Breaking Points

by sugarbucket

Ever wonder why Rosalie and Edward are so cold towards one another? Their story from the start; in keeping with the books, but based on the idea that they're both masterful liars. Love, lust, betrayal, desire, lies, darkness and breaking points.

36. Chapter 36: Checkmate

-Chapter Thirty Six: Checkmate-

'Inside-out, upside-down,
Twisting beside myself.
Stop that now.
You're as close as it gets
Without touching me.
Oh now don't make it harder
Than it already is.
I feel a weakness coming on.'

-Imogen Heap

-Rosalie-

The fight that followed the smashing of Emmett's cell phone, had been one of the worst in our history together. I supposed I could have been more diplomatic in communicating my unwillingness to speak to Edward, but my wonderful, patient husband just shoving the cell in my face...well, it hadn't contributed to my already non-existent temper. Bad enough I'd had to listen to Emmett telling Edward how much I was 'falling apart' without him (which I was, let's face facts here...one does not hallucinate a being when separated by an ocean if one is mentally stable), but to then be expected to speak with him...it could not be borne.

In the end, it hadn't been Edward who convinced me to return to Forks, it had been Emmett. During the terrible fight we had, in which we said horrible, cutting things (so unlike us as a couple), he pleaded with me to see sense and realise that my martyrdom wasn't the least bit necessary. He told me that I wasn't just hurting myself, I was hurting him too. More wonderful irony, once again.

We packed up a few of our things, most of them I was happy to leave behind, and caught an early flight to a nearby area the next evening. After some bouncing around on various night flights, we returned. He made me swear that we would never fight like that again, a promise I was only too relieved to make, and that we would never tell anyone about it. We kissed in the Washington drizzle, outside the depressing little airport of Forks before we went back to them all.

Life had taken on a regimented structure; each moment of the day planned in my mind, each action pre-approved by whichever part of me produced common sense. This was a condition I had set myself as soon as the wheels of the plane had hit the cold, wet ground of Forks. That we had returned did not necessarily mean that things would go back to normal. They wouldn't. I would not allow it. Spontaneity and carelessness were luxuries I could not afford. Everything was premeditated now. Nothing left to chance.

Though it had taken many decades to perfect, I knew that this was something I was capable of; this kind of strength. The kind of strength that would allow me to breathe through such pain that might drive a human to it's knees. This situation that would undoubtedly shatter the fragile mind of a lesser being, I could endure it. Endure the agony, the madness and the swirling, furious heartache (for sheer lack of a better word) that a human might quite literally die of.

Emmett hadn't understood at first, but something in him seemed to come to terms with it after the first day. He would ask me, what was wrong? Why didn't I want to join in with everyone? I had no explanations for him, but I refused to lie. So I'd shrugged and smiled, more often than not pulling him in for a kiss that would make him smile, but could not chase the edge of concern from his lovely eyes.

But...despite all this, it was better; that much was obvious despite the fact we had only been back two days. Even living in such a limited, prison-like state of mind, it was better than being so far away from him. We rarely ever spoke, we never touched, I had yet to see him in anything but passing – still, it didn't matter. He was nearby and that was sufficient to satisfy whatever primal, utterly unfathomable need within us both. A basic need, almost at a cellular level - it remained beyond my comprehension. But it's demand was uncompromising and we had both failed to disobey it. Any other person might have been overwhelmed with hopelessness; a sense of no control in their own life, but instead I was resigned to it. After so long existing within the same paradigm I could hardly begin to fall apart now. It was simply another aspect of the half life we strived, and always failed, to avoid.

He remained the forbidden counterpart of my soul...my self.

Only now I was trying to be a good person. Admittedly, it was a change of pace, considering my track record. I wasn't signing myself up for volunteer organisations, I wasn't giving large sums of my money to charities (though Carlisle and Esme always did), I wasn't even going to be nicer to Bella when I saw her at this party tonight.

No, instead I was trying desperately to carve out a rhythm for life that did not involve such abhorrent betrayal.

I looked down at the mess I had made with the pen. Trembling fingers weren't the best choice for writing Hallmark cards. It seemed greatly unfair, but not cosmically unexpected, that I would end up having to write Bella's birthday card from Emmett and myself. I looked down at the mess I'd made of the otherwise flawlessly clean, white card and a shock went through me.

Dear Bella, Happy Birthday.

Lots of love, Rosalie and Edward.

I stared open mouthed at the stupid, obvious and potentially devastating mistake and seriously questioned my own sanity. How the hell had that happened? What was wrong with me? Was there some sick, masochistic part of me that wanted this to all blow up in my face? Yes, there was a similarity between the names Emmett and Edward. But an 'E' and six letters in the name wasn't enough to forgive the transgression.

I stared hard at the two names, close together. Those names were never meant to be synonymous. Never written together. Never.

In one swift motion I rose from the kitchen table, straight to the sink. I tore the card into tiny pieces, no bigger than my fingernails, and then rinsed them down the drain, watching them swirl away into oblivion.

My fingers were wet and shaking, but I tried and succeeded in pulling myself together very quickly.

No-one missed me in the time that I purchased another card for the dreaded event in the upcoming hours. If Emmett noticed that the card wasn't the one he had originally picked out, he didn't comment. He kissed me and congratulated me on having the emotional maturity to write a greetings card. Kissing followed it's natural course of progression and I found myself all too willing to become lost in his embrace, his kisses, his touch, the feel of his body flush against my own. The beautiful familiarity, the overflowing love and lightness...it was almost enough to clear my mind of those two words, those two names that should never, would never, be side by side in anything but dispute.

But before we could even get close to removing a single item of clothing, Esme was calling us all downstairs to help Alice with the preparations for this forsaken party. Emmett laughed, resting his forehead against mine, our noses just shy of brushing.

"Timing, as always," he muttered, kissing me again with a sense of finality.

"Can't we..." I faltered, my throat sticking for a moment. I was more out of breath than I'd realised. "Can't we just blow this party off?"

His features turned serious and he pulled away a little. I was wrapped around him, quite literally. My arms and legs encircling him as he held me pressed against the wall outside of our room. Because he pulled away, I was forced to let go and regain equilibrium. I stood up, feeling dizzy and disorientated, but it passed quickly. I kept my arms around his neck as though he was a lifeline to somewhere constant. Which he was.

"Babe," he said, firmly. "We're going."

I couldn't stop it. "Why?"

He rolled his eyes, just managing to remain light-hearted. "Because Edward is our brother, and because Bella's important to him. Isn't that enough?"

Oh yes. That was plenty. Our brother.

I could see that the easiest thing to do in order to quickly diffuse a potentially explosive situation, was simply to acquiesce to the common decency of what he was saying. For once, I forced myself to do exactly that. I owed Emmett so much, most of which could never be repaid, but this...I could do this, I supposed. I could make his life that much easier. I could attend the 'party' and even do so without being overly difficult about it.

"You're right," I agreed with a shrug. "Don't get used to hearing it or anything, but you're right. I'm being a baby, I guess."

Judging from the way his eyebrows shot up into his hairline, it certainly wasn't what he was expecting me to say. "Well...that's...great," he managed lamely. "Really, I'm proud."

Hand in hand, we went together to contribute combined efforts towards Alice's ridiculously overenthusiastic plans for Bella's birthday party. This was the way things would be from now on. This was how it had to be. Brother. He could only be a brother to me now, nothing more.

I ignored the screaming outrage that welled up inside of me at such a notion, and with a smile helped blow up balloons and fill crystal bowls with water and flowers, in honour of the girl my brother so loved.

---

I had known from the very birth of the idea that it would be hellish, but still my imagination had not come quite close enough to touching upon the reality.

Hellish...it was beyond hellish.

Celebrating life and mortality was most certainly not my idea of a good time anyway. We, as a family, were biologically dead. We had died, endured death, ceased to circulate within the mortal coil. Birthdays were not exactly a popular celebration by anyone's standards, especially not by mine.

Especially not when the birthday in concern belonged to Isabella Swan. Though I did not dislike her as much as I was forced to exude, I certainly wasn't brimming with reasons why I wanted to celebrate her birth and general existence in this world.

Add to that awful popular music, streamers, balloons and food...hellish fell startlingly short to full depict the churning horror within me.

Waiting for she and Edward to arrive, I realised I wasn't the only one who felt this way. Judging by the way Jasper stood to one side, leaning against a darkened, shadowy wall, he was about as enthused as I was. Our eyes caught across the space between us and he smiled a small smile, rolling his eyes minutely. I felt a wave of affection brush over me; the mental equivalent of an affectionate wink or a causal hug.

Jasper's concurrence of my feelings was reassuring, but he and I were the only ones not caught up in the frenzied excitement. Alice was in her element like I hadn't seen her in years. Esme was almost as excited, only overshadowed by Alice's bounding delight that she had a new sister to shower with affection in the endless human ways that would be meaningless to one of us. Emmett was obviously pleased to be here for both Bella and Edward. I knew he liked Bella; he wouldn't deny it or lie to reassure me, he just hadn't announced it officially. Yet. I wondered why it didn't feel like a betrayal.

Edward, what little I had seen of him in the last two days, was also excited. Excited in that pathetic, angsty, 'but-what-if-something-bad-happens-while-she's-opening-presents?' kind of way. He continued to struggle with the duality of his sentiments towards her. It was obvious; he loved her, needed her, adored her...but equally he wanted to protect her and a part of him knew that staying wasn't exactly the way to ensure nothing bad happened to her.

Amused, I pondered how that would be viewed from an exterior perspective. Absolute Needy Love Vs. It's For The Best. She was forbidden, delicate and fragile...he could accidentally kill her at any moment, but if he was strong enough and brave enough then maybe they could have their amazing love could blossom. It was almost predictable; a cliché in many ways.

"Rose," Emmett's voice sent me reeling back to reality with a 'SNAP!'.

"Hmm?" I asked, shaking my head to clear it.

"Can you hang these please?" he asked, handing me garlands made with real flowers. White lilies and magenta zinnias. I was surprised they weren't roses, in keeping with the otherwise singular floral theme. I knew deep down that Alice meant nothing by it, using thousands of roses to celebrate the birthday of Edward's true love, but it irritated me on a small, petty level.

These particular flowers were ice cold, frozen overnight; I could only wonder how and where Alice had accomplished this, as we most certainly did not own a refrigerator.

"Sure," I said with what I hoped was a natural smile. "Why aren't they already hung? They'll be here soon."

"Alice forgot, Edward's stalling as much as he can."

"Alice forgot?" I echoed, incredulously as Emmett hoisted me up on one hand so I could reach the ceiling and string the beautiful decorations all along the fairy lights already in place. "How did that happen?"

"She's been a little distracted with Jazz," he told me, walking along casually as I balanced perfectly on his open palm with one foot. "He should have hunted."

"Standing right here," Jasper pointed out equitably, waving from across the room.

"Oh right. Jasper, you should have gone hunting."

"I'm fine," was his short, unconvincing reply.

Finished with the last minute chore, I hopped down neatly and resumed my place, leaning against a doorway. "Anything else?"

"Probably, knowing Alice," he replied with a lopsided grin. "You look gorgeous, by the way."

"This old thing?" I replied playfully.

He leaned in closer, his hand coming up to cup my face and trace his thumb over my lips but just as he was about to kiss me, Alice's chirping voice sounded through the house.

"They're here! They're here! Positions everyone!"

"What, are we supposed to be in alphabetical order or something?" Emmett mumbled, pulling away again with a brief, apologetic kiss on the cheek and the promise of 'later' in his eyes.

