Bookends By: Bella's Executioner.
Rating: M- this means if you're under 16 you are agreeing to break your own ToS by reading this and I'm not your mother so be responsible for yourself.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer is the sole owner of the world of Twilight. She is Bella's creator. I am Bella's Executioner.
A/N: Bookends is the very first fanfiction I started writing. It's been on this site, moved and come back. It has errors, fuck ups and lots of proofs that I'm human but it also has all of my heart and soul in it. I welcome you into this world of pain and love and hope that you enjoy. I also welcome your thoughts as you read—pm me or review and I'll be happy to discuss the story with you.
Life is not just about living, it is about dying, too. It has a beginning and an end. What we do and who we hold on to in the middle is what defines our life.
"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." – Dr. Seuss
"Life gives us brief moments with one another…but sometimes in those brief moments, we get memories that last a life time…" Anonymous
As always I thank my wonderful beta. She goes through the pain of these characters with me more times than anyone should have to. I'm taking up stock in Kleenex and sending her a lifetime supply of tissues for this story.
And I just want to thank all of you who have been on the journey with me. Whether we've ever talked or not, I appreciate your support!
Chapter 37: Preserve your memories
-**-Bookends-**-
"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you" (Bookends, Paul Simon)
(I did it my way, Frank Sinatra)
And now, the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain.
My friends, I'll say it clear;
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full -
I've traveled each and every highway.
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Regrets? I've had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
I planned each charted course -
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew,
When I bit off more than I could chew,
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.
I've loved, I've laughed and cried,
I've had my fill - my share of losing.
But now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.
To think I did all that,
And may I say, not in a shy way -
Oh no. Oh no, not me.
I did it my way.
For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.
Yes, it was my way.
-**-Bookends-**-
Jake POV (1999)
I didn't like to go outside the lines. The picture looked prettier when you kept you colors inside what was already there.
I made sure to not press too hard on the crayons, either. I wanted them to last. Was tired of them breaking. And it was easier to keep the color inside the lines if you didn't press too hard.
Emmett snapped the red crayon in half, grinding it against the page- the color was all over. I couldn't even tell what he was trying to color since the line seemed completely forgotten.
"Mom!" I yelled.
Em rolled his eyes. "Don't think she can hear you, Jake."
"Oh…right…Em's mom!" I whined.
Mrs. Swan came into the kitchen. Her smile was as pretty as ever, even though I could tell she was trying to not seem sad that I had called for my mom.
Gotta stop doing that, dummy. She's been gone for six years. She's not coming back.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" she asked, automatically glaring at her son.
"Em's coloring wrong," I explained.
Mrs. Swan smiled more sincerely and Em huffed like I had caught him stealing cookies.
"There's no right way to color, Jacob," she informed me sweetly.
"Though, if you keep breaking all of your crayons I won't buy you any new ones, Emmett Charles," she warned.
I snickered at the sound of his middle name. Emmett always hated being called Charles.
Em huffed at his mother. "I can't help how powerful my artistic talent is, Ma."
She shook her head at both of us, laughing as she left the room.
"You're still doing it wrong," I grumbled when he picked up the next crayon and ignored the shapes already on the page.
"Only wrong for you, dude. What difference does it make?" He raised his eight-year-old eyebrows at me in distraction. He had that look in his eyes—the one that meant I was going to be put in time-out for punching him.
He leaned over and scribbled a dark blob of orange at the corner of my page before I could stop him.
"You messed it up!" I yelled.
"Made it better, you mean." He laughed.
"You're such a jerk!" I screamed
I launched myself at him-landing on the ground with my fist ready to connect with his cheek.
We probably would have kept fighting through the sound of the phone ringing and maybe even once Mrs. Swan was talking.
But we heard her cry.
Em shoved me off of him and I let him since I was just as worried as he was.
"You found…her…Oh my God….yes…That's unbelievable…" She seemed happy. She was smiling and pacing around like someone did when they were excited about something.
But she was crying.
Tears were streaked down her cheeks and every now and then her breath sounded like it caught in her throat.
"Okay…see you soon." She hung up the phone and I exchanged a confused look with Emmett.
"What's up, Mom?" he asked timidly as we entered the living room.
She covered her mouth, like that was supposed to stop us from seeing her tears or something and shook her head.
"That was…your dad, Jacob," she told me. "He's coming home. They should be here in an hour or so."
"They?" Em and I said in unison.
"He's picking up your cousins…they were…"
"Tanya's back in rehab again," I guessed. She nodded. Poor Edward and Jazz. It might have sucked to have a mom who ran out on me before I learned to walk, but it beat having a mom who abused me.
"And…you're getting…your dad has….Your sister is coming home, too," she stammered.
I looked at her…even more confused than I was before. "My sister?"
