A Bad Deal?

A Hell of a Thanksgiving Break Part Three

A/N: The second to last chapter of this story. Almost to the end.

True to her word, Rosalie showed up in the morning, looking whole. There were no bruises on her skin. No cuts. No signs of trauma. The only indication she had been out and up with Victoria were the bags under her eyes.

"Good morning," Rosalie grumbled out, rubbing sleep out of her eyes as she joined Bella downstairs. Bella had in hindsight brewed them some coffee and Rosalie shuffled to it like a zombie to brains. Only after she had inhaled half of the scalding liquid, did she seem up for interrogation.

"So, what happened?" Bella tried not to sound too much like a girlfriend who had caught her man coming home drunk in the early morning, and more like the girlfriend who was concerned. Basically, not accusatory.

"We talked."

"That's it?" Bella knew there was more to this than Rosalie was saying.

Rosalie's lips curled up, pleased at whatever she was going to say next. "Victoria was at Conroy street last night, so I went to go meet her there."

"You weren't there. Neither was she. I went to go check. "

"We left pretty soon after. Well, I left. She was knocked out. So she was dragged out."

"You knocked her out?" Bella is surprised but not horrified. Not yet. She was glad no fighting took place.

"I snuck up on her. She wasn't expecting me to do that. But I didn't want to engage in a whole fight. I promised to you and to myself that I would be better with holding back my fists and my temper."

Bella patted the top of Rosalie's hand at this. That was nice to hear. Bella felt honored Rosalie would take her promises so seriously. "Then I tied her upside down and hung her from a balcony."

Bella stopped patting Rosalie's hand. "Rosalie!"

"I only did it to scare her a bit! You know she deserved that in the very least for terrorizing you all those years!"

Bella merely shook her head. Small steps. Small steps for Rosalie to walk away from violence. "And then what?"

"I only did that for a couple minutes. Just wanted to soften her up. Get her scared. Get her to listen to me and respect me. And it worked. She listened. While in a chair of course," Rosalie hastily added. She didn't want Bella thinking she'd strung up the girl for the whole duration, though Victoria had been tied up to the chair. "And we talked a lot. About bullying. About why we did it. About why we hurt. And how it only hurt us more in the long run to do it, more than it actually hurt the victims."

"And?" Bella's voice was soft, ears straining to listen intently to what would be said next.

"And I think we made progress. I think it took her a misguided soul to show her, just how badly she was treating those in her life." Rosalie closed her eyes as she thought back to the conversation and all the revelations that had spilled out of Victoria's mouth. All the tears that had pooled down her cheeks. Rosalie had cried too. Past all the hatred and violence, Victoria was a frightened soul whose father had beat her and whose mother had disowned her. But she didn't tell Bella this. She'd let Victoria speak for herself.

Bella sat in silence for a moment, steam rising from her mug. "Now what?"

"Now, she apologizes to you." Just as Rosalie had said that, the doorbell rang. Bella startled so badly she almost dropped her mug. "Is that her?" she hissed, voice low.

"Yes."

"Rosalie!" Bella was outraged, and scared, and angry. "Why would you bring her here!"

"Because it's time to move on, to be braver. Don't you want that?"

Yes, Bella did want that. And she'd started by standing up to Laurent and James that night. It had been so good to see fear in their eyes for once. "Okay." Bella straightened her back, head up high. She opened the door, Rosalie standing behind her just a few feet away in case Bella needed something. Bella only hoped what Rosalie said was true, and that this wasn't some trap, or some way that Victoria was using to get back at Bella. Maybe it was even the boys, trying to get revenge on her.

With a shaking hand, she opened up the door, and on her door step, wearing an apologetic grimace on her face, was Victoria. The two of them stayed like that for a while, just staring. Victoria was the first to break the silence. "Can I come in?"

"No." The rejection was immediately out of Bella's mouth like a reflex. She recalled all too vividly what had occurred last time the red head stepped foot into the house.

"Uh, right. Maybe that's for the best," Victoria said, rocking back on her heels unsteadily. She looked down at the floor. "I just wanted to um, tell you something."

