Chapter Text
Here’s the thing. I’m actually quite intelligent. Really, I am. I have an IQ of 168 and am a member of Mensa… Was a member of Mensa (I’ll get back to that). Did I excel in college? No. Because I was extremely lazy (the high school habits of a student who doesn’t need to study to get straight-A’s do not fair well in college). But I’ve always been extremely logical. So I should be forgiven that it took me nearly three days to realize that I was not only in the Twilight universe, but that I’d also body-snatched Bella Swan. Because what logical person would guess that as a first option and actually believe it?
I started out by thinking this was just a strange afterlife (I got stabbed to death- I don’t recommend it). Then I thought someone in the reincarnation division messed up, given that I was shoved into life in what looked to be a teenage body, rather than an infant. Then I snooped around and found mail (bills, mostly) addressed to Renee Dwyer. That name was familiar, but it didn’t set off alarm bells right away. Until I finally found my meat suit’s wallet and dug out an Arizona driver’s license with the name SWAN, ISABELLA (date of birth: September 13th, 1987).
Well, shit.
Here’s the deal. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Twilight series. I started reading the books out of curiosity, and finished them (the four original ones- I didn’t bother with the additional crap meant to ride the wave of the series’ popularity) because I couldn’t pull myself away (much like driving slowly by a fatal car crash site despite already being late for work). I honestly don’t know how I finished them, since the main characters (Bella and Edward, mostly) pissed me off. Not in the love-to-hate-them way, either. Bella’s lack of backbone and absolute obsession with her first boyfriend ever and Edward’s controlling nature just upset me, even when I was a teenager/barely adult. As I got older (I died at 32 years old in 2021- for reference, Breaking Dawn was published in 2008, I think), their dynamic reminded me of several highly co-dependent and abusive relationships that I’d seen. As I worked for a police department for several years (civilian staff, not an officer, and I still got fucking stabbed for it), I had seen a fair few. (And don’t get me started on the imprinting-on-children thing. That had “grooming” written all over it.) I watched the movies when they came out because I was certain they’d be terrible and I felt I could add to my list of B movies for when I needed something awful and mind-numbing to watch. Also, a friend of mine picked them for one of our rare movie nights and everyone else shot down my idea of an MCU marathon. Admittedly, I did read a few Twilight fanfictions in which Bella actually had a backbone (they were recommended by someone with similar tastes as me in the Harry Potter fandom), but I didn’t get through very many before I gave up. Maybe four. A few more crossovers with Harry Potter or The Vampire Diaries, but those focused either on HP characters or the TVD plotline. Not very helpful. (The Author’s Notes on one crossover were both informative and hilarious enough to be memorable, so those would probably actually be the most useful.)
Bottom line, I had a very vague idea of what was going to happen if this world followed the events of the series. I knew the most about the first two books/movies, since the fanfictions I’d read covered at least those and there were events that were similar enough between the stories that I could be relatively certain they came from the actual series (I have a good memory, but I’d only read the books through once, and they didn’t merit more than the bare minimum of brain space). I was pretty sure Bella moved to Forks in January in the books, and it was currently the beginning of June, so I had some time to figure things out before I encountered vampires. If I didn’t mess with shit, that is.
So, anyway, that was what went through my mind over and over again during my two-and-a-half-day freakout. After which, I realized that I hadn’t seen Renee once during that time. Small blessings, really. I could hide my emotions well enough that she might not realize I’d been freaking about something, but I didn’t know Bella’s mannerisms (other than being a doormat when it came to her boyfriend) well enough to imitate her. I was enlightened about Renee’s absence when I finally got around to logging into Bella’s computer. By “logged in,” I mean “moved the mouse,” since she didn’t have any password protection in place. I would want to berate her, but A: she wasn’t around for me to do so, and B: it was extremely useful. Turns out, the lack of security was entirely intentional, given what came up was a word document entitled “Hey, Bodysnatcher.”
Well, this wasn’t in the books.
--
Hey Bodysnatcher,
I wish I could tell you what’s going on, but I don’t have much of a clue other than someone’s going to be taking over my life soon. Fair enough… Sort of… I mean, I’m not really doing anything interesting with it, but it is my life. Or it was? I guess, if someone besides me is reading this, it’s not my life any longer.
