The statuesque beauty, supernatural beauty, that stood in the doorway remained frozen in place and Roman wondered if it was possible for vampires to go into shock.

Completely human, she knew quite well that she was stunned by the appearance of the Cullen girl and now faced with what was supposed to be one of the good vampires, she wasn't quite sure what to say or how to act.

Was it proper to let her know what she knew before keeping up a stilted, awkward conversation, or was she not meant to mention it at all?

Did she have to explain why she was tucked into a ball in Bella's bed crying?

She didn't know what she was supposed to say.

"Roman Elders?" Her voice is still shocking, hitting through her like an arrow. "What are you doing here?"

The reminder sends a fresh wave of sadness through her and she struggles to fight back the tears that burn her eyes and blur her vision. Her sob rips from her chest and she crumbles forward onto herself, throat raw with the force of her pain.

A cold hand presses to her back, hesitant, and she fights back a shiver at the drastic change in temperature from the wolves.

"Are you alright?" Alice asks kindly.

She nods slowly, brushing away her tears as best she could, refusing to fall into such a pitiful state. "I am. I'm fine, thank you."

Blinking heavily, she peeks through wet flashes at the vampire that she doesn't really know, wishing that she had thought to ask Bella more about the family instead of letting her speak about them at her leisure.

Alice is looking at her with the same uncertainty, a look of something distant and confused in her dark, dark eyes -- dark eyes that most definitely weren't normal or what she was used to. They weren't the beautiful, alluring golden yellow.

Why weren't they yellow?

"What happened?" Alice asks cautiously.

Grief bites at her bitterly as she tries to form a coherent thought. "I-I didn't know what I wa-" she breathes shakily,  clenching her jaw-- "it's all my fault. It's all my fault. I knew something terrible was going to happen, I felt it, but I didn't say!"

Her chest burns, shoulders jerking with violent sobs. "There's nothing I can do against a vampire. I'm just human. Stupid, stupid human."

Lungs screaming, she gasps for air, arms wrapping tightly, painfully around her chest as she tried to squeeze herself together. How stupid was she to think that she could ever keep up with any of this? So fragile and weak, so stupid, she was crumbling under the weight of guilt that built up overwhelmingly, bearing down on her spirit as it threatens to rip away all sense of happiness.

God, she was spiralling.

"What vampire?" she demands, not rough but soft, gentle.

Roman shivers. "They call her Victoria and--"

Alice grabs her by her shoulders, moving her so that she was forced to look directly into her eyes. "Victoria? Are you sure?"

"Bella was sure," she snips.

"What?" she hissed, dropping her hold on Roman before she up and leaves the room, turning down the stairs faster than anything she had ever seen, a flash of movement that leaves her head spinning.

She hears the truck engine roaring within the silence of the house and she scrambles from the bed, bare feet slapping on wood flooring.

Stopping at the bottom steps, she holds tight to the banister, shivering. She waited with bated breath, watching as Alice hovered by the front door hidden in the shadows.

It opens slowly and she wonders why Bella was taking her time to enter her own house as if she was expecting something horrible to come at her, and then she realizes that Jacob must have driven her back because the boy was taking her protection as an excuse to spend ungodly amounts of time her. The wolf in him must have alerted the boy to the vampire or however that thing worked.

Her horror returned once she remembers how alone she had been. Victoria could have come back at any time. No one would have even known what happened to her.

Her legs give out and she slips down to the steps, falling to lean against the balusters as her breathing became quicker. 

"Alice, oh, Alice!" There's a flash of brown hair as it launches itself at her, crashing into Alice with trembling gasps.

"Bella?" she asks and the name is filled with awe and confusion.

The gasps turn heavy, pants changing to heaving sobs that stuck her to the stairs, freezing her in place. She tried to catch hold of her own breathing, control her emotions before she let herself fall apart all over again. She didn't need anymore tears, didn't need to keep crying -- it wasn't good for a person to be so sad, so upset.

"I'm... sorry," Bella blubbered. "I'm just... so happy... to see you!"

It felt like she was invading a private moment, peeking in on a heartfelt moment, and she forced herself up, creeping back to Bella's room as quietly as she could.

She had never considered what would happen if the Cullen's had ever come back, how she would react, how Bella would.

Making plans and thinking things through with rose-tinted glasses was great until you were forced to face real life. They could love him as much as they wanted, love each other with just as much emotion, but he would accept such a change.

No one wanted to have polyamorous relationships, no one wanted to admit they were part of one. It was bad enough that most people in Forks would turn the other way if they knew how close she and Bella really were.

Such dreams and thoughts were pointless, ridiculous.

She couldn't make Bella chose, not when she knew how it would turn out.

Roman stills in the doorway, holding tight for support. Should she go home? LaPush? There had to be somewhere that she was wanted, that she was needed. She considers it as she drops back to the bed and pulls on a pair of socks. She could go to work and fill out all of that paperwork Marnie was likely drowning in.

Legal documents and insurance forms. She could do that, could write with mindnumbing accuracy that would leave her occupied for hours if she let it.

There was stomping on the stairs, heavy steps that hammered each loud sound in her heart, echoing it in her pounding head.

Warmth collides with her back, knocking her onto the bed as a weight settles over her, arms uncomfortably pressed to her stomach underneath her. Bella's face was pressed to the small space between her shoulder blades as her arms squeezed hard enough to push the air from her lungs.

"Roman! I'm so sorry! I'm sorry! I don't know what to say!" the words are breathed into her, each sending heat shooting down her spine. "Jacob told me about what happened to Harry..."