"I'm listening." It was easier for Bella's voice to be hard in the face of the weakness radiating from Victoria than it was to be soft. If she spoke softly than it would be like she was pitying her, and Bella wasn't.

"I uh, well..." Victoria trailed off, entirely uncomfortable. Bella had never seen her like this and it was glorious.

"Spit it out," Rosalie prompted none too kindly from behind Bella.

Victoria nodded her head, sucked in a breath. "I'm sorry for everything I did to you, Bella. I know my apologies won't be enough to make up for all those years of bullying, and of being a bitch to you, but I hope it can be a step in the right direction. And that one day I can work my way towards complete redemption in your eyes."

This was surreal; Bella's old bully apologizing to her. Rosalie really had gotten through to Victoria. It was a miracle. And she'd gotten this change most importantly through words and not fists and threats. Well, minimal threats for the most part.

"Why?" emptied from Bella's mouth without her even planning to speak. "Why did you bully me?"

Like with Rosalie, there had been a reason for it. Rosalie had been heartbroken by Bella's earlier betrayal and refusal to realize who the blonde was. So what had been Victoria's reason. The red head raised pleading eyes at the blonde, wordlessly asking her if she had to do such things. "Tell her," Rosalie's words were steel.

Victoria sucked in another breath. "My mother disowned me as a child, gave me up for adoption when I was just six because she grew tired of 'me'." An ugly laugh at this. "How can you get tired of your flesh and bone?" Victoria asked, and it seemed like she was saying this more to herself, voice low. Her eyes went glazed over before she snapped them back to reality. "I was then adopted by a man, my father, who was strictly Catholic. He used to beat me and yell at me, tell me I was never good enough and that he would make a better girl out of me, because something must have been wrong with me if my own mother didn't want me." Victoria's voice was raw from a lack of telling this story to anyone before. Bella felt like Rosalie and her were the first to hear it.

"And so I was angry at him. And I wanted to take out my hurt on other people. That's why I bullied some kids in school, but nowhere near as much as I bullied you." Victoria shook her head in disgust at herself. "I bullied you because you told me you liked me, and that meant you were gay. And father had told me homosexuals were sinners and wrong. And I was scared. Scared your homosexuality would rub off on me. So I hurt you so you would stop being so close to me. And after a while, it just got easier and easier to continue bullying you, spilling out whatever grievances my father had dealt me onto you." Victoria let out a huge breath, as if finally free. She raised her teary eyes to Bella. "I know it's no excuse what happened to me, for my bullying you. But hopefully you see I wasn't solely picking on you just because I was bored."

"I...I don't know what to say," Bella shook her head. "Don't expect me to feel pity for you. Because you had been my friend once. If you were having issues at home you could have talked to me, we could have done something. I would have been willing to stand up for you to your father. Instead, you chose to push me away in the cruelest manner."

"I wasn't thinking right. I was scared straight by my father."

Bella shook her head. All the hurt and pain and fear could have been avoided if Victoria had just been braver. "Your father is one giant bully. You need to talk to him. You need to get him to stop, to understand what he is doing to you. Standing up to a bully can be scary, but it gets easier once you have a support system in place, once you decide you won't take their shit anymore. Stop the cycle of violence; don't let it continue," Bella voiced.

"I will. I will stand up to him."

"Tell James and Laurent the truth. Let them help you. And if you need someone to kick your father's ass, count me in," Rosalie said.

Victoria nodded, determination in her eyes. "Happy Thanksgiving," and then she left.

Bella stood watching her leave until she couldn't see the red head anymore. "I still can't believe that happened. I've been dreaming and hoping for so long that she would apologize one day to me, just wake up and decide what she was doing was wrong. And you helped with that. Thank you," Bella turned to Rosalie and kissed her gently on the lips. She wanted to express her gratitude in more gratuitous ways but she quickly jumped away from her girlfriend when her mother came down the stairs in her fuzzy bathrobe. "Whose ready to get cooking?!"

It was time to roast the turkey.

A/N: I was gonna have Victoria secretly in love with Bella as part of her reason for bullying the girl, but then I decided that was a bit too much so I left it out. The final version is less complicated.