AN: Heeeeeeeeeey, so this is early. I was on a role today. woooOooooO! right so, this is only slightly proof read. It's sort of filler explaining some things. I hope you enjoy......? This is Bella again, Rosalie will be coming soon.... i hope i do her justice *nerveous look* I have been contemplating the thought of writting the guys point of view. I've never done it before and i want it to sound good so I'm still giving it some thought. If anyone knows and enjoys how to write guys POV, PM or leave review saying so. I would like to write it because i feel it would be way cooler to have their POV too....and i feel that i wouldnt do it justice so.....

Anyone interested?

Axena


"A better place, A better time"

-Streetlight Manifesto, A better place a Better Time

Bella

The leaves move lazily through my hands as the wind makes them rise and fall through my fingers. This graveyard is no longer taken care of and that's why the leaves have transformed, they are about 2 feet deep now. Good cover when I want to hunt here. Homeless people don't make for such a good meal so I stick to animals…most of the time. But sometimes the urge is too much. I try to attack the bad guys. The guys would have attacked a female like me if I were human, brown hair, golden-orangey eyes, pale skin, and fit figure. It's all in the looks; it's what attracts them to us. We look fragile. I hurt them because of what they did to her. I don't really remember her but I know that she started the descent of our group. Maybe that's why I resent her; she caused my brother so much pain. Or maybe I'm just a whinny teenager, angry that the fairy tale fantasy ended 100 years ago and hasn't been the same ever since. No matter how much she fucking tries.

I sigh.

No matter whom I meet along the way and how many vampires I join their faces will still be there, engraved in my mind. Most of the time I can't help but make comparisons, everyone I meet tries to please me and that makes it harder to really know who they are. They all try to be like them, especially after I come forth with the whole story…or as much as I remember anyways. Some girls try to be like…

"No!" my voice is harsh. The anger is mainly at me, I've forgotten her name again. It is too hard to remember when human memories are so unclear, so fussy and seen through weak human eyes. The images are blurry when I try to recall any of their faces. Except for one, his face is the most defined out of all of them, copper hair, green eyes, black clothing, and piercings all over with the occasional tattoo. Him, I could recognize anywhere. The others are blurring, maybe I didn't interact enough with them, and maybe I didn't converse enough. Or they just didn't leave the impact Edward and Emmett did.

Who Knows? They're all dead now anyways. No use in crying over spilled milk…..or in this case, dead people.

Did I ever really mourn any of them?

Days go by where I am consumed by these thoughts, living in your head can get pretty boring, animals stay away but the passerby drunk usually pokes me to see if I'm alive. I like to creep him out. It's sinister but when you have the rest of time to spend alone, you grasp at whatever comes your way because you know no matter how many people you meet they will never be replaced. And I haven't learned to let go.

I wasn't really good at that…ever.

Maybe that's why I let people reach out to me, to see if I have accepted the fact that I will never see them again. Every time I come close something goes wrong and I realize I'm still looking. Even for the girl I resent. Rosalie that was her name, I smile at my memory and list off their names.

I told you, letting go has never been easy for me. Even after 100 years.

Edward
Alice
Jasper
Rosalie
Emmett

Good, I haven't completely forgotten.

I lay right in front of my tomb. The grave stone is fragile so I avoid touching it but I trace the ends of my fingers over the finely engraved letters of their graves with my eyes. Funny, they should put us all next to each other… funny that there are no bodies inside those coffins.

They never found any.

Apparently Alice ran away… at least that's what I heard. They pronounced her dead the day they found the broken window. I'd been away; the first year in the vampire world had been upsetting. The moment I had woken up the thirst clouded every thought, every emotion…all my intentions were focused on the prey.

I was in a city; my maker had left me for dead in an alley. I caused what was thought to be the work of a serial killer. One death, they look for motive, two deaths they look for connections, three? They assume serial killer. They don't need rhyme or reason for death. That's what I was. My killings were in no way connected. I didn't even distinguish between good or bad. I just needed to sedate the fucking thirst. Eventually I calmed down and when I did the fucking memories came flooding in. I could've done well enough without those. I thought them to be alive. I wanted them to be. At least then I would've known they were ok.

The first memory was of me tripping on…ground with my face landing in a cake. I'd been celebrating a birthday it appeared and well I had tripped. People had laughed; I remember that and a little girl had helped me clean up. It wasn't until I found her file among the many unsolved cases inside the precinct that I knew her name. Alice. She'd been pronounced dead. I don't know why I destroyed her file.

