Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything in the meadow was going as a reasonable outsider might expect. Terrifying red eyed vampire wanted to eat human. Depressed human was less terrified than she ought to be at the prospect.

The scene played out as normal until Laurent did something Bella would never have expected from a vampire; he stuttered, gracelessly. He croaked halfway through questioning her on the extent to which the Cullens had abandoned her and had fallen silent staring blankly ahead.

Bella felt that perhaps her hallucinations had taken on a new form, rather than endlessly perfect him she had subconsciously tried for a different vampire, her neurons wildly firing had landed on James’ ex-covenmate.

But that wasn’t it. As wrong as Bella's brain was compared to the rest of the human population she was sure he was real, she was sure if grief could inspire hallucinations he would have joined her on her months long downwards spiral.

Not knowing what else to do she waited for Laurent to restart. They stood before each other for an uncomfortable half-minute. Bella thought if he were here he’d be telling her to run; she was too calm, and far too curious to muster the adrenaline needed to hear him speak.

Laurent did not so much return to himself but he did start; vampires were always uncanny with their lack of need to blink or breathe, but to Bella who had spent months with the Cullens, who had slept and woken to a marble face, none of that could phase her. 

Laurent slowly and inhumanly, invampirically, walked towards her. Despite the moment she recalled a biology class back in Phoenix, where the teacher had put on a video rather than teach. It had been on fungi. She had been quietly horrified by a kind of parasitic fungi that could posses bugs, it puppeted them until they were all but walking corpses, vehicles for a unnatural purpose. When Laurent reached her and stood almost within touching distance he raised an arm, finger nearly grazing her brow, and spoke, inhumanly, invampirically, parasitically,

‘Isabella Swan! Night has chosen thee; thy death will be thy birth. Night calls to thee, hearken to her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you, once you found the House of Night.’

Bella didn’t know how to respond.

She stared and Laurent, with his strange echoey voice and nearly glowing eyes, stared back. She was shocked, not by his words, the strange pomposity seemed like it could fit from the few interactions they’d had, but their delivery was bafflingly out of character for any human or vampire. And vampires usually made sense, they were perfect creatures who could remember everything and think a thousand times as fast as humans. They didn’t ramble, especially about night and death and destiny.

They both stared.

It was a lot of staring until she had to double over in pain, not at the usual gaping hole in her chest but rather an acute stabbing in her forehead which sent her to the ground.

Fortunately at this point in her life Bella was used to falling and did so without any more injury than a graze to her palms. Unfortunately she had experience with what a single drop of blood could do to a vampire trying to abstain from human blood, she scarcely dared to look at her oncoming death, though, of course, she did.

He still stood, frozen, eyes not even darkening from the delicious scent of her blood.

From the ground she watched as he remained as if he really were a granite sculpture (still staring). And then, as oddly as the transformation had overcome him he returned to himself and his expression flickered between hollow and some puzzling emotion. 

Her shock at everything that had happened was overwhelmed by the even more absurd scene that immediately followed. If Bella not for the excruciating pain in her forehead she might have watched raptly; as it was the play was witnessed from the disadvantage of the ground and half obscured by spots in front of her eyes.

First emerged a wolf shaped horse, or a horse sized wolf. And then four more. Laurent shifted as if to flee, but whatever sickness had overtaken him had given them all the time they could need to ambush and strike. Surrounded there was nowhere to run, though he gave running a good try.

A silver and a russet beast, that could have been a bear had she not known what a bear looked like, closed in on him in his flight and Bella rather wished she had the ability to do anything, particularly look away, when the creatures started shredding the vampire apart. Despite watching it all happen she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing - the fight must have at some point devolved with her hysteria, there was just no way a vampire could do anything but cockily slaughter an overpresumptuous carnivore. There was no way Laurent was dying in their meadow.

Not overwhelmed by terror but some distant cousin she first crawled and, when the pain ebbed from her limbs, stumbled away from the clearing and towards whatever ‘away’ might be.

If she got lost in the woods again Sam might find her again - and then Jacob would be angry but at least she’d hear from him.

In far less time than it had taken her to reach the meadow (showing how if there were a god even he felt her catastrophically bad luck was due a reprieve) she reached the dirt road exactly where she had parked her truck. It was only when she had started the engine that she began to allow herself to think on the chaos she had just witnessed.

Accepting things that send normal sane people running for the hills was Bella’s M.O.; accepting the scene was possible. Vampires were real, easy. Vampires, flawless vampires having some kind of episode, less easy to accept but it must be true all the same. Mutant bear/horse/wolves, near impossible. But really, once you accepted the supernatural you couldn't stop because a degenerative vampire disease (possibly vampire syphilis, he had spent all that time with Tanya and her sisters. Vampire syphilis was exactly the kind of thing he would never tell her about) and mutated vampire hunting wolves were a step too far. Or, at least, Bella couldn't.

If it wasn’t a vampiric STD then she had to hand it to James, at least he’d just tortured her and not subjected her to bad poetry.

He had scoffed when she’d asked about witches but really, clearly Forks was some kind of hellmouth for the supernatural. That or she was cursed. Either way, a hollow victory for Bella; she had survived, Victoria wanted to kill her, there were monsters in the woods.

Her thoughts sustained her the whole drive home and once back she quickly fled to her room, not feeling up to remembering what lie she’d told Charlie about where she’d be today.

Bella almost called Jacob. Almost. She could have told him she’d found the meadow all by herself but on top of the exhaustion and the pain she remembered his strange distance after his illness - she wanted so badly that sunshine he brought, that inability to feel pain when he talked but she was exhausted and terrified that he wouldn't pick up.

She must have passed out on her bed in indecision because then it was night.

She almost didn't go to shower the hike and crawl off her, and then she almost didn't defog the mirror to glance at her reflection.

It's a good thing she did. She had a vision of her unthinkingly standing in the parking lot before school, everyone staring, and not knowing why - this had once been her worst nightmare, and though there were now greater griefs she was no longer too numb to care about social embarrasment.

She had looked in the mirror and so she did spend an hour digging through her belongings to find the old tube of foundation Renee had given her. 

Anything but acknowledge the tattoo; the sapphire outline of a crescent moon that had appeared on her forehead.

Chapter Text

It glowed.

No matter what she covered it with - it was only that it was nighttime and she was afraid of waking Charlie that she hadn’t raided his hardware supplies for paint - the mark shone through with an unearthly glow.

Renee had, in one of her hobby phases, started a collection of uranium glass; she’d had a penlight that she took with her to thrift stores, she’d shine it on every piece of glassware and once in a while it glowed, uranium green.

Her forehead was just like that except you didn’t need the penlight. (And it was sapphire blue rather than radioactive green. Small mercies.)

In the morning, thanking her lucky stars that Charlie started early and was gone by the time she was up, she had made her way to the parking lot of the school, unviewed. Unviewed excepting one possible sighting by a truck driver heading out of town, he’d given her a look she couldn’t and did not want to decipher that may have been about the tattoo. She hoped not.

Standing next to her car and pretending to study a textbook she felt herself reliving, in real time, last night’s nightmare (the better of the nightmares she’d had last night) and tried not to think about anything but getting through the day.

She did not ask herself questions. Questions like: what? The tattoo was unlike any tattoo she’d ever seen, it looked and felt as if it were a part of her skin (not that Bella was particularly experienced with tattoos but all the same). If not a mundane tattoo what exactly was it? What could it mean for her? Why? Why blue, why a crescent moon, why her? Some of those had been answered in the nightmare but Bella was tired of receiving pointed life advice from dreams. She was tired of that voice. How? How had Laurent done this to her? He’d just pointed. Nothing any of the Cullens said indicated vampires could cast magic. They had gifts, sure, but gifts like empathy and telepathy, not spontaneous tattooing.

She was studying her textbook and not imagining what Charlie and Renee might say about her altered appearance, nor Jacob, nor any vampires she used to know

She’d thought of other methods to cover it up of course. Emergency midnight bangs had been such a tempting option; Renee had once cut herself bangs during a crying fit post nasty breakup with a nice guy. But then they’d looked terrible and she had made Bella promise to never make her mistake - it had been an easy promise to make when she’d been facing those awful choppy bangs and with great certainty that she’d never go through a messy breakup of her own-

She could have done a hat, but then she’d have to wear a hat every day for the rest of her life. Bella would take crushing judgment over being the weirdo always wearing a trucker hat.

She just had to get through the day (and the night, and the next day and night, and every following day and night until she died).

Though recently returned from her zombie state she thankfully didn’t have any kind of social routine started back up - it used to be that she would meet people before school, chat if there was time. Zombie Bella hadn’t had to deal with such social niceties. She never thought she’d be so grateful to have a completely ruined social life.

Bella sped through fluorescent lit hallways which she had never liked but was now hating with a passion, everything looked ugly and it was giving her a headache.

Once she had made it to class she avoided all eye contact and proceeded to her seat. Despite never before having acting ambitions, today, or just for this class she was playing a character; Bella Swan at the beginning of forks. This Bella swan cared about her classes and didn’t have mediocre grades. She didn’t have a broken heart nor an unexpected and unwanted and possibly life altering body modification that might be some mystical fantastical mark from -

No, this Bella Swan was normal. And if people looked at her oddly people had always thought perfectly ordinary Bella Swan was odd and that was fine, if lonely.

Normal Bella Swan certainly didn’t catch her reflection in a locker she passed and see how the red of her blush brought out the blue of the crescent moon even more brilliantly.

Her morning passed perfectly normally, no teacher dared to make a comment; perhaps it was that she was eighteen, or that she was the chief’s daughter (or, she did not acknowledge, it could be that they were all terrified of another zombie Bella phase). Only Mike was nearly brave enough to approach her, he’d caught her outside econ and looked as though he wanted to say something - his mouth opening and closing several times - she’d have felt pity if she’d had any to spare. He’d thankfully not been able to find the words before she’d been saved by their separate schedules and the start of class.

Lunch had been where the decision lay. Normal Bella had no reason not to attend, but Normal Bella was a character, wonderful for coping but Bella was already too worried about delusion to deliberately indulge in self-deception.

She wanted to go home. She was tired, the people were loud, her eyes hurt, she didn’t want to be there.

Bella might have been many things - ashamed and embarrassed, confused and terrified - but never a coward. And anyway, these people had already seen her at rock bottom (she hoped).

Her lunch table had been waiting for her, or so their tense silence had said. She’d dropped into her newly retaken seat, avoiding grabbing lunch (high school cafeteria food being another high school thing she simply didn’t want to cope with today or ever again), and waited.

‘You got a face tattoo?’
Bella had to give it to Lauren. She’d waited a good ten seconds. She also hadn’t sounded half as cutting as she could have.

‘Yes.’ Bella replied.

This admission reintroduced the silence, silence and staring seemed to have followed Bella for the past day, she hoped it wasn’t a growing pattern in her life. Really though, what had they expected? A denial? It was right there on her forehead. They all knew what an atrocious liar Bella was at the best of times, this was not the best of times.

‘Why?’ Jessica had asked, to which the whole table, even Angela, leaned in a little to hear Bella’s response.

To this Bella simply shrugged. How was she supposed to know?

‘I think it looks cool,’ said Mike grinning and stopping another one of these increasingly tiresome pauses. Jessica shot him a venomous glare which he did not see, ‘I’ve always thought tattoos are really cool.’

Bella decided this must be Mike’s apology for the weirdness the other night at the movie theatre with Jacob, she mustered a grateful look, ‘Thanks a lot Mike.’

At that the lunch table (and some of the students sitting on surrounding tables who had leaned in to hear the gossip) fell into a disappointed silence. Bella sympathised, she really did. She’d been completely unaware for the past few months, she had essentially no idea what was going on with anyone at the moment. For example she had no idea why Lauren had shorn her perfect hair off. Bella was as human as the rest of them and not immune to the mystery of why the school weirdo had got a pointedly visible tattoo.

Beyond strange voices from the ether she couldn’t guess at a reason either.

Nor at why she was thankful the sun had passed its apex. Nor why she was so tired.

It looked as if the interrogation would continue, it was really a manner of someone thinking of a question which could fluster Bella - all knew this wasn’t a difficult prospect. To Bella’s relief Angela was the one to break the impasse;

‘Has anyone done the trig homework yet?’

Bella sent a prayer in praise of Angela, clearly godsent Angela. At the topic of the dreaded homework by a teacher everyone hated most were drawn into a discussion about schoolwork Bella had probably done in a zombified haze.

But the conversations about things she was increasingly too tired to care about - from essays she hadn’t done to who had bought a fake ID but had been caught at the door of Forks’ only bar anyway - allowed her far too much time to dwell.

Because, why? A vampire had lost his mind and pointed at her? Was that it; another part of vampirism that no one had gotten round to explaining to her? If they were still here would Alice suddenly giggle and say,

‘Oh Bella! You mean you don’t know about vampire tattoos?’ But she’d be nice about it because Alice was used to knowing more than most people and was good at being gracious about it.

Bella missed Alice.

Last night she had searched the web for any myths or books that might help, feeling that if she’d tried enough keywords involving crescent moon and vampire she’d find the answers to her problems (again). The voice in her head, which she had ignored, told her she’d find no answers. It had been right, but if Bella ever decided to expand her face tattoo she had some really great inspiration to do so and had said, loudly, ‘Take that, voice.’ At something approaching three am.

The dream she’d had when she’d finally fallen asleep tempted her with the promise of more answers, answers Bella was not interested in hearing. And then it had taken that strangely real form that her dreams had often taken of late. Except this time rather than a woods to get lost in there was a path leading down and down, towards and then into a cave; dream Bella had had the wits to turn the other direction and run - following strange voices underground was the kind of things girls in fairytales did and it rarely ended well for them.

Bella had nearly had enough of being the fool in every fairy tale.

Even as Eric Yorkie said something about a date he’d been on and hum of a few hundred other teenagers reached her ears Bella could still hear that voice, clear as if it were just out of sight and also speaking directly into her ears.

‘You must seek vampires, else your body shall succumb to sickness.’

It was always saying stuff like that, stuff that made her want to scream in frustration or stuff her ears with cotton wool (she’d already tried both).

Bella must have passed the rest of the school day in the same manner, though she could hardly remember. Jessica had said something more to her, it might have been an apology or an invitation. A boy had approached her to lightly rib her about the tattoo, she couldn’t remember what she’d done to get out of that situation.

She must have taken her time leaving school, sensible, because the lot was nearly empty of cars.

She must have been experiencing even more new kinds of hallucinations because Lauren Mallory stood, alone, next to Bella’s truck.

