A/N: As per usual, thank you for being patient with me! Writing is my passion, and I'll never give it up. I'm learning balance slowly but surely!
"It's starting to rain," Edward said.
Bella glanced over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow. "So?"
"So…maybe we should stop."
"Why?"
"Because…the baby?"
"Is he made of sugar?"
Edward made an exasperated noise. "Don't you hear the way he's whimpering? He's about to start crying any second."
"Yeah. He does that a lot. It's not exactly a surprise." She flexed her fists around the straps of her pack, trying not to let her frustration get the better of her. She'd signed on for this, she reminded herself. No one had made her come back for them.
"You make it sound like he can help it. He's just a baby. It's not his fault."
That made Bella stop short so she could glare at Edward. "I know it's not his fault. I know he's not doing it on purpose. He cries. He screeches. He laughs. He's loud. The fact it's not his fault will mean jack shit to you when you're dead."
"Are we back to this?" He shook his head.
"You brought it up, Edward. My story has never changed. It's not going to change. He's dangerous to all of us. You don't get it because, of all of us, you're in the least danger. You could have used that fact to benefit everyone. You could have gone to the closest compound, but you want to go to yours. Understandable, but it's still a numbers game. The longer we're out here, the more likely he gets us killed. It's as simple as that, and I wish I didn't have to repeat it so often." She readjusted her bags on her shoulders. "We keep moving."
They kept moving.
He was brooding. She didn't have to look at him to know it. She knew too well the set of his clenched jaw and furrowed brow. She gnashed her teeth, frustrated. He wasn't the only one who could get a good brood on. She stared straight forward, fairly certain if she had to see the look of disapproval on his face she was going to punch him.
To say they'd had some difficulties adjusting to life on the road together would be putting it mildly. She and her father had worked like a well-oiled machine when they were on foot. Charlie understood the realities of their world and the constant vigilance it took to survive. And even that hadn't been enough to keep him alive.
Edward was oblivious. She couldn't get it through his thick skull that their lives actually were in danger. He thought she was too cold, too serious, and far too rigid with all her rules.
They were on each other's last nerve and today, with the rain falling, everything was just...worse.
It didn't help that, despite Edward thinking she was soulless, Aaron's pitiful crying tugged at her heartstrings. She tried not to look at him. Inevitably, though, they made eye contact. His lower lip trembled and he reached for her. "Mama."
Still walking, Bella pressed a palm between her eyes. "I'm not your mother," she said between clenched teeth.
Edward made a disgruntled noise. She scowled, already exasperated. "What's your problem now?" she asked though she already knew she wasn't going to like the answer.
"You don't even see a baby, do you? A human being. You see a threat that needs to be dealt with and discarded one way or another."
For the second time, she stopped and stared at him. Part of her recognized that he, like the baby, was just moody.
Most of her didn't care about rationality at that particular moment.
"Seriously? Because I told him I'm not his mother? First of all, it's true. I'm not. Secondly, you know he doesn't understand English, right?"
"Babies understand intent. They understand a lot. It doesn't cost you anything to give him that much comfort. If you'd stop to think of him as a human being-"
"Oh, shut. Up, Edward. I don't want to be his mother. It's not like he understands I want him to stop anyway. And I'm not treating him any differently than I'm treating you. I'm also not your mother, and I'm making you walk in the rain when you don't want to.
"And anyway, have you looked around you?" She swept an arm out at the wilderness around them. "You want to stop and what? There's no damn shelter."
They glared at each other for a few seconds—the relentless tempo of the rain and the baby's cries adding to the atmosphere of misery and fury. Then, Edward let out a long breath, wiping water off his face in a totally useless gesture. He gave a huff of laughter.
"What if there was shelter?" he asked.
She blinked, momentarily confused by the lack of hostility in the air. "What?"
"If we found shelter. A cave or something."
"There are no caves out here."
He rolled his eyes but there was a smile playing at his lips. "Humor me, you complete hard ass. Let me believe there's some hope."
She stared at him another beat, still behind on the emotional climate and not sure yet that she wanted to roll with the change. Her lip twitched. "Okay, sure. Fine. If we happen upon a random shelter, we'll stop."
His grin was startling. She blinked but could only laugh. "Let's go," she said.
He was a new man. He whistled as they walked, distracting the baby who giggled as he tried to imitate the sound.
Bella closed her eyes briefly as they walked forward, breathing in the petrichor, enjoying the rain, if only for a moment.
