Chapter 43
I didn't know that it was so cold
And you needed someone
to show you the way
So I took your hand and we figured out
That when the time comes
I'd take you away
If you want to
I can save you
I can take you away from here
So lonely inside
So busy out there
And all you wanted
was somebody who cares
I'm sinking slowly
So hurry hold me
Your hand is all I have to keep me hanging on
Please can you tell me
So I can finally see
Where you go when you're gone
Rays of sunshine beat down on face, making me feel flush. A cool hard hand wrapped tightly in mine, as I laid in the sunlight feeling free. A gentle breeze made my skin turn gooseflesh, as I took in the scents of the field. I did enjoy these moments. Summer would soon be over and school would start soon. My injuries had finally healed though, and this time in the outdoors was perfect. Edward and I came out here regularly, where I could really just enjoy the world and the openness.
The scent of the trees and the flowers in the fields, the cool air that foretold of the seemingly ever present threat of rain. The occasional sound of a bird in the air. I could just get lost in it. More and more that was becoming necessary for me, on these blissful excursions. The truth of my reality was becoming more and more frustrating, and I didn't want to open my eyes, I wanted to linger in this bliss for eternity.
It was an escape from the rising bitterness inside me. All he had to do was bite me, and that wish for eternity could become a reality. Except he was never going to, he'd said so on numerous occasions. I'd spent months trying to convince him, but he kept refusing me, his immovable and implacable insistence that I stay human was grating at best, demeaning at worst. His family didn't even know, it was like a big secret that he refused to let me tell.
At times he almost seemed to enjoy the time I spent arguing and pleading with him, but always came back to it being for my own good. Every time the subject came up he put up a wall that was insurmountable, leaving me with no options except to just be, which seemed to be all he wanted from me. I felt the cool hand squeeze mine and a frown crossed my face. I didn't want to be pulled away yet. I wasn't ready to open my eyes. I wasn't ready for another futile argument. I wasn't ready to deal with his patronizing tone quite yet.
"I'm not him." The soft sweet voice carried over to me like a whisper on the wind, and my eyes shot open.
Laying in the grass beside me was Alice Cullen, not Edward. My mouth fell open, and I giggled in spite of myself.
"Alice, you're here." I said, and immediately felt stupid for saying something so obvious. Odd flashes of memories were beginning to intrude on my thoughts, and I couldn't keep some of the confusion off my face.
"This is how it should've been. This was our moment, our fate. He took this away from us. It should have happened this way." Alice said quietly, looking around the area as she sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees.
Seeing my confusion she gestured at me with an expression of such sadness that I wanted to hug her just seeing it. "It should have been me and you. I should have been the one with you. I should have been the one protecting you. He ruined it all, and I let him." Her voice was bitter, and mocking.
I couldn't stand to see her so angry with herself and I moved over to embrace her in a hug, only to find her abruptly gone.
The scene seemed to shift slightly. Trees that before had been blossoming in the fullness of summer, now were bare and showing the first true signs of spring, as leaves were just sprouting, much like they looked like now. My full memories all came back in a rush and I shook my head slightly, looking around.
"Look, just over there." Alice said wistfully, her voice sounded hollow and very distant. I couldn't see her anywhere. I was alone. I turned around in a circle, looking for the thing Alice had directed me to see. Then Bree came out of the shadows of the forest. Her eyes looking around with a nervous energy.
"Bree?" I asked feeling confused. She was my daughter, and I wasn't even remotely human anymore. I flinched as a jolt hit my stomach like someone had knocked the wind out of me. She looked up and smiled widely, before running into the field. I smiled back at her, but she ran past me. I turned, and saw her moving towards a male figure lurking at the edge of the clearing on the opposite side from which she entered it.
Then she stopped short, a frown turning down her face in a grimace. "Seth?" She asked clearly confused. Then the man stepped from the shadows, and I let out a snarl of hatred. His copper hair was glossy reflecting the still bright sunlight along with his multifaceted skin, his amber eyes examined Bree severely . Then he smiled with such malicious smugness that I wanted to rip his smile right off.
"Not even remotely." He said sarcastically, a millisecond before he launched himself at Bree before she could gather her senses to react. In the next instant her head came off her body, along with a spray of milky white red. For a long second I looked at my murdered daughter's body in horror, then I screamed with an unleashed rage that I couldn't even begin to contain. When a hand wrapped itself in mine, keeping me from moving.
"She isn't gone. This is just a vision." Alice's voice was soothing, and somehow calmed me down even though I wanted nothing more than to destroy. I didn't need to turn to know she was once again beside me standing there as real and corporeal as I was. Then her words sunk in, and the rage that threatened to engulf me subsided, for the moment.
"A vision? This is going to happen?" I asked, unable to keep the growl out of my voice as I turned to face her. She was staring at Bree's corpse with an odd expression.
