A/N: So this one shot has been playing around in my mind for a while now after I read some similiar fanfiction and I just needed to write it down. I'm not a native speaker, I'm as of fact german but I try my best without a beta and so far it worked:) All mistakes are mine of course:)
As a matter of fact (and because I got scolded for it before even though I repeatedly state it before chapters) I curse. A lot. Don't like, don't read, I'm not making excuses for it ;)
Normally I write fanfiction for Pride&Prejudice, so there's a little reference to it in the story;) if you like my style go check out my other stories, I momentarily write a multi-chapter modern version of P&P, it's really fun so far;)
Disclaimer: Don't own Twilight, I just play with it for today;)
There Will Be Blood
Time is ticking. It's always ticking. Dripping, trickling, moving forward. Time is my own worst enemy, the thing I kill over and over again, every fucking second, every freaking moment. Time is the never ending wealth, I spend and spend, but it's never running out.
And I want so desperately to get rid of it.
The piercing sound of the bell rips through my mind and I groan. It's just another bell, just another high-school, just another sound that divides my time and presses it into neat and tidy hours of boredom and self-loathing.
It's a mean to count the time, if you get tired of watching clocks ticking and teasing you after nearly a decade of doing so. It's the thing you do, when you've got no heartbeat to rely on and no need to breathe to divide moments.
I hear him coming up to me, but I know his scent and ignore the basic instincts, which tell me to turn around and fight the intruder. Being a predator has its merits, you know.
"Playing Zombie again, Izzy?", he asks, a grin plastered across his face and I can see his teeth. Sharp and shiny, like my own.
"I'm practicing for our session today, Sy", I reply and push some books into my locker, before I close it with a thud.
"So you wanna be Frankenstein's monster and I'm the crazy doctor?", Sy asks with an arched eyebrow, tugging at his cufflinks and the sleeves of his long black dress-coat. He likes playing with the vampire image and people think it's vintage, think it cute and kind of scary, can't understand why he keeps mixing crisp white dress shirts with cufflinks, leather trousers and long, black dress-coats, but no one ever understood that the clothes they think he bought at some overpriced vintage-shop, are actually relics from the 1860s, a time, where he was living in Southern London.
"Sure if you want to use your teeth to patch me up, I don't see a problem."
"Your lack of blood would be one", Sy retorts. "And you're always growing back together seamlessly, Izzy. That's no fun."
"Oh, I'd prefer it, if you just leave me alone and perhaps ignite a fire if it's not too much trouble", I mutter, clutching the pile of books for next period English Literature to my chest, while we both lean against our lockers. As much as vampires ever lean of course.
"Izzy..." It's a sound I've come to know well over the years, the reaction I face, every time I utter something even remotely suicidal and I respond with nothing more than a shrug.
It's not that I'm depressed, it's not that killing myself is on top of my priorities, it doesn't even range in the top ten, but the fact is that I'm tired, excruciatingly so and the state I'm in doesn't allow sleep. In the end the prospect of enduring this endless, torturous routine forever and always, often leads me to make inappropriate jokes.
Yeah, the idea of suicide kind of looses its taboo if you're already dead and more a walking,talking adamantine corpse than a living, breathing human being.
So sue me if I'm making fun of it.
"I think you'd be the one to profit from my lack of blood, wouldn't you?", I reply cheekily, brushing over the pleading expression in his golden eyes. I know that the thought of loosing me is scaring him shitless.
"Not everybody can have your abnormal self-control, Iz", he groans. "Honestly, you're downright inhuman."
"Which is the whole point", I reply and we both are silent, deadly-silent, watching the babbling, bouncing, giddy crowd of High-School-kids, a weak, smelly, oblivious bunch of prey with a mix of boredom and amusement.
They're avoiding us out of instinct, eyes down, sometimes fluttering in our direction but they shudder when taking in our vampiric demeanor (not that they would know the term) and only the dumbest, most insensible idiots still harbor x-rated fantasies about us.
It would have irked me, unsettled me even if I had been faced with such evident avoidance as a human, but I'm not that weak, not that vulnerable anymore, neither physically nor mentally and even though I'm not a big fan of my current adamantine state, the independence, that comes along with it, taught me a lot of things.
"Do you ever get tired of it?", I ask Sy, seeing the sparkle in his eyes, when he takes in a bunch of giggling freshman, who watch him in fear and admiration.
"Of what?" His tone is nonchalant, but he's not fooling me. We both can't fool each other, thirty years spent together do that to you. We both read each other like an open book so conversation is more because of fun than actual necessity.
"High School... Humans... Repeating junior and senior years till the end of time."
