Author's Notes (April 2, 2011): Hope those of you who participated in the readalong enjoyed the journey! Thanks go out to lemonmartinis and AFMtoo for organizing that. It was great fun, ladies. :) Also, for this chapter, as with all others, thanks to duskwatcher2153, Aleeab4u and GreatChemistry for keeping me from posting typos and other awkwardness.

Chapter pic: No pic, sorry! :(

Chapter music: bit(dot)ly/sotpm21-music

"SINS OF THE PIANO MAN"
CHAPTER 21: AFTERMATH AND ATONEMENT

One brash phrase could crush this fragile day
As my thoughts swirl in some shrill, sad cannonade.
And one such spur that caused my throat to creak—
The one dull dawn that I've since sensed to repeat.

"Serpentine" by Chris Bathgate

EDWARD MASEN
Bella hadn't wanted me to stay with her in the house, but she'd never said anything about the trees and bushes surrounding it. I was torn. I shouldn't spy on her—after all I'd done, I shouldn't even be in the same state—but I couldn't seem to leave her alone, either. As it was, I found myself once again lurking in shadows, perched up on branches and peeking in windows. It wasn't typical boyfriend behavior, but I figured I was already going to hell for past indiscretions. What was one more sin, when I'd already committed the worst of them?

Despite Bella's wishes, I slipped into Charlie's bedroom where she slept the night he died. I watched the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed words to people and places only she could see. The lines of her face were relaxed. There was pain in all of this, I knew, but also some relief. Death was often that way for humans, for all creatures who didn't have an earthly eternity before them.

Would I be alone for eternity?

Sleeping little, Bella rose at four and began boxing up Charlie's clothes. Not everyone started on clothing when a loved one died—not everyone could think so pragmatically—but Bella went right to the heart of the matter. She was meticulous, separating each item of clothing into piles sorted by quality; these then went into their respective boxes and bags, set on a course for charities or to a family she thought could use them, judging by the surnames she used for some labels. Flannel shirts—a favorite of Charlie's—she saved for herself. There were a lot of them; she'd look like she was bringing back the grunge era.

I was no stranger to the minds of the grief-stricken, and while I couldn't read Bella's mind, I for once understood her actions, her need to reclaim normalcy and balance that Charlie's death had robbed her of—that I had robbed her of. I'd witnessed it in the minds of others, but even more so, I'd experienced this need myself, when I was human and had lost my parents, and when I'd given up human blood.

I wanted to be in there with her, not on the outside looking in—again.

And whose fault is that? I thought. The red marks I'd seen on her body, which were no doubt bruises now, were permanently burned into my memory. In many ways, this distance between us was of my own doing.

I should leave. She wasn't safe with me.

But I stayed. I was always staying.

How does one turn away from the person made perfectly, specifically for him?

The phone—both the landline and Bella's cell—rang incessantly, but she didn't answer either. Instead, she cleaned out kitchen cabinets and put away more items in dusty boxes retrieved from the attic. The dust made her sneeze often as she packed a set of bowls and a mismatched assortment of lightly stained coffee mugs. She put Charlie's favorite, a chipped mug with Forks Police Department branding, to the side with a sad smile.

She continued this pattern of cleaning and purging until she was on her hands and knees, restlessly scrubbing an already-spotless kitchen floor. Eric Clapton's voice floated out of an old stereo system, singing about loss and a distant heaven.

True to their word, the Cullens were on their way by mid-morning. About a mile before they arrived, their thoughts reached me. Alice, as she often did, directed hers at me.

Edward, can you hear me now? Let's try something. Decide to nod.

Through her strange, overwhelming kaleidoscope of visions, I briefly saw myself roll my eyes from where I was reclining in the forked arms of a cedar tree behind Charlie's house. It was a microsecond before I performed the action in reality.

Oh, good, you can hear me!

I sighed, but I felt myself smiling. It was difficult to stay annoyed with Alice.

How's the tree?

"It'll do," I said dryly.

