This is the last chapter before we move ahead to the present day. It's also the chapter with the most sad and angst … after this, things will start to change. Although perhaps somewhat slowly.

Thanks as always to my awesomest US counterpart algonquinrt for helping me research the psychiatric stuff. And update my sadly outdated music collection. That said, if you want to listen to music while you read this chapter, my choice is Penelope's Song by Loreena McKennitt.

Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed and joined the thread on Twilighted. As always, you rock.

~~ - ~~

There was a moment of utter stillness. The sound of plaster and falling objects was all around. There were shouts from outside the house.

Carlisle watched as his oldest son crawled through the wreckage of the sitting room. To kneel in the broken glass and plaster around his grandmother's mirror. With more strength that he would have given Teddy credit for, he levered the huge wrought-iron frame over on to its side, then lowered it gently to the floor.

It was utterly shattered.

The sound of his son's scream of agony was worse than any sound Carlisle had ever heard in his life.

There was a terrible dull smashing sound as Teddy raised his fists in the air and slammed them down into the empty frame of the mirror. He was screaming something over and over again, but Carlisle couldn't understand what he was saying.

Blood started to pour down his arms, and Carlisle could see the remaining slivers of the mirror embedding themselves in his forearms. Leaving Alice and Emmett with Esme, he shot out from under the dining room table and slithered across the dust-covered floor.

"Swan, oh my God, Swan," Carlisle could hear him sobbing as he came up behind him and captured his bloody hands gently in his own.

"Teddy, Teddy, it's OK. It's just a mirror. It can be fixed. We'll put new glass in it and everything will be fine again. It's just a mirror."

As soon as he said that, Teddy went insane.

His body convulsed, sending his father flying backward on to the floor. His eyes went wild as he started clawing at the mirror and screaming.

"SWAN!" he shrieked, so loudly that Carlisle flinched back. "Dad, you don't understand … I have to get back to Swan! She's in there with the black monster all alone and she can't be in there alone! She's alone and I love her, oh my God, I love her and now I'll never be able to find her again …"

Under the dining room table, Alice erupted in a howl as soon as the words left Teddy's mouth. "NO, TEDDY!" Alice screamed. "NO! DON'T SAY THAT!" Esme wailed in fright and pulled her daughter tight against her.

At the same time, Carlisle scrambled to his feet and caught Teddy in a firm hold. Teddy began thrashing and screaming, spittle flying from his mouth. But his small 13-year-old body was no match for his father's greater strength. Once Carlisle had him restrained, he turned to Esme.

"Call 911," he shouted. "NOW!"

And as his brilliant, beautiful son writhed beneath him, snapping at him like a dog, Carlisle wept.

~~ - ~~

Because of his young age and the need to stitch his arms, Teddy was sedated rather than restrained. But not before babbling out his delusion in terrifying detail … about a world inside the mirror where a beautiful girl named Swan was his friend. That he claimed to have been visiting for the last five years at night. With dragons, two moons and something he called the black monster.

The mention of the black monster twitched in Carlisle's memory for some reason. He would come back to that.

Teddy lay silent in the ER bed, his father sitting beside him. Esme was at home with the two younger children, trying to clean up the mess – most of which had been superficial. Houses in San Francisco were built to sustain earthquakes, even ones that struck dangerously near to the city.

The hospital was in total chaos after the earthquake, the emergency room overflowing with the walking wounded. It was only Carlisle's status at the hospital that had gotten his screaming, flailing son into a curtained room, as opposed to being out in the hallways with everyone else.

How could this have been happening … in my own home … without my realizing it?

Teddy made a little sound on the bed, and Carlisle immediately turned to his boy. He was small and still under the blanket.

So young. Surely too young for this?

He took his son's fingers in his own and held on tight.

~~ - ~~

The first thing Teddy became aware of was light. So much of it, warm and soft. Then he could hear music coming from very far off in the background. He didn't know what it was, but it sounded nice. But sad.

He opened his eyes. He was standing … he didn't know where. All he knew was that he was safe and warm and nothing hurt anymore. And Swan was with him.

