THE REMNANTS

CHAPTER 10: Edward Part IV

"He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise."

William Blake

-.-.-.-

From Edward's throne on the sand-covered floor of his room, he could just make out the trails of footprints mapped by the paths his pacing feet had formed. After three days of ceaseless trail-making, now he sat and drew her name into the sands. For a moment, he thought of how clean and tidy he used to keep this room and just as quickly, the thought vanished. Instead, it was replaced with the repetitive hum of thoughts that swirled around his head like fruit flies around rotting fruit.

His Bella was gone. She left him. She went away.

He tried to pull himself out of the mire that reality sank him into, only to be weighed down even deeper by the pile of dreams, goals, life aspirations, and noble ideals that buried him beneath like grains of quicksand over his head.

It doesn't have to stay this way.

This thought broke through the dark mires like a ray of light after a summer storm. His head swung upwards as he sought to follow the thought to its end and it pulled him after into the massive throng of "somedays."

Why not?

As Edward's elusive clouds of "somedays" condensed into murky puddles of "could haves" on the floor of his life, he paused to gaze deep into his own unholy reflection. He held out his hand to let his shaking fingers collect a few straggling droplets of "today" and let those compel him forward. He may not be able to fix his own sordid past, but he could still impart his final gifts into the future. His mate, his beloved, his Bella was gone, but he would build her one last gift in her honor. Not all his dreams need be murdered by his own stupidity.

He went deep into the supply room to find what he sought. There, he opened up a dusty, long forgotten box from a side project over a hundred and fifteen years ago. This had been a fascinating tangent of research, begun long before he was so swallowed by his own thirst and back when he still had space to dream of other possibilities.

He blew off the dust, opened the contents, and grinned. It was possible. Even better, he could kill two birds with one stone. He picked up his phone and started making calls.

ooooooo

Buffy's back faced him from her perch on the kitchen counter where she sat and made herself a can of soup. From beneath her long, plaid dress, her bare feet tapped a tune in time to some song she listened to from her headphones. She swayed her head back and forth and mouthed out the words as she stirred the soup on the stove top.

Edward watched her closely and decided on the best avenue of attack. He melted into the shadows of the dining hall and, like a spider weaving his web, he waited for her to unknowingly come to within his grasp. Buffy brought her steaming bowl to one of the tables and thumbed through a book as she took her first few bites from her spoon.

Edward silently crept out of the corner which veiled his location and leaned against the wall to consider her. He smirked when she jumped and dropped her spoon, splashing soup over the table. She cursed and glared at him.

She tried to maintain an impassive stare, but her heart rate gave her away. It always did. She wore her sarcasm as a flimsy shield to protect her vulnerabilities from his predatory gaze and she wielded her tongue as her only weapon against his possible attack. Yet, she could not keep him from smelling the fear she tried so hard to hide under her brittle façade of nonchalance.

He would enjoy this much too much.

"Very clever," Edward said as he looked down upon her from his much higher position. "A Swiss bank account full of my money, your own replacement already prepared, a false assignment for my pilot to take you with him on his next supply run...really, I'm impressed. You had all the foundations of an excellent escape plot."

Her face flushed with emotion. She clutched at the bench she sat on with white knuckles, yet she attempted to hide her obvious terror with her fiery glare.

She's like a furious, fluffy kitten, he thought to himself. He chuckled.

"I think you could have done it too," he continued. "You are intelligent, creative, and fully capable of adapting to the outside world. However, I think you forgot one thing," he said and gave her a full, menacing grin that highlighted each of his venomous teeth. He leaned even closer to her to stare into her face with his own blood-red gaze. She gave a quick, panicked glance around the room, most likely to plot out possible escape routes.

"I've been playing this game for hundreds of years. My connections have connections. It's cute, really, that you thought you could do all this without me noticing. I've known about your plans since you first started making them."

He came even closer to her and placed his hand heavily upon her shoulder. He grinned even wider when he felt her shudder beneath him. He brushed a strand of hair away from her ear and leaned down to whisper into it.

