The Remnants: Alternate Ending
We are going to digress from our original story early into chapter 7 (Edward's POV) (picking up right after "the kiss" and late into chapter 4 (Badiyah's POV) (minus the flash forward scenes and the final "bed/travel world" scene)
Here's our premise:
2156 A.D. (91 years after Edward leaves the Cullens, 8 years after Bella is made first guardian, 16 years before Bella runs away to become "Badiyah". In this version, she never gets her new name and will be called "Bella.")
"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."
"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?"
Edward, the Remnants, Chapter 7
"This was her fate, she realized as she placed her hand on the place where the jinni's child grew within her. This had always been her fate. Long years in the past, so drunk with youth and adoration, she would have willingly welcomed her beautiful jinni into her blankets and pitched her tent with him. In those days, would she not also have borne his child and done so with a joyous heart?... In the end, she was always destined to be the mother of his child."
Badiyah (Bella), the Remnants, Chapter 12
Oooooo
Edward's POV
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 he took his statue straight to the alter in Aphrodite's temple and there she came to life in his arms.
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.
He was interrupted from his reverie by her cry of pain and her hand over his mouth, which was millimeters away from breaking her delicate skin with his venomous teeth.
He leapt up as if it was he who had been injured and realized just what he had done. His Bella, his beautiful Bella, was covered in bruises and her arm hung at an unnatural angle at her side. She struggled to sit upright as the tears flowed down her cheeks.
"Edward, my arm…," she cried out, cradling her elbow with her other arm.
"Oh, Bella, I'm so sorry," he began, horror creeping over him as he realized what he had done, what he had been so close to doing… but he stopped himself when he realized apologies and self-reproach would be better suited to after the limb had been tended. A sudden awkwardness encompassed him as he realized he had torn off both of their clothes and there was quite literally nothing between them. He fled the room as quickly as he could, not minding the crash of the door slamming behind him and falling off the hinges in his haste.
When he returned, he had managed to pull on khaki pants and a polo shirt and he carried a pile of supplies in his hands.
"Let's take care of that arm first," he told her. "It's entirely dislocated. Let me give you some medicine for the pain and then I can set the bone. It will take time to heal and you won't be able to use this arm for awhile, but it will heal."
Gently, so gently, he reset the bone and fashioned both a cast and a sling. Then he began to look over her other injuries and the guilt that overcame him nearly suffocated him.
His self-control had entirely burst and he had hurt her. Worse, he had very nearly killed her. And he had enjoyed it. If it wasn't for her hand and her cry, he would not have stopped. He would have continued until… he shivered at the horror of what he would have found. He would have woken to find her a corpse in his arms, cold and lifeless and beyond repaid. Her life force would have been stolen from her body and fused into his own.
He thought of the eerie, unmitigated silence of his temple without her laughter and footsteps. He thought of his room without her hair sprawled across the carpet and his music without the light of adoration in his muse's eyes.
He felt so ill he could nearly imagine vomiting.
"Bella, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you… or for that to happen," he said, overcome again by just what had occurred before her injury. How many nights had he sat in her room and dreamt of just that? How many times had he followed the sway of her hips and the curve of her shoulders and imagined just what it would be like if… if he tried to kill her. He was a fool to think he could play with fire without burning her. She was too valuable, too precious, too fragile and he almost lost her.
During his turbulent musing, she watched him quietly. Then she cocked her head to one side and she placed one hand on his arm.
"Is that what you meant when you talked of a man and woman 'sharing a bed'?" she asked. She remembered, as well as he did, her many questions from just a few months ago when he tried to read A Thousand and One Nights to her. He had not managed to try to read that one again.
He uncomfortably ran his hand through his tousled hair. His hair smelled like her now and just how delicious that fact was made him feel all the more keenly its wrongness. He needed to answer her honestly, but he could not alleviate the discomposure he felt in doing so.
"Yes, Bella. That is what I meant."
"So, we are now married? You are my husband?"
"Ummm...," came his eloquent reply.
What could he tell her?
Yes, some cultures believed that the covenant of marriage began through intercourse alone and that was enough to bind the couple permanently together. Yet, the culture Edward was raised in taught that marriage only began through an institutional ritual and through the acknowledgement of an authority figure. He knew there were other cultures who believed marriage began at the vow of agreement between two families or after an exchange of gifts between families. Still others only believed a marriage to be valid when there was evidence of a viable offspring.
But she was a human clone and he the vampire who had created her. They could not be spiritually or socially bound in the same way. They were exempt from the norms and expectations of human societies and the laws undergirding cultural reproduction. They also could not be mated in the sense that two vampires were through such an intense emotional and physical bond. She was not a vampire. It could not be the same.
Or so he tried to convince himself.
The thought of binding himself to her in so sacred a way, of making himself beholden to her, of giving her a claim over his decisions and autonomy, made something in him revolt in protest. A torrent of arguments began a battle in his mind and he felt torn between opposing armies, each ready to go to arms over what his next posture and decision should be.
But you already bound her to you. You are already beholden to her. You already behave as if she were your wife. To disown her and delegitimize her now would mean treating her as little better than a concubine – your wife in all ways but name and rights.
But isn't that why she exists? She is only one of many of your creations, made for the sole purpose of your pleasure and happiness. She holds no claim over you. She is not fully human and she has no soul. You owe her nothing and she owes everything to you.
Except that he had been raised better and his mother would be furious with him. He could feel her rolling over in her grave right now and he looked upon himself in disgust.
But you have already become something your mother would have disowned. The moment you woke as what you are, you were an object of disgust. What's one more failing? One more weakness?
Except that he loved her. In his heart, he knew he loved her, yet still, he could not admit it out loud, to her or to himself. To cause her harm, emotional or physical, tore at his very being and he knew he could not betray her by disagreeing. He was too much a coward to confirm her suspicion by agreeing so in the end, he simply avoided answering her question altogether.
"I, uh, I think you should get some sleep. You need your rest to heal," he told her. "We will talk more tomorrow."
She nodded. Then she crept close to him, hesitantly, sweetly, and stood on her toes so she could give him a lingering kiss on his lips. The very adoration and forgiveness he felt in that movement cast an even greater weight onto the guilt he felt stacking up like bricks on his shoulders.
"Come share my bed again soon, husband," she whispered to him.
He watched her go, her arm cradled in her sling, and he groaned.
Oooo
She slept long, though he gave her more pain killers each time the others wore off and she woke from the pain. Each time he heard her whimper, it was like a knife to his own gut. He kept vigil over her from the rocking chair, listening to her whisper in her dreams and the gentle hum of her breath while she slept. She was so beautiful, all he could do was stare at her and drink in every shadow flickering across her face, the slope of her cheeks, the play of colors dancing between her hair and her shoulders. She was a masterpiece, painted to absolute perfection.
And she was his.
What had he allowed himself to do? Yet, even worse was the knowledge that he desperately wanted to put her life at risk again. The hungers stirred by that one kiss were nothing compared to what now burned through his veins and barraged through his mind like stampeding wildebeests. The scent of her, the feel of her skin, the taste of her, it had all consumed him completely and utterly and he was nearly bursting with desire for more. This woman. One taste was never enough. How many ways would his siren delight and devour him? How many ways would she take him as her captive and torment him with her illicit treasures? How many ways would she carve out his best of intentions and turn him into her slave?
The guilt he felt nearly overshadowed his desire and he did not know how he could maintain such strong opposing emotions at once without tearing himself, and Bella, apart.
He watched her from a distance, when she finally woke. He felt compelled to ensure she had no unforeseen complications or injuries. He made sure she ate well and rested and he ran checks over her injuries hourly, and she appeared well. However, the better she felt, the more he felt unwell. He would be lying if he said he did not enjoy the way her own warmth for him had grown and or how she gravitated to him through her every movement. It seemed her own desire for him had also multiplied and it nearly drove him to madness. He decided, then and there, that once he was sure she was well, he needed space. He needed to decide what direction to take their relationship while he was master of his own mind and not swayed by his physical desires. He could not think clearly without excusing himself from her tantalizing presence.
But before he could think, he needed to feed. So much time spent fighting against her and against himself had made him even thirstier than normal and he needed the gain the reprieve that could only be found in the company of the Others. A stab of guilt ran through him and he paused to ask himself why.
Why would you leave her side for theirs? They are not just food to you and you know it. You should stay with Bella.
He grimaced. He had grown so used to dismissing the inner weight of his conscience, that voice which constantly argued against his decisions and tried to hard to suck the joy out of his pleasures, that he thought he had finally managed to silence it. Why did it suddenly rear its irritating and debilitating head into his mind now?
He forcefully slammed the door on that voice with as much eagerness as he slammed shut the door to his Research Lab. Then he proceeded to forget all about his conscience and his other Bella.
