*I do not own any of the characters from the Twilight Saga series, those are the property strictly of Stephenie Meyers. All other characters are of my own creation.*

Waking Up Alive

by Socoangel

A damaged and desperate young woman finds herself brought into the center of a very strange family and in the middle of a world she didn't realize could exist. Approx. 5 years post BD.

Aislynn, Seth, The Cullen Family, members of both Jacob & Sam's pack, various other characters of my own creation.

Rating: M (Based on mature content/themes and possibly some profanity.)

A.P.O.V.

"Now I will tell you, what I've done for you... fifty thousand tears Ive cried, screaming, deceiving, and bleeding for you...and you...still won't hear me. I'm going under." I could feel the bass reverberating within my skull and causing my pulse to once again increase in it's galloping pace. The tinted windows of the car shuddered slightly in their seating as the sound system did its work. I was fairly certain that the car had garnered a few baleful glances as I had passed through the dreary, grey and tan and brick speck on the map. Forks...hmm...I wonder if there is such a place as Spoons and Knives too? I had allowed the volume to remain at its current level since I had left the city limits of Seattle and had only barely followed the posted warnings about the speed limits down the mist draped roads of the Olympic Peninsula. This, of course, was predominantly because I did not want to draw any unwanted attention from law enforcement. No, they would find me soon enough, and I couldn't afford any delays. I had to be certain that I was on open road, preferably a smaller, less travelled one, surrounded by the dense forests of upper Washington state. I mentally counted to myself and figured I had approximately 5-10 minutes remaining until I would be unconcious from the last pills I had downed. This should work ok, I thought to myself as I thought back to the last time I had seen any fog lights on this stretch of highway since I had turned off a couple of miles back, searching for something secluded to avoid the possibility of traffic. The last thing I needed was someone else to be caught in my own cataclysmic end cycle and be injured or worse because of me.

My heart had already began struggling, alternating between the gallop that seemed in tune with the bass line and fading to near obscurity, slowing to the point that it almost stopped. The wretched thing was giving in to the cocktail, and would soon thankfully have done so completely. Each component had been chosen very specifically and I had been careful to crush the most important pills, ensuring that their absorption rate would be sped up enough to allow me to get to an area that was suitable for my purpose. There had been multiple equations involved and it had taken me months to get everything just so. I guess that was one of the pitfalls of having an obsessive compulsive personality...I couldn't just do something, I had to plan everything down to the bare bones details and also make several contingency plans in case the original should go awry. I could feel a fine sheen of sweat enveloping my body and reached to turn down the heat. There wouldn't be much reason for it to be on in just a few minutes anyhow, and the hot flash was one of those that was going to stick around for a little bit. I laughed to myself as the thought occurred to me that I was indeed an oddity and that at only 27 years of age, I should not have known what it felt like to have a hot flash. There were a lot of other things that I should not have experienced at my age, but yet here I was.

Just for your reference, my name is Aislynn Grafton and I am 27 years old. I grew up with a fairly normal upbringing in the South, North Carolina to be more specific, in a small town. I am the only child of Joseph & Claire Grafton, with my mother being third generation immigrant Irish and my father of Scottish, German, and Cherokee descent. Surprisingly, my parents remained married and very much in love throughout my lifetime, unlike the majority of my friends' parents. They stayed that way until the very end, which was 3 years ago today, when they were both killed in a horrific car accident caused by a hotshot teenager with a brand new sports car. He was driving at a high rate of speed down a heavily travelled road and decided to pass a log truck with a full load, who just happened to be coming up an incline that was just enough to prevent being able to see what was coming from the opposite direction until one was at the top of the incline. My parents were hit head on, throwing their SUV directly into the path of the log truck. Of course the truck jack-knifed in his attempt to stop and mitigate the consequences, as there were several other vehicles behind both him and my parents. There were two deaths, those of my parents, 3 people ended up in wheelchairs, and 4 others were injured, although thankfully they were mostly minor considering what could have been. The teen driver that caused the wreck was in a wheelchair for a while, but was eventually able to progress back to walking on his own.