He shrugs. "I don't know, it makes staying at one place a lot easier and I kind of like teasing Will with calling him "Daddy" in public. Besides, it facilitates making progress at our studies, when we don't have to build up a new laboratory all of the time. This here-" He points to the freshman and a new wave of giggling erupts, when they notice it. "- is like an entertainment program. Take it as alternative to all this television crap, if you want soap opera, you get soap opera." He points out some people, explains their history, their desires, wishes and hidden corpses – Sy has always been a gossip, even centuries couldn't change that.
"I never liked television", I tell him for what must be the hundredth time and he just laughs. It makes me smile.
"Do you know about the vampires, which are coming in this area some time soon?", he suddenly asks, seemingly randomly but that's how his mind works, making jumps and cuts and sudden connections, which can certainly drive you mad if they don't scare the shit out of you before. It's entertaining if your own mind is more like a repetitive circle, moving through the same thoughts, feelings and actions like before without a way out. On good days I tell myself that I'm actually making progress, that I'm moving forward in circles, but that's just self-delusion.
"Nomads?", I reply. The idea of foreign vampires in our territory awakens the predator-instincts in me but it's also a certain kind of protectiveness towards the locals. This is Forks. No one hunts humans in this area without any repercussions. Forks is home.
It has taken me exactly thirty years, three months and two days away from this place, and about two months, three days and twelve hours back here to come to this conclusion. You know what, scratch the minutes and seconds, they're all lined up in my mind anyway.
When Lizzie told us, we'd be moving to my old hometown for the next few years, I was apprehensive, to put it delicately. If we cut the pleasantries, I was fucking furious and on the verge of throwing away all these years with my new family just to escape the prospect of facing unpleasant memories. But Lizzie was adamant on what she called "necessary for your emotional healing", she's a strange one, I give you that. Will had been of the same mind as his wife, offering an "All will be well, little one" in his usual clipped but soothing tone and Sy, funny, relaxed and unaffected Sy, practically begged me to stay, to do what Lizzie said was best, to finally heal after thirty years of denial.
And I stayed, not only because of the Volturi and the impossibility of surviving alone, but also because Lizzie and Will and Sy are my family and I'd already lost mine once, I can't take that pain again.
And so far it's fine. No one recognizes me, even the mid-fifty-somethings I went to school with as a human have no idea who I am. Perhaps it's the changed name, the short hair or the different eye color (being pale and looking like some anorectic model certainly contributed to that), perhaps it 's just that nobody would ever associate clumsy, shy Bella Swan with confident, arrogant Izzy DeCourcy, but I don't care, I'm not that person anymore.
Upon my arrival I did some research on what my High-School friends had been up to these past few years, I even visited Charlie's grave (he died some years ago because of a coronary attack), not overly disconcerted by the name on the headstone next to his. I knew they'd declared me dead after the attack, the pack had taken care of that, to spare Charlie the "uncertainty" as they put it, because in their minds, I was already dead. So therefore seeing the proof of it wasn't that much of a surprise, to me Bella Swan died the day he left. So put the blame where it's supposed to be.
I even went up to their house, painted it red just for the fun of it. Yeah, I have a really fucked up sense of humour.
But I didn't visit the meadow. Perhaps because of the smell of blood still lingering in the air.
"I'm not sure if they're nomads", Sy says pensively, scratching his nose (he does that because he thinks it makes him look like Sherlock Holmes, which it doesn't, mind you). "Something tells me, they're different."
"Sure it's not the weather?", I tease him. "Who else would come up here?"
I don't know what they're up to, but I don't think they'll come back as long as there's the faint chance of encountering me here (I don't believe they've kept track of the death notices at Forks Chronicles, so they probably believe I'm married and teach English Lit to bored, intoxicated students).
"I don't know", he sighs. "Will wasn't specific with the time they will be here, it could be today or next weekend." He turns around to face me. A completely useless, human gesture. "Which means a little more fun for our dear Izzy."
"Why should it be fun for me?", I pout. "The only one who gets a kick out of this is you, Mister."
"Nothing's better than a bit of disruption in our otherwise monotone existence, don't you think? Or can you imagine being as blissfully happy as Lizzie and Will?" He shudders. "I get a toothache every time they stare at each other like lovesick puppies."
"They have their big row every other year", I interject, amused by his antics.
"Yeah, and we have to vacate the house for two weeks afterward", Sy deadpans. "It's nauseating."
Will and Lizzie are our official parents and while we have to endure the living hell of High-School every day, our sort-of Daddy works as a lawyer in his own company, while Lizzie pursues some hobby or is doing charity work at the local hospitals. They claim to have been changed sometime in the early nineteenth century "during a ball" as Lizzie puts it with a twinkle in her eye, but that's all they ever told us. Sy swears the story isn't exactly fit for minors, how he knows that, I'm not sure but he keeps scratching his nose and blames it on the weather.
