Edward had sat still for ten years and just thought about it. Thought about everything. But his whole head was just a messy jumble of thoughts, some his most not, and images and memories and sights and sounds and colours. He couldn't make much of it out. He couldn't tell anymore where he ended and where everything else started. He could heard people around him joking, making terrible puns about rolling stones, and growing moss. His family, they could understand his depression.
In the end there was only one conclusion. It had been his fault. Of course it had been his own fault. He had known that when he heard Bella's last heartbeat. He'd known when she'd walked into his Biology classroom and sat down next to him. He'd known that he would kill her. He had placed her in danger, and he hadn't been able to save her in time. It had been his own foolish and thoughtless actions that had cause her death.
But he wasn't allowed to kill himself. Alice, Carlisle and Emmett, all of them, had made sure of that. Any course that he might move towards regarding his own annihilation, they were already prepared for it. And then there was Renesmee. Edward couldn't blame the child. She was so young, so innocent. She grieved the loss of her mother, more deeply than almost anyone else. Edward could see it, through his daughter's unique form of communicating. While Renesmee would display visions relevant to the actual conversation, Edward would catch tiny thumbnails of Bella, the child's hazy memories of being born, and the one time she had been held in her mother's arms. Edward loved his daughter. She wasn't to blame for the death of her mother.
Edward's depression hadn't settled in until Renesmee's age had stabilised. They had all been worried at first, but then Alice had been able to set their minds straight, when she proved that Renesmee was not the first, and would stop aging soon enough.
Edward blamed himself for everything, but since there was nothing he could do about that, he funnelled his grief in the only other direction that he could think of. Jacob.
Edward had thought it through. While Bella was pregnant, Alice had been unable to see visions of her future, because of the child. So it was understandable that Alice had been unable to see the accident that had led to Bella's impromptu caesarean. But it hadn't been until the child was removed, the fates of the mother and the child had been separated, that Bella had taken her final breath. Alice would have been able to see what was going to happen, would have been able to warn them that they had to act faster. If it hadn't been for Jacob. Just his presence in the room, standing next to them, was enough to throw off Alice's visions. If he hadn't have been there, If he just had of left the room earlier, they might have had a better chance.
In his rational mind, Edward didn't really blame Jacob. He blamed himself. He blamed himself fully. But there was no path of action that he could take in that direction. And his who body ached for action.
When he had heard the vile thoughts emanating from Jacob at the funeral, he had known that he deserved every punishment that Jacob could imagine. Welcomed them. It would give them both the satisfaction they deserved. But Jacob had only pitied him and walked away.
Edward wanted to pursue Jacob only because he knew that it would end with his own death.
Eventually his blood lust died. Eventually he learned how to function again. Eventually he realised that even if his daughter no longer needed him, it was worth holding onto his last shred of sanity for her.
They kept Renesmee close, watching her progress faster and faster as time went on, and then finally slowing and stopping. She was unlike anything any of them had ever seen before. Jasper had been the one to draw a parallel to the immortal children of legend, and only with his playful comparison did Edward realise the true danger that they were facing. If the Volturi knew about the child, they wouldn't stop to think twice about what she was. Either she was a known danger, or she was an unknown one.
They would have to wait for Renesmee to age more, until they introduced her to the vampire community. And so they did. They waited until Renesmee had stopped aging. They waited until she had grown into a beautiful young woman, older in biological ears than even her own father. That made them all laugh. And then they had taken her to the Volturi.
It had almost ended in a bloodbath. Despite the evidence of similar occurrences, Edward knew that Aro had other motivations. In the chamber they had outnumbered the Volturi, and Edward suspected that, just like her mother, Renesmee would be able to avoid Jane's power. They had left without a single scratch and an unstable peace hanging around them.
Everything had been fine. Everyone seemed to move on. People were happy again, after time moved gently by. But Edward couldn't. Couldn't keep moving forward when everything was pulling him backwards. His anger and loathing were tormenting him a little more every day. It started to boil over into irritation, and Edward found himself at odds with every member of his family. He wasn't usually the moody one, and it wasn't without reason, but Edward suspected that everyone's patience was wearing thin.
