Author's Note: It's late. I'm tired. I don't know if this has been done before. I wrote it in one sitting, so it's crappy and full of holes. Plus, I just got bored at the end, rushed through it. Maybe one day I'll re-write it. Who knows? God, I'm so tired. Unbeta-ed. (How unoriginal am I, naming the fic after the poem? I'm so lazy.) Oh, as a warning, I drop the f-bomb. Once. At least, I'm pretty sure it's once.
Disclaimer: Robert Frost. Twilight. The Host. Nine Inch Nails.
BIRCHES
i'd like to get away from earth awhile
and then come back to it and begin over.
may no fate willfully misunderstand me
and half grant what i wish and snatch me away
not to return. earth's the right place for love:
i don't know where it's likely to go better.
birches, robert frost
Black. The deep, dark warm of sleep and letting your mind go.
Bella tries to remember what happened, feels her eyes blinking on their own accord. A foreign voice in her mind whispers What is this?
Memories filter past: her bedroom in Phoenix, Renee as she kisses her goodbye, Edward's topaz eyes staring intently into hers, Charlie's relieved face as Sam hands her off, and Ja—
No! Bella's mind growls fiercely, and it's the Big Bang in reverse. Images fly back to a single point, the doors of her mind shutting forcibly. No, no, no. Mine, all mine. Get out, get out, get out!
&
Alice doesn't see it coming. It's like werewolves. Only they're not.
Invaders. Aliens. The words feel heavy and awkward on Bella's tongue. This can't be real she think. Monsters only exist in movies. Sometimes.
She looks at Edward with frightened eyes, whispers "Don't leave me."
"Never," He answers, cool arms pulling her towards his chest.
It does nothing to lessen her worry. Charlie, Renee, Jake. What will become of them?
&
This voice, this thing in her mind. Bella tries to sort it all out, locked away in her own body.
She thinks of Edward, perfect and beautiful, worrying as they passed through state after state. They had no clear plan, no clue to the future. Alice became depressed, and it affected everyone. Jasper was so in tune with her emotions those months.
They all lost hope seconds after Alice did.
Bella shivers. But she can't. Not in this body, not when it's being controlled by someone, something else.
It was her fault they got caught. She's only human after all, she couldn't survive without food the way the Cullens could.
&
Bella listens to the voice in her head, the one controlling her body. Moving her limbs, and fingers, and toes. Every part of Bella so completely out of her control.
This isn't right, the voice thinks. The host is supposed to go away. This isn't—
They both stop suddenly. Bella and this creature in her frozen as a memory slips past the bolted doors of Bella's mind.
Edward is bathed in sun, skin glittering. He and Bella are in the meadow, her fingers tracing the veins on his arm. She's whispering beautiful, lips pressed softly on his fingertips.
Beautiful the stranger in Bella thinks, before the memory is ripped away.
&
Bella's always had a private mind, but it begins to become increasingly difficult to keep every last bit of her to herself. Stray thoughts and memories keep leaking out.
It's late June, and the memory of Edward leaving plays in loops every moment Bella's body collapses into sleep. It leaves her numb. It has the opposite effect on what's inside of her, who feels everything too much.
"I'm sorry," Bella can hear her own voice sobbing at night. "It hurts and I'm sorry. No one should have to go through that. Just—Just make it stop. Please."
&
Before all the panic and running and hiding, Bella is sitting in Jacob's garage. It's a typical rainy day in Forks, and the radio is on too loud. Trent Reznor says how he'll put a hole in your head you know, just for the fuck of it. Bella cringes, whines "Juh-ake."
"Bel-ah," He mocks, laughing from behind the hood of a neighbor's car. He reaches out to turn the volume down. Bella grins, turns back to her book.
When the sky grows dark, and Bella is buttoning up her sweater to leave, Jake reaches out and traces the curve of her jaw. "You know I'm in love with you, right?"
Bella looks down, her heart aching, and answers softly. "I know."
If she had known this was the last time she'd see him, she would have taken his face in her hands and kissed him. She would have said I love you back.
&
What's your name?
Bella can feel the hesitation. Then the voice answers, shy, Sings With Vowels.
&
Memories keep slipping past Bella's restraints. The ones played most often are of Edward. Lovely Edward, smiling and laughing, playing piano and the fierce look in his eyes as he'd torn into Victoria.
"What is he?"
Vampire.
"And the other one? The darker one?"
GET OUT! Bella screams, what's left of her retreating to the thinning doors of her mind. HE'S MINE! ALL MINE, ALL I HAVE LEFT! GET OUT! GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!