We met the two shortly after Sy and I fled Italy and we've been this strange, patchwork family ever since.
"See ya' at lunch?", Sy asks with a wink and I roll my eyes, when he walks down the hallway like the vampire version of Jack freaking Sparrow, the one with the snow white hair of course.
"Idiot", I mutter under my breath but he hears it of course.
"Cynic", he replies in the same voice and grins over his shoulder.
"Watch were you're going", I advise him and throw the compilation of modern female authors after his head, so fast that none of those weak humans can see it.
But he catches the book, of course, before it hits his head and flips it open with an arched eyebrow. "Is that supposed to tell me something?", he asks quietly, walking down the hallway away from me.
"Only if you find it useful."
School passes by like always. Clearly outlined hours of reading and numbness and answering inane questions when asked. There's nothing to surprise me, considering I'd already studied English Literature twice in the past thirty years, not to mention studying psychology once and medicine thrice.
When I get out into the parking-lot, where the typical greasy Forks-weather awaits me gleefully with dark gray clouds and stormy winds, a small red book nearly crashes against my head before I catch it mid-air.
"Do you want to kill me?", I ask Sy, who's sitting on the engine bonnet of his green Ford. Some hundred feet away from me.
"Nah, just returning your property", he replies with a smirk and snaps his fingers. All these freaking cute little humans make way for me – not that I notice of course.
"You know Will would have our heads over a bonfire if he knew what we do in school", I say drily, perusing the book and looking for these nice little sketches of rather obscene scenes, Sy likes to draw in my books to freak me the hell out while in class.
"What for?", he asks innocently, staring in the gray sky. "The talking over inhuman distances, the flying books or the clandestine meetings in the janitors closet?"
"Sy, I'll never meet you in this closet no matter how many times you ask", I reply, eyes still glued to the words on the pages. Not that I don't know them inside out.
"Prude", he says with a pout. "Clandestine meetings are fun, you virgin."
"Hey pot, meet my friend kettle." I wave without looking up.
"I'm not a virgin", he protests, playing with the ring on his finger. I have the same one, right around my index finger.
"And I'm not a prude", I retort. "I just have an aversion to janitor's closets, where half of the student body has lost their virginity."
"Like I said: Prude."
I let out a huff. "It's not that I only suspect, but moreover that I can actually smell the evidence of their little shenanigans. It's about simple hygiene, Sy. Humans are disgusting."
"Are you jealous, little virgin?"
"About them playing doctor in a room, where they store the toilet paper? I don't think so!"
"You were a human once", he says, watching me coming closer. I hate that we have to keep up human appearances at a place I want to escape as fast as possible. University isn't that bad, you can choose your classes and they actually treat you like an adult and don't tell you that your neckline is too low for their bigoted standards, which apply only because your shirt is ripped and black and you wear to much eyeliner and metal (the blonde bombshell of a cheerleader will never receive that kind of lecture).
"Don't remind me", I tell him and sit down next to him. We have a thing for watching them crawl around the parking-lot like thousands of little ants. Being a vampire makes you feel like you're walking through Barbie's plastic world all the time, or traipsing around an anthill – fucking goodness, it's hard not to crush them accidentally.
"Did you ever engage in those shenanigans as a cute little human?", he asks with a smirk on his face. I don't answer him. I never answer questions about that time. It's a taboo, a big black wall in my mind adorned with posters and stickers over the years. I don't talk about him. Like never.
"Nah, you've been too occupied fooling around with this paragon of virtue, that called himself a vampire", he drawls, flicking over the pages of the textbook in his hand. "I named him "asshat, you know?" ", he adds with obvious pride and I snicker despite the pain.
We continue our little reading session, sitting like crows on the engine bonnet until most of the students are gone.
"Did you get some blood bottles?", I ask Sy, who nods and starts a long story about the elderly nurse, who nearly caught him at the blood bank, before he suddenly stops dead silent.
"What's up?", I ask and look up bewildered. He stares ahead at two cars, which suddenly stopped in front of the school building.
"I think I know, what's wrong with the new vampires", he says, his voice and expression void of any emotions. "They're students."
The sudden panic that surges through my veins (or whatever the hell you want to call those wires) makes me look closer at these two cars and when they get out, I freeze.
"Izzy?", his voice is strained yet worried. "Is it that family?"
I can't move, can't speak... they're here. Back in Forks... they're here.
I see Alice first, the same black spiky hair, the same golden eyes, the clothes are different but still as extravagant as always. Jasper is right behind her, a hand on her back, they look apprehensive as if something is troubling them. Perhaps they can smell the blood too.
