Chapter 21

Headache, dizziness, blood coming from the nose; those symptoms could mean a number of horrifying things, but the physical diagnosis was inconsequential because I knew the real cause of Bella's sudden illness…was Bella.

"Baby, you have to listen to me!" I told her intensely, demanding her to focus and keep her eyes on mine. "You have to stop this."

"I c-c-can't," she said terrified.

"Yes, you can. You have to. You're the only one who can."

A tear spilled over her cheek. "I don't know how…I just feel so…dizzy."

"Bella, fight it!"

"How?" she cried.

"You remembered me before we met. Search your mind. Search your soul. You are the smartest, strongest person I've ever known. You can do absolutely anything, if you just try."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to be searching for."

"Try," I said sternly.

"I am trying! You…you said Jane didn't know…she didn't mean to do it…if she didn't know, how…how could I ever begin to know?" she asked brokenly. "I'm just so dizzy….It hurts so badly."

I sunk to the ground beside her, and pulled her into me so I could hold her securely to my chest. I was at a complete loss. I wanted to be angry, that was the emotion I had always escaped to in the past, but as much as I tried, there was just no anger left inside of me. Jane had been the undeserving victim of my anger for too long, and I couldn't do that again, not to Bella, she needed me to stay strong…she needed my unconditionally unyielding love…

"Bella," I whispered softly before looking down at her in my arms. She looked back up at me, but her shallow breaths and glossed over stare meant she only had moments left…moments I refused to waste. "I love you….I always have… no one but you - don't leave here thinking anything less, okay? Let go of everything else, just remember the good. Remember…jumping on beds, and cliff diving, and food fights…Think about this place, Bella….think about the sunset, think about everything that made you you. Let go of everything else."

One more tear escaped her eyes before they went completely blank and her breathing stopped. I sat there holding her for a moment, just completely numb from the petrifying reality of what just happened.

Bella was gone.

I just didn't understand it. How was it even possible? Bella couldn't just be gone. I knew it was what had been predicted, but the truth was that I never really allowed myself to believe it would actually happen. I couldn't accept it, and I refused to.

"Bella, no!" I screamed out. "Please, please, please come back," I begged her desperately. "Baby please, don't leave me."

I continued to plead her return while holding her tightly and unconsciously rocking her back and forth, and all the while I was crying harder than I ever cried in my existence. I just felt so helpless, and I didn't know what else to do.

"Edward!" I vaguely heard someone call from somewhere in the distance, but I didn't turn to look at its source because I just didn't care. Bella was gone, and I wanted to be gone with her.

"Edward what happened?" I was asked. I would have continued to ignore the person, but when her small hand invaded my hell by caressing Bella's lifeless cheek, I reflexively looked up into my sister's eyes.

"I don't know…she's just…gone," I somehow choked out.

There were several low rumbling sounds that, if I was in a better mental state, I would have recognized as being cars pulling up behind us, but I just didn't care enough to even think about it.

"Bella!" I heard a man call, and I knew right away Charlie was there. "Oh god no!" he screamed.

"Oh shit," I heard Emmett say from somewhere else, and that was when I realized everyone was there. I had no idea how they found us, but I was grateful; as agonizing as it was to even breathe in that moment, deep down, under all that grief, it felt right to have all of our family together right then.

"I need to get her to the hospital," Charlie said, suddenly snapping me out of my numbing daze.

"Charlie, I'm so sorry," Esme's voice carried.

"No! To hell with that! She's going to be fine. I'm taking her to the hospital," Charlie snapped, refusing to give up. "Now move out of the way," he told me.

"I can't," I somehow managed to say.

"Let her go so I can take her to help!" Charlie shouted in my face.

"No," I repeated.

"Edward, she's gone, son; her father needs a chance to say goodbye," Carlisle told me gently, trying to convince me to give her to Charlie.

"I'm not letting her go!" I said forcefully.

"It's not your choice!" Charlie hissed. "I'm taking her to the hospital, and there's no way in hell you're going to stop me!"

