The Twilight Twenty-Five: Goodnight, Noises Everywhere

Prompt: Comfort

Pen name: Feisty Y. Beden

Pairing: E/B

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


Chapter 7: Comfort

"When did the stars die?" I asked. I could feel Edward shrug from where he sat next to me.

"The stars are—were—so far away that by the time you see their light, it's been at least several years," he said. "The nearest star, after the sun, was Proxima Centauri, and it would take about four years for the light to reach us from there. So when Proxima Centauri died, it had already happened four years ago. The other stars, they're even farther away. Some of them hundreds of thousands of years away."

"They might have been dying before we were born."

"They might have already died before the earth was formed," he said.

"And all this time, I was living my life, and I never knew," I said, shivering and drawing my knees to my chest. "The world was always dying, and I worried that no one would ask me to prom." And I began to cry.

I felt his cold, trembling hand brush against my cheek, catching one tear. "Even your tears are warm," he said. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm just wondering why I was born, if this is how everything was going to end. Why bring me into this world where I'd see nothing but everyone I love die in front of me, the end of civilization, the end of humanity, for god's sake? Why me? Why now? Why couldn't I have been born in the '20s or something? Flappers, Prohibition … seemed like good times." I laughed pitifully through my tears, gamely trying to make a joke.

"The '20s were a little lame," said Edward.

Edward. He had a name. And he was real. And he was here, with me.

"Why?" I sniffled, wiping my face on my sleeve.

"There was a lot more shit in the streets, for one thing, and then you had the Great Depression, and then once we got out of that, World War II—basically life has always kind of sucked."

"Is that a pun? Like, a vampire pun?" I asked, still wiping my face.

"Uh, no. Why?"

"Because I hate puns."

He laughed weakly, wrapping his arms around his middle. It seemed even that amount of activity had tapped his diminished store of energy.

"What happened to the vampires?" I asked suddenly.

"Forgive me," he said, slumping over on the couch. "I can't sit up any longer."

I stood and helped put his legs up. I sat on the floor by him, so I could still look into his obsidian eyes. "Do you want a blanket?" I asked.

"I don't get cold," he said.

"You need a blanket," I decided, ignoring him. I leapt up to get an old afghan from the wicker basket by the fireplace. I tucked him in, ignoring his weak protestations. He looked better to me, even if it were only an illusion. It made me feel better to see him look as though he were being cared for.

"You should know," he began, "that my family—we weren't like the other vampires. We didn't feed off of humans, only animals. There weren't that many who are like us. When the virus began to infect the humans, the vampires didn't think anything of it, didn't change their hunting or feeding patterns." His breathing was ragged, as if telling the story were as taxing as running a marathon.

"Something happened, and it happened slowly. The vampires who fed off infected humans also got a version of the disease. They grew ill and died. It wasn't communicable from vampire to vampire, only through infected blood."

"But you—you said your family didn't feed from humans."

He looked at me, waiting for me to make the connection.

After the initial scare, the schools reopened. Students were urged to stay home if they felt the tiniest bit ill, and a lot of parents kept their kids at home anyway, for fear that they'd get sick. Tyler Crowley's mom forced him to go to school no matter what—his brother had dropped out of high school years ago, and she was determined to see at least one of her children graduate. "What's a little sickness?" he'd say, imitating her domineering voice. "No sniffle is going to keep my baby from getting into college. If you stay home, I'll kill you myself."

We'd laughed at the time, so desperate for joy as our classes grew smaller and smaller as people became ill, died, or simply moved away, hoping somehow to outrun the illness. "Your mom is pretty fucking scary," we'd agreed, and Tyler nodded his head vigorously.

We didn't notice then how red his eyes were, or the sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead. We were hanging out during lunch in the biology lab, playing with the guinea pigs, Darwin and Mendel.

Tyler was holding Darwin when he sneezed. We all backed away from him, instinctively putting our arms in front of our faces.

"Guys, relax," he said. "It's just allergies. These fuckers always make me sneeze."

"Okay," we said, but we still kept our distance.

The next day, Darwin was dead. The day after that, Mendel, who shared Darwin's cage, was dead too. By the end of the week, so was Tyler. Guess his mom wouldn't have to kill him after all for missing school.

"The animals," I murmured. "The virus spread from human to animal. And then … did it go from animal to vampire, just like it had from human to vampire?"

Edward nodded with great effort. "Carlisle—I thought of him as my father—he was trained in medicine, and he didn't see this coming. He thought we were safe because we'd only heard of traditional vampires falling ill. Alice, well, we don't know why her visions didn't warn us—but maybe it was because no one had made a decision that caused the animals to die. She couldn't read into the intent of viruses that had decided to mutate. By the time Carlisle realized what was happening, he and his wife, my second mother, kind, beautiful Esme, were already too ill, and we all know that there's no cure for the virus, no matter who—or what—it strikes."