Edward's sudden presence in the house sent thousands of little messages darting all over my body, useless instincts and wasted impulses. I shrugged them off, willing my mind towards neutrality. It was times like these I wished I had the ability to meditate. I knew Jasper could because he had tried to teach me, but my mind was always whirring a million miles a minute. Never quiet, never still. Inner peace didn't seem like something I was about to achieve any time soon, but still...it would have been useful just then.

The only thing that would help me now, was my ability to retreat inwards. I could shut out a large portion of this night with a little work. If I kept the primary controls on autopilot, I could allow my mind to drift elsewhere.

Greetings commenced; hugs and kisses all around for Miss Swan. I watched her distantly, able to achieve that necessary neutrality. She looked at me once and then away hastily, intimated regardless.

Edward looked at me, nodding in acknowledgement. I nodded back, marvelling at the sheer mastery of our outward deceptions.

His attentions quickly resumed their primary focus. He was so close to her all the time; hovering over her as if death might befall her at any given moment. Tragic, really, that the container of his happiness was such a fragile, breakable little thing.

Emmett was chatting easily to her, proving my earlier theory that he genuinely liked Bella.

"You haven't changed at all," he was saying with mock disappointment. "I

expected a perceptible difference, but here you are, red-faced just like always."

"Thanks a lot, Emmett," she replied, blushing deeper. I hated that she smelled of such fresh, mouth-watering blood. Though I was mercifully free of whatever heightened fixation Edward had concerning her scent, she still smelled....good.

He laughed pleasantly, obviously trying to make bridges on behalf of his standoffish wife. "I have to step out for a second, don't do anything funny while I'm gone." He left to install the present we had finally decided to get her. Selecting a gift for Bella had been difficult to say the least. Especially considering it was coming from Jasper, Emmett and myself – arguably the three who liked her the least. A car stereo had seemed like a sufficiently detached but useful gift.

Another glance in Jasper's direction and I caught another miniscule, almost invisible version of an eye-roll. He seemed as bored and as duty bound as I was. It was reassuring, mostly. But the circles under his eyes were worrying. He should have hunted before attending.

I wished I could leave. Though Alice had spent hours planning this, and even longer in the general execution of her plans (only Alice could make a human's birthday party into an extravagant, highly expensive three ring circus), I was desperate to be somewhere, anywhere else. I felt somewhat claustrophobic all of a sudden, everything was too bright, too clustered. My attempts to retreat inward were failing because Edward was there, in the room. I was caught fully in the atmosphere, forced to endure God only knew how many hours in this childish masquerade.

But I took a deep, steadying breath, counted to ten and then carried on. It had to be endured; another necessary evil.

Alice announced that it was time to open presents, despite the fact that Bella had only just removed her coat. She guided her over to the table with delighted intent. I cracked a smile at the right moment when the 'joke' about the car stereo came out, while everyone laughed. Bella thanked us all verbally, reeling off our names from the tag.

When she said my name, for some reason, Edward's eyes snapped unexpectedly onto mine. I felt it instantly and my eyes went straight to his, drawn like magnets.

My breath caught in my chest, jarring and terrifying. Only moments ago I could have slipped into a coma from boredom, but now every part of my body was alive, alert and dangerously thrumming with liquid electricity. He didn't look away, either. He was staring at me so strangely, almost...almost to check I was real. To make himself believe I was really there.

Then it was gone, he looked away and I was left breathless and shaken. Bella's words had pulled his attention from me, thankfully, before my brilliant plans of detachment and loyalty disintegrated.

Emmett came back and I forced my attention onto him, Jasper moved a little closer, seemingly to get a better look at the gift from Alice and Edward, but I knew it was a secret show of solidarity. A tiny, otherwise invisible display of a reassurance.

"I didn't spend a dime," he promised her soothingly. Then, as if to make a point to me, he reached out and brushed a stray lock of her hair away, his fingertips tracing her skin. My back teeth ground together, but my face remained neutrally impassive. A feat, if I did say so myself.

And then, quite unexpectedly, the situation went from being hellishly dull to actual hell.

I heard, as did we all, the razor edge of the paper slice the flesh open. In the microsecond it took for oxygen to mingle with the previously blue blood, the essence of it was on the back of my tongue...in my mouth and I had to grind down on the instinctive, overwhelming desire to have that blood, to know that taste.

All too late I realised what would happen next.

I knew I should have moved, should have tried to stop him but I just didn't. It wasn't malicious intent, it wasn't grave curiosity to see Bella torn apart...it was just blank, helpless inertia.

Everything happened very fast, though I was able to see it all perfectly. Edward throwing Bella backwards, into the table covered with glass bowls and plates. Jasper lunging forward, trying to get to Bella in order to rip her to pieces and drown himself in the blood we were all tantalised by. Edward then slamming bodily into Jasper, knocking him backwards...hard.

Emmett was immediately behind Jasper and his strong arms locked him securely into place. Jasper continued to fight to get to the source of the blood.

The blood...it was everywhere. I felt myself drawn unbidden into it's thrall. My mouth filled with venom, my teeth itched to know the ripping of flesh, to bathe in that delicious warmth.

Bella looked from her arm up at us all...terrified. For once, I saw real, genuine fear there in her eyes. Her mortality seemed very tangible then.

Carlisle's voice was shaken. "Emmett, Rose, get Jasper outside."

Emmett snapped into action, bearing the brunt of Jasper's struggles. I was forced to put my hand to my mouth and over my nose to stop the overpowering lure of her blood from reaching the primitive part of my brain.

Jasper was snapping and clawing for anything now, desperate to get at her luscious blood. I hated seeing him in such a way; he had enough to deal with, without this.

Before leaving the room, I turned to Edward, crouched down by Bella in a protective, animalistic stance. I aimed the thought directly at him, loud and clear.

'What did you really expect, Edward?'

The wildness faltered only for a moment, I saw hurt in those eyes I knew too well, before it vanished altogether. Bella was looking at me; probably assuming I was thinking something nasty about her.

My husband and I managed to drag poor Jasper outside into the cool night air. He was hyperventilating, struggling...but he was weaker now. I wondered if this was what Edward had been forced to do with Emmett. I knew the story, of course, but Emmett had never been specific. Some things belonged between brothers.

"It's alright," he was telling Jasper, still keeping him in his iron grip. "Calm down!"

We took him to the very bottom end of the yard, as far from the house as possible. Emmett never let go of him for one second, while I stayed alert and ready should he somehow get free and attempt to go back inside and kill her.

Which would have been oh so tragic.

Accompanying the nasty slivery of icy guilt at the base of my spine, something else began to prickle in my mind. A sense of De Ja Vu. This scene seemed very familiar. The whole set up; the paper-cut, Jasper trying to kill her...

I ignored it for the time being, trying to maintain focus on current events.

"Jasper!" I said, trying to get him to look into my eyes. "Jasper, look at me! Take deep breaths, clear your mind...it's going to pass, you'll see."

After another agonisingly long minute, it did. The shuddering slowed into stillness and the wildness in his eyes was replaced with bitter self loathing and shame. Emmett kept hold of him, but adjusted his arms so it wasn't quite so painful for either of them. I hadn't moved from the space in front of him.

"There, see?" Emmett said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "It's fine. It's all fine. Jesus, Jazz – you got it bad. Fifty years and still as dangerous as ever. Gotta say I don't envy you, bro."

Emmett attempt at lightening the thick, heavyset atmosphere didn't quite fall flat, but it didn't seem to penetrate Jasper in any way at all.

"He'll never forgive me," he muttered finally, eyes tight shut and facing downwards.

"Of course he will," I answered easily. "You're his brother."

He laughed mirthlessly. "Which is what compared to her?"

I had nothing to say to that, so I just took his hand in mine and held it tight. He squeezed it back, hard. Emmett looked at our intertwined hands and then gave me a small, sad smile.

Bella's almost-death had the three of us united once again. Only a few months ago we had all stood at one of a room not far from where we stood now, and declared it for the best that she die. We three had campaigned for it, insisted that it was the best way to proceed. We had suggested her death in calm, collected tones; mercifully, considerately. But her death, nonetheless, had been our ambition.

To see us now, struggling to keep her alive...irony didn't quite cover it.

Another minute of silence and then we all sensed Edward coming. Maybe I sensed it first, but I didn't react until the others did. Jasper looked wretched, ashamed.

"Is she alright?" Jasper asked before Edward had even reached us.

"She's fine," he replied warily. I knew, without having to turn and see it, that he was surveying the situation. "Carlisle's taking care of her."

"I'm sorry," Jasper said without preamble. "I'm so sorry."

Edward walked right past me, to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know, I know you didn't mean to do it." Something sounded a little broken, fractured perhaps. He was more shaken than he seemed.

"It's no excuse," Jasper spat with abundant self loathing. "I'm weak, a disgrace."

"No," I countered sharply. "You're not. We were all tempted; if you'd hunted today you would have been fine."

Edward looked at me, his lips in a tight line. I knew he was reading my mind, trying to discern what my angle on this would be.

'Reassuring my brother is my angle,' I thought directly at him, forcing it into neutrality.

Something...uncertainty perhaps....was flickering through him. "Don't blame yourself," he said to Jasper, though he was still looking at me for the first two words. "Like Rosalie said, you haven't hunted. That's all."

Nothing to do with the fact that Jasper still indulged in human blood from time to time. Nothing at all.

"Exactly," Emmett offered firmly. "Accidents happen, man."

I was about to verbally agree, when Edward said, quite out of the blue, "Rosalie, can I speak to you, please?"

The terseness and urgency underlying his words left me speechless, except to nod. He gave Jasper another reassuring pat on the shoulder, thanking Emmett before he walked briskly to the other corner of the vast yard, close to the tree we had once nearly destroyed together.

"What is it?" I asked as he came to a stop, back facing me.

Silence filled the air, heavy and dense. It seemed as though he was struggling with the choice of what exactly to say. His hesitation was like nails on a chalkboard to me, grating through meticulously structured walls of protective tranquillity. My fingers curled and twitched as he took long, obviously necessary seconds to decide upon his words.

Words. How I hated words. A filtering mechanism, stripping away the truth of what lay inside. Never fully accurate, never able to communicate the endless layer of complexities and clauses that comprised of any genuine feeling. A stupid, human accomplishment and I'd never despised it quite so much as those moments as I watched him struggle to find a way to work within the boundaries that they created. He didn't need to use them, that was what irked me so. The particular hunch of tension in his shoulder blades, the rigidity of his neck and the violent trembling of his fingertips spoke volumes of what he needed to, but could not, say to me.

He settled for the obvious choice, after agonising moments had passed us by.

"She nearly died, Rose," he whispered. "She nearly died."

It took vast quantities of self control not to say what I genuinely wanted to; I was only too aware of my husband and our brother (the only brother I really had) standing close by.

"But she didn't," I said, controlled and measured. "She'll be fine. A few stitches, some band aids. Nothing unusual for her, so I gather. Edward," I added, because I could see where this was headed and he needed to stop it. Someone needed to stop him. "It was going to happen eventually. She's going to bleed sometimes. We just need to be better prepared for it."

A part of me marvelled at my levelheadedness. Another part cursed it.

He shook his head, I turned away a little because I knew too intimately the way that hair felt moving beneath my fingers and it would not do for Emmett to hear my breath stolen away. "How can we be prepared for it? We're vampires for Christ's sake! What am I doing, Rose? What am I doing?" The double entendre was staggering.

