A/N: Thank you to my wonderful reviewers for the encouragement: impossible17, Chazarabriseis, asg2022

"Bella, we need to go home." Edward's nervous voice cut through my sleep, waking me. I turned on my side and groggily opened my eyes. My mind was foggy from a light night of sleep, and I was surprised for a moment to realize I was in a hotel room instead of my small bed at home. Blue light from breaking daylight flooded the space, a signal it was very early morning. Edward's tone sent a shiver of fear down my spine. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me twisted in sheets. I noticed he was fully dressed, wearing a button down and jeans.

"What happened?" I mumbled, my voice thick from sleep.

He looked nervous. "There's been an attack. I just got a call from Alice. Victoria came late this morning."

I immediately propped myself up on my hands. My head hit the back of the padded headboard lightly, and I pulled the sheets around me. I realized I did not get dressed again after last night's events, which now suddenly seemed so far from my mind. I must have been so tired I pulled off my jeans to sleep. Embarrassment mixed with my anxiety as I realized I only had on underwear, and wondered what Edward had thought seeing me so exposed.

"What happened?" I repeated, my heart stopping. Immediately I thought of all of the Cullens' faces, from soft and beautiful Esme to burly Emmett. Panic flared through me in anticipation of Edward's response.

He looked nervous to say his next words. He broke his gaze from me, his eyes wandering to gaze out the window at the quiet downtown morning below us.

His pause filled the room.

"Edward," I started, shifting again. "I need to know."

He put his head in his hands. "She killed Seth Clearwater."

I felt myself turn to stone, frozen in place in the bed. I thought of Seth, the last time I saw him. I thought about s'mores, stupidly. I thought of his age, how young he was.

I looked blankly at the wall ahead of me, shocked.

"Victoria was… destroyed, so at least that's a problem that was resolved. But we need to go home," Edward repeated, his eyes returning back to me. I couldn't bear to meet his gaze. "I don't have all the details, but we need to go back."

"Yes," I finally said. "Can I have a moment?" My voice was thick, and I already knew that tears were coming very soon.

"Of course." He leaned down and kissed my forehead. His cool lips were comforting. I wanted nothing more than to stay crawled under the sheets and have him hold me. "I'm going to pack up your things though, if that's okay?" His anxiety was palpable in every word.

"Yeah," I mumbled. I pulled the sheets over my head as I felt him move away. I curled into a ball and sobbed. My brain was trying to understand Edward's brief statement. Seth… killed. By Victoria. Immediately, guilt washed through me. Victoria was there, looking for me. It was my fault that she came, and it was my fault that Seth was now gone.

Tears streamed out of me as I realized that Leah had now lost her brother and her father in only a couple of months. I saw her kind face, and my face was hot. I howled.

"Bella?" Edward said. I felt the bed weigh down as he sat beside me. His hand rested on top of me, still curled under the sheet.

"Leah," I sobbed, my voice barely audible through the tears. "Leah lost her brother and her father." My vision was blurry from tears. I brought my hand to my face and rubbed my eyes, noticing black on my thumb as I pulled away. I'd forgotten to take off the mascara yesterday. I emerged from under the sheet to stare at Edward.

His expression was solemn, frustrated in a way I couldn't understand. He said nothing, but just continued to stroke me over the sheet.

I understood that I couldn't stay in bed any longer and that we needed to get home as fast as we could. Edward had placed jeans and another sweater on the bed, and I felt embarrassed once again knowing that he'd seen me in my current state of undress. Nothing about this moment felt erotic in any sense.

"I'll give you some privacy," he said, standing up and heading towards the entry door to the room. I was grateful for the moment to myself, and quickly got dressed before washing my face in the sink. My eyes were already puffy from crying, tears that had not completely ceased yet. The gravity of the moment contrasted too intensely with the brightness of yesterday.

Edward was waiting by the bed when I emerged. "Ready?"

I nodded. He grabbed both of our bags and walked towards the door, barely at human speed. "Should I brace myself for a very fast car ride?" I asked, suddenly nervous about how this anxiety might affect Edward's driving.

"Yes," he said curtly. He didn't elaborate, and it made me understand that perhaps I should keep my eyes closed for most of this journey home.

I held it together as we rode in the elevator, thinking about how a different type of silence now clung to us. Yesterday in this space, I could think of nothing but being close to Edward, our new engagement. Now, I could think of nothing. The crushing weight of Seth's death changed everything. I didn't understand how to begin to process this.

Edward checked out of the hotel at an impossibly fast speed. Seattle around us was mostly empty; it was very early on a Saturday morning and no stores or even coffee shops were open. The streets were bare, a quiet disturbing stillness that seemed out of place. As we approached the Vanquish in the parking garage, I noticed that Edward still opened the door for me. For the first time that day, I smiled slightly, thinking how in spite of everything and the unknown before us, he still went out of his way for gestures like this.

"You are —" Edward started, but I interrupted.

"Going to need my seatbelt? Yeah, I figured," I said, strapping in.

I thought he might smile at my comment, but he did not. He placed the key in the ignition, turned, and pressed the red button once again. The car flared to life, the sound reverberating off the concrete enclosure around us.

Edward backed the car out quickly, the tires squealing as he turned. And we were off: breakneck speeds as we drove straight towards the edge of the wall, the engine roaring, before razer turns at the last possible second that led us farther down the garage until we exited. I felt my stomach churn, but said nothing. I knew he wouldn't slow down, and if I was honest with myself, I didn't want him to. I was also eager to get home, to understand.

