Author's note: Again, I am very sorry if the last chapter seemed boring. I shall remind you, however, to pay attention to the little details, because they are clues you should take note of when reading that will hint you to the future of this story. I have a thing with keeping my readers on edge, and unfortunately, that forces you to sit through chapters of exposition. In this chapter, we get a little bit more plot than last time, and some more clues that you should watch for. That's right, look for those plot hints. Look for them, and don't spoil anything if you have any ideas. Another hint: the true plot begins with Renee's appearance, and she'll be appearing at the end of this chapter. Again, sorry if the last chapter wasn't very well-written; I'm not the best with chapters that aren't either purely plot action. This chapter may be the same way, but it should have a little bit more plot. AND ONE MORE THING BEFORE I LEAVE YOU. I put Bella's newfound love for soccer in there for a reason. I felt like the poor girl needed something to love, and why not a sport? As much as she probably wouldn't be able to play it, she could still like it. *gets shot*

Terms to note: The Barclays Premier League (also known as the English Premier League) is a bit like the NFL in America but for soccer in England. It's really famous, the fans are worldwide, and the star players are huge superstars. I would definitely venture to say that the EPL is better than the NFL. Maybe it's just because I'm biased towards soccer. Especially Liverpool and QPR. *shot again*

Music: The Last Snowfall by Vienna Teng and Violet Hill by Coldplay. I'll make sure to put the music in the order it appears so that I don't have to throw in a random label after the lyrics. It ruins the mood, bro.

If this were the last snowfall

No more halos on evergreens

If this were my last glimpse of winter

What would these eyes see?

If this were the last snow curling

On your fingers, in my palm

If this were the last I've felt you breathing

How would I carry on?

This is not the last snowfall

Not our last embrace

But if I were that kind of grateful

What would I try to say?

The violins returned to her weakened mind, their sound seeping through every open crevice of her mind and stripping her of her energy. Inside of her mind, it was hard to identify the piece, but she almost recognized it as an orchestral strings rendition of a lullaby she remembered from a happier time in her life. Each individual instrument seemed like a symbol of the pale brunette's pain and anguish that kept her up late nights and stole away her strength so that she could not breathe correctly without the pain of those wounds breaking her walls down and constantly reminding her of the man she so wished to forget. The violins' dark violet aura clouded her mind and mercilessly drained her energy.

The girl opened her eyes in the morning and realized that she had gotten just as little sleep the previous night as she had many nights before then. She was just as upset at the fact that she had let herself collapse in front of Charlie as she was that she had only gotten one night's worth of sleep before the nightmares returned, as inevitable as she knew they were.

She contemplated the reasons why the nightmares could have gone away for a night and found herself coming up with nothing, completely clueless as to why the violins decided to let her be.

Bella attempted to move her arm and noticed that the pain from the day before was still there, just as it had been when it first appeared. With some feat of her own will, she managed to get herself out of bed and walked down to the bathroom where she looked in the mirror at herself with a sad sigh. Studying herself in the reflection, she noticed that her eyes looked strange, though she could not put her finger on how or why. They just seemed different in some way that she could detect but not correctly identify. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, meeting her own reflection in the mirror. As she scanned herself thoroughly, she decided to change since she'd slept in her regular clothes and probably needed a shower.

This was the third day of school she was missing, which bothered her to no end since she was supposed to be at least a decently good student and skipping was not a good thing for a good student to do. While it was true that she'd felt particularly ill over the last few days, it was not as if she could not have attended school the day before. It probably would have done her more good to do so, considering that now she would have to make up the three days of work she'd missed. She resolved to stop by the school that afternoon and pick up the work she needed to finish so that she could get started on it over the weekend. Considering the amount of sunlight pouring in the dull window, she assumed that Charlie had already left for work. That, and she hadn't heard any noise throughout the rest of the house except for the rain against the windows and her own boring heartbeat.

When she was almost ready to step into the shower, she noticed something else strange about herself. Looking into the full-length mirror, she traced her fingers over her torso in shock.