&
Bella keeps to herself for nearly a week, creeps out when Sings With Vowels is driving through Arizona.
I'm sorry.
"I know. I'm sorry too."
He's—I can't lose him.
"Okay. We'll find him."
&
"Do you love him?"
Who?
"Edward."
I—I don't know. I do…did. I think it changed. Everything that's happened, I mean, before I never really had to think about losing Charlie and Renee. Everyone else. It was just this far off thing in the future, but now…now it's all I can think about. It's happened. How can I just give up what little I have left?
"Did you regret it before we came?"
…Yes.
&
Forks in nothing but the walking shells of people Bella knows.
Sings With Vowels stops the rented car in front of Charlie's house. A stranger answers the door, face round and smiling.
"Who?" He asks, hand resting on the doorknob.
Bella is relieved. What's left of her hums with the feeling.
&
Bella was happy. Once.
She thinks. She's not sure anymore.
&
Emily smiles.
Fake Bella hisses. Fake, fake, liar.
&
The small sliver of Bella left is trembling with fear the closer it gets to the Black's house.
It stands abandoned.
The sheer relief that washes over Bella is so overwhelming that for a moment she is in control of her body. An unbearable weight lifts from her chest, and her body sways with the effort to keep standing. When she collapses to the ground it's with something between a sob and a laugh.
Hope blooms in her chest like the first flower of spring, sun kissing the unfurling petals as it exhales open.
&
Farther Bella pleads.
"I can't," Sings With Vowels sobs, dirty hands brushing away tears. Everything burns; muscles shake with the effort to keep going.
The sun set long ago, and trees tower overhead. The night is quiet, and the wind ruffles overhanging branches. Silence and—
"Hello?" Sings With Vowels calls out into the dark.
The flashlight shines through the trees and silver bounces on the trunks of ancient trees.
&
"Bella?" Mike's voice is surprised for the briefest of moments, and then his eyes narrow.
People begin to emerge from the shadows, all with glaring eyes and hissed name calling.
There comes a growl, low and threatening, as three large wolves walk through those gathered. Sings With Vowels trembles.
The wolf nearest crouches in preparation to leap.
&
Sings With Vowels retreats in fear, and it's Bella left trembling in the forest, grey wolf ready to pounce.
A loud snarl rips through the trees; a russet wolf leaps between Bella and the grey wolf, it's jowls snapping.
"Jake," Bella manages to breath out before the world goes black.
&
Here are the facts: Sings With Vowels doesn't want this. She sighs and sobs into Jacobs shoulder, whispers she loves you, she wants you, and I—I just want out.
"I can get her back. I can give her back."
"How?" Jacob growls, eyes guarded.
&
It's been months, and what little there is of Bella is tired.
She's beginning to fade away, and Sings With Vowels growls fiercely in her mind.
"No. No. You will not leave. We fought too hard to get here. You will not abandon everyone. I won't let you."
"Please. Be strong. Keep fighting, don't give up. He needs you."
&
Another two months, and Bella is nothing but a whisper.
&
The sky is blue. A bright, brilliant shade of blue.
Beautiful, Bella thinks; her lids are heavy as lead as she blinks.
Everything freezes. She blinks. She blinks.
&
Jacob's hands are everywhere. They run the length of Bella's arms, brush her hair back at her temple, take hold of her hands and squeeze.
"It's you, it's you," He laughs into her hair, the crook of her neck. "You came back."
Bella's heart is aching in her chest, shuddering painfully against ribs and she feels as if she'll burst into a thousand tiny pieces.
Her hands tremble as she cups Jake's face, palms flaring to life at the feel of his skin on her hers.
"I love you."
And then she kisses him.
&
She gets the full story in bits and pieces.
Sings With Vowels was always crying, saying being human was too much. She didn't like feeling everything, said it was an avalanche. Too many emotions.
It was Erick Yorkie who heard the whispers of a rumor, on a routine raid for food. A doctor out in the desert who knew a thing or two about what was going on.
Billy and Charlie were the ones to watch over Bella's body as Sings With Vowels cried into open palms. And Jake…Jake was the one to run out to the middle of nowhere on a weak thread of hope that he could find a doctor they had no proof existed.
&
It's hard, surviving.
It's nothing like what Bella ever imagined for her future. But when it all becomes too much, when it seems as if time has stopped and the world is collapsing in on itself, all she has to do is reach out for a warm hand that is always there.
Jacob is an anchor in a sea of uncertainty.
That's all folks! I hope you enjoyed. A little.