Rosalie and Emmet excite the red convertible, looking stunning as ever. I try to guess how many times they must have gotten married in the past years and wonder how many wedding dresses Rosalie has in her wardrobe.
Yeah, distraction... it doesn't work though.
"Do you want to go?", Sy asks through gritted teeth, his instincts are riling him up as much as they do with me. It's in our nature to feel protective of our territory and the Cullens are intruders. It takes everything not to jump out and go into a defensive posture, or kill them possibly.
They haven't noticed us yet. The wind blows in the wrong direction for them to smell us and mine and Sy's gifts combined prevent us from being detected by gifted vampires. Hell, how do you think we managed to escape the Volturi for so long?
I can't move. It's like the same fucking electric attraction all these years ago. I feel him and it's freaking me out.
"Izzy, do you want to go?" He's clearly worried, knowing what he does about the Cullens and my fragile state of mind thirty years ago.
But I can't move.
And then he appears.
Thirty years with pronouns in your head can drive you slightly mad and they certainly don't prepare you for facing the one that ripped apart your heart again.
He looked horrible. I wouldn't have noticed it as a human with my weak human eyes, the hard, pale vampire skin would have smoothed over those lines and shadows and although vampire bodies don't decay, he looked like a freaking zombie, walking on autopilot. Perhaps his distractions are distracting him too much, I muse.
I can smell him, breathing in his scent, so much clearer, so much more detailed and overwhelming than the one in my memories behind this big black wall.
Had there been oxygen in my lungs, I would have fainted. Had there been blood in this body, it would have stopped flowing. Had I been still alive, had I been a weak human, I would have collapsed, fallen dead on the floor.
But as it is, I'm already dead.
"Let's go", I whisper to Sy, not bothering to focus too much on the grave expression on his face. He nods, takes my hand.
"It's gonna be okay", he says, whispers it like he wants to persuade himself of its truth. We get up.
But then something suddenly happens.
The weather in Forks is as cranky and pettish as the moods of a pregnant woman in the last weeks of her pregnancy, so it has the consistency of a freaking storm in fucking April. And the wind turns around just as often.
It all seems to happen in slow-motion. One moment the wind is blowing in my face, assuring me that Sy and I are on the safe-side, ready to leave this place behind, while his scent distracts my nose.
The next his scent is gone and my short hair is falling in my face and I feel our bodies tensing.
They freeze when our scent hits them. Jasper pushes Alice behind him, she's trying to sneak a peek between his outstretched arms, her golden eyes curious and defensive at the same time.
She scrunches her nose, before shock takes over and she breathes in sharply.
Sy chuckles despite his agitation, he knows about Alice's gift and is fucking smug about the fact that it won't work with us. All their gifts won't work with us.
The usual defensive posture becomes desperate and I can see that they have no idea how to handle us. Yeah take that, I think.
Alice looks confused, Jasper, Emmet and Rosalie defensive and Edward seems to awake from his stupor for the first time. Can vampires get drunk?
"Who are you?", Emmet growls, he's clearly not amused that we caught them so unprepared and without their gifts working.
"Is that a philosophical question?", Sy asks, cocking his head slightly. I squeeze his hand, searching for the reassurance.
"If you want me to rip your head of...", Emmet replies menacingly. Rosalie puts a hand on his arm, trying to calm him down.
"Oh, I'd like to see that", Sy drawls, he's not overly fond of the Cullens and suggested a quick visit several years ago. The nightmares I suffered afterward kept him from suggesting something like that ever again. As much as vampires have nightmares of course.
I don't have to look at him to know that his typical sarcastic grin is tugging at his lips – he smiles, but it's more an excuse to show his teeth.
Emmet and Jasper growl, while Edward looks only mildly interested – is he stoned or something like that? He doesn't really look like he's part of this world, no protecting, no reacting to instincts at the face of a potential threat. He's impassive, not at all like the boyfriend, that tried to protect me from a mad killer over thirty years ago.
Sy squeezes my hand tightly, rips me out of the dead, golden eyes of Edward Cullen. We have an escape-mission to accomplish, there are five vampires over there each of them as much a ghost as Bella fucking Swan. But four of them are ready to kill.
"What do you want?" That's Jasper. Still the Southern Accent. Do some things never change?
"Is that an offer?", Sy asks and cocks his head. "I'd like some puma for lunch, humanity would be nice and if you could get me to understand why the fucking hell these teenage girls all want babies from this brown-eyed cokehead, who is always whining about his one true love, I'd be forever grateful." He bows slightly before his eyes flicker to me. "Do you want to add something, Izzy?", he asks but I just smile instead of answering.