So I was left to try and pick up what was left pretty much on my own. I had no aunts or uncles as both of my parents had been only children as well and my grandparents had all passed when I was between middle and high school. Don't get me wrong, my parents had many good friends and they all tried their best to help me in any way that they could, but about a year after the accident, I began to feel the need to escape. I'd never thought I would ever feel such a desperate pull to leave the house that I grew up in, my safe haven as I had always considered it. It held so many memories for me, mostly good, but also a few bad. It was where I had scraped my first car up against one of the immense pines when I hit a patch of ice trying to drive in reverse one day after an ice storm. It was where my mother had taught me to cook and my father had been the one blaring music on a regular basis throughout my upbringing. It was where I would collapse into bed after going to nursing school all day and then working at the hospital as a patient aide a full shift as well. I did manage to finish nursing school somehow despite my near constant exhaustion though, and got a job working in the pediatrics unit of the hospital. I loved my job, and although I couldn't understand why I was still so tired after only having to work a short eight hour shift, I was in love with my life at that point.

I had grown up with close friends, and tried to be friendly to most people, although I was not always extended the same courtesy. I was always made fun of by some and shunned by a few as well because I didn't fit their likeability profile I guess. You see, from the time that I was only several years old, I was the pale fat girl. Oh, I could have easily gotten a tan because of the Cherokee blood that still flowed through my veins, however I had always disliked the strange orangeish tinge and leathery texture that I observed in the skin of the women who were sun worshippers that I knew. And I did make quite a few attempts to lose weight, however none of them brought any lasting solution to my dilemma. So over time, I learned to accept myself as I was and also learned that anyone that didn't like me for me could just kiss off. Granted I wasn't so obese that it kept me from sitting in normal chairs or moving around as I pleased, but I was still slightly self concious about my appearance in general. I was average height, with auburn hair that was more often curly than straight, my eyes were mostly green with a strange gold colored ring right around my pupil, I had porcelain pale skin with an unfortunate dusting of freckles, and lips that sometimes almost seemed too full to me, that looked as though I always had lipstick on due to their color. In all actuality, I was pretty indifferent about my appearances and didn't really think about them all that much. I was most often preoccupied with other things, particularly since my parents had passed.

My mother had been the one to notice and encourage me to speak to my doctor about how exhausted I was all the time. I honestly attributed it to the fact that about a month earlier I had been very sick with the flu and had also been very stressed at the same time. I had been working in pediatrics for a couple of months at that point, and had to deal with losing a patient that had been on our unit since I came there. She was a dazzlingly beautiful two year old that always had a smile waiting for all of us, and she had brain cancer. I had found myself drawn to her every time I worked, and made a point of going by to check on her even when I was assigned to the other hall for work. To say her death affected us all greatly would be an understatement, and I went home that night feeling truly defeated, but I also knew that at last she was free from her pain, and the tubes and disease that kept her from blossoming here on earth. The next morning I awoke glad that I was not scheduled to work that day, because I felt horrible and remained in bed and out of work for another 4 days at which point I was at least finally able to force myself to get up and leave the house. I was able to work, but most often when I was at home, I could not find the energy to get off the couch or sometimes even out of bed. When I did sleep, however, it was often fitful and I blamed this for the fact that my muscles now almost constantly ached and burned, although it wasn't quite as intense as it had been when I had been sick. At my mother's urging, I finally scheduled an appointment on my day off with my doctor, and I never could have imagined the road it would lead me down.

