Undercover Ops - franzia - Twilight Series (2024)

Chapter 1: Normal

Chapter Text

Phil thrust the book at Bella with a grin.

“I know you’re a big reader, Bella, so we wanted to get you something to read on the plane!” he said, looking over at Renee, who smiled encouragingly.

Gingerly Bella took the book from his hands as Phil once more started making eyes at her mother. She turned it over in her hands - a young adult paperback romance novel - and sighed internally. At least it had some heft to it - the flight was three hours, and her stay in Forks was two years. She would need the reading material, however close to the bottom of the barrel it scraped.

“Thanks, Phil,” she said, pasting on what she liked to think of as her “normal human gratitude” smile. She tried to calm the shaking in her hands as she grabbed at the overstuffed backpack, intending on shoving the novel away from prying eyes. She overbalanced and stumbled, catching herself at the last minute by planting her hand on the waiting car.

The commotion interrupted Renee and Phil’s fresh bout of erotically charged eye contact. Sometimes being a klutz has its advantages, Bella thought. Keeps the newlyweds on their toes.

At least they hadn’t started kissing. Bella loved Renee and liked Phil well enough, but she was more than happy to get away from their more youthful displays of passion.

Finally, all the bags were packed into the trunk of the beat-up sedan. Renee fluttered over to her for a final goodbye.

“Do you have everything you need sweetheart? Do you have money for snacks at the airport?” she said, hands hovering around Bella’s body like they didn’t know where to go.

“Yeah mom, I still have some cash left over from work.”

After weeks of practicing with lines taken from How To Ace Your Job Interview For Dummies, Bella had snagged a part-time job at the local chain bookstore. It helped that she spent every minute that wasn’t spent in school or managing Renee camped out in the psychology section. Bella wondered idly what would happen if she did ask her mother for a fiver.

Renee interrupted her train of thought by finally landing her hands on Bella’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry I can’t go with you to the airport! You know I want to, but the reiki healing classes - “

“Are non-refundable and can’t be rescheduled.” Bella finished. “It’s ok, Mom. I’ll be fine with Phil.”

Renee’s eyes tightened before her expression once again assumed its customary wide smile.

“We’ll try to get you down for Christmas so you can get a little tan going. No, don’t interrupt me - I know we could get some color on you if you just spent a little more time outside.”

After a few more minutes of Renee’s atypical fussing, Bella and Phil were in the car and on their way to the airport.

It had all started when Renee had gotten it into her mind that she should become a therapist. Bella was ten and was sitting in front of a rapidly cooling dinner of off-brand mac and cheese and clearance chicken nuggets when Renee burst through the door. Everything had been off-brand or on clearance before Bella had taken over the finances.

Renee had announced that she was going to be a therapist, or a psychiatrist, no, that required medical school - maybe a licensed counselor, and it would be a big, big improvement over her current temp job, where all her coworkers were squares anyway.

When she slapped her book down on the table, it nearly overturned Bella’s apple juice. It looked large, and when Bella gingerly lifted the cover the print seemed small. This was a point in its favor since the books with large print tended to be interminably boring.

When Renee inevitably forgot about becoming a therapist, the book remained. Bella was familiar with Renee’s detritus. Unlike the forgotten macrame projects and half-emptied boxes of essential oils, the abandoned book called to Bella. It seemed sadder, more lost than the others. More interesting.

She pushed through it during a long weekend when Renee left her alone at home to go to a festival. By the time she had finished, a new obsession was born. Bella read every book she could get her hand on, spent whatever lawnmower or babysitting money was left over after rent and bills on books. She reconfigured the router so she could get access to forums where people talked about the inner workings of psychologically interesting people, like world leaders and serial killers.

Whereas before Bella was an outcast because she didn’t talk, now she was rejected by her peers because she talked too much. Anyone that would stand still in front of her was regaled with facts about personality disorders, obscure serial killers, the average age of onset of schizophrenia, none of which went over well coming from the mouth of a frail-looking preteen girl.

Bella had never been good at making friends. She was too clumsy, too shy, too awkward - it felt like she had a sign on her head that said: “Major Weirdo, Do Not Interact.” Something was different about her. Other girls knew how to talk to each other. They didn’t want to talk about a murder-suicide that had happened only two towns over, but they did want to talk about boy bands and ponies. They got invited to birthday parties and sleepovers and the school girl scout troop.

Initially, Bella framed it as her own research project. Watch what the other girls were doing, and try to copy it. She thought of it as going undercover and kept a dedicated logbook.

Trisha only talks for three sentences at a time. Jessica M looks right at people when they talk to her and laughs at what people say, even when it isn’t funny. Jessica C doesn’t argue with anyone. No one likes Jessica P. W. because she talks about going on vacation too much.

Renee’s circ*mstances meant that they changed apartments on a semi-regular basis, which sometimes meant Bella switched schools. It was tiring, but Bella tried to see it as a new opportunity. No one knew she was weird clumsy awkward Bella at first. Operation: Normal Human lasted a little longer every time.

By sophom*ore year, she even had people that liked her. She had honed undercover work to an art form. Mimic body language, don’t talk about psychology, don’t talk about criminology, look at the spot between their eyes, don’t walk around too much in front of people to avoid tripping, get special dispensation from the librarian to help shelve books instead of going to gym.

There wasn’t time to take things further and try her luck with friendships between looking after Renee and making enough money on the side to keep her car.

That suited Bella ok. It was a little lonely, but better to be shy nice good for a lab partner Bella than weird unhinged Bella. The important thing was that she got along well with her coworkers, kept a roof over her head, and got perfect grades. She would need them to get into UPenn’s criminology course.

Charlie was awkward.

Right, forgot that’s where I get it from Bella thought, staring at the moss-covered forests as they rushed past her window.

He had tried to initiate a conversation when Bella got into the old police cruiser.

“How’s your mother?” He asked, keeping his eyes dead on the road.

“Good” Bella responded, similarly glued to the side window.

“How’s her, uh- ”

“Phil? He’s nice. Plays baseball. Seems like an ok guy. Not a serial killer.”

I would absolutely know if he was, thought Bella.

After a few more minutes of total silence, Bella interjected again.

“Hey, do you want to listen to the radio?”

Charlie sent her a look of intense gratitude. After trying to wrangle the prehistoric car radio into something that approached functionality and failing, Bella managed to coax Charlie into putting on the police scanner.

The rest of the four-hour drive passed in almost complete silence, broken only by the fuzzy voices of local cops.

Settling in was easy enough. After a quick trip to the grocery store, Grandma Swan’s foolproof beef stroganoff was steaming away on the table. Charlie looked surprised, but didn’t protest before digging in.

Bella got the run of the tiny town over dinner. Her decision to move to Forks had been rushed, and she was still missing a few key details. The school was small, but people there were nice and would be very welcoming. If she had mechanical problems she was to call Charlie’s friend Billy, who Bella vaguely remembered. His son, Jacob, was some sort of car genius. The nearest bookstore was in Port Angeles and no, it did not make sense to try to get a job there. Newton’s Outfitters was supposedly hiring.

It all sounded unexciting.

Forks was a three-stoplight town. Bella was going to have a boring old time. She would get perfect grades, try to cram in a few extracurriculars, and be friendly with her peers.

Maybe, she thought, drifting off to sleep, maybe I’ll even get myself a nice, normal boyfriend.

Edward Cullen was the cutest boy she had ever seen.

Edward Cullen looked like he wanted to rip out her throat with his shiny white teeth.

Bella surreptitiously peeked at the other students from under the curtain of her hair. They looked completely unaware that the very attractive boy next to her had eyes like a shark and was currently destroying his desk while looking at her like she had murdered his whole family.

This was not how Bella had envisioned the day going.

Up until this point, it had gone shockingly well. Everyone was nice to her. The girls vied to show her around and the boys lined up to talk to her. She tried to calm her shaking hands and stay upright while she answered the same questions over and over. Phoenix. Charlie Swan’s daughter. Sunscreen. Bella, not Isabella please and thank you.

At lunch, Jessica Stanley had shepherded Bella over to a table filled with other juniors. It was loud and noisy and everyone’s voice was blending in with the noise of the cafeteria, but they were paying attention to her.

This was for the best, because in a small school like this word would get out if she started eating lunch in her truck.

When five aliens walked into the cafeteria, Jessica leaned towards Bella in a conspiratory way - no one had ever done that before - and started to explain.

The huge one was dating the beautiful blonde, the tall school shooter blonde was dating the tiny one (Jessica waggled her eyebrows at this, leaving Bella bewildered) and the one with red hair was dating no one. “Not even me,” Jessica sighed. They lived with the hot doctor and (apparently) his wife, but she had never been seen in public.

“Mrs. Cullen is basically Bigfoot” Mike Newton chimed in. Lauren Mallory piped up over the din and said “My mom is a nurse - going off the pictures Dr. Cullen has on his desk, she’s way too good looking to be a sasquatch. Unless there are MILF sasquatches with huge-”

The red-haired one looked over at the table and abruptly looked back.

Lauren cleared her throat. Jessica looked at Bella, still leaning towards her.

Bella leaned in a little closer. Jessica leaned back. Too close? Bella leaned back too.

Play it cool Bella, play it cool. Quick, ask a question.

“Are, um, are you in Biology next period?” Bella asked Jessica.

“I’m not, but this big galoot is” Jessica responded, nudging Mike.

Big galoot? Playful insult - is she flirting with him?

This could be bad. Mike had been copying her body language and laughing at her weak attempts at humor all day. Jessica was being so nice to her, and she really didn’t want to go back to being Lunch In The Car Bella.

Bella was still mulling over the problem of teenage girls and their feelings when she stepped into Biology class. The teacher forced her to introduce herself. While she had her usual out-of-body panic reaction in front of large crowds, one part of her mind absently noted that Edward Cullen was the only person sitting alone.

Odd.

He was a grade-A hottie, which usually meant popularity.

A few minutes after sitting down, Bella had her answer as to why Edward Cullen sat alone.

Something was deeply wrong with this boy. Bella could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Her heart was hammering, and her hands shook worse than usual.

Maybe it was the way his eyes shone like Joseph James DeAngelo’s, or the way his teeth clenched like Joseph Martin: or perhaps it was something else entirely, some primal voice whispering in her ear, some vestigial instinct remembering what it was like to be a prey animal crouched, shivering, in a dark forest.

She chanced a look at him again when she heard a soft scraping sound. There was sawdust raining from the bottom of his desk - there was sawdust raining -

This boy was pulping a hardwood desk with his bare hands while starting a burning hole into her. That wasn’t normal.

She slowly turned her head to face the blackboard. Her eyes couldn’t focus on what the teacher was saying, and the ringing in her ears drowned out his voice.

This wasn’t some hunch, this was happening in broad daylight before her eyes. There was no getting past the facts.

This boy wants to kill me.

All in all, not what she had hoped for on her first day at Forks High.

Chapter 2: Grades

Chapter Text

About three things Bella was absolutely certain.

One: Edward Cullen was not a normal person. Maybe not even a person.

Two: Edward Cullen wanted her dead, and wanted to do it himself.

Three: Her Biology grade was in big trouble.

Once the bell had rung, Edward Cullen had all but sprinted out of the classroom.

“Bella?”

She startled, nearly jumping out of her seat.

Mike Newton was staring at her, clearly nonplussed.

“Bella, are you ok?”

“Oh yeah! Yeah, absolutely! I get, um, headaches! Headaches sometimes. Not like there’s anything wrong with me, I’m very healthy, peak physical condition -”

Bella couldn’t seem to stop talking, even though she was aware that with every word the space between Mike’s eyebrows was getting smaller.

“-but despite the fact that nothing stressful has happened to me today and I’ve met a lot of lovely, very normal people, and I mean normal in a good way -”

She was still talking. How was she still talking? Oh god.

“-so yeah, Mike, do you know what the next class is?”

He insisted on taking her to the school nurse to get a tylenol, something Bella went along with enthusiastically once she realized the next class was gym.

The rest of the day passed without incident, unless one counted Bella’s non-stop heart palpitations. The electricity in the fluorescent lights buzzed louder than usual, and she had to fight to keep her trademark Normal Bella Pleasant Face.

It’s ok , she thought to herself in Trig while working out a sine function, it’s fine, you’ve had worse. Remember when Jessica P.W. locked you in the bathroom overnight and Renée didn’t realize till Monday? That was worse. You can get through this.

She made it to Charlie’s house before she broke down.

-------

Edward Cullen didn’t come to school the next day, or the next, or the one after that.

By the fourth day, Bella’s organs started to unclench, one by one.

She threw herself into forming hypotheses once she became fairly sure that Edward Cullen wasn't coming back to murder her.

All the Cullen-Hale kids were possibly related. There was no other way of explaining the similarities in phenotype. The same chalky pallor could be attributed to some sort of shared intestinal parasite, but the fact that they all had the same gleaming yellow eyes couldn’t be explained away.

Except Edward, who had eyes that were so dark brown they looked black.

Normal people did not have yellow eyes. And if they did, the statistical likelihood of four people who were ostensibly (hopefully, given the instances of tongue-kissing Bella had witnessed) unrelated was infinitesimal.

Not to mention the fact that they were all eerily, perfectly beautiful.

Humans were attracted to symmetrical faces. Bella herself had a highly symmetrical face, which she suspected was one of the reasons why Tyler Crowley kept offering to carry her books between classes.

Even then, her right eyebrow was slightly more curved than the left; her upper lip was larger than the lower lip, and since Renée had never been able to afford braces her mouth was very slightly crooked due to a small overbite.

The Cullen-Hales were perfectly, incomprehensibly symmetrical. Mirror image symmetrical. Bella was lucky that staring at the odd group seemed socially acceptable, as that meant she was able to steal glances at them. She had Tiny Brunette in American history and Tall School Shooter Blond in her once-weekly senior civics class she had managed to talk herself into.

There was nothing physically wrong with them. Their faces were too perfect. Their bodies were perfect. Even Tiny Brunette, who looked like she was suffering from an advanced eating disorder, made it work. Their skin was permanently unblemished. And the way they moved -

Bella had studied the gaits of others for a month when she was 15. Girls stopped growing on average at that age, and she had hoped reaching her adult height meant that she would be able to walk in a straight line. She studied others intently, and even tried to puzzle through a biomechanics textbook.

That line of enquiry had come to an end, when, attempting direct mimicry on the streets of Phoenix, she ran into a fire hydrant and fell headfirst into the street.

Renée said it probably wasn't a concussion, but she didn’t let Bella go to sleep for 24 hours either.

The Cullen-Hales didn’t walk like people.

They glided. They floated. Tiny Brunette was prone to executing perfect pirouettes, something that Bella, who still had flashbacks to her short-lived ballet lessons, secretly resented her for.

A week into Edward’s miraculous disappearance, Hot Blonde Hale shot Bella a nasty look across the cafeteria. Or at least Bella thought it was a nasty look - eyebrows furrowed, lip curled, eye contact held a second too long.

There was something clearly wrong with the whole family.

That was ok. Bella could keep them at a distance. Bella could ignore the beautiful aliens and pretend that she didn’t see them throw out all their food, untouched, day after day. Bella would focus on getting her grades and convincing the Biology teacher to give her the advanced textbook.

Bella would forget that, two days after Edward Cullen’s disappearance, she had placed her hand under the Biology desk and felt the massive gouge that had been carved out of it.

Bella would get her perfect grades and she would get out.

Bella could pretend they were normal people, that she hadn't spotted anything out of the ordinary, that it was perfectly normal for desks to have massive gouges dug into them.

---

The thing about having hopes, Bella thought to herself sourly, is that you set yourself up for disappointment. Like your irrational hope that Edward Cullen had been institutionalized for being a violent psychopath.

Edward Cullen was back. Edward Cullen was specifically back in her Biology classroom, at her desk.

Bella had stepped into the classroom, taken one look at him, and stepped right back out. She was pretending to rifle through her backpack while furiously trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Think, you idiot, think! You can go sit next to him - he can’t murder you, the place is packed full of witnesses, it’s one minute till the bell rings and I can’t be late, Mr. Banner takes points off for lateness, can I feign a stomachache, no, it’s almost too late, then I would have to walk in front of the whole class and -

That settled it, then. Bella finally had her answer as to whether or not she would rather die than admit to a class full of people that she felt unwell.

She stepped into the classroom and squared her shoulders, face down and eyes trained on the floor.

I guess life or death situations really do bring increased mental clarity.

With all the enthusiasm of a condemned man walking to the gallows, she headed to her customary desk and sat down next to Edward Cullen.

Please please please please don’t pay attention to me please don’t pay attention to me please -

A soft, oddly musical voice interrupted her mental mantra.

“Hello, my name is Edward Cullen. You must be Bella Swan.”

Her vision went black.

----

Bella came to.

It couldn’t have been for very long this time. The last time she had blacked out from sheer stress was when Renée had forced her to come to a ballroom dancing class.

At least this time Bella had remained upright. That many concussions ( possible concussions, said a tiny voice that sounded suspiciously like Renée’s) couldn’t be good for a growing teenage girl.

Edward was still waiting expectantly for an answer, with a pleasant half smile on his face.

The lights buzzed. Mike Newton dragged his chair along the floor and it screeched. Someone - one of the girls - laughed, and it was too loud , she couldn’t lose it now, think, Bella, think-

“Bella?”

She squeezed the edge of the desk and looked at her hand, absently noticing that her knuckles had gone white. Lessen the pressure, Bella. Deep breaths.

“Hi,” she rasped, trying to keep the scream from getting out.

“Are you alright?” Edward asked politely, just the barest hint of concern in his tone.

“Yes. Thanks - thank you for asking.” Her voice came out wrong. Her hands had started to shake again.

Mr. Banner interrupted them to announce the day’s task - microscopy.

As he passed out the worksheets, Bella seized on the distraction and immediately started reading the lab instructions. When she finished, she read them again. And a third time.

She was midway through the fourth when Edward Cullen interrupted her.

“Ladies first?”

Bella groped for the microscope, took a cursory glance, and wrote down the answer.

“Don’t you want me to check before you write the answer down?” Cullen said, voice light.

That prick.

“No, thank you,” Bella ground out. “I’ve done this lab before.”

She could hear the sound of Cullen looking through the microscope and jotting down his answer.

She kept her eyes on the desk as he took the microscope and put in the next slide.

“Anaphase,” he said.

Before she could stop herself, Bella reached for the microscope and yanked it over. She was midway through adjusting the dials before she realized the action could be construed as aggressive.

Her hands shook even more as she confirmed Cullen was right.

“You don’t trust me?”

She chanced a look at the bottom of his face, and saw that he was smiling.

“No, I, um. I value my grade in Biology. I just want to double check.”

There was a pause Bella couldn’t interpret.

He reached into the slide box with long, pale fingers and pushed the remaining slide towards her. When she picked it up hands were shaking so badly she dropped it. When she went to pick it up, the tips of her fingers collided with his fingers.

His ice cold, rock hard fingers.

She whipped up her head to stare at him, forgetting to keep her eyes down.

Edward Cullen took the opportunity to flash a big, brilliant, easygoing smile at her.

Like this, he almost looked like one of the floppy haired skater boys that used to hang out in one of the malls back home. If the skater boys were carved by Phidias and had teeth so shiny she could almost see her face reflected in them.

“You’ll have to forgive me for my behavior in our last class together.” He continued to smile.

Bella kept staring blankly at him.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” he continued smoothly. “What brings you to Forks?”

It took a long time for Bella to compute that she was being asked a question.

“Charlie," she managed to choke out. She closed her mouth, swallowed, and tried to say more, but the words just wouldn't come out. She swallowed again.

“He’s the chief of police, isn’t he?” Edward asked, still all smiles.

His shoulders were down, and his posture was open and nonthreatening. Why did he want to know if Charlie was the chief of police? It was a small town, surely he already knew?

Bella nodded silently.

Once they were done identifying the slides and Banner had collected the worksheets, Edward turned back to face Bella.

“What do you think about the snow?” he inquired.

Is he trying to talk to me about the weather?

“Fine.” Bella answered. She hated snow.

“Aren’t you from Phoenix?” he pressed on.

How does he know - what kind of information does he have on me -

She looked at him again. He seemed so young. It would have been easy to relax and enjoy this beautiful boy talking to her. Her eyes slid to the corner of the desk that he had destroyed with one hand .

Uninteresting, Bella. Be uninteresting.

“Yes.”

Isn’t it very hot there?

“Yes.”

The conversation continued along that vein until the bell rang. Edward asked thoughtful, considerate questions while Bella did her best impression of an animate grey rock.

As she was packing up, Edward said something that made her blood freeze.

“You know, Bella Swan, you’re very difficult to read.”

She turned to face him, and noticed that his eyes had changed color since last time.

They were a bright, brilliant yellow. Just like his adopted siblings.

This time Bella was the one fleeing class.

Chapter 3: Makeover

Chapter Text

Dr. Cullen looked at her. He looked at the X-ray. He looked at her again.

“Miss Swan…”

Back to the X-ray.

Back to her face.

Bella, for her part, though she was doing an admirable job keeping her hyperventilation to a bare minimum, considering the boy-type thing that had crushed a steel car door like it was made of tissue paper was lurking in the corner of her hospital room.

Her general panic wasn’t helped by the fact that Hot Doctor Cullen (as he was referred to in the cafeteria) was clearly One Of Them and standing at the side of her bed, looking at her with the universal Concerned Doctor face.

Bella had gotten a lot of those looks over the years.

“Miss Swan?” Dr. Cullen clearly expected an answer.

Bella attempted to take a deep breath and failed.

She tried again.

No dice.

Her opinion of Dr. Cullen rose considerably when he looked up at Edward and motioned with his head towards the door. The two engaged in a silent staring contest for a few seconds before Edward nodded in acquiescence and left.

The double doors squealed as they slowly slid shut.

“Miss Swan? Isabella?”

“Bella” she corrected automatically before realizing that the doctor’s voice was closer than it had been before.

He was now crouching down at her bedside - eye level with her- with both hands clearly in view.

Hot Dr. Cullen, alien though he may be, had a disarmingly kind face.

She could feel her heart rate starting to slow.

“Bella it is then,” he said with a gentle smile. Her shoulders started to inch down from her ears.

“Bella, can you do a few things for me?”

She swallowed once and opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She closed it again and nodded.

“Excellent, thank you. Now Bella, could you please put your right thumb on your left ear and stick out your tongue?”

Bella complied silently.

A battery of tests followed. Dr. Cullen asked for the date, the place, the product of 8 times 2 minus 6. He seemed satisfied, jotting notes down on her clipboard.

Next, he asked her to follow his finger as he moved it towards and away from her face. It was the same chalky white as Edward’s, she noted. He held his gloved hand against her face and asked her to turn into it.

It was cold and unyielding. Like Edward’s.

Finally, Dr. Cullen put down the clipboard with a small sigh. He turned to look at her with his impossibly kind face.

“Bella, could you tell me a little bit about who you lived with back in Phoenix?” he asked.

“Renée. I mean, my mom,” Bella responded, confused by the turn the conversation had taken.

“Did you have any problems with your mother?”

“No, not at all. She’s great!” Bella hurried to assure him, accustomed to other adults not understanding Renée’s unique parenting style. Why was he asking about Renée? Had Charlie called her to say what had happened? Unlikely.

Dr. Cullen’s smile dimmed. He hesitated before saying “Bella, there are some concerning patterns on your X-ray.”

Hot Dr. Cullen paused for a moment as if gauging her reaction.

"Bella, I’ve spoken to a lot of people in my time as a doctor, and sometimes when they show up with -”

He broke off and looked down, searching for something to say. How oddly human of him.

His windchime voice sounded a little rougher when he next began to speak.

“With healed injuries like yours. Bella, it looks like you have had multiple… multiple incidents. I just want to tell you that violence affects many families. If you ever want to talk, I hope you know that my office is open. I promise you, anything you choose to tell me will be strictly confidential. I won't take any action without your permission.”

Did - did he think -

“Renée doesn’t beat me!” she blurted out, face burning.

They stared at each other.

Bella rushed to fill the silence. “She doesn’t hit me, I’m just clumsy. Very, very clumsy.”

Dr. Cullen’s face fell.

“I see.” He said, and there was no mistaking it - for a moment, Hot Dr. Cullen looked devastated.

It made him look older, somehow. His shoulders slumped very slightly, and his bright golden eyes seemed to stare through her for a few seconds.

Now was probably the time to make an escape.

“Can I go?” Bella asked in a small voice.

“Of course,” he said slowly, clearly reluctant to let her leave. “You’re free to go, Bella. You were very lucky to be standing where you were.” He smiled at her weakly. “You have my permission to skip the rest of the school day.”

Bella pasted on her most chipper face and chirped “Yes! Absolutely. Blindly lucky! Just luck involved!”

After downing a tylenol, Bella vaulted out of the bed and rushed towards the door, nearly running headfirst into Edward Cullen. Naturally, he had been standing on the other side. The creep. God, she hoped he hadn’t eavesdropped.

He stepped in front of her, tall frame blocking the rest of the hallway.

“Are you feeling well, Bella? You hit your head pretty hard.” He said in a soft voice.

Not hard enough to forget your bare hand folding a van in half, Bella thought mutinously.

Still, she had a clear opening.

“You’re right!” she said, “I really did hit my head very hard. Lucky it wasn’t another concussion!” She attempted a carefree laugh, trying to find a way past him and towards the exit.

He moved with her, keeping her boxed in. His perfectly symmetrical face looked almost - disappointed? What the heck does that mean?

Oh criminy. He had the perfect chance to get rid of her and had missed it, for whatever reason.

This wasn’t good. She had just been getting used to his bizarre friendliness. She had let her guard down like an idiot. The charm offensive was a classic tactic for narcissists and sociopaths.

If it wasn’t for the hole in the desk she might have fallen for it, too.

The silence was interrupted by Charlie’s muffled shouting. He must have arrived in the waiting room.

Edward finally let her move past him. She hurried towards Charlie’s voice, feeling Edward’s eyes on her back with every step.

Bella glared at her reflection in the mirror.

Her skin had always been pale, due to a combination of heredity and her preference for the indoors. Forks’ constant cloud cover and her constant stress made her look almost ghostly.

She was thin. She had always been thin. Renée complimented her for it regularly, delighted that Bella’s poor appetite meant that the food budget was that much smaller.

She got her hair and eyes from Charlie, both an unremarkable brown.

She kept her hair long out of habit and a sense of expectation.

Serial killers tended to profile their victims. It was possible that Edward’s bizarre behavior could be attributed to some kind of complex about weak-looking teenage girls with long hair. If she could somehow change her appearance, break the mold - maybe that would work to deter him.

The only things she could think to change were her hair and clothing. Her figure was a bust, and colored contacts were way out of her budget.

After a quick drive to the grocery store and a brief conversation with a surprised but accepting Charlie, Bella had all the supplies necessary.

A few of Charlie’s old flannels and t-shirts were heaped on the bed, waiting to be hung up.

One of the oldest of the bunch, a checked long sleeve shirt that was more rag than clothing, was laid out on the floor in front of the full-length mirror.

Bella shot a nervous look at the metal bowl, picked up the scissors, and began to cut.

Her transformation did not have the desired effect.

When Bella came into class the next day wearing a flannel shirt three sizes too big over a novelty fish tee, with a ragged haircut of glossy blue-black hair that ended above her ears, people noticed.

But not, it seemed, Edward Cullen.

It would have been ok if he had merely continued to be attentive in Biology.

Instead, he cornered her in the parking lot when it was pouring rain three days after her grand metamorphosis, and insisted that she get in his car, alone, with him, to go to Seattle the next weekend.

He was pushy and insistent and leaned into her personal space while he phrased questions as demands.

Her unlikely savior was, of all people, Lauren Mallory.

Out of nowhere, Bella’s classmate stepped in front of Edward, gave him a hard look, and turned towards Bella.

“Is this guy bothering you?” She asked and jabbed her thumb towards Edward’s beautiful, flummoxed face.

Lauren Mallory was a goddess. Lauren Mallory was Bella’s new best friend. Without waiting for an answer, Lauren slung her arm over Bella’s shoulder and started steering them both towards the school.

Bella looked over at Lauren’s face, trying to figure out how to phrase the question. Lauren kept her eyes ahead as she walked. When they stopped to take off their sodden raincoats in the foyer, Lauren turned to her and said, in a quiet voice, “You looked like you needed a little help. We - our - people like us need to look out for each other.”

People like us? Girls? Girls who think Edward Cullen is a creep?

Bella pushed her hand through her short hair and fiddled with the buttons of her oversized men’s flannel, eyes fixed on her beat-up converse.

“Thanks, Lauren.”

Lauren nodded once, tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder, and trooped off to homeroom. Bella turned and saw Edward Cullen standing still in the rain where they had left him, staring at her.

She hurried to catch up with Lauren.

Chapter 4: Competition

Chapter Text

Mike was right, the blue flames from the driftwood fire really were pretty.

Bella was sitting between Jessica and Angela, slowly eating a packet of red vines and enjoying the warmth of the bonfire. She had just gotten back from a trip to look at the fascinating tide pools on First Beach with some of the boys. She had crouched a safe distance away from one of the little to watch one of the starfish. She watched a documentary about them once. The electricity had gone out midway through since Renée had forgotten to pay the bill. That sense of interruption cemented a few facts about starfish in Bella’s mind, namely that they were opportunistic predators.

Angela was chatting to Lauren and Jessica was leaning closer and closer to Mike. Lee and a few of the others were clustered on the other end of the fire, passing around a flask of contraband.Bella closed her eyes. It was a little too loud and crowded, but it felt nice to be surrounded by people.Jessica and Mike eventually left to join a group heading to one of the stores on the reservation, while Angela joined a group of hikers.Bella munched on her red vines and luxuriated in the newfound quiet. La Push really was beautiful, even if it was a little wet.

She startled when one of the boys from the reservation sat down next to her and stuck out a hand in her direction.“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?” He was peering at her hopefully as if he was expecting something. “ I’m Jacob Black.”She swallowed her mouth full of red vine and shook his outstretched hand.

“Bella, actually.”

Jacob Black. The name rang a bell.

He was tall, and had long, black hair that hung loose to the middle of his back. Bella felt a pang of longing for her own hair - she would grow it out once she was safely away from Forks.Still, there was something familiar about this kid.

“Wait, are you Car Jacob?” Bella asked.

He smiled broadly. “One of my many names. Car Jacob, at your service.”Bella flushed, scrambling for a way to salvage the conversation.

They ended up chatting for a while about his sisters, who Bella had played with as a child. When Bella offered Jacob some of the red vines, he brightened even more.As they were talking, one of the groups came back from the store. Lauren Mallory made a beeline to Bella and parked herself down on the driftwood log.

“Hi Bella! And Jacob, too.” Lauren gave Jacob an assessing look before she turned to Bella with a too-wide smile. "Do you two know each other?”

“Sure do,” Jacob said with a boyish grin, “although I guess my new name is Car Jacob according to this one here.” He gave Bella a playful nudge. Lauren’s eyes sharpened.Jeez, he really likes the nickname, doesn't he? Bella thought, silently offering the red vines to Lauren, who deferred.

“Cool, cool,” Lauren said. “Hey,” she turned to Bella and shoulder checked her, “good thing Cullen didn’t come, right?”

