Birthday Midnight- Tuesday, the 13th
He comes back during the middle of the night, when Bella is too deeply asleep to wake for being moved. He has to. He's spent hours thinking about studying the stitches on her arm, perfectly done by the unwavering hands of Carlisle. And wrong and right.
He has to go home. Because of Jasper. Because of his family.
He can't hide here. He doesn't deserve even that tonight.
The house is as silent as though a bomb had gone off in the center of it.
There are still shards of piano on the diadem, even if the larger pieces are already gone.
He's nearly past the second floor when her door opens, and he knows she coming. He can't miss it. Her coming or what she's seeing. It's been shuddering back and forth since he got within range. He doesn't have to meet her eyes to know she's leaving, to see the guilt and desperation and fear. But still he watches the hesitation like she can't look away from Jasper even that long yet.
They're leaving. They have to. Destination unknown. Return time unknown.
Edward stood there on the steps, not touching anything, not even putting his hands in his pockets. He may have jumped in front of Bella and growled viciously to protect her, even from them, he could and would do it again in this second, but he's not even angry. This is all his fault. No matter what Jasper or Alice or anyone in the house is thinking now. All of this is at his feet, and he knows it, and the future in her head is haywire. Hers. His. Jasper's. All of them.
There are options they both see, wordless, in their own world, stuck between stairs and doors and their heads. Options that haven't been made yet, choices that are flickered chances, each of them a road inside of Alice with destinations.
"You can't," she says, the smallest whisper no one else would get.
And he says, without coming any closer, without letting even her in. "Be safe."
