Chapter 23
I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT OR CHARACTERS
Alice never ran so fast in all her hundred and eight years of living. The world was a meaningless blur around her, nothing but an irrelevant smear of darkness and flashes of moonlight as she sprinted. Nothing mattered, nothing but getting to Bella, getting to her now.
Because Bella was bitten.
No.
Because Bella was hurt.
No!
Because Bella was dying.
NO!
With a huge spurt of speed Alice exploded out of the forest across the road from the Swan house and ran full tilt for the front door. She slammed into it, shattering the lock and bursting into the house with the sound of splintering wood.
She tasted the blood on the air before she smelled it.
And it did not invoke the animal in her. There was a different kind of animal inside her, a more raw, powerful one. It did not taste like ambrosia.
It tasted like the end.
Alice found her sprawled out on the living room floor. The vampire let out a soft noise of desperation and appeared at her side, falling next to her lover's unmoving body. The floor beneath Bella's head was stained red, although the two gaping, torn puncture marks in her throat were clean of any blood. Her skin was pale, the pallor of the already dead. When Alice pressed her shaking hands to her cheeks, she felt no warmth. Bella's chest did not move, did not rise and fall as it should.
She was not breathing.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Bella should be screaming in agony as she mutated into a vampire. She should be flailing and writhing, but she lay so very still. And if she was not changing, if she was not turning, then she could only be dying.
Bella's body was rejecting the change. She wasn't going to make it.
Oh god. Oh god, no, please. She's not dead. It didn't happen. She's not, she's not!
"Bella, baby," Alice gasped, terrified. "No, no, no!"
The feeling was more than Alice could bear.
Not Bella.
Anyone but Bella.
Anyone but this sweet girl, this innocent, beautiful young woman with the heart of gold, the light in the dark that Alice loved, the one that never judged her, never looked at her as anything less than worthy and bright and lovely, who accepted all her faults and flaws and understood her and loved her anyway, who did not deserve to lose her precious life, who had never asked to be brought into the world of vampires and all their darkness and danger, not Bella.
Not her Bella.
And Alice, who never gave into denying the truth for the sake of self preservation, did so then.
It could not have happened. Bella was not dead. She was simply having a delayed reaction to the venom; soon she would wake and begin her painful transformation. Even now Alice would trade the sleep of death for that unbearable agony, if only it meant that Bella was not gone, was not leaving her to a place where Alice could not follow.
Because she could not bear it. The mere thought ripped at her soul. There was no one like Bella. There was no one who could compare. There was no one Alice loved quite so much, had ever loved so much that it hurt to feel it fill her heart till it was fit to burst, and she knew it by the way she felt the eternity of her future slip into a black despair, because without Bella nothing would ever be right again.
Bella was her one.
Her one and only.
Forever.
They were soul mates not because fate or destiny decided to forge some magical, mythical connection that was unbreakable by time between them; no, they were forever because they were two people that understood each other, who found solace and passion and a kindred mind that lit up each other's worlds based purely on who they were, and how they fit so well together.
Alice did not believe in fate. She'd watched the future change all her life based on what people decided. There was no set path, and chances only took you so far. She believed in love, but the kind of love that works based on the people and nothing else. They were not meant to be from the start, destined for each other, but they had happened anyway, and something about that made it all so much more painful.
Not Bella. Anyone but Bella.
The universe could take anyone else. Not her.
"Bella baby please…" Alice mewled, sliding her hands under Bella's head, lifting her gently as she gazed down on her with blurring eyes and desperation. She felt a thick, swollen lump at the base of her skull. Sticky blood coated her fingers and even though her vampire stirred ever so slightly, it had never been so easy to quell. "Please, you're not dying on me, you can't… Wake up baby, wake up," she begged.
Bella could not die. Alice could not have failed her so fully. She could not have let Victoria slip by her like a viper between Bella's sheets. She could not have failed so utterly to keep the one thing that mattered most, mattered at all in her life alive, protected, safe.
But she did.
And the proof of it was in the way Bella lay broken beneath her.
But then Bella stirred.
Her chest heaved and her body shuddered, and Alice let out a cry of shock, cupped her face more fully.
She's alive!
"Bella? Bella can you hear me?" Alice said frantically, a sudden fiery determination to preserve that tiny flickering flame of life she saw rise in her lover no matter what it took flooding her.
"Al-ice?" Bella croaked, her eyelids fluttering.
Big brown doe eyes gazed up at her, unfocused. Bella stared through Alice, as if she could not see her. She seemed confused, bleary eyed. The brunette's lips parted and a soft, high pitched wheeze whistled through her as she struggled to draw breath. The sound tore at Alice's heart.
"Bella? Bella, I'm right here baby, I'm right here. You're gonna be okay," Alice vowed immediately when she saw a flash of fear in those chocolate pools.
She did not really know. It was so terrifying, and again Alice did something she had never done before.
She lied to Bella to make her feel better.
Usually when Alice was reassuring her, she gave her the truth as gently as she could, because she believed Bella strong enough to handle it, because she needed it. But right now she did not know if Bella would be okay, and she would say anything to soothe the anxiety she could see rising in her lover, anything to make this easier, and mostly because she desperately needed to convince herself.
She's not dying. She's alive. She will stay that way. I will NOT lose her!
Alice found clarity in stress where others found panic and hysteria. She was not naturally inclined to lose it. She felt her control come rushing back from that horrible moment where she thought Bella was really dying too fast to be saved.
Bella was not dead yet.
And she'd be damned if she let her get that way.
But then what the hell was she doing, if she was not dying? She certainly wasn't changing…
"I can't feel my body…" Bella whispered. Her chest rose in quick little pants.