Oooooo
For the first time in nearly three years, Edward left his temple. Ever since Bella took over the monthly supply runs, he had little reason to leave. Occasionally he went outside, but only as far as the compound around his temple and only to discard the expired clones. Now, though, he went outside simply to be outside and be away from his temple. He ran through the desert around him and for the first time in longer than he could remember, he actually saw the moon and stars overhead. He paused to notice the warmth in the breeze and the thick, earthy scent of the heated sand cooling in the reprieve of night. He stretched his legs and ran for miles, realizing just how rusty the motion felt and chastising himself for not forcing himself to get out more. He needed to be more intentional about making sure he did not bury himself entirely in his temple.
But there is so much to be buried in, another part of him whispered. Why leave, when you have everything you could possibly wish for right at your finger tips inside your temple?
At the thought of his fingertips, his mind went once again to the soft curve of Bella's bare waist and he closed his eyes. He was not sure whether he should savor the memory or exorcise it from his mind or do both at the same time and he was sorely tempted to turn around right there to find her again.
It had taken all his strength and whatever shards were left of his self-control not to seek her out the moment he woke from his feed. A had spent nearly a week in his Research Lab and when he was coherent enough to realize that, he felt himself compounded with another unwelcome wave of guilt.
Check on Bella, his conscience shouted at him. Do not leave her alone.
The thought of her made him downright ravenous for her presence, till he remembered her broken arm and the sound of her cry of pain and the feel of his teeth next to her neck. Was that a memory to savor or remove?
Instead, he compromised by seeking her out on the video feed. He found her fast asleep in her bed in her room, her arm still bound in a sling. Her bruises were nearly gone now and she still appeared well.
You do not know for sure. Go talk to her.
No, he answered. I checked on her. She's fine. I don't want to wake her.
Coward.
It's not cowardly to be considerate. She needs her rest.
You are avoiding her.
No, I'm not. I need time to think and I need to make some decisions. Those decisions will be better made apart from her.
Before his conscience could summon any worse insults or accusations, he decided it was time to leave. He opened the back door of his Research Lab and melted into the welcoming darkness of the desert around him.
He felt all jumbled and confused in a way he had not felt in more years than he could count. It had all been so simple, before. If he wanted something, he took it, hang all the consequences. But there were consequences and sometimes they reared their ugly heads like a sea monster and would not let his ship continue on its current path. Like the check engine light on a car, he pretended it was a problem with the light and not an indication of a problem in his engine. If he ignored it, maybe it would go away, but it simply got easier to ignore it without ever going away. His blackened conscience again took up banging on his heart like a spoon on a saucepan and he feared letting its voice speak too loudly lest it choose to open up the storehouses of other sins he had committed for his review.
How was it, after so many years with blood on his hands, that it was the act of stealing the virtue of an innocent woman that suddenly made his conscience wake up again? Why should this be any different than drinking the blood of the Others?
Because she isn't one of the Others and you just treated her as if she were, came the answer within himself. You treated her like a bottle of wine you could consume and then throw away without consequences or obligation to yourself.
No! I did not! I never once used the Others in that way.
But wouldn't you? Why else are you hiding here in the desert, pretending to "think"? In reality, you are here to rationalize how you can continue to use your Bella without losing her. You will say that it is all to "keep Bella safe," when your entire argument will not be about Bella at all. It will be all about you and your own selfish desires. If you continue in this trend of thought, you will choose to use the Others to "spare" Bella and still satisfy your lusts.
Edward ran his hands through his hair till he nearly tore at it from the roots and he groaned. It was true. It was completely and totally true. He had come seeking solitude to debate just how he could find a way to metaphorically "have his cake and eat it too." How could he pursue this avenue of pleasure unhindered by cares for her safety without having to change her and so change his current lifestyle?
You cannot have both, that quiet voice whispered. You are lying to yourself if you think you can. You must make a choice and you can only choose one. Do you want Bella or do you want the Others?
Edward did not notice how long he stayed away from his temple. It might have been a week; it might have been a month. The sun rose and set and he did not care. For the first time in decades, he let himself stop and think about his future, his heart, and what it was he truly wanted.
Oh, he delighted in his Bellas and the euphoria they gave him, but his Bella's companionship had filled a void in his heart he hadn't even realized was empty and filled him in an entirely different way. He loved them both. That was the rub. He didn't want to lose either and he ran through scenario after scenario trying to find a way where he could continue as things were without having to change.
He didn't know. At the end of it all, he only knew he needed to go back, he could not stay away from the inner compulsion to return immediately. But in his heart of hearts, he was not sure which woman he most wanted to return to. His time away and his space to think had only made him more confused.
Oooo
The first clue that something was not right was the fact that he could hear thoughts within his temple. The typically silent fortress now had the dim, hazy whispers of not just one but two distinct minds within it and Edward suddenly burst into a sprint when he caught their impressions in his mind.
Oh no. What have I let happen? He wondered, the fear spiking in his throat. He quickly opened the doors and began to search for intruders or scent trails or anything unusual, but he could not find any evidence of outsiders having found their way in. However, that did not mean all was well. He could catch the distinct scents that revealed his temple had not been well-tended in his absence. The typical odor of disinfectant did not waft through the halls and he could see a layer of dust had accumulated on the floors and furniture he passed during his exploration of his temple. It was not like Bella to be so neglectful and he began to panic.
"Bella?" he cried out, throwing open her bedroom door. To his dismay, it was empty and she still had not come to meet him. He searched through his room, the kitchen, and the Generation Lab, all with similar results. Dishes were piled high, the Generation Lab was so neglected he did not know if he could save the growing clones within each tank, and his room had a spilled glass of juice on the floor which had not been cleaned up, next to what was unmistakably a pile of vomit, at least a week old.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no. What have I done? Bella? Where are you?" he cried.
When he heard a soft response coming from the barracks, he gave a sigh of relief and ran towards the voice. Nothing could have prepared him for what he found on the floor.
His Bella was on the floor, surrounded by the cots of the Other Bellas. The Other Bellas had not been well-tended or cleaned and they were growing ill. His momentary flash of anger at this was ameliorated when he could finally get a clear glimpse of his Bella, sprawled on the floor between beds. Empty bags of blood littered the floor around her and wrappers of food and gallons of water, typically used to feed the Others, were emptied all around her.
She did not rise when she saw him. She reached out to him with one arm that appeared so weak and gaunt that he nearly cried out in dismay. Her face was so thin that she looked as though she were a freshly birthed clone and not the vibrant, well-fleshed woman he had seen only a few weeks earlier. Even worse, her eyes were dim and pain sketched dark circles around her tear-stained cheeks and the bits of dried blood around her mouth.
Eclipsing everything else, however, was the pair of fast, fluttering heartbeats emanating where her womb had swollen into the advanced stages of pregnancy. It was here that the thoughts originated. The dim, hazy impressions of two minds which had never seen the world outside and which had struggled to survive the world in which they were now growing.
"Edward?" Came Bella's weak voice. She let her hand fall back against her side and she closed her eyes again.
"I'm here," he somehow gasped out in reply.
"You were gone," she cried, tears falling again in earnest. "I tried to find you, but I couldn't."
He knew he should go to her, take her hand, speak comfort to her, apologize to her, do something other than stare at her in abject horror, but he couldn't seem to make himself move or say another word. He filled the doorway, lurking there in the threshold, afraid to come into the room and face this reality, hoping all the while that this was a nightmare that he would soon awake from.
"What has happened, Edward?" she asked. She opened her eyes to search him out, pleading for him to explain everything to her. "I do not understand. Just after you left, I could not keep my food down. It was like the time before, you remember? You told me the meat was spoiled? It was like that and I thought it was my food which was spoiled, but it did not go away. Then, then, well, I began to grow and grow and there are movements in me which were not there before.
"What does it mean? The movements have grown stronger and stronger. I did not know what to do. I tried to find you. I looked everywhere, but you were not here. I tried to call for you, but you did not come. I was so worried about you. I thought something had happened to you. You've never left like that before and I couldn't go after you. I tried to. I got the truck and tried to drive after you, but I did not know where to go and after a little while, I was so tired, I had to return, but my heart has felt sick with worry knowing you could be unwell and I would not help you."
Edward grew sick himself. Here she was, wasting away and in fear of her very life and her main worry was for him. While away, he had kept himself away on purpose in order to avoid her.
"Oh, Edward, I have been so afraid! I was so thirsty and hungry and I grew so weak that I could barely walk between my room and the Generation Lab. My head spun and I could not see and I fell asleep without sleeping and when I woke, I was on the floor. Then, I do not know what came over me, I remembered the Others would die if I did not take care of them and so I went to take care of them, but instead of giving them blood, I took it for myself and drank and drank and drank. I felt better afterwards, but that is when the pain began. I could hear my bones breaking within me and I could not rise again without falling. Edward, what is wrong with me? Can you fix it?" Bella's dark eyes looked into the very depths of his soul and held him grounded in place in the doorway, commanding him to answer her. "You know what this is. I can see it. Tell me."
