Chapter Text
Edward POV
“Bella, love.” I slowed my pacing to a standstill and turned to her. “Yesterday, in the car, you said that I am obsessed with him. You are undoubtedly correct. But, please, you must understand me—I don’t want to be this way. It’s just that… Let’s start at the beginning.”
I drew in a shuddery breath in an attempt to calm myself, though it failed to do so. I had so many times contemplated how my past shaped me into the creature I am today. Despite my repeated self-analysis, I was still unsure exactly how I was to now bare my darkest history, basest self, and tenuously crafted rationality to words, to put it all out there for the only one who’s opinion mattered.
Yet, as I laid my eyes upon my wife, who stood there patiently, her hands clasped lightly in front of her as she waited for me to begin, I knew I could do it. I could find the words to admit my internal reality.
“I have few memories of my human life,” I began, weighing my voice in the air. It sounded surprisingly calm, though the maelstrom of my thoughts were not. “One clear memory I can recall was my relationship with God. I knew He existed, and I lived in his image. And yet, I was concerned with the problem of evil—how can a benevolent God exist when there is so much suffering in the world?”
“Hmmm,” Bella’s eyebrows came together, as if contemplating the question for herself.
The corner of my mouth twitched. “Don’t worry if you don’t have an answer. It’s a classic problem as old as faith itself. There are some explanations, unsatisfying as they may be. Take Leibniz, for example. He once said that the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds, that a kind and loving God gave us the reality which was the best.”
“This is the best world?” Bella asked, then added without missing a beat, “I guess any world with you in is the best.”
I offered her a weak smile. She was going to distract me if I let her continue interrupting.
“Be that as it may, I found such a defence of God a difficult concept. I did not understand how there was so much suffering, and yet, we still somehow lived in the best possible reality. Like many before me, and many after me, this irreconcilable difference shook my faith.”
I paused for a moment to scrutinise Bella. Her look of intense concentration had me wanting to smooth out the lines on her face, but I held back.
“Another human memory I can recall was my desire to enlist to fight in the Great War. I was no different from most boys my age. I dreamed of a soldier’s glory, of manhood, of gallantry, of being part of something bigger than what I was. I thought that if I could do my duty for this country, fight for democracy, then I would become a hero. Back then, that’s all I ever wanted to be. I would have happily died in the war effort. I would have considered it an honour.”
The corners of Bella’s mouth turned down.
“I was naive and foolish; I hardly understood the world around me. Only now do I see that my wish to enlist was a foolish boy’s dream. It was simply escapism turned obsession. I was a boy angry at the world, angry at God, clinging to any cause that promised meaning, desperate for any chance to help fix this rotten world.”
A humourless chuckle left my lips. It seemed odd to me, now, how narrow that dream was. How even though I loved my human mother so dearly, I still worked against her, so eager for hero status and military decorations. So eager to make a difference that I was willing to die for it. I couldn’t imagine dying for anything now, other than the woman who stood before me.
“As you know, the influenza came, and I never joined the war effort. You would have thought that the fact I was dying would make me reconsider my priorities, but no. Part of me was furious that my great opportunity was taken from me. So, by the time Carlisle found me, I was deeply angry, in a state of broken faith, and had also developed a deep and unfulfilled hero complex.”
Bella stifled a giggle. “You, have a hero complex? Never.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Sorry!” she squeaked.
“I can be self aware, you know. If I try hard enough. May I continue the story?”
She bowed her head sheepishly.
I gave her a small smile, letting her know I wasn’t angry with her, before continuing, “During my transformation, I clung to these characteristics. My distrust in God, my wanting to right the world, my desperation to be a hero who made a difference—they became deeply ingrained in me, they defined me as I entered my second life. However, once my transformation was complete, I realised that I had become something fundamentally incompatible with the hero complex I brought over: I had become the evil in the world I so hated. I had become a monster who traded their soul for immortality.”
“Edward, we’ve been through this, your soul—”
I cut her off with a finger to her lips. “Yes, Bella, I know. I have a soul. You helped me find it. But I didn’t have you yet, in 1918.”
She offered a quick kiss to my fingertip. I smiled at her in earnest, feeling a softness spread through me.
“You mustn’t interrupt me so much,” I muttered as I stroked my finger from her lip across her cheek, simply feeling her soft skin under mine. I wished to linger there, but with a sigh, I dropped my hand and forced myself back into solemnity.
