BPOV
Esme switched with Charlie. She hummed my lullaby as she used an icy cold washcloth to bathe my burning skin and then she dressed me in a cool white cotton dress. I didn't see it, I smelled it. I could smell the colour, not just the fabric. White smelled clean, just as black smelled of dirt.
Esme smelled of caramel. A warm chocolate colour surrounded her as I stared at her blankly through eyes that echoed my pain. She was suffering along with me, her eyes showed me that as she leaned over and kissed my forehead.
She told me the burning was the end, that I'd need to burn through it, that it would consume me but then it would abate and I'd be whole again. Reborn she'd called it. Like a Phoenix rising out of the ashes. I'd be new.
My life was going to be new.
Jacob had taken my old life. I was being reborn into a new one.
EPOV
She was quiet now, very quiet. Caught up in the turmoil that was the death throes of the last of her change. Carlisle confirmed it when he'd come to check on her earlier, but I'd known it myself well before that.
Her breathing was laborious. She was covered in a thin film of sweat, the last of her bodily fluids to be consumed before our venom ate her blood. Carlisle had used a syringe full of my venom to her heart and he'd then had to bite her all over to inject his own. I was fairly sure I could've done it myself, but I'm glad I'd not had to.
Her body jerked and twisted with the pain but she did not cry out. I told her over and over that it was ok to scream. If she needed to. That she'd not hurt me with it, to stop being so fucking brave and just do what she felt she needed. But to no avail. She suffered what was surely the worst of the agony in silence.
Jasper bought me my cell phone and I read the good wishes messages that her mother and Phil had left for her during the day. They'd gone to Charlie's to rest this morning and weren't due back until later that night.
Charlie would be leaving with them when they left. They couldn't be here when she roused. It was too dangerous for them and she'd never forgive herself if she did something to hurt them. So we had agreed that they would go to Charlie's and stay there. They would be able to speak with her on the phone but couldn't see her until she had her thirst under control. They had all been aghast when I'd had to tell them that might take years. So they would all have their last visit with their child tonight and then they'd leave her here, with us. Forever.
Alice came in at seven that night and I asked her again if anything she'd seen had changed. She said it had not. Bella would be whole, we'd be together, forever. I relaxed a little as she showed me again, but was still worried about this last part that I knew would be the worst for my beautiful girl.
BPOV
There has always been a scientific theory regarding the reason our first memories are held in our subconscious, not our consciousness. Some think its because the traumatic way we come into this world would scar us for life if we could recall it with any clarity. The other side of the debate believe our births cannot be remembered because we don't form a memory, that can recall facts, until we are much older.
Both sides were fucking idiots.
I would never forget this birth.
It infested me. My blood was eaten away by the venom at such an incredible rate that it burned in my veins, my muscles spasming and aching. I crested one wave of agony and felt it subside only to be lifted onto another wave.
Jacob had killed my human body. My new body was taking over, and I was in agony.
CPOV
Phil hadn't really said too much since they'd arrived. I'd heard him and Renee arguing quietly this morning, but I'd not been able to make out what about.
I didn't really want to know, I just needed to know if Phil really was planning on skipping out. If he was going to leave Renee I'd have to help her through this on my own, as best I could. That would be interesting. I'd not spent any real time with Renee since she'd upped and left all those years ago. Sure, we'd talked on the phone about Bella and had met at halfway points all over the place to hand her over or collect her, but never really talked.
She'd come to me this afternoon while I was sat out on the front porch sipping my beer. She'd sat between my knees on the bottom step and we'd talked. Really talked. Phil was leaving and he probably wasn't coming back. She said he couldn't handle any of this, that it made no sense and that she was welcome to the insanity but that he was going back to Phoenix, back to work, back to normal.
She'd cried a little and I'd patted her hand and her back. It was uncomfortable at first, but after a while we talked some more and we agreed that we'd get Bella through this, that she was our first priority, and then we'd sort out what we'd do after that. For now she would stay with me, the rest we'd deal with later.
Now all three of us were sat at the kitchen counter at the Cullen's house, eating yet another dinner made by Esme. There was no food at my house, Bella normally did the shopping and the cooking. I guess those days were over now too.
Renee and I had chatted with Esme a little as we ate and we'd both told her how grateful we were that Bella was being looked after by the Cullen's. Esme had beamed at us and told us that she was so happy to have Bella as part of the family now, and of course that now included the three of us. Phil had just snorted and shifted away from the counter a little further. I got mad because he just didn't need to be rude to Esme, she was taking care of our – yes our, Phil had married Renee so that made him Bella's dad too – daughter and he was being an ass, regardless of what he thought of the Cullen's.
