Last Breath
One-Shot
Bella's POV
The last thing I remember is a flash of blonde hair, then the pain. Burning, white hot pain. And then, nothing.
I blink my eyes open, they feel dry and scratchy, and I see white over my eyes. A sheet? What I lay on feels hard and smooth, and I run the tips of my fingers against its surface. It feels metal, yet not cold, but equal to my own body temperature. I pull my hands away from the metal and run them over my stomach. It, too, feels hard and smooth, yet soft as jello, but as solid as steel. I raise my hands over my head and pull away at the sheet covering my eyes. A light brighter than anything I have ever seen assaults my eyes and I squeeze close my lids, covering them further with my hands.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I pull my hands away from my eyes and allow the light to again assault my eyes. It burns, but I know if I keep them covered this will just go on all day. I take in a deep breath and am quickly possessed by a chorus of coughs. Pins and needles shoot down my throat and into my lungs, stabbing and burning with each burst of air. With pain so severe it blinds I am able to control myself, and remind myself nothing is worse than the last thing I remember before waking up here: the pain I felt enter my spine and spread through my whole body, quick as a breath and unexpected as lightening on a sunny day.
My eyes adjust to the light, and when I turn my head to look around at my surroundings my breath catches in my throat. I had never been to one before, but judging by the silver slabs laying out around me, with white sheets covering what looks like bodies, it is only natural to guess where I am. The morgue.
My breaths comes slow and uneven, ridged, and begin coming and going faster and faster. The last thing I remember is blonde hair and pain… Pain so bad I thought I would…
Die.
I force myself to sit up, holding fast the sheet across my chest. I look around and see with undeniable sureness that I am really, truly, without doubt of question or skepticism, surrounded by dead bodies, and in the heart of a morgue. I myself am on a metal slab, covering my body with a white sheet. A white sheet just like the ones covering the phantom bodies around me. I swallow down the building lump in my throat and find this time it goes down easy, smoothly.
I close my eyes, leaning my head on my hand and resting my elbow on my knee. That is when I feel the smooth, bulky feel of the cord separating my big toe from the one beside it. Kind of like the feel of wearing a new pair of flip-flops with a too-thick strap. With a shaking hand, I swallow another gulp of air and partial saliva and reach down to my toe, bending my knee and bringing it closer. I take the thin piece of cardboard and open my eyes, looking down at it.
I gently widen the loop away from my toe and slip it away from my foot, bringing it up to my blurry eyes. Attach to toe, is the first thing I see. No. 626, comes next. I force myself to go on, bringing the tag closer to my face for a more clear view. I inhale a deep breath through my nose, and read on.
NAME OF DECEASED
ISABELLA MARIE SWAN
CAUSE OF DEATH
SEVERED SPINAL COLUMN
PLACE OF DEATH
FORKS, WA
DATE OF DEATH
11/17/2005
TIME OF DEATH
00:17
PHYSICIAN(S)
ALEXANDER RHODES
NOTES
NONE
CITY OF FORKS
OFFICE OF THE CORONER
I close my fist around the tag and my eyes fall shut; a single tear falling from both eyes. It burns, but I don't care. I died… I am dead…
I force my eyes open and look back down at the now crinkled-up toe-tag, and look again at my cause of death: SEVERED SPINAL COLUMN
Shaking, I reach my hand back behind me and run my fingers across the center of my back, feeling for any proof of what I hold in my hand. A moan, which starts in my lungs and slowly works its way up my throat, fills into the room around me and spills into my ears, as my fingers graze over a too-clean wound in the upper center of my back. Directly over my spine in a vertical slash, I feel the cause of my death. It is sore and tender, and my body jerks forward, sending waves of pain and aches through me, as I finger the wound again and again.
I pull my hand away from my back and ball it in my lap. I sniff at my nose, and realize without thinking that I have been crying. My cheeks feel wet. I close my eyes and force myself to remember more, not just the pain, nor the hair. I need to remember more. I have to.
