A/N

So, this is my first attempt at a story. This is an AU that has been rolling around in my head, and is slowly starting to creep onto paper - or screen, rather. I'd like to offer a few notes at the beginning

1. While this AU is based in New Moon, the timeline is slightly different for a number of reasons. Partly because of when I see part of the plot taking place, but more importantly, as a mother, I can\t imagine leaving my daughter in a catatonic state for that long without doing something. So future chapters, you will notice that the timeline has been bumped up by a few months

2. This chapter is in multiple perspectives, but it is not my intention to jump around so much. I now know what other authors mean when they write that a certain character had something to say. So while this chapter has three perspectives, I foresee that proceeding chapters will be done in single voice.

Please read and review. If You notice any inaccuracies, I would be happy to hear about them

September, 2005

~ Edward ~

The ability to remember everything perfectly clear for eternity, can sometimes feel more like a curse than anything else. I can remember what my home in every state I have ever lived with astounding clarity, as though I were there minutes ago. I remember what Alice said to me on the porch steps of our house in Chicago on July 5th 1963 at 11:15pm. Not that it was a particularly important day, or an overly interesting topic. It is in my brain now, and with little effort I can conjure up the conversation.

So the pain on her face, that I witnessed minutes ago, is a face I will remember until the end of all ages. The look on Bella's face - crinkled, shaken, broken - matches the fissure that cracked through the centre of my being. And because of what I am, both of these things will remain with my forever. I had to hurt my love. I had to make her believe a lie so that she may live, and move on and be everything that she can be. I had to put her through pain to prevent further potential agony.

If only she could see me for the monster I am, this would be so much easier. Why does she have to be so difficult? Why does she have to be so beautifully, courageously difficult that she would give her first feelings of love to me, someone who isn't, or ever will be deserving of her? I feel torn in two. Half of me, the brave, selfless side knows that she will move on eventually, and be a happier, safer person without me. The other half is snarling, growling, sobbing, and dying because the first half had to make the choice- a safer, better choice for My Love in the end.

My love. She is my love. My Bella. If I had a soul, it would have been left behind with her. Now that I have made the choice, I can't go back. I can't return and reclaim that which isn't mine, which was never meant to be mine. How do I frame her in my mind without going insane? Can vampires go insane? I feel at any moment that I am about to find out. I am on the precipice of a mental unraveling. What name do I give to the person who holds me to the earth? Can I call her my love for all eternity? Is she mine? I don't deserve her love. I don't deserve the happiness she will one day impart on another.

At this moment my body begins to heave out deep sobs that erupt from the centre of my belly, and escape my mouth as my knees buckle and I fall to the ground. Where the hell am I, anyway? I looked around at the crowd of trees surrounding me, trying to get my bearings. I just realized I had been running, with no destination. There is nowhere to run to. I am far away enough so that I couldn't hear her calling my name. The sky is starting to turn from a dense gray to a creeping pitch black of a moonless night. The damp moss under my knees begins to seep through my clothing, calling me into the groundcover, to sink into the earth and never again emerge. That could work, I thought for a moment. Except it wouldn't take away my pain. I have no reprieve, no form of oblivion to turn to. I have only the crack in my chest carving pain into me, and a vision so vivid of my Bella with trembling lips and chin, Bella staring bravely back at me, until I said the words "You're not good for me". And then her eyes changed. Then the spark behind her eyes retreated, leaving only deep empty pools for me to remember for the rest of my days. Perhaps that's what I deserved for making the mistake of pretending that we could be together.

I refocus again, determining my location. I look to my left about 100 yards, and the realization of my whereabouts would have knocked me over had I not already been kneeling on the ground, shoulders sunk and head bent, with my finger nails digging deeply into the soft ground.

The meadow - our meadow - is within eyesight, even in the rapidly fading light. A flood of memories return and crash over me like a mighty ocean swell. The peel of her laughter. The thick carpet of her hair spread behind her head as she rested on my arm. I can recall the warmth of her cheek on my chest, and the soft purr of her lazy answers to my pondering as we lay together in the sun. The way the breeze scattered strands of her hair over the book I held, as I recited poetry to her, and gently wafted her scent toward me. Her scent, the sensation that I lusted after in every way that I can imagine, and in ways I could not imagine before I knew of her.

