Chapter Text
Life #2
Bella wakes up and begins her morning routine as she normally does. It isn’t until she is brushing her teeth that she realises that the bruises that had previously been littering her arms were nowhere to be found. Her head doesn’t hurt either and she makes eye contact with herself in the mirror, deciding not to acknowledge her newfound X-Men powers for the time being, instead heading back into her room to get dressed.
She trots downstairs for a quick breakfast, mind reeling, and Charlie looks up at her and something in his eyes tells her that something is wrong, he looks far too relaxed.
“How are you, kiddo? Did you sleep alright?”
“Yeah,” she replies, sliding into a seat beside him, grabbing the box of cereal and making herself a bowl, “my head doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Charlie frowns, “Anymore? Did you have a headache yesterday or something?”
Her chest clenches and Bella feels terribly sick all of a sudden, “Well, yeah. Don’t you remember?”
“Did you tell me you were feeling rough yesterday? Sorry, I really don’t remember. If you’re feeling rough you should stay home from school today,” he replies, his own bowl of cereal forgotten.
“No! I’m fine, honestly. Just...I must’ve had a weird dream or something. You know when your dream feels so real that you think it really happened for a second?” Bella stutters and Charlie looks on uncomprehendingly at her, “That must be what is it.”
“Whatever you say, Bells.”
“Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I’m late for school!”
“No, you’re not, you have plenty of time,” Charlie begins to say but Bella is already out of the door.
The drive to school goes quickly as Bella’s mind isn’t on the road, instead she is thinking about just what the hell is happening to her. Pulling up into the parking lot, she sees a car that looks exactly like Tyler’s car in her dream. Did she know what car he drove before that? She must have, Bella tells herself as she steps out of her truck and onto the icy ground, making sure not to lose her footing.
Bella can’t help but look over to the car and her heart stops when she sees Tyler get out, completely uninjured.
He sees her staring at him and waves, a slight frown on his face, “Hey, Bella! You alright?”
She raises a hand to return the gesture and swallows, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Walking over to the school buildings, she can’t shake that awful dream that she had the night before, it had been so realistic.
Bella isn’t able to shake the feeling of something being wrong for the entire day. Edward is ignoring her pointedly as always but for once it’s hardly at the forefront of her thoughts. Instead, she thinks about her dream which remains imprinted clearly in her mind. Tyler’s car had been careening towards her at speed and she had looked him in the eye, had seen the fear in his face, before Edward pushed her aside. He had stopped the van with his hand. Bella remembers that well and her mind wouldn’t let it go as she scribbles messy swirls in the corner of the quiz that she was meant to be taking. She had hit her head and Edward had taken her to the hospital and her dad had come to be with her. She had then met Edward’s father, the famous Carlisle Cullen, and had been blown away by just how handsome he was-he had put his children to shame, really. Bella snorted, of course her psyche would come up with a father that was even better looking than his children. That was her daddy issues at work, she knew it. The real Dr Cullen is probably a dumpy man in his 40’s no doubt.
The school day ends up finishing far too quickly for Bella’s liking and she makes her way out into the parking lot, aware that she had cut her newfound friends for dead but she can’t bring herself to care. All she wants is to get back to her truck, get into her bed, reread Jane Eyre and forget the world and most importantly that dream.
Bella casts a glance around the parking lot for Edward and finds him easily, he does stand out after all. He’s engaged in what looks to be a very serious conversation with his elfin-looking sister with her boyfriend standing next to her protectively. Alice, Bella thinks her name is, though it could just as easily be Rosalie. Bella had trouble understanding their dynamic and how it was so easily accepted in Forks. She is sure that it wouldn’t have been accepted at all in Phoenix and she feels a pang of homesickness at the thought of Phoenix which she pushes aside quickly.
