Thanks to addicttwilight2. Standard disclaimers still apply.

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I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

~ "Ebb", Edna St. Vincent Millay.

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Chapter Four: Heart

He couldn't quantify the amount of time he spent locked away inside himself. It could have been minutes, days, years. Huddling in the dark dankness of a little-used cellar, he wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth slowly, slipping into the peaceful fog of his subconscious, his memories of a happier time.

"I love you more than anything," Bella murmured softly between kisses. He stroked the hair back from her eyes gently, revelling at the sensation of holding his naked wife in his arms, rejoicing at there being absolutely nothing between them.

"You're all I want. All I need. Everything," he said simply, and watched as her eyes misted, her small body unable to contain the force of her love.

She planted a small butterfly kiss on his exposed collarbone, her tongue snaking out to grace his skin with warmth. He could do nothing but lie there and grasp at his control with shaking hands as her tiny frame moved on top of him, worshipping him, loving him. The position felt so backward, so wrong, but his will crumbled to dust under the gentle touch of her hands, the look of utter devotion in her eyes.

He grasped her under her armpits gently, hauling her from where her mouth had been meandering lazily around his navel, and kissed her. He tried to pour as much of himself as possible into the simple, almost chaste contact, trying to communicate without words how much he wanted her, needed her, couldn't live without her.

He knew she felt it too. She accepted him utterly, wholly, returned his greedy kisses, sated his desperate need, accepted all he had to offer her and in return allowed him the greatest sanctity he had ever known, would ever know. Their bodies moved together in perfect synchrony, and he had the thought, as his hands smoothed around the gentle curve of her waist, that she had been crafted, body and mind, especially for him.

And then, somehow, the perfect image of his wife trembling in his arms faded and dissolved, and he was left gasping, grasping desperately for the peace the memory had brought him.

"Come back," he muttered to himself, not caring that this declaration would surely serve as definitive proof to any outsider that his mind had finally snapped.

Gritting his teeth he concentrated hard, straining for the escape this could give him.

Bella surveying her naked body in the mirror of their Parisian suite, her gaze focused on the penny-shaped bruises on her hips.

"Oh please. This could have happened with a human," she scoffed, throwing him a smile over her shoulder. "This is nothing, Edward. It doesn't even hurt. I promise."

She walked back to him, her hips swaying, her arms reaching for him...

The image fizzled out again. He almost groaned aloud in frustration. He knew, so clearly, what had happened next, knew the feelings that had inundated him, the words that they'd gasped to each other at their greatest moments of vulnerability, and yet he could not lose himself in the memories. It felt as though he were watching a film rather than reliving moments of his life. Watching a film and finding it hard to believe that any man could ever have been that lucky.

He could almost feel beads of sweat pooling on his forehead as he battled with his stubborn brain, fighting to experience even the merest shadow of the bliss she'd inspired within him...

Bella smiling at him weakly around the hard plastic of an oxygen mask.

"No, stop it," he whispered, too low for anyone to hear.

Bella, bleeding on his kitchen table, his father's hands working diligently to staunch her wounds.

He swallowed harshly, expecting tears to prick at the corner of his eyes for maybe the millionth time since he'd been changed.

Bella's hands clutching at his hair, not in passion but in fear, trying to pull his teeth from her flesh.

His mouth went dry. "No," he whispered, horrified.

Bella's eyes as they swam with unbearable pain, Bella's small frame as it writhed in agony, Bella's mind as it shrieked at the knowledge that she was about to lose everything...

"No, that wasn't her," he moaned, clutching at his hair, trying with desperation to quell the next image that swam before him.

Bella's eyes as they stared dully towards a sky they would never see again. Bella's neck, twisted at an odd angle. Bella's broken and mangled body.

"It wasn't her!" he cried aloud, his arms wrapping around his midsection. "It wasn't her, she's alive, she's okay, it wasn't her!"

It was somebody's Bella.

He buried his face in his hands and sobbed brokenly.

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The next thing he was aware of was the uncomfortable sensation of water, seeping slowly through his clothes.

Vampires did not feel cold, did not feel discomfort, of course. But the unwelcome and unfathomable feeling was enough to make him blink once, twice, and look dully down at himself.

As one in a daze, he watched as a tiny hand descended towards his face quickly, barely registering the sharp sting that came with Alice using all her strength to slap him.

"Edward, stop being such a stubborn asshole!" she shrieked, catching him by the lapels of his shirt, shaking him. He could only stare witlessly at her.

The conscious mind, whether human or immortal, was capable of experiencing infinite thoughts and experiences at the exact same time. There were the primary, mundane thoughts, of course – wonder what's for dinner, can't wait for the game tonight, is that goddamned driver ever going to cancel his signal light – but at the back of it all a thousand other concerns clamoured for attention. From the ever-present worry about a sick child to the minor, often unconscious, annoyance of an itchy label at the back of a shirt.

As a direct consequence of his gift, Edward had become skilful at sifting through the meaningless debris to pluck out the kernel of information useful to him. But at that moment, as he looked into his sister's face, all he could feel was her inexplicable anger. He did not sense the worry or fear behind it and did not care about the forces driving it.

"I'm sorry," he said listlessly, curling himself into a tighter ball.

"Don't be sorry, for Christ's sake," Alice exploded. "Just listen to me for once in your life, will you?"

He blinked, tried to focus, stared blearily up at her.

"What is it?" he asked, doing his best to feign interest.

"I've been talking to Jasper, and..."