He turned and hit me with the full force of his stare; intense and blinding as it never was in front of others. A fresh surge of panic rose up because my husband wasn't far away enough that our interactions were in any way private. Edward was wide open; the guile and coldness torn apart in the heat of adrenaline and painful reality. If he was human, I would have said he was in shock.

The thought formed helplessly in my mind.

'What did you expect?'

His face crumpled a little, hurt. "I didn't expect her to die at the hands of someone I love! I didn't expect that!"

"Don't you dare blame Jasper," I warned, voice low and forcibly controlled. "And she didn't die! She's alive, damnit!"

"For how long? How long before it happens again? Before I...I wanted it so badly, Rose. I could taste her all over again, like in Phoenix. There was a split second when I thought...I just thought..."

Were we alone, I would have yanked him into my arms. It was what he needed, why he had stupidly dragged me over here. He needed comforting, telling that everything was going to be alright as long as he got it together. He needed to be held together before he fell apart. Held close and allowed to be weak for just a few moments before he could be strong again. It broke me apart that when he was seriously hurt or shaken, his first real instinct was to come to me.

But we couldn't do that. We could never do that again.

Something shifted in his features, as if I'd hurt him without cause or warning. He took a step backwards, gaining some control over himself. I suspected he was counting to ten, as I often did.

"What should I do?" he asked quietly after a minute.

"Go and take care of her," I managed. "She needs you."

He snorted viciously. "Oh yeah, she'd fall apart without me in her life," he spat to himself, sweeping past me without another word. I stayed there, composing myself for a few more seconds, desperately trying not to think aloud until he had gone, that Bella was not the only one.

---

In the space of four hours the atmosphere in the house had gone from warm excitement (for some of us) to icy cold apprehension. The house seemed exactly that; a house, not a home anymore. Though no-one was speaking about it, we (excluding Alice and Jasper, who had gone to hunt for the next few days) were all waiting for Edward to return from Bella's, it seemed a distinct possibility that we would be leaving soon.

I had seen Edward more emotionally compromised than this, but I had never seen him this shaken up in front of everyone else. Something was wrong and we all knew what.

Alice and I had taken the decorations down very quickly; it seemed such a waste to throw the flowers away, but it wasn't as though Edward would appreciate seeing them if and when he returned tonight.

Restless and brimming with anxiety, I changed clothes, flinging the expensive dress into a corner and yanking on a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt. It didn't help. My hands itched and twitched for something constructive to do, to work on. There was nothing to be done until he arrived.

More than once, Carlisle's hand strayed towards his cell phone and I knew he wanted to call Edward as much as I did. He stopped himself every time, not wishing to intrude upon whatever was happening between them as a couple. I knew what it took for him not to call his first son; I could sense the depths of his anxiety.

Edward didn't come back until 2am. We were all sitting in the same room waiting for him and we all jumped up at the same time upon hearing him enter the house from an upstairs window, to change clothes as was his 'Staying Over At Bella's' routine.

"Edward," Carlisle called up the stairs. It was all he needed to say. After a few minutes of silence, during which I knew he was trying to pull himself together, he came downstairs, in different attire. He radiated something indefinable; danger, loathing, despair.

"Alright then," he said, as we gathered in the hallway. "We need to talk about what we're going to do."

Carlisle nodded understandingly. "How is she?"

Something dark crossed his face, like a shadow. "She'll be fine," he answered. "Because this won't happen again."

It came as no surprise whatsoever. We were all ready for it, prepared to pack up and leave as we had done so many times before.

Esme put her hand on his arm, supporting and loving as ever. "When do you want to leave?"

"As soon as possible," he replied, his tone a harsh shade of grey. "The sooner the better."

"Yeah," Emmett said, probably just to contribute something. "Are you going to come with us or stay a while?"

His lips tightened again. "I'll stay a day or so after you leave to...to make sure she understands."

I was partly amazed that no-one was stating the blindingly obvious here. In fact, I could feel it about to bubble past my lips simply because no-one was saying it.

"Don't mind me pointing out a rather fatal flaw in all this," I began, as everyone turned to me with a pained expression, expecting the worst. Emmett coughed beside me, elbowing me unsubtly. I ignored him and continued. "But you've tried to do this before; tried to leave her and, as I recall, it didn't exactly have the desired outcome."

He glared mutely at me. "What are you saying?"

"You can't live without her, that's what I'm saying. Maybe you should stop and seriously think what you're about to do before you cut your nose off to spite your face!"

"Rosalie," Carlisle warned, sharper than I'd heard in years. "It is Edward's decision."

"That we'll have to live with," I pointed out. "You love her, Edward. Let's not just dismiss that fact because she got a Godamned paper cut!"

Emmett made an incredulous sound beside me, obviously stunned at the position I had taken. Esme seemed troubled, affected by my words.

"She's right, darling," she said to Edward. "Maybe you should think about it for a few weeks."

But Edward had eyes for no-one but me and not in a good way. "Bit of a 180 for you, isn't it, Rosalie?" he asked voice dangerous and cold.

"I'm just saying that you don't walk away from love because there's a chance things might not go the way you want!"

What was I doing? This was my chance, I should have been screaming with joy. He was going to leave her, leave Forks. It was all on the brink of being over, forever. He would be mine again, even if we never could touch one another in anything but accidental, platonic occurrences.

Yet there was something inside of me that would not stand idly by and let him do this to himself. Despite what it cost me to admit it, he did love her and she loved him so much...I couldn't let him rip himself apart like this, not if he wasn't certain.

His jaw worked as he read my mind. His fists were curled tight by his sides; wound tight with tension and God knew what else.

"The way I want?" he echoed, trembling with fury. "She nearly died!"

I braced myself for some serious retaliation, even in the presence of our parents and my husband. "She's a human! She will die! You know this, you refuse to change her and so a part of you must accept it on some level!"

I'd hurt him, I knew it. He hid it well.

"Death is natural for humans, yes. But she shouldn't die like this, not so young, not at the hands of ones she has come to love!"

"So you'll do what? Back away gracefully and let her die alone? Without the person she loves most in the world?"

His upper lip curled in a sneer. "I didn't know you cared so much about her."

Bluntly, I replied, "I care about you."

Carlisle sighed and ran a hand through his hair while Edward turned away in what seemed like disgust, but – to my horribly attuned senses – was something else entirely.

"Rosalie," Carlisle said with familiar resignation. "Despite your feelings, this is between Edward and Bella. We know you care, but this isn't the way to go about it."

But he was wrong, wrong, wrong. This was what Edward needed and no-one knew it. He needed to shout, curse and vent his frustration and self hatred. He would just direct it inwardly if left to his own devices. He needed someone to yell at him and make him see sense before he got too high up on his tower. Only I couldn't give him that. Not now. I could only be a sister to my 'brother' and nothing more.

The conversation veered off after that, probably because I refused to say anything else. I couldn't understand why I felt so annoyed with him for throwing away his only chance of genuine happiness, but the feeling grew and grew to such an extent that Emmett grew concerned. Ten minutes or so after Edward had left, in a less than genial mood, he suggested that I go and join Alice and Jasper hunting. They hadn't gotten very far and it wouldn't take more than half an hour to join them on foot. I was extremely thirsty by this point, we all were after being exposed to such amounts of human blood (except Carlisle, of course). I asked if Emmett would come with me, but he said he would stay and help Carlisle and Esme start packing.

I kissed him before I left and he whispered in my ear how he was proud of me.

Proud of me for what?

The night was damp and dreary, the scent of fresh rain not far off. I could have driven, but I wanted to walk. I wanted to feel the earth beneath my bare feet, the wind hitting my icy, impervious skin, rushing through my hair.

Black tendrils of thought curled and twined inside my mind, brushing against one another every now and then. The cold wind against my colder skin was not sufficient to soothe those curving, arching contemplations. Too many factors were changing, about to change...already changed. Too much, too soon with no time or room to compensate for what this could mean.

Though I was lost in tangled, complex thoughts and deliberations, I should have sensed it. Immortal sensed were astoundingly sharp. There was no excuse for it, yet I was distracted and confused by my own actions – so much stronger than I would have thought myself capable of and so my supreme vampire senses weren't at the forefront of my mind where should have been.

By the time I did sense him, it was all too late.

I took a deep, lung filling breath and closed my eyes trying to find that centre again. "Edward," I said very clearly into the cold, impartial night. "Go. Away."

He moved into a sparse patch of moonlight and though there was no face I was more familiar with (including my own) the sight of him drew a gasp from my throat. He was terrifying; truly, monstrously, frightening as I had never seen him before.

His eyes were drowning in darkness; shadows and circles of nameless hungers and desires. The pallor he usually wore had been replaced by a sheer white translucency. His lips were parted, revealing those teeth we all strove to conceal from humanity. The set of his features was wild, feral, uncontrolled. Our kind were known for their beauty, breathtaking radiance...this was the flipside.

The monster he could not unleash anywhere near Bella. The monster that must have been clawing for freedom, tearing at his sanity to gain better control.

It was succeeding.

"No," he said, in a voice I hardly recognised. Higher, softer...a whisper of a blade as it sliced through the air. "I think I'll stay."

"You like the scenery that much, fine. But I am leaving," I said loudly and firmly, as though trying to communicate that I wasn't afraid of him.

Foolish, to lie to a telepath.

"Foolish indeed," he purred, but it was devoid of all and any affection. I wondered if I was even speaking to Edward at this point. He seemed too far gone, so lost to his own homicidal desires and bloodlust; let loose because his goodness was irreversibly incapacitated by a violent attack of self hatred.

"You should come with me," I tried, still not moving from where I had frozen upon first sensing him. I knew the posture to assume; I knew the drill for this sort of thing, but I couldn't force my shoulders to square. I couldn't deaden my eyes or bare my teeth. "We all need to hunt."

He smiled; a demonic, slow curl of those lips. "No. I don't want to hunt."

I wasn't stupid enough to walk into asking what he did want. Instead I tried a different tack, hoping it didn't backfire.

'Edward? You have to stop. This is not the way to go.'

The monster's smile turned into a snarl, warning me off trying to communicate with the more reasonable half of what comprised us as immortals.

"Look at you," he sneered softly. "So full of determination not to fall prey to the darkness. A new leaf and all that? Nothing so unattractive as stupidity."

'Think about Bella,' I thought, desperately. 'Think about how much you love her, how close she came to dying!'

Again, I prepared for retaliation – physical, verbal or mental – but he just smiled again; the sneer melting upwards like some travesty of a Dali painting.

"What do you think triggered this?"

Put in black and white terms, what was happening was very simple. Edward's pain barrier for self loathing and guilt had eclipsed itself. He couldn't cope and so the demon within had snatched the opportunity and stolen the controls for a while.

But grey pervaded, as always.

It wasn't a nice simple split. Edward was the demon. This was Edward. Just less controlled than usual. A few layers peeled back, a few of the rigid rules we placed ourselves under...gone. He was doing this, he was driving and speaking and making these decisions but, well - some things were just too complicated even for introspective articulation.

Almost losing his love, his link to happiness had caused his to realise very quickly that he needed to sever the tie. Not only for her sake (which it was, mostly) but also for his own sake. The concept of her death was unimaginable and he had been confronted with the possibility of it that night. Again. He could not endure her death, it would destroy him. He knew it. Some pieces of him were selfish; they did not want to be destroyed.

As he read my thoughts, he was moving steadily closer to me. I stood my ground, prepared to run if necessary. I knew I should do just that; run and not look back. But I wanted to help him.

