Two Years Later

I bolted upright in my bed. My arms and legs tangled in the sheets as I frantically tried to get out of them. The second my right leg was free I sprung from the bed and sprinted for the door. I stumbled when the sheet pulled on my left ankle but miraculously crossed the hall just in time to crouch over the toilet and empty my stomach.

I gasped the second my body stopped heaving. Spittle dripped down my chin, and I spat the rancid taste from my mouth. I was glad I couldn't see the mess in the bowl in the dark. I only had a second before the smell hit me and I was vomiting again.

The light flipped on.

A warm and large hand fell on my back and rubbed lazy circles. "It'll be over in a minute, Bells," Charlie rumbled sleepily.

I managed a weak thumbs-up between heaves.

There was a pause. I spat out bile and tried to catch my breath. Charlie hit the lever to flush the toilet, and we waited a few moments to see if I was done. I had a few dry heaves, and a couple mouthfuls of spit to get the taste out of my mouth, but no more vomit.

The hand left my back and the tap turned on.

I flushed the toilet again.

Charlie gave me a wet rag.

I wiped my face clean.

Charlie traded the rag for my toothbrush.

It was a routine that required no words anymore. We'd done the dance so many times over the last few years we could have probably done it in our sleep.

I silently brushed my teeth as he rung out the rag under the water. "Afraid you might experience more of that after you get approved."

I grunted. I was more than aware of what I had to look forward to, and it was times like this I had to remind myself I was doing this damn trial for Charlie. I leaned over and spat the toothpaste into the toilet. "Lucky me."

He held out his hand to me, and I took it to let him help me to my feet. His hand held onto my shoulder. "No lightheadedness?"

"I'm alright."

Charlie nodded and let go of me to run his hand through his hair. It'd gotten shaggier in the last two years as he let it grow out with his mustache. It was a proper beard, now. "It's a little past four in the morning. Do you want to go back to bed or stay up?"

I sighed. I most definitely would not be getting any more sleep that night. I never could after a puke-fest. "I'll manage either way."

He nodded. He knew what I meant by it, and he knew better than to try and to stay up with me. "I'm going to try and get a few more winks but call me if you need me, okay?"

"Copy that."

He stifled a yawn and shuffled out the bathroom back to his room. I tossed the soiled rag into the hamper, turned off the bathroom light, and headed downstairs. I turned right for the kitchen and stopped when I entered the living room. I still wasn't use to the house; especially, at night after throwing my guts up. I sighed and turned left.

The kitchen was fully furnished in a gaudy man-cave-woodsman-cabin-you-would-get-murdered-in kind of way. In fact, the entire house had that aesthetic. Mounted deer and moose antlers were in every single room (a giant deer hung across from Charlie's bed) along with randomly collected wildlife paintings, antique hunting rifles, and the occasional fishing pole. The house itself didn't look anything like a log cabin. If anything, it looked like the house of an upper middle-class family of four.

Charlie loved it.

I found it an acceptable place for the next six months.

Exhausted, I dragged my feet over to the cabinet the electric tea kettle was stored in. My body moved automatically as I poured just enough water in the kettle, turned it on, shoved some bread into the toaster, and grabbed a mug and bag of herbal teal from the same cabinet as the kettle.

Once I had a mug of hot tea and a slice of toast on a plate, I sat down at the kitchen table. I nibbled on the bread and sipped at the tea to try and settle my stomach before I tried to sleep again for the rest of the night. It would be in vain, but I needed it for the morning.

Tomorrow was the day we discovered if we traveled all the way to Alaska for nothing.


I woke up to someone shaking my shoulder. I grunted and reluctantly opened my eyes. Charlie stood over me and smiled in a way that looked the same amounts of amused and concerned. "A fan of sleeping at tables now, are ya?"

I hadn't even realized I was curled over the kitchen table until then. My head rested on my arms folded underneath me, and I was suddenly aware of how tight my back felt when I shifted. I winced. "I was too tired to go back upstairs, I guess."

