The characters are not mine, though this twisted little plot is. Naturally, HUGE thank you to Gondolier, but I tweaked this after she beta'd so if you see glaring errors, its my bad. And for my lovely reviewers: you guys are the heroin to my addiction. Thanks for sticking with me and slamming me with your unbelievable fixes chapter after confusing chapter. This is going up early because I can't stand it a second longer.
Chapter 28
Endings
If people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.
~The Crow (1994)
I paced back and forth, my nerves rolling through each step. I wanted to cry, but there wasn't emotion left to spare. It had all been drained away the moment he turned away. That had been more than reason to cry, but I wouldn't let myself. I was so undeserving; I could do nothing but accept the inane misery when he left. It was my fault it had to come to this, after all. I had no choice but to accept it, no matter how furiously my body and soul screamed that it was all wrong. It was selfish to believe a petty and cruel creature could ever dream of keeping him.
I had decidedly curled up into the proverbial ball and was waiting to die. There was no reason to live.
Alice clicked her tongue impatiently. My mood was draining on everyone, but I tried to stay deep in the bowels of Volterra and ignore my friends as much as possible. It was her own fault she continued torturing herself with my presence.
"Really, Bella," Alice chimed into my never-ending self-loathing monologue. "You have it all wrong."
I hissed in response and she bit her tongue, just as she did every time she approached the topic. But I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want think about it, even if it was the only thing I dwelled on every second of every day for the last two hundred and thirty-seven of them.
I already knew what I'd lost. It's amazing how fourteen days, the blink of an eye in the immortal existence, changed everything.
I sighed deeply so Alice would know I wasn't mad at her, but somehow it didn't seem to make things better. She fidgeted and finally threw herself off the floor of the chamber and onto her feet.
She let out an exasperated cry. "You are infuriating!"
With that, she stormed out of the room, angry footsteps echoing against the stone corridor as she retreated to the city. It was the same every day, yet without fail, she reappeared.
I tossed myself onto the ground and slouched against the cool stones. It was comfortable here, but no longer home. I felt I didn't belong anywhere except the one place that wouldn't have me.
The first six months had been a blur. Between recovering from nearly being ripped apart and trying to cope with the loss of my soul, I was a shell. I absconded from my position as head of vampires, handing the title and power to Felix. Graciously, he accepted, though not without begging. It should have been his long ago.
Once I was back to health, physically at least, I fled below Volterra to wallow in the guilt and shame that consumed me. I hoped to find solace in my dark and familiar tunnels, but they only served to remind me of the past cruelty. The cruelty that hadn't been influenced by a madman.
I replayed that day over. Edward, his arms holding me up as my legs barely supported my body, looking at me with black and hungry eyes. The pressure of it cracked me, but when he ran a gentle finger over my torn face, I crumbled in despair. I didn't deserve his pity. He was far too good to touch me this way.
I jerked away from his touch. Pain swam into my vision from every venom infected bite in my body. Edward looked shocked at the movement but dropped his hand away.
"I'm not good," I choked. "You don't deserve this."
He tried to stop me, but the truth of who I was couldn't be escaped.
"I can't do it. I can't." The words were pleading. Pleading for him to stay, begging him to go.
Edward tried to speak, but I shook my head. A look of misery to rival my own swam in those dark and weary eyes. He didn't want to let go. But he had to see. I had to make him understand that I was poisoned.
So I told him, my voice dry, more of a breath than a whisper, "Let me go."
And he had. He turned around a moment later, the pain blatant and miserable on his face, and I hadn't seen him since.
The entire thing was a mess, the murderous fantasy of a madman. Knowing what had happened, and knowing why it happened, did nothing to settle it. Just knowing that Tanya, the stupid bloodsucking blond cow who was boinking Felix, was the one who had finally disposed of Dracula with her finely manicured claws, left a bitter taste in my mouth. I hated to admit she was the ultimate savior. Keeping her out of Volterra was impossible at that point, and Felix sported his flag at full mast each time he was in her presence. The poor boy was smitten for the sexy succubus. But I did have enough humanity in my broken soul to grant him hope for happiness. My oldest, dearest friend, always there when I needed him, deserved to smile for no other reason than to have love in his life.
