4. Waking up

As one who can live forever, time was never something that was focused upon, an unspoken, unfelt happening that passes without ever changing its pattern- years seem like minutes, minutes, like seconds, and seconds are indistinguishable. But for me, all forward movement had stopped, like the un-beating rhythm of a dead heart.

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B… Bella? Is that you?

I could swear I had just heard her voice. Was she here? Had she found me?

I felt a smile creep over my face, elated to be able to see her. I tried to open my eyes, but it was as if a force keeping them shut. Bright, painful light shown in through my eyelids. Where was I?

An explanation jumped to my mind right away, but it was so absurd that I pushed it away.

It was unreasonably cold, and I shivered a bit. A strong breeze blew on my face, waking me up more and more.

Finally, I found enough strength to open a slit in between my eyelids. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the brilliant light just enough so that I could see the outline of a woman standing over me. It had to be Bella. She had been singing- what was it about? I couldn't remember. The same thought as before sprung back again, as it was the only justification as to how we could be together.

Carlisle must have been right, and I was in heaven.

I blinked a couple times, wanting a better view of her. As I did this, I started to feel the pair of strong arms that held me from underneath. I was being carried.

My vision started to clear, and I realized that something was wrong. Bella did not have blonde hair; her skin was pale but not that pale…

Although she was not Bella, I felt for some reason that I knew the woman. There was a kind of familiarity about her that told me that I should not be afraid of her. She had lifted me while my body was still cramped the fetal position, and was taking me somewhere at an excessive speed, which explained the breeze.

Disappointed and weak, I started racking my brain to try to remember something- anything. Had I been in an accident? How long had I been out for? Was Bella okay? Who was this woman?

Trying to move my body, I found it was frozen, unable to leave from the position I was in. Uncomfortable and achy, I fought against myself, desperate for some reaction.

Finally, I managed a twitch from the thumb of my right hand, which had been seized up into a fist. The thumb brushed against the woman's arm ever so slightly, something that should have gone unnoticed.

The woman turned her face down to look at me, shocked.

"Oh! Edward, you're conscious! You gave me such a fright, you know. I'm so glad you're up- we have to get you hunting. You've pushed your limit way to far."

As her topaz eyes stared intently into mine, lovingly concerned, my stomach gave a sudden lurch. I gasped loudly, the memories flooding back to me in severe waves.

The woman who was carrying me was named Tanya and was a member of the Denali Clan. She was a vampire, as was I.

I was being carried because I had collapsed into a coma, or the vampire equivalent.

I had collapsed because of a mixture of things. For one, I was weak from not having hunted in too long of a time period. The other reason was much more dire. I had left Bella, my love, my existence; she, no doubt, now loathed me. I had acted so cold, so calculating.

I would never see her again.

With the weight bearing down on me again, crushing my insides, I heard myself start to whimper in anguish. There was no stopping it; I was slipping into oblivion again.

The more I pushed and kicked for the surface, the more agonizing and frustrating things became. Somehow, I noticed that Tanya had completely stopped in a split second, and was gaping at me, still in her arms, her mouth wide open in a silent yell. I could hear her thoughts; they seemed to be screaming although they were very faint to me, trying to figure out what to do. She wanted to help, but there was no obvious outside infliction of this pain.

It was then that I finally felt the blazing agony on the inside of my throat, a thirst like I had never felt before, not even when I had first changed. It felt as though someone held a blowtorch to my throat, cutting at my hard metal skin in order to detach my head.

An excruciating wail escaped my lips as darkness consumed me again.

It was exactly as before, a never-ending cycle. My body had locked me within myself, unable to move and inch or make a sound, the vampire defensive mechanism multiplied hundredfold by the severity of the multi-layered anguish.

Unable to escape the barrage of emotional bullets, images all too familiar began to flash in front of my eyes. I had seen these images during my last stint as my own prisoner.

