Chapter 7- God is outside

Edward's pov

I had been running for hours. Or maybe minutes. I wasn't sure. Every second I spent away from Bella felt like hours. I finally stopped at an old oak. I knew I was far away from civilization. I couldn't hear any thoughts, or any sounds of everyday life. Only nature.

The moonlight shed through the trees as I finally realized where I was.

A clearing. It always had to be a clearing.

As light glittered on the fragile blossoms of the springtime, I felt deja-vu. Not only because this looked very much like the clearing we met James in about 36 years ago, but also because Bella and I had shared our first kiss in a clearing similar to this.

My chest ached in agony. I fell to my knees. My breath came in short rasps as pain threatened to consume me. I didn't want to fight it. Why should I? The only person I had ever given my heart to had thrown it away. The weight of my torture felt equivalent to the sky resting on the shoulders of Atlas.

How did he do it?

He was no vampire, yet I was ready to give up because the pressure was crushing me.

My body lay crumpled on the forest floor as I look at the night sky.

"I like the night. Without the dark, we would never see the stars." The familiar voice whispered.

Oh Bella, if only you'd known that you were my stars.

Bella was my stars, my moon, and my sun. She brought the fervency back into my life. The moment she had streaked across my forever night sky my life had been changed. She was everything to me.

Yet I had lied to her and left her behind.

If I could just go back to that day and stay with her instead of leaving all these years of pain would evaporate. But there was no changing the past. Bella had grown into a new woman. I could only attempt to change the future.

My face screwed up in dismay as I recalled my apparent feeble attempts at controlling the future. I had never wanted this life for Bella, and yet here she was living the unending existence of a vampire.

I knew I had been to blame. If only I had stayed with her, things wouldn't be this way.

I groaned in agony at the hole that materialized in my chest.

"I was right, you are a pussy."

I sat up, alarmed at the sound. There had been no warning, no indication that someone was approaching. I grimaced warily as I met eyes with none other than Victoria.

"Are you surprised?" She asked, smirking.

Her crimson eyes were a deadly kind of playful. Her wild hair was like flames as it shot in every direction from her head. She looked like a predator.

"A little bit, yes." I admitted when I found my voice.

It didn't exactly feel like my voice. I sounded hoarse, broken.

"You know, for the longest time I had dreamt of this moment. The moment where you look exactly like I did when James was killed." She muttered thoughtfully.

I remained silent.

"It's not as satisfying as I had hoped." She said this with a smile.

Was she happy to see me suffer? I searched her thoughts for her intention.

Bella told me about your gift, Edward. Believe me, I didn't intend on hiding anything anyway.

At this, she showed me images of Bella. Normally I would be calmed by seeing her. Not this time.

Victoria showed me what had happened after I left Bella. She showed me tonight and every other night that she had spent with Bella.

Bella was clutching her chest as she slowly slid to her knees. She began to tremble a little. Her fists balled up and she gasped for unnecessary air. Devastation was evident on her brow as it was scrunched up in a V. Her eyes were distant in an old memory.

"Bells, you okay man?"

Bella snapped out of her trance and rose to her feet. The motion was slower than it should have been. Almost as if Bella's pain was bone deep.

"Sure, sure." Bella answered, waving off the concern.

And another memory.

"Bells, I could take the kids for a day or two if you need it."

Bella had been staring blankly at the wall up to this point. Now she turned with a frantic expression on her face and started to shake.

"I-I'm fine." She stuttered.

"You're really not."

"Red, I just-I…I'm trying to get over-."

"Believe me, B. I know."

Bella accepted her friend's loving gesture and leaned into the gentle hand that caressed her back.

And another.

"Bella, for the sake of Anthony and Renesmee, you need to get over what happened."

A tear-stained human Bella looked back with empty eyes.

"So many people…"

"Bella, sweetie. I know. It will be okay."

"Because of me…"

"Calm down, Baby Bell."

"My father." At this a waterfall of tears streamed from her eyes.

Bella sobbed loudly and dropped to the floor with a clumsy thud. She was gathered into reassuring arms that cradled her as she poured her heart out in agony. What seemed like hours later Bella rested her head against her friend's chest. She looked vacant like she suddenly remembered something.

They sat in silence as more tears fell from Bella's eyes.

