Okay, so the talk...


"So."

"Yeah."

I'd sat down on the sofa of the suite the Cullens had rented and looked around taking in my surroundings. The suite was huge with four large leather sofas dominating the shared area of the suite, a fireplace on one wall, a piano, coffee table and dining table to name but a few of the features. Along the outskirts were at least four doors – two on either side of the room – that I assumed were the bedrooms. It was good to see that they still had their taste for opulence – certainly, nothing had changed there.

I looked down at my hands and picked at my nails, fidgeting slightly in my seat. For some reason being near Edward again made me feel like the nervous teenager I'd been the last time I'd seen him, rather than the twenty-five year old woman I now was.

I sighed and looked up to see Edward stood inhumanly still and leaning against the wall. He looked like a perfect statue or mannequin model – painstakingly beautiful and looking like the real-life GQ model, he could be.

Except that I could see the pain in his eyes as he looked at me.

"You and Northman …" he started, letting the sentence hang in the air between.

"Are friends." I completed, not quite sure what he was getting at.

"Really?" he asked, obviously not believing me and raising an eyebrow.

"Yes." I affirmed, resolutely. "I just … I always got on with him and Pam right from when we first met. I'm not saying that he hasn't tried it on," I added somewhat cruelly, "but I've always said no. He's just a friend." I paused to see a quick glimpse of relief of his face before I continued. "I think they liked the fact that I didn't treat them any different to anyone else or like a freak show, and I always feel comfortable around vampires."

"You always did."

"I suppose so."

There was another pause between us, neither one of us moving accept for my breathing.

"You didn't ask …" I started, feeling nervous about asking him the question. "Alice never …," I took another deep breath to try to get out what I was trying to say. "You asked Alice not to look for me?"

Edward shut his eyes and grimaced slightly, completely giving away the fact that he obviously had asked her to do just that.

"I didn't … I wanted us to leave you alone." His eyes were pleading with me to believe him. "But I don't understand why she didn't see what happened with Laurent and Victoria … she should have seen that happening … you were in danger, she should have seen it." He pinched the bridge of his nose, a nervous tick of his I'd never particularly liked. "It was my fault."

He hung his head in sorrow and I waited for him to look back up before I began speaking again. "I should have known what to expect when I got involved with vampires." I gave him a rueful smile. "You always warned me that you were dangerous, but that never bothered me. You warned me that there were others out there, and no one could have predicted what happened with Laurent and Victoria. Not even Alice, it seems."

"But I left for that exact reason, Bella. I left to keep you safe from my world; from vampires. And I failed you. You could have been killed, and I hurt you so much. I'm so sorry, Bella."

I didn't acknowledge his apology as I wasn't ready to forgive him. "You wanted me to move on, to forget you. You wanted me to carry on living," he nodded as I stared at him. "Why didn't you do the same?"

He looked surprised by my question. "How could I? I could never forget anything about you. Every second that we spent together will be forever etched on my memory. Your scent … It has always only been you."

"Why leave then?" I asked, my voice louder than before and sounding exasperated. "Why put yourself – and your family – through such misery? Rosalie said you hadn't spoken since you left Forks?"

"That's right," he whispered.

"Why?" I got up from the sofa and started pacing around the room. "I just can't work out whether you were being selfish in assuming what was best for me, or stupidly selfless in putting yourself through such misery for something that neither one of us wanted."

Edward watched me as I continued to pace the room.

"How did you know that I hadn't killed myself when you left?"

"Don't," Edward's handsome face contorted in pain at my suggestion.

"How did you know that even now I wasn't miserable and missing you?"

I went to sit back down in my original spot and waited for his answer.

"I had faith in you that you wouldn't do anything to hurt Charlie," he told me, and he was right. I certainly had considered doing something drastic on many an occasion, but I wasn't that selfish. "Then later … I asked Alice to look for you, to see how you were doing."

I was shocked at his confession, but remained silent.