She was standing in front of him, her eyes red and swollen from crying. Teddy knew she had been crying for him, not knowing if he were dead or alive, not knowing if she would ever see him again. He wanted to tell her not to cry, that he was all right. But he knew before the thought was fully formed that neither of them would be able to speak.

This wasn't the mirror. This was just a dream.

They just looked at each other for a long moment. Then Teddy took three or four steps forward and put his arms around Swan. She hugged him back, fiercely, her body shaking with silent sobs.

My full name is Edward Anthony Cullen, and I live in San Francisco, California. My parents' names are Esme and Carlisle. My sister's name is Alice, and I have a brother named Emmett. Please find me.

But he knew she could not hear him, no matter how hard he tried to push that thought up through his lips and into her mind. It was the simplest information, stuff that a child of five could tell someone. And somehow, the most important person in his life outside of his family would never know this. And never be able to find him again.

I will never see her again.

Teddy felt tears welling in his eyes, and he wanted to pull her closer, closer. But Swan put her hands against his shoulders and pushed him back a little. No, he thought.

Their faces were just inches apart, and he saw Swan's eyes flicker down to his mouth and back up again.

She wants me to kiss her, he realized. For a moment, panic engulfed him – he'd never kissed a girl before, not really kissed one. But he knew he didn't have much time. If he could not tell her in words how much he cared about her, then he would have to use another means at his disposal.

Teddy took a deep breath and leaned forward. He tilted his nose slightly to the right, just like his more experienced friends had advised him to do. Then he pressed his lips against Swan's very carefully. It felt … nice.

So far, so good. He pulled back a little, puckered up and did it again. Still very nice indeed. Swan shifted in his arms, her soft body pushing against his. He could feel her small breasts lightly touching his chest. Teddy made a tiny noise, his lips parting. When they came back to Swan's, her upper lip was now warmly sandwiched between his lips. This felt even better.

Swan's lips moved tentatively under his, gently parting. Trembling, he did the same as the kiss deepened into something both of them barely dreamed ever existed.

It felt incredible. It also provoked a reaction in Teddy's lower region that he desperately wanted to hide from Swan. As his erection grew, he tried to step away. But Swan stepped with him.

So he stood still. Feeling for the first time what it meant to press his aroused body against a girl while he kissed her the way a man kisses a woman.

He never wanted this moment to end.

Finally, reluctantly, they ended the kiss but stayed in each other's arms. He inhaled the scent of Swan's beautiful hair, and gently ran his hand along it, savoring its softness.

Slowly, things began to grow less distinct. The light and faraway music started to fade, and the feeling of Swan's soft body against his drifted away. Panic seized him.

The last thing he felt was the touch of Swan's hand on his face. And in the final seconds of the dream, he heard her voice one last time. Not telling him her last name or where she lived, which he so desperately needed to hear. But five words. Five words to live the next 10 years of his life by.

"Wake up now. Listen. Lie."

And she was gone.

With a jolt, he awoke. He was lying on a bed in a curtained room. His mouth was so dry it felt like it was filled with sand, and his arms were hurting worse than he ever thought possible. Teddy nearly cried out with the pain of it all.

Instead, he latched on to the words Swan had said to him in the dream. He had no idea why, out of all the things she could have chosen to say, she had picked those words. Why not something important, like her last name? How could this possibly be more important than her last name?

But he had to do what she had asked. He was awake. Now he had to listen.

"… I agree he is awfully young to be manifesting the symptoms of schizophrenia, Carlisle. Nonetheless, the delusions you and the ER staff are describing are consistent with the diagnosis." He didn't know the voice of the man speaking.

"But nothing else fits. Teddy is a straight A student and very popular with his friends. There's no sign of social dysfunction or speech disorder. It's just these delusions that have so suddenly appeared." That was his father. He sounded like he was in terrible pain.

"No two cases are alike. And it doesn't sound like this is a sudden appearance, frankly. If he's been consistently experiencing delusions of this magnitude for the last five years as he's claiming, there is almost no question that your son is experiencing some kind of early-onset mental illness."

