For those of you who are curious where this falls in the canon timeline: it's currently Saturday, September 24 2005, ~3:30am at the beginning of this chapter. Victoria's chase was Thursday evening.


Chapter 2:
Visitation Rights


"You know why I'm here, don't you?"

My breath hitched, and I could only nod slowly.

She grinned, with a smile far too full of teeth. "Run."


Vengeance.

It's one of the strongest emotions a vampire can experience. We're immortal, unchanging, frozen in our minds as much as our bodies, and this reflects in our emotions as well. When a vampire feels fury, it does not disappear until reparation can be claimed. It does not dwindle, does not falter, and does not waver.

So then why did I spare her?

When I looked in her eyes as she realized that she wasn't that boy's mate, I had seen something break. Something irreplaceable had snapped, and in that moment I saw her as what she really was: just another pawn. Just an interloper caught up in the games of gods, no more responsible for what had happened than a hare that two foxes fought over. She accepted her fate at my hands without any true fight, and suddenly, I couldn't kill her. Where is the satisfaction in killing someone to cause them pain when they don't care if they die? It just… didn't sit right.

It was a terrible time to renege on my oath of revenge, at the very moment it could have been completed, but I saw myself in her and that changed things. She was just a frightened girl, a broken soul. A person who had been toyed with by people stronger than her.

That boy on the other hand… My rage simmered below the surface, and I fought to keep it down. He killed my mate, my anchor to this earth, destroyed my life, and then the ultimate insult, abandoned the very human they had fought over.

But I didn't need to focus on that right now. I had forever to extract retribution. Right now, my attention was on the human girl lying on the bed halfway across the room with an assortment of electronics around her, tracking her every change in status. I didn't need them to know how she was; I could hear her heartbeat as if it was right next to my ear. A soothing sound that even while fanning the raging fire in my throat, relaxed my mind.

I sighed. What was I doing? What would Laurent or James say?

James would have asked why I hadn't drained her in that forest. He was a Hunter, after all, and would have never passed up the chance for such enticing blood. Laurent either would have agreed with him or approved of my decision to save her, as he knew the state I was in and that any distraction would be a welcome one.

Which it had been, oddly enough, for the past two days. The first two days where I hadn't been buried in rage and misery since that moment in March.

It was disconcerting in the extreme, to be honest. Months of planning to kill her, months of deliberating over the ways to go about doing it (evisceration, strangulation, dehydration, starvation, and my favorite for obvious reasons, exsanguination), defeated in minutes. One week ago I had no thoughts other than to take my revenge. I hadn't even considered the possibility that her coven would leave her. Or that she would mirror how I felt so accurately. I had made a snap decision to save her, in a moment of passion, but that decision was one that I didn't regret in the slightest. And I couldn't figure out why.

Maybe I'm just selfish.

I never could live on my own for long, and the past six months have been some of the loneliest in my existence. Hours turn to days turn to weeks turn to months when you have nobody else around, nothing to do except exist and occasionally hunt. Yet I was aware and lucid for every single second. True torture of a kind that only way a vampire can experience.

And then I came across her. Chased her. The girl who I had wanted nothing more to kill, nothing more than to tear apart with my own hands. But after seeing her true self, the broken, shattered girl, that desire for her death turned to a desire to have her at my side. To have someone who could understand with me, forever. And she will need to be turned. I will not provoke the Volturi any further by leaving her here.

There's something very… alluring about her. Magnetic. It's how she had ended up with that coven, I suppose. It feels right being around her. Almost as if no matter where she went, no matter what she did, it was her fate to become involved in our world. To become one of us. Someone who belonged in our world.

I was drawn out of my thoughts when Isabella (Bella, she said) began twisting around on her bed restlessly, mumbling to herself. It was only because of my better hearing that I actually heard her. "No. Don't. Please, I promise. I won't. Don't leave." The smell of salt rose in the air, and I looked over at the source, tracks of tears running down her face, her expression screwed up in anguish.

