The Dream

Disclaimer: Do I own Twilight? No. Although, I wish I did...

This idea came to me while drabbling out crappy poetic jivnak the other day, when the word "dream" came up. The following concept flashed in my mind, and I decided to write a oneshot on it. I have also decided to enter this in a lovely contest being run by the wonderful people at Twilight FanFiction for the June sumission period: if you're reading this, Pelirroja, I send my greetings! 8D

This is my second Twilight fic, and I did my very, very best to keep Bella and Edward in character. The main reason I waited so long to write about them was becase I didn't want to ruin their relationship with horrid writing, and I truly hope that they're not OOC. I also realize the sitiation they land themselves in is a little out-there, but, hey, it could happen, right? At least, it did here. ;)

Enjoy!

Pale sunlight flooded my line of vision as my eyelids fluttered open. After a moment, my pupils adjusted to the brightness of the world, and my surroundings painted themselves fluidly on the startlingly-white canvas around me. I was resting flat on my back in the meadow, with spectrum wildflowers and daisies sprinkled here and there and the long green grasses tickling my face. Above me, the sun hovered over the circular treeline, the merest fringe of the burning sphere already obscured by the dark foliage as twilight approached.

I sat up and rubbed my bleary eyes, still half out-of-it after dozing off for...how long, was it? I wasn't sure; I remembered coming here after lunch with Edward and--

Edward! Where was he? I spun to see him lying in the tall leaves beside me, and I breathed a sigh relief. But, wait...something wasn't right. He was too still, even compared to his usual composure, as if were a stone statue, dead and unreal. His fingers were curled into half-closed fists, and his eyes were shut. Yet it was the way his face was twisted that scared me the most, the mixed expression of confused agony set into his unmoving posture.

Panic welled inside my chest, but now I, too, was frozen. I simply stared at his god-like features, wanting to go to him but being restrained by this unknown force of paralyzation. The minutes passed, and still Edward did not...did not what? Wake?

At long last I broke from my trance and stumbled to the tranquil form of my one and only love. Leaning over him, I hesitated for only a second before I reached down and put my hand on his upper jawline. His cold cheek burned against my warmer-than-usual skin, and I was sure he would have heard my clumsy approach, but, still, he stayed silent. I whispered his name.

"Edward?"

Nothing.

My voice rose to a high-pitched whimper. "Edward! Please! Get up. Please." I shook his shoulder with my free hand, the other still on his face.

One second, there was naught but the rustle of the wind blowing through the trees; another heartbeat and I had suddenly let out a piercing screech of startled fright. The next thing I knew I was pinned to the ground with Edward on top of me, him manacling my wrists behind my head with his freezing hands.

Yet he was not Edward. His lips were drawn back in a snarl, showing off glinting white teeth, and his hard topaz eyes were wild and livid. As he glared fiercely at me, emotions flitted through their depths like minnows in a stream. From anger, to pain, to confusion, to horror. They settled on the last one, and, after a moment, I managed to choke out, "Edward..." I didn't know what I was pleading for. Answers? Relief? I wanted to get the hell out of this terrible nightmare, at the very least.

The strangest expression crossed Edward's beautiful aspects, something like remorse and agony and some other feeling I couldn't put my finger on all rolled into one. Slowly, he raised himself off of me and started to back away. Struggling to get up, I reached a quivering palm towards him. "No, please, wait, please!"

There was no reply. After gazing at me for another moment, he turned and briskly stalked towards the treeline at vampire speed. I lurched to my feet and ran after him, and there were salty tears pouring down my face. In the darkening sky there was just a thin slice of sun left to brighten the sky. A mere sliver; tiny and fragile, just like me.

I burst through the undergrowth, still sobbing uncontrollably, and everything went cool and dark as I entered the shade of the trees. Stumbling blindly through the bushes, I called his name again and again. A root managed to tangle itself around my ankle, making me trip and scrape the skin along my forearms. I really couldn't care less.

At last I found him. He was standing with his back to me, looking off into the distance but not really seeing. I stopped just behind him and, though I knew he could feel my eyes boring holes into him, he didn't turn around.