“A couple of years after my transformation, I met Siobhan. She couldn’t have known, but her thoughts encouraged me to consider the more traditional lifestyle for our kind. A final taboo had been crossed as I began to consider what it would be like to defect from Carlisle’s mission. I hated myself for it. I hated that I was giving into the evil I had become.
“I eventually figured that if I had become a soulless monster, damned regardless, then any sin I could commit was trivially venial. I could never atone for what I had become, so why not simply be the monster that an unkind God decided I should be?
“While I knew I was damned, I craved my lost soul. I was ashamed and desperately wanted to fight the evil I had become. I still wanted to be the hero that the foolish human boy dreamed of. In my arrogance, I also wanted to reject God. If I’m honest with myself, I also wanted to reject Carlisle, for his part in God’s plan for me.”
I cast my gaze upwards to the thousands of stars twinkling in the cosmos. Hiding in the chaotic abyss, I found Polaris shining innocently. Reliably constant in the ever-changing sky, she was hailed as the ultimate guide to lost travellers. But to me, she was as fickle as stardust.
“The solution was obvious to me back then: I would give into my nature and indulge in the so-called ‘greatest joy of this life’, human blood, but I would both deny and play God. I would not be the irrational and indiscriminate murderous creature He designed me to be, but rather, I decided to give in to my instincts only a little bit. I would temper those instincts with reason, and so, I would satiate my thirst in the least evil way possible.
“I concluded that if I hunted only the most evil of men, then the evil in me which craved human blood, my longing for a hero’s glory, my rebellion against God, against Carlisle—they would all be satiated. I could become a necessary evil, a broken and flawed hero, rectifying the world that a cruel God failed to make just.”
I barked out a short, bitter laugh, its sound dying into the grasses at our feet. While I had not aged physically from when I came to that epiphany, and that old hero’s instinct and reasoning remained within me still, I had nonetheless gained enough experience to realise my arrogance.
I returned my gaze to Bella, my true North Star. She had heard some of the next part of the story before, but she was human when I had previously confessed to her. I wasn’t sure how much of the details she remembered.
“So, with my great epiphany, I left Carlisle and Esme to become a twisted hero. I spent years hunting the most foul of men. Rapists. Murderers. Abusers. Torturers. Traffickers. Paedophiles. Groomers. I have seen it all, Bella. Our kind are violent by nature, but some of these men were far, far worse. What they did, how their victims met their end… it is the foulest and unimaginable evil I have ever seen.
“I exist with a repository of their victims in my head.” My voice felt empty. Hollow. “These victims were reduced to brutality in their lives, but their memory was—and still is—further reduced by my nature. As their families die, their memories live on only in me, but as a screaming, often nameless, face in my mind…” I trailed off, sinking back into dissociated righteous anger as my vision blurred and the horrors of the past began to play behind my eyes.
It takes a monumental, earth-shattering experience to change a vampire. I had been irrevocably altered by falling in love with Bella. So too, I believe my time hunting human monsters had changed me.
While I went into that period of my existence knowing the world was broken, that the sick and depraved ruled the night, I had not considered how much my gift would be a double-edged sword. It was my primary hunting tool, to find the monsters, but also my tool to judge them. But that came with the burden of knowing how they think. I could see their crimes from their own eyes. Heard their justifications, their sick pleasures. They're hiding behind social status or conventions.
After only months of hunting, I had been altered. Part of me had become attuned to the monster mindset. From mere seconds in a depraved mind, I could predict their thought patterns. Predict their victims. Predict how they would carry out their crimes. And while I never became them, never had the urge to cause the cruelty they did, some part of my mind could easily mirror theirs. Unease and guilt flooded me at the truth of it: even if it were only pattern recognition, I had the capacity to simulate such an evil mind.
A biting wind whipped through the air, casting Bella’s hair in my direction, washing her scent over me. I shook myself out of the reel of horrors as I focused on her hair falling back to her shoulders. It grounded me. The past was the past. There was no changing what had happened, but it was essential Bella knew how it affected the present. How it would always affect my future. How it relates to our daughter.
“My obsession with… Jacob.” It was a momentous effort to say his name.
A light touch on my arm. “It’s okay, Edward. I’m listening.”
I breathed in the remaining fresh wash of her scent in the frigid night air. Taking her hand from my arm, I tenderly pressed my lips to the back of her knuckles.
I started over.
“My... enmity with Jacob goes far beyond his overstepping our roles as Renesmee’s parents. The issues I have are also inextricably tied up in my past.”
Bella cocked her head to the side, confusion and curiosity evident in the set of her brow.
