Three Nights Later, Part Two

[themidnightson]

Edward's rather obvious tonight. He didn't start that way.

This was more of a family favor that just....happened.




Kate's been gone about an hour now, but Edward is still at the piano.
The piece is pianissimo, at the deeper end of the scale, wandering slowly.

Comments

[noteful]

It's more of a response than she got last time.

Meg raises her right hand in a very small wave, and takes exactly one further step toward the piano.

Edward?

[themidnightson]

He nodded, while looking back to his hands.


It, and his posture, are a little too rigid.
But the nodding definitely did happen.

[noteful]

Okay . . . now what?

Meg crosses the space to the piano.

Her eyes are on his hands, too, for the moment.

"How are you?"

She looks from his hands to his face, trying to see what color his eyes are.

[themidnightson]

There's a quirk at the edge of his mouth. Or maybe it's not really enough to be a quirk. The faintest trace of a tension that might be a quirk when he finally comes back to being used to being himself again.

It has to happen right? It did the last time?

Even if that time was entirely different.



He hadn't all but killed himself then.




Edward turned his head, looking at her straight on, uncanny stillness that has not reverted to being entirely a ruse of the subtle movements of mimicking humanity. His eyes are still mostly black, but there are shots of gold in them.

Not enough to please his family yet, but it's a slight give.
And the slight is still more than he wants to be away from Bella.
That he's made over an hour in the bar without return is a miracle.


"I've been better. I'm rather sure you're already aware."

[noteful]

She doesn't really know what the gold means. Dr. Cullen didn't tell her more than that the black meant not well.

But she nods.

"I'd certainly say I've seen you better than you seemed the last couple times I saw you.

"But I'm hoping I've also seen you worse than I'm seeing you now."

The fact that he actually acknowledged her, spoke to her . . . well, that's encouraging."

[themidnightson]

How is it she always manages to be there when he comes in these ways?
This time? And the whole fiasco with Volterra? And the telepathy thing?





"It was sensible for him to warn you, even if I wouldn't have hurt you." The playing stopped as he tapped four keys, like he was tapping his fingers on a table. A trill of four cascading notes, three times a little too fast. "Or anyone else. Anywhere."

Even when the need bowled him over, it never would have happened.
He knew he'd never be that person again. He'd never even wavered.

[noteful]

"I was a little more worried about you than I was about me."

And then something catches in her ever-analyzing mind.

"'Wouldn't have'?"

Not 'wouldn't,' not 'won't'?

"Wouldn't have" means that something has changed. It's used for events that could have taken place in the past.

Not in the present.

[themidnightson]

"His theory was based on my lack of--"

Edward chose to pause, trying to choose a wise term.
There are several words that come to his mind.

Some are Rose's. Some even Carlisle's now.



"--any kind of diet at the time."

[noteful]

It takes Meg a second to work that out.

"You weren't eating?

"But Dr. Cullen said he hadn't seen you. How would he have known . . .?"

[themidnightson]

Edward's mouth closed. Lips pressed barely together.
Before he raised the hand to touch the side of his eye.

The same as he had once upon a time when talking to her about other things that were easier to point to by brushing his temple to evocative to something unseen in him.

"Our eyes change colors based our diet." The last word is hazarded. But he'd chosen it already. "My family's are gold, based on what we eat. They turn black when we've gone too long without eating. And the rest of our kind have red eyes, because --"

And there's a wave of his first two fingers.

He's well aware she's smart enough to intuit this one.

[noteful]

Yeah, she can fill in that particular blank.

But it's hardly the point.

"So he knew because I told him."

Without knowing that she told him.

That Edward had . . . what? Some kind of . . . vampire anorexia? Or was on a hunger strike?

"Does the gold in your eyes now mean that you've been eating again?"

[themidnightson]

He knew that he'd played her for information. Even in her memory he'd asked for specifics, without filling her in on what they meant, what his reactions from her words were for.

"Some." He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly, before dropping his hand back down to his lap instead of the keys. "Not enough to please anyone entirely."

But his tone doesn't make it sound like he's trying to.



A serious hunt would involve leaving Forks.
And he's not positive he can manage that yet.

[noteful]

"Some is better than none," Meg says.

"Where are you now? I mean, where did you come here from?"

[themidnightson]

"Home." Is quickly, very quietly, followed by. "It's all over now."

Maybe even he's surprised he added the last four words.


Even as much as he knows it's completely a lie, too. This is only the beginning of everything it would take, to ever be all over. Another stumbling, bumbling mishap of mistakes, all at his feet. Jacob and the Volturi and Carlisle.



But he had Bella, and he was in Forks.

[noteful]

Frankly, Edward, the last time you used that particular phrase, it didn't exactly sound like a good thing.

"What's all over?"

[themidnightson]

"We're all back in Forks."


He's starting to wonder how clear she's going to want this.
He still owes this conversation to at least one other person.

[noteful]

"You went back."

To Forks.

And to his family.

That's good.

So things are getting better?

[themidnightson]

Bella is (alive) sleeping, one Doorway away.


He's not sure Carlisle will even look at him.
When it's not about Bella, or someone else.


His sister promised that the girl who saved him, who he's now proposed to, unanswered, is going to be one of them. And his family is riding on the edge of a disaster crater that barely seems touchable, no less fixable.

[noteful]

It's just inevitable, isn't it?

In a conversation with Edward Cullen, there comes at least one moment when Meg

just

waits.

[themidnightson]

Edward shrugged very barely.
A disconnected movement. "I'm home."


It's really not an answer, is it?

[noteful]

Not really, no.

"And how would you say things are there?"

[themidnightson]

There's a caustic snort.

The piano notes stop entirely.




"A mess."

[noteful]

"The kind of mess you can clean up, do you think?"

[themidnightson]

Carlisle. The Volturi. Jacob.



It wasn't even a question with Esme. It wasn't scott-free forgiveness, but it wasn't even a question. The same with Emmett, except minus the second part, and additional ribbing about learning 'to just let things go.'

Alice was willing to be angry and hurt, to deal while demanding he never even make her see one vision of him contemplating that kind of stupidity again. And Rose.....he still wasn't speaking more than two or three word sentences to her.



But Carlisle -- You've chosen not to live without her, and that doesn't leave me a choice. -- and the Volturi -- Aro's plans. Alice's promise -- and that shapeshifting boy.



"I don't know."

[noteful]

"I see."

She studies him for a moment.

"May I asked what's happened, or what's happening?"