March 22th, 2005

[themidnightson]

[OOM: Two days after this & this. The same day as this, just a little while after this.
Slotting in a few days before this, as well. Because Alice is magical.]



Going home is hard.

On the one hand, it is hard to leave Bella, sleeping in her bed, fretting with sudden, deeply asleep, plaintive panic, each time he so much as took his hand away. On the other, when he couldn't allow himself the excuse any longer, the tearing reminder, turning toward home is just as hard, too.

Edward slipped into the house quietly through the window to his room. The timer in his head a metronome against granite, ticking every irritable, ragged second she's out of his sight. He already knew where everyone was miles ago, and he can tell the moment their attentions shift toward his direction at the sound of the friction on the wall. The click of the window. The sound of steps in his room.

But still, he needs a new set of clothes to return to school tomorrow.

Comments

[betagainstme]

"It will get better. If he'd just...do it. I've already seen the ending...the choice is already made, eventually. If only he'd...trust me." The last is a rush, panicked and upset. Edward is her other half, a part of her heart, in a way that no one else can touch. And he doesn't trust her visions about Bella.

It would be so much easier if he would.

"Then it'd not be so...hard, upsetting. Mind-splitting-headache-giving. I could trust my ability to protect us again."

And then a sudden realization that she's not trusting Edward to do the right thing either. Sudden, deep sorrow, an undercurrent of anger, and annoyance at herself, clawing, gripping deep.

And the horror of hearing Edward's footsteps in the house. Knowing he heard things, and not the full extent of them. Not what lead her here--even if it was meandering and random and stupid.

After Carlisle releases her from his grasp, his fingers squeezing hers tight before she slips off his lap and out of his office.

She hesitates, walking down the hall towards Edward's room. Unsure of what to be said, what to be done. How to approach.

[themidnightson]

Edward doesn't need to hear her steps to know Alice is coming. Her thoughts slide, grave and guilty both, a riot of circling, chaotic emotions, sinuous through his thoughts, no louder for so little added extra proximity. Not that he's ever needed.

He pauses his thrift through softly clacking hangers, when she stops outside the room. The words in her head, that repeat newly said, unmissable. Like the ones she told Aro, all desperate confidence, about how the future is already in stone. Or the abject terror, when Bella tried to take her at her word, and even Alice had to admit she didn't know now how not to kill her.

There are other words that surface there, but he tries to gloss them. Briefly.

Forces himself to restart looking through the shirts hanging here, some of them new enough he doesn't even recognize them. To find something weather appropriate, that somehow encapsulated attending the second day of returning to the school where everyone stared at him in the blinding images of Bella's state for the last months.

At least it was a Friday. At least it was only one more day.

For whatever that meant. For this week.

[betagainstme]

She wants to apologize.

And she wants to yell. She doesn't want to want to apologize. It's all jumbled up in her head--she doesn't want to turn Bella, but if Edward doesn't do it, it'll be up to someone else.

The Volturi won't wait forever. They won't be lied to--even if the Cullens were to try, they'd be found out, they'd be punished. And Alice knows that Edward knows that cannot happen. She will not lose her family, even for Bella.

Not when it could all be fixed so easily. Perhaps that's the most frustrating--Edward believing he's condemning Bella to eternal damnation if he gives in. Is that what he truly thinks of Alice? Carlisle? Esme? That they are damned beyond hope?

Her fingers rest on Edward's door. She feels upside down without him to fit into his perfect-puzzle-piece place at her side, in her mind, in her heart. But still, she doesn't say the apology. Instead, she sighs, then taps his door once, with barely a fingertip.

[themidnightson]

They've already decided. Already voted. His opinion is moot.
But then his opinion has been moot for months now.
Standing here, listening, doesn't change that.

Though, standing here is what Carlisle claims is his justification.
Carlisle. Who has already sworn he'll do it after graduation.

And Bella. Bella, who--

Alice's finger tapped that millisecond, far too perfectly timed.
Soft as the sigh before it, and both as unmissable.



"It's not locked."

[betagainstme]

"Hey," She murmurs, opening the door and crossing the threshold into his room. Taking in the casual disarray as he searches through his clothes, the books half-read and sheets of music set in various places, Alice crosses the room slowly until she reaches his window.

"How is she?"

It's pitch black outside, but she still can see things--night bugs, a raccoon scurrying across the forest floor in the backyard. No sign of Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper, still hunting. Enjoying themselves.

At least someone was.

