Hello!
I'm still in the recesses of a writing drought but I found this on my computer and decided what the hell? I might as well do something with my sad, lonely account.
This is actually something I came up with a while ago, when it occured to me that if Bella had vague passing hallucinations, then what did Edward have during New Moon? My answer- Well, since vampires do everything better, he might've had a sort of clear waking dream.
Hope you enjoy it,
xoxo
Tress
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Summary:
Immortal Dreaming
by Tress Blues
Edward's Lost Days from New Moon-
Bella had her cautioning hallucinations.
Edward had his waking dreams.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When I woke up, I was immediately more tired than ever. It was always like that. The exhausting tiredness that never seemed to end or lessen; it just laid in wait until my consciousness flared and then pounced, dragging it into the depths of lethargy and misery.
I of course realised that vampires couldn't sleep, nor could they feel tired. Those lucky privileges were for the mortal, the souled. Not the undead. Not the damned. Because that was all I could be, it was the only name I could place on this hollow, empty feeling. Damned. Without hope. Alone and in pain. Humans had it so easy.
I couldn't find it in me to raise my head from the useless pillow of the expensive new house Esme had bought and given to me. She had decided to renovate several old houses around the country; I didn't know where we were, only that we were very far from her. Right now, I was alone, in my own misery without any of the familial companionship I'd once been content with. It pained them to see me miserable so I left them and travelled far to some nameless, insignificant European country that Esme had purchased land in once upon a time, with the intent to clean it up one day.
Although she hadn't been here in months, Esme had been happy to see the house at first; it was the kind of classic beauty that grew with age and she'd always had a fondness of antiquity. Though her joy had been marred: the smile on her soft, pale face was miserable.
I knew I had done that and I cursed myself everyday. When I wasn't 'sleeping' of course. I knew when I was 'dreaming' because I could always feel the real world's thoughts, lingering on the edge of my visions. I knew it wasn't anything close to what humans felt or witnessed during their blessed hours of drifting.
I envied them in a way I'd never encountered before. Not when I wished for their peace, or their freedom. Not even when I craved their mortality. All I wanted now was a few moments in my dreams, dreams that had long since disappeared from my human mind.
It wasn't dreaming, my sleep. I'd managed to work myself into a kind of memory-meditation. When I ignored the lingering voices and held my breath, dimming the world of smell and taste, when I removed myself so far from society that nothing but the quiet, muttered words of my brothers and sisters bothered me...it was here that I remembered her best.
"I wish...I wish you could feel the...complexity...the confusion....I feel. That you could understand."
"Tell me."
Her sweet voice. Low, soft music that drifted like wisps of smoke through my head. How calmly she sat, when I told her of the thirst. How perfectly ordinary she made it. How insignificant.
"But...there are other hungers. Hungers I don't even understand, that are foreign to me."
Soft, rosy skin of her lips. The tingle, the spark running through my fingers. If ever there was a time I thought my heart would beat, it would be now.
"I don't know how to be close to you. I don't know if I can."
A warning, to stay away. To explain how new, how alien it was for me. How she would be better with others. How I didn't deserve her.
Slowly, delicately, she slipped into my embrace. My face pressed to her hair, where her scent burned the most. Ah, the pain. But less so now, as if it had taken the backseat of my thoughts.
Instead of the burning, I noticed the reddish shine of the strands. Instead of the venom, I marvelled at the fragile crimson blush that stained her skin. I wondered if I was strong enough. I wondered if I could stay by brute force.
It wasn't enough.
My eyes opened with reluctance. I breathed, I listened, I smelled. And then it was time to start the day again. When I scanned the room, I felt the ghost of a smile pass my face. My memories were always best when I was detached from everyone else, when I could concentrate. But the vampiric brain was a many-faceted thing and I'd found lately that my memory occasionally followed me into the daytime.
I was never more pleased than on those days when I saw her.
Bella stood near the window, smiling as she let the sun's fingers caress her face. As if she could feel my gaze on her, she turned and opened her eyes, revealing the soft, warm chocolate brown depths that had become the reason for my pitiful existence.
