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.

38. Chapter 38: Come Crashing Down

-Chapter Thirty Eight: Come Crashing Down-

'Born unto this pride,
Silence is something you can't hide,
You can't deny us.
Nothing has been said,
Yet so many words have filled my head,
Now they completely surround me.
Tie the lines of honest conductivity,
Caught between the centre of our gravity,
I don't have that much time to burn anymore.
You can go heavy on me,
And I will not weigh you down, down, down.
You can be steady and clean, I can take it,
Heavy on me...I will not weigh you down.'

-Holly Brook

-Rosalie-

-Saturday 18th March 2006-

"Don't come any closer," I warned, low and raw. My hands continued to clutch at pieces of the shattered cell phone, most of which had fallen down into the lake beneath me. The cliff edge was crumbling and decaying; any sudden movement would have both myself and Edward tumbling down into the black waters beneath.

"Please," he begged, holding his hands up, black and dirty from previous events. "This is stupid."

I laughed, only just managing to stop it before it evolved into a sob. "Isn't it, though? This is what started it all, this whole Goddamned mess! Water!" I tossed the remaining pieces of the previously whole object behind me with flair; they flew into the harsh winds, eventually landing softly on the water's surface.

His eyes bore into mine, and I felt him inside pleading with me to see sense; couldn't I see how hard this was for him too? He was suffering too. We were in it together, I wasn't alone. Endless reassurances, becoming increasingly desperate as I continued to maintain the wall between us.

"Water," I repeated, snarling the word. The wind whipped around my face, tossing and pulling at my loose hair and clothes, trying to snatch them from me. "It began and ends with water."

'You know it won't work,' he tried to shout into my mind, I only heard the words as though through thick cement walls; muffled and obscure, but there nonetheless. 'You know it.'

I slammed my eyes shut, clamping my hands on either side of my face, trying to physically lock him out. "Shut up! Just...shut up! I will end this, one way or another! You think I care if I die?"

There was a long, shattering pause in which he contemplated that. "You won't die," he answered finally, far too speculative to be anything remotely true.

"No," I said, voice trembling uncontrollably. "No, you're right. I won't die. But this...it needs to die. You don't understand why I'm doing this and it's only a matter of time but...I don't deserve this. You don't deserve this and I won't be the one...I cannot be the one to..."

He was pushing all his mental weight against the barrier now, furiously trying to smash it into oblivion once and for all.

"You're not making sense," he informed me. "Just let me see...let me see what you're saying."

I took a shuddering breath, steeling myself as much as possible. Upon the cruel wind I caught a dozen scents, most prominently his clothes and skin. He had been wearing the same clothes for days now; he still smelled of other countries.

"No," I refused, desperately trying to think of something that would lead him away from the truth. "This has to stop. She was right, that woman...she was right, damn it! We're blending into one another and eventually there will be nothing left of us...nothing individual."

He made an irritated noise in the back of his throat; it was taking all of my energy to keep the flimsy barrier up between us and the last thing I needed was anger fuelling the pressure behind his determination to break through it. Every ounce of my immortal strength went into keeping him out; trying to create and maintain some kind of line between us. There had to be a line.

"Some crazy woman makes an off the wall prediction and you're running for the hills? We're too old for this, Rosalie!" I could feel the rotten earth starting to lose patience with my dead weight; hear the roots and mud groaning in protest and so did Edward. He hid his concern well. "You're going to ruin your clothes," he warned, only semi serious. "Come on, please."

He extended his hand to me and once again the immense pressure to let him flood through my torn, needful system threatened to overwhelm me. I wanted it badly, wanted him inside me like a desert dreams of rain. But if I did...if I gave in then, we were lost. I would smash into him and never pull away again, never regain distinction. And far, far worse...he would know...

"I...I have to stop it," I choked out, wishing he would just for once understand and trust me enough to believe that what I was doing was for the best. "We'll lose everything."

"I care," he said, taking a small step closer and I panicked because proximity was going to be my undoing; the barrier was weakening. "I don't want to lose my family, don't want to break my brother's heart. But I can't do it anymore. I can't be brave and strong and keep lying. As if I can bear a moment of the day when you're not touching me, as if I can know sanity or peace without you, Rosalie. It's time to stop pretending now. Forever is too long a time to pretend."

I shook my head, trying not to let his words in. "Alice," I muttered. "She'll see!"

"I know," he said forcefully, and grabbed my wrist, making me open my eyes to see him unbearably close. "I know."

"Please," I sobbed, because he was touching me. His skin felt hot against mine, fingers wrapped tightly around my wrists and I couldn't breath with the fear that somehow he was going to see right down into me and know. "Please, Edward."

He pulled me closer into him, locking eyes with me. "I want her to see it. I want Alice to know, because it means we can't go back," he growled.

I watched, thunderstruck, as he took a deep breath and said aloud, "We're leaving, Rose. We are leaving together and we're never going to come back."

...*...

-Five Months Ago-

The concept of simplicity had always been beyond my grasp, if not for lack of wanting. It was an ideal to me, something I had once striven for but now knew with devastating certainty, that it was something I would never know. I would never live a simple life, never know simple things.

The concept of complexity had always been a deciding factor in every aspect of my existence. No part of my life was without it, no hours or days passed without my mind extending it's fullest efforts to wrap around the complications that filled my world. Everything was multifaceted, everything always would be.

I was no stranger to intricacy and difficulty, absolutely not. The necessity to exert all of my energies into maintaining the convoluted life I led was a part of who I was; fully ingrained into me.

But this...this was something else.

Two and a half miles away from the house in Ithaca, I could still feel him. I could make out the shape of his thoughts. If I focused harder I could hear those thoughts. Distance did not seem to have much effect; I could not process my reaction to that new fact, be it relief or otherwise.

The surrounding trees were thick and heavy, leaning around me as if to shield me from the world and all it's trappings, but even they failed to interfere with the connection. I closed my eyes and breathed deeper, tasting fresh rain and wet dirt. A familiar taste indeed. I allowed the memory to rise a little, lodging itself in the back of my throat. Hammering rain, the wet, unstable earth beneath me and the counterpart of my soul above me. Anger and delusion shattering spectacularly into the ever expanding darkness.

I had been half expecting, half dreading the reaction.

Even though the memory was fairly well contained - a wild animal behind reinforced glass - he felt it's potency as much as me. The ripple of desire and frustration that rolled through my body was not wholly my own. My lips parted, jaw slackening and fingertips extending of their own volition. I felt him stop what he had been doing previously as he allowed himself to tumble into the memory along with me.

And then it was not a memory anymore.

There was mud all over me; arms, hands, back, neck, hair, face, elbows. Wet, thick and grainy; dirty and natural. The raindrops were large, hitting my face and his back hard enough to make an audible impact. The world around us was sodden and transitional; on the verge of drowning itself. Only minutes before, we had done and said terrible things, but it failed to matter. He was kissing me so deeply that I would have suffocated, had I needed oxygen to survive. Our bodies were fused as one and the idea of separating was blasphemy. The rolling rip tide of destructive pleasure was killing us both, tearing through everything within and obliterating any residual doubt or guilt. Tear and kisses and hands and raindrops and ohhh we had gone too far this time, there would be no pulling apart now, not if the pressure kept building and coiling between us, waiting to explode and take us with it. I forgot his name and he forgot mine because we weren't separate anymore. There was only us, and the power we were generating was surely going to destroy the planet when it finally detonated...

Oh God, stop.

Somehow I managed to wrench myself back from it before I lost myself permanently. When I forced my eyes open, I was on my knees in the woods, alone and horribly out of breath.

I leant forward, bracing myself on my hands.

Edward's voice shivered up my spine, resonating in my mind.

'Deny it all you want,' he told me, the temperature of his words hotter than they had ever been in my mind so far. 'But you know as well as I do, Rosalie, you're postponing the inevitable.'

Two and a half miles away, alone in the woods, I realised that I would never be alone ever again. Alone was a forgotten concept now. Even if I learned to somehow shut it off, keep him out, he would always be there and I would always be there inside of him.

It was the reason I couldn't slow my breathing down. It was the reason I couldn't pull myself to stand upright. For all my exterior bravado, there was no way to deny that I was terrified of the massive implications staring us in the face.

We would adjust, as we always did. Edward and I were no strangers to complexity; we had invented the concept. This was just another facet to implement into our already complicated lives. We would adjust...or we would break.

---

-Saturday 18th March 2006-

"No," I gasped, feeling as though his words had physically struck me. "No!"

The grip on my wrists increased until I thought the bones were going to snap and when I tried to pull away, he refused. "Why?" he demanded after a few icy, dark moments. The sun was setting behind me, letting the darkness take reign over these lands. "Why not?"

"Because...just because!" I panted, the effort of sustaining the wall was now starting to drain me of my physical strength. I didn't even bother trying to rip away from his vice-like grip. "You're don't mean it, you never do and this is just stupid! You have to leave, have to stop following me!"

He laughed bitterly, face moving closer to mine and I thought I might actually pass out from the strain of trying to hold myself and so much more together. He stopped shy of brushing our noses together and narrowed his eyes.