It was snowing. It was late. It was dark, and cold. I had just sent an email to Alice, and had instantly received the same email back, telling me the recipient was invalid. I wasn't wearing any shoes, just thick wool socks that had once belonged to my Gran Marie, and a pair of thin sweatpants, an undershirt covered by a tan leather jacket which had been Charlie's when he was younger. I had gone downstairs and taken my scarf from the coat rack, and went outside.
I had gone into the woods, seeking refuge in the very place – or at least what I thought to be the very place - Edward had left me. Nothing. The memory stops there… All but the faint sound of my name being called somewhere in the distance. Or was it in the distance? By that point everything had started to grow very dark, very fast. All but the blonde hair, I saw nothing. Felt nothing but the pain which had taken my light.
A light which now hung above me, surrounding me with dead bodies in the city coroners office.
I gently slid myself away from the metal slab, and find as I slide further and further down the length of it that it now feels cold to me, where it had once felt as equal as my own skin. I drop to my feet. It feels like I am standing on a ship in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a hurricane, and I quickly take hold of the edge of the slab that had been my bed. Closing my eyes I swallow a mouthful of saliva and ride out the rest of the dizziness. Ceaselessly it goes on and on, and just as I think it will last for the rest of forever, it ends. Just as quickly as it had come, it had gone, and I stand solidly on both feet. I felt as if I were standing on ice, and my body felt just as – if not a bit more – cold. The sheet covering me does little to warm me, and I bring my hands up and hug them, along with the sheet, around myself.
I raise my foot from the ground and am readying myself to take my first step since dying when I hear voices softly filling into the hall past the door I face. I swallow a breath of air and place my foot back to the ground, and close my eyes for no longer than a second. The voices have become louder, and I force myself to recognize either of them.
"I know this is never easy, especially when it is a child," one of the voices – male – was saying. "It means a lot to us when we see someone step up and take the place of a parent. Nobody likes seeing the body of a deceased family member, a child is always the hardest." The voice grew very near, and I look up to see the door being pulled open. A tall, broad man with graying dark hair and wrinkles walks in, followed close at the heel by…
Jacob…
The conversation seems to end itself as the unfamiliar man looks over at me, completely stopped in his tracks. His eyes are wide, and a loud clang fills the air as the clipboard he had been holding crashes to the floor. I pull my eyes away from him and focus on Jacob, who stands matching the other man's stance. His eyes are filled with thick pools of tears as he looks at me. "Bella?" he asks with a thick, hoarse voice. Almost as if he couldn't believe his own eyes, he takes a step towards me. "Are you.. is this.. Bella?"
"Hey, Jake," I say, speaking for the first time since waking up here. My voice comes out scratchy and dry. My voice seems to make what his eyes see reality, and he rushes towards me and takes me into his arms. His hair has been cut since the last time I saw him, and he feels hotter, too. His skin warms my freezing body and I welcome his embrace, no matter the pain that is shooting from my back throughout my body.
"How?" he asks, pulling me tighter against him. "How?" he asks again. "How are you.. No, it doesn't matter. You're here now, you're back.. you came back.. you came back.." He was acting as if he had seen a ghost, and I remember I was the ghost. "I never thought I would see you again," he tells me as he runs his hands over my back, holding me fast against him.
"Here I am," I say, basking in his warmth, the pain dissipating more and more with each passing moment. I am unable to say another word as he brings his lips down to mine, and I find myself liking the feeling, and wanting more. I kiss him back, and run my fingers through his hair and bring his head down to mine.
"I never thought I would get a chance to do that," he says, smiling and looking down at me with tears still falling freely from his eyes. I match his smile, and lean my lips back up to his. I can't explain it, but the feelings inside of me, the pull to stay here in his arms, and never leave… it is more overpowering than the pain I felt which had landed me here in the first place. He presses his lips against mine and kisses me back. "Is this real?" he asks.
