Summary: "In the Society, Officials decide. Where you live, where you work, who you love, and when you die. Bella has always trusted their choices. It's hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. Bella is faced with impossible choices: between Jacob and Edward, between the life she's known and a path no one else has ever dared to follow ― between perfection and passion."
AN- This is going to be a crossover between Matched and Twilight. The books belong to Stephanie Meyer and Allie Condie, I mean no copyright, and I don't want to steal their amazing work. Any familiar lines (dialogue, thoughts, possibly a paragraph that I find important, etc.) from the books belong to Allie and Stephanie, I don't own those. That's my disclaimer, and I'm not going to put one in every single chapter. It gets annoying after a while. I may use some direct lines, and as I said, those will belong to Stephanie or Allie. So! Now that we know who the authors are and blah, blah, blah, I shall continue. If you haven't read Matched, that's okay, it's not necessary. It's not like you really need to. BUT, it's such a good book. I really recommend you read it. J And if you haven't read the Twilight Saga, I really don't understand why you're looking up Twilight fanfiction. ;) Well, let's not sit here all day, on with the story! J Oh, and I am going to be mainly following the plot line of Matched. But, it's not like I'm writing it exactly as it is. Alright, alright, I'll stop talking. I'm done!
"It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures."
-Allie Condie
Chapter 1: The Match Banquet
Not what I've found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night? My wings aren't white or feathered; they're blue, made of blue silk, which shudders in the wind and bends when I move―first in a circle, then in a line, finally in a shape of my own invention. The black behind me doesn't worry me; neither do the stars ahead.
I smile at the foolishness of my imagination. People cannot fly, though before the Society, there were myths about those who could. I saw a painting of them once. White wings, colored sky, gold circles atop their heads, looking surprised as though they couldn't believe what the artist had painted them doing, could not believe that their feet didn't touch the ground.
Those stories were not true. I know that, but tonight, it's easy to forget. The air train glides through the silky night so smoothly and my heart pounds so forcefully that it feels as though I might soar into the sky at any moment.
"What are you smiling for?" Jacob asks as I smooth down my blue silk dress for what seems like the thousandth time.
"Everything," I tell him, and it's the truth. I've waited so long for this: for my Match Banquet. Where I'll see, for the very first time, the face of the boy who will be my Match. It will be the first time I hear his name. After, I'll learn about him, who he is, what his childhood was like, pictures of him throughout his lifetime.
I can't wait. As quickly as the air train moves, it's still not fast enough. It hushes through the night, its sound a background for the low whispers of our parents' voices, the racing beats of my heart.
Perhaps Jacob can hear my heart pounding, too, because he asks, "Are you scared?" In the seat beside him, Jacob's older brother begins to tell my mother of his Match Banquet. It won't be long until Jacob and I have our own stories to tell.
"No," I say. But Jacob's my best friend, he knows me all too well.
"You're a liar," he teases. "You are nervous."
"Aren't you?"
"Not me. Psh, I'm ready." He answers without wavering, and I believe him. Jacob is the kind of person who is always positive about what he wants.
"It doesn't matter if you're nervous, Bella," he tells me, kind now. "Almost ninety-four percent of those attending their Match Banquet exhibit some signs of nervousness."
"Did you memorize all of the official Matching material?"
"Just about," he says, grinning. "Didn't you?" He holds his hands out as if to say, What did you expect?
That makes me laugh, and besides, I memorized all of it, too. It's so easy to do when the decision is so important. "So, I guess you're in the minority. The six percent who don't show any nerves at all," I say.
"Uh, of course," he agrees.
"How could you tell I was nervous?"
"Because you won't stop fidgeting with that." Jacob points to the golden object in my hands. "I didn't know that you had an artifact." A few treasures from the past float around among us. Though citizens of the Society are allowed one artifact each, no more. They are also hard to come by, so I guess it doesn't matter. Unless you had ancestors who took care to pass things along through the years.
"I didn't, until a few hours ago," I tell him. "Grandfather gave it to me for my birthday. It belonged to his mother. Err, my great-grandmother, I guess."
"What's it called?" Jacob asks.
"A compact," I say, and look at it closely. I like the name a lot. Compact means small. I am small. I also like the way it sounds when you say it: com-pact. Saying the word makes a sound like the one the artifact itself makes when it snaps shut.
"What do the initials and numbers mean?"
"Well, I'm not really sure…" I run my fingers across the letters ACM and the numbers 1940 carved across the golden surface. "But look," I tell him, popping the compact open to reveal what's inside: a little mirror, made of real glass, and a small hallow base where the original owner stored powder for her face, according to Grandfather. Now, I use it to hold the three emergency tablets that everyone carries―one blue, one green, one red.
"That's convenient," Jacob points out. He stretches out his arms in front of him and I see that he has an artifact, too―a pair of shiny platinum cuff links. "My father lent me these, but you can't put anything in them. They're completely and utterly useless."