When I still didn't move, he knelt down and pulled her into his arms against my will, which basically felt like he was ripping my heart out of my chest. "Okay, please just…wait!" I said in a panic. Charlie refused to give her back to me, so I just took her face in my hands and kissed her one last time on the forehead. "Bella, I'm so sorry I couldn't save you," I told her. "I'm so, so sorry. I love you so much."

"She's going to be fine," Charlie insisted, before jerking her away from me.

The moment my contact with her skin broke, something happened - There was a bright flash, followed by what almost felt like a sonic pulse wave from a nuclear bomb. The force of it hit my chest and sent me flying backwards through the air in slow motion, but when my body finally hit the ground, my life started flashing before my eyes in reverse... From Bella dying in my arms, to falling in love with her, to meeting her for the first time in my house, and everything in between, but I also saw my empty two hundred years before her, and the vision finally came to an end in that little white church on top of the hill, except I still didn't wake up.

I looked around the church with wide eyes, and as much as I tried to see past the vision to the real world, I simply couldn't escape it.

I had to have been dreaming, except I never experienced a dream that felt so real. The cool dryness, the smell of fresh paint, the feeling of the warm breeze rushing in through the back open door, the sound of shocked gasps echoing through the great room….

Everyone was right where they should have been, just like every other time I dreamed of that day before – Carlisle up at the podium, Esme in the front pew, Emmett and Rosalie towards the left, Alice a few rows in front of me, and Jasper off to the far right – everything was just as it always was, except it wasn't the same; the looks on their faces all reflected my own befuddlement.

And then I felt her as clear as the day it happened.

Jane was there.

I turned slowly to face her, but that dark aggressive look in her eyes that had haunted me for so long was completely gone, and all that was left was shocked perplexity.

I had no idea what was happening, it felt so real, but how could that be possible? The one thing I knew for certain however, was that I couldn't remain idle.

I stood and slowly walked over to Jane, and then ever so carefully put my hands on her shoulders. "Jane?" I said quietly. She looked up at me and her confusion only doubled, but I immediately knew why. "Bella?" I whispered. They may have been of the same soul, but I'd know the difference anywhere, regardless of the body she was in.

"Where are we?" she asked quietly.

"Uh… church," I said, still unsure myself.

She continued to look around baffled, and then she seemed to make eye contact with each of the Cullens there, before looking back at me. "Holy shit, this is the church, isn't it?" she said with way more enthusiasm than I was expecting.

"I'm…not exactly sure what's happening here," I said honestly.

"I'll tell you what's happening," Alice said excitedly. "Bella broke the curse and brought us back to the beginning."

"I...I…I didn't mean to," Bella-Jane said to me quickly. "I don't know what happened…I was dizzy, and you kept telling me you loved me, but then everything went dark and I felt like I was leaving you, but I didn't want to leave you… Then it was light again, and we were all here."

"But why couldn't you leave us in 2014?" Emmett whined. "They don't even have cars here."

"I think this is just the way it works," Carlisle said gently. "When a curse is broken, it goes back to the way it was."

"It makes sense," Esme agreed.

"Yeah, but it's not the way it was," Rose disputed. "We all remember everything, and now Jane is Bella…You are Bella, right?" she asked, suddenly unsure. "I mean, you look like Jane, but you sound like Bella."

"Um…I'm me…I think," Bella replied. "Wait, so I really look like Jane?" she asked surprised before spinning around and trying to see her reflection in the church window. "Whoa, that's…different."

"What do you remember?" Jasper asked her. "I mean, besides what you already said about being dizzy and all that."

"Everything about me," she replied automatically, and then she thought about it for a minute. "Hold on… I think I remember this place too…I think I remember Jane's life, but…it's almost like remembering a movie I haven't seen in a while. It's a little fuzzy, and it's like I watched everything happen instead of it happening to me."

"Do you remember any of your other lives?" Alice asked curiously.

Bella's face went blank as she thought about it, and then she shrugged. "A little…Again, it's like remembering old movies…all of them so different, and yet all so dark. My life as me, Bella, is the most clear, and they're the only memories that feel like mine. It's really freaking weird," she said lightly.

"So…what do we do now?" Esme asked, which made us all look around at each other, hoping someone had an answer.