I did it but I don't know why.

Maybe I didn't want any reminder of my life because I knew that I would never be able to join them. The girl had to be 28 years old when I started looking and she was missing… what were the chances of finding her alive? Police were constantly wrong and I knew I'd have a better nose for that kind of stuff. I was a good tracker. Or I thought myself to be anyways.

I remembered Edward only because I had seen his name attached to hers. Cullen. They were siblings and then I knew they had arrived together into my life. They arrived while I was living in the foster home, but since I had only remembered Alice, my thoughts were focused around her only. I had little to know intention of finding out more about Edward. If I didn't remember him, he wasn't that important right?

Oh how wrong I was.

I'd gone to the foster home in order to find out more about her, maybe then I could piece together why it had hurt so much to know that she was missing. I'd worn glasses to hide part of my face and wore a wig so that I wouldn't be so recognized. I'd only been 10 years, there was bound to be someone who remembered if they saw me. I'd pretended to be pregnant. I'd told one of the nurses that I was going to get rid of my baby; pregnant teenager was a big no no in my family I'd said. An old nurse had smiled kindly and led me to each room, telling me about all the rooms and how they took care of the kids very well here. Eventually she left me alone.

I wandered to the top floor; she said kids had lived there once because the home had been so crowded then, no one touched those floors now, there was no need for them. That is exactly were her aroma was the strongest. Alice had lived there. I felt like jumping for joy! The first clue to something, I was finally getting somewhere.

After looking around the girls' rooms I started to explore further. Girls shared a room but there were a few that had their own. I discovered my scent in one of the individual rooms. Strange thing was, it wasn't in the girls' side of the home. I had decided that was as much information as I was going to get when I'd sniffed something so faint but mouthwatering that I rushed back up. I didn't really care if a person was there. I would feed; the scent was too exquisite to pass up. It took me some time to recognize that it was my own.

What the hell was I doing in the boys' side of the dorm?

I rushed into the small space quickly, not wanting to let the perfume leave the contained space. It was so good. I laid my back against the door and breathed deeply. It was divine. After a few seconds I detected that what made the aroma was enticing wasn't only mine. It was mixed in with someone else's. I started to separate the two and once I was finally able to distinguish clearly the memory hit me. I slid down the door with a loud thud. The memory was unexpected.

The sounds assaulted. My eyes only saw darkness at first.

It was a pair of panting people. There were wet sounds of lips crashing against lips and hips rocking. I couldn't move. The memory was consuming and all I was able to control was how much I let it overcome me. Fabric was moved aside and the thud of bed springs made my body fill with heat.

Then the vision became less blurry. I heard myself gasp but I was miles away now and only concentrated on the scene behind my eyes. It was me. I was panting and I could see the perspiration that was starting cover both our bodies. The more we moved the more the sheets slid down his body.

And that's when I recognized him.

Copper hair, pale, lean boy…hovering and crashing into mine.
Oh god.
Edward.

"Edward" I could hear my voice whispering his name only because I was too consumed by his lips on my shoulder to manage a higher volume. I could almost feel the way his lips moved against my neck. Not only the me in the memory but me, the girl seeing it. It was pure bliss when I heard him moan with me….and then the memory faded.

I opened my eyes stunned. My breathing was normal but I couldn't close my mouth, it was left slightly ajar and I licked my suddenly drip lips. I ran a hand through my hair and stood up.

I was shaking. My body felt on fire but it was pleasant and I was now more aware of everything around me. I breathed in deeply once more and moaned. His scent was everywhere. I walked to bed and pushed the sheets against my nose and breathed him in. Basked in his smell.

It was soothing.
Suddenly my mission to find only one became two.
I needed to see him, only if from far away. I needed to see how he had aged.
I needed to find him.

With new found determination I descended the stairs, a now neatly folded bed sheet tucked inside my bag. It was comical but I needed it. Needed a reminder, no matter how masochistic it may be. It wasn't until I saw a different person at the counter that I realized my time spent up there had been longer than I had originally planned. Time was relative when you were a vampire.

It was easy to convince the teenager to let me in to the record room.

. . .

