Author's Note: Okay, let me set the record straight here. First things first: I didn't abandon any of my stories of FF. I just finished the semester from Hell, it wasn't bad at all but my days were ten to eleven hours long with both school and work and then coming home and doing another two hours (at least) of reading. Secondly I'm apologizing for not updating in four months, but I'm hoping the events in this chapter (I.E the rating change) will make it up to you dear readers. And if in the past four or so months you've reviewed something of mine and gotten no reply, I sincerely apologize and beg your forgiveness. So without me rambling on anymore go and read, and please review it might help to light a fire under my butt (not that I really deserve them at this point).

Half of Her is Fading

Bella awoke near four that afternoon, the sun had already begun to set over the ocean; the cloud cover, once again kept the ocean's waves from being bathed in the brilliant reds and golds and oranges of the setting sun. Not that the pained human wanted to see any of that today. It wasn't the conclusion of a restful sleep that had awoken her, but the painful throbbing that echoed through her head. Unable to focus her eyes she looked around at the blurry shapes around her, mind refusing to recognize any of the familiar shapes around her.

Gingerly she stretched out, waiting for the pain to spread from her head and radiate throughout her entire body. A sigh of relief passed her lips as the pain didn't flair through her; the dull ache of sore muscles was ever present, but it was nothing earth shattering or mind blowing. It was manageable. She blinked, again, and a third time, the last sent two tears streaming down her cheeks. One from each eye. As the tears fell, the world suddenly came into focus and with it more painful memories.

She tried to kill herself…

Again!

And this time the man she'd always trusted to keep her safe had not only told her to do it, but gave her step-by-step instructions on how to do it, and all but held her hand as she inhaled that horrid gas into her already pained lungs. In fact, she could still smell the gas. It managed to not only weave itself into her hair but also into every stitch of her sweats. But they weren't hers at all…They were Alice's.

Oh, God! Alice was going to be furious at her for trying to off herself again. Would it matter that she fought against Edward as hard as she could? Would it matter that Edward, as always, had won in a battle of wills?

In a moment of blind panic and terror Bella tried to bolt upright, but found a pair of cold arms encircling her. Squeezing her eyes shut again, new memories began to flood through her; most of them were incredibly hazy and were set outside in the now overgrown meadow that served as the Cullens' front yard. But there was another another that happened right on the couch that was as clear as any memory in her mind.

A kiss. A kiss that should have, by all rights, been fuzzy, but it wasn't. She'd kissed Alice – or had Alice kissed her? Did it really matter at this point? She cast a glance over her shoulder as well as her aching neck would allow. "Morning sunshine!" Alice chimed

"Is it morning already?" Bella asked slowly rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Nope, it's not even evening yet." Alice replied; her voice muffled as she buried her head into Bella's shoulder.

Neither of them spoke for a while as a heavy silence seemed to settle between it, silently strangling the desire to speak again. Fighting the silence Bella finally whispered, "I'm sorry. Alice, I really am."

"Shh, shh, it's okay Bella. I know you are." Alice felt the human in her arms struggle to turn around; she released her icy grip giving the younger brunette enough space to roll over on the couch.

Heaving, pained sobs escaped through Bella's body as she clutched Alice as tightly as she could, cutting out any space between them. In that moment all she cared about was that Alice was so close; and that when Alice was close the guilt gnawing her insides didn't hurt as much. She felt the vampire squeeze her tightly as she continued to cry.

Alice placed a cold hand on the back of her head and let the girl who'd been through so much just cry into her shoulder. As she wept, the vampire gently rubbed and patted her pack silently. She didn't want Bella to ever hurt this much again, and yet she knew that it would be inevitable; there would come a day where Bella would cry like this again. Alice only hoped that it would be a long, long time from now. She stared out the window into the forest as light slowly began to fade from the world as it sunk into twilight. The contact only seemed to intensify the pain Alice had felt for all those months when she was forcibly separated from the brunette.

Eventually though, the sobs grew quieter and came in shorter bursts at longer intervals until they all together ceased. Bella felt drained and exhausted, but not sleepy; god she'd slept enough in the past few days to last a week or more. She wanted only to stay close to Alice, to never leave her side; nothing else really seemed to mater. Her arms started to go slack and soon she relaxed her death grip on the fabric of Alice's shirt. Pulling back she looked into Alice's tarnished eyes and softly whispered, "Have I mentioned how much I've missed you?"

"I don't think so, but I've missed you so much." She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against that of the warmer Bella Swan.

"Alice, please no," Bella said pulling her head back from Alice's electric touch. Tears brimmed in the human's eyes.

"What?" Alice recoiled.

"Not again, not right now. I – I can't do that right now, I'm sorry." She stuttered, her arms wrapping themselves around her waist. Suddenly she felt like she would throw up again, but she refused to, trying to gain control of her stomach.

