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Chapter 3: And thus I began my new life

"What the hell does Rolle think he's doing?" Emmett asked. "It's just going to make things worse. Aro will know..."

Edward and Bella had returned home only to find the entire family reconvened in the living room as they had been before. Thanks to Alice, they all knew the outcome of the events at the airport.

"He's hoping Aro won't be able to read him," Edward said quietly. "He thinks by clinging to Gillian's memory, his thoughts will remain broken enough that Aro will not be able to read him, just like I can't read him when he's like that. Just like Alice cannot see him. He even thanked us for the opportunity to think about her all the time knowing that doing so will protect us."

"So attacking us was just a ruse?" Esme asked, glancing at Carlisle.

Edward nodded. "The only way to make his plan work was to make us all hate him. Rolle knew Marcus would be able to see our relationship to him."

"So when Rolle attacked Carlisle, Marcus only saw our anger?" Jasper asked.

Nodding again Edward said, "Marcus sees relationships almost like colored ribbons connecting people. When we saw Emmett hurt and Rolle attacking Carlisle, Marcus could only see our anger and betrayal: violent red ribbons attached to Rolle, overshadowing everything else."

"What do you mean you can't read him when he's thinking of Gillian?" Carlisle asked softly. Esme moved closer to his side, sliding her arm around his back.

Edward looked from Alice to Carlisle. "We can't see him when he's.... broken like that."

Carlisle tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"That first night he came to the house and met Bella," Alice answered, "neither Edward nor I knew who was at the door, remember?"

At their various nods, Edward continued to explain. "He had no idea how he came to be at our home, no idea what compelled him to find us. He was..." Edward paused, trying to find a sensitive answer, "uh, consumed with his memory of Gillian, of being with her." Edward looked uncomfortable discussing the details of what he knew. "It wasn't until he specifically focused on the memory of losing her that he..."

"That's when I jumped in," Jasper said. All eyes turned to Jasper and Edward nodded.

"What did you feel from him?" Rosalie asked.

Their brother took a deep breath and ran his hand over the back of his neck. He struggled to find the words to describe what he felt. He shook his head slowly as he thought. "Crazed desperation," he said, still shaking his head, knowing the words were not enough to describe the emotions.

"Is that why you attacked him?" Bella asked.

"I was afraid what he'd do to Edward in that mindset," Jasper answered, and Bella felt a swell of love for her brother's protective nature.

Jasper looked at her as he let her feelings about this wash over him and gave Bella a tiny nod of acknowledgement and thanks.

"How was he when he was here this time?" Carlisle wanted to know from Jasper.

Jasper looked immediately uncomfortable. Edward, I... Jasper thought apologetically to Edward. He realized now what Edward's friend had done for them to protect them. He did not want to speak ill of the man.

"He was... unstable," Edward answered for Jasper, then nodded to his brother to let him know it was okay to speak openly.

"But so much better than anything I'd ever felt from him," Jasper said able to speak easier with Edward's support. "There were moments when he was outright jubilant. In all the times he's visited us, I'd never felt him so happy, almost playful."

"Most of the time," Alice added.

"Most of the time," Jasper repeated wryly.

"When was he not happy?" Emmett asked, recalling the few times he encouraged Rolle to take a hand at wrestling or teaching him about the new features of electronics around the house.

Jasper frowned. "Every time he came back from being away."

"That's why you kept leaving?" Bella asked suddenly. Jasper nodded. "Because he was what? What did you sense from him?"

"Anger, mostly, " Jasper said with a shrug. "Despair, frustration. He was just all over the map."

"And how was he when he stayed with us?" Bella asked again.

"Better. He was always better a couple days after he came back. I just started waiting to leave to go hunt when he came back, and if I took a couple days, he was always fine by the time I got back."

Bella looked at Edward. "Isn't that what you noticed?"

Edward nodded, explaining, "His thoughts would bounce between extremes suddenly and without warning."

"What do you mean, Edward?" Carlisle asked.

"Rolle has never stayed with us that long so I had never noticed his volatility before. When I realized what was going on I started paying more attention, tried to determine what would trigger the change in him."

"Were you able to learn anything?" Carlisle asked again.

Edward nodded hesitantly and shrugged. "I noticed something on game night that I'd never seen from him before." Edward paused and wrapped his arm around Bella before continuing. "Every game has a goal, and as we played, I noticed Rolle's thoughts start to mirror our own as the game continued. I think — I have no way of knowing for sure, but I think this is how Rolle tracks his target. He doesn't read someone's mind, but it felt like he was copying their thought patterns, their problem solving abilities."

"A cognitive mimic?" Carlisle muttered thoughtfully.

"What is that, like brain tofu?" Emmett asked.