It didn't make Tanya any easier to tolerate.
Luckily, she had enough presence of mind to stay clear of me. That's why I was surprised when I heard the click-clack of high heels followed by her fresh, musky scent wafting from the hallway. I groaned, and judging by her raised eyebrow when she entered the room, it was obvious she had heard it.
She gracefully slipped beside me. Her strawberry hair rolled over her shoulders in soft waves, reminding me that my hair lay lank and tangled around my face. I hadn't really thought to care until I saw the immaculate appearance next to me. Her back was perfectly straight, carefully held millimeters from the grimy stone walls, but she kept her face forward. For that I was glad. The last time I had seen it, she was comforting Edward, looking ever the angel even after having saved the world from the devil.
For a long time we sat, neither of us moving or even breathing. She came here for a reason, and I would let her tell me what it was.
She started with a sigh. "You need to be there today."
Ah, I should have guessed. This was probably what Alice was trying to get at earlier.
"It's hard for everyone." She paused, voice low and worn. "I knew them both so well."
This was something else I didn't want to think about, and I'd done a good job of keeping my thoughts from turning in this direction. But it seemed Tanya was going to force them from me today.
"They are two of the most respected vampires I've met, Bella. You owe them your respect, too."
My head shook back and forth slowly. I couldn't. How could I ever say goodbye, knowing I'd been the cause of their deaths? I wouldn't. It was too hard.
From nowhere, a cool hand grasped mine. I could feel those perfect nails dig into my skin a bit, but she wasn't trying to cause pain. She was trying to console, and it was working. My head fell onto our hands as the sobs wracked through my chest, breaking open unhealed wounds.
"Both of them," I cried, misery swallowing my gasps.
"It couldn't have been any other way," she whispered. "Soul mates are forever; as cliché as it sounds, it's true."
Again she sighed, heavier than before. Her other hand was now stroking my back in a way too similar to how she'd comforted Edward. I wanted to pull away, but the desire to be comforted was stronger.
"Edward loves you," she finally whispered.
"He can't," I choked.
"He does, and he will. Don't you see what you've done? It's so easily repaired, and yet you do nothing! Love at your fingertips, pushed aside like it never meant anything. Your stubbornness blinds you. Open your eyes and look, damn it! The Cullens have suffered enough, Edward has suffered enough, and it's time you ease some of the pain. This is my family too, and I can't stand by and watch this continue."
When she finished, her voice was hard and loud. But she remained still, her hand no longer smoothing tension from my back.
I didn't know what to say. She told me Edward wanted me still, even knowing the evil within, even knowing I'd been bred to be a murderous soul, life after life. I couldn't escape what I was. Those two weeks when Vladimir had stalked me told me so.
"I'm not good enough," I finally choked.
Tanya rose with a huff. Her frustration was clear in her voice, but I couldn't bear to look into her face.
"Sometimes I wonder if you aren't the same person. Both stubborn-assed idiots with too much insecurity! I've heard all it before, Bella, so believe me when I tell you this: You and Edward are two peas in a pod. Fuck whatever crazy shit you've got stuck in that head of yours about Dracula. He tried to kill you, and succeeded more than once in the past. The man was fucking bonkers! How can you even believe any of that shit you saw? None of it was true. Accept that already! You need Edward to make you whole, Bella, and he needs you. Apart, you are nothing. It's disturbing, but look at Carlisle and Esme! They wouldn't survive without each other.
"There's a reason for it, Bella. There's a reason why you were born again, and it sure as shit had nothing to do with Dracula or the Volturi. Open your fucking eyes already, before I end up at another goddamned funeral!"
Rant finished, Tanya stalked back down the long tunnel. I really tried to hate her. I really wanted to.
Her shoes clacked angrily against the stones as she fled back down the corridor. The silence following her was explosive.
**
Stepping into the courtyard was a torture in itself. The day was overcast and brisk, the wind whipping into my chilled skin. But it wasn't the wind that caused goosebumps to trickle up my arms.
I hadn't been here since the night I walked with Vlad around the fountain. I pushed the terrorizing memory aside and took in the scene splayed before me. Dark curtains hung everywhere, shrouding the daylight in a subdued semblance of night. There were thousands of mourners gathered, standing in winding lines, waiting to glimpse the fallen couple. Carlisle had been well remembered in the aftermath of Volterra's fall, and his wife duly loved for her unending compassion.