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I didn't know it was possible, or I never would have, we never would have… Bella, you are pregnant."
"I don't know what that means."
"Oh, oh, ummm, well, you remember when I told you what a child is? You have a very small person in you, a young child. A baby. Actually, you have two of them in you."
"A small person?"
"Yes. It's like, you know how the other Bellas grow in their tanks in the generation lab?"
"Yes."
"Well, most people do not grow like that. Most people grow like this, inside their mothers, and they start very small and then they grow big one they are no longer inside their mothers."
"How much bigger will they grow?" she asked, her eyes wide in fear and she placed her hands on the mountain she had already, inexplicably grown. "Will they become as big as me before they come out?"
"Not before they come out. These look, umm, I can't know for sure without proper measurements, but these look to be nearly ready to come out. They shouldn't grow much more, especially since there are two of them."
"Oh, good," she said, her relief so evident on her face, it would have almost made him laugh, if he wasn't terrified from his head to his toes. "But, Edward, how do they come out? Is there a door?"
He closed his eyes and bit down on his teeth so hard he could hear them clenching.
Heaven above, I need Carlisle.
"There is a kind of door, yes, though it may hurt a little when they come out," he said, trying to ignore his guilt at the understatement of the century.
"Do these ones need to stay with the other Bellas?" she said, suddenly afraid again. "Or can I keep them with me? Please, Edward, do not give these as an offering to the desert. I would be so very happy to have someone else to talk to and my own small people to share words and music with. Then, when you are away, I would not be so alone and I would not have to feel so afraid."
Her eyes grew brighter than he had ever seen and she nearly glowed. The beauty of it nearly took his breath away, despite how pale and thin she was beneath, and it made her words that much more a punch in the gut to him.
What a truly selfish bastard he was. He moved away from her, feeling himself like dirt that would contaminate the fresh snow purity of her very being. Yet, hadn't he already contaminated her? Here, he had made her live the way he had, he had forced to live in perpetual isolation, dependent entirely on him for her every need. He remembered her tears when she first realized her "friend" had been given as an offering to the desert and his anger, born out of guilt, at her sadness.
Yet, now she looked at him as if he were the "knight in shining armor" come to rescue her from her troubles, when in reality, he was the dragon keeping her captive and slowly stealing her life away, and she didn't even know she was a prisoner.
"When will the door open for the small people?" she asked.
He looked her over again and he frowned. How did he know if anything about this process would be natural? Within a matter of weeks, she had gone from conception to a full-term pregnancy with what was undeniably supernatural offspring. She was far past the point where termination would prove an easy solution. By the looks of her, the way her heart struggled to beat, the way her body struggled to support so much growth, she might not last much longer.
What could he do? She was already so weak that even if childbirth occurred naturally and in a human way, he doubted she could survive it. She would most likely require a caesarean, if they were to live. He knew the mechanics of such an operation, but could he manage it alone? He had never done one before and tending to both the needs of the mother and children alone would be a challenge, even with his supernatural abilities.
There was another challenge to consider.
Her scent. Oh, her scent. If he had considered it delectable before, now, with so many more pints of blood coursing through her expanded body and spiced with the myriad of hormones only pregnancy provided, it was an ambrosia he had never before thought could exist. He had to literally grip his nails into his hands to remind him that this was his Bella, the woman he loved, and she carried his children. She was not simply a bottle of wine for him to consume.
Isn't she though? Wouldn't that solve all your problems? The monster in him whispered.
His conscience decried this in horror. No. She is not. This solves nothing. She is still Bella. She is the woman you love.
Edward stood stock straight at the thought.
Yes. Bella is a woman. And you love her. She is not simply an automaton, a blow-up doll, a robot, a created thing. She is not a statue. She is a woman, capable of change and thought and feeling. Capable of the creation and bearing of more life, of carrying her own life, her own soul, her own spark of humanity that she can pass down to others. If she had no soul, how could there be two distinct beings alive in her womb, in possession of their own thoughts and feelings and personalities? You and Bella created those mental voices, together. How could that be possible unless she has her own soul?
Edward pulled the ragged threads of his torn thoughts together long enough to go to Bella's side and carry her into her own bed. Then he set about helped to wash her and change her clothes and get her food and water. He set up an IV drip to help compensate for the fluids she had lost and he waited beside her until she fell into a restless sleep.
Then he made his way to the barracks and the Generation Lab to check on the Others. It was even worse than he anticipated. He did what he could, but he could not deny the reality of it. If he left now with Bella, all the Others would die. He could not possibly keep them alive without round-the-clock care.
I have to choose Bella, this time, he decided. I can always come back later and start over. It would take time, but I can always pick up where I left off.
One thing was certain. Bella would need help and Edward knew he could not be the one to give it. The shame grew with his own admission of how he did not think he could restrain himself, even to save the lives of his family. His family. Overnight, he had gone from the lone vampire in control of his own private kingdom to an expectant father. He had never, not in a hundred thousand years, expected this to happen.
However, to say he was woefully unqualified to be a father was the understatement of the century. He was entirely incapable of protecting them… and the greatest danger they would face would be himself. He was the one most likely to harm them by his own lack of restraint. He would, quite literally, consume them without the interference of outside assistance.
He was stricken by the momentary flash of horror into his own condition. All the excuses he once gave, all the rationalities, melted away like a snowflake on a hot iron and he covered his eyes with his hands, as if that could spare Bella from having to look at him and spare him from having to be seen.
He needed help. He needed Carlisle. He could not let his family die. He knew that much. But how? He could ask for Carlisle to come to his temple. That would, perhaps, be the simplest solution. But at the thought of his once mentor and father-figure treading through the halls of his siren's shrine, Edward cringed. He could not bear to have Carlisle see the place he now called home or know what pursuits he had been consumed with the last few decades.
No, that could not be. Edward would need to go to Carlisle. That still was an idea so distasteful that he wondered again if had better not handle this himself.
You can always let them die.
This abhorrent thought was interrupted by the gentle thoughts of one of the fetuses. It was more of an awareness of a state-of-being than a thought, but it was so entirely saturated in a perfect contentment in its circumstances, that Edward was frozen in place.
How could he let them die when all three so very much wish to live? He could not. It would be far worse to let them die than it would be to face his family again.
I cannot possibly face them again, he thought to himself. Alice, she will know everything. How can I face Jasper, after all I spoke to him of self-control and "our way" the "Cullen way" of life? Rosalie's fury would be of a particularly personal, vulnerable variety, born out of her own past wounds. Esme's forgiveness and joy to see me would be worse than her rejection and hatred. Worst, by far, would be Carlisle. How could I possibly ever look Carlise in the face again?
He did not have time to debate or consider the consequences. He needed to focus on the most immediate issue and the most immediate issue was not his blackened conscience, or the challenges of facing his past, but that his beloved needed help and she needed it now.
With that purpose in mind, he opened up the many, many emails from Esme that he had ignored for so long. Her words of such affection and devotion felt like ash on his tongue because he knew they were all written for a man who no longer existed. If she knew him as he was now, she would not be so quick to offer such sentiments. Still, he bit back the bitterness in his throat as he scanned through her most recent communications, telling him small minutiae about the family's movements and hobbies and wishing him well, until he finally came upon their most recent contact information. There it was. A phone number.
He did not even need to call. As he expected, his own phone rang.
"Alice," he said. The weight of guilt he felt at speaking that word was so profound he nearly dropped the phone and turned back. The groan from the other room made him stay on the line.
"I could see you decided to call and I can see the subject matter, but I can't see what happens next. It all becomes fuzzy."
"Can you see her?"
"No. Not anymore."
"Does that mean I am too late?"
"No. It's not like visions where someone dies, it is like my vision is obscured and I can't see through it."
"Let me talk to Carlisle."
"Ok, but Edward?"
"Yeah?"
"We will all be glad to have you home."
Oooooo
Rosalie's POV
Rosalie was under the hood of her recently acquired Ford when she heard Alice make the call. She held her breath, as if letting her own lungs fill with air would keep her from hearing the outcome of this call. She couldn't hear what was said on the other line, but she could hear the two words she had longed to hear now for over ninety years.
Edward and home.
"What do you mean he knocked up a human?" Emmett asked, once Carlisle hung up the phone and called the rest of the family together. "How is that even possible?"
"I didn't know it was… but, then again, I never tested the possibility," Carlisle answered. His placid tone belied the anxious way he wrung his hands and Rosalie knew he was worried about more than just the medical condition of the human. "Alice cannot see her or tell what happens and so we are in the dark about this. All Edward told me is that the pregnancy has advanced at an incredibly rapid rate and the fetuses are supernaturally strong."
"Wait, fetuses? There's more than one?" Rosalie asked.