"Follow you? I've tried to give you what you asked for, Rosalie. I left, didn't I? Romania, Texas, Brazil; where else would you like me to go? Outer space? It doesn't mater where you send me; I can still feel you. Nothing will change that, don't you see? Not water, not death, not time or love or obligation will ever change anything! I am as in love with you as I was when it first hit me and I'm sick to death of pretending I'm not!"

I blinked hard, sending tears rolling down my cheeks. "Please," I croaked. "Just leave."

A tremor went through him as he leaned in to whisper, "I would if I could."

...*...

-Five Months Ago-

Early on in the twenty first century, I had come to form the immutable opinion that I now and forever would loathe computers. No matter how sleek and efficient they might have been, I hated them. I supposed I could have made a bid to avoid falling into a stereotyped category, but really...I despised the infernal machines.

Internet, email, YouTube, digital music, pornography, bank fraud, pop-ups...it made me sick, made me shudder for the direction the world was heading in.

My fingers were uneasy and unsure of they keys beneath them at first. I had never learned how to type with any fluency, there had hardly been any call for it until IT skills had become mandatory in schools. Still, I managed to type the words I needed to in Google.

'Telepathic connections'

154'000 results.

'Telepathic connections between lovers'

47'000 results.

'Telepathy between bondmates'

2'280 results. Most of which, I was highly amused to note, were affiliated in some way to Star Trek – more specifically, to Kirk and Spock.

More idle surfing yielded similarly irrelevant results and I chastised myself for thinking that such a ridiculous contraption could be of any assistance to me whatsoever.

No, I had to face the truth soon enough. There wasn't any reasonable explanation for what had happened, at least certainly not in the form of a website.

Part of me understood it very well. I had literally shoved myself into his mind to save him, though Carlisle remained convinced that he couldn't possibly have died from the experience. So desperate to save him, I had unthinkingly broken down yet another barrier between us, so I could reach where he needed me most.

Another part of me rejected that romanticised version with abhorrence and scorn. A moderately scientific explanation suggested that his telepathy had gone wild owing to water in his brain, and somehow as I had been the one touching him throughout the experience, I had been affected. Drawn in by his ability, locked inside once it had healed.

As a whole, I knew the truth to be somewhere in between both those possibilities and seeing as how Google was being most unhelpful, I supposed I would have to leave it at that for a while.

Edward was not quite so accepting.

His answer to dealing with the newfound twist in our ever changing lives, was to nosedive into research of the book variety. He had finally picked out a room for himself and was avoiding the attic; in fact, he hadn't been up there once since the Bathtub Incident. He remained relatively antisocial, but that was to be expected.

He spent most of his time poring over books and taking notes. I knew he was mentally composing a theory about what had developed between us, and I certainly wasn't going to interfere with it if that's what he needed to do to feel in control.

Control was something we seemed to be lacking as of late.

I gave up completely after another minute with a barely concealed sigh of frustration. Pausing for a moment, I checked to see if the frustration was entirely mine or not. My eyes went unfocused and I let that part of my mind extend and search.

The sensation was still as strange as the first time.

Edward's mind was a labyrinth. An endless complexity containing thousands of layers, each one more convoluted and intricate than the last.

For instance, aside from the sheer mass of knowledge and information he had stored inside it, there was an almost equally vast plethora of unanswered questions. For each piece of intelligence he possessed, there existed an opposing question about it. He was never satisfied, his thirst for knowledge never fully quenched. If he came to learn something, it only succeeded in alerting him to the fact that there was so much more he did not know. It drove him to obsess and fixate, made him neurotic and unpredictable.

Beneath this, a dark, cavernous pit of confusion, writhing memories and thoughts bathed in lightless uncertainty. This part of him was to be avoided when possible, as it was the part of him that owned a tendency to brood and mope for weeks at a time. His propensity to lose himself in a bad memory, a dark thought pertaining to darker deed...it stemmed from that area. An ocean of movement and sound, never controlled – only contained and barely at that.

Yet, there was another place. Wonderfully indescribable, somehow voiding all depiction. Light, stillness and song contained within him; that was the place I had come to prefer. Everything good, beautiful, kind, peaceful, loving, generous and lovely came from that spring of hope and goodness. This was the part of him that hummed songs in his mind when he was distracted. This was the part that laughed and smiled, told kind lies and gave unnecessary hugs and reassurances even when he expressly didn't want to be touched or crowded. This was where he dared to hope that he deserved happiness, that he wasn't damned and lost and fated for hell. Had he been human, this would have produced his dreams.

Unfortunately, this was not where the categories ended. There were thousands of other areas to be explored, places where emotions beyond definition stored themselves, ready and waiting for any situation that would require them. I had realised very early on, that if I wasn't careful, I would easily get lost inside him and never find my way back.

I initiated a very shallow probe – merely to sense his general feelings. As I had suspected, his frustration was bleeding into me. Almost immediately, the shape of his thought shifted and changed; he sensed me searching. There was a stirring, a slow building glow and then he spoke.

'Find anything on Google?'

The experience was organic, totally unlike anything I had felt previous to this new twist of events. Hearing his voice inside me was so different to hearing him speak using his voice, that when he actually did speak, the difference was jarring. This was not his a set of sounds his throat created using contractions and vibrations. This was his voice. It was fluid, baritone, flawless; echoing and perfect.

'Nothing relevant,' I thought, bitterly. 'It was a long shot, anyway. You?'

'There's a compendium here talking about psychokinetic abilities, telepathy and so on, but nothing...relevant, as you said.'

He was despondent, evident dissatisfaction pouring through the link. I narrowed my focus and executed the mental equivalent of a reassuring touch or a stroke. My vision of the real world faded for the duration and when it returned, blurred and swimming, I felt disorientated. This was something I had been experimenting with for the last week. The bond was almost tangible in some ways. If we focused it enough, we could create something akin to physical contact. It registered in the brain as the sensation of touch. It was dangerous, however. Not only did it drain us of energy, but we returned from the effort of concentrating so hard in a dizzy, lightheaded state. Never to be attempted in front of others.

I felt him swallow down the groan that had rumbled up his throat when my touch registered. We both worked hard to ignore it.

'You think maybe it's a precedent?'

He executed an almost perfect mental shrug. 'Without asking anyone, we won't know, will we?'

It went without saying that we could never tell anyone, aside from Jasper who had known the moment he'd arrived back at the house. Initially, we thought perhaps the necessity might arise beyond our control; Alice might (finally) have seen something that would indicate the bond between us altered the future somehow. Only she had seen nothing, as far as we knew. Alice was too forthright to keep it to herself if indeed she had seen anything.

Jasper had waited a few hours to get Edward and I alone to discuss the matter. We had been ruthlessly grilled and he had made his displeasure very well known. He demanded to know how, why, when, how? I tried to explain the best I could, but it was difficult to depict the experience without waxing poetic. He believed everything I told him, except that it had been accidental. He still refused accept that we had not forged this bond on purpose.

'Why would we do it on purpose?' Edward murmured, amused. He had, of course, been musing over those memories right along with me.

It took a few seconds for me to adjust. 'I honestly can't fathom,' I replied. It was the truth; though the bond between us was new and somehow familiar all in one, there was one constant that had established itself immediately. We could not lie through it. Nothing but the truth would pass between us. Which made the other issue even more pressing.

The worst – the absolute worst – thing about this entire occurrence was that we were now closer than we had ever been, without touching. Though I knew I was being irredeemably shallow to even acknowledge such impulses at a time like this, the truth was not easy to shove aside.

There was nowhere to hide now. No safe place to run when the temptation to touch him, kiss him, hold him, have him threatened to run riot with my shoddily constructed control. It was practically impossible now to even stop thinking about him; he was right there inside me and I was inside him. It was starting to feel like some terrifying axiom, branding itself into my skin, bones and soul.

You are inside me and I am inside you and we are one and the same.

I wanted him more than I could control. I had never wanted, needed him to this extent. The difference being that now I was older, in possession of an impressive set of defences and some serious self discipline. Mostly. I could recall being young; there had been nothing to stop me leaving our family to go to him in the dead of night, recklessly indulging each and every impulse as it was born.

This was different. I had not needed him then like I needed him now, but back then I had not generated the strength of will that I owned now. We had not been bound like we were now; tied together irreversibly. Tangled and interwoven, growing into the messy knots that held us together.

It was too late in the game to decide to simply back away gracefully. Back away even a little. Back away at all.

And worse, I knew it.

There was a thickening rope of claustrophobia around my neck, restricting any and all space around me. I struggled not to panic, not to let the fear overcome my ability to cope. The air of permanency was weighing heavily in my lungs, threatening in low tones that I would never be alone again, never.

'Breathe,' he told me. 'Just take slow, deep breaths.'

I shook my head, hands rising to cover my mouth. 'I can't.'

'Yes,' he promised. 'You can.'

I was unusually hot, in a deeply unpleasant way. The oxygen around me seemed damp and drenched with some sort of heat. My hands were sticky, skin prickling in reaction to this unnatural warmth. It was like being trapped under a quilt with another body. No air, no space, no escape.