How was she breathing? Victoria had drained her of blood, to where no human could even be conscious, let alone coherent. None of this made any sense. It frightened Alice, the unknown. She could not see Bella's future, because she only saw someone's future when they made decisions. Bella had no choices to make right now. The final choice Alice would ever see someone make was whether or not they would continue to fight to live when they were dying, and its outcome, whether they would be successful in that endeavor, or if it all would just go black, because they were going to die. It was only the final one if it was the last one they would ever make.
Right now Bella just looked confused as fuck.
And scared. She did not know if she was dying or not. She looked like she didn't even know her own last name anymore. Alice was absolutely terrified that she might have to see Bella's final choice.
Shit, I've got to help her. I don't know what's happening. Nobody's ever reacted to the venom like this before.
"Al-ice…" Bella gasped, struggling with a multiple syllable word as Alice held her face in her hands, trying to figure out what to do, how to make this better.
Carlisle.
Carlisle would know. She had to get Bella to her adoptive father. He knew vampires and humans medically better than anyone else. If anyone could fix this, it would be him.
Move, Alice. You've got to move! Now!
Every second counted. She did not know how many Bella had left.
"What's h-happen-ing to me…?" Bella whimpered, paralyzed on the floor.
Her voice, so small and frightened, put Alice into motion.
"I'm so sorry Bella," Alice murmured to her, trying to hide her anguish, to be strong for Bella. She was not allowed to be scared or uncertain.
I did this to her. I let her get hurt. Oh god Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry…
But there was not time for guilt, not yet. It would come, and justly, and if it came with Bella's death, it would come out in droves and bury her alive in her grief. Just not yet.
"I'm going to take you to Carlisle, okay? He's going to make you better. You're gonna be just fine, Bells," Alice breathed and slid her arms slowly, so cautiously under Bella, afraid to move her because she had no idea what was happening inside her abused body.
Gently she lifted her, and felt like she carried a feather in her arms. She tried her best to find a way to support Bella's head in the crook of her arm, but it lolled grotesquely. The girl was a limp mess in her arms, completely paralyzed and immobile.
What's happening to her? Victoria, you stupid fucking whore, what have you done to her?
Rage billowed in all the cold frightened places inside Alice and she calmed that too. There would be time for rage and hate, and guilt and shame, but not now.
I should have been there. I should have kept her safe. I was all she had and I failed her. I fucking just let it happen, I didn't even check my visions while I was hunting. She was all alone, I should have had someone come stay with her!
Maybe it wasn't so easy to shrug it all off, even now.
"S'not your fault," Bella whispered, as if she could not raise her voice any further as Alice gingerly walked to the door, afraid to run and hurt her worse even though time was of the essence.
"What?" Alice said worriedly, glancing down at Bella.
Bella gazed up at her with stars in her big brown eyes that were hung in the night sky, and stars in her eyes because that was how she always looked at Alice, as if the whole world did not revolve around her, but was her, as if she was the universe.
It broke her fucking heart apart.
"S'not your fault," Bella repeated thickly as Alice walked out the shattered front door and down the porch steps. Bella's eyes flashed with each juddering step and Alice tried to take them softer, alarmed at the sudden pain in her pupils. Bella so far had not seemed to be in severe pain or discomfort beyond her immobility and that was probably keeping Alice somewhat calm, that she was, at least, not acting as if she were dying.
"Don't… Blame yourself… You al-ways do. I can see it… On your face…" The words came out slowly and heavily, as if it took all her effort.
Alice had to draw a sharp breath to suffocate the strength of the affection and anguish that rushed through her.
Even as Bella lay in her arms, looking like death warmed over and seriously headed that way, hurt and drained nearly dry of all blood, she was trying to make Alice feel better. She was worried about Alice.
Alice fought not to sob and kept walking, headed for Bella's truck. She would go back and get the keys in less than three seconds.
"Shh, Bells, don't talk. Save your strength-"
Bella puked.
Alice jolted in surprise as Bella's lolling head suddenly spewed. Fortunately her mouth was pointed the other way as she vomited and Alice let out a noise of utmost concern and tried to lower her, but Bella only heaved, gagged and then went very still in her arms.
Alice froze as Bella blacked out. She smelled the sweet copper scent of fresh blood in the air, and something darker, sickly, and rotten beneath its tinge. She had never smelled something like that before, but it reminded her vaguely of seared flesh.
Alice glanced at her feet and saw on her shoes something black and red and thick in consistency. That did not look good; in fact, it looked very, very bad. The disgusting pool of bile felt like a warning, a darkening omen, and her sense of urgency skyrocketed.
Fuck the truck.
Alice took off into the night, and ran even faster than she had before.
All the Cullens, including Tanya, in the Cullen household looked up at the same time. They were in the living room, conversing happily over their good nights, trading stories with Esme and Carlisle about their date night.
They sensed it; what it was, they did not know, but their vampire instincts stirred and they all looked up and towards the foyer.
Then they smelled it, blood mixed with some foreign aroma of rot and sickness. Even the smell of the sweetest human blood any of them had ever scented was shrouded in it, ruined by it.
A moment later, Alice burst into the house and appeared before them in a blur, stopping with a cry.
"Carlisle!" Alice called. "Carlisle, it's Bella!"
Alice saw her family leap to their feet. Rosalie and Emmett swore, Edward tensed, Esme gasped, and Carlisle met her eyes, showing no alarm, only that sudden cool of his unshakeable composure.
Father.