"I don't need you here anymore," he said and he reveled in the way her façade crumbled beneath his touch and she no longer hid how terrified she was. For once, he would be the victor and he preferred to end things on that note. He produced a yellow envelope from behind his back and threw it with a thud on the table in front of her. She jumped, closed her eyes, and placed a hand against her heart. He backed up a few steps to lean against the wall to watch her as closely as a hawk watches a mouse. She inhaled deeply and her eyes flew open, first to fall upon him and then to flit to the envelope. She pursed her lips in confusion and opened the envelope.

Her fingers shook as she flipped through the papers within and her mouth fell open. She pulled out one and read it aloud.

"Certificate of Birth for Elizabeth Victoria Slayer, born June 21st, 2155 in Seattle, Washington to Charles and Renee Slayer," she read and stopped to clear her throat. "What the hell is this?"

"I should think it was quite obvious. That is your birth certificate. You will also find a valid U.S. passport, social security card, transcripts of your degrees, a U.K. work visa, and the deed to a flat in London in your name," he said with a crooked half-smile. "I believe you will also find a one way plane ticket that will be leaving from N'Djamena in two days."

She threw the envelope on the table as if it had burned her fingers and her face flushed red.

"Is this a trick?" she said.

"Hardly. You will need all of those if you hope to escape properly," he answered with a shrug.

He enjoyed her flustered expression and her shock far too much.

"But why?" she exclaimed and flung her hands to emphasize her point. Her hands still shook as she did.

"Isn't it obvious? You are far too repulsive to eat," he said and laughed as she struggled over whether to feel offended or relieved. She instead raised her right eyebrow and stared at him in a questioning silence. He complied and grew serious.

"I stole the life of an innocent woman before she had a chance to live. While I cannot restore her back to life, I swore I would release one of my creations to have the chance to finish a life in her place," he said without bothering to hide the shadow of regret that tinged his words. "I have no doubt you will thrive."

"So that's it. You are just going to let me go?"

"If you prefer to escape on your own, I can close my eyes and pretend I don't see your pitiful attempt at covertness."

"Hey! I can be covert!" she said and broke into a grin.

"If it makes you feel better," he answered.

She shook her head and picked up the envelope. She thumbed through the contents again, a happy glow seeping over her expressions to replace her former panic and, in that moment, he couldn't help but notice how pretty it made her.

"Wait-my name isn't Elizabeth," she said as she traced her name on one of the documents. "It's Buffy."

Edward chuckled. "Buffy is a nickname for Elizabeth," he said. "I could hardly give you your chosen name as a legal name if you hope to be taken seriously by potential future employers. However, Buffy V. Slayer is as close as I could get at a formal name that still kept the reference to your personal hero."

Then she took him by surprise by throwing her arms around him and thanking him. He patted her on the head. She pulled away to wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What about my assistant?" she asked as her face fell again.

"Yes, about her...," Edward began. He motioned for Buffy to sit back on the bench and he sat across from her and leaned his head on his hands. He didn't think she'd approve of this part. "You have done such a marvelous job training your own replacement, I am afraid I still require her services for the time being."

Buffy warred between guilt and protestation at that and before she could argue further he held up his hand.

"I know you are fond of your pet. If it makes you feel better, I will offer her freedom in exchange for her continued assistance."

"That would make me feel better...if I thought you would remember it," Buffy grumbled.

"If you do not like this arrangement, you are welcome to stay and send her in your stead," he said, knowing full well what her answer would be. She let out an unsatisfied huff and glared at him.

"Why would you even put me in that position? You are such a jerk and you know it," she said tersely.

He threw his head back and laughed.

"I have a reputation to uphold," he said. "If I do not behave nefariously, how will you maintain your perpetual dislike of me?"

"You don't need to work so hard at making me hate you," she said. "I hate you enough when you aren't trying."

He gave her a broad grin and he leaned over to smell her hair. He laughed even harder when he received a slap on the face and heard the corresponding groan of pain that accompanied her now sore hand.

ooooo

He did not bid her farewell before his car vanished into the desert horizon, heading south. He felt her absence all the same. It was both a relief and a victory, a bittersweet ending and a new beginning. She would thrive and live and he crossed one good intention off his list of "somedays." He placed his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants and turned to face his new guardian.

"So, it's you and me now," he said impassively as he appraised her. She was nearly a year and a half old, maybe closer to two, based on how her hair curled around her ears and her strengthened legs carried her around the lab. She wore a pair of Buffy's old jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. She was a quiet one and he wondered what surprises this manifestation had in store for him.

