Dark Side of the Moon by: blondie aka Robin

Official Description:

New Moon from Edward’s POV. Witness how Edward agonized over leaving Bella, hunted for Victoria, faced the Volturi, and came to realize that with Bella was where he was meant to be.

Word Count: 187,539

As I struggled to find the best way to end my existence, my mind filled with new words.

Be merciful to me O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction and my bones grow weak…For I hear the slander of many; there is terror on every side; they conspire against me and plot to take my life.

A verse from Psalms…the last thing I would expect to be in the center of my thoughts, and yet the words were completely appropriate. Carlisle would be proud. I repeated the words, wondering how God would respond to a prayer offered by a vampire.

In answer to my question, Bella’s image reappeared in my mind in a burst of bright light. I closed my eyes and clung to her. She was in our meadow, her face glowing, her hair flecked with red.

“My kind of day,” she said, smiling. “It’s so light…so open.” Of course, her heaven would be full of sunshine. She’d always been my light, my sun.

Then the pain returned, searing my skin and scorching my lungs. The murmurs of thoughts around me faded away as I struggled for a breath through the agony. I deserved nothing less.

“I miss you so much,” I choked. “I’m so sorry…if I’d known…”

Dark Side of the Moon is blondie AKA robin’s saga chasing Edward’s heels as he navigates the utter emotional destitution of Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon.

Appropriately, as hinted at by the title, your way through this fic won’t be illuminated by the moon’s waxy glow; rather you’ll be clinging to the shadows with a vampire whose pining for his human mate cannot be overcome.

You will be walking side-by-side to the gallows, and you will feel every moment of it.

And, *gulp* it’s T-rated (I know! Right? I don’t read them either…but how can you not when canon Edward is served up with so much angst, a dose of immortal sensuality, a helping of droll humor, all stirred up with bitterness and horror?).

With gift and flair, blondie starts us out with a little glimpse of Jealousward (you know you love him as much as I do, and even better when he’s in character) sliced through with a sharpness of wit and some Emmett jollity:

While Mike was waiting for Emmett’s credit card to clear, his thoughts drifted in another direction. “What happened to your old bat?” he asked.

Here’s why you love me, Edward, Emmett thought. “Well… you know my brother, Edward, right?” He picked up a baseball from the stack by the counter. “Hey, I’ll get this too.”
Mike cringed at the sound of my name, and I smiled, knowing where Emmett was going. “Yeah, we’ve met. He dated Bella for a while I think.” I hope he had as much luck as I did with Jessica. Maybe Bella is free tonight.

I slammed my hand through the side of the AC unit next to me, leaving a fist-sized hole in the thick steel.

“Yes, he’s nuts about her.” Emphasis on NUTS! “Well, we were playing ball last week and I commented that Bella was kind of,” he lowered his voice, “clumsy. He didn’t like me talking about her like that, and proceeded to wrap my aluminum bat around a tree.” He paused, giving Mike a chance to imagine me so angry that I could bend a metal bat. “He’s a lot stronger than he looks,” Emmett added.

Of course we all know Edward unravels during the birthday party, but you’ve never seen it through his mind, and let me tell you….that entire passage is wickedly terrifying!

When Edward leaves, you remain with him; saturated in his bleak despair that his relationship with Bella is beyond supernatural repair…that anything could happen to her, harm could befall her at any moment, and all blame would be his.

His guilt is simply unrivaled.

His bereft wandering completely the reader’s undoing.

As Edward searches for Victoria, this witch-hunt the one thing that keeps him from going completely ‘round-the-bend, we’re introduced to more of blondie’s genius: various settings and splashes of Victoria’s victims, other characters who feel as real as the stony-hearted, hard-headed vampire. The full flood of his anguish flogs us at every turn and misstep and it’s coupled with new ire and disgust at himself that he can’t even do this one thing right; find Victoria and end her existence.

So many times I cried while reading Dark Side of the Moon! I’d be going happily along (because, I’m a bit of a sick puppy and a little bit of angst makes me happy, apparently) and then, BAM, a phone call to Esme and Carlisle, a sad chat with Alice, a memory of Bella, and the floodgates open.

At the same time, I was so involved, I really wanted to slap Edward around a bit because, hell, he was walking around in the equivalent of a medically-induced coma—an affliction he’s willingly suffering because he thinks it’s better for Bella. And damn sure you will experience it all first hand.

Through it all, Edward hears Bella, just as she pleaded and risked her life to hear him in New Moon. He talks to her, sees her, feels her remonstrance and her love and always her concern for him…and hell if that isn’t just completely heartbreaking.

And he wants so much to be worthy, to be with her:

If only I could just catch a glimpse of her today, see her healthy blush…but no. A year was nothing to me, the monster who’d lived for more than a century. Why did it seem like every second seemed slower than the last?

