Bella's red eyes scan the grey horizon. Below her, another liquefied city has dried into a lifeless scab. She scrambles over the loose rocks, her fingers digging into the clay and tumps of dead grass, as she climbs up the mountainside in the acid drizzle.
She should be hungry. She should be tired. It's been days and days now and she hasn't felt the need to stop. She cannot make sense of any of this, but she can make sense of the idea of north, the drive of it, and so she keeps running, following along the spines of the ash dusted mountains.
The rain has turned to snow, but she doesn't care because she feels no cold, only a thirst that water does not slake. She still stops at the odd creek and bends down, only letting her mouth break the water for a few sips, before convulsing and spitting it up.
There is an ache where her prosthetic leg knits to her thigh. She hopes the leg is up to the task of her new body's strength. She once thought it was the other way around, that her leg was her strength and she was weak.
What is she? Why is she? How is she? All she knows is to go north.
A waft of something catches on the breeze and is snatched away. It's coming from behind her. Resolute, she keeps running north, but a few days later another pungent breeze brings her to a sudden standstill. She hears herself growl. She pushes on, faster she urges herself.
Flashes of her life before become jumbled. There was that first memory of the long darkness, floating and waiting. Then learning to walk on her new leg. Plastic bottles of pinkish white sludge she meekly drank. Surviving her first year without signs of physical deterioration or madness means she is 'good to go', as master Caius announces proudly.
She does not long to return to the lab with its naked indignities; the prodding and murmuring and the tests. The others like her floating in murky tanks, waiting.
A buzzing rises from behind her. A patrol drone. She shimmies and digs into a crevice, and she finds she can slow her breathing effortlessly. She touches her neck and finds a slow thud of a pulse, then a long silence, and then interminably, another hard thud. She touches her eye and it feels smooth in a way it never felt before. She blinks, but it feels like a habit more than a need. A chunk of whitish grey hair floats past her. More comes out in her hand. She watches the wind carry them away.
In the colorless daybreak, the drone slowly moves on. Her eyes follow its direction and in the far distance at the curve of the horizon she makes out the dust rising from a convoy. Military? Civilian? The Volturi complex she had been born into? It's anyone's guess, and it matters not at all to her.
She needs to go north.
Another day passes of her running, and she huffs that scent again. This brings her to a full stop, alarm bells going off. She turns around but there is a flicker in the distance and then nothing. She's easily outran that convoy. Another low growl rattles her chest and she quickly quells it. Moving down the mountain, she finds the edge of the Montaigne forest of gnarled and stunted trees the fires did not reach. It will slow her down, but she feels the need for cover.
Something is following her, and it feels like death.
Several days later, she is slowing. She is burning. She gasps but it brings no relief. A loud crack comes from her prosthetic leg, and she falls forward. She reaches down, and tries to flex it. It slowly responds, hot to the touch. She leans against a sheer rockface and looks up at the thick flakes that have been falling for days. A lightness passes into her bones. She doesn't move. She thinks about moving, but can't. The weight of the wet snow hangs onto hanks of hair until the weight makes it fall in clumps. She wonders if she made it far enough north.
That scent. She blinks to find her eyelashes have grown thick with frost. She waits as a figure melts from behind a burned tree. In the moonless night she sees his pale skin and golden eyes. She opens her mouth and notices her lips have crusted together with ice.
"You need to feed." His voice is calm and melodic. He holds a bottle of pinkish lab milk out to her, but she doesn't move. He forces open her mouth and pours some in. She chokes and swallows and spits.
"Edward," she tries to say, but her voice won't quite work.
He examines the corner of her eye and frowns. After a moment he brushes the snow from her leg, and grunts. "Getting clever, aren't they?"
"I am Bella, Edward." The words are faint, but he appears to have heard. She feels a click in her head, and she puts her hands on her skull and squeezes trying to get the pressure to stop.
Edward grimaces at her. "No. You're not Bella. You are a clone. An abomination sent by Caius. They have trained you to say these things." He brushes the snow from her head and shakes off the hair that comes away in his hand.
