Chapter 16 ~ The Cullens ~ Part 1
Last bit from Chapter 15:
After nearly a century of nights spent in the shadows, Isabella, I have no words to describe what it means to me to be basking in the warmth that is your midnight sun.
About an hour after Bella slipped into her quiet sleep, I heard the Chief's snores stop abruptly. His thoughts suddenly came crystal clear to me; something I wasn't used to.
I know! The Chief's thoughts shouted as his feet slapped against the wood floor beside his bed. Images of Bella's truck cycled through his mind, settling on the battery.
As the Chief lumbered down the stairs, I wondered if he had sensed Bella had been acting, when he peeked into her room. Something clearly jolted him out of sleep and into action, I thought.
By the time he'd slipped on his work boots, their laces clicking on the floor, his intentions rang clear in my head; he was disconnecting Bella's battery cables. Would that really stop Bella if she was determined to leave? I wondered, then, if Bella even knew how to change a tire. And then I reconsidered the notion of teaching her, due to Bella's proclivity toward accidents.
I heard the front door open, and a few seconds later I heard the gravel crunch under the Chief's boots as he went to the passenger door of the truck. He hesitated there, and in the quiet of the early morning, I heard him sigh before he wrenched the door open.
Through the Chief's mind, I could see what he saw as he pulled back the floor mat that had been under Bella's feet a few scant hours before. He shook his head as he lifted off the metal plate covering the battery and set it aside. The Chief's thoughts became jumbled to me, again, hovering around parental concern, and the policeman's attitude of "not on my watch" as flickers of the dream had woken him played through his mind.
Bella, the buttons of her shirt popped off and her small hands clutching the torn halves to her chest. An unidentifiable boy in handcuffs, whose appearance kept changing. An image of Bella with a fat lip and a black eye, her hands bloody and nails torn from fighting back.
The last image was the one that had propelled him to action, I had no doubt. And, as he relived it, his hand shook with emotion as he disconnected the second battery cable . . . Bella cold, her lips blue-grey and her chocolate eyes clouded over as a gloved hand zipped a body bag closed over her eyes.
With a shudder, both mental and physical, the Chief put the floor mat back in place and closed the truck's passenger door as quietly as possible. Which meant, of course, that the entire neighborhood heard it.
Silently, I shook my head at the ridiculous condition of Bella's classic truck and tried to rid myself of the images I'd seen in the Chief's mind. Just then, Bella stirred. She grumbled slightly as if she understood why she'd heard her truck door slam. After she wiggled her hips back into mine and sighed deeply, she was off in dreamland once again.
The Chief came back inside, locked the front door's deadbolt & handle, double-checked that the downstairs windows were locked, and worked his way up the stairs. Apparently, Forks' true lack of any real crime was lost on the Chief after the images from his dream.
I listened as he clattered about the bathroom and then settled back into bed. He tossed, turned, and tossed some more, sighing intermittently . . . the images of Bella from his dream flashing through his mind like a slide show that wouldn't shut off. As tumultuous as his mind was, I was surprised that he was asleep within the hour.
A small sound escaped Bella, then, and instead of the sleep-talking I had expected to start I realized the sound was her teeth chattering. She had begun to shiver. The warmth that drew me to her and seeped into me when we touched had been leached out. I sighed, the reality of our other-worldly situation washed over me and the sadness threatened the elation I had been feeling to my very core. My proximity was making her cold; further proof that we could never be close that way – the way normal couples came together. Even this little bit of intimacy could give her pneumonia. That kind of intimacy would never be possible for us. I couldn't risk the damage I would most likely do to my precious Bella.
As I extracted myself from the tangle of sheets, Bella's legs, and gently kissed that pulse-point behind her ear, I felt the teenager sag against the bars of his cage. His dreams dashed, he began to moan about changing Bella so she wouldn't be as delicate. At that, the monster roared to life. I stood, looking down on Bella's small form, for a moment – a very brief moment – and contemplated the notion.
I would never do that to someone who had the choice; the choice of life, true life, not this. The monster had a counter argument in place. What if it was the only way to save her? What if it that van had hit her?
