Unforeseen Consequences
Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer and I do not own the rights to the Twilight Saga, Life and Death, or any of the accouterments in the series.
AN: This story takes place in between the course of the end of Chapter 1 and the end of Chapter 3 of my story, Death and Rebirth: New Moon Reimagined. It's written in Edythe's perspective and explains the decision to leave through her eyes.
For the record, the italicized sections that are Archie's visions, Edythe, is seeing through his mind. So the "I" is Archie, not Edythe in those scenes.
"Why didn't you see this coming?" I shouted, spinning on Archie. If I'd known Beau was going to react like that to the car, I'd have never bought it for him.
Archie shrugged, but I saw it. The brief flash of a vision he'd apparently had weeks prior.
My hand went around his throat so quickly that I didn't even consciously make the decision to do it. I lifted him off the ground.
"You saw this future weeks ago and you never told me?" My voice reached a new octave as I shrieked at Archie.
Suddenly Jessamine was right by my side. "Let my mate down. Now." Her voice was quiet, calm. But her eyes and mind were anything but. The promise of violence if I didn't release Archie immediately was beyond clear. I put Archie down.
"You wouldn't have listened to me if I had told you," Archie spat. He smoothed down the collar of his shirt. "Besides it was only a possible future. It wasn't guaranteed. There were over a dozen ways I saw this party ending. This one just happened to be the second worst case scenario."
"What other ways?"
A multitude of visions swam to the surface in Archie's brain, hitting me at once with all of them. One moment I was seeing Beau throwing his arms around my waist, the next I saw a passionate kiss, the next Beau's fist smashed through the hood of the Camaro and into the engine in such a way that the car exploded setting off a chain reaction with the vehicles, the next a vision of Beau and I naked, the next showed Beau killing a human with me beside him but not trying to stop him and so many more.
"Obviously, I was hoping for the vision where you ended up getting laid," Archie snarked.
"Why didn't you say anything about the vision of us getting blown up?" What the hell was Archie thinking? We could have all been dead right now.
"It was a fleeting vision. Sort of like the ones that end with Beau in Mexico. I gave it a 2.3% chance of actually happening and wrote it off."
"And what was the percentage likelihood of this happening."
Archie's mouth snapped shut. But I saw the 3.5% in his mind anyways.
I ground my teeth together.
"What was the most likely vision?"
Archie remembered the vision he'd seen the most often, a quick flash of the birthday party going smoothly, if not happily, and then the day ending the same way all the days ended – Beau going into his room alone, just as I climbed the stairs to my own room.
"So the most likely vision was one where nothing happened, neither bad nor good?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Eleanor asked.
At the same time, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Will he ever be happy here?"
Archie opened his mouth, but shut it abruptly and suddenly started singing Twinkle, twinkle little stars as loud as he could in his head.
Royal's mental voice intruded loudly. How could an insolent child like him ever be happy being an adult?
Not unless you can meet him in the middle. Jessamine was staring straight at me as she thought it.
"I'm not the one unwilling to bend here."
"Aren't you?" You may be able to read minds and Archie may see the future, but I feel everything. He loves you, Edythe, but he's terrified all the time. He's terrified that he'll disappoint you, terrified that he'll break, terrified of the idea of marriage, terrified that marrying you will end up being a mistake.
"That doesn't make any sense, I love him."
You may have the body of a seventeen year old, but you've been alive a hundred years. Beau actually is only eighteen, to expect him to understand that your constant fretting and hovering is just because you don't want to be away from him is preposterous. "We may have explained how our kind mate for life, but he doesn't truly understand it. After all, he's had no opportunity to live it yet."
"All I want is two simple words."
Eleanor guffawed where she was standing. If all you want is to hear him say, I do, then just ask him to say that. But that definitely isn't all you're asking.
"What's wrong with wanting what all of you already have?"
"Nothing," Carine said softly. Except...
"Except what?"
"Except your equating marriage and mating as being the same thing. It isn't. Even if I'd never married Earnest, he and I would still love each other. We would still be mates in every way." We were not married the first time we shared a bed.
"I know all that. I'm a traditionalist. I want to be married before I be with him."
And he wants to know if you and him are actually real. Jessamine again.
