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A/N: This story is rated M for "Mmmmm, mmmm! Lemony goodness ahead." Ok, not in this chapter, but soon so if you're not over 18, please don't read.
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Chapter 4: No Time To Wallow
Another sunny day, Edward mentally groaned. Thursday was the third sunny day in a row, and even the perpetually unflappable Carlisle was starting to chafe. Of course they did their best to work around it. As a second year medical student, Edward was in class primarily during the days, but clear blue skies forced him to come early and stay in the building that housed the medical school's classes until after dark. A minor annoyance, really, but still…
As Edward pulled together his bag for the day, he made sure he would have everything necessary to get him through the extra hours of boredom: his laptop, wireless internet card, and iPod, which he would actually be using. He also packed his two, four inch thick medical text books, which were primarily for show. While his lectures wouldn't start until 8:30 that morning, it wasn't unusual to see other students hanging out in the cafeteria, which happened to be housed in the same building as the medical school lecture halls, at all hours of the day and night. Edward, thankful that the days were shortening, didn't have to leave for school until 6:00 a.m. in order to beat the sunrise.
With only a few hours to kill, Edward purchased his decoy cup of coffee and sat by a table furthest from the windows, in a shadowy alcove he knew would see no sunlight. He was listening to the Doors today - he'd been in a seventies groove for the past week - when a quiet chime alerted him to the window that had popped up in his Gmail browser.
luckyrose13: Must be nice to have some place to go.
Edward sighed. You have got to be kidding me, he thought as he stared incredulously at his laptop's monitor.
ecullen18: You have the same choices as the rest of us, Rose. No one is forcing you to stay home. Besides, if you're so upset about the sun, why don't you do something useful and visualize some cloudy days?
Edward immediately clicked his status to unavailable so he wouldn't have to read the inevitable tirade Rose was sure to unleash at that last comment. Years ago, the family had noticed that Rosalie was lucky. It didn't seem odd to her; even before her human beauty had been un-humanly perfected, she almost always got her own way. Rose learned at an early age her looks opened doors closed to nearly everyone else. Teachers, friends, parents, anyone and everyone could be easily managed by a well-timed smile or frown.
Edward had heard enough of his sister's thoughts over the years to know this was one of the reasons she found her new life so intolerable. The one thing she wanted most, to return to being human, was unattainable. She couldn't flirt or pout or tantrum her way out of being a vampire, and she had no experience in disappointment to mitigate her frustration over it.
Edward knew that Carlisle had been turning around the idea for years that Rosalie might be gifted with a special talent. He initially went back and forth, trying to decide whether her talent was purely luck or just that she was able to bend reality to her expectations of what should be. When he had first broached the possibility with Rose, however, she had gone ballistic.
"How dare you insinuate that, Carlisle," she had howled at him from across the enormous foyer of their house in Ithaca, NY. "Do you know how many times I have wished this hadn't happened to me? If I was so damned lucky, you would have let me die!"
Edward had been by her side in an instant, restraining her from hurling herself at the target of her wrath, while small, sweet Esme, had sped over to Carlisle, hovering protectively next to her mate. Although he listened, Edward couldn't hear distinct thoughts from Rosalie. But the rage that was swirling in her mind made her unstable, and he wasn't willing to allow her to do something violent and stupid. He knew how she would later regret it and how much it would break Esme's heart. He also knew that Carlisle, in his heart-wrenching remorse over what he considered the injustice he had done to her, wouldn't lift a finger to stop her.
Before Carlisle could explain his thoughts to Rose, she had crumpled to the floor. In his utter surprise at Rose's unexpected weakness, Edward had let her fall. She sobbed dryly into her hands.
"Don't you know how much I wish I could escape this hell?" she had moaned wretchedly. Esme flew to her side, cooing softly into her daughter's ear, curling Rosalie into her arms like a child.
Edward had to leave in order to escape the pain that filled the minds of his family. Carlisle's thoughts swirled around whether or not he had made the right decision in changing Rose. Esme's turned to how much she wished Rose would find something in this life that would make her happy. And Rose's thoughts were a steady dirge: I wish I could die. I wish I could die.
