And She
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. Simple as that.
"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'"- John Greenleaf Whittier
She was behind Jane I noticed immediately the slight frame hidden in deep thick robes. Edward stopped moving and stopped pretending to be human and it was all strange because I had never known him to come undone in any sort of shock. He was paler and looked completely and totally haunted.
A girl, that much I could make out. A girl who looked to be about thirteen with thick curly bronze colored hair and her face round and sweet and lovelier then any face that I had ever seen. She smiled at me and there was a slight dimple at the corner of her mouth her smile that reminded me of one that I had loved so much and dreamed of often.
But her eyes were red and any resemblance she had to Edward shifted and changed completely when I realized who she must have been to him and I wondered why her sweet face morphed into the cruel horrific version it was now. So subtle did her face change and so quick it was that I was caught unawares by it and her crooked grin. Yes, it was undoubtedly Edward's crooked grin.
"Edward." Her sweet voice whispered and I barely caught it. It was soft, light, a cold breeze.
He shook his head.
"Hermano." She said in Spanish and took a step forward passing Jane in two easy steps towards a terrified Edward. He didn't move and it seemed he was nailed there, stuck to the cold tiled floor.
"No." He said evenly.
"Fratello." She said in Italian and took two more steps barely ten feet away from Edward now who still had not moved.
"Stop." His voice shook only slightly and I almost didn't hear it. From beside me Alice lowered her head-she must have seen this must have known and not said a word. Had this been what she meant by reunions? If so then was this girl related to Edward's life somehow? And which one was it, the vampire or human?
"Frère" French this time thickly rolling off her tongue as she took a few more steps. Her crooked grin widened.
"Stop it." Shakier, his voice definitely shook and the look on his face was so unsure and wild and there was some hidden terror written there in his face and golden eyes.
"Bruder." German this time and like all the other times the language was said effortlessly as though she had a thousand years to study them and master them and maybe she had.
"You're not…"He shook his head, left to right slowly taking one step back, finally.
"Oppa(오빠)."She said as her grin began to slip into a frown and Alice leaned towards my ear and whispered 'Korean' so that I could understand.
"Get away from me..!" He made a half shout and lifted his hands as though to ward off a blow, but she continued in her stride not faltering once and her lovely face appeared sad.
"Aniki (兄弟)."She whimpered and Alice again translated for me. 'Japanese.' She whispered though I almost didn't catch it.
"NoooO!" He finally sprang back almost half way across the room so fast that I could barely see the move at all but she had sprung forth after him just as fast and was now holding him around his waist in a tight embrace. And before I could feel any jealousy she spoke in a normal human voice, in plain English.
And his terror was perfectly explained by that one word.
"Brother."
"Marion." He said letting his stiff hand touch the top of her uncovered head. His fingers sank into the thick bronze curls and he sighed almost in relief but, it was easy to see the evident shock in his eyes. She tilted her head upwards looking into his perfect face. It was easy to see that they were related, she looked like what Edward would have been if he were a girl.
"I waited for you." She sweetly said. "I waited and sometimes I slept for a long time and oh Edward you have to hear the stories. I was in Spain for a long time and do you know I met Salvador Dali? Oh he was a wonderful man and the things we saw together!" She was excited and it was almost cute but as I looked towards Jane I understood that there must be some ulterior motive somewhere here.
"Do you know that I was in Germany too? Oh that was nice but I think that the Asian lands are my favorite. I learned origami and so many other things just for you! I was in France and Italy and I even went to Egypt and Africa and for the longest times I thought of you and when it was too sad I slept in the ground."
Slept in the ground? I thought Vampires can't sleep.
Her head turned in my direction and she sweetly answered my thoughts effortlessly. "We don't sleep, Isabella Swan, but we can certainly let our thoughts go. It's like when you day dream and you drift off and then when you come back you can't believe the amount of time you were lost in your own head. That's what it's like for our kind to 'sleep' it's a rather peaceful thing to do. The Romanian Coven mastered 'sleeping' you know."
She looked back up at her brother and smiled warmly almost like she was expecting praise but Edward said nothing and merely he stroked her hair and stared at her as though he had never seen anything so beautiful in his long life. And there it was, I was jealous.
"Marion how is it that you're…alive?"