When he spoke again, it was louder; commanding and edged with impatient concern. 'Rose, you have to calm down.'

Suddenly, I felt a bout of irrational anger bubbling up inside me.

'Why do you care?' I snapped, and my chest hitched and convulsed a little. I vaguely recalled a sensation like this overpowering me when I had been human; panic attacks. Though no-one ever knew of it, I had been quite prone to them during my teen years. I dropped my head a little further and let my spine curve downwards, my whole body suddenly eager to obey gravity in it's entirety. Let me drop, let me fall down and be weightless, it sang.

'Rosalie!' he almost shouted, loud enough that I winced. It echoed and bounced off the walls of my mind; walls that seemed smaller, more condensed than they had ever been. 'You have to get a grip!'

"Why?" I gasped, not wanting to speak to him in that secret way. Not when it made me too hot, too uncomfortably warm and sickly.

My vision swam, jolted by something. The room faded entirely, replaced by another. I sucked in a huge breath, panic flooding my senses. Too bright, too blurry...but it was Edward's room. The vision was moving, changing.

I was seeing through Edward's eyes.

He shook his head, the images of the room blurring beyond recognition. I dipped a little into his feelings and realised that he was feeling the same sensations as I was. Only they had not originated from him; they had come from me.

I was doing this to him, affecting him.

It was enough to force myself to withdraw, to sit up straight and take slow, calming breaths of cool air until I was brave enough to open my eyes again. After a few minutes of silence, I ran a hand through my hair and sighed.

"How do you control it?" I asked, barely more than a whisper. I couldn't bring myself to use the voice inside after that unpleasantness.

'It takes time,' he offered, rather lamely. 'It gets better, I promise.'

"We can control this, right?" I waited with a bated breath for an answer which could only be the truth – no reassuring lies.

'I don't know,' he answered finally. 'But you know what I do know? You're wasting your time denying how much you want me. I can see it, feel it, hear it...you need me as much as I need you and I'm sorry, but you're right – there's nowhere to hide now.'

That was enough. I stood up from where I had been sitting and left the room with an abruptness I hoped would serve to shake him out of me for the time being, deep down knowing that it wouldn't. I swept through the beautifully decorated hallways, past the rooms of people I loved and down the spiral staircase. I felt his attention wander away from me, back to whatever he was reading, and managed to convince myself that somehow, I could cope.

I barely noticed that I had swiped my car keys from the hook by the door – they felt cold and heavy in my hand. I loudly called my husband's name and waited for him to arrive.

"Emmett!" I yelled again, impatience curling in my stomach.

"Coming!" he shouted back, somewhere in the back part of the house. "Hang on, coming!"

I heard his footfalls, heard him skid once on the beautiful marble staircase and then he came into view. All messy wet hair, distracted confusion and that smile. I couldn't help it, I smiled a little just to see him.

"Hey baby," he said, winking. "What's all the rush? I was in the shower and mmppphh-!"

Before he could finish the sentence I had jumped right up into his arms and pressed my lips against his urgently, running my free hand through his wet hair. He groaned into my mouth; he loved it when I played with his hair. His big, strong arms lifted me where I stood as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He lifted me as though I weighed nothing, held me there against him. I shifted angle, our noses brushing so I could deepen the kiss, catching his bottom lip between my teeth just before I drew back.

He was out of breath, voice low and gravelly when he spoke. "Well, hey there."

I traced my fingers down from his scalp, over his ears and curled them around the back of his neck, tracing idle shapes and circles. His breath stuttered and caught, his eyes locking into mine and threatening to never let go.

"Hey," I breathed, moving my lips tantalisingly close over his, just short of brushing.

"Where've you been?" he asked, hand running up and down my back. "I missed you."

"Missed you more." I brought his chin up a little so I could duck under his neck and bite at the soft skin there, eliciting a very interesting sound from his throat.

"God, Rose," he gasped. "Been a while, huh baby?"

Which was true, of course. It had indeed been a while since we had been like this; there had been other, more pressing issues. I had neglected him during those weeks, needed him to be there for me in a way that didn't involve...this.

"Too long," I breathed, dragging my lips over that special spot on his neck while I strategically tightened my legs around his waist, causing his knees to buckle. We fell together, right there in the middle of the vestibule where anyone could walk past. He landed on his knees, I remained draped around him. "Way too long."

When I gently bit his earlobe, he began to seriously lose control. He pulled my face to his, crushing our lips together in heated, feral urgency. My hands were under his shirt now, sweeping over the planes of smooth muscles and skin; dragging in places, clawing in others. I knew well how to drive him wild.

"Need...go...somewhere...else," he managed, between kisses.

I ignored him, not caring if someone walked by just then. In fact, I wanted it. Let them see how normal we were; what a perfect, uncontrollably in love couple we were...let them all see it. I wanted the world to know it and accept it and just leave us alone.

"Don't care," I replied, ripping open his shift with one hand, sending buttons flying everywhere over the hard, marble floor. They skittered and rolled away as he let his head fall back so I could mark his skin, bite and suck in such a way that would leave a bruise for hours, if not days. He groaned aloud; it reverberated off of the vast walls, circling us.

'Unfair.'

I violently ignored that, to the degree of trying to slam the door through which it had come, shut. There was no-one else; me and Emmett, that was all.

My lips travelled down his neck, along his chest. Kissing and marking him in a messy, imperfect journey ever downwards. I shifted position, so I could better reach his navel when he pulled me back up. His lips were wet and swollen, pupils blown wide with lust but he was obviously trying to clear his mind.

"Babe," he panted. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"Sshhh," I soothed, kissing him again, softer this time. "I love you, Emmett. I love you more than I'll ever be able to say."

"I love you, but..."

"No, no more excuses, no more obligations and being brave," I said, louder than I had intended. "We're good people, we deserve this, don't we?"

He looked at me strangely, but nodded slowly and replied, "Of course we do, Rose."

I smiled and kissed him again, reaching for his belt buckle. "Exactly."

When he felt what I was in the middle of doing, his hand shot to my wrist and he pulled back, eyes serious with concern.

"In case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of the foyer," he pointed out. "In the house we share with our family."

"So? They're used to it," I shrugged again, trying to regain my grasp on his belt. He held me back tightly and I let a slow, sultry smile spread across my face. "Ahh, wanna play a different game, baby? You wanna tie me up, tie me down?"

He frowned a little. "Not here."

Of course, he'd want to go to our room. Privacy. But the thought of being locked away inside another room, surrounded by...people, made my stomach clench. I wanted distance.

"No," I whispered, letting my features soften. "Not here. I want to go be outside somewhere. Like we used to, remember?"

Some of the concern vanished, replaced by battling desire. "Yeah."

Slowly, I twisted my wrist out of his iron grip and took his hands into mine, tangling them together. "Let's take the car, drive somewhere and get lost for a while. Would you like that, baby?"

What seemed to be an involuntary smile tugged at the corners of his beautiful mouth and he nodded almost shyly. "Yes."

I reached for the car keys, somewhere to my left where I had dropped them and pressed them into his hand, kissing him soundly. He would drive us, take my car and take us away somewhere and I would pretend...pretend...that it was just the two of us.

---

-Saturday 18th March 2006-

"If you love me," I breathed. "You'll stop."

Without missing a beat, he replied, "I don't just love you."

I angled my face away, only just avoiding the impending kiss. "Let me go."

To my intense surprise and relief, he complied; hands loosening and finally leaving my skin entirely. "Sorry," he said, quite sincerely. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

I drew in a few shaky breaths, trying to replenish the tremulous barrier. When he took a few small steps backwards, eyes averted, I groaned. "Oh please don't look like that, Edward. For Christ's sake, it nothing remotely to do with that."

His eyes flickered to mine and away again quickly. "It's not?"

"No, it's not. You just...you just need to stay away from me, stop trying to get inside my mind. OK?" I managed.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, quieter than before. "I've just missed you so much. Being away from you is unbearable now; even this...not touching you...it's taking everything I have. I can't cope anymore, Rose. I'll do anything you want, anything. You want me to tell Emmett? Is that it? I'll do it. I'll tell everyone, tell them whatever you want me to and then we'll go wherever you want, do whatever you want," he swore, solemnly.

My back only convulsed once and I caught the sob before it escaped, but he knew I was crying anyway. He put his hands to his face, frantic and frustrated.

"What is this, Rose? Please just tell me! Is it that stupid psychic?"

I shook my head, blinking back tears, wishing it was that simple.

...*...

-Four Months, Two Weeks Ago-

It had been Esme's idea, at least early on. The house was exceptionally quiet lately and I knew, as we all did, that it was causing her grief to know that something wasn't quite right between us. Though she had her own projects – in particular, singlehandedly restoring a stunning monument a few miles away – we were still the light and soul of her life; her beautiful children. Seeing us like this was intolerable and it had been only a matter of time before she would inveigle us in some sort of family related outing.

