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The first thing Edward does when he stops subduing the roadway between school and home is hunt. He's well fed, but his urges are demanding another meal. Leaving the R8 and Alice in the driveway in front of their home he sprints with reckless abandon into the forest. His immersion in his instincts is complete; rational thought has left him completely for the exhilarating and comprehensive sensations of running, tracking and hunting. When he breaks the surface of his bloodlust, he finds a brown bear at his feet, pregnant and dead. She's not showing, and won't give birth until after a hibernation period, but he can smell and taste the delicate changes in hormones that portend gestation.
Despite the tenuous hold the forty-some-odd brown bears have on the local ecosystem, he feels only a little remorse. He's already thinking about Isabella: the way her hair felt on his fingertips, her bewildered and beautiful face flushed from his proximity, and the most expressive and distracting eyes he's ever seen.
Edward is excited about sharing this day with his family, though he surmises their thoughts will be irrepressible, patronizing and annoying. But he can't bring himself to return to their home quite yet. One habit he's reluctant, maybe incapable, of breaking is silent, solitary introspection. The practice arose in the years he spent alone and was perpetuated by his mind reading. Edward found it somewhat difficult to develop his own opinions, make his own mind up, when he could hear someone's thoughts on the same subject.
Various places flash through his mind but by the time he's come to a decision, he's found himself standing at the edge of his meadow. It's autumn, so the sun is in free fall behind the horizon. There's a break in the clouds that's painted the underside of the clouds pink, orange and red, and the craggy face of the Olympic mountain range resembles a crown of pure gold.
This traveler has seen sunsets. He's stood on the summit of Everest and watched as the brilliant ball of flaming gas rolled behind and between the ragged fissures of the Baltoro glacier. Bobbed among the kelp fields in the Atlantic as a thunderstorm was illuminated by a fiery light from behind. Sat stone still atop Uluru and stared unblinking as the last slinking sliver slid beyond the rusty desert.
The current view, beautiful but ordinary, is moving him in a way he can understand, but can't contain. Without moving or removing his eyes from the sight before him, Edward begins to quietly cry. It's noiseless and almost indecipherable, but he can feel the prick behind his dry eyes, and the instinct to draw gasping breaths, hug his chest and let loose. It's the first time he can ever remember experiencing the sensations, but he recognizes the accompanying emotion: immense and purifying relief. Relief for finding her, for not ending her. Relief for not being too broken to love at all, relief for a thousand things he's been wrong about. He stands unmoving until the sun has set completely, sighs twice, and turns for home.
On the short journey home he's thinking about their interaction after class, and his plan of action for the future. The former obviously requires some damage control. He'd growled and glared at her with murderous intent, never a good idea when trying to make a good impression. But he'll eventually need to be forthright with her in all things, including his species' specific subtleties, so revealing that part of him bothers him insofar as it was out of context: he didn't really want her to leave.
Then he'd yelled at her to get out. Edward can't quite decide if this is the worst mistake he's ever made, or a brilliant tactical countermove to her kissing his face. Because he's seen the patterns in female reactions to the inconsistencies in male behavior enough to know that it intrigues and attracts most of them. But when he coasts into the living room his lips and brow are torqued with anxiety over his foul treatment of Isabella, and the sordid way in which he dismissed her. Everyone but Carlisle is standing, facing him with a thousand questions.
"Edward. What is wrong with yer face? Emmet's brusque and playful questioning typically would relieve his tension, has a history of doing so, but doesn't. Alice glances at him in disappointment.
"I was just telling them about your mysterious smile. That goofy, flop-sided thing that none of us have seen before. Why don't you know all about this, EC?"
"I guess I was distracted. Anyone seen Carlisle?" Now that he's broken out of his reverie, the thoughts emanating in his direction are annoying him somewhat. He especially doesn't like what Rosalie is attempting to hide. The feeling of annoyance is quickly replaced when Jasper walks into view on the stairs. The emotion Jasper's pushing is a tumult of happiness, joy and excitement, in the exact flavor that Edward was experiencing that afternoon before his hunt.
As it permeates their bodies and brains, the movement flows back into the room. Alice does a gainer over the deep leather couch and into Jasper's waiting arms on the first floor landing. Emmet, always in wool hiking socks on hardwood, slides 25 feet across the Sequoia on one knee. As he spins to a stop, he scoops the blonde queen into his arms and they begin to dance. When Alice and Jasper mimic their soft sway, Esme gestures at the piano saying, "You might get Carlisle to come out of his lab if you'd play. He doesn't know anything, yet."
Edward is powerless against Esme's best Bambi eyes, and he wouldn't mind tickling the ivories. After a few teasing chords, he matches the dancer's rhythm with tinkling arpeggios on top of a five-finger F#. The song he conjures is soulful, and he plays for forty-five minutes with nary a glance beyond the black and whites. He notices when they stop dancing and begin to watch him play, but he can't remove his hands. He's refining and revising, expanding and improvising and feeling his music for the first time in almost 30 years.
