Eternity, Edward/Bella, 'AU'
Title: Eternity
Summary: Eternity had never seemed so empty.
Characters: Edward, Bella
Pairing: Edward/Bella, Bella/OC
Rating: K+
Not once had he expected that his decisions would mean nothing, in the grander scheme of things. His future, oblique and obscure, had eluded Alice since she had joined them. Images, incoherent and irrational, flowed through her mind at random intervals of their almost nomadic lives. His future, ever changing, translucent, fluctuating... It had never been solid, not the way Alice’s had been with Jasper. Not the way any of the others’ was.
Esme felt guilty, though why, Edward couldn’t guess. He’d tried to block out her thoughts over the decades; had Carlisle changed him too soon? Would he ever find her? Did he even want to?
He didn’t know who he was searching for and even he wasn’t sure he wanted to find her.
When he had, there had been a moment of absolute bliss where the half images in Alice’s head had formed coherently into linear time and he’d been able to glimpse his future for the first time as something tangible and meaningful.
Then it had all torn apart when he really looked at her. She was older than he, around thirty and she had her arms around a young toddler while she pushed another in a pram. A man, tall and lean, wandered behind her down the aisle pushing a cart calling out to her, asking for advice on which brand of cereal Grace would prefer.
He’d gasped for an unnecessary breath and when the cart the man behind her collided with him, he forgot to flinch as the metal buckled against his thigh.
“Hey kid, sorry,” the man said and Edward took a step away from the cart, lowering his eyes to the floor. He heard a sound from the woman and turned towards her, watching as her eyes widened as she stared at him. He waited for the usual influx of thoughts from her but there was nothing. He frowned and met her eyes, regretting it instantly. “You okay, kid?”
Edward nodded once, curtly, glancing to the child in the woman’s arms before pivoting on his heel and fleeing the store.
He’d finally found her.
He ran, too fast, until he was in the woods around the city. He didn’t stop until his feet started to crunch into the snow underfoot. He looked up to the sky, watching the swirling colours of Aurora Borealis overhead and realised he was in Alaska. Again.
He dropped to his knees, cradling his head in his hands, feeling the space in his chest where his heart was supposed to be ache with an unrecognisable force. He shuddered, feeling body shiver and sway. He pulled at his hair, punched the ground but none of it changed anything.
He’d found her. And it was too late. This wasn’t the oblique future Alice had seen all those years ago now. The woman he was to find was younger, his age and would spend eternity with him. And he’d seen that future in her eyes for the briefest of moments before reality had crashed down around him.
She wasn’t seventeen and she wasn’t awkward and adorable.
She was thirty and confident and had a family.
His cell phone rang in his pocket and when he checked it a few minutes later, he had thirty missed calls from Alice. All apologies, all hysterical. He crushed the phone in his hands and sprinkled the pieces across the frozen tundra.
They were supposed to move to forks twelve years before but Alice’s visions of Edward tearing a girl apart had stopped them. Only now did Edward realise that girl had been the one they’d been searching for this whole time.
And they’d found her.
Twelve years too late.
He wanted to find Alice and he wanted to rip her body to shreds. The pain was unbearable; the thought of eternity without the life he’d thought was promised to him. He let out a loud wail, the sound echoing off the stillness of the air and he dropped his body to the soft snow beneath. He wanted to go back. He wanted to erase the last twelve years of his existence and make Carlisle take that chance to move to Forks. He should have trusted himself more. Carlisle should have trusted him more. Alice should never have been bestowed her gift.
Bella should be his.
It was with an agonising wail and fleeting thoughts of the Volturi that he realised she never would be. Never could be.
Forever had never seemed so empty.