Chapter Text
It stung.
Papercuts always did. She hissed and shook her hand, brought it up to her mouth.
Bella almost didn’t register it, until the stillness in the room struck her. She froze, finger almost to mouth. The slight tang of blood, the smell, was almost too faint for her. But the vampires in the room were all staring at her finger, frozen like statues.
The tension was too much, like static.
And then, too fast for human senses, they erupted.
“Edward, no!” Alice cried out. “Jasper –” And then she spoke too fast for Bella to understand, words whipping fast.
But there was Edward, right beside her as always, teeth bared, a snarl like none she had ever heard, not even when he fought James, ripping out of him. Carlisle tackled him from behind, and then Jasper and Emmett tipped him away from her. But he was fast. The fastest of them all, if not the strongest, and he read their intentions.
He was up and back beside her in a heartbeat. Less than.
His hand made it as far as her right arm. Her arm was still raised, and automatically, slow like a slug compared to him, she went to block him, block her love. He bared his teeth. Her breath caught.
Emmett bellowed out and mowed him down, Jasper catching his arms back. They dragged him away forcibly, Carlisle back at his head, his whipping neck.
He struggled, and he howled, awful, like an animal.
Bella’s finger still hovered just below her mouth, the iron smell. Crossed in a defensive position still. She let out the breath that had caught.
How long had it been? Five seconds? Ten? There was no such thing. There was only the moment.
The vampires crashed into the table with the cakes, sending some of the cut-glass plates flying. Alice was beside her, not across the room any more, blocking glass with her tiny body. But she was too small, and more tiny pinpricks of pain registered on Bella’s right arm, the raised one.
“Carlisle, watch out!” Alice again. “Edward, please, control yourself!”
But Edward was almost beyond hearing, beyond sense, still struggling in their arms. He reached back and bit Carlisle, who cried out in surprised pain.
Was she scared? Bella felt nothing at all. Time stood still, emotions didn’t register, Edward was trying to kill her. It wasn’t the first time. But he hadn’t lost control like this. Never. Jasper was holding Edward’s arms back to the point where it seemed like they’d break off, expression furrowed. Emmett on his legs, Carlisle speaking urgently into his ears where Edward thrashed, his voice a low, soothing buzz she couldn’t understand, ignoring the venom seeping from the bite mark on his neck.
There was no humanity to Edward at all, right now. Always he had been controlled around her, even if that control had been strained. Even if she’d seen him look at her throat. Even then. She loved the way he’d bury his nose in her neck, kiss her pulse point. She wasn’t scared. Was she? There was nothing in her.
“Alice,” Bella said, starting time again, holding her right hand, the papercut, to her chest. “Alice.”
“I know,” Alice said, still there. “You smell good, but you don’t smell as good to me as to Edward. I’m fine. You need stitches.”
It was then Bella registered the blood oozing from multiple small cuts on her arms, the glass shards Alice hadn’t shielded her from.
Rosalie and Esme had opened the massive glass double doors on the back of the house, cool evening air blowing in. Rosalie looked grim.
“I’ll do it,” Rosalie said, not looking at Bella as she disappeared back into the house. Esme and Alice led Bella outside to the back porch, Esme’s arm coming up around her automatically and rubbing her back – on her left side, distancing herself from the blood.
“None of us have had a singer, except maybe Emmett,” Esme said. “I can only guess at what he’s going through. My poor boy.” Inside, Bella heard him still making noises she wouldn’t have guessed that velvet voice could produce. Something else smashed to the ground, heavy-sounding, reverberating. A chair?
“I don’t understand,” Bella whispered.
Rosalie appeared, of course, at that. “You’re human,” she said, a hard edge of longing in the words. She put a bowl down on the table beside the settee Bella and Esme sat on, kneeling down in front of Bella. “Hold out your arm.”
“I didn’t know you had medical training too,” Bella said, a slight question in her voice as she held out her right arm. It was beginning to really sting.
“I’ve had a lot of time,” Rosalie said. Her hands were surprisingly gentle as she sterilized the tweezers and began methodically plucking glass out of Bella’s forearm, one stone-hard arm keeping Bella’s in place. With little pings, she put the bloody glass pieces in the bowl.
Inside, Edward moaned. Esme winced.