The moment passed and all she could feel was the weight of her packs, the uncomfortable chafe of wet jeans on skin. She set her jaw and carried on.
Fifteen minutes later, she stopped short.
There, in a clearing not far below them, was a cabin. She blinked at it.
"Oh look. Shelter," Edward deadpanned, utterly unsurprised.
"You knew this was here," she accused.
He smirked and shrugged. "I saw it a little while ago when we were further away. I didn't know if we were traveling in the right direction, but then I saw it again through the trees." His grin widened. "How's that for being aware of your surroundings?"
She bit the inside of her cheek, part irritated, part amused. She brushed wet hair out of her eyes.
"Come on." Edward reached out, briefly touching her arm. "The rain is only making our packs heavier. That's going to slow us down anyway. It makes sense." He paused a beat, studying her face. "Don't you remember that part of Oregon Trail? Sometimes, the right choice is to rest and wait and see if conditions improve."
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Basing our decisions on video games? That sounds like a good way to survive."
"Hey, The Oregon Trail was based on facts. People did wait for conditions to improve sometimes." He tilted his head toward her, his voice low and gentle. "It's the right choice for our wagon train, captain."
She huffed. She did appreciate that he was willing to be led. He was free to stomp off to the cabin without her permission, thus negating the whole reason she'd come back for him. The likelihood was that stopping for the day wouldn't hurt in the long run.
"Fine." She gestured for him to move in the direction of the cabin.
They were, as ever, cautious. Bella scouted ahead, creeping through the trees, closer and closer until she could determine that the cabin was indeed abandoned.
"All clear," she said, getting back to where Edward and Aaron were waiting. "But if this was a serial killer's cabin, that's on you."
But the cabin proved to be exceedingly normal. Like every other building she'd encountered in their new world, a musty, stale smell permeated the air. Aside from that, the cabin was like something out of a cheesy Christmas movie—city girl with a high powered job finds herself out in the desolate mountains for one reason or another. The decorations were tastefully rustic. The living room was large and open—sofas set up as though just waiting for guests to gather around the fire.
There was always an obscenely attractive man in those movies. One who knew a thing or two about something stereotypically manly. Or was an undercover prince.
Or had a cute kid.
Bella tried not to pay attention as they carefully explored the bottom floor of the house. Edward dropped his packs at the door and pulled Aaron out of his carrying sack. He murmured softly to the whimpering boy, telling him it was okay now and they'd be warm and dry soon.
"I'm going to check upstairs," Bella said, needing some distance to recenter. She was distracted again, and she needed her wits about her.
She breathed deep despite the mildew and dust smell of the abandoned house. This man got under her skin. He took so much attention, both because he was just one more person she had to look out for and because he got under her skin more than she wanted to admit.
It shouldn't matter, but it had hit her hard that, deep down, he saw her as cold and heartless.
She did her best not to think about it as she headed up the stairs, keeping a hand on the knife tucked at her side. The home smelled too musty, too dusty and unused, to have someone living in it, but one could never be too careful. Besides, there was something odd in the air; something worse than stale that she couldn't quite put her finger on.
It was extravagant for a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Her Yellowstone cabin had been more normal as these things went-one room with all the necessities. This one had a small living space downstairs and a kitchen. Upstairs were two bedrooms, one with bunk beds, and a bathroom of all things.
Hoping beyond hope, Bella tried the tap. Of course, nothing happened. The home, she had noticed, had electric sockets and switches. There was some kind of system-probably solar based. Given time, she might have even been able to get it to work, though not on a day like today.
Running a reverent hand over a dusty set of bath salts, she had a brief day dream about a long, hot bath. Or a shower. She wasn't that picky.
The closet held a small assortment of men and womens clothes. She quickly shed her wet things, finding a pair of jeans, a red flannel shirt. It was a shapeless outfit on her figure but dry.
As she ran her fingers through her hair, trying to smooth the tangles, she tilted her head up. It took a minute to figure out what she was looking at. A rope hung down from the ceiling. A rope set in a square that was different from the rest of the ceiling.
An attic.
Bella got up on the room's bed and reached up, satisfied when a ladder came sliding down. She climbed up, mostly curious. There was little chance anyone would be hiding up here.
She was wrong.
Breath left her in a long gust as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. There was only one window and it was storming outside. The small attic space had been transformed into a cozy office. But the comfy desk chair wasn't tucked under a simple desk. It was toppled over.
