All'Improvviso Amore belongs to Josh Groban. Since his song inspired this, I'm using it as my title. Josh, if you read this, please don't sue me, I really do love you! And if you haven't heard the song, go download it off iTunes! It's beautiful!!!
I own nothing. Takes place during New Moon, not the usual plotline.
--
I suppose, looking back, I should have figured it out. I mean, all the evidence was there, I just never tried to put it together. But, honestly, can you blame me? I still can hardly bring myself to believe it all really happened. I look up at the being towering over me, blue eyes brilliant, furious, saddened, playful – too many things beyond words. I gasp, but find myself unable to move beyond blinking dumbly as he kneels before me.
A hand, bigger than my torso, extends to me, and as he begins to speak, I ask myself how I got into this mess.
--
(Two Months Prior)
"You've got to be kidding me!" she shouted, frustration cracking her voice.
The only response was the moan of a dead engine. She tried turning the key – once, twice, three times – only to be met with consistent failure.
Her truck was dead.
And, as if that weren't perfect enough, with the number of 'I told you so's she would get from her boyfriend and his family, the weather outside was bordering on a white out, a full on blizzard ravaging the small town of Forks.
She groaned, dropping her head onto the steering wheel as she recalled that her car was the second thing to die that day, her cell phone being the first.
Sighing heavily, she considered where the nearest shelter was, grabbed her school bag from her back seat, left a hastily scrawled note on the driver's seat, and exited the car, determined to make it to her boyfriend's house before she died of frostbite.
--
Edward was anxious.
Hell, if that wasn't an understatement, nothing was. He paced the floor with such focus one might have thought he was meditating, when, in reality, he was considering everything that could have caused Bella to be late. A call to her house had revealed that her cell phone had died earlier, so he had no way to communicate.
Huffing for the thirteenth time, he turned to make his ninety-seventh circuit of the room, noting angrily that it looked exactly the same as it had on the first.
"Edward!"
The call came from upstairs, and his eyes snapped up to see Alice racing toward him, a dead Bella, frozen on the road, being the first thing on her mind.
She had barely opened her mouth when Edward was out the door, racing along the ivory road, praying to a deity he had forgotten for the life of one he never could.
--
Bella shivered, teeth chattering as she tried futilely to keep herself warm. She wrapped her arms farther around her torso, noting with a vague sense of hysteria that she couldn't feel her arms, her fingers long since having given up the battle to stay awake.
Her eyes felt too heavy, and a part of her was reminded of a lecture about hypothermia in Health 1, and how it would cause a person to fall asleep before they froze to death. A part of her mind, which, at the moment, she was fairly sure was insane, noted with no small amount of interest and calmness that it was a fairly odd sensation, and that her skin was finally paler than anyone she knew.
Another part of her mind was busy hyperventilating, curled up in a ball in a tiny, locked room, chanting over and over, 'We're gonna die, we're gonna die.'
All Bella wanted was for them all to shut up and let her sleep.
And Edward. Bella wanted Edward more than anything else. He would make it all better, racing to his warm house, making tea, and exasperatedly asking how she managed to kill her car and phone in the same day.
But really, when sleep was so easily achieved, it seemed silly to not take a quick nap. When she woke up, she could always continue on her way, no problems.
That thought in mind, she lay down at the side of the street and closed her eyes, happily falling unconscious.
--
Edward strained his ears, trying desperately to find Bella's heartbeat. It terrified him to consider that it may already have stopped. His eyes locked onto her truck and for the briefest of moments he dared to hope she had waited for him there, out of the raging wind and snow.
Tearing open the driver's side door only proved to frustrate him further as he discovered a noted in her handwriting that read:
"To whom it may concern,
Going to the Cullens'. Feel free to take truck. It's broken, anyway.
~Bella Swan"
Swearing violently, he turned to run back at a human speed to search for Bella, hoping against hope that he had somehow he had raced past her as she walked and she would be waiting for him, sleeping happily on the couch, when he got back.
Ten minutes later he stalled.
A beating, faint and growing slower, resonated in his ears.
He followed it to a bulge in the snow. Brushing the frozen water away, he, too, became frozen.
