Newborn

Title: Newborn
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandoms: Pride and Prejudice / Twilight Saga
Pairings: Bella/Darcy, (past) Bella/Edward
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 5.5k
Warnings: time travel, character death, vampires
Prompt: for Rebecca who wanted Carlisle, vampire!Bella, Darcy, and Edward.  I hope I got it all in there for you! -cen

I.

London, November, 1806

Carlisle was pleased with himself.  He had somehow become responsible for a female human because of a vampire son he had in the future (he would really have to have a discussion with this Edward and how not to reveal their kind)—but he was successfully marrying off this girl to a wealthy landowner.

Isabella Marie Swan was an interesting specimen of the human race.  Quiet, rather pretty, and unfortunately clumsy, she had been difficult to launch into society.  Carlisle had to convince her that nineteen-year-old women of good standing married in 1806, though she seemed to think this was different in the future.  What a strange place this future must be.

“Surely Mr. Darcy will appreciate a bit of lace,” Carlise suggested from his seat in the modiste.  He had insisted on going to London for Bella’s trousseau.  It was a grey and rainy day so he was able to attend Bella’s fitting.

“Does a wedding dress necessarily need lace?  We do not need to display your wealth.”

“You, Miss Swan, had the plainest dresses in all of Hertfordshire.  Even the Misses Bennet did not have plainer.”  He flicked his copy of the Times to make a point.

“Perhaps that is why Mr. Bingley never asked Jane to marry him,” Bella mused as she looked at her hem.  Madam Delacroix was checking it.  She was the newest modiste in Hanover Square and hadn’t quite established her reputation, but Carlisle had an eye for women’s fashion and quite liked her work.

“You take great care of Miss Bennet,” Carlisle noted.  And it was true.  Bella and Jane Bennet were great friends.  They were only two years apart in age.  Jane was from the foremost estate in the area (bar Netherfield, which was being rented by the aforementioned Mr. Bingley), but had little dowry and connections in trade, so only had her pretty face to recommend her.

The other Misses Bennet, while also pretty, were socially embarrassing, especially in Carlisle’s opinion.  Bella and Miss Elizabeth Bennet disliked each other immensely.

“Someone must take care of her,” Bella sighed as Madam Delacroix started fixing the sleeves.  “Mrs. Bennet does not.”

“A bit of lace per’aps,” Madam Delacroix suggested.  “Just ‘ere.”  She straightened Bella’s sleeve and pointed to the cuff.  Bella was having a November wedding and had insisted on long sleeves although it was not strictly the fashion.  She was very self conscious about the vampire bite on her wrist and liked to cover it.

“That would be lovely,” Carlisle determined.

Bella sighed.

“I want lace on the hem as well,” he added.

Bella glared at him. 

He looked at her.  “You are marrying one of the foremost landowners in Derbyshire.  You will have lace on your wedding gown.  I am indulging you and allowing cream instead of the usual yellow.  Indulge me, Miss Swan.”

He could tell Bella was holding in a huff.

Carlisle went back to his Times and ignored the ladies.

“I do not want to wear a bonnet.  I want to have flowers in my hair,” Bella was now saying.

Carlisle thought how trying young women were.  He couldn’t imagine ever siring another vampire and having ten years of this contrariness.  He set down his paper and looked at the modiste.  “What is the custom in France?” he inquired.

“A bonnet eez most proper,” she apologized.

“There you have it, Miss Swan,” he told her.  “You will wear a bonnet.  At least it will be lined with cream satin.”

Three torturous hours later, Carlisle escorted Bella to the carriage.  The wedding dress was nearly completed, several dresses were on order, and the delicacies of night dresses and stockings were dealt with.

“There,” Carlisle commented.  “We can leave for Hertfordshire on Thursday,” Carlisle told Bella, “and you will marry your Mr. Darcy on Monday.”

Bella smiled quietly to herself.  Carlisle believed she was genuinely in love with Mr. Darcy and he must be in love with her as he was taking her with a fortune of only five thousand pounds.  It was all Carlisle could spare.  He hadn’t expected to take a human ward. 

The carriage was rolling down the street and Carlisle thought little of the rain.  It always rained in England.  That’s what made it such an ideal place for a vampire to live.  That was before the wheel came off of the carriage and it veered to the right, into another carriage and they were trampled on by another horse. 

Carlisle was, of course, unharmed, but when he looked over at Bella, he saw her left side was crushed, her arm at a strange angle and she was bleeding profusely from the head.  The physician in him knew she would not be able to survive her injuries.

