Final Chapter for y'all! See you on Friday for the epilogue and announcements about a revision and *gasp* a sequel?
Alice shook herself out of her daze. It had been a few hours after her vision of Oceanside Ranch, and she'd been searching the future ever since.
Searching the future when no visions were actively coming to her was almost futile. She was basically telling the universe she was open to receiving whatever supernatural knowledge it would give her. Other than that, all she could see was visions she'd already seen, but only the ones still possible. It was how she could tell, this morning, that there was an equal chance of Bella dying and Bella becoming a vampire. It was how she knew the chance of her death was shrinking, because she could see it less and less.
Searching the future also put her in a similar daze as visions, because she was just watching old visions. But she'd shaken herself out, momentarily. Not because she'd seen a new vision, but because an old one had disappeared.
"I have… good news, I think?" Alice began. Every eye in the car whipped to hers, except Edward, the mindreading spoilsport. "All the futures with Bella's death have disappeared. She's definitely going to become one of us."
Edward let out a strangled moan. "Rose," he ordered. "Floor it."
And Rosalie did.
~O~
Bella found Victoria behind the last door she'd tried. She'd found a laundry room, bathroom, and second bedroom, respectively, down the hallway. She should have figured Victoria would be in the master suite.
A cream macrame tapestry hung over the bed. The floor was covered in a fluffy white rug, and the oversized bed was filled with blankets and pillows the same shade as the rug, the exception being a few decorative pillows the same green velvet as the reading nook chair.
It was the kind of room anyone, herself included, would have adored, and the bed was the centerpiece. She would have loved to collapse on it, except for one thing.
Victoria was lying backward across it.
Her eyes had been on Bella since the moment she'd entered the room. They followed her as Bella searched for a place to sit, and as she plopped down on the rug, unsuccessful in her search.
"Are you already ready?" Victoria asked tonelessly.
Bella barely felt a hint of amusement at the rhyme. "Can I ask you some questions?"
Victoria's face finally made an expression, a half-smirk. "You can ask."
Bella sighed. "Will you answer some questions?"
Victoria paused but eventually nodded. "I'll answer the ones I feel like answering."
Bella figured that was as good as she was going to get. She decides to start with the one she thinks Victoria will be most likely to answer. "How many people did you kill in the first year?"
Victoria stares at her like she's grown a second head until she adds, "Accidently. How many people did you kill when you didn't mean to kill them, when you weren't hunting."
"Humans, not people, dearie," she grins as she corrects her. "And I lost count."
Bella gapes at her, and Victoria's grin only grows wider. She lost count with a perfect memory?
"It's not like I really cared," Victoria adds. "It was the 1500s. Your aunt died in childbirth at sixteen, your cousin's ship sank on the way to the New World when he was twelve, your neighbor keeled over from a piece of rotten meat. If one or two of your friends disappeared on their travels, or even in their own homes, it wasn't so bizarre. And everything was so much easier to clean up before the twentieth century. You really only pay attention to the deaths you have to put effort into, and everyone was effortless my first year."
Bella closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. So, not the best start.
"Any more asinine questions?"
Despite the unsatisfactory answer she'd thus far received, Bella found herself nodding.
What she'd really wanted to know with her first question was how hard vegetarianism would be. Even though she knew it was naive, she felt like she could overcome the challenge if she could prepare for it.
"Is it hard not to kill people when you turn them?"
"Worried, are you?" Bella didn't say anything, letting Victoria make her false assumption. "The longer you've been alive, the more used to the scent and taste of human blood you get. It's the taste that matters when you're turning someone. It's a combination of thirst and instincts that lead us to bleed humans dry. A couple hundred years ago, I never would have been able to ignore the thirst after the first taste. But now, it's just a matter of resisting my instincts."
Victoria propped her elbows up on the bed to rest her face on her hands and lifted her legs to kick aimlessly in the air. She smiled playfully, but there was still a ferocious edge to her expression. Bella knew she was only doing it to unnerve her, but she couldn't help but feel unnerved.
Bella looked down. And then back at Victoria. She refused to be intimidated. She would rather move into her next life proud and afraid than comfortable and small.
