TwiGirlsNextDoor Christmas Crackers

Pairing if Applicable: None

Title: Better

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own anything. If I did, Bella would be a much better character. Or at least I'd make an attempt at making her a better character anyway.

Brief Summary: (AU) Instead of waiting around for Edward to come back in New Moon, Bella goes to find him. But what she finds is something else.

The second I stepped in the door I knew something was wrong.

"Bella, what's this?" Charlie was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a plane ticket in his hand. From my position at the door I couldn't read what it said, but I didn't really need to. It was my plane ticket. My flight left tomorrow.

"Bella, what-" I cut him off with a wave of my hand. I stepped a little further inside and shut the door behind me.

"I was going to tell you." I dropped my school bag on the floor and walked towards him. He took a step back.

"You were going to tell me what? That you were planning on just up and leaving again?" He looked away from me and in that second, I wanted to cry. I needed to go. I had to go. But I didn't want to hurt Charlie in the process.

"No. No. That's not it at all." I shook my head vehemently. "I just... I just... I just need to go."

Charlie opened his mouth like he was going to speak but just ended up making a face instead. After about a minute and a half of complete silence, he finally said, "Why?"

"I... I'm sure you've noticed. I haven't exactly been myself. I've been a complete wreck. I need to go. I need to be somewhere new, somewhere that doesn't... make me think of him." That was a lie. I hated lying to Charlie. But if he knew the truth, he'd just be even less likely to let me go.

"Well, okay." He sighed. "I can understand that. But why not just go live with your mom for a while? Why-" he paused for a second as he looked down at the ticket, "Barcelona? Why there?"

"Just..." I bit my lip. The real reason I wanted to go was because Alice, after months of complete silence, had emailed me to tell me that Edward was in Barcelona. She wasn't sure for how long. "Just because, alright?"

He shook his head and looked at me dead on. Neither of us said anything for a very long time. "You're not going to change your mind, are you?"

I shifted my weight a little and straightened my spine. I didn't look away. "Nope."

"But you're coming back?" There was just the tiniest bit of hope in his words, and the fact that he thought that I wouldn't made me want to cry again.

"Of course."

"Well, then I guess I can't stop you. Have you called your school? Told your friends?" I got the feeling that under any other circumstances, he wouldn't have let me go, but as it was... I was starting to wonder how long it would be before he had me committed. As for the school, they had been informed. I had no idea how long I'd be gone exactly, so I hadn't been able to tell them. But I'd told them I wouldn't be in school on Monday. Or all of next week. After that... I didn't know. I hadn't told any of my friends. I hadn't spoken to them for months and all of a sudden up and breaking my silence just to say that I'd be leaving had seemed strange so I just... didn't.

Since there suddenly seemed to be nothing else to say, I said, "I'm going upstairs to pack."

The next day, Charlie drove me to the airport. He told me he hoped I would be able to find what I was looking for and that I'd be able to come back to him a better, stronger person. I hoped he was right. I gave him a hug then I grabbed my bags and boarded the plane.

I fell asleep on the plane a few hours into the flight and when I woke up, I was almost there. It was the first restful night's sleep I'd had since he'd left.

About an hour later I was in the airport and completely and hopelessly confused. I couldn't read any of the signs and I couldn't ask anyone for help in reading them since I didn't speak the language. All of a sudden something that I should have thought of long before occurred to me. I'd run off to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language without so much as stopping to think for long enough for that to even have occurred to me. It was terrifying. It was mind boggling. It was also the first time I hadn't been consumed with thoughts of Edward.

Three hours and many hand signals after that, I was in a taxi and on my way to my hotel. Barcelona was stunningly beautiful, even just seeing it from sitting in the back of a cab.

Shortly after that the cab arrived at the hotel. I paid the cab driver, got my bags out of the back of the cab and walked inside.

The hotel was beautiful, if a little run down. It had been, of course, all I had been able to afford. I checked-in, called Charlie and went to sleep soon after.

I spent my first few days searching relentlessly for Edward. One day I spent fifteen straight hours just walking around looking for him, praying I'd find him somehow. I didn't have a plan, I didn't have any sort of idea at all aside from walking around, looking in every possible dark corner and trying my best to not horribly mangle the one phrase in Spanish I'd looked up online, which, loosely translated, or so I hoped, was "I'm looking for someone. Have you seen them?" Usually, that part went decently enough. It was when I started describing him that things went wrong. No one had seen him. Some, I'm pretty sure, were convinced nobody like that could have existed at all. Sometimes I wondered if maybe they were right.

And that was when I got distracted.

It started out small. I bought a guidebook so I could find my way around a little bit better. The book made me curious. So I ended up going to see a few places, like the gothic quarter (because maybe he'd be there) and the Sagrada Familia by Antonio Gaudi (because maybe he'd been there?) and the spanish village (because I just wanted to see it). And that led to going to museums and going to see a flamenco dance and going to see all these other historical places and going out late at night not to search for him but to go out and experience the nightlife in the city.

And then somehow without my even noticing, a whole month had gone by. A whole month had gone by and with each passing day I thought about him less. It wasn't that I loved him less, I knew, I just knew, that there was no way I was getting away from that. The experiences I'd had with him had marked me for the rest of my life. If you asked me, I would be pretty damn sure I would never love like that again.

But...

Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe...

Maybe being tied to someone like that ties you down. Maybe there's more out there. Maybe there's more out there than green trees and rainy days and boys with impossibly beautiful faces made of stone.

Or maybe I'm only fooling myself. Maybe someday I'll see Edward again, either because he shows up on purpose or by complete accident and maybe he'll give me some reason for why he did it and maybe I will be completely powerless against him. Maybe I will take him back without a second's hesitation.

But...

Maybe I won't. Maybe someday I'll see him again and I won't. Maybe he'll beg and he'll plead to get me back and maybe I'll say no. Maybe I'll be able to stare into his impossibly, imhumanly perfect face and say no.

Or maybe I'll never see him again. I don't know.

The one thing I do know?

I can go home a better, stronger person. I can't ever return to who I was before I met Edward, but I can be better than I was.