Where do I start? I guess at the beginning.
Around Christmas, I started getting terrible migraines. They got so bad that the doctors ran me through an MRI and an EEG and had me see a neurologist. They didn’t find anything unusual other than some heightened brain activity. The dreams started in February. They weren’t nightmares, exactly, but they didn’t really lend themselves to a good night’s sleep, either. Some of them involved reading incredibly detailed police reports that did give me nightmares. Not to mention the whole pandemic thing. I eventually came to the conclusion that they were visions. Luckily, I was smart enough not to tell my mom that, otherwise she might have taken me to a shrink. Anyway, the visions. I’m pretty sure they were about your life, because they certainly weren’t about mine. You’re boring, by the way. Not quite as boring as I am, but boring none the less. Getting stabbed probably sucks, though. Sorry you had to go through that.
If my visions were right, you woke up in my body the day after my mom left to travel a bit with Phil (her new husband). She’ll be gone until the end of June, so you have some time to get the hang of being me, if you want. If you don’t want to pretend to be me (I understand if you don’t; why would a 30-something-year-old want to be a boring teenager again?), this time gives you an opportunity to come up with a reason for the personality change. At the very least, I suggest you say you studied Math hardcore. From what I saw, you are much better at it than I am. By the way, who on earth pulls out old calculus textbooks and does problem sets to relax? Pull out an old textbook to set it on fire, maybe, but not actually use it. Our reading tastes are different, too. I never got into sci-fi/fantasy, and I never saw you touch a classic, so you might have some explaining to do there. Our music preferences are different, too (hip-hop and club music, really?), so have fun with that.
Mom might take you in to see a neurologist again if you come across as too different. She’s not the most observant person, but she knows her daughter well enough to notice such a large change in personality. If that happens, hopefully there isn’t much of a change in the scans.
I’ve been doing what I can to withdraw a bit from my life. I only have very casual friendships, anyway, so it wasn’t really difficult to cut ties with them. So, you shouldn’t have to deal with too much “hey, remember that time…” The migraines have given me a reason to stay shut up in my room, too, so even Mom hasn’t seen much of me the past few months. I’ve also pretty much been home-schooling this last semester. I paid a classmate to take notes for me, and the teachers pretty much just sent my assignments home when I couldn’t go to class and Mom dropped them off almost every day for me. There wasn’t much of a dip in my grades, so either I chose an excellent note-taker or the American educational system is as deficient as a lot of critics claim. Bottom line, nobody has seen much of me since January.
After mom gets back, you two will start arranging your two weeks in California with Charlie (that’s my dad). That will probably happen in the beginning of August. I used to go visit him in Forks (yes, I know, stupid name) for a month in the summer, but I hate it there and put my foot down when I was 14 and he agreed to a sunny getaway the last couple years, instead.
There are a few documents on my computer that you should read through. Stuff about my life that you should definitely know if you don’t want my mom to start joking about body snatchers, mostly. The top right drawer on my desk has a list of all my passwords, my passport, social security card, birth certificate, and other important documents. I have my social security number memorized, so you might want to do the same just in case you need it. Mom would definitely notice if you start pulling out the card. She’s commented before on how I had mine memorized by the age of twelve when she could never do the same. I got a copy of my school transcript, too, so you have an idea of where you’re supposed to be educationally when school starts up again (sorry about having to go back). There are a few labeled pictures of the people you’re most likely to encounter, so you’ll know their names when you see them, at least.
I guess I’m trying to make this easier on you. I’m not really sure why. I got over being angry that someone was taking over my life, but I’m still not happy about it. (If I were petty, I’d hope that you got stuck with the migraines.) Maybe I just don’t want Charlie and my mom to realize that they technically lost their daughter? I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be a pay-it-forward situation and I’ll take over someone else’s life in turn. I guess I’ll find out.