"Of course we're real."
Could have fooled me. I was half a moment from taking a swing at Royal, myself, discovering a newfound understanding in Beau's hatred for him.
Just then Archie grabbed my arm, not to get my attention, but for physical support as I was still within his personal radius. I watched the visions as he was seeing them.
I could see Charlie lying face down on his bed, one arm was thrown off the side of the bed. The only thing the blanket was still covering of Charlie were his two feet and one lower calf. He was clearly sleeping, but it looked like an uncomfortable position to be laying in. On his bedside table was a half drunk bottle of whiskey. Beau stood in the doorway, looking at his dad. His eyes looked horrified.
Slowly, Beau stepped forward, reaching down and grabbing the blanket to place it over his dad's body. Beau spoke softly, his words strained. "I'm sorry, Char...Dad. I'd stay if I could, but if I did I would surely kill you." Beau stepped back, closing the door on his sleeping father.
A moment later I heard "Beau... Beau, is that you?"
Beau's hand reached toward the doorknob, then he clenched his eyes shut briefly before he dashed down the stairs.
The vision changed. Beau was pacing back and forth just inside the tree line at the school. He kept sniffing as he did it. I wasn't a hundred percent sure what he was doing, but it was the most populated place he'd so far been at. Perhaps he was just trying to make sense of the scent overload. The real question was, where were we in these visions?
Finally, he stopped pacing, watching the students in the parking lot, not even breathing as he watched. His focus was absolute as he watched and slowly took a breath, this time through his mouth. He breathed again a couple seconds later and I finally got it. He was trying to acclimate to an area heavily saturated with humans. But he shouldn't be doing it alone. It was dangerous, for them, not him.
Suddenly Ashford tripped, hitting his nose on a car, the smell of blood was notable even in the vision. I prepared myself to see Beau rush forward and grab the boy but he didn't do that. Instead, Beau stopped breathing, spun around, and ran away.
The vision changed again. "This is what you need, right?" Beau asked, his eyes were a weird violet color. I recognized it as blue eye contacts being over red eyes.
"Yes," Edythe replied.
"Then let's get this done and go back home."
Edythe and Beau stepped into a small court room, where a justice of the peace was residing.
The marriage vows were went over, and both of them said "I do." At the very end, they signed the marriage license dated January 11th, 2006.
The visions ended. "So we'll be married in four more months?" I asked Archie, looking at him expectantly. I could wait that long.
"He'll grow to hate you if that marriage occurs. It's not my first time seeing that vision."
I wanted to get angry at Archie, not happy with the numerous visions that Archie had apparently been hiding, but I literally couldn't get mad. Jessamine had let a false calm settle in the room to prevent all the emotions in the room from cascading.
"What do you mean, he'll come to hate me?"
He slammed me with another vision, this one much farther out. It had to be a good thirty years from now, but we were all in a cafeteria somewhere. Eleanor, Royal, Jessamine, Edythe and myself were all sitting at a table in one corner of the room, several tables away sat Beau by himself. He kept glancing up, glaring at us when he was sure we weren't looking his way.
The vision flickered. It was another scene from the same time period. We were at home now. It looked like it might be our house outside of Vancouver, but I wasn't certain as it was a little bit different than the last time we'd been there.
"I'm going to go hunting," Beau said angrily.
"Again?" Edythe asked, her voice filled with pain.
"I can't be trusted. Remember." Beau stormed out.
Another flicker. A future even more distant, I couldn't begin to guess how far out, most of the scene was covered in darkness, but two people were very clear.
"Why do you stay if you hate it here so much?" Edythe asked.
"You know why." Beau looked away from her.
"No, I don't."
"Because I love you, Edythe. I'll always love you. That's never going to change. Just like it's never going to change that I belong to you. Mind, body, heart, and soul."
"But you hate me for that."
"Yes."
"I don't want your love for me to be tinged with hatred and regret."
"Maybe you should have thought of that back then."
"Stop," I groaned. I couldn't stand to see more of that future.
"Today was supposed to fix that. It was supposed to show him that he was trusted and loved. It was supposed to show him that he was truly part of this family. Unfortunately, he's stubborn and chose one of the only paths that wasn't going to fix it."
