Disclaimer: I don't own it.............yet.

Epic Long A/N (very optional): So, you might have noticed this story disappeared for a while. Yeah, I have no idea what happened there. The Powers That Be seemed to think that my vacationing to the west coast was grounds for just...getting rid of my stories, all sneaky-like. So, of course I'm pretty nervous about reposting this since I have zero idea what happened...but my account is still up and they never said I did anything wrong and I just posted a one-shot that seems to be chillin' there, fine. So I thought I'd give this a try and pray that my stories' disappearance was a glitch or...whatever.

If you've read this already, don't feel the need to review or whatever all over again. Just put it back on alert. I know who you are. Reviews are fun but they're essentially unnecessary for the shit I'm trying to pull off in this story. Heh. I mean, of course unless you have questions. Then...ask away. I'm here, curious about what you're curious about.

As far as new chapters, I'm going to post a chapter of this every couple days or so. Maybe by the time I've caught it back up on I'll be done with Part 2. I've got four more chapters of Emmett to write and then I'll post them all. After that we can have a lovely sit-down and discuss how y'all feel about AlicePOV, who wants to stick around for the end and whatnot. Should be a good time.

Oh, and if you're new to this story.....ignore all that. Welcome.

Anyway, here we go.

(Again, if you're new to this story and epically confused....PM me or something. I love to rap with people. Maybe literally but probably not.)

Prologue

As my body slammed into the hard chest of the man behind me, I felt the unfamiliar, startling discharge of the gun. Uncomfortable vibrations leapt through my fingers, strange heat pressed against the skin of my palm.

The thing that was really difficult to wrap my head around was that my vision suddenly blurred until I could no longer see all the people around me, I could no longer see my captor stepping towards me.

All I could see was the red of the blood as the bullet entered his chest.

I dropped the weapon immediately, leaving myself completely vulnerable. I didn't care. I could feel the man behind me wrap his arm tightly around my waist, trying to pull me gently away. I resisted without meaning to.

The chaos raging in my head began to fade as Edward fell to the floor, blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder. I had missed the heart.

My eyes met his and in that moment all I could hear was the sound of everything we were breaking in two.

*

I rested my back against the heavy metal door and tried to catch my breath. I could feel the vibrations in the walls as the relentless soldiers got closer to their target.

My eyes drifted across the room to the man currently looking me up and down.

I could feel his eyes settle on the trail of blood dripping from the gash in my head before moving to notice the way my bottom lip was already swelling, past all the cuts and bruises on my arms, down and finally resting where my thigh had been cut open.

He didn't seem worried about the fact that I was injured. He was simply checking for damages.

I had to admit he was the last person I thought I would be with at the end.

"Do you have it in you to finish this?" Edward asked, slow and careful.

My eyes narrowed at his words. I took a moment to look him over the way he had just done to me. There was not the faintest hint of a scratch on his flawless white skin.

There was a deep, unyielding pain in his eyes, just the same.

"Do you?" I spit back, looking at him in defiance.

"I always get the job done."

"That's right. Even when you don't mean to. You can't help it," I said, my face breaking into a harsh smile. I hadn't even known there was such a thing until now.

The pounding in the corridor got louder.

"They're getting closer." I whispered.

*

The bag was swinging back and forth from the force of my punches. I moved with it and each time my fist would lash out it would connect solidly with the leather in front of me. My muscles began to ache, but I ignored the burning. Sweat started to build on my brow.

Jacob Black walked in quietly.

I didn't see him enter, but I could feel his presence, approaching me slowly as if he was wary of something, of me.

The thought of me making anyone nervous made me want to laugh.

I stopped swinging at the bag and stood, panting, waiting for him to say something.

"I haven't seen much of you lately." His voice was soft, gentle.

"Oh." I didn't want to talk. Not to him, not to anyone. If they had questions, I didn't want to know. I just wanted to be left alone.

"Captain Whitlock says you never really talk about what happened to you in New York."

"You've been talking about me?" I looked at him slowly, turning to face him.

My voice was quiet, emotionless. I wasn't sure how to feel about this piece of information, so I opted to feel nothing at all.

"Well, he's the only person you've really said anything to since you've been back. How else am I supposed to know how you're doing?"

He sounded...hurt?

I wasn't sure why he would, but he almost sounded like he'd been betrayed.

I didn't say anything, just let the silence get heavier and heavier, hoping it would eventually drive him from the room. I didn't mind the silence, myself. In fact, I preferred it to words.

"Have you been over to see your father yet?" Jacob's eyebrows were raised and he was looking at me like he could see right through me. I felt a jolt at the mention of Phil. It wasn't pleasant.

In fact, it pissed me off.

