Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.
Now we jump forward in time. Enjoy.
-112 years later-
Under the cover of night, the city of Chicago was just as glorious as any, though it held a closer place to my heart than most.
Cars filled streets, lights brightened corners, windows and homes, while the busy people milled over cross walks, down sidewalks and in and out of stores.
Snow crunched beneath feet, danced in whirls of wind down from the deep bluish black of the night sky. Fresh pine scented the air, with cinnamon, bayberry, and all types of holiday smells in between.
The entire scene was an experience, a wonderfully alive, tantalizing adventure.
A low, British kissed chuckle brings my attention away from the dance of the people in the streets.
"You, my little Belle, are a sight to witness." He flashes a quick, bright smile and opens his door.
I wait, as always, for him to open my own, and within seconds, he does, offering a hand that would have one mistaking him for a gentleman.
Garrett has been quick to correct the assumption before. American Patriot is his preferred term.
Nonetheless, I don't ever waste the opportunity, and gladly take his offer. He closes the door behind me before tucking my little hand under his right arm, placing his left rough palm over my fingers on his arm.
We weave through the crowds, immersing ourselves in the experience.
His touch is my only anchor; it's the only reminder that this is all possible only while our bodies remain in contact with one another. It's a small price to pay for his joy, and an even smaller one to pay, to quell my loneliness.
I smile up at him as we clear one block, wandering down the next.
He will never admit it, but Garrett enjoys coming so close to society again, there is a sense of pride about him when we reach a big city.
His life was given to fighting the British for this country, and his after life was spent wandering the untamed land before it was discovered, he's watched on through time as a proud father.
Giving this small gift of peace is the least I can do.
I adore the man, he's been a pleasure these last thirty years.
We pass down into the plaza, and I can't help smile at the sight before us.
The tree sits, alight with bright white, reds and greens.
We spend the evening walking around the temporary tents set up around us, I even find a few gifts here and there.
In our travels I have had the fortune of making friends who distance doesn't affect, and even a few who have an address that I know they use.
Garrett indulges me, holding the bags in his free hand, after placing mine back in his arm.
A few elderly women smile at us, a few look concerned. Most of the men we pass seem to approve of the pairing.
This topic we've discussed plenty of times.
"Without fail, every time we walk together." I sigh, trying not to roll my eyes, a trait I've picked up on the last few decades.
My mother would shudder over the horrid manners of the 21st century.
Garrett, like the uncultured, red blooded American he swears to be, throws his head back and lets out a boisterous laughter that has me laughing along with him soon enough.
I'm rewarded with a kiss on my hair a moment later, him still chuckling as he does so.
He steers us around a group of people as he speaks.
"Oh, without fail as always, if only they knew the truth of my one sided love." He dramatically grounds out the end of his sentence and winks down at me while he laughs again.
I sigh and try to look serious. It doesn't work well, but it doesn't stop either of us.
"One sided indeed, not many people can recuperate the level of self-love you have."
He pulls up the hand with the bags to his heart and looks forlornly down at me, mirth alight in his eyes.
"Oh my Belle, you wound me so."
0o0o0o
Our time together is brief.
As always, in this city, I make my visits alone.
At such a cold hour in the morning, it's foreign to me to see even the few people far and in between. They cling to their jackets, or each other in the bitter frost of the dawn. It is something I vaguely recall doing myself, before my heart stopped beating. The further along I walk, the more of them I see, starting to appear, as if from a dream, dressed and pressed in their finest to start the day.
The cemetery however, is empty, and it is always a haunting calm that settles around me as I make my way past the new rows of head stones, down the dirt road, into the oldest parts of what was once a little patch of land. My thoughts of the city around me are left behind, and I step carefully, mindful of the faint reminder in the voice of my mother about respecting the graves, even an unmarked one.
The Swan family plots are together, a tomb sits farther back, where my parents and grandparents are buried.
My destination however, sits off to the side, and it is settled into the ground, forgotten and overgrown. As the mist sets in around me, above the cold ground that hasn't yet given way to the snow, I pull the plant life away from her stone, pushed into the dirt.
Margaret Ann Swan.
I try to settle the sudden hollowness in my chest as my fingers trace over the dates.
