OK, a LOT happens in this chapter. So much that I considered breaking it down into 2 parts, but I was told to keep it long so here it is. I don't want to distract you, so I'll save the Really Big News for last.
Chapter 21: The Second Coming
After Future Peter's departure - hopefully back to his own time - Angela took awhile to fall asleep again. This was mostly due to the fact that she wasn't certain Future Peter had actually gone back where he'd come from; for all she knew he could still be here, making who knew what alterations to the timeline. At least he couldn't possibly do anything worse than when he'd told Claire to stay at home, inadvertently leading her to become brain food for Sylar.
Eventually she did manage to sleep - and, of course, dream. She woke up knowing that Peter had indeed succeeded in changing the future. Something very different was set to happen now; however, the chances of it happening on its own were doubtful. Once in a while the future needed a little push to get on track. Angela Petrelli was quite willing to provide that push.
To this end, she dialed Peter's cell phone and asked to speak to Miss Swan. Peter asked her to hold on a second; Angela hoped he knew better than to try pretending his clumsy little paramour wasn't there. She heard a few muffled, indistinct words as he covered the phone's speaker with one hand and addressed someone else, and then a hesitant female voice said, "Hello, Mrs. Petrelli?"
"Hello, Isabella. I understand last night was pretty rough for you."
"Yes..." There was a soft sound of footsteps as Bella relocated to someplace more private. "Mrs. Petrelli, I have to ask-" Bella hesitated.
"Yes, dear?"
"Does last night have anything to do with why you said I should stay away from Peter? Because you knew that I was supposed to...you know..."
"Precisely. Your death would have made Peter unhappy for the rest of his life. I know I may have seemed cruel at the time, but trust me, if he had to lose you either way it would've been easier for him to believe you simply didn't care for him anymore."
Bella's reply was unexpectedly sharp. "You're wrong. Rejection from someone you love never makes anything easier."
"Yes, well, it's all water under the bridge now, isn't it? Still, I owe you an apology. I hope our next meeting will be different."
"You're apologizing? Well...thanks, I guess. Um, if you don't mind me asking, why do you care about making up with me? I couldn't help getting the impression you don't like me very much."
"It was never personal, dear - I have nothing against you. Besides, the future's changed after last night. Both our lives will be more pleasant if we get along, given the new circumstances."
"What circumstances?" Bella asked apprehensively.
Angela smiled.
Meanwhile, in Forks
"What do you think Angela wanted to talk to Bella for?"
"I don't know, Claire."
"If she's still upset about us catalyzing that stupid formula, she should take it up with me. Or maybe it's something else - was it just me, or did anybody else feel like Angela didn't like Bella for some reason?"
Elle set her yogurt cup down and stuck her spoon in it, glancing slyly at Claire. "I dunno; why don't you go snatch the phone and ask her?"
"I don't think I need to do that - Bella can handle Angela, and if she can't she can always hang up on her. I just wondered-"
Claire didn't have long to wonder, because at that moment Bella stormed into the room, looking as if she could almost shoot laser beams from her eyes. "You," she growled at Peter, "have got some explaining to do."
"Um, okay?"
"Outside. Now."
"Okay," Peter said again. He followed her out, feeling somewhat apprehensive but mostly puzzled over what Angela had said this time and, more importantly, why Bella blamed him for it. "What's the matter, Bella?"
"The matter," she snapped, "is that your mother just referred to me as her future daughter-in-law!"
Peter's immediate reaction was to question whether he'd heard correctly. If he had, then it implied one of two things: either the world had gone completely insane and Bella would somehow end up with Nathan (unlikely), or that she was going to marry...him. Yeah, that definitely seemed more in the realm of possibility, though not by much. Really, they'd never even considered it!
Meanwhile, Bella was still talking - ranting, actually. "...think agreeing to get married would stick in my memory if I'd done it. Which I have not!" She paused to take a breath and finally noticed that Peter was just standing there, looking rather dazed. "So? I just found out from your mother that we're supposedly getting married when I should've heard it from you. What have you got to say for yourself?"