Yes. This was where she needed to be. She needed Carlisle; he could fix her. He could make Bella better. He had to. He always made everything better. Carlisle was the one who always found the reasoning, the will, the life in someone. He wasn't the best damn surgeon on the planet -In Alice's not so humble opinion— for no reason.
"What's happened?" he demanded and crossed the room in two quick strides.
"Victoria bit her," Alice said, her voice barely shaking. Again there was more swearing and another gasp from Esme, a snarl from Edward, and Tanya said, "But of course she did…"
Alice snarled at her with everything she had, a rugged noise that came from deep in her chest, and directed it at Carlisle when the man tried to take her unconscious lover from her arms.
"Alice," Carlisle murmured, catching her eyes. "Come back to me."
The strength of her protective instincts took everything Alice had to smother. Letting go of Bella now, handing her to another vampire went against her in every way possible.
In her arms, nobody could hurt Bella. No one could touch her again. Alice could keep her safe if she was with her. Never again would anyone harm Bella.
She fought through it and relinquished Bella into his arms. Carlisle took her so gently and carefully that it helped her some, but not much.
"I fucking knew this would happen," Rosalie snapped. "Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?"
"That bitch! I'll kill her! Who gave those Volturi freaks the right?" Emmett yelled.
"I warned all of you. I told you this would happen," Tanya declared. "The Volturi cannot be stopped."
Alice swelled, and would have killed her, literally would have flown across the room and torn into Tanya, but Edward beat her to it. He whirled on Tanya and glared at her so fiercely that she immediately averted her eyes and shut her mouth. It probably helped that everyone in the room, excluding Carlisle and including Esme was backing that glare up with one of their own.
Tanya was irrelevant, however. Carlisle did not even seem to notice the tension. He turned on his heel and walked to the stairs, and climbed them in a blur. Alice was after him in a millisecond. She heard her family follow as she found Carlisle where she expected to see him; in his at home hospital.
Through his office was a white room with medical equipment ranging anywhere from expensive monitors to scalpels and syringes. White cabinets and hardwood floor. A silver sink with a plethora of disinfectants and chemicals and medicines that would dizzy Alice's head if she tried to go through them. There was a floor to ceiling window on the far wall that gave the illusion of space and serenity, but it was all a lie.
Carlisle was in his element. He laid Bella down on the table in the center of the room and immediately began to examine her, prying her eyelids open, gazing into her pupils, peering at the puncture marks on her neck, pressing his hand down on her chest, searching for a heartbeat.
"This isn't normal," Carlisle said, sounding disconcerted. If Carlisle was disconcerted, Alice was freaking the fuck out. "This is not how the body is supposed to react to the venom. Tell me what happened, Alice. Tell me everything."
Alice was not in her element, but with a trembling voice she told him everything she knew, the vision, Bella being paralyzed but coherent, her puking and how unnatural and sick it looked and smelled. He listened calmly as he ripped Bella's sleeping t-shirt open and pushed his palm into her chest, heedless of her exposed breasts.
She wanted to kill him, and she did not even know why. He was not hurting her but she felt he was handling her body callously, insensitively, but knew none of that really mattered right now.
The frantic panic that she'd been fighting began to swell again as Esme entered the room behind her and grasped her folded, shaking arms in what was meant to be a comforting manner, but only terrified her more. Emmett and Edward crossed the room and stood out of the way, by the window. They looked somehow menacing, back lit by the moonlight coming through. Rosalie hovered somewhere behind her, brooding, and they all made her want to scream.
Get out. Get the fuck out! You'll make it worse!
It was not a reasonable fear; none of them were in the way. They were here to support her in her time of need, but she didn't want it. She did not even want Carlisle touching Bella, when he might make it worse. She just wanted Bella to be okay again. She wanted her to live.
It was such a raw, gripping fear, to be so close to losing someone you loved.
"She's breathing, but I don't feel a heartbeat," Carlisle declared a moment later. His voice was calm, but painfully confused.
He was not supposed to be confused. He was supposed to have all the answers, damn it!
"Her ribs are broken as well," he continued, sliding his hand down to feel the slight concave on Bella's right side. A massive mottled bruise covered it. "There is little to no blood in her body. How did she talk to you? How could she have been coherent, or functioned at all? She shouldn't even be alive."
"Yes, she should!" Alice snarled at him, shoulder blades bowing up.
Don't you say that. Don't you fucking say that, Carlisle!
Esme held her tighter but Carlisle ignored her outburst, unfazed. It scared her even more.
Please, Carlisle, just fix her. Fix her, please…
"She's not changing, but she's not dead. I've never seen anything like this," Carlisle said. He pressed his hand to Bella's throat, as if searching for a pulse he knew he would not find, and then stepped back, looking perplexed and mildly bewildered. It was not an expression Alice was used to seeing on Carlisle, nor was it comforting.
There was silence for a long moment as Carlisle bent over Bella's still form, the rise and fall of her chest so small it was nearly invisible, and too quick to be normal.
"I don't know what's happening to her," Carlisle finally said, nonplussed.
Alice lost it.
"What do you mean you don't know what's happening to her?" she demanded, taking a step forward.
"I mean exactly what I said, Alice. I don't know what's happening to her," Carlisle repeated, his tone pacifying in a way that ranked her up even more.
"You're supposed to be helping her! Do something!" Alice shouted, her muscles tightening, her fangs dropping, her eyes flashing. A low growl rolled out of her chest.
"Alice, stop it," Esme said pleadingly.
She couldn't. She could not just stand here and watch as Bella did-Did whatever the hell her body was doing! Dying, living, changing? Fucking what? What was happening to her?
Die. Live. Change.
