Playlist:

Evanescence - Imaginary

Evanescence - Haunted

My Chemical Romance - Sleep

Katy Perry - Wide Awake

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words. Stephanie Meyer owns the Twilight series, and the songs belong to their respective people.

Imaginary

After dinner, Edward kissed her forehead and took off to hunt with Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper; Marcos accompanied them. Emmett was hoping to hunt a dragon. Bella tried to sneak away to the dojo to meditate, but Carlisle stopped her with a raised eyebrow. He flashed at vampire speed to block her exit from the Castle. "And where do you think you're going, young one? Josephat has instructed you to sleep, and sleep you shall. Come on."

Damn. Foiled again. Her friends were really getting far too good at predicting her moves. She told Carlisle as much and he laughed; he bid Esme a fond goodbye as he escorted Bella to the Attic and her bed.

Bella hated sleeping without Edward by her side, but when Carlisle tucked her covers around her in the extended futon and kissed her forehead, she thought it might actually be okay. Maybe any vampire could hold off the nightmares that awaited her, not just her lover. With that hopeful thought, Bella closed her eyes and willed herself into unconsciousness. She focused on the sound of Alice's soft hum as she unraveled a bolt of forest green fabric embroidered with flowers that blew in an imaginary breeze as she fell asleep.

It was just Bella, Alice, and Carlisle in the Attic at the moment, though Esme would be coming up to join them after her role in the kitchens was complete. Alice relished the quiet atmosphere as she designed her dress for the upcoming gala: a celebration of Camp's victories. She glanced at Bella's sleeping form as her human sister's breaths evened and slowed. Jo had implied that Bella had nightmares, was that why she was so reluctant to sleep without Edward?

Alice's curiosity started to get the better of her as she tried to focus on her sketches. She remembered the vision Bella had forced her into while she was panicking in the garden and her lessons from the Sighted Fae, who had told her physical contact with someone could serve to narrow her field of focus to events that pertained to them. Maybe she could help?

Alice flashed to Bella's side, pausing before she reached out to touch her. Bella lay oddly on the futon, her hands above her head and her ankles crossed, very different from her normal posture while sleeping. It looked uncomfortable, and some unnamed emotion grew stronger in Alice as she took in her sleeping sister's form.

"What are you doing?" Carlisle looked up from the book he was reading with a warning glance. "Don't you dare wake her."

"I'm not going to wake her. I just want to see something." Alice replied, already reaching slowly for Bella's forehead. She didn't want to startle her into wakefulness. Her cold hand met Bella's forehead, and Alice closed her eyes as Bella's dreams filled her mind.

Images flashed behind Alice's white eyes, blurry and too fast to gain more than an impression. Edward in the meadow in Forks; the red-haired girl again; a lean, dark-haired boy with a wide smile, strumming a guitar. The dream was apparently very peaceful.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. Dark shadows encompassed the meadow where Bella and Edward sat, black eyes gleamed. There was pain and screaming, Bella struggling to wake; a shout echoed as the boy fell over a cliff's edge into the void. "Fiore!"

Alice tried to escape, tried to pull back her hand and leave Bella to the nightmares that were beyond what she could possibly help with. She couldn't. She was trapped now, trapped as much as Bella was in this horrific nightmare. Alice was frozen, not really in the dream and not able to escape from it. She was unable to reveal her presence to Bella, or signal Carlisle she was in trouble. Oh no. It finally occurred to her that this was yet another violation of Bella's privacy, that she was seeing something Bella might not want her to. What had she gotten herself into?

As the nightmare got worse and the shadows consumed the last dregs of Bella's mental peace, Alice shuddered. Could Bella forgive her this?

Haunted

Alice saw:

Bella, younger now, in a circle with the two others, chanting with Shannara's grimoire in the middle. The boy, Fiore, was consumed by the void as he fell, breaking the circle. A flash of his eyes, so different from their normal brown.

