I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this chapter out; I should've finished it days ago, but I've been distracted because things keep breaking in my house, and it's absurdly difficult to get repairmen out to fix them, and when they come they don't have the right parts, and it's a huge pain in the butt. I also had to do a little research to make the medical information as accurate as possible (except for the part where Bella's infection is cured by vampire venom, of course).
Warning: this chapter has kind of a downer ending.
Chapter 3: The Lazarus Effect
Persuading Charlie and Renée to transfer Bella turned out to be almost laughably easy. Of course they researched Alice's fake clinic extensively, but thanks to her painstaking attention to detail in creating documentation, they found plenty of information that, along with Carlisle's recommendation, convinced them that their daughter would receive the best possible care at a much lower cost than what they were currently paying to keep her in the hospital. They even met with the clinic's director (played by Jasper, who had disguised himself so thoroughly with temporary hair dye and face-altering prosthetics that Charlie never felt so much as a glimmer of recognition despite having lived in the same town as him for years) and his caring, compassionate manner instantly sealed the deal.
After that, the only thing left to do was to take Bella away, which was where Edward and Elle came in, playing the part of the medical transport team. Neither of Bella's parents had ever seen Elle before, so she did all the talking while Edward, his face hidden behind a surgical mask and scrub cap, prepared Bella for her trip.
Charlie and Renée followed as they wheeled her out of the hospital and then, much to Elle's annoyance, insisted on saying a long, tearful goodbye before allowing them to load up their 'patient' and get going. Sensing that she was about to say something insensitive, Edward pulled her away. "Let them have their moment, Elle. They don't know it yet, but this is the last time they'll ever see their daughter."
There seemed to be something more on his mind, something he was obviously reluctant to say out loud - probably something about how Elle's discomfort at the emotional display most likely stemmed from her troubled relationship with her own parents, and he was probably right, but that wasn't a conversation she felt like having at the moment. "Whatever you're thinking, stop it," she snapped. "I just want this to be over with so I can get out of these hideous scrubs."
###
Given the distance they had to travel - the Cullens were currently living in a particularly mountainous and isolated part of Colorado - they had decided that making the trip in a private ambulance would take too long and acquired a helicopter instead, which got them to their destination in a fraction of the time it would have taken by road. The rest of the family was already gathered outside, waiting for them; as soon as they touched down, the cargo bay door slid open and Carlisle climbed inside to check on Bella. "How is she?"
"Not well," Edward told him, his mouth set in a grim line. "The infection has set in just as Alice predicted - we're lucky the abscesses didn't appear until we'd gotten her out of the hospital, or her parents would never have let us move her. I think we had better get to work on her right away."
Carlisle agreed after performing a cursory examination, and they quickly brought Bella and her life support equipment into the house.
"So who gets to do the honors?" Elle asked once they had her situated.
"Well, you are her closest friend, and the one who argued in favor of changing her – per vampire custom, it should be you," Esme told her.
"Me?" She could see how it made sense for it to be her, and she had intended to try changing Bella herself if Carlisle had refused to cooperate, but somehow she hadn't thought much about what it would be like to actually do the deed. She took a step toward the hospital bed where Bella was laid out, then stopped and looked uncertainly at Edward. "Do I just go for the neck, like in the movies?"
"That's one way to do it," Carlisle answered for him, "but with Bella's unique situation, I think a more delicate approach is in order." He moved toward her, holding up a syringe with a very long needle.
Elle bared her teeth, electricity crackling at her fingertips – the logical part of her knew needles couldn't hurt her anymore, but the sight of it triggered flashbacks to her childhood in the labs at Primatech, which sent logic straight out the window.
Carlisle hastily backed off. "It might be better if you do it," he suggested, handing the syringe to Edward.
She eyed the needle warily as he approached, but the sparks arcing between her fingers fizzled out; Edward decided to take that as a good sign. "What's that for?"
"I'm going to use it to aspirate your venom."
"What?"
"Open your mouth, please." He inserted the tip of the needle under her tongue, drew out the venom that had pooled there, and injected it into Bella's carotid and vertebral arteries.
"Why'd you do that?"