She hesitated a moment before responding. "As you well know, my visions are subjective, changing depending on the decisions we make. If the shadows of these events remain unchanged, she will die. Not that we're going to let that happen. "
I opened my mouth to reply before Alice cut me off gently but firmly. "We're not done."
The scene seemed to blur and shift again. The scents and sounds of the outside world faded away.
In its place, I could faintly hear the sounds of romantic lyrics buzzing away on the television across the room. The cheering tones of the old musical drifted through my thoughts like a half remembered dream. I remembered imagining the actors were singing to me, telling me that my romance with Edward was exactly what I wanted. Except something deep inside me knew they were lying even then.
"Not here, we can't get lost in the past." Alice said from beside me, her voice filled with a touch of worry and I thought I could hear the faintest twinges of embarrassment. However, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me.
In front of me was... me. The way I used to be when I was human.
My head was resting in her lap, and she was stroking my hair. We were on the couch I'd spent many evenings on, occasionally watching some sporting event with Charlie, or pretending to while I really had my nose in a book. Except this was a different time, when he'd gone away on a fishing trip. When Edward had gone hunting with Emmett and Jasper, and Alice came to keep me company.
"Alice?" I was lost again, I knew I shouldn't be in the past. I couldn't be here, not anymore. That girl was gone, Bella Swan. Clumsy and awkward. Stupid and reckless. I invested my love and trust in a man who threw it away at the first sign of a true obstacle, leaving me vulnerable to her.
"Victoria isn't here." Alice's voice was still far away though it was gentle and soothing as it drifted through my consciousness, as if she were whispering to me from across a giant field while at the same time her hand gave mine a gentle squeeze. The name did strike deeply into my heart though. Victoria, my forever tormenter.
I watched as this... other me laughed a little bit at something she was seeing on the television. Alice's hand stroked through her hair. I could almost feel those same touches in my own hair as I stood there, involuntarily watching this vague human memory.
The other me, the human one, turned in Alice's lap, so she was laying on her stomach across Alice's lap, with her head toward the television. When she shifted, the Alice that was on the couch with her shifted her fingers, pulling them through her hair and then rested them gently on my former self's neck, beginning a gentle massage of the muscle there.
"Mmm. I'm going to give you the rest of the night to stop doing that." The Bella on the couch murmured quietly, clearly enjoying the touch, though she said it drowsily since she was clearly on the edge of sleep.
Even as I watched it, I could hardly believe it. I wasn't sure if I ever remembered my voice sounding so... weak... so soft... so content.
Alice smiled letting her fingers move over the other Bella's skin slowly, continuing a gentle massage. "The rest of the night before I have to stop? Such time constraints! Whatever will I do?" Alice bantered playfully.
"Well, unlike some of us, I have to sleep or I become grouchy." Bella replied.
I could hear the bitterness in my own voice, and I remembered clearly feeling it. The anger and resentment at Edward's continued refusal to turn me. What I hadn't seen at the time this memory happened was the expression on Alice's face. The memory me was turned away, so I had had no chance of seeing it. If I had things might've been different, because there was no way I could've ever forgotten the look that crossed Alice's face. The anger and frustration, the pain and hurt... it was heartbreaking. If I had glimpsed it I would asked, and she would've shrugged it away.
"You would've persisted. You would've gotten it out of me, because I could hardly resist you as it was." The Alice standing beside me, who I hadn't noticed until that moment gave me a lingering smile, one that told me everything. She had been in love with me even then.
"I don't mind you grouchy. Besides, you can always fall asleep right here, doesn't mean I have to stop if you don't want me to." Memory Alice half stated, half offered quietly.
I squeezed my Alice's hand, as she tensed up beside me. Reliving this memory must be hard for her too. It wasn't hard to guess why. If I hadn't been so blinded then to my false love for Edward, then I might have absorbed Alice's tone of voice, which would've also alerted me to her feelings. Once again I was reminded to how much Edward had blinded me to my own empathy, and the little things around me.
"Mmm. Only if you let me do the same sometime." Memory Bella half heartedly bargained.
I couldn't help the soft snort that escaped me. How naive I'd been. Human strength wasn't enough to do much of anything to the hardened muscles of a vampire.
I could tell the humor inherent in that naivety didn't escape memory Alice's notice either. She chuckled softly as her hands drifted along memory' Bella's shoulders. "Deal, the next time I'm asleep you can do the same to me."
I listened to my memory self whine in protest.
I'll… mmm… that's not fair. There's not much I could offer is there?" Bella half pouted.
My god, I wondered if I had suddenly turned into a 10 year old. To whine and pout like that, my partial disgust was forgotten at the brief expression that crossed memory Alice's face, she seemed a touch hurt by my pouting. I looked over at my Alice, and her bemused expression told me what I needed to know. Even a little bit of hurt, any refusal she made to me was enough to cause her pain then, because she was unable to be the thing she needed to be for me.
