Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Twilight. They all belong to Stephanie Meyers. She is a genius.
Author's Notes: Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. Also thank you for all the hits on this story.
Genuinef250: I know it's hard, but yes your questions will be answered soon with the next few chapters. I don't want to spoil the story...sorry.
"Well Alice, I have been a sniper for the past 4 years and before that I was EOD with airborne training."
"What is EOD?"
"EOD stands for Explosives Ordnance Disposal. I got to play with a lot of things that went BOOM, Emmett."
Chapter 10: Shock Factor
Edward's POV
My mind was filled with the thoughts of my family after they found out what Bella had been doing in the military for the last 8 years...
Rosalie: "She is a killer for the government, I can't believe it. She just told us she kills people and is acting like it is no big deal! She is acting like she is proud of this fact!!!"
Alice: "This doesn't sound like Bella. She never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings let alone kill them. I can't believe this is true."
Emmett: "She knows how to blows stuff up...COOL"
Esme: "What has made Bella want to do those kind of jobs. She could have picked anything. Is this what she wanted to do?"
Carlisle: "Well,she is a solider and so I can see she is proud of her choices and her life."
Jasper: "EDWARD...Listen to me. Please let her talk more before you say anything. I can feel the guilt, rage and sadness from you. We all need to hear her out first so stay calm. Don't blow up at her. I know you want to but you need to understand first. I am pretty sure she has a good reason, if I am right about this."
Jasper was helping me stay calm but he was blocking his other thoughts. I could tell he has known for a while and from the last three days he has been trying to figure out some mysteries of Bella's life.
No one had said anything for a few minutes. Bella was giving us time to absorb this new information before continuing. I knew I had to get control of myself, she was watching me, expecting my reaction to be bad. I am sure my face showed a calm exterior but I felt like I wanted to explode. I also knew Jasper was right, I wouldn't get answers if I told her how stupid and reckless that was. She promised she wouldn't do anything like that, how could she break that promise.
She could have very easily died doing those things. This explains the hidden room full of explosives and guns in Texas. But, she was a "danger magnet" in Forks, now she is surrounds herself with things that go BOOM!!! What is she thinking.
"Well from your reactions, I can tell you guys didn't know. That brings to one question, Alice haven't you seen what I have been doing the last 8 years?" Bella finally broke the silence in the room.
"Bella, we didn't know, honestly I have been trying to see your future for years and all I get is foggy images with movement but I can't make out anything." Alice replied to Bella with a sharp glare at me.
"Don't you dare say a word to me about breaking my promise to not look into Bella's future Edward." Alice shouted at me in her mind, making me flinch.
Bella noticed the look Alice gave me, "So I am guessing Edward didn't want you to look into my future then. Well, that explains a lot more about why you guys just now showed up. I just thought you didn't give a shit about me."
I had to say something, "Bella we just wanted to let you have a normal human life. I didn't want us to interfere with your life so, you could have the life you deserved." Jasper was worried about something but still blocking his thoughts from me.
"Dear, we have always loved you and have thought about everyday since we left Forks." Esme was trying to reassure Bella.
"Well, I guess I have been living a normal life and deserved every minute of it" Bella made it sound like she had the exact opposite experience of her statement.
Jasper had a confused look on his face "What exactly does that mean, Bella?" He made it sound like he didn't believe her.
"It means that I need to make a pot of coffee and this will be a long night." Bella headed towards the kitchen.
Jasper's POV
After Bella went to the kitchen, Edward asked me what she is feeling.
"I don't know. It's like she isn't there. I can't feel anything coming off her. It has been baffling me ever since she screamed at Rose. I knew I should be feeling her anger but I felt nothing but what Rose was sending me." That is one thing I can't figure out. Something has changed dramatically since Forks when Alice and I could use our gifts on Bella. Now we both get little to no reading.
"What do you mean, Jasper? She has to be feeling something, right?" Edward was as dumbfounded as I was.
"Edward, we need to know what has happened the past eight years. The clues to a lot of our questions might be in her history. Just let her tell us at her own pace and the more detail we can get the more we might understand." I wanted everyone to understand more about why Bella being a solider is an honor not the horrible things they all assumed.
About then Bella came back with a cup of coffee in hand and smile at me. "So Jasper, I can tell from the funeral and the most recent conversations that you might have been in the military also?" Bella was observant as usual.
"Once upon a time I was a Major in the Confederate Army. It was a short-lived military career." I replied. She just nodded her head towards me in understanding and sat down.
"If at anytime you feel uncomfortable about anything I say, please feel that you can leave and not hurt my feelings. Reliving a soldiers life even in stories can be hard." She was worried about upsetting me but, I was honestly more curious of this modern military.
"Thank you for that consideration but my memories have faded over the years. It won't be uncomfortable at all for me. If you need to stop, we will understand also. Somethings are harder to tell others about." I wanted her to tell us when she was comfortable.
Carlisle reiterated with "We have plenty of time so we don't want to rush you and cause any additional pain from telling your story. We have all done things that others don't always see the same way we do."
"I have no issue with telling everything to you but I know that it might take awhile to get to everything. I hope you all can get a better idea of who I am and what I have done before I tell you about all the major changes in my life." Bella was cautious about our new effort to treat her as an equal.
Bella's POV
Taking a sip of my coffee (not for the caffeine, that has no effect on me) which I have found I enjoyed a good cup of coffee with a strong flavor and warmth. Glancing around at the Cullen's, stopping at Rosalie's face which was in a hard grimace and disgust.
"Rosalie, I can see you have an opinion you want to share, go ahead." Her comments have always been blunt and she never sugar-coated anything, which I like.
"We all just agree to respect you but this is hard to deal with. You kill people and we have tried for centuries to not kill innocent people. How are we supposed to react?" Rose was holding back.