Edward catches her eye and Bella looks down quickly, finding his gaze to be far too intense, though his eyes are a light gold so surely he isn’t grouchy or anything like that. A blush lights up her cheeks. She braves a quick look up only to see the bronze haired boy’s face looking at her in horror. Bella snaps her head to the side to see Tyler’s car barrelling towards her, skidding across the icy pavement. Their eyes meet and Bella’s eyes widen, his car is going to hit her, she knows it.
Suddenly, quicker than she can blink, Edward is there with his hand out. Stopping the car. He pushes her aside and she falls back onto the floor, her head hitting the ground. All Bella can think is: this must be deja vu.
The rest happens as she remembers it from her dream and Bella tunes it all out, allowing everyone to think that she is in shock. An ambulance is called for Tyler and Edward drives Bella over to the hospital. Bella knows that he is worried at her silence but nothing would be able to make her speak, not now.
Her heart sinks as the hospital is exactly as she remembers it in her dream, she had never seen the place before in her life but she knew the route that they were taking to the ER. When Edward’s dad walks in looking like a doctor from a telenovela Bella has to admit that something is terribly wrong. Is she physic? Is she having visions of the future? If so, Bella decides that she is never going to tell anyone about it. But thinking of special abilities makes her think of Edward. What he did wasn’t normal at all, the van should have crushed him but it didn’t. Edward had held it at bay like it was nothing and how had he gotten over to her from the other side of the parking lot so quickly? Bella knows what she saw, there was no mistaking it at all the second time around.
Life #3
Bella wakes up, stretching and taking a look out of the window. Snow is falling lightly and she gets up, blinking the last traces of sleep out of her eyes. She takes a look at her elbow where before there had been a truly spectacular bruise forming and stops dead. There was nothing there. Quickly, Bella runs downstairs and puts on the news, waiting anxiously for them to give the date. Eventually they do and her heart sinks, the 25th of January. This is no dream and it isn’t deja vu either.
“What are you doing down here already, Bells?” Charlie asks as he makes his way into the kitchen, his uniform on, complete with gun.
“I just wanted to look at the news,” she replies awkwardly.
“Before you’ve brushed your hair?” He asks skeptically.
Bella clamps a hand to her bird’s nest of a bun and grimaces, “Yeah, I wanted to see what’s going on in the world. It’s good to be informed. Anyway, I’ll, uh, go get ready now. See you in a bit, dad.”
“I’ll have a coffee ready for you,” Charlie replies good naturedly before adding under his breath, “Looks like you need it.”
Bella decides to park on the other side of the parking lot than she had last time. If this is some sort of prophetic dream situation then she should do the opposite of what happened in the dream, surely. Her new plan in place, she goes through the school day for the third time on autopilot, barely noticing when Jessica comes up to her in the canteen.
“What’s wrong with you, Bella? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Bella looks over to the unharmed Tyler who is talking loudly with Mike, “Something like that.”
Jessica frowned, “You can be weird sometimes, you know.”
“I’ve heard that before, yeah,” she replies offhandedly, “I’m gonna grab my lunch now, I’ll see you at the table.”
Edward is sat with his siblings, decidedly not looking at her and Bella sighs, if Edward wants to act like an asshole that’s his prerogative. Bella picks at her lunch, deep in thought, as the other chat animatedly around her. Bella can’t help but wonder what is happening, is she losing her mind? Has she suddenly developed psychic powers? Is she in her own personal version of Groundhog Day?
Bella decides to do a little experiment.
“Hey Jessica, what does the Cullen’s father look like? You know, the doctor.”
The brunette looks at her curiously for a moment before replying, “He’s super fucking hot like they all are. He’s blonde and looks very good for his age, definitely not like he’s in his thirties or anything.”
“He’s in his thirties?” Bella asks, surprised. He looked mid twenties at a push, not a single sign of aging on his face or body whatsoever which had made his plethora of foster children that more incongruous in her eyes.
Jessica shrugs, “Well, yeah, unless you think he’s lying. Also why are you asking what he looks like if you already know?”