"You don't remember much about our mortal lives do you or the night you died?" She huffed slightly annoyed. "I was sent to live with Uncle Charles and his family. I ran away when I turned sixteen and I was found by James Ellis do you remember him? I know you didn't like him when we were growing up but…but he saved me and made me into this!" She pulled back and cutely twirled her robes billowing about her prettily and she giggled.
But Edward was rigged, had become rigged and paler then I had ever seen him when she had said the name James Ellis.
"James Ellis, huh, the boy from that gang of hooligans the one who used to pull your hair?" He said and I imagined that his memories were returning.
"He didn't pull my hair he only pulled my ribbons out because he liked them." She laughed and her red eyes misted as though she were recalling some memory that was quite funny because she laughed again. "Do you know he was 28 when he was made? The same year he made me it's a wonder that he hadn't killed me you know. But then he had been hunting game and happened to cross paths with me down in the Mississippi and it was more like a slight nibble anyway. I was shocked that he recognized me. He hadn't seen me since I was six years old, you know in 1918.
"But he remembered me and kept me around for about twenty years until I decided to leave him and Laurent and travel around the world! Boy was he sad about that didn't let up about tracking me around the world if he had to. Heard that he settled down with some fiery dame named Victoria, I'm happy for him."
James. Her maker had been James? I looked down at my hand, the curve of stiff flesh where he had bitten me and I recalled the pain of broken skin and bones and the smell of my own blood. I could feel the fire and the heat of it as his body was thrown into it in pieces like kindle.
And then Marion's laughter stopped and her head whipped towards me and her red eyes stared into my own widening slightly and then they seemed to dull for a moment in silent agony. Her eyes went back to her brother's and her mouth opened and closed and opened again until there was a loud piercing shriek that reverberated through the room.
"You killed James!" She shouted into his face a picture of perfect agony. I could see that she wanted to cry but couldn't and her whole body shook and convulsed and trembled in drawn-out movements and she grasped at her own hair pulling bloody chunks of it out, scalping herself.
"Marion!" Edward said barely a moment later taking his wayward sister into his arms holding her tightly, he pinned her hands beneath her stomach trapping them between her body and his. "Marion what are you talking about?"
"Don't lie! I saw it I saw you kill James! I saw it in that humans mind I saw what you did to him for her!"
I felt heavy guilt in my heart, a weight that I knew would never leave me taking root there as I watched this girl try to cry only unable to do so.
"He was our friend and you forgot him and killed him for some human. You risk suck exposure and sure so did James but at least he ended the human's lives before any real threat was made. Yet here you stand, you let her continue to live and neither do you make her into one of us and neither do you let her go. For love you killed James but to let her continue as she is, a weak mortal, the more that…" She trailed off as she gave a loud dry sob.
"Marion, I'm sorry. It isn't so simple."
She pulled away from him slowly and her attention went back to me and this time as our eyes locked she did not smile. Her sad red eyes did not glare they stared on imploringly.
'Let him go.' I heard a voice say in my head. 'Let him go you are only holding him back. Do you think that you will be good for him? You will grow old and die as you are meant to. It is your way to do so. He wants you to live a happy normal life the life he never had.'
My heart almost leapt out of my chest as Marion's voice carried throughout my mind.
'Please Isabella Swan, let my brother go. Don't be his downfall.'
I ran from that room with Alice hot on my trails surprised that Edward had not followed. She could get into my mind, she could read my selfish human thoughts and she could even communicate with me that way.
And I was reminded again our differences, Edward's and mine. Reminded of how perfect he is and how completely imperfect I am. I was reminded that everyday I was dying and he stayed the same.
'Our lives are not perfect. I have only been happy because I knew I would find my brother again, Isabella Swan. It is not that I find you unworthy of Edward it is the opposite. It is that I find him unworthy of you. Yes, James is dead on your account but he did not remember my brother like Edward did not remember him. In the end we are all the same animal, hungry and greedy to take human life.
It would be too simple for him to slip and take your blood and destroy himself by doing so. It would be so easy for him to break you in half but giving you an embrace and it would be oh so simple to diminish you in the intimate act that you and he so wish to enact. Do you think that any of our kind want to be what we are?
