Chapter 2 The contract

Morticia's pov:

The buzzer went off approximately three days, fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes after initial reception and Morticia groaned when she heard it. It was too soon. Much too soon to be good news. It seemed like that Swan girl did actually have some sense to her… A shame really. She made a decent candidate after all- vaguely familiar looks, little to no social life and only her parents as immediate family? Easily the most compatible fit she'd found since she started this whole endeavor. But alas…

Morticia sighed and carefully settled her samples away before moving to hose herself off in the decontamination chamber. Having felt restless after yet another sleepless night, Morticia had started on the dismantling of some of her Grandpa's projects. Extracting Oxytocin from a vole was perhaps not the stupidest thing her Grandpa Rick had come up with- but boy was it one of his more destructive creations. Morticia had felt a healthy amount of apprehension after finding a load of the stuff in her possession. Rightfully so, as it was the thing that had essentially killed off her brother… Or at least, it was the thing that had killed the original Morty from her dimension, for as far as she knew… She could never be entirely sure until she finished puzzling her memory back together.

But that was a trauma to unpack at another time.

Forgoing dressing in her professional clothes, Morticia lazily collected her briefcase, memory gun and portal gun for the meeting. The clicker had send her the girl's location when the buzzer sounded- Bella was nearing her suburban home in Phoenix and Morticia reasoned that that had to be the place where the girl wanted to have their little talk. It felt a little odd though; she assumed that Bella didn't trust her after that first conversation together... And yet, she was calling her down to her home? Morticia had taken noticed of the fact that Bella didn't possess the best sense of self-preservation. The girl probably would have freaked out more about the time stopping thing if she did. But Bella's 'freak out' had lasted for- what? A minute?- before she'd gone off to awe at her surroundings… And then she even walked back to sitting beside her, calmly and most notably without Morticia having to compel her to do so in the slightest.

Weird. But who was Morticia to judge, really? She shot out a swirling green portal through the wall of her spaceship and Morticia hopped on through. Her neck and shoulders were immediate assaulted by the heat of the blazing Arizona sun but Morticia decidedly ignored it. The portal disappeared behind her and Morticia was left standing on the front porch of a one-level house. The place seemed decent enough, spacious and recently painted. And the garden contained a myriad of cacti and odd artsy decorations. Bella didn't struck her as the type to keep gardens so Morticia assumed all of that was Renée's doing. There was also a teal painted bench with some colourful pillows stationed just besides the front door so Morticia took that invitation and parked herself on it, knowing that Bella wouldn't take too long.


Bella's pov:

The device hadn't done anything after she'd clicked it and Bella felt beyond embarrassed- had it been a trick after all? The time pause? And that Morticia girl? It couldn't have been a dream, but… She was being messed with after all, wasn't she? Somehow… Had she seriously wasted all this time going over that stupid 'once-in-a-lifetime' madness for nothing?

She felt like crying but she stubbornly set her jaw and kept the tears at bay. Her entire week had been in disarray because she couldn't seem to get the deal out of her head. She'd been distracted in class, hadn't been able to sleep well for days and had nearly tumbled off of the last step of the stairs in the square because she was elsewhere with her mind. Morticia had left her in shambles- the promise of unimaginable possibilities haunted her day and night and now it seemed like all of it had been just a cruel joke. Bella had pushed the button because she'd wanted to take the offer. But all it did was take her pride and flushed it straight down the toilet.

She was disappointed- both in herself and the situation she found herself in. she didn't understand why Morticia did this- what would she gain from messing with her so badly? A laugh? Did that peculiar girl seriously stop time itself just to mess with her? Somehow Bella doubted it- but then again, what proof did she have that stated differently? Bella could hardly believe anyone would go this far for-

"Took you long enough."

Bella stopped in her track up, her eyes shot wide open. Shocked to see the very person who'd been tormenting her, sitting idly on the garden bench in front of her home. Morticia blinked at her from over her sunglasses- it seemed like the odd girl had decided to dress more age appropriate, wearing a simple pair of shorts and a cropped white shirt. A stark contrast to the business suit she'd worn during their first meeting.

