Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.


Chapter 11: Down Once More

Bella Swan presses pen to paper, her teeth worrying her lip as she tries to decide how to ask. Glancing at the vampire beside her, at the scars that litter his flesh, she decides that it might be best to be direct.

In this new world of silence, she hasn't the patience to be anything else.

With a flourish, she writes simply, How was it for you? When you first learned to use your gift?

She regards the page for a moment before passing it across the table. Her handwriting, much like her body, has emerged from the change more perfect than it was before, but there are still signs of her inside of it, she thinks. She can still make herself out in the way the 'y' curls and in the shape of her 'w.'

The moment her hand lifts from the paper, she senses Jasper leaning forward to regard it. If he's still affected by the appearance of words from air, he does not betray that surprise. Stoically, he furrows his brow, considering for a moment before lifting his own pen. At first, he and the other Cullens used to try to speak aloud to her, but she could never keep up, never finding a way into the conversation. Now they speak through letters, like one might have done in an earlier time. They are not friends but correspondents.

There is a distance between her mind and everyone else's.

Everyone except her mate.

Giving Jasper the space to think and to write, Bella lifts her eyes to gaze across the room. She still can't help but smile as she sees Edward's mess of coppery curls, the lips and hands she knows so well. With Alice beside him, he plays and sings, trading melodies and laughter.

Bella has never seen him so light before with anyone but her. She can't be bothered to be jealous, though. His happiness is too beautiful a thing to bother her.

The paper slides across the table once more.

It was different for me. I learned in the midst of a war, and the pressure to not be killed was a powerful incentive.

Bella's chest hurts as she scrawls the words, Believe me, I've incentive enough.

Jasper laughs as he reads it, adding, True enough. But in the heat of battle, high on blood … It's more desperate still. Give it time. You need to feel your power out.

After a month of isolation, it seems all she feels is the darkness. The cloak she can never take off.

She is just about to say as much when the notes streaming from across the room come to a thunderous halt, the string that seems to tie her mate to the very center of her heart tugging her roughly to her feet at even this slightest sign that something could be wrong. Dread fills her abdomen as she sees that something is wrong. Something is very wrong indeed.

Seemingly pulled by the same sort of string, Jasper crosses the room even faster than Bella does, his arms coming to surround Alice's frozen form with the sort of care that gives proof to the decades they have spent as lovers. Bella reaches them all scant seconds later, her hand reaching instinctively for Edward's even as they both hover protectively around their friends.

"What is it, baby?" Jasper asks, his hand on her face, his eyes staring into her glazed ones. "What do you see?"

"Our end," Edward says quietly. Bella's eyes move up to his to find them intently focused on Alice, and she can almost see the way the visions flicker across both their countenances. "They're coming."

Jasper looks up grimly, seemingly unsurprised. "The Volturi?"

"Yes." Edward squeezes Bella's hand but otherwise stays focused on Alice. "Seven of them. The one who came to me before. Dimitri. Aro." He spits the name out, the taste of it rancid on the air. "The others I do not know."

Alice's posture relaxes suddenly, her body falling into Jasper's in a rush and a series of harsh, unnecessary breaths. Her eyes flicker between the two vampires before her and to the space near Edward's hand, but Bella does not let the slight of it bother her. Not now.

Our end.

"Is that it then?" Bella asks, despair thick inside her throat. She'd never expected to find love for a moment. To get a glimpse of an eternity of it, and then to be told that it is over … She does not know if she can bear it.

His face softening, Edward gathers his mate inside his arms, his lips pressing gently to her brow. "No, love. No. There's always hope." He looks to Alice meaningfully, and she shakes her head as if to clear it.

Alice holds up her hand, her eyes moving quickly, scanning worlds and futures as if they were as substantial as the room before her.

"Yes," Edward hisses, and Alice's head snaps up.

"But - "

"It's the only way," he insists.

Jasper interrupts. "What's going on?"

