Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters.

Summer of my Soldier

Chapter 8- To Love, Honor, and Protect

26th of February, 1940

The love of my life, my Edward

It was such an intense relief for me upon the arrival of your letter. It was the first to arrive at our new address. With the help of Alice, and some movers, all of our things have been moved into the white house by the river. The vastness of the space makes the once clutter-like furnishings of the house I had grown up in seem sparse, and I am in need of buying some new ones. It is comfortable, but it is not home. Not yet, not without you. You are my home, strange as it may seem. I felt more out of place before now, and it feels as if we were meant to live here, as if we had lived here for years and years before now.

I have some terrible news, however. I took Rosalie to the physician as you advised me to, and it appears that her baby did not survive. She had contracted cancer where her baby resided. Fortunately, with surgery, they were able to take out all of the cancerous cells, and has been tested once more, and is cancer-free. Unfortunately, the procedure that saved her life made it impossible for her to carry a child. Ever. With her sterility, Rosalie sank into a depression in which she will only recover from once she sees Emmett again. I cannot imagine what she is going through, the poor thing. The money the government was sending to her did not suffice, and she was forced to sell her home. She now lives in one of our rooms, despite how high she held her head. I simply told her that I was lonely, and that the creaks in the old house frightened me when I was alone. I lied of course, for there is not one creak in the entirety of the mansion.

Alice has also taken up room in the house, for she had the same predicament. The checks are lessening, as are the amounts they are written for. However, I must say, when the three of us are together, and on those rare occasions when we respite in a moment of happiness or laughter, it is quite nice having them there. It seems that we are the glue that holds the other together, and that we have substituted our loves temporarily in the place of support. Of course, we are broken, but we have swept up the pieces, and are simply waiting to be held back together.

Edward, I cannot lie to you. Your last letter troubled me, and I do not want you to be scared. The few correspondences we have do not suffice for me, and knowing that you are in a land of hardship makes it no easier. I wish so desperately you were here, now more than ever.

Oh, my love, do not believe that you may not write to me any longer. This will not be the last of our writings, believe you me. We shall speak more, and soon enough, we shall embrace in the other's arms.

Eternally loving you,

Your Bella

P.S. Your last letter to me spoke of Carlisle Cullen. Please pass on my thanks to him, and do tell me more about your comrades.

That would be the last letter I would write to Edward. There would be no response.

March.

April.

May.

It was May the 26, exactly three months since I had written Edward. Every morning I raced to the mailbox only to find it absent from any letter sent from the military. Every day was spent pacing, and every night spent awake, clutching my sheets around me. He could not have died. All that I knew was that the mysterious Dr. Cullen my husband spoke of had told him that correspondence will be possible as long as there was nothing to worry about. Now, I had good reason to worry. Alice and Rosalie had not heard from Emmett since the day I had heard from Edward, and knowing their camaraderie and ranks, we knew they were together. Something was wrong, dangerously wrong, and there was nothing that would tell me otherwise.

It was in the early afternoon when Alice forced me to eat again, for my face had thinned with lack of appetite. Rosalie was near to suicide, and even the dear Alice who tried to keep her spirits up cried herself to sleep every night. Nightmares haunted her; visions of glinting rubies in caves shrouded in darkness, gunshots, cold stone, and rainbows thrown into the sky by way of crystal or diamond, or something of the sort. These dreams were strange, but she awoke in terror, and not confusion. I had tried to cook again, only to burn the last of the food. Having only been allowed to make pasta, carbs filled my entire diet. We all sat around the round table that sat randomly in the kitchen, making the room seem empty and incomplete as we were.

As Alice cleared the table, Rosalie rested her head in her hand, her blonde hair un-combed and messy. Breaking the monotony of our depressions, the doorbell rang. I had never heard the chime before, and it startled me so that I nearly fell out of my chair. The three of us answered the door, and before us stood two men in Army uniforms. They stood with grim faces made of stone, their features fixed in emotionless statuesque forms.

In their hands were folded papers, and before they spoke I knew why they had come.

"Are you Mrs. Masen, Mrs. Whitlock, and Mrs. McCarty?" They did not even have to ask. We collapsed into tears, my knees buckling, sending me to the floor. Alice stood in shock, a single tear streaming from her eyes, petrified, widened, and staring into space. Rosalie broke down as I did, leaning against the door frame for support.