Jasper and Emmett were sitting at the small table in the kitchen playing cards. I'd been introduced to them the day before, they were strange, but friendly enough. It was obvious they cared about my Bell's a great deal because they were never very far from where she was. Hovering, I'd call it.
If I thought about it, the whole family hovered. Apart from Carlisle who excused himself to go to the hospital a few times over the last few days, none of them left the house too much. Jasper, whom I was told was the most recent vegetarian convert, had gone off 'hunting' a few times but I'd tried not to think too much about that.
The three girls had stuck to the house almost continually. I'd gone out to the garage and had a chat with the blonde one, Rose, yesterday and she'd shown me the cars and bikes. It had been a good distraction really. It was an impressive collection. But apart from her, both Alice and Esme were always in the house. Esme cooked and cleaned and generally looked after everyone while Alice was either with Edward or Bella most of the time. I knew that Edward was close to Alice and it showed when you saw the two of them together. I didn't really understand these gifts they said they had, but to me it sort of looked like they could have silent conversations together. She'd say something in her head, he'd either hear it or see it – that's the bit I couldn't work out, did he read minds or hear minds? – and he'd nod or move or shift slightly to answer it. They could go hours like that, neither saying a damn thing but the other would know exactly what was going on with the other. It was freaky shit.
I was going in to see Bell's shortly with Renee. Phil said he wanted to talk to Edward but that he'd come in after that. I didn't really care either way, as long as I got to sit with her for a bit before we left.
That was going to be hard, saying goodnight to her tonight knowing it might be the last time I laid eyes on her for years.
EPOV
I shook Charlie's hand when he and Renee came in to see Bella for the last time. He asked how she was doing and I told him it wouldn't be long now. I told them both that although she was completely cold now, to them anyway, she was ok inside. I'd laid my hand in Renee's hand and had let her feel how cold I was so that she could reconcile that with what Bella would feel like so she didn't get upset. Cold didn't always mean dead. Renee was getting the hang of speaking to me via her thoughts and she thanked me for the gentle way I'd explained this to her. I nodded and smiled.
I told them that this last part, where the venom took final control of her organs, was going to be the hardest part for her, and for us. She would be in a lot of pain but that hopefully it would be brief. They just nodded and took a seat either side of the bed. I kissed her forehead and smoothed her dress a little to hide her tattoo – neither parent knew about it and I wanted Bella to be the one to either tell them or show them when the time was right – and told her I'd be back soon.
Phil waited for me in Carlisle's study and I already knew what he wanted to tell me before he opened his mouth. I was sorry though, this would hurt them all.
As I was moving towards Carlisle's chair he began speaking and I baulked.
"I'm leaving, now. I can't deal with this and I've told Renee I'll see her back in Phoenix when she's ready." He said it matter of factly and I knew nothing I said now would change his mind. So I continued on towards Carlisle's chair and nodded at him once I was seated.
"I'm sorry to hear that Phil, but I do understand." I said it softly, he was itching for this to turn into a fight and it was one I didn't want to have.
"Do you? Do you really understand at all what you've done here? What you've done to Renee?" He was raising his voice a little with each separate word but I was determined to let him speak his mind but not engage him.
"Yes, I do understand that."
"But you don't care, right? You wanted Bella and now you've got her and that's all that matters to you, right?" He stood and put his hands on the back of the chair and leaned over the table towards me.
"I know you don't believe that Phil." I was still speaking quietly, but I was getting angry.
"You're so fucking self righteous, all of you are. You think you know everything because you've lived a long time. You think you're better than us because you've got money. You all creep around like you're hurting, like we are, but I know all this is just a means to an end for you. She's like you know, that was the goal, so you win Eddie. So you can stop being so fucking smug now." He wiped his face with his hands and rubbed his neck like Charlie did, but I knew he wasn't finished. He had things he needed to say to me, I was happy to indulge him because I knew he would soon leave and I'd never have to deal with him ever again. "She's just a kid. Even if your freak of a sister could see that in one of her insane 'visions', that one day Bella would be like you, why didn't you just let her have her childhood for a bit? Why did you pick now? When she should be off with a nice boy having first kisses and sneaky holding hands she's here with you freaks." He swept his hand around himself. "All this, this isn't what a seventeen year old girl wants. They want dresses and make up and movies and sleepovers. Not hanging around with mental patients and deranged super model mechanics. You've taken all that from her now. She'll never get it back. So don't tell me you understand what she's just sacrificed for you you smug bastard. She might love you and Renee might think you're some sort of all knowing, all seeing angel, but I see you for what you are you sick fuck."
