Chapter 19

In the evening's chilly gloom, Jasper watched the news with quiet apprehension.

"...a most perplexing mystery. The two campers, both natives of Port Angeles, have not been seen or heard from since Tuesday morning when officials say they stopped in at a local diner for an early breakfast. Oliver Sedgewick, age 25, and his fiancee, Violet Kessel, are both avid lovers of the outdoors and friends and family say that their prolonged absence has been worrisome."

The screen flickered, moving from the familiar face of the Port Angeles reporter to a woman Jasper did not know, her face screwed up and her eyes misty. Jasper knew at once that this was a mother— the way she held herself, the way she spoke… he would have known it even without the moniker superimposed over her on the screen. The sight of her stirred something in him— something almost akin to sympathy, though he had no real way of knowing a mother's thoughts— and he sat with that feeling for a moment, letting it sink in. The niggling guilt was familiar to him— he had felt it a hundred times over in his own distant past, and it was strange to feel it again now on behalf of another.

"Oliver always comes home," said the woman, her face bright with worry. In her hands she held a wrinkled flyer emblazoned with her son's face. "Always. He and Violet were supposed to be back two days ago and we have no idea what's happened. We've got searchers combing the woods and the police have brought the dogs out. I don't know what could have happened to them. I really don't know. Oliver's a smart boy. He knows how to handle himself in the woods. He carries a gun and his bear spray…"

The camera cut away, showing a different reporter. From the armchair behind him where Bella sat in silence, Jasper felt a pang of guilt so strong that it made him squirm.

"Around the Sedgewick's neighbourhood in Port Angeles, the mood is tense as the families of Oliver and Violet organize their search parties, some of which have come from as far away as Seattle to help in the search for the two missing campers. We've been told that police have located their campsite, which has been found undisturbed. Despite this promising find, there is still no sign of Violet or Oliver and there are no obvious clues to tell searchers what might have happened out here in the woods."

"I just pray they're safe," said the mother, returning to the screen with a plea and a prayer. At the sound of this missive, Jasper heard Bella rise from her seat. Her bare feet were silent as she slid from her chair, her face hidden from him as she wheeled around to reach the door. The family said nothing, congregated as they were around the television, and they let her go without comment. Only Edward, his eyes glued on her and his fists clenched tight to keep himself still, dared to so much as twitch when the door slammed behind her.

"I just want my baby to come home safe."

Carlisle turned away from the television with a sigh.

From the corner of his eye, hardly daring to move, Jasper watched as the family trickled slowly from the living room, disappearing into the bowels of the house as the last of the news report died away. There was nothing for them to say— no platitudes to give, no promises to make— and when they filtered out, one by one, Jasper kept his gaze fixed on the figure in the yard. She was in the grass now, face-down among the weeds, and though he knew that she could hear every bit of what went on inside, she did not react when they began to move. Her eyes were closed and it almost seemed as if she were asleep, but Jasper knew that she was not and the thought made him at once nostalgic and terribly, dreadfully sad.

Carlisle was the only one who stayed with him in the living room, coming up next to him to stare out into the gloom with eyes like a hawk. He was unhappy— Jasper could see it almost as well as he could sense it— but there was nothing he could do to wash it away, to make right the source of this trouble, which had rooted down deep in Carlisle's heart. He knew what the problem was— they all knew, though no one knew quite how to fix it— and they watched that prone figure with silent consternation from their place behind the glass. Although he knew the answer already, Jasper could not take the silence and so he voiced the only query that came to mind, his words the only sound in the sudden quiet of the house.

"What's wrong?"

Carlisle chuckled.

"A more complicated question than we've got time for," he sighed. Behind them, in the kitchen, they could hear Esme beginning to fuss over dishes and bakeware. "We're nearly made of time, but for all that, we seem to be running out of it. We must move on, and sooner than I'd like."

"It's nothing we haven't done before," said Jasper. Carlisle did not miss the bitterness in his voice. "It's been a while, but…"

The last time they'd been forced to uproot their lives had been when he, himself, had erred.

"What's past is prologue, Jasper," said Carlisle and Jasper grinned, amused. "It might be cliche, but it's true."

"Perhaps."

"This isn't past," continued Carlisle. "Not yet, anyhow. It's very much present, and very much an issue."

In the yard, Jasper saw Bella frown. Carlisle sighed, turning away.

"She won't speak to me."

Jasper watched the girl carefully as his father spoke.

"She's ashamed."

"I know," breathed Carlisle. "I really do, but that doesn't make it any easier."

"It rarely does," Jasper agreed. Since her return from the cliffs, soaking wet and incandescent with fury, Bella had been wholly and determinedly avoiding Carlisle. He had embraced her only once— had tried to soothe away her guilt with his own for having failed so miserably to keep her under control— but it had done nothing but make matters worse. When he had apologized to her, had spoken that regret without thought or filter, what had remained of Bella's meager confidence had shattered like glass on concrete, dissolving into dust beneath her feet. Carlisle had not meant to— indeed, Jasper had sensed just how strongly he had wanted to soothe her but the fact remained that his apology and his regret had driven an iron spike into her tender, sensitive heart and there it had remained, untouchable and cold.

She would not speak to him— not unless he addressed her directly— and she would not let him touch her after that first and final embrace. This rejection stung, pulled at one of the few threads of vulnerability that Carlisle yet possessed, and when Bella saw his frown and his righteous pity it only drove that spike a little deeper, twisted it a little harder. Jasper understood the reason for this better than either Bella or Carlisle knew— he understood how it felt to be dealt compassion when all you wanted was condemnation. To face down kindness when every last bit of your own, wounded soul convinced you that you deserved nothing but the most biting scorn and rebuke.

Outside, listening to every word they said, Bella turned away, her perfect hearing picking up their words as easily as if they spoke them right next to her. Jasper could almost taste her shame. It fell from her like rain, leaving little trails for him to follow everywhere she went, so slick that he had to take care not to slip, not to let her guilt spill over onto him. It was always worse in the evenings after they watched the news to learn what the humans knew of her indiscretion, and while Jasper wished he could shield her from it, he knew that it could not be avoided.

They had to know what the humans knew. They had to know what they suspected. It was imperative that the dead never be traced back to them. The very notion of any links between the family and their prey was ruinous and absolutely unacceptable, and so they did what they had to do to ensure their own safety and protection. They knew how and where to arrange the bodies. They knew the right animal tracks to leave. They knew how to hide the scene of the crime and how to erase any evidence of their own involvement, and they knew how best to spy, through the news and through the community, to find out if their ruse had worked. It had been easier this time, Jasper knew, even with all the human advancements in forensics in recent years. There had already been one report of a devastating animal attack in Forks. It was not inconceivable that there could be another.

Jasper knew this routine like the back of his hand. He knew the process well. He knew what to do and he knew how to do it, because before Bella's slip on her first and only hunt, that routine had belonged almost entirely to him.

Through the window beside his father, Jasper watched as Bella stared up at the sky, her black eyes blinking in the gloom. That darkness worried him— made nerves erupt like a geyser in his chest— and he knew that Carlisle felt the same, whether he voiced that concern or not. She was thirsty. She was ravenous. The lavender circles beneath her eyes had darkened to an alarming shade of purple, her skin as white as bone. There was no ruby-red ring around her irises anymore— nothing but deep and utter blackness.

It did not matter what Alice and Esme said to her in stolen moments of privacy. It did not matter how desperately Edward begged and pleaded for reason. It did not matter how Emmett coaxed, or how Carlisle sympathized, or how Rosalie prodded or Jasper argued. She would not so much as think about setting foot into that forest again, and nothing anyone said or did could convince her that the squirrels and rabbits that happened upon her in the yard were not enough to satisfy. She would not enter the forest and she had made that abundantly clear, but Jasper knew that she must, for their sakes as well as her own.

When he wandered out into the yard, leaving Carlisle behind to watch through the glass, he could taste her bitterness on the air, heady and strong. His gift was a strange one— always on, and not at all concerned with privacy or discretion— and though he was still not quite sure how it worked, he had lived with it long enough to understand what it meant. He could feel her shame, could see it curling like effervescent smoke from every pore on her body, and if he were to step into that haze, to touch it, it would become his shame too. He did not know what it was, exactly, that he perceived in others— an aura, an energy, or perhaps nothing but a trick of the light— but whatever it was he knew what it meant, and when he stepped out of the shadows she stared at him, her face dark and unhappy.

When he held out his hand to her, she only looked at it.

"I want you to walk with me," he said and when she didn't move, he frowned. "It'll do you good."

She stared down at the ground, that dark cloud intensifying.

"I don't want to."

"Please?"

He, too, had been an outsider once. He knew what it was like to be other and he knew what it was like to be dangerous. He knew the humiliation of his own liability, the resentment of his own weak will, and the frustration— the everpresent, potent fury that bubbled just beneath the surface of a calm facade because he could not be the thing that he so longed to be.

"Walk with me," he said again. "Please?"

This time, she did not argue back.

