I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephanie Meyers. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

Chapter 6: Honey and Ashes

"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief." - Aeschylus

/L\\

I tucked away the journals, temporarily overwhelmed by the emotions they evoked in me. I have existed for seven decades without her. Why was it that I suddenly felt her loss so keenly? It was as if it happened yesterday. Not for the first time, I cursed my vampiric nature. I was bound and tethered to my memories – not for me the bliss of setting them free to drift away. I tilted my head and listened to strange thumps and muffled curses.

Cassie was making her way down the stairs, carrying a bag from the sounds of things. I jumped to my feet, ready to offer my assistance, all the while castigating myself for my lack of manners. I reached her just in time to see her shrug and shove it down the stairs.

It was loud. But effective. She grinned as she looked down at the suitcase at the bottom of the stairs, which is exactly where she wanted it to be. She turned to me and dusted her hands off, as if pleased to have finished an unpleasant chore. "There we go," she said with great satisfaction. There was something quite different about this woman and I was just beginning to realize that I had only touched the surface of it so far. I wasn't sure if that charmed or frightened me. Maybe both, as did Cassie herself.

"So, when do you want to leave?" she asked, looking at me eagerly. She looked and sounded as if she was getting ready to tour Europe, rather than put herself in the care of a vampire and his coven.

Curiouser and curiouser.

"Uh, do you have anything you need to take care of before we go?" I asked.

"Nope," she answered promptly. "I'm between jobs and I don't have any pets, boyfriends, girlfriends, or otherwise nosey people that I have to account to – which means I'm free to leave whenever you are." Then Cassie shot me a challenging look as if she expected me to back out of our agreement.

As if I could. Everything about her intrigued me, and I knew I would not be able to leave the mystery of her alone until I had gotten some answers. Curiosity alone compelled me.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the old house is still there you know," Cassie reminded me. "Nana Bells used to go by and talk to the guy who stopped in and takes care of it. Old guy, crazier than bat shit." Cassie grinned. "Nana said she went to school with him. He died four years ago and his great-grandson took over." Cassie rolled her eyes. "And that boy keeps trying to get into my panties." She snorted. "As if!"

I laughed, shaking my head. Cassie McBride was irrepressible and irreverent, but her quirky nature was appealing in some odd way. "Yes, I would like to stop by and see the house."

For me, it would always be THE house. It was the home to which I had taken Bella to meet my family. It was the place where I had allowed myself to dream impossible dreams – of sharing an eternity with the woman I loved. Yes, I had once allowed myself the sinful dream of transforming Bella into the same nightmarish, damned creature that I was. I had let go of that dream in order to give her the life she deserved, but that did not mean that it did not leave the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth. Dreams consumed by fire and time, nothing more than insignificant motes in the air by now.

Shaking myself from my morbid thoughts, I grabbed the suitcase and carried it out to her car. "We'll take your car to the house," I said. "If that's all right?"

Cassie nodded. "Did you run the whole way here from…" She tilted her head and studied me. "From wherever you came?"

"Seattle," I said, shrugging. "And yes, I ran." It was still odd to speak so freely of my abilities with a human. I had not done that since Bella. It was somewhat fitting that I should do so again with this lovely young woman, who had Bella's blood pulsing in her veins. "Would it be all right to take your car to Seattle and then we'll take mine?"

Cassie nodded. "Whatever," she agreed easily, still seemingly unconcerned that she was putting herself into the care of a vampire, or that she was heading toward a meeting with six other vampires. Bella's streak of recklessness had bred true in Cassie. I smiled at the thought.

Almost as an afterthought, she asked, "Will we be staying in Seattle?"

It was my turn to confound her so I simply shook my head. "No."

I expected her to press, was almost hoping she would. Cassie, being Cassie, of course, just shrugged. "Okay."

I sighed, wondering when I had lost my mind. Upon meeting Cassie was my best guess.

We put her suitcase in the trunk and I put the journals in the backseat. They would never leave my possession again; they were all I had left of Bella. Then I looked to my side, where Cassie was driving and singing along with the radio, and I realized that the journals were not all I had left…

/LEGACY\\

The house looked the same and yet not. I realized then that it was the loved ones inside that had made the house a home. How long had it been since I felt as if I had a home?

September 2006…

That was answered easily enough. No time at all to a vampire, a lifetime to a fragile human. I walked up the steps of the porch and took a deep breath. I heard Cassie's footsteps behind me, then beside me. I felt her slim, warm hand slip into mine and she squeezed it. I couldn't bear to look at her, but I gave it an answering squeeze.

Thank you…

I felt her silent words of welcome and we moved toward the door. It opened soundless when I punched in the security code with my free hand. As I stepped through, Cassie released my hand and I immediately felt…bereft. Alone. My solitude crashed in upon me once more.

I looked at her and she smiled tenderly. "I just thought I'd give you a few minutes…alone."

As she said the words, I realized that she was right. I needed some privacy to face these most poignant memories head on. I nodded my gratitude as she settled down to sit on a step, her back to me and her face lifted up to the sun. Her pale, peachy skin shone in the golden light, her dark hair gleamed in a waterfall down her back. My hand twitched.

I turned and walked into the house where I had, so briefly, felt more like a man than a vampire.

My piano had been there, and she had sat beside me on the bench, listening to the song I had composed for her. I closed my eyes and recreated the memory in perfect, painfully exquisite detail. I could feel her warmth, leaning against my side, hear the soft exhalations of her breath, hear the pounding of her pulse, and smell the beautiful temptation of the liquid that pulsed in her body.

She had been beautiful and human and loving and…mine.

Mine so briefly. So imperfectly. And I had destroyed it. Out of love, it was true, but I had destroyed it nevertheless. I had destroyed Bella too, and it had been someone else that put the pieces together, fitting the tattered broken pieces of Bella Swan into a living, breathing human being again.

Jacob Black.

A man I both loved and hated for the very same reasons. I thought of the young woman sitting on the steps, waiting for me to make peace with my tortured memories. She wasn't just Bella's blood, she was Jake's too. How odd to think that Jake's great-granddaughter would be the one to reach out to me when I faced the idea of Bella's death.

Bella was gone. Dead. She no longer existed. Yet, by some cruel quirk of fate, I was still here, my brain still functioning even if my heart did not. I realized that as much as I had broken Bella, I had broken myself as well. Where Bella had had Jake to put her together again, I had…no one.

Was it fate or chance that brought Cassie into the room at that exact moment? I would never know, and eventually I would no longer care. What mattered is that she came to me when my need was greatest. Once more, her slender hand gripped mine. Oh so tightly, she held onto me.

Then her arms were around me as I wept the tearless, unsatisfying sobs of a vampire. Somehow, I was on my knees and her soft, warm arms embraced me, holding me closely, gathering me to her as if I was a child. I found solace there in her warmth, the steady thrumming, human beat of her heart. She lent her heart's rhythm to me and for a few, brief moments I was alive again. She rocked me back and forth and if I had been able to recall them, I knew that memories of my human mother would have flooded over me at that point. But those memories were too old and distant and faded and I had lost my grip on them years ago.

They fluttered just out of reach…out of consciousness.

No matter. I had Cassie and she had me. I was weak and she was strong. I was lost and she had found me. It went beyond sex or blood or even love. It simply was.

I was Edward and she was Cassie and something, perhaps forged before she had been born, linked us.

There was no going back.

And the taste of ashes left me, the honey sweetness of venom and Cassie and even perhaps forgiveness swept over me.

Honey and ashes…

Cassie and Edward…

Redemption and sorrow…

Hope…