Chapter warning: this one goes much deeper into Edward's devolution. It is going to get very dark, creepy, and disturbing. You've been warned.

THE REMNANTS

Chapter 7: Edward Part II

.-.-.

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day

'Til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you

.-.-.

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure and then

Again, I would spend them with you

.-.-.

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty, except for the memory of how

They were answered by you

.-.-.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go

Through time with.

.-.-.

"Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce

.-.-.

She was learning the basics of truck repair well. Each day, she came closer and closer to being ready to take over supply runs for him. Today, all he could see were two bare feet sticking out from underneath the massive metal truck. He could hear the tap of the wrench against the cement floor of the garage as she worked. Then he heard a loud squawk and the wrench fell with a clang.

Bella pulled herself from under the truck and when he saw her disgruntled, oil-spattered face, he laughed so hard, he bent the truck bed trying to keep himself upright.

"It's a good look for you, Bella," he told her in-between laughs. "You could almost pass as a Dalmatian."

"A what?" she asked as she turned a speckle of oil on her forehead into a stripe with her thumb.

"It's a kind of dog with spots," he replied.

"A what?" she asked again.

"Oh, right. It's a kind of animal with spots," he settled on.

"Oh, like a cheetah or a hyena?" she replied.

"Sure, kinda like that," he said as his laughter calming into more of a settled smile. He made a mental note to give her a lesson in animals from other parts of the world. "Come here. Let's clean you up."

He pulled a rag out and rubbed it down her face, enjoying the way her nose wrinkled and her eyes gazed up at him as if he were the most important person in the universe. He stopped halfway to kiss her on the nose.

"This is beyond my skills, I'm afraid. It's going to require some soap," he said. "You better go wash up."

Her face broke into a brilliant smile and before he could anticipate her intentions, she thrust a rag, dripping with oil, across his right cheek.

"Now we match. We can both be dogs," she said with a grin.

"Oh! You are asking for it now, little lady," he said, growling slightly and leaning over her in a slightly predatory manner. She shrieked and tried to run away from him. He caught her before she reached the back of the truck. He pulled the rag from her hand and wiped it across her forehead as she wiggled and struggled in vain to escape him.

"No! No! You will regret this!" she said between laughs.

"I'm sure I will," he said with a grin as he pulled the rag over her arm and left a dark, greasy track in his wake.

"Noooo!" she cried and he surrounded her with his arms so she couldn't wriggle away from his redecorating project.

It was only then that he realized how very close he held her and he forgot to keep laughing. He gazed into her eyes, momentarily lost and captivated by their rich depths as she lost her own mirth and was similarly captured by the web of his gaze. Running entirely on instinct, he leaned down the short distance separating them and kissed her on the lips, slow and long. He pulled back in time to see her eyes open with a flutter and her cheeks flush.

"What do you call that?" she asked, slightly breathlessly.

"A kiss," he replied.

Ooooooo

She was right. He did regret it.

Later when he couldn't get that moment out of his mind, he wished he'd never kissed her, while at the same time wondering when he could kiss her again. A thousand times over, his perfect memory replayed it until it nearly drove him mad.

To her, he played it down to her later as much as he could. He refused to admit out loud how momentous that small interlude was for him.

"A kiss is a kind of greeting or way of showing affection and care for someone," he told her, as if he kissed her like a brother or a neighbor down the street. He didn't want to explain the real reason he did it, to her or himself.

He paced the halls of his Temple, troubled. His nightly visits to Bella, while they initially developed to stay his cravings between feeds, now those visits became a sort of craving of their own. He watched her as she slept and memorized each minute muscle twitch in her cheek, each pattern of breathing, the rhythmic tempo of her heart, and the rich artistry of her scent. In those hours, he allowed himself all the lurid dreams of what he wished he could do but dared not attempt.