I don't know how long we stood like that. Who knows; it might have been as little as five minutes or as long as five days. In any case, I stopped crying at last and felt my emotions beginning to lean towards angry. Even if this was just a stupid nightmare, I wanted answers, and sure as hell wasn't getting any. I stepped forward and, after only a short pause, placed a hand on his shoulder. I opened my mouth to speak.

"Edward," I said seriously, "Edward, we need to talk."

I didn't have another chance to get a word in. So fast I wasn't even sure it had happened, he turned sharply on his heel and leaped towards me. I think I might have screamed. He didn't pin me to the ground once more as I expected, though. Instead, he swept me up and held me so close I could barely breathe. His hands were hard against the small of my back, bowing my body to his, and he buried his face in my hair, gasping, inhaling as much of my scent as he could. I was whimpering again, too, my eyelids squeezed shut in a measly attempt to stem the relentless flow of tears.

"Bella, Bella, oh, Bella," he murmured over and over, his velvety voice rough and ragged. I merely sobbed harder, not knowing what had just taken place and also not giving a damn. Whatever had come up, whatever conflict, problem or reason Edward had had to react the way he did, everything was alright now. It had to be; I was in his arms.

For a while we just stayed like that, Edward holding me securely in his steely-safe grasp, the sweetness of our reunion being carried through the trees on the softly hissing breeze. I raised my head to stare into his butterscotch eyes: they no longer had that terrible, forceful, cold glint in them, but were back to their soft gold endearment, their passionate devotion.

"E-Edward?"

He nodded tightly down at me, signifying that I go on, his expression tightening up a bit.

I fumbled for the words I needed to convey my level of concern, worry and desperation. "Edward, why...why did--how--what...what happened? Before, when you were..." I trailed off.

The glossy green leaves and creviced mahogany branches that criss-crossed in a never-ending spiral above our heads gave way in places to reveal little pieces of the sky, now a dark cobalt. Dappling emerald sprinkled with the blue of an ocean. A scene out of a dream. Edward lifted his gaze to fix it to a jagged indigo spot, his marble forehead creasing.

Pain flickering to life in my heart, I waited patiently. When a response did not come to my aid, the sharp stinging swelled up and spilled over, turning me desolate. My fingernails twisting in the fabric of his shirt, I pressed myself to his chest, wishing with all of my aching heart that I could stay there. My voice cracked a lot when I spoke. "Please...tell me. What's wrong. Please."

My face was still wet. Edward brushed the warm, sticky droplets gently away with the very tip of his finger. Then he just looked at me, contemplating. "Bella..." His voice was full of love, though uncertain and wary. Why was that? I couldn't bear not knowing.

"What's wrong, Edward?" I repeated, adding his name for emphasis.

I watched him draw in a deep breath, filling his lungs, then slowly exhale it all out before he began again.

"Bella, I love you. That's all that matters. Not that...other thing. Not what happened. Just you."

But the glare I gave him said otherwise.

He let out a heavy sigh. "Alright," he said, a tearing tenor dragging in the word. "I'll tell you what happened, if you really, really want me to, though it goes flat-out against my better judgement to do so."

I pressed my face into his chest. "Thank you," I whispered, the anger fading quickly from my voice. "Yes, I truly want to know. No matter how much it might...hurt."

Immersed in thought, Edward didn't start the elucidation immediately. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me forward, maneuvering easily over the roots and leaves underfoot, firmly gripping me so that they would not fault me when drastically paired with my oh-so-evil clumsiness. As he lead me home through the shrouded wood, the shadows casting quivering shapes over the forest floor, his brow was furrowed, and I knew he was pondering, putting his thoughts in order, trying to decide how and what to say to me. Waiting in silence, I leaned my head against his shoulder as we walked (well, stumbled in my case), gripping his cold hand as hard as I could, never wanting to let it go. His smooth, marble thumb stroked the creases in my palm absentmindedly.

An eternity had passed when he finally spoke; there was a soft edge to the way he sounded that frightened me, just a little. I pushed the unnerving feeling away. "It started when we were back in the meadow. I was holding you in my arms, both of us feeling the warmth of the sun and the cool of the air mingling together and washing over us. You were exhausted, I could tell, completely out of it, and I knew it wouldn't be long until you drifted off into a nap. When you did, it would seem that...well, that I joined you, actually."

