Diamond Legacies 2: Prologue 'One Condition' (aka Micah and Ivy angst)

Hey guys sorry for the delay starting this story. I wanted a little break after Supernova but I've been having a lot of fun writing the world with no Esther in it, and it starts with this chapter showing how Ivana and Micah are dealing with it. I’m not gunna lie I really like writing this version of Ivana but give her a little bit of a break, I wanted to write grief in different ways, and it was obvious to me that Ivy was going to have the hardest time without her mom so try look past her bitchiness if you can. This is also a lot longer than originally planned, hence why it wasnt released with the others.

Micah Cullen
Chicago, 2221

 

It had been a year. Only a year since Esther left us and it had been the worst year in living memory. Well, mine at least. I was told stories as a child, stories of my family, of the Volturi and of Esther, of the wars and times they all fought for family and how my parents fought for innocent life. Now I wouldn’t say Esther was innocent, she had lived too long to be labelled as such, but she was good. She was as good as my mother and father. She had taken all the pain she had experienced, and it only made her better. Without her the Cullen’s would have lost so much. Humanity would have lost so much. Without her, there wouldn’t be Lidiya and Anelie. Without her there wouldn’t be Ivana. My Ivy. I don’t know who I would be without her. She was everything to me. She was my soul mate. My other half. My, unofficial, wife. The mother of my children.

And she was broken.

I’d never use that word out loud, but I had seen her soul break the day Esther left her, left us all. She had spent the day with her mother and family and when I had gone to find her when the moon eclipsed the sun, I had found her a different person than she was before.

I knew how close Ivy was to her parents, she spoke to them every day. She worshipped the ground they walked on, but I didn’t know she couldn’t live without them. Not until that moment. I watched as Ivy and her sisters, Anelie and Lidiya, entered the mansion to view their mother and when they came back out their essences had morphed into something new. Seeing their mother helpless and unconscious had changed them all.

Ivana’s soul was cracked, her essence was bleeding, she was in pain, in grief. She had walked out of the Volturi mansion with her head held high as she said goodbye to her sisters and close family. Our teenage daughters following us silently as we walked home together. I knew they saw it too, saw how her soul had fractured but neither of them said anything on that walk home. I was sure they were probably communicating to each other, but they never said anything to me. None of us dared to speak.

Our daughters were fifteen now, at least technically, but they had been fully grown for five years now. Nova was following in the footsteps of Ivy and myself in becoming a doctor, she was happily involved with her imprinter Lucan. She’d always found life easy, found her place with friends and family. She was the outgoing happy bubbly one. Eden found life so much harder than her sister, and the pair weren’t as close as most twins in our family. They loved each other and they were each other’s soul mates as most twins in the family were, but they were the polar opposites. In more ways than just their abilities. Eden had left home a year ago to attend a ballet school. She had enjoyed dance all her life. It was an escape she found as a child, an escape from the toll of her ability and she had only excelled in it. When she was fully grown at ten, she had begged Ivy and me to let her pursue it professionally, but we weren’t ready to give her up yet. We had finally agreed last year, and after a lot of fighting with her about what school she was going to audition for she got into the School of American Ballet, the most prestigious ballet school in the country, without any of her families influence. She had specifically chosen to take her mother’s surname in the process. Eden had always struggled the most being a Cullen, whereas Nova had thrived in it. Eden’s soul was brighter now, like she had her purpose outside of being an infamous Cullen. She was happier and that only made me happier. I didn’t care what name she used or where she lived or what she did for a career. I just wanted her happy. That’s all I wanted for either of my daughters, and it’s all I wanted for Ivy.

She hadn’t been happy since the day she lost her mother. My daughters no longer lived at home, but Nova visited often. She was definitely a home bird. She wouldn’t go a few days without seeing us and whilst it made Ivana happier when she was here. When she wasn’t it was like she was a shell. Just moving through life until Esther returned to it. I tried everything I could think of to help her. In my desperation, I even sat down with Eden and Nova to see if they could help but they refused, they had vowed to never use their gifts without express permission from those they would alter. It had been a vow they started as children when Eden’s power had erupted from her and almost hurt those around them. They had trained for years with the experts of the Volturi, with their grandmother, to better their abilities. And whilst they still had a long way to go as they aged; they were in complete control now. Outbursts were rare and were easily handled, they weren’t co-dependent like their aunts had been, Lidiya and Anelie were reliant on each other and their mother for decades before they could be separated but my girls had flourished under the training early on. They had become their own people; they had succeeded in any task Esther had laid for them and now they felt more comfortable with their powers than ever before. I couldn’t be any prouder of them.

