DISCLAIMER: All characters and story world belong to SM. All lyrical references and quotes are property of their original artist. No copyright infringement intended.

[Beta'd by: BlahBlahBlah, Bikechick3]
Special thanks to: Ocdmess

Last chapter I asked what song you found extremely seductive.
My answer: Garbage – Number One Crush.
It's hot, what can I say? DAMN hot.

Chapter Playlist:
Nine Inch Nails – Something I Can Never Have (still version)

http:/ /www[dot]youtube[dot]com/user/BeautifullySacred

*Tissue warning.*

Chapter 9
EPOV
Sunday January 15th, 2006

I ran for thirteen hours straight, and I didn't care who saw me. I left the small nightclub just outside of Cantwell, Alaska and headed east. Once I crossed into Yukon, I ran south into British Columbia and followed the shore line straight to Forks, Washington. I looked down at my watch as I passed the welcome sign of Forks; it was 1:47 a.m. Faster, I told myself. I could already be too late.

As I was running, I went over the story I planned to use if I was questioned. Alice had called me to inform me of my best option. They had taken the jeep from the nightclub while Carlisle, Esme and Rosalie were behind them in the Mercedes. They were easily a day behind me.

I shuddered when I reached the familiar doorstep moments later. The truck was not parked outside but the cruiser was, and the house was awfully quiet. I paused on the doorstep for a brief moment as I collected my thoughts.

My knuckles rapped loudly against the wooden door. Keep to the story, and keep your temper. I could make out Charlie's vague thoughts as he came to the door quickly. The door flew open and Charlie paused, wide eyed. His jaw dropped for a brief moment before he closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes into a threatening glare. If he could actually harm me, I might have been afraid. He slammed the door closed and made a loud 'hmph'.

"Charlie, please, I have to know!" I called out louder than I had intended. Please.

He jerked the door open. "Where do you get off showing up here and demanding information?" He looked me over, taking in my appearance. "Who do you think you are, pleading for answers and looking upset? You didn't care then, so why are you here now?"

"Please, Charlie, is she okay? I need to know… please," I begged him. I took a hesitant step forward, and held my breath. I need to know.

He looked me over once more, glaring as he grinded his jaw back and forth as if he was trying to decide something. His mind had always been difficult for me to read, and all I could decipher was anger and resentment along with brief flashes of arresting me under suspicion. I couldn't piece enough together to make sense of it.

"No, she…" he paused as his eyes filled with tears. 'She will never be fine, she will never…' his mind rang clearer than I had ever heard it before. "…she's dead."

I felt my head spin, or maybe it was the world. The empty void in my chest caught fire and the flames licked up my throat and down my limbs. My knowledge of up and down shifted and suddenly, I was on my knees. There was a crack in the cement step below me and my fists were clenched against my temples. I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to make the spinning stop. I took in a shaky breath but instead of breathing in the cold night air, I breathed in fire, smoke and ash that tore at my stone flesh from the inside out. Screaming echoed clearly in my ears, but it wasn't until I felt my lungs run out of breath that I realized the sound was coming from me. I gasped and choked on air as I felt panic overtake me.

Someone was shouting and screaming my name. I opened my eyes and looked up. Charlie gripped my shoulders tightly as he tried to shake me, but my body wouldn't move. He kept screaming my name but I couldn't force myself to answer him. I tried to calm my breathing as the spinning slowly came to a stop. The muffled shouting came in clearer and I tried to focus.

"Edward, EDWARD! Stop! Edward, Stop!" Charlie screamed.

Slowly, I loosened my hands from my temples, relaxing my fists as I tried to get a grasp on my surroundings. I slowly focused on Charlie's words as he continued to shout at me.

"Snap out of it, Edward! Edward!" His voice was clear to me, finally. I felt the force of his hands as he tried to lift me from my position on his doorstep.

I simply stared up at him, completely unaware of what to do. She's gone. She. Is. Gone. Bella is gone. My Bella. She's gone.

"She's gone…" I finally spoke.

Charlie froze. Slowly, he released his grasp on my arms. He took a cautious step backwards, hesitating how to respond.

