Potter Sibling Trilogy Plus One Book 2 (continued from Book 1)

Chapter 32 - Changing Her Mind

~Bam's POV~
When me and Jake return from a bike ride, we find Charlie's car outside.
"Hey, guys," Dad says as we walk in.
"What's going on?" Jake asks.
"Bella called him."
I walk over to Charlie.
"Hey, haven't see you in a while," Charlie says. "You okay?"
"So, you finally heard from Bella?"
He nods.
"They're extending their trip. Seems she caught a bug. They wanna wait until she feels better before they apparate home."
"She's sick?"
"Yeah, she told me not to worry, but she sounded, I don't know, off."
"She'll be okay, Charlie," Sue says. "Come on, let's eat."
Charlie goes to the table but I know something's wrong so I head for the door but Jake grabs me.
"I thought you were over this now you're with Leah."
"I still love her, Jake."
He lets me go and I leave.

When I get to the Cullen's front door, Carlisle is already coming to answer it.
"Is it true?" I ask as I barge in.
"Hello, Brandon, how are you?"
"Listen, just give it to me straight."
"Bam, is that you?" Bella calls from upstairs so I turn and look before I turn back to Carlisle.
"She's here?"
"They came home two weeks ago."
I hurry up the stairs.
"Brandon," Carlisle says as he comes up after me.
I find Bella on the sofa with Rosalie on some kind of guard duty in front of her and the others are spread around the room.
"I'm glad you came," Bella says.
I approach but Rosalie steps in front of me.
"Close enough," Rosalie says.
"What's your problem?"
"Rose, it's okay."
I move round her and sit on the armchair opposite Bella. She looks terrible so I tell her so.
"Yeah, it's nice to see you, too."
"So, are you gonna tell me what's wrong with you?"
"Rose, you wanna help me up?"
As she moves the blanket, I thought I was seeing things when I saw a swollen belly but them Rosalie helps her up and she runs her hand over her belly.
I look at Edward.
"You did this!" I spit as I go for him but Emmett stops me.
"We didn't know it was even possible," Carlisle says.
I push Emmett's arm off and turn to Carlisle.
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure. Ultrasounds and needles won't penetrate the embryonic sac."
Bella sits back down.
"I can't see it, either," Alice says. "And I can't see Bella's future anymore."
"We've been researching legends, but there isn't much to go on," Carlisle says. "What we do know is that isn't strong. And fast-growing."
"Why haven't you done anything? Take it out of her."
"This is none of your business, you wannabe dog," Rosalie hisses.
"Rose!" Esme scolds. "All this fighting isn't good for Bella."
"The foetus isn't good for Bella," Alice shouts.
"Say the word, Alice," Rosalie says. "'Baby.' It's just a little baby."
"Carlisle, you've gotta do something," I plead.
"No," Bella protests. "It's not his decision. It's not any of yours."
"Brandon, I need to talk to you," Edward says before he walks past me to the stairs.
I follow him out to the back garden.
"I always knew you'd destroy her."
"She thinks Carlisle can turn her at the last minute, like he did for me and Esme."
"Can he?"
"Probability is slight. And if her heart fails... Look, Brandon, I need you to do something for me."
I scoff.
"For her."
There's a brief silence.
"I did everything I could to keep her away from you. Every single thing. It's too late."
"You know her, Brandon. You connect to her on a level that I don't even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you. She won't listen to me, because she thinks I'm underestimating her. She thinks she's strong enough for this..." He chokes and then swallows. "She might listen to you."
"Why would she?"
He lurches to his feet, his eyes burning brighter than before, wilder.
I wonder if he's really going crazy. Can vampires lose their minds?
"Maybe," he answers my thought.
"I don't know. It feels like it." He shakes his head. "I have to try to hide this in front of her, because stress makes her more ill. She can't keep anything down as it is. I have to be composed; I can't make it harder. But that doesn't matter now. She has to listen to you!"
"I can't tell her anything you haven't. What do you want me to do? Tell her she's stupid? She probably already knows that. Tell her she's going to die? I bet she knows that, too."
"You can offer her what she wants."
