Golden
Summary: Bella had always known there would be a funeral in his future, she just hadn't expected it to be so soon.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong respectfully to Stephenie Meyer. I just enjoy making them dance from time to time.
A/N: This story isn't a one shot, amazingly, and I will update soon enough. I hope you enjoy it, I couldn't get it out of my head.
The aura that surrounded the Cullen manor today was a different one. Alice had seemed apprehensive since dawn. Edward had been unexplainably solemn.
It made Bella rather paranoid, so much to the point that she was now uncontrollably wringing her hands as she approached the living room.
For the first time, in the eight years that she had been a vampire, she felt as if they were keeping secrets from her.
"Bella, could you please come in here for a moment?" Carlisle had called quietly while she was in the kitchen reading one of Esme's cookbooks. She placed it back on the bookshelf and followed the sound of his voice.
A small lamp in the corner of the den (the only light on at all) luminated the faces of Carlisle, Edward and Alice.
Alice was sitting in the big armchair, her usually happy face now distraught. The normally small bruises under her eyes were a deep, dark purple.
Carlisle stood before her, his hand placed reassuringly on her dainty shoulder.
Beside the chair, Edward sat on the floor, his face in his hands.
Bella's stomache churned and the scene looked like something out of a horror story. Except, somehow, it was one hundred times more discomforting.
"Bella..." Alice squeaked in a weak voice. It was as if, since yesterday, death had come in the night and taken all of the joy from her. Bella reached out and took her hand.
"Alice," she cried, her brow creasing, "is Jasper...?"
It seemed to be the only explanation for the trio's strange behavior, but Edward immediatley cut her off.
"No, Bella, Jasper is fine." He whispered, clutching the top of his nose in between his thumb and forefinger. He wrapped his other arm securely around Bella's waist and she was confused.
"There is no easy way to tell you this." He said softly as she stroked her dark hair.
"Bella, I had a vision." Alice whispered. Bella tried to make sense of all this.
"Oh," she began, "well." She thought maybe she had been overreacting, and nothing was wrong at all.
Then again, Edward said it would be difficult to tell her something. Tell her what.
Bella looked up to find three pairs of eyes staring at her intently.
"Sorry Alice," she cleared her throat, "but, you always have visions. Why is this bad?"
Alice shook her head sorrowfully.
"No, Bella. It's not the fact that I had a vision that is troublesome. It's what I saw that worries me."
"What you saw?" Bella echoed. Suddenly, it all came together for her. There was no easy way to tell her what Alice had seen that has all of the Cullen's uneasy.
Charlie, probably. Something had happened to Charlie.
Bella immediatley felt nausiated. She braced herself against Edward and waited for Alice to continue. Waited for the worst. Alice began scratching at the leather on the chair, her cherubic face pained.
"In my vision there was a...graveyard." She paused to take in Bella's expression. She was trying to remain aloof and composed, but her dead heart somehow thumping against her ribs, racking her body along with it gave her away.
"The graveyard was not as clear as a certain tombstone itself. It was new, and it had so many pictures, flowers and ornaments that I almost couldn't make out the name." Alice smiled, though it was very weak and forced, and picked at a loose thread in her sweater.
"It was raining, the sky was dark, but it was very serene, very peaceful. The tombstone was only a little ways away from yours, actually." She was stalling now. It was obvious she didn't want to elaborate, because she knew how much this would hurt Bella.
But Bella just needed to know. She wasn't interested in a page by page description of the setting. She wanted to know whose tombstone Alice had seen and why it was upsetting the Cullens so much.
"Alice," Bella cut in, "please, just tell me. Whose grave did you see?"
Alice's dark eyes met Bella's remorsefully.
"I am so sorry. Today is the twenty seventh of October." Alice whispered as she lightly touched Bella's hand and transferred the memory into her mind.
Bella stumbled backwards at the intensity of it. She never really used her gift because she believed it was an invasion of the other's privacy. Now, it seemed that this was the only way to let Bella know.
Cloudy at first, then getting clearer every second, the graveyard appeared before Bella's eyes.
The wind was blowing lightly through the remaining leaves of autumn, and rain trickled softly onto the frosted ground.
Alice was right, the scene was very calming.
At Bella's feet was the tombstone Alice had been describing.
There were blossoms covering every inch of the tombstone. Vibrant colors and soft petals, she could tell that the grave was freshly dug. Her breath hitched in her throat.
Bending down closer to the stone, she noticed a picture, at the base, of herself. She was smiling happily, it was from her human days.
She flipped over the photograph and saw, scrawled across the back in pen, a note.
May you both be watching over us from Heaven.
She immediatley dropped it back to the earth. Apparently she'd had close ties with the person that now lay, lifeless, under the dirt.
Bella lifted a shaking hand under a curtain of lillies so that she could read the engraving once and for all.
Jacob Black
Janurary 12, 1990 - October 27, 2014