This story is unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. The characters however are not mine. Everything you recognize from Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.
Come Home, Chapter 2.
Ok, this was weird. I was standing in the corner of the living room and had seven pairs of freaky yellow eyes staring at me. And two pairs of red. At least they were normal. "Are you sure you don't want to have a seat Be.. Marie?" the Witch asked. "No, thank you." I replied. They seemed to be expecting something from me and I had no intention of saying anything. Frankly, I was waiting for the Major to finally take charge. He was a natural leader, surely he would do more than sit on a couch and stare at me? I kept my hands behind my back, like I had done outside but stayed quiet. After a few minutes of silence the Doctor moved his arms. He leaned his elbows on his thighs, tented his hands and sighed. "Your visit comes as quite a surprise to us Marie." I glanced at the Major, not sure what to make of this. Why wasn't he the one talking? And why on earth hadn't he done anything about me attacking him yet? Was this some tactic to distract me, lull me into a false sense of security?
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to trespass. I was only accompanying Peter and Charlotte. They said it would be alright for me to join them." He waved his hand and chuckled. "Oh no, you misunderstand me. We are glad to have you here. Surprised, but glad. Would you mind terribly if I asked you some questions?" Uh-oh. This was it. I was going to be interrogated. What would he do if I said no? How would he make me talk? What if I didn't give him the answers he was looking for? What if I did? "Marie, be nice" Peter warned and raised an eyebrow at me. He looked completely relaxed with his feet up on the coffee table but I knew better, he would be after me in a heartbeat if I ran now.
"Ok. Go ahead." I said. I tried to sound calm even though I felt like bolting. The Doctor beamed at me. "Where are you from?" What? That was his question? "I don't know." I shrugged. "The South I guess. It doesn't matter anyway." He nodded then, obviously thinking about my answer. "Do you remember your human life? Anything at all?" Seriously, what kind of questions were these? "No, I don't." He nodded again, as if my answers gave him some great insight. "Am I guessing correctly, that the first thing you remember is the change?" Fire. I remember fire. "Yes." I remember wondering how I could feel the heat and the fire and how I could hear people screaming while they were burning alive, but never smell any smoke or burned wood or flesh. That must have been very interesting as the Doctor sat up straighter. The Mind Reader looked worried. No, not worried, dejected. He lowered his head, his hands were tugging at his hair.
"Does Washington mean anything to you?" the Doctor asked next. I thought for a moment. "The president? D.C. or state? University? Which one are you talking about?" I was confused, this was the weirdest interrogation ever. "That answers my question already." He paused then. "What about Forks, does Forks mean anything to you?" Forks? I paused. "Green.. uh.. a form of cutlery, plural." The Mind Reader's head shot up. "What did you say?" he asked.
"I said: a form of cutlery, plural."
"No, before that. What did you say before that?" he asked again. Was he excited about this? "I said green. I don't know why, it had nothing to do with the question. I'm sorry." Were they looking for small mistakes like that? Ask stupidly simple questions and wait for a wrong answer? The Doctor was beaming again.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your game of 20 questions Carlisle, but I have to ask: You think you know her? I'm guessing from Forks? But she doesn't know you. Is that about right?" Peter asked. He still hadn't moved his feet from the coffee table and I wondered if it was considered rude to set one's feet on a table in a house were a table wasn't used for food.
"That's about right. Although I don't think I know Marie. I know that I know her." The Doctor sounded so sure of himself. It made me uneasy. Peter must have realized that I wasn't handling this very well. "Would you care to elaborate a bit more? There are at least three of us that have no clue what you're talking about."
"Certainly" the Doctor replied and turned to look at me. "We met you.. oh.. what is it ten or eleven years ago, when we still lived in Washington. You were human then and went by the name Bella – Isabella Marie. You had just moved to the area to stay with your father. Much to our surprise you figured out what we were. You were our friend, we were close. We left after.. your 18th birthday and haven't seen you since." This was news to me. I was not so ignorant to believe that I had not had a life before I was changed into a vampire, but I had always assumed I was like the others: from the South, usually the area we were staying in at the time. Since no missing person posters were put up I assumed that either nobody cared enough about me or there simply wasn't anybody to care whether I was dead or alive. I was better off with Maria.
"We were sad to find out you were missing." Carlisle continued. I stared at him.
"Excuse me, what?"
