Blood Lust
A Twilight fanstory
This story is taken from some very personal experiences. I got the idea from re-reading Twilight and coming to the scene where Bella is told she needed a blood transfusion after she was attacked by James. But mostly it is from watching my mother back in happier and more hopeful times continue her life depending on the blood of other people. We had joked she was a vampire. She knew my love for Twilight, and probably would have read it if she got the chance.
There are many illnesses that require blood transfusions to survive. It is perhaps the closest we humans come to a vampire existence. But in this case Bella may have the key to turn that survival into an instinct. If only Edward would let her into his world.
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I'd had enough reasons to think about how I would die in the past three years since I had moved to Forks. I had survived James' brutal beating, jumping off a cliff and countless death threats from vengeful vampires to the Volturi. But I would never have imagined it like this.
This was a very human way to die. Perhaps the most human way to die. The hunter was inside of me. Stalking me and destroying me from the inside out.
Edward couldn't protect me from this and I think that was killing him even more then me. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be able to protect me from anything. He was strong and powerful, a God forever seventeen. I had watched him destroy the most powerful enemies with one, swift movement. He had done everything in his power to protect me from any threat imaginable. But not from this.
I'd spent the past 3 months living as he does-off of the blood of other humans. Humans like me. His blood lust was eternal, but mine could only go on for so long. Our marriage plans had been interrupted- they may never come to be- but I had come as close as I ever would to being like him. Needing like him. Unable to survive without the sustenance that my human body no longer could sufficiently produce. Edward's blood lust made him strong, but mine was making me waste away. I wondered if he would choose the only option left for me, or if this human body of mine would forever be in need. A need only a vampire existence could provide.
It started without warning. Well, there may have been a warning if I already weren't prone to fainting spells, and wasn't such a klutz that random bruising wasn't a concern for me. But within the period of a week even I started to notice that there was something happening to me. And that's when I went to Carlisle.
I'd been feeling tired that week, but only thought it had been because of all that had been going on the past month. My emotions had been pretty frazzled lately over Edward's proposal, the fight between Victoria's army and the Cullens, and ultimately losing Jacob. It shouldn't have seemed strange that I wanted to sleep more often and not even spend that much time with Edward.
He had taken me out to a restaurant (a fancy one in Port Angeles as usual), and I was shocked to have found myself falling asleep on his shoulder as we later sat together admiring the view of the harbor. He wasn't bothered by it because when I forced myself awake I was in his arms and he had covered my bare shoulder with his sweater against the chilly wind. But I was embarrassed to have ruined our first special time together after all the turmoil we'd endured lately.
I went to Carlisle the next day. I didn't initially think I wanted to see him as a doctor to a patient- it was Alice who told me to do that. I guess she knew.
She took one look at me when I returned to the Cullens after my night out with Edward was cut short by my sudden tiredness, and ran to my side. Her eyes were creased with concern and she shakily brushed a piece of hair from over my eyes.
"Bella, you look tired lately. Have you not been getting enough sleep?" She didn't sound convinced by her own question, and I felt my stomach clench at her pained expression.
"Actually, we're home early because she couldn't stay awake even for me." Edward turned to me with his beautiful, crooked smile. I felt myself blush and smiled back at him.
"Maybe you should talk to Carlisle. You could be…anemic." Alice added her eyes still full of concern. She had barely been able to say the word 'anemic'- her voice broke.
Edward put his arm around me. "Have you not been feeling well lately, Bella?" he asked, also seeming concerned now. I backed away.
"I'm fine. Don't worry." I suddenly resented being a fragile human and having everyone worry about my health. When I became a vampire I'd be strong and never be tired again. The time was drawing close now.
"You need to take care of your health, Bells." Alice continued. "After all you've got a free doctor right here whenever you need him." She smiled, seeming cheerier now.
I sighed. "Alright, I'll talk to Carlisle tomorrow."
"I'll let him know you're coming." Alice said still seeming worried.
Edward watched her, carefully monitoring his sister's expressions for signs of effects from visions. I didn't even want to know.
"Well, I guess I should take you home and get you to bed then, Bella." He said after a minute, looking back over at me with eyes of gentle topaz.
I didn't really want to go home. I was angry with myself for feeling this weak and fragile. I wanted to stay there with him. But I knew if Edward took me home and I got the sleep I so desperately needed he would be right by my side when I woke up again.
Carlisle saw me in his office the next day. I dreaded being in a formal doctor's office with all the instruments, the antiseptic smells and especially the needles. But Alice insisted that I see him there and not at the Cullen home. I wasn't going to disobey her, not with how stubborn she was being. I had Edward with me, so at least I had something else to concentrate on other then the dizzying smells and sights of the doctor's office.
"So, Bella, Alice says you haven't been feeling well lately." Carlisle said, gently easing himself into a chair beside me.
"I'm just feeling tired. She's overreacting." I mumbled.
Carlisle frowned, and looked me over. I hoped he didn't notice the bruise-like shadows under my eyes that I had noticed when I looked at my paler then usual reflection in the mirror that day. I was starting to look like one of them, but instead of it making me God-like like Edward, or inhumanly beautiful like Rosalie, it just made me look sick and tired.
