Twilight/Constantine Xover

I know I should be updating my other story, but this was a horrible idea. I love it.

Aigo

- Korean term to describe pain, shock, and suffering.

It was something she could never forget.

...

The pain in her legs was nothing compared to this. James' bite on her wrist pulsed violently as his venom coursed through her veins like acid. Bella could feel the nerves receptacles in her brain light up like a Christmas tree as she thrashed on the dusty ballet floor in agony, not aware of the moving figures around her and the faint sweet smell of smoke. Her back curled as the inferno slowly dragged its way up her forearm to her shoulder making her feel like someone half-dipped her body in a vat of lava when something so cold pushed her back down to the floor. She reflexively pulled away from the almost equally burning sensation through the thin material of her shirt as the hands moved down her body somewhere below her waist. She could hear voices calling out to her but through her pain muddled haze she could barely see anything, and could only shake her head as her eyes rolled into the back of her skull as she screamed out. When the pain broke through the barrier of her skull, Bella hissed in pain, muttering out a few stressed words through her teeth. Then she couldn't hear anything at all as the deafening thrum of her heartbeat pounded in her ears, making her want to reach out and rip out the roots of her hair. Something latched onto her harm and she tried to yank away, her growling drowned out through gurgled sobs and her dry throat when she almost numbly felt another pinch on her tender flesh. Slowly, she could feel the pull of her blood draining out of her along with the deadly pathogen, her vessels closing up and turning her skin cold. Bella whimpered in pain, her head spinning from lack of oxygen, faintly hearing Carlisle telling Edward to stop as the sound grew further and further away…

She felt the world stop.

It was like a bomb had gone off. Bella could feel another intense heat upon her skin, only this time it wasn't coming from inside her. Another deafening roar rattled around her head from a harsh wind and knocked her back to the sizzling ground. Rough winds blew through her tresses that scrapped harshly against her exposed forearms with shards of decayed rock and metal. She tried covering her nose and mouth- everything smelled like sulfur. She looked around startled by the changed of scenery, no longer laying on the floor of her old ballet studio in Phoenix. The walls around had fallen around her, exposing Bella to the post-apocalyptic landscape outside. The sky bled a fiery red under the cloud cover off a terrible maelstrom hovering over rotted buildings that lined the ruined road. The air was impossibly so thin that she almost fell to her knees as she gasped for air. Stumbling forward, she followed the trail of abandoned cars down the eerily familiar street taking in the destruction of her childhood home with horrified eyes.

What is this place?

Every part of the scenery was an assault on her senses, burying her under each new wave as she tried to shield herself from its torrent. The farther she went, the more helpless and lost she felt- calling out for anyone to help her but received no answer. The ground began to shake and she fell on the glass littering the pavement. Her blood sizzled when it dripped on the hot surface from her hands. Then the earth underneath her split open into an ungodly maw, a circus of screams and the scent of rotting bodies hitting her in the face as the soles of her feet scrapped against the dirt to scramble away. She felt herself slipping, finding no saving grace as she came closer and closer to the void. Her fingers dug themselves into the loose gravel in desperation as gravity tried to pull her further downward. She bit into her lip when she felt a new of her nails rip away from her flesh, but continued to fight and pull her way up to the surface. Once she was close enough, it took her several tries to throw one of her legs over the ledge before she rolled over on her back grimacing at the throbbing in her fingertips. She pushed herself just a bit on all fours, eyes cast down into the sinkhole that nearly consumed her, eyeing the darkness with trepidation. As her gaze gained more definition, she squinted, eyes tracing over black figures and writhing masses unable to look away from their grotesque forms piled on each other. Her stomach twisted and tears came to her eyes as she tried to back away, revolted and scared and hopeless-

Another monstrous roar echoed from the crater, shaking Bella to her core as the screams pitched louder in return. The gravel shifted where she laid and a shriveled hand reached out towards her. She hurriedly got back up on her feet to run away, but its long talons wrenched her ankle back and knocked to the ground. She fought and kicked as the thing continued to pull her back in the hole, slowly revealing more of its body the closer she got. She screamed in terror and desperation as it crawled up her body, its long nails clawing at her face and stomach, and she knew- she just knew she would die- she would die- would die- die-die DIE-

She woke up in a hospital gurney, inside the Phoenix Presbyterian ER, hooked up to an electric box and a tube down her throat with someone shining a light in her eyes. Turing away from the black spots, she looked around for Edward- Edward- where was he? One of the nurses above her told her that she was safe now, trying to push her back down onto the gurney as she struggled. She needed Edward! Was he there in the room? Where were Alice and Jasper? Another voice barked out an order and she felt a pinch in her forearm as they inserted another IV. She pushed against her restraints and tried pleading to the nurse with her eyes about Edward- that she needed to see him. The faces around her ignored her as they pushed down the tip of the syringe. Slowly her brain became foggy and her movements more staggered as she jerked, then her eyelids started growing heavy until she sank into darkness.

