Tags: au, major character death, angst, drama, horrible, horrible sadness, some swearing

Characters: Edward, Bella, Nessie, Jacob, Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, Carlisle, Esme

Pairings: all canon

Notes: This is for idealskeptic, whose propmt for me was "make me cry". Well, I think this should about do it. She wanted me to kill a Cullen, so here you go.

Bittersweet

She doesn't stop aging. Nessie doesn't stop aging. She just keeps going, the years ticking by in days. At some point her growth rate was supposed to slow down and stop entirely. Not only does it not stop, the exact opposite of that happens. It speeds up.

That's not how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to reach maturity and stop aging roughly somewhere between eighteen and twenty one, but that didn't happen. They all thought it would. They all just assumed it would to the point where they don't really notice it until she looks about twenty five.

By the time she's around thirty, they call Nahuel. He comes to visit a few days later, but he isn't much help. This is new territory, even for him, and he has nothing useful to tell them. They contact every single vampire, human and werewolf who might know even the tiniest bit of information, but nobody has any idea what's going on, or if it'll stop. If it can be stopped.

Nahuel leaves after about a week and all they can do, it seems, is wait and see. Wait and see and hope.

By the next month, she's aged to forty.

Bella and Edward decide to offer themselves up to the Volturi in exchange for information, but Nessie refuses to let them do it. The three of them fight about it for a solid week before Carlisle and Jacob split them up and convince Bella and Edward not to do it. Jacob talks to Bella, Carlisle talks to Edward. Edward fights more than Bella, literally fights to the point where he actually shoves Carlisle at one point. Carlisle lets him and doesn't fight back, just waits for him to get it all out. Bella gives up pretty close to instantly and crumbles into Jacob. He holds her up and wraps his arms around her. He buries his face in her hair and a few tears escape his eyes. He doesn't bother to excuse them or wipe them away. He just lets them fall and he holds her. They sit like that for a long time, just the two of them.

It's about two days later when Rosalie comes up with the idea that one of them should bite Nessie. She's not a full vampire, so maybe if somebody bites her, she'll become a full vampire and stop aging. It's a great idea, even if it means Nessie would be stuck looking a good two decades older than even Carlisle or Esme. But no one's really concerned with that, they're just concerned with stopping this, with saving her, at this point.

Carlisle is the one to deliver the bite. And for about a week after Nessie is turned, it seems to work and the joy they all feel is an almost tangible thing. But then, somehow, it starts up again, she starts aging again.

This time Bella bites her. This time it doesn't take at all - it's like nothing happened.

Jacob, meanwhile, is still the same. He still looks about twenty-five. Nessie jokes about this frequently, but all he does is scowl. He never leaves her side and as she hits forty-five, this starts to get on her nerves. They start to fight, bickering at first, but he still refuses to leave. This only makes the fighting worse.

When she starts to look fifty, she runs off. Bella is completely unconsolable the entire time she's gone. Edward is like a blank, vacant shell. Jacob runs off soon after, looking for her. He returns a few days later, dirty and exhausted. He wasn't able to find her.

She returns about a month later and by now she looks about sixty. Things return to the way they were with the exception of Jacob desperately trying to give her some space. Really, though, all he manages to do is go into the woods outside the house and pace. Everyone can hear him doing it, including Nessie, but she appreciates the effort all the same and their fighting goes back to its' usual light teasing.

When they go out now, they can't hold hands or be affectionate. The looks they get are just too unbearable. People think she's his mother. They go out anyway, but it's different now. Everything has this tinge of sadness to it now. Nessie tries to make jokes, she tries so hard, but they all fall flat. She knows. She knows and everyone else knows. This isn't going to last much longer and there's nothing they can do.

In another month she's seventy. She's seventy and she feels it in her bones. She feels so unbearably old. She's in decent health, for someone seventy years old. Only, she's not seventy years old. She's barely even fifteen.

Jacob leaves the house often now. He runs far away enough that no one can hear him. Everyone, particularly Nessie, is sure it's to cry where he can't be seen or heard. No one brings it up, especially not Nessie.

The house is quiet almost all the time now. Everyone spends their days walking on eggshells, and not just around Nessie, but around everyone else as well. They have all given up hope, much as they pretend they haven't, hence, the whole walking on eggshells thing.

