fembuck | Fic: The Edge (Alice/Bella, Twilight 6/?) (Reply)

Title: The Edge
Author: Janine
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Alice/Bella
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Stephanie Meyer. I’m just borrowing them.
Summary: Alice goes to see Bella in the aftermath of her birthday party.

Prologue: Golden Slumber
Part 1: Skating the Edge
Part 2: My Favorite Mistake
Part 3: The Rules of Attraction
Part 4: Shattered
Part 5: Breakin' All The Rules

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When Bella arrived at school she forced herself to stay calm and keep breathing, to put one foot in front of the other, and repeated to herself over and over again that everything was fine as she made her way to Edward.

When she arrived at the Cullen’s Volvo she couldn’t see Alice around anywhere, but that didn’t mean anything, she told herself. That was perfectly normal. Alice very rarely waited for her with Edward in the morning, that was his routine, not hers. There was no reason to worry because she wasn’t there.

There was no reason to worry, just like there was no reason to worry that Alice had left before she had woken up. Her crying that morning meant nothing. She wasn’t Alice, she wasn’t prescient. She didn’t know anything. Her fear, her crying, they were just brought on by lack of sleep. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing. Alice had probably just had to return home, to hunt, or to tell Esme and Carlisle where she had been. Unlike Edward, Alice didn’t spend most of her nights away from the house, and after the events of the party her extended absence might have worried them. There was nothing to worry about.

Everything was fine.

“Morning,” Bella said, forcing a smile on her face as she reached Edward, the smile wavering as she took in his straight back and stoic features.

“Good morning,” Edward said. The timber of his voice was as sweet as ever but his posture remained rigid and his tone formal.

‘There is nothing to worry about, nothing’, Bella chanted in her mind.

“Is Alice around?” Bella asked, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible. “I was hoping to talk to her before class,” she continued, thinking ‘everything is fine, everything is fine’ again and again.

Edward looked down at her, staring at her for a moment and then reached into his jacket, removing an envelope from its inner pocket. He held the envelope in his hand, his thumb stroking the paper thoughtfully for a second, and then he handed it over to Bella.

Bella looked down at it curiously.

Her name was written on it in Alice’s beautiful antiquated hand-writing.

“No,” Bella said automatically. She shoved the envelope into Edward’s body, and began to shake her head back and forth. “No,” she said again, pressing the envelope against his granite chest, trying to get him to take it away.

She wasn’t going to read it. She wasn’t even going to open it. She didn’t want it in her possession. She didn’t even want it in her sight. ‘It doesn’t exist’, Bella thought squeezing her eyes shut. ‘It doesn’t exist’.

“Bella,” Edward said softly, pressing the envelope back into her hand, curling her fingers around it. “She …” he started to say, but Bella continued to shake her head back and forth, again and again.

Edward stopped talking. He knew that she wasn’t listening to him.

“I don’t accept it,” Bella said, looking at him, focusing on him finally. “You tell her that I don’t accept it,” she continued as tears beginning to form in her eyes. “You tell her that I want to talk to her. You tell her …” Bella went on, her voice rising as the first few tears began to fall, her tone becoming hysterical enough that passerbys were beginning to look at her.

“I can’t,” Edward interjected regretfully, placing a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down.

He glanced around them, nodding at a few people who were watching them curiously, willing them to go on their way. A few seconds later he turned his eyes back to Bella, watching her keenly, surprised by the panic in her eyes.

He rubbed her shoulder gently, trying to sooth her. He had expected her to react badly, but not this badly. He knew that she and Alice had become close, that they had begun to spend almost every minute Bella wasn’t him together, but he hadn’t realized quite how emotionally attached the two of them had gotten.

Bella was trembling like a leaf beneath his hand. Her skin had become even paler than it normally was, it was becoming dotted with sweat, and he could hear her heart beating erratically in her chest. She was on the verge of having a fit.

“They’re gone,” Edward said softly, trying to keep his voice as soothing as possible, hoping that it would penetrate Bella’s consciousness and actually comfort her. He didn’t understand the strength of her reaction to the news, but he couldn’t deny the severity of it and he needed to get her to calm down. “They left this morning,” he went on stroking her shoulder tenderly with his thumb.

