A/N: This is it! One last pull-your-hair-out chapter and then things can start looking up. I actually cried when I wrote this.

"Bella."

It was one of those naps where you feel like your body is submerged in the mattress. I felt like I was on that gas the dentist gives you- the one where you feel like your toes are stretching across the room.

"Bella, wake up."

I frowned, the darkness swirling slowly into light as I creaked my eyes open. Edward's angelic face was hovering over mine, and I started to smile. But something was wrong- the angel was sad. His eyes were black and he was the palest I had ever seen him. But there was no reason for the angel to be sad. A dream, then. I shut my eyes, slipping back into the happy darkness.

"Bella, please, you've got to wake up. I need to talk to you."

Now the angel was shaking my shoulder, and I sighed, letting his cold touch pull me back into consciousness. I blinked, surprised at how dark it had gotten. How long had I been asleep?

"Edward!" I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looking at him again. It hadn't been a dream- Edward looked awful. He looked like he hadn't fed in weeks, and his hands were trembling even as he drew me closer, kissing the top of my hair. He breathed deeply, taking in my scent as he always did. But instead of releasing me and smiling, he just kept holding me.

"What's wrong?" I asked, my face pressed into his shoulder. He pulled back, finally.

"Something happened," he said flatly.

"Something bad?"

"The worst."

A cold fear seized my heart. Had somebody died? Had the Cullens been found out? Had the wolves attacked? "Tell me," I said quickly.

"Alice had a vision. The State Police are going to converge on our house tomorrow. Charlie has discovered a few things about us- involving our identity fraud and, worse, our lack of aging. He's already called them. It's already set in motion."

I gasped, my heart racing faster. "Maybe we can fix it. Maybe we could tell Charlie the truth, make him erase the police order."

He sighed patiently. "Bella, you know we can't do that. Besides the risk to him, it would only make him more determined to ruin us. And, like I said, it's already set in motion. We have to leave, Bella."

I nodded, my head spinning. "When?" I whispered.

"We have to leave Forks tonight. By midnight, actually. The Quileutes found out about Charlie's discovery, and they are ending the treaty at midnight tonight. Any vampire who stays in Forks after that is going to be attacked and killed."

"You can actually be ready to go by then?"

He shrugged. "We've done it before."

My heart stopped altogether. Something about the way he was looking at me- a tired, defeated, look, made me afraid. "When you say we-" I whispered.

"I mean my family and myself."

"And me," I said slowly. "Just give me an hour, I can be packed and-"

"You can't come, Bella." The words beat against my head, clattering to the floor. I couldn't comprehend them.

"What do you mean, I can't come?"

He took a deep breath. "My first plan was to stay behind, with you. I didn't want you to have to leave so suddenly. But the wolves won't allow it. So my next plan was to bring you along. But-" he looked away, wincing at some thought. When he turned back, his eyes were colder than before, more determined. "But Alice saw that it wouldn't work. One thing leads to another, and the Volturi come down on our heads, no matter how we split up, take different routes, it doesn't matter. They find us in the end. They have their methods."

"So change me," I whispered. He couldn't possibly put me off now- not with this hanging over our heads. "I'll be able to fight."

"We tried that possibility. It won't work. All of us get executed."

I gasped again, the image of Edward burning before my eyes. A terrible pain arose in my chest, and my brain scrambled to find some other way. I couldn't put him in danger.

"Okay, so you all leave, and I just follow later," I said desperately. I had never considered the possibility that we might need to be separated- this was worse than I had thought. My chest was hurting…

He looked right into my eyes, swallowing. "That doesn't work either." His eyes flickered momentarily, but then they were hard again.

"I follow much later, then." I said quickly. "A year, two years. Charlie won't be able to say anything. Or I'll move back with Renee. I'll tell Charlie that I'm too upset to stay here, that I need to be with her. You can meet me in Florida-"

"Bella. It's not going to work. Nothing is going to work. We tried."

I felt some kind of epiphany trying to form inside my head, but it wouldn't coalesce. Edward was trying to tell me something, but I wasn't processing it. It was too impossible.

"When you say nothing…"

"I mean nothing. This has to be the end, Bella. For you and me." He spoke the words in a rush, as if he was afraid he wouldn't make it to the end of the sentence. He reached into his pocket, and I heard an odd clinking sound- like he was jingling coins, only it didn't sound quite right. "It's not that I don't want you to come with us," he continued softly. "I will always love you, and that's why I have to let you go. It's the only way for you to survive." He placed his trembling hands on mine. "Please, understand," he pleaded. "I don't want to do this. But I have to keep you safe, and this is the only way."

His words finally hit me, and I leaned back to absorb the blow. He was trying to leave me. "This is about keeping me safe?" I asked incredulously. "Because I don't care about being safe. I need to be with you, and you need to be with me! How can you even think that I would let you go without me?"

My own hands were trembling now, with anger. I had always feared this conversation, ever since that day in the hospital. That something stupid would happen, and that Edward would convince himself that he had to leave me, for my own good.

