Gone
A/N: There is a non-fanfiction version of this on my blog so if you saw that first, my apologies. I thought that it would make an interesting AH-AU O/S to Twilight so I tweaked it and threw it up here.
Warnings: Implied character death which translates into tissue warning if you're the sobbing type. Don't worry, I'm the sobbing type, too.
The room was dark, so dark that she felt as if she were walking around with her eyes closed. There was no light shining through the window because the shutters had been closed and the curtains drawn. Not even the light of a digital clock or those night-light wall plus illuminated any part of the room. As far as she knew, the electronics had all been unplugged, even the phone.
Especially the phone.
The lack of light wasn't an issue though, it never had been. She knew this room as well as she knew her own, it hadn't changed much over the years. The tentative steps she took into the darkness were not because she was afraid of tripping, though there was certainly enough clothing on the floor to achieve that end; no, it was because she was unsure of the welcome she would receive.
Still, there was a reason why she was here, why she had ignored everyone who told him to just "give her space" and "let her be"; it was that woman lying in the bed, tangled between the sheets and a thick duvet. Bella had been the center of her world for years, and she'd yet to find a person to replace her; in her heart, she knew that she never would.
Renesmee stepped over unknown garments and the occasional hard object until her feet reached the edge of the bed. She hadn't heard a sound coming from her mother, not even the light sound of a pair of lungs pushing air in and out of a human body. Kneeling on the bed, she felt the mattress dip with her weight and froze, holding her breath. The last time she had tried to come in she had had "GET OUT!" screamed at her.
Bella didn't know it, but it had hurt.
She would never tell her.
When the silence around her continued she released a soft breath and crawled onto the bed, as she had done so many times over the years. Hand over hand, knees sliding along cotton, her body headed for those huge pillows that always smelled of the people she loved the most.
"Mommy! Look at me!"
She looked over from where she was placing folded sweaters into her dresser and laughed at her small daughter. She had her father's clean socks on her hands and a bra on her little head. She wished she had a camera to take the picture but she already had a million snapshots of her child clowning around. Instead, she placed a hand to her heart and addressed her,
"Honey, you scared me! I thought you were the laundry monster."
"The one that eats daddy's socks?"
"That would be the one," her father said from behind her. Taking his glasses off and placing them on the table beside the bed, he slipped down into the covers. "Come to bed, leave that for tomorrow."
She smiled at her husband and shrugged, she didn't want to finish the laundry either and who cared if the socks were wrinkled?
She scooped up the remaining laundry, plucked various items off of her daughter, and deposited them in the plastic hamper to be dealt with the next day.
"Are you going to sleep in your own bed tonight?" she asked the squirming mass under their blanket.
"Do I have to?" Like her father, she knew how to get her way; looking up with those large green eyes—the exact same shade as the man she had married—and her overly bright child knew that her mother wouldn't have the heart to deny her.
"Oh, alright," she smiled as she gave her a heart stopping grin and raced off for the top of the covers.
"You're too soft," her husband smiled sleepily, his eyes already closed.
"I know." She watched as their daughter pulled back the blanket and pressed her face to her mother's pillow; she was practically a carbon copy of her father, right down to the unique colour of hair that refused to be tamed and the sensitive skin that always burned on hot summer days.
Turning the lights off, she slipped into the bed beside the small body and was instantly assaulted by sharp little elbows as she scooted closer.
"I like sleeping in your room," she confessed, her voice muffled by her mother's sleep shirt which she had buried his face in.
"Yeah? Why's that?"
"Because it's never dark, the lamp is on outside."
She looked up at the window of their bedroom and saw that there was, indeed, a street lamp shining just outside.
"Mom?" Renesmee whispered.
There was no response.
The sheets were bunched in places as if she had been tossing and turning, the lumps pressed against her hands as she made her way over to Bella. Lying down beside her, she couldn't help but notice all of the differences between the woman in her memory and the one lying silently next to her. She did not turn to greet her daughter with open arms as she had done when she was little, or even when she was too old for such treatment but in need of it anyway. She hadn't really expected her to be the same, but the lifelessness of her mother's entire being shocked her to the core; she wasn't used to seeing her broken. If it weren't for the faint breathing Renesmee could now hear and the warmth of her body she might wonder if she were even alive anymore.
She supposed that, in the way that mattered, she wasn't.
"Mom, please…"
Please, what? she wondered. Please, talk to me? Please, get up? Please, make it right again...the way you used to?
Knowing that she couldn't finish that request, she settled for scooting in behind Bella, pressing herself against the warmth of that familiar body, the reminder that she was still alive; that she might get better. Renesmee pressed her face against Bella's thick, dark hair but it didn't smell like the shampoo she had used for years; slightly sweet and lightly perfumed, it was a scent she could recognize anywhere. Now she only smelled like sweat and grief.
She wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling her closer, and causing her to make her first sound since she had screamed at everyone days earlier. A choked sob escaped her, making her whole body convulse and shake as her hand came up and latched onto Renesmee, clutching as if she were her last lifeline.
She felt something break inside her as she listened to the heart wrenching sobs of her mother, that thing that she had previously refused to acknowledge. Bella did not weep silently, or sob softly, as all the great romance novels described. She cried hard and loud, her grief ringing throughout the room and into the empty house below them. Renesmee held her as she shook, occasionally brushing the dirty hair off of her face and using her sleeve to wipe Bella's face. She made no move to stop her, in fact, other than the hand that still clutched at her daughter, she did not even acknowledge that she was there at all.
The minutes passed into hours but the room and its occupants stayed the same. If Renesmee felt any discomfort she did not express it as she lay there, her own tears silent and steady. Part of her wanted her arms to do the comforting, soothing her the way that only she seemed to know how to do. She knew that, at least for now, the roles between them had been switched.
"He's gone." Her words were so choked, so muffled by her grief that she almost didn't catch it.
Renesmee squeezed her closer, pulling her tightly into her embrace as if she could heal her with sheer will alone.
"I know."
It was all she could say.