My doctor seemed baffled by my symptoms, and didn't honestly seem to know in which direction to even start, until she was manipulating the muscles in my neck and back. As she applied the slightest pressure and I would flinch in pain, she remained quiet, only murmuring soft apologies for hurting me and moving on. She sat across from me, jotting a note down on my chart, seeming to hesitate before speaking. "Aislynn, I want you to see a specialist, a Rheumatologist, so that they can do some more specialized testing and rule out a few things, ok? I don't think you have any sort of arthritis, particularly at only twenty-three, but I want to be on the safe side, ok?" I agreed and left with the referral sheet and an appointment scheduled the following week. I didn't find myself particularly worried about my visit, and figured that it would help tell them what it wasn't so that they could then figure out what it was. The Rheumatologist's name was Dr. Watson, and she was a pleasant, no-nonsense sort of person who got right to business examining me, pressing on quite a few areas that were very tender strangely enough once again, even with the slightest touch. I also noted that it seemed the spots would be corresponding areas on both the right and left side of my neck and spine, as well as seemingly in other areas. She reviewed the lab results that had been sent in from my regular doctor, as well as the ones that her office had drawn earlier that week and had sent off and back in time for my appointment. She asked me a few more questions and after taking down some notes in my chart finally spoke, "Well Ms. Grafton, your lab work is clear, you do not have any sort of arthritis, but I do think you have Fibromyalgia. It is a chronic pain syndrome that affects mostly the soft tissues of the body, but can also have effects on memory, concentration, sleep patterns, and can also cause headaches, migraines, and visual disturbances. Unfortunately there is no known cause right now, so there is no cure, and it can be difficult to manage, so we may have to try several different medication combinations to find one that works for you best, but we will find one, ok?" I nodded quietly and didn't really say much throughout the remainder of the visit, taking the brochures that she had given me along with my prescriptions.

I then began a never-ending cycle of medication cocktails, some of which helped a little, but often found that the side effects were almost as bad or worse than what they were trying to treat. Pills of every color, for pain, muscle relaxers, sedatives, stimulants for when the effects of the others made me too sleepy to function, and about a month before my parent's accident, I was prescribed an anti-depressant. My mother was actually happy about that particular addition. She reasoned that anyone who had that much pain all the time was bound to feel depressed, and it made sense for a long time, even after they were gone. Since then, there had only been increases in my doseage of anti-depressant, and of course the anti-anxiety medication that attempted to keep my panic attacks at bay. I'd begun having them while planning the funerals, and they became worse when everything calmed and I was left to drive down the road the accident occurred on for the first time alone.

My pain was a constant companion, though varying in degrees, sometimes just a slight ache all over, and sometimes I felt as though I was burning all over. My muscles would spasm and overreact to sometimes the slightest touch, but somehow I managed to keep my job. That part was actually easier than I thought it would be, I simply reasoned to myself when I felt that way that the kids on the ward had much worse pain than I did and always had a genuine smile for me. I had accepted a job in Seattle and moved about six months ago, thinking that maybe the change in pace and constant movement around me would keep me from thinking about what I had experienced in the past few years. I threw myself into my work, often finding that I would get home, throw my keys down, and pass out on the sofa or sometimes make it to the bed. Most of the time, however, I slept in my work clothes because I didn't have the wherewithall to change into my pajamas. I really didn't have any friends in Seattle, only a couple that I maintained contact with back in North Carolina. There had been a couple at work who had tried to include me in activities with several of the staff from the pediatric floor, often when they would go out to the bar or night clubs to let off steam from our work. I would politely decline, saying that maybe I would feel up to going the next time, but that I was exhausted at the moment. Some of them would question me about where I moved there from and other details of my past, as well as many times asking if I had a boyfriend or had ever been married. On that front, I could honestly laugh at them. No, I had never been married, I deemed it an absurd concept for me and had felt so ever since my diagnosis. I would not inflict what I had to go through on someone else, I could not. Nor could I expect anyone to actually want to be with someone who was as much of a wreck as I was, especially since the accident. It was neither fair nor realistic.