"Why would I?" I could hear how stubbornly uncooperative I sounded, even to my own ears. It was a valid question, though. Why would I want to see him?

"Does he even know you're alive?" Jacob sounded a little annoyed. He had absolutely no right to be.

"I don't really care what he knows. It's been five months of him sitting around, doing nothing to try to find me. Why should I be looking to make him feel better about that?" I snapped.

I surprised myself with the force of my own words. When was the last time I was angry? I couldn't really remember.

"I don't want to talk to you when you're like this." The hurt in his face was apparent now.

If I had wanted to push him away, I was doing a pretty good job.

Jacob turned around abruptly and began to walk out of the room.

Something inside me gave a little and I felt the sudden urge to keep him from leaving. I wanted something normal, something familiar.

Maybe it would help.

"Wait. Jake." I said his name as softly as I could.

He looked back at me, his face was very quiet. He raised his eyebrows slightly, waiting for me to say something. I hesitated.

"I could use a sparring partner." I tried on my old smirk. It felt uncomfortable and strange on my face, more like a grimace.

"Maybe some other time." His voice was cold and he was gone before he even turned and walked back out the door.

I stood completely still, unmoving. A shudder ripped through my body suddenly. Sweat dripped down my chin, my neck, my chest.

I could taste salt.

*

"Bella." His voice pulled me away from my thoughts.

He sounded unlike himself, he sounded nervous. If he wanted some kind of reassurance that we were going to make it out of this one alive, he was looking to the wrong person.

I knew that we were going to die.

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

I paused for a moment, surprised at the question. I blinked back at him, searching his face for some reason why he would ask me that. Why, after everything, he was suddenly concerned at all.

Finally I shrugged at him. "I keep remembering the day I was rescued."

I watched as Edward shifted. It wasn't exactly an uncomfortable movement, but it was in reaction to my thoughts. He, of course, would remember that day too.

"What about it?"

"When they were coming to get me, you promised me that I could leave. I never trusted you, but the way you said it....I believed you. I believed you so completely that if someone had said that five years from that moment I would be sitting here about to die with you, I would have laughed at them. Because you promised and I believed you."

"Can we not talk about it?"

If it was possible for his face to become even more pale, it did in that moment. But he looked away before I could tell what he was thinking.

I desperately wanted to scream that no, we could not not talk about it. Because this was it. The pounding was even closer now.

We didn't have much time left.

*

"I can't believe you're really here."

"Me neither."

Phil looked at me gently, tears shining in his eyes. I could tell that he wanted to reach out and touch me, make sure I was really there, but he held himself back.

I wasn't sure why he did, but I was glad of it.

"I'm sorry....for everything that happened to you." He definitely sounded sorry.

Not that it mattered.

"It wasn't your fault." I replied evenly, pleased at how steady my voice sounded. All I wanted to do was get out of there, get away from him.

But Jacob was right, Jasper was right. I had to see him, for the both of us.

He was silent for several minutes, looking at me earnestly.

Finally, "You're different."

Something about the way he said the word "different" made me feel like it was a bad thing. Like it was something he was afraid of.

What would he know of fear?

"Sorry." I apologized automatically, trying to sound as sorry as he had.

I was surprised when that came easily. I was sorry.

He shook his head and I saw something within him break.

I felt myself being pulled into his embrace, his arms closing around me tightly. I remained completely rigid, not allowing myself to relax. I didn't reach my arms around to hug him back.

I was sure he would notice.

I heard his scratchy voice whispering into my hair. "Forgive me."

I didn't answer.

*

I was absent-mindedly clicking the safety of my gun on and off when I finally met Edward's eyes again.

It still took some measure of control for me to look at him without flinching. I had no idea what that meant.

"If you had known," I asked him suddenly, "would you have changed anything?"

Edward looked at me without surprise and then closed his eyes.

I leaned back, wondering if he would answer, as I focused on the banging of the door behind me.

There were so many things I wanted him to say.

Yes, I would have changed everything. I wouldn't have been there that day. I wouldn't have tried to rescue you. I wouldn't have held you hostage for months. I wouldn't have hurt you so deeply. I wouldn't have let you shoot me.

So many things I didn't want him to say.

"I don't regret one thing." He replied evenly. My gaze was on him again.

He could have said all those things...but they would have been a lie.

After several moments of silence I heard his voice again, over the banging.

"Can I ask you something now?"

I looked at him. He took my silence as the affirmative.

"When you pulled that trigger, did you want to kill me?" Edward's voice was soft. He looked calm, like he was no longer afraid of the banging at the door.

I stared at him, finding it difficult to form a response.

The metal scraping against metal was louder now, the footsteps were closer.

They would be here soon to kill us, the last survivors, trying desperately to find a way out.

"When you brought me to that house, did you want to kill me?" I replied, meeting his eyes defiantly. You succeeded.