"Hello Edward," she murmured in greeting. I knew it was a hallucination. It wasn't real. It was easier to believe it was real when I didn't have the voices in my head or the smells in the air but I didn't mind my disbelief most days. I could deal with it, with the crushing rejection of knowing what I had had and then set free.
"Hello Bella."
She was wearing the lovely blue blouse today, the one from Port Angeles. In the vague, dim sunlight, it set off her skin beautifully. Not that the physical beauty (however stunning) was what I saw most of.
How did I put it again?...Esme wouldn't care if you had a third eye and webbed feet...
No, Bella's quiet beauty stunned me just as much as her incredible, unsurpassable internal beauty. The selflessness, the intelligence, the kindness...the love. The love that I had so carelessly held as if I'd always have it.
I should have worshipped every moment with her. At the time, I thought I was spending the seconds adequately but now I saw that it wasn't enough. It would never be enough and I would always live with the fact that I had had the love of an angel and let it slip through my fingers.
The gentle stir of the wind through the window picked up a few mahogany threads, pushing them toward me. My memory served me too well; her scent was precise, down to every ounce of pain, oddly enough, not in my throat, but in the un-beating lump in my chest.
Something curious had happened since I'd left Forks; Bella's intoxicating scent, like freesias and strawberries, didn't inspire a single degree of venom in me anymore. No, instead, I felt my body tense to run, to flee the incredible pain that was sure to riddle me.
I would feel it later, I promised myself as I stared at the figure in blue as she stared back. I blinked, unnecessarily, and her hand was on mine, her face closer and worried. "You're in pain." She stated.
I sighed. "Yes."
"I don't want you to be in pain Edward," Bella clarified, her brow crumpling. "It's not fair on you." Oh but it was. It was so very, impossibly fair that it made me sick. I had stepped away from the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd gone near her in the first place! I had no right, no entitlement. I should've let her say 'yes' to someone else.
"Edward, please stop it," Bella begged, her hand travelling to my cheek as I sat with my back against the headboard of the bed.
I put my own hand against her incorporeal one, not really feeling but imagining I was. "I'm sorry love."
She smiled, sadly. "What's wrong? You're so sad all the time. Did I do something wrong?" It was straight out of my memory, the worried, frantic look on her face as she pulled her hand away, automatically taking the blame on herself.
I tugged the hallucination's hand back to my cheek. "You haven't done anything," I assured her. "It's all my fault this time."
She rolled her eyes. "Like you could ever do anything wrong." She scoffed and another phantom smile crossed my lips. She was so assured of her hero-like persona of me. So convinced I was a good guy. I'd tried to tell her, warn her.
"What if I'm not a superhero? What if I'm the bad guy?"
"You're dangerous? But not bad...No, I don't believe you're bad."
"I still believe that you know," she whispered, taking a seat beside me. Of course she would read my mind. What I couldn't do, even in my hallucinations, Bella would be able to do. She was in my head as well after all. "You're not a bad person Edward. I promise you that."
I shook my head. "You shouldn't. It's not true."
"You're always so certain of your own wickedness!" Bella urged, suddenly furious. "Why don't you try listening to me for once? You, are not, a bad, person." The anger she showed was incredible. Someone so tiny, so fragile shouldn't have been given such a wrath. It might have proved dangerous, especially considering her appallingly wide streak of bad luck.
"I left you didn't I?" I chuckled, humourlessly. "It's sick and twisted but I know you took this separation as bad as I did, in the beginning at least."
She rolled her eyes again, standing up and disappearing into my peripheral for a second or two, reappearing next to the glossy grand piano in the corner of the room, looking forlornly at the keys. Carlisle had had it brought up here; a failed attempt at distracting me.
Didn't he know that all I could play was that lullaby that was now hauntingly sad, full of regrets and whims?
"In the beginning? It won't just stop Edward." She said, a mixture of sad and despaired.
"You'll move past it."
"No, I won't." The words hit my chest like bullets to a human. Each one shaped with a point, each one piercing. Bella turned to face me, her eyes filled with glistening tears. "I'll never love anyone like I loved you."