Standing up, I walked to the side of her bed silently, watching as her eyes moved frantically under their lids. She breathed heavily and instantly turned her head towards me, like she knew I was there (which was impossible, of course).

"Please… don't go." she moaned, her voice full of agony and grief. I reached a finger out to catch one of the tears that fell from her face, studying it intently until her right hand shot out and caught my wrist, fast enough that I was sure she had woken, but her eyes remained closed.

I could have just pulled my hand from hers, but I was so captivated by her tears and actions that I simply stood there, waiting to see if there was anything else. Eventually, she turned her head into my hand, sighing quietly and calming when my cold skin came into contact with her own, a small smile appearing as she held my palm to her cheek.

And try as I may, I couldn't bring myself to pull away and condemn her back to her nightmares.


It was sunlight streaming through my window that woke me the next day, bleeding through my eyelids and making me turn to the left to try and shield my eyes. Fully awake now with no chance of falling back to sleep, I cursed the sun and wondered who the hell had left the blinds open. Which caused me to remember where I was and how I'd gotten there.

Hospital. Victoria. Riiiiight.

Last night's events drifted back to me: my late-night visit with the bipolar redhead and her subsequent disappearance. Although there was a chance that was a dream. I mean, it wasn't possible, was it? It could have been some other red-haired woman that had carried me to the hospital. Miles away from where I had been. Through heavily wooded forest.

…Yeah, the likelihood of that was about nil.

Okay. So Victoria, of all people, had saved my life, which meant I should probably assume that our conversation hadn't been a drug-induced hallucination. …Although I really think it would be easier to handle if it had been.

It was strange. I'd been petrified in fear in the forest as she held me up against that tree, fingers nearly crushing my windpipe, ribs broken and left lung partially collapsed. But all of the terror and fear I felt towards her disappeared the second I had seen that look in her red eyes.

You don't really stop to think about how human (more… person-ish? real?) vampires really are when they're on a warpath and out for your blood. I'd been terrified of James, even when I had willingly gone to that ballet studio, practically walking to my death. All I had known about him was that he was a hunter. A killer. Someone who reveled in the terror and pain he could induce in his prey. Likewise, all I knew about Victoria was that she had been with James on that day in the field, and that she had called him when the Cullens had left to join me, Alice, and Jasper in Phoenix. Literally nothing else. Obviously she'd been complicit in James' hunt, although according to her she'd told him that it wasn't a good idea.

It all came back to the fact that she had saved me. Intentionally. I know that if I had been left in that forest, I would have died. And the last time a new vampire had saved me from some life threatening situation (Tyler's car), it had gotten me into this whole mess.

God… I really hoped that wasn't foreshadowing.

But in totality, it all added up to a frustratingly small amount of information I had on her, none of which gave me any hint as to why the heck she had decided I should live.

Had she seen the same thing I had? Looked into my soul through eyes as blank as glass? Witnessed how shattered my life was because of all this? Understood the lack of will I'd had to live? She'd basically told me she felt the same way: "A mate for a mate. My life was forfeit…"

I suppose there's something to be said about that. Vampires, creatures with bodies of stone yet hearts of glass. Almost poetic, in a very sad way. I might not know what it was like to lose a centuries-long partner, but I could definitely sympathize to some degree.

Even now, it still felt like there was a chasm as deep as the Marianas trench in my chest. And when you feel that much pain, that much emptiness from the thing that had been torn out of you, you can only either curl up in a ball of depression or find a new purpose that will fill the gap.

I had been the former, Victoria, the latter. And it had taken being hunted down, chased, toyed with, and then nearly killed to snap me out of it. …Though I suppose a near-death experience involving vampires would do that to anyone. Thankfully, this encounter had been less lethal than the last (at least in retrospect), despite landing me in a hospital again. There'd been no venom this time, so that was a plus.

It's funny how things work out, isn't it? His actions had completely backfired on him. It was irony at its finest: leaving Forks had just allowed another vampire to enter it. And Victoria had already proved that once I had been inducted into the supernatural world, there was no getting out, no matter how hard he tried to remove me from it.