"What is this? No tears for your friend?" he asked.

"We were not friends," she answered succinctly. "And I do not cry." Her dark eyes appraised him and he could not read what emotion they held.

He shrugged. "Well, what should I call you?" he asked. "I've been told Bella isn't the preferred choice for my guardians."

She gave a slight smile and considered him again. "You may call me Darling," she said.

"Darling?" he asked with a chuckle. "Why is that your choice?"

"It is easier to say than Wendy Moira Angela Darling," she responded.

"I see. I suppose I can guess what books Buffy has been reading to you," he said.

"She never read to me," Darling said. She didn't elaborate or explain herself further. He could not, for the life of him, understand her thoughts from her face.

"Well, Darling, I have a special job for you. It's very important."

"Show me," she said with that same small smile. He couldn't tell if it was a sweet smile or a coy smile or one that hid secrets and it unnerved him as much as it intrigued him.

Ooooo

With Darling's constant assistance, Edward's next two goals were firmly in process and he could turn his attention to other matters. During his first two months of work, he hadn't time to leave his Temple. Now, he could attempt his next project: returning to hunting.

He left the Temple to head south to where the animals grew larger and more plentiful. There on the rain-soaked, fertile lands of southern Chad, he could have his choice of game. He reveled in the feel of giving himself to the hunt again. At first, he drank deeply of his prey. Yet he struggled to swallow the warm blood and the more he forced himself to ingest, the more his body violently rebelled and he retched upon the long grass beneath his feet.

He ran his fingers over the soft gold and black spotted fur of the great cat he had killed and he tried again.

For nearly a week, he kept trying. From herbivores to carnivores, he tried. His body rejected them all and he grew more and more distraught after each failed attempt.

In the grey and violet darkness of a sudden thunderstorm, Edward sank into the deep grasses of the savanna. The water rippled over his skin in rivulets and pooled on his sodden clothes. He opened and closed his fists and stared at his palms as they shook violently and flung off drops of rain. The wildebeest at his feet lay undrained; its blood covered his shirt and his shoes and melted into the rainwater in the grass. He covered the beast with his own body and wept.

When the rain stopped, he walked north. His hunched shoulders, black eyes, and slow steps made his way back to his Temple as he grappled with how many dreams he lost that day. He knew he buried part of himself next to the corpse of the wildebeest and it would not come back any more than his Bella would.

Ooooo

Darling found him in the room of his Bella, laying on her bed, staring at her photograph. She silently entered and sat in the rocking chair. The chair whispered slightly against the tiled floor as she rocked back and forth and watched him.

"I'm an idiot," he said with a sigh.

She didn't answer. Instead she left him and returned with a bundle of clothes draped over her shoulder and a basin of water in her arms. She placed her offerings on the floor and left him.

He gave a mirthless chuckle. "I suppose that is a hint," he said. He obeyed and tore off ruined clothes and bathed the grime off his skin. As he disposed of the water and clothes, she found him again. She cocked her head in the direction of his Research Lab.

"Go feed," she said. Through the open door, he could see she had already prepared for him. He shook his head. This one was just as full of surprises as the other guardians had been. Still, he did not fight her. He obeyed.

Ooooo

She followed him as silently as a shadow and anticipated his needs before he could even identify them himself. He couldn't mind her soft, gentle presence which soothed him like a balm. Bone deep, he longed for rest. He had so little to live for now. He felt as if he were a bonfire now simmered into a few smoldering embers, flames long extinguished. He felt as a tire-worn down to the threads. Even his movements slowed and his body creaked as he felt himself to be the old man his life span said he should be.

Without Darling, he could not have done it. His shaking hands could not type or manipulate his delicate tools. She read his computer screen to him and reminded him what his assignments were each day. His fragmented mind was as useless as his hands and so he relied on her directions completely. She did it all for him-all with that same soft smile on her face.

His feeds, while frequent, were as small as possible-now only to rejuvenate his strength enough to pour himself into his remaining threads of purpose. The feeds themselves were no longer his purpose or sought for pleasure. His self-given tasks should have been done a hundred years earlier, still it was better to accomplish them now than not at all.