Lauren had obviously spotted Bella before Bella had seen her which meant she got to watch Bella halt, seriously consider sprinting out the parking lot and walking home - she liked to think it was more than the knowledge of her own clumsiness that stopped her but she wasn’t sure.

Bella gathered her tired courage and braced herself for something mean.

Lauren looked unusual standing alone, she was one of those people who thrived when they were surrounded by people. Even if they weren’t the centre of attention they were always there, present, you couldn’t help but be aware of them. Seeing her alone was surreal, Lauren didn’t look half as mean, or anywhere as sure of herself.

Bella was still intimidated and once she reached her car door, which Lauren blocked, she didn’t dare say the first word - or was she just too tired to? It was getting hard to tell.

Lauren cleared her throat and then pushed her hair by her ear, clearly in habit because the strand fell right back in front of her eyes. Bella almost laughed.

‘Look. I shouldn’t have asked you that in the cafeteria. I shouldn’t have been such a bitch these last few months.’

‘Oh.’ Said Bella, for lack of anything else. Had Lauren been particularly awful? She didn't think she’d been conscious enough to know. ‘Oh, thanks.’

Lauren snorted as if Bella had told a joke.

‘I didn’t even think about the tattoo, everything- you know, what it might mean.’

What it meant? Did Lauren of all people posses some knowledge about what crescent moons symbolised?

‘You know when I cut my hair I wanted people to ask. Like- I was trying to say something but I didn’t want to have to say it. I mean, I think you can pretty easily guess what, and I thought everyone else did too…

‘But then no one said anything and no one asked and, well, I suppose that’s my fault. I intimidate people.’

‘Yeah, you’re terrifying.’ Said Bella, without thinking.

Lauren, to Bella’s eternal shock laughed again.

‘You know with Cullen I thought you were… Well I didn’t think much of you for it, especially afterwards.’

‘I couldn’t help it. I loved him, I loved all of them.’

‘They were something… Especially that beautiful blonde.’ Laren said with a touch of wistfulness.

‘Rosalie?’

‘Yeah, her.’

‘She was terrifying.’

‘Yes, she was,’ Lauren smiled warmly. The smile didn’t surprise Bella this time, what did surprise her was that the smile wasn’t followed by several people jumping out from behind her truck shouting ‘psych! We got you, this has all been a confusing and elaborate prank!’ (In this fantasy the voice was somehow their doing too, as was the tattoo, the tattoo was actually just really tough permanent marker. It was a great fantasy despite the social humiliation.)

‘Look. I don’t know what you’ve got going on right now. Obviously,’ here at least she sounded nearly back to her usual derisive self, ‘you’ve got some stuff to still work through… But if you ever wanted to hang out or anything.’ Lauren blushed here, which was even odder than her smiling or laughing with sincerity, ‘I’m around. Yeah. Girls like us have to stick together, you know?’

Bella didn’t know. She didn’t know what planet she was on or what vampire parasite was infecting forks giving her unwanted delusions and Lauren Mallory a personality transplant.

‘Yes, that’s… I’m really- That’s really nice of you Lauren. I’ve got a lot right now but maybe sometime soon. Yeah.’ Bella did not manage this pinnacle of speech without blushing.

Still, as Lauren, possible pod person Lauren, reached down to give Bella one of her top five most awkward hugs of all time Bella couldn’t help but feel a little warm. This was nice, it must be that girl power solidarity thing Renee was telling Bella she needed to get in on.

The buzz of a shockingly positive end to the day turned into an electric buzz of a looming chainsaw when she remembered she still hadn’t seen Charlie. And the voice in her head told her she was dying. And there was a voice in her head. And she had a blue moon on her forehead.

Really nice hug though.

Chapter Text

She couldn’t forget Charlie for long, no matter how okay the day had ended up being, he was her dad and he was going to freak. She couldn’t forget anything the voice said to her, it said she should find vampires, it said she would get sick if she didn’t, it said-

Well, it said a lot of unforgettable but clearly absurd things. Absurd or cruel.

She couldn’t tell Charlie about the tattoo because then she’d have to explain Laurent and the Cullens and remember that time I fell out a window? It was vampires actually, a guy named James tortured me.

She couldn’t locate any vampires because her personality was a supernatural vampire repellent and her blood was as tasty as apple pie, apparently.

The Cullens hadn’t just been her family, they’d been her future too. She’d felt safe in saying to herself (privately of course) ‘When I’m a vampire I’ll…’ 

For obvious reasons she didn’t play that game anymore - yet she did now.

‘If I’m ever a vamp I’ll never comment to someone how tasty their scent is, even if it’s really good.’

Her epiphanic tattoo seemed to be making her not just crazy but bitter.

Charlie came home to football on the tv, a freshly cleaned house, and the most elaborate dinner Bella had managed since her birthday. It said a lot about Bella of the past few months that this made him suspicious. Once it would have been ordinary. She missed ordinary, sometimes. It said even more that when confronted with his only child, who was barely eighteen, with a fresh face tattoo that he didn’t immediately lose it. Or perhaps it said more about him and how little she understood him.

He didn’t judge or comment through the whole dinner. Bella almost wanted to check a mirror to see if the last 24 hours had been a fever dream.

As she moved to pick up the plates he placed his hand on hers, tears unexpectedly welled up in her eyes.

He only flinched to a really trained or anxious eye at the temperature of her skin, nothing nearing stone cold, but not exactly vital either. 

‘You okay Bells?’ 

She cried in answer. What more could she say?

Bella knew that things could not go on the way they were. Charlie had been nice, he’d said some kind words about struggle and how strong she was and how much he loved her. She’d cried a lot. It had been nice, kind of him, because she’d been an awful daughter these past months, and, if she felt like being honest with herself, her whole life. She couldn’t even call him dad.

So Charlie was a saint, he still looked at her terrified, like she might go out and do something else crazy, but he didn’t say anything about the tattoo and didn’t say anything about not doing anything stupid. He kept saying he loved her which was almost as bad.

She went into school the next day to a nearly normal day, but she got sick. First it was like the return of a flu, an ache and fog in her head.

The next day Lauren was something awful to Mike when he asked Bella out on the weekend - which was confusing if incredibly sweet. Bella wished she and Lauren had been sort of friendly when she’d first come to Forks, it would have saved her so much stress around all those stupid dances. 

And then she got sicker, on top of everything else she had this awful wet cough that would overwhelm her at times. 

So on Thursday she’d decided to stay home, she’d been all reassurances to Charlie, no don’t worry about me haha, just taking it easy so things don’t get work. No schoolwork is fine Angela or someone should pick it up for me. He’d looked secretly pleased, likely because if she stayed home and got better he wouldn’t have to miss his weekend fishing trip with Harry.

And on Thursday she felt as if James had bitten her again, but just a bit, and she actually started coughing up blood (like this was the olden days where people went around coughing up blood).

It couldn’t go on. 

Her options were either, she was hearing voices and she was just coming down with a really bad flu or the voices she was hearing were real and she was going to die in scant days on Charlie’s tattered sofa while hacking up a lung. The voice would even explain the biological process happening, a cellular breakdown that could be halted by the pheromones that vampires apparently give off - far more thought out than Bella would expect from a delusion.

The thing was, Bella really didn’t want to die. But she didn’t want to lose her mind either. After the Cullens, after everything, she didn’t feel better, but she felt she’d made progress. It wouldn’t be fair, after all that, if Bella regained her senses enough to find out she’d lost everything else. 

Before she’d gone to school on Tuesday, and every night following, she’d had a dream. No more getting lost in the woods dreams, all her dreams involved the night sky and the deep earth.

The voice was always in the dream, except the voice also had a face. She’d be at the same cave entrance again, the voice would call to her again, but rather than run away she would float downwards into the earth, and there she'd find her.

‘The Virgin Mary?’ Dream Bella had asked on the first night, with all due incredulity. She wasn’t a Catholic, she certainly hadn’t thought she believed in God. Maybe she believed in something, Carlisle had been so certain when she’d spoken to him after her disastrous birthday party that she’d almost felt moved… She knew she didn’t believe in divine visions - she hadn’t since in one of Renee’s more out there phases they’d gone to see some Buddhist prophet who saw visions that all amounted to her followers needing to hand over more and more money.

The problem with that lack of belief was that the dream vision had looked so real, and continued to do so whenever she closed her eyes. And she wasn’t just real, she was an almost perfect replica of a painting she’d once seen of Mary, she’d had such a soft and open smile that the image had long stuck with Bella. The only difference was her hair and eyes were black as night, and reminded Bella of the stars. It need not be said that she was intimidatingly beautiful and made Bella’s somewhat incorporeal dream self feel hideous in comparison.

The first few times Bella had called the voice that she’d answered with a variation of the same thing; 

‘I have many names, my daughter of Night. Across ages people have given me many titles, Nott, Grandmother Spider, Nammu, Yemoja, and most call me Nyx. But you may choose any name you wish my child.’

The voice had drifted between many forms as she spoke in the manner that things in dreams do, before fading back into the distinct form of Mary.

‘Mary.’ Bella said with more confidence.

The god regarded her for some time and placed her hands together in a gesture lost on Bella, and then replied, ‘As you say Isabella.’

After the first dream where she had acknowledged Mary Bella was able to have a little more peace in her daily life, even as she declined. Bella appreciated it.

Once Bella was somewhat used to the awe inspiring visage in her dreams she felt safe enough to ask it questions,

‘What have you done to me? And why?’ She knew it was a stupid thing to ask your subconscious whether you’re losing your mind but she figured if her hallucinations of Edward (the pain of thinking his name was dulled in the dream) had some good advice like ‘Don’t die.’ This hallucination of a god might as well.

‘You are the first daughter of Night and I have marked you as such.’

Bella followed her in sitting cross legged on the floor of the cavern. Despite Mary’s halo being the only lightsource Bella found she could see perfectly.

‘Have you got any advice for me other than don’t die and don’t go crazy?’

Mary smiled tenderly and placed a kiss atop Bella’s mark,

‘Your sickness lies not in your head, my daughter.’

‘Oh, that’s a relief.’

‘It is in your body. I have warned you child, you must find vampires to shepherd you through your transition from fledgling to true daughter of Night. The first of your kind in this world.’

Clearly this “Mary” was a hallucination back from the dark days, a thought she’d never been able to verbalise - I cannot live without vampires. A thought repressed and now showing itself in the form of hallucinations and blackouts leading to tattoos - she’d have to hand this one to Freud.

Bella spent Thursday thinking about calling Jacob and refusing to fall asleep. She’d called twice each night previously to either an answering machine or Billy telling Bella how busy Jake was with his new friends. If she weren’t lying on a sofa and possibly dying she’d hop in her truck and see Jake herself, as it was she was possibly dying and would really like a friend. She couldn’t say as much to Billy of course, not without worrying Charlie, but she’d made it known her need was urgent and had received an answer just above ‘too bad so sad.’

So she thought about Jake, how nice it would be to have someone who could always make her feel alive, and did whatever else she could to avoid napping. Just because she’d accepted the idea that when she dreamt a primordial god would meet her for a chat if they felt like didn’t mean she was particularly eager for the interaction; especially when they seem so confused why she didn’t just follow their impossible advice.

The only non Cullen vampires Bella knew were their beautiful cousins the Denali who Bella supposed must live somewhere near or in the Denali national park or there was the Volturi who resided somewhere in Italy, he had intimated were some kind of scary - neither of these options seemed particularly helpful.

Still, she debated with herself what to do in the long term (dying meant that the long term was now essentially the next couple of days which made things a little easier). She had so far assured Charlie that no she didn’t need looking after, she’d been taking care of herself for years thank you very much, and she certainly didn’t need someone hovering while she went through another flu. It wasn’t even really a lie because at the moment it was no worse than a flu.

With Charlie sorted in the short term the long was the only question - she was of two minds. On the one she could remain here, on this sofa or in bed, and die. This would be easier for her but would mean it was certain that Charlie would, one day upon coming home from a shift, find her body. She’d like to avoid that but so far the only alternative she could come up with was wondering into the woods and hoping that the mutant dogs would eat her - no body no mourning. 

This felt cruel; Charlie would feel unnecessarily guilty, he’d wonder whether she killed herself or was kidnapped, he’d feel it was his fault. She was leaning towards dying where she lay, he was used enough to seeing corpses for his job that it wouldn’t be too much of a shock. It was during this contemplation that the doorbell rang.

She almost didn’t hear it and certainly didn’t feel like answering it - it was late in the day so it wouldn’t be Charlie or anyone from school - but it patiently returned and she felt she might as well. Every interaction was special, a new last.

She moved slowly to the door so as to avoid tripping and possibly not being able to get up, it seemed kind of dumb if she died to her clumsiness rather than the god trying to kill her.

If it had not been for his scent she would have believed she were hallucinating once more - that she could smell him was unbelievable in itself, she’d not been able to breathe through her nose since Tuesday night.

‘Dr Cullen.’ She said. And then wept, over and over, as she threw herself at him, sobbing as she breathed into his neck to get lungfuls of his holy scent.

Bella was still cataloguing his scent, not as floral as she’d remembered but beautiful all the same, when she realised she’d essentially assaulted him at her door. She’d only ever had one conversation with the Cullen patriarch and she’d all just climbed on him. She pulled back reluctantly and he released her from his surprised embrace,

‘I’m so sorry. It’s just been a really long week.’ She said, no doubt blushing.

His face was frozen in something like shock, and it took him a while to reanimate himself. Now she felt awful in two ways, there was no way he was just here to check in, he probably had some business with Charlie or something-

All such thoughts vanished when he broke out into a wide grin and embraced her again,

‘Bella! I must say I am relieved to see you!’

Bella pushed him away to let out a wet cough in response.

She was starting to feel better, the sickness was clearing from her body so quickly it was leaving her lightheaded, in an hour she could forget she’d ever been sick. But with confirmation of how right Mary had been came the cold certainty of her death.

She’d have to make the most of Carlisle’s visit.

‘Come in Dr Cullen. I’m sorry I haven’t cleaned or anything…’ She said with some embarrassment - the living room looked how she imagined a field hospital, what with all the bloody tissues lying about, she assumed he’d be used to the sight at least. She still didn’t look to see if there was any judgment on his face, she couldn’t handle that right now.

She half reclined on the sofa and he perched on the armchair that she usually favoured.

‘How have things been?’ She asked.

He looked rather taken aback.

‘Well we’ve been… Well enough under the circumstances. But Bella- I don’t quite know how to say this with you sitting before me. Alice-’

Her name did not carry the same pain as her brother’s but nonetheless hearing of her former best friend, who had as abandoned her so easily, wasn’t easy.