"You drink animal blood?", Alice's bell like voice chimes in, her head appears behind Jasper, which the blonde vampire doesn't seem to appreciate.
"Are they blind?", Sy asks me, rhetorically of course since I do not answer. "Wow, blind vampires, I didn't see that one coming."
"We. Are. Not. Blind", Emmet growls and Rosalie's eyes are also blazing over in anger.
"Oh, but figuratively you are, am I right?" He smirks at Alice, who looks at him quizzically. "Must be a rare occurrence for you, what? Don't worry, you'll get used to it, short one."
Now I'm the one squeezing his hand, provocation won't get us out of this situation and it has never resurrected dead people. I tried, you know.
"And why is that?" It's his voice. Edward's voice. And I can't control the wince, that escapes me when I hear it.
Their eyes suddenly focus on me and I'm so fucking grateful that Jasper can't feel the hole in my chest tearing up again.
"Oh I cover one part, Izzy the other", Sy explains casually. "We're like the new devil-twins. Screw Jane and Alec. Aro loves us." Our hands meet in a high five over our heads and the resounding slap seems to make them cringe.
"You know the Volturi?", Jasper asks, his voice strained. I can see the scars now, dancing all over his skin like a vampiric tattoo.
"Yeah...", Sy drawls. "We're like best buddies, or whatever the kids call it these days. We're always playing golf if he's not chasing us around the world in order to collect us for his own little freak show." He rolls his eyes. "Izzy here is Jane's BFF..." He furrows his brow. "That's the term right?"
"So you're running away from legal justice?" Again Jasper. Sy nearly has a laughing fit at that and it takes a while before he calms down enough to reply.
"See, I think this is were our beautiful friendship is going to end, Soldier. Legal Justice? We're not running from legal justice, because a) I don't recognize Mad Aro as my king and b) I'm not overly fond of walking around as a piece of furniture just to satisfy him." He squeezes my hand, knowing that Aro scares the living shit out of me. "I also can't stand the way he steals my memory all the time, not that he ever managed to get Izzy's of course..."
"So you're the one blocking Edward." Alice addresses me. I don't react. "And you're blocking me." She turns to Sy, who bows and smiles. "My pleasure, little Pixie."
She smiles too. "It's refreshing", she admits and he bows again the little charmer.
"What do you want here?", Jasper rephrases Emmet's question from before.
Sy rolls his eyes. "Oh we're just trying to get our GEDs for the fifth or sixth time... or do you really think I'd read "Animal Farm" voluntarily?"
"So you're living in the area and you're enrolled as students?", Alice asks curiously. Sy nods in an overly dramatic way.
"Yeah, we live here with our family." He stresses the word "family" to show them that we're not alone, that there's someone, who'll revenge us should things go over the top.
"Why doesn't she say something?", Alice suddenly asks, her eyes focused on me. Sy grips my hand tightly. "Izzy's not overly fond of talking, so it's my job, when we're in company." He smiles, knowing that the only thing, that will come out of my mouth right now when I dare to speak, is a long tortured scream. Followed closely by a long list of insults, not fit for polite company.
"I can see that..." Emmet mutters under his breath, but Alice, disentangling herself from Jasper's arm, has other plans.
"Alice!", the three vampires sans Edward hiss, but the little pixie just rolls her eyes, tells Jasper to relax and walks over to where Sy and I are standing.
We're both tensing, Sy's smile disappears, while the girl I once called my best friend comes over, an unreadable expression on her small face.
"I'd advise you not to come closer, little one", Sy growls, but Alice ignores him, her eyes big and round, a mix of hope and sadness battling in them.
She stops in front of me and it's only my hand in Sy's that keeps him from throwing her back to her family like an unwanted package without postage.
Unmoving, tensing, waiting for something, the description of my existence pressed into the quarter of a second, where a pair of oddly familiar eyes stares into mine.
"Bella", she breathes, a hand in the air trying to touch me.
The effect is instantaneous. The growling increases, teeth flash up and Edwards impassive mien becomes one of utter desperation.
"Bella", she whispers again and I swear, if she were no vampire, she'd be crying right now.
I tense, nostrils flaring, fists curling, I can feel the madness contorting my face.
"I'm. Not. Bella", I spit and the hatred she must see on my face makes her cringe. I can hear the Cullens gasp at the sound of my voice, it's not at all like the one I had thirty years ago but it comes close to it.
"She's not that girl", Sy interjects, the smile gone from his face. Alice whirls around to face him.
"Don't lie to me, Silver head", she hisses, her face alight with fury. "You can block me from seeing the future, but that doesn't mean I'm fucking blind and won't recognize my best friend!"
"You have a very strange understanding of the word friendship", he drawls, squeezing my hand in reassurance.