An unexpected wave of sadness swept over him.

Bella had her entire life ahead of her.  She was going to be Mrs. Isabella Darcy.  She was going to be a wife, a mother, and everything that entailed, and now she lay crushed in a carriage.

Carefully, without a moment’s pause, Carlisle lifted the carriage roof off of Bella with his hand and pulled her out through the window and out into the blinding rain.  They were hidden by the greyness and he slipped through the crowd that had gathered in the fog.  He could tell that she was still breathing, but she was barely holding on.

When he slipped into their rented townhouse, he told the servants that Isabella was injured, but he had it in hand.  He carried her up to her room and lay her on the bed.  He set her arm, but she looked so pale.

A servant came in with a bowl of water and towels.  He thanked her and then demanded privacy.

“Oh, Bella,” Carlisle sighed.

Bella had never said she was one of his children.  She had only mentioned Edward and had suggested that was far in the future.  However, she had already changed the past by even appearing in Regency England.

Carefully, he picked up her and bit down over her scar, filling her with his venom.

She shook slightly on the bed.  It was done.

Two days later he took receipt of her trousseau.  They would have to disappear without telling Darcy a word.  His bride would just disappear into the mists of London, never to be heard from again.  They had to leave this townhouse as soon as she was turned and never look back.  Perhaps they would go to the forests of France after a brief sojourn in Cornwall.

Carlisle could hear Bella’s heart speed up and then stop.  She had been unbearably quiet for a transformation, never screaming once.  It was uncanny.  If Carlisle couldn’t hear her heartbeat, he would have thought that something had gone wrong, but he had seen her change from a pretty little human to a magnificent vampire before his eyes.

She opened her gaze, her eyes red, and whispered, “Darcy.”

“Hush,” Carlisle said, coming up to her and putting a hand on her shoulder.  “You cannot think on that now.”

Carefully, Bella made to sit up and she seemed to be bewildered by dust motes in the air.

Then, with unusual concentration for a newborn vampire, she turned to Carlisle and asked, “What about Darcy?”

He took an unnecessary breath.  “Miss Swan—”

“I am a vampire now.  That’s what happened, isn’t it?  I’ve died and become a vampire.”  She reached up for her throat and seemed to consider.  Her voice had changed with her transformation.  It probably sounded unusual to her ears.  She’d have to get used to it.

“Indeed.”

She turned back to him.  “Surely, Dr. Cullen, you may call me ‘Bella’ as you’ve made me.  Surely I have earned the right to call you ‘Carlisle.’”

Her bright red eyes looked at him imploringly.

It was amazing she hadn’t run rampant and tried to run into the street to feed on the humans there.

“I suppose you are correct.—We must move.  We must disappear.”

He handed her a new dress and a cloak.  “I thought you would prefer to dress yourself, Bella.”

“What of Darcy?” she asked again.

Carlisle caught her eye and carefully told her, “You will be lost to him as he is now lost to you.  I had a choice, to let you die or to give you immortal life.  You told me when you found me you wanted to be a vampire.  I decided to honor your choice when we were in a carriage accident.  Either way, your future with Darcy would have been over.”

Bella looked down and Carlisle was afraid she was going to cry.

However, she pulled herself together and asked, “May I have privacy to change?”

“Of course.  We need to get you to a forest to feed.”

“Indeed,” she agreed.

Carlisle slipped out of the room and closed the door carefully.  He had a childe now.  He was a sire.  Aro would find the entire situation humorous.  If Bella’s mind proved to be as unique as she suggested it might be, he would probably have to keep her away from Volterra.  Aro would surely want to collect her.

Bella came down not ten minutes later.

The servants had all been given the week off and all the trunks packed and sent to secluded address in Cornwall.  They would go there first before they left England.  They would run there.

Carlisle offered his hand and Bella carefully accepted it.  They went down the back stairs and out the servant entrance. 

Bella immediately caught a scent, undoubtedly of a human, but Carlisle admonished her.  “We do not feed off of humans, Bella.  That is the first rule.”

“Rule, yes,” she agreed.  “Edward told me.”

Edward, yes.  The elusive Edward.  He was over a century in the future.

Sneaking Bella out of London was not as difficult as Carlisle had initially feared.  She had incredible control for newborn and listened to commands.  They fed in the forests outside of the city and ran all the way to Cornwall.

Bella would often stand out on the cliffs, just looking out at the waves, crying tears of blood.

