Just saw Remember Me… wow. Just wow. Not just because RPattz is in it. That's just an awesome perk; it's a great movie in its own right. I don't know what it is about movies that make me want to write…

--

"I think you should regress."

I mimicked her trilling voice in my head. Fucking Alice. The whole reason I found myself in Jazz's office was because of her insistence. She couldn't get over the coincidences she found regarding our last name.

~*~

"Edward, this could be huge, come on!" she pleaded.

"Alice, what the fuck for?" I huffed, squinting closely at the computer screen. The old penmanship was really fucking hard to read, especially in Spanish, but Alice was there to translate faster and more accurately than Babelshit. It was some sort of letter featuring the elusive Edward's name.

"This is fucking impossible!" I yelled, throwing sheets across the floor.

"Never mind, I'll do it later. Carmen promised she'd FedEx a clean scan by tomorrow. The resolution on that is kind of crappy."

"Should have said something sooner," I grumbled. "Why's it so important to you that I go?"

"You mean, besides your unresolved issues and obvious need for hard-core therapy?" Alice said innocently.

"Yeah, besides that."

"And besides your evident feelings for Bella?"

"My what?" I choked.

"Oh, please. It's so obvious it's not even funny. I'd have given you a hard time about it earlier, but this is so fucked up and you with your complications, and yah-da yah-da, etcetera…"

"Okay, fine. I'll do it," I sighed, my face flaming red.

"Really?" Alice seemed stunned. "Just like that. You'll go?"

"On one condition," I warned.

"Money?"

"No." I breathed deeply. "You never mention my, ah—feelings for Bella again. Ever."

"But Edward…"

"Uh-uh. That's the condition.

"I hate you," she pouted.

"I know," I grinned. "So… book me in."

~*~

"Edward, relax, come on." Jasper tapped his pen annoyingly on his legal pad.

"I'm trying," I said through gritted teeth. My clenched jaw indicated otherwise.

"I know Alice forced you into this—"

"I prefer the term coerced. It's classier."

"Whatever. Now focus, Edward."

"Yeah, yeah." I closed my eyes and settled further into the futon. Nothing much happened. Jasper went into suggestion mode.

"Listen to the sound of my voice… you are calm. You are at peace. Breathe deep… breathe out…"

After a few minutes, Jasper went quiet. All I could feel was a deep lulling sense of… calm. I'd fallen asleep, caught in that state that's not quite dreaming, but not complete awareness.

The futon felt like it was being rocked gently from side to side. I wondered briefly if Jasper was tapping his foot against it somehow. I reached out to try and stop him. But there was nothing except air.

I opened my eyes. A few stray strands of hair blocked my vision. I lifted my hand to push them aside, but my arm felt heavy. I could barely raise my head to look around. What the fuck…

Everything felt hot. Burning. Heat and pain raced through my body, seeping into my very bones. I forced—coerced—my eyes open wider, dry and burning too.

The swinging sensation continued. All I could distinguish in the flickering candlelight were four stark walls, paneled in wood.

Wait, what? Candles? Wood? What was this shit? Did I make it back? Where was I, who was I, when was I?

Coherent thoughts tried to enter my mind, but most were quickly erased in the heat of my head.

A fever, I managed to rationalize. My throat felt as though it were being scratched with sandpaper. And then doused with gasoline. Water. I needed water.

"Agua," I croaked. "Por favor."

There was no one to answer my pleas. The delirious haze was such I did not notice until after awhile that I was speaking Spanish. Maybe that was why no one would come to help me. Fuck, I didn't speak Spanish. But Bella did. Who is Bella?

Maybe if I walked around to see where I was. But first I really needed water. "Alguien… necesito agua." But my words would not emerge.

"Señor!" An olive-skinned young man suddenly burst into the room. It was barely large enough to hold us both. "No se mueva."

And I understood. He didn't want me to move. From nowhere, he materialized a tin cup with lukewarm, stale-tasting water. He helped prop my head while I drank greedily. The water did nothing to quench the raging fire in my head. Now, with the man to compare, I could feel my skin, burning and dry. The rough bedsheets seemed soaked from days-old sweat. Disgusting.

"Más," I whispered. More.

"El médico quiere sangrarlo de nuevo," he said. What? No fucking way. The doctor wanted to bleed me? What fucktarded world was I in?

