Whoa, been a long time. I've gotta learn to stop saving these stories on my dad's computer where I can't always get to them. Anyways, this one's kind of deep I guess, and I hope you like and it eases the amount of time you had to wait for it even a little
The compound was in mayhem and Alice and Edward paced in the small stone room they'd been sealed in since Bella had apparently lost it. Felix and Demetri were on guard outside and Edward was plucking information from their minds as it came to them. If the words had been spoken aloud to him he never would have believed it, could still barely bring himself to believe it.
"What's going on Edward?" Alice asked fretfully, blind to the future due to Bella's influence. Though that in itself suggested she was deeply rooted in the future, which worried him deeply. He'd been reunited with her for only a few short moments before she was torn from him once again. And what time he had had with her she had not been herself. He felt her loss in him like a cavernous hole that had been ripped open only moments after her appearance had repaired it.
"Something went wrong in the throne room. You know Aro, he only keeps in the necessary guards for visitors unless he means to threaten them. I only saw Alec, Demetri , Jane, Renata, and Felix," he reeled off. "And Demetri and Felix had to take us out when Bella flipped out, leaving him with just the three. Not to mention, he left Renata when Bella was talking to him."
"Alright, alright, he was low on security I get it," Alice nodded. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means…The Volturi have fallen," Edward managed to choke out.
"What?" came the expected shriek. "What do you mean The Volturi have fallen!"
"I mean Aro and Caius are dead," he said slowly. "And, if what I'm hearing is right, Bella killed them."
"That's…that's impossible," Alice stammered. She knew Bella had been acting strangely but she wasn't a killer. She most especially wasn't a vampire killer. Was she?
"Marcus is the only one left alive; they found him in the throne room stirring the ashes. He's barred anyone from entering the room except some new girl Emma, apparently she's a healer," he shrugged.
"A healer? It sounds like they've already been turned to ash, how do you heal that?" Alice asked sharply.
"Not them, it's Bella, she's hurt, hurt bad," Edward mumbled, falling in on himself, sinking into a seated position against the wall.
"Is she going to be okay?" Alice asked, sitting beside her brother and touching a small hand to his shoulder in comfort.
"I don't know," he shook his head. "No one's entered or left the room since then and the throne room is cut off, you know that. No one can hear a thing!" he growled, punching the stone floor and watching the cracks form while he vented his frustration.
"Hello?" a voice called from a distance, slightly hollow as if she was speaking through a tunnel. Gentle fingers danced over her skin and gradually Didyme forced her eyes to open. Immediately her vision was filled with a beautifully pale angel, glowing in a soft golden light. It took Didyme a moment to place the face, haloed by waves of rich mahogany hair, eyes bright and yet distantly wizened. There was a soft intake of breath then in surprise.
She knew that face, knew it intimately. And yet, she didn't. The expressions, the brightness, the smile; they were all so knew to her. But it was the same face she had seen in the mirror for the past several weeks that she had inhabited its body.
"Bella," she breathed, taking in the sight of the girl. She sparkled with a happy radiant shine that Didyme had not seen the likes of in ages. Still, there was something, off, about her. The eyes were wrong, the smile worried, and she seemed unable to stay still.
"Oh good, you're awake," she chirped, clapping her hands as she stood before extending a hand towards Didyme in order to help her up. She took it slowly, unsure of what was happening. Hadn't she died? Was her soul now intertwined with Bella's in the afterlife? Questions swirled around until she was nearly dizzy with them and then Bella was there, her face aglow with warmth and her questions disappeared.
"Didyme, yes?" she asked, not waiting for an answer as she drifted off, leaving Didyme to follow after her. It seemed Bella had also shed her clumsiness as she pranced through the grass languidly.
"What's going on?" Didyme finally managed to ask, regaining control of her faculties now that the initial shock had worn off. She examined their surroundings, finding nothing but lush rolling hills that spread as far as the eye could see.
"We are unconscious," Bella answered, slowing as she waited for Didyme to match her. "I, because you have made me so," she said without any sort of hostility or blame, "and you, because you have been nearly fatally injured," she shrugged. "Consider this the subconscious mind if you will," she elaborated, sensing Didyme still didn't really understand her, "like a dream, but not a dream. You are conscious within in your subconscious if that isn't too confusing," she added.
"Like a waking dream?" Didyme asked tentatively. "Where you're aware you're dreaming and so you can manipulate it?"
"Exactly!" Bella nodded, "the place where dreams and fantasies are made real by the mind!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms open to the wide expanse before as if trying to embrace it all. That was when Didyme noticed what was strange about the place they were in. Out of the corner of the eye, she noticed the passing landscape disappearing. But, when she turned to look at it, it was back.
Focusing ahead, she tried to see anything past the hill, and then realized there were none.
Looking to Bella she realized the landscape was pouring out from her. With every step the girl took, more land would spread out before them. Like a painter working with a never-ending canvas.
"How are you here?" Didyme asked, regretting the words instantly. She had been certain she had sent Bella's soul, and therefore her mind, into dormant rest with layer upon layer of illusion and memory of the Cullen boy.
"I, woke-up, so to speak, when you let Aro into your mind," she answered, still without any sign of bitterness at having her body taken over by a vengeful soul hell-bent on the destruction of the Volturi. "And it was like, I don't know," Bella breathed, "like everything was just…right. I could smell the stars," she said softly, breathlessly. Her hands fluttered at her sides, unable to describe the experience of having been ripped into infinity and then suddenly being returned more…whole, than she had ever been.