"They look nice, though." My gaze roams up to Jacob's face, to his bright brown eyes and dark hair above his dark suit and white shirt. He's always been handsome, even when we were little, but I've never seen him dressed up like this. Boys don't have as much leeway in choosing their outfits as girls do. One suit looks much the same as another. Still, they get to choose the color of their shirts and cravats, and the quality of the fabric is much finer than the material used for plainclothes. "You look nice." The girl who finds out that he's her Match will be absolutely thrilled. I'm sure of it.
"Nice?" Jacob asks me and raises an eyebrow. "That's all? Nice?"
"Jacob," his mother says next to him, reproach and amusement in her voice.
"You look beautiful," Jacob says after a quick icy look to his mother. I flush after he says this, my nervousness shooting up a couple notches, even though I've known Jacob all my life. But…I feel beautiful, in this dress: ice blue, floating, full-skirted. The unaccustomed smoothness of silk against my skin makes me feel lithe and graceful.
Next to me, my parents both draw a breath as City Hall comes into view, lit up white and blue and sparkling with the special occasion lights that signal a celebration is taking place. I can't see the marble stairs in front of the Hall yet, but I know that they will be polished and shining and waiting for me. All of my life I've wanted and waited to walk up those clean marble steps and through the large doors of the Hall, a building I have seen from afar, but never entered.
I want to open the beautiful compact and check in the mirror to make sure I look my best. But I don't want to seem vain, so I sneak a glance at my face in the smooth surface instead.
The rounded lid of the compact distorts my features a little, but it's still me. My brown eyes. My dark-brown hair, which looks lighter in the compact than in real life. My straight, small nose. My chin, with all it's normalness. All the outward characteristics that make me Isabella Marie Swan, seventeen years old exactly.
I turn the compact over and over in my hands, admiring how perfectly the two sides fit together. Since my birthday falls on the thirteenth, the day the Match Banquet is held each month, I'd always hoped that I would be Matched on my actual birthday―but I knew that that might not happen. You can be called for your Match Banquet anytime during the year after your 17th birthday. When the notification made its appearance on the port two weeks ago that I would, in fact, be Matched on the day of my birthday, when I turned 17, I could almost hear the clean snap of the pieces fitting into place, unerringly as I've dreamed for so long.
Because…although I haven't even had to wait a full day for my Match, in some ways, I have waited my entire life.
"Bella," my mother, Renee, says, smiling at me. I blink and look up, startled. My parents stand up, ready to get off. Jacob stands, too, and straightens his sleeves out. I hear him take a deep breath, and I smile. Maybe he is a little nervous after all.
"Here we go…" he says to me. His smile is so sweet and good: I'm glad we were called up the same month. We've shared so much of childhood, it seems just right to share this together, the end, as well.
I smile back at him and give the best greeting that we have in the Society. "I wish you optimal results," I tell Jacob.
"You too, Bella."
It is only the three of us tonight. My brother, Emmett, cannot come to the Match Banquet because he is too young to attend. The first one you attend is always your own. I, however, will be able to attend Emmett's banquet because I am the older sibling. I smile, wondering what Emmett's Match will be like. In seven years I will find out.
But tonight is my night.
It is easy to find those of us who are being Matched tonight; not only are we younger than all of the others, but we float around in magnificent dresses and tailored suits while our parents and older siblings walk around in plainclothes, a background in which we flourish. The City Officials smile proudly at us, and my heart and smile swell as we enter the Rotunda.
In addition to Jacob, who waves to me and crosses the room to his seating area, I see another girl I know here, named Leah. She picked the bright red dress. It's a good choice for her, because she is beautiful enough that standing out works in her favor. She looks worried however, and keeps twisting her artifact, a jeweled red bracelet. I'm surprised to see her here. I would have guessed her to be a Single.
My father appraises the stuff around the room, including security―officials―and even small things like the china. My mother turns her head towards me and rolls her eyes in amusement. Even at the Match Banquet, my father can't stop himself from noticing these things. My father spends months working in old neighborhoods that are being restored and turned into new Boroughs for public use. He sifts through the relics of a society that is not as far in the past as it seems. Right now, for instance, he is working on a predominantly interesting Restoration project; an old library. He sorts out the things the Society has marked as valuable from the things that are not.
But then I have to giggle because my mother can't help but comment on the flowers, since they fall in her area of expertise as an Arboretum worker. "Oh, Bella! Look at the centerpieces. Lilies." She sighs and squeezes my hand.
We hear someone clear their throat, though it isn't loud in here. "Please be seated," an Official is standing at the podium. "Dinner is about to be served."
It's nearly comical how quickly we all get to our seats. Because we might admire the china and the flowers, and we might be here for our Matches, but we also can't wait to taste the much desired for food.
"They say this dinner is always wasted on the Matchees," a jovial-looking man sitting across from us says, smiling around our table. "They're so nervous they don't eat." And it's true; one of the girls sitting farther down our table, wearing a pink dress, stares at her plate, touching nothing.