Take care of my body, will you? From what I saw, you’re bad at that. You have a blank slate now, much less work to do to stay in shape. Eat a vegetable now and then. Sorry about the clumsiness, though. Then again, maybe that was just because I never felt right in my own body. Huh. Maybe I was always meant to leave it for someone else.
Goodbye and good luck.
--
I deleted the note as soon as I read it, then cleaned out the trash. It wasn’t as good as a secure deletion program, but it seemed unlikely that someone would go through a 16-year-old’s computer looking for secrets, anyway. I then repeated the process with the other couple of documents. After perusing the stuff in the drawers, I promptly changed all the passwords and the bank PIN (how the hell did she have $5000 in the bank? She didn’t even have a job! Right, no student loans to pay off yet. Still, it seemed excessive). I set the photos out on the desk so I could look them over several times and hopefully fix the faces in my mind. I’ve always been bad with names and faces. The social security number was easy enough to memorize (I’ve always been good with numbers). I looked back through a few of Bella’s old email exchanges, but they were all very generic. No personal information in them, at all.
After searching the rest of the desk (and setting aside a folder of old essays to look through later- they could be helpful), I sat down with a notebook and started making a plan. Was I going to write it in code? No. Was I going to write it in Arabic? Yes, yes I was. Did I speak Arabic? Sort of. I could read and write it very well, but my listening comprehension wasn’t great (unless I was conversing with someone kind enough to speak slowly), and my pronunciation was terrible. I could have used Spanish (I was actually fluent in that- at least Bella took a couple years worth in high school to sort of explain that away), but I wasn’t sure if Renee knew it at all. The likelihood of her knowing Arabic was minimal.
So, the plan (in no particular order):
1. Convince Renee and Charlie to let me move to Forks for the start of Junior year, rather than in the middle. Charlie would be slightly less likely than Renee to notice any discrepancies in personality and preferences. Or, at least, he would probably be less likely to comment on them. I would encounter the vampires sooner, but I had a plan for staying away from Edward (see #3). The best option would be a boarding school, but Bella’s notes made it apparent that was a financial impossibility for both parents.
1a. Do the convincing before plans are set for the California vacation. It was selfish of Bella to make Charlie take time off of work and spend money on a two-week trip just because she didn’t like his town.
2. Come up with an excuse for “foggy” memories. Current idea: “I had the worst migraine ever! They finally stopped completely, but I just can’t remember some things right.” It would definitely get me a trip to a neurologist to check for brain damage, but it was something I could run with.
3. Convince the parentals to let me skip at least one grade. It would take me out of Junior classes with Edward and get me out of the hell that is high school a little bit faster.
4. Replace Bella’s wardrobe. Bella’s tastes were very simple, which I preferred over frills and revealing stuff, but I definitely would miss my geeky graphic tees. Besides, I would need warmer clothes in Washington. And an umbrella.
5. Buy books and audio primers on Arabic and Spanish to help explain proficiency.
6. Look into getting a car before Charlie can buy The Beast. That $5000 would come in handy. I was back in 2004. I could probably get a secondhand mid-90s SUV for maybe half that. More research required.
7. Invest in Amazon. It was about $50 a share right now, and in my world, it was at nearly $3,400 when I died in 2021. Even if I only bought 40 shares now, if I kept reinvesting the dividends, it would add up.
8. Sign up for a martial arts class. Or two. The activity would help me get used to my new body (I wasn’t as clumsy as Bella had been portrayed as, giving some credence to her theory, but I wasn’t comfortable yet, either), and I would feel more confident if I could somewhat protect myself (unlike my 32-year-old self, I wasn’t going to be allowed to walk around carrying a concealed firearm. I rarely had, hence the getting stabbed, but at least I had the option). Plus, Bella’s body was even weaker than my former overweight-and-lazy body had been. Martial arts were an excellent way to build muscle and endurance. I took a Judo class one semester in college (I had to quit due to an injury that never healed right), and it was one of the most satisfying things I had ever done.
9. Figure out if I was in the book-verse, movie-verse, or a mixture of the two. I was leaning towards book-verse or mixture, since I didn’t look like Kristen Stewart, but I couldn’t be positive.