Jasper. Of course it was about her mate. He tuned her out again, the melodic bells in her voice blending seamlessly to white noise.

She slapped him again. "I said listen to me, Edward! This is important!"

He swallowed. "Cut to the chase, Alice, my concentration span isn't what it used to be," he whispered. Even to him, his voice sounded like the flapping of dead leaves.

"Fine, then," she snapped, "let's talk about something that's always gotten your attention. BELLA, Edward."

He winced. "Stop it."

She caught him by the wrists, forced his hands down and away from his face.

"Bella," she said forcefully, angrily. "I need to talk to you about Bella."

He couldn't muster up the strength to argue. "What about her?"

"When, exactly, did everything go sour between you?"

He winced again, and for the first time the shadow of contrition fell over Alice's face.

"I'm sorry," she said hurriedly, and he could tell she meant it. "I know that this is hard for you. I know it is. But I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't important."

"Why is it important?" he asked drearily.

"Never mind that. Just answer the damned question." Her eyes were fierce and intent upon his. Unwillingly, he thought for a few minutes.

"Do you remember that hunting trip we took to Juneau?" he asked finally. At her nod, he continued. "It was after that. After we'd gotten back. I went home and... things were different."

Alice didn't miss a beat. "Different how?"

It was testament to how far he'd disintegrated that he didn't even hesitate in sharing the details of what had once been his life with his sister.

"She didn't want to make love," he said, and swallowed hard. "Any separation for us back then used to be... painful."

Bella's voice murmuring softly in his darkened bedroom. "I missed you..."

"She pushed me away," he said, his voice hiccupping slightly. "She used to sleep all huddled into my chest, like a kitten. That night she slept facing away from me. And whenever I touched her after that... she shivered."

Alice nodded, her face composed, her voice thoughtful. "This was what – two weeks after you two got back from Paris?"

Bella's hair flapping around them wildly as they stood at the topmost platform of the Eiffel Tower, looking out at the city. She turned to him, smiling brilliantly.

"Would you catch me if I fell?" she asked, her voice teasing.

His reply was instantaneous. "Always."

He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Something like that."

He was suddenly irrationally furious with his little sister for making him relive all of this pain.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, his voice measured but warning.

She stood her ground, her tiny arms crossed across her chest. "I'm here to help you, Edward. To bring you home."

"Wherever you are..."

"I have no home," he told her lifelessly. "Not anymore."

Alice opened her mouth to retaliate, but he beat her to it.

"Did you see it?" he demanded. "Did you see this coming?"

Her face went blank. "You know I didn't," she whispered, her voice full of dread. "I thought there was something wrong between you, but if I'd thought for a second..."

He turned his face from her. "Forget it," he said bitterly. "It's not like you knowing would have changed anything."

When she spoke again, her voice was tight. "It wasn't just you she left, you know. It wasn't just you she withdrew from. She did it to all of us."

"Do you know that I killed a woman today?" he asked his knees. "I drank her blood, snapped her neck and left her to rot in a trash-filled alley. Did you see that happening, little sister?"

"Yes," she said gravely.

He looked up at her. "Then why come here?" he asked bitterly. "Why ask all these questions, dredge all of this back up? You see what I've become. What I've always been. What we all are. Can you really blame her for leaving?"

Alice's face was hard. "Yes. And no."

He rested his forehead on his knees. "I can't talk to you about this, Alice," he said tiredly. "Please, just go away."

She moved to kneel beside him. One of her hands came forward to clasp his.

"What if I said you could stop being such a masochist, Edward?" she asked, her voice very quiet. "What if I told you that I knew the exact reason why Bella left?"

"I know why she left already. She finally realised what we are. What I am. What she married."

He could feel air moving around Alice's head as she shook it.

"That's utter crap and you know it. You know that Bella loved you. Loves you. Hasn't she proved it often enough? What does it take for you to believe it, Edward?"

He lifted his head to stare at her. She stared right back at him.

"What does it take for you to accept that it's over?" he whispered incredulously. "Were the divorce papers not enough? What about the mutt? Was the fact that Bella was with Jacob Black, the only other man she's ever loved, not proof enough for you? What'll it take, Alice? If you see them getting married, then will you give up this stupid illusion that Bella was ever meant to be your sister?"

Her face was hard. "Never, Edward."

He shook his head in disbelief. "What possible rationale..."

"Will you shut up for just one second?" She interrupted him angrily, and for the first time he detected something beside her mask of anger and pain, some purpose behind questions that had previously seemed utterly pointless.

A room with whitewashed walls, an iron-wrought bed, a flash of porcelain skin...

"What was that?" he asked sharply, his senses suddenly on hyper-alert. "Have you seen something else, Alice? Tell me!"

She took a deep breath, her hand on his suddenly squeezing.

"Yes, I have. And I think it could – I think it could explain everything. I don't understand it all, not yet," she said dourly, a pucker forming between her eyebrows. "But I think... Edward, I think it's a good thing... you just have to promise not to freak out."

"Anything, anything," he said hurriedly, his entire being straining, despite itself, for another glimpse of his wife.

Alice looked him straight in the eyes.

"It's definitely Bella," she promised grimly. "And... Edward..."

Without further ado or preamble, he was plunged straight into her vision. It was only a flash, but still it inspired a coiling fear within him that made him cry out with terror.

Bella's slender form writhing on a bed, her spine arching, fingers and toes stretched to breaking point as she screamed. "Edward, Edward, Edward..."

Then Alice's voice, full of trepidation, confirming what he already knew.

"I think she's... changing."

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