“Cullen?” The name has caught the interest of one of the older boys standing nearby. “Like Carlisle Cullen’s family?”He said the word “family” with noticeable disgust; the same way someone would say “vivisection theater for rescue puppies.”

“Yeah,” responded Lauren. “The youngest guy is kind of weird.”The older boy looked at one of his friends and laughed derisively. Did they know something?

“What?” Lauren asked, a hint of defensiveness creeping into her voice.Finally, he looked back at Lauren. “The Cullens don’t come here.”

Now what could that possibly mean? Bella turned the statement over in her head as Lauren and Jacob started a conversation around her. Something about music.

The Cullens don’t come here - were they not allowed? Bella tried to imagine what could have gotten them banned from La Push. This was tribal land, had they somehow launched a campaign of… what, aggressive littering? Or was it because of what they were - or rather, weren’t.

Bella startled again as she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Lauren looking at her, her face slightly too close for comfort. The conversation must have ended while she was thinking.“Do you want to come down to the beach with me?” Lauren asked, voice at a slightly lower pitch than normal. Her thumb rubbed a circle once, twice on Bella’s shoulder.

Oh, Bella thought.

Oh no.

The people like us comment - oh, no no no.

Bella felt her face grow uncomfortably hot.

Bella was straight. At least, she was pretty sure she was. She'd always liked the thought of a boyfriend, preferably one who looked like Anthony Hopkins and who could deliver enigmatic clues that would help her, a fledgling but undeniably talented FBI agent, catch the serial killer. Still, there had been that time when she watched the Lord of the Rings and something about Galadriel was just really, really compelling.

Lauren had rescued her from Edward Cullen, so Bella had to at least let her down gently. Actually, better to let the topic never come up. She prayed that Jacob had retained his early childhood ability to be an interfering nuisance.

“Sure! Let’s go, you two!” Bella said, springing up from the log with unusual force before the equal and opposite force of her sheer clumsiness nearly sent her crashing back down.Two hands, one large and one small, planted themselves on her back, narrowly preventing Bella from earning yet another concussion.

Unbeknownst to Bella, Lauren and Jacob shared an unfriendly look behind her back. The meaning was almost clear.

May the best man win, Lauren thought.

Maybe if I get Embry to come he can distract her while I talk to Bella, Jacob thought.

Jacob had thankfully retained his ability to prevent two girls from spending uninterrupted time together. While this had been a nightmare whenever Bella and Rebecca Black tried to play a respectable game of Barbies (Rachel was usually outside raising hell with Leah Clearwater and Sam Uley), it came in handy now.The only problem was that he had definitely looked at Bella’s lips at least four times. Added to the fact that he kept finding reasons to touch her - a little nudge here, a friendly pat there - there was really only one conclusion to draw.

Jacob Black found her face very symmetrical.

There were two of them. A lifetime of nunlike celibacy due to a near-total lack of interest from her peers, and now Bella was confronted with an embarrassment of riches. She considered throwing herself into the sea before deciding against it. She would never be a forensic psychiatrist, and Charlie would go back to having red meat seven days a week which was not heart-healthy.

As they walked over the rocky beach, Jacob turned to Lauren and asked “so what’s the deal with Edward Cullen?”Lauren looked at Bella, who shrugged.

“He’s a weird guy,” Lauren said, “and he’s been weird to Bella specifically.”

“Wait, what?” Jacob asked. “Seriously?”

Bella looked down and gave a miserable little nod.

“Weird how?”

What was there to say? ‘I have no proof whatsoever beyond a hole in a desk, but I am convinced to the marrow of my bones that the boy is 1. not human and 2. completely committed to making sure I depart this mortal coil ASAP.’

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.

“He, um” she began in a near whisper before clearing her throat. “He stares at me. A lot. And sometimes he looks - he looks really angry.”Great, Bella. Very eloquent.

Lauren had her hand back on Bella’s back, and was rubbing it reassuringly. This time there was no individual thumb action involved, which was a relief. “He looms over Bella” she added, “and he keeps looking at her like he’s hungry and she’s a piece of meat.”

Jacob’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. He laughed a full two octaves higher than normal and rocked back on his heels, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “That sure sounds weird all right.” He studiously avoided looking at Bella.

There were nervous tells, and there were nervous tells. Jacob’s body language was screaming something - the question was what.Bella screwed up her courage and looked directly at Jacob. A small, nasty little part of her wondered if his crush would make him easier to interrogate.

“Why can’t the Cullens come here?”

Jacob blanched, and then looked around in both directions as if to see if anyone was eavesdropping.“Look,” he said, suddenly sounding much younger.

How old was he even? Younger than Bella - she remembered him clearly as a tiny baby - so no older than 16. 15, maybe? He couldn’t be 14 - too tall.

“You guys have to promise not to tell anyone - I’m serious, I’m not supposed to talk about this - and don’t laugh either, I swear I don’t believe it.” He said the last part looking directly at Lauren. She put a hand to her chest and swore scout’s honor.Jacob leaned in closer to both girls, ducking his head down. The wind had picked up, whipping desiccated fronds of seaweed around on the damp rocks.

“Ok, so,” Jacob muttered, “a few of the elders, my old man included, talk about the Cullens like… well, like they’re dangerous. I’m really, really not supposed to say anything to outsiders but there are stories about them.”

“What stories?” asked Lauren, eyes wide, hand now clamped on Bella’s shoulder.

Jacob looked up at the cloudy sky and shuffled in place a bit. “Promise you won’t tell?” he begged.The girls nodded.“I’m only saying this because one of them is being weird to Bella, but the story goes that they…” he trailed off, and steeled himself for the next thing he was about to say."They don’t do this, but the story goes that their kind… That their kind eats people.”

“Are you f*cking kidding me?” demanded Lauren, with volume.

“Keep it down!” Jake hissed, “and yes, that’s how the story goes.” Lauren snorted. “And you promised not to laugh.”

Lauren was doing something with her right eyebrow that Bella didn’t think she herself could manage. The resulting look of skepticism was very impressive.

“Look, I didn’t say that’s what I believe. Anyway, the Cullens are supposed to eat animals and are safe for humans to be around.”

Lauren didn’t look convinced. “You’re really trying to tell me that Hot Dr. Cullen, his mystery wife, and all five of his foster kids are f*cking cannibals?”

“Well, no,” Jacob said, looking as though he wanted nothing more than for the earth to open wide and swallow him whole where he stood. “Technically I’m saying that the Cullens are part of a species that drinks human blood. But they specifically don’t. They supposedly eat animals. Or they did, when they were here in the 30’s.”A look of pure dread passed over Jacob’s face. “Pretend I didn’t say that last bit.”

“Alright,” Lauren drawled, and Bella was suddenly reminded of her reputation as a mean girl. “So you’re saying that the Cullens are literal vampires that happen to not eat people.”

Jacob started playing with his long hair, clearly embarrassed. “It’s probably a metaphor or something. You know how these stories go. But Bella,” he turned to her, young face serious. “If this guy is being a creep to you, you can always come to Billy’s. The Cullens really don’t come here.”

An Edward-free zone, Bella mused. Could such a thing be possible?

She smiled at him and responded. “Sure, Jacob. That might be nice.” He looked down and played with his hair while mumbling something about it not being a big deal.Lauren Mallory shot him a venomous but grudgingly respectful look once Bella’s back was turned.Jacob put on his best who, me? face and made an elaborate shrugging gesture.

Despite herself, Lauren had to give the tall boy a reluctant, respectful nod. He had finesse.

Sure, thought Bella, staring at the computer as the window loaded. Cannibal aliens. Animal-eating cannibal aliens. The computer made pained noises. She slapped the side of the tower - percussive maintenance was known to work at times.

No luck.

Including the 20 minute load time it took to access pages and the 10 minutes she had spent clicking out of spam windows (cripes, Charlie needed to learn what an antivirus was), Bella had spent five hours of a perfectly good Sunday trying to do research.Her results were minimal.She grimly x’d out of another p*rn popup window while she considered her options.

One, go to the local library. An ok idea until one remembered just how small this town was, and how many Cullens there were.

Two, find the nearest woo woo esoteric bookstore and see if she could find any good information there. They were bound to have some books on local legends.

She had a little money from her job at Newton’s left over from the week’s gas, grocery, and anti-serial-killer hair dye costs.The nearest bookstore was in Port Angeles.Jessica Stanley, she suddenly remembered, had invited her there the next day to go dress shopping in Port Angeles for the Girl’s Choice dance. Angela would be going along as well.

Bingo.

One phone call later, she had her invite. Holy moly, the people in Forks really were nice. Bella couldn’t think of a single instance in Phoenix where she had been able to summon a friend to do friend things on such short notice.

Frankly, she wouldn’t have been able to find a person to do activities with at all. Bella simply was not someone who had friends. She had tried her best in Phoenix, but some essential, invisible barrier between her and her peers had always prevented any real connections from forming.Bella knew on some level that her popularity in Forks was due mostly to the novelty factor. It was not the kind of town that people moved to. Still, her fellow kids at Forks High had been willing to look past her long pauses, frequent falls, and occasional monologue about crime rates.

Maybe it was time to start revising her mental model of herself. Bella Swan, Person With Friends.

And a potentially man-eating monster out of local legend who might want to kill you.

And that too.

Her mind was racing. It was already nearly 5:00 - time to start dinner for Charlie. Hopefully, the repetitive actions of cooking Grandma Swan’s famous meatloaf would calm her down. Apparently, it was Charlie’s favorite - good ammunition in case Bella needed to butter him up.

The meatloaf-making process did not calm her down.

The shower hadn’t done much to soother her nerves either. She stared at the clock - already 11:00, way past her normal bedtime - and tried to slow her thoughts down.She closed her eyes, rolled over on her side facing the window, and attempted a breathing exercise she had picked up from a trauma recovery workbook found in the Borders discount bin.The breathing exercises worked their magic, and she was nearly asleep when some sudden instinct turned her blood into ice.

There was a tall, dark shape looming over her.

Bella tried to open her mouth to scream and found that she couldn’t. Her muscles had locked in place. Her body felt foreign and distant. She was powerless and disconnected, an astronaut floating alone in the black expanse of her own skull. Sleep paralysis? Bella had read plenty about it but never experienced the phenomenon herself. There were some of the defining features present - she couldn’t move her body, there was a shadowy demonic figure standing over her.

A simple malfunction in her REM cycle accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations. That was all.

It would go away soon.

The shadowy figure moved away from the side of her bed. Was it finally over?

A familiar low voice, barely audible, broke the silence.

“My Bella.”

Bella didn’t think it was possible to feel more frightened than she already was.She managed to surpass her own expectations.

Edward Cullen was here, in her room. Edward Cullen had silently entered her room, how, and was standing above her, watching her sleep.She was going to die. He had finally come to finish her off.She tried to sit up, tried to move, but her body didn't respond to her commands.

The distant, clinical part of her mind that enjoyed reading psychology textbooks reminded her that, in addition to fight or flight, humans in a state of hyperarousal also experienced the freeze response.In the face of overwhelming danger, mammals entered a state of heightened arousal as blood rushed away from the rational prefrontal cortex to the ancient, instinct-driven amygdala.The body was flooded with norepinephrine and epinephrine as it tried to escape the perceived threat.

In the face of this predator, her body had decided that an aggressive response or an attempt to escape would be futile. No, fighting or fleeing would not save her from Edward Cullen.Instead, she was locked in place - tonic immobility, the clinical voice helpfully supplied.

There’s nothing you can do but lie very still and hope he doesn’t kill you.

Another spoonful of cheerios splashed onto the counter. Her hand was shaking too badly to get a laden spoon from bowl to mouth. Apparently, cereal was not the best breakfast for the recently traumatized. Bella gave up on eating and focused on cleaning up the mess.Edward Cullen had stayed for five hours before sliding quietly out of her window. She had lain still for another hour, paralyzed with the fear that he would come back.

Bella seriously considered calling in sick for the day. She certainly looked the part - the girl who stared back in the mirror while she brushed her teeth looked haggard, with bruise-like shadows under her eyes and lank hair.She considered it as her feet propelled her into the cab of the truck, and kept considering the option as the force of routine brought her inexorably to the parking lot of Forks High School

The sight of Lauren’s long cornsilk hair gleaming in the sun brought her back down to earth.

She needed answers, and to get answers she needed to put on her best game face, power through the day, and go to Port Angeles with Jessica and Angela to find some information. Books hadn’t failed her yet.

And it was sunny.

Everyone knew the Cullens skipped school on sunny days.

Plan firmly in place, Bella staggered out of the truck.

Out of nowhere, she was hit with the fierce desire to live. She was going to leave this three-stoplight nowhere podunk town, get into UPenn, and become a tenured professor with a book deal.She was going to make enough money to support Renée once Phil aged out of baseball and visit the old libraries in Europe and drink alcohol legally and kiss a boy. Or maybe a girl. That last one was still up for debate.

She was going to survive Edward Cullen if it was the last thing she did.

Chapter 5: Girlfriend

Chapter Text

Edward Cullen had a really nice car. She traced over the sleek lines of the interior with her eyes, carefully trying to avoid looking at the monster in the passenger seat. He was sitting unnaturally still, eyes occasionally flickering between the dark asphalt of the road and her.

Bella blinked hard, trying to will the exhaustion away. Her eyes felt dry, almost raw; she hadn’t been sleeping well since Edward returned to school. Coupled with her terrifying all-nighter, she was barely clinging to her composure.

According to the literature, chronic sleep deprivation decreased cognitive functioning and created deficits in attention and working memory. When she was at school and then in the car with Jessica and Angela, her words came sluggishly and half-formed. The two hadn’t noticed, apparently used to Bella’s long pauses and non-sequiturs.

In the bookstore, Bella’s body felt like it was moving through molasses. The shop assistant eventually took pity on her, guiding her through rows of labeled candles and bags of herbs to the small mythology section sandwiched between Mysticism and Necromancy.

Afterwards felt like a blur. She must have taken a wrong turn - Bella was bad with directions on the best day - and ended up in a dark parking lot. With the men.

Later, she promised herself. We’ll deal with that one later.

When the shiny silver car containing Edward Cullen screeched between her and the men, Bella made an instantaneous judgment about which option was the lesser of two evils, and jumped into Edward’s car.

There was a low, guttural growl that thrummed through the car, distinct from the noise of the engine. It stopped when Edward begged her to say something - anything - to keep him from killing the men. She too was busy trying to calm her ragged breathing to respond.

After he had taken a look over and seen her curled tightly around her knapsack in the passenger seat, his face softened.

She tried to leave with Jessica and Angela, but her nonverbal pleading did not seem to go through. Angela, that traitor, even giggled as she headed off to the car sans Bella. She felt herself wishing savagely that Lauren Mallory had come. Lauren would have understood Bella’s unspoken wish to leave. Despite only being two inches taller than Bella, Lauren would not have hesitated to throw down with Edward.

The waitress seemed captivated by Edward. He had his charming face on - the same one he had used on Jessica and Angela to convince them to abandon Bella to his nefarious whims.

Whims that apparently included forcing her to eat an overflowing plate of pasta. She tried to eat to placate him, but the food wouldn’t go down. The clinical part of her mind noted that she was losing weight she couldn’t afford to lose. Starvation was another factor that affected cognition. She shoved another raviolo in her mouth and choked it down.

“I imagine, Bella,” he started in a dangerously soft voice, “that you have a lot of questions. I know where you were on Saturday, and who you talked to.”

That spelled the end of the ravioli. And possibly her life.

Bella’s fork trembled as she placed it down with careful precision, tines up at 4 o’clock on top of the congealed pasta. Edward looked pleased by the action. “Very proper of you,” he praised.

Bella felt nauseous. There was placating him, and there was arousing his interest.

The book of etiquette had been a gift from Renée. Her mother generally seemed puzzled by Bella’s preoccupations - the fact that she made the effort to get something Bella really liked was unusual indeed, and all the more touching for it. The “SALE $2” sticker had even been mostly scraped off, which was uncharacteristically thoughtful of her. Bella had consulted it constantly when she was younger in an effort to understand what she was expected to do.

The book was over 40 years old, and Bella had learned to take most of the prescribed rules with a grain of salt. Especially the ones about acceptable hat styles.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he pressed.

This was the second time Edward had stepped between her and a very unpleasant fate. He clearly wanted something from her, and engaging with his questions usually put him in a good mood. She was at his mercy now. The only thing Bella could do was go along with Edward’s bizarre desires, whatever they proved to be. She haltingly told him about Renée and the book of etiquette. He looked amused - personal stories were good, then.

The alarming part came next.

“Bella” he murmured, “I’ve found myself growing very attached to you.” His eyes - they were deep yellow tonight - found hers. He leaned in, the dim restaurant lighting catching the gold undertones in his red hair. He smelled good; sweet and indescribably appealing. Bella catalogued her desire to lean in close to the monster that looked like a beautiful boy, labelled it “data”, and shoved it deep into the recesses of her mental filing cabinet.

That, along with the thing with the men that had not happened , would be processed later.

He seemed to take her silence as an indication to keep talking. “I don’t want to stay away from you anymore, Bella. It would be the right thing for me to do. The responsible thing.”

Yes it absolutely would, Bella thought. Do the right thing, Edward.

“But, Bella,” and here he looked at her from under his eyelashes, pupils large, eyes liquid. “I’m tired of being good.”

Please let this not be what I think it is.

He leaned back, a playful half-smile fixed on his face. “Oh, and Bella? That shirt looks particularly lovely on you.”

This, Bella thought, must be how mice felt before they were eaten, in those long awful seconds where the cat played with them, both of them knowing full well how this was going to end.

Though Edward, for whatever reason, did not seem to realize that that was what was happening.

She was wearing one of her non-Charlie shirts, a blue one Renée had found at the Goodwill in Phoenix. Bella liked the shirt - it fit well, and felt flattering. She made a mental note to destroy the shirt and every other item of clothing she felt pretty in.

After that, he had motioned for the check, paid with a hundred dollar note, and hustled her out of the restaurant before the waitress could give him the change and presumably her number.

At least he tips well, she thought.

That was how Bella Swan ended up trapped in a very nice car with genuine leather interiors, trying desperately not to attract Edward Cullen’s attention and failing. The corner of the book in her knapsack was digging into her torso. The discomfort felt grounding, so she squeezed harder.

Edward must have noticed the movement. “I know what book you got.”

Curiosity got the better of Bella. “How?” she asked before she could stop herself. Impulse control, she remembered, was also affected by sleep deprivation.

Now Edward seemed a bit more hesitant, some of his earlier confidence gone. He shot her a quick look before turning back to face the road. “The same way I knew where you were. The way I knew how to get there in time to save you from those monsters.”

Pushing aside the irony of Edward thinking he was the one saving her from monsters, Bella wracked her brain for possible explanations. She was gathering the will to ask how the Cullens had set up such a large and comprehensive surveillance network when Edward, eyes on the road, said the least plausible thing Bella had ever heard.

“With very few exceptions - only one exception, actually,” he looked at her meaningfully, “I can hear every thought going through someone’s head.”

Freak out later, gather data now. “What am I thinking about?” Bella asked, envisioning a detailed pink elephant.

“You’re not surprised or scared?” Edward seemed genuinely intrigued and a little pleased at her response.

What do you think asshole, I’m trapped in a car with someone who genuinely thinks they can murder eight men solo, she thought.

Not the right answer. Every time she had reacted calmly to one of Edward’s bonkers announcements his mood improved. A happy Edward was an Edward that was less likely to hurt her. Bella felt the beginning of a strategy begin to form.

She looked right at him. “No. I’m not scared of you.”

He ducked his head at this, smile now exposing sharp white teeth. “You are a truly remarkable girl, Bella Swan.”

Success.

“So how does it work?” Bella asked, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Can you hear what someone is thinking only if they have a clear inner monologue? What about if they think in images? How far is your reach?”

Now Edward just looked confused. Perhaps the line of questioning had been too much.

Time to up the charm factor. Bella lowered her head and tried to make her voice sound like Jessica’s when she talked to Mike. “I just want to know more about you.”

The smile returned, softer now. His eyes reflected the passing sodium lamps, both glowing yellow in the dark. “I suppose that I have never truly quantified my gift before. I can hear what someone else is hearing and see what they are seeing. I found you when one of those vile, pathetic men happened to look at a street sign. As for how far away I can go, it depends on the person. I can hear my family from miles away.”

“Your mind is the only one that has ever been truly inaccessible to me.” With this, he turned to face Bella, eyes boring into hers. “You are a fascinating enigma, Bella Swan.” His voice turned plaintive. “Tell me what you’re thinking, please.”

“Pink elephants,” she blurted out. He chuckled, eyes thankfully back on the road. “Only you, Bella.” She swallowed convulsively and repositioned the bag. His mood seemed to sour instantly at the reminder of the book.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” He muttered, fingers tightening on the wheel.

“A-ask you what?” Bella asked, taken aback by his instantaneous change in demeanor. She made a mental note that Edward Cullen was unpredictable and prone to oscillating between extremes in mood.

“If I really am a monster.”

This would have to be managed carefully. The topic was clearly a sore spot. She began carefully, in a low voice. “I don’t think you’re a monster.” He kept looking ahead as the car swept past the black pines. “I believe that you’ll tell me about yourself when the time is right.”

It became clear as she said the words.

There would be more talks.

She had been fighting the knowledge all evening but was finally unable to deny it any longer. This was the beginning of something. The survival instinct that had so recently flared into being was screaming at her and she was now forced to acknowledge it. Any hope she had of Edward Cullen getting bored and leaving her be had been dashed once he started complimenting her shirt. No, this would be a long, difficult season in Hell with no clear ending in sight. She would have to be her own Orpheus.

He looked at her with an almost pained expression. Her heart stuttered and skipped a beat. Wrong tack? She would have to try something else - she couldn’t die here, she hadn’t even applied for any internships -

“You really are an angel,” he whispered.

It had been the right thing to say, she knew then, even as she felt the teeth of an imaginary bear trap close around her foot.

Once home she ignored the call from Jessica, too angry to talk. As Bella sat next to Charlie on the ancient couch, she started considering her options. She could set up a camera in the corner of the room, maybe. But if he noticed, her cover was blown. The book stayed unopened in her rucksack. There wasn’t much point in it anymore - she had gotten her answers.

Her showers were much quicker now thanks to her short hair. Charlie had taken pity on her and evened out the back and sides with his clippers. The man hated going to the barbers, and always cut his own hair. Another thing they had in common - Bella couldn’t stand the idea of someone standing behind her with a sharp object.

Her favorite clothes were in a spare trash bag, waiting in a corner to be donated. It had been painful to let go of the white eyelet lace top. Bella had clutched it to her chest while silently chanting stay alive, go to UPenn, stay alive, go to UPenn. The shirt finally made it into the bag.

The hair dye was starting to wash out. As she stood in front of her window, Bella absently noted that some of the droplets of water from her still-wet hair left stains on her raggedy sleep T-shirt. She opened the window, wincing in advance at the characteristic squeal it always gave off, only for it to open soundlessly.

She closed it, then opened it again.

No squeal.

She would have been delighted, she'd hated that piercing noise with a passion.

Now, though...

She eased the heavy window back, too-thin arms shaking from the effort. She needed to eat more, maybe take a self-defense class. Charlie had a rifle - he would teach her how to shoot if she asked. Getting a gun wouldn’t be difficult. Anything to be rid of that near-constant, overwhelming nausea. Even as she played with all these thoughts, for a moment wondering if she could get away with rubbing garlic on her neck before going to school, she knew the only cure for this would be the disappearance of her cannibal demon stalker.

The glass was cool against her forehead as she leaned against it. Vampire lore was unlikely to be helpful as a means of thwarting Edward. He could go out in the sunlight. Unfortunately, he could also come into her house without being explicitly invited.

The lock on the window had nearly rusted in place from disuse. If she locked her window tonight, it would be out of character. Edward might become suspicious.

There was nothing to do but wait and plan.

---

Edward Cullen was a 104 year old “vampire” that ate animals. He lived with his “family,” who were all unrelated vampires. He could not read Bella’s mind, but he could read everyone else’s. Edward Cullen wanted to drink her dry because of her unusually delicious blood. He was also romantically interested in her. The two things were potentially connected.

Bella went through these facts again and again as she lay curled in a fetal position under the covers. Edward Cullen had silently climbed through her window again around midnight. He stood in the corner of the room this time, still as a statue.

Could she beg Jacob to let her move in? She was a passable cook and an excellent housekeeper. It would probably make his day. No, bad idea.

Bella was trapped in this situation alone.

Without her knowledge or consent, Bella had been dropped into the middle of the world's most complete surveillance system. Everything she said and did in the sight of anyone else could make it back to Edward. Would make it back to Edward, given how thoroughly he was stalking her.

Jacob said Edward couldn’t go to La Push, but how close could he get? What, if anything, was keeping him out of the reservation? If Edward finally had enough, if he really wanted to get to her and continue this…

Would whatever boundaries had been set in place really stop him? Could they?

Her mind was the last safe place left.

She fought another round of tremors and turned to mull over her options.

Edward got upset when his vampirism was mentioned. He was happy when she expressed acceptance of his actions and when she appeared to reciprocate her romantic sentiments.

Edward liked her docile, unafraid, and in love.

It was time to phase out Operation Normal Teen. It had served her well - she had started it as a social reject and finished it as someone who had actual, honest-to-god friends. The next operation would be the second most important thing she ever did.

(Even the threat of getting murdered by a supernatural mind-reading demon paled in comparison to getting into UPenn with a full ride.)

This was a matter of life and death. If she made one wrong move Edward Cullen would eat her, and mangled corpses could not ace the ACTs.

Operation Girlfriend had begun.

Bella accepted that vital operations often required sacrifices. In pursuit of Normal Teen she had shoved vital parts of herself deep down and chose to wear a mask every day. It had paid off, though. She had friends. She just didn’t expect her rewards from Normal Teen to be the things she needed to sacrifice for Girlfriend.

Lauren Mallory stared at her in the far corner of the girls restroom, arms tightly crossed in front of her chest.

“I said, Bella, why did you come to school in Edward Cullen’s car and let him put his hands all over you ?”

This wasn’t good. Also, did an arm around the shoulders really count as all-over touching? The clarification would have to wait - Lauren was staring at her with round green eyes, waiting for a justification.

Bella hated lying. It felt wrong, and every time she tried to overcome her moral scruples and attempt one her face would turn bright red, rendering the whole exercise pointless.

Besides, Lauren Mallory had tried to prevent this from happening. Bella owed her the truth. The truth, however, might not be the most survivable option. Briefly, Bella imagined the outcome.

“Well, Lauren,” she would say, “Edward Cullen is a supernatural blood-sucking monster. Billy Black and his friends were absolutely right. Jacob owes them an apology, and you owe Jacob an apology.”

“Edward Cullen has decided that my uniquely delicious blood and completely silent mind are fascinating. He has also unilaterally decided that we are dating. Oh, by the way, I’m pretty sure that if I stop pretending to be in love with him, he’ll kill me and eat my corpse.”

Lauren Mallory would scoff at her, leave the bathroom, and promptly be dispatched by Edward Cullen who would doubtlessly be waiting outside. He would then enter the girl’s bathroom, abduct Bella, and leave her desiccated corpse in the woods.

That would not work. Lying it was.

“It turns out he’s actually a really cool guy. He - he helped me in Port Angeles yesterday, so he’s my boyfriend now.” Bella’s voice sounded exceptionally wooden, even to herself.

“Wait, he was in Port Angeles yesterday?” Lauren had gone from angry to horrified - this was not working. ”Was he following you?”

“No, absolutely not!” Bella’s voice was too high - she tried to lower the pitch as she continued. “We accidentally ran into each other. Just by chance.”

Lauren leaned in even closer - her lip gloss smelled like artificial grapes. “He wasn’t even in class yesterday! I thought he was going hiking with the rest of the Stepford siblings.”

Bella shrugged, fighting the perverse urge to lean in closer. “I guess he wanted to do some shopping when he got back.”

“Bella, what about the” - Lauren gestured to Bella’s ragged pixie cut, and then her clothes. Bella was searching for a reply when two girls walked in, buying her some time to think.

They stared at each other in silence, waiting for the girls to leave. Bella noted the sound of the toilets flushing, the gush of the faucet. Even under the flickering fluorescent lights, Lauren’s hair was pretty. It was unbelievably straight and gleamed even in the weak light.

A few more girls entered the restroom. “You don’t even like him! He’s a scary creep,” Lauren hissed, trying to keep the newcomers from hearing them. It was no use. The most important person would be able to hear everything she said through the concrete walls and the eyes of everyone that walked past. As one of the girls exited a stall, she craned her neck back for a look at Lauren and Bella.

Come on Bella, he’s watching this whole thing. Put your back into it.

Bella noted with mild horror that her own eyes had started to burn. She tried to smile. “He’s really amazing once you get to know him.” With a skillset shared by bullied children the world over, Bella swiped at her eyes before the tears could fall. She forced a grin onto her face and hoped it didn’t look like she was having a psychotic break.

Lauren’s eyes widened as a new, horrifying thought entered her mind. “Is he forcing you to do this?”

Lauren, always surprisingly perceptive, had hid the nail on the head. Also, the grin wasn’t working. “No, Lauren, I really like him. I’m entering into this relationship of my own free will.”

Lauren’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny. “I thought -” she started, and broke off. “Nevermind. You’re just like the rest of them.” Her voice turned bitter. “I guess you couldn’t resist the hottest guy in school panting after you.”

This wasn’t good - Bella automatically went to run her fingers through her hair to ground herself. Her hands met air - that’s right, her hair was gone. So were all her nice clothes.

Lauren turned to walk away. Bella’s new friend was about to join her hair and clothes if she didn’t do something soon.

Bella found herself holding onto the other girl’s surprisingly soft hand, unwilling to let her leave. Lauren warily turned back around to face her.

“We’re still friends though, right?” Bella asked. Please, Lauren, don’t leave me alone with him. “Right?” Bella asked, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice.

Lauren, unlike Jessica or Angela, seemed to understand what Bella was trying to communicate nonverbally. The blonde girl chewed the inside of her mouth and looked down to their joined hands, thinking something over.

After a few seconds, her stance firmed. Lauren resumed her full height, towering two inches above Bella. “Sure, Bella. We can still be friends. And if something is wrong,” here she widened her eyes for emphasis, “you can tell me.”

No, I really can’t, Bella thought. But thank you all the same.

Lauren squeezed her hand and turned to leave.

Edward had indeed been standing near the bathroom entrance. As they walked to Biology, he pitched his voice low to avoid eavesdroppers. “Was the Mallory girl bothering you?”

“Oh, not at all,” Bella said, going for breezy. “Lauren is a good friend. She’s just looking out for me.”

It seemed to placate him. “You’re a very generous girl, you know,” he said under his breath, “hanging out with a person like that.”

A person like what? A lesbian? A girl who thinks you’re a creep?

“Bella, your face - are you alright?”

“Sure,” she said, voice still a little thick. “Allergies.” She sniffled once for emphasis.

“Ah, Bella” Edward murmured, voice fond. “What am I going to do with you?” He put his cold hand on the small of her back and steered her towards their shared table.

