A/N: Hello and welcome back! Chapter 3 is here, and 4 will be posted tomorrow. Thanks for all your views, reviews, favorites and follows! It means a lot. In this one, Bella and Rosalie finally have a conversation!
Enjoy!
Velvet.
That descriptor was the first that came to Bella's mind as Rosalie Hale introduced herself so effortlessly. Her voice resonated, clear and cool and refreshing, in her ears and down to her chest. It was like listening to a cello overpower the din of the orchestra, low and soft and chilling as erstwhile percussion and orchestration rambled on uselessly. While the student body was the band, Rosalie was the soloist, commanding attention and praise amongst plebians.
"Hi," she responded. Her voice was dismal in all forms of comparison, a bitter pill to swallow. "I'm Bella Swan."
"Oh, I know," Rosalie replied, lips just barely turned upward. "The whole school's been buzzing about you. Especially after that show in lunch."
"That's gonna follow me around forever," Bella groaned, ignoring Mr. Berty's introduction to their lesson.
"Most likely," Rosalie chuckled, and Bella catalogued it as her new favorite sound. "But I think it was rather brave of you to come out like that."
"Brave has nothing to do with it," Bella scoffed at herself. "I got emotional, carried away."
"Oh?" Rosalie asked, confused apparently.
"I have an issue controlling my mouth when I lose my temper."
"I can relate," Rosalie murmured, staring toward the front of the room. Bella wasn't convinced, having difficulty squaring the alluring charm of Rosalie with someone who could eviscerate and destroy with mere words. But, then again, she didn't really know Rosalie, only knew of the person she'd built in her mind. For all her bluster at Tyler Crowley, it may very well have been verifiable truth that Rosalie could be unpleasant.
"So, how are you liking Forks so far?" Rosalie asked quietly, eyes still facing ahead.
"It's been…nice, so far. Forks is wet and cold and eerie. Every time I go outside, it feels like I just stepped into an episode of Twin Peaks," Bella mumbled, chuckling at her own words lamely. The statement rang true, however, as she thought. The gloom and chill, that pervasive sensation of unknown and untamed wilderness as she stared out her bedroom window and into deep forest. Forks did seem a setting place for the weirdest of fictions, a dwelling where the unnatural and ethereal came alive and encroaching under the peoples' noses.
"Hopefully without the tragic death of Laura Palmer," Rosalie smirked beside her.
"Oh, I dunno. A little excitement might do this town some good. I could solve the case."
The inverse was true, in Bella's mind. Mundanity would suit her just fine, even if it held no special appeal to her. Through the veil of particularly tasteless joke, a desire to be removed from her circumstances poked its head through uninvited. She longed for the unknown, its siren call ever in her ears, to come and take her and show her what parts of the world she was missing. The notion of continuing her life in its current pattern: school, college, grad school, then a soul-sucking career until she died alone and without having made a life for herself, horrified her worse than any eldritch terror.
"Special Agent Isabella Swan?" Rosalie questioned, turning to her once more. Bella had not noticed until then that they had been slowly gravitating toward one another as they spoke, voices low and conspiratorial as Mr. Berty droned on, blissfully unaware of their inattention in favor of his passionate diatribe on Shakespeare.
"I'd need a partner," Bella mumbled absentmindedly, unable to peer anywhere but at Rosalie's eyes as she spoke. "You game?"
"I'll have to check my schedule, but I think we could work something out." Rosalie replied coyly, head cocked to the side. Of course, that moment would be the one chosen for Mr. Berty to realize two of his number were sidetracked.
"Ms. Swan, am I distracting you?" Mr. Berty asked with a forced clearing of his throat. Bella tore her eyes from Rosalie's as he spoke, noticed his jowls jiggling like gelatin in his irritation.
"I'm sorry, sir," she spoke clearly, incapable of dimming the flush in her cheeks as the class turned to stare at her. "Rosalie and I were discussing poetry."
"Oh?" he asked, surprised. The irritation fled his face instantly, quickly replaced by cautious and studious interest. "Interesting. Do you have a favorite?"
"When You Are Old. Yeats," she replied at once. It was, no contest, the single most impactful piece of prose she'd ever read. Had changed her entire outlook on life, love, and whatever purpose she deemed appropriate for her short life.
"I don't think I've read that one. Do you know it by heart?"
