Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters and Twilight plot lines that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization. Don't steal, it isn't polite.
Welcome! We left off with Bella writhing in pain after Edward drank her blood all sexy-like. Could this be the big transformation, and did our boy Bitey really have it in him? Let's find out!
~xxx~
***BPOV***
I couldn't fucking hear myself think. My eyes were open, but I couldn't see past the film that covered them. The room was silent apart from my vamp boy's desperate pleas and yet I was struggling to hear them over the blaring silence. The fire was scorching my skin from the inside out, but I wanted to laugh at it; as if I'd let something as insignificant as pain take me over at a moment like this.
It was almost as if I was on some sort of hallucinogen, completely checked out of reality, yet utterly aware. My thoughts were floating around frantically inside my mind but I couldn't quite catch them; I just knew that Edward was touching me and that he couldn't fucking stop.
He let go of me and I whimpered, hating that I was showing weakness when I was so damn determined to dominate my transformation. His murmured words sounded as if he were speaking under water, and I began shaking as he pulled itchy fabric over my skin. I didn't want it. It made the fire in my body transform into a raging inferno, the panic I was harboring now bubbling over and above the surface. The mere suffocation of clothing did this to me, and I felt so fucking trapped I could have screamed.
Instead I fought through the fog and confusion and murmured quiet words through tight lips. "I need it off, Edward." Did I say that out loud? My mouth was moving but I couldn't hear it…I could barely hear anything.
I managed to make out the stuttering fragments of his deep voice and groaned in frustration when words and syllables refused to piece themselves together in my mind. My hands were tightened fists as I pushed them against the mattress. "Closer!" I screamed, or maybe it was merely a whisper…it just wasn't making any sense.
I felt ice cold lips against my ear, causing me to take a deep breath of something resembling relief…or as close to it as I could get. "Carlisle's nearly here, beloved. Just let me cover you until we're alone again, okay?"
He was so scared, my vampire. His voice was trembling, so unsure of what he'd done and what was happening to me because of his actions. Whatever was taking place tonight, and whatever would become of us as a result of it, I knew it was meant to happen exactly this way, exactly like this. Even if I died and he followed thereafter, I could still take my last breath knowing that it was because we loved each other so fucking much, and that was worth everything to me.
I ignored the way the clothes rubbed against my skin and dug into my pores, instead focusing on the sensation of my heart thundering like a stampede and his cold lips sliding across my cheek. I wanted to look at him but even though I was sure my eyes were wide open, they refused to find anything but darkness. Feeling his lips on my skin wasn't enough, I needed him to surround me, I needed the coolness of his body to smother the flames that I was still intent on defeating.
They were no fucking match for me.
I attempted to speak but my throat instantly revolted. Tears slid past my unseeing eyes and rolled down until they met his hard lips, frustration swirling in my veins. I hated not having control of my body, even more so not being able to tell Edward what I needed.
I blindly reached for his hand, gripping it tightly when I found it and sliding it frantically across my body. He caught on quickly, hovering above me and touching me so gently until he soothed the ache that was so intense, my brain couldn't comprehend it. I immediately thought about the movie Hostel, the torture inflicted upon unsuspecting people and comparing it to the pain I couldn't quite grasp. Maybe this was what it was like. You screamed because you needed to have that outlet, but agony like that wasn't something you let yourself acknowledge. Instead of giving into the state that my body was in, I kept my mind constantly moving, focused on Edward and struggling to take one millisecond at a time.
I wondered why I couldn't be unconscious for this. When I was little and had the flu, I'd just sleep through the worst of it and usually when I awoke, everything was better. Edward's words were far away, but his touch was the most vibrant thing in my world. My fingers still slid back and forth over his arm, but nothing else would work for me; it was like the pain had calcified me. My legs, my arms, my eyes…they all fucking refused me, and it was almost more than I could stand. I concentrated on mentally talking through it in my mind, never stopping with my frantic thought process because if I stopped, I'd fucking lose my shit and I could not let that happen.