"I wake up in a morgue, and you ask if my kissing you is real," I say before kissing him again. I am powerless, I can't keep my lips away from his.
We are lost in each other as I hear his voice.
"Dad."
Jacob's POV
I follow Dr. Rhodes down the hall towards the morgue. He is talking, but the words get lost in the air, dissipating into nothing. It had been more than three days since Bella was taken from me, and everything had changed.
I had gone over to Charlie's a little after midnight, must have been close to midnight-thirty, on a pure gut-instinct. I felt sick, and wrong… Like something terrible had happened, or was going to… When I got there I found Charlie on his knees on the front lawn. That in itself had been odd; it was well past his usual bedtime, and apart from that it was snowing, and he was barley in anything more than a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. I hopped out of my Rabbit and was making my way towards him when I saw the reason for his abnormal behavior: his daughters body laid out before him, already pale as the snow falling from the sky. It didn't take a doctor to know she was dead.
Every instinct in me told me to go to her, to shake her awake… To prove to myself – and Charlie – that Bella wasn't dead; couldn't be. But I knew she was, and I was just kidding myself thinking any other way. I was quickly washed over completely with violent, shaking, hot anger so strong I could taste it. I didn't know if Charlie had even seen me, but before I even had the thought to care I was tearing off towards the woods, my whole body shaking so bad I thought it would explode. The last thing I expected was it to literally explode.
I had been in the woods a good half a minute when it happened. Everything became clearer; sights, sounds, smells… Everything was amplified beyond belief, and I had four giant paws and was covered in long, thick rustic brown fur. I didn't know what was happening, and my confusion did nothing to lighten my anger, more, heighten it. I became more and more confused and frustrated with each bound, and thinking I would let out a scream, my ears were filled instead with the most terrifying growl I had ever heard: that of a very upset – and very large - wolf. It took me a few more good seconds to realize that I had been crashing through trees and tearing them apart in my wake, yet not feeling a thing. I was overcome with rage and determination: I knew Bella's limp, dead body was no accident, and something told me – a smell more repulsive than anything I had ever smelled before – that I was getting very near its true source.
I could sense her confusion before she even knew I was coming. I saw her blonde hair first, and the feel of her neck snapping in half as I tore through it with my mouth came next. I stood, growling and fangs exposed, looking down at her. I didn't exactly recognize her, but that didn't matter to me. What mattered to me was the blood-splattered knife that was looped through her belt. Every instinct in me told me to tear her apart. And I did. I ripped her limb from limb, tearing her body apart mercilessly.
How long it had been, I had no idea. And when I had gone back to being human, I didn't know that either. All I knew was that I was covered in sweat, panting, and naked. I looked down at her unrecognizably ripped apart body and was filled all over again with rage at the sight of the knife which had taken Bella. I leaned down and took the handle into my hand, bringing it up to my face to look at it closer. As I did it were as if I could see Bella dying; see her standing in the woods, her eyes closed, breathing deeply. She would have not suspected a thing, just felt the sharp stab of death as her life drained from her eyes, a small groan escaping her lips as she dropped to the forest floor.
As I saw her fall to the earth, I, too, dropped to my knees. The knife falling from my hands as I buried my face into my hands and began to sob.
I felt the chill of her arm as it slithered past my leg, and my eyes shot open. I instantly remembered the story of the Elders, about the cold one's disassembled bodies, and how they would try to put themselves back together. I watched on in shock as the story came to life before me.
I refused to let it go on, and quickly forced myself to remember the rest of the once-ludicrous story. Fire. The bodies were easily destroyed by fire; highly flammable. That was why Billy had always wore that old pouch around his neck as he told the stories – it supposedly held the ashes of one of the cold one's which had tried to piece itself back together.