‘Alice was under the impression you had been murdered.’

‘Oh!’

‘Indeed! I must reiterate I am exceedingly glad to see that is not the case. All my family were grieved to hear Bella. Though I must confess I am curious as to how you are alright. She said she saw you in the woods with Laurent, that he attacked you and she has not been able to see you since.’

Bella hadn’t thought in a while about whether Alice had been watching her. The idea that she might see all Bella was going through and not help felt like a betrayal, but the idea that she’d abandoned her so utterly felt worse. 

‘And I’m sorry to ask Bella but I feel I must; are you quite well? I can see you’ve come down with some kind of malady but…’ he trailed off as if he didn’t know what to say, or how to say it.

The hurt about Alice reminded her of her greater hurts. Here she was making small talk with Carlisle, as if they’d parted amicably, and she supposed on his part they had. He barely knew her and owed her nothing. She felt she understood why they left, she was nothing to them, and yet, all the same, she felt betrayed. They had introduced her to a hidden world, to more, and then they had left her alone in this grey existence as if they hadn’t changed everything. Perfect Rosalie who had never deigned to acknowledge Bella owed her nothing, the rest… they had called her sister and daughter.

She supposed she could continue, offer some small talk in return, assure him of her health and send him on his merry way to eternity. She could soak up the sheer joy that came with being in the presence of a Cullen - to think she had called Jacob her sun, she felt like a moth confusing a lamp for the moon. And then, once she was done orbiting beings better than she’d ever be she could allow the good doctor on his way so she could die in peace. 

Or she could beg him, appeal to his mercy and humanity, and ask him to upend his life to help her even though she was now nothing to him. If he had not been sitting before the window where the setting sun lit his golden hair and angelic features to make him divine she would have sent him on his way.

‘Doctor Cullen-’

‘I think you know me well enough to call me Carlisle, Bella.’ He said in the manner of one who thought they had just told a joke. She tried to smile.

‘Carlisle. Do you know anything about vampire STDs?’

Carlisle admirably took this question in his stride.

‘There is no such thing.’

‘Are you sure?’

He leaned back in his seat, an almost artistic representation of a human man thinking, 

‘One can never be entirely sure of anything. But yes Bella, I am sure enough. Might I-’

‘That would have made things easier. Now I’ve either got no idea what’s going on or I do and it’s insane. Take your pick.’

‘Something physical has obviously affected you, perhaps if you explain what you know I might be able to help you.’

Bella’s self doubt got the better of her,

‘Dr- Carlisle, you just came here to confirm whether I was dead. It’s really nice that you came and all that. But you’ve done your part now, you’ve all moved on and that’s great, you don’t need to stay and listen to my crazy out of some obligation, I’m doing fine on my own.’ She added the last not out of pride but out of desire that he leave. She was already beginning to realise how much worse things would be once he left, best not drag out the inevitable.

To have this taste of her world, of the people she had thought had loved her, her family - it was intolerable.

Carlisle rose with entirely human swiftness and placed himself next to Bella on her sickbed sofa, taking one of her hands in his he said, 

‘Bella. My family and I left you, this was done with the best of intentions; we wanted to allow you to live your human life unhindered by the danger our kind brings. That does not mean we do not care for you- that our inaction has led to another vampire trying to harm you… I can only say how sorry I am and assure you I shall not leave again while you remain in distress, nor shall the rest when they hear, I'm sure.’

Bella wanted to reply to his kindness, she knew that in comparison to the eternity that was their lives she was one mortal of millions, a blip in their existence. But it was nice of him all the same. All she could do in response, however, was to cry. It was not relief, she could hear what he was really saying; we feel guilty for leaving you in danger, once we’re sure that danger is no more we will leave again. 

He held her as she wept, she tried not to be so comforted by the coldness of his arms, their familiarity.

When she was recovered enough to awkwardly extract herself while he smiled at her with that damnable goodness radiating from him she noted the sun still hadn’t set, and then she realised it wouldn’t for another twelve minutes, and then she wanted to cry all over again because why did she know that? She stared at the setting sun and hoped it would blind her,

‘What I’m going to tell you is going to make you think I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have except- except I’m so sure I haven’t. Which I know is what crazy people think, but I’m sure. Certain.

‘Laurent found me in the meadow. The meadow we- that is Edward and I hung out in. He was friendly at first, but he had red eyes. I know what that means. And then, when I should have started to run, he just… stopped.’

‘Stopped?’

‘Yeah but not in that way you guys freeze sometimes. Or well I guess it was, but I could tell it was different somehow. Because when he started again, I swear I know this sounds crazy, but when he started moving it wasn’t him.

‘Whoever he was he came towards me, said some creepy words about destiny, pointed at me and bam! Mark on my forehead and excruciating pain, or maybe it was pain and then mark. And- the voice.

‘Ever since the meadow there’s been this voice. I really did think I must have just hit my head, it was probably just a hallucination, wouldn’t be the first time, you know? But I didn’t hit my head and she’s not a hallucination. I know things I shouldn’t and so does the voice. And when I dream, I see her.’

Bella turned to look up at Carlisle, to look him in the eyes. She didn’t try to make out his expression,

‘You talked to me last autumn about faith, about how none of this had made you doubt. You believe in God despite vampires and whatever else. I need you to believe me.

‘The voice is God.’

She looked into his golden eyes, it seemed strange that a god would choose her and not-

‘A god. A god. Not capital G god. I still don’t believe in that. I think.’

It was really sad that Bella was dying because apparently she would have found a great career as a comedian if Carlisle’s laugh said anything,

‘She says she has lots of names. Nyx, um, Kali, Spider something, there are some other ones I can’t remember. But when I see her in my dreams I know who she is: Mary.’

Vampires could process thoughts at speeds incalculable to humans - a few seconds pause was minutes for them, it said something that Carlisle answered near instantly:

‘I believe you.’

Bella who was facing possible death did not feel like beating round the bush,

‘Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why?’ She placed a lot of incredulity in that why.

Carlisle who had yet to release her hand answered in a measured voice,

‘Do you remember how I told you about how vampire senses can help me diagnose patients?’

‘You can smell cancer.’

‘Some humans can smell cancer.’ He said with a chuckle, like this was funny, when she possibly didn’t have a vampire STD but maybe she did have vampire cancer, ‘But in essence, yes, I can smell certain diseases, but more I can smell the effect they have on the body, I can see changes in skin that human eyes cannot pick up, I can hear arrhythmia and clots, even- Well, all that to say…

‘To be frank Bella, your scent has altered utterly. In a manner I do not recognise from my centuries treating humans.’

He looked away as if Charlie’s living room had the right words, Bella braced herself for the vampire cancer.

‘Did Edward ever tell you about my friend Ephraim Black?’

‘Black, like Jake’s family?’

‘Jake is the son of the chief?’

She nodded.

‘Ephraim would be his grandfather.’ He kept getting this wistful smile when he spoke of Ephraim. Edward never really spoke about the people he’d outlived and for the first time it hit Bella how sad that must be.

She realised she was supposed to answer,

‘Edward didn’t tell me about Ephraim, but Jake mentioned him. About the cold ones and a treaty…’

‘Yes, his tribe has legends of our kind. When my family and I moved to Forks the first time he and his council thought we would slaughter the town, they wanted us gone. When we showed that we did not mean any harm they, reluctantly, agreed to allow us to stay.’

‘And?’

‘And? Oh! Forgive me, the reason I bring him up is, well it’s the reason he knew what I was, and I knew what he was, you see-’

Bella remembered the rest of the tale Jake had told her on that beach a lifetime ago,

‘They turned into wolves.’

Carlile smiled in surprise.

‘Jake told me the legends, it’s how I figured out…’ She waved a hand at ‘it’ in lieu of saying ‘Edward’.

‘Bella, I knew Ephraim was not quite human in the same manner he could identify me. My senses told me as much. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Bella thought she did. ‘No.’ She said.

Carlisle did his best to look reassuring. He was not doing a good job at making her feel as if she were anything but a patient receiving their terminal diagnosis, though she could get why patients liked him despite the vampirism. He was very good at making you feel as though your imminent death was a-ok actually.

‘I knew the moment I saw you Bella. Perhaps to human eyes the changes are minor.’ Despite himself his eyes flicked to her forehead, ‘You do not look as you once did; your skin, your hair, your eyes, your scent-

‘I would liken it to the transformation we go through, though less dramatic. This is why I believe you. As strange as it might seem, I believe my senses, I believe in my faith, I believe in you.’

Bella felt redundancy was important here,

‘You’re saying I’m like a vampire.’

His angelic face twisted in contemplation,

‘Like a vampire, yes. Though I doubt at this point that you could ever become one of my kind.’

Bella took it back. He was horrible at this, just awful.

Chapter Text

Carlisle, true to his word, moved back into the Cullen house the same day.

There was no in between or conversation. Blind faith, while of great comfort to one going through a spiritual (religious?) crisis, is really unsettling. 

Thursday morning Bella had been one foot in the grave and the Cullens were gone for good, Thursday afternoon Bella might be living longer than average and Dr Cullen was back to living an antisocial distance from the people of Forks.

She wanted to bask in the change but she was driven into a panic; Charlie was due home far too soon.

The source of the panic was unknown to her, perhaps she felt she’d disrupted Charlie's life enough with first her depression, then her crisis, then illness; confronting him with the father of her ex-boyfriend who she was quite sure he despised was probably a bridge too far. Let it not be said that Bella couldn’t be considerate.

She hurried Carlisle out with assurances of her health and dragging promises from him that they’d meet again, that it wouldn’t be like before where one day she comes home from school and they’re just gone, just-

It’s a good thing she did, Charlie returned in a sweetly humble way bearing soup and fetching her blankets even though she assured him she felt just super now.

They had another one of their wonderfully stilted dinners, she asked about work (thankfully mercifully slow) and his friends (wonderfully uncomplicated in the way that male friendship seems to be), he asked about Jake (still ignoring her to the point that she might actually be mad, except she knew she wasn’t, she knew if he called her up she’d at least give him the time of day, which might, if she was being uncharitable, not be what he deserved). 

Upon hearing this he made an offer to speak to Billy on her behalf, Bella stopped him, not because she couldn’t bear Jake to see her like this (inhuman) but because the idea of Charlie having to rescue her friendship via sternly talking to her best friend’s father made her feel like such a failure of a person that she couldn’t bear it. She had been marked with proof that there really was something wrong with her, how could she blame Jake for seeing it and vanishing?

After a return to school the next day she didn’t expect Carlisle to have vanished, which she took as a win for faith but was really her listening more to these growing feelings she’d had ever since the mark - bizarrely despite lacking Mary’s words she found these sensations more comprehensible - the feelings told her Carlisle would be there, come rain or shine or hellfire.

Sure enough, a familiar Mercedes sat outside her house and he waited by her front door. She enjoyed the novelty of a vampire waiting to be let in and also just the novelty of knowing a vampire again. 

‘I apologise Bella, I can’t stay.’ He told her after she’d hurried to join him on the porch, protected from the rain.

‘Oh! That’s fine.’ She assured him. 

It really was.

As best she could tell she only needed a few minutes every day to stave off death. Even if she would have liked him to stick around, if nothing else his scent had become like catnip to her and that damned voice - the holy mother of Christ - seemed to shut up whenever she was in his presence. Even if it was nice to have someone around who she could talk to and just knew what was going on. Even if she didn’t want to be alone.

It was fine.

He smiled, a touch pityingly,

‘I’ve been helping the family with moving back, it’s taken more time than I’ve wanted. Once that’s done I’ll have nothing but free time. I just want to get to the hospital this afternoon so I can get reinstated - I assure you I won’t take my usual number of shifts. Really access to the labs is the most important thing. But if you’d like, or perhaps if you’re not feeling well again, I can postpone.’

She tried very hard not to tear up, all she could do was repeat dumbly, ‘The family…’

In her wildest imaginings she had not pictured them coming back, not her once best friend Alice, not him - not after he was so obviously done with her.

He had the decency to pretend her “family” didn’t sound an awful lot like “Edward”,

‘Alice, Jasper, and Esme are still at the house settling in. Rose and Emmett will cut their latest honeymoon short soon. Edward has been rather hard to contact on his tour of South America.’

She had another one of her strange feelings, a twinge in the base of her spine; Carlisle was lying somehow. It was safe to assume that he’d asked Edward to return with the rest, perhaps not knowing the extent of his aversion to Bella, and Edward had rejected him. It was kind but unnecessary for Carlisle to spare her feelings like that. 

By the following week Forks High was still vampire free, yet Bella’s life had never been so absorbed by them.

She told no one of their return, which made her new friendships with Angela and Lauren difficult; both girls would ask her things about herself and if she responded that she was doing nothing with no one all the time they’d get concerned. What could she tell them? She was discovering her new status as a non-human? The Cullens’ life had always seemed so perfect to her, Edward had mentioned that it was difficult to build relationships with the weight of secrets but Bella now had a real understanding. She could never tell her peers nor her parents; they wouldn’t believe her and if they did it would bring them nothing but pain. She was something unreachable to them and they to her.

She did her best to sympathise with Angela’s stories about restrictive parents and Lauren’s hatred of half the boys of Forks High and a new friendship with a girl from La Push with an earnest ear. Stuff like this didn’t really feel real to her, but for once she wanted it to be.

There was no point lamenting her new separation though. Bella had always felt different, not above, but outside, even before the Cullens. The only difference was that a god had finally marked her as such.

A new routine was established once the dust had settled and the Cullens were back in place. After school was done Bella would drive straight to the Cullen house and she would avoid thinking about how familiar all this was.

She would park and make her way into the house, Esme would always have snacks for her which made her feel in parts grateful and resentful - it grated at times, this new routine, and in the oddest places- 

She would go up the stairs and not approach a familiar bedroom but rather make her way to Carlisle’s study; the room he’d first taken Bella to. It grew on her with her frequent visits. She’d found the old world wealth, the towering bookcases stuffed with more books than she’d likely ever read and piles of medical journals intimidating at first. But Carlisle had done his best to make Bella at home; by spring break the room would be filled with her schoolwork and sweaters and whatever else she could leave to make the room feel a touch less terrifying - though the terror would never really be in the room, that was all their goal of meetings.

‘I think it’s important we understand what exactly your new state shall entail. For your sake of course, but also you are, to my knowledge, the first of your kind. This is discovery the likes of which I know of no parallel, other than the Quileute wolves I suppose. Oh if only Aro were here… He’s met so many humans and his gift gives him impressive insight. I know he must have sought out prophets and martyrs, people like you, if nothing else than just to meet them - you could call him a bit of a collector in that way. Not in a possessive way, mind! I’ve heard that bandied about…’ Carlisle rambled from the comfy and definitely antique leather couch he’d sat opposite her on when they’d met post dodging Esme’s incredibly kind offer of afterschool snacks.