He sighed and wet his lips. "We didn't .. we.. when we left Forks, we left rather abruptly and you only ever said goodbye to Edward." The Mind Reader groaned but otherwise kept quiet. "We told the townspeople we were moving to L.A. and set up a forwarding address to one of our PO boxes there. We moved to Canada instead. It was all part of the charade. Very little mail if any ever makes it to the PO boxes we set up after a move, but imagine our surprise when our lawyer forwarded a letter from Charlie Swan asking us to contact him or the Forks PD if you happened to show up at our doorstep."
"I'm sorry, who's Charlie Swan?" I asked. I had never heard the name before. "He's your father." came the quiet reply. The Mind Reader had answered. He was looking at me intently with sad eyes, as if he was willing me to remember who Charlie Swan – my father – was. "You loved him very much." he said sadly. For a moment I was dumbfounded. Then I shook my head disbelievingly. I couldn't even remember the man or the life I had living with him. "Is he still looking for me?" I asked softly. The Mind Reader swallowed and shook his head slightly. "Not officially, no. After we received the letter we got in touch with him to find out what had happened and offer our support. A few days later they found your things, a suitcase, a purse and your wallet. The wallet was covered in your blood. All the cash was missing but your ID and credit cards were still there. Basically, you were a missing adult with no form of identification, and about 50 dollars in your pocket, max. Everyone gave up on your case after that. Charlie.. he.. he doesn't want to believe that you're gone, I don't think he'll ever stop looking for you. But he doesn't really expect you to turn up either. He knows what the odds of finding you are, he just can't let that slight chance go, that you might come back." He wouldn't look at me after that. And I didn't know what to say. What the hell do you say to that? Is there a proper thing to say?
"Your mother had a baby a few years back. She named her Hope, maybe in an attempt to mend her broken heart. You know, hope for a better future and such." the Witch said. She seemed so sad.
"My mother had.. but not my father? Did she have the baby with someone else? Wait, did my parents separate after I went missing?"
"Oh no, sweetie. They separated a long time ago, when you were a baby." she said. Huh. It was disconcerting how much these people knew about me, about the person I had been before I was a vampire. I looked around the room, unsure of how to react. My eyes landed on the Major once again. "I don't know what she did or said to him, but he has been deluded. He is under her spell. Beware of the Witch my precious Marie, it is not her Sight alone that makes her dangerous." Maria's voice echoed in my head and suddenly there was a shift in my mind and several things clicked into place. Realization dawned on me and I bolted. This is how they worked, how they caught him. They must have spun some tale for him as well. I could feel it deep within me, how the words they spoke had resonated. They filled a void I didn't know was there. I wanted to stay and learn more, know more about the girl who befriended vampires. Whose father would never give up looking for her and who had a baby sister she had never met. Did I have other sibli… No. Lies! They made up these lies! There never was anyone to look for me. Nobody cared. I growled in frustration while I ran, pushing myself harder, wanting to leave even faster. I wondered what they had told the Major to keep him with them. What had they come up with for him? I was an easy target, I didn't remember anything from before. They could tell me whatever the fuck they wanted and for all I knew it might be true. I suspected the Major had been much harder to entice.
I could hear footsteps behind me, somebody was trying to follow me. I began changing my path abruptly every once in a while in an attempt to throw my pursuer off. This tactic came back to bite me when I ended up smack dab at the bottom of a cliff. Great. I spun around to face whoever was following me, crouching and ready to attack if need be. All I could hear were the footsteps coming closer. And then "It's only me, little Marie." It was Peter. I exhaled and relaxed. It took him another 17 seconds to reach me and I was surprised to see that he wasn't angry. He seemed concerned. "Are you ok?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
"Bullshit. The hell you are! Why are you so afraid little Marie? What happened back there? The Cullens are perfectly nice people."
"Don't call them people. They're not people, Pete."
"Excuse me? What's your problem anyway?"
"What's my problem? You lead me to a large coven absolutely unprepared. We're attacked before we even get there. And not only that, it's not some random guy, it's Major Jasper Whitlock. The fucking Major attacked us! You should have told me, Peter. But not only that, no, you just fucking laughed. What the fuck was so funny about that situation Pete? Because I sure as hell did not think it was funny. They are an extremely dangerous and gifted coven and you think it's funny when they attack?! That is not how you treat your coven members!" I was furious with him. I had started pacing midway through my rant, but spun around to look him in the eyes when I was finished. I took a couple of calming breaths before I continued in a much quieter voice: "I thought I could trust you."