"Yes, she's gone. I don't know what happened. I was at work… I should have stayed home. She shouldn't have been home alone. I don't know what happened…" He was rambling to himself, rather than speaking to me. He was still coming to terms with the entire situation as well, it seemed. The hole in my chest ripped further as I realized what he had lost. He lost his only daughter. I could never know how that felt, but I had lost my mate. My love, my Bella, and he will never know how I felt, either.

"I don't understand what happened. She's gone and there's blood in her room, and a note, and her car, the fire… she's gone." He seemed to be in a far away place as the images played through his head slowly.

Her room was tidy, but there were two small pools of blood on the floor. By her bed there was a bigger puddle, smeared like something had been dragged through it, and a folded piece of paper. Her truck was south of town, still smoking and charred black.

"You did this. It's your fault." He sounded surprised, but certain. "It's your fault. You did this to her. You destroyed her. I don't know what happened between you two, but you did this to her." He was pointing at me now, his eyes wide and filled with anger. Flashes of her screaming in bed as he tried to calm her down rushed through his mind. More images raced through his thoughts and in each one she looked increasingly more sickly, frail, and broken. The last memory, however, lingered. Charlie was outside and looking up at her as she sat in her rocking chair, looking out her window with a vacant expression, and purple hollows under her eyes. She looked dead and chilled over, filled with sorrow.

"Get off my property. I never want to see your face again, Cullen! You destroyed my girl and turned her into nothing, and now she's gone! She will never have the chance to get over you, or to be happy! It's because of you!" He tried to push me, but I still wouldn't move. My knee was still wedged in the same crack in the cement. He turned and walked inside, slamming the door for the second time.

I simply sat there on my knees, on his doorstep. I didn't move, or blink, or breathe; I couldn't. She's gone. I repeated the words over and over in my mind. The hole in my chest seemed to swallow me entirely. All I felt was loss and anguish as it burned through my veins like liquid fire. My paralysis seemed to ache infinitely worse than my change had. Even with the winter air having dropped well below thirty degrees, I still felt the heat coursing through me.

Occasionally, I could sense someone watching me, but I didn't reach out to read their mind. I was too lost in my own mind to focus on anything else. The watcher could have easily killed me if they knew how, and I wouldn't have made any effort to move. I wished for such an easy death, but I deserved a painful one. She had left this planet far too early, probably in excruciating pain, and it had been because of me.

I deserved to have my body torn apart and scattered, left to feel each one of my limbs individually consumed by the flames as they lapped at my bones.

I did this to her. She's gone.

The sound of the phone ringing inside the house pulled me out of my trance-like state. I had no idea how much time had passed as I sat frozen in the same position on the cement step. Charlie shuffled quickly to the kitchen wall and answered. I watched him through the partially-opened curtain of the dining room.

"Hello? Yes? Hello?" he said quickly, hardly giving the caller a chance to respond. There was a pause and then he huffed angrily.

"Yeah, he's sitting on my doorstep like a rock and won't leave," Charlie answered.

"I told him what happened – look, why am I talking to you about this? Just come and get your son off of my property before I take matters into my own hands." Another long pause and Charlie shifted his weight, letting out a loud sigh. If I had strained I could have listened to Carlisle on the other end, but I just didn't have the focus.

"Well what am I supposed to do about him until then? I can't just leave him on my porch until morning; it's freezing outside." He sounded impatient, but concerned. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and nodded absentmindedly.

"Alright, fine, give me a second." He paused and set the phone down. His footsteps grew louder as he mumbled under his breath about having bigger issues to worry about at three in the morning. The door swung open for the third time and he looked down at me.

"Your father would like me to ask you to meet him at your old house. I don't know how you got here so quickly and so far ahead of the rest of your family, but they said to inform you that they will be arriving there around nine tomorrow night, and that you better be there. Oh, and to answer your phone. Apparently they've been trying to get a hold of you." Charlie glared at me, waiting a long moment for a response. I blinked and looked down, not saying a word. He huffed and slammed the door, before walking back to the phone.

"Alright, I told him — what? No, he's still sitting there."

I sighed and got to my feet. I guess I should move out of sight before he calls the rest of Forks to have me removed. I moved quickly to the tree outside of her bedroom and paused on the largest branch. The scent of freesias hit me first, quickly followed by the exceptionally strong scent of her cold blood. I opened her window and climbed into her bedroom, being careful to not disturb anything.

