AN: Ahhhhh I am so so sorry for the delay in posting after that dreadful cliffhanger! The last month has been an absolute struggle. Within days of posting my last update I got the stomach flu, then a couple of days after that my computer's hard drive crashed. I brought it in to get repaired and it took them weeeeeeks. On top of that, our entire family got a nasty bout of influenza and two weeks later I am still coughing up a storm. Okay, that's enough of my excuses. I am so happy to be back to writing, it just brings me so much joy to escape into the little world I have created, even if only for a half hour here and there.
Without further ado...
Edward's POV
Bella's heartbeat. The sound of it that first day in biology had almost been my undoing. Every wet, pulsating beat had driven me closer to the brink of madness. In that moment, the very muscle keeping her alive had become the target of my unbridled hatred, its contracting and relaxing setting the rhythm to the violent scenarios playing through my mind. Then, as the weeks had passed and I had gained more control, and as our bond had strengthened, my reaction to that sound had evolved. It no longer symbolized my weakness or the monster that I am, but rather that cardiac marvel was the physical proof that my love was still human. I relished each beat. I knew its intricacies, the tenor of its excited state and the gentle thrum of it while she slept. I knew the nuances of its various speeds, the way it sometimes stuttered and skipped when we were together. I would know its sound from a mile away and I could pick it out of a packed stadium.
And so when Bella's screams pierced the air, I heard the erratic thumping from the house and I immediately knew something was wrong. When I had arrived minutes before, her heartbeat had been normal. A bit fast perhaps but I assumed that meant she was anxious or angry about my reappearance in her life. As she had every right to be. But as she screamed, the steady beating began to jump and stutter and race and slow to a sluggish, forced pumping. There was no rhyme or reason to its melody. It was as though blood still flowed smoothly in certain places while in others it was fighting to move at all. Only one thing could cause that, and the agony of my realization brought me to my knees. The sound of her screams was torturous. Memories of blood-soaked floorboards in a dark ballet studio flooded my thoughts. A bite mark, my desperate attempt to save her humanity. And all of it for nothing. My attempts to save her from this life of the damned had been absolutely worthless.
Confusion began to creep into my despairing mind. What could have happened for her to end up like us? Had she been attacked? Before I could ask someone, I heard Carlisle take a tentative step my way. He was still continuing his translations and I briefly wondered what he was trying to protect me from. But then for the briefest of moments he slipped. It was just the tiniest flash of a memory but it was more than enough. He was there at her bedside, his teeth bared at her neck. A whispered apology. The most despicable of betrayals. My vision blurred red and I succumbed to my fury.
Carlisle's POV
Before I could allow myself to wonder whether Edward would actually attack me, he raised himself back up and began to take measured steps in my direction.
"Son, I know you are in pain, and rightfully so. I would not have done it this way had I had any other choice." I began to take a few steps back, raising my hands to try and communicate to him that I would not fight him. Alice had warned me that one of the possible outcomes of today's reunion would be a physical altercation but I was determined not to cause him additional pain. It was obvious that his emotional suffering was already crushing him.
"You betrayed me, Carlisle." His words came out as a snarl. In a blur of motion he lunged towards me and I could feel the force of his hands as they connected with my chest. My body went flying towards the stone walls of the house behind us. Before I could cause any damage to the centuries-old structure, a larger set of hands caught me and set me back on my feet. I caught a glance of Emmett before he raced ahead and grabbed Edward. He had been stalking back in my direction, yelling at me to fight back. Begging me to give him the reaction he craved. As if I could ever so much as raise a hand against my own son.
"Christ, Edward. Look at yourself." Emmett's usual jovial voice was instead full of pity as he held Edward in place. I stayed frozen where I was, waiting to see if he would calm down. Sure enough, his frenzied expression began to cloud over. Even his limbs began to slacken and soon it looked as though he would have crumpled to the floor had Emmett not been holding him up.
Jasper appeared at my side, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Without breaking his focus or the gaze he held on his brother, he spoke to me, "Show him, Carlisle."
I had hoped to be able to speak to Edward first instead of greeting him with an onslaught of images from the last week, but it was glaringly obvious that he would need to see these things for himself in order to believe a word I said. At a human pace I crossed the short distance between us.
Edward, I called out to him in my thoughts.
He raised his head and looked at me, his expression still heartbroken, his black eyes hollow. I glanced back at Jasper and he nodded. Taking another step forward, I reached out and gingerly placed my hands on his shoulders.
I am sorry, son. But please, let me show you for yourself what has led us to this moment. It was not a decision I made lightly. He did not respond. Only his wary eyes glanced up at me before he shifted his focus and stared up towards the topmost floor of the house.