Carlisle's Mercedes pulled up before Charlie's house. While Carlisle and Esme knocked on Bella's door, tuna casserole in hand, Alice slinked around the side of the house, to the tree I occupied along the backyard perimeter of the property.

Cat-like, she scurried up into the tree and sat back on her heels on a branch near mine. "You've looked better," she commented. From her perspective, I was bedraggled, my clothing crinkled and stained after half a night spent in wintry mist and tree sap. She frowned at the way my hair curled up and out and over in damp cowlicks.

I lifted my hands at the trees around us. "Lucky for me, plant life isn't judgmental company."

"It's not good company, either." She tilted her head to the side as she regarded me. "I hope you know you made this needlessly difficult."

"Which part?"

"Um, let me think…all of it?"

I sighed. "I've done the best I could."

"You should have trusted her more."

I watched a spider in another tree sweep downward as it let a thread of webbing fly. I envied creatures that had such simple understandings of life and purpose and wished my own path were as clear. Perhaps I'd return to Chicago…

Alice gasped. "You're still thinking of leaving! Edward, you can't."

My attention snapped back to her. "That's hardly any of your business."

"Of course it's my business! You can't leave. I barely know you. You're going to be a brother to me."

I snorted. She had such a vivid imagination. As if I was going to get swept up in her coven. "We have eternity. I'm sure we'll meet up again. It's not as if you can't see where I'll choose to go. When I choose." If I could choose, if I wasn't rendered immobile by emotion.

"No," Alice said, shaking her head fervently, "no, it has to be now. Everything's happening now. I've seen it. Your relationship with Bella is why it's happening now."

Riddles. I didn't bother asking for answers. She wouldn't give them—at least not in terms I could grasp as one not caught up in the future.

"You've seen wrong then." I didn't care what Alice thought of her visions, whatever they might be; I'd seen fissures in them already with the small things. How much more fallible might she be when it came to important matters?

"What about Bella? You'll just leave her? She'd be heartbroken."

"I don't think we're exactly together right now, as it is," I said bitterly. "My leaving would be good for her. A clean break." A real man could give her things I couldn't—stability, a life, children if she wanted them, the sun. He wouldn't be a victim to instinct, to the detriment of her safety. I was Pinocchio, striving and lying to be something I wasn't, something I'd never again be.

"But… She's your mate. That's stupid. You can't just walk away from that. It means everything in this life." She spoke like she knew.

I hated the M-word, the way it thrilled me with all its false promises, with ideas of a less lonely existence, the way it frightened me to statuesque stillness. I'd never dreaded or wanted anything as much as I wanted Bella for a mate. Blood paled in comparison—even hers. But how could I have her? How could I fantasize of taking her life, of her by my side throughout time?

"She doesn't get a say? At all?" Alice pressed.

"Not when she doesn't know the whole truth to make a sound decision."

"That's not her fault." Alice reached up and grabbed a branch before letting her feet drop loosely, so she hung like a monkey. "I don't think mating works one way, even if Bella's human. For that reason alone, you should tell her everything, don't you think?"

I paused. We were in dangerous territory—territory I so desperately wanted to explore, while knowing I shouldn't. What would my world be like if Bella knew the truth, and more importantly, if she accepted me? "Last time you told me to give her what I could' of the truth," I hedged.

"It had to do with Charlie," she explained. Her eyes turned downward as she said his name. "Bella came really close to figuring us out a couple of week ago. I didn't see that going over well, because it would have upset her life with Charlie. You couldn't tell her before he…was gone."

"And now?"

"Now I don't know for sure," Alice sighed. "She's too confused to accurately figure us out on her own, I think, and you've not decided to tell her." She cut her eyes over at me sharply. "You just keep teetering between staying with the way things are and going, as if those are the only choices. I'm blind, pretty much."

"Well, why don't you tell her?" I snapped.

She shook her head. "No can do. It has to be you who tells her." She laughed. "I don't see her believing the truth from us."

"Really?"

"Really," Alice said, nodding. She perched back on a limb. "She runs away if we tell her, but I think she might believe you." She arched a brow. "It's different getting the truth from your mate."

