As I was writing this chapter it was getting very long, so I decided to split it into two parts! I hope you all like this one :D

EPOV

"Edward?"

My head snapped up and I quickly took a step back from the counter as I met the confused gaze of my sister. Alice had always had an uncanny knack of knowing where people were and tracking them down, but of all the places and times to run into each other this had to be one of the worst.

"Alice!" I said, trying to hide the utter shock and nervousness in my voice. "What are you doing here?" She looked like she was dressed for the office and she was holding a large bouquet of blue hydrangeas.

"A friend from work just had a baby, and I volunteered to bring the flowers that everyone chipped in for. What are you doing here?" she asked, studying me with the most sceptical look in her eyes as she closed the distance between us.

My brain froze while simultaneously thinking of a million ways to explain why I was also here. Rubbing the back of my neck, I forced myself to make eye contact with my sister. She always knew when I was lying because I wouldn't look her in the eye. "I… I was just visiting Dad, but stupidly got off on the wrong floor." Hopefully that was believable enough.

Alice's eyes narrowed and I knew I was done for. "Oh, really? How is Dad?"

"He's good," I hedged. "You know, busy as always."

"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean," she said innocently. "I had to cut my last visit with him short because he got called to surgery. That must have been, like, five minutes ago." She was smirking at me now, knowing that she had called me out.

"Oh," was all I could manage in response. Once again looking everywhere but at Alice, I saw the nurse still sitting behind the desk watching us like we were some awkward daytime drama.

Clearing my throat, I finally managed to squeak out "Well, I better let you go see your friend." I stepped around her, moving as quickly as I could towards the elevators at the end of the hallway.

"Edward," Alice called to me, stopping me in my tracks before I had gotten more than five feet. "We are going to talk later." The look she gave me was stern, letting me know that she wasn't going to drop this and it was useless trying to hide from her.

My heart racing, I swallowed hard. "Sure," was all I said before I turned and hightailed it down the hall.

I didn't stop to wait for the elevators, turning instead to the left and bursting into the stairwell. I sprinted down the stairs, surprising a couple who was making out by the door to the second floor. I didn't stop my fast pace as I darted through the lobby and out to the car park until I was secure in my own car.

Even as my breathing slowed, my heart rate kept speeding. This was the second time I had left the hospital dazed with my heart beating dangerously fast. However, while last time I left confused but hopeful, this time I was filled with nothing but dread. I hadn't wanted to tell anyone in my family about Bella, or the full reason for why I moved home until I was ready. Alice was the last person I would have wanted to be suspicious of me because she wouldn't let up until she knew everything.

I was royally fucked.

It was inevitable now that I would have to tell her, I knew that. A part of me - a part hidden deep and buried - was glad I would have someone to talk to about this. The truth was gnawing a hole in my chest, and if I'd had to keep hiding everything it would have eventually caused an ulcer. I'd never kept a secret like this from my family in my life, and it was more exhausting than I ever thought.

While I knew talking to Alice was inescapable, I refused to make it easy on her. Instead of going home, where she would find me quickly, I made my way to the bar I had gone to after the fight with my parents. It was around four in the afternoon, so it was practically deserted. I quickly found a booth towards the back, where I could easily see anyone who came in. Before long one of the waitresses came over, and I ordered the same IPA I'd had last time.

It took just over an hour before I saw Alice walk in, craning her head around the after-work patrons until she saw me. Raising her eyebrow in a look that said "really?", she made a stop off at the bar to order a drink before coming and joining me in the booth. We sat awkwardly, staring each other down as she slowly took a sip from her drink.

It was Alice that finally broke the silence. "So?" was all she said.

"So what?" I retorted, raising an eyebrow in challenge. If she wanted me to answer any of her questions I was going to make it like drawing blood from a stone.

Alice sighed. "So, what were you really doing at the hospital?" she asked. While this was the easier question to answer of the many I'm sure she had been building up since I told her I'd be moving home, it was a slippery slope into a full confession. When I didn't answer her straight away, staring down at the table, she groaned in frustration. "You know I'm not going to give up, so you might as well tell me now while you've got a drink to make it easier."

My shoulders dropped in resignation. I knew she wasn't lying. When we were children there wasn't anything that could be kept from my sister. I had thought it was because she was two years younger and didn't want to be left out when Maria and I played. If she stayed a few steps ahead of us, she could never be left behind. As Maria and I got older and started a relationship, Alice became more creative with her information gathering. I swear once she must have broken into Maria's house and read her diary, though she would never admit to it.