Bella had a choice to make. Or her body did.
"I cannot help her if I cannot diagnose what's wrong with her, Alice," Carlisle murmured, keeping his composure as Alice began to pace.
"Then figure it out! Do something, Carlisle! Don't just let her lay there and die! Start an IV drip, get the defibrillator, inject her with something to make her better, I don't fucking know! Just do anything!"
Alice went from full blown yelling to a broken sob as Carlisle did not wilt under her fury. He softened only when she gave up the pretense of rage to hide her panic and Esme's arms wrapped around her from behind, soothing, whispering gently in her ear.
"Calm down, Alice, it's okay, sweetie, it's going to be okay…"
It made it worse. Everything was just making it worse. Esme was giving her the same lie she gave Bella. What's happening to me? Bella had asked. If Carlisle did not know, then no one else did. And the unknown is worse than anything else.
"Please, Carlisle, please…"
Please.
"Alice, I-"
Whatever Carlisle was going to say was cut off as Bella suddenly arched off the table, her back a perfect arc and gasped loudly, a fish out of water, a drowning man, an asphyxiating lover. Alice froze fearfully in Esme's arms as Carlisle quickly turned back to her, but there was nothing he could do.
Bella did not speak. She just spasmed on the table and fell back against it before she puked again; the same thick blackened red mess of blood and whatever the hell the oil slick stuff was coating it coming out of her forcefully. Carlisle stayed clear of it, and reached for her as Bella began to cough at the end of her retching fit, a violent, ragged fit that seemed to tear out from low in her wounded diaphragm.
Oh god.
Bella.
The smell of blood filled the room, sickly sweet, but the vampires only cringed. A powerful odor of rot and seared flesh filled the room as Carlisle cradled Bella's head in his hands, whispering words to her, trying to reach her, but it did not appear that Bella was coherent this time.
She coughed. She coughed and coughed and coughed and what little blood she had left came out with it. Then she sneezed, one, twice, three times, and black flecks sprayed into the air as Carlisle leaped out of range of them before coming right back to grasp her face in his hands, trying to help though it was clear he did not know what to do, how to help.
No one did.
Alice could only watch as Bella's whole body began to shake. Bella reared so quickly and without warning that her head slipped from Carlisle's hands and slammed onto the table, and she began to spasm wildly, limbs jerking, body contorting.
"She's seizing," Carlisle said, his voice so quiet and seemingly unperturbed. It was the only other sound besides the sound of Bella's flailing, her body moving like a puppet on strings, covered in vomit and blood and something else.
Something wrong.
Something dead.
No.
NO.
No!
NO!
"Bella!" Alice sobbed as Carlisle turned Bella on her side and then stepped back helplessly as she convulsed.
There was nothing else he could do. Bella was having a seizure, and her eyes, her fucking big brown doe eyes were wide open, but she was not in this world, of it anymore. They seemed to be staring right at Alice, through her, as if she were not there. Alice locked onto them, seeing nothing else but dilating, then contracting, then dilating again pupils, milk chocolate irises. They were unseeing as Bella's whole body gave a violent, trembling jerk, and her mouth opened wide, drawing in one last, soul sucking breath.
And then she stopped.
She just stopped.
Everything and everyone in the room, the whole world, just stopped.
In the blink of an eye, like the snap of two fingers. In the span of time so quick it almost did not exist, in the entire breadth of eternity.
Stop.
Done.
Over.
Just like that.
Carlisle moved first as Alice stared, uncomprehending at Bella's wide open eyes, dimmed, lightless.
He held his hand in front of her mouth. His knuckles were flecked with black and red. Bella's life and death. When he clearly felt no breath against his hand, he pulled it away.
"She's gone."
He did not have to say it. He did not have to speak it aloud, did not have to jar Alice from her blissful state of denial, of incomprehension, of non-understanding, of the shock that kept back the waves of agony that then came pouring in.
But he still did it.
His words plunged the dagger in and twisted it violently sideways, and if Alice had never known the full strength of her love for Bella, she saw it then, in one blinding flash of losing her.
The most pained, broken, inconceivable noise left her lips. A soft cry, a mewl of agony, of anguish so profound that everyone in the room swallowed at the noise. All eyes were blurry, and Esme was squeezing her so tightly that when she crumpled she did not hit the floor even as she felt like she was sinking through it.
Rosalie swore, so ferociously and her voice broke, and Emmett snarled and Edward sobbed, and Carlisle turned, grabbed the heartbeat monitor standing a few feet away and flung it to the ground where it crashed and broke in a flurry of glass and plastic.
No, no, no.
Yes, yes, yes.
Alice wrestled free of Esme with a snarling whine, ripped out of her arms and staggered over to Bella, Bella who was broken, Bella who was no longer here, Bella who was gone.
Gone.
Alice reached for her as the world bottomed out and fell away.
It turns out that hell is not fire and brimstone and demons clawing you to pieces.
It is nothing.
It is utterly black and void and the state of being but not nonexistence, where you have nothing but the blackness.
Alice pulled Bella close, slid to the floor with her, holding her like a priceless, fragile gem. She weighed nothing. She was nothing. Boneless, weightless, gone.
Alice bent her over, Bella's head in the cradle of her arms.
My fault. All my fault.
I left her. I didn't protect her. I didn't save her. I let her die.
I killed her.
Alice began to rock, slowly, her forehead pressed against Bella's. The brunette's skin was clammy, cold, and heatless. Alice made not a sound. If Bella could not make a noise anymore, neither could she. If Bella could not live anymore, how could Alice?
How could I?