When she touched him, her fingers closing gently on his hand as he helped her to her feet, Jasper could not help but feel the coldness, the unnatural chill that had settled on her like frost. It was yet another sign of her decline— they were not warm by nature, but by sating their thirst their skin would darken and warm. It was why they'd been able to touch her when she was still human. It's the reason she hadn't recoiled from each and every embrace. It was how Edward had been able to spend the nights with her, to hold her in the safety of his arms while she slept without inducing hypothermia. Jasper squeezed her hand, tucking it safely in the crook of his elbow, and though he did not know where he was leading her, they began to walk down the driveway, away from the house.

"Your hands are cold," he said and though his tone was light and teasing, she did not laugh. "I should've brought you some mittens."

She curled her fingers into fists.

"I wish I could sleep."

Jasper squeezed her hand.

"Don't we all?" he asked. "What a treat that would be. I miss dreaming, even though I can't remember it. To go anywhere and be anything… there is such freedom in the very thought of dreams."

"Sometimes."

Jasper glanced at her.

"Other times, they're a prison."

He didn't have an answer for that.

"I had a chance, you know. Emmett told me to sleep that night, before she came. He told me that dreams couldn't hurt me. That everything would be fine in the morning."

"Bella…"

"Everything was not fine," she said sharply. "Not even close, Jasper."

"Things will be fine again soon. You'll see."

"I highly doubt that."

"I promise."

She snorted derisively. He could feel her annoyance, her anger at this seemingly empty promise, but he was wise enough to keep his tongue in check. It was not an instant later that this righteous anger morphed back into chagrin. As if in consolation she dipped her head down, resting her cheek on his shoulder and she swallowed back that outrage, pressing her eyes shut.

"I'm being rude," she said and Jasper did not contradict her. "I don't mean to be. I just…"

"I get it."

"Do you?" The challenge was sharp and shrewd. "Do you really, Jasper?"

"I think so…"

"I don't."

This time, he did frown at her, letting his frustration show just a little. He knew that temper quite well— it was the same that possessed all who were new to this life, all who were adjusting. It was the nature of her kind to be mercurial, to shift from joy to sorrow in an instant, from calm to rage at the barest provocation. He knew it was not his fault— that it was not his words or his presence to which she reacted, but rather the battle that raged in whatever was left of her soul— but her barbs still stung, like little pins. He would not scold her— he was not her father, after all— and so he said nothing at all, but when she caught sight of the frown on his face, the easy, teasing pleasantries that had melted into wary caution, she froze, and all at once there was another, crueller shift. Anger was preferable to grief— lord only knew there had been more than enough already— but it came again anyways without a thought or care.

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright…"

"No, it's not," she interrupted and she pulled away from him then, her arms wrapped around herself. "It's not alright, Jasper. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't mean to be so… rude. That's the only word for it. I'm sorry."

"It's natural," he said, "and I'm used to it."

"That's no excuse."

"Perhaps not," he replied, "but as Carlisle said, what's past is prologue."

He knew that she'd heard Carlisle say it not ten minutes prior, and just as she had then, she stiffened with apprehension. He could see the gears turning in her mind, could see the spectre of his father manifesting in whatever hell she'd concocted in her own head. The raging, irrational terror she felt at the very thought of Carlisle's disappointment was so strong that it made him freeze. It all came rushing in an instant, that slippery slope that ran from sorrow, to guilt, to fear, to panic, and when she caught him staring at her she pulled away a little more, taking a step back. He watched her, curious and careful, as the thought of their father sent her into a tailspin and though he could not understand it any more than he could understand the language of the stars, he pitied that dread. He let the worst of it burn out before he spoke again, letting the edge of the blade go dull before he went on.

"You've got nothing to fear from Carlisle," he said, though the words did not help. "Not his anger, nor his judgement…"

"I can't even look at him," she whispered. "Not after what I did."

"Bella…"

"I'm sorry, Jasper."

"Come here…"

"I'm sorry."

The words swelled, enveloping her in that bitter, acrid storm, and at once Jasper shook his head. He would not let her steep in it, would not allow that bubble of self-inflicted loneliness to engulf her here, with him, and when he reached down with pointed slowness to grip her hand, she did not fight him. Her touch was electric, a sharp and lingering sting, and when he reached out with his preternatural gift to ease it, she relaxed into him as if her strings had been cut. He felt the tightening of her grip, the almost desperate way her fingers curled around his wrist, and when she sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder with great care, he stopped, his heart full of pity and relief.

It was odd, being so close to her with so little risk, and he took advantage of that newfound ease. He could not hurt her, not now that she was like him, and though he'd never dared to do it before, when he pulled her into the circle of his arms it felt as natural as breathing. She did not resist him— indeed, she seemed to welcome this intrusion— and when her arms snaked around his waist with a firm, unyielding grip he felt a pang of love so strong that it made him pause.

He did not know whether it came from her, himself, or perhaps from the both of them together.

"It wasn't your fault, Bella." The words hung heavy in the air. "None of it. Not the change, not what happened after… I hope you know that."

She squeezed him a little tighter.

"It's no one's fault," he continued. "Not yours, not theirs, not Alice's… it was an accident."

"It wasn't."

"It was."

"I know what I felt. I know what I meant to happen, in that moment…"

"And I know what caused that want," he interjected. "I know what that feels like, to lose control. To want what you know you shouldn't. To feel so out of control that you…"

He did not need to go over it again. She understood his meaning clearly enough.

"All I mean is that I know what it's to be the weak link, Bella," he said. "I've been that for almost fifty years. I know what it's like to be the disappointment— to see that kind pity or the hidden worry behind the smiles and the reassurances. I know."

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Not until whatever that feeling was took over."

"I know you didn't."

"I didn't want to, Jasper… not really. I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

"I know."

"I don't know how to control it."

"You get better every day," he said. She did not look at him— indeed, had she still been human, he knew he would have felt the flush of hot embarrassment on the cheek she had pressed to his shoulder— but he could not help the tenderness he felt when looked on her with all the fierce affection that she had so rightfully earned. He was not sure when, exactly, she had earned it, or how it had come to mean so much, but as he did his best to comfort those hurts which, by their very nature, could not be soothed, he knew only that she had earned it.

"Not good enough," she returned. "Not good enough, and not soon enough. Not for them, anyways, those people I killed."

"There is so much of this life that you have yet to learn," said Jasper. "So many places to see and people to meet. So many things to explore, Bella, in every corner of the world. You are not as you were— there will be no more sickness, no more death. You are not who you were, though an echo still remains, and you will find yourself again, before long."

"What if I don't like who I've become?"

"Do any of us?" Jasper laughed, though the laughter was not returned. "There are none of us who love ourselves completely, Bella. There will always be parts of us, no matter how small, that we wish we could reform."

"It's a big part, for me," she breathed. "Such a big part, Jasper…"

"For now," he said. "But you will learn."

"I don't want to learn… I don't want to hurt."

"And yet," he said softly, "it is your nature. It is at the very core of all of us. We were not born like creatures of nature. We are made, and the very things we are made into are so abhorred by whatever bits of our humanity we have left that it seems almost illogical. We must struggle. Only a monster could make peace with what we are. Only a beast could enjoy the destruction, the death. We cannot help what we want… only what we do, and that, you'll soon learn, gets easier with each passing hour."

She said nothing, biting back her reply.

"It's a terrible thing, to take a life," he said. "Out of anyone in this family, I think I have the most to say about that. But with time and with experience, you'll learn to master that impulse. And when you do…"

She shivered— a strange reaction still left over from before— and buried her face a little deeper.

"You'll see," he whispered. "You'll soon see, Bella. You'll figure out where you're going and what you'll be…"

"I used to be able to see forever," she breathed and he waited, saying nothing. "I used to be able to see everything— where I would end up, how I might get there. Who I'd be with. How it would end."

"Shh…"

"Now, I can't even see tomorrow," she said and her laughter was hollow and short. "I can barely see so much as an hour ahead, Jasper, and I don't exactly know how to live like that."

"It will get easier."

"So you've said."

"Everyone slips," he whispered and though she'd heard it plenty of times before, he knew that she still did not believe it. "There isn't a person in this world who hasn't made mistakes…"

"Carlisle never did."

"He's hardly the rule, Bella," said Jasper softly. "I don't know why he was able to control himself. Perhaps that is his gift, as my empathy is mine— a gift of goodness, or perhaps of grace. It's no easy feat, to deny what you are…"

Deep in his throat, right above his collar, Jasper felt a lump of hot, thick sorrow. He knew it was not his own— knew that it did not come from himself, but from her— and he longed to take it away, to soothe the sting.

"No," she said finally, after a long and pregnant pause. "No, it's not."

"You'll learn," he said again. "We all did, Bella. It's not easy, but in the end, it will be worth it."

"I don't want to fail again."

"You've hardly failed at all."

She turned her head away.

"What would you call it?"

"A learning curve."

She snorted.

"Call it what you want, then," she said and though her temper, so quick to rise at the merest hint of upset, was crawling up again, she tamped it down with all her might. "It doesn't really matter in the end, does it? The result is the same, whether we call it failing, or learning, or nature. It all means the same thing."

"We can't control the past."

"I know."

"We can only learn from it…"

"I know."

"And we can control our future," he went on. "We learn from the past, we live in the present, and we shape our own futures, Bella. What comes next doesn't have to be a replay of what's already happened. The mistakes we make today are not destined to be repeated when the sun comes up tomorrow. If I've learned anything at all throughout my years in this life it's that we do ourselves a great disservice when we live so far in the past that we cannot see what lays before us now."

