Disclaimer: The characters of Twilight are owned by Stephenie Meyer. The content, ideas and intellectual property of this story and the 'American Vampire Series' in its entirety are owned by Just4ALE.

Nor do I own Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or its characters. And Bring Me to Life belongs to Evanescence.

A/N 1: Warning - long-ass chapter here. Lots to discuss.

Chapter 19: Genesis

BPOV

In the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", an alien named Ford prepared a human named Arthur for the jump to hyperspace with an exchange that went something like this:

"It's unpleasantly like being drunk," said Ford.

"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" asked Arthur.

"Ask a glass of water," Ford replied.

Edward's love bites never prepared me for this. For a while there, I felt like the water.

~#~

At first it was the wonderfully luscious feeling that I typically felt when he gave me a love bite: A sharp pinch from the initial puncturing of the skin. A small throbbing sensation in my neck as the two fangs sank in deeper. The contrasting sensation of hard and soft… his soft, sensual lips around his hard, sharp teeth. His velvet tongue, darting out and swirling around the wounds, lapping up the blood to take it into his mouth.

And the feeling of his hands on my body, gripping me, pulling me, holding me close to him. Although I usually lay almost paralyzed underneath him for those few moments, my arms heavy at my sides, I always felt as if I were clinging to him as well. He was the only thing I could see, feel, hear.

And then the actual blood intake. Oh God. A very slow, deep pull. I guess I could liken it to our gentle lovemaking sessions when he would slowly pull out after entering me. Out… and in… out… and in… Slow pull… stop. Slow pull… stop. When he sucked in, I inhaled. When he stopped, exhale. It was involuntary. With each pull, I was one with him.

Normally a love bite went like on this for only four to six pulls. And for a brief moment after he released me, I would hear nothing but the rush of blood in my ears. My body always felt like it was undertaking the most intense stretch and then satisfying release that could be felt in every pore. Every cell moaned with pleasure; I felt numb and then instantly alive… and this feeling would usually stay with me for hours.

But after a while it felt different. When he lost control three months before, I'd passed out at this point. However, this time – because I'd already been drained that much in the past, I guess – I was aware of everything. All of the life-blood flowing out of those two little holes drawn from every other part of my body. I felt empty. I felt like my whole body was being squeezed through those two holes. I felt like I was being turned inside out almost like a sock being sorted fresh from the laundry, but a sock was mercifully oblivious to the process. I was not.

I lost my vision somewhere through it, although I could still feel Edward on me. In fact, it felt like he was everywhere for a while and that I had completely disappeared… but as my heartbeat began to slow, even the feeling of him faded.

It was almost complete sensory deprivation. I saw, smelled, tasted, felt, nothing. The only sense left was my hearing and all that registered was my slowing heartbeat very far off in the distance. How long this went on for, I have no clue. I felt like I was in one of those isolation tanks I had tried once in Amsterdam; it felt like I was in there for years, but it may have only been a matter of minutes or seconds.

Then my senses started to return as every part of Edward called me back to him. Taste returned first: I had his cold blood dripping down my throat and it was so sweet and soothing. As I became aware of his open forearm, of him pressing his arm to my mouth, I wanted and reached out for more. My tongue moved on its own accord, darting out to take in more blood. My lips covered his open gash as I sucked on the wound. Smell followed soon after: I could smell Edward's wonderful scent so close to me. My hearing, which had been with me throughout, registered a slow chant; Edward was speaking to me softly, "Come back to me, Bella. You're mine. Hear me. Come back."

My ability to see did not return; I was still blind. But feeling returned with a vengeance as his dark blood made its way into my body and my system. It was cold to drink but even icier as it started circulating. And as my body started to absorb it, it felt like what I imagined liquid nitrogen feels like – so cold that it burned. The emptiness I'd felt earlier was gone and now I felt full... cold and full.

Then the pain really began. As when I had ingested Edward's and Jasper's blood, my body felt the changes. The tightening of my muscles. The strengthening of my bones. It had been painful before when I only took a small amount of their blood, but then it was concentrated on the parts that were injured. This was happening throughout my body and instead of making my organs heal, it was eliminating their need. I wouldn't need my kidneys or liver anymore. I wouldn't need my lungs, And I wouldn't need my once-shattered heart.

