Fire of Your Soul

Chapter Three

You still with us? We're going through a time jump after chapter two. We don't want our story to be a bajillion chapters long, reading about every tiny thing our characters experience. It would be very tedious.

Now, again, none of this is ours. We're not famous or anything. We don't get paid for this. Sigh ... On with it!

Chapter Three

Five Years Later ...

Bella looked around her apartment with the sea of boxes that held her possessions from her life in New York, all except the silver frame that held the picture of her and Angela together. It had been five years since the horrible accident that took Angela's life, and, in that time, Bella threw herself into her medical training. She had found that if she worked herself to the point of exhaustion, she wouldn't think as much about Angela, or the emptiness of losing her twin. She also avoided making connections with coworkers. Bella refused to have her heart shattered again with the loss of someone she loved. She did, however, make sure that she called her parents on a regular basis, knowing that they were also dealing with the pain.

What Bella lacked in empathy for her colleagues, her peers, she made up for with her patients. They were only people who mattered in Bella's mind.

Everyone else in the Swan family handled Angela's death differently. Renee threw herself into her work, taking on many new clients and at one point she had to hire someone to help her out. Renee hired a recent college graduate, Alice Brandon, and she took the young girl under her wing.

Charlie dealt with his pain by finding out what caused the fire, almost to the point of obsession. After scouring every inch of the burnt-out building, he determined that it had been started by someone and that it was not a random accident. Whomever did it, was very thorough, not leaving any evidence implicating their identity. They had used paint thinner as an accelerant in the maintenance closet located on Angela's floor, across from her apartment. Charlie would never stop looking until he found the person who started that fire and make them pay for the death of his daughter.

After five years of living in New York, Bella was ready to go back to Seattle after she had finished all her training and was currently a well sought-after Gynecologic Oncologist. Sloane Kettering had wanted her to stay in New York City and offered her an excellent employment package to do so, but she really wanted to be close to her parents. She missed them and missed that connection to Angela. So, Bella applied at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, or The Hutch. Within few hours after submitting her resume and credentials, Dr. Victoria Howard called her. Dr. Howard was the head of the gynecologic oncology department at The Hutch and was excited to see that someone as qualified as Dr. Isabella Swan would want to leave New York and come to Seattle. Bella's reputation preceded her as being an excellent physician, not giving up on her patients, no matter how dire their prognosis.

"Dr. Swan?" Dr. Howard asked.

"Yes, this is Dr. Swan," Bella answered, as she was taking a walk around Central Park, enjoying the early spring weather.

"This is Dr. Victoria Howard of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Do you have a moment to talk?"

"Of course," Bella answered, stopping at a park bench and sitting down.

"I wanted to talk to you about your resume that you submitted."

"Alright. I hope I didn't forget to put something on it," Bella said.

"No, on the contrary, I was excited to see that someone of your exemplary qualifications would like to work at The Hutch," Dr. Howard breathed.

"Thank you. I wanted to move home to be closer to my parents and I've only heard phenomenal comments about the center," Bella explained.