Thea

It doesn’t break her. Not at first. But it chips away at her. She starts muttering to herself/the “hallucination” under her breath— “I’m not even doing anything stupid”, “okay, fine, I get it, I’m not okay”, “I don’t want this anymore, can’t you see this is worse?”, “he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, you know he’s gone”. She almost snaps at him a few times to leave her the hell alone, but she can never gets the words out.

Most of the time her utterances confuse Edward. Others he could swear she was talking to him, but that’s impossible. He’s a vampire, he is stealth, there’s no way she knows he’s there.

Then she starts backsliding. She can’t focus on anything— her eyes are always scanning the tree line. She doesn’t sleep because she’s up all night watching the window sill, waiting to see his face peering in when thunder lights the world for a moment. She’s jumpy. She’s twitchy. Manic. It worries Edward of course but there’s no physical threat for him to thwart, and he can’t go to her to comfort her, so he watches

When he first left, she was overtaken by a nothingness. This is different; now she’s restless, she feels like she would squirm out of her own skin if she could. Jacob half-jokingly asks her how she managed to find a drug dealer in sleepy little Forks.

Only when she’s on the figurative cliff edge of her sanity, does she realize it’s really him. She’s about to give in and let herself fantasize that it’s really him, and the mere thought makes everything click into place, and she really believes. From there it takes her no time at all to figure him out.

She tries talking to him at first. She knows he won’t let her get close, and that he can hear her. Even if she believes he doesn’t love her, she knows him well enough to know guilt and the need to protect are big motivators for him.

She can only bear to ask (plead) him to come to her for so long before she feels pathetic beyond belief. So she talks to him as she goes about her days. Tells him what she’s been up to (“not much, but enough to keep Charlie from worrying too much.”). Scolds him for the scholarship thing (“tell Esme I’m sorry about the window.”). Asks him questions she knows he won’t answer, because she is interested in what he’s been up to (“guess you’re not distracted as easily as you thought, huh? Lucky me”). She even gives him some tough love. Starts telling him about mess he left behind— Victoria, the wolves, Laurent. “I’ll give you all the intel I have if you just come into my stupid house. Wouldn’t my protection be more efficient as a joint venture?”

Time goes by. No progress is made. Edward maintains the same distance, makes no indication that he’ll give up on protecting from a distance. What’s the definition of insanity Time for a change of strategy.

Putting herself in danger summoned hallucination!Edward; why not real Edward? Isn’t that why he’s back? (God, she hopes she’s right about that). She dusts off the motorcycle— catches him glaring at her running alongside her in the trees at 70mph— but keeps his distance.

She gets bolder. Goes to Port Angeles at night, quite literally looking for trouble. When no dregs of society have the courtesy to threaten her life, she whispers a quick "heads up" before she steps in front of of moving tractor-trailer. She smiles when she hears the distinct sound of snarling as she's pulled out of the way.

He's gone again before she can get a look at him. She wonders if this is how Psyche felt, even a little bit, falling for Cupid in the dark.

Well, it worked. Kind of. She needs a way to draw him out from which he can't simply disappear after.

She remembers the boys cliff-diving in La Push.

In this universe, she's not facing the ocean when she stands on the edge. Back to the water, she watches the tree line, same as she has for weeks (weeks that felt like years). She smiles at the flash of white, before frowning at the realization that she goaded him into breaking the treaty.