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Excerpts from The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde. Thank you, Oscar ;-)

My apologies for making you wait so long! It's taken me far too long to finish this chapter, I know, but my exams are over so updates will come much faster from now on.


The words were etched into my brain, yet every time I looked at them because I couldn't bear to look at her any longer, it felt as if I read them for the first time. Horribly apt, they broke through the blind panic whenever my gaze turned to them.

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.

The small, printed letters were smudged, probably by Bella's fingertips as she'd turned the page yesterday morning. My hands clutched the tiny book that I'd somehow held on to while she'd fallen into my arms and not in the broken glass on the floor, while I'd begged her to wipe the blankness from her eyes, while I'd taken her upstairs and Carlisle had said it might take a while and I'd closed her eyes because I couldn't bear the emptiness in them any longer just as I couldn't bear to look at her now for more than a few minutes at a time. I'd been unable to let it go.

She'd given it to me, and I would keep it safe.

But by now, I'd creased its pages and curled its cover. Its sight made me cringe, and I lifted my head and looked at her. Again.

Like I'd done countless times. I was nothing but a bundle of raw nerves and frayed ends.

And she still wouldn't wake up. She didn't dream, she didn't talk in her sleep. She wasn't sleeping, but she just lay there, a small, pale, breakable puddle of human being with hands that were turning cold. So familiar, and yet so very different.

She'd changed in such an enormous way since I'd last seen her. She was silent and still, even when she was conscious, and her eyes were flat and blank. She'd scarcely looked at me straight, and she was angry, so angry at me, and justifiably so. The laughter gone from her gaze, the smile wept from her face. Pain had taken its residence there, and doubt. No joy was in her eyes, no quirky humour in her conversation, no warmth in her countenance.

She'd grown cold.

But the slow rise and fall of her chest, the gentle lifting of the small locks of her hair as she inhaled, were slightly reassuring. My eyes strayed to her face, and shied away again, finding temporary refuge in the pages of the book in my hands as they aimlessly ruffled through them and my mind shuffled through the words it had learned by heart.

And all the woe that moved him so

That he gave that bitter cry,

And the wild regrets and the bloody sweats

None knew so well as I

I groaned and pulled my hair with my free hand. God damn my sole existence...

"Take a walk, Edward."

The voice was Jasper's, and I looked up at him as he stood at his usual spot by her window.

"You feel nothing from her?"

"Nothing." Doomed silence. "Yet you say that you saw her decide to come back?"

"I thought I did. She said so herself."

His voice was careful. "But you could only hear and see small parts, small fragments of her mind?"

I stared at him.

"Are you saying that she might not come back from this?"

"Look, I'm sure she -" he began, but I cut him off.

"Because I know she might not come back from this. Don't you think I know that? Don't you think that's the sole thing I am afraid of?"

"Edward -"

"What would you have me do?" My voice rose in volume. "You tell me what more I can do to bring her back. I saw her mind and brought you here and we did everything, everything we could think of, hurled every emotion we both have ever felt at her." Somehow I was standing, yelling at him. "She opened her eyes, and I lost her again. And now she sees nothing, feels nothing. Tell me then, what would you have me do?"

He regarded me coolly for a moment, his face betraying nothing.

"Take a walk, Edward."

"You take a walk," I scoffed, and sat down beside her again, returning to keep my silent vigil.

ooo000ooo

Still, so very still. And empty. The passages from the tiny book again circulated through my mind.

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

I would do everything for her. Everything, anything she wanted or needed, if I could only repair what I had done. Because nothing of her was left undamaged; here lay an underweight, possibly suicidal and literally drowning woman whose pain was the result of my disastrously wrong decisions and who looked like she could never be whole again. The things she'd said, so many years ago, it seemed...

"Bella, I lied. I love you."

"You're a liar. I never thought you were..."

Whatever was left of me, whatever was left of my purgatory soul would be forever in her service to make sure that my mistake would not cost her even more of herself.

I closed my eyes, hung my head and pulled my hair. Then I peeked up at her, her face white in the dull glow of her night light.

"Wake up," I ground out. "Just wake up and open your eyes. Don't let me do this to you."

But she already had.

Esme had tried to rouse her this morning, just enough to get her to move to the bathroom and back. She had followed her usual routine, performed every action exactly the way I remembered her doing every night before she went to bed, but she'd done it mechanically. Blank eyes, not speaking, apparently unaware of her surroundings and the people around her.

Carlisle had said it fit her diagnosis.

And that if she didn't come back from this soon, we'd have to take her to a hospital.

For he who lives more lives than one

More deaths than one must die.

Silence, and the sigh of her breaths, and the sigh of mine. For so long.

And suddenly a start in Jasper's thoughts.

"She's afraid," he breathed, wonder in his voice.

I stared at him in shock, then forced myself to respond.

"How afraid?"

"It's strong," he mumbled. "She's panicking."

