In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, who began to plan the Insurgence.

I am, of course, indebted to Stephenie Meyer for this world we all play in, and these characters we all adore. Additionally, I am indebted to hitntr01, who has graciously allowed me to use certain concepts from her wonderful story "In Need of Rescue", which constitute much of the background of my own story. These include: the language Vampiri, the Rules, the machines used to draw blood from humans, Manners Training, and the plot theme of Edward working as a guard at a facility holding humans. Thank you, hitntr01.

Chapter 19

********AUTHORS' NOTE – This chapter was not in the original plot line, but I was pissed off the other day and decided to write about Bella picking a fight with Jasper. Whoo-hoo! It does introduce a more serious topic, Bella's impending sexual maturity, as her menstrual cycle, suppressed due to poor diet, is about to start soon. This is serious for her because the rules required all humans to be bred at age 16. In case you haven't noticed, this Carlisle and this Jasper aren't particularly anxious for a human or any other male to be near their little 'sweetheart' or 'darlin'', as they each call her. She hasn't picked this up yet, of course, as she is used to thinking of herself as plain. All her early experiences have taught her that she is too plain to be of interest to vampires, which is a good thing, since it kept her from being sold to a brothel.

Also, I am posting an outtake this weekend, an alternative version of Bella's introduction to the Cullens. In this version, which would take the place of Chapters 7-11, she is bought by Edward in Seattle while she is on an undercover mission in a human pound. On the drive back to Forks, he is so overwhelmed by her scent that he is on the verge of pulling over and draining her. She manages to escape by stealing that shiny silver Volvo. She decides to return the car to its place of registration, which is the Cullen mansion. This is a much darker, quite different, introduction to the story. Please check it out if you are interested, under "the Insurgency Outtake - Edward Buys Bella".

Sorry for the long note, here's the latest regular chapter.

Chapter 19 - Feeling Grumpy

(Bella POV)

I had been feeling achy and crabby for some time.

I noticed that my body was beginning to fill out, probably as a result of eating all the rich food Carlisle ordered for me. My ribs were not so visible, and my breasts were actually showing small cups. My nipples were getting tender too.

It hurt when Jasper dried me off after my bath. I usually didn't say anything and just endured being toweled off, but now he was hurting me. I grabbed the towel, mumbling "you're hurting me."

He paused, said "Sorry Darlin'," quietly, and then tugged the towel back.

Sometimes I was really snappy. Carlisle picked up on these moments to get even more physically close. He started spending more time at home and was carrying me around the house again. I wanted to choke him or smash things, I felt so crappy. His cool hands felt good though.

The mind reader relayed that my hormone levels were changing, and Carlisle was picking up on the difference this made to my scent. It was making him more protective, if such a thing were possible. He was even growling at Esme if she got too close.

On one of the rare mornings that he actually left the house, there was a knock on the door. Esme answered it, as she always did. It was a deliveryman, and he announced in human, in a voice loud enough for me to hear, that he had a package address to "the Little One, c/o Dr. Carlisle Cullen."

I moved towards the door, but Jasper flashed in front of me. I reached for the package, only to have Jasper move to intercept. The deliveryman, one of the loyal Bulgarian allies named Andrei, said "my directions say to deliver to the Little One, and if can't give it to the little one, I am to leave with it."

Jasper snarled, but I grabbed the package from under his arm. Andrei smiled as he lowered is head to look at his clipboard.

I curled myself around the little box and held on tight. Eventually I got it open. It contained a glass bottle filled with pink pills topped with cotton and a big pin tulle bow. The label read 'Midol'.

I went into the kitchen, with Jasper as my shadow, got a glass of water, and took one.

Jasper was immediately on the phone with Carlisle. He tried to hand me the phone, but I shook my head and mouthed, "the phone is bugged." I'm not speaking in human to Carlisle over the phone. I know the rules prohibit vampires speaking in human language to a human. I won't get him in trouble that way; I won't give the cops who are tapping the phone lines something so easy.

Jasper finally told Carlisle l wouldn't talk to him over the phone, and then we both sat on the sofa, waiting for Carlisle to come home. I hoped there would be a fight. A big one, I was spoiling for a fight.

When Carlisle came in, he quickly sensed the tense atmosphere. Jasper's gift of empathy didn't work past my shield I chose not to let it, and I was choosing not to be calmed today.

Jasper gave him the pills, and Carlisle asked what they were.

"Midol," I announced.

"I don't think so," he replied.

"Yes they are. They are pink because apparently the boys decided since they are for girls, they would dye the lot pink," I retorted with a roll of my eyes.

"You mean these are new?" asked Carlisle with interest.

"Yes, some friends – oh, right, humans can't call vampire friends, so OK, some Superior Beings got their hands on a few drug company formularies. They've been working on obtaining the ingredients and making up drugs since most of the existing stock expired over a decade ago. As they get the ingredients for whichever drug they are targeting, they check to see if there is anything else they can make up using a similar formula," I begin.

"Fascinating," interjects Carlisle.

"They're working on drugs used on the young, for children and pregnant women, first. Pain killers, antibiotics, things like that. There isn't much use for the drugs needed for older humans, heart ailments, system failures, cancer. Nobody's living that long," I reply with a glare at both of them. "They sent me the Midol as a gift. Must have figured that at my age I would need it."

"You should have consulted with me," replied Carlisle.

This time I'm not letting you run the show, Mr. BossyPants, I think. "It was an over the counter drug, some 20 years ago. I wouldn't have had to consult with you then, and I'm not consulting with you now."