It wasn't that he had tried that frustrated me now. It was the way he had gone about it… like performing a lobotomy instead of just treating the symptoms, exorcising himself and his family from my life as if he had never existed… Did he really think that was an acceptable thing to do? To manipulate my life like that?

He had flaws, I could see that now. Especially emotional and psychological flaws, despite him being a century-old vampire who had been interacting with humans for the majority of that time. It was just… selfish how he had reacted.

I know he had been the one to talk his family into leaving, because none of them would have even considered it. I didn't blame them. I knew personally how convincing he could be. But it was so immature. Like if he couldn't have me, no one from his family could.

At least that's what it seemed like. What it looked and felt like.

Victoria's words had changed me, and I was still trying to figure out exactly how. It felt like something… deeper than just my thoughts on Edward had been changed. But I definitely didn't love him anymore. He had left me like I was nothing. Why should I put forth the effort to care about him? The pain from his actions was still there, but that would disappear eventually according to everyone else.

Is it weird that I was grateful that Victoria had done this to me? Grateful she had practically shoved in my face that he wasn't the be-all and end-all of my life? Because I was. Very much so.

Is it wrong that I also wanted to see her again? She, the one who had shown me how wrong I was? Misery enjoys company, after all. I, at least, had Charlie and the people at my school (mostly just Angela). But Victoria had nobody now.

Nobody, except for me, the strange human girl who knew how she felt, and I felt drawn to her because of it.

…Or maybe I was just a sucker for tragic vampires.


As the night fell I returned to the hospital from the place where I'd spent my day, one of the higher peaks of the Olympic range. It was a place where I could simply exist. Time is a different concept for us than for humans, perhaps because of the amount that we accumulate, or because of the fact that we never age, there is nothing personal to measure time against. We tend to get lost in our thoughts and emotions easily (as you must be able to tell), succumbing to what we feel. Not that I had any idea what I was feeling.

Everything was so… confusing. This girl was getting under my skin without even trying. I wanted it, but I didn't. My brief conversation with her last night had been the first in six months, and even as I wanted to avoid her, I wanted more to see her again and talk further.

And so with one final decision, I condemned myself to this path.


"You came back?" I'd meant it as a statement, but it came out as more of a question, even though the answer was right in front of me.

She nodded once, keeping her red eyes on me and her face impassive.

I don't know why I was so surprised. It just… didn't seem real. None of this did. I would almost rather hope that this was all just a bad dream, yet I knew that it wasn't because the sort of pain I felt in my chest hurt too much not to be real.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, trying to think of something to say. "So, um, how are you?" She stared at me blankly, as if that didn't even deserve a response. Alright, so maybe it was a stupid question, all things considered. "Had any good meals lately?"

…Did I seriously just ask that?

It certainly provoked a response, though: Victoria looked at me searchingly. "And if I have?" Her voice was low, a hint of interest embedded in her tone.

I shrugged, surprised at my own nonchalance and indifference over the topic.

She sighed almost inaudibly. "No. I don't need to feed every day. I can go up to a month before it becomes unbearable. Though this place," she waved her hand around at the walls, "makes it harder. I'll probably need to drink again in a week or two." I nodded in mock-understanding, because even though I knew absolutely nothing on the particulars of a 'normal' vampire's eating habits, I still found it interesting. "And you? How are you?"

I avoided thinking about how strange it was engaging her in small-talk, but this is what I had wanted, wasn't it?

"Fine, but bored. You know," I raised my cast-enveloped left arm. "healing and all." I told her. And then added as an afterthought, "…Or I guess you wouldn't know."

She shook her head in denial. "I know I had injuries like that in my lifetime, but I can't remember what it was like. It was a long time ago. I can barely remember it at all."

I grew curious. "How long?"

Victoria sat back, still looking at me. "About four hundred fifty years, give or take."

Whoa. She was older than Carlisle. "I bet you've seen a lot."