It was like, she had been reborn again knowing everything there was to know about everything. Light and knowledge welled inside of her, pouring out in excess, making her body glow and her steps light. There was fear and sadness and pain, but beyond that was the euphoria of having survived, and lived, and flourished. She was aware of everything all at once, the beauty of the world, and the despair of it, and it balanced in her heart until even the most cataclysmic of events could not ruffle her.
Didyme watched this girl, changed by the love and heartbreak of Edward, changed by the memories and vengeance of Didyme, of having another soul contained in her body. Didyme had been wrong she realized, taking in this solitary girl who stared out at the distance of her mind and seeing…everything. Bella was not weak or fragile, only raw and unformed.
A human so in tune with the world, but unable to channel it properly until it looked like weakness. But it wasn't. It was the strength to see the world at its worst and know that the empty glass might fill to the brim at any moment. Bella was, in a word, enlightened.
Didyme had not thought to meet another of these since the times of God's birth. She blinked back tears in that moment, sorry that she wasn't sorry for doing what she had done to the girl. If given another chance, Didyme knew she would still take revenge on her brother through any means necessary.
"I forgive you for taking my body Didyme," Bella said absently, sitting in the grass now, plucking stems at random. "You are not the only who can see into memories, I saw yours as well," she answered the unspoken question. "Your love for Marcus is stronger than death, how can I hate you for that?" she asked softly, her eyes far away. Could one retreat into themselves when they were already trapped within their own minds? Because that was what it looked like Bella was doing.
"For the first time, I saw what it was like to really love someone, and have that returned," she breathed, the wind carrying he words to Didyme. "To be with each other on equal footing, to be together, truly," her words were a whisper as Didyme lowered herself beside Bella, her heart aching for the girl, who, for all her enlightenment, was not any less heartbroken.
"Though I forgive Edward too," she said, laying back in the grass. "He cannot help that he does not love me the way I love him, the way you and Marcus loved each other. It is sad, but not something I can change." She paused there, the air heavy with her words, thoughts unraveling as she turned to look at Didyme.
"But I can change your future at least. That much is within my power," she smiled softly, sadly. "I can give you a future to have in the first place. One for you and Marcus and eternity," she sighs wistfully. "I had that dream once, with Edward, but it will never happen. He doesn't love me the…right way," but her voice pitches at the end and Didyme knows she is fighting hard to come to terms with this revelation without crying.
"To him, loving me was a burden. He was always worried about protecting me, protecting me from the world, from him, from anything in the world that might hurt me at all," she laughed mirthlessly. "It's even why he left. To protect me from his own family."
By now her voice is strained and her fingers claw at the grass but Didyme doesn't interrupt, knowing that this girl needs to say this, to tell someone, anyone, her heartaches so that she might let them go. And so she sits there, petting Bella's hair and waits for her to continue.
"He doubted even my love for him," she finally continued. "Not outright, but inside, he didn't believe I loved him. Thought I would forget about him if he moved and took the pictures. But I didn't, I never will," she said fiercely. "When I die my soul will wander as yours did for eternity, loving him."
"I wish it was my love that brought me back and not revenge," Didyme confesses when Bella goes silent.
"You're wrong," she says instantly, smiling softly, turning to face her. "You wanted revenge because you loved." Bella says this as if it the most simple thing in the world to understand. "You loved, and Aro took that from you, and that love was so strong and pure that you lingered after death, wanting it back. Take it Didyme, don't let Aro have killed you a third time," she whispers harshly, both of her hands squeezing tightly.
"My body, I don't need it, not the way you do. Eventually my soul will be repelled from the strain of containing two conscious souls within one body. I'd rather you remain and I wander for a bit this time." Her smile is weak and does not reach her eyes.
This is what her lopsided love with Edward has done to her Didyme realizes. He has broken her beyond the repair of an enlightened state. She hates him as she did Aro, for not being strong enough to love Bella the way she so obviously loves him. But she won't let Bella go without a fight, she has been too long in her body, seen too much of her mind, conversed with her very soul.
Didyme knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt that she will do everything in her power to preserve Bella's soul. Didyme is used to wandering, to invading bodies. She can do this. If she dies again she can free her soul to find a new host, but Bella would die too. Except, there is a way to save her even then.
The world is beginning to fade, pale and whitewashed as the scenery disappears. Bella sits up. "They've restored your body," she emphasizes, not knowing the plans Didyme has for the two of them, to save them both. "Go to him," she urges, "Be happy Didyme, you deserve it," she adds.
And then there is Marcus's face in her mind's eye and she is gone, there is only blackness and when she opens her eyes it is to the real thing, Marcus, her Marcus that she spent the thousand years trying to get back to. The results are instantaneous as she springs up, wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him. There are no words, no tears, no time to explain, she just sits there and kisses him until he is devouring her with equal need- a hibernating passion sparked into a scorching inferno.
Her human body cries for air though as she grows lightheaded with the kisses. She breaks away, turning her head to the side as his arms encircle her, his mouth still working at every other area of exposed skin. He murmurs her name against her neck over and over again, in between kisses- a prayer.
She enjoys him, gives him this time of their reunion to be together. She will help Bella, she has not forgotten the girl who became a woman trapped in her mind, but for one day she can have Marcus. She bows her forehead to his, his name a kiss on her lips as they roll and twine together, souls meeting and matching, recognizing the other even without the same body. She felt him burn beneath her skin, sing in her veins. But she pushed him back before he can sink in, pressing a hot kiss to his mouth.
"No, this body is not mine," she murmurs. He blinks at her with eyes black as pitch, hunger and lust swirling within. "Eternity is for her to decide. I took her body; I will not take her soul." But I will save it, she promises herself.
His touch melts her and he keeps his lips on hers to resist. Time unwinds into nothingness and she is at peace with the world, making love in the ashes of her murderer.