I do not own any part of S.M.'s brilliant world of the Twilight saga. This is simply my take on the what could have beens.
A.N.
Hey everyone! Well, it's now 2:42 in the morning and I am bordering on incoherency after working all night, trying to get this chapter finished. I need to sleep really really badly but since I forced myself to keep my eyes open long enough to get out that last sentence I though I might as well post it too...lol...Am I making sense? I think I might be delirious...Anyway, here's chapter eight! Hope y'all enjoy!
Bella's POV
Umm....Did I hear her right? I stood in the middle of my now tomato painted kitchen, clutching my hand and trying not to scream at the searing pain that had come from doing the dumbest thing I could think of without actually thinking at all, punching Jasper in his absurdly granite hard face, and looked at Margie in dumbstruck awe.
The past couple days, that had added itself nicely to my already aberrant excuse for a life, had to have contributed hugely to me breaking some freakishly abnormal world record. I doubted anyone in the history of forever could have even come close to the kind of crazy luck that I'd been born with. I knew that fate had some sick twisted fascination with me right from the start, but seriously, this was bordering on obsession.
"Stop staring at me like I'm some sort of leper." Margie said to both of us as she took in our astonished expressions. "Bella, seriously did you think you could go about hitting a stone wall without even a bruise?" Uhhh...How....?
"And Jasper, seriously dude, I know I just met you, but you just can't go around scaring the shite out of women and then start laughing like a silly hyena, it's just rude. Now, can we all just discuss this like mature adults and then go get Bella's poor hand looked at before she passes out again?" I still couldn't utter a word. I was too stunned and in way too much agony to even mutter anything but a mere whimper. Thankfully Jasper had regained his sense of coherent thought before me, and was able to speak with some semblance of calm, even if only for a second...
"Margie, If I may be so bold as to ask, and please just humor me, but how is it that you know what the hell I am?" I cringed a bit as his voice raised in exasperation at the end of his question. I knew exactly how he felt, like there were now a large herd of completely intrusive, enormous pink elephants standing in the middle of my small kitchen.
Margie just looked at him as if he'd grown an extra head, and with an annoyed chuckle replied "Despite what you may think, cowboy, I'm not as dense as I might look" then she took my hand back in hers and studied it as I winced in pain. I almost wanted to laugh at the screwed up look she had managed to paint onto Jaspers face but as my expression must obviously be close to matching his I kept my mouth shut.
She looked back to Jasper with her brows raised as if waiting for him to say something else, but he just stood there, once again switching into confounded statue mode. "Anything?...No?..." She asked and then shaking her head in annoyance at him, let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, I can see we're getting nowhere here, so why don't we go get this checked out?" Oh thank you... I had begun to think that we'd be standing here all day and the pain in my hand was really starting to overwhelm me.
I didn't have the chance to answer "yes, please", before Margie took my arm and began leading me to the door. She turned around to Jasper, who was still standing there with a very confused, slightly glazed look on his face and asked "You gona give us a ride or what?" Wow, she was bold, and as I was still tongue-tied, and feeling kind of out-of-body with this insane situation, I fully appreciated her gull. I had absolutely no problem letting her take the lead.
I looked at Jasper who had yet to move and began pleading with my eyes, hoping that he would just snap out of it long enough to drive us to the hospital, because I was now seriously on the verge of losing consciousness again. I sighed with halfhearted relief when I saw him give a curt nod of his head and watched as he walked ahead of us out the door with a scowl now planted on his lips. This was going to be a long day.
Jasper's POV
I'm going to keep it together...I'm not going to lose it...I held onto my internal mantra, repeating it to myself over and over as I walked ahead of them out to my truck. I knew if I had said anything else to Margie at this point, I wouldn't be able to keep up the patience that thankfully I'd held onto so far. The chick had balls, I had to give her that, but the fact that she knew what I was, irked me.
I should have known something was off. Most humans, when faced with one of my kind would at least experience an increase in heart rate but not her. Even though I had felt traces of suspicion and protectiveness coming from her after I'd given her the explanation of why I was there, her most prominent emotion was a palpable calm, it just wasn't normal and I chastised myself for not taking more notice of it. I should be use to these crazy surprises by now, but I wasn't. I didn't like to be knocked off guard.
