Posted: 2019-04-20; Beta'd by: Eeyorefan12
The children were in bed. She was sitting on the deck, a cup of tepid tea in front of her. She knew she should be inside taking care of paperwork, or tidying up, or handling any one of the myriad things that needed doing when young children were involved. Or when your spouse died. The paperwork felt like a dedicated subculture of her life.
God, had she even fed the cat? Though chubby, black Bubbles was a fairly resilient creature, and not above pilfering the children's unattended waffles and cheerios, Bella liked to think she could keep the cat alive and healthy, even with Matt gone.
It was Matt who had insisted the kids have a pet. He'd had several in his younger years. She'd had none. A cat had felt like an easy compromise. He'd taken on the litter cleaning, and the kids were in charge of feeding their kitten—for all of the first week. Then that had passed to Bella.
As if Bubbles was sensing her thoughts, she caught a plaintiff "Mrrow," from inside the house.
"Hold on, fat cat. Give me a few minutes," she muttered. There was another protesting, feline sound. Bella wondered if Bubbles could hear the resentment in her voice—or understood her unflattering moniker. The cat was just another imposition on the limited hours and energy of the day.
She leaned forward, face in her hands.
She was still trying to shake the too-real feeling of seeing Edward Cullen's face.
While they'd each had their own unique quirks, every single one of her psychiatrists had been singular in their demand that she not encourage any aspect of these delusions, and warned her against straying even minutely into their territory, even if it felt benign. In particular, they ordered her not to speak about them outside of therapy.
At that moment though, exhaustion had a better grip on her mind than anything else. Her back and neck ached from the car accident and all she expected was to hear the night's noisy silence when she spoke: "Are you real, Edward? Or am I just going crazy again?"
His answer, and his visage, were synonymous—and instant.
"I'm real."
Bella jerked her head up, regretting the movement immediately, neck and back throbbing in protest.
She stood more slowly, listening to the audible scrape of her chair on the deck. That was real, she told herself. He can't be.
She was going insane.
"You can't be real," she whispered.
"I'm real, Bella." the vision said again.
She made herself look at him. Her eyes widened at the differences. He looked older. Part of it was clothes. His suit was a deep grey, his collared shirt open at the first button. Where she expected the disordered beauty of his hair, she was disappointed by a tidy shape. But it was his eyes that startled her most. They were nearly black, just speckled by the suggestion of amber near his pupils.
This vision was of her vampire Edward, not the real one she'd actually touched. If she was surprised by his aging, that meant she was still swimming in her delusions. This meant that things were far worse than she'd initially imagined.
"Oh God," she said to herself. She'd need to call Jennifer first thing tomorrow.
But first, she just wanted peace in this moment.
Stretching out her fingers, she knew she'd be met by nothing but the April night's air. Still, she pushed her hand forward, wanting to at least anticipate the smoothness of his skin, if not feel it.
But her hand didn't travel through him, as it had so many times before. His cheek was a solid and icy resistance. The sensation travelled up her arm in a series of sparks.
It felt so real. He felt real.
Yes, she was completely losing it.
Maybe the car accident had done more damage than she thought? Could a concussion complicate psychosis?
These thoughts danced in the background of her mind, barely registering in the forefront.
The rest of her simply didn't care.
She had a ghost at her disposal, and the very real feelings for its progenitor bubbled up and out of the place she had so carefully kept them.
"Edward," she whispered.
Then she took his face in both hands . . . and kissed him.
Her flesh remembered him, lips curving to match his, breath short, lungs struggling for air while the rest of her body betrayed its needs. As far as her skin knew, the air had stopped moving, and the world silenced itself, her fragile reality distilled to this one brittle encounter with a ghost.
And then he kissed her back.
She couldn't remember it feeling so good, not when it had been real, and not when it had been merely imagined.
It was that final tipping over into what felt like the unstoppable slide into insanity that made her pull away. She turned and bolted inside, running for her room and the locked cabinet where she kept her emergency medication.
Her hands shook with the keys on the dresser, and she hoped it didn't wake Josh, asleep in his playpen mere feet away.