"Is that a six-pack?" she mused, looking at herself with a curious look on her face, mixed with surprise. "I'm not muscular," she said flatly to herself. "If anything, I should be fat because I've been eating more than Charlie and I'm lazy."

After she'd taken a shower and changed, she walked downstairs to fix something to eat. She noticed a note on the fridge. "Had to leave for work," she read aloud. "Feel better. Renee is coming tomorrow. Charlie." Her mother was coming? Why was that? She sighed and pushed the thoughts out of her mind; her mother had never said anything about coming, and it almost made her angry that she hadn't been warned of this sooner. On top of the fact that she was sick, now her mother was coming to visit. Great, she thought bitterly.

Looking through the piles of food she'd recently bought, she decided to make a tray of buttermilk biscuits. As soon as she put them into the oven, she made a large sausage and cheese omelet. By the time she'd fixed the omelet, the biscuits were ready, so she pulled them out of the oven and set them on the counter to cool.

She scarfed down her omelet and ate all of the biscuits, putting honey on some and jelly on others, and still eating some plain. After she'd eaten, she hand-washed the dishes in rhythm with her heartbeat. Bella found that the water seemed colder than usual, despite that she had the hot water up all the way and the steam pouring off of the dishes signaled that it should feel a lot hotter than it did.

Bella sighed and checked the clock: 12:30. At three, she would go to the school to pick up her missing assignments. So until then, she decided to see if any soccer games were on TV. She was disappointed when she saw that no games were on at the moment but instead was happy to see that they were talking about several English Premier League games that had occurred over the last week. She spent the next two and a half hours analyzing players, stats, and rules that she didn't know about.

She didn't know exactly why the sport had begun to fascinate her so much, but it had, and she didn't really mind. It was something to watch, something to do, something that kept her occupied on those long, boring days at home. And specifically, those long, boring days when she found herself sick.

Just from watching TV, she'd begun to take a liking to Liverpool United. She had no particular reason to take a liking to that individual Premier League team, but that's the one she had taken a liking to. In addition to that, she found herself loving the accents of the people talking and wanting to hear more and more of them.

"Crap, it's three, isn't it?" she said aloud, looking at the clock to confirm her assumption. She felt a bit better after resting, despite her sore muscles, but she decided it would be best to take her temperature before going to the school and infecting everyone with her disease. Grabbing the thermometer, she stuck it in her mouth as she gathered her coat and keys. When she was almost ready to go, she pulled it out of her mouth and checked the temperature: 106. She nearly dropped the thermometer.

"Shouldn't I be dead?" she whispered to herself.

She ran up the stairs, stumbling and nearly falling back down, and into the bathroom, where she looked at her own face in the mirror.

"Am I dead?" she said again. She continued to study herself. She looked different, that she could tell, but exactly how, she didn't know.

It was then that she realized her symptoms were almost identical to Jacob's before Billy cut her off from him.

"Billy!" she gasped. She knew he must know something about whatever she had, because Jacob had developed the same symptoms. "And it's obviously not mono," she muttered bitterly.

After she made her way back downstairs, she grabbed the phone and quickly dialed Jacob's number. As she expected, Billy picked up.

"Billy?" she said, her voice unintentionally a near whisper.

"Bella?" he responded.

"Billy, I think something's wrong with me."

"What do you mean?"

She trembled as she held the phone. "You know how Jake had a fever the night of the movie? And he said he was in a lot of pain?"

There was a pause on the other end before Billy responded, "yes. Bella, if this is about Jacob, he's-"

"I'm getting the same symptoms. I thought maybe you would know, since you know what's wrong with him."

Billy paused again, for a longer amount of time than he had before. "Get some rest, Bella," he told her sternly. "Just get some rest, okay?"

And then he hung up. Bella stood at the phone, nearly shaking in a mix of fear and anger. She was terrified.

"What's wrong with me?"