I swallowed thickly and bent my leg up to rest my forehead against my knee. "That's reason enough for me to hesitate." I didn't voice my deepest fear—that Bella wouldn't accept me. That she might never forgive me for what I'd done. That she'd hate me, be disgusted by everything I was, had been, would be. I didn't think I could survive with memories like those forever.

"I see how stubborn you are—her, too. You guys are exhausting, believe me." She reached out and poked my ribs.

I smiled briefly. "We can't help but be ourselves. You're the little freak trying to control the future," I said, but I was mostly joking.

She grinned, scrunching up her nose. "If I really could control the future, the world would be a better place. And you'd wear nicer clothes." Her eyes moved across me. "And never black on black. It's so not you. Who do you think you are, Johnny Cash?"

We sat for a while longer, listening to Carlisle and Esme discuss funeral details with Bella, whose heart thudded erratically in her chest. Unbeknownst to Bella, Charlie had already made sure to pay for his own funeral—with Carlisle and Esme's help, but she didn't know that, nor did they share this detail.

Bella decided to allow the funeral to be open to the public, even though it was obvious she would prefer something quiet. I sighed, wishing she'd be a little more selfish in this case.

"I think you should just tell her," Alice said, pulling my attention from the voices inside the house. "She really does love you, you know."

"She does, yes," I said, and despite everything, my lips lifted. "But humans have breaking points. Bella has an absurdly high tolerance for my nonsense, but even she won't accept the truth about me."

She wouldn't accept lies anymore, either.

"What makes you so sure?" Alice huffed. "Why can't you just decide to tell her, and then I'll know how everything works out? But let me guess—nooo, that'd be way too easy."

I ignored her tirade. "As if I can just force myself to decide. Anyhow, that's enough, Pythia. You better go see Bella. Carlisle and Esme said you'd be coming."

Alice frowned at me. "I brought you a change of clothes. I'll bring them to you before we leave."

"Thanks," I said. I touched her shoulder. "For everything."

Alice shrugged and hopped down to the ground. "Tell her the truth. Wouldn't it be nice for her to know?"

I smiled noncommittally.

That was the question, wasn't it?

The day continued, and through Bella I felt the strange eeriness of death's aftermath, a hollow feeling I'd not experienced firsthand since I'd lost my parents. Of course, my innocent victims had stayed with me, but my memories of them were wrapped up in guilt. That was different to this. This was a helpless, aimless feeling, like time had stilled on an echo of Charlie's last breath.

From where I watched Bella from a tree, I considered sending her a text message in the afternoon.

Are you all right?

I erased that. Of course she wasn't fucking all right.

Do you need me to be there?

I scrapped that, too. Probably the last thing she needed was all the complications I brought to her life. I sighed, feeling awkward, and put my phone away. The battery was nearly dead.

Bella made arrangements for charitable pickups for the following day. It seemed to make her actions more realistic to her, as if only after making phone calls to churches and the Salvation Army could she realize that Charlie was gone, and many of his material things were soon to go, too. She sat on the couch and cried until it was dark out.

It tore at me when she cried, but it was even worse now, when I was near but so far away, so incapable because the hands I wanted to hold her with had done her damage, done us damage, as I'd feared they would. We sat alone with our grief.

Bella slept on the couch, her mouth yawning open, one leg hooked up along the back cushions. In other circumstances, the sight would amuse me, but there could be no amusement found in knowing she slept on the couch, simply because she had been too emotionally spent and exhausted to make it up the stairs. I felt exhausted on her behalf.

If only I could rest with her.

If only I were mortal.

I knelt beside the couch and dared to do what I'd avoided the night before. With trembling fingers, I lifted the edge of her shirt. I was immediately met with spattered black marks that were all too familiar in their shape—my fingerprints. I could only imagine how bruised she was, and imagine it I did.

At least… The thought dropped off.

At least what? There were no positives to this. At least I hadn't…broken her? Killed her? What small, disgusting comforts.