"Twins."
"Wow! Good for him! I'd never have thought," Emmett said with a whistle. "So, who's the dame? Is it his mate or a one-night stand or a fling or what?" Emmett asked.
Alice shook her head sadly. "Yes," she said.
"Yes, to which one?"
"To all of them," Alice said. "She could be any or all of those. Edward still hasn't decided which category to place her in."
"How can she be all of those? Either she's his mate or she isn't."
"This is Edward we are talking about. He makes everything more complicated than it should be. The woman he is bringing to us could be his mate and she could make him very happy, if he lets her, but he is still fighting it tooth-and-nail. I do not know for sure what the outcome will be."
"Why would he fight against it? Is it because she is human?" Emmett asked.
"Emmett, there is a lot about Edward you don't know right now and that I really shouldn't be the one to talk about. Let's just say, the Edward you are about to meet is a far cry from the one we knew. He, uh, I suppose the best way to put it is he is more vampire than human now and it will not be easy having him home, for any of us."
"But he is home to stay now, right?" Rosalie asked. She couldn't help but hope that he was finally done with whatever rebel stage this had been and their family could finally be whole again. Edward may be an irritating prig, but he was still her brother and nothing could be complete without him.
"I don't know," Alice said. "I just don't know."
"We do know that is coming home for now," Carlisle said, a glimmer of hope in his eyes that had all but diminished lately. "We must make the most of the time we have."
ooooo
Overnight the third floor of their home in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan became a hospital room. Carlisle and Esme worked nonstop to quickly obtain everything they thought they could possibly require for such an unpredictable set of circumstances. Alice refused to talk. She did not let them know anything about Edward's past whereabouts other than he was in North Africa doing medical research.
When the helicopter arrived on the front lawn, everyone in the family stood on the lawn, watching it land. Edward disembarked first; his arms full of a brunette woman wrapped in a blanket. He gave the Cullens all a cursory nod of the head before following Carlisle into the house.
Edward was so different. It was not that his appearance had changed so much, but that he had changed. It was in the way his movements had slowed, the hunch of his shoulders, the molasses-thick darkness of his ruby gaze. He shrank away from them all, failing to make eye contact, and avoiding not just words but any form of communication.
Those red eyes, so bright from recent feeding, told the tales Rosalie had always expected to hear, but the human woman with the bruised, engorged womb was another story entirely.
"Her name is Bella," Edward told them, once they were in the large sitting room of the three-story bungalow. He laid her carefully on the couch before he told her all their names.
"Bella what?" Esme asked. "What is her surname?"
Edward opened and closed his mouth once before seeming to make a decision. "Bella Masen," he said. This answer appeared to please Esme, but only her and by Edward's discomfort afterwards, Rosalie wondered if he regretted his decision.
"This can't be. She's dead. She died 152 years ago."
Everyone turned to Emmett; everyone except Alice and Jasper.
"That's Isabella Swan. Ok, yeah, she looks maybe a decade older than the Isabella Swan I saw, but I'd know that face anywhere. And I know that scent. I remember her from Forks. She committed suicide after only one day at school."
Edward grimaced and turned away, but Bella did not react other than to blink at Emmett and turn to watch Edward closely.
"Emmett, right now might not be the best time for that," Alice whispered.
"Why not?"
"Because, you remember what I said? There's a lot of complicated back story that we don't need to go into right now."
Emmett seemed to deflate and sink into the recliner further, but he did not take his eyes off the human woman. Bella Masen was a curious creature. She was lovely, all dark eyes and rich hair down to her waist, and sweet smiles, though they were only for Edward. She looked around the house as if she had never seen anything like it, and when she did speak, she only spoke in Arabic, and she only spoke to Edward. Whenever anyone else addressed her, she first turned to him, in obvious anticipation that he would translate for her what was spoken.
"Come, Edward, Bella, let me take you to your room and then Carlisle can do a full evaluation of your condition," Esme said, the smile on her face just a little too thin and forced to hide the unease she felt.
Ooooo
For two days, Carlisle ran test after test and he disappeared onto the third story floor for long hours, sometimes with Bella, sometimes with Edward, and sometimes on his own. When he did emerge and bothered to notice someone asking him questions, all he responded with was something along the lines of "it's remarkable," and "I've never seen anything like it."
Edward was another matter entirely. He avoided them all and when he could not help but be in their company, he crept in the shadows like a cockroach, fearing to step into the light of their collective notice. He did not ask how any of the rest of them had been or where they had been living. He did not say a word of where he had been or what he had been doing. Most of all, he avoided Alice. The tension between them was like gunpowder near a campfire and Alice seemed just as eager to avoid him. Jasper had to leave the room to avoid whatever emotions both were exuding and Rosalie saw him vanish into the plains outside the house more times than she could count.
Bella, however, was delighted to be around the rest of the Cullens. She insisted on coming to join them in the sitting room as much as possible and she positively glowed as she asked them question after question about seemingly mundane matters. Only Carlisle and Jasper spoke Arabic, but Alice could cheat and obtain a translation simply by looking ahead to the future. Through these three and the occasional use of Google Translate, they were able to communicate with her well enough to get to know her a little better. The more they got to know her, the more questions they had.
"What do you enjoy doing?" Esme asked her early the next morning.
"I like listening to Edward play music and sometimes he reads to me."
"Oh, we have so many books," she said. "You are welcome to any in our library."
"Thank you," she answered. "I do not know how to read, but Edward does and he reads to me so many books."
"Why didn't he teach you to read?" Rosalie asked.
Bella shrugged. "He said I didn't need to know."
Rosalie bristled in irritation, but Esme caught their guest's discomfort at Rosalie's reaction. She gave Bella a gentle smile and tried another line of questioning.
"So, how did you and Edward meet?"
"Oh, Edward made me in one of his Generation tanks. He is my creator, but he is not my father. He made sure I know the difference because I was confused. A father teaches children how to eat and walk, like he did with me, but a father does not share a bed with his children. I used to be a virgin, but now I am not and that is why he can be my husband and not my father."
"Well, that was not what I expected to hear," Jasper said with a chuckle. He had to get to her repeat herself twice over before he could adequately translate her answer and he could not keep a straight face when he did.
"He made you?" Esme asked. "What do you mean?"
"Yes. He made all of us. Me and the Other Bellas."
"Other Bellas? There are more women like you?"
"Oh, yes! So many! It was only some few years back that Edward placed me in charge of taking care of them, once they come out of their Generation Tanks. I feed them and wash them and make sure their IVs are properly placed and giving them enough fluids and I put their catheters in. They all start off without any hair and they are very thin, but over time they grow, but none grow to be like me. I thought one or two might be able to. I even taught one to sit up and say, 'hello' once. I hoped I could keep her so I would not be so very alone when Edward is in his Research Lab, but he said I was not allowed to keep any."
"What exactly does Edward do with them?" Esme asked, her hand carefully positioned over her mouth, which had fallen open.
"I don't know. He never told me," Bella answered. "All I know is that when the Other Bellas are ready, and when his eyes are dark and he is grumpy, he takes them into his Research Lab for many days and they never come out again. He says he gives them as an 'offering to the desert' and I am never to bother him in there. When he comes out, his eyes are bright and he is happy and he wishes to see me again."
"Are they all exactly like you?" Jasper asked.
"Oh yes, except Edward says I am special because he has made me special and taught me all the things he loves most."
Rosalie frowned and she knew her face mirrored Jasper's. Esme made a valiant attempt to keep smiling and maintain a polite façade, but her hands trembled in her lap.
"Tell me, does he have other children?" Jasper asked.
"No, not that I know of."
"Well, thank heavens for small blessings, I suppose."
"He told me that his kind and my kind couldn't, that it wasn't possible for our kinds to marry and have families. He was very surprised."
"I'll bet he was," Jasper answered. "I rather wish I could have seen his face."
Bella giggled. Then she looked beyond them all to the screen door and the garden outside.
"It's so very green out there. I've never seen anything like it. What is that there?" she asked and she pointed to the tall pine tree in the center of the small yard.
"Do you mean the tree?" Jasper asked.
"Yes! That is a tree? Oh! I saw a tree once! But it looked different. It was smaller and it was not so green."
"Bella did you ever leave Edward's, uh, home?" Esme asked.
"Yes! Every month I travelled to see the camel people and pick up supplies. I was in charge of the truck so Edward would never have to leave his temple. The camel people came from the airport with all our food and clothes and supplies and I bring it back."
"He called it his temple?"
"Yes."
"Do you know why?"
"No. He never told me."
"I see."
"How long have you loved Edward?" Esme asked.
"Since the first moment I saw him," Bella answered. "He is why I wake and why I sleep and all that really matters each day. When he is with me, I am happy."
By the unadulterated look of admiration on Bella's face and her ignorance of what went on behind closed doors, Rosalie could guess why Edward called his lair a "temple"... and she knew just which supernatural creature had set himself up as the deity to be worshipped.