"What's happening to me?"
"They've injected you with a synthetic compound that is a derivative of venom. You are in its last throes, what we call a clone's endtime. For some reason you haven't eaten, or you would have lasted longer."
A voice comes from behind. "I say end it. Do you want me to do it?" Bella's eyes find a pale man among the dark of trees. His hair is white and grey and his eyes are red, like hers.
"No, you know Alice said to take this one back to Carlisle. I just need to see if we have any tracking chips to dig out first." He takes out a small slim tube and begins waving it over her. "She has the usual bunch of memory chips in her head, but otherwise she's clean."
Edward looks into her eyes and grimaces. "I can see she has enough sentience to remember some of the lab she came from. Her heart is still sort of beating. It's weak but we might as well see what we can find out before she expires."
"I'll carry it."
"No, Jasper, it's fine. I'm fine." He hoists her effortlessly onto his back, and then they are running, and she sighs in relief. They are heading north. Her heart stutters with a sharp pain, but she hangs on. He smells incredible.
Edward slows to a jog in front of a large compound, and calls for someone to open the gate. She is hit with a red scent, and her burning torment flares her throat to fire. Something is beating and gushing and it is getting closer. She doesn't remember moving, only that she has the scent by the throat and she gulps and swallows in relief.
There are shouts and curses, and the white-haired one was biting and ripping at her neck and Edward stopped him. Dragged off, she looks back, and there is blood on the snow and people are shouting and pushing at the convulsing body Bella just inexplicably fed from. The burning is gone.
Oh, the burning is gone. I think I must have found north. I made it.
A man in camo scrubs shouts at Edward, who is holding her against a metal wall, and he and thrusts a thick needle into her heart. Writhing and screaming, Edward pushes the Bella clone back against it until her ribs crack. Her eyes roll back and she falls into black hole before she hits the ground.
BPOV
My leg is gone. I hop around in the small space, feeling my way in the dark. My ribs ache. I am getting weak again. I don't move, I ache too much all over. They bring me bottles of lab milk, but I can't drink it, it comes back up. I pull out the last of my long white hair, but there is new dark stubble underneath.
Carlisle and Edward come everyday, Edward asking questions and Carlisle running tests.
I watch Edward's mouth. How long I lived in the world outside my chamber. Was I always sentient? Did I think I was alive? Did I remember what I saw when I was in the Volturi lab. Were there more like me? Do I know what a clone is? A human? A vampire? Did I know about the Last War? The vampire wars? The Shifter Virus plague?
I try to tell him what I know, but I don't know much, but they focus a lot on master Caius. Edward fills in things I have trouble find words for, and it takes me a while to realize he can read my mind.
I ask Edward questions, but he is hesitant. He does tell me I am the first clone with such clear Bella markers that they have seen in a long time. I am one of their better models; I have lots of new features they haven't seen before, an ultraclone they call me, and this makes Edward unhappy for some reason.
They call me Swan284, because I have that tattooed on my good ankle. My missing leg is starting to regenerate. This fascinates Carlisle to no end, but I feel impatient at its slow growth and itch. Carlisle thinks the blood I drank has triggered a physiological sequence in me. I know I am changing. I feel better all the time.
I start to sleep for long periods. I wake up and I want water. I want food. I need the bathroom. I think I must be sick, because I start bleeding down there. Carlisle explains that the blood between my legs is because I am meant to imitate a human's fertility, but as a clone I am unlikely to reproduce. This is new, he tells me, and the sort of thing that perplexes them. Why would Caius bother? Carlisle explains it is a normal function in humans, but never seen in clones. I have a lot of anomalies; things they don't bother to develop in clones, like external ears, fingernails, and eye lashes and eyebrows, and body hair. They run more tests. My new leg grows stronger.
I have to cut my nails. My hair grows in dark and thick. Carlisle says my body is reproducing a new DNA specific blood, and it is replacing the plasma I originally had. There are only traces of venom left in my system, but this is definitely new, and I can tell they are perplexed. Carlisle gives me vaccines because the venom no longer in my blood won't protect me from the Shifter virus. My new blood is starting to make me smell different, but I sniff myself and I can't tell. Edward stops coming around.
They constantly take blood from my arm now. One day I say 'Ow' and feel weird as I watch the blood flow into the needle. "I don't like that." Carlisle stares at me strangely. "Why," he asks. I shake my head. "I feel strange." Black spots appear in my eyes and I fall back. As I lay on the cot, feeling woozy, Carlisle observes me with a frown.
They give me my own room, outside of the lab. It's located in an empty barracks that used to house soldier clones from the wars. I wish I could see another clone for myself, but they have been phased out from this compound since of the last treaty. It feels like it was always empty here. Still, I feel glad to be out of the lab, and on my own.
As I make my bed, someone stands at the doorway, and I look over my shoulder to see it is not Carlisle. I brighten in recognition. "Hey, I remember you. You're Edward Cullen." Then I stare at him and it's like the world tilts for a second. "You wanted to kill me, but you didn't." I blurt out and cover my mouth.
Edward crosses the room and opens my window and stands in front of it, taking a deep breath. He says, "We usually end clones when they are found in your state. Once the synthetic venom has run its course they start to suffer. It's more humane."
I stare at his black eyes. "Why do I think that when I first met you … you wanted to drink my blood but there were … children who would die."
He stares angrily at me and says nothing. I touch my cheeks. They feel warm and I feel strange, uncomfortable. I shake my head. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that."
Edward's voice is flat as he speaks. "The Volturi program you to say these things. It means nothing to me."
"You came back. You were gone," I say.
"Carlisle asked me to come here to get a read on your level of sentience, but you now have the ability to block me. It must be part of your regeneration."
Something is niggling at the back of mind. "We used to go to school together. Biology." I tilt my head and laugh to myself. "Uh, what is biology?" Edward is looking at my mouth and I realize I am biting it. I shake my head, confused.
"Stop it." Edward's eyes blaze into mine and I don't like the black. "It's not real. We don't know one another at all."
"But I just remembered you."
"They are not your memories. I just told you: you've been programmed. Brainwashed. It's manufactured. Fake."
"Oh." I get up and hop to the barred window, gingerly putting weight onto too thin leg. I can see pine trees just beyond the layers of chain-link fencing, and I feel a longing when I smell them. "I want to go outside. I don't like this … being held prisoner."
"That right there? What you're doing? That is just a replicated character trait. She was stubborn and resisted being controlled. I will admit you are an impressive replication, you even cross your arms like she did. But utterly artificial all the same."
"It might not be real but I know what I see still happened. I remember how I talked on the speakerphone thing with my mom, Renee. She wanted boys. But not my dad. Charlie. He had a gun, and dead fish that were frozen. I remember what my parents looked like. Sound like. What the creosote smelled like in the desert outside my house."
"Tell yourself it's not real. You don't know the first thing about these things. Clones with your DNA type often develop madness. Tell yourself you're confused, and focus on the now. Your past doesn't exist."
"Why would they put these thoughts in my head if it messes me up?"
"The SwanOne clones had been showing up with more and more of her memories and mannerisms. We think it means they are still working with source material. It's nothing. Forget them."
"Do you remember your source material?"
"I am not a clone."
"But we lived at the same time."
"No. There is no 'we', Swan284. A long time ago I knew your source material. Her name was Bella and she was a human. I am a vampire. I am very, very old."
"You have yellow eyes but you are still a vampire, like master Caius?"
"Yes, a monster just like Caius."
"And this human knew you, even though you were a monster? That doesn't make sense."
Edward pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. "That's because these things you speak of happened to someone else. You are a clone. You know nothing about what a human would do or not do."
"These thoughts feel real, but I am not real?" Water drips from my eyes and I touch the wetness amazed. "What is happening?" I look at his surprised face. "It's crying, isn't it? Did I cause this?"
The door slams shut and Edward is gone.
I like sleep best of all. I wait all day for it. That's when I am in Bella's world, and I don't know I'm not her. In my dreams she is me, and more and more I see fleeting glimpses of Edward. Those are the best moments, and the most frustrating.
During the day, after the lab, I pace the long dusty hallway of the barracks, staring into empty and sterile rooms. There are no mirrors but I look at myself in panes of glass. I start to hum a song from Bella's memory, but it always sounds better in my dreams.
I am happy to go to the lab because Carlisle talks to me. He introduces me to Dr Denali, who asks me lots of question about my dreams and my thoughts and what I'm feeling. She takes a lot of scans of my brain. She films me, and stops correcting me when I talk about myself as Bella. I am careful not to mention Edward, because I sense she wouldn't like that.
I hate that Edward won't talk to me again. I ask Carlisle but he says there is no point because Edward can't read my mind. I have so many questions about the things I see in my dreams. About him. My memories about television and High School are confusing, and I don't understand the big deal with cars at all.
I feel like Edward's stolen something from me, and it hurts my head to think about how he sees me as a thing, not a her. I tell myself the things I see were once real, once experienced by a human, so if I know about them, then I must be real, too.
My leg grows stronger. I walk with a small limp and three of my toes remain fused together and they don't grow toenails. I hate to look at it because it doesn't match my leg in my dreams.
Carlisle tells me it will help my leg if I go for walks around the compound. I walk into the mess hall and voices fall silent. Humans and vampires sit at separate tables, so I take a table by myself. The hard looks and the whispering make me lose my appetite, and I leave. Carlisle says clones make people uneasy, and he will arrange to have my meals brought to my room. I cry about it, but I don't know why I do this.
I ask for foods that I didn't know no longer exist, but Carlisle is kind and tells me he knows someone who can try for me. I meet Esme when she brings me what she calls a 'facsimile of lasagna'. As soon as I see her I want to hug her, but I don't. She has always been Carlisle's loving wife and mother to the Cullens. Esme accepted Bella, even though Bella was different and didn't belong. She is just like my dreams and that means some of the things I know are still here. That makes them true.
Esme watches me eat, and she gives me a sad smile when I tell her what I dreamed about her house and her garden. I describe a large painting she had at the entrance that she had painted, and ask her if she still has it. She tells me she painted a new one, but it is exactly the same. This makes me happy because things from the past are still beautiful.
I sit and try to remember Esme and her house after she leaves. Her house had so many windows. And a forest and a river. There was food in the kitchen, just for me. I remember things would get broken, but I don't remember why. A piano was smashed. Glass plates were smashed. I think she had a lot of books and music, but no bed. So absurd.
After a long absence, filled with a lot of lab time with Carlisle, Esme comes back and asks if I want to meet Alice. She tells me Alice is not well, but she thinks it might be good for her to see me. I'm in her thoughts already, she says, so Alice might as well see me for herself. Alice is also in my thoughts, but I don't say that aloud.
Alice is acting strange. She doesn't look directly at me unless I am looking away. She says she wasn't prepared for how I smelled. "Caius certainly got that part right."
"Who's Caius?" I ask.
"Your Volturi master and maker. Never forget that."
She holds up a mirror and asks me who I see, and I shyly tell her 'me' and shrug. My faded red eyes are ringed in a dark russet. I run my hands through my dark hair. She says this coloring is new; a clone's hair is usually thin and white. They don't have eyelashes or eyebrows. I shrug. Of course I have these things because Bella had them. I don't get why this is such a big deal to her.
I feel tired of this questioning me all the time. This Alice is not my friend. She doesn't even wear nice clothes. I wish she was like the Alice in my dreams. I would even let her paint my toenails on the normal foot.
"Why did you attack a human when you arrived? Is that what you were running to? You wanted to find a human to drink while Edward watched?"
"What attack? I can't run with this leg."
Alice looks at me and tilts her head. Her eyes are such a pale yellow they almost look translucent. She says to Esme, "It's hard to say if I am seeing her, or another BellaOne ultraclone that will come along next year, or the next. No way to tell them apart anymore. It's disturbing how humanized Caius is making them."
The door opens and the man with the red eyes and white hair walks in. I shrink back in surprise and a memory flashes in my head of my old cafeteria. Jasper is still suffering.
"Well?" Alice looks over her shoulder and he comes to stand behind her. They do not touch.
"She absolutely believes what she is saying. It's not an act. New thought patterns have replaced the old ones."
I huff indignantly. "You can stop avoiding me, Jasper. You know I forgive you. It was just a stupid papercut."
"I am not the Jasper of your implanted memories. I am a clone."
"Oh, do you have a number like me?"
"Just Jasper," Alice says curtly.
Edward is standing in my room. I slowly sit up and turn on the lamp. We stare at each other. "I was having a dream about you," I say.
"I know. Apparently, your shield is down when you sleep. We didn't realize this or I would have come back sooner."
"Why?"
"Your neural pathways are altering. We think the dreaming is processing instructions from your chips in your head, hard-wiring more and more memories into your neural network. This coincides with changes in your behavior, and there is much to observe."
"I know you think I have no right to these thoughts."
"It just the result of a program from the microchips in your head."
"I don't know who am I supposed to be."
"Not her."
"I know but … I don't try to remember, it's just… there. I wake up and I have this terrible longing to leave here and go back to Forks, a place that doesn't even exist anymore. I figured out you must hate me, because I know private things about you and … her."
"I … don't hate you. I just don't want to watch you claim her memories as your own."
"Something bad happened to you or to her. I'm afraid of when that memory finally comes to me my dreams will be bad. You probably know what it is and that's why you avoid me. I wish you would just tell me."
"You can't possibly comprehend. Clones process things differently."
"I know, but I still want to know."
Edward huffs and paces for a bit. "I loved a human girl named Bella Swan, who was stolen from me by the Volturi as punishment for my arrogance. I was promised she would remain human, protected, but I must stay with the Volturi. Despite years of trying, I never found out what happened to her after they took her back to America. A war was coming and the Volturi were preparing. All hands on deck to minimize the coming bombs. I tried to find her but there was too much chaos afterwards, and then the first of many vampire wars started. During the vampire wars, your clones started showing up. What's worse, now these clones are getting more and more sophisticated, more humanized."
"Why am I so offensive to you? I can't possibly hurt you."
"No. The fact that you are so human-like is even more disturbing. You have been showing more of her mannerisms, and you speak like her. When you first came here, you spoke and acted more like a clone."
"Why is that bad?"
"It just is, okay? At first, the clones were poor copies, often in the violent throes of a newborn bloodlust. It still sickens me to know her life force was used in this way. Alice stopped telling me about them after a while. She sent me after you because she felt we could profit from replicating your new technology when it comes to Jasper. We have just scratched the surface where you're concerned."
"So even though I am better, you think this is bad. I don't understand, Edward."
Edward seems to talk to himself. "Possibly revenge for my treachery in executing Aro. We don't know what Caius's end game is, constantly making clones of her, just to mentally taunt me."
"But I would never hurt you."
"Don't worry. I have long since made peace that a clone is not Bella. You can never be her because she was a human, and she lived like a human before she died as a human."
"Maybe in my dreams I might remember what happened to me. Sorry. To her. More and more things come back to me. Even more than what a normal human would remember. Carlisle says it's eidetic, and he doesn't how far back it will go."
Edward sat on the bed, unmoving. "I would like that. To finally know." She leans forward towards his intoxicating scent. "Stop that." He stood and walked to the widow. The shadows of the bars striped his face. He opens the window a crack.
At last he spoke again, quietly. "The Volturi developed cloning after the collapse of the world order from the Last War. We had no choice but to duplicate the technology to keep our way of life from being enslaved or wiped out. We have always strived to be more humane in this regard, so we never tried to keep clones alive longer than a few years."
"Jasper…"
"He is in his 136th incarnation. Thanks to Carlisle's tireless work, he comes to us a fully formed warrior of immeasurable talent, and I doubt we would have survived the wars without him. But each time he comes back he remembers less and less of Alice. Your latest incarnation regrows neural networks of original memory and that holds special interest to Carlisle and Alice."
"How many of … me. Her."
"We don't know. We thought Caius had stopped since we hadn't seen a Bella clone in almost a decade. We felt hopeful it was finally over."
"Over, as in no more Bella's."
"No more Bella's brought to life only to suffer and die. And now here you are."
"I can't help what I am. What I know. What I feel."
"Neither can I."
A long silence, while I fidgeted with my fingers. "Is my blood why you're here now?"
"In a way, yes. Alice was worried about Jasper. With each incarnation he tends to get more bloodthirsty. Unlike me, he has little compunction drinking from clones. I thought I'd hang around to make sure he didn't ignore Carlisle's orders. I had no idea until tonight that I can read your mind when you are asleep."
"Oh. That's good, right? Because before you couldn't."
"Uh, it certainly is a new development, and I … can't seem look away. I will always have Bella in my memory, but it is another thing entirely to see yours. I mean hers."
"Tell me about her. I … know I'm not her. I'm not human, but I need to know. I have so many questions. Where are Emmett and Rosalie?"
"Never ask me about them."
"I'm sorry." My heart starts pounding, and he looks over at me, his eyes dark. He swallows.
"Swan284, you don't love me. Clones don't form attachments. What you believe about me is because you have received the recreated memories of a flawed human who failed to see I was a monster. Humans don't see things very clearly. Clones even less so."
"It's the only reality I know is how she feels and thinks."
"I can't talk to you about this."
"Edward, please. Don't go. I get it. You want me to think you are a monster. Fine. I'm some lab Bella; freak of nature. I'll stay quiet."
He stops his hand on the doorknob. "I'll stay, but don't talk to me about her. Don't call yourself Bella."
"I won't say anything. Stay, while I sleep. If you see how my dreams are, maybe you can help Carlisle figure out how to help Jasper. Maybe I'll dream about what happened to her."
Edward sits in the corner on a ripped vinyl chair. He waits for her dreams and slips among them and feels his dead heart clench as he sees himself through Bella's eyes.
Hours later, he opens his eyes and Jasper is at the window, his teeth bared. They stare each other down. With a snarl, Jasper leaves for his nightly feeding of synthetic human blood and his own memories of bloody victories and purple smoke.
Time passes. She remembers more and more, and her life in this world she remembers less. At first, Edward duly reminds her she is a clone, but it is a if she can't hear him. She talks as if what happened to Bella and Edward, had happened to her, to them, and after a while, Edward doesn't bother correcting her. He tells himself he is helping Carlisle understand what is happening in her mind by playing along. By staying silent, she becomes more and more like Bella, more of her humanity comes out in a way they have never seen with a clone before.
One night, after a particularly vivid dream of her attackers in Portland, Edward finds himself in her bed, holding her in her arms. She falls back asleep and he slips under her shield and back into her memories. In her dream, their kiss deepens.
Edward has never experienced anything like it. The next morning Swan284's cheeks are flushed with happiness. He asks her to keep it their secret. She readily agrees. As he escorts her to the lab, he tells himself it was just an experiment and it won't happen again.
Again and again, Bella's vivid dreams draw him back to her side, and into his arms. He stops himself thinking too hard, and lives in the moment of Bella's mind and untold pleasures. She dreams of her dreams, and in them Bella pursues carnal pleasures.
Despite their nightly forays, Edward is careful to never tell Carlisle about it during their daily recaps of Swan284's mental metamorphism.
Edward knows what he is doing is wrong, but he always stays beside her now, and during the day they shyly share caresses. He finds when she is half-awake, he can whisper questions, and he gets answers that sound exactly like something Bella would say. They run through the forest together and Edward is enthralled to give her their first shared orgasm with his hand. He knows this is a fantasy, but Edward is transfixed with the forbidden thrill of Bella sharing his own fantasy life.
His vampire mind won't forget Swan284 is not a human, yet she's a distraction from the desolation of the ruined world he's spent over a century surviving. Her dreaming mind is more addictive than the smell of her blood. She loved him more than he thought a human possible and he can't look away.
How ever these thoughts came to be, it feels too good to wake her and stop them. He starts to let his hands and lips act out what she's dreaming, and now when she wakes he doesn't stop, because she lets her shield down, and their pleasure mingles and multiplies and reality blurs.
When Edward moves about the compound thoughts swirl around him, the human's revulsion at what they suspect he's doing with a clone only deepens Edward's self loathing. He avoids his family, and they rarely leave her room.
Esme starts bringing things: a purple comforter that is reminiscent of the kind Bella had. It makes Swan284 so happy, Edward can't bring himself to warn away Esme. A paper lamp and a string of lights appear, and a painting of a wolf Esme duplicated. Esme even manages to find a rocking chair, but Edward doesn't sit in it like he once did. In that respect, things have changed.
He still carefully controls what happens between them, but he never bolts from her arms. The aching and the bloodlust bury Edward's other reservations. Edward tells himself this is different because he would never have pre-marital relations with Bella, and Swan284 is not Bella, and besides, they never go all the way. It's not real. It's just a simulation.
It isn't long before Edward starts to notice little things; dark rings under her eyes, a clump of hair on her pillow, her limp is more pronounced. Carlisle runs tests and he informs Swan284 her clone endtime is coming. She reaches for Edward's hand. Edward holds her as tears slip down her face. Watching a clone grieve for their life is unnerving enough, but he finds himself angry at Tanya's cold and clinical questions about her unexpected tears. He snaps at Tanya to stop it, and demands to Carlisle that she be left alone.
That night, he finds himself so immersed in her warm body and her mind, he calls her Bella in the throes of their ecstasy. As she falls back asleep, the air scented with their pleasure, Edward watches her memory of him throwing back his head to laugh. He feels just as he was then, before the wars, before all the killing, before he lost her, and he marvels at how little he realized what he stood to lose.
Bella's dreams are starting to fade, and as they talk during the day, Edward takes pains to correct Swan284 if she gets something wrong. He wants her to know him as he was then, and rebuffs any questions about the time that came after they were apart.
He thinks about Alice's original vision of Bella with the red eyes, and wonders if Swan284 was the future she saw with Edward. He lets his mind wander. What would happen if he tried to change this incarnation of her into a vampire? She's mostly human DNA, Bella's DNA, according to Carlisle. She is more advanced than any clone they've seen before. He could be with Bella's memories in this Bella-clone body. They could run away and pretend they are married. He won't have to lose her again. He flinches at this last thought and realizes how lost he is becoming to even momentarily entertain this repulsive fantasy. He pushes the blanket back and stares at her foot. Not real. He truly is a monster.
The next morning she stops dreaming, but doesn't wake up. Carlisle is called. Edward is anxious as Carlisle examines her, asking Edward if noticed any new physiological developments, besides the usual ailments of a failing clone body.
Finally, Edward brings himself to ask, "Is this … it."
Carlisle frowns. "Yes, I can detect some pervasive physical deterioration in her organs. The end should come any time now." He watches with dismay at Edward's naked agony. "You knew this was not a good idea. You promised you had it under control. I realize this is different because we've never seen a clone so … human-like. It's uncanny, but it's not real, Edward."
"Do you look at her? See her? Do you know her thoughts? Her eyes are alive when I talk to her. She cries, Carlisle. She bleeds. I keep watching for that blank clone stare she started with, but she just seems more and more alive."
Carlisle patiently watches Edward, and by his thoughts, lets Edward know he knows what's been going on between him and a clone.
No one blames you, Edward. Bella was your mate. She smells just like Bella."
Swan284's post-mortem will be fascinating. The brain alone should take me weeks. Carlisle catches himself too late and is dismayed to see Edward's clenched fists, but he can't bring himself to apologize. "It's not Bella, Edward. Bella Swan is dead. There is much we can learn from these new cloning developments for the sake of Jasper."
"It's sick, I know. What I'm doing is a desecration to Bella's memory." Edward can't look at Carlisle.
"I should inform you with all this happening between you two has made Jasper press his suit with Alice. She's agreed to let him move in, take things slow, but we all know how badly this will go soon enough. He doesn't have much time left. Esme has made me promise not to interfere, but …" Carlisle shakes his head.
Edward shakes his head as he pulls a curl off her cheek. They watch her eyes flicker behind her pale lavender lids. "She's dreaming, but I can't hear her anymore. I wonder if she's fully developed Bella's mental shield."
"Certainly, that's possible. It could signal another final stage has begun. You need to prepare yourself."
Carlisle leaves and finally allows himself to think what has been bothering him the most.
I wonder how many more of these BellaOne ultraclones are out there. God have mercy on Edward's soul.
Two days pass, and she remains asleep. Edward watches her have nightmares he can't access or soothe. She calls out his name and he is beside himself. He wonders if she is remembering her time with the Volturi after they were separated. Was she alone when the bombs dropped? Will she wake up and tell him? After all this time, would he finally have questions that plagued him answered. He is hopeful and afraid.
And then evening comes and she wakes up. She stares at him, and a crease forms in her brow. Edward reaches to smooth it away but she pulls back.
"What is it?"
"I don't remember my dreams," Bella says, her voice croaking from disuse.
"Are you hungry."
Bella seems not to have heard him, and then she whispers, "I could eat."
"You shower and get dressed, and I'll bring you something."
Bella is too unsteady on her feet, and Edward ends up running her a bath. "Don't look at my foot," she grumbles. He tucks her back in bed and runs to the mess hall for soup and toast. He feeds her, but she doesn't eat very much.
"Would you like me to read some more of Wuthering Heights to you?" Edward asks.
Bella nods, distracted as she reaches for a glass of water on her bedside table. She stares at the bars on her window, her eyes blank with distant thoughts she doesn't share.
The next day, after a brief and fitful sleep, she wakes up irritable and distant. Edward is patient, but he no longer lies beside her on her bed, sensing something is off. "Did you remember what happened with the Volturi?"
"Stop asking me that," she snaps at him. She limps to the window. Her leg is hurting; atrophy is setting in. "You know what I want?"
Edward stands. "What?"
"I need to get away from this place. Someplace that isn't this compound."
Edward helps her dress warmly. Alice calls to him from the hallway. She's brought him a lavender quilt. She is silent, but Alice's mind no longer shows Swan284. Her room in the barracks is empty again. They embrace, because they cannot find the words.
After leaving the fortified gate, Edward reaches for his Bella, but carries her in his arms because she is too weak. He runs north.
Overlooking a long and shallow valley, he helps her limp slowly in the chilly spring breeze. The sun tries to shine through the constant cloud cover that makes even the strongest plants feeble. Edward finds a wildflower, so rare these days, but Bella doesn't really react. He unfolds the lavender blanket Esme had made for Rosalie and Emmett's last wedding and helps her lay down. Listening to her slowing heart, he waits for the inevitable as he reverently touches her face.
He wishes he could see inside her mind one last time, but he knows he's being selfish. Bella stares at the sky, and then she winces. Edward takes her hand. "You're not alone, Bella. I'm here. If it gets too much, I'll end your suffering." He watches her writhe and gasp. Before long, she's incoherent, but Edward hesitates with his hands around her neck. She made him promise, but he's not ready.
"Bella, I'm here my love." And then there's a snap, and Edward is behind her shield.
Her memories flood over him, but they are twisted and dark and violent. Edward recognizes the alley from Rosalie's mind. In place of Royce stands Edward, his hands around Bella's neck as he roughly pushes into her against the coarse brick wall. He staggers away from her, his eyes red, his pants undone. "I would never turn such used goods. Have at it, boys."
Edward watches in frozen horror as the men take their turns with Bella, as they once had with Rosalie, before they left her for dead.
"No!" Edward cries again and again. He shakes her and pleads. "It's not real, Bella. That never happened to you."
She does not hear him. The light fades behind her eyes as she relives her last implanted memory.
Monster, she thinks, and stills.