Disclaimer: "This is the book that I want, forget bout all them other books before, Twilight I'll ride for you, give up my life for you, the other books ain't the same, put yourself in my name, cause Twilight's the book that I want." "Yeah, but you still can't have me." Yeah, I don't own it.
Author's note: I hadn't realised what the date was, in the story! I've worked it out properly, by the way. Can you guys believe it – in the story, only twelve days have passed since Bella's change. I've written a handful of chapters since then! How O-M-G is that?!
So, I hope you enjoy this chapter, as it is the last. Only the Epilogue left!
This chapter is dedicated to the following, who reviewed last chapter. I am so grateful to all of you that have reviewed, but here are the little bunch who pushed me to 1005 REVIEWS! I am so ecstatic right now that I can barely breathe- literally!
Amandantx, reincarnatedcrazybutterfly (Who I'd also like to thank for the little Dissociative Identity Disorder and Dissociative Fugue explanation, as I'm now going to use those in this chapter), xXxJazRainexXx, LunarEclipse4, Angeliss, ecaniaga, Sarah307, StormysGirl11, barbiedoll123, xx-Doomkitten-XX, loveydove665, Bezzaletta, Coven Mistress, gemin, ange-twi-action, berrykool, dorkiegrl2 andXoayannaoX12 .
They were talking about me.
I could hear them.
We'd been back in the house a grand total of 4 hours, 6 minutes and 38 seconds, and they were already discussing me.
"Any more news?" I heard Edward ask.
Well, so far, this is what I've got. You bit Bella August 27th; she woke up on August 30th.
"Yes," Edward agreed.
Did anything else transpire...apart from the obvious?
"Nothing. Other than that which you were present for." They were aware I was listening, their thoughts were carefully guarded.
Maybe it's a side effect from her lack of an appetite.
"Possible."
And so, it has been... Carlisle did quick maths. It has been only twelve days since her change! Maybe this is just because it is early on in her life?
"It may not be that, Carlisle." Edward was always the pessimist.
Well, it happens when she's overwhelmed, agreed?
There was no answer, so I assumed Edward had nodded.
And by her reaction during and after her 'black outs', I'm assuming that neither Bella is aware of the other's presence?
"Not in the least."
It could be Dissociative Identity Disorder?
"Have you ever heard of a vampire to have that?"
No, but Bella's never been the average human, or vampire.
"I suppose so. But then you could say it's Dissociative Fugue, right?"
I suppose so, yes. But I don't think it's that complicated. I still think it has something to do with him.
"What makes you so sure?"
I don't know, Edward. I'd say it's probably the saliva mixing with the venom that's caused it. Maybe, the saliva was just a memory trigger? To create temporary amnesia?
"Possibly."
I will work this out Edward, I have to.
I didn't want to hear this. None of it made any sense, whatsoever! Saliva? Memory trigger? What were they rambling on about? And had all the Cullens taken psychology?
I looked for something else to do. Alice had sent me out of the living room- or, the dead room, as Emmett so lovingly nicknamed it – for unknown reasons. She told me not to look to the future, or she 'would have my head'.
And Rosalie wouldn't tell me either!
I listened around the house, looking for some sort of a distraction.
Emmett was helping the girls...
Edward was with Carlisle...
Carlisle was with Edward...
Rose, Alice and Esme were with Emmett...
And Jasper was in his room.
"Jasper?" I knocked softly against the door.
"Yes?" I heard him growl.
I opened the door an inch. "Can I come in?"
"Why?" Was his curt answer.
"Jasper...you don't seem too good...I wanted to help..."
"And you have nothing else to do." He sighed. "Come in."
I opened the door and flew in.
Jasper was sitting in the right corner of the room, his back against the glass wall, with a much abused book in hand.
"What are you reading?" I asked, as I sat down fluidly opposite him. Whatever it was, it didn't look healthy.
"Wuthering Heights." A wistful smile appeared on his face.
"Is it any good?" The smile disappeared.
"I was so sure you'd remember." He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Here. Read it - it used to be your favourite. That's your book."
"As in, my human book?" I turned it around, flipping carelessly through the flimsy pages.