"I was looking for someone," I mumbled into my drink.

"The nurse you were talking to?"

"No. Someone else." My short and obscure answers were frustrating Alice, and I knew she wasn't going to take it much longer.

"Edward, come on!" Alice huffed as she threw her hands up into the air. "You know I'll just assume the worst if you don't tell me. What, did you knock up some stranger and were there for a checkup?"

That wasn't what I had expected her to be thinking and I choked on the mouthful of beer I had just drank.

"What?! No!" I sputtered. "Why would you think that?"

"I don't know what else to think if you won't talk to me like an adult and not a sulky teenager! Does it have anything to do with why you moved back?" She had finally asked the million dollar question.

I briefly thought about lying, but I knew she would call me out on it as soon as I tried. The relief I had momentarily felt at the idea of this secret being out had fled, leaving me nothing but dread once more. But I was backed into a corner, nowhere to go and a guard dog blocking all the exits.

And so I told her. I told her about seeing Bella in the hospital lobby and how I'd originally thought she was Maria somehow alive again. I told her about the feeling that washed over me when we had locked eyes, and the pull I had felt towards ever since. I told her about the emotional turmoil I lived in once I'd gotten home to Chicago, and the reason I eventually decided on this foolish course of action. I told her about my frustration at not knowing how to find Bella again, and how that had taken me back to the hospital to look for her friend. I told her everything, spilling my guts out, and when I was done there was nothing left between us but silence.

Once again it was Alice that spoke first. "You're an idiot." Short, sharp, and to the point. It was an apt description of both Alice and her tact.

"Don't you think I know that?" I shot back, dropping my head to my hands. "This whole thing has been an experience on how to screw your life up beyond recognition. I don't know what came over me, but it's like I've had some sort of mental break ever since I saw her."

My sister's tinkling laugh startled me more than if she had yelled at me in the middle of the full bar.

"No, I mean you're an idiot because this would all have been easier if you had just told me in the beginning," she said as she shook her head. "You've been going about this the hard way. Which is entirely the wrong way I might add."

I was dumbfounded. "What? You believe me?"

"Firstly, yes I believe you. I don't think you would be acting like a moron if you didn't believe you saw what you think you saw. Secondly, you feel like a stalker because you are being a stalker. Only creeps and murderers act the way you have been. Do you think she would ever talk to you if you tell her you tracked down her friend at work to ask after you?" she asked, not even stopping for me to answer her rhetorical question. "No, of course not. No sane woman would ever do that. Thirdly, if you had told me straight away I could have found her in no time using Facebook, or something. Then you could have sent her a message to ask her if there was any chance she is Maria's sister. And who knows, maybe you could have been having a drink with her right now instead of me."

I stared at Alice with my mouth open, which only made her chuckle again. Collecting myself, I took a long drink finishing off my beer.

"How could you find her on Facebook when all I know about her is her first name, which also might just be a nickname? That's nothing to go," I protested.

Alice's smile grew. "Oh, ye of little faith," she said, fishing her phone out of her bag. "We also know the name of her friend and where she works. All we have to do is go to the hospital's Facebook page and look through the list of people who have liked it or listed it in their occupation. You said her name was Rose? What did she look like?"

"Um, she was blonde?" I said, though it came out more as a question.

Alice quickly looked up from scrolling on her phone to give me an evil eye. "Gee-wiz, how descriptive. I'm sure I'll find her easily with all that information," she said sarcastically.

Giving her an eye back, I tried to think of as many details as I could. "She had long blonde hair, probably past her shoulders. It was in a ponytail though, so I can't be one hundred percent sure. She was really pretty though. Like 'could be a supermodel' pretty. She was wearing pink scrubs. That's why I thought I might be able to find her on the maternity ward. Um… She was tall. Do you need anything else, cause I really don't know what else I could tell you."

Alice was silent as she continued to scroll. Every now and then she would mumble something to herself, but otherwise completely ignored me. Suddenly she jumped in her seat.

"Oh! I think I've got it! Does this look like her?" she asked as she shoved her phone into my face.

"Wait, really?" I looked closely at the profile she was showing me. "Oh my god, that is her!" I tried to grab the phone from her to have a closer look, but she pulled it back before I could even touch it.

"Now we just have to go through her friends list to find a Bella," Alice said as she went back to scrolling. "Nope. Nope. No. Come on, how many friends does this woman have? Oh, he's hot! Focus, Alice. Nope."

