*Cough* Erm, oops. Didn't mean to leave it this long. Actually, I haven't really posted very much at all since I finished my drabbles. Sorry about that. I've got exams at the moment, and the play... everything is just a little crazy.

On a bright note, the incredible Nouni, who translated my drabbles, has offered to translate this story as well. So if there are any French readers out there, this one is getting translated too! Exciting stuff...

Incidentally, this story is nearly done. There will be one more chapter, and then the epilogue. I like this chapter a lot actually. So... Enjoy!

H A L L U C I N A T I O N
A Twilight FanFiction
By Musings of a Shaken Mind

Chapter 5

It was weeks later that I heard her for the last time. I hadn't been expecting it, I was sure that the Bella in my mind was already dead. But my subconscious had apparently dragged up another Bella-- and a more suicidal one, this time. Apparently, it wasn't enough that I'd watched the girl I loved die once. I had to be forced through this purgatory hell time and time again.

I saw her, high on a cliff that I did not recognise. La Push, maybe. I'd never been there. I'd only seen pictures.

Her hair was tugged around by the wind, as were her clothes. It was freezing. I could feel the iciness of the wind, despite the temperature of my skin. It felt like I was there with her, just behind her. I wans't sure what she was doing here, exactly. A storm brewed on the horizon, far away for now, but approaching with every second that passed.

My spectacular vision also registered the flame-haired Vampire on the horizon. Unconsciously, I snarled. She was here, waiting. Bella hadn't seen yet, but Victoria's purpose here was to kill Bella.

And then she stepped forward, and I realised her intent. No… no, not now… not after all this time. What had happened, to make her so suicidal, all of a sudden? And, if the rocks and waves and water didn't get her, then the malicious nomad in the ocean would.

"Bella."

She smiled—actually smiled. How could she be happy? She was going to kill herself—and she'd kill me, too. The second her heart stopped beating, I, too, would fail to even exist.

Yes?

This was new. She hadn't ever answered me, before. She'd never acknowledged my presence, before. Why would she now? But I was hardly going to complain.

"Don't do this."

I was pleading with her, begging her.

You wanted me to be human. Well, watch me.

She would twist my words… but didn't she understand my pain?

"Please. For me."

But you won't stay with me any other way.

If only she knew. If only she knew how much I longed to be with her. "Please."

She rolled up onto the balls of her feet. She was going to do it. She really was going to kill herself. I could not allow that.

"No, Bella!"

She smiled, and then she jumped.

I watched, horrified, from my location in one of the most secluded places in the world, at the top of Mount Everest.

How could she do this to me? Did she not know that this would hurt me, far more than it hurt her? What about Charlie? Surely I had driven her insane, if she now felt the need for her own death! I had led her to this… it was my fault… I would have to deal with the fact that, ultimately, I had been the cause of her death.

She hit the water screaming, and I burrowed my face in my hands, my cries matching hers, reverberating off of the mountains. I struggled to breathe, even though that was ridiculous… I didn't need to breathe.

And then, I was there. In the water. With her. I could see her as clearly as she could see me. We stared at each other, unblinking in the freezing salt water...

The moment passed quickly, and the gravity of our situation hit me. Against all odds, and any of the laws of Science you cared to quote, I was with her. In the sea, beside La Push, in the Pacific Northwest.

"Keep swimming!"

There was nothing between us, now. It was so real. It felt so real. If this was another hallucination, then it was good. Every detail was perfect.

Where?

I couldn't reach her. I tried, but I could not. She was giving up. I was struggling to move at all, though the desire to hold her, to touch her face and take her in my arms and never let go was overwhelming.

"Stop that!" I yelled desperately at her, "Don't you dare give up!"

Somehow, she found the strength and the oxygen to obey. But she was losing strength, and quickly.

"Fight! Damn it, Bella, keep fighting!" I couldn't scream loud enough, couldn't exert the will that I needed to break free from whatever it was that bound me. Despite my strength, I couldn't move.

She had to keep fighting, for me. For Charlie. For everyone else who loved her, including my family. I had to make her see reason, for if she were to die, then my own future would be just as bleak. I would die, too. Again.

Why?

I sensed her hopelessness, her lack of desire to live, and it broke me.

"No! Bella, no!" I struggled in vain, trying desperately to reach her, to save her.

She seemed happy. Happy that she was going to die. This was my legacy. This was what I had achieved, by leaving her. This was my fault. I would have to survive, for at least as long as the plane journey to Italy, in the knowledge that she was dead because I could not save her.

I deserved all of this.

I heard her last thought. For once, her mind was open, and I could see everything. I could hear her thoughts like they were my own.

In the ninety-odd years I have been among the un-dead, I have never felt a person's thoughts so clearly. Her mind had a crystalline edge. The colours were vibrant and beautiful.

I could hear everything. Every thought she'd ever had. Her infancy, her childhood. The memories seemed insignificant to her. It was only since the previous January that she had even bothered to really remember them. I felt her confusion as she watched me for the first time. I felt the fear as the Edward in her memory turned his black eyes upon her. I felt the aggression and hatred and slight fear when she was nearly raped by the drunken bastards in Port Angeles. I felt her bewilderment when I confirmed what she suspected: I was a Vampire. I could read minds.

I felt the awe and shock when she saw my monstrous skin for the first time in our meadow. And I felt, for the first time, the wonderful intensity of her love for me. It was stronger than I'd ever imagined--at long last, I knew that she would never have stopped loving me. Even if she'd moved on like I wanted, her thoughts would always have strayed back to the golden-eyed boy who she still loved. With that knowledge finally solid in my heart I felt a deep peace, despite the situation.

Then the pain. It was similar to mine—but there was a difference. I knew that she had still loved me. She thought I had grown bored of her. I endured, once more, the agony of our parting. I felt relief and adrenaline when she caught my voice in her mind once more after our parting.

And I finally understood what it would be to die. The relief, on her part. The regret for some things, and the satisfaction for others.

Her last thought was granted to me, at the end of this split-second moment of realisation. It was as clear to me as if she had spoken it aloud. Goodbye. I love you.

"I love you, Bella. I love you too."

But she couldn't hear me. I was far away, back in the Himalayas, and impossibly soaked to the skin.

And she was gone.