Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, plot, etc. are the property of their respective owners. This is a complete fictional story. The author does not own anything. No money is being made with this work. This is merely meant as a tribute to the inspiring work of Stephenie Meyer and the world she created.
AN/: Short note. I had posted this story here on this site before, however since then my writing got better and my English got better, so this story should be better. Logically.
The legacy of Dr. Isabella Swan
Chapter 1 - A life full of hope
It is the swan.
There is a group of people, six of them, sitting in a room. All around them there is furniture covered in white sheets which in turn had a thick layer of dust covering them.
Definitive the swan. I am certain of it.
A additional hint that this group might not life in this room, or that house for that matter, in fact no one lived there for quite a while, was that they where rather uncomfortably sitting around, glancing at each other and occasionally at the ceiling. Those six where a family, not by blood, but by choice, experience and maybe even love. There was Carlisle, a good looking man in his early twenties, blond hair and golden eyes. He, by all rights and reason, was the head and surrogate father of this family. Next to him sat his wife and in turn the surrogate mother, Esme, midtwenty, caramel-colored hair and a healthy physic, and yes, she had golden eyes as well. On the seat next over was the next pair, Emmett, a tall muscular young man with short dark hair, and in his lap sat his wife, Rosalie, a stunningly beautiful young woman with long wavy golden blond hair. They both had the same golden colored eyes. As had the last two in the room, sitting on the next place over, Alice and her husband Jasper. Alice was a petite woman with short, spiky, black hair, while Jasper was a average build man with collar-length honey-blond hair. Those six, and a missing seventh, are known as the Cullen family, or to some others the Olympic vampire coven. And for the first time, in a long, long time, they where back in there old home in the middle of the Woods in the outskirt near Forks.
I am not into symbolism, never was, chances are I never will be, but if I where to be asked what it is that I associate with her more I would have to say it is the swan.
„This was not a intelligent idea, Carlisle.", Jasper said after a other glance up at the ceiling „He is in a worse state than ever..."
This is not simply because of the name. Swan. Isabella Swan. It goes much deeper than that. The swan is a beautiful and proud bird. Strong. Independent. Inapproachable. Loyal to a fault and most important of all a fierce protector.
„...just sitting in his room..."
And also... mortal. Swans are mortal. They mature, they life, they rule the entire lake unchallenged, no natural enemy able to touch them, and then, be it age or sickness or as a consequence of there own actions or inactions, they die. That is a important similarity as well.
„...starring at that damn book all day long."
You may think me weird for choosing the image of the swan over Bella's photo which shares the cover of the book with the stylized logo of the bird, side by side, with a vertical line in between.
„We have to help him somehow. He seems so sad.", Esme answered, staring up with a pained expression on her face, thinking about her oldest son sitting in his old room all alone.
The reason behind the decision is simple. The photo is wrong. No, not wrong. It does show Bella. The picture is famous and went around the world after it had appeared on the cover of 'Vanity Fair'. It's just not my Bella. Because my Bella is not a woman in her mid-forties with short brown hair and a warm smile, wearing a styled up runway version of a lab coat, jeans and open toed high heels while sitting on a glass chair. The 'Queen of Science', or so the magazine has named her. This isn't my Bella, but Isabella Swan. Doctor Isabella Swan.
„He isn't.", Jasper replied honestly. „I don't feel any sadness, or anger, or anything really, coming from him anymore. He has buried any and all emotion so deep, he is basically dead inside."
But be it birds or humans, time does not stand still for either. Least of all for a young, wide eyed girl who could not wait to take on the entire world. Least of all for my Bella.
Alice nodded sadly. „He isn't making any kind of decisions either. I hadn't had a vision from him in ages. He is just reminiscing on and on."
If Isabella is a queen then the swan is her shield, her logo. A white swan with a black peak, the wings half spread in a protective pose, in frond of it a staff, a asclepius rod with the snake around it, like you could see in the symbol for drugstores. Though in this case it's a gimmick, the rod forms the letter I, the long neck of the swan above forms the letter S.