I tuned out her mindless babbling, signalling to the waitress as she passed to ask for another beer.

"Holy shit!" Alice suddenly yelped. She was still staring at her phone, but now her eyes were wide and her thumb had stopped moving. "Holy shit," she said again.

"What is it?" I asked, my heart thumping heavily in my chest. "You found her?"

Alice looked up at me, her eyes still wide. She thrust the phone towards me, punctuating the movement with another "Holy shit!" I quickly took the proffered phone.

There she was. In the small picture she was smiling wide at the camera, one hand on her hip and the other holding a paint roller covered in blue paint. She was wearing an obviously well loved pair of overalls and her hair piled on the top of her head in a messy bun. She looked very happy.

The name under the image said her full name was Isabella Swan. Isabella. It was beautiful, and it suited her perfectly. It struck me then that while Eleazar had always used Bella as an Italian term of endearment when he talked to Maria, it was actually this woman's name. I wondered how many parallels there were between them.

Her profile was private so there wasn't much information freely available, but it was more than I had thought I'd be able to find out today. Alice was once again right. I should have told her as soon as I'd seen her. I could have saved myself a lot of stress and anxiety.

What it did tell me though was that she was from Washington too. A place called Forks to be exact, though I had no idea where the hell that is. It said she was a teacher, but there wasn't any more information listed under her occupation to tell me where.

I clicked on the 'About Info' to see what else was available. Under Education was the University of Washington. I knew a few people I'd been to highschool with who had ended up going there, and I wondered if they had ever seen her on campus and mistaken her for Maria. She might have spent years dealing with people calling her by the wrong and never known why.

I found myself looking through the people listed as her family members. It wasn't a large list. There was only an older man and a guy around my age, all with the same last name, who I assumed were her father and brother. I was surprised to see her friend Rose was also listed as her sister in-law. Interestingly there was no-one listed as her mother. Perhaps Maria's birth mother left this family behind before she gave birth to Maria and put her up for adoption? The brother, Emmett, definity looked older that Bella or Maria, so he would have had to have been born before whatever happened to result in Maria's adoption.

Scrolling to her Basic Info, one thing suddenly jumped out at me making me stop completely. She had her birthday listed. It didn't have the year, but the date was there. The thirteenth of September. The same as Maria.

The bar around me seemed to dim, and the only thing I could see was the bright screen of the phone with the date seemingly highlighted until it was all I could concentrate on. There was a buzzing in my ears, drowning out all other sounds. My breathing hitched and my heart began to hammer in my chest. After everything that had happened this afternoon, I was probably going to be left with permanent damage to my heart.

This was it, the proof I'd wanted to answer the question about whether Maria And Bella looking the same was a coincidence or not. While it wasn't unheard of for people, even family members, to be born on the same day, it seemed improbable that not only would they look exactly alike but they shared the same date of birth. It was also true that siblings could often look very similar - we'd gone to school with a pair of siblings that were born a year apart but you would be hard pressed to tell which one was which unless you were standing right next to them - but for both to occur seemed like a feat. I could only think that the most rational explanation for everything was that Maria and Bella were indeed identical twins separated at birth. It sounded like a plot to a movie more than a real life possibility.

"Edward, are you listening?" Alice's voice finally cut through the fog that had settled on my brain like the cloud cover over the city.

"What? No. Sorry, what?" I finally looked up, noticing my new drink had been delivered.

Alice reached for her phone, lifting it from my limp hands and looking down at Bella's profile. "I was saying that I couldn't believe it. I mean, I did believe what you said you saw, but seeing it is a whole other thing. This is some Vampire Diaries level doppelganger shit," she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"They have the same birthday," I said numbly, taking a large gulp from my glass.

Alice's head shot up. "What?"

"They have the same birthday," I repeated a little louder. "I don't think they're doppelgangers. I think they might be twins." I took another long drink, nearly finishing my beer.

"Holy shit," my sister said again. "So it's more of a 'Parent Trap' situation. It says she has a brother, though. What if she's not adopted? Maybe this whole thing is like some real life Twilight Zone and it's all an incredible coincidence?"

I couldn't help but scoff. "Do you really think that them having the same face and the same birthday could actually be a coincidence?"

"No," Alice shook her head. "But stranger things have happened in the world."

I didn't respond and Alice went back to scrolling through her phone. I could only imagine she was looking through whatever public information she could find on Bella. I knew that as soon as I was home, safely in the privacy of my room, I would be scrolling through everything too. From the quick look I'd had, there were photos she'd been tagged in that could give me a glimpse into her life.

