-Though My Mind Could Think, I Still Was A Mad Man-

My breath held in my chest as I stared at the white ceiling above me. I could make out the tiny bumps and pits in the dried paint where the brush had left imperfections behind. The light bulb hanging under a glass cover was off, though the room still seemed strangely illuminated.

Underneath me, I could feel the soft mattress of a bed. My fingertips rested against the fabric, allowing me to feel every thread of the comforter that was pulled over the sheets. Parts of the bedspread were crinkled and folded into themselves, forming waves of congested cloth that made the bed feel strangely uneven.

I could hear the trees swaying and shifting outside, their bark creaking as the wind blew against them. Dripping and crunching, birds chirping, the faint rushing of water over rock – all of these were revealed to me immediately, as though my ears were suddenly unclogged.

The sensations. The blaringly-loud and crisp sounds. The crystal-clear images. I knew what this was; I had experienced it before, but it seemed different now, for some reason. It felt more raw. I felt like a coiled snake, ready to strike out at the smallest thing.

I pushed my breath out, watching the stream of air batter against the calm bits of particles floating above me, swirling and spinning like a tornado.

A scuff – barely any noise at all – reached my ears, and suddenly I was up and across the room, pressing my back into the wall with much more pressure than I should have been using. I was frozen in my crouch as my fingers dug into the wall, only my eyes darting and rolling as I analyzed the other person in the room.

She was beautiful, with golden eyes, pale skin, and strawberry blonde hair. She was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and blue jeans – a simple outfit, though I felt this choice didn't suit her for some reason. Her expression was calm, yet hopeful – nothing like the violent curled lip and bared teeth I had been instinctually expecting.

My memories trickled into my mind, filling in the missing pieces and forcing a gust of air into my lungs as I stood in shock, remembering who this was. My posture straightened and I stood erect, staring at the woman across the room. I opened my mouth to say something to her, when the breath I had just taken into my lungs finally registered in my brain.

I had been a vampire before when the Cullens had allowed me to ride along inside their skulls, but the scents had never been this vivid. The symphony of smells that was usually one, large scent, was suddenly able to be broken down into its individual parts. Wood grains in the floor were now smellable, as though they were just installed an hour ago. I could even smell the different coats of paint on the walls and ceiling, along with the wooly smell of the cotton bed sheets.

But the most obvious scent was something incomparable – like the hybridization of an apple and a lemon, though even that description wasn't quite good enough. A faint hit of cinnamon was there, too; adding spice to the extremely sweet smell that seemed to come from the direction of Tanya.

Tanya.

I took a small step forward and paused, freezing in place as the humming warmth I had felt since I woke up grew in volume. The pulse seemed to get closer, and I mentally placed two people behind the closed door of the room I was in. A cluster of energies was somewhere below me, probably on the next floor down, and as I stared down at the carpeted floor, I wondered where I was.

The room I was in was feminine, though not overly so. The color scheme was much the same as I had come to expect; white on white with a simplistic look – sleek. My memory tickled at some half-forgotten picture, and I knew I had been here before. My nose flared, picking up the subtle scent of apples and lemons that saturated the room.

I looked back at Tanya, understanding coming to me. This was Tanya's room; of course. The reason I felt unfamiliar here was because we spent most of our time at the Cullens' house or at the oval clearing – I had only been here a couple times.

"Davis?" she asked, her voice ringing supremely clear. My new vampire brain sped on ahead, processing the multiple thoughts in my head simultaneously and allowing me unparalleled room in my head to formulate a sophisticated response.

"Uh…"

Good job, vampire brain.

Tanya rushed at me in what would have been a blur to human eyes, and I fought the instinct screaming at me to dodge or attack. She wrapped her arms around me in an enormous hug, the force of it causing me to collide with the wall behind me, which was already damaged from earlier. Her hair whipped around me as I heard her inhale, apparently taking in my scent as she continued to cling to me.

It was surprisingly similar, holding a vampire as a vampire. I hadn't had the chance to when I was borrowing bodies to walk around in, since a single touch was enough to make me jump ships, but Tanya felt no different to me than any other human I had hugged before. I paused at that thought, feeling our arms touching as we embraced.