My fists clenched at my sides as the thirst burned up my esophagus once more. I shook with the effort it took to hold the predator at bay. A few minutes passed and the battle raged on. I hadn't been this close to losing control, even in the meadow. Alice's vision of Bella with the golden eyes of my family bubbled to the surface. Although that would solve the small problem of our being intimate I couldn't reconcile within myself making that choice for her. And, even if she made the choice, and asked me to change her, I would refuse. I laughed ironically to myself. Maybe that's why Alice sees herself changing Bella . . . because you won't.
Carlisle and I had had many discussions, nay, arguments, about our fate as the monsters we had become. Even though our decision to abstain from human blood was a moral one, I felt as though the mere definition of what we were was unnatural enough to damn us. Was this the Hellfire and brimstone damnation? Even I wasn't completely sure. Carlisle, as a human, came from a religious family, and believed we were saved that fate by being repentant and moral by choice.
Damnation had many faces for me. We were unnatural, undying creatures that must consume the blood – the very life force – of other creatures to continue on. Hence, damned. Damned to walk for a conceivable eternity across a planet that was slowly dying. Damnation was being forced to live on the outskirts of my original nature, never being close to anyone because I would always outlive them. Damnation was also never dying, never having the option to be released back to wherever souls go to be wiped clean, to start over. In my mind, we were damned for simply being what we are: vampires. I would never risk taking those options away from Bella.
So even if God meant Nature, as it does to many religions, we were at the very least predators. Animals. Some of us had given ourselves over to those animal instincts, those of us who continued to feed on humans. The difference with us? We are predators that have chosen what our prey shall be. In some ways, even that was unnatural.
Even to save her life, I answered the monster's question, because death is an option she should have, as is whatever is next. Silence followed.
Once again allowed to concentrate, my concern for Bella's warmth returned. Over the back of the rocking chair was a quilt and in one motion I grabbed it, threw it over Bella's sleeping form, bundled it around her, and curled myself around her much as I had been before – just on top of the quilt. I could still hold her, just without making her ill from exposure to my cold skin. I could never forget how fragile she was.
Lying there, I buried my face in Bella's now dry hair. The beautiful mahogany color was muted in the darkness, its texture made all the more lustrous from the earlier shower. I curled around her on my left side, but instead of my right hand gently resting on her stomach, I fiddled with individual locks of her hair. The rich, summery scent of strawberries surrounded me and reminded me of summer picnics with Mother and Father; picnics I hadn't thought of as frequently in the last hundred years as I had in the last few days.
My humanity really is resurfacing, I thought. A quiet chuckle escaped me, as I brushed a lock across my cheek, relishing in the soft tickle. The softness was exquisite. I played with every lock I could reach, without disturbing Bella, treating it more like rare pearls than human hair. I chuckled, again, this time at just how completely and irrevocably I was in love with her.
I wanted to touch every inch of her; learn every curve, every feature of Bella's hands, her face . . . everything. But now that I knew she hadn't rejected my affections, even with the knowledge she had about me, I had time to cherish all that. I have time . . . when she's actually awake. I chuckled at my love-struck foolishness, slightly embarrassed that I had considered touching her so intimately while she was practically unconscious next to me. And, I'd have to move her in order to touch her face. I didn't want to risk waking her.
I settled for my newest hobby . . . watching the most beautiful creature in the universe sleep and waiting for the sleep-talking to start.
I began to re-count the day's events, skipping over everything I'd done that didn't include Bella. In my mind's eye, there were a thousand more expressions of hers that I had never seen before that I needed to reexamine. Not being able to read her mind, even in the hazy way some minds broadcast, made me even more curious about what even the most minute expression changes meant. I replayed tidbits of conversation in order to try and gauge whether or not Bella had been completely honest with me during our discussion about my age.
Something in her eyes when she had straightened her shoulders before I began my tale suggested that perhaps our age difference had bothered her, at first. There had been a slight squint when I had spoken the year of my birth. Could that have been shock, I wondered, even after my displays in the meadow? Would she really be shocked about my age after that? I shook my head at the notion, and thought about another part of our conversation.