He chuckled and took my plate of half-eaten bread to the sink along with my mug. "Go on up and take a shower. I'll have something ready for you down here before we go."

I yawned and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "Thanks, Dad."

I trudged back up the stairs to the bathroom straight into the shower. I cranked the heat until the room was full of steam, half-heartedly scrubbed myself clean, and hopped out to dry off, brush my hair and teeth, and take my meds.

I paused, like every morning, to see if there was anything different about my reflection. When I was a kid, the thing I remembered most was the sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized I didn't look like me anymore. I looked…alien, in a way. It made me bawl my eyes out the first time it happened, and I had looked in the mirror every day hoping to see the old me was back until I forgot about it.

I didn't look alien—not yet, anyway.

I had lost weight in the last few months, but I didn't look sickly, yet. I still had my hair (cut to ear-length now to avoid getting vomit in it), I still had most of my color, my eyes weren't dull, and I still weighed just enough to pass for being healthy.

I wondered how long I had to look at that reflection after today.

I shook my head and quickly left the bathroom to get dressed for the day. Luckily, it was still summer in Alaska, and I didn't need any heavy clothes to be comfortable. A pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt would be all I needed.

Charlie had just set two plates of eggs on the table when I got downstairs. "Feel better?"

"Loads." I grabbed a bottle of kombucha from the fridge before I sat down across from him. Charlie had insisted on me drinking a full bottle a few days a week for the health benefits—I mostly did it because I didn't mind the taste. "How long do we have before we need to go?"

He sat back in his chair as he swallowed a large swig from his coffee. "Probably about thirty minutes. I want to try leaving earlier this time. I did not expect that much traffic last time. I know Anchorage is bigger than Forks, but it's not exactly New York City."

"It's the New York City of Alaska."

"Then we should tour the big city today after your appointment."

"I thought you had a hot call date with Sue?" I grinned at the immediate blush that covered his cheeks.

After the Cullens left, things predictably went to utter shit. Not only was I diagnosed with cancer (again), but I also had two homicidal vampires after my ass. First, Laurent paid me a visit when I had just come home with Jake in tow. We had started a project of fixing old dirt bikes and had planned to watch a movie that night.

Laurent had been waiting for us in my backyard. He was, apparently, there as "a favor" to Victoria since Edward had killed James. She wanted Edward to know her pain by killing me, and Laurent was meant to see if I was unguarded. It was right about then that my best friend exploded into a bear-sized wolf and tore him to pieces like it was nothing.

I was introduced to the tribe's secret rather quickly and placed under their protection. They guarded me for months after the incident. Two wolves were constantly in my vicinity as the Pack attempted to hunt and kill Victoria. They sadly didn't catch her before she killed Harry Clearwater.

Charlie, Harry, Billy, and Quil Sr. had been out on a fishing trip when Victoria attacked them. She had hoped to get my dad, but the wolves had been close enough to interrupt. Harry died of a heart attack from the shock.

Charlie and I were around the tribe a lot after that, and my dad was finally included in on everything that had happened since the Cullens moved to town. I had known Leah and Seth before their dad died, but his death had caused them both to shift for the first time. It wasn't hard for us to grow close, and Charlie and I had a lot of dinners at the Clearwater house. It all sort of fell into place from there, and they had officially admitted their feelings and gotten together only a few months ago.

I loved to tease him about it now. He had bullied me relentlessly when I had started dating Edward (and about Jacob a few times before he realized we were just friends), and I was more than happy to give it all right back.

Charlie shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he coughed. "I…yeah. Sue and I were planning on talking tonight." He scratched his neck. "That will be later, though."

"Oh, yeah. Of course…"

"Shut-up."

I snorted and shot the last few swallows of the tea left in the bottle. "You know you deserve it after all that shit you gave me for Edward."

"At least I'm not dating an undead guy."