I can't go there. How much torture do I deserve? Maybe I should go there. Maybe this is payback. An eternity of memories damning me to hell on earth for what I have done. Perhaps fate decided that not only do I not fit in heaven, but that I should never really know happiness on earth either. That if I did not die and go to hell, then hell should come to me. That seems fitting.

As kneel and ponder the best place for me to live in the hell I was destined to live out, I remember my family, waiting for me in Alaska. They had gone up to visit the Denali's for a few weeks until our new home was secured, the furniture arrived and we were ready to move in. As much as I want to live out the sentence I deserve for ever putting my love in danger, I needed to return to them. I remember the look on Esme's face as she left two days ago: A mother pining for her son, who was to leave without knowing when he would return. Although few of my human memories remained, her face reminded me of my human mother Elizabeth, when I spoke of going to war. At the time I was young, and self-absorbed. I spoke about going to war as enthusiastically as some spoke about going to college, or getting their first job at the bank, or going on a trip to the sea. Was I destined to bring pain to all the women in my life? No wonder it took me almost a century to find someone to love. I just wish I could love Bella fully without risking her life. All the pain I could experience in my one thousand lifetimes would not make up for her life, were it lost. I will sit with this pain, and hope that soon that her pain will move past her and she will find the future I can never give her.

But right now, I have to concentrate on returning to my family, to Esme and Carlisle, my siblings, because the only one who has earned any measure of pain over this is me.

~Esme~

I didn't realize my hands were trembling, until Carlisle's firm comforting grip slid over my lap to still my fingers. I allow the compassion and strength of my husband, the foundation of our family, to seep through my hands and silence the soft heaving in my chest that hitch my breath and tighten my throat. We have been driving for about three hours. I thought I was starting calm down.

Suddenly Carlisle stops the car on a generous shoulder on the road and pulls me into his lap. I lay on his chest, listening to his voice rumble gentle murmurs into my ear. The heaves in my breathing let loose to shaking, uncontrollable sobs that wrack my body and send my head spinning. Thank god I am sitting clutched to my rock of a husband, or I don't know where I would have tumbled - on this earth, in my mind, where my soul would have settled after it falls away from me.

After a few moments, my breath deepens and my shaking body subsides back to a rhythmic heaving. I feel at this moment like I need to breathe. My breath settles me further into his arms, brings me his familiar scent, and gives me a measure of peace that my heart wouldn't allow.

"I can't lose both of them" I whisper. "Edward made a choice, against our advice and now I don't…I don't know what will become of him. I have lost Bella, I cannot lose him too".

Carlisle trembles as he sighs, and his silence caught me. At this moment he has no words of wisdom, no logical outlook, there is no place for a scientific approach. He inhales a raspy breath and shakes quietly, grieving with me. It is my turn to be his rock. I look up and place my hands on his cheeks. His face is contorted his eyes are closed. As he opens them, his soft eyes are clouded with pain, and….shame?

"Talk to me?" I ask him gently.

"I don't know what to say or do to make this better." He said softly. "I wish this were a wound I could tend but I don't know how. I don't know how to make Edward see…"

~Alice~

Don't look don't look don't look don't look don't look can't look at her future. Too painful too painful too painful I'm here for him, I'm here for him I'm here for him.

And so on and so on, I repeat my mantra to maintain a thread of balance in this chaotic moment.

I stare aimlessly out the car window. Rosalie and Emmett are in the front of the Jeep, as I am cradled in Jasper's embrace trying to do the impossible in six different ways. I try to love away the pain he feels from within himself and from everyone else. I try to coo words of reassurance into his ear. Reassurance that everything will fall into place as it should, reassurance that our family will stay intact, consoling him into believing that everything will work out in the end. Are these words for him, or for me? I am trying to assuage his guilt, but I don't know how successful I will be. I don't feel he was to blame for anything. Blood was spilled, he was stopped. It could have been worse, but it wasn't. Bella is still alive, although her current emotional state I don't – or rather shouldn't know. Strict orders from my brother.

