Chapter 8 - Forfeit

Edward was gone in the morning, and I hadn’t heard him leave.  I was confused by that momentarily but put myself through the human paces, “he has a life, something must have come up, maybe he forgot to do something...” and on and on.

I had breakfast with Charlie, which was usually a silent affair but this morning I thought I’d do some ground work for one of our many plans.

“have you ever been to Europe?” I asked him, repeating the question when he eventually registered I was speaking to him.

“Uh... no, never” Charlie looked back to his paper.

“Oh its just I’ve been thinking about applying to some colleges there...”

Charlie made agreeable noises but then his head snapped up and he said “Repeat that please”

I did and he looked like he was about to burst a gasket.

“Dad...” I tried to diffuse the situation immediately, “I’m only thinking about it, nothing that we can’t discuss, it’d be a good opportunity and I’ve heard they take late applications so it wouldn’t hurt to apply... Just to see... it’d be great, y’know, to see Europe..” I mumbled the last bit, Charlie was just shaking his head very deliberatley.

“This is something Edward is thinking about too?” He asked, starting to nod sharply like he did when he thought he had something all worked out, “That boy put you up to this? First you wanna get married, like some fool kid and now you expect me to wave you off at the airport, to go off and live in Europe!!!???” 

“Dad, I’m eighteen”

“Oh yeh that old arguement again” He pointed at me, taking a big gasp of breath, “I forbid it”

“We’ll talk about this later” I said, grabbing my jacket and heading for the door.

“There is nothing to talk about Isabella Swan” Charlie shouted after me.

I ran to my truck and swung myself into the familiar seat, driving into Edwards drive before I knew it.  He was waiting at the door, at first I didn’t see it, but as I approached him I realised his face had an expression on it I had never seen before.

Fear.

“What is it?” I grabbed him by the arm, “What? Did Alice see something?”

He nodded, “She saw Caius... here”

“When?” I wanted to scream, I wanted to have a tantrum, I had a plan and this was NOT supposed to happen.  Those damn Volturi, with their god complexes - who did they think they were? The Cullens, The Swans, we were good people.  They should just back off and leave us alone.

I suddenly realised I’d been thinking outloud, but I didn’t care, I saw Carlisle coming down the steps to where we stood and I ran into his arms, “I’m so tired” I protested, “I can’t take this, all these vampires trying to kill me, I can’t take it”

I sank then, and Carlisle picked me up and passed me to Edward who carried me into the house. 

I slept and slept, and when I woke it was already evening.  Edward was sitting his chair, and I was lying in the bed across from him.  He was pretending to read “Dr Zhivago” again, but I could tell he was faking it, his eyes boring into the page instead of flitting across it.  He flicked those honey eyes up then, and caught my gaze, which I didn’t drop but called his name softly, “Edward...”

He was beside me in an instant, “This is all my fault, I should never have left you in the first place... I hate myself for that, every day, if I’d just stayed even alone and let the others go, the Volturi, everything would be different”

“You don’t know that Edward” I said, touching his ice cold cheek and tracing his jaw softly, “I’m sorry for my tantrums, I need to grow up”

“Its hardly immature now Bella, to be frightened of death by evil vampire”

“Well...” I tried to laugh, “I would much prefer death by friendly sexy vampire actually” I lifted myself up to kiss his lucious mouth, entwining my arms around his head to draw him close, a move which in the past would have had him backflip away from me but now encouraged him.  He lay close into me and we spent some time having a silent converstion as only we did, staring into each others eyes.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in” Edward said springing to stand at the other end of the room.

Alice and Jasper entered, “Hi Bella” Jasper said, “heard the news?”

“Yep’ I admitted

“Fun times ahead” Jasper leaned his long frame against the wall and picked a cd out at random, made a face and popped it back in to its position, “weird taste in music Ed.”

Edward didn’t seem to hear him, but turned to Alice and began the surreal conversation that involved no dialogue.  His face, already pale, seemed to pale even more and he looked furious.  She shook her head and beseeched him with her eyes and he nodded, seeming to resign himself to the vision she had shown him.

“What is it!?” I demanded, slapping the bed.

Alice turned to me and smiled, “We’ll have to fight Bella, and we will win, but for that prize we will lose more than we can ever replace”

“ Who? Who do we lose?” I couldn’t hear myself for the sound of my own heartbeat.

“I don’t know” Alice wasn’t lying, I could tell, “I only know we lose someone”