"How could you ever forgive me for this?" I asked Bella's sleeping form. "How could you ever accept me?" I spoke in a low tone she couldn't hear, but she shifted in her sleep, as if sensing me. Sighing, I let go of her shirt hem and backed away a little.

She shouldn't forgive or accept me.

"Edward," she whispered.

I wondered what sort of dreams I was being featured in as I draped a plaid blanket over her, pulling the soft fabric up under her chin. "I'm here," I answered as I brushed hair away from her face.

She reached out in that slow way that sleeping creatures do. From where I stood beside the couch, her fingers met my thigh then slid away. "Don't go," she murmured.

I pulled in a shuddering breath. Those words always crippled me.

It was as if on some level she'd always known I was merely passing through. Or trying to pass through, rather. That had been my intention. Now I didn't know how to leave. I especially didn't know how to when she asked me to stay, even if only subconsciously.

As I watched her dream, I imagined her—sleepless like me, running through the evergreen woods, her skin illuminated by the light of a low-hanging moon. She was the greatest temptation, in more ways than one. I bent and kissed her forehead. "I want you too much," I sighed, knowing full well that confession and contrition rarely lead to reform.

The day dawned with cold rain, and I returned to Port Angeles, in need of a recharged cell phone, a shower and a clearer head. I could at least have the first two, I figured, and Lucky would be glad to see me, even if I had installed a doggie door for him to not need me.

I'd return to Forks later. I hoped to even be invited, though I knew I shouldn't want that and that I had no right to be.

I called Bella after my shower. "How are you?" I asked after we'd blundered through awkward salutations.

"I'm…okay, I think."

She wasn't—not quite—but I played along. "Yeah? That's good."

"Yeah." She sighed. "They took the hospital bed."

"Good." I paced the length of my living room, struggling to come up with words. I heard a knocking sound on Bella's end.

"Edward? I should go. People are here to pick up some of—some stuff. Thanks for checking on me, though."

It wasn't supposed to go like this. I was supposed to be charming. "Can I come over?" I asked in a rush. I'd go to Forks, regardless, but I wanted—needed—her invitation, her approval, because it felt as though she were slipping away.

She paused, and then said in a small voice, "Not today. I have to go. I-I love you. Talk to you later."

With that, she ended the call.

I held the phone to my ear for a long time.

Frustration consumed me. The emotion was directed toward so many—Bella, my maker, me—and it flared in my body like the fire of my change from man to vampire.

I heard a crunch and glanced down at my hand. The plastic casing of the cordless phone I held had cracked beneath my grasping fingers.

That angered me more. I couldn't even hold a phone when upset. How had I ever believed I could hold a human woman when angry? How would she ever accept someone who destroyed so much that he touched?

I swung my arm back and threw the phone like it was a baseball. Singing through the air, it flew to the other side of the living room at high speed, hitting the adjacent wall with such force that the plastic body shattered into three pieces. A crack a few inches in length appeared in the off-white wall, where one of the three pieces was now lodged deep. I stared at it, breathing hard, though I had no need to breathe at all.

In the other room, Lucky let out a bark at the sound and came sprinting into the living room. He cautiously stepped near the broken phone pieces and sniffed at them. Picking one piece up between his teeth, he traipsed toward me and nudged my hand.

Still breathing heavily, I looked down at him, caught between amusement and the last vestiges of my anger as I stared into brown eyes half-covered by hair. "Now you learn to fetch?" I'd tried to teach him for years to no avail. I took the useless piece of plastic from him and scratched his head. Touching him was soothing, a reminder that I wasn't only a raging monster, that I could be more. Sometimes.

My cell phone vibrated from where it was charging on a nearby table. Lucky lay down on the floor as I picked it up; he watched my every move. "Don't worry," I said to him, "I won't throw this one."

Throwing it hadn't done me any good, anyhow.

I'd wanted it to be Bella, calling to tell me that—of course—she wanted me to come stay with her in Forks, but it was only Alice.