He wasn't making any sense. Part of the crazy?
"I don't care about anything but keeping her alive," he says, suddenly focused now. "If it's a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies. Anything she wants." He pauses for one beat. "She can have puppies, if that's what it takes." He meets my stare for a moment and his face is frenzied under the thin layer of control.
My hard scowl crumbles as I process his words, and I feel my mouth pop open in shock.
"But not this way!" he hisses before I can recover. "Not this thing that's sucking the life from her while I stand there helpless! Watching her sicken and waste away. Seeing it hurting her." He sucks in a fast breath like someone had punched him in the gut.
"You have to make her see reason, Brandon. She won't listen to me anymore. Rosalie's always there, feeding her insanity-encouraging her. Protecting her. No, protecting it. Bella's life means nothing to her."
The noise coming from my throat sounds like I'm choking.
What was he saying? That Bella should, what? Have a baby? With me? What? How? Was he giving her up? Or did he think she wouldn't mind being shared?
"Whichever. Whatever keeps her alive."
"That's the craziest thing you've said yet," I mumble.
"She loves you."
"Not enough."
"She's ready to die to have a child. Maybe she'd accept something less extreme."
"Don't you know her at all?"
"I know, I know. It's going to take a lot of convincing. That's why I need you. You know how she thinks. Make her see sense."
I couldn't think about what he was suggesting. It was too much. Impossible. Wrong. Sick. Borrowing Bella for the weekends and then returning her Monday morning like a rental movie? So messed up. So tempting.
I didn't want to consider, didn't want to imagine, but the images came anyway.
I'd fantasized about Bella that way too many times, back when there was still a possibility of us, and then long after it was clear that the fantasies would only leave festering sores because there was no possibility, none at all.
I hadn't been able to help myself then. I couldn't stop myself now.
Bella in my arms, Bella sighing my name...
Worse still, this new image I'd never had before, one that by all rights shouldn't have existed for me. Not yet.
An image I knew I wouldn't've suffered over for years if he hadn't shoved it in my head now.
But it stuck there, winding threads through my brain like a weed-poisonous and unkillable.
Bella, healthy and glowing, so different than now, but something the same: her body, not distorted, changed in a more natural way.
Round with my child.
I try to escape the venomous weed in my mind.
"Make Bella see sense? What universe do you live in?"
"At least try."
I shake my head fast.
He waits, ignoring the negative answer because he can hear the conflict in my thoughts.
"Where is this psycho crap coming from? Are you making this up as you go?"
"I've been thinking of nothing but ways to save her since I realized what she was planning to do. What she would die to do. But I didn't know how to contact you. I knew you wouldn't listen if I called. I would have come to find you soon, if you hadn't come today. But it's hard to leave her, even for a few minutes. Her condition... it changes so fast."
I could suddenly see it then-see the swelling monster in my head, breaking her from the inside out.
"Help me stop it," he whispers. "Help me stop this from happening."
"How? By offering my stud services?" He doesn't even flinch when I say that, but I do. "You're really sick. She'll never listen to this."
"Try. There's nothing to lose now. How will it hurt?"
It would hurt me.
Hadn't I taken enough rejection from Bella without this?
"A little pain to save her? Is it such a high cost?"
"But it won't work."
"Maybe not. Maybe it will confuse her, though. Maybe she'll falter in her resolve. One moment of doubt is all I need."
"And then you pull the rug out from under the offer? 'Just kidding, Bella'?"
"If she wants a child, that's what she gets. I won't rescind."
I couldn't believe I was even thinking about this.
Bella would punch me-not that I cared about that.
I shouldn't let him talk to me, mess with my head.
I should just kill him now.
"Not now," he whispers. "Not yet. Right or wrong, it would destroy her, and you know it. No need to be hasty. If she won't listen to you, you'll get your chance. The moment Bella's heart stops beating, I will be begging for you to kill me."
"You won't have to beg long."
The hint of a worn smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm very much counting on that."
"Then we have a deal."
He nods and holds out his cold stone hand.
Swallowing my disgust, I reach out to take his hand.
My fingers close around the rock, and I shake it once.
"We have a deal," he agrees.