[themidnightson]

Edward pulled out a white button-up. A beige sweater. Black pants.

"Sleeping." But not well. He almost says the three words.

He would have. Less than six months ago, he would have said them. Even though she already knows them, already saw how Bella handled sleeping at all on the plane yesterday, even curled up in his arms. He would have said them anyway because as much as could be said would have been.

It's not even her, or it's not even just her, he's not sure which way that thought goes. He'd gone for so long without speaking to anyone. Only barely finding the use of words when he'd gone to ask for his own death. He makes the effort. Because he knows he should. "It took a while."

They did. They both did. He wasn't sure he knew how to let go now.
His life, and his death, hinged on a singular point of existence.


He's not entirely certain of hers again,
even when he can't question it either.


(Okay. What's the punchline?)

[betagainstme]

Nodding, Alice hums her acknowledgement, not sure of what words to use. She's afraid she'll start yelling, hissing at him, the emotions of the last few days raw and tender and fragile.

In her mind though, her thoughts are blank. Emotion is Jasper's domain--Edward can read the turmoil within her, but that turmoil has brought a sort of numbness to her mind.

Her fingers ghost over the glass, and she huffs a breath of air against it, leaving no fog, the air she draws into her lungs never warming. Stormcrow wafts through her mind and she closes her eyes for a moment.

"She'll rest easier soon," Alice still doesn't look at Edward. She doesn't even know what she's doing here. Another stupid decision, it feels like. "I won't keep you from going back to her."

[themidnightson]

It would be easier if this were almost anyone else.

Emmett doesn't care much now that he's staying, even if he did vote yes, with the same simplicity that avoided conflict and chaos for a very black or white point of view. Rosalie sided with him, but her every look at him is still soaked in the awkward guilt of thinking she is the reason he nearly died.

Esme has already forgiven him, just like last time. She doesn't have it in her not to, either. And she didn't need past seeing him again for it to be there. Carlisle he'd already talked to. Jasper's understanding and judgment, and the fact Edward didn't want his emotions calmed in the slightest. Doesn't want out of the hell he's built.

But he's detailing the wrong things. Because Alice is already here.
Because his life has never handed him the easier hand.

Because she's already decided, too.
She already chose over him, too.

Saved him. In Italy.
Damned him. Here.

Both. Misses him. Is pissed at him. He gets both. He feels both; in both of them; at her. It's an unending circle, but he says what he both doesn't believe, and doesn't know how not to say, how not to give her what he's always given her, what comes just as easy, as normal as wanting to run back to Bella, "I have some time."

[betagainstme]

She snorts, a soft exhale, more air that she doesn't need. Finally, she turns to look at him, take him in.

He looks tired, inasmuch as they can. Drained, deep bone exhaustion from the last whirlwind of days. The hunch of his shoulders brings back a clear memory of her bursting through the door in Volterra, removing her headscarf to interrupt the Volturi's attempt to bring them in.

Which didn't work. She knew it wouldn't. It would never work against them. Unbidden, Aro's hand on hers, his gleeful look at Alice as he takes in the truth of her foresight, the whisper of unparalleled power for him and the others if they were to just...take her. Pluck her away from the family.

What would she do, when they come for her? She has no concrete vision of it happening, but she also has no illusions about it--they will come for her, one day.

The decision she's made, plays between her and Edward, a feedback of her sight and his reading--she will go with them, if it keeps the others safe. It it keeps Bella safe. Edward, safe.

"I can talk to Charlie," she offers, instead. Her fingers find their way into the short crop of her hair, tugging the strands so idly, she doesn't even realize she's doing it. Her voice sounds hollow in her ears. "He likes me, a lot. I could tell him you..."

What? Never meant for this to happen? Didn't know Bella would be so absolutely rendered in two by his leaving? Had nothing to do with Alice absconding with her to Italy? Alice would have gone regardless. Bella never would have let her. Edward had no idea they were coming.

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't look away from her gaze, even if there was some effort to it. Less than with Carlisle and Esme. His eyes still dark, mostly black, but the golden was finally beginning to thread through it. The effects of Carlisle taking him hunting. The ravenous chaos of giving in.

But it was still so little in comparison to the length of lack.

The exhaustion is there, a tumultuous churning that had nothing to do with his skin. With those months. With the days in Italy. With Bella's choice to come here. With Bella's words only the minutes of the run here away. Forever. Or not.