Oooooo
When Bella fell asleep in a bed on the third floor, Carlisle and Edward retreated to a screened in porch overlooking the garden. Rosalie pretended she couldn't hear them, but from her perch beneath her truck, it was a straight shot between the balcony and her car and she would have needed head phones to tune them out.
She probably could have found some head phones, but curiosity burned in her like an oil lamp and she wanted to know what they would talk about. She didn't really try to hear, but she didn't really try not to hear, either.
"It wasn't supposed to happen," Edward told Carlisle, his head in his hands. "I wasn't supposed to fall in love with her. I wasn't supposed to compromise her like I did. She wasn't supposed to get pregnant. It's all been a giant comedy of errors. She's supposed to be an assistant, of sorts, not a mate. Now, here we are and I have no idea what to do."
"Do you plan to turn her?" Carlisle asked.
A long pause followed before Edward gave a hesitant reply.
"Yes… but, I need you to turn her. Please. I know I do not deserve to be asking for favors, but…"
"Of course, Edward," Carlisle answered. Rosalie could hear the fond smile in his voice without needing to see it on his face. He would tear off his right arm for Edward if he asked it of him and for the man who had thought his son might never come back again, he was beyond delighted to be useful in any way he could.
Oooooo
Rosalie stood beside Carlisle in the make-shift hospital room, holding the tray of equipment for him. He carefully read through Bella's vitals again and adjusted the light over the operating table. Rosalie was surprised when Edward chose not to attend the operation himself. He stationed himself outside the house, close enough to be within range of their minds, but far enough to not be near the scent, with Emmett and Jasper on either side of him.
"Is it time for the small door to open?" Bella asked. Her hospital gown was raised over her stomach to expose the black and blue expanse of skin beneath. It was painful enough to look at her. Rosalie didn't want to imagine what it felt like. By the labored way she breathed and the stuttered beat of her heart, Rosalie assumed it could not be comfortable for anyone.
"What door?" Carlisle asked.
"The door for the small people to come out of. Edward said that when the small people inside me are ready to come out, they have a special door."
"I suppose that is one way of explaining it. Yes. I am going to create a small door, here, through your skin, so we can meet your small people."
"Good. Edward says our small people are very ready to meet us and that their house is too small for them now."
"Yes, it is. Did Edward tell you what will happen after?"
"Oh, yes. He said the small people would grow into big people, as big as me or him."
Carlisle chuckled. "I was referring to you. Edward said you would like to be changed to become like him."
Bella's eyes grew wide and she nodded vigorously. "Is that possible? I did not know. He never told me. He only told me that his kind and my kind do not marry or have families. If I am the same as him, then he can be my husband and we can have a family."
"I suppose you can. Does this mean you are willing to let me change you to become like us?"
"You are like him, too?"
"Yes."
"Good. Will I need to go into a Generation Tank again?"
"No, nothing like that. All it takes is one bite of my teeth through your skin. You will feel some pain for a few days and then you will wake up with enhanced senses, greater strength, and you will drink blood instead of ingesting food and water."
"You drink blood? Like I do? I thought it was very strange when I took the Other Bellas' blood from their tubes and drank it. If you drink blood, too, then I suppose it is not so very strange after all."
"No, I suppose it isn't."
Carlise nodded at Rosalie then and she handed him the syringe filled with the anesthesia. It was time.
Oooooo
Edward's POV
Edward watched through Carlisle and Rosalie's eyes while two perfectly formed babies were pulled from the incision. The tiny, writhing, purple bundles were soaked in blood and afterbirth, but still they managed to keep hold of the other's hands.
Congratulations, Edward, Carlisle thought. You have two healthy sons.
The sound of their plaintive first cries was so loud that he did not need to be a mind reader to hear it. Jasper and Emmett both sat upright to clap him on the back.
Twin boys. It still didn't seem possible.
Their hair took after their mother and it had already grown so much that their little heads were entirely brown. Tiny fingers flailed and grasped until they found the flesh of the other and then they grabbed hold and did not let go. Then, Edward watched in awe as the pair communicated with each other. He clearly saw a thought form in the mind of one which then materialized in the mind of the other, after they held hands again.
Rosalie took one and then the other to where their mother lay. She placed the pair on Bella's chest and Bella's entire face nearly burned with the joy she exuded. Each boy laid his head against her breast and stared up at their mother, absolute adoration filling their minds, and Edward was convinced he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
Until one of the babies placed his hand against his mother's collarbone and suddenly images flashed through his mind faster than an old movie reel.
He recognized them. He could see his temple, Bella's room, and his room. He could hear his own laugh and the sound of his latest song on the piano. He could see Bella's earliest memories and her most recent interactions with the Cullens. It was all there for him to see and he was almost transfixed by the unexpected window into his Bella's silent mind, until he realized that the source of the window was his infant son.
His infant son who was now sharing those memories with the other baby. Now, both boys' minds were full of their mother's memories. The second son then placed his hand against his mother and, in his mind, he showed her an image of her singing a song. In response, Edward heard Bella begin to sing.
A similar pattern occurred with both Carlisle and Rosalie. His sons were absolutely and undeniable gifted, and it would have been truly awesome to behold, if it wasn't so completely and entirely awful to Edward. Then he saw his sons ask for him. Each reached out a dimpled hand, calling for him, beckoning him, and Edward shrank away as if they were inviting him to a guillotine rather than a welcoming embrace.
It was as if Fate had designed his children intentionally to punish him for his many transgressions. With one single touch, all his memories could be shared with everyone he knew. All that he had done under the safety of darkness would now be pulled into the bright, searing, penetrating light of day. His own sons would be the ones to stand in judgement and proclaim all his deeds from the rooftop. It was so fitting - like hanging Dorian Grey's portrait over the mantle in his family's home.
Instead of answering that call and coming to meet the twins from where they were held in Rosalie's arms, Edward ran in the opposite direction.
Oooooo
It was Carlisle who came for him first. Edward could hear Carlisle's thoughts tentatively approaching, but Edward made no mood to run again. He waited, his remaining presence an invitation to Carlisle to continue closer.
Edward, what is wrong? He asked. Worry and concern flooded him and he fought back the myriad of guesses he cycled through in his attempt to understand why Edward had run.
Edward ran his hands through his hair, but he did not move from his tree branch or try to answer Carlisle's question. Instead, he took a deep breath and he realized, for the first time, how much he had missed the smell and feel of a forest.
"How is Bella?" he asked.
She is fine. She was disappointed not to see you first, but the change is occurring as expected.
How could Edward confess the guilt he felt over his decision to change her? He had vacillated back and forth until he was forced into the decision, knowing all the while that she would die if he did not change her.
She is your mate, part of him cried. The other part still fought this.
No, she isn't. She will force you to change. She won't let you go back. She will steal your freedom.
Edward had made his choice and now he must grapple with his new reality. He had a mate. One mate. One who would be like him and would need extensive care after waking as a newborn.
And she was not the only newborn.
Edward nodded. "And the twins?"
They are remarkable, Edward! Absolutely brilliant, both of them! Their rate of growth is like nothing I have ever seen. Already, they are rolling over and laughing. They have been adding a couple of inches each day.
Edward, you must come back. You will regret it if you miss this. You can never get this time back. It is a gift.
Edward closed his eyes and nodded his head again. "Can their gift be interrupted? Can it work through cloth?"
Aw, so that is it. Yes, Edward. It can be interrupted. It is similar to Aro's gift in that it requires skin-on-skin contact to be effective. If you wear gloves and long sleeves, you should be exempt… but Edward, they want so much to know you. They would be very disappointed to not be able to know you in that way.
Edward internally scoffed. They would be more disappointed once they do know me, he thought to himself.
Alice says Bella will wake soon.
"I will come now," Edward said. He pulled himself from his perch to fall noiselessly behind Carlisle. Before leaving, Carlisle turned back to him one more time.
Edward, remember, in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, it is not the son's goodness but his acknowledgement of his unworthiness which makes all the difference. You cannot possibly comprehend the depth of grace until you stare into the depths of your own darkness.
With that, Carlisle turned and sprinted back to the house. To Edward's surprise, Edward could not keep up and Carlisle easily beat him there.
I should warn you: Emmett and Jasper are arguing over whether your children should be named Ren and Stimpy or Bill and Ted. Without the final word from you are Bella, they've had to make do with their own names for the boys.
Edward barked a laugh and he realized that he had not once thought over what his sons should be called. Once Bella woke, they would need to address that. In the meantime, he would need to meet his sons.
oooooo
It was all too much. When he finally layered himself in gloves and a jacket and took his sons into his arms, he felt like his heart would burst within him. Twin sets of green eyes gazed back at him and two warm bodies jostled and wiggled to get as close to him as they could. Their hair now fell in dark curls around their foreheads and they could sit upright and babble sounds.