"What happened to Alice?"

"She was already infected by the time Carlisle had figured it out. She fought so hard—for a while we thought she was the exception, that she'd make it. Jasper—her mate, and my brother—was by her constantly. I almost think his love kept her alive."

"And then?" I said in a hushed voice.

"Jasper was startled by a noise outside. He dropped her hand in surprise. As soon as their skin-to-skin connection was lost, she slipped away. It happened in the blink of an eye, maybe even faster. Jasper was beside himself, naturally. He … built Alice a great funeral pyre, and then he jumped into the flames with her body in his arms. I tried to pull him out, but he begged me to let him go."

My heart broke for these souls I'd never known. "Were there others? In your family, I mean?"

He sighed, and it seemed he was trying to force his eyes to stay open because I'd asked him to. Maybe he wanted to shut them, to stop the memories from coming.

"You don't have to keep your eyes open if you're only doing it for me," I said.

"Thank you." And the obsidian night was veiled again. He swallowed a few times before he continued. "I had another sister—Rosalie—and another brother, Emmett. We were all that were left, along with the coven in Alaska. We knew the animals were no longer safe. I don't know if the other covens like ours had figured it out."

He sighed, and it was my turn to touch his cheek with a trembling hand. "So warm," he said, leaning into my palm. I bit my lip to keep from crying, worrying I'd offend him by showing sorrow for his loved ones I'd never even met.

"We knew if we kept feeding, we would die, because we couldn't tell which animals were well and which ones weren't. The virus could be dormant for days before the illness presented in the animals, especially the bigger ones. I didn't feed. Emmett didn't mind. He liked taking risks. He said he'd never gotten to play Russian roulette as a human, and this was the next best thing. You know, gallows humor."

"It's the only way you can survive," I murmured, wondering how his cheek could feel so solid yet loose and fragile all at once.

"Emmett was lucky the first few times, but then he …" Edward squeezed his eyes tighter. He didn't need to finish that part of the story.

"And the rest of your family?" I asked gently, hoping I wasn't causing him too much pain.

"After Emmett died, Rosalie went looking for an animal she knew was infected. She was his mate, you see. She didn't want to live without him. It didn't take long. And the other coven, they tried not to feed, knowing it would mean their death. But they simply grew too hungry to care anymore. 'What kind of living is this?' they said, leaving for what would be their last hunt, even as I begged them not to go. And then I was the only one left."

"And why were you strong enough to resist? How could you live that long without eating?"

"Because of you, Bella. I had to come back to see you, to say goodbye and to apologize. I'd imagined I'd be apologizing to your grave. I didn't expect to find you alive."

"Can you die of starvation?"

"No. I only wish that I could. It would be easier. I was wondering how I was going to die once I'd said goodbye to you, since there are no more animals, sick or well."

"But I'm alive," I said.

"Yes, I wasn't expecting that."

"So you don't want to die now, do you?"

"I … don't."

"So it doesn't matter," I said. "It doesn't matter that there's no way for you to die, because I'm here, and I'm alive, and I'm not alone anymore." I surprised myself by bursting into tears at the thought. "I'm not alone anymore," I repeated, sobbing.

"Hush, don't cry. Don't cry," he said, trying to reach for me but not being able to free himself of the blanket.

"No, I'm happy for the first time in a long while. I'm happy that I'm not alone." I roughly brushed my tears away and wondered if I could really ask him what I was thinking.

He was studying my face. "You look like you're trying to figure something out."

Shyly, I looked away, unable to make eye contact as I made my request. "It's … it's just been so long since anyone's hugged me. Sometimes I wrap my arms around myself really tightly and try to remember how hard my mom squeezed me, what rhythm she patted my back at when she was proud of me, what rhythm when I was sad. There were different rhythms, see, but I can't remember them all, not for certain anyway." I didn't tell him about the pillow upstairs that I'd dressed in Charlie's clothes, or how I'd drape an empty sleeve over me when the nights were too lonely to bear.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" he asked in a voice so quiet I wasn't sure if I'd only imagined that he'd spoken.

"Why should I be?" I asked defiantly. "The worst has already happened. All my nightmares have come true. So what could happen to me now?"

"Then come here, Bella, for I am too weak to come to you."

I lifted up the blanket and slid next to his thin body on the wide, plush couch. "So warm," he said again, and I drew his arms around me.

"I can see your pulse in your neck," he said.

"I'm sorry—should I cover it up? Is it too hard for you?"

"No—on the contrary, it gives me hope. There's still life here, and of all the people in the world, it's you. You were the only one I prayed was still alive."

"Do vampires pray?" I asked, lulled almost to sleep from the pressure of his arms and his voice in my ear.

"Some of us do," he said. "But our prayers are not usually answered."

We lay there under the afghan, my heart beating loudly enough for the two of us, ticking like a clock counting down our last days.