A/N: Wow, thank you all so much for your reviews :) They really mean allot. I know my spelling leaves allot to be desired LOL. I'm working on it. It's funny how you get lost in your story and you 'see' what you mean to say even though it's not what you typed. I'm sorry for any mistakes you may find. BTW, this is a long chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Stephenie Meyer does.

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Part 6: What I Can Live With

I made it back to Emmett's Jeep and sped out of Forks. I didn't know where to go, what to do really. I just knew to run. I didn't know if Alice could see me now, but I didn't want to take any chances. I drove to the only place that I knew she couldn't. Where I would get just want I wanted... what I deserved.

I drove to La Push.

I made it to the beach, running out of road to drive on. I parked, got out, and walked the rest of the way to the water. I didn't think to pull up my hood, just let the rain drown me. If it could have swallowed me up whole, I would have allowed it.

I paced along the thin line of sand, waiting. Waiting for the wolves to find me. Praying they would kill me. I convinced myself that after all I had done, she (I couldn't dare think of her name now) wouldn't miss me when I was gone. She might eventually forgive me, but I didn't want her to.

Finally, after I wandered the beach for nearing fifteen minutes, I got my wish. I turned to go back to my original starting point only to see Sam Uley waiting for me. I sighed. There before me stood the answer to my surely unheard prayer.

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To my great displeasure and surprise, Sam didn't kill me, or even attempt to kill me. And no other wolves ventured my way. Instead, Sam came to me, sat me down on a hollow log just off the shore, and listened as I told him what I had done. He hadn't interrupted, not once. Just listened.

After I had finished recalling the events of the past week, the amnesia, the murders, the... what I had done to her, he ran his fingers along his stubbly chin. "So, let me guess. You came to La Push hoping we would destroy you. Am I right?"

I downshifted my eyes. It was all the answer he needed.

He was silent again, then surprised me for the second time. "I'm sorry. I can't help you with that. You feel bad for what you did. I get that. I haven't ever killed anybody, but I wouldn't shoot a lion for doing what's in it's instinct to do either. You didn't know who you were and as long as you do and don't kill anyone here then I don't see any reason for our treaty to be broken."

I wanted to interrupt and tell him that no matter what I was, I had murdered people, surely they weren't innocent, but I couldn't be forgiven for that. I didn't want to be, but he went on before I could find my words. "As for the other, with Bella." I flinched at the sound of her name. "I've been there myself. Not to the same extent, mind you. But I hurt a girl once, actually two girls. One I loved more than anything at the time, and the other a girl I still love to this day. I left physical scars that I have to see daily and be reminded of the monster that lives inside of me if I am careless and let him get free." I cringed back at his thoughts. Being in love with the beautiful Leah. Imprinting on her cousin Emily, hurting Leah so deeply. Then attacking Emily and scarring her. Two things he could never fully forgive himself for.

Sam stood and faced the ocean, his thoughts encompassing him. "I assume you felt the need to tell me every detail so I wouldn't feel remorse for ending you."

"I deserve it." I said calmer than I ever thought I could as I drew circles in the sand with a twig, lost in my own thoughts which were intertwining at the time with Sam's.

"Yes, I suppose you do." he agreed thoughtfully. He looked to me. "But that's the easy way out."

I stopped drawing and looked at my unexpected confidant. "Easy way? You think this is easy?"

Sam shrugged. "I know when things get tough, you go off and try to get yourself killed." His thoughts trailed off into a shrewed interpretation of what he assumed had happened in Italy. I looked at him confused. He smirked. "Word gets around."

He walked back to me, but didn't sit back down. "Bella would never forgive us, any of us, if we destroyed you, and she wouldn't forgive you."

"She won't forgive me anyway." I said, softly. I'm sure he heard the pain in my voice.

Something caught Sam's attention and he looked up the rocks behind us. "Oh, I don't know." he mused. "She might surprise you." I followed his gaze and up on the pile of rocks, I saw Bella.

At first, I smiled, relieved that she was alive. That I hadn't killed her. I was elated to see her, until I remembered. I turned away quickly, trying not to glance back to her.

She wasn't alone on the hill as I had observed before. Carlisle and Alice stood on either side of her. Sam slapped me on the back, an unusual show of support. "I have some business to get to. Good luck."

"Wait." I called out as he walked toward the group. "Are you going to tell the rest? Are you going to tell them what I did?"

"I don't want a war, and you weren't yourself. I'll let this go." his camaraderie faded away and he held up one finger to me. "Just this once."

I scowled. "How can you keep it from the rest while in wolf form?"