"This is not about me being overprotective, Bella. Not this time," he said sadly, reaching up to touch my face. "We tried every possibility. Alice's visions-"

"I don't give a crap about Alice's visions!" I whispered fiercely. "Just change me, and we'll do our best! We'll deal with these Volturi the best we can!"

"It doesn't work like that, love," he said with the ghost of a smile. "When the Volturi decide to wipe out a coven, there isn't a fight. It's just done."

I just shook my head, over and over.

"This is my fault," he continued bitterly. "If I had just listened to you back in May, maybe we could have disappeared together. But here we are."

"Here we are," I repeated dumbly. The pain in my chest was tripling with each breath. Something wet was pouring down my face, and the bed seemed to stretch out longer and longer, separating Edward from me already.

"Bella," he murmured, snapping me back to reality. I couldn't even see him through the tears now, and I wiped my eyes quickly, unwilling to lose the sight of him before I had to.

"Bella," he whispered again, "Knowing you- loving you- has been the most wonderful part of my life. If there was any way to make this right, I would do it. If there was any way to go back in time and fix this, I would. But I won't take you away just to condemn you to death. I can't do it, Bella. The only comfort I'm going to have is that you're safe. So, please, be safe, for me." He reached out again, running his fingers over my face like a blind man trying to see what I looked like.

Then he leaned down, his face inches from mine. I was lost inside his eyes, and it dulled the pain as he spoke. "Listen to me. What we have- what we had… it was a dream, Bella. It was never meant to happen. We were fighting the current the whole time. Your life wasn't meant to have someone like me in it. Please, let yourself believe that it was never real. Pretend I never existed. Just tell everyone that we broke up because my family had to move- you can say Carlisle got a new job and we had to leave quickly- and my parents wanted me to break it off. That they asked me to do this, because it's…" he swallowed again. "Because it's easier this way."

"You'll come back," I said dully. "Or I'll find you, and we'll make it work. Where are you moving to?"

He just shook his head. "Listen, I know this is the wrong time to say this, but this is really for the best. Fate is giving you this chance to be free of our world. You'll be free."

"And you'll be free," I said icily. Pain instantly clouded his features, but I didn't care. I had to be sure he hadn't somehow talked himself into this, thinking it was for my own good. I had to make sure this really had to happen.

"Never say that," he hissed, surprising me with the ferocity of his voice. "The one thing I want you to be certain of is my love. I will carry it with me forever. It's the way my species is. But this- human and vampire together… I suppose it was doomed to fail."

"It wouldn't have stayed that way," I insisted stubbornly. "I would have been like you. Carlisle was going to do it."

His eyes softened. "I know. But that future is lost to us now."

He had finally accepted it, then. He had finally been willing to let Carlisle change me. And now, now that I had his blessing, my hope had been snatched away, just like that. And now, Edward himself was being snatched away, too. I had thought I had all the time in the world, to change his mind. And now, we had no time at all. We had been so close, so close to being together forever.

And now it was lost.

The ache in my chest started to burn, a fire tearing a line right down the center, splintering me in half.

"I'll find you," I repeated, my voice far away.

"Please, Bella," he moaned quietly. "Please understand. I want you to be free. You know I never wanted this life for you. You deserve better than that. But I was too weak to stay away from you. Fate has intervened to save you, Bella. Don't fight it, please."

I shook my head again, climbing into his lap. He wrapped his arms around me, and I could feel his whole body shaking as he wept tearlessly. I finally realized that I was crying, as well. When had that started?

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he whispered into my hair. "I'm doing this wrong. I wish I could have lied, I wish I could have convinced you that I don't love you anymore. But you wouldn't have believed me."

"Of course not," I said quickly, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

"It would have been easier for you that way," he said darkly. "I wish I could have done that, for you. I should have. But it doesn't change the truth, Bella. I have to go."

I froze in his arms. "You mean… now? Right now?"

He nodded. "We have a lot to do tonight. I need to get back."

I was going to lose him. I was going to lose him now. My head began spinning again, and a new horror hit me. "I won't get to see the others, will I?"

"No. I'm sorry, but there's no time. And the town is neutral territory- I'm in danger being here at all."

He released me and stood up. The sudden absence of his embrace burned my arms, my insides. The fire raged within me, splintering me into broken fragments. I wrapped my own arms around myself, holding as tight as I could to hold the pieces together. I needed to be strong, for Edward. I would wait until he left to fall apart. I would do this for him.

"I love you, Bella," he choked out, his whole body trembling now, and his jaw clenched as he spoke. "I will always love you. Please, remember that."

"And what about my love?" I mumbled.

He smiled, finally, a weak imitation of the carefree smirk that I loved. "You're human, Bella. Your feelings can change. You will move on, someday. You will forget. You don't know how much I envy you for that ability."

I shook my head again. Did he still not understand? But if I protested again, it would only hurt him more. He laid his hand gently on my face, and then leaned down, kissing my forehead so gently that I wouldn't have felt it, if his lips hadn't been trembling.

"Goodbye, Bella."

I looked up, working up the strength to say goodbye, to tell him one more time that I loved him. That I would carry my love forever, too. That someday, we would find each other again. That I would wait until I died.

But I was alone.

He was gone.

Edward was gone.