I Know A Lot Of Folks Take Issue With Bella Taking Edward Back And Forgiving Him Right Away In New Moon

I know a lot of folks take issue with Bella taking Edward back and forgiving him right away in New Moon without any groveling on his part but I do think it was in-character for her, and that's what's important to me.

That doesn't mean the process of them getting back together could have been more complicated. As it is, it feels like canon more or less washes its hands of the events of New Moon like "whew glad that's over". Edward and Bella don't really grow from it as individuals or a couple; it's just a dark period that they try not to talk about because it makes Edward feel guilty. The greatest lasting change from New Moon is Edward magically overcoming his bloodlust for Bella, and I don't care for that.

One aspect of New Moon that was particularly interesting and was dropped like a hot potato was Bella hallucinating Edward. I'm far from the first person to talk about it but it was delicious, ok

So make Bella reckon with the fact that she saw and heard things that weren't really there, and (indirectly) pushed her to do things she normally wouldn't, and these hallucinations were the catalyst for her getting Edward back. She did worry in New Moon that she would wake up and it would have all been a dream, iirc.

(cutting here because this is getting to be longer than is polite to put on dashboards)

The whole way home from Italy, Bella's bracing herself for Edward to leave again. I don't have a copy handy but I think I remember her entertaining the idea that he's accompanying her home more out of guilt than a desire to be with her? This is all despite Edward behaving in a way that's clear to the readers that he's happy to be reunited with Bella. So there's some established dissonance.

Why not push that dissonance a little harder? Why not pair it with her increasingly estranged grasp on reality? (remember, her last hallucinations of Edward on Cliff Day were the clearest yet)

She was actually pretty fortunate that she was aware she was hallucinating. Maybe that luck runs out-- or at least she thinks it has. Have her question the reality of her situation more and more; Edward being back, still loving her (having always loved her), not being dangerous to her is all awfully convenient, isn't it? She starts to think so. It's always been a little unbelievable to her that he would choose her.

It would be wonderfully ironic if Edward coming back is what finally pushed her from "hmm yeah I'm seeing things that aren't really there, that's interesting" to "am I seeing things that aren't there? have I always?"

Her trust in what the real Edward says can't be restored by her simply choosing to trust him again, and if she can't trust Edward and she can't trust herself, her confidence in what's real or not gets worse and worse, too. Does Edward really still love her, or is he just placating her despite wanting to leave again, or is she having hallucinations when he's saying he loves her? -> Is Edward really back at all, or was Alice coming back and the whole trip to Italy all in her head, just a dream? -> Was Edward ever real/are vampires real?

...Okay maybe the questioning doesn't go that far, but you get where I'm going with this: consciously, Bella loves and forgives Edward. But she can't just decide to start trusting him again, no matter how much she wants to. And since her relationship with him is so all-consuming (this is a feature of Twilight not a bug btw) and losing him broke her, how does that affect her ability to accept that everything's back to normal?

What I'm getting at is it would be perfectly logical for Bella to shield herself from potentially going through the heartbreak again by not letting herself think she has him to lose again.

I know the "was any of it real?" plot is a bit basic and trite but I think it's made more interesting by Edward having tried to make it "it'd be "as if [he] never existed", after all. Is the memory of him saying that a hint from her subconscious? His own words continue to bite him in the ass by hurting Bella and his ability to make her feel truly secure and loved... which is his life's purpose, at this point.

He's in agony when he says "I love you" and she looks at him with big sad eyes and a wistful smile and says "I loved him, too". She's trying to act as if the Edward in front of her is real because Charlie said hello to him that morning, but at this point she thinks she's cracked so bad that she only imagined Charlie acknowledging him. As far as she's concerned, she's not dating a vampire anymore; she's entertaining a phantom. She tries to keep the phantom happy by acting as if he's real, because she can't bear to make any version of Edward sad, but she slips sometimes. This means whatever Edward says/does to convince Bella that he is back and real and in love with her, he can never be 100% sure that she believes him like she says she does.

I think this plotline could have a bittersweet ending with Bella more or less giving up on the idea of reality itself, because what's in front of her feels real enough, and if she can't fix it anyway she might as well make the most of it and enjoy "Edward".

Anyway shoutout to @edwardskhakipants who played with a similar idea in this fic, in a way that's pretty novel (spoilers): Bella is still hallucinating and she knows it, but the hallucinations are no longer the protector they were in New Moon. They (literally) give a voice to her worst fears and push her over the edge. The idea is devious and horrible and g o r g e o u s. Khaki is so, so good at stressing me the fuck out