„That is ridiculous. He is a fucking morron. Honestly what did he think would happen.", Rosalie spoke out in anger at her families behavior
The letter I and the letter S. IS. As in Isabella Swan. As in IS Pharmacy & Medtech. Bella's company. The firma she build from nothing, right in the middle of her old hometown not even twenty years ago.
Carlise raised his hand to gesture to his daughter to calm down before the rant could go on „He just needs time to grieve."
And now. Today. You could search the planet and you would not find more than a handful of people who didn't know about IS. Who had never heard of the famous Isabella Swan.
„That's just it." Jasper returned. „He isn't grieving. He isn't doing anything, Carlisle. Coming back to Fork was a mistake. There is a real danger of a mental breakdown. He could go over the edge completely with no way for us to bring him back."
Her name now falls in one breath with names like Archimedes, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, all of them academic celebrities, all of them brilliant, all of them dead.
„To tell you the truth pushing him over the edge is what I am hoping for. It has been six months. And he has read her memoirs over and over again for the last three. He is not going to accept that she is gone. Maybe seeing her grave will be the proof he needs so he finally can start healing."
The IS-logo on the left, the image of her on the right, and above the both there is the title: 'When all you have is hope'
„We tried everything else. Forks is where this all started. He will have to come to terms with it here. Otherwise I do not know what else we could try."
'Idid the best I could. I hope it is enough.' Bella's words. The ones the title of the book refers to. Some of her last. And like with so many things about the person she has become, a enigma. Enough to do what? Enough for whom?
„I just don't get it." Rosalie said. „I thought that is what he wanted. She stays human, she lives like a human, she grows old like a human and she dies, just like a human."
And why would this be the title when it should be clear for everyone to see that it was indeed not enough. Not by a long shot. All of her achievement, all what she had done, what she had discovered and there was still no way to save her.
„But not at the age of fifty-two.", Carlisle answered.
No chance for recovery.
Rosalie sneered. „Death is never fair. Deal with it."
When she fainted during a gala in her honor.
„No, in here case it really is rather a outrageously unfair. After all she did and then to die like that. Have you any idea how many lives her inventions saved?", Carlise asked her
And the public didn't hear anything from her for weeks.
„Because of her work, her discoveries, the headway she made in the medical field, the life expectancy for humans went from eighty-five up to theoretical more than two hundred. Isabella's work is the very foundation that will make eternal youth for the normal human a reality someday very, very soon"
Until her doctors told a shocked community that a tumor had developed in her brain. A Tumor that had since reached terminal stage.
„Because of her gene therapies and drugs for accelerate cell regeneration almost no illness is incurable any longer..."
Too large to remove because of the amount of brain tissue that would have to be cut away in the process.
„...almost no injury fatal"
On her last appearance in television she looked like death already. But she wasn't tired of telling over and over again how sorry she was. That she had known about the illness for months but only told her doctors and her family, and didn't want to worry anyone else with it. That she knew she was going to die soon and that she has come to turns with it. That she didn't fear death. That she didn't hate her fate and that she was only a little sad that she wouldn't get the chance to do more. That she hoped that that what she did was enough.
„There is a reason people loved her and celebrated her like a superstar. No one else would have been able to to the things she did. We still don't even fully understand what she did."
On her way back from the studio to the hospital she lost consciousness for the last time.
„Her early death isn't just unfair."
And two days later, at seven thirty in the morning, in the company of her closest friends and family, her heart stopped beating and she passed away.
„It's a true tragedy."
And after only five decades worth of living she left behind more than anyone could have achieved in several lifetimes.
„Well it doesn't look to me like any of that helped her much in the end.", Rosalie returned.
It didn't help her at all.
To be continued...
AN/: So what do you think? It's not a one-shot by the way. There is quite a bit more to come.