Frail human hands touched the caskets as they bowed heads in prayer over their souls. I had no idea what lies were spread regarding the deaths, but I still saw Esme's dead form, and the pieces of Carlisle that were salvageable from the destruction of Castle Dracula. It had taken this long to hunt down the few parts we could, and I couldn't burn the offensive memories from my mind.
Carlisle had been gone long before the castle exploded, but I don't know whether it was a good thing or not. A soft cry left my lips, remembering how little of him had remained to be found, when I felt a pair of eyes settle on me. My own gaze was lured by the sensation and I searched for them across the courtyard.
I spotted the wolves first. Ten of the enormous pack made the journey to Volterra to pay their last respects to a man they considered a friend. They helped to fill the front row of chairs placed next to the coffins. I could see the female, Leah, her dark hair resting against the shoulder of her husband. She looked nothing as she had running through the battle with Edward clutched in her arms. Now, she seemed humbled, but not weak. I would never see her as that after having witnessed her strength and compassion first hand.
Standing above them, with the other survivors of Carlisle's family, Edward accepted the condolences of the passing mourners, his dark eyes locked on me. Every one of those two hundred thirty-seven days, I thought of his face, the angular jaw line, the wicked smile, the things I could never face again, and now here I was, lost in his beauty all over again.
The holes in my chest stung and reached for him. I clamped my hand on the corner of a building to refrain from either charging or to keep my dead heart from bursting through my chest. It was hard to stay still, half concealed in the shadows, but impossible to look away.
Emmett was on Edward's right, smile wiped completely from his countenance and replaced by weary eyes and slumped shoulders. He kept one arm firmly around his wife. She looked much better than the last time I'd seen her. Rosalie's recovery had been stop and go since the beginning, but Emmett's love and belief in his wife's strength shone through her ashy pallor. Even if she clung to her mate the way my fist clamped to the wall, I could see the intensity as she smiled benignly at the passing humans, occasionally taking the hand of a weeping widow or a crumbled countryman. She would never go down easy.
Jasper, tall heroic Jasper, stood next to her, rigid, pain etched into his face. The lure of the blood was awesome, but I doubted he ever felt less like tasting it. Hunger was overshadowed by immense heartache and Jasper took it all with the stoic façade of a soldier, though the emotion alone from this many grieving people would be enough to crush a lesser man. Next to him, his teeny wife shook with her own sorrow. Her head was bent, eyes fixed on the floor as she ignored the rush of condolences.
I stared at them. The Cullens. They were no longer bound by the force that created them, yet there they stood, united and together as they were meant to be. Each relied on the others for support and compassion in the time of their greatest woe. It was impossible to see, but wonderful to witness. In full testament to their patriarch, the Cullen family lived on, their morals intact and their pride infallible. They stood tall and proud, saying goodbye to both their father and mother in the only way they knew how.
Edward loves you, Tanya had said. It's time you ease some of the pain.
Most unfortunate for me, she was right. I had to do something. It was my fault, after all. But two little words flashed through my mind. The words he'd said when he hung half dead and bleeding on that cross. Not enough. He told me everything with those two short words. I wasn't enough.
Felix moved from his place next to Tanya on the end of the row of werewolves and walked up to a small podium raised behind the rose covered caskets. Inside, I knew there was nothing more than the scattered ashes of the amazing people they represented, but he cleared his voice over the low murmurs of the crowd, and all attention fell to the powerful form as Felix began to speak.
His words were immediately potent, weaving emotions into the mourning crowd as he spun his beautiful and brilliant eulogy. He molded the stories of Esme and Carlisle with soft words and heartfelt sentiment, sharing his own misery with the thousands of grief-stricken ears. It was beyond exquisite the way he moved the audience with a profundity surpassing that of even the finest orator.
Felix's infinite strength magnified the power of his speech until not a single mourner was left without tear stained cheeks and heart untouched. There was a collective stutter through the rapt crowd, vampire and human alike, as my friend praised and commended every soul attending the memorial.
