A/N: So this is my first ever Twilight fic. It's also the second songfic I've ever started to write, the first I've ever finished writing. So it's pretty special. The song is Yesterdays by Switchfoot. It's from their new album, Oh! Gravity, which hasn't been released yet (unless you're reading this after December 26, 2006) so I actually haven't heard the whole thing, but they put the lyrics on their site. And as soon as I saw them I had this idea and I had to write it. I did take one line out of the third verse because it didn't fit, but other than that I used the whole song.

Disclaimer: My name isn't Stephenie Meyer, so Twilight is very obviously not mine. I'm also not Jon Foreman, so the song Yesterdays doesn't belong to me.

Remembrance

Flowers cut and brought inside

Black cars in a single line

Your family in suits and ties

And you're free

Edward walked slowly, even in human terms, up the steps of the small church in Forks. He hardly saw the others around him: Charlie, face crumpled in misery, wearing an old, ill-fitting suit and too-wide tie. Renée, back in Forks for the very first time since she'd left Charlie, her eyes puffy from crying. Her husband, Phil, looking appropriately grave but obviously not sharing the same love that Charlie and Renée - that he, Edward - had had for her. For Bella.

The outfit Edward was wearing probably looked much too formal for this event. It was a tux. It was supposed to have been his wedding tux. He was supposed to have worn it three days ago. Today, he should have been dealing with the guilt of, in his mind, taking away Bella's soul. Today, he was supposed to be sitting by her side as she went through her last day of intense pain before she was fully a vampire.

But instead, he was at her funeral.

He tried to feel grateful that Bella's soul was still intact, that she was probably in Heaven right now, but he just couldn't. He was selfish, very selfish, and he knew it. Soul or no soul, she wasn't here with him.

The ache I feel inside

Is where the life has left your eyes

I'm alone for our last goodbye

But you're free

The open casket was inside the church. It wouldn't be long before it was taken to the graveyard, lowered into the ground forever. The room was empty now; all the humans had already been in and out, and the rest of Edward's family had said goodbye, leaving him to say his own farewell.

He approached the coffin, grimly thinking how ironic it was that Bella, the human, was in it instead of the vampire who, according to delusions that most people had, should be spending all his days in one. She was still now, her blood quiet, no longer calling out to him. For once he didn't have to worry about resisting the impulse to kill her. But she was still as beautiful to him as she had always been. It was a funny thing, beauty - Bella had always told him that she thought she was plain, maybe even ugly. The guys at school had been besotted with her when she had first arrived, and Mike had even hung on for a while, but none of them, Edward had been able to tell from their thoughts, had seen her as he had. And actually, he knew that if he had not loved her, he might not have thought her looks anything special. Love seemed to put a mask over everything, whether for good or for ill.

She was wearing the wedding dress that she had never gotten married in. Edward had requested that she be buried this way so that he could remember her forever as his bride. Charlie had never fully forgiven him for abandoning Bella, but had agreed to the arrangement knowing that whether he liked his no-longer-son-in-law-to-be or not, Edward had loved Bella and would be aching just as severely as he himself was.

He put his hand on hers. Her skin was as cold as his now, but everything about her was still has humanly delicate as it had always been. He bent his head and delicately brushed his lips over hers, wishing she would come alive like Juliet, but to find her Romeo standing over her instead of dead. Her face looked so peaceful that he might have been convinced she was happy, wherever she was - except that he remembered how it had looked when he had found her, before they had carefully composed her face into this - this lie. He remembered the terrified, tortured, pain-ridden expression on her face, the bloody gashes that covered her body. And he remembered that it was all his fault that this had happened to her. He could have saved her.

I remember you like yesterday, yesterday

I still can't believe you're gone, oh…

I remember you like yesterday, yesterday

As if it had happened yesterday, Edward could also recall the day only a few months ago when Bella had finally accepted his proposal, just days before graduation and the deadline for her choice between an immediate transformation by Carlisle or a wait for a transformation from him.

FLASHBACK

"Edward?" Bella asked. He had known she was still awake, but only because her heart rate had not sounded slow enough for sleep. They were lying on her bed, he having snuck in through her window after Charlie went to bed as usual. Silence had filled the room for quite a while, and he had been contemplating how things would be after Bella was changed. He would not be able to smell that lovely smell of her blood anymore, but he wouldn't have to fight the urge to kill her, either. And he wouldn't have to handle her like a porcelain doll anymore. She would also be harder to…persuade into doing what he wanted, which meant her ever present stubbornness would be even more prevalent, but he would have to worry about her less.