And I knew Ivy was too, but she didn’t say it anymore. She barely told them she loved them, or myself. She had pushed me away further than ever before and at the start, I tried to hover, to make sure she was okay every second of the day, but I quickly worked out it was pointless. No amount of my presence made her better. At night-time she would scream in her sleep for her mother and no matter how many times I woke her with my touch, she still returned to the nightmare. I started to fill my life with work as much as I could, I was barely ever home at night-time and if I weren’t at the hospital, I was at the Volturi. I was there when she wanted me and that’s all I could do. She had pushed me away and I tried to give her as much space as I could. But I still felt helpless. I felt as broken as she did. I felt exhausted.

The aftermath of Esther’s sudden absence on the world was nothing like I could have imagined. At home I had Ivana and my daughters to comfort. At the Volturi they were frantic with plans and preparations. At work I was run down with hospital management. The humans, as expected, had lost their minds at the prolonged eclipse. We had attempted suicides go up tenfold, accidents and attacks happening daily over panicked buyers and looters. And that was just the first few weeks. By day twenty, we started to see the effects of the reduced sunlight on the humans. We had to extend nearly every hospital to create sunrooms, rooms that Carlisle had commissioned with the Volturi science team. They would help the sick acquire the much-needed sunlight they required from a synthetic source. Vitamin D prices skyrocketed higher than any drug in history. My father had tried to control the pharmaceutical companies, he tried everything in the Cullen Empire’s power to lower the prices, to make deals and convince them to help but it was even out of reach of my father. Panic was the worst motivator in humans. Panic and greed. The human world reacted as if the world was ending. Which I suppose without the knowledge we had; it would have seemed like it was. It was hell. For 100 days. The world was in a hurricane, constantly going around and around destroying everything in its path. The diamond age of humanity was over.

After the 100 days past and the sun began to show in the sky again, the panic and destruction wasn’t over. The human world began to speculate, began to use religion and conspiracy theories to explain the mysterious eclipse. It was impossible for science to explain it, so that only gave evidence to the religious of their gods and higher powers. The peace treaty that held the world together after the climate crisis began to fracture and break. Tension began to grow between religious groups and countries and the highly religious countries started to break free of it. They started to gain independence. I was watching hundreds of years of progress going down the drain and it broke my heart to see the humans regressing to their old ways. Fear was a human’s biggest weakness, and I could only hope one day I would see the world I was born into again. Until then I worried every day that we would wake up to World War Three.

I did a lot of worrying now a days.

It felt like it was all I ever did, and it was gruelling.

Ivy used to help me with this, the constant anxiety I had over the balance of peace and life. Her voice and her presence would soothe me, she would help me remember the good in the world, but Ivy hadn’t been that person in a year, and I missed her more than anything in the world. Even peace.

“I’m going to go for a walk, do you want to come with me?” Ivy asked entering our kitchen. She took a walk every day, without fail but she rarely asked me to come with her. I span around to see her by the arch way that led between our kitchen and entrance hall. I hadn’t seen her all morning. I almost expected not to see her at all today with it being the anniversary, so this was a small surprise.

“Sure,” I said immediately and put the flask of blood I was drinking back into the fridge. She pivoted and left the room instantly and I ran after her like a lost puppy. I pulled on my shoes quickly as she waited by the door for me, and I followed her out. I walked by her side silently. I was always unsure which Ivy would be waking up each day. Some days she was better than others, almost like her old self. Some days she could be ruthless and distant and had no regard for other people’s feelings around her. She wasn’t my Ivy those days, but I was always by her side when she needed me. No matter what.