The night he first kissed her, he crept into her room as she slept to watch her. As she dreamed, her blanket felt to reveal more skin than it was meant to and he sat transfixed for hours until, without his knowledge, he crept close enough to her bed to draw one finger along the length of her waist. Electricity tingled from his finger throughout his entire body as if he had been shocked and set alight. He jumped back and cradled his hand and cursed. Desire so strong he could barely think straight enveloped him and he pulled himself into bed beside her, curving her close to him, and burying his face in her neck. It was heaven and hell all in one as he fought to maintain control even as he dreamt of losing it.

He could have maintained it, if she hadn't woken, turned, and accosted him with her sweet, willing mouth and her hands wrapping adoringly through his hair. Her scent, enriched by her adrenaline and lust, intoxicated him completely. He was overcome and for a moment he froze, before he fled the room to make sure she remained alive.

Ever since that second kiss, all he wanted was to throw caution to the wind and pursue her to the utmost of his ability. He wanted even more. She was his, why should he not?

He could take her to see the world and take delight in her expression of awe and adoration as she saw it all. He could shower her in the finest of clothes and jewels. He could spend all his days reading every book ever written to her. He could make love to her every day and night and delight in every plane, crevice, and curve of his gloriously sculpted statue. To see the light of happiness glisten in her brown eyes as she looked at him with that expression of complete devotion was a pleasure he found tempting enough to even part from the Others (at least for awhile).

She loved him, but it was because of this love that he was at an impasse. It was that love that inspired lust in him and it was that love which restrained the lust in him. He did not trust his control enough to indulge himself with her fragile body as he so craved because he wished to keep her and did not want her to come to harm at his hands, even unintentionally.

She either needed to be more durable or he more controlled.

His first sweetly seductive solution was to turn her and keep her forever. Why shouldn't he have his own mate? He knew many of his kind that gained great satisfaction in sharing their existence with another. Then he could indulge in satiating himself in the pleasure of her body to the utmost without fear of hurting her or ever losing her to death or disease. They would have hundred or even thousands of years to explore the world together.

This plan had a major setback. He did not see how he could turn her without changing his current lifestyle. To make Bella his mate, he would either need to move or to share.

Hunting enough large animals in this region was not sustainable for a long-term settled existence. Even human prey was unlikely and could not be sustained without a nomadic life. Besides, how could he morally justify creating another newborn vampire who would feed on humans?

It was true, he subsisted on human blood, but his diet consisted of only one human being, he told himself in counter argument to the small voice in his mind calling him a hypocrite. He produced what he consumed without damaging another person on the planet. He brought no death to anyone else except one person over a hundred years ago. His current diet, he argued, was even more harmless than his past "vegetarian" diet as it did not impact the local wildlife or human population in the slightest.

Unless he gave up his lifestyle and moved, his only option would be to share his treasure trove with his potential future mate. Even he saw the moral problems with having his newborn mate feed on the blood of her human counterpart in a kind of autosarcophagy. He could not see her appreciating his continued indulgence on her genetic sisters without extensive ethical debates.

He could give it up at any time, if he needed to, he told himself. He could return to his old life with the Cullens. It would be easy. It didn't need to be this year, it could be next year or the year after. When he was ready to turn her, he would go back. He would keep her forever, but there was no hurry to leap into forever when what he had right now worked so well.

Therefore, until he was ready to turn his Bella and make her more durable, he would need to work on his self-control. Unfortunately, decades of self-indulgence left his previously prized levels of self-control sorely atrophied. He had to make sure he could make love to her without killing her in the process. It would be easier to gauge his self-control if he knew what to expect. Since he had only negligible experience as a human or vampire, he was very unsure of his level of skill. He needed to perfect his technique on more "disposable" partners.

Thankfully, he had a plentiful supply of those to start with. If he made a mistake, they were already destined to sustain him. Once he felt confident in his success rate, he could pursue his statue straight to the altar in Aphrodite's temple.

ooooo

Edward was nothing if not thorough when he set his mind to a task.

First, he ordered a massive bed for his room. It took three months for all the parts to make it across the desert to their compound and be reassembled in his bedroom.

"This is in case you fall asleep when I'm playing to you or reading to you," he told her when she asked about it. She shrugged, jumped on it, and looked at him with those bright, innocent eyes and he almost took her then.