She stared at him with bleak pessimism as the canopy of dark clouds swirled overhead, obscuring the dwindling daylight and casting shadows on the ground. He watched her in the residual glow from the house— butter-warm, yellow light spilling from bright windows just out of their reach— and her dark eyes brightened, as if she might cry. He knew she wouldn't— knew that she couldn't, even if she wanted to— but the impulse was still there. Though she said nothing, hardly daring even to breathe, he thought that he could see the accusation in those wide, dark eyes. The past, for her, was all that she had left.

"There can be no present without the past."

Jasper laughed, pulling her a little closer as he began to walk with her towards the trees.

"What I mean is that we are here," he said. "We are now, Bella, whatever that means, and we owe it to ourselves to enjoy that moment while it lasts."

"I just wish I could see," she whispered. "I wish I knew where I was going… where I'll end up."

"None of us knows for sure," he said. "This life is not one for which any of us were prepared when the change came. I certainly wasn't, that much is certain, but I can honestly say, Bella, that this life has been nothing if not interesting."

She peered up at him with sudden curiosity.

"You've never told me where you come from."

"No," he agreed, though he offered no more explanation. "I haven't."

"Do you remember it?"

"Every bit." His smile was quick. "I've seen corners of the world that men have all but forgotten. I've watched history play out in real time. There have been both joys and sorrows, great triumphs and terrible defeats, but I've lived it, Bella. The good and the bad. It makes us what we are and shapes who we will be. We may not be able to see it clearly now, but if you wait patiently enough and keep your eyes peeled wide, it won't be long before the way forward is made clear."

"I'm sick of waiting."

"I know."

"I just want to be normal."

"Iknow," he replied. "I know you do… but it will take time."

She sniffed, though she said nothing more, and when he took her arm again and resumed their walk, she did not complain. The driveway was long and narrow— just wide enough for one car to move in either direction— and they walked slowly, using neither their speed nor their heightened senses. The chilly evening did not touch them— not here, in the quiet solitude of twilight— and they meandered slowly together, neither saying a word until they reached a bend.

He heard it before he smelled it— some small, scurrying creature just out of sight in the trees— and he felt the sharp tug of her hand against his as impulse drew her away, her black eyes suddenly full of desperate, hateful want. He steadied her with a careful hand, feeling the slack return to her muscles as the bloodlust waned a moment later, and when the creature was gone she closed her eyes. Jasper felt the sting of defeat— the awful, gnawing disgust that she felt at her uncontrolled impulsivity— and he was quick to take her up on it.

"It's natural."

"It's not."

Jasper heaved a sigh.

"You're thirsty," he said, and though she did not argue, her face was hot with sudden distaste. "You'll continue to be thirsty until you do something about it."

"I can't."

"You won't," he corrected. She scowled at him. "There's no use denying it."

"I will deny it," she rumbled. "Until I fade away into nothing."

"You will not fade."

She sneered again.

"You'll go mad," said Jasper and though she shook her head, there was no defiance this time. "Yes, you will. Your body cannot die— not like that— but your mind certainly can if you don't take care."

"I won't do it again."

"The first time is always the hardest," said Jasper gently. "Always, Bella, no matter who you are."

"I killed someone."

"I know."

"I killed two people. They're dead, Jasper, and that's my fault."

He squeezed her hand in sympathy.

"It's what we are."

"I don't want to be that."

"So make another choice," said Jasper. "I, of all people, know the value of that choice. Like I said before, almost everyone slips up. I know that doesn't make it any easier, but they do. Even Esme…"

Her face, furious and sad, turned on him at once.

"It's not right."

"You have a choice, Bella," said Jasper. "You always have a choice. You can choose to be that creature you despise, to take more from the world than you put back into it, or you can go the other way. A mistake is not your destiny."

"But it wasn't a mistake, Jasper," she said and when she turned, her eyes were bright and sad again. "That's what gets me… I meant to do it, in that moment. I wanted to do it."

"You can't control what you want."

"I can't even control what I do."

"Not yet," he agreed. "But soon, Bella. Even within the next few weeks, things will be more steady."

"Do you know how many lives I could take before then?"

He laughed, the sound echoing off of the trees.

"More than anyone else," he said. "More than even you know, Bella. Someday I'll tell you where I came from, the things I saw and did before I joined this family. I know more than anyone what it is to live with that shame, that guilt. To take a life and like it, even when you know it's abhorrent. It doesn't have to be that way for you— not like it was for me— because you have a whole family around you to show you the right way."

She stared at him, unblinking.

"But you need to eat," he said. "You cannot go on like this. The longer you abstain, the greater the danger for everyone."

She chewed on that, her feet shuffling in the dirt.

"If you slip again, we'll have to leave," said Jasper. "We're moving on soon enough as it is and you won't last as long as that, going the way you are."

"I can't do it again."

"You have to."

"If I hurt someone else…"

"I won't let you." The words left him like an oath, and he meant every word. "Mistakes were made last time, Bella. Alice knows it and so do you. They won't be made again, no matter what happens. You might be fast, but you won't outrun me. You won't outsmart me— not when you're in a frenzy. You're not the first newborn I've raised and there's not a trick left in the book that could fool me."

"I don't want to trick you."

"I know you don't," he said. "I know, Bella…"

"I'm afraid, Jasper."

"I know." He could taste it still, in the very air he breathed. "I know you're frightened, sad, anxious, and embarrassed…"

That embarrassment increased tenfold at this new observation. He waited for a word that never came, for an acceptance and an ease that did not settle in, and when she gave him nothing but silence, he prodded again.

"You need to eat."

The silence continued.

"Do you trust me?" he asked and she blinked at him, surprised.

"Yes."

"Then come with me."

She froze.

"Let me prove to you that nothing bad will happen," he urged. "Not again, Bella. Let me show you how it ought to be, and then you can make your judgements. It won't be like the first time."

"You don't know that."

"You said you trusted me."

"I do, but…"

"Do you believe me?"

"I want to," she replied. "I really, really want to…"

"Then let me prove it to you." His hand was outstretched, his fingers reaching for hers. She took it cautiously. "Let me prove to you that it can be done, that you can do the right thing, even though you think you can't."

Her hand squeezed, desperate and tense.

"You won't let me go?"

"No."

"You'll stop me if I…"

"Most definitely, Bella," he vowed. "You'll see how it should be. How it should've been all along."

"If someone finds us…"

"No one is going to get hurt," he promised. "Not a soul. Not you, not me, not anyone else. We'll go in deep, where humans don't go."

"If I get away…"

"You won't."

"But if I do…"

"You won't, Bella," he said. "I won't let you out of my sight. Not even for a moment."

"You won't leave me?"

"No."

"You won't let me…?"

"Not a chance."

She stepped forward then, much faster than he was used to, and wrapped herself around him in a tight embrace. It was easy, now that she was like him, to return that hug and so he did, relishing the strength of her new form, the invulnerability. There was no risk of hurting her now— she was not at all the broken girl she'd been when he'd plucked her from the wet stones of that pebbled beach all those weeks ago— and he let that truth sink in, his heart growing just a little bit larger to let her worm her way inside.

"You are loved, Bella," he said, and though she did not respond he felt her answering squeeze. "Things may not be how you meant them, and you may not yet be able to love yourself, but you need to know that we are all behind you."

"I don't know why."

"Because you're family," he said at once and he kissed her, quick and soft, on the crown of her head. He felt her shiver like a ripple on water. "Even if you can't see it. Even if you don't really know it. We've made mistakes— terrible and tragic mistakes that cannot now be undone— but mistakes don't negate what we are. What you are."

"And what am I, Jasper?"

"You are us, Bella," he said and in her mire of grief and guilt was an unmistakable spark of love. It lit her up like kindling, flaring so hot that it blew away some of the sticky, bitter fog. "We are you. No matter where you go or what you choose to do, we are all of us together and we are all of us one. We may not be the family you were born to, but if you'll let us, we can be the family that you choose."


They sat around the dining table like a king's wise council, and as Emmett listened to the briefings, he wondered at the depth of their lies.

"It must be done with haste," said Alice, and she watched her mother as she spoke, her face full of sympathy. "I know you love this house, Esme, but it's the only option to avoid suspicion."

"Must it all go?"

"Yes."

"Won't they suspect an accelerant ?"

"Not once the gas lines are broken, no. It'll look like any other accident. We know how to fix it so they won't suspect."

Around the table, there was silence.

It was a trying business, Emmett knew, having to cover up the truth of what they were. Having to constantly adjust, to move from house to house so quickly that one could never really get used to any of them. They moved through the world like ghosts— observing the lives around them, never really able to take part— but that had become part and parcel of what they were. It had become their way, the price they paid for their place in humanity, and one they had willingly, if not gladly paid about two times per decade.

If they were to fit in, they had to keep themselves apart.

Their houses and properties spanned the globe, listed under so many names and monikers that Emmett could hardly keep them all straight. Carlisle Cullen owned several, Esme Platt a few more, and even he and Rosalie, under both her maiden and married names, owned a little cabin in Kentucky and a small, modest villa in the Italian countryside. They left their houses behind like the souvenirs— monuments to different chapters in time which had closed behind them forever— but this time, there would be no such remembrance. This time, when they left, there would be a different sort of memorial.