Chapter 6: Family Home

Chapter Text

Billy Black had known Bella Swan since she was a moonstruck look in her father’s eye. He’d comforted Charlie when her mother had taken her and ran. Every summer, he and Sarah and Charlie would watch out for her while she played with Rachel and Rebecca.

Bella had been sweet if a little quiet. A little strange, too, but what kid wasn’t in their own way. Sure, none of the other girls had ever been quite so committed to grilling him about every murder that had happened in the area for the last 20 years, but considering Charlie’s singular preoccupation with fishing, Billy wasn’t surprised that some of that obsessive spirit ran in the family.

Bella was for the most part well behaved. She usually clung to Sarah like a limpet or played quietly with Rebecca. A little sensitive, sure, but Charlie was too under his gruff exterior. He didn’t see her for a few years - apparently, she had stroppily demanded that Charlie meet her in California the last few times. Classic teenage girl behavior.

All in all, Billy hadn’t seen Bella Swan in the flesh since she was a gap-toothed 11-year-old chattering away about Washington State’s most prolific serial killers while picking the raisins out of a cookie. An old, familiar pang of grief hit him when he remembered that Sarah had been there that afternoon.

He could not have imagined a less pleasant reunion with Charlie’s daughter.

The demon was leaving the house as he and Jacob arrived. As it backed out of the driveway, Billy caught its eye. The thing looked at him with a hard, satisfied smirk.

Jacob had noticed the occupant of the car as well and frowned. He looked quickly over at Billy and away again. That was unusual. The boy was typically eager to denounce Billy’s warnings as nonsensical superstitions. A part of Billy hoped fervently that the Cullens would leave before Jacob was ever disabused of that notion.

They were both silent and Jacob parked and helped Billy into his chair and up the stairs. Charlie’s car was pulling into the driveway, but Billy rapped at the door impatiently, refusing to wait for his friend.

If the thing had hurt Bella-

No. He wouldn't allow himself to think about it.

The door opened, and Billy sagged momentarily in his chair, flooded with relief.

The girl that opened the door bore scant resemblance to the cheerful 11-year-old he remembered. Her hair had been shorn and dyed an artificial blue-black. Her clothes - Charlie’s old clothes, judging by the fish-themed shirt - hung off her body. Bella had always tended toward skinny, but now she looked unhealthily gaunt and totally, utterly exhausted.

The important thing was that she was alive.

Charlie’s kid was still alive.

She turned and graciously ushered them in. Charlie arrived seconds after, delighted to see Jacob. As Billy watched the game, he kept an eye on Bella. Still alive, still human, but clearly not well - it looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. As she bustled out of the kitchen holding a bowl of chips, Billy noted that a strong wind could probably snap the girl in two.

As they were getting ready to leave, Jacob piped up and invited both Swans to dinner. Billy kept his eyes on Bella the whole time. When Charlie accepted for both of them, a look of terror flickered across the kid’s face.

Her eyes met Billy’s, and he shot her a questioning look. She froze, and the artificial lights cast the shadows under her eyes even deeper. It almost made her look like one of them.

Whatever was going on with the demon, Bella Swan was in trouble.

Bella unscrewed the top of the bottle of cold medicine with grim determination.

She hadn’t slept properly in several days, and now Edward Cullen wanted to take her to an unspecified location, where he would possibly kill and eat her if his willpower didn’t hold out.

This announcement had been delivered right before his miniscule sister, who could see the future, had arrived to cart him off to a nearby forest. Where he would kill and eat large animals with his bare hands and a smile on his face.

Tomorrow was going to be difficult. She would need to put her all into this performance, and the likelihood of her character slipping was higher the more tired she was. She could no longer afford to stay awake.

She downed a spoonful of the medicine and grimaced at the taste. If Edward Cullen hadn’t killed her in her bed yet, he could probably manage another night.

And if he does, she thought, rinsing the bitter taste out her mouth, I won’t be there for it.

36 hours later Edward Cullen was sitting at her kitchen table, eyes glued to her hand as she listlessly ripped apart a flour tortilla.

Her nerves felt like they had been worn to threads. After he had dragged her to the middle of the woods to describe, in loving detail, just how much he wanted to kill her, he had driven her back to Charlie’s house and refused to leave.

The hour where he had put his stone head on her chest to listen to her heartbeat was the most stressful one in her life, even surpassing the… the incident during the middle school dance.

Even the thought of that made her wince. She had regular flashbacks to it whenever she was tired or stressed out - oh god, especially the incident with the punch.

She bit off another piece of tortilla and tried to think of less emotionally damaging things. Like Edward Cullen throwing a mature spruce 10 yards without breaking a sweat, for instance.

That was upsetting, but nowhere near being told she was Edward Cullen's perfect ice cream flavor. Now that was emotionally damaging.

At least she no longer had to feign sleep while he lurked in her room. On the drive back from the meadow, he finally confessed to watching her as she slept. The rat bastard looked like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar when he told her. Clearly, he expected no more than a mild admonishment.

Her feigned surprise would have fooled no one else, but Edward Cullen bought it hook, line, and sinker. Bella was starting to suspect that he relied more on his telepathy than he let on.

While Charlie’s cruiser was pulling into the driveway, he gave her the chilling promise he would be waiting in her bedroom and vanished. Bella supposed that, after the day’s superhuman theatrics in the woods, she should probably be used to his terrifying displays of speed and strength. Even so, it was unpleasant to experience.

Bella had taken her time with dinner, eating her lasagne as slowly as possible in order to delay the moment where she would have to trudge up the stairs to her room and, once more, pretend to be in love with Edward Cullen.

Her strategy had proven itself several times over, and the proof was in the unbroken skin over her subclavian artery. Bella’s extremely lukewarm declarations of love and fidelity had gotten her through the nightmarish day in one piece. Absent the possibility of a miracle, it would have to do for now.

Once she made it up to her room, she told Edward Cullen that she was really very tired and wanted to go to sleep immediately. He acted put out but acquiesced, and installed himself in a rocking chair in the corner.

Bella had assumed that, without chemical assistance, she would once again lie awake until the sun came up.

She was wrong. Within moments of laying her head on the pillow, the sheer stress and horror of the day caught up with her, and she was dead asleep.

When she woke up 8 hours later, it was to Edward’s face only inches away from hers. Bella stifled her gasp of terror.

Edward’s face was worried. “Do you feel rested, Bella?”

Come to think of it, no, she didn’t. “I feel wonderful! Probably because I had you watching over me!” A nervous laugh.

Edward smiled, clearly delighted by something. “You’re always so surprising, Bella.” His tone became playful. “Did you know that you talk in your sleep?”

Oh damn. Please don’t let the jig be up.

He responded to her questioning look. “You kept saying my name. Pleading with me to not do something.”

How in the holy heck am I going to spin this one.

“I - I was probably afraid of losing you. In the dream. Like in reality. I’m very afraid of, uh, losing you. Because I like you. A lot.” Bella stammered.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, I thought that might be it,” he mused. “My sweet Bella.” He nosed over to her neck, and inhaled deeply for a few moments before leaving her to have a few “human moments.” She had never flossed and brushed her teeth so thoroughly in her life. Bella Swan was generally conscientious about her oral hygiene, but this was a new level of fastidiousness. If there was a flossing Olympics, Bella reckoned this latest performance would earn her at least silver. 9/10 dentists would love Edward Cullen.

And now she was sitting across the table from a murderous demon, preparing herself to face another day of new and inventive forms of psychological torture. This morning’s breakfast was a plain tortilla. Not very calorie-dense, but the idea of adding peanut butter made her stomach churn. Too rich.

Bella tightened her grip on her meager, naked tortilla. She was nearly halfway done, she could get a few more bites down. Gain weight. Take jiu jitsu courses. Watch Buffy. Get a really big gun. Figure out how to escape this.

She was going to finish the damn tortilla.

“I’m glad you feel rested,” Edward had said, tone as blasé as if he was announcing that the weather in Forks would be cloudy, “because we’re going to go meet my family today. After breakfast, in fact.”

Bella choked on her tortilla. If this sonofa*gun didn’t stop announcing terrifying things in the middle of her meals, she would -

Well. She would do nothing. There was nothing she could do.

Ok, a house full of vampires. She could handle a house full of vampires. Had to handle a house full of vampires, actually, because she had no other choice.

She was rallying her forces when the realization stopped her cold.

All of a sudden, her entire body felt like it had been doused in liquid nitrogen. She didn’t realize that Edward was standing next to her until she felt an icy hand on her shoulder, gently shaking it.

“Bella?”

His voice sounded tinny and far away. She wanted to brush off his hand but couldn’t feel her arms. She tried to look down to locate them but the fleshy appendages grasping the tortilla seemed strange. Were those really attached to her body? Her vision was narrowing to a tunnel and she felt faint.

“Bella, please, what’s wrong? Bella!”

It took all of her strength to communicate the life-ending disaster that confronted her. She opened her mouth to forcibly shape what little air remained in her lungs into words.

“Hostess gift” she croaked, and the world went dark.

He was still shaking his head and laughing two hours later as he drove them to his family home. Well, at least he thought it was funny.

It had not been fun to explain to her demonic suitor that yes, she did have a full-blown panic attack and pass out (he had prevented her head from landing on the countertop or the floor, for which she was grudgingly grateful) because she did not have a gift to bring his family.

He had been completely bewildered once she recovered enough to explain it to him. He tried to talk her down, insisting that the presence of a friendly and accepting human would in itself be a gift.

For the first time in their acquaintance, Bella found herself growing sharp with Edward Cullen. This was non-negotiable. This was a matter of life and death. She simply would not breach the rules of the etiquette book so flagrantly, no matter if his family wasn’t human.

Bella thanked every god she could think of that Edward seemed to find the whole thing very charming and whimsical. He allowed her to agonize over a scrap of paper while brainstorming what to bring. Her normal standby, handmade food, was for obvious reasons not an option.

There was something darkly comedic about how she really was, in essence, bringing them food she had made almost entirely by herself, with small initial contributions from Charlie and Renée. She shoved the thought aside.

That was how she found herself once more in Edward Cullen’s beautiful car, clutching a ragged bouquet from the Thriftway as they sped to meet the rest of the vampires. Surely even death couldn’t stop someone from enjoying flowers. Even if the bouquet was the saddest, most wilted one she had ever seen for sale in a commercial venue.

Bella was aware that the bouquet mostly had totemic value. It was a sad, hideous little thing intended for monsters out of her nightmares. As she clutched the plastic-wrapped stems, the superstitious part of her she tried so hard to stamp down piped up. Maybe they won’t kill you if you bring a present.

Even if the bouquet looked like something a child had ripped out of the ground and then lost all over the pavement, allowing several people to walk over it before some joker picked them up and put them in a grocery store flower display for a laugh. And then stole all the other, better bouquets. And then the Thriftway employees never watered the remaining depressing bouquet so it wilted.

That was what this bouquet looked like.

The thought that Edward's family might eat her because of this bouquet dawned on Bella with no small amount of horror, yet she almost deserved it if they did.

Edward Cullen’s house was stupidly, aggravatingly nice.

Also, Hot Doctor Cullen’s mythical wife really did exist. Huh. She was standing next to Hot Doctor Cullen, who had his arm firmly around her waist. She had light brown hair curled in an old-fashioned style and wore a shirt dress that looked as though it had been stolen from a Sears catalog from 1958. The impression was very Stepford, with the exception of her large, cadmium yellow eyes.

Hot Dr. Cullen’s MILF wife existed, and she acted like she was Edward’s own mother despite looking no more than 25 years old, if that. She had the same eerily symmetrical features as the rest of them, completing the family resemblance.

When Bella offered Esme Cullen the world’s saddest bouquet, the vampire reacted as though Christmas and her birthday had both come early. It was oddly touching and somewhat misplaced, given the aesthetic misfortune of the bouquet, though the moment was ruined by Tiny Cullen and School Shooter Cullen appeared out of nowhere.

While the two vampires waited at the head of the stairs, Esme lavished entirely undeserved praise on the world’s saddest bouquet.

“Oh, Bella” she exclaimed, “they’re wonderful! Did you pick them yourself?”

Faced with the prospect of disappointing this almost unnaturally comforting and maternal woman, Bella seriously considered giving herself a papercut and embracing death, which might be preferable to making Esme sad.

“I picked it out at the Thriftway,” Bella said, resolving to go out and actually pick Esme a passable bouquet of flowers. She truly could not make an uglier bouquet than the one the vampire now held.

“That’s wonderful,” Esme said, voice terribly and entirely sincere.

Tiny Cullen, also known as Alice, proved herself to be the second creepiest member of the family when she pronounced that she and Bella would be best friends. Jasper had stayed a few paces back, smiling tightly at Bella. He looked nearly as uncomfortable as she felt.

When Edward shepherded Bella upstairs to his room, the last thing she saw was Esme furiously at work in the grand house’s large kitchen.

“Wait, what years were you actively killing? And where?” Bella couldn’t believe her ears - Edward had abandoned Carlisle and Esme to go do serial murder. The victims were largely rapists and murderers themselves. Not only that, but Edward had insight into the minds of criminals nearly a hundred years ago.

The sheer historical potential.

Edward looked bemused. “It doesn’t repulse you? My…. vigilantism?”

“That’s neither here nor there” Bella shot back. “You’re an incredibly rich source of primary material on the lives and inner workings of early 20th-century inner-city criminals in - wherever you were. How often do you need to eat?” She ignored Edward’s look of growing confusion in favor of her own mental tabulations.

“Every fortnight, perhaps. Why do you ask?”

“And remind me how long you were at it and where?” Bella was unable to hide her enthusiasm.

“43 months and 12 days.”

“43 months and 12 days - okay, that’s on average two people a month, with another two weeks added on… carry the three - ” Bella started mouthing figures to herself silently while counting something with her fingers.

Edward looked somewhat alarmed. “Bella?”

“...so that brings us up to 88 people approximately - jiminy cricket, Edward, you’re-” Bella was about to expound on how he was possibly the most prolific American serial killer ever recorded, but broke off when she saw Edward’s expression of sheer bewilderment.

All of a sudden, he broke out in uproarious laughter. He bent double, clutching his sides.

“What?” Bella asked, all too aware that she had broken one of her firmly held personal rules for interaction: do not discuss serial killers.

“You - your-” Edward broke off again in a fit of what could uncharitably be called giggles. If vampires could cry of laughter, tears would be streaming down his face.

Finally, he straightened up, and pulled Bella to his side, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head. “Your sense of priorities never fails to astonish me,” he murmured into her hair.

From where she stood trapped between his unyielding side and iron arm, Bella felt herself perk up. That was… probably the best response she had ever gotten to one of her crime-related tangents. Like this, he was almost bearable.

Of course, when he threw her across the room and imprisoned her in his lap while Alice came in to announce a game of vampire baseball, Bella’s opinion of him plummeted back to its usual position at rock bottom.

When he asked her to accompany them to baseball with a hopeful expression, Bella didn’t have to fake her pounding headache. Edward looked disappointed, but Bella couldn’t quite bring herself to care.

Edward picked her up and carried her downstairs, not listening to a word of her protests. When they reached the airy main room, Esme was waiting with a laden picnic basket. It looked like it had come out of a cartoon - it was made of wicker, with a red-and-white checked gingham cloth thrown over it. It was the Platonic ideal of a picnic basket, almost too generic to be real.

She darted forward to leave it a few feet away from Bella.

“It’s just that you look a little peaked, dear. I thought some food might help - I do hope it tastes good.” She said the last bit with a heartbreaking expression of worry on her face, as though Bella’s opinion of food Esme couldn’t even eat meant the world.

Out of the corner of her eye, Bella noticed that the world’s saddest bouquet, now in a very expensive-looking vase, had been given pride of place at the center of the massive dining table.

Something twinged in her chest - some long-dormant emotion. It was the same feeling she had when she discovered snow chains her father put on her truck. No one ever really cooked for Bella, unless you counted Charlie ordering Chinese food on Thursdays.

Esme was still staring at her with her huge yellow eyes.

Bella’s throat felt a little tight. This was really too much - the house, the drive, the revelations of Carlisle’s history and struggle, the fact that Edward was quite literally a serial killer.

She had listened in stunned silence as he told her of Carlisle’s background as a witch hunter, his attempts to kill himself before he could kill others, his time with the Italian coven, and training as a doctor, and then his effortless switch to the time he, Edward, killed nearly a hundred people for their blood.

Oh, and by the way, Carlisle was almost as old as Shakespeare. After absorbing all this information, Bella felt like her head was about to split in two.

And now this - this display of care from someone she didn’t even know, who didn’t even eat human food. Was this what it felt like to be mothered?

“Thank you. It looks delicious,” Bella managed.

Esme broke into a 1,000-watt smile, suddenly lovely beyond belief. “Please let me know if there’s anything that’s underseasoned, or that you’d like me to make. We want you to be happy here.”

Bella smiled tightly at the reminder of her situation.

“We hope you feel better!” Alice chirped, appearing from nowhere. “It’s a shame you can’t make baseball - it really is so fun!”

“I’ll call you to tell you how it went” Edward murmured into her ear as he led her to the car, laden picnic basket in hand. “The game will take all night - I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Bella was weak with relief at the thought of a truly Edward-free evening. Skipping out on vampire baseball was turning out to be a great decision.

Bella’s headache continued. If it was perhaps a little less intense than she claimed it was, well. Who was going to know?

She had spent the evening with Charlie inhaling some of the best food she had ever eaten from the picnic basket. Bella was a competent cook, but the sheer level of technique on display was like nothing she’d seen outside of television. She marveled at the structural perfection of the beef sandwiches and little tartelettes. Esme had even included fancy organic apples and a charcuterie spread.

Bella was suddenly ravenous. The promise of 13 Edward-free hours kicked her normally absent appetite into overdrive.

Even Charlie noticed.

“I see you're eating again, kiddo,” he said through a mouthful of prosciutto. “You must have had a nice time with the Cullens.”

Bella paused her inhalation of a masterful potato salad to answer. “The mom is really nice - Esme. She made all this.”

Charlie looked thoughtful. “You know, no one’s ever seen her outside of the house. I was starting to think she didn’t exist.”

Bella said nothing to that, too busy opening a bottle of homemade lemonade.

Edward called her the next day, with occasional interjections from the other Cullens.

Apparently, she had missed a wonderful game with three absolutely charming vampires who happened to be in town.

Well, two of them were charming.

Well, actually, one. Victoria (“who has absolutely beautiful hair, you’ve never seen anything like it,” Alice chirped through the phone) was perfectly lovely and definitely welcome back.

Bella hung up after reporting to a delighted Esme that the food had been amazing. The woman really was kind of endearing, once you got past the cannibalism of it all.

As Bella hung up and rolled over in bed, cup of tea brewed, plate of leftovers and well-thumbed copy of the DSM-IV ready, she knew one thing for certain.

Skipping out on vampire baseball had, in point of fact, been genius.

She flipped open the comfortingly heavy manual to a random page and began to read.

Chapter 7: Summer

Chapter Text

From her spot behind the school. sandwiched between a dumpster and a Sitka spruce, Lauren took a deep drag of her cigarette. At least she had a good view. The forest began only meters away from where she stood shivering. It was cold for May, but Lauren couldn’t bring herself to go back into the school gym.

Tyler was nice, but if she was honest with herself he did nothing for her. Pursuing him felt like a box to be ticked. He was handsome, she supposed. She loved the attention and validation that came with stringing him along more than she liked him.

Surely, if she could get this good-looking, popular boy to take her to prom, then she wasn’t a total writeoff. She even felt a little possessive of him. He was hers to - to do something with.

Not kiss, though. He had tried it in the bushes near the gazebo, so she begged off for a smoke break.

She took another pull of the cigarette, only to get a mouthful of acrid smoke - she had smoked it down to the filter. Ugh. She flicked the butt onto the ground and reached for her pack of marlboro reds, ignoring the sound of the door to the school opening.

“Cigarette butts are terrible for the environment, you know.”

Well look who it was. Bella Swan stood in front of her with a look of cartoonish disapproval.

“You caught me, officer” Lauren said with mock seriousness, and put her hands up. The effect was ruined by the fact that she was still holding a pack of cigarettes in one and a lighter in the other.

Bella broke first, dissolving into helpless giggles after a few seconds. The effect was contagious, and Lauren felt herself smiling along with the girl. It was so rare to see her happy.

Bella looked really pretty tonight - her delicate frame was wrapped snugly in gauzy blue material patterned with flowers. As she bent down to retrieve the cigarette butt, Lauren went to protest but was distracted by the sight of the other girl’s bare shoulders, particularly the sharp line of her collarbones.

Bella interrupted her reverie. “I’ll dispose of the evidence just this once, you miscreant,” she said in her best Chief Swan voice while brandishing the cigarette butt. As she moved to toss it in the dumpster, grimacing at the smell, Lauren noticed that Bella was barefoot.

“No shoes? I don’t know if the hippie look really suits that dress, Bella.”

Bella wrinkled her nose with distaste as she walked over to Lauren’s side. “Alice tried to shove me into strappy heels. Strappy, pointy heels. She succeeded, actually. I decided it would be easier to ditch them when I got here than face her wrath.”

Lauren shrugged, preoccupied with lighting another cigarette. “She’s pretty small, Bella, I bet you could take her.”

A shadow passed over Bella’s face. She leaned heavily against the wall of the school, wrapping her thin arms around her torso. When Bella first got to Forks, Lauren had been jealous of her tiny, perfect figure, and angry that the girl played at being oblivious while every boy in the school threw himself before her.

That was before she saw how long it took Bella to get through the smallest meal. Watching her eat felt like witnessing a prolonged internal battle. Last week, at their pre-finals Trig study session, Bella had glared intensely at a peanut butter filled cracker before shoving it into her mouth and deliberately, painstakingly chewing. Lauren had never seen anyone enjoy food less.

As for the boys thing, well. After two months of chatting in school and biweekly study sessions, Lauren was forced to conclude that Bella really was that oblivious. That, and the girl’s terrifying, overbearing boyfriend made the point moot.

She looked over at Bella, who was still staring darkly ahead at the forest. The Alice comment had really hit hard. Like this, barefoot and draped with gauzy material, Bella looked so fragile. Lauren traced the line of Bella’s collarbone up to the point where her jaw met her ear with her eyes. Her hair was still short - at one study session, Bella complained that Alice would subject her to trims to “keep the cut stylish” when all she really wanted was to grow her hair long again.

Lauren fought the urge to ask why Bella cut it in the first place. Initially, she was sure that Bella was taking advantage of her cross-country move to express her true self. Then the girl had gone and gotten the world’s scariest boyfriend.

Bella Swan probably wasn’t all the way like her, but Lauren still had her suspicions. She had never seen a girl be less enthusiastic about her boyfriend. Whatever. Lauren wasn’t going to make it weird.

“Can I have a drag?”

Lauren looked over at Bella, surprised at the request. “Are you sure about that? You are Cop Junior.”

Bella had that determined, focused look she had when solving particularly different math problems or fighting through large sandwiches (She had confessed at one sleepover that Esme Cullen not only existed, but packed all her amazing lunches. That explained why Bella no longer participated in Sasquatch MILF Cullen debates at the lunch table.)

Bella nodded once, firmly.

“Alright, though it’s my funeral if Chief Swan finds out I’m getting you hooked on nicotine,” Lauren quipped, carefully handing the cigarette over. “Start slow and take a small drag - you don’t want to start coughing.”

Bella held the cigarette carefully between thumb and forefinger as if it were a joint. Lauren considered making fun of her for it, but rejected the impulse - this was too entertaining to interrupt.

Bella put the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled. Her determined expression didn’t waver. She held the breath in for a second before breathing out.

Suddenly, Bella wobbled, and Lauren quickly put her arm around the other girl’s waist. The smaller girl leaned into her for support before taking another quick drag.

“Hey, get your own cig!” Lauren exclaimed. Bella giggled and handed her back the half-smoked cigarette. Lauren took a drag of her own - the filter was still wet from Bella’s mouth and lip gloss.

Lauren was well aware this was probably the closest she would ever get to kissing Bella Swan.

She still had her arm around Bella’s waist. The other girl was very small and warm - Lauren figured she should probably let go.

Bella leaned her head against Lauren’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “Is it supposed to make you dizzy?”

“If it’s your first square, then yes, absolutely,” Lauren pronounced, fighting the urge to pull Bella in closer. “Once you start going down the path of darkness and smoking them every day, less so.” She took another drag and looked out at the darkening forest, savoring the feeling of warm girl pressed against her. In a non-creepy, friendly way.

“I’m impressed that you didn’t start coughing. When I stole a pack from my mom and had my first cigarette, I thought I was going to die. She found me hacking out a lung on the roof and kicked my ass for it.”

Bella nodded sagely - the story checked out. She had spent enough time at the Mallory household to get a solid grasp of Nurse Mallory’s explosive behavior.

They stood there for a quiet minute as Lauren finished her cigarette. After a meaningful look from Bella, the taller girl grumbled but put the butt in the dumpster.

The door to the school opened while Lauren had her back to it.

“Bella?” a smooth, low voice called out.

Ugh. Ugh. She would recognize Edward Cullen’s stupid, creepy, good-for-nothing pretentious asshole voice anywhere.

She turned to look at Bella, who had gone back to her usual blank look. You were smiling just a minute ago. You were happy and then this asshole had to come and ruin it. Stay out here, stay with me, she thought, surprised by her own vehemence.

Lauren looked up at Edward Cullen, who glared at her with barely concealed hostility. They didn’t like each other; hadn’t from the moment he started harassing Bella. They still didn’t like each other but managed the bare pretense of civility whenever Bella was around. Edward couldn’t exactly banish her best friend, could he?

“Come back inside, Bella. Alice has your shoes. After all,” he said lightly, “we wouldn’t want you picking up bad habits.” This last part was delivered looking directly at Lauren.

Bella turned and started trudging towards him.

Go f*ck yourself with a broken bottle and die in a hole, Lauren thought with all the venom she could muster.

Edward Cullen smiled mirthlessly.

A few weeks after Bella started dating Edward, Nurse Mallory had come home in a rare good mood. Mr. Mallory was, as usual, in Seattle doing something business-related.

After dinner, when they were sitting in front of the television, Nurse Mallory smoking a cigarette and eating a diet chocolate pudding cup, Lauren worked up the courage to ask what she should do about Bella.

She didn’t have the world’s closest relationship with her mother - not like Jessica, who boasted about telling her mom everything, or Angela, who did cute church activities with hers. Nurse Mallory worked hard at the county hospital and was a single mother in all but name while Mr. Mallory cared for his logging business.

Still, as Lauren was very frequently reminded, there was a roof over her head, food on her plate, and her very own car in the driveway. Nurse Mallory didn’t talk about her childhood or her first marriage much, but Lauren was smart enough to put two and two together and realize that her mother hadn’t always had it so good.

And, Lauren thought, spooning some of her own diet pudding into her mouth, her mother never lied to her or tried to pretend the world was something it wasn’t. She had seen a lot in her line of work. Nurse Mallory was the one who told Lauren what to do if a man bothered her; how to intervene if another girl was in trouble; how she should never leave a drink unattended or walk home at night alone or be polite to strange men in secluded places.

So Lauren told her mother about Bella, because she would listen and know what to say. When she was done explaining, Nurse Mallory took a long pull on her cigarette and slumped back into her recliner.

“Has she told you that she's being hurt?” Nurse Mallory finally asked.

“Not directly - if I ask, she always says things are going great. But she looks scared all the time.”

Nurse Mallory sighed deeply.

“Lauren, baby, you gotta let her come to you. She’ll talk when she’s ready to talk. Forcing the issue will just drive her away, and then she really won’t have anyone.”

Lauren couldn’t believe it. “You mean there’s nothing I can do?”

“Don’t take that tone with your mother” Nurse Mallory snapped. “There’s plenty you can do. Be there for her. Be a good friend. Get her to come over here more. But until she’s ready to talk, all you can do is let her know you’re ready to listen.”

They sat in silence for a while before Nurse Mallory heaved herself up out of the depths of the ancient chair to get them both another pudding cup.

Outside of Forks High, Lauren finished her cigarette, responsibly disposed of the butt, and headed back inside.

Once the school year ended, Bella no longer had as many reasons to escape Edward Cullen. He always wanted to be with her, near her; she had to make up increasingly inventive excuses to escape to see Lauren and the others.

Especially Lauren. He pitched a fit after he caught Bella smoking, never mind that it was one drag, just to see. He begged her to stop seeing Lauren, but Bella surprised herself by putting her foot down. She could be pliant in almost every other way, could sacrifice so much to stay alive, but she wasn’t letting him steal Lauren too.

In the end, she had to promise him she would never recklessly endanger her excessively fragile body by smoking again.

A small part of her wondered how long she would be able to keep seeing Lauren - how long it would be until he closed this door as well.

I’ll do everything I can to jam my foot in the doorway, Bella thought. He can take everything else, but he’s not taking UPenn and he’s not taking Lauren.

In order to placate him, she agreed to spend the majority of her otherwise free time at the Cullen household, especially when he was out hunting.

At least there are some benefits to the arrangement, she thought, typing furiously away at one of the spare computers in Carlisle’s office. She had told Edward in no uncertain terms that she would be applying for internships over the summer. He approved, on the condition that she used the computers at his family home so one or more of the vampires could look after her. Once she had set eyes on Carlisle’s office setup, all protests had dried up and withered away.

The Cullens had state-of-the-art equipment and lightning speed Internet. The difference between Carlisle’s computers and her ancient machine at Charlie’s house was like night and day. Even image-heavy pages took a mere minute to load and render.

Also, Bella noted approvingly, the computers were virus-free.

Not to mention the sheer volume and quality of the books stacked in row after row on shelves that extended from floor to ceiling. One day, when Carlisle was here at the same time she was, she’d ask if she could touch the books.

As her eyes rested on the Solimena painting of four vampires standing above a writhing crowd, she also resolved that she would ask about his history.

In the end, Bella had used Carlisle’s computer to research local flora before requesting, for the first and hopefully only time in her life, that Edward take her out to the woods.

She had a bouquet to pick for Esme.

Bella was prepared. She had purchased ribbon and tissue paper from a craft store in Port Angeles and consulted an informative Geocities site about flower arrangement. Armed with a bucket, shears, thick garden gloves, and rubber bands, Bella went into the woods and came out victorious, clutching an armful of wildflowers tastefully arranged (she hoped) in a small, perfectly decent bouquet.

“You know you really don’t have to do this” Edward had murmured as he accompanied Bella up the stairs to the grand house.

How could Bella explain to Edward what drove her to go the extra mile for Esme? The woman fussed over her, made her a packed lunch every day for months, cooked her dinner and sent her home with fresh baked bread, asked her about her interests and her hopes for the future.

There was something absent in Esme - as she bustled around her kitchen cooking food she couldn’t eat or fluffed up pillows and folded throws that none of the Cullens needed, she wasn’t all there. When Edward explained how she had come to be his mother, Bella started to see her actions in a new, sadder light.

Esme Cullen wanted nothing more than to mother, and she was very good at going through the motions. Every time Bella ate her food and complimented it, every time she told Esme about her day, the woman looked so terribly grateful.