The small vial of pills rattled in her hand. She struggled with the childproof lid.
"He's not real. It's not real," she told herself, voice shaking.
It was the cold hands, reaching in and taking the bottle away that made her start to hyperventilate.
"I'm real, Bella. You're not hallucinating. I was always real."
He was standing in her room.
She could feel his hands on hers.
He. Was. Not. Real.
She was staring and shaking still, when Joshua's high pitched voice squeaked, "Man!"
Jerking her head towards him, she took in Josh's small form, arm outstretched, pointing as he stood on his tippy-toes. "Man!" he said again.
She followed Josh's gaze back to Edward.
"I'm real. That's why he can see me."
She'd heard people talk about seeing red. She just hadn't experienced it yet.
He caught her fist well before it made contact with his face.
"You'll hurt yourself. Please don't," he whispered.
She choked out a sob.
Then he turned to face Joshua, taking a step in his direction.
"No!" she hissed, dodging in front of Edward, standing between the two of them. She might have fallen into the pit of insanity, but there was no way this apparition was taking Josh from her.
Edward stopped mid-step, moving his foot back again.
"Man!" Joshua said again, now hopping up and down in his playpen. "Up!" he added, arms raised towards Bella.
She picked him up, clutching his body fiercely.
"Yes, that was me," Edward said.
"What do you mean?" Bella demanded.
"He recognizes me, from when I stopped him from running into the street. I told him to go back to you."
Bella's knees were suddenly wobbly, and she sat on the bed, still holding Joshua. He quickly squiggled out of her arms, ignoring her panicked, "No!" as he moved towards Edward.
"I don't think your mom wants you near me right now," Edward said to Josh.
Josh stopped, looking back at Bella.
Her arms were open to him and trembling.
Joshua turned back to face Edward, walking quickly to him..
Bella felt frozen in place, heart pounding.
"Yes, I'm real," Edward said, as Josh reached out to touch his hand.
She wasn't sure if his words were for her or Joshua. It didn't really matter. Her delusions always felt real. But when she looked over into the playpen, it remained empty. She'd never had hallucinations of her children being, or not being there. Only of Edward.
Now her gaze snapped back to him.
"I can hear what you're thinking, but I can't hear what your mom is thinking. Yes. No. I don't know. No." The last word came with a chuckle.
Joshua's hand pulled back from Edward's. "Ice cream," his little voice concluded.
"No, not really," Edward said again, but with a grin. This slipped off his face as he looked back at Bella.
She didn't know what expression her face wore, but she couldn't imagine it was good, if it reflected the hollow shock she was feeling.
"Yes, I think you're right," Edward said.
Confusion was a poor word for what Bella felt, but out of its cloud a realization was rising. Joshua was communicating with Edward. He had thoughts. He had the capacity for more than one word at a time.
"You can hear him," she whispered to Edward.
"Yes."
"And he's asking you questions."
"Yes."
"Actual sentences, with words?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. It's different, with thoughts." Edward's face was strained, like he was trying to understand something.
Bella sobbed, giant lurching breaths and tears, reaching again for Joshua. "You can talk, in your head," she cried.
"Mama?" Joshua asked, looking and then moving towards her with concern. He almost always cried when she did. His wobbling voice told her he was close to it now.
"It's okay," she whispered to him, "I'm just really happy. It's okay."
He leaned against her, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she held him.
Despite all the startling revelations the night had presented to her, Bella was also preoccupied with several very practical considerations. First and foremost, was getting Joshua to go back to sleep. His pattern for night-time wakings was not a good one, and she knew there was the possibility of a full-on meltdown, if she told him he needed to go back to bed. Praying silently and fervently, she gave a quiet, "Time to sleep little man," barely daring to open her eyes.
Hearing his little yawn made her release a pent-up breath. When she moved him back into the playpen, his only protest was a weak and whispered, "Man."
"Yes, man." She looked back. Edward was still standing there. "Mommy needs to go talk to the man," she breathed into his little ear.
