A/N: Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn).

The Other

"... but I like to keep up on these things. Just last year I was going through the obituaries and found that a boy I'd dated in high school had died. I hadn't seen him for at least forty years, but I went to the funeral all the same. I was surprised how emotional I was about it. Time is funny; some things just stick with you. And then this year I was looking over the listings and noticed a familiar name on the engagement announcements page. I wasn't really sure it was the same Philip Dwyer until I read his parents' names. They used to go to the same church as us every Sunday, but I hadn't seen them in years, and right away I told my husband we should go visit them. I really do love weddings," says the woman in front of me. I don't remember her name.

I nod distractedly when she stops talking, making a generic humming noise in response. I press the heel of my hand against the centre of my chest, but it does nothing to alleviate the hollow ache.

"So, what is it that you do, dear?"

"I'm a translator."

"Oh, really? My niece once dated a nice man who did that for the UN. It didn't work out though. I don't know what went wrong. My sister only had good things to say about him. She lives in New York, you know. I could never do that. I went to visit her for a week last year, and I couldn't sleep a wink. I lost track of how many times I heard those sirens going by during the night. I've always been a very light sleeper, which really isn't a problem here, because we live in a very quiet neighbourhood, but..."

"I translate books, actually," I interrupt with a smile that feels more like a contorted grimace.

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't translate spoken words. I translate books."

"Oh. Well, I don't know anything about books. I've never been much of a reader, although my sister, not the one who lives in New York - this one lives in Scottsdale - she sends me those books by... oh what's his name? I was just talking about him the other day. Beautiful books, terribly sad though." My breath catches in my throat. "You have to wonder how one person can deal with having all of that in their head, but they are beautiful, in their own way. Ethan Church! That's the one. She gets all his new ones and then sends them to me when she's done."

I smile politely and nod, wishing Edward was here with me. I hadn't even thought to ask him to come. Despite all the time we've been spending together, there's still an otherness about him that doesn't seem compatible with things like airplanes and weddings. In my head he's inexorably linked to the verdant setting of Forks. In comparison, Phoenix seems too bright, too hot, and all the colours look washed out, like overexposed film. I find it almost impossible to imagine him being here.

Maybe it's best that I didn't invite him. I've never been one to be overly conscious of my appearance, but I hate the thought of him seeing me like this. My bridesmaids' dress is a shade of yellow that makes my paler-then-usual skin look sallow and waxen. I've been getting concerned looks all day. Of course, the fact that the latest evolution of the thing in my chest is causing even my neutral expression to look mildly pained probably isn't helping anything.

The wedding crept up on me, forcing me back to Arizona with a jarring lack of notice. If Adelaide hadn't mentioned it, I probably wouldn't have remembered the date until after it had passed. If I hadn't already agreed to be a bridesmaid, I probably would've stayed with Edward. I feel ridiculous here, like I'm out of place, pretending to be someone I'm not, and everyone else can tell.

The woman in front of me is still talking about something to do with her sister when the emcee calls everyone to order to announce the entrance of my mother with her new husband and her new last name.

00000

When I leave the reception everything is dark and shadowy at ground level, but the sky is an illuminated indigo blue. The music is still loudly blaring inside the hall, but the sound is muffled by the metal door that slams shut behind me.

Taking a deep breath of the warm night air, I try to clear the fuzziness from my head and ease the feeling of claustrophobia that was starting to creep up on me in the dark and stuffy hall. I want to get out of here and go somewhere I can be alone, but my apartment isn't a very appealing prospect. When I got there yesterday afternoon, instead of being familiar the space was alien. The feeling was distressing. The place that holds all my things, that I've considered to be my home for the last three years, is supposed to feel like it's mine, but instead I felt like a trespasser in someone else's life. It was painfully obvious that I had changed more than I thought in my time with Edward. In an effort to combat the feeling, I pulled all my books off the shelves and set them down in piles on the floor. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by a loose circle of my books, I flipped through the pages, reading the familiar stories in fragments until I started to feel connected to my life here again. The feeling didn't carry over to the wedding.