Why didn't I just walk away? Oh right, because I'm an idiot.
I feel like-like I don't know what. Like this isn't real. Like I'm in some Goth version of a bad sitcom.
Instead of being the A/V dweeb about to ask the head cheerleader to the prom, I'm the finished-second-place wizard about to ask the vampire's wife to shack up and procreate. Nice!
No, I wouldn't do it. It was twisted and wrong.
I'm going to forget all about what he'd said.
But I would talk to her.
I'd try to make her listen to me.
And she wouldn't.
Just like always.
Edward doesn't answer or comment on my thoughts as he leads the way back to the house.
I wonder about the place that he'd chosen to stop.
Was it far enough from the house that the others couldn't hear his whispers? Was that the point?
Maybe.
When we walk through the door, the other Cullens' eyes are suspicious and confused.
No one looks disgusted or outraged.
So they must not have heard either favor Edward had asked me for.
I hesitate in the open doorway, not sure what to do now.
It's better right there, with a little bit of breathable air blowing in from outside.
Edward walks into the middle of the huddle, shoulders stiff.
Bella watches him anxiously, and then her eyes flicker to me for a second.
Then she's watching him again.
Her face turns a greyish pale, and I can see what he meant about the stress making her feel worse.
"We're going to let Brandon and Bella speak privately," Edward says.
There's no inflection at all in his voice.
Robotic.
"Over my pile of ashes," Rosalie hisses at him.
She's still hovering by Bella's head, one of her cold hands placed possessively on Bella's sallow cheek.
Edward doesn't look at her.
"Bella," he says in that same empty tone.
"Brandon wants to talk to you. Are you afraid to be alone with him?"
Bella looks at me, confused. Then she looks at Rosalie.
"Rose, its fine. Bam's not going to hurt us. Go with Edward."
"It might be a trick," Rosalie warns.
"I don't see how," Bella says.
"Carlisle and I will always be in your sight, Rosalie," Edward says.
The emotionless voice was cracking, showing the anger through it.
"We're the ones she's afraid of."
"No," Bella whispers.
Her eyes are glistening, her lashes wet.
"No, Edward. I'm not..."
He shakes his head, smiling a little. The smile is painful to look at.
"I didn't mean it that way, Bella. I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
Sickening.
He's right-she's beating herself up about hurting his feelings.
The girl is a classic martyr. She'd totally been born in the wrong century. She should have lived back when she can have gotten herself fed to some lions for a good cause.
"Everyone," Edward says, his hand stiffly motioning toward the door. "Please."
The composure he's trying to keep up for Bella is shaky. I can see how close he is to that burning man he'd been outside. The others see it, too.
Silently, they move out the door while I shift out of the way.
They move fast; my heart beat twice, and the room is cleared except for Rosalie, hesitating in the middle of the floor, and Edward, still waiting by the door.
"Rose," Bella says quietly. "I want you to go."
Rosalie glares at Edward and then gestures for him to go first.
He disappears out the door.
She gives me a long warning glower, and then she disappears, too.
Once we are alone, I cross the room and sit on the floor next to Bella.
I take both her cold hands in mine, rubbing them carefully.
"Thanks, Bam. That feels good."
"I'm not going to lie, Bells. You're hideous."
"I know," she sighs. "I'm scary looking."
"Thing from the swamp scary," I agree.
She laughs.
"It's so good having you here. It feels nice to smile. I don't know how much more drama I can stand."
I roll my eyes.
"Okay, okay," she agrees. "I bring it on myself."
"Yeah, you do. What're you thinking, Bells? Seriously!"
"Did he ask you to yell at me?"
"Sort of. Though I can't figure why he thinks you'd listen to me. You never have before."
She sighs.
"I told you-," I start to say.
"Did you know that 'I told you so' has a brother, Bam?" she asks, cutting me off. "His name is 'Shut the hell up.'"
"Good one."
She grins at me, her skin stretched tight over the bones.
"I can't take credit-I got it off a rerun of The Simpsons."
"Missed that one."
"It's funny."
We don't talk for a minute. Her hands are starting to warm up a little.
"Did he really ask you to talk to me?"
