Flashback appear though out this story, they are marked in the titles and are shown in italics.
Bella's POV (Flashback)
I woke to the sound of her sneaking into our room, flashing me a big goofy smile as she stumbled over the windowsill. She was wearing her boyfriends leather jacket and though it was far to big for her, it still seemed to accentuate the curves of her body, revealing just how much more healthier she was than me.
I glared and shook my head at her casual demeanour, as she strolled over to me and dropped onto the mattress beside me.
She sighed heavily and smiled to herself as she got comfortable.
"Moms gonna kill you" I muttered looking over at her as she grinned up at the ceiling, shaking her head in reply.
"it doesn't matter" she added, obviously unable to wipe the smile from her face.
"You were gone for three days Anna, trust me, she's gonna kill you" I said trying not to sound snarky, but becoming more and more curious as to why my words didn't seem to penetrate her good mood.
She rolled on her side, her downcast eyes softening as she took in my expression.
"I left a note" she argued faintly as her fingers grazed my arm.
"I've written shopping lists longer than that note" I scoffed.
"I'm sorry, I was gone for so long" she said thoughtfully, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear. I rolled my eyes and shook my head, unable to stay mad at her, even though she deserved it.
"Where were you?" I asked with a sigh, changing the subject.
"I had to take care of something important, but I wont go again. I swear" she promised as she continued to sooth back my hair, trying to rid me of my bad mood, knowing I was only worried about her. Knowing I lived on the edge, waiting for someone to tell me something horrible had happened to her.
I rolled onto my back and she mirrored the movement, moving closer into my side so she could rest her head on my shoulder. Her closeness relaxing every muscle in my body, as though I was never fully whole when she wasn't with me.
"God, he's gorgeous Bella. You did well" She said after a long moment of silence.
"I don't want to talk about this again Anna" I said in a flat tone. Wondering how she could continue to bask in events that would only happen once she was gone.
"Besides, you said no more specifics" I added smugly, as I reached down and curled my fingers into hers.
"This boy deserves specifics, you can't rush over someone who looks like that. Trust me. Edward is very easy on the eye" She said letting out a dry laugh as she spoke.
"Well I feel sorry for him" I said with sarcasm flooding my tone.
"Why?" she argued.
"What normal boy deserves to be with a headcase like me?"
Within a second she lifted her head to look at me, locking her eyes with mine.
"Don't ever say that again Bella, don't even think it. Your not a headcase. Your not." She demanded, making me feel bad for causing that look to appear on her face.
I let me sights drift back to the ceiling, as I nodded lightly in agreement, not wanting to have this argument yet again.
Though I don't know how she could assume that I wasn't a complete mess of a person. She had been taking care of me for years and she still couldn't see that I was broken beyond repair.
"And to reiterate, I said gorgeous... No one here said anything about 'Normal'. Nothing about Edward is Normal." she said, squeezing my hand tighter and resting her head back down onto my shoulder.
'Again with this' I thought as I rolled my eyes once more, knowing she couldn't see me.
I had to believe in the unnatural, the strange and weird. I had to believe in that because that was us, me and Anna. But the few things she had told me about Edward, seemed very...unlikely.
But to dispute her was to call her crazy and she was anything but. There was only one crazy person in this bed.
"You'll see Bella. Everything is going to be ok"
I shook my head at the hushed promise she made, as I felt my eyes well up with tears.
"Nothing will be ok if I don't have you"
Why couldn't she see that?.
For once she didn't try to argue, instead she wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close.
I clung to her all night, though the whole time I felt her slipping from my grasps, even when she didn't move an inch away from my side.
She was like a ticking time bomb and when she exploded, she would blow everything in my world apart. Leaving everything in unrecognisable pieces and those pieces would undoubtedly be like shards of glass, that I would never be able to put back together. And they would cut me apart when I tried.
One day I knew I would have to give up trying. I would have to find a way back to her, no matter the cost, or the promises I had made to her.
Bella's POV (Present day)
She was right.
He was gorgeous. In fact, the word didn't do him justice.
I starred up at him, as his eyes scanned over my body repeatably. Obvious panic broke through his features, as his hand lightly shook from where it rested on my arm.
I blinked my eyes trying to fully open them, hoping get a better look at him. Finally his gaze found mine, as a weak smile curved onto his lips.