She showed me other ones but the one that captured me most was a moment that should have been mine.

"Are you sure, Bella?"

"I'm positive. I want to be there for them forever." The look on Bella's face was that of determination and familiar irritation.

"B, this can't be undone. You'll never be a human again."

"Believe me, I understand the terms." Bella laughed humorlessly and her eyes glinted darkly.

Instead of arguing with Bella her friend simply obliged her one and only request. There was a look of shock on Bella's face when she'd realized she'd finally been bit. Her friend was fighting the extreme blood-lust as Bella doubled over in pain.

She looked as if she had been punched in the gut. She fell to the floor and began writhing in sheer torture. The venom clawed its way through her body. Bella began to rake her nails over her once delicate skin. As soon as the scratches had appeared the venom sealed them closed again.

Somehow Bella had kept her lips pursed to refrain from making sound. Her friend was impressed with this. Not many people could suffer the pain in silence.

The three days of unavoidable burning had seemed to pass with deliberate slowness. Bella's friend continued to care for the young half-breeds with an Aunt-like love. Bella would twitch in her efforts to keep from clawing her dying heart from her chest. But other than that she made no sound.

It was almost as if Bella was sleeping.

And then once of the three heartbeats in the room sputtered to a hault.

It was all over.

But Bella remained still.

Absolutely still.

The memory cut off there. I felt my jealousy rage inside me. Despite my verbal denial of Bella's transformation, I had always secretly wished that it would be my lips and my venom that brought her into this life.

I could not choke back the ferocious growl that escaped me.

"Edward, do you know the story of the succubus and the incubus?" Victoria asked me.

I looked at her in confusion. "No," I admitted.

She looked at me grimly as she began to explain.

"If a male vampire were to mate with a human there is a good chance she could get pregnant."

"Not possible!" I argued.

She regarded me coolly. "Ya know for a 100 some year old vampire you're pretty stupid."

I growled again.

She continued on, ignoring me. "The succubus in this scenario is the male vampire."

She gestured to me and I recoiled from her accusation.

"The incubus is a female human." She said as she casually thought of Bella.

What was her point to this ridiculous story?

"Normally these half-breed children grow to fetal capacity within a few weeks." She stated daring me to object.

"How?" I was confused.

"Half- vampire."

That didn't explain anything, but I nodded as if it did.

"Typically the children claw their way out of the womb and devour their mothers."

What. The. Fuck.

"These half-breeds grow to adult in only seven years. Their hearts beat like humans but they smell like vampires." She prompted.

I felt my jaw go slack.

Was she telling me…..

Anthony and Renesmee.

"Now you're getting it, brain boy."

I threw a glare her way.

"Are you saying that Anthony and Renesmee are half-breed vampires?" I just wanted to make sure. I didn't feel like I could trust Victoria, but this was the first I had ever heard of such half-breeds.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Who are their parents?" I asked. Surely it was not Bella. As Victoria explained she would have been dead.

Victoria smirked sadly and shook her head.

"Have you taken a good look at these kids? I really shouldn't say kids. They're both 35 now." She murmured to herself.

I thought of Renesmee. She had the same heart-shaped face that Bella did. Her naughty bronze hair curled wildly and bounced with every movement. She had the same chocolaty brown eyes that I had fallen in love with so long ago.

The same eyes Bella once had.

I switched my thoughts to Anthony. He had mahogany locks that seemed to stick up in casual disarray. I recalled that on the cover of Bella's album, Anthony's hair had red specs that caused it to appear that his head was on fire. His eyes were a piercing emerald green. Carlisle had thought of my human mother and me.

Surely there were other people out there with emerald green eyes.

I tried to convince myself of this but an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that I was wrong.

"Victoria," I began refusing to believe her insinuation.

"Edward you're so fucking stubborn." She glared.

"I only ever-."

"Had sex once yeah I know." She rolled her eyes.

"Those are just-."

"Legends? Really Edward?" She asked disbelieving.

She sighed and did something very un-Victoria like. She gently laid her hand on my shoulder looking at me with sadness and sympathy.

You know it's true, Edward. She thought.

"Why are you telling me these things?"

She sighed. "I may not like you for what you did to Bella but I can tell that you both still very much love each other."

I went to retort but in the same suddenness she had appeared in she disappeared.

I was alone once more.

But now I had hope.