Stockholm Syndrome Chapter 12 – One Step Forward

Previously:

Maybe there was hope for us after all, I thought to myself as she slowly moved forward and sat down in front of the food. She looked at it all and smelled it before carefully picking up a fork and spearing one of the ravioli.

"You didn't poison this did you?" she asked with a serious expression.

I feinted shock and horror at the accusation but couldn't hold the face long because she immediately looked ashamed at the statement. Before I knew it I was smiling, she had started to giggle, and then I was joining her in the laughter. I had a feeling that tonight would be a turning point for Bella and me.

"Bella," I said as I she finished up the slice of strawberry cheesecake I had produced for dessert.

"Yes?" she replied.

"I really am sorry about everything. I mean it. I'm horrible for being the cause of it and I wish I could go back and change it all so I would have never taken you away from everything you knew."

Bella looked stunned but said, "thank you Edward."

She stood up, looking flustered and like she had missed out on something. She wouldn't look up at me and I was terrified that I had just ruined everything with my apology. But before I could let her leave the kitchen I hurried over and stood behind her, gently grasping her elbow.

She spun around and seemed stunned at the nearness of us. She was just inches from me and the magnetic draw that had been playing with me all night intensified. Her scent engulfed me and made my head swim. She smelled like freesias and lavender. The scent wasn't overpowering due to the mix of her deliciously sweet blood with it but it was intoxicating nonetheless. I had to struggle to remember what I wanted to ask her, why I had stopped her. She spoke, somewhat breaking the hypnosis her close proximity had put me under.

"Yes?" she breathed out softly.

"Would you join me for dinner tomorrow night?" I asked in a whisper.

I spoke in a whisper because I was too entranced by her nearness to speak loudly, fearing it would break some magical spell that seemed to drift around us. However, Bella wasn't answering my question, her eyes were locked on mine, so I spoke again.

"Well?"

"Ummm, yes?" she replied.

"Great, I'll see you at 7:00pm," I said then stepped backwards breaking the spell while trying to keep my composure.

Bella left the kitchen, apparently in a daze. After she left I quickly cleaned up the kitchen to the audience of Alice. She was talking animatedly about dinner the next night. Apparently she could see it all, even what I was cooking. I practically begged her to tell me what but she wouldn't until I threatened dismemberment of her arms to keep her from shopping and she folded. Being an asshole could come in handy at times.

I was told that I would be cooking a simple meal this time, something friendlier and not so jaw dropping. She jumped in the Volvo with me and we headed out to Port Angeles to their 24-hour grocery store because we didn't have the items needed. After picking up multiple amounts for the cooking lesson I was going to need along with a cookbook for the recipe, since I refused to use canned goods, we headed back home and I set to work in the kitchen.

I was going to prepare homemade chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. I had insisted on buying block cheese to slice myself and set to work on the first batch of soup. After slicing up the vegetables and chicken I went to slice the cheese and Alice danced through the kitchen singing about me giving Bella food poisoning.

SHIT! Apparently I had to wash my hands after handling raw chicken so I threw the cheese away and scrubbed up like a doctor. I should know this from my medical classes but it had slipped my mind. I set back to work and after the fourth attempt I had the recipe down pact, or so I hoped. It looked right and I hoped it tasted right.

After I cleaned up the kitchen I headed upstairs but Bella was deep in sleep. I had missed her dreaming with my cooking lesson in the kitchen and the trip to the store. But, her dreams must have been good because when I opened the door I was overcome by the scent of her fluids. The lust driven craze it sent me into was almost uncontrollable and I ran from her room, ready to take care of business again in the shower.

This time, though, it didn't feel right. I wanted it to be Bella pleasuring me and only Bella. My hand was no substitute for her soft delicate skin, her scent, her body… I was half disgusted with myself for masturbating to Bella again but she was just so intoxicating. It was harder to finish this time until I remembered the scent that caused me to run and I expelled myself with so much force I thought my knees would give out on me.

I cleaned up the shower and myself and settled into bed to sketch some more pictures of Bella but was lost in thought about how she was making me feel. No other woman, vampire or human, had made me feel the way she did. Well, no other woman but one and she had been nowhere near as spellbinding as Bella was.

By the time morning rolled around I was ready to head off to the school charade with a hop and a skip in my step because I was having dinner with Bella tonight. The day passed quickly but didn't end so well. We all got in the car to head home and Alice seemed to be in a bad mood. She was blocking her thoughts from me so it made me nervous. When we got to the house I tried to talk to her but she dashed upstairs and locked herself in her room.

I would talk to her later but first, I had to go on a quick hunt. I didn't need Bella enticing me to join her for dinner in the wrong kind of way. I ran out and took down a deer before heading back to the house to shower and change then begin preparing dinner. I had showered, changed, and started on the soup when Alice came into the kitchen. She didn't look happy.

"What?" I asked her immediately when her thoughts kept repeating the word 'sorry' in every language Alice knew.

"Bella won't be joining you for dinner, she changed her mind," Alice said softly and I was at a loss for words.

However, I was not at a loss for emotions. I went from being upset to pissed off to demanding the reason why from Alice.

"She didn't say but don't let it get you down Edward, I still see you two happening but this is really fast for Bella, especially considering…" Alice trailed off and I growled at her.

"I apologized for that," I said through clenched teeth.

"Calm down asshole and don't take your frustration out on me!" Alice shot back in response to my growl. "I'm just delivering the message she asked me to deliver."

With that Alice left me alone in the kitchen and I wanted to throw stuff and break things but shocked myself with being able to keep it in. Instead of throwing a fit I started to clean up everything but stopped when Rose walked through the kitchen and put a book, pad of paper, and pen on the bar before walking out.

I looked and there was a note on the paper from Rose.

Assward,

Don't ask me why I'm helping you but this might warm Bella up a bit. You could also add a note of your own.

p.s. Don't let her starve because you are pissed off. Grow up!

I had to laugh at Rose's tactfulness but then saw what she thought would help. I picked up the book, a first edition of Pride and Prejudice and it smelled faintly of Bella and me. I knew it was a book from my room. Bella must have touched it when she was down there.

The idea struck me, a particular quote from the book, and I set about finishing dinner then wrote out the note to Bella.

Bella,

"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."

I am sorry if my tendency to some particular evil had dissuaded you in any way. I apologized last night and will apologize every night, day, and chance I can from here until the end of time if you could find it in your heart to forgive me even a little bit. I can never expect you to fully forgive my actions which have caused you pain and loss but I do hope for at least some forgiveness eventually.

If there is anything I can do for you please do not hesitate to ask. But, until you are ready to see me I will remain out of your way. I am sorry for what I have put you through and, if I could take it back, I would in a heartbeat.

Sincerely,

Edward

The quote was a passage from the book and would hopefully serve as a reminder that anyone could do wrong no matter what their upbringing. I hoped it would work to get her to forgive me and begin to warm up to me. I would do whatever it took for her to become mine seeing as how I was already eternally hers, even if she didn't know it.

I finished up her dinner and placed it, the book, and the note on a tray along with a single lily from Esme's flower garden then carried it upstairs and placed it outside of her room. I knew she was in there because I heard her breathing and moving about. I knocked on her door softly then ran out of the house and towards my sanctuary, my meadow.

I needed time to think about everything that had happened. Bella was only the second person, human or vampire, to affect me the way she had. And Bella's hold on me was so much greater than the first time. But, the first one was the catalyst for the Edward I had become. I hadn't always been an asshole who used women and didn't care what others thought. It was the first one, or the events around her, that had set me on the path to who I had become.

When I got to the meadow I stretched out in the middle and let the brief moment of sun warm my skin as I laid there and thought of the one from before…my Maggie. Maggie's real name was Margaret and I had met her while I was working with Carlisle in a hospital in Philadelphia during WWII. Her husband had been drafted at the beginning of the war and she had received a telegram a year later listing him MIA. She threw herself into her work after that to try and forget about him, her Billy, and I tried to help her out.

All I wanted was to see her smile that she had always worn prior to the telegram but it took time. In fact, it took over six months for her dark grieving period to end. She explained to me afterwards that they had been high school sweethearts and she became a nurse when he was drafted to help pass the time he was away. She said that, while he wasn't always the nicest husband to her, he did love her and had provided for her up until he had been drafted.

Each night we talked while working and Carlisle didn't seem to mind my getting close to a human. I wondered if he had planned on changing her for me. But, before I could ask him and after I already had feelings for her, things changed.

One night a man came into the hospital and she screamed then ran for him calling him Charlie. Well Charlie had apparently been captured and had escaped and made it back home alive. He seemed upset with Maggie that she had thought him dead but she didn't mind his mood swing.

She took a few weeks off of work and when she came back I could tell something was different. I tried to get her to talk to me but she kept insisting that nothing was wrong. I knew she was lying to me but couldn't prove it so I started to keep watch on her house during the day time, hidden nearby and out of the sunlight.

I was sickened by what I discovered. Her "precious Charlie" had become an alcoholic and had taken to beating on her if she didn't do for him as he pleased. It took all I had to not kill him the first time he raised his hand to her but I wanted her to leave him on her own.

I confronted her at work the next night and begged her to leave him. She denied everything I said and ran from me. I tried to confront her again the next night and she tried to run again but this time I grabbed her dress sleeve, accidently tearing it off. Without the fabric to cover the hand shaped bruise on her upper arm she had nothing left to deny the abuse with.

Maggie broke down and cried to me about it, about it all. She promised to leave him and I swore to help her do it. I knew what it was like for a woman in the 1940s to try and leave her husband, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't easy. What would make things especially more difficult for Maggie was that she was pregnant. She had just found out and couldn't bear to tell him and have him beat it out of her, literally. I knew I had to get her out of that house immediately.

We planned to have her pack her items one day while he was out in the bar and then hide them outside while she 'left' for work. Then I would come by and grab her items at night while he was sleeping and help her get out of the city. In theory, it was the perfect plan. In actuality, it didn't go as planned.

While Maggie was packing her things Charles came home early from the bar and caught her. He began to beat her, not even careful of her face this time, and I showed up to check on her just as he threw her into a wall, knocking her unconscious. I flew into a rage and couldn't stop myself. I killed her 'precious Charlie' while she laid there unconscious. I made sure to check her to see if she was ok then I picked her up and put her on her bed before racing home to get Carlisle.

I explained everything to him and he helped me stage Charles's body to look like he had fallen in a drunken stupor and died from the fall. I went to work that night hoping Maggie would show but she didn't.

News quickly spread around the hospital about her husband's death and after a few weeks Maggie returned to work. I knew immediately that she wasn't pregnant anymore. I found out that she had lost the baby from the beating but she said it told people it was the stress and trauma of losing Charles.

To dig the knife deeper in my chest, she played the role of the mourning widow. When I had had enough of the act I cornered her and demanded to know why she was acting like she loved him. She broke my heart when she claimed to have loved him. She said she didn't hold it against him for him beating her. She blamed it on what he went through in the war. When I brought up her losing the baby because of the bastard she slapped my face and took off in tears.

I also took off that night, but in the other direction, and I never looked back, until now that is. During the time I was away from Carlisle, I hunted the vilest humans imaginable. I fed off of them and savored every moment of it. I only killed the criminals; the child abusers, the wife beaters, the murders. I killed them thinking I was doing the world a favor. I listened to their thoughts and heard the dark things they were thinking, then laughed when they begged for me not to kill them.

Soon, their thoughts clouded mine and I realized that the whole world was sinister and depraved. I became like the evil beasts that I hunted. I didn't care what I did to others and only cared about myself. Maggie's unconditional love for a putrid, sorry excuse for a man had ruined my faith in women also and I began to use them to my personal desires.

All of the years of dark, deadly thoughts changed when I realized that I loved Bella. How could I love someone that could hurt me worse than Maggie had? But I couldn't help how I felt or stop it. I had been drastically changed again, and all because of a human.

It was the thought of her that made me get up and head back to the house. I didn't go up to her room to watch her sleep, choosing instead to go to my room and sulk. When I opened my door the scent of Bella overwhelmed me. I rushed down the stairs and froze when I discovered her lying on my couch, deep asleep.