Chapter 1: Commitment Issues: Or, Rather, Just Issues
Chapter Text
They had been on the road for forever.
Well—maybe not forever. Not really. Jasper made that pretty clear whenever she said it, with that particular scoff of his that meant she’d got the word wrong. Forever meant something else to him. Something bigger. Something she wasn’t even close to wrapping her head around yet.
And wasn’t that exactly the problem she was currently running from.
It had all sort of fallen apart after the newborn army. She and Edward had been trying again—or at least pretending to—but it wasn’t the same. It just couldn’t be, for a myriad of reasons that Bella just didn’t want to get into right now. Or, ever, really.
For a while, as they dated under pretences of a long life marked by humanity—pretences that Bella knew were not what she wanted—she even had hope. Hope for a life. With Edward, or maybe just… with herself. But still a life she could live. A vampiric life.
Her life.
And then the Volturi had shown up, all ruthless fury and emotionless efficiency. And when their eyes landed on her, everything tilted.
A few words. That was all it took. Suddenly, Edward had gone from tentative boyfriend and (apparently) potential fiancé to a very definite ex. The Volturi hadn’t made those relationship decisions for her, but their shadow made the end come fast; it made it clear that she and Edward wanted very different things.
He’d tried to talk her around. To explain. To convince her. But Bella had very few things she refused to bend on, and marriage at eighteen was one of them. She’d seen what that looked like. Lived through the fallout of it. And no matter how much she might have loved Edward, she wasn’t about to sign herself up for that particular brand of heartbreak.
Immortality she could manage. Marriage? Not so much.
So after graduation, the breakup stuck. But she didn’t really break from the Cullens. Alice was still her best friend. Esme was still the mother she wished she’d had. Carlisle and Emmett filled gaps she hadn’t realized were even there. And Jasper—well, Jasper was just… there.
And now, somehow, the one vampire who had always been just… there, was also the one sitting next to her, taking the risks of the supernatural world on his own shoulders. For her. A human. Sitting in a car—a metal box saturated with her own scent—and, somehow, he was doing fine. Together they were running. Or rather, she was running, and Jasper had simply decided he knew where to stash a would-be vampire fugitive.
Because breaking up with Edward didn’t exactly cancel the whole turning-into-a-vampire plan. It didn’t erase the deadline. Eternal life—or eternal damnation, depending on whose opinion she listened to—was still waiting.
Either way, she wasn’t getting out of it.
And becoming a vampire at eighteen—heart still cracked, hormones still very much intact? If she got to choose, she wouldn’t freeze herself like that. Not without Edward, not without the boy she’d once been convinced was the love of her cursed little life, standing at her side. That wasn’t who she wanted to be forever. She wanted more. To grow into something more, before she locked herself into eternity.
And that? That was the problem. The problem her vampire-adoptive-family had decided to solve for her. Out of nowhere and without prompting. As Alice had said, they were helping her to stretch the human part out a little longer; hiding her and hiding themselves, all to help her from facing her fate before she was ready. If she ever could be. Either way, Bella was glad for it, glad for the help to figure herself out, even if it could only last for a while.
Nevertheless, at night, just before sleep dragged her under, she cursed every last bat back to its coffin—because honestly, having an existential crisis about who you even were at an age where you couldn’t legally drink? That felt like the kind of fine print someone really should’ve mentioned before she went and fell in love with a vampire.
Finally, they got out of the car and into the woods. The same sun she’d watched crawl up over the endless stretch of highway that morning was now glaring down from directly overhead, like it was following her and watching their every move.
Bella had already managed to trip over three different tree roots before Jasper apparently decided enough was enough. One large, unreasonably strong hand clamped around her upper arm and hauled her upright, holding her steady as if she weighed nothing.
She opened her mouth—maybe to thank him, maybe to complain, maybe just to fill the silence—but in the end all she managed was a raised eyebrow, aimed at his ridiculously unreadable golden stare.
Jasper tilted his head. “As much as I admire your faith in me, I’d really prefer it if you didn’t bleed all over these woods.”
For one sharp second, he looked… dangerous. Predatory. Like the vampire she kept reminding herself he was. And then he smiled, just the barest twitch of his mouth, and the whole vibe dissolved; blown away on the next breath of wind.
Bella didn’t argue. She just let him keep his hand where it was and tried not to think too hard about the fact that, apparently, this was her life now.
They stopped for lunch near a pond. The sun was bright enough, but the air had that bite to it already. It should’ve been warmer this time of year. It wasn’t.
Nothing to do about that.
The woods were quiet—too quiet. Or maybe there just weren’t any birds here at all. As Bella chewed her ham-and-cheese sandwich from one of the sad little gas stations they’d passed in the middle of nowhere, her brain wandered. Would vampires count as wildlife? Or did they break the category entirely?
Jasper scoffed from where he leaned against a crooked old oak.
“You think too loud.”
Bella arched a brow, mid-bite.
“They’re gone. The birds. They can feel me from a distance. They move off a few hundred meters until we leave.”
“Oh.” She nodded, letting it settle, trying not to think too much about the eerie feeling that washed over. It was useless, her stomach tightened anyway.
Jasper pushed off the tree, stepping closer as his eyes softened a fraction. “Don’t look so tragic. Apex predator and all that—it’s just how it works.”
Bella blinked at him. Surprised, and then not—because, right, she was currently hiking with an empath. “Don’t you miss it?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t grow up drowning in wildlife. I do miss horses, though.”
She almost asked. Really, she almost did—horses, of all things? But then she remembered the night before Victoria’s army came—the scraps of history he’d shared—and she shut her mouth. Instead, she took another bite of her sandwich. Then another. By the time she finished, her food was gone and her decision was made.
Jasper felt it coming. His eyes caught hers, a glint there she didn’t quite trust. “What’s up, Bella?”
She inhaled, steeling herself. “Where are we going, Jasper? I know Alice packed my bag for a long trip, but she told me not to ask when or where.” Bella smiled faintly at the memory—Alice, cheerful as ever, insisting this would be good for her. For him too, apparently. Though Bella still wasn’t sure how this mystery road trip helped Jasper in any way. Then again, questioning Alice was a losing game.
“I know I couldn’t stay with you guys, not with Edward and his… opinions. And the fact that he’s been spiraling a bit since the breakup.”
Jasper snorted. “Spiraling is generous, Isabella. The kid’s not in his right mind.”
“Yeah. Well. Alice said I needed space to grow, figure out who I am. Which, great. Totally on board with that.”
At Alice’s name, Jasper’s mouth tugged into the faintest smile.
“But still,” Bella pressed, “the Volturi’s out there. And we’re here, in the middle of nowhere. So… tell me, where exactly are we going?”
Jasper held her gaze, weighing his words, swallowing something back. Finally, he sighed. “A friend. A good friend of mine. He’ll take you in. Protect you.”
Bella’s eyes went wide. “Protect me? From the Volturi? What is he, Superman?” She laughed. Jasper didn’t.
“As good as. He’s saved my life more times than I can count. Honestly, that man's the reason I’m standing here.”
And that was apparently all she was getting, because Jasper bent, packed up their things with efficient movements, and slung the bag over his shoulder.
“Let’s go.”
And so they did. Or at least Jasper did. Bella followed, still not sure if she was being rescued, babysat, or handed off like luggage that was in particular need of personal growth. At this point, however, she would take all of it. No questions asked.
Chapter 2: Soup For The (Almost) Immortal Soul
Chapter Text
She should’ve asked the questions, she thought to herself. God, she really should’ve asked the questions—because the second the trees opened up and that shack came into view, with Jasper’s very good friend sitting on the deck squinting into the distance while sipping what looked like a drink, the first question smacked right into her brain.
And then his eyes widened.
And so did hers.
Because, holy—she spotted it.
The eyes.
Red. Blood red.
And just like that, Bella’s mind did what human minds do best—it overruled every meager sense of logic she might've possessed on any other day, and instead, it went straight back to James and his teeth and the all out dread the man had inspired. The nightmare replayed in full technicolor before she even had the chance to blink.
Her feet locked up, and Bella almost stopped cold. But, even if Jasper had felt any of it, he didn’t slow. If anything, the pressure of his hand grew more insistent; steady and guiding as his gift pushed back and warmed Bella's frozen core around the edges. And with that steady hand on her arm guiding her forward, Bella supposed that that run down shack was indeed where they were heading. She glanced to the side; and there was something in the set of Jasper’s shoulders, the faint shift at the corner of his mouth, that told her he wasn’t alarmed at those red eyes. Quite the opposite.
Which only made it worse. Because while Bella’s pulse thundered and her brain screamed James, Jasper looked like a man glad to see an old friend. Or maybe something close to it. She couldn’t tell—she never could with him.
They continued forward. One step. Two. All the while her heart pounded and her breath was shallow and the leaves crunched traitorously underfoot. The wind lashed her face, cold and sharp, only adding to the chill that crawled up her spine as they got closer and closer to him.
And yet…
As Bella’s eyes swept over the figure on the porch, she had to admit that yes. This one was a man. A scary man. But also a very much a man indeed.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Older than most of the Cullens—maybe Carlisle’s age when he’d been turned— but with a strange warmth clinging to him, like the sun still had claims on his skin. Dark curls framed sharp, angular features.
Damn he was—
For half a second Bella’s brain short-circuited, caught between whoa and wow… until her gaze snagged back on those eyes.
No.
Just no. No, no, no. No.
Fortunately, judging by the look on his face as their gazes crossed for a split-second, the man on the deck seemed to share the exact same sentiment. And wasn't that just lovely?
The inside of the shack wasn’t much better than the outside. Still, once Bella’s eyes adjusted, she had to admit it wasn’t quite the death trap it had looked like from a distance.
It was the trees that made it worse. Too many of them, leaning in at odd, windswept angles, crowding the little house like they were about to smother it. She’d counted twenty-seven. And yes, she’d had enough time to actually count them, especially as for all Jasper's talk, the two besties seemed not to be on the best footing anymore.
Jasper had argued. Peter had flat-out refused to even let them in—and that was quite rude because the sun had reached its peak a few hours ago and the shadows were only getting longer and the air only chillier. Somehow, though, in the end as her teeth were on the verge of clamoring, Jasper had won. Bella couldn’t tell if that was because of loyalty, intimidation, or some ancient debt Jasper hadn’t bothered to explain. Whatever the reason, Peter relented. And Bella, watching it unfold, realized she’d never seen Jasper quite like this before—this odd mix of unyielding and sharp-edges, all topped off with a gravity that even someone like Peter bent to.
Now she sat at a chipped kitchen table, staring at threadbare curtains and peeling paint, listening to Jasper rattle off her supernatural life story in a clipped, reluctant tone. Peter leaned against the counter, unimpressed, but listening anyway.
And Bella couldn’t help but wonder just how deep those waters between them ran.
And, more importantly… whether they were deep enough to harbor her too.
By the time the conversation sputtered out, Jasper was—predictably—victorious. And much later, after she'd received a tour of the house, when Bella replayed the whole insane exchange in her head while taking a much needed shower in what was a surprisingly nice bathroom with exceptional plumbing, she realized there were five things she knew for sure.
One. The house was… nice. If you could see through the layers of dust, clear lack of some TLC, and odd knickknacks scattered across the two stories. Still, it was something.
Two. There was a history between Jasper and Peter that ran deeper than anything she could hope to build in a human lifetime. Whatever currents tied them together, she couldn’t see the bottom of them. And, somehow, she doubted if she ever would.
Three. Peter was a Captain, and definitely on a human diet. The lamps in his house—probably still from the last century, judging by the amount of dust raked on top—did nothing to hide the glow of his eyes. Not that Peter cared to hide it; if anything, he seemed to enjoy the way it unsettled her.
Three point five. Peter was, also, apparently, an alcoholic. Or whatever the vampire equivalent was. If such a thing even existed. That, she supposed, was something she’d find out over the coming days—or weeks. Or months, if this turned into her life now.
Four. Peter was, in human years, older than Jasper. Older, a bit taller, and far more unsteady, but—her earlier suspicions had been right—undeniably a man. A dangerously funny one, too. By the time he managed to wring out Jasper’s grudging confession about once trying to bite her, she was laughing so hard she was crying actual human tears. The man was jaded, yes, but sarcastic as hell, and if that just wasn’t her jam.
Five. She had a place to stay—for now. A creaky old shack in the middle of nowhere, with a vampire who literally snacked on her species. Cozy, right? It was something, at least. And, supposedly, according to Alice, all she needed.
…Wasn’t it?
“Do you want a tour?”
Bella looked from the vampire across the room toward the creaky stairs in tiny wooden hallway that looked just a bit too dark for human comfort, and back again. She bit her lip, trying to bite some time as she weighed the pros and cons. Con: she wasn't sure if she wanted to be that close to a red-eyed vampire. Pro: She would be living with the man anyway, so the con was mute sooner rather than later. On top of that, well, knowing where to retreat would be nice. Right?
Her eyes found Peter's. The man really didn't look impressed with her abundance of indecision... Perhaps, a tour would be a good idea indeed. And so, Bella nodded.
That was enough incentive for Peter to get it over with just as quickly. On a pace that was still human but on the verge of sprinting, Bella followed the man on his heels on the stairs.
“Here is the bedroom. Bathroom.”
Both rooms were startlingly normal—light walls, clean, even something close to modern. The kind of place you could almost imagine a real person living in. Almost.
“Towels in the cabinet.”
She nodded again. Words still felt risky.
Peter moved down the stairs just as quickly as they arrived there. He moved through the living room, that now as dusk had come looked even darker than before, before moving into the kitchen.
“Soup cans are in the pantry. Maybe some bread in the freezer if you’re lucky”
A diversified diet. How lovely.
She caught the gleam of his eyes under the overhead light; red enough to stir memories she had no interest in unpacking. James, cold hands, teeth too close. Her stomach tightened. She made herself smile, the kind that hurt at the corners and was dragged from her toes, as she thanked him.
And then she made a beeline for the shower, scrubbing away all the dust and grime of her travels, and hopefully some of her nightmares as well.
