Apr. 12th; shadows and light, that move on the wind

[themidnightson]

It's day six of Bella's week of being grounded without guest hours for Jacob's spectacle with the bike, and even though Edward has stopped wanting to tear off the child's head and all his limbs for it, it drags. He knows where he most wants to be and can't. He knows that it's insane that so few hours should bother him. He's in near every class with her, and he spends the late nights with her.

But neither is truly a time when they can talk freely. Or for long.
Nor were Visiting Hours. But it's galling to have anything stripped away.

He's home instead, not focusing on that or the time ticking slowly, human minute by human minute away until it's late enough. Laying on the couch in The Closet, head on a pillow, feet thrown over the far end, staring at the ceiling. He's a stillness humans would be unnerved at, but it's the stillness their kind sinks into. Where humans would find it more and more alarming they longer they noticed it, their kind sinks and sinks into it, only more comfortable the less they move, the less they pretend to be what they aren't.

But he isn't lost in that. His stillness is a precision. Told easily by the pen upright in his frozen hand, and the black moleskin notebook left open on his stomach. There are dates and question marks, notes all over it. (In fact, there are several pages. Several devoted to specific names. Some devoted to rough sketches. All of it to only untangling one thing.)

Comments

[betagainstme]

Her eyes shut against the vision, trembling, her hands frozen in his hair and on his arm, her chest feeling like a weight has simultaneously been lifted and placed there.

His words, so rarely spoken, I love you, too, his frustration of his so-called poor apology. The memory of so many clear paths to death.

Almost of its own accord, her body curls more, until her lips do touch his forehead, pressing a kiss against his hairline. She has always been able to touch him freely, more than any other in the family, and this action comes as naturally to her as existence.

Forgiveness had come from Jasper yesterday, something she desperately needed and didn't even know how much. And now this, from Edward, heals another broken bit in her. Slowly moving the pieces on the board back to their stations.

[themidnightson]

They both make these apologies, and it is their whole heart, both to mean it and to know they can't. Each as important and treacherous as the other. Both I'm sorry and but would do it again, in the same circumstaces. He doesn't say the words. Doesn't know if his mouth could form them if he tried. Wouldn't want them heard by every set of ears not even turned toward them currently. But he does move.

Reaches up to touch her hair. It's a little less graceful without being able to see outside himself, above her at the same time, but his hand finds the side and the back of her head, and his eyes stay closed, while he lets a heavy sigh out. Nothing can redeem him of what he's done (To Bella, to Carlisle, to Alice, to the whole family), but somehow it matters, too.

Alice's words. Alice curled into him.
Alice's lips on his forehead.

Alice still here. Alice still alive.
Alice still loves him, forgives him.

[betagainstme]

Always.


Her lips quirk against his skin at the hand in her hair, at the back of her head, like the visions predicted. She hadn't expected him to actually follow through, but it's lovely. Turning slightly she rests her cheek against his forehead, her hand snaking from his arm to his chest, smoothing out invisible wrinkles in his shirt.

We're okay.

Them. The two of them. They're okay. Together they'll be able to face what comes next--the gates against.

[themidnightson]

Her hand smooths down his shirt between. The buttons and the sweater, at least between here and the abandoned notebook and pen laying on his stomach still. And he listens to the lull of her thoughts, her feelings, the feel of her curled around him. He doesn't even think anyone else could imagine this. He hardly can and he's in the middle of it.

Only Alice could get away with something like this.
Or at least. Only Alice could, and would let herself.

(I love you.
It's that simple.)

Her thought stumbles over her memory at the same time, and he nods. Into her cheek, her lap, the soft, spikey black hair half-covering the rest of his face, and he says the only thing he can, the only part she didn't, but did, too. "Together."

They'll do it together. Whatever it takes, whatever they have to, for the family, for each other. Watch the future. Watch the present. Keep everyone safe. Alive. Together. They'll do it together. The way they're always supposed to, and supposed to be.