We are envious of you mortal beings. You are able to change we are not. So, Isabella Swan, what is to say that down the road of immortality you do not become bitter towards your maker? Why do you really think I left James? Why do you think that the woman, Rosalie Hale, is so indifferent towards you so cold?
It was that I wanted a child that I would never have the life I never had that I left the love of my long immortal life. I wanted it all and could not even dream of attaining it with him. That love all turned to bitter hate and I could not stand the sight of him. That is what I meant by letting him go. You have that sweet opportunity, the ability to give life.'
-
"Bella, what are you still doing up? Jason kept you up?"
"No." I said closing the shawl much more closely to my shivering body as I looked still towards the wonderfully overcast sky. I had been remembering that day a little more then I was happy with but it was never painful to remember. My eyes were opened that day.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Large warm hands landed on my shoulders softly and soothingly they rubbed. "You're freezing."
"I'm alright." I said with a smile as I shut my eyes and leaned back against the warm body directly behind me and sighed. Jacob was always so incredibly warm. "But, you know, you could carry me back into the bedroom."
"Oh?" He said teasingly and I could picture his goofy smile all too easily in my head. "Are you sure? We might be loud. Maybe we should wait for you parents to pick the little demons up this weekend. I mean, I took all that time off just for the rare opportunity."
"What a father you are. Calling you sons little demons, I should be angry."
He laughed, hugging me tighter against his warm body which shook only slightly. "But you aren't because I'm right."
"Of course, just this once though, just this once you're right." I said turning around and smiling into his glittering dark eyes. His palm was at my cheek and I leaned into it and sighed.
"Right just this once, huh? Maybe I'll be more right, more often."
"Yup. But don't get cocky Mr. Black, or I'll have to remind you of how right I can be." I whispered.
"Sure, sure whatever you say Mrs. Black." He said before he kissed me.
He picked me up and carried me inside the bedroom and my eyes slid shut only for a tiny fragment of a moment did I see Edward's smiling face. It was getting better now, I didn't think of him too often.
You all must be pretty angry huh? That I didn't stay with Edward. What happened between him and I was just the differences between us were finally uncovered-more so to myself then to him obviously. It was easy for me to think of Edward as this mystical being too wonderful and unreal but…the moment that I saw Marion I was reminded that he was, once upon a time, human too.
He was given immortal life because he was dying it was not something that he asked for. Not like me, asking left and right to be just like him, a monster. It's sad to say it or to even think it but that was what he was, a civilized monster that hated what he was. He thought he had no soul and was destined to hell once his near immortality died…I wonder if he can ever really die…I thought of all the things that vampires had to give up; warmth of the bright sun in public places, their freedom, the chance to have a family.
I apologized to Rosalie the day that I left Edward and I saw the understanding in her eyes, that motherly warmth that seemed to say 'I knew you'd come to your senses silly girl.'
The engagement was canceled and Edward and I tried our best to ignore each other in the final months of school and then we were off to college and when I returned after four years of studying the Cullen family was gone.
And Marion was waiting for me in their place.
"I know that I don't have any to say anything to you." She had said, sitting at the steps of the house that looked worn and tattered in it's abandonment. She looked different too, her hair was straight and her eyes were golden brown. Obviously, I thought, she'd changed diets in the last four years. I wondered why she wasn't with Edward.
"It's because he didn't have the stomach for me anymore." She answered my inner question with a sad sort of smile.
"Why?"
"Because of me you aren't with him anymore, because of me you made the choice to save your own humanity and while he thanks me for it he doesn't like me for it either. It's all very confusing but I suppose that he'll forgive me once your life time is done." She opened the front door and gestured for me to enter. "Would you like some tea?"
"Ok."
The house looked the same all of the furniture was still there even the piano. I remembered Edward playing music so carelessly there with Alice sitting by his feet flipping quickly through magazines. I could smell them in the air of that house as though they had never left.
"They left the same day that Edward graduated high school but they left he furniture behind. I assumed it was Esme's doing, she wanted me set up here even if she knew that I wasn't so used to houses and furniture."
She set a tea cup on it saucer in front of my as I sat on the floor at the coffee table in front of the couch. I took the cup into my hands and smelled the herbal tea before taking a small sip. "It's good."