The gnawing in my chest burned and I rubbed at it to try and ease the sensation.

"What are you going to do," asked my sister, still studying her phone intently. "Are you going to send her a message?"

"I don't know, Ali," I sighed. "I think I need some time to process this."

"Isn't this why you move across the country? What about the ticking time-bomb in her head?"

I couldn't help but bristle a little. "It's just a lot, Alice." Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my emotions back down. "I don't know, part of me thought I'd never find her and I wouldn't have to confront this situation. I think I just need some time to figure out what to say to her."

Reaching across the table and grabbing my hand, Alice looked me directly in the eye and gave me a gentle smile. "It's ok to need time, Edward. This is huge and I wouldn't expect you to just be able to forge ahead without thinking every detail through. Just keep in mind, once you contact her there's no going back so make sure whatever you say is kind and breaks it to her gently."

I didn't think I could talk around the lump that had formed in my throat, so I just nodded. So much had happened in such a small spanse of time, changing the way I viewed the world a little. After today, I knew nothing would truly be the same again.

~oOo~

It had only been a few days since Alice had found Bella, though it felt like a lifetime. I had spent more time that I care to admit looking at the few public photos on Facebook Bella had been tagged in over the years. It was like looking at a parallel universe version of my wife. One in which she had a completely different family, where we had never met or fallen in love. One in which she hadn't died, where she was still alive and happy.

From what it looked like, Bella had grown up very happy. The photos seemed to contain mostly the same people. Her brother and sister in law were, of course, prominently featured, as well as an attractive blonde man. I wondered if they were together as the four of them were in many photos together. There were a few female friends that showed up more often, as well as a group of Native American guys that always seemed to be standing around cars. There was one man from that group who appeared in more photos than others, though there weren't a lot of them together recently. Maybe this was an ex-boyfriend and they had broken up? I couldn't help but try to create stories to give these images context, though I had no way of knowing if I was anywhere close to correct.

I still hadn't come up with a plan of how I should approach Bella, or what I would tell her. I knew I was being a coward, but it was easier to fall back into bad habits of protecting my heart than to confront my fears.

Alice had asked about it a few times, but had luckily been assuaged when I told her I was still processing. She hadn't stepped back though, telling me the day after we had been at the bar that she had found Bella on Instagram and had sent her a follow request. To say I was annoyed was an understatement, but I reigned it in when she had started in on me about how stupid I'd been to not trust her in the first place. I think I was just partly jealous that I didn't have the nerve to do the exact same thing.

When she had brought up telling Mom and Dad I'd had to shut her down, though. I wasn't comfortable with them knowing yet. Not only because it would mean having some incredibly confronting conversations with them, but I didn't want them to have to keep something like this from their best friends. Our parents had been friends with Eleazar and Carmen for so long, and there was no way they could know about Bella and not tell them. I knew that this wasn't something that Alice and I could keep hidden forever, but I hoped that we could keep it under wraps at least until I had talked to Bella herself.

I tried to distract myself with work. I had a few smaller jobs lined up, for a couple of ads and an intro to a new podcast a previous client was starting. None of it was really enough to fully immerse me into work and I found myself repeating the same refrain that had wormed its way into my head a couple times.

Something I hadn't thought of when I had decided to come back and stay with my parents was how odd it would be spending so much time on the piano in the library again. It was where I had spent much of my time growing up, Maria usually on my mind or sitting not too far away. To be sitting here once again and thinking of a girl - no, a woman - was giving me major dejavu. It didn't help that it was the same face I was daydreaming about.

I was currently sitting at the piano, though my hands sat uselessly in my lap. I had tried to work, but my mind once more shifted back to Bella. My memory of her from the hospital was now accompanied by flashes of all her photos I'd spent days studying.

The whole house was quiet. My parents had gone away for the weekend because my father had a medical conference in Las Vegas and they were using it as an excuse to have some alone time. I tried not to let it bother me that they felt they had to go away to have some time to themselves, and it strengthened my resolve to find my own place as soon as I could.

My phone rang, breaking me out of my reverie. Fishing it out of my jeans, I saw it was Alice.

"Hey," I answered, my voice subdued from lack of use.

"You'll never guess what," my sister jumped in without any preamble.

Chuckling quietly at her, I played along. "You're right, I probably won't." It was easier to let her just say her peace or I may have had to spend the next hour listening to her ream me out for being an ass.