"You'd be surprised." I watched memory Alice say under her breath, though louder than she intended.
"Hmmm?" My memory self asked in reply, having heard the comment, which dragged her slightly out of her downward plunge toward sleep.
Memory Alice laughed a little bit. "You don't have to offer me anything. Go on to sleep so you don't get grouchy and cranky, that last thing we need is for you to throw me out for not letting you get your rest."
Memory Bella nodded slightly, barely cognizant at this point. "Mm.. I wouldn' do tha…You know I love you Alice." Anything further than a mumble was impossible as the memory me drifted off to sleep.
The memory Alice froze in shock, and the expression on her face was almost impossible to look at it was so twisted with longing. Then I watched as she leaned forward, and pressed a very light kiss to the middle of my other self's forehead. It was a strain to hear what she said next, but I was able to just make out the words.
"I love you too Bella Swan. More than you'll ever know." Her voice was low and intimate, tinged with an almost infinite sadness, and then she returned to stroking her hair lightly.
I turned to look at the Alice holding my hand, though her gaze was fixed on the scene in front of us. When she spoke her voice was full of emotion and was nearly as soft as Memory Alice's had been. "This was the first time."
My eyes didn't leave Alice. "The first time?" I asked quietly.
She turned to look at me, her eyes latching onto mine intensely, "The first time I ever heard you say that you loved me."
I frowned at that, regarding her. "Alice... I-"
She shook her head quickly and gave me a very sad smile. "No. I know what you intended to mean when you said it. Like a best friend. Like a sister. I understand that. Even then I understood that. But... after so many years when all you have is memory. Some become very very precious to you. This is one of mine. One of my most cherished memories."
"I don't understand, why? They were only words." I said feeling confused and overwhelmed.
"Because words were all I had." The real Alice's hand tightened around mine as she squeezed it for a moment in reassurance. I was at a loss for words. Her voice drifted very softly through me. "Come, let's move on from this memory."
The scene blurred and went dark again. I waited to see what was next... but nothing seemed to come. It just remained black. I tried to turn my head to look around and see if I was missing something, only to discover, to my horror, that I couldn't move.
No... no... no... I couldn't be here again. Oh god, anything but this.
Was this really a memory... or had I never left? I screamed, and struggled, and wept. The darkness was absolute, and my mind was splintered. How long had I been down here, how long had I been in that mockery of a life. I couldn't believe where my imagination had gone. Returning to Forks, with a daughter? Living with the Volturi. I was a sad, stupid little girl. I'd never escaped my own mind, let alone the hole I'd been buried in.
The panic inside me was building quickly to a crescendo, and my fury was matching it, but inside that terror was winning. I had imagined everything. It had all been my feverish dreams.
I was alone.
"Never again. I'll never leave you." The echo came from all sides, her voice a memory of an impossible dream, I knew I was still imprisoned in a place with no light and no escape. All that other life was just a lie.
"No not a dream, not a lie. This isn't your world Isabella, not anymore. I'm here, we all are." Alice's determined voice came to me again, taunting me with the delusion.
"Mom, don't go. We need you." Eliza insistent yet pleading tone felt distant, unlike Alice's voice which sounded as if she were standing next to me. The other difference was more subtle, where Eliza seemed almost desperate to get through to me. Alice seemed firm, confidant, almost implacable. It was clear that Alice was simply stating a fact rather than trying to prevent me from sinking into my own despair.
Not that it mattered, because I could only hear them, which meant they were all just hallucinations,. Which also meant they weren't real. I began to twist and flex against everything that held me immobile in this hole as my panic continued to rise.
"Isabella... no!" Alice screamed at me, as I broke the rock surrounding me so that I could bring my hands up around my ears. Then I shut my eyes, even though I was still surrounded by that same unrelenting and suffocating darkness.
Then the world shifted again. This time I felt it, because I refused to open my eyes to the illusion, but I couldn't help but sigh when I suddenly felt softness along my back.
My head was resting in her lap again. I was back in my day-dream. Only this time, instead of viewing it from outside myself, I was actually cradled in Alice's lap. We were laying on the old beaten up couch my father always insisted was perfectly good, complete with beer stains, and the slight scent of moss and mold. I knew exactly where I was before even opening my eyes. It was nice here, so I risked my sanity to look up into her amber eyes. I figured If I had to spend eternity in a memory... why not make it a good one?
"You know we've already seen this one. We could do something else if you want." Her voice sounded ethereal again, and a little amused, so in contentment I closed my eyes lazily, again lost in the dream. I was human, and happy. This was where I wanted to be. Couldn't I be here, instead of in the darkness and pain of my forever prison?