Though Bella had  never liked to be the centre of attention she nonetheless found herself in the position of feeling this meeting really ought to be one of those few times where she must be. Out of kindness and also the desire to move on she decided not to touch the absurdly fond way Carlisle spoke of this Aro. She cleared her throat to interrupt whatever he was still saying,

‘I’d like to understand. Not just what She tells me, but what it actually means. Because whenever I ask Her something straightforward like “what is going on?” She talks about fate or the night or whatever. I wish she’d just say “so you’re a zombie now” or “here’s your quest, go find the holy grail” or whatever, you know?

‘And that’s fine, it doesn’t matter. But do I go to college? What do I tell Charlie and Renee? What if I go on like everything’s fine and I start sprouting tentacles or find out I’ve got to found a new church. So yeah doc, I’d like to know, let’s do your tests, whatever they entail. I’m your lab rat until we can both agree I’m safe to send out there.’

She didn’t get one of those odd feelings that either zombism or tentacles would be particularly likely.

Mary had so far been more fondly amused by her questioning than anything, seeming to think it’d be really funny if Bella found all this out as it went - which was fine for her but what if Bella really did turn into some kind of eldritch monster and start craving human, what if Charlie was around when she found that out?

It felt like having the Cullens back (or at least some of them) should have fixed everything; they were immortal adults who had lived for collective centuries and should know enough to tell her exactly what was going to happen. But Carlisle was sitting across from her with his “I am diagnosing you with cancer” face on so it seemed like that really wasn’t the case.

‘Well, I do hope it doesn’t end up being tentacles.’ He laughed as if that was a joke, Bella didn’t know which way she was supposed to take that. He continued more gravely, ‘I don’t think it will be a good idea to tell your parents Bella. As you say there is the uncertainty but more, regardless of what happens, my kind has an edict of secrecy and while it does not apply to whatever you are: in practice no good comes of humans getting mixed up in the supernatural.’

Bella snorted,

‘Case in point I guess doc.’

‘I think I misspoke. The wolves I told you about are able to live within their community, from what I understand. Your new status does not necessarily mean you cannot be a part of the human world, perhaps in our investigation we might discover that the changes are purely superficial and you can go on with your life of college and work and whatever else you desire! I simply think it would be safest that we rule everything out.’

His panicked reassurance was not hard to see through,

‘It’s not likely though, is it? That I’m just even more of a weirdo than normal.’ She asked, knowing well the answer.

‘No.’

So their meetings were important and worth the visit to the house with all the memories and anyway, they were nice in a way. It felt like it was her and Carlisle versus the world which was better than all those months where it had felt like fate and god and whatever else versus her and her alone.

Carlisle seemed to take to the whole discovering a new species thing, he had a million ideas most of which Bella accepted or tolerated. First, and most importantly, he wanted to take her to the hospital. Even though she believed in him at this point (if for no other reason than for those damn feelings telling her he was trustworthy and, of course, the occasional dream full of amused encouragement from Her) felt a bit insulting. But, he insisted it was important to have a baseline and she’d wanted to have the machines check for sure that she really wasn’t crazy - it would have been just her luck that she had a brain tumour after all.

He’d picked a dreary Saturday morning and had seemingly charmed his way into every expensive machine without any overview from definitely nosey nurses and slightly resentful fellow doctors. She’d sat through every scan and blood test and even ran through an awful EKG which he’d made her take on a treadmill.

He hadn’t said anything during the day of any substance saying he’d like to take it in all at once even though she could tell from his increasingly concerned sounding hums that all was not well in Bella land. She’d been sent off with an absent minded promise of a discussion of the results soon - being increasingly used to this flustered Carlisle Bella didn’t take his clear concern too much to heart. She’d either be a creepy undead thing or not, she just had to hope that literal mother Mary was as kind as all those paintings made her seem (and she decidedly did not think about how Mary’s only child ended up having a very very bad time).

Sunday was spent with humanity, as she and Carlisle had agreed; she’d have one day a week that was just normal and human - even if this day felt a bit like when you take your dog to the beach before you put it down.

It had really been Carlisle’s suggestion of course, she didn’t feel normal and human even as she was with Charlie or her friends. Normal humans didn’t get random feelings of knowing at sporadic points in conversations: an uneasy feeling at a fishing trip Charlie mentioned, an amused feeling when the waitress at the diner mentioned that they expected rain next week, a knowing feeling just before she’d picked up the phone that it was Renee calling. Normal humans didn’t still worry that they might have some obscure form of, if not a vampire STD, then vampire cancer.

After school on Monday she made it to the Cullen house as previously agreed, only Esme had looked a little uneasy as she’d offered Bella more food, Jasper and Alice had remained absent so there was nothing unusual there, but the potent smell of smoke coming off Carlisle when she met him in his office was certainly odd.

She was still getting used to the unspoken rules associated with heightened senses but this felt worth commenting on,

‘Why do you smell of smoke?’

Carlisle’s honest to god deer in the headlights expression had made her think she’d missed the mark (but that it had been worth it for how hilarious the normally professional and put together man looked).

‘You shouldn’t be able to smell anything! I showered…’

‘I’ve got a sensitive nose I guess.’ Bella said lightly, tapping her nose for emphasis (she really did, and it kind of sucked).

Carlisle squinted at her before answering, more hesitantly than she’d ever seen from him,

‘I finished getting the last of your test results.’

Bella figured this wasn’t a non sequitur and nodded for him to go on.

‘This led to part of the lab burning.’

‘You burned the lab?’

‘Not all of it! Just the part with the computers and the samples! Not my finest moment, I’ll admit…’

‘Oh.’ Said Bella, for lack of much else to say.

‘And of course the hospital has received an anonymous donation, they’ll be good as new. Better!’ He rambled.

‘They’re that good then?’ she added when he looked like he wasn’t going to elaborate.

‘Well, good is relative of course. If you were human I’d say no, not good. And it’s odd, because you really do look human but I’m sure this is of no concern for you. I’m sure it’s fine.’

‘We’ll do more research.’ She assured him. It was clear that she didn’t know Carlisle as well as she had once thought, but getting to know him it was clear he was the kind of guy who could be cheered up by hitting the books.

His warm smile in response made her feel pleased with herself.

For once Bella and her strange new intuition were perfectly in line, though Carlisle’s tone belied his comforting words, they knew, Mary and her, that it really would be fine.

Chapter Text

The definitions of fine are many varied. One person who says ‘I’m fine’ means ‘I’ve had a perfectly pleasant day, thank you.’ and another might mean ‘I am one minor inconvenience from this being the worst day of my life.’ Fine is a spectrum.

Things were fine, everything would be fine, with one particular definition of fine.

Bella had to give it to Carlisle, the fine wasn’t the uncertainty, it wasn’t that she had a neon sign on her head saying ‘look at me, I will never fit in’ - it was his damned tests.

Of course it was necessary to discover the fundamentals of her new condition, she’d told him as such.

‘Look doc, you’re the immortal and the scientist. I’ve got no idea what any of this means and I have even less of an idea of how to figure it out. So if you’ve got any ideas, I am your willing test subject. I’ll do whatever you say, I’ll be the best test subject you’ve ever had.’

‘I’m sure you want to have some input into the process-’

‘No. I don’t.’ She really didn’t, she hadn’t even graduated high school. She still wasn’t a hundred percent she hadn’t lost herself to post-Edward hallucinations or that Laurent hadn’t just eaten her. ‘I think it’s best if you just do it all.’

‘I have some theories, at least we could-’

‘Nope. Let’s not. You test and worry, I’m just going to pretend like everything is fine, thank you very much.’

Just to offer an idea of what might have caused Bella to feel a touch peeved, here is a rough idea of Bella’s first week of testing:

Monday:

Carlisle had remembered Bella previously mentioning her sun sensitivity, he felt it important to test the limits of this. 

Sensible, she didn’t want to walk outside one morning and burst into flames or break out or something. 

So far she’d gone to school without much trouble. Being out in the sun was like, well it was like the sun, but if you were looking directly into it at all times. It was bright and it made her eyes and eventually her head hurt. A mild headache if she spent too long outside (or inside with those damned fluorescent lights which were somehow worse than the literal sun) and sort of tired irritation by the end of the day was fine. That it was spring and it would eventually be summer, where the sun stayed out basically forever was not a thought she wanted to entertain.

But, this was Forks, where vampires move to avoid the sun, she could do it. So what if she ended most days annoyed?

Bella didn’t see the need to test this facet of her otherness, as she’d told Carlisle - but he’d got a very pinched expression and strongly implied that while things might seem fine gaining as much knowledge as possible was in her best interest.

And she supposed it was good to know if she ever visited Renee down in the sunshine state she wouldn’t spontaneously bleed from the eyes or something.

Carlisle’s experiment was pulling her out of school on one of the days his kids would usually skip and go ‘hiking’ and having her spend the day standing in the sunshine. She decided not to acknowledge that he had brought an umbrella ‘just in case’ (just in case what, that’s what she wondered). 

The result of standing in the middle of the forest under the warming spring sun was no kind of skin irritation (thank the gods, the idea of spontaneously combusting or something every time she went outside was not fun) but a more emotional irritation. 

Pain made Bella crabby. She never in her wildest fantasies would have dared to be rude to the Cullens in any form but after a day of regular intervals of ‘how’s it going Bella?’ (To which she always answered ‘fine’) Bella found herself quite irascible. And, it turned out, Carlisle didn’t quite know how to handle crabby teenaged girls.

Of course later when her damnable nemesis had set Bella had offered profuse apologies to which he’d offered profuse apologies and the whole spectacle had ended with a promise from Carlisle that he’d never do anything like that again.  

It was, of course, good to know that she probably wouldn’t ever die of exposure to sunlight, it was unfortunate that it seemed it really would be her enemy for the rest of her life -or unlife. 

She’d take glittering any day of the week

Tuesday:

Their after-school Tuesday meeting started with another apology from Bella. Bella had never really done having a temper; she’d weathered far more frustrating or difficult situations without a word of complaint. It was shocking and a little scary that she’d actually snapped at the man who was, to no benefit to himself, helping her survive and even thrive with her new condition.

Then she regretted apologising to him because he’d told her their next test would be her standing in a near freezing river.

He’d explained, all apologetic like, that her temperature had lowered far below normal (human) (the human was implied) bounds and he’d like to test her temperature sensitivity. She’d said sure, makes sense, but why a river? He’d looked shifty and said something about killing two birds, at this Mary had got all amused like and Bella had felt her temper rising to near sun standing day levels so she’d walked out of the Cullen house without another word. 

He followed, of course, and caught up immediately, which she tried not to let annoy her - if she turned into a literal daughter of night and didn’t get cool speed abilities like vampires she was going to- Well she was going to do something.

They reached the river, only a few minutes walk away, and Bella tried to enjoy the sounds and smells of the woods and water and pretend that the sun wasn’t evil and made entirely to annoy her. It wasn’t even that painful, really, it was like a low level buzzing noise - if she forgot it was there she was essentially fine, when she finally remembered all that ignored sound hit her full force and it was suddenly all she could hear.

She stood and awaited instructions - and they really were a doozy.

He wanted her to cross it.

Now, to be clear, this wasn’t some piddly stream you could step across, and there sure wasn’t a bridge down at the Cullen house.

But, Bella was a good test subject and willing to do nearly anything to get some insight into what was going on with her. She was obedient and wouldn’t shout at the nice doctor anymore.

One pointless argument later and Bella was wading and then swimming across a 150 feet wide river.

She scowled at him from the other side. He asked her if she was cold. She wasn’t. 

And yeah that was impressive because there were chunks of ice in the river from the spring thaw. And maybe it was even a little cool but Bella was wet, and she could still tell it was cold even if it didn’t bother her. So she was wet and pseudo cold and ready to be done forever.

Tuesday’s test was complete and he fetched her a towel (once he’d hopped her back across the river).

Wednesday:

Bella had to wonder whether what Carlisle was testing was really their new relationship. On Wednesday he’d asked her to write up her menstruation calendar to the best of her memory. She decided if there were ever a time to draw a line - well it would have been two days ago - but now was as good a time as any. Yes, Carlisle was a doctor and this was a totally normal thing to do with your doctor, but aren’t there some things that you just aren’t meant to share with your ex-boyfriend’s vampire father?

That Bella was late when she was never normally late was none of his damn business.

On Wednesday Carlisle decided the safest option was to measure and photograph her hair and nails and teeth - he noted that while his memory was photographic he liked to have these things on hand, what if he wanted to show someone? Bella didn’t want anyone seeing photographs of her nails but why was she even bothering to raise protests at this point?

He measured and photographed and when he tried to glance back at the photos on the digital camera’s tiny display he made one of his unconsciously concerned sounds.

That was how a new symptom of Bella’s evolution was discovered: She didn’t show up in photographs.

Well, okay, she did, but it was really blurry like Carlisle had dropped the camera each and every time he took a photo. Over 20 photographs. 

Bella wanted to ask if he had somehow done so but he was literally a vampire, a creature of grace and also a surgeon. He probably hadn’t dropped the camera 20 times without her noticing.

Still, they checked just to be sure and yes, it turned out that at best she would show up but surrounded by a sort of glowing afterimage of herself. It was strange and all Carlisle had to offer was ‘maybe it’s something in your skin cells’, Bella didn’t feel the need to offer more than a very judgmental brow to that one.

At least there were no more torturous photography sessions. She’d just get weekly updates from Carlisle that ‘yep your nails and hair are definitely growing at a crazy rate, and your canines do look just a bit pointier by the day.’

Thursday:

Thursday was her favourite day. Carlisle, perhaps out of guilt for the time he tried to cause death by sun, suggested that she attempt to stay awake for the night, while he monitored her. Bella had joked ‘if you’d wanted to have a sleepover with me you could’ve just asked Carlisle.’ 

His face had contorted into such a wonderfully awkward expression that Bella was going to laugh until she realised what he was thinking, she used to occasionally spend the night, purportedly to stay with Alice (and sometimes it was even true) but usually so she and Edward could hang out more away from Charlie’s watchful eyes. 

It was beyond inappropriate to suggest that she and Carlisle had anything like the friendship she’d had with Edward or Alice. Carlisle was helping because he was kind, not out of any particular affection towards her. He didn’t need her being weird.