If he had been capable of blushing, I was sure color would have risen in his flawless cheeks. But he remained as impassive as ever when he replied, "I loved you."

"Okay." I surrendered.

I didn't want to get into it, not really, I just hadn't wanted to answer his question.

At the time it had been such a blur.

The elation of being rescued, the panic in his eyes hounding at me, and then there was his hand on mine, trying to convince me to stay. I had done the only thing I could think of after they had pressed the weapon into my hand.

I was less than five feet away from him. I was sure I could have hit him in the heart if I had wanted to. The fact that I didn't, I always attributed to the fact that I had never handled a gun before, never shot a person.

But then, Edward wasn't a person.

He was a vampire. Just like the rest of them.

"You never answered my question." His voice again.

"I don't want to answer your question, Edward." I heard my voice cut through his name, as if it was a curse.

"We're both going to die in a few minutes. What does it matter to you that I want to know?"

I sighed and looked down at the gun that I held in my right hand.

*

Alice looked surprised when I stepped into her cell.

I hid the shock, the agony I felt when my eyes brushed over her pale, smooth skin. The dark eyes I had once found so emotionless, I now saw as they danced with a black fire. I could see her strength, her grace, and yet I thought only of his.

"Hi." I started, lamely.

The small vampire was watching me warily, unsure of what I wanted, if I was here to hurt her. Honestly, I should want to hurt her.

But I didn't.

"Jasper isn't here." She said at last.

I looked up at her with surprise.

Of course.

She would think I was here looking for Jasper, because he spent so much time in here. I had been very vocal about how much I hated it, how much it bothered me.

"I came to see you." I cut her off, before she could say anything else.

I didn't want to think about Jasper right now.

"Oh." Alice sounded slightly confused, but didn't say anything more for a moment. She sat lightly down on the bench at the far corner of the wall, leaving room for me if I wanted to sit beside her.

I remained standing, never moving.

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way but, what are you doing here?" Alice asked finally, her voice suggested that she was still very nervous.

"I don't really know," I answered truthfully, very quiet.

Alice sat motionless, waiting for me to say more.

"I've been back for five months now and I still feel like I don't belong here. And you're..." I hesitated. I couldn't say the word. And you're a vampire. You're one of them. I shuddered involuntarily.

"What?" Alice asked, her voice gentle, filled with concern now.

I looked up at her suddenly, fear coloring my voice. "I can't stop thinking about him."

Alice looked at me, her eyes widening.

She knew - everyone knew - what had happened to me. Jasper had obviously told her. There was no need to clarify which "him" I was talking about.

I should have been annoyed, angry even, but I was more relieved.

Relieved that I wouldn't have to explain to her in slow, laboring detail, why I would possibly come to her now.

"I see." Alice's voice seemed to lose all emotion in that instant.

"What does it mean?" I asked of her. I could hear the note of desperation in my voice, needing to know why. She probably wouldn't pick up on it.

"It doesn't mean anything." Alice's voice was firm now, more confident, but still slightly shocked. "Those five months aren't just going to go away."

"No," I sighed. "I guess not."

We were quiet for a moment.

Then Alice began to shift uncomfortably.

"Bella, did he ever..." She hesitated.

"No." I snapped immediately, not wanting her to finish her sentence. It was the one question I knew everyone wanted to know the answer to.

No one but Jasper had had the courage to ask me before this moment.

"He never touched me. Whenever he got close..." I paused and took a deep breath. "I made him bleed...over and over again."

"You never stopped fighting." There was something that sounded strangely like pride in Alice's voice.

"You're wrong." My voice was deathly quiet.

"What?" she looked confused.

"Every time I resolved to take his life, a little piece of my humanity, a little piece of myself, died. It didn't matter that he wasn't human. I was trying to kill a person. And he would just stand there and let me..."

Alice looked at me with a mixture of surprise and absolute understanding.

No pity, just...grief.

She reached out softly towards me and for a moment I thought her fingers were going to brush against the back of my hand, hanging limply at my side. I don't know what I would have done when I felt the cold of her skin, but I almost wanted the contact.

She dropped her hand away before it got to me, as if she had thought better of touching me.

Part of me was relieved.

"It's over, Bella. It's over now and you're still here. You're still alive."

Alice reminded me softly. We both knew that her words were comfort, just as we knew that it didn't matter.

"I can't feel it." I looked at Alice, almost pleadingly. "Alive, I mean."

"Give yourself time to heal."

Silence encompassed us, pressing down on us from all sides. There was something else, something that was still unsaid.

I could see Alice waiting for me to say it, at the same time she was resolving that I was never going to.

And in truth, I didn't want to. It wouldn't do any good to anyone. It would only make the hurt more real, more acute.