I allowed the first images to come to the forefront of my thoughts. Figuring it best to start at the beginning, I recalled how I had received Aro's letter and how we had made the decision to travel as a family to France. He did not react much to this first bit of information, the only sign that he had been paying attention was the way he raised his eyebrows slightly upon seeing the summons from Aro. Next, I remembered glimpses of my run to Volterra and the way I had clung to thoughts of Esme and our family as a way to calm my nerves upon reentering the castle. When I got to the memory of Jane I could see him flinch and turn his head back to face me, the shock no longer masked on his face. I hurried on, recalling how in the next moment I had heard Bella yell out my name.
Edward's eyes grew wide and a sharp inhale of breath was the first sound he had made since Jasper and Emmett had arrived. The discovery that Bella had been in Volterra had brought him up short. His residual anger appeared to melt away and he pulled himself up straighter. Emmett tentatively loosened his grasp and Jasper seemed to relax slightly, pulling back on his control over Edward's volatile emotional state.
His voice came out in an ominous hiss, "No. Impossible."
My hands slipped off his shoulders and came to rest behind my back. Instead of speaking aloud to him I kept going through the chain of events that followed. There would be time for further discussion afterwards. For now he needed the essential information. I showed him Bella's brief loss of consciousness and her fiery verbal attack on Aro when she discovered how I had been used to trick her into giving them the information they sought. And at last, I played back our moment of judgment before Aro, how he had initially reminded us that our due punishment should have been death. Had it been possible for Edward's skin to become even paler it would have done so at that moment. Instead, a strangled sob escaped his mouth as his head fell forward into the palm of his hands. His mumbled words would have been heard even by those still inside.
"What have I done…"
I half expected a snide, under-the-breath comment from one of his siblings, but everyone waited in silence. Edward's evident pain prevented them from saying anything.
By now I was nearly lost in my own memories, swept up in the intensity of what might have been. I forced myself to remain composed, carefully picking only the images I wished for him to see. Bella's reaction to Aro's verdict played out in my mind next. Even in the face of death she had been desperately apologizing to me, agonizing over how my own death would affect the family that had abandoned her.
"Carlisle, I'm sorry, I never meant for any of this to happen. Those stupid motorcycles. And now Esme, oh god, Esme." His head still cradled in his palms, Edward shook his head slowly black and forth.
But then Aro had provided the out that he had been withholding, having prefered to watch us grapple with the threat of execution, "Of course, there is one other option. And only one. Should you wish to avoid such a punishment, Carlisle, you must change the girl."
Edward looked up and held my gaze. Understanding and humility shone through each jetblack iris, communicating his sorrow and regret to me while he searched for his words. Emmett and Jasper had slipped discreetly back into the house, leaving me to comfort their brother.
I ended my recollections there; they had been more than sufficient to pull Edward back from the chaos of his tumultuous arrival. In my mind the images of Volterra faded to fog. From behind the mist came a series of notes. Each one flowed from the keys of a piano behind which sat a young musician in a Saint-Paul music hall. It was a memory I often liked to recall when trying to keep Edward from accessing my other thoughts, for it simultaneously brought me a great sense of calm. The year was 1924, and the three of us had run from Ashland the previous night inorder to attend the concert. I had changed Esme several years prior and after a handful of devastating slip-ups she had at last felt comfortable enough to spend time amongst a large crowd of humans. The young man that evening was playing a selection of Chopin's Nocturnes, and we had spent the entirety of the show enraptured by his talent. While she had been anxious at first, Esme had soon relaxed back into the red velvet seat, her hand still clutched in mine. Edward had sat on my other side, his head tilted back and his eyes closed for much of the show, a smile tugging at the side of his lips.
"I'm so sorry, Carlisle. If I had known- If I had had any idea-," his words now came out in a bereft groan.
I stepped forward and pulled him into a tight embrace. His head fell forward onto my shoulder and he began to tremble, grief forcing its way out through the tearless sobs. An almost silent click from the door behind me was the only sound Esme made as she approached us. Coming up to my side, she reached her hand out and grazed her hand across her son's bronze-colored locks of hair.
"It will be alright, Edward." My words felt insufficient, but what more could I offer him at that moment? For while the world felt anything but right to him, I was confident that eventually things would settle and he and Bella would find their peace. But for now the sandy-haired musician continued to play in my thoughts, the Nocturnes, Op. 27: I. Larghetto filled the silent hall while my memory of Edward grinned at my side, his fingers tapping silently on his knee in preparation for ivory keys of his own.
AN 2: Thank you for reading and reviewing, you guys are the absolute best. And yes, I did end up doing a short EPOV after hearing from some of you that you wouldn't mind hearing from him a little bit. But never fear, I don't have any plans for his voice to take over and this story will remain primarily a Carlisle and Bella POV.