It was an inevitable fact, one that everyone but Rosalie seemed able to accept: once changed, they could never go back to what they had been. Carlisle and Esme accepted it. Edward thought he did too. But Rosalie wallowed in bitter resentment. And it had surprised Edward when he realized that she blamed him.
How could she blame him for her existence? He hadn't changed her. He hadn't even wanted her to be changed. He never would have wished this life on another soul. When he had come home that dreary, spring evening and found the town's most famous girl writhing in agony in his father's study, he had been stunned to say the least.
"Carlisle, have you gone mad?" he had demanded angrily. "Don't you think anyone will notice that Rosalie Hale has gone missing?" But his father didn't answer. Even his thoughts were consumed with soothing the broken girl through an anguish that could not be lessened by anything other than death.
"She's a liability, Carlisle," Edward muttered as he went upstairs to begin packing his things. "You should give her what she's asking for. It would be kinder."
Rosalie's inarticulate screams, alternated by pleas for death, were met by Carlisle's gentle murmurs of encouragement. Edward was barely paying attention when he heard his father think that, once her change was complete, perhaps she and Edward could heal each other's wounds. What the hell? Edward stopped short. She's for me?
It was grotesque, like some bad, Frankenstein parody. Edward could barely process it before he was downstairs confronting Carlisle.
"You did this for me?" he hissed. As his father took in the ire on Edward's face, he motioned him out to the hall while Esme took his place by Rosalie's side.
"Edward," Carlisle hesitated. He looked guilty as his thoughts turned to what he had encountered mere hours before: Rosalie Hale, broken and beaten, left for dead, discarded like a piece of garbage. Carlisle's mind was consumed with the waste of it all.
"You know I would never take a person who had any other choice," he continued, alluding to their previous conversations on the topic, "but I couldn't allow her life to be squandered in that way. You may not have approved of her in the past, but she will be part of this family soon and she'll need our support." His thoughts stumbled again on that last part, betraying just how much he hoped Edward would come to need her, and she him.
Edward felt so very sorry for Rosalie Hale in that moment. Of course he had known of her; everyone in town knew the beautiful girl who had made the match of a century by snagging the enormously wealthy Royce King, Jr. Edward had also met the swaggering, blond brute, who hid a wealth of evil and malice behind his sunny good looks. But Edward couldn't care less about the trifling dramas of Rochester society.
Still, while no one deserved what Royce had done to Rosalie, Carlisle hadn't done her any favors by staving off her death. Edward could never love Rosalie. He could never love anyone. His heart had been stolen by the woman who had turned his world upside down so many years ago in Chicago. His heart belonged solely to Isabella Marie Swan.
He would never forget the first moment he saw her; it was just as the sun was setting on the Saturday after he turned eighteen, just outside of the Central Park Theatre. He had gone with some friends who came down from the naval base to celebrate his birthday and their imminent departure "over there."
They had seen a new movie, a shortie about a girl who goes to see a fortune-teller who warns her to beware of blondes, only to find herself and her boyfriend surrounded by them. It had been particularly amusing to his friend James, who had immediately set in on teasing Edward, who had been pursued for months by Jessica, the dishwater blonde girl who lived next door. "Beware of Blondes!" He had recited the title of the film again and again to Edward as they had left the theater, using his best vaudevillian horror voice.
Edward remembered how exciting it had been, to be out with his friends as men, out to see a movie and then off to get a beer. It had been especially soothing to his wounded pride, which was still smarting from an argument he had with his mother earlier that evening. She didn't want him to enlist in the armed services like all of his friends had done, and they had quarreled bitterly. She had ended their disagreement by calling on his father to forbid him to go, which Edward Sr. had quietly, but firmly, done. After that episode, it had felt good to be out in the world for a night doing as he pleased.
It was a mundane thing that had, in the end, changed him so irrevocably. His shoe had been untied. He had bent down to tie it, his friends continuing ahead of him raucously, and, when he looked up, she was standing there before him.
She was just a tiny thing, almost a foot shorter than he would be if he had been standing, but when she looked at him, her lips twitching bemusedly, she had seemed to tower over him. His first thought had been to be grateful that he was already on his knees. He must have knelt there a beat too long because her smile widened playfully.