She'd known it was coming from the moment he caught her out, really, but being asked to quote poetry in front of a class of teenagers felt uncharacteristically dangerous. Their eyes were on her for the second time that day, and like sharks she knew they sensed blood in the water. Unable to delay the incoming frenzy, she cleared her throat and spoke clearly:
"When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars"
Of course, and much expected, the classroom remained silent for a few moments following her recital. She was surprised more than anything at her clear and concise repetition of the words. She'd half expected to stumble over them, the odds of doing so and making a fool of herself in full view of bored teenagers astronomically high. She'd escaped the feeding frenzy for now, and worked to paddle easily back to safety.
Mr. Berty looked impressed, and she hoped that whatever, if any, damage she'd wrought to his opinion of her had been repaired. Teachers disliking a student could quickly become an issue, she knew, and had no desire to be a problem with such a short stint in the joint ahead of her. As the room fell back into its former state of fuguelike purgatory, she hesitantly turned back to Rosalie, only to find the girl staring unabashedly at her, elbow on her desk and head in her hand.
"You aren't at all what I was expecting," Rosalie whispered.
"Keep those expectations low, I'm nothing special," Bella mumbled sheepishly, wondering if desiring the ground to open up and swallow one whole could make it so.
"Oh, I don't believe that for a second," Rosalie argued assuredly, lips curling into a beaming smile. If Edward's had caused a reset in her brain, Rosalie's triggered a catastrophic breakdown in her senses. It was like staring directly into the sun, like catching a glimpse of something forbidden, a sentiment she felt she was unworthy of. Rosalie Hale's smile was the fruit of the tree of knowledge in Eden, and Bella was Eve incarnate, taking her first bite with sinful relish. When her heart finally began to beat once more, it pounded painfully in her chest like gunfire, and she wondered how Rosalie couldn't hear it for how loud it felt.
When the final bell rang, Rosalie was packed and out of her seat within seconds, Bella floundering to catch up, unwilling to lose the girl's company if she could help it. Wonderfully, though, it seemed that the blonde had decided to wait for. As they walked parallel through the rapidly emptying halls, Rosalie tucked a lock of her hair behind an ear and smiled once more.
"I wanted to thank you," she began as they made their way toward the exit, "for what you said at lunch. I'm not the most pleasant person to be around most of the time, and I believe I've left a dismal impression on most of the people here."
"You don't have to thank me, Rosalie," Bella promised. "And you've been nothing but pleasant to me. I don't really care much for what other people say."
She did notice, however, how the sea of people still present seemed to part like the Red Sea as Rosalie walked, and couldn't help but compare it to the Exodus. She half-expected to see Ramses II behind them, giving chase on the back of a chariot, demanding the return of his slaves. These people really did seem to fear Rosalie, and she wondered why that demeanor she'd been so rudely warned of wasn't present with their interaction.
As they exited the redstone mausoleum, Bella couldn't stop the shy smile on her lips. Rosalie had captured her attention so swiftly and held it hostage, the ransom apparently only being that her attention remain on her as much as possible, a demand Bella was already more than willing to supplant herself to. And that they were here, walking together, felt like a twisting of a thread of fate or circumstance, though her cynical side insisted it was nothing more than gratitude, that it would fade quickly. She found that she didn't care much at all, would take anything and any time that Rosalie would give her, even platonically, however fleeting.
"This is where we part," Rosalie said after a few quiet minutes, nodding to a newer silver Volvo a few spaces away.
"Oh, right," Bella said. "I'm over there." She pointed to the old Rabbit Charlie had bought for her, partially rusted and halfway on its deathbed. Jake had done his best, but…
"I wondered what that godawful racket I heard this morning was," Rosalie joked, eyes alight in mischief. "You should let me take a look under the hood sometime."
"You know cars?" Bella asked. "And lay off Thumper. He's past his prime, sure, but he's sensitive."
"I work on all the family's cars," Rosalie told her proudly, chest puffed out – an action that Bella resolutely did not notice one bit at all. No, indeed, she took no note of how the thick cotton of Rosalie's turtleneck stretched just right over her chest, nor how her biceps flexed as she placed her hands on her hips, nor how those very same hips flared in the twill of her chinos. Those details went unnoticed – by all, surely – but most assuredly by Bella. And if her palms suddenly began to perspire and what felt like every liquid ounce of her blood rushed to her face and neck, it was purely by happenstance.
"I'm not very liquid at the moment. Once I have the money to pay you, he's all yours," Bella promised, studiously tearing her eyes from Rosalie's form. "Just – be gentle."