"Yes," he smiled again. "Every book in the house – it doesn't matter who's it is – goes into our library. And lo and behold, I find this and smell Bella Swan all over it."
I laughed. "I can't smell anything."
"Maybe it's too subtle for your freaky nose," he nudged me playfully. "Stick your nose in between the pages."
"Seriously?!" I asked, disbelieving.
"Utterly. Go for it."
I cautiously poked my nose in to the pages.
"What can you smell?" Jasper asked. I wondered how stupid I looked, with a broken-up book shoved over my face, and me sniffing away at it's pages to my heart's content.
"I can smell...paper...flowers? Freesia...roses?"
"That's about right. You used to smell like flowers, like freesias."
"Wow. I smelled nice."
"No kidding," he laughed.
"We're ready!" I heard a tinkling voice call from downstairs.
"Put that down," Jasper smiled. "You've got a surprise waiting for you."
"A what?"
Jasper pulled me up from the floor fluidly. "Wait and see. Can I cover your eyes?"
I shrugged. "As long as it doesn't involve any more Volturi members, sure, go ahead!"
Jasper smiled at me before he tied a long, silken, red ribbon around my eyes. I could see no silhouettes through it; my eyes were focused on the fibres of the material, silken threads dancing in front of me as we made our way down the stairs.
Then, I smelt someone- or several someones – who were unfamiliar.
"Jasper..." I mumbled. "Who's there? I don't recognize their scent..."
"She really doesn't remember!" A velvet voice called out in surprise.
"Shut up, Tanya!" Another female voice countered.
"Be quiet, the both of you!" A male voice, deeper in tone, berated them.
I had no idea who these people...though, obviously, vampires were!
"Okay...can you take the blindfold off, now? This is sort of intimidating..."
The velvet tones of vampires, friends and family alike, filled the room.
"Go ahead!" Alice trilled.
Jasper untied the ribbon; and the relief was instantaneous.
"I can see again!" I squealed jokingly.
My family stood in front of me, Jasper stepping out from behind me to join them. In amongst my family, were a group of...I counted quickly...five vampires with topaz eyes.
"Happy Birthday Bella!" Alice trilled.
No one joined in.
"Awh, guys! I thought we'd practised this!"
Everyone laughed.
"It's...my birthday?"
"Indeed it is; September 13th!"
"Wow!" I laughed. "How old am I?"
"Bella, you're frozen at 18." Emmett shook his head as though I were stupid.
"So, I'm nineteen?" I asked, ignoring Emmett.
"No, Bella," Emmett persisted. "You are frozen at eighteen!"
"I know, Emmett. But this is my nineteenth birthday. Wow!"
"No, Bella, I don't think you're grasping the concept-" Rosalie hit Emmett upside the head again. "Ouch!"
"It's okay, Emmett. I understand." I smiled, trying not to laugh.
"Okay. Just making sure!" He looked so proud of himself that I had to turn away, for fear of laughing.
"So, who are you?" I asked the extension of my family.
"This, Bella, is the Denali Coven. Tanya, Kate, Irina, Carmen and Eleazar."
"Hi." What an anticlimactic greeting...I thought to myself. Surely you could've come up with something better than that, Bella?
"Hello, Bella." The voice I recognized to be Tanya greeted me. A tall, strawberry blonde female stepped forward and kissed my cheek. "I suppose you don't remember us."
"Nothing whatsoever, I'm sorry, Tanya."
She smiled. "No bother. It'll be a clean slate for us. I must say, immortality looks fabulous on you, Bella."
Her mind saw a young girl, with rosy cheeks, clinging to Jasper's side in the doorway of a house that Tanya recognized as her own. Bella.
The girl was easily recognizable, I had seen her in Edward and Alice's mind. And in a photo in Edward's room of a red-faced Bella clinging to Edward's side in the same fashion as she was doing to Jasper in Tanya's mind. Wow, she was clingy.
"Thank you." I smiled.
"Happy Birthday, from all of us." Eleazar smiled, his arm around Carmen, who had a little box in her hand, her arm outstretched towards me.
"Oh!" I gasped. "You shouldn't have!"
