"The Wind That Vanishes Into Dusk"
"Tasogare ni Kieru Kaze"

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN THE CHARACTERS BUT THE PLOT OF THIS IS MINE. I AM NOT BASHING AT ALL-THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT WAS IN MY HEAD SO I WROTE IT HERE...REVIEW IF YOU LIKE IT BUT DO NOT FLAME PLEASE.


-He was our enemy. It was as simple as that. The bite from his jagged teeth, his immense strength, and the fire he would use to diminish our kind; those things may kill us but probably not.

It was not so much that he wanted to kill us but felt the need to do so that kept us away. He was easy enough to kill looking like some monster bereft of any human qualities and dreamt of human nightmares. His skin was shriveled and paper thin and gleamed eerily in even the palest of light and his eyes were pitch black; a void of never ending sorrow and regret and thirst and hatred, vast as any chasm that I had ever known. It was, of course, due to the loss of his family; his human wife leaving him behind in death where he was barred from ever venturing, an impossible dream.

I had pitied him for the longest of times and understood the hollow emptiness which had swallowed him whole but no longer did I stand and witness his abhorrence of even animal blood and his growing horror with what he truly was a vampire. We had lived long enough to see the way things come to be, their creation their growth and the eventuality of their death-it was no shock to me when Bella opened her eyes one day and looked long and hard in the mirror as though viewing for the first time her ever aging face. The lines at the corners of her eyes that had not been there when she was wed, the laugh lines at her thinning mouth and the wrinkles that appeared on her skin. She was aging and Edward was not.

It was then that the glimmer of first love had ceased to shine and she realized what she had done, leaving behind her fellow humans to live with a pack of truly vastly beautiful killers. Her dark eyes holding contempt for what we were and what we could do and worst still that we would never die and this realization hit her harder then anything. I was the first to see or rather feel the immediate change in her-and silent scorn for us especially Edward. Kind and loving Edward, who would, if ever asked, gladly cut his own arm or leg and become a disfigured monster just for her.

Just like he was today now and forever thirsty and filled with sorrow in his black eyes.

It wasn't any secret, after that, who's child was that she carried in her belly or the lingering musky scent of pine needles and wood that carried through her hair, that she had taken the wolf as her lover. I pitied him too as she was wont to leave her husband hoping still that Edward may slip and bite her supple flesh. Edward turned a blind eye at her discretion and even seemed jovial of her pregnancy-Rosalie and Emmet, of course chose every chance they had to try to pry Edwards eyes opened.

'You know what's even more pathetic then her sniveling like a child? It's you pacifying her and even ignoring that she's sleeping with that dog.' Rosalie would say. 'Don't you have any pride as a man at all? I mean, I don't need to read her thoughts to know that she hates when you touch her.'

'It is none of your concern-whatever is happening with Bella and I, no matter how it seems we do honestly care for one another. I cannot blame her for what she has done-after all we've been married for all but seventeen years and he can give her a child.'

Rosalie would scoff but say no more, if Edward didn't want to listen to her then why should she chide him anymore. She, of course, took every chance she got to berate the cheating wife of our brother. It was never in her nature to forgive, I see that now and perhaps Emmet knew best to not intervene in his wife's folly.

'But Ed, she doesn't seem to want you anymore. I mean, I'm not trying to tell you to leave her but maybe just for a while, you could leave her with her dad and let her sort her own head out.' Emmet would often say, scratching behind his head in a rather human manner.

'She doesn't need to go to Charlie's; after all, she can sort herself out here, at home.'

And then Emmet began to avoid them both and shake his head in dismay when he would glance at her swelling belly. His obvious discomfort made her feel guilty, naturally and it was always a source of tension that would lie between Edward and Emmet both. Where they would once jokingly tease and wrestle and fight there was now a sense of pungent tense air and no one, not Carlisle neither Esme not Alice nor I were surprised to see Emmet and Rosalie go. It was one of the inevitable things that Alice had foreseen and that was without the use of her gift.

