This story is written in the first-person point of view, and sometimes switches between characters by scene or chapter. (Please do not panic; I do not repeat each scene from various points of view.) I do not label my chapters with character names, subsequently, your key is thus: Chapter titles that are short & succinct are Bella's, long witticisms are Esme's; song titles are in quotes, belonging to Edward, and Rose's are questions, finished off with an interrobang (‽).
Chapter Notes:
Much love to my Olympic Gold-quality-beta'ing team: head-a$$-kicker-in-charge, cookEgawd; my muse, Blackjacklily; Detochkina, pre-reader extraordinaire, and MunkeeRajah, who I appreciate even though she whoops my butt.
Epiphany, or, Sacred Cows Make The Best Hamburger
It was early morning, and the sun had not yet risen. I was sitting on a bench in our backyard garden when he arrived. I was waiting for him. I saw a flash of milky skin through the tree line in my peripheral vision but I didn't adjust or shift my focus. I crossed my legs at the knee, leaned my shoulder against the tree next to the bench and placed my hands flat on the bench beside me.
"Say whatever it is you have to say, Edward."
He rushed towards me and stopped only when he was standing half a foot away from me.
"How could you? You betrayed me!" His voice rose in pitch with every syllable. "You forced contact with her when you knew I had expressly forbade it—"
"You do not command me. You cannot forbid me, just as I do not forbid you— from anything. You requested, and despite disagreeing with the conclusions that led you to ask this of me, I did exactly as you wanted, because I love you and you are my son. I did not betray you. I did contact her, but only coincidentally. She's a student here, Edward. One of us was bound to run into her eventually."
He stood and fumed. I could see Carlisle approach the french doors that faced the backyard, and he looked distressed. I flexed my flat hand to lift my fingers in a "stop" motion, warning him to stay where he was. Edward was still silent, having been forced to reconsider his position. His anger over my contacting Bella was a straw man and he knew it. I was determined to restrict my thoughts only to the things I wanted to address out loud, but a stray source of anger slipped out.
If you want to speak of betrayal we should talk about how you lied to her, I thought.
His eyes went wide and his fuming escalated to outrage.
"I had to!"
His scream had alerted the family, and suddenly I could see eyes peering at us through many of the windows that faced the backyard of the house. I tossed a quick glare in that direction and they all vanished as quickly as they had appeared. I returned my attention to Edward and patiently waited for the rest of his rant to come.
"It was the only way I could—"
I raised an eyebrow.
"That I would—"
I waited.
"I thought that that was the only way she would let me go ..."
I couldn't help my reactive thoughts. Of all the asinine, idiotic things I've ever seen you do, Edward, this has to be near the top of the list.
Shame battled with indignation on his face, but he said nothing. I felt I was obligated to at least explain my outrage. It was hard to keep my voice controlled, and I was sure the occupants of the house beside me heard my reply, but that could not be helped.
"Perhaps it is because your indifference has provided you the good fortune to have never experienced heartbreak, but your ignorance all but guaranteed the opposite of your desired reaction! Few things rival the torture of unrequited love, and rarely does anyone forget the bitterness that comes with feeling betrayed by the one you love most. Did you not realize that to her it would seem that you used her and threw her away? Who forgets being treated like a toy to be thrown out once it's been outgrown? Jesus, Edward! Burn everything after you finish your pillage and plunder, why don't you!"
I waited patiently for his next bout of rage. It didn't come. I waited longer. I watched as his features softened as his anger fell to despondency.
"I didn't really expect her to believe me," he whispered.
I didn't reply, but sat patiently, fighting to keep my face stoic when all I wanted to do was cry for him. I truly hated having to watch my son go through this, but I knew he still needed time for the message to get through. I thought this was truly the epitome of the parent-held adage "This hurts me more than it hurts you." Eventually, after I thought him sufficiently humbled, I calmly went on.
"I'm sure you can recall our conversation from yesterday evening, yes?"
He nodded.
"Now taking what was said in new context, ask me what you want to ask, Agapatos."
"Why didn't you tell me you had talked to her?"
"That's not what you should be asking me. Though to answer your question all you need do is reflect on the minute you just spent shouting in my face. Would you have reacted any better had I told you yesterday?"
I saw a minute shake of his head. I nodded.
"I would even venture a guess that you would have, in fact, been worse. Now, again, in the context of what I told you yesterday, ask me what you need to ask."
"What you hinted at is true then? Victoria came after her? Bella's been in danger?"
I nodded once. I waited.
"Then how is she still alive? And if she's here, attending university, she had to have moved on. She must be better off than she would have been had I not forced our leave!"
I recounted to him all the relevant parts of what I had been told by Bella. He sat in silence afterwards, and I knew that I needed to allow him this time even if it meant staying beside him all day.
"You deliberately misled me yesterday when you said you would talk to Alice about seeing Bella. You meant she would physically see her today, didn't you?"
"Yes. For that, I apologize. I didn't think you would be in any state to deal with seeing Bella. I suspect that as it is she's already terrified that seeing you again will hurt like hell."
After a time he said softly, "I made the wrong call."
I nodded again, and exhaled, relieved that he was finally getting the point.
He slumped beside me onto the bench.
"I made the wrong call. I put her in danger and she'll probably always resent me for that."
Slowly I sat up straight, and grasped his hand, clasping it tightly with my own.
He looked at me with such pain in his eyes. I felt a stab, a sharp cramp in my gut as the physical sensation of heartache passed through him and I both, but I remained perfectly still. I gave him some time to let it all sink in.
"Welcome to the world of the living, my child. Nothing here, regardless of species, is perfect."
"She'll never forgive me," he said again.