"You're actually here?" Bella managed to breathe out.

"You did press the button." Morticia pointed out sounding almost sassy and stood up from her seat. She stretched momentarily and then regarded Bella with a pointed look, "So?"

"…So?" Bella repeated dumbly.

"The deal? You were only supposed to push the button if you knew what you wanted, remember?"

"Yes I remember." Bella retorted and hiked her backpack further onto her shoulder to keep it from slipping off. "I've thought about it and I want to discuss some of the finer details of the deal, I'm seriously considering taking it but I'm not just going to just jump on board with you, yeah?"

"Oh." Morticia became silent for a while, seeming to consider and then took off her sunglasses. She furrowed her brow slightly and crooked her head to the side as she regarded Bella. "That's agreeable. We can work on writing the contract together, how's that?"

Bella nodded briefly and then moved around Morticia to get to the front door. She felt almost giddy having the other girl in her presence again. She was an enigma. Mysterious and weird and Bella found herself enjoying the electricity in her nerves that came with being around Morticia. "You can come on in- Mom shouldn't be back till dinner so we'll have about two hours to go over the thing today."

"Ample time." Morticia followed her down the hallway and into the living room. It was surreal to have her in her home. To watch her open up her high-tech briefcase again and pull out some weird box. She placed it in the middle of the coffee table and the room instantly lit up in blue-ish lights. Were those tabs? Bella gapped as she looked around- most seemed to be in some kind of unknown language but she was sure that she saw at least some pictures with ultraterrestrial life forms on them… Bella warily glanced back over to Morticia and found herself wondering if the girl next to her was even human in the first place.

An empty sheet of white was pulled up and Morticia settled herself comfortably onto the couch, she patted the cushion besides her and Bella found herself sniffing in amusement before she turned herself around, "You go ahead and fill in the basics- want anything to drink?"

"You got soda?"

"Yeah."


Morticia's pov:

I snapped another photo.

Fairly lights danced around Renée- my now stand in mother- as she laughs, loud and freely. Next to her, Phil cautiously grabs onto her elbow to keep her from falling over- snickering just the same. The two were out of their wedding gear now, gleefully making their last spins on the dance floor before they went to retired from the festivities.

The preparations for the wedding had been planned for month's now- or at least, for as far as the newly wedded couple and all of these guests were aware. In actuality, it had only been some hectic twenty-ish days since they signed the contract and Morticia slid herself as inconspicuously as possible into the- formerly Swan now Dwyer- household. The arrangement was meant to offer Morticia the rest she needed to recover from her bullshit past… But immediate action had been necessary for Morticia to uphold Bella's requirements.

Initially, it had surprised her when Bella first told her about what she wanted out of their arrangements. Because when Morticia came with the offer of anything, she expected the girl to pick something stupid like 'I want to be popular!' or 'I never want to worry about money again!'. Both easy enough to fix… Though slightly contradictory to what she herself needed out of the deal. Having the most popular girl in school as a sister was sure to raise some kind of unwanted attention… but no. Bella, instead, entirely wrote herself out when she decided on a 'wish' and picked her mother's happiness over her own.

It was an insight into what kind of person Morticia was dealing with and over the past few days she felt confident to say she now had a decent grasp on what went on in the other girl's mind. Bella, like many other teenage girl with some kind of social anxiety, barely had any sense of self worth. Troublesome- had Morticia bothered to care.

Morticia had even considered swaying the other girl to pick something else- to make things for fair for the other girl who so obviously didn't understand of these kinds of deals worked- but when she went to ask why the other girl would wave off her own gain, Bella grew adamant. Stating with confidence that she would be fine figuring things out for herself- she just needed her mom to be secure.

And so, Renée's future was promised to be a happy one.

A large dog playfully ran passed the dance floor, seemingly chasing an invisible toy all throughout the barn and people let out surprised peals of laughter when it got underfoot. Morticia snapped another photo of the ongoing chaos when suddenly the creature all but bulldozed Bella off her feet and send her into her mother's and step-father's awaiting arms. The trio grinned at each other as Phil went to say something that made the other two laugh- Morticia huffed out some air and snapped yet another picture.

