A New Beginning ~ Chapter 5 / 6
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Bella waited for Edward to speak, but he did not. He was as still as she, though his eyes were trained on her. He made no move to comfort her, and he certainly didn’t try to take her hand. It might still be warm, and the thought disconcerted him. When she turned toward him, he looked away. She’d already mentioned that the jealousy raged behind his eyes, and he knew he was filled to the brim with it. But he didn’t want to risk her newborn temper by showing it to her.
“None of that was intended to hurt you,” Bella whispered. He saw her eyes flit to his lips, then back up to the rest of his face. He’d bit through his bottom lip entirely when she’d told Jacob she loved him. There would be a scar.
“Not intended to hurt me,” he echoed dully. How could she possibly have thought it would not? If the heartfelt declaration had not hurt him, then the images of Jacob hugging her as a human would have done it. If not that, then just the familiarity. Then, “You love him.”
“I love Alice. I love Emmett.”
“He did try to remind himself that that’s probably all you meant.” Edward looked up into her eyes and she winced at what she read there, and then took his hand. He was relieved to find it nearly the same temperature as his own. How quickly he’d grown accustomed to that.
He started walking back in the direction of Tanya’s house. His instinct was to run, but it wasn’t often they were alone, and he thought he might rather have this conversation before they came within hearing distance of the others. Bella moved fluidly beside him, her footsteps as soft as his own. Gone was the awkward, clumsy human he’d loved, who’d necessitated so much restraint. He’d come back to find this creature in her place - a woman more volatile, more prone to anger (though he admitted to himself he’d certainly given her enough provocation for it), and more beautiful - if that was even possible. Each glance reminded him that it was. But she was also more durable. His grip on her hand tightened as his eyes narrowed. He sensed her tensing beside him, though her steps didn’t falter, and he lost the conviction to accuse her. If she said her love for Jacob was sisterly, he would believe her.
“You left out the motorcycles,” he said instead.
“And the trip to Port Angeles,” she added. Finally he looked over at her, silently questioning. “I guess it’s time I told you the rest - the whole reason I started hanging out with Jake in the first place…”
The pinched look around her mouth worried him.
By the time Bella and Edward were a hundred yards from the house they had fallen silent, and Edward at last had a complete picture of exactly how near to the edge of madness Bella had been driven by his lies and continued absence. Hearing his voice when she was in danger - seeking out the danger to hear his voice. He couldn’t even bring himself to chastise her for it. This final piece of information had done more to convince him that she loved him more, and differently, than she did Jacob Black, than any other assertion she could have made.
“What now?” Bella wondered aloud. Edward felt a smile tugging the corners of his lips for the first time all day.
“Now, we’re nearly packed and ready to go. Carlisle’s already found us a house in the middle of the Pennsylvania wilderness. We should be able to stay off the radar out there, so no one will be expecting us to attend High School again for a while.”
“Nearly packed?” Bella could hear the shifting of boxes, and the muted but cheerful voices of the Cullen family as Edward opened the front door for her. She supposed they would all be quietly relieved to escape, now that things had exploded with Irina. Apparently Carlisle had decided that safety came before politeness and moved things up.
“Alice took care of it. Don’t worry,” Edward teased, “she’s going to make sure none of your new clothes are left behind.”
Bella shot him an annoyed glance, but returned his lop-sided smile. She could never seem to help herself. But her smile fell away fairly quickly as her ears picked up the gist of a conversation between Tanya and Irina coming from upstairs. It was clear that the others were sounding cheerful on purpose, as if to somehow mask what was being said.
“…don’t want them on our property, either, but that was beyond rude! As if it wasn’t bad enough when you dove at Bella from the stairs. At least your surprise at learning the news first hand made that understandable. But you’ve had time to come to terms, now. Laurent is gone -”
“He wouldn’t be gone if the werewolves hadn’t killed him!” Irina hissed in return. The house had gone silent except for them.