When she starts to look around eighty, Nessie decides, fuck it. She's going to live her life, or she's going to live what's left of it, anyway. She and Jacob spend their days together, doing every romantic thing they can imagine. They do every thing they know they'll never get the chance to do later. They have romantic picnics on a blanket under the stars. They cook dinner together. They lay in the living room, draped over each other and read romantic poems to one other. They do every sappy, ridiculous, cheesy thing they can think of. And then, to top it all off, they get married. It's a small ceremony, of course, only the family is invited - no one else would understand. And even if they did, they would probably not be able to get past what looks like an eighty and some years old woman marrying a young twenty five year old man.

They don't go out now, they almost never leave the house. No one mentions this. No one questions it. Largely because they're all pretty close to doing the same thing themselves. The others, aside from Carlisle who still leaves to go to work, only leave the house to hunt and that's not nearly as often as they should.

Bella and Edward cling to each other, literally cling to each other like they're drowning, like they can't breathe, even though they don't actually need to in the first place. They rarely go out hunting; their eyes are almost always dark with big dark circles underneath. They barely say anything, and when they do it's with the wateriest of smiles and voices barely refraining from cracking. Carlisle tries to tell them, both of them, that this isn't their fault, but they don't believe him. Neither of them do. Jasper tries to lift their spirts slightly with his gift, but all he gets for his efforts is an overwhelming amount of grief and pain so heavy he gasps for air.

When Nessie reaches ninety, she knows she's almost done for. She starts taking each and every one of them aside and telling them goodbye. No one wants to hear it, no one wants to believe it's come to this, but they all listen carefully, making sure to remember every single word.

She tells Rosalie to lighten up a bit and Emmett to take things a little more seriously sometimes. She tells them this separately, of course. They almost laugh when they talk about it later and they both decide that what she probably meant by that was that they need to lean on each other a little more, talk to each other a little more, learn from each other.

She tells Alice that she loves her, and will never forget her. There's not much else to say. She tells Jasper to try and help the others as much as he can, but not to over do it, either. She tells him to remember to take care of himself sometimes, too.

She doesn't say much to Carlisle or to Esme, just thanks them for being the best granparents anyone could ever have. She tells Carlisle to watch out for her parents. And to tell them until they believe it that this wasn't their fault. Because this wasn't their fault. It wasn't and she's never thought that, not once.

Then she talks to her parents. She talks to them together. She tells them that she loves them. And asks them, using her best pitiful face mixd with a few tears thrown in for good measure, to stay strong after she's gone, to go on after she's gone. She doesn't want them to fall to pieces and never pick themselves back up. She doesn't want to be the reason that they no longer are the people she loved, the people the others loved. She knows she might be laying it on a bit thick here, but if there was ever a situation that called for that, this is it. She tells them that even if they fall to pieces, they have to pick themselves back up for everyone else, everyone that's still here and will still be here for a long time after she's gone. It's not fair for this (for her) to happen to everyone else and then on top of that for them to lose two more family members. They won't survive it and she knows her parents know this. She hopes that that knowledge will be enough to save them when the time comes.

She talks to Jacob last and she doesn't have much to say. She doesn't know what to say to him other than that she's sorry. She's sorry he got the booby prize of imprints. She's sorry for how this is going to hurt him. She doesn't like it either, but really, what will it matter, she'll be dead; it's not like she'll know. Once she's dead... for her, that's it. That knowledge, the concept of not existing at all anymore makes her cry, but it also gives her strength in a weird way. But him? He'll still be here. He'll be here in this house, reminded of their brief, bittersweet time together and she knows that it just might kill him. She asks him not to let it. She asks him, begs him, to keep going without her. She's not sure what happens to werewolves that lose their partners, their imprints, but she hopes he'll manage. After all, the world would be so much worse off without him in it. She knows that she hasn't been in it long enough to have made any sort of an impact other than the big giant hole she knows she's going to be leaving in the hearts of her family members. If she's honest, she wishes she'd never existed at all. She wishes her parents could have lived the fairy tale they deserved and that Jacob could have imprinted on some beautiful, normal, harmless human girl.

But that isn't what happened. She's here, and she's not got long. So she makes the best of it. She makes the best of her last days, soaks up as much sunshine and happiness and love as she can before her time is up.

She dies about a week later. It's in the middle of the night, while she's asleep, and it's quiet. That's kind of the point. Suddenly, it's quiet. There is, all of a sudden, one less heart beating in the house.

They all pick up on it and fight to stay back. They know that Edward, Bella and Jacob need to get there first, see her first, take it all in first.