"Dream as if you'll live forever," he finished strongly. "But live as if you'll die today."
The crowds passed quickly then, taking their peace with nothing more than a touch on the flower draped coffins. When night had fallen completely and the humans were all but gone, I was still caught in the magnetic tug of war with Edward. His brothers and sisters slowly dispersed with a head nod toward me lurking deep in the shadows. I pressed myself into the building, dreading what I would say if I were to get the courage to take that enormous leap and step forward.
But it felt as wrong as it did right, despite the words Felix had said echoing in my head. Touching him with my bloodied hands was the foulest sin. How could he want me to? My love wasn't enough for him.
Edward growled, his voice rippling like the ever running water of the fountain. I could see the testament to Edward's love in my peripheral, flowing tier to tier with a melodic pattering. It reminded me how easily he accepted my love, as if he'd been waiting for it all along.
Making a split decision, I moved quickly to the edge of the fountain and sank onto the stone ledge that ran around it. My fingers instinctually reached for the tepid pool, caressing the rolling ebb like a well-acquainted lover and I shut my eyes. I heard his footsteps echo dully against the cobblestone plaza.
I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I exhaled heavily, and Edward's scent slammed my taste buds. I was high on him in an instant and my eyes pulled open to drink in his perfection. Up close his cheeks were sallow and pale, and thirsty eyes assured me he'd been feeding as little as I, and I longed to bring my fingers to touch the sunken hollows below his cheekbones. It took a forced effort to hold them firmly beneath the surface of the pool.
"You look…" he murmured. The sound of the sweet tenor sped chills through me.
I laughed, a nervous and unfamiliar noise. "I've seen better days."
A thousand memories crowded my mind, reminiscent of the way the plaza had been hours earlier. In each one was Edward's lopsided smile and twinkling eyes. I had seen hundreds of thousands of better days since he had come into my life.
Almost as if he could see my thoughts, Edward's lip curled a bit on one side, but it looked as strained as my own weary laugh sounded. He was capable of much more brilliancy. And I longed to see it, but hadn't I tortured him enough?
My body rose from the ledge of the fountain. He was so close. I only had to lift my arm and my palm would be resting against the tight planes of his chest. I bit my lip to stop me from moving. It wasn't mine to take.
He no longer attempted the fake smiles and cheeriness. His flawless face fell slack and dejected. His thirsty eyes stayed locked with mine, beckoning me. I could feel their call tugging at my muscles and bones, aching for them to reach out.
Instead, my mouth opened and I blurted, "It's been too long." Too long since my eyes worshipped him. Too long since my skin had reveled in his touch. Stupidly, I didn't finish my thought aloud.
Edward nodded shortly and didn't reply. The silence stretched over us awkwardly. My mind fumbled, searching for the right thing to say and knowing I didn't deserve to find it. Electricity slammed from his lean body and into me, revamping long forgotten sensations. He called to me, his body, his mind.
But it wasn't right. I hadn't done enough.
I made the mistake of speaking those words aloud, and suddenly Edward stepped away, much further than a mere arm's length. The abrupt distance left my chest burning. The space might just as well have been a million miles because it was further than I was capable of standing.
I had so many things to say to him, so many things to ask. I had endless apologies to make and I could not open my mouth in fear something else counterproductive would fall from my lips. But I had to say something. Already Edward's face seemed to be reining in. He was leaning back, ready to let me go. As I had asked him to.
So I said the only sentence that could come out unjumbled. "I'm sorry." For each errant thought, each lingering touch, for giving into the madness inside. For simply not being enough.
"No apologies, Bella," he hissed. The anger was blatant and unconcealed. I recoiled a bit from the strength of it.
But what else could I do? There were no other words to rectify the bottomless pit of my sins against him. I deserved every ounce of rage he threw at me. I deserved so much more than that, and if he struck me, I would not waver.
"But, but…" I stuttered, trying to control the anguish of his respite. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes.
"But I don't have enough to give," I finally choked from my throat, my shoulders falling forward in staggering defeat.
"Bullshit," he snarled.
My eyes opened, stunned at his harshness. Edward was leaning toward me now, black eyes straining to open me. Confusion wiped through and he saw the sting of his callousness. It hurt, though it was far less than I deserved. A thousand painful deaths would never make up for my venomous soul tainting his.