"No. You'll move on Bella, I know you will." I tried to convince her but she shook her head and sat on the piano bench, just as her knees gave out. I was by her side in less than a heartbeat. "You have to. Humans are adjustable, they survive, they move on."
It sounded like the same weak argument that had been playing around in my head, all those months ago. Bella made a noise between a laugh and a sob. "You overestimate me Edward. Besides, I'm not normal. Why should those rules apply to me?"
"Because otherwise I'd come back," I whispered, honestly. She turned to me, her beautiful face agonised.
"Then come back. Please, Edward, please come back to me." She pleaded, her silky pale hands caressing my face. One slid through my hair and I barely held back the pain that lashed through my body. It was the same everyday; I'd hold it back until the night and then I would welcome it with open arms.
My purgatory, my hell. It was only fitting that the damned be in pain.
"I can't. It's not fair to you."
"I don't care."
"Bella don't do this, please..." I felt warm, soft lips against my forehead and it made the agony almost unbearable to know that she was a figment of my imagination. "It's not safe for you." I argued, weakly.
She shook her head, smiling bitterly. "And do you think it's any safer without you? Have you forgotten about Victoria? She'll want to kill me after what happened in Phoenix." She pointed out.
I sighed. "She's down south. She's not anywhere near you Bella." I responded, miserably. As twisted as it was, if Victoria had come back to Forks, it would've been unsafe. I would have been needed, to play the role of guardian, to protect the only love of my eternal life. My tracking had proved fruitless; Victoria's bond to James hadn't been strong to begin with and it seemed like she had easily passed on from his demise.
Bella bit her lip, suddenly turning away from me and she reappeared, again next to the piano. Her fingers traced the black keys. "You don't play anymore." She stated with disappointment.
Slowly, as always, thinking she might disappear, I stood and watched as she traced the white keys, refusing to look at me. "No," I whispered. "They remind me too much of you."
Bella turned, her deep eyes unfathomable. "Play for me? Please? Just once..."
I couldn't deny her anything. I never could or would. So I bottled up the agony and sat gracefully down on the bench, careful not to disturb her as the notes began to rise up from the piano's dust ridden depths.
It was like smoke; a soft, curling trail of music that was grey and sad and miserable. Bella sat beside me, leaning her head delicately on my shoulder as I played. The notes turned sweetly tragic, then agonisingly dark and desolate.
A deaf man could hear the excruciating pain in the melody when I mused on the separation, those final moments in the woods when that terrible broken look had appeared and her whole body had slumped, like a puppet with its strings cut.
"It's going to hurt for so long Edward," Bella whispered in my ear, presumably reading my thoughts. "It's going to hurt until I die."
The music stopped abruptly as I span around to face her, my hands grabbing arms that weren't there, my eyes searching a face that wasn't with me. "Don't talk like that." I demanded, my throat suddenly very dry.
Her smell sent another curb of recoil but it wasn't venom that stung my throat. It was the very idea that Bella would be in pain until she died, which I logically knew, would one day happen. I wouldn't stay very long after that. I would break down completely and whether it was hell or heaven, I didn't care. Living in a world without that beautiful woman was not acceptable.
Suddenly, Bella's face smoothed out, peaceful and her eyes slipped closed. I frowned, worried. "Bella?"
"Yes?" she whispered, faintly. Rapidly and with a viciousness I didn't recall ever feeling as a human my entire being flared at the sound of her voice. I felt as if something were happening to her, something I couldn't control. Somehow, through my fog of panic, I realised I had felt this before; when the monster James was tormenting her, when I was racing to save her.
With painful clarity and a sense of complete certainty, I knew Bella was in danger. The real Bella, not the figment of my imagination. And I couldn't do anything about it.
"Bella? Please, whatever it is, please. Don't do this. Please." I begged, holding her hands. She smiled, softly.
"You wanted me to be human," she pointed out, in her lovely, sweet voice. I tried, out of habit and instinct to see inside her mind, to penetrate her shield and understand, for once. "Watch me."
