A/N: Okay I feel an explanation is in order for my now infrequent updates. Two weeks ago I started at a new university and then started working at my old college at the same time so I know officially have no life. But in that time I had a chance to read On Writing but Stephen King (I highly recommend it for any aspiring writer) and he said the best way to get better was to write at least a thousand words a day. And guess who's now doing that? So this, hopefully, will be the last giant three week break without an update. I want to start updating once a week so this story doesn't get stale in my mind and the characters wooden. Wow that was long winded of me; so I won't keep you away from what you came from any longer.
Will the Truth Help?
I know what's wrong with you. Six words that turned Bella's world completely upside down in the five seconds since her new friend spoke them. At first she thought that her brain might explode from the enormity of the meaning behind them, and then she thought she would just wake up from a terrifying yet exciting dream, lastly she thought she would faint. Her breathing came to her faster and faster as her heart rate sped up and her vision became a dark tunnel with only a flicker of light at the very end. Somewhere in the deepest corners of her mind the world came rushing up to meet her, but with a jarring clarity it stopped in its tracks.
She never fell.
Her vision was still dim.
But she never fell.
Alice saw to that, at the first stumbling of her subject turned friend she rushed to her side and supported the taller girl's weight with a slender arm wrapped around her waist. An indefinite moment passed before the brunette was able to slip out of the pixie's arms and stand on her own. The small vampire held back a chuckle as she watched Bella try to stand like a fawn for the first time.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" The taller girl asked, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her head. Surely she didn't hear her right the first time. How in the hell could a random girl from high school have any way of knowing what was wrong with her. Her mind shifted into overdrive and suddenly she made several connections all at once, first she remembered that her father was the same doctor that examined her the other day; then she realized that there had to have been a diagnosis and that he broke patient confidentiality and told his daughter. On reflex alone she pushed herself away from Alice.
Slightly taken aback by Bella's action Alice recoiled slightly before responding. "I know what's wrong with you and I know why you're hurting." She fought the urge to step forward, instead letting the soft determination of her voice carry the weight of what she was saying.
The chocolate eyed girl's stomach surged up into her throat, realizing that she'd heard the person she thought to be a new friend correctly the first time. "How is it possible that you know what's wrong with me?" Her voice wavered a little with a small mixture of: pain, fear, and anger.
A small smirk pulled the corner of the golden eyed girl's mouth up, "Right now, if I told you, you wouldn't believe me?" Alice sat down in the well worn recliner at the other end of the small living room; Bella collapsed on the sofa.
Her head still spinning she couldn't have in anyway seen what was coming just an hour before. Hell even ten minutes ago when she and Alice and pulled into the earthen driveway she didn't know what weirdness awaited her in her new home. Suddenly more things started to click into place. Alice's forwardness, the note, following her home, she was being a puppet. Whatever was wrong with her must have been disastrous if the doctor couldn't tell her himself.
"Are you alright?" A voice cut through the murky darkness of her mind like a like light from the sun. But even then it seemed like a disembodied voice coming across her from the ether.
"Are you alright?" The voice asked again, forcing Bella back into the real world.
Of course, Bella thought, of course it was Alice's voice. She blinked a few times, but the room still seemed unreasonably bright. It was a few elongated moments before she realized that she wasn't sitting on the couch anymore, she was laying on it, draped with a light blanket, Alice at her side. Suddenly she at ease, no more dread, nor fear, nor pain, nor anger.
"What's wrong with me?" The new siren choked out in a terribly horse voice. Alice noted that a look of unrestrained grief flashed in Bella's eyes, "Am I dying?" She slowly shifted into an almost sitting position her face now only inches away from Alice's.
Alice said nothing, opting instead to shake her head slowly from side to side. She had to restrain herself from doing anything stupid, especially now. The vampire slowly pulled back, to a safe distance where she could draw enough breath to be able to form words, "No Bella, you're not dying. Technically you aren't even sick."
"Then what is wrong with me?" Bella responded out of pure frustration. Here was someone who claimed to know what was wrong with her and instead of just telling her she was dangling the knowledge in front of her.
"I'm not entirely sure how to say it, but it has to do with the book that you found in the exam room." Alice responded slowly, resisting the urge to come closer.
"Uh huh," Bella responded knitting her brow. "That has something to do with what's wrong with me? It was a book on Greek mythology."
"I know it was, but was there a section that seemed to jump out at you when you read it?" The pixie asked in a soft voice that hid a level of desperation. Her visions, which still centered on the new addition to Forks, seemed to go blank when Alice added herself into the mix. She needed to know just how easy it was going to be to convince her that things long thought not to exist really did.