"Perhaps. But she doesn't have a choice other than to love you, Edward. She can't love anyone else. She's chosen not to let you go, whether it was a conscious decision or not. I doubt this will be an easy road for you, but you don't have the luxury of wallowing in your guilt; there's no time for that, and I won't let you. You need her."
"I don't even know where to begin."
"'I'm sorry' is a good place."
"'I'm sorry' doesn't nearly cover it."
"You'll find your words when you need them."
"I've been a horrible son to you, Esme."
I held his hand tighter. "All this, and you're still missing the point, dear. You haven't been a horrible son. You've only been ... human. So very, very human. Ironically, we all are."
I held him, and we sat there on the bench in the garden to watch the sun rise.
The Summit
Victoria grabbed me and yanked me to my feet. My legs were still burning with the effort of climbing so quickly, and I fell down to my knees.
"Oooh!" She cooed excitedly. "That's about where I want you anyway. That's perfect, Bella. Oh, I'm being rude. How are you? Did you miss me?"
Great, I thought. Her voice is singsong and eurythmic even while it hearkens my impending death.
I forced myself back to a vertical position. I was now standing flat in shoes that were designed to curve my foot in order to aid my climber's grip. My feet were starting to cramp both from the position, my fatigue and the weight of my fear, but I was determined to stand. I felt the wind blowing around me and it was my only comfort since the sun was up and the rock reflected the late August heat onto my nearly bare skin. I did not reply to her inquiry.
"That's okay, you don't have to be nice to me, Bella. We won't be here long anyway. It's too bad my friend Naveen is going to miss this, I told her it would be fun. Oh, by the way, I figured you didn't really need these, so I decided to help out. I hope you don't mind."
I looked at her hands and saw that she was talking about my top-ropes. She had untied my multiple knots and unwound them from the tree. She was holding them both and I realized that when I felt my rope go taught for the second time during the climb it was because she had grabbed and pulled them straight and rigid.
Some part of me was resigned to this moment. The wolf pack had done what they could, but they were still mortals, with families, jobs and other responsibilities. They were also largely tied to their land's borders. Unless I wanted to live full-time on the reservation and never leave, I knew that at some point I would be vulnerable, and with the Cullens gone I had no other means to protect myself from something so powerful, and something that wanted me so badly. Even while I stood at the top of the hill with my aching muscles and tired mind I felt a calm creep over me. At least now it was over. There was nothing left to fear, since I knew it would be over quickly. It would be done, so I could stop worrying about it. Gone with it would be the heartache, the disappointment, and the aching to be a part of a family that left me behind. I wished that I could have told Charlie and Renée that I loved them, but if I had learned one lesson in the years past, it was that we can't always get what we want. So, I sat my longing aside, and thus I discovered something: resigning myself to the truth of the matter lifted a burden. The knowledge that I was going to die actually felt pretty good, because it was freedom.
Victoria went on for another minute about James, revenge, and whatever else. I wasn't really listening. My head tilted slightly when I realized there was just one thing I wanted to know before the end.
"How did you find me?"
She scowled, annoyed that I had interrupted her in the middle of her grand revenge speech.
"Oh, well, I hate to admit it, but I didn't really find you on my own. I was pretty sure that your lovely Edward had finally tossed you aside. After all, he didn't turn you, and he left you in that hellhole of a town you lived in. I was going to settle for killing him instead, so I've been keeping tabs on them since the beginning. This was just one of my regular trips to check up on the state of things. Call it a reconnaissance mission, if you will. But when his coven led me to you, that was just a bonus. I'll have to make myself a reminder to thank him for it when I finally get to him."
My legs were beginning to waver, and I was still standing on the very edge of the rock's flat surface. Figuring that I had nothing else to ask and that my time was almost near, I felt the very edge of the right side of my mouth begin to creep up into a sly grin.
"Then lets be done with this."
What came next happened in a matter of seconds. First, I heard Edward in my head again.
Bella. Jump. You have to jump.
It surprised me, but my instinct told me to comply. There was no need to actually jump; I was right on the edge of the cliff. Instead, I simply let my knees buckle. I felt Victoria's nails scratch my neck as she grabbed for me but missed. I smiled in triumph as I felt the last of her fingertips fall away. She was too late, and now I was falling backwards.
Stuck in a position where all I could see was the sky and the cliff, my last sight of Victoria was the look of pure rage plastered over her features as she saw me escape her grasp. She disappeared, and I rejoiced in two seconds of freefall that were absolute bliss. The panic kicked in immediately after. I was falling, 250 feet up from flat earth with no secured rope to hold me. It was then that I remembered that I still had the cams in the rock. If I was lucky, if I could adjust my fall, I would catch on one of the cams and avoid becoming a pool of lifeless matter on the ground below.
Yay, I'll just be splat on the side of the rock instead, I thought.
I tried to tuck my legs in so that I could roll into a more vertical position, but with two flailing ropes in my way and equipment strapped across half my body, I got tangled and couldn't manage to adjust myself. Then I heard a loud ping sound as the top cam popped out of the rock and went flying with me. My head did the math:
Thirty feet, and at least thirty to go.
I was grabbing at things, but it was fruitless. My rush to get up the rock made me lose my focus and I had placed that last cam improperly.
I prayed.
The second one will catch me. It'll catch me. It'll catch me.
Ping!
I didn't factor in my velocity. My weight, along with the speed I was moving dislodged the second cam from its location in the tight crevasse. My fingers grabbed at air, my legs flailed. One more cam.
One left. Jesus. Oneleftoneleftoneleftoneleft.
Another second.
Now the peanut gallery decides to remain silent. Where are you now, eh, Edward?
Three more seconds. My rope caught. Two more seconds passed. I was now 85 feet down from where I started and 30 feet away from the wall when my trajectory shifted and sent me heading straight for the wall. One second later, everything went black.