Nothing scared me more than my lack of communication with Edward. The pain could go fuck itself and the semi-paralysis I seemed to be experiencing was just another temporary sacrifice until I could be immortal with my mate. But there was no fucking way in hell I could do this without him, and if for some reason I stopped being able to feel his skin on mine…
I screamed then, the mere thought destroying me and making me slip in my resolve to ignore the havoc that was tearing its way throughout my body. He was speaking to me again, in a despairing voice that told me he'd be sobbing hysterically if he were capable. His jumbled words sounded like pleas, and all I wanted was to promise him that everything would be okay.
I tried to close my eyes but the lids felt like they were made of stone, frozen in place and yet they still weren't allowing me to see. I tried to remember the events that had led up to this moment. Having Edward inside me, pumping, lips frantic, teeth breaking through flesh and blood and venom…God, he did this to me. The happiness and excitement that truth brought me intermingled with the fiery pain, surging my frantic heartbeat from rapid to nothing more than a fluttering vibration. I had so much fucking faith in my vamp boy, and no matter what would happen from this point on, he had done exactly what I always knew he could do.
He made me his.
I couldn't understand how it was possible to feel so much while trapped in this paralyzed body. Even though I had no proof, I knew for a fact it wouldn't last forever. I could feel my muscles bubbling beneath the surface of my skin, aching to be used, bending and molding until they had designed a being of agility and permanence.
A long moan left my mouth, and I didn't know it was there until it was already reverberating in the air, causing Edward to pin me tighter to the bed. I swore I could feel the dust particles in the air swirling around me, landing on my skin and turning to ash the second they came into contact with the fire that consumed my body. The room shifted and I knew we weren't alone, the sudden distraction making me veer away from my rampant train of thought. I suddenly had a vision of my insides shrouded in fire. It was a scene straight out of a horror movie…my heart, my lungs, my kidneys doused in flames and boiling, shriveling, dying while I laid idly by and watched it happen.
I felt it then. I really let myself consume what it was actually doing to my body for the first time since it all began. It was like an explosion; I was so positive this was what it felt like to have your body ripped apart at the seams, separating until you were nothing but pieces of flesh and a distant memory. I felt like I should have been screaming but it was beyond that. There was no way of expressing the sensation of my flesh tearing away and burning in tiny fragments. I vaguely acknowledged the way my body began to shake, as if I were having a violent seizure.
Their voices were frantic, my family, my Edward. Hands held me down, all over they held me and there were more than the two familiar ones that knew my body inside and out. I was unraveling, my resilience against the pain dwindling to nothing as I soon discovered that I had no choice but to accept this. I had no regrets, but I was so fucking sad because I knew now that this would kill me. Nothing made sense to me but the fact that I was falling, the parts of me that remained tumbling into the black abyss before I disappeared inside it. I gasped and dug my nails into someone, whatever had me, because not being able to kiss Edward goodbye before I left him was so fucking devastating to me.
I began whimpering, needing to express myself before it took me, my restless mind conjuring up images of my skin being ripped off of me in strips as the fire ran across my exposed flesh underneath. Panic was breaking through the paralysis, my back shooting up off the bed and my head shaking frantically from side to side in one last attempt at protesting the inevitable end. I still couldn't see but I knew it was close now, the desolate conclusion that I was too weak to refuse, the darkness, just a life with nothing, and without him. It was building like a crescendo, like a climax, like a grand finale…boiling, bubbling, screaming, and this was it now….the explosion, the ending of who I was, what Edward and I had become. Two trails of fire fell down my cheeks and I assumed they were tears. Somehow I found the strength to give him the only thing I had left…
"I love you…"
I managed it with a whimpered last breath, a gust of air that I put everything into producing for my Edward. My eyes couldn't bring me his perfect face, but my mind would never deny me the pleasure. I heard him…and he was crying.
"Bella, don't," he pleaded, it was like an echo bouncing off the walls of an empty hallway.
I failed him, I failed him. I wasn't strong enough to take it, he had given me everything and I was just too fucking weak to withstand it. I felt my body begin to break, my back arching until I was as straight as an arrow, my head slamming back into the headboard until the splinters were cracking and breaking around my skull.
This was it…
His voice, telling me he loved me.
The memory of our bodies moving together in one tandem, destined movement.
And the crimson eyes that made my life worth living.
Another rip across the center of my abdomen, the abrupt halt of my frantically beating heart, and then I was swept away.
It was nothing, and I was gone.