The State Theatre was the obvious choice. She had, quite secretly, procured tickets for Sleeping Beauty, performed by the Ithaca Ballet. Her everlasting optimism ensured that she'd purchased seven tickets in the hope that Alice might return from her truth seeking journey. It had been a false hope, though. Alice had regretfully declined, claiming she was making impressive headway whilst trying to unearth her shadowy origins. Jasper had spoke very briefly to her on the phone and had hung up without telling her he loved her. He hadn't mentioned it since and no-one was going to try and make him talk; myself especially, when we weren't on the best of terms. He agreed to come to the performance, though which had to be something.

I realised how much I missed Alice, when I was searching for something to wear. She would have insisted we go shopping, or given me something of hers. I could easily have raked through her impressive collection of exquisite dresses – she certainly wouldn't have minded – but I couldn't bring myself to do it. So instead, I dressed in something relatively simple and pulled my hair up in a swirl.

Emmett's reaction to my somewhat unadorned look was a slow, stunning smile. He whispered warmly to me that I hadn't looked this beautiful in a long time and I didn't know how to feel about that.

In the back of my mind, Edward agreed.

We took two cars to the theatre; Esme and Carlisle in one and the rest of us in another. Edward and Jasper in the back while I drove and Emmett rode shotgun, shooting me sultry glances and secret smiles the entire journey there. Edward tried to stay distracted; tried not to be jealous, tried not to think of how the city at night reminded him of Forks and of Bella.

I drove very carefully, managing not to lose concentration.

Once we'd parked, it was only a small walk to the theatre. Emmett was at my side almost immediately, taking my hand and clasping it in his own.

"We can make out in this place, right?" he whispered, only half serious. I grinned and tried not to laugh out loud. "I mean, this is like a movie...but with men in tights?"

"I think you'd look rather strapping in tights, Em," Jasper piped up behind us as we began to walk. "Bet you could jump higher too."

"Damn straight," he replied easily. "So as I was saying, we can make out in the rows, can't we? Did Esme get us like a private box or something? With curtains?"

"Don't you two ever get bored of each other?" Carlisle queried from in front of us, both he and Esme laughing softly.

"It hasn't happened yet," Emmett said, swinging my hand a little.

Behind my own quite genuine layer of happiness, I could feel Edward's pain. Jealousy, frustration, sadness. It was unfair for me to be so happy and carefree when he was so painfully alone and forlorn. It would have been worse, however, to attempt to reassure him so I tried to ignore it and the nasty shiver that went down my spine.

We bantered playfully for a block, until we turned onto West State Street and were suddenly in the midst of a lot of humans. Emmett turned to give Jasper a questioning look and a kindly wink.

"He's OK," he told me quietly.

'Is he?' I asked Edward.

He bristled inwardly and I regretted the action which had, for a moment, felt innate and instinctive.

'Yes,' he told me. 'He'll manage. He hunted not long ago, remember?'

I felt a twinge of guilt, followed by a larger inundation of it. Emmett and I had only returned a day ago from our 'outing' together which had lasted almost four days.

'Keep an eye on him though?'I gently suggested.

'Not like I've got anything else to do,' he replied shortly and I felt the mental equivalent of being shoved out of his mind.

We hadn't discussed it yet, but I was certain that my going away for four days and nights for a marathon of practically non-stop lovemaking with Emmett had not contributed to Edward's mental health. I knew I had felt his presence for a lot of the time, if not all the time – I had at times managed to shut him out – and it stood to reason that he would have felt me.

I couldn't fault his resentment.

Up ahead, there was a particularly loud voice, rising above the others in it's shrill and demanding nature. A woman was yelling and trying to stop people on the street, offering her wares as a psychic.

"Only twenty bucks a reading!" she was proclaiming. "See what the future holds for you, what those little signs and omens mean for you and those you love!"

Behind me, Jasper snorted with amusement. "Good thing Alice isn't here," he muttered under his breath so we could hear, but no-one else could. "She hates those kind of people."

Unfortunately, we were going to have to walk right past her. I sighed with mild annoyance; some humans could be deeply irritating.

Her shrieking became louder as we approached the theatre. People were bodily swerving to avoid her, but she didn't seem to care. As she came into view, I suppressed a snort. She couldn't have looked any more clichéd if she'd tried. Black hair hidden beneath a red and blue silk scarf, silver hoop earrings, shawl, skirt with sewn coins that rattled and shook as she moved and a leather pouch around her middle. The black boots were frayed and worn, as were her stockings. The only thing about her that wasn't quite so stereotypical, was her loud, New York accent as she shouted out to random passers by.

"C'mon! Cross my palm with silver, gold or green and I'll tell you what the fates have in store! Tarot, palmistry...take your pick! Money back guarantee if you're not satisfied!"

I saw Carlisle reaching inside his wallet without thinking, ready to give the woman money without wanting anything in return. When we were close enough that I could see the slightly crazed look in her eyes, he handed it to her with a kind smile and a polite refusal of her services.

"But good sir!" she protested, still in a heavy New York accent not quite befitting someone masquerading as a gypsy psychic. "You are too kind! Allow me to give you word of your future!"

"No thank you," he replied politely. "We have to be somewhere I'm afraid."

"It'll take no time," she assured him, earnestly; eyes a little too wide to be normal. "Your kind can move fast enough when they want to, right? You won't be late, I'm sure."

We all froze.

"Excuse me?" Carlisle asked, after a cold beat of silence.

She shrugged casually. "Why? Did you do something rude?"

"You said...you said, our kind," he repeated, moving closer to the girl and lowering his voice considerably. Emmett moved to cover me slightly in an inbuilt stance of protection. Edward's interest perked and he moved forward, curiously, while Jasper stayed back.

Now she looked confused. "You prefer the term 'vampire'?"

"We are no such thing," Carlisle answered automatically.

The woman looked somewhat annoyed. "I don't know if you heard my hollering, but I'm a psychic! What kind would I be if I couldn't tell the difference between a human and one of you guys?"

"And you're not afraid?" Edward asked, moving to stand by Carlisle now. "You think we're...not human and you're not afraid?"

The woman's eyes flashed to Edward and her lips parted. For a single moment, I felt a very real stab of fear go through me that she was about to announce something out loud.

"No," she answered finally. "I'm not. I grew up in Flatbush." Then, not removing her unblinking stare from Edward's face, she said, "You. I'll read you."

He took a massive step back. "No, thank you."

But those eyes wouldn't move off of him. "You sure? I'd want to know what was coming if I were you, honey. Just 'cause you're a mind reader, don't mean you're invincible."

Fear stuttered through him, jarring his mind. "I said no."

When she started speaking in her mind, we both jumped a little. Thankfully, no-one seemed to notice the synchronicity of the action, all focus set directly upon the strange psychic. Her internal voice was softer, but directed with an underlying urgency.

'Only half of a whole, split down the centre...I can see you as you are, vampire. See the mess of knots in your heart and the twin soul you struggle to conceal. That soul is going to break free soon and the two halves will unite, permanently. Nothing will change it from then on, but three things threaten it coming to pass. Should these three things occur, then the moment shall expire and the twin soul will remain split and shared, trapped and yearning for freedom. The first is time, the second is love and the third is obligation. Time shall mock you, love shall corner you and obligation shall destroy you. Time, love, obligation.'

She shrugged again as though she had thought nothing of the sort. As though she hadn't torn through our mutual subconscious with a single paragraph of combined words and knowledge. She never quite took her eyes off him. "Suit yourself."

"We should go," Emmett said, still holding my hand, which had felt entirely, horrifically numb until he squeezed it.

"Yes, we really should," Carlisle said, sounding more shaken than I'd heard in years. "Goodnight," he bade the woman before starting to walk away. Edward followed him after a beat, breaking his gaze from the strange woman.

I forced myself not to look at her as we passed, but I felt her eyes on Edward for the rest of the road until we finally turned into the theatre.

"Well," Emmett said loudly, once we were safely inside. "That was unexpected."

Jasper chucked; I sensed it was forced. "Didn't see that coming."

We were all looking to Carlisle to see how to react; such children at heart.

"It's not unheard of," he said, removing his jacket and handing it to the young boy waiting patiently to hang it for him. "Just rare."

"I've heard of mediums, genuine ones," Esme contributed, slipping off her beautiful velvet cloak. "But as you said, quite rare."

The rest of the night went off without a hitch. The performance was entrancing, the music as beautiful as I remembered the first time I had heard it and there was a lovely feeling of togetherness, even despite missing Alice.

Only nothing could block out what was running through Edward's mind, and therefore mine. What that woman had been thinking, what she had seen. She had known he was reading her mind; she had spoken to him through it.

'... Time shall mock you, love shall corner you and obligation shall destroy you. Time, love, obligation.'

I could do little else but repeat those particular words over in my head, numb and hollow as I outwardly smiled and contributed to the family outing.

Time, love, obligation. Our ritual, our mantra...our Goddamned prayer turned around and weaponized, piercing my heart and dripping fear into words that had served as powerful comfort and strength over the decades.