She never reproached Carlisle for changing her into a vampire, but Carlisle knew she regretted Darcy.  She read the Times every day, even when they were in France and later in Sweden.  She was looking for a marriage announcement.  Carlisle found Georgiana Darcy’s marriage announcement along with Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam’s, but never Fitzwilliam Darcy’s.

Then, one day, thirteen years after he turned Isabella Swan, she disappeared.  Somehow he knew where she had gone.  He did not fault her for it.  She would come back, he was certain about it, but perhaps she would not be alone.

II.

Pemberley, July 1819

It was a rainy day.  It often was in Derbyshire.  It suited Darcy’s mood.

Georgiana had written to him again.  It was the usual complaint.  He was a man now into his forties and still unmarried.  Ever since Isabella Swan had disappeared when she had gone to London for her trousseau, he had been waiting for her.  There had been a report of a carriage accident, but there had been no grave.  He knew she must be out there somewhere.  He had not been able to find her, but he could not move past her.  His love for her was that great.

He stood at the window and looked out at the lawn.

There was a figure in white.

Darcy squinted.

She was just standing there in the rain.

He called the footman.  “Do you see that lady?” he inquired, pointing out the figure.  “It is a lady, is it not?”

The footman squinted and moved toward the glass.  “I believe it is, sir,” he replied.  “She appears to be just standing there.”

“Offer her shelter,” Darcy instructed.  “Get her some towels.  We should be able to keep her warm until the rain stops at least.”

“Of course, sir,” the footman agreed.  “You need not worry about her, sir.”

The footman withdrew and Darcy continued to stand by the window.  He watched as the footman went out with an umbrella and led the lady indoors.  She would be kept in an antechamber until the weather turned.  No need for him to be bothered.  What he wasn’t expecting was for a different footman to appear with a calling card.

Darcy picked it up and he almost dropped it in shock.  It was for Mlle Isabella Marie Swan of Amiens.  He stared at it before gasping, “Show me to her immediately.”

“You do not wish me to show her in here?” the footman asked.

“No.  Bring me to her—now.”

What happened next seemed to be a dream.  Darcy was led through his own house until he came to a little room that was of no importance to see a bedraggled Bella Swan sitting on a chair, her long black hair drenched with rain, her skin a strange porcelain white, and her eyes an ethereal golden color.  They had been a rich chocolate brown before, but they seemed to have brightened in the dim candlelight.  She looked as if she were still barely a day over nineteen although thirteen years had elapsed and time had moved on.

Darcy hurried to her and not minding the rain, he grasped her to him and pushed her head into the crook of his neck.

“Oh my God,” he prayed.  “I knew you were not dead.  I knew it.  There was never a body.”

Bella clung to him and he could feel her small hands fisting in his shirt.  “Darcy,” she breathed.  “I never would have left you if I had any choice.”

“You are here,” he sighed.  “You are here now.”

He turned to the door and ushered the footman out and he was left blissfully alone with the girl he had always loved.

Pulling away, he looked into her eyes—what a strange color—and just drank her in.  “What happened?” he asked.  “No, it does not matter.  You came back.”  He searched her eyes for any form of resistance and then carefully leaned down and kissed her.

There was no breath in her kiss and she was as cold as ice.

“Darcy,” she sighed and snuggled back into his shoulder.

He held her close to him and whispered, “You are so cold, my love.  We must get you by a fire.”

“A fire will not help,” she responded quietly, “although I am indeed quite wet.”

Darcy was now running his fingers through her wet hair.  He knew he was breaking all rules of propriety, but this woman had almost been his wife.  She was the wife of his heart, the wife of his soul.  She was his very beating heart.  He had lost her and she had appeared nearly a decade and a half later in the rain.

“Come,” he whispered.  “Come, darling.”  He pulled away from her and led her back out the door into the halls.  She followed quietly, as if she were walking on air.  She was so quiet and little and he held her in the crook of her arm, leading her through the house that always should have been hers.

When they finally arrived at the drawing room, he hurried her to the fire and called for more towels, setting her down gently.  She wasn’t even shivering.

Tea came and he placed a warm cup in her hand, but she did not touch it.  She just held it before placing it to the side when she thought he wasn’t looking, but he noticed.  It was as if she didn’t need to take breaths and every intake of air was carefully chosen.  But she would look at him and forget to breathe for several minutes, her face still and unmoving and Darcy knew that Bella had changed somehow although he could not quite place his finger on it.

“What happened, my love?” he inquired after all the servants had left.