We were walking human pace, which I liked. It meant I could be with her longer. I was surprised after a few moments when she moved closer to me, and her hand slipped in my own. I took it instantly and couldn’t help but feel a swell in my heart at the contact. Our kisses had been empty, her touch was cold or non-existent, her hugs had been quick and brief. It had all felt wrong, for a whole year.

It wasn’t something I craved or needed. The sexual part of our relationship had always been complicated and whilst it was something I enjoyed when it happened. I was never the one in the relationship that needed it or required it to love her. I just needed her to be herself again. To be my Ivy. The touch felt normal. Something I hadn’t felt for so long. If someone had seen us walking down the street we’d have just looked like an ordinary couple on a walk. They wouldn’t see the torment or the distance that the last year had created between us. They wouldn’t see the hopelessness I felt, or the grief and pain Ivana felt.

I cherished the feeling of her hand in mine as we walked in silence. It was a comfortable silence, nothing awkward or weird. It was just, nice. After a while she began to speak to me, we spoke about mundane things, about our daughters and the hospital. Neither of us mentioned what day it was, neither of us addressed the elephant in the room and I didn’t mind, because for a moment we just felt normal again and I could forget, just for a moment how much pain we were both in.

That was until I was reminded who Ivana had become of course.

Nothing was simple when you were a Cullen. Not even a walk down the street.

I remember my family telling me about when cars weren’t automated. It was law now to have at least a hybrid car. They drove themselves mostly, but some had manual options. These manual options were heavily restricted, and you could drive but you couldn’t be unsafe or break laws in the cars. Occasionally these systems failed. When people failed to service their cars or broke laws to hack them and be able to drive them properly. We had a handful of car accident patients a year in the hospital, and they had to be fully investigated every time. Some of them were genuine failures, or human errors but occasionally you’d get a sinister accident and the injuries would often be horrific to repair.

Ivana saw the golden retriever before I did. The dog ran across the street, pulling a small child behind it as it bounded after something it had seen on our side of the road. Ivy had already dropped my hand, but she had been too late. Even for our vampire reflexes. I heard the scream of the mother before I had realised what had happened. The child was on the road, a car had screeched to a halt a few meters in front. There were no other cars around until one came speeding around the corner, with no automated brake system active it had collided with the other car ricocheting and pinning the mother of the child against the wall. For a split second my heart sank in my chest as I watched the car move in slow motion past Ivy on the road with the child, but it had missed them both entirely. Ivy had fallen to her knees at the child’s side, but I could already see the girls light of her soul had gone out. I had to think quick in the moment to see if we could save at least one person. The mother was rendered unconscious, but she was still alive, so I rushed over to Ivy.

“Treat the mother,” I said to her resting my hand on her shoulder. She was leaning over the dead child not moving.

“Ivana. The mother needs your help,” I begged her. She could save her, make it look like she had narrowly escaped with some less serious wounds. The child was gone. I looked up to the drivers of the cars exiting their vehicles. One held their head where blood was slowly trickling down their cheek. The other was swaying on their feet, about to collapse any second. I ran over to the driver of the car that hit the child and caught her before she fainted.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?” I asked her and held her up right. I checked her eyes and saw she had a concussion. I looked back over to Ivy as she moved the child’s body out of the centre of the road. She placed her on the sidewalk gently, like she was resting a sleeping baby in its crib. She paused for a moment before moving towards the woman still pinned between the car and the wall.

“The child,” the woman in my arms said, she was sobbing. “That little girl, is she okay?” she asked hysterically.

“Listen to me, where are you hurt?” I asked her to try to distract her.

“The little girl,” she sobbed, and I moved her to the edge of the road to sit her down.

“What happened?” I asked.

“My car, it didn’t stop. It happened to fast. I don’t know, it wasn’t due for a service until next week. I didn’t… I wasn’t watching.” She was a mess. From the kind of person she was, I knew she was telling the truth. This was a tragic accident. No foul play was behind this child’s death.

“You’re going to be okay,” I promised her. I had managed to assess her pretty quickly. She’d probably walk away with a bit of whip lash and a slight concussion. And a lifetime of guilt, but fine none the less. I turned to see the other driver stumbling down the road. He looked like he was walking away from the scene. He hadn’t even turned to see if anyone else was okay.