They left his mind days before mine, while I could not shake the feeling of deep unease and disquiet that settled into my bones ever since then. The future was a dark, ominous cloud; obscuring everything within sight, tainting everything in the present. Deeply buried within, the sick ache to know more of what it was she'd hinted at, but when I returned alone, a few days later, she was long gone.

---

-Saturday 18th March 2006-

Time.

Love.

Obligation.

Each word representative of an event that had led us here, to this desperate, agonising scenario that was going to destroy us both the moment my defences crumbled beneath the weight of his determination.

Time had made fools of us, cheating us of precious moments that would have made all the difference. A phone call that came two minutes too early, a revelation made too late.

Love...love had us pinned here, backed into a corner just as she had foretold. Love had made me weak, slower than I would have been had I not been so wholly wrapped up in the person chasing me. Love made us sloppy. Love was what drove me to keep him out.

Obligation would destroy us, him first. It was only a matter of time, the breaking of the barrier. I knew I couldn't hold on much longer and when it broke...oh yes, obligation was going to rip the foundations of our world to pieces, and take Edward Cullen with it.

The irony was unbearable; some irrefutable evidence of a cruel deity watching and laughing as we struggled to endure the brutal twists and turns that filled our existence.

I had to jump – it was the only thing I could think of to do that might have even a chance of working. The water would shut my mind down, like it had done for Edward. It would force it to stop working and then he wouldn't be able to see inside it. I wouldn't die; that I knew solidly. But I could avoid the maelstrom; prevent the madness, at least postpone it.

He was watching me with careful, narrowed eyes. Thus far, I knew he hadn't read my thoughts but he was trying to make out the shape of them anyway. He had to be able to feel the fear, burning throughout my body.

"Rose," he breathed, the soft exhalation lost upon the blustery winds. "What is this?"

And I couldn't do it...couldn't let him see, let him know.

So I closed my eyes, spread my arms wide and let myself fall backwards.

...*...

-Four Months Ago-

It was rare times like this, that I knew exactly why I went out of my way to avoid fighting with Jasper. My brother and I shared something of a sibling bond and almost always found ourselves on the same side of the fence.

Almost always.

"I just don't understand," he ground out, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. "Why you won't listen to me!"

I wrung my hands together, grabbing at the tight flesh of my palms and pulling at my fingers, nervously. I knew it was my trademark gesture; exposing my inner anxiety and vulnerability and all that cliché crap, only it was involuntary, despite how much I was aware of it.

"I've heard you, Jasper. We both have and as much as it's driving you insane, I can't change it any more than you can." It sounded cold, but really I was just getting tired of it; tired of trying to convince him that this wasn't something we were intentionally maintaining.

"I refuse to accept that," he said, dropping his hand and gesturing to ground once more. "Get him here and we'll try it again."

"I realise that it's a stretch for you," I snapped. "But if it hasn't worked the first five hundred times, maybe it's not going to work at all!"

He glared at me. "At least I'm trying to do something about it."

All the way from inside the house, Edward's anger spiked through me, leaving traces of heat and irritation. Jasper's eyes narrowed and he shook his head.

"Do you know how that feels? Sensing him through you?"

"Yes, well it's not exactly a ball for us either!" I retaliated hotly, borrowing Edward's searing resentment to embolden my own somewhat lacking anger. "But I think we've established by this point that meditation isn't going to work!"

He made a disgusted sound and looked away, furiously staring at the impressive wilderness surrounding our house. Rain was only a few hours away; the air was heavy and moist with the weight of a nearby storm. We weren't far away enough that we couldn't be overheard, but Jasper was obviously reaching the end of his already limited patience. This outburst was overdue, if anything.

"Because you're not really trying," he insisted wildly. "You don't want it gone!"

That hurt. Both Edward and I reeled back from that comment.

"How can you say that?" I spluttered. "Do I feel ecstatically happy to you? Am I singing from the hilltops about how much I love having this...connection, or whatever the hell it is?"

His dark eyes struck mine. "But you're not trying to remove it."

I wished I could explain to him the sense of permanence both Edward and I felt. I wished I could tell him that somehow, we both just knew it wasn't going anywhere; the same way any immortal's gifts weren't. I wished he could know that and simply accept it.

"It can't be stopped, Jasper," I groaned. "Christ, why won't you trust me?"

"I trust you, but not your judgement."

"Oh, because you're Mr Good Judgement? "

The glare narrowed. "Comparatively, yes."

"Nothing has changed, not really!" I insisted. "We're not running off into the sunset together, so why does it have to be a big thing?"

"Because you're not in your right mind, either of you! Because this is too much insanity, even for you two! Because it's unhealthy, Rosalie! Because..." He fell short suddenly, as if stopping himself before he said something he would regret.

"What?" I demanded. "Because what, huh?"

His face set in determination, though his eyes softened a little.

"Because I'm afraid for you both; I'm afraid that you're going to get lost inside each other and never come back."

'Gee, that was a little more purple prose than I'm used to from him,' Edward deadpanned. 'Do you want me to come outside and back you up?'

'No,' I answered. 'It will more likely escalate if you join in.'

My eyes had gone glassy without even realising it and when they regained focus, Jasper was glaring even more than before.

"And that, for example, is really getting annoying. It resonates in my brain like a cell on vibrate!"

"So tune it out," I hit right back.

He was silent for a whole minute and I actually thought, stupidly, that I had beat him into submission. When he spoke again, however, it was evidently not so.

"It's not because it's annoying me, Rose,' he said, less hostile now. "But you can't see it from an outsider perspective. What's between you now...you're so close to merging into one mindset, it's frightening. It shouldn't be that way, there's no precedent as far as I know, and I've been doing some research of my own. It scares me that this thing has morphed into something tangible. Something real, that other vampires could sense and acknowledge if and when we come across them."

I sighed again, most of the anger draining out of me. "I know, but you're not helping the situation by doing this."

"There have to be boundaries, Rose," he told me. "There has to be something stopping you from slipping into him and vice versa. Like I said, you can't see it from the outside but I can. I can see how close you both are to dissolving into each other and believe me, if you could see it, you'd be in China by now."

I actually laughed at that and he cracked after a moment or so, rolling his eyes and relenting. I knew he hated fighting with me as much as I did and really, there was never anything to be gained from it.

"I'm sorry," I told him, reaching out and touching his arm. "Please don't let this be something that comes between us, OK? I love you, Jasper. You're my brother and I love you and this new weirdness isn't going to change that."

He returned the gesture with an affectionate smile, though there was a distant sadness in his eyes.

"It's not anything between us that's going to change."

We left it at that, neither one wanting to provoke a full blown altercation, but what he'd said stayed with me. I couldn't help but hear those words over and over again, rolling through my mind – and Edward's by default – until they began to lose all meaning individually.

'...you're so close to merging into one mindset, it's frightening.'

And of course, it didn't help that those words went eerily in accordance with the first part of the street psychic's dire prediction.

'That soul is going to break free soon and the two halves will unite, permanently.'

It felt like the first indication that something was coming. Something neither of us were prepared for in the slightest.

---

-Saturday 18th March 2006-

He caught me, of course. Before I could even fall a foot backward, he grabbed me and yanked me forwards until I fell onto the damp ground. His reflexes were impeccable and well trained, perhaps even better than mine as I hadn't been the one who's attention had been solely focused upon an accident prone human for the last few months. I tried to pull away from his rescuing grasp, but it was unforgiving and mindless.

We landed in a heap, my back against the dirt, his hands braced on either side my shoulders and by some miracle of restraint, he pushed himself up before our faces could touch.

Distantly, thunder rumbled in the skies and sent a towering sense of menace rolled throughout my nervous system.

"You stupid, selfish..." he hissed, and I could see the anger in his eyes, making him tremble. "How could you even think of doing that? Did you honestly think I'd just let you, after what it did to me?"

I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak; paralysed by how small my world had suddenly become. Surrounded completely by a furious, shaking Edward Cullen. I closed my eyes, praying his trademark chivalry would kick in and he would feel some misplaced sense of guilt about the position we were in, though I had to doubt it. Laying on top of me would barely even register as something sexual, given our history together. Still, despite everything...I felt tendrils of desire and heat creeping through my cold, dead veins. I felt that heat crawling up the back of spine, my lips suddenly aware of each nuance of wind and air that played over them.

Most of his body was pressed against me, his legs on either side of my thighs, his midriff and torso flat against mine. We hadn't been this physically close in a very long time and Jesus Christ despite the horrific situation, it was a monumental effort not to lean up that quarter of an inch and kiss him; just press my mouth against his and set light to the fuse. That would be all it took and we both knew it.

But much more powerful than that age old desire, was the pressure against my mind. He was executing the mental equivalent of hurling himself at the weak points in my defences, feverishly trying to break them down and see just what the hell I was doing and why.

There was a real, honest to God pressure behind my eyes and I thought I might scream if it didn't dissipate. Part of me wanted to kiss him just to distract him from his pursuit, but I knew the moment that happened...I wouldn't care enough to maintain the wall.

It took him all of five seconds to work that out.