"Alice…"
Alice snarled a gut wrenching snarl as Esme's voice sounded close by.
Stay away. Stay the fuck away from me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Everything I touch turns to shit. I ruined her. I killed her, my Bella, my Bella…
"Alice, she's gone. You have to let her go," Carlisle murmured.
How could she let go of what was already gone?
And yet when she felt hands reach for her, felt her family trying to lift her up, to pull her from the blackness, she felt it rip through her and she screamed at them, howling in anguish and fury as they tried to take Bella from her, and they retreated from her pain, let her break down and sob, squeezing Bella and holding her so close, lips smeared against her forehead, the smell of blood and death cloying at her mouth, filling it.
They backed away and let her ache. Left her in her agony, as they should.
Let me die. Let it end. I don't deserve to exist. Erase me. Oh Bella, forgive me…
She did not ask God for forgiveness for her sins. Did not ask him to have mercy on her soul. It was Bella she wanted to forgive her, to look over this one last indiscretion, but she could not, and would not. She could never make that choice, and even though Alice knew what the answer would be -Yes I forgive you, Alice, I love you, Alice— it hurt so much more because she knew she did not deserve it.
Alice had never even seen her final choice. She would never know if Bella died determined to live, or went willingly, in unbearable suffering as her body fell apart under Victoria's venom. Her death was unheard of, not even rare but the first of its kind, but the fact remained that it was death all the same.
"I don't think she felt it, Alice," Edward mumbled. He sounded as if he was crouched next to her. His voice was thick with misery and grief. "When people-When they-"
Don't say it.
"When they go, if they feel it, I know. She-She wasn't conscious. I don't think she even knew that … she … That …"
He trailed away.
Alice didn't know how long she stayed there. Time meant nothing. She kept her face pressed to Bella's, her arms around her, and stayed bent double, knees on the floor, holding her.
"Alice."
A million years later Carlisle's voice broke into her again. Hints of gray sunlight were shining through the window.
"I know it hurts, but you have to let her go. She's going to start… She's going to start decaying. And we have to tell Charlie. He's been calling. He lost her too, Alice. We have to tell him."
Selfish. You selfish slime, Alice told herself, whimpering pitifully as she remembered Charlie.
Charlie, who had probably come home from a long, late night shift, and saw his front door burst open, blood on the floor and his daughter nowhere to be found on the night of her senior prom.
It stirred her. But what made her realize that she could not stay here forever, holding Bella, was the fact that the person who did this still lived, while Bella did not.
Victoria.
Victoria ripped out her throat and drank her life away. Victoria found the chink in Alice's protective armor and slithered in, a viper, bit down and poisoned her. Victoria jumped on Alice's carelessness like a fly to honey.
And she would pay.
Like long, flaming ropes, the hatred wrapped around her. The hatred and the shame and the guilt came on fully, and warmed her gut with rage.
"Okay," Alice said hoarsely. "Okay."
She pulled back just enough to look Bella in the eyes fully for one last time.
Big, brown doe eyes. Long dark lashes. Blood painted lips. They all contrasted with the stark whiteness of her skin. Black flecks littered her face and mouth, trailed down her neck where vile, dark bile coated her chest.
She was beautiful.
Beautiful in death.
Alice leaned in and kissed her on the lips, tasted the blood that had taunted her for so long and sweetness fought with ash as she tasted the mysterious black fluid mixed with it, but all she really tasted was Bella.
Spring and Autumn. She had never told Bella what she tasted like, or smelled like. Once Bella had told her that she smelled like berries and white chocolate. What kind of berries? She'd asked. Blueberries, Bella replied thoughtfully. And blackberries.
She never told Bella that she smelled like fresh rain, like blooming flowers in the sun. She never told Bella that her aroma was of loamy soil and sweet air that reminded one vaguely of colorful trees and cold, starlit nights.
Like before Winter donned its coat and when it shook off the snow. She smelled like when the world woke up and when it went to sleep.
The kiss tore through Alice. Bella's lips were still faintly warm, somehow, and she pulled away quickly, as if she no longer had the right to kiss her. It was not okay anymore, not allowed. She didn't deserve it. Bella's lips no longer tasted like heaven; they tasted like goodbye.
"Bella…" she whispered softly, eyes burning from the tears welling in them that could not be shed.
Bella sneezed.
Achoo.
Alice started, and blinked rapidly when Bella shifted, and then let out a long, loud groan. She closed her eyes and shifted again, bringing a hand up to her forehead.
What the fucking fuck.
"Oh shit," Bella muttered, and cracked her eyes open.
There was a series of loud gasps throughout the room that told Alice her family had gone nowhere in the hours she must have been sitting in her agony if dawn was breaking now, a muffled "Jesus Christ!" that vaguely sounded like Rosalie, and Bella grimaced as Alice stared and stared and stared.
"Alice?" Bella peered up at her then, looking lost, uncertain, and small.
No, seriously.
What the fuck.
"BELLA?"
Bella winced at the volume of her voice, and then grimaced again.
"Oh, gross. What is that smell?" she cringed and sat up abruptly. "EW, what the hell is that? Is that puke?"
Alice looked absolutely gobsmacked.
She-She's moving-What is happening? Am I dreaming? Did I kill myself or something? WHAT?
"And why am I topless? Dude!" Bella yelped and crossed her arms over her nudity as she looked around and saw all the Cullens staring at her like a three headed elephant.
"Bella?"
Alice's voice was that of a small child. Bella looked round immediately at it, and saw Alice gazing at her not like a three headed elephant, but like a dog stares at something incomprehensible.