"It was four years after we left Forks that I finally found the courage to want her to look for you." He shut his eyes momentarily, before continuing. "Alice saw that you were living somewhere sunny – we'd always assumed it was Phoenix or Florida with your mom – though I guess it was here." I nodded. "She saw …" I had a bad feeling I knew what Alice had seen. "She saw that you had a boyfriend."

I could see the internal battle raging within Edward, part of him not wanting to accept that I had moved on and part of him knowing that it was what he had wanted.

"I did."

"Past tense?"

"We split up around a year ago." He looked momentarily relieved before he regained control of his face.

"Why?"

"He wasn't you."

Edward froze at my confession. "I ruined that for you as well?"

"What?" I yelled, completely confused by his words but also angry that he managed to blame even my break-up with Oliver on himself. "Stop with the self-loathing! Edward, I don't blame you for my failed relationship with Oliver. It … I couldn't be who he wanted me to be and it wasn't fair on him to carry on being his girlfriend when I couldn't give him everything he needed, everything he deserved."

"But why couldn't you?" he asked me softly.

"Because I still loved you."

"And I still love you," he said, finally moving away from the wall and taking a step towards me.

"No. You don't get to tell me that and make it all better. You left me, Edward. You left me alone with no one. And now I find out that you've been miserable for the whole time as well, that you haven't spoken a word to anyone since you left Forks? They are your family, Edward, they care about you, and they deserved to be treated better than that." I hung my head and took a deep breath. "I deserved better than that."

I finally gave into my tears and collapsed back into the sofa. Edward remained frozen in his spot in the middle of the room.

"You're right," he finally said after we'd both been quiet for a few minutes and I'd regained control of my emotions. "You did deserve better than that, and so did my family. And I have felt so guilty and remorseful for the last two thousand, seven hundred an twelve days since I last saw you. I am so sorry I hurt you Bella, and if you give me the chance I will spend the rest of my existence making it up to you."

The look in his eyes was so heartfelt and pained. I could see the truth in his eyes, and when comparing it to his eyes the day he left me, I knew that this was the absolute truth. In hearing from Edward that he had lied to me that day in the woods, I realised that I had seen the struggle in his eyes even then, but I'd been too willing to believe his words instead of his actions. Too ready to believe that I never was good enough for him.

There was something I needed to know.

"If I … if I let Eric turn me and I became like him, would it mean I couldn't see you?"

"Apart from the fact that Eric would have absolute control over you as your maker, our kinds do not mix."

"I heard that some states are against your kind."

He smiled a rueful smile. "That's putting it nicely. For the most part, the northern states are more tolerant than the southern states, which is good for us considering the north has more cloud cover."

"Mississippi?"

"We're not allowed entrance into the state. Even with Louisiana, if the sheriff didn't want us here he could easily have sentenced us all to death."

I gasped at his confession. "But you came … all of you?"

"How could I not? But Bella, even if Eric did allow you to see me, our kinds are not compatible."

"Why? I mean, I understand the whole daylight thing, that I would be asleep during the day."

"It's more than that. And it's another of the reasons that the night-stalkers were so keen to get rid of our kind. Our venom … it's lethal to their kind. Worse than silver. It's a secret we will keep, but if anyone found out how lethal it could be it could be used as a weapon against them. It would mean I couldn't kiss you, I couldn't …"

He had stopped himself, but I wanted to know what he was going to say. "You couldn't what?" I asked, searching his eyes as he briefly looked away.

"I wouldn't be able to make love to you, Bella."

I was certain he could have knocked me over with a feather. Even hearing those words from him? It was presumptuous of him to assume we ever would be at that stage again, but he had never seemed to have taken an interest in sex before.

I realised suddenly that in his frozen seventeen-year-old form I was more experienced in that department than he was.

"Oh."

"Please don't choose that option." He pleaded with me, his eyes searching mine in seeming frustration that he couldn't hear my thoughts. "If it made you uncomfortable that I was around, I could leave. The rest of my family have always considered you as one of their own."