"Mama," Joshua mumbled, eyes already closing. He wrapped his arms around his stuffed pig, sighed, and then snuggled under his blanket.
"Downstairs," Bella gritted out, standing up. When she turned around, Edward was at the far end of the hall, already turning to walk down the stairs.
She followed slowly, first going outside to pick up her cup of cold tea.
Marching down the stairs, she found Edward standing in the kitchen.
Edward Cullen was in her kitchen.
The realization was jarring.
She had believed herself mentally unstable for so long that the evidence to the contrary grated against all the constructs under which she'd been operating..
Vampires simply weren't real.
She threw her cup at him.
The tea sloshed out on its way, but he caught the mug, setting it down on the table, all this with a raised eyebrow.
Vampires weren't real.
She picked up a book next. Then a crumb-covered plastic plate.
He caught all of these things, even the wooden frog Meredith had left behind on the table.
Out of physical things to hurl, she contemplated words.
Setting the frog beside the cup, Edward spoke first. "You've got every right to be angry with me, if that's what this is. I've broken my promise to you by coming back. But if you're trying to see if I'm real, there are probably less messy ways." He spoke evenly. Calmly.
It was infuriating.
"Go to Hell, Edward!"
He didn't say anything.
"Did you know?" she finally made herself ask.
"Did I know what?" he asked, still calm.
"What you leaving has put me through? That I thought I'd had a psychotic break? That everyone thought I'd gone completely crazy?"
"Yes."
Then she realized it wasn't calm that he was exuding;—it was guilt.
Good, she thought. Then she thought a lot of really bad words in his direction.
"Why are you here?" she asked. Her cheeks flamed, as she recalled her initial response to what she'd imagined was only a delusion.
"To protect you."
Protect her? From her own, misguided beliefs about her well-being?
She laughed then, a bitter and harsh bark of amusement that sounded a bit hysterical even to her own ears. "Protect me? From what? How fucked up you've left me? Great, thanks."
His face was as stiff as his response. "From Victoria."
Her mocking amusement vanished instantly. She acted on her sudden need to sit down.
If Edward was real, then chances were Victoria was too. And Jacob, and the wolves, and—
There were waves of horror, then relief, and then the most acute—and painful ones of betrayal.
The Cullens had left her. Really left her with the threat of Victoria hanging over her. And the wolves had been caught up in it. Jacob had died because of it. Jacob had died because of her. Then the wolves had left her too, dropped her like the loose end she was.
She had betrayed them all, a little voice reminded her. She had told people what they were. She had lost it. Still, this key realization was swallowed up by the fear and anger swirling around her.
But Victoria—she'd been left horrifically wounded. Bella recalled again what she'd long thought was a dream: the sickening sound of Jacob's neck, snapping, then the shrieking sound of tearing steel, a chunk of Victoria's neck bitten off by Sam.
"Jacob," she choked out.
"I'm so sorry, Bella."
"You're sorry? You think sorry covers this? You left! You left me to deal with Victoria. Jacob is dead because of you. How could you do that?" Her voice had risen with each word and, by the end, left her throat tight with fury. Her fisted hands trembled on the table.
Edward sat down. He made no noise doing so, lifting the chair to move it so he could sit. His movements were impossibly smooth.
Humans didn't move that way.
Humans weren't icy cold.
They couldn't catch things out of the air at lightning speed as he had.
Vampires were real. Werewolves were real.
She wasn't insane.
And she was the only one who would ever believe that.
However, the part of her mind that was busy with these realizations wasn't talking to the part that remembered all the things she knew about vampires, so when she saw Edward's eyes close momentarily, she repeated the gesture that had been foiled earlier, upstairs.
Her mind did register the sound of human bone breaking, and told her that it sounded just the same as a werewolf one, snapping.
"Bella!" Edward gasped.
At least, she thought he did. The fire spreading out from her hand took all of her attention. Her mouth was opening and closing, gasps of pain the only sounds she could make.
Edward was up, rummaging through her freezer, returning with an ice pack and a tea towel.
"Let me see, please," he said.
When the initial agony faded somewhat, she fixed him with an angry stare.