“There was a carriage accident,” she told him carefully, watching him with her strange golden eyes.  “I—I died, Darcy.”

He blinked but did not refute her claims.

She looked down, not even blushing—how he had adored her blushes—and fiddled with his fingers.  Darcy had taken her hands that were so cold and wet and had refused to let them go.  “You’re not saying anything.”

“You just told me that you died,” he repeated.  “You have not aged a day—and yet you are here—and yet oddly not breathing.”

She took a deliberate breath.  “I keep forgetting,” she admitted.  “Carlisle—” she began.

“He is ‘Carlisle’ to you now?” Darcy asked carefully.  Dr. Cullen had been her guardian.  The story had been that her parents had died from an ailment that befell them in Shropshire and the estate had been entailed away.  Her care had fallen to a distant cousin, a gentleman physician who had just graduated Cambridge with a degree in medicine.  They had retired to Hertfordshire where Dr. Cullen had taken up a practice and had brought his young charge—a girl barely old enough to be his sister—and had launched her into society.  Darcy, as a guest of his friend Bingley at Netherfield, had witnessed her debut at the Meryton Assembly and had immediately been struck.  He did not care that her cousin had a profession.  He did not care that her father’s estate had been entailed away.  It did not matter that she had only five thousand pounds to her name, so little she was provided for.  He loved her—and now she was calling her guardian by his Christian name as if he had been her husband all these lost years, and the pain in Darcy’s heart was acute.

He gripped her hand firmly, but she did not complain although the grasp was unusually firm and he was not being careful with her.

“He is my sire,” Bella tried to explain.  The words did not make sense, but Darcy still listened.  “Carlise—that is, Dr. Cullen—changed me so that I would still have a life—albeit not the life that I had always had.”  Her big doe eyes searched his carefully.  They were still that strange golden color.  “We are not as we were before, Darcy.  That’s why we had to stay away.  But I couldn’t stay away any longer.  I wanted to see you one last time.  There was never any wedding announcement—”  She bit her lip.  It did not swell with any warmth of color.  Her skin remained icelike and unchanged.

A horrible thought crossed Darcy’s mind.  “Are you dead, Isabella?” he asked her carefully.

A small tear of blood ran down her cheek.  “Yes,” she whispered.  “I would never hurt you—”  She looked up at him imploringly.  “I never stopped loving you.  Even with the bloodlust.”

“Bloodlust,” he repeated.  The word was strange and brought up horrible images to mind.  “You are not a corpse then.”

“No,” she told him.  “I—I cannot tell you.  There are laws.  They will kill you if you find out.  We have laws, kings—you should not know as much as I have already told you.”  She swallowed.  “I found out when I was seventeen.  That’s why Carlisle was able to change me when I died.  I already knew.  I was a liability.”  She swallowed carefully, as if it was a practiced move.  “But I love you too much.  It is an ache in my soul.  We aren’t supposed to remember our—” she hesitated—“previous lives after we die.  Some don’t even remember their names.  But I remembered.  I remembered you—”  Her eyes looked up, blood tears pouring down.  “I remembered you and my love for you.  Your name was on my lips when I woke up.”

Darcy tried to grasp this.  “Was it, my darling?” he asked, focusing on her love for him.  “You still love me?”

“I could never stop,” she swore.  “I could never stop.”  Bella looked toward the fireplace as if it held all the answers, brushing away the blood tears to leave pink marks on her face.

Darcy was at a loss.  Bella was dead.  She told him she had died.  She was as ice cold as a body in a grave.  She was not breathing.  Yet she was animated.  She was speaking to him.  She said she loved him.  Perhaps that was all that mattered—

“Are you staying?” he asked carefully.

She turned from the fire, a desperate look on her face.  “I don’t see how I can.  Propriety alone—”

“I do not care about propriety,” he told her outright.  “What care I for propriety when it has got me nothing in this life?  I am a rich man in an empty house.  I have no wife; I have no son.  This estate will go to Georgiana and her heirs when I am gone.”

“Why did you not marry?” Bella asked carefully, her eyes wide and golden.

Darcy leaned forward and carefully ran a finger down her cold cheek.  She leaned into the gesture.  She could feel it then.  She was not without feeling.

“How could I marry anyone but you?”

The question hung between them, cold but true.

She hesitated.

Darcy waited.

“Carlise—” she began and then stopped.  Bella seemed to be considering.  “Carlisle only changes those who are dying and have no other option.  I am his first childe.  He believes I was an uncommonly easy charge.”  She looked at Darcy hesitantly.  “I have told him repeatedly that I cannot live without you.  I think he has finally begun to believe me.”