Guilt climbs up her throat. "Jacob was the one that saved me and I... I couldn't even..."

Tears sting her eyes, clouding her vision, and she drops her head forward, dropping into the covers as she grips them in tight fists.

"It was a heart attack, Roman, you couldn't have done anything to help him."

"She- she was so strong and I..." she chokes on the words, a sob fighting free.

The weight leaves as she shifts, falling to the side to tuck herself in close, coaxing her out from her bubble of grief. It was slow as she struggled to pull herself together. She didn't want to be something tragic and pathetic but she felt it couldn't be helped.

She rolled to her side, facing Bella and her bloodshot earth-toned eyes. Her nose was pink, forehead covered with a sheen of cold sweat. Mourning sadness was chased away with striking worry.

She didn't look as though she had a calm, safe day on the reservation. She looked cold and wet, sick and smelling of beach water. Her hair was dried to her face, sand still covered her clothes and hairline.

Roman knew that she had wanted to go cliff diving but it was still technically winter and she had pleaded with her to wait for the heat to return at least a little bit or until Jacob and the rest of the pack were willing to take her.

The weather was terrible today, the storm that came tearing in out of nowhere was a testament to that, and there was no doubt in her mind that the waters were lashing against the rocky face to prove that.

"There was nothing you could have done to stop her, Roman," Bella breathes. "You can't blame yourself for being human. We're humans together, remember?"

Not trusting her voice, she nods and pulls her closer. She didn't mind the wet smell.

"Our leaving didn't do you any good at all, did it?" Alice asks and she flinches at her sudden quiet arrival, and then again at the insinuation because Roman thought she had done her girlfriend some good since they had left.

Bella laughs almost hysterically. "That was never the point though, was it? It's not like you left for my benefit," she says and it would have been snappish had she been speaking to anyone else. "Besides, you leaving gave Roman the courage to come to me. It's probably the only thing I'll thank you for."

Alice scowled at the floor for a moment. "Well... I guess I acted impulsively today. I probably shouldn't have intruded."

She twitched, jerking upward with a hand wrapped around her arm in a bruising grip like she was scared she was going to disappear from beside her. "Don't go, Alice. You can't go yet, please, you can't. I- please, don't leave me!"

Eyes opening wider, the vampire came closer into the room sitting on the edge of the bed, closer to Bella. "Alright, okay. I won't leave tonight. Take a breath."

It was so confusing, the way she wasn't sure if she was wanted or if they needed the time alone. She didn't know her place here or how to act around Alice -- she never did because Alice was something untouchable, all the Cullen's were, and she could never find the courage to go near them. She'd get tongue-tied and the words would come out jumbled and senseless, foolish, and her legs would seize, sides cramping.

Just the sight of Edward, passing in the halls or standing with his family out in the parking lot, sent her heart pitter-pattering.

And then Bella had come, easing herself into their inner group, and Roman had just about exploded with love that she would rather hide away doing homework or sitting off out of sight so that she might watch and dream from afar.

But she was involved now and as certain that she had been that everything would be alright and that Edward would come back for her, she had never considered what that would mean for her when it actually happened.

It was going to be so hard to go back to being friends.

"You look like hell, Bella."

She chuckles. "I drowned today."

"After I asked you not to go alone," Roman mutters bitterly. 

"I didn't think how dangerous it would be." 

"That's really not the point."

Bella frowns, ducking her gaze, and Roman lets it drop, for now, not wanting to make the situation more uncomfortable than it already was. Their business wasn't really anyone else's business. 

"No, it's deeper than that. You're a mess." 

She really should leave, she knows, this isn't something she should be around for, but she can't make herself get up to do it. 

Her entire being screamed that she needed to stay right there despite everything because as much as she didn't know how to act around Alice, she was her only link to Edward... 

And she really hoped that these wouldn't be the last moments she spent with Bella like this. 

"Yeah, well, I've been trying, alright? Did you expect to find me skipping and whistling show tunes? You know me better than that," Bella snaps reflexively and Roman places a soothing hand on her back. 

"I do, but I hoped." 

"I guess I don't have the corner on idiocy, then," she shoots with a roll of her eyes. "You caught me on a bad day, anyways. I've been a lot better lately. You can ask Roman." 

The phone rang. 

"That has to be Charlie," Bella says, staggering from the bed. She pauses, glancing at the pair of them with wide, nervous eyes. She grabs Alice by the wrist before tuning to Roman expectantly. "You won't go anywhere, right?" 

Her mouth goes dry and she swallows thickly. "I really should give you guys some space." 

Bella scowls. "I'm not about to let my girlfriend go back to her empty house to grieve when Victoria is still out there. Alice won't mind." 

The two head downstairs and she waits, taking a few deep breaths to calm her thoughts. 

This wasn't a good idea. There was too much going on and she had to find a way to speak to her about the cliff diving and what happened in the woods and oh-- what were they going to do now because Bella didn't seem to want to let her go if she was willing to tell Alice Cullen about their very new relationship. 

"Please, stay, Roman," Bella pleads, looking back over her shoulder in that mesmerizing way that she does. "Don't leave me." 

And of course, she'll stay. Roman has nothing else without her, would be nothing without her. 

And honestly, Roman wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

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Hello!!! so things are obviously changing for our dearest Roman now that the vamps are starting to make an appearance. also,,,, we all know what comes next !!! 

unedited 

2019-11-03