said. I winced.
“Then it was like a flood,” Jasper said, shaking his head. “It’s like she kept her emotions so tightly bottled up that even she couldn’t feel them - until she couldn’t avoid them anymore. And when they did come out…they were…intense.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Intense how?”
Jasper sighed. “Devastated. Hopeless. Empty.”
All your fault, by the way, Alice added, by all appearances attempting to set me on fire with her eyes. She needn’t have bothered; I was inclined to set myself on fire at the moment.
“Is she…is she getting better?” I asked, full of contradicting hopes. My selfless side hoped she was healing, getting on with her life just like I’d intended, but that selfish part of me longed to hear that she ached as much as I did, that my attempts to save her were all in vain.
Jasper shook his head. “If that’s better, I don’t want to know what she was like to begin with.”
“I can’t believe you let her think you didn’t love her,” Alice hissed. “If you had to leave, couldn’t you come up with something…nicer?”
I sighed and offered my defense. “She wouldn’t let go. If she’d thought there was any chance for us, she would have held onto it…she needed to be able to move on. That…that was all I could give her.”
Alice rolled her eyes and shared a telling glance with Jasper. “What makes you think she can move on? It’s not like you’re doing a fantastic job of it.”
“Humans aren’t like us,” I argued. “They change so easily -“
“But Bella’s not like most humans, is she?” Jasper cut in softly. “When has she ever reacted like you expected, like a normal human would?”
I was considering this idea when a cry rang out from upstairs. I looked to Alice questioningly.
She’s been doing that ever since she fell asleep.
“Is she in some kind of trouble?” I asked, wondering what could be haunting her dreams to make her scream like that. And then I caught the exasperated expression on Alice’s face and I realized. Of course, I was her nightmare. I would always be the monster haunting her dreams, no matter how I tried to save her.
“Go to her,” Jasper urged, pushing me along with a little burst of serenity and courage. “You’re the only one that can do her any good.”
I knew I could not put it off much longer. She would wake soon, and I would have to face what I had done, for better or for worse. I followed Bella’s scent up the stairs, slowly, like a shy animal approaching the unknown. It occurred to me that I was truly terrified, and that Bella still held the power to hurt me in ways that no one else could. And I had no idea what I was going to do.
I found her in a spare bedroom on the second floor. I had to fight against her scent. I’d thought it was fresh in my memory, but the real thing was infinitely more powerful. My vampire instincts fell to the background as I took in her sleeping face. There were so many little changes in her face, more than I’d expected. Her face had grown fuller in those five months we’d been apart, more womanly. I wonder if she had noticed, if she still agonized over her age. Maybe she didn’t want to become a vampire anymore. The thought brought on a pang of sadness, and it shouldn’t have.
Her eyes were dark, ringed with purple circles, from too many nightmares or maybe too many nights without someone to sing her to sleep. And those little lines, the ones in her forehead that appeared when she was distressed or unhappy, seemed to be permanently etched on now. Those marks were my responsibility; I could not avoid that knowledge. But could I still make her happy, and was there any way to keep her safe?
She whimpered softly in her sleep. I reached out instinctively to touch her face, trying to soothe her back into sleep. It didn’t work like it used to. Bella jerked away instead, and her eyes collided with mine. In that moment, I hated myself, because she looked at me like a doe about to be slaughtered, vulnerable and helpless and terrified…and the worst of it was that it wasn’t the monster she feared, just the man that had broken her heart.
I pulled my hand away and waited for her to say something. Instead she got shakily out of the bed, still dressed. I feared she would leave, but she went to the end of the bed and reached into her duffel bag. Her hair was mussed from sleep; I wanted to be at liberty to smooth it down again. The longing overwhelmed me as I watched her. I missed having the right to touch her; would I ever have that right again?
She pulled out a small bundle and tossed it on the bed. I sat and looked at each object. The airline tickets Esme and Carlisle had bought for her birthday, the CD I’d made for her, pictures of me…all the evidence of my existence that I’d tried to hide away under her bed as if that would make any difference. As if that would really keep a part of me with her, when it was all too apparent that I’d been far, far away from her all this time.
“How did you find these?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to explain myself.
She blushed. “I fell by my bed. I saw the loose floorboard, and I thought it was strange because I knew Charlie had secured them all before I moved in, so I looked, and…well.” She gestured helplessly at the pile. “I don’t understand. You obviously didn’t want to leave me any reminder of you. Why did you hide them? What was the point?”
I could have lied. I could have told her that I’d only left them there because I knew they meant something to her, and she would have been gone from my life for good. But Bella’s eyes were full of desperation and sadness and angry tears, and I could see what she needed to hear. I could feel the lonely months battering my insides like currents in the ocean, and I knew what I needed. I needed her to know the truth; I needed her forgiveness; I needed her to look at me like she had before. No, I couldn’t close that final door. I would come clean, consequences be damned.
“I left those things because I wanted to stay. Bella, I was lying when I said I didn’t want you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”