"But so are you," I protested, not liking the sound of me forcing Edward out of his own home. "Where would you go?"

"We have 'cousins' up in Denali, Alaska. They would be more than happy for me to stay with them."

"But I couldn't force you out of your own home like that."

"I would much prefer that than the alternative."

"Which is? What would you do if I did let Eric turn me?"

He ran a hand through his hair and pulled at it, his eyes expressing pain and fear at my question. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like his answer.

"I would consider it the same way as if you were dead." His voice was but a whisper.

I thought back to Rosalie's words the day before. Would he really kill himself if I died or allowed Eric to turn me?

"No! You can't do that!"

"I would have no option. I cannot go on without you in the world."

"Don't be ridiculous! Even if I lived a long and happy life as a human I was always going to die of something!"

He gave me a small smile. "I would never have been long behind you."

"No," I muttered to myself as I curled up into a ball on the sofa. "You're not giving me an option here."

"I am, Bella, it's still your decision to make."

"No, you're not! You're saying that if I don't choose to become like you, you're going to kill yourself."

I glared at him until he nodded, confirming my accusation.

"So I don't have a choice but to let Carlisle turn me."

He looked genuinely confused. "You do, if you let Eric turn you …"

"You're not listening to me, Edward! You think that I want to be in a world where you're not? You think that I could live with myself knowing that my actions in becoming like Eric would lead to your death?"

My tears were streaming down my face, and Edward was suddenly at my knees, a box of Kleenex in his hand for me to dry my tears.

"I couldn't do that," I told him. "I couldn't live with myself."

"I'm sorry, Bella. I'm yet again selfishly forcing your hand. Please know that I don't want to have to give you that choice."

"But you're not going to change your mind."

"No."

He was literally only inches away from me and the urge to touch him was so strong. I wanted, no needed to feel his cool touch on my skin. But I knew that if I submitted to my desires to touch him my resolve would no doubt fail me.

I took a Kleenex from the box in his hand, careful not to touch his skin and dried my eyes, trying desperately to try to control my breathing. Once I'd managed to stop crying I looked up to see Edward knelt in the same position he'd been in with a look of concern on his face.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I never meant to cause you such pain."

In reality, I knew that he didn't, but the thought of him committing suicide if anything ever happened to me was painful. But in all honesty, it made my decision easier. It meant that I was going to take up Carlisle's offer to turn me.

I was more than aware that any kind of future for Edward and I was very much up in the air, but even if I never saw him again, I knew that I couldn't live with myself if my decision meant that my actions caused his death.

"You can sit down, you know. This is your suite."

He looked slightly startled for a brief moment before joining me on the sofa, albeit sat at the other end. I turned my body towards him before I really realised what I had done.

"This is okay?"

"It's fine. Although are you okay? I mean, with my blood…" It had only just occurred to me that from being away from me for seven and a half years my blood was likely to be temptation for him.

The corners of his lips curled up at my question. "It's not like the first time I met you, and although I haven't seen you for so long your scent is engrained on my memory." His smile dropped and he looked regretful and pained. "And I can smell the cancer, it tarnishes your scent."

I hadn't thought about that. "Eric told me that I smelled disgusting to him when he first discovered me with the disease."

"I can smell his blood in you as well. Their kind have a different smell to us, more earthy and dry. You don't smell like you used to."

He looked regretful at his own statement and fidgeted slightly in a move which seemed very un-vampire-like. He was staring down at his hands when he started to speak.

"Bella," he started, "I want … I'd like for you to tell me what happened when I left."

I hadn't expected him to ask that. "To me? You want to know what I did?"

"Not just what you did, but … what you felt. I need to know, Bella, I need to know what my leaving did to you." He raised his eyes to look at me and I could see the grief and pain on his face. "Please don't spare me any details; I want to know the truth."