"He's adopted a girl from the orphanage where the boys were sent. She's coming home with them."
I didn't know what to do with that information.
I spent the next hour pacing the porch in front of the Swan house trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with that news.
Why did I need a sister? Dad's hardly home as it is.
Em sat on the porch and watched me walk back and forth.
"Maybe she'll be fun to play with," he theorized.
"She's not a doll that Dad bought to add to my toy collection, Em," I snapped.
"Dude, we're not even touching the fact that you play with dolls," he teased.
I rolled my eyes.
"What are you afraid of?" he finally asked, quiet and in some weird supportive way.
"I dunno…I'm not sure I was meant to be a big brother."
Em shook his head, standing and throwing an arm over my shoulder.
"There's nothing to it, Jake. It's fun," he promised.
I thought about Em and Bella. He was a great big brother. He cared about his sister more than he'd ever let anyone know. But I knew.
I saw when he made sure to walk slower to school so Bella could keep up. I saw when he'd talk to Charlie by the car when he dropped them off so Bella didn't have to deal with their father's scrutiny.
I saw when he let her sleep in his bed so that her nightmares didn't scare her at night.
Could I be that kind of big brother to this new sister?
"What if she doesn't like me?"
Em rolled his eyes. "Please. You're awesome, Jake. A person would have to be deaf, dumb and stupid to not like you."
I sighed.
We could see the Mercedes coming down the driveway.
I swallowed.
At some point, Mrs. Swan and Bella joined us at the steps. My nerves were on end to see the passengers exit the black car.
My cousins were first.
Edward looked like someone had beaten him down. He wasn't the same kind of big brother as Em was—instead acting more a father to Jazz. There wasn't a person standing here who didn't know what my cousin had suffered, first with Ed and now with Tanya.
Even at the age of eight, I knew what Edward faced had to be overwhelming and terrifying. I was immediately ashamed at being afraid to be a big brother to this new girl.
What problems did I have to face in my life, really? Compared to the crap that my cousins faced every single second of their lives…all I had to do was be a friend to this girl. To love her. To support her.
I could totally do that.
"This is Alice," Dad said with his hands on the tiny shoulders of my baby sister.
Her eyes were big with intimidation. But she smiled like she just knew this was where she belonged.
I stepped down from the porch and threw my arms around her. "Welcome home, Sis."
-**-Bookends-**-
APOV (morning of the crash)
I set out the button down top for Jazz to wear to dinner.
"Bit early to be laying out clothes, isn't it, baby?" he asked, kissing the back of my neck.
I smiled. "You know me. I like to be prepared."
He laughed. "Remind me why you weren't a girl scout, again?"
I made a face. "Their outfits are atrocious."
Jazz laughed and swatted my butt before he headed into the kitchen.
"Where are you taking me?" I prodded. There were only two nice-enough places in Forks to be considered "going out" dining and only a handful of options in Port Angeles.
"Picnic in the tree house?" he teased as I entered the kitchen behind him.
I rolled my eyes with exaggerated slowness. "Um…no, thanks."
"Hmmm," he feigned worry. "Don't know now."
I winked at him and reached for the orange juice in the fridge.
"You're a very intelligent man. I'm sure you'll think of something."
It happened so suddenly. One minute I was talking to my husband, laughing about our near future and then I was sitting on the floor in a puddle of orange juice. I had no memory of falling. It was like I had blacked out.
The image of my sister and her husband dead flashed in my head.
"No…No!" I was moaning and rocking slightly.
I felt like I was out of my body, seeing some moment in another dimension that had nothing to do with me.
"Alice… look at me, sweetheart… Alice, please…" Jazz's calm voice was cutting through the fog but the nightmare was still there in my brain.
"I…you have to call them!" I shouted. "Warn Rose and Em that something bad is going to happen!" Maybe this was the fear that had been haunting me for months now, that nagging feeling that something terrible was going to happen.
Thank God I figured it out before…
"No Al…" Jazz whispered. "They're gone. You were just on the phone with Dad. He told us they're heading to Portland. That the … plane crashed early this morning…"
The empty darkness opened up and the conversation that had sent me on my knees flooded back into my mind. My joking, happy moment with my husband was cut short with the ringing of our phone. My father's voice…I'd never heard it so devoid of emotion…Rose was gone.
A plane crash.
I closed myself off, cutting off the sense of hearing and seeing. It was like being back in that orphanage as a kid.
No. This was worse.
That pain had an ending.
I was tumbling into darkness.
Why?
-**-Bookends-**-
RPOV (one month before her surgery)
"I'm glad to see you again, Rose." She smiled.
"Thank you, Dr. Tenno." I matched her smile.
