A/N: Set during New Moon when Bella chases Edward through the woods in an attempt to find him after he leaves her.
Chapter 9
Bella's POV-
"How does this parallel universe concept even work?"
"As in?"
Sam turned to look at me, the two of us sitting in the balcony attached to our room- yes, our room- the Sam of this universe had naturally booked only one room for his honeymoon, and with neither of us being of this universe or having any source of income, affording another room was out of question. Hence, we had decided to be adults about it, with one of us sleeping on the sofa, and the other occupying the bed, going by rotation.
So far, we had been able to achieve the target of being cordial.
"As in," I began to speak, "where do the ones whose place we occupy go? Where are the Sam and Bella of this universe now? And what does our family think happen to us? Have we simply disappeared in thin air, or vanished from the face of the Earth with no one remembering that we ever existed?"
This had been a scary thought that had been bothering me since a while now.
Where did Charlie think I was?
Sam contemplated over that for a minute. "It is hard to answer all these questions, considering we really don't have any answer to it. We simply don't know."
"But why are these universes so damn different from one another? Charlie is with Esme in this one, who is a vampire in the universe where I come from. And in my universe, Charlie never moved on from my mother!"
"An alternate universe is formed with every decision that we take, or so it is believed. Charlie never took the decision of moving on in your universe."
"But what about Esme?" I argued. "Or Joy? How come Edward never became a vampire?"
Alice? Edward? Esme?
What decision led to them not becoming a vampire?
"Obviously they are not the same person." Sam stated. "The Edward who became a vampire in your universe died. This is not him."
"But they are so alike." I questioned.
Obviously, it could not have been him. A hundred years had passed in the middle. Also, this Edward was Quileute.
"What could have happened is that the Edward of your universe never faced the situation that led to his change. It just didn't happen because of a decision he or someone else took. Instead, he went on to live a happy human life, having children…grandchildren…"
"Wait. You mean to say that these are descendants of the original ones?"
"They are definitely not the original ones." He nodded his head in response. "Somewhere down the line, Quileute blood entered his bloodline."
"But…Carlisle? Is he still around?"
He shrugged at that. "We can't really know now, can we?"
"Wait. So, is there a universe where I did become a vampire?"
Was there a universe where Edward had changed me after James's attack?
"If there was a decision involved, could be."
My heart sped faster at that thought. Maybe, I could somehow enter that universe. All my complications could be resolved then!
"Do you sometimes wonder that there could be a universe where Leah never ended things with you? And that the two of you are happy and together?"
He let out a sigh, wincing. "At times. Can't help but think so. Maybe, it is for the good, though."
"How do you figure that?" I frowned in question.
He was madly in love with Leah. He was doing all of this for her.
"Our decisions don't exactly alter our destiny. If it is meant to happen, it will happen. Just instead of reaching our destination directly, we will take a longer route."
"So, you mean to say that…" I let my sentence trail off in air, waiting for him to clarify.
"Leah and I would have parted ways sooner or later. I would have found you and chosen to be with you. Imprint or not."
I scoffed at that. "That's not true."
"It is." he claimed. "Charlie would have eventually found his way to Joy or Esme if he was meant to be with them, or with whoever he was meant to be. We don't know what happens ahead. How can you be so sure that the Charlie of your universe did not wake up one morning, look at the vampire Esme and fall in love with her? It could have happened. He could have become a vampire to be with her. Or he could have bumped into Joy Ateara while on the reservation, the two of them bonding over the common. Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean that it will never happen."
"So, that means that…you and I…"
I could not complete that sentence. I did not want to.
He shrugged in response, expressionlessly continuing, "seems so. The fates have pushed us together in two out of three universes."
"But in my universe…" I furiously argued.
"We don't know the end, Bella." He sighed. "We could have been pushed together in that one too."
"But then where does it end? Do we have any freewill or not?"
Were Sam and I destined to be together? Did we have no choice in the matter?
He shrugged at that. "I wish I had the actual answer to that one. All I know is that my decision to accompany you led me to this place. It was a decision that I made. That would suggest that we do have some freewill…"
"Or maybe we are made to believe that we have freewill, simply acting the way we are supposed to?"
"Could be." he commented. "It is like there is a puzzle in front of us, with several pieces missing. We are all trying to put the puzzle together, filling in the gaps with what we think could be the missing piece."
I hummed at that. "We need to find the tunnel."
If we were meant to be- hypothetically assuming- we would have eventually found our way in our respective universe. But for that we needed to get back to our original places.
"We will." He agreed. "But for now, let's finish what we have come here for. It is still our first day here in this beautiful city of New York." He let out a nervous laugh. "It has been a day already, and all we have seen is our room, the passage from the hotel reception that leads to our room, and the view of the road from the balcony attached to our room."
"It is high time we do something about that." I smiled in agreement. "What say, we dump all the heavy conversations and go out and have some fun?"
"Now we are talking!" he grinned at me.
I waved him off, all heavy conversation put on the backseat for the meanwhile.