After he completed these small goals, he could rest, he told himself.

After a long day in the Generation Lab working on the finishing touches of his final creation, Darling took his arm and escorted him to a chair.

"Rest," she told him. He collapsed into it and did not protest as she sat beside him and took his hand in hers. Her warmth and stability helped keep his mind in the present and chased away some of the apparitions that plagued him. He closed his eyes and fought to keep his body still, though now his feet shook as much as his hands.

"It will all be finished soon," he said. Darling nodded and squeezed his hand. He sighed and wished he was already done.

Ooooo

She helped him clean up the final Generation Tank in his lab. His last creation was gone, sent to complete his final purpose. Edward clung to a lab table to steady himself as he watched Darling gather old tubes and supplies into a trash bag and sterilize the now empty bed.

"We did it," he whispered. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. It was a bittersweet, shallow victory won, but still, he would savor it.

She nodded and kept cleaning.

"You know you are next," he told her. "You can go and see the world. You can be free to go wherever you wish. I'll arrange whatever life you'd like to lead."

Darling shook her head and gave him a small smile.

"I have always been free and I choose to stay here," she said. Then she did something he did not expect. She placed her trash bag on the floor, turned to him and kissed him.

He jumped back and his eyes flew open.

"What was that?" he asked.

"A thimble," she answered with that same sly look. She picked up her bag to continue cleaning and did not mention it again.

ooooo

Eight months after his Bella left, Edward knew it was time to seek her again-one last time. She was free. She could live her life as she pleased, but he needed to see her once more. When did she not plague his thoughts with her visions? When did his heart not bleed from her absence? Once more, he wished to stare upon his living statue and burn her image into his mind to preserve her with him forever.

He traveled to the small village he first discovered her in so many months before. He found no trace of the camel herder or his family. He found one old man sitting outside his house and picking the strings of a small instrument. After a few questions of perfunctory small talk, Edward inquired after the family.

"Oh, Amir traveled to Niger months ago," he was told. Edward groaned inwardly at the thought of having to comb through the desert in another country when his attention was caught by what the man said next. "Ever since his third wife's death, their family has been in Niger."

"What!?" Edward said, hoping he misunderstood.

"His third wife, they called her Badiyah," the old man said. "She was torn apart by wild animals in the desert. They buried her just over that hill yonder, in a cave in the Tibesti Mountains."

The man's mind filled with images of her body wrapped in a linen shroud and buried within the soft Earth of the cave where she took her last breath. It was her face, cold and pale with death, and Edward fought to hold in his scream. He did not bother to thank his informant, but instead followed the man's instructions to the site of the burial.

In a cave, hidden away from prying eyes, he found the months' old grave. It was then that he screamed and his shouts reverberated through the cave and echoed against the walls of the rocky cavern and out into the cool darkness of the night outside. He crumbled a boulder and sobbed in both anger and sadness as he unearthed her body from its resting place.

"No, no, Bella, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over again that night in between his sobs.

In a fury, he tore her from the cave and returned her "home" to where she belonged. She would never leave him again now. He buried her within his own room with the most succulent roses he could have delivered to him. Once buried, he refused to leave her new graveside.

At first, he plotted revenge against her so-called husband from morning till night for letting her get killed and abandoning her to such a fate. However, his anger fizzled into smoke and he failed to act on his violent plots. How could Edward blame the human for faults that were surely Edward's?

If he hadn't over indulged, he could have prevented her departure. If he hadn't been such a blind fool for so many decades, he could have kept her by his side forever, as his mate. He could even have turned her and kept her forever. It was this thought that sent another round of sobs through him. But he didn't and now she was gone. No, he had no one to blame for this but himself.

ooooo

He could not bear to be alone and yet he thirsted for solitude. The halls of his Temple mocked him with their silence, with the haunted corners full of the memories of footsteps that would never again tread their tiles. What made it worse was the uncomfortable sense that he wasn't entirely alone. He kept seeing her. She walked the halls of the temple, humming to herself, until he reached out for her and was burned by the hatred in her glare, and she vanished. She stood tall and proud in his Research Lab, watching him as he fed, driving him to madness with her silent mockery of his weakness and need.