"What happens if I go meet him at Charlie's house when he goes there?" I made my mind up to do just that.
The vision was immediate.
"You're never going to trust me? Are you?" Beau shouted.
Edythe and him were standing in the forest near Charlie's house. "Of course we trust you."
"Then why are you here?"
"To make sure you –" Edythe paused and then restarted. "What I mean is, it's to guarantee –" Edythe stopped again and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You can't even come up with a half believable lie."
The visions rushed forward again, spinning through the same sequence of events, January wedding, growing hatred, partial argument at some undecided future point.
Archie shrugged. "I can't control what I see."
"And if I meet him at the school?"
The same spin of visions hit almost before I finished asking the question.
"Is there any way to stop it?"
"I don't know." Archie massaged his temples. "Let me think it through."
"What does he see?" Eleanor groused loudly. I had a feeling that Eleanor had asked it in her head a couple of times already, but my entire attention had been focused on Archie.
I could hear the same curiosity from the rest, even Royal who was still burning with jealousy that I cared for Beau, and Jessamine as well, though she knew more than the rest.
"An eventual implosion in my relationship with Beau."
"What type of implosion?" Earnest asked.
"Someday in the future he'll hate me. He'll hate all of us. All the while he'll still love me, but it's so badly tainted by that hatred and some unknown regret... Archie can't determine the cause. He also can't figure out how to change it. It seems all roads lead back to the same ending."
"Why?" More than one family member asked at the same time.
I tuned them out as Archie decided to tell Charlie that Beau was still alive. A different future appeared. Three Volturi guards, Demeter, Fahima, and Jane, walked up to the house. Fahima had Charlie's obviously dead body over her shoulder. She dropped him on the ground. Beau went to run forward but Edythe's arms encircled him, holding him back.
Jane spoke. "We have found this human with knowledge of our kind. It is in direct derelict to our laws. We have solved the problem with regards to his knowledge, but he was kind enough to tell my brother who was responsible for the breach of this law. Archie Cullen, you are hereby sentenced to death for what you have done." A black fog rolled off of her hands towards us.
Archie flinched.
He tried a different route, choosing to tell Beau what he'd seen.
"If what I feel for him is someday going to destroy us, destroy this family, then I have to prevent that." Beau took a step backwards.
For some reason he and I were near the Quileute border, my vision didn't let me see on their side. It was strangely blank.
Beau took two more steps backwards. "Tell Edythe that it was the only way I could see to save her, to save you all."
I reached forward, trying to grab his hand, but he took another step back onto the Quileute territory, disappearing from sight. Everything went black. There was the briefest of flicker in the vision, jumping the future forward several minutes. I could now see onto the Quileute territory, and just on their side was a giant fire, billowing out purple smoke.
"NO," I cried out. I couldn't bear the thought of him not being in this world, I'd rather be in some love-hate relationship with him than that. I'd rather anything than that. "What if I leave?" I asked the words lowly, the very thought of walking away killing me. But I would do it if it allowed Beau to live his life in peace without fear, without hate. Without regret.
The vision my suggestion had caused spun in yet another direction.
"Where's Edythe?" Beau demanded.
"She left," Royal said coldly.
"Why?"
"My guess is she got tired of the freak. She probably went to Denali to find herself a real man."
Beau crouched and then jumped at Royal, his hands clawing into Royal's neck as he yanked up. The screeching sound of Royal's head being torn off filled the air.
The vision spun farther forward, into a more distant future. Two figures stood in stately looking black dresses that could be only a couple of weeks old, but hinted at being much older. Beau was standing in front of them, his eyes brighter red than even when he'd been a newborn.
One of them spoke, "You will be the perfect tool for us to –" Archie yanked himself away from the vision viciously.
I arched an eyebrow at him.
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
"What?"
Archie didn't answer. In his mind, not a vision, but a memory of one that never would come to pass appeared as he tried to keep me from seeing the vision that had started.
Beau looked slightly older than he was, though not by much. He was skinnier, his bones pronounced in an almost unhealthy way, and yet he looked resolved.
He walked up to McKayla Newton who was standing with her back to him. He tapped on her shoulder.
She turned around, and she looked shocked to see him standing there. "Do you need something, Beau?"