"I was worried when they said you wanted to see me…I thought we were all settled? When last we spoke…" She referred to her notes.
I wasn't some person living in a folder. My mind wasn't controlled by what her notes said about me.
"Am I crazy?"
She closed her file, turning slowly to look at me. It wasn't the first time I had asked her that. It would never be the last time I would ask people that.
"Literally speaking, yes. You want to alter your physical appearance based on psychological desires."
I nodded.
"But… that's not a bad thing," I said. It wasn't a question… well, maybe it was, but she had drilled it in to me over and over again when I first started these mandatory appointments that I wasn't insane. I was in total control of my mind. I just wasn't…normal.
And normality was subject to the eyes of the beholder. So for me and my life I was totally sane and completely normal.
"Rosalie, no one can tell you who or what you should be in this world. You…above all of my other patients…above most people I've ever met, period, live by that belief."
I nodded.
"What is troubling you, Rose?"
I twiddled my thumbs—thumbs that belonged to a guy. I was sitting in this chair in a guy's body.
"Why?"
It wasn't something anyone could explain.
It was the first thing I asked my Dad when I found out Mom was gone.
The first thing I asked myself when I realized I was in love with my best friend.
The only thing that kept running through my head as I swallowed pill after pill and spoke to countless doctors about these procedures I was about to go under.
Why.
Why was a born a guy.
Why did I have to go through this.
It wasn't a question, either. It was just a plea.
"How is your family, Rose?"
I shrugged. "My Dad…is doing great. Jazz and Alice are enjoying each other… Edward… I worry about him…Bella…they're going through a lot." So much more than she'll ever let me tell.
"And how is your mother?"
When I was a kid…Mary would've been the first person in my mind when someone said that word. But ever since I decided…ever since Rose was born… all I saw was Esme.
"She's happy."
"How is Emmett doing?"
My chest swelled with pride. Em was doing better than me. Every night there was some new study or book that he'd found info about what we were in for. Most of it was stuff that he didn't really care to understand but he'd tell me about it. He'd use whatever new term he'd learned as a starter to a conversation about what I was going through.
He reminded me of a guy who was excited to have his first kid—almost desperately wishing he could be pregnant, too. Or at least share the burden with his wife.
In so many ways I wasn't the only one being altered. Em never missed an opportunity to show me his support in that choice.
"He's amazing," I whispered.
"So…why?" she repeated.
I nodded.
"I've always had a theory about you, Rose."
I laughed. "Em says I was too stubborn to just leave well enough alone."
She smiled. "Nah, I think you're strong enough. Some battles…some choices…have to be fought and made just so that life advances. You can do this. You were born to do this. And so you must do this."
I shook my head. "O…kay." I didn't know what to make of that one.
She laughed. "It's a good thing, Rose. You give people hope."
I looked around the room. "What people?"
"The people you just told me about. The people who see you walk down the street. The people who are sitting out in that waiting room right now who will see you leave here with your head held high."
I worked my thumbs together some more. "What hope can I give them? If you're crazy, it's okay?"
She rolled her eyes. "Sort of… They see you live your life the way you want and they are inspired. Hell…look at Emmett. He'd never have the strength to be as ready for this future with you if he didn't have you for guidance."
"But he wouldn't have to be strong if I were a girl," I argued.
"Well, you weren't born a girl, Rosalie," she snapped.
I blinked and nodded.
"I'm sorry," she offered.
I shook my head. "No…you're right. I'm going to be changing my sexual status next month. No room for the regrets of fate."
She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I meant… I understand that you have fears. That you have wishes…like wishing you didn't have to do all of this just to be you. But you're doing it. If half the people in this world lived that way…"
She got this far-off look in her eyes. I couldn't help but think Whitney Houston music would start playing in the background.
"If people just followed their hearts and faced the world with your kind of determination, I'd be out of a job."
"I still need you," I pointed out.
She smiled. "No, Rose, you need support. You don't need me. You're in a hole, but you know where the top is and you have a gameplan for digging yourself out. The people who need me…they can't even see that they're underground."
I could see almost all of my family at some point in my life in my mind when she said that. Especially Bella…my poor, lost little sister.
"So….to recap," I said.
Dr. Tenno laughed.
"I'm crazy but it's a good thing. The kind of thing that tells other people to be happy in their craziness?"
She smiled and nodded.
I nodded.
-**-Bookends-**-
CPOV (the night of the plane crash)
Esme kept rubbing my knee.
I couldn't hear anything. Couldn't see anything.
I don't even remember how we got to Portland or how I got into this seat. I only knew we were on our way to New York. We'd catch a connecting flight to Denmark.
I just kept thinking about the day Mary gave birth to Jacob.
I never wanted to have kids.
Jack had beaten any tender feelings of family from my body, I'd thought.