"Help me then," he breathed, far less demonic this time. Humanity bleeding into it, warming the enticement. "Help me, as only you can."

He was close enough now that I could count his eyelashes (eighty seven on the left ninety four on the right) and feel the energy humming from within him. Another step and our bodies would be pressed together; pieces of the same broken object, sliding into completion.

I put out a hand, flat to his chest and pushed him forcefully backwards even as that part of me, equally monstrous to the thing before me, growled and scathed at such a denial of unspoken pleasures.

"No," I said, starting to shake a little. "I'm aware it's not a word you're very good with at the moment, but get it through your thick skull. No."

"Why won't you help me?" he demanded; unevenness cracking the question mark.

"I will, just not like this."

He sneered again, disdainful of my attempts. "How then?"

"You can...we can just...talk."

It sounded pathetic to my own ears, but I was trying damnit and that was more than I could say for him.

"And what will we talk about, Rosalie? Shall we speak of the party? Pleasant, wasn't it? Shame about Bella almost dying, but such a faux pas can be overlooked, I'm sure."

"You wanted to kill her."

It worked a little. The darkness was replaced by bright sadness and sorrow, if only minutely. The flawless cold cracked and broke just a touch by the heat of guilt and self loathing.

"As did you."

"I don't love her, though. I cannot imagine how that must feel. Loving her and yet longing to devour her. The duality of it must be taxing, to say the least."

"Stop it," he whispered, fear belying the demand. "This isn't what I want."

"No, you want to use me to lose the pain of it all for a few stolen minutes, maybe hours. You want to forget Bella and everything else, wrapped up inside me. I won't let you."

"Why not?" he practically spat.

"Because you're going to change everything and you need to do it fully within your own consciousness, not lost in mine."

"I need you," he ground out, like it cost him something to admit it. "I need you to keep me steady. I'll...I'll break apart if you don't hold me together, like you thought earlier in the yard."

"I can hold you together in other ways," I offered, burying the fact that I didn't even know if such a thing was possible. "I can help you in other ways. Let me try."

He held my gaze evenly, reading me in a speculative way. "I know you want me, Rose. Why are you trying so hard to resist it?"

"Because your heart is breaking. That's why. Anything that happens between us now, apart from destroying any remaining self respect I might have for myself, would be a direct result of me taking advantage of you." He made a move to object, but I cut him off. "Don't deny it. You're in pieces and it's only going to get worse. Like I said, there has to be something else I can do help besides..."

I left it unfinished because saying it seemed like an unnecessary provocation.

The darkness lingered determinedly, but he seemed furtively hopeful. Trusting.

"Like...like what?"

"You need to hunt," I told him in a manner that brokered no room for arguments. "Then we're going to play chess."

"Pardon?"

"We are going to play chess," I told him in what was an undeniably threatening manner.

"We never play chess," he said flatly. "I'm a mind reader. I'd crush you."

"I can block you. Mislead you. It's true, we never play; but that's going to change."

"I don't want to play chess."

"Of course. You want to mope around doing nothing for the next few days while you work out what to say to Bella to let her down not-so-gently. I can see the superiority of your plan."

His mind worked hard, following my reasoning for suggesting such a ridiculous thing – a pastime! – at such an interval in his life. Honestly, I wasn't sure it was the best plan I had ever conceived but at least it was something that didn't involve us ripping each other to pieces and the melding them back together during mind blowing, earth shattering, devastatingly beautiful sex.

Finally, his lips formed a thin line and he nodded once.

I took it as a sign of progress and, ignoring the bitterness of my own monster, went with him to hunt with our brother and sister.

---

So it became my responsibility to be the strong one for the next few months, maybe even years. None of us, not even Alice could know how long this was going to last but I had already promised myself that no matter how long the duration, I would be there for him. I could be strong now, I could hold him together while he fell apart; which he was absolutely going to do.

The smaller details, packing up the house and moving the furniture (important pieces; his piano, my desk, Esme's art, Carlisle's cross etc...) were swept over with the barest of interests. We were all well versed in these proceedings, so it was of little concern to anyone. Though we all kept a respectful distance from Edward, we were all utterly focused on him, waiting for some sign that he needed one of us to help him.

Or maybe using the word 'we' was just my way of deflecting how much I was obsessing.

Alice, Jasper and Esme left first; they went ahead to Denali. Tanya had been overly gracious over the phone, insisting we all come and stay for as long as we wanted until we found somewhere else to reside. I had hidden my disgust about that admirably; there were more important things to focus on than my rivalry (rivalry...as if she even compared to me) with Tanya.

So Carlisle and I stayed behind, waiting for Edward to do what he needed to before he left Forks forever.

He hadn't been pleased about the fact that we were staying with him; in fact, he had been fervently against it, demanding that we give him space and respect his privacy as he went about the most heartbreaking task of his entire existence.

I knew he didn't really mean it. Deep down, beneath all that crippling independence and obstinacy, he was grateful that we'd ignored his protests, relieved that he didn't have to make the journey away from her alone.

Part of me marvelled that he was able to do it at all. I knew, given a reversal of the situation, that I wouldn't be able to leave Emmett. Even if it was for his own good; even if it meant he would be living a safer life, I knew I couldn't leave him. He was my whole world's happiness wrapped up in one being.

Of course, my mind just had to add, there was one reason I would leave him.

Just one.

I smashed that thought aside, furiously determined not to entertain such musings at such a time. It was a moot point; over, gone, finished, impossible, lost.

This wasn't what he needed from me, and if it was, then...well...he would just have to make do with other forms of comfort. And chess.

In truth, I wasn't certain where the sudden certainty that chess would fix everything had come from but it was a plan, at least.

A large part of this plan stemmed from my determination to prove that we could have something resembling a normal relationship; that we could be close in other ways. We had always avoided such activities as these, terrified that any outwards affection or interaction would cause suspicion in the minds of those around us. There seemed little point now, as Emmett knew a tiny, twisted portion of the truth; that we had been minimally involved at an early point in our immortal lives. So now it seemed possible that we could try to salvage something of a long since dysfunctional sibling relationship. Maybe if we could do that...

Maybe we could ignore the alternative; the furious, demanding alternative.

Chess seemed a little bit infantile now, considering the weight of what he was would be feeling when he finally got her alone and told her what he needed to tell her. Yet I could think of nothing else to distract him with; nothing legitimate anyway.

Part of me knew I could give him more; knew that I could take that pain and self loathing, shame and guilt...take it all away and replace it with dizzying heat and comfort, rightness and completion. It would have been so easy and yet I couldn't bring myself to seriously contemplate it. I was the strong one now and that meant he was relying on me to make the decisions that would shape him in the oncoming months. If he could leave Bella, break his own heart and destroy his own happiness, all because it was the right thing to do, then I could do that too. The Right Thing. Unfamiliar as it was conceptually, it was the plan.

"Emmett gets knocked into a stream by a bear," Carlisle said after a moment or two, in which my busy mind had filled the silence with introspection. I blinked, returning to the room and smiled, my mind immediately latching onto the memory.

"White River, Ontario, 1954."

Carlisle nodded, smiling with me. This was a game we would sometimes play; we would take it in turns to name an event or occurrence and the other would have to name the year and place. "That was a nice little town."

"You love any place with a population less than a thousand," I pointed out.

We were both seated on the floor, backs against opposing walls. The furniture was moved into a corner, covered with several white sheets. Neither one of us wanted to read, so instead we'd sat down on the floor and started to play, waiting for Edward to come back. The anticipation of his return wasn't exactly pleasant, so the distraction was welcome.

"Your turn," he pointed out.

I thought only for a moment. "Alice and Jasper have a fight, Jasper storms out and breaks the back door."

"Riverside, Wyoming. 1971. Quite an event, I seem to recall."

True indeed, as Alice and Jasper very rarely fought. If ever a disagreement occurred between them, it was intensely private and often unnoticed until they had made up. This had been a particularly bad fight between them; Alice had not taken kindly to Jasper using his gift to influence her emotions, even though she had been suffering from depression at the time.

"I was so shocked, I'd never even heard Jasper raise his voice until then. It was terrifying." I sighed, looking back at Carlisle, waiting for him to pick a memory.

"Edward dives face first off the roof, wrecking the patio."

My mind did a little double take at that, processing the time period to which he referring. Throat tighter than it should have been, I responded with "Astoria, Oregon. 1965."

I didn't comment on his choice of memory, too caught up in trying to ignore it's connotations. That had been an...eventful year, to say the least. The endless trips around the world, different places, so many lighthouses. Then finally a small town on the sea, a rotting lighthouse and hiding inside of it, Edward.

'You are my life...what language would you like that in?'

"Sorry," Carlisle said gently, sensing something to make him regret his choice of memory. "I wasn't thinking."

I waved a dismissive hand and smiled. "Unnecessary. Edward suffered that year, not me."

His eyes never left mine; non-judgemental as always, but not quite believing. "Of course."

"Uh..." I scoured my brain, trying to think of another memory, quickly. "Esme breaks the first baseball bat and we switch to aluminium from then on."

"1961. Wreck Cove, Nova Scotia," he answered easily, something else on his mind now other than our game. There was something akin to a calculated pause; unusual for Carlisle who was never anything but supportive and understanding. When he spoke, it clicked.

"Edward falls in love for the first time."

Ah.

"March, 2005. Forks, Washington." My reply was instantaneous; detached and cool. All too late I realised it was the wrong way to respond; I shouldn't have even answered, given the circumstances in which we found ourselves. I should have called him on such bad timing, lack of tact – anything.

He didn't look away from me, just folded his hands over his knees. "Debatable."

"Maybe this isn't the best thing to be talking about right now," I tried, all too late. "He's out there right now, breaking up with her."

That seemed to work sufficiently to get him off the dangerous track he had been following. "Yes," he sighed, sadly. "I remain unconvinced of his decision, but it must be just that – his decision."

Though I agreed on basic principle, I wished I had managed to dissuade him all the same. Edward had a tendency to be self sacrificing at times and though I could easily understand the nobility and chivalry behind his actions, that immovable streak of martyrdom irritated me. Knowing the pain he was causing himself, potentially unnecessary, was creating something of an almost tangible agony within me. It was the waiting; nerves and tension, fraught bundles of sickly anticipation all connected by something inexplicably familiar. It made sense to a certain extent; his pain would be my pain, his sadness would be mine and vice versa.

"Interfering would achieve nothing," I pointed out numbly, trying to bring myself back into the room with Carlisle. "His stubbornness is only outdone by my own."

A low chuckle drew my attention back to Carlisle; he was shaking his head. "I remember."

He smiled, staring off at the wall in front of him. I remembered the night we'd painted this room – all decked out in jeans and t-shirts. Emmett had rolled paint all the way up my back; the catalyst of a rather counter productive paint fight that broke out between everyone, ending only when Carlisle upended an entire tin of magnolia over Edward's head, while we fell doubled over with laughter. It had been such a good night, spent doing nothing but making an obscene mess.

I couldn't help but observe how specifically talented Edward and I were in such an area.

"When do you think he'll be back?" I asked after a few moments of companionable quietness.

Carlisle took a breath, contemplating as I was the scene that must have been unfolding even then. It was difficult to know that he was out there, ripping out his own heart in the name of love and nobility. Part of me wanted to slap him; part of me wanted....not to slap him.

"When he's ready," he answered after a while; an obvious non-answer, but it wasn't like I was expecting an estimated time.

"What if he's not able to come back? What if he leaves and we never see him again?" I knew I was supposed to be strong, damnit, but the panic and fear that this would be enough to drive him away permanently was overwhelming and I had never been good at concealing things from Carlisle. Mostly.

