I'm back, and I have the second chapter with me! I think, because of the requests, I might just make Esme's whole account of 'New moon'

Happy new year by the way!

Disclaimer: I am frequently haunted by the fact that twilight will never be mine. *wipes away tears*

^_^

-Oo-oo-oo-oo-

-The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac.

I didn't know how more punishment he could stand. I thought he would be okay, but, as far as anything I've tried to help Edward, he's only gotten worse. He's unresponsive to even Carlisle, and rarely leaves his bedroom. He locks it, even though he knows that does no good when dealing with vampires, and I'm beginning to miss him. I can't say anything about home to him, because he'd snap at me, but I just want to go home--to forks. I can tell Alice and Emmett are homesick too, because they have no energy left; Emmett tries to joke, but I know behind closed doors he grieves quietly with Rosalie. And Alice doesn't even have the will to shop anymore; she'll claim to go out, and come home with one or two bags. When I ask her why she doesn't have more, she'll say she couldn't find anything. But I know she's just missing her companion. I think Bella's absence is taking its toll on us all, but I can see that Edward has lost the will to live again. His only reason to live was there. He needs revival. We need to go back.

"No!" A seething voice hissed. I flinched from where I was sitting. I had no idea he had been reading my mind.

"Edward I-"

"We've done enough damage! We can't ever go back there, even after her-" Death? He stopped abruptly, and his eyes were black voids. You could see a thousand yards through them, but there was no movement; he was a ghost. A living ghost.

"Edward I'm sorry, but this isn't healthy for any of us! You haven't come out of your room in days!! I'm sure Bella isn't doing any better-"

"She'll do fine without me, if I hadn't…..Fallen in love with her, she wouldn't have been subjected to the danger!" He growled at me. I pushed him backwards with a deafening crack, so unwelcoming I knew if he was human I would have broken his ribs. Rosalie, Alice, Emmett and Jasper came to see what the noise was.

"This isn't just about you!" It hurt me to shout at him. "We all care about you and this behaviour is effecting us all! We let you make this decision even though I knew it was wrong! Now you've seen it for yourself, we need to go back to forks." And I added as quietly as I could. "Bella needs you, and I want you back…"

He wobbled unsteadily, and collapsed under my weight as I caught him, steadying him on my bed.

"Calm, Edward, calm." I tried to quiet his shaking form. He rejected my offer of comfort and backed away from me. My face crumpled in offence.

"If I'm making you all so miserable, I should leave." Alice's head snapped up from me towards her brother.

"Ed, Esme didn't mean that- "His eyes left mine and probed hers instead.

"Don't go looking into her future either, we have done enough." Then he brought his half-hearted attention back to me.

"I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused mother," Then he charged, straight through our third-story window, landing outside and not even sparing me another glance as I sobbed his name out into the peaking twilight. I sunk against the wall, ignoring their attempt at consoling words.

My baby is gone…My Edward is gone…

I'd just lost a child…Again. Why can't I protect my children anymore?

"You can, Esme, he'll come back, we know he will." Alice said, gently stroking my hair. Had I been saying this out loud?

"He hates me, because I wanted to go back to forks, I sho-shouldn't have said anything!" I spluttered embarrassingly, as Emmett got down on his knees and Jasper sent calm waves towards me. I could tell my breakdown was tearing them up too, and a wave of guilt attacked me. I assumed it was Jasper, but…I was capable of producing so much of my own guilt at the moment I wasn't sure. Jasper looked at the floor, and I recognised his expression. I didn't need to be an empath to know the look on his face: regret. I stood up, leaving Emmett and Alice on the ground and going up to Jasper. He regarded me reluctantly, as if he was committing some serious crime by looking at my face. I ignored his protests and embraced him fiercely, and he hugged me back. If I broke, so would they; we were all emotionally unstable at the moment. One more crack from anybody in the family and we would all shatter into a thousand fragments.

"Don't beat yourself up, we shall all get through this, we will." I tried to tell them. They all looked like they were on the verge of tears, and I embraced them all at once, projecting all my compassion around them, letting them know this was none of their faults. Alice let several sobs out next, which I had never seen her do. She hugged me tighter as I watched Emmett scrunch his eyes up; Alice's cries were distressing him greatly, so I tried to hook my arm tighter around him also. I blamed none of them, not even my absent child; he didn't know what he was doing, and he would discover the painful longing to be even more unbearable soon enough, I just hope Bella's patience will stay with her until he was ready. It was a good half an hour before I released them. Carlisle's car came into the driveway and he came in, to find us all huddled onto the bed, with five masks of identical sorrow. He didn't need to ask to know why we were mourning.

"I knew he would leave eventually…" He whispered sadly, joining us to grieve. Now that he was here, I clutched onto him for dear life, as my children one by one filed out of the vicinity: Jasper, followed by Alice, then Rose. But Emmett stayed, before reluctantly following his companion. My arms snaked around his neck as he kissed my forehead reassuringly.

"Do you think-He'll come back?" I sniffed.

"Yes, maybe not today, but if we give him some space, I believe he'll come home."

That did make me feel better, but the worst part was that not knowing his whereabouts, or if he was safe. Or if he was doing something stupid.

"Can we at least call him?"

"Yes." He pulled out his mobile and swiftly punched Edward's number into the keypad.

It wrung five times before there was an answer.

"Edward." He sighed in relief.

'Dad.'

"Your mother is worried-Where are you, and when will you come home?"

'I'm sorry; I'll be staying with the Denali clan for a while, if that's okay. Please tell Esme not to worry about me.'

"I can do that for you. Would you like to talk to her?"

He hesitated, maybe listening to my shallow breathing to determine whether he would or not. 'Not right now, but please reassure her for me. Tell her I just need time... To think without interruptions.'

"I love him, tell him I love him." I couldn't help but say. Sometimes I worried they didn't know I did, but I couldn't afford for him not to recognize how poignant I was.

"She loves you, you know."

'I know. More than I deserve. Tell her I love her too. Goodbye, Carlisle.' And then the line went dead.

I sighed.

"He's in good hands; the Denali will take care of him."

"I know. I just wish he was in our hands, that's all." I stared unresponsivley at the crevices in the redwood floorboard.

Carlisle released me, demanding my eye's attention. "He isn't abandoning us, he just needs to be with a smaller group, so he has more room to think, and they won't be thinking about the one thing he needs his mind to shy away from."

"I didn't know he was reading my mind."

"I know Esme. I know."

He knew, but it didn't make me feel any less like a rogue. I think he was already at his peak, but I tipped him over the edge. If only I knew. He was mad at me, because I was the straw that broke the camel's back. I leaned into Carlisle as a phantom wave of nausea hit me. Now the house was even emptier than before. My technique must have been slipping. Maybe I had lost my maternal abilities, because maybe I wasn't a mother to them anymore.

"Esme, are you okay?"

I wasn't a mother to them anymore?

"Esme."

Then what was I?

-Oo-oo-oo-oo-

Examen de la nouvelle lune Esme!

Review Esme's new moon! (Don't ask me why I translated in French, because I don't know...)

I'm going to put a quote like that at the top of ever chapter, it's going to match the theme of the chapter.

1: Mother.