A product of quarantine and the Twilight Renaissance.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, plot points, and backgrounds do not belong to me.
On the sixth day of her stay in the Cullen home, Bella was starting to lose her mind. Even a clouded mind and burning body couldn't keep away a growing feeling of claustrophobia.
The guest room was as nice a room as one could ask for. The walls were painted a soft off-white, the kind that exudes comfort and modernity. The furniture was tasteful. A dresser stood across from her bed. It seemed to be vintage, a great hulking thing that looked straight out of the Victorian era. On the white walls were paintings; a landscape of a field, an impressive recreation of a Norman Rockwell painting.
(It would be much later when Bella would find out this painting was, in fact, an original.)
The bed was also nice, if a bit stiff. Bella supposed she couldn't blame a house of vampires for not choosing the most comfortable mattress. Besides, with her inability to sleep and existential unease since waking on that table days ago, Bella probably wasn't the best judge of what was comfortable.
Bella was uselessly fluffing a pillow when she heard a light knock, followed by a soft voice. "Bella?"
She sighed, throwing the pillow behind her back and sitting up fully. "Come in."
The door cracked open slowly, a head of blonde hair filling the gap. Carlisle did this every time he entered the room. First his head, then his hands, palms open and faced toward her, always approaching her like she was a wild animal that might dart away at any moment.
It amused and annoyed Bella. "Hey doc," she said.
Carlisle smiled sincerely. "How's my favorite patient today?"
"Stellar."
He smirked as he began to do his ritualistic inspection. Pulse, blood pressure, temperature. He took the bandages off her leg, gently running his fingers along the healing flesh. It always felt nice when he did that. His fingers were cool against the overheated skin.
The wound looked less gnarled than it once had, and excluding the immediate aftermath of the incident with Rosalie, had progressively bled less and less each day. It also wasn't nearly as deep, though Bella still couldn't stand to look at it for very long.
"This is healing very well, Bella," Carlisle said, swiftly applying new bandages. Bella watched as his hands flew over her calf. The movements were as graceful as a ballerina dancing on a stage. Once he finished, he glanced up at her, expression kind. Bella notices that his eyes, first a dark, honey gold, had been getting darker and darker every day. Today, they're near black. "How is it feeling?"
Bella shifted slightly. "Still burns."
He nodded. "And your head?"
"Still fuzzy."
If he was ever irritated by the lack of detail in her answers, Carlisle never showed it. "And sleep?"
Bella pursed her lips. "Still not getting any." She glanced down at her hands, lacing them together on her lap. "It feels like every time I'm finally able to go to sleep, my body never actually relaxes. When I wake up, I'm . . . I don't know. I'm so tense."
In the past few days, Bella had noticed that when Carlisle makes any sort of expression, he does so in small ways. His smiles are tiny quirks of the lip, never showing too much teeth. His frowns are always slight. Only when she'd first told him about what she was did he show a great deal of emotion.
She had two working theories about this. One was that he muted his emotions, being a vampire in a human's world and all. She already knew they must be constantly vigilant that they weren't moving too quickly or showing too much strength. He's a doctor, dealing with the emotions of human patients. He doesn't show reactions at risk of tipping his patients off that their doctor, in another situation, might eat them.
Her other theory was that this is just Carlisle's natural state. Self-possessed and composed at all times. And she had to admit that it was comforting when, after she had willingly given more information in one breath than she had in the last six days, the same placid frown graced his face.
"Tense," he repeated. He seemed to think about this for a moment, eyes bouncing about the room before once again landing on her face. "Has this ever happened before?"
"Waking up tense?" Bella asked. "Or not sleeping?"
Carlisle cocked his head, his face belying a, subtle, growing curiosity. "Either."
Bella released a long breath, considering the question. Sleeping wasn't something she thought of often as it had always come easily to her. As a child she'd been an incredibly good sleeper from birth, one of the multitude of hints that she wasn't exactly normal. She'd required less sleep as she developed.