To be honest, I think I could have dealt with never being married or having one of those lifelong relationships that so many women seek. Oh I believed in them certainly, but the part of my life that I had found missing and that I had always just assumed would be there at some point was a child. I had always been a caregiver of some sort or another, the mother hen when one of my friends or parents was sick, but it had apparently never been meant to be. I used the energy that I am almost certain would have been spent lamenting my lonely state to put as much and sometimes more than I really had to give of myself to the children in my care at work. This would prove, however, to be what would ultimately bring me to my current state of whatever I was. I couldn't really call it an existence and be honest with myself. Her name was Keely, and she was a four year old brought in by Child Protective Services of Seattle. Her mother had been reported as being missing from work for a couple of days, and when a coworker went by the home to see if everything was ok, she found the door locked and the car in the driveway. The only answer she got when she knocked was the cry of a child. She called the police immediately and when they responded, was horrified to be told after they broke in the door that Keely's mother was dead and the child almost so from injuries and dehydration. She had been shut up in her bedroom upstairs for over 48 hours while her mother lie dead in the kitchen, apparently beaten to death by an abusive ex-boyfriend. They could only assume that the attacker had turned his anger to Keely when she wouldn't stop crying for her mother.

She had been brought immediately to the hospital, and in the month that she was there, we had learned that her grandparents could not be located and that she had no aunts or uncles to contact so that she could have an adult with her in the hospital. We all fell instantly in love with the auburn ringlets that surrounded her angelic face and the bright baby blue eyes that seemed to shine even when she was in such fragile health and had been through so much. I personally was only barely able to refrain from losing it when I learned of the series of events that had brought her to us, not to mention the laundry list of injuries from those events. She had a broken arm, broken leg, black eye, multiple contusions all over her body, including a rather nasty looking bruised bump on the side of her head. Despite her injuries, she would smile when one of us stood next to her bed, grasping her stuffed cat closely. I was so glad that the police officer who had found her had noticed her trying to reach for the grey feline, and made certain to pack it away with her in the ambulance. The only fear she seemed to have was of men with facial hair, as evidenced by her screams of terror when one of the radiology technicians had come to get her for some test. She scrambled as much as she could with her injuries in any direction away from him that she could get, and he looked completely bewildered by her reaction until he was later told of her ordeal. We notified the detective investigating the attacks that there was a high likelihood that the assailant had facial hair and from then on monitored who went into her room carefully.

On the third day of her stay with us, she began suffering rather severe seizures and vomiting, which upon once again running brain scans we discovered that her brain was swelling. The neurologist that examined her did do emergency surgery that night to relieve the pressure and surmised from the location of the injuries that she had most likely been shaken violently, with her head slamming against something hard in the process. This further served to infuriate me to unreasonable levels whenever I thought of it, and I found that I soon began calling the lead detective, checking on the progress of the investigation at least twice a week. We all spent extra time with her, particularly during the times in which she was awake so that she would not be alone. Soon enough though, it was necessary to sedate her because of the increasing amount of swelling in her brain. We all soon found ourselves talking about her smile, how we missed it so, and her infectious giggle. She would erupt into fits of giggles whenever the doctor would run the tip of the reflex hammer up the middle of the sole of her foot, and she could be heard down at the nurses' station in her giggle fits. The silence after her sedation was palpable, and we all sat at one point or another, staring intently at her Intercranial Pressure level on the monitor at our desk, as if trying to mentally will it to decrease. I knew we were all thankful that in the last days she was sedated, despite missing her giggles, smile, bright eyes, and voice that sounded like bells chiming. It was simply better that way than to imagine her in any sort of pain, and during the last twenty-four hours I had often caught myself turning quickly, looking down the street or aisle of the drug store because I could have sworn I heard her voice or laughter. I liked to think maybe she was hanging around, waiting for one more glance at her angelic smile before I was led to whatever my fate held for me beyond my mortal shell.