Creative and nuanced melodies flow in such a way that when his family retires for the evening, Edward cannot help but visit his basement recording studio. One requirement for the dwelling place of a vampire home is space; A full basement is either bought, or built. During Emmet's newborn years, their houses went two stories down. After finding their current home's basement somewhat unsatisfactory, the family excavated and augmented the basement. Alice shoulders the foundation, using her precognitive abilities to prevent it from crumbling while the rest of the family digs in the dirt. So Carlisle has room for an at-home medical laboratory, there's a fully stocked tool shop (including an 14th century anvil), Esme and Alice share a design studio, and Edward has his music room.
The finest electronic and analog equipment is packed into a control room separated from the session room by a large and soundproof plexiglass wall adhered to a peculiar wall joint by floor-to-ceiling lubricated suction bays. Esme, in her crafty glory, took the design further by cutting a handle into the glass and installing industrial runners under the 2800lb wall. It is, they thought, the world's largest sliding glass door. It houses a museum of iconic and vintage guitars, played and endorsed by the world's greatest talent. An Amati violin, made in 1561, rests inside it's case next to a full complement of Stradivarius strings: two violins, a viola and cello, procured from Antonio himself. A custom-built upright is across the room from a full drum kit, with every instrument imaginable strewn in cases across the room; cords and microphones sprout from the ceiling and floor. The performance instruments are immaculate, fine tuned by vampire-adept ear. It is a music lover's dream, and a recording technician's ultimate fantasy.
The incredible quality of the studio is matched evenly by the ability of its owner. After tweaking the soundboard and starting a new session, he hits record and enters the performance room. He pounds on the upright, piddling and perfecting the melodies he summoned earlier. By the time Carlisle wanders into the studio just before dawn, Edward is layering tracks with mandolin, cello, trumpets and a '56 danelectro electric through a Vox AC30. Carlisle is stunned by the breadth and imagination in the music that is blaring through the control room's monitors. He's sure it's the best music Edward has ever produced, which is considerable given his prolific tendencies and profound talent.
Edward beckons Carlisle through the plexiglass and into the relative isolation of the soundproof recording room. Carlisle is familiar with his friend's reticence; he's a solitary man whose mind is full of lofty ideals and tiring experience. Sometimes he takes a while to speak so Carlisle opens his mind to Edward fully, allowing his inquisitive clinician's mind to mull over the possibilities. He'd been unsuccessful divulging anything from his mate, despite his persuasive techniques, and as a result his ideas have begun to grow desperate. When Carlisle's eyes alight on his friend's form. He sees the small smile and the quirked eyebrows, as if Edward is remembering something very pleasurable. And he's swaying to the light, syncopated music he's making. And Carlisle differentiates the rigid and military way he usually moves from his current posture. To Carlisle, it looks as if the weight of the world has been removed from shoulders, and in that moment he knows. "You found her?" When Edward's grin grows he exclaims, "You found her!"
Edward can see that Carlisle is immensely happy for him, but he's equally curious about the girl, the situation, the future. "You old gossip." He sighs, "It's a ripe tell, Carlisle. I'm sure you want to hear how she's human, seventeen and my student."
Carlisle can't help but interrupt and snicker at the situation. "You never were one for easy."
"I suppose not. But this is just excessive. On top of all that, she's almost certainly my singer. Remember the Italians mentioning that phenomenon? I almost ate her; I had my mouth on her neck and the child fucking kissed me! I can't decide if she's perfect or certifiably insane."
"But you can't hear her thoughts, correct?" Carlisle is simultaneously entranced and amused at this Edward who is frantic, eager and angry in such quick turns. He can tell that Edward's encounter with the girl turned him inside out, animated and energized him.
"Nothing. It's just like you predicted, actually. It's odd that..." Edward comes up short when he hears Carlisle wonders silently whether this is what Aedwaerth had been like as a human: so full of life, vim and vigor.
After regarding Edward's confused and thoughtful countenance, Carlisle completes his thought saying, "She's a final piece of your humanity, Caledonian. The largest and most conspicuously absent one, at that. She's both the link to your past, and the purpose for your future. And isn't it about time you settled down?"
"Bah! And relinquish my title of world's oldest bachelor... eh." Edward rocks his hand side to side, and smiles wide to illuminate the joke. In truth, Edward would invoke his tribe's marriage ritual, and ask Isabella tomorrow if he thought she'd be receptive to his offer.
"So tell me what happened." As Edward weaves the tale of yesterday's fourth period foul-up, the house is scuffling with the sounds of the coven preparing for their daily appointments and schedules. By the time he finishes with a detailed account, it's well past time to prepare for class and work. With the assertion that they will talk the following evening, they swiftly part ways.