"That's a low blow little Marie and you know it. You can trust me. Believe me, you were never in any danger. Right before Jay attacked I was going to tell you, I swear. We do it all the time, it's kinda the way we say hello." I cocked an eyebrow at him. Was I supposed to believe this shit? "Don't give me that look, it's the truth. You didn't answer my question: Why are you so afraid?"
"They're dangerous Pete. You might not want to see it, but they are."
"And how the fuck would you know if they're dangerous? You didn't even have the decency to really talk to them or get to know them. Trust me, the Cullens are great. Granted, they're a bit on the wacky side with the whole 'vegetarian' thing, but all in all, they are good people."
"Oh my God, they did it to you, too, didn't they? Not as bad as with him, but still. They played some sick mind game with you and now you don't want to hear anything about what they're really like. But I won't let them do that to me! I swear, they are a bunch of sick fuckers and I sure as hell am not going to walk in there and give myself up willingly." Peter just stared at me like I had lost my mind. He blinked a couple of times but stayed silent otherwise. He was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable.
"I.. Wha.. I don't even know.. What the fuck?" He blinked three more times and ran his fingers through his hair. "Little Marie, I think you have to explain yourself a little better, because I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about or why you would think something like that." I gritted my teeth. I did not feel like spilling my guts to Peter and telling him all about my life. Especially if he thought the Yellow Eyes were harmless. He could just as well run right back to them with that information, and where would that leave me? I growled, getting angry just thinking about it.
"Oh no, don't even start like that. You know that I never asked. It is your story to tell and honestly? A skittish little thing like you shows up, covered in scars and acting the way you did? Where else could you have come from, if not the army? But there is something else, something more to your story. The way you acted with the Cullens? It's not acceptable. So little Marie, explain yourself."
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. Internally I was debating what I could tell him. How much would be enough? There were many things that I did not want to get into now. Or ever for that matter.
"I've got all day, I ain't going nowhere. But don't make me repeat myself a third time." he warned. I huffed.
"Fine. As you learned at the house I can't remember anything from before.. well, as far as I'm concerned, my life started the day I woke up as a vampire. Everything I know, I learned in the army. After.. Once I.. let's just say: I was good at what I did. And for years now there was talk of.. After the Major left, things haven't been the same for Maria. She lost a lot of hunting grounds and was quite.. unhappy about the situation. She wanted everything back and thought that the Major was the way to go. When she propositioned him he declined. But he was different, she said. He had seemed brainwashed, not himself. Just.. Look, if you breathe a word of what I am going to say next to them I will not hesitate to try and kill you. And that means you better not be thinking about it when the fucking Mind Reader is around, you hear?" Peter kept his mouth shut but nodded once. He was curious, I could tell. "Maria wanted to rescue the Major. She'd been trying to establish an elite troop that could take on the Yellow Eyes. So excuse me if I don't trust them, because I spent all my life memorizing ways to kill them. They are evil, Peter. And I can see it, the way they work. They seem so nice and friendly but it's all part of an act. It must be how they lure them in. I just can't figure out why. Why does the Doctor collect so many talented vampires and not use them?" Peter had folded his arms while I was talking. I could tell he wasn't happy with what I had told him.
"So, you're telling me, the queen bitch is planning on attacking the Cullens in some deluded attempt to get Jasper to come back? That fucking crazy bitch!"
"Don't talk about her like that! And no, that's not what I'm telling you. She was planning on it. But she's dead now."
"Are you fucking serious? Are you sure? Are you absolutely, 100% sure?"
"I watched her burn." I whispered and looked down. I could see the pyre and hear the screams in my mind. I shook my head to clear it. "It doesn't matter anyway. What's done is done. Fact is, I don't trust them."
I looked up when I felt a hand on my left shoulder. "Little Marie, look at me." I looked up. "I am sorry. I can tell she meant a lot to you, no matter what I may have thought about her. And I'm sorry that you had to see that."
"I've seen worse." I said, shrugging my shoulders to get him to remove his hand. He was making me uncomfortable again.
"Well, then I'm sorry about that, too." he said softly before dropping his hand. And at that moment I could tell that he knew far more than he was letting on. I couldn't place just what it was, but something in that little sentence and the way he said it let me know, that he knew exactly what I meant with 'worse'.
"Quit being so mushy."
"Who're you calling mushy?" he asked and gave me a playful shove.
A/N: Wow. People, I am floored! So many of you have started to follow my story (or me) or even added Come Home to your favorites. Thank you! You cannot imagine how happy it makes me every time I get an email that basically tells me, that somebody liked my work. Let me know what you think about chapter 2!