…

The second time she reopened her eyes, the sound of a television and the smell of a bedpan greeted her. Bella blearily blinked away the crust of her eyes and tried to lift one of her hands to help wipe them away. It didn't budge. Turning her head at an awkward angle, she pulled again as she observed the leather cuffs around both of her wrists restraining her to the bed. Confused she pulled again trying to sit up when something moved on right, causing her to jump. Her mother's face filled with tears was not an unwelcome surprise as she hurled her body towards Bella and hugged her tightly. It was another awkward angle she'd had to get used to with the bed in the laying down position without anything to prop her up. None of that was important. She needed to find out what happened to Edward. When she asked her mother where he was her expression became tight and morbid like she couldn't bear to tell her sick daughter. She asked again, her voice pitching and becoming a little watery as her mother reached over the bed and grabbed her uninjured hand. She told her that Dr. Cullen and his son flew down her to Phoenix after they got a call from Charlie to convince her to come back home, and found her at the hotel under extreme duress. Her mother told her that they tried talking her down, but Bella threw herself down a flight of stairs and had gone through a window when it became too much. They took her to the hospital and stayed until her mother got there before shortly leaving, not wanting to aggravate Bella's mental health until she was better. She couldn't believe it. Bella teared up, feeling like her entire chest caved in. She choked on a few sobs before her mother rubbed her forehead and kept mentioning how sorry she was that she wasn't there and how everything was going to be okay. But for Bella, it felt like the world was just ripped right out from under her. She wished that she could crumble up in those sheets and just wither away but couldn't move away from her new prison. She just lay there as her mother said she was going to tell the doctors that she was awake and that soon all of this was going to be behind them.

When the doctor came in, she examined Bella's vitals and checked her memory responses for any lasting brain damage. Everything was fine if you didn't count a broken femur, a mild concussion, 136 stitches, and the infected laceration on her wrist from the "fall". She later learned that he heart had stopped for fifty-three seconds from shock and that they had to resuscitate her twice before she stabilized, but she only found out after reading her file a few weeks later. The doctor told her that once she recovered that she would be moved to the residential wing for closer psychological analysis. Apparently, she was considered a flight risk to herself for the time being until she could prove otherwise; during this period as the doctor spoke she could see her mother crying silently in the corner of the room, trying to hide her tears underneath a ripped tissue. She felt numb. Something akin to sadness and remorse tickled the back of her brain, but she shoved the thought back into its alcoves. Bella swallowed her guilt and kept repeating to herself that it wasn't real, but couldn't dismiss that it was her fault she made Rene feel like this and just nodded to whatever the doctor said to her. When both her mother and the doctor left the room, another nurse came inside to change out her fluids, unstrapping one of her hands from the bed rails. Bella turned away at the sight of blood and caught her mother's cell phone on the table near the bed with wide eyes. She had an idea! As slow as she could she turn her head back around as to not arise suspicion from the nurse as she re-sterilized her arm. Bella waited until she turned around and tried to reach the device without moving her body much, but it was too far away. She cursed her luck and quickly settled back into place before the woman readjusted the straps back in place. Before she could tuck in the tail her buzzer beeped, startling both females, and she rushed out of the room with a quick apology. Feeling light-headed, Bella rested back down into the scratchy pillows and breathed in deeply. Feeling a little sore she tried lifting her backside off the bed as much as she could to help move the fabric of her hospital gown when she noticed something peculiar. She lifted her wrist again and gaped in shock as they loosened just a bit more. Listening for both Rene's and the doctor's voices in the hall, she squirmed her wrist against the rough inner cloth-like material making her skin turn red just a little. When she was free she scooted carefully over, being sure not to pull out the IV, reached out for the phone a second time. With a couple brushes of her fingertips, she brought the phone into her hand and clumsily dialed a phone number she knew by heart onto the small screen. Lifting the phone to her ear, she waited for the inevitable ringing but instead received a message from the service provider. Panicking, she checked the number and re-dialed. "We're sorry, this phone number is no longer in service—"No. No. No. No. No. This couldn't be happening! She fumbled with the boutons a few more times getting the same message before she tossed the phone back down on the table- the device sliding off the end- as she covered her sob with her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut as tears rained down and snot dribbled from her nose when her mother re-entered the room. She heard her ask if she was alright, but she only cried harder. The doctor said something about a sedative to help calm her down, and a few minutes later she was induced into a dreamless sleep.