The mess they had created during Bella's change had driven a wrench into their well-formed plans. Upstairs, in that ruined bedroom that he, himself, had tidied, there was evidence of violence that would make them conspicuous when Bella went missing. They could not simply abscond with her and leave the mess behind— if anyone came looking, they would find the scene of violent crime. They could not even patch up the mess without leaving a financial paper trail— not now that so much of life was lived in a digital time capsule.

Already, the town had grown suspicious. Already, they had started asking questions. No one had seen Bella for weeks. None of the entreaties at her father's house had been successful. Voicemails had gone unchecked, text messages unanswered. Emails unread. And all the while people gossiped, too nosy for their own good as far as Emmett was concerned, and noise had told that she was here, with them. Carlisle had put it out into the community that she was safe, but they could not know for how long this placation would hold.

When Alice sighed again, Emmett saw Bella flinch.

"It'll all be very quick," she said kindly, more for Bella's benefit than anyone else's. "It'll cause a scene, no doubt, but it'll all be over before the humans can suspect a thing."

It must be odd, Emmett knew, for Bella to listen to such things. They could not leave the house intact— there could be absolutely nothing left to link them with her disappearance in human law— and so Alice had given them the distasteful solution that had come in a vision, the only one, if truth be told, that had guaranteed success. Emmett had already planned it out, seeing as he was the one who knew the intimate details of the house he'd helped to build. He knew where the gas lines were weakest, and where they would be most likely to break. He knew just how to tamper with them to let the gas into the house, and he would know when to throw the match— one tiny, flaming stick that would blow it all to pieces, the ensuing fire taking any and all of the evidence with it.

Bella would be in the house when it burned— or so Carlisle would tell the crews who came to fight the blaze. There would be nothing left of her for the police to find. There would never be a body for them to bury or mourn. They would write her name on a stone beside her father's— a tribute, rather than a grave— and they would lay their flowers at its feet, and when the family moved away, no one would be any the wiser about what had really happened.

"Have you spoken to Jenks, Alice?" asked Carlisle, and at this, Emmett saw Bella frown again. "Did he give you what you asked for?"

From beneath her seat, Alice produced the old, patched satchel that Emmett knew well. It had been hers for decades— one of the only ugly things she had ever owned— and though there was no accounting for her strange attachment to it, it was always in this that she kept her correspondence with the lawyer. Emmett did not know how Jasper had found him— did not know what connections his brother might have had, or what kinds of intimidation he might have invoked— but for three generations the associates at J Jenks Law Firm had been catering to Jasper's special requests with the utmost discretion, and they had yet disappoint.

From inside satchel, Alice produced eight folders. These were distributed quickly to their respective owners— all excepting Edward, who was absent— and Emmett opened his with mild curiosity. He gazed down at his own familiar face— the same picture staring back at him as those he'd been using for twenty years— and he found himself particularly interested in the new name Alice had given him, now printed on dozens of expertly forged legal documents.

Emmett McCarty

"Back to basics, then, Alice?" he asked, and Alice shot him a quick grin. Rosalie, who flipped through hers with a quiet disinterest, had been given Esme's maiden name ot Platt, which Emmett knew that she would share with Jasper in keeping with their tradition of twinship. Carlisle had been allowed to keep his name, though his birthdate had been adjusted, and Esme had been given Edward's family name of Masen, which put mother and son together again as brother and sister in this new narrative they were creating. The only name that made him pause was the one that Alice had given herself— she had reclaimed the name of Brandon, her original family name that had been forgotten until Bella had returned it to her that night at the ballet studio.

It was Bella, flipping through her papers with quiet panic, who grabbed Alice's attention. She stared in bewildered silence at the array of passports and birth certificates on the table, and when she picked up her own passport and opened it, Emmett saw her freeze.

"What is this, Alice?" she demanded, and though Emmett thought that he ought to have expected it, it surprised him to hear the shock, the anger in her voice. "What is all of this?"

The documents, all with doctored photos and careful, subtle changes to her private information, were all labelled with the same name as his— McCarty.

"It's Emmett's name," said Alice quickly. "We had to choose. You could hardly keep yours, now that we've figured out what to do with you. But you'll need a name, when we move on."

She snapped the folder shut with a sniff.

"We have to change the names, Bella," said Alice gently. "All of us, not just you. We've kept these names too long as it is. Any longer, and the trail would become obvious for anyone who knows what they're looking for."

"I didn't ask you to do that."

"You didn't have to."

"Yes, I did."

"Bella…"

"Don't, Alice." She shoved the papers away from her, rather like a child, and Alice caught them up. "Just don't."

This new sting— the final erasure of her human life— settled hard on her unyielding shoulders. Emmett had known that it would come— it had come to all of them, in their early years— and though he felt a certain pride in sharing his name with her, he knew that she was right. She had not asked for it. Her family name was her most basic of birthrights, the only legacy of her father's that she had a hope of keeping, and to see it filed away with all the other names they had retired over the years was bound to be a sore spot. It was so seldom that they were allied to be themselves, anymore— at least, not in name.

Esme spoke kindly in the awkward silence that followed, her soothing voice doing nothing to dull the edge of Bella's sudden temper.

"It'll come naturally enough, once you've been at it a few years," she said. "We've all cycled through our names, and…"

Bella's fiery glare was enough to stop her short, her platitudes landing hard on the floor at her feet.

From his place at the head of table, watching with silent consternation, Carlisle's fingers began to tap a rhythm on the wood. Beside him, wracked with a pity she dared not express any more, Esme sat unmoved, her gaze glued on Bella as she rose from her seat. No one else dared stop her— not Jasper, who had his hand so tightly clasped in Alice's that his knuckles had gone white, and not Rosalie, who sat beside Emmett with a stoic grace that no one else could muster. Edward, unwanted and unsought by his fraught, unhappy mate had stayed away altogether, leaving the seat at Carlisle's right side conspicuously empty.

Emmett watched her go with a deep and lingering worry.

She did not excuse herself before she left. She did not bid them farewell when she closed the door behind her and there was not so much as a sigh when they heard her go, disappearing into the woods as she had done so often in weeks of late. She spent hardly a night in the house anymore, preferring the company of the stars and the trees to any of them, and though Emmett could not say that he blamed her, he could also not deny that she was missed.

It was Alice who spoke first, sliding the satchel to the center of the table.

"We must make our plans," she said, her voice small and subdued. "We don't have the luxury of time… not if our ruse is going to work."

"We cannot decide with two of us missing," Esme replied. The two empty seats were glaringly out of place. "It's not fair…"

Alice, peering back to the space between the trees where Bella had disappeared, simply shook her head.

"She'll be back, Esme," she replied. "In the end, Bella always comes back."

But Emmett, glancing back to the trees as well, was not so sure.

Since her return from her hunt with Jasper, there had been a shift in Bella that Emmett could not quite pin down. He could not name it even if he tried— could not put into words just exactly when the change had come or how it had manifested itself. Bella had always been so steady— so still, so rational, and so calm— and when this new uneasiness had settled in, Emmett had noticed it at once.

She did not stay in any one place for very long. She did not settle down to her books or her journal. Some part of her was always moving— feet tapping, fingers drumming— and there was an unmistakable air of discontent about her that had never been there before, even in her lowest moments. She had grown unsettled in days of late, had grown even more unhappy with the way that things were, and so as his family discussed their move and whatever might come after, Emmett's mind was away in the trees where she was, wondering what on earth was to come next.

He did not notice when the meeting ended. He had heard very little and said nothing at all to influence their choice of house, their new life elsewhere. His life was always elsewhere, shiftless and mundane. As transient as it was eternal. There would always be another house. There would always be another school. There would always be another ruse and another lie to tell, and just when their new town grew comfortable in their suspicion and their doubt, they would be off to begin again.

"Emmett?"

He turned, shaking away the cobwebs, to face his sister. She was the last still seated, all the others having dispersed to make their own arrangements and plans, and she watched him with such a sad and sudden frown that Emmett could only stare.

"What is it?" he asked finally when the silence had begun to drag. "What's the matter?"

"Bella is going to leave."

Emmett stared at her, perplexed.

"What do you mean, leave?" he demanded. "To go where?"

"I don't know."

"Then how…?"

"I don't know," said Alice again, rather more coolly than Emmett expected. "I don't know, Emmett, the how or the why of it, but she's going to leave."

"She hasn't said so."

"No," agreed Alice. "No, she hasn't. Not to me, not to Carlisle, not to anyone. I don't even know if she's said it to herself, yet, but it's the one constant in this whole mess. Portland is settled now— our meeting sorted that much out, at least—but no matter what else has changed, her absence has become the only thing that doesn't."

"Will Carlisle allow it?" Emmett asked and Alice sighed, resting her chin on her hands. "She's so young, Alice…"

"Many younger and more foolish have gone off on their own," said Alice sagely. "Many don't even have the option. She's not a child."

"She's hardly grown, either," he countered. "She hardly knows which way is up anymore."