I knew her knowledge must have something to do with the Denali sisters, but as I had insisted that they could go home this morning, telling them that I was sure I could handle the rest on my own and would catch up with them again in a few days if all went well, I couldn't exactly go back to the hotel and get answers from them. What was it about my family that gave them the need to put us all in compromising situations by disclosing our secret to humans? Hadn't Tanya and Kate learned anything from Edward's situation? I was surprised that the Volturi hadn't caught wind of it yet. That was something we truly did not need.
My nerves were shot as I sat, squeezed into the drivers seat next to the two women, as they silently waited for me to start the truck. I glanced at Bella out of the corner of my eye and noticed the glistening of tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes and tried to block out the strained feelings of distress and confusion that poured out of her. I felt terrible knowing that my showing up last night and then again this morning had wreaked such havoc on her, emotionally and physically. I was off to anything but a good start and I hadn't yet even let her in on why I was here in the first place.
I forced myself to calm down a bit on the way to the hospital and after clearing my head enough, felt that I should say something to Bella. With the shock of her hitting me, though I knew I'd had it coming, I hadn't even had the common decency to try to calm her, instead deciding to stand around like a useless dick while she tried her best to hold it together. I really was turning into an asshole, stress did not become me.
"Bella, how are you holding up?" I asked, trying to put as much sincerity as I could into the question. I knew how she was holding up, she was ready to crack, but it's the only thing I could think of to let her know I at least cared how she was doing. Her eyes went wide and I felt her shock at my finally speaking after the long stretch of silence I had going, and then, timidly, she looked back down at her lap.
"I'll be fine, it's not like I've never broken a bone before" she said laughing humorlessly to herself and I couldn't suppress a chuckle of my own, remembering how clumsy Bella had been back in high school and how amusing and endearing we had all found it.
"Oh no, not you" I said jokingly and this time when Bella laughed I felt her tension ease a bit and noticed as she began to relax. Margie caught it too and gave me a smile of appreciation. I was still a little irritated with her, but I couldn't help but give her a small smile of my own. I was glad that after all Bella had been through, she had found such a caring friend, even if she was a bit ballsy.
We rode the rest of the way to the hospital in a now companionable quiet, no longer as tense as when we had left, but not yet ready to discuss what had happened, that would be a discussion for a time when Bella wasn't already on the verge of tears. I parked the truck in the emergency loop that sat in front of the large brick building and helped them out after telling them that I'd wait here in the truck until they were through. My day had been crazy enough without tempting fate by standing around in what was by my standards, equivalent to a candy factory, plus I definitely could use the alone time to think.
I hadn't exactly left home with a planned script of what I would say, hoping that once I had found Bella that things would just sort of fall into place, and now, with everything that had gone wrong, I was nowhere close to knowing what to do. Maybe I could suggest she come back with me to New Hampshire for a visit... Scratch that...After seeing the way she had reacted to my sudden appearance, I wasn't so sure she'd take to that idea too well. "Hey Bella, I know I tried to kill you and all, but do you think you could come with me back home and fix the people who screwed you over?"...yeah, don't see that happening. Maybe I could trick her into it and arrange for some travel agency to say that she had won a vacation and then just sort of have my family run into her...But again with her over-reactive nature, that plan just reeked of a heart attack. Ugh! What the hell was I going to do? I needed to come up with something that wasn't going to cause more problems than I already had to deal with.
I was starting to really wish I had brought Alice with me so that she could look into her visions and tell me what to do, and then I sighed and felt the sadness begin to creep up on me...My Alice...I missed having her with me. She had been such a comfort all these years. Not just because her ability made things so much easier, but because with her always bright and cheerful nature, I couldn't help but to smile and believe that everything would always work out. I really missed her and wished I could call just to hear her voice, but I knew if I did, that there was a strong possibility that I wouldn't be able to stay away any longer and that was a chance I just couldn't take.
After pulling myself out of my wandering thoughts of home and happier times, I settled back into my seat, putting my head against the headrest and decided to just take this thing one step at a time. I would keep my room at the hotel and just tell Bella that I had come to Anchorage after needing to get away from everyday life for a while on my own, and had just happened to bump into her, then, If she bought that story, I would just go with it and let the pieces fall where they may. The plan wasn't brilliant but it was the best I could come up with at the moment. I just hoped that she wouldn't mind too much, having me around.
A.N.
Thank you all for reading! And as always, please R&R so I can wake up with a nice morning dose of happy time!!