Alice stood on the edge of the deck, arms around herself. Bella looked up at her and breathed through her mouth, trying not to think about the blood.
“I didn’t see it,” Alice said, “not in time. Ugh! We should have used paper plates. We shouldn’t have wrapped the gifts. But where’s the panache in that? I never would have thrown a party using paper plates. Why didn’t I see this?”
“Has he ever been like this?” Bella barely brought herself to say the words, and it tore at her to say them.
Rosalie hummed disapprovingly, another shard of glass plinking into the bowl. She pulled out the shot that Bella knew had lidocaine in it. Ugh, worst night ever. Needles on top of… this. “He knew the risks. He got sloppy.”
She injected Bella smoothly, not seeming at all phased by the further pinprick of blood from the needle. But she was being very careful about breathing, Bella could see that she was holding her breath. Bella closed her eyes. Breathed. Breathed. Breathed.
“But he had me to help keep you safe,” Alice said miserably. “I failed.”
“OW! Quit it, I am trying to help you,” Emmett yelled out from inside.
“Alice, it wasn’t your fault. People wrap gifts on birthdays,” Bella said. Even if I hadn’t wanted gifts or a birthday party to begin with, she added privately.
“She’s right, Alice,” Esme said. She patted the arm of the settee. Alice shook her head, hesitated, and then flew over in one movement, head curling into Esme’s hair.
“We were foolish to think we could pretend to be human. None of us are,” Rosalie said, harsh words hidden in a softer tone. Rubbing some iodine over Bella’s arm, she started to stitch. Bella focused her eyes to the forest edge. She breathed over the strange, uncomfortable pulling feeling. This was fine. This was all fine. She had signed up for this, knew the risks, loved the boy. She loved him as she knew him.
Carlisle breezed out through the open door, putting a hand on Alice’s shoulder in passing. “He’s calming down.”
Esme let out a breath, and Bella felt some of the tension leave the stone body next to her. Bella didn’t react. Kept looking out. The trees, the distant shine of the fading day’s light on the river she couldn’t quite see.
“How’s our patient?” Carlisle was the only one who seemed completely unaffected by her blood, coming up to inspect Rosalie’s stitches. “Good work as expected, Rose.”
Rosalie’s head dipped, her mouth flickering up into a small smile. Bella had had worse stitches.
“I’m fine,” Bella said.
“It’s okay to be frightened,” Carlisle said. Esme nodded. “We’d understand. Even after James, this is still unprecedented for you.”
“How is he?”
“Edward is… your blood will likely always be a lure for him,” Carlisle said gently. “And we’d all grown, perhaps, complacent in remembering that. Jasper is throwing as much peace and calm at him as he can, but the bloodlust Edward is throwing out is compelling, I’d imagine. He can’t keep it up forever.”
“I should have seen,” Alice said again. She swiveled on the arm of the sofa backwards toward Jasper, looking in at him.
Esme asked quietly, “You’re alright, darling?”
Carlisle smiled. “Not my first bite, won’t be my last.” He rubbed a hand over where the mark had been. Bella wondered if vampiric skin scarred from bites like hers had. His skin looked smooth as ever to her from the lantern light and dim remnants of day on the deck.
Feeling stole slowly over Bella again, slipping into her like a warm soup on a cold day. It had been comfortable to be numb to the happenings around her, the shock that Edward had constantly checked her for. But not that. Not fearful, merely… an acceptance of what was inevitable. That Edward wasn’t human. She had known this. But she hadn’t seen it directed toward her so clearly.
Bella was only human. She couldn’t deny it, what had happened when Edward had looked at her with venom dripping from his mouth, a snarl ripping from that velvet throat. That her heart had skipped a beat – in fear.
But how could she tell them? She wouldn’t.
Let them not address it.
“You know I don’t blame any of you, right?” Bella said it to all of them in theory, but she looked at Carlisle. “This… this is fine. He’ll be fine. Everything will go back to normal.”
Carlisle’s gaze always felt like standing in the path of the sun, too bright to meet for long. “I pray Edward will listen to you.”
“Keep him from doing something stupid,” Bella said, suddenly fierce. She would have stood if Rosalie wasn’t bandaging up her arm. “He’s not going to let this go, is he?”
Carlisle shook his head. “You know as well as I he will have difficulty doing so.”