She fled home to get her school things for the next day and to calm the blushing on her face (if Mary ever took that away she’d build her a temple, Bella promised).

Once they met up again and Bella got the awkwardness out of her system the night was a roaring success. 

Bella found staying awake once the sun had set as easy as breathing, it was like she’d had a mug or three of coffee. She didn’t think before her metamorphosis that she’d been deficient in anything but she’d rarely felt so awake and alive as she did under the blanket of night.

After enough time to assess her state indoors Carlisle agreed to accompany her out into the woods where, despite the lack of light she saw everything more clearly than she had in her life. Despite not even the moon being out to guide her way every twig she didn’t trip over and every scurrying insect were perfectly visible to her. 

They’d had a long night just ambling through the woods near the Cullen property, Bella asking questions she’d never thought to ask about Carlisle’s many years of vampirism (had he been to the bottom of the sea? Had he been to space? Did he want to go to the moon? Could he have snuck onto one of the space shuttles? etc.) and he asked in turn questions about her life and ambitions, her ideas and her morality.

At the beginning of the night he had been so closed off, obviously due to Bella’s faux pas, but by the end she found him more personable than she’d ever seen him - he delighted in sharing knowledge and ideas and seemed to really care about the things she had to say.

Just before dawn they returned to the house so Bella could protect herself from Apollo’s cursed rays. Carlisle guided them towards his father’s cross, still massively ostentatious and screaming father issues, and glanced between it and her in deep thought. Eventually he addressed her,

‘You know Bella, I find myself coming to consider you to be a dear friend.’ 

He empahsised the word so heavily it brought tears to her eyes. 

Friday:

Friday could have been worse. She had been elated to discover that she was nocturnal - yes she’d had no particular love of the night previously but she was so obviously wrong, the night was so much cooler than the day - but was less enthused to discover that while she did not need to sleep during the night she did, still, need to sleep at some point.

For her the point was English class.

It said a lot about zombie Bella that most in school were not particularly taken aback by Bella’s narcolepsy throughout the day, if Bella had been more awake she really would have had a good thought about what exactly it said. 

As it was she ignored Mary’s warning about not driving while lethally tired. Since she made it to the Cullen house without swerving into oncoming traffic - not that Forks had much of that - she felt she was well within her rights to ignore interfering gods as much as she liked.

‘What’s up, doc?’ She asked, perky and raring to go, after having navigated her way through Esme’s complicated espresso machine to make herself a coffee or a dozen. If only Esme weren’t absent she could have had her making a dozen more. 

Carlisle must have overheard that performance, or maybe he hadn't; he'd once mentioned something about his office being soundproofed.

Regardless, coffee mug in hand, she was ready for whatever the mad scientist could throw at her. She felt a touch manic, did he think she was manic?

He eyed her and her mug rather dubiously which could possibly indicate he thought she was being manic. Still, he admirably went on,

‘I’ve been thinking about food… It’s possible your condition has altered your diet and even what nutrients you require for sustenance. It is also possible that you are able to consume things an ordinary human wouldn’t be able to. Tell me Bella… have you had any cravings?’

He spoke so oddly, Bella felt he was telling some joke she was missing out on. She, as a person who regularly had missed out on inside jokes and knew well the sting of admitting that, did everything she could to avoid it.

‘Cravings?’ She laughed, ‘Oh sure doc, I’d love… a juicy raw steak’

Carlisle did not join her in her mirth.

‘I see. I suspected as such.’

He turned back to his desk, the desk which Bella till that moment had not paid any attention to. While normally it was one of the clearer surfaces in the office (being the one surface Bella left entirely to Carlisle) it was now covered in five white styrofoam cups.

Now was the moment to blurt out that she was in fact not in on whatever this joke was, but Bella was in a strange state due to the sleep deprivation, and the caffeine, and the auditory hallucinations of the virgin Mary.

She’d go with it.

He presented the first to her, it had a lid and a black plastic straw. Her nose was more sensitive than it used to be but without removing the lid she couldn’t check its contents. That was fine, hadn’t she told him this was his operation? Why should she be so nervous?

The question was whether she should pretend to like or dislike whatever the contents of the cup was, he could be giving her a control which meant she ought to react normally, but if this was the test then she should react; what would he be testing here? There didn’t seem to be any logic to the test they’d done so far and-

Bella had taken too long thinking and under the increasingly confused eyes of Carlisle had just given up and taken a sip. The contents were so odd she couldn’t stop her face from screwing up nor could she muster a lie,

‘It tastes like… Italian food?’

Honestly it had mostly just tasted overpoweringly of garlic, weird sad cold garlicy water, but Bella didn’t want to hurt his feelings if he’d worked hard making it.

He handed her the second cup.

This one was odd, like she’d never tasted this before but she definitely had. It was like the world's worst smoothie, every single fruit and vegetable blended into one so that it ended up just tasting off nothing and maybe vaguely of banana.

‘Mmm…’ She said, ‘I’m getting nothing. It’s thick.’

He nodded, solemnly, and handed her cup number three. Then he hesitated and interrupted her before she was could take a sip,

‘Bella are you sure you’d prefer not to know about my theories before we finish our tests?’

‘I trust you Carlisle, it’s fine. What can be worse than that last one anyway?’

She smiled, he didn’t.

‘Oh my god, that was divine. Say thanks to Esme for the milkshake and I need to know her recipe.’

It had been truly scrumptious, while for the other tests Bella had taken no more than a tentative sip as soon as she’d tasted heavenly number three she had found herself gulping the whole thing down. It was basically a chocolate milkshake but if instead of milk it was wine and instead of chocolate it was chocolate and a thousand spices.

He stood stock still before her, Bella remembered Edward’s almost hilarious aversion to human food. She held the drink out to him teasingly, 

‘Aw sorry Carlisle, you didn’t want any did you?’

She expected him to laugh so of course he replied quite intensely,

‘I’m afraid I have no desire, thank you Bella.’

It was weird because if three had been the control then surely four shouldn’t be also? Four tasted quite distinctly of soda. She had no idea what that could be a test for.

Bella was almost ready to say no thank you to number five, after three and then the soda (and the earlier coffee) she felt great, awake, alive and definitely not desiring whatever Mary was telling her to avoid in that cup.

But she’d been a good sport so far and she wanted to continue with her ignoring the god phase so she drank it with as much verve as she could muster (which was a great deal in that present moment) and promptly spat it out.

‘Battery acid?’ It tasted of it but with the viscosity of egg whites, it was repugnant and her mouth was still tingling. Bizarrely this was what got Carlisle to smile,

‘Just like Ephraim.’ He said wistfully, before returning to the present with Bella, though still smiling down at her in that fond manner,

‘I apologise for the last. I didn’t expect you to have a positive reaction to it, that was my venom.’

Once Bella had got over her questions (most of them involving ‘so how exactly did you get your venom in a cup?’) Carlisle went through the rest of the results with her,

‘Before I tell you anything, I wonder if your intuition, or perhaps the voice, could help you guess what was in the rest.’

‘Well three and four were just ordinary drinks, the second one was maybe-’ she lingered on maybe hoping Mary would pop down to give some divine inspiration, alas she just seemed amused at all that was happening and didn’t feel like helping her supposedly favourite eldest daughter out, ‘meat? And the first, well honestly doc it just tasted like garlic.’

‘I see. And you had no negative reaction to either?’

‘No.’

‘Well… I suppose I’ve been wrong about some things. Bella that was meat.. Of a sort. It was animal blood?’

Bella laughed, nervously,

‘That’s good?’ She couldn’t sound sure.

‘The third drink, the one you said tasted like chocolate?’

‘And some other stuff, sure…’

‘Well I almost didn’t want to give it to you… It was rather an ethical dilemma. But I felt we must be sure, and I had such a suspicion.’

It seemed quite certain that the cup had not contained chocolate milkshake - which made sense, it had been divine.

‘What was it then? Holy water? Don’t pout at me like that doc, you’re starting to make me feel like I’m not funny.’

‘I’ll just tell you then.’

She waited,

‘I’m terribly sorry Isabella, it was human blood.’

Saturday:

Saturdays were supposed to be the day the two got together to discuss all they’d researched and tested and what thoughts and theories they now had. That was how that first Saturday would have gone had Carlisle not dropped the previous cannibalism bombshell. 

As it was, Friday night was spent with her ignoring said bombshell and raiding the Cullen house for alcohol - because in so many books and movies when the protagonist had heard something really awful they poured themselves a stiff drink. Bella wanted a stiff drink and her life back.

The Cullens had neither.

Carlisle had stood by as she flung open cabinets and wrenched open drawers in the hope of finding something with an alcoholic content, yet he was still taken aback when she turned her frantic energy to him,

‘Doc is this a dry house? No, don't answer. Just, can you do me a solid and find me some booze? Now don’t look at me like that, you gave me human blood. You gave me human blood which was definitely the best thing I’ve ever tasted. And now I’ve got to live with that. And this is how humans cope with things, I think. They- We drink. Look if you’re going to be all funny about it let’s call it another experiment. Here’s the hypothesis: Bella swan just tasted human blood and liked it, if she doesn’t have something to calm her down she’s going to break down. Here. In your kitchen. And you will be at fault. You will share fault. With Mary. The mother of God. Who has given Bella a taste for human flesh.’

Thankfully Bella’s powers of persuasion were up to the task because he sped from the house without a word and she’d only just slumped on the couch in the beginnings of her promised breakdown when Carlisle returned, single bottle of wine in hand.

Several sprints to the liquor store later and many more bottles of wine Bella and Carlisle discovered a new fun ability of Bella’s: complete immunity to alcohol.

Saturday was spent crying. She was fine.

Chapter Text

Bella had pointedly ignored the virtual absence of Alice and Jasper during the Cullens’ first few weeks back. She’d had a lot going on.

And while she wasn’t on top of this whole being another creature thing who hears the voice of God, there had been a long enough period without horrifying revelations that she decided it was time to face things.

The new status quo was Carlisle and Bella’s secret sessions, cameos from Esme - the woman could bake but she and Bella had found they had nothing to make conversation about - and the glaring non presence of Alice and Jasper. Rose and Emmett were taking their sweet time returning from their extended honeymoon, something Bella didn’t begrudge and in fact prayed that it would extend further; she loved Emmett but God was it obvious how much Rosalie hated her.

There was no doubt that Alice was back, unless Carlisle had a secret taste for Italian Vogue, but she hadn’t returned to school and she and her husband were seemingly never at the Cullen house. At first it had seemed like maybe Jasper was avoiding Bella out of shame, he’d nearly eaten her that one time and maybe he needed a minute before he could be around the girl who had almost forced him to eat human again, and maybe Alice was just being a supportive partner.

But Bella didn’t need a goddess to tell her that wasn’t it.

And so, one day, Bella decided to meet Alice. Seeing as deciding something is as good as telling Alice something and Bella wasn’t sure whether Alice still had her number blocked it was the best she could do.

Rather than heading to the kitchen or upstairs to see Carlisle upon reaching the Cullen house, Bella walked into the living room and wouldn’t you know it, there was Alice (and Jasper).

‘My future disappeared sometime this afternoon.’

Bella had forgotten that Carlisle had said Alice couldn’t see her anymore. Not that it seemed to have mattered.

‘And no matter where I decided to go - I assure you I tried a great many places  - you find me.’

Of course Bella had known that Alice was avoiding her, what else would this be, but the confirmation irked her.

‘Thanks for making it easy for me.’

Alice didn’t smile, she just stared at her with terribly dark eyes.

Vampires don’t shift in discomfort but Jasper looked like a statue of a man who wanted to be somewhere else.

‘Could we talk?’ Bella flicked her eyes between Alice and Jasper, pointedly.

‘I just wanted to say, Bella, before you and Alice hash it out, how deeply sorry I am that-’

‘Oh. Are you apologising about my birthday party? Forget about it. Can’t blame you for getting peckish. And now I know how tasty- Well, don’t worry about it.’

Bella said a little callously, she couldn’t let Jasper’s solemn and heartfelt apology betray her. She tried to convey this with her feelings but had never known how to artificially make herself feel things except sadness and so had to hope for the best.

With a bewildered look and then a solemn nod Jasper left them alone, and Bella found she had no idea what to say.

She’d been completely alone, in retrospect she might say she’d been depressed, struggling, and had really needed a best friend. It was understandable that Edward had left her; he didn’t love her. You don’t stick around when you don’t love someone anymore. But Alice had been her first best friend. Together they’d done so many human friendship firsts. It wasn’t just Edward leaving that had broken her, and it wasn’t just being without vampires, it was also that Alice, her supposed sister, had vanished as easily as the rest - and she still hadn’t apologised.

She looked cold, forbidding, even now.

Despite the resolve Bella had had for this conversation she found herself almost instantly breaking down,

‘Why didn’t you call? Email?’ She waved a hand, half mad, ‘Forget that, why are you still avoiding me? Are you like him; did you never care?’

Alice sighed, not a weary sigh, the sigh of someone who wanted to be somewhere else having some other conversation,

‘I can’t see you Bella.’ She explained shortly, impatiently, ‘The future used to be certain: you and Edward, vampire or dead. There was never supposed to be an in-between, and there certainly wasn’t supposed to be this void around you. I’m looking at you right now and you might as well not be real!’

She said it with such indignation that it left Bella genuinely confused. 

‘You mean you’re avoiding me, actively avoiding me, because you don’t have visions of the future involving me.’

‘I don’t have visions at all when I’m around you apparently, it’s maddening!’

All idea of fight was robbed from her at this exclamation. How could Bella argue with infallible logic like that? 

She tried once, all the same,

‘You were my first best friend Alice. That means more to me than I know how to say. I’ve loved you and admired you for so long, even when he had abandoned me I couldn’t believe that you- I don’t care that you can’t see while you’re near me. I think I might be around for a while and I’d like you back, however you can be. Please, try.’

She was proud of herself for not waiting for a response and would have been prouder had she not broken down once she’d reached the safety of Carlisle’s office - Bella was learning to stand up for herself, these were baby steps.

Having fewer physiological questions to answer, much of Carlisle and Bella’s efforts were put towards research, mainly mythological and theological in nature.

The study was now full of every obscure book Bella or Carlisle (mostly Carlisle) could find scouring the web and old libraries (and Carlisle’s impressive memories of old libraries), they were mostly theological or mythological in nature, Carlisle, being the son of an Anglican priest, took the theology angle. That was cool, Bella could do Hades and Persephone and treatise on mystery cults. If she made it through all this and reached college age she could even get a major out of it.

Unfortunately, beyond expanding or, in Carlisle’s case, deepening their horizons, they didn’t really learn much from the books.