It was the routine that they had fallen into that hurt Edward the most. Rosalie and Emmett had fallen into easy parenthood, caring for his daughter most of her childhood. Edward had been there, but he knew that to be around her in his state of mind, especially since she was so empathic, would not be good for her. He managed to hold most of it off until she was fully grown, but he regretted not being the father than she deserved.
His family continued on, only fifty years later, like it had never happened. They didn't even say her name. It felt like she had never been a part of their family. Edward knew that he was being unfair. Everyone in his family had loved Bella, had looked forward to having her join their family, to some degree or another. Even Rose, though she had been the most against it. They had lost that too. But Edward could feel the effects of living in a place where everyone seemed to find the memory of her existence too miserable to acknowledge. Her name had even faded from their thoughts.
Edward had planned to spend the rest of his time with Bella, as limitless as that was. In one form or another, they had promised themselves to each other, for the rest of time. But Bella wasn't here. She wasn't in the new home that they had made for themselves, wasn't a part of the happy family that they had built after setting her in her grave.
Edward couldn't help feeling that he had left her behind.
It was Rosalie who finally decided that things needed to change. It had been fifty years since Bella's death. Fifty years since they had left Forks. And they were all tired of Edward's sulking. They couldn't understand the pain that he was facing, but they could understand their own inability to comprehend. And while they all sympathised with him, Rose knew that enough was enough.
Rosalie had been playing with Renesmee, who was perfectly adult in her own right, fifty years old, but was still the baby of the family.
"Don't treat her like a kid, Rose, she's old enough to make her own decisions," Edward snapped, sick of watching his adopted sister bully Nessie into childish activities. As soon as he said it, Edward regretted it. Rosalie would never have her own child, a curse that haunted the vampire every day. Edward couldn't' blame her for not wanting Nessie to grow up too fast.
"You know what? I'm sick of this. I get that you're still grieving for her, but you don't have to take it out on the rest of us. We lost her too."
"You can't even say her name! No one even admits that she was a part of this family. How am I supposed to get over something that never happened?"
Rose's jaw dropped and it looked like she was about to argue more, but Carlisle stopped her with a gesture and placed a cool hand firmly on Edward's shoulder.
"I think that Rose is trying to say that you're right. We can't understand what you're going through, so we can't help you. Perhaps it would be better if you spent some time elsewhere."
Edward was shocked. He must not have been paying any attention to his family, because he hadn't expected this. He could see Alice flit into existence in the doorway, and knew that Carlisle's suggestion must have been sanctioned by her. So he wasn't going to kill himself if he left.
Good to know, he thought.
He didn't say anything, but he knew that he didn't need to. Alice would know that he was seriously considering the offer and that he had already made up his mind. He wanted to be alone, instead of here, surrounded by reminders that she had never been with enough permanence to truly matter.
He glanced at Renesmee, who was studying him with an intelligent look on her face. She looked so much like her mother.
She seemed to read his mind, because her next thoughts were delivered as clear as a bell, directly to his awareness.
Go. It's okay. Find what you need, and then come home.
Edward stood up, but Alice was already moving towards him. She pulled him into a tight hug. Esme followed suit, once Alice let go.
Jasper began to speak, suspiciously jovial about the prospect of his brother's absence.
Edward must have been truly unbearable. He let a guilty smile shape his features. They wouldn't have to deal with his moods for a while.
Even with the smile on his lips, he could feel the ice running through his veins. The fire chased it around his body. It was fake, the smile, and the laughing tone in his voice. He would find a way around the safe future that Alice predicted for him. No one here needed him any more. He could finally rest.
He looked around him. The smile on Alice's face didn't alter at all. His future hadn't changed due to his resolution then. Never mind, he thought. There's always a way.
"So, where are you going to go?" Jasper was asking.
"Yeah, bro." Emmett supplied. "What's your change of scenery? Brazil, Australia, Germany-I heard Malaysia is good this time of year."
Edward shook his head. Still, Alice's smile never changed, her thoughts never straying from the relief and optimism that she was feeling.
There was only one place that he wanted to go. It would be long enough that no one would recognise him as long as he didn't leave the house.
He was going home.