"I do not think he will do that," he said solemnly. "He can't do this alone."

"I wonder that he can do it at all."

"He loves her too much to allow himself to be in anyway responsible for her demise. Immortal life has given us much, but it has also taken away any ability any of us might have had towards accepting death. Immortal life means exactly that and though we suffer in many ways, none of us ever has to worry about the death of the other. Edward is ill prepared to face losing her forever, especially at his own hands."

The logical answer to the predicament Carlisle had underlined was horribly obvious; change her. Make her immortal, just like us. One had to wonder at Edward's hesitation to do so. Even through all his existential whining and moping, I did not trust his declarations that we were soulless beings. I knew we were not, as did he. How many times had I touched, seen, embraced his (our) soul? I was not alone in this belief; he knew it as solidly as I did, but obviously could not explain his certainty and it's empirical evidence to our family. So he retained the facade of believing us to be soulless. It made for a very steadfast excuse not to turn Bella into one of us, to the rest of the world at least.

But I, who knew better, could not help but question his motives in keeping her human; weak, vulnerable and ultimately doomed for death, no matter his distance from her.

"True," I said distantly unable to voice my own thoughts. "I suppose we can only be there for him as much as he will allow us to be."

For some reason, beyond my comprehension, Carlisle gave me a strange look then. As though I'd said something out of place, something that confused him. It melted away in a split second and I dismissed it easily.

"Of course," he said, sounding normal – no trace of the strange look inflecting his tone. He shifted position a little, letting his legs flat out completely. "Rosalie..."

The full name and hesitation made me immediately tense up. "Yes?"

"If I ask you a question, and swear it will never go beyond you and I, would you answer it?"

Suddenly terrified, but fully able to disguise it, I replied, "Depending on the question."

"The answer, were you to give it, would not be a simple yes or no. I doubt you will answer it at all, misinterpreting my motives in asking. But I would like to ask anyway, as you and I are so rarely alone in any true sense of the word."

Oh God. Oh holy God, what was happening now?

"Very well."

"How..." he paused, checking himself for phrasing, perhaps. "How did you feel when you were with Edward?"

"Excuse me?" I almost snapped, so unprepared to face such a query.

He winced. "Please don't get upset, it's just something I've always wondered. Neither one of you ever spoke of it after it ended and I was always curious to know exactly what it was you felt for one another."

Carlisle had been my father for so long now, someone I loved and trusted wholeheartedly, it was easy to forget that he was just as sharp and cognisant as I was. He was right; we had never spoken of it, not even while it was happening. I could recall all too well the intervention Edward and I had been greeted with upon making our way downstairs from that roof. My stomach clenched at the recollection of the terribly untrue – but always necessary – things I had said.

…"I used Edward and not only for my vanity. I used him to make sure I could still feel something resembling passion. To distract myself from the means of my death, the events before it and those that I executed after. This is all on me, it was my initiation. I made him feel guilty for being a gentleman. I made him question his own sense of right and wrong, so I could gain from it. We are not in love, nor will we ever be."…

"It was so long ago, Carlisle," I said, sounding weary. "How can it still be of interest to anyone?"

He shrugged beautifully. "Indulge me."

At first I had no intention of doing so; I would flatly refuse to speak of it and spare myself the pain. But then, my mind considered, it would look unaccountably guilty not to answer. If it was so hopelessly irrelevant and unimportant, why couldn't I speak of it?

I would lie, of course. I hated knowing how well I could lie to my father, how well I was about to lie. My mind prepared itself and I took a breath with which to speak.

"Very well. It is a simple matter, though still a sore subject, owing to the sheer embarrassment we both feel because of it."

"Then keep it simple," he suggested kindly, all gentle anticipation. His bright, lovely eyes reminded me of Emmett and I relaxed a little. If I could outright lie to Emmett, I could certainly do so to Carlisle.

"We were young, stupid."

No; we were already old souls, even then. Cursed with knowledge and understanding beyond our years. Not stupid, never stupid. Reckless and dangerous and destructive...never stupid...

"It took a while for me to realise what I was starting to feel for him."

I felt it immediately, confused it for hatred. Bright, burning, overwhelming...never felt anything like it, never before, never again after...

"I had to work hard to get him to even notice me, of course. He was never very interested in me."

Worked to keep his attention away from me; always watching me, always reading me, always seeing too deep down into me. Felt his eyes on me for miles, felt his mind reach in and read mine as if it was really him inside...

"It was always very difficult, knowing he felt nothing for me."

Knowing he loved me, enough to break himself apart and reshape just to fit into my own shadowy world...

"I couldn't accept that he didn't see me like everyone else had. That he didn't pay me such attention."

...that he saw me, truly saw me as no-one ever had. That he looked past everything bad, past everything shallow and cruel and vain. That he wanted to know me as no other had; ever would. That he had no interest in the facade I had constructed. That he could see me and knew me and loved me regardless...

"He resisted, of course."

...could never resist each other, never escape that irresistible rip tide that pulled us both down; drowning in each other, losing everything we had built as individuals...

"But eventually, I managed to convince him. It began slowly, gradually."

...exploded out of nothing, into everything. Too quick, too soon, too much, too familiar, too intimate, too much feeling all at once and surely we were going to break each other, immortal or not...

"It never felt right."

...pulling away, pulling back; never right, never truly belonging back in those separate bodies. Nothing felt right until we were bonded again...

"It was awkward, strange."

...too fluid, too perfect, too beautiful. Never strange, never unfamiliar, never a surprise that we fit together like pieces of the same broken object...

"I suppose it was just taking solace in one another."

...God, why hadn't we been doing this forever? Why couldn't we stay like this forever? How would we survive when we were forced to draw apart and go back to life without this? How could we function again? Life had no meaning, no truth, no beauty when we were apart. The world only made sense when we were tangled together, trying to leave our bodies and become the one and whole that we were. Solace...there would never be solace in knowing what we were, knowing what we supposed to be...and that we never could be...

"Maybe a little curiosity."

...never any mystery, never a secret unshared. Nothing unknown, nothing hidden. Everything blown wide open, each thought and feeling given and taken with the ease born of familiarity. He was me and I was him and we were one and the same, cut in half...

"It made me forget about the past."

...made me memorise everything, made me want to remember every single little detail, no matter how horrible or dark....

"It certainly didn't last very long."

...still feel him inside me now, lingering touches and kisses covered and drenched in rain with the crashed car not yards away from us as we meld into one...

"In the end, we both realised we'd made a mistake."

...a mistake that we didn't accept it for what it was earlier, when our union would have hurt no-one else. A mistake not to trust that feeling, instead of running from it. A mistake to ever involve anyone else in lives that belonged inextricably to only the two of us. A mistake to give hearts that had each other's fingerprints all over them, to others....

"It was a leaning curve, a lesson in control."

...learning how to lie and deceive and hold back on the instinct to touch and kiss and have in front of others. A lesson in control; to control the overwhelming desire to break from the restraints we put in place. A lesson we never fully learned....

"We were never in love."

…"I don't just love you. I adore you, I worship you, I am you. We're the same soul in two bodies and the word 'love' falls inadequate to describe what I feel for you."…

"Emmett changed everything."

…A mediator, a leveler, someone to keep a balance that would prevent us from spiralling away into one another, keep me grounded in reality, love and happiness and somehow Edward too…

"It ended there and then."

"…We can maintain this façade so long as it is exactly that; a façade. A mask for everyone else, which can be discarded when we are alone together. I love you beyond what I ever thought capable, Rosalie. I can't even say how much, there aren't words. Words are for humans, and no human has ever felt this. Let me show youhow much I love you…"

"Our relationship became intensely awkward."

…keeping up appearances, making it less suspicious. Can't let them see us look at each other like that, disguise it with hatred, bitterness, irritation – anything. Never touch in public, never smile or laugh together, fight and struggle to keep it hidden, always hidden from the real world. Too much temptation, too much connection and intensity, hidden away behind coldness and indifference…

"We retained the same dislike we established from the start of things."

…"No-one knows how to hurt me like you do."

"No-one wants to hurt you like I do!"…

"But as time drew on I felt myself building a sort of regard for him, a grudging respect that blossomed in it's own time, into love."

…every day a struggle not to touch, not to break free and give into the love and desire and aching beauty of what we could be if only we were allowed to touch, bond, melt into one another. Every moment of every day and night twisted into agony until we would break down and give in…

"We aren't exactly each other's greatest fan."

…focal point of my universe, my world…

"…but he's my brother and I love him now beyond what I ever thought possible, all those years ago."

…Not a brother, never a brother, never anything but what he is and how he makes me feel and Christ the pain of pretending should have killed me by now…

"It took a long time to admit it, but he's a part of me, I guess."

…He Is Me…

"It's so weird, talking about it."

…lying to you, breaking my own beliefs down into meaningless deceptions and half truths…

"I assumed you knew how I felt about it."

…pray to any God listening that you don't…

"It really isn't anything important."

…it's everything. All else is meaningless noise and movement, a second life of blurred outlines and faded sound…

"Certainly not now, with this looming."

…how will I not touch him? Not give into what he wants, needs? How am I going to keep him together without capitulating?...

"And that about sums it up, really."

…you will never know the truth, never know how deep this really goes, maybe I won't either…maybe neither of us truly will…

I allowed silence to fill the air as he processed the limited words I had used to completely lie about the entire thing. He never commented, never reacted to one piece of meaningless information more than the next and for a few seconds I was convinced he was about to shake his head and demand the truth.

Instead, he let that smile cross his face and said, "Thank you. I know it's difficult talking about it, but I wanted to know."

"Well now you do," I said calmly; an amazing feat, considering how my insides were churning and thrashing. "I just fail to recognise any bearing it has upon this situation."

He shrugged, as if it was obvious. "He needs help. For some reason, you're who I suspect he will turn to the most."

I snorted with laughter. "Hardly."

Now I could vaguely detect something like sympathy. "He loves you too, Rose. More than you know."

I rolled my eyes. "That's neither here nor there, is it?"

"It's why you're here. You can help him in ways none of us can. You know what it's like to reach those depths of darkness he's about to stumble headlong into. You can help him find his way out again."

It made sense, I supposed. I didn't argue the point anymore, my mind was too busy crushing down the cavalcade of memories I was suddenly deluged with, having to state those 'facts' for Carlisle. Despite my perfect, eidetic memory, I found myself struggling to recall a time when my life had been free of lies and deceptions. Ever pre-immortality had been tainted thusly. So many lies.

Yes, Father; I understand why it's not prudent that I further my education.

Yes, Mother; I agree that I need to lose weight.

Yes, Vera; I do love Royce.

Though it was an inescapable clause of living the life I did, I hated lying. A proficiency and impressive talent for it did not lessen my instinctive abhorrence towards it. Always the necessary lies. Never the full truth to anyone except Edward, who was forced to lie almost as much I was. It was depressingly circular.

"What do we do when he returns?"

Neither of us voiced the unspoken concern left hanging there. If he returns.

"Well," he began slowly, considering. "We won't really know until we see him. Until we see how bad it is."

"I think we can safely assume it's going to be pretty bad."

"There are specific variations; each one difference. Edward is, as are you, frustratingly mercurial. His reactions could go any number of ways. He could be openly devastated; he could act as thought nothing was really even wrong. I'm afraid that with my first two children, there came no set rules or instructions. You defy all consistency; any predictability."