I gaped in surprise and confusion. "I..I don't think that I understand. Edward, do you mean...do you mean to say that you fell asleep?!"

My startled gaze was met calmly, evenly. "That's what I'm led to believe, yes. In the last little while I've thought about it, and it seems that that's the only logical explanation--although, in the true truth, "logical" is totally opposite the word I'm looking for. That's what it was, though."

Not comprehending, I simply stared up at him.

"Ever since I have met you, Bella, my distant human memories have become even more distinct: it's much easier to remember them clearly now. And I knew that feeling. No, not a feeling, because it's not an emotion. More of a sensation, if you will. When you sleep, it's like you enter a giant vacuum, full of nothing and everything, the obvious and the foggy, the certain and impossible. Life is constantly balancing on the point of a knife in sleep. Somehow, though the whole matter defied all that vampires have ever known in our centuries upon centuries of carefully documented history, I had fallen asleep."

As I shook my head wordlessly, he slowed his steps until we came to a full halt. He took both my hands in one of his and brought it to his face, pressing it against his cheek for a moment before he kissed it, brushing his icy, perfect lips across the tips of my fingers. His free arm hugged me tight to his chest, as if securing to his mind the fact that I really was there. A shudder seemed to ripple through him, and my heart thumped violently against my ribcage, threatening to burst out at any second.

He heard it, of course, and smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling up under my hand.

"So, you...slept," I whispered to him after a minute, afraid to break the silence. "Is that what was bothering you?"

His eyes closed, the violet hollows under them pale. "Is that all? No. When I slept, I dreamed. I dreamed a dream I couldn't get away from, and, if I had had one, it would have eaten away my soul."

"D-dream? What did you dream a-about?" I stuttered hoarsely, trembling.

My question wasn't answered right away, though. Edward went on, and he opened his eyes to stare into mine. Their perpetual golden hue, so full of of passion and worry as they were now, sent shivers convulsing down my spine. "When I dreamed, I can't even begin to explain to you how it felt. Not only was I experiencing something that is physically against the nature of our kind, but I was also undergoing the process of stirring the long-ago mementos of my human life, the very ones that took place a hundred years ago.

"Above that, though, there was something else. In my dream, it was all so alien to me, so crazy and strange. Yet, inside and outside of that, there then came the moment when I realized why this was not completely unknown, how I could sympathize and understand these feelings coursing though me. There was the part that was oh-so-familiar about that damned dream, and..." he trailed off.

The expression that burned upon his angel's face just then broke my heart. His usually perfect composure slipped away, like a mask torn from its beholder at a grand masquerade ball, crumpling into a screen of misery, horror and agony, the latter more than anything else. Gasping, I put my hands on his cheek, holding him still, feeling the tears threatening to arise again.

"Edward, tell me! It's me, Bella, I love you, please. What happened in your dream?" I was dangerously close to hysterics.

And then I really focused on the suffering etched into every line of his face, and it hit me like lightning strikes a tree. I knew. I knew. I had seen that look before.

The breath gushed out of my lungs as if they were a tap on full force.

"Bella." The speech was so low I had to strain to pick it up. "I dreamed that I didn't have you."

I scrutinized him through squinted eyes that had suddenly glazed over with wetness, touching my fingers lightly to his face. "Stop, Edward, don't. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here." I repeated the phrase over and over, trying to drill the very words into the surrounding air. "Edward, I love you and I'm here; you'll never have to worry again. It's okay. I love you." My voice broke and cracked all the way through my sobbed reassurances.

It seemed like forever until I could get through to him, but when it seemed that I finally did, his took me in his arms and kissed me on the mouth until the forest spun ridiculously around me. When he broke away, he looked deep into my eyes, golden sparks kindling in his own.

"I'm here," I whispered yet again, still breathless from the kiss. "Don't fret, you silly vampire: it was just a dream."

Aww, how sweet! 8D

In case anyone is wondering, I was thinking that this would take place between New Moon and Eclipse. I had originally planned to mention both Bella's and Edward's recent run-ins with near-death at the end there, to compare to Edward's little "dream," but when I was writing it just didn't fit without interrupting the flow of the words.

If you can, I ask you to kindly drop me a line in the form of a review

Thank you!

--Annie;;/