While it was fun to while away afternoons absorbed in the lives of people who had objectively had it much worse than her there was no handy book saying ‘this is what St Joseph of Cupertino heard from God. Here’s what it all meant.’ It was vague and interesting and completely useless.

Still, Bella liked it when Carlisle told her about that saint, a lot of these God guys were giving her a complex about not being particularly holy; St Joseph was more her speed. Plus, he could fly. She’d love it if Mary taught her to fly.

On Bella’s end she read a lot of myths about a lot of different gods who were all vaguely mothery. But Nyx didn’t seem to do much in myths other than give birth to a bunch of horrible things, and most of the other gods she could remember Mary listing were all kindly and helpful; they didn’t seem to impart divine transformations on just anyone and never without cause.

There were of course gods who turned people into things, Carlisle helpfully informed her, handing her a copy of Metamorphoses. It was full of fun and horrifying tales like the time that one god got jealous and turned someone into a bug or the time one god got annoyed and turned someone into a rock or the time one god got- well, there was a variety of human emotions and human to animate or inanimate transformations going on. The closest thing to her was the time a guy stepped on a snake and became a gal. 

She was dearly glad that Mary had chosen her rather than Dionysus or Artemis or whoever - Nyx gave her pointy nails and an allergy to sunlight, she’d take that over having paws or being Beau Swan any day.

Carlisle’s growing certainty was that this wasn’t some ironic curse imparted by the gods, as it would be much more obviously horrible: again, paws. Bella felt she had to disagree on this one, but silently, as she couldn’t explain to him why being something other than a vampire but not human felt so ridiculously cruel. 

The only real precedent for this was those that had heard the voice of God, mystics or crazies depending on your perspective. Bella’s perspective was unsurprisingly growing incredibly sympathetic. Even here though, the research wasn’t much help; Mary as of yet hadn’t told her to cure the sick nor feed the hungry nor even to lead a divine army against Britain or evil. 

Despite the complete lack of answers and despite Carlisle’s tiresome optimism (‘you never know Bella, this book I’ve found on this Bavarian monastery could hold our answers’, assuredly it did not) Bella could almost call herself content. 

If it hadn’t been for all that and that her life had changed irrevocably and that she had no chance of becoming a vampire and and and- 

Well, she wasn’t happy. There was a goddess who with increasingly less frequency told her random useless factoids but was always present, just over her shoulder, just out of sight. A presence at the base of her spine and in the centre of her brain and nowhere and everywhere and always gently in her dreams. That goddess promised to never leave her and though Bella knew better now (though, hadn’t she always) than to put stock in impossible things like that, with the same certainty that she knew which way east was and she knew precisely what time the sun would set, she knew that Mary could leave her as easily as her lungs or spleen. They were together whatever that would mean.

So, like with her time with Jake, her life was so full of things, of people, that she didn’t have time to notice the hole in her chest. At times she even thought it might not be there anymore.

It took Rosalie and Emmett’s return for the problem of Edward to be addressed. 

Now Bella, she was at the point where she could say the name, with enough preparation or distraction she could even say it and have at least a 50% chance of not having a nightmare that night. For the ex-zombie whose parents had once been talking of institutionalising over this name, this was a big deal. She was proud of herself.

Edward was pointedly missing, and Bella wondered, oh how she wondered where and how and why and all the questioning words. Now that she could think about him she damn well did. But she wasn’t crazy, she didn’t actually want to have answers. 

Whoever had said ignorance is bliss was a goddamned poet.

Unfortunately Rosalie, for the little Bella knew about her, was not one to let elephants loom unremarked.

The day after their return and Bella’s incredibly awkward but exactly as expected reunion with Rosalie and her sweet reunion with Emmett - though he’d somehow heard about the blood drinking thing and had a lot of jokes to make about that, so many, so the sweetness had been a little bittered - Rosalie had seemingly had enough.

To be honest Rosalie might have been able to go for longer if not for the test Bella and Carlisle did soon after she and Emmett had returned. Carlisle had been looking for ways to test Bella’s strength and his current idea was to go big; one thing led to another and one of Rosalie’s shiny cars had a hand shaped dent in the bumper and Bella had strength at least comparable to a mother whose baby was in danger.

Rosalie had sped into the garage - something which Bella could now actually nearly track with her eyes which was freaky - to grind her teeth so loudly it sounded like something between a fork in a garbage disposal and an angle grinder on steel before proclaiming loudly,

‘Family meeting. Now.’ 

She pointedly did not look at Bella or Carlisle as she did so.

With some gentle assurance from Carlisle he and Bella made their way towards the dining room. Bella felt awkward, shouldn’t she leave?

But Carlisle resolutely guided her to the table, pulling out a seat for her and everything. Rosalie was already at one end of the table, looming, with her palms flat on the surface. 

Carlisle, at a painfully human pace, walked from Bella’s central seat - next to Jasper, that was nice - to the opposite side of the table from Rosalie.

Bella tried very hard to not feel like a child of divorce having to watch her parents argue who had to spend Christmas with her. 

Once Carlisle had taken his seat she launched without pause or pleasantry.

‘Why is she here?’

Carlisle sighed, ‘I had assumed this concerned her.’

‘It does. But this is a family meeting.’

There had once been a chance Bella might end up a Cullen, be family. Look at her now.

‘I cannot compel you to view Bella as family but I assure you she is as much my blood as the rest of you.’

Rosalie glared but seemed to have nothing to say to this.

‘Your meeting I believe Rosalie.’ Carlisle sounded tired.

Rosealie needed no further encouragement,

‘Have you all lost your minds while we’ve been gone? When Emmett and I left things were fine, we were all perfectly happy and moving on with our lives, and the second we leave you all flock back here, to her? After we expressly promised Edward to stay away. Can someone explain this to me? Because from where I stand we’ve all inserted ourselves back into the life of a human inviting more disaster.’ She finished by flourishing an arm in Bella and Jasper’s direction, Bella was really feeling the love tonight.

Carlisle, in an extremely level and patient tone, began to explain the miracles inhabiting Bella’s body; throughout Bella blushed like someone being used as fodder simultaneously for a biology lecture and a family argument, both of which she could think of no suitable excuse to get out of.

Esme responded, hesitantly, ‘Well of course if Bella’s health depends on our presence…’

‘Sure, if even half of that is true. I mean Carlisle I know you still have your faith but come on, she’s clearly delusional-’ 

‘I think she’s not.’ Jasper interrupted Rosalie, to which Bella was flooded with a feeling of gratefulness. This definitely made up for the time he tried to eat her.

‘Shut up Jasper!’ Said Rosalie with her eyes and, ‘Yes, thank you Jasper.’ with her mouth.

‘If that’s all really true then bully for her Carlisle. It doesn’t change that she’s not one of us, not a part of this family, and we promised Edward - your son - that we would leave her be.’

‘She was dying Rosalie.’ Carlisle says disapprovingly.

‘Humans die.’

Carlisle had nothing to say to that but his animated look was enough for Rosalie to not press the point.

‘So she was dying. She looks fine now.’ She said, still not looking at Bella, ‘She must be better. We can go.’

Let it be said that this was one of Bella’s nightmare scenarios. She was really and truly doomed if she had to find more vampires if Carlisle left. 

Actually, now she was forced to think about it, she could probably get the number (or postal address?) of this Aro Carlisle was constantly drooling about. He sounded like he’d have fun with her weirdness - unless things were awkward between the two, was it a really terrible breakup? 

Alas, if she was dying she might just have to chance entering into that awkwardness, let it not be said that Bella Swan would rather avoid conflict than die.

Thankfully Carlisle didn’t seem persuaded by Rosalie’s exceptionally persuasive arguments. In fact, he seemed disturbed,

‘Rosalie, I can’t understand you. You know Bella, I know you have come to care for her. But even if she were a stranger, this is a fellow person in need. Whether she will remain healthy or not she is completely alone in this world, utterly unique. Yet you would have us abandon her!’

Bella had felt many negative emotions at her transformation so far, all the usual; fear, grief, anger but she had yet to realise so acutely what Carlisle was not making so explicit. She was alone. She knew, with complete certainty, that she (her kind?) wasn’t meant to be.

‘It’s like you said Carlisle, she’s unique, she’s not one of us. Alice’s visions don’t work around her, we don’t know her except as Edward’s girlfriend and he didn’t want her. She doesn’t look different enough that the humans should be too bothered, she should be perfectly fine without us. We have lives, Carlisle. Lives which we don’t want to put on hold until this grand experiment wraps up.’

Carlisle stood, calmly, matching Rosalie in height but not posture. Bella was not the only one who felt like a confused child from the wide eyes of many of the Cullens.

‘Rosalie, if you put this matter to a vote, know,’ he looked to the rest of the Cullens also here, ‘that no matter the result, I shall not abandon Bella as I have already promised not to do so and regardless of that, human decency demands that I do not. Any of you are, of course, free to leave. We are a family not a tyranny. I do not force you to stay with me.’ Carlisle stumbled at the end of his speech, and his last sentence sounded surprisingly and confusingly pleading, ‘I had thought it was our shared bonds and our shared reverence for human life which kept us here. I cannot force you to care for Bella but please think about what you are saying Rosalie.’

Bella could not help but feel strong relief at Carlisle's vehement defence of her, later, she’d thank him. She almost wanted to say something, that desire warred with a feeling that it would be very helpful to not have Rosalie’s ire turned on her until Rosalie spoke again, indignant,

‘Fine. But what about Edward?’

Carlisle sat back down in his chair moving every bit like he felt his centuries and looking distinctly uncomfortable.

‘What about him?’

Bella nearly laughed, Rosalie did.

‘Oh I don’t know. He was quite adamant that she be left to her life. Don’t you think he has a right to know about this?’

Carlisle gave a speech that sounded oddly rehearsed and essentially boiled down to: Edward will return, I know it in my heart, we must let him do it in his own time. A speech which Bella felt was a little bullshit and clearly Rosalie did too if her scowl said anything.

‘And I suppose if we put this to a vote you’d overrule me also.’

‘As I said Rosalie, we’re a family not a tyranny.’

‘I would vote no, if anyone’s interested,’ said Alice, faux chipper. ‘I don’t have to see the future to tell you when Edward sees that’ she pointed, presumably, at Bella’s tattoo but by virtue of Bella’s tattoo being on her forehead it seemed more like she was saying Bella in general (there relationship building had gone really well, why’d you ask) ‘he won't be happy.’

Apparently sensing a resounding loss and not wanting to have to make that any more obvious than necessary Rosalie stood and left the room at speed.

Not before a final comment calling them all cowards. Bella thought that one was fair enough, she had been too cowardly to say it but she really didn’t want anyone to make that phone call. Not with Alice’s prophecy ringing in her ears.

Chapter Text

It was a spring new moon when Bella gathered up the courage to properly talk to Carlisle post family meeting debacle. Mary was so fond of new moons which was awesome and strange new theological information which Bella could share with him after she’d apologised. Hopefully he’d get distracted and the affair wouldn’t be too awkward.

Her day so far had been nice. It was a sunday and she’d spent most of her daylight hours with Lauren to Charlie’s delight - Charlie seemed incapable of getting over the fact that Bella had finally moved past her zombie phase, every time she did something unzombie like, like make plans and be happy about them, he got this teary look that made her painfully uncomfortable. Lauren as always was a continual surprise to Bella, if Bella didn’t have enough going on she might have theories as to why (body snatchers? Virus? Prank show?), and this Sunday was even odder than normal. Not only was Lauren nice but she was also, apparently, gay. 

Lauren had been odd when they’d made the plans, curt and belligerent. But when Bella had shown up to the beach they were meeting at Lauren had done a 180 and was now shy. This had all been explained when Lauren had introduced Bella to a woman and then in halting tones when Bella hadn’t understood what was going on had explained that this girl, horribly intimidating and vaguely amazonian, was her girlfriend.

Bella hadn’t said, ‘that’s crazy, I thought you were into guys’ as had been her initial reaction, because though she was lacking socialisation she was not lacking self-preservation and both Lauren and her new, admittedly very sweet seeming, girlfriend terrified Bella. She’d awkwardly congratulated Lauren, realised she had no idea what she was congratulating her for, blushed, and then pointedly stared at the sea when the girlfriend had leaned down and kissed Lauren with a fond ‘I told you so.’

So the day was going well and Mary was saying the lack of moon was auspicious, it was a good time to confront painful truths and not lay awake in her bed wishing she could somehow become nocturnal without freaking people out even more than she already had.

After saying goodnight to Charlie and waiting some time for his breaths to even and his heartbeat to slow, Bella drifted from her room and laced up hiking boots.

She hadn’t been into the woods unguided since her trip to the meadow and before that- before that it was with Edward, when he’d left her.

Without thinking she moved through the forest without a sound and certainly without tripping, finding herself at what she was fairly certain was the spot Sam had found her on that horrid night.

Not wanting to psych herself out with reflection she pulled out her phone and without another thought shot off a text:

do you want to meet me in the woods? 

Once she’d sent the text and received no response after ten seconds she quickly added a qualifier, 

only if youre not busy 

And then fully in her head thinking that of course he didn’t, why would he? He was married and had a family he wanted to spend time with, it was the middle of the night and that was a weird time to meet your sort of student slash patient.

dont even worry about it

_

Are you alright Bella? 

_

peachy

_

I certainly have the time if you’d like to meet. Do you have a particular place in mind?

Good old Carlisle, Bella really wondered whether it was even possible for her to wrongfoot him, he seemed to just have an aptitude for the weird. 

Less than five minutes later Carlisle found Bella despite her spotty instructions. It warmed her, similar to how she always felt better when she was around him, though she knew a large part of that was due to him being a vampire and her chemical need to be around vampires to not die. But it was more than just chemical, she felt like he knew her. And perhaps he did, after a month of testing every aspect of her physiology and psyche how could he not?

The thought made her awkward. But then it wasn’t hard for her to feel that.

‘Want to go for a walk doc?’

Credit to the guy he didn’t look at her funny, just nodded and they were on their merry way.

‘I wanted to thank you. For staying, for helping, for everything really.’ She said at last, having spent a dozen minutes staring intently at every tree they passed and hoping he didn’t speak first; she was sure to have lost her nerve if he spoke first.

‘I assure you Bella, you don’t need to thank me.’

Sure, she didn’t because he was a saint. But she needed to, because he was a saint.

‘No, no, I do. I really do. You’ve been better to me than you need to, and I know it’s just because you’re like that. You’re the vampire who learned how to be a doctor even though blood is so tempting… Just because you want to help.

‘And I wanted to say I’m sorry.’

