Minutes, weeks, hours, years, seconds and days. All ways in which I could have measured the time that passed and all ways that allowed me to keep a total of the torture. Time was muddled like it had never been before. I was aware of course, that time for vampires was significantly different compared to time for humans. Humans were limited to, upon average, eighty years of life and within that time, they could hold a certain amount of security as to what could happen to them during the course of the average life. Illness was likely to occur at some time, perhaps they would form relationships, marriage maybe, parenthood, a career and hopefully, happiness, the discovery of some kind of purpose. All of these were possibilities in the average human life but not one thing was one hundred percent certain. There was only one event that humans could rely on happening in their lives and the only thing that they had yet to discover was when exactly it would take place. After twenty years or after ninety? All the time, they had one concrete assurance.
Death.
Mankind had that fixed point; at the end of a human life, there would come death. It was that was the reason why time passed in a contrasting way for them. Humans had only a specific slot of less than a century in which they could do everything that they wished, in which they could live. What they could do during their foreseeable lives was clear and marked. Anything after that, there was the unknown, no matter how strongly some humans believed otherwise. Nothing after death was certain and so they lived in a way which reflected their limited life-span. Time was split into sections, measured, watched, checked carefully, so that humans could ensure that they were not letting the sand timers run dry without having lived before the end. Some sand slid down faster; some grains were bigger and some were smaller. Lives were different, people made their own choices and they all had one thing in common- the guaranteed close, the final curtain.
Vampires did not live in that way. We still referred to years and months and weeks and days and time because we still lived in a world dictated by those very measurements. 'When in Rome' was a phrase that sprang to mind. My family in particular, kept track of time; it was an essential knowledge, in the world that we inhabited. Time made no difference to us, in the most part, due to one obstacle, one gate that we were not certain to reach. Death was avoidable for our kind. It was still there, hovering in the wings, waiting for us, sometimes even tempting us but it was not the certain outcome to all of our lives. The lives of vampires never had to end. They could but they did not have to. We were immortal, undead and destined to roam the universe for all eternity. Vampires did not refer to their lives as lives. We did not have that limited span of time in which to live. We called the time that we had spent alive an existence because that was a more accurate portrayal of what we were, how we had lived. A life, by definition, would usually have been thought of as something that would not last forever. My existence could last for eternity, with no foreseeable end and no definite end.
Due to this, time had passed my family by. At the same time that we were aware of its passing, weeks could go by and we'd hardly have noticed, without the calendar that I insisted should hang on the wall, Rosalie in agreement. A way to hang on to humanity, normality. It helped us to stay in role, to remain humane, if not human. As time was not limited for me, for us, it had never seemed to pass, slowly or quickly. It had not seemed to pass at all, mainly because we were not working towards nothing. There would always be something the next day. There would never be an end and so I never had the feeling that I had to do something, for myself at least. Most everyday tasks and accomplishments and would-be-goals could be completed tomorrow or in three hundred years. Unlimited life gave vampires a different attitude towards everything. Priorities lessened, because there was time enough in which to fit everything in. I still put my family first, my priorities as such were awarded to things that I wanted to do for others. But I had eternity to do what I needed to. Then, my desires and wants could take over. When my family praised my selflessness, my willing to help and take time to look after others, I had to correct them. For a human, what I did would be worthy of praise, of great reward. For me, for a vampire, it was the least that I could do. I had eternity on my hands and it was no hardship to put others first because once I had finished doing whatever I could for anyone else, I still had the remainder of eternity to exist as I wanted, to do things for myself. I felt that I did not sacrifice much in putting others before me, despite what everyone told me. I had time to do everything, to start with everyone and end with Esme. Time at its current pace, no faster, no slower.
Until now. As I waited to hear news, I wished, prayed, begged and longed for the speeding up of time. The feeling was alien to me but sank below my sadness. I needed desperately to know that my Edward was alive, was to return to his family but there was no guarantee that those needs would be acknowledged. I wanted time to go faster than ever before, even though I had no time to waste. Usually, knowing that my time could not be wasted, I would not have minded waiting for anything. Sitting in silence, for someone or something was not, months ago, an option that I would have objected to.
I realised why I felt so different. I would not have cared before because waiting was not something that hurt particularly. But now, as I wondered in pain and fright, if Edward would live to see me again, I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts for any longer than necessary. I needed reassurance, to be told that everything would be alright. Waiting was far more agonising than ever because I was waiting for news that I might not have any desire to hear. Time had not hurt before and so I had never had such a yearning to speed it up. Now, I would do anything to shorten the period of time in which I would have to suffer the pain, in which my family would have to suffer the pain.