"I am sorry to have to tell you this, but Mr. Masen, Mr. Whitlock, and Mr. McCarty have been reported missing in action." They left the papers on the ground before us, and let our tears stain our clothes as they walked away. No sympathy showed in their eyes nor words, though there was nothing that could soothe us.

I could not believe what reality had become. Missing? My Edward? Lost? Captured? Dead? I could not accept the latter. What kind of catastrophe could have occured that would send Jasper, Edward, and Emmett into the missing status. Though I knew he was human, it seemed that Emmett was impenetrable, what with his layers of muscles and confident sense of being. Knowing that even he could falter, my hopes for Jasper and Edward diminished into near to nothing.

How long? How many days after his last letter had he been gone? What happened to the rest of his branch? To Carlisle Cullen that he had spoken of? Had they run away from that miserable place, trying to return home? That would be the best, and worst result. If he had tried to escape, no doubt he may take a wrong turn, leading him further into danger.

My reason for living was missing. The man whom I loved so dearly and whom I missed so intensely, and for whom I waited so anxiously every moment of these long days had gone missing.

"No." Rosalie murmured between sobs. "No. Not him too! Not my baby and then him! No!" Hysterics overwhelmed her, causing her to shriek toward the heavens. Though my eyes were salty waterfalls, and Alice fared no better, we bent down beside our miserable friend, and held her close. We sat like that for hours, wrapped up in sort of a circle in the doorway, our eyes and noses dripping, our faces reddened and our hearts shattered. Our bodies rocked as our mothers had done with us when we were young. It seems as though tragedy takes us back to those early days of childhood, where our minds are thinking simpler things and our bodies are not strong enough to carry our thoughts through in action.

Not one words passed through our lips. As night fell, and the searing cold of the snow awoke us from our daze, we headed back inside to warm ourselves beside the fireplace. Motionless, our eyes gazed into the blaze, yet no flames were caught in our vision. Blankets were draped over us, and yet we felt no warmth. As the clock on the mantel struck midnight, my thoughts revived themselves. Not allowing Alice or Rosalie to see my awakening, I planned and strategized in my mind. Hours later, we fell asleep, I slept to the repeating of maps and possibilities, and of horrors that my love may be living through. Or not living through at all.

A shrill scream woke Rosalie and myself in the morning, for another nightmare haunted Alice's dreams, waking her with shreik as it did us.

"Alice! What happened? What did you see?" I asked her as I wrapped my arm around her.

"Are you alright? Let me get you some tea." Rosalie raced off into the kitchen. Tea always soothed her after these nightmares, of course it was not reason enough as it was the Rose, bless her, was not as good as comforting her as I. She meant well, of course, and soothed her any way she could, yet with her mentality unstable as it was, she feared there might be nothing she could say to help her, and did not want to risk making it worse than it already was. Rose was wrong, of course, anything she did for Alice was greatly appreciated, but she would not hear of it. Alice understood, and knew that it was just the way she was, and there was no changing her. This was one of the reasons that I loved Rosalie so much, for she was so strong, even in her weakest moment.

"It was the same. Only the rubies in the cave were eyes. I couldn't see the faces, but there were three pairs of red eyes. They were staring at me, only it wasn't me, it was as if I was looking through someone else's eyes. There was another pair of eyes, though, only these were golden." Her trembles stopped, and her face relaxed. Rose came out of the kitchen, and handed her a cup of steaming tea. "But they were not evil. I mean, they were, but at the same time, I wanted to see them. They were even sort of...beautiful in some way." Her eyes glazed over in thought, and then she spoke the words I least expected her to say. "I really miss Jasper."

A tear streamed from her eyes, and our depressions worsened at the mention of his name. Strangely, this did not sadden me as much as it angered me. Truth was, I was tired of being miserable, I was sick of being sad over his absence. This was the last straw. I was going after him. I was going after my Edward.

"I have to go. I have to find them." I stated as I whirled around the room. Opening the closet door, I took out my suitcase, and Alice and Rosalie followed me upstairs as I searched through my closet.

"What do you mean find them? They are in France! If the Army can't find them, what makes you think you can?" Rose screamed at me as I threw clothes into the suitcase.

"I don't know. All I know is that I cannot just sit here and wait, and I am not returning without Edward." With my suitcase filled I raced to the bathroom to bathe before I left. As I made my way to the bathroom, she tried to convince me to stay.

