Thank you all so much for the reviews to the last chapter. I love that no one seemed to see that particular twist coming. I wasn't going to update until Wednesday, but you were all so great that I thought I'd save you the wait.

Chapter Twenty

Carlisle

Though Emmett had not told me what had happened that I needed to go home for, the tension in his voice made me drive home recklessly fast as I never would within the town usually.

I skidded to a halt in my driveway and started towards my house, and then diverted to Bella's when I heard Alice speaking within. Her voice was soft, as if she was talking to a skittish animal, and it made me sprint the distance to Bella's door and knock loudly.

There were footsteps and then Alice opened it, her beautiful face sad and strained. "You need to listen, Carlisle…" she started.

I brushed past her without taking in the meaning of the words and followed the sound of Bella's heartbeat—a sound I could pick out of thousands—into the living room.

Bella was sitting on the couch with her knees drawn to her chest and a blanket wrapped around her. She looked pale and ill, and when her eyes found me, there was none of the fondness I was accustomed to seeing now. She looked wary.

I wanted to go to her side, but the way she looked made me pause. I had a feeling I needed to be careful with her. "Bella… What happened?" I asked.

She shook her head and cast her eyes down.

I turned back to see Alice standing in the doorway. "Alice?"

Alice bit her lip and then seemed to brace herself as she said, "Edward bit her."

My breath caught, and I abandoned all caution and crossed to Bella's side. I sat down beside her, noting the way she stiffened, and I said, "Oh, Bella… I am so sorry. I never would have allowed Edward to stay in Forks if I'd known. We thought…" I cast accusing eyes at Alice. "Why didn't you see this?"

"It was a split-second decision," she said sadly. "And it didn't impact what I'd seen before. Look at her, Carlisle, listen to her heart."

I looked back at Bella and focused on Alice's instructions. I gasped when I realized what she was saying. Edward had bitten her, so she should be in the midst of her change now, but her heart wasn't racing, her breaths weren't coming as gasps; she wasn't moaning or crying out. I had remained silent through my change, out of necessity, but I had still thrashed. There had been no hiding that kind of pain totally.

"How?" I asked, glancing at Alice for a moment before my gaze returned to Bella.

"I don't know," Alice said. "I saw Edward biting her, and I tried calling to tell him to get away, but he didn't answer. We were already on our way, but we weren't in time."

"But how is she not changing?"

"It didn't work," Alice said miserably. "It didn't restart her… Carlisle, she…"

"Died," Bella whispered. "I died."

I froze, not breathing, not blinking, and then came back to life with a jerk. "No, you're here, you're alive!"

My eyes found Alice's, and she nodded slightly. "She did. Edward bit her and but her heart stopped before the change could start, and the venom didn't restart it when it again reached it. Edward tried CPR, but…" She squeezed her eyes shut and whispered. "Her chest was crushed."

I reached out to touch Bella and then pulled my hand back. "Bella, how are you alive?"

She stared at me wordlessly, her eyes dark with pain and her lips drawn down at the corners. "I always am."

I shook my head, dismissing the selfish questions and asking the one that mattered, "How do you feel?"

Bella looked at me, and there was something in her eyes that I had never seen before, not in either life with her; she looked scared. "Am I going to turn into a vampire now?" she asked.

"No," Alice said confidently. "I can see…" She drew a sharp breath and stopped herself. "Changing is a process, and you've not started it. It's always immediate, as soon as you're bitten. If you don't die, you change, but… you died. Whatever happened seems to have reset you when it healed you."

Bella nodded and cast her eyes down.

"Can I touch you?" I asked.

She stared at me a moment, seeming a little calmer now, and then nodded.

I touched her throat, feeling her pulse and testing the pliability of her skin, which should already be showing the minutest changes perceptible to me, but there was none. She was warm, and her pulse was a little fast, possibly from the stress, but she was not changing. How she was living, I had no idea, but she was not going to be a vampire.

"You're going to be okay," Alice said. "I can see you with us, it's still coming, and you're human."

Bella frowned at her. "You can see me human?"

"I have an additional ability," Alice said gently. "I can see the future. It's not precise, and I can only see the path someone's on while they're on it, but—" Bella held up a hand, and Alice fell silent then whispered, "I'm sorry."