"I didn't know you were into guys, Dad."

"…Shut-up and eat your eggs."


I adjusted in the old and stiff chair for the fifth time in the last three minutes. The cushions were fine, but it honestly was a piss poor design with how the armrests were positioned and the chairback was curved. It was impossible to get comfortable which made it impossible to focus on my book. I grumbled and tried to angle my body differently.

"If you move again, I'm hitting you over your head with that book." I rolled my eyes and reached over to wave my hand in front of Charlie's screen. He yelped and shoved my hand away, but his character had already crashed into a giant tree root. "Bells!"

"That's what you get for threatening my book."

He grumbled and jabbed the Try Again button. "I didn't threaten your book."

"You said you would hit my head with it."

"That would be a threat against you."

"Potato potahto."

Charlie chuckled and glanced at my book from the corner of his eye. He frowned. "Haven't you read that one already?"

I rolled my shoulder in a half-shrug. "Technically, but that was a couple years ago."

"Really? I thought I saw you with it recently."

"I read it when I was recovering from surgery."

It was miniscule, but I still saw him wince. He put his eyes back on his phone. "Oh…right."

When I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer the second time, it was decided the best option was an oophorectomy—removal of my ovaries and fallopian tubes. It had been avoided when I was kid to not hinder development, but at eighteen I didn't care as much. I had to be on hormone replacement therapy the rest of my life, but that didn't matter much to me. I was in surgery only a week after the Cullens had left.

The surgery had worked, too. After I was fully recovered, they hadn't found any trace of cancer. I was free to live life to the fullest, again, and I did. I lived inside and outside of my comfort zone whenever I saw fit. Whether that was getting a job at the new local bookstore or going for a two-week long hiking and camping trip with Jacob, Seth, and Leah in all of the national parks in Washington.

Of course, that round of "living life to the fullest" didn't last long when I went in for my first PAP test. One test led to half a dozen more to determine my ovarian cancer had been traded for uterine cancer that had metastasized in my cervix and, this time, it was not operable.

If I was honest, I didn't care about it at this point. I'd been flirting with death ever since I'd been born, and I had come to the conclusion that maybe I was just supposed to die before I got old. I'd already had three vampires try to kill me, a van almost crushed me, I dated a guy who had to fight himself not to kill me, had three rounds of cancer, was nearly killed again on my eighteenth birthday, and my one chance to actually be immune to death left me to die in the woods of hypothermia. All before the ripe age of twenty-one.

It had to be a record.

I wouldn't tell Charlie or Renee that, though. They had jumped on the chance to send me up when Phil met a guy on his team, Tom, whose brother was running an experimental drug trial for gynecological cancer in Alaska. Tom had got us in contact with Dr. Ford, given us his house to stay in, and so now we were here.

Part of me did hope the drug worked (who wouldn't want more time?), but the other part of me expected it not to. I was ready to go with whatever the universe had in store for me, truthfully.

"Bella Swan."

My head jerked up to the nurse standing in the side door that led to their offices. She wore bright pink scrubs with lions on them. She must have worked with the cancer kids a lot; I'd had several nurses that dressed similarly in Phoenix. She smiled when we locked eyes and motioned for us to follow her. We made small talk with the nurse, Kristen, as she took my weight, temperature, and blood pressure before we went back to the exam room.

It was only a few minute wait before the door opened and Dr. Ford arrived. I hated to say that he looked like every other thirty-year-old doctor you had seen, but he did. He was tall, lean, and had short brown hair. He was kind, though, and he smiled as he sat in the chair in front of us. "Hello, Bella, how are you feeling today?"

I shrugged. "Alright, I suppose. I had some vomiting last night, but it wasn't anything too big."

"Well, I'll take 'alright' if that's the case. If the nausea continues to get worse, I can prescribe you something for it." He took the file from Kristen and began to flip through it as he addressed Charlie. "You're a police officer, right?"