Surely I was strong enough to last for that trivial amount of time. Besides, Victoria was still waiting for me. Time would pass faster with her distraction.

The thought of seeing Bella erased the emptiness, even eased the pain, but imagining her telling me to go, to leave her, brought to life a new agony. I tried to find a time when she’d said those words, even in fun, but I couldn’t find a single instance where she’d told me to go; even though there’d been so many opportunities to do so.

The opposing statement filled me. “I’ll always want you,” she said in earnest.

At the midpoint, Edward comes to realize there’s no cure for what he feels—Victoria continues to outwit him and even the little escape of the hunt fails him. His standstill and recognition is gut-wrenching:

When the sun rose again, I blinked the dust out of my eyes. After a week spent as a statue – catatonic would be the human term – I finally woke. I hadn’t been able to leave then, but I’d overcome that hurdle, barely.

Every day was an anniversary now, today marked the beginning of how I’d tried to coexist with Bella. Live next to her, but apart from her. Had I really thought that difficult? What I wouldn’t give to endure that ‘hell’ again. Her only words that day echoed through my head…

Tut-tut, you’ll have to read DSotM to find out what her words were.

It’s apparent I could regurgitate this entirely painful, hurtful, yet hopeful fiction for you!

Instead I’ll try to limit myself and just mention a few more things.

The twists and turns of the catacomb-like passages blondie paints when Edward gets to Italy are both horrifying and intriguing with her new play on the Volturi. Their escape is a thing foretold, of course, but never more brilliantly than under blondie’s pen!

So we’re left with the lover’s reunited…but are they?

The expected explosion of love, and touch, and need and caresses are withheld on both sides as, equally, Bella and Edward navigate almost silently, certainly timidly, through what the other is thinking—and that’s one more nail-biting, gripping moment.

Every new touch is to Awaken, every novel, longed-for look is Epiphany, each speechless moment another reason to question: was our love real?, have you moved on?, will you ever forgive me?, do you know how I would lay down my life for you, for one more day to bask by your side?

What can I say?

Dark Side of the Moon is simply everything to me with the way it resuscitates New Moon and shows me the side of Edward I always wanted to read.

I came to the Twilight fandom by way of Midnight Sun on Stephenie Meyer’s website. More or less. Reading Canon Edward’s voice is a real experience – one that has never lost its appeal. When I first started reading fic, blondie’s Dark Side of the Moon was one of my earliest obsessions and I still consider it “the industry standard” in Edward’s POV.

This is just one fine example of blondie’s expertise with this voice:

“Will you stay tonight?” she asked timidly. Her simple request sapped what little strength I had.

I remained frozen, looking away. No, I won’t I tried to say, but my heart betrayed me. “I should go home.” And never come back. It’s what is right.

“For my birthday,” she begged, and I knew I’d lost. With only a few words she destroyed my plan, pulling me, and the danger I posed, closer when she should be pushing me away. But it was clear that I couldn’t leave her… not yet. Part of me rejoiced, yearning to reach out to her and hold her close. The other part of me was shamed. In time I would protect her, this I swore.

Edward at almost his most tortured, you know?

Dark Side of the Moon is utterly canon in that it does not deviate from New Moon at all in terms of events or their outcomes. With Edward’s perspective, though, the story is more full and textured, since he not only has his own experience to draw from, but also all the thoughts of those around him. In New Moon, the only point of view we have is Bella’s, blank pages and all.

For Edward, there are never any blank pages. He doesn’t have that luxury. First, he pursues Victoria, trying to do something to keep Bella safe. With chapter titles like “Adeste Fidelis” and “Año Nuevo,” the reader can see how time is passing for Edward, while Bella is languishing in a depressed fog. Poignant memories are brought forth, sarcastic texts from Alice received, combining to torment Edward as he isolates himself for unknown periods of time.

The draw of this Classic Fic is that Edward – the reason so many Twilight fans came to the fandom and the reason so many stay and read so much fic – is so very much the Edward we came to know in the Saga. Blondie does an amazing job with his voice. Nothing is lacking, ever. In fact, we are treated to rich remorse. Which the majority of Twilight fans I have communicated with over the years think is sorely needed at the end of New Moon.

I hadn’t erased my existence – I’d erased hers.

And we, the readers, can nod, feeling satisfied that he finally comprehended the enormity of what he had done to her. To me, this is the essence of a classic work of fan fiction. All of us can relate to it, we can all see Edward Cullen at his best – and worst – and the original Saga is only made better by reading this story.

If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend you read Dark Side of the Moon. Watch Edward squirm…and watch him return and vow to stay with Bella forever.

No matter what our future held: war, peace, immortality, matrimony, or even death; only one thing mattered.

We’d face it together.