RR
Summary: A New Moon AU. Set approximately five years after Bella jumped, but Alice never saw the jump. The Cullen's never returned and Bella has drifted from one extreme to the next in an effort to hear her hallucinations. Rated M as content may not be appropriate for all ages.
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, New Moon or anything else in the series as I am not Stephenie Meyer.
AN: This story is set five years after Bella jumped off the cliff in New Moon, the only key difference is that Alice never saw the jump and they never returned as a result. Small warning, story may be a bit disturbing to some.
Prelude
By the time Alice had decided to start looking for Bella's future and forget about her promise to her brother, it was too late. The solid future that Alice had once seen was completely gone. She could no longer see Bella becoming her sister. Instead, when she tried to look into a distant, murky future, all she ever saw was Bella's gravestone, date of death blurred.
When she made a decision to save Bella from whatever this distant future was by going to get her she was immediately assaulted with a dozen different visions of ways that Bella would hasten her own death if she showed up. The Bella, as she now existed, would not allow any contact with Alice or any of the Cullens.
That was roughly two years after they left Bella. A few months later, Edward finally decided to return to the family. Alice never deliberately looked for her once sister's future again.
Edward didn't ask Alice to find out because, in his heart, he knew he was only one small shove from going back for Bella. The thing was, Edward didn't do much of anything, constantly hiding in his bedroom, or in the attic, or any other space that his family would avoid.
In the three years after he returned to his family, he hunted exactly five times, each time because he was forced to. For Edward, his one saving grace was the fact that he was certain Bella had moved on with her life. He was certain that she was happy and safe, wherever she was. He didn't know how wrong his beliefs were.
Meanwhile, in sunny California, Bella was sitting at a table, waiting for her challenger to sit across from her, waiting for the match to start. It was during this time that she remembered what had led her to finding this ultimate adrenaline rush because it was the one thing that she truly never could get good at, and so, his voice always showed up in her mind.
Five years ago she'd jumped into the ocean from a hundred feet up and almost drowned, fortunately, her best friend of the time had saved her life. It gave her a chance to do it again, and again, and again. In the months that followed her senior year spring break, she must have jumped off that cliff a hundred times. Eventually, she got too good at it, and then he stopped talking to her.
She had to find a new extreme sport after that. So that summer, she moved to Seattle, riding there on her motorcycle with nothing but a backpack and her relatively measly amount of savings. In Seattle, she found a new extreme sport, jumping the tracks. Jumping on and off moving trains was her life for the better part of three months. Unfortunately, just like cliff diving, it became too easy.
It wasn't too long after that when she discovered the Pacific Northwest Bridge in Amboy, Washington. Bungee jumping had been a terrifying thrill for a while. Sadly, the thrill didn't last. It didn't take long for her mind to realize that she was perfectly safe doing the bungee jumping, and once that happened, he stopped talking to her again.
She'd only been nineteen for two months when she tried skydiving for the first time. It was a rush like she'd never expected, and his voice castigating her the whole way down made it even sweeter. Sadly, like all things, the rush ended after she got good at it, which only took a few months. After that, she moved down to a coast town in California and started practicing freefall skydiving into the ocean. The rush didn't last long enough though as it was too similar cliff diving.
She wasn't even twenty when she tried her first drugs, and, for a while, they worked. Ultimately though, they didn't last long enough, and she wasn't actually lucid enough to really remember his voice afterward. In the end, drugs just weren't worth it, and neither was alcohol. Nothing was worth the raging headaches she got the morning after getting drunk.
By the time she was twenty-one, she was already off of all the drugs and stuff that she had tried. But she was still seeking out anything that allowed her to hear his voice, to see his face, even to remember his scent. At twenty-one, she was still a virgin. It wasn't something she thought about often as she honestly had no sexual desire whatsoever, but on her twenty-first birthday, it was something she contemplated.
Then, she sought out a way to fix it and went to a club. It wasn't her normal affair but, in the long run, she was glad she went. She met a guy there, and he introduced her to the world that she has lived in for the last two and a half years. She'd finally found the one rush, the one adrenaline spiked haze, that made it so he never left.
Someone sat down in front of her. She didn't bother to look at who it was yet. She didn't care if it was a guy or a girl. In the end, it didn't matter. It was just another face to her.
Shortly after, the referee stepped up to the table with the open box. Bella didn't look in the box, she already knew what was in it. A single revolver, a single bullet.
The referee started explaining the rules and how it worked, but she knew how it worked, so she didn't pay any attention. It was the same rules every time. At the end, the person who dies... loses. That was all that mattered.
The referee set the box on the table, picking up the gun and handing it to her opponent first as he handed the bullet to her. She examined the .357 bullet carefully, inspecting it to make sure it hadn't been tampered with before handing it back to the referee. Once her opponent handed back the gun, she was given the gun, and him the bullet.
She made sure that the revolver cylinder spun easily and without trouble. Once she verified that it spun the way it was supposed to, she examined the gun carefully to make sure there was nothing that could cause the match to be rigged. She handed the gun back to the referee.