I saw Bella, broken, in a dark corner of a mirrored room, James sinking his teeth into her pale, silky skin. I saw Bella screaming and writhing in pain as the venom started to spread, and then I saw her hooked up to machines and IVs in the hospital afterwards. Bella's face wrought with fear as she lay in the shattered glass on her birthday, her arm gushing sweet, irresistible blood; her wide eyes reflecting six hungry vampires.

I saw Bella detaching herself from those around her as I became more frigid. Bella, desperate, taking sharp, broken sobs as I tore her heart out, making a mockery of every moment we had spent together. Bella's deep brown eyes, passionate and full of despair, as I made her promise to stay safe.

I saw Bella at Forks High, laughing with her friends, her heart healing with time. Bella finally giving into a date with Mike Newton, and really enjoying herself. Bella sharing loving glances with him at their wedding, when they had their first child, when they grew old together.

I don't know which set made me agonize more. Jealousy, adoration, love, anger, and pain mixed with other emotions I could not identify but knew were there to become my own personal Molotov cocktail. On top of all that, I felt amazed that this creature could create such a reaction in a normally unfeeling fiend. Vampires were made to kill, not to love. Somehow, however, Bella had changed me, releasing me from the villainous inner workings, replacing them with the human traits I had left behind. For a fragile mortal, she had powers beyond anything I had ever known.

Masochistically curious, I searched my subconscious for more pictures of Bella. I wanted to reach out and touch her, to feel the warmth she spread over me. She flashed in front of me, time ticking away at warp speed, and she changed rapidly through the seasons of her life.

When wrinkles had taken over her face she turned, and although she was barely recognizable as the girl I loved, her eyes were still the same, deep and full of meaning and knowledge.

"Edward," she addressed me, her voice scolding, the crease caught in the wrinkles in the space above her eyes. "Wake up, Edward. You're not being fair to your family. They miss you. They're scared for you. You're being selfish."

Then, the bright light started to appear again, behind the Bella in my vision, washing her out as it became brighter. Anguish turned to panic- she could not leave me. I needed her.

I knew she was right, though. I didn't know how long it had been since I had last spoken to my family. Surely by now they were searching for me.

The old lady Bella faded, and then disappeared as the light started to blind me again.

Something warm and salty slid down my throat, a viscous liquid with a taste that only blood could have. It was blood from a caribou; not the best thing I'd ever tasted but still sated my thirst. For the first time in how long, I couldn't remember, the intense heat that scratched my throat calmed, the fire quenched.

Warmth spread out from deep within me as the blood quickly digested, returning some of my strength. It wasn't the happy kind of warmth I wanted, but the kind that suggested necessity.

Slowly, the light became less blinding and the throbbing in my head dulled, allowing me to think more clearly. My body ached, both physically and in need for Bella.

Looking up, I realized that Tanya was still holding me, although this time, I was on the ground, and she was kneeling next to me. She held a shiny steel cup full of the caribou blood and was pouring some down my throat every few minutes, being careful not to make me choke. The concern that shown in her face was heartbreaking, but it was nothing compared to Bella, missing that cute little pucker between her eyes and the way she subconsciously bit her plump bottom lip. Tanya's golden eyes, while beautiful in hue, held a hardened quality that Bella's deep chocolate eyes would never portray.

"Hi." My voice was scratchy and I didn't know what else to say.

She gasped, briefly frightened, then her eyes narrowed into angry slits.

"Edward Anthony Mason Cullen, how dare you pull this?! You had us all at our wits end, searching the ends of the earth for you. This is something that none of us have ever seen the likes of, not even Carlisle! Poor Carlisle, he was afraid he had lost you. I told him, of course, that there was only one way to kill a vampire, and this definitely was not it, but he was convinced." She said it all in a blur, faster than I had ever experienced someone speak, and in my still somewhat dazed state, I understood bits and pieced the rest together.