“I-I don’t know what he looks like,” Bella stutters. “I just can’t imagine him being so hot like you’re saying and being old.”
“Thirty-three isn’t old,” Angela cuts in.
Jessica laughs, “You say that cause you have a daddy kink.”
“That’s not true!” She splutters, turning rather red.
Mike and Eric turn to look at her, scandalised and Angela blushes, looking like she would love nothing more than to slither under the table like a snake and escape. Bella decides to save her.
“Go on, Jessica, what’s your ideal man like?” Bella asks and sits back smugly as the girl in question launches into a detailed list. She glances over to Mike who is listening a little too carefully to Jessica and smirks.
‘Thank you,’ Angela mouths to her and Bella flashes her a quick thumbs up.
Crisis averted, Bella looks over to the Cullen table and is surprised to find all of them looking at her with expressions that ranged from constipated (Edward), to amused (the big one, Emmett?) to disgusted (the big one’s girlfriend, Rosalie?) and Bella looks away quickly. She hates being stared at. Had they heard her asking about their father? No, she decides, they couldn’t have. They’re on the opposite side of the cafeteria and it is full of chattering teenagers. Then again, why else would they all be looking at her? Bella only hoped it wasn’t because Edward was talking shit about her to them. The rest of the lunch period passes by quickly, Bella’s mind is too full to pay much attention to her newfound friends.
After school she steps out into the parking lot nervously and keeps a close eye on all of the cars around her as well as making sure not to slip on the icy ground. Bella sees Tyler’s car pulling out and she looks over to where she had been parked yesterday, or in her dream or in the last iteration of her day, whichever it was. She recognises the car, it is Angela’s and her gut begins to sink. Bella had reached her truck by the time Tyler was losing control of his van, careening to where Angela was fishing in her bag for her keys. Bella sees it all play out in slow motion, sees the van skid over and crush Angela against her car, and hears the screams. Blood pooling on top of ice and a body that looks like a puppet with the strings cruelly cut.
Amid the utter chaos that envelopes the parking lot, Bella simply gets into her car and drives away. She drives and drives but doesn’t go home, instead she picks a road and keeps going until she reaches cliffs. She knows that she must be in La Push but she has no idea how she got there. She parks by the side of a disused road and sits in her trusty truck, mind reeling. Angela had died in her place, that much she knew. Sweet, loving Angela had died and it was all Bella’s fault. She had been the one that was meant to be there but she had cheated fate and fate had gotten revenge. If she did wake up on the 25th of January again, and she hoped that she did, she wouldn’t let this happen again. She would keep Angela from being anywhere near her car until Tyler was either long gone or had crashed. Bella is fairly sure that Tyler won’t come away from an accident with any more than a concussion which was something that Bella could live with. She thinks that she will have a better chance of keeping Angela within the school than Tyler who is well known for scrambling to leave the premises as soon as it was allowed, if not sooner. Bella tries not to feel too guilty about leaving Tyler to his fate and fails.
Life #4
“Do you want to study with me in the library for a bit, Angela?” Bella asks as they’re heading out from their last class of the day.
“I wish I could but I really have to babysit my brothers,” she says, smiling conspiratorially. “My parents are having a date night.”
“Oh,” Bella sighs, deflating. “Some other time?”
“Of course! I’d love to, no one else really likes studying so it’ll be nice to have a study buddy.”
“Yeah,” Bella laughs hollowly, “study buddies.”
Bella watches Angela go up to her car which is parked where Bella’s should by rights be parked and fish in her bag for her keys. She knows just where to look to find Tyler’s van which is already starting to swerve off course and she has to close her eyes but the sound of metal scraping against metal tells her all that she needs to know. There is a long silence before the first screams start, she can hear Jessica calling Angela’s name.