‘But what on earth could you have to be sorry for?’ he asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. He would.

‘I’m sorry that I’m so terrible at this Carlisle. I’m sorry that I got chosen. I don’t want to be this… this thing.’

‘Bella you don’t-’

But Bella was on a roll, if she didn’t say it all now she never would, and he deserved to know.

‘I’m not a good person Carlisle. I’ve been a terrible child to Charlie and Renne, I’m a horrible friend- I mean I ignored all my friends for months just because Edward left me. I don’t even want to be human.’ She confessed, quietly enough that a human wouldn’t hear her, ‘When I found out what you and your family are… there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted so much.

‘I don’t want to forge some new path, I don’t want to be chosen by some god, I want the future I’ve dreamed of. Your life, the beauty, the grace, the immortality, the family, the certainty of it all. I want forever. And I’ve been chosen by Mary to basically be… alone. Which is whatever, it’s fine. I’ll do what she tells me to if she ever gets around to telling me to do something but I’m not what you think I am. I’m not holy or good or even particularly kind. 

‘I can bear losing that dream I guess, but I couldn’t carry on with you not knowing.’ She finished with more conviction than she felt. She thought she probably could carry on with him not knowing, but only for a while, and in great anxiety. It was better this way. 

If he left it could be another clean break.

They hadn’t ceased walking and so when Carlisle didn’t reply Bella could quite happily pretend that she hadn’t said all that, it had been another one of her hallucinations, and all was well as two friends wandered the Olympic national park under a moonless sky.

‘That’s alright Bella.’ Was what he finally said.

‘No, it’s not. You don’t get it. You’re literally a saint. It should have been you, not someone like me. I am literally not worthy of this.’

‘Even if that were true… It’s still alright Bella. I couldn’t hold any of that against you, what is so wrong with desire? Dreams? I would not castigate you for simple ambition.

‘But perhaps-’ he hurried to speak seeing she was going to interrupt him again, ‘perhaps it’s you who doesn’t understand. I’m no saint either Bella.

‘The reason I abstain from human blood is not from some inherent moral goodness Bella, and I do not do so to be good. I have not studied medicine purely selflessly either. I help people because I enjoy it; I love my work, I love activity and discovery and meeting new and interesting people. I do abstain because I morally disagree with the practice but even if I did not care for the moral implications I still would not, humanity is too important to me. I am who I am because of selfish human desire, I am no better than any other man.’

Carlisle placed a hand gently on Bella’s shoulder and she halted and turned to face him. He looked down at her with his honey golden eyes full of pity,

‘Please do not think of me as some paragon of virtue, I have sinned a great deal Bella. More than I care to admit. Erring makes you no less worthy of whatever gifts God chooses to bestow on you. I cannot speak for any outside force but I think you are more than worthy of what you have been given and I am proud to stand by you.’

Bella could feel her eyes watering - and she for the first time felt happy that she wasn’t a vampire, because they couldn’t cry, could they? And she knew there would be something cathartic about the tears that she eventually let fall. She responded, her voice nearly giving out on her,

‘That’s… that’s so kind of you Carlisle. But you don’t understand. I still want all that, and it’s not fair. I feel… angry. I don’t get angry. I wasn’t angry when Renee remarried. I wasn’t angry when Edward called me forgettable even though I know I maybe should have been. But I think I might be angry now. She took the future I’ve always wanted from me.’

‘I do wish Rosalie would give you a chance Bella.’ Bella blinked at this non sequitur and Carlisle looked abashed, ‘She often feels the same as you, only that anger is directed towards me. It would be good for you both if you could speak on this I think. 

‘I can only say to you what I have said to her: I am sorry for what you have lost and I am sorry for your anger. I cannot guarantee you eternity - though I assure you, having known my fair share of vampires, it is not so eternal as they say - and I cannot guarantee you the family you have wanted, nor that certainty that you long for. Heaven knows we all struggle towards that.

‘But for all you believe you lack; I only wish that you could see what others do! I can guarantee nothing else than my own feelings, but I can assure you in the time I have come to know you I have found a unique soul, a treasured companion. That is no small thing, I have wandered the earth for some centuries looking for such a bond. 

‘Before you and my family Aro was the closest thing, and while I shall always love him dearly he cannot see the world in the way that I can. And my family, I adore them obviously-’ he said that part hastily which would almost have been funny if Bella wasn’t busy crying in the forest for the second time in her life.

‘They are my family in a way I never had when I was human, they do their best to share my diet and for that I will always be grateful. I cannot speak to their feelings towards you, I cannot guide them. But I believe things are not so dire as might seem.

‘You are very young still Bella, perhaps you are not the most moral of people, I really could not say. But you were the first human I’ve ever known to see the person beneath the monstrous disguise. You might not always be kind but I know you try to be. To me you are family as much as the rest, perhaps not as the daughter you had once hoped to be, but whatever our bond is I know it is a strong one.’

Carlisle, taking pity on Bella who’s crying had turned into a wet blubbering, pulled her into his arms so that she could hear the rest of his words through his marble skin,

‘Those chosen for more, those people whose lives we have studied, they can be lonely. They bear such a great burden. But they were rarely alone, Achilles, Aeneas, the apostles, Arthur, even Joan of Arc, they were not without those who loved and supported them. I know I shall not abandon you on your mission, and I am certain I will not be the only one.’

Bella allowed herself to be warmed by his not so chilly embrace and his words; because it did feel so crushing, the loneliness. There is nothing so cutting as the looming uncertainty of tomorrow. Every day felt a sword over her neck, what next, what fresh hell? But if she never had to be alone, if he really meant what he said (and for once she didn’t need one of Mary’s feelings to trust his words) then she would at least have someone by her side when the blade fell. It would still be crushing and horrible but it would also be fine.

‘You’re a good pal too Carlisle.’ She mustered once she had cleared her throat enough and she’d somewhat dried her face on his jacket. He beamed down at her and she found herself smiling back, despite it all.

After they’d sat down on a convenient fallen log and Bella had completely composed herself, a strange, manic, playful feeling overwhelmed her. She sprang up, startling Carlisle, and announced,

‘I want to run.’

And then she did just that. 

Only, it wasn’t like any running she’d done before. Back in Phoenix she’d run track (until she’d tripped over a stray water bottle and broken her wrist and been banned from track) and running had always been an ungainly event, even when she kept on her feet and it was daylight and the track was flat and free of obstacles she’d trip over air or else just miss a step; she’d never find that rhythm or freedom that runners seemed to talk about.

But running through the woods in the dark of night showed her that euphoria that she’d always missed; she could see every tree that she passed, every star overhead, though the world was so dark and quiet it had never felt so alive to her.

She laughed and heard Carlisle’s echo somewhere behind her.

They continued until she was out of breath and somewhere completely lost in the forest, when Carlisle caught up he looked as though he would be flushed and huffing for breath if he could,

‘That was marvellous Bella! I could not see nor sense you at times, it was as if you were one with the darkness.’

She surveyed the placid lake before them, looming over it were white peaked mountains, it was sublime, she felt sublime. She told him so.

More tired than him, she sat on the bank and stared up at the stars.

He spoke not long after joining her, in a very careful and practiced manner,

‘If the uncertainty of the future bothers you, perhaps it is time to attempt to commune with Mary again and ask her what her intentions are towards you.’

It was something he’d said a few times now, while he could understand why she didn’t want to talk to the voice in her head he struggled and pushed her to do so anyway. 

Previously Bella had simply not been able to fathom speaking to Mary again, because talking to her meant knowing, and there was always the good chance that knowing was worse than the not knowing. She understood that he couldn’t help his curiosity which meant she usually tried to only be a little snappish when he asked.

But tonight… She didn’t know if it was the run and those mystical endorphins, or just the ease of a burden shared, or that it was simply time, but for the first time she genuinely considered it and found it not so horrible a prospect.

‘Only if you promise to stay.’ She replied impulsively.

‘Of course.’ but of course he said of course, she’d want to see a god if the situations were reversed.

She nodded and sat up, looking into the mountains in the distance, into the east where night fled.

‘Mary,’ she whispered, ‘what have you made me? What do you want me to do?’

She felt a stirring in her chest and closed her eyes. It wasn’t quite as real feeling as when she was dreaming and she could see the god, but it was sublime all the same. Like energy and  a cool breeze on a warm day, bitter and sweet and a little cloying.

‘My beloved daughter.’ Said a warm voice in her ear, ‘my first child of night. How it warms me to hear your prayer. I offer plain answers and hope they will lighten your heart. When the time comes you shall found a House of Night. You shall be the first true Vampyre of this world.’ 

Bella could tell Carlisle could not hear the words from the way he stared at her with eager anticipation. Before sharing her burden with him she took one final look at the mountains

Mary’s voice had not left her really, and Carlisle was stalwart by her side, for the first time in her life she was ready to face whatever her destiny might be. Though she did not voice the thought aloud she knew that, somehow, Mary understood it too.

That was okay, she really could take whatever it was, whatever it meant to be a Vampyre, to found a House of Night. She felt she could do a lot, it turned out, when she wasn’t alone.

Chapter Text

After recent ‘vampyre’ revelations Bella and Carlisle had decided to take it easy with their research. Or, from another view, they’d decided to take their research in a new and innovative direction; this shift had been, shockingly, prompted by Emmett. 

You see, they’d read all the religious texts, all the mythological implications, and had explored Bella’s new biology as much as she was willing. They'd done it all; Bella had drunk human blood and found it tasty and yet it had taken communing with a god to land on ‘vampire with a y’. So, from one angle the whole thing had seemed a bit of a waste of time. 

Emmett’s idea, which Bella had agreed to with the enthusiasm of a girl going through a new revelation - she wasn’t a vampire she was a vampyre: sure! That was fine! She wasn’t angry or annoyed or bitter or even confused! - was that they look to a new source for information: movies. Carlisle sighed a lot at the suggestion and even more at Bella’s full chested enthusiasm. All the same, he’d countered Emmett’s seemingly endless list of horror flicks and the even worse, softcore pornographies (that were not always so soft) with an equally bewilderingly deep knowledge of artistic vampire films. 

Bella’s afterschool research sessions turned into movie sessions. Better yet, for the first time since the family’s return it wasn’t just Bella and Carlisle being weirdos in Carlisle’s study. It turned out the Cullens were massive cinephiles, a fact that made sense when you considered that most of them had been around at the same time as the birth of cinema. They also, to Bella’s surprise, really liked movies about their kind. 

Bella had expected at least Rosalie to hate the idea on principle. But it turned the blonde could get really into movies, any movies - at times she actually put aside her hatred for Bella when she needed to argue with her over golden age Hollywood actors (Bella’s knowledge was owed entirely to Renee’s cinema phase from back when she’d dated a guy who was an aspiring screenwriter). The first time Bella had unthinkingly stated a film opinion and boldly asserted that she liked James Stewart more than Cary Grant Alice had groaned, Carlisle had raised a placating hand, and Rosalie had been so sincerely enraged that she entirely forgot it was Bella she was talking to and had engaged Bella for ten straight minutes on the topic.

She still, of course, hated Bella, but now sometimes she liked to debate her; when Bella was wrong (like the time she said she thought Dracula was a romance between Mina and Dracula) Rosalie still looked at her like she wanted Bella to die, and on the rare occasions when Bella was right (like when she successfully proved which was the superior Hepburn) Rosalie still looked at her with dislike, but it was a more tempered, and dare Bella suggest a more respectful dislike.

When Bella had asked, hesitantly, one of those evenings, why she’d never known they’d liked vampire themed things, saying that she’d always assumed they’d disdained stuff like this. Carlisle had smiled stiffly and said in his most diplomatic tone,

‘Well they haven’t always been for everyone in the family.’

He then tried to distract her with some story about his buddy Aro and how he’d invented vampires or something? Bella honestly half tuned out these tales and anyway, this Aro guy couldn’t have invented vampires since Mary literally had so Aro could chill out. The story and her annoyance at his credit stealing boyfriend didn’t distract her long enough to feel the awkwardness that had settled into the room, and the smugness positively radiating from Rosalie - there were always these moments whenever she inadvertently brought up something Edward had done or said.

There seemed to be more and more of these moments as she got to know the Cullens, it was dawning on her how strange how many of the ideas she connected with vampirism were just him.

One such movie filled afterschool session was interrupted by two cars pulling into the Cullen driveway.

‘Two cars.’ Carlisle said to Bella redundantly, Bella probably could have heard that well enough when she was still a human. 

‘Who is it?’ Bella asked, but it was obvious the Cullens didn’t know.

‘Don’t ask me!’ chirped Alice, ‘I wouldn’t know!’

Jasper patted Alice’s knee absently as Carlisle stood to greet the owner of the clicking shoes making their way towards the door, stiletto heels Bella very tentatively guessed - her ears were good but her footwear knowledge was not.

There were three heartbeats; two drivers and one visitor. Unless of course there was a vampire, but no, Jasper wouldn’t be so calm if that were the case, Bella thought.

Carlisle didn’t make his way to the door until the visitor had stood at the doorstep for an entire three minutes without knocking or ringing the doorbell. The drivers hadn’t moved or said anything and the visitor was just standing there from the sound of it. Carlisle had raised his eyebrows but had moved nonetheless.

None of the Cullens seemed particularly put out, Rosalie looking the most animated and that was only because she’d finally gotten her choice of film - the rest sat blandly and waited for Carlisle to shoo the bible salesman or lost road trippers and move on. Did none of them feel the shock of anticipation that those heels had created in Bella? Perhaps it was because they didn’t have beating hearts to flutter.

‘Hello there, can I help you?’ Carlisle asked after it seemed that, yes, they really were going to stand there on the doorstep tapping their heel impatiently.

She snorted, Bella had guessed from the heels that it was a she, and replied with a drawling, bored voice,

‘Hardly.’

Bella could imagine Carlisle’s unfailingly polite face, he was an ER doctor, he’d definitely dealt with his fair share of rudeness in his time. But really, who would want to be rude to Carlisle? Being rude to Carlisle would be like being rude to… to Jesus. Why would you even do that? Was it possible to do that without feeling irredeemably terrible?

There was no time to contemplate the questions; the woman tested Carlisle’s hard fought patience by pushing past him into the house. Bella could hear him stumble back. It was impressive how even surprised he managed to remember to act the human - Bella remembered when she had once bumped into Edward, actually surprising him, and her she’d had to hide a bruise on her shoulder for a week afterwards.

She wondered if Carlisle was more surprised at the woman’s rudeness or her uncanny knowledge of where exactly the rest of the members of the household currently were, she had to pass two doorways to find the room they all lounged in and yet find she did, unerringly. 