Jasper hissed at this, but Carlisle merely blinked.

"Sweetheart, I just worry about the safety of this product," he says gently.

"Don't worry. I didn't spend all my time in the resistance fighting vampire and blowing up shit. I spent two winters in a university setting."

It was true; I had stumbled across a former college campus in the woods on the east coast when I was looking for food one winter. I hadn't known what it was initially; I just saw institutional buildings and entered one looking for canned food.

I walked around the halls, looking into the rooms, seeing the various arrangements of beds and dressers. The rooms contained books, papers, clothes and toiletries, and photos, among other things. I was going through the clothes to see if I could find anything I might be able to wear, when I was hit by the realization that probably all of the people who lived in these room had probably died soon after the Event of July 2020. The photos showed young, attractive, well-groomed girls, who would have quickly been selected for brothels. Reading through their papers, I felt the weight and pain of their early deaths.

It turns out that I had stumbled onto the Dartmouth College campus. There were still a few immortal residents who had been professors before the event, and they wanted to pay 'college' with me after they found me sleeping in the dorm. I stayed in the dorm to sleep and study, and I would trudge through the snow to another building to take classes. The four resident vampires took turns sitting in one another's classrooms to further the illusion of a class experience for me. They wanted me to study the basics: history, literature, math and science. They only had one scientist among them, but the others just stayed a few chapters ahead of me in order to teach a class.

I think they initially acted as they did, inviting me to take classes, because they were bored. They genuinely liked humans, though, and they wanted to return to their familiar pursuits of teaching. But once they realized I not only knew how to read, but also had taught myself something about science, basically the chemistry of building explosives from household cleaning agents, they became more interested in me.

At the end of the first winter, as I headed back out into the wild after the spring thaw, they had given me an electronic reading application they had loaded with some text books. I read every chance I got, at night or when traveling. Then, when I returned the second winter, they had given some tests that they found in other professors' and the dean's offices. By the end of the second winter, they had determined that I had done enough work to qualify for a college degree, in part because of all the time spent in chemistry lab, purifying ingredients to be used in making the drugs. They said I had done enough to qualify for a Bachelor's in Science.

Additionally, they felt I was close to earning a Master's in History, in part because of a paper I had written while studying Greek and Asian languages. They felt it was original enough to qualify for a Maters Thesis. They wanted me to do more reading before conferring the honorary history degree, as my reading hadn't been very general. It had been focused on the history of war, on battles and military strategy. I had done some reading on the history of science, and read some of the seminal works written by scientists and mathematicians from Newton to Fermi, but that was still very specific. So they gave me a reading list, and asked me to work on some papers, and submit the papers to them for examination periodically.

I shook my head to return to the present, and to the curious stares of Jasper and Carlisle. "You left us there for a minute, little on," said Jasper softly.

"I went to a type of college for two winters," I continued. "I read, wrote papers, and did chemistry labs. They gave me 'lab' credit for working on purifying and extracting the ingredients for the drugs they decided to begin developing the second winter I was there. I know their procedures and lab situation. I'm sure I know more than the humans who used to just buy the pills of the pharmacy shelves."

Jasper interjected, "But you should have let Carlisle contact them and decide what's best for you."

I'm done talking nicely, I thought. I hissed back at him one of the Portuguese phrases someone said to Isaiah the day I was leaving his ranch. I didn't know what is meant, but it sounded bad, and so I had kept it in my memory for just such an occasion.

Jasper was in front of me in an instant, his hands on my shoulders.

Carlisle made him let go of me.

"What did you just say?" Carlisle inquired tensely.

"I'm not sure, but from somebody's reaction, I think I hit the target," I tossed back.

"And where did you hear that, darlin'" asked Jasper.

Oh buddy, wouldn't you like to know. "Just something I picked up along the way."

"I take it whatever she said wasn't polite," Carlisle asked Jasper.

"Not a bit," Jasper growled.

"Well, that shouldn't trouble you. You've dropped all the manners your mama taught you when you sided with the Italian foreigners, that's clear. I'm surprised you even remember the human languages from your past," I taunted, my voice dropping into my touch of a west Texas accent.

"OK, stop now," started Carlisle.

Jasper froze. "What did you say, and where did you hear that?"

"Obviously, you know the answers to both of those questions," I retort. "When's the last time you bowed over a lady's hand? I would be insulted, except you don't do this for Esme either."

"When did you live in Texas?" asks Jasper.

"None of your damn business, but certainly more recently than you. You've been gone so long you've lost almost all connections to your past. That's probably a good thing; you've got medals from the new Italian royalty the Volturi, so you should be siding with the new Masters of the New Order. You don't seem to remember any of the Texas manners and traditions, is there any part of you that is still you? Do you think Melissa** would even recognize you if she met you today? If it wasn't for Peter and Charlotte, you'd probably forget where Texas was on a map, vampire memory or no vampire memory," I shouted, and flounced out of the room.

Carlisle made Jasper stay behind to cool down, and he followed me to his study, quietly closing the door. I didn't know whether to continue lashing out, or to start crying.

"It'll pass, sweetheart, it'll pass," he promised, pulling me to his chest. As he held me, I started crying. I cried for those girls in the photos at Dartmouth, I cried for the girls I rescued from the brothels who died as I was transporting then to the hospital, I cried for my mother dying in the woods. I cried for us all, and fell into darkness, my face pressed against Carlisle's chest, against his shirt soaked with my tears.

**Melissa was Jasper's younger human sister

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