"Not exactly." He looked down. "I know you've asked me many times and I've always turned you down. I thought it was time I asked you. Will you go to senior prom with me?"
The memory faded.
"What was that?"
"Another vision I'm sure you'd have been happier never knowing. So trust me when I say don't ask about the other."
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Royal's thoughts were loud as his boredom became more pronounced. If she's bored with him, then maybe we should all just leave him behind. It was a snarky thought, one I was sure he had no intention of me paying heed to, but I was suddenly grateful he thought it.
"Thank you, Royal," I said to him, then focused back on Archie. "What if we all leave?"
"The same things will happen even if we move to a different town. That was the first thought I tried."
"No, I mean we should walk away from him. He stays here, we go."
Archie frowned, probably not liking the idea anymore than I did. He started looking into the future, trying to verify if it would work, but I stopped paying attention. My own despair was drowning me where I stood.
"Leave a newborn in Forks? Have you lost it, Edythe?" Carine asked, her voice was sharp.
"No, I'm finally thinking straight. We all know he isn't a normal newborn, more acclimated to this life than any vampire we've ever met before. If us being in his life is going to cause so much grief, so much destruction, then the answer is that we need to leave."
"And what if he goes on a killing spree? We're responsible for him until he can handle being on his own."
Archie looked at Carine. "He could have handled it months ago, Carine. He would have made mistakes without us here, but he's never been in danger of massacring the townspeople. Unfortunately, we have smothered him. And it's causing long-lasting unforeseen consequences." Besides, he isn't going to like the polo I bought for him. I spent three thousand dollars on that polo. He should like it. I knew Archie hadn't meant for me to hear that mental grouse, but I almost found it amusing. Only Archie would use fashion as a suitable excuse to abandon someone.
I knew that wasn't what was really going on here, of course. Archie didn't really want to leave Beau. He thought of him as a brother.
"To answer your question. It'll work. If it's done right." Archie looked at me.
"How?"
"We'll have to leave without telling him."
I rejected the idea immediately. I had to tell him goodbye. I had to make sure he knew it was for the best.
"We can't just take off. Not while he's still so young," Jessamine said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"It's the only thing we can do. Trust me, Jess," Archie replied.
"What about a letter?"
Archie looked into the future speculatively. "Possibly. If worded right."
"Okay. They have questions. You explain your visions to them. I've got to get out of here for a little bit."
I dashed out of the garage, immediately running my fingers through my hair, then I started to race away. If I was going to do this. I needed to see Beau again, just one more time.
But before I was out of ear shot I heard, "How is this fair? To Beau? To Edythe?" Earnest was trying to look out for me until the bitter end. But he didn't understand what I was beginning to realize, I would never be good enough for Beau. What other possible reason was there for the horrifying futures that Archie had seen.
I was almost completely out of range when I heard him reply. "It's not. On either count. But it's the only chance they have of someday being happy toge –"
And I was out of hearing range, but that had sounded like there was still hope. I couldn't afford to believe it though. Not after all that I'd seen in Archie's mind.
…
I sat in a tree almost half a mile away from our meadow and watched Beau. I knew, if I was human, I'd be crying over what I was about to do, but I saw no other option. We'd already had so many obstacles thrown up in our way, from my lust for his blood, to being predator and prey, to Joss and Victor. Every time before we'd beat it back, I'd beat it back, but I saw no hope this time. No way out.
I had to save him, save his innocence, protect him from the hatred I'd somehow cause in the future. Leaving him seemed to be the only way to do it.
"Goodbye, Beau," I said it so softly that I knew the wind wouldn't carry it. I dropped silently down to the ground.
…
When I finally returned home, arrangements were already being made.
Earnest's, my poor boy. Carine's, I'm sorry, Edythe. Even Royal's taunting, finally! All made me sink even farther into a pit of hopelessness that I saw no way to ever recover from.
I went upstairs to my room, pulling out pen and paper. I started to write.
Dearest Beau,
As you read this, I want you to know that I will always love you.
"That won't work," Archie said from my doorway.
I threw the sheet away and pulled out another.
Dear Beau,
I need you to know that while I didn't want to leave you, it was a necessary evil.
"He'll follow us if you leave him that."