And there we were again, our names synonymous beneath the label of unpredictability. Rosalie and Edward. It made me unaccountably nervous; Carlisle's discernment was limitless and often underestimated.

"Edward perhaps," I reasoned in a well controlled tone. "But I do almost the same things every day. The same routine. How can you say that defies consistency?"

He smiled a small half smile, with knowing, yet loving eyes.

"You may follow the beaten track, Rosalie, with regards to everyday life but how you react to it is impossible to predict. You can do the same thing twice in two days; love it one day, hate it the next. The scenery does not shift nor does the repetition of most activities, but your regard for them does. Nothing, if not capricious."

"So," I said, struggling to bring the conversation back to Edward. "What are we supposed to do if he wants to leave and be alone for some huge span of time. What do we do then?"

He inclined his head, shoulders tightening. "We let him."

Carlisle would never impose authority over Edward, or any of us, if it was wholly an entitled decision. I, however, was under no such restrictions. Maybe it would have been easier to let him leave; but it wouldn't help him.

Alone, Edward would fall into a pit of despair and not even bother to try and climb out. His penchant for indulging in misery was a well worn streak within himself and given the chance, I knew what depths he was capable of reaching without someone there to pull him back out again. He would lock himself away in some rotting structure, tortured endlessly by his own thoughts. No, that I could not allow even if he begged for it.

"Of course," I contributed lightly, no real meaning behind it. A few more seconds passed in silence, which was dangerous as it gave Carlisle time to pose other long standing questions from the past. "How is everyone in Denali?"

Another wry smile. "Fine," he answered. "Tanya sends all her love."

"To Edward, no doubt," I muttered, unable to further conceal my loathing. "How thrilled was she exactly, when she heard that Edward Cullen would soon be available once more?"

For the first time in my not inconsiderable existence, I felt a rather awkward rush of affection/pity/regret for Isabella Swan. Though she had at one point been the bane of said existence, I realised that her relationship with Edward had been a blessing in disguise in more than one way. Ensuring Edward's happiness was, of course, the primary reason. Giving him what Emmett gave me (in admittedly very different ways) she had done us both a great service. But apart from that, she had also filled a physical gap in Edward's life. As his partner, she had saved us all from suffering a new addition of another vampire. Bella might have been irritating in a goody-two-shoes sort of way, but she was highly preferable when compared to Tanya. Not to mention non-threatening. Imagining Tanya neatly inserting herself into Bella's place was practically impossible, yet still horrifying. Tanya as my sister.

And who knew what Edward's state of mind would be when (if) he returned? Who could predict, as Carlisle had rightly pointed out, what madness he would be susceptible to? Maybe he would find comfort in Tanya's words and far reaching arms. The thought was monstrous.

"Rose," he chided me gently. "You have nothing to fear from Tanya. She has great respect for you."

I snorted, but didn't elaborate. Tanya and I might smile and speak with all the airs and graces of forced politeness, but beneath it lay a genuine streak of dislike; established years ago during a rather nasty confrontation. I dismissed the memory – acrid and bitter in my mouth – and focused on the now. The now that would be soon inundated with far more pressing issues.

"It hardly matters, at any rate."

A few minutes later, which were spent in quietness and contemplation, we both detected his scent, approaching the house. He was moving quickly, not unexpected taking all things into consideration.

We both stood and headed towards the front door, while I tried to prepare myself for the worst.

I needn't have bothered. Nothing could have prepared me.

After that moment, seeing him standing just shy of the front door, knees ready to buckle, everything about him lost and torn apart...after that moment, everything changed.

Another breaking point.

Another shift in the already complicated dynamic of things.

Hindsight being what it was, I knew enough now to be able to pinpoint the exact moment I knew I had fallen head over heels in love with him. I could feel the clothes I had been wearing, taste the air, hear the sounds all around us as I literally broke down, let the walls crumble and it had hit me hard, disorientating me completely in all things but the certainty that I loved him. That one tiny moment when he hadn't really even been doing anything significant, except watching me read a book. I had glanced up from the page as his eyes ensnared my own and that had been it. I'd known with every fibre of my immortal body, of my mind and my soul that I was in love with him.

Love, whatever it was, smashed into my senses, shattering any logic or composure. Indefinable, indescribable, incomprehensible....love. It hadn't grown slowly out of respect and regard. It had exploded from within me, crashing through barriers without the slightest care for consequences, demanding freedom and acknowledgement.

Both terrifying and beautiful, the moment stuck out particularly as I stared at him in the doorway. The destructive forces that had consumed me in that moment, so long ago...I could feel them again.

When his knees did finally give out, I was the one who caught him. He fell forward helplessly and because I had been waiting for it, my reflexes were just a fraction faster than Carlisle's. I bore his weight easily, as if he were nothing more than a child and very gently, I set him down on the floor in a kneeling position. His head dropped down, obscuring any view of his face, but his right hand reached and found mine; gripping it hard, immovable and painful in it's intensity. He was hyperventilating; the origins of what could easily have been a panic attack. I placed a soothing hand on his back, making small, repetitive circles.

It took a few seconds to acknowledge that Carlisle was kneeling right beside us. Part of me genuinely did not care. The pain was devastating and I could not help but be infected by it to some degree. Seeing him in pain like that was agony and it went against every instinct I had not to touch him. When I pulled my hand from his iron grip, he tightened it for a moment longer before eventually letting go. The world and all it's rules would not stop spinning just for us.

"Son," he was saying, his hands on Edward's shoulders. "Edward, can you hear me?"

I shuffled backwards a little, staying close but not close enough to cause any undue suspicion. When Edward didn't reply, Carlisle waved a hand in front of his frighteningly blank face.

"He seems to be in shock."

"Can you bring him out of it?" I was amazed at how calm I sounded, when inside I was furious, screaming. I wanted nothing more than to shake him out of it, make him look around and see that he could recover from this. I wanted...I wanted him to look at me.

… 'COME ON, ROSALIE! I'M RIGHT HERE! LOOK AT ME! I'M RIGHT HERE!'…

We'd helped each other then, not so long ago; we had caught one another before we fell and we could do so again. But what were our methods of achieving this? It certainly wasn't cuddles and friendship; platonic chit-chat with mugs beneath duvets with a movie in the background. No. We helped each other in the strangest, most terrible ways.

...'You have to do it…please….please. Make me hurt…make me bleed.'…

I wouldn't do that. I couldn't do that. Every moment that I stared at him, glassy eyed and increasingly unmoving, I was less and less certain of my abilities to do anything for him, let alone certain that chess was going to even remain a viable option...still, we had to try, didn't we? So many years of knowledge and existence had to lend credence to the idea that we could reach for nobility and wisdom. We had to strive not to touch, not be indulge, not to give in.

Even then, fighting not to touch him took a lot of concentration. It was instinct to touch him when he was like this. Several times my fingers flexed and my arm started to lift itself midair, only to fall back down before Carlisle would notice. My whole body swayed involuntarily towards him; a knee jerk reaction to his pain, the pain I could almost feel.

"You're alright, Edward. You did the right thing. Everything is alright now."

Part of me wondered why Carlisle took the trouble to lie at all. Even if it wasn't horribly obvious, Edward was and had always been a mind reader. Able to discern the truth from a lie even before becoming an immortal, though perhaps not with such razor sharp precision. He didn't seem to mind, however, nor did he correct Carlisle or lash out at him for telling such transparent lies.

As Carlisle had rightly diagnosed, he was in shock.

Were we alone, I knew how I would get him back to this plane. I knew what method I was select in going about this task of dragging him back into reality. Worse still, I knew it would work.

Yet, I couldn't. Blinding irritation and anger threatened to swallow me whole as I was forced to stand idly by, stupidly watching as he fell deeper, further into his torn, injured state of mind. My fingers twitched, my teeth ground together; I viciously hated the charade all of a sudden, even Carlisle who I so adored, even he was useless in the face of something like this. The bruising force of the knowledge that I was the only one who could help him now was like a blow to the face. Being made to stand idly by and watch it happen, without being able to interact of help him...it was torture. My skin itched and ached invariably. Everything felt wrong, backwards...bad.

For neither the first or last time, I cursed the self imposed restraints that held me back from following my instincts, deeply entrenched and irremovable. He was hurt, broken and utterly devastated and I would be forced to stand by and do nothing but offer pitiful platitudes of outwardly acceptable sympathy.

Edward had yet to speak and I began to think he might never do so again. Carlisle was speaking to him; slow, steady lies to his first son, trying to get him to look at him, but it was futile. Those eyes...they were vacant, lost in whatever agony he had brought upon himself.

"We have to get him out of here," Carlisle said, low and uneasy. "He can't stay. Help me move him to the car."

"No!" Edward's voice, sharp and hoarse at the same time, almost made me jump. Whatever moratoria he had been slipping into, it seemed to break all of a sudden.

"No?" Carlisle echoed, worriedly. "You wish to remain here? I do not think that's..."

Edward shook his head, averting his eyes downward. "I know, I know I can't stay but...there are things in..." his breath gave out and he seemed to struggle with how to breathe in the next for a moment. "...in Bella's room. Things I need to get rid of, to make it easier for her."

The toll those words took on him was gravely concerning. "That's unwise, Edward," I warned. If he was struggling with her name, I doubted that he could bring himself to go into her room and remove all traces of himself.

"You'd rather she did it herself?" he demanded, quietly.

"No, but...let me do it. I could do it for you."

Carlisle gave me an encouraging smile, placing his hand on Edward's shoulder.

"There, how does that sound?"

Obviously not ideal, I could tell by Edward's darkening expression. I knew then that he may have had other motives in going back to her room one last time. To take something of hers, perhaps. A memento.

"Fine," he said lifelessly. "But don't take them away, just...just hide them under the floorboards. I'll write you a list. But don't take them away, you understand? Make sure they're there, just not where she can find them."

I hid my pity well, for both of them. "Of course," I said. "You should go with Carlisle and I'll make my own way to Denali."

Part of me wondered if he would object to this, if he would want me nearby. I could almost feel myself hovering, waiting for him to voice such objections and demands. When it was clear he wasn't going to, I placed a swift kiss to Carlisle's cheek and went on my way, cursing each step that drove me further from the other half of me, as it imploded upon itself.

---

It didn't take long for that white hot agony to bubble down to lukewarm desolation and then finally to cool and solidify into icy, implacable antipathy and resentment. Suffice to say, no-one could ever hope to out-brood Edward Cullen.

Denali was as insufferable as I had predicted, perhaps even exceeding my own grim expectations. Our last visit there hadn't been pleasant, to say the very least, and though our hostesses were gracious and sympathetic it was clear that Tanya had not forgotten our last exchange. She spoke barely more than fifty words to me during the entire two week stay, most of which were in passing. She caught on very quickly to the fact that Edward would not take very kindly to being accosted or propositioned; in fact it had been within two hours of our general arrival there that she seemed to decide it best to give him some privacy.

Thankfully it hadn't taken Esme and Carlisle long to find somewhere new for us to reside, far from Tanya and her subtle, well worded spite. They had found a beautiful place, in need of much renovation and work, in Ithaca. It was suitable in many ways for us, one of the main aspects being that it was as far from Washington as possible without crossing water or the Canadian border.

Distance, it was universally acknowledged, was wholly necessary for such a situation. We were familiar with the area, in fact it was barely two hours from Rochester. Jasper was in great need of distraction; he was considering attending Cornell and studying there. He and Alice were going through somewhat of a rough patch lately; what with Jasper's increasing moral dilemma and Alice's need to know more of her roots in the mortal world, they too found themselves looking fondly upon the idea of distance, if only for a short while. I wondered, once again, at their dynamic; I could never leave Emmett while he was suffering. I would have fought violently, as would he, to get to the root of the issue, regardless of his insistences. But they were a very different kind of couple to us and I did not question their confidence in the actions they took.