Their eyes locked. Alice was shaking. Bella was shivering, but only because the room was freezing cold, and she was freaking topless in front of all the Cullens.
They stared.
And stared and stared and stared.
Alice looked into Bella's eyes and saw the light blooming there as if it had never left, shining on. Watched her breathe like she'd never stopped. Watched her brow furrow and her bloodied lips part slightly. Watched her reach up with one hand and push a stringy strand of her brown hair behind her ear, keeping her other arm firmly across her breasts.
Watched her live as if she'd never died.
"You're alive?" Alice squeaked out.
How? How, how, how? What the actual hell was going on?
Did it even matter?
"I'm alive," Bella repeated slowly, as if testing the words out. She sounded uncertain, and she looked so very cutely confused, and a little scared, but mostly she looked concerned.
For Alice.
Jesus Christ.
"I'm alive," Bella said again, more firmly when Alice looked like she might have come apart, which, no, that could not be allowed to happen.
Alice just kept looking at her, so Bella said it again, this time with conviction, this time fiercely, to get through to her.
"I'm alive."
She's alive.
It did not sink in, but blasted Alice senseless, and there suddenly came a furious bout of disbelieving swearing from Rosalie and whooping from Emmett. Esme started crying, and Edward seemed to be praying.
Alice?
She just kept staring.
The world was moving again and now she had to catch up.
It was going to take a minute.
"Bella," Carlisle intervened as his family rejoiced and his daughter's brain struggled.
Bella looked up, and promptly shrank.
She was nude from the waist up.
In front of Carlisle.
So, so embarrassing.
Carlisle reached past Alice, and though Bella clearly had no clue of what was really going on (did anybody?), when he pulled her to her feet, his gaze was somehow calming. His eyes didn't even flicker towards her breasts.
Probably because they were covered in some nasty, awful smelling black gunk. Ick.
"Do you know who you are?" Carlisle inquired as Alice slowly got to her feet, looking like a zombie.
Bella glanced past him, worried about her, and then shook her head as if to clear it.
"Um… Yeah?" Bella answered, still beyond confused.
"Do you know where you are?"
"Yes?"
Her answers were convincing despite the fact that she kept posing them as questions.
"Do you know how you got here?"
Bella hesitated on that one, and her vision seemed to cloud. She kept her arms over her nudity as Alice continued to just stare at her, expression blank.
"S-Sort of?" Bella said slowly, softly. "I can't… I mean my head kind of hurts, and I feel weird. I feel really weird. My insides feel like they're buzzing. And tingling. I dunno, I…" She shook her head again as Carlisle waited patiently. Bella glanced at Alice and then back to him.
Alice wanted desperately to look at Bella the way she was supposed to, reassuringly, but she was still stunned silent.
This didn't happen. It didn't compute. She was dead one second and back the next?
What.
Was.
Going.
On?
Grief like that didn't just dissipate. It still consumed Alice as she tried to understand that it was not needed, not if Bella was okay, but was she? What happened to her? She'd held her for hours, pulse-less, breathless, with no heartbeat, for all intents and purposes, figuratively, literally and utterly dead.
Then she just popped back up on her feet, talking, walking like it never happened.
To feel something so powerful and raw that it had eviscerated her very being…
Bella seemed to have recovered.
Alice had not.
"I remember… I remember Victoria…" Bella struggled. "I remember she broke in-Or I let her in, because I thought she was Alice-"
Somewhere in the room one might have been able to hear Rosalie mutter idiot under her breath.
"And she attacked me. Threw me around, banged my head off the floor…" All the Cullens glowered dangerously, darkly as this was revealed, but Bella didn't seem to notice. She had eyes only for Alice, even though she was technically speaking to Carlisle. "I think she broke my ribs, but I… They don't hurt anymore…"
Carlisle's eyes flicked down briefly to said ribs but he stopped when Bella squirmed uncomfortably. A moment later Edward walked over and draped a lab coat around her shoulders, and she gave him a thankful glance over her shoulder before pulling it around herself as she continued.
Alice watched and listened silently. She could hear everything Bella was saying, but her brain wasn't computing the fact that she wasn't dead yet.
How was she not?
Just…
How?
"She bit me. I know she bit me. I remember that much, fucking bitch-I mean, sorry Esme," Bella added hurriedly with a nervous glance at the Cullen matriarch, but Esme seemed to be crying too hard to hear her, and that alarmed her.
"Continue," Carlisle said firmly, snapping her attention back to him.
"And then Alice came…"
Their eyes met, and Alice saw the desperate need on Bella's face.
She stepped towards her, and touched her face, intimately, as if no one else were in the room, and felt skin that was warm beneath her fingertips, and Bella spoke directly to her, softly.
"And then I woke up. Here. Covered in puke," Bella finished, and grimaced as she peeked under the lab coat to look at the damage. Alice's arm wound around her waist and pulled her close, heedless of it, which made her blush.
She blushed. As if she had any blood left in her body to do so.
Did she?
Bella…
"So can someone please tell me what's going on? And make Esme stop crying? Esme," Bella called her, worriedly. "Please don't…"
Emmett walked over and gathered Esme in his arms where she finally began to calm, and only Carlisle had the strength or the composure to recover quickly enough from the shock of seeing Bella come back from the dead and explain anything at all.
"You died, Bella," he stated directly. He did not soften the blow, and a high pitched ringing of anger flowed through Alice before she squashed it.
She did. She did die. You know she did. You saw it. You watched it. You felt it. You caused it.
Alice held Bella's hip in one hand and could not pry her eyes away from her lover come back to her. Bella kept glancing at her in concern, always worried about someone else.
Die. Live. Change.