I could feel my ability – that obnoxious pulse – but I wasn't forced out of my body. The connection was open, and I felt confident that it would hardly take any effort at all to 'body snatch' her, as Emmett would have called it. I laughed at the sudden control I was experiencing with my 'gift,' and Tanya half-released me as she inclined her head to look up at me.

"So," I said, holding back the sudden impulse to start saying gibberish just to hear my own, improved voice. "How did you like Django Unchained?" She looked me with wide eyes, like she couldn't believe I had asked her that, of all things. A small huff of bemusement came from somewhere downstairs. "Sorry," I sighed. "I'm just really glad to be back." She nodded and stepped back, keeping a hold on my hand and giving it a squeeze.

"Which we're going to have a long talk about," Tanya said, a small smile on her face. "But first you have to hunt." She tugged me to the enormous sliding-glass window and opened it, putting a foot on the edge and gesturing for me to do the same.

As I would have expected, the mention of hunting ignited the burn in my throat that had been present since I had awoken. I swallowed reflexively, though I won the battle with my hand and kept it from cupping my throat. The thirst was a kind of sick sort of torture, since it seemed to grow worse the more I thought about it – which in turn made me think even more about it, and how to make it stop.

Tanya gave me a sympathetic smile and pulled me out of the window, causing a few choice expletives to fly out of my mouth as we fell through the air at a rather slow rate. Both of us hit the snow-covered ground with a dull thud, and I couldn't help but look back at the window in awe of the distance – it was quite a ways back up there, but I felt completely fine.

Well, except for the burn in the back of-

I rolled my eyes at my circular pattern of thought and tried to block out thoughts of…that. It wasn't as hard as I would have imagined, since the high definition trees drew my attention as Tanya tugged me along, ducking into the tree line and through the small buildup of snow along the edges.

We dropped our hands and started to run through the trees together as we went further and further away from the Denali house. I breathed in deeply every few seconds, relishing in the fresh smell of the forest as I breezed along at the familiar vampire-breakneck speed. Eventually, Tanya slowed to a walk and I joined her, still breathing deeply.

An odd scent wafted in the air, which I immediately knew was a source of blood. It wasn't quite…inviting as I knew it could be, had I smelled human blood. The odor reminded me of teachers in high school warming up their microwave meals in the teacher's lounge – the smell that lingered in the hallways was obviously edible, but it was also unwelcome and unappetizing.

"Do you smell that?" Tanya asked. I nodded. "I'll follow far enough behind you so you won't feel threatened."

Tanya nodded in the direction of the animal – whatever it was – silently telling me to go ahead. I scrunched my eyebrows together in concentration and nodded back to her, crouching low and streaking toward the heartbeat that had started to become more and more hypnotizing the longer I listened to it.

I caught sight of the large antlers and warm, shaggy body of the animal that would become my dinner – my first meal as a vampire, if I didn't count my hunt with Emmett. I hesitated for a second, feeling a steady growl building in my chest as I watched the animal and breathed in its smell, which was starting to grow on me the longer I waited to pounce.

A second was the end of my patience, and I lunged abruptly as the wind shifted, alerting my furry friend to my presence. It let out a strange cry as I collided with it, feeling the bones of its neck snap in my too-tight hold. Without a conscious thought, my teeth were ripping through the shaggy neck of the unfortunate animal as hot relief spilled down my throat.

The experience was slightly alarming, but it felt right as it was happening. It was only afterward, as no more blood came out of the carcass, that I realized just how little control I had had as I lunged at the…deer? Was this a deer? It looked kind of like a moose, although its bones were contorted and broken in several areas – crushed like crackers.

A twig snapped a few yards away and I snarled, spinning around in a crouch. The sound cut off from my throat as I realized it was only Tanya, and I hesitantly straightened into a standing position. I forced myself to calm down and relax – Tanya wasn't going to hurt me.