It was selfish of me to think only of myself. Carlisle would take bad news a million times more severely than I would. He was connected to Edward, they had shared so much together, most of which I had no knowledge of. Although Carlisle would never admit it to anyone, least of all, himself, Edward was his favourite of our 'adopted children'. He had sought a companion, a friend, someone who understood him and it was fate and destiny that led him to our first child. No one could have fulfilled Carlisle's wish more than Edward did. His ability to read his creator's mind meant that Carlisle would never be so alone again. Edward understood each of us, probably more than we understood ourselves and that was something that we loved about him. He stopped us from being alone, even in our minds. Sometimes a disadvantage, sometimes a huge asset to our family. Even if we couldn't express ourselves out loud, Edward would still hear and we would know that he was listening. That was all we needed, a lot of the time. I had talked to Edward privately, in my mind, shared with him my worries and thoughts and he didn't have to give a verbal answer. Just the knowledge that he had heard, that he had listened was enough. I had confided in him many times and I knew that Carlisle had done the same. Without our son and his gift, aside from everything else that we would miss about him, each member of our family would, for the first time in most of our vampire lives, be truly could share with each other, if we wished but everyone was so accustomed to Edward in their thoughts that we would feel lonely and empty without him to hear us.
A sharp intake of breath came from my right side. My eyes, which had been closed in desperation, snapped open and I saw Jasper, his head in his hands, defeated and despondent, for the first time ever. Jasper was strong, more capable of keeping himself calm in stressful situations than anyone, with the possible exception of Carlisle. What had he realised that had caused him to break down now?
"Jasper?" Carlisle asked him, softly, speaking carefully. We were both aware that Jasper was probably feeling the negative atmosphere much more deeply than the two of us, due to his heightened emotions. Jasper shook his head, shaking, refusing to make eye contact.
"Jasper, please." I begged him, stroking his arm comfortingly. "What is it?" I suddenly felt awful for having ignored him for the past hour or two. Our emotions were probably making his so much worse.
"Do you need us to calm down?" Carlisle offered, understanding. "If you have to go outside for a while, of course we'll understand." I nodded to show my support. Jasper shook his head again, words failing him. He choked and tried again.
"I...I'm so sorry, Carlisle, Esme...I..." Jasper shook with a thousand emotions, his voice restricted by his tearless distress. Carlisle moved carefully to sit the other side of him.
"Jasper, you don't have to apologise. You aren't responsible for this." Jasper swallowed and tried to regain his control.
"Carlisle, I am." Jasper disagreed, his voice shaking almost as much as his body. "If...I...it's all...fault..." Odd words were distinguishable beneath the pain but I couldn't understand.
"Jasper?" I spoke gently. "There's nothing you could have done to stop him." My own voice broke on the last sentence and when Carlisle gazed at me, his eyes were filled with as much agony as I imagined was present in my face.
"You don't understand," Jasper told us, gasping breath and gripping Tanya's sofa. I heard the material rip beneath his fingers but none of us paid any attention to it. "This is all my fault. Everything that happened." I clicked suddenly and my own self-absorption infuriated me. Why hadn't I seen it before? No wonder Jasper had been so affected by us for the past seven months. I let Jasper continue because nothing that I could say would make up for the neglect that I had shown my family by not understanding their problems, for being too wrapped up in my own.
"If I hadn't...lost control that night, Edward would never have left Bella. If it weren't for me, we would all still be in Forks, living normally, without all this. It's thanks to me that Bella suffered for all this time. And it's all...all my fault that Edward... went to Italy." Jasper paused to compose himself enough to continue. His words were coming to me with a strange realisation of what was happening and a fresh wave of fear. Jasper clearly noticed but did not have enough strength to calm himself, let alone me.
"Every time that I sense everyone's devastation, when I realise how much you and Carlisle are missing Edward, when I notice that even Rose wants her brother back, when Emmett radiates strange emotions that I've never caught from him before, the guilt kills me. I know what everyone is feeling, all the time. There's no escape. And I see that it's all my fault. Everything."
Jasper broke down again, shaking uncontrollably as Carlisle and I stared at each other, lost and dazed. Neither of us knew how to put our family back together.
"Jasper, you can't blame yourself," I told him. "Please don't feel guilty for something that you had no control over."
"If he...doesn't come home, I...I'll always f...feel that it's my fault." I moaned quietly and shook my head in unison with Carlisle.
"You can feel our misery and you know that no anger or resentment is directed at you. Jasper, you know that I would never blame you for what's happened." Jasper lifted his head to meet Carlisle's gaze. I saw that his eyes were wild with sorrow and guilt. All of our emotions were readable in his tortured expression.
"Carlisle, I don't want my brother to die." Jasper whispered. The tears were almost visible on his cheeks, despite their absence. When I pulled him into my arms, it felt as though I were protecting and looking after a child, not a creature with over half a century's life experience on top of mine. Jasper allowed himself to be comforted and when I felt the first waves of calm spreading over me, I knew that Jasper was giving his first calm emotions to Carlisle and I. When I turned to Carlisle however, he seemed even more stressed than he had done during Jasper's confessions. I looked at him, worried.