"But we did." Kate laughed.
"Same old Bella,"Esme giggled. "You never did want us to buy you anything!"
I carefully took the box from Carmen's outstretched hand, smiling gratefully.
I opened it, and inside was a charm – I assumed for a bracelet.
It was a tiny silver baby; its eyes were tiny crystals, facets glinting out at me. The detail in the little figure was intricate and perfect. Skin of silver, eyes of garnet, the features were beautiful, and clearly immortal.
A little immortal child. How beautiful!
"Thank you, ever so much!"
"We wanted to have some part in your bracelet. After all, we think ourselves as family." Tanya smiled.
So I was getting a bracelet? That didn't sound too expensive – that was good. I had nothing to return to the Cullens, why should they give me anything?
"Thank you ever so much, Tanya, Kate, Irina, Carmen, Eleazar." I smiled, hugging each of them in turn.
As I bent to hug Kate, she stopped me, and kissed my cheek.
"The power's a bonus." She smirked. "I'll show you how to use it, later."
"Thank you."
"Wow, that was a lot of names to get through!" Alice joked.
"It was our mother's." Tanya smiled. "We think she would have wanted you to have it."
I smiled and thanked her again. I had no inkling of what had happened with their mother, but she obviously was not alive – immortal or mortal.
I'll tell you later, Edward promised.
"Oh, and Bella?" Irina smiled. "I'll be taking your 'wedding' photos. Photography is my calling."
She doesn't remember, she doesn't remember... I heard Irina chant in her head. How curious.
"Thank you, so much Irina." I smiled.
"Oh, me next, me next!" Alice squealed. I closed the Denali coven's box, and placed it carefully on the table.
Alice skipped forward with a similar box in hand. "Open it!"
I smiled at her and complied. Inside the box, was a high heeled shoe charm.
Figures.
"Thank you Alice!" I smiled, stepping forward to hug her.
"It's a promise for the future! We're going to go shopping every day!"
I was so glad to see Alice happy again. From the beginning, when I had known her, she had been a quiet and resigned girl, but now, something had changed in her – she was more alive. She was the Alice of my husband's memories.
"I can't wait."
Yay! Alice mentally squealed. Oh, she's so much less stubborn than human Bella!
I stifled a smile.
"Me next, me next!" The second most excitable person in our family boomed. Emmett stepped forward with his box in hand.
"It's a bear. Cause I like them." He grinned.
"Thank you, Emmett." I smiled, hugging him.
"And that one's a dancing bear, but I like grizzlies. When we go hunting next, you can watch me take one down."
"Thanks, but no thanks." I smiled.
"No problem, squirt. Wait 'til you see me take one of those bad boys down!"
I giggled. He was quite adamant! "Sure thing, Em."
"This is mine and Carlisle's." Esme stepped forward, box in hand. "I guess, it's a two-parter, for lack of a better phrase."
It was a swan.
"For Bella Swan." I acknowledged.
"Yes. And that's just the first part. Bella, we know that you can control yourself perfectly well around humans...and so," she looked to Carlisle for encouragement. "We've arranged for you to go and see your father in a few weeks."
My smile faltered. "My father?"
I'd just realised that I had never, in all my time of being a vampire, asked about my parents. Did I have a brother? A sister? What about my mother? Was she dead? Why didn't Esme say my father and mother?
"Don't you want to go?" Esme asked, looking a little worried.
"Of course, of course...I just realised I don't know anything about my family." I gave her a weak smile.
"We'll fill you in," she smiled back, hers stronger than mine. "And we'll go and see Renee and Phil," your mother and step-father, she supplied mentally. "not long after."
"Thank you Esme, Carlisle." My voice wavered. I stepped forward and engulfed them both in a huge hug.
Rosalie was next.
"I know it's not exactly intricate," she smiled. "But I wanted to let you know that you're the missing puzzle piece that this family has been waiting for all these years. You've fit perfectly, you've made us whole. And I for one couldn't imagine life without you."
I smiled. "Thanks Rosalie."
She produced a box containing a jigsaw piece charm. I stepped forward and hugged her tight.