How can I communicate this to them? "As a sniper, the most prominent fact of my job is that I kill people. There are aspects of my job that, as vampires, you may be able to understand better. First, is that snipers use fear as a weapon against enemies to help win battles. I have seen you all use fear in different ways to get humans to not get too close or stop pursuit of the "What if" fact. By stopping one key person from killing hundreds of innocent people sends fear to the others who wish to do the same. Others have no idea where I am and as you all know the unknown, unfamiliar, and unseen instills fear which most of the time causes them to run. Another aspect is I have witnessed hardworking innocent men, woman and children killed for no reason. If you all could stop hundreds of people from dying with killing a few purely evil men , would you? I look at my job as saving people not killing people. I have saved innocent people caught in the middle of the war, enemy troops who run out of fear to live another day, and the most important in my brothers in arms. So yes, Rosalie I do kill people, but most are not innocent. As to your reaction, then look at your self and ask the same thing when I first knew what you where. How did I react?"
"Bella, you can't scare anyone, how can anyone fear you? Not even a little puppy is scared of you." Emmett chuckled with a grin
"When I am on a mission, no one can see where I am. Most the time I am over ½ mile away in total concealment. They don't know if I am the size of you or Alice. And most of the time just knowing that I can kill them with one shot and they can't shot back, causes them hide or run." I knew they would have a hard time seeing me as anything then the shy, clumsy, girl from Forks.
"But why did you decided on doing this? Killing is still killing and you could have done anything besides this." Rose asked me.
Here comes the cryptic side of me until they know about everything. "Almost all the choices in my life have been taken away from me. The direction in my life was not a choice, it was my destiny. Ideally, my life shouldn't have included taking others lives away and I wish I could have not needed to. I have learned how precious life is and that fate doesn't give you a choice. You just have to deal with it the best way you can." I closed my eyes and yawned.
"You are saying you had no choice and that you didn't want to take lives. So, what happened that brought you down this path?" Edward eyes showed guilt and pain like I had never seen in him before.
"Edward, since you have met me, when has anything happened that made any sense? What happened that bought us together and when has a vampire and a human ever fallen in love? The odds of my life after you and the rest of the family leaving being normal was not in the stars." I looked around the room again. "I know that we have a lot more to talk about and I will tell you what happened, I promise. Tomorrow morning I need to go to base for a few hours just to sign out on leave. After that we will have plenty of time to talk and get all of the questions answered. I need to head to bed." I yawned again.
"Of course, Bella, we didn't mean to keep you up. Please dear head to bed. We will be here" Esme came over and gave me a hug before I started up stairs. I turned back to the family, "I have no problem with you all making yourselves at home here. Also just to let you know I am a very light sleeper so don't be surprised if I wake up if you come into my room."
"Thank you and we will stay out of your room so you can get some sleep." Carlisle looked over at Edward. I knew that if Carlisle didn't say it out loud for me to hear Edward would be in my room tonight. We all needed to hear what has happened over the last 8 years, especially me. I had my own questions for Edward about the letter and what he had been doing after he left.
Heading to bed, I was more relaxed than the prior few days. I got into some sweats and fell asleep without too much on my mind. Tomorrow afternoon I will begin to go over everything but tonight was a shocking revelation for them. My mind was starting to over think things too much as I laid there. I need to slow down.
Buzz, Buzz, Buzz my alarm clock telling me it was another day. I don't even remembering falling asleep and it felt like I didn't even sleep that long. Today I skipped running my curcuit like normal. Instead I headed to shower and change into my uniform. We didn't have a workout on base today due to the units leave was starting.
Heading down stairs I was greeted with a smile from Esme with a cup of coffee in her hand for me.
"I wasn't sure if you ate breakfast this early, so Jasper suggested just to make you a cup of coffee for the road." I had to smile. Esme wanted to do everything she could for me.
"Thank you Esme. This is just perfect to start my day. It's weird being taken care of like this, but nice at the same time." The coffee smelt perfect.
"We will be heading to Denver for some items, do you need us to get you anything Bella?" Esme was always thinking of others.
"Actually, can you drop off my uniform to the dry cleaners? Let me go grab it from the closet." I set down my coffee and ran to my room to grab it. When I got to my room I saw Alice in my closet going through my clothes. "Alice, what are you doing?" She poked her head out of my closet and smiled.
"You have so many cute clothes and I wanted to see what you had so we could build on it" She was so happy. I had forgotten how much she obsessed over clothes.
"I need to get my uniform out of there, please" I walked around her to grab it.
"Why do you need that? Jasper told me you only wear that for special occassions." Alice was looking at my dress blues in a way that scared me.
"I am getting them dry cleaned because I need them after I get back off leave. I can see that look in you eye Alice, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!! My uniform is not to be altered or changed in any way got it?" This uniform costs too much money to have the pixie assault it.
"Don't worry Bella, I will make sure she doesn't do anything to it" Jasper said to me from the doorway of my room.
"Thank you Jasper. I need to head out" I started for the door when I was blocked by Alice.
"What's the special occasion you need your uniform for?" Alice inquired
"I have orders that I have to attend the military Ball here after my leave. It no big deal but the command does this mainly for the spouses and signification others." Answering her while passing her in my doorway.
"OH!! A Ball with dancing and stuff. That sounds like fun. Awesome we can do some dress shopping for you." Alice was bouncing again.
"No Alice I have to wear my uniform and I have been ordered to attend not to have fun." Heading down the stairs, handing the uniform to Esme with the name of a local dry cleaners and then out to the garage. I looked back to see Alice was still way too excited about this.
Driving to base thinking about how I was going to start explaining Victoria, the pack, my life in the military and my "freak" classification when I got back home. The one I was most hesitant about what telling them about what I am now.