Bella blinked, shell-shocked. “They …” she started to ask, before realizing that Edward meant Jasper had left with Alice, “left for where?” she asked, practically choking on the words.

Edward shook his head, relieved that she was at least speaking again.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I couldn’t read Alice. I wasn’t around her for long, but when I was her thoughts were jumbled and disorderly. She was very perturbed. I think how she reacted to your blood yesterday really gave her a scare. And Jasper, well he just seemed to be following her lead. Honestly,” Edward sighed, “I don’t think they knew where they were going when they left.”

Bella clutched the letter in her hand and let her arm drop to her side as Edward’s words crashed over her, battering her about the sides. She was a tugboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

A wave of exhaustion washed over her and her knees buckled.

Edward quickly reached out, holding her up.

“We should get to class,” Bella said, steadying herself on her feet and taking a step away from Edward. She couldn’t bear to have his cool arms wrapped around her, his sweet breath tickling her throat. It reminded her too much of Alice.

Her voice was flat and monotone, she felt lightheaded, and the world was slowing down and blurring around her. She felt cold, so cold, and her ears were ringing faintly as her mind repeated: Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice had gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left.

Without checking to see if Edward was following, Bella began to walk towards the school building.

She was barely aware of what she was doing, and didn’t even register Edward reaching out for her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, steadying her jerky, disorientated movements, his hold keeping her on her feet and moving in the proper direction.

As she walked, Bella’s mind continued to chant: Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice had gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left.

With every step she took a bit more of her heart shattered and fell away, and by the time she entered the school building, she felt like a sucking wound had opened up in chest, the vacuum power of it crushing her lungs and making it difficult to breath.

Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left. Alice had gone. Alice had left. Alice was gone. Alice had left.

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A week later, Edward left too … and the gaping hole in Bella’s chest that Alice’s departure had given birth to was complete.

She did not eat. She did not sleep. She barely saw and heard. She was a specter, a shell, wraith-like in her countenance, and routine was the only way she made it through her days.

Her chest ached constantly, the pain of it the only thing reminding her that she was alive as the world continued to move around her out of time, out of sync.

Bella moved, Bella did, but Bella didn’t feel … and as time went on, the hole in her chest continued to ache, Bella began to fear that she would never laugh, or smile, or feel again.

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OCTOBER

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NOVEMBER

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DECEMBER

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JANURARY

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FEBURARY

Bella felt as if a light had been turned on in her life. A very dim light, but a light none the less. Sometimes, now, when she woke up in the morning she wasn’t covered in sweat, her heart beating a mile a minutes as the light from the early morning sun chased away her nightmares.

She still couldn’t bare the sound of music and the way it reminded her of Edward’s sweet voice as he sat behind the piano, or of the way Alice danced through life as if a soundtrack played in the background for her that the rest of the world wasn’t privy too. She still couldn’t bear to think either of their names, or hear them spoken out loud without a terrible aching pain gnawing at her heart. The sight of a silver Volvo could bring tears to her eyes, and her TV sat collecting dust because almost anything she could think to watch reminded her of being curled up with Alice, laughing, happy and content.

But there was some light.

There was Jacob.

Jake.

Her best friend.

When she thought of Jacob, when she was in his presence her chest didn’t ache as it did when she was alone. When she talked to Jacob, she found she was capable of smiling, and talking, and laughing and meaning it.

She wasn’t better. She still raced too quickly on her motorcycle so that she could hear Alice’s laughter in the wind. She still looked for opportunities to be reckless so that she could hear Edward’s soft, serene voice in her head warning her not to take unnecessary risks. At night she was still plagued with thoughts of them: where they were, what they were doing, wondering if they thought about her at all – their abandoned human pet, rotting away in Forks, half-person, half-zombie, completely devastated in the wake of their desertion. She was still half crazy from the loss of them both in such a short amount of time.

But there was light.

There was Jacob.

Jake.

Her best friend.

Jacob offered her a little hope. In his presence she felt as if there may still be a person in the shell that her body had become over the past few months, and she clung to that hope desperately.

There was light.

There was Jacob.

There was hope that one day she might once again be okay.

To be continued …