Disclaimer: Thankfully, Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, not me. Otherwise you would never have got Twilight in the first place!!
AN: This is Alice's story of Edward's decision to leave Bella. After all, if he loses his love, she loses her sister.
Let me say goodbye
Jasper and I were in our room, curled up on the bed when Edward returned from Bella's for the night. Jasper felt him approach the house before we could hear him – a sign of the magnitude of his emotion. Jazz glanced up, desperately trying to control Edward's feelings.
"I thought he would stay at Bella's tonight," he said.
Kicking myself for not warning him, I shook my head. "It was too much."
There was no further explanation needed from me. Jasper spoke for a while of what he felt from Edward, as he sometimes did when someone's emotions were too much. He knew I would always listen to him, and wouldn't interrupt. I just let him talk, my eyes fixed on his, as he gave voice to the turmoil.
So much rage and guilt filled the house that night. Jazz assumed that Edward would be angry at him; it was only to be expected – he had tried to murder and devour the love of Edward's life earlier today. I wondered if my brother might blame me in any way. After all, it was my attempt to pull off a birthday party that had culminated in this disaster. Both of us felt immensely guilty, me for setting up the whole situation in the first case and not seeing the outcome in time, and him for losing control and attacking. It was also the first time that I fully understood why Edward had despised his very nature for so long as I remembered being forced to leave the room while Carlisle worked on Bella's arm. It was natural, therefore, that we should apologise to the two of them, Edward and Bella.
As soon as he was in control of the magnitude of Edward's emotions, Jasper was all for apologising straight away, but I stopped him. I knew Edward. He needed time to calm down, and naturally, too. He needed to find his own closure on today's events, without Jazz's help, as much as it hurt my husband to feel this. For God's sake, I had even seen him take his feelings out on Bella! No surprise, then, that he had run straight upstairs to his room, slamming the door. We heard Esme go to follow him and Carlisle put his hand on her arm. I watched as she paused for a moment, and he pulled her into his arms. I knew it must hurt her so much to see her first 'son' in so much pain.
Jasper and I joined them after a while and for a few hours the four of us simply sat in the living room, waiting. None of us spoke; nothing needed to be said, and Edward would hear every word. It was bad enough for him to hear our thoughts. Every now and again I would focus on Edward's future, but nothing changed – he was standing staring out of the window at the moon, what little was left of it, as he came to terms with the events of the day. Once or twice, Jasper winced as another wave of emotion would reach him. I could see the faint echo of Edward's pain in my love's eyes, and I clutched his hand in mine.
Emmett and Rosalie had left to go hunting earlier, as soon as they had wrestled Jasper from Bella's party. Unlike Jazz, they had not returned. Rose felt a smug thrill of pleasure as her predictions almost came true before her eyes: if Bella had been killed it would have revealed what we were to the world. We would have had to leave Forks, to start over. And she would have been right in another way: Edward's relationship with Bella would only hurt him in the end.
I banished the thought before he could hear me, and checked Edward's future again. First the immediate future: he was still standing in his room, but he was shaking with broken, dry sobs. Next I looked to the far future, decades from now, but I came up with the same image as always: Edward and Bella, inextricably linked, immortal as their love. I took comfort that this had not changed.
Returning to the present, I felt Jasper tense as the weeping began. I reached out and cupped his cheek, but he turned his face away from me as he felt Edward's shame.
Sighing, I gave up waiting. "We need to talk to him."
Jasper nodded, fighting back Edward's pain, and I pulled him gently upstairs, moving barely faster than a human until we came to Edward's firmly closed door.
"Edward?" I said softly, knowing that he had heard us coming.
There was no answer. Truthfully, I had known there would not be one, so I opened his door anyway.
He made no move to indicate that he knew of our presence. I felt that far-too-familiar sense of déjà vu as the future became the present. My brother stood straight, staring at the darkened landscape through the window, with his forearms pressed against the glass and his hands curled into fists. His shoulders shook violently. For many, this would have been a normal response to the near-murder of their girlfriend, but Edward… he never showed any emotion until the day he met Bella. Not really. Sure, he'd laugh and smile with the rest of us but it never quite reached his eyes and it was easy to see him as he saw himself: dead. The closest he ever got to expressing his feelings was his notorious temper: we had all been on the receiving end of one of his rages over the decades. Eventually he would calm down and ask for our forgiveness with his eyes as cold as ice, and we always gave it him. We knew, as he did not, that he was incomplete and hurting because of it.