"That I'm as surprised as you are. Trust me, if I'd planned this I would've just asked you."
Bella eyed him suspiciously. "So you had no idea when Angela asked to speak to me-?" Peter shook his head no. "And you weren't planning on...proposing?"
"Absolutely not."
"Oh! Well, good. I'm glad to see you haven't totally lost your mind."
"Is losing my mind a prerequisite to asking you to marry me?"
"Well, yeah." Bella was now watching him curiously, her talent for reading him like a book coming into play. "You're not disappointed are you?"
Disappointed, Peter wasn't; he was in no more of a hurry to take this step than she was, and rather resented Angela shoving the idea on them just because it was what she wanted to happen, or thought was best for them, or whatever the hell her motivation might be. He didn't see any reason for Bella to act like it was completely disgusting, though. And what exactly did her attitude mean for them? Although Peter didn't feel like their relationship needed legal documentation, the fact was that he couldn't imagine spending the rest of his life with anyone else - if he was ever going to marry anyone, he wanted it to be her. He'd thought she felt the same, but apparently not.
Bella looked horrified when he told her this. "You've got it all wrong, Peter! I want to be with you forever. The thing is, in my mind marriage and forever don't necessarily go together, certainly not when I'm only eighteen. That was how old Charlie and Renee were when they got married, and look how that turned out - they rushed into things and it ended up destroying their whole relationship! And didn't your parents' marriage end in attempted murder?"
"Okay, I see your point. I don't want you feeling like you have to poison me to get away or something."
"That isn't funny," Bella scolded, swatting him on the arm. "I could never feel trapped with you - you know that, don't you? What we have is the most important part of my life - way too important to risk for the sake of some silly societal convention or somebody else's expectations. Besides," she reluctantly added, "I'm not saying never; I'm just saying not now. Angela can see things from the really distant future, can't she?"
Not being sure on the exact scope of his mother's ability, Peter merely shrugged. "I guess so. Just because she's a precog doesn't make her right about everything either - some of her visions have never been more than dreams, and there've probably been some things she never saw coming."
The Cullens' house, two days later
Edward picked up his cell phone, dialed - then put it down without making the call. For the seventh time. Just do it, you coward! He snatched up the phone again, dialed rapidly, and placed the call before he could chicken out an eighth time.
Tanya picked up on the first ring. "Hi, Edward."
"Hello."
"What's up?"
"I just wondered...whether Irina has had any luck finding Laurent?"
"No, she hasn't," Tanya said with a sigh.
"Carlisle's advice about looking in Forks didn't pan out, then?" Edward didn't know why he bothered asking; even if Irina had gone to Forks, she wouldn't have known to look for Bella's grave and wouldn't have visited it if she had. It was just that, because Bella had lived there and it was where they had been together, Forks was still the only place Edward thought of as home. If Irina had been there, Edward wanted to know about it - wanted to hear that the dreary little town had been somehow altered by Bella's death, that it had affected more than just him.
But, "I'm afraid not. We all went with her, and..." Tanya paused, frowning in confusion. Vampires had flawless memories, but the trip to Forks was strangely fuzzy. Why had the whole coven gone, anyway? They'd had no reason for going besides Carlisle's tip; Irina could've followed up on that suggestion by herself, couldn't she? She's our sister, and she's really upset over Laurent being gone this long. Of course we all wanted to help her search for him, she rationalized.
"Tanya?" Edward asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, as I was saying, we all went. There's absolutely nothing useful in Forks."
At that moment, Edward's phone was taken out of his hand. "Hey Tanya, it's Alice," chirped the girl who resembled a pixie more than a vampire. "Sorry, but Edward has to go now. Bye!" She hung up.
"Alice!"
Alice fixed her brother with a stern (and completely unrepentant) glare. "Edward, it's almost time for your therapist's appointment."
He groaned. "I don't want to see that idiot again, Alice. She's no help at all."