At 13, she started experimenting with her sleep cycle to see how long she could go without sleeping while functioning normally. She found that she could tinker with how much she slept, able to go days at a time without a wink of sleep with no problem. After a few days she'd just sleep longer than normal, about 12 hours, and be fully recovered.
She'd kept up the habit of sleeping a few hours every single night in part to stay on the same schedule as Gran. Gran loved sleeping – always joked it was her favorite hobby. It was always comforting to know that if for this few hours a night, they would be the same. During the day Bella was always acutely aware of how different she was from Gran, even though Gran did her absolute best to prevent it. For a few hours they would be no different from one another, both lost to a world of dreams and fantasy and nightmares. Because she didn't need much sleep, Bella would wake up early and make a big breakfast, over which Gran would dissect their dreams.
"Dreams say a lot about reality," Gran would say.
After she died, Bella's dreams were vivid and terrible. Nightmare after nightmare had come to her every time she closed her eyes. They became so horrible that Bella had stopped sleeping for as long as she could, before the exhaustion would become too much. She'd never really thought about just how strange it was at the time, that her sleep had been so disturbed. Now, though, at the prompting of Carlisle, she realized the circumstances weren't too far off.
"When my Gran died," Bella said, meeting Carlisle's eyes. "When I was fifteen. I didn't stop sleeping all together or anything but . . . it became difficult. I wouldn't sleep until I couldn't keep my eyes open."
Carlisle's eyebrows raised slightly, his eyes sharp. "What did you feel at that time?" She scoffed. "Aside from grief," he clarified.
"Aside from grief?" Bella raised her eyes to the ceiling. "What did I feel? I don't know. It was the first time I was ever alone, I guess. I could take care of myself, of course, but everything felt unstable."
"Unstable?"
Turning her eyes back to the vampire, Bella shrugged. "Uncertain, maybe. I had no idea what was going to happen next and . . . I didn't know when that uncertainty was going to end."
"I see," Carlisle said. His tone was knowing, as if this answer seemed to be exactly what he'd expected to hear. He appraised Bella with gentle eyes. "And how have you felt since you've been here?"
The question, and underlying meaning, startled her into laughter.
"Oh, I get it," she said, smiling. "You're a therapist on the side too, huh?"
He ignored her joke. "You've been under immense stress for days on end. The shock you endured from the attack coupled with your, completely understandable, discomfort staying with us is likely keeping you from truly resting. You've been on high alert for a week."
Bella didn't disagree. While she made the therapist joke, she was self-aware enough to know his observation was probably right. Aside from the Rosalie incident, the Cullens had been nothing but helpful. She wouldn't be alive without them. However, even if Rosalie hadn't sent her back into shock, Bella wasn't used to relying on anyone. She hadn't relied on another person in a very long time. And now she couldn't do anything for herself, fully putting her well-being into the hands of people that she, quite honestly, still didn't trust.
Then Carlisle did something he hadn't attempted in any of the days he'd been checking in on her. He, very carefully, sat next to her on the bed.
"Jasper and I need to hunt soon," he said. The color of his eyes made sense then, Bella thought. He turned his head to look at the wall, unfocused. "After what happened we don't–" Carlisle stopped, taking a deep breath. "We don't feel comfortable being away from Esme or Alice right now."
"Okay," Bella said after a long pause. "So that means . . .?"
"We'll be leaving," Carlisle replied, meeting her eyes. "Not for long, but we will be leaving. You haven't been able to truly rest since the attack. While we're gone, I'm hoping you'll be able to relax," he grinned. "We won't leave you alone, of course. Edward will be close by. He'll help with your bandages while I'm away, but he's agreed to give you your privacy."
"You aren't worried that I'll try to leave?" Bella asked. Her tone was teasing, but in reality she could already feel relief setting in.
No Esme hovering just beyond the door, waiting for her to call. No Alice trying to slide through, constantly asking after her. And while she didn't begrudge Carlisle coming in every day to help her get better, she looked forward to not being under his ever-present scrutiny. It'd be nice to not feel like a patient or an experiment for a couple days.