"You're ok" he said with a sigh of relief, as his muscles relaxed, letting his shoulder slouch forward.
The exhaustion from the pain left me with no more then a few seconds to take him in, before I felt my eyes closing, no matter how hard I struggled to keep them open, if only to look at him for a few moments longer.
Slowly I felt his arms slide under me and lift me of the ground, pulling my limp body against his chest in one swift movement.
"It's ok, your ok" he said softly, seemingly repeating the words to himself, as he carried me from the bathroom, as if he was trying to convince himself of the one thing I knew not to be true.
I couldn't help but press my face into his cool chest, using him to ease the burning that still erupted from my skin, as the last of my strength faded and I passed out once more, before he had even made in down the hallway to my bedroom.
I woke to find the room filled with an unfamiliar light. The sunlight falling through the window looked out of place in this usually dark and dreary room.
I stared at the curtains that had been pulled open, letting the warm light make its way in for the first time since I had arrived.
I rolled onto my back and in the time it took to do that, I suddenly remembered what had happened.
My breath hitched and I scanned the room as I slightly leaned up, spotting him no more then a second later.
He sat by my bed in the old armchair, leaning his elbows onto his knees and starring at me intently.
I sat myself up quickly, keeping my eyes focused on his as I moved.
I couldn't stop looking at him, wondering if this was the right guy. And if this was him, then what in gods name could posses him to want to be here.
He's beautiful. The arch of his shoulder, his furrowed brow, hell, even his neck looked perfect. And here I was, broken and useless.
I'm quiet, far too quiet I realised. I needed to say something. At this point anything would be good.
"Um...Hi" I mumbled, forcing the word out, not knowing what else to say.
"Hey" he said quietly, straightening his posture and closing his hand together on his lap.
"Your Bella, right?" he added, pursing his lips after my name fell from his mouth, at the same time mine fell open.
My mind flew through a thousand possibilities, before arriving at the most obvious one. Though, in the time it took me to figure out the obvious, I could see that he was becoming worried with my shocked expression.
"You know about me right?" he asked, breaking the silence.
"You knew her" I said cutting him off, my voice full of confusion, thousands of questions lingering in each syllable.
I could see it in his eyes, the way he looked at me with composure and certainty, you don't look at complete strangers that way. I'm sure it reflected the way I looked at him.
He nodded as his head ducked it down for a moment, watching his hands rub together nervously, before looking back up at me.
"When?" I asked, not needing to add anymore then that.
I watched as he inhaled deeply and looked down to his hands once again , as if they were reminding him of something.
He nodded to himself before he rose and took the two steps to my bed, sitting himself down at the end of it.
"I met Anna eight months ago"
Edward's POV (Flashback)
I sat at the piano, settling in to my first night alone in weeks.
As much as I loved my family, I craved the silence that only came with their absence. There were no thoughts seeping into my mind except my own. It was a shame that this kind of peace could only be brought on with complete solitude.
I soaked up every minute that passed, hearing nothing but the sound of the piano and letting myself get lost in each note.
I could hear a noise outside but there was nothing to go along with it. Nothing to make me think it wasn't just an animal wondering up to the house, until I heard a knock at the door.
I paused looking around, trying to hear something that would indicate who it was, but there was nothing. And the knocking continued in sync with the steady heartbeat.
I opened the door to see a girl standing there confidently grinning up at me, looking me over with approval.
"Hi" she said, lightly nodding to herself as she continued to scan my entire form.
"Hi" I replied rather awkwardly, wondering why nothing at all emitted from her, no sound other then her heart beat, assuring me she was human.
"Can I help you?" I asked examining her far to closely and looking around, wondering where she came from. Our house wasn't exactly out in the open and it wasn't on the way to anywhere, yet here she was.
"Yeah, you can...I'm Anna" she said putting her hand out with a warm smile spread across her face, but I found myself still in shock. I stared at her, still trying to hear what was going on in her head, but there was just nothing. The silence made me uneasy and oddly enough it made the small girl intimidating.
"You should shake my hand Edward, it's polite...and human"
I felt my brow furrow and my mouth fall open at the two very obvious things wrong with what she just said.
I honestly didn't know what to do, so I cautiously reached out and shook her hand.
"Can I come in" she asked rather forwardly and I found myself glaring at the girl.
I was still confused about what this was, how she knew my name and wondering what exactly she meant by the 'human' remark.