The first morning, Bella woke to a ceiling that wasn’t hers and a silence that was. The kind of silence that made you notice your own heartbeat. The house sighed around her—old wood, old air, older habits—and somewhere outside a hammer started up in steady, unhurried beats.
Peter.
Right. That was… her life now.
She lay there, staring at the hairline crack above the closet, and asked herself the question she’d been dodging since the Swan's residence door shut behind her, two days ago.
What am I doing here?
Not in Forks. Not at the Cullens’. Not even with Jasper, because Jasper had deposited her like very delicate, very explosive luggage on a porch and then vanished into the tree line with a squeeze to her shoulder and a “Be safe,” that felt suspiciously like Be safer than where I’m about to be.
Here, in a house that smelled faintly of dust and metal filings and some ancient, stubborn soap, with a vampire whose eyes were still absolutely-not-okay red.
Bella exhaled. She didn't know the answer, either. Then swung her legs over the bed.
Peter didn’t talk.
Which, fine. Bella could not talk too. She had years of practice in the ancient teenage art of strategic silence. And, honestly, given the general goosebumps that occurred the closer she came in his vicinity, she thought she might prefer it that way, too.
Their first interaction of the day was a nod. Maybe two. He came in from the shed in a worn shirt and a halo of sawdust (or was it something less charming?), set a mug of hot water on the counter like that counted as hospitality, and left again before the steam even settled. His footsteps were quiet and precise in a way that reminded her of Jasper—but where Jasper smoothed a room’s edges, Peter carved around them. Same dance, different music.
It was weird.
Weirdly… amicable.
Bella heated frozen bread in the toaster until it was almost toast again, then ate it standing at the tiny kitchen window, chewing like contemplation required carbs. She considered trying a conversation opener—“So, apocalypse pantry? What’s the plan there?”—and decided no. Not today. Not with those eyes. Not with the way the red seemed to hold, steady and constant, as if it had settled in for a long winter.
The hammer started again. Steady. Unbothered.
She took one of her books to the sun patch on the back steps and read the same page three times without catching a single sentence.
What am I doing here?
The answer to that question remained annoyingly absent.
Bella reached for her phone, thumb hovered over Alice’s name. The ache beneath her ribs wasn’t even subtle. Alice had said a week. Give it a week, Bella. Let the panic burn down to coal. Let your brain stop sprinting long enough to hear itself think.
“A week, Alice.” Bella said to the empty kitchen when she put the phone back in the drawer. “Fine.” The word tasted like resolve and freezer burn; very much like the soup she’d eaten for lunch and dinner.
On the second day, the thinking changed.
Not the subject—that was still the same song that repeated itself over and over again: immortality, the shape of her self, the draft list of Things To Not Freeze At Nineteen (see also: overprotective dads, unresolved futures, unresolved me). But the feeling did change. The shape of it.
For once, it wasn’t the usual sinkhole spiral. As she sipped her tea, water again prepared by a Peter that was nowhere to be found, her thinking was more… forward. Like someone had built a small fire in the part of her that made decisions and stepped back to let her warm her hands. She made lists in her head and didn’t dread them. She imagined a life and didn’t flinch at the most—alright, some—of the implications.
She read the first few chapters of her book. Then read those same chapters again, highlighting the interesting parts with a pen and marker, because she had that kind of petty luxury now—time, sun, a chair that didn’t creak too loudly. The light slanted across the porch, dust motes doing their best impression of little stars dwindling down to earth, and Peter’s hammer kept time from the shed.
His eyes were still red.
A little too red.
She kept waiting for the Cullens’ rhythm to assert itself—those neat hunting cycles they used to partake in every other day like family dinners marked on a calendar. That should've been today, or at least soon. Or, at the very least, his eyes should've changed a few shades. But Peter didn’t so much as glance toward the deeper forest with intention. And as the day moved on, Bella tried not to fixate on how comfortable he seemed with her scent saturating the rooms, or how incredibly bright his eyes remained. It should have unnerved her more. Instead, it just… filed itself under Things That Are Odd But Not Immediately Fatal, right next to Why does this pantry contain forty-seven cans of soup?
At lunch she opened a can (tomato), defrosted more bread, and ate in the doorway like a feral cat who’d learned manners. Peter passed once, carrying a coil of copper wire and a case of something she refused to investigate. He tipped his chin. She tipped hers. Treaty maintained.
By day four, routine had crept in softly and settled in her body like this had always been the plan; she was just taking the gap year she’d never known she’d wanted.
She woke early, laced her shoes, and ran the dirt track that threaded through the trees. The air was cold enough to bite; her lungs liked it anyway. Even the birds had returned—a good sign, or at least a less-vampire sign—and their chittering made song that could almost belong in a Disney movie. She ran until her thoughts landed in a manageable pile. Although the Bella now had the additional question in her arsenal of why the birds seemed to come back when Peter was still here.
Breakfast: frozen bread (now toasted with actual confidence). Lunch and dinner: soup with more bread. She didn’t ask how one man... vampire... Captain... needed this much wheat-based insurance. She simply became a willing beneficiary of the Bread & Cans Economy.
Afternoons belonged to the forest and the book and the sun, in rotating order. Sometimes she’d stand at the tree line and listen to the shed sing its metal song, wondering what Peter did in there beyond Not Talking and Not Hunting and Being Alarmingly Fine With Her Scent. The not-knowing should have gnawed; somehow it didn’t. It just existed, like the fact of the red eyes, like the way a new stack of towels appeared in the bathroom without a note or even a hint that the man had entered her room.
Evenings, she went to bed while the house was still thinking about it and stared up at the ceiling again. That crack above the closet became a map. She traced routes with her gaze—where she had been, where she might go, where she refused to freeze.
Vampire life. Forever. The words had always felt tangible. Like she could imagine what it meant. But now, when forever would actual be her reality in the near—or hopefully a more far away—future, the tangibility of it all had dissipated into thin air. Jasper had been right. Forever was a huge concept, and one that, every night, freaked her out more and more.
But, if Bella had a say (and she did, she decided, she absolutely did), she would change things before the change changed her. She would not become the girl who paused her becoming because a boy asked nicely. She would not carry other people’s fears into eternity like Renee tried to push grandma Dwyers’ heirlooms onto Bella.
She would learn. What she didn’t know. Probably something useful, something dangerous-but-ethical. She would keep her stubbornness and sand down the places where it turned into spite. She would talk to Charlie like an adult, and to herself like a friend. She would let Alice dress her for exactly zero weddings until she said otherwise.
And she would pick the parts of her that deserved to last.
The longer she lay there, the more the list rearranged itself into something both simple and enormous.
Adjust, she thought, and rolled the word on her tongue. Not erase. Not reinvent. Adjust. Shift the angle. Open the window. Let more in, let some out.
By the end of the week—seven sunrises, fourteen slices of morning bread, twenty-eight cans of soup, one man who still hadn’t hunted and still hadn’t spoken—Bella had her answer to the question that woke with her on day one.
What was she doing here?
She was changing to make room for whatever came next. It would take time, but for once—or, at the very least, for as long as she was stuck in this oddly quiet-but-companionable shack—the time was hers. And Bella? She was all in.
Chapter 3: A Beginner’s Guide to Annotating the Apocalypse
Chapter Text
Bella made the decision to call Alice out of nowhere. She’d been instructed to call after a week. They were hovering around that time, somewhat, and so, instead of hesitating and going back and forth over the decision like the old Bella would’ve done, she just called. Still, judging by the noise on the other side, she hadn’t been quick enough.
“Edward—” Bella winced at Alice’s distant shout.
“Uh, Alice?”
“Hey, Bella! So good you’re calling—”
Something loud clashed on Alice’s end of the line. Two seconds passed, before Alice’s voice came again.
“Just give me a sec!”
Another large clash of stone thundered in the background. Bella’s eyes widened in surprise, her hand tightening on her phone. Something wasn’t going well.
A few more crashes, one loud “Jasper!” and some whooping from Emmett later, peace slowly returned to the line. Bella’s confusion, however, didn’t dissipate.
“Alice?”
“Yeah, Bella?” Her voice came bright and gleeful through the phone.
“Ah, you’re back?”
“Yes! It was just a small blip on the radar—” somewhere far away, Bella heard a scoff before Alice rapidly talked over it, “but it’s all fine now! Just… maybe it’s better if you don’t call anymore.”
Bella blinked.
Oh.
The world tilted slightly, the soft morning light coming through her bedroom window suddenly incredibly harsh. The highlight of her week was swiftly eradicated. Lovely. It shouldn’t have stung. It did anyway.
Alice heard it, apparently, because her voice softened around the edges. “Bella?”
“Yeah?”
“How is it… over there?”
Great question, if only Bella knew the answer. She mulled it over, taking her lip between her teeth as she did so. Eventually, there was only one reply that came to mind.
“Good, I suppose.” She watched the backyard because it was easier than finding the right words. September was coming around, and it showed in the leaves and the way the sun took its time to warm the place in the morning.
On Alice’s end, there was a shuffle. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” The corner of Bella’s mouth tugged up despite everything. Peter stepped out of the shed, sleeves shoved up, carrying a wrench like it didn’t weigh anything at all; Bella supposed it didn’t, at least not for him. He paused mid-path to address a squirrel on the fence post, gesturing as if he was striking a particularly intense bargain with the little guy. He did that when he thought no one could see—made small bargains with the world. The tug became a smile. “Better than expected, honestly. P—”
Alice broke her off mid-sentence. “That is great to hear!”
Bella let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh and wasn’t not one, either.
“I miss you, Bella.” A small pause. “We miss you.”
“Miss you too, Alice.”
Bella swore she could hear Alice smile on the phone. It made her smile, too.
“We’ll see each other soon.”
“How soon is soon?” She tried to make it a joke, to laugh away that they’d left her here. All alone. Without a clue when she would see them again.
“Soon.”
Bella nodded into the space of her—no, Peter’s—bedroom; she got the message. She didn’t press, didn’t ask. Isabella Swan had known the Cullens long enough by now to know that every other question would not be answered—at least, not now. And, judging by Alice’s instructions not to call again, probably not ever. At least, not as long as the threat was still out there.
That was okay, right? Wasn’t it? And if it was okay, why did it feel so incredibly shitty?
Before Bella could place a finger on any of it, Alice broke the silence that had settled quietly between them. “Go shopping, Bella. Get the apples. And wear the pink top. If you unbutton the top a bit more than usual, you might even get away with it.”
Bella’s brows furrowed with confusion, but she knew better than to question Alice. They spoke for a bit longer about nothing at all before the noise in the background on Alice’s end increased again.
“I gotta go, Bella.”
“Sure. Be safe, Alice.” From them. From the Volturi.
“You too, Bella.”
Bella didn’t have the chance to ask if Alice meant the same, because, with a click, she was gone.
Two days later, Bella finally understood what Alice had meant with the pink top. She’d come back to the shack—home?—with plenty of fresh produce, an oddly good mood, and three self-procured bottles of whisky.
Yeah. She did that. She’d actually managed to acquire some booze. And she’d probably had her pink top, a lonely local shop owner, and Alice’s tips to thank for that. One less button and a big smile, and she’d gotten it all, without even the mention of an ID.
Bella was oddly proud of herself, and had patted herself on the back for good measure.
Not that Peter thanked her for any of it. On the contrary, the man seemed even more annoyed than anything. But Bella gave as good as she got, and, somehow, they settled in something of a routine.
A routine, that from now on, included talking.
And, well, wasn’t that exciting?
Her birthday came and went without any grandeur.
Peter didn’t know it was happening, and Bella didn’t fault him for it. How could he? She hadn’t said a thing. On purpose.
What surprised her was the lack of a note or call or text from the Cullens. No sweet voicemail from Alice. No dumb meme from Emmett. Nothing. And that—well, that stung a little. But then again, what had Bella expected?
Her family, however, did reach out. During her daily run in the forest, Charlie called.
“Happy birthday, Bells.” His gruff voice scratched through the line.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Bella smiled up at the treetops. They were a family of few words, and that was okay. So, when Charlie actually made the effort to small talk, it only warmed her heart.
“How are your travels?”
“It’s good Dad. Currently camping in the middle of nowhere. Thinking about taking up fishing.” It weren’t lies per se. She had been thinking about taking up fishing. She’d seen a store selling old knickknacks including fishing gear in Arnegard, and hey, any additional hobby would be welcome at this point.
“Becoming an outdoor girlie, huh?”
Bella smiled as she heard the pride in his voice. “Yeah, think you’ve influenced me a bit more than I’d anticipated.”
Charlie laughed, short and to the point. “That’s good to hear. Just don’t tell your mother, she would have my hide.”
That drew another smile. “Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t. She’s too busy with Phil, anyway.” Or anything else, because, well, she hadn’t reached out for her birthday, yet. And judging by previous years, she probably wouldn’t either.
The other side of the line remained quiet, but it was companiable. It was Charlie who broke the silence.
“Bells?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“You know I love you to bits, right?”
Bella smiled. “I do, Dad, and love you too.”
Charlie smiled through the phone. “Good, that is good.”
They said their goodbyes. Bella promised to eat well and call more often.
She slid the phone back into her pocket and kept running, because, somehow, moving forward seemed like the only option.
Twelve. The stupid vampire thought she looked twelve.
Twelve?!
Yes, Bella was still officially in her teens. But she was nineteen. Nineteen. And, apparently, she looked old enough to some men that she was able to buy hard core liquor. So, what the hell was wrong with this man that he’d compared her to a small girl.
She was still fuming, replaying the conversation from a few hours ago.
Peter, unsurprisingly, was oblivious to it all—working religiously in his shed, doing God knew what.
Why did they even need a backstory? She couldn’t exactly say, “Hey, I’m holed up with this supernatural guy who doesn’t age because supernatural royalty wants me undead, and I’m not quite ready for that yet, so my other supernatural family stuck me with an ex–army man who now functions as a babysitter—yes that supernatural guy; that’s why I sometimes come shopping here.” Obviously, she couldn’t say that.
At the moment, though, she was getting oddly close to doing exactly that.