"How often do you run into other vampires? How often do you run into ones you've met before by chance?"
"I can't tell if you're trying to figure out how big our world is or if you'll ever see me again."
Bella held her gaze, even as she felt a blush creep up her neck. Victoria nodded, and Bella realized that this is the price for answers. Victoria wanted to goad her into… something, presumably for entertainment purposes, in exchange for her knowledge.
"One of those two, then," Victoria continued. "Or perhaps both? To answer your question, though, it depends on how long you stay on the same continent. Stay in North America for a few hundred years, and you're bound to run into a good portion of us. A few hundred more and you'll start seeing the same people twice."
Bella braced herself before asking her next question. "Do you miss the possibility of having children?"
Victoria sprang up so fast that Bella flinched. She landed in a catlike squat and didn't even bother to goad Bella before answering with venom, "No. Never."
She didn't know how she could bring herself to speak, as startled as she was, but a faint, "Why?" escaped her lips.
Victoria frowned and returned to a normal position, sitting criss-cross in the middle of the bed. "Your precious Cullens can answer that. They'll know what happens to those of us who refuse to let go of the impossible."
Bella let her statement roll around her head for a moment, trying to tease out a meaning. Then she decided to move on. "If you can remember everything in perfect clarity, does time still heal all wounds?"
Victoria nodded, seeming to give up on her game. "Time doesn't dull our memories, like it does for humans, but it does lend us perspective. We learn to accept and release our emotions to make room for new ones. In a few decades, I won't necessarily feel remorse, but I'll no longer be mad at your mate."
Finally, Bella paused. She knew the obvious changes her body would go through in the next three days: super strength, indestructibility, the thirst. She wanted to know more about what to expect, but most of her questions could only be answered by vegetarians. There was nothing more she could possibly do to prepare.
Her mouth went dry. "I think I'm ready."
The next twenty minutes both felt like an eternity and passed by in a blur. Victoria got up and led her to the bed, asked her if she was comfortable as she lied down. A syringe appeared in her hand, and she told Bella about the discovery she'd made practicing on an addict high on opioids. Bella watched her stop breathing as she gently pressed the syringe into her neck. As they wait for the morphine to kick in, Victoria tells her how she'll bite more than one of the major arteries, because that will make it faster. Her tone implies that Bella doesn't have a choice in this matter. Silence reigns.
Bella recognizes the feeling as the drug kicks in. It's stronger than when she takes her cocktail of palliative care meds, but still familiar. It's how she knows she only has a few more moments.
She closes her eyes. "Don't tell me when you start. Please."
Victoria murmurs an affirmative answer, and Bella is satisfied.
With her eyes closed, she can pretend that she is properly dying. Her kidnapping was just a dream. Even as pain bleeds in from her wrists, her neck, her thighs. Everyone had assured her that death would be painless, but she had made sure to doubt them. If death would be painful, she should not go to it surprised. Bella was glad, now, that she'd done that. Because death, or at least the version she was going through, was infinitely painful. And she was not surprised.
~O~
Edward could tell Victoria was long gone when they arrived at the ranch. It was why he didn't even pause at his Aston, like the others did, looking for scent trails. It was futile. Victoria would have left no trace. They had had their chance at catching her and failed. There was only one thing they could do now.
And Edward was doing it. He was rushing into the small cottage, tearing down the hallway until he heard a door with a heartbeat behind it. Bella.
She was so, so still that at first Edward thought his ears were deceiving him. With her hair fanned out and her hands at her sides, she could have been sleeping. But Edward knew how she slept, with her legs sprawled across the bed and her arms curled up. She was not sleeping, so she must have been dead.
He stepped closer, almost in a daze, when a strange smell hit him. Morphine.
The scent tore him out of his shock long enough that he noticed her chest rising and falling. The bite marks on her wrists, already scabbing over and beginning to heal.
That was enough for him to rush to her bedside, and begin checking her for more wounds. His ears were not deceiving him, but there had to be an explanation for the stillness.