It wasn't time yet. He couldn't afford mistakes.

In the beginning, he swore he'd never exploit his Bellas for anything except their blood. He considered it base and demeaning and a line he should not cross. He felt repulsed even considering it. However, to safeguard the life of the being he valued most in the world, he could do it. He would do it. In this case, his morals needed to be adjusted in order to protect the life of someone infinitely more valuable than his sense of rightness.

Overwhelmed by his passion and desire for the woman who slept in the small, purple bed, he took a prepared specimen from the barracks and into his Research Lab. He considered the situation from all angles to figure out the best approach. The rather ghastly, skeletal woman hardly inspired desire in him. The only way he could see this experiment working was if he pretended the motionless figure covered in a hospital gown was his Bella. If he closed his eyes, imagined her blush, her life-filled eyes, her lush figure, he could manage it.

He closed his eyes and spoke to her, the Bella he really wanted to be with. He told her all the things he'd never spoken out loud and enacted all the expressions of affections he had withheld from her. He sang the lyrics to the songs he had written only for her, but had never shared out loud. He told her all the dreams he had for their future travels, their future life, and what he hoped they could share together.

As he let his mind see only the woman he so desperately longed for, he gave himself over to his impulses completely.

In the process, he discovered a means to exponentially multiply his level of euphoria beyond what he had ever experienced thus far in decades of what he thought was divine. This, this rewrote him, it unmade him, it reformed him from the inside out, and it was all due to her. His love, his life, his everything.

When he woke in a happy, love-struck bliss, he turned to embrace the woman he loved only to find himself trailing kisses on a long-cooled corpse. He screamed and threw away the now useless bottle of wine and he congratulated himself for his foresight in "practicing" on less valuable models first.

He could not avoid the guilt that plagued him when he saw the real Bella next and remembered the ways he had defiled her in his mind, without her permission, and with another woman (who was still somehow her). She gave him a bright, innocent smile, so full of warmth and sincerity that made him shrink back even more.

It's only temporary, he told himself. It's for both of our good and she will benefit from it soon.

oooo

His next few attempts did nothing more to encourage his self-confidence, but they did boost his desire to keep trying. He could wait and keep practicing until he could ensure his partner was still alive at the end of their tryst. As months turned to years, he practiced.

He still told himself it was for Bella's good, though he spent so much time in his lab and the barracks, he saw her very rarely. Partially, he knew he avoided her out of guilt, but he also told himself it was to protect her from him until he was able to control himself enough to be around her. She stirred such uncomfortably strong passions in his heart and body that he decided it was better to keep a bit of distance between them, "just for a little while."

He limited their conversations to avoid personal information and he chose literature which would be easier to explain to her quick mind. He tried to decrease the amount of hours each week he sought her out, spending more time in his lab, even if it meant he accomplished nothing but hours spent staring at a wall, gritting his teeth, and willing himself to stay away from her.

Even apart, she stayed so closely, intimately connected to him, he felt she was still a part of him. He always knew where she was, what beat her heart sang out, which dress she wore, even if he didn't speak a word. At least, he could enjoy her presence, even if he kept her at arm's length.

He allowed himself a few nights in her room each week. He needed it, he said to himself. If he could not spend as much time with her during her waking hours, taking in the sight and scent and sound of her as she slept helped tide him over till it was time for them to be together.

For her safety (and for his), he must not touch the real one or allow her any closer to his heart. He knew, intrinsically, he could not permit himself to be drawn in by her or she would undo him. He feared her potential power over him even more than he desired her.

When her call came too strong and he felt overcome, he reverted to the Other Bellas and sought to forget her, if only by pretending it was her with him. In his mind, each liaison he had was with her. In the safety of his Research Lab, he told her everything about his past and his present and his future. He composed sonnets for her and sang her to sleep as he held her in his arms. It was always her he saw and longed for. He treasured those times and she, in her turn, took him to heaven and back as he drank from her wine and grew intoxicated from her kisses.

ooooo

His still told himself it was "only temporary" three years later when his practice paid off and his partners survived his repeated attentions for weeks until they finally sickened and he laid them to rest.