"Are you waiting for me to knight you?" she teased, her voice flowed like honey: soft and slow and unbearably sweet. Edward knew he was making a idiot of himself, but he continued to kneel before her. It just seemed the most prudent thing to do in the face of such perfection.
"Would you?" he replied with amusement. He stood up and looked down in to her unusual dark eyes. They seemed to be a peculiar shade of violet, almost burgundy, but he paid less attention to their color than he did to the jovial light in them. This gorgeous creature was flirting with him, and he wasn't going to let the moment slip away on trivialities.
"Well now, I'm not sure," he continued with mock deliberation. "Would my lady liege be beneficent or cruel?" While the woman before him was clearly stunning, there was something about her expression that told him she wasn't all sunshine and light. It made her oddly more attractive, although he'd never been one to chase after vixens.
She laughed, and the sound of it made him think of the first time he had caught a single, perfect snowflake on his tongue as a child: cool and crisp and miraculous. He shook his head a little, trying to focus on the woman before him and not the way she was turning him into a giddy fool.
"Oh, definitely cruel," she assured him. "Good is so over-rated." She continued to stare into his eyes as if she were searching for something in them. His heart stuttered at the thought that she might see something special in him, then beat harder, wishing with every beat that she would.
He reached down and took her hand in his, and his mouth popped open a bit in surprise at his body's reaction. He felt as if an electrical current had streaked through him. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, merely shocking. Literally, he mused. Again Edward had to force his errant mind into the present. He focused on the ethereal beauty before him, holding her hand up in a courtly way, just under her fingers.
"Then, by all means, make me your champion. I can't think of anything I'd rather be than the protector of such a fair maiden." He had meant for the words to come out wryly but instead they rang with a sincerity that surprised them both.
Her head tilted a bit to the side, and Edward worried briefly that he had displeased her. "Do I look like I need protecting?" she asked softly.
Crap! Edward didn't know where this was going, but the last thing he wanted to do was to scare this girl off before he had even learned her name.
"Yes, actually, but not nearly as much as the rest of mankind needs from you," he replied lightly, trying to return the conversation to the banter-like state it had started in. "I imagine that you, my fair lady, are the sort of woman that leaves hordes of slain men in her wake," he finished glibly.
A Cheshire grin returned to her full, rosy lips. "You have no idea."
Edward was losing himself again in the depths of her eyes when boisterous shouting shook him from his reverie. His eyes flickered to his group of friends just up the street, turning with the obvious intention of coming back to see who he was talking to and most likely embarrassing him in front of her.
"Your compatriots are coming for you," she said quietly, gently withdrawing her cool hand from his. "And that, kind sir, is my cue to leave." She ambled down the street smoothly, neither fast nor slow, and Edward's heart sank as he wondered if she had been so unaffected by their exchange.
"Wait," he called out after her, ignoring his friends and catching up with her quickly. He stood before her again, hunting in her eyes for some emotion to let him know whether or not she had been as moved by meeting him as he had by her.
"I don't even know your name," he blurted lamely. As soon as the words were out, he wished he could snatch them back. He didn't have much experience wooing women, but even he could tell he was starting to look ridiculously desperate. Then she smiled at him, warmly and graciously, and again his mind could think of nothing but her.
"A lady never tells her secrets," she replied cryptically. "But don't worry, we'll meet again. You can count on it." He was going to question her, when James loudly called out his name, making his head whip back toward his group reflexively. He gave them a short, irritated wave, more of a flick of his hand than a greeting, clearly meant to convey that he was busy and they should wait for him up the street. When he turned back, however, the mysterious girl had disappeared.
It had been the first time he had seen Bella, but not the last. No, the last time he had seen her he had been sick and dying, and then he had awoken as something unholy and wrong. Forcing that memory away, yet again, Edward glanced at the clock in the cafeteria. It was finally time to head to class and begin his day of dull lectures amongst even duller students.
***
By the time Edward arrived home that night, he was exhausted. He had spent most of the day trying to avoid the male half of his classmates, who apparently had gone into heat early this year. Usually the horny lot waited until the spring to kick their erotic fantasies into overdrive, but someone must have slipped them a mickey this year. It was only Fall, and their hormones were raging.