"That won't happen." Edward said, pulling the clothes off the hangers and folding them into a pile on his bed. His tone more serious than any of the words of hers. A completely different topic. He had none of the energy to wait for her to pick at the knots of her actual concern, deciding if she would touch her anger, and even worse, her anguish under it.

Those were his fault, not hers, and he'd hidden for months-long enough.

Aro had known everything, before he been touched her hand. From the moment he'd touched Eward. From the moment he'd seen, and known, every thought, every experience Edward had ever had, including every second of the world that had only ever been theirs, defying even their words to try and explain what it was, or why they needed it, or how no one else could fill this space for them.

And he'd surrendered it all. Willingly. A cross to lay down toward death.

[betagainstme]

Her arms cross on their own accord. They have to, because she doesn't feel the conscious effort to do so, nor does she realize the angry snarl that passes her lips until after it's done.

"Which part? There's eighty thoughts running in my mind, which are you possibly touching upon? Charlie? The idea that I might still walk across the room and punch you in the face? Aro?"

Alice bites down on her bottom lip before shaking her head vehemently. "No, you don't get to make that choice. You would do the same. We know they'll come. Carlisle knows it. I know it. You know it. Unlike some, I know when a future is set. And if they decide to do anything...anything to this family--I will do my part to stop them."

Carlisle's words, from earlier, float through her head. I trust Edward with my life. At some point, far in the future, I will trust him with his own. Until then, I will protect him as best I can.

Out loud, her voice trembles as she glares past him, "You're an idiot."

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't tense. Or even look surprised, though his glance moved back in the direction of her. He wasn't. Surprised. At the issuance of sound, of the words that hurled across the air, higher and faster. Or even the way those listening reacted. Protectiveness, uncertainty, anguish, curiosity, agreement.

There's an emptiness that isn't empty in the way he made himself meet her eyes. It wasn't the same as Carlisle. There wasn't a horrified, consuming guilt and betrayal against accusations Edward could not own alone there. No matter how they were worried. Or how many different ways he saw it in everyone's mind.

Not for a second time.


She deserved her anger.

It was different with her. It always had been.
Especially when everything under it came down to fear.

[betagainstme]

"Did you think?" A low whisper, almost a hiss, her eyebrows drawn together, tight. Emotions warring in her, over her face--she doesn't know if it's anger or fear anymore. They both grip her so tightly, she can't surface from the roiling ocean they've created.

Drawing in a ragged breath, her throat burns as the emotions finally escape her. "Did you think about us? When you decided to kill yourself? Did you think about Carlisle? About me? You think I don't get it, that life without Bella would be torture. And I know it would; I wandered the world looking for a man I'd never met but loved already, terrified that something would slip through my fingers and end it before I had the chance to save him.

"And I know that's not the same and I know if Jasper died I'd...I'd be in your shoes. But I hope that I would think of Dad, think of you, before I did anything so fucking stupid."

Clenching her fists, Alice brings them up to her lips, grinding her teeth together before whirling back towards the window. "You can be mad at me, for taking Bella to Italy. That's fine. I'm livid at myself for it. But you were the one who made me do it. You were the one."

[themidnightson]

Anger is easier than fear, and hate is too far from her grasp; he has enough of it for both of them. Every question she throws is one she's already thought, finally put into sound only for her, but already well into acknowledged for him. Since the plane ride, and the first two days home now.

They aren't new, they just want existent acknowledgment now. She does.

"I know." It's simple. Quiet. It'd be inaudible to any other than their kind.

"You did what you felt you had to." She did all she felt she had left in her desperation, to stop his. She used Bella. Because Bella was the only one who could get close. Because Bella -- Bella, alive, breathing, heart beating, in his arms, even as Volterra closed in around him, around what he'd almost done -- was the only thing that could snap him out.

He hates that she's on Aro's radar now, too. Not a forgotten, abandoned child. But the one he defended. The one he's sworn somehow to change. The one his family has decided to change, with him or without him. The one who wants that, but -- Edward's mouth presses. Stopping that thought.

"I am grateful. Too. Even if--" his tone holds so little of it.

So little of anything at all. It's still true. He's glad he didn't go through with it. He still doesn't know what to do with those four words even Bella reminded him he said when he thought he was dead. Bella isn't dead. He isn't dead. His family is here.

"If it wasn't for you." He'd be dead, and he'd never know Bella wasn't.
Anything was survivable so long as that truth held firm. She wasn't dead.

[betagainstme]

If Alice were human, the strength at which she chews on the inside of her lip would shred through the tissue. As it is, she barely feels it.

Sometimes, she wishes she could feel it.