I pulled out another sheet and tried again, getting another quick rejection from Archie. Finally, six tries later, I wrote:
Dear Beau,
I am truly sorry for doing this to you this way, but it was the only way for us, my family I mean. I'm sure this will feel sudden to you, I know you assumed that you and I would be together forever. I apologize for the fact that I mislead you and allowed you to continue on with such a belief. Unfortunately though, it was time for my family to move on and you are not a part of it. I know, at least part of you, agrees with that feeling.
"It'll work," Archie murmured.
I probably should have stayed with you longer as you are still a newborn, but you know how our world works now, you understand how to be careful. And in truth, you have more control than any of us, even Carine when she was your age. I am quite sure you will be fine, even without us in your life.
We are leaving you with the house and the car we just bought for you as well as all your clothes and the presents that you haven't opened yet. You can stay in the house for as long as you feel the desire to stay. We can all understand why you might want to stay for awhile and watch over your father and the house will give you the anonymity to do that. However, if you do decide that you would rather leave, there is a cache of cash in both Archie's and Jessmine's bedroom, and mine. You are welcome to both and can take them to start over whenever you so choose. Jessamine has left documentation up in their bedroom for who to contact when you do decide it is time to leave and reinvent yourself. I can assure you that this person is reliable and will not sell your new identity to anyone, once the items are purchased from her, she cannot be bought. All of her clients rely far too highly on their anonymity.
I want you to know that it was originally my plan to leave you with the place after your newborn year was up anyways. However, after the vision that Archie saw of your perfect control inside of your father's house and of you in the forest outside of school – even when Ashford broke his nose – we became certain that you didn't need us to stay for the entire year, there is no need.
You will do fine on your own and you will have the chance you've been aching for to blossom and learn what it means to be immortal as you have desired since you were first changed. I think that by us leaving, it is the only way you will truly get that chance. If we stayed then I would have never given you the ability to flourish the way you surely will now.
As a vampire, you will always remember us, and I'm sorry that this abrupt departure will taint your memory of these first few months, but in time you will be able to move past this. Our kind are easily distracted, and after you get used to it, you will be able to compartmentalize the memories so they are, practically, forgotten.
I wanted to stay and explain to you in person why we were leaving, but Archie could see that that wouldn't be easier on you. He could see that had we stayed to explain, you would have fought to come with us, and ultimately it wouldn't have ended well for any of the parties involved. I do hope that in time you will come to understand. Perhaps someday, in the distant future, we will be able to meet again, and by then the bitterness and resentment will have hopefully faded enough for you to understand why we had to leave this way.
For now though, I will try to explain as best I can in this letter, though I am sure that it will not be as thorough as you would like.
As you have an eidetic memory now, I am quite sure that you remember the first fight you and Royal got into. At the time, he claimed that we couldn't possibly be mates as we still hadn't even been together, physically. It's been almost five months since then and still we have not been intimate in that way. I know that you would probably state that you had been more than willing to take the next step in our intimacy, but you were unwilling to meet me halfway and marry me. How could we possibly be mates if you were so unwilling to marry me?
More than just Royal's assessment though has led me to this decision. Right after you completed your change and we went on our first hunt you asked me about Joss's video. At the time you asked I want you to know that I did not lie, I truly believed that I wanted you for an eternity. In these last few months though I have come to understand that it wasn't you I wanted, so much as the idea of you. You were right. To me, you were the ideal mate when you were human, but now that you are a soulless monster just like myself... the appeal is gone. I do not love you the way you deserve to be loved.
I do have two things to request of you. While I was there, I tried to encourage you to try human blood, mostly so I could be there when the grief hit. Now that I'm not there to help you with that, I ask that you don't, and if you decide you must, then do not kill anywhere near Forks, WA. The La Push pack will seek you out and destroy you if you do that near Forks. I would feel very guilty to discover that I somehow failed you if the wolves destroyed you. You must always be careful as long as you remain in Forks.
The second thing that I'm asking of you should be quite simple for you. Flourish, be happy.
I am truly sorry that things had to end this way,
Edythe
I folded the letter, placing it in an envelope and wrote, BEAU, on top of the the envelope.