"Want some more?" Tanya asked with a smirk. I nodded reluctantly, measuring the significant – but nowhere near soothed – drop of the thirst in my throat. It still burned, but it was on a lower flame and nowhere near as frantic. I remembered hazily that animal blood would never completely put out the thirst like human blood, but there was also no way I was going to start killing people to live. "Follow me, then. I hear a few wolves about two miles off."

I stood under the steady stream of water with my eyes closed. I could feel the grime – the dirt and the blood – running off my body, but I didn't really want to take a look until most of it was already down the drain. I used my hands to scrub my hair gently, since I was too paranoid to actually touch a washrag or the soap containers for fear of crushing them like I did my first kill's bones.

Tanya hadn't asked me any questions, and for that I was grateful, but I could feel the slow panic start to build up inside my chest as I felt another cluster of pulses arrive at the edge of my range. The rest of the Cullens were here, no doubt, and they would want to talk to me. I hadn't even begun to consider what to tell them.

A mixture of unworthiness and embarrassment were circling around me at my recent actions. I knew Tanya was glad to see me – she had nearly had a fit when I had to separate from her to take my shower – but to the others, I couldn't help but consider myself a burden that wouldn't go away.

Mentally – logically – I remembered Carlisle had told me I had a place here, with them. But I had made it back home and chose to come back here; there was no unstoppable force that pushed me here against my will, like last time. I had been back to my old life, and even if it wasn't perfect, it was familiar and…well, not quite comforting, but something close.

It only made it worse that I had tripped back into this universe so haphazardly that I had to be changed into a vampire or I would have died. I wasn't upset about my sudden change of species – I had always thought vampires were cool, and I was digging the extra abilities and immortality – I was more concerned on how the Cullens viewed their condition.

The dramatic 'woe is me' attitude Rosalie had about how much she hated being a vampire was extreme, I'll admit, but nearly all of the Cullens had a more diluted attitude. Well, maybe not Emmett or Alice – and Bella too, to a degree – but the majority of them wouldn't have chosen this life over their human one. Which was the crux of my problem.

I had chosen this. Maybe not directly, since I couldn't have known coming back here would nearly kill me for some reason, but I had given up the life I had known for twenty-one years for one involving vampires, shape shifters, and body jumping. I was afraid of what they would think of me for that choice.

I stepped out of the shower and twisted the nozzle with the lightest touch I could manage, eventually moving the dial to the 'off' position and stopping the water flow. I toweled off and slipped into a t-shirt and jeans, treating them like tissue paper as I dressed slowly. I felt like I should have been sweating bullets after I was presentable, but my body felt refreshingly great.

With extreme hesitance, I shuffled over to the mirror in the bathroom and peered at my reflection. Of course, the eyes were the first thing to draw me in; they were bright red, of course, and stood in stark contrast to my pale skin. I smirked into the mirror, strangely OK with the brilliant color – they actually looked kind of cool, and I would get a kick out of them until while they lasted

My face was as I had expected: perfected, angular features. My cheeks had thinned considerably, and no longer held the constant red blush I always wore across my face like I was embarrassed consistantly. My torso had undergone the most drastic change, though. I hadn't been obese before, but in my human life I was certainly no muscled body builder. The thin layer of fat had melted away, leaving subtle muscle ridges that, while nowhere close to anything Emmett would have, were well developed.

I took a deep breath and stepped away from the sink, moving to the bathroom door and grasping the knob as I turned it and prepared for the discussion that was bound to come. A hollow crushing sound came from my hand, and I released my grip on what used to be the door handle. The collapsed bunch of metal held on the door for a second before dropping to the floor with a thud.

"Well, shit," I breathed, eliciting distant snickers from somewhere in the house. I ran a hand down my face and groaned. I gently pushed against the door, stopping once I heard the wood protesting and beginning to splinter. "That's just fucking awesome. I'm locked inside the bathroom." A swift breeze came from the other side of the door and suddenly the door was opened.

"You broke my door," Tanya teased as she freed me, allowing me to step back into her room.

"Just the doorknob," I corrected, gritting my teeth as she stared at me with mirth in her eyes. "It was faulty anyway." I was sure my face would have been red, had I had a pulse.

"Yeah, sure," Tanya rolled her eyes and grabbed my hand, tugging me out of her bedroom and downstairs to the sitting area. "Faulty."

It was extremely difficult to walk into the room of twelve other vampires – not to mention the hybrid and shape shifter. I wanted to bolt as soon as I entered the room, and had this been my very first experience inside a vampire body, I definitely would have. As it was, I was only barely hanging onto my civility – Tanya's firm grasp anchoring me.

Jacob's smell was…gross. It was every bit the wet, dirty dog smell I had imagined – and so much more. I held my breath on instinct, but managed to force a breath in and out. It was possible to become acclimated to this, right? I sure as hell hoped so.

We took our seats next to Garrett and Kate, who nodded toward us before glancing back at Carlisle, who had what looked like curiosity painted on his face as he stared at nothing. He glanced at Edward, who cocked his head to the side before he shook it. This caused Carlisle to frown in thought, and I recognized the signs of their silent conversation.

The awkward silence continued until Emmett spoke up.

"So you can come back from the dead, too?" he asked. My eyes widened at his question. I hadn't died, had I? They wouldn't have been able to change me into a vampire if my heart wasn't beating, right? He must have seen my confusion, because he clarified. "You got hit by a car, man. Tanya tried to save you, but…" He trailed off.

"Emil is – his body, I mean – is dead?" I glanced at Carlisle, who nodded and quickly explained.

"Tanya carried you and I met her halfway to Anchorage; Alice had told me Tanya would be calling. You injuries were severe; there was nothing I could do. We tried to get you to jump into one of us, but…" I nodded in understanding.

I remembered some of that, from the strange dream I had landed in after I got hit by that car. Tanya's voice had been telling me to jump into her – she had been calling out to me, but I couldn't respond. I was stuck in that damn empty city with Emil and my doppelganger.

"So wait," Emmett said. "You mean you didn't know you were dead?" I gaped at him, though it wasn't surprising that he was confused. I was confused.

"I never died," I shook my head. "After I was hit by the car I woke up in the hospital, back in my world."

"But then how were you able to get back here?" Edward questioned. "Bringing your own body, no less." My head shook again.

"Blind luck," I supplied with a shrug. "I flew to Alaska and drove up to Denali and found the oval clearing," I cast a glance at Tanya. "I tried to force whatever made me come here to happen again, and I suppose it worked since I'm here." I could see the looks on their faces, not quite understanding what I was saying. I was skipping over quite a bit of the story. "Maybe I should just start from when I woke up in the hospital?"

"Yes," Carlisle nodded. "I believe that would be best."

And so I explained. I told them everything I could remember, skimming over my own personal thoughts and feelings as I described my short visit back in my world. I told them about my brother sitting in that wheel chair as well as my field trip with Brandon. I expressed my shock and denial once I realized I still had some version of my ability in my world. Everyone listened while I spoke, though I could tell it took some effort as I described the process of reentering this universe in the clearing.

"I am amazed that you were able to bring your body with you, since you came without one on your first trip here," Carlisle mused aloud after I had finished. "You said you experienced severe electric shocks as you…for lack of a better expression, slipped into our dimension?" I nodded. "Interesting. There were no burn marks on you when Tanya brought you back to our house, but extreme low blood pressure can sometimes be caused by electrocution."

I considered that, but said nothing. I honestly had no idea how I had come back here or why my body had given out like it had. It was all a bit fantastic and out of my depth – though I guess for a body-jumping vampire, nothing was so far away from my level of weird.

"Why did you even try to come back here?" Rosalie asked, her voice less violent than I would have expected. "You had a family back in your world; a life!"

"It wasn't the same," I shook my head. "When I got back, everyone was thrilled I had come out of my coma, but it was almost like I wasn't real to them; like they had already given up on me. On top of that, my brother was going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and pretty much hated the world for it."

"And you gave up on them!" Rosalie exclaimed. "Instead of working it and actually trying, you came back here!" I pressed my hand against my forehead and sighed.