Carlisle was right. He had missed too much.
He determined to make up for that by being as present with them now as he could. He decided to name one Carl, after Carlisle, and the other Anthony, after himself. When Bella woke, she could always disagree, but until then, he needed a way to differentiate between them. Apart from their distinct gifts and the personality variations emerging, they were entirely identical.
Carl could communicate by touch and he was, by far, the more vivacious and gregarious of the two. Anthony was nearly silent, except when he chose to communicate with his brother. Edward was fascinating by watching their interaction and the rich, complicated interplay of mental links between them.
However, he could not help but disappoint them when he refused to let them touch his skin. As much as he longed to caress them and feel their warmth against his own skin, he dared not let them touch him.
Bella woke later that day and if it were possible to melt from happiness, he would have been a puddle on the floor.
ooooo
Edward sat in an armchair in the guesthouse overlooking the bungalow and the central garden. It was a small house, but it gave his young family their own space, away from the rest of the family. Outside his window, he could see the sliver of moon shining over the flat lands around them. It would be winter soon and he would need to explain to Bella about "snow".
There had been so many things Bella needed to learn. When he had first started her lessons, he only taught her what she needed to know to be his assistant in his temple. He had never once considered teaching her the basic information she would need to know to survive in the rest of the world.
Rosalie had made more than one pointed comment about his lapses in her education and he had made half-hearted attempts to remedy it. Jasper had taken it upon himself to teach her English. Every day, he patiently worked with her till her vampire-quick mind soaked in all the distinctives of the new language. It was fascinating to see her progress. She spoke English with an accent, but when she overcompensated for this, she tried to mimic her tutor so faithfully that she ended up speaking with a southern accent in some words.
Then Jasper turned to teaching her to read. She took to books like a duck to water and soon she had piles of books on every table and chair around their guesthouse.
Edward knew he should have helped more, but he avoided his family as much as possible. He preferred to stay in the guesthouse each day while Bella and the twins walked over to the main house. From his vantage point over the garage, he could watch the boys toddle through the garden and try to catch butterflies in their hands and hear their laughter when they tumbled through the grass.
He internally cringed each time he heard his family ask her questions about her past life. Of course, he couldn't avoid it. That was all she had known and he could not hide the fact that her entire world had centered around his. He knew what her life had consisted of before this and it was a life he preferred the rest of his family know next to nothing about.
As a mind-reader, he got their uncensored thoughts. There was no filter of politeness, spaced gap between revelations and processing those revelations. When his family learned anything of his past life, he heard their initial, raw, uncensored thoughts. He preferred to hear those thoughts from a distance and not within visual range.
Sometimes, he felt bursts of anger bubble up towards Bella. Before, he had his life settled into a perfect order. All his needs and wants were met and he lacked nothing. Then he allowed her to throw it all into disarray and now it was all a jumble.
Do not blame her for your own lack of control. It was your own desires which destroyed your balance. Even without her, the path you were walking would have destroyed you. You were not balanced. You were on a steady incline to self-destruction and you liked it. Now you want to blame her for saving your life.
It was much harder to appreciate his mate whenever he grew thirsty. He went as long as he could stand it between feeds, but he was still in a state of constant dissatisfaction.
He had initially enjoyed teaching Bella to hunt. She had been so fascinated with the sight of the animals that she kept forgetting to hunt them and instead she would catch them in her arms so she could admire them up close. Hunting was even more difficult for Edward. Well, the mechanics were second nature and he could easily capture his quarry. It was the part that followed which made him struggle. After so many years drinking only the sweetest, most delectable blood on the planet, trying to return to animal blood made him want to vomit.
He forced himself. Again and again, he made himself drink it. He knew his body was thirsty, even if every part of his mind told him otherwise, but it only made it worse.
He thought of the taste of the blood of his siren and he wanted to leave immediately and go wash himself away in its sweetness, lose himself in its bliss. Every other source of food tasted like ash and left him feeling thirstier than he had been before, but it was a different kind of thirst. It was not a physical thirst of a biological organism seeking sustenance but a soul-deep thirst for an existence that transcended mere life. His hands shook when he considered it, as he longed for it, and everything else around him seemed to disintegrate into meaninglessness. He wanted it more than anything.
Almost more than anything.
He was broken from his reverie by a baby's cry and he swallowed back the venom in his throat and brought himself back to the reality of the moment. He could hear Bella singing to the baby in Arabic, singing a song he had taught her, and he could hear the happiness and adoration in her voice.
He had thought he knew what she looked like happy. It was like thinking he knew what the ocean was like because he visited a pond.
Here, surrounded by his family, by other people, with a place to belong and people outside of him to fill her, she was euphoric. She positively glowed with contentment. Her heart had enough love to bury him and his entire family six feet under and still have more to spare. It was that guileless, unquestioning adoration of him that made the shame burn him from the inside out again.
He had been considering again when it would be the right time to return to his temple, but he knew he could not bring their sons along.
Carlisle and Esme would gladly take care of them, Edward thought.
But Bella would never agree. Would you force her to choose between her sons and you?
Here he was, wishing to tear her away from her children and her family, in order to return to isolation with him. In order to watch him drink himself into oblivion and delight in women who were not her. He felt the infidelity to his core and he felt affronted on her behalf.
And he would willingly leave his children in the care of another so he could pursue his chosen life. He truly was an abomination. He did not deserve any of what he had been given.
He loved his sons. He truly did.
But he felt the thirst course through his body like a living organism and sometimes he felt like he couldn't breathe, like it would consume him as a parasite.
As if sensing the dark path his thoughts had taken, Bella came to him. He could not meet her adoring gaze and he dared not take the babe into his own arms.
"What is wrong?" she asked him.
"Nothing," he answered and he forced himself to smile.
How long would it be before her innocence melted away and she could see him as he truly is? Locked away in her tower, she could not understand that he was a dragon, but now, surrounded by the angelic presences of his family, she would despise him. She should despise him. He should leave before she rejects him, as he deserves. Surely, she would be happier without him.
Perhaps, that was the solution after all. He should return to his temple, start over there, and leave her and his children here to live free of his contamination. Then he would not have to face their revulsion or the guilt of just how easy it would be to fail them all again.
If he ran, he would do so knowing he was turning away from the greatest treasures he had ever known and which he did not deserve. He would be the man who, after finding a great treasure, left it there for someone else to find, and then he satisfied himself with manure instead. He wanted, more than anything, to erase his past and run from it, while at the same time, running back towards it.
He could pretend his return to his former ways would bring him satisfaction, and not greater hunger. After all, he had already sold his soul twice. Surely, he could do it a third time. If he drank more, he could forget all this ever happened and things would be exactly as they had been before. But even he had enough self-awareness to know it was all a lie.
As if Pygmalion could forget his statue. As if Henry Higgens could take on another language student. As if the Phantom could ever teach another woman to sing.
He could go back to his temple, but it would never, ever be as it had been before. He would know. In each clone, he could see the light in his Bella's eyes as she listened to the song he had written for her. He would remember the scent she developed when she dreamed of him, he would know the way her laugh reverberated through his very chest and warmed him from the inside out. He would know she still lived somewhere and that she had once loved him. Perhaps, she loved him still.
And he would not forget the fire of her touch, the burn of her passion, the scent of her ecstasy, and the knowledge of her inside and out. Having tasted and seen the goodness that life could give him, how could he go back to such a cheap imitation, such a deadly substitute, such a twisted distortion of what he was supposed to have?
He hoped, now, that he indeed had a soul, because he knew his deeds deserved an eternity of punishment. He bitterly laughed and thought how he had earned whatever fiery flames waited for him and whatever punishments could be dispensed upon him. For each cup of pleasure he drank at the expense of those innocent lives, he hoped he was given a gallon of the torment he deserved.
Because he was a coward and a liar and the cost seemed nearly insurmountable. How could he face his own guilt and shame? He was unforgivable. He deserved every inch of judgement and derision the Fates would throw in his path. He deserved the loathing and reproach of those he loved most and they all would be better off far, far away from his presence.
But he was inherently a selfish creature and he could not do it. For once, self-preservation kicked in and he knew he could not survive without his Bella. She might be able to. She was stronger than he would ever be. But he could not face another day without her.
Besides, if they returned to his temple, how long would it be before he could make another? The Others must have rotted to bones where they lay by now. The Others…oh, the sweet, sweet Others. How could he live another day without them? He was an inherently selfish creature and he could not do it. Their taste, their scent, the feel of their flesh beneath his fingers…
He tore at the roots of his hair and cried out as if in pain.