Rosalie laughed then, a clear, low positively divine sound, and turned back to face Bella. Her eyes were crinkled and gleaming in wicked delight, and she looked so inexplicably happy to be around Bella, something she couldn't explain or question.
"No promises," Rosalie denied, voice low and sultry. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Absolutely."
She watched Rosalie from the moment the girl stepped away until the second the Volvo left the lot, before she too made her way home.
"You'll have to play this very carefully, Rose," Carlisle repeated for what must have been the hundredth time since they'd all set foot in the house.
She ignored him in favor of cursing Edward's very existence loudly in her head, forgetting for the moment that the bastard had fled to Denali scarcely ten minutes before. What good was his mind-reading when he wasn't there to hear her unveiled threats and promises of utter annihilation if he so much as breathed erroneously in Bella's general direction?
That soothed her.
Bella.
She was far and above any expectations Rosalie had held for her, the surprise of her unforeseen intricacy still a faint tingle in the cold stone of Rosalie's fingertips. It had been so intriguing, so exciting, to see and experience Isabella Swan firsthand. And once she had opened and discarded the blinds of her forced intolerance and malfeasance belonging to the Ice Queen, Bella had shone like a star in the black sea of space, the guiding light of Sirius leading Rosalie safely back to harbor. Alice had envisioned love, that much was certain, but Rosalie had not expected it to be so instantaneous. So effortless. One conversation had found her wanting nothing more than to be in Bella's orbit once more and always.
She was obsessed. Infatuated. Smitten. Twitterpated.
And while she and the majority of her family, sans Edward and his typical paranoia, had seen this as nothing more than a joyous occurrence, one issue had overshadowed it, made a mockery of something that should have been nothing less than a celebration.
Bella was Edward's singer. Her blood was sirenic, a lullaby to his parched throat, promising sweet, eternal relief to that ceaseless thirst. Alice had informed her of the development in the car ride home, having had the prescience to wait rather than risk Rosalie's wrath and ruin her time with Bella, an interference she was torn between grateful for and irritated by, but regardless had thanked her for.
"Edward's strong, Carlisle," Emmett defended. "Stronger than the rest of us by far, yourself excluded. He won't hurt her, especially now."
"Em's right," Alice chimed in just after. "Everything I've seen points to Edward controlling himself perfectly. He and Bella are going to be best friends."
That was a surprise. Rosalie stared at Alice dumbfounded, incredulous at the idea of her Bella being friends with Edward, the stylized Master of Broodery. It simply didn't compute.
"It's true!" Alice said, nodding wildly. "It started today, in fact. When he started fighting himself, she talked to him, coaxed him out of the frenzy. She didn't even realize what she was doing, but it worked. They got on like a house on fire."
"I'm liking this girl more and more every day," Esme said happily, leaving the table to go wipe something down – a nervous habit when one of her children went a-roving – in order to feel like she was doing something. A habit Rosalie shared, in fact, and that reminded her of a necessary task.
"I'll be cautious, I promise," she promised her 'father'. "I won't do anything to jeopardize us, but if Alice's visions are anything to go by, she's going to figure us out sooner or later."
"As long as she is the one to do it, and not one of us informing her, we can skirt the grey area well enough," Carlisle agreed, weary beyond his 380 years. "I'm assuming you haven't changed your stance?"
"Not yet," she said vaguely. "I think it's much too soon to make that kind of decision, but I'm not entirely against it. I would prefer it to be her choice, though. I won't make it for her."
"Only time will tell," he said, nodding. "I think that's everything, then. Thank you for meeting with me, everyone. Alice, let us know when Edward is coming home when you get an idea, if you would?"
"Already on it, dad!" she yelled from where she'd already fled up the stairs, ever the patron saint of the impatient. When Rosalie stood and began to stalk toward the garage, Emmett stopped her, motioning for her to follow him out of the house.
"I thought we could go hunting?" he asked, clearly wanting to spend time with her in Edward's absence. She found herself mildly thirsty, nothing too unpleasant, but unwilling to snub Emmett when he was so in need of his older sister.
"Of course," she smiled, and blurred out of vision eastward, the thunderous footfalls of her baby brother trailing behind her.
They ran for miles and miles, the shrubbery of Forks' wilderness bleeding into the coniferous forests of Olympic National Park, the conical peaks of sitka spruces and hemlock trees surrounding them entirely. The elevation was no issue for either of them, nor was the cold or snow, merely background colour and sensation in their strides. Emmett's bears were still deep in hibernation, an unfortunate addition to his pitiful mood, but Rosalie picked up the scent of a pack of wolves a mile downwind, and they let themselves be taken over by the instinct of the hunter.