"Maybe that's why she needs this," said Alice. "Maybe that's why it must happen."

"Nothing is set in stone."

"Nothing but this."

"Things change all the time, Alice… you taught me that. There is no decision that can't be undone."

"But this time," she said gently, "perhaps it is not meant to be undone."

"Her place is here," Emmett said. "With us."

"For now."

"For always," he returned, his temper piqued. "Always, Alice. No matter where she goes in the interim."

"You've ventured off yourself, in the past…"

"With my wife," Emmett countered. "Not on my own. Not like she is now."

The mention of wife made Alice sigh, and when she gazed again out the window, Emmett knew at once who she was looking for. Their brother had been scarce in days of late, appearing just often enough to reassure Esme that he had not disappeared altogether, and while Emmett could not honestly say that his presence had been a comfort, it had, at least, been required.

Bella had given him nothing— not a word of peace or even a glance since they'd spoken on the clifftop all those weeks ago— and while his brother might be obstinate, he was smart enough to know when he was not wanted. It pained Emmett to see the strain— Bella's ardent and painful rejection of one half of her own self— but there was nothing else for it. She needed her family more than Edward needed his, and so out of a kindness that Emmett rarely saw from his brother, Edward had kept himself away.

He pined after her, though Bella could hardly see it. He longed for her in a way that only a mate ever could. He loved her, and he wanted her, and he would go on with all these things well into the vast, mysterious future that lay ahead, and it was for this that Emmett felt a pang when Alice voiced her premonition, giving life to that which had, thus far, remained encapsulated in her own mind.

"Bella does not want him with her," said Alice, and though Emmett knew the truth of it, he kept his agreement silent. "He's made his bed. It's high time for him to lay down in it."

"I don't know why you're telling me this."

"Because you, of all people, will want to say goodbye."

The word was sour to him. It wounded, like a little needle in his skin. He had hated that word from the off, always seeming so final and so bleak, and though he knew that Alice was right, he only closed his eyes.

Goodbye. Emmett hated goodbyes.

"When?" he asked, and Alice only shrugged. "How long do we have?"

"I don't know."

"Then how do you know it'll happen at all?"

"I just do," Alice replied, and there was a sharpness in her that made him hold his tongue. "I've seen all sorts of things since her change, Emmett. And she's never with us further than here."

"She might yet change her mind."

"She won't."

"We can't know."

"Yes, we can."

The finality with which she spoke made Emmett's protests fall silent. He wanted to argue— he wanted to fight, and negate, and deny— but there was such resignation in her, such a quiet, settled certainty, that he knew the point was moot. It had been so long since Alice had seen anything worthwhile, so long since anything she had given them was worth so much consideration, that Emmett knew it was fruitless to try and talk his way out of it. If Alice said that she would go, then she would go. And there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

Emmett stood to leave, having no wish to discuss the matter any further.

"Wait," said Alice, her fingers curling on the hem of his shirt. "Just wait a moment, please?"

Emmett paused, his arms crossed, as Alice reached into her pocket.

"Give this to her," said Alice, pulling out a small, silver key. "She won't use it— not yet, anyhow— but it'll make us both feel better to know that she's got another option."

When he took the key, Emmett knew at once from whence it had come. They each had one identical to this, though they had been hidden away in a box since their arrival in Forks, with all the other keys to houses they could no longer use, and as Emmett turned it over again in his hand, he knew why Alice had given it.

The house in Denali was one of Emmett's especial favourites, and he had been particularly sad to leave it behind when they'd moved on to Forks. He had loved the coldness of the world up there— the sparkling ribbon of the aurora at night, the frosty snowflakes that fell like glitter in the sun. The solitude had been nice, too. There had been no near neighbours— only arctic landscapes and the long, sweeping coast— and as he pocketed that key for himself, Emmett thought that there could be no better place for a bit of self-discovery.

"I don't know that she'll use it," said Alice quietly. "I don't even know for sure that she'll want it, but I need to know that she's got it, even if she chooses another path. I can't see where she'll go— most likely she doesn't have the slightest clue, herself, yet— but if things get rough or she needs some peace and quiet, the tundra will welcome her home."


"This is not right, Carlisle," snapped Esme, prowling about the study like a caged lion. "It isn't fair!"

"Love…"

"It isn't right!"

Her voice, so shrill and angry, carried like the call of a gull across the water. Carlisle listened with quiet sympathy, saying little as she raged. He had known it would be so, even before she had discovered this new truth. Before she had discovered the betrayal.

"By what right did Alice say such things to her?" she went on. "By what right, Carlisle?!"

"Alice did what she thought right."

"Meddlesome and cruel, that's what it is."

"Esme…"

"Don't, Carlisle," she warned. "Don't you defend her to me. Not right now."

"I'm not defending her."

"Then stop talking."

Carlisle did as he was bid.

In the space between their meeting at dawn and the afternoon, Esme had discovered just what Alice had done in the quiet, solitary hours while the rest of them had busied themselves with preparations. She had discovered what Alice had said and to whom she had said it, and her temper, simmering dangerously in days of late, had boiled up into a torrent of scalding rebuke, all of which Carlisle had been expecting.

She had discovered the vision, so stealthily hidden from all but a few. She had discovered Emmett's cooperation. She had discovered Bella's wish, as yet unspoken, and her sister's quiet encouragement, and she had taken it all as a personal slight— an insult to which there was no equal and no balm.

"You are content, then, to banish her?"

"Nobody has been banished, Esme. You know that."

"What would you call it, then? When you send your child off to live alone in the barrens of the arctic?"

"It was merely an offer…"

"A poor offer."

"An offer that will be accepted," said Carlisle calmly, "if Alice is to be believed. An offer that is right, Esme, and the very least that we can do for her. It was done out of kindness, not malice."

"You and Alice both have a very funny idea of what kindness means."

Carlisle did not dignify that barb with a response.

It had been long since he and Esme had last fallen out, and though her anger made him uncomfortable, he did not resent her for it. They were synchronous, his wife and he, and they had always seen eye to eye, but this had been the final blow that had broken her. He knew that she was angry, and he knew that she was hurt— the loss of this child, so newly returned to them and so freshly made whole again, would be sure to hurt him too. He understood her outrage even if he could not feel it for himself because he, like her, had grown to love that girl like a daughter.

Mothers protected their young— it was the most basic, most credible of all maternal instincts. It did not matter if that young did not need its mother. It did not matter if it had outgrown her. It did not matter if that child was a child no longer or if it had grown lovely and capable, because when a mother saw her child in pain, it was her bound duty to do what needed to be done to see that pain done away.

"And for Alice to steal the key?" she went on. "Without so much as a consultation?"

Carlisle was quick to correct this slander.

"I gave Alice the key, Esme," said Carlisle gently, and she went quiet. "She asked me quite plainly. I dared not refuse her."

"Oh Carlisle…" She pulled away from him and one look at her lovely, ice-cold face told him that she was full of rage. "You know I do love you, but sometimes…"

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes you can be so thoughtless!" she cried, and Carlisle blinked in surprise. "You're so eager to make everyone else happy…"

"I'm eager to do what is right, Esme."

"What is right," she snapped, "is for this family to be whole. We've waited too long. Our son has we waited too long…"

"Edward knows what he's done," said Carlisle lowly. "He understands the mistakes he's made."

"Mistakes can be forgiven."

"We were not the victims, Esme."

She snapped her mouth shut and turned away from him, letting out her breath in a hiss.

"She is too young."

"You know that's not true."

"She is too inexperienced!"

"As we all were once, love…"

"She is still so volatile, Carlisle…"

"I will not hold her prisoner here," he said, and there was such a stubborn finality in his tone that Esme scowled at him. "She is not ours to keep."

"She is just as much ours as any of the others," Esme bit back. "Just as much, Carlisle, if not more so."

"I'm sorry I've vexed you."

"Just stop it."

"I am sorry," he said again, and when he reached out for her, she pulled herself further away. "I know it will be a wrench…"

"You don't know the half of it."

"I know more than you think."

"She deserves our love, Carlisle."

"She has that already," he replied. "She always has, Esme. She always will."

"She cannot feel it if she is not here."

"That is not my choice to make."

"Your word means more than you think."

"I will not be the one to choose for her," said Carlisle, and though he could see what it cost her, Esme waited for him to finish. "I've been the decider once before, and we all know how that turned out."

"We were wrong then…"

"And we'd be wrong now."

"I don't agree." Esme shook her head, her arms folded. "I just don't, Carlisle."

"You don't have to agree, Esme. What we feel— what we all feel— is irrelevant."

She flashed up at once, her amber eyes full of sudden ire.

"I am sick," she snapped, "of losing my children. Of losing our children. Your children, Carlisle."

He had nothing to say to that.

"No one doubts our love…"

"She does." Esme pointed her finger down to the yard, where just at the edge of the trees he could see the emerging figures of Emmett and Bella. "You know she does, Carlisle. Why else do you think she's not so much as looked at you since she came back from the cliffs?"