When Mary got pregnant, I could only consider the baby a mistake. I didn't love Mary the way I should have. The child would know that. The child should be a combination of our love for each other. I wasn't one hundred percent in that relationship.
The baby would know that…sense that about me, right?
For the entire nine months that she was pregnant, I felt like I was trapped. I went through the motions of marrying her. Setting up the house for a family to live there. A man and his wife were living there but it was impossible to believe that it was me.
I removed myself more and more from the reality of what was going to happen when she went to the hospital that morning. I was a selfish, stupid kid who got a girl pregnant because I felt sorry for myself, and now there was this whole world of responsibility at my feet.
All of that melted away when I met my son.
Somehow…I understood what it was like to feel happy again.
I smiled.
I loved.
I even realized a love for Mary that I hadn't thought possible.
He didn't heal the divide that would forever be between his mother and I but Jacob woke me up to the reality of my life.
He was like a sunrise after a lifetime of midnight.
The only other person who came close to making me feel the way I did when I met my son was my daughter.
I would be eternally grateful to Mary for my children. Whatever demons we shared and brought upon ourselves removed, we made two remarkable children.
Jake's tiny brown eyes were all I could see now.
Yes, there was an awesome responsibility handed to you when you became a parent. In a heart beat, I realized that little life was totally trusting of me to take care of him.
I never knew the confidence to be the person I wanted to be before I had Jacob as a dependent.
I took a deep breath. He trusted me to keep him safe.
"I can save lives. Put people back together when they are broken…" I started rambling.
Esme was silent.
Her hand was still on my knee. Her love and support for me was glowing like a lighthouse in a stormy harbor, but she lost a son today, too.
"I don't know if I ever told him how proud I was," she whispered.
"You did, love," I assured her. "They both knew…how much we loved them."
They were just words. I didn't know anything for certain. Fuck, I was hoping to step off the plane and have to punch my son-in-law in the face for this prank.
I flew. I knew the first time I took control of the jet that the possibility of death was very real.
I liked the control that flying gave me. If I died, it was not at the hands of someone else. After the childhood I had survived I appreciated that sense of power. To have my mortality in my hands.
I'd give anything to have the power to trade places with our children.
"Please return your tray tables and puts your seat backs in the upright position."
"What do we do now?" Esme asked, not turning to look at me. Her face was pale and drained of all life. Desolate. Empty.
I felt my face reflect hers as I fastened my seatbelt for landing.
"We bring them home."
-**-Bookends-**-
EmPOV (2002)
"Where's Bells?" I asked Mom as I came downstairs.
Charlie just drove off, again. I'd heard him tell Mom some crap about not wanting to have to meet here anymore.
Mom tried to turn her head fast enough to hide her face from me but I already knew she was crying. She never talked to Charlie without ending up crying.
Or yelling.
"Uh…she's out back," Mom waved toward the backdoor. "Why don't you go keep her company for a little while? I'm going to start dinner."
"Kay," I said, shuffling past her. "Uh…Mom? If you don't want to cook, I've got some money. We can order pizza instead." I offered.
"Where did you get money?" She still didn't turn to look at me as she spoke.
"From the yard work I did for Mr. Newton last week. There's not much but we can totally get pizza with it."
"Emmett," she said softly, turning and pulling me into a big hug. "You're a sweet boy but that's your money. You earned it. I'll buy us pizza if that's what you want for dinner. Now…go see how your sister is, please."
I nodded without saying anything else.
Mom was being brave. Again. The thing that started the fight was Charlie's bitching about money. He got a raise and didn't want us to see any of it… didn't want Mom to get any of it.
I pulled out the ten that I had in my wallet and slid it under her purse by the phone in the kitchen on my way out the backdoor. She'd never know it was mine.
I didn't need anything, anyway. I only did the chores because Mr. Newton had been so nice to us over the years. He taught me how to make repairs around the house—which saved us lots of money since this old place was always falling apart. The least I could do was help him out.
The fact that he offered to pay me was just a bonus.
We didn't have a lot of money. Mom could be sappy all she wanted when it came to telling her eleven-year-old son that she didn't need it but I wasn't some dummy.
We couldn't afford pizza. I didn't want to eat pizza… though I liked eating pizza but I just didn't want her to have to worry about cooking right now.
Charlie was a jerk.
I could hear my baby sister crying before I could see her.
She was sitting under that tree between ours and the Cullen properties.
"What'd he say?" I asked, squatting in front of her.
Lil sis had to learn fast. It was okay to feel emotions. Hell, it was even okay to cry over something Charlie Swan did, but then you moved on. He was just going to keep hurting you if you let him.
She sniffed. "He said it was a …bother to have to ride the ferry with us. It's scary on the ferry, Em. I don't want to ride it alone."