Charlie nodded. "Yeah, I'm the Chief back home. A friend of mine is filling in for now for as a favor," he explained. Charlie didn't like the idea of not carrying his own weight on the team back in Forks, but the others made it clear he had more important things to worry about.

Dr. Ford nodded. "That's what I thought. I heard from a friend they're looking for a part-time position at the station where you're at. I wanted to pass the word along in case you would be interested."

Charlie's brows arched in surprise, but then he seemed to consider it for a moment. "Oh, well…thanks. I'll think about it."

"Of course. Obviously, you're not here for job hunting, though, so let's go ahead with the news." His eyes shifted towards me. "The board went over your records and agreed with me. You're approved for the trial."

I felt Charlie's hand wrap around mine tightly. When I looked at him, he had the largest smile I'd seen for a while. "This is great, Bells!" His hand squeezed mine. "I guess you're gonna have to get used to Tom's marvelous décor, huh?"

I wondered if my laugh sounded as flat to him as it did me. "I guess I don't really have a choice now."

Dr. Ford chuckled. "Tom's always been a fan of displaying his hunting trophies," he agreed. He looked back at the file. "We'll go over what you can possibly expect from it. There are the common symptoms such as nausea, headaches, hair loss, fatigue, and loss of appetite; however, we have come across some newer ones such as short-term memory loss. What cases have presented have been temporary and mild—usually the day of or after treatment—but it is still a side effect you should be aware of before you consent to the trial completely. Other newer symptoms are milder such as increased nosebleeds, bruising, and slight dizziness. Do you still feel comfortable proceeding with the trial knowing all of that?"

I had to admit that the mention of short-term memory loss freaked me out a little. The physical symptoms I could handle—I'd experienced them before, and I knew what to expect. A symptom that fucked with my brain unnerved me. I wasn't too keen on questioning my mental state on top of feeling like shit. Still, how could I say no when Charlie looked at me like he did?

I shook my head. "Not at all."

The doctor grinned. "Great! Well, then we should get you booked for your first appointment. It will be six rounds all together with about three weeks between each cycle. If your platelet count is too low, of course, we will give as many weeks as you need for it to come back up. Kristen can help you book on your way out, and we'll have a check in after you complete the first three." With that, he stood up from the chair to see his next patient. "I'm glad we can get this going for you. I'm really excited to see your results."

Charlie stood to shake his hand. "We appreciate you letting us try to get into the trial at all."

He waved his hand. "Ah, anything to help out a friend of Tom's." He clapped Charlie on the shoulder, shook my hand, and headed for the door. "I'll see you in about three months but take care until then."

The nurse, Kristen, immediately jumped in as the door closed behind him. "If you want to follow me out front, I'll help you get scheduled with the ladies out there. Are you excited to start?" She held open the door of us as she smiled at me.

I scratched the back of my neck. "Anxious, really."

"That's understandable. The kiddos I work with are usually pretty nervous, too. Of course, they get more scared of white lab coats than they do of side effects—too young to understand all of that."

"I guess so."

She took us out front where she did most of the talking for us to arrange the appointment—a week from today. Charlie only pitched in to confirm the date they selected would work for us. Then, we were handed a slip of paper and headed out of the office.

"Want to stay and explore Anchorage some more or head back to town?"

"Doesn't really matter to me." I was more preoccupied with the idea of how soon I would start to feel like shit again; until, I remembered the small store I saw when we first pulled into town yesterday morning. "There was actually a bookstore I saw in town I wanted to look at—if that's okay with you."

He waved his hand. "Sue texted, and she wants to talk early anyway. I'll drop you off there and then go check out that job Dr. Ford mentioned."

"Sounds good."

An old man came through the large double doors of the building just as we were about to step out, and we had to stop short to avoid running into him. He didn't look much older than seventy (maybe a little younger), but what caught my eye was the half-zipped backpack over his shoulder that was stuffed with arts and crafts materials.