Moving across the parking lot in my clicking heels, I don't seem to be walking as straight as I usually do. I don't think the issue is the shoes. I round the corner into a long driveway between two buildings that leads out to the street. There's a man standing just outside the mouth of the laneway; his face is turned slightly away, and he is statue-like in his stillness. If I'd never met Edward I might not have really noticed him. I likely would have avoided looking at him and followed my instinct to stay as far away from him as possible. He has the same kind of unnatural appearance as Edward, but the effect is completely different. His flat white skin and inhumanly perfect face seem threatening, but I can't look away.

It's not long before his body shifts and then stills again as he turns to look at me. His head is cocked to the side as he stares. His eyes are fixed points, pinning me in place like a collected butterfly. His mouth quirks into an odd, almost playful smile, before he slowly starts to walk towards me.

"Do you have any idea how long it's been since a human looked directly at me?" The cadence of his speech is a bastardized mix of accents from around the world, tumbling over each other to exert their influence over his words. His tone is light, almost conversational, like he's making small talk, but the way he says "human" is meaningful. To him I'm clearly an other: different, insignificant. "Forgive the cliché, but you must be either very brave or very stupid - or perhaps just drunk. That seems to result in both."

My heart is thumping, my palms feel damp, and my mind is screaming at me to leave, run, evade at all costs, but my body seems disinclined to move. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm aware of a twitching spasm starting up in my chest.

"You always look away, or around, or past, but never at us. It seems illogical to me. Do you think we'll leave you alone, because you refuse to look us in the eye? Do you think it will save you? Do you really think we care? Although I suppose it does make a difference, because I've already eaten, and yet here we are." Different, insignificant, food. He has stepped into the semicircle of pale yellow from the security light on one of the walls, and now I can really see him.

His skin is the colour of bone. His eyes are the colour of blood. He is death personified in non-human form.

Death. Death. Death. Death. The word throbs through my head in time with my panicked heartbeat.

He takes another step towards me, and my mind sharpens into specific thoughts. I'm going to die. It may be quick, relatively, but there will be pain. I should have told Edward that I love him. I should have told him that he is not, could never be Cathy, because no matter the outcome he wanted to do the right thing, and that does make a difference. I should have asked him what he is, because I don't want to find out like this.

There's a burning in my eyes that I think might be tears, but my body is going numb. My physical self-awareness is fleeing from my extremities and concentrating on my chest where my heart and the thing are pounding, thumping, twisting together until I can't tell them apart anymore. Maybe my heart will give out before he reaches me. Maybe I won't feel the pain.

His teeth glint in the light, and my mind screams again. Run! But could I really outrun death? Edward can disappear in the blink of an eye. He did it in the hallway on my first night and in the library when he first spoke to me. Although he seems to be taking his time, I'm sure he could be in front of me before I became aware that he'd moved, but where's the fun in that? He's a predator playing with his food, playing with me. An inhuman consumer of humans, a humanoid incarnation of death.

I, Miss Swan, was birthed from death.

Not his mother's death, Edward's death. Edward died and was reborn in death. Ideas and words and dark images from old movies bubble up half-formed in my brain.

I take a step backwards, landing unsteadily on the small heel of my shoe. I'm not sure whether I'm trying to retreat from the reality in front of me or the thoughts in my head, but it seems futile either way. He keeps coming closer and closer one slow step at a time, and my mind seems to enjoy taunting me just as much as he is.

"So tell me, what do you see?"

Death.

I open my mouth, but only a shaky breath comes out.

He laughs and comes to a stop in front of me. I see his hand come up towards me, but I don't react until his fingers touch my neck, gliding backwards like they're going to grab hold. The contact causes me to jerk back, and I stumble again, falling against the alley wall. The porous brick scratches against my bare arms and catches at the material of my dress as I clumsily slide in the direction of the hall, my body moving on autopilot as my survival instincts belatedly kick in.

I don't make it far before he's in front of me again, hands pressed against the wall on either side of me, pinning me in place. I'm out of time.

He leans towards me, his eyes flicking over my face as he moves, studying me in my final moments. His attention shifts to my throat, his expression turning serious. His body tenses as his head moves towards my neck, and then... he's gone.

A sharp crack like stone slamming against stone cuts through the silence, and my body jumps. Across the laneway there's a crater of broken brick and mortar in the wall. Dust swirls around in the air. He's gone.