The skeletal remains of a human body were still scattered on top of it.
Her hand trembled as she shone the flashlight she'd brought up with her on the eerie scene.
This person hadn't died of the sickness. The chair and the floor were still stained dark from the pool of blood that had once gathered there, rivulets flowing into the floorboards. Jeans and a plain green sweatshirt lay rumpled, mimicking a human shape.
There was a gun near what had been its hand.
Bella squatted, suddenly weak in the knees. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, breathing as shallowly as she could. That was the smell she hadn't been able to identify before: death gone stale.
Had she—and Bella felt somehow it was a woman—come out here to her isolated cabin to escape the illness? Some distance away was a cellphone lying haphazardly on the floor. Had she been holding it when she pulled the trigger? Looking at pictures of a life now destroyed? Were whomever had occupied those bunk beds lost to her?
Was it the loss that had gotten to her or the profound loneliness?
Bella crouched there for minutes, her mind blank. Weight seemed to press down on her chest. The quiet ache that lived in her heart got loud, pounding between her ears so she knew nothing else.
It took her awhile to recognize there was an odd noise drifting up from the bottom of the cabin. Musical notes?
Bella stood up. Her mind had reverted back to the perfunctory space it usually was. She looked at the room with a critical eye and walked to where the corpse was. She picked up the gun with ginger fingers and clicked the safety into place. She picked up a box of bullets from the desk.
She shuddered as she put the bullets in her pocket. She hated guns.
Numb, she made her way back downstairs. She was greeted by an almost idyllic sight. The downstairs rooms were lit by the warm glow of a fire. Edward sat behind a small, upright piano by one window, playing what, to her, sounded like random notes. Aaron stood, his hands on the piano bench as he grinned up at Edward.
As Bella walked slowly toward the inviting room, the random notes Edward played morphed into a definite melody. It was haunting and familiar, but she didn't recognize the Tears for Fears song until he began to sing in a low, lovely voice.
Mad World.
Well, no kidding.
She sighed and went to sit on the couch to listen. Delighted to see her, Aaron toddled over and tugged on her jeans. With another sigh, she lifted the boy onto her lap.
Edward brought the song to an end, the last note of the piano and his sweet voice lingering in the air. He looked to her and smiled gently. Her heart, gone cold in her chest, warmed just a little.
His look grew wistful. "I used to like the rain, you know?" He glanced outside. "There was something peaceful about it. A hot cup of tea, a cozy blanket, and the sound of rainfall. The roll of distant thunder." He chuckled and shrugged. "Rainy days used to be one of my favorite things."
"I've never liked the rain," Bella said. "Any cold, wet thing… I don't like it."
He ducked his head. "Then I guess that's just one more reason you don't want to stay on an island in the Pacific Northwest."
She scoffed. "Why would you want a monster like me there?"
He started, the smile on his face falling. "What?"
She opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again. "You know… the Oregon Trail was a life and death struggle to most who traveled it."
He blinked, his brow furrowed.
She shook her head, frustrated with herself, but went on anyway. "They had to make decisions that no one who lived in a modern society would ever have to make. Things we would find heinous. Things they would have found heinous only a few months before. If someone got too sick but didn't have the courtesy to die fast enough, there might not have been room enough in the wagon. There might not have been enough time left to wait for conditions to improve." Those last words came out acerbic. She ducked her head looking away from him. "Some people were left by the side of the road, watching their families walk away. They were left to die alone, and their families were left to deal with the choice they made the rest of their lives."
She heard the scrape of the piano bench on the floor. "Bella—" Edward started.
"You think I'm cold and inhumane for what I could have done to Aaron."
He sat beside her, close but not touching. "I don't."
"You do."
"I was water-logged and miserable. I didn't mean it and I shouldn't have said it."
"Things come out when you're angry. Just because you shouldn't have said it doesn't mean you don't think it's true. You think, in my shoes, you would have made another choice."
"I think…" He grunted. "I think I can't imagine not at least trying. I think I would have done everything, anything I could. I think…" He shook his head. "It just never would have occurred to me to do that. That's all. It just never would have been an option."
She nodded, her throat tight. "Maybe you'll get to the other side of this without having to make a choice like that. I hope you do." She looked up into his eyes. "All of us are capable of atrocities, Edward. This is life or death. This is the apocalypse. I hope you'll never have to truly understand that, but if you ever do… Think of me."
A/N: Happy holidays. I'll see you in the new year!