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Edward doesn’t know what’s wrong, what’s missing, but something has been for a while now. He loves Bella, he knows he does, but he’s almost … tired of her. He can hear what his family thinks about their mates, knows that they are just as enamored, if not more, with their other halves as they have been for the past hundred years, but he doesn’t feel that for Bella anymore. He’s mostly just tired now.
Jasper’s been giving him searching looks for the past couple years, and he can hear his brother wondering what happened between them, even if he doesn’t say anything out loud. Jasper can feel the bone-deep exhaustion, the hollow that seems nestled just inside his heart that never quite goes away anymore. Renesme left for another coven when she found her mate nearly a decade ago, and Edward was happy she was happy. He was. He just didn’t know what to do with the waning bond between himself and Bella.
Edward stood in front of one of the window walls in one of their many homes and contemplated what to do. Maybe moving back to Forks would bring the spark back? He turned the idea over in his mind as he heard Bella walk up to him. He didn’t even get that little jump of joy at seeing her anymore, and he could hear Jasper’s confused thoughts before he was sidetracked by Alice and a happy glow suffused his brother’s thoughts. Yes, moving back to Forks was the answer. Forks would solve their problems.
Esme enlists his help in cleaning and repairing the main house from the dust and damage of nearly a hundred years time once she’s finished with their cottage. He sits in front of the fireplace now, staring into the flames, and remembers the first time they’d seen this cottage, how in love and ravenous they were for each other. Being here now, the loss of the something is even more prominent. His memories of their meeting, their wedding, their love, are just as sharp as they were when the events occurred, but he can’t bring himself to do anything more than smile faintly. Something’s gone. Something’s gone, and Edward doesn’t know what it is.
Edward meets with the Quileute Elders to affirm their pact. A much older Sam Uley sits among them and glares at Edward the entire time, not registering any of what Carlisle is saying. Edward catches wind of a thought of a lost packmate, a mystery solved, and a sudden burning hate for himself in the wolf’s mind. He does his best not to focus on what he picks up from the other man, not wanting to pry.
Sam corners him after the agreement and tells him that Jacob Black had killed himself all those years ago over a rejected mate bond, and Sam can feel the aborted Pack ties around Edward. Sam shows him exactly what he did to Jake, the emaciated body he’d brought home to his Pack and family, and Edward tries to remain impassive. The wolf must be mistaken, because Edward would have noticed. He ignores the little voice at the back of his head that tells him he had noticed, but had chosen to ignore it for Bella.
When he arrives back at the cottage, Bella tries to reenact one of their fond memories of the cottage. Edward brushes her off and moves to stare out the window again. She huffs and walks off, obviously hurt and displeased. Edward thinks about it for a long time and tries to not think about it at the same time. He finds himself driving the familiar Forks roads, exhausted beyond belief and feeling guilty, though he tells himself he has no good reason to be guilty. Edward fills up the gas tank and absently buys a lighter at the gas station.
Bella is frosty towards him, obviously still angry about the slight against her, and ignores his presence completely. It surprises Edward that that works just fine for him. Their family hasn’t had as much contact with him since they moved back, and Edward heard an aborted thought about the cottage and privacy being good for their marriage and general relationship. He misses them, but he can hear their thoughts. They don’t seem to miss him nearly as much, and most of his siblings are glad to be rid of Bella. He caught another stray thought about the others being relieved not to need to control their thoughts for the next while. Edward hadn’t realized how much of a burden he was to his family.
Edward takes to spending more time in the forest. He wanders and appreciates the nature around him, noticing the little changes 100 years have brought the landscape and the creatures on it. He keeps the lighter on him, flicking it on and off from time to time, as he goes across streams and animal tracks, and he contemplates the possibility that maybe Jacob Black really was his soulmate, his other half. If he was, Edward had certainly been a burden on him too, to the point of causing his death.
High school is much the same as ever and provides him with little distraction. Edward is left alone with his thoughts constantly, unable to even escape to the sweet respite of sleep. He doesn’t interact with his family much at all these days, wishing to lessen the burden of his presence on them. He hasn’t talked to Bella in weeks beyond what their family expects at school. Jasper can feel that something between them has worsened, that something in him has worsened, but he says nothing to the others where Edward or Bella can hear him.
Edward finds the mountaintop overlooking Forks and the surrounding area to be calming and spends most of his nights there, far away from the cottage and family home, distanced from the pain. If he looks far enough, at just the right angle, Edward can see La Push and imagines for a moment seeing a russet wolf loping toward him, grinning at the sight and scent of him. He pushes that daydream away and heads back to the cottage. As weeks pass with no change from Bella or his family, Edward indulges this one little dream on the mountaintop.
Edward flees to the mountaintop. Bella had shouted at him, told him what a failure of a mate he was, and Edward couldn’t help but agree. He hadn’t even noticed Jacob Black beyond a few precious moments, didn’t know what his laugh sounded like or his tears, the rhythm of his heartbeat and breath, and all because he’d been distracted by the siren call of blood. His soul must surely be forfeit by now, causing the death of his mate and the misery of the woman he thought he’d loved. “But then,” Edward muses, “I don’t have a soul anyway.” He can’t lose something he no longer has, and the absence in his chest is rather convincing.
The wind steals his words and nearly blows out the flame of the lighter. Edward thinks over the past few months, the distancing and coldness, and he can’t muster up a single person that would truly miss him. Esme and Carlisle might, but the hole in their hearts wouldn’t last long and would be soothed by each other and their children. Carlisle could always turn another son if he wanted one, a son that hadn’t shunned him and murdered humans for a decade. His siblings barely noticed his absence anymore, and Bella would be glad to have him gone. Edward comes to the conclusion that no one would miss him, not for long, and his presence was more of a burden to the family than a help.
The little rock hollow he finds protects his little flame from the wind long enough for it to catch. Edward stares out at La Push and the sea and wonders if Jacob will greet him like he daydreamed after he dies if there is anything left of his human soul to meet. The heat of the flames and the dark of the night feel almost like mercy, and Edward closes his eyes in relief from the exhaustion as the flames lick up to his face.
An old wolf limps up to the mountaintop some time later. He’d seen the flame, had been expecting it for a couple weeks now after observing the ‘family’ dynamic, and had come to prevent the burning from catching the forest on fire. The scent of that vampire was strong on the rocky face where he stands, and Sam thinks for a moment that he glimpses a grinning russet wolf running alongside a smiling, shining man in a green forest bathed in gentle sunlight. Satisfied the fire won’t catch his own forest on fire, Sam carefully lopes back down to La Push, back to his family and the Pack that was awakening once again.