On the floor directly under the window sill was a small puddle of dried blood. Beside the bed was another puddle, along with smears in multiple directions. A partial hand print was visible on the outside edge furthest from the bed. A corner of the blanket had a stain the size of her palm. Alice's visions flashed in sequence, replaying in my mind.

Music. There had been music playing.

I walked over to her CD player and looked it over. That's odd. The CD player was still on and it was looping the same track, but the volume had been turned down. I took note of the track number and hit stop. I popped the lid open and peered in at the CD. The top was filled with primary colors in an abstract painting. The title read 'The Answers' and track thirteen was 'Black Orchid'. I looked around the table for the CD case and spotted it on top of a pile of notebooks. I flipped the booklet open and searched for the lyrics, but there were none written inside. Pocketing the CD, I scanned the rest of the room for clues. I would listen to the track later.

Her room was mostly tidy, except for the pile of papers and clutter on her desk. Remembering the piece of paper from Charlie's memories, I dropped to the floor silently and looked under the bed. I spotted the paper next to the bed post and picked it up, unfolding it carefully. Two words flooded my memory, and I gasped.

'Be safe.'

She kept it. After everything that I had put her through, she kept it. It was the only thing of myself I hadn't taken from her. I just assumed she thrown it out the same day that I'd given it to her. Why would she have kept it? I couldn't make sense of it. It was such a small, trivial thing.

My mind searched for a reason, trying to rationalize this. Then it clicked. In my bedroom was a box of my keepsakes, and in the box was the bottle cap from the first day we'd eaten lunch together at school. I had kept something trivial, so why would it surprise me that she had as well? That's easy, humans don't love the same way our kind does, I argued with myself.

I slipped the paper into my pocket and spent another ten minutes examining Bella's room for clues. There were a few odd scents, but they were hard to distinguish. I was certain that there had been a handful of police officers in here gathering evidence, so it could have easily been one of them. It still didn't sit right with me, but I shoved it aside.

I struggled internally over the prospect of reading Bella's notebooks. I hesitantly turned the first page of the one on top. There were a dozen different-sized eyes and odd shadows drawn with words scratched out so hard I couldn't read them. I flipped to the next page and gasped. It was another page filled with eyes, but these eyes were crying and looked more like hers. My eyes roamed over the paper as I took in all of the images. I had never known she was a talented artist. Tucked in the bottom right corner there was a phrase written in her handwriting.

'Never is a promise…'

I swallowed as my body shook. What promise, sweet Bella?

I closed the notebook and didn't even consider opening another one. It felt wrong to look into her private notebooks. The fact that I could read everyone's mind but hers always reminded me that if she wanted to share her thoughts with me, she would. She would have frowned upon this invasion of her privacy, that is, if she were here to defend it.

I felt my body tremble as my mind processed the truth once again. She's gone. I swallowed the venom that was pooling in my mouth and took a seat in the rocking chair. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms tightly around my chest, and as I rocked back and forth, the chair creaked while moving oddly under me. It never did that before. I leaned to the side to look under the chair.

Under the back half of the rocking chair was an object with a turquoise handle and a narrow point. I picked it up gingerly and brought it into the light. I gasped as I realized what it was. Why would there be a scalpel in her room? Better yet, why would it be covered in blood? And why hadn't the police found and tagged it?

The feeling of astonishment and wonder flooded through me as I watched every piece fall into its proper place. I doubled over, shutting my eyes tightly as I realized how everything fit together.

She hurt herself intentionally. I was uncertain if her intent had been to die, or to just simply hurt. Had she been hurting herself for very long? Was this her only attempt at killing herself? Why did she leave the house afterward? Where was she going? Did she panic about Charlie finding her, so she left and crashed her truck?

Oh my god, I gasped in shock, Bella killed herself.