I remembered us asking our "have you evers" and wishing I could have seen her face when we'd admitted our mutual virginity. Bella's admission had made her frequent blush appear, and I loved to see that color in her cheeks. I couldn't help but wonder if she believed my admission, after all, I was a man and I had said that I had seen love and sex not be mutually exclusive. I wondered if she'd thought I had been speaking from experience, not observation.
Would she think I would lie to her, after all that I have confessed? I shook my head, negating the thought against Bella's pillow and breathed deeply of the scent the movement stirred up. She was probably just surprised. You've seen yourself through the minds of others and that kind of chastity is just unheard of these days. Aren't you some-what surprised at her answer, given how you see her? The internal debate made me smirk, and I ultimately decided that whatever I had heard in Bella's voice had been merely surprise.
My mind wandered to other expressions, the way her eyes dart away seconds before the blush of color would hit her cheeks, and the embarrassed smile that would creep up just after. The way Bella would gnaw on her bottom lip when she worried, or was nervous, also went under my microscope of defining Bella. Were those the only times she worried that bottom lip? I cycled through all the mental still frames in my mind and replayed the situations. I found a few times where I didn't believe Bella was worried or nervous, but as I couldn't be sure of her thoughts . . .
My brow furrowed at the last thought, my mind taken over speculation as to why Bella was silent to me. Her father's thoughts were only clear to me when he was focused almost completely on one single thing. Images came clearly from him, however; as his dream's images had. Perhaps the Chief is more visual than intellectual? Or perhaps, as a policeman, he just examines things more factually; more concrete?
My mind raced down this track, examining the nuances of the Chief's thoughts. I was fascinated by how different his were when they came through. The other human minds I'd visited recently had been crystal clear, even the vile Mike Newton's and the simple Jessica Stanley's. But almost all the Chief's thoughts were shrouded in a fog. Impressions from him were much easier to glean, but the images of his Bella nightmare had been crystal clear. Only after concentrating, focusing on the Chief's "voice," ignoring all the background noise of all other voices nearby could I truly get anything from him.
Although the puzzling static from the Chief could, in some small way, explain the silence of Bella's mind. Not for the first time, I wondered about Reneé, and if her mind would have the same fog.
As I was considering this, I thought too about Carlisle and our past discussions on the subject. I wasn't sure I had anything new to add to our theories but the fact that a few thoughts and images had come through clearly was interesting in and of itself. I touched the cell phone in my pocket, and wondered briefly what Carlisle was doing at this very moment.
I laid with Bella for some time longer, not really thinking, just being. The idea of being this still, all pretense of being human forgotten, had been foreign to me for too long. Even when I was being "Broody McGhee" as Alice called me, I was active playing chess at the frustration of my opponent, writing in one of my many journals, composing, managing our finances, or researching some new medical treatment with Carlisle. But this time, in this now, I was completely still and content.
On my back, I stared unblinking at the ceiling. Although I had already memorized the textured geometrical pattern, without really trying to, I came to the quick realization that the only things that meant more to me than my family were the soft sounds of Bella's breathing and the relaxed squeeze of her heart. The sounds were hypnotizing in their quiet regularity. I imagined myself being lulled to sleep by those sounds, and even closed my eyes for a time. Real sleep would forever elude me in this form and, once again, I envied Bella the escape it must bring her. As a human I had taken sleep entirely for granted, even pushing myself to stay awake longer than necessary.
I longed for the simple escape sleep could bring. The freedom from the constant buzz of the internal monologues of any in-range human minds would be worth whatever price I would have to pay. The Germans said it best, sprechen ist silbern, schveigen ist golden or "speech is silver, silence is golden." As I laid with Bella in the relative silence, it was almost completely golden. I was at peace.
That is, I was at peace until her teeth began to chatter. Even through the quilt that separated us, the unnatural cold of my skin was chilling her. I got up from Bella's small bed, careful not to jostle her, and unwrapped her from the quilt cocoon. I found another blanket on the top shelf of her closet and bundled it up into a much softer lump than I had had been beside her. As I stood there, looking down on her, I felt almost as though my heart had begun to beat again, in time with hers.