Bella took a deep breath and said, "You know, I didn't even try to guess, I just ignored it like I wanted you to ignore what you saw happen to me, but I never would have guessed vampires." She shuddered. "You kill people."

"No, Bella!" I said fiercely, and she flinched. "We feed on animals. We don't take human lives, I swear."

Bella looked me in the eye. "Edward did."

"I know," I said, my hands clasping reflexively in my lap, and my innate love for my son made me defend him. "But, I swear, he did not mean to. Edward is unusually tempted by your scent. It's like…" I had no comparison to offer a human as an explanation. "It was obviously irresistible to him today. He would never have wanted to hurt you ordinarily. He's been so strong for so long to protect you."

Not strong enough… I thought.

A wave of fury surged through me at what Edward had done, and I tried to tamp it down. I reminded myself Bella was alive; I could hear her heartbeat and see her breaths. But it could have ended today—I could have lost her.

"She cut her finger," Alice supplied. "He didn't stand a chance with the fresh blood."

Bella looked thoughtful for a long time, and I watched her in silence, and then she said, "I sometimes hated what I am, but I guess it saved me today. Dying again was bad enough, but I don't want to be someone that ever even tries to kill people."

Alice stared at her for a moment and then asked, "Do you want to know all of it, about us?"

Bella shrugged. "I figure I need to now. I've seen enough, suffered enough, that I can't be ignorant anymore." She frowned and seemed to sort through her thoughts for a moment and then said, "How old are you?"

"I was changed in 1920," Alice said. "I'm not sure how old I was."

"And I was changed over three hundred years ago," I supplied.

I expected some reaction from Bella, that amount of time was a lot to comprehend, and, though she did look surprised, she smiled slightly and said, "Another long life. What else do I need to know?"

I had a feeling she was asking her questions, letting us tell her this, as she wanted to move her thoughts away from what had happened to her.

My mind was in the same place. I didn't understand how she could be alive if she'd died, and I desperately wanted to know how, but I would wait until she was ready to tell us. I had no right to ask anything of her after what I had allowed to happen.

"Our bodies are different," I said, holding out my hand. "You have noticed, I know."

Bella reached out and touched my palm. The sensation of her warmth, the feather-light touch, would have been heavenly in any other circumstance, but all I could feel was horror for what had happened to her.

"Like stone," she said. "And so cold."

"We don't feel cold to each other," Alice said.

"I guess that's nice," Bella replied, her hand moving up my wrist and then her fingers pressing to the place my pulse should have been felt.

"I have no heartbeat," I said. "Our bodies are frozen at the moment the change is finished. We cannot change physically at all. We're unending."

A small smile quirked Bella's lips, and she said, "I know the feeling."

Alice shot me a look laden with meaning, but I didn't respond. My focus was on Bella.

"You really don't kill humans?" she asked.

I met her eye and said, "I have never taken a human life in that way, though Edward, Esme, Emmett, and Rosalie are vampires because I changed them. I have never killed a human to feed. Some of my family have, but…" I shook my head. "It's hard to explain."

"The thirst burns like a fire in your throat," Alice said. "And you crave it with your whole body and mind. Our instinct is to kill. We, all our family, fight that feeling every single day to protect human life."

Bella nodded. "I guess I should say thanks for that, as an almost human."

"You are human, Bella," I said. "I don't know how or why you heal, how you're alive, but you are human."

"I'm really not," Bella said, touching the place on her neck where I assumed Edward had bitten her. She looked at me and seemed to be thinking hard before she said, "I know your secret now. Do you want to know mine?"

Alice leaned closer, and I knew she was desperate to answer, yes. As Alice usually knew everything, it was killing her to not know this secret.

"Do you want to tell us?" I asked.

Bella tugged the blanket a little closer around herself and said, "I think I do."

Alice perched on the edge of a chair and fixed her attentive eyes on Bella as she said, "Well, I call it a curse, but I don't think everyone would…"

So… We're one update away from answers at last—though they will not be all the answers you need as Bella does not know them either. There will be some explanation, though. Thank you for sticking with me this long.

Until next time…

Simaril xxx