The Cullens are looking on at the scene in horror and Alice is bundling her boyfriend into their car and has driven away before anyone apart from Bella can notice. She sees Edward standing there as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, the picture of shock and Bella is filled with a righteous anger. She storms her way over to where he is standing quickly and miraculously doesn’t slip. Everyone else in the parking lot is rushing around and she has to push her way through the crowd.
Once she reaches him she finds her voice gripped tight by anger and her words come out as barely more than a whisper.
“Why didn’t you save her?”
Edward has the gall to look confused, “What do you mean, Bella?”
Bella pokes him in the chest hard and her finger aches, she may as well have poked a brick wall, “I know you could have done it if you had chosen to.”
His eyes narrow, “You are making no sense.”
His two other siblings, the big one and his girlfriend, are both glaring at her but she can’t bring herself to care.
“What I mean,” she hisses, her voice rising in pitch, “is that I know full well that you could have run across to her car and stopped that van with one hand if you had wanted to! So that leaves us here, why didn’t you save her?!”
“You have no proof of anything,” Edward says, looming over her for a moment and a bolt of fear flashes through her.
“I’ll get some,” Bella retorts hotly, not knowing what she means by that exactly.
Edward’s brother grabs him by the shoulder and drags him away quickly, purposefully not looking at her. His blonde sister, Rosalie, is glaring at her like she would happily murder Bella right then and there if it wasn’t for the fact that they were in public. Edward’s Volvo pulls away with a screech and Bella is left alone and it is only then that the tears begin to fall.
Life #43
Tyler really needs to invest in some snow tyres, Bella can’t help but think as Edward pushes her out of the path of the van yet again. Her head hits the concrete with an all too familiar thwack and all she can think is:
Surely there must be a better way than this.
Life #5
Bella wakes up with a groan, goes down to check the date and when it is inevitably the 25th of January yet again Bella decides that she absolutely cannot be bothered with school. It is still fairly early in the morning but Bella decides to try, it’s not like anything has any consequences after all.
The phone rings for a while before a tired voice answers.
“Black residence, Jacob Black speaking.”
“Hey Jake!” Bella tries to infuse her voice with enthusiasm but she isn’t sure how well it works.
“Oh, Bella? Is that you?” He replies and Bella swears she can hear the sound of him scratching the back of his head in confusion.
“Yeah, it is. Sorry for the early call but I was, uh...hoping maybe that you could be convinced to play hooky from school and hang out with me,” Bella lets the words out in a rush and for a moment isn’t sure if Jacob understood her.
A long pause, “I’d like that, don’t tell my dad though. Wanna meet in town?”
“Does the 7/11 parking lot work for you?” Bella asks, thinking that it must be roughly halfway between them.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll head out at the time I leave for school so I should get there at like 9:15 since it’s a bit further away. Is that alright?” Her erstwhile childhood friend replies and Bella is surprised for a moment by how easily he agrees.
“Alright, I’ll see you then, Jake,” Bella replies, aiming to sound sunny but knowing that she fell short of the mark by a long shot.
“Is everything alright, Bella? You can talk to me,” Jake says earnestly.
She sighs, the weight of the last...however long, weighing on her heavily all of a sudden, “I’m not ok, honestly. That’s why I just need a break for today, I’ll talk to you about it when I see you.”
Bella manages to rush upstairs before Charlie comes down and gets ready in record time. She needs a bit of time to sit and think about just how honest she is going to be with Jake. She supposes that she could be as honest as possible without mentioning anything supernatural, that was somewhere to start.
It feels strange to be going somewhere other than school so early in the morning but Bella can’t help but feel a little excited to have a break from the horror of this particular school day that she seems to be cursed to relive. The 7/11 parking lot is deserted and she has about half an hour before Jake is meant to arrive so she goes and grabs herself some snacks to munch on to pass the time. He ends up getting there a little early, pulling up in his dad’s truck, which is for the best as morning radio was beginning to bore her to death.
“Hey, Jake!” She says, hopping out of the truck and momentarily losing her balance and having to hang onto her wing mirrors for support.