The day came when she gave birth to the child of her lover and despite the slight tension in the air it was a joyous day for us. You see, we as eternal beings are able to do so many things-all but one. Children were not for us to have-not for our women who could never have children of their own. It was a rare occurrence for vampire men to have children with human women and even then it was always a risk. A risk Edward was never willing to take.

'Oh she looks…healthy.' Esme said as she stared at the infant in Bella's arms. Her loving nature made it difficult to disprove the child and made it easy for Bella and Edward to live with us-when the child had yet to be born that is. Now as Esme's golden eyes traced the features of the russet skinned dark haired infant in her daughter in laws arms it was hard to forgive.

Esme never did hold Bella's daughter Cathy, not once.

Carlisle was easiest the most forgiving and the more understanding of us-able to over look lovingly at the child who was obviously Jacob Black's daughter. 'She's beautiful Bella.' He had known you see that something like this may happen one day. Maybe he was prepared for it, maybe he had known all along that Bella was in love with two men and would ultimately choose the wrong one to be with that it was Jacob she should have chosen but did not due to her selfish human nature.

Alice and I said nothing of the matter and were merely content enough in ourselves and our love for Edward to ever say anything negative about the situation. Alice had never made Bella uncomfortable nor did she hold contempt for the child of Jacob Black-always so forgiving and loving is my Alice who could not have ever known that it was to happen despite her gifted sight.

The years flew by and Cathy Cullen-Black lived with her small son and mother, who had never left her father but had been also with that man from the reservation, lived near by the rest of us. It was not that she didn't know Edward was not her father-she was intelligent enough to recognize the difference in appearance from both her parents, had vehemently denied any ties to her biological father Jacob Black. Edward had raised her, had taught her things and mended skinned knees and broken dolls and she rather loved him all the more for it. For his sacrifice in his own happiness, he was a vampire a powerful predator that had chosen to stay with a guilty lover and raise a child that wasn't his. A child he called his own and loved with all his heart and Cathy knew that she had replaced some vital part in him that needed her mother, or rather the girl he had first loved. Her growing resentment for her now graying mother grew as the years passed and every time she saw Jacob Black. It was no surprise when she left Forks to move to Seattle without so much of a kiss to her mother's cheek. She had given Edward and the rest of us her love though so we were content in that. Even Esme, who was always very weary of her allowed Cathy to kiss her cheek and call her 'Grandma' lovingly as her own son, Mason, hugged Esme at her knees.

'Visit me when ever you want, I won't be far away at all, and if you see Uncle Emmet and Aunt Rosalie extend the invitation their way.'

That invitation was not extended to her mother or Jacob-Charlie who was old and dying was given a chaste kiss though and as he had watched Cathy and Mason leave had sobbed. He would not see them again as long as Bella and Jacob continued in their ways-Cathy would never come back.

The day that her father died was the day Bella cursed Edward and years later, when she was very old herself had decided to implore for forgiveness.

It was a rainy day much like any other day in Forks. Her daughter and grandson gone and Jacob the lone figure of support in her life was buried for four years. Bella began to think about her life and the decisions that she had made-now that it was almost over she felt a sort of calm and regret for what she had done. Cursing Edward who had always adored her when she deserved anything but that, who had raised the child she had with another man and loved that child more then he had loved anyone else.

I remember that day clearly as though it were today, now. She was sitting on an old lounge chair on the porch of her father's house. The porch had been made a little after Cathy had been born. Charlie had insisted that a porch was needed so that the infant could sit with him there rather then in the house on a sunny day.

'Jasper,' Bella's voice sounded far away like the dark eyes that watched the water fall from the darkening sky. 'Do you think I'm a bad person, a retched woman?'

'It doesn't matter what I think.' I had said from behind her.

'I think that I made a lot of mistakes-maybe I was stupid and selfish and wrong for what I did but I don't regret it at all.' She said, her aged voice cracking slightly, she sounded almost out of breath. 'I loved Edward, I really did, do still but I wanted so much more then that. I wanted to have a family and friends and someone I could walk out into the sun with in public but I also wanted to live forever.

