Blood Moon [a Twilight Saga FanFiction]

Doubt

I WOKE TWICE THAT NIGHT. Once with my head throbbing for the curses control, I quietness it with a mouthful of that foul-tasting, nose burning, stuff and went back to sleep.
     The second time was after watching Igor burn... everything fresh in my mind. Everything was rattling in my head.
     I screamed. I cried. I grieved for the man I loved, I grieved for the family I lost.
     Laurel ran in.
     "Elizabeth? Is everything alright?" she asked.
     I couldn't answer her, too busy crying.
     Cautiously, she crawled beside me on the bed and put her arms around me. The grief felt like a raging fire burning in my chest. It burnt and left nothing but a gaping empty hole where he used to be.
     But I had felt this blinding grief before... the first time I woke from that dream. I hadn't had time to feel the grief before as I had been taken over from the curse, but I had felt it before. I had felt the grief burn its way through my chest, numbed by the curse. Bandaged by my brother. But now there was just fire. Now there was just the hole.
     I kept crying, but I did not fall back to sleep. For Laurel, I pretended too, so she felt comfortable enough to go back to bed herself, but then I lit the candle beside my bed and pulled out the paint and canvas. I painted white over whatever I had been doing, nothing was as important now as the scene playing in my head. A scene I was determined to never let myself forget again.
     Igor's death.
     I was still working on it when the sun rose. Worked on it through the day, only pausing to relieve myself. I didn't let myself finish until I was done, and by that point, somehow the day had fully passed and Carlisle was kneeling beside me, his eyes not leaving the picture.
     "I know what you dreamt," he sighed. "I am so sorry I wasn't here for you."
     "You're here now," I stated and rested my head on his. Exhaustion hitting, hard.
     "Can you stay awake for food, sister? Laurel says you haven't moved since she left you thinking you were sleeping last night."
     I shook my heavy head. I had never felt more comfortable than I had at that moment.
     I must have blacked out from exhaustion because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my alley, my throat was burning with an insane thirsty, whereas London was burning around me. I knew, with absolute certainty, I had to move, leave London, or burn with it.
     I knew it was only a dream, a repeat of the dream I had just had, but I couldn't control it. I couldn't control my dream as the dream me ran faster, and it always surprised me at how fast I ran, out of London, and climb to the top of a nearby hill to watch London burn from a distance.
     It's how my dream always started, and I knew how it would end.
     I awoke once more screaming and crying after Alfred clapped his hands together. This time, Carlisle was the one to comfort me. He rushed into the room and pulled me quickly into his arms.
      "Focus on the positives, Elizabeth," he whispered to me. "Focus on the happiest memories in that dream. It'll make it easier... it will make it easier."
     All I could think of, when I thought of anything from that dream, was the burning face of the man who had my heart. Staring right at me as I stood helplessly, too weak to help him.
     "It's... it's too hard," I cried.
     "Try," he whispered.
     I couldn't... every time I closed my eyes I felt the heat, saw the golden eyes melting into ash.
     "Remember the asylum," Carlisle whispered as he held me. "The asylum you found in the middle of a country. Remember the gentleman you met there, the man who didn't kill you because you were different from others he had met."
     It was easier to remember when it was being spoken. I could remember discovering the asylum... could remember Igor holding me against the wall, an event we would later reenact for our own enjoyment. I was able to stop crying, as my mind remembered it all in a haze. The first kiss in the cave, the first touch... everything right until the end... And Alfred's promise that he would come back to this time as well, and that he'd remember.
     "Carlisle," I muttered still against my brother's chest. "Where is he?"
     "Elizabeth?"
     "He was sent back and is supposed to remember. So, where is he?" Carlisle didn't answer me... either he didn't know how, or he was at the same answer I was. "It didn't work, brother. Alfred's power didn't work."
     "Elizabeth-"
     "Because if it did, where is he? Why is he not here? Why is he not here with me? It didn't work, brother. Alfred can't send the dead back in time."
      The tears were back.
     "You cannot think that way, Elizabeth."
     "How else am I supposed to think?"
     "Perhaps he is far from London," Carlisle offered. "We do not know where on this planet he was and it hadn't been that long a time since we all were sent back. I am sure that he is on his way."
     "He doesn't remember."
     "Elizabeth, listen to me," Carlisle scooted in front of me, my head in his hands. "I remember and to me, that's evidence enough. Igor will know who you are, you will see him again. And I have to believe you will see him soon."
     "It has been long enough," I muttered. "He doesn't remember, Carlisle. He'd be here if he did."
     I looked at my brother, his eyes guarded and concerned. Guarded?
     "Wait, you know something," I accused. "Carlisle, what do you know? What are you hiding from me?"
     "It's nothing, sister. Do not fret-"
     "Is it him? Carlisle, have you seen him?"
     "Elizabeth-"
     "Carlisle, please, tell me if he's in London! Tell me if-"
     "I haven't seen him."
     Lies... I wasn't sure how I knew, but I just knew that Carlisle was lying to me.
     "Get out," I hissed.
     "What?"
     "If you're going to lie to me about the only thing in my existence that makes it bright, get out!"
     Carlisle jumped back and walked calmly to the door.
     "Elizabeth-"
     Laurel interrupted us by opening the door.
     "Carlisle, I think it best if you leave," she said looking at my brother. "We don't want to do anything that'll affect the baby."
     "Make sure she eats something?" Carlisle asked her.
     "I will."
     "I'll be back tomorrow," he added to me.
     "Unless you're going to tell me the truth about what you're hiding, don't bother."
     Carlisle's blond brows pulled together and I stormed past him, intending to get myself some food.
     Lying... how could my own brother lie to me! I knew he'd seen Igor, I just knew it, I could see it in his eyes. Why else would they have been guarded? Why else would he have sounded so sure that Igor remembered?
     He knew Igor remembered because Igor is in London.
     "Elizabeth," Carlisle called. I didn't look at him, but I did stop. He rested a hand on my shoulder and it took all my strength to not knock it off. "Do you really want him to see you the way you are now?"
     "What is that supposed to mean?" I hissed, knowing he was staying quiet because Laurel and Johnathon were within earshot now.
     He froze for a moment... unsure what to say? Unsure how to say what he wanted to say.
     "Carrying another man's child."
     The moment the words were out of Carlisle's mouth, many things crashed into me. Guilt... fear... anger at not only myself but at the man whose child I was carrying...
     Confusion. Why did Carlisle say that? I knew he didn't mean it, it just wasn't like him to say something like that...
     But what did I know, I hardly knew the man. Or, perhaps, by chance, he really was concerned for how Igor would react to my carrying a child.
     But hadn't Igor known? I tried to rack my brain for that part of the dream, I could have sworn I had told Igor that I had a child before becoming immortal... so wouldn't he know? I couldn't remember if Igor knew. Couldn't remember if I had told Igor nor his reaction to it.
     So maybe Carlisle was protecting me from Igor?
     No, that just felt wrong thinking about it. If Igor really was as perfect as my dream made him to be, he wouldn't care if I were pregnant. He'd help me, support me.
     So why was Carlisle lying again?
     What was I being kept out of?