As nervous as she made me, she also left me curious enough to move aside and let her in.
She walked passed me and wondered into my house, making her way up the stairs without any direction needed. I followed behind her watching her cautiously as she made her way to my living room on her own and taking a seat on the sofa. As if she had been in the house a hundred times.
I stood in the middle of the room, trying to figure out what was going on, just as she took one last look around before settling her eyes back on me.
"You can sit down" she said patting the spot on the sofa next to her. When I didn't move, but rather continued to scowl at the girl she smiled at me, completely unaffected by my expression and rigid posture.
"I don't bite" she added, raising her brow and tilting her head to the empty spot once more.
"What's going on? What do you want?" I asked, unmoving from my spot, not finding her joke funny at all.
"I just came here to talk. That's all." She said in soft and serious tone, trying to ease the tension that was building up in it didn't help.
"It's important Edward. I really need your help"
For the fist time since I laid eyes on her, I could see the desperation hiding behind her confident composure and all thoughts of her being a threat disappeared.
I let out a heavy breath and shook my head before making my way over to her.
I sat next to her and she angled her body so she was facing me. She continued to examine every feature of my face, as though she was studying them, though not in any I had seen someone do before.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on? How you know my name? "What your doing at me house?"
"How I know what you are" she added, as if she knew it was a point I didn't want to bring up. The statement made me unconsciously pull back from her, as if she was the dangerous one here, instead of me, the monster.
"You can relax" she said reaching out and placing her hand over mine, her soft and understanding gaze fixed on me, trying to enforce her words with it.
"I'm not here to cause trouble, I'm not here to freak you out, or scare you. I just need to talk to you and then I'll leave."
I sighed and nodded, trying to relax. The girl seemed genuine and she didn't seem like she was playing some kind of game. There was no reason not to trust her.
"Ok, what do you want to talk about?"
--------------------------
"This is.... strange" I said rubbing a hand over my face as she finished explaining why she was here.
"I thought you'd be good with strange" she said widening her eyes and raising her brow.
"She definitely is" she added.
"Are you human" I asked, trying to understand why I could feel so much heat falling from her, why she had seen the things she had seen. Why Alice hadn't seen her coming in her own visions.
"I think so" she said with a shrug and a serious tone that revealed her uncertainty. "But I can't be sure of that" she added lowering her voice.
I let out a ragged breath trying to stop my mind from racing so I could focus back on what she was here for.
"what's wrong with her?" I asked, giving in to the situation. If this was true, and I had no reason to believe that it wasn't, I would need as much information as I could get from her.
"I don't know. But whatever it is, its strong." she offered with more fear in her voice then he was comfortable with hearing.
"Is she like you. Can she-?"
"I'm not sure." she replied quickly cutting me off. "But right now. The pain is so overwhelming, that she can't get passed it. If she is like me, there has to be something more to it. Something bigger"
Hours had passed and I was still sitting on the sofa with her, listening to a girl who could see the future, tell me about her sister. Tell me, how this girl I had never met would be the most important thing in my existence. She told me things about myself that no one knew and she assured there were no other options but to take everything she had to say with nothing but acceptance.
"Why not just let it all play out? If you knew I would meet her then why are you here?" I questioned, wanting to get as many answers as I could before she left.
"Because you're leaving forks with your brothers and sisters, right?"
We had planned to leave Forks, we would be finishing High school in just a few months, there was no need to hang around. Though Esme and Carlisle had decided to stay behind for a few more years we had decided that we wanted to take some time to get away.
I nodded to Anna in reply, waiting for her to continue.
"Your plan was to come back and visit and that's when you'd meet Bella. But it's to long. She'll be here for months all alone. I-I just cant have that. You need to stay. She'll need you."
"Wont she have you?" I asked, wondering why her part in this plan was never brought up.
"I'll be gone by then. But that doesn't matter. She doesn't need me, she needs you"
"How do you know I can help her. How could I?" I argued.
"Because I seen it. You were together and you were happy. I don't know how you do it, but you save her. You need to remember that when it gets hard, when she tries to give up. It's going to be your job to protect her Edward" she pleaded, trying to keep her voice steady, though it broke painfully at the end.
I don't know why, but in that moment, I was scared. I barely knew Anna, but I didn't want to fail her, or her sister. And I was sure that fear was showing on my face as Anna looked at me. Her expression was filled with compassion and understanding, as though she could hear everything inside my head.