"He told me he loved me. Every night."

*

"I've been trying to figure it out." Once again his voice was the thing that pulled me back to the present.

I waited for him to continue. Eventually, he did.

"I've been trying to figure out why you didn't kill me when you found me in Volterra. Why you didn't let Jasper kill me. You shot me in that house and you meant to kill me or you didn't, but you never lifted a finger to hurt me after that."

His gaze was piercing, his eyes searching my own.

I felt what color was left drain from my face in an instant. I didn't speak - I couldn't speak - for several minutes as he watched me.

"I really wish you wouldn't try to figure it out." I finally made myself say. I looked away from him. I didn't want him to see the fear I was sure had suddenly etched itself across my features.

"Why?" he immediately inquired.

I could feel the curiosity that had blazed up in him suddenly. His voice was no longer resigned, it was hopeful. Not for our survival, for.....something else.

I looked up at him sharply, intending to crush the lightness of his question, intending to reassure him that all I felt for him was hate and revulsion. But the spark in his eyes hit me like a battering ram.

My breath hitched.

After several moments of silence he whispered, prompting, "Why, Bella? Why didn't you kill me?"

I could feel myself floundering, gasping for air silently, my head was spinning as if my lungs no longer wanted to work. Bile rose in my throat as I struggled to get a grasp on everything, on the situation, on the inevitable death that was coming for us.

I knew I was about to die, but Edward was the only thing I could think about.

"I don't know." I finally breathed, unable to tear my eyes from his face.

*

"Does it bother you that I'm here?" Jasper's voice came from the darkness, his arm draped over my stomach. I didn't turn to face him, but I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck.

"Why would it bother me?" I asked him solemnly. "You're my husband."

"Does that mean anything to you?" He replied. He sounded...different. I didn't know how to answer him so I remained silent.

I couldn't tell him that when I thought about marriage all I thought about was Edward.

All I thought about was the blood on the carpet, on the glass, on my hands.

All I thought about was his face and the cello in the corner of my room.

All I thought about was that goddamn house.

"Why won't you talk to me?" It was just a question. I couldn't hear any accusation in his words; he was being very careful. "It's been a year." He was just stating a fact.

"What do you want to talk about?" I asked him finally, with a sigh. I just wanted to sleep. Couldn't he understand that?

"Whatever's on your mind." His voice was hopeful.

What was on my mind?

Only him.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything.

After several minutes of silence he must have realized that.

I thought he had fallen asleep when I heard his deep voice rumble behind me, "Why did you cut your hair, Bella?"

I didn't think he would ever get up the courage to ask.

I had a million answers.

It had become too heavy to carry; Phil liked my hair; you liked my hair; it reminded me of when Edward would run his fingers through it, right before I would attack him.

I had a million answers.

I didn't have an answer for him.

*

"They're getting cocky," I said, staring at the door as the hinges started to snap.

"They have a right to be. I counted at least fifty of them for the two of us."

"I counted fifty three," I corrected him automatically. "Still doesn't mean they have a right to be so confident."

He cocked an eyebrow, there was a trace of amusement on his face at the childish indignation of my words.

A spark ignited near the door and I saw a metal drill starting to tear away at the thick steel frame. We had two minutes, tops.

When I glanced back to Edward he was looking at the drill, then back at me pointedly. I shrugged.

It was odd. I had really thought I would have nothing to say to him now that it was the end. I thought the anger and resentment would be enough to keep me quiet.

I had to lean back against the wall to keep myself steady. The pain of my injuries was only just now starting to hit home.

"Are you worried what's going to happen to them all when we're gone?"

He looked at me with an odd expression, almost pained. He looked like he wanted to tell me something, then thought better of it.

Finally, "They'll be fine," Edward reassured me.

It was a lie.

"I guess you're right," I allowed him.

I knew in that instant that they were dead.

All of them. Emmett, Jasper, Alice.

Edward and I were the last remaining and we were moments away.

"They'll probably get more done without us there to mess everything up." I smirked at him, letting the lie slide, letting him believe that I would die with some hope.

Why I was doing that for him, I didn't want to examine too closely.

A thought suddenly occurred to Edward and his eyebrows furrowed. "You were supposed to tell them the truth, if I didn't come back."

"I'm not coming back either." I pointed out, even though we both knew that was what he had just implied.

I felt like I needed to say it out loud.

"I think they're smart enough to know they shouldn't wait for you and me. They'll find someone else, someone who will find these people again. Find out what they've been doing. Someday."

"I know."

The door flew back into the room and I could just make out the silhouettes of the large group of vampire soldiers, low and crouching, ready to attack.

"Bella?"

"Yeah, Edward?"

"I always knew it would end with you and me."

"Me, too."

* * *