"This isn't real sweetie." Alice said, as she continued to stroke my hair. I opened my eyes to peer up at her again, but instead of Alice's gentle countenance and kind eyes, I found malicious smirk and a pair of hateful crimson eyes.
Victoria's malevolent glare burrowed into me as she laughed slightly, her laughter mocking my fear, as I jumped out of her lap. I backed up into a corner away from her, which just made her laugh even louder.
"That's the spirit, runaway little mouse. Poor, poor fragile little Bella Swan. Such a miserable inappropriate name for you, Bella... ha! You are about as beautiful as a dung beetle crawling out of the shit it loves to eat, which doesn't mean you're an ugly duckling either. No, you're never going to grow up into a Swan, you're going to be forever ugly, and alone. In fact, on that note I have I have some presents for you, they'll cheer you right up. Something for you to think about when I stick you back in that hole in the ground." She moved over to me in the blink of an eye, and yanked me up roughly by my hair. I tried to fight her, but I was weak again. Human.
Not that she even noticed me struggling against her. She merely lifted me off the ground by my hair as I flailed at her uselessly, cursing my own weakness. Then she dragged me outside, letting lose her horrible mocking cackle of a laugh the entire way. I continued beat on her hand in a pointless attempt to escape for several more seconds before I could absorb what her 'gifts' were. Immediately I stopped struggling as I took it all in, unable to really comprehend the sight before me. Spread out on the lawn were the still bodies of everyone I'd ever known. She let go of me, and I fell to my knees, a sharp sob wracking my body in inconsolable grief.
My eyes moved from body to body. They were strewn across the lawn like some kind of macabre art instillation, reminding me of the wall of souls leading down into hell. My eyes flicked from person to person, and found that no one had escaped her wrath. My gaze shifted over the lifelessness that was my mother and father's faces.
Then my high-school friends. Then the Cullens, before settling on Alice's face. Then I noticed two more bodies next to hers that simply couldn't be. Eliza was lined up to Alice's right, and Bree was next to Eliza. What really made it worse was although all they were still as the grave, their eyes were open and they were all focused on me, accusations etched forever on their faces frozen by death. I slumped, as if all my muscles had gone slack unable to process the scene in front of me.
Somewhere deep inside of me something awoke, something strong and primal. A brutal rage surged up from that place inside, and suddenly my anger, my rage, my pain, my hope all settled back into place. Together they demanded release, and they would not be denied! I wasn't weak! I hadn't been weak in almost a century. All this was fantasy, all this was false. Either I was in the void of my eternal prison, or this was all a dream. Either way she wasn't here, she had no power in this place.
As that knowledge surged through me, the bodies which had just been so real and impossible, started to fade. Little by little, amidst her terrible laughter, the corpses of my friends and family became more and more insubstantial. After another second, I stood up. Her laughter died as I turned to face the red-headed bitch, and let loose one carefully aimed slash at her face, taking away most of it with one strike. She didn't even have a chance to scream. I turned over the clump of rock in my hand, her face was perfectly preserved, like I'd just broke off the face of a statue, her dead lips caught in the middle of an expression I wasn't sure I could identify.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX
"No!" She was gone, Isabella had turned away from me, and I was alone. I'd failed her, and let her believe she was living in that nightmare again. Then I blinked, and when my eyes opened a split second later I found that the world had shifted around me, and I was in the council chamber of Volterra, staring at the dais where Aro, Marcus, and Caius reigned from.
A darkly cloaked woman was standing before the Volturi council with a blank expression on her face. It took me only a brief moment to recognize her as Bella. She didn't look anything like the girl I'd once known. Caius sneered at her, and Aro stood with a somber look on his face.
"I fear my brother is right. You've gone too far this time." Aro turned and picked up a large bundle of explosives, with a timer plugged into the top of it, which he then tossed to Isabella, who just caught it impassively. There were only few seconds left on the timer, which began to count down far too quickly.
I wanted to scream out, to rush in and pull the bomb out of her hands, to get it as far away from her as possible, but someone stopped me. A firm hand clamped onto my shoulder and kept me rooted in place. I wanted to turn to see who would dare stop me, but I couldn't tear my gaze away from Isabella's imminent death.
In horror I watched Isabella look down at the explosive impassively. No regret or fear crossed her face, even as the timer clicked down to zero. Actually, there was a brief flicker of emotion that crossed her stony features, it was heartbreaking to take it in, because it could only be described as relief. That infinitesimally short micro expression flickered through her right before the bomb exploded Isabella's face.
When the smoke cleared all I could see was her charred skeleton, before it collapsed into a pile of dust. An echo of my voice screamed into the hallow chamber, and I could do nothing but sink to my knees in utter desolation. Yet, even as I tried to sink to the ground, that firm hand kept me on my feet.
