[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] Welcome to my new story, my lovely readers. I don't really know where this is going but I just love the idea and wanted to give it a try.

**1**

He's dead. Edward is dead. He's dead. He's dead. Inside my head I repeated the words again and again. Somehow hoping I would be capable of grasping the finality of them. It was impossible though. I couldn't imagine a world where Edward didn't exist. The sun had vanished in my world and eternal darkness would cloud my soul forever now.

I lifted the tissue I was holding to my eyes and pretended to wipe away tears that would never fall.

My heart was empty. Empty, just like the three closed caskets standing in front of us. I smelled the flowers, white lilies for Carlisle, yellow roses for Jasper and finally a bouquet of wild flowers from our meadow for my beloved Edward. I tried to memorize his face in front of me. How long would it take until I couldn't remember all the tiny details anymore?

Charlie's hand was warm on my shoulder, its human heat radiating through the fabric of my black dress. He was trying to comfort me but I knew it was impossible.

Eventually everything was over. Mechanically I shook some hands with my silk-gloved fingers. I heard the words people's lips were forming but it was as if everything was muffled. Maybe my shield was on self-protection mode now.

"It's time to go home." Rose's voice was soft and it was the only one who managed to reach my ear. I followed her to the car and sat down behind Emmett on the passenger's seat.

"Funeral's suck. Alice was right to skip this farce. " he stated, crumbling some fist-sized rock into fine dust before he let it fall down out of the half-opened window. I wished someone would crash me like this. The Volturi were gone. How would I find someone who would help me end my life now?

Then I thought of my little daughter, my Renesmee and I knew I had to go on for her. She had already lost her father. I couldn't make her a complete orphan.

"Bella, have you managed to reach the dog?" Rose asked me when she parked the Mercedes in front of the Cullen house a few minutes later. "He needs to come back with Nes- Renesmee."

I shook my head. "No. I'd rather have her as far away from all of this as possible. Jake's going to bring Renesmee to Isle Esme."

"Does she know about Edward?"

"I can't let Jake tell her that her father is dead. Tomorrow, I'll be taking a flight to Rio."

"You're leaving us too?" Emmett asked before he helped Esme who had been sitting next to me in the car to stand up. Her hands quivered but her lips stayed pressed in a smile that had been frozen on her face. She hadn't spoken much since after. There were no words necessary for me to know how she felt. Just like me Esme had lost the love of her existence.

"I can't stay here. I can't endure it."

"We'll be taking care of Esme." Rose assured me. She wrapped her arms around her adoptive mother and pulled her close. "Won't we, Emmett?"

"Sure, Babe,"

"I'm going to pack now," I told them before walking slowly off to the cottage our family had given Edward and me as a gift. Now, with my husband gone irrevocably it felt like a prison to me. Everything inside that house reminded me of him. I couldn't endure it. The pain would suffocate me and pull me down into a spiral of emotional purgatory.

I could smell Alice before I saw her. She was sitting on the ground in my dressing room, holding a single red sling-pump in her dainty hands.

"Can't find the other one, you must have lost it."

"It doesn't matter." I whispered, kneeling down next to her. "Nothing matters anymore."

"I know. I've already packed your suitcases. They're in your bedroom."

"Thanks." I murmured, reaching out my hand to place it carefully on hers. "You didn't have to do that."

"I know. I wanted to."

I notice for the first time how delicate her hands are. Alice's fingers remind me of that of a porcelain doll.

"Jasper's dead. It's my fault. I should have come back on my own."

"It's not your fault." I tell her, the grip of my fingers tightening around hers. "What happened is not your fault."

"I saw what was going to happen. I saw everything."

"That doesn't make you responsible for anything. Aro is the one who made the choice."

"Not the one to let Jasper come back here with me. That was his."

"Jasper came with you because he loved you.

A tortured whimper leaves her mouth and I flinch when she moves forward at lightning speed. Her fists connected with the walls, making concrete and wood splinter around us.

"Stop this! You're destroying the house and hurting yourself."

"I don't care! You're right. You're so right! Jasper came back with me because he loved me. His love for me is what killed him!"

I manage to pull her away from the wall. She quivers in my arms when I pull her on my lap like a little child. For a moment I remember how she held me after she'd come back after Edward left me. How she comforted me. Now, it was my turn to do the same for her.

"Scream if you want to. No one will hear you but me. The walls are sound-proof."

She whimpers as I rock her back and forth, gently stroking her back with my fingertips until she finally calms down. For a while we remain like we are. Both of us are unable to move one single inch.

"Your eyes are all black." I tell her, "When was the last time you hunted?"

"Can't remember,"

"Then we'll go right now. Come with me."

"I don't want to hunt. I don't want anything apart from stopping this pain inside of me. It's unbearable."

Her voice is tortured and I know that if she doesn't hunt anytime soon the physical pain will start to overpower the emotional one.

I pull her outside with me and practically force her to drink from the first elk that we run into. She drinks greedily, soft moans escaping her mouth with every gulp full of blood she takes. It has been rare that the two of us have been hunting together. There is a gracefulness in Alice while she feeds on the animal that is just beautiful.

"I want to be dead too." she whispers. "Aro should have killed me first."

"Don't say that. I'm glad you are still here. I love you."

"I love you too. I'm sorry about Edward. He loved you so much."

Standing up from the ground I set fire to the dead elk on the ground. "Let's go back home."

She takes my hand and lifts it her still blood covered mouth. "Thank you for not hating me. I could understand if you did."

"I don't blame you for what happened. Please, don't think that."

"But you don't want to stay here. You're going away and then I'll be all by myself."

I kick off my boots when we enter the cottage again and sigh. "Everything here reminds me of Edward. I can't endure this."

"I know. But I also know you won't be coming back…ever."

Alice can see the idea that spreads through my head even before the words leave my mouth. She wraps her arms around me and answers my question without giving me a possibility to re-think my decision.

"Yes," she whispers softly. "I want to come with you to Isle Esme."