Title: Songs From The Heart

Summary: A series of song-based vignettes from various points of view exploring the wonderful world of Twilight.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Twilight and all related places and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer

A/N: Another angsty one, though with a hopeful ending and once again from the point of view of our favourite vampire. This song was the one that inspired me to start writing these, as when it came on, I knew straight away how perfect it was to describe Edward’s feelings…

The Change

You'll never know the way your words have haunted me.
I can't believe you'd ask these things of me.

You don’t know me.
You belong to me,
My snow white queen.
There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over.
Soon I know you'll see,
You're just like me.
Don't scream anymore my love, 'cause all I want is you.

Snow White Queen – Evanescence

I have been haunted by sound my entire existence. The sound of the sick, the dying, coughing up their lungs, their souls, brought down by a silent, invisible enemy. The sound of the pleas, vicious men, murderous men, becoming meek, praying for forgiveness from the fallen angel. The sound of the multitudes, laughing, screaming, living, dying in my head, never distinct, never separate. The sound of the symphony, beautiful music, sweet music but always tinged with emptiness, tinged with the search for something, someone I did not even realize I was searching for. But in all those years, all those days of existence, never have I been haunted by sound as I was this night. By the sound of pain voiced unending, by the screams of the dying, the whimpers of the condemned. The sound of my sin, the sound of an angel falling, the sound of my Bella…changing.

I had believed myself prepared. I had believed I was ready, that I had accepted that this was my love’s most fervent wish and to deny her would be to deny my heart. She had given me my desire, the plain band on her finger intertwining our hearts, our lives, our destinies till the earth burned and the stars fell out of the sky and in return I could grant her this, literal immortality, decades and centuries of nothing but her and I and love and hope. I tried so desperately to recapture what I had felt with her naked body curled into mine on our wedding night, the absolute surety that I now understood, now needed to keep her by my side for all eternity but the emotion was foreign. How can I feel that? How can I feel that when my wife screams by my side in agony, as she claws and thrashes at the monster in the dark, the venom in her veins.

Science had proven useless in the face of the supernatural, the morphine drip left to stand silent guard at the edge of the room, the numbing liquid unable to stop the fire from consuming her. My safety net, my assurance that she would not suffer as I had suffered brutally ripped away leaving only me. Leaving only the chill of my flesh able to soothe a fraction of her pain, my arms wrapped so tightly around her. Underneath my embrace I could feel her flesh hardening, her blood running clear. My Bella, her fragile skin to me usually as delicate as the wings of a butterfly becoming like stone, all traces of blush, of tears, of human reaction cleansed from her writhing form.

I could remember so clearly as she had lain on this bed three days before, her wide brown eyes looking up at me in fear. I could remember assuring her, promising her that it would be alright, that if she had changed her mind I would not be angry, would not hold her clinging to her human life against her. I remember how she had shaken her head firmly, tears pooling and dripping silently down her cheeks as she told me that her fear was not for herself, but for me. That she feared that watching her go through this would be pure agony, that the guilt for hurting her when I had promised to never do so again would be overwhelming. At that moment I had been able to do nothing but kiss her, kiss my beautiful perfect Bella who always thought of others before herself. She had been on the precipice of the most agonizing experience of her life and she had only been worried about me, me who was about to murder her, to kill her, to stop her beating heart and pull the last true breath from her lungs. Now I wished I could turn back time, wished I could kiss her warm, human lips again and again to ask her forgiveness for what I had been about to do.

I had kissed her since, in between screams and curses, in the lulls of whimpers when her cries and pleas of my name became the worst form of torture. When I could do nothing but whisper empty platitudes into her ear, could do nothing but hold on and wait and hope that when she awoke with blood-red eyes and translucent skin that she’d forgive me…that she’d still love me.

She was quieter now, the screams dying as surely as her heart was. I could feel its sluggish rhythm beneath my palm, her lungs expanding shallowly to take in the last breaths of air. Soon she would fall silent beside me, becoming forever dead, forever like me. I tightened my grip around her, burying my head against her neck. Her thrashes has diminished, her arms and legs moving weakly as the strength of humanity seeped from her veins. I counted eternity by her heart beats, the time between each weak thump stretching out forever, till I could see our entire past, the story of our love, of the lion and the lamb playing behind my eyes. I saw that first day, her saccharine blood calling to me, singing to me like no other. I saw our first kiss, so tentative, so sweet. I saw nights of caresses and days of laughter. I saw danger and fear, two hearts broken by my folly, healed only by her courage.

In the last beat of her heart, I saw human moments and sleep talking, clumsiness and blushes, careful hugs and closed-mouthed kisses before her body fell still, the last remnants of her human existence passing into memory. My Bella was dead, long live my Bella.