"Bella, be reasonable! Edward told you to stay here, what good will it do for you to put yourself in danger?"

"Since when have I done what he asks me to do? Now, let me bathe, and you can yell at me after."

"Oh no, I am not allowing you to do this. Have you lost your mind?" Rose invaded the room, and folded her arms across her chest, telling me with her body that she was not going anywhere that I was not.

"Rosalie, please. I am going to France."

"Fine. Tell me Bella, how are you going to do this?" She raised one eyebrow, judging my sanity.

"Well, I am going to purchase a ship fare, travel to Paris, and start from there. He said that he was in the countryside, fields and such. It should not be incredibly difficult to find out where they were." She walked around the bathroom, politely averting her eyes from my form as I settled into the hot water.

"There is no talking you out of this, is there?" Her voice fell, and she knew I had won.

"No, I don't believe there is." Our eyes met, and she left the room to give me my privacy. In the next room, I heard her speaking to someone on the phone.

"Yes, I need one passage to France please." Bless Rosalie. She called to purchase a ticket she wished that I would never buy. "Is that the earliest departure?...Alright, tomorrow at noon is it. Thank you." Wrapping the towel around my dripping body, I raced to my closet, throwing on a clothes as Rose informed me of the ticket awaiting me at the booth at the harbor.

I pinned my freshly dried hair, not bothering to curl it. As I walked back toward my suitcase, Alice held onto my arm.

"Bella, don't go."

"Alice, please, I am going, I need you to accept this..."

"Look, there was something else to my dream." She sat me down upon my bed, taking a place beside me.

"I may be a terrible liar myself, but I can tell when someone else is. You said you saw three pairs of red eyes, and one pair of golden eyes in a cave, and nothing more." I accused her. I knew she was only trying to bind me to our home, and though I understood her concern, it was no right of her to do so. Her eyes fell to the floor, and her hands kneaded nervously in her lap. Knowing she had been caught, she told me the truth.

"I apologize. The truth is that it wasn't a dream that I am going to tell you about. It was a premonition." My jaw fell, my mouth agape with the shock of her words. I knew she had always had a good sense of what the future held, but she never had true prophetic visions, or none at least that she spoke of. "It was the same scene in my dream, only the red circles were different. At first, there were the four pairs of eyes, however, when I ventured into the cave, they turned out to be blood stains on the walls. The golden spots were the reflection of light on the stars of a high ranking officer of the enemy. Bella, in this premonition it was not myself seeing this, but rather seeing through someone else's eyes. In this vision, this person died, Bella. Shot to death in the chest, mislead by the sight of the 'eyes'. You can't go, for I fear you will not return."

"You are saying that I will die?":

"I am saying that someone will return, only I do not know who. All I know is that whomever does come back will be dead, or will die, soon." Her words struck my heart, for there was little she was ever wrong about, if anything at all.

"Alice, my dear, I cannot promise you I will stay. I cannot stay here while Edward is...god knows where, and wait for nothing. I love you, Alice, but I must go." Alice hugged me close to her, and finished the last of the arrangements need be made while I finished packing.

The clock struck at ten minutes until twelve, and my dear friends were at the harbor to see me off. Tears in our eyes, we hugged each other continuously, interrupted only when the horn on the ship blasted against our ears.

"Promise you will try to keep yourself safe?" Rose asked me.

"I will try, but I cannot guarantee it."

"We will miss you greatly." Rosalie whispered in my ear with one last hug.

"I will miss you even more." I responded. Alice walked up to me, taking her turn in the farewell. "Thank you Alice."

"Bella? This sounds strange, coming from myself especially, but hear me out. Should you find them, please bring my Jasper back. Please, I need him more than ever. Bring him back. Bring all of them back."

"I shall. Goodbye Alice. Goodbye Rosalie."

"Goodbye Bella." Their voices rang in harmony, and departed, leaving me to the steam ship awaiting me. Stepping across the gangplank, only one image clouded my vision. Edward. Dead, alive, or in between, my Edward. He was what kept me going.

I am coming for you, my love. I have betrayed my promise, but have fulfilled another. To love, honor, and protect, for as long as we both shall live. Make no mistake, we shall live, even if only in Heaven. And with those words, I began to chase a ghost.