A/N: So so so sorry for keeping you all waiting! I hate that I did, but life happens, you know? I hope this chapter makes up for my absence and be forewarned that I am in fact writing the next chapter just now, so hopefully it will be up soon!

Musical Inspiration: Sanitarium - Metallica

Chapter 14 – Visiting the Past

APOV

Bella awoke earlier in the morning than I expected, but I was actually pleasantly surprised that she was. When she had gone to sleep the night before, I sat wondering if I really wanted to disclose to this frail human everything that I had gone through. Of course I had seen her in Edward's future and I knew that eventually she would be one of us, but somehow I never saw myself telling her all my deepest secrets this early on.

I considered my past quite personal and only the family knew anything of it, and of them Jasper, Carlisle and Edward knew the most. Esme and Rosalie had never tried to find out more than I would freely tell and Emmett… well, I'm not sure the matter ever crossed his mind. Emmett was not an insensitive brother, but, as we all had painful memories, his being that he was never able to see the human family had had been so very close to after his transformation, he just didn't dwell in the past… he was very in to the here and now.

After Bella ate something and had seen to her human needs she sat down on the couch in the place she had been the night before and looked at me expectantly. I stared back pleasantly waiting, knowing exactly what she wanted. I needed her to ask… just once more and I would need no more prodding. I would tell her everything. But I needed her to ask me to go back, because it was too painful for me to want to do on my own. That was a part of my life that I tried to forget.

Finally she spoke. "Alright, I'm ready. Would you please continue your story?" she asked me sweetly. I smiled as I began.

" I remember the first impression I got from the hospital. It was actually quite beautiful… on the outside. The guest areas and visitor galleries were like a fancy hotel. They even had a 'guest treatment' facility where guests could go and look around and see that we were being treated with the utmost care and compassion, perhaps even have a hot tub treatment or massage for themselves. But it was all a lie.

To those on the outside, even our closest relatives, it was little more than a health spa that was run by doctors and nurses… but to us… the real patients… it was hell on earth. They had employees that they paid to act like patients… to tell our families how great it was there and how much progress they were achieving.

That set up made the real patients look even more sick and insane, but the progress that the false patients were supposedly making ensured that our families would keep us there, hoping for the same results.

It's not that it was a total scam; it wasn't… it was a legitimate hospital, with board certified doctors and nurses and equipment. It's just that… the truth is often too much for those who are well to handle. It would be much harder for them if they thought that their loved ones were in pain and afraid of a genuine fear. Many just could not understand that the treatments that, in those days, were thought to be of great benefit, were little more than medically sanctioned forms of torture and mistreatment.

Once signed in and shown to a room, thankfully my family could afford a private one, I was sent to my first, and last, decent evaluation. The doctor's name was Brody… Dr. Phillip Brody. He was young and good looking… in his late thirties perhaps with sandy blond hair and bright green eyes. He was my first lesson in judging people on how they look. Under his cool, youthful exterior was the heart of a first rate sadist.

I endured a physical examination, which in those days was routinely done by a man, but being a young, unmarried woman, had never included…shall we say… a female yearly exam. Had I been ill with anything other than something neurologically implied, the mentioned 'exam' would never have taken place.

After that, I was examined mentally… and quite thoroughly at that. At the time I had no idea that the young doctor… all my attending physicians in fact… had been briefed on my 'problem'.

After asking me hundreds of questions and finding no other deficiency I thought he would sign for me to go home… but as he walked to his office door and shut it my heart rate sped up. I could not imagine what he was planning, but if I could have it would only have terrified me further.

The questions got more pointed toward my visions and 'illness' and he got more aggressive as I kept responding that they were normal and had never caused me any trouble. Eventually I was labeled as disturbed schizophrenic, disillusioned, in denial and possible harm to self and others. My heart sank as I saw him write it, but that was only the beginning.

They took me to a room and cut my hair to the length you see now. All my beautiful curls were gone. They did it for my own good of course so I could not hang myself or strangle a nurse in my disillusioned rage. I cried for three days afterward, causing the added diagnoses of severe depression to be entered on my chart. Little did I know of the therapies that were coming.

I was doused three times daily… that's where they strip you naked, put you in a very small, cold enclosure that to this day reminds me of a tall cattle horn tipping fence, and spray you with ice water for 20 minutes at a time. The nicer ones would let me have a five minute break to warm up between the hour long sessions. After I was exhausted from the shivering they would wheel me back to my room… which in my absence after my initial diagnoses, the windows were painted black so that no sunlight shown through.