Alice fought the knee-jerk reaction to fly back off the couch, but she couldn't keep the look of pure shock off her face. "Bella, I don't know what you're talking about."A total lie, Alice couldn't have forgotten what had happened between them before Bella drifted off to sleep. A kiss, a kiss so simple; a kiss with no build up; a kiss with no romantic pomp, no swell in the music; just a kiss. But a kiss that shook the vampire to the core. She'd always loved Bella, but part of that love was tied up into a big 'what if' that the kiss seemed to shatter all of those walls.

"Alice," A tear ran down from her eye, down her cheek, "Alice, please don't lie to me. You felt it too, didn't you?"

"Felt what?" She had to play dumb, she didn't really want to (she wanted to say yes, but wanted to make sure Bella felt the same thing.) but she had to. Bella hadn't made up her mind yet, no decision no vision; the almost constant indecisiveness of the people closer to her was really starting to piss her off.

"Felt…" She trailed off, what was that feeling? It wasn't a sweeping love, but it was more than casual affection. Was there a term for that beyond the idiotic 'like-like?' "I don't know Alice. Something, something real; something wrong."

"Why would it be wrong; if we felt the same thing?" Alice asked, truly hurt at the insinuation that what she felt was wrong. What they both felt was wrong.

"Because – because…"

"Because I'm not him." Alice interrupted in a moment of clarity, "Because I'm Alice and not Edward."

Heavy silence.

"I'm right aren't I?" A mixture of hurt, sadness, and anger crept into her normally soft voice, "You can tell me."

"Yes," Bella said meekly, "But that's not all of it, there's also…"

"The fact that I'm a girl?" Alice answered growing even more impatient with the questions and the apparent lack of decision making coming from Bella. "C'mon just tell me; quit beating around the bush."

"Yes, that's another part of it; Alice, you're…you're. Hell I don't even know how to say it." The younger of the two said pushing herself away, her muscles decided to freeze up and shoot pain up and down her body. God, how she hated to feel this way, but it was her own stupid fault. Yes, it was about time that she took responsibility for her actions and stopped blaming them on Edward.

"What am I? I'm a vampire, but you already know that and you're clearly not repulsed by that. What is it? What!" Alice's voice grew weary, like a fighter who'd just gone ninety-nine rounds, "Please Bella, just, just tell me."

"You and Jasper; I don't know what the right word is but you're together. And whatever it is we felt isn't going to mean anything as long that's the truth; that's just not right; I can't do that; I can't, I won't do that." Bella rambled, her voice constantly changing pitch and intonation. As much as she tried to keep the physical distance between them she found her fingers drifting towards Alice's tiny hands, until finally the tips of her fingers brushed against the frigid skin of the vampire's palm. Unbeknownst to Bella, something happened; something she never would have happened; a tingling crept up her arm that was so foreign. Embarrassed she looked down at their hands; the embarrassment only grew worse and she looked up again.

Their eyes met the instant Alice spoke, "He knows, and as much as I'd like to say he understands he doesn't. Bella there's a reason I stayed, a reason that I didn't leave with my family. I wanted to be with you; Isabella Swan, I love you. I know you don't feel the same way about me, and maybe one day you will, or maybe you won't, but that doesn't change how I feel about you." Alice's free hand came to rest on the human's blushing cheek allowing it to absorb some of that heat radiating from it. The words she spoke mirrored those she'd said to the unconscious brunette that night after she'd been pulled from the ocean.

"You love me? You love me like Edward loves me?" Bella asked leaning into the cold hand.

"No, nothing like that; Edward was completely selfish. Not once did he really take your interest in mind, he did what he wanted to do, and convinced you after the fact that it was something you always wanted to do. My brother wanted you" She was careful to use the past tense as she spoke about Edward; God knew that she wanted to put as much space between Bella and Edward as she could, "as an object, something pretty he could look at and show off to others, like a Van Gogh, or a rare book. He never wanted you to be real: to think or to feel."

Bella's eyes stung with the slow realization that Alice was right, that she had that nasty habit of being right. "And what about you? If that's what he wanted from me, what is it you want?" He voice wavered from disdain to exhaustion and back again.

"Bella," Alice's hand moved up to the human's warm cheek, "I…I don't want anything from you; I want you to be you, to follow your dreams and ambitions; to have your own opinions and think, even when I don't agree. It's all I've ever wanted and all I ever will want."

"And if my dream was to let myself die, what then?" Bella slowly reverted back to the questioning spirit that existed before Edward sunk his claws deep within her psyche. Although back then there would be at least some art to her questions, they wouldn't be so blunt and so forward.

"Then I'd stop you, because at that moment I would be selfish, but more than that; I'd know you wouldn't mean it. Bella you had the chance to die so many times before, and whether it was an unconscious decision or not you're still here; judging by your history I wouldn't be willing to say that it wasn't luck that's kept you breathing so far." Exasperated, Alice decided to go for broke and closed the few inches between them and gently pressed her lips to Bella's.

The brunette went stiff at first, taken initially by surprise, but when Alice didn't back off in the first few moments, she found herself gradually loosening up and accepting what was happening; sooner or later she more than accepted Alice's advancement.

