March 22, 2005 (continued) -- Between Volterra & Forks

[themidnightson]

It hasn't been more than eight hours since he nearly walked in the sun and ended his life.

It hasn't been more than eight hours and the whole of his world has been rewritten again.



Even in the new clothes Alice bought him, leaving Italy for Forks, for their family, there is so much and so little actually taking place inside his head. As though the whole of his waking universe was fixated permanently and undeniably on the small, fragile girl curled up in his lap, willfully drinking caffeine to keep herself awake, staring at him, saying absolutely nothing. He'd nearly killed himself, and some far too large part of him, was, this moment here, willing still.

But these thoughts paused, hallowed and holy for her hands, when she was reaching up now and then to trace his face with her warm fingertips. Her brown eyes didn't always stay on him and he could remember, how beautiful they were, how silent, how frustrating it was not to know what she thought.

No, he knew what she thought. Especially when she wouldn't say anything.
They'd drug her into all of this again. Alice had. Rose had. He had.

He was beyond any ability to stop himself from touching her.
Her cheeks, her hands, her hair, to holding her close.
Even her scent, overpowering, couldn't touch him.


It would all end sooner or later in Forks.
The world was not different.
Even if he was alive.
If she was.


The only person truly bearing any scope of happiness at all in their party was Alice, to his side. She would be reunited with Jasper, with their family, after too many uncertainties, the phone call where she hadn't been able to promise Jasper she could return to him when she'd left for Italy. She would return to Jasper and forget that she almost thought she never would.

But Edward -- glancing only barely toward his sister, without losing sight of Bella -- wouldn't.

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[betagainstme]

Alice for her part, as happy as she was to be going home, to her family, to her husband, she did not look back at Edward.

There was an icy chill between them, as if all of the anger she'd felt and put aside for saving him had come back in one fell swoop.

And it had. He had put himself in danger, she had almost lost him. If it weren't for Bella (and she will not apologize for dragging the fragile human with her) then she'd be alone in this freakish world of hers in a way that only Edward would have been able to fill.

So yes. She's angry, to say the least.

[themidnightson]

After arriving, after stopping him, after promising The Volturi what she had. Tracing a finger over the curve of Bella's wrist on his armrest, he knows there's more. There's always more. And when they get there, even more.

He's going home. Is it home? Home was never a place before. Forks. The place his, never more than silent, heart has had spasmodic dreams about for six months. And they'll all be there, flown down from Denali because he'll be there, too.





And they'll expect more than silence, too.

[betagainstme]

"If they end up taking me, Jasper's going to kill you and I will let him." Alice says, her voice barely a whisper. She's staring at the closed window, her hands tight on her armrest.



i may never forgive you for leaving us. me.

[themidnightson]

He doesn't even cringe. There's a slim movement, his eye lashes almost crossing. He's been so used to silence. All of those months. Even in Volterra, unless they wanted to get a rise out of him it was silence. But the invasive press even of the known--


It's heavy, icy, exhausting more than painful. Her pain.
The hazy memories of Aro wanting of them at his back.
A matching set, Carlisle's children, in red by him.


He shifted Bella, pulling her in closer at the same time as he moved her, she fought it but only until her head ended up against his shoulder and he gave over one hand into hers. Her brown hair brushing the bottom of his chin, as he watched her finger move over his, and he spoke, far too blankly and quietly for her to hear, "You wouldn't have come then."

If it was true. More fact than debate, or even reaction.

[betagainstme]

If Alice could cry, she'd be doing it right now. Her shoulders shake in that way that Edward knows by now and her fingers curl into her hair to tug as if she were a child not getting her way.

you are such an insensitive bastard, edward.


"You could have prevented all of this. You tore us apart. Carlisle and I had a huge fight. He--"

may never forgive me is thought, loudly, and painfully. She said things she shouldn't have. She went too far. But Edward drove them to that point.

[themidnightson]

He knows her. If he was blind he would know her. The tiniest signs from before they were close even are burned forever into his mind. Along with the flickers of images. Their raised voices. Carlisle's face.

Edward flinched so very slightly it would be missable even to their kind. The tremble of eye lashes. The smallest finite crease at the edge of his mouth on the far side. About him, about his choices, about his right to choose. His fault, undeniably.



He took a breath in. The scent of Bella's blood clouding up his thoughts. Want and yet so blackly against even the faintest hint of her hurt. He'd thought she was dead. His eyes closed, breathing out and then in and then out again. Before.

"It's not in him."

"To not forgive you, to not understand why."

Edward couldn't even begin to fathom what it would be to stand before Carlisle. In the airport, likely still unwilling to let go of holding Bella, and....even just to look at Carlisle. If he might not forgive anyone, it would be Edward.

No matter that he'd tried.