“Micah,” Ivy said across to me. I handed my phone to the woman on the floor. “Don’t move to get up. Call the ambulance. I’m going to go help,” I said and left her to see Ivy. “I need you to move the car,” she said as she reached out to hold the woman in place. I looked around to see if anyone was watching but the street was empty. The woman on the road was staring at my phone as if it was a foreign object. The man was still walking away. I gave Ivy a small nod and gently nudged the car so that the woman was no longer pinned. I had trusted Ivy had already assessed her injuries. The woman woke suddenly from her unconsciousness and began screaming in pain. “Hey, hey, shh it’s going to be okay.” Ivy said as she positioned the woman on the floor.

“My daughter, where’s my daughter? Is she okay? Where’s Gracie? Where is she?” The woman was frantic trying to look to the road but Ivy had positioned her so she couldn’t see the dead child on the sidewalk.

“She’s going to be okay, she’s fine. Hey, listen to me, I need you to keep still. Don’t move. I’m a doctor. I’m going to help you,” she spoke to the woman in a calm and steady voice, and I frowned at her promise to the woman. Ivy knew better than to promise something to a parent of a patient, especially a dead one. That child wasn’t okay. I noticed Ivy placed her hands on the woman’s legs and pelvic bone as she began to heal her slowly. She spoke to her the entire time to distract her and I decided to leave Ivy to do what she was best at and turned to find where the other injured human had got to. He was trying to run now but his head wound was stopping him from fully functioning. I ran after him, determined not to let him get away.

“Hey, you need treatment, you need help,” I said as I caught up to him.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled trying to push me away.

“What happened, why didn’t your car stop?” I asked him but I already knew the answer. This wasn’t a man of good stature. I could see greed and arrogance and narcissism in his soul.

“None of your damn business kid.” He slurred and kept moving down the street.

“You need to be treated for that wound,” I said ignoring the fact he had called me kid. I was probably older than him. He didn’t seem older than early twenties and he had been driving an illegal car.

“I’m fine,” he insisted but I placed my hand on his shoulder stopping him. A car swerved down the street. At first, I thought it would be the ambulance, but I recognised the jet-black car. It was a Volturi car. It stopped suddenly at the side of the road and Anelie climbed out.

What the hell was she doing here?

I saw Ivy nod to her sister and Anelie was over by the dead child within seconds.

No.

There were witnesses. What the hell was she thinking?

After Anelie, Chantelle climbed out next. She looked uncomfortable like she knew they shouldn’t be here. The Volturi never intervened in human accidents or events. I dropped my hand from the driver and walked over annoyingly slow at human pace over to the scene.

Ivy was just helping the woman to her feet, and I could see she hadn’t repaired her surface wounds, just the internal ones. As she turned to lead the woman, the little girl on the floor gasped as her life flooded back to her. Anelie stood and Ivy came to greet them.

I knew they were talking in their heads to each other. The woman I had sat on the sidewalk was staring in shock, her hand still holding my phone as she watched Anelie walk back to the car.

“You’re going to be okay now,” Ivy said to the woman as she hugged her child.

“I’ve got this covered,” Chantelle said to Ivy as the sirens of the ambulance began to get closer. Ivy gave Chantelle a nod and a smile.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t really have a choice, did I?” Chantelle snapped at Ivy as she turned to the mother and child and began to use her ability on them to convince them they hadn’t just seen a child being raised from the dead.

Ivy ignored Chantelle’s question and began to walk away from the scene in the direction back to our house. She didn’t give any more acknowledgement to what just happened. I turned to the woman on the floor and accepted my phone back as Chantelle used her ability to change the events of the accident. I waited with Chantelle to inform the paramedics about what had happened and when we were happy they were in safe hands, Chantelle turned to me before getting in the car with Anelie.

“She can’t keep doing this. I know she’s grieving; we all are.” Chantelle said to me.

“Keep doing this?” I asked.

“This is the third time she’s called me out to fix the messes she makes. It’s not always an accident, sometimes people see her doing other things. She’s risked us being exposed three times now. I understand her grief, I grieved a mother once too. But I can’t keep giving her a pass. If my husband finds out…” she trailed off. But I nodded.