"How do you know what tofu is?" Rose asked with a frown.

"Those cooking shows on the Food Network that Bella likes," he answered unphased. "Tofu takes on the characteristics of whatever it's cooked with." Emmett looked at Edward, saying, "You're saying that Rolle starts to think the same way as the people he's around, and that's why he can track people."

"I suppose, but I can't know for sure," Edward said, saying the last to Carlisle. "He did admit that he can track people he's never met before which goes against that hypothesis."

"That's why his songs were so perfect," Bella murmured to herself.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked her.

"When he sings," she explained. "When he created those songs that night, I thought they were so perfect for each of you as he sang. He was singing what he mimicked from each of us; what we felt about each other." Bella met each of their eyes. "That's why they were so poignant."

"Then why didn't Edward sense that," Alice asked, "like he did on game night?"

Bella only shrugged helplessly. She looked at Edward to see if he could answer, but he shrugged as well, shaking his head.

"So what does that mean for us now?" Rose asked. "Do we need to worry about Rolle being around the Volturi?" When no one answered wondering the exact same thing, she looked at Edward. "Well? He's your friend, Edward. Do we need to worry about him sucking up the suspicions of the Volturi and coming back here to finish the job?"

"Rose!" Esme scolded, appalled.

"I don't know," Edward answered anyway, his voice heavy with guilt.

Carlisle's brow furrowed. "Edward?"

"I don't know what it will mean for Rolle. I'm only telling you what might be possible, but I don't know anything for certain," Edward sighed, hating that he was only creating more questions than answers. I'm sorry. All I can tell you is that I don't like the idea of Rolle making this kind of sacrifice for us, but I trust that he did it to protect us."

He looked at Carlisle with an apology in his eyes for having argued with him earlier. "At the airport, he asked us to tell you that he didn't break his promise to you."

Carlisle stared at his son, remembering that night on the pier when Rolle weakly argued, "I'm not a gun." He tried to process now what Rolle's words meant; he didn't break his promise? Carlisle turned to leave and stopped knowing his actions would feel rude, but he couldn't find the words to explain how he was feeling. His mind tried to find the truth between the betrayals he felt and the facts he was learning about. He felt the eyes of his family upon him and simply did not have the answers they expected from him. Without a word, and without his usual politeness, he left.

Esme took a hesitant step to follow him but instead turned beseechingly to Edward. Please, talk to him, she implored without words.

Edward leaned to the side and kissed Bella, gently grasping her hand before getting up. He followed Carlisle out of the house. Their patriarch stood in the yard looking down at the place where Emmett had been rent and mysteriously left unconscious. Edward followed his gaze to the ground then looked at his father, wading through the jumbled thoughts of grief, regret and confusion. Topping the list, however, was disillusionment.

Resting his hand on Carlisle's shoulder, Edward suggested softly, "Hunt with me?" When Carlisle remained quiet, Edward gave him a friendly shake. "Just us. Like the old days," he entreated.

Carlisle looked up to meet his son's eyes. I'm sorry about earlier, he thought to Edward. I wasn't being fair to you. I trust your judgment, Edward. You know I do.

Edward offered him a small loving smile, but didn't want this to be about their argument. Carlisle was struggling, and he had been since Montreal.

"Come on," he said gently with tip of his head.

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1960
Constanta, Romania

"I am Stefan," he said.

"And I am Vladimir," came the quick addition as if they were speaking from a script. "We are the lords here."

"And we welcome you to our land," Stefan finished. "Please," he gestured to the clothes. "Accept our generosity."

Rolle leaned forward and pulled the clothes to him. He glanced at them quickly before returning his nervous eyes to the small forms of the two men. Without another glance at the material he stood and pulled them on.

Rolle was considerably taller than Erhan had been. Tightening the drawstring, the şalvar hung from his hips no longer than board shorts. When he pulled on the cepken, the short vest made his chest look enormous.

"Excellent," the vampire elders whispered together.

Vladimir gestured up the beach. "Please, will you come with us?"

Following them as if being towed, Rolle stayed several paces back silently trying to figure out what he remembered of the last time he was on dry land, and now. Flashes of images burned his eyes. Some were as short as a photograph. Others were longer, like short movies. There had been a man with long white hair who had... had... Rolle's breath hitched in his throat.

He was dead.

He was dead and she wasn't here.

Gillian.

Roses. Peaches. Heaven. Where was he? Copper. Ammonia. Broken cars. Blood. Lifeless pale-green eyes. Hell? Her fingers slipping from his. Pincers. Sulfur. Leaves fell dead roaring in his ears. Purgatory?