"Yes. I have." She sounded wistful. "Eternity quickly grows boring with nobody to spend it with and nothing to do. I've watched the rise and fall of kings, the birth and death of empires and cities. And now this century, which is practically bursting with developments." She shook her head. "I envy humanity for that. You adapt and change, growing with every failure, exponentially. Vampires are fixed and immutable. We'll never be anything more than who we always have been. Who we are when we're changed is how we're frozen. Our emotions, our thoughts, our personalities."

"That's so… weird." I couldn't really imagine it, though it fit with everything that I'd witnessed of vampires so far. "Who were you? Who are you?" I asked. I wanted to know more about her, and it seemed like a good place to start.

Victoria remained silent and shrugged non-committally. I suppose I was silly thinking it would that easy.

"Well, you're… confident, right? Assured. Independent." I provided, and she gave me an unfathomable look. "Beautiful." Certainly, Victoria was like a goddess. A goddess of passion or fury, maybe. But a goddess nonetheless. All vampires were practically gods, and I couldn't imagine them being anything less.

She barked out a laugh that managed to sound self-deprecating. "Is that how you see me?" I nodded slowly. "Then I won't correct you."

The conversation stalled, and I turned and stared up at the ceiling. "So… what sort of things do you like doing? Other than vampire-things. I'm guessing watching convalescent girls heal isn't your usual past-time." I said dryly.

"No, it isn't." Victoria glanced over at the television on the wall at the foot of my bed, staring silently for a few moments before sighing, sounding resigned. "I've always liked theater. And in this age, films." I sat there stunned. It just seemed so… tame for her. I'd anticipated something stranger or more out there, but I guess even five-hundred years old sadistic vampires can enjoy a good movie. She returned her gaze to me. "Does that surprise you?"

I nodded. "I guess I just didn't imagine someone like you enjoying that sort of stuff."

"Someone like me?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you know. Evil, sexy vampire girl." I said, looking over her pointedly. She looked to be my age, but was dressed in a black tank-top, jeans, and an unzipped leather jacket. And she easily fit what I imagined as the stereotype that might exist in boys' fantasies.

"Oh?" Her other eyebrow joined the first. "Is that what you think of me? Evil?"

I shrugged with my right shoulder, the one that wasn't weighted down by a cast. "Well… yeah. I mean, aren't you? You helped him try to kill me. And then you were going to kill me, too."

The small amount of expression and relaxed air she'd begun to allow herself in our exchange disappeared as if it'd never been there. "Yes, well." She looked away, out of the window to the street below, keeping me from seeing her face. "That was a mistake." Her voice was dead, void of any feeling, and I hated myself for bringing James up and reminding her of what had happened.

Our conversation was obviously over there. Even if I wanted to continue it, I didn't want to try at the risk of making her upset. She was indecipherable, and I had no idea how she'd react, whether it would be in anger or sadness. Either one wouldn't be good. So instead, I turned my head and closed my eyes, allowing myself to fall asleep.


I woke up again that night and she was still there, staring out the window. Only now her eyes were on the stars instead of the streets. Out on the Olympic peninsula (aka the middle of nowhere) there's next-to-no light pollution, which made the night sky go from its common "amazing" to "literally breathtaking". So I could understand why she would be staring at it.

Victoria gave no indication that she noticed I'd woken up, but I knew that it was impossible to hide something like that from her, and she'd more than likely known before I'd even become fully aware of everything.

"They don't change."

"Huh?" was the eloquent response I had for her.

"The stars. Everything else changes, but they're still the same." she said.

"You know, that isn't what the universe actually looks like right now?" Victoria turned to me, and I could feel the question in the look she gave me. "Those stars and galaxies and all that other stuff are so far away that some of the light reaching us is billions of years old. So some of them could have died, or there could be new ones that we can't even see yet, but we'll never know it until the light that shows those things happening reaches us."

She 'hmm-ed' and looked out the window again. "The oldest of our kind that I know of is only a few thousand years old. I can't imagine what it would be like to exist for such a long time. To live so long that you can watch the stars themselves fade out of existence."

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Thinking about stuff on that scale makes my head hurt. It's just… too large for us to even try and understand. I'd rather not be stuck puzzling over existential quandaries just because I looked up at stars, so I try and avoid thinking about it too hard."