Instead of going to pick up her work, an exhausted Bella instead decided to obey Billy's advice and sleep, vouching to crash on the couch while watching a replay of the last Liverpool game. She awoke later to the sound of Charlie in the kitchen. She jumped off the couch and nearly tripped again as she ran into the kitchen. "Dad!" she yelled, leaning on the table to keep from falling over again. "I'm so sorry, I forgot about dinner! I fell asleep..." she shook her head to focus. "Mom's coming tomorrow?"

Charlie nodded awkwardly. "She says she has a few things to tell." He sighed. "Bella, I already ate, and I had a long day at work. I'm gonna go ahead to bed."

Bella's eyes widened. Charlie, going to bed early? And true to his word, her father turned to go to his room. "Wait, Dad, what kind of things?"

"Just some important things, Bella. You'll see." With that, he left Bella standing gaping in the kitchen.

/break/

Things had gotten even stranger for Bella. She'd gotten in an easy nap, but that didn't mean she would have a good night's sleep. She was worried about the nightmares again and the sound of the haunting violins that constantly left her in a state of depression over him. She was also worried about the illness that racked her body, leaving her in what appeared to be a blatant state of decay, and the way Billy had acted when she called him. Thinking back on the call, he'd tried to say something about Jacob but she'd cut him off. And even more than that, her mother was coming the next day, and she didn't know what had gotten Charlie acting so strangely over Renee's visit. Maybe it's just because it's his ex-wife we're talking about, she tried to assure herself, but sensing inside that it was something more than that.

Bella contemplated all these things as she made macaroni and cheese, sticking the thermometer back in her mouth as she waited for the water to boil. When she checked it, her temperature had gone up from 106 to 108.

"Why the hell am I not dead?" she whispered silently, not knowing what was wrong or what exactly she was turning into. Thinking about it made her think back to a word that often haunted her at night: vampires. The monotonous beating in the back of her beat even louder. Her heart ached at the sound of the word in her mind.

She pushed the thoughts of vampires out of her mind and grabbed the phone, dialing her mother's number.

"Hello?" Renee's voice replied cheerily.

"Mom," Bella said. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming to Forks?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise." Bella caught the change in the other woman's voice clearly, even over the phone. Something was going on that Bella didn't know about.

"Mom, what's going on?"

"I have some news for you."

"Charlie made that clear. What kind of news?"

"It's a surprise."

"Mom, tell me."

"I'll be there tomorrow."

And she hung up. Bella stood there, angry and frustrated, because this was the second time in a day someone she desperately needed to talk to had just hung up on her.


Bella had fallen asleep on the couch, remote in hand, television on some British sports channel she couldn't remember the name of. The last thing she remembered hearing about was some soccer player named Robin van Persie and a game versus Newcastle. That night, she dreamed, but it was not a nightmare or violins pounding in her ears. She dreamed about being stronger, less clumsy, and she dreamed about running. Running from dark figures and letting the wind push against her as she flew through the woods.

When she awoke, she saw the sunlight pouring in the window and a game on television. It was Saturday, it was sunny, and I'd she had slept the entire day, dreaming of running and being less clumsy. Though, Bella admitted to herself that it was definitely better to dream of happiness than to go out in real disappointment, otherwise known as reality.

Reality was, of course, cruel and destructive to one's soul.

She thought momentarily of calling Billy again, but she didn't feel like it. She still felt hot, so she stood and stretched, her body still uncomfortably sore.

The next thing that shot through her mind was Renee. Was her mother here yet?

"Hello?" she croaked out hoarsely, hoping for a response. She was greeted by an enthusiastic squeal and the entry of three people into the room: her father, her mother, and her step-father.

"Mom," she said with a smile, somewhat refreshed by the nap. Then she remembered the phone call last night, and the smile turned into a frown as she said, "why did you hang up on me?"

Renee shook her head. "I had to," she said. "You would've spoiled the surprise!"

"Surprise?" asked Bella warily.

Renee grinned from ear to ear. "I'm pregnant!"


End note: And with this, our official plot begins. Sorry if this chapter sucked too, I sorta had to force myself to write it so that I could get on to the plot. I'm so ready for the plot to begin. After now, the chapters won't suck as much. c: