Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chpt 26 You Sorry You Asked Yet?
BPOV
Not really in a party mood I finish my beer and head back to the hut. Determined to will myself to sleep in the comfort of the bed I made up earlier.
I dream about cloaked vampires, screeching noises and Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward . . . .
And I wake up drenched in a cold sweat, reaching over for the light, my hand scrabbling across the nightstand, but when I find it there's only a click. They must still be having trouble with the generator.
Its dark in here with the shutters closed against the bugs so I shuffle over and open them slightly, breathing in the warm night air.
The party seems to be over, it's very quiet.
"Bad dream?" A voice asks, making me jump.
"Fuck! Arthur, did you have to do that?"
"Sorry, I thought you knew I was here."
I can barely make him out, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest.
I turn my attention back to the window as the silence stretches out.
"I can't deal with you right now Arthur." I admit after a while. "I don't want any more bad stuff in my head."
"I suppose I understand why you'd think anything I'd tell you would be bad." He sighs.
"So it's all good news? I'm starring in some reality TV show and I've just won a million dollars? Edward and my family are going to burst through the door any minute now to share in my good fortune?"
"No. But I told you, they're probably still alive, Aro loves his toys."
"Jesus, shut up Arthur."
"You want sugar coated?"
"I want it all to go away."
His laugh is bitter at best.
"Not happening Bellski. This is it. Your life. My life. Their life. You have to deal with it."
Saying I don't want to will make me sound like a twelve year old, but that's what I'm thinking, wishing.
But I can't ignore this. It happened. It's real. And he's right. I have to suck it up and deal with it. There isn't another choice.
"Alright." I sigh eventually, closing the shutter and moving to sit cross legged on the bed. "Explain it to me Arthur. Explain why I'm sleeping in a tin hut in the jungle instead of at home with the people I love and why I shouldn't just pick up my new rifle next time you're sleeping and put a bullet in you?"
"Bellski . . . ."
"Don't Arthur. My name is Bella and you're an obnoxious prick when you're being defensive. You owe me better than that."
"Warts and all?"
"Warts and all."
"Spying is a tricky operation. The best spies are basically doing something they'd be doing anyway. Caius needed to keep tabs on the shape-shifters and having one on his side was the best way to do it. He wanted me in the US and because I'd already worked a lot with charities and aid agencies it was easy to get a job at the Foundation. He didn't care what I did as long as I was where he wanted me to be and as you can see I've a vested interest in helping the downtrodden. Doing what I do makes it easier to look for other shape-shifters and to help the ones I already know about. Working for Caius helped me to keep them hidden from him.
It was just a coincidence that you rocked up in Boston with the Cullens.
Caius had briefed me on them before I left. Aro actually does like Carlisle but he didn't get to be where he is by trusting anybody. The Cullens might seem harmless but from where Aro sat they were a powerful coven, all those gifts bound together as a 'family'. Caius asked me to keep an eye on them.
I've been doing this a long time Bella, I had no reason not to report that they were in Boston."
"Did you tell them about me?"
"Yes, I told them Edward was in love with you and you weren't likely to be a threat. I thought he'd get round to changing you eventually."
Jesus. If only he had. Deep breath.
"Then what happened?"
"For a long time, nothing. I got to know you and them to a degree and I suppose I hoped that they'd forget about you all for a while. That happens sometimes when you live for millennia. It didn't work out though, Aro's interest in the Cullens was stronger than Caius let on and your existence was just the excuse he needed to act. Caius called me while we were in Forks and said they were planning to take you all into custody."
"And you did nothing to stop them?"
"Of course I didn't Bellski, I asked them if they could hurry the fuck up so I could get back to Boston!" There's a pause followed by a deep sigh. "What would you have had me do Bellski? You don't disobey The Volturi. I reiterated my position that you weren't any kind of threat. Do you want to know what he said, Caius? He said that wasn't my decision to make and I should remember who was pulling the strings on my particular puppet show."
"You could have warned us."
"I could have, but like I said the other night you weren't the only one with something to lose."
"Explain to me what you lost Arthur." I snarl, full of righteous indignation.
"I lost a position that allowed me to protect my people. And I lost my Father."
"What?"
"Caius isn't terribly big on trust. He works better with insurance. He's been holding my Father hostage, to ensure my compliance, for years."
"I don't . . . . what?"
"As soon as he realised it was me that took you he'd have had him killed."