"Not rea…ya, actually there was." Bella said with wide eyes, "it was about Sirens or something." She forced her mind to turn off; she didn't need to start making more seemingly random connections.
"What if I told you that a lot of what is believed to be legends really existed?" Alice said not moving a fraction of an inch, her eyes still level with Bella's.
Silence strained the room, suffocating all thoughts before they were even given life; Bella inched closer as if what had to be said could never be said aloud. Her brown eyes began to lose themselves in Alice's topaz ones. Suddenly there was something more going on in this little room than there had previously. It was no longer about Bella's new identity as a siren that the two girls were focused on; it dawned on both of them that a tangible connection formed between them for a moment and then receded into the depths of their minds.
"What were we talking about?" Bella asked once the moment was over. Whatever just happened managed to erase all thoughts, all feelings, and all expectations from the young girl. Now she contented herself to do nothing but look into the eyes of her new friend.
"Why you've been hurting; I think." Alice answered. She wanted to come closer because of what could happen if she did, but she knew felt her control slipping, with each ticking second it became harder and harder to be in the same room with the new siren, and a slip now would easily kill them both.
"That's right." Bella said after another long paused filled with a stronger connection. Emboldened, she reached a shaking hand up and placed it gently on Alice's cheek; only to have the vampire recoil the same moment. A wash of shame filled the younger girl even before her friend recoiled.
"I'm sorry; I dunno what came over me." She said lowering her eyes away from Alice who, to her credit, never retreated to the other side of the room. Each set of eyes remained securely glued to the other.
"Maybe I should go," Alice said not making any attempts to stand up, "It's getting kinda late and I have homework I should be doing." She continued to say; not wanting to spoil whatever was going on between the two of them and yet knowing that she would have to for both their safeties.
"No," Bella said snapping Alice out of her ramblings, "you told me you knew what the hell was going on and you are in no way leaving until you tell me."
"What if you don't believe me?" Alice asked shifting closer to Bella for the first time, letting the younger siren's scent wash all over her, losing herself in such a simple pleasure for as long as she could.
"Are you going to say something crazier than I have an alien gestating in my back that's going to burst out and terrorize the world? If not then it's nothing crazier than what I've imagined." Bella said with a certain ferocity that Alice had never heard in her two months of watching every aspect of her life. Of course in all that time the seer had seen plenty of anger out of the siren, but that was mostly around that time of the month and it was a short lived anger that died out as soon as it was let out into the open. This anger smoldered deep within her eyes.
"Well, I suppose it's only about that crazy." Alice started continuing to inch closer, "Bella, you're a Siren."
"I was afraid you were going to say that." Bella said as if in a trance before finally finishing the faint that she started earlier in the afternoon. Her vision closed to a grey tunnel with no light at the end of it, just Alice's face.
Alice let out a small musical giggle as Bella sunk back into the narrow couch. "You took that better than I would have thought." Alice said to her, now, unconscious friend as she gently laid her down on the couch and wrapped a light wool blanket around her. As tempted as she was to lie down next to her, the pixie ultimately decided against it. In two months, Alice, without admitting it to herself (or to any of her family) had fallen in love with Bella. Gritting her teeth, Alice went back to sitting in the threadbare armchair.
So much she wanted to cry and knew that the tears would never fall. Without her visions she felt so blind, a vision right then would have told her if Bella would ever feel the same way about her, and that was maddening! For the very first time in all those weeks she would give anything to get those visions back, just so she would know how what to do.
"Alice," Bella groaned, slowly coming back into the conscious world.
In a flash the pixie was by her side, taking a warm hand in her icy ones. "I'm right here, Bella."
"Was I dreaming or did you really say that I was a siren?" Bella asked; lurching up to wrap her arms around Alice's waist, and burying her head in the crook of the vampire's neck at the same time.
"You weren't dreaming." Alice said running a hand over Bella's hair, "it's okay."
"What's any of it mean…do you know?"
"Shh," Alice said, "Baby steps. There's no need to rush into all of that." Her voice was filled with concern, but that didn't stop her from smiling at the contact with her secret love.
It gave her hope.
For the first time in months she had hope.
End Note: I know that this chapter is almost a thousand words shorter than my average chapter but in the first draft it was indeed much longer but I realized that I had a good end point and figured rolling the other over into the next chapter was a good idea. Oh and feel free to drop a review off if your muse is kind enough to come upon you.