"Yes?" He tightened his arm just the slightest bit around her, drawing her feather-light body closer to his chest through the comforter. Despite the good changes that Bella's transformation would bring, he was going to miss this.

She lifted her head from where it rested against his chest, meeting his eyes with her lovely brown ones. She smiled mischievously and he couldn't help wishing yet again that he could hear her thoughts. But she was silent, just looking at him.

"I may have forever to wait for you to say something, but you don't," he reminded her jokingly.

Her smile widened slightly. "Yet."

He broke the eye contact between them, staring past her head. He still had no idea how he was going to come to grips with the fact that she was willingly going to give up her very soul just to be with him. There was no way that was right, and yet he was selfish enough to be thinking about good things that would come of it. He disgusted himself.

"You know what's something I want more than anything else in the world?" Bella asked. The new note that he heard in her voice told him she was, as usual, annoyed that he was 'moping,' as she called it.

"Apparently to be eternally damned to be with the eternally damned for eternity," he said, sounding more bitter than he'd meant to. Actually, he had half been speaking to himself.

"Ed-ward…" Bella moaned. "You're ruining my moment here."

"No, I'm ruining your soul," he groaned quietly, almost too quietly for human ears to pick up. Bella frowned, and he could imagine what was going on in her head even though he couldn't hear it. She was still unhappy that he was 'moping.' As usual. But he couldn't help it - it was all his fault that the girl he loved was going to lose her soul, wasn't that 'mope'-worthy?

She interrupted his thoughts with, "Fine, I won't tell you that I want to marry you."

His eyes widened a fraction of an inch as what she had said hit home. "You mean that?" he said out loud, as thoughts raced through his mind at a speed barely comprehensible even to him.

Bella nodded gravely, but a wide grin had already spread across his own face. There was an apprehension of new guilt to come, too, but for the present he buried it under his joy. He shot up from the bed, pulling her with him, twirling her lightly around the room. "Bella Swan, you are amazing!" he yelled, heedless of Charlie just across the hall. His elation rose even higher at the sparkle in her eyes, the smile on her face. He could hear her heartbeat speeding up. The somewhat muddled thoughts he was picking up from the other room told him that Charlie was getting a little too close to wakefulness, so he spontaneously ran to the window and leapt out as he had on the night Bella had decided to put her mortality to a vote. He landed easily on the grass, carrying her bridal-style in his arms as he ran into the woods. She was laughing all the way, even when he was running fast enough that everything would be a blur to her human eyes. He stopped suddenly when they were away from the house. He leaned toward her face.

"Charlie's going to kill me if he realizes I'm gone," Bella said, looking a bit dizzy. Though he wasn't sure if it was from the run or from the 'dazzling' effect that she had told him more than once he had on people.

"Too late," he whispered, and pressed his lips against hers. He felt her arms around his neck and the night faded into pure bliss…

END FLASHBACK

That night had been so wonderful. Neither of them could ever have imagined the horrible event that was to come. He had taken her back to Charlie's house, silently laid her on the bed. Charlie, fortunately, had remained asleep during their absence. And the next day, after school, Edward had asked permission from Charlie to marry Bella. Of course, Charlie had at first played the stereotypical role of an overprotective father perfectly, but had realized that Bella was going to move away in a matter of a couple of months anyway at which point he would not be able to control her actions. And he had wanted his daughter to be happy.

Adrift on your ocean floor

I feel weightless, numb, and sore

A part of you in me is torn

And you're free

Edward's nonexistent heart ached at the memories. He was lost, truly lost. He remembered a metaphorical situation he had once explained to Bella upon returning to her: "Before you, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars - points of light and reason. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was a brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen from the horizon, everything was black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no reason for anything." In this case, it was as if the stars were still present - but he couldn't make sense of the constellations they formed, the meaning they held as a whole. He was an empty shell. Though his heart had been still for years, he now felt as if it was gone altogether. A human's broken heart could be nothing compared to this, because if you had a broken heart the pieces were still there. They could be put back together, with time. But a missing heart could never be retrieved.

And everything was his fault.

FLASHBACK

"Please, Edward?" Bella begged, making her eyes big like those of a fawn.

He chuckled. "I can't believe you're asking me to leave you."