On that first night when Edward and I sat in my apartment and he answered my questions about vampires, he told me that turning by blood sharing was infinitely less painful than venom. Um, are you fucking kidding me??? Really?

I had heard the comedienne Carol Burnett once described labor pains in this way: Take your bottom lip…and pull it over your head. That description alone was enough to make me terrified about giving birth and it was partly what drove my ridiculous fear of having a child back when I had been pregnant. That was just the labor pains! Not the actual pushing out of the baby! Can you understand why I'd be terrified?

Let me tell you, I'd take bottom lip pulling any day after experiencing this.

In a word: OW.

In a longer string of words: OH MY GOD, BY ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE MAKE THIS MOTHERFUCKING PAIN END!

Had I not been so focused on the war which raged in my body, working its way to my heart – and, oh yeah, not rendered immobile by it all – I would have gone out and purchased freakin' medals for Edward and his family for having to deal with anything more painful than what I was experiencing. He said that his transformation lasted three days… three days! I wasn't sure I would be able to tolerate this for three minutes!

Having had the venom in me for a short period in Italy, I knew what that felt like. The difference was like night and day… or rather, fire and ice, but from what I could tell, the venom would have just burned hot during the transformation. I had liquid nitrogen running through me… not just ice but fire as well. I was convinced that if someone took a hammer to me, I would shatter into little pieces like Robert Patrick did in T2.

I could feel Edward's hand in mine, I could taste his lips on mine, I could smell his essence swirling around me, I could hear his mind and his words... But my body was paralyzed and I was still blind. I felt like I was drowning in this icy cold fire. I wanted to scream and I was screaming in my head. I hoped that he wasn't able to hear me.

My blood was still in my system, but I had been drained to the point such that his blood would dominate… and mine would have to submit. My blood would be taking instructions from his from now on. As I wasn't very good at being bossed around in general, I could only pray my blood didn't decide to act like the rest of me that night.

In my agonized state, crazy thoughts floated through my brain trying to distract my body from the pain. I tried counting but pretty soon the counts sounded like 1,487 – OW - 1,488 – SHIT – 1,489 – FUCK … and I gave up on the counting. I started to recite the lines from some of my favorite movies but when OW, SHIT and FUCK started making their way into the dialogue, I abandoned that too. And then I started scrolling through my head as if it were an iPod, trying to find songs that might be the slightest bit distracting. For a few moments, I realized that that Edward wasn't kidding about my old "Loud and Kicking" playlist and that Amy Lee had to have firsthand knowledge about what I was going through right at that moment:

Wake me up (Wake me up inside)
I can't wake up (Wake me up inside)
Save me (Call my name and save me from the dark)
Wake me up (Bid my blood to run)
I can't wake up (Before I come undone)
Save me (Save me from the nothing I've become)
Bring me to life

Seriously. Listen to the whole song. If that isn't about being converted into a vampire, my name isn't Isabella Swan.

And finally, as my blood cells mapped on to his, clinging for dear life, asking his to lead us out of this pain, I could hear Edward singing to me, God bless him. I thought of the moment when I realized he was shedding real vampire tears and that he truly was bonded to me for eternity. It shocked me and made me realize that we really were meant for each other. The whole situation brought me back to that earlier moment on the pond when he skated to my other Genesis song and I wondered what he was and how there could be someone like him in the world... someone who seemed to have been created just for me. The bond was permanent, from both sides. Neither time nor distance had broken it.

I did as he told me to do… I focused on his voice and paid attention to the words he sang. There was something to hold on to… something better that was waiting for me beyond this torture. It became my singular focus until the moment when the icy fire in my heart burned excruciatingly cold… and then suddenly froze.

All pain ended. My heart had died.

And my life began.

~#~

As soon as my heart stopped, the veil which covered my eyes lifted and all my senses, now heightened beyond imagination, threatened to overpower me with the flood of information they shot into my system. I inhaled once at the shock, an involuntary, human reaction now that breathing was unnecessary, which only served to make me even more amazed at the world that swirled around me… a world I never knew existed. I immediately closed my eyes to register every sensation.