“Thank you, Chantelle. I had no idea,” I said as she climbed into the car, I looked at Anelie in the driver’s seat.

“I can’t say no to her. She’s my baby sister. I hate to see her in pain so I will give her whatever she wants, and why would I ever say no to helping a child?” Anelie said as if she was justifying her actions. This had been something I had struggled with for years. When I first became a doctor, I had been so excited to follow in my father’s footsteps. When I knew Ivy could save people that even Carlisle and I couldn’t save I had been her biggest supporter to use her ability in the hospital for good, but it had been my father that stopped it. He had put rules and limitations on what she could do. He had sat down with Esther, and they had discussed the limits to which Ivana could help the human world without risking exposure to the supernatural or people hearing of her miracle abilities. It took me years to see it in their perspective, I was such a huge advocate for life, I didn’t understand why the hell exposure mattered if we could save a life but, eventually, I realised what would happen if the wrong people learnt about what we could do. How demanding and exhausting it would be on Ivy if she had hundreds of people every day begging her to cure them. And how if she did, she would have no life or privacy anymore and the human population would lose its balance. Ivy was allowed to save some people that ordinarily wouldn’t survive, mostly children, but only some. She had followed this rule for years until now.

“I know.” I said, completely understanding Anelie. She was Ivy’s big sister and she loved her; she would do anything for her. “I just don’t know what to do. She needs her mother.”

Anelie’s face contorted, just for a second, with pain.

“She needs help Micah. Ask Eddie. He might be able to do something, he was the most connected to Esther. He’s helped some others in the family deal with her absence over the last year. He might be able to help Ivy too... We have to get back,” Chantelle said in sympathy before she gave me a soft smile. I nodded in response and thanked them as we waved goodbye. Chantelle pulled the car away from the sidewalk and sped off back to the Volturi. I sighed as I took off running along Ivy’s scent back to our house.

“Ivy!” I called after my wife as she entered the grounds of our home. She had walked human pace back home. “Ivana!” I called louder but she was ignoring me. She started to run, and I wanted to scream at her. There was no way she would outrun me so why was she even trying.

“Ivana Chloe-Jane,” I said, my voice was angry. I was angry. Furious actually.

“Don’t you dare,” she glared at me as I used her full name. Only Esther called her that and I was very aware of that fact.

“What the hell was that?” I asked her as we reached the door of our home. She swerved around me and entered the house, the door swung on its hinges with the force of her opening it.

“I saved a child and her mother.” She said as if that was all that mattered.

“You exposed us.” I called to her. She stopped on the stairs and span around to look at me. The glare was cold and cruel.

“I saved a little girls life!” She called back.

“No, you made your sister do it!” I argued back.

“And she would have died if I wasn’t there to project to Annie to come save her. That woman would have bled out before the paramedics even arrived. I saved their lives!” she called back.

“Why?” I asked her. “You know the rules. My father’s rules. You know we can’t just decide who lives and dies, especially not outside the protection of the hospital. You didn’t even know those people. You exposed us. You forced Chantelle to clean up your mess. You manipulated your sister into helping you because all she wants is to see you happier. This isn’t you!” I swallowed the emotion I was feeling. This was the first time I had said the words to her, in a year. First time I had yelled at her, argued with her. I just couldn’t let this one slide. It was my family she was risking. Carlisle’s name. Everything.

“I can’t believe you’re judging me for saving a child’s life. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t know her. She was a child and I decided I wanted to save her. That she deserved another chance at life. She didn’t deserve to die in a freak accident. You can’t judge me. You’ve made that decision a dozen times at the hospital, you’ve let me make that decision a dozen times!” She argued back.

“You are not God Ivy.” I uttered.

“Yes, I am,” she said coldly and turned to leave me standing there in our hall.

She was out of control and I worried she was going to do this again. Chantelle had said this was the third time she’d exposed her powers. What the hell was she thinking?