She could feel it when the Volturi held her by the throat, his fingers so tight it made her neck creak. But she didn't think much of it then, desperately flipping through the future like a magazine, trying to get to a point where Edward wasn't dead anyway.

"Yeah," she whispers flatly, glancing over her shoulder at him again, deep sadness filling her bones as the anger seems to ebb away now that the words are out. She feels foolish, again, even though she knows she has reason to be angry. "If it weren't for me, Bella wouldn't know. What the future holds. You could keep on pretending you aren't going to change her, and she'd not have any leverage over you. If it weren't for me, seeing you, fifty years ago, then the birthday party wouldn't have even happened."

It's petulant, her picking and choosing of things that were because of her.

If it weren't for her, Edward wouldn't ever have found Bella in the first place, most likely. Alice's presence changed everything about the Cullens and their futures, from the moment she stepped up on their doorstep in 1950 and took over Edward's room.

"I doubt you'll listen," she murmurs, her tone flippant. "But if they do come for me, I hope you'll get everyone out safely. Jasper, in particular. And Carlisle. They won't want to, but....I won't let them take anyone else. And you'll go too, with the family. They cannot get their hands on both of us."

Contingency plans. She must plan for the future. She can't not.

[themidnightson]

Edward's eye's almost closed. She goes on, but a mark hits. Solidly. Even if her fast, flippant, flat words keep going on, never realizing it at all. That's the best of worst of it, or the worst of her best work. The unintended anguish that is even better than the punch she threatened but hadn't even considered into landing.

He shook his head, not giving a care about the hypocrisy of it, even as it started.

"You're right." Edward leaves the clothes and walks toward her. He was always going to. There's no way where this continues, or ends, with them both still across his room. "I'd never listen." Like she didn't listen. Like she broke her promise. "Because they're not going to take you."

They might come here. When did Forks stop being the most boring place on earth?

"They might come here. Or find us somewhere else." Somewhen later.
Even if the thought of away makes his empty chest freeze up.

"But I'll never leave you to them." Aro might have scared her to the center of her bones, being in her head, his darkness striated in her futures, but Edward still remembers every bit of his own being in Aro's head. It was worse than he'd ever constructed from Carlisle's memories. Edward would never allow him to take any of his family.

Certainly not Alice.

[betagainstme]

Frustration leaves her in a huff, angry and scared all at once. "No," she hisses, crossing the room to grab his arm, not caring if he shies away from her. She will hold on. "No, Edward. Carlisle will not lose two of us. More, if you don't take Jasper away."

It's weird, planning for her own doom. Something she's never done before. Fear bubbles up inside of her, panic in her eyes and the grip of her fingers on his forearm. She breathes through her nose, shaky.

"Your first loyalty is supposed to be to the family," Alice whispers, her voice breaking. "Their safety. Bella's. Contrary to people's belief, I can take of myself."

I have to. You can't do this. You can't let them take you, too.

[themidnightson]

Edward doesn't pull away from her. Her voice is a whistling, whispering hiss. A tea kettle couldn't sound this angry. Nor a bomb. Esme's concern is ramping, but Edward's isn't. Not about this part. About the rest of it. Certainly. About the pain, the cracks, in Alice's thoughts, and his blame for their existence.

Oh, what a tangled web, and all that nonsense.

He laid his hand over the back of hers on her arm. Not in the slightest lifting her hand, or making her release the pressure she was exerting with her grip. His thumb brushed the side of her hand once, and then he lifted his fingers, and there's was tell-tale hesitation, a millisecond only, at the side of her face, as everything shifted--

His words were aren't a whisper, but they are bare and quiet, "You can't berate me, while trying to wear my shoes." As those fingers finally touch the side of her face, apologetic as was too deeply, too darkly understanding. They were always too alike when it truly came down to it.

"Be better than me, Alice. It's not even two days."

[betagainstme]

Her lip trembles, for tears that won't come, her jaw tightening at the vision, leaning into the hand that has yet to appear at her face.

Then, when it does, she breaks.

She can't cry, not physically, but her shoulders shake, her breaths gasp for air, her eyes squeeze closed, like she can. Her fingers fist into his shirt, tugging him closer, resting her forehead against the soft, well-woven fabric of a button-down she bought for him.

Edward; his name in anguish, fear, anger, love. Terror and hope all wrapping into one helpless noise barely heard aloud. "I'm--"

sorryscaredupsethurt--

She drags in a shuddering breath. "I'll try."