She kissed back. At first she hesitated, not knowing exactly what she should be doing; the self consciousness slowly faded away as she grew more comfortable. This kiss was nothing like those she'd shared many times with Him. It felt sweet; no, Bella decided that was the wrong word for it. Better, yes it was definitely better; but not because Alice was a superior kisser. Simpler than that, for the first time Bella felt that she had some control over what was happening. Before, with Him (because Bella had begun to hate thinking of his name) she had power over what happened. Edward kissed her, if she did something that he didn't approve of, and there were many, he would pull back and make some sort of excuse.

With Alice the old rulebook exploded; for the first time the human felt that she could do what she wanted without having to worry about offending anyone, without offending her.

Somehow she'd managed to maintain her ability to think during the kiss, it wasn't bad though. It was real; her first real kiss. Her hand wrapped itself in Alice's soft spikes and pulled her closer as she ran her tongue around the vampire's cold lips.

Alice liked that idea, almost as much as she liked the way the girl's hand had twisted into her hair; neither of these two things held a candle to how much she loved that Bella was so receptive to all of this, minus the very early initial hesitation. Growing bolder by the weaker girl's advances, the vampire thought she'd push the envelope once again; parting her lips she easily captured Bella's warm tongue, nibbling on the tip.

Bella let out a low moan that Alice felt as much as she heard, as it pushed through both of their clothes before sending up tantalizing tingles up and down Alice's skin. Never the one to be outdone, the smaller of the two followed the moan with a fiercely primal growl of pleasure as she gently eased the injured girl down onto the soft cushions of the couch.

The human's soft hands trailed down Alice's tiny frame finding the hem of her, undoubtedly, pricy top; deftly slipping underneath tracing along her back in random patterns. She easily succeeded in driving Alice crazy with her feather light touches, and continued to do it as she gingerly pushed the top up exposing more milk white flesh.

The vampire's breath caught in her throat in a mix between a purr and a growl; she hadn't in her wildest dreams thought that Bella would take this so far so fast, but she wasn't about to complain. At least not yet. Almost unwillingly she pulled her lips away from Bella's, staring into her eyes. "You can stop anytime, we can stop." She said as she stilled her own hands.

"I don't want to Alice. This feels too right to stop now." The brunette whispered in a gravelly voice as she launched up from the couch to kiss her again. Her hands slid higher along the vampire's back, despite the fatigue creeping into her arms. This was the first time she'd felt this connected to another person in her entire life and she wouldn't consider trading it for anything.

Alice didn't need any other permission once her fears were eased (she knew she wasn't taking advantage of her new love) she slid her hands past the hem of the shirt she'd given Bella after the bath; it was a shame that it would be ripped soon. Gooseflesh raised in sheets as Alice's hands explored the supple flesh hiding just underneath the thin layer of cotton. Once she'd managed to explore blindly Alice ripped the shirt neatly in two, surprising the girl in her arms. Pushing her back down onto the couch the spiky haired vampire began laying a trail of soft kisses down the slim girl's jaw line and neck; pausing only a moment to playfully nip at the pulse point that contained the intoxicating blood as her lips continued trailing down. They moved across the collar bone to the place Alice had in mind, eliciting an exuberant moan from the other girl.

Bella moaned again, her voice once again becoming gruff, as Alice found the untouched skin of her breasts. Everyone knew that Edward was too proper to ever go further than first base, if he allowed himself past the plate to begin with. Her mind was slowly giving way to passion as she clawed wildly at Alice's shirt, finally succeeding in pulling it over her head and tossing it carelessly to the floor.

With tops out of the way Bella pulled Alice back up to kiss her once again; this time it wasn't soft and tender it was fueled by pure primal hunger for one another. Still clawing at the stony flesh hard enough to leave deep scratches on normal skin; she moved them to her partner's breasts, caressing them with as much force as her body would allow.

This last action stoked the fire burning inside Alice even more causing her to rip the pajama bottoms she'd given Bella to shreds in the attempt to gain quicker access to the damp heat pooling between the human's legs. Bella complied, spreading her legs in order to aid Alice's efforts. Once again the vampire broke free of a kiss and moved her head lower, this time though she skipped the slow tantalizing trip for one that took advantage her blinding speed. A split second later she inhaled the scent of Bella's wetness, quickly swallowing the venom gushing into her mouth.

Unable to draw a deep enough breath to moan again, Bella gasped as Alice's tongue took its first tentative lick around the outside of her wet slit. Taking it for a sign that she was enjoying herself Alice continued to tease Bella, never repeating one action too often, and changing her rhythm often enough that she wouldn't get used to it; listening as the measured breaths became quick pants as her climax neared. Moments before that happened she stopped teasing Bella and dove in licking and sucking furiously as the long waited for orgasm rocked through the humans small frame.

Pulling back Alice licked her lips like a predator after its meal and just smiled at her, rising up to lay side by side with her.

"Alice…that…you," She swallowed and blinked her eyes hard enough to erase the little colored splotches in her sight, "no…words. Thank you."

Alice only giggled before saying, "Rest now, I'll be right here."

Bella needed no further encouragement; shivering once, she fell straight into unconsciousness.