She did not so much burst through the door as she strolled through it, as if this was a function she was late too, but fashionably so and entirely for effect.

Bella was used to spending time around people who looked and dressed like supermodels so seeing her should have been just another day. Supermodels often had perfectly straight blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes and were six foot something goddesses. However, usually, they didn’t have sapphire crescent moon tattoos on their foreheads - at least she was pretty sure they didn’t.

Bella hardly noticed Carlisle trailing after her, she certainly didn’t pay attention to the rest of the Cullens’ reaction to her; all she could do was bolt upright and stand, staring while her heart pounded and her head was filled with clouds. 

If she were one to read poetry some particularly apt and beautiful line would come to her and perfectly describe this woman. This vision from God. 

‘Close your gaping mouth, it’s unattractive.’

Bella closed her mouth. And stared some more.

The woman narrowed her eyes and stared back. 

She couldn’t be much older than Bella, college age perhaps and, as stated, dressed absurdly for rural Washington in spring; unless there was some fashion week nearby and also a lot more sun than cloudy Forks had ever seen. 

It wasn’t fair! It turned out Mary could bestow vampiric perfection but only apparently on her most favoured.

The woman let out a deep and pointed sigh and then posed a hand on her hip, all the while glancing around the room with a dismissive eye,

‘If any of you try to eat me my wrathful goddess will send you straight to hell.’ She said in a pointedly bored tone, as if she didn’t really care either way and yet was quite confident of what she was saying.

Rosalie, a woman never at a loss for what to say, was the one to finally respond,

‘I think you’re confused, you’ve barged into the wrong house. We don’t know who you are and we don’t eat… people.’

‘Aww. Nice try. A really solid C minus attempt there, if I was inbred and had a low IQ I might have bought that.’

Rosalie stilled and glared at the woman like an angry cat but she didn’t give her a chance to respond, 

‘Let me explain it slowly. You,’ she lazily swept a hand around the Cullen’s living room, ‘are “vampires”, the vastly inferior species to our,’ here she gestured between herself and Bella, ‘vampyres.’ 

It was not hard to sense that Rosalie had another snappish response ready to this so Bella broke through her paralysis and spoke,

‘I mean they’re more like vampires than we are. We’re just people who don’t really like the sun and have tattoos…’ She said, rather lamely. 

If one was comparing their respective species to the common understanding of vampires - likes blood, hates the sun, afraid of crosses, sleeping in coffins, doesn’t appear in mirrors, likes to count things, has to be invited in, kill them with a wooden stake, and scary to horses (the movies had been exceptionally instructional to Bella who had kind of forgotten that not everyone thought of vampires as marble gods who went crazy at the scent of blood) - then neither the Cullens’ type of vampirism nor Bella’s own freaky vampyrism was super well fitting the bill.

The woman clearly agreed that Bella’s speech was lacking as she stared at her, raised her eyebrows and responded with a slow voice, as if she were speaking to a particularly unintelligent child,

‘No. They are nightmare golem people, disgusting mistakes, we are chosen by a god to represent her and usher the world into a new age. We are not comparable.’

There was the expected silence at this proclamation. The kind of silence that accompanies any person loudly and proudly stating exactly what their god thinks and does. Bella had known Mary for longer than this girl (presumably) and she wasn’t half as confident as to her motivations or intentions - half was being very generous, if Bella had to put a measurement on how confident she felt about any of this it would be somewhere around ‘extremely un-’.

‘I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot,’ said Carlisle, the only person alive who believed this situation could be salvaged, ‘it’s a great shock to all of us to see another like Bella. And I'm sure all this must have been of some shock to you.’

Privately, Bella thought nothing in this world would seem to shock this girl. She was so cool and confident, standing before what she apparently knew to be vampires - and how did she know that? - waiting for them to catch up to her. Bella would place money that this girl had never been shocked by anything in her life.

‘How did this happen to you?’ Carlisle asked. ‘I know Bella’s experience was somewhat traumatic, I hope it wasn’t the same for you.’

‘You people would know about trauma.’ she replied, not looking at Carlisle. She had yet to glance away from Bella in that aloof but studying manner for more than a beat or two.

Realising this Bella threw away the idea she had been percolating that Mary had sent the woman to Forks to meet the Cullens. She had, fairly, assumed that because the Cullens were pretty much the only non people eaters around, she had been sent by Mary to where she was most likely to survive, until that unknown promised time when she would no longer rely on vampires to live. But that look, that unwavering intensity didn’t just seem like a girl entering the supernatural who had just met a fellow sufferer. It looked expectant.

Bella swallowed weakly and repeated Carlisle’s question.

The woman’s apathetic pose broke,

‘Well! You know how it is I suppose. One minute I’m there, being, you know, normal - the next some homeless red eyed freak walks into my Constitutional Law class, my professor is just about to throw them out on their cannibalistic ass when they stroll up to me, point, and give the speech. I of course have to explain, through the blinding agony, that this is clearly a prank played on me by my jealous bitch classmate from Complex Federal Litigation while packing my shit and fleeing because clearly this is not a prank by that bitch from Complex Federal Litigation. 

‘The marking was one thing, praise the goddess and all that, but did she have to do it during that class? I had just finally sucked up to the professor enough to get a fucking internship and- Well, anyway. I packed up my shit, took a sabbatical, flew home - fended off a lecture on quarter life crises by the rentals, packed up more shit, and flew straight here.

‘Or,’ she added hotly, ‘I would have flown straight here if there had been somewhere to fly to. I couldn’t even charter anyone to fly to this shitty town. I had to go to Seattle and get a cab, like a plebeian.’

It did not seem worth commenting on the fact that the woman appeared entirely unfazed by turning into a creature of the night and her only real complaints were that said turning had happened mid class and that Bella lived an inconvenient distance away. Bella still really wanted to comment, but a thought occurred to her,

‘How long ago was that?’

‘The tattoo disaster?’

Bella nodded.

‘Oh hmmm, Monday? That’s five days I guess.’

Bella couldn’t help her response here,

‘Five days? Five- But I was dying after three. I was going to be dead. You’re-’ perfect was a little far for a first conversation, ‘Fine. You’re healthy and everything.’

Rosalie let out a delicate and deliberate sniff.

‘So?’ the woman asked challengingly.

‘So how did you survive?’ Bella had to ask, or else she’d have to confront that she somehow was so weak willed that she’d been in sweatpants and producing so much mucus her cause of death would have been drowning after only three days. This woman, as stated, was clearly headed straight to Paris and looked far too chic to be accused of being ill.

The woman gave another one of her confusing smiles,

‘It’s like mother says: “LaFont’s do not get sick. They do not die of anything except old age, too much money, quiet alcoholism, prescription drug overdoses, or prescription drug overdoses while taking part in a shameful sex act with a mistress - never a prostitute.”’

If any part of the humiliating process that was becoming a vampyre had made Bella feel that she was woefully unequipped for the world of the supernatural and connection to a god it was this. This woman who hadn’t been dying because dying was so passé.

Bella didn’t have weird family mottos about not dying. Bella didn’t take being marked in her stride. Bella still didn’t know what the hell was actually going on. It had been like she was a dog who just knew he was going to die and really wanted to curl up under the porch and wait for that to happen.

Thank you Mary for this insanely rude woman, Bella said to herself.

‘LaFont…?’

‘Aphrodite LaFont.’

Horrendously fitting, Bella thought.

Bella did not move to introduce herself nor did the gallery of Cullens - to be fair Aphrodite gave no indication that she was at all interested in pleasantries.

Rosalie, who as Bella had learned from their arguments, was the kind who was not good at holding in resentful thoughts, spoke up again,

‘Can I ask why you have decided to burden us with your presence Aphrodite…’

‘Babe…’ Said Emmett, giving the barest pretence of scolding.

‘Yes. I think we’d all like to know that.’ Added Alice sounding aggrieved, reminding Bella that her and Alice’s relationship had scarcely improved beyond Alice sometimes deigning to remain in the same room as her.

Aphrodite redundantly flipped her hair over her shoulder,

‘Well you can cool your fucking boots twinkie, I don’t give a flying podunk fuck what you all think. I’m here to get good with my high priestess and not die. The second I know the hot doc has down so I’m going to go ahead and work on the first and pretend I’ve never had to speak to you unfortunates.’

Rosalie moved towards Aphrodite with a growl,

‘I don’t think there’s any more room at the inn for budget vampires.’

‘Babe…’ said Emmett again, ineffectually.

‘I’ll show you a budget bitch.’

Bella fought the feeling that she should also interject a ‘babe’.

‘How did you find us?’ She asked quickly.

Aphrodite warmed again in an instant,

‘Our goddess shows me the future. Well,’ she added almost unwillingly, ‘future disasters. I saw a lot of gold eyed freaks. And a lot of blood and stuff, horror movie stuff.’

Alice turned to Jasper and whispered loudly,

‘Oh great, first we’ve got budget vampires and now there's a budget me.’

Bella looked frantically to Carlisle who looked like he was watching a continually ill behaving pet once again chew on the furniture. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrow at his coven in what Bella believed was meant to be a stern manner. Bella supposed it was better than nothing.

‘It’s very nice to have you here.’ Esme said kindly, if a little out of place for the tone of things.

Bella’s eyes widened to a surely comical degree and she almost reached towards Aphrodite in an effort to somehow stop what was sure to be more vitriol. Being rude to Esme was unthinkable and also possibly lethal.

Whether Bella’s warning was enough of Aphrodite simply didn’t need to chew out Esme Bella couldn’t say, either way Aphrodite smiled thinly and gave a short and insincere,

‘You’re so kind.’

Some tension deflated from the room and Aphrodite waited with a high fructose corn syrup smile posed on her lips.

Bella once more attempted to steer the conversation,

‘Thank you Alice and Esme, for that input. The future thing is so interesting Aphrodite. Maybe we should talk more about that later…’

Bella trailed off, realising that Aphrodite terrified her. Not because she was rude, necessarily, but because they were linked by this mark and their goddess - their goddess who had guided Aphrodite to Bella, so that Bella could protect her; Bella could feel this in her bones. And being responsible for Aphrodite not dying was apparently like piloting the space shuttle while drunk and also not knowing how to pilot anything and hoping nothing blew up.

Maybe this was a test, maybe Aphrodite was marked because she was the most unpleasant person alive, Bella wouldn’t know and it didn’t matter anyway. They were connected. Aphrodite knew it too, her gaze on Bella was still so sure.

So when Aphrodite glanced at the Cullens and wasn’t able to completely cover the fear and Bella could see the anger in some of their faces at yet another intruder in their lives some protective feeling grew in her chest. Bella trusted each vampire here, even Rosalie, with her life, but Aphrodite didn’t. And Aphrodite was hers.

As if to test that new protective understanding Aphrodite glanced around the room again landing on the Cullens’ ridiculously large and high tech, flatscreen where their next movie waited.

The girl sneered when she caught sight of the movie paused on the screen.

‘Ugh, I can’t believe you’d watch that; it’s bloody and disgusting. I mean the guys are hot but I’d never watch hot guys do violence, violence makes me nauseous, which is unattractive.’

‘Okay!’ Said Bella quickly, who was not doing anything with the comment about hot guys, ‘thanks for that opinion-’

‘This is a cult and I am not sticking around while it multiplies. Want to paint a moon on your head and run off into the woods Carlisle? At this point I say go for it. If you still have some sanity left then you’ll know: this is enough. They should go.’

Aphrodite laughed, nasally and affected,

‘Oh sweeties. Do you see unattractive people running off to go live in the desert and have sex with some disgusting bearded man? No? Then it’s not a cult.’

Bella and Carlisle had done a fair bit of reading about cults as they actually fell adjacent to their research. It is because of this that despite the once again highly tense nature of the situation Bella could not help but protest,

‘Well actually cults have a bad reputation today, in actuality all they are is a small group of people who come together…’

Bella trailed off seeing incredulity on Carlisle’s face and growing indignation on Aphrodite and Rosalie’s.

‘We are not moving to the desert and I will not become one of your sixteen brides.’ Aphrodite said hotly at the same time as Rosalie threw her hands up and shouted triumphantly,

‘There you go, it’s a cult.’

Aphrodite turned her annoyance back to her fellow blonde,

‘Look, sweetie, I can’t really understand what it’s like to not be the prettiest blonde bitch in a room but I imagine it’s hard. Now I only give a shit what my high priestess has to say, so if she says we stay we stay, and if she says we go to the desert and become sister wives then I will try and persuade her with my divine wisdom but if not then whatever, we go. You can step right off with your bisexually confused desire, I know you all want to eat me and fuck me, and why wouldn’t you? I've got a delightfully pretty neck.’ She finished with another hair flip, revealing said delightful neck.

She did, Bella had to admit, have a spectacular neck. This thought made her blush.

‘So high priestess let’s get out of here.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Carlisle, ‘There’s a lot more we don’t know yet. I think you should stay.’

Every occupant of the room except Esme looked to him with incredulity. 

Bella could feel another sneering response coming and decided that for once she needed to actively take charge of a situation. Usually that was Carlisle’s job. He was a super trustworthy leader and you could usually sit back and say, ‘not to worry Carlisle has this’ but so far he had shown himself entirely incapable of interacting with Aphrodite LaFont.

‘Great! Good talk everyone. Me and Aphrodite - she and I are going somewhere else to talk cults and stuff. Good evening. Goodbye. I’ll see you next week.’ Bella said striding for the door and grabbing Aphrodite’s arm as she did so. Normally she’d never be so forceful, it turned out she wasn’t being forceful enough because Aphrodite pulled her to a stop at the threshold and addressed the Cullens,

‘Good. There was no way I was staying in this nest of snakes. Now, someone load my bags into her hideous truck and we’re off. Chop chop.’ From the tensing under her hands Bella felt reasonably certain that if she didn’t have one of Aphrodite’s arms in a vice grip she would have accompanied her speech with a clap. 

Once Bella had the woman with a death wish away from the vampires Bella was going to reflect that this might be the most off-putting person she’d ever met. The most beautiful too, though.

Carlisle still wanted them to stay, that was obvious. It was also obvious, at least to Bella, that Aphrhdite was scared. Rude or not, Mary had given her to Bella to keep safe.

‘Jasper,’ Bella asked, apologetically, ‘would you mind?’

It took Jasper longer than it normally would to load Aphrodite’s luggage into Bella’s truck, partly because of the watching human taxi drivers but in large part because the second taxi was apparently entirely dedicated to Aphrodite’s assortment of suitcases, purses, and a veritable bounty of shoeboxes.