"Bullshit, Bella," he repeated. "And you know it."
My eyes roved over his, trying to make sense of his words. "I don't know what else I can do, Edward!" I shouted, hoping he understood my frustration. I would do anything to let him live in peace. "Tell me what I can do to make you happy! That's all I want."
He gazed at me, dozens of emotions flitting through those black eyes. But he was silent for a long moment before he spoke again. I saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
This time, his voice was soft as velvet, luxurious as it poured through my ears. "My mother is dead, Bella. So is my father, my creator, my friend. I can't live another second of anguish when you're standing right here. You're right in front of me, and you won't reach out. Can you imagine what it feels like to be ripped apart in a hundred different ways, only to find it takes just one to kill you?"
I understood too well the torment he described. I just wasn't sure he knew what he was actually saying. He couldn't possibly mean what he said. What he meant was not enough.
Edward sighed tiredly, as if just uttering the admittance was completely draining.
"But there's nothing that can be done," he finished in a whisper.
I wasn't surprised by his words, I'd been expecting them, but the shock of actually hearing them in his dulcet tone slapped me hard. I almost stumbled backward from the impact, even bringing my hand to my untouched cheek.
Speech failed me as acceptance filled me with dread.
"I can't have you if you think you're unworthy of what I have to give."
I stared blankly.
"All that I am, Bella, is because you are a part of it. All that I have ever been has been in anticipation of you. I am guilty of as much wrong, as much misery. I too am a monster."
"No," I sighed. My arm raised and hovered in the empty space between us. "No, you are everything good, Edward. You are the only good I've ever had! Never say you aren't."
"I've told you my past." He moved a step closer. My hand was almost touching his strong chest. "I ran away from everything I knew to be right once before. I crushed Carlisle's ideals, taking life with no thought other than the momentary relief; believing I could use my abilities to render justice on the scum of mankind, only to find it was not enough to pacify my rage. You are far, far better than that. No one forced my hand. No one ever clouded my judgment with false memories and promises of things beyond comprehension.
"I saw into his mind, Bella. In the end, when I thought there was nothing left to fight for, he released it all." He paused, breathing heavily. I could feel the heat as it caressed my lips. He looked like he wanted to touch me. "He used you, manipulated you. But you still don't even realize it! You think you're the evil. You think you're the monster.
"Didyme didn't kill you. She and Marcus fought to save you, but it was too late. Vlad pushed you from the balcony, then staked his coven and set fire to them to keep the truth hidden, to keep our love hidden, until the next time." He snarled the words. "That was not the first time he found you. It was like some sick game he played with our souls since the beginning of his existence. He's killed both of us in a thousand separate lives and a thousand different ways.
"He was never going to stop fucking with us."
"But I did kill those girls." The strangled words fell from me.
Edward's eyes softened perceptibly, the golden tones flooding in from along the black rims. "So you slipped. It's not the worst thing in the world. You saved me. You saved the others."
I shook my head casting away his last thoughts. "Carlisle lived half a century and never slipped." I had to make him see.
"Carlisle was better than any of us," Edward shot back. "He was the reason I came back from the edge all those years ago."
"But what did that get him, Edward? Denial didn't serve him in the end."
Edward placed his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look nowhere else but into the burning of his eyes. "It served him every day of his existence. It gave him a family; it gave him love. It was what saved me from becoming a complete animal."
"When I returned to him after playing God to hundreds of humans, my father embraced me with open arms, with a trust I knew I'd never deserve. He told me he would have followed me into my rebellion. He would have followed me anywhere, except for the one thing that made him stay. Esme. She's the piece that made all the difference in Carlisle's life."
"But he was perfect anyway," I interrupted. "Even without Esme." I would know. Esme had only been in his life for the blink of an eye.
Edward smiled. The first genuine smile I'd see from him in more than half a year.
"He wouldn't say so. He would say her love made him desire to be better, to be more than he ever tried to before."
I let Edward's words sink in, until I heard them in Carlisle's voice, ringing over and over through my ears. Love makes you better. Love makes you live.