Jumping up to my feet I quickly scattered the pieces of her body, and thought about the lighter sitting on the dash of my Rabbit. This bitch wasn't going anywhere, and I would be dammed if I allowed her to piece even one ligament back together. I quickly grabbed the closest limb; the lower right arm, the one which had began to attempt to crawl back to the other half of the arm, and took off towards my Rabbit.
I was faster than I had ever remembered being – aside from when I was in the body of a wolf – and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I felt nothing when trees and branches snapped towards me. I ran over broken twigs and rocks, sticker bushes. I felt nothing, no kind of pain, and pushed myself further, running faster than I ever thought humanly possible.
I stopped at my Rabbit and ripped open the door – nearly ripping it from its hinges – and quickly reached for my lighter.
I was back in the woods and tearing off towards the foul smell before I even realized that I had started running again. As quickly as if I had teleported I was back in the ruin of the torn-apart body. I tossed down the piece of arm I had carried with me. It bashed harshly against the girls face, and I continued stacking the pieces together. A hand here, a leg here, half a torso there, I piled the pieces high. I flicked on my lighter and tossed it at the stack of body parts. And I watched that fucker burn.
I am torn from the memory as I follow Dr. Rhodes into the morgue, and see not the metal cart with Bella's covered, lifeless body beneath it, but her living, breathing body standing and facing us. She is clutching the sheet around her. Her eyes are wet, she looks scared. She is silent as Dr. Rhodes's clipboard crashes to the floor.
I can't breathe. I can't move. Is this real? Is this just another one of my dreams, where I go to Bella's funeral, and watch on as she climbs out of her own coffin, dazed and confused? No. It can't be… She is too solid, the room, the smells, everything is too vivid. She pulls her eyes away from Dr. Rhodes and looks at me.
I am rooted to my spot, trapped as Bella's eye's meet with my own. A gravitational pull so strong to have her in my arms tugs at me with such force it hurts physically, like I have just been socked in the gut a hundred-thousand-million times. I can't pull my eyes away from hers. I nearly drop to my knees from the feeling it gives me. I am powerless against it; I have to be with her.
"Bella?" I ask, and take a step towards her, testing this and praying over and over for it not to be a dream. Waking up every morning, and realizing with sickening realization that Bella is really dead, and I have just dreamt her coming back… Having this, so clear, so vibrant… Having imprinted on her, it would be the cruelest of all my dreams. "Are you.. is this.. Bella?" I wait to wake up. I wait to feel the light of the new day wash over my face, and remind me once again Bella is really dead. I wait to feel the familiar scene of alertness as my mind wakes into the conscious world. I wait to feel the painful stab of reality, to feel the tears well in my eyes and overflow, disabling me from anything but my own agony.
"Hey, Jake," her voice is hoarse, and I know I am not dreaming. If I were, the sound of her voice – if not my own – would have woken me in an instant.
I rush forward and pull her into my arms. She is cold, like an ice cube that has not yet melted. I hug her tighter against me and will my extra heat to go into her. She is shaking, and I pull her tighter still. "How?" I ask, aware but uncaring of the tears that run down my cheeks. "How? How are you.. No, it doesn't matter. You're here now, you're back.. you came back.. you came back.. I never thought I would see you again," I say as I run my hands over her back, warming as much of her as I can.
"Here I am," she says, her body shaking less and less as my heat surrounds her, and enfolds us both in a blanket. I lean my head down and press my lips to hers, unable to keep myself at bay any longer. She feels it too, I know she does, as she reaches her hand up and laces her fingers through my hair, pulling my head closer to hers as she massages her lips against mine.
"I never thought I would get a chance to do that," I say, smiling down at her. She looks up at me and smiles, and reaches her lips back up to mine. I lean myself into her and drink her in. "Is this real?" I ask, holding her so close, I can hear our heart's beating as one.
"I wake up in a morgue, and you ask if my kissing you is real," she says while pulling her lips back up to mine. I am convinced, no more questions, no more skepticism. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her tighter still, kissing her deeply. Her hands are lost in my hair as I tighten my hold around her; our tongues dancing in synch.