Sam grinned amused at some inside joke and walked away toward the waiting trio. He told them that he could be lenient, but three bloodsuckers across boundary lines was pushing it. Carlisle and Alice both gave me differing looks as they were about to leave. Carlisle, calm and compassionate. He sent me a message though his thoughts, Jasper, Alice, and Emmett got to them in time to force Alec to break his hold on you. But they were too quick, unfortunately, and fled before they could finish them. I'm sure they are back to Italy by now, but we will keep an eye out.

I nodded in acknowledgement.

Alice's eyes were unreadable. She bent down and whispered something into Bella's ear, but in her thoughts she was singing Living La Vida Loca. She always had ways to cover what she was really thinking, and I didn't like it. She took another second to stare at me then followed Carlisle up the path with Sam.

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I watched her walk toward me. A fresh pain jabbed my stomach with each step she took. I could see her clearly, even though the now drizzle. She wore one of Rosalie's black and white pullovers to replace the shirt I had so carelessly destroyed. Both wrists were bandaged and one of her palms was covered with a large piece of gauze. Blue and purple bruises covered her lips where I had kissed her without thinking of her well being. I always knew I would hurt her, and I had. My worst fear had came true.

I couldn't look anymore, not at what I'd done. I stood up from the log and began walking to the shoreline.

I could tell that she had stopped a few yards back from me. I wanted to turn to her as quickly as I could and tell her how truly sorry I was, how awful I felt, and how ashamed I was. I struggled to find the words, any words, to make her understand because I knew there were none. How were you supposed to explain your deplorable actions when there was no explanation good enough?

I tried, but I couldn't make myself look at her. Conversely, everything I had in me wanted to run to her, hug her, and have her hold me, to tell me she forgave me... Fighting off the unfair urge, I planted my heels deeper in the sand. Instead of Bella, I hugged myself.

We stood that way for what seemed like an eternity. In fact, the drizzle stopped and the seldom seen sun began to set behind a bank of looming clouds in the distance. Streaks of amber and violet sailed through the western sky. Even with all that was going on, I had to admit, it was an awe inspiring sight. Not something seen everyday in Forks.

A gust of wind blew through, causing the air to chill. I heard Bella's breath shiver and instinctively turned to her. It shocked me as much as her. I started to turn back to my self-imposed solitude, but the look in her eyes, the pleading in them made me stop. I couldn't take them looking at me like that anymore. I had to suck up my self-loathing and do something to make things right for her even if I couldn't fathom what that might be.

"Are you cold?" I asked in response to her arms embracing herself. My normally smooth voice cracked.

She smiled tentatively while rubbing her shirt sleeves. "No, not really."

"You're a terrible liar."

"I do my best."

It was quiet again, so quiet I could hear her heart beating. The same sound which had driven me mad for the past weeks now made me grateful that I hadn't taken it from her too.

She spoke again softly. I wasn't even really sure she had meant for me to hear it. "What did Jane do to you?"

"Would it make you feel better to know?" I cocked my head, genuinely curious.

Her cheeks blushed a gorgeous shade of rouge, obviously she hadn't meant for me to hear her. She decided to answer anyway. "It might make you feel better."

The sheer ridiculousness of that statement made me laugh. After all I had done with her, to her, it was ludicrous for her to want to make me feel better. But that was Bella. To care more about others than herself. It was wrong in this case.

I shook my head after the humor had faded. "It was wrong of me to get so involved with you. From the beginning, I knew what was in me and I didn't care. I just wanted you."

"Stop." she shut her eyes and held out her hand. She didn't open them, but kept on talking. "Are you going to say you are sorry?" she said bitterly. "Are you apologizing for every kiss you gave me, every time you touched me, asking me to marry you?"

I couldn't help myself. I walked to her, raising my hand and taking extreme care not to hurt her. I ran my fingers over the discolored bruises on her fragile lips. "My kisses did this." I took her wrists. "My touch did this." I said softly. "It was wrong for me to get so involved with you. It would have been better--"

"Better for who?" she cut me off, angrily snatching her hands from mine. "You?"

"You know that's not--"

"Just shut up." her words shot out like bullets. Each one cutting deeply into my flesh. "You do not get to feel bad for the past two years! You are not wallowing in self-pity and leaving me again. It's unacceptable!"

"Bella." I sighed, longing to reach out and comfort her, then admonishing myself for those feelings.

She put up her hand to stop me. "Stop." she all but whispered. "You don't get to do this. Not again."

With no idea of what was right or wrong, moral or immoral, what to do or what not to do, I slammed my hands in my pockets and stared down at the dark carpet of sand below my feet. We stood there in silence again. It took awhile before I could speak. "I'm not the same man I was before."

"Yes, yes you are." she said back, almost pleading. "Something happened to you... with Jane and Alec. You lost your way. That's all.--"

I gave a dark half-hearted laugh which cut her off. "I've killed people." I finally looked at her, my dark red eyes locked with hers. "You know it's true."

"Were they innocent?"