"This will give the venom more time to circulate through her brain before spreading to the rest of her body and hopefully increase the chances of repairing whatever was damaged," Carlisle explained.
"I guess that makes sense. So what happens now?"
"Now we wait," Edward told her.
"Have fun with that," Rosalie said brightly, smirking at the look of dismay on Elle's face. "I'll be thinking of you while Emmett and I stage the final act of our cover story." They couldn't have Charlie and Renée trying to visit Bella later, so they had concocted a plan to make it appear that the helicopter had crashed en route to the clinic, killing everyone onboard.
"We'll burn the whole thing up so there won't be much evidence for the humans to find," Emmett said enthusiastically. "It's gonna be awesome! We just need some of Bella's DNA to plant at the scene..."
"Here you go," Alice chirped as she handed over three vials containing the samples of Bella's blood, hair, and skin cells she had collected. "Knock yourselves out."
"I wish," Elle muttered. She was glad Rosalie was leaving - it made no difference to her whether Emmett was there or not since he usually didn't bother her as long as she wasn't electrocuting his wife - but that still left Carlisle, Esme, Alice, and Jasper...and no Bella to keep them busy with her wacky newborn antics for at least three days. In fact, taking Bella's singularly complicated circumstances into account, Edward had predicted that her change might be slower than average - apparently, the longest it had ever taken anyone to turn into a vampire was five days. Five days of playing house in the middle of nowhere with the Addams Family...
"I'm going hunting," she announced at regular volume while avoiding eye contact with her mate, certain he would be disappointed that she didn't want to stay and try for some quality time with the family she still couldn't quite think of as hers. Maybe another time, babe.
"Are you sure you need to?" Alice asked, peering into her face. "Your eyes don't look that dark."
"Yeah, but Central Park isn't exactly an ideal hunting ground - nothing bigger than a chipmunk. I need some real food."
"Don't go too far, please," Esme requested. "We'll need you here when Bella wakes up."
Elle was tempted to reply with her customary snark, but then she caught a glimpse of Edward out of the corner of her eye, watching her anxiously, and remembered that she had promised to be on her best behavior. "Okay," she agreed in a tone that was, if not exactly friendly, at least civil. "I'll just head up into the pass, grab a couple of mountain goats, and be back in three days tops."
"Thank you, dear." Esme gave her a tentative smile which, after a second's hesitation, Elle returned.
"I think she's warming up to us," Jasper remarked, though he waited until she was out of earshot before saying it just in case he was wrong.
2 days later
Edward and Carlisle were engaged in some kind of heated debate when Elle returned, though they fell silent when they heard her coming. Frowning, she picked up her pace, her fingers and toes leaving little indentations in the sheer rock face as she climbed down the last hundred yards; then she leaped across a small chasm to the wooden railing enclosing the deck that wrapped around the entire house and entered what had temporarily become Bella's room through a pair of French doors. "What's up, guys? Any signs of life yet?"
Before either of them could speak, Bella herself answered Elle's question with a soft choking noise which was immediately followed by a chorus of blaring alarms from several of her monitors. "What's happening to her?!"
"Move!" Edward snatched Elle out of Carlisle's path as he raced over to check Bella's airway.
"There's no obstruction... I think she's trying to breathe on her own, but the tube's in the way - Edward-"
He was already there before Carlisle finished voicing his request for assistance, holding Bella's head while the doctor removed her breathing tube. There was a loud whooshing sound, and Bella's chest deflated as the last of the pumped-in air left her lungs - the heart monitor's frantic beeping faltered, giving way to a single flat tone...
"Dammit, she's flatlining!"
"Elle, you may have to shock her-"
"Come on, Bella, breathe!"
...Then her chest slowly rose again as she took her first unaided breath in months. The monitor stopped droning, and after a moment resumed a steady rhythm. Everyone in the house breathed a sigh of relief.
"I knew she'd be off life support soon!" Alice exclaimed as she breezed into the room. "See, she really is getting better!"
