Disclaimer: All characters and settings are owned by Stephanie Meyers. Except for the obviously original characters.

Start Again

2031

Day 34

Bella has watched all of the 23 CDs 47 times and has gotten nowhere. Her cries that night seem to strain the already tentative companionship between her and Paul even more. They still workout together, but he's mostly in his wolf form with an hour of being human. But now he's taken to having dinner in the workout room. He still can't stand being in his designated room more than to sleep and change clothes.

Bella sits cross legged on her bed, looking at the lamp beside her. There was something... off about it. She couldn't pinpoint what it was, and she didn't want to hurt her already damaged brain even more by unraveling this mystery.

Bella made a growing list of concerning… symptoms she's experiencing. I need to stretch before working out. I'm having migraines. Maybe there's something wrong with my vision? What is going on? She questions desperately. She rubs her head, attempting to stop her buzzing thoughts. She feels like she has had no moment of peace since that day.

She sighs and goes to the living room to turn on the monitor again. Bella reaches for Day 3 of the CDs and places it in the disk. There was a comfort in watching these. The love that the Doctor (what she nicknamed him) has for his daughter is apparent and sensed. It also helps quiet her mind; she watches and just watches the loving father and the chipper and enigmatic daughter. Her eyes tear, and she rubs her now burning chest as she thinks of the untimely death of her father. He died of stage 4 colon cancer 5 years prior. Her one major regret with all that she's been through: not spending more quality alone time with her dad, not with Nessie or Edward, just herself.

Bella goes to lay down on the sectional with the navy blue throw blanket on top of her. She didn't need it, but it added more comfort to her.

The video opens up to the Doctor and his daughter Dana sitting in front of the camera. The latter on a rolling chair behind her father, spinning herself around, and the former on a metal chair that can be seen in a police station.

"Now that I've explained to you the layout of the space and all of the emergency procedures and instructions, I want to move on to an important topic: my daughter's powers." the Doctor opens up, and Dana pauses in her spinning to wave and smile at the camera before resuming, "I don't quite know how to explain her powers in a way that properly encapsulates the immensity of it. In a couple of words, she has these instincts about... certain situations, and with those instincts comes the instinct to... learn what she needs to resolve that situation or make it happen. As it seems, she saw the demise of you two when running to Vancouver, Canada. She passed through Forks and felt... Dee, do you want to explain because I feel like I don't understand myself?" The Doctor beckons.

Dana stops and moves her chair next to her dad. "Of course, Daddy!" She looks at the camera and smiles a completely disarming and gorgeous smile.

"I was going up to Vancouver because it was my 17th year anniversary of being a vampire. I'm forever 27, and I thought instead of going to some exotic island, I'll go up to visit my mother's grave and to check on a couple of old friends from there before meeting up with my father—" Dana babbles. Her father clears his throat, interrupting it, and looks intently at her. Dana looks back at him and huffs indignantly, "Okay, Daddy, fine. Let's be boring." Dana concedes, straightening up her chair; she sits back cross-legged on it.

"I stopped in the forest near the beginning of Forks to feed one last time before crossing the border to Canada because I was going straight to my mother's grave. After feeding, I made my way across the meadow that we're sitting under right now when I felt my stomach just drop. Nothing in sight; maybe a whiff of days old werewolf stink, but nothing I could point to the source of all of the dread I was feeling. I haven't felt that drop-in—actually no, I never felt that kind of, like, deep sense of dread, ya know? Honestly, it scared me because it felt so… powerful. Powerful in a way that transcends the powers that we know, in all of its ways." Her father looked to her concerned. Holding her hands, he murmured, "I didn't know you were scared." Dana squeezes, lets go of his hands, and replies, "It wasn't important at the time."

"I was in a time crunch, and I couldn't properly access these feelings at that point, so I just left for my mother's grave and then met up with my father." Dana explains that her normally chipper attitude dims as she recalls the story.