Esme stood to stand next to him, hand finding his surely. Her gaze went inside the house. Bella couldn't look at the expression on her face.
Alice slid down to the seat Esme had left. “I see what he’s planning, even now,” she said to Bella quietly, a show at privacy. “You’re family, Bella. We won’t pretend you’re not.”
Bella met her eyes. “Good,” she said, hating the tears she felt welling up.
Edward didn’t meet her eyes when he finally came out, Jasper standing watchfully next to him. Emmett stayed behind him.
“I’m going to hunt,” Edward said grimly. “Yes, Carlisle, you can come with me. Please.” Carlisle kissed Esme briefly, leading Edward off without a word. Esme went in the house, where Bella heard her let out a sigh. Bella didn’t want to know how much damage her stupid papercut had done in there yet.
Emmett let out a gust of air. “Well, Hell’s Bells,” he said. “It’s never a dull moment with you.”
Bella’s lips rose up at the corners without her permission. “I like that name.”
Rosalie patted her arm once, unexpectedly, as she disposed of the bowl of glass. Finished, she all but flew to Emmett, who wrapped his arms around her. They walked off into the yard together.
Solace, soft, a suggestion more than a punch to the gut like the calm in Phoenix, filled her. Bella looked to Jasper, who nodded once. He kept his distance, standing next to a post, keeping watch.
She mulled over what she was feeling under that, deciding to focus on the love for the family around her, the thankfulness for their actions. He closed his eyes, nodding again.
“It’s okay if anybody else needs to go hunt,” Bella said. “I’m fine now. It’s fine.”
Alice, of course, looked to Jasper, but she had an eyebrow lifted. She looked, Bella thought, like an actress waiting for her scene partner’s line to be delivered. She did that a lot.
“It didn’t affect me that much,” he admitted quietly, sounding shocked. “Not like I thought it would. Now that Edward’s out of range, I feel fine.”
“I’m not totally sure why that’s the case yet,” Alice said, thoughtful, “but that’s a Chekhov’s gun if I’ve ever heard of one. I’ll figure it out. I’m proud of you.” She smiled up at Jasper.
He just shook his head, a shocked smile flitting over his face. He had dimples too, like Emmett. He didn’t smile enough for Bella to have noticed that before now.
“That’s good then, right? One good thing.” It hurt that Edward hadn’t looked at her. The bad things piled up, but Bella didn’t want to face them yet. Maybe never.
“Paper plates,” Alice grumbled again. “I’m going to have to work with Esme on inventing a new gift-wrapping material.”
Edward didn’t come home before it was time for Bella to leave. She drove home alone, though Alice had offered to ride with her. The feeling started to come back to her arm as she drove. She concentrated on the spurts and sputters of her car’s engine as it bumped over the road back to Charlie’s. Pain didn’t help.
If she didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t happen.
He’d be back.
Pull up to the driveway. Park. Get out, holding onto the door to keep the slick ground from tripping her up. Up to the door.
“Hey, Dad.” Charlie was where she’d expected. The conversation played out as she’d practiced in the car:
“Edward not with you?”
“No. He had to stay back. I tripped and fell into the plates.” Bella held up her arm. “Good thing Dr. Cullen was there.”
Charlie nodded. “I’m glad of that. Good night other than that?”
“It was good, yeah. I’m pretty tired though, heading up to bed.”
“Sounds good. Happy birthday, kid.” He cleared his throat. “I’m, uh. I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Bella mumbled. Neither of them did well with emotion on the best of days, and this was not that.
He picked up his beer again, saluting her with it before turning back to the screen.
Go up the stairs. Brush teeth. Throw water over face. Stare briefly in mirror. Do not look in own eyes for too long. Throw on old t-shirt. Get in bed. Try not to think about it.
Silence didn’t help.
Bella turned the CD player on, some nocturnes Edward had burned onto a CD for her over the summer.
What to do?
Why wasn’t he back? Did she want him with her now? Always. But maybe not right now. Did she? Didn’t she?
His face had been terrifying. He’d tried to kill her. She loved him. He loved her, and he’d tried to kill her. But he didn’t mean it. He loved her.
He didn’t mean it. He loved her. Renee had cried about that when past boyfriends had said things she wouldn’t tell Bella.
Thinking didn’t help.
Bella fell asleep.