"Yes, but the fact that she can breathe on her own merely proves that her most basic brain functions are returning," Carlisle said wearily, with the air of a man repeating himself for the umpteenth time, which in fact he was. Exactly what was happening inside Bella's head had been the subject of near-constant discussion in the Cullen household for the last two days, though all they could do was speculate - by the time the venom crossed the blood-brain barrier, her skull had hardened enough that the EEG machine Carlisle had gone to a great deal of trouble to procure was useless, and Alice's visions of her were frustratingly sketchy. "If we give her more venom now to accelerate the change, there's still a chance that she could end up in a permanent vegetative state."
"It's a chance we'll have to take," Alice told him. "Show him, Edward."
"Show him what?" Elle demanded, pushing in for a closer look.
Edward turned Bella onto her stomach and opened the back of her hospital gown, revealing that, in addition to the angry red sores on her shoulder blades, her entire back was now covered in what looked like a giant bruise, except that bruises didn't usually carry a faint whiff of the sickly sweet stench of decay. Carlisle's eyes widened, and then a look of deep dismay came over his face.
"What is it?" Elle asked, a little louder than necessary. "Where'd that bruise come from, and why does it stink?"
"It's not a bruise," Edward explained, "it's the start of necrotizing fasciitis." At Elle's blank look, he added, "More commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria."
"That sounds bad. So the infection's getting worse?"
"I'm afraid so. Carlisle and I had hoped the antibiotics would buy her a little more time-"
Elle didn't wait for him to say any more; snatching up Bella's hand, she bit deep into the comatose girl's wrist and the crook of her elbow, then repeated the process with her other arm. Carlisle also insisted on giving her another injection in the arteries that supplied blood to her brain, flooding the damaged organ with venom again; then he disconnected the rest of her feeding tubes, IVs, catheter, and the various monitors, saying that with the amount of venom now circulating through her bloodstream, there was no need to feed or medicate her any longer.
"So if she doesn't need to stay hooked up to all those machines anymore, does that mean I can finally give her a bath and put her in some decent clothes?" Alice asked eagerly.
Carlisle agreed that there was no reason not to move her now, and Alice happily whisked her oblivious victim away for a makeover. The doctor also left the room, having done all he could for his patient at the moment.
"Alone at last," Edward sighed, sliding an arm around Elle's waist and leading her out onto the deck, under the stars. "Did you enjoy your hunt?"
She glanced up at his face, wondering if the question was leading into some admonition for not sticking around. "Sure. Would've been better with you, though."
"I'm glad you had a good time - and I'm not upset with you. In the time we've been together, I've realized it's not in your nature to be tied down completely...so even though you'll miss me when we're apart, I know this probably won't be the last time you need to be alone for a while."
"And you're okay with that?" Elle asked hesitantly.
"I'm working on it," he replied with his trademark crooked smile. "I've spoken to my family about it, and they told me that while being away from your mate is always difficult, it does get a little easier after the first hundred years or so. Besides, no matter how often you leave, you always come back."
###
Things seemed to happen very fast after that, the venom spreading rapidly through Bella's ravaged body until, thirty-six hours later, Carlisle announced that her transformation was almost complete. The whole family gathered in her room - including Emmett and Rosalie, who had come home the day before - and waited anxiously as her heart thundered through its last frantic, pounding beats and finally stopped...and then...
Nothing. Bella lay perfectly still, without even a flutter of her lashes or a twitch of her fingers to hint at any return to consciousness.
"It didn't work?" Elle asked in a tone of mixed disbelief and disappointment. "Everything we did - it didn't help at all?"
"I'm so sorry, Carlisle," Esme murmured, squeezing her husband's hand. "I know you tried your best to save her."
Carlisle sighed. "I guess I'd better see if there's any improvement," he said without much hope. Picking up the penlight he used to check her pupils' reactivity to light, he walked over to her resting place with an uncharacteristically slow, heavy step. He reached out to peel back an eyelid...
With his fingertips mere centimeters away, her arm suddenly shot out, knocking Carlisle's hand away from her face as her eyes flew open. Taking note of everyone's positions in less time than it took a human to blink, Bella threw herself off the bed and into the only unoccupied corner with a single graceful twist of her body. Her eyes darted everywhere, seemingly without taking anything in, though her gaze did linger on Elle for a brief moment when her friend took a step toward her.