Charlie's words flooded my mind again. "It's your fault. You did this to her. You destroyed her. You destroyed my girl, and turned her into nothing, and now she is gone! She will never have the chance to get over you, or to be happy! It's because of you"

I destroyed her? I replayed Alice's visions in my head. I shook my head in disbelief. It fit, though. It fit more than anything else. Alice's memories from the day she sang 'Dear Friend' flashed through my mind. She had thought of times I had never seen before. They were nights filled with her crying herself to sleep, looking frail, and thin. The images that Charlie had focused on when he saw me at his doorstep hit me. She was sitting in the rocking chair with a vacant expression, as if she was already dead inside.

I destroyed her. God, what have I done? She killed herself. I killed her.

At that exact moment I realized that everyone had been right all along. They were all right, and I was wrong. That seemed to be happening to me a lot in my century of existence.

I had a soul. I may be a monster, but I had a soul. I knew I had a soul because the moment I realized that I had killed Bella, realized she was gone forever, I felt it break in half, and shatter into dust.

I killed my soul mate.

./.

It was nearly four in the morning. It would be another twelve to fifteen hours before the rest of my family made it into Forks. I had been ignoring their phone calls and I was certain that it wasn't pleasing any of them. I ran to our meadow to have solitude while I sobbed and screamed at the night sky. I lost the good part of my soul before I even realized I had one to begin with. I had destroyed it, just like I had always insisted I had, but in the process, I had destroyed her.

I stayed at the meadow for a good portion of the afternoon, only getting up to leave when I had realized how late it had become. I walked slowly from our sanctuary at a human speed to my old house. I didn't want to be there any longer than I had to be. I reached the house around seven that night. As I made my way up the driveway, I caught her scent and paused.

"Bella?" I choked out the painful name.

I inhaled the evening air a second time. Definitely her scent. I noticed a second scent that was unfamiliar. Another vampire? The scent seemed to be recent as well, which startled me. I stood frozen for a solid minute before I began to process the possibilities.

Maybe she didn't kill herself. Maybe another vampire dragged her out of her room. But who? It didn't smell like Laurent or Victoria. It wasn't a scent I recognized. But the scalpel… a vampire wouldn't bring a scalpel. She had intended to hurt herself for some reason. I shuffled through more ideas, disregarding them as quickly as they came. Now, nothing fit, except the fact that shehad harmed herself on purpose.

I stepped through the front door and the scent assaulted me. It was her alright, and another vampire. Could they have been here at the same time? But what would she have been doing here by herself, or with another vampire? I ran through the house. Her scent was strongest in my bedroom and in the living room near the piano. There was a half-empty box of cereal in the pantry, and milk that wasn't yet outdated. She's been here recently, I thought, with the intention of being here long enough to require food.

What happened to you, Bella? What happened when I left? I wished she could answer me, but I knew it was a moot point. I would never hear her sweet voice again. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to push the memories from my mind before they started, but I was completely overwhelmed by her.

The smell of her hair as she crawled into bed every night. The innocence in her smile when I would whisper in her ear. The color of her eyes as she studied my expression. The smell of her skin as she slept wrapped in my arms. The warmth of her flesh as she dreamed. The pink of her blush when I would dazzle her. The taste of her lips as she whispered my name. The feel of her casual touch when we walked, holding hands. The sound of her laugh. The sound of her heartbeat.

The memories of our short time spent together broke me.

"STOP!" I cried out as I fell to the kitchen floor in a crumpled mess. "Stop…" My voice trembled as I sobbed.

./.

I sat in silence for a long time before I walked back into the living room. Another hour, I told myself. Another hour and they will be here, and there will be no escape or solitude.

I sat down on the piano bench and stared at the keys. I noticed they were dust-free and covered in an oily residue. Did she play my piano? Towards the center of the piano, there was a key with a smear of blood in the crevice, but it was so small I couldn't tell how fresh it was. She was here. She sat here, and bled. My mind raced over the reasons why she would have been here in the first place, and what she would have been doing. Nothing seemed to make any sense. I only ended up with more questions, instead of answers. 'The Answers', I thought. The CD might hold some information. I decided that as soon as Alice got here, I would borrow the stereo in her car.

I was pulled back to reality by the steady rhythm of notes. My finger was twitching over three keys, causing an eerie melody to fill the house. I turned my full attention to the piano and continued to play. After the fifth repeat of the notes, I started playing a lower piece to accompany it. I closed my eyes and just let the melody echo through my mind.