"Then calm her down!" I exclaimed. Why was he even discussing this? I sat up straight and tried to see some change in her as Jasper sent her calm. Time passed, time, time...

"She isn't resisting this time."

I exhaled in relief. "Well done, Bella," I whispered, and took her hand in mine. "How does she feel?"

"Agitated, still. I could try some patience?"

"All right," I murmured, trying not to get my hopes up too much. I was no judge at what to do here...

"She's calmer now."

I took a deep breath as some small amount of the frustration and fear that had been building up inside me lessened, and hope blossomed anew.

And started to fade again. We waited thirty minutes, an hour, an hour and a half, and nothing changed. Her eyes didn't open.

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead

The poor dead woman whom he loved

And murdered in her bed.

ooo000ooo

Jasper interrupted my silent despair.

"Can you see anything?" His thoughts were nearly as anxious as mine.

"No. Nothing. What does she feel?"

"Calm and patience, exactly what I sent her two hours ago."

We waited, unable to draw any coherent conclusion from that, unable to guess what was going on inside her head.

But suddenly Jasper felt grief, Bella's grief, in suffocating amounts.

"Bella," I called loudly, squeezing her hand. "Bella, can you hear me?" I squeezed it a bit more forcefully. She lay just as still, but her heartbeat had changed and her breathing became faster.

"She's feeling on her own."

We looked at each other in joyous hope, then stared back at her pale face, so small amidst the cloud of her hair.

"Good, that's good," I whispered, to all of us and to no one in particular. I studied her appearance like I'd done during all these past hours, followed the delicate arch of her eyebrows, the gentle swell of her finely sculptured lips, the fine line of her jaw, her collarbones protruding from beneath her skin, the form of her shoulders as they lay hidden under her blankets, her arms on top of them, her wrists as thin as twigs.

And her fingers as they lay in my hand and twitched minutely. Joy mixed with every fear that I had nurtured escaped my body in a sound that resembled closest both a laugh and a sob. I squeezed her fingers as well, and stroked her face with my other hand.

"Thank you," I whispered to her. "Keep going. Come back to me."

Her skin was soft, and her eyelids fluttered. She was trying, she was coming back. I held my breath as I got my first glimpse of those beautiful brown eyes and prayed that they wouldn't be as blank as they'd been before.

They weren't. They focused on my face, glittering with what I could only discern as at least some measure of happiness, changing quickly to indescribable pain as the glittering overflowed and coursed down her cheeks.

"Bella," I breathed as her shoulders began to shake and she started sobbing. She looked so incredibly vulnerable and small as the tears streamed over her face, down the hollow beneath her ears and into her pillow.

I hesitated for a second, unsure of what to do, unsure if she would mind me touching her, but when her sobs grew louder and her breathing began to halt I gingerly slipped my hands behind her neck and the small of her back, pulled her upper body towards me, and folded her into my arms. She offered no resistance but leaned on me and hid her face in my shoulder while her fingers curled around the hem of my shirt.

"Bella, it's okay," I whispered to her. She didn't say anything, but continued weeping, sobbing aloud, causing Jasper to leave the room quietly, his thoughts apologetic. I didn't like it, but I knew he was right to refrain from interfering; she needed to feel this. All I could do was try and comfort her.

So I murmured countless versions of "It's all right" and "I'm so sorry" in her hair as I held her. She wept, and wept until I thought she'd never stop and this feeling of utter helplessness would be permanently etched into my soul, and then her tears flowed slower and her breathing became more regular. Her hand fisted my shirt as I softly rubbed her back, trying to release the tension I could feel in her muscles.

She let out several short breaths as if she was trying to collect herself, and asked the question that forced me to remember what I had so hopelessly been trying to forget.

"How did he die?"

Her voice was hoarse, no doubt because of all the crying, and no more than a breathless whisper in the dark. I leaned back slightly and met her eyes. My fingertips cautiously wiped the wetness from her cheeks, and I broke our connection by looking at the small night light that had been burning since night had fallen in Forks, hours ago now...

"Edward?"

Was this the first time she spoke my name aloud since I came back? I couldn't remember, but amidst all the pain I noticed a small spark of comfort bloom in my heart from hearing her say it. I looked back at her, and cupped her face with my free hand while supporting her with the other.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, and my voice broke on the last word. I didn't want to tell her, fearing her reaction, even more because Alice saw no future for her. What would it do to her when I told her the truth?

"Sorry for what?" she asked in a choked voice. I looked at her tortured eyes that no doubt mirrored my own, and silently asked her to understand, to stay with me when I told her.

"Edward?" Her eyes had grown fearful now, and I knew I couldn't not tell her.

"Billy wouldn't speak to me," I began, searching her eyes for some clue as to how much she could take, "but Carlisle was able to arrange a meeting with Sam at the border. He told him that when he brought you home, Jacob smelled Victoria."