Tensions were running high; all of us caught in the maelstrom of Edward's despair. It made the air thick with palpable pressure and concern; each word was a risk, like stepping eggshells and as a result, we were all on tenterhooks with one another as well as Edward. Careful, cautious conversations were all we dared engage in until his mood would stabilise.

Two weeks in Denali were quite sufficient and I was thrilled when we were finally able to leave.

"Are you quite sure you will not stay a little longer?" Tanya had asked, sounding so sorry to see us all leave, as if nothing had made her happier than to have us as guests.

Esme, hand in hand with our gracious hostess, had replied, "Oh Tanya, that's so kind of you but I think a little change of scenery is really for the best. We can't thank you enough for your hospitality though."

Tanya had brushed it aside with a warm, kind smile. "Not at all," she'd insisted, that slight accent ever detectable to my ears. "It has been my pleasure in having you all with us."

Carlisle had stepped in to offer his gratitude also as one by one we trailed outside to our separate cars. Emmett had shot me a look which plainly meant I was duty bound to thank her for allowing us to stay, and then it was only Tanya and I left.

"Well," I'd said, hoping to keep it short and civil. "Thank you, Tanya."

Her smile was slow and sweet, like processed honey. "You are most welcome, Rosalie. I am only sorry you could not have more time alone with Edward."

I slung my handbag over my shoulder and threw her a haughty, confused look. "Excuse me?"

The smile stayed, as her eyes glinted. "I was sure, as were we all, that Edward would undoubtedly turn to you for help in dealing with such sadness."

"He has his whole family behind him," I countered lazily. "He'll turn to whoever he needs to, as soon as he's ready."

"Of course, I'm sure soon enough he'll be crying on your shoulder."

The bitch was bating me.

Instead of swinging my very expensive Prada handbag at her smug face, I let loose a smile of my own; just as rich in deceit as hers.

"As always, Tanya, your selflessness does you credit. Indeed, I could never fathom why it was that Edward never showed you any interest over the years. I've always found you so pleasant and kind that his refusal baffles me endlessly."

The honey thick smile faltered a fraction. "Perhaps his interests were otherwise engaged," she returned, just swerving the boundaries of nastiness.

"Perhaps. But when all's said and done, regardless of which shoulder Edward may turn to, we all know it certainly won't be yours."

I turned to leave then, but I felt her small, strong hand on my arm. I turned, barely managing to restrain myself from lashing out. Her face was very close to mine.

"You are not worthy of him!" she snarled. "Of Edward, or even Emmett! I know something's not right between you and Edward, I've always known it and one day I'm going to show everyone how unworthy your are of that husband of yours!"

"Oh Tanya," I said, smiling sweetly as I pried her fingers off me. "Jealousy really does bring out your eyes."

And with that, I had flounced away, listening to an impressive string of Russian swear words and curses twisting around my name.

Now that Denali, and all it entailed, was behind nothing but a resentful shadow stretching further and further away from us, the real issues began to emerge. I knew well enough that Edward would not allow himself to fully engage in whatever depression and dejection until he was surrounded only by true family. He had proved me right almost straight away. Upon arriving at the house in Ithaca, he had shut himself away in the attic and had not been seen since. In Denali, he had made an effort (dwindled and withered though it was) to involve himself in some of what was happening all around him. Now that he was free of obligations, he could do exactly what he wanted to do; lock himself away from the world.

Things had changed. Of course, this was something we were all accustomed to; change of scenery was inevitable and unavoidable. Things like moving house, rearranging furniture, applying to schools and so on, was second nature to us as a family.

But this wasn't just a change of scenery. Things were different now; a new kind of situation required our attention and support. With nothing to dally and delay anymore, I found myself faced with the task I had been preparing for. Only I wasn't prepared enough, at all.

As previously stated, it had not taken Edward very long to resign himself to coldness and reticence; reverting to his silently furious, taciturn nature that I was well acquainted with. Only familiarity with type was of no use to me here. He seemed like the Edward we all knew and so sympathised with, but his pain was alien even to himself and it made things unpredictable. Any certainty I may have had with regards to helping him, wavered badly those first few nights in Ithaca. He seemed less locked away in the attic and more locked away in himself. He answered no-one, spoke to no-one, barely moved except to shake or nod his head. He sat where he had fallen, against a wall facing East. After three days, dust had began to settle on him.

My ideas of chess had yet to come to fruition, but I was determined to try it at some point in the future. Even if it just made him angry, that would be something at least. Any kind of response would be progress.

So, it was with the coordinated efforts of Carlisle, Emmett and Esme that I managed to get some alone with him. Carlisle and Esme were happy to let me try whatever I wanted with him, while Emmett was been a little more concerned.

"Are you sure this is the best idea?" he asked, hands clasped over mine, holding me back from my mission. Uncertainty thrummed through him, visible in his shoulders.

I smiled gently. "Absolutely not, but I have to try, right?"

"I guess, but still..." he was cut off as I pressed my lips against his.

"...Shhh now," I murmured.

When I pulled away he looked more relaxed, just before he caught onto my plot. "Hey! You can't use the whole kissing thing as a distraction every time, you know. One day you're going to have to let me win an argument."

"There's no argument, Em. He's our brother, he needs help. I can get through to him because I'm the only one not afraid to try. It's as simple as that. If it fails then he can't be any worse off than he is now and we've learned a lesson."

"Alright, but if it gets out of hand, call me and we'll come right back. I can get construction supplies any old day of the week."

I knew he was really, genuinely worried as his slight accent became more pronounced. I sent him on his way with another kiss and then turned inward, away from the front door of the somewhat dilapidated house, and towards the task I had set myself.

The house, for all it's run down state, had the potential to be quite beautiful. High ceilings, large rooms, double doors, swirling stair cases. It hadn't been that expensive, either; despite it's neglected appearance, it was obviously worth more than we had paid for it. Carlisle had told us yesterday one potential reason why it hadn't been so expensive; it was rumoured to be haunted. One of the interns at the hospital he applied to had told him in hushed, conspiratorial whispers of how a young girl was supposed to have killed herself and her unborn child in the attic. No-one in the Cayuga Heights area wanted to buy it, given the local rumours.

I gave no thought to that as I made my way up to the attic, book in hand, where he was lurking; there were enough ghosts to deal with.

He was ready for me, that much was certain. Mind reader that he was, my approach was no surprise to him, much less my intentions. This made things always so much more difficult. In this state of mind, he didn't want to be helped.

Back against the unpainted wall, hunched and brooding, there he sat.

The air was stale; both windows were tightly shut. I could taste that he hadn't breathed more than three or four times in the many hours he had been in this part of the house. It was a cavernous room; deep and dark, dust thick on every surface save for where his feet had dragged across the floor. But even those marks were staring to fade now, replaced by new, thinner layers. Such layers were starting to coat his hair, his clothes, even his eyelashes.

He didn't acknowledge me at all. I might have been invisible for all he reacted to me, but it didn't matter. I hadn't expected anything better. Instead of trying to gain his attention and attempt to lure him into speech, I simply sat down somewhere nearby, crossed my legs and began to read my book, Rebecca.

As I started to lose myself in the book, I lost track of time. It seemed like only minutes had passed, but when I glanced around my body clock informed me that almost two hours had come and gone without my knowing. I looked at Edward, who had yet to move, and wondered if I was really doing any good at all. His shoulders seemed a little more relaxed and his fists weren't curled quite so tight, but that was really all the differences I could perceive. I returned to the book, trying to keep my thoughts only on the literature before me.

Another hour passed before I heard sounds from downstairs. Doors opening and closing, bags being set down, laughter and banter between Esme and Emmett.

I closed the book gently and rose from my seated position on the floor, wiping the dust from my hands onto my jeans as I did. Both of us had yet to speak a single word, but it didn't feel like a wasted three hours. Somehow, I felt it had helped him. Even in the most miniscule of ways, the air did not seem quite so thick. When I closed the attic door behind him, I was almost certain I heard him inhale.

The next night I repeated the ritual, not even bothering to ask the rest of the family to leave. I went up to the attic with the same expectations; nothing. I sat, I read in silence until such a time as I felt it was right to leave. And the next night, the same thing. Again. And again.

One week of silent reading, four books finished and not a single word said.

On the eighth day, that changed.

I had genuinely been reading the book this time; I'd managed to draw my attention at least partially away from him and let my mind fall into the mesmerising, lyrical prose of Wuthering Heights. As one of my all time favourite books, it was easy to lose myself in it to such a degree that when he spoke, I actually jumped.

"We make love in the water for the first time, you recite Wuthering Heights to me in your mind."

I looked up, honestly shocked that he had spoken and my mind went completely blank at his random choice of words. I scrambled to make sense of what he had said, wondering (not for the first time) if he had beaten me to it, losing his mind.

And forgetting that I was supposed to be supportive and wise during his time of crisis, I very elegantly managed a, "Huh?"

His eyes were straight ahead, unfixed but steadily avoiding my own. As immortals, we rarely fidgeted or made unnecessary movements so it fell to the eyes as indications of feeling. I pondered if that was all of us, or just myself. My own helpless fixation with his eyes.

"Year and place," he said, tonelessly, though he was speaking and that had to be something.

It clicked. He was playing mine and Carlisle's game.

But then what he had said also clicked and suddenly I felt the immortal, nonexistent equivalent of a slow blush, creeping over my face. In reality it was nothing more than a rapid set of blinks as I bit the corner of my mouth. But his words, the first in days, were obviously well chosen and the subject of much deliberation. I could not help but feel this was a bad start.

"I don't know," I said, much to hoarse and quite for my own liking. I cleared my throat and added, "I don't remember," for good measure. I clamped my mind down hard, focusing strongly on the book and forming a black wall around the parts of my treacherous mind that needed protecting.

He shifted slightly, sending little clouds of dust into the stale air. "Liar."

"Some things never change, I guess," I said noncommittally, turning a page because it gave my hands something to do. "What made you think of it?"

I waited, terrified and hating myself for asking such a stupid, dangerous question. Emmett was downstairs, for God's sake.

Still staring at the space before him, he replied, "The passage you just read."

I didn't need to turn back and scan the page to know to which passage he was referring.

'... Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!'

I knew that he didn't for one moment believe that I had forgotten that night in the water, entwined in a forbidden tangle beneath the surface of the world, conjoined and kissing endlessly. I had thought of that passage, caught in the agony of having everything my soul so achingly desired, but knowing that tomorrow it would be taken away again. As I'd had no words of my own to articulate such emotions, I had fallen back on quoting scripture.

As if I didn't remember. As if it wasn't branded, carved, etched into my very being.

But there was no good to come of admitting it. So I lied, uselessly, and shut down that part of my mind, locking it away.

"Don't do that," he whispered, so quietly I had to strain to hear it. More than that, I felt the insistence behind it. "Don't take it away from me."

My throat caught in the unexpected bolt of guilt that lanced through me. A clear contradiction between what he wanted and needed was making itself well known in the bottom of my stomach. Of course he would want to reach out and touch, to feel and be loved in the highest of ways. But, I forced myself to acknowledge, what he needed was distanced support and contactless reassurances.

"I can't take it away from you, but I can't...I can't let it be the only thing that keeps you here, Edward. This can't be your anchor. Not this."