He was thinking about what I'd told him about imprinting, how I'd first met Bella at age five. He'd stopped listening soon after that and had never really bothered to learn what it all meant.
"If that gets any more heated I'm coming up there." Jasper said in his head.
"If he fucking calls Alice a freak again I'll kill him myself." Emmett was thinking.
"We'll kill him and put him the Volvo and throw it off the pier Ed." Rose was suggesting, most helpfully considering I was trying very, very hard to keep my temper in check.
"I can see why you'd see me as sick Phil, I do understand that." I waited till he stopped pacing and he sat back down in the chair.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, you understand how I feel. Right. Try and understand this then. She would be better off dead than surrounded by you freaks. We could've just buried her and Renee would've grieved and we could've moved on. Now she's gonna be stuck knowing her kid is an animal." He spat the last word at me across the desk.
I slammed my hands down, palms first so as to not damage the wood, on Carlisle's desk and stood, pushing the chair away from me with the back of my knees. I wanted, oh so badly, to leap across the table and pummel him for his filthy words but instead I chanted that he was just upset, he was hurt, and that this was Bella's step father and she loved him.
I drew in a long, calming breath before I spoke. "I do want you to know that Bella can hear us, she can hear like I do now. So you need to be very careful what you say next Phil." I blew the breath I'd been holding out between clenched teeth and I let my eyes show Phil how close I was to losing myself in the rage I felt, he cowered away from the desk slightly, my point had been made so I calmed myself with a sweep of my hand through my hair and began again, softly, "While I can appreciate the pain this has caused you I'd appreciate it if you kept your judgments about Bella, and my sisters, to yourself for the moment. I'm sorry you're leaving us so soon Phil, Bella would have loved to have had you near when she woke up. But I respect your decision. I'll arrange someone to take you to the airport, do you need a flight booked?" I asked.
"I don't want your fucking money." He spat.
Jasper and Emmett were standing at the bottom of the stairs now, both of them pleading with me to let them know that they could come up and sort him out.
"I'm not offering you my fucking money. Though you are more than welcome to it." I roared across the table. I ran my hand through my hair and looked to where Phil now sat open mouthed. "I apologize for my bad language. It was never my intention to lose my temper. Forgive me. I'd like to arrange a ticket for you and to arrange for you to get home safely. That's important to me, and to Bella. Would you like me to keep you informed of her progress at least?" I asked, but I already knew what his answer was going to be.
"No thanks. I'll wait outside till the car comes. Tell your mother, or Esme, or whatever she is, thanks for the food." He stood out of the chair and left the room and I let him go. I was incredulous that he'd leave without first seeing Bella or speaking to Renee, but I knew he would not be swayed. I also knew he wouldn't be at the house when Renee returned. Alice had seen it and I'd just read it in his thoughts. Spineless bastard he was. It was hard to feel sympathy for him but I tried very hard to do just that as I dialed the airline and booked his first class ticket to Phoenix. I arranged a car service to collect him here, now, and another to take him to his house from the airport at the other end.
"How about we just flog fuck out of him, just for fun?" Emmett thought as I left Carlisle's study and went back to Bella.
BPOV
Phil was leaving, Renee and Charlie were staying. For a split second that knowledge distracted me from the eruption of pain around my chest.
I'd heard the conversation Edward had had with him just now in Carlisle's study.
That was my first indication that my change was coming to an end. I could hear everything. Clearly.
I was slowly being smothered, from the inside out. It was harder and harder to breath under the weight of the pain. Lying on my back, as I was, my lungs felt too heavy for my ribs to support them. I tried to arch my neck and take the pressure off my throat but I was stifled with the pain.
I started to feel a stinging in my eyes and I blinked over and over to clear the foggy mist that covered them. I looked around the room but saw only feint shadows. At least the blackness was gone from me now.
As the shadows cleared I began to see my surroundings far more clearly than I ever had before.
My father's moustache was flecked with grey. My mothers temples too.
I could clearly read the labels on the bottles that lined Alice's dresser.
The thread count on sheets had never interested me, now I could count them for myself.
I could hear and see like a vampire. And yet I burned.
EPOV
Charlie and Renee would have to leave very soon. Bella was still in the throes of the last stage, but she was now seeing clearly. I could tell because she shifted her head from side to side and blinked to clear it. I knew she could hear properly now too because she had reacted to me telling Charlie and Renee that it wouldn't be long when they'd first arrived.
Her sense of smell would likely be next and I needed them to be gone before that happened.
She no longer looked peaceful in the bed. She thrashed from side to side, still fairly silently except for moments of grunting and crying out, and I knew that she must be in great pain. Her hair was matted with sweat and her skin had lost its translucence now that she had taken on the pale white pallor of the damned.
