What if the Cullens weren't the first immortals that Bella met? What if she had an encounter with a more transitory immortal while she was in Phoenix? One that had a history with Caius…

Stephenie Meyer owns the original story, of course. I am just playing with the characters

Chapter 26 – Back to Forks, and back to the spirit world

(Carlisle's POV)

Just as our flight to Italy was about to depart, Alice reached Bella on the phone. She was in a B&B outside Volterra, and she told Alice she and Emily were with Mario. Alice patched Bella into our call, and Jasper quickly took the phone. He ordered Mario to leave the two girls alone, as Bella was Edward's wife and Emily was under our protection, but Mario refuses to give up Emily. He hung up rather than answering Jasper. With a sinking heart, I watched Jasper trying to get Bella back on the phone, but it only rang repeatedly. My instinct told me that Mario had destroyed the phone.

I called AnnaMaria on my phone while Jasper continued to dial Bella's number. She suggested trying to call Alec, who was with Mario. Much as I did not want to involve the Volturi, I did what I must to get to my daughter-in-law and her friend.

I had no trouble reaching Alec, and he told me both girls were ok. Mario would respect my claim to Bella, and Alec promised that he would personally take Bella to the Milan airport and put her on a flight to New York, and we could wait for her there. As for Emily, Mario was staking a claim. My feelings regarding this were mixed. Clearly she had been harmed at the hands of the wolves, and the girls who live with AnnaMaria were well cared for. As long as Emily consented, I would not challenge this claim.

I made the flight arrangements and called Alec with the travel times. Finally I spoke to Bella, while she and Alec were on their way to Venice. I smiled sadly, remembering how she had always wanted to see Venice. She would be seeing the fabled city for the first time with an outsider, a Volturi guard, no less, and not my son Edward.

I was able to confirm with the airline that she was on the flight with Alec. I gave her some time to rest. We would resolve everything once she arrived at JFK. All these little trips were going to end, as she had broken our trust by taking off for Italy without a suitable escort. Jasper and I waited for her arrival.

As the flight landed, I began to feel uneasy. She had stopped answering her phone, and the flight had had an unscheduled landing in Dusseldorf. But the airline insisted she was still on the flight. I got the airlines to allow me to talk to her, but she was acting oddly. It was as if she had forgotten about Emily. She seemed reluctant to talk and would not hand the phone to Alec. Something was wrong, but I did not know what.

We waited impatiently for the passengers to disembark. Suddenly Jasper pointed to the tarmac. A car was speeding across the tarmac, away from the plane. We pushed through the emergency exit and leapt onto the tarmac. There we found Bella's scent mixed with Caius'. After decades spent in Volterra, I would know it anywhere.

We immediately began to pursue the car, but it moved onto a bridge, and we could not follow it without being seen. We had to hail a taxi, and by the time we reached the other side of the bridge we had lost the car.

I immediately had Alice start searching for them, but for what? All recent car and hotel rentals? Caius had properties and people in New York. Jasper and I split and began to circle Manhattan, but there was too much area to cover. We turned up nothing, though we searched throughout the night.

The next morning, my phone rang, the caller I.D. flashing an unidentified number.

It was Caius. In a broken voice he asked me for help and gave me an address. We were there within minutes.

I could smell the blood and hear Bella's high blood pressure from the hallway. Caius had the door open; I just pushed past him. Bella was lying on the bed in a knot of sheets. She had bruises across her entire body. But what caught my eye was that her body was lying in an unnatural position.

It didn't take much probing to determine that she had a broken hip and broken back. There was a lot of internal bruising and some tearing, and a slow bleed in her abdomen.

"The only way she will survive this is to change her, if we're not too late," I told Caius.

This comment seemed to cause Bella to struggle back. "No change, no! It would kill us…you know where I have to go…" she gasped, and then she sank back, further away from us.

I had already noticed when I examined her eyes that her eye color had begun to change back to brown. Much of the green was gone, and her hair color was subtly changing as well.

What the hell had Caius done to her? Well, obviously, he had had sex with her. But human bodies are so fragile, and he had obviously allowed himself to lose control. I remembered all the conversations I had with Edward, when he had confided his worries to me about harming Bella.

I called a colleague and asked for permission to use his medical facilities. We quickly carried her to Caius' car, and despite the horrendous pain that she must have been suffering from the broken bones, she barely moaned. We transported her to the urgent care unit where I set her broken bones and started some I.V. lines. I told Caius through gritted teeth to arrange for a private plane. An empty commercial jet would be best. He nodded.

Once I had stabilized her as best I could, we sped to the airport. While we boarded the plane, I felt we were losing her by the minute. The I.V. fluids would keep her going for a while; I only hoped it would be long enough.