I want to tell her I love her; that I will never let anything happen to her again. I want to promise her the world; I want to promise her safety and love and comfort, I want to promise her everything, but I just can't force my lips away from hers. I can't let her go, I can't break this moment.
"Bells?" Charlie asks, pulling our lips apart as we look over at him. "The Doctor called.. he said that.. he told me you'd.. Bells?"
Stepping away from Bella I take her hand into mine; I am unable to keep myself from her.
"Dad," she says. "I'm here.. I don't know how." Charlie bounds forward with a single step and pulls her into his arms. His eyes are wide and red, like he has been crying, or unable to sleep for the past three days. Or both. "I just woke up," she tells him.
"It's a miracle," he says. "It's a damn miracle," his voice breaks, and his shoulders drop as he is assaulted with a wave of uncontrollable sobs. He wraps his arms around Bella tighter and drops to the floor, pulling Bella into his lap. "Oh Bella," he sobs. "I lost you.. I lost you.."
"I'm here now," she says with tears in her voice.
"I can't lose you again," he tells her. "I can't go through that again," he says softly, sniffing at his nose while gently rocking her back and forth, as a parent would a small child. Bella smiles and laughs softly. "I find it in poor taste you are laughing at your dad at a time like this," Charlie tells her as he runs his hand over her head.
"I'm not," she tells him, sniffing her nose. "It's just.. you and Jacob are both in shock that I am alive; I'm the one who died and woke up in the mortuary, and you are the ones who are getting hysterical about it. I woke up with a toe tag, and all you guys saw was me standing on my own two feet."
I smile and squat down beside the two of them. I cup my hand around Bella's bare shoulder and lean my forehead against her, kissing her skin softly. I can feel her leaning into me as she slides her hand over mine, and curls her fingers within mine. "Jacob," she says softly, unaware she has even spoken out loud. Charlie, without speaking, looks over at me. I look back at him, and he nods contentedly. He pulls his arms away from Bella, and she allows her arms to fall away from him. I pull her into my lap as Charlie pushes himself away from the floor and looks down at us; at Bella.
"I'm going to go talk with the Doctor," he tells us as he backs towards the door and disappears into the hallway. Bella looks over at me, and I lean my lips forward and kiss her. Our lips slowly part, eyes closed, as we lean our foreheads against each other.
I recall another story Billy used to tell me when I was younger, as I hold her securely in my lap. He would tell me that when shape shifters would imprint it would not only imprint on the body, but the soul: the spirit. He said that shape shifters would often times imprint before even realizing it. Their soul would know, but their body would not until after the first time they phased. The female who would be imprinted on, he would say, would be just as clueless about it as the male who imprinted on her before phasing. Her spirit would be strong, and her spirit would know there was something for her, something pure and strong, something that would hold her and link her to the physical world; if even she was only a spirit. Sometimes, he would tell me, a woman could be killed who had been imprinted on, and she would come back to life, and they would be together. The spirit is a strong thing, he would tell me, and sometimes when you find a particularly strong one they are able to stay in the plane of earth, of the physical, and find her way back into her body.
I open my eyes. Bella is looking at me, watching me. Her eyes dart slowly over my face, drinking in every inch of me. Her hand is cupping my cheek. I run my hand over hers and pull her hand into my own, leaning my lips down and kissing the palm of her hand. "Jacob," she whispers softly, unblinking. I look into her deep, dark brown eyes and know with all of me the stories Billy had been telling me since before I could talk were true, and that I brought Bella back to life, without even realizing it.
"Bella," I say softly, taking her cheek into my hand. I bring my lips down to hers and kiss her softly. "I love you," I tell her, kissing her again.
"I love you," she tells me, kissing me. "Will you hold me?" she asks, pulling herself closer to me. "Will you hold me until my last breath?"
I nod my head, and kiss her again. "I promise."
THE END