"I know, Bells, but you won't be alone. I'll be riding it with you."
She smiled a little and then got that angry look that I hated to see on her face. She got it when she had to be around Charlie.
"Who calls their kids a bother?" she whispered.
I wanted to punch him. Walk right up to that guy who people told us to call Dad and just deck him in the lip, but what good would that do?
"Hey." I tapped her knee and stood up. She followed me with her eyes as she tried to wipe away some tears. "What do you say I build that swing you've been wanting?"
Bella huffed. "You're just a little kid like me, Em. That's a job for a grown-up."
I chuckled and headed to the garage.
"Grown-ups schmonups. You want a swing?" I asked and she nodded with enthusiasm.
"Then I'll find a way for you to get one."
I held out my pinky and waited for her to wind her smaller digit around it.
"Promise."
-**-Bookends-**-
EPOV (the night of the crash, Cullen house)
Her tears were torn from deep inside her—she was fighting hiccups now, too. By the grace of God I was able to move us to the living room and fall with her on to the couch. She was in so much pain.
My muscles ached with the need to beat down the darkness around her. I was hurting, too- but she was hurting more. Death was not something easy for Bella to handle. I took some small comfort in the fact that unlike every other time she faced it, she clung to me now and wouldn't let me leave her side while she worked through this.
Alice was sending me text messages. Bella sniffed around more memories that would dominate her mind forever.
I clung to my baby and talked to my sister.
What happened really? I typed. It was bullshit that suddenly two happy, healthy people like Em and Rose just fell out of the sky and died. There had to be something else behind it. Some reason.
Sudden engine failure. The lack of flourish around her responses told me Alice was hurting as bad as Bella—rightly so. I had no biological siblings. It would hurt like fucking hell to lose Jazz, or Al just like it was thinking about Rose and Em. But Alice was Rose's biological sister and Bella and Em shared the same parents, too.
My poor girls.
It still didn't add up for me. What the fuck do you mean? I hit send against my better judgment. It would seem like I was yelling at her.
They can't be... really gone. My phone buzzed in a mirror of Alice's annoyance with me.
Her reply was clipped and to the point. I mean the plane just stopped working. It fell from the sky. No one survived.
Fuck. Bella shook in my arms. My brain stopped working. It was just impossible. My life had been one never ending line of fucked up moments but... this was something more nefarious than all of Tanya's failures combined.
This was fate.
And she was a motherfucking bitch.
How are you? I asked.
The reply took awhile to come through. Damn. She was hurting. Finally my palm buzzed with the silent announcement of her reply.
This is Jazz. Al...
Yeah, I understood that. Those three dots were what Bella was.
Comfort her. Where is everyone?
Gone. Carlisle and Esme are heading down to Portland by car and then flying to New York. Al and me are at the studio. We'll be here all night. She doesn't want to go back there yet.
I nodded. Bella and I are at home. Cullen home. Call us with any news.
Will do.
Jazz?
What?
Love you.
Love you too, big brother.
I tossed my phone on the coffee table. I didn't give a fuck if it broke. Bella sensed my freedom from the device and climbed up my chest to burrow her face to my neck.
I rocked us. I closed my eyes and buried my nose in her hair. Life was so fucking precious. Especially this life cradled in my arms right now. What would I do if she suddenly fell from the sky? I'd fucking die myself. There was nothing I could do. You can't fight nature. I didn't even try to calm her with words—this wasn't something you could cheat.
This was just death.
Inexplicable and fucking horrible as it was death was just life. My chest seized at the thought.
This just couldn't be happening.
We sat there tangled like that forever, her little chest jumping with the uncontrollable jerks of grief. I just held her.
There were memories in my head. Too many and yet too few.
The room was pitch-black when her cries calmed and her breathing evened out. I felt all the tension ease from her body.
Sleep.
I kissed her forehead and carried her up the stairs. It wasn't a difficult thing to do in the dark of this house. This was my home. I trusted it to protect us as I made my way up to the third floor.
Bella's breathing hitched slightly as I lowered her to the bed. I undressed her for a more comfortable rest. I removed her shoes and shocks—pulled off her pants. I stopped once her legs were bare but for the single triangle of white at their apex.
The moon was shining through the window and her skin was cream under its glow.
I stared at her. She was an angel. So pure. So good.
I lowered myself beside the bed and reached out one hand—drawing it along her half-bent upper leg. I felt her fingers in my hair.
My head drifted up- my eyes drawn to her face. Her tears were not dried but they were calmed. The pain was an ache that I wished for the power to ease. My hand continued to stroke her leg while her fingers continued to caress my scalp.