The silence drags on for some time until eventually, Bella can be heard sobbing. The others go upstairs then and comfort Bella and Edward as best they can. Alice and Jasper surround Bella, but she won't stop wailing. There are, of course, no tears falling down her cheeks, but that doesn't stop the raw agony of it all from spilling out of her in waves.

Emmett and Rosalie sit on either side of Edward. Edward is just staring straight ahead with dead eyes. He's looking, but he's not seeing and it's clear he just can't accept it. They wonder if he'll ever accept it.

Jacob is sitting perched on the bed, holding Nessie's body in his arms. And he's just rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. There's a low growl splitting his lips and no one dares go near him.

He sits like that for days, just rocking like that and holding her.

Then, without a word to anyone, he's gone. He runs off into the forest and doesn't come back. And no one goes looking for him. Emmett almost goes the day after the funeral. He gets this wistful look, like he misses Jacob, and it's odd because of everyone it's not like they were terribly close. Really, more often than not, they were fighting. And yet... he's the one that brings it up. He says he's considering going looking for Jacob. Rosalie says she'll go with him. He almost goes until Bella asks him not to. She says he doesn't understand, can't understand, and that Jacob needs to be alone. This is how he deals with things and he knows where they are. He'll return eventually, she's sure of it. They just need to give him time.

After that, Edward and Bella are changed. They spend a lot of time alone in their room, going over pictures and videos of their daughter. Vampires don't need photographs to remember, but the physical, tangible proof helps, makes things a little easier.

They talk about everything they remember, all of the best things and all of the worst things. They talk about it all constantly for a very long time. They put photos of her up in every room, so it's almost like she's there. Almost, but not really. After a few years, they stop discussing all things Nessie all of the time. It's still a frequent topic, though.

It's about ten years before either of them smiles in a way that isn't pained, and even then, it's a rare thing for either of them to laugh or smile. But it does happen. And that's a start.

The others are beginning to move on in their own small ways too. Rosalie and Emmett talk more, both to each other and to everyone else. They make more of a point of expressing themselves, saying what they're thinking. Jasper is a little easier on himself, the others can see it in his face. That pinched look he used to always wear has softened and he's not quite as shy as he once was.

It's about thirty years before Jacob comes back. By this point they're living in a different house, in a different city, in a different state, but he finds them all the same. They all look exactly like they did then and Edward hears the same thought in all their minds. They all think about the irony of the situation, that they all look exactly the same, that no one has aged a day. None of them age where she never stopped aging. This would have been tragic had she been a human and aged in the normal way, but as it was... it was like some cruel joke the world decided to play on them all.

Edward, even now, is convinced it was all his fault. He's convinced that Nessie died because of him, not just because of what he is, but because of him personally. Because he was selfish and greedy and her death was his punishment for trying to have it all. He and Carlisle have, and have had, many conversations on the topic, but he refuses to believe anything other than that it was his fault. Carlisle has nearly given up on him many times, but every time he's about to give up he thinks back and remembers Nessie asking him to look out for her father. So he does.

Bella, on the other hand, is able to forgive herself a little when she sees Jacob for the first time in so, so many years. They hug and they talk and they're almost like their old selves. They're almost like they were before this all happened. Almost, but not quite.

The first time, Jacob doesn't stay for long and it's another five years before they see him again. The second time he sticks around for a few years before taking off on his own again. He's still saddened by what happened so many years ago and it's obvious in everything he does. Bella isn't sure he'll ever get over it, but she hopes he can, somehow, even if it's not for another hundred years. Because Jacob deserves better than that. She's managed to stop blaming herself for what happened to Nessie, but she's not sure she'll ever stop blaming herself for what happened to Jacob. She can't help but feel responsible, like if maybe they'd never become friends back when Edward left and she was all torn up, maybe none of this would have happened. It would have all still happened to her, but maybe it wouldn't have happened to him. Maybe he'd be off somewhere living with someone, maybe he'd have a family of his own.

At the same time, she's not sure if she would have survived all of things that happened when she was human without him, but if that would have ended up being the price for his happiness, she would pay it gladly.

Fifty years after Nessie's death, they all still remember it, every single minute of it. That is the gift and the curse of their perfect vampiric memory. They get to remember it all, but at the same time, they can't forget. They've all managed to move forward as much as they can, but they will never entirely get over it, they will never entirely move forward. The memories will never fade and they will never truly be able to put the right amount of distance between those memories and their lives now.

But they do the best that they can. They keep going, not just because she asked them to, but because it's the only thing they can do.