"What d'you want - for her to bring Bella back? Nobody can do that, Edward. You agreed to do this and try to move on, and we expect you to keep your word. Just think how Carlisle and Esme will feel if you don't."
###
Reminding Edward how much his depression hurt his family successfully got him out of his funk and out the door, and he arrived in Dr. Holly Burke's waiting room a full ten minutes ahead of time. Unfortunately, Dr. Burke was running late instead of early for once, meaning Edward actually had to use the waiting room for its intended purpose: waiting.
This minor inconvenience alone wouldn't have been enough to put him in a bad mood, but he had some unwanted company as well. He'd never seen the man here before; a quick scan of the stranger's mind revealed that he was a regular patient, though he normally saw Dr. Burke earlier in the day. Why he had traded his usual morning appointment for one in the early evening Edward neither knew nor cared. The only thing he did care about - that bothered him, in fact - was that the strange man kept staring his way.
He pretended not to feel the man's dark eyes on him for five minutes, then snapped. "Can I help you?" he asked sharply.
The man was appropriately chagrined. "I'm sorry, I was just looking at your watch."
"Yes, Dr. Burke is running late." Edward turned his watch so the other man could more easily read it.
"I don't need the time," he said somewhat awkwardly. "It's just...your watch."
"I beg your pardon?" The watch was nothing special, and Edward was beginning to suspect that this man might need therapy more than he did - that he might be an actual nut. "What about my watch?"
"It's three seconds fast. I can fix it for you, if you like; I'm pretty familiar with that brand."
Edward hadn't noticed this watch had a brand name, but when he checked there it was, printed in black on the miniature clock's face. "Sylar?"
Outside the Swans' house, same night
BPOV
"Bye, see you tomorrow."
"Okay. Peter should be home from work by now; I'll tell him you said hi."
"Thanks." Gathering my cover-up, bag of sunscreens, and towel - making sure the latter wasn't trailing on the ground where I could trip over it - I hopped out of Claire's car. She, Elle, and I had spent the day at the beach, taking advantage of the rare warm weather. Temperatures in Forks would probably start dropping all too soon - say, around late July - but even the thought of autumn's early arrival couldn't dampen my spirits. By the time it got really cold, I wouldn't be living here anymore.
A slight shiver of anticipation shot down my spine as I realized that my time in Forks was drawing to a close. In just a few more weeks Claire and I would be leaving for college. In just a few weeks I would be living full-time with her and Elle...and Peter. As I traipsed upstairs to deposit my things in my room and then down the hall to the bathroom, I wondered idly whether our plans for this fall had any bearing on Angela's prediction, which had remained stubbornly in the back of my mind. After all, I'd never known a precog to be wrong before - their visions always came true in one way or another. And Angela said she'd seen me marrying Peter...
As I lathered my favorite strawberry-scented shampoo into my hair, I became aware that my tuneless humming had somehow morphed into a wedding march, though I made it sound more like a dirge. Ugh! I turned the hot water to cold and purposely stuck my face right under it.
###
"Bells, can you come down here?"
"Be there in a sec!" I shed my towel and pulled on my sweats, fumbling in my haste and hoping that the pasta I'd put on the stove before taking my shower wasn't burning. Charlie would be no help at all if it was, and I really didn't want to have to start dinner all over again...
The pasta was fine. "Dad, why'd you call me?" I turned away from the stove - and my heart stopped. It wasn't Charlie standing behind me. "You? You can't be here - you're dead!"
Arthur Petrelli moved closer, trapping me between himself and the cabinets, smiling the cold, dangerous smile that had haunted my nightmares for weeks after my return from Pinehearst. "Hello again, Miss Swan."
WHAT? You didn't really think a little explosion would be enough to kill Arthur Petrelli, did you? And Sylar found his way back into the story during one of my brainstorming sessions - I'm still not sure how. Snap.
Now for the Really Big News: this is the last chapter of Resilience, and it's actually one more than I'd expected since I thought there would only be 20 chapters maximum. This storyline will conclude (for real this time) in Revenant, coming soon to a computer screen near you. Till then, thanks for reading!