The files spread out before me on the outdated wooden table, Edward, Alice, and finally me, Bella. It was ridiculously clear now that Edward obviously meant something to me. There were file notes, depicting every detail of how I spent my days here. The mention of a boy named Emmett was almost in every file after I turned six. What was he to me? I got up and searched under "M" until I found it. I opened the file and laid it out next to mine.

Emmett McCarty

He was here four years before me. I closed my eyes as I felt excruciating pain settle deep inside my skull.

"Why are you crying?" a small voice called out to me. A head popped out from the top of the bed. His hair hanged around his face. I sniffed twice and looked back at him.

"I want…" I swallowed "I want….my mommy!" I needed to see her! Where was she! I heard the boy drop onto the floor with a thump. I giggled. He looked silly. He grinned back at me. He moved until he was under the bed with me and crouched so low that his chin was on top of his knees.

"Do you know where she is?" his voice was small; his chin was pressed against his arms now.

"No-o-o" I felt my lip tremble and bit it.

"I don't know where my mommy or daddy is either" it made me feel better.

"You don't?" my voice was high pitched.

"Nope" His head turned and he looked at me.

"You shouldn't cry, it doesn't make you look pretty" I smiled but frowned when I saw him crawl out. Was he going to leave? I didn't want him to!

"C'mon what are you still doing under there?" his voice was exasperated and he held his hand out. It was chubby. I put mine in his and he pulled until I was out. I started to laugh.

"What?" he frowned, I pointed to his clothes. They were covered in dust!

"You're dirty! I'm gonna tell!" my voice was taunting until he pointed at me and started laughing too. I looked down and saw that mu clothes were gray covered in spots. I giggled. He pulled my hand.

"Were we going?" we started running.

"To do something fun!" He skipped and started to run. I bounced beside him.

After that the more I read over the files the more things started to piece together. Soon enough Jasper's and Rosalie's fie were spread out before me and I stayed reading over every single piece of information I could find. The guy came in, Taylor was tag name, and asked me to leave. He stayed while I put each file away. I wanted to take them with me. At least I wanted to keep mine. They would notice if seven files were gone.

At least I still had the blanket.

I opened my eyes and smiled at the cloudy sky, I was only able to come to this cemetery on cloudy or rainy days. My skin would sparkle if I was out in the open sun. The blanket had lost a lot of its aroma by now but I made sure that I could preserve some of it. I rarely took it out now, I didn't want to loose that scent.

Ever.

I stopped looking for Alice when I hit my 90th year. She had to be dead by then, missing person or not. I never looked for Emmett of Rosalie because I knew they were dead, I remembered it and their files had also mentioned the year of their death. I stopped searching for Edward when I went to the hospital. I was trying to find some blood in order to avoid killing another human. The fear in their eyes was making me regret their deaths and a guilty conscience was the last thing I needed on my mind. I liked to riffled through peoples papers by then and I'd come across his purely by accident.

I hadn't lost hope of finding either one of them at that point yet. It's only been 20 years, the possibility that they were still alive held some truth, and they were only 38 years old. For some perverse reason I liked to look under the names of people that had died. It made me less sad. I flipped through about 20 files trying to find something interesting when the category of "INFLUENZA" popped up. I was interested in the statistics so I opened it up. It was a single list (pages long) of all the people that had died because of it. I frowned at the year. I had been a vampire by then but had no recollection of the massive epidemic?

With a small shrug I started to look through the names. My eyes froze when they arrived at "C". There weren't many names that started with the third letter of the alphabet admitted to this hospital during that time. It couldn't be a mistake. His name stared out at me and I felt like crying. But the tears wouldn't come, and they never would.

Edward Cullen

I felt like a fool. All this time I'd spent looking for him and he was dead. I'd periodically received memories that showed the progression of our relationship. The love I had felt for him had reawakened. And now he was gone. The file slipped from my hands and I fled the room.
I ran until I was deep in the forest.

Now 80 years after the fact I was able to look at the event objectively but the wound still hurt like a fresh burn. I'd learned to detach myself of his memories because I couldn't stop thinking about him. I wouldn't, I couldn't allow myself to and I had the shitty luck of being a vampire. They always remembered everything in great detail. I wouldn't be able to rid him of my thoughts even if I had wanted to.

I opened my eyes once more, looked over at our graves and noticed for the first time that we had all died at relatively the same age.

A ghost of a smile spread over my lips.
We would remain seventeen forever.