Kate spoke up then, in a whisper that Bella had to strain to hear. “He wouldn’t have been out there hunting humans if he’d been committed to this life. If he’d -”
“If he’d loved me?” Irina asked with incongruous dignity. Edward vanished from Bella’s side, dashing up the stairs. Kate’s lack of response was enough confirmation for Irina, apparently, because the next sound was a forceful thud of stone against stone. From other rooms the rest of the household came running. Edward and Tanya together struggled to pull a screeching Irina away from Kate, and it wasn’t until Carlisle arrived to help that they fully managed it. Jasper waited for Bella on the stairs, shaking his head at her when she started toward Irina’s bedroom door with the rest. She understood. Seeing her would only make it worse.
Instead, he guided her toward the room she shared with Edward, and they began carrying the boxes downstairs. As they loaded the cars, Edward, Rosalie and Esme joined them. Emmett remained in Irina’s room like a prison guard while Tanya, Kate and Carlisle came downstairs to talk.
“She’s not improving,” Carlisle said without preamble. “Bella can’t stay here, but I don’t feel completely comfortable leaving you two alone with her either, after what just happened.”
“She’s grieving,” Kate justified, sounding almost as defensive as if SHE had been the one to turn on her own sister.
“She’s grieving badly,” Tanya admitted. “What should we do?” Though older than Carlisle by many years, she trusted his judgment.
“I’m not certain there’s anything you can do. Be there for her. Don’t provoke her, but don’t let her isolate herself anymore. And call Eleazar and Carmen home early. I fear having Bella here has been as bad for Irina as it’s been good for Edward.”
“Safe travels,” Tanya said, after a moment of quiet between them. Carlisle nodded. No one had reappeared after the last time the garage door had closed. The boxes were stowed. It was time they were on their way.
The rest of their goodbyes were stilted, and took place in the garage. Bella could tell Tanya and Kate were shaken. Kate hugged her briefly and tried to smile. Tanya simply said goodbye coolly before turning to kiss Edward on the cheek. Bella hid a grin as Edward stepped back right up against the car to put some distance between them. Irina didn’t come down at all.
After Tanya and Kate went back into the house Emmett finally appeared. By then, Edward had opened the back door of a huge black vehicle Bella had never seen, and gestured her inside. She sat, noticing at once that this was not an ordinary car. She guessed it was some kind of armored limo. He closed the door before she could turn and ask.
“Rose?” he asked in a whisper.
Rosalie turned toward him with exaggerated slowness. Her face indicated polite interest, but he could hear her panic.
“Would you mind? I’m probably going to have my hands full.” He was smirking. She was going to refuse. He hoped she would.
“Why me? I’m sure Jasper would be more help-”
“But you were so interested in what Bella and I have been talking about lately. Surely you wouldn’t pass up this opportunity.”
Rosalie threw a pleading glance toward Emmett, who grinned and swiftly kissed her goodbye. She was getting no help from that quarter. Then she stalked over to the car and let herself into the driver’s seat. By the time she opened the door, Edward was already safely in the back with Bella. The rest of the family smiled indulgently and dispersed to their own vehicles. Everyone but Carlisle and Esme would have to drive alone since Edward was a passenger for this trip. “Who gave me away?” Rosalie asked as she pulled out behind Emmett’s jeep a moment later.
“No one. If anyone else had done it, you wouldn’t have cared enough to avoid thinking about it, and you’d have been the tell.” Edward was smirking again, but Bella was ignoring their conversation. She’d tried to open her door when she realized that the automobile she was sitting in was nearly soundproof, but had found there were no door handles in the back. As it had seemed ridiculous to climb into the front just to hear what Edward was smirking about, she’d waited. Her brain was firing on all cylinders, now, and she knew what they meant immediately, despite missing the beginning. But in the back of her mind there was fear stirring. She was about to get her first real test, she knew. They would be driving through inhabited areas.