Oooo
He wasn't used to sharing her. For so long, he had been the sun and she the planet in orbit around his gravity. Now, her eyes sought other voices, her ears heard other songs, her graceful movements were seen by others outside of himself. He decided he didn't like sharing. Not so much that he didn't like sharing as much as he felt the full weight of how short he fell in comparison. For her to know Carlisle and Esme and the rest of his family meant she had a measurement of comparison which he would fall woefully short against. He knew he must fall in her estimation of him and he didn't like how far he had to fall in her eyes.
It was a quick descent.
Before, she had never made the connection between the deaths of the Others and his own food source. He had purposely left such information vague. Now, she lived with a family which did not include a room full of constantly vanishing bodies or piles of corpses carpeting the lawn. This did not get past her notice for long. She began to ask even more questions when she learned to hunt and then watched his eyes turn gold from red.
"Why were they red?"
"Because I was consuming human blood."
"But… oh…" The fluttering of her eyes and the way she swallowed was enough to brand him from the inside out.
"Edward…why?" she asked. "You didn't have to. Your family…"
And here it came. The moment he had dreaded since she had first woken…standing in the scalding light of his truth.
"I wanted to."
"But they were all like me… that means… Edward, when you used to come into my room at night, were you…"
"Yes."
She swallowed again. "I think I need to go for a run," she said.
He retreated to his favorite chair, the one overlooking the garden, and he sank into the darkness. He did not bother turning on any of the lights. He could hear the twins asleep in the main house and he knew it would be a long, lonely night for him.
She did not come back that night. When he finally went after her, it was nearly dawn, and he found her sobbing behind a clump of trees. He hunched his shoulders and placed his hands in his pocket as he approached.
She looked up when she heard him approach, but it was a look which had lost some of the beautiful innocence he had once treasured.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
"That you are stuck with someone like me. You deserve better."
"No, I deserve to be dead," she whispered back and leaned her head against the trunk of the tree. "I should have been like all the Others. There is nothing that sets me apart from them except a fluke of chance."
He bristled at this, not because it was false, but because it was true and he hated that she was right. The best thing in his life happened because of events he could never have foreseen and did not fully control.
"You didn't want me to know," she said. "About humans, about your family, about you. You didn't even tell me what a baby was, before. You did not teach me to speak your mother tongue. You did not teach me to read or write. I was a tool. A disposable tool, helping you murder the Others."
He shrank down to crouch on the ground, his eyes closed.
"I'm sorry," he repeated again, though it sounded hollow even to his own ears. "Do you, would you prefer it if, would it be better if I left and gave you space?"
"No. I was coming back soon anyway."
"That's not what I meant. I mean, leave you here with the family, with the boys. I could go."
Her nostrils flared and she rose to stalk towards him, the angles of her body in full predator mode. "Oh, you would love for me to send you away, wouldn't you? So you can crawl right back to them. I'm not enough. I can never be enough. I never was enough for you."
He held up his hands and stumbled over his words. "No, no, no! I meant so you don't have to be around me."
"You mean, so you could have an excuse to not have to face them, to face me? You would rather I curse you and tell you to leave so you can go right back to what you were doing before. You want to lick your wounds and bemoan how you have been thrown out by those who claimed to love you so must drink away your sorrows. You would take any excuse to leave me."
"That's not what I am doing!" he protested. But wasn't it? Wasn't that exactly what he was doing? Honestly, where would he go? If he left, he would go as straight as a crow flies right back to where he had first come from. And, once there, he would do exactly what she accused him of. Apart from her, what else did he have? And, he knew, if he crawled back into that hole, he would never emerge from it again.
oooo
The first time they fought it was because he decided they should move. He was tired of hearing the thoughts of his family, tired of knowing the pain he caused the others, tired of being constantly in the presence of other people. He did not want to see their catalogue of ways he had changed or the ways they thought he needed to change and grow or the ways they did not approve of how he treated his mate. If he went away, he could escape and get a reprieve.
"Bella, we need to move away from my family," he told his mate one day. "Perhaps a few hours away- close enough to visit, but not close enough for us to visit daily."
She considered this while chasing after their toddlers around the guesthouse living room.
"No," she finally said.
His nostrils flared. "This is not up for debate."
"Then you go," she said, one eyebrow arched. "I will be staying here with the twins. You will only be a few hours away- close enough to visit, but not close enough to visit us daily."
"Excuse me?"
"Edward, I won't do it. I've spent enough years of my life alone. Here, at least, I have people to spend time with when you decide to disappear for days at a time and brood. I can't go back to being alone all the time. I won't."
"You won't be alone. You'll have me and the twins and you can visit."
"Wonderful. You hardly touch the twins. You hardly speak to me. We need people. We need to know their family. If you want to move away when they are grown, maybe, but now, I need to be near your family and so do your sons."
"And you need them more than me?" he accused; betrayal evident in his voice.
"Edward, I don't have all of you," she answered back. "You are still back there, most of the time, wishing you were with them. Every day, I am afraid I will wake up and find I am alone again. Every time you go hunting, I am afraid you will never come back. I can't, Edward. I can't."
"Fine, then, we will stay," he groused. He did not like it, but he felt he owed her some small victory after all he had put her through.
"Do you regret it? Do you regret making love to me and bringing me here and changing me? Do you wish we had continued as we were? Do you wish you were with them instead?" she asked, her insecurity bleeding out through her voice.
"No! Of course not! You and our sons are the best things that have ever happened to me! I cannot live without you!" he protested, knowing all the while it was as true as it was a lie. He had regretted it, but he also had not and that contradiction was part of what tore him apart now. Half of his feet were planted right here, in front of her, and the other half were halfway across the world with them. Slowly, by slowly, he had been forced to choose one over the other, but he still had to make that choice again, every single day.
The greatest lie was that he could have both. He couldn't. That was becoming clearer and clearer. He could only have one and he must make his choice and stick by it. The other lie was that it was a choice he only made once. It wasn't. It was a choice he made every day, every moment, again and again and again. It was not an easy choice or an automatic one and he felt like he was tearing ribbons of flesh from his body each time he stayed and forced himself to be in one place. The longer he planted his feet in one place, the more he felt he materialized and become more rooted and less an apparition which did not belong.
Oooooo
Edward did not need to be an empath to feel the waves of rage rolling off of Jasper. He steeled himself for the inevitable confrontation and followed Jasper into the forest. He knew what was coming. He deserved any and all vitriol Jasper wished to heap upon him. Once they were out of hearing distance of the house, Jasper swung around and growled.
Edward could see him consider punching him in the face. Edward did not sway or duck, even when Jasper clenched his fists. Instead, he closed his eyes tight, grit his teeth, and welcomed the onslaught.
Jasper deflated and gave a dark chuckle.
"You would like that, wouldn't you? Oh, come off it, Edward. I am not here to fill your glut of masochism." Jasper turned away with his hand in his pockets and gave a sharp whistle. "You'd probably hand me the lighter and beg me to start the fire yourself."
"I deserve it."
"Do you think I don't know exactly how you are feeling? And not just because I can feel everything you feel. Edward, don't you for one second think I would not have done exactly the same as you, if given the opportunity. If I found a human whose feelings were hidden from me, who called to me like that, I know I would do exactly the same as you. Don't you for one second let your arrogant ass think you have sole claims to the greatest potential wreak havoc.
"You haven't changed, not since the day you woke. You still have your head so far up your ass you can't see that the world does not revolve around you. You do everything possible to make sure everyone and everything exists for you and only you. You were already the most self-centered jackass I knew long before you ran off to Chad.
"You have not once, in all your days, realized that life is not all about you. Yeah, you screwed up. Yeah, if Alice had told us what you were up to, I woulda been fighting to be first in line to have your head, but this 'woe is me, I'm so awful' kick is just as selfish and detrimental.
"You don't have to tell me. I already know you've considered leaving us all for our own good and to spare us the burden of your presence. Oh, don't worry. I know you've considered leaving for less respectable reasons, as well. I feel your guilt...and your thirst and the desire that wants to consume you. But you know what? The antidote is not to remove yourself. It is to forget yourself. Stop living for yourself and this glut of self-indulgence and self-flagellation and lose yourself instead. For once in your life, open your eyes to the fact that other people exist...and not just to worship the ground you walk on and meet your needs. Hang it all, Edward, have you even once considered what Bella is going through or needs from you? Do you even know her?
"Have you ever apologized to anyone... not just for what you have done but for the pain they felt because of you? Or for the pain they are still feeling? You are so deep in your puddle of self-loathing that you haven't once considered anybody else's needs or feelings except as a tool to torment yourself.
"I know. You gonna ignore everything I am saying. Or worse, use it all as another form of twisted way to feel sorry for yourself instead of giving you the kick in the ass I mean it to be, but I hope and pray you listen, for once.
"You lucky son of a bitch have another chance to really live and you can't see it because you are too busy bemoaning your past mistakes...and wishing you could go back to commit them all over again. Can't you see it? You have a woman who loves you and children, for crying out loud, who need their father but you don't even want to touch them. You are tearing everything good you've been giving with your own two hands because your pride keeps you from accepting the fact that you don't deserve it. What you really mean is you think you should be the one to decide what you deserve and don't deserve and should be the one to decide your own fate.