"It's just for a few hours. Haven't you ever heard it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding? It's almost midnight now and if you see me after that it will be the day of the wedding." She smiled and he wondered what her dress looked like. Alice had taken her shopping and both of them had refused to let him have even the smallest peek at it, Alice carefully filtering her thoughts to not include any images of the dress. No matter what, he knew she would be the most beautiful person - human, vampire, or otherwise - in the entire world. She could wear rags and it would still be true.

"Fine," he sighed, removing his arm from around her. "I suppose I'll give in since you insist. Give Alice a call as soon as you wake up. She'll want to help you get ready."

Bella rolled her eyes. "As if I'll really be able to sleep tonight. I haven't yet."

He smiled and pressed his lips to hers before slipping out her window as he had done so many other times. He headed back to his house, figuring that perhaps Emmett would be able to distract him as the eternity of time until he would see Bella again ticked by. Emmett was his best man, since most people in Forks thought they were brothers.

The house was relatively quiet when he arrived. Rosalie had taken Jasper hunting at Alice's suggestion. It was a preventive measure since he was going to be around so many humans the following day - or, actually, today now. Carlisle was working a late shift at the hospital and Esme was locked in a room working on a surprise that she would reveal to no one - she was being incredibly careful with her thoughts, even. Emmett and Alice were both upstairs, from what he could hear of their thoughts, and Alice was fairly buzzing with excitement. She was probably trying to contain herself, knowing she would soon become annoying to the rest of the family. She had been distracted for the last few days, not even bothering to check on the future at all because she was so busy with her anticipation.

He paced around the house at first, unsure of what to do with himself. About an hour later Emmett came down and wordlessly turned him towards one of the couches, applying a slight pressure to his shoulders to make him sit. He couldn't think clearly. Emmett sat across from him on another class, watching him fidget.

"Edward," Emmett finally said, breaking the silence, "you need to calm down. Believe me, the first time Rose and I got married - it's not good for you to be like this, okay? Find something to do with yourself. You're going to wear a hole through the floorboards."

He shook his head. "If there's any way we didn't know about to kill a vampire, Bella's found it," he said. "I can't stand this waiting." Then suddenly an idea struck him and he stood up quickly, moving to the piano bench. The piano was actually not the one that had been in the house the first time he had brought Bella there. He had smashed that one in his anger at the vote for her to lose her mortality. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then let his fingers flow across the keys almost of their own volition. First Bella's lullaby, then Esme's favorite song, and on until he had to think hard to bring to mind songs he had not yet played. The tactic worked - before he knew it, Alice was rushing out of the house in a whirlwind. He didn't bother trying to hear her thoughts. He knew she would be guarding them closely.

Only minutes later, his small cell phone rang. He answered it immediately.

"Edward…it's Alice," came Alice's voice, sounding choked. He immediately felt panic surge through his being.

"Yes?" he asked tentatively.

"You need to come to Bella's house. Now," she said. And this time he could definitely hear the sound of a tearless sob in her tone.

Under other circumstances, he might have questioned her as to what had happened. But not now. He hung up the phone without a word, slammed the door of the house on the way out, and was shortly running faster than he had ever run before. He reached her house faster than seemed possible.

The door to the house was open. Or more accurately, it was hanging off its hinges. All the windows along the front of the house were completely smashed. And everything was completely silent, much too silent. Dread filled him more than ever, dread that he couldn't push to the back of his mind. He entered the house to find Alice and Charlie seated in the living room. Alice had one arm around Charlie's shoulders, a look of utter shock and terror written across her face. Charlie's head was in his hands. And the thoughts of Bella's father blared out into his mind as if someone had been screaming them into a microphone.

She was dead. Bella was dead.

He stood there gaping, shocked, feeling unreal. This could not be happening. There was no way. Maybe he had been killed somehow, maybe he was in Hell and this was his torture. It was a heck of a lot worse than any stupid task of pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity. That had to be it. This was Hell.

Alice wordlessly stood, taking him by the arm and leading him up the stairs to Bella's room. He could tell she would be crying if that was a thing vampires could do.

The door to the room was off its hinges as the front door had been. Someone had propped it up against the frame. Alice moved it aside, seeing that he would not do anything for himself.

And there she was.

Lying on her back on the floor, covered in cuts, gashes, blood. Cold blood that no longer called to him in the least, only numbed all his senses even more. He stared, unwilling to keep looking, unable to turn away, for the longest time. Then he turned to face Alice, framing the question without words.