It was difficult to reconcile that solitary being with Edward nowadays. When he finally let himself fall in love with Bella, he was transformed; he was alive. Bella had shown him so much, not least how to love. In response, he grew closer to us and we grew closer to him. Bella might not notice it, but every time he ruffled my short, unruly hair, it was a triumph, simply because before her, he would never touch anyone. Like he was protecting himself by making no links to anyone. No weaknesses. But no strength either.
Contemplating this, it still surprised me that he was not shouting at us, not lashing out. He was hurting more than any of us thought he would be. I was almost inclined to agree with Bella: it wasn't this big a deal. Nothing had happened. Why did it affect him so much? I looked again at his poker-straight spine and wondered how much it took him not to collapse.
Impulsively, I flitted to his side and flung my arms around his waist. "Oh, Edward…" I trailed off, for once deciding not to fill a silence with a constant babble of words. My brother tensed as I hugged him, so I quickly let go and took a half step back, searching his face and his future simultaneously. Flickers were all I received. He didn't know how to react.
Jasper stepped forward, walking slowly towards us. "Edward, I truly am sorry for what happened today. I know an apology isn't enough, but-"
"Sorry?" Edward's voice cut him off. It was seething with rage, and we waited for the inevitable storm. But he continued in a voice as unfeeling as stone. "What do you have to be sorry for?" He spoke in a flat monotone, scarily calm. "Being what you are? Reacting as any one of us would?" His words grew quieter and even we struggled to hear him. "This is my fault."
"No, it's not," I said instantly, even as Jasper asked "How do you work that out?"
His question sparked an inferno, and my love winced as a blaze of hatred roared through the room. Yet it wasn't directed at us as my brother continued to stare at the sliver of the moon. I understood now; it was self-hatred.
"Every day, I risk her life! Every time I bring her here, every time she sits with us at school, every second I am alone with her, I am holding an axe over her neck! If she had never met me, if I had never insisted on pursuing this impossible infatuation, James would never have tracked her! She could have gone to the prom with someone who wasn't constantly toying with the idea of murdering her, without a cast on her leg, without-" He froze, and his anger suddenly abated. "Without me," he finished.
"Without the love of her life?" I retorted, trying to fire his temper, anything other than this emotional lockdown.
"She'll find someone else," he replied, still looking away, still immobile, still with a voice like death.
"She would never have-" I began, but then I froze as well. "You're talking in the future tense."
Slowly, painfully slowly, he turned to face me for the first time. There was a split second more of indecision, and then he nodded.
A vision leapt unbidden into my head: Edward, curled up like a child in a dark room I didn't recognise, alone. The picture magnified with no conscious input on my part and I saw his eyes. If he had thought he'd been dead before, then I didn't know how to describe this. There were no words to possibly communicate what Edward's eyes told me. They were empty, yet still somehow filled with an agony I couldn't even begin to comprehend.
As abruptly as it came, it left me. Coming back to myself, I realised I was on my knees, head bowed almost to the ground in a foetal position. Jasper had his arms round me protectively.
"Alice, Al, honey, tell me what is it?"
We all three of us felt the same horror, Edward having seen exactly what I had and Jasper condemned to share our emotions. I raised my head to look at Edward, kneeling at his feet. His face was carefully composed into a perfect façade as he met my gaze evenly.
"It'll kill you," I whispered. Edward, your heart will break.
He didn't acknowledge the thought or the statement, but looked up towards the door. Esme and Carlisle had heard me collapse and had come to investigate. Esme immediately came to my side as she processed my position and she and Jazz helped me up. I knew they were wondering what horrific even I had seen that had me, a vampire, unable to support myself and needing help to stand. As soon as I was able, I moved away from their grasp, towards my brother, my closest friend.
And what about them? I thought. He knew I meant our parents, our family. What about me? I love her too, you know. And I love you. Do you want me to stand by and watch you slowly kill yourself?
"It's what's best for her," he replied, totally disregarding my arguments. "If it keeps her alive, it's worth it."
Esme was about to speak when everyone – save Edward and me, still locked in opposing arguments, still staring at each other as though it would change our minds – looked up. Emmett and Rosalie were returning.
"I think we should discuss this downstairs," Carlisle said, his voice grave.
Esme and Carlisle left the room swiftly and silently. When I didn't follow, Jazz moved forward to take my arm and pull me gently away. Edward's gaze never left my face as I turned unwillingly and gave way to the sobs that been threatening all evening.