Edward holds Alice's eyes in silent conversation for an infinite moment before she nods. Slowly, he turns his gaze to Jasper, speaking quietly. "You all have to go. They must find me alone."

The despair slides downward, settling, acidic and black in the pit of Bella's stomach. "Never," she swears, clutching at Edward's shoulders. "You can't. I won't - "

He cuts her off with a kiss and a sad, small smile. "I said they'd find me alone. Not that I would be."

"It's risky," Alice insists.

"It's riskier to stay. You see that. With their gifts, they'd incapacitate you all. There would be no discussion. Only violence."

Jasper cuts in. "We've gifts of our own."

"But subtle ones," Edward says. "They bring only their warriors. They bring blindness and pain. They bring division that would tear us apart."

Standing taller, Jasper narrows his eyes. "You're our family now."

"And we always will be," Edward swears. "But they must find me alone."

Grasping Edward's hand, Alice turns up wary, mournful eyes. "I can't see the end of it. There are many paths, but so many end in blackness."

Edward's mouth is firm - as firm as his resolve as he gathers Bella against him, already putting distance between their bodies and the others'. With regret and certainty, he adds what Alice will not. "But if you stay, they end in ash."

"I don't like it, Edward." Carlisle stands gruffly in the center of the living room, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed.

The way that Bella and Edward sigh as one would be comical, were everything not so tense. She touches his hand and then retreats to sit on the arm of the couch. All week long, they have been going back and forth like this with one person after another trying to convince Edward to abandon his plan. By circumstance, Bella is apart from the discussions. She only gets to have her say in those too-brief moments when she and Edward are alone and she feels free to voice all her doubts and her concerns.

There is something in his hands and in his voice, she thinks as she watches him. He's hiding something from her. But all she can do is trust.

Ignoring his son's dismissive gesture, Carlisle starts again. "Aro and I are old friends. Surely if I could talk to him. Reason with him."

"Friendship is nothing to him," Edward insists. "He comes here for me, and if you're here…" His eyes dart to Alice uneasily, but she shivers and looks away.

"Do we even know what he wants of you?"

"He…" Edward hesitates, the tiniest flinch giving his omission away. "I'm the one they want," he says with finality. "And if you attempt to interfere, he'll find reasons to implicate you as well. For harboring me. For getting in his way."

Carlisle turns to Alice in resignation. "And there's no other way?"

Her hands twist in her lap. "If there is, I haven't seen it."

And that's when Bella is certain. She knows that Alice is hiding something, too.

Esme sweeps into the room, suitcase in hand, and somehow her presence seems to settle everything. Placing the bag at Carlisle's feet, she comes to stand before Edward and takes his hands in hers. "You must be careful," she says quietly, her voice full of emotion. "We've just gotten you back, and…"

Edward takes her into his arms and closes his eyes as she trails off. "I know," he says, and then, with some pain, "I love you, too."

One by one, the Cullens step forward to embrace their long-lost son, but no one finds the will to speak the words that hover on the air. While Bella is surprised when Alice closes her eyes and makes her way across the room to hug her, too, she is shocked when the others follow suit, taking a leap of faith to close their arms around the daughter and sister they cannot see.

They are out the door before Edward closes his arms around her, kissing her temple with an intensity she cannot name before turning to watch their retreating forms through the window.

It is only then that he whispers, "Goodbye."

Bella spends the remaining hours before sunset wrapped around her lover, giving and taking with a desperation that makes her hands clutch and grasp, her mouth insistent against his skin and her body shaking as it reaches its peak again and again. Beneath him, she whispers of love and hope, and above him, she stares, soaking in the details of the man she was made to love, still unwilling to accept that she's out of time.

As he climaxes silently, pouring himself into her once more, she collapses forward, kissing every inch of his face before hiding hers.

"You know more," she says, even as she's holding him, his body still inside hers. It is not a question. It's not even an accusation.

He pulls her head from his shoulder and cups it in both his hands. He has no response. Only, "I love you."