At first, he rejoiced. He could cease this self-denigrating charade and give himself over to the real woman, the one who inspired it all. He could pursue her now unrestrained and afterwards take his Bella to see the world. He closed his eyes and dreamed of where they first would go and what they first would do.

To his surprise, a cold wave of deep regret and sadness fell over him at the reality of leaving. How could a future with one Bella come close to the blissful euphoria of his life with his limitless supply of Others? Pursuing his Bella was a risk. What if she asked him to leave the Others? How could he leave this oasis behind?

This train of thought made him grow angry. Why should he be forced to choose between Bellas? Right now, they were all his and he didn't need to choose. With so many of his needs met by the Others, he no longer needed or desired the one as he once did. The Others didn't cost him anything or ask anything from him. They filled him with their wine without requiring anything from him in return. How dare this one woman presume she could control him and make him change. How dare she make him feel guilt. If her influence on him was so corrosive to his acceptance of his life choices, perhaps it was better to continue keeping her at arm's length...at least for a little while longer. After all, the pattern of his life had fallen into such a delicious balance. Why change it?

Someday, he'd be willing to change, but not today.

ooooo

His Bella continued to perform her duties well. She kept to herself, tended her own business, and kept the day-to-day running of the Temple under control. He caught her wistful glance sometime as it fell on him, though even those diminished as he maintained an impassive mask towards her. At times, he felt plagued with a deep nostalgia for their days in his room listening to music or debating the merits of a new piece of poetry. However, the nostalgia could be replaced with fantasy and so why dwell on the past?

While his mind could recreate her physical form, her voice, her reactions to his attentions, he could never adequately re-imagine her unique scent. While all of his creations shared the same delectable scent, but the Others never moved or lived or laughed or changed. His Bella's scent was so much richer than the others-so enlivened by her activity and emotions and the cycles of her life-that she maintained her superiority over all the Others even in this.

No matter how many imaginary conversations he held with her in his Research Lab, he still needed to spend hours in her room while she slept to bask in her scent. While she was lost in dreams, he ran his nose up and down the length of her, inhaling her essence and enjoying how different she was from the Others.

One night, he had a revelation as he watched her quietly dream. If this Bella's scent could so shift and change, why not the Others? How could simple changes in their physical or emotional state impact the quality (or even quantity) of their blood?

The wheels of his mind spun into overdrive. The new possibilities that this opened up for him sent his mind spiraling into possibilities that caused the venom to pool up in mouth at the very thought.

This isn't right. This isn't you. Turn back! That old niggling voice said in the back of his head. It's not too late. You still have a choice.

However that voice was so much softer than it had been in past decades, he paid it little heed.

He locked his internal voice of caution into an iron chest covered in unbreakable chains. This was his fate and his destiny, his punishment and his reward, his freedom and his chains. He was a slave to his vampiric nature; his biology controlled him and compelled him onward. If he could not escape his nature, he should embrace it fully instead of struggling to restrain it and never look back or question the direction his desires took him. The amount of pleasure it gave him overweighed all ethics and morals. He needed to simply surrender and be carried by their winds to their inevitable conclusion.

The experiments began shortly thereafter.

ooooo

For eight years, he tested and played in evermore controversial ways. He never paused to consider how even the Edward of his rebel years would have felt fully justified in ending the Edward he had now become. He never stopped to think of much except for what would lead him to "more".

He worked so hard and long on his experiments that he nearly forgot about his other Bella completely, the one who had inspired them all. She vanished to the back of his mind as surely as his aspirations to solve humanities organ donor deficit and remediate his dead Bella with a free, live one had also evaporated into the nebulous "someday" pile. It was easier to maintain a self-deceptive veneer of justification with a stamp of "someday" written over his life decisions as opposed to openly admitting to the truth of the mutually exclusivity of his choices.