Alice had said that it was certain that Bella would be changed, but this did not look like a human turning into a vampire. If Bella were lucky, she would be whimpering or moaning, but it was most likely that she should be screaming or writhing. There was no reason for her to be this still.
"Bella, my love," he finally said. "If you can hear me, can you move? Can you show me that you can hear me?" he grabbed her hand. "Can you squeeze my hand, love?"
Bella didn't move.
Alice came into the room, then. I'm sorry, Edward.
"You're not surprised, I suppose."
Alice frowned at him. It was a certainty that Bella would be turned. And I only saw this a few seconds ago, when you decided to try to wake her. I came in here as soon as I could; I didn't even tell the others.
She was right, Edward knew. Jasper and Emmett were about to follow Alice, while Rosalie was still trying to find a trace of Victoria to punish her for stealing the BMW.
"I never expected this," he said brokenly. "I thought she would be caught in the crossfire, like with James. I thought that would be the worst thing to happen."
But this is worse, Alice finished.
Jasper came in, then, obviously prepared for the worst, given their emotions. The sight before him puzzles him. What's wrong, Edward? She's alive.
"Does this look like a transformation should, Jasper?"
Emmett pushed Jasper all the way through the doorway. "What's up with Bells?" He tried to make light of the situation.
"She won't move," Edward explained. "She's changing, I can smell the venom in her, but she's so, so still."
Jasper was the only one who wasn't paralyzed by shock or fear or grief. Edward could hear his thoughts become more objective, clearer. It was his war training kicking in.
"We need to get Carlisle. He'll know more about this than any of the rest of us. We need to make sure that humans won't approach this place anytime soon. Edward, you should decide if we should move her to our house when Carlisle gets here. Emmett, can you fill Rose in? You two can keep looking for scent traces."
Emmett wasted no time vacating the room. Edward knew he didn't like dwelling on darkness for long.
Edward and Alice didn't move. Edward heard Jasper planning to use his gift, but a snarl of, "Don't," stopped that idea in its tracks.
Are you saying you just want to sit there while I call Carlisle, Edward? I'm just trying to help you not be useless. Jasper's attempt at non-supernatural emotional manipulation was pathetic, but Edward knew he was right.
He pulled out his phone and dialed, his eyes not leaving Bella. "Carlisle?"
"Edward? What's wrong?" Carlisle's voice sounded small next to Bella's still body.
"Call off the search. We found her."
~O~
It was a day and a half later when the morphine burnt off.
They'd moved Bella to Edward's room after an assessment from Carlisle. He'd deduced that either the morphine, Bella's cancer drugs, or extraordinary self-control were to blame for her stillness.
The diagnosis didn't make Edward any less anxious. He hadn't left her side since they found her, and he didn't plan to for a long, long time.
Alice and Carlisle checked on them most often, and he knew they were checking on him more than Bella. Alice takes every opportunity to show him her visions of Bella as one of them, and Carlisle keeps purposefully thinking that there's no reason Bella won't be okay. None of it changed anything.
Unfortunately, Charlie still had a soft spot for Alice, so she'd been spending most of her time killing two birds with one stone by assuring a grieving father and the Chief of Police. Carlisle had been similarly tied up with the wolf pack, but once he'd assured them that Victoria had turned Bella, not one of the Cullens, his duties were finished.
They all knew that the best thing for them would be to disappear again, but Edward couldn't bring himself to move Bella to an unfamiliar location. He remembered his first few moments of perfect clarity, how disorienting they were. The others did, too, except Alice. That was the only reason they were indulging him. Bella deserved to wake up in a location she recognized.
Afterward, though, Edward knew that the others planned to get out of Dodge. He even agreed. Provided Bella was alright, as soon as she woke up, they would hunt, and soon after they would leave. There was nothing keeping them there. The only question was where.
Rose, and consequently Emmett, thought it would be best if they split up again. She believed that it would be less stressful for a newborn to be around fewer people.
Jasper agreed on that count, but he wanted all hands on deck to deal with Bella. A newborn being turned during a traumatic event was never a good thing, and he thought that Edward alone might not be able to handle it.