Conscious thought left her, leaving only the heady scent of wild blood, its tang and sweetness flooding venom in her mouth as she crept hardly a hundred feet from the closest beast. It was a large pack, at least twelve adults. A feast.
She and Emmett, synchronous from so many years and hunts together, rushed forward as a unit, striking fast and hard, hands pointed straight into daggers, and within seconds the pack was lain low, nothing more than sustenance for the apex predators that had given them their swift ends.
She drank her fill, groaning as the blood rushed into her mouth and down her throat, not even baring the slightest grimace as its not entirely delicious flavor met her tongue. It wasn't what they were meant for, what their true diets required, but it was all she knew, and she had no desire to supplant herself with human blood, not now. Not ever.
They finished their meals quickly and left the corpses for the carrion-eaters and scavengers, Emmett leading them away and to his favorite spot in the park: the eroded corpse of a monster of a spruce tree several miles off the trails. They'd shared many conversations and quiet moments amongst the lofty branches there together, and she wondered which of the two she would experience with him now.
The softest of quiet moments met them, before Emmett spoke.
"He feels awful about it."
"I don't blame him," she responded. "No more than I blame you for having yours, or Esme for hers. I would only fault him if he succumbed to it."
"He won't do that, not knowing how much it would hurt you," Emmett said, confident and assured as always. She wished she could share his neverending optimism.
"I sincerely hope that's true, Emmett," she said quietly, staring at the glowing full orb of the moon. Her silver gleam bathed the forest in pale light, throwing everything into the sharp relief of apparent versus hidden, though nothing could hope to escape their sight as it was. Glow bugs and moths fluttered in the brush beneath them, their tittering brushing her ears softly. The sounds of nature were always eerily quiet with their presence, but she took pleasure in what little made noise anyway.
"What's she like?" he asked after a while had passed.
"In the very best of ways, like you," she answered. "Don't misunderstand me, she's actually intelligent. But she glows with life much in the same way as you. She reads poetry, loves her father dearly, and she's strong, Emmett. So strong and brave. I wonder if she even knows it. She's so beautiful."
"I've never heard you talk like that," he commented, eyes bright and smile wide. "I like what this girl is doing for you. I hope she's as good for the rest of the family."
"I am positive she will be," she assured him, eyes still locked onto the moon hanging overhead.
An hour passed in the most comfortable of silences, and Rosalie allowed her thoughts to drift as she dangled her legs from the highest branch of the dead spruce. While her mind trailed to brown hair and a freckled nose, Emmett watched what love was doing to his sister with keen eyes, the burning sensation of hope deep in his chest. As the inky black of night began to shine the faintest of pinks on the horizon, Emmett stood and beckoned her to leave.
"Anything on the agenda for today?" he asked as they ran.
"I need to order a repair manual for classic Volkswagens," she replied distantly, only clarifying when his bemused stare met her eyes. "New passion project."
"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" he laughed loudly, easily avoiding the basketball-sized stone she hurled at his head. The pair raced home quickly, playing a modified game of dodgeball with objects that would rend human bodies asunder with ease. When they trailed through the backdoor, Emmett grabbed Rosalie and hugged her deeply, the emotion pouring out of him.
"Thanks," he said simply.
"Anytime, little brother. I love you," she replied.
In the garage, she spent what little time remained before the Cullen youth were forced to attend class making minor adjustments to the Volvo. Edward, being the literary, artistic, and otherwise obstinately vegetate snob that he was, refused to do any real work himself unless it involved the use of his brain only. Thus, what should have been his responsibility to maintain the quality of his car fell to her, as it did for all their vehicles. She had the briefest, most infinitesimal urge to rage, to fold the silver car into a perfect cube and leave it in his room, a present for his eventual homecoming, but she let the desire roll over her shoulders and drift away. She'd meant what she had told Emmett: she didn't blame Edward for simply being what he was. How could she?
Just before Alice invaded her garage once more, she pulled out her phone and placed an order for a repair manual for Bella's Rabbit. Despite the girl's insistence on paying her, she would take no money from Bella. As they drove to school, she wondered if she could get away with sneaking to the Swan home like a thief in the night, making repairs in secret under cover of moonlight. As she made the decision to do so, Alice's thousand yard stare bled into tinkling laughter, and she turned to her sister in impish delight.
"You'll have it finished by Easter if you start tonight."