What exactly had Bella chosen?
She was… Different. There was something different about her. You could not place your finger on it, but it was there. She was still Bella, through and through, that much was discernible. Still anxious and confused and uncertain, shy, a little awkward, worried about everyone but herself even when a minute before she'd had a one way ticket to a grave.
"Your body reacted to Victoria's venom in a way I have never seen nor heard of before," Carlisle admitted slowly. "I would be lying if I told you that I understand what happened to you. I… I wish that I could tell you. I wish I had an idea. But I don't. I did not know how to save you, and so your body shut down."
Bella glanced at the shattered monitor on the floor, and back to Carlisle. His doctor's voice, so unshakeable and soothing was tinged with something pained that everyone in the room heard. Alice felt more than saw the compassion in Bella as she listened to him speak.
"Your body seemed to try to… Repel the venom. Get it out. Humans have natural immune responses. You had no fever because you had no blood, but you tried to vomit it up. Then cough it up, and sneeze it out. And then you had a seizure, I think when your brain tried to fight the venom. And then…"
"… And then I died," Bella finished for him, arms folded together under the jacket. She was leaning heavily into Alice.
There was an awkward silence after that, and in that Alice noticed the way Bella swayed on her feet, her eyes lidded. She looked exhausted, but alive. Confused, but here.
"Sooo…" Bella drawled uncomfortably after the moment stretched.
Yep.
Still Bella.
"What happens now?" Bella inquired uncertainly.
"So now we're here," Carlisle stated. When he spoke again, it was all in a rush, and he ran a hand through his flawless blonde locks and ruffled them out of place, looking beyond troubled. "And I… I do not know what to tell you, Bella. I don't know why your body seems to suddenly be in fine working order. I don't know what the venom has done to you or what you've become. And I'm-I'm afraid. I'm afraid to run any tests because I don't know how your body will react to anything. I just-"
Carlisle broke off, and when he spoke again, his voice was not soothing, or calm, or certain. His eyes were shining.
"I just don't know."
Admitting it seemed to take everything out of him, as if he were failing her somehow. Alice looked at him and it hurt to see the man she revered as father, for once, not have all the answers. Carlisle was somewhat of a hero to her, in all that he did, in all the people he saved, including his 'children.'
So to see him on the verge of tears, no longer in his element, hurt.
"Oh," Bella said, voice small. Alice's arm tightened around her. "Do you… Do you think I'm… Will I be okay now?"
Alice knew what she was really asking. They all did.
Will I die again?
Was this just a fluke? Was Bella really cheating death, or was she about to collapse again?
"I hope so," was all Carlisle got out. "I really hope so, Bella."
Bella took a deep, shuddering breath. The relief of her return that was not really a relief was now tainted by fear that she would get Bella back only to lose her all over again. The unknown was not something Alice was used to, or could tolerate. Being able to see the future spoiled her. She knew more than most. But now the future was cloudy. Decisions were not being made, not big ones that would reveal to her if Bella would survive now.
It was terrifying. It was made all the worse by how unsteady Bella seemed, how weak her voice was.
"Okay," Bella said, and though she sounded a little scared, she did not seem visibly upset. "Well, um… Do you think I could clean up, in the meantime? I mean if I die again, I want to at least go out clean."
Alice had to close her eyes as Emmett let out a short, sharp laugh as if he were not sure he was allowed to. And then Rosalie laughed, and Edward made a noise that might have been a scoff or a chuckle.
"That's not funny!" Esme snapped, but Bella gave her a tiny, needling grin, and she rolled her watery eyes and shook her head with a huff.
It was so painfully Bella that Alice just collected herself and took a deep, heavy breath to keep from breaking down.
"Of course," Carlisle said, and he too seemed to collect himself. "Just let me perform a quick examination of you, Bella. Victoria did break your ribs, and I'm afraid you might have a concussion…"
A concussion.
A freaking concussion.
That was the least of her worries.
But Carlisle seemed to need to do something productive over Bella's health, so he shooed everyone out to give Bella some privacy, and Alice held Bella's hand, still shell shocked by the turn of events as he checked her over.
Her ribs were fine. They weren't concave at all anymore. The lump on the back of her head was gone, and there was no cut at all. The puncture marks were also missing.
The only thing reassuring in all this disconcerting mess was that Bella's heartbeat had returned. They did not even need a stethoscope to hear it. It was slower than it should be (if she were still human, that is) a slow, heavy, rhythmic thump that came every thirty seconds. Blood seemed to run through her veins again, as Bella's skin was warm to the touch, and there was color returning to her face, slowly but surely.
He had no answers as to why. He did not even theorize over the nature of Bella's vomit or why it smelled so foreign to all of them.
Most surprisingly of all, Alice noticed something the rest of them missed.
When Bella gave her a small smile that was meant to calm her nerves as she gripped the brunette's hand like a lifeline and watched, numb in her dumbfoundery, she saw them.
Two dainty little fangs.
They peeked out curiously from under her upper lip, shorter than a vampire's but most definitely not human. Her canines seemed thinner and longer, and were undeniably sharp at the points.
Carlisle had no answer for that either. It just seemed to confuse everyone even more, and Bella did not seem to have the strength for a discussion about anything. She was wilting on her feet, looking so very tired.
She still managed to crack a joke to try and lighten the mood that resembled that of a funeral.
"So do they make me look like a bad ass like you guys?" Bella smirked with an exaggerated smile, eyelids heavy with exhaustion.
For a moment, Alice wanted to yell at her that this really wasn't funny, this was a serious deal, Bella had almost died for God's sake, but then she realized how dumb that was.