“What are you saying?”  Darcy took her in carefully.

“You would have to give up Pemberley,” Bella told him.  “You could not come back.  You could never contact Georgiana or Colonel Fitzwilliam.  It would be as if you had died.  The bloodlust would be horrible.”  She hesitated again and then reached out for him, kissing him carefully.  Bella had never initiated a kiss before.  She was always shy and self-conscious.  She was always tripping on her gowns.  “We only feed on animals,” she whispered against his lips, as if telling him a secret.  “Others—of our kind—drink from humans.”

He opened up his eyes in shock.  “Are you vampires?” he whispered.

She looked into his eyes carefully, her gaze her answer.  “The first ten years are hard.  We will have to convince Carlisle as you are not at the precipice of death.”  She had leaned back now, but was looking at him frankly.  “We never age.  We never die.  Carlisle believes we have no soul—but you were always my soul.  I believe that with my whole heart.”

Darcy considered a moment.  “When was Dr. Cullen born?” he asked.

“Sometime in the fifteen hundreds,” Bella told him frankly.  “He has incredible control.  Healing humans is his penance for what he is.  He moves every ten years because he cannot pass for older than twenty-five.  No one thinks I am older than twenty-one.  We tell everyone in Amiens that we are brother and sister, despite our lack of physical similarities.”

“Do you go to balls?” Darcy asked in jealousy.  “Dance with other men?”

“I would dance with you, if you should ask me,” Bella told him carefully, her golden eyes wide in honesty.  “We could live as husband and wife as we always wanted after the first ten years of your life.”

“What are the first ten years?” Darcy asked her, curious.

“Your years as a newborn.  The bloodlust will be strong.  Carlisle will teach you as he taught me.  I will be there.  Hopefully you will remember me as I remembered you.”  She reached out for him again.  “I will help you remember, if you do not.  A love like ours is not a common love.”

Darcy ran a hand lovingly over her shoulder and down her arm.  “You told me you loved once before, but it was a childish thing.”

“Yes,” she agreed.  “Carlisle told me so as well.  I cannot remember it at all.  I only remember you.”  She entwined their fingers.  Her hand was so cold even though it was dry now.

“Will I always be cold?” he asked, considering her proposal seriously.  His life had been an empty waste since she had disappeared in London.  There was no purpose to his existence.  All he wanted was her—and she was here now, offering him a chance at a life and a future.

“I am not cold,” she promised.  “You seem unbearably warm to me.”  Bella gave him a small smile.

He nodded.  “Let me write some letters,” he decided.  “I will tell Georgiana I am traveling and simply never come back.”

Bella looked at him hopefully.  “You will come then?”

“As if there was any doubt,” he sighed.  “I shall have Blackbourne pack my trunks and we shall leave in the morning.”

She reached out and touched his face, tracing the lines of it.  “If you ever come to resent me—”

“How could I resent you, my love?” Darcy asked, fully meaning it.  “It would be impossible.”

III.

Volterra, April 2009

Aro always looked like he had a secret from the very moment he first touched Edward’s hand in 1932 and saw every thought Edward had ever possessed.  Aro shared a look with Carlisle and then changed the subject.  Whatever the secret was, he never let it skim over his brain, as if he knew not to bring it to mind, and so the secret remained hidden.

When Edward asked Carlisle about it several years later, his maker got a look in his eye.  “You remember I had a childe before you, two children, a mated couple who are living in England—”

“Yes,” Edward agreed.  “You said that the Darcy’s owned an estate, but it was not time to visit them.”

“Aro was only thinking of the Darcy’s,” Carlisle assured him, shrugging.  “Mrs. Darcy is an exceptionally talented vampire.  I’m certain Aro wants to collect you as much as he wants to collect Mrs. Darcy.”

Edward tried to see Mrs. Darcy in Carlisle’s mind, but all he could see were couples dancing down a line.  His knowledge of historical fashion was such that he could not place the time period.

“Odd that you changed a married couple.”

“Mrs. Darcy died in a carriage accident,” Carlisle shared, “and she could not be without her fiancé.  It seemed cruel to separate them.”

Again, Carlisle thought of the dancing couples.  Edward couldn’t even make out the faces.  It was just a vague, hazy memory.

“I notice you call her ‘Mrs. Darcy.’”

“You would, too, if you had been there to help her pick out her trousseau!” Carlisle laughed.