Images of Bella started to shuffle through my mind; they were happy at first, but slowly turned into her sad expressions, and eventually her pained state of existence after I left her. I only shared a small portion of her life with her, but it was the best part of my entire existence. While most of the time was spent in fear over hurting her, losing her, killing her, or loving her, we did manage to share some rather happy moments together.

I could feel the venomous tears building, but they had nowhere to go; vampires couldn't cry. I recalled the few times I had witnessed Bella cry, her salty, liquid sorrow was one of the worst things I had ever witnessed. I had sworn to myself that I would do whatever it took to never see her tears again, and then I caused them to fall like the rain the day I left her.

"I still recall the taste of your tears, echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears," I sang quietly to myself. I remembered the sensation of stroking her hair as she sobbed. I could still feel her hair between my fingers as I gently comforted her. I can never soothe her again, or wipe away her sadness.

"My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore, scraping through my head 'till I don't want to sleep anymore." I knew I couldn't physically dream, but every time I closed my eyes, I pictured her in my mind. The night of the dance, the day of the baseball game, the way home from Port Angeles. All of the memories flooded my mind, but if I couldn't have her, then all I wanted was to be surrounded by nothingness.

"You make this all go away. I'm down to just one thing, and I'm starting to scare myself," I sang, trembling. All I had left was my family, but I didn't know if they would be enough. I had existed as a shell for so long. I didn't become anything until she came into my life. The thought of having to go back to my empty existence scared me tremendously.

I can't live without her. I don't want to live without her. This world holds nothing for me anymore.

"You always were the one to show me how, back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now." She had taught me so many things. Another century would never teach me the things she had; how to love, how to forgive, how to accept myself, and how to trust. I trusted her with everything. I would have happily spent the rest of her life with her if I could have been certain that I wouldn't put her in danger. She showed me I had a soul, and that I wasn't damned.

"This thing is slowly taking me apart; grey would be the color if I had a heart." I felt the empty void in my chest as it seared painfully, reminding me of hole that she had left in my soul. I had given her all of my heart, and it died with her. I pressed down on the ivory keys with more force, my voice cracking as I screamed out the pain inside of me.

"You make this all go away. You make it all go away. I just want something… I just want something I can never have." I shuddered, and another sob wracked my body. I felt pressure building behind my glossy eyes as they filled with more tears. My whole body was trembling with pain and fear.

"Everywhere I look you're all I see; just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be!"I screamed out the words. I was so angry that she was taken from me. I hated myself for leaving her, but for her to be taken from this world altogether was just too much. I was cursing the world, God, the sky, and anyone else that would listen. I heard multiple gasps from my right as the words left my lips. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. Esme was standing in the doorway, with the rest of my family behind her. I could feel their eyes on me as they stood with silent minds.

I continued to scream out the words with such hatred, anguish, and remorse, I didn't even recognize my own voice. I cracked a key as I slammed the ivory with extreme force. I continued to play, shifting the melody to accommodate the broken key. My chest heaved as I shook violently, filled with anger and sadness. I filled my lungs with the scent of freesias mingled with my family, and snapped. The sadness in my broken heart was too overwhelming. Jasper groaned before collapsing to his knees.

"I just want something, I can never have…" The words left my lips in a whisper. I closed my eyes tighter and pictured my Bella. The perfection that was once meant for me, that I abandoned. That I had killed.

I felt wetness roll down my cheeks and linger at my chin before dripping onto the keys. I heard a gasp come from everyone behind me. I opened my eyes and turned slowly to look at them, the pain written across my face.

"Edward…" Esme said hesitantly as she reached a trembling hand out for me.

I closed my eyes and cast my head downward. I didn't need their pity, or their love. Their affection would never be enough, and their pity only angered me further. They would never know how this felt. Not even Jasper could grasp the entirety of emotions I felt because of her loss; he'd never lost his soul mate.

Esme was quickly at my side as she slowly lifted her palm to my cheek, and rubbed her thumb under my eye. The dampness smeared and her breath shuddered. "Edward, you're crying…"

Song question for the chapter: What is an underrated song that you feel holds so much strength and power in the emotions it conveys that the whole world should know about it?