"Thanks, Rose."
It means more than that. You're the missing piece of my jigsaw too – my best friend.
I nodded, and smiled at her.
I was so glad at that moment that I couldn't cry, or I would be blubbering like I baby. I tried to keep my emotions in check; if I continued like this then everyone would be dry sobbing along with me.
Jasper stepped forward then, having been as quiet as a mouse the entire time.
"My turn."
He handed me a box matching to the rest, and inside was a little key.
I smiled. "Thank you, Jasper. Does it open anything in particular?"
He looked a little awkward, and his emotions portrayed his determination in deception. "I thought it'd look good on there," he laughed. "It doesn't open anything."
I laughed and hugged him. "Thank you."
He seemed caught off guard; his emotions were emanating surprise.
Then his arms tightened around me and I felt him inhale. "You're welcome." Jasper stepped back, inclining his head.
Edward was last. "I've got something old and new for you, dear."
I smiled. "You didn't have to. You've already given me enough."
"But, he did..." Tanya rolled her eyes a little.
Edward ignored her, bringing out a bigger box than the rest.
The bracelet.
He opened the box for me, and tugged out a sterling silver bracelet. To my surprise, there were already two charms on there.
I held out my hand.
The silver linked bracelet fell into my palm, the metal hot against my cool hand.
"It's beautiful..." I gasped, looking at the diamond heart, and wooden wolf.
"It was yours." Edward added. "Yours, from when you were human." I could see him warring with himself – he wanted to say something else. "Jacob gave it to you, for graduation. He made the wolf himself."
"Oh," I breathed, picking up the tiny wooden wolf in my hands and examining the detail. I suddenly became all too aware that I could crush it just by twisting my fingers. I let it fall. "Put it on for me?"
Edward unclasped the bracelet and put it around my left wrist.
"Thank you. All of you. So much." I would have been crying, if I could have.
"There's one more thing, Bella. Listen."
Edward was showing me something with his thoughts. He placed his hands on my temples.
We're in our meadow, Edward informed me.
We had a meadow?!
"You already know how I feel, of course," Bella was talking. "I'm here...which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you." She frowned; Edward had taken care to notice each crease in the lines that appeared as she made the gesture. "I'm an idiot."
"You are an idiot," Edward agreed. Bella's eyes met his, and she laughed, too.
"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb..." Edward murmured. Bella's heartbeat increased and she looked away, the corners of her mouth turning up in a hidden smile.
"What a stupid lamb," she sighed.
"What a sick, masochistic lion." He turned away, and his memory ended.
"So, I was your lamb, huh?" I smiled, leaning into his touch. He moved his hands from my temples to my shoulders.
"Yes," he smiled. "My little fragile lamb."
"Okay, just give her the damn charm!" Emmett boomed. "I wanna see if we can get Bella to eat some cake!"
"Okay," Edward laughed. "And so, that is the reason, for this." He held out another box.
I took it happily.
"Someone's a little greedy," I joked. "Two charms? That's a bit drastic!"
He smiled. "I'm meant to be the most important man in your life, least you could do is have both representations of me."
I opened the box.
It was a silver charm of a lion and a lamb.
"I love you." I murmured, closing the box and pressing my lips to his.
And I did. In that moment, I knew he was the one that would always have a part of me, wherever I went, whatever I did. And I would have the same for him.
"I love you too."
"Okay okay, that's all fine and dandy, now get those charms on her. I want to see Bella eating some cake!" Emmett persisted, booming out over the house, and while effectively ruining the moment, made me even happier.
It wouldn't be right if Emmett wasn't here. It wouldn't be right if my family wasn't here.
I smiled at them, as Edward began clipping the charms onto my bracelet. "Okay, Emmett. I'll eat some cake."
"Yahoo!" Emmett boomed, running up the stairs. "Rose, you get the cake, I'll get the camera! I want to have the moment she spits it out on tape!"
And as we all laughed – well, apart from me – I knew that this was exactly right.
Because I love you guys, the epilogue will be up ASAP!
To find pictures of the charms from this chapter, and the clothes from the last, go onto my profile and click up my fanfiction site! :D