Bella was alive. This was not cause for doom and gloom. She was fucking alive.
"No, they make you look like Bugs Bunny," Alice grinned back, the joke feeling wrong but so right when Bella immediately pouted before Alice winked at her and she smiled that tiny smile of hers that somehow lit up a whole room better than any ear to ear grin Alice had ever seen.
She's alive.
"Carlisle, I think I'm okay for now. Not to jinx it or anything but-"
Alice gave into the urge to knock on wood even if she didn't believe in fate. No chances right now. She was still terrified that Bella was going to collapse all over again. Watching her body break down had been the most horrible thing Alice had ever witnessed. She never wanted to see Bella go to pieces like that again. She did it subtly on the nearby counter so only Carlisle noticed.
Privately, she saw him reach back and knock his heel a few times on the counter behind him.
"But I really just want a shower. And to lie down. I feel okay, I think. My insides aren't buzzing anymore, and my head feels fine. I'm just really, really… Tired," Bella sighed.
Carlisle acquiesced, though he didn't look happy about it. There was nothing more he felt comfortable doing. Nobody knew what Bella was now, what had happened to her body, what was still happening to her body as they spoke.
They would just have to wait and see.
As Alice quickly learned, that sucked. It really, really sucked. She expected at any moment for Bella to die again, just out of the blue, leave her again. She still really couldn't believe she was here, alive in her arms. It had not sunk in yet. The fear was sickening.
Alice took her to her room and into the bathroom, and Bella was so fuzzy minded and sleepy that she didn't even care as Alice got naked with her and started up a warm shower. Alice was afraid to even put soap on her skin to wash away the grime and gunk and blood in case it had some weird, crazy reaction, but Bella insisted on it.
The water poured over both of them. The muck swirled down the drain as Alice let it rinse her off first, and just wrapped her arms around Bella's waist from behind, supporting the girl. There was nothing sexual about any of it; Alice's instincts roared inside her. She needed to take care of Bella. She needed to make everything okay, make her safe and happy and never let anyone hurt her again.
All my fault…
"Do you want to talk about it?"Alice whispered to Bella's ear, though she didn't know if she personally did. All that mattered was what Bella wanted.
"We can talk later," Bella mumbled, rubbing absentmindedly at Alice's interlocked hands. The feeling of it drew affection and anguish through Alice alike. "Let's just… Relax for a while. Shake it off, ya know? Or sleep it off…"
Shake it off.
Just shake off death.
Right. Yeah fucking right.
Bella gave a huge yawn and Alice figured that it was only her overwhelming exhaustion that was keeping Bella from freaking out. She had no idea what was keeping her own self together.
Then again, Bella had always been good with weird.
Bella swayed under the spray of water, and made a soft noise of pleasure when Alice began to shampoo her hair after a few minutes, massaging her scalp lovingly, tenderly, washing out the blood. She could not help but do so, so gently, brushing her fingertips at the base of Bella's skull where she'd felt that massive goose egg of a lump, where now it was all smooth and contoured like it should.
She's here… Alive, and here, and breathing and beautiful…
Bella seemed barely able to stay on her feet as Alice ran a soapy washcloth over her body and washed away all the grossness. Over the graceful dip of her collarbone, the unmarred skin of her throat, down her chest where Alice had the privilege of timing it just right to feel a heartbeat. Slipping over her beautiful breasts, down the plane of her flat stomach. Crouching to wash her legs, back up and around her lower back, between her shoulder blades, leaving suds and clean skin everywhere.
Gently into the dip between her thighs. Stroking just to wash, even though Bella still made a noise and bumped her nose into her shoulder when she did it. Bella was literally just leaning on her, front to front now, head in the crook of her neck, arms wrapped loosely around her waist. It was intimate and Alice felt her throat constrict.
So alive…
"Horn dog," Alice muttered fondly, voice watery, and Bella grumbled.
"Am not," she mumbled, barely audible. Alice kissed the side of her head and stepped them back under the water to let it rinse Bella clean. That awful, cloying smell of death and the sweet tang of blood were gone down the drain, replaced by Spring and Autumn again.
It sank in then.
She's alive.
She wrapped her arms around Bella's waist and squeezed her close, as strongly as she dared, and began to sob.
"Bella, Bella," Alice gasped as Bella's arms tightened around her, and she leaned further into her, so much that Alice gave into her weight and sank to the floor of the tub. Bella slipped into her lap, burrowing into her neck as Alice began to rock back and forth, crying.
"I'm so sorry, Bella, I'm so sorry. Oh god, I'm sorry," Alice choked out, trembling violently. Bella's nose brushed the crook of her neck and she sobbed harder, brokenly.
All my fault. It's all my fault. I should have been there. I should have been there for her.
"I'm so sorry… I love you so much, so fucking much…"
Alice took a deep, hitching breath, to beg for forgiveness, to smother the urge because Bella did not need or want her guilt right now, because Alice wasn't the one who got to break down right now, she was not the one who needed or deserved comfort, it was not about her, she was not the one who'd died tonight, been through the ordeal Bella had…
She fought it back. She swallowed it like boiling oil because it was Bella's pain that mattered and not hers, and buried her face into Bella's hair and pressed her lips fervently to the warm roots of her hair, gulping back the tears.
"Bella baby," she whispered, voice raspy. "Are you-Are you okay? Are you really? Tell me if anything hurts, and I swear I'll make it better. I'll find a way. Whatever you need, just say the word. Please just tell me if you're okay. Just tell me that you're alright…"
She got her answer when she looked down and saw Bella, curled up in her arms, oblivious, and sleeping like a baby.