"Bella? Are you all right?"
"She's totally disoriented," Jasper answered, clutching his head as he fought through the confusion and fear he was picking up from her.
"Of course," Edward murmured. "The last thing she remembers is being on Kirby Plaza with Peter."
Kirby Plaza...Peter... Those names stirred something in Bella's clouded memory; she remembered the plaza, the fountain with its orange spiral sculpture, and Peter - how could she have forgotten him, even for a second? - telling her he loved her right before the world was swallowed up by a blinding white light. The explosion! Guess that means I didn't stop it...
She looked around, noticing again how bright and vibrant her surroundings were, how her senses seemed alive as never before, and decided this must be heaven, although she wasn't sure how she'd ended up there after letting millions of people die - and Elle and Edward were there too. She felt bad that they hadn't been able to get out in time, but she couldn't understand what the rest of Edward's family was doing in the hereafter when they hadn't been anywhere near New York, and most importantly, where was Peter?
Realizing that Elle was talking to her, she forced herself to tune out her racing thoughts and the hundreds of stimuli flooding her senses and pay attention. "Your shield kept the city safe when Peter exploded, but holding back that much power fried your brain and left you a vegetable, so we had to change you - it was the only way to fix you. You're one of us now."
These revelations set Bella's head spinning again. She felt a brief surge of relief that she had managed to save New York City after all, which quickly gave way to shock when Elle got to the part where she was now a vampire. She'd known such a conversion was possible, of course, but she had never considered undergoing it herself, even as a lifesaving measure. Somehow, she had never imagined that she would end up in a situation where her only options were death or vampirism, let alone one where she wouldn't be able to make the choice herself, and she supposed coming to terms with her current condition would take some time, but she would deal with that after she found out what had happened to Peter. Until she knew he was all right, nothing else seemed terribly important.
When Bella showed no visible reaction to her story, Elle turned to Jasper and asked, "Can you tell if any of this is sinking in?"
"I think so. You've got her attention, but mostly she feels...impatient? Her interest spiked earlier when Edward mentioned Peter; I think she wants to know about him."
Everyone's faces fell, and Emmett muttered, "Oh man, this is gonna be bad."
Bella's gaze flicked from one grim expression to another, her anxiety mounting until Elle finally said, in a strangely subdued voice, "I'm sorry, Bella... He didn't make it. It's been almost three months since the explosion, and we never found him."
Her words hit Bella like a physical blow, and this time no one needed an empath to tell them how she was feeling as her knees buckled and she landed in a heap on the floor, shaking her head in denial. Peter couldn't be gone - sure, he'd exploded, but he could heal himself, he'd done it before... For a broken ankle, a voice in her head reminded her. That's a little different. And Elle said it's been three months; if he'd survived, he would've come back by now. He wouldn't just let everyone think he...disappeared. There was no getting around it then - Peter was dead. Bella's hands covered her face, and she uttered the first sound she'd made since her awakening: an earsplitting, hair-raising shriek that seemed to go on forever.
Overwhelmed by the tidal wave of devastation and despair that had crashed over him when Bella first heard the news, Jasper had already jumped out the window, plunging into the sheer drop off the west side of their house; now the rest of them followed suit, hands over their ears. "What the hell was that?" Rosalie demanded when they had all landed at the base of the mountain. "I think she punctured one of my eardrums! Jasper, do you have any idea what's wrong with her?"
"Yes, but I wish I didn't," Jasper said shakily. "What she's feeling right now - I experienced it all too often in the wars...every time someone lost their mate."
There were gasps of horror and sympathy all around, and Alice wrapped Jasper in a comforting embrace.
"Her mate?" Carlisle turned a sharp look on Elle. "Did you know about this when you asked me to change her?"
"No! I knew he loved her, but I didn't know she felt the same way!"
"I don't think Bella knew herself," Edward added. "It's an unfortunately common occurrence - people don't realize what they have until they lose it."
"But how does it work with her only having known him as a human?" Emmett wondered out loud. "Since they weren't together when she became a vampire, does that mean she can move on?"