For the first hundred miles or so, she kept her head back against the headrest, with her face turned out the window. She was counting down in her head. She didn’t know how many miles but she knew, at about this speed, how long it would take to reach the point where the scent of humans would be discernable. It wouldn’t be long. Two hours at the most. She recalled the one and only time she’d caught the scent before, and her mouth filled with venom from just the memory. Swallowing it in parts in an effort to hide her vulnerability on this issue would have been wise. Instead she gulped.
“What are you thinking?” Edward asked in a gentle voice. From the front seat came an impatient noise.
“You two are even more boring now than you were before,” Rose complained. Edward rolled his eyes in response, but Bella imagined that was true. She was much quieter, after months of living alone in the forest, than she had ever been before. Prone to long stretches of silence and introspection. She recalled that hers were the only thoughts Edward could not hear, and realized he’d probably been very impatient with her - the thought caused a bit of déjà vu. She got the impression she had been more aware of that before her change. She resolved to keep it in mind.
“At this speed, in about fifteen minutes I’m going to need to be restrained,” Bella answered, ignoring Rosalie completely. “Less, if the road evens out.”
Edward, who’d been dreading more talk of Jacob, wished for a moment that she wasn’t calculating so accurately. It didn’t bode well that it was so much on her mind. “I thought you might let me occupy your thoughts,” he offered quietly, his finger caressing her cheek. He smiled in spite of himself as she turned away from the window to look at him.
“You have got to be kidding,” Rosalie groused from the seat in front of them.
“A month with the Aston Martin says it’s more effective than Jasper’s help would have been,” Edward returned, in high spirits at Bella’s answering smile. Rose reached up and hit a button on her dashboard. A partition rose between the front and back seats.
“Deal.”
And then they were alone. Mostly. If they made any real noise - spoke above a whisper - Rosalie would hear them. Otherwise they had some true privacy. Bella was still smiling at him. “Edward Cullen, are you seriously proposing that we park?” she asked, her voice scandalized.
Chapter 6
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Bella waited for Edward to speak, but he did not. He was as still as she, though his eyes were trained on her. He made no move to comfort her, and he certainly didn’t try to take her hand. It might still be warm, and the thought disconcerted him. When she turned toward him, he looked away. She’d already mentioned that the jealousy raged behind his eyes, and he knew he was filled to the brim with it. But he didn’t want to risk her newborn temper by showing it to her.
“None of that was intended to hurt you,” Bella whispered. He saw her eyes flit to his lips, then back up to the rest of his face. He’d bit through his bottom lip entirely when she’d told Jacob she loved him. There would be a scar.
“Not intended to hurt me,” he echoed dully. How could she possibly have thought it would not? If the heartfelt declaration had not hurt him, then the images of Jacob hugging her as a human would have done it. If not that, then just the familiarity. Then, “You love him.”
“I love Alice. I love Emmett.”
“He did try to remind himself that that’s probably all you meant.” Edward looked up into her eyes and she winced at what she read there, and then took his hand. He was relieved to find it nearly the same temperature as his own. How quickly he’d grown accustomed to that.
He started walking back in the direction of Tanya’s house. His instinct was to run, but it wasn’t often they were alone, and he thought he might rather have this conversation before they came within hearing distance of the others. Bella moved fluidly beside him, her footsteps as soft as his own. Gone was the awkward, clumsy human he’d loved, who’d necessitated so much restraint. He’d come back to find this creature in her place - a woman more volatile, more prone to anger (though he admitted to himself he’d certainly given her enough provocation for it), and more beautiful - if that was even possible. Each glance reminded him that it was. But she was also more durable. His grip on her hand tightened as his eyes narrowed. He sensed her tensing beside him, though her steps didn’t falter, and he lost the conviction to accuse her. If she said her love for Jacob was sisterly, he would believe her.
“You left out the motorcycles,” he said instead.