"Just tell me… Is there any chance? Any…"

"I love you."

Without the ability to cry, she simply covers his mouth with hers, tasting his tongue and the memory of tears as she breathes, "I love you, too."

At twilight, Bella stands beside her mate before the house that has become a home to her, staring out across a dimming landscape of forest and field. They kiss, embracing with a finality that makes her tremble, the look of adoration on her lover's face the only thing that keeps her steady.

"If I thought for a moment that you would listen, I would tell you to go," he says, stroking her cheek.

"I would never agree."

"I know." Smiling sadly, he entreats, "Just … Just promise me one thing, though. Please."

"Anything."

"If anything happens," he says, his face already turning away from hers. "If anything happens to me… promise me you'll run."

"No," she breathes, but then there are no more words.

Because then she sees them.

They arrive in state, seven figures draped in black and grey, all flowing robes and pale skin and crimson eyes. Spanning the width of the road, they seem to float, their progress more swift than any human's could possibly be, and Bella can tell that there will be no pretense. They are vampire royalty, dangerous and unrepentant in their immortality.

She takes them in with the phantom pulse of her dead heart racing in her ears, remembering all that she's been told. She recognizes Aro by his long, dark hair and the aura of command that surrounds him, and she cannot help but stare at the hands that hold the power of omniscience in their grasp. She remembers how many times Carlisle warned them not to let him touch them.

Beside him is a shadow of a girl that must be his bodyguard, her slightness thrown into more dramatic relief by the hulking monster of a man who stands behind her. There is a blonde girl whose countenance speaks the very word pain and a boy who shares her face but not her intensity. There is another woman, slight and nondescript but somehow central. And then there is the other. The one she's seen before.

And none of them seem to see her.

Behind his body, Edward squeezes her hand and then steps away, refusing to touch her or acknowledge her. It pains her, but she has no choice but to trust him. From his words, though, she wonders if she should.

It strikes her for the first time that, while their love is equal in its overwhelming intensity, their ideas of an acceptable conclusion might not be even remotely the same.

In a blur of black and white and crimson, the six figures of the Volturi close the last few hundred yards in seconds, their progress a flash even to Bella's immortal eyes. Suddenly, they are there, a half dozen feet before them, cloaks rustling and, beneath genteel smiles, their teeth are bared.

It is at that thin show of menace that Bella feels a stirring in her own cloak. She feels the darkness gather.

She sees the edges of it turn as red as blood.

"Well, well. Edward Masen."

"Aro."

Bella watches with a growing fury as Aro steps forward, his hand extended as if in greeting. Edward blinks at it and lifts his head high, his arms still crossed and his hands in fists. She register's Aro's surprise and then his dark amusement as he claps and laughs.

"Wonderful. I do enjoy a challenge. Clearly Dmitri was right about you."

"Then you know you have no secrets. You had might as well get on with it. I know what you're here to do."

"Do you now? Fascinating. I've never met another mind reader. So much we could learn from each other. If only…" Aro's hand rises once more in invitation.

Again, Edward ignores it.

A glimmer of brighter red flashes in Aro's irises, and Bella sees the first signs of irritation on his face. "As you would have it. You know then that Dmitri has brought me a disturbing report, indeed. Decades spent in the spotlight when the only rule of our kind is to stay in the shadows. Interacting with those who should be your prey. And a girl. A human girl."

The way Edward flinches, Bella can sense the tenor of Aro's thoughts, the threat and the mental violence. She can feel the space around her ripple with her anger.

She can see Jasper's words, black against an ivory page.

But in the heat of battle, high on blood … It's more desperate still.

"How would you answer these charges?"

"Does it matter?"

Aro laughs darkly. "Your intention does." His fingers twitch as he intones, "If I only knew what you were thinking. An innocent mistake could perhaps be forgiven." He pauses and smiles, a stray reflection making his teeth flash white. "Given time enough, we could teach you how to live in our society. A few centuries in Volterra would do you good. Think of all you could learn…"

"Those are my choices, then. Join you or be destroyed?"