Bella Swan was changing and growing, and Esme Cullen felt the desperate, driving need to nurture her as she did so. Bella tried once, experimentally, to be angry at Esme for her part in keeping her trapped in Edward’s web, but found that she couldn’t.

In fact, Bella was well aware that this was the most maternal care she had ever gotten in her life. Grandma Marie had kept her fed and clothed, but Bella had no memories of her ever going out of her way to be kind.

Renée treated Bella like a friend and confidante instead of a dependent child. She had only been 19 when Bella was born, not much more than a child herself.

Bella had been the adult of the house before she had lost all of her baby teeth. Life was easier once she assumed those responsibilities, and she didn’t regret it, per se; it was preferable to the alternative.

Now here she was, eating a piece of perfectly fluffy focaccia and butternut squash soup at the Cullen’s table while Esme watched her with rapt, hungry attention.

This was the most Bella had ever been looked after, and it was by a monster in the shape of a woman who constantly fought the urge to kill her. And - Bella was ashamed of this - it felt so good to be the center of Esme’s world every time she walked through the entrance of the grand house.

Why not humor her? Esme could get a living, breathing human teenager to care for, and Bella could bask in the light of Esme’s loving attention.

Like this, maybe being Dracula’s bride wasn’t so bad.

Bella tightened her grip on bouquet 2.0 and opened the door, immediately confronted by the warm smell of biscuits baking.

“Esme?” She called out. “We’re back.”

When Edward mentioned what Jasper’s special vampire power was, Bella very seriously considered asking the tall, scary blond to hit her with a solid dose of ambient magical xanax.

Of course, when Edward informed her that Jasper avoided her because he had spent a solid century eating people and still struggled to maintain his control, Bella reconsidered her decision.

Rosalie Hale usually went out of her way to avoid Bella, and Bella liked her very much for that. Today was a rarity - Edward, Esme, Alice, and Jasper were out hunting. Carlisle was at work, and Emmett was off - Edward had something about making a bear suit?

Bella hoped he didn’t mean that literally.

It was just Bella and Rosalie in the house, and the part of Bella that still had the whole etiquette book memorized urged her to go introduce herself before returning to internship applications.

That was how Bella found herself in front of the door to the garage, trying to force herself to raise her hand and knock.

Come to think of it, she should probably turn around and hole herself back up in Carlisle’s office. Rosalie didn’t want to see her, there was no reason to bother her. Screw the etiquette book, actually, it was probably more polite to leave vampires to their own devices and not unnecessarily provoke them.

“I can hear you standing outside the door, Bella. Come in or go away.”

Damn. No getting past it now - Bella quickly opened the door and slipped inside.

The garage was palatial, vehicle after vehicle lined up in a row inside. Rosalie Hale, sporting an oil-streaked tracksuit with her golden blonde hair held up in a high ponytail, was facing a bright red convertible and polishing something with a cloth.

Oh sugar. It was Bella’s turn to talk. She could do this.

“Hi, um, Rosalie? I um. It’s just you and me in the house today, so I thought it would be - “ Bella drew in a ragged breath - “polite to uh. Introduce myself. Properly”

Her hands shook all the time these days, but Bella could swear they were shaking harder now. God, this was difficult.

Rosalie looked up from whatever she was polishing and fixed Bella with a deadpan stare.

“Hi.” Rosalie stated in a flat voice, and returned to her work. Bella felt like she had been punched in the solar plexus - surely being that beautiful was illegal.

Rosalie looked up again, clearly frustrated. “Is there something you want from me?”

Ok. Not the best start. Bella cast around for conversational techniques learned during Normal Teen.

That’s it - she could encourage Rosalie to talk about her interests!

“These are some nice cars you have here” Bella said, nodding her head towards the assorted vehicles.

One of Rosalie’s golden, perfect eyebrows shot up. Ok, time to try again. The red convertible - she could talk about that! Bella cast around for car brands in her head.

“Is that also a Volvo?”

“It’s a BMW” Rosalie ground out between her perfect teeth, now looking like she’d quite like to strangle Bella.

Ok, not good. Time to pursue option two: finding mutual interests.

Before she could stop herself, Bella asked Rosalie if she was interested in true crime. Seeing Rosalie’s bewildered expression, Bella explained that it was a genre of media where people talked about real crimes that had been committed, like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood -

After years of careful observation, Bella was now able to tell when people wanted her to stop monologuing about her interests. One look at Rosalie’s face was enough to see that yes, Rosalie was very interested in Bella not talking. Possibly ever again.

Bella made an excuse and fled the garage, covered in cold sweat. It looked like Rosalie Hale was very much not interested in true crime.

Esme was a fabulous cook, but she had absolutely nothing on Harry Clearwater’s Super Secret Smoked Salmon. The dish beat out even his Famous Fish Fry, which really was saying something.

Everyone was squished around the tiny dining table at Billy’s house. Sue Clearwater was roaring with laughter at something Billy said, while Harry Clearwater heaped more fish on Leah’s plate. The older girl looked bored out of her mind, but had seemed happy enough to see Bella. Jacob, who was getting taller every day, was squished in the corner, voraciously attacking a heaping plate of food.

Seth wasn’t able to make it - apparently he was staying late at the school to rehearse for an upcoming play, which Bella and Charlie were of course invited to. Bella accepted for the both of them immediately, delighted at the excuse to have another Edward-free evening. Would it be weird to invite Lauren?

Probably.

Bella had seen Jacob a few times since he and Billy had come to visit, though Jacob complained that his father insisted Bella visit La Push, and not the other way around. Back in April, Jacob alluded to the existence of serious drama between Sam Uley, Leah Clearwater, and another girl Bella had never met but who was apparently a Clearwater cousin.

As Leah quietly finished her dinner and excused herself, Bella felt grateful that Jacob had clued her in before she asked something thoughtless. Sam and Leah were always a pair - a trio, if you counted Rachel Black, which everyone always did. Bella was certain she would have put her foot in her mouth without forewarning.

It felt nice to be surrounded by so many warm, breathing bodies. Every person in the room had a beating heart, and not a single one of them wanted to eat Bella.

She hadn’t seen Sue when she was little. When Bella arrived with Charlie, the older woman fussed over her, turning her this way and that and remarking on how much Bella had grown. How odd to be touched, and by such warm hands - even at her most doting, Esme always stayed a few cautious feet away from Bella.

Sue put another helping of the green beans Bella brought on Harry’s plate. He made a face at her before learning in for a quick kiss.

Soon enough, everyone had finished eating and Bella brought out the desserts she’d spent the day making. She had gone all out, intending to make a good impression - there was a blackberry cobbler, brownies, and a selection of sugar cookies. Sue scolded her playfully for ruining Harry’s doctor-mandated diet, but overall the sweets were a resounding success.

As everyone ate and joked with each other, Bella quietly began collecting plates to take to the adjoining kitchen. She was elbow deep in suds when she heard Billy wheeling into the tiny room.

“You know you don’t need to clean up, Bella. You’re a guest.”

Bella flashed him a smile, comfortable in her element. “I don’t mind at all, Billy. Did Jacob let you have any of the dessert, or did he eat it all first?”

Billy laughed at that - Jacob’s exponentially increasing appetite had been a topic of conversation during dinner, with the boy in question passionately defending his honor as a growing boy.

“I think it’s good for me that he ate all of them first - last time I saw a doctor, she was clear that I should stay away from the sugar.” He winked at Bella, and said in a stage whisper, “I still had a tiny bite.”

They both laughed at that, and fell into a companionable silence as Bella went back to washing dishes.

Like this, she could almost pretend that she was 11 years old again, fresh off a day of exploring First Beach with Rebecca and a much, much smaller Jacob. Sarah Black would be bustling around in the kitchen, cooking 8 things at once and wrangling all the kids.

“You know,” Bella started cautiously, “I was never able to make cookies as tasty as Sarah’s. Even with the raisins, those things were masterful.”

“That they were,” Billy pronounced. “You should be proud of those brownies though, Bella. Even though I didn’t have any, they were very good.”

She worked in silence for another minute before Billy wheeled himself next to her, silently picking up a towel and drying off the stacked dishes.

“You know you can always come here, Bella.” Billy’s voice was subdued.

“I know. Honestly, Harry’s salmon is so good you might have to start beating me off with a stick,” Bella joked weakly. If it was up to her, she’d move in. But it wasn’t.

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been looking under the weather recently. Anything at school got you stressed out? Charlie says you’ve got a boyfriend.” Billy stopped drying and looked up at Bella. “Is he treating you right?”

No, Billy, he isn’t. He won’t leave me alone and I’m terrified for my life every single day. I don’t know how long I can keep putting up with this, but I don't want to die before I’ve even gotten my undergraduate degree. Please, please help me.

She thrust her hands deeper into the soapy water to hide the trembling.

Billy looked down and resumed work on another plate. “You know, the Cullens don’t have the best reputation on the reservation.”

Bella felt her eyes start to burn, and willed herself to stay composed.

“If those thi-” Billy interrupted himself with a low cough. “If you don’t feel comfortable with them, there are people here that can protect you.”

Bella thought about tiny Alice moving so quickly she blurred; delicate, soft-looking Esme single handedly picking up a fridge 5 times her size; Rosalie acting as her own car jack. And above all Edward. Omnipresent, omniscient Edward, and what he would do if he thought she didn’t love him.

Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine how anyone could fight one of the Cullens and make it out alive.

She swallowed deeply. “Thank you. Billy. I know you mean it. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Billy was still drying the same plate. “Sure, Bella. I understand.” He finally put the plate down and reached for another one. “Sarah was always better at this stuff than me,” he said wryly, voice a little rough.

Bella let out a watery chuckle. “You’re not doing so bad yourself, Billy.”

She passed him another wet plate, and they continued working in silence.

It was late August when Bella learned that her human life was over.

She was working in Carlisle’s office. Esme was downstairs baking something and making sure Bella wasn’t squashed by a meteorite while Edward went hunting with Alice and Jasper.

Bella had reached the interview stage for a coveted internship at the University of Washington and was composing a letter of intent when she heard loud, definite footsteps coming towards the office.

Usually, the vampires in the house moved at their regular speed in front of Bella, but now someone was considerately taking the time to create deliberate, predictable footfalls. Carlisle Cullen opened the door to his own office and smiled at Bella, refusing her offer to relocate.

“I hear from Edward that you’re hard at work applying for internships. I won’t interrupt you - please, feel free to continue working.”

He was both indescribably sexy and nice. Unfair.

As he passed in front of the Solimena piece, Bella remembered what she intended to ask him eons ago.

“Actually, Dr. Cullen, I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

“Call me Carlisle, please,” he responded, “and by all means, ask away.”

“I’ve been working in your office regularly for a few months - thank you again, by the way - and I keep wondering what the story behind the painting is.”

It was, after all, the only one with Carlisle in it.

That was how Bella learned about the Volturi and the law.

The mere mention of a ruling vampire body had prompted a flurry of questions from her. Upon learning that there were codified vampire crimes, Bella was enthralled - the fact that she, Bella Swan, was able to learn about the crimes and societal responses to crime in an entirely separate species was the best thing that had come out of this unending nightmare.

That was until she realized exactly how unending the nightmare was going to be.

When she asked Carlisle what the laws were, she didn’t understand why the vampire seemed so hesitant.

“I hoped that Edward had already told you,” he said reluctantly. “I was under the impression that you already knew what the law was.”

No, Edward had not told her, the ass, even though he knew her well enough by now to understand that she would be absolutely fascinated.

Carlisle’s mouth was set in a grim line as she finished explaining. When she looked at him, he started to talk.

The Volturi, he explained, were the ruling body of all vampires. They had one purpose and one purpose alone - to ensure that the existence of vampires remained a secret. To that end, there were subclauses in the law - vampires were not allowed to create newborns and leave them to their own devices. Vampires were not allowed to turn children incapable of control. Vampires must hunt discreetly without drawing wide attention.

Carlisle hesitated before he explained that last aspect of the law. Humans were never to know of the existence of vampires. If they were made aware, the vampire that informed them was responsible for either - and here Carlisle broke off, clearly uncomfortable.

Bella felt like her insides had been hollowed out with a melon scooper.

Carlisle continued, eyes full of terrible pity. Humans that became aware of the existence of vampires must themselves be killed, or changed.

“I assumed Edward informed you of the consequences - that he intended to change you.”

Bella thanked him for telling her, stood up, and left. Even if she managed to survive Edward, her human life was up.

She walked to her truck in a daze, ignoring Esme calling after her, climbed in, and drove home.

She made it to her room and crawled under the covers, fully clothed. It was only as she pulled the quilt up to her chin that the rustle of nylon fabric alerted her to the fact that she was still wearing her raincoat.

She felt very cold and very tired. Taking off the jacket seemed like a monumental, unrewarding effort. Why bother? Distantly, she remembered that the letter of intent needed to be in by the end of the week, and she should be working on her draft.

What was the point of an internship when she would soon be either dead or a monster? There was a thick layer of concrete over all of her limbs and an anvil on her chest, slowly suffocating her. She stared at the wall until it started to blur and dissolve. There was no point to anything at all any more.

It was impossible to tell how long she lay there before Edward crawled through her window and on to bed next to her.

“I’m so sorry, Bella,” he murmured, pulling her close. Her limbs flopped limply as he held her torso up, quickly removed her rain jacket, and bundled her back into the quilt. She was awake the whole time, mind totally blank, unable to even summon fear at his presence.

“He shouldn’t have told you,” Edward whispered fiercely. “I didn’t want to frighten you. Carlisle is sorry - we’re all sorry for burdening you with this information.”

He wasn’t sorry about hunting her down, cornering her, trapping her, and leaving her with only two equally terrible options. He was just sorry she found out.

“I promise, Bella, I swear I’ll never damn you to this life.”

Bella stared unseeing at the ceiling while Edward continued to whisper apologies.

No options, then. Just one outcome. One unavoidable outcome.

Chapter 8: Birthday

Chapter Text

Bella was aware that most people didn’t like learning about the granular details of violent crimes. The corners of their lips would more often than not pull back and down, and if she persisted in informing them about the really interesting facts they would suddenly need to leave the room. Usually they would pretend not to recognize her afterwards. It was confusing at first before Bella realized that this was an intentional method of social exclusion.

Despite her commitment to Normal Teen, Bella could not give up her overwhelming interest in the very worst aspects of humanity. There was something especially compelling about stories of young women, women like her, and the terrible, violent turns that their lives could take.

They were profiled and hunted down, and more often than not a combination of cruelty, apathy, and sheer incompetence meant that their cases would never be solved and their killers never brought to justice.

Just like no one would ever know how Bella died.

If she was lucky, someone would find her decayed corpse in the woods in a few years so Charlie would have something to bury. Edward would doubtlessly consider how strange a bloodless body would seem and take precautions. No one would find her before she was only bones, if they found her at all.

Was it some sort of premonition that led her to study crime and psychopathology with such relish? Did some part of her know that she would end up one of those girls - hunted, trapped, unable to reach out for help in the face of death? If Grandma Marie was still alive, she might agree - she always said there was something wrong with Bella, that she knew more than she should have been able to.

Bella usually attributed her hunches and odd insights to her overall oddness - if there was one thing she knew, it was that something was profoundly, inherently wrong with her. There was the time in eighth grade she had a panic attack and missed her usual bus, which proceeded to get t-boned by a semi-trailer truck. It was the same urge that compelled her to pick up Renée’s psychology book.

Maybe that urge was part of a great cosmic joke at her expense - mild clairvoyance for the sole purpose of being completely, excruciatingly aware of the mechanics of her own violent demise while it happened.

There was drool collecting on the pillow. How long had she been lying like this? Bella summoned the strength to look at the clock on her bedside table - 4:40 PM. So that was why Edward wasn’t here - it was broad daylight.

There was a stale, structurally unsound peanut butter and jelly sandwich next to the clock and a suspicious looking glass of milk. When did those get there? From the craftsmanship (or lack thereof), Bella surmised that Charlie must have made it and dropped it off. She should take the plate downstairs - she wasn’t hungry, and she didn’t want to attract ants. She would, in a bit.

When she felt less tired.

Bella tried very hard to live a logically consistent life. She had a goal and an orderly set of steps that needed to be taken in order to get there. Perfect grades, UPenn, book, tenure.

Bella also knew that she hated changes to her plans. She liked knowing exactly what was going to happen and when.

It was the uncertainty that was the worst part of this. Beyond the knowledge that she would never get what she wanted so badly, the amorphous, unscheduled end of her life flickered in the distance, tormenting her whenever she allowed herself to think. Still, there could be certainty in uncertainty.

Her body ached and she was distantly aware that she smelled atrocious. It was impossible to think clearly like this - she was suddenly aware of a horrible, grimy sensation that coated her body. Bella leaned over, chugged the stale water that had appeared on her bedside table, and grimly marched to the shower.

As she washed her hair, she considered the facts. Edward Cullen wanted her alive and human, at least up until he lost control and ate her. The rest of the Cullens were happy enough to go along with his whims. Global Vampire Law Enforcement would demand her death the minute they caught wind of her, seeing as Edward adamantly refused to turn her into a vampire.

She realized she had no idea what vampirism was even really like - Edward was decidedly tight-lipped on the subject. She knew there was an unspecified period of overwhelming bloodlust, and a constant desire for human blood, though animal blood was an acceptable substitute.

Then there was the beauty and strength and speed - the part of Bella that was aware of her physical shortcomings twinged with envy. And the time - all the time in the world to read and learn. Carlisle got to do the job he loved every day for centuries. Bella thought about all the reading she could get done if she never had to sleep - the pang of envy grew much stronger.

Vampirism was clearly off the table anyway. No use thinking about something that would never happen.

So she was going to die at some unspecified point. She was going to die anyway - she had hoped it would be later in life, and that she would have already reached a measure of professional success, but it was going to happen no matter how many monographs she published.

Bella stepped out of the shower and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. A thin, gaunt girl with cropped dark hair stared back at her with burning dark eyes.

I’ll keep you alive for as long as I can, she promised the girl in the mirror. I can’t prevent it, but I’ll keep your heart beating. You’re not dead yet. You’re going to have Harry Clearwater’s salmon again and enjoy every single minute you have left.

She dried herself off, got dressed, and headed down to the kitchen with a prodigious stack of dirty dishes.

That night, Edward crawled into her room on schedule and held her tightly against him in the prison of his freezing arms.

“I was so worried about you, Bella,” he murmured into her hair. “We all were.” He paused to nuzzle his face against her neck, breathing in deeply.

Once, when Renée had taken them out to explore a local cave during the rarely discussed spelunking incident, Bella ended up wedged between in a tight, subterranean passage. Thankfully she was able to wiggle through to the world above. Somehow, the way Edward’s stone skin leeched warmth from her body; the way she was held captive by immoveable rock reminded her of nothing so much as that terrifying afternoon.

Bella fought to subdue the shudder of revulsion and failed.

“Cold?” Edward asked.

Bella nodded silently, and as he heaped more blankets on top of them both he moved his hand to stroke her cheek. He held her for a few more minutes as she valiantly tried to sleep. There hadn’t been enough time for cough medicine.

He interrupted her midway through one of her breathing exercises. “Esme wants to know what to get you for your birthday.”

Oh lord. Her birthday. Given the reveal about her imminent death and multi-day fugue state, she had almost succeeded in forgetting about it. Bella hated her birthday - Renée usually forgot it and then made a fuss about forgetting it, so Bella had to spend an hour bringing her mother down from an emotional height before planning out how to dispose, kindly, of whatever insane, profoundly unsuitable present Renée got her without hurting her feelings.

“You know I don’t want anything,” she whispered.

“Please, Bella,” he retorted, “humor me. At least do it for Esme - you know she’d be thrilled to get you something.”

Esme would be delighted at the chance to throw a human teen a real birthday party, wouldn’t she. Edward had apparently noticed that Bella had a special soft spot for his mother, and was not above using Esme against her.

If it would make Esme happy… Bella started thinking, for possibly the first time in a decade, about what she wanted for her birthday.

Edward proceeded to ruin it. “Alice has a big party planned.”

Bella’s mood soured. The tiny vampire had proclaimed Bella her “best friend,” which mostly involved stuffing her into ridiculously overpriced designer clothing and shoes she couldn’t walk in and parading her around the Cullen household. Bella suffered through it in silence, and tried to match her enthusiasm. Thankfully, she was stuck in her own world and didn’t see through Bella’s profoundly lackluster acting.

Do it for Esme, Bella chanted internally.

“Ok, gifts... gifts... what do I want - are you sure she wants to get me something? I don’t want to be an imposition.” she whispered.

“Of course she wouldn’t see it as an imposition. We love getting you gifts, and you know money is not an issue.”

Well, seeing as I’m going to develop a stress ulcer and probably die before I’m 20 because of you and your nightmare family, may as well go for broke, she thought, surprised by how willing she was to accept the Cullen’s money. Apparently her discomfort around gifts didn’t extend to the vampires ruining her life.

“Um, if it’s not too much of an issue, maybe a gift card to the University of Washington’s book shop? They have some really great new psychology texts, but they’re just so expensive…”

“Whatever you want.”

Knowing the Cullens, it would be some absurd amount of money. Bella could soldier through a birthday party if it meant making Esme happy and getting a ton of shiny, expensive textbooks. It would be fine - or at least, no worse than usual.

It was much worse than usual.

Funnily enough, despite spending half her time in a household of vampires, she had been very certain that Edward would be the one to finish her off. Jasper was basically a nonentity. Edward mentioned that he said something incorrect and unkind about Bella’s emotional state once, which was one reason why he seemed to vanish wherever she showed her face.

Bella lay dazed in the pink pile of cake, blood, and shattered crystal. Jasper’s teeth had been so white. Esme had taken one look at her and sprinted out with an apology.

At least it hadn’t been Esme who attacked her.

She was floating somewhere above her body, and then she was on the kitchen table. Edward had exchanged words with Dr. Cullen and left, taking Alice with him.

Dr. Cullen worked quickly, his hands blurring as removed miniscule pieces of glass with tweezers.

Emmett and Rosalie were gone as well. It was just her and Hot Dr. Cullen. Wasn’t it funny that after everything she learned, after all of the pain and fear and subterfuge, she couldn’t stop thinking about him as Hot Dr. Cullen?

Hot Dr. Cullen looked up at her. She must have giggled out loud. The giggles turned into full blown laughter and she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t breathe, could only keep laughing.

All of the strength she had summoned over the last few days suddenly dissolved and she was crying, bent over double and wailing like she hadn’t since she was small. It was all too much to take in.

There was a cool, steady weight on her back. Carlisle Cullen was leaning in front of her - she tried to pull herself together but only succeeded in sobbing harder.

“Bella, you’ve been doing so well today. I know you’ve just had a very traumatic experience. Right now I can assure you that you’re safe.”

I haven’t been safe since I came to Forks.

Dr. Cullen looked alarmed - had she said that out loud?

“Bella, can you tell me what you need right now?”

The crying continued and now her breath was coming in great, heaving gulps. Carlisle was examining her closely.

“I know you’re very interested in psychology, Bella. What you’re experiencing now is a panic attack. Can you tell me what you know about panic attacks?”

“Panic attacks,” Bella paused - she was breathing too quickly - and resumed when Dr. Cullen looked at her encouragingly. “Panic attacks refer to a discrete period of intense fear or discomfort, in which a minimum of four indicative symptoms must be developed abruptly and reach a peak within 10 minutes.”

Dr. Cullen beamed at her. It was suddenly very difficult to feel upset. “That’s wonderful, Bella, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Can you name the symptoms you are experiencing?”

Bella breathed in deeply and tried to concentrate on her body.

“Palpitations and accelerated heart rate,” she started, and gained confidence as Dr. Cullen nodded, “Trembling, I feel short of breath, I feel dizzy, I experienced severe derealization and depersonalization earlier - I think that’s it.”

“Incredible, Bella.” Dr Cullen’s smile looked sincere. “You’re going to make a wonderful forensic psychiatrist.

Odd that Dr. Cullen remembered what her career aspirations were. Gradually, she noticed that she was breathing normally again. Hot Dr. Cullen’s dastardly plot to distract her had worked - he knew she couldn’t resist monologuing about her pet subject and had used it against her. Clever.

Dr. Cullen had finished taking the shards of glass out of her arms and was carefully cleaning the blood off her arm with a damp towelette that smelled like hospital. For the first time ever, Bella was alone with the good doctor.

Presumably alone.

Only one way to find out.

The barrier between her thoughts and speech was paper thin, and the question was at the tip of her tongue.

Any other time, even an hour earlier, she would have swallowed it back, as she always did. She would have calmed herself and smiled, pretending she was fine.

That was then, but this was now.

Like a cloth unravelling, slow at first but dangerously fast now, so there was barely anything left, Bella was worn down.

Death was staring her in the face, and despite her best efforts it nearly had her just minutes ago.

UPenn seemed so far away.

Looking into Hot Dr. Cullen's kind face, she felt Bella felt something fundamental in her break. Like crumbling stone, her strength and determination were disintegrating, falling to pieces even as she tried to hold on to them.

“Carlisle, can Edward hear your thoughts right now?”

Carlisle looked up from her arm, surprise evident on his face. “I don’t believe so. He’s gone with the rest of the family to hunt. I imagine they’re in Alaska by now.”

“Can you promise me he can’t hear us, Carlisle?”

Carlisle was careful in choosing his words. “I can assure you Edward is out of range. More than that, I’ve been around Edward for a century and alive for three times as long. I’ve developed ways to keep my thoughts private. If you tell me something, I promise you it will stay between us.”

It was impossible to doubt the kindness and sincerity in his voice.

“I know what my options are, Carlisle. You were the only one kind enough to let me know. I want - I wanted to do so much with my life. I didn’t ask to know what you were. Edward told me, and now he won’t turn me.” She turned her eyes to meet his, forcing herself past the instinctive discomfort. “I don’t want to die.”

Carlisle was speechless. She had never seen the good doctor like this, mouth open and an horror clearly painted on his perfect features.

“Bella,” he started slowly and stopped, an expression of dread clear on his face. “Is there something about your relationship with Edward you wish to tell me about?”

The comedy never stopped. This was the nightmarish rehash of her conversation with him about Renée. As much as she wanted to confess to him about Edward’s constant, terrifying presence, it was difficult to forget how he hadn’t believed her about Renée. Even if he was kind, he was Edward’s father before he was her ally.

The tears started again, silently dripping down her face and into her half-open mouth.

His stone hand found hers and squeezed. “Edward has his opinions about our state of being that I happen not to share. If you truly wish to be one of us, I’ll turn you myself. You’re a part of our family now, and Esme would miss you terribly if you were gone.” He cracked a wry, breathtaking grin at her.

The night held surprise after surprise. Carlisle’s offer to make her into a bloodsucking demon probably would have held more impact if she had any feeling left at all.

Bella was not the type of person to approach a situation uninformed. Processing the events of the night or her potential future as a bloodsucking demon would have to wait if she wanted to leave the Cullen’s pale-wood-and-glass mausoleum on her own two feet. Better to gather information while she tried to get her face to stop leaking.

“What’s it like to be a vampire and a doctor?” Nothing like overfocusing on medical science to calm her turbulent emotions.

Carlisle’s expression smoothed out again as he picked up a tube of ointment. “It was difficult, at first. It wasn't just the bloodthirst, though there's no downplaying that. The bloodthirst was overwhelming. But so, too, was all that I'd lost, the life I thought had been taken from me. Your arm please, Bella.”

She dutifully held out her arm to be disinfected and bandaged.

“I was like you, Bella. I had a passionate interest in my profession - I believed I would follow in my father’s footsteps as a man of God, the shepherd to my flock of good Christians.” He sighed and tucked in the end of the bandage before leaning back. His posture was still impeccable, but there was a brief moment where he looked ancient, bent under the weight of three centuries.

“During the early days, it was tempting to think that God had abandoned me. I had gone from believing that I was ridding the world of Satanic creatures to becoming one of them. I could not go back to my father or my community for fear of killing them. I was utterly and completely alone.”

He stood up abruptly, startling Bella. It was only when he moved that she realized he had been as still as a statue. “I beg your pardon, Bella, but I’ll need to retrieve further supplies from my office. Do you mind if I go at my own speed?”

Bella shook her head mutely. He disappeared and reappeared a second later with a smaller canvas bag. “Painkillers,” he said, lifting the bag in answer to her wordless question. “You’ll want them tomorrow.”

He sat down again and began talking while taking out several small blister packs.

“Despite the difficulty with which my new life began, I managed to find a purpose. After my time with the Volturi, I realized that I could use my innate abilities to save human lives. It took time before I felt confident enough in my control to attempt living among humans, but eventually I was able to practice medicine.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek contemplatively. The Volturi - the three beautiful vampires in the Solimena painting, as well as the governing body of vampires responsible for ensuring she die or become a vampire. She was insatiably curious about them. “What was it like, staying with the Volturi?”

“Eye-opening. They are - well, one of them is a man of science and culture. The years I spent with him showed me that beings like me are capable of immense learning and sophistication.” Carlisle stopped for a moment to silently count out and hand her several clearly marked packets of pills. The next sentence came after a long, weighty pause. “ If you become one of us, I could take you to see the palace. You would undoubtedly enjoy the magnificent library, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen my friends there.”

“Will I still be myself?”

Carlisle was silent for a moment, mulling over her question. “I can’t promise you anything, but in my experience the things we carried the closest in our time as humans tend to transfer to our life as vampires. I can’t see you losing your love of learning. It’s entirely possible you’ll be able to take it to new heights. After all,” he smiled at her wryly, “there’s quite a bit more time to read when you don’t sleep.”

Bella laughed despite herself. How often had she wished for the ability to go without sleep so she could cram in a few more chapters?

Carlisle reached into the pocket of his impeccably tailored blazer and handed her a crisp business card. “If it’s what you truly want, I’ll change you myself. All you need to do is call me.”

The weight of the situation was slowly beginning to suffocate her. The thick white business card felt as heavy as a brick. How absurd to be offered a slip of paper in exchange for her humanity.

“When would the right time be?” Bella asked quietly.

Carlisle leaned back in his chair and looked up at the high ceiling. “It’s difficult to say. With the other members of my family - I’ll spare you the details, as they aren’t my stories to tell - it was easier. They were already presumed dead. You’re at the - you would have been at the start of your adult life. We would need to stage an accident. Your parents -”

Bella cut him off, unwilling to hear someone else speak the words. “They need to think I was dead. I don’t want to put them in my situation.”

“Precisely that.”

She was quiet as Carlisle packed away his supplies and drove her home. Internally, she was reviewing every unsolved disappearance of young women in their late teens.

Hiking accident. Hitchhiking. Going to the bar. Swimming. Diving. Caving. Cave diving. Boat trip. Strange men. Strange women. Exposure. Snakebite.

Once home, she showered pensively and sat at the edge of her bed, staring out of the window at the treeline. Her mind was buzzing, and sleep was unlikely to come.

She had a murder to plan.

Edward didn’t show up that night, or the next, or the next. In school he was distant, forcing Bella to actively seek him out and show affection instead of her usual tactic of passive endurance.

The break in routine drove her nearly insane. Every Edwardless night was spent agonizing over potential reasons instead of enjoying the unusually warm and spacious bed.