"I would hope so-I went to great lengths of getting only the best for you once you got back home from college."
"You knew I would come back?"
She nodded.
"Mary Alice Brandon is very intuitive when it comes to you. You were hoping to see my brother I gather?"
"Yes." I had said honestly taking a longer sip of hot brew. "But it's ok. As long as he's alright then I'm alright."
She nodded in understanding. It wasn't too hard to gather that she had loved James, had probably always loved him and still did and again that heavy weight set into my chest. I was the reason the love of Marion's life was dead, I was the reason brother and sister were driven even farther apart.
"It's not your fault." She said reading me easily as she set her hand atop mine. "Time will heal all wounds. After all I am not but what my nature dictates as capricious and ever changing. I mean, I may even fall in love tomorrow, who knows and besides I hadn't seen James in sixty years! I should have cast away the torch I had for him a long time ago." She said only slightly bitterly.
"So you've been here the entire time?"
"Yes, but I was leaving today time to do something new with this long cursed life you know." She grinned. "Maybe I'll join up with the Volturi with Jane. I rather like her, and I'm quite curious of Marcus."
"Why were you with Jane that day?" I asked softly and the grin on Marion's face grew slightly, crooked at one end, Edwards smile.
"I had only run into her and do you know how surprised I was by our matching robes?" She laughed. "I was frightened out of my mind but well, we spent over a week in each other's company and she's not but the sweetest woman that I have ever met. She's very likable well to me maybe not to you."
"Certainly not." I muttered and she laughed. "How is Edward anyway?"
"From what I hear? Miserable and gloomy apparently just like old times, even back in our human days. Edward certainly doesn't change." She said standing up. She stared at the front door for a long while before she nodded in my direction. "You're friend is here for you and quite annoyed about talking through a mind link, I think I frightened him."
"Jacob?"
"Yes. He's been on your trail ever since you got into Forks, followed you here but stayed just outside, didn't think I knew he was there. But, oh he's quite the, uh, dish isn't he?" She laughed. "If he weren't a dog or maybe if I were human I'd have a pass at him."
"He can hear you!" I said loudly imagining the werewolf breaking down the door and attacking the vampire but she merely collapsed onto the couch in a fit of giggles.
"Oh I know. He's currently cursing and might I add blushing right now. I wonder how it looks, a werewolf blushing!"
That was the last time I saw Marion. She had watched a growling Jacob and I leave the property of the house with a smile on her small round face. For a moment I thought I saw Edward standing behind her, so sure that he was there that I wanted to call out to him but then he was gone and so was Marion.
He had been there just to say goodbye in his own way and when I saw Alice one year later, she had told me that Edward had left their little family. Apparently he was with Marion now living somewhere in the world and 'sleeping' their non sleep in the ground and always, I knew, thinking of me.
At least, I thought happily, that he wasn't alone.
"Mommy." A voice calls out to me drawing me from my dreams. I look over the side of the bed where Jacob sleeps to see two dark haired boys peeking over their father. Jason, the oldest is holding John's hand tightly in his own; his russet cheeks are slightly flushed.
"Jason, John, why are you awake?"
"Can we sleep with you?" John asks meekly, his bright brown eyes are red and puffy.
"Sure."
As I settle the boys between Jacob and I on the bed I can't help but remember the life that previously I had wanted. I would not have been the mother I am now, I would not have been able to enjoy the little bit or normalcy that I had. I would have been bitter towards Edward, I know that now. I would have hated him as much as I loved him, still do love him. I would be lying if I said I didn't still love him but it's different now. I love Edward but I'min love with my husband, with my children and with my family.
As an adult I could not choose him over the life I was given. I had to put away childish longings and had to grow out of my own selfishness because I wasn't a child anymore and I was a woman, a mother and a wife. I had normalcy and…
"Mommy I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's ok John." I said as I smoothed black hair away from him forehead. Jason was spooned in, a now very awake, Jacob's arms sound asleep.
"Yeah buddy its ok. We like it when you guys sleep over. Just don't make it a nightly thing."
"Daddy's silly."
"Very silly, squirt, now go to sleep."
…my life was perfect.
Sera: Read and Review.
Sasuke: Even if it sucks.
Sera: Yeah. And no flames.