I think it had something to do with first love. My mother's first love was Charlie and she left him-I didn't want to make her mistake-she was happy with Phil but she still loved my father. I wanted to make it work with Edward who was so kind and gentle and beautiful. I wanted to feel beautiful and be right for him. I thought that if I stuck it out that maybe he'd change me but, you know Edward. His love for humanity and the great expectations of life, the experiences he wanted me to have.'

I was kneeled down in front of her listening to her raspy voice and watching her face marveling at the thick lines and wrinkles there and the way the porch light reflected off of her white hair. I wondered how it felt to be old and dying like she felt. I wondered why Edward was taking so long to return with Alice and why Esme and Carlisle refused to come out side to speak with her.

'I was very stubborn you see, I wanted my way and tried like hell to stick to my guns. I wanted him to watch me age and see the horror of what I was becoming. I figured he'd at least change me when I was twenty five but well,' she trailed off in thought, I suspect it was like I wasn't even there now and when she spoke it was soft like a whisper. 'when Jacob and I were together it felt like another life, the one I was supposed to have and I was so greedy for that. I threw everything to the wind just to be with someone who wasn't as breakable. Oh but that's silly isn't it. Edward and breakable don't even belong in the same category.

I was terrified of what to say to Edward when I found out I was pregnant. He was being so careful with me and here I was pregnant with another man's child, a werewolf's child. But he knew and didn't say anything and loved her and me all the same. Jacob was thrilled about Cathy and wanted me to move the La Push to be with him but I told him I couldn't that I loved Edward much more then I loved him but that Jacob could see Cathy whenever he wished.

Cathy was never fond of Jacob or me, was she? I supposed it's less then what I deserve-I deserve worse then her anger Jacob deserved none of it. He was heart broken when Cathy refused to call him Dad or even Father. He was never under the impression that Cathy loved Edward much more then him and when Cathy lashed out at him about Edward about how Edward had been there and how Edward was her father, her daddy it had broken Jacob's heart. It wasn't that Jacob didn't want to be in her life it was that I simply excluded him.' She sighed. 'It wasn't that though, it was Edward's own heart ache that Cathy always felt that made her hate her parents, made her hate me and Jacob. She told me as much when she had Mason.'

She coughed into her withered wrinkled hand.

'Cathy's old now I guess and Mason is a father and I'm too old to be sitting here and hated by you people especially when I'm about to die.' She laughed. 'It won't be long but I want to bury the hatchet and go peacefully.'

'We don't hate you.'

'You don't know that yet but you will when I'm gone when you see what it does to Edward.'

And they did hate her, even Edward. She died peacefully there on that lounge chair holding my hand in her ancient one. Her eyes were locked on the still falling water from above with a serene smile on her thin lips. Then she looked at me and closed her eyes and died and that was how Edward found us. At least she wasn't alone when it happened, not like the way Carlisle and Esme had wanted.

And now Cathy is old and living in her grandfather's house with Edward who wanted nothing more then to kill anything that was like himself-who refused to feed unless Cathy or Mason begged and who suffered because he knew what Bella had said to me. His gift was his curse and he was bitter because he had not given in, bitter more that he had saved her from being a monster but was now alone without her.

She who had betrayed his love and trust but loved him more then anything in the world and maybe, despite her faults it was alright for them. Now that Carlisle and Esme and Alice and I watch over the small happy home with it's unhappy resident could do nothing but watch and wait for the Edward we knew to surface from the void that first love had left him in.

But like everything else in this long existence, the Edward we loved was lost-for maybe a short while maybe forever.

But we would wait, we were patient enough and Alice had foreseen it. One day the shadows of Bella would fade and Edward would return and be happy one day again.

As long as I had 'breath' within me I would wait at least and maybe understand why, despite everything that has happened why I could not, as much as I tried; to hate her.

FIN

(黄昏に消える風)

"Tasogare ni Kieru Kaze"

It wasn't bashing! I'm just saying that! Anyway don't flame me at all I hate that. Tell me what you think about it please! And if you have any question about it I'll answer them-k?