After a brief look of realisation, he leaned down to kiss me and when I turned my face away, he reached up and turned it right back with his hand. His lips brushed mine before I had time to bodily roll to the left and dislodge him. The momentary contact was nothing less than an electric shock. He fell off, sideways and I scrambled to get up before he recovered. I had made it to my knees before he was right there again, holding me by the wrists, something akin to astonishment and powerful suspicion all over his features as he knelt before me.

"Wh-what was that?" he demanded, breathlessly. I struggled and he fought back, keeping me there. "I felt something, Rose...what was it? You're-you're keeping something from me, aren't you? That's what this is. You're not trying to get rid of it because you're scared." His voice was low, eyes wide. "You know something and you don't want me to know."

Crumbling, breaking, cracking, dying...the foundations of the walls were shaking apart, losing integrity and it was a matter of minutes before he would see and know and then it would be over.

"Let me go," I cried. "Baby, please, please let me go."

He blanched, obviously taken aback that I would stoop to using endearments; a rare trick, employed only in times of severe desperation. It worked long enough that I could wrench him off of me and pick myself up.

I ran as fast as I physically could and threw myself off the edge before he could even turn and see it.

...*...

-Three Months Ago-

It wasn't always like this; life wasn't entirely made up of sadness and sorrow. It couldn't be, or else we would have gone insane. There was normality. There was happiness. Silliness, playfulness, monetary issues, cars, movies, kissing, hunting, banter and laughter. Despite what it might have seemed, my life was not one endless cavalcade of calamities and disasters. There had to be some kind of balance, even in such a tragic existence.

It was just that the lighter, happier moments faded into insignificance.

I thought about humans and the simple lives they lived. A set span of existence, some eighty years or so. Five or six main goals, all easily achieved with determination and effort. Rules to live by, regulations to keep them in line and happiness to keep them from noticing the minutes aching onwards. Love, children, marriage and success. Simple.

Sure, they betrayed one another. Cheated, lied, murdered, stole, raped, tortured and profited from the pain of others. They were brutal animals, capable of reaching extreme lows.

But they had one thing in common.

Death. They would all die. Their days, however they chose to live them, were numbered.

And contained in the heart of that fact, there was something very simple.

Basic.

Uncomplicated.

For them, there would be rest. Peace. An end.

For us, however, there would not be.

There was no limited lifespan. No rules, no fear of death to keep us in line.

There was forever and it was a gaping mass of potential. The potential to screw everything up so completely and irreversibly.

I sighed, pushing the recycled air through my teeth. This was not a productive way to spend any amount of time, even if it was limitless.

The thing was, there were only so many books you could read, so much music you could listen to and even compose before your mind started to get a little hungry for more. There would always be favourites, of course. Things you could read or hear on repeat, but after so many years in stagnation, your perspective shifts. Knowledge, art and beauty are all well and good for the first few decades, but soon enough there comes a drive to know more than any human could know.

Which is exactly where things start to get a little crazy.

Suddenly, concepts you held in high regard and had faith in – respect for human life, for example – are thrown headlong into a grey area. You look at those six billion messy creatures and wonder at their determination to save each other, to prolong that existence and destroy the planet as they do so. You feel all that knowledge impacting in the back of your brain, rendering you cold and clinical.

Ideals you were raised with, until that brutal death and consequential rebirth, are called into question. Everything is called into question.

Religion starts to look increasingly like a rulebook written by frightened children who want to believe in an omniscient parental figure. War seems more like a matter of pride and arrogance, than of genuine hatred. Even marriage, after a while, appears to be yet another facet of religion and economy.

And then you make the fatal error of aiming that razor discernment inwards.

We were a powerful species, primarily driven by the baser instincts; sex, death and violence. It was only the residual humanity that forced us to cling desperately to that admiration for the mortal coil. That knowledge never went away, that we could at any given moment take a life. The snapping of bone, the tearing of flesh...it was all innate. The first time I bloodied my own hands, those sounds and sensations were of no shock to me. The reptilian brain, usually small and unexploited in humans, is exceptionally powerful in the mind of vampires. The primary directives are branded into our very bones. Blood and death; out hands and teeth were made to wield and deal out death. The fact that some of us, myself being one of them, refrained was a testament to the lingering traces of humanity.

Even despite those traces, the separation from all humans is a distinct one. The loneliness and isolation would be intolerable were it not for our family. To be surrounded by them, to see and hear them in everyday life and to never be a part of their strange little existence...it had taken me many years to adjust.

I shivered, not from the cold, and wrapped my arms around myself. There were long since healed scars buried in those memories of my youth and stupidity; scars that hadn't healed quite right, as thought something was still buried beneath them and never pulled out. It was times like this, sat at the piano and unable to move, that I felt old. I felt those years pressing down into me, willing me into the ground that I would never know from natural causes. I would have to be killed to die; nature would never lure me into the dirt.

I looked down in detached fascination at my fingers and couldn't help but think of all the things I had ever touched. Without genuine intention, one body recurred more than anything else. The planes of his skin, his face, his long messy hair. I examined the pads of the tips; they had known the curve of his ears, the softness of his lips, the tight skin over his hip bones and the 'V' shaped plunge.

But they had also known his tears, had struck at his face with the intent to tear it clean off. They had torn at his clothes, torn into wood and carved names and words that would haunt me forever. They had struck keys and snapped a string belonging to this very piano, simply because I could not tolerate the idea of him loving another and composing music for her using this instrument.

Had there been a time when they had been my hands? When they had not yet known and automatically sought the feel of his skin, as a moth seeks light? I was so completely possessed by him now that any traces of lingering individuality were fading fast. It was a terribly strange, almost invisible process but it was happening and I could feel it nonetheless.

Up until the Bathtub Incident, there had been fractions of myself that were still me. Rosalie Hale. Little partitions and aspects of myself that remained thus far untouched by Edward Cullen. The struggle to maintain individuality was always one of the primary reasons we kept some level of restraint between us.

But what could remain individual between two who shared everything? Mind, body and soul...quite literally.

The link between us was all consuming and growing stronger with each passing moment. We were inside one another all the time and it didn't matter how much I distracted myself with Emmett, or how much Edward hunted and brooded...there was a real, live connection firing between us and it was never going to stop.

It was coming, hard and fast and I didn't think I could stop it.

We were going to bleed into one another...and never recover.

No individuality, no discernment, nothing but absolute, irrevocable completion. And it really was the right word, for once; completion. We would be complete. Two halves, melding flawlessly into the one they were always meant to be. No rough edges, no stubborn declarations of independence and autonomy.

I could be wrong, of course. Perhaps it wasn't quite so poetic. Maybe we were just two tragically dark beings, so hopelessly in love with what they can never have that they turn their life into a massive Shakespearian tragedy. But the truth was never simple.

Yes, there were moment of genuine, bright happiness in both our lives. Yes, we did laugh and joke, play around and enjoy parts of our existence. There wasn't always this mass of heartbreak and sadness, brought on by desperation and longing. There was hope and music and family.

But they were tiny fragments of diamond radiance, scattered across a vast, never ending sky. Echoes of light against the intransience of darkness. Beautiful and inspiring, but fleetingly helpless to illuminate that night sky.

Oh, there were endless metaphors for it. I could have waxed poetic for the next hundred years, but nothing changed the bottom line.

Where we were headed, was a place of irreversibility. What we would become, could never be unmade, untangled. We would lose everything except one another and while a good 99% of me was screaming in favour of that, there was a tiny portion - some vestige of individuality – that forbade it. Demanded that I find a way to resurrect the dying barriers between us before we fell into one another.

And this factor was the driving reason, despite what I convinced Emmett, that I went to England.

---

-Saturday 18th Match 2006-

The impact of my body against the water was phenomenal. I landed flat on my back, some reverse version of a belly flop, and the sound echoed in my ears a moment before the water swallowed me whole. I let it take me, willed it to devour me and dull whatever electrical impulses connected me to Edward, both wishing it was that simple and knowing instantly that it never would be.

The darkness was almost total as the storm clouds were smothering any traces of sunlight. Silence filled me up and I exhaled the last of my stolen oxygen, helping the water pull me downwards. The coldness of the water was almost refreshing and I waited impatiently for the nothingness that Edward remembered of his last encounter with this element. I opened my mouth, still sinking ever lower, and told myself that this was it...I would breathe in and that would douse the synapses in my brain, render this insanity completely broken once and for all. I would shut him out of my mind even if it meant destroying it.

Part of me laughed cruelly at how pathetic my attempts were. What was I trying to prevent, or more accurately...postpone? It couldn't be done, I knew he would find out soon, I knew it but I just couldn't be the one to tell him, could never be the one to do that to him, not after everything he'd been through over the last few months.

I would not do that to him. If this was the price, if I was selfish and unfair in my actions then so be it. I could not allow him to see into my mind and know the truth I so desperately wished I could un-know.

The water was crushing into me now, demanding that I allow it to fill me up, become a part of it. I wanted to, I wanted it so badly. To be a hiding child, relieved of the devastating responsibilities that plagued me.