Ivy didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. I had spent a few hours playing my piano, but I just couldn’t concentrate when my mind was on Ivy. I picked up Ivy’s phone from the kitchen that she rarely used anymore and sent a message. I knew if I rang him Ivy would hear me speaking so I settled for a message in hopes he would see it soon.

It was barely thirty minutes before there was a knock at the door.

“I came as quick as I could,” Eddie said as soon as I opened it.

“She’s in there,” I said motioning for the living room in our house. Eddie nodded and walked over to the door and paused.

Ivy was sitting on the couch, her legs pulled up to her chest and she stared into the digital fire on the wall.

“Hey kiddo,” Eddie said entering the room and walking over to her. I waited for a moment to see if she would respond to him before I left.

Don’t leave. Eddie placed in my head, but I wanted to give Ivy a chance to open up, to someone that would know how her mother would deal with the situation.

You’re important to her. She needs you. He responded and waited until I walked over to them before he spoke. I sat in the corner of the couch, next to Ivy but she didn’t move to enter my arms as she normally would, I didn’t blame her though after what I had yelled at her. She was motionless.

“Ivy,” he said softly but she wouldn’t look at him. She hadn’t looked at him in a year. I knew I wasn’t the only one that had noticed it. She always put on a show of pleasantries for our family, but when it came to Eddie and her father, she was cold and distant. Like she couldn’t bear to be around them.

“Darling,” he said and his voice broke. I tore my eyes from Ivy to look at him and saw the broken face of a father. Eddie wasn’t Ivana’s real father, but he was close enough. Being as connected as he was to Esther, he raised her and loved her just as Esther did. Ivy saw him as a second father just as her sisters did. He loved her as his own.

“Don’t,” she whispered her voice cracked but she didn’t move to look at him.

“I know your pain,” he responded. “But sweetheart this isn’t what your mother wanted, and you know it.” He said almost with a tone of disappointment in his voice.

“She’s not here to tell me otherwise,” she mumbled still staring at the wall. “I’ll just wait.” For her. The silent words she didn’t speak but I knew without reading her mind what she meant. She was adamant one day soon Esther would just come back but we both knew from the updates from Zio that there was no date set any time soon. It was going to be years. My heart broke at her words. My Ivy wasn’t here anymore. She was gone with Esther. Eddie reached forward and his hand took Ivy’s. He pulled it up to kiss her wrist as Esther did on a regular basis and for the first time in a year, Ivana cried.

He held her in a hug, stroking her hair as she soaked his shirt and neither of us said anything. I couldn’t help the tears silently falling down my face seeing her in so much pain. Seeing both of them in pain actually.

Eddie’s essence had changed the most over the last year, even more so than Ivy’s. It was irrevocably altered; he was missing a part of himself, and it had damaged his soul. He was going through so much himself, silently suffering as he tried to fill his best friends’ shoes in the world.

“I need you to listen to me,” he whispered after she had calmed down enough to stop crying. He still held her, and she didn’t move from his arms. “I miss her too, more than I ever thought it would be possible to miss anyone. Part of me is gone and I know you feel that too. Most children, even myself and Micah, have that possibility that one day our parents won’t be here anymore. Our parents aren’t truly immortal, and there have been instances that your sisters weren’t able to save people. The chance is miniscule and almost impossible but it’s still there. In the stories, in the very back of our minds. Life is precious. We see it in our human descendants, we see it all around us in the human world and it reminds us every day of our mortality. Even the smallest amount. We grow up independent and become free of our parents. But none of our parents are truly and completely immortal. Not like yours.” Eddie began and Ivana’s breathing had become steady as she listened to him speak.

“You haven’t had to live a day in your life with the fear that one day she wouldn’t be here and I’m so sorry that you’re experiencing this. Not being able to cope with the absence of her isn’t a weakness Ivy. You can’t be blamed for that, no one here blames you for that.” He added in response to her thoughts. I frowned as I watched Eddie’s face.

“You should speak, Micah deserves to know what you’re thinking. He is dying to help you. He is going out of his mind trying to make you happier. He’s so lost without you.” He said after another moment. Ivy moved and turned to look at me. She looked broken but I could see the expression on her face as if she had just realised that this past year had been hurting me just as much as it had been hurting her. She moved back to sit in the middle of the couch and her hand reached out to mine. I moved, instinctively without even realising I was leaning into her touch and moved to sit closer to her, my hand entwining with hers. My leg bent resting between us on the couch as the other stayed hanging off the edge. I was rotated to face her as she turned to face Eddie at her side.