Alice had no idea how she knew Fiore's eyes should be brown, she just knew. It only got worse and worse, until even Alice, the silent watcher, could see no hope, no way out. Bella's torturers were beyond cruel, greedy and delighting in their evil. The younger Bella was covered in bruises, permanent tear streaks on her dirty face as she stood alone in the dark. The huddled form of the helpless, but precious, were behind her. She shielded them from the never-ending dark, took their wounds as her own and healed them with soft touch.

Alice wasn't going to survive this; she would never be free again. The darkness was all-consuming, reaching into her very soul. As her hopelessness reached its peak, the flashes came again: Bella strapped to a pyre, the white-hot heat of a branding iron. The crack of a whip echoed around her; a knife stabbed into freckled chest. Black eyes- always watching. She was screaming in the square, watching Bella clutch Adeline's body to her chest. Alice felt the heat of Bella's hatred, the burning cold of her loss.

And always- always there were those eyes; there was that voice. It was smooth and velvet, almost vampiric, chanting its want for Bella's soul over and over in her mind. It never stopped. Time had no meaning in this place, and the dream stretched until Alice had no concept if what she was seeing was a vision or reality.

Alice snapped back into her own body cruelly, just in time to hear Bella scream her name as she shot awake, already pushing Alice's hand away from her forehead and scrambling to sit up. Carlisle was at the foot of the bed, one finger extended where it had rested on the scar that marred the bottom arch of Bella's foot; sadness, anger and guilt painted his face.

Sleep

"Holy shit. Guys, don't do that. Jesus." Bella had curled up with her knees pulled to her chest at the head of the bed. Alice sat down on the edge of the futon, careful not to touch Bella as she tried to stop the whirl of her thoughts. That was what Bella faced every time she closed her eyes? Alice was suddenly incredibly grateful vampires didn't sleep. Were all dreams that terrible?

Carlisle broke the tense silence. "Bella, I know the silence prevents you from speaking about your trauma, but if possible, I would like you to answer a question for me."

"Shoot."

"How did you acquire that scar on the bottom of your foot?" Carlisle's voice was wracked with hope and fear.

Bella examined her lover's vampire father closely. Carlisle wanted something from her, a specific answer, but she wasn't sure what he wanted her to say. She responded vaguely.

"It's just one among many, Carlisle. The Master had this machine, he was fond of using it while I was unconscious. It attaches to the ankles and wrists, and-"

"- extends the muscles tighter than they can bear; a rack. God, forgive me. I knew your posture looked familiar." Carlisle put his head in his hands, guilt in every inch of his form.

Alice cut in. "Are your dreams always like that?" Horror laced her words.

"No, not when Edward is with me. When he's not, they're these terrors, and it's like- It feels like as if somebody was gripping my-" Bella choked and tried again, the smell of blood in the air. "They're these terrors and it's like- It feels like as if somebody was gripping my throat."

She turned to Carlisle, who was defeated and old, at the end of the bed. "Like tonight... they're, they're these terrors. There's nothing to do about them, so don't look so guilty. Wait. You didn't see my dreams, only Alice. And how do you possibly know what a rack is?"

Carlisle's voice was halting, slow and begging— for what, Alice did not know. "It was the early 1700s, and Prussia was gaining more and more power. Religious wars had mostly come to a halt by then, but the Spanish Inquisition had left its mark on us. Catholicism was falling out of favor quickly, and Protestantism was becoming more and more popular. I was staying in one of the last major monasteries, trying to avoid the political upheaval at that time. There was a boy, a young boy. He was protestant."

Carlisle paused, taking a bracing inhale.

"The king at that time, James the Second, was an open Catholic and would do whatever was necessary to improve the power of the Church. He enlisted monasteries like ours to...to..."

"You tortured them." Bella didn't even sound shocked, just sad. "Oh, Carlisle. How could you?"

"It was God's work, they told me. And I was so young then, so willing to do as I was told. I would run to the Volturi soon; I had to cut myself off from the human world and its cruelties. The boy— his name was Adam. They put him on the rack for days on end, and eventually he didn't even scream anymore. It was my job to go down and loosen the screws, to make sure he got enough water and bread to survive. I would recite the psalms to him and wipe his brow. I tried to soothe him, protect him. I petitioned over and over again for him to be released. One day, during Mass, they went down and slit his throat. I could smell the blood in the chapel. I haven't attended Mass since. They tortured him; they killed him. And I did nothing."