It was then, as the referee loaded the bullet and spun the chamber that he spoke for the first time in her mind that night.
Don't do this, Bella. Just get up from the table and walk away. His words were, as always, ever so loving and concerned.
You won't stay with me if I leave. She thought as the gun was handed to her opponent first.
Yes, I will. I'll do anything as long as you don't do this.
She'd fallen for that line once, back when it was only her second or third time at the table. But, the instant she'd walked away, his voice had disappeared. In the back of her mind, she'd known it would. She never fell for it again. That's a lie.
I promise it isn't. Please stop this.
I can't. Even if she'd wanted to, she had a name for herself now, in two and a half years, she'd been the victor thirty-one times. In the underground world, she'd immersed herself in, she was considered Invincible Bella. If she got up to leave now, she'd likely be dead before she got to the door. She knew that.
Please, Bella, for me?
A plea, a request. One she'd heard dozens of times before. It wouldn't work though, as she was too stubborn. Besides, his voice was the high she now lived for, and this was the one thing that allowed her to hear it every single time. No, she thought with a smile.
The person across the table from her was handed the gun. She finally looked up. Her opponent was a man. Malnourished and clearly strung out on drugs, likely meth from the yellowing of his skin, but still... a man. He put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Click
She didn't blink, she didn't flinch. Her opponent handed the gun back to the referee who opened the cylinder and spun it again before popping it back into place and handing the gun to her.
Stop this, he demanded in her head.
No, she thought again. She put the gun to her head.
Bella, don't do this. His voice was furious in her head. The avenging angel's voice. Bella refused to acknowledge his name or even what he'd been, he was just a voice in her head now, the voice she lived for.
You won't stay with me any other way. She pulled the trigger. Click
She handed the gun back to the referee who once again spun the chamber before handing it to her opponent. He put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Click
The process of the gun being handed to the referee, cylinder spun, and handed to the other side of the table was once again repeated. It placed the gun back in her hand.
So you WANT to die then? Is that it? He was more furious than before.
Of course not. She knew if she died, then she'd no longer hear his voice and that wasn't what she wanted. She'd long ago come to believe that there was no after from this life. She wasn't sure exactly when. It could have been after Jake, or possibly after her last fight with Renee, or maybe it was after her father had kicked her out, but anyway she looked at it, she didn't believe in a tomorrow land anymore. There was only today, only this life, and this was how she chose to live it. She pressed the gun to her head.
You have a funny way of showing it. He snarled the words, his anger completely beautiful.
The real you left. This is the only way for me to keep a part of you. At one point, years prior, she had briefly considered that he'd actually left in a foolish attempt to protect her and did still love her. If that had been the case though then he surely would have come for her long ago. She couldn't believe that his sister hadn't seen all of this – yet another name she refused to remember – if he actually cared he would have come. For that matter, she didn't acknowledge any of their names anymore. She pulled the trigger. Click
She handed the gun back, and the chamber was spun again before being handed to her opponent. He put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Click
The gun once again passed to the referee and then to her.
You have to stop this madness, Bella.
Why? She thought. Why did it matter to the subconscious voice in her head? She knew the voice was actually a part of her, and she certainly didn't want to stop. She pressed the gun to her head and pull the trigger. Click
She handed the gun back, and watched as it was handed to her opponent, wondering if he had family. She was lucky, in one sense at least, because no one would care if she vanished, and she knew that. Many of the people that she'd been pinned against had families, in fact, a couple of the better-known ones had ended up in the papers after they went missing. It was true, her father was still out there as was her mother, and at one time she'd had an adopted family of wolf brothers, but all those ties had been severed. None of them would care if she did eventually die. In fact, more than one would probably assume it was her just desserts.
Across the table, the man pressed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Click
He handed the gun back, and after the cylinder was spun again, the gun was handed to her.
Dammit, Bella. Stop this. He didn't curse often, and he appeared to her even less. But there he was, standing right behind her opponent. A perfect, translucent silhouette of the man she remembered.
She glared at him as she pressed the gun to her temple, thinking, No. She closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger.
At the house where the Cullens were staying, Alice's vision of the future went black. She could feel Jasper's hand on her shoulder, and she vaguely heard him trying to talk to her as well as at least one of her siblings, but she couldn't pull herself out.
It felt like it had to be a lifetime later, but was likely only a couple of seconds, when she heard a resounding bang in her head and was finally able to jerk free of the vision.
Edward was standing right in front of her, and she could see in her mind what he was about to ask, wanting to know if there was time to save Bella. Alice shrugged, signaling she didn't know.
Edward immediately raced out of the house.
Alice knew though, the visions that she'd had must have been happening mere milliseconds after she saw it. If the bang she'd heard had been when Bella was holding the gun, then she knew that there was no saving her once sister.
In her mind's eye, not a vision, but a memory of the vision of the headstone she once saw, she filled in the blurred out date.
She turned into Jasper, sobbing openly.