Lavender. I smelled lavender… and freesias. Some wonderful floral combination of lavender and freesias, mixed with honey and lilac. That was the most powerful smell, but a close second, right next to it, was just honey and lilac and sunlight. Does sunlight have a smell? It does when it heats up the honey and lilac, making them into a delicious warm treat. Then there were mixtures of other smells wafting around from both in the room and outside: cinnamon, apple, chocolate, pine, cherry wood, fresh cut grass, dew, cherries… all coming at me at once and somehow my brain was able to catalog them all.

My skin could feel the air dancing around. I could feel the dust particles touching me. I could feel the threads of the cotton in the fabric around me- not the fabric, but actual individual threads that made up the garments. I could feel the grain of the smooth wood underneath my bare ankles that lay against the floor. And I could feel the soft touch of his once cool hand – no longer cool as my temperature matched his – holding mine.

I heard movement all around me. The buzzing of the current of electricity running through the stereo equipment and the light fixtures. Leaves growing on the trees outside. A spider building a web on a bush outside. The rustling of clothing as he moved below me and as others somewhere nearby took a step closer to where I lay taking all of this in.

And then I felt his lips on mine… and I inhaled sharply, once again, as that kiss sent a shock wave through my body from my head down to my toes.

I could hear his mind before he spoke. "Bella," he murmured, his lips still caressing mine, "open your eyes, my love."

I didn't want to. I was enjoying this too much. His lips, his wonderful so-that's-what-it-was sun-kissed honey-lilac scent.

"Bella, Love, look at me."

I opened my eyes and saw the most beautiful person in the world hovering above me.

"Holy shit!" I breathed. Nice first words, Bella. For a millisecond I was distracted by my voice; I noticed that it sounded slightly different. A little more melodic. Hmmm. But then I was right back in the Edward zone.

He was looking at me with concern. "What? Are you okay, my love?"

I'd always thought of him as gorgeous… but my human eyes were unable to register this amount of perfection. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! "Edward…" I managed to say, "you're d-azzling! Oh my God, I don't have the words..."

"I could say the same of you, Bella," he said, smiling that holy shit beautiful smile. Then his mouth twisted into my favorite smirk. "Dazzling, huh? So you're saying you're attracted to me?" he asked, repeating the words he asked me on our first official date.

I sat up so quickly I didn't even know I had done it. I had barely registered the thought that I wanted to sit when there I was. Wow! And then I turned to face him. "Jeez, Edward, what the hell has someone that looks like you been doing hanging around someone like me? Don't you know how mismatched we are?"

"Bella," he growled, "I can't believe that this is the first thing you think when you wake up. I've told you time and time again that you've never seen yourself clearly. Well, now at last you will." He looked back at the surveillance room. "Unfortunately, you shattered the mirror in this room."

Alice leapt over the broken glass and through the window. "Um, I hate to interrupt this little argument but there is a full-length mirror in the restroom in the corner." She grinned at me. "Hi Bella. Welcome to our world! You really should take a look at yourself," she said.

I looked at Alice. She was more stunning as well! I didn't even want to see Rosalie and her perfection. Oh crap, they're all like this. Great, I'll be the ugly vampire in the family.

Edward went to help me stand, but I was up before I knew it. My limbs felt graceful and sinewy. It was so easy to move. I could tell that ghosting was going to be fabulous and that I was going to have to really restrain myself from doing it all of the time.

Edward held my hand. "Are you ready to see yourself?"

"No."

"You should. Come, my love."

"Aw, look how I'm dressed... I look like a slob!" I said, taking my hair out of my ponytail and fluffing it to try to make something out of the mess that I was.

He smirked and rolled his eyes. "Your clothes have nothing to do with what you look like, Bella," he said, squeezing my hand in encouragement.

"Hey, don't tell her that! I plan on upgrading her entire wardrobe now that she's one of us!" Alice cried.

We went to the bathroom in the corner. I walked slowly, feeling extremely anxious. I noticed that the dawn was breaking outside. Is it tomorrow? I realized that I had undergone this transition in less than 12 hours. Three days of venom? Really? These folks deserved fucking monuments erected in their honor for lasting through that!

Alice ghosted over and opened the door for me. And then I came into view.

I gasped at the sight. Wow… "Holy cow! I'm pretty!" I looked up at Edward. "Did your blood do that to me?"

He smiled his holy shit stunning smile. "No, Bella. You've always looked like that. And you're more than pretty, Love. You're beautiful. Your eyes should be able to register that now."