Bella lay, breathing shallowly, lips a hideous shade of blue, freezing arteries and veins nearly bulging through her skin.
Nudging her once, noting with terror the lack of response, he tugged her against his chest and ran faster than he thought possible back to his house, reaching the door in a matter of seconds.
Throwing open the door, he screamed, "Carlisle! Help!"
The doctor was there in an instant; taking the girl from Edward's trembling arms and laying her on the sofa nearest the fire that Alice had started in the fireplace in anticipation of Bella's arrival.
Esme placed one cool hand on Edward's shoulder in an attempt to comfort him as his hands tensed enough to leave bloodless gouges in his palms.
And it was in this way that Carlisle worked on Bella long into the night, the rest of his family gathered around, offering silent prayers up to an equally silent God.
--
Bella's eyes fluttered open, watching vague shapes form into faces as muttering solidified to words.
"Edward?" she questioned quietly, her voice barely above a whisper, staring in awe at the face above her.
He smiled softly at her, dipping down to claim her lips in an all-encompassing kiss, cold and gentle.
She sighed as he pulled away, angered at her need of oxygen. A sharp pain in her chest brought her to the conclusion that she had not died out in the snow. Gripping her midsection, she heard Carlisle question, "What hurts, Bella?"
"Nothing," she murmured unconvincingly. "It's not that bad."
"Sure. If that's true I'll never wrestle Edward again."
Emmet? He was there, too?
Finally looking fully around her, Bella noted the presence of the entirety of the Cullen family. Blushing madly, Bella shot Emmet a glare before mumbling the ache in her chest. Carlisle sighed softly, a sympathetic look on his face. A wave of happiness and relaxation broke across her mind, and she thanked Jasper, noting his distance from her.
"Well," began Alice, voice buoyant as ever. "if we're all done with the drama, now, we can start the party!"
Confusion washed over Bella, but before she could ask a question, Jasper reminded her, "It's your birthday, today, remember?"
Bella turned her body, fearful of what she had dubbed, 'Hurricane Alice', but resigned herself to her fate, seeing as she didn't feel much like leaving Edward's stone arms.
Carlisle and Esme carried a small envelope over to Bella and handed it to her, Esme stating, "We know you didn't want presents, but we thought it might help if we told you this was just as much for Edward as it is for you."
Bella blushed and Edward laughed.
Opening the envelope revealed two plane tickets to Phoenix. Bella gasped and reached out to hug Esme, as she was closer than Carlisle. Esme laughed, bells clattering onto a sandstone floor, as Bella thanked her.
Alice danced across the room and plopped a small package into Bella's lap once she finally conceded to letting go of Esme, followed by a rude remark from Emmet about how he didn't know Bella 'swung that way'. Carlisle had laughed and jokingly reminded Bella that Esme was married. Alice and Jasper had laughed, and even Rose cracked a smile at the brilliant shade of red Bella's face took on.
Edward just glared, though, silently, he was thanking whatever force had kept Bella alive through the past evening.
"This one's from Edward," Alice announced once she had stopped laughing. She glanced at Edward and thought to him, 'Don't worry. She's going to love it.'
He smiled in gratitude as Bella stood to turn and kiss Edward on the cheek before running a finger under the paper, jerking it back as she felt a drop of blood squeezed out the paper cut.
Jasper's eyes grew dark and thirsty, and the rest, as they say, is history.
--
Bella remembered going home, explaining to Charlie how her car had died, so she had spent the night at the Cullens', under the watch of Dr. Cullen, how Edward had chosen the moment Charlie asked more about her car to tell Bella to open his gift. Bella shot him a glare to rival his own as she figured out what he had gotten her.
Edward chuckled as she discovered the keys to a red 1977 Lamborghini Countach that was parked innocently across the street, looking as if it had just rolled off the assembly line.
After yelling at him at a volume Edward was fairly certain was impossible for a human voice for bordering on three minutes, Bella threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek.
When Charlie coughed to break them up, she murmured in a voice so low she momentarily wondered if Edward even heard her, "Thank you, my stupid, shiny, beautiful Edward."
Edward's brilliant, crooked smile assured he that he had definitely heard her.