I kicked some sand idly. "Doesn't matter. Murder is murder."

"Edward!" she yelled back.

"Rapists!" I answered back in her tone. "Alright. They were would-be rapists." I paused then whispered. "Same as me."

She hesitated for a moment then started toward me. I was both angry and relieved. She reached out ever so gently and touched my arm. "What did Jane do to you?" she asked again with way too much concern for a thing like me.

I wanted to protest, but knew it would just cause us to talk our way back in a circle. I kept my hands safely tucked in my pockets, but turned toward the water. My eyes saw the nearly gone sun setting behind the hills, but what I really saw was what had happened a week before...

"I was supposed to meet with Jane on some kind of truce she wanted. I knew it was a trap, or at least I thought it to be, but Alice saw nothing malicious occurring so I went ahead."

"Alice feels bad about that, you know?" she interrupted.

I nodded and cleared my throat. Alice was in no way responsible for any of it. "Why did you go alone?"

"Jane said if I didn't come alone, she would kill you instantly. She had Felix watching the house. So I went to the little cabin in the woods.. the one I took you too--"

"And then?" She asked, pressing me on after I paused.

"And then I saw that it wasn't just Jane, but her brother Alec as well." I think I shuttered, but was too lost in my memories to tell. It was fresh like it was just happening. "Jane is bad enough. She can hurt you, well not you exactly, she can hurt me. But she is tolerable. Alec on the other hand... Alec is in a league all of his own."

The memories flooded back so swiftly that it almost rocked me. The room. The table. Alec. The pain was horrible. In my head. In my body. Jane, laughing like a giddy school girl, urging Alec on. Telling me that Alec had done something to keep Alice from seeing so no rescue would come to me or my 'darling disgusting human'. The poker... hot, burning. The knife piercing. Nothing compared to the mental torture Alec pummeled me with.

I steadied myself, breaking away from those memories. Nothing that they did excused my behavior. I had to keep reminding myself that. "I don't want to get into the details because they really don't matter, but Alec has this--power. Much more lethal than Jane's. He-- does things-- inside your head-- makes it where you don't know what is reality or what is madness."

"I don't know how long I was there, but when the pain in my head lessened, the pain in my body matched it's equal." I smirked to myself. "Jane has a child-like joy in the ways of torture."

I didn't want to go on because really what did it matter how I became what I became. And I didn't want her feeling sorry for me... not the monster that almost-- I couldn't bring myself to think it. Jane and Alec had only taken away my memories, beat me down. What laid beneath was entirely me, my doing. My consequences.

She remained silent, I guessed mentally driving me onward. Despite myself, I went on. "I don't know when I broke, but I know one second I'm in the cabin-" I left of the part where I was screaming in mind numbing pain "-- and the next I'm running through the woods, lost and naked on my different levels. I couldn't remember anything, anyone. I, by chance, or maybe Alec and Jane planned it, I don't know. But I came to my house, only I didn't know it was my house at the time." I paused. "You know the rest of the story."

She nodded slowly, clearly absorbing it all in. It was night now and all that illuminated us was the full moon. It was kind of poetic, I thought.

But I was delaying the inevitable too long.

"I know it's wrong of me." I spoke when it was clear she wouldn't or couldn't. "But can I ask something of you?"

"As long as it has nothing to do with you leaving without me." she said sternly, causing a small laugh to escape my lips. "Isabella," I wanted to run my fingers soothingly through her windblown hair, but tightening my hands in my pockets instead. "Promise me that you won't forgive the monster that did this to you."

"What? "No- no. I can't. It's already done." she stammered on until I placed my finger lightly on her bruised lip, startling us both. I hastily retracted it, careful not to frighten her. Not that she had any fear in her eyes.

"Bella, I can't live with what I've done. Let me finish--" I added at the first sign of protest. "I will come back. I promise you that. But I have to go. I have to make myself a better-- man. For you."

"How long?" was all she could say as silent tears fell.

"Not long. I'll be back in time for our wedding next month." Then it hit me. "That is if you still want to marry me then."

"I don't want you to go."

"I know, but this is what I have to do to be able to live with myself-- since you won't let me go for good."

I hesitated, but held out my hand gingerly, offering her to take it, but only if she wanted. It was entirely her choice. She would never be forced again. She took it, but I was unable not to smile. She looked like a pouting child. "I will come back, and when I do, I'll be a man you can be proud of."

I held on, selfishly drinking in her warmth, her touch. I had done without it for so long and now I would again. But this time I would be the one in charge. It hurt me, but I finally released her hand and began walking away. "I love you." I heard her call out behind me. Her voice caught I'm sure with tears. I turned and made myself smile her favorite crooked smile to let her know that no matter what, I would fight. She hadn't lost me for good. "I love you too." I said as I turned and walked away, leaving her alone on the La Push beach.