The breath I took was wrenching agony, like forcing cement down into my lungs. Water should have been soft, I knew that, but it felt rock solid and razor sharp. I wanted to push it out straight away, but I knew if I did then it would have no effect. I held it in, despite the torturous pain and tried to think of how much easier life would be after this.

Something grabbed my hand then, pulling it violent upwards, dragging me form the welcoming depths and blackness. I struggled against it, but my strength was limited as I was trying to hold the water inside. I didn't even have to think of what it was, pulling me up.

The pressure of the water eased a few seconds before we broke the surface. Dark, grey light was there waiting for me, furious and foreboding as thunder and lightning fought overhead. Stubbornly, I held the water inside and it burned like acid. He was screaming at me, terrible words and curses as he yanked me ruthlessly in the direction of land. I kept my eyes as tightly closed as my mouth.

When my feet caught and dragged on large, smooth pebbles, he lifted me up and carried me the rest of the way, dropping me down when we were a few feet from the gently lapping waves of the lake. De Ja Vu hit me hard, reminding me of the first night I had confronted him, fought with him...known how deeply I was falling in love with him. I kept my mouth closed and focused on that memory, willing myself not to listen to anything he was saying.

'Why should I stop? You care nothing for me, why should it trouble you to know of my petty tribulations? You wish I had died on that street, cold, dead and defiled!'

'You are confusing your own desires with mine,' He spat, seeming to lose all patience. 'It is you who wished to be left alone to die on that street!'

'You revolting swine! I despise the very sight of you!'

"You despise that you cannot hide beneath your beauty, that your name cannot shield you from me. You despise me because I can see all the way through you and you cannot make your insides as beautiful as your outsides!'

I wanted to laugh, because nothing had changed from that first night, but I would have let the water escape and then there would be nothing left to hold onto.

He was slapping my face, not even a tenth as hard as he could, just enough to make his urgency known trying to make me open my eyes and spit out the water that would, any minute, destroy the living breathing connection between us.

"…dare even think of doing this to me, selfish, stubborn bitch! You open your eyes right now, do you hear me? Rosalie! Open you Goddamned eyes!"

Thankfully, I managed not to comply. I felt his hands all over my face, frantic and panicking, just like I had been when I'd dragged him out of the bath. There was a nasty spike of guilt, but I shoved it aside; this was for his good. I wouldn't die from this, it wasn't for attention or even to make a point. It was for him, all for him.

And of course, my own cowardice.

"Don't do this to me!" he commanded, voice fracturing under strain. "Jesus, Rose, come on! Spit it out and open your eyes! I don't know why you're doing this and I don't care! Whatever it is, whatever you think you need to do is irrelevant now! I love you, Rose. I'm right here…I am right here and you're mine, do you hear that? I am over the whole guilt thing, I'm over Emmett and Carlisle and the shame of it because I was in love with you first! We are going away, tonight! The minute you open your eyes, I'm never letting them away from me again, you get that? You understand that, Rosalie Hale? I…I can't do it without you anymore! I will do whatever you want, give you whatever you want for the rest of eternity and I'll want nothing back because I'll have you! Now open your eyes and breathe!"

I had never know the meaning of the word confliction until then.

After a few moments of torture, my love for him won over my need to have everything he was offering me. I kept my eyes shut, my throat closed in the furious burning as the water began to push into my skull.

"Fine," he snarled, furiously. "You won't breathe? I'll make you breathe!"

His mouth was one mine, the very antithesis of tenderness. It closed over mine completely and before I could process what he intended to do, it was happening.

CPR in reverse.

He was pulling the water from my throat, as though siphoning gas from a car through a hose. He was stealing it from me, pulling it out and Christ that was almost as painful as breathing it in. My arms shot up to push him away, but he held them down. I struggled to attain some leverage to kick him away, but he flattened my legs with his own and I was horribly powerless as he drank the water out of my mouth, taking it away from me in great gulps until there was nothing left, at which time he broke the contact to spit it out of his own body.

I gasped, tears streaming and allowed my eyes to open, defeated beyond what I could articulate. He was above me, holding me there with his eyes if nothing else. He was dripping wet, moisture clinging to every part of him, and he was so furious, he seemed to have actually gone beyond being angry at all. Instead he looked broken, abandoned. His face screwed up and he lifted a hand towards me, shaking so hard that droplets of water were flying from it.

"Why?" he croaked. "Why are you doing this, Rose? Is it so horrible, having me inside your head? Am I that…unbearable?"

Another stab to my already bleeding heart. I shook my head, helplessly.

"No," I rasped, my throat furious at the abuse it had suffered. "No, no, no."

His fingertips chased tears off my cheeks as he began to cry with me. "You want me gone?"

"No," I sobbed, reaching up with my free hand and clutching at his.

"Then what?"

I took a shallow breath, because it hurt too much for a deep one. The barrier in my mind was paper thin now, and only upright because he was not pushing in at it, too occupied with what was right there in front of him. The slightest push from him would destroy it now, but…there was one small chance that the water might have worked. Might have shielded my mind from his. If that had worked, then there was a possibility I hadn't allowed myself to consider until now.

If it had worked, if he couldn't read my mind anymore…we could leave together. We could do everything he promised, we could be together and I knew without the slightest hesitation that I would do it.

"I can't…don't make me," I begged.

"OK," he said, nodding and leaning in closer, pressing his forehead against mine. "OK, I won't push. I'm not pushing, but please, please tell me what's going on. I won't take from you what you won't willingly give, but I need to know, Rose. Tell me, please."

The feel of his skin against mine was breathtaking, even amidst everything. I wanted nothing more than to crawl inside of him and get utterly lost forever. Melt into him and let him become me, messy and tangled forever. That desire took precedent over all other instincts; survival included. But I needed to know if it was safe to do so, I needed to know.

I couldn't bear look out from behind the paper thin defenses to see if my ridiculous plan had worked at all. So I would take a massive risk.

"Edward," I croaked. "Edward, I'm going to ask you a question and I need you to answer it, OK?"

He nodded, caressing my nose with his and growling low in his throat. "Anything you want."

I swallowed and tried to hold onto my sanity before it fled.

"Wh-what number am I thinking of?"

He paused, opened his eyes and stared into mine.

All too late, I felt the paper rip…

...*...

-Two Months Ago-

"Man," Emmett sighed, staring out of the window. "This country's weather sucks."

It had been raining solidly for the last week; thick, heavy rain the likes of which I hadn't seen in many years. Forks had been renowned for its drizzle and grey skies, Ithaca with it's sunless showers and cold snaps…but this. This was something else.

"I like rain," I commended nonchalantly.

"Yeah, me too, but this is like…torrential 'Start-Building-an-Ark' rain. I wish we could go back to Africa, y'know? I liked the sun and the sea and the sharks. This place has tea, rain and kids covered in gold jewelry, with really bad attitudes," he mused. "What is that word they use?"

"Chavs?" I supplied helpfully, skimming through yet another directory.

"Yeah, that's it. So are we going out tonight?" he asked.

"Uh, I don't know baby. Haven't you had enough of the culture yet?" I asked distractedly.

He laughed and turned away from the window. "Nah, I like it. They talk so funny, I want to hear them talk some more. Can we go downstairs and make the receptionist say things with her weird accent?"

"Oh yes," I deadpanned. "This is truly the honeymoon to end all other honeymoons."

"Say it with a British accent," he pleaded, approaching the bed where I sat. "Say 'honeymoon' in a British accent."

"New kink, baby?" I teased.

"Maybe, what are you even reading? Yellow Pages? Thompson Local? Who are you looking for?" he asked curiously.

"I told you, an old friend of Carlisle's, remember? He's like a vampire specialist."

The bed dipped as he knelt upon it, crawling closer to me. "Right, and remind me why we're looking him up?"

I finally looked up at him and met his gaze, warm and inquisitive.

"Because," I answered, taking a deep breath. "He specializes in vampires with telepathy."

Emmett cocked his head to one side adorably. "Uh-huh, and…?"

"And I thought maybe he'd be willing to help Edward."

"Edward? You think he can help Edward?"

"Yes, I do."

"How?"

"Look, I know what his official reasons are for skipping across the globe are; looking for Victoria, keeping Bella safe, and so on, but I know it's not only that. There's a part of him that can't bear to be around us anymore, his family. You know why? Because we're starting to affect him."

A frown blemished Emmett's perfect face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, with our thoughts. He has to be around us all, hearing what we think; it's enough trouble for him to keep his own thoughts in line right now, how hard must it be for him to also deal with our thoughts too? I just…I think if we can get some advice on how to build barriers, keep our thoughts inside our heads where they belong, it might make things easier for him."

The lie was easier to tell, having been twisted around truth.

"So, you think…what? This guy can tell us how to block him out of our heads when we need to?" Emmett clarified.

"Yes, I do."

"And you think he needs that? Being cut off from those around him?"

"He's not around anyone, Emmett. He's alone, on some insane hunting mission and I think at least part of the reason for that lies in that he can't bear to hear our thoughts anymore!"