Alice, predictably, also wanted to stay together, but she thought it best for Edward and Bella to leave first while the rest of them continued smoothing things over with the residents of Forks. Edward was surprised to hear Alice and Jasper arguing more than once over the idea.
Esme wanted to keep everyone together, but Carlisle quietly agreed with Alice.
Overall, though, they all thought Edward's say should be given the most weight. Edward would have been grateful, except that it meant he was constantly being pressured to participate in the discussion.
He had no idea how they could possibly think he was qualified to make any decisions. He'd left Bella to save her, only to find her dying when he returned. Then he'd left her alone in the hospital room, and she'd been kidnapped. He tried to rescue her from Victoria and didn't make it in time.
Perhaps, if Edward hadn't known about her conversation with Carlisle, he would be less consumed with guilt. But Carlisle had let the conversation slip into his thoughts, so Edward knew that Bella had changed her mind. That she'd rather die than become one of them.
His decisions had led Bella to become the opposite of what she'd wanted.
Alice knocked on the door lightly before coming in.
Silently, she sat down next to him. "I'm telling you, Edward, she's going to be okay."
In her mind, Edward saw her replay visions she'd seen for his benefit. Bella, lying in their meadow with sparkling skin, her eyes closed. When she opened them, they were a lovely amber-gold color that had nothing on her chocolate brown.
"They'll be that color less than halfway through the newborn year. That means she'll be ready to come back to a fairly populated area in less than a year."
Edward closed his eyes. "They could also turn that color when she's decades old. If she makes a mistake."
Do you really think she'd return to Forks so soon after killing a human, Edward? Or be so happy? Alice nudged him, forcing him to look at her.
Edward didn't answer. "What's the latest on the immigration debate?" He joked, changing the subject.
I know exactly what you're doing, brother of mine, Alice thought at him, but she also answered his question. "We came up with a list of places that'll be safe for you and Bella, whether we separate or not. That's one thing we can agree on." Although, we'll need your final say on any of them before we can move forward. Her thoughts sounded more annoyed than her words.
"Run them by me and we'll see."
Isle Esme, Denali, anywhere in the Canadian wilderness, the property in Wisconsin, the house in upstate New York-
"New York's out. You know how humans violate the property line all the time there. It'd be worse than staying here."
You won't like New Hampshire, then, either. Esme thought that Bella might like to stay here, but everyone else thought it best to leave the entire state. So unless you have any insight about that...
"I can't speak for her, Alice."
"Yeah, I know," Alice sighed.
"How would we get to any of these places? Running gets tedious and planes aren't exactly an option."
"Private planes do exist, and Emmett's got his pilot license."
Edward was silent for a long moment.
You do need to make a decision at some point.
"Isle Esme's out. If we stick together, we'll end up driving each other up the wall."
Does that mean you're favoring plans that involve sticking together?
"The food isn't great there either."
Sure, Edward. Sure.
Alice popped up, pleased with her progress. It was the most anyone had made, after all. But before she began to leave, Edward continued.
"And look into real estate in Alaska, just in case. We don't want to be on top of the Denalis for long. Somewhere near them, though. That'll make Carlisle and Esme happy."
Alice grinned a Chesire cat-worthy smile. See, was that so hard?
She fluttered to the door but paused once she opened it. "If you want my advice, in my opinion, you're overthinking it. Stop trying to emulate exactly what Bella wants and just do what feels right."
Edward looked away and heard the door shut. Alice was gone.
He took Bella's hand. "That's what she just doesn't get, my love. Nothing feels right without you." He squeezed her hand. "Nothing. I need you, Bella. I need you so I can make everything right again."
He felt a pressure against his grip. Faint, but there.
Bella squeezed his hand back.
A/N: So, What do you think about that ending? I sat and thought for a while about where exactly to end it: when Bella woke up, the first hunt, etc, etc. But when I came to this scene while writing this chapter, I just knew I had to end it here. As for the rest of the chapter, I wanted to reveal even more that Bella's acceptance of her death became an idealization of death, and I hope I got that across. We'll deal with Edward's flaws in the epilogue. This is the second to last chance you have to spot a typo and win an internet cookie!