Spirit to Flesh: A Twific by LittleWing, betad by the magnificent Jessica1971
A/N: Surprise! You've been waiting for some answers. I hope this is a start. To everyone who read and reviewed yesterday, this early post is just our way of giving the love right back to you. We had over 30 reviews and 180+ readers yesterday! That's just incredible.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or The Love Letter. I'm just playin around and havin a ball. No infringement intended. No money made. Viva Le Fan Fiction!
Chapter 13: Ashes
So sad, Tamara thought as she secured the oxygen mask to Edward's head.
"He's cute, too." Three years as an EMT had taught her to deal with crazies, but they were rarely ever so good-looking.
On the gurney, Edward was becoming vaguely aware of a bright light nearby, pressure on his face and a shooting pain in his left shoulder that let him know he was still alive.
"Who runs into a burning building to mail a letter?" Tamara wondered aloud.
Tamara's question brought his consciousness into focus. His eyes shot open, moments before his hands tried to reach up to shield them from the light. They were restrained at the wrists. He wondered why.
"Where is my letter?" Edward demanded while fighting valiantly against his restraints. "I need to mail my letter!
"Please," he added after adjusting to the light enough to take in the frightened look of the woman standing over him.
Tamara shook her head in sympathy and reached for a long syringe before answering the beautiful lunatic laid out before her. What a waste, she thought.
"Oh, you mailed your letter, sir. The fireman that fished you out of the rubble saw you do it, but it's gone now. The whole building collapsed." As if to end the conversation, Tamara pushed the morphine into the vein at the crease of his arm.
Edward lowered his head as the drug began to take effect. "She got it," he said softly. "She'll get it. I have faith."
"Uh huh," Tamara replied, noting that she needed to tell the attending physician that this guy needed a full psych evaluation before being released.
"I have faith," Edward murmured once more before drifting off to sleep.
------
He woke again to the feel of hands running smoothly over the edges of his matted hair. He turned toward the familiar sensation.
Esme leaned down and kissed her son's temple. "I'm so sorry, Edward. My God, I'm so sorry."
Meeting her gaze, he whispered. "I need to go home. I need to see if she got the letter."
"Can you tell me what happened?" As Esme took in her son, she was pleased to see he appeared calm, lucid.
"Yes, but not now. I need to go home. How long have I been here?" Edward's attempts to sit up were halted by a searing pain in his left shoulder.
"Wait, just wait. I'll get your father." Edward opened his mouth to protest, but Esme cut him off with a firm hand on his chest. "You won't have to explain. I just need to make sure you're alright to go home. It's been 2 days. You've been in and out of consciousness." Esme hesitated before adding, "We had to get a private room. You've been screaming, a bit."
Esme smiled at him then, a tight knowing smile that said she thought she understood. He knew she didn't and was glad. He hoped no one ever felt the way he did now. Edward nodded his agreement.
With his father's help, he was discharged in an hour with a sling over his shoulder for his cracked shoulder blade, a week's supply of pain killers, and a number to the hospital social worker just in case he wanted 'to talk'. Despite his mood, or perhaps because of it, Edward smiled back at the discharge nurse. Talking, he thought, would only get me committed.
Esme was quiet as she drove her son home. She had heard all about his erratic behavior from the EMT staff when she arrived with Emmett and Alice, who stared in disbelief as the EMT described a man they didn't know. Carlisle arrived with Jasper 30 minutes later, still in scrubs and tired from 12 hours of surgery. Esme was able to piece together what the ER staff hadn't explained from the nurses at Brigham and the contents of his screams over the last 36 hours. She knew instinctively that the reason he had run out of the hospital room at Brigham had nothing to do with Ms. McCarthy's death. This was confirmed when the hospital released Ms. McCarthy's belongings and she saw the inscription on a thin book of poems.
Dear God! she'd thought at the time. You could not be this cruel.
Esme glanced over to her son and noted that she could not tell if he was fighting to go to sleep or to stay awake. Reluctantly, she wondered which option was worse. Her youngest son had always been such a careful person, thinking things through thoroughly before carrying out any course of action. She knew what it would take to drive him into a burning building and fought down her own regret that she had ever suggested writing Bella back. I can beat myself up later, she thought, glancing again at her son. Right now, I need to focus.
"Edward, you need to eat. Is there anything at your house that I can make you?"
"Yes," he said simply. His eyes were finally closed, but he was fully awake. Esme could tell.
"Do you… do you think she got the letter?" Esme's voice was low and tentative. She didn't want to make his pain any worse if she could help it.