No one knew the answer to that, but Esme and Carlisle eventually decided that she needed time to grieve, and should be left alone until she chose to join them outside. "After all, she'll have to come out soon. As a newborn, she can't wait too long to hunt."
###
Hours passed, the sunny day faded into twilight, and still there was no sign of Bella. At last, they decided to go back inside and check on her, and found her exactly where they'd left her, huddled in a corner. She didn't look up when they entered the room.
"Hey, Bella," Elle said softly, edging closer while the others hung back, watching. "You must be pretty thirsty by now, huh? If you'll get up, we can go hunting, find you something tasty."
No response.
"Look, I'm sorry about Peter; I had no idea you were in love with him, but you can't just sit here forever. You need blood. Get up!" Bella still wouldn't move, so Elle tried tugging at her arm, to no avail. "Don't make me zap you." Her threat also failed to produce a reaction, and Elle's hand dropped back to her side as she turned away. "Well, I tried everything short of actually sending a few hundred volts through her," she reported to the silent audience hovering just outside the doorway, "but she won't budge."
Next they tried sending Jasper in to lift Bella's mood, but that didn't work either; his power seemed to have no effect on her, and he quickly fled the room. "Couldn't take all that pain...sorry...but why couldn't I make her feel better?"
"I've never been able to hear her thoughts," Edward said reassuringly. "She's naturally resistant to all mental influences."
Jasper didn't look reassured. "My gift isn't mental, though - it actually affects the nervous system. Alice's talent doesn't work inside the mind either, and she hasn't been getting a clear picture of Bella's future lately."
"Well, if the change enhanced the abilities Bella already possessed - and remember, she was strong enough to contain a nuclear explosion as a human - she may be immune to all our powers now."
This statement prompted a few uneasy glances toward the closed door separating them from Bella, as they contemplated exactly what the creature they had created might be capable of.
"Not to interrupt this fascinating scientific discussion," Elle interjected impatiently, "but what are we going to do about feeding her?"
It was Emmett who proposed a solution to that problem: if Bella wouldn't hunt, they would have to bring the blood to her. When they presented her with a cup of freshly harvested lynx blood, however, she merely sniffed at it before turning her head away. They subsequently tried tempting her with blood from a gray wolf, a black bear, a grizzly bear, a bobcat, and even a mule deer, but she showed no interest in any of their offerings; after the third try, she didn't even glance up anymore when they approached her.
Everyone was confounded and disturbed by her behavior, but none more so than Jasper. "I don't understand it! I've never seen a newborn who won't hunt! And one who won't drink even when you're holding blood right under her nose - it's downright unnatural. I thought I was an expert on newborns, but I'm officially at the end of my rope with this one."
"Well," Carlisle said with a certain amount of reluctance, "there is one more thing we might try. When I was preparing for her arrival, it occurred to me that she might need transfusions to complete the change...so I acquired a stock of human blood." There was dead silence as seven pairs of wide golden eyes stared at him. "Ordinarily, giving her a taste for humans at this early stage of her development is the last thing I'd want to do, but under the circumstances, I don't see any other options."
"You're right, of course," Esme assured him. "She needs sustenance, and she's refused everything else."
So they filled a mug with human blood, warmed it in the microwave, and took it in to her; this time, Bella perked up a little, raising her head and inhaling the warm, enticing aroma that wiped everything else from her mind - but only for a moment. Then she remembered that Peter was dead, and the knowledge crushed her all over again. Her face crumpled, and she buried her head between her drawn-up knees just before a quiet sob escaped her.
Elle, Carlisle, and Edward all gaped at her in amazement, but she never looked up, and eventually they had no choice but to leave, taking the rejected blood, which had started to congeal in its mug, with them.
Jasper was fit to be tied when he heard about their latest failure. "There must be something wrong with her, some part of her brain that didn't heal - it's the only explanation for a newborn vampire with no appetite at all."
###
In her room on the other side of the house, Bella snorted softly. Jasper was wrong; of course she was thirsty, it was just that the burning in her throat seemed insignificant compared to the agony that twisted her insides every time she recalled something Peter had said to her, or pictured him smiling at her, and realized she would never hear his voice or see his face again. With him gone, her thirst didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.