"Please," he said again, "I think you've broken something."
"What, have you added doctor to your list of phony credentials now, too?" she spat out. "Make sure you can have me committed if I talk again?"
A pain-filled expression flickered across his face. "I am a doctor, but I would never do that to you, Bella. Ever."
"I don't want your help."
"I heard bones breaking. I'm pretty sure you're going to need your right hand, or your children will need you to have it working again someday."
Her logical side was trying to figure out exactly what she would do. Wake up the kids? Take them to the hospital with only one working hand?
She had acquaintances, but no one close enough to call for that kind of help.
"Are you really a doctor?"
"Yes."
"Since when?" It didn't really matter, she knew, from what she recalled of vampire minds.
"Since I thought Victoria was dead," he said, reaching out to pull her arm towards him.
"And how did you learn she wasn't?"
He was moving her arm, gently probing at her fingers, causing only the slightest discomfort. He paused when she hissed at the sensation his touch produced.
"Alice," he said without further explanation, again assessing her fingers with his minute movements.
"Alice what?" she snapped.
"Alice saw her, along with a brief glimpse of her plans."
"Which are?"
Edward seemed to swallow, then shook his head.
"What are they, Edward?"
"I didn't come to terrify you, Bella, and I wouldn't have revealed myself if I'd known it would . . . distress you so much."
She snorted in disbelief.
"I didn't want you to think you were insane."
"Great. Good job. You're about nine years too late. What are Victoria's plans?"
This time, he didn't bother with any preamble. "To kill your children and then to kill you. Or, to turn you, and then let you kill your own children."
As Edward helped her clean up herself, the table, and then the floor, she noted, in some very detached part of her mind that she'd splattered him with tea, crumbs, and now vomit. She wondered if dry-cleaning would remove it all from his suit.
No, she decided, he'd probably just throw it out.
Like he'd discarded her all those years ago.
"Why do you even care?" she asked.
He had washed his hands and come back to the table, now setting her hand back on the ice pack.
"This needs to be set and casted," he murmured, lifting his chin towards her hand, evading her question. Pulling out a phone from his pocket, he punched in a number, putting the phone to his ear. His call was short, involving the ordering of supplies and the giving of her address.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"The local pharmacy. They deliver. I don't think you have what I need to treat you here."
She was relieved. She'd half wondered if another of the Cullens was about to arrive. He was as much as she could tolerate at the moment, and tolerance was a generous word for it.
"Why do you care about what happens to me or my children?"
She couldn't place the look in his eyes as he stared at her, but after a bit he spoke. "I promised you a normal life. I wanted you to have an ordinary one and to be free of my world. I will keep that promise."
"Were you planning on letting me know you were here?"
His, "No," was immediate. "I didn't anticipate needing to intervene quite so much."
"No one asked you to."
His stare was incredulous. "You'd prefer I left your son to run into traffic? Or have your daughter crippled in a car crash? Let you keep thinking you were insane?"
"Bad things happen to people, Edward. It isn't like we haven't experienced that already." Her voice shook with grief. "You didn't save Matt," she whispered.
The stricken look returned to his face. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I would have, if I'd been there."
"But you weren't. And you won't be. So why bother now? We all die. It's what humans do."
Edward paused, staring at her hand before answering. "Are you asking me to let bad things happen to you, when I could easily prevent them?"
"I won't bother. I know you won't respect it. I'm just not sure what the point is. You're here to deal with Victoria. Deal with her. Then leave me alone."
He raised his head to look at her, his face composed again. "We'll need your cooperation, to keep you safe."
We, she thought. They were here. The Cullens. The pain of their rejection, even ten years later, was freshened. "Fine," she said. She could pretend it didn't matter.
"We'll stay out of sight, but if you see us, please cooperate with our requests."
Nodding, she watched him stiffen slightly, and then stand. "Delivery's here," he said, and moved to the front door.
She watched him go, mind whirling, still trying to grapple with what hadn't been real just hours ago, and the very different reality the world presented her with now.
A/N: I'm DYING to hear your thoughts on this! ~ Erin
Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.