So, instead of following the worst impulse, she chose a lesser (but still not ideal) one.
Day drinking.
The solution to all one’s problems—or a hobby, if your name started with a P and ended with eter. And although it wasn’t technically allowed, Bella didn’t care. She wasn’t technically allowed to do lots of things—including becoming a vampire. Still, that was in her future too. So what did she care?
And with that frustration, she took one of Peter’s fancy drinking glasses from the wooden plank that was nailed (surprisingly) straight to the wall and filled it to the brim with whisky. Twelve-year-olds weren’t allowed whisky. She was very much not twelve.
Bella took a bigger-than-recommendable sip and swallowed.
“Shit.”
It was vile. It burned all the way down, then settled warm in her stomach like a small ember. Weird—but pleasant, if you ignored the aftertaste.
It didn’t fix the frustration. It still felt like a thousand needles lived under her skin, and she had a compelling need to demolish something with her teeth. Twelve.
She took another sip and shivered.
What now?
She looked around the kitchen, swirling the drink as she’d seen Peter do. Why—who knew. At this point, she didn’t care.
Then her mind offered the answer; reading would help. Reading always did.
She took the glass, followed the narrow hall to the little room he’d over-sold as a library. Generous word, library. Broom closet with aspirations and a decent window. One wall of neat spines, a chair that had never been sat in properly, a box of nails that definitely belonged in the shed.
She’d grazed this shelf already. Tonight her hands wanted the comfort of paper she hadn’t met yet. When she shifted the chair, a scuffed edge peeked out. Another bookcase, one that was half-hidden, older, and was full off sun-faded spines and incredibly soft corners.
“Well, hello,” she murmured, setting her glass on the too-large coffee table crowding the too-small room.
Her eyes roamed the new treasure. She drew out a book that looked well worn and loved. When she opened it—on a page that had been dog-eared—her heart skipped a beat.
Notes. The page held notes.
She quickly skimmed them. The handwriting was slanted and narrow and old school, with elegant loops in places that Bella was sure hadn’t been taught in at least a century. It covered many of the margins, arguing the content, or illustrating it with experience or additional questions.
It was beautiful.
She perched on the arm of the chair and read. The book itself was pompous in places, sharp in others. The annotations pushed back, prodded, made a paragraph confess more than it wanted. She didn’t agree with all of it—some takes were very Peter: clever, a bit cruel, allergic to soft landings—but they were honest in their insistence.
Of course he wouldn’t like her finding this.
Peter didn’t like much that suggested he had feelings. Or a heart. Or, apparently, incredibly emotional insight.
Bella hummed a tuneless tune as she turned page after page. Nope. He wouldn’t like this at all. And wasn’t that promising?
She hit a paragraph on the existential crisis that grief drags through every stage and, before she could stop herself, slid the book onto her knees. She reached for the pencil tucked behind her ear—habit—and wrote. Not over the other handwriting; alongside it. A conversation, a back-and-forth. That was the idea. She drew a line from a smug sentence to the margin and added, Counterpoint: grief doesn’t make saints, but it doesn’t automatically unmake them either.
As she crossed her t’s and dotted her i’s. She looked up from the book, observing how the low dust motes were illuminated by the setting sun. Then, she reached for her glass and took another big sip.
Peter didn’t matter. Not now. Peter was the asshole who thought she was twelve, and come hell or high water, she’d teach him otherwise.
Because she was Bella Swan. A person. A nineteen-year-old person, getting ready to be like this forever.
She underlined the last sentence, steadied the pencil, and wrote one clean line beneath both their margins.
“Can one grieve without dying, and if so, how does one grieve forever?”
She didn’t know the answer, but part of her hoped he would.
Her hair stuck to her neck and forehead; the sweat on her skin had cooled to match the air. Lungs burning, she was already mentally halfway into the shower—three steps inside the treeline, shack in sight—when Bella stopped dead.
Because there, in the grass beside one big glass and one shot glass, was Peter.
With a squirrel.
Bella, of course, had to see where this was going.
He was talking too softly, eyes red in the sunlight—not the neon burn from when she’d arrived, but not exactly faded either. Another thought she refused to follow. He was murmuring…to the squirrel.
The animal didn’t move.
Naturally, Peter solved this by nudging the shot glass closer. Bella had to hold back the scoff that threatened to leave her lips. The vampire and his hospitality.
Then, Peter moved again. Bella held her breath as he lifted his own glass and toasted the air. The squirrel inched toward the shot like it was actually positively inclined toward getting shitfaced with an apex-predator.
For half a second, something uncharacteristic tugged at Peter’s mouth—almost a smile.
Then the squirrel twitched, went full suspicious-neighbor, or more like a prey that heard a predator coming for him, and vanished.
The change was visible. Peter’s face sealed back to stone. He tossed his drink back in one big gulp.
Bella stayed among the trees a beat longer, heartbeat syncing with the hush of leaves, then turned for that shower.
On her way in, she made a quiet note to herself: after the steam and soap, she’d come back with peanuts—and cosplay Snow White to try to have a conversation with the little guy he couldn’t skitter out of.
Maybe.
“Another one?”
Bella leaned against the back-door frame and arched an eyebrow at Peter. She’d been trying that more and more—standing up to him or, at the very least, trying to understand him. He showed her no mercy; she returned the favor. Unfortunately, the man didn’t look impressed.
“Had to sample the merchandise.”
“Had to?”
Peter took another swig, his gaze sliding from her face to her hands—one of his books, a pen tucked along the spine. Seeing that, he drank again.
“Yep. Had to.”
Bella slowly cocked an eyebrow.
“Someone,” Peter said, exasperation dripping from his voice, “decided to start annotating my good books.”
Her teeth found her lip. Unfortunately, that someone was clearly her. Oops.
“Yeah, see? She looks guilty already.” He took another sip, shoved a hand through his curls, and set the bottle on the deck with a bang. “And now my good books—the ones I used to read for fun—have all these deep thoughts in them.”
Bella’s face did its own contortion. Really? That was his argument? He had to be deeper in the whisky than she’d expected.
“So you needed whisky to cope?”
“Yup.”
The next question crowded her tongue. Why. Why was he so hell-bent on doing everything in his power to be like this? She swallowed it, thinking better of it.
She stood there a while, watching Peter watch the woods. Birds stitched their evening song across the trees as the night’s cold settled around them. Eventually, her human body forced her to retreat; the shivers running down her spine came too often to ignore.
She sighed and turned to go back inside. “Goodnight, Peter.”
For a second she thought she’d imagined it, the way his low voice followed her—softer than the whisky. “Night.”
She had one foot over the threshold when he added, almost to the trees, “Leave the notes.”
The door clicked shut as the warmth gathered in her chest.
Sometimes, in the early mornings, as she observed the hairline crack above the closet, Bella wondered.
Wondered about her choices, about how she’d gotten here—tucked under clean, fluffy blankets that felt too nice for the house they were in, or the host they belonged to.
Soon enough, the wondering shifted to how she could’ve been so stupid. So trusting. So her.
It always circled back to the same place: would they call? Should she? And every time her thumb drifted toward the buttons on her phone, she pulled it back like she was burned.
Because that line of thought was dangerous. And though she missed Alice, and Emmett—and even Jasper—with her whole chest, she wouldn’t put them in more danger after they’d already risked everything for her.
The ache was real. The old life glowed in her mind on those early mornings, taunting her with everything that she thought she wanted but couldn’t have.
She set the phone face down.
Then she pulled on her shoes and went for a run—out into the cold air and the quiet trees—letting the past ring on without her, and finding, to her surprise, that she was okay right here.
More than okay, really.
In the afternoons—now that the trees were going gold and the cold had settled in for winter—they sometimes shared the same space. Inside, it was warm; the old fireplace did its job better than it looked.
Bella drank tea. Peter drank alcohol.
And both would read. Bella annotated. Peter scoffed at whatever she’d added.
It didn’t happen often, but when it did, the room filled with small, steady sounds—pages turning, the crack of a log, the soft clink of glass. Heat curled off her mug into her fingers. His eyebrow did that thing; she pretended not to notice.
It felt like home.
More than she’d hoped for. And certainly enough, for now.
At night, Peter did God knew what. Bella most of the time even doubted if the man was home, because even the steadying hammering from the shed would die out as the stars graced the sky. It was silent. It always was.
Which was exactly why Peter’s footsteps one night stood out so sharply.
Bella held her breath as a floorboard creaked under his weight. She knew the layout of the house by heart now; by the sound of it, he was in the kitchen.
A cabinet clattered.
He was drinking. Unusual for this particular hour.
She breathed as little as possible. Didn’t dare to move for the fear that it would take away from her ability to listen. Because in a routine where there were little to no surprises anymore—a comfortable stalemate where no one asked the other to reveal more of themselves, but no one offered any additional information either—this was a goldmine of information.
And Bella craved it.
She craved to know his thoughts. To know what had hurt this man, because he was hurt. You could see it in the slant of his shoulders, the reluctance to talk, and, of course, how much he drank.
But he didn’t offer much—or anything, really. And Bella didn’t ask.
So, when deep in the night, Peter changed routine, Bella listened.
Listened to the sound of the bottle emptying.
Listened to how Peter swore low under his breath every time he had to get up to get another one.
And listened, as he uttered one heartbroken name.
“Charlotte.”
Chapter 4: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Attachment
Chapter Text
The epiphany arrived somewhere between the second and third forkful of pesto pasta that had absolutely no right to taste that good. It hit mid-chew, like most of Bella’s realizations did—quietly, absurdly, and with more force than was honestly necessary.
And the thing about epiphanies? They were meant to be shared.
Which posed a small problem, considering her housemate-slash-landlord-slash-unintentional… whatever they had become, rarely spoke more than five words a day since—Well, no need to overthink that. Most importantly, there were barely any words, and if they were present, most of which were grunted. Others were curses.
It had been a lovely time here, really.
Still. She’d made her peace with that. Or rather, ignored it on purpose. Which was how she now found herself pushing her chair back—the legs scraping against the floorboards with a sound that could summon ghosts—and marching herself into the living room.
Peter had claimed half the sofa. Feet propped up, book in hand, posture somewhere between kingly and aggressively unbothered. The firelight flickered, catching the edge of his jaw, the line of his throat, the dark blue hoodie that did things to his complexion Bella refused to think about too hard.
She stood there a moment too long, cataloguing. His thighs. Arms. And... his general solidity. Then her eyes made the mistake of roaming upward and freezing right there at a cocked brow.
“See something you like?”
His grin was pure trouble.
Bella felt her face betray her immediately—heat rising to her cheeks—but she rolled her eyes anyway. Hopefully convincingly. “You wish.”
He sighed, marked his place in the book with a fold (a fold, the monster), and set it down with a thump. “So, what’s up?”
“Why would something be up?”
“Because,” Peter said, leaning back into the couch like it was the utmost comfortable place to be, “the last time you cornered me in this room, you decided to reopen a neatly bandaged hole in my heart.”
Bella winced. Okay. Fair. That conversation had been… not her best work. She’d meant empathy; she’d delivered anything but. But hey, she tried. And that had been the most important bit, hadn’t it been? Bella, at the very least, sincerely hoped so.
Still, back in theh present, there was only one way forward.
“I’ve had an idea,” she announced.
Peter stared. One beat. Two. Three. “And?”
“And,” she said, smiling with all the confidence of a woman who had absolutely none, “I’m here to share it with you. Ideas are best when they’re shared.”
His mouth twitched. “Are they now?”
“Yes.” She was firm on that. Some things deserved communal enthusiasm, and this particular pesto-inspired revelation was one of them.
He sighed again.
Bella narrowed her eyes, taking one step towards him. “You are such a pessimist.”
“I prefer concerned optimist.”
Yes, of course, he would. The title fit him disturbingly well. Bella tilted her head, considering it. He looked like a man who’d been concerned for a century and counting, optimism worn thin but still… there. Somewhere far beneath the surface, so deep down that even Peter himself had forgotten it existed.
Peter clicked his tongue, pulling her from her thoughts. “Your idea?”
Right. The idea.
She inhaled, bracing herself. “We need a Christmas tree.”
The silence that followed could’ve frozen over the entire pacific ocean.
Then, Peter opened up his mouth and came back with one infuriating word.
“No.”
Her brows shot up. “No?”
“No.”
“That’s it? No?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because?!”
“Yup. Better get used to it.”
Bella felt her pulse spike somewhere between exasperation and caffeine overdose. “And what if I don’t?”
Peter leaned back further, hands folded behind his head like a man entirely at peace with being infuriating. “Don’t try me.”
Bella smiled. It was slow and sharp and she felt the vindication a look of surprise crossed Peter’s face.
“I will.” And, for once, she actually meant it.
Because if she’d learned anything in this house—between soup cans, silence, and whatever this book annotating struggle of them was becoming—it was that she could make her own traditions. Even if she had to drag a vampire, kicking and brooding, into the Christmas spirit.
One way or another, this place was getting a damn tree.
The magazines started appearing in mid-November, like an inside joke the universe had decided to tell only her.
They showed up on Tuesdays—always Tuesdays—stacked neatly beside her mug of tea, their glossy covers gleaming with impossible domestic optimism. Ten Ways to Make Christmas Magical. DIY Tinsel for the Modern Minimalist. The Best Cookies for Surviving Family Gatherings (or Avoiding Them Entirely).
Subtle, they were not.
At first, Bella thought Alice had found a way to haunt her post. It felt like something she’d do—magically deliver curated inspiration with a side of judgment. But these magazines were... different. Too human. Slightly outdated. One even had a bent corner and smelled faintly of sawdust.
Which meant one thing.
Peter.
The man was sneaking magazines into her morning like some kind of silent, brooding Santa. And, well, that was a surprising turn of events, wasn’t it?
She didn’t have proof, not technically, but she knew. There were no other suspects within several (read: far too many) square miles. And given Peter’s ongoing campaign to pretend the word Christmas caused him physical pain, this quiet act of sabotage was—honestly? Kind of endearing.
Weird, but endearing.