“I don’t know how to get out of this. It’s like I’m drowning, every day. I know logically it’s insane. It’s not like I’ve actually lost her. It’s not like she’s dead. But I can’t tell my body to not feel her absence. Everything I do, I think of my mother, everywhere I look, I think of her.” She said her voice breaking again but she swallowed the emotion so she wouldn’t start crying. I slowly stroked her hand in mine.

“Tell me about it.” Eddie said with a small chuckle, but it was his turn to cry a little. Just one tear. “I was tied to your mother in ways I can never explain to anyone. We weren’t just joined telepathically, we thought as one. We were each other’s conscience, entertainment, sounding board, best friend. She’s my soul mate and she’s not there anymore. My mind. it feels empty. I’ve slept every night since she went to sleep just to get a break from the pain of her not being there anymore. We’ve shared a mind, a life, for centuries. I don’t know how to function without her. I keep doing things and knowing how she would respond but her voice isn’t there anymore. I keep thinking she’s there, in my head but it’s only a moment before I realise it’s my own memory of her that’s answering. It’s not her. My mind is rewiring without her, and I hate it. I hate the thought of living another day, hour or minute without her, but we have to.” Eddie responded and I was struck with his grief. I didn’t have my brother Jaspers ability of pathokinesis, but I knew from his soul that he was radiating pain like I had never seen before.

Ivy was stunned into silence. It was no secret Eddie and Esther were linked beyond our understanding but hearing him say the words was tragically poignant.

He swallowed and paused for a moment before continuing.

“She needs us to carry on. She needs us to be there for our family, for the Volturi. She needs us to help the world and make it better again. She needs us to get through this without her, so that when she does come back. When she wakes up vulnerable and weak, we’re there stronger than ever to protect her. This doesn’t end when she wakes up and you know that.” Eddie said softly. He had swallowed his emotion and he was suddenly himself again. Well. The ‘himself’ he had become since Esther went to sleep. “I need you to… she’ll need you to be strong,” he said stuttering for a second before correcting himself. Ivy nodded slowly, her other hand reaching out to his wrist.

“I’m going to try really hard.” She promised and I knew this was all she could do at that moment but it was enough. She’d been shocked out of her pain cycle seeing her uncle in his own pain and it would be enough to get her to try harder. I knew it would. Ivana would always say that I had enough empathy for the both of us and that’s why she liked being a badass that didn’t take any shit. In comparison to me that often did what others wanted without question. But she was secretly softer than she thought. She didn’t show it often, but I saw it more than she thought. I saw it with our daughters, I saw it with her patients at the hospital, I saw it with her and her sisters and I saw it now with her uncle. She knew he was deeply connected to her mother. It was almost like having her. It would be enough until Esther came back, enough for Ivana to fight for the world again.

Eddie stayed for another hour before he said he had to go home to sleep.

“I’ll see you soon, and I think you should go visit your dad sometime this week. When you’re ready,” Eddie said as he headed out the door. Ivy had pushed her father away more than she’d even pushed me away. I knew Aleksander was as broken as Eddie and the fact he was failing to help his daughter made it ten times worse. He called me every day for an update on her when her phone calls to him stopped, but I’d had no call today.

Is he okay today? I asked Eddie realising I hadn’t heard from him. Eddie very slightly shook his head.

I’ve been with him all day. He’s not in a good place. He responded before he turned back to Ivy who answered his request.

“I will,” Ivy said with a nod. “Thank you, Uncle Eddie,” she said reaching to hug him again.

“Anytime kiddo, I’m only round the corner. And if you ever think ‘what would my mom say?’ I’ll nearly always know the answer,” he said and winked at her. She smiled.

“I know,” she said pulling away. He turned to me for a moment.

“I’m still not calling you uncle,” he said as he reached to give me a side hug. I chuckled. Although Eddie was technically my nephew by blood or venom or whatever. He was more my uncle than the other way around. We’d always had a strange kind of friendship. It was a running joke now every time he saw me.

