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CHAPTER 1

His hands were old. Deep creases and lines criss-crossed their surface; spots of varying shades of brown and tan speckled his skin. Raised veins, noticeably darker and lumpier, snaked under thinned tissue that had gradually withered over time.

He smiled.

He wished.

He opened his eyes and was confronted by the stubborn truth of his reality.

His hands were like porcelain—smooth and ever youthful.

His fists clenched with anger, a constant companion among many other emotions that still burned bright.

He'd been a stupid, selfish fool.

Long ago, he'd done what he'd believed had been right, but time had only proved, yet again, just how much his omnipresent thoughts and supposedly beyond-exceptional intellect had failed him.

He looked through the window and into the room that housed the woman for whom he had sacrificed everything, and he laughed at the bitter-tasting irony of it all.

Seventy-two years before, he had made the best, and arguably, the worst, decision of his life. He'd left her so that she could have a normal life—a life filled with everything he could not ever provide her—and only now, in her dying moments, did he understand the futility of that decision.

It wasn't because she'd finally managed to love another—after a time. It wasn't that she'd had four children who now had children of their own. It wasn't that she'd lived a fulfilled life full of love and memories and integrity.

No. The futility of his decision was that his love, his singer, his forever, was once again rippled with emotional and physical pain, and he held himself accountable for it.

If he'd decided differently so many years before, she wouldn't be experiencing an agonizingly slow death now. She wouldn't be experiencing the pain of knowing that the end was coming and that she had no affect over its outcome. She wouldn't know the pain of being unable to say "goodbye," aloud, to those she loved and who loved her.

If only he'd given her what she'd begged him for so many years before. If only he'd listened to his heart and not his know-it-all mind, he might have spared her this prolonged misery.

What would have once been three or so days of agony, seemed inconsequential compared to now and the two months she had lain in this semi-conscious state, relying upon the hands of strangers who nursed her and took care of her most basic of bodily needs.

Try as he might, Edward was unable to turn his eyes away from his one and only lover. He smiled once again at the absurdity of their situation; they had never consummated their relationship, so the term "lover" wasn't something that could strictly be applied to her. However, truth be told, she was more than just his imaginary lover—she was his air, his reason for existence, his one-and-only. Their youthful follies with the body, their physical demonstrations of their feelings, had never progressed farther than touching and stroking and kissing. All because Edward had been more concerned about the ramifications for his Bella than of any indiscretion on his part.

Ramifications. That word.

He'd never considered pregnancy. In his mind, far worse things could have happened to his beloved than an unplanned pregnancy, and it was for those reasons that he'd left her alone in the forest, her cries for him going unanswered, her pleas for him to come back to her unrealized.

He'd been a bastard and walked away.

He'd left her.

On her own.

But he hadn't gone far.

He hadn't been able to.

He'd stayed and watched.

Watched as she'd run to find him.

Listened as she'd called out for him.

In doing so, he had discovered new depths of self-hate as she'd cried herself into broken pieces that had lain upon the forest floor in the dark of night.

He'd climbed silently from tree to tree, agitated in the extreme, his self-contempt reaching new all-time lows as he'd watched her shatter on the ground below him.

He'd berated himself for his cowardice.

But he'd never alerted her to his continued presence.

He'd thought that maybe, in the still of night, she'd sense him there watching over her.

He'd believed that maybe she'd realize that he would have never truly left her unprotected.

He'd hoped that she would understand that his intense love for her would never allow him to abandon her completely.

He'd almost wavered in his conviction.

He'd later realized it had only been his apparent indecision at the time that had stopped Alice and the others in his family from intervening. They'd had been relying on his underlying goodness and his overwhelming love for Bella to stop him from turning his back on her.

He'd been mere moments, just seconds away, from jumping down from his lofty perch and scooping her into his arms, begging for her forgiveness before changing her then and there, consequences be damned.

But it had been at that precise moment that he'd sensed the wolves, and his fate, her fate, had been sealed forever.

The pack was searching for her, and they were close.

He'd held on until he saw the glow of their eyes from a distance in the darkened forest; and then he'd bolted like the coward he truly was.

He'd run and run.

By the time she was back in the safety of Charlie's arms, Edward was well into Canada and striding out for land far beyond.

He'd spent months outrunning his disheartened and concerned family, changing his plans time and time again, desperately trying to stay one stop ahead of them and one step away from the memories of his Bella, broken on the forest floor.

It had been six months before he'd finally allowed them to get close enough to him that he could share their thoughts.