Sure that Bella was swaddled comfortably, and hadn't disturbed at my leaving, I settled into the rocking chair at the end of her bed. Much softer than any human could possibly hear, if there had been any awake nearby, I began to speak. I would probably never tell her the things that fell from my lips, but I wanted some part of her to know, even if it was completely on a subconscious level.
"Isabella Swan, mo matter what you may see when you look in the mirror, every single person in that school noticed you your first day. And, do not think for a moment that is was only because you were "the new girl" or "the Chief's daughter." The girls noticed the multifaceted color of your hair, your slender form, and the way the boys' heads turned. They noticed these things all with a glimmer of jealousy, Bella.
"The boys may not have all noticed you immediately, but within five minutes word had spread. Their thoughts were . . . uncouth . . . to say the least. My family noticed you as well, but of course Alice had already seen -"
"Mom," Bella mumbled sadly. My lips silenced immediately at the sound of her voice. All of my thoughts came to a screeching halt. "I miss you," she said, her voice thick with sleep, but clear in the stillness of the wee hours of the morning. "I miss the sun."
I longed to see what Bella could see in her mind's eye as she dreamed, but the quirk that made her silent to me when she was conscious remained while she slept. When I had first encountered Bella's silence, Carlisle has theorized that maybe it was some kind of protection mechanism. But he didn't believe that there was a way it could work while she slept. So, the first night after the close call in the parking lot I could no longer deny my curiosity, or the draw of her blood, and I spent a few hours here. I had told Carlisle I was checking up on her due to her head injury, but I knew that he suspected my ulterior motives. The silence had persisted, frustrating me further. But, when Bella had begun to talk that night I had become convinced that she knew much more about my true self than I believed possible. Then, she had whispered my name . . . and my world had tilted on its axis.
"Edward," came a soft whisper from Bella's sleeping form, jolting me out of the past.
A soft sigh, expressing an almost pornographic pleasure escaped me in response. The sound of my name from her lips . . . was indescribable.
Bella turned over, away from me, and I resisted the urge to move from the rocking chair to see her face as she spoke my name again. Her heartbeat remained steady, so I relaxed back against the chair, confident that whatever she dreamt about me was tranquil. As much of the monster as I had revealed to her in the meadow, my concerns that it would be his face in her dreams seemed unfounded. I laced my fingers across my lap and settled in to listen to whatever else she would say.
"I love you," Bella whispered.
In a flash, I was at the other side of her bed. I needed to see her face, her expression. My quiet reserve gone, I held my breath, longing to hear the words again from her lips. I didn't have to wait long.
"Edward," Bella whispered again, "I love you."
I wanted to leap up and shout with joy, as uncharacteristic as that seemed even to myself. I felt nearly buoyant after hearing what I knew to be true fall from the lips of my beloved. There were no reservations, no fear, in the words as she had spoken them.
I remained standing by the door of Bella's room until I was certain that the sleep-talking session had ended for the night. Then slowly, soundlessly, I took the few steps back to the antique rocking chair. The first few nights I had spent in Bella's room, I hadn't paid much attention to the chair I sat in. I had been much more concerned with my motivations for being there.
Bella wriggled onto her back, her face content and relaxed. In order to stop myself from climbing back into the small bed with her, I carefully examined the chair I was sitting in. Upon this closer examination, I concluded the thing was possibly as old as me. Its wood was worn and comfortable, the scroll work clearly from a time when craftsman took pride in their work, and didn't just press it out with a machine. The legs were shorter than was the modern style, as well, making my knees a little higher than my seat. I let my fingers trail over the ridges at the end of the armrests, felt the indentation sanded there for each finger, and wondered idly how long this chair had been in Bella's family. I could almost imagine generations of women rocking infants to sleep in this very chair, wondering what they would grow up to be, what they would do, who they would marry . . .
Who they would fall in love with. Like the monster from a bad horror movie that sits in it now, the voice sneered in my head.
I stiffened at the sound of the menacing voice of the monster.
You're just like the stories of old, Cullen, of monsters sneaking in fair damsels' windows at night . . . stealing their virtue, and often, their lives.