“And the trip to Port Angeles,” she added. Finally he looked over at her, silently questioning. “I guess it’s time I told you the rest - the whole reason I started hanging out with Jake in the first place…”
The pinched look around her mouth worried him.
By the time Bella and Edward were a hundred yards from the house they had fallen silent, and Edward at last had a complete picture of exactly how near to the edge of madness Bella had been driven by his lies and continued absence. Hearing his voice when she was in danger - seeking out the danger to hear his voice. He couldn’t even bring himself to chastise her for it. This final piece of information had done more to convince him that she loved him more, and differently, than she did Jacob Black, than any other assertion she could have made.
“What now?” Bella wondered aloud. Edward felt a smile tugging the corners of his lips for the first time all day.
“Now, we’re nearly packed and ready to go. Carlisle’s already found us a house in the middle of the Pennsylvania wilderness. We should be able to stay off the radar out there, so no one will be expecting us to attend High School again for a while.”
“Nearly packed?” Bella could hear the shifting of boxes, and the muted but cheerful voices of the Cullen family as Edward opened the front door for her. She supposed they would all be quietly relieved to escape, now that things had exploded with Irina. Apparently Carlisle had decided that safety came before politeness and moved things up.
“Alice took care of it. Don’t worry,” Edward teased, “she’s going to make sure none of your new clothes are left behind.”
Bella shot him an annoyed glance, but returned his lop-sided smile. She could never seem to help herself. But her smile fell away fairly quickly as her ears picked up the gist of a conversation between Tanya and Irina coming from upstairs. It was clear that the others were sounding cheerful on purpose, as if to somehow mask what was being said.
“…don’t want them on our property, either, but that was beyond rude! As if it wasn’t bad enough when you dove at Bella from the stairs. At least your surprise at learning the news first hand made that understandable. But you’ve had time to come to terms, now. Laurent is gone -”
“He wouldn’t be gone if the werewolves hadn’t killed him!” Irina hissed in return. The house had gone silent except for them.
Kate spoke up then, in a whisper that Bella had to strain to hear. “He wouldn’t have been out there hunting humans if he’d been committed to this life. If he’d -”
“If he’d loved me?” Irina asked with incongruous dignity. Edward vanished from Bella’s side, dashing up the stairs. Kate’s lack of response was enough confirmation for Irina, apparently, because the next sound was a forceful thud of stone against stone. From other rooms the rest of the household came running. Edward and Tanya together struggled to pull a screeching Irina away from Kate, and it wasn’t until Carlisle arrived to help that they fully managed it. Jasper waited for Bella on the stairs, shaking his head at her when she started toward Irina’s bedroom door with the rest. She understood. Seeing her would only make it worse.
Instead, he guided her toward the room she shared with Edward, and they began carrying the boxes downstairs. As they loaded the cars, Edward, Rosalie and Esme joined them. Emmett remained in Irina’s room like a prison guard while Tanya, Kate and Carlisle came downstairs to talk.
“She’s not improving,” Carlisle said without preamble. “Bella can’t stay here, but I don’t feel completely comfortable leaving you two alone with her either, after what just happened.”
“She’s grieving,” Kate justified, sounding almost as defensive as if SHE had been the one to turn on her own sister.
“She’s grieving badly,” Tanya admitted. “What should we do?” Though older than Carlisle by many years, she trusted his judgment.
“I’m not certain there’s anything you can do. Be there for her. Don’t provoke her, but don’t let her isolate herself anymore. And call Eleazar and Carmen home early. I fear having Bella here has been as bad for Irina as it’s been good for Edward.”
“Safe travels,” Tanya said, after a moment of quiet between them. Carlisle nodded. No one had reappeared after the last time the garage door had closed. The boxes were stowed. It was time they were on their way.
The rest of their goodbyes were stilted, and took place in the garage. Bella could tell Tanya and Kate were shaken. Kate hugged her briefly and tried to smile. Tanya simply said goodbye coolly before turning to kiss Edward on the cheek. Bella hid a grin as Edward stepped back right up against the car to put some distance between them. Irina didn’t come down at all.
