FIC: Eat, Drink, and be Married (Twilight)
Eat, Drink, and be Married
by adliren
There was champagne, there was cake, there was dancing . . . there was a lot of dancing. Bella had never before considered what Alice Cullen would be like at a reception party, at their reception party - after their wedding. She’d been through it, she remembered the ceremony, but it still seemed unbelievable. She was Mrs. Isabella Swan Cullen.
Originally the name exchange had caused a bit of an argument. Bella had never had a problem being a Swan, but from the moment she had first laid eyes on the family, in her heart she had wanted to be a Cullen. Alice had argued against it, stating anything from feminist values to family history until finally admitting that she didn’t want to change Bella too much. Bella had won the “disagreement” by stating that Alice would eventually turn her into a vampire. What was one itsy bitsy, tiny, inconsequential change compared to that?
So now they were married and she was watching Edward spin Alice around the dance floor. Simply watching made her feet hurt. Alice had worked with her before the wedding on her dancing skills, but she could never do what they could while making it look easy. Well, not yet. Soon she would dance with Alice all day and all night if she wanted. She would be graceful and beautiful just like they were. Bella sighed wishing that day would come just a little bit sooner. Maybe she could talk to Alice about moving up the date when they were alone tonight.
Alice heard her wife sigh as she was led expertly by Edward to an old favorite. They had danced to this very song almost fifty years ago. She was amazed at where life (or undead life) had taken her in those years. She was now married to the love of her long life, and nothing was going to ruin this day. Even the dog- ah- Jacob was behaving himself. She knew why Bella was sighing, and silently promised to work harder on her control. She *would* change Bella, it was simply a matter of doing it without killing her that gave Alice pause.
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Edward stiffened when he felt Alice go limp in his arms. He looked into her vacant eyes and realized she was having a vision. He continued to move her across the floor, supporting her weight and keeping up the illusion for those who didn’t know about Alice’s gift.
“Is everything all right?” he questioned when she was herself again.
“I- I don’t know.” Alice raised her hand to her forehead, trying to erase the headache that had formed. She wished she could erase the pictures that had been suddenly forced on her as well.
“Maybe we should sit down? Just for a minute,” Edward indicated when Alice seemed surprised to still be moving.
“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.”
Edward pulled them off the dance floor and moved them towards where Bella was seated. He continued to support the smaller vampire and noticed when she started to shake. It became more violent the closer they came to Bella.
“Alice?” He questioned.
“It’s fine. I just . . . my vision, it was about Bella. She- she was dying.” She spoke so softly that even with his enhanced senses, Edward had trouble hearing her.
“Oh.” For a moment he was at a loss for words, finally settling on the only thing he could think of. “She won’t die, Alice. You know every one of us will protect her with our lives, especially after today.” He hugged the slim body to his side, only letting go when they were next to Bella.
“I know,” Alice whispered, before sitting down next to her wife. She grabbed Bella in a hug, burying her face in her wife’s neck and breathing deeply. She would never let anything happen to Bella. Never.
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The wedding night was, well, the wedding night. Nothing they hadn’t practiced quite a few times before. Not to say the night wasn’t special. Each touch was delivered with love and the full understanding that each belonged to the other for eternity. Bella cried from the overwhelming emotion, and Alice did everything in her power not to bite her human when she was driven to scream her name. In the end, both parties were very satisfied. So satisfied in fact, that Bella forgot to ask her question until several afternoons later. They were sitting in a small apartment in Paris, rented by Carlisle and Esme for their wedding gift. Bella was stuffing as many scrambled eggs as she could, as delicately as she could, into her mouth as Alice looked on.
“Do you have to watch me eat?” Bella’s voice was soft and playful, but Alice detected a hint of annoyance buried deep in her tone.
“No. I don’t *have* to, but I enjoy it. It’s been a long time since I was able to eat, and there’s something so - satisfying about watching you.” Bella looked at her like she was crazy then softened when the vampire smiled at her and shrugged.
“Whatever makes you happy, I guess.”
“You make me happy.” Bella looked into golden eyes and tried not to cry, hearing the sincerity in the words. She had done enough crying for a lifetime on their wedding night. Suddenly a thought popped into her head.
“Speaking of making me happy . . . do you think - is there anyway you could change me sooner?” she blurted, the words rushing out of her mouth. Alice turned away quickly to look out the window, but not before Bella saw the expression on her face - unease, with a large helping of fear. Worried and at a loss, she waited for the vampire to turn around again. When she did, her face was a blank mask, doing nothing to calm Bella’s nerves.
“Bella . . . I’m not sure I’m going to be able to change you.”