Brandishing his Savile Row inspired, Alice tailored, charcoal-gray-three-piece and white-knuckling his briefcase, Edward makes his way to the separately housed garage. Once inside, his eyes wander to the family's "special occasion" car, a 2010 Aston Martin V12 Vanquish. Edward has no trouble or qualms imagining Isabella's fragile form in the passenger seat, with their hands intertwined. It's something he's been doing for the last twelve hours, placing her in his plans, entrenching her in his future.
Alice wanders into the garage and Edward's attention is diverted from his daydream. He's already aware that Alice is blocking him with ABBA's greatest hits. When he inquires about it, she replies with a cryptic but satisfactory, "Trust yourself." The car ride to the high school is quiet with Alice's concentrated mental block, and Edward's silent introspection.
The spaces between the morning and Edward's AP biology class are some of the most inconsequential moments of Edward's long life. His lessons left a little to be desired, and his company was atrocious. But Edward can hardly stop thinking about seeing, hearing, touching Isabella. He's amused and delighted at how drastically she's shifted his focus, how devastating her presence has been to his delicately developed facade. This freeform romance has barely begun but Edward has reached it's event horizon; he can't escape her and he doesn't want to. He's been following her in other's thoughts and with his enhanced senses the entire day; his breathing speeds and his mind evaporates when he realizes that she's walking down the hall toward his classroom. As Isabella and her delectable scent breeze into the room during his free third period, Edward lets himself fall fully.
He has no control over his lips as they crook into a powerfully charming, equally disarming smile. It's apparent that they have an intoxicating effect on the other because Bella looks dazed, distracted and utterly adorable. When Edward can remove his eyes from her face, he notices that she's carrying a folded piece of computer paper. And if he'd not been driven to distraction himself, Edward would have realized she meant to leave him a note with no interaction. As he reaches for the halved sheet, she speaks, "Mr. Cullen, we..."
Edward interrupts, "It's Edward, Isabella. At least for now." To Aedwaerth, the nomenclature his family has adopted has little meaning to him besides it's assistance in maintaining their anonymity. Carlisle uses both names interchangeably, but he's the only member of the family that does so, for different reasons. It would bring him great pleasure to hear Bella say his real name, but there's time and distance for each of them to cross before she can know his whole history.
She looks confused and quizzical, and then completely ignores him. "Mr. Cullen, please call me Bella. And we need to talk about yesterday." As she speaks her voice drops into a whisper and she takes two steps towards his desk, where Edward is leaning back in his chair safely within the balmy breeze being brought in by Alice's strategically placed fan. After a deep cleansing breath, Isabella whispers with force, "Please tell me why... and what happened? I don't understand any of this." She accuses, "You kicked me out! Is it just because I remind you of her?" Her anger builds sentence by sentence, bricks used to thwart the lovely threat that she knows Edward poses to her.
He'd never thought of her silent mind as a problem until that moment and he realizes that he's not nearly as young as he looks, nor so old as he feels. Stunned and stumbling, Edward says the first thing that comes to mind, "That girl, whom you resemble slightly, is dead."
Bella is immediately contrite, all traces of her anger flicker and fade. "I'm sorry."
Manipulation is second nature to Edward, he uses his not-inconsiderable skill set to maintain the upper hand in all things. But this is the first time he feels even remotely guilty for the tactic. The look on her face at his statement causes him painful remorse and he's quick to reassure her, "You have nothing to be sorry for, Isabella. I assure you that none of my actions toward you had anything to do with her. It was a convenience used to confound your classmates of the truth."
"Which is...?"
"My first glimpse of you left me catatonic." After a instantaneous blush, Isabella struggles to stop smiling and to look Edward in the eye. "Bella, do you think you and Alice could become acquainted? It might facilitate the two of us furthering this conversation since the students are making their way here from your lunch period right now. Act natural, breathe girl... okay. You're okay?" An insubstantial affirmative nod is the only sign that she's even alive, so still and pale. "I'm going to give you a syllabus and answer a question you didn't ask. I hope we speak soon, 'm cara." The Welsh sentiment pops out of its own volition, or Edward's irrepressible joy at having her four feet away.
He prattles on and the other students begin the enter the classroom. Tossing the syllabus, a subtle wink and a curt, "Try not to lose this one, miss Swan," Edward realizes that his ploy has worked. Only the nosy and nefarious even notice the two of them interacting and then only as an excuse to picture one or the two of them in a soft-core session. With a glance at his girl to clear his head, he begins the lecture.
Edward's perception of time accelerates around Bella; she captivates his senses, enraptures his mind and bewitches his body. He's only begun to grasp her gravity. Before he can cover half the expected material the final bell rings, Bella bolts from her seat and doesn't spare him a glance as she jogs smoothly through the classroom door. As Edward prepares his desk and himself return home, he hears Alice direct a thought towards him: Edward, I'm going to ask her to visit this afternoon. She says yes.
A/N: If you're reading this, you rock so hard.