Her face then flashed relief, and then screwed up into something that can only be described as painfully beautiful. Looking to the side while bringing a hand to her face, she cried dryly for a moment, and then, taking a huge breath, steadied herself.

"Then, to make matters worse, you wake up for me, and I think you're okay, and then you go into this shrieking fit and pass out again! How can you manage to always toy with a girl's heart so?"

The last sentence she said in a half joking manner. Tanya would never quite get over the fact that I had declined her advances more than once.

"I'm sorry, Tanya." It was all I could reply, and, due to my listless tone, it hardly sounded sincere.

"Yeah, you're sorry. Drink more of this, it seems to be helping you."

I took another swig from the metal container. It felt very strange to be drinking liquid from a cup again and actually not being repulsed by it.

"How long exactly has it been since you last hunted?"

I wondered if my family had told Tanya anything about the real reason for my breakdown.

She must have seen something flash across my visage, because she then added, "Listen, I know what happened. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett and Rosalie came straight to us when they left Forks. I think that they had some idea that the plan would go awry. Alice and Jasper arrived a few days later, once you had dropped off the Earth for a few days. We all split up into teams, looking wherever we could since you wouldn't return any phone calls. But before we split, Carlisle felt that Kate, Irina, Eleazar, Carmen and I all needed to know about what had happened with Bella and your decision to leave her. He felt that whoever got to you first needed to be prepared for the worst.

"And obviously with good reason, since you were letting yourself waste away."

So, Tanya knew about Bella, but I knew that she wouldn't push the topic with me. She would not want to talk about the silly human who had much more of an effect on me than her. Also, I do not think Tanya really grasped the severity of the situation she just found me in. She did not realize the way my body locked down on itself, the amount of torture that I endured, which was equal to, if not less than, the amount I deserved.

"It's been a couple of months," I admitted.

"Well that was dumb of you, Edward. Look at what you did to yourself."

I just shrugged and took another swig of caribou blood.

"Finish that up, everyone is waiting for you back at the house."

I expected on the fact that my family would be there, counted on that, so that I could let them know that I was alright. I needed to let them know what I would do next, and what I needed them to do for me. My vision Bella had helped me to see clearly for the first time in days what my purpose was.

As much as Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice and Jasper, as well as the Denali Clan, were all my family, Bella was now too, whether I was a part of hers or not. I had a duty to protect my family, and that meant that I would spend as much time as needed hunting down Victoria. My family would have to let me go wherever I needed.

Of course, I would reassure them that this time, I would most certainly just be a phone call away, because Bella had woken me up for good.

"Alright," I said, tilting the cup back for one final swig, "Let's get this show on the road."

Tanya made no effort to check that I could walk or run, and I appreciated her coldness.

Letting her take the lead, we started the journey back to Denali.

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Playlist-

We Will Become Silhouettes – The Postal Service

Zero- Smashing Pumpkins

Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)- Vertical Horizon

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I own nothing, the plot, the characters, most of the dialogue, all Stephenie Meyer's

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Author's Notes: Yeah, so I know, I'm such a bad, bad person for all those blank months, aren't I? I'm sorry that I was torturing you guys, but I wanted to stay true to Stephenie Meyer. Originally, I had the idea that I would do the opposite of Bella, have Edward start coherent and then gradually fade into oblivion, since he and Bella are polar opposites (hence why she becomes an unfeeling zombie whereas he feel EVERYTHING humanly possible) I promise it is all worth it in the long run, and that everything has a meaning and a place. So, as a reward for being awesome fans and sticking with me through my nastiness, I am posting this chapter TWO days early!

PS- I know this chapter is shorter (it also is in New Moon, if you check back and forth). I quite like it this way, and I have also had a crazy week. I'm trying my darndest but with Full time work and full time school, things slip by me. So please, review, let me know opinions, good and bad. Thanks again! Enjoy!

PPS- Stay tuned for the next chapter, which I have a feeling may be as long as the previous chapters and perhaps posted sooner rather than later!