"I came back a week later, determined to get to the bottom of this, ha!" Dana laughs, slapping her hand on the counter of the monitor. "Get it, cuz we're under the mea—anyway, the more I dug deep, the more I felt pain. So. Much. Pain. And grief—such staggering, intense, and brutal grief. The thing is, it wasn't the normal kind of grief I used to feel. The grief that I am used to feeling when I run through battlefields, cemeteries, or hospitals is old and sunken, as if they became a part of the Earth itself. This felt unborn; it felt like the moment before disaster strikes. I realized that it's because the grief is unfelt yet; it was going to happen, just not now. Also, the grief that I felt wasn't one-kind. There were two different kinds of grief the meadow was giving off. One felt slightly familiar, as if from my own kind. The other felt like a foreign, evading grief like if I was trying to hit a bullseye but only hit the outer rim. I stayed centered in the meadow meditating for 2 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes, and 15 seconds before I realized I was feeling the grief of a wolf. From the moment I knew that the wolf was on the other side of the grief coin I discovered, I knew what I had to do." Dana pauses in her explanation; she holds an index finger as a gesture to wait, and she turns the chair, and her figure blurs for half a second before she returns, now with 17 books in her hands. She moves back and shows off the titles—all educational books about different subjects from mechanics to molecular biology.

"I got these books immediately because it would help me build this." Dana gestures to the space around her. She puts the books down next to her and moves her chair up to the monitor again. Her father, having heard the rest of this story, goes to make himself lunch.

"I'm gonna to leave them here for you guys to read because, duh, I have it memorized. Anyways, that's a physical representation of my father's explanation of one part of my powers. The other part of my power is that I can… advance or understand totally a topic or subject. For instance, the advancements I've made in molecular biology and mechanical engineering to ensure that this hideout will open up for you two and you two only is something that the general scientists and engineers won't discover for another 350 years. I've made it to recognize your vampire footsteps and your wolf's padding. As soon as you guys hit the meadow, the soil and roots were cleared from the area through a mechanism I've placed under it. You guys stopped at just the right place when the silo opened and shooted you in here. I built this bunker with the enormous help of my dad. Can you believe that I forgot to put bathrooms in this place? I completely forgot that shapeshifters are still humans who need to use them. Honestly, I forgot because it's been so long since I've used it, it never crossed my mind at all!" Dana exclaims, laughing again at her very vampiric mistake. She quiets, smiling and looks off to her right. She suddenly stills. She looks towards her dad to make sure he's out of earshot and then back at the camera."

"I have a confession to make," Dana says, the urgency in her voice undeniable. "Every day that we worked on this shelter or bunker or whatever lifted the weight of being here off chest. But for the past 6 days, the weight came back tenfold. I've been meditating everywhere in this bunker, and my powers haven't alluded me towards the issue, a plan, or even a feeling. There's one place I haven't mediated in, and I'm thinking it's the place to help. Looking back, I can't believe where my life has taken me, but if this helps you guys in any capacity and alleviates any of the pain I had just a glimpse of, then it would've been worth it." Dana whispered emotionally, her eyes teary. The Doctor, having finished his lunch, comes towards the camera. She brightens up again.

"Anyways, that's all we have for today, folks! Watch the next tape; you'll not want to miss it!" Dana animatedly finishes and turns off the camera.

Bella stays there a few minutes, the silence deafening once the CD ends. This tape, to her, was very off from the other 22 videos. It wasn't educational, informative, or suggestive in what they should read or which possible dates or events to take note of. It was... raw and emotionally charged in a way that left Bella breathless when she first watched it. Now every time she watches it, it feels more and more foreboding. There's something we're missing. Something we're not seeing, Bella thought. She was mentally trying to piece the clues together. She looked at the row of safety deposit boxes that Dana last meditated on or next to really. She couldn't find the keys for them. Paul and her couldn't destroy them. Paul.

Bella sighed and rubbed her forehead. She couldn't believe she was admitting this, but she mis– no, appreciated whatever tentative truce or agreement they made when they first got here. She didn't realize she fed off of his stoic attitude; maybe she wanted to be around someone who looks like they had their shit together, albeit with strings, after what had happened. More strings holding him together than her; she genuinely feels like she's going to go insane one day.

There was also the rage that he tries so hard to conceal, maybe too hard. She liked the rage for some reason. She felt that she skipped through all the stages of grief straight to depression. She couldn't stop looping her memories of her daughter and Edward. She wanted to feel such anger—such pure and raw anger—to break the never-ending amount of dummies that Paul seems to be able to. Maybe she'll extend an olive branch once she finishes reading the molecular biology books that Dana had shown in the video for the 7th time.

※

Paul heard her before he smelled her. He was about to knock out when her light laps came closer. It was hours after she finished watching one of the stupid fucking video diaries. He didn't understand why she tried to figure it out. Maybe he wasn't exactly sure what's going to happen next, or if anything will, but he refused to let that be the way he passes time. Even though they avoided each other for the past 2 weeks, he noticed how... strange her behavior was. He could hear her rubbing her head and chest to the point where he's supposed she hadn't chipped away at both. He shook his head and breathed in 3 times and then 5. Her scent is still weird. This is gonna be something.