-x-x-
***EPOV***
My surroundings seemed to close in on me as I hovered over her lifeless form, my knees on either side of her slender waist and her hand clasped to my chest.
The moment she stopped breathing was right around the time I had officially checked out. My trembling fingers brushed away the remnants of the headboard, destroyed by a human girl that shouldn't have possessed such strength.
And now she possessed nothing.
A steady vibration of terror let loose inside my body, my hands gripping her too tightly as she lay limp in my grasp, my legs giving way because there was no point to this existence any longer. I suddenly collapsed, the crack of her bones sounding out beneath me because I didn't even have the strength to catch myself from falling right on top of her. I hurt her, even though she couldn't feel it. I broke her bones…and it wasn't because I was holding her too hard or loving her too much or fucking her too forcefully.
It was because I had given up on fucking everything with the last gasp of air that left her lungs. I wanted to shake her, I wanted to do anything to bring life back into her body. Instead, I simply begged her.
"Please," I whimpered, resting my ear over her breastbone, listening to a heart that was just as dormant as my own. Not a sound, not a flutter…and even the warmth seemed to be draining from her body at a ridiculously rapid pace. Nothing about this was real. One moment we were joined together, in love and need, like we always were. And then sheer panic…and then nothing…
Fuck, there was nothing to fight for any longer. I was always so determined to remain strong for her when the world seemed to fall apart around us. But she was gone now, and with her, she took the only thing that ever resembled my soul. "You weren't supposed to go, beloved. Not without me, you have to wait…you have to wait…" I began choking for the air my lungs didn't need; the world that I now existed in was lacking my Bella and for that reason alone, it was suffocating me. I needed help…someone needed to take this inconceivable pain away.
In the blink of an eye I was airborne, my back crashing against the far wall of our bedroom. It bent and gave way beneath me, and as I slumped against the drywall that couldn't withstand my force, I barely had the urge to move my eyes upward to see who had sent me across that room.
My bottom lip trembled as reality threatened to make its way inside my psyche. A reality without her, the need to make plans now, not to wait another second to join her wherever she may be. If I was condemned to hell, then I'd crawl my way back out again, because I refused to be a member of the damned when my purpose, my light was waiting for me elsewhere.
"Edward!"
My eyes rolled from side to side in crazed desolation, reluctant to look up and meet the fiery black of the man who had been my father but never my confidante until Bella came into my life. "You need to be the one to do it," I murmured weakly, my fingers dragging frantically back and forth against the hardwood flooring until it frayed away beneath me. "Please…you need to end me now, because I made her go away, Carlisle. I made her go away."
I had never seen him so angry as he grabbed my shoulder with one hand and dragged me to her bedside. "You claim you love her? You claim she's your soul mate, Edward? Then how dare you give up on her now! Stop wallowing in what you think you've lost, and do everything in your power to save her! This isn't about you! This is about bringing her into eternity like you promised her you would!"
I stared down into her empty eyes, her unmoving body that was still so fucking breathtaking even after the life had been sucked out of it. I had no time to loathe myself for how quickly I had given up on saving her life. All I could do now was attempt to fight against the all-consuming anguish and realize that I was willingly letting something take her from me, and I was barely putting up a fight. God, the notion was fucking sickening.
I stood beside the bed, touching every inch of her clammy skin I could reach. Rage bubbled up underneath the surface of my skin, a feral yell barreling from my lips as I grabbed Bella's vanity and splintered it against that wall. "What the fuck do you expect me to do, Carlisle? I killed her! I fucking killed…the only thing…oh my God…" I fell to my knees, my hands pulling on my hair so forcefully that I felt the moment the follicles were pried from my scalp. My vision blurred with venom and I fell to my side, watching as Carlisle gave up on resurrecting my honor and rushed to my human girl's lifeless body.
He looked so utterly distraught as he brushed her matted hair away from her face, searching for a pulse, for any sign that this was just a part of her unconventional transformation. But the room was empty of its glow, didn't he feel that? Did he really think he could bring her back when the very essence of my love had dissipated in the blink of an eye?