"That's what you do to me," he continued in a low, almost shy voice. "You make me want to be everything I'm not, and change the things I can't. You're the light in my dark and I'm a better man just to have had your love in my arms. Without it there is nothing worth seeing, nothing worth fighting for. Please understand. Only you have the power to save my tarnished soul, to make it salvageable from my own transgressions.
"Let me be that for you. I don't care what you've done. I don't care who you think you are. It doesn't matter, because it's not enough to make my heart stop living for you. It's not enough to change the way I feel. I already know you. Accept that, and reach out to me, damn it. Please, Bella, make me everything, too."
The palms of his hands pressed heavily into my shoulders, and I searched his face, looking for any sign he wasn't speaking the truth, hunting for any reason to justify the last two hundred and thirty-seven days of empty loneliness.
"But I can't be enough," I breathed quietly.
"You're right, you can't be enough. You're too much already. You're everything."
I found nothing more than a raw power swirling inside his magnetic body. The truth of his admittance danced inside my mind, coaxing me to accept it, pushing me to do what Edward wanted, and reach.
"Just reach out," Edward repeated when he sensed my nagging hesitation.
A hand lifted and I felt the cool smoothness of his fingertips as they brushed a loose strand of hair from my face. A shiver of excitement raced from the contact, spearing me straight through my body, deep into my psyche. My chest rose and fell with my quickened breathing, and Edward leaned forward even further, until the crisp cotton shirt he wore grazed the peaks of my chest.
Then, he pushed his chest so it ran flush with mine. I stopped mid breath, holding it in as I felt the muscular expanse mold to my marbled body. His lean torso pressed into my stomach, our hips smashed together until I could feel the sincerity of his words between my legs and in my heart.
"You're not a monster," he hissed, lips dangerously close to mine. "You're fucking perfect. Now, just reach out!"
So I did.
My arms rose, gliding over the taut muscles of his back that rippled beneath my light caresses. They slid up his neck and twisted into the silken strands of bronze hair.
That final day in Romania, before I was impaled, before Tanya appeared from nowhere and smote Vlad, I had dropped my head over Edward's lifeless body and kissed his ashy skin a thousand times, but refused to take his lips. I told myself he had to give them to me.
But as I forced Edward's head to bow lower, I threw that promise out the window and attacked his mouth with the fervor and longing I'd felt since he turned his back on me. My lips spread his; my tongue danced with joy as it worshipped the feel of him again.
Not once did he offer me that kiss, but I took it. I took everything I could from those familiar lips, the intimate groans, and I fed on it with more eagerness than I'd ever done before. The lust, instinctual and consuming growled and ripped, trying to break out and devour the passion like blood. His arms slid down me, around my pressing hips and settled in the small of my back, pulling me closer still.
When he finally pushed away, his forehead was on mine. Our breath mixed in the small space between us; the scent was everything beautiful in the world. In silence we absorbed it, relished it. And finally he curled his mouth into that perfectly crooked smirk. Sinful desire swirled in his eyes as he parted his lips to reveal venom coated teeth.
"I don't care Bella. None of it matters. Not one fucking bit. I want every piece of you, even the bad ones, even the ones you can't accept. You won't need to. I'll do it for you."
Suddenly his hands were pulling my arms down, circling my wrists with a tight grip.
"There's nothing I want more than you," he breathed. "Monster, angel, demon. I don't care. I don't belong anywhere else. I don't want anything else.
"Just never let this go."
"Never," I agreed.
Tears that could never fall welled inside my eyes as they poured over the bronze haired man I loved. No other word ever fell more naturally from my lips.
"Never."
A/N: First and foremost, the line Felix says in the eulogy is a quote from James Dean, which makes me think of R Patz in a wifebeater, which makes me happy despite the depressing scene.
And I kind of like the song Another Heart Calls by The All-American Rejects. Not necessarily saying it goes with this chappie, but I listened to it an awful lot as I contemplated Bella and Edward's relationship through the course of the story. Just saying.
And this was going to be it, but with barely any effort, G talked me into that epilogue. So, instead of ending it at a funeral, you just might get that glimpse of the elusive HEA. It's written and in G's hands already. There will be no hesitation. Once its back in my greedy little paws it'll be posted.
So, alright. Hit me…