"Día… qué fecha…" my words trailed off. This fever was a bitch.

"Es lunes, 13 de mayo."

"Año?"

"El año de nuestro señor, 1697."

Shit. Monday, May 13, 1697. Denial wanted to set in, but I didn't let it. This was ago. I went back to Isabella's time. How the fuck, I didn't know.

"Nadie me va a sangrar." The hell someone was poking shit in me and making me bleed, no matter how far gone I was.

"Bien, mi señor Caellén."

Fuck. Me. I was him? Isabella's fiancé… Bella and I had known each other all along. She had been in my very distant past, and I in hers. Was this why… this irresistible pull I felt towards her… what the fuck was this? Alice had been right. I hated when she was right. I grasped at those few moments of lucidity, away from the fever. I still felt like me, but not quite; it felt like crooked, overlapping transparencies.

"Qué me pasa?" I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me—why I felt so shitty. And the rocking—make it stop, please…

"Tisis. Tiene la tisis," he whispered. Tuberculosis. I was really sick. In 1697, no less.

"Cuánto tiempo…" I wanted to know how long I'd been ill.

"Los médicos dicen que unos días más. Llegaremos al puerto de Veracruz." He said there were only a few days left in the voyage. A ship—that explained the roiling motion. But I shook my head. Not that, you asshole. "La familia Cisneros lo espera. Ella lo espera. Resista, señor." She was waiting for me. Isabella was waiting for me. I tried to ask again, but my throat closed up. I retched, my body arching in spasms and I hurled a thick rope of coagulated blood. Fucking sick…

"Ayuda! Ayuda!" The man's voice slowly faded as I spiraled into the dark surrounding me.

--

How did this happen? I remembered all too clearly the blood spraying all over the small cabin. I had been on a ship, headed for… some port. Headed for Isabella, so we could be together. She was to be my wife. I loved her. Love her. Was I Eduardo… or Edward again? I was supposed to be someone, at least.

Up. I think. Overhead? The sensation was fucking confusing. The strange fog lifted and suddenly, I was. Like a ghost. I hadn't been able to hold on. I watched as strange men toiled on a ship. The waves lapped at the keel, sprayed on the hull. I watched them heave a shapeless lump overboard, wrapped in a bloodstained sheet. Before I could wonder at it, a voice whispered in my head, Death. So it was a body. Mine. Or was it his?

The images switched, like a badly spliced reel of film. Film? What's that? Has it been invented yet? Reality mixed past and present in awkward ways. Now I was looking at a balding man put pen to paper. I could read over his shoulder…

A la más honorable Marquesa del Nuevo Reino de León: Lamentamos informarle que su excelencia el señor Eduardo Caellén ha perecido en el viaje rumbo a la Nueva España… mi más sentido y sincero pésame, esperando que Dios nuestro señor le dé pronto alivio y consuelo…

Did I speak Spanish? It didn't seem to matter. Because I understood.

The man folded the thick paper, and sealed it in red wax. A coat of arms—a lion, a hand, and shamrocks.

--

BRRRIIIIINNNNGGGGG. BRRRIIIIINNNNGGGGG. Cause we are living, in a material world…

"Shit. Alice!"

Jasper's voice broke through the dream. I awoke with a start, to find myself lying on a plushy leather futon, instead of sweaty, bloody sheets, or in the middle of a cloudy oblivion. What the FUCK.

"Jazz?" My voice caught in my throat, and he glanced at me, whispering into the phone.

"He's here, you woke him up! Yes, he was under, Mary Alice—" Wow, her full name. He must be pissed. Jasper huffed and held out my own phone. I tentatively reached out, afraid I wouldn't be able to or to suddenly find myself back in the hellish ship cabin. 1697, holy shit.

"Alice?"

"Edward, you have to get home right now. You won't believe this." She hardly paused for breath. "I got the scans Carmen sent from Barcelona. There's a letter, Edward, the one you were trying to read yesterday? Eleazar already translated for us. Listen to this…"

But I didn't need to hear Alice read aloud. I knew what the letter said.

Eduardo Caellén had died on his voyage to Isabella. He never made it to the new country alive.

And Isabella was still waiting for him—a man who had been dead for over 300 years.

--

Spring break is here. Thank the good Lord.