"I love you," she whispered. It felt like I was in a dream. The room was cast in shadows and stardust. Bella's eyes looked silver in the moonlight. Her cheeks the same luscious cream that was drifting beneath my touch. If not for the horrific evil that threatened to steal our peace once we left this bed, I would believe my life was a fantasy.
Maybe it was. Fantasy could not exist without nightmare.
"I love you," I vowed in a clear voice. She nodded and her arms drew me to her. Before either of us could say anything else our voices were hushed by the joining of our lips.
Whispers of love spoken with only the brush of flesh upon flesh. Her breath was sweet as it came more rapidly against my neck. The white triangle was long since discarded and my fingers found their way home while my lips never left her skin.
She reached for my shirt. I wanted to stop her- wanted to make this moment about me helping her. Her need was greater. But as I drew my face back and let her pull my shirt off I realized this was the greatest service I could do for her. It was the plea that revived both of our souls that day in the cemetery- we had to not only love each other, but to allow ourselves to be loved by the other as well. Bella needed not only my touch but she needed to offer hers to me.
I took both willingly.
I reverently pressed her slight body back on to the bed beneath me once we were both undressed.
There was some part of my mind screaming that this was wrong. Our brother and sister were gone. Their deaths deserved an honor—a silence to all happiness. Sex seemed like a selfish act, something that was used as a tool to bring pleasure to the participants.
But Erebos' words rung in my ears.
"Edward, joining one body with another is not about sex, or even love. It is about two beings that are now one. We join because we were never meant to be separate in the first place. We join because our bodies are meant to be together."
There was no sound but the rapid pull and push of our breaths. Neither of us moaned in pleasure—neither of us spoke encouragements or agreements to how the other moved. We simply joined.
I was once this empty shell—a body that was only half human. As I entered her delicate warmth, my body shuddered to realize that I was finally whole.
We both were.
This was not a selfish act committed to block out the pain of our loved ones' deaths. This was an affirmation of life—of everything that Emmett and Rosalie Swan ever lived for. The joining of two bodies that belonged together. The mating of souls that gave purpose to life and the world around us.
My lips moved in sync with hers.
Our tongues stroked in unison.
And our hips rocked in tandem.
When we released, as a partnership, there were tears running down both of our cheeks. I placed breathless kisses on the corners of her eyes. I would do anything to take away the pain that put those tears on her face.
She clutched her arms around my shoulders. I made to move off of her.
"No," she whispered fiercely. Her legs gripped tighter around my hips and her arms tensed.
I shifted my weight so I wasn't crushing her and I shielded her from everything beyond this—the joining of our lives.
I closed my eyes. I didn't expect to sleep, but I could no longer face this day. I half expected everything to be fine when the sun rose- expected to have Em drag my ass out of bed because I was lying naked on his sister. But just like the truth Bella had to face all those years ago in that hospital room, we had to get up in the morning and deal with reality.
One more scar for both of us to bear.
And we would. Together.
The shit of this world never would go away.
The best we could hope for was something good and pure to hold on to while we faced it.
-**-Bookends-**-
Jake POV (roof of the Roosevelt Hotel, Los Angeles)
"It was rude for us to just ditch out like that," I teased, taking a hit from the joint and handing it back to Em.
He shrugged as he relaxed back against the air-conditioning unit.
"Fuck em. I can't stand this damn family."
It was probably the pot talking, but Emmett was so fucking sexy when he was high. He just looked so damn free. Relaxed. Happy. I wished he could be like that all of the time.
Be like that with me—downstairs.
I shook my head.
You're in public, dipshit.
Definitely the pot talking.
"Still, poor Bella and that hideous dress. Why did your cousin invite her, only to torture her?"
Em shrugged. "Don't know. Don't care."
The smoke blew between his lips slowly and my tongue unconsciously ran along mine.
"I'm thinking..." I paused as I tried to force the rest of the words past my lips, "bout…telling Dad."
The air around us was thick with emotions. I watched him—almost taunting him to tell me no. He just stared at the joint in his hand.
"I just need someone to talk to," I offered. Bella was the only one other than the two of us that knew we were a couple. Everyone else just thought we were still Jake and Em, best buds.
I needed to affirm to someone that this was real—that I was real. This wasn't some phase I was going through.
This was the next step.
"You can talk to me." He spoke so quietly I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or just speaking his thoughts.
I closed the space between us and sat next to him.
This wasn't a conversation for us to have right now. We were both too fucked up to not say things we'd regret.
Shit, everything I said to Em anymore seemed so…processed. I couldn't just talk to him. I was always worried that he'd go back to being the Emmett before. The guy who didn't have an answer for me.
The guy who just wanted to be a normal guy.
I shook my head, again. Em's leg was resting close to mine-close enough that I could feel the heat from his skin warming my calve through my dress pants.