I nodded once, but my mouth suddenly felt bone dry like it was made of sandpaper. "I could do with a drink of water," I started, and almost before I'd finished my sentence, Edward had placed a bottle on the coffee table in front of me. "Thank you," I told him, smiling briefly before opening and draining half the bottle.

"After you left … well, immediately after I tried to follow you. I didn't want to believe what you had said. I ended up getting lost in the forest, I think I must have walked for hours but for all I knew I could have been walking in circles. I kept on tripping and stumbling. Eventually I just stayed down. It started to rain … but I couldn't move. I felt numb … I didn't want to acknowledge the truth."

A tear slipped down my cheek and I wiped it away with another paper tissue. I was staring at the leather sofa in between us, completely unable to look at the expression on his face. "Later on in the night I was found by Sam Uley. He was the first of the wolves to change and became the Alpha until Jacob took his rightful position. He carried me back to my dad and … Dr Gerandy was there. I was told Carlisle had taken a transfer to L.A. Of course I knew that wasn't true, but it confirmed that you all had left."

I looked up at him and saw the heartbreak on his face. "I was a zombie for months. I went to school, did my homework, and ate a little, slept, but not much else. Even my dreams weren't peaceful – I'd get night terrors. Charlie used to find me screaming in bed when I woke from some bad dream or other. In the end, he threatened to send me to live with Renee in Jacksonville, but I couldn't leave Forks. What if you had come back and I wasn't there?

"Eventually I started to come out of my shell, I started to force myself to be sociable. Jake became a close friend and was rebuilding these motorbikes…" I wasn't sure whether to tell Edward this or not, but he had claimed he wanted to know it all. "And once they were built he tried to teach me to ride them." I smiled at the memory of how elated I had felt when I heard his voice in my head. "I went off too fast, but I could hear you." I looked up and met his eyes. "I could hear your voice telling me to not be so reckless, to be careful."

"You could have killed yourself," the real Edward scolded.

"I know, but once I heard your voice … I heard it again when Laurent attacked, you were telling me what to do, urging caution. After that I started to try and do things that I knew would cause my delusion."

"Bella!" Edward groaned, and I felt bad for admitting as much I had done. "I asked you not to do anything stupid!"

"You weren't there to stop me!" I hissed back at him.

"I'm sorry. I just… hearing this is very hard." I noticed that his eye colour had changed from the previous amber to a darker black that showed he was not in a good place.

"You asked."

"I know, I just … I always hoped you wouldn't have done anything like this." He took a minute or so to calm himself down, his eyes shut as he did so. "What else?"

I decided to skip the incident with the men in Port Angeles. "I went cliff diving. It was something I'd seen the La Push boys do before, and I'd asked Jake to take me. But I went alone, and it was stormy…"

Edward shut his eyes once more as he grimaced.

"… I jumped, not really thinking about the water. I heard you so clearly, you were yelling at me not to give up. But I didn't want to fight anymore. I saw you. In my delusion, I saw you in the water with me. You were so angry." I smiled at the memory but didn't look at Edward. I could almost feel the rage coming off him. "I was so happy, I thought I was dying and you were the last thing I was going to see. The current caught me and I hit my head on a rock. My last thought was that I loved you."

I looked up to see Edward's eyes full of tears he could not shed. "I'm so sorry," he stuttered.

"Don't be. That delusion … I knew it wasn't real, but I craved it. I craved your voice. You."

"What happened?" he asked after a minute of silence.

"Jacob saw me jump. He pulled me out of the water and brought me back."

"I owe him such gratitude," he muttered quietly to himself.

"That same day Harry Clearwater had died … my dad … he was so upset at his death that Jacob never told anyone. I was selfish; if I had died that day, it probably would have killed my dad … to lose his friend and daughter. After that, I tried to carry on living. But Victoria, she had other ideas. It was later on in the summer that she attacked. She'd been building an army of new-borns and had been scoping the area."

"What did she want?" he asked with a growl.

