The Bear

Epilogue

Ten Years Later

"Amber, I'll never understand how you could talk me into taking up hiking of all things!" Bree Tanner complained. The two women were following a rough track along the bank of the Calawah River on the Olympic peninsula.

"Oh sugar, it's good for us! Women need fresh air and exercise to keep their youthful figures, good health, and especially, their good head space."

Bree and Amber worked together as waitresses in a Port Angeles restaurant called La Bella Italia. The autumn before, Bree had moved to that picturesque fishing village, thinking that having a change of place would also help her to find a change of pace. Her life had been confusing these last many years. She was hoping she could find in Port Angeles what she had been missing in herself. One of the last places she would have wanted to work, an Italian Restaurant, was the only place she could find a job, so she gritted her teeth and took the position. After all, she didn't have to eat the food. It had worked out rather well. She had made some good friends and her life seemed to be brightening.

But Bree shook her head. The last thing she needed was head space. In fact, ever since the incident when she worked for the charter service, her head had been in outer space, mostly. Dr. Jenks, her therapist, had told her that a great shock did numbers on a person's psyche, including the disturbing tendency to create false memories to substitute for a traumatic reality. On that flight a decade ago, she had passed out due to carbon monoxide poisoning. When she awoke, she was in a posh hospital and was told that she had caught a virus or something, but they weren't sure. Later, her illness was diagnosed as poisoning due to the engine exhaust that had managed to get into the jet's cabin. She was lucky to have passed out when she did because she was immediately removed from the plane once it landed. Her coworkers hadn't been so lucky. Later, they had been completely overcome and the leaking gas had led to a tremendous explosion.

She never went back to working on a charter. In fact, she stayed far away from planes in general. The experience had given her lingering after effects. She still had very vivid memories of emo-goth creatures, impenetrable woods, and a beautiful house on a river. But those memories, she had been told, were all something her brain had concocted. Even the hospital where she came to consciousness in hadn't been real. When she had been discharged from there, a taxi had taken her home to her apartment.

Later, her parents had come and broke the news of the deaths of her colleagues. Of course, she was shocked. However, she was even more shocked when she told her folks about being treated in the Riley Biers Institute of Wellness, and they insisted that she had been at Swedish Medical all along. She was determined to prove them wrong, so she had backtracked the taxi's route to where she remembered the hospital had been, but it wasn't there. There were just a series of office buildings and warehouses. In fact, there were no records of the Riley Biers Institute anywhere. She was astonished when Swedish Medical Hospital produced the records of her admittance and treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning. The evidence that her memories were wrong was overwhelming. So of course, she had thought numbly, that's where she must have had been all along.

Still, she had been very confused. Her confusion led to therapy, which was helpful over the years, but there were occasions that she felt like she was an old-fashioned record that had skipped over something important. She was tired of that feeling and so she was hopeful Port Angeles would fill the spaces she was missing.

"Where are we headed, Amber?"

"There's a town just a few miles ahead called Forks. They have a little hotel there that caters to hikers. We're going to stop there overnight. You'll love it."

Amber ducked under an overhanging limb and parted the vegetation that verged on a large, open meadow. "Wow! Look at this place!" she exclaimed.

Bree did. In front of them was what at first seemed to be a meadow, but now it was obvious it was someone's huge yard as there was a beautiful late-century modern house sitting in the center of it. It was all windows and wood and stucco, with the most amazing flowers and trees adorning it.

A solid chord of recognition sounded as Bree gazed around her. "I've been here before."

"I thought the furthest you ever got up the peninsula was Port Angeles. This is almost to the coast." Amber looked at Bree skeptically.

Bree took several hurried steps into the yard. "No, I've been here. I know it. Come on. I'll prove it."

She led her friend across the yard, around to the front of the house. "There will be a large circular driveway in front with a big double door and a balcony." She waved her arm in the direction of the hillside that led to a forest. "And there was a tent over there, but that's not there anymore, of course."

They got around to the front of the house and it was just like Bree had said it would be. She led them to the front door.

"What are you doing? This is private property. I'm not sure they'd like having strangers show up and hang on their bell." Amber was usually daring about these sorts of things, but for some reason, she was hesitant to knock on this door.

"I've got to see who lives here." Bree was adamant. Things, long missing things, were finally clicking into place in her head. She rang the doorbell.

There was no answer.

"Come on, Bree. Let's go." Amber was getting more and more anxious.

Bree rang the bell again and followed that by knocking on the door.

But there was still no answer.

"What are you trying to do?"

"I'm trying to figure out what happened here. I've been here before, long ago. There was a tent over there, there were a dozen or so goths acting all emo and they had kidnapped me and brought me here. There was a man who stood on that balcony. He had blonde hair that was so fair, it almost looked white."

She turned and pointed up the driveway. "There was an old pickup truck that was blasting the Bee Gees. And there was a woman with long brown hair and red eyes standing in the bed of the truck."

She ran across the grass to a flat area. "There was a pile of logs here. I remember it vividly. They told me it was all a dream or something that I made up. But it was real. This place proves it was real, Amber. I am not broken! I am not crazy!"

Amber was befuddled. She'd never seen her friend so excited. "So, what are you going to do about it?"

Dear Mr. Carlisle Cullen,

Through the Clallam County property assessor, I discovered you own a beautiful property just outside of Forks, Washington. I stumbled upon it while hiking last month and it brought back some memories…

"Oh, dear," Carlisle said as he read Bree Tanner's letter. "We really bolluxed up this girl's life."

Esme looked up from some architectural plans she was reviewing. "How so?"

Carlisle went on to explain the confusion and displacement Bree had suffered during the last ten years due to their coverup of the Volturi attack and her role in it.

"That poor girl. We must do something for her."

"I'm going to leave it up to Bella and Edward."

So, that was how it was finally revealed to Bree Tanner, under a non-disclosure agreement, what had actually happened that summer day a decade previously. The Cullens were apologetic about the trouble it had caused her and decided to try to recompense her as best they could. Bree took all the revelations in stride, accepting the secret of vampires, shapeshifters, supernatural gifts, and the power of the Bee Gees. She was so relieved that she wasn't crazy, she couldn't ask for more.

"But actually, there's something that you can do for us, if you'd like," Edward said.

And so, that was how Bree Tanner became the personal assistant to Senator William Black in Washington, D.C. It helped that she knew everything. Billy found her to be intelligent and competent, so much so that after a few months, they both recognized their relationship had grown beyond a professional one. It wasn't too long before Bree became Billy's wife in a sweet ceremony in La Push, presided over by their Walalo.

It was fitting that the newly wedded bride and groom left the altar to the strains of Staying Alive.

AN: Well, that ties up all the loose ends, I think. Finally, Bree and Billy got their due. I know that Billy is old enough to be Bree's dad, but…he's in Washington D.C. She's not the only young'un there on an old fool's arm. Thank you very much for reading. It means a lot to know there are folk enjoying the creations of my brain (and Stephenie Myers, of course). Thanks to my husband for pre-reading this.