The Keepsake by Windchymes
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7562914/1/The_Keepsake
Some things you never forget, they just hurt too much to remember.
Twilight - Rated: M
Reviewed by: Dolly Reader
Some things you never forget, they just hurt too much to remember.
Whenever I see an alert from Windchymes show up in my inbox I literally make a happy face and start clapping. Windchymes has consistently written AU stories that take the framework of Twilight and twist them to a new direction. I have appreciated her Bellas that have a strength and determination to withstand conflict and communicate what they want. Her Edwards are loving and caring.
When The Keepsake arrived I rapidly clicked over excited to begin a new journey. As the story opens, we find Bella newly arrived and unpacking her boxes in her apartment at University. Her pal, Jake is there to lend a hand. While going through her books she discovers her well-worn copy of Wuthering Heights and pages fall to the floor.
But before I put it in the rubbish I shake it out gently over the floor.
"What are you doing?" Jake asks.
"I had a bookmark I really liked but I lost it ages ago. I'm just checking for it before I throw the book away."
Jake looks towards the shelves where the other books sit. "What's it look like?"
"A leather strip with Celtic patterns on it."
The book yields nothing except another couple of loose pages.
"Where's the last place you saw it?" He stands and walks to the shelves.
"Can't remember. It was before..." I stop for a second. "It was in junior year."
Bella settles into her routine of being a student and stops off at the campus library. As she is leaving one night she makes a most interesting discovery.
...my attention is drawn to the carpet and I stop.
My bookmark is lying on the floor.
I stare at it for a moment, knowing it can't really be mine. There are probably hundreds like it.
I bend and pick up the strip of tan leather with its Celtic patterns of black dye. Some of the black is missing from the border around the edges, just like mine. Bewildered and confused I look absently at my bag. Had it been in there all along, only to fall out now? I shake my head, no; I've only had this bag since Christmas. I decide the bookmark probably isn't mine. I turn it over and in the bottom corner see the tiny, faded single letter drawn in pen...B
...
I hurry to the desk and she processes my loan. I shove the book in my bag and head out the door. It's almost dark outside, the lights from the building blaze brightly and I stand under them, still staring at the bookmark as it lays across my palm, still trying to find a reason, an explanation...that elusive anything.
...
Suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. My skin pebbles in goosebumps and my body is alert. In the silence around me I hear the echo of footsteps and look up. I watch the figure come out of the gloom and as he comes down the path, before I can see his face clearly I know...it's in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. And the way he walks...
It's Edward Cullen.
After three years of being apart, Bella sees Edward again for the first time. She is completely dumbfounded to realize that he has no remembrance of her. It isn’t long after returning to her apartment that Bella receives some very unexpected visitors who carry some incredibly startling information.
Carlisle puts a careful, calming hand on my upper arm and I stop. His voice is gentle but firm when he speaks.
"Bella, Edward has gone to enormous trouble to block out something incredibly painful, and I believe he's done this purely to survive. So, he needs to remember in his own time, when his subconscious believes he's ready to handle it, and not before. Obviously I can't tell you what to do, but if you speak with Edward again I must stress that it would be better if you didn't tell him you have a shared past, or what has happened between you. It could do him a lot more harm than good."
…
Just as defeat and desolation begin to wash over me, a tiny spark of light comes through the gloom – a small beacon of hope.
"He came back for my bookmark," I say softly, sitting up straight and lifting my eyes to look at Carlisle, then Alice. "That must mean something, mustn't it?"
Carlisle smiles, surprise in his eyes, and Alice grins.
"In that case," Carlisle smiles wider, "I suggest you let nature take its course."
And so it begins, a new dance of discovery between Edward & Bella. But in The Keepsake, Bella is the one with the answers and the knowledge of what has been. She walks the fine line of engaging Edward at his pace and revealing herself to him as if they had never been together before. Edward finds himself being intrigued by Bella’s difference from the other students. As he reflects upon his actions we learn,
He had gone back to school and watched her from a distance, determined to discover that she was actually boring and dull and not the silver lining to his constant cloud cover. But he had discovered just the opposite. She was different. And she was special...to him. He realised that the first time he saw her stumble over a tree root and his hands shot out reflexively to catch her, even though he was on the other side of the campus lawn. And the realisation was compounded when he heard her laughing with some other students in the corridors of the history department. The sweet sound warmed him like nothing else, he'd found himself wanting to know what she found so funny.
But sometimes she looked sad, he thought. His vampire eyes would see expressions in her eyes and on her face that he didn't understand...but he wanted to understand, and that confused him as much as anything else.
I’m so excited to see Edward’s journey of re-discovery and how his actions will change with his new experiences behind him. How will his concern and curiosity about her emerge into love? What will their new experiences together bring them? Without a doubt, I’ll be devouring every word and golden moment that Windchymes gifts us with.
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