The other voice paused. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's see what his state is when he comes out of sedation. There may be another explanation for this, possibly connected to the trauma of getting caught in the earthquake itself. Especially since he was separated from the rest of the family at the time. That's a very frightening experience, and may have triggered some kind of extreme confusion. Maybe mixing with a powerful dream or nightmare. We'll have to see."

The doctor left the room, and Carlisle continued to sit at his bedside.

Schizophrenia.

Teddy was not a doctor's son for nothing. He knew how bad that illness was. No cure, no single effective treatment. If he had schizophrenia, he'd be taking medicine for the rest of the life, powerful drugs that would change him into a different person. His life would never be the same. He would be … crazy. For the first time, he really thought about what the word could mean, and it terrified him.

Suddenly he remembered Alice's words from under the dining room table. Hazily, he remembered that she had started to scream after he had begun telling to his father about Swan and the world inside the mirror.

Lie.

If he told the truth to those doctors, he would never see Swan again.

What was it that other doctor had said? "Another explanation … trauma of getting caught in the earthquake … separated from the rest of the family… triggered some kind of extreme confusion … powerful dream or nightmare."

Teddy's mind raced. He had been having a nightmare – sleep-walking even? That would explain why he hadn't been in bed. A nightmare about monsters. And a girl. He had been very scared. And when he woke up in the middle of the earthquake, he didn't know what was going on. He had been really confused.

Could he do that? Could he convince his father and the doctors that his wild outbursts at home and in the hospital were nothing more than extreme confusion and fear?

What if he really was … crazy? Shouldn't he tell them? So he could get cured?

If this is crazy, I like it.

He had to try.

For the next hour, he practiced in his mind. What he would say. How he would say it. The words he would use. How much truth to mix in to the lie to make it more convincing.

After a while, there were footsteps.

"Is he awake yet, Carlisle?" It was the same voice as before, the doctor.

"His breathing isn't as even as it was before, so I think he's rousing," his father said. A gentle hand took his own and squeezed. "Teddy, can you hear me?"

Teddy moaned a little and fluttered his eyes. His mouth was so dry that his lips would barely move. Suddenly, he felt a plastic straw touching his lips. He sipped the cool water – delicious.

"Da?" he managed, turning his head slightly on the pillow toward where he knew his father was sitting.

"I'm here, son. You're in the hospital. You're OK." His father stroked Teddy's dark blonde hair as he sipped a little more water.

"What happened?" he mumbled. He could almost feel the change in posture as the two men in the room listened closely. "Arms hurt." That much was certainly true.

"What do you remember, Teddy?" came the other voice. Teddy wrinkled his brow in what he hoped was a thoughtful look.

"I had a really bad dream," he croaked. "Monsters … crazy stuff. And I woke up and the house was shaking. I didn't know what was happening." He paused. "Is my arm broken, Dad? I have a track meet in a few weeks…" He trailed off deliberately. He could hear his father's body relaxing a little.

"You cut your arms … on the mirror, Teddy. Do you remember?"

"That was real?" he asked with just the right amount of confusion and amazement in his voice. "No, that was in the dream. In my dream, I was trying to rescue a girl. From a monster. But that wasn't real … was it?"

"No, son. There is no girl and no monster. But you really did think there was for a while, and that's how you hurt yourself."

"That's so weird," he moaned, putting some dramatics behind it. "Everyone's gonna think I'm nuts. Does this mean I can't go to the track meet, Dad?"

"Let's not worry about the track meet for now, Teddy," Carlisle said. "For now, let's just get you better." The other doctor came over to the bed and looked at Teddy more closely. Then he smiled.

"I think we'll keep you here a little longer, Teddy," said the doctor. "Just to make sure you're all right. You rest now. And then tomorrow … or rather, later on today … you and I can have a talk. About your dreams."

"OK," he said in a tired-sounding voice. "Dad? Is Mom all right? And Alice and Emmett?"

"They're fine, Teddy. Everyone's fine. And you're going to be just fine too."

