This chapter's a flashback. It happens directly after the conversation in Ch. 6.

Thanks again to the most awesomest awesome beta EVER, TheSingingGirl! Hooray! (Confetti comes down from the ceiling). Now, no more happiness! On with the angst!

One of the hardest things that I had ever done, vampire or otherwise, was walk back up the stairs to Carlisle's study to clean Bella's body. Harder than saying goodbye to her that day in the forest, harder than watching the bruises form on her body the night after our wedding, harder than seeing her lying helpless before James. All those things I had thought unbearable at the time...they were all nothing, nothing compared to walking back up the stairs, knowing Bella lay on the operating table, limp and lifeless.

Every step was a struggle. Carlisle's hand was firm on my elbow, giving me much-needed support, and the rest of the family sent me their mental support through their thoughts. Jasper was trying, trying as hard as he possibly could do lighten the agony I was going through - as much for himself as for me. Alice's hand was soothing on his arm as his muscles tightened from the onslaught of pain, not just from me but from everybody in the room, himself included.

I tried to focus on each step by itself, not the stairs as a whole. Just one more step. Good. Now one more...It was harder to force myself to go through each motion than it might have been because I knew what was at the end, waiting for me. Not a reward for my work, but a punishment. A terrible punishment.

One I could not escape.

It was so hard knowing that it couldn't protect her anymore. That had been my goal in life for the past year and a half: protecting Isabella Swan. And it seemed like I had won - like all those forces that had been conspiring against her had finally been laid to rest - or, more truthfully, been killed violently. But none of it had mattered, because I couldn't save her from myself.

And now I had to face the consequences.

It seemed unforgivable now, what I had done earlier, how I had left Bella dirty, soiled and bleeding over the table. I hadn't even closed her eyes before going down the stairs. It was repulsive and now I would pay the price. I would have to go back and do it now, now that my wounds had been festering for a while, now that the numbness had worn off, now that the pain had grown so unbearable that it could have been its own separate entity.

So it was now that Carlisle and I were going back to his study to clean her body and get it ready for the funeral. We would set the date for a few days from now - I would go to see Charlie tomorrow and hammer out the details, but I knew I couldn't wait

We couldn't send her to a funeral home, of course - they couldn't see the violent way that she had died. So we would have to do it all ourselves.

Again, I was eternally grateful for Carlisle's hand on my elbow, guiding me down the hallway. I knew that if it wasn't for him I would never have been able to make it this far. Each step I took was slow and deliberate - I knew we were making our way slower than a human would walk.

My mind was too multi-layered to focus on just walking - I had to do something else too or I would begin to remember the memories I was so desperate to forget. So I worked on my breathing, too. In. Out. In. Out.

Bella's scent filled my nose, overwhelmingly painful. Not in a way that made me thirsty, but in a way that burnt so much more because it was so heavy with memories. The thirst was a pinprick compared to stabbing sword. There was really no comparison.

When we came to the door I stopped for a long moment, trying to collect myself enough to go inside. Carlisle stopped too, patient as always. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders protectively.

"It's all right, son. Take as long as you need," Carlisle murmured. You don't have to do this if it would be...too painful. I'm quite capable of doing it myself.

I had committed many sins in my life, but they would not include waiting outside while my father cleaned the body of my dead wife.

"No...No, I'm fine." This was such a gross overstatement that it was almost funny in a sick kind of way. It reminded me of her, on the morning after our wedding night. Could nothing fail to remind me? "I'm ready. Let's go."

Are you sure?

"Yes," I said, as forcefully as I could manage. To prove it to him, I tried to smile a little, but it came out more as a grimace. Carlisle's expression, if possible, became more concerned than before, but he didn't object as I stepped forward and took one smooth stride into the room.

The scent was stronger here, of course, with the fresh blood pooling only a few feet away, but, as I had once told Bel - her, I've never been in better control of that side of my nature than right now. Or something like that. I was too exhausted to go picking through my perfect memories. Besides, it would be so agonizingly painful. Although it would probably take my mind off the task at hand...

Bella's body, lying helpless on the table, was the most disturbing sight I had ever seen. Worse than the many victims I had left drained in my days away from Carlisle.

There had been once, during that time, when I had been too late. I heard the man's thoughts when he was almost done. I had arrived to find the hapless girl broken and bleeding lying on the cold ground as he walked away, drunken and laughing. It was much the way Rosalie had been when Carlisle had found her. The guilty man had, of course, gone missing that very night. I took him away from the girl - no sense scaring her more than she already was - and finished him off. Then I had taken the girl to the hospital, in the hope that they could save her. But she had died.

That was what I had done with Bella. Killed her and staggered off, drunk with pain, leaving Bella broken and bleeding. And now, just like the man, I would die for my actions.

Quietly, Carlisle crossed the room in less than a second and closed Bella's eyes. He took a cloth and began wiping away the blood that was starting to dry on her stomach. Quickly, I followed his lead, wiping her face with the gentlest touch I could possibly manage. The worst part of it all was feeling her skin against my hand, cold and pallid now, so like my own and yet still so soft, and how heavy her head was in my hand as I brushed her hair back from her face.

We did it as quickly as possible but it still seemed to take forever before we were done. Carlisle wrapped her stomach in a bandage in case it bled any more and then we dressed her in what she would be buried in. It didn't really matter, as it would be a closed-casket funeral, but she ended up in a blue silk skirt-and-shirt ensemble, something Alice had already picked out for when, as she had been sure they would, things had all gone well.

When we finished, I took a step back to look at her once more. Somehow, I knew this would be the last time I would lay eyes on her.

She looked so peaceful and beautiful, even in death, that it touched my heart, made its broken remnants stir listlessly, as though they wanted to be in love again. For a split second all I felt was love, but then the crushing, mind-numbing, never-ending agony came back and I had to look away as the dagger that must be protruding from my chest twisted sickeningly. I glanced up at Carlisle, who was hesitating at Bella's feet, unsure of what to do to help. He took one look at my expression, and then he was the length of the table and I was in his arms in a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh, Edward," he breathed against my ear. "I'm so, so, sorry. Sorry I couldn't have been here to help, that I can't do anything for you now. We'll all miss her so terribly."

I didn't say anything, using all my self-restraint not to push myself away from him. I didn't want to be embraced, didn't want to be pitied or comforted. I didn't deserve it, nor would it help. It would just make things worse. But I knew it would hurt his feelings if I rejected his fatherly love now, in some of my final days, so I took it.

But it just made me look forward to the funeral all the more.

After a moment or two, he backed away, and his eyes were full of pity. I looked away.

"Let's go," he said, and so I escaped, getting out of that awful room in just half a second. I resisted the urge to look once more at Bella's face before Carlisle softly closed the door - it would only make the next few days more painful.

Isabella Swan, Bella Cullen, my wife, was gone now. She would not be coming back and that was that. I had to accept it.

I couldn't. Couldn't even begin to, any more than Rosalie could stand to hate that child, Renesmee.

And all I had to look forward to was telling Charlie that his eighteen-year-old newlywed daughter was dead.

Now here's where I need your help - what should the next chapter be about? Here's your choices (or you could add one of your own):
a) Rosalie/Nessie bonding
b) Edward/Nessie bonding
c) any other character and Nessie bonding
OR, if you're tired of all the plotless angst and want something to happen,
d) the funeral (whose POV?)

Review and tell me what you think!