"Give her time," she advised. "She's going through a lot. You are, too."

"I know that, but I hate what's happened. What I did." I swallowed hard. "Do you…know about that?" How I'd lost control. How I'd risked her life.

"I know a little," she replied. "Enough. You didn't mean to do it, and she did come home smelling like a dog. The first time I smelled them, I went a little nuts, too."

My nose turned up at the memory, but I didn't want to be placated. "How do I fix this?" That was all that mattered.

"Let's cross that bridge when we get to it," Alice said. "Let her grieve first—privately, in Forks, by herself; you've been all sorts of creepy-stalker lately. And while you're at it—or not at it, I guess—decide how you're going to handle everything. How you're going to tell her. Maybe then I can tell you what the hell's in store for you."

Staying away from Forks was more easily said than done. I had the overwhelming urge to make it all better, to turn back time and only yell when she came in smelling like La Push and its inhabitants; instead, I'd confronted her, when I'd known I was losing control. I wanted to give her Charlie back. I wanted her to have time and happiness and love.

I was powerless, though, and I knew it. I couldn't go back in time, only endlessly forward. I couldn't restore life, only take it away.

From the very beginning, our relationship—if it could even be labeled as such in its early days—had been tenuous at best, wrapped up in bloodlust and subterfuge. The latter had remained, and it was killing us. I could have killed her. Multiple times.

She was my mate, the one thing that could arguably be looked forward to in this existence, but mates, like all things, can be lost—to death, to foolishness. I would always love her, and I thought that somehow she might always love me, as well, but sometimes, especially for humans who live under the pressure of a finite lifespan, love isn't enough. Sometimes it can't overcome lies and horrible mistakes.

Perhaps my inability to leave yet wasn't a problem. Perhaps she'd send me away. The thought was both agonizing and comforting. If she sent me away, I wouldn't have to choose for her or myself; the choice would be made for me.

Bella needed time, Alice said, but I thought that perhaps Alice wasn't so sure this time—that we'd perhaps knotted the fabric of the future so thoroughly that even she was left clueless. But I decided that regardless of whether I left or Bella sent me away, I would give her something better than the painful memories and awkward rebuffs of the last few weeks. The awkward meetings and phone conversations would stop. I'd speak in the way I knew best, in a way not verbal at all.

I had a promise to fulfill, a life history to compose. Charlie's.

When I sat at the piano bench with Lucky curled beneath, I wasn't sure how I would begin. Nothing I'd written—and I'd been trying for weeks—was worthy of Charlie Swan. In truth, this was mostly uncharted territory for me, to memorialize a man whose life hadn't ended at the teeth of my hunger, nor was it a work of hope, which fueled the finer details put to Bella's lullaby.

I tried to understand Charlie Swan, the man who had loved and lost, and never stopped loving. The man whose thoughts lifted joyously when his daughter entered a room; how he was awed that she looked so much like he did, especially when she turned and revealed her left profile—the one with the freckle above her brow, the one which mirrored his. The man who'd had a penchant for the local diner's cheeseburgers and always thought he'd die of a heart attack until he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The man who had drifted quietly away, parting on satisfied, dreamy thoughts of hugging Bella goodbye.

It all hurt, all burned, because as I worked through the day, and then the night, I realized that I did understand Charlie Swan. We were connected by something that transcended our many differences.

We both loved a girl—differently, but in a similar magnitude that defined who we were as men—or, even more so, who we wanted to be. And I understood how it hurt to let her go, to let her fly and make her own choices; for him to leave her behind, for me to give her the space she needed right now.

Each note demanded to be written, played and heard. It was a familiar pull, a corporeal ache in my chest, to give this life as much justice as I possibly could. If the music lived, he would, too—a little, somewhere, in ears and minds. His story needed—had—to be heard. And perhaps its telling would help mend the wounds I'd inflicted.

Perhaps I could heal us yet.

Closing Notes: If you'd like to hear "Charlie's Theme," check out Whitetree's "The Room." It's in this chapter's playlist / on the SotPM blog.