“You alright?” He says as he rushes over to steady her.
Blushing, Bella replies, “Yup, completely fine. Also, I love my truck but we’re probably better off using yours since I’m sure it can go more than 40.”
“My dad’s truck but yeah, you have a point,” Jake looks a little crestfallen and Bella remembers that he fixed the truck up for her all of a sudden.
“I do love her though! She’s super reliable which is what I need, I don’t care about speed,” she reassures him.
“No worries, I get it. Um, what did you want to do today?”
Bella shrugs, “I’ve not thought it through, honestly. Just that I don’t want to be in school,” she reached through her open door into the cabin of the truck and pulled out a carrier bag, “I have snacks, though.”
“Now you’re speaking my language!” He says, grabbing the bag from her and pulling out a bag of Doritos. “Come on, let’s get in my dad’s nice warm car.”
“You’re lucky my dad likes Billy so much cause you could get arrested,” Bella points out, though there’s no heat in it.
Jake doesn’t seem bothered, “It’s all about who you know.”
Once they had piled themselves into the truck and Bella had gotten the feeling back into her fingers and selected a bag of M&Ms to much on she began to consider what she was going to tell him.
“I’m just super stressed lately, I’m sure you can tell that much. I…” she pauses for a long moment before deciding to just go with her gut. “You know the Cullens?”
Jake snorts, “Yeah, they have a bit of a...reputation on the rez.”
“Really? Good or bad?” She asks as Jake pulls out and begins to drive aimlessly.
“Well, the, uh, the rumour is that they’re part of this legend that we have. It’s not like people really believe it,” he rolls his eyes. “Well, us young ones don’t. The elders take it really seriously. Like, they really believe they’re cold ones, it’s crazy.”
“Cold ones?” Bella repeats, feeling as if she had stumbled on a gold mine.
Jake looks over to her shiftily, “We aren’t meant to talk to outsiders about it.”
“I’m hardly an outsider,” she points out, hoping this flimsy logic will prevail. “Charlie and Billy are basically brothers so that makes us, what? Cousins?”
He wrinkles his nose, “I’d rather that wasn’t the case.”
“What do you mean?” She jokes. “Am I not good enough cousin material for you?”
He shrugs, obviously trying to come off as nonchalant and failing, “All of my cousins are super annoying.”
“Oh, alright then. Go on, you were talking about the cold ones?”
“I was trying to not talk about them actually but sure, why not?” He gives in easily and Bella feels a pang of guilt, she knows full well that he is only doing it because he has a crush on her and she is using it to manipulate him. Still, any information she can get at this point is useful and she isn’t in a position to scoff at the supernatural either.
“Thank you, Jake! I really appreciate it, anything to take my mind off of school,” she replies, feeding him a Dorito to keep him sweet.
“About school,” he says suspiciously, “why are you hating it so much? Everyone hates school but this is a bit much. Are you...getting bullied or something?”
Bella laughs, “No, I’m not. But my question first, you can ask yours later.”
They reach an intersection and he looks over to Bella who just shrugs so he shrugs back and takes a left, it doesn’t matter where they end up.
“Are you not going to give up on this?” Jake asks wearily and at seeing her eager expression, he sighs and continues. “They’re a legend, kinda like the boogie man for us kids, ‘if you don’t go to bed now the cold ones will get you’ that kinda thing. They’re...they look like people but they aren’t. Their skin is cold and as hard as stone, they’re white. Not like you, like ice. They feast on human blood and enjoy killing mercilessly.”
“So, um, like vampires, then?” Bella interjects, her heart racing.
“Basically, I suppose you could say that. The story goes, since I know you wanna hear it, that hundreds of years ago one of our chiefs called Taha Aki who was a shapeshifter-” he begins but Bella quickly stops him.
“You’ve lost me, Jake,” she admits, blushing.