"I suppose we just try to go back to our lives," Carlisle said with forced enthusiasm.

"This is going to suck," Emmett grumbled as he got up and walked past us out the door.

"And we don't even have the luxury of killing ourselves for relief, do we?" Rose asked as she followed Em out. She didn't wait for the answer, because none of us really needed one. The curse had been broken and we weren't dreaming; we were back in the mortal lives we were always meant to live.

"This really is going to suck," Alice said as she plopped back into the pew which was basically her home away from home back then.

"No it won't," Jasper contradicted. "We won't let it," he told her with a wink and an outstretched hand.

Alice smiled widely at him. "You sure you want to be seen with a town loon like me?"

"Everyone in this town can go fuck themselves for all I care," Jasper replied with a grin. "You know, I do believe I have my own house here."

"Let's get out of here," Alice said eagerly, and they both practically skipped out of the church together.

"I suppose I'll close the church early so I can go about getting a replacement," Carlisle said with a sigh.

"I'd like to go put flowers on my son's grave," Esme said quietly. "Will you come with me?"

"Of course," Carlisle assured her before turning to look at me. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Uh…yeah, of course," I said unconvincingly. The truth was, I was still in a bit of shock. The entire thing was mind boggling, and I wasn't sure how to feel or what to do.

"We'll figure it out," Bella told Carlisle softly.

"You know where to find us if you need anything," Carlisle said before taking Esme's hand and exiting the church.

When we were alone, Bella sighed and then looked out over the church's porch at the town below the hill. "This is so weird."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess we should…go too."

Bella-Jane and I walked blankly through the outskirts of town, and somehow found our way back to Jane's cottage, but being there again was so surreal that I could do nothing except stand in the doorframe and stare at the place. Bella stared too, but only for a minute before looking around and actually giggling at certain things as if she couldn't believe she was seeing them in life. "I feel like I just walked onto a movie set," she said excitedly, but when she picked up a hand mirror and saw Jane's reflection staring back at her, her mood drastically dropped. "This is horrible, isn't it?"

Her words, as sad as they were, knocked me out of my sour mood and reminded me just how lucky I actually was. "Are you kidding? You're alive, so nothing else matters," I said before finally wrapping my arms around her and holding her securely. "I thought I lost you forever."

She held me back, but laughed humorlessly. "You would have never lost me forever, you would have had to just find me as a baby," she said, trying to sound light but letting her sorrow break through ever so slightly. Then she took a deep breath and pulled away. "Edward…I can't even begin to express how sorry I am about all of this. I swear, I don't know what happened. I never meant to curse anyone."

I grabbed her arm gently, and then pulled her over to the incredibly hard bed so we could sit together. "I really think you did us all a favor," I said honestly.

"It's not a favor if you all just end up right where you started," she disagreed.

"We may be back at the beginning, but we're all better people for it. We all found where we truly belong, and that has nothing to do with a specific time or location. And, most of all, thanks to that curse, I have you."

"You had Jane before….which is basically me," she argued.

"No, you're so much more than she could have ever been without you," I said doubtlessly.

"Well, I do have better parents," she said with a bittersweet tone. "Who I'm never going to see again."

"You'll see them again…eventually."

"How do you know?" she asked hopefully. "They're technically not even born yet, and won't be until long after I'm dead."

"I don't know how, and I certainly don't know when, but I do know you are capable of anything, and if you really want to see them again, you will."

She reached up and caressed my face. "Thank you for finding me Edward. I would have been lost without you."

I smiled and shook my head. "You found me, remember? If it weren't for you I would have never left the house. You came when you were ready, which is exactly what will happen with your parents."

"I hope so….but as for now, we have to do something about this," she said with a smirk as she held up a lock of her golden hair. "Every time I get a glance of this in my peripheral vision, I lose my train of thought. It's way too distracting."

I chuckled. "I don't think they have hair dye yet."

"No, but I may have something here," she said pensively while getting up and staring at the cabinet against the far wall. "Jane was terrified of all that magic stuff, but as a child she did remember seeing her mother do something that could be useful," she said before opening the cabinet and pulling out what looked like an old leather bound book.

"What's that?" I asked curiously.