"Everything's going to be ok, you can do this" she said reaching over to gently rub my arm, as her sweet smile returned.
"Your gonna be so surprised" she added softly.
"At what?" I asked confused, wondering what she was leaving out of the story that would leave me shocked then I already was.
"At how quickly you fall in love with her. That part, it's going to be the easiest thing you ever do"
My brow creased at the thought, as I watched her move closer. She took a hold of my hand, the warmth coming off her was so much stronger than I thought any human could handle. I had seen sick people with fevers that were killing them, even their temperatures didn't compare to her's. But Anna seemed healthy, she didn't look sick at all, she looked just like any other girl.
"Where are you going to be Anna? Why won't you be able to help me when she comes?" I asked, fearing I already had an idea of what the answer would be.
"I can tell you why. But you can't tell Bella. Not until your sure you have to."
Edward POV (Present day)
I had tried to talk to her at the pharmacy. I tried again in the car park out side the grocery store. I came to her house and knocked on the door. I tied many times, but she always hid.
It was an odd situation and one I felt ill-equipped to handle.
Anna had told me that Bella knew I was in Forks, and I had to wonder if that was why Bella had kept herself locked away from the world. I had to assume that she just wasn't ready, that she was still grieving. So I followed her lead and stayed out of sight, all the while staying close by.
And while I hid, I realised just how was right Anna was.
It was easy.
I had fallen in love with her, weeks before I even spoke to her.
It happened while while taking care of her, without her knowing.
While picking her up of the ground and putting her in bed.
While staying by her side, until the sun rose, watching her sleep and finally seeing into her mind. But never anything but bright flashes of light and loud crashing noises, that reminded me of glass shattering.
Though somehow, during all of this secrecy, my feeling emerged from no where.
It didn't take force or complexities.
It just happened, it was without any doubt, the easiest thing I had ever done.
But now I was bound to her and there was nothing I could do to help her.
At night when she slept, I began reading anything and everything, but nothing lined up with her. Nothing about Bella or Anna's situation made sense.
Alice had told me that she had never seen Bella in her visions once. She was a blind spot, just as Anna was. I had been depending on Alice's abilities to help guide me through this, but that was no longer an option.
Carlisle and Esme had been helping me research, they had been calling on friends to ask if they had heard of something like this happening, that a human could have powers, or if there was something out there that appeared human, but wasn't.
But again, there was nothing, we were in the dark and by the looks on Bella's face, she had also been kept in the dark.
"Eight months ago" she repeated, her mind racing through thoughts I couldn't hear.
Though I could see Bella's brow creasing at the information. She looked as though she had been betrayed, reassuring me that Anna had not told her about the visit, the ones she had made to Forks in her final months of life.
"She wanted me to make sure I found you as quickly as possible" I added promptly, wanting the grim expression to fall from her face.
"Why?" She asked rather coldly, dropping her eyes from mine and looking down at the carpet.
"She didn't want you to be alone Bella" I said quietly as my voice became brittle, watching as her eyes closed, willing the tears not to come.
It was the truth.
Not the whole truth.
But it was much as Anna had told me tell her.
"You saw me in town right? After I first got her" she asked after a long moment of silence.
I weakly smiled, "I did. For a second I thought.." I paused, wondering if it was the wrong thing to say.
"I know I look like her, it's ok" she said quietly, lifting her gaze from the carpet to look at me as she spoke.
That was the problem, she did look like her. I had seen a lot of identical twins before, but Bella looked so much Anna that it had me in shock.
There were freckles in the same spots, her hair fell the same way, her eyes were the exact same shade of brown, I could go on and on.
The similarities were to much, it shouldn't have been so extreme. Though, as I watched Bella and talked to her, I could see that those similarities were only on the exterior.
"I tried to talk to you, but you seemed like you wanted to be alone. I thought maybe you needed more time"
She nodded in response, chewing her bottom lip as she looked at me.
"But you've been here haven't you" she breathed out, looking around the room before settling her eyes back on me.
"I just wanted to make sure you were ok-" I reasoned as she cut me off.
"You don't even know me" she spat out, her words stumbling over one another as they left her mouth.
I nodded and slightly smiled at Bella.
"Well, lets change that shall we"