Preface:Isabella

They started whilst he was away. I had assumed they were dreams brought on by the loss of my other half, by the idea that I meant nothing more to him than a play thing to pass the time. Dreams created from the fear of permanent abandonment, not just by
the man I loved, but his family that I had thought I call could call mine as well.

But they returned. I am abandoned no more and yet the dreams still continue to torment me. It has been months since I have been reunited with my family and I often still wake, flushed with wild panic, screaming with the sharp pain of a loss I can't quantify.

I know I have been worrying Edward. He blames himself I'm sure. He keeps telling me how he will never leave me, that he will spend the rest of forever proving to me how much I mean to him. It is not that I don't believe him. I see in his eyes the truth
that he does love me. It is a hard truth to face up to in honesty, as it meant that everything I had felt for those dreadful 6 months when he was gone had been unnecessary. That the pain I have been struggling to cope with was inflicted in an attempt
to save me from pain all together. I just wish he had talked to me instead of being, frankly, high handed and assuming he knows best. He didn't trusted me or my judgement enough to be able to allow me to make a decision about my own future. That is
what now hurts me most.

For a few seconds on that night as he was apologising for the hurt he caused me that afternoon in the woods, I truly did resent him. Once I got over my disbelief that he did in fact care for me after all, all I could consider was that he had made these
decisions that affected my life without even the consideration of a discussion with me. I had no say whatsoever. But in one look I could see the pain he had caused himself in the making and I decided to forgive him. That makes it sound easy, I know,
but I saw that his decision was born from his past, his era and his own lack of clarity in his perception of himself and I love him. So I forgave the rash, ill advised decision he made and decided to move on. I wish things had been different and that
both his and my pain could have been spared but I am not naive enough to wish to change everything. I think we have both learnt a lot about ourselves and each other during his absence and in all, I have learnt to trust in his love for me. Maybe not
his decision making, something to work on in the future I guess, but his love I believe to be true.

The events over the past year of my life have ingrained into me a fear of abandonment which now sits under my skin. It is going to be quite high on my list of fears from now on I suspect but it isn't the cause of the distress I still seem to be experiencing
that has kept me awake at night. I can't seem to explain why I have felt this way. I am almost grieving or at least very homesick. I cant explain it. I never remember the dreams that leave me gasping but sometimes the feeling deep in my stomach just
doesn't go away all day. For a while I was so sure that the feeling was down to my missing Edward that for the first few months, I had tried not to think about it and pushed it away. But now he is here by my side, often within an arms reach, I still
cant seem to shake it completely. It lessens when he around, sure, but never truly goes away.

It eventually reached the point where I had started to avoid being around Jasper for I know that he can sense it and it was starting to put him on edge. Due to the nature of my family here, and the unavoidable lack of privacy within the group, if Jasper
could sense it, Edward would have known. Which undoubtably sent Edward down a rabbit hole of guilt and dragged up his worries that I don't trust him enough to stay. Something my nightly screaming sessions weren't exactly helping with either.

I was spending most of my days trying to convince him that I was happy with my life and spending it with him is what I wanted, even if deep down I knew something was missing.

As the drama with the newborns unfolded and Victoria continued to torment my family, the feeling didn't go away. It started to get stronger until it became that persistent nagging of being out of place. Like I don't belong, and a need to get home except
I had thought my home was with Edward. The smallest things would set me off on a spiral like the glimmer of the fire in the fireplace, the sound of the wind through the trees or the glint off of the metal of a knife in the kitchen. Each time it would
be like a memory trying to crawl its way to the surface but always out of reach. My ability to simply brush it off, to place it in a box in my head and file it way for later had started to fail me and grief would overwhelm me making it hard to breathe.
The small comforts of Forks and Charlie stopped comforting me at all and started to cause me more torment as they stopped feeling like home altogether. As the newborn army approached and the battle between my family and Victoria drew closer, I often
felt Carlisle's eyes on my back and everyone hovering around me, frightened they would say the wrong thing. It like they where waiting for me to break. Spending the afternoon with Jacob and the pack became my escape from the caring, worried eyes of
my family and the guilt stacking up in Edwards. I didn't want to be hurting him any more or being the cause of his anguish but I felt like I am missing a vital part of myself.

When I realised Edward would be fighting along side his family to protect Forks and myself, I almost asked him to stay with me. The fear of watching him walk away into battle, not knowing if I was going to loose him or if he was going to come home, ate
away at me for the weeks leading up to the fight. But I knew I was already causing him and his family pain and worry. I could not deprive them of a skilled fighter on a day where any of them might never return.

If I had asked him to stay with me that day maybe things would have been different. Perhaps I wouldn't be where I am now, standing with Seth on the mountain side in the freezing cold staring at a door carved into the rock, which I could have sworn hadn't
been there moments before. A door that might be our only hope of survival with both Victoria and her mate advancing on us from both sides. A door with a lions face carved into the wood.

AN/

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