Watch her do what? What was happening? What was wrong? How did I stop it? The questions flooded my mind but all I could say was: "Please. For me."
Her dark, beautiful, haunting eyes opened. "But you won't stay with me any other way." She whispered. I took her face in my palms, cradling it, trying to reach a Bella that was miles away, doing something dangerously risky.
"I'll stay with you forever." I promised, immediately. Consequences be damned, I snarled. She needs me. I need her. She can't leave. I couldn't live without her. "Please." I whispered, little more than a breath.
She smiled and then-
Then, she disappeared.
"No! No, Bella! No!" I howled, moving about the room, trying in vain to bring her back. What had I done? What had I driven her to? How could she have done it? I tried to calm myself: there was no way of knowing she wasn't perfectly safe, sitting around the house, cleaning, cooking, reading, talking with friends. It lessened somewhat but I still paced the room, frantic.
My cell phone, the one that no one dared to call anymore, began ringing, playing Claire De Lune until I snapped it open hurriedly. "Hello?"
"Edward? It's- it's Rosalie." Her voice, lovely as usual, lacked its normal arrogance. "Listen, I don't know if Alice called you-"
"Alice? Why would she have called me?" I said, hurriedly into the phone. "What's happened? What's changed?" A cold sensation filled my chest; something like dread but terribly stronger.
"Edward...I've been trying to figure out whether to call you or not." She said quietly, softly. Painfully. "I thought you ought to hear it first, at least know what's happened-"
"Spit it out Rosalie!" I snarled, suddenly desperate to know what had happened.
"Edward- Edward, it's about Bella. A day or so ago, Alice said she had a vision of her..." Rosalie paused before continuing. "Of her jumping off a cliff into the ocean and not surfacing."
No. No. "What? What do you mean not surfacing? Rosalie tell me exactly what she said!"
While Rosalie continued to paint the horrific picture of Alice's vision, my body, already icy cold and unfeeling, went numb. Splinters of Rosalie's words reached my ears: "She was on top of a cliff...sounds like one of the La Push cliffs...and there was a storm...and she just jumped...Alice said she'd be too late already when Bella went under the waves...she was drowning...and then...the whole future...it went blank..."
Bella had jumped...Bella was drowning...Bella's future, her whole world went blank...
Already fractured, beaten, cold, tortured, miserable, agonised...my heart finally split, shards of hard, cold sharp stone that felt as if they were burying themselves within my chest- trying to kill me from the inside.
"No." I whispered, the phone dropping from my ear. No, it wasn't true. The future changed. Bella would never- she couldn't- not to Charlie- not to me- Bella- she-
She promised me.
I dialled the memorised number before I even knew what I was doing and suddenly the other end picked up. "Swan Residence." I frowned; the voice wasn't familiar to me, although some type of recollection pinged at the back of my mind.
"Hello, this is-" For a fraction of a fraction of a second, I hesitated. Charlie wouldn't want to talk to me, after what I put his only daughter through. So I lied: "-Dr Carlisle Cullen. May I please speak with Charlie Swan?"
"He's not here." The voice was suddenly a lot less neutral than before, hostile and vicious.
"Can you tell me where I might reach him? Where he is?" Where could Charlie be? If he wasn't at home, where-
"He's at the funeral."
The words crashed down on me like splinters of glass, slicing through me. At the funeral. Charlie was at his daughter's funeral. It was true. It was all true. I howled in agony as the fact finally registered.
My beautiful love. My beautiful Bella. Gone. And never coming back.
Ah....The joys of procrastination. I might actually continue this all the way up to when Edward goes to the Volturi. Maybe even after.
I hope it makes sense- I did cut and alter Edward/Phantom Bella's last conversation from New Moon when Bella's about to jump off the cliff and Jacob's answers on the phone are the same. The time difference is a little off but I had to to make it work.
Review if you like it and I'll get to work on a Chapter 2. It'll probably end up as a short story or something if I do continue it.
Hope you enjoyed it,
Tress Blues