Once more she found herself wondered with how little effort she could have gotten away with- had she not initially felt slightly bad about how terrible of a business woman Bella made.

'Happy' was a very vague concept, after all.

She could have just as easily altered the older woman's hormone balance to ensure her happiness. Just the slightest change in her morning coffee. One teeny tiny pill supplied daily and it would have been a done deal… But the whole point of the contract was for her to not become like her grandfather, so…

'Happy' became financial security, a dependable and excitable spouse and the freedom to do and say whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Morticia had also point out to Bella that her presence was actually needed to fulfill that happiness of her mother- but that, apparently, was where the other girl dragged the line. Why Bella decided that moving to a place where she would most definitely be miserable was the better option- Morticia honestly didn't know. The two of them were definitely old enough to life a certain amount of time on their own. So their presence in Florida would have had not influence on Renée and Phil's travel plans what so ever. But no. Bella didn't want to 'hold her mother back' whatever that meant…

And well, Morticia technically didn't have a contract with Renée- so it wasn't quite her happiness that she needed to uphold but rather Bella's version of what Renée's happiness entailed... Still though, it was kind of weird that Bella just assumed her mother to be happier without her…

Oh yeah, the past twenty something days had been a real eye opener to what kind of personal issues Bella Swan had.


Bella's pov:

Bella snorted her amusement as her mother placed Morticia's camera into her hands and then proceeded to drag the squirming girl off onto the 'dance floor'. She raised the camera to her eye, fully intending to take a picture of the pair as they fought for dominance- but then though the better of herself and instead zoomed in on her mother's gleeful face.

The wedding couldn't have gone better. And sure, perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to serve her mom's favourite cocktail as one of the signature drinks. And maybe someone shouldn't have encouraged Phil to make all those funny faces during the ceremony. The flammability of the centerpiece had also been quite a surprise and she didn't even know which guest had brought that dog along with them… But in all honesty, Bella firmly believed that the day couldn't have gone more perfect even if she'd willed it to.

Bella lowered the camera and shuffled herself back until she was leaning against the wooden wall of the barn. Taking it all in, Bella once more found herself wondering what her life would have been like had Morticia decided not to talk to her that faithful day.

Her mom wouldn't have found the love of her life and Phil probably would have simply moved on to the next gig in another city. She herself probably would have continued on as if nothing reality shifting had happened. She wouldn't have known that stopping time itself wasn't just a sci-fi idea but an actual thing that could be done. And she wouldn't have met Morticia- this absolute oddball of a girl who she was now pretty sure wasn't entirely human either. She hadn't gotten the guts yet to ask about the other girl's past- knowing that a big part of it probably wasn't pleasant to remember… But over these past three weeks she'd seen Morticia use all kinds of technology that were far beyond anything she knew humans could make- there was no way she wasn't-

Her mom stumbled during a twirl and nearly took a nearby banquet table down with her. Bella huffed out a breath in amusement at the sight of it. And then curiously watched the other girl moved over to pull her mom back onto her feet and frantically look the tipsy woman over. Bella shook her head. It hadn't been the first time she'd caught the other girl doing something kind without seemingly even being aware of it herself. Morticia was just a weird contradiction like that.

She normally acts so standoff-ish. Brushing off any kindness that came her way- claiming that other people were a mere nuisance to her… And then she'd turn around and do things like bringing along an extra drink when she was getting one for herself. Or giving a hand in doing the chores without being asked to. Or ensure that someone in okay like she was doing just now.

Morticia lead her mom through some dancers, probably intending to drag her mom off the dance floor to keep anymore accidents from happening- but then her mom tugged Morticia back and started swaying drunkenly with the girl tightly wrapped in her arms. And this time Bella did snicker out loud.

Morticia vaguely looked like a cat that had been dunked in a vat of water. Stiff and entirely too uncomfortable. Bella lifted the camera and swiftly snapped a picture of the pair so she could hold it above the other girl at later time.


I'll probably get more into how messed up it actually is to do this to one's mother in a later chapter… Next the two girls will be moving to Forks!