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As always, huge thanks go to my pre-reader/cheerleader team Gredelina1 and IamTheAlleyCat. Also to Snarkymuch for beta'ing this chapter and listening to all my bitching when the words wouldn't flow. I love you all.

~ Chapter Twenty-Two — The Pretend ~

Edward POV

Life with Bella passed peacefully over the following days.

She didn't speak much, and I did not try to push. I knew from her thoughts that she was going through something of an adjustment period as she grappled to find something to root her in reality. It was hard for her as the human act was so ingrained, as was her fear of Carlisle and Jasper.

On the third day after she attacked Carlisle, she spoke again.

"Edward, what happened to you?"

I didn't understand the context of the question. Was she asking how I passed the last two years without her, or was she still unsure of my presence in the world as she knew it? In response, I asked a question of my own.

"What is the last thing you remember when we were together?"

"We were camping," she began.

"And what happened?" I prompted.

"Alice came and said you had to go. It wasn't safe for you to stay."

A decision I still cursed to this very day. If I had been there, perhaps I could have saved her.

"Esme stayed instead." Now I could see the memories in her thoughts as her words narrated the scene. "Victoria came. Esme was hurting. I cut my arm." All this I knew from Esme's memories. I waited with bated breath for what came next. Finally, I would know what happened to her. "Victoria took me. I screamed." My heart broke a little at the pain in her voice, but I didn't interrupt; it was important that I knew what had happened to her.

"Victoria took me into the water." I saw the fear in her thoughts as she remembered the terror of not being able to breathe. "Then… I don't remember what happened next."

It was as if a steel shutter closed around her mind, hiding the memories from us both. I could see no more than she could.

When she spoke again, her voice was choked with emotion. "Edward, what happened to me?"

I opened my arms to her, and she curled up against me hiding her face against my chest. "Oh, my Bella. I wish I knew."

xXx

With the family gone, we had free rein on the island. One of the more pressing concerns, in my opinion at least, was the fact that our clothes were in tatters.

I wasn't sure about bringing Bella to the house, though, as she seemed so much more comfortable in the safety of the cavern. I wished I could speak to Jasper. He had extensive psychological knowledge, and he could have advised me of how best to manage Bella and the messed up situation we were in.

I broached the subject of returning to the house in the early hours of the morning of our fourth day on the island.

"Bella, there are things I need to collect from the house. Do you want to come with me or would you prefer to stay here?"

Her weak smile faded. "You're going to leave me?"

"No, not leave." I hurried to reassure her. "I am just going to the house for awhile. You can come with me."

"But what about the bad ones?" she asked tremulously.

"There is no one but us here now. The others all went back to the mainland."

She seemed to battle with herself for a moment. I made no attempt to read her mind. I wanted her to verbalize what she was thinking; for her to be able to speak her needs seemed the logical first step in recovery.

Eventually, she nodded. "I'll come with you."

"Are you coming because you want to or because you think you need to protect me?" I didn't want her to force herself to come if it would make her uncomfortable just because she felt the need to protect me.

She grinned, and I saw a little of the old Bella shining through her eyes. "I want to come because I want to protect you."

We set out hand in hand through the thick underbrush. Neither of us seemed in a hurry, so we ambled along at a steady pace. We got within sight of the house just as the sun was creeping over the horizon.

I pulled her to a halt at the edge of the trees. "There's no one here. See?"

She inhaled deeply and nodded. "Old scents."

"Yes, old scents. They have all gone."

She allowed me to lead her onto the beach that surrounded the house and onto the deck. She was clearly uncomfortable, but she carried on walking regardless.

I threw open the glass doors and gestured her in ahead of me. She balked on the threshold. "I'm not sure I can," she whispered.

"That's okay, love. You wait here, and I will go in and grab what we need."

She nodded energetically and stood like a sentinel at on the deck. I hurried inside and went straight to the second bedroom where I found two bags. One was the case I had packed for myself in Forks, and the other was full of clothes Esme had brought for Bella. I pulled on a pair of slacks and a shirt and selected a pair of shorts and a vest for her to wear. When I took it out to her, I saw that she was still standing in the same place as I had left her.

She took the proffered clothing and pulled it on. "Are we going now?" she asked hopefully.

"There are a couple of things I need to do first," I said. "I need to make a phone call. Will you be okay a little longer?"

She nodded and turned away so she was facing the ocean again.

I found a cell phone on the coffee table in the sitting room with a note in Carlisle's flawless handwriting.

Edward. We have gone to the mainland for a time. There are preparations to be made. If you need anything, please call us. Take care. Carlisle.

I mused over the note for a moment. There was something I needed, but I wasn't sure whether or not it was a good idea. Bella needed help that I could not give her. I'd had four days in her presence now, and the only progress I had been able to make was to get her to speak in short, clipped sentences. I didn't even know who or what I was in her mind. She believed me dead; did that mean I was now a hallucination in her mind or perhaps even a ghost? Someone needed to be here to ask the tough questions, and I was not the person to do that.

Sighing heavily, I picked up the phone and waited for it to ring.

"Edward, how is she?" Alice wasted no time with pleasantries; she dove right into what mattered.

"She is doing better. How much have you seen?"

"I've seen that she's speaking. Carlisle and Jasper say that's a good sign. How is she emotionally, though?"