I licked my lips and swallowed, preparing. “I’m not saying Jacob has had thoughts similar to the men I hunted. That would be both incorrect and unfair. However, Renesmee’s situation, with the imprint, too closely parallels the lives I have seen of child brides, of trafficked and groomed children where the child grew up happy, friendly with who would be their future abuser and sometimes murderer. I have a difficult time separating the differences between true grooming and the imprint, and in turn I find it difficult to curb my… dark hero complex when it comes to Jacob.”
The confession hung in the air as the billowing wind contorted the boughs of the scarce trees into impossible, nightmarish configurations. I took in Bella’s expression as I waited for her to speak or to pull away from me. She did neither. Her eyebrows remained creased, not in anger, but in contemplation. In light of the confession, she somehow seemed more pure and innocent than ever, her inherent good sharply contrasting against my sin.
“To put my past in more context, and to see how it shapes my conflict regarding the imprint, there are some specific stories from my past I wish for you to consider, Bella, and I don’t want you to get upset. Will you please tell me to stop if it becomes too unpalatable?”
“Okay,” she agreed.
I inhaled deeply, tasting the cold, sharp air on my tongue. I took a step back from her to study her. Nothing in her expression or stature indicated that she was uncomfortable—in fact, she looked at me with her round, beautiful eyes, alive with an eager curiosity.
And so, I forged on.
“When I hunted men, I focused on vengeance. You may say I saved future victims, but I am not so sure. There are only two people that I know I saved for certain. At least in body.
“The first was a girl who I found in a basement of horrors. She was only fifteen, but had already endured such abject torment by the time I found her, that while she was alive in body, her spirit had surely died. Her life after my intervention was not easy. I watched, from afar. My secret donations to pay for her care did little. She didn’t survive much longer than a year. That entire time she was disturbed, and she eventually took her own life. To this day I wonder if I truly saved her. Was I cruel in ensuring she lived? Would it have been kinder if she died in body in that basement?”
I stared at nothing in particular in the distance as the violent memories flashed by. She had no family, no medical records, not even a gravestone remembering her short life. To history, she never existed. I found myself saying, “Her name was Evelyn.”
I fixed my gaze back to Bella; her lips were softly forming Evelyn’s name, almost like a silent prayer.
“The second person I saved was a small girl, only four years old. Her would-be abuser and murderer was my only technically innocent prey. She would have been his first victim. I stalked him, monitored his mind, gave him the chance to change his trajectory. In the end, I destroyed him moments before he carried out his intention. She grew up to live a modest but happy, healthy life, unknowing of her original fate. She is still alive, though last time I checked, she had entered a late-stage care facility. She has two children and five grandchildren. Her name is Virginia.”
I studied Bella’s face once more. Her reaction was as upsetting as the first time I admitted my sins; she was just as lenient, never disgusted nor reproachful the way she should be.
I tore my focus from her to stare at my hands—my weapon of choice for incapacitating the human monsters. For holding them in place as I watched fear fill their eyes and listened to their mental realisations that retribution had finally come for them. Only, they didn’t know I was a false god; I was but a monster, too, but with far more devastating tools at my disposal.
“It has been a long time since I played judge, jury, and executioner,” I whispered. “I do not regret the deaths of any individual monster I destroyed. I only regret that I was a necessary evil, a soulless demon who existed to end further evil. I now realise that I was never the hero I longed to be, really. How could I be? I was—am—a bloodthirsty creature who cannot come to truly regret the murders I committed. That’s no hero.”
I lifted my eyes to Bella. She was pursing her lips unhappily. I had a disquieting suspicion that she was upset not for my actions, but for the way I spoke about myself. I quickly continued before she could interrupt with ill-placed niceties.
“I placate myself. Perhaps some sliver of good had to remain in me, as my collective murder toll eventually became too much to bear. Not even a decade in, I no longer wanted to be the monster that God ordained I should be. I returned to Carlisle and vowed that I would not kill, even for the noblest of reasons.
“To this day, I continue to placate myself by following Virginia’s story, by anonymously funding her care. I need to know that I did right in saving her in the way I did not truly save Evelyn. I need to know that Virginia turned out happy, healthy. I tell myself that if she lived a full life, then there is at least one murder I am not morally corrupt in not regretting. Even if it is the one murder with the technically innocent monster.”
“I’m glad you’re still looking out for her,” Bella said. Of course, she would latch onto the one good thing of that past, the fact that Virginia lived. So typically Bella. “I’d like to see her one day,” she added, “from afar, of course. I’d love to see part of your past."
“Maybe.” I offered her my most convincing smile, though I was unsettled. I didn’t like the thought of Bella having a connection to that side of me. Before she could press the matter and force me into recklessly promising her a view of that world, I retreated to my story.
“My resolve to abstain from punishing monsters has been tested three times. First, when Rosalie became my sister. As she burned through her transformation, I saw in her mind exactly how they brutalised her.” My teeth ground together, and I had to take a second to compose myself. “I wanted to track down Royce King on principle, just like I did Charles Evanson for what he did to Esme. I did not track King down at first because I was busy helping Rosalie adapt to this life. But it was always in the back of my mind. And then…”
A strange, nostalgic feeling tugged at my lips, forcing a bittersweet smile.
“The first time Rosalie and I truly bonded was when I saw in her mind that she was planning her revenge. She knew I knew. I didn’t out her intentions to Carlisle. I didn’t tell her to stop. I didn’t advise her, knowing she wanted full culpability. By not acknowledging it at all, we truly came to our first understanding.” I let a small chuckle of dark amusement leave me. “Even though I had vowed not to kill again, I couldn’t help but play hero again. I trailed her, you know. To make sure she did a clean job. I needn’t have bothered. She was very good, and warranted no intervention from me.”
“That’s amazing,” Bella said, morbid admiration clear in both her voice and her face. I had a fleeting concern for her mental stability. I quickly quelled that thought. How could I ever judge her, when I was recounting my past as one of the most prolific (albeit unknown and uncaught) serial killers in American history?
“By the way, Rosalie never knew I trailed her,” I added. "Please do not tell her. Our relationship is in the best shape it has ever been, and I don’t want to compromise that.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you told her.”
“Rosalie most definitely would mind.” I laughed weakly, shaking my head. “Back to the story. The second time my resolve has been tested was with you.”
“When you wanted to eat me?”
“No, silly girl.” I reached out to her. Taking her left hand in mine, I stroked my thumb over her wedding ring, fixing my gaze on the moonbeams reflected in the gold. “In Port Angeles, when you were attacked.”
My jaw tightened as I continued to thumb her ring. Seconds of silence passed as I lost myself in thought of the first man who intended to deprive me of Bella forever. I stiffened as rage filled me, though my touch remained gentle. Bella noticed. She squeezed my hand encouragingly.
“After I took you home, I wanted to destroy him,” I admitted. “I would have destroyed him with no regrets. But Carlisle convinced me to stay true to my cause. And so, we organised his arrest.”
I lifted my head, to find my salvation in her eyes as I spoke with a voice so low, so delicate, that it could only have been crafted by decades of violence, “Know this, my love, we are not forgiving creatures. My rage is not satisfied. Leaving him alive continues to abrade every instinct I have. My hero’s compulsion to end evil, yes, but more importantly, the fact he breathes is a constant stain against my duty as your husband and mate.”
I held her gaze as the wind blared around us once again. I lifted my hand to brush a dislodged lock of hair behind her ear before resting my palm on her cheek. Speaking softly yet clearly enough to cut through the screaming wind, my next words were not romantic, but from the blackest part of my soul.
“Bella. I could easily track him down and I would not regret ending him. If you wished me to, I would leave this instant and do it for you. In any manner you deem necessary. If you wished, I would take what I have learned from the monsters I have destroyed to design trials which push his human body to the limit. Only when he is at death's door would I use my greatest weapon. I would turn him, let him taste hell, and before his eyes open to eternity, I would then send him to hell for real.”
She gasped, but made no effort to pull away from me.
“I make no light of it, Bella. All my tenuously crafted rules are forgotten in light of vengeance for you. I am serious when I tell you that there is nothing too violent I wouldn’t do to him, if only you would ask.”
She shook her head quickly, releasing my palm from her cheek. I moved my hand to resume thumbing over her wedding ring. She did not reject me.
“I’ve been following his fate.” I admitted. “He had been extradited to Idaho, and is on death row for his victims before you. The day he is eliminated, I will undoubtedly celebrate, but I will also be furious it was not by my hand.” I paused momentarily, fixating my gaze on her ring, considering the vows it represented. “Unless you order me not to, I cannot promise you he will live to see his execution. I cannot promise you that the day before his state-mandated end, I will not find him anyway and afford him the death he deserves.”
She stared at me, wide-eyed, but otherwise said nothing.
“The third time my resolve was shaken, again, was with you. When Jacob kissed you, without your consent, and you broke your hand trying to get away from him. I wanted to kill him. He assaulted you, Bella. No matter what your feelings were at the time, you did not ask for it. Your grace is the only reason Jacob Black did not die. Again, it is not within my nature to forgive those who have sinned against you. If you asked me to kill Jacob right now, I would do it, no questions asked.”
She continued to stare at me in silence. Did she understand the severity of it? That, under the right circumstances—circumstances that concerned her—my capacity for violence was both grave and limitless?
I studied her; I tried to really see inside her precious mind, to fathom its inexplicable depths, to truly know what she was thinking. No matter how hard I tried, I failed. Her mind, as always, was closed to me.
“Isabella, do you understand what I’m saying? Do you understand how serious I am when I say that I will do anything to protect you, to protect our bond? I would die for you. I would kill for you. I would do absolutely anything and everything for you—to do so is an honour, a bliss.”
Moonlight reflected in her quivering eyes as she nodded. In understanding, or in permission, I was unsure. I hoped it was both.
“Have I frightened you?”
She already knew my past, my suppressed inclination to violence. She had ceaselessly supported me, regardless. Though I did not deserve it, I expected no difference this time, bolstered by the strength of our bond.
“No, of course not,” Bella confirmed in not much more than a whisper. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “I’m trying to figure it out, though, Edward. I can see how it relates to Renesmee in some ways, but how does it all fit together?”
“Yes, that’s the question, isn't it?” I half-laughed, though there was no real humour behind it. I let go of her hand. I didn’t want any more distractions. “Bella, please understand. When we undergo our transformations, we bring our strongest characteristics with us into this life. My arrogant, dark hero complex… it is based on the complexities of my human psyche, and upon transformation, it became a deeply ingrained part of what I am. And despite the fact I am no longer hunting humans, the compulsion that drove that period of my existence never went away. I cannot easily move past or change it. I have tried, believe me, but I cannot deny that foolish boy’s hero’s dream any more than we can deny our thirst for human blood.
“Now, do you honestly believe that if I have a deeply ingrained hero’s complex, if I am not above cold-blooded murder in the name of supposed justice, if I am invested in the stories and care of Evelyn and Virginia, women I had no connection to, if I will hunt down and kill the men who have wronged the women in our family, if I can and will sin by happily bestowing the greatest torture on the men who wrong you, then in all honesty, what hope do I have when my own daughter is threatened?”
“Ed—” Bella started, but I cut her off.
“But it’s so much more than that, Bella. Renesmee is my world, but you are my universe. My entire purpose for existing is you. I will, with no regrets, use the utmost of violence to protect you and our bond. Any protection and promise I afford to you extends to Renesmee too, because she is not just our daughter. She is our bond; she is the miracle offspring, she is the physical manifestation of it.”
A small, delicate gasp escaped Bella’s lips. I quickly searched her face, noting the understanding blooming in her trembling eyes. I held them captive, monitoring her, as I imparted how I truly viewed the severity of our daughter’s situation.
"I watch Renesmee every day. I see parallels of the stories I have seen so many times. Young women, stripped of their autonomy, promised from childhood—from birth—to a man who has a history of consent and anger issues. On paper, that’s Renesmee’s story. That’s what the imprint has done to her.
“It comes down to this, Bella. I simply cannot abide the thought that what I have seen in the minds of these monsters is Renesmee’s future. Every instinct I have cannot accept that as the reality we are given. As a boy who wished to be a hero, as a twisted vigilante saviour of women, as a father who dearly loves his daughter beyond words, and as a vampire protecting the physical representation of his mating bond—I cannot accept it.”
Silence hung in the night air as Bella processed my speech. Even the wind had calmed, as though it too were weighing my words, judging every facet of what I am.
“That’s… valid,” she eventually conceded. I found her response both hopeful and upsetting. Glad for her acceptance, worried I had ruined her. “I’m not downplaying what you’ve told me, but for what it's worth, Jake would rather die than hurt Renesmee. He’s not like the men you hunted before. You know that. You said so yourself.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And this is the crux of why I find the imprint difficult to reconcile. Intellectually, I know Jacob wishes no harm to Renesmee or her honour. I know he is not like the monsters I once hunted. I know that when he kissed you, he was younger, stupid. I know he regrets that now. I know that he stood witness with us against the Volturi. I know he was—is—willing to die for Renesmee with no expectation of anything from her in return.
“And with that, I know that on some level I am being unfair and unreasonable. I know his mind. I know that the imprint is involuntary, and he is innocent of all charges I could throw against him. But… technical innocence did not stop me acting before.”