From his place behind the window in the study, Carlisle saw the two figures slow as they approached the house— Emmett, the only one of his children who had never outgrown him and who had never shown even the slightest distaste for the immortal life that Carlisle had given him, and Bella, who had grown so fearful of his judgement and his disappointment. Carlisle was no stranger to guilt— he knew what it was to regret the paths he'd chosen, to feel that terrible self-loathing that was so apt to come whenever he thought of the mistakes that he had made. He had never killed, it was true, but he had taken life— Edward's, his wife;s, his daughter's and his son's…

Bella's rejection hurt him— there was no way around that fact— but even though he wished it could be otherwise, Carlisle did not cast blame.

"My love is, and forever will be, hers for the taking," said Carlisle and his voice was loud enough, firm enough, to carry down to the grass below. Both of his children glanced up, one perplexed and the other embarrassed, and when he turned back to his wife she, too, was glancing through the window. Bella knew that they were watching her— he could see it in the way she turned her head, in the way Emmett's reassuring hand tightened around hers— and when Emmett let her go he looked up at the window and nodded, only once, and Carlisle knew that it was done.

"He's given it to her," said Esme and though she did not intend it, Carlisle could hear the hurt quite plainly. "That's it, then."

"Esme…"

Footsteps on the stairs made both fall silent.

They listened, together in the dimness of the office, to the sound of those tentative footsteps on the landing. He saw the shadow of her feet beneath the door— the way they shuffled, human-like, before there was a sigh, and when her fingers came up to tap on the wood Esme sagged, lowering herself down onto the sofa.

When Carlisle opened the door, Esme turned her face away.

For the first time since he had coaxed her back to shore after she'd leapt into the sea, Carlisle beheld the sight of the girl— the child turned woman who had become his sorrow and his joy. This girl who had survived, who had faced two deaths and won, and who, it would seem, was no better off for all her victories. She had come to them a child and she would go from them a woman, and as Carlisle stepped quietly aside to let her in, it was to Esme that she looked first, and with a sudden, stinging pang.

At once, Esme was on her.

"Come here, Bella," she said, and before the girl could say a word, Esme had snatched her into a tight, ferocious hug. There was no threat of injury anymore— no chance that Esme could do her any harm— and so his wife crushed that girl to her breast with all the fierceness she could muster and kissed her smooth cheek, which, once released, descended to rest on Esme's cold, hard shoulder.

"Hello Esme."

"Hello sweet girl…"

"I guess Alice told you, then."

"Carlisle told me the whole thing."

Bella didn't say anything at all as Esme kissed her again, a little more urgently this time. She said nothing when Esme pulled away, either, stepping back to look her over. She said nothing when his wife ran a finger over the circles beneath her eyes, nothing when Esme squeezed her cold, hard fingers, and nothing when she sighed, shaking her head and stepping fully away, leaving Bella alone in the middle of the room, not knowing where to look.

"Emmett gave you the key," said Esme. "What did he tell you?"

"That it was for Alaska. That I could… go there."

"Is that your plan?"

"I don't know."

"You know you don't have to?" Esme asked, and at this, Bella faltered. "You know that there is no urgency?"

"I…"

"I would hate for you think that you are not wanted."

Bella began to fidget. Esme waited for a word that would never come— for a reassurance sought, but not provided— and when the silence grew too long it was Carlisle who spoke instead. He chose his words very carefully, mindful of how they might be understood, and when he did, she froze.

"We are none of us glad to see you go, love," he said, careful and quiet, "but Alice tells me that the thing is quite certain."

She didn't say a word.

"You know that you're able to change your mind, if you want to?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"I'm sorry, Carlisle." The words came out of her in a rush, as if they'd been pent up there and straining against her lips for weeks. "I just… I haven't said it, and I know that I should have."

"You've got nothing to apologize for."

She stared at him then— stared so long and so hard that Carlisle, rather unused to her attention, began to feel a stirring of nerves. She had been so aloof, so frightened of what he might say, that there had been no opportunity for conversation or discussion, and though he suspected that it wouldn't be so now, he could not be sure.

"You would say that," she said with a laugh that was not at all funny. "Of course you would…"

"I mean what I say, Bella," replied Carlisle. "If you failed, then so did we all."

"You didn't kill anyone."

"No," he agreed. "No, I didn't, but we had a responsibility to uphold. All of us had a duty to you, Bella, and we did not do right.

"You tried…"

"Not hard enough, evidently," he said. "You might have been the transgressor, Bella, but only as a result of our negligence. You should have never been taken out with Alice on your own. She could not overpower you. She could not control you— not in such a frenzy. We all knew it, deep down, but we thought…"

Carlisle trailed off, looking for the right words.

"Thought that it might be different, I suppose. But you behaved exactly as we are intended to, and so I cannot fault you for that."

"I took a life."

"So do many of our kind. It is what we are."

"It's not what you are."

"No," he agreed. "No, it's not."

"Are you very disappointed in me?" she asked, and beside him, Carlisle felt Esme shift. Bella's eyes were on the floor, now, her face gone perfectly blank, and as Carlisle took in that singular question and all the unspoken ones that went with it, he watched her fear play out in real time.

This, he knew, was the root of the tension between them. This was what she feared more than anything else. She grieved the lives she'd taken, of course, and even as she was, in her new immortal form, she might abhor the violence and the gore. She would be sick with herself, this gentle child who had not been raised for such brutality and force. This child who'd been raised in kindness. This child who'd been raised in love.

"I've never been disappointed in you for even a moment," said Carlisle. "Not one, Bella."

"I've done a terrible thing…"

"All of my children have done terrible things," said Carlisle. "All of them, Bella… and none of those missteps have ever diminished my love for any of you."

"You are a better man than most, then… but I'm sorry nonetheless." When he took her hand, she did not pull it back. "I am sorry, because it was wrong. I know it was wrong… and I wish it had never happened."

"You don't need to apologize to me."

"I do," she replied, and Carlisle drew her closer. "I do, Carlisle… I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."

"Why?"

"Because you're you," she said in a halting, frustrated voice. "You're… right."

"Not always."

"Almost always."

"Not nearly," he chuckled. "I get as much wrong as anyone else, love…"

"Not when it matters."

"Almost always when it matters."

"You saved my life. More than once."

"Yes."

"And I repaid that debt with carnage," she went on. "All that kindness, met with nothing but brutality."

"Not of your own making."

She pulled her hand away, shaking her head.

"I just need to know that you can forgive me," she said. "I just need to know that someday, even if it's not today, that…"

"That what?"

"That things can be right again."

"Things can be right already," he replied. "There is nothing stopping it, except the barriers you, yourself, have built."

"I'm sorry, Carlisle…"

"And though you do not need it, you have my forgiveness," he said. This, it seemed, was the right thing to say, for the moment it was said, he saw another cord of tension slide down to the floor beneath her feet. "I forgive you this and whatever else you might do, Bella, because you are loved."

"You ought to be angry with me," she said. "I almost wish you were."

"But I'm not."

"You should be."

"I'm not," he said again. "Whatever I should or shouldn't be, love, I'm not angry. Not over this."

"And are you angry over the other thing, then?" she asked, and almost without thought, her fingers travelled to the pocket of her jeans where he could see the outline of that small, silver key. "Are you angry with me for what Alice told you?"

At this, Esme began to protest.

"There is no one here that says you need to leave," she said. "We will not cast you out."

"I know that, Esme."

"There is no reason why you must go," she went on, but Bella shook her head. Esme was undeterred. "I mean it, darling… there is no reason."

"I can think of plenty."

"Like what?"

Bella fell silent. Carlisle knew the reasons and he suspected that his wife did too, and as he watched her struggle to find the words, he knew that they were not needed. Alice had told him the reasons. Bella herself had said it over again, with a few more words and pauses. Carlisle, himself, knew exactly how it felt to long for something that was not here, and so he knew, deep in his heart, why the girl must go.

"You don't have to explain if you don't want to," he said and Esme glared at him, furious. "You don't owe us that."

"I don't know how to say it," she replied. "I just know that I must… I have to go."

"You don't."

Bella stared up at Esme with a deep and brooding sadness.

"Everything is wrong, Esme," said Bella. "Everything has changed."

"Everything will be steady…"

"You keep saying that."

"I'll be proven right, in the end."

"Maybe," agreed Bella. "Maybe not. But in the meantime…"

"In the meantime, you are here," said Esme. "In the meantime I am here."

"I've done so wrong," said Bella, and when Esme stepped towards her she took another step back. Esme halted, surprised. "I need to atone for that."

"Not like this."

"Not with you," said Bella finally, and this, it seemed, was the most painful thing of all for her to admit. "Not with anyone, Esme… I need to be by myself, I think. At least for a little while."

"You're so new, Bella…"

"I know."

"If you're not here, we can't help you."

"You've done more than enough already."

"You are our responsibility," said Esme. "Ours, Bella. What you do, we do too. We are the reason you're here at all, as you are."

"My actions are my own," Bella replied quickly. "Whatever I do, I do on my own. You can't claim my crimes."

"You've committed no crime."

Bella laughed.

"I've committed a grievous crime," she said, "but that's not why I'm going."

Esme stared at her, perplexed.

"I'm not leaving because I feel guilty."

"Then why?"

"Because I need to figure out what I'm doing, Esme," she said with a quaver in her voice that made Esme tense. "I can't do that here. Not yet, anyhow."