And hell if Bella wasn’t curious about what exactly he was doing on Monday nights. Because he was definitely doing something. After months spending her days at this cabin she knew his routine by heart, and Mondays were always—always—the same. He’d vanish into the dark with that effortless, predator stillness, gone before she even finished washing up after dinner. And every Tuesday, there they were: a fresh stack of magazines, freshly steeped tea, and the same unspoken truce.
She never asked. He never said. That was how they worked.
Still, she caught herself wondering if he actually bought them. Imagining Peter at a gas station newsstand, flipping through Good Housekeeping with that unimpressed, permanent frown, maybe asking the poor cashier about cookie recipes—it nearly made her choke on her tea.
Their cabin—yes, their cabin, she’d stopped pretending otherwise—was starting to look almost festive now. Pinecones by the window; ones she’d procured herself, because she wasn’t allowed to go out. Still, she’d even caught herself humming more than once, which had earned her a look from Peter like she’d committed treason.
And yet, she kept doing it.
It was part of the fun, wasn’t it? Antagonizing that home grown vampire of hers.
For better or worse (and on some crankier days, definitely worse), she’d started calling this life hers. The soup, the silence, the sawdust, the vampire who communicated mostly in grunts. All of it, absolutely all of it, was hers.
And for the first time since Forks, that didn’t feel like settling.
She wasn’t waiting anymore—for Edward, for immortality, for anyone’s permission to start living. She was just… here. Making a life that fit, even if it came with bite marks and old furniture.
She turned the page of the latest magazine, a small smile tugging at her mouth. Step twenty of her grand, unspoken plan for self-actualization: tinsel.
Because yes, she’d face the Volturi someday. And yes, she’d eventually let someone turn her into the next iteration of Bella Swan, Eternal Edition.
But not yet.
Not before she learned how to make this little house—this strange, quiet place with its stacks of magazines and its emotionally constipated landlord—look like home.
And if that meant forcing Christmas onto an ancient vampire one issue of Better Homes and Gardens at a time?
So be it.
Bella screamed into her pillow.
Actually screamed.
It helped approximately zero percent to calm any of it. Although, as her tears stopped for just a second, Bella imagined it might be just good enough to drive Peter out of the cabin. Which was exactly what she needed right now.
Because, hell.
Fiancée.
Not “friend,” not “neighbor,” not “innocent bystander who keeps stealing your soup cans.”
Fiancée.
She flipped over and screamed again, because honestly, what else was there to do?
How the hell had he gotten her to agree to that?
Sure, they needed a cover story. And yes, she’d shot down the whole niece idea with appropriate horror, because no. Absolutely not. But fiancée? That was a jump. That was Everest. That was several emotional states she hadn’t signed up for.
She pressed the pillow harder against her face. Muffled the next yell.
All she’d wanted were a few string lights. Maybe a Christmas tree. Definitely that bowl of oranges. Normal holiday things—human things.
And in return, Peter wanted a fiancée.
A fake one, obviously. Just words. Just for show.
Except…
When he’d said it—standing toe to toe, close enough that she could see the flecks of silver reflected in his eyes, the kind of close that made breathing a logistical challenge—Bella hadn’t thought about the lie. Or the label. Or the very long list of reasons why this was completely unhinged.
She’d thought about him.
About how he’d looked when he’d said it, all calm certainty and steady voice. About how, despite everything—despite her smell, her heart, her human mess of a life—he’d treated her like an equal. Yes, she was a bother. But she was worth his time, nonetheless.
And that? That was refreshing.
So when after the banter, the push and pull, Bella had actually hesitated, it had taken her completely off-guard. Because her hesitation hadn’t been about herself. It had been about him. About whether anyone would believe it, with the age gap that could legally be described as “historical.” About whether it would break his cover, or embarrass him, or just… make things weird.
He’d brushed all that away in a single look and a question if she—yes the inconvenient human—felt alright with it all.
…
And she, idiot that she was, had said yes.
Yes.
Which, honestly, she shouldn’t have.
Hadn’t she just spent months refusing Edward’s proposal? Actual proposal? The real deal? With rings and eternity and way too much pressure? And now here she was, agreeing to the same word from a vampire who couldn’t even be bothered to speak more than a few words at the time to her.
Apparently, logic had taken the week off.
But this was Peter. And this was different.
Because this was fake.
And if her heart had done a very inconvenient, very noticeable skip when she’d stood close enough to feel the warmth that shouldn’t exist under his shirt—well, that was irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.
Nothing. At. All.
Bella buried her face in the pillow again and let out one last yell, quieter this time, the kind that fizzled into a laugh halfway through.
Then she went still, caught between fury and the strange, stupid flutter sitting right there in her chest.
By the time sleep finally dragged her under, her throat was raw, her pillow was a crime scene, and her dreams smelled like pine, smoke, and trouble; specifically the kind with red eyes and a sarcastic mouth she couldn’t seem to stop provoking as if she didn’t love every single second of it.
The next trips to Arnegard were easy, and slowly but surely, the house was coming together. And Bella loved every second of it. No one was asking questions, not yet. But they were happy to help her.
Every errand felt like another piece of her fitting back together. Hardware store. Grocery. That tiny general shop that smelled like coffee grounds and floor polish, where she’d somehow managed to talk the owner into selling her a string of Christmas lights meant for the window display.
Now the living room glowed faintly golden. The dining table had its permanent bowl of oranges—a detail she’d decided made her officially “a person with taste” if you believed those, now, well-read magazines.
It was starting to look like a home. Her home.
Technically their home, but Peter hadn’t… really earned it yet. He hadn’t helped. Hadn’t commented on any of it, which was weirdly disappointing. No sarcastic remarks, no muttered “waste of electricity.” Just silence. And an absence that cut a bit deeper than Bella had expected it too.
So, yes. In her mind it was her cabin now. Or at least, her Christmas decorations.
Most days, Peter was in the shed. Doing... something.
It had the energy of a secret project, or maybe just an avoidance strategy. She’d catch glimpses of him at dinner sometimes—book in hand yet no pen in sight, posture lazy, eyes unreadable—and then, right after dark, he’d vanish again.
Gone until dawn.
Bella told herself she didn’t care. She told herself that multiple times, out loud even. Then, after two weeks of near-radio silence, she started to realize she was lying.
There was only so much time one could spend running, reading, or hanging fake tinsel before curiosity set in like a fever.
So she did what any emotionally stable woman hiding out with a centuries-old vampire would do.
She started plotting.
Of course, she started plotting.
The moon hung fat and indifferent above the trees when she finally put the plan into motion.
If you could call sitting on the deck in the middle of winter a plan.
Bella had layered herself into a makeshift survival outfit: two sweaters, a winter jacket, and a duvet she’d stolen off the bed. The whisky in her hand had gone cold, but it still burned enough to count.
It was stupidly beautiful out here. The sky was all silver breath and stars. The kind of cold that made the air feel alive.
And she was waiting.
For him.
For Peter.
Not that she’d ever say that out loud—it sounded too much like pining, which was definitely not what this was. She just… had questions. Logical ones. Reasonable ones.
Like: where did he go every night?
Why did he come back smelling faintly of city smoke and metal?
And, most pressing, how long could she keep pretending this was just curiosity when she’d dragged an entire duvet outside for the privilege of seeing him walk up those steps?
Bella took another sip of cold whisky and tightened the blanket around her shoulders.
She was ready.
For answers. Or deflection. Or, anything at all, really.
Or maybe just to see his face again, if she was being honest with herself.
Which, let’s be real, she wasn’t.
Peter’s whistle was the first thing she heard, coming from the dark tree
Bella didn’t see him yet, but she didn’t need to. Some part of her—annoyingly intuitive and increasingly unhelpful—just knew.
She sat up straighter in the deck chair, the duvet still wrapped tightly around her shoulders like a barrier against the night. The sky stretched wide and black above her, stars scattered like dust, the cold whisky in her hand untouched.
So, when he came closer, and she saw his grin reflected in the star light, Bella shot him a grin that, if she would’ve been sober, would’ve been a bit too open for her liking.
Peter didn’t comment on it. He just raised a brow, mouth tugging into something far too dangerous to be called a smile.
“You know,” he said, voice easy, soft-edged and Southern, “you could get a nasty burn spending this much time under the full moon.”
He just stood there after that. Waiting.
Bella burst out laughing. Couldn’t stop it. She didn’t even try. It ripped out of her chest in one loud, undignified gust. She half-stumbled to her feet, duvet trailing behind her like some tragic cloak.
“You fucking asshole,” she gasped between laughs.
Peter tilted his head like she was fascinating, like this was a performance worth witnessing.
“You incredible muppet,” Bella continued, taking a step forward, heat rising up her neck even as the cold bit at her ankles. “Seriously. Why are you like this? And where the hell have you been?”
His eyes scanned her face, dragging slowly from her hairline to her necks. They lingered—not long enough to feel like a tell, but just long enough to catch the shift in her own traitorous pulse. Then they dropped to the bottle on the deck beside her chair.
“Honest answer?” he asked.
Bella let out a long, tired sigh. “Please.”
Peter smirked. “Genetics. And having Jasper for a brother. It does things to a man.”
She narrowed her eyes and stepped closer. “You’re—”
She didn’t finish. Her feet caught in the duvet and the deck creaked dangerously as she pitched forward.
She didn’t fall.
Peter caught her.
His arms came around her with that impossible speed—cold, solid, and most of all, careful—and suddenly she was pressed against him, wrapped in safety she hadn’t asked for but somehow accepted without question.
“Careful, Isabella,” he murmured, his breath brushing against her skin.
Her brain short-circuited. Of course it did. The drawl. The proximity. The way his fingers didn’t immediately let go.
And, apparently, she still had no self-preservation instinct, because her mouth kept moving.
“Oh, so you do know who I am,” she muttered.
He didn’t answer at first. His brow arched instead, one eye narrowing like he was waiting for her to admit to something.
Bella squinted back at him. “Y’know. Since you’ve been evading me like I’m contagious or something.”
There was the barest pause. His face stayed mostly unreadable—but his throat moved. She caught it. Just barely. The shift. That little tell of his she’d come to learn.
“Evading’s a big word,” he said.
“Doesn’t make it any less wrong,” Bella replied, eyes locked on his.
He didn’t argue. Just helped her upright, fingers still working the folds of the blanket with a gentleness that made her want to scream. Or cry. Or both. The whisky kind of muddled it all, really.
Once she was steady, she took a breath and said it.
“Peter, if you want me to go, just—say it. I can leave. I can go back to Forks or wherever else Alice has mapped out. I can—”
The sound that followed wasn’t human.
A growl tore through the quiet night, low and primal and wrong in the air. For one startled moment, Bella thought the trees themselves might crack.
Peter’s eyes burned.
“You’ll do no such thing,” he said, voice like gravel and command and something deeper. “I’ve been... occupied. And I’m sorry about that. The Charlotte thing was—” His jaw twitched. “Complicated.”
He looked her over then. All of her. Head to toe. Like confirming she was real, standing there. Like maybe he’d missed her, even if he hadn’t said so. He tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
And still, Bella hesitated. “Peter, we don’t have to do this. The fiancé thing, the story—we don’t—”
“You’re wrong, Swan.”
His voice stopped her cold.
“Wrong?”
He nodded, reaching into the pocket of his coat. “I got you something.” His words were quieter now, but no less steady. “It’s not much. It’s not real. But I figured, if we’re doing this…”
He trailed off.
Then pulled out a small box.
Oh.
Oh.
Her heart flipped over.
A ring. A fake ring.
He opened the box with a kind of careful reverence, his fingers surprisingly gentle. There was no dramatic click, no spotlight. Just a simple diamond catching the faintest sliver of moonlight. It was small. Understated. And oh so elegant.
Too perfect.
Too her.
“I know this whole thing isn’t real,” Peter said, “and definitely not normal. But you’re my fake fiancée. And I figured it was only right.”
Bella stared. Couldn’t speak.
“Isabella-I-unfortunately-don’t-know-your-middle-name-Swan,” he added with a twitch of a grin, “would you do me the honor of fake marrying me?”
Bella blinked. Once. Twice.
“Marie.”
“Marie?”
She nodded. “That’s my middle name.”
Peter huffed a laugh. Then took her hand; it was cold and calloused and yet it just felt right.
“In that case,” he said, “Isabella Marie Swan, would you do me the honor of fake marrying me?”
And standing there in the cold, under the stars, wrapped in a duvet and sarcasm and all the complicated things neither of them would name—Bella knew the answer.
Clear as the ring glinting between them.
“Of course.”
Chapter 5: A Finder's Keeper
Chapter Text
The ring spun slowly on her finger as Bella padded barefoot between the kitchen, the living room, and the dining table—her unofficial triangle of holiday chaos. It wasn’t glamorous. There was flour on her shirt, something suspiciously sticky on her sock (which, as a consequence, had landed unceremoniously in the sink), which was joined by a pan soaking there as well that was probably going to need divine intervention to recover. But she didn’t mind.
Apparently, prepping for Christmas took effort. Who knew?
She’d done holidays before, sure. Some of them decent. Most of them… quirky. With Renee it was Thai takeout on paper plates and windchimes jingling in the background—“Cooking is oppression, Bella, we’re reclaiming our evening.” With Charlie, it had been fish. Always fish. “I catch it, you cook it, that’s teamwork,” he’d said once with such joy and conviction that Bella couldn’t pretend to want anything else.
A smile graced her lips at the memories.
She should call him. She needed to call him.
Which was how she found herself five minutes later, crouched in front of the fireplace, one hand absently poking the flames with a charred stick and the other holding her phone to her ear.
It only took three rings for the man in question to pick up.
“Bells!”
“Hey, Dad,” she said, smiling straight into the fire. She could picture him somehow—leaning back in his recliner, probably still in uniform, badge slightly askew, remote lost somewhere under a pizza box.
“How’re you doing, kiddo?”
“Good,” she answered quickly. Too quickly. She winced and softened her tone. “Good. Really. I’m just, uh, prepping dinner. Little Christmas thing.”