"Well that's not even close to what happened." Eliza's voice broke through the buzzing ringing in my overloaded ears. I was finally able to turn my head, and found that she was the one that had been holding me up. Her face twisted in a puzzled expression.
"See, that's just silly. Hell, that's practically Roadrunner/Wily E. Coyote silly. 'Here, hold this ticking bomb for me would you?' Did you come up with this?" Her voice was actually seemed amused by what we had just witnessed.
I blinked at her, confused by her obvious indifference to the horrible reminder of Isabella's near death experience. .
She looked around thoughtfully. "Alice, I mean welcome to the family and all, but wow this whole thing is really messed up. Mom is convinced she's back in the hole, and here you are living your own kind of nightmare. Usually we just see and experience each other's memories. Though I'll admit we've had a very small sample size to work with up until this point." Eliza sounded curious as she turned that over in her head, although her slightly amused and puzzled expression was quickly turning into something with far less humor in it.
"I'll be okay. We have to get her out of her nightmare" I said feeling stupid for believing in my own nightmare.
Eliza sighed a little bit "I can't. She's pushed me away. It may be something she has to face again alone... though I was hoping you could do something. Bree's still trying though, without much luck. Although I think she's still messed up about that little vision you shared with us."
Eliza looked around and shook her head. "This is so different from what we're used to. Not just memories, but visions and nightmares too... I don't quite understand."
"Sorry? What do I do? This is kind of new for me, since I have no memories of dreaming, because my human life is a blank." I asked, but before she could answer she suddenly vanished. I stared blankly at the empty space she was just standing in. "Shit. So this is what it's like to dream. I guess I'm not missing much."
I sighed as the world shifted around me again. I lowered my gaze to the ground and let myself drift into a daze, I was growing tired of these mind games. I wasn't aware of time, but it felt like in the next second when an unfamiliar yet elusively familiar light masculine voice startled me back to the focus.
"Dreams were where you lived for a very long time." I looked around, and found myself in a small ten by twelve room with walls covered in off white canvas, tufted like some Rococo style headboard. It was obvious, I was in a padded room. This was before, this was when... no that's impossible.
I felt myself blanch, but I refused to give into the instinctive terror that rose inside me, as my eyes fell upon the source of the voice.
"Mary, you know your dreams of this Bella aren't doing you any good." I looked at him in confusion, before I realized I could feel my heart racing. I looked down, and found myself in a simple white cotton dress. The small amount of flesh of my hands and bare feet were unfamiliar, since they weren't deathly pale. My nails weren't perfectly manicured and clear, and my cuticles were rough and torn. I couldn't believe it, I was human!
This... was where I woke up all those years ago, in this room. It was the site of my first memory, not that in my newborn haze it was all that clear, but this man escaped me. Never once in all my years had I been able to recall a single face from my human life. So either this was a figment of my imagination, or this was a memory that pre-dated my time as a vampire.
"Where am I?" I asked with even more confusion.
"In the same place you've been for the past two years, Pearl River Sanitarium. You've been here since your father committed you. I'm Doctor West, and I need you to try and remember for me. Can you remember?" He looked at me with clear concern, but his tone seemed slightly patronizing. Still I complied, and searched my memories for any trace of him or this place he seemed to think I'd been living in for years.
Like I'd broken a latch to the floodgates of my memories everything came rushing in like a flood. My mother, my father, my sister. My step-mother? My mother's death, the dream of her crying out for help, the warning I gave to her about the car, the realization that my father was... a murderer. That he killed my mother, wait that couldn't be right.
No, he... and my step-mother did it together. Then they put me away so I wouldn't talk. Then came Doctor West and his shock treatments... then I was Alice. Just Alice. Except nothing was in order, and every time I looked for something I got a jumble of images, scenes, things that didn't make sense. It all started when I told that farmer that he should be careful or he would break his leg slipping down a river bank. I warned him about it... why did he blame it on me? Why did he claim I was in league with the devil?
When I told my mother she was going to get a nasty burn trying to cook that dish she wanted to try, she turned on me too. Wait that was my step-mother, and she had always been mean to me. My real mother fought against the farmer, fought for me. It was my father that had agreed with everything that farmer said.
Then he sent me... here, abandoned me... no I couldn't do that to her. I couldn't abandon her, not when I knew the pain it caused. Except they turned me into a walking vegetable, so I couldn't remember the betrayal. Doctor West, and his invasive and useless procedures... I really did remember everything.
The damage had been healed the moment I was turned into a vampire, I had just been repressing everything because it was far too painful to remember. I stumbled back in shock, and tripped back onto my bed.
"I... I remember everything." I said unable to really believe what I was saying.