He would never admit to himself how much his actions were compelled by the ghost of a woman whom he pretended not to think about. Yet he never could fully shake her from his thoughts. He shouted at her, charged at her with teeth bared, wept for her to leave, but still she remained. She walked away from him, slipped through his fingers, and lay down in her grave beside his bed in her ragged, skeletal state.

It was in this clouded fog of grief that Darling became his eyes. He never knew when she came. One day, she was simply there on the floor of his room beside him. She pulled him into her arms as he wept, cooed meaningless platitudes into his ear, and let him speak of her for hours. She listened, stroked his hair, and told him to keep talking.

So he did.

Ooooo

"It is time you come out," she said so very gently as he lay on the grave of his beloved. She placed clothes next to him to change and pulled on his hand to bid him to stand. "You need to bathe and you need to feed."

He obeyed without protest. She took his hand and led him into the Generation Lab where she sat him in a large chair and she pulled out a storybook and began to read to him. He was too tired to protest. He listened to her for hours upon hours that night.

And the next.

And the next.

She read to him book after book and helped him to forget about everything else, at least for a little while.

She was not his mate, but he appreciated her company. Though his heart felt like a piece of tape that's been pulled off a flannel shirt one too many times, but he could not help but feel warmed by her gentle kindness and her loyal presence.

So he let her stay and read to him. He let her wrap him in her arms as he wept. He let her tend his needs.

Why not?

oooooooo

He was purposeless. As useless as a sailing ship on a desert sand dune and he could not anchor himself into something else to make him wish to live. With her loss, what else was there for him? He refused to enter the bedroom where she lay and yet had he ever fully left it? He no more noticed the passage of time than he did which room he inhabited. He simply drifted, pulled on the winds he could not see or feel.

He knew now how wrong he had been. He thought the choice before him had been between his Bella and the Others, but it was not. His final choice was between one version of himself and the other-between the monster and the man, between Dorian Gray and the man in his portrait. He was as foolish as Dorian Gray to think he could pursue his own pleasure unhindered and without cost. All the while his own internal portrait decayed into something so hideous, he dared not look at it. Here in Edward's temple, in his underground chrysalis, little-by-little, day-by-day, year by year, he chose his own metamorphosis and emerged in his final, immutable form as a monster. He was not Pygmalion doting on his statue. Instead, he was Narcissus, gazing longingly into a reflection of himself and worshiping the image he sought to find there.

As in the Oval Portrait, Edward painted himself into his creations. Stroke by stroke, minute by minute, day by day, he created his masterpieces, not realizing the paint he used was his own soul. With each brush stroke, each carved statue, each of his Bellas, they drank a little more of the life out of him. His eyes remained fixed on their collective portrait, carefully painting them into eternity and ensuring their immortality forever. He did indeed capture the life-likeness of Bella Swan for all eternity…on a flat, two-dimensional canvas that could never breathe kisses into his ear or baptize his senses with her three-dimensional beauty. All the while, he was draining his own life into each dabbed color. At the end of it all, all Edward was left with was two portraits-his own hideous representation and his muse's spectacular, never-changing memorial.

In an effort to direct this thoughts away from his dismal self-reflection, he decided to catch up on his bills and accounts. For the past few years, he had paid little heed to such mundane details as his finances, basic repairs of the property, updating his technology, and the like. These sank away in unimportance compared with his other priorities. In his spontaneous decision to deal with "real life," "real life" turned on him and hit him like a brick.

He was out of money. For some time, his personal finances had dwindled (with some assistance from Buffy, of course) and, without his knowledge, he had been barred from the Cullen family finances.

"Alice!" he hissed to himself.

He knew she could see him; she had always been able to see him. For decades, he ignored her emails, her phone calls, her attempts to contact him or visit him. She'd managed to hack into his computer a few times and give him plaintive cries of, "There's another way! Edward, you don't have to live like this! We love you! Come back to us! You do have a choice!"

He never responded.

She wouldn't tell the others. He knew this as much as she did. He would not relinquish his Bellas, no matter the cost, and if the family intervened, they would be forced to either risk their lives or kill him. None of his family members were able to defeat him in combat, except possibly her, and she wouldn't risk their lives in order to end his. Alice could never do it. She loved him too much to end him herself.