Dousings were good treatment compared to the electroshock therapies I was given. I would go into more detail, but I don't want to scare you." I said, noting the look on her face at my mention of the treatments I endured.

"Oh, no... It's just… last year in my psychology class we were assigned to watch a movie that had to do with intense treatments… I was assigned "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"… it had a very vivid scene that the man had electro-conducive therapy… not pleasant." Bella replied.

I nodded. I had seen the movie she spoke of and the depiction was rather accurate.

"Yes… it's very much like that… but when they made that movie in the seventies and eighties the treatment had come a long way… it seemed worse in my day.

But there was a light at the end of my bleak tunnel, though I did not at the time know it. A new doctor had been hired and he was being assigned the newer patients. I was the first on his list being the newest. It was an answer to my prayers.

As all new doctors do, he re-evaluated me to get his own opinion. Thankfully he did not rely only on the chart, but spoke to me as if I were as sane as he was.

He came to the conclusion that I was sane, but that's where things became difficult. He knew I was not ill because he had other, vampire friends who had similar abilities. He knew I was just the human figure of one upon whom such gifts are bestowed. But he also knew that he had no standing with which to refute the other doctors' diagnoses.

He was at an impasse and could do nothing about it."

EPOV

Jasper and I sat alone in the darkness of my old room. Her scent was still as present as ever and toyed with my senses.

"Edward…" Jasper said quietly, "I realize your feelings for this girl, but I still don't see the danger that a human gang could pose to her with us around."

"I couldn't tell you in front of Alice or Bella… I made Alice think it was something about her father being in danger… she won't let that slip to Bella and I knew she would act immediately to get her away from the danger I was imagining." I replied.

"Tell me what, Edward?"

"That the humans we fought off and knocked out were connected to a vampire."

"What?" he asked incredulously.

"Just before you concussed the last one his eyes met mine… his last thought was 'Master Dagon will be very interested in two so similar to himself.' I saw his 'master' in his mind…there is no doubt that this Dagon is a vampire."

Jasper was riveted then… so I continued.

"I looked through his thoughts quickly and discovered that they were mere bottom-rung thugs… sent out to seek talent, though they barely know it. They know their master is different… powerful, but they do not yet know what he is, nor why he is looking for extraordinary recruits." I said as I lowered my face into my hands.

"Surely you don't think he could be amassing a coven of gifted vampires?" Jasper asked, hoping against hope I was wrong.

"Surely you don't think I can overlook that possibility." I countered.

"Of course not, but… why? And why would Bella be in any danger? She has nothing as far as talent that I can sense."

"It's her lack of talent that troubles me, Jasper. If she can block me, she must have a special gift indeed; even the most powerful of our kind cannot avoid my gift… far from it! I can hear them and any other being with a brainwave from miles away… but she… a frail, insignificant human girl… not even fully grown… can keep me from her thoughts!" I exclaimed.

"I see your point, Edward… but if this gang is established here, and she cannot stay away forever… just what do you plan to do?"

"You already know what I'm planning, Jasper… and you know your part in it." I said confidently.

APOV

"Carlisle's luck was about to change… Edward, his son, he said, had just graduated medical school and was going to come to work with him as his apprentice. Carlisle knew that there were other vampires in the world that often found work incognito as humans… usually in hospitals or asylums where a patient dying here or there was common place. And as sometimes happens he met one of them… right there on the floor below my own.

His name was James and he worked as an orderly. He would clean rooms while patients were away for treatment and sometimes bring them food or other trivial things. He also had access to all charts… that made it easier for him to pick off the sicker patients. In those days, autopsies were rarely performed and even then only in suspicion of foul play. The doctors would simply assume that the patient's illness consumed them and leave it at that.

The week that Edward came to work for the first time was the week things began to change. Being the vegetarians we are, Carlisle and Edward did not agree with James' purpose for working there, but as we all do… they never let on that they disapproved.

That week, James was promoted to my floor. When he passed my room he knew he'd found both his reason for living and the reason he would not be employed the next week all at once. To my great benefit, Carlisle and Edward, needing no sleep, worked very long hours and Edward heard his thoughts as he passed by.

I was his singer… Carlisle knew then he would have to act fast.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading! Please let me know if you are liking it! Or even if you're not... let me know that too!