Charlie let out a laugh that sounded like gravel and pride. “Ha! Caught yourself a fish yet?”
Bella rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “Not yet. But I’ve been thinking about buying the proper supplies.”
That wasn’t technically a lie. She’d been to the shop—well, “shop” was generous; it was more like a shed that sold optimism and fishing hooks. The owner had noticed her ring, of course.
“Your fiancé made a good choice, Miss,” he’d said with a wink.
Bella had laughed so hard she’d felt it in her abs afterwards. And the worst part of the entire adventure? She hadn’t disagreed.
And the man wasn’t the only one; everyone she’d met so far in Arnegard had given one comment on another on the ring on her finger. After the fifth mention—from the butcher nonetheless, she had to give Peter credits where credits were due: a cover story had, indeed, been necessary. Very much so.
The line on the other side remained quiet for a few seconds longer, before Charlie’s voice sounded once more. “You sound happy, Bella.”
Her poker nudged a glowing log, and the fire flared brighter. “That’s because I am, Dad.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
The flames licked at the wood, and as her eye caught the twinkle of the tree that graced the corner, Bella wished she could explain it—to her dad, to herself. That she missed home but couldn’t return. That she’d chosen wrong, or maybe just too soon. That this life wasn’t what she’d imagined, but it was what she’d built. And now here she was, knee-deep in consequences, a fake engagement she couldn’t even tell her Dad about, and freshly fallen snow, pretending it was all part of the plan. It wasn’t, but she’d make it work anyway. There was no other option.
Yeah. Clearly, she didn’t say any of that. Instead, the words that left her lips were basic but fitting and she hoped the emotions behind it could convey it all.
“Merry Christmas, Dad.”
“Merry Christmas, Bella.”
And a merry Christmas, it would be. At least, if her cookies would come out of the oven okay.
Bella had planned this for weeks. Not obsessively. Though, if you asked Google’s search history, it might disagree. She’d braved the Arnegard general store five times too many, stocked up on questionable spices, and decided that tonight was the night. She was doing the unthinkable: breaking their routine.
The sacred, unspoken, entirely Peter-coded non-routine of cabin life.
The kitchen looked like a war zone—flour dusted the counter, a pot of mulled blood (yes, blood, she had braced five minutes of butcher-marriage-interrogation for a reason) simmered quietly on the stove, and her first batch of cookies had already gone from golden-brown to “artistically charred.” But it was fine. This was fine. Because this wasn’t about perfection.
This was about giving back.
Peter brought her tea. Magazines that pretended Christmas was a religion, even when he seemed to hate it himself (a fact that Bella herself sincerely doubted, but hey, she would guess she would find that sort of thing out tonight, Right?). But most of all, he’d given her what she had craved so much in forks but never received: space to exist without being handled. He let her pace, annotate his books, and occasionally commit sacrilege on his margins. But what had she given him?
Headaches, probably. Sarcasm. The occasional unwanted conversation about emotions and his ex… wife, mate, something.
Still… today, when Peter was out for work, she’d left a note in one of his books. Wolves Inside You; it had been the second time now she was reading it, but the first time she felt comfortable enough making notes. And note making she did. She carefully wrote some half-joke about wolves (“one drunk, one sober—guess which one wins more often”). She thought it was hilarious. He probably would too, though he’d never admit it out loud.
And maybe that was the point. He saw her, even when she was hiding behind the humor and flour and the faint smell of burned sugar. Maybe it was time she tried to see him back.
So, she stirred the blood, added the wine, checked the cookies, and told herself this counted. Maybe not much. But it was hers to give.
The mulled wine—blood—was a success. Or, at least, as close to a success as anything could get in a cabin halfway buried under snow and secrets. Peter wasn’t even hungry, not really; his eyes had been freshly red for weeks. But something about the ritual seemed to please him. Or maybe it was just the alcohol. Either way, Bella had refilled his glass three times now, and he hadn’t complained once.
Which was saying something.
She smiled to herself as she went to pour a fourth. This time, she grabbed a bottle of actual wine too and filled her own glass. Just a splash—for courage, mostly.
By the time she returned to the table, the air smelled like cloves and citrus and something warmer beneath it all. She handed him his glass with a small nod and folded herself back into her chair, one foot tucked under her leg, staring at the flickering line of candles she’d inexplicably lit. There were so many candles. Overkill, probably. Romantic, definitely not.
Peter leaned back, legs stretched out, expression unreadable even to Bella’s ever better trained eye, but amusement twinkled in his eyes. She was sure of it.
“Merry Christmas, Bella,” he said, raising his glass.
She smiled, clinking her glass against his. “Merry Christmas, Peter.”
The fire in the next room cracked, warm and alive, and the air filled with that strange hum of almost-comfort. Bella’s cheeks were warm and she would swear it was the warmth. Or the alcohol. Or the courage. Preferably, it was all of them, really. And slowly but surely, the quiet between them started to feel like an invitation.
“So,” she began. Then stopped. Then she brought the glass to her lips and took such a large sip that she inwardly scolded herself for not immediately bringing the bottle over. Because, clearly, this was a terrible idea.
Peter’s eyebrow rose, that telltale half-smirk tugging at his mouth.
“So,” she tried again, “what do you actually do for work?”
The sound he made was halfway between a scoff and a laugh.
“Really, Bella? You needed wine for that one?”
She let out a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a cough. “Apparently, yes.”
He laughed, so deep and unguarded that it filled the entire cabin and sank somewhere low in her stomach before she could stop it.
“Fair enough,” he said, swirling the glass in his hand. “Although I’m not sure you really want the answer.”
See? She’d known it. But this was Peter, and curiosity, in the confinements of this weird cabin that she called home, was basically her religion at this point. She wanted to know. Needed to know. What the so-called sober wolf did when it came up for air.
“Try me,” she said.
His eyes caught the candlelight—red with little flecks of gold that shouldn’t have looked warm but did. He held her gaze like he was testing something, then said it flatly, like it wasn’t the strangest sentence she’d ever heard.
“I’m a finder.”
Bella blinked. “A finder?”
He nodded. Still deadly serious. “A finder.”
Okay. Cool. That made absolutely no sense at all.
She took another sip of wine, leaned forward into the glow of too many candles, and squinted. “Care to elaborate?”
Peter’s mouth curved into a grin that looked far too pleased with itself. “Not particularly. But since you went to all this trouble for the evening, I might be amenable.”
“Might?”
He winked, and she swore her heart did something traitorous. “Might, indeed.”
“And what exactly does this generosity depend on, oh mighty one?”
That earned her another laugh—quiet this time, low and amused. “Oh, I like that nickname.”
“I’m sure you do,” she muttered, watching as he stood, set down his glass, and wandered toward the corner. He picked up the book—the one she’d been scribbling in earlier.
“So?” she prompted, watching him flip it open exactly where she’d left her notes.
He grinned down at the page. “Depends on what kind of wisdom you’ve been leaving me tonight.”
Oh, no. That tone never led anywhere good.
And then he started laughing again. Really laughing. The kind that shook through his shoulders and cracked something warm open in the room.
He crossed back to the table, reached for the cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of whisky that looked older than she was.
“I’m gonna need the drunk wolf for this one,” he said, pouring a generous splash into his glass.
Bella lifted her eyebrows, half-dreading, half-thrilled. “All right then. Explain away, Finder.”
And explain, he did.
At the end of it all, Bella had now Peter’s good whisky in her wine glass, and she was half convinced she was going to meet her very own drunk wolf tonight, too.
“So, let me get this straight,” Bella said, squinting over the rim of her glass after ten minutes of the world’s vaguest job description. “You find people.”
“Yeah.”
“For money.”
“Yeah.”
“How much money are we talking?”
He shrugged, that infuriatingly casual tilt of his shoulders. “Depends.”
She took another sip of her wine, pretending to study the glass when she was actually stalling. “Depends on what?”
“On who I’m finding.”
Bella nearly choked. “No shit, Sherlock.”
Peter grinned, it was unrepentant and smug, before he wiped a stray drop of whisky from his nose with one finger. It was a nice nose, she thought distractedly. Sharp in profile. Probably illegal somewhere. Still, he didn’t seem like he was going to say more.
“So,” she continued, waving her glass like a gavel, “very James Bond of you. All mysterious and morally ambiguous. Love that for you.”
He didn’t answer—just reached for the whisky and poured another splash into what used to be mulled blood. Bella tried very hard not to stare at his hands. Broad. Veined. The kind of hands that looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.
“But who hires you?” she asked, voice quieter now. “Who are your clients?”
That was the first time his expression shifted. The grin slipped, just slightly, replaced by something more careful. He looked down at his drink, took a sip. Poured some more whisky for good measure. Then he took another sip.
“Peter?” she pressed, softer this time.
“They’re private,” he said finally. “Most of the time.”
“Private,” Bella repeated, because she wasn’t sure if she liked that answer.
He nodded. “Humans, mostly. People trying to find other people. Some owe money, some run from it. I vet the jobs. Make sure there’s no… ill intent.”
It was a good answer. Reasonable. He’d already explained most of that earlier, but this time it felt heavier. And much more serious.
Bella nodded anyway, setting her glass down. “So, no vampire overlords requesting your services, then?”
That’s when he stopped drinking.
The silence that followed was sharp. Too sharp.
Bella’s heart dipped somewhere unpleasant. “Peter?”
He didn’t look at her.
Oh.
Oh, great.
This was—yeah, this was definitely not good.
Chapter 6: Unwanted Confessions to the Poor Shopkeeper Who Didn’t Ask, and How (Not) To Spiral About Them in the Parking Lot
Chapter Text
Bella groaned as the first rays of light needled through the curtains. The drunk wolf had indeed been needed, but man, he could’ve toned it down a bit. Her head hurt.
Between the two of them, they’d finished Peter’s expensive whisky. She’d drunk more than she ever had—not that that had been a particular difficult feat. Luckily, she remembered every beat of last night with awful clarity. Which meant whatever poison they’d been pouring hadn’t done its job; it hadn’t let Peter soothe himself or hide behind it. Not even close.
Whichever way she turned it though, last night had been a success. They’d edged closer. Peter had stopped avoided her, and he’d opened up. He’d told her how he’d served the Volturi and now took the occasional job to keep up pretences. But as her head had been tucked against his chest and his hand had rubbed slow circles on her back deep into the night, both of them buried under the softest, warmest blankets Bella had procured, one message had come through clear as the night itself.
If Jasper had done his job right, the Volturi wouldn’t be able to find them. Which meant they would reach out to Peter. Especially since her shield apparently made Demetri—the Volturi sniff-dog, as Peter had called him with an eye roll—useless.
As if her life wasn’t complicated enough.
The pounding behind her eyes was not helping.
She rolled over. On the little wooden nightstand Peter had given her a few weeks ago sat a glass and a bottle of water.
She exhaled softly.
Something warm split open in her chest at the gesture. He’d taken one look at her almost tripping over her own feet trying to get back inside and just picked her up, cradling her close.
And yes, Bella had argued. And yes, Bella had lost. And yes, secretly, Bella had been more than fine with that because his chest was solid and he smelled like pine and smoke and it just felt right.
And, apparently, after she’d been drooling on her pillow, he’d also brought her water.
For a second, Bella wanted to swear she would never let the man go. And then that second turned into two and reality landed. She would have to let him go. One way or another—tomorrow or a few years from now—the Volturi would come knocking.
And she would become a vampire.
And then she…
What would she do then?
Bella grabbed the second pillow, mashed it over her face, and screamed. Really screamed.
Because, yes, she was becoming more and more the person she wanted to be. Self-assured. Passionate. Free from the confines that teenage years tended to put on people. She was changing, for the better.
But, unfortunately, this was also becoming more and more the situation she wanted to be in. Here, under the fluffy blankets and stuffy books with written history in its margins, she wanted to stay.
And that? That was a recipe for disaster… and, even worse, disappointment.
The warm glow of the previous evening lingered in the living room; the embers still glowed in the hearth and the smell of pine and cinnamon still clung to the walls. Bella sat down on the couch with her half-empty bottle of water and a steaming cup of tea while she watched the tree and the little lights she had strung along it. As her eyes were dragged down the string, they landed on the mountain of packages underneath.
Huh?
As if she’d summoned Santa Claus herself, Peter entered from the back, a stream of cold air swirling around her feet.
“Seems sleeping beauty has finally awoken,” he said, but it lacked any bite. Instead, his eyes, now flecked with gold and holding a seemingly endless depth, roamed over her form.
Bella, coward that she was, took a large sip of her tea. “What are those?” she asked, nudging her head toward the pile of presents.
Peter laughed, his hand moving through his hair, dislodging some of the now-melting snowflakes.
“I believe those are yours.”
Bella’s eyes widened, and she immediately sat up straighter.
“Mine?”
The smile in his voice was evident. “Yup.”
Within a heartbeat, Bella was sitting in front of the tree, and indeed, all the presents—both big and small—had her name written on them. In a familiar handwriting. The small one and the letter were from Charlie. And the rest… Alice. And that was amazing. And so out of her comfort zone. And—
“Huh…” Bella’s voice finally caught up with her thoughts as she looked over all the names. “Where are yours?”
From behind her, Peter scoffed as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, I don’t need any presents. I can buy plenty for myself.”
Bella put her hand over his. It was cold, only just warming now that he’d been inside long enough to not be freezing. She squeezed, not saying a word. Because what was there to say? “I am sorry your friends only send gifts to me”? He would laugh in her face and just mention he didn’t want Alice’s books at all. As if he didn’t deserve more. As if this vampire didn’t deserve the world. Her core coiled, her veins flaming with the need to act, to do something. But this was Peter. And he could fight his own battles. So instead she squeezed his hand and leaned back against his chest.
It felt like forever, the way they stayed there. And then Peter’s hand moved down to her waist and squeezed, and the magic around them slowly disappeared into thin air. His voice was closer when he spoke.
“Don’t you want to open them?”
Bella bit her lip, not making a move.
Peter put Charlie’s gifts in her lap for her.
“Open it. You deserve it.”