She froze in my arms, her eyes horrified.

"She came for me," she whispered.

"Yes. I'm so sorry. I had no idea..." My grip on her tightened.

"When the rest of the pack got there, she was already wounded, so it was relatively easy for them to finish her off. They did everything they could to save him, Bella, but he was already too far gone."

It was the end. Such a short story to tell, such a young life to end, and now there was silence. She looked at me in the dark, her tortured eyes full of tears. She stared as if frozen in time, but behind her eyes I could see the pain she was trying to hold at bay.

Carlisle had told me it might be like this. He'd seen the barely contained grief in the eyes of the countless families and friends of the countless people whose lives he had failed to save...

And as molten lead were the tears we shed

For the blood we had not spilt.

But Bella shed no more tears. I had expected her to burst out in sobs, to exclaim that it couldn't be possible, that I was lying and that he was alive and waiting for her.

She just stared straight ahead, seeing things far beyond the reach of her human eyes.

"Bella." Her empty eyes came to rest on me. "I'm so sorry," I whispered.

I saw her slowly come back to the present, to me.

"So am I."

My fingers traced the dark shadows underneath her hollow eyes.

"You're tired." She offered no response. "Do you want to lie down again?"

"I don't want to lay here anymore," she mumbled, tears trickling over her face afresh. She sagged against me.

"You need to rest. Do you want me to carry you to the couch downstairs?"

"Okay," she muttered. I slipped one arm underneath her knees and lifted her, blankets and all, off the bed and down the stairs. The house was dark, but we'd kept it warm, and I quickly flitted on the sidelight that stood next to the sofa before I gingerly put her down. Her head sank to the armrest as soon as I let her go.

"I'll get your pillow," I muttered, and made sure she was safely cocooned in the blankets before running upstairs to fetch it.

When I came back, her tears were still silently falling, but she made no move to wipe them away. I carefully slipped her pillow under her head as she lifted it marginally. She lay down on her side, her gaze resting on the book on the table.

"Are you thirsty?"

She nodded.

"Water?"

"Please..."

ooo000ooo

"It should have been me."

I looked up from the tiny book which I'd been trying to stare at for the past fifteen minutes to give her the feeling I wasn't staring at her. Which I was, all the same. She was looking at the floor, her voice barely loud enough for me to hear, and I knew what she was going to say, dreaded it.

"He was young... I was... I was older."

"Bella -"

"You shouldn't have stopped the van."

"Bella -"

"You followed me through town. Came for me in Phoenix. You shouldn't have done it." She shook her head, and looked me in the eyes again, tears spilling now. "And when you were gone, he saved me from Laurent, and he got me out of the water. He shouldn't have."

"Bella, stop this." I tried to sound stern, speak with authority, but she didn't seem to notice.

"I had to die, but I didn't. I killed him." She let out a short breath at her twisted realisation, horrified. I stood up and knelt in front of her.

"You didn't."

"I did."

"No, you didn't. Stop this. Please."

She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. We were silent for a while. I slowly brought my fingers towards her face, trying to work up the courage to touch her without her looking at me.

"What happened?"

My fingers froze in mid-air.

"With Jacob?"

I pulled my hand back. Her eyes opened, and another tear escaped.

"No..." she trailed off.

I didn't understand.

"With me," she muttered, not looking at me.

Oh.

"I don't... Carlisle will -"

"I don't want to talk to Carlisle." Her voice was quiet but determined. I looked at her in surprise for a minute, then wondered what to say, how to say it.

I only just had her back. I didn't want to think about any of it ever again, but she had the right to know...

"She needs to know."

I thought back to the moment when the shutters had come down. When the glass fell and her light had stopped shining inside her.

"Your eyes were open," I whispered. I could feel her looking at me as she lay, limply, on the couch, but I averted my eyes, seeing the kitchen and her pale body fall.

"I thought you'd passed out."

Broken glass on the floor.

"But your eyes were blank. I didn't..." know what to do. My lungs filled with a short breath. "I carried you to your room." I looked around me, not seeing the living-room at all. "It was so empty," I muttered.

I lifted my head and met her eyes.

"You've been in a daze for thirty hours, Bella."

"Thirty hours?" she whispered in a panicked voice.

"It's just after one a.m., Sunday morning," I muttered.

"Oh."

"You didn't respond, didn't speak. Didn't feel."

"How -"

"Carlisle thinks you're suffering from catatonic schizophrenia."

She frowned, the panic reaching her face now. "I don't -"

"Hear voices?"

She shook her head. "No, I... I didn't -"

"Have hallucinations?" I whispered.

We looked at each other as realisation struck her features. She scrunched her eyes closed and covered them with her hand. I laid mine on top of it, gently pulling it away. She looked so ashamed...

"Bella, I think you're going to have to talk to Carlisle."


For those of you wondering: Charlie will come back in the next chapter ;-)