"Baby," he admonished slightly. "You think maybe you're overreacting a little? It's never been an issue before, he's got a pretty good handle on his mind thing."

"Before this whole Bella Issue, yes, I'd agree with you. But it's different now. He's not as strong as he was before and I…I can't imagine how it must be affecting him. Never being alone inside your own mind. I just want to help him, even if this is all I can do, I want to help him."

He softened completely after that. "OK, babe. If that's what you want to do, we'll do it. We'll find this guy and see what he says, OK?"

I smiled and pulled him to me, easily distracting him as I forced myself to believe him, that everything would somehow be OK.

It would be two weeks before we found the vampire who posed as a Doctor. It would be another week after that before he would show me the techniques required to build any resistance to the connection.

It was a month before we left England and continued our honeymoon throughout Europe.

It was a month and three weeks before we went back to Ithaca.

It was two months before I would get the call from Alice that would change everything.

Two months before I would see Edward, fresh from Brazil. Two months before he would track me down, miles from our house in Ithaca.

Two months before I would snatch his cell phone and crush it in my hands so he would not receive the call from anyone, telling him what I wished I didn't know. That Bella Swan had jumped off a cliff, killed herself…was dead.

Two months before my poorly constructed defenses would fail me.

Two months before he would look right into my eyes and know what number I was thinking of.

Two months before he would read my mind, see what I had been trying to keep from him…

Two months until the world as we knew it, ended.

---

-Saturday 18th March 2006-

He knew. Oh God, he knew. I watched his face as he tried and failed to process the information, but he knew it all the same. Bella was dead, she'd killed herself and I had failed to protect him from it.

At first, I thought he'd gone into shock. His face went so horribly blank that I was afraid something in his mind had simply snapped. But with the uselessly weak defenses completely gone now, I could see into his mind as much as much as I dared and I knew his mind was, thus far, intact. I could not bring myself to go deeper, to delve into the building whirlpool of horror that I sensed without even trying to.

Very slowly, he released me and drew back, eyes never leaving mine. He reared back onto his knees and I somehow managed to pull out from underneath him, drawing up into a sitting position.

Thunder rolled in the distance, the air was polluted with electricity. It seemed to signal the end of the world.

I wanted to tell him I was sorry, that I tried to keep it from him. But the words never formed, they just wouldn't. I began to fear that he would never move from this spot, just as he blinked once, very slowly and drew in a breath with which to speak.

"She's…dead?" he exhaled, very softly.

Another two tears and I nodded numbly.

"Alice…saw it?"

I couldn't un-stick my throat, couldn't even move but it didn't matter; his questions were entirely rhetorical. I could feel him slipping away, detaching from me and this world and everything around him.

Another three minutes of loaded silence before he spoke again.

"Maybe she's not dead," he breathed. "Maybe…maybe Alice saw wrong."

I wanted it to be true, badly, but fate was never so kind, especially not to us.

"Where's your cell?" It was the prelude to a demand. In a few seconds, the numbness would melt away, the shock would fade just enough for him to become furiously, cataclysmically angry. I wasn't afraid; if he was going to be angry with anyone, it was going to be me, I would see to that. "You broke mine, didn't you? So I wouldn't….couldn't receive any calls."

The anger was forming now, black and merciless.

"You were going to keep this from me, weren't you?" His voice was three octaves lower than it should have been. "You weren't going to tell me."

"No, I was trying to…protect you."

He snarled dangerously. "Where is your cell?"

"Edward, please," I tried weakly. "Please don't do this…"

His eyes were burning into mine, searching for that cellular phone so he could call Bella and prove that she wasn't dead. Not dead, not his Bella. I had tossed it somewhere about half a mile away while I'd been running from him. Back when he had been chasing me, trying to get to me to beg me to go with him.

He ascertained its whereabouts and was gone exceptionally fast, even for one of our kind. I forced myself to my knees, trembling violently and tried to follow him, but I couldn't move as fast as he could and it took me a lot longer to get to him; at least two or three minutes.

By the time I got close enough to hear, it was already too late.

He was staring at my cell phone with a terrifying blankness, not moving, not breathing, not reacting. He stared at it as though it held all the secrets to the universe, and they were all bad.

He didn't even look at me as I approached.

"There was a boy," he said, in an almost normal tone of voice. "He told me Charlie was...he's at the funeral."

I stopped dead, hand rising to my mouth of it's own volition.

"You say you're sorry," he whispered, much lower. "And I will kill you."

"Please," I begged, not really knowing what I was begging for. "Please."

His eyes slammed into mine, the sudden flash of intensity was unbearable. "How could you not tell me?"

"I just couldn't," I tried to say, but it came out breathy and weak.

"Listen to me when I say this," he said, sounding almost normal, except for the undertone of razor sharp pain. "Because what I'm saying now will be my last words to you." Before I could open my mouth to speak, he was right there in front of me. "You have betrayed me, Rosalie, and I will never forgive you for it."

The blow was not unexpected, but the reasoning behind it was. He didn't hit me to hurt me, he didn't do it to make himself feel better.

He did it so that I couldn't follow him to stop him from what he was going to do. I was furious that he hit me hard enough to actually make me fall down, to make the world blur and darken and give him those precious seconds he needed to run far, far away.

I just lay there on the grass; head swimming, heart drowning. It was too much, way too much and nothing would sink in. I had failed him, tried so hard to protect him from the truth and now that he knew he would go to the Volturi, I knew it. He would die despising me and I would probably die too, from sheer loss and inability to survive without him. It didn't register – didn't seem real. Like watching a movie or something, watching it happen to someone else. It couldn't be happening to me, because no being – human or otherwise – could seriously cope with this.

I realised the cell was ringing; I clawed my way to it and answered completely on instinct, sounding horribly normal.

"Hello?"

It was Alice. "Rose, I need to talk to Carlisle now."

"He's out," I lied flawlessly. "Not here."

"Fine, as soon as he's back," she insisted impatiently. "Look, have you heard anything from Edward?"

The name struck through my glassy eyed moratoria and white hot anguish shot through me, ripping my nerves apart. Oh no, no, no, no…

"Yes," I said, voice trembling slightly. "I…I told him about Bella."

She had to know, they all had to know that I had told him – that it was my fault, for not being strong enough to hide it from him. They had to know so they could save him, stop him from doing whatever he was doing.

The horror in Alice's voice barely even registered with my own. "Why? Why would you do that, Rosalie?"

"Bella's dead and I thought he needed to know," I told her, forcing myself to sound as cold as possible; let them all hate me, blame me, despise me…no more than I deserved.

"Well, you're wrong on both counts, Rosalie, so that would be a problem, don't you think?" she said and it took a moment to process that.

Slowly, my mind opened up to the possibility that…"Bella's alive?"

"Yes, that's right, she's absolutely fine."

No. How could she be wrong? "How could you be wrong, she jumped off a cliff, tried to kill herself!"

"Look," she snapped. "It's a long story, but you're wrong about that part too, that's why I'm calling!"

"You…you saw Edward go to the Volturi." I didn't even have to ask.

"Yes, that's exactly what I saw," she replied coldly.

Edward was going to die. Oh…God. "I'm sorry," I babbled, the words tumbling numbly past my lips. "I'm so, so sorry."

"It's a bit late for that, Rose. Save your remorse for someone who believes it."

She hung up sharply and I was left on the ground, shaking apart, listening to dead signals.

The world we'd constructed around us had finally come crashing down and it was all for nothing. I had destroyed Edward's cell, no-one could contact him to insist that Bella was alive. Good intentions come back to destroy us.

I wanted to stay right there and dissolve into the earth. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would feel it when he died and I prayed to whatever bastard of a God it was who reigned over us, that it would be enough to kill me as well.

---

A/N – I cannot even begin to say how difficult this was to write or how many times I re-wrote it to finally come up with this. I know I've already used the metaphor that writing is like giving birth...well, this was like raising the kid until it's eighteen. This was monumentally difficult.

HOWEVER – I do, actually, really love this chapter. It has been a long time coming, taken a lot of prep for this twist which I hope isn't to OOC for anyone. I promise it's not going to derail canon, just watch the next chapter if you don't believe me. Of course, I'm kindly asking that everyone just dismiss Midnight Sun and that chapter floating around online with the ACTUAL scene where Rosalie tells Edward. This is what really happened, Meyer just doesn't want you to know.

So. It's 6AM now and officially the latest I've ever stayed up writing but I love you guys so much and feel obscenely bad about the delay. Please know this is NOT how long it's gonna be with every chapter from now on, just that this chapter kinda challenged me completely; as a writer and as a human.

I have only three words.

REVIEW.

REVIEW.

REVIEW.

Yes, one word three times but c'mon people...6AM. That's love, right?

Also, I have to warn people that this method of skipping over large portions of time is going to be used again. Because seriously? 800 pages, 302'000 words and 38 chapter and we're not even done with New Moon? That's DAUNTING. I'd like to have this story done before I require wigs and long walks in the park so, yes – this technique will be used again at some point, but fear not...it'll be long and arduous and annoyingly full of waffle as always.

Love you. *Passes out*