Bella smiled, exhaling as she let her head rest against his chest for a moment longer. The tea was long forgotten when her fingers moved to open the envelope. She was curious, after all.
At the end of the afternoon, Bella’s headache had entirely disappeared. Between unpacking gifts—ranging from Charlie’s heartfelt letter to fishing bait—Peter had kept her fully hydrated. He hadn’t said a word about it, just handed her new tea every half hour with a grin that took her breath away.
The presents from the Cullens were typical. Rosalie had sent her a bracelet; it was beautiful and intricate, accompanied by a little note that she was glad Bella had saved her brother and that she was sorry for what was happening to her now. It had been oddly touching.
Emmett had given her a Switch with Mario Kart, with a little note in his huge handwriting that he expected her to beat him when she came back. She had squealed in delight; Peter had merely arched an eyebrow.
On the other hand, Carlisle and Esme had sent her true parental gifts: a set of fluffy pyjamas with matching socks for the winter months, and they’d even included a little note that she was missed.
Bella’s laugh had echoed off the walls at Jasper’s gift, both a history book from the Civil War and a matching set of fluffy pyjamas and socks in a men’s XL.
For educational purposes, teach the bastard something from us. —Jasper
Peter, obviously, had scowled. Bella hadn’t let it go, and now they sat together on the floor in matching red-and-white striped pyjamas and socks, with a steaming mug of tea and the last two remaining presents between them.
Peter rolled his eyes when he spotted her smile, but grinned at her nonetheless.
“So, which one is next?”
Both presents looked like fun: one small square box and a letter, all neatly labelled by Alice.
Without hesitating, she picked the letter.
Dearest Bella,
First: I’m sorry.
For all of it.
If I could put that in glitter and underline it with a marker if I weren’t currently pressed for time, I would. I am so, so sorry for how we left you. One minute it was “road trip with Jasper,” and the next minute you were being… deposited. (Yes, I know. Understatement of the century.) You did not deserve an unceremonious drop-off in the middle of nowhere, even if my visions said you’d land on your feet.
You have every right to be angry with me. I hope you will save that conversation for when we’re in the same room again, because I fully intend to let you yell at me before I bribe you with movie nights, clothes, and coffee.
Now, the practical part, because you know me: apologies are important, but so is not dying.
Things are still… uncertain here. Our mutual Italian problem hasn’t gone away. Aro hasn’t decided anything yet, which sounds good, except it really isn’t. “No decision” is just another kind of knife waiting to fall. That means being careful—extra careful—about anything that could point them toward you. Or toward the cabin. Or toward Peter.
So, here’s the plan (don’t roll your eyes, I can feel you doing it):
• Ask Peter to get rid of your old cellphone. Completely. Smashed, buried, ceremonially burned—whatever makes him feel better. I’m sure he has some ideas… otherwise, Jasper seems to be happy to contribute to the brainstorm session.
• Use the new phone instead. We’ll treat it like a very tiny, very dramatic lifeline.
• Every time there’s a full moon, that’s our window. It’s not much, but under the circumstances, it’s sadly all we have. I’ve already programmed my numbers in for those days. You don’t have to remember anything; just turn it on and let it ring. If I don’t pick up immediately, I’ll call you back.No other calls. No surprise texts. No “I just wanted to hear your voice” in the middle of the month, no matter how much either of us wants that. I’ve stopped actively tracking you; it’s too risky in case anyone would look into my mind. But, as much as I would want it to be, the future isn’t a switch, Bella. Sometimes I still see pieces, echoes. Little flashes of things that might be. And sometimes those flashes are you, laughing. Or standing in a doorway I don’t recognize. Or arguing with a very tall, very stubborn man with red eyes and terrible communication skills.
Those are the ones that make me smile.
You deserve that, you know. Happiness. The ordinary kind and the ridiculous kind. Even when you’re not sure you do. Especially then. (Yes, I am talking about you. And Peter. Don’t make that face.)
As for him: I am sorry we dropped you into his life like that. Jasper trusted him with you, and Jasper doesn’t give that kind of trust away. Peter is his oldest friend, and despite his best efforts, he is not as terrifying as he wants you to think. He isn’t fond of me yet, true, but I have centuries. I can be very patient. I will wear him down in the end.
Give him a big hug from us when you can get away with it. Tell him we miss him. Tell him I said he’s doing a good job, and that if he argues with you about that, he’s wrong.
You are my best friend, Bella. I miss you so much my chest aches with it sometimes. I want nothing more than to come get you, to drag you out for a sleep over and make you try on something impractical and pretend none of this ever happened. But for now, this is safer—for us, but most of all, for you. Jasper and I are drawing a very careful line in the sand. Full moons only. Ask Peter if you have any questions. He knows more than he lets on.
There might be a date next year where we can see each other again. I can’t promise it yet; every time I reach for it, the future wobbles. But it’s there, shimmering at the edge of things. Hold onto that with me, okay?
All the love in the world multiplied with every future I can see,
Alice.PS. In case you’re wondering; Charlie is doing well. We’ve kept our distance, but Jasper and I go to Forks every now and then to check in on him. He is proud of you, Bella. As are we.
Without saying a word and with tears in her eyes, she folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. Then she opened the second present: a beautiful new pink phone, with a little sticky note on it in, again, Jasper’s handwriting.
Set it up for her, Pete. The usual way.
“You know what that means?”
In front of her, Peter’s brows were furrowed as he nodded. “Yeah, I do. I’ll set it up tonight. When is your first call?”
Bella cocked her head for a second. “How do you know?”
The corner of his mouth tugged up. “I’ve known my brother longer than today. These routine calls with new SIM cards are nothing we haven’t done before.”
It took a few seconds before the words sank in. Then Bella nodded, biting down on her lower lip, annoyed that he knew and she didn’t, annoyed that it all felt decided already. Again.
Peter looked at her. Really looked. “So, by when do you need it?”
She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “The full moon.”
He nodded, his eyes flicking quickly toward the window as they took on an odd glint. “That’s Monday. New Year’s Eve.”
Bella was ready to open her mouth and probably say something stupid—something needy, something too much—but Peter continued before she was able to.
“I’ll be gone Monday, Tuesday. I’ve got a job with Demetri, and unfortunately, I need to show up before they show up here.” He paused, looking at Bella, who unfortunately did not have a single clue how to even start replying to that sentence. “So I’ll set it up. You’ll be safe here.”
Bella merely nodded. The room suddenly felt cold, the fire Peter had started earlier in the day doing nothing against the chill creeping into her bones. She nodded again, because apparently that was all she could do, then packed all her presents into her arms and moved toward the stairs.
She almost imagined Peter’s voice sounding hurt as she rounded them.
“Where are you going?”
She smiled sadly, even though he couldn’t see her. “Upstairs. I need to be alone for a while… All this… it did a lot.”
Her heart beat in her chest once, twice, as she stood in the little hallway. She couldn’t see Peter, couldn’t even begin to think about what he was thinking. She just needed to go. To be alone. To cry. To not have him watch her fall apart.
She ran up the stairs, not caring anymore about Peter’s reply, one foot after another carrying her swiftly toward her bed, where she threw the presents onto the duvet before burying her face in her pillow.
She wanted Alice’s hugs. She wanted Emmett’s smile. She wanted her dad and everything that just came with being home.
And worst of all, she wanted Peter.
New Year’s came and went without fireworks and without a kiss—not that she’d wanted one, anyway. Instead, there was just snow and a large bottle of champagne with a little note and far too much thinking to be healthy. The next few months continued just like the previous ones. Bella ran—pounding the same routes into the frozen ground until her lungs burned and her legs ached. She went grocery shopping, pushing rattling carts down too-bright aisles. Hauled the necessary alcohol for Peter in clinking bags up the cabin steps. Even went fishing once the ices had thawed sufficiently. And, most of all, she read books in her fuzzy pyjamas. Even bought new ones, the cardboard smelling sharp and clean when she cracked them open at the kitchen table.
And every full moon, she called Alice. Those calls were never long, fifteen minutes tops—but they were everything. She could talk freely, speak about everything and anything under the sun. Mostly, Bella listened to Alice. Not for a lack of trying on Alice’s part, though.
They had called five times, and every time, the topic of the broody vampire had come up. Alice was needling, just like she liked to do. But there wasn’t much to tell, really.
Just because she wanted Peter didn’t mean she would be getting him. Bella knew that. Here was a very attractive older vampire with a heart of gold, and she was, well, herself. And in her current state, that meant she was a liability to him. To Peter.
And Peter, as much as he’d come out of his shell over the holidays, had remained distant, as if he knew that.
He made her tea, left notes in the margins of the books he was reading, yes. But he also kept working—the Volturi project had taken up more time than expected, and afterwards the work seemed to swallow him whole. Three days per week he was out of the house now, and the others he spent the majority of his time in his shed.
It sucked. But Bella hadn’t just left it there.
Some nights, though, she was lucky. They would sit on the deck and look at the stars; discuss everything from the beginning of the universe to the slippery slope of morality, all with a bottle of whisky or rum safely stashed between them. It was safe. It was stimulating. And the alcohol helped to loosen part of the strain that Bella sometimes imagined existed between them. The whisky also helped Peter to hide; although he drank less and less these days. All in all, it was peaceful. They would just sit there and stare, bathe in each other company.
And she loved every second of it.
So, she’d made a plan. Because whatever her routine was now, it was far from enough. She didn’t just need more company, she needed something to do. Something active. Something that used her brain. Something that involved that brooding elusive vampire with red eyes that every now and then held irresistible hints of gold.
So, yes, a plan was made. It had taken some convincing (read: three months of consistently wearing the asshole down), but she was unofficially employed by a certain vampire; having her very own laptop, on which she did research for Peter’s human cases (read: going through too many financial data to count and stalking CCTV camera footage). He had been adamant she would hate it. “If you really want to help, you can do some old-fashioned desk research,” the man had quipped two months ago, when he’d finally cracked.
Predictably, she’d loved every minute of this, too.
This was it now. Her life. The last parts of her human life.
It was nice.
It was domestic.
It was everything she could’ve hoped for when she’d arrived at the cabin.
And, somehow, it still wasn’t enough.
“Where is that fiancé of yours?” The sun stood high in the sky as the shop clerk looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Y’all still engaged, right?”
Bella smiled, though she wasn’t sure it was convincing. “Of course. He’s busy with work, that’s all.”
The man hummed. “Hermit, that one.”
That pulled a genuine laugh out of her. “Yes, he is. Doesn’t mean I love him any less.”
“With that smile, that’s not hard to believe, Miss.” He smiled at her, showing a missing tooth, “Have a good day.”
Bella took her bags and moved to the car to drive back. There, in the sweltering August heat, the words she’d just uttered without a second thought finally sank in.
Love.
Love.
She’d just casually declared her feelings for Peter, and hadn’t even noticed it.
…
For a second, her thoughts ran rampant. And then it came all to a halt.
She loved him. Loved the man who brought her drinks and wrapped her in hugs under the stars when the world became a bit too much. Loved the man whose past had scarred him. Loved the hermit and his habits.
She loved him.
Every little bit of him.
And although she knew he’d become fond of her too—his smile couldn’t hide everything—she was sure this was crossing a line. They hadn’t even been on a date yet. Hadn’t even kissed. Hadn’t even—
Bella’s hands came down on the dashboard. Hard.
Why was this so hard?
She was a strong and independent—well, as independent as she could be—woman. She could handle this. She could take a first step. She could—
She stopped herself mid-thought. She’d been here for almost a year now, and in that year he’d gone from a gigantic asshole who’d seen her as an unfortunate pet he needed to keep alive with cans of soup to… something of a friend.
He could start to see her as something more, right? And even if not, she could make the first move. He wouldn’t push her away—at least not literally. Yes, there was a (very large) chance he would let her down, but he would do it gently. He wouldn’t be cruel. This was Peter, for fuck’s sake, the man who had successfully domesticated a squirrel last month to drink whisky from a shot glass in lieu of an “adequate drinking partner.”
Not that his words had stung, or anything.
Bella inhaled. Yes, she could do this. She was going to kiss him. Before the end of the year. She would shoot her shot before she became a vampire.
Because, yes, she yearned to feel those full lips on hers, to feel that small stubble of his against her cheek as he ran his hands down her spine and through her hair like she’d dreamed about.
He was so handsome and—
Bella exhaled, slouching down in the driver’s seat, forehead hitting the steering wheel with a soft thud.
Fuck.
She was, incredibly, unconditionally, and most of all, irrevocably fucked.
Chapter 7: An Incomplete Catalogue of Bad Omens
Chapter Text
Three weeks after her unfortunate revelation that she did, in fact, contrary to all popular belief, medical advice, and basic self-preservation, love Peter Whitlock, the unthinkable happened.
He kissed her.
Yeah.
He kissed her.
He kissed her.
He kissed her.
Her brain, being deeply unhelpful at the best of times, chose to replay those four words on a loop while the rest of her tried to remember basic things like breathing and standing upright.
Because it hadn’t just been a kiss. Of course not. Peter never did anything the simple, emotionally healthy way.
He’d advanced on her in their kitchen. One second she’d been there, doing something extremely normal like existing near the counter and wiping up some of the flour that was left from her bread-baking-adventure, and the next he was right in front of her. Close enough that the air between them felt too heavy and much too electric all at once.
He’d tipped her chin up with one cool finger, holding her gaze like he was checking every thought she’d ever had for something. And then, in that low, careful voice he only used when things actually mattered, but still not in so many words, he’d told her she could say no. That he would stop. That he would do whatever she wanted, and he would listen.
And if Bella hadn’t realised it before, she knew it for sure now.
She was incredibly, unconditionally, and most of all, irrevocably in love with him.
There wasn’t really room for second-guessing after that. Her body made the decision before her brain could even catch up.
She’d fisted her hands in his shirt, said something she couldn’t remember for the life of her, and pulled him closer, right into her space, until their noses almost brushed. There was still the tiniest sliver of distance left—one breath, perhaps half a thought, and, maybe, a hair’s width of common sense.
God, how she wanted him to cross it.