"What? Mourning her for thirty years only to see her again as a vampire? Don't you dare tell me that she's not Bella -"
"Bella is dead", I interject and the tone I use is deadly. No pun intended. "She died thirty years ago."
"Oh don't you dare tell me you're schizophrenic now", Alice begins but another velvet voice interrupts her.
"How?", he asks and it takes everything in me not to scream like a banshee at his words.
"Oh I think it involved a nasty mix of a red-eyed vampire and a bunch of young werewolves", Sy drawls, but his posture gives away his agitation.
"I asked her." His voice is raspier than I remember, like he hasn't used it in a long time. Sy's body tenses, ready to kill but my voice stops him.
"The blood is still there", I say, "at the meadow. The smell is still there."
They're silent. Statues. Eyes big with horror and sadness. It's like looking into a mirror.
"Bella-" Alice again.
"I'm not Bella!", I nearly scream and I'm so fucking close to loosing control.
"Her name is Izzy", Sy interjects, his tone menacing. "Izzy DeCourcy. Is and has been for over thirty years now."
"Why didn't you come to us?", Alice whispers. "We would have helped you."
"You?", I shout reaching out to her, she jerks back and then Sy's arms are around me, restraining me from physically assaulting her. The other Cullens line up beside Alice.
"I waited for you!", I yell. "For weeks I waited at your house, hoping, wishing that me being changed into one of you was fucking important enough for you to come back!" My face contorts in pain when the hole threatens to consume me again and Sy's arms around me are the only thing that keeps my body from being torn apart.
"I thought you were my family! I thought you were my friends!", I hate that I sound like a crybaby but I'm so far gone and the pain is consuming me. "But you lied! You fucking lied!"
"We didn't lie", Rosalie and Alice whisper at the same time. "We thought you were dead", the pixie says. "We even went to your funeral."
"You-"
"We went there and wondered about the scent of a strange vampire lingering there. We went there because even though we knew you were dead and even though he forbade me to look into your future, I had these strange picture of you being alive in my head. But we went to your funeral and you weren't there."
"She was in Italy at the time", Sy explains and I can't stand to look into Alice's crestfallen eyes, because I have a new target now.
"You!", I shout, ripping Sy's arms away from me, storming over to the man I couldn't bear to look at twenty seconds ago. The anger helps a lot.
"You forbade her from looking out for me! You made me easy prey for Laurent and bloody motherfucking Victoria and-"
"Someone learned to curse", Emmet chuckles despite the seriousness of the situation.
"If there's no god to punish you with hell upon your death, you stop worrying about cursing", I spit without looking at him.
"And you didn't even have the decency to help when I became what you so clearly despise!", I continue, banging my fists against his chest while trying to ignore the electric spark tingling in my hands.
"I knew you didn't love me, that I was just a distraction for you, but I didn't thought that I was just a worthless piece of shit under your feet!"
"Bella...", Alice interjects, but I cut her off. "My name's Izzy."
"You believed me?", he asks and he looks like he is in pain. "I tell your for months that I love you and you remember the one time I lie?" He grips my arms and Sy growls. We're in the minority and the lines are not clear, he has no idea who's going to die and who will survive if he starts a fight.
"I wanted to protect you, Be- Izzy. I thought, you'd forget me, move on. I thought it would be the best if I just go, get all that vampire-shit away from you so that you can live a happy life. I thought you were dead, Izzy." He looks at me, the gold so full of pain and anguish.
"You wanted to force me", I whisper, not caring that he's so close, that the lines between our families are broken, that were right in the middle of a storm with no idea how to get out. "You wanted to force me into a live you thought best, you wanted me to become someone I'm not, only because you thought it safe, you patronizing son of a -"
"Izzy", he growls and crashes me against his chest. He's so close and warm since we're both vampires, his scent fills the hole in my ribcage and I feel alive for the first time in thirty years.
"Don't do that!", I hiss, trying to shove him away. "Don't you dare do that to me, you lying piece of scum! You had no consideration for my feelings because a lowly human could never feel as much as you, you fucking asshole!" My hair is flying in my face and I feel like a madwoman, but he doesn't let go of me, grips me around my waist and lets me hit him all I want to.
"You broke my heart! You left me dying there in the woods! You cared not a shit for me and now you're back to tell me it was all for nothing? That you're such a masochist that you put us both through that hell? Who do you think you are, you scumbag?"
His face reveals nothing but pain and anguish. I can hear Sy's quiet cheers and the gasps from the rest of the family.
"You played God with our lives! And why was that? Because you thought it would make me happy? Don't you know anything about me?" I push against his chest, but his grip is relentless.