My shaking body crumples to the ground as my mind tries to understand what just happened. There's a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, but it's gone when I turn. It happens again only seconds later, and it's followed by the sound of breaking brick. Another crater appears down the wall from me, and I realize he's not gone. He's just not alone anymore. Edward. Edward is here. I can feel him in my chest, but I can't see him.

There's another hard impact, against the ground this time, and I can feel the pavement shift and crack underneath me. In front of me, Edward finally appears, crouched over him. Edward's upper body wrenches, and there's a tearing sound reminiscent of my nightgown ripping when he undressed me in the gardens, before something round rolls and bounces away. It's his head. It comes to a stop against the opposite wall, and all I can see is the perfect profile and ragged stump of a neck. Nausea squirms heavily in my stomach. Edward did that. Edward is capable of that.

He saved my life. He did that to save my life. He only wants to do the right thing.

Edward is holding the still, headless body to the ground underneath him. His teeth are bared, and I almost think I can see his throat vibrating with a sustained growl, but I'm not sure how reliable my perceptions are right now.

Minutes that feel like hours pass, and Edward doesn't move at all. Finally, his posture relaxes and his growling quiets, before he turns to look at me. The thing in my chest stutters and skips, or was that my heart?

He raises himself away from the body, and slowly, cautiously starts to approach me. What do I do now? The idea that Edward is in some way like that thing with cold eyes and a psychopathic mind is almost too much. This reality doesn't seem compatible with who I thought he was, and I can't fit them together the way they are. How much of the man I love will I have to give up to the reality inside of him? What does this make him?

Edward fluidly lowers himself into a relaxed crouch in front of me. He's just within reach of me, but the distance between us feels solid. He looks so sad, so scared, so broken. It's Edward, but is he my Edward? Do I really know him?

"Bella?"

"What are you?" My voice sounds flat, resigned. Eventually has come, and there's no avoiding it now.

"I'm a vampire," he answers quietly, "but I don't feed off of people. I'm not him."

Vampire. Edward is a vampire.

"Adelaide called you a ghost." A slightly hysterical laugh escapes with the last word.

"She prefers to think of me as a ghost; ghosts don't have to survive off of anything."

"But you don't kill people."

"No. It's the connotations that bother her. The innate predatory nature, but that can be overcome. I have overcome it... or at least suppressed it, for the most part."

He wants to do the right thing. He saved my life. I would be dead right now if he hadn't come.

"How did you get here? You were in Washington."

"I was already in Phoenix. I flew in this evening." His voice drops as he adds, "I couldn't stand to be away from you any longer." I've been spending every hour I've been away from him wishing I hadn't left, so knowing that he feels the same way... I squeeze my eyes shut against the twisting pain in my chest. "Alice called when I was on my way to your apartment; she said I had to get to you."

"Alice?"

"Alice is a member of my family."

"She's like you?" How many are there?

"Yes, except she can see things that could happen in the future, based on the present."

"She saw me die?"

"No, she saw me find you." His words are vague, but the tone of his voice says too late. She saw him find me too late.

Edward reaches toward me slowly. My thoughts are still running circles around themselves, and I have no idea what to do or how I feel about this, but I don't have it in me to reject him. I think it would hurt me just as much as it would him, and I desperately need to feel connected to him again, to know that my Edward is still in there.

Edward's fingers gently brush against my cheek, but I flinch at the memory of different cold fingers on my neck. His face contorts, before he starts to retreat away from me. Something like panic hits me in the chest, and I push forward off the wall, grabbing hold of him before he moves out of my reach. Moving closer, I take hold of his shirt and rest my head against his shoulder, my forehead pressing against his cool, smooth neck. His arms wrap around my back, and he lets out a ragged breath against the top of my head, that almost sounds like a sob. I feel a fitful sense of calm overcome me.

"You need to get home, Bella," he mumbles into my hair.

I pull back to look at him and ask, "What about you?"

"This isn't finished yet." His head angles back to indicate the body behind him. "I'll come see you when it's done."

I nod and shakily get to my feet. Edward's skin is the same pure white as his, but it doesn't make me think of bleached bones, and his eyes aren't the colour of blood. Maybe his nature is death, but I do believe him when he says he tries to overcome it. He still has humanity in him, even if he isn't human anymore.

A/N: Ethan Church has a thread on Twilighted. The address is on my profile page.