…

A week later they moved her once she was able to use crutches on her own and lowered her dosage. She barely ate anything because of the medication they gave her kept making her sick, and she could barely sleep. They say this on her good days when she's complaint and has a passing interest in something. After her "alleged" suicide attempt, they diagnosed her as clinically depressed and emotionally withdrawn. They've also been giving her medication to help with the panic attacks she has sometimes, whenever she wakes up her roommate by screaming in her sleep. They try to make her talk about it. About them. But she keeps her lips shut, not divulging any information about her nightmares. She'd always have nightmares about Edward and the baseball field, and then James taunting her in the Ballet studio. Some dreams are another matter entirely and she wishes she could just forget everything. She was watching in the common room when she heard about the fire. When her mother visited the next day she brought up how her old ballet studio was gone and Bella almost vomited then and there. She stuck to giving her silent nods throughout the one-sided conversation, instead focusing on one of the lifers eating puzzle pieces at their table. When Rene left, she looked almost defeated at Bella's lack of improvement and told her that everything was going to be fine, and then she was gone. Bella cared for her mother, not for a lack of trying on her part sometimes as difficult as it was, but she often wondered if it was good for her to come to this place, to see her like this. Only half-living, psychologically scarred, and nearly emotionless. The doctors keep saying that she'll leave soon, that she's making progress, but Bella thinks differently. She almost doesn't want to leave either. To confront reality. She'd rather stay here and watch boring re-runs of old soaps and eat disgustingly bland food.

.

She listens to the older patients sometimes in group as they talk about their brushes with death and seeing a brightly lit doorway encompassed by the overwhelming feeling of love and righteousness. She never hears about the alternative, the other place. She shivers as she remembers that thing's claws digging into her skin, and wonders if people like her just never wake up.

.

Lately, she thinks, she's been doing what they all "sleeping with your eyes open". She doesn't say anything to the staff, but she sees things that shouldn't be there. Half-images of people walking by or the pair of eyes staring her down from the corner. At first, she thought it was the meds they were giving her until one tried to grab her. An almost skeletal hand reached out and brushed her scarred wrist before screeching and bursting into dust. It was too much. Too surreal. She must be going crazy in this place. She needed to leave.

.

Bella started actively ignoring those visions, repeating to herself quietly that there was nothing there. It freaked out her new roommate whenever Bella would stare at a wall muttering to herself and the lights would start to flicker. But whenever the orderly came to check-in on them, everything was fine. Sans the shaking figure on one of the beds.

.

About two months after her hospitalization, Bella showed tremendous improvement and they started lowering her dosages again. Rene brought Bella her uncompleted school work that Charlie mailed to her new apartment in Phoenix she'd rented as Bella recovered. She missed finals and the prom, and Renee wouldn't shut up about the dress she bought for Bella last week went to waste after the hospital pushed her discharge another couple of days.

.

She packed up her few belongings into an old plastic tub Renee brought with her. Mostly sweats and pyjama bottoms with the strings cut off, a couple of oversized tee-shirts, the hand-made quilt her mother gave her on the anniversary of her first month getting better, a few letters from her dad after stumbling through an awkward and tearful phone call, and her dead grandmother's rosary that she kept closely wound around her scarred wrist. It wasn't a lot, but now she could hardly picture what books she kept on her bookcase or the pointless material objects she kept clustered in her room. Alice's cloth—no she wouldn't go there. She took in a deep breath and closed the lid. She was moving back to Jacksonville with her mom to complete her senior year and hopefully go to college—her psychiatrist tells her that maintaining long term and short term goals will give her something else to focus on. Once they were back in Florida she would have to attend an out-patient program for a few months and go from there. Another physician would be prescribing her pills and she would have to start at the beginning with someone else to get better. It wasn't her preparedness that scared her. She could handle lying to someone else about how alone she really felt, but couldn't explain why she flinched whenever someone got too close. She knew how to handle them. But going back out there, without—No. She could do this. She would learn to stand on her own two feet again. And she would never allow herself to be hurt again.

…

AN:

So in this version of Twilight; Edward left Bella at the hospital instead of hanging around to be convinced by her not to leave and made it so that she couldn't go back to forks and see their house empty.

I re-watched Constantine and thought: why not ruin another movie with sparkly vampires? When I began writing this, it was during Eclipse but I decided instead to hightail it back to when Bella almost is turned into a vampire by James. Any guesses as to why she didn't go to the Good Place? When I post the next chapter I tell you guys, but to anyone who guesses correctly gets a prize.

Just kidding, there are no prizes.

The next chapter will be a leap forward in time, so brace yourselves.

TBC…