His eyes moved effortlessly to mine with a daunting precision and intensity. His jaw worked, his whole face set grim and dark. "Then why are you here?"

"To help you."

"Oh yes," he deadpanned. "I forgot. We're going to play chess and talk through it."

"If you want," I offered weakly.

The weight behind his gaze was crushing. "That is not what I want."

"But it's what you need," I pointed out after a few moments spent gathering myself.

His eyes narrowed a little, he raised his chin defiantly. "How would you know what I need?"

"I will not be drawn into this with you, Edward," I insisted, threatening to turn back to my book. "The most that will pass between us, is words."

And just like that, he shut down again. "Fine," was the last word he said for another week and a half.

---

In hindsight, I should have thought more carefully when setting rules concerning our relationship from then on. Though we were both equally clever, Edward had the added determination to find a loophole in what I'd stipulated. So while I clung to my hope that I was doing the right thing for him, he had obviously been sitting there thinking of a way around what I had declared.

The eleventh book sat in my lap, over crossed legs as I leaned back and read from a distance, back against an opposing wall. Immortal eyesight meant that I could see each word and it's individual print from a good distance away, with almost no light and a whole lot of dust drifting aimlessly through the thick, cold air. I had devoured most of the classics and favourites; now I'd started to branch out into more varied subjects. The Recursive Universe sat in my lap, telling me of the astonishing similarities between complex mathematical systems and the patterns of intelligent life.

And again, he cleverly waited until I was almost completely lost in the book itself before springing his next attempt upon me.

"I crawl over on my hands and knees to where you're sitting," he said, voice guttural with disuse. My attention to the book broke instantly, like a filament of thread snapping. I raised my eyes above the book, but not to him. "I take the book from your hands, throw it to one side and touch your face with my fingertips. They trace your cheek, your lips, the side of your neck."

I wasn't ready. Wasn't quick enough to see what it was he was doing.

"I already..." I paused to take a stronger, deeper breath. "Already told you I won't play that game with you. That's for myself and Carlisle, only."

It still didn't occur to me then, what exactly my mistake had been. But when he spoke, I could hear, without seeing, that he was smiling a little.

"I'm not playing that game," he told me. "I'm touching you."

Three words from him managed to send my previously calm, collected thoughts into a supernova of heat and light. He knew it too, for when I looked up at him he looked grimly pleased, as if some hard task had paid off.

"No," I managed, not quite breathless yet. "You are not."

I looked at the space between us, just to make sure of that fact. We were sitting on opposite sides of the attic, against opposing walls. There was at least twenty feet of distance between our seated positions.

"I flatten my hand against your collarbone and twist it around the back of your neck, pulling you to me, just stopping shy of kissing," he said, voice lethal and velvety. He knew exactly what he was doing; it was obvious in the confidence behind his well chosen words. I wanted to get up and walk out; I should have, so he knew he couldn't treat me like this. But then he started to speak again and I froze, mid momentum. "Our lips almost graze, our noses touch briefly. Our eyes never part and my hand slides from your neck up into your hair."

'The most that will pass between us, is words.'

Bastard. Clever, sneaky bastard.

So he wanted to play it like this, did he? Well that was fine. I wasn't going to walk out, be driven away because his words could stir things within me that I hadn't given permission to stir.

"I pull away, push you back and we are no longer touching," I countered, with admirable evenness.

He smirked, not intimidated at all. On the contrary, he seemed thrilled that I was engaging in it, which made me uncomfortable.

"But your don't turn and walk away."

"I won't leave you in this, I already told you that."

"So you stay."

"But not for this."

"But you don't move away. You stay right in front of me because you can't turn away. You need me as much as I need you; you feel the thrumming energy, thrashing and coiling within and you know as well as I do...if it doesn't find an outlet, it will explode inside us."

"There are other ways," I pleaded. "Let me show you other ways of..."

"-I pull you into me, one fluid movement and your mouth is flush against my own."

The breath is knocked from me, but I recover enough of it to speak. "I won't kiss you."

"No, at first it's just me kissing you. Unmoving lips, nothing but pressure against them."

"This is wrong, we can't - -"

"-But then my hands move from your shoulders, slowly down to your arms, your wrists and finally your hands. I take your hands in mine and tangle them together; the preliminary joining point and then you sigh against my mouth and kiss me back."

"Never."

"We're kissing now, you can't deny that we're kissing."

"I want to help you, Edward..."

"You kiss me harder, as if it makes everything else vanish. The outside world flickers and threatens to fade into oblivion as it always does when your tongue is on mine."

"Stop, please..."

"The heat of your mouth, your body...it drives me wild, into madness and I can't keep our hands so idle. I have to pull you closer, pull you into me. I run my hands over your back, feeling the muscles jump and move beneath my fingers. Gluteus medius, latissimus dorsi, teres major, deltoid, trapezius...and then I'm back to your neck, pulling your mouth into mine as though we could literally fall into one another if we tried hard enough."

My hands shook and trembled with the effort of keeping some semblance of self control in place. "Please..."

"Yes," he practically groaned, his eyes heavy with unconcealed lust and wanting. They conducted electricity into me, I could feel it. "You'll say 'please' and a part of me knows it means stop, but another part of knows that we couldn't stop even if we really wanted to. I break the kiss, just enough to see your eyes. To see if you're serious. I see the conflict in them. Torn between the right thing and the right thing," he growled. "And then it's you who's kissing me. Kissing me as if trying to find a way to crawl out of your own body and into mine. I can only reciprocate as clothes start to come apart, vanishing into the world just outside of heat we create. And then...God and then it's skin to skin and the fall backwards through the air until we crash into one another in the way we were always meant to crash."

"You need to stop," I tried, brokenly.

"Never breaking contact, never moving away...always moving into one another. Moving forward as if to dissolve in what we create. Dissolving into heat, motion, traction...each other. Descending into madness, only each other to hold onto as we fall. I am inside you and you are inside me and nothing else can matter when we are one and then same."

His head fell back against the wall, his breathing was almost laboured. "The world falls away and everything is as it is always meant to be. No time to keep track of, no love to contend with, no obligations to be distract us. We are one being and the heat will shatter us apart, break the bones and let us bleed into one another. Euphoria, oblivion...it breaks me until I'm unrecognisable as anything but the counterpart of our soul. As the other half of you, who is the other half of me. Until we're not halves anymore. Until the heat allows us to melt into one being. Caught in the supernova of devastating pleasure, bliss, ecstasy. Blown apart, obliterated..." he paused, losing his breath and his eyes closed, tears falling from them. "But resurrected by what lies between us. What will always lie between us, Rosalie. Always."

The meaning behind the last word was undeniable, both in it's truth but also in it's double entendre. The world was still spinning slightly, I vaguely felt tears of my own creating tracks down my cheeks but that last word ran as clear as a bell.

Checkmate.

Minutes passed where neither of us could speak, or even would again it seemed. The silence was thick and tangible. Finally one emotion overpowered all the others and made it's way to my voice box.

"Are you happy now, Edward?" I asked quietly, through tightly ground teeth. "Do you feel better for taking what I would not give you, regardless of choice?"

His eyes were darker than before when they opened. "It was only words," he muttered.

"Oh yes, only words. Clever little clause indeed. Nothing but words. Well, I hope you feel better now, having taken what you want instead of asking for what you need."

The force of his glare was like a physical blow. "You think I enjoy needing you? You think I rejoice in being so wholly dependant upon you, when all I want to do is lock myself away forever with thoughts of her?"

I snatched at the opportunity.

"Oh, so she has crossed your mind then, has she?"

His upper lips curled into the beginnings of a snarl, before he caught himself and shook it away. "That won't work," he insisted, almost to himself.

"And here I was, thinking you'd reverted to type and were just whiling away the dusty hours with thoughts of your own grief and desolation. So tell me, Edward, what of her remains in your mind, or have you forgotten already?"

"Shut up," he demanded, quietly. "Don't talk about her."

"But you're the one who wants to drown in thought of her, are you not? So come on then, tell me these thoughts."

I was unable to pinpoint exactly when in the last twenty seconds it was that the situation had turned upon it's head, but the certainty that it had, was sufficient.

"You won't win this, Rosalie. I'm better at this than you."

"At finding a weakness and exposing it? There, I believe we are equally matched. And look at you, what a weakness it is. She never was anything but a weakening of your resolve, of your nature, your very character. A leech, feeding off of your strength until you were weak enough to bow to it to admitting that you wanted her, even though she was your food."

Something I'd said, probably the last part, made him twitch. Now he was the one who shook and trembled with the effort of self control. "I won't rise to this."

"No, why would you? There's nothing to rise to, is there? You sit up here pretending for all the world that hurting her has broken you apart, when really...it was nothing, was it? Hurting her and leaving her was nothing to you because you never really loved her, did you Edward? She was a place to hide, a sandbank to stick head in while things were tough. You used her and now you have to pretend as though it actually hurt to break her little heart! You never loved her!"

He gasped, as though about to scream some kind of response at me but then...then something crossed his face, grey and ashen all at the same time and the tension dropped out of his shoulders. The silent invisible weight of what his own response was about to be, hung heavily between us. I didn't need him to say how much he loved her, how it was his heart that broke too, how he hated himself, blamed himself, missed her, loved her, wanted her with him.

When he began to cry, I had already crawled across the filthy floor to him. By the time his head fell into his arms, my hand was on his back. By the time the first shaking sob left his mouth, I was beside him, silently anchoring him to the place he would need to return to, after he had been allowed to drown in his anguish for as long as he needed to. We were genuinely touching for the first time since leaving Forks. I felt no overwhelming desire or lust pulsating through me; instead, a wrenching, bitter torrent of sadness and regret washed through me in unpredictable waves. His pain, bleeding into me.

And knowing that for him, this was only the beginning, I bore as much as I could stand to.

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A/N – And once again, this is monstrously late. Well, really I think that at this point a good solid month between updates is what everyone has come to expect. Anywho, this chapter was monstrously difficult to write and managed to dredge up the old Writer's Block which, previously to this, had been blissfully absent. However, I pressed on and VOILA! Kinda. So, here it is.

First point, you guys are MAGNIFICENT human beings and I love you all, dearly. Alby...gah! Thanks SO much for the amazing review on The Twilight Awards. It was beautiful and flattering beyond what I deserve. Also, Aquarian Girl...love and hugs for the inspiring review, which managed to give me the old Heave Ho out of a particularly nasty spot of WB. Everyone else, massive hugs and love.

Second point, I did a whole lot of research for the geographical aspects in this chapter, but as I'm an ignorant Brit, feel free to let me know if anything doesn't ring true.

Third, I've been asked this a lot lately through reviews from anonymous people, which means I can't respond so please allow me to do here. With regards to the ending of this story, I am still as of yet undecided upon the exact machinations of things, though I do know how it will end. There will be one final chapter, thus concluding this monster of a fic which started out as a one-shot, which will go beyond canon into my own realms of reality. In this final chapter I promise this story will end, but as to how it will end I am going to be irksome and not give it away. Will it stay within canon constraints or will Edward and Rosalie finally accept their feelings and flee together? Muhahah. Anyway, it's a ways off yet so no-one has to worry. This story is an integral part of my literary life, at 725 pages, over 250'000 words it's not going to suddenly skip to Breaking Dawn anytime soon.

So, I hope everyone enjoys this. There were parts I loved, parts I hated but all parts wee necessary to upcoming chapters.

Review? I know, I know; same old same old. But, as always, I'm on my knees begging for reviews.

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Bex

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