My brother. OK, so I get his pain. He feels he needs to leave his mate to keep her safe. I don't get how he can do this. I don't get how he can rationalize that this is better. For whom? For whom is this better? For Bella? I that doesn't resonate with me in the slightest. The incident with James, was, well terrible. No one would wish that upon her. The paper cut – incidental. I thought as a family – all eight of us, we could learn from these experiences. We've done that before as a family, we've learned. Was Bella not part of this now? Did she not deserve to learn and grow with us? Did we not deserve to grow with her? How does excluding her from us help her to grow and learn beyond what has happened? I only see isolation, abandonment. You know, for all the times that my family – even Edward – Has relied on me to know how decisions will effect us in the future, why did he, they, choose to ignore me now?

Stupid pig-headed cynical self-loathing autocratic brother of mine. He didn't just do this to himself. He has done this to all of us, in a uniquely destructive way. I didn't have to look at Bella's future (even though I did) to know she will be broken in a way that no one around her would even begin to know how to fix. If it weren't for the guilt rolling off Jasper I would run back myself and hold her in my arms and cradle her and tell her we love her. I know she doesn't hold Jasper to blame. She is incapable of condemning someone for their nature. Maybe that's how she could love my stupid favourite brother so much. She saw past his flaws…did she? Or did she simply refuse to acknowledge them? Their love is strong, but young. Regardless, I know this drastic measure of his will have consequences that Edward either can't, or refuses to comprehend.

Esme and Carlisle just up and moved away from their daughter. What the hell? All because Edward panicked and decided to play dictator with our lives? I know that Emmett's torn. His usual jovial manner has been dampened; I've seen his breath hitch, he doesn't even attempt to lighten the mood by cracking a joke. I'm also fairly certain that Rose is confused as well. She doesn't want Bella to become a vampire, she is insanely jealous of what Bella seems to be mindlessly throwing away. But she also knows love, and that by leaving, Edward has forced a future on Bella that she didn't choose.

While I sit here, cradling and cooing, I am also trying desperately not to look into Bella's future. As I am so attached to her, it's hard work to not let my mind go on auto pilot and scan the future to ensure the well-being of my loved ones, and of course this includes her. I don't know where to go from here. The only thing that keeps my need to look for her at bay is my own fear. I will truly admit, I am afraid of what I will find if I look now.

I am deathly afraid to look into the next few days, months, years. I can't bear it. If I look, and it's too painful, then I would be forced to make a choice that is bound to rip me in two.

Because Jasper believes Edward, and Jasper is convinced that he is truly a risk to Bella. He also loves her like a sister, albeit in a distant sort of way, but enough that he wouldn't risk hurting her. He firmly holds to the belief that he can't go back and have her safe. Jazz and I offered to leave for a while, so that Edward and Bella's relationship could carry on, and when she was changed, we would come back. As much as I wouldn't want to be away from her or my family, I could handle that, knowing that our separation would be temporary and that we would all be safe and happy and together again. Stupid Edward of course refused, citing that Jasper was not the only risk we posed to her, and his plan hinged on Bella becoming one of our kind.

Did I mention that I'm really, really, angry at my idiotic brother? He can't do anything to make himself happy can he? He won't stay with her, even though he wants her and she wants us too. Us. She wants all of us. He won't change her, even though she wants to be changed. He won't allow himself to be happy, even though I know, as a mated vampire, that Jasper's happiness is central to my world. Does he not know that Bella would do this for him? Or does he still hang onto this assumption that anything she did to make him happy would surely not be deserving? Sure, Edward would go through fire to make Bella happy, but he won't do the one thing that would guarantee happiness for the both of them. Why, oh why does he insist that his happiness and reason for existence is so polar opposite from her? That his happiness seals her demise, even though it's clear that her wishes are his truest desire?

I understand Edward better than most, in a lot of ways. I know what it's like to have an extra sense that gives you more information than you would care to have, I get that. I also know what it's like when that sense leads you in the wrong direction. But I don't know how he can't see that his pain is her pain, that her path to joy in this world is also the path that he is destined to walk. That in the end, this is not about souls, or his god, or his version of virtue, it's about the truest, purest feelings that two beings can have for one another, and that by trying to "save her soul", he's doing so at the cost of her heart.

So we drive north, and every mile that separates us continues to create a chasm that I cannot bear to explore any further.