Then Edward showed up one morning and shepherded her into the Volvo, announcing in no uncertain terms that he would be driving her to and from school. All this was said in a toneless, unexpressive voice - a sharp contrast to his normally volatile emotions.

Edward was deviating hard from his usual behavior.

Bella hated change.

She hated schedule changes, hated when things differed from the comfortable, predictable norm.

There was an icy hand around her heart that squeezed together and tighter with every unusual interaction.

Suddenly Bella found herself desperately wishing for the maudlin centenarian who wanted to profess his love for her every 20 minutes.

When she finally realized what was wrong, she kicked herself internally for not figuring it out sooner. Alice had seen Carlise’s decision to make her a vampire, and Edward was finally going to end the excruciating charade and kill her.

She came to the realization as she reluctantly trailed Edward to the woods beyond the Swan household. He had driven her to and from school that day - control over her movements, she was an idiot - and demanded that she come out with him for a walk on the trail. She desperately wanted to stop, to turn back, but forced herself to trudge step by step to her increasingly likely demise.

Even if she died, there had to be some way to find her body, or at least bring Edward to justice - Charlie deserved that much. Bella wracked her mind - had anyone at school seen them leaving together? Yes, Angela, Lauren, a gaggle of freshman gawking at Edward’s ridiculous silver car. Surely he knew that he would be the prime suspect in any murder investigation. Did he really want Carlisle and Esme to wind up under scrutiny? It was a miracle they hadn’t appeared on any paranormal image boards, surely they couldn’t keep living like this if their son was (rightly) suspected of killing his (entirely unwilling) girlfriend.

This wasn’t good - there was no time to call Carlisle, and even if she broke into a sprint she would be dead before she reached the house phone. Predators tended to react instinctively to fleeing prey. The business card in her back pocket felt like an anchor weighing her down, making every step deeper into the woods an impossible chore.

They stopped in the woods only a few yards into the forest, Swan house still clearly visible. Bella bristled despite herself - killing her so near her own home was just insulting to Charlie. As an experienced serial killer Edward could absolutely do better than this -

Edward interrupted her train of thought by turning to face her with a perfectly blank expression. “Bella, we’re leaving.”

“What? Now? At the start of the school year?” I thought I had more time.

“Carlisle’s colleagues are starting to get suspicious.”

Really? That was it? All of her hopes and dreams and hard work - not to mention Charlie and Renée’s hard work and hell, even Grandma Swan’s - that was all going to go down the tube and rot in a godforsaken forest because Carlisle’s colleagues were a little too perceptive?

Bella opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came. She hadn’t planned for it to end like this, barely a week into her senior year of high school. She stared beyond Edward’s shoulder - there was a patch of moss on a fir tree that was shaped exactly like Delaware.

She hoped it was quick, at least. That he had the decency to snap her neck before breaking the rest of her body.

The tremor in her hands, a constant companion for the last six months, had stilled. No use being frightened in the face of her own death. She wanted her eyes open - she wanted to see him as he killed her. It seemed like the most dignified and informative option.

When her silence stretched on for too long, Edward started talking.

Alice had seen her as a vampire, and he had decided that he didn’t want to spend eternity with her after all. His entire family had already left, but he had stayed behind as a courtesy to her. Of course he would always love her - in a way. She was to take care of herself for Charlie.

The last thing Edward Cullen said to her before he disappeared was that Bella Swan would never see him again.

When Chief Swan came home, his only daughter was wrapped in blankets on the raggedy couch in the family room and sobbing hysterically. He was able to extract some key information with some difficulty, several glasses of water, and a box of tissues.

Dr. Cullen and his entire family, including the boy his daughter was dating, had left town. The boyfriend had abruptly broken things off.

However, his daughter, despite being inseparable from that boy for months, couldn’t stop smiling.

Charlie was at war with himself. Was this what the newspapers called concerning behavior, or was this some kind of inexplicable teenage girl thing?

He resolved to ask Harry Clearwater.

Chapter 9: Life

Chapter Text

Happiness took some getting used to.

“Whoa there Bella, why don’t you let me give you a hand with that?” Jacob said, jogging over to where she was struggling to get out of the truck with six foil-encased casserole dishes stacked perilously on top of each other.

She shot him a look of pathetic gratitude as he gracefully plucked the mountain of food from her hands.

As they walked to the Black house, Jacob gestured to the heavy stack with his head.“What’s all this?”

“Well,” Bella started, pointing vaguely at the pile, “there’s a lasagne, baked ziti, a cottage pie, some vegetarian chili - “ Jacob grimaced at the mention of a meatless dish. “Oh, don’t give me that, you and Billy both need the fiber. The last two are a sausage casserole and some goulash.”

Jacob let out a low whistle. “I think we’re set for food until I graduate. What’s with the culinary orgy?”

Bella did some quick mental math. “You know, at the rate you eat I don’t think it’s going to last more than two months, and that’s if you’re eating something else for breakfast.”

“It was a joke, Bella. Seriously, where did you get the time to make all of this?”

In truth, Bella had been full of nervous energy for the last two days.

It felt like she had nothing but time - safe, normal hours stretched out in front of her like an endless red carpet disappearing into the horizon.

This was a reaction to near certain death. She had been slated for execution only to have the threat vanish into nothingness. Bella wished that she was on the outside looking in, doing a case study on herself.

There was clearly a lot to be unpacked from this situation.

The hours after Edward had left her in the woods were hazy and indistinct.

It only became real when Carlisle called her.

He'd cut right to the chase when she picked up the phone.

“I promise you that you will never see or hear from us again. My offer still stands, but otherwise I swear to you that you can live your life free of our interference.” Even over the phone, there was an undeniable intensity to his voice. “I’m so sorry it turned out this way. Goodbye, Bella.”

Bella sat there with the phone still to her ear, turning his words over in his head, her universe turned upside-down in just a few sentences. She was going to live - just like that.

Carlisle said the Cullens were out of his life, and strange as it was, Bella knew she could trust him.

She was free.

Still, she didn’t throw out the business card.

What surprised her in the hours and days after the phone call was how much time she had.

Bella’s time had never been her own. She had gone from being her mother’s full-time caretaker in Phoenix to strategizing for her survival in a soul-destroying game of cat and mouse.

Her own time had never been more than stolen moments. Waking up an hour before Renée to surf the internet, reading a book at night before falling asleep, chatting with Lauren before Edward interrupted - these had been moments Bella had to take, they weren't hers to spend however she liked.

Now that her nights were her own and her days blessedly free of existential threats, the hours in the day seemed to exponentially increase. She threw herself into housework with new energy thrumming through her veins, deep-cleaning the house and filling the fridge and freezer with meals.

She was a person with hobbies now, gosh darn it, she was unstoppable.

It was Charlie, pleased but daunted by the overfilled fridge, who gently suggested they bring some over to Billy's

Bella agreed instantly, not only because she liked Billy very much but because she now had the time to do it.

Billy was sitting at a table looking over some paperwork when Bella trailed Jacob into the house.

“Dad, Bella’s gone insane and made enough food to last us for the next century,” Jacob announced as he marched to the fridge.

“With you around I’ll be impressed if it lasts a week,” Billy grumbled. “I swear that boy is eating me out of house and home.”

“Growing boy!” came the retort from the kitchen, obviously muffled by a mouthful of food. Jacob had clearly found the cookies Bella smuggled in. There was the sound of tinfoil rustling as Jacob started loading the food into the Black fridge and freezer.

Bella suddenly felt awkward standing in Billy’s dining room with nothing to do.

It was times like this that she had no idea what to do with her hands.

The sounds of crinkling tinfoil and loud chewing wafted from the kitchen, where Jacob was apparently continuing his rampage.

She looked around at the familiar interior.

The walls of the little house were varnished pine and covered top to bottom in photos. Behind Billy’s shoulder Sarah Black beamed with her arms around four sandy, smiling children. A very young Bella was sandwiched between Jacob and Rebecca, smiling shyly at the camera. Even back then Jacob had a smile that could light up the room.

Billy turned around to see which photo Bella was examining. His face softened as he took in his late wife. “I think Charlie and I were trying to fire up the grill when that was taken. You four were pretty set on us cooking up your mud pies, but we managed to dissuade you.”

Bella didn’t have very clear memories of her childhood, but something about the photo tugged at her. It had been a good day, and she remembered falling asleep in the cruiser on the way home from La Push and waking up the next morning cozy in her own bed. She had been sad to leave Forks that year.

Jacob suddenly popped back into the dining room, a cookie in his mouth and a further four in each hand. “I’f goffa -” he started, trying to speak around the cookies, before Billy interrupted him.

“Jacob Black, your mother and I didn’t teach you to speak with your mouth full.”

Jacob made a show of looking contrite while chewing and swallowing at top speed. “Sorry. Bella, Dad. I gotta go to basketball practice now. Bella, you wanna come?”

She blanched at the thought of physical activity in front of teenage boys. “I think I’m good Jake, but you have fun.”

He shrugged, not very put out. “I figured. Thanks for the food!” He grabbed a packed gym bag that was by the door and sprinted out at a speed it seemed only boys of a certain age could reach, all before Bella could fully say goodbye.

She was now alone with Billy Black.

Bella felt very aware of the fact he might also know what the Cullens were - was possibly the only person in the state who might. He looked at her and she felt suddenly certain he was thinking about the Cullens too.

Before she could make her own excuses and stumble out the door, Billy piped up.

“Do you want some tea? I remember that you’re not much of a coffee drinker.

Bella’s felt touched. No one ever remembered that about her. Coffee tended to exacerbate her already impressive levels of anxiety.

(Alice had a bad habit of thrusting elaborate Starbucks beverages at her. She would then look eagerly at Bella as she choked them down, too uncomfortable to decline.

It had only been one thing, a small thing considering the deluge of indignities Bella was forced to endure, but all the same Bella could no longer look at the Starbucks logo without feeling an icy wash of panic.)

Bella could hardly decline, especially as Billy had already put the kettle on the stove. He gently turned down her offer of help and told her to take a seat at the dining room table. She took her time looking at all of the photos and listened to the squeak of wheels over the wooden floors.

After a few minutes Billy wheeled back in with two mugs of mint tea. Bella accepted hers gratefully and settled in, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Billy spoke first.

“Thank you for the food, Bella. I’ll try to make it last.”

“You really don’t need to worry about that Billy. I can’t seem to stop cooking lately.” Bella vividly pictured the piles and piles of clingfilmed dishes in the Swan fridge and freezer. “Charlie was all but begging me to take some food over to you guys. Give it two days and I’ll show up with more.”

Billy chuckled into his mint tea. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Charlie Swan turning down food.”

“Right?” It was nearly unheard of and had almost thrown Bella for a loop before she realized just how much food she had produced in the feverish days since the Cullen disappearance.

Billy Black was apparently a mindreader.

“So, how are you doing now the Dr. Cullen has switched hospitals?” he asked with an air of slightly forced nonchalance.

Now that was a euphemism.

Bella looked into his kind black eyes and felt her mouth move as she tried unsuccessfully to find the right thing to say. He watched her thoughtfully as she groped for an answer.

“I’ve had a lot more time to cook.”

Billy hummed. “You know, there was a bit of a party here when the news broke.”

“You should have invited me,” Bella muttered darkly into her tea, before realizing what she said. Her head jerked upright and she stared into Billy’s eyes, feeling like nothing so much as a deer confronting a rapidly approaching pair of headlights.

Something about the set of Billy’s shoulders changed, and when he spoke his tone of voice was careful. “That’s a surprise, Bella. The youngest one seemed very fond of you.”

At the thought of Edward’s bright yellow eyes boring into her Bella was unable to suppress a full-body shudder. Billy’s eyes sharpened - he’d clearly noticed.

Bella looked down at the grey-green depths of her tea and tried to gather her thoughts. She knew what the Cullens were. Billy had alluded to knowing, and clearly knew that she knew something. Was it breaking the law if the person you told already knew?

Could she trust Carlisle to keep his promise?

He sounded so earnest on the phone. Bella’s hand strayed to her jacket pocket. After the last walk in the woods with Edward, she had taken to keeping Carlisle’s business card on her at all times.

She’d also memorized the number as a fail-safe, but it was always better to have some level of redundancy.

Trusting Carlisle had gotten her a business card and the rest of her life. She didn’t have to trust Billy all the way, but she could risk it. She needed to talk to someone about it, and Billy was her best and only option.

“Edward found me very interesting,” Bella started. “I didn’t necessarily want to spend time with him, but he made it clear that his feelings for me were the only things preventing him from breaking his special diet. With me.”

God, she was terrible at allusions and code. What she wouldn’t give for the opportunity to speak outright. The surface of the tea was shaking - her hands must be going again. She risked looking up at Billy.

He looked horrified.

“Bella, did he threaten you?” He sounded like someone was strangling him.

She nodded her head silently.

Billy closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. What a thing to learn - your best friend’s daughter almost got Bride of Dracula’d. When he opened them, they looked at each other for a few moments in total silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked quietly.

Bella tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “You don’t know how strong they are. They could have killed you on a whim. I didn’t want to put you or anyone else at risk.” Damn, the tears were starting up again.

Billy looked deeply troubled. “There’s something I should have told you. It’s a sacred secret for our tribe, one that we do not share with outsiders. Even now, after what you’ve been through, I can’t tell you everything. But Bella, there are people here that could have protected you from them.”

Bella couldn’t help the terribly rude snort.

“I know that’s hard to believe,” Billy continued, “but there are warriors - protectors - in our tribe that have fought against things like the Cullens in the past and won. It’s true,” he responded to Bella’s silent look of disbelief. “I swear to you, we could have protected you. If any of them come back, we still can.”

“Well,” Bella said thickly, “that would have been good to know.” She started rummaging in her bag before Billy handed her a box of tissues. The tears were really flowing now.

Billy’s eyes looked suspiciously bright themselves. “I’m so sorry Bella. None of this should have ever happened to you.”

Bella gave a wet chuckle that turned into an extremely undignified hiccup. “It did, but it’s over now. I get to live.”

He sent her off after extracting a promise from her to visit more often. “You don’t even have to bring 20 pounds of food,” he joked weakly. “10 will do just fine.”

In the absence of Edward Cullen, Bella’s life seemed brighter and more interesting than it ever had.

She went back to applying ferociously for internship while working on her application to UPenn. Her neglected human friends welcomed her back with open arms, though Lauren had extracted a promise from Bella to tell her everything.

Lauren was a godsend during the transitional period. She had taken it upon herself to handle inquiries into the Cullen’s relocation on Bella's behalf. Earlier in the day she had shut down Jessica’s probing questions in a very final manner that left no doubts as to Lauren’s relationship to the legendary and terrifying Nurse Mallory.

The girl really could be scary. Bella sent up a quick thank you to whatever deity was listening that Lauren was on her side. Being on the blonde’s sh*t list would be hellish.

As a thank you for running interference, Bella had invited Lauren over for dinner. Nurse Mallory was more of a TV dinner type and Lauren could give Charlie a run for his money in terms of kitchen ineptitude. The other girl was very easily bribed by a home cooked meal.

It was also a good excuse to have Lauren over. As the pall cast by the Cullens lifted, Bella was surprised to find that she had a varied emotional range. Now that gut-wrenching terror and existential dread were mostly off the table, other pressing feelings could come to the forefront.

They were sitting together and watching a movie after dinner- some supernatural horror that Lauren picked out. The back of Lauren’s arm was in contact with her torso, and Bella felt like she was about to die. Something in her chest was clenching, and she felt a little lightheaded.

The other girl shifted so that her side was now pressed into Bella’s. Bella mentally added heart palpitations to the growing list of symptoms.

It was like anxiety, vertigo, and hypoglycemia had a terrible and oddly pleasant baby. Bella could only alleviate the symptoms by looking at Lauren’s face.

Lauren was starting with rapt attention at the screen while the attractive female protagonist shakily shone a flashlight down a dark hallway. The flashlight flickered as the dissonant violins started to reach a crescendo. If the movie was following genre conventions, a jumpscare was in order.

It did not break the mold.

An actor with colored contacts and heavy special effects makeup appeared briefly in the shaky beam of light. The female lead screamed and Lauren dove for cover, burying her face in Bella’s neck.

Bella stopped breathing. Her cheek was pressed against silky hair, and her mouth was level with the mysterious place where Lauren’s jaw met her neck. Suddenly, Bella felt absolutely certain that she would crumble to dust if she didn’t move her face those few centimeters and put her mouth on that very spot.

Well. This was new. Bella had never wanted to lick someone before.

The realization felt like a kick to the solar plexus when it came. Bella was deeply and desperately attracted to Lauren Mallory, who was also maybe letting this embrace linger just a little too long.

There was a very insistent part of Bella saying that if she didn’t kiss Lauren Mallory on the mouth right now, her body would probably explode.

Bella shoved the voice into the newly created Horny Thoughts box and stuffed the box into the filing cabinet with all the other inconvenient thoughts.

After the events of the last six months, the filing cabinet was filled to bursting. Fortunately it was a mental construct and could be enlarged with only a little bit of willpower. Bella envisioned herself closing the door with a forceful roundhouse kick and could almost hear the satisfying clang as it latched shut.

Maladaptive daydreaming her butt, this was an absolutely fine way to deal with feelings.

Lauren murmured an apology and shifted away from Bella to focus on the movie once more. The female lead was now curled up in a bed shaking while something rattled at her window.

Well. That hit a little close to home.

Bella looked over at Lauren to distract herself. The other girl was once more enraptured by the action on screen. Bella had no idea what was going on, and was content to look at the play of the light on Lauren’s face. Her lower lip was slightly damp from when she had chewed it, and the residual saliva gleamed.

God, Bella was now waxing poetic about another girl’s spit. Sexual desire really did make people insane.

Mike Newton was very persistent. He was the one to suggest a camping trip for the whole friend group one week in mid October. When Bella hemmed and hawed due to her looming application deadlines, she experienced the phenomenon of peer pressure firsthand.

That was how, on a Thursday afternoon after school had let out, Bella found herself squashed between Lauren and Eric Yorkie in the back of Lee’s truck on the way to the national park.

Lauren had handed her a packet of Red Vines soon after she entered the truck, smirking in a very fetching way. Currently they were all an hour into the three-hour drive to the campsite. Mike and Jessica were shouting along to Mr. Brightside at the top of their lungs and encouraging everyone else to join in.

Lauren was really going for it - singing into an air microphone and looking deeply into Bella’s eyes every time the chorus hit. Eventually Bella found herself singing along with everyone else.

She was barely thinking about the lyrics and probably getting them all wrong. She was too busy trying to avoid thinking too deeply about how beautiful Lauren's green eyes looked in the afternoon light. Eating red vines at the same time didn't make things easier. She was alive and would be able to have out-of-tune impromptu karaoke sessions with her best friends and go to college and eat buckets of licorice.

She was very, very alive.

The dock creaked as Lauren settled herself down next to Bella. It was dark, and Lauren’s bright hair looked almost white in the moonlight.

“It’s a full moon,” Bella said, motioning with her head at the celestial body in question.

“It's pretty.” Lauren leaned back on her hands and looked up at the night sky. “The stars are out as well. Do you know any constellations?”

Bella shook her head. “You?”

“Nope,” Lauren said, popping the p. “Constellations qualify as nerdy and I am far too cool for them.”

“With that attitude you’ll never be an astrophysicist,” Bella said, knocking Lauren’s shoulder with her own. She was exuding warmth into the cool night air.

“Thank god for that,” Lauren replied. “Can you imagine me as a scientist? I would not look good in a lab coat.”

“I don’t know,” Bella mused, “I think it would be very sexy.” They looked at each other and quickly looked away.

“The others are looking for you, you know.”

“I know. I just wanted a bit of time to think.”

“I figured. That’s why it’s me and not the search party. I had to sic Jessica on Newton, otherwise the blond wonder boy would be out here trying to put the moves on you.”

“God forbid,” Bella shuddered with mock revulsion.

“Yeah,” Lauren responded. “The only one allowed to put the moves on you is me.”

Bella’s mind went blank, and Lauren seemed to realize she had just, in fact, put the gay moves on Bella.

“Joking, joking, I’m joking” she sputtered, putting her hands up. “I’m not - I mean, I wouldn’t -”

“You wouldn't?” Bella asked, very put out. Despite the anatomical impossibility, her stomach had somehow dropped somewhere below the pier.

“I mean, I would, but you’ve just broken it off with - it’s too soon -” Lauren groaned and put her face in her hands. “This was not how I pictured things going.”

“You pictured things with me?” Bella’s stomach returned to its rightful place.

“Maybe.” Lauren’s voice was carefully neutral. “You’re not mad at me?”

“No, should I be?” She was too busy cataloguing the peregrinations of her organs to be upset. Her heart somehow felt like it was melting while flying out of her chest. God, romantic feelings were weird.

“I mean, I'm,” Lauren pointed to herself and made an incomprehensible gesture. “You know.”

“A lesbian? I know that.”

Was this really what she was hung up on? Though, to be fair, Lauren had never actually come out to her - she’d only implied that Bella herself was a lesbian and then proceeded to flirt outrageously with her for several months. Which, when you thought about it, was basically coming out.

Did Lauren expect her to be surprised?

Lauren stared at her, looking completely dumbfounded. Had Bella said the wrong thing? She was pretty sure her deductive reasoning was sound, but there could be some logical holes. Lauren was definitely interested in women, but it was also possible she liked men.

“Or bisexual?” It came out like a question.

Lauren somehow looked more confused.

“I mean, no, I’m pretty sure I’m a lesbian. But - you knew that? And you don’t think I’m gross?”

“What?” It was Bella’s turn to be dumbfounded. Sure, she was socially obtuse to an impressive and possibly diagnosable degree, but even she couldn’t miss how Lauren had been coming on to her for months. Also, after the recent horror movie night and creation of the Horny Thoughts box Bella was under no illusions about her own sexuality.

“No, not at all. I’m pretty sure I’m bisexual.”

“Really?” Lauren looked like she was about to start vibrating from a combination of nervous tension, delight, and disbelief.

Bella nodded. “I didn’t cut my hair or anything because I was gay, but when you stood up for me I started thinking about whether or not I like girls. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I have a thing for tall blondes of any gender.”

Lauren now looked a little shell-shocked, but quickly gathered herself. “Am I tall?” she asked, a little nervous.

Bella looked at her contemplatively. “Comparatively, yes.”

This wasn’t necessarily how Bella had planned to come out to Lauren. She hadn’t really planned anything at all - it was barely a month after Edward had left. Bella was now intimately aware of how fragile her life was. She could let Lauren off the hook and pretend nothing had happened, but then she might get hit by a bus tomorrow, and she’d still never made out with anyone she wanted to.

It would be a hideous shame to die having only suffered unwillingly through Edward Cullen’s freezing cold kisses, and Lauren looked so pretty in the moonlight.

Bella put her hand on the other girl’s. “I know this is abrupt. Normally I’d wait a few months after a breakup before trying anything, but I’m very tired of waiting and I didn’t even enjoy dating Edward. I know you like me, and I like you, and I think we should kiss.”

Lauren gaped at her before coming to an internal conclusion. She firmed her shoulders and nodded to herself.

“If that’s what you want,” she said softly, and leaned in.

The kiss was very warm. So were the ones that came after it.

Half an hour and many kisses later, Bella lay on the dock with her head pillowed on Lauren’s very soft chest. Lauren was carding her fingers through Bella’s still too short hair and pressing occasional kisses on the top of her head.

“Do you wanna date?” she asked Lauren.

“Sure, why not,” came the sleepy response.

“Do you think we have to keep it a secret?”

“Probably. How does Charlie feel about the gays?”

Bella shrugged, knowing that Lauren would feel it. “How about Nurse Mallory?”

“I think she’s ok with it, but sleepovers are out of the question if she knows we’re dating.”

Bella hummed. Sleepovers with Lauren were already very fun - if they added the kissing dimension, they would likely only get better. It would be a shame to give those up.

“Secret girlfriends?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Bella beamed.

“You still need to tell me what happened with Edward Cullen.”

“Later,” Bella argued. “I’m too happy now.”

“If you insist.”

Bella was able to distract Lauren easily enough.

It was a very nice weekend. Bella’s heart beat a little faster every time Lauren was nearby, and hiding their new association felt like the most thrilling game Bella had ever played.

Kissing Lauren felt amazing. Bella had always figured that she might never be interested in sex; the urge had never come up before. The only emotion present was a faint aesthetic appreciation for those she found good-looking. Her mother, in one uncomfortable interrogation session, mused that Bella might be like her father who was for all intents and purposes Renéesexual.

Bella had sprinted out of the room after hearing that, social conventions be damned.

With Lauren, however, Bella realized that she might actually be a sexual being. She was 18, which was a fairly average age of first intercourse for American women. With everyone else, especially Edward, the idea of sustained physical contact had been mildly repulsive - sex was out of the question.

She was with Lauren now - they had gone away for a two-man hike and ended up entangled on a bed of moss, continuing their favorite activity. Lauren’s glossy white-blond hair was messed up, and she was covered in bits of plant life.

Sure, I wouldn’t mind her putting her hands in my pants, Bella thought. But not now - who knows what kind of soil-borne pathogens are present. Safety first.

Somehow, despite a stunning lack of subtlety, everyone at the campsite was completely oblivious, even when Bella and Lauren came stumbling back from a “hike”, both giggling with twigs trapped in Lauren’s hair. As far as anyone was concerned, they were just doing girly best friend stuff.

Lauren even slept in Bella’s tent with no one the wiser, although Mike Newton did make a typically lewd joke accompanied by a pair of outrageously waggling eyebrows. As a known perv no one took him seriously, though Jessica Stanley did take the opportunity to whack him with a flyswatter. This raised Bella’s opinion of the girl immensely.

It was very easy to date a girl in plain sight.

On the way back to Forks, Katie ended up in Lee’s van, which made the available space shrink. Bella wasn’t complaining about the arrangement - despite some leering offers from the boys, she ended up sitting in Lauren’s lap. Mr. Brightside came on the radio again as they drove. Everyone in the car lost it, and a cacophony of teenage voices started up in almost-unison. Bella twisted around to look at Lauren belting out the lyrics, almost unable to keep singing from the force of her joyful laughter.

It would be so easy to kiss her here in front of everyone, but the consequences would undoubtedly be severe. How funny, how awful that dating an undead centenarian serial killer was more acceptable than a girl her own age.

Bella twisted back to face the front seat and leaned back against Lauren’s torso. The blonde girl snaked her arms around Bella’s torso and snuck a quick kiss to her hair between the chorus and the outro.

How nice to have a pleasant secret to keep.

Charlie was very impressed by Bella’s rapid recovery from the Cullen exodus. When he went to talk with Harry Clearwater, he’d been prepared for the worst - snappishness, moping for months, a terrible attitude, and more horrors conjured up from the depths of the teenage psyche.

To be fair to the Clearwater girl, that business with Sam Uley and her cousin had been particularly convoluted and nasty. Privately, Charlie thought that if Leah Clearwater was his daughter Uley would have a lot more to worry about.

Bella, though, seemed to snap back like it was nothing. There were those feverish days of cooking, true. He had been worried about the Swan grocery budget, but that was before he learned that his daughter was an unparalleled deal hound. The girl had a gift with coupons - she always seemed to know where to find the best ones.

The offhanded comment she made about needing to find good coupons in order to eat when she was with Renée was a little concerning, though.

They were still eating the remains of the frenzy. Bella would nervously check in on him sometimes to see if lasagne was ok for the nth day in a row. The Chief always said it was fine - both because the kid made some mean noodles, and heating up frozen food gave her more time to spend with her friends.

The Mallory girl was a particular blessing. Bella really had a good friend in that one. They were almost inseparable now, and he hadn’t seen Bella look so happy since, well, ever. She was almost giddy every time Lauren came to watch movies or sleep over.

They were on the couch now, watching some slasher movie Charlie didn’t have the stomach for. He stopped for a moment to look at Bella fondly before heading up to bed. He wished he'd had a friend like that when Renée left.

“I don’t really see how they’re different,” Bella said, holding up the two DVD cases in front of a very skeptical Lauren and a gleeful Jacob. They were standing in a back aisle of the Star Video rental in Port Angeles, trying to find a movie to watch.

Bella was holding a documentary about the horrific murder of a child by three Satanists in one hand, and a horror movie about the horrific murder of multiple children by Satanists in the other.

“Bella, one of them is about real people” Lauren hissed, clearly trying not to attract attention.

“Sure, but the other is just a thinly disguised supernatural retelling of the story about real people,” Bella argued. “If anything, the documentary is more respectful and less sensationalized, to say nothing of the higher informational content.”

“It’s different - those are real murderers on screen!”

“I wonder what the statistical likelihood is that any one actor or actress in a given film has committed a murder,” Bella mused. Lauren pinched her temple and screwed her eyes shut.

“Is she always like this?” she asked Jacob.

The tall boy, who was currently burning through Bella’s red vines at an alarming rate, nodded silently. “One of my treasured childhood memories is of her trying to tell my dad about Washington State’s most prolific serial killers.”

Lauren let out a long groan.

Bella still didn’t really get it, but she was willing to compromise despite all of Lauren’s arguments lacking any solid logical foundation.

She shrugged to herself - guess that’s love.

The thought brought her up short - was she in love with Lauren? The taller girl was still massaging the bridge of her nose with pinched fingers while Jacob awkwardly patted her on the back. The two got along surprisingly well - Jacob and Billy had come over to the Swan residence once while Lauren was there, and the rest was history. Come to think of it, Jake probably wasn’t used to having a house devoid of women.

On the topic of love, however, Bella was surprised to find a warm, golden feeling lodged tightly in her chest every time she thought about Lauren. Wasn't this a little soon?

To be fair, Bella had been very focused on not dying for a large part of her acquaintance with the other girl. It was more than possible that feelings had snuck up on her unawares.

Lauren wasn’t a terrible person to be in love with - she was fiercely protective of Bella and patient with her social gaffes. She was also really really ridiculously good-looking - no Rosalie, sure, but as attractive a human woman as Bella had seen in real life. She was a good kisser and generally kind and usually very funny - even if the jokes went over Bella’s head sometimes.

“Earth to Bella?”

That would be the girl in question, who was now looking at Bella with a note of fond exasperation. Lauren was used to her. She knew her about as well as anyone else ever had, and still wanted Bella to put her hands up her shirt.

All in all, a good choice for a first love.

“Sorry,” Bella smiled, “I was visiting the ISS to check for any potential criminal activity.”

Lauren smirked and bundled Bella under her outstretched arm. “That’s my girl. Come on, let’s get the fictional rendition and head home.”

“Ugh, you guys are so gross” Jacob complained. He’d been doing a lot of that recently.

“I’m not the one talking with my mouth full of licorice. You two are absolutely nuts for liking that stuff, it’s frigging gross. And Jake, you’re paying for at least half the pizza this time since you’ll eat most of it anyway.”

The boy in question squawked indignantly though noticeably did not deny the charges. It was difficult to refute a true accusation.

It was a good year. Somehow, for the first time in her life, Bella was able to surround herself with real friends. She got invited to parties in the woods and stood around bonfires while surrounded by her drunken peers.