No matter that Carlisle had been the last one.
And he'd deserve that, too. For so many reasons.

[betagainstme]

She wanted to hate Edward so badly, but it was impossible. As much as Carlisle would always forgive his children, they would always forgive each other.




Alice leaned her head against the wall of the airplane, letting the vibrations reverberate into her. In a normal whisper, she murmured, "I'm glad you're alive."

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't sigh. He breathed in the scent of Bella's hair, strawberries mixed indelibly with the scent of her blood, thinking about his sister's words. He wasn't yet. Glad he was alive.

(Except for the detail of girl in his arms.)

Yet that didn't make him any less aware, the only reason -- he was alive, or holding Bella in his arms -- was Alice. But she'd also decided to interfere. She, too, had given Aro their secrets, and she'd promised The Three that Bella would be one of them.


"We'll be landing in Atlanta soon," was said at a normal tone.

Perhaps, to both of them, because it could be, really.

[betagainstme]

She knew him like the back of her hand sometimes. And could tell what he was thinking without his gift.

All of this would have been avoided if he'd stayed with her. Either of the hers in this situation.

She idly gave him a rude hand gesture for good measure. "Don't lose Bella in the hustle and bustle, please. I'd hate for all of this to be pointless."

[themidnightson]

His hand, cupped around Bella's shoulder, stirred. Released, and straightened, moving the better part of three-four centimeters in the direction of Alice.

Some movement. Some tact. Maybe to shove her or flick her hair.

Something that lost cohesion before moving any further. In the pang of having to let go of Bella and not being able to. And still having felt the urge for something else. Something that had been Alice's, even if it was more than three-fourth's buried.



Bella was looking up at him, no words even for his, those brown eyes fixated, and his tone dropped to Alice's hearing only. A bare note. Not blank, simply bare. Barren, empty like a cavern. "You don't know that it isn't, Alice."

There was still no telling if Bella wanted anything from him now. She shouldn't.

[betagainstme]

"I think I know the future better than you, Edward."

[themidnightson]

Edward conceded that one without a fight of words. Which didn't mean his mind was quiet at all, but it was rather stupid to try and refute that statement.

And the epic level of his proportion to that would fill another century.
If he mananged to live through this one. Which he didn't say either.
Didn't want to consider while Bella was still this close.

He leaned his head back, looking upward, at nothing.

[betagainstme]

"We'll be okay again, you and I. You and everyone. It'll work out."

It's not now. But she doesn't want now. She wants to still be annoyed. She's more worried about Carlisle (oh God the things she said to him).

[themidnightson]

It's an irritation. And a completely opposite urge. His fingers shifted against Bella's shoulder. But he's been touching her often enough, she really doesn't notice as much. But he turned his head, looking down at his sister.

His jaw bone touching the head rest, as his completely black eyes settled on her face. On seeing her. Not just hearing her inside and out, not feeling what she was feeling. Her. Here.







He didn't deserve her words. Any of them.

[betagainstme]

She doesn't look back at him for a long, long moment. Then, she glances up at him, her gold eyes softening.

Her hand reaches over for his free one and she squeezes.

[themidnightson]

It's almost impossible to fight through the mire of his thoughts, the endless want driven by the blood all around him and the months of hunger, and the weight of everything else. But he tried, even unwilling to release Bella when trying to stop holding himself for it.

But he stared at her. Her golden eyes, the depth of the anger and sadness there. She'd kidnapped Bella. Manipulated the Volturi. Turned on Carlisle. Left Jasper without knowing she'd be alive to return.





For him.



And his mostly bland features shivered at her touch. A flicker of his eyelashes, before they closed as though the hover on a point of breaking. His fingers closed around hers, in his, shivering with the tremendous strength he could not even try to display toward Bella.

[betagainstme]

Her fingers tightened around his and when Bella's looked away, Alice leaned forward and pressed her lips against Edward's cheek, forgiving the awkward angle.

She loved him. So much. He was worth all she did. Her very best friend.

[themidnightson]

He doesn't sigh, but there is a movement. His chest, and part of his shoulders, rose and fell. Subtle. Missable by the human eye. Still cradling the small human girl to his chest, as though she were the most fragile china, he tilted his head.

It was an awkward angle, too. Not near enough to be resting on her chair, and yet off of his. A gravitation he didn't notice himself.

He was quiet for a long time even here. Maybe only half realizing he's been quiet for an endless string of minutes with her now. Before, he looked somewhere in the space between Bella's head and Alice's shoulder.

"The future -- you're --"

Is disjointed. Never makes a full sentence, still sounding like a vacant question the whole time. And there is a sigh, and he shook his head. He has no right to ask her. And she's been wrong before. He can't feel himself and he already cares more about them.