Bella heard the chime as her fork hit her plate, but it was a distant sound, drowned out by the rushing in her ears. “But you promised.” She knew she sounded like child, but it was all her addled mind could produce.
“I know.” Alice ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the strands that stuck out in many directions. “I just-” Bella could see she was having a hard time talking.
“Just what, Alice?” Gold eyes again looked at her with fear and determination.
“I had a vision, Bella. I saw you die. I saw your throat ripped out. I watched you bleed to death.” Her eyes had grown steadily darker as she spoke, the gold disappearing as the black pupil expanded in her anger and fear. “If I try to change you . . . I’ll kill you.” The last was nothing but a whisper, barely loud enough for Bella’s human ears. Neither spoke for a moment.
“Are you sure it was you?” When Alice looked at her questioningly, she tried to explain. “It could have been another vampire, or a werewolf, or, or all kinds of things.” Bella waved her arms around, gesturing emphatically, and managed to knock her glass of milk to the floor. With a sheepish look she started to get up and get a towel. She wasn’t even on her feet before Alice was there, wiping up the mess. “Thanks.” She knew her face was burning. She would risk whatever she had too to keep stupid, clumsy accidents like this from happening to her all the time.
“No problem. No use crying and all that. I’ve always wondered where that saying comes from. Haven’t you?” Alice smiled at her, brightening up the room as always, but Bella could see she was forcing it. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the hard, cold arm in front of her.
“Please, Alice - just tell me.”
“I would if I could,” she stated with a deep sigh. “I just don’t know. You die, and it’s sometime around when I change you. It’s blurry. And no, it’s not the death of becoming a vampire. It’s the kind that lasts forever. The kind you don’t wake up from.”
“You had this vision at the wedding didn’t you?” The idea had just come to Bella and she was sure she was right. “You were acting funny when you came back from dancing. Did he say anything to you?!” Bella had no real issues with Edward, but sometimes his habit of snooping in other peoples minds made her nervous. She was overjoyed the day she realized her couldn’t see inside her head or read her thoughts. She, and probably he, would have been mortally embarrassed by the thoughts she was constantly having about his sister.
“Edward didn’t say anything, other than the whole family would protect you.”
“Well, there you go. I’ll be fine.” Bella grinned triumphantly at Alice till she realized the vampire was looking at her in sympathy and what might have been shame.
“And if I kill you? Who would stop me when you’ve asked me, begged me for it? When you tell them everything’s alright? Who will protect you when they protect us both?”
Bella wanted to lash out. She wanted to shout the unfairness of it all. Instead she sat back at the table and tried to finish her breakfast. Most of the eggs stuck in her throat and it was many minutes before she finished. Alice stared at the window the entire time, not once looking at Bella.
“You made a promise, Alice. You promised you would change me. Three days ago we promised to love each other forever. If you don’t change me Alice, then what does that mean? I’ll love you all my life, until I die of old age, I swear it. Will you love me after I’m buried and gone, Alice? Will you even remember me after a few hundred years? What will you choose?”
Bella knew she was manipulating the facts and her wife’s feelings to an outrageous degree, but she could see no other way. She was ashamed of herself, but held firm when Alice slowly turned from the window to stare into her eyes.
“No, you *give* me no choice. Either I change you and risk killing you, or I don’t, and I watch you fade away before my eyes having broken my promise. That’s not a choice Bella.” She turned back to the window.
Bella decided to head back to their bedroom. They had plans to go out later, when the sun wasn’t so prominent. As she crossed the doorway a faint whisper reached her ears.
“I would have remembered you for eternity.”
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__________Three Years Later___________
They’d had another argument. Bella had pushed too hard about being changed, but she was getting desperate. She wasn’t getting any younger while Alice avoided and flat out refused to acknowledge the issue.
She was enjoying college and the friends they had both made in Port Angeles. She loved having their own apartment close enough so they could visit Charlie and the other Cullen’s easily. She loved how Alice would surprise her with gifts and picnics on weekends and special occasions. She loved waking up and going to sleep with Alice. She just plain loved Alice, but it was time. Past time and she had said so, loudly, and certain pieces of cookware might have been used to emphasize her point.
In the end she had been too upset and had to flee, taking a walk around the neighborhood to cool off. It was dark, but she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t seem to have the normal human reaction for self-preservation, as those who knew her would attest. Also, she was almost always with Alice anymore, and though she didn’t look it, the pixyish vampire was better than any bodyguard.
Those were her actual thoughts as Bella wandered down a poorly lit street. The shadows seemed to close around her, and she looked up for the first time, noticing that the street lamps seemed to have been shattered on purpose. Bella felt her heart rate pick up which caused her feet to move just a little quicker across the pavement.