He took his Bella to see the world. They hunted panthers in the Amazon, climbed the Himalayas in Nepal, explored the ancient monasteries in Ireland, and read rare manuscripts in the Vatican library for weeks. They rode elephants in Thailand, danced in the rain in Paris, and watched the waves crash against the towering cliffs from their perch on the top of the Cape of Good Hope. They circled the globe together, all without leaving his Research Lab.

The real life woman continued her duties, as expected, and her image in his mind continued to fill all his needs for emotional, physical, and relational connection. So focused was he that he pretended not to notice Bella's growing discontent or the way she silently wept at night. He blatantly denied how quickly time engulfed them both or how the marks of age appearing on his statue's body should have been warnings of how few "tomorrows" he had left to act. Instead, he slammed the mental door on such thoughts and, like Dorian Gray, he locked the portrait of his soul, the one painted on the canvas of his Bella, away where he did not have to look at it or reflect on what it revealed about himself.

I can stop anytime, he said to himself. Soon, I'll take her to see the world and make up for all the days I haven't been around for her.

If I'm a little late, an even darker voice said. I can always make another. She is my creation and I can always replace her with another. I have unlimited time, even if this particular manifestation of my siren does not.

oooooo

One day, he was deep in the throes of passion when he was interrupted by a metallic clang on the floor of the lab. A brunette head popped through the air vent on the floor, screwdriver in hand, and her eyes grew wide with surprise and horror at the sight she stumbled upon.

Edward jumped up so fast, the Other Bella cried out in pain as she stumbled onto the cold floor. He pulled a sheet off one of the medical beds to cover himself and he turned to glare at the intruder. His shame and guilt brewed a menacing anger towards her for having so humiliated him and discovered him and he roared at her much louder than he ever meant to.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked. "I told you never to come in here."

She dropped her eyes to the ground, her cheeks burning in embarrassment and filling the room with her beautiful scent, so much richer and more real than that of the woman he had just held in his arms and pretended was her. This only made him more uncomfortable.

"I know. I know. I tried knocking and calling your phone but nothing worked. Two of the Generation Tanks in the other lab have malfunctioned. I tried to fix them but nothing worked. If we don't do something soon, you will lose them," she said, her eyes falling on the bare body of the woman on the floor. "I didn't know what else to do."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and pointed to the doors of the lab. "Get out."

She nodded and left them there.

Edward returned the Other Bella to her bunk, clothed himself, and went straight to the Generation Lab to fix the erring tanks. She was correct. She had even warned him weeks before that it would need to be fixed soon. Without replacing the water filtration valves, not only would the two tanks have failed, but the leaks would have damaged more of the machinery in the lab than he could afford to fix. She had done exactly what she was supposed to do, exactly what he had created her to do.

Still, he didn't relish meeting her eyes the next time he crossed paths with her.

He sought her out the next day in her room to thank her for her intervention and to apologize. She never met his eyes and it was obvious she had been crying.

"I came to apologize for my behavior yesterday," he said. "You were right to come for me. I was wrong to shout at you as I did. Please forgive my less-than-chivalrous behavior."

"Edward…," she began, but trailed off again, her cheeks blushing. "But you… I thought…Edward, you marry your virgin brides and then execute them all the day after. Who are you seeking revenge against? Who has wronged you and been unfaithful that you are so angry?"

Edward opened and closed his mouth as if he were a fish out of water as his mind processed his shock at her question.

"You think I...Bella...This is not your fairy tale story," he finally said, pinching the bridge of his nose in discomfort at her comparison. "I am no angry, human king and they are not innocent virgin brides. They are not even human. They are empty bodies. They have no thoughts, no feelings, no souls. They are my creations. I made them to fulfill a purpose for me and they do that. I can do with them as I wish."

"Edward, how can you say that? They are exactly the same as me. I have thoughts and feelings and a soul."

"No," he spat. "You don't. You are exactly as I have made you to be and you serve the purpose for which I have created you. Don't think you are anything else or that you have any more meaning to me than them."