“Oh, yeah of course you wouldn’t know. Basically we believe that our tribe descended from wolves and that we had in the past guardians of our tribe who were able to transform into wolves to protect the tribe,” he replies, eyes focused pointedly on the road and Bella knows she’s edging back into ‘things she isn’t meant to know’ territory.
“Oh, that’s pretty badass,” she says lamely.
Jake snorts, “Yeah you and all the other little kids on the rez think so, we tend to grow out of it by eleven.”
“Hey!” Bella tries to scold him but fails, “And you were saying…?”
“About? Oh! Yeah, the cold ones, no idea why you’re so interested. It’s just a bunch of superstitious nonsense,” he replies as they enter La Push and Bella is sure that he drove there purely from force of habit.
“The Cullens give me weird vibes,” Bella says truthfully, “so I’m interested.”
“You’re lucky I like you,” he says before his nose wrinkles and he adds quickly, “platonically, I mean.”
Bella ignores the obvious tension building in the truck, hoping that it will dissipate, “You keep getting me distracted.”
“Yeah,” Jake admits, sighing, “on purpose. We aren’t meant to talk about this stuff.”
“Pretty please,” she pouts, this is truly her last resort.
Luckily for her it works, “Taha Aki was our chief who had been living for a long time because of his shifting, as long as he changed into a wolf regularly he didn’t age. He had two wives and lots of kids before imprinting, think of it like soulmates, on this woman and deciding to stop aging to live a life and grow old with her.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“Yeah,” he agrees wistfully, “imprinting does sound pretty great. Anyway, there were lots of Makah girls going missing and the Makah chief blamed the Quileute wolf guardians for it and to clear their name Taha Aki sent out his eldest son to find out what happened but his son never came back. His grief at the loss of his son convinced the Makah chief that they weren’t to blame. Fast forward a few years and more girls go missing and the wolves smell this sickly sweet smell that they did before and track it down to find a white man, stone cold and super strong over the body of one of the Makah women, all the blood from her body was drained and another was being drunk from, creepy shit.”
Jake pulls over and turns to look at her, eyes serious.
“Now, they lost some of the wolf guardians killing this cold one and those wolves are meant to be massive, like the size of horses or some shit. So that cold one or vampire or whatever meant business. Anyway, this guy has a girlfriend who comes into the village craving revenge in the form of blood. She is massacring the village but Taha Aki’s wife distracts her by stabbing herself in the heart and that gives Taha Aki the chance to kill her.”
The two of them sit in silence for a long moment. Jacob no doubt wracked by guilt for saying too much and Bella because she has far too much on her mind.
“So,” Bella begins to say after a long time of just looking out into the densely forested mountainside, “these cold ones are super pale, cold to the touch and super strong. Are they super fast too?”
Jake frowns, “Yeah they are…”
“Oh, they’re like the perfect predator, aren’t they?” She breathes, everything clicking into place.
He rolls his eyes, “They’re a metaphor for all the shit your ancestors put mine through, that’s all.”
Bella shrugs though her mind is elsewhere, “You have a point. Anyway, that successfully made me feel better about my shitty school situation and we have more snacks to eat and I bought them so...who can say no to free snacks?”
They munch away in silence, only the radio on for company and Bella relaxes properly for the first time in a while. She might have to do this when she wakes up tomorrow, well, today. A little vacation from her curse.
“Do you wanna head down to the beach?” Jake asks her, eyes twinkling with mischief. “The weather is nice.”
“Are you kidding? It’s freezing and it is snowing,” Bella stares at him, aghast.
“You’ve got your coat,” he replies evenly and it takes a second to realise that he’s joking.
She groans, “You’re the worst, you know that?”
“I’ve been told that a few times, yeah.”
Life #6
Bella wakes up the next day with a mission, she had planned it all out before she had gone to bed. Edward was never going to admit anything to her and his siblings seemed to be a lost cause also but there was the father, the beautiful Carlisle Cullen. She has to admit that she has an ulterior motive for wanting to see him. Bella found him fascinating the second she had laid eyes on him and he was never far from her thoughts.