“Eddie, before you go,” I said calling out to him, I left Ivy in the doorway and jogged to catch up to him down the pathway. Seeing his pain, seeing the damage to his soul was nothing like I’d seen before. He was fractured and broken, and I wanted to help him more than I had ever wanted to help anyone I ever met before, even Ivy. I knew she would recover from this. But I wasn’t sure Eddie would. I knew I couldn’t help, but I knew who could.

“I know what you’re going to say, and no. Thank you, I appreciate it, more than you can imagine, but no. It’s my pain I need to experience. I need this pain to make me strong. The only thing that keeps me going is the thought she’s going to come back. That she’ll need me as I once was. I trust your daughters, I do, I know they wouldn’t change anything that’s important, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when she’s back and I don’t want to risk a single thing when it comes to Esther.” Eddie explained his hand going to my shoulder in thanks. I nodded. I understood but I still wanted to offer it to him, for him to know the option was there, the choice was his. “Thank you,” he said softly and smiled at me before turning and disappearing in a run.

I returned to the house to see Ivana waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Her cheeks were stained from her tears. I stopped and watched her, waiting to follow the cues as to hug her or walk away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice cracked. She wasn’t looking at me. I cautiously took a step towards her.

“There is nothing for you to say sorry for,” I said wondering what events she was apologising for. It was the truth but I would have to speak to her when she was less emotional about the exposure thing and her manipulation of Chantelle and Anelie. It was behaviour that had to stop.

“Yes, there is. I’ve pushed you away, I didn’t know how to deal with everything I was feeling. I didn’t think I deserved to seek your comfort, to be happy with you whilst my mother is lying asleep in a cold room all alone,” she said her voice breaking again. She swallowed her emotions and finally looked up at me.

“I’ve pushed everyone away that reminds me of her, my father and Eddie especially. I was selfish. I didn’t realise how much pain you were in too. How much everyone else was suffering. I’m sorry, please forgive me. I can’t lose you as well.” She said tears falling from her eyes as she tried to hold back the emotion.

“You are not selfish,” I said almost angrily as I walked over to her. I stopped at the bottom step, so I was facing her. “You are not selfish,” I repeated, and I raised my hand to cup her cheek. She leant into it and closed her eyes, blinking away her other tears. “You are my wife. My soul mate and the love of my life. There is nothing I wouldn’t forgive you for and there will never be a day that you lose me.” I felt the words burn like a fire inside me. Like they weren’t strong enough to confess to her my feelings.

“I’m not your wife.” She said and her eyes opened to face me. “I’m sorry about that too,” she said, and I watched her face carefully at her words. Why was she bringing this up now?

“I know you want it, more than anything. And I have kept it from you for so long. I’ve been scared of being a Cullen since the day I realised I was in love with you. Scared of what it meant, of who I would have to live up to. I want to move past that. I promised you ‘one day’ long ago. I will live up to that promise. When she’s back, when things are normal again. I want to marry you.” she said, and her voice broke again but I knew as much as it seemed like she was proposing, I wouldn’t take it as one. Not with her in this state.

“I don’t need a contract to tell me you love me,” I reminded her. As much as I wanted to vow to her under an oath that I loved her. It was never needed for me to love her, or to be with her. She was my wife in my heart and that’s all that had mattered to me.

She moved forward and rested her forehead against mine. Her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around my shoulders to hold me closer to her. She stayed silent for a moment as if she was taking in the moment. We hadn’t been close like this in so long.

“Will you stay with me?” She asked and as she took a deep breath, it shook with emotion. Like she was nervous to ask me.

“Always,” I said and paused for a moment before I added “On one condition.” I added with a seriousness in my tone I had never had when it came to Ivana. She looked at me cautiously as she waited for me to finish.

“You stop playing God.”

She let out a shaky sigh but nodded.

“I will.”

My arms wound tighter around her waist at her words, and she closed her eyes in consolation.

I knew it would be hard to help her heal and to make her happy again but it was all I wanted in this world, like I needed air to breathe.