"If we've ever made you feel unwelcome…"

"No," said Bella quickly, and she moved towards his wife with such speed that Carlisle blinked. "No, Esme… it's not that."

"You are as much my own as any of the others, you know that?" Esme said, and when Bella reached out for her, Esme did not disappoint. There was no distance between them now— no awkward and hurtful gap that a mother could not bridge— and when Bella rested her cheek on Esme's shoulder with a terrific sigh, Esme ran her fingers through the long, dark hair.

"We sat much like this on the night of your change," she said. Bella listened in silence. "Talking much the same as we are now."

"I know."

"You apologized then, too. Do you remember?"

"A little bit…"

"You apologized for trying to leave us," Esme went on. "For wanting to go, Bella. I understood, then, why you did. I understood what you were looking for, even if there was no guarantee that you would find it…"

"I know."

"But you won't find your family out there, Bella," she said. The words were heavy and sore. "You tried to leave us the first time to find your mother and father…"

"And this time I need to go to find myself."

This made his wife quiet, her hand going still on the back of Bella's head.

"What do you mean, find yourself?"

"I mean," she leaned back, her scarlet eyes gleaming, "that I need to find me."

"You're right here."

"Part of me is…"

"And the rest of you?"

"I don't know, Esme," she said. "I honestly don't know…"

"But you think you'll find it out there?"

"Maybe."

"If you'd give yourself some time…"

"We're made of nothing but time," Bella replied, and Esme pursed her lips. "Everyone has said it to me over and over again. We stay still and unchanging until we are forced, and I can't live this way, Esme. I can't live in this grief, and with the guilt of what I've done."

"What you've done is only natural, when you're so young. Not desirable, certainly, but not unexpected…"

"It's not just that."

"Then what?"

"Everything," she breathed and Carlisle knew, then, that if she could, she'd be shedding tears. "It's the other people I've hurt. It's what I did to Renee. To Charlie."

"You are not to blame for that woman's actions…"

"I brought her into his world," Bella went on. "I led her right to him."

"And we led her to you."

"Maybe."

"Do you blame us?"

"I don't know."

It was the most honest thing Carlisle had ever heard her say, and though that truth stung like a fine, pointed needle, he was proud of her for saying it.

"I don't know what I feel, Esme, or who I can blame for any of it. I don't know if what I feel is fair, or if it even makes sense, but I do know that I need some space and time to try and figure it out. I need to say goodbye to the past if I'm going to move forward. I need to let it go."

And Carlisle knew, as surely as he knew his own name, that if he was to be a part of that future she craved, he would have to let her go, too. Esme would. Edward would. They all would.

When he reached out a hand to her, letting it hover for a moment in the empty space between them, he watched the metamorphosis of her reluctance and her fear. He knew what it was that kept her from him, what it was that had stopped her from seeking his comfort and his counsel, and all of that was laid aside when he felt her fingers twined with his, her willing consent to his hand, and then his arms. It was the closest he'd been to her since her transformation and when she pressed her cheek to his collar, it felt as though a piece of him had finally, truly settled back into place.

"Thank you, Carlisle," she said, her voice muffled. "For everything."

"You're more than welcome, darling."

"I'm sorry…"

"No," he said. "Don't be that."

"It's the truth."

"Then let me tell you a truth, too," he said. From over her shoulder, Carlisle saw Esme's icy anger melting, a grudging tenderness taking over as she witnessed this act of forgiveness. "You go with our fullest blessings, Bella. Wherever you go, and for however long, just know that our love goes with you."

Her kiss on his cheek was answer enough.

"You go and find your life, Bella," he said, and when her arms tightened around his neck, he felt a throb of love. "Go and figure out what you're meant to be in the world and when you've done it, come back to us."

"I will."

"You know how to find us when you need us," he said. "You know how to get in touch…"

"Yes."

"Then go," he said, and when he released her, it left a queer, empty ache in his chest. "Go and do what you need to do, Bella, and take our love and blessings with you."


She left them at sunset, slipping away into the wild outdoors on the vivid embers of a dying sunbeam. She had not said goodbye. She had not said anything at all as she gathered what little she had to take in that old, leather satchel with the folder full of papers. There had been no answers, for there was nothing left to ask. There had been no listeners to her private conversation, no one left to eavesdrop or overhear what Carlisle and Esme had said, and so when Bella had stepped away from them she had been finally, blissfully alone, and at once, she had begun her exodus, not wanting to drag it out any longer than she needed to.

Only Alice had come back, right at the very end— only Alice, who, like always, seemed to far know more than she ought— but Bella did not begrudge her.

She had been there, standing sentry on the landing, when Bella had stepped out into the hall, leaving Carlisle alone with his wife. Sweet, gentle Alice, who for once in her life had nothing whatsoever to say and for whose silence Bella was eternally grateful. Alice did not plead with her. Alice did not beg. She did not make a scene or offer up any prizes or consolations and Bella knew that this was because Alice understood. She might not know where her path would lead or how long the journey would take, but she knew in her heart that she must go to find it out, and so Alice knew it too. No doubt she had seen it all with that fascinating, imperfect gift that gave up such fallible truths. In that silence there had been nothing but a kiss, feather-light on the apple of her cheek, and a sad, regretful smile, but Bella, unable to walk away without leaving some memory of her love, had pulled her sister into a tight embrace.

"Thank you, Alice," Bella had whispered and she had felt Alice's sigh, deep and final. "Thank you for all you've done."

Alice had kissed her again before she let her go.

There had been no words with the others, no long, drawn-out farewells. Alice would do it for her, she knew— would tell her family where she had gone, and why— and this final kindness was a balm to her weary, hungry soul. She could not bear to say goodbye— not now that it had been said so many times— and she hoped, though she hardly knew how, that somehow, this cowardice would be forgiven. She had slipped away at the edge of night, just before the sun had disappeared behind the trees in the yard, and she had stopped for only a moment to take in the sight of the house— the last she would ever see of it— before she fled.

Had she been human, she knew she would be weeping. If there could be tears in her ruby red eyes, she'd have been blinded by their fog. Her unbeating heart would have hammered its protest, her lungs would have filled with a thousand different longings, but she was strong enough to keep control and she flew on wings of quicksilver, escaping into the bowels of the trees where there was no one, and nothing to see her go.

She was gone— like a fledgling tossed from the nest she had fallen, unfettered and unbound, and now she was flying, up, up, up and away. She did not know where she was going. She did not know what she would see. She did not know where she would stop or what she hoped to find when she did, but she would keep on going until that void in her own self was filled. Freedom stood before her, though at what cost she had yet to learn, and as she ran she felt it in her bones, in her muscles and her sinew. There was no one here to keep her. There was no one left to guide her. She was completely and utterly alone, just as she had longed to be, and the thought struck her with peculiar worry and a vibrant, aching gladness.

They had let her go— Carlisle, in all his kindness, had let her go.

She would live forever— there were no longer any constraints of time to bind her to the path she'd anticipated— and she thought she understood a little of what it meant for Carlisle to give his blessing and his love. There was no limit to her absence, no urgency to spur her return and no guarantee to ensure that she ever really would. He had let her go without conditions— had given her no ultimatums or caveats— and had sent her off with dignity and grace, and for this, she was forever thankful.

She had not stopped for five full minutes when the noise began, so deep and so faint that she was hardly sure she had heard anything at all.

From the place where she had stopped, deep in the belly of the trees, there came a crackling of branches and rustle of leaves. The sound reminded her of a deer— of light steps on dying wood— and when she paused, closing her eyes, she thought she could make out the sound of feet. There was no musk of wild things, no telltale scent of predator or prey, and when she heard the wind whistling and smelled the first, gentle curls of earthy perfume, she turned at once to face the source.

She would know him anywhere— even here, where he did not belong and even now, when she ought to be alone. The forest was black with the setting sun and with hardly a star in the sky, but the world stood out in vivid clarity as she watched the place from which she knew he would emerge. She should have known that he would come— that he, unlike the rest of his family, would not be so easily lost to her— but when he emerged from that very spot she'd predicted, as pale as a ghost, she did not move so much as an inch.

He waited a long time in that spot, watching her as she took him in. His face was carefully neutral, displaying neither grief nor joy, and it stayed like that as he took in her face, and then her satchel. He lingered on the bag a moment too long, his eyes betraying the barest hint of worry, before he brought himself a little closer in the gloom, his hands pinned behind his back.

"Carlisle has given you your options, then," he said and she did not reply, her breath tight in her chest. "He's told you."

"Yes."

"And you've decided." It was not a question. He spoke it like a fact, as calm and collected as she wished she could be, and though his voice betrayed nothing, the rest of him was not so inscrutable. He could not hide from her anymore, could not tidy himself away behind the austere veil of propriety and tact with which she'd become so familiar, and when she gazed at him to examine those words, she saw the truth as plain as the nose on his face. He was calm, it was true— there was no danger of hysterics here, no threat of drama or violence— but in that calmness was a turmoil, a sort of madness. His eyes shone brilliant ochre, flashing like jewels beneath a brow of stone, and his jaw was wound tight as if to keep in all the things he'd like to say. There could be no lie, no deceit, though it might have made things easier, and she watched as his fingers twitched, the pad of his thumb tracing patterns on his nails.