“It didn’t stop you saving Virginia,” Bella said in understanding.
“Exactly. Part of me doesn’t care for technical innocence.” I heaved a heavy sigh, running a hand through my hair. “But the facts still remain. One. He is a volatile wolf. The imprint does not save Renesmee from instability. Just look at Emily. Two. Jacob has a history of consent issues. My wife was a victim of those issues, and I’ll be damned if my daughter becomes a victim, too. Three. He has had an unnatural interest in our daughter since birth, where it is assumed they will end up an item.
“For all intents and purposes, our daughter is all but a child bride, promised to an unstable man with consent issues, and that simply has always sat uneasily with me. And though he has not acted inappropriately towards our daughter, I am all but a ticking time bomb, waiting for the moment that changes. Waiting, as it were, for technical innocence to no longer save him.”
Bella’s lips pressed thin as she took my words in. She sighed. “There’s still hope that it won’t end up romantic. Renesmee has shown no interest in that way…” She grimaced, belaying that she wasn’t as optimistic as her words.
“No, but their involvement is still an assumed future,” I said bleakly. “Regardless, I have learned a lot about myself in the last twenty-four hours.”
Her expression turned quizzical. “What do you mean?”
I pondered my response for upwards of a minute. I needed to get this right, for Bella to understand the depth of my problem, the magnitude of my failings. I needed her to know why I reacted so atrociously in the car. I needed her to know the truest reason why Renesmee would inevitably reject me.
Taking a deep breath, I spoke clearly, with intent, “For years, I have tried to be reasonable. I have suppressed my instincts and allowed Jacob near our daughter only because denying Renesmee his friendship would have made her miserable. It has eaten at the fibres of my being, but for her happiness, I have tempered the worst parts of myself.”
I cast my gaze outwards again, settling my focus on the dreary horizon, still obfuscated by shadow and night where only the cessation of stars marked where earth and sky met. Of where the unknown beyond began.
“I thought I had a grasp on my darkest instincts,” I murmured. “I had allowed myself some pride in the fact my rational side had so far won out. I hadn’t realised that the control I had was so tenuous.”
Shame flushed through me, though Bella didn’t allow me to ruminate for long. Her gentle hand reached for me; she moulded it around my face, and I couldn’t help but lean into her touch. She guided my focus back to her.
“I’m here,” she assured me.
I took her hand, weaving my fingers through hers. “As Renesmee has grown, I have feared their getting… closer. So, when I confronted Jacob outside the house, I was already on a knife’s edge. Yesterday, in the car, when we learned that Jacob was in Renesmee’s room… I snapped. I interpreted his entering her bedroom as intent. All reason had been decimated, as his technical innocence finally elapsed. Renesmee's happiness was no longer a factor in my reasoning, and instinct took over. I was back in 1930.”
I swallowed hard. “All I could think about was how I failed her. How could I allow such a situation to arise where my daughter was alone with the man I have all but let groom her since birth? How could I have avenged countless child brides and abused women in my past, but failed to save the one that really mattered in the present? How could I have watched over Virginia all her life, but failed my own daughter within five short years?”
I began shaking as I relived the fear, righteous anger, and regret for my paternal neglect, perfect recall allowing the feeling to flow fresh as an open wound.
“When we found out nothing transpired, it meant nothing. If he didn’t dishonour her that day, how could I be sure that motions weren’t in place for future abuse? How could I be sure that if she rejected his advances, he would not”—I couldn’t bring myself to say the word maul—“hurt her as Sam did Emily? Was Renesmee’s future set to be short and disturbed like Evelyn’s? Or a long eternity of unprocessed trauma like Rosalie and Esme? I needed to know the entire situation. I was too far away, I couldn’t get to her.”
Bella squeezed my hand. I looked down to our interlocked fingers, my own wedding band now reflecting the moonlight.
“And you,” my voice cracked, “I treated you so terribly in my blind rage. Again, Bella, I’m sorry, more than words can express.”
“You don’t have to keep apologising, Edward.”
I did, but that wasn’t the point. “Bella, listen to me. If the situation is dire enough for me to lose control and snap at you, then I am more concerned than ever for the future.”
The v creased between her eyebrows.
“That was my reaction when I was blindsided and I interpreted him as outright forcing himself on her. Now, what do you think I will do if I have to watch my daughter fall in love with him?”
This time, Bella gulped.