Victoria turned around to look at me, the corner of her mouth lifted in the faintest facsimile of a smile. That image made me feel… something. Happiness for sure. She wasn't holding what I'd said earlier against me, and she was talking to me, so I was happy. "I suppose I can see the wisdom in that." She twisted back to the window. "What would you do, if you had all the time in the world? An eternity with no visible end?"

The question caught me off guard, and I struggled to figure out an answer that didn't sound like bullshit. Something that I actually meant. "I… don't know." Before, I had wanted to spend eternity with him, simply because he would also exist forever, and it would be selfish to allow myself to grow old and die when he couldn't. Ever the selfless sacrifice. "Learn more? Experience everything I could? You said that we keep changing, so wouldn't that mean that there are always more things to experience?"

She nodded soundlessly. "True. And it's one of the few human instincts we manage to retain. Curiosity is perhaps a vampire's strongest instinct after blood and lust. It's one of our most fatal flaws." Her tone shifted. "It certainly was proven so with James." Unlike the biting, acerbic voice I expected, it was more sorrowful, wistful. "He always was too confident for his own good. He let it grow into arrogance too easily." She sighed. "It was attractive, at first. Very attractive. He knew what he wanted, and what he wanted, he got. He only let it grow out of hand in the last century." Her red eyes turned shifted back to me. "I was one of his hunts too." My eyes widened in shock, and she smirked in self-… something. Self-deprecation? Self-loathing? "Yes, you and I are very similar in that. The difference was I was who I am now, while you were just…"

"Just a human?" I finished for her.

She grimaced. "Yes, to put it bluntly. I hated it at first. I would run to safety, and he would inevitably follow. Eventually, over the course of twelve or so years, I grew to find his pursuit thrilling, always waiting for him to get close before running away again. Teasing, almost a dance. It became a matter not of if I would allow him to catch up, but when." Victoria smiled slightly. "It felt very… romantic, knowing I was the sole focus of his attention, that I was the most important thing to him. Of course, later I learned that it was the same for any of his Hunts, but I didn't know that then."

"Do you…" My mouth spoke, and then my mind finally caught up with it and realized that this was probably a very bad question. But she'd caught it, of course, and gave me a look of interest that I knew meant I had to finish my question, with no other option. "…Do you regret it?" The 'it' went unsaid.

Like I expected, her face twisted into a shape of pure anger and that feeling of absolute terror that I'd felt in the forest came over me, an instinctual response that skips past your conscious mind and logic, shutting you down completely. But then her expression faltered, falling to annoyance, and then thoughtfulness after many minutes. An even longer time passed, her eyes glazed over, before she appeared to return from her thoughts. "No. I regret the pain. I regret my inability to keep him from pursuing a solely selfish goal that I knew would lead to his death. But I will never regret loving him. Never."

It felt like she was saying it more for her benefit than mine, but I held my tongue. No telling how far I could push her before she snapped, and I really didn't want to try right now.

Her eyes had glazed over, and I got the sense that it would be better to leave her alone to her thoughts than intrude on her brooding.


She left soon after that, the sun rising and lightening Forks' eternally gray sky.

Charlie came by and visited for almost the entire day, and in retrospect I feel bad for not really paying him much attention during one of the few times he showed so much emotion. But I was preoccupied with my thoughts about Victoria, the flame-haired vampire who had hunted and saved me. A quandary that I wanted to peel apart layer by layer to discover who she truly was.

Little did I know that my wish would be granted far sooner in the future than I expected.


A/N:

Victoria is so complex. I'm still unraveling layers of who she is. Even she doesn't know who she is in totality. It's really fun trying to figure it out. Her speech wavers between modern and Victorian, and while initially I didn't like it, I think it fits her perfectly, a subtle show of her emotions and thoughts.

And we start to see some of Bella's emotional dependency on Victoria.

Things are going slow right now, but they'll be speeding up. Next chapter should have Bella out of the hospital and the wolves making their first appearance.