Disclaimer: Don't own the right to Twilight.

A/N: This chapter is Dedicated to ShadowGemini, because her review made me extremely happy on a very bad (rotten, terrible, any other word that describes how crappy that day was) day!

And no I have not given up on this story. I have just been restructuring the ending so that was why it was taking so long.

I stood on the flat broken ground that was once my home, a safe place that I had come to love. Now it was full of melancholy memories I would never want to leave behind.

Slowly I made my way towards the broken remnants, not getting very far before something crunched underneath my feet. I glanced down and my heart felt like it would explode, if it was beating.

Beneath the shadowed dust that was once my home, when the wooden sticks had been strong beam, was a picture frame. What was worse was that the photo had been completely unpreturbed.

I bent to pick it up, its silver frame was shattered but the glass was partly still intact. Only little spider-webs made their ways across the screen. I wanted to throw it, drop it into the next ocean I came across.

It was a picture of Gideon sitting on the deep red couch with Josh, smiling lightly next at him, his wide golden eyes were bright with love and compassion. I sat next to him, my eyes still red since it was the first year of my change, his arm draped around my shoulders. I clearly remembered hitting him for doing that, but he had said,

"One day, you'll see the sun rise, Bella, and you'll know I was meant to be with you." And maybe it was true then, so much so that I believed it. But then again Josh wasn't the evil Josh I had come to known in past months.

The man I had known was funny, not as zany as Gabriel but he had a personality with glowing eyes that gave off life. He was not a musician, not an artist or anything really special. Just a vampire, a man, some one who I had mistaken for someone kind.

It was why I was still shocked that he had taken me away from Edward. I knew that he would have been angry...but to kill his own father. Gideon...the kindest man I had ever met. The one who had lost control and taken responsibility for his actions.

My mind flittered back to a memory of complete jealousy of the rest of my family, for taking up so much of his time. I wanted to be the one he was proud of most, and in time I eventually learned that he was happy with all of us, not any given one.

Certain images whirled past me, their colors almost blinding as they whipped past, one stood out more than the rest.

A year after I had been changed...one single year exactly Gabriel had slipped, I remembered it clearly. It wasn't one of the greatest days of my life, but it was still...strong enough to remember.

"Gabriel!" Gideon called from his office, the mahogany door swung open and a few books toppled off from the outside bookcase.

"It'll be fine Gabe," I whispered to him, giving him a reassuring hug as he went in. I had never seen his skin so chalky, his finger like bone as he clenched them tightly.

"He'll be fine," I repeated to myself. I was still not used to Gideon's ways. Would he do something cruel? He didn't seem like that, and I knew from his thoughts before hand that he wouldn't. But why was I suddenly terrified for Gabriel.

"Are you sure?", Gabe asked, his head slightly cocked. I nodded, glancing back at Jamie who was staring blankly out of the wide bay area window. A deep storm brewed outside and small jets of smoke puffed from his pale fingers.

"He just wants to talk," I promised, not completely sure of the truth in my statement. "I think." He smiled wryly at me, before entering, a slight droop in his step.

He regrets killing that girl. I know he does, I can see it in his eyes, the crimson iris that was once filled with gold. He doesn't look right. It doesn't seem like...Gabriel.

The door shut in front of my eyes with a snap, and I instantly crashed out of my reverie, jumping suddenly. A small clutter of magazines lay behind me, collecting dust in a corner and I tripped falling flat on my back.

Our house was never as clean as the Cullen's home had been. Gideon was all for creative chaos, not any neatness was applied.

"Thinking again, Bella?" Jamie's monotone voice rang through the study.

"I suppose," I replied, hopping to my feet and coming slowly over towards him. He was in a mood again, his eyes looked dead as he stared out into the ocean.

I didn't know much about Jamie, not much except for that he was born in the late twenties, in Boston. Gideon had found him dying, not from a rare type of cancer like I had told Edward but from his own hand. He had never been happy as far as I had seen him.

"Jamie?" I asked tentatively, hoping I could open him up in the slightest. He glanced at me and continued staring out of the window. I took it as initiative to go ahead. "How did you die?"

It was beyond personal, terrible, I knew, but it was there...I had never known his story. Arielle had been wandering the streets when Gideon found her, her eyes already a red color from the debt of human life. Gabriel was a different story he had taken to hesitance in telling me about his life.

He was the same, according to him, annoying and irritating and he slept around, also according to him. How much of it as truth was not decided upon. One of the woman's father's decided to get revenge and sent a party out into the streets to mob him, it worked partially as only a few had found him. But they nearly killed him when Gideon stepped in and saved him.

"Why?" Jamie's quiet voice cut across the quiet air of the room.

"Gideon told me about him and Josh, Arielle told me all she could remember and even Gabriel mentioned the whole...woman to woman thing. But you..."

"So I'm just another one of your projects then?" I drew back at the harshness of his tone, but I sat on the stack of books that was next to his chair. He still wasn't looking at me.

"No! Jamie...I just want to know you."

"Then tell me what happened in Forks." It wasn't a demand or an order...but it was there. I hadn't spoken to even Gideon about how I knew the existence of vampires. And here he was...asking about it so blindly.

"What do you want to know?" He looked at me, his hard stare penetrating, his golden eyes also a violent shade of red. He had cleaned up Gabriel's mistake, using the choice only an eleven year old could make. An eleven year old with a seventy year soul, that is.

"How did you know about vampires?"

"I was in love with one." I answered softly, the memory still burning like a hot knife. It had only been a year ago, hadn't it? When Edward...his beautiful face, eyes, heart...had left me so empty and alone.

"Love?"

"Edward...he was born in Chicago...1901, he was changed by his doctor because of the Influenza."

"Doctor?" His questions were only one-worded but I understood.

"Yes...Carlisle Cullen, he was the same as we were, they all were, the Cullens and the Hales. Vegetarian vampires as they called it. Their little inside joke."

He chuckled, secretly agreeing with it, the term did suit our lifestyle well.

"And then Carlisle found a wife...Esme, and then Rosalie who was ment for Edward, and then Emmett, Rosalie's husband. And then into the 1950's Jasper and Alice joined their coven.

"They came to Forks before I did, and all I did when I did come was raise hell for them. Edward...lusted after my blood more than anyone else's. Apparently I smelled like Freesia and he found it mouthwatering. I loved him...still do...and I always will...and then...he left me."

A long silence followed my words as I followed Jamie's gaze back out into the ocean, the colorless waves crashing down upon rocks. I turned to look at the sullen boy and found he was looking straight at me.

"Do you wish you would have died?" His words were soft little more than a whisper.

I considered them for a moment, before answering truthfully. "Sometimes...sometimes I wish that Gideon had just killed me, but then I remember that I wouldn't have ever met any of you. So...I can't regret my change." He nodded, his innocent eyes wide.

"I wish he had just left me to die," he murmured, looking down at his knees.

I didn't freak out, or run and tell, I waited patiently for him to tell his story. And he did.

"I should have been happy...but I wasn't," he whispered quietly, still not looking at me. "I had a mother who loved me and a father who did too, and we were doing pretty well for being in an age where everything was...desolate. I was just...lonely...there was no one to talk too...something didn't feel right. It never did."

"I had a few friends, Sam...and Suzanne the twins who live next door, but that was it. They didn't like to talk to me sometimes...because I was a bit of a pyromaniac." He smiled sheepishly at this bit, as if proud of his fire burning traits.

"I went to school got good marks...everything was fine, but it didn't feel like everything was right. Back then they didn't have drugs that treated depression, because it wasn't even really known about. It was what I had...it didn't carry over though.

"So...one day I began to walk and kept on walking until I fell over from exhaustion and even then...I didn't have the heart to move...I noticed a cut on my leg it was pretty gashed up. And it wouldn't stop bleeding...and I didn't even try to stop it. I didn't want to stop it."

His eyes were glossed over as he was remembering every terrible image that was forming in his brain. I saw little Jamie walking down the path, away from his home, the thought of maybe his mother worrying when it became dark.

"I didn't want to..." his voice broke off, the grief over turning his words. "My mother must have been so worried. She was always terrified I would get lost, and I did. Except I ran away...from her. I didn't even leave a note. I wish I had at least left a note...something to tell her I loved her...at least..."

He had curled up into a ball, his body rocking back and forth. It was terrible the way he had lived, but it was worse and I understood. I understood it...the depression, the aching hole in my heart.

I moved off the stack of books and picked Jamie off his arm chair and placed him in my lap, cradling him as he quietly dry sobbed. He was still only eleven. Physically and else wise. I didn't understand Gideon's decision to change him...maybe he would have been happier elsewhere.

Gabriel exited the office, his face more ashen than it was before. His breathing came in sharp bursts as he leaned against the wall for support. I picked his thoughts for the problem, finding only terror and worry. The words...Suffering...and the name Abram running through his mind.

I moved my thumb away from the picture to see Jamie and Arielle and Gabriel leaning on the back of the couch. It was a family picture...a happy family...kind of. Secrets dwelled in the past. Now that family was gone and I was back with my original one. My existence seemed to come full circle.

I glanced at the ground again, the shards of glass resembling my broken family, and I broke down.

"I can't be here," I sobbed, falling to the hard ground. Edward rushed over and wrapped his steel arms around my waist, sitting on the ground next to me.

"It's ok," he whispered soothingly in my ear. "We can go home, Esme will understand."

"We're coming with," Gabriel said from a few feet beside me. I looked up into his pale face. It looked unhealthy now, not the glowing cream I had come to expect from all vampires.

"I don't want to be here anymore, not with it like this," Jamie agreed, heading back to the car.

"I'll tell Esme," Edward rushed over towards his mother, whispering soft words in her ear before she nodded, giving a wry smile.

"It's all right Bella," she whispered. I nodded, knowing she could see me.

Edward carried me to the car, slipping me in my seat and buckling me, even though I didn't need it. Jamie ducked in the backseat and Gabriel followed giving Arielle one last longing glance before Edward took off.

The winding path moved past in a blur, the quiet roads rushing by. It was nice...the silence, everyone's thoughts had been turned off for my sake. And the luxury of just having Edward beside me was enough to calm me down another notch.

We reached the Cullen's home, Edward rushing around the car and un-buckling me quickly as if I was still human. His posture was rigid as was Jamie's and Gabriel's, who looked sicker than death.

"Gabriel...?" I asked, concerned by his milky appearance. He didn't answer but stared straight ahead. I followed his gaze to a man who was leaning against the Cullen's porch, his dark brown hair falling into his face, the odd paleness worse than most vampires, his cheeks haunted but still handsome. But most of all, the real trigger of horror was his red eyes, as his smile flickered, lips upturning slightly at the sight of us.

"Gabriel," he said, his tone silky. "How nice to see you again." There was an undercurrent in his voice, making him sound threatening. Edward tensed beside me, and wrapped his arms around my frame even more tightly.

I glanced up at Gabriel, his eyes wide in terror, his face beyond pallid as if he was sick, and his fists were clenching and un-clenching...a sure sign of nervousness. He licked his lips, as if trying to find the words to speak.

"Abram," he whispered, the fear echoing in every trace. The man smiled.

"Glad to see you remembered."

A/N: I will update as much as I possibly can on this, faster hopefully. I was waiting to get at a better spot of TEL and also I had to revise the ending due to some other...things in coming chapters.