“If Renesmee and Jacob's relationship turns”—I steadied myself—“romantic or sexual, I am not sure that I would be able to see it as anything but abuse and coercion, where, because of the imprint, she has only ever had the illusion of choice. Even worse, what if the imprint strips her not only of her autonomy, but also her rationality? What if he hurts her, even if through accidental phasing, and she can’t help but rationalise the situation? With that, even if she thinks she’s happy, even if she thinks she loves him, even if she thinks it’s an informed choice with the risk of phasing… I cannot accept it—not because of him specifically, but because Renesmee never had a real choice. And so, if such a future transpires, where she chooses him, I am certain that I would not let him live. No matter how much I rationalise the situation, and no matter how much Renesmee begs me.”
An unsteady tremor laced my voice as I finally put to words a future I could see looming in the distance. “That is the main reason why her rejection of me is inevitable. Not because of genetics. No. Because I am not willing to even chance such a future. I am not willing to allow the imprint to strip her of autonomy and reason. And so, if fate decrees that the nature of their relationship changes, then there exists a day that I will lose my daughter. Jacob will die by my hand, and it is a surety that Renesmee will hate me for it.”
I slumped forward into Bella’s shoulder, thoroughly exhausted in a way that should not be possible for our kind. There was little more to say. I had laid it out for her to see. Never before had I gone into such detail with anybody about my darkest days. Never before had I vocalised my truest feelings on the imprint.
Now, Bella knew. And I knew, too. I knew that I was not a man of reason. I never had been. I had always been a force for violence, trying to rationalise what I am, trying to believe I could be a hero. And now, as my daughter, bereft of a future of her own volition, the darkest so-called hero arose once more, this time willing to sacrifice his daughter’s love, just so she had the chance to escape a pre-ordained fate.
“Oh, Edward,” Bella soothed, running her hands through my hair. My body relaxed into her touch as all tension drained from me. We stayed that way for seconds or minutes. I was unwilling to track the passage of time. “Hey,” she whispered into my ear, her warm voice caressing me from within, “why don’t you show me that waterfall?”
I knew that she was only asking about the waterfall to give space for my words to settle, and I was grateful for it. Pulling back from her embrace, I held my hand out to her.
Our walk to the waterfall was silent, but not uncomfortable. It was a strange feeling. I did not worry that Bella would overly judge me or leave me for my confessions. I knew she never would, our bond was unfaltering. Yet, I still felt the need to be accepted by her.
A gust pressed in on us as we cleared Brontë Bridge on the designated trail. A meagre imitation of the earlier howling winds, but enough to cause the fabric of Bella’s skirt to flutter. Though the bridge was hardly high and Bella was in no risk of falling or being dislodged by the wind, I still guided her across.
Bella’s small gasp of recognition when we reached the small waterfall eradicated the lingering pain from almost six years ago, when I sat here, desperately alone.
“Is this Brontë waterfall?” she asked.
I pulled her to me, her back against my chest. Placing my arms around her waist, I rested my head on her shoulder and spoke quietly into her ear, “Yes. It’s not much. It’s no Niagara. It’s small, unassuming, and rather gentle.”
The wind had now settled into the silent darkness; the only sound was the steady trickle of moon-silvered water coalescing with the stream. There was a sense of serenity in it, of peace.
“Sometimes the smallest, most unassuming things are the most profound,” Bella whispered. She wiggled from my grip and walked over to the stream’s edge. She bent down, trailing her fingers through the water. “I think the locals call this a beck.”
“That they do.”
Bella sank to the ground to sit on the beck’s edge. Removing her shoes, she dipped her feet in the shallow flow. “Come join me?”
Not three seconds later, I had removed my shoes and placed myself next to her, feet submerged in the water, arm around her shoulders, wanting to feel the calm in holding her close to me. The soft trickle of water washed over our submerged feet, the sound mixing with Bella’s gentle breathing.
“Bella, I truly am sorry for how I acted in the car yesterday. I should not have yelled at you. I should not have made you feel lesser. You now know that my control has waned. Be that as it may, the way I treated you was intolerable and unforgivable.”
“You know you’re forgiven already.” She nuzzled my shoulder.
“You always let me off too easily.”
“You might have forgotten, but we’re married. Who else is there for you to crash and burn to?”
I laid my lips to the crown of her head in adoration. “True. Though I never forget that we’re married.”
I have no illusions regarding the severity of the crimes I have committed, both by choice and by nature, and I am certain that I will continue to be a cesspool of contradiction and hypocrisy. Nevertheless, this beautiful, wonderful woman accepted me and loved me regardless. It didn’t make sense. How could fate be simultaneously so cruel and yet so kind? Surely any world with Bella was the best of all possible worlds.