She didn't love the idea of being under the keep of Edward, but he'd made it clear he had no interest in bothering her. And thankfully, unlike Rosalie, while he hadn't been keen on her presence in their home, he didn't seem to detest her existence entirely.
Sometimes indifference was preferred to hatred.
"Edward will bring you food," Carlisle said, ignoring her question. She wondered if it was to cut this conversation short or to gloss over the actual possibility of her trying to leave. "And if you need anything at all, all you need to do is call for him."
Not likely. "How long will you be gone?"
She'd tried not to sound too eager, but Carlisle's responding smirk indicated she'd failed. "Two days, at least. In the mean time I want you to rest." He emphasized this by leaning close, his inky eyes pinning her in place. "You may not believe me, but I want you to have the option to leave, if that's what you want. But I won't feel right if that happens before you're healed enough to take care of yourself."
The almost-fatherly concern in his voice unsettled Bella. She averted her eyes. "Guess I'm not in shape to fight off another werewolf by myself, huh?"
Humor graced Carlisle's face again, lightening his gaze. "I would say based on the first encounter you weren't exactly ready the first time."
The next morning, Carlisle came by one more time to check on her and check her progress. He took notes on her condition and informed her that Edward would be doing the same twice a day while he was gone. Other than that, unless Bella asked, she'd be left alone.
It took everything in Bella not to shoo him away.
Beyond the door were the muffled sounds of the rest of the family preparing for departure. Just as the front door opened, Bella heard Esme call out, "We'll be back soon!"
Then the sound of the door swinging shut. Then silence.
After ten minutes, long after the Cullens would be in earshot of the house, Bella swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Almost immediately after learning the most hovering of the vampires would be gone, Bella had begun planning.
She wasn't going to leave. Even if the likelihood of running into another werewolf was slim, she had no idea where Rosalie was. Running into her without any of the other Cullens around and practically defenseless was asking for trouble.
No, plan was much more modest in scale.
Carlisle had barely let her leave the bed. She'd gotten up a handful of times when she'd been alone in her room, but the second she took even the smallest, burning, step, his voice would come from the other side of the door telling her to rest. In other words: Get back in bed or I will come in. But he couldn't stop her if he wasn't here. She knew, somehow, that Edward wouldn't run in to stop her, though she had no evidence.
Besides, she couldn't lay down forever. It'd be like physical therapy – baby steps. And it didn't matter to her that it was going to hurt. It would give her anything else to focus on aside from her lack of sleep or her diminished senses. Just one foot in front of the other, as the saying goes.
It was this thinking that would lead her to attempt bearing weight on her injured leg, and when she found that she could stand to walk (or limp) the length of her room, what took her into the main area of the house.
It was this thinking that convinced her that she could push even further, making slow, determined laps around the kitchen and living room. The pain shooting up her leg was nothing compared to the elation she felt at being able to move for herself, at not being prone on the bed for the first time in a week. She barely even took in anything aside from the ground directly in front of her as she took each step.
And it was this triumph that led Bella to think that, after limping around the living room, dining room, kitchen, and various nooks of the first floor, that she could take on the stairs.
To some miracle (or burst of adrenaline), she actually made it up the first flight of stairs fairly quickly, if painfully. She was breathing hard, her body feeling like she'd run hundreds of miles. She looked up at the rest of the stairs leading to a second and third floor, telling herself just one more.
This would be her downfall. Literally.
Halfway up the second flight of stairs, she put the foot of her injured leg down only for it to immediately give out. She'd already lifted begun the motion, meaning her back foot was no longer steady and she was suddenly suspended in air– before crashing right back down.
She'd managed to turn slightly as she fell to her non-injured side, but she still landed hard. Now she would be burning and sore. Closing her eyes, Bella tried to catch her breath before slowly easing onto her back. Groaning, she stretched out her leg, thankful it was the normal amount of painful. Her eyes fluttered open, looking to the ceiling.
Or they would have, if the view hadn't been impeded by a pair of very irritated golden eyes.
"What were you thinking?"