He leaned down and repositioned her until his teeth were hovering over the back of her neck, a rushed, silent prayer falling from his lips. I watched silently, my body unable to move as my father found the bravery I never possessed, and the hope to save the girl that had quickly become the final piece of our family. He was doing everything I was supposed to do, everything a man was supposed to do for his mate. I failed her…death wasn't enough for me. Death wasn't enough.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, unable to watch the moment his teeth sunk into her skin. It was just another way I had failed her, and bearing witness to it was more than I could endure. The terror and defeat was so violent inside me that it wouldn't allow me to cry out in its sake. I would remain there forever, because there was nothing now. My eyes fluttered shut and I saw her smiling face…human, breakable, and alive. I punched my thigh like an obsessive tick, harder with each silent moment in the room, my head turning from side to side as her smiling image turned to the lifeless girl that lay in that very room. The one I didn't have the courage to save. Why was I in such a hurry to take her life? I never should have done this to her, coming into her world, making her mine. I'd only brought devastation wherever I went, why would this be any different? My selfishness disgusted me, and Bella was gone.
Oh my God…my Bella was gone.
"Do you remember when I killed Rosalie?" I chuckled to Carlisle, madness officially washing over any semblance of sanity that remained. "And then there was Victoria. Her life ended because I was so consumed in my own quest for sexual pleasure. You saved Rosalie from me. You saved Victoria from herself. But who will save Bella? Who will save the girl I murdered because I thought I deserved to be loved?"
Carlisle ignored me as he tended to Bella, which he had every right to. He was trying in vain to bring her back to me, and that was more important than my pathetic rambling would ever be…and far more than I deserved. I made no effort to fight off the small hands that heaved me from the floor, my eyes falling shut as I ignored everything around me in that dark and empty room. The arms that lifted me soon deposited my defeated, limp body onto the bed beside my Bella, her glorious scent causing me to inhale instinctively and my eyes to flutter open.
"Oh, Jesus," I whispered brokenly, my eyes burning so painfully that I could barely see.
Alice curled her body behind my own, her arm wrapped around my shoulders as she rested her chin against my temple. "No one will save Bella, dear brother. She never needed saving to begin with."
Her body was still unmoving, and her heart remained remarkably silent. But her eyes…dark red and vibrant and aware…they were everything anchoring me to the earth below in that moment. They danced along the ceiling, back and forth, as if she were learning every bump and crevice it possessed. Jesus Christ, she was there. It was faint, but I felt her…
I rose up on my knees, leaning over her with my palms on the mattress. I pushed the hair out of her face and ran my hand along her cheek, feeling the rigidity and coolness of her skin. "Bella…come on, baby, look at me…"
A slight vibration shuddered through her body and I was rejuvenated from my mournful state in an instant. She responded to me…her heart was silent but we both knew that ultimately it would be. Perhaps she was dead, but she sure as hell wasn't gone…
A cry tore from my lips as I fell to my side and held her as tightly as I could without jostling her too considerably. My panic was almost as insurmountable as my hope, and my lips frantically kissed her immobile mouth, her jaw, the apples of her cheeks. I couldn't calm down, the idea of my love coming back to me setting forth a hysterical panic inside me. She couldn't leave me now, I'd thought I'd lost everything but she was here now and nothing would take her. She had to stay. I kissed her ear and cradled her face in the palm on my hand, trembling so heavily that it was shaking her unmoving body. My lips swept across her earlobe, and then I begged her with everything I had. "Stay with me, beloved. I've got nothing if you go. You're my light, Bella. I'll follow you anywhere but I need you here now. We've got so much to do, baby. Promise me you'll stay…"
This time she made no acknowledgement of my voice, which sent my heightened emotions to the other end of the spectrum. I was so unbelievably frightened. Was this a fluke? Just a lingering effect left behind cruelly by the venom that was still coursing through her lifeless veins? "Carlisle…" I groaned, needing his reassurance now more than ever.
He was already at her side, hand on her forehead, at her pulse point, searching for any sign of familiarity. The frustration was evident on his face and dominant in his thoughts, even though he was trying to suppress it. She was no longer a human he could treat with medication or plaster. I knew from his mind that he'd never seen a transformation such as this. He didn't know what to expect or how to protect Bella if something went wrong; he had never been more frustrated. Carlisle's entire being was centered around his ability to help and heal. He just didn't know what to do for her, but he kept his voice calm and authoritative, for my sake. "All we can do is wait, son. Her body has shut down but…she's here, there's no denying that. She doesn't appear to be in pain, which is a good sign. She also seems to be quite far along in her transformation. Her heart stopped beating quite early on, which is not typical during the change, but honestly, nothing about this has been run-of the-mill. We'll wait, we'll pray, we'll love her." He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me intently. "That alone holds more power than you'll ever know, Edward. It will be enough. You have to have faith."