Bella unfurled from her protective ball and got up, heading to the kitchen and spitting into the sink. She moved in a trance as she grabbed the bleach and eradicated the smell. She rummaged in the cabinet for a moment before pouring herself a large glass of whiskey. The sounds were loud in the silent room.

Carlisle watched her move with a beggar's eyes. Alice had no idea what to do. When Bella returned to the bed, she sat close to Carlisle at the foot of it, taking a moment to take in her rumpled covers and reflect on the horrors of the rack.

For just one moment, her face was cold: distant and expressionless. She downed her drink in one gulp. Slowly, her face crumpled into sadness. She sighed deeply before she spoke, taking Carlisle's hand and lacing her fingers through his.

"Carlisle. Look at me. I'm sure you were a great comfort to him. Adam, I mean. It's okay. Sometimes there is nothing you can do."

"I could've done something, I could've taken him away, saved his life. But I didn't. I was too afraid of discovery, too selfish."

"No. You were trapped in a situation beyond your control. I've been on the rack Carlisle, and I guarantee you were more kind to Adam than my guards were to me. Tell me, did you ever loosen the screws more than you were told to? Did you ever give him more food, more water, than was ordered?"

"Yes, but-"

"But nothing, Carlisle. Small kindnesses like that? They make all the difference in those situations. Trust me, I know. Why did you recite the psalms to him?"

"I wanted to give him something to focus on- something besides the pain. I can't read the psalms anymore. I let him down. I never even got to finish them before they killed him. Bella, I care for you deeply. I am so sorry you had to go through the same torture that Adam did. I am so sorry God has seen fit to inflict on you my sins, that He has made you suffer to teach me."

Now, Bella looked shocked. "What? Are you crazy? God doesn't work like that, Carlisle. He is not so cruel. He didn't put me through the rack so I could hurt you. He put me through it so I could heal you. Heal the healer of his guilt. I forgive you Carlisle, and I know Adam did too." Bella moved back to the head of the bed, rearranging pillows and smoothing the blankets in her ratty sweats and gauze-wrapped arms. "Come here."

Carlisle sat next to her and she turned her back to him, grabbing his hand and pulling it around her waist so she was stretched out with Carlisle stretched against her back. "You too, nosy Alice." Alice stretched along Bella's front, the little spoon to her big spoon and Carlisle's bigger spoon. "I'm sorry you had to see what you saw, Alice. Don't ever spy on my dreams again. You're forgiven too."

"Now. Carlisle, I want you to finish the psalms. I know you guys don't have magick, but it's still not a good idea to leave a cast unfinished. Alice, hum. I like hearing noise as I sleep, it helps me pick out what is real and what is only a dream. Both of you are going to lay here until Esme and the boys return, and I don't want you to wallow in guilt either. Just...be here, with me. "

Alice spared a half-second's thought for what her lover and family would say, but she was sorely in need of Bella's comfort and forgiveness. So, she entwined her hand with her father's over Bella's waist, humming a lullaby to woo her sister to peaceful sleep and soothe Carlisle's sin, listening to the soft sounds of the psalms echoing in the dark.

Wide Awake

When Edward returned from the hunt with his brothers and sister, he was laughing, for once without a care. Bella was safe. They had won the battle. His family was beside him. They were happier and more purpose-filled than they had ever been. He felt closer to his coven- his family, than he ever had. Bella was sleeping on the futon right now, and he was only seconds away from slipping in next to her, and— When he reached the window, his customary few seconds before the others, he immediately knew that something serious had happened.

Carlisle and Alice were curled up with Bella in the middle, his father chanting with his forehead on Bella's left shoulder, the one with the brand. Esme had hold of Carlisle's hand and was soothing his father from some unknown pain. Carlisle's chant did not stop, did not cease for a moment except for the breaks when his father would draw ragged breath.