"Good, good. You get some rest, and we'll talk more about it in the morning." He smiled widely, and rushed out of the room. I stared at the door as he locked me in. I was a scared girl, lost in my own delusions. My father wasn't evil, was he? Had it all been real? My cruel step-mother. The plot to kill me. The Marshal taking me two counties over to be put in an asylum. The nice orderly who believed me... Carl. He was the only person I ever met who I didn't get visions of. I couldn't tell what was going to happen in his future. When I saw him and talked to him, I just saw... him.
He had planned to get me out of this hell, he'd believed me when I said I wasn't crazy. Except someone else found me that was like him, someone I couldn't see in my dreams. It was James, and he had taken an interest in me. Carl though, he... He was the one who saved me from James. Carl... the one who turned me.
"You do remember." Suddenly Carl was sitting next to me. He smiled widely at me, his eyes crinkling at the sides in happiness for me. He was very large, and imposing. His skin was black, but pale making him look almost ill. Not that I was looking at anything but his friendly face and infectious smile, and his dark red eyes were always kind to me. Even though they were always a little sad.
"What happened to me?" I asked, because the memories were still very fuzzy.
Carl sighed a little bit. "Shock therapy. It gave you amnesia. Then I found you. Then James found you. I had no choice, I wish I could've seen how you turned out. You were such a beautiful soul, you made me want to be human again."
Carl looked down at his large hands. "You know my hands used to be so scarred, back when I was human. My back was covered in lash marks too. In a strange way, I miss those scars. They were reminders of who I once was, of the life I lived, and things I experienced. I think it's sad that vampires heal from most wound's without even a hint of a scar, does that mean we're truly alive, or do we merely exist? In a very real way, you gave me back that feeling, that I was truly alive again. "
"I did?" I asked feeling strangely happy that I made a difference in this stranger's life. Then a flood of memories hit me. That first day when he played that game where he would hide something for me to find. Or when he would try and use sleight of hand to trick me. It never worked. I always guessed right.
He was the only thing in this entire place that was kind. Ironic that I said he was the only person who seemed to have any humanity here.. .and he wasn't even human
"Carl?" I threw myself at him, and hugged him tightly.
"Hey my little one. I missed you." He said into my shoulder.
"How could I have forgotten you?" I said feeling ashamed.
"It's okay. You remember now. Hold onto those memories, and go and get her. She needs you far more than I do." He said as he pulled away and took my hands in his.
"Isabella... Carl I promise I won't forget you this time." I said as I stood and felt my heart stop. I was a vampire again, like I'd been for the last one-hundred and seventy-five years. I turned away from him, and noticed that the door to my room was open again.
I glanced back at him once, he was standing next to my bed, but wasn't looking at me. He was staring at his hands again, his haunted expression made it clear he was lost in his own dark memories. Even though we were parted, perhaps forever, I felt a little bit more complete, like a missing piece of myself had been found again. I knew in that moment, Carl would always be a part of me, he was the reason I was able to live long enough to find her.
I smiled at him one last time before I turned back to the task at hand. Then I rushed through the door, and back to my Isabella, but as I stepped through the doorway the world shifted again.
I found myself hand in hand... with Jasper. He smiled over to me expectantly, and I tried to smile back. I was still too much in shock over meeting Carl, and learning about my horrible human history.
"What's wrong? This was your idea in the first place." He said looking hopeful.
"I... I don't know. Wait is this...?" I stopped in place, forcing him to stop with me. I looked around the forest we were running through, and I noticed a very familiar split tree that had fallen a year after we joined up with the Cullens. It was still very much upright. This was the moment we found them, when we met the family for the first time.
I looked at Jasper and smiled sadly. There was no point, this family was gone now. We had become something new, why on earth would I return here?
"Because you have to remember something." Jasper said in response to my unspoken question. Even for someone who constantly lived in a world of visions. My patience was running out on this stupid dream logic.
"What could I possibly remember that would matter now?" I asked incredulously.
"Not here, this was a happy memory. You want the other one." He sounded solemn, clearly he didn't want to relive the memory he was suggesting either. I just couldn't understand why we would need to go there.
"We're not reliving it for you. We're reliving it for her." He said finally.
"Oh." Was all the response I could muster. I lowered my head and closed my phantom eyes, when I opened them again I was sitting around the dining room table in the house in Forks. Everyone was there, and judging from their expressions, I didn't need to try and figure out what memory this was. This was the night Edward told us we needed to leave her.
Edward stood and looked around at the group, his expression resolute. "I've gathered you all here because I've come to a painful realization, we have to leave Forks."
Carlisle gave Edward a thoughtful look. Esme frowned, she hated the idea of leaving this house, but after a few comments had begun to get back to Carlisle at the hospital, about how young he looked, we all knew it was close to time to begin considering moving. Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett all seemed relatively indifferent, but I just pursed my lips in suspicion.