"She's not overreacting, Bella. She's just worried about you." Edward said, gripping my hand. I looked over at him and smiled, feeling reassured just by his presence.
Carlisle started to examine me by gently feeling under my neck with his cool hands. They felt good on my skin that felt hot and clammy that day. He said nothing except asking me general questions about my health, and to move in a certain direction so he could continue the examination. His eyes gave me nothing to try to guess what he was thinking.
When he finished he leaned back in his chair and my heart did a flip-flop as his eyes met mine.
"I realize you've never been comfortable with doing this, but I think we're going to need to take some blood from you, Bella."
My first thought when he said this was how strange to hear something like that coming from the lips of someone I knew was a vampire. Vegetarian or not. But then it hit me. Needles. I was going to have to have a needle!
"Don't worry, Bella. I'll be with you." Edward said suddenly pulling me from my thoughts.
"No you won't!" I said a little louder then I wanted to. "You can't sit there and watch someone take blood from me. You'll go crazy."
Carlisle looked over at Edward seeming to agree.
"Besides, I'm not a baby. A tiny needle isn't going to hurt me. I can do this."
And I did do it. I didn't faint, and I didn't throw up- at least not before I could get to a bathroom. Edward took me home and told me he was proud of me for being so brave. I felt like a three year-old until he carefully took my face in his hands and pressed his cool lips against mine. My heart thudded against my ribs and echoed in my ears. I concentrated on breathing as I kissed him back, my skin burning against his.
"Being in that office with you made me remember how fragile humans are. I've seen you get injured and be in the emergency room often enough, but I've never considered you becoming sick. Please take care of yourself dear Bella." He breathed as he pulled away.
"I will." I answered my head spinning.
When I got a call from Carlisle's doctor's office 3 days later though, I knew it was bad. They wanted me to come in right away. They wanted Charlie to come. I couldn't stand the fear in his eyes as we drove up to the health center I had gone to only days before.
"Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling well?" Charlie asked in his car, his voice unsteady. I noticed the speedometer inching over the speed limit.
"I didn't think it was anything. I just went to see Dr. Cullen because I'd been tired a lot." I said, doing my best to keep the fear from my own voice. I didn't want to scare him, or know just how much I was scared too.
What could possibly be wrong with me? I didn't feel all that sick. I wasn't in any pain. I was just tired. And then I remembered Alice. She had been so worried about me. She had wanted me to see a doctor. She knew. But what didn't she tell me? Why didn't she tell me?
"Thank you for coming Chief Swan, Bella." Carlisle shook hands with Charlie and I as he let us into his office. His face was a mask. I wished I could hear his thoughts like Edward could.
Edward… I wished I had him there to comfort me.
"Please have a seat." Carlisle said, directing us to two office chairs by his desk. We were in a different room then the examine room I had been in the other day. This was a large, square office with shelves of books, a mahogany desk, and framed medical degrees hanging on the wall. I wondered for a second if there might be one from the early 1900s. It was a crazy thought, but I guess I just wanted to keep my mind off of what was happening.
"Dr. Cullen, what is this about?" Charlie got right to the point.
Carlisle cleared his throat. "I called you down today because we found an abnormality in your blood test, Bella." He said looking right at me.
"What do you mean an abnormality?" Charlie asked.
"Well, Bella's white and red blood cells along with her platelets levels are very low." Carlisle replied speaking to Charlie now.
"What does that mean?" I asked, feeling the emptiness in the pit of my stomach.
"To be honest, I thought it was leukemia at first…" Carlisle started, but Charlie interrupted.
"Leukemia?!" he shouted, standing up in his chair. I would have seen the fear in his eyes, or how he looked ready to throttle Carlisle if I hadn't been lost in a fog.
Leukemia… cancer. He thought I had cancer? I couldn't have cancer.
"No, Chief Swan, its not. Please sit down." Carlisle said, hastily.
"Dad…" I found myself saying not even turning to Charlie. I just wanted him to sit down. But I had called him dad. I never did that. I felt like I was stuck inside a fog. My thoughts, my body, my heart.
"I don't think its leukemia. I think its something called aplastic anemia." Carlisle said putting his hands together on the desk.
"What's aplastic anemia?" I heard myself ask from somewhere far away.
"It's a rare disease of the blood and bone marrow. The bone marrow stops working properly and stops producing enough new blood cells. You're going to have to go to the hospital to have a bone marrow biopsy done and-" Carlisle was suddenly cut off.
"So its not leukemia. It's not cancer." Charlie was saying, his breathing, laboured.
"No, its not."
I was suddenly pulled into a hug. I felt Charlie's arms around me and I remembered to breathe.
"Thank God, Bells, thank God." He kept repeating.
"Bella, Chief Swan, please listen to me. This is a very serious disease even if it isn't cancer. Bella will need weekly blood transfusions or a bone marrow transplant. Depending on the severity of the disease without treatment right away.." he stopped, and I came out of the fog long enough to hear him say it.
"Bella will die."