"Oh." He grabbed the door before it could fully close behind him. "Sorry about that, folks. Let me get that for ya." He pulled it open wide enough for us to pass though.

"Thanks."

He smiled brightly. "No problem. Make a good day for yourselves." He let go of the door as soon as we were through and walked off.

Charlie hummed. "Happy guy."

"He probably has a grandkid here," I said. "His bag was full of arts and crafts."

"Possibly." He fished Tom's car keys from his pocket and clicked the button to unlock the car. It was a 2008 Mazda with a giant dent in the hood (Tom hadn't told us what from), but it saved us from having to rent a car or ship one of ours up here. The engine roared to life as he turned the key. "Back to Denali we go."


We stopped for a quick lunch at the local café in Denali called Stella's before we went our separate ways. Charlie promised to check in after he dropped me off outside the shop.

The bookstore itself was incredible. It was clearly the only source for reading material in the town, and one of the only few places to get Wi-Fi for free in town. There was a small cluster of tables at the end of the store by the windows where one student was set-up with their laptop and textbooks. The rest was completely covered in bookshelves loaded with an eclectic mix of popular bestsellers and niche unknown authors. The decorations all appeared to be either handmade or taken from a yard sale and thrift store. An incense had to be burning somewhere from the pungent smell of sandalwood that drifted through the space.

I immediately fell in love with it.

The man at the desk was reading a beat-up old book, but he put it down and smiled as soon as the bell above the door rang. "Hey, there. Welcome to The Little Bookshop. My name's Jerry. I'm guessing you're the one staying at Tom's cabin?"

I chuckled at his mischievous smile such a silly pun. "Yeah—me and my dad. I'm Bella."

"Nice to meet you. Are you a fellow book lover?"

"I am."

"Then you have come to the right place." He waved his arm around the store. "We've got books for any kind of bibliophile. From old classics and encyclopedias to modern gay romance novels. If we don't have what you want in stock we can always order it for you, too. Might be a little pricier for ya but definitely worth it if you don't wanna drive to Anchorage."

I grinned. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you." I glanced around the impressively large collection of books. "Do you own the place?"

He shook his head. "Oh, no. I'm just an employee—hired for my dashing good looks and love for books." He waved the book he was reading as evidence. I caught a glance of old and cheesy romance art on the cover. "If I were to own a bookstore, though, I would happily take this one off of Tanya's hands."

"It's a pretty nice one. I can't say I blame you."

"Just don't try to outbid me if she decides to pawn it off."

I held up my hands in surrender. "Oh, it's all yours."

"Perfect." He picked his book back up. "Look around all you want, though, and don't hesitate to ask me for anything you need."

I nodded and began browsing the shelves. It didn't take long for me to realize that Jerry hadn't exaggerated about the stock. The shelves were cleanly organized by genre and author, but they had a wide range for such a small shop. Granted, they didn't have fifty books per genre like a large branch would, but they still had a good selection.

By the time I had reached the shelves further back in the store, I had two books tucked under my arm. I was reading the back of another when the bell above the door rang.

"Hey, Tanya."

"Hi, Jerry, how has the store been today?"

"The usual. We got those orders in, though."

"Perfect. I just stopped by to grab something from my office. I'll be out of your hair quick."

Heeled boots disappeared through a side door just as my phone vibrated twice in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a text from Charlie. He was outside whenever I was ready. I decided I probably had enough books for the one trip and could explore more later. I told him I'd be out soon, tucked the third book under my arm, and went to the desk.

Jerry grinned as he took the books from me. "Ah, you're falling victim to the lotus flowers."

I laughed. "I don't know if books equal food from mythology."

He chuckled and scanned the back of the books. "You'd be surprised. You're gonna realize you never want to leave this place."

"Well, that happened as soon as I walked in. It's amazing in here."

"Thank you," the woman from before spoke, "my sisters and I decorated it."

I turned; my stomach dropped.

Fuck.