"Why isn't Bella here? Shouldn't she be a part of this conversation?" I asked unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
"She's not coming." Edward seemed firm, and his expression confirmed it. He had no intention of backing down from his stance, he was clearly determined to leave her behind.
"That seems rash, we've brought her into our lives, we've taken on the risk, why would we back out now? Is it because of the party?" I asked rhetorically, once Edward had decided on something it was almost always pointless to argue with him. Although this time I wasn't about to give into him without a fight.
"Yes, the party had something to do with my decision, but it's been a long time coming. She doesn't belong in our world." Edward's voice was sad, as if the world had closed in around him. His morose expression silenced most of the room. Jasper frowned and sighed.
"It's all my fault, I'm so sorry Edward. You shouldn't have to make this choice." He clutched my hand under the table, half out of his own feelings of guilt, and half to try calm me down. My anger was already heading towards the red line. Whereas the rest of the family was looking at Edward feeling his sorrow over making this impossible decision, I couldn't see it as impossible.
"We bring her with us, we turn her. She belongs with us. Or we can wait for a year for her to graduate, so she can leave her human life behind properly. I just can't believe leaving her is the right thing to do here. She's a part of us now, and abandoning her would be a betrayal she might never get over." I spoke passionately, heatedly, from the heart, but I tried to phrase things as diplomatically as possible. What I didn't say was that he was being a dunderhead, a moron unable to see what he was throwing away.
"And I refuse to let her be turned, I'd rather see her die. Her soul is too beautiful to damn it to our version of hell. Even if we stayed, and she became a vampire, she wouldn't be Bella. She would be a monster like us. This is what is right for her. We need to give her a chance to be human, to have a human family. We're an unnatural influence in her life, and I can't sit around and continue to corrupt her." The nature of his argument seem to entrance the room, almost everyone bought his story, even I felt a brief crack in my resolve.
It made me sit back feeling a bit deflated. He knew he would get the most opposition from me. Even if he didn't know about it, ever since my vision in the cafeteria that day, I'd been obsessed with Bella. We'd become best friends and so much more.
Everyone seemed to consider his words for a moment, then Rosalie opened her mouth. I could see Edward pull back the sneer, probably because he was confident that she was about to support his opinion. "I think she deserves a human life, but shouldn't it be her choice? I'll admit I've never been fond of her, or the way she always seems to choose this life over her human one, but in the end it is her life right?" Rosalie surprised the room with her words, and it left everyone a little taken aback for a few moments. I smiled at her with pride, I'd never known her to be so thoughtful of others.
"I'll give her that choice. I promise. I'll go this very afternoon to talk with her, if we return together you'll know she chose this life. If I come back alone, she decided to live her human life. I won't deny which I prefer, and I won't deny that I think I know what is best for her here, but you're right. We should at least give her the choice." Edward's tone was gentle, comforting.
This seemed to placate the room, Carlisle gave him a reluctant nod, and I gave him a reluctant nod, although my deep frown showed my disappointment. However, I think he underestimated her desire to join us. I think she was going to chose us no matter what she had to give up.
Esme stood and walked over to the window.
"She's my daughter, please bring her back. I... respect your thoughts on the matter..." Esme turned and looked Edward in the eye, before continuing her plea, "but I don't think I could just leave her behind."
"If she doesn't chose us, would you force her hand?" Edward asked simply.
With those words the argument was over, and I couldn't watch anymore.
"Did you see that?" I looked around for Isabella, hoping she witnessed how we were manipulated, but she was nowhere to be seen. I ran from the house and tried to feel for where she was, somewhere in the vast forest of the dream world.
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Victoria had vanished, and I was in the hole again. I screamed until there was nothing left inside me to scream with, my hope lost entirely. Then a deep vibrating sound began to churn the cement above me. At first it was nothing more than a dull thudding, then as it got closer, it sounded like rock pounding on rock. It kept inching closer, until I felt a hand wrap around mine, and then it began to pull. Bright sunlight blinded me as the stranger helped pull me out of the hole that had seemed to overwhelm my will.
I blinked away the spots in my eyes, and tried to focus on my rescuer. It was Alice, she'd come to save me.
"You didn't need me the first time around." She said randomly. Her voice was full and clear, no longer half heard and whispery.
"I need you now." I said simply as wrapped her up in a tight embrace. Somehow I knew the nightmare was over and I would never be there again.
"Isabella. I love you." Alice said between frantic kisses. I buried my head into the nook between right shoulder and neck, and nodded once in acknowledgement. I wasn't ready to say it back. Why was that so hard to do? For a long time I didn't think that I could feel love. With her, I wasn't sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. It put every description of love that I'd ever read or imagined to shame, including what I thought was love when I was with Edward. So it should be easy, except the only word that I could come up with was "need". I… wasn't ready.