[themidnightson]

She breaks into him, anger and fear giving way to the hurt and need even deeper than that, gasping air and shaking shoulders, and Edward lets his hand move to the back of her shoulders. More than he's touched anyone, save Bella. More than he could allow with Carlisle's hand dropped on to his and, then, his head on Carlisle's shoulder the night before.

But Alice has always been an exception. Thirty years, the exception.

It takes a long second, but she doesn't notice. Her fingers and hands fisting in his shirt, while she's shuddering against him, plastered into him, like he's the last rock to keep her standing. He let his arm curl her shoulders, as he gave a faint shake of his head. As her words broke, her thoughts became a running river of his name, and he hears her words again, a little more latitude, a little more air.

Two days isn't enough, but it's still more space, more sanity.

"I did miss you." He may not have been strong enough, and he may not agree with what they've decided, or what Bella's answer to his condition, but that was never not true, and it was never something she had to worry about either. He closed his eyes, letting his fingers move just barely against her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

[betagainstme]

Her hands move from his shirt to wrap around him, pressing flat against his back as she hugs him. He's never been one for touching, but she knows she is an exception to the rule.

To all of his rules.

Alice's job is to see the future and to keep the family apprised of situations that they need to know. But right now, her mind is flooded with memories, the past. Edward's hand in hers throughout the years; flitting around the house in games of tag he'll always win because he can always see her route; shoulders pressed together tightly as they play the piano together; the discovery of the Bar, the labyrinth, their fingers twisted together against the magical snowstorm.

Last year? It feels like decades ago. Denali feels like years. Boarding a plane to Italy feels like months. When did life get so complicated here in Forks?

Don't leave me again, she thinks at him, pulling back just enough to look up at him. Please, please, please--

[themidnightson]

Alice flattens out against him, hugging him rather than clinging to him like a cliff face, and he doesn't move away, or shift uncomfortably. Nor even stand there still to wait her out. He knows it's coming, just like she does, just like it flickers in and out, as small decisions domino to bigger ones, always part and parcel.

Her thoughts to herself, her memories of them, her visions of the future are all different ribbons weaving in and out of each other, tying into a plat, like strands of music, and his words weren't a lie. He missed this, missed her, there inside his head. A counter-melody that wound into an unexplainable harmony. That it had been so empty without her there, in his mind, even when they weren't talking.

The small spike of panic in her exhaustion, the view of his own face through her eyes as she suddenly looked up again, makes him open his eyes. There's so much everywhere. On the ground all around them, but he does know this much, even when he doesn't know much else at all. He's not going anywhere anytime soon. Edward nodded, without looking away. Not sure he could even find the strength to leave again.

It's not the same type of broken oath Carlisle turned over -- the one Edward didn't know if could be mended, or even if it could be mended, if he could ever swear the same of himself again, now, with things as they were, and Bella, and Carlisle's choice -- but he can at least nod for Alice.

That he didn't plan to. That he didn't want to.
That he would try as hard as he could.
For as long as he could.


And hope that was enough. This time.

[betagainstme]

"Okay," she whispers, barely a noise. "Okay."

Another deep breath in, a hard swallow, as she lets go of Edward, pressing her hand against his chest to push away, her steps shaky.

"You...should go back to her." Alice twists a finger into her hair, tugging. "I need to..."

calm down, before Jasper gets home. She doesn't want to spend the whole night explaining her fears again. Jasper knows them, already, intimately.

Don't tell him, about my request. The one you won't listen to anyway.

[themidnightson]

He doesn't think he should -- can -- which shows about how well he knows his own mind (but hasn't everyone been saying that already?), because he can't stop himself from reaching out and catching Alice's fingers. Watching himself do it, almost disconnected between. Prying them gently from reattaching in her hair, even as she'd meant to push away from him.

Surprising even himself, when he's looking at his own hand wrapped around hers. He wouldn't have thought about it months ago. A year ago. Decades before that. Not before, during, after. Still, he stares at her fingers and then down at his sister's face. The face he knows best. The face that knew him best.

Not longest, maybe not even deepest, but best.

"For now."

He doesn't have it in him to argue about it (yet). Or to point out that her fixation keeps being with only herself, and Aro's fixation was on all three of them, for very different, but very specific reasons (he hates himself for putting them both there). Later. Later, they'll talk about that. And the scouts. Whenever and however later is. Because there keeps continuing to be a later.

There's no hazard for those two words. It's hardly a thought, too.
They'd always kept each other's secrets, and each other's lies.