"Her mother's book of spells," Bella said with wiggling brows.

"Uh…I don't think that's a good idea," I said nervously.

"Hey, I thought you trusted me? I'm hurt," she said playfully.

"I do trust you, it's magic I don't trust," I clarified.

"You also said the curse was actually a good thing, so be quiet and let me do this." She opened the book and started flipping through pages before settling on one in particular. "I think this is it."

"What is it?" I asked warily.

"Jane's mother used this spell when she wanted to hide her identity."

"Uh…okay, but every spell has its consequence," I reminded her, still clueless as to what she was trying to do.

"The bigger the curse, the bigger the consequence. This is a small spell, I'll be fine," she said unconcerned.

"So now you're an expert on magic all of a sudden?"

"No, but I remember Jane's mother telling her that. Relax, it'll be fine."

She then started reading from the book, and it really freaked the hell out of me because it was in a language I never heard before. Her back was to me, but to my wonderment, as she spoke her hair became darker starting at the roots, and then cascaded down to the ends like a waterfall. If I didn't see it with my own two eyes, I doubted I'd actually believe it. It was truly incredible.

When she was done reciting the spell, she grabbed a lock of her hair and looked at it. "It worked!" she said excitedly, and then turned around to see my reaction.

"Holy shit!" I said the moment we locked eyes; her hair wasn't the only thing that changed. "You're…you," I said while absently closing the distance between us and gently taking her face in my hands - her perfect 'Bella' face. "How did you do that?"

"You just say those words and think real hard about how you want to look, and it happens," she replied with a wide smile.

"What about the repercussion? What's the cost?" I asked concerned.

"Hmm," Bella said while taking a step back and looking over herself. "Shit, that mole was never there before," she said pointing at a spot on her arm. "I bet it's permanent. At least it's not on my face."

I smiled at her. "How long with this last for?"

"Uh…I think until I recite this reversal passage," she said before ripping the page out of the book and crumbling it. "I guess I'm stuck with this face now." She picked up the mirror again, and stared at her reflection for a minute. "I never particularly liked my face, but this is me."

"You have a beautiful face," I contradicted her. "The most beautiful face I've ever seen," I murmured before kissing her. The kiss quickly deepened, and Bella automatically started stripping…or at least she tried to. "How do I get this off?" she whined humorously.

I laughed lightly. "Here, let me do it…I've always been better at taking your clothes off than you anyway."

"Yeah, but those were modern clothes, these are like wearing a strait jacket," she joked.

As I tried untying her, I realized just how right she was. "Fuck, we may have to get help."

She giggle-cried. "I can't wait that long….just leave it on," she said before reaching under her dress and pulling down her underwear. "What the hell? These are like pants."

I laughed again. "I'm seriously going to miss miniskirts and lace underwear."

"I never wore a miniskirt, so I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that," she said while still wrestling with her bloomers.

"You didn't wear them, but I fully planned to buy you some," I joked.

"Stop talking and get to stripping," she insisted.

I chuckled again but otherwise complied. Getting myself undressed was far less difficult, and I was just about naked before Bella even got her second shoe off. I was sure we could have gotten her dress off eventually, but we were both extremely impatient, so the moment we got her undergarments off we were on.

Being in Jane's little cottage with Bella was definitely a trip, but the moment I was inside her everything else disappeared. It didn't matter where we were, or even when, as long as we were safely together nothing else could bring us down. But going from watching her die, to making love to her like that was definitely a whirlwind of emotions, and it was fucking exhausting, so after reaching an incredible climax, we tried to make ourselves comfortable and quickly fell asleep wrapped up together.

When I woke up some time later, I half expected to be back in Forks and discover it was all just a dream, but as I looked around the tiny room, I realized it was all very real. I looked down at Bella's peaceful form, and kissed her forehead before nuzzling back into her.

"Mmm," she purred while snuggling closer, but then she stiffened.

"What's wrong?" I asked worriedly.

"I have to pee….please tell me there's toilet paper here and indoor plumbing?"

I laughed. "Come on, I'll show you what to do."

I pulled my pants on as she sat up slowly, but that was the moment we had an unwelcomed visitor…