"Me. Someone had taken clothes and a pillowcase from my room. They were familiarising the new-borns with my scent." Edward growled once more and sank his head in his hands, almost as if he didn't want to hear what I was telling him. "She wanted revenge on you for killing James." I told him and he looked up with angry eyes. "She wanted to kill me. She thought I was your mate."

It hurt to say that, to remember how I felt when I had known that she was not even right in saying that.

"I'm so sorry I put you through that." He hadn't acknowledged the comment about his mate and I didn't blame him to some extent.

"It wasn't your fault."

"It was."

There seemed little point arguing with him considering it was irrelevant.

"I don't quite know how we did manage to defeat her, certainly a good amount of luck played in our favour. The wolves managed to trap her and kill her. Some of the new-borns ran off, others were killed by the wolves." I took a deep breath before continuing. "After that I went to college in Seattle … I always hoped you would return so didn't want to be too far away. But you never did.

"Charlie had found out about vampires and werewolves when Victoria attacked, and started a relationship with Sue Clearwater a year or so after her husband had died. He married her about three years ago. It was my now-stepbrother Seth that let slip about you being a vampire. Charlie exploded at me, called me reckless and irresponsible." I smiled as I remembered that phone conversation – he had been livid. "I even found myself defending you guys to him. He said that it was good you had gone away, which hurt so much. After that, Charlie and I never seemed to get along so well and soon after I realised that I needed to get away from Washington. LSU Shreveport did a similar course to my one in Seattle, so I moved there."

Edward gave me a pained look. "My leaving changed so much… I should have been there for you. I only wanted to protect you from my kind, I wanted for you to have a normal, safe life. I failed you. I have hurt you and exposed you to such danger. I have ruined the relationship with your family, forced you to move across the country…"

"Remember what I said about the self-loathing?" I teased, but meaning it all so seriously. "Please don't blame yourself for everything that has happened. Victoria would have attacked anyway."

"Yes, but it should have been my family and I to get rid of her, not the wolves. You could have been killed."

"I wasn't," I stated, pointing out the obvious. "What has happened has happened. There are no words that can change the past." I shifted in my seat, turning myself further towards him. "Tell me, what about you? What did you do?"

"How much do you know?"

"Alice told me that you went to Brazil and that you were gone for eighteen months."

He ran his hand through his already messy hair. "I couldn't stay with them. I know they didn't mean to, but they'd think of you often … I couldn't do it, I couldn't live with what I'd done. I had to be alone. I knew I was hurting them in leaving – Esme and Alice in particular – but I couldn't stay. I stopped feeding … I found that I wasn't so lucid when I went unfed. I was almost able to forget … but I never could, not completely.

"I went back to them eventually, but I still refused to feed often. I never gave in to my hunger… it was something I could control. I guess I was an anorexic vampire," he joked spitefully. "I've not been in a good place, Bella. The others … they went to school, lived as we had before, but I refused. I stayed in my room, I went weeks without seeing them and I was living in the same house."

"What did you do?"

"I thought of you, mostly. I'd relive every memory I had of you, playing it in a constant loop in my mind. You filled my every thought, and I couldn't allow for other distractions. Until Alice had her vision, I hadn't interacted with my family for years."

"They must have been worried about you! How could you do that to them!"

"It wasn't intentional. They knew where I was. It hurt so much to be near any of them. I could hear the pity in their minds, the judgement they gave me even though they didn't mean to. I knew they blamed me for my own plight, and they were quite right to. Everything is my fault. I ruined not only their lives, but yours as well."

"You didn't ruin my life," I told him, honestly. "You may have left me, but the time we did have? I would never have given that up."

He gave me a small smile before continuing. "There have been dark times when I've wondered whether it would have better if I never met you. Should I have stayed away? Should I have stayed in Alaska after that first day in biology? I have wondered whether it would have been better if I never had put you through any of the misery and trauma I have caused you."

"No!" I yelled at him, leaning forward and grabbing his icy hand in mine. "Do not say that. If it was this way or never having anything with you, I would choose this way every time."