"No, you're not, but I'm not in a hurry. Take your time, I'll be right here." Alice's voice was amused, even playful as she pressed up against me. Somehow able to read my thoughts even as they flitted across my mind. My arms tightened around her. Unwilling to let her move away again.
For the first time in a very long time, I smiled happily. Perhaps for the first time since I was human that smile wasn't tinged with self-mocking or bitterness.
Then the world changed around us. We were in a different forest, far closer to our real home. It finally dawned on me right then, we were in our minds. This was the result of my need to claim her as mine.
"I am yours. Always have been, always will be." Alice said as she looked around. She sounded downright giddy about the prospect. The animal urge that kept rising each time I was with her was satisfied. She really was... mine.
"Mom, you might want to see this." Eliza said from beside us. I jumped slightly in surprise as I turned and looked at her and found her and Bree were standing next to us. Both of them seemed amused, or nervous, I wasn't sure which. I scanned the scene around me in response, not sure I wanted to see what seemed to be worrying them.
All around us were hundreds of newborns, shifters, and werewolves. A literal army, an army that seemed somewhat miffed with us given their demeanor. .
"What the fu..." I started to say, until Alice squeezed my hand.
"Another vision. I guess I can see past stuff I couldn't before. This is pretty nuts. I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark here and say, Joham?" Alice said with a very worried expression on her face.
"We're not alone at least. Look behind us." Bree said with a grin. I glanced back and felt my whole body shiver.
Behind us was an army of our own, albeit it a smaller one. Faces both familiar and welcome, and strangers I'd never met before stood behind us defiantly glaring down the army before us.
"So... I guess we have a bit of a kerfuffle coming. Why am I not surprised?" Eliza said with a touch of playful snark, but she couldn't quite hide her inner excitement. I could practically see her vibrating at the chance to utterly cut loose.
"We should probably try and wake up now." Bree said looking a bit worriedly as she gazed at the approaching wave of enemies.
"This is a vision right?" I asked Alice, unable to keep from feeling a little bit worried myself.
"It could be a nightmare, this whole situation has been very dream-like." Alice said with a shrug.
"What about earlier? was that real? Is Edward going to kill me?" Bree said clearly worried. The stress and fear pouring out of her, was palpable.
I started reached out to comfort her, and was surprised to find Alice moving at the same time as we both drew her into a hug, Alice rested her forehead against mine as she started to speak.
"No, my visions only work based on the decisions people make. He may want to try and kill you if he gets the opportunity. We're not going to let him get that opportunity. We'll end him first." Alice said without remorse.
"I'll do it myself." Her voice sounded harsh, it was unlike the sweet-natured woman I was used to her being, but she sounded resolute.
Eliza joined the impromptu group hug and murmured reassuringly to Bree. "Don't worry. We're going to protect you. We'll teach you to defend yourself, and in the meantime... don't wander off without any of us."
Bree nodded a little bit, not complaining at all at being in the middle of the group hug.
"I think we should wake up now." Eliza said with a touch of worry, as she looked around.
"Oww, pinching doesn't work." Bree said as she pinched her forearm mercilessly.
I frowned a little bit my eyes falling on Alice's face as she pulled away to look at the oncoming horde. She glanced at me expectantly. I cleared my throat and took over, "Everyone... on the count of three we wake up... 1... 2... 3..."
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Woo hoo! Chapter! Finally!
1) I'm REALLY sorry about the wait for this chapter. I made the monumental mistake of getting a massive sunburn, enough to put me into the hospital (falling asleep in the sun for 8 hours will do that to you) Now i've managed to get an infection that seems to have made itself at home and i can't seem to throw it.
2) Went a little different for this chapter. Samantha thought, rather than another straight up plunge through memories, like when Bree was bitten, that Alice being bitten probably would bring something different to the table. Since she lives half in visions anyway. So... this is what we came up with! What do you think?
So Alice is now REALLY part of the "Family" so to speak. How will this affect Bella and the group as a whole? oh and before you think that you've seen everything that makes Bella and Eliza different... i say... Um no. we have so much planned. stuffs you haven't seen yet :D
3) Samantha Minuet's Co-Author's Note: Yeah, so we had a long break between chapters. There are a great number of reasons for this, but I'll take the blame for a lot of it. I've had a major case of writer's block, and a good deal of this chapter rested on my shoulders. Still, I hope it wasn't too confusing. Next chapter is already planned out and partially written so the turn around should be quite a bit shorter. Until next time!
4) She lies. I was the bimbo who fell asleep in the sun and i am the one in the hospital :P She can't have the blame! NYAH!
5) We passed 1,100 reviews O_O WOOOHOOO! we're 1/5 of the way to 5k reviews :D
6) Please read and review!