"Your rants were much less annoying in the book," I snarked, eliciting a hiss from Rosalie. "Yeah, I left; but even if I never made it here, I wasn't going to go back. Sorry if you think that's stupid, but…" I trailed off as I shrugged. I could almost hear Rosalie's teeth grind, but Carlisle stepped in again.

"If I may," he said, sending both Rosalie and I a glance before resettling on me. "Are your abilities intact? I noticed you were able to be in physical contact with others without jumping into their body." I nodded, grateful for the change of subject.

"I think so," I tilted my head and nodded again as I felt everyone's – bar Jacob – pulse in the air. "I can still sense everyone, though I'd have to actually try to jump, I think, to test out whether or not I am still able to." I flexed my fingers in Tanya's hand and turned to look at her, cocking an eyebrow and silently asking for her permission.

"Fine," Tanya sighed. "I suppose you can test it out on me." I looked back at Carlisle with wide eyes as I remembered what happened to my old hosts when I jumped into a new one.

"My body will be OK if I jump, won't it?" I asked. Carlisle tilted his head forward and hummed.

"I don't see why it shouldn't be," he affirmed. "You can't die from lack of oxygen anymore." I nodded and concentrated on Tanya, slipping into the connection that had been opened since she had touched me.

It came easier than ever before – a smooth transition. Nearly instantly, my body was falling slack against the couch we were sitting on as I looked through Tanya's eyes. It was mildly disturbing, since my body's eyes stayed open, staring at nothing with a blood-red gaze. I adjusted to Tanya's mind seamlessly, stretching and settling in as I filtered through her surface thoughts.

It worked, I thought to her.

"I hear him," Tanya said, still not taking her eyes off my body. "This is very strange with your body so…dead, Davis. Would you mind going back into your body?" I could feel her sense of loss as she compared how my body looked to that of Emil as she cradled his broken body after being hit by a car. I gave her a mental nod and slipped back into my mind.

My lungs filled with air as I came back to myself, straightening up in my seat. Carlisle looked at Edward, who nodded once and tilted his head.

"It's much the same as it was before," Edward said, answering some unspoken question. "Static. I can hear a few scattered words and phrases, but for the most part I cannot read his thoughts. With Davis inside Tanya's mind, the static was still there, but lessened – it didn't interfere with my ability to hear her thoughts." Carlisle nodded and looked at Alice and Jasper.

"I can see him much better now, but he's still fuzzy," Alice sighed. "Not nearly as bad as the shape shifters or Renesmee, but still enough to make seeing his future difficult."

"Much of what Edward said of his gift is true for mine as well," Jasper began after Alice had finished. "I can feel a few of his emotions now, but they are muted."

The crowd dispersed after the discussion was over and I escaped with Tanya back up to her room. Already, I could feel my thirst begin to ever-so-slowly creep back into my throat, and I knew I would have to hunt again soon. Maybe Tanya and I could go tomorrow or even later tonight. I spotted my backpack against the wall and went over to it, eager to distract myself from the burning in my throat.

Most of it was clothes and food for the trip up through the national forest, but nestled near the top was a familiar hardcover book. I pulled it out carefully, examining the apple on the cover as Tanya followed me over and peered at the book as she leaned around my shoulder.

"Twilight?" she asked. I nodded.

"It's the story of this universe," I flipped to the back cover. "It's how I knew everything I did about this place. I don't know why I brought it, but I'm pretty sure this should belong to Bella." I had taken the book from my brother's shelf before I left. It seemed…appropriate that I bring it along.

"Later," Tanya said with a smirk. "Let's stretch your legs." She grabbed my hand and pulled me to her window again, only giving me enough time to toss the book on her bed as she practically threw me out of the window. She landed a second after I did and we began running.

"The clearing?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Yes," Tanya grinned. I huffed out a laugh and clasped her hand again as we raced through the Alaskan forest.

-end-

End notes: And there you have it; the finale. The last chapter will be the epilogue and the Q&A portion, where I'll reveal anything and everything that doesn't make sense.

If you'd like, leave any questions you have about the story (it can be anything, really) and I'll see if I can answer them.

So long, and good night.