His last spoken word struck something inside me, and I was taken to a time, months ago, when I'd asked Bella to have that very thing. Faith. Faith in me. Not that I deserved it now. A million lifetimes worth of repentance would never make up for the injustice I caused the love of my existence. I felt revitalized by her awareness, by the knowledge that I could go on worshipping her for years to come. But everything felt different inside me now…jaded, dim. When the time had come for me to be strong for her, I'd done nothing but fail her.
It was the greatest sin I had yet to commit.
I owed it to her now to have the faith she needed, the strength to keep her here with me. If it was the last thing I did, I would give her that.
Alice hugged my shoulders from behind, kissing my cheek and holding me extremely tight. "I still can't see her future, Edward, but I can feel her there. I can feel her everywhere, she's going to be so beautiful."
She squeezed me once more and exited the room, her quiet, dry sobs breaking my heart further as she dove into Jasper's arms outside the room. "Everyone needs you, Bella," I whispered brokenly, still staring at the closed door before taking her in once more. I touched her skin carefully, reverently, treating her like porcelain because at this point, I didn't know how much she could take. "I need you. I love you more than anything, Isabella. Hold onto it, love, and know that above all else, you are my faith. You're my everything."
Carlisle backed away from the bedside, and I quietly requested that he not leave the room. I needed his strength to brace my own, because everything inside of me was a roller coaster. My emotions, my sanity, my resolve…I didn't trust myself to possess the strength that Bella needed in the following hours to come.
My cowardice made me sick.
As the darkness of night turned to morning, I held on securely to the woman I was created for, and softly begged my love to forgive me for abandoning hope so effortlessly.
-x-x-
The sun was out in full force as time moved on mercilessly, shining brightly through the parted curtains and yet she still didn't move. The room remained perfectly silent as we waited for something, anything. Carlisle sat in the chair across the room, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. His pain was palpable, but my mind refused to hone in on his thoughts, my every thought invested in the perfection that lay beside me.
I was still too frightened to hold Bella as tightly as I'd wanted, not knowing what the hours of stillness had meant for her. I was constantly touching her everywhere, gauging her progress and the remnants of life that still held onto her fragile body. She was fascinating, a breathtaking miracle with her frantically moving red eyes and her still heart and her nearly transparent complexion. I marveled at the way her skin changed consistency with each passing moment she lay there, and with her progress, I felt myself getting stronger. But not strong enough to gaze into her eyes.
No, my all-encompassing fear kept me from looking directly into her dark crimson as they moved hastily back and forth. I was terrified of what I'd find there, so instead I studied every other part of her that owned me. Somehow the disgust I still felt for myself didn't stop me from letting my eyes feast upon her rapidly changing features. The rest of the family waited outside the door, desperate to come in and check on the girl who meant so much to us. Thankfully they understood that it just wasn't the right time yet. Not when I was so close to the edge, not when her very immortality hung in the balance. The room was so thick with tension and fear that I couldn't inhale the air even if I wanted to.
I had no idea if she could hear me. Even though I knew she would have wanted me to keep on talking to her, to cover her with my body until we were cognitively together again, I couldn't bring myself to move. A movement could take her away, the wrong words could leave me in a world without her again. My thought process wasn't making sense, but I couldn't risk her life again, she was too delicate and if I fucked up, if I fucked it up again and lost her as a result of it…
"Edward?"
Carlisle's deep, quiet voice broke the silence, and I swallowed thickly. "Thank you for bringing her back," I croaked in a haggard whisper.
"I didn't, son. My teeth never broke through her skin."
Something stirred in my stomach, maybe it was relief, but I didn't have the right to feel it. Carlisle continued. "Everything that's taken place up to this point is because of you, Edward. I understand your fear…but we knew there would be risks. Your venom and its potency, the way in which Bella became infused with it, everything about her change is a first. We'd hoped to know what to expect, but the truth is that we never had any idea what this transformation had in store for Bella."