For just one moment, one too-short instant in time, Edward glances to the side, and in his eyes, Bella sees everything. His love and his regret. His promise to keep her safe.

His farewell.

"No," she breathes, reaching out, but he is already stepping away. "No."

Edward lifts a hand, and Bella hears the word, "Pain," her eyes darting until they meet scarlet ones, focused intently on her mate. Her mate who is crumpling. With a broken cry, Edward falls to his knees, his head buried in his hands, and all the scarlet eyes in the world are no match to the way Bella's world is painted in crimson.

She feels the gathering darkness around her body like a cloak, but she can sense the edges of it now. She can taste the way it shifts when she moves her hands and how it ripples when she breathes.

She can feel her hands.

She can taste how stone would crack beneath them.

Edward's eyes again meet hers as he is felled, collapsing to the ground, and yet still all of the concern on his face is for her. "No," he mouths through his scream. Bella sees the way he looks at her hands, one already thrown back in preparation to attack, and the venom in her mouth is unchecked, murderous and flowing.

Aro claps. "Jane, darling, what a wonderful show, but was that really necessary?"

"He raised his hand toward you. How was I to know if he'd attack?"

Edward's convulsions cease in the same instant that the girl relaxes, and Bella can breathe again as he rises to his feet. The memory of pain is still etched on his features, but his eyes are clear.

As he places his hands in his pockets, so are his intentions.

"Unshared thoughts are guilty ones," Aro warns.

"Not necessarily." Edward rocks back on his heels, smiling sadly. "But there are some things I can't - some things I won't betray."

Bella understands in that moment that he means her.

He would destroy himself before he would reveal her.

Always, 'our end' was his end.

"Such a waste," Aro says, lamenting. "Felix?"

The largest, most fearsome vampire steps forward with a grin and a crouch, a raising of a hand that looks more like a claw and the snapping of his jaw.

"No." She and Edward hear her gasp, but no one else does.

Aro hesitates anyway, lifting an eyebrow and eliciting a low growl from Edward's throat. "Though there is still the matter of the girl. Dmitri, you remember her scent?"

"Of course, Master."

This time it is Edward's turn to laugh. "You'll never find her."

No, Bella thought. They never would.

In that instant, Bella's fury boils over, Edward's anger over the threat to his mate becoming her own. It mixes with all the other resentments that have built in the last few months. The death and the pain. The frustration and the loss and isolation, and everything goes red and black as Bella lets the darkness run through her, less a shadow that surrounds her so much as a part of her now. In the back of her mind, she can hear Alice, too.

There are many paths, but so many end in blackness.

There was more than one way to die.

There is more than one kind of blackness.

And one of them now flexes, the deep shadow of it trembling with the sudden snapping of her control.

Feeling the strength of her power in her hands, Bella steps forward and touches her mate. His dismay at her proximity to Felix is a tremor in his stony skin, his scream of protest a barely restrained thing. With all the fury surging through her crystal veins, she can only just summon the subtlety required to stroke his shoulder reassuringly.

"Trust me," she breathes.

Then for one brief moment, Bella pulls the darkness inside of her, gathering every fiber of it into her silent heart, and there she holds it.

And for the first time in months - for the first time in her entire existence, really - she feels everyone's eyes on hers.

As their expressions turn from shock to fear and then to action, Bella hisses, "You'll never find him either." Her eyes dart amongst Aro's and Dmitri's and Jane's. She sees their fear, and she basks in it, her own teeth bared to drive her meaning home. "But for all your eternities, you'll always wonder where we are."

In the rush of breath that escapes her lungs, the blackness pushes back out into the air, embracing not only her form but Edward's as well. It encompasses them.

And she watches crimson eyes turn murderous as the both of them fade away.

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A/N: Just one more chapter and a short epi. They'll both be up within a week.