The voice taunted me and made my throat burn anew with the desire to drink the blood that had first sung to me in that small Biology classroom. Then, my fantasies had lingered on taking the life that was fueled by that blood. Now? Everything had changed. I would allow no harm to come to Bella, from myself or any other external force. I had become her protector. Since I could never be her lover, in the usual way, I would be there – in the shadows if need be – for the rest of her life. Protecting her. Even from herself.
I chuckled at the thought of Bella's clumsiness, and shook my head trying to rid myself of the black mood that had begun to develop. She called herself "nearly disabled" by her inability to even walk across a completely flat surface without stumbling, and I had seen as much through the thoughts of others. I had never seen a human so innately clumsy, unless they were inebriated. Carlisle had theorized that it was somehow connected to her mind's silence. As if there was something wrong with her mind that made it silent to me, and that her clumsiness was a side-effect. Was something so special about her brain that simple coordination had somehow been lost?
I considered all this while Bella remained still and asleep beside me. If another session of sleep-talking was going to happen, it didn't usually occur for another hour or more. It occurred to me that in that short amount of time, I could go into the nearby woods to hunt even though I had no desire to feed again. The hunt with Alice had filled me, almost too full, and I feared I would need to be constantly over-satiated to stay in this close proximity to Bella. I took another deep breath that I didn't need of the intoxicating air of her room, trying to measure the depths of my need.
The scent of her was so much more alluring than any other scent had been in my human life, or since my senses had been enhanced. My throat burned, needing the heat from warm blood to quench it. My nerves tingled with the desire to feed, but no faux adrenaline rush in anticipation of the hunt and I wasn't sure if the desire I felt was real or just brought on by the concentration of Bella's scent in her small room. My body still felt strong, as it would after feeding, and did not relish the idea of needlessly taking a life or leaving Bella's side. Even the life of an animal was difficult for me to take, especially if it was not specifically needed.
I decided my reaction to the warm scent of Bella's blood needed no immediate attentions, my thirst still satiated from the hunt with Alice. The depression that had threatened at the thought of leaving had receded with the realization that I could postpone the monster's need for blood.
I sighed contentedly. Absently, I pulled my cellphone from my jeans and nudged it awake with a light touch to the volume button on the side. It would not do if I destroyed another phone before Emmett did. I chuckled to myself when I saw "2 new messages" on the display. Alice, I thought, begging for details about what Bella has said, and rolled my eyes at my favorite sister. I flipped the phone open.
L8R?
In my mind's eye, I could see the little pixie pouting at her phone because she had to wait to be informed about her soon-to-be-best-friend's curiosity. The visions made me chuckle quietly in the dark.
The next message sucked away every bit of joy from my being.
Sitch brewin'. Come home ASAP.
The message's time stamp was ten minutes ago. My frown didn't quite reach my eyes as I considered what Alice could mean and I held onto hope that wouldn't have to leave. But, Alice wasn't one for over-reaction, either. I was too far away to touch her mind, but technology could be a useful, if annoying sometimes, commodity.
Not the Aston, again? I texted back, and within seconds Alice's response blipped onto the screen.
No, but R * is * on a rmpg agn.
I sighed.
Texting is killing the English language. You know
that, right? I sent, quickly followed by:
Why, this time?
Bella stirred next to me, as if she could subconsciously sense my tension. She made as if to roll over, but seemed to change her mind. I couldn't help but watch her for a moment, before turning back to the small phone in my hand.
Yes, I do know. Alice replied, her eye-roll seeming to translate even through text message.
In the next message, she explained the situation without the annoying text-speak.
Endangering the family secret, getting soft,
theorizing that you're going insane ~ the usual.
I glanced back over at Bella from the glowing screen.
Are you sure I'm needed?
Almost simultaneously with me hitting "send," Alice's response appeared on the screen.
Esme is holding her own, but she could use some
backup.
** to be contiuned **
Author's Note: I know some of you Constant Readers have already read this bit, but I assure you there have been some small changes. My betas noticed a problem with * my * timeline versus Stephenie Meyer's, and for continuity's sake I decided to edit it instead of ignore it and let it bother me to death. I hope you enjoyed this little repeat (sort of) and will hang around to see how it all falls together, again.
XxoxX,
Allis