Bella goes through the school day on autopilot, doing nothing differently to her first iteration in order to ensure that she ends up in the ER with Dr Cullen. It is easy to end up in the hospital again. Charlie is with her which limits her a bit but she manages to successfully pull Carlisle to the side and request to speak to him privately which he, of course, acquiesces to.
“Please, come through to my office, miss Swan,” Carlisle says, ushering her through into a utilitarian looking office and Bella notices the lack of family photos which strikes her as odd for such an ostensibly family orientated man.
“Thank you,” Bella replies as she takes the seat opposite his desk that is indicated to her. “Please just call me Bella.”
She takes a moment to look Carlisle Cullen over, truly observing him. Of course, she had paid close attention to him the first time that she had laid eyes on him, it is impossible not to be taken in by this gorgeous man, Bella thinks ruefully. The fact that even in her nightmarish situation she still worries about him liking her proves as much.
“I have something I’d like to talk to you about,” Bella begins before blushing, realising how redundant her words are.
Picking up on her awkwardness, Carlisle offers her a reassuring smile, “Please, do tell me. Anything that can help me get you back to feeling your usual self.”
Bella smiles ruefully, there is most likely nothing that he can do for that, “I have some questions.”
“Well, Bella,” he says purposefully and the name sends a jolt through her, “I’ll try my best to help you.”
She decides to go with the less overt route, at least this time around, “I think my memory must be a bit muddled, my recollection of being in the parking lot is...strange.”
He frowns, “How so? Please, spare no detail,” he looks as if he is taking mental notes, scanning her face carefully.
“Well,” she begins, stretching the word out as she thinks of how to continue, “the whole situation seems...weird, when I look back on it. Like it shouldn’t have been possible,” Bella checks Carlisle’s expression and notices that he seems to be frozen in place, a polite smile still plastered on his features. “Edward was on the other side of the parking lot, he ran over to me so quickly. Too quickly. And then he held back the van with one hand.”
The doctor looks taken aback by her forthrightness, “That must be a latent head injury talking, we should perform a scan.”
Bella regards him, deciding to go in for the kill, “What do you know about the cold ones?”
If she had thought he had been frozen before he looks like a statue at that moment, not even alive. His unnaturally golden eyes, the same ones that the rest of his family have, were wide open in shock.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says eventually.
“Don’t you?” Bella counters, “Cold skin, supernaturally fast and strong...that must ring a bell.”
Carlisle sticks to his guns, “Bella we really need to get you in for a scan, there must be something terribly wrong.”
“There’s no point, Dr Cullen. I know what I saw and you can’t make me change my mind. I think the Quileutes are right about you, that there’s something off about your family though even they haven’t guessed the truth,” she says and she sees the moment his face crumples and takes pity on him. “Though I don’t think you’re dangerous.”
He looks up in shock, “You don’t?”
“No, I don’t. Care to give me some reasons to support my little theory?”
“We do not hurt people,” he looks hesitant for a moment. “We feed on animals.”
Bella does feel marginally better, knowing that, “That’s good to know. Are you cold ones? Like the legend says.”
“It is hardly in my best interest to tell you anything,” he points out and Bella sighs, she can see the logic in this.
“I’ll just have to assume you are all vampires, then. What with the blood drinking. Can I ask some follow up questions?” Bella’s heart is racing and even knowing that she will get the chance to redo all of this doesn’t lower the stakes.
There is a long pause, “I have work to do and Charlie will be worrying about you.”
Bella rolls her eyes, at least she tried.
Life #40
Bella pulls up to the hospital parking lot, not the usual place for a teenager to go when skipping school but she is hardly a usual teenager, not now at least. Stepping out, she pulls her coat more tightly around herself. Just her luck that she would get stuck on a day with such horrendous weather. She figures that walking into the hospital and asking to see Dr Cullen wouldn’t work out too well, instead, she says to the receptionist that she was waiting for a friend and the woman seems happy enough to believe that.