"I have to believe that. I can't handle the alternative right now."
When they arrived home, Esme watched her son from the front door for a long time. He'd gone straight to his desk and released the secret door that held his connection to a love and fate she could not fathom. The idea that this secret compartment had been the source of all his recent joy and pain was inconceivable to her, and yet it was no less true.
He pulled three letters from the desk, but only opened one. It was slightly thicker than the others, she could tell as she inched her way into the house. Incredible, she thought. Simply incredible.
She saw his shoulders fall as he exhaled heavily before opening the envelope carefully and placing it face up on the desk. From over Edward's right shoulder, she read the envelope's inscription:
To: Edward Carlisle Cullen
from
Isabella Marie Swan
~ In Memoriam~
It was then that Esme noticed her son's hands were shaking. Edward did not read the letter aloud. She didn't expect him to, but he held it up as he read, knowing she was behind him. Probably so he won't have to explain later, she thought. He simply put the pages down on the far right side of the desk as he read them, face up for her to see.
My Love,
I have received your letters. Letters that I now believe were from the final days of your life. I cherish them now as my most prized possessions, besides your heart, which now beats in me for the both of us.
I could not stop myself from writing this, though I have tried. What is one more leap of faith out of all the leaps we have taken? I suppose I just needed to memorialize your passing from this earth, from my world and yours.
It seems appropriate that it should end the way it began, with a simple letter from me. I know now that God has truly smiled on us and that He will carry my words to you in whatever way is necessary for you to know them.
Have no regrets, my love, for we share a common flaw. I would not have had the strength to write this if you had not left me such perfect instructions, a way forward to find you. The very thought of touching your hand! Us in the same space – the same time once more. For I, too, have squandered a chance meeting, only to find later that fate has stolen you from me twice. As I stare at your picture now, I am haunted by the knowledge that I sat right across from you in the dining car, on the train to Boston. I spoke with you for 52 blessed minutes and did not know you, did not touch you. I wonder how it is possible to know you so completely in spirit and yet pass you completely by in the flesh. A flesh that, as I received word today, has been consumed in my world by influenza. My heart aches knowing that you did find your way to me, only for me to fail you, fail us. There is nothing in this world too precious to sell to have those moments with you back, to be strong enough to hold you to me, so you could not slip away.
With your picture here with me and our future so clearly laid out, I am comforted from my failure with the certainty that I will someday find you. Until then, know that your pain will be no greater than mine, that my love will ever be a perfect reflection of yours. Your longing will always be matched with mine to keep it company, and all this I will endure for the chance to meet you for the first time again.
Always,
Bella
Edward was silent as Esme put down the last page, his reflection in the window finally bringing her own tears forth. His eyes were shining with his own unshed tears. His face was a drawn mixture of horror and sadness. He looked like he was watching the end of the world.
Esme quickly gathered up the pages of the letter, planning to stuff them back into the envelope to somehow reverse the suffering they had released into the room. As she opened the envelope, Esme noticed a stiff piece of paper with a smooth surface tucked inside. Esme knew what it was before she pulled the photograph out of the envelope, realizing that Edward missed it in his haste to read her letter. Esme read the note on the back before turning it over.
So you will know my flesh
when our spirits meet again
Esme gasped as she turned the photograph over to see a beautiful petite woman staring back at her with flowers in her hands. Though the smile on the young woman's face was slight, her eyes burned with intense happiness and love.
Esme placed her hand lightly on Edward's shoulder and met his gaze in the window. His eyes fell immediately to the rectangular piece of paper that was pressed to her chest.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered as she handed him the photograph. "I'm so sorry."
As Edward turned to face his mother, confusion clouded his expression, but he knew what it was that she held out to him the moment the paper touched his skin.
His eyes stared in wonder at the sight of her, the woman he had dreamt of and loved. The lines of her body immediately aligned with his memory of her from the woods. And, just as he had suspected, she was astonishingly beautiful. Edward smiled softly to himself as he took in the fact that the poor technology of the time could not diminish the cream of her skin, the life in her eyes, and the luster of her hair. His thoughts traced back as he focused again on her eyes .
"The life in her eyes," he murmured. Life that he knew he would never see again.
His face crumpled as he buried his head in his mother's waist and cried.
A/N: I have nothing smart or funny to say today. If anyone needs a hug, I'll be over at the Spirit to Flesh forum (link is on my profile page). Thank you for weathering a VERY tough week with me and this story. It'll be alright. I promise. Ch. 14 posts tomorrow.