I looked at the woman in the mirror. She was beautiful. I've always looked like this? I laughed and was struck again by a slight musical tone to my voice. Then I looked up at him and smirked. "Jeez, Edward, what the hell has someone who looks like me been doing with a schmoe like you?"

I heard the family laughing and I picked up their movements as they started to make their way toward our section of the studio.

He moved to stand behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, looking at the two of us in the mirror. "You've been indulging me, and for that I will be eternally grateful." He kissed my cheek and started nuzzling my neck. "I love you, Bella."

I spun around in his arms to face him. "Oh yeah? I expect you to show me how much you love me and how grateful you are for all of eternity, Mr. Cullen," I breathed, grabbing him by his collar and pulling his mouth to mine.

Oh my God, his kisses are better now! Is that even possible? His lips and tongue shot another wave through me and I pressed myself closer, his desire only serving to feed mine even more. Shiiiit, Bella, don't tempt me! We can't right now… we have company. Damn it!

I heard some coughing in the background and then Emmett's voice in Edward's head… or was that my head? I wasn't able to tell at that moment and, for my sake, I hoped that it was just Edward's head… otherwise, I was never going to visit them in Denali.

You two and studios. We should have made your house into one big studio the way you keep getting each other off in them! Then Emmett paused. Uh, dude, get a room later, huh? At least let us say hello to her!

Aw, rats. I broke away and looked at him. "I love you too, Edward Cullen." I started to turn to greet the family when I turned back one last time to look in the mirror. Then I laughed.

"What's so funny?" Edward asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"Well, it is a good thing I liked my hair in this shorter length... because I'm stuck with it now!"

~#~

We spent the next month in Denali with the Cullens teaching me how to be a vampire. It was amazing how different I felt. I could run extremely fast. I was stronger, so much stronger than before. I could see greater distances and hear the whisper of a noise so much farther. I was more agile. I could pick up and distinguish so many more scents than my human nose would have ever been capable of. Shit, even my voice was prettier, almost musical. As I was now technically a predator, all of these skills came in handy for hunting - animals, of course - which they taught me as necessary backup in case I ever found myself without blood bank product.

Of course, having blood bank blood made my assimilation and adjustment so much easier than in the old days, they told me. I heard this so many times over the first month, I began to wonder if this wasn't the vampire equivalent of the "When I was your age, I walked to school in the snow, uphill, both ways, with no shoes on," lecture that grandparents used to say to their grandkids. After a while, I stopped listening to them tell me how much easier I had it… but the truth was, I knew that it couldn't have been easy back in their day.

But for me, for some reason, I think it was even easier than others might have experienced it. Apparently, I was born to be a vampire as my Vulcan nature kept me in check most of the time. And aside from the occasional off-feeling that I had after drinking a cordial – similar to the off-feeling I had when I had been drinking blood when I was pregnant – everything went better than any of them could have imagined. They introduced me into society carefully, taking me out at night where we knew we'd find humans, letting me adjust to their scents. And while their blood did smell good, I found that as long as I drank my cordial regularly, and I stayed relatively calm, any violent desires to bite humans never surfaced…

…Which meant time back in the studio. I started back on a regular regime of karate to help keep my emotions in check, and this obviously helped me balance off my new Jasper powers. No anger, no humans, no venom, no biting. No problem!

Of course, Edward liked me to do more boxing/kickboxing when I wasn't spending time around humans… because it did not keep me calm. In fact, it had the opposite effect, which was his goal. And so, unlike the times when I did karate alone in my studio, Edward liked to be with me when I decided to box, particularly if I was boxing wearing just my sports bra and shorts. Because I had been in the best shape of my life before turning with all the boxing and the weight loss, I didn't feel as self conscious as I once might have. Alice and the rest of the Cullen women were correct when they told me in that spa in Vegas that you didn't sweat the small stuff as a vampire. Walking around naked in front of Edward was no problem for me anymore, much to his delight.

And yeah, there was that… my two Edwards. They were still around, but now Caring Edward had less to worry about since I no longer required sleep. So Horny Edward came out to play… a lot. And neither had to be careful with me anymore. Holy schmoly... it was fan-fucking-tastic.