I nod.
"To talk some sense into you. There's a battle that's lost before it starts."
"So why did you agree?"
I don't answer. I'm not sure I know. I do know this-every second I spend with her is only going to add to the pain I would have to suffer later. When I'm with her, all thoughts of even loving anyone else disappears - all thoughts of being with Leah - who is now my girlfriend - disappear.
Like a junkie with a limited supply, the day of reckoning is coming for me. The more hits I take now, the harder it will be when my supply runs out.
"It'll work out, you know," she says after a quiet minute. "I believe that."
That makes me see red again.
"Is dementia one of your symptoms?" I snap.
She laughs, though my anger is so real that my hands are shaking around hers.
"Maybe," she says. "I'm not saying things will work out easily, Bam. But how can I have lived through all that I've lived through and not believe in hope by this point?"
"Hope?"
"Especially for you," she says.
She's smiling.
She pulls one of her hands away from mine and presses it against my cheek. Warmer than before, but it feels cool against my skin.
"More than anyone else, you've got some hope that things go right for you."
"What are you babbling about?"
Still smiling.
"You'll find who you're really looking for, Bam, and maybe then all of this will make sense."
If she didn't looks so fragile I would've been screaming.
"If you think that anything can ever make sense of this insanity," I struggle for words. "Do you really think that just because I might someday fall for somebody, it would make this right?" I jab a finger toward her swollen body. "Tell me what the point is then, Bella! What is the point of me loving you? What is the point of you loving him? When you die"-the words are a snarl-"how is that ever right again? What's the point to all the pain? Mine, yours, his! You'll kill him, too, not that I care about that." She flinches, but I keep going. "So what is the point of your twisted love story, in the end? If there is any sense, please show me, Bella, because I don't see it."
She sighs.
"I don't know yet, Bam. But I just... feel... that this is all going somewhere good, hard to see as it is now. I guess you can call it faith."
"You're dying for nothing, Bella! Nothing!"
Her hand drops from my face to her bloated stomach, caresses it.
She doesn't have to say the words for me to know what she's thinking. She's dying for it.
"I'm not going to die," she says through her teeth, and I can tell she's repeating things she'd said before. "I will keep my heart beating. I'm strong enough for that."
"Doesn't look like it to me. So what's your plan? I hope you have one." She nods, not meeting my eyes.
"Do you know Esme jumped off a cliff? When she was human, I mean."
"So?"
"So she was close enough to dead that they didn't even bother taking her to the emergency room-they took her right around to the morgue. Her heart was still beating, though, when Carlisle found her..."
That's what she'd meant before, about keeping her heart beating.
"You're not planning on surviving this human," I state dully.
"No. I'm not stupid." She meets my stare then. "I guess you probably have your own opinion on that point, though."
"Emergency vampirization," I mumble.
"It worked for Esme. And Emmett, and Rosalie, and even Edward. None of them were in such great shape. Carlisle only changed them because it was that or death. He doesn't end lives, he saves them."
I feel a sudden twinge of guilt about the good vampire doctor. Like before, I shove the thought away and start in on the begging.
"Listen to me, Bells. Don't do it that way."
I realise I need her to stay alive, in some form. In any form.
I take a deep breath.
"Don't wait until it's too late, Bella. Not that way. Live. Okay? Just live. Don't do this to me. Don't do it to him. What about Charlie, Renee, Hollie, Harry, Emberlee?" My voice gets harder, louder. "You know what he's going to do when you die. You've seen it before. You want him to go back to those Italian killers?" She cringes into the sofa.
I leave out the part about how that wouldn't be necessary this time.
"Look, Bella. I'll give you what you want. I'll give you a baby; loads if that's what you want but end this ridiculousness."
She just stares at me.
"Are you telling me Edward asked you to offer yourself to allow me to have a baby?"
I say nothing.
"He really would do anything. And it seems so would you. It's a tempting offer, believe me but I won't kill this baby."
My hands shake again.
"So that's it then? You're doing this?"
She nods her head.
"Then don't expect me to stick around and watch."
I storm out of the house as she calls my name, and I get onto my bike before racing towards the reservation.