He ignored all traffic lights as we entered I-5, and we were flying, going so fast it was impossible to see anything. In the silence and the inability to look out the window, I stared at my hands. The sparkle of the engagement ring, so elegant in its intricacy, caught even the light of the dreary morning around us.

Suddenly, I remembered something.

"You knew," I said, feeling my stomach churn once again, this time unrelated to Edward's driving. "You knew she would attack last night, and that's why we went to Seattle."

He was quiet for a moment.

"No," he said, his tone grave. "I did not know that she would attack last night."

I felt a coldness rush over me. I didn't believe him.

"You orchestrated this to get me away."

His jaw went tight and he stared straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight I was surprised it wasn't broken. I noticed the whites of his knuckles, somehow even brighter than his alabaster skin. "No, I didn't."

I stared at him, his perfect, sharp profile contrasting against the blur of gray and green outside the window. "I'm having a hard time believing that. You seemed off the day of Alice's vision and that was the night you mentioned this to Charlie." Heat flared through me. "You proposed to me to get me away. You lied to me. Did you know Seth would die as well?" My tone was biting.

Suddenly I felt the car brake at an impossible rate. I felt myself plunge into my seatbelt as the sound of skidding tires consumed me. We were stopped, pulled over to the side lane of the highway used for repairs and putting chains on tires.

Edward's head whipped towards me. "I understand you are upset. I know that this is a shock. But I have shared everything I knew with you — have I not mentioned that Alice's visions have been distorted? That we had gaps?" His eyes were burning into mine. I looked away, afraid of their intensity. "Don't look away from me. I want you to look at me when I tell you this," he continued.

I met his eyes reluctantly. His eyes bored into mine.

"Do you not remember last night when Lisa mentioned I'd been working with her for weeks? Bella, I had been planning that for a while. Charlie knew what I was doing. I had told him, and that's why he allowed you to go at all." He paused, and his breath was shaky. "Do you understand how offended I might be by you thinking that I proposed as a ploy? That last night was not anything other than what it was —which for me, by the way, was perfect?" He was irate. "I am just as shocked by Seth's death as you. What do you think of my character to believe I wouldn't have tried to stop that from happening?"

I had no words for him. I just started crying, messy tears suddenly overflowing from my eyes. "I'm s-s-sorry," I wailed, leaning over to him and crushing my wet eyes into the sleeve of his shirt. "Y-y-you have done things b-b-b-efore and I…" I trailed off, just feeling nothing but sadness radiating through me. For some reason, Dartmouth came to my mind. "Edward, how did this happen? H-h-how could you not have known?"

His breathing had steadied, a new sense of sadness coursing through him. Cars raced by the highway outside, but he seemed unaware of everything but me leaning into him. "I am not perfect. Far from it, actually." He leaned his head close to me and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you believe me that I would never knowingly let something like what happened to Seth occur under my watch?"

I knew immediately that he never would. He was just as blindsided by this as I was. "Yes, I believe that."

"Good," he said, starting the car once again. "Because I would question everything about myself if you truly believed otherwise."

I was quiet for a moment as he refocused on the road, his expression grim. "Do you… still want to marry me?"

He surprised me by laughing darkly. "Yes."

"Do you forgive me?"

"Of course, Bella. How could I not?" His response was instant, too honest. The rawness of his tone, the vulnerability there, was impossible to ignore. He continued on driving at his racecar driver speed, playing Frogger through the traffic. I stopped looking outside and just stared at the floormat of the car.

"What else did Alice share?" I asked.

He sighed. "It's complex and Alice is not sure how she didn't see the complete picture sooner. I'm worried about her. Something is not… right with her sight. We've never experienced anything like this before."

I swallowed, full of nerves. "She mentioned something weird about our wedding."

"Yes," he said. "I saw. It is weird. Hard to describe, but it's happening in other areas too. Sometimes, it has a different flavor. And other times, it's just empty or fragmented pieces —like what she saw the other day."

"What do you think it means?"

He caught my eye for just a second before returning to the road. "I don't know." He paused, lost in thought. "She called just before I woke you. She mentioned that my family had enough time to understand she'd be arriving, but that they couldn't get in touch with any of the wolves in time. Victoria did know about the treaty, although we have no idea how. She used that to her advantage, and the wolves were taken off guard." He paused, his voice catching. "Seth was the least experienced with changing, and she was too fast for him. It happened early on —Jacob chased her to our territory, and Jasper destroyed her. Quickly, it sounded like."

Demented as it was, I enjoyed picturing Jasper tearing off her head and burning her. "I hope it was painful."

"Me too," Edward said through gritted teeth.

We sat in silence for a long time, Edward focused ahead on driving as fast as the Vanquish could handle as I kept my eyes down, feeling sick every time I looked outside. I tried to focus on the joy of getting engaged to the beautiful man beside me, and while I found some comfort in thinking of our perfect day yesterday, I felt an enormous weight on me.

"It's all my fault," I said, quietly.

Edward took a moment to respond. "What is?"

"Seth's death. Everything. Nobody should die for me." I frowned, my voice cracking.

His hand moved from the steering wheel and I found him lightly rubbing my arm. "Bella, this isn't your fault. If anything, it's mine." He went silent again, lost in thought.

"I should have known you'd pin this on yourself." I found myself laughing in my own pain. "Maybe we are a great match for each other, always trying to take the blame."

He laughed too. "Maybe the most self-aware thing I've heard you say."

I laughed through my sobs, feeling some degree of comfort in my crushing grief as we sped home.