"What am I doing?" Carlisle whispered, so quietly that I could hardly hear him. I must have appeared confused because he continued. "I shouldn't be waiting for something to happen. I need to do something to help."
"Carlisle, there's nothing that we can do." I replied, regretting every word. Had I given up on my Edward? No. I knew that I was speaking the truth. There was nothing that Carlisle and I could say or do now. Except sit here and hope. Carlisle was not listening. He got up from the sofa and started moving about the room, pacing furiously. I had never seen him in such a state before and his reaction was petrifying me almost as much as what he was reacting to.
"I should go after him. I'll go to Volterra." Carlisle was talking quickly, almost to himself.
"You can't do that." I hated being so negative. "I'm so sorry, Carlisle. It won't work." I felt for a moment as though I could cry.
"Edward would listen to me...wouldn't he?" There was a distinct uncertainty in Carlisle's tone and it pained me to hear him sound so desperate. I exhaled slowly to keep my control and gazed at my husband, wishing that I could give him a different answer.
"I don't know. If he didn't, it would be even worse. Knowing that we tried and..." I couldn't bring myself to finish.
"I could telephone Aro?" Carlisle suggested frantically. This time, it was Jasper who answered him.
"You haven't spoken to him for a long time. This might not be the best moment for a catch-up."
"I would just warn him. I could even do it anonymously. He might decline Edward's request if another vampire was so against it." Jasper shook his head.
"I'm sorry but we can't contact the Volturi. It's far too dangerous. Alice told me not to let anyone else get involved."
"Carlisle," I spoke softly, reaching for his hand. "This is Edward's choice. We need to let him make his own decision once he sees Bella." Carlisle closed his eyes for a second and his expression filled with more pain and anguish. I winced.
"What can we do if Bella and Alice are...delayed?"
"We can hope for the best." I tried to sound positive but did not succeed. My voice was close to breaking point.
Carlisle stared around the room a few times, deep in thought, clearly looking for any way to save our son. When he could see no alternative to waiting at home for news, he sat down heavily. I took his hand and gazed at him, trying to communicate without speaking that I too, was longing to do something, anything to help my family bring my lost son home. Carlisle's already agonised eyes seemed to become even more pained and when he met my eyes, I could have described everything that he was feeling.
"I can't lose my son," Carlisle whispered, his voice unsteady. "I can't lose Edward now..."
And the strongest member of my family, the man who I had loved since I was able to feel such things, the one being who I had never seen lose control before, fell into such a state of despondency, distress and suffering that I could only watch in horror as Carlisle Cullen went to pieces before my eyes. His shaking, pain-ridden body would be burnt into my memories for eternity as I watched a father agonise over his son, a son who might never return home again. At Carlisle's emotions, I felt Jasper struggle against everyone's heartbreak. As the vampires either side of me succumbed to the grief, the torment overtook me. I fell to the soft carpet, my head bowed between my hands and I felt such torture wash over me that I didn't care whether I lived or died. At that moment, I would have gone to Volterra too. I was unaware of almost everything around me and I had never felt so helpless and useless in my life. It was awful enough knowing that my son could be dying somewhere but it was a billion times worse knowing that there wasn't a single thing that I could do.
The sound of a car brought me back to my senses slightly. Jasper was standing up and I heard voices outside. I returned to my position on the sofa and put my arms around Carlisle, my time to comfort him. Jasper's face twisted with more anguish as a key turned in the lock. I felt instantly ashamed for not having cared for him, knowing how he would feel everyone else's depression, along with his own. This would be what Hell felt like, I thought to myself. All the time in the world to agonise over your bad deeds and sins. Although I doubted if anything could ever feel as painful as what I was feeling then. My world had come crumbling down and I saw that my family couldn't survive in pieces, we needed to be whole. Strength in numbers.
Jasper's face contorted with misery again and I wanted to cry for him, for Edward, for everyone.
"Jasper, what is it?" I asked him, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer. He turned his head towards me.
"Rose's guilt." Jasper replied.
Emmett and Rosalie stepped into the lounge and I froze in position when I saw Rosalie's face. Tortured did not even begin to describe her expression. Taking a deep breath, she walked slowly towards me. Carlisle recovered his composure very slightly and we both looked at her.
"Esme, Carlisle, I will never be able to tell you how sorry I am." Rosalie whispered, her head bowed, her hair windswept and tangled. "I will never forgive myself for this..."
For once, everyone in the room was speechless. Even Emmett was silent, his expression sombre. Would my family ever be able to recover if we lost people whom we loved?