I don't seem to have this problem, however. Though I don't gorge myself, I take something of everything―the roasted vegetables, the savory meat, the crisp greens, and creamy cheese. The warm light bread. The waiters slide the plates in front of us with graceful hands; the food, wearing herbs and garnishes, is as dressed up as we are.
My father grins happily as a server sets a piece of chocolate cake with fresh cream before him at the end of the meal. "Wonderful," he whispers, so quietly that only my mother and I can hear him.
My mother giggles a little at him, teasing him, and he reaches for her hand.
I understand his enthusiasm when I take a bite of my cake. It's rich and not too overwhelming, deep and dark and flavorful. It's the best thing I've had since the traditional dinner at Winter Holiday, which was months ago. I wish Emmett could have some cake, and for a moment I think about sneaking some out, saving some of mine for him. But how to take it back to him? It's impossible. I could ask my mother to put some in her purse, but I know she won't do it. My mother doesn't break the rules.
I can't save it for later. It's now or never.
I had just popped the last bite in my mouth when the announcer says, "We are ready to announce the Matches."
I swallow in surprise, and for a second, I feel an unexpected surge of anger: I didn't get to savor my last bite of cake.
"Leah Clearwater."
Leah twists her bracelet furiously, as she had done earlier, except with more fervor this time. She stands, waiting for her Matches face to flash across the screen. I see that she is careful to hold her hands low, though, so that the boy seeing her in another City Hall somewhere will only see the beautiful brunette girl and not her worried hands, twisting and turning that brilliant bracelet.
It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures, right around the corner, seconds near.
There is, of course, a system to the Matching. In City Halls across the country, all filled with humans, the Matches are announced in alphabetical order according to the girls' last names. I feel bad for the boys, who have no idea when their names will be called. Since my last name is Swan, I will be somewhere at the end of the middle. The beginning of the end.
The screen flashes with the face of a boy, brown-haired and handsome. He beams as he see's Leah's face on the screen where he is, and she smiles, too. "Samuel Uley," the announcer announces, "Leah Clearwater, you have been matched with Sam Uley."
The hostess presiding over the Banquet brings Leah a small silver box; the same thing happens to Sam Uley on the screen. When Leah sits down she stares at the box longingly; as though she wishes she could open it right here. I don't blame her. Inside that silver box is the microcard that contains all of our Matches information. We all receive them. Later the boxes with hold the golden rings for the Marriage Contract.
The screen flashes back to the default picture: a boy and girl, smiling at each other, with glimmering lights and white-coated Officials in the background. Although the Society times the ceremony to be as efficient as possible, sometimes the screen goes back to this picture, which means we wait while something happens somewhere else. It's so complicated―the Matching―and I am again reminded of the intricate and graceful and beautiful steps to the dances the used to do so long ago. This dance, however, is one that the Society can choreograph alone.
The picture shimmers away.
The announcer calls another name; another girl stands up.
Soon, more and more people at the Banquet have little silver boxes. Some set them away from them, others hold the boxes carefully, unwilling to let their entire future out of their hands.
I don't see any other girls wearing the blue dress. I don't mind. I like the idea that, for one night, I don't look like everyone else.
I wait, holding my compact in one hand and my mom's hand in the other. For the first time, I realize that she and my father are nervous, too, as her palm is sweaty.
"Isabella Marie Swan."
It is my turn.
I take a small breath and stand up, letting go of my mother's hand. I immediately want it back, it felt good. I turn toward the screen. My heart pounds and I am tempted to fidget with my compact the way Leah had with her bracelet, but I hold perfectly still and watch the screen. I wait, determined that the girl my Match will see on the screen in City Hall somewhere out there in Society will be poised and calm and lovely, with her chin raised confidently. The very best image of Isabella Marie Swan that I can present.
But nothing happens.
I stand stock still and look at the screen, and, as the moments go by, it is all I can do to stay still, and I can do to keep smiling. Whispers start around me, closing in on me and caressing me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother move her hand as if to take it in mine again, but pulls back.
A girl in a blue dress stands waiting, her heart hammering. Me.
The screen is dark, and stays dark.
That can only mean one thing.
Who?
-Lauren
AN- Okay, this really followed the book's beginning. It sucked writing right along the plotline of Matched, but I had to, to start the fic. I promise Edward will come in soon, people. J And I've always wanted to see Leah end up with Sam, so I couldn't help myself. J I love Leah. :D So, after I get the start of this fiction going, I'll be able to leave the line of the book so closely and then yay! xD Review. Recommend. J Bye.
P.S. I don't think the chapters will be super long, like before I used to do at least 8,000 words (I deleted that story), but these won't be that long. I don't think so, anyway.
P.S.(S.?) These AN's are way too long for the first chapter. ;) So, I'm leaving now. I need to get better at shortening these up… Pooey. XD
REVIEW! :D