She had passed away quietly two evenings prior, with four of us standing around her bedside, holding hands and trying to maintain our composure as her heart sped and slowed, over and over as it had been doing for the two hours previous to that. I had gotten off my shift right after this had begun and the doctor and two other nurses had joined me in my vigil shortly after. Strangely enough, her final breath had been drawn and at 6:49 pm the pronouncement had been made officially. I guess in my odd mindset it only made sense that I made mental note of the fact that her official time of death was the exact same time that had been proclaimed as both my parents time of death based on the fact that every clock in their SUV had stopped at that time. I thought this to be odd at first, but then decided it only seemed fitting since my world had officially stopped and changed forever more at that minute. Even their cell phones had stopped working at that time and remained set on it until they had been powered off. At any rate, I had assisted in removing her I.V.'s and all of the monitors, dressing her in a clean gown, and tucking her beloved stuffed cat under her tiny arm before drawing the sheet over her forever now peaceful, angelic face. Although I did leave the hospital afterwards, I couldn't bear to go home right then, and I found myself wandering until I reached a park that I had not previously even realized was there. I found myself drawn to the sound of water and eventually ended up sitting on a bench looking at a fountain with a sculpted angel as it's centerpiece. It was there that I allowed the deluge to overtake me, the sobs shaking me so violently that my muscles began to tremble and spasm in response.

I had known as I sat there, for how long I am still not even certain before I got up and walked back to the hospital parking deck. From there I drove home, beginning to finalize my plans in my head, of course planning contingencies as well, and I cannot say that I slept in the time between then and now, although I do think I dozed off for about an hour or so at one point. I cleaned my apartment spotlessly, cleaned out the fridge, bagged up all of my clothing with the exception of one day outfit and one set of comfortable yoga pants and shirt. During the daytime hours of the next day I took the bagged clothes to a shelter for abused women and children, as well as a sizable donation that was all of my savings, what was left from paying my monthly bills in advance, and the money I had gotten from selling the jewelry I owned except a couple of pieces. One was a gift from my parents, and the other was the ring we'd had made for my Mother with hers, my father's , and my birthstone for her birthday one year. I had also left detailed instructions in the letter that was now sitting in the passenger seat beside me as well as the copy of which was lying on my kitchen counter that the remainder of my belongings, which were mostly furniture, were to be taken as another donation to the women's shelter. The only request that I had made of the shelter was that they would use some of the money I had donated to buy toys and the needed items for a playroom at the shelter itself for the children of the women that escaped there. The additional point of that request was to have an angel statue placed somewhere in the room with a plaque dedicated in memory of Keely, her mother, and all others who had lost their lives to domestic violence.

My head snapped up as I realized that I had begun to doze in my recall of the events of the past couple of days. I looked around to see if there was anyone else on the stretch of road, with the tall forest on either side seeming to reach over and form an arch over the area that I was driving down. Good, I could see no other cars on the road, no headlights either coming or going as far as I could tell. If I was correct, I would soon be crossing the line onto the LaPush Indian Reservation, most of which was concentrated more towards the west and north, wheras I was approaching from the South and would hopefully not have much longer on my journey. My heart once again hammered against my chest wall as if in protest and the sides of my vision began dimming, as if caving in around me slightly. I shook my head and forced myself to focus, making sure no other vehicles were coming, glancing forward then side to side assuring no side roads were near. I thought I heard a strange noise and turned down the stereo for a moment, swearing I heard a howling noise. I once again did a side road sweep, startled to see something that seemed to be moving through the forest just far enough into it so that I could not make out what it was. Whatever it was, it seemed to be keeping pace with the car, and I consoled myself that it had to have been several mountain cats or large deer and I was just seeing them in a blur, as there was no possible way one could run that fast. I was driving nearly seventy miles per hour! I turned back up the stereo and felt my blood rushing through my veins as I pressed ever so slightly more on the accelerator, my vision dimming more from the sides and my heart hammering once again heavily. I then felt the lightness following it, almost the sensation one gets when they are fainting, as though all of the oxygen has been removed from the room at once and there is no gravity either. At this point, I tried to do a road sweep again and found that my vision had finally given in completely to the darkness. I could feel my hands slip from the wheel involuntarily, and my last thought was..."I think my foot just went heavier on the gas pedal, I didn't mean to do that. Oh, well. Please just don't let any cars be anywhere near me, please God protect them all from me." The darkness took over completely then, and there was no more concious thought.