"That's why I am calling. I wonder if you and Jasper would be prepared to make a trip to the island. I need Jasper's help."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I could easily imagine Alice's furrowed brow as she tried to articulate her thoughts. "Are you sure she's ready for this, Edward?"

I had decided to ask Jasper and Alice here to try to help me open Bella's memories. Jasper had prodigious skill managing emotions, and his knowledge of psychology would be advantageous. If we could find the right way to unlock Bella's memories, we could help her. I felt sure that if we knew exactly what happened to her in Volterra and what triggered the human delusion, we could heal her. She hadn't returned to her human self… yet, but I feared it was just lurking beneath the surface ready to take over.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I just know I can't help her on my own. I am loathe to cause her pain, and to make her face the memories of what happened to her is going to be excruciating, but I can think of no other way to truly reach her. She is still not herself."

"She may never be herself, Edward." Alice spoke in a gentle tone.

"I am aware of it," I said curtly. I was painfully aware of it, in fact. The Bella I had known may be lost to me forever, but she deserved our best efforts regardless.

Alice sensed my tension and changed the subject. "What about the rest of the family, should we all come back?"

"I think just you and Jasper for now. I would not risk Bella losing control around Carlisle again, and I will not have Rosalie around Bella until she can learn to hold her tongue."

Alice sighed. "She doesn't mean it, you know."

"Are you going to pretend she wasn't spewing vitriol about my Bella when we left you?"

"No, but it's just Rose being Rose. She can't help herself."

"I find it hard to sympathize with her cosseted existence when faced with Bella's suffering."

"I understand. What about Emmett and Esme?"

"I will not separate mates." I spoke firmly. This was one subject upon which I would not be moved. No one was going to suffer the same separation Bella and I had.

I heard movement outside. I looked out the window and saw Bella walking out on the beach towards the shore.

"Alice, I have to go. Can I count on you and Jasper?"

"Of course you can. I will see you very soon. And, Edward, remember that she loves you no matter what."

That was an ominous statement. I would have liked to question her further, but Bella needed me more.

"I will see you soon." I hung up the phone and hurried outside.

Bella was standing at the edge of the ocean. With each surge of the tide, the water foamed up around her ankles. She didn't seem occupied by the water, though. Her attention was focused on the sunlight glistening on her arm. She traced the curve of her wrist with one finger and held up her hand in front of her face.

"Beautiful," I murmured.

She turned to face me and scowled. I wasn't used to seeing my Bella looking at me like that. It hurt my heart to see it now.

"What's wrong, my love?" I asked.

"Did you know it is dark in the jungle?" she asked, and then she forged ahead before I could answer. "Always so dark. The trees block out the sun, you see."

This was the most I had heard her speak since she returned to me. It was also the most rational I had heard her speaking. I hoped this presaged a return to herself.

"I never saw myself in the sun until Alice and Jasper took me away."

I nodded. "It must have been a shock for you."

She scoffed. "A shock. Yes, it was. It was also frightening. It scared me to think that I had been changed."

"You always wanted to be changed," I said stupidly.

A black look of fury overtook her features. "I wanted to be changed so I could be with you!" Her voice rose to a scream. "I didn't want forever like this!"

"You have me, though. I'm here, Bella."

She laughed; it was a cold high sound that I never wanted to hear again. This wasn't my Bella. She had come back to me as something different now.

"You're not real. You are just another pretend like the jungle. I could pretend to be human there because it was what I wanted. Now I want you, so I see you. When is the pretend going to stop?"

Her thoughts weren't making sense to me. They were a tangled rush of images, rain cascading down over the mouth of a cave, a campfire with burning embers, a dead deer on the ground. Above all, there was pain. Her thoughts were filled with it.

I stepped forward to embrace her, but she shied away from me. "Don't touch me. You're not real. You're a dead thing."

Her words felt like darts against my skin. It was what I had always feared, that she would see me for what I really was and would hate me.

"I'm so sorry." My tone was heavy with sadness. "I never meant to hurt you, Bella, I swear."

She thumped down onto the sand in a sitting position and drew her legs up to her chest. "I don't understand what's happening to me."

"Tell me what you are thinking," I pleaded. Her readable thoughts were still a tangle of images to me, but because she was now a vampire, I knew she must be thinking rationally on some level at least.

"I don't know what's real anymore. I see you and feel you, and it makes me happy to see you, but I know you can't be real. I thought it would all end when I came here, but it's just getting worse."

"I am real," I said with feeling.

"Then why do I remember Carlisle telling me you died? I remember the pain of his words. How they seemed to steal everything good out of the world."

This was a memory from the time after Victoria had taken her. The memories that had been hidden from us before. This had to be a good sign.

"Because someone lied to you, Bella. Someone played a cruel trick on you."

She shook her head. I heard the denial in her mind. She wasn't believing me. The delusion was so ingrained in her that it would take more than me simply telling her the truth to get through to her.

I reached out a tentative hand to her and took comfort in the fact that she didn't shy away from me this time. I ran a hand through her hair. "I'm so sorry for what has happened to you, Bella. I swear I will make the people pay that did this to you."

I was determined of it. Even if it cost me my own life, I would not rest until Aro was dead.

Thanks for reading. As always, if you would like a teaser of the next chapter, let me know in a review or a PM.

Simaril x