It was distracting to sit this close to him, feeling pretty good from the weed, and not just give in and touch him.
"You come out to your dad and I got to come out to Mom."
I nodded, slowly.
"I don't plan to stay hidden all of my life, dude. I understand if you…"
What the hell was I saying? My mouth was speaking without my brain thinking. I didn't want to lose Em so soon. I just got him. I wanted him for a while longer before it ended.
"Hold up," Em said putting his hand in the air between us. "I seem to remember a day when you were naked in my bed, your jizz all over my stomach, when I told you this was a done deal."
I sighed, flopping back against the unit.
"You and me being a done deal is different than you wanting to admit to the world that we're a gay couple," I pointed out.
Em swallowed hard. "Fuck," he grumbled.
"It's okay, Emmett. I never really thought this out."
He started laughing—that maniacal oh-shit-dude-smoked-too-much kind of near giggle.
"You okay?" I said, trying not to just laugh along with him because, well, I was pretty fucked up myself.
"You mean to tell me," he said around gasps for air. "That little there's a right way to color Jacob Cullen didn't plan this out?" He kept laughing so hard he was crying.
There was a part of me that bristled at the taunt. I might have had a touch of OCD as a kid. I couldn't help it that because Emmett used to color like a patient in the looney bin I felt the need to play Crayon Cop. But that part of me that wanted to take offense to his words was quickly beaten back and I just joined him in laughing—occasionally leaning over and kissing him on the lips.
How sort of easy the future seemed in this moment.
"Talk to your dad, man," he said once our giggles died down and we started to sober up.
"You sure?"
"First, it's your life Jake and I want you to be happy no matter what I have to say about it. And second," he stood up, holding his hand out for me. "I'm not ashamed of you. And starting right now…I'm gonna prove it."
-**-Bookends-**-
EPOV (two weeks after the crash)
Bella didn't bother trying to sit alone when we shuffled in to the lawyer's office. She sat in my lap, her head burrowed between my neck and shoulder.
Alice and Jazz sat to our left-both looking grief-stricken. Alice rested her head against Jazz's shoulder, her hand on his knee and his arm around her waist.
Esme and Carlisle sat to our right. Both were stoic. Neither cried. They both just looked…lost.
I knew that look.
The woman in my arms had worn that look for years. It was the look of a parent dealing with the loss of their child.
"I encouraged Rosalie to write out a living will before she went through with her procedure," Mr. Jenkins, their legal advisor, explained.
"She told me that they had nothing of value that they worried about passing on but, I advised her to make her peace with the world…to…say whatever she felt she would need to say. She agreed and in turn asked Emmett to do the same."
"It was both of their wishes that you all see this together."
Jenkins pulled out a remote control.
"See it?" I questioned.
Mr. Jenkins nodded and smiled sadly. Bella tried to close every last inch of distance between us, nudging further into my lap. My shirt was almost completely soaked from her silent tears. I couldn't care less.
"Mr. Swan wished for his will to filmed," Jenkins explained as the video loaded.
Against my ability to stop it a chuckle slipped out. I glanced next to me, hoping that Esme and Carlisle could forgive me. I found everyone too wrapped in their own respective torment to even notice.
Bella noticed, though. She peeked up at me. Her green eyes were swollen with grief, but there was a twinkle in them- the one that made my brain turn to shit and my goofy grin come out.
She rolled her eyes and turned in my lap so that she was still in my embrace but facing the television in the corner.
I brought my hands up to Bella's neck. I massaged her shoulders. I caressed her hair. Anything to remind her that she was not alone and I was here to work away the pain.
"Hey dudes, what's up?" the familiar, boisterous voice said from the television. There was a collective intake of breath at the sound from the occupants of the small office.
Bella sat up, anxious to see her big brother again. I never stopped caressing her skin, watching over her shoulder as those familiar hazel eyes looked back at all of us.
"So... bummer, huh? I kind of hope I can save this and scare y'all shitless someday. Jump out of the closet or something."
He laughed and I found it impossible to not at least crack a smile.
I didn't miss Bella turning to the door in the corner, hopeful that he really was just messing with us. I kneaded her shoulders harder. He wasn't going to jump out and yell surprise this time.
"Anyway... Don't really know what to say in this damn thing. I don't think I own anything worth leaving anyone. Bells gets it all, anyway."
Bella's breath hitched and I scooted up to wrap my arms around her. I rocked us back and forth gently.
"Mom, thanks."
He smiled that classic Emmett smile and I looked over to see Esme returning that same smile to her son. Tears unabashedly fell down her cheeks now. I could feel my own eyes growing moist.
"Sis." Bella tensed in my arms. I gripped her tighter. "I'm damn proud of you."
Bella started shaking and I buried my lips against the skin of her neck. I continued to rock us and hold her.