She was always sober. For some reason, the idea of underage drinking was always distasteful. Even though it was a silly and logically inconsistent law, it was a law, and Bella quite liked those.

So she never embarrassed herself, and in the course of holding back the hair of several of her peers made even more friends. It was also even easier to sneak away with her human girlfriend while everyone else was stumbling drunk in the woods.

Sure, people still thought she was weird, but she was now weird within a social context. There were now in-jokes that she was involved in, not the subject of.

People even liked hearing about really involved and violent cases in certain contexts - namely, around a campfire at night. Bella found that if she pointed a flashlight under her chin and pitched her voice in a spooky register, they would let her go on about local cold cases for hours.

Her girlfriend was the eternal exception to this. Once, while they were holding each other in Lauren’s bed while Nurse Mallory was working a 36 hour shift, Bella launched into a story about a woman from a nearby town who had been out walking and was then brutally -

Getting interrupted by kisses was the least offensive way to be interrupted. Lauren had hauled herself up by her elbows, strategically positioning her bare chest for maximum distraction - they had been fooling around before Bella started monologuing.

My kingdom, my concentration, and my mental clarity for a pair of boobs, Bella thought, trying very hard to focus on what Lauren was saying. Sexual attraction was inherently anti-intellectual and a major nuisance.

“Babe,” Lauren started, “you are so hot and smart and interesting. You are the best girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

“I’m the only girlfriend-” Bella interjected, or tried to. It was hard to talk around another human’s pair of lips on her own.

“Shut up. You are my best and most sexy and cool girlfriend and please shut the f*ck up about women being murdered. Please. I love you. If you talk about one more horrifying act of violence against women I will barf. On you. Specifically.”

That was, anticlimactically, the first time Lauren told her that she loved her. Thankfully, it wasn’t the last.

Jacob ended up being her true crime friend. He preferred the mystery element to the psychological profiling, but he was happy enough to drive with her to Port Angeles to rent documentaries.

Over the last few months they had become quietly close. Jake loved hearing lurid stories, and Bella enjoyed his abundant sense of humor. She even let him nerd out about cars to her for hours - it seemed only fair.

He’d also toned down the flirting - Bella had no idea why, but she wasn’t complaining.

She spent a healthy amount of time at Billy’s house. She’d hang out with Jacob, either in the garage or while doing homework, and then help Billy in the kitchen. If this took the form of him chatting while she cooked, well. No one was complaining, although Billy did offer token protests at the beginning.

It was a remarkably comfortable arrangement.

There was only one awkward moment. It was an overcast day in late winter, the type of day that always sent Bella’s senses into high gear and made her hands extra shaky. This was the type of day where all the Cullens would come out in full force. She had to forcibly remind herself that they were gone, all of them. Carlisle had promised her a life and so far he had delivered.

Jake, for all that he was a doofus teen boy, was also remarkably perceptive. He had somehow connected her increased anxiety levels to this type of weather and went out of his way to be extra gentle.

It was that gentleness that got them into a bit of a mess. She was carrying a stack of handouts to the dining room - they were going over his Algebra homework- when he graciously leaned over and took them from her hands.

She was slow to react and slower to take her hands away. One of the sheets sliced into her index finger. The minute Bella felt the sting, a familiar sense of panic overwhelmed her.

“I’m sorry! I'm so sorry!” She turned frantically, searching for the door she had just come through. Jacob was calling her name but she had to escape, otherwise she was done for -

Warm, solid hands landed on her shoulder, startling her into awareness.

“Bella?” Jake’s eyes were wide. He almost looked frightened. “It’s just a paper cut, you’re fine! I’ll go find some bandages and antiseptic.”

He gently led her to the table and sat her down while he left to get supplies. Just like with Hot Dr. Cullen, Bella thought. That did not make the situation better.

Jake returned with a cardboard box that had “First Aid” scribbled messily on it in permanent marker. He sat down and took her hand in his, turning it to get a better look at the cut.

“It’s a pretty nasty paper cut, I’ll give you that.”

He got a bottle of antiseptic spray and spritzed her finger - she hissed at the sting.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone freak out over a cut that badly,” Jake said, chortling a little as he took the bandaid out of its wrapper. “I swear you used to be better at dealing with this kind of thing. Rachel was always the one who would freak out. Puberty definitely changed you - you looked like you were scared I was going to murder you over a little blood.”

She felt like she was going to be sick.

“Bella?” Jake prompted gently. He sounded concerned.

She blinked hard and shook her head. “It’s nothing. Do you want to start working on those assignments? Your dad told me you have a test next week.”

Jake groaned at the thought of enforced mathematical studying, but Bella was firm.

A distraction, any distraction at all would be preferable to focusing on the sick anxiety overwhelming her senses.

Also, she wasn’t about to get banned from the Black residence because she caused Jacob to fail Algebra.

Bella’s determination to live life to the fullest even saw her accept a fishing invitation from Charlie. One Saturday, she, Charlie, Billy, Harry Clearwater, Leah, and Jake all bundled into Harry Clearwater’s boat and set off into the open ocean in search of halibut.

Everyone, even Leah Clearwater, had a blast.

Getting into UPenn was the best day of Bella’s human life. Charlie was waiting for her that day in late March when she got home from school. Lauren had ridden with her, since they were planning to study for an upcoming calculus test.

Charlie was whey-faced at the kitchen table, clutching a thick envelope addressed to her. He waved it at her when she got in, and Bella nearly blacked out with stress. Lauren put her hand on Bella’s back as they all crowded around the kitchen table, eager to see the results.

Bella’s hands had never really stopped shaking after Edward left. Getting the envelope open felt nearly impossible, but soon enough the paper had been ripped aside.

Dear Bella,

It gives me great pleasure to invite you to attend the University of Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 2010

She couldn’t read any more after that - the tears obstructed her vision. Lauren gently took the letter and started to read the rest out loud as Charlie clutched her close. She couldn’t stop smiling and even though she thought she’d had that kind of behavior under control she was flapping her arms and jumping up and down like a lunatic, face aching from the strain of her grin.

Lauren was dancing around the room while Charlie hunted furiously for a fridge magnet - his little girl had gotten into the University of Pennsylvania, he would be damned if the acceptance letter wasn’t on the fridge for every single future visitor to see.

They ditched studying and Charlie took them out for dinner, telling everyone in earshot at the diner that Bella, his daughter , can you believe it, got into an Ivy League school.

She even got a free piece of cake.

Lauren Mallory’s car was definitely more fuel efficient than the truck. Still, Bella found that she missed the comforting roar that came with being in the cab of the red dinosaur. They were driving to Seattle for a snazzy cultural day - Bella had suggested going on a date to the city, and was pleasantly surprised when Lauren immediately started rattling off a list of art museums and galleries to visit.

It was also nice that she didn’t have to drive. Lauren had, however, put her foot down when it came to choosing music - apparently she didn’t like Linkin Park. A shame, especially since Bella didn’t like Lauren’s music that much either.

Bella was very impressed with herself for stoically enduring the terrible wailing of Fiona Apple before Lauren sighed and ejected the CD.

“If you really hate the music that much I’ll change it.”

Bella was very surprised. “I don’t hate it at all! I’m just getting used to it,” she protested.

Lauren levelled her with a flat stare. This made Bella very nervous, as her eyes were not on the road. Bella tended to err on the side of law-abiding caution when driving, while Lauren liked to live dangerously. If Edward could see her now, he’d pitch a fit. The thought prompted Bella to intervene.

“Um, Lauren? The highway?”

Lauren turned back to driving, but only one hand was on the wheel. The other was rooting around in the glove compartment for the CD box.

“You know,” she said, finding the cloth case and handing it to Bella, “you’re terrible at hiding your emotions.”

Bella felt a little insulted; the only reason she was alive at all was because she had gotten rather good at hiding pesky emotions like terror and revulsion.

“I’m not so bad - I can manage it sometimes. I’ve had plenty of practice,” she said sulkily.

Lauren gave her an odd look. Bella decided it was high time to change the subject. “Can we listen to the Killers?”

“Go ahead,” Lauren sighed, “put Hot Fuss on for the 18th time this week.”

“It’s good!” Bella exclaimed, unwilling to besmirch Brandon Flowers’ honor.

“That’s why I’m prepared to listen to it for the 19th time.” Lauren said.

The uptempo beat of the first song on the album filled the car.

She was content to sit back in her seat and watch the scenery go by while listening to the familiar song.

She couldn't scream while I held her close

I swore I’d never let her go

Before long, she realized that Lauren was surreptitiously looking at her from the corner of her eyes.

“What?” Bella asked.

“When you said you had lots of practice hiding your emotions, what did you mean?” Lauren said carefully.

Oh, this. This conversation.

Every once in a while Lauren would very cautiously push for details about Bella’s time with Edward Cullen. Truthfully, Bella had never felt ready. Those six months always felt too large and terrible to discuss. They loomed perpetually in the background of her life and in her frequent, detailed nightmares.

Lauren had experience with said nightmares.

Having regular sleepovers with your secret girlfriend had its ups and downs.

The good things were delightful, many, and varied. They included frequent sex, getting to see breasts, getting to touch breasts, long languorous discussions about everything and anything, and frequent cuddling.

There were also many bad things. Waking up with strands of long blonde hair in one's mouth, morning breath on both sides, dodging Nurse Mallory’s knowing (and disapproving) looks. Having a witness to one’s vampire stalker induced PTSD episodes and waking that witness and sometimes the witness's terrifying mother with screaming night terrors.

That last one sucked particularly hard, and was only just mitigated by breasts. And love. Mostly love. But the breasts certainly helped.

But, Bella realized, it was nearly May. She’d been dating Lauren for six full months - just as long as she had been trapped in Cullen’s hellish web. She had not only survived, but she’d accomplished her lifetime goal of getting into UPenn with a more than decent scholarship.

Edward Cullen had failed to ruin her life.

She and Lauren were also due to graduate, and Bella knew the likelihood of two high school sweethearts staying together through four years of college (and in her case four years of medical school, a further four years of residency, and two years of a fellowship). Lauren had been accepted to a few state schools in the area, and would not be anywhere near the East Coast.

In another universe, one where Bella wasn’t so single-mindedly dedicated to her career, she could see how this might end differently. That Bella would have nothing to define herself with. The first time someone came along and alleviated her terrible loneliness, that other Bella would make them the center of her world. She would cling desperately to them and do everything she could to make sure they could never, ever leave her.

It was an impulse that rose up sometimes, still.

In the dull, sluggish hours of the evening when Lauren was busy and Charlie was at the police station, when Bella was alone with the soul-destroying loneliness that had never quite left her. During those times, she would secretly consider throwing away her dreams to stay with the girl that loved her, to stay close to her father and Billy and Jacob.

Anything to avoid being alone again.

That Bella didn’t exist. This Bella was able to quash the terrible impulse and grind it dispassionately under her heel. She was going to break up with her girlfriend - maybe not now, maybe not for a few months or years, but it would happen.

But at the moment she was on a date in Lauren’s nice middle-grade car, and she had a choice. If she demurred, Lauren would accept it without question and easily pivot the conversation to something else. She couldn’t keep Lauren, but she could be honest and vulnerable with her.

Well, honest to the extent that the law allowed.

No explaining that Edward Cullen was a vampire who wanted to kill her.

Bella knew all of the statistics about intimate partner violence, all the stories of women harmed by those who professed to love them. She was well aware that her story wasn’t structurally unique.

Sure, most people’s abusive partners didn’t have super strength or the desire to eat their corpse, but too many other people had lived in fear of people that were supposed to love them.

So as they drove to Seattle, Bella haltingly told Lauren what she had suspected, but never confirmed. The stalking, death threats, coercive control, and abuse. It was all true, as well - it just left out a few uprooted spruces and ice cream comparisons and added in seven heartbeats.

Lauren listened quietly and didn’t say a word until Bella was done.

Lauren had a reputation as a catty bitch at Forks High. Bella had seen her in action a few times - the blonde girl was preternaturally good at finding a target’s weaknesses and cruelly, efficiently eviscerating them with a few well-chosen words. The reason she was so good at this kind of psychological warfare was her surprisingly complete grasp of the human psyche.

Bella had to work her whole life to understand how other people worked; Lauren just seemed to know. That was what made her such a formidable opponent and such a good listener.

When Bella finished with a very edited account of Carlisle’s last phone call, Lauren sat with her in silence for a few minutes. They were still 45 minutes from their destination, and the album had finished while Bella was talking.

Eventually, Lauren broke the silence. “You can play Hot Fuss again. I know you want to.”

Lauren Mallory’s mind reading powers had struck again. Bella complied, happy to have the safety blanket of familiar music for the difficult conversation that was sure to follow her confession.

Lauren stared ahead at the freeway. It was a grey spring day, and low clouds threatened rain. She sucked on her teeth, a gesture lifted straight from Nurse Mallory. “I knew something was up. I didn’t want to say anything until you were ready to talk about it. I mean, I did, but Nurse Mallory said that would be a stupid thing to do. She said it might drive you away.”

There was something to that. If Lauren had said something, Edward would have put his foot down. No more Lauren at all, and who knew if their friendship would have survived that.

They were quiet the rest of the way there. Lauren found overpriced parking in the city centre, and they set out to the Seattle Art Museum from there.

It seemed that Bella’s bid for emotional intimacy had paid off. While walking through an exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography, Lauren started telling Bella about how she always, always wanted to be a designer. Nurse Mallory had all but forbidden it, intent on Lauren getting a well-paying job and not being financially beholden to some man.

“I mean, I get it. The Nurse doesn’t talk a lot about her life, but she had a tough time growing up. I know she just wants the best for me, but I feel like she wants me to completely give up on my dreams. I mean,” Lauren shrugged bitterly, “I already have. I haven’t applied to any design schools. I don’t have a portfolio.”

The museum docent shot them a warning look, so Lauren steered them to a corridor, sitting them down on a bench.

“That’s one of the reasons I really admire you, Bella. You’re so dedicated to what you want. It’s like you have laser vision. I’m just too weak to actually go after what I want, and I couldn’t do that to my mom anyway.”

“To be fair,” Bella retorted, “I will be getting a medical degree. That’s hardly as stigmatized as a creative job, and my chosen profession has a high median salary. Also, I know that the University of Oregon has a very good design department. If you go there you could opt to major in something practical sounding like business and get a minor in design. It’s definitely doable. I can actually look into their credit structure and see what kind of course load you’d need for -”

Lauren was staring at her. She did that a lot, Bella realized.

The blonde girl looked slightly dazed. “You think I can do it?”

“Sure, why not?” Bella said, nonplussed. “Design is a very large field with multiple subdisciplines. There’s going to be some kind of niche that you’ll fit into, and I know you can fight your way to the top of whatever specialty you land in. That’s what you do.”

“You know,” Lauren said, “that’s probably the nicest way anyone’s ever called me a bitch.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I’ve never really talked about this to anyone. It seemed like such a silly dream. I just - I don’t want to be like my dad. He gets paid really well but he’s never home, and when he is he’s miserable because of his stupid job. Nurse Mallory is basically a single mom. I want to do something meaningful with my life that doesn’t make me so depressed I bail out on my family.”

“Then do it,” Bella replied. “ You’re smart and you dress well, I think.”

Lauren shot her a look.

“What? I don’t know anything about fashion. I bet you could be a good designer. Anyway, it’s a normal human impulse to want meaningful work. I’ll help you figure out all the administrative stuff. It’s not too late to go for it.”

Right there, in the view of God, a bored docent, three delighted young men, and a scandalized older woman, Lauren Mallory kissed Bella Swan right on the mouth.

On May 1st, two weeks after Bella sent in her decision to attend UPenn, she was on the way home from Seattle after buying several books at the University of Washington bookshop with the birthday gift card. She’d been unsure about using it, but figured it couldn’t hurt. It had been half a year - they were hardly going to come back just because she bought a few textbooks. The gift card wasn’t cursed.

She wanted to be as prepared as humanly possible for her first year of her real education.

Bella had even stopped at one of the major galleries and picked up a few postcards for Lauren and a gouache set. They had a study date the next evening, and Bella was excited to surprise her with the presents. They weren’t big, but Lauren liked getting little gifts - she would get a real smile that made her cheeks crease. Bella liked looking at that smile and kissing the creases when no one was watching.

A few miles away from home, she pulled up next to a silver Volvo at a stoplight. She caught the shape of it in her peripheral vision, and an involuntary shudder ripped through her. She didn’t know anything about cars, but she could swear it looked almost exactly like Cullen’s genuine leather interior murdermobile.

Oh Bella, she admonished herself. You can’t let little reminders like that ruin your day. I bet the person driving isn’t even -

Her train of thought came to an abrupt, screeching halt and lay in a smoking ruin on the mental tracks. There in the driver’s seat sat the figure that starred in every one of her nightmares for the last year.

Edward Cullen was staring back at her, just as shocked as she was. His super senses hadn’t picked her up. If she had a slightly less recognizable car, maybe she could have snuck past him.

The seconds ticked by at an agonizing crawl. If he got to Forks, if he heard Lauren thinking about what Bella had told her, about them, then the jig would be up, he would -

Bella hit the gas, ran the red light, and turned onto the road that would take her to La Push. There were a few indignant honks but she didn’t pay attention, hell bent on getting to the reservation as quickly as she could.

La Push itself was several miles away, but Billy had once alluded to a larger boundary that was patrolled by the tribe's mystery protectors.

The Cullens knew not to cross it.

Bella stomped on the gas and held the pedal to the floor, pushing the truck to go as fast as it could. She refused to look at the rearview mirror and prayed that the prehistoric engine would keep working despite the torture she was subjecting it to. It was broad daylight and the roads were about as crowded as they got. Bella was gambling on Edward obeying the law, human and vampire, and the existence of a boundary that he could not cross.

Billy hadn’t been lying. As Bella passed an enormous, bent spruce with curtains of moss hanging from it, she heard brakes squealing behind her and a car door slamming open. She finally looked in the rearview mirror.

She could see the rapidly receding form of Edward Cullen. He was standing next to his car, oblivious to the angry honking of the other vehicles behind him. His black eyes burned with confusion and hurt.

Bella kept driving and prayed Billy was home.

Chapter 10: End of Life

Chapter Text

“Billy!”

Bella pounded on the door with both hands again, feeling the flimsy wood give a little under the force of her clenched fists.

“Billy, please! Open up!” Her voice was a strangled whisper. Even with Edward miles away, she couldn’t be sure he was out of hearing range if she shouted.

She stumbled forward as the door opened, and bashed her shin on the footrest of Billy’s wheelchair. Billy wheeled himself back expertly to avoid Bella as she caught herself with a hand on the doorframe.

“Bella?” Billy’s voice was unsure.

She spun around and slammed the door shut. One of the framed portraits by the entrance shuddered in its frame with the force. She scrabbled for the bolts and slid them shut, one by one.

The thin sound of children playing wafted into the house.

The windows!

“Bella, what’s wrong?”

She ran to pull the kitchen window shut, before going through every room in the house. There was an open window in Jake’s room, but the master bedroom was secure.

“Bella! What the hell is going on?” Billy shouted as she slammed the door to the master bedroom shut behind her.

They stared at each other for a moment, Billy’s dark eyes boring into hers.

“Tell me what happened, Bella,” Billy pleaded.

She leaned heavily against the wood of the bedroom door, and found that her knees could no longer support her weight. It was odd to look up at Billy - they were usually at the same level, or she had the higher vantage point. She sunk her hands into her short hair.

Lauren had mentioned that it was now past her ears, and she was due for a trim.

Oh Christ. Lauren.

“Bella -” he started again, but she interrupted him.

“Please, just give me a second to think,” Bella begged. “I need to figure out what to do.” Bella wracked her brain for a way to get some privacy. “Can you get me a glass of water?”

Billy stared hard at her for a few seconds before assenting. “Sure. Will you tell me what’s happening when I get back?”

“Yes,” Bella promised. He swivelled to go to the kitchen. “Billy, wait - please - don’t open the windows. Or the door.”

His back stiffened. “I won’t.” He didn’t turn back to look at her.

Bella curled up on the floor and shoved her fist in her mouth to keep herself from screaming. What could she do? It took every ounce of strength she had to marshal herself and think.

Her wallet, currently in the front pocket of her hoodie, was digging deep into the soft meat of her stomach.

Carlisle.

Was that it? Was that what it came down to?

The promise of a real, human life with a natural ending had once again been broken. She had only gotten half a year to really live. There was always the choice of running for it, but she barely had any money. The truck wouldn’t last.

The prospect of a life lived in fear - no UPenn, no career, only an endless parade of anonymous motels and dead end jobs brought her up short.

Even if the protectors could keep her safe, they couldn’t always be there. They couldn’t follow her to UPenn, couldn’t keep guard outside her dorm and when she walked home at night, and they couldn't follow her until she died of old age. Billy's offer would provide only the illusion of safety; a short-term, temporary fix.

There was only one way out of this.

She would need to use Billy’s phone.

As if on cue, he wheeled back into the hallway with a glass of water. He handed it down to her and she tried her best to soldier through it. Her stomach felt impenetrable, and after two sips she had to put down the glass.

Billy looked at her expectantly.

“I -” she began, and took another arduous sip of water. Her mouth was bone dry. “Edward Cullen. He’s back.”

The color drained out of Billy’s face.

At that moment, someone started pounding on Billy’s door.

“Billy!” came a low, very human voice. “We need to talk!” Billy’s head shot up, and he cursed under his breath. “It’s fine,” he reassured her. “That’s Sam Uley.”

Leah’s asshole ex? Billy said his name like it should mean something.

“I’m going to go see what he wants,” Billy said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The minute the door closed, Bella scrambled to her feet and sprinted for the phone in the tiny kitchen.

Billy and Sam Uley were standing with their backs turned to the kitchen window, speaking in hushed tones. Sam was wearing nothing but a pair of battered cutoff shorts.

She rifled through her wallet, desperate for the thick white business card. She had to re-enter the number on the Black’s plastic home phone several times - her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hit the correct buttons.

Eventually, the phone started ringing. She held her breath until a familiar voice spoke.

“Hello?”

“Carlisle!” she whispered harshly.

“Bella?” He sounded surprised.

“Listen to me. Edward is back, and I need you to do what we agreed you would.”

“What - are you certain?”

“Yes I’m certain!” she snarled.

There was a shout from outside the house. She looked out the window to see another teenage boy sprinting from the direction of the road, also dressed only in a pair of shorts.

Even through the glass, she could hear the new boy yelling.

“Where is she!”

Bella’s blood turned into ice.

“I don’t have much time, Carlisle, what should I do?”

Billy said something indistinct, but the new boy turned and shouted at him.

“He’s pacing around the perimeter and raving about Swan! I know she’s here Billy, I can see the damn truck!”

Carlisle hissed. “Where are you?” he asked urgently.

“I’m at Billy Black’s house, at La Push,” she responded.

“Do you know anyone with a seaworthy boat?”

Bella thought for a moment, and remembered the halibut fishing trip. “Yes, but it’s small.”

“That’s fine,” he reassured her. “Edward is a terrible tracker. I can meet you at the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse in three hours. It’s a relatively short boat journey away. Before you leave, swap clothes with someone, and try as much as you can to hide your scent.”

“Ok,” Bella agreed, nodding her head even though he couldn’t see her. “Ok.”

“Remember Bella, Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. I’ll be there.”

She heard Billy burst through the door, Sam and the other boy trailing behind him, and slammed the phone down on the receiver.

The three men entered the kitchen. “Bella,” Billy gestured at the two men, “this is Sam Uley and Paul Lahote. They’ve come to inform us that Edward Cullen is at the treaty border.

Treaty border? She thought incredulously. There was no magical force field keeping Edward out?

“It’s been a while, Bella,” Sam said.

She nodded jerkily. Was now really the time for pleasantries?

He got straight to the point. “Billy informed us about your… entanglement with the bloodsucker. Is there anything we should know about?”

Were these two guys the protectors Billy had spoken of? They were very tall and muscular, true, but they just looked like regular boys. She could remember Sam as a quiet 12 year old, trailing after Leah and Rebecca on the beach.

It was hard to picture them taking on a monster like Edward.

Still, Billy had seemed so sure, and they were the only hope of salvation she had.

Sam seemed to misinterpret her silence.

“Bella, we’re here to help you. It’s our job to make sure that no human is ever bitten by one of those leeches.” He smiled at her gently, encouragingly. “We won’t let him get you.”

Bitten, not killed. She would really have to lie.

These people were putting their lives on the line for her while she knowingly ran headfirst into the very fate they were trying to prevent.

When it comes down to it, you really are an immoral, unethical person, she thought savagely.

But she wanted so badly not to die, even if that meant she could no longer live.

She could still give them all the information she had. With any luck it would help them keep Edward - and maybe Alice - at bay.

“Edward, the one after me - he can read minds. He has a range of up to a few miles - be careful what you think when you’re near him,” she cautioned.

Paul sucked in a breath through his teeth and started shifting restlessly on his feet. If the room was any larger he would have started pacing.

“Alice, the little black haired one, you remember her -” Sam nodded gravely - “she can see the future. Try not to make any hard and fast decisions - she might be able to warn him if she can see what you’re planning.”

“How many of them are back?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know - I only saw Edward.”

“Do you know why he’s back?” Sam pressed. Billy sent him a weary look.

“Me. He’s probably here for me. He - I had to -” Bella gulped for air. “He said my blood is the sweetest thing he ever smelled. He’ll say he loves me, but he only wants to kill me.”

Sam and Paul straightened up and made to leave.

“Please be careful,” Bella blurted out, unable to contain herself. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Paul shot her a wicked smile. “It’s not us you should be worried about.”

Sam’s serious facade cracked a little as well. “We’ll be able to handle him. Billy.” He nodded at the older man, and headed out the door, Paul following closely behind him. Bella flinched at the sound of the door slamming.

“Billy, I have a plan.”

He looked at her warily.

“I need to get to the Tillamook Point lighthouse,” she continued. “Edward can’t track me as well in the water.”

Billy hesitated. “I think you’ll be safer here-”

“No!” she shouted, startling them both. “No, Billy, I need to leave. I - I have a contact, someone who can help me. They can get me away from Edward.”

Billy looked skeptical. “That’s pretty out of the way.”

Gracious, she wasn’t going to get away with half truths - she would need to lie outright.

“They can deal with vampires. They can protect me.” She looked at him beseechingly. Please fall for this.

Billy’s hands flexed on the armrests of his chair. "We can do that too."

“Please, Billy, you have to believe me,” she begged, “he’s trustworthy. He can help me.”

“It’s not you I don't trust, Bella, it's your friend. Can you tell me how they came into contact with you? I'm not doubting you," he said when she made to interrupt, "but this person is- don't you think it's too convenient?"

The unsaid question of "where were they last time you needed them?" hung in the air between them.

“I trust him with my life,” she said, praying her face wouldn’t betray her. “You should too.”

He dropped his face into his hands and scrubbed once, twice. When he looked up, Bella could see the utter exhaustion in his eyes.

"I just want to keep you safe, Bella. You're a good kid. If you say you can trust this guy..." another long, slow exhale. "I'll bite. Alright kid, what do you need?”

“For starters, I’m going to need some of your dirty clothes.”

Harry Clearwater was out of town that day, but Sue was at home, looking over some of the accounts for the tribal council. When Billy and Bella showed up outside her door, Bella drowning in an ancient jacket and motor oil stained pair of coveralls, she simply gave the odd pair a once-over and ushered them inside.

Before Billy could open his mouth, Sue cut him off. “Sam told me. What’s the plan?”

Billy explained that Bella needed a ride to the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse by boat.

“She says,” and here he hesitated, throwing Bella a look, “there’s a guy she can trust - he can get her out of this mess.”

Sue turned her gaze to Bella, who tried not to squirm. It was like being X-rayed. She struggled to keep everything in.

It would be so easy to break down, confess, and beg them to hide her.

But Edward would come for her, and he would go through every person that stood between them if he had to. If she wanted Billy and Jacob out of harm's way, there was only one avenue of salvation.

Sue eventually dropped her gaze. “I’ll go change now. I’ll meet you two down by the boat in 10 minutes. Bella, do you have everything you need?”

Bella ground her teeth together. She was about to be dead, she couldn’t afford to think about everything she was leaving behind.

“Yes.”

Sue shooed them off, and they started heading towards the marina. They went in silence until they got to the boat.

“Bella -” Billy started, and trailed off. “You’ll be safe?”

“Yes, I promise. It’s only - It won’t be for too long,” she responded. She was a terrible liar.

Billy nodded and pressed his lips together.

She dove in and clutched him close. “Thank you for everything, Billy. I’m so sorry to put you in danger - I promise you’ll be safe soon.”

His familiar arms folded around her. “Don’t worry about me, kid, I’m a tough one. You look after yourself. Jacob will kill me if I let anything happen to you.”

Sue came striding on to the marina with a packed bag and a set of keys clutched in one hand. “We don’t have long until sundown” she barked. “Bella, get in the boat and head into the cabin - try not to touch anything on the way down.

Bella let go of Billy and turned to get on the boat. She stopped, and without turning - she couldn’t bear the knowledge that it would be the last time she ever saw her family - asked for one last favor.

“Don’t tell Charlie,” she begged. “About any of this. Just tell him I love him.”

She hauled herself into the boat and dove into the cabin, not waiting for an answer.

Calling the little cupboard on the boat a “cabin” was generous. It was just a tiny space with a few clean but musty-smelling blankets, fishing nets, and threadbare life jackets. After Bella had gotten on the boat, Sue came in after her with a tarpaulin covered in strong smelling goo.

“I’m sorry about the stink, but this will camouflage your scent better than almost anything. Cold ones aren’t big fans of fermented seaweed. I’ve rubbed it around the boat, but I’m going to need you to get under this. I promise this is the best way we have to keep you safe.”

She paused for a moment to look at Bella, who was huddled under several blankets and the tarp.

“We’ll get you out of this, girlie. We all care about you.”

With that, Sue went up on the deck and shut Bella into the cold, dark, spider-filled cabin. The engine roared to life and sent vibrations juddering through Bella’s bones. It felt like she was going to be shaken apart.

It was too loud to think.

An hour into the journey, Sue ducked down into the cabin to update Bella.

“We’re about four hours away from our destination, and this is probably the last time we’ll have a cell signal. Is there anyone you want to call? What about your friend Lauren?”

No, she would never speak to Lauren again. No matter what happened at the end of this journey, Bella was about to go somewhere none of her loved ones could follow.

If she called Lauren, her girlfriend would immediately know something was wrong. And then Lauren would wait to hear back from her for days, weeks, months, but another call would never come.

Bella thought about the last time she saw Lauren. It was in the parking lot at the high school, before Bella went home. She was going to clean the oven. There were too many people milling about so Lauren hadn’t kissed her goodbye. She had instead taken Bella's always cold hands and held them between her own.

Better for her to remember that small, warm moment and not a panicked phone call at twilight. Lauren was so stubborn, too - if she thought there was foul play involved, she wouldn’t stop until she had answers. That would make things much harder to cover up.

Bella had the composure to shake her head silently, and nothing more. Sue headed back up to the deck.

That left Bella alone to think about all the things she would have said to the girl she loved if she only had the chance.

Lauren, she thought,

I never called you baby because I thought it was stupid and infatilizing, but now I wish I had. It seems like it would have been fun.