He'd not allowed them to see him.

He'd communicated purely through Alice and had deliberately blocked any attempts to push her recollections of Bella toward him.

He hadn't wanted to see, hadn't wanted to know, hadn't wanted to feel her pain on top of his own.

With his sanity constantly wavering on a precipice, such things had been too much to bear.

He'd reminded them that he'd only allowed them close enough to warn them to stay away; to stop the chase; to leave him be.

He remembered feeling disgusted at Carlisle's concerns that he would turn back to the dark life, the life he and his family had chosen to avoid. How could he have ever considered the blood of another when the blood that he craved more than any other was forbidden to him?

He'd told his family to back off. He loved them, but he would no longer live in communion with them. That life was no longer his to share. His life, what he was prepared to live, was to be that of a solitary figure, a single entity, destined to live this life alone without companionship until there was no further need for him to be in this realm. And only one thing would bring about the end of his earthly existence. The natural death of his only love.

In the many years that had passed since he'd said goodbye to his physical presence in Bella's life, he had asked only one thing of Alice. That she'd let him know if she wasn't safe or well.

And that is what had brought him to be, once again, stalking her outside her room, gazing at her longingly through her window.

Alice had hated it. She was often bitter and angry at her brother for what she considered the unwarranted change in all their circumstances. She'd fervently argued, on many, many occasions, against playing the role of a voyeuristic puppet that was required to spy on the life and times of her former best friend in order to purely ease his conscience. Many times, just to spite him, she'd refused to participate in what she strongly believed was Edward's perverted game.

Those occasions of intense discontent in the intervening years were the only times that Edward had truly considered meeting any member of his family face-to-face. He'd fight them all, if it came to that. For Edward, his desperation—his need to know of Bella's life, of her happiness—continued to be the only thing that kept the madness that threatened his mind at bay.

He'd known from the day he'd left her that he'd never be able to trust himself enough to keep tabs on Bella himself, knowing that he'd never be able to turn away from her a second time. However, despite the invasions of privacy that modern technology could provide, he'd needed to know more than just facts about where Bella had lived or where she'd worked or who she'd eventually married.

He'd craved to know her feelings, for those are why Edward had done what he'd done. He'd wanted her to feel life, live it, love it out in the sunshine, not in the shadows. He'd wanted everything life with him would never have afforded her. He'd needed to know if his sacrifice had given her those things and yearned to know that his love for her and his desires for her possible future had warranted the decision to let her go.

That knowledge was his vindication, his justification, his penance for breaking the woman he loved.

And yet, here he was watching that life slowly slip from her grasp. And he knew that if he had his time over again, despite his altruistic motives, his good intentions, and his gift to her of a life filled with sunshine and happiness, he would have never given it to her.

He wanted her.

He'd always wanted her.

Only wanted her.

And a future with her.

A future lived purely in the dark; a limitless future of nighttime and passion and wholeness.

And yet, she'd gone on and lived life without him as he'd known she would.

She'd lived an extraordinary life, while he'd merely survived.

Day-to-day, hour-to-hour, week-to-week, year-to-year.

All time came back to this moment.

What would he do now that the future was drawing to a close?

He had a decision to make. Again.

As he hesitated at the window, he wondered if he would be strong enough to make a good decision this time around or if his weakness of character would win out at the end.

Life, his and hers, would again, change forever.

What to do?

His choice?

Her choice?

What choice?


AN:

"Welcome Back!" to all my returning readers. Some of you left me some wonderful messages here and on twitter, welcoming me back to the world of fanfic writing. It was wonderful to hear from familiar names. Thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

"Welcome!" to anyone new who drops by.

Thanks, as always, to Sandyk199, Lalina and my hardworking Grendel who gives this story the ole professional "one-two" and knocks some grammatical sense into it (and its writer) before you see it.

Thanks also to SydneyTwiMum who happened to be around one morning when I was biting my nails to stumps over my first vamp fic and read it for me to give me some instant feedback that calmed me down.

This is a short story. It has a total of seven chapters and a word count somewhere around the 5K mark (its just a tad shorter than TTTB! LOL). The chapters are in the hands of my beta, so I plan to post regularly and often until this is done and dusted.

This story is marked drama/tradegy.

Don't say I didn't warn ya!

I have been asked if I have read any other vamp fics written with a similar theme. The answer is, "No, I haven't!"...so any similarities (if any) to existing fics is purely coincidental and unintentional.

until next time, drop me a line and let me know what you think!

Leisa.