"Come in," he called, before she could raise her hand to knock. Bella opened the door and shut it, lying against it. She turns on the light and crosses her arms, a sign that she was uncomfortable. Whether it's from him or what she's about to say, he didn't care. He just wanted to get this over with and sleep. He didn't want to deal with her journey-to-joker behavior.

"Are you gonna talk or are you gonna watch me sleep?" Paul joked as Bella stared at him impassively, almost inquisitively. Paul stared at her; she wasn't reacting to his jive. They didn't have their daily fight session today, and he didn't know that he felt a little empty for it until he stared at her. Her silence sounds the warning alarms in him, and he sits up on the bed, offering her the edge of it. He might not care about her journey to being Stephen King's IT, but hell if she's gonna do this shit in front of him. He'll temper her off and get her out of here before then. Hopefully.

"I didn't mean to interrupt your sleep time; I just had a few things I needed to say." Bella apologizes; she moves to sit on the bed; she turns to face him and sits cross-legged. Paul watches her, feeling guilty for his thoughts about her just now. Her face, bare with vulnerability, tugged on him. Paul nodded and made a come-on gesture with his hands. Lay it on me, Paul thought, ready for her (probably insane) speech.

Misinterpreting his gesture, she goes to hug him. Paul freezes. What in the actual fuck is going on? Am I alive? Did she already go insane? Paul thinks, bewildered by her actions. Bella snuggles deep in his chest and inhales deeply. Paul, even more spooked, grabs her shoulders to pull her back. Bella sits back into her cross legged position, this time much closer to him, looking even raw and vulnerable.

"I'm sorry, I-fuck, I didn't realize you didn't mean that because that's not want or need that, but I didn't realize how much I did until I came in here," Bella faltered. Paul stared at her again, this time with concern in place of annoyance.

"Talk to me, Leech-Lover." Paul joked again, this time hoping for some semblance of the person—no human she was. Even though he hated her guts when they were teens, that didn't mean he didn't enjoy their jabs at each other at the time. Bella's mouth tips up as the same thoughts enter her mind. Suddenly, Bella felt like she was centuries old, rather than decades. Those memories of her as a teenager felt like lifetimes ago, not just 20 years.

"Paul, I want to start over with you. We're here together for the foreseeable future. I think if I spend any more time alone, I'm going to go insane," Bella worries. Paul looks at her and gives her a look that says she's already there. Bella, seeing his face contort, punches his chest and laughs, "Shut the fuck up, Paul. You're as crazy as I can get." Bella refuted.

"Yea fucking right. I used to be like that. Ya know, back when I was 17. Then I became 18 and 19 and 20..." Paul goes on, receiving another punch that he dodges and grabs her hand, laughing. Staring at her smiling face, he felt a stirring of relief at her joy, even if it's only for right now. Letting go of her hand, he leans back and places both of his behind his back. He realized he didn't answer her question as she looked at him expectantly.

"Sure, Swan, let's start over. Tomorrow. I'm so fucking tired." Bella leaps off the bed, smiling. She could accept that. "Thanks Paul, that really means a lot." She admits, turning off the light as she leaves. She could hear him mumble his reply and smiles again.

She grabs the 2nd edition of the mechanical engineering textbook that lays on the dresser next to her bed. Dana's scribbles are all of the pages: correcting, expanding, and even crossing our whole sections of text. Getting settled, she opens to the page she left off and begins to read. She felt lighter somehow. She went into Paul's room, wanting to rage and bitch (and make-up, of course), but she couldn't. She didn't expect for him to make her laugh twice and smile four times. He's handsome when he's not scowling, Bella decided. Seeing him smile at her brought a warmth to her body that she thought she would never feel again.

For the second time today, she felt her mind clear, and more importantly, she felt the burn in her chest lighten. Unable to fathom this, she gets up and changes into a blue nightgown before she forgets (Edward always joked that they could always tell what time it is based on her attire). She moves back under her covers with the book in her lap. She hears Paul's deep breathing and feels another rush of warmth in her chest. Okay, this is getting ridiculous. What the hell is going on with me right now? Shaking herself out of her conflicting thoughts, her attention returns to the page. Flipping the page, she paused as the realization flooded her.

He called me Swan.