"I loved you, you idiot!", I sob tearless and fall against his chest. His scent overwhelms me, the resurrected feelings overwhelm me and I want to kill something, anything to make it go away.
But it doesn't and the only real feeling is Edwards body around mine.
"I will never forgive myself for what I did to you", he whispers, one hand holding my head against his body. "But I love you, Izzy. I love you. I love you. I love you", he chants, pressing his lips against my hair. "I didn't thought I was worth you giving up your humanity for me, I thought you deserved more. I can't count the number of times I tried to kill myself since news of your death reached me and-"
"You're such an idiot", I growl, trying to keep the tearless sobs from erupting, pounding my fists against his chest. "You put me through hell just because of your self-esteem issues."
"It's not that easy", he mumbles. "It's a tangled mess of misunderstandings, ill-timing and hurt. We're like two blinds stumbling in darkness."
"Someone's getting poetic", I retort, my face buried in his chest. This is like coming home, a home you've known a long time ago and it stirs all these long hidden feelings in you until you feel like they're moving around in a circle in your head.
"Someone's learned cynicism", he replies and I can hear the small chuckle in his voice.
"You couldn't expect me to stay innocent forever, could you?" It starts as a rhetorical question, but quickly becomes more.
"No, I guess I couldn't", he mumbles in my hair. "I love you though."
I can feel everybody's eyes on us, but the words just won't come. I never talked to anyone after him about love. I squeeze Sy's hand, when I want to show him, I smile at Lizzie and Will when I want to tell them that they're my family. Lizzie always says the words will come, when I'm ready. She has one hell of patience that girl, on the other hand, she's married to Will, so that's kind of self-explanatory.
"Yeah, you love her, she loves you", Sy drawls behind us. "That's all very cute and nice, but can we get back to the juicy stuff?"
"Yeah, tell us where you hit that pretty head of yours, Silver", Alice chimes in, her voice suddenly sounding... cheerful.
"Oh, I knew I liked you for a reason, little one!", Sy exclaims. "It all starts one lovely evening in early spring when this lovely young woman suddenly walks into the Volturi palace, red-eyed, newborn and without any reaction when precious little Jane attacks her with her deep, soulful eyes."
"It kind of freaked out Aro", I add with a smile against Edward's dress shirt.
"Yeah, but then he loved you. He practically couldn't keep his hands off you", Sy continues. "Not that it had any affect at all. Mad Aro's face was priceless."
"And what were you doing at the Volturi's?", Jasper asks, his voice still careful.
"Me?" He sounds amused. "I was something like an involuntary permanent user, oh don't get me wrong board and lodging were all fine, I just didn't really like Jane's daily electroshock therapy if you get my drift."
"And then I turned up..."
"And then she turned up and Aro was hellbent on adding her to his little museum, it just wasn't exactly what we both had in mind."
"Not exactly", I snort, my nose still buried in Edward's chest.
"I don't think he was aware of the rather deadly combination he created when introducing us two, don't you think Izzy?"
"Aro was always a conceited ass", I mumble and I can hear Emmet chuckle.
"Long story short, we ran away in an unguarded moment and we ran for a long time."
"The combination of our gifts prevents us from ever being discovered by the Volturi as long as there is enough physical distance between us. I can protect our minds and Sy protects our body, figuratively of course."
"And what if there's no distance?", Edward asks.
"Then there's good ol' Will", Sy explains with a sigh. "And Lizzie to cheer us up."
"Who's Will?", Edward asks me.
"Will and Lizzie", I mutter. "Our parents. Will has a gift to protect loved ones. It works a little like Alice's gift, in the way that he can see if a decision will endanger us or he can see the best way to escape said danger. Lizzie has a gift to improve your physical and mental health just by being in their presence, she also has an uncanny ability to see right through you."
"Shh, Izzy, don't tell them all our secrets", Sy warns me playfully.
"So you're a family?", Edward asks me, he hasn't let go of me ever since he touched me. And I, too, have no inclination to let go. I nod. "We're a family."
"And he?" He points at Sy and I turn around to see my friend's surprised face, before it's covered with a smug grin.
"Oh Izzy and I are always fucking like animals", he says casually, ignoring the collective gasp that follows his admission.
Edward tenses and I giggle. "You know, he's kidding, right?", I ask and swat him playfully.
"Yeah, chill, old man, she's still a virgin", he drawls.
"Sy!", I gasp in mock horror.
"What? He was going all jealous on me and you know I can't stand the caveman style", he defends himself, inspecting his nails casually.
"Oh I know it", I mutter, nuzzling my nose against Edward's chest, it's an unconscious gesture, so familiar and new at the same time.
"By the way what are you doing here in Forks?", Sy asks suddenly, proving again how unpredictable his mind is.