1884-1923
My sweet, beloved little sister.
It wasn't fair. It was never fair.
That was however, the price I'd been willing to pay. One life, for another.
I place the flowers in the same spot every time I visit her. Just over the beloved mother, three blooms lay, three, for her children.
Yes, mother, a word that she'd worn with such a grace, it was hardly fair that she didn't live to see her family grow.
I sighed, and side stepped once I stood again, this time, pulling weeds off a different stone.
A much more Ironic one.
Isabella Marie Swan
1882-1901
Forever in our hearts.
Yes, forever in their hearts, and hidden away in the backs of their deepest secrets. Underneath the shame and guilt, I was forever in their minds.
They told stories for years, whispers in high society of the attack; my own sister was forced to speak of the night in a callous manner, as if she weren't there.
My fist clenched, long since the blood been through those veins yet the feeling of rage was just the same. Boiling just beneath the surface, barely composed, was blind hatred for the man that did this.
No, monster.
He was a monster.
There are no flowers for my grave, there never was.
I stood, trying to rein in the emotion that brewed in the pit of my stomach, it was only once a year now, one morning, a few hours, that I allowed myself to live in the past, to acknowledge the existence of my life before my rebirth. I found that trying to dwell in the past, never brought me any closer to my future, there were no answers there, no secret clues that I'd overlooked.
I awoke alone. After three days of a burning hell, I rejoined to the world I knew, as something else, something different.
I shook my head, letting the long brown hair spill over my shoulders, the long waist pea-coat around me speckled with the first of the falling snow, and left my family.
I had one more stop, and this time, it was a much happier one.
It has been a law of the ruling covens since the dawn of our time. Or, so I am told.
Humans must never know.
We are to protect our secret at all costs, even death to those who we once counted ourselves among.
I have no need to dive further into our laws, the rest pale in comparison to this first rule.
I was not stolen away, I was not traveling far and alone. I was walking home, with my little sister, I was on the same stretch of old road that I'd walked my entire life.
That was where my life was taken.
It was violent, ruthless, there was no peace, no lasting calm to overcome me.
I awoke alone.
Left in nothing more than a poorly hidden hole in the ground. Those were my first moments as an immortal, I spent them clawing my up and out of the dirt, pushing past the frost bitten leaves and branches.
It took me time to sort out what had happened. I broke the surface, and tried to cry out, but instead of my own scream, I heard nothing more than a gasping rasp of breath.
The burn however, I felt, sitting in the back of my throat.
It should have been the driving force that led me back to that road, the one that led to my home, but, it wasn't.
It was my sister. It was the fear that he'd taken her too, that he'd done to her what he did to me. It was solid, and lead like in the pit of my stomach.
We'd made a deal, but I could remember nothing of being in those woods, or that hole. I only knew the burning pain that the coolness in the earth didn't quell.
So I wandered, I hid to the sides of the road, past the open field that lay to the west, under the cover of trees. The few people who did pass, did not hear my steps, nor my ragged breathing.
It was then that I made the connection, between the burn and the need. I wanted them.
I wanted the warmth that I could smell pulsing through each limp, back and forth, steady and driven.
I wanted blood.
The repulsion that came next drove my speed I suppose. All I could see were his eyes, the hungry, feral look of his face, the gleaming whites of his teeth.
I ripped through low branches, over rotted logs, until I finally came home.
To a home that wasn't mine.
There, through the window, I could see them.
All around the table, sitting, talking, laughing as if nothing were wrong.
Except for her, my dearest little sister. She was pale, sickly looking, withdrawn.
How was I supposed to leave her? How did I cut ties with the only thing that would keep my humanity safely within my grasp?
The short answer? I didn't.
Instead, I made this trip once a year.
I came to this townhouse door. I knocked with this old brass ring.
"Aunt Isa!"
And I smiled down at this growing child.
Now you have a closer look into Bella's story and she's already off breaking rules. I did twist around the length of her abilities a bit but they are essentially the same. As for Garrett, just to clear it up now, this is NOT a romantic relationship between the two. They are close, like family but more of a doting brother and sister kind of way. Let me know what you think so far.