Alethiology in Volterra (Volturi Kings/OC)

3

Chapter III: Penitence

Bella and Altheia hadn't looked much at anything else but each other as the screams gradually faded, their brown eyes wide and both lips sealed into thin lines. They stayed silent for the most part.

After leaving the throne room, their group had been ushered back into the reception area, where Gianna had instructed Alice and Edward not to leave before nighttime and offered the waiting lobby couches for them to pass the time comfortably.

Gianna had placed two glasses of water and some biscuits, which Bella and Altheia consumed separately in silence. Edward had initially tried to get Bella to talk to him for a while, ignoring Bella's subtle cues for disinterest in conversation, until Bella put her foot down in annoyance by standing up and placing herself beside Altheia at the opposite end of the gray couch.

"They need space, Edward," Alice said absentmindedly from beside him. Her eyes were glazed over again, as if in a trance. "It's called post-traumatic stress. You should read on it sometime."

Edward could see the vision Alice was currently following in her mind. The remaining members of the Olympic Coven, composed of Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper, would be settled into Hotel Etruria by past seven in the night, waiting for their arrival at the open carpark. Rosalie would be asking for Bella's forgiveness as soon as they got there. It seemed relatively vivid, decided, that Edward allowed himself to relax.

Edward left Alice's mind as she pulled out her phone and contacted Jasper to update their family. "...Yes, Jasper. Drive straight to Volterra and look for Hotel Etruria... no, no, we're fine, honestly... Is Carlisle beside you?... Yes please... Hello, Carlisle? Could you stop by for clean sets of clothes for Bella and the girl... Medium... Yes, we'll see..." His gaze would drift back to Bella and Altheia, who now seemed to be in isolated discussion.

He frowned.

While Edward hadn't expected Bella to forgive him for leaving her, he hadn't really expected it to hurt for her to look at him as if she knew better than to give him another chance. She was alive, sure, but had it all truly been for the better? Obviously not. The very second he had a concrete experience of what it was like to have Bella leave him for good — Bella dying after jumping off a cliff in apparent suicide — he lost it. Completely. Went straight to crazy town and begged to die. In light of this, he knew he wasn't capable of handling the responsibility, at all, much less the moral argument, of rationalizing why he left Bella in the first place.

How could he have left Bella, throw hurtful words in parting, in the middle of the damn forest with not so much as a backwards glance?

How could he assume culpability, when he didn't even know the right thing to do now?

He loved Bella, loves Bella, he was sure of it. But did he deserve her after all this? What kind of monster would he be, to love her, leave her, and build her up again? At what point would it end? Was immortality really the issue, or was it all really just about him being unable to accept that he would have to doom Bella to stay with a person like him, forever, in the blasted name of love?

They needed to talk... but what would he say?

"'Bella, I'm sorry I left you and had you save my idiotic ass'?" Alice suddenly recited matter-of-factly, her eyes glazed over again. Her eyes cleared a second later and she shrugged at Edward's grimace. "How does that sound to you? To me, it seems like a great line to start with."

Edward winced. "Alice, I'm sorry I put you through that."

"Ed, I love you, you know that," Alice patted his hand with her own impatiently. "But god-damn. Just look at Bella. No, Edward, really look at Bella."