"I know where Bella is right now!" I could hear the excitement in her voice, though the news had the opposite effect on me. "I was looking at her Instagram when I saw she posted a new photo at a coffee shop that I know is close to the university. She's actually posted photos of coffee from there a few times, so she must go there a bunch. It's super popular with students and does awesome foam art and has even been featured on the TimeOut Seattle account. I haven't been there, but my friend Cynthia used to go there all the time and says they are really great…"

"Alice!" I had to yell to interrupt her fast stream of consciousness word vomit. "You really think it's the best move to just show up at a coffee shop where she is? Isn't that the type of creepy behaviour you told me to stop?"

"I wasn't suggesting you go there right now, dummy," my sister scoffed at me. "But maybe you can go there and scope it out, try and engineer a more natural opportunity to see her again. I know you've been struggling with how you should approach her, and just thought knowing a little bit more about her might help."

Sighing, I tried to be patient with her. I'd had over a month to deal with first seeing Bella, and in that time I'd chosen to do nothing but wallow in my own turmoil. Alice had known for only a few days and had already found Bella and made contact in a small way. She was trying to be calm about it and let me do things at my own pace, but I knew what Alice really wanted was the exact opposite.

"It does help, Ali. And I promise I'm working on it. It's just that I still feel like I'll be betraying Maria somehow, even though I know that's absurd." I rubbed my free hand down my face in frustration at my own thoughts.

"You're not betraying Maria if you talk to Bella, Edward. It's not like you're trying to sleep with her," Alice said, sounding just as frustrated at me as I was. "What happened to warning her about the possibility of a genetic condition? I thought you came back to save her life, or was that all bullshit you told yourself to justify pursuing her?"

"No! I…" I had to stop myself because hadn't I questioned this exact thing hundreds of times over the last two months? "That's not what this is about, Alice. I'm just nervous. I don't know her, or how she would react to a complete stranger telling her she had a twin, but oh wait you can't meet her because she died. Hell, I don't even know if she knows she was adopted. And what if she wasn't adopted, huh?! You were right when you said crazier things have happened in the world, so what if I'm trying to track down a complete stranger all because she looks like my wife, and…"

"Edward! Stop." It was Alice's turn to interrupt my word vomit. "It's okay, you know. You don't actually have to contact her at all if you don't want to. But maybe you should look into finding someone you can talk to about all of this? And not just his, but everything about Maria too. Don't you think it's time you actually dealt with her death and the past year?"

It took some control not to let my temper get the better of me like it had when my parents had cornered me about moving back home. They, and now Alice, were only trying to help me and find ways for me to heal after a tragedy. Even when my family was being overbearing, I knew it was coming from a place of love.

"I'll think about it, Alicat," I finally said quietly.

I could hear the smile in my sister's voice when she responded. "I love you too, Deadward."

I continued to sit at the piano for an extra half an hour, but this time I was looking through the photos of Bella again. Even through an old photo I could feel the pull in my gut towards her. I didn't want to feel this attraction to her, but I couldn't help it. I kept telling myself it was just because she looked like the love of my life, and nothing more. I missed my wife and seeing her face, her sparkling eyes and vibrant smile, was pulling on strings that I thought had died with her. As soon as I learnt more about Bella, and she became a fully fledged person in my mind, the feelings I was having would go away. Or at least that's what I hoped.

It was why I was so scared to actually contact Bella. What would happen if these feelings didn't go away? There was no way she could reciprocate after knowing I was married to a woman who looked identical to her, or was possibly her twin. And even if she wasn't repulsed by the thought of being with me, what would everyone else think? How could I explain to everyone I know that the person I moved on from Maria with looked exactly like her? People would think I was the worst sort of monster.

But how would I ever know what would happen after meeting her if I never met her? I was driving myself insane over pure conjecture!

Before I'd even realised what I was doing I was heading out my car, and speeding off in the direction of the University. My parents house wasn't actually that far, and before I knew it I was driving past the main entrance to the campus. Pulling over I quickly googled the coffee shop Alice had talked about, bringing up the direction and pulling back onto the road.

It was close to six thirty, so the campus was mainly deserted as I drove towards the cafe. Only a few students were around, most walking from the lit up buildings to the car parks scattered around.

My phone directed me to take a small road that cut through this corner of the campus, weaving between one of the library buildings and the car park closest to it. More people were milling around the library entrance, some people standing around outside and others rushing in or out. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two women cutting through the car park and heading towards the library. I don't know what drew me to look in their direction, but as soon as I did I saw that it was her.

She was here.

Part 2 coming soon!