I can't speak for a moment. Fabrication? Manipulation? Truth? I have no reason to trust Arthur, but . . . . I'm appalled . . . .
"Then for the love of god, Arthur, why? Why didn't you let them kill me? I was ready to die to protect the Cullens anyway."
Silence. One I'm just about to break when he speaks again. Oh so quietly.
"I couldn't. And he would have understood."
"Well I fucking don't. You talk about the sacrifices you've made and the terrible things you've done to protect the people you love. You sold the Cullens and me down the river for just those very reasons and yet you just suddenly decided, at the last minute, to throw it all away for some stupid little girl who fell in love with the world's most indecisive vampire?"
"When you put it like that it does sound crazy doesn't it?" He says with an unhappy laugh.
"What the fuck Arthur?"
"You think I'm happy about this? You think I'd want to trade a man like my Father for you?"
"I don't know what to think. I'm just trying to work out what the fuck happened."
In the darkness I can just about make him out as he slides down the wall and drops his head into his hands.
"Fuck." He breathes quietly.
Quite.
"You're a beautiful woman Bella." He whispers after a while. "And I admired your quick mind and your dedication to a cause you believed in. And I would never have kicked you out of my bed. But you were nothing compared to what my Father and I were trying to achieve. Nothing.
But my saving you wasn't exactly last minute.
I hadn't known about the Quileutes until I came to Forks and then suddenly it looked like The Volturi were going to get you, the Cullens, and an innocent tribe of shape-shifters all in one go. I didn't know what to do, if I could do anything, and I was still trying to work a way out of it when Alice saw me sitting in the tree outside your bedroom window."
I gasp.
"You were there, then?"
"Yes. I found out later that shape-shifters could interfere with her visions, that's when I understood why you and Edward disappeared from them. When I couldn't pretend it wasn't happening any longer."
"What wasn't happening?"
"Complications."
"I'm not the mind reader Arthur." I growl impatiently.
"I'd known you months by then Bella, months. It shouldn't have happened."
Silence.
"What shouldn't have happened?" I prompt.
A quiet laugh.
"Your eyes were closed. Your hair, I fucking love your hair, was fanned out over the pillow. Your body was arching off the bed, into his."
Oh jesus . . . .
"Do you want to know what happened in Volterra?" He asks abruptly, pulling me out of my memory. "Warts and all?"
"I . . . ."
"I honestly thought that Aro would have you changed. And I was hopeful, I really was. You wouldn't be dead and maybe I'd be free. And I'd like to think . . . . but I couldn't take the risk.
So I went down to the dungeon, to the Cullens. And I spoke to your Edward. And I told him the worst things they'd do to you. And when I left I loosened some of the bricks in the ventilation shaft so he'd be able to hear the chamber better.
And then I donned a cloak and I waited. I waited for your silly little dead boy to give me the distraction I needed."
"Arthur . . . ."
"I used him, his devotion, to save you Bellski. You're alive now because he loves you."
Now I can cry apparently. Silent tears. Warm and dripping onto my shirt. Running down my neck and curling under my ears.
"Why?" I choke out. "Why?"
"Dad described meeting my Mum as being severed from his world, the ties that bound him being sundered and replaced by a million steel cables that connected only to her. Sounds romantic doesn't it? I bet you could use words like that about Edward."
I shake and nod my head as the tears roll down.
"He loved the absolute fuck out of her. And she left him. Us. I thought it was my fault, hell it probably was. I wasn't exactly an easy child, always turning into something I shouldn't have.
He wasn't the same after that. And it was worse after she died. Somehow. That's how Caius got him."
"I don't . . . . I'm sorry . . . . but I don't understand."
"He imprinted on her."
Holy shit! What?
"We're not supposed to be able to do that, our particular brand of shape-shifter, it's usually the trigger shifters that do it, he thought maybe it was because he was the last of his line, about to become extinct. Whatever it was it didn't make anybody very happy."
My mouth opens and closes but nothing comes out.
"So here we are Bellski. You and me. You might have lost your boyfriend and your family. And I've lost my Father and . . . ." He stops talking and rubs his face with his hands. "Everything."
"I'm sick of saying this but I still don't understand."
"I imprinted on you Bellski. A woman who is in love with a vampire. It's your turn now. You explain to me how that's going to work out, because . . . . I'm sorry, but I've got nothing."