"Lord above, Edward, none of us, notta one of us, has deserved the second chances or love we have been given. Ain't none of us are perfect and we don't run around shaking our fists at heaven and decrying undeserved gifts. The problem is you still playing god and all this is so far outta your plans and control that your as mad as a hornet over it. You never once stop to see it is all a gift. Those babies saved your life and Bella's life.
"Yeah, Alice told me. She did not tell the others, but she did tell me. You were firmly set on a highway to hell, and you liked it, and now you are mad that you have to admit it. I ain't thrown by all your whining and false humility cause you still haven't changed. You haven't once learned to be grateful for what you got and then forget about yourself cause it sure as hell ain't all about you, but about everybody else."
Jasper did not bother to stay to listen for Edward's reaction. He finished his tirade, spun around, and left Edward to simmer in all he had said. It was all the worse for the uncomfortable nuggets of truth Edward could feel in it and he didn't like what could happen if he paused to consider it too deeply.
For a week, he marinated in the excruciating gift of solitude and self-reflection. He fought against himself and the warring parts of his heart which threatened to consume him and all he held dear. He fought with old dreams and old nightmares while trying to grasp on the straws of new ones.
In the midst of it, he came to a conclusion. He needed help.
"Alice," he called out finally. He knew she would see. She had always seen. "I need your help."
oooo
He locked himself in the cellar with Emmett and Jasper guarding the door to keep him from escaping. He did not trust himself not to intervene. The knowledge of what he had just sent Alice to do tore through him and he fell into a frenzied panic. Everyone could hear him scream and beat against the walls and tear at the floor with his fingers. He regretted the words as soon as he spoke them and he knew he would always, in some deep, dark corner of his mind, hate himself for having spoken them.
Alice did not hesitate. She left immediately and when she returned, Edward's eyes were so black and frenzied he looked like the wild creature he felt himself to be, but he no longer thrashed or cried. He was subdued and quietly lay on the floor, his hands over his heart and gasping for breaths he did not need. His mind felt shattered and fragmented and the thirst he had not embraced had burned through him, consuming him, becoming part of every cell of his body, and he knew it would always remain. He held the pain of that thirst to him like a cross, knowing it was his penance, his punishment, his own fiery inferno for his sins, and he loved that pain because he deserved it.
"Is it done?" he asked, when he heard the door to the cellar open and she stepped in. Emmett and Jasper stood on either side of her, watching warily to see what he would do.
"Yes," she whispered.
He nodded, closed his eyes, and did not speak again for a week.
"Edward, you need to hunt," Bella said. She had been worried sick over him and had fought tooth and nail to see him, but he had refused to let her in. It was not only out of shame of her seeing him like this, but because she reminded him of them and that made the shame burn even worse. He could not even look his own mate in the face because he wished he could consume her, wished he could turn her back into his own bottle of wine and steal her life from her again.
He dared not let her into the prison of his own mind.
"Soon," he told her. I hope.
It will get better, Alice whispered to him. It will take time, but it will get better.
Better, but never quite what he had been before.
ooooo
She was right, though. Each month, he grew a little steadier, his mind a little more his own. He remembered that he once enjoyed the challenge and chase of the hunt, even if the taste of the end result would never be delicious again. He enjoyed the feeling of strength and energy he gained after feeding, the mental acuity that developed the longer he went without her blood. He had not even noticed how clouded his mind had become or how his body had slowed and his skills regressed during his years spent in his temple. Now, by the very strength he had gained, he could tell all that he had lost.
While his mind was no longer consumed with his siren's blood and counting down the minutes to his next feed, he realized he had space to enjoy things he used to enjoy in the past. The sun, the drop of water on a spiderweb, the scent of fresh rose petals, all of these he had forgotten.
And there was so much to enjoy. Bella, his beautiful Bella, was her own garden of delights, her own piece of heaven on earth and she grew and thrived and bloomed. Their sons, their beautiful, beautiful sons- he watched them laugh and learn to play the piano and sing along with Christmas carols and jump into a pond - these were his own stolen pieces of heaven.
Even in the midst of this sweetness, he knew he had robbed himself of so much. He had stripped his soul so bare and lean that it whispered like a skeleton tree in the wind, creaking and groaning with the weight of so many years of his transgressions in his wake. His pursuit of past pleasure now tainted his experience of these beautiful pleasures he held in his hands and cast a shadow on all he thought and did.
There was another ocean of apologies to be made to each and every member of his family, beginning with his mate and ending with his sire. The only way to begin making amends was by facing the wrong he had caused them, instead of running from it. This freed him to finally look them in the eye again and no longer feel repulsed by their company.
He had twin boys that he needed to hold in his hands without gloves. He wept for a day after the first time he fully embraced them He was as much a part of them as they were of him and he could not hide the ugly parts of him anymore than he could hide the lovely. He only hoped they could learn from his mistakes and make better choices and give him the forgiveness he did not deserve.
Oh, he loved his new family and his old. He found a joy he had never thought he would find, but he was still haunted in the crevices and cracks of his soul by the low-simmering thirst, the all-encompassing bliss which would never again be his and which paled all else in comparison. He felt the monster in him, which had grown so much stronger than it had during his rebel days, that monster liked to claw at his thoughts and hiss poison into his mind, and crawl like a niggling parasite beneath his skin, and make him desperate to go back to what he had once had.
Just one more. Just one more time. He could stop after, if only he could have one more. It whispered.
Yet, to the monster's dismay, there would be no more.
True to her word, Alice had destroyed everything. She had ground his temple to a powder. He knew that alone would not have been enough and so she had unearthed each and every corpse, each and every possible resurrected angel, and destroyed them all beyond resuscitation. Not so much as a tooth or a strand of hair remained when she was done (and she could see enough visions of his attempts to return to unearth one to know that she was successful).
The process of making amends to the women he had stolen would continue forever. Over two hundred times, he had killed his own mate. Each and every one could have been his Bella, and this acknowledged opened up a floodgate of grief that he had forced shut through willpower alone. He had to sift through each one, apologize, and admit how very wrong he had been. This process helped lighten his heart further and it was like Carlisle had said. Until he could face the extent of his darkness, he could not comprehend the weight of grace which could replace that darkness with light.
What if there had been no twins? How long would he have continued? He could try to tell himself he would have stopped someday, he would have changed, but by the very tenor of his thirst, the way the monster crawled under his skin, he knew he would not. In the light of day and in full knowledge of the evil in his soul, he knew he would not have stopped until Alice's vision of his demise came true and he was buried along with his temple. It was some stroke of divine intervention that broke him from his path of destruction and forced him into this new knowledge of grace.
It was still a choice he made everyday. He had to intentionally plant his feet in the soil he was standing on, refuse to lose himself in his past, and remind himself to find contentment in what he currently had in his hands rather than the infinite universe his thirst would pretend could be his. He tried to take Jasper's exhortations to heart and shift his focus to his family. Little by little, it did change him. He had to bury so many parts of his old life into little coffins of repentance that the man that remained was someone else entirely.
This changed the possibilities for his future. Alice's other vision came true and from its fulfillment, cascading branches of other visions opened up which Alice had never seen before.
Instead of his end, it was his beginning.
Oooooo
Author's Note: So many of you have brainstormed such creative and amazing AU's for this story. I've loved them all! We've had so many debates and dialogues into "what if" scenarios for this story and what outcomes different decisions would have made. These have have been so fun to dig into and explore.
Well, I hadn't planned on this, but then again, I hadn't planned on a sequel. I'm breaking my own rules again, but sometimes I sit down at my keyboard and stories fall out without my permission. This is a great example. I was playing with AU directions for the sequel of this story and meant to sit down and write chapter 22 for the sequel. Then, chapter 2 of Shahrazád's Ghosts started meandering in my head with the slight shift of "what if that was not Michael and Bell but Edward and Badiyah?"
It bothered me so much that I sat down to "write a note or two" before I forgot them. The notes grew to thirty pages and my house still hasn't gotten cleaned, but at least I got those niggling words and images out of my head and onto virtual paper. This one really could have continued on further, but really, it's long so let me stop it here.
I don't know if this is necessarily a "happy ending" but it's less of an "everybody dies" ending, that contains more hints at hope than tragedy. However, the nature of this story and where the characters have gone mean they are really starting from the midst of terrible circumstances, even if they don't digress to quite the absolute and bitter end that the original story follows. The downside of that is that we miss so much of the progression and growth paths the original characters follow. In addition, this version kinda takes out half the characters and a good chunk of the story. Ignore it if you don't like it. As I said, I hadn't planned on this. It just wanted to come and I found the premise rather fascinating to consider.