He felt the flare of guilt even as he said the words. He knew he was lying, but she had hit so uncomfortably close to a truth he could not, would not accept and so he went on the defensive. He could not pretend that she had a soul and they did not. He could not pretend that they were mindless when she so clearly had a mind. Either they both did or they both did not and it was far easier to take the latter stance, especially as he boiled over in his anger and guilt.

Her face fell and she fought back tears. He grew even angrier as he felt his own much-abused conscience accuse him of willful self-deception. Why should she still have so much power over him? Why should she make him feel any hint of guilt or shame at his decisions? He lashed out at her instead of letting the uncomfortable feeling simmer inside him.

"I existed long before you and will remain long after even your bones are forgotten. I can create thousands upon thousands of others, just like you, why should you consider yourself irreplaceable or more valued? You aren't," he roared. He came precariously close to her as he spoke until he towered over her and his breath tangled through her hair like a venomous, angry wind.

She drew back, her heart pounding in his ears, and her tears fell freely down her beautiful, devastated face.

"Yes. Your fear. I can smell it," he said as he closed his eyes and inhaled. "I thrive on the scent of your fear. I can break you like a twig. You should fear me with every cell in the body I made for you." His teeth now vibrated against her neck where he had fallen upon her in a mockery of a caress. She inhaled sharply and fled.

He felt a rush of power as he saw her reaction. She displayed more emotion and response to him in that one moment than he had caused to stir in her in years. It felt good to know he could still impact her. As the scent of her fear dwindled and as his predatory instincts settled, his mind cleared and he felt the first stings of regret. He had hurt her, intentionally. He promised himself he would never hurt her. The person he lied to the most was himself.

He would make it up to her later, he decided. He'd apologize and tell her he didn't mean it. Later, when he was ready to.

Later was when Dorian Gray meant to return for his Sibyl. Later was when he woke to find Bella had disappeared. So caught up was he in his imaginary creations of her that he didn't even notice, at first, when the real one vanished. He woke one day to find his "someday" had come and gone and he was left to face the choice he had for so long pretended to avoid. Would he leave the Others to pursue his Bella or let her go?

oooooo

Author's notes: First off, in response to all your wonderful, insightful, and outraged (at Edward) comments from the last chapter, I wanted to point out that at the point that Bella/Badiyah enters the scene, it's been like four decades since he's had even a phone call with a family member. It's been over 80 years since he left his family. He's had decades without any semblance of "normal" or "healthy" social interactions and has basically locked himself away inside his own very self-centered internal world. Besides his interactions with his supply chain or random calls with scientists from time-to-time, he is completely alone. He's entirely out of practice for any kind of unselfish thought processes. Recipe for super deranged creeper? Definitely. However, he hasn't always been that way.

If we start with "canon Edward" as described in the books-he's got some redeeming qualities. He's loyal and intelligent with a great capacity to love. He also has a very strict sense of morality and feels compelled to maintain his convictions, even to his own detriment (and even when he's the only one that shares them). However, greatest strengths can also be greatest weaknesses and in Edward's case, his make him very controlling, inflexible in his ideas, and plagued with an arrogant sense of superiority. When this same character is dropped into this story-line where he throws himself headlong into a devolution into addiction, what happens? He's hardly in a good place when Badiyah first comes in and by this chapter, he is going downhill real fast (without admitting it). He's going to have some hard realizations smack him in the face very soon and have to deal with a lot of his procrastinated truths.

Edward was more verbose than I anticipated so he gets one more chapter after this. After that, we'll get a much needed break from his dark, disturbing head. Actually, I've had another Bella who has insisted she have her own chapter, just as Badiyah did. These Bellas who I thought were going to stay in the background this whole time decided they weren't having it. "We are not mindless automatons," they cried out. "Give us more credit than Edward does and let us tell our stories!" So I stopped fighting them and let them have their spotlights and their monologues and have been glad for the change of pace from our disaster of a vampire.

Next, during writing this chapter, a C.S. Lewis quote from The Four Loves has been rolling around in my mind. It still seems apt so I'm going to stick it here to roll around your heads too:

"We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he 'wants a woman'. Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes). Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give."