"We were on our way to our yearly visit", Rosalie explains, standing close to Emmet and watching me with an inscrutable expression on her beautiful face. "We've already been at the cemetery."
"You do this every year?", I ask, my voice choked. Edward nods.
"Mourning", Alice says and I can see the hope and sadness in her eyes. "We missed you, Be- Izzy."
"You left me."
"Not voluntarily", she assures me, her eyes pleading. "You're not the only one, who went through hell, Izzy."
I nod and try a smile.
"I like your hair", she suddenly says, an expression of heartfelt joy on her face. "We could be twins!"
"Oh my god", Emmet groans, when the little pixie starts jumping. "We're so dead."
"Is that my cue?", Sy asks, his expression suddenly one of pain. "We'll see each other on birthdays and Christmases and such?" He furrows a brow.
"Don't be silly, Sy." I stretch out a hand. "You'll always be my family. You, Lizzie and Will, I won't ever leave you."
"For a moment I thought you did", he admits and grabs my hand. I smile. "Don't ever doubt that", I whisper.
"I won't."
"You're an ass."
"I know."
"Is that your way of saying "I love you" ?", Alice asks with a wrinkled nose.
"Izzy's emotionally damaged and I've never been what you'd call "normal"", Sy explains casually, reserving his one true smile for me.
Edward's grip around my waist becomes tighter. "I...", he starts but I won't let him continue.
"Don't", I state. "It's over. The pain is gone. You've been an ass and I've been a stubborn idiot. We're like the epitome of idiocy, the fucking royal couple of stubbornness, we -"
"Okay, I think I get the picture", he chuckles and presses me closer.
"What I mean to say is, that Sy is right. I'm like an emotional cripple right now and I think you're no better. I won't say those words to you, because I can't. All I can say is that the pain is gone. It's gone, because you're here and that's all I can offer right now."
I look at him with a furrowed brow but the gold in his eyes is warm and the smile on his lips looks like he hasn't used it in a very long time.
"Carlisle and Esme will be ecstatic", he mumbles. "About having their daughter back."
"Will and Lizzie will love to meet them, even though I'm sure, Lizzie already knows", I reply. "They were already vegetarians when Sy and I met them, they heard about Carlisle and wanted to meet him, they didn't because of me."
He kisses my forehead gently. "Little idiot", he mumbles.
"Patronizing ass", I retort.
"So I get to meet Mr Self-control personally?", Sy chimes in excitedly. Edward looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Sy and I have been trying to become doctors for over fifteen years now", I explain. "We're experimenting with human blood, trying to test our self-control all the while doing our third or fourth medical degree."
"Correction, I am testing my self-control", Sy corrects me. "She's the motherfucking epitome of it."
"Is that true?", Emmet asks me astonished.
"I never tasted human blood", I explain. "I don't even like it. Ever since the meadow-incident I had a clear aversion to blood. Aro found it excruciating."
"You never said, who changed you", Edward suddenly says.
I sigh, grasping his shirt, inhaling his scent. I'm safe now. "It was Laurent", I whisper and a growl comes from the Cullens. "He attacked me at the meadow, the wolves chased and killed him before they forced me not to return to Charlie and declared me dead."
"He's dead now", Sy adds, when I'm unable to continue. "The pack took care of it, Izzy and I killed Victoria a year later when she tried to create an army of newborns in Seattle. She was...", he protrudes his lips. "...batshit crazy."
"Victoria?", Alice and Edward whisper at the same time. I shake my head. "It's over", I assure him. "Over and done with. I'm only asking if what I can give you right now is enough?"
"I walked around for thirty years thinking you were dead. I think I can handle emotionally handicapped Izzy", he whispers, caressing my cheek.
"We have forever to figure it out, right?"
"Right", he agrees and for the first time the hounded looked in his eyes disappears. "We have forever."
He kisses my nose and the touch sense a tingling feeling throughout my adamantine body, awakening dead cells, transforming me from a living corpse back into something else. This is the moment after the storm, when the rain lessens and the wind stops. We're standing in the middle of chaos but that's alright.
"This is just the beginning", I mumble, dreaming from a day when I'm a virgin no longer.
"Oh my god you two are so corny!", a voice interrupts us.
"Sy!"
"What I'm just telling the truth!", he exclaims.
"By the way, Izzy", Emmet chimes in. "Were you the one, who painted our house red?"
I smile. A real, painless smile. "I thought it'd be fitting."
A/N: Okay, so that's it, I hope you like it, I'm a sucker for happy endings;) I might get back in time and polish it a bit, but for now it is the way it is:)
Tell me what you think, as always: Reviews appreciated!