Then he made a sound, low and rough and wrecking, and closed that last bit of space like it had never really been there at all.
Peter kissed her like she was everything and anything all at once—like he’d been holding himself back for a very long time and had finally, finally decided not to. His mouth was careful and hungry at the same time, a contradiction that somehow made perfect sense on him.
And Bella?
Bella couldn’t get enough.
She leaned in, chased the press of his lips, let the world narrow down to the feel of his hands and the taste of forever and the ridiculous, impossible fact that this was happening. To her. With him.
For once, there was no Volturi, no deadlines, and absolutely no future versions of herself that haunted her dreams.
Nope. There was just Peter Whitlock, kissing her in their stupid kitchen as if she meant the world to him.
And she never wanted it to end.
For the next few days, it didn’t stop.
In the warm August-into-September sun, Peter was never far away. He kissed her against the cabin walls. On the couch. Cornered her after a run, hauling her up against his chest and pinning her gently between him and a tree.
Always careful. Always checking in. And always wanting.
And somehow, it was like he could read her mind. He kept a respectable distance. They kissed—yes. A lot. But nothing more.
It wasn’t that Bella didn’t want more. Gods, she would love to cross that line. But this was new. And novel. And the kissing was so perfect it felt almost criminal to complain. Why rush a good thing when the good thing involved Peter’s mouth and her total inability to think straight?
Most of the time their kisses were hungry, like they were both starved and had finally found whatever they’d been missing without knowing it. And, maybe, they had.
Their routine just... fit. Peter brought her tea in bed. He started making her dinner—apparently vampire sense of smell was good for more than threat assessment, because the man made the most absurdly amazing roasted garlic potatoes Bella had ever tasted.
And although Bella really wanted to stop and argue that she could do all of this herself (hello, functioning adult here), she didn’t. Because it felt good. To be taken care of. To be seen and considered, like she, just as she was, was worth the effort.
It was new. It was amazing. It was intoxicating.
And it was all painfully, beautifully clear at the same time. This wasn’t like Edward. She wasn’t disappearing, sanding off pieces of herself to fit into someone else’s idea of “enough.”
If anything, the more time she spent with Peter, the more she found herself. And this wasn’t some newfound nonsense that had magically appeared just because they were kissing now. No. Peter had always treated her this way. Like she, exactly as she was, was already good enough.
And she only loved him more for it.
Of course, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses. Bella’s inability to lock a door was a recurring point of contention. As were the phone calls Peter seemed to be getting every other day.
He played them off like they were nothing, but she wasn’t blind. The buzz in his back pocket and a... boyfriend? Partner? Fiancé?!... who suddenly got distracted mid-kiss was hard to miss.
But still, every time, he’d silence the phone. Shove it away. Focus back on her like nothing else existed.
And, yeah, he really was perfect, wasn’t he?
Bella could barely wait to tell Alice. So when Peter got distracted with something downstairs, Bella took advantage of a few quiet minutes and snuck up to her room. She pulled out her homemade calendar, flipping through the pages to check the date of the next full moon.
She bit her lip when the answer stared back at her: only a few days before her birthday this year.
Shit.
But as she heard the telltale creak of the front door of their cabin, a smile tugged at her mouth. She could wait it out. Enjoy this time by herself, enjoy their little secret.
Just them. Her and Peter. Peter and her.
And that made it even more special, didn’t it?
About a week after the phone calls had first started coming in, Peter finally decided it was time to let Bella in on the secret. She knew it was work, yes, but she’d at the very least hoped for a different client.
Spending time with the Volturi was risky, and Peter seemed to be doing more and more of it. But she trusted him—it had been months since they’d been working together, and she was still human. Still alive.
That didn’t mean she liked it though, but by the looks of it, neither did Peter. He sat across the table from her, feet stretched out under him, his maroon eyes focused on her.
“Hopefully, it’s done after this one,” he said. “We already rounded up five of them—or, at least, I led Demetri to them and he took it from there. There are a few more out there, and then it’s done.”
Bella could do nothing but stare back at him. Stare at the rigid set of his jaw, the way the twinkle in his eyes changed to something serious, before settling on his hands... which definitely led to some other, less pure, thoughts.
Without hesitating, Peter pushed his chair back, walked around the table, and set his hands on her shoulders. The weight was heavy and comforting, but Bella had no room to really appreciate it, as he bent down and kissed her neck, sending a whole new set of pleasure through her.
“Don’t worry,” his breath ghosted against her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “I’ll only be gone for three days. Then I’m back, and all of this is done, and you can help me again with the CCTV and the other jobs.”
How her voice stayed steady, she didn’t know. As the words left her mouth, it didn’t matter either. Because Peter’s lips had descended on her neck and jaw, and nothing else existed except for him.
Peter was going to be gone for three days. At least, that’s what he’d whispered against her mouth as he’d pressed her into the front door.
“Three days, darling. Then I’ll be back.”
Bella had intended not to be one of those women from her old paperbacks who clung and whimpered and said things like come back soon in breathy tones.
Unfortunately, ideals tended to crumble when faced with the reality of Peter’s hands on her hips and his mouth moving over hers like he had all the time in the world to ruin her composure.
So, yeah. Bella had developed a newfound respect for Jane Austen heroines. Who knew.
When Peter finally managed to extract himself—not for lack of effort on her part to drag him back in by his shirt, thank you very much—she did not go quietly.
She followed him to the porch. Then to the edge of the steps. Then stood there like a lovesick puppy, waving for far too long after he’d already disappeared into the trees.
It took an embarrassingly long moment for her brain to reboot and register what she was doing. When it did, she groaned and smacked her palm to her own forehead.
From the corner of the deck, one of Peter’s squirrels let out a sharp squeak.
“Yeah,” Bella thought solemnly, staring at the empty tree line, “I miss him too.”
The last rays of sunlight that evening were fine.
Better than fine, actually. Warm light pooled across the kitchen table, catching on the rim of her mug, turning dust motes into lazy little galaxies. The cabin felt soft around the edges, like it always did when the day was winding down and Peter’s laugh still echoed faintly from somewhere in her memory.
With dusk, it slid from cozy into... a bit more creepy.
The trees outside thickened into a dark wall. Shadows pressed closer to the windows. The wind picked up just enough to make the boards creak in a way that would absolutely not pass any horror-movie safety checks.
The squirrels, at least, should’ve balanced it out. Usually, she could see at least one of Peter’s unofficial drinking buddies loitering on the deck rail or sprinting along a branch while she cooked. Tiny, fuzzy chaos gremlins. Reliable in their presence, if nothing else.
Tonight, though, the railing was empty.
No squirrels. No chittering and fighting about those idiotic nuts. And definitely no accusing little black eyes judging her cutting technique.
Bella frowned at the window, spatula in hand. Weird.
They were nowhere to be found.
“Probably a bad day,” she muttered out loud, flipping her food. “Maybe Peter gave you too much whisky. Lightweight.”
The silence, luckily, didn’t answer. The unease prickled anyway.
Still, dinner got made, dishes got done, and the sky bled out into full night. The cabin creaked and settled the way it always did. It was probably all normal. Probably.
Just... her normal came with vampires and mind readers and an ex-boyfriend with boundary issues. So her baseline for “probably fine” was not exactly trustworthy. It was the kind of thought that might make a person, hypothetically, think about locking a door.
Which she did.
Bella paused at the front door, fingers settling on the deadbolt. Peter’s voice tugged at the back of her mind, fondly exasperated. For fuck’s sake, sweetheart, at least pretend you value your continued existence.
She rolled her eyes, but turned the lock anyway.
“Just in case,” she said to the empty room. The click rang louder than expected.
She slept. There were no nightmares. No surprising wildlife invasion. And, surprisingly, no impromptu Volturi visit. Instead of dreams there was just a warm, quiet stretch of nothing.
All in all, Bella had slept better than she’d had any rights to. So, when she woke up the next morning, sunlight was spilling through the curtains and her body felt surprisingly fine. Well rested, even.
Huh.
She lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling, and decided it had probably been all in her head. Cabin in the woods. Boyfriend/partner/fiancé/whatever (?!) out of town. Missing squirrels. It was the classic paranoia combo.
So, she went about her day like she’d planned. Utterly and exasperatedly normal; doing what any self-respecting, temporarily unsupervised human would do. She went for a run, pretending she wasn’t listening for footsteps that weren’t hers. The trees stood tall, squirrels invisible but presumably hungover, and the path she and Peter had beaten into the woods felt as familiar as the creak of the cabin floorboards.
Back home, she showered the sweat away, made herself an aggressively nice lunch—eggs and toast and fruit and way too much tea. It was delicious.
After, she curled up on the couch with one of Alice’s books—at least, she supposed they were the one's Alice had dropped in the name of 'self-improvement', because it really didn't read like Peter's usual style. The cover promised something about “Five Beautiful Things and How To Become Your Best Self,” which sounded exactly like the kind of thing her house-trained vampire would mock on sight.
Bella flipped it open anyway.
Within three pages she was giggling into her mug, imagining him actually doing the five things exercise that was so intricately described.
Call out the things of beauty. Appreciate them. Positive reinforcement breeds positive thoughts.
The book suggested it like Peter had actually followed it.
On second thought... he might have. Potentially. In his own deeply unhinged way.
Squirrels would probably top the list. Then whisky. Then Jasper. Maybe the cabin itself. Especially the porch.
And now...
Her fingers drifted to her lips as she thought back on the feel of his mouth on hers, the way he’d said darling like it was a word he’d just chosen for her.
Maybe even her.
The idea made her chest go warm and tight and a little ridiculous. She shut the book before Alice’s relentlessly perky tone could see her getting sentimental and climbed the stairs for a shower.
Hot water. Steam curling off her skin. Eyes closed as she replayed the last week in dangerous detail: Peter’s hands braced on either side of her, the rough scrape of his jaw, the way he always checked in, always gave her that one last second to pull away and the way she never, ever took it.
By the time she padded to bed in an oversized shirt, her muscles were loose and heavy, the world narrowed down to clean sheets and his scent still lingering faintly in the fabric.
She did not lock the door.
Of course she didn’t. The one night something might actually be wrong, she’d done it. The next night, lulled by routine and the smug victory of having proven herself paranoid, she slid right back into old habits.
That made it all the more irritating when she woke to someone standing in the middle of her bedroom.
It wasn’t the creak of the floor that did it. The cabin was old and loud and had never cared about her beauty sleep. It was something else. A subtle shift in the air pressure, the way the dark felt... slightly occupied. Her eyes snapped open, and there he was.
A tall, too-familiar shape cut out against the faint wash of moonlight. A glint of golden eyes fixed right on her.
For a heartbeat, shock hit her in the chest, sharp and cold. Her muscles tensed on instinct, the memory of too many almost-deaths flickering at the edge of her mind.
But fear? Real, gut-deep fear?
Yeah. No. That part of her was done.
Bella blinked once, twice, letting her vision adjust. The outline of him sharpened: too-still posture, pale skin lit faintly by moonlight through the window, that mouth set in the same determined line she remembered all too well.
Edward Cullen. Of course.
Of course.
Because why wouldn’t her quiet night alone end with her ex-boyfriend breaking into her house like a melodramatic raccoon with a savior complex?
She pushed herself up on her elbows, blankets pooling around her waist. Her heart didn’t race. Her hands didn’t shake. Somewhere deep in her chest, where panic used to live, there was only an irritated, bone-deep you have got to be kidding me.
In another life, she would’ve been furious. Or terrified. Or heartbroken.
In this one, she was just so entirely over it.
Peter would come. He always did. There was a thread now, stretched tight between them, and she trusted it more than she trusted locks or plans or her own occasionally questionable survival instincts that tied with those of a baked potato.
Edward shifted, eyes sweeping over her like he was cataloging damage. She knew that look, his branded mix of guilt and worry and something heavier that the man always refused to name out loud.
With that, she had to physically restrain the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose like Peter did when she said something particularly stupid.
Instead, Bella exhaled slowly and channeled that small, sharp voice that had set up camp somewhere deep in her heart. The part of her that had learned to swear more, flinch less, and stop apologizing for existing.
Her inner Peter.
“What,” she said, her voice rough with sleep and very much not impressed, “the actual fuck, Edward?”
Chapter 8: Crisis Management for Reformed Doormats
Chapter Text
Apparently, Edward had either gone deaf since they’d last seen each other—or his brain had just blue-screened at the word fuck.
Interesting question, actually. Could vampires even go deaf? Something to ask Peter at some point; he’d seen more of them than was strictly healthy for any lifespan, human or undead.
Also, for the record, she was using swear words sparingly. But her ex-boyfriend showing up in her bedroom in the middle of the night definitely qualified as an occasion where a “fuck” was not only allowed but required by law.
Either way, Bella stayed where she was; sitting up in bed in her too-big sleep shirt and underwear, covers slouched halfway down her waist, just… staring at the man in front of her who refused to answer.
Maybe the second time would work.
“What the actual fuck, Edward?”
Her voice was still rough with sleep and absolutely fresh out of patience.
His expression flickered. And finally, between that ping-pong of emotions, he seemed to settle on something.
“Bella,” he breathed, taking a step toward the bed, her name wrapped in that old, familiar reverence that used to make her knees go weak and now mostly just made her wrists itch. “You’re not safe here. You have to come with me—”
She rolled her eyes. Of course.
Of course he thought this was a rescue.
A hysterical little laugh tried to claw its way up her throat. She swallowed it down. This wasn't going to be helpful. Not now. No one wanted to watch her have a breakdown in her own bed while her ex-boyfriend monologued about safety.
Instead, she went for the more preferable option. She found her backbone.
“Let me guess,” she said, straightening a little, tugging the hem of her shirt down just because she could. “You had an idea. Or a feeling. Or, perhaps, a guilty conscience even. And now you’ve decided to swoop in and fix things without talking to me like an actual person?”
He flinched. Just the tiniest hitch around the eyes. She’d have missed it, once.
But she’d spent more than a year around a loveable asshole of a vampire who considered “actual sentences” optional for the bigger part of it and did most of his communicating via eyebrow and silence. She noticed things now.