Aro still looked like he had the secret all these years later.  Edward had never met the Darcy’s.  They had never come to the Olympic Crescent nor to Forks.  Edward had gotten distracted by Bella.  Then he had tried to force his death by the hands of the Volturi.  He had ended up being punished with three hundred years in the guard instead.

“Ah,” Marcus noticed in the library when Edward happened to be behind one of the shelves.  “Mrs. Darcy is coming to offer her regards.”

“Has she finally agreed to sit for a portrait?” Alec inquired.  “I did so hate to use my gifts on her, but appearances had to be kept up.”

The image of a vampire in Victorian Era clothing came to mind but was gone as quickly as it had come.  It seemed Alec was remembering Mr. Darcy. 

“She is a beauty,” Marcus agreed.  “Modern fashions are so hideous, however.”

“Aro will be glad to see her.”

“It seems they cannot go back to Pemberley for another eighty years.  Too much photojournalism.”

“That is a problem with modern technology.  I suppose they could always close it off to the public and have vampire servants, but Darcy is too fastidious for that.  He likes to keep up the old traditions.”

“He is an English landowner,” Marcus agreed.  “They have ideas.”

As it was, Edward almost missed Mrs. Darcy.  It was nearly eighteen days later and he was once again in the library when a vampire walked in and went to a different section.  Edward was prepared to ignore her until Jane came in and called out, “Bella!”

Edward paused.

Bella had been put in the dungeons in 2005 and then released when he was occupying a cell on a different floor.  He had never heard of her again.  She should now be twenty-two and have a decidedly human scent.  He had had a communication from Carlisle a year after she was released that she was doing well and living a decidedly human life.

There was the sound of tinkering laughter, like a bell.

It was a decidedly vampire voice.  It was also a deeper timbre to Bella’s voice but in the same register.

Edward poked out his head and looked around the corner.

He saw Jane talking to a vampire whose face was turned away from him.  She was small with long dark hair.  Her hand caught the sunlight and was shimmering diamonds.  He would know that hand anywhere.  It was Bella Swan’s hand—albeit a vampire hand.

“Bella,” he breathed, shocked.

The vampire turned and showed the confused face of a vampire Bella Swan, chiseled in marble and not a day over eighteen.  Her eyes were golden although—as a newborn, they should be bright red.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Oh,” Jane said from behind her, “don’t mind him.  He’s one of Aro’s new recruits.”

Understanding crossed Bella’s face and she turned back to Jane.  “Aro does so like his new recruits.  What talent does this one possess?”

“He can read anyone’s surface thoughts.”  Jane smirked.

Bella laughed.  “I know he cannot read mine,” she boasted.  She turned back to Edward and winked.  “Sorry, recruit.  I’m just too good for you.”

“Bella,” he begged, coming up to her.  “It’s me.  Edward.”

Sudden understanding crossed her face, and she looked him up and down quickly.  “You’re Edward?” she asked, disbelief in her tone.  “Not Edward Cullen, surely.”

“I’m afraid he is, dear,” Jane told her, taking her arm.  “He’s not half so handsome as Darcy.”

“No one is as handsome as Darcy.  It’s his gift.  All women just fall in love with him just by looking at him.  It plagues us wherever we go!  Don’t get me started on gay men!”

Jane and Bella descended into giggles and made to exit the library.

Edward rushed to Bella using his vampiric speed and placed his hand on her arm.  Her mind was as blank as ever it was.  She looked down at her arm and then accusingly turned her golden eyes on him.

“Don’t touch me, Cullen.  I’m a married woman.”

“It’s me, Bella,” he tried again.  “Surely you could not have forgotten me in the transformation—”

“That’s exactly what happened,” Jane snapped back.  “Mrs. Darcy forgot all about you.  She remembered only her husband—Mr. Darcy—and the carriage accident.”

Edward stood there, floored.

“If you need answers, write to your sire.  He’ll fill in the blanks.  Stop harassing us women.”

Edward felt what could only be described as a mental push against his mind, pushing him back, and he physically retreated, staring at Jane and Bella in utter confusion.

Bella nodded to herself in self-satisfaction.

“No wonder Carlisle told me to stay away for so many decades,” she was now saying to Jane as they walked out of the library.  “How could I have possibly been in love with a puppy like that?”

Edward could hear their laughter as the door closed behind them.  He felt the loss of Bella all over again.  Disheartened, he turned to the book in his hand, and realized tears of blood were filling his golden eyes.

The End.