~~ - ~~

A day and a half later, Teddy was home. Both of his forearms were crisscrossed with stitches, and he was exhausted from the sheer weight of keeping the façade up. He was ecstatic to climb into his own bed again.

Alice made sure to wait until his parents and Emmett were out of earshot before climbing on to the bed with her older brother. Teddy could see the relief on her face.

"You lied," she said simply. "You did a good job. As soon as you did, I could see a different path for you."

Teddy looked at her wearily. "I heard what you said after … well, you know. Thanks for the warning. What would have happened if I had told the truth?" Alice just shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Never mind, I think I get the picture." There was a pause, and Teddy asked the one question he had needed to ask ever since he had woken up.

"Alice, can you see her?"

His sister looked at him sadly, her odd eyes glistening with tears. "No Teddy. I can't. I'm so sorry. It doesn't mean that anything is wrong … it just means that your path and hers are going to run separately for a long time now." Maybe forever.

"Will you watch for her?" Teddy asked, his voice trembling. Alice nodded, and the tears spilled over for both of them. She climbed up the bed beside her brother and put her arms around him. They were only 18 months apart in age, and had always been close. Her Sight made it difficult for anyone in the house to keep secrets from Alice – but this was an exceptional burden for her to carry with him.

After a while, Alice realized that Teddy had fallen asleep. She covered him up and slipped from the room.

The road ahead for her older brother would not be easy. But it was nowhere near as black as the one he would have travelled if he had told the truth.

~~ - ~~

The next day, Teddy awoke early. Slowly, painfully, he slid his injured arm between the mattresses and removed the envelope with Swan's hair in it. The whiff of her scent that puffed out when he opened it hurt worse than he could have imagined. It was the only evidence he had that Swan and the world inside the mirror had ever existed.

He wanted to keep it close to him somehow.

He spent an hour on the computer, researching his options, until he found something he liked. Small, simple. No one would think anything of it. Except him.

It took Teddy nearly a month of painstaking, frustrating labor, most of it done in early mornings when the light was good enough to work by with the fine strands. And when he was done, he placed the intricately braided bracelet around his wrist.

Where it would remain for the rest of his life.

The night he finished it and put it on his wrist, he quietly asked his father if he might start calling him Edward from now on, rather than his childhood nickname, Teddy. Because he was ready for a change.

~~ - ~~

It was very late at night. Carlisle was in the sitting room, looking at the mirror on the wall. True to his word, he had replaced the glass and had the wrought-iron frame carefully restored to its original glory.

Edward had looked at it and thanked his father with a hug and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. And, to the best of Carlisle's knowledge, never looked at it again.

His son had never been the same after that night. The whole Cullen family had never been the same.

Carlisle had stood by and watched as his oldest son struggled with grief. Helplessly, he had seen Edward suffer like anyone might after losing a loved one – five stages of grief and all. Yet he had lost no one … had he?

As the months passed, Carlisle was no longer certain. Of anything.

The dynamics of his three children changed. Edward, once the undisputed leader of the siblings, slowly withdrew. It was like watching a butterfly fold its wings into itself. Alice took Edward's place as the golden child of the Cullen family, with Emmett taking the unexpected role of protector of his painfully withdrawn older brother.

Edward's marks stayed high in almost all subjects – only his art and creative writing seemed to fall by the wayside, as if he no longer wished to express himself through those media. He excelled in math and science, and expressed an interest in becoming an engineer.

Slowly, Edward's circle of friends contracted. He grew closer to Alice, preferring her company to most others and becoming agitated if she was away for more than a few days at a time. He maintained a few loyal friends, all of whom were quiet young men of character. His best friend, Jasper Whitlock, was practically the fourth child of the Cullen household.

Edward never dated.

Perhaps that was too strong a statement. He took girls out to the movies and to dances from time to time. He had gone to his senior prom with the daughter of a family friend (whom everyone strongly suspected played for the other team). And he virtually ignored the considerable parade of beautiful girls (and boys) who angled for the odd, reclusive eldest Cullen boy.