And yet, in this world, Renesmee suffered not only with her gift, but also with the loss of her free will. How could it be right, fair, just, and holy that the imprint—something supernatural, otherworldly, akin to fate—had claimed my daughter?
How can I reconcile that?
Maybe God and fate didn’t exist, after all.
That would be an oddly romantic notion. That Bella and I were not destined, but came together naturally through the forces of our will. More so, if fate and God didn’t exist, then Renesmee’s future is not preordained.
I liked the thought.
Bella and I sat together in vampiric stillness as the world moved on around us. The water in the beck continued to trickle. The now balmy air continued to whirl, kicking up fallen foliage. The moon and the stars continued to illuminate the never-ending sky.
As the stars shifted in the sky, slowly slipping over the horizon, I asked my favourite old question, “What are you thinking?”
“Hmm. That I should thank you for telling me everything.”
“I feel ‘you’re welcome’ is the wrong sentiment.”
“No, that works,” she assured me. “There’s one thing, though.”
“Yes?”
She bit her lip and studied me intently, and I once again desperately wished I could read her mind. “You said that you would kill Jacob for me if I asked you to.”
“I would.”
“No matter what?”
“Unequivocally.”
Bella turned her gaze to the river. She kicked her feet, disturbing the otherwise languid flow.
“Would you let him live for me?” she asked, looking at the water.
I placed a finger under her chin, turning her face back to me. “What do you mean?”
“No matter what. If I asked you to, would you let Jacob live for me?”
Time stopped as I processed her question. The answer was undoubtedly yes, as Bella had already saved Jacob's life from my rage. Multiple times.
“Bella, you know I cannot deny you anything," I confirmed, lacing my hand through her hair.
Though my words were easy and automatic, as I spoke them, an unwelcome image flashed through my mind. Renesmee, fully matured. On Jacob’s arm, scarred by his unstable outbursts, yet she was smiling, the imprint fooling her into thinking this was an acceptable reality. Me, unable to kill him because Bella had banned it.
"But I also cannot…” My hand in her hair stiffened. “Bella, please. What are you asking of me?”
Her own hand came to rest on my knee. “I told you the other day I wanted you to stop hurting him because I was scared of who I was becoming. Now, I want you to let him live, because I can’t stand what you killing him would do to Renesmee. You’re right. If you kill him, it won’t free Renesmee from anything. It will only destroy her. And, in turn, that will destroy you.”
My thumb started absently stroking the back of her head as I pondered her words. She wanted to save Jacob, not for his sake, but for mine. To save my relationship with my daughter. I swallowed, unsure how to process this information.
How far would Bella have this protection run? As much as I despised the thought, I would sacrifice my relationship with my daughter to extricate her from the imprint. But Bella was right. Would I be freeing her from a potential future prison, just to entomb her in misery?
More so, would Bella’s protection of Jacob even hold? I had already snapped at her when I thought that he had defiled Renesmee. Could Bella really prevent me from killing him if such fears actualised?
What would I do if my mate’s commands were at odds with protecting our daughter, the very embodiment of our bond?
An imperative need surged through me. I had to know exactly how I should let this situation play out, and under what circumstances Bella's protection over Jacob would break.
I brought my second hand into her hair. I cradled her head in my hold, bringing her face close to mine. I spoke directly to her soul. “What if it turns romantic?”
“If she chooses him, we should respect that.”
“Would it really be her choice, Bella? Would she not have been groomed, if not by him, but by fate?”
Bella grimaced. “I don’t know. But what free choices do any of us have, really? Are we all not just making decisions limited by the circumstances we are given?”
I was unsatisfied with that. “What if he hurts her?”
“I don’t think he will.”
“Maybe not intentionally, but he might lose his temper when she’s too close.”
“Edward, all I’m asking of you is to not act rashly. Renesmee has very little control over her own life at the moment. I don’t want to take away Jacob from her, too. So, I’m asking you, Edward, no matter what happens, will you let Jacob live, at least until we decide together what to do?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and lowered my forehead to touch hers. “Yes.”
“There’s one more thing.” She sounded nervous.
I opened my eyes and pulled back to study her. I kept her precious face framed within my hands so I could really read her reactions.
I asked again, “What are you thinking, Bella?”
“If they end up together, that’s one thing we might have to accept… but if he does end up hurting her, if anybody hurts her for that matter… then can I help you kill them?”
I stared at her, awestruck.