He appreciated her loyalty, devotion, and secret-keeping, but he was not opposed to using these traits to his advantage to maintain his chosen life. She would never approve of his choices and would fight in passive aggressive ways to force him onto other paths, always holding out hope for his redemption. Her undaunted optimistic hope that he could change was what ensured he never answered her calls. She thought there was still something good in him, something worth loving.

But she was wrong. This was his fate. It had always been his fate and he had surrendered to it and now it consumed him.

He was this: Masen Edwards in his temple, worshiping his goddess for eternity; Bran in his castle, sowing death to those within his dominion even as much as he planted their new crop of lives; the Desert Jinn, as the Toubou had come to call him, who stole maidens, mothers, and wives from their beds to devour their souls and turn them into his ghoulish slaves.

Edward Cullen died together with his beloved Bella Swan in the forests of rural Washington almost two hundred years ago. They were both murdered by the same monstrous being: the one who walked away that day and who now stared at him from the mirror with angry, hollow blood red eyes.

Some Other Edward, also called Bran, died with his beloved Badiyah in a cave north of the Sahara almost ten months ago. They were both murdered by the same monstrous being he now stared at and despised with every ounce of life in his miserable body.

He smashed his mirror into shards with his fist and gave the guttural scream of a desperate creature facing its own impending demise.

He could hear Darling softly calling after him and inquiring into his well-being and he felt ill. He could not meet her gaze when he marched to his Research Lab. As reality pressed in on him on all sides like a portcullis, he longed to escape its sharp teeth. His finances, his future, it all could wait. He would escape and find reprieve in his only sure refuge.

Now, he could feel his body begin to shake just thinking of the others. He needed them, more than he needed anything else. He could no longer pretend otherwise. As if their blood were his oxygen and his water, his food and his shelter, without them, he would cease to exist. What if he became immune to the taste of their blood? What if he became so desensitized, that no amount of effort would bring him back into the state he most longed to be in? How could he taste eternity and go back to the mundane?

That was a future he could not tolerate and he began to panic just considering it. He clenched his shaking fists and grit his teeth as he sought to stave back the paranoia. It couldn't happen, he wouldn't let it. What else did he have to live for? His Bellas were his love, his life, his everything and without them, he had nothing.

Panic and fear crashed into him. He had today. He knew he had today. Tomorrow, next month, next year, be damned. He wanted to be sure he reached the full heights of ecstasy, whatever it took. Then, he would be done. Then he would end it all. He placed the containers of kerosene close to his grasp so it would still be there whenever he woke. Then he carried his Bellas out of their bunks, one by one, and laid them on the floor of his Research Lab and began to feed.

Ooooo

He never heard Darling call and plead to him through the door or break in through the air vent. He never heard her desperate cries for him to wake. He never noticed the one Bella that still lay asleep in his Bella's bed, long forgotten both by him and by Darling.

When Alice arrived, over three weeks later, his eyes, glazed, and unseeing, could not see her sobs as she knelt beside him. His ears failed to register the words of affection, regret, and farewell she whispered to him. He could not feel how his abdomen had shattered into pieces from the excessive internal pressure, burst long before he finished his final act of worship. He did not notice the way even his sclerae turned blood red or the way liquid poured from every orifice of his body, drowning him and burying him in his own unquenchable thirst. His blood-filled nose could not smell the smoke when Alice poured kerosene over the room, lit the match, and threw it over his motionless body.

He died content-as a final burnt offering dedicated to his siren in her Temple by her most faithful and adoring priest. He would remain entombed within his fortress as a pharaoh, surrounded by the possessions he valued most to carry with him into the afterlife. His Bella's slave-he would be buried with her in death, his own body thrown onto the funeral pyre of the corpse he held as his bride.

Author's Notes:

We have two chapters and an epilogue to go. :)

The Oval Portrait is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. In it, a newly married artist spends months painting the portrait of his new bride. So consumed in his work is he that he fails to notice how she grows weak and sick. When he finishes his masterpiece and is stunned by its realism, it's only then that he notices his bride is dead. He literally painted her life into the portrait.

Wendy Moira Angela Darling (and the "thimble" reference) are from the children's novel Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

The "furious kitten" comment is from Stephanie Meyer's Midnight Sun. :)