But Carlisle had never caught him fooling around with a girl or had felt compelled to give him a talk on birth control. Unlike Emmett, who had a different girlfriend every month – although the word from Berkeley now was that he might actually have fallen in love for good with the latest one. Or Alice, who had seemed determined to lead her long-suffering suitor, Jasper, on a merry chase for years.

Carlisle wondered if his son was a carefully circumspect homosexual. He had even gone so far as to ask Edward directly. His son had laughed uncomfortably and assured him that he was strictly DC. And gone on a few extra dates in the following month, as if to prove it.

After that talk, Carlisle had searched Edward's room. Again.

It was not something he was proud of, violating his son's privacy in this way. And it had not been the first time he had done it. But he had to know. He had to.

No gay porn to be found anywhere in Edward's bedroom. But he did find a few tattered and somewhat sticky Playboy magazines between the mattresses. Carlisle had grinned at the sight of those. Then he saw the little envelope beside them. He pulled it out and opened it, sick with the horrible invasion of privacy he was engaging in.

It was just an empty envelope. With a few long brown hairs in the bottom. Carlisle looked at them in silence, not sure what to make of them. They made him feel uncomfortable. Then he pushed everything back between the mattresses and left the room.

The only other time he had searched Edward's room was shortly after the earthquake. He had been terrified of finding further evidence of his son's delusions. But he had found nothing. Nothing.

It had never occurred to him to search Alice's room for Edward's possessions.

Carlisle did, however, tear the hall cupboard apart while his son was in the hospital, frantically searching through boxes of the children's old artwork, report cards and photos. Looking for pictures his four-year-old son had once drawn. He could remember it plain as day. A drawing of Edward's grandmother. A lady with long hair. A monster. And an unremarkable little girl with chin-length hair. Four years old … how was that possible?

He never found them.

It was as if it had never happened.

Edward willingly agreed to go to counseling after that night. And had continued to go voluntarily throughout the years. No one had ever found anything wrong with the oldest Cullen boy, other than that fact that he seemed to be terribly shy and socially awkward for a boy so talented and handsome.

He graduated near the top of his high school class, took a year off school to work (to earn money, he said, and get this thoughts together) then he had gone to UC Berkeley for electrical engineering. Alice had joined him there to study liberal arts. They had graduated together. Carlisle had long suspected that Edward had waited the year in order to attend school with Alice.

He had come into his height and good looks later than most of his classmates. Edward was nearly 21 when he had reached his full height of 6'1". His hair had darkened from its strawberry blonde to more of a reddish brown in his later years. He was a handsome boy, a good boy.

His conservative long-sleeved sweaters and button-down shirts covered the faded battlefield of scars on his forearms.

This fall, all three of their children would be at school together. Both Edward and Alice were taking their masters, and Emmett had somehow managed to get himself into Berkeley to join them. The three had gotten a house together, and he and Esme were at last empty-nesters. They were all children to be proud of. Including Edward.

And yet … Carlisle still felt that something had gone awry with his oldest son over the years. He was loath to admit it, but deep inside, Edward was his favorite. Yet the boy who had come from the hospital that day years ago was not the same boy he had once been. He knew his boy better than anything in the world … and something had happened that night. His son had lost something. Something incredibly precious to him.

He had lied.

It was irrational. Yet somehow Carlisle believed that his son had pulled a fast one on the psychiatrists that night, and in every single therapy session he'd had since. That there had been so much more to the story than what Edward had told anyone.

Yet he also knew in his heart of hearts that Edward was not mentally ill. There had been no other symptoms, no delusions. Edward had led a life of utter normality in his home. So very normal. So very ordinary.

But my son is extraordinary.

Carlisle sighed. He couldn't have it both ways. Either his son was mentally ill and had fooled them all. Or he was not, and had simply changed as he had grown up.

The third possibility – that Edward had told the truth – was one that he could not accept.

Yet time and again, Carlisle would come down to the mirror at night and stare at its reflective surface. Wondering if indeed his cherished son had experienced something magical within it so many years ago.