Her lips set in a striking grimace each time her heart rate climbed to a new frenzy.
Alice came into the room and silently told me it was time for Charlie and Renee to leave. I nodded towards them and immediately they both began to cry softly.
In some ways this was going to be harder for them than what had happened in the driveway three days ago. At least now they could sit with her, speak with her, hold her hand. None of us knew when they'd be able to see her next.
I left them to say their goodbyes and stood outside her door with Alice holding my hand.
Alice had already seen, and shown me, how it was going to go for them.
But being here, right now as it was happening was horrible. The anguish in their voices and in their minds was palpable to me. They held each other, then Bella, then each other again. Renee cried and Charlie held her and then he cried himself. They told Bella they loved her and that they'd see her as soon as they could. They promised her that they'd love her regardless of all this, they would always love her. They told her that she should never be afraid to be what she was, that she would always just be Bella to them, nothing more, nothing less, she was the centre of their universe and this wouldn't change that.
Alice choked back a sob as she heard that and I could tell that she was grieving for the parents she didn't remember herself.
Charlie shocked both Alice and I when he leaned over and kissed his daughter on the cheek and told her he'd be dreaming of the day he could walk her down the aisle to marry me.
They came out of the room, Charlie shook my hand and Renee hugged me – carefully, she was still wary – and they said their goodbyes. Charlie took her home and then it was just Bella and me.
I held her hand while the pain ripped through her chest. Her heart rate was so fast it was a blur.
BPOV
I used the sounds of my parents voices as a gauge for how much longer this agony was going to last. If they were saying their goodbyes to me it had to be nearly over.
Edward and Alice were outside the door waiting, I could hear them whispering. Edward was telling Alice to gather everyone once Charlie and Renee were in the driveway. Alice wanted to come in and see me first but Edward insisted she go. He said he didn't want her to have to see this, that it wasn't going to be very nice. Hearing it would be bad enough, he said.
Edward came to sit by me and he took my hand in his once again. He kissed my fingers and then my engagement ring. When he bent over me and kissed the corner of my mouth I noticed the difference in his scent. Gone was his normal spicy mix and in its place was vanilla and a clean linen smell.
It was such a distraction that I hardly noticed when the burn intensified further.
I was starting to smell as a vampire could. And yet I burned.
EPOV
As her pain intensified around midnight Tuesday I heard the first feint stirrings of wolves gathering in the forest around my home. I'd warned the others that they would come, they all agreed that it was right for them to be here. They were eager to see Bella reborn and it was important to the pack that their loss be replaced by a rebirth, a renewal of life.
Sam had asked if it would be ok that they simply stand in the forest and observe. They'd come no closer despite me making it clear they were always welcome here.
Her whole body was wracked with spasm after spasm as her heart fought the venom. Her skin was completely white now, no trace of sun or the warmth she used to have were visible to me.
I hung my head at the side of the bed and mourned the loss of her beautiful blush.
Still she did not scream. I begged her to, to release some of the mental agony she must have been feeling, I begged her to verbalize it. Whether she heard and understood me through her pain I had no way to know.
She writhed along the bed, thrashing from side to side, clutching the sheets at her sides with her razor like nails. They'd hardened during the previous night, becoming bright white and taking on a sheen like porcelain. She'd be able to rip and tear and protect herself now, I felt a little relief at that, despite the misery she had to go through to get there.
The bones in her hand had long since healed, she made a perfect fist with it at her side and I knew she was whole again. Her legs and hips had healed first, soon after Carlisle had bitten her, thank god. The perfect crescent shapes were missing now too, faded and absorbed into her luminous skin.
Her hair was now a glossy auburn, it had lightened slightly as the venom took hold of her. It would always fall in long, wavy sheets. No amount of cutting it or straightening it would change it from what it was right now. I was looking forward to decades of being able to wash it, feel it untangle in my fingers. A slight shudder went through me at the thought of that. I was getting ahead of myself, I knew. It might take a decade for Bella to be with me like that again, for her to trust me, if she ever did again.
I'd not allowed myself to think on that, at all. Alice had shown me glimpses of the two of us together after her change, and I'd told Emmett in the clearing that Bella still wanted me afterwards, but Alice's visions were so subjective. Any small decision, or indecision could corrupt what I'd seen previous. The hollow ache in my gut I felt when I thought about Bella going through all this and then our relationship shattering crippled me with my own pain.
"It's time." Alice thought.
I lifted my head off the bed and took one last glance at Bella before I went out into the hall and asked my family to join us.
Alice squeezed my hand on her way in, Esme held her hand over her heart, Rose winked at me.