"Yes."

The irony of it did not escape her— the idea of her leaving him behind after their first parting had wrought such devastation. There was no humour in it, no secret joy of retribution or careful, plotting revenge. There was no laughter. It hung between them like an anvil, heavy and sore, and neither of them moved to shift it, letting it dangle on a frayed, tangled thread.

He caved first, his shoulders dropping when he let out his breath, and when he spoke it was with a care she could seldom remember, a passion she barely knew.

"Have you told the others?"

"Only Carlisle, Esme, and Alice."

"Will you tell them?" Edward queried and there was a shrewd sharpness beneath the civility, almost a barb. "They deserve that much, at least."

"I think they know already."

"Alice might tell them, but…"

"She will," Bella replied with a confidence she barely felt. "She'll do that much for me, I'm sure. I don't want to drag it out."

"No?"

"No."

His hands, hanging loose by his side, tightened into fists.

"I do."

Her stomach clenched.

"There's no use…"

"So I've surmised," he returned. "I only wish…"

The air grew close.

"Wish what?"

"That it could be different."

She held her tongue.

"That I was different," he went on. "That everything that ever was or has been could be different."

"I'm sorry…"

"That's not what I mean," he said, almost before she could get the words out. "I don't want your apologies. I don't deserve them, Bella, and they're not needed."

"I don't know what you do want, then."

"I want you." The whisper floated over on the wind, as soft as a kiss. "All I've ever wanted, all I ever will want, is you."

"I'm right here."

"Not for long."

She hung her head.

"You know you don't have to?" he said gently.

"I know."

"There is no shame in what's happened."

"I know, Edward."

He stared at her, his eyes bright.

"Just so long as you do, Bella," he said after a long, pregnant pause. "I wouldn't want you to think…"

"To think what?"

"That you're not wanted," he answered, echoing his mother so perfectly that Bella almost smiled. "That you're somehow to blame for this. For any of it."

"My actions are my own," she said and he frowned at her, his mood darkening. "What I've done is no one else's fault."

"It's not your fault, either."

"It is,"she said, though she was careful to keep her voice soft. "That's just a fact, Edward, not self-pity."

"We should have…"

"There are many things that should have happened, but very few of them actually did," she interrupted. "I don't want to worry about shoulds. I can't control those."

"No."

He considered her, his hand outstretched.

"I'm sorry for it," he said and she could hear truth in every note. "For all of it, Bella. Had I just listened…"

He trailed off, ending on a deep, sombre sigh, and Bella did not contradict him, did not argue. What he said was true— she had no way of knowing what might have been had he simply paused to listen and though she was grateful he was trying now, it was too little too late. He knew it as well as she did, though neither of them voiced that thought, and when she did not take his hand he let it fall.

"There is so much of the world for you to see," he whispered with longing, and with sadness. "So much of it for me to see, for all I've seen already. Where will you go?"

"I'm not sure."

"Did Carlisle explain to you…?"

"He explained everything," she replied. "I know how to reach out. Emmett gave me the key…"

"The key to what?"

"Denali," she said. "The house there. He didn't have to."

"I think he did," Edward returned. "It's the very least we could do…"

"It's far from the least," she said at once. "So far from it, Edward. I'm grateful for everything your family—"

"Our family," he interjected. "Our family Bella… not just mine."

"I'm grateful for everything our family has done," she corrected. "I wouldn't want you to think I'm not."

"No one thinks that."

"I'll say it anyways," she replied. "I mean it. You don't owe me anything…"

"No one thinks that, either," he replied, this time with a little more force. "Not one of us, Bella."

And this time, when he brought his hand up towards her, she did not step away.

When he touched her, bringing his fingers up to brush her cheek, she felt the very marrow of her bones erupt, that touch igniting in her something unexpected and unknown. Between them, as thick as summer fog, hung a quiet stillness that seemed to permeate Bella's very soul. It was an odd feeling, though not unwelcome, and as she watched him watching her, she did not feel awkward or uneasy. She should have— she should have been brimming with sorrow, or worry, or disgust— but here, in the quiet of the trees, there was nothing left but calm, no sounds but the wind through the leaves and brambles. This world did not care that she was tired. It did not care that she was weary. It did not care that she was frightened, or desperate, or wild, but only that she was here, and that he was there with her.

She had no way to tell what it was like. She had no words to speak it out loud. She could not describe that calmness, could not give voice to this strange and quiet serenity that was as curious as it was complete. She knew only that she felt it, and only that it mattered, and so when he spoke again, breaking that spell, the queer, lonesome ache came back to her and all at once, she felt a tingle in her chest.

They had not touched, not even once since she'd awoken to this new and brilliant life. There had been nothing between them but that briefest brush of his fingers against the fabric of her shirt atop the cliff, cold and unwanted. He had wanted to, she knew— had begged her— but she had not let him lay so much as a finger on any part of her that she could feel.

But this was it, she knew— the end and the beginning— and she could not bear to let him go again without the memory of that touch. There would be nothing to keep him with her but the feeble ghosts of memories from a life she'd once lived, and those ghosts were pale in comparison to the spectres that haunted her now. She had never felt him properly. She had never loved him properly. She had never called him back to her, had neither forgotten nor forgiven, and when she opened her arms now to take what she could, he did not deny her.

It was like coming home, the way those arms enfolded her. He was like a buoy on the water. He was strength, and he was courage, and he was love, so deep and so primal, that it made her dead heart sing. He had never held her so tightly before— however faint her human memories were, she knew that much, at least— and she had surely never held him back, and though she fit there, tucked safe and sound against him, she knew it would not last.

"I love you, Bella," he whispered. "No matter where you go, or what you do, I will always love you."

She kissed him, feather light, on the apple of his cheek.

"I know."

"I'll miss you," he said, and the words broke through mist like rain. "However long you're gone. Christ, I miss you now, though you're right here in front of me. I wish…"

"What do you wish?"

"I wish you'd stay," he breathed. "I wish you wouldn't go, even though I know you will."

"I must."

"There are other ways…"

"Not for me," she said and the finality with which she said it silenced him. "Not for us, Edward. Not anymore."

"I wish you'd tell me where you're going."

"I don't know myself, yet," she answered. "I don't know where I'll be or what I'll do. I only know that I have to do it, Edward."

"I wish I knew why."

"I'm not happy here," she said and the phrase was so blunt, so sudden that it made him frown. "I want to be— you can't even imagine how much— but I'm not. It's the only thing I want, and I have to go."

He watched her, caged as she was between his strong, immovable arms, and let his chin drop to rest on her head when she squeezed him again.

"You won't come back and say goodbye?"

"I've said enough already."

"There is nothing I can say?" he asked, though she knew that he knew the answer before she spoke it. "Nothing I can do?"

"No."

"I'll be waiting, Bella," he said, and this made her heart clench. "If you ever decide you're ready, I'll be waiting."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

"This is the only promise I know I can keep. Whether it's in one year or one hundred, Bella, I'll be here. I don't know who you'll find or what you'll do, but wherever it is and whoever you're with, I'll be waiting for the chance to prove myself again."

"I don't mean to hurt you…"

"And I will not be the one who holds you back," he said and there was such a force in those words that she believed him. "I won't be the one who… chooses."

There was a moment of calm— a moment of sweet, quiet serenity before Bella spoke again.

"I have to go, Edward."

"I know you do."

"Close your eyes."

"Not yet."

"Yes."

He watched her then— really, truly watched her— and though he could not cry and would not weep, she thought she saw a brightness in the turmoil of his eyes. He looked so fiercely, taking all of her in and filing it away in memory, and she let him do it. She was glad, then, that he could not see her thoughts, glad that he could not see just how hard it was for her to step away, but when he'd taken that last, lingering look he obeyed, and she watched those amber eyes fall closed. His arms tightened before they slackened, falling away altogether when she pulled herself back, and when she kissed him, feather light on soft, familiar lips, it was with a whisper and a prayer.

"Goodbye."

She was gone before his eyes reopened, leaving nothing but her scent and her whisper like music on the wind.

A/N: Holy shit. Okay. So.

This chapter ended up being a whopping 50 PAGES LONG. This chapter has also been part of my endgame for a long time now when I started this story, I had no clue how or where I was going to end it. All I knew is that I wanted to write something to do with the abandoned mental health line in New Moon. I had no clue at the beginning that we'd get to Bella's change. I had no clue that I wanted her to leave. All of these things came later, as I was revising and updating my original outline, but finally, at last, here we are at the biggest turning point in the story to date. There was a lot of emotion in this chaptera lot of "sappy", some might say, but you'll forgive me for being a little self-indulgent. There are three things I secretly love in a Twilight fanfic, and I think I've hit them all in this chapter:

1) True, honest sibling love (without any of the weird sexual tension that sometimes happensmy asexual self doesn't always know what to do with that)
2) Carlisle being a father to his kids (and Esme's mothering, to an extent)
3) ANGST

We are NEARING the end, although we are not AT the end quite yet. I still have 3-5 chapters left, depending on how crazy I get, and although I've given up promising when the next instalment will be out, just know that it will be coming, sooner or later.

Much love to all of you who took the time to read this. You're very much appreciated. As always, feedback is always welcome!