DAY 298
.
Subject 7, Rosalie Hale, twitches uncomfortably as Dr. Platt reactivates the implant in her neck. She'd just got an office on Twelve, sunlight and a view, and it already scores her more points with Rose, she can tell.
"How are you adjusting?"
"As well as I'd hoped."
"And the medication? Are you sleeping through the night?"
Rosalie nods, frowning. "It's better. I think it's helping. Whatever numbers you have on that thing could probably tell you better than I could."
"You don't sound too happy."
"No, I am. I've been going to therapy, and I'm taking some night classes. I think this is the best I've been since college… I've been to see my brothers a few times. It's getting better, I think."
"But?"
"But…" Rosalie sighs. "She's everywhere."
Dr. Platt folds her hands on top of her desk. "You mean Bella?"
Rose nods. "I know that she wasn't actually there, that we didn't have all these lives together. But she's in so many of my memories, and I don't know her, but it's like my brain thinks that I do."
"In what ways?"
"Like the other day, I was driving home from work and I kept thinking about what book I was going to read to Charlie when I got home- I don't even know who that is. And at the grocery store, I almost always end up with a block of tofu for her. I guess she doesn't eat meat?" The thought makes her smile a little, but it's short-lived. "I wake up every morning and look over, expecting her."
Dr. Platt listens. For once, she's not taking notes or coming up with a plan of approach because there simply isn't one. What Carlisle had named the Rescue Mission was absolutely unprecedented. There was no way to know what would happen if they succeeded at all, let alone what the lingering consequences would be months in the future.
"Then, of course, I remember she's not really in my life. Just in my head. And I have to remember over and over that the trial failed, and I have all these horrible, broken memories on top of the ones I already had, and just… Does she have my memories like I have hers? Is she suffering too?"
"I don't know," Dr. Platt admits. "Carlisle- Dr. Cullen and I have tried to keep in touch with her, but she left the company the day we released you from our care. She hasn't responded to anything I've sent her. I've thought about going out there to see her a few times, but I think she just wants to forget the whole thing."
…
…
…
DAY 299
.
Bella sets Charlie's plate of over easy eggs in front him on her way back upstairs to grab a different shirt. She promised Jake she'd keep him company while he works on her truck today, and she's running late getting ready.
After the trial, she'd really stuck to Jake. He's probably tired of hearing about all the lives she'd lived, about Charlie smiling again… about 7. She has to shake herself from it at every turn. Sometimes it's easy to forget none of it was real.
A few minutes later, she comes downstairs and yanks her rain boots on. She checks his plate and crosses her arms. "I made them how you like."
He nods distractedly, looking up at the dim dining room light. She knows it's wrong, but she's frustrated with him. He can't help it. It seems so long ago now that she'd come back to Forks to take care of him. It didn't seem so bad at first, but as the months wore on he'd fallen into a pallor that had overtaken him.
What's wrong with him?
Nothing.
She'd taken him to dozens of doctors and CriaTech specialists, but it was always the same answer: Nothing. He just fell apart one day. Nothing more or less, just a new normal.
He pushes the plate away and drums his fingers on the edge. "Bells, it's not your job to take care of me."
"I know, Dad. I just- I think I need to be here with you right now." He's always going to be the way he is. No miracle trial is going to suddenly appear at the lab and magically reset him. She's come to terms with that.
There's a knock on the door. Jake. She grabs her keys and her jacket off the rack before saying a quick goodbye to Charlie and pulling open the door to an empty porch.
"Jake?" she says, stepping out. But it isn't Jacob at all.
It's 7- Rosalie- standing at the bottom of the stairs looking back and forth between the address number on the house and the soggy piece of paper in her hands.
Bella blinks, stunned. But she's there and she's getting wet in the rain because she's not from here and doesn't own an industrial raincoat like everyone else. But she should know because Bella bought her at least three in the simulation, which she never wore and always suffered the consequences.
"Rose?"
She looks up, startled, but when she sees her, Bella feels the pull. Up the hill, down two floors, down a cup of purple tar.
"I don't know what I'm doing here really. I know we don't know each other, but… I haven't felt- I… I can't stop thinking about the simulation and you, and-" She stops herself and takes a step back. "I shouldn't have-"
Bella nearly trips down the stairs getting to her. She rushes into a hug that Rose wasn't ready for, but she squeezes her back. The air crackles and the back of her neck stings, but it's the only thing that's felt right in almost a year.
She quit her job on the fifth-floor, said goodbye to Angela and never looked back. It hurt too much when Rose went back to New York right after Dr. Cullen released them from the hospital. But if she thinks hard enough, she can still remember that last moment in the treehouse, sitting at the edge of five-and-a-half million lives together. It instilled an ache, a longing that wasn't just going to vanish once the sedatives wore off.
"I want to go back so badly."
"I know," Bella says. "So do I."
They pull away and Rose steps back a little awkwardly. She apologizes again, but it's lost in the rain. Bella shakes her head, she too struck to even speak. But even standing in dark, in the freezing rain, all the light in world shines just for them.