After Tanya and Kate went back into the house Emmett finally appeared. By then, Edward had opened the back door of a huge black vehicle Bella had never seen, and gestured her inside. She sat, noticing at once that this was not an ordinary car. She guessed it was some kind of armored limo. He closed the door before she could turn and ask.
“Rose?” he asked in a whisper.
Rosalie turned toward him with exaggerated slowness. Her face indicated polite interest, but he could hear her panic.
“Would you mind? I’m probably going to have my hands full.” He was smirking. She was going to refuse. He hoped she would.
“Why me? I’m sure Jasper would be more help-”
“But you were so interested in what Bella and I have been talking about lately. Surely you wouldn’t pass up this opportunity.”
Rosalie threw a pleading glance toward Emmett, who grinned and swiftly kissed her goodbye. She was getting no help from that quarter. Then she stalked over to the car and let herself into the driver’s seat. By the time she opened the door, Edward was already safely in the back with Bella. The rest of the family smiled indulgently and dispersed to their own vehicles. Everyone but Carlisle and Esme would have to drive alone since Edward was a passenger for this trip. “Who gave me away?” Rosalie asked as she pulled out behind Emmett’s jeep a moment later.
“No one. If anyone else had done it, you wouldn’t have cared enough to avoid thinking about it, and you’d have been the tell.” Edward was smirking again, but Bella was ignoring their conversation. She’d tried to open her door when she realized that the automobile she was sitting in was nearly soundproof, but had found there were no door handles in the back. As it had seemed ridiculous to climb into the front just to hear what Edward was smirking about, she’d waited. Her brain was firing on all cylinders, now, and she knew what they meant immediately, despite missing the beginning. But in the back of her mind there was fear stirring. She was about to get her first real test, she knew. They would be driving through inhabited areas.
For the first hundred miles or so, she kept her head back against the headrest, with her face turned out the window. She was counting down in her head. She didn’t know how many miles but she knew, at about this speed, how long it would take to reach the point where the scent of humans would be discernable. It wouldn’t be long. Two hours at the most. She recalled the one and only time she’d caught the scent before, and her mouth filled with venom from just the memory. Swallowing it in parts in an effort to hide her vulnerability on this issue would have been wise. Instead she gulped.
“What are you thinking?” Edward asked in a gentle voice. From the front seat came an impatient noise.
“You two are even more boring now than you were before,” Rose complained. Edward rolled his eyes in response, but Bella imagined that was true. She was much quieter, after months of living alone in the forest, than she had ever been before. Prone to long stretches of silence and introspection. She recalled that hers were the only thoughts Edward could not hear, and realized he’d probably been very impatient with her - the thought caused a bit of déjà vu. She got the impression she had been more aware of that before her change. She resolved to keep it in mind.
“At this speed, in about fifteen minutes I’m going to need to be restrained,” Bella answered, ignoring Rosalie completely. “Less, if the road evens out.”
Edward, who’d been dreading more talk of Jacob, wished for a moment that she wasn’t calculating so accurately. It didn’t bode well that it was so much on her mind. “I thought you might let me occupy your thoughts,” he offered quietly, his finger caressing her cheek. He smiled in spite of himself as she turned away from the window to look at him.
“You have got to be kidding,” Rosalie groused from the seat in front of them.
“A month with the Aston Martin says it’s more effective than Jasper’s help would have been,” Edward returned, in high spirits at Bella’s answering smile. Rose reached up and hit a button on her dashboard. A partition rose between the front and back seats.
“Deal.”
And then they were alone. Mostly. If they made any real noise - spoke above a whisper - Rosalie would hear them. Otherwise they had some true privacy. Bella was still smiling at him. “Edward Cullen, are you seriously proposing that we park?” she asked, her voice scandalized.
Chapter 6