She never saw what hit her. One minute she was running toward the lighted streets and the next all she could see was bright white light all around her. Slowly other sensations returned. Pain around her neck and a bright spot of agony in the back of her head. She tried to move her legs and realized they were hanging in the air. Finally her vision cleared enough for her to see a dark shape holding her by the throat against a brick wall. The form came closer, and she could make out matted hair and a fetid stink that clung to the grime covered features. His teeth however were sharp and white, and steadily approaching her throat.
The pain as they pierced her neck was excruciating, the venom seeping into her wounds, a pulse to the overarching agony. She felt rivulets of blood run down her neck to splash on the concrete and leak onto the collar of her shirt. It took several moments for her to realize that the pain, while still terrible, wasn’t increasing. Once that was established in her mind she was able to take in the rest of her reality.
She was lying on the ground. The vampire that had attacked her was dead. Preoccupied with Bella, he had obviously failed to see Alice come upon him. As much as her mind tried to cower away and hide from the horror, the fact was, the face of the vampire whose teeth were still pressed into her neck, no longer had a body to go along with it. Screaming and chocking she managed to grab the head and toss it away into the shadows of the alley. Looking around frantically for anything reassuring to grab onto, physically or mentally, she peered upward and met the solid black eyes of her wife who was focused solely on the blood running from her wound.
“Alice?”
Her answer was a growling scream that echoed against the stone in the alley and funneled up into the sky. Alice pounced and pinned her hands above her head and sat on her stomach. Bella pushed with all her strength and managed to move Alice a total of zero to the nth degree millimeters. Then she didn’t have time or energy to struggle because the pain, the devastating pain, was back again. This time caused by Alice’s teeth at her throat, Alice’s venom in her blood.
Bella felt herself go weak. Felt the venom and the blood-loss take affect. At the edges of her awareness she could feel Alice shifting slightly on top of her. She could still feel the powerful muscles housed under the small, unassuming frame. She was losing control of her body, but she could still smell Alice. She could hear the little whimpers and sighs that escaped. She was more used to hearing them in a different setting, but they comforted her even now. This was her Alice, her wife, and no matter what her body and her mind were screaming, her heart told her it would be okay.
“I’ll remember you forever too, Alice.”
She wasn’t sure she had managed the words, but it didn’t matter. Bella let go and floated into the raging inferno her world had become.
_______________Five Years Later_______________
“No. I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No I wo-“
“Shut up, you two!”
Rosalie’s voice shrieked through the house, making every one inside cover their ears. Not to be deterred, the pixyish vampire continued the conversation.
“I promise I won’t.”
“You promised last time.”
“Last time I had my fingers crossed. But not this time, see.” Slim, beautiful fingers were held out to be examined. “Besides you have to come with me.”
“And why is that?”
“Because, Bella, you accepted my proposal, so now you have to do what I say.”
Bella Cullen stood stunned, staring at her wife. “What?! That doesn’t make any sense. Are you trying to say that’s some kinda rule? That’s ridiculous.”
“As ridiculous as saying since I proposed you could invite a *werewolf* to our wedding?”
“Seriously?! Are you seriously still holding a grudge about that?” Bella took the silence as her answer. “It was five years ago. You have to let it go, Baby.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“Hmmm, give or take a couple hundred years.” Bella stared into the laughing golden eyes that now matched her own and couldn’t help but smile. God, she loved her wife.
“Well, I suppose I could hang around that long,” she teased in return. She watched as Alice’s eyes grew darker, more intense, more . . . vulnerable.
“Could you hang around forever?”
Bella walked forward and pressed a passionate kiss to Alice’s lips. “I plan to, thanks to you.”
Alice kissed her back softly before burying her face in Bella’s neck. She lightly ran her nose over the scars that still marked the brunette’s skin. “I was almost too late. I was almost the one who would have kept you from eternity.” A gentle hand, cold and solid, lifted her face up.
“But you weren’t. You saved me, Alice. You saved me in so many ways.” The pair moved in to kiss again, but were interrupted by something rapping on the boards under their feet.
“Don’t make me come up there. It’s bad enough I’ve had to listen to all this lovey-dovey crap twenty-four seven for the last two years. I will *not* listen to you two get it on in this house one more time.” Having said her piece, Rosalie put down the broom before grabbing Emmett and hauling him up to their room.
The newest couple laughed until they were both doubled over. Finally they settled down and headed companionably out to the car. Bella took one last look at the Cullen house as Alice began to drive them home. She knew they would be stopping at the Port Angeles Mall before they reached home, but that was to be expected. Alice needed to shop and Bella need Alice, therefore, Bella would shop. And have Alice, forever.
END