Alice looked lost and sorrowful, and when Jasper came through the window, he immediately went to her side and took her hand, flashing past a frozen Edward to sit at the head of the bed. Rosalie and Emmett were immediately on guard for threats; when they found none they too went to the bed, sitting stiffly at the foot of it.

Edward felt his whispered voice crack as he took in the scene. "Be-lla?"

His whisper woke his love slightly, who reached for him over Alice's side. Edward didn't even think, just moved his body to sit in the curve of his sister's stomach so he could take her hand.

He couldn't read Bella's thoughts, but he could read Jasper's. His love was peaceful, sheltered, grateful, still mostly asleep. It was his family that was hurting. His father was penitent and wracked with guilt and gratitude. The contrasting emotions were almost too much for him. Alice was regretful and sad, guilty too.

When his father's manic recitation of the psalms finally ended, it was like someone had given them permission to speak. No one could think of what to say. After a moment, Rosalie softly enquired in a whisper, "What happened?"

Alice spoke in a whisper inaudible to human ears, softly explaining what she had done, what she had perceived of Bella's nightmare, and what Carlisle had revealed about his distant past. Bella had comforted them, forgiven them. She had requested they stay and sought to help how she could.

Edward thanked God for every second of the life that had led him to his lover.

Bella woke slowly; she had dreamed only of softly falling snow and the quiet it brought. She was cold, but it felt nice, like waking up in the evening after falling asleep in the warm afternoon sun. Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw her position: the entire Cullen family was on the bed in some form or another, and Edward was looking at her like she had hung the moon. They were all looking at her in a peculiar way, taking her in with some unnamed emotion in their eyes.

Her panic at their strange behavior sped her speech. "What? What happened? What's wrong, are you guys okay?"

Edward was the first to respond. "Isabella Swan, I am irrevocably in love with you."

Bella felt discomfort at the words. It was in the way he said them, the absolute certainty of it. Still, of course she responded. She would never miss an opportunity to tell Edward she loved him. "I love you too, Edward. Seriously, what's going on? Is this real, or am I dreaming still?"

"I love you too, Bella. This is real. I'll always be your baby sister and your best friend." Alice spoke too, sitting up and brushing Bella's hair from her forehead, in the same spot where Carlisle had kissed her forehead earlier.

Esme was next. "You are my daughter, Isabella. Thank you for what you have given our family."

Bella was starting to freak out.

Jasper cut in before she could. "Thank you, Bella. Thank you for loving us. You're my sister too. My older sister, weirdly enough."

"My sister too, but you're definitely younger than me." Rosalie cut in.

Emmett nodded with his wife, "Well, you've always been my little sister. I'll always protect you."

"Welcome to the family, my daughter." Carlisle brushed his lips against her forehead.

Bella sat, frozen. Her head was whirling. Even Jasper couldn't tell what she was feeling, only that it wasn't anything good. There was a moment where he thought Bella would dance to express her deep and compelling joy, but then he was overwhelmed by a massive wave of negative emotion. The strange, frightening emotions bombarded him, drowning Bella's joy in the intense flood. Fear. Yes, fear was the most prominent one.

Bella scrambled off the bed, vaulting over the footboard and running towards the door to the Attic. She threw open the door before they could react, and then paused on the threshold. "You know, Alice, the nightmare never ends. Even when I'm awake. I can't be a part of your family. I want to, but…" There was the scent of blood in the air, a symptom of the silence's curse. Bella grit her teeth. Glitches flashed around them, some they had seen, others they didn't recognize.

Trees growing through the floorboards of an office, a white-bearded man's shocked face; the red-headed girl playing the piano in a magnificently lush room as Bella picked a violin; the skinny boy—Fiore—kissing Bella's forehead in epiphany, surrounded by beakers and gems in a cluttered workshop with a huge window.

"I had a family, once. It didn't turn out so great." Bella went to exit the attic, but Edward's voice stopped her. "Our love won't end just because you can't love us back, Bella." Bella swallowed a few times, her facial expression becoming hard and dead, her voice icy monotone. "Then you will die."

Bella walked down the stairs and out of the Attic.