"All of you... thanks and much love."
"You aren't seriously leaving it like that, Emmett."
The voice was so much a part of my life but was shocking to hear. Jacob walked into view of the camera and sat across Em's lap. It was Rose and Em but long before the way we had all come to know them now.
Before the hormones and the hair transplants. Before the operations and the vocal adjustments. Before their wedding... before they started trying to have a family.
It seemed like an entirely different couple sitting there. And yet they were the same two people. I could see Rose in every mannerism that Jake had. The way he rolled his eyes when Em puckered his lips toward his cheek. The way he crossed his ankles and tapped one foot in the air.
There was something to be said about people never being able to hide who they really were. Bella told me once that she believed I had a good heart... watching Rose trapped in the body of Jake I understood how she could see that.
"Yah, baby," Em said, snuggling Jake's neck. "That was all I had to say. That... and that you're my world and I love you more than anything."
Bella couldn't hold back the sobs then. I turned her around in my arms and held on to her for dear life. Just like it had been when we found out they were gone, she was undone with anguish.
We sat in the office for a little while longer. Everyone just trying to not let the pain swallow us whole.
The video had long since ended and Jenkins was going over the technicalities. Luckily, Carlisle was good at handling this crap. Good at disconnecting his mind from his body-I could only imagine what kind of pain he was in right now.
There were no bodies.
We had a small service and placed a joint headstone in the ground but… they were just gone.
I did notice that Carlisle never let go of Esme's hand. She had it resting on his knee and his was wrapped around her fingers tight enough to close off circulation.
"Now, as for the matter of the child…"
Everyone froze.
"Child?" Esme asked.
Jenkins nodded. "Yes, they had just finished the adoption papers on a young boy when they left. He was set to meet them here one week from today."
"Well…where is here now? Does he know…" Carlisle asked.
Jenkins shook his head. "No. It's often a practice for the children to not meet the new parents until everything is final. When things don't pan out…"
"We'll take him."
My eyebrows nearly cleared my hairline as I turned my head to see Alice's determined face.
My brother and his wife had been vocal about their lack of desire to have kids, almost as vocal as Bella and I had been over the years. None of us had childhoods we cared to remember, and none of us intended to thrust that on an innocent kid.
"Al…you sure?" Jazz started to ask. One look from his wife not only shut him up but resolved him to becoming a father in less than seven days.
"What can we do to adopt him?" Jazz asked Jenkins.
"That's noble of you two," Carlisle offered. "But Rose and Em spent years preparing themselves for this commitment. Are you both absolutely certain…?"
"Dad, that boy is a Cullen," Alice said flatly. Carlisle closed his mouth and nodded.
I shook my head at the insanity.
"I'll see what I can do," Jenkins muttered.
Business as usual with the Cullen clan.
-**-Bookends-**-
(a week later)
"I think Marcus is going to fit in around here," I observed, wrapping my arms around Bella when we were finally back in our bedroom.
We finished moving her stuff in between the funeral and the welcome to the family party for our new nephew.
"He even looks like Em a little, doesn't he?" She smiled up at me and I nodded.
"He certainly did when he helped Jazz change Alice's seating arrangements. I thought she was gonna flip her shit."
Bella laughed.
"But then there was this moment…right before we left, when he was getting ready to say goodbye to Esme and Carlisle. He looked to Alice and Jazz to see if it was okay and they…just looked like his parents." She smiled.
"Yeah, it's probably a good thing he's older. I think Jazz would freak out if he had to change a diaper." I ran my hands down her backside and squeezed her ass. She rolled her eyes.
"Edward, Marcus is six, he's not older."
"Still…he's not some newborn baby that's…totally helpless or something."
"Oh, my poor lost darling," she teased, bringing her hands to my face and kissing my lips softly.
"Age doesn't dictate whether we're helpless or not. We're all proof of that."
-**-Bookends-**-
RosePOV (The morning of the crash)
We stood in the terminal, our plane delayed for maintenance.
Em's arm was slung casually over my shoulder.
It was probably a good thing my husband was so tall—he was the only guy I knew tall enough to make me feel short.
I snuggled against him. There was a chill I couldn't shake that seemed to cling to me ever since we landed in Europe.
It was going to be a cold winter.
I smiled as I thought about how we wouldn't be spending it alone.
We found him. Our little boy. The first of what we hoped would be many children to share our home.
I couldn't wait to get home and get everything ready for his arrival.
Three weeks. We were going to be full-fledged parents in less than a month.
"So…you're sure about this?" I asked for the billionth time.
Em just chuckled. He knew I knew he was more than sure. Neither of us had been surer about anything—except when it came to being with each other.
"Yeah, Rose, love of my life, I'm sure."