"She's going to come back," I pleaded with him as if he had the power to make it true.
"I know, Edward. But I want you to put yourself in Bella's place right now. Think of the love she has for you, how long she's waited to be your equal. Would she want to come back to you like this? Your sorrow is understandable, but the hatred you have for yourself has swooped back in like it never diminished at all. You can't let that take you under again, not after you've found so much happiness in your mate."
"When she's talking, when she's touching me-"
"-You'll still be drowning in it. Son, I know you considerably better than you think I do. You have to find a way to let this go."
"I killed her."
Alice opened the bedroom door and walked in determinedly, a fierce look in her golden eyes as she stood at our bedside and buried a hand in her hair. "Stop it right now, Edward. Of course you killed her! You made her a vampire! Her heart stopped beating and you thought it was the end of her life, but it wasn't! She's not done, look at her!"
I did look at my purpose, still and breathtaking but her eyes would confirm a truth I wasn't ready for, and I just couldn't meet them. Alice groaned in frustration, reaching over Bella and physically moving me until my face was hovering above hers. "Edward, look. At. Her. Just let it go and look at her!"
I let out a staggering breath, my palms coming to rest on either side of Bella's body on the bed. Alice let go of me once I held my weight, my eyes drifting along Bella's smooth skin and her red lips and the gentle slope of her nose. Once I looked into her eyes, I'd know exactly where she was. Here or there, life or death, saved or forsaken. The now blood-red depths would reveal everything to me, and the idea of knowing the truth wrecked me with its potential devastation.
I shut my eyes tightly as a violent shudder of fear ran through my body, my lips parting as I softly pleaded. "Bella…"
Somehow I finally gathered up the strength to meet her moving eyes...and I found her; I found her in her motionless, extraordinary beauty...and she found me too. As soon as I looked into her eyes, they stopped searching the air above, now focused on nothing but me and the matching deep red she saw in my own. Her breath hitched in her throat and we were frozen there, taking each other in, hearts still, bodies dead but together, we were fucking together and she was here…
Her entire being was a steady vibration, too much energy to be contained in her slight form. I took some of it into me, letting her life fuel me into having enough faith for the both of us.
And then she smiled…
And I was reborn again.
"Where is your light?" she whispered in a voice that was now crystal clear and just as breathtaking as it had always been. She lifted a shaking hand, her palm sliding along my cheek as she searched for the fire that once burned brightly inside my eyes. "Where is it, baby?"
I collapsed above her, holding her so tightly to my body as I sobbed, gasped, begged for everything and nothing in particular. She didn't bend or break beneath me. My shoulders ached from her force as she wrapped her arms around them, and I knew we'd done it. We'd survived this. It hurt to feel this much promise inside me…
"It will come back, beloved," I whispered into the crook of her neck, crushing her against my chest. "Don't leave me again, and I promise I'll be everything for you."
I winced as Bella squeezed me tighter, a breathless laugh escaping me as I relished in her strength. Her permanence. Her forever. And then her sweet mouth slid along my jaw, whispering the words that had the power to revive me from my overwhelming fear, and replace it with a resounding sensation of hope.
"Edward, you already are…everything."
And she was everything to me.
X
X
x
~xxx~
ZOMG, now what's gonna happen? Can you believe how uber-emo our Bitey got? Eh, who can blame him, he killed his mate and all. Hopefully he won't wallow for too long so we can enjoy some hot vampy lovin' in the near future!
Do any of you read MasterPerv Theatre, the place in which Lazykate and I let down our hair and write dirty, kinky things? Well if you do, you'll remember my most recent submission to MPT, entitled Red Light Special. Link: http:/www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/5952744/4/Masterperv_Theatre
Well I've donated Part Two of this one-shot to Fandom For Sexual Assault Awareness, and I'd love if you guys would check it out! A $5 donation to the sexual assault charity of your choice gets you a fabulous compilation of outtakes, one-shots, etc. from some of the most amazing authors in this fandom! It's for a great cause, ya'll! Go here for more info: http:/fandom4saa(dot)wordpress(dot)com/
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Until next time!