I looked over at Caius, and he was in agony. I could only think of my own son, Edward. If she died, what happened to a vampire when their mate died was well known. They often had to be destroyed, frequently at their own request. After conferring with Jasper, I called home, and arranged for Emmett, Rosalie and Esme to take Edward to Portland, telling him we would be arriving there. I didn't need him to see Bella in this condition. I needed to be able to concentrate on her needs, not on his reaction to this disaster. If he fought Caius, not only would we lose Bella, we risked losing the entire coven to the Volturi. I couldn't put the rest of my coven at risk.

We had to transfer to a smaller plane in Port Angeles, but we arranged for it to be waiting on the tarmac, and Jasper was able to pilot it. We finally arrived in the tiny Forks airport. I rushed Bella to her room at our house, but nothing happened. She didn't seem to know she had arrived. The instant healing she felt on the return from Isle Esme hadn't occurred. Had the tree spirit moved, sensing her absence?

Maybe she needed to go back to Charlie's house? We raced to Charlie's, but nothing happened there either. Now was when we needed really needed Emily, maybe she could have told us what to do.

Alice went through all of Bella's photos of the tree, but time was running out. She found a photo that appeared to have been taken at LaPush. The trees were clearly local, and there was a view of the beach.

I called Billy.

"Dr. Cullen," his calm voice answered.

"Billy, I need your help. I need you to identify a location in LaPush."

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and then I could heard him put the phone onto speaker. I could hear two others were with him on the other end of the line. "This is not the conversation I thought we would be having," he said quietly.

"Things did not go as planned for the girls. Bella is here, but injured. I need someone to identify this site, or I may lose her."

"Emily?" was Sam's single word reply. So Sam was on the phone, I imagined that the other would be either Jacob or Sue Clearwater.

"We can discuss that later, she didn't come back with Bella. She chose to stay in Italy. I'm at Charlie's house now," I countered. "Please hurry, I'm losing her."

"Stay where you are, we will come to you," replied Billy.

A few minutes later, Billy and Sam were pulling up to the house. Alice didn't even wait for Sam to get Billy out of the car. She just shoved the photos in their car window.

"That's a cliff, that's where I found Bella," said Sam.

"Take us there," screamed Alice. "Carlisle, come on, now!"

I carefully picked up Bella. Even sedated, she moaned. The pain to her back must have been terrible. Jasper kept his hand on hers. From his expression I could tell he was trying to absorb some of the pain.

We follow Sam in his truck along the 101, then down the 110 onto the reservation. He quickly left the road to drive through the forest, near the sign for Third Beach, and we followed closely behind him.

Finally the trees came to an end, and we saw open spaces and the ocean. He lead us to a cliff and stopped his truck. I didn't see the laurel tree from the photo, but we got out anyway. I gently lifted Bella in my arms and carried her with me. Alice followed us, carrying the I.V. and my medical bag.

"What the hell happened!" said Billy when he saw Bella, while Sam yelled, "Emily, what did you do to Emily?"

Without answering, I walked to the cliff edge. It did look like the photo, but there was no laurel tree.

I felt my heart sink, as this was our last hope. Bella was fading in my arms. Caius followed me, keeping one hand on her head, gently. His own terror and remorse were written all over his face.

Bella began to stir, as if she was trying to roll in my arms. She struggled towards something. The edge of the cliff?

I murmured to her, "Do you want to die here? Do you want to go over the cliff? Is the pain too much?" I looked at Jasper, hoping for some translation. He seemed to grasp my unspoken question.

"I think she wants to go down the front of the cliff face. She doesn't want to fall all the way," he said quickly.

"It doesn't look like a fall would do any more damage than you've already done," said Billy. The other members of the pack had begun to arrive and were surrounding us. If Bella died here, so would we.

Sam suddenly said, "Wait, the first time I met her, she was reaching over that cliff, right about here. I had to lift her up over the edge. I remember thinking it was strange."

We looked over the cliff edge, and just below the top ridge there was a small hole, a cave opening. Large enough for her, but how could we get her there? Forming a human chain, Jasper and the Quileutes lowered me over the edge, carrying Bella. Fortunately, the cave entrance was only a few yards from the top of the cliff. We positioned Bella at the entrance of the small cave. I didn't want to shove her in, but it doesn't look large enough to have someone crawl in and pull her behind them.

I positioned her arm at the entrance of the hole, and as her hand went in, I started to feel her body relax. Her body went limp, as if she was not fighting any more. But I was sure this wasn't death. It felt like the healing relaxation I had witnessed on her return from Isle Esme. I began to feel hope, for the first time since leaving my house.

"It's working," I called out to those waiting above us.

I gently set her closer to the edge, and she started to pull herself in. I don't know how, but suddenly she had a surge of strength and pulled herself completely inside, despite her broken back. I had just looked up to give an update to the onlookers, when I heard Jasper gasp.

The entrance has disappeared. There was nothing but solid rock. Not only had the sound of her heartbeat stopped, but even her distinctive scent had vanished. She was gone from us, as if she never existed.

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