A/N: Thanks to my PTB betas ChocolateMango and Sweetishbubbe for helping me get this posted at last.
A/N 2: This chapter is told from Carlisle's POV.
I was deeply sorry for everything that was happening to my family. I was sorry for my wife's sorrow, my son Jasper's unjustified remorse, Emmett's silence, Alice's pained expression. I was sorry for having disrupted Isabella's life, for having brought her into our world only to cause her pain.
And yet, as much as I loved every member of my family and was grieving for them, there was one whose pain was even more unendurable. Edward's self-imposed punishment was the heaviest of all the burdens I carried, because his penitence was my fault.
I had stolen his human life many years ago, and I had hoped that, with time, he would come to terms with the darker aspects of his being. I allowed myself to believe my hopes were coming true when Isabella made her entrance into his life. It appeared that, at long last, he was finding some peace of mind. She seemed to make him more at ease with himself, bring out his human side, unafraid as she was of everything concerning our nature.
But things took a terrible turn. Isabella had gotten hurt because of what we were. First, an outsider very nearly put an end to her young life. Even though he failed, he wounded her atrociously. And then, the worst case scenario unfolded at the worst possible time. Jasper lost his hard-earned control in front of Isabella, and that was more than my son Edward could take. That she would be put in jeopardy by his own family, by our nature, I knew, was his greatest fear.
Having to keep the one he loved away from his family because she was not safe among them tore him apart for months. Having to walk away from her because of what we were, because of what he was, was going to be his undoing. How could so many things go wrong for him? Were the fates holding a grudge against my dear child?
But I did not fool myself thinking there was such thing. Each and every misfortune that had befallen Edward was my responsibility. I did not know what I could have done differently; I always acted out of love in any matter that concerned him. I changed him to save him. I taught him everything I knew, loved him like my own. But, at some point, I failed him. I failed Isabella. I failed my entire family, and their pain was nothing but my doing.