I looked down at our interlocked hands. The second our skin touched, I felt that familiar pull towards him. It felt so unbelievably right to touch him. I felt complete for the first time in seven and half years. I realised how desperate I was to touch more of him, to pull him close to me, to kiss him.

But I couldn't.

There were still so many issues stopping me. So I let go of his hand and retreated back to my own side of the sofa. He seemed to miss the skin-on-skin contact as much as I did.

"Tell me about your life in Shreveport," he eventually asked in an attempt to lighten the mood in the room.

I did as he asked, telling him about college and my roommate Nicole. I tried to gloss over my relationship with Oliver, but he asked many questions and I ended up telling him everything. He asked about what I thought when the vampires came out of the coffin, how I met Eric and Pam and my subsequent friendship with them.

I felt like I shared a lot with him, and it felt right to be telling him. But I couldn't help but feel that it was so heart breaking that there was nothing he could tell me about his time when we'd been apart. That he had just spent the last seven and half years moping in his room because of his own actions.

Much as I enjoyed our chat, I was started to flag and half-managed to stifle a yawn.

"You should get some sleep. It's four in the morning."

I was shocked at quite how late it was; I really hadn't realised that Edward and I had spent so long talking. I wondered what I was going to do about getting home, and I suddenly felt very weak when I tried to stand up.

Only moments later, there was a knock at the door.

"It's Alice," Edward informed me before going to open the door to his sister.

She skipped into the room in her normal jovial manner. "I brought you some pyjamas and some clothes for tomorrow." She thrust a large bag of clothes in my direction, which I had no option but to take off her.

"You can sleep wherever you want," she said, answering the question that was on the tip of my tongue. "Edward's room is the one to your left," she informed me, pointing in the direction of one of the doors. "None of us need those rooms for sleeping, so you're more than welcome."

I was quite simply feeling too tired to argue with her. "Do you ever get used to her?" I asked Edward with a smile.

"Nope. And I've known her for long enough."

I could see that Edward and Alice were having some kind of private conversation, so I looked through the bag at the clothes she had brought me. I didn't want to think about how Alice had acquired these clothes on such short notice, as I certainly hadn't decided to stay earlier on in the night.

"Do you want to sleep in my room?" Edward asked me with a pointed look at his sister.

"That's fine," I said with a sigh. "I just need somewhere to sleep, I really don't mind where, but I don't want to be an inconvenience."

"You won't be," he said with a smile. "I'll show you to your room."

Edward and I had not touched again since I'd grabbed his hand earlier on in the night, and he guided me towards the room that was deemed his. I noticed a bag had been placed in one corner, but other than that, it was just a room.

"Thank you."

"No problem. Get some sleep; you look like you could do with it. And if you need anything just call."

"Will do." He nodded and then left the room.

I pulled the pyjamas out of the bag and pulled them on after brushing my teeth with the toothbrush and paste Alice had also provided and climbed into the large, warm bed.

It had been an exhausting day, and one of many surprises. Seeing the Cullens again … was both extraordinarily heart breaking and fantastic all at once. Edward was the same as I had remembered, only more beautiful and perfect than my memory had allowed.

Earlier on in the day, I had been so resolute that I was going to let Eric turn me, and now I was sure that it would be Carlisle. It wasn't solely for the reason that Edward would consider me dead if I became like Eric, but I had to admit to myself that it played a part in my decision, no matter what I had told Edward. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if my accepting Eric's offer would mean his suicide.

I couldn't do it.

But I also had to admit, in all honesty, that if given the choice from the start I probably would have chosen Carlisle's way. Knowing Eric as I did, I knew that he would encourage me to feed from humans and that no doubt sex would be involved. I just didn't think that I could do that, even without Edward.

I laid my head on the pillow for what was very likely to be my last night as a human.

I tried not to think to sentimentally about that, but even if I hadn't made the choice to become vampire, I would be dying right now.

Despite those thoughts, it didn't take long to drift into a deep, restful sleep.


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