The two boys clapped me on the back as they came in and Carlisle shook my hand, another silent prayer going through his brain as he took his position at the far end of the room.
We knew from experience that she'd be disoriented, confused, and possibly angry. We were also quite aware that she could be dangerous. Emmett's change had ended that way, he'd lashed out as he came to.
Jasper would do his best to quell that for her, but it was also quite possible that she'd be so unpredictable that they family might, at some point, actually need to defend itself from her.
I looked towards Alice and she again told me that it was time, that Bella could hear me clearly, could see and smell and feel with perfect clarity now.
The only sound in the room was Bella's frantic heart. That and the audible gasp as seven vampires held their collective breath while a newborns heart made its last beat.
BPOV
I could smell them all long before I could hear them and feel them in the room with me. They'd all come, all come to watch my human body die.
I knew it was going to now. I could feel it as my heart burst into flames and raced towards its last beat. My chest and back rose off the bed as the four chambers of my heart pulsed out the last vestige of my humanity. As it took its last beat I drew in my last human breath and slumped back onto the bed.
I heard Edward gasp and I knew it was done. I had Edward, forever.
My new world was going to be full of love.
Jacob had taken my human life but he had also given me eternity.
Sam Uley's POVI gathered my pack at the edge of the forest near the Cullen coven.
I sat Seth between me and Paul and he sat on his behind in the cool grass. He hung his head solemnly and held his breath.
We each stood proud, sure footed as the night shrouded us in its cloying protective veil.
The thoughts of my brothers were silent as we each listened for the last beat of her heart. It would signal she was returned to this earth and it would also mark the end of the reign of our Alpha.
As her chest heaved its last I lifted a paw and signaled my brothers to voice their approval.
Jacob had taken her human life, she was now reborn.
Seth Clearwater's POVAs the howls broke the silence around me I could feel my body begin to shiver.
I was hot, very hot.
A fever had taken me over at the same time that my friend Edward Cullen got his greatest wish.
Charlie Swan's POV
I heard the howling and held Renee tighter. We'd both been waiting to hear that horrible sound to know that it was done. Bella had been reborn into a vampire.
Edward had warned me the wolves would be vocal when she woke, told me to ignore it, not to come.
Renee cried out against my chest and for the first time in 15 years she allowed me to bury my face in her hair.
Esme Cullen's POVMy family was now complete.
It was all I'd ever dared to wish for. Five beautiful children had been delivered to me, in fairly quick succession. The sixth had just been born to us proper.
She was the mate my first-born had always wanted, all he'd ever needed, all he'd ever dreamt of.
And now she was his. Now she was mine. She was ours.
And she was perfect.
Jasper Cullen's POVHer maddening scent was gone, thank the lord, gone. Instead she smelled like me and I could now be near her and not crave her. Everything would be alright.
Alice would be happy again, Edward would get a chance to be truly happy and all the anguish and pain and anger in this house would dissipate and I could function properly again.
I had a new sister, one who would change all our lives forever. Forever. It was a good feeling, forever with Bella and Edward happy.
Rosalie Cullen's POVThey were fools to give up what they had. I was so grateful they loved each other enough to sacrifice it. Bella was ours, she'd be with us forever and she'd make Edward happy forever. I'd learn to deal with the rest, she'd learn to deal with it, and I'd help her.
I looked across at my Emmett and really saw what they were gaining. Each other.
Emmett Cullen's POVI watched Rose sweep her eyes from my feet to my face and knew she was thinking what I was thinking.
They were together, forever, as we were. They deserved it. It had been so much harder for them than it had been for us. She'd chosen me, saved me, made me what I am. Given me this chance to love her for eternity. I allowed myself a moment to come to grips with the doubts Edward had had to overcome to even be near Bella, not ever knowing if she'd love him as he loved her.
I reached for Rosie's hand and squeezed it as we looked down on our new sister.
Carlisle Cullen's POVPlease god give me the strength to not regret what I've done to her. Please give her the courage to be with us, as we are, and for us to deserve her.
Forgive me all I've done to make my son happy. All I've done to make Esme feel whole.
Please god, forgive me for wanting this for myself.
Thank you, god, for giving us Isabella.
Alice Cullen's POVI closed my eyes and saw her standing next to Edward in the meadow. She was sparkling in the sunlight and they were smiling broadly.
I opened my eyes and looked down as my new sister was delivered from the pain and given to us to love.
I watched as Edward bent over her and kissed her perfect lips.
In fourteen seconds she'd open her eyes and my family would be perfect.
I loved her, we all did.
EPOV
She'd done it. My beautiful girl had borne the change and it was done. I'd have her forever.