Lauren, baby,

I’m sorry to leave you like this. Please, please don’t look into it. I’m sorry I kept talking about crime statistics. We should have watched the Devil Wears Prada together, and I wasn’t too tired that one time, I just thought it would be boring. I’m sorry I lied about that.

Lauren,

I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re so brave and strong and generous. I didn’t know you for a long time but the fact that I got to be with you has redeemed my entire life in reverse. Everything that happened was worth it because it led me to you. I’m sorry, I know that’s corny.

You’re going to be an incredible designer.

Lauren,

I love you.

Bella slipped in and out of restless, waking nightmares. The roar of the engine made it impossible to think, but there was nothing else to do in the dark, claustrophobic space. She fell into a trance state. Images of her life flickered into being and dissipated, leaving her head aching.

Eventually the roar of the engine turned into a low rumble. The door to the cabin was pulled aside.

It was so dark out that Bella could barely see Sue. She was only visible as a black shape bordered on all sides by stars.

It was a rare, clear night out at sea.

“Bella” Sue whispered, “wake up. We’re here.”

Bella struggled to right herself - her limbs felt like they were made out of jelly. She felt a fat spider scuttle over her hand as she pushed the disgusting tarp away and reached for the entrance to the world above.

Sue’s strong arm reached down and tugged her out.

They stood together on the small fishing boat and stared at the black shape of the jagged rock atop which the squat deactivated lighthouse stood. The weak lights on the boat barely illuminated Sue’s face. The pale light washed her out, and there were deep shadows where the light didn’t reach.

If Bella didn’t know what real monsters looked like, she would have thought the effect frightening.

Sue shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Are you sure your man said this is the right place? It hasn’t been in use since the 50’s. Some private guy owns it now.”

Bella was positive that Carlisle said Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. Her voice was rough with disuse as she responded to Sue. “This is definitely the right place.”

“Ok kiddo, I’ll get us a little closer.” Sue started up the boat’s engine and moved to the steering wheel.

The light that flared into life on the barren rock was blinding against the unending black of its surroundings. It couldn’t have been very bright, but the way it reflected off the luminous pale face of Carlisle Cullen seemed to amplify it.

Sue shouted and pushed Bella behind her. “Get back under the deck! It’s one of them!”

When Bella didn’t move, Sue wheeled around. “Do you hear me girl? Get below deck!”

It felt like a dream. The dark, silent lighthouse was like a waiting tomb, and Carlisle Cullen the marble angel that stood silent watch over its inhabitants.

Bella took a step forward.

“Bella?” Sue asked, one arm held out and ready to shove Bella into the cabin.

“It’s him,” Bella responded in a dull voice, unable to look at Sue. She rested her eyes on Carlisle instead, knowing that he could hear everything. “He’s the only one that can help me.”

Sue stared at her and slowly started to shake her head. “No, Bella, he’s not here to help you. He’s a demon, Bella, listen to me!”

Bella took another step. “I need to get to the lighthouse.”

Sue was shaking her head even harder as if trying to will the situation into one that made sense. “No, Bella, tell me that’s not what you mean - tell me we didn’t do all of this just to deliver you to them.”

Bella had reached the edge of the boat. Sue let out a low, wounded noise and lurched towards Bella with her arms outstretched, trying to rip her away from the edge of the boat.

“I won’t let you do this!” she shouted.

Bella turned around to look at the brave, selfless woman who had taken her here to this desolate place, so far away from their home.

“This is my decision, Sue. I’m sorry.”

She looked up at the sky and the icy stars, and leaned back over the railing. The splash she made as she entered the water was drowned out by Sue’s screams.

As expected, iron arms wrapped around her the second she went below the surface. Seconds later she was on the island, staring at the little boat from Carlisle’s arms.

Sue was clutching the railing of the little boat and screaming threats at Carlisle.

“Bring her back, Cullen!” she shouted. “You said you were better than this!”

Carlisle was holding Bella bridal-style, her cheek cushioned on his freezing chest. She didn’t have the strength to lift her head. This must all look very Hammer Horror to Sue.

His mouth was so close to her neck - would he bite her now, in front of Sue? That seemed cruel. But they didn’t have the luxury of time, not really. Even now Bella had no idea where Edward was. Bella struggled to suppress the surge of panic that rose at that thought.

Carlisle’s face took up her entire field of vision. The light reflected off the waves and onto his smooth stone skin in mesmerizing patterns. He was unnaturally still, and Bella followed his gaze to see Sue Clearwater looking back at them, her face a mask of horror and betrayal.

He held Sue's gaze for one long moment. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them.

When he lowered his gaze, Bella knew that whatever treaty had once existed between the Cullens and the Quileute people was now void.

He looked down at her, predator’s eyes glowing in the starlight.

“I apologize for this, Bella, but we’re going to need to swim for a bit.”

Chapter 11: Lazarus

Chapter Text

An alarming pop came from the incandescent light overhead, startling Charlie from his stupor. Another pop, and the room was plunged into darkness.

He had been waiting at the kitchen table for Bella to come home. He must have fallen into a doze. A quick glance at the stove clock told him he hadn’t been out long - less than 10 minutes.

Still no sign of Bella.

Nothing was wrong. There was no reason to think that anything was wrong.

Still, he felt a deep sense of unease that had him rooted to his seat in the darkness. This was the kind of feeling he had just before arriving at the scene of seriously bad business, the kind that inevitably ruined his sleep for weeks after.

You are not a superstitious man, he reminded himself.

But the light did not turn back on.

He cursed and cautiously stood up, heading over to what Bella had dubbed the junk drawer. That was where everything and anything useful ended up.

When had she christened the junk drawer? She must’ve been a little kid then, if that was before she stopped coming to Forks.

He jerked the drawer open and cursed again as the force of it knocked over an empty beer can. He really was swearing a lot today. Good thing Bella wasn’t here. She hated it when he swore. He’d never met a teen with a cleaner mouth, not even the minister’s daughter.

He managed to feel out the cool plastic of the little flashlight. There was a bigger flashlight in the front hall closet. He’d probably have to grab it when he changed the lightbulb.

He paused for a moment. The only light in the kitchen came from the red light of the stove clock.

3:09 AM.

On second thought, he could probably stand to wait till morning. He would be up early anyway, calling Deb Mallory about Bella.

She was probably over at the Mallory place.

She had said yesterday she would be at the Mallory place. No reason for her not to be. Sure, she always told him exactly where she would be and when to a pretty intense level of detail, and she always called the day of to remind him if she would be going to the Mallory place.

She hadn’t called.

He’d asked her about it once. She said it was in case she got abducted - so he’d know when to start worrying.

At the time he’d taken it as another expression of her kooky sense of humor. She got that from Reneé.

She’s a teen girl, he told himself. She’s probably out underage drinking with her friends at La Push. She could use a little time to cut loose with her friends, get some youthful rebellion out of her system. Before she went off to the Ivy League.

The thought of Bells going to such a prestigious college cheered him, as it had for the last few weeks. It would be tough to let her go again so soon after he’d got her back, but she’d promised to send letters and take plenty of photos.

She had told him she’d be seeing Lauren. She must have forgotten to call. She would be fine. She would be perfectly fine, maybe just a little hungover and annoyed when he grounded her for three weeks.

Still, the cold lump in his chest wouldn’t go away. His stomach was starting to hurt something fierce as well.

She was fine. He’d get a little sleep now and call Deb in two hours when she got up for her shift.

He walked back to the junk drawer and fished out a little bottle of pepto bismol. It was much easier with the light from the torch.

The swim back to the mainland lasted less than a minute, even including the moments where Carlisle would stop to check up on her as she clung to his back.

Once they got to shore Carlisle resettled her in his arms and ran while carrying her bridal style. Bella kept her eyes screwed shut and her head buried in his freezing neck. The damp night air chilled her to the bone as it rushed past. After a few minutes they came to a stop, and Carlisle gently set her down on shaky legs.

There was a nondescript white car waiting for them in a dark parking lot.

For a moment Carlisle blurred out of existence before once more becoming solid, now holding a set of car keys in one hand.

“We’re a few miles away from Portland International Airport,” he said as he unlocked the car and went to open the trunk. “I took the liberty of getting you some dry clothes - while our time in the Pacific will do wonders to disguise your scent, it wouldn’t do for you to catch a chill.”

He reemerged with a sleek shopping bag, and deposited it next to the car. “There are a few options here. I’ll give you some privacy while you change.”

He hesitated for a moment.

“There are few energy bars and some other supplies in the bag. Will you be ready to leave in 15 minutes?”

She nodded silently in assent, and then he was gone.

There was a pair of dark wash jeans, slacks, a couple of shirts, a pair of leather ballet flats and an extraordinarily soft wool sweater. No matter what permutation she chose, the resulting effect would be quiet, tasteful wealth - the kind that tended to blend in.

There were also a few granola bars, as promised, as well as a roll of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

Well. The man was a doctor, she supposed.

15 minutes later Bella was sitting in the passenger’s seat of the car with her brand-new outfit, washing down bites of granola bar with the bottle of water she found in the glove compartment. She needed to do something about her perilously low blood glucose levels.

Carlisle reappeared at the edge of the parking lot and walked briskly to the car. Within moments the vehicle was on the road. After a few minutes of dead silence, Carlisle began explaining the plan.

“The first years of our lives are the hardest. If you want to follow our diet, you’ll need help. As your creator, I am obligated by law to supervise and guide you through them. Your control will be at its weakest, and you will be a constant threat to humans.”

Here he paused.

“I confess that I have assumed until now that you planned to keep our diet. Is that the case?”

Bella nodded. Carlisle’s shoulders sagged slightly with relief.

Bella as she was now was morally opposed to murder. It was impossible to say what rock demon Bella’s philosophical approach to the value of human life would be, but that Bella would certainly be harder for Edward Cullen to eat.

Carlisle had earned a measure of her trust, but she was nowhere near confident he would keep his promise if she told him couldn’t make any promises.

“In order to protect human life, we will spend the next year in a remote location in northwestern Canada.”

What about your job? Bella wondered, surprised at the steel in his voice. She wasn’t about to ask him out loud, just in case this was all a temporary flight of madness provoked by exposure to a damsel in distress. Men tended to be funny about that, and Bella had a feeling Carlisle Cullen wasn't an exception, vampire or not.

She focused on practical matters instead.

“How are we going to get to Canada?” Bella asked.

“I’ve arranged a flight for us at Portland International.” Carlisle said.

Bella felt the disappointingly familiar chill of profound dread wash over her. “I don’t have my passport!” she cried, patting herself down as though she would find the flexible little rectangle on her person. She already knew where it was - stashed safely away in the box of paperwork she kept under her bed.

Carlisle cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. “I may have taken the liberty - rather, Jasper encouraged me to, ah, procure some alternative documents for you.” He reached into the glove box and handed her a manila envelope.

Inside was an ID and a passport. Her name was Laura Le Fanu, she was born on May 26th, she was 22 years old, and she was an Oregon native.

“Did you choose the name?” Bella asked slowly.

“Hm? No, Jasper did. He has a contact that helps us with documentation. It’s better if Bella Swan isn’t seen leaving the lower 48.”

“Did you check what name he chose?”

“No, actually - should I have?”

Bella stonily held up the ID card for his inspection. She knew he would be able to see it even in the dim light.

“Ah.” If Carlisle was still human, he would be beet red.

“Yeah,” Bella said. “Very clever.”

“Laura Le Fanu. Like -”

“Yes, Carlisle, Laura. Like the heroine from Carmilla, which was famously written by Sheridan le Fanu.”

Bella left unsaid that Carmilla was famously about a predatory lady vampire putting the lesbian moves on an angelic human girl. Bella supposed that Jasper was an empath, and had spent enough time with her and Lauren in the same room before the birthday debacle to pick something up.

Still, this was a little pointed.

Carlisle, meanwhile, was eying the handle to the door as if he was seriously contemplating flinging himself out of the car and into the dark forest beyond the road.

“I’ll check next time before documents go to print,” he promised.

Would there be a next time? How did he think his family would contort itself to accept her into the fold? More than that, did he think she would stay?

More questions that could wait until she was made of impenetrable rock. Better to play along with Carlisle’s big happy family hopes until he made her less fragile.

“I didn’t realize Jasper had a sense of humor,” Bella said.

Carlisle cringed even further. It was possibly the deepest, most structurally perfect cringe she had ever seen in her life. The cringe was sublime in that it alerted Bella to the existence of a Platonic cringe, a single true cringe that all other cringes were simply pale imitations of.

The rest of the ride to the airport was silent.

It was still dark when the little boat arrived back at the La Push marina. Sue Clearwater secured the vessel in a daze.

She trudged up the small hill to Billy’s place. He opened the door on the second knock.

They had grown up together. Harry joked sometimes that they had a telepathic connection from all the years they had spent with each other.

It felt like the story of the night’s horrorshow Bella’s unthinkable betrayal at the lighthouse was written on her face. Billy looked at her for only a moment, and then his face fell.

Her oldest and best friend did the kindest thing he could do: distract her. He beckoned her in and led her to the intimately familiar kitchen table.

He took care to seat her with her back to the photo of little Bella and Sarah, but she knew it was there. Some of the self-recrimination she was feeling must have escaped confinement and shown on her face, because Billy started talking.

“Seth got home a little after you left. He stayed at mine until Leah came back from work to pick him up. They’re both safe here,” he said.

Sue breathed a sigh of relief. At least the kids were safe. There was one thing Billy conspicuously hadn’t mentioned.

“What about the ginger leech?” Sue asked.

“He’s still near the treaty line. Sam, Jared, and Paul are all out there keeping an eye on him.” Billy replied.

“We’re going to need to talk to Sam.” Sue said. “ I don’t think there is a treaty any more.”

“What happened out there?” Billy asked.

Sue couldn’t get that final image of Cullen holding Bella Swan in his arms like the monster from the Swamp Thing. What had he threatened her with, to get her to lie to Sue and Charlie and Billy? Had he sent his companion to exert compliance?

Sue wouldn’t put anything past the bastard.

Carlisle had chartered them a private jet, the bastard.

Bella felt completely out of place amid the plush furnishings. All genuine leather, of course.

Carlisle’s heavy, sweet scent permeated the plane. It made her feel inclined to like him, somehow, and that immediately dropped her into a foul mood.

The border between her humanity and demonic half life was a private jet carting her off to the arctic circle. Would she have preferred to be surrounded by other breathing, messy human bodies? This was certainly easier.

Somehow, the image of herself queuing quietly to leave a passenger aircraft hours before she lost her human life was too absurd to bear thinking about.

Maybe this ridiculous extravagance was better. It was so novel that she wasn’t reminded of what she left behind. This was the kind of experience she would never have expected in her life before the Cullen intrusion. It figured that the denouement of the demented production that was the last year of her life would take place in some liminal state accessible only by the super rich.

If he had gone to this trouble, he almost certainly had a plan in place for her “death.” She knew she had to ask eventually, but her taste for the macabre had abandoned her.

There were two tastefully dressed flight staff on the plane. Both had left their stations only once, to show them to their seats. Instead of the usual rows of seats, there were two plush couches arranged around a low table. One of the flight attendants had taken a good look at Carlisle and backed away slowly on unsteady feet. The tall heels couldn’t have helped her balance.

An hour in, Bella was certain the flight attendants were supposed to have served them a drink, or interacted with them somehow.

When she went to the bathroom in the back of the plane, she found both of them cowering in a vestibule, whispering to each other with worried glances over at Carlisle.

This was what she had to look forward to. Even Carlisle, the gentlest and least frightening vampire she had ever met, struck terror deep into the lizard brains of everyone he interacted with.

As she washed her hands, she realized this was possibly the last time she would ever use the toilet.

Was this what the next few hours would be? An unsatisfying collection of last times?

She looked at her imperfect human face in the mirror.

Well, Bella, she thought. You look like sh*t. You look worse than sh*t.

Whoever picked these clothes had been optimistic about Bella regaining the weight she’d lost. Even though they were clearly expensive, they hung off her body. It looked like what it was: a hastily thrown together costume.

She looked haggard; gaunt and so pale she was almost grey but somehow puffy at the same time. Some girls could carry off the sickly waif vibe, but Bella just looked like she needed to check herself into a residential rehab program and find a higher power.

And her hair. It had half-dried in frizzy clumps that stuck out at odd angles. Maybe it would look better if she had a better haircut, but she didn’t and she never would.

Bella let out a soundless scream of rage and slammed her fist against a mirror. A cruel part of her savagely hoped the mirror would shatter and cut her hand into pieces, just like the glass had ripped her arm apart at the party.

Maybe Carlisle would lose control and have to kill every single person on the plane after to keep the law. That would be five lives on his spotless hands and an end to the clean record that meant so much to him, just like her future had meant so much to her-

“Ma’am?'' A worried voice sounded outside the door to the bathroom. When Bella didn’t answer, the voice continued. “Are you alright in there?”

“Yes, fine,” Bella bit out. Rich people plane mirrors were either very sturdy, or the movies lied about how easily mirrors shattered in general.

If it was her last few hours alive, she might as well make the most of it.

Bella jerked the door open and stared into the wide eyes of one of the flight attendants. The women had her hand poised and ready to knock again

“What’s the most expensive drink you have?” Bella asked.

“Would you like me to bring you the drinks menu, ma’am?” the flight attendant squeaked.

“Yes please,” Bella said over her shoulder as she stalked back to her seat. Carlisle was perusing a medical journal and trying his best to act like he hadn’t just heard everything.

The flight attendant scurried over with a thick piece of cardstock and dropped it on the table between them.

“I thought you didn’t drink,” Carlisle murmured.

“Maybe I would have been a lush later,” Bella hissed back, flipping the menu over. Everything cost more than a week of groceries. She beckoned the flight attendant over and pointed at an unpronounceable French word with a big number on the side.

“I want this one.”

The flight attendant went into the back and reappeared shortly with a flute of bubbly pale yellow liquid and an elaborate co*cktail napkin.

Bella picked it up, shrugged, and downed it in one go. Carlisle’s eyes followed the sharp trajectory of the glass.

“I’ve never seen champagne in real life, you know,” she said conversationally to a startled Carlisle over the empty glass. “It’s like sparkling grape juice and a permanent marker had an expensive baby.”

She felt lighter and more free, somehow, as though the world had become a slightly less forbidding place. The heavy pressure of her anxiety had even lifted a little. This was a very intriguing effect and she wanted to explore it more.

She reached out again for the menu. Carlisle looked as though he wanted to say something, but he wilted under the withering glare she shot him.

She was going to fit in her human experiences while she still could.

She beckoned the flight attendant order and pointed at a new drink, this one with an unpronounceable Scottish name.

It was also very expensive.

The result was dark amber liquid in a short highball glass with another elaborate napkin. This one didn’t go down half as well - when she attempted to down it, she ended up choking on the vile fluid.

“Wrong pipe,” she wheezed. “It tastes like someone put firewood in rubbing alcohol.”

“I’m told that some people consider that desirable,” Carlisle murmured, shooting a look at the flight attendants in the back corner of the jet. They weren’t even trying to hide their whispers.

Bella sipped away at the liquid, grimacing after every swallow.

“You don’t have to finish it if you don’t like it,” Carlisle said. “Don’t you want something to eat?”

“Don’t you dare, Carlisle.” The sentence came out a little too loud, and Bella noticed that the cabin had gone silent. Her travelling companion looked as if he was about to do a repeat performance of God’s model cringe.

She looked him in the eyes and drank down the rest of the whiskey while fighting to keep a straight face. “I’d like another one.”

He handed her the menu silently.

“Why don’t you let me order this one for you?” he suggested in a quiet voice. He was upset.

The elaborately constructed set of checks and balances Bella normally applied to her own behavior was stunningly silent. Instead of weighing every potential action in her head to gauge its normalcy, she just acted.

She could see why people got so invested in drinking alcohol - it would be amazing to feel like this all the time.

But Carlisle looked sad, and the flight attendants were standing in stunned silence. Even with the warm, comforting blanket of the alcohol, she knew she was acting abominably.

“Ok,” she agreed in a small voice.

“Do you like sweet things?” Carlisle asked.

“Yeah, but I try... tried not to eat too much sugar. Bad for your teeth.” It wasn’t as though that was really a consideration any more.

“There’s a co*cktail called the Kir Royale. It's champagne with Creme de Cassis. I’ve heard it’s very nice. Would you like one of those?”

That did sound nice. Bella sank back into her plush chair and nodded listlessly.

Carlisle smiled at the flight attendant, who once more returned to take Bella’s order.

“One Kir Royale for the young lady, please” Carlisle said, smiling politely up at the woman. She hesitated for a painfully long time.

“Nothing for yourself, sir?”

“No thank you. I’m not much of a drinker.” He gave Bella a playful wink. She stared balefully back.

The woman stood at the low table for a few moments longer, her eyes flickering to look at Bella’s prone form. She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something.

Nothing came out.

A minute later, there was another glass in front of Bella filled with pink liquid.

It was as good as Carlisle promised. And sweet. Very sweet. So sugary. Not that she would have teeth to worry about pretty soon. The taste reminded her of a little cake thing Esme had packed in her lunch one day. It had been so good Bella was half-tempted to ask her to make it again.

Actually, where was Esme? And the rest of the Cullens? Why hadn’t she asked Carlisle about this sooner? That was very silly of her.

“Carlisle, does your family know? About the, you know,” Bella leaned in and bit the air twice to signify her imminent change. Her teeth made audible clicks when they came together.

There was a noise from the flight attendant corner. Whoops. Too loud.

“Not yet, no,” Carlisle said.

“You sure they’re not gonna be mad about the whole me joining the family thing?” Bella asked.

“During our time in Forks it was understood that you would eventually become one of us. We were willing to accept you then. I don’t see why that would have changed.”

“What about Edward?” Bella said. Why hadn’t she brought this up sooner? The hooch sure was making it easier to discuss her demonic ex.

“He’s never seen eye to eye with us about our condition.” Carlisle cleared his throat and flicked his eyes at one of the flight attendants, who had been inching closer. The woman scurried away, and he continued.

“I believe he will be upset, but he’ll come around. Given the dictates of the law, I’m sure he can agree that this is the better outcome.”

Bella snorted.

“I don’t know about that, doc. He definitely prefers me dead than one of you,” she said. Was that not obvious?

Carlisle made a funny face. She thought about interpreting it, but decided not to - it seemed like too much work.

The mention of Edward reminded her why she was on this ridiculous jet in the first place. The tidal wave of rage that had carried her through the last three drinks abruptly ebbed.

“I’m sorry, Carlisle,” she said. “I’ve been terribly rude to you.” She breathed in deeply through her nose and tried to find a way to explain herself to him without making herself look even worse. He was only trying to help her, and going to elaborate lengths to do so at that.

He looked at her contemplatively. After a long moment, his eyes drifted towards the windows, towards the endless sky outside. Eventually, he started to speak in a slow, deliberate cadence.

“I’ve been practicing medicine for a long time, and before that I lived in an era where death was a constant companion. Over three centuries I’ve seen countless humans face their end, and all the ways they’ve dealt with it. Some take it better than others. I’ve learned not to judge the way people make peace with their mortality.

In a way, you have every right to be angry with me. After you moved to Forks, Edward confided in me about his preoccupation with your scent. I begged him to leave Forks, to create distance in order to keep you safe. I wonder now if I should have been firmer - uprooted the family and moved. Ultimately we valued our comfort too much to do the right thing and leave you in peace.”

He gestured to the nearly empty glass Bella clutched in her hand.

“Thanks to Alice, I can afford plenty of those. Compared to many others, you are facing the end of your human life with remarkable poise.”

Bella sniffled, and Carlisle reached into his breast pocket and procured a handkerchief. So much for poise.

“That said, it is my medical recommendation that you eat something and have some water. It would be quite the accomplishment if you managed to go your entire life without getting a hangover.”

The darkness was suddenly replaced with eye searing light. Lauren groaned into her pillow and tried to bury her head into it to catch a few more moments of delicious sleep.

“Lauren?”

Oh sh*t, it was Nurse Mallory. Lauren opened her crusty eyes and looked over at the clock - 5:30 AM. Way too early for anything. Ugh, and she was just getting to the good bit of a very vivid dream involving her girlfriend and a -

“Lauren, are you awake?”

The details of the dream were washed away by the sound of her mother’s voice. Damn it.

“Mom?” Lauren croaked. She sounded particularly disgusting this morning. Maybe it was a good thing Bella didn’t sleep over.

Nurse Mallory walked into the room and started looking around.

“Where’s Bella?” she said, checking the closet.

“What?” Lauren asked. “Mom, she’s not here - why are you looking under the bed?”

Nurse Mallory stood up slowly from where she had been crouching to peer under the spacious four-poster, and stalled for a minute as she dusted off the knees of her lavender scrubs.

“Chief Swan called just now, and asked if Bella was here.”

Lauren sat up groggily, tucking the blanket snugly around her. “Bella isn’t here,” she grumbled. “She was supposed to come over last night but she never showed. I just figured she forgot and ended up going home.”

Nurse Mallory’s mouth compressed to a single, hard line. Lauren felt a jolt in her stomach. That face was never a good sign.

“Is something wrong? Did something happen to Bella?” she asked, trying not to let the anxiety leak into her voice.

Nurse Mallory shook her head. “No, she’s fine. Chief Swan just wanted to know. You can sleep for another hour before school starts.” She turned off the lightswitch and walked out of the door.

Lauren loved sleeping, especially during that soothing, syrupy hour when her mother was gone and the house was dead silent. Normally the sounds of Nurse Mallory getting ready would lull her back to sleep, but this morning she found that she couldn’t relax.

If Bella wasn’t with Charlie and wasn’t with her, where was she?

The rest of the plane ride passed in a blur. Carlisle put on a broad brimmed hat, gloves, and wide sunglasses at some point.

“It’s May - the sun barely sets where we’re going,” he explained. “With my skin condition, it’s better for me to be safe than sorry.”

After an hour or so they landed in a remote Canadian airport. Carlisle whisked them through customs and collected his luggage. Within half an hour she was sitting in the passenger seat of a large, outdoorsy looking car. It had more in common with a tank than with Lauren’s modest sedan.

The drive north was silent. The landscape gradually became sparser and sparser until there was barely anything at all but low, rocky mountains and sparse grass.

Time had gotten funny after the second drink.

Eventually Carlisle pulled up to a gas station. “This is the last gas station for 500 miles, so I’ll need to pick up some supplies. Is there anything you want?”

“Will we stop anywhere else before you turn me?” The words were difficult to shape.

“No.” Carlisle produced a thick wad of cash out of nowhere and handed it to her. “For anything else you’d like to experience. We have three hours before we reach our destination.”

Bella took the cash and walked into the gas station. It was tiny - just a shipping container with windows and a few coolers. She browsed the aisles mechanically for her last meal.

She ended up with a package of donuts, red vines, a sports drink, and cigarettes. She’d eyed up the bottles of liquor but ultimately decided against it. She was still wobbly from the airplane refreshments, and wanted to be at least a little lucid when it happened. She had been to enough teen beach parties to know where a whole handle of hooch got you.

She’d never had a whole cigarette all to herself - only a drag from one of Lauren’s. Now she had a pack.

Bella returned to the car and started mechanically plowing through the sour candy. Normally she would pace herself, wary of a stomach ache, but that was hardly an issue now.

Carlisle finished paying for the gas and carried several laden bags and petrol containers out to the car. When he was finished, he returned to his spot in the driver’s seat.

A shrill beeping noise filled the car. Carlisle took out his sleek flip phone and briefly checked the caller ID.

“It’s Alice,” he said in response to her questioning look. “I’ll call her back when we’ve reached our destination.”

Carlisle was ignoring Alice’s calls. The good doctor was apparently aware of the fact that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.

The next three hours were the fastest of her life. It seemed like no time at all until they reached a set of glorified shipping containers connected to each other. There were three attached to each other, and one outbuilding that stood a few meters off from the others.

The interiors were surprisingly well appointed and had Esme’s fingerprints all over them. Carlisle gave her a quick tour of the three bedrooms and bathroom.

“This is where we’ll be staying for the next year,” he said, gesturing expansively at the buildings.

He gestured to one of the large, heavy suitcases he had brought with him. “There are books in there - mostly textbooks. We’ll try to get internet set up here eventually. You won’t lack for things to do”

He led her to the outbuilding. It was a single, sterile room with a cot in the middle.

“This is where you’ll be turned.”

Bella surveyed the room. “When will you do it?”

“Whenever you’re ready, Bella.” He hesitated. “There’s still time to change your mind.”

Bella shook her head. “There isn’t. You know there isn’t.” She felt her pants pockets for the packet of cigarettes and lighter. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes”

She left the room and headed out into the cool afternoon air. She pictured how this would go if she was in a movie. Movie Bella, who would hopefully be played by an attractive Hollywood actress, would smoke a single cigarette while pensively gazing at the distant, tree-covered mountains. Then she would return to the shipping container, say something pithy yet profound to Carlisle, and meet her fate with poise.

She fumbled the cigarette pack when she tried to take it out of her pants pocket, and dropped it again while trying to take off the plastic packaging. When she finally managed to get the first cigarette out, she dropped that too.

That was ok, she told herself, she had 20 more.

She thought about it for a moment before bending down and plucking the dropped cigarette from the ground. She eyed the slightly bent cigarette and tried to imagine all the microbes and infinitesimal specks of moose poop that probably now covered it before popping it back into her mouth.

She didn’t have to worry about flesh-eating bacterial infections any more. She managed to smoke half of the cigarette before she dropped it, too.

While her doom was nigh, Bella still had standards. She left the fallen cigarette where it was and got a fresh one from the pack. She was going to smoke a whole cigarette correctly and gaze at the scenery if it killed her.

In the end, she produced two more mangled, partially-smoked cigarettes before getting through a full one.

It was too much. The nicotine-induced dizziness had gone past the pleasant haze she felt at prom and into full vertigo territory, and her stomach was starting to twist itself into knots.

I’ll die like I lived, Bella thought, nauseous and dizzy with a feeling of impending doom.

Carlisle was waiting for her in the little room when she hobbled back in, in the same position he’d been in when she left him. He hadn’t moved so much as a millimeter.

She squared her shoulders and looked death in the eye. Death looked back at her with a kind, sympathetic expression.

“The time is nigh, Doc. Bite me,” Bella said.

She hadn’t been able to come up with better last words.

She wasn’t able to face the transformation with perfect equanimity either, but Carlisle was kind enough to pretend he didn’t see the tears.

Jacob was at her car door before she’d even finished parking.

“Lauren my guy, what’s up?” he said, with his big stupid white smile nearly blinding her after the stressful day she’d had.

Read the room, idiot, she thought, and then took a deep breath to calm herself. Jacob didn’t deserve her anger - he just didn’t know.

He led her to the Black residence, chatting away the whole time. Even Jacob’s usual irrepressible aura of cheerfulness couldn’t penetrate the blanket of dread that had settled around Lauren the minute Nurse Mallory asked where Bella was.

When they entered the house, Lauren was surprised to see Billy Black, Sue Clearwater, and some big guy in nothing but ugly cutoff shorts sitting in stony silence at the dinner table. They were seated across from each other, but their eyes all seemed to be staring deep into the middle distance.