"You may not believe me now, but there is hope." Archie again. In his mind I saw a brief vision, fuzzy and uncertain, but still there.
Edythe and Beau were standing together, holding hands, the word forever on both their lips. Beau was in a tux, Edythe in a white dress. Their eyes only for each other.
"It's not the January wedding, and the vision only appeared after we decided to leave."
I couldn't quite believe it, but I held onto the vision anyways.
…
When we left, I placed the letter on top of Beau's unopened gifts, knowing that he'd need to find it right away. We made it to Seattle before Archie had two new visions.
Victor, with his red hair and even brighter red eyes, chasing Beau in the forest before everything went black. And then a second split-second vision. Edythe, Beau and I standing in some sort of antechamber. Beau out in front of us, a human body at his feet.
I started to snarl "what the hell" at him, but he answered before I could get it out.
"Unforeseen consequences."
…
When we reached Vancouver, I headed in a different direction than my family, determined to hunt down and kill Victor. I would give Beau that much at the bare minimum.
AN: And now for something I never do, some in depth analysis. I figure this one shot will leave everyone with a lot of questions though. So this will explain the different visions, and what caused them.
The first major vision mentioned, albeit not shown in great detail, the explosion of the garage. It would have been fun to write that scene in depth. Unfortunately it would have made Death and Rebirth an extremely short story. As in a one-shot. Consider it my own little nod to Beau's old human magnitude for danger. So Archie might have said it had a 2.5% chance of occurring, but it was more like .00001%. I'm too dedicated to seeing the story through.
The second big one. January 11th, 2006. There's a mix of symbolism here. I'm not a personal fan of GOT, but I've seen both the red wedding and the purple wedding. And then there's the "Planning a June wedding" from TVD. The over all theme in these three is, in fact, disaster. So this dated wedding that occurs at the justice of peace is sort of like that. It spells disaster. It is actually the reasons for major visions three, four, and five. Beau has been told about how mates work, but he's still more human than the rest of them, and he doesn't fully understand it. At some point between September and January, he would have made first mistake. Edythe wouldn't have stopped it though she was there. She uses his reticence to marry her as part of why she didn't do anything, her own frustration leaching through that they still haven't been together physically. Beau finally determines that the marriage and being vampire mates must be the same thing, which is why he follows through. Flash forward thirty years, he's realized it wasn't the same. He blames her for letting him kill that human, blames her for forcing the marriage before he himself was ready. Because of that one mistake, he never let's himself go more than a day or two without feeding. Flash forward even farther, and the hatred and rage finally meets out in a confrontation.
The sixth big one, the vision of the Volturi guard killing Charlie. Charlie may someday find out that Beau is alive, but he'll have to come to that realization on his own, or at least not from a vampire. If Charlie was to find out about the supernatural world by a vampire, he'd start doing research and asking the wrong type of questions which would eventually make a giant wave and bring the Volturi down on him. For the record, the three vampires that appeared. Demeter, Fahima, and Jane have the Twilight Saga counterparts of Demetri, Felix, and Alec.
The seventh showed Beau crossing onto Quileute land. He did that very much on purpose. He, like Edythe assumes by the end of this one-shot about herself, that he is the reason behind it all and determines the only way to stop it is to die. This would have been before Julie joined the pack. Sam's opinion of tried, condemned and executed would quickly come to pass.
The eighth is a little more mysterious. You only see Beau going postal on Royal and then the next scene shows him in front of two women. I will not explain what would have happened in between, but at some point, he figured out his gift, and after giving in to the monster inside him completely, he eventually ended up in Romania where he met with Stefania and Vasilisa, the old rulers of the vampire world. (Twilight Saga counterparts, Stefan and Vladimir)
Then there was the memory of a vision. The ninth major one shown. This has really nothing to do with Death and Rebirth, instead it was my own little miniature nod to my other story, The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality. In that book, Bella will eventually choose Mike. McKayla is, of course, Mike's counterpart. So there was one brief flash of Beau having someday chosen McKayla back when he was still human.
Number ten was the blurry wedding scene. Is it a future scene? Well that's for me to know and you to dot. dot. dot.
And finally, eleven and twelve, which I can confirm are two very brief sneak peaks at scenes from future chapters in Death and Rebirth.