As for my cover story? I spent the first few weeks of my conversion sick with mono. At least that is what the folks at BCG were told. Highly contagious, need to rest and not infect people, use a mask when you're around me mono. So I finished up the project for Greg at a distance, working on my laptop from the house in Denali. Luckily, I had had the report drafted and Jake and I had finished all analyses before that night, so completing everything was fairly straight forward and easy…

...Except for the Jake part. Edward told me about his conversation with Jacob and so I knew that he had played a big hand in getting us back together. Despite his selflessness in this case, I couldn't help but feel a little sad. I realized after the night I was turned that sticking that Snow Patrol song where he had was intentional; Jacob had been trying to tell me his feelings and the song lyrics fit so well… and I knew that the first conversation wasn't going to be easy.

Right after our first project team conference call that week, Jacob called me back from his cell phone. From the background noises, I could tell he was walking around outside.

"Did he find you?" Jacob asked. And I knew from his tone that he knew the answer.

"Yes, he did." And he knew from my tone what that meant.

He was quiet. "I hope he makes you happy. I told him I'd kill him if he hurt you again."

"I know, he told me. He does make me happy, and I'll kill him myself if he ever hurts me like that again, but I don't think we have to worry about that. He won't." I paused. "Thank you Jacob. For everything you did for me."

"Any time, Bells. I hope you know that. Any time," he said softly.

Jacob left BCG a week later to go to Stanford Graduate School of Business. He had been accepted and originally had deferred for a year… but now that life had changed for me, he decided he needed to make a change as well, and the partners pulled some strings and got the school to let him start in the Fall. I knew it was the best decision for him, although I still felt a little sad at how it worked out. And although I knew that our friendship might suffer for a little while as he adjusted to his position in my life, I was hopeful that we'd end up in a good place eventually.

So finally, it was time to go back. I felt good and no one was worried about my return back to my life because I had been out so many times among humans by that point. I was practiced in the art of not ghosting and moving like a human, including blinks, fidgets and non luring voice. On our last day out in Denali before we headed back to Chicago, Edward and I went for a walk to a little meadow he had found and really loved to visit. It was great taking this walk alone with him away from the family. As my blood was still adjusting to his, we weren't quite sure whether I'd fully absorbed his mind reading. However, I heard them often enough for us to believe that it was only a matter of time. The only difference was that my mind was better able to shield them out when I wanted to. Edward's mind was the only one I couldn't turn off. We were connected.

As we made our way to the clearing, he hummed the small lullaby he'd written for me over the past month. It was a beautiful song and, like Holly Hunter's tune from "The Piano", I could feel his love pouring out through the notes. I smiled up at him and just felt so content. Suddenly, he stopped and chuckled.

"What?" I asked.

"Bella, are you loving life so much and so ecstatic that you can't remember to keep your shoes tied? You're going to trip!" He knelt down to fix my sneaker.

I looked down but his head was blocking my view of my sneaker. Putting my hands on his shoulders, I said, "Vampires don't trip, silly; we have super balance! So what if it's untied?"

And then he looked up at me, his angel face glowing. I heard it and saw it at the same time: he had the ring in his hands. Smiling his holy shit amazing smile, he looked up at me through his eyelashes. Will you still marry me, Bella?

Oh, the ring is back! My energy level shot up and my knees buckled as I tried to hold on to him. Okay, so much for vampires having super balance and not falling! Yeesh! I'm still such a human! His reflexes were just as fast as ever as he put one hand at the small of my back to catch me and then quickly lay me down on the grass.

He laughed, his green eyes managing to twinkle and smolder at the same time. "Glad I can still have this effect on you, Bella." He took the ring and put it on my left hand. My new eyes were able to see all of the perfection in the facets and the sparkle from the sun. Just amazing.

He moved to hover over me on his hands and knees, looking down at me. Are you mine?

I nodded. Forever.

He lowered himself down so that he was on top of me, kissed my lips gently and began kissing my neck. Personally, I think the ring would look best on you without all the rest of this stuff on, I heard, as his hands slowly started to remove my clothes.

Actually, it did.

A/N 2: Yep. There was a method to my Genesis madness after all... From the first date and then the original reveal on the pond in AAVIC to the songs in the studio and the genesis of Bella the vampire.

Nope. Not quite the end. One last chapter.

Unlike Edward, I have to ask to hear your thoughts! Please tell me!

Post A/N: And yet another epharisto to my FF bud MrsEdwardCullenP for her input on 'turning!' Thanks Pen!