Edward had been bombarded with one sexual visual after another, primarily featuring Angela, Carlisle's shy lab assistant who also happened to be Edward's fellow second-year med student. The girl portrayed in the deviant thoughts du jour, however, bore little resemblance to reality. At least Edward had not previously detected a predilection for engaging in oral sex and ménages à trios in her squeaky clean mind, although he had witnessed stranger things in his 108 years.
Edward shook his head, as if he rid himself of the offensive memories that easily. He had no desire to have those images of Angela, a girl he admired for her kind and gentle mind, stuck in his head.
He could hear his parents in the study, much as they were every night, and Rosalie in her room, playing poker online and killing her opponents. He headed for the music room that Esme had set up for him inside the conservatory, his piano hidden from the main part of the room behind a fountain and a screen of potted palms.
He played for a few hours, starting off with the sweeter melodies he knew his mother enjoyed. But somehow every song turned sour. His fingers pounded into the ivory keys, returning as always to the notes of her song.
As the sad strains filled the air, Edward was only peripherally aware that his family had registered the change in tone of his playing. He was so caught up in his sadness and anger that he didn't even realize Rosalie had joined him until she reached for the key cover. He barely had time to whisk his fingers back before she sent it slamming down, ending his song with a jangle of discordant notes. Edward looked at his sister in shock, the exasperation of her thoughts obvious on her face.
"I am so tired of your constant mourning for that bitch," Rose's words came out harsh and frustrated. "And I can't decide what's worse. What she did or your ceaseless self-pity." A low hiss escaped Edward's throat.
"You're not one to talk, Rosalie," he growled menacingly but she leaned forward quickly being intentionally confrontational.
"If she was so amazing," she goaded him, "why didn't you go after her?"
As always, Rosalie's thoughts betrayed her jealousy. She was envious that Edward had known love, however briefly, when she knew that, while she had often been adored, she had never been truly loved. She also resented the fact that, rather than want her as she believed she deserved, he persisted in carrying this fruitless torch for a woman who apparently didn't give a damn. But tonight a new thought crept in. She wondered why he insisted on remaining miserable when his happiness was completely within his control.
"What do you mean, 'It's completely within my control?'" he asked without even thinking. Rosalie grimaced at having her thoughts read.
"Edward, I know I give you a lot of grief, and you know about my own," her thoughts stuttered over the words infatuation, loneliness and insecurities before she settled on, "issues, but the truth is you don't know why Isabella left you." Edward was dumbfounded by the fact that she had actually spoken the forbidden name.
"Rosalie, I don't want to talk about this, especially not with you," he snarled at her, letting his hurt color his words.
"That never stops you from bringing up my lucky streak," she bit back, making air quotes around the last two words.
Edward decided to go on the offensive. "By the way, Rose, what percentage of hands did you win tonight?" He purposely needled her, trying to change the subject.
All of them, she mentally sighed before thinking more defensively, of course I did, I'm smarter than all of those other jerks.
"Don't be a jackass just to change the subject, Edward," she continued with disdain. "What I was trying to say was, maybe she really did change her mind." When she saw him staring daggers at her, she held her hands up placatingly. "But maybe she didn't. Maybe she had to leave for some reason." For the first time, Rosalie was displaying a softer side of her heart, one where she wasn't her own personal deity and concerns for others loomed large.
"Maybe you still have a chance at happiness," she pressed on, despite Edward's continued glare. "Don't you want to find out?" Edward rubbed his eyes wearily, but his sister was not deterred. "Don't you want some sort of closure?" I would, chimed in her self-interested inner voice, which she quickly squashed with a mental apology, Sorry.
"Rose," he began awkwardly, "it's just…difficult." Yeah, right, came her quick mental reply.
"It's only as difficult as you make it, Edward," she said aloud. "Only you have the power to decide how much of your time you waste wallowing in your pain before you decide to find her." Rosalie placed her hand gently on his arm and squeezed affectionately before she turned away. "Only you have the power to decide how much time will pass before you find out the truth," she said over her shoulder.
Edward considered her words as Rosalie returned to her room, but not before she punctuated her last statement with a final mental jibe. Figure it out, asshole.