Bella makes herself comfortable in the waiting room, hoping that Carlisle shows up soon. It doesn’t look busy so she hopes that will be the case. She has a mission. The chair she sat in is uncomfortable and she’s very aware of the fact that it was warm when she sat down on it. Bella doesn’t want to think about who was in it before she was, then again, none of it matters really.
When he does show up, Bella is up and out of her seat quickly, making her way over to him with precise steps. She grabs his arm and he looks over to her in shock but before he can speak she hisses, far too low for anyone else to hear.
“I know that you and your family are vampires, take me somewhere that we can speak alone.”
He does. Carlisle is surprisingly compliant, though perhaps Bella’s unwavering confidence has something to do with it.
They walk through the corridors at a leisurely pace, Carlisle waving to the nurses and smiling jovially. Looking for all the world as if he were completely at ease, Bella knew that between the two of them she would be more likely to be taken for a creature of the night. Especially with the way that she was slinking along behind him like a demon, face set.
Carlisle’s office door closes behind them and Bella quickly rounds on him, aware of his lack of body heat due to their close proximity. It astounds her how she had gone so long without noticing it in the Cullens.
“I know what you are,” Bella says evenly. Internally she bemoaned the cliche phrase but really, how else was she meant to say it?
“What on Earth do you mean…?” He looks truly confused and Bella couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You’re a vampire, your whole family are,” Bella replies before adding. “There’s no point trying to convince me that I’m crazy or something by the way.”
He opens his mouth as if to reply before shutting it with an audible click. Narrowing his eyes, he levels Bella with a stern look.
“What do you want?”
“What makes you think I want anything?” Bella retorts, intensely aware of the fact that he hasn’t moved away from her. They would be nose to nose if he wasn’t so much taller.
“You must want something to put yourself in danger like this,” he replies, voice even.
Bella’s eyes widen, “I’m not in danger.”
Carlisle leans ever so slightly towards her, “Whatever gave you that impression?”
“You-you don't eat humans,” Bella argues, though it sounds more like a question.
“No,” He agrees, “I don’t.”
Bella’s heart is beating nearly out of her chest, she feels as if she could faint at any moment. The office seems like such an incongruous environment for something like this to happen in, Bella can’t help but think. She wishes that things could be different, desperately so. But the beauty of her predicament was that there were no consequences, not even death. Bella closes the distance between them with a hesitant press of lips. His are cool, a lack of body heat that was slightly disconcerting. Her hands were trembling where they held onto his shoulders for stability. Carlisle stands there like a statue, completely frozen in place.
After a moment she steps back, observing the bewildered expression on his face, she is fairly sure that if she were to walk away at that moment that she would be able to make it all the way to her truck before he got himself together enough to follow her.
“I love you, that’s what gives me the impression that you won’t hurt me,” Bella says with conviction.
Carlisle doesn’t reply, instead he just stares at her, his golden eyes wide. Bella would never have thought that she would be able to engender such a reaction in him, he always seemed supremely in control. He tilts his head back, as if consulting the ceiling or some higher power for guidance which, knowing him, he was. Struck with a sudden desire, Bella didn’t bother to suppress it-that seemed rather like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.
“You don’t understand,” she whispers. “But maybe one day you will,” then, she pressed a quick kiss to the hollow of his neck and the blond vampire shuddered.
Bella expected him to say something but Carlisle remained firmly silent, still in shock, so she left. She could go to school, she supposed, but there hardly seemed any point in doing that. Especially not if Edward caught wind of what she had done. Instead, she got onto the highway and drove aimlessly until the sun set, until she was sure that Charlie was out searching for her, until the entire Cullen family (coven? Clan?) had discussed what had happened. She drives and she drives but she doesn’t get anywhere, not in the way that counts. Bella pulls over and sleeps.