The elders glanced back occasionally to ensure he was still there. It wasn't necessary to check except when his breathing stilled too long from the stuttering that sometimes came from him. He seemed at once curious and yet wary of his surroundings, trying to look at things around them surreptitiously from lowered eyes.

Stefan and Vladimir held a silent conversation between them, noting Rolle's oddly submissive behavior where only a moment ago his persona was every bit as dominant as their own. He seemed unwilling to focus on anything around him. When Erhan had towered over him, the young man's gaze was hard and unwavering, setting deadly sights on his attacker. The elders were left to wonder which was the true Rolle and which had merely been backed into a corner.

"Your accent is strange to us, my young friend," Vladimir said trying to sound casual. "Where are you from?"

"Chicago," Rolle murmured far too low for a mortal to hear.

"American?" Stefan picked up. "Wonderful! We have been there. Delightful variety of flavors."

"Yes, delightful," Vladimir concurred trying to curb his excitement. "And how long have you walked with us?"

Rolle glanced back at the sea now even more confused. They couldn't be more than forty yards away from where they had found him. As the elders turned to see why he did not answer they saw his nonplussed expression.

"Îmi pare rău," Vladimir said. "My, ah... apologies," he added quickly, finally finding the right word. "My English is not as good."

"We mean," Stefan tried to ask, "how long have you been one of us? How many years?"

"One of you?" Rolle repeated his confusion growing. He tugged at the short vest, doing further damage to it. He started wringing his hands and pulling on his arms.

He was one of them? They were like him? But he was dead. Rolle's mind tried to make sense of this, but the pieces refused to fit together. He knew he was dead... a couple times, at least! And these beings were accepting him as one of their own? After making the man they called Erhan disappear?

They were murderers, too, just like him.

Unbidden, a line from Hamlet formed from his memory: the dread of something after death.

This.

He understood and he understood why. Sinners couldn't go to heaven. Gillian was in heaven. He had broken the fifth commandment. His arms wound across his own chest like the vise of a python's grip. A seam of the cepken tore with the gesture. He had died without confessing his sins. He had died without final rites.

He had hunted the man down: deliberate, methodical. There was a month of stalking him, learning his patterns. Rolle had shredded his humanity, his sanity, and his mercy to destroy the man who destroyed his love, his life. Dirty, starving, defiled and not caring because it wasn't important, Rolle only had one goal. One purpose. Finding him. Attacking him. Killing him. Killing him as many times as necessary until the pain and the rage were satisfied.

The elders paused, stunned again by Rolle's odd behavior. They could not know the avalanche they had begun in his mind as image after image flashed behind Rolle's eyes: blood, broken bones, brain tissue squishing under his fists, the soft wet sucking sounds each blow made.

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.

"I killed him. I killed him," Rolle repeated over and over again, stumbling though he was standing still.

"Dear friend!" Stefan hurried to reassure him thinking his distress was over Ehran. "Please, it is nothing. He was nothing. This is what we do. It is what we were made for."

"Yes, please, think no more of it. The entire matter is, how you say, of no importance." Vladimir smiled gently with his words.

Rolle's face was a mask of horror and shock. A man's life was of no importance? Rolle's mouth hung open under his terrified eyes and for the first time, he really looked at his surroundings: every shrub, every building now looming close to the sea, every grain of sand at his feet and every cloud in the dim night sky.

But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

His fractured mind cast about for a pattern to link everything together again, to cast light into the dark, to make sense of the senseless. Suddenly, things started to look familiar to Rolle as if he'd been here before. His breathing calmed and his arms lost their cruel clutch across his chest. He stared at low stone building in the distance, finding the sight comforting the way home would feel after a long trip.

"He is easily replaced," Stefan said, seeing the tension ease inexplicably in Rolle's face.

Rolle's eyes focused on his two hosts. They were both slightly built and short. They would have looked no more than eighteen years old if their skin hadn't been powdery white. He looked at their clothes, understanding their attire this evening: dark, for disguising blood, billowing, to hide in shadows. He even understood what had brought them out onto the beach this night: sport, to relieve boredom.

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

This was now his life in death. Revenge was thick in the air.

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A/N: As always, my thanks to my previewers: IrishGirlTaken, coolmommy99, Milalencar, and LolaShoes. To George, well, you know.

The title "Absolucion" is actually the original spelling of the word found from this website. For more insight into this discussion, join us on the forum.
Dictionary(dot)reference(dot)com/browse/absolution

cepken - a collarless vest or jacket of the Ottoman Empire
Şalvar - trousers of the Ottoman Empire

See visual references from my photobucket site
s861(dot)photobucket(dot)com/albums/ab177/gkkmouse/AbsolutionRefs/

Îmi pare rău
[I am sorry]

The dread of something after death is from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night is from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

Reviews are like Valium for Rolle... So I've heard...