It felt like she had stumbled into one of the prestige movies about the horrors of war that her dad put on during the rare occasions he was home.

Maybe they had heard about Bella.

Jacob breezed blithely past the grim statues that had taken up residence at his kitchen table, and she followed him into the bedroom.

He took the bed while she sat at the wooden chair by the tiny desk overflowing with Algebra worksheets. Lauren looked over the papers to buy herself some time, and with a jolt recognized Bella’s messy handwriting on several of them.

“So why are you here?” he asked her.

“You don’t already know?” Lauren said. It sure looked like Billy and Sue had heard the news.

“No?” Jacob said. “All I know is that Sue Clearwater and Sam Uley are moping at my dinner table.” He gestured to an empty bowl with a spoon in it next to Lauren’s elbow. “I even had to eat my cereal in here.”

“Bella’s missing,” Lauren said. Something about Jacob’s concern for his f*cking breakfast cereal irritated her, so she didn’t sugarcoat it.

Jacob looked at her expectantly, like he was waiting for the punchline to a bad joke. The silence stretched on as Lauren waited for it to sink into his thick skull. She could see it in his eyes - the burgeoning awareness that this was going on a little too long for a bit.

“Did Bella put you up to this?” he finally asked.

Lauren snorted incredulously. “Really, Jacob?” she asked. “I drive all the way out here by myself to tell you Bella’s gone, no one’s seen her in two days and your first response is to think that I’m joking? Are you f*cking kidding me? Get a clue, dumbass!”

Jacob was now looking at her with big dark puppy dog eyes. It felt good to rip into him in the moment, but now his feelings were hurt and she felt like a major bitch. Jacob hadn’t done anything wrong, but she sure had.

She screwed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. What would Bella do if she was in this situation?

Probably apologize and try to provide “as much data with the minimum amount of noise,” the dork. Lauren was pretty sure that was nerd speak for being concise.

To Lauren’s surprise, Jacob beat her to the apology punch.

“Look, I’m sorry. I just thought, you know, it’s Bella. She’s the last person to go missing. If she saw someone suspicious she’d probably have a file submitted to Clarice Starling in 20 minutes flat,” he said.

“Clarice Starling is a fictional character,” Lauren said, thankful Jacob had let her off the hook.

“You know what I mean, the FBI or the CIA or whatever. She wouldn’t let something bad like this happen to her. She’s Bella.” Jake looked around the room as if he was searching for clues as to Bella’s whereabouts.

They lapsed back into silence. The three in the other room weren’t talking either - it was like being in a house full of corpses.

“I hope she comes back soon.” Jacob said finally.

“Me too, Jake.”

Some things are too much to endure while remaining the same person.

Not that one. Mike was waving around a can of beer in the corner, something Chief Swan wouldn’t appreciate. Bella was in the center of the photo, her face illuminated by the glow of the firelight. She looked really pretty.

Lauren supposed she could cut Bella out of the photo, but that would ruin it, and if it was needed as evidence Chief Swan would see the whole thing anyway.

Lauren put the photo down and went back to the album. Chief Swan had asked her to find a good, recent photo for Bella’s missing poster. Bella was notoriously photo-shy, but Lauren had managed to wrangle her into a few group shots.

The only issue is that most of them featured drunk shenanigans. At least no one had a camera when Eric had his memorable first experience with weed. When Bella came back she wouldn’t be pleased if Charlie immediately grounded her for partying based on photographic evidence.

Not that she really partied, per se - Lauren hadn’t seen the girl touch a single drop of alcohol. She always said she was waiting to turn 21 or go to Canada.

Nurse Mallory had taken her aside the day before to try and talk to Lauren about Bella, but Lauren wouldn’t hear any of it.

She didn't care what the statistics said, three days wasn't long at all. She tried very hard not to imagine Bella’s rebuttal.

Bella wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead. She was far too genre savvy to be another cold case.

Wherever she was, Bella would find a way to come back to her. Lauren was completely sure of it.

She turned the page of the photo album again.

A chasm of fire separated the girl that woke up in a Canadian shipping container from Bella Swan.

The girl that woke up was now buried face first in the furry neck of a dying moose. It was bellowing and trying to escape, but holding it down was trivial.

The blood was warm, and she was so thirsty that the awful, humid taste was easy enough to ignore. The warm gush turned into a trickle, so she dug her face further into the flesh. There was a loud snap and the moose was silent. The blood continued for a few seconds longer before it came to a stop.

Maybe Carlisle would bring her another one.

When the fire abated and she had a few moments to grow accustomed to the new colors, she noticed him standing in the corner of the room.

He did not look like the Carlisle who had helped her onto the bed and gently buried his teeth in her neck, wrists, and ankles. That guy looked like a benevolent angel who worked on the side as a freelance underwear model. This guy looked like a statue made by a tormented Baroque sculptor who wanted to convey the agony of consciousness.

When she woke up, Carlisle had informed her of the incapacitated prey outside and left her to it. He was there now, standing a few feet away and watching. Privately, Bella thought that the man was acting oddly distant.

Bella wondered if it was her new spidey senses making her notice all these things about him, or if this was a recent development.

She couldn't imagine what might have brought this on, but she didn't think Carlisle had always looked so tormented either.

When it became undeniable that the moose was drained dry, Bella wiped her mouth on her sleeve and scanned the horizon hopefully for movement.

Her throat still hurt.

“Bella?” It was Carlisle. “How do you feel?”

His tone was borderline robotic.

Had Bella done something to him during the change? Was he mad at her because he had to clean up?

The man was a doctor, surely he wouldn’t become so cold over a little... effluvia.

Bella opened her mouth and flexed her jaw. She hadn’t tried speaking in this body yet. She thought about what her first words would be - hopefully better than her last. Maybe she could ask him what the deal was. The power differential between them was gone - she could afford to be forthright.

“You alright there, buddy?” she asked. It was an entirely unfamiliar voice. Human Bella Swan had made sounds with the aid of muscle, flesh, and elastic tendons. Her voice now was the product of hard, inorganic surfaces, and it sounded the part.

Carlisle blinked.

Unfortunately, vampirism had not made her any better at decoding the minutiae of facial expressions. Now she just had more information to be confused about.

“You seem kind of off,” she continued. “A little upset. Did I do something wrong? I’m very sorry you had to clean up the,” here she waffled a little, uncomfortable with the specifics, “you know. Bodily, um. Excretion.”

“That wasn’t a problem. I expected it and prepared accordingly,” Carlisle said. He had slipped into his clinician persona. Hot Doctor Cullen was the one answering her, not her good friend and vampire sire Carlise.

“Oh, cool.” Bella said.

They looked at each other for a few moments.

“So what’s up, Doc? What’s eating you?” Bella asked when the silence became unbearable.

“You’re surprisingly lucid. And candid,” Hot Doctor Cullen replied.

Bella shrugged. “You know how it goes. You lose everything you ever cared about due to the whims of an unhinged psychopath with romantic inclinations and get transformed into an indestructible superpredator. It tends to change your outlook on life.”

Not being terrified of saying the wrong thing and being eaten also helped.

Oh, she'd come to trust Carlisle, but before that he had been one of Edward's associates, and after that he had been her executioner.

Carlisle, Bella realized, was only now getting to know Bella Swan.

“I see,” New Sad Carlisle said.

“Seriously, are you ok? Because - ”

“Edward is dead,” Carlisle said, cutting her off mid sentence. Bella was so surprised about the interruption that it took a microsecond for the contents of the statement to sink in.

“Alice called me around four hours into your transition. '' he continued. “Edward’s future had disappeared completely. The last thing she saw from him was a decision to massacre a group of innocents in order to find you.”

Bella’s mind whirled through the available data at warp speed. The most logical explanation for Edward’s demise lay at the feet of Billy's mystery protectors. The man hadn’t been messing around.

“Were any of the humans harmed?” Bella asked.

“Alice didn’t tell me. She was more preoccupied about the death of her brother. So was everyone. They begged me to come home, and when Alice revealed your part in his decision they demanded I abandon you, but I couldn’t break the law and leave you here. So Bella, if you must know, no, I am not ok. My oldest companion is dead and my family is on the brink of collapse, if it hasn’t fallen apart already.”

Bella had no idea what to say.

“I never wanted to go to Forks, you know, at least not then. I liked it well enough, but I was actually thinking Alaska this decade. I was outvoted..." he trailed off, and a wide, mocking smile gave his eyes a feverish glow. "Funny how these things seem inevitable in retrospect, isn't it?” He scrubbed a hand over his face in a gesture that was unfortunately reminiscent of Billy Black.

Bella searched her body for any sense of guilt and found nothing. There was only deep relief. Also the acid in her throat, but that was easy enough to ignore.

“Try as I might, I can’t blame you. But I can’t make sense of Edward doing something so monstrous. An entire village.” He shook his head and stared down at his hands.

An entire village sounded about right to Bella, but she sensed that now probably wasn’t the right time for that comment.

They were due for a conversation. Not today, probably not for a very long time, not for as long as Carlisle had that burning look in his eyes.

Sooner or later they would have to have that discussion. Bella would give Carlisle the unedited version of the talk she'd had with Lauren. Maybe it would be good to finally tell the truth.

She wondered how he'd respond to it.

For now, she simply moved to stand next to Carlisle and gave him an awkward pat on the back.

He looked at her and gave smiling a college try. “For now, it looks like it might be just us for the next year. You’ve demonstrated remarkable control, but I don’t want to push your luck,” he said.

“Then what?” Bella asked.

“Travel, maybe. Or we could go to university - I’m due another round at medical school, and you haven’t been at all.”

That hit like a punch to the gut. She must have visibly reacted, because Carlisle hurried in with more suggestions.

“We can go see the new Vatican museum, the Volturi library, Chichen Itza, see the book of Kells - maybe even visit the glaciers in Switzerland. I hear those are melting pretty quickly, so we might want to do that first.” he said. He sounded a little manic.

“We could go to Antarctica, speaking of melting glaciers,” Bella suggested quietly.

“That we could.” Carlisle mused. “We can go anywhere we want. We certainly have the time.”

Yes, Bella thought. Nothing but time.

Chapter 12: Epilogue

Chapter Text

October 31st, 2021

She only noticed the small, beautifully wrapped box after she’d stepped on it. She’d come home from a late day at the studio with arms full of schematics for the latest build, and hadn’t thought to look at the floor while she fumbled with the keys to her little flat.

Cursing, she lifted her foot off the dented box and called for aid.

“Oh, f*ck,” she muttered. “Pooja, babe, can you help me with this?”

“Sure!” came a voice from the kitchen, “just a sec!” Pooja came bustling from the kitchen while wiping her hands on her cat print apron. “Don’t let Oscar escape,” she cautioned while reaching out for the portfolio.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Lauren asked while she blocked the enormous orange cat’s intended trajectory. Oscar Wilde liked to escape the flat every once in a while just to make their lives more difficult.

“I’m just doing a Tesco stir fry, nothing fancy,” Pooja responded.

Lauren grimaced. “Better than anything I can do.” It was true - Lauren could burn pasta, and knew this from experience. Those first few years of living in London, away from the comfort of American dining halls had been full of pot noodles and fried chicken.

As a result, Lauren bought the groceries and takeaway while Pooja cooked regularly. It was a good arrangement that led to the least amount of food poisoning for all involved.

Pooja grabbed the portfolio in one hand and bent down to shoo Oscar back in with the other. A hissing sound started to come from the kitchen and Pooja cursed. “The rice has just started boiling, back in a tick.”

The battered little package was still sitting there. Lauren picked it up and turned it over in her hands - no note.

Odd. Maybe there was information about the sender inside the package.

The wrapping paper was heavily embossed and decorated with colorful flowers and fruits. It reminded her of the brightly colored ceramics she’d seen in Tuscany during her honeymoon.

“Are you coming inside?”

Lauren startled and nearly dropped the box. Pooja was standing in the doorway, holding a battered IKEA dish towel.

“What’s this?” she asked, nodding her head towards the package.

“I don’t know,” Lauren responded as she walked towards the old couch. It was a midcentury modern design that Lauren loved. Pooja said it looked boring and uncomfortable, but Lauren thought the massive winged armchair her beloved wife had picked out was tacky. It was floral print, for the love of God.

They had agreed to disagree over interior decor, resulting in furniture choices that could generously be called eclectic.

Pooja settled down next to her. “I don’t need to start stirring or frying anything for another while, and I want to see what’s in the box.”

“Nosy woman,” Lauren muttered under her breath. Pooja’s notoriously inquiring mind was considered a professional asset, and probably one of the reasons she was a tenure track biostatistician. It also gave Lauren plenty to complain about, and she did like to complain.

Lauren turned the box over to find a short line of beautifully printed washi tape holding the paper together. “I almost want to display the box wrapped,” she said. “It feels like a shame to open it and ruin the packaging.”

“Yes, but if it’s that nice on the outside then think about what must be inside,” Pooja said sagely.

Lauren hummed and started to gently prise the tape off the package. To her relief it came off smoothly, revealing a sturdy cardboard box covered in intricate marbled patterns.

“Go on, open it!” Pooja urged. Lauren complied.

“Holy sh*t, this is fancy,” she said, examining the box of gouache. “I’ve heard about this manufacturer - they’re based just outside of Florence and make all their stuff using old recipes. Like, I’m talking renaissance old.”

“Sounds expensive,” Pooja quipped.

“It is,” Lauren replied. “Still no card - wait, no, there’s something here.”

On a sturdy piece of deep blue paper nestled under the metal paint container was a little card with For Lauren Mallory written on it. There was no other information about the sender.

“A mystery gift! Very nice.” Pooja said. “I didn’t know you painted.”

“I don’t. I did, a long time ago.” Lauren cut herself off and frowned. “They actually found a gouache set for me in Bella’s car, when they searched it. It was student grade, though, and much less nice than this one.”

“Bella? Your mysterious first girlfriend?” Pooja asked. “You never talk about her.”

“I know,” Lauren said. Bella had come up a few times - it was hard to avoid that story, particularly when it played such a devastating role in her life. “I don’t think I’ve really explained that whole situation. I try my best to pretend I didn’t exist before I turned 25.”

Pooja shrugged. “I think we all do.”

Lauren examined the box again.

“You know, you probably would have liked Bella. She was an absolute nut, totally obsessed with true crime back in 2006. She liked it before it was cool, as we used to say - sort of a true crime hipster.”

“How long did you know her?” Pooja asked.

“She moved up to Forks in my Junior year. All the boys went completely nuts over her, which of course made me hate her a little bit.” Lauren smiled. “I totally wanted to rip her hair out on the first day of class, but then she cut it in this really horrendous pixie.”

“What did she look like?”

“Small. Like, short person with an eating disorder small. She had brown hair but she dyed it black for a while” Lauren paused for a second. “I actually think I have a photo of her - give me a second.”

A minute later she was back on the couch with a chunky photo album opened to display a waist-up picture of a tiny brunette with short, choppy hair smiling shyly at the camera. Even under the chunky men’s flannel, it was clear that she was underweight. Her cheeks looked a little too hollow for someone that young, and there were deep bags under her eyes.

“God, we were babies back then. You don’t know what I needed to bribe her with to get her to sit down for this photo.” Lauren took in a sharp breath. “This is the one her dad - he was the chief of police - used for her missing photo.”

Pooja reached over and squeezed her hand silently. Lauren squeezed back.

“I actually only knew her for a little over a year - isn’t that nuts? She was in an awful relationship for most of it with this kid who was a member of this bizarre family. Supposedly all the kids were adopted and dating each other.”

Pooja cringed and feigned gagging.

“I know! So gross! And right before she disappeared, she told me about what that guy put her through. Get this - the whole family disappeared six months before she did. Vanished without a trace.”

Lauren stared out of the large picture window. It had started to rain in sheets and barely anyone was out - just a woman sitting at the bus stop across the road. She was wearing a pair of aviators even though it was well past sundown. It was also Halloween and South London, so she could just be in costume, on drugs, or both.

“Did they ever find out what happened to her?” Pooja asked, startling her from her neighborly surveillance. She thought about pointing Aviator Woman out to Pooja but decided against it - her wife didn’t always appreciate her discerning criticism (or mean spirited sniping) of other people’s fashion choices.

Lauren shook her head silently. “I was convinced she was going to show up again for so long. She knew so much about the minutiae of crime, it was just difficult to believe that she would get, you know. That anything bad would happen to her.”

Oscar Wilde took that moment to jump on the sofa and begin purring.

“Hey little buddy,” Lauren cooed. “How did you know I was sad about my first real girlfriend who probably got murdered? You’re so smart.” She scratched his head.

“Do you think she’s dead?” Pooja asked, looking at the photo of Bella.

“That’s what she would say if she was here. It’s the most statistically likely outcome. Most women who vanish - they don’t come back.” Lauren sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“In a way she’s the reason I’m here. She encouraged me to pursue design, and even worked out the most optimal course load for me at Washington State. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have ended up at the RCA.”

Pooja smiled and pulled Lauren in for a one-armed hug. “Then you wouldn’t be the proud human of the largest cat in Dulwich.”

“Heaven forfend,” Lauren said, leaning her head against Pooja’s. They sat in silence for a few moments.

A thought occurred to Lauren and she snorted. “A few months back a true crime podcast tried to get in touch with me. You know how it is these days - a beautiful white girl goes missing and someone is going to try to make a buck off it via ad revenue. Apparently they did their research about the Swan Case. They asked around the town, and word got out that me and Bella were close .” Lauren smirked.

“Gal pals, you could say,” responded Pooja.

“Fruity friends.”

“Saphically simpatico.”

“Good one,” Lauren said.

“Did you talk to them?” Pooja asked. “The podcast?”

“I thought about it. When I say Bella loved true crime, I mean it. I thought maybe that’s what she would have wanted, wherever she is. But then I looked at the rest of their stuff and it was scuzzy and sensationalized. Their research methods were sh*t too. All about extrapolating meaning from random childhood anecdotes to try and make them seem like a sociopath. They’d probably try to paint me as a psychotic lesbian murder. Someone’s probably going to make a podcast about Bella, but I at least want it to be a good one.”

“What, you don’t want to be on the receiving ends of hom*ophobic death threats on Twitter?” Pooja joked.

“Shockingly, no I do not.” Lauren responded dryly.

“Some good did come out of it,” she continued. “I ended up getting back in touch with a few people from Forks that were in the email chain - her dad, one of our mutual friends. They all seem to be doing about as well as can be expected, considering. Her dad was a little touch and go for a while, but I hear he started doing nature walks with kids from the local schools.”

Lauren reached out to look at the gouache set. “Damn, maybe I should start painting again. Hopefully I’m better now than I was at 18.” She breathed out heavily.

“Are you ok talking about this?” Pooja asked carefully.

“Yeah, yeah, It’s just - you know how it is. There was never any resolution. She was gone without a trace and no one could find a reason why.”

Pooja reached over and started patting Oscar Wilde’s enormous orange head. His purring somehow got louder. He could probably go toe to toe with a motor boat, decibel-wise, Lauren thought.

She wondered idly if Bella would have liked cats.

Lauren squeezed Pooja’s middle before standing up. “So what’s this I hear about a stir fry? Need any help?” she asked.

“Funny you should ask; there are a few dirty dishes with your name on them.” Pooja responded.

Lauren groaned theatrically but headed into the kitchen all the same.

From her vantage point at the bus stop, Bella saw Lauren and her wife head out of the room with the picture window. There was another window in the kitchen but it was smaller. All Bella could see was Lauren’s cropped blonde head as she reached up to get something from on top of the cabinets.

It was so odd to see Lauren like this. Bella quickly did some mental math before realizing that her old girlfriend was 33 now.

So was Bella, technically. 33 and 18 at the same time.

She, Demetri, Alec, and Felix were on a mission in London to eliminate a coven with a reputed psychic gift. Bella often got sent out on expeditions, as her presence was still a source of contention in Volterra after what happened with Carlisle.

When Aro got wind of this little excursion - and he would, since he knew she could raise the shield - he wouldn’t be happy. He couldn’t use the normal option for punishment, but he could require that she help Heidi file income taxes. Sometimes Bella wondered if lifting her shield and getting a dose of Jane would be the kinder option.

If there was one thing Bella learned from Carlisle, it was that asking for forgiveness is easier than permission.

She kept loose tabs on her human life, particularly as the Internet became more usable. Most of them had stayed in Forks, but Lauren had managed to get out; first to Seattle, then to San Francisco, and finally to London.

She had a cat and a wife and meaningful work as an industrial designer. Bella thought about the small, dark-haired woman Lauren married - a scientist at a local university. She seemed kind.

It would be nice to say that she thought long and hard about her decision to check in on Lauren, but she hadn’t. After the rogue element had been reduced to a pile of ash Demetri gave her the rest of the day off. They didn’t need to rendezvous back at London City until 03:15.

Demetri would go to the occult bookstores near Leicester Square to buy up their new stock on vampires for Aro to peruse, and Felix would take Alec to see whatever ridiculous movie was on at the IMAX in Waterloo.

Bella wasn't quite on movie outing-levels of workplace camaraderie.

They had gotten off to a bit of an awkward start as it was, as Bella arrived in Volterra in the company of Aro's notoriously insane former boytoy, both of them yellow-eyed hippies. The guard hadn't quite seemed to know what to make of Bella. It had gotten chillier from there, though, after what Bella had internally dubbed The Carlisle Debacle.

It didn't help that she was, for all intents and purposes, a vampire infant.

When her year of seclusion was up, she and Carlisle took brief excursions to local cities where they discovered her preternatural control. After that, they traveled.

They went to Europe first. Come to think of it, they never really went anywhere else. Carlisle took her to visit a few friends in between the museums and galleries. Eventually they ended up in Italy. Volterra was a short way away from Florence, and Carlisle had promised her a look at the Volturi library.

Aro offered her a job on the spot and Bella accepted. Carlisle opted to stay as well; at first to spend time with his old friend, and then due to the sheer inertia of despair. He kept saying he would leave Volterra soon, but he had been saying that for years.

Her decision to go off the diet hit him hard. The defection itself was anticlimactic. One day she joined the rest of her coworkers in the atrium with the grate in the floor. Carlisle noticed her red eyes and, after the first desperate argument, stopped trying to dissuade her.

It didn’t help that she had told him the full truth about Edward during that conversation. Modern therapeutic methods advised bringing up contentious issues in separate conversations, and she could see the wisdom.

There had been one moment when Carlisle asked her if she had only used him as a means to an end.

Bella was genuinely surprised at how long it took him to reach that conclusion. No matter how much she liked the man personally, he was part and parcel with the family who had cursed her to a violent half-life that could only end in flames.

No matter how much she appreciated her job and its many perks, it wasn’t a life she had chosen for herself.

Carlisle was devastated, and Aro was notably cooler towards her than he had been before she broke Carlisle’s heart. Bella and Carlisle didn’t really speak these days - she was a working member of the guard, while he was clearly a guest of the coven. At this point it would have felt more organic to slum it for a movie night with Renata or Heidi (and honestly, Bella would love to do that. Those women were both smoking hot) than it would have with Carlisle.

They both frequented the library, but Carlisle was conspicuously never there when she was. They still greeted each other in the hallways, but that was the extent of their association.

Carlisle stayed in Volterra, though he barely seemed alive most days. After all, he had nowhere else to go.

In the aftermath of Edward’s death, the Cullens ceased to exist. Alice blamed Carlisle for not picking up the phone, and Jasper was too devoted to her to intercede on his behalf. Rosalie didn’t blame him but demanded that he abandon Bella, who was to blame. Emmett followed Rosalie.

Esme was a ghost that haunted the Denali. She was the only one Bella any felt remorse for hurting - it seemed unfair, like a cruelty to a helpless animal.

Carlisle was devastated that none of his family was able to see what the law dictated; that they seemed to count themselves above the law entirely. He spent his days staring at dusty books in the library, too miserable to do much else. Aro tended to hover around him, offering distractions.

Bella didn't have anywhere else to go either, but that wasn’t why she stayed. No, she loved her job. There were always new crimes to solve and data to analyze to see if any vampires were getting conspicuous. It was also a major improvement over her semi-nomadic existence with Carlisle.

She couldn’t imagine the stress and monotony of a nomadic lifestyle without the aid of billions.

Lauren was facing the window while methodically cleaning dishes that her wife handed her. She cracked open the window, and the mildly revolting smells of denaturing animal proteins wafted towards Bella.

Bella spent the last few minutes before her bus arrived studying the face of the woman she had once loved. The only emotion she felt towards her now was idle curiosity and a lazy, gentle sense of nostalgia. This would be the first and last time Bella saw someone from her human life. Charlie, Billy, and Sue would be dead soon enough, and Aro wouldn’t let her pull another stunt like this anyway.

It started raining just before her bus pulled up, packed to the brim with drunken, costumed revellers. It was perfect for what she had planned.

She got on and moved towards a seat in the back. On her way there, two students with vibrant hair complimented her special effects makeup. She peered over her glasses at them and smiled widely, enjoying the sharp smell of adrenaline that poured off of them.

Her destination was a dark block of flats in a residential area near the Thames. She had done her research beforehand, so it was trivial to break in while avoiding the CCTV cameras.

Within moments, she was standing over the bed of one David Keane, a successful futures and options broker. David had recently been acquitted of the coercive control and assault of his former partner. The victim had suddenly refused to cooperate with the investigation, and the case fizzled out into nothingness when she didn’t show up at the hearing.

Bella had taken a nice long jaunt through David’s computer, and found some very interesting emails to the victim. David wasn’t particularly subtle when it came to threats, but he did have the ability to back them up. She reviewed all of the evidence she obtained and leaned over the sleeping monster.

This was her favorite part - waiting for her victim to subconsciously realize that something was wrong and slowly wake up, crippled with terror, to see her smiling face looming over theirs.

David did not disappoint. His breathing gradually speeded up until his eyes flew open.

“Good evening, David,” she said in her most pleasant voice. He opened his mouth to scream, as they all did, but she was faster. Within milliseconds he was trussed up and gagged while she reclined next to him on the bed.

It was a nice bed, too. David made a lot of money, which was one of the reasons he’d been able to afford such an elaborate campaign of intimidation against his former partner.

Now he was struggling against his bonds and trying to talk around the gag. Bella gently held his jaw between two fingers and leaned in close. “David, my friend, if you make any more noise I’m going to break your jaw in half.” She squeezed lightly to illustrate her point and he fell silent. When she pulled her hand away, there were two livid red marks where her fingertips had been.

She looked around the dark room, eyes passing over the tasteful furniture and soulless but expensive abstract art.

“Really, David? Password1980?” she asked him, scorn dripping from her voice. She was lying next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “Do you know how easy it is to find your birthday from LinkedIn? You’ve got several cyber security courses on your CV, you really should know better than to reuse the same weak password for every account. I mean really, not even a symbol? It was so easy to get into your email account, and when I saw the stuff you were sending Sarah before the trial -”

David started shouting - or tried to.

“Be quiet, David,” Bella said softly. “I wasn’t kidding about your jaw.”

David settled down and made the same set of noises they all did - the ones that meant “what now?” Or maybe “what do you want” or “please don’t hurt me” - Bella usually didn’t take off the gag to find out. She had a bit of a routine going and hated to break it.

“Well David, I’m going to kill you,” Bella said brightly. “It’s going to take a very long time and it’s going to hurt a lot.”

David was trembling now, his pupils darting around while searching for an escape route. Bella sighed.

“I hope that you’re thinking about how sorry you are that you hurt her and how you’d never, ever do it again if I just let you live. Unfortunately I can’t read your mind and I can’t take the gag off because you, David,” she wagged her finger at him playfully, “live in a crowded block of flats and I’m trying to make this inconspicuous. If you lived in a fully detached house I could just burn the whole thing down, but that’s not really done in these parts and I don’t want to take a bunch of innocents with you.”

Not that she normally discriminated between the innocent and the guilty. She fed with the rest of her coworkers in the grated atrium on whoever Heidi managed to inveigle. Bella had murdered small children, the elderly, lovers who reached for each other in their last moments. It was only on external missions where she was able to do fun stuff, like killing criminals.

She didn’t kid herself - this wasn’t justice. This wasn’t even vigilantism. This was a hobby that Aro let her have, since it was harmless enough and he couldn’t ensure her compliance the normal way.

David was crying now, and curled up as much as he could without the rope dislocating his arms.

“You know, I was once in your situation - cowering in my own bed while a monster toyed with my life. I was so scared for so long, and it took a long time and a very profound lifestyle change before I realized that I was actually very, very angry. Angry at people like you, David. But I can be fair - after all, I do empathize with you. Do you want a second chance?”

David nodded desperately, tears still streaming out of his eyes.

“Do you promise you’ll be good? You’ll repay all of Sarah’s court fees and make a statement to the judge saying you’re guilty of everything? You’ll apologize to her for the threats and intimidation? You’ll delete all of the photos and tell her about the spyware?”

David was nodding even harder, brain probably rattling around in his skull.

She cradled his face gently in her hands. “You don’t deserve a second chance.”

He was making terrible, wounded noises through the gag now. Bella jumped up and started rifling through the desk in his room.

“Alright David, we need a pen and paper. We’ve got a suicide note to write, and I’ll need your help with it.”

As she sat at the desk and penned David’s insipid, pathetic suicide note, she thought about the day in front of the Solimena portrait, when Edward told her about his years of vigilante justice.

Maybe, had things been different, they could have had something.

Bella was still a little damp by the time she got to London City.

Getting rid of a bloodless corpse in the middle of one of the world’s most crowded metropolitan areas wasn’t easy, but Bella enjoyed a challenge.

After she had her fun with Dear David, she’d packed his carefully dismembered corpse into a mesh bag and swam his earthly remains to one of the exclusion zones in the Thames Estuary. The native crabs would be delighted.

She then got to stroll to a bridge wearing his nicest clothes, leave his wallet and the note (which was well done even by hear standards) and jump into the river.

Investigators would find evidence of a deeply troubled man who had been overwhelmed by guilt and an absolutely massive cocaine habit. Bella had plated evidence of the last bit, but it would certainly help Sarah’s case.

She hoped the woman would find some measure of peace knowing David was dead. Too bad they would never find his body.

Demetri grimaced as she strolled up. She gave him a cheery wave - he hated that he couldn’t find her. Felix and Alec were standing a few paces behind him, talking animatedly about the most recent movie. They fell silent as she walked past.

She wasn’t popular among her fellow guards. Apparently her true crime fixation was just as off-putting to her vampiric peers as it was to her human ones.

It was a bit of a bummer that Renata looked at her with so much revulsion every time she tried to initiate a conversation. The woman was cute, but also it would be unprofessional to think about a coworker like that.

It was too bad - there really was so much good content out there. It had made her day when Lauren said they were making one about her. She would listen to it by herself, read her books by herself, maintain her hobbies and research her interests by herself.

Her human family and friends would die, Carlisle might never look her in the eyes again, but she would always have her job and her books and her films and her podcasts and her victims.

It wasn't ideal, but it was. Bella was alive, she had a future, and she was physically safe. She’d learned not to take anything, particularly safety, for granted.

Edward was dead. She had as much power and stability as it was possible to have as a vampire. There were worse ways to live.