“This place is dangerous,” Edward insisted. “He—they’re dangerous. I can’t—I won’t leave you here. You don’t understand what they’re capable of.”
Oh, good. They were doing this again.
Behind her eyes, memories flickered past, sharp as if they'd happened only yesterday. Jasper taking her on a multi-day trip just to force her to grow, to become herself. Opening his sprawling, ragtag family to her, introducing her to his brother like she belonged there. Alice, checking in, making sure she was okay even when it wasn’t safe to be seen together.
And Peter.
Peter, who always had her back, even when he was blunt about it. Peter, who had given her time and space and hot tea and quiet mornings and a porch to pace on while she figured herself out. She wouldn’t be here, standing up to her ex in bare legs and bed hair, without any of them.
Yeah. She understood exactly what they were capable of.
She also understood what Peter was capable of when someone tried to take what he’d decided to protect.
“I understand perfectly,” Bella said. “Which is why I’m staying put.”
She watched it happen—the decision hardening in his face. Jaw locking. Eyes going flat with that familiar, infuriating certainty. The look that used to read as devotion and now screamed I know better than you about your own life in big, neon letters.
Once upon a time, she’d called that love.
Now she called it what it was: control, and a spectacularly messed-up way of exercising it. Those neon letters were a big, flashing warning sign.
But instead of arguing in her underwear like the helpless girl Edward probably preferred she would be at this moment, she did what (she hoped) any respectable adult would do in her situation.
She got out of bed, grabbed a vest and jogging pants from the nearest chair, pulled them on, and walked out of the room.
Edward, the idiot that he was, merely followed.
She padded down the stairs, bare feet quiet on the wood, and headed straight for the kitchen. She opened the cupboard, reached for the bottle Peter had left on the top shelf “for emergencies,” and decided this qualified.
She poured herself a glass of whisky. She needed Peter; he wasn’t here. Wouldn’t be here for a while. So she went for the next best thing: his chosen poison and using it to pry her inner Peter to the front of her brain.
Glass in hand, she turned on her heel and stepped to the edge of the living room, where she found Edward standing rigid in the middle of the space, looking around with open disgust.
“This is where he kept you?” he said—not asked, said—his lip curling as he did so.
Bella shrugged, taking a sip of the whisky. It burned pleasantly all the way down. “It grows on you.”
That was apparently the last straw for him. He darted forward and plucked the glass out of her hand, liquid sloshing dangerously.
“You aren’t even of legal drinking age yet,” he snapped.
Yeah. As if that was the biggest problem they were currently facing.
She let the empty feeling of her fingers register for half a second, then turned away from him and walked toward one of the side tables Peter had built last month. It held freshly picked wildflowers in a sturdy vase, a neat little square of domesticity that shouldn’t have mattered this much but did.
A plan formed. Swift and sharp and definitely not something someone with a healthy dose of self-preservation would do.
But hey, Bella never said she was smart.
She smirked, just a little, to herself.
Time to push some buttons.
“You know what else grew on me?” she asked lightly, fingertips brushing the rim of the vase.
Edward’s eyes lit up, hopeful, as he took a step closer. “Humanity?”
Oh.
Oh.
The man really couldn’t read her mind, could he?
“No, Edward.” Bella looked at him—at the way he stood there half unraveling, half composed, all tragic-martyr-about-to-make-a-poor-choice. “It turns out healthy relationships do exist. I wasn’t necessarily exposed to them, unfortunately, in my life. But being here has led to some amazing insights.”
Edward growled, that low, ugly sound she remembered all too well. “Whatever that feral beast has done to you—”
Bella lifted her hand, palm out, cutting him off. “Peter has not done anything to me. On the contrary, he has only built me up. Given me the time and space to fill in the pieces that you took from me.”
His snarl sharpened as he moved past the couch, fingers raking over the fabric and tearing it open like paper.
Bella stepped back. And back. Her calves bumped one of the chairs at the dining table.
The fear that had been absent a few moments ago crept back in, cold and quick up her spine. Edward didn’t stop moving, his eyes darkening and his posture coiling tight as he rounded in on her.
On instinct, Bella grabbed the abandoned whisky glass off the table behind her, downed the rest in one swallow, and hurled it at his head.
He tilted his head lazily and it shattered against the wall behind him.
“You’ve really lost some manners, haven’t you?” he said.
They circled the table, slow, deliberate. Her pulse picked up, pounding hard enough she could feel it in her throat. She let her steps carry her until she was once again beside the side table with the vase.
“Edward,” she said, voice braver than she felt.
He didn’t stop. His eyes were nearly black now, the gold swallowed by something colder.
Bella took one more step. Her hand shot out for the vase. One smooth motion. She lifted it and sent it sailing across the room. Ceramic and water and flowers exploded against the living room wall.
He flinched, just enough that a flicker of gold returned to his eyes.
Not enough, though. Not enough to get him to see reason.
They stared at each other for another few seconds, dread creeping up from her toes, curling cold fingers around her ribs as each ticked past.
Then—
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
And he moved.
Vampire-fast. One moment she was standing in the living room; the next, the world lurched sideways. His arms clamped around her like iron chains as he scooped her up and blurred back up the stairs toward her bedroom.
Curtains billowed. The open window yawned behind him, night air punching into the room and slapping against her bare ankles.
Bella’s heart kicked hard, but it wasn’t fear that drove it.
What she felt was sheer, incandescent annoyance.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered into his shoulder, one arm pinned, the other free enough to smack him in the chest. Shit. It was like punching a marble counter top. Pain zinged up her hand and she cradled it against herself with a hiss. “You know Peter’s going to kill you, right?”
He froze for a fraction of a second. His fingers tightened. Just a squeeze, barely there—but she felt it. Felt the hesitation.
Good, she thought, vicious and calm all at once. Let that sink in.
Because Isabella Swan was done being stolen. Done being carried off like luggage while someone else narrated what was best for her.
She breathed out and closed her eyes, searching for that thread; the one which stretched tight between her and a certain infuriating, careful, squirrel-training vampire. It might not be supernatural, but it was there. It was real. And it was very much theirs.
Somewhere out in the dark, she knew—down to the marrow of her bones—that Peter Whitlock was already on his way.
Bella was sure she'd turned into an ice sculpture by the time they finally stopped.
One second there was just wind and speed and the blur of trees; the next, Edward set her down and her bare feet hit cracked asphalt. Her knees nearly gave out on impact, her body apparently just now remembering it had legs and they were, in fact, supposed to participate.
On top of it all, the cold knifed up through her soles. Fantastic.
As she wobbled there, trying to convince her muscles that mutiny really wasn’t in the cards right now, she took a moment to thoroughly admonish herself. She should’ve put on socks. Preferably shoes. Maybe pants that weren’t her oldest joggers with spaghetti stains.
But alas. Being a human potato had its downsides.
Note to self: next time you get kidnapped by an overdramatic vampire, footwear.
Also, ideally, no next time.
She wrapped her arms around herself and looked up, expecting… well, not this.
Part of her had braced for Washington. Maybe even Alaska. Who knew where the Cullens were holed up these days? Bella sure didn’t. Alice had refused to say a word about locations, and for once, Alice had actually not said a word about any of it.
Either way, Alice’s tendency to overshare being neither here nor there, whatever she’d been expecting… it wasn’t this.
Because this wasn’t a cozy Cullen house, all glass and wood and soft lighting, every inch curated by Esme. There were no sleek cars parked outside with Rosalie half under the hood in any weather, looking like a Vogue ad that had wandered into a mechanic’s shop.
No. This was a warehouse.
A big, lonely, ugly warehouse in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Concrete, rust, and not a single tasteful sofa or cozy blanket in sight.
She bit her lip. Just her luck.
Beside her, Edward’s voice broke the quiet. “We’re here.”
Bella was too cold and too tired to roll her eyes properly, but the impulse was there and hard to ignore.
“Thanks, Sherlock,” she muttered.
His hand landed on her lower back a second later. Those cold fingers were invasive and unwanted, but still, they settled there with the stubborn cling of a leech that had latched on and was impossible to get off without ending up bleeding.
Unfortunately, experiences told her that bleeding really wasn’t the way to go around Edward. And, double unfortunately, he also didn’t let go on his own accord. So, stuck with his freezing hand to her already freezing back, he coaxed her into the dark warehouse.
Lovely. Really, incredibly, amazingly, lovely.
The warehouse was huge and dark and wrong.
Once her eyes adjusted—mercifully quick due to the lack of light outside as well—Bella took it all in. Concrete floor, high metal rafters, no furniture, no windows she could see from this angle. A big empty box full of cold air, bad vibes, and even worse decisions.
The only sound breaking the eerie quiet that threaded through the desolated building was Bella’s teeth chattering.
Apparently being carried at vampire speed without shoes for many hours in an uncomfortable position wasn’t great for her circulation, because even after walking a fair few meters, she was still cold. Who knew.
Edward’s hand was still parked against her lower back like he’d stapled himself there. Too possessive to be reassuring, too familiar to be anything but infuriating.
He lifted his head, gaze fixed on the darkness ahead of them.
“You were right,” he said into the darkness. “She was with him.” A growl curled around the last word. “And it was unsafe.”
Bella looked around, disoriented. In the shadows, something shifted.
Ah yes, that made sense. A group project, because there was no way on God’s green earth that Edward had thought of this elaborate plan and hiding place all on his own.
Bella straightened a little. The part of her that wasn’t freezing took quick inventory; big open space, nowhere to run that she could see, one overdramatic ex-boyfriend, unknown number of other vampires, or, at the very least, accomplices. Fantastic.
As if on command, two silhouettes separated from the dark and moved forward. One of them reached up, fingers finding a switch on the wall. There was a loud metallic clunk, and then the light above them stuttered to life—on, off, on, off—flickering a few times before finally deciding to cooperate.
Harsh yellow light flooded the space, throwing everything into sharp relief.
They weren’t people.
Well. Technically they were people. But also, they were definitely vampires.
Red eyes. Pale skin. Stillness that buzzed under the surface.
One small, blond woman. One taller, darker man with his hands in his pockets like this was all mildly boring him.
Two vampires. Bella’s brain slotted the details into place automatically. Height, build, distance, exit routes. Peter had rubbed off on her more than she liked to admit.
She also noticed, in between shivers, that the instinctive terror she ought to be feeling at the sight of two unfamiliar predators… wasn’t really there.
Interesting.
Peter had done a number on her, apparently. Somewhere along the line, “red-eyed vampire” had stopped being synonymous with “immediate panic attack” and started being filed under “ask Peter if I should be worried.”
Right now, her internal Peter just folded his arms and waited.
The taller man glanced at her, then at Edward, and sighed like he’d just been asked to fix someone else’s paperwork. “Eddie, can you please make her shut up?” he said, his voice low and menacing.
Bella blinked.
She hadn’t actually said anything yet, which felt rude. She made a mental note to correct that oversight as soon as her toes came back online.
As if the request were a command that had to be obeyed immediately, Edward’s hand vanished from her back. For one brief, glorious second she thought he’d actually backed off.
Then something heavy and warm wrapped around her shoulders and torso.
She looked down. A heated blanket. A full-on, plug-into-the-wall, elderly-grandma-on-Christmas heated blanket.
Huh.
At least the man had some form of foresight. Kidnap your ex, but make sure she can actually survive it.
Heat seeped into her slowly, chasing the numbness from her arms, then her fingers. The contrast made her skin prickle.
Edward guided her—more firm pressure than actual force—toward a metal folding chair that hadn’t been there a minute ago or she’d been too frozen to notice. He lowered her into it like she might break. The blanket tucked in around her hips and legs, trapping her in a warm cocoon.
There was a faint rustle behind her. Rope or tape or something equivalent tugged at the blanket, cinching it to the chair in neat, efficient motions.
“Great,” she muttered. “Kidnapped and swaddled. That’s a new low... even for me”
The blond woman approached, light catching on her hair. She moved like she was used to being watched, each step easy and unhurried.
She stopped directly in front of Bella.
Up close, Bella really looked.
Damn.
She was beautiful. Not in the ethereal, untouchable way the Cullens were known for in Forks, but in a sharper, more lived-in way. Small and lethal. Red eyes framed by thick lashes, hair falling in soft waves, mouth quirked like she knew how to sever an artery and make you laugh at the very same time.
The girl—no, woman—leaned in slightly and studied her. There was a glint to her eyes, as if she was observing. Cataloguing every minute detail of Bella's face. Which was... great. Honestly. She really looked her best at the moment, didn't she?
Her eyes roamed for a while, before the woman's eyes finally flicked up and held Bella's gaze once more.
“Damn,” she said, a slow Southern drawl seeping in with every word. “Are you Petey’s new fiancée?”
Bella opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
She closed it.
Opened it again.
Still nothing. Perfect. Amazing. Just the time for her brain to utterly and absolutely blank.
Behind her, Edward growled, the sound rumbling through his chest and into the back of her chair.
“She’s no one’s fiancée,” he snapped. “And if she would be someone’s, she would be mine.”
There it was. It wasn’t like she’d never heard that one before.
The woman merely smiled, although the small twitch around her lip gave away this also wasn’t the first time that she heard this particular spiel.
“Oh, sugar, Arnegard is a small town,” she drawled, shifting her gaze back to Bella with a wink. “And it helps to keep the connections up, you know.”
Then she winked.
Bella stared.
Small town. Connections. Someone in Arnegard noticing that her ex-husband was “dating again.” Gossip travelling faster than vampires. Of course that’s how this started. Not some grand Volturi plot.
Arnegard.
Before Bella could decide whether to laugh or cry that Peter had been right and she really should’ve agreed and gone along with his stupid initial cover story, the woman flicked out a perfectly manicured hand in greeting.
Under other circumstances, Bella might’ve taken it. As it was, she was tightly wrapped and apparently chair-bound, the blanket knotted down by the woman’s partner with convenient, irritating competence.
The hand hovered there anyway, like the offer still counted.
“Charlotte,” she said. “Charlotte Williams. Nice to meet you.”
Oh.
Oh.
Fuck.