"Victoria," she whispered. "She got here before me. I pulled her off - she ran away - I tried so hard…but it was too late, Edward. I couldn't save her. She was already gone. I - I - you don't know how sorry I am. It's all my fault." The pitch of her voice rose hysterically at the end of the sentence, and her thoughts ran wild through both their heads.

Numbness, numbness was all that existed for him. He couldn't speak, couldn't tell her that it wasn't her fault, that it was his for leaving Bella alone. He should have stayed with her. He should have - this was because of him. He made up his mind then and there. No asking the Volturi to kill him this time, that would add more torturous hours to this agony. He would simply get on the next plane to Italy and show himself in Volterra the moment he got there, no stopping to think what would make the maximum impact. He knew she was really dead this time, and all he wanted was the same for himself - or whatever 'death' brought to his kind.

He sensed that Alice saw his decision, and her hand tightened on his arm. "No, Edward," she whispered. "You can't do that. You have to stay here. For me. For Carlisle. For everyone. It's what she would want," she said, gesturing at Bella. "And…I know you believe she would have lost her soul if she was changed. She's free now, Edward."

He nodded dazedly, not even sure at first what he was agreeing to. Bella was free.

END FLASHBACK

I woke from a dream last night

I dreamt that you were by my side

Reminding me I still had life

In me

Alice had somehow managed to convince him, through all the pain, to wait one day before running off to Italy. He still wasn't sure how she had done it. And, as he stood with his hand on Bella's, part of him still wished she hadn't succeeded so that he wouldn't have to be standing here now.

That night, sitting alone in the utter silence of his room, some sort of vision had come to him - probably somewhat like a human dream, except that of course he hadn't been sleeping. It had started as a flashback - the morning after Bella had put her mortality to a vote.

"You know you don't really believe that."

"Oh, don't I?"

"No, you don't."

He glowered at her and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

"If you really believed that you'd lost your soul, then when I found you in Volterra, you would have realized immediately what was happening, instead of thinking we were both dead together. But you didn't - you said, 'Amazing, Carlisle was right,'" she reminded him.

But that was where the memory had ended. From there he had found that he could decide what he wanted to say or do, rather than having to follow the course of events already past.

Something stirred within him. Perhaps she was right. This obviously wasn't real, unless he had been right earlier in his theory about being in Hell, in which case this was probably just some sort of torture devised for him. Vampires existed - maybe ghosts, spirits did too. Maybe, just maybe, he still had a soul. And if that was the case…Alice was wrong, the right thing to do was end this. If he had a soul, he might go to Heaven and Bella. Otherwise, he couldn't think of anything worse than this miserable existence without his love.

As if reading his thoughts, Bella's spirit - which now appeared to be somewhat translucent - shook her head sadly and said, "No, Edward. It's not your lot in life to be able to choose that. Fate will always intervene somehow - you know it will, in your heart."

"I have no heart," he said quietly. "Even the unbeating one is gone since you were taken from me."

She approached him where he sat on his black leather sofa, reaching out an almost insubstantial hand to caress his face. Then, somehow, it was as if she entered his body, infusing him with something that made his emptiness recede just the slightest bit. The last words he heard her speak held an echo of his own, the words he had written so long ago: "Be safe."

I'll carry on

He had come out of his trance-like state slowly. The emptiness that Bella's spirit had filled in the vision was back, but there was also a new conviction in his mind: that he must, no matter how much it hurt and how much he wished not to do so, stay alive.

And so he had, for two days that seemed like eternities each in their own, to be standing here before the casket.

Every lament is a love song

Yesterday, yesterday

I still can't believe you're gone

So long my friend, so long

For the first time since Bella's death, he let out the tearless sobs that clawed their way out of his throat. He had lived before he had met her, and he still would - but at the present time, he still didn't know how. How one day could be one of the happiest of his life - and the next, the darkest despair ever contrived.

The hand that was not on Bella's tightened into a fist, so forcefully that if he had been a human he would have drawn blood. The sobs turned to a low growl, a wild beast's snarl - and with that, he bent for one last loving kiss, memorizing every feature of Bella's face, and turned sharply to stride out of the church.

Victoria would pay.

A/N: Well, how was it? Please review. Pretty please? I like constructive criticism just as much as anything else. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, hope you enjoyed it.