I could take care of #3-6 (though maybe not the actual “buying the car” part of 6) and maybe #8 & #9 before Renee got back from her trip, but the others would require a non-phone conversation with her. I was probably going to ask for Phil’s help with #7, actually. I figured even if he didn’t already play the stock market, asking for his help with something important would be a good bonding exercise. According to Bella’s notes, they weren’t very close. He might be married to her mom, but he was too young to really be a father figure, and trying to act as friends was just awkward. I would definitely ask for his help with #6. Even if he knew nothing about cars, a man was much less likely to get screwed over on price than a teenage girl.
I would have written down “find out if I have Bella’s mind shield” as #10, but I had literally no way to test that until I came into contact with Edward. I was hoping for the best because I didn’t really have a way to prepare for the worst. If the likely upcoming brain scans didn’t show much difference from Bella’s previous ones, I was going to breathe more easily. I might put down “convince Charlie to teach me to shoot a gun” as #10. I don’t know if Bella has had any sort of lessons in that, but I was a decent marksman in my previous life. Depending on my new hand-eye coordination, I was hoping that hadn’t changed.
--
By the time I had been in this world for a week, I had bought several Arabic and Spanish books and left them placed strategically about the house for Renee to stumble over, replaced most of Bella’s clothes (resale shops for the win!), found a 1998 Ford Explorer for sale by a private party for $1500 (not terrible for a 6 year old car, as long as it ran properly), and researched martial arts classes in both Phoenix and Port Angeles (Forks, as expected, had none- at least that were advertised online). If I bought that car, I would be cutting Bella’s (now my) savings in almost half, but I could get a part-time job either in Phoenix or Forks. That was just the general savings, anyway. I now had a shiny new 529 account for college savings, which had about $10,000 in it. Enough for at least two years at a state school (with residency or WUE), probably. I did a little math. Minimum wage in Washington at the time was $7.16 (beating out Arizona’s $5.15 by a fair bit. Thank you, Google). 16 hours a week for two years would put me at around $9,500 after taxes. I would be out between $25 and $50 a week in gas (no matter how cheap it was right now compared to when and where I came from), depending on whether I could find a job in Forks or had to go to Port Angeles, cutting that $9,500 by up to half. That sucked majorly, but that was still about a year’s worth of tuition. So, I was probably set for about three years of college if I lived cheap, even if I didn’t qualify for scholarships (I didn’t want to dig myself in deep with student loan debt again- I had still been paying it off when I died). And I never really did need much in the way of material things.
Week two was spent coming up with persuasive arguments to get Charlie and Renee to let me test out of junior year. It was going to be difficult. Bella was about a B average student, according to her transcripts. That wasn’t bad, but it also didn’t exactly scream “I’m not being challenged! Move me up a grade!” If I got them to let me transfer to Forks High, though, I could possibly insist on “placement tests.” After all, there could be vast curriculum differences between schools even in adjacent cities. There was no telling how different the classes might be in completely different states. Yeah, that was probably the best way to phrase it. I would need to study hard to get my History knowledge up to spec (I never did like the subject), and I would definitely be reviewing Bella’s English essays (again, not a subject I was fond of), but I was certainly set for Math, the hard sciences, and Spanish. Thus, the rest of week two was dedicated to reading through extremely boring textbooks and essays (it seemed either Bella or Renee was a bit of a hoarder; I found textbooks and essays going back through Bella’s eighth grade).
I was a little concerned that Forks wouldn’t let me skip junior year. It wasn’t common to skip a grade in high school simply because they required a minimum amount of credits to graduate (plus, high intelligence was usually already apparent in younger kids and the grade-skipping happened then). If I got pushback on just testing out of the credits, I was going to float the idea of moving me into senior year, then using what would have been my senior year to take dual credits at U-Dub. It would keep me away from Edward Cullen and give me a head start on my college courses. Win-win! I made sure to print out informational packets and the paperwork needed to take college courses for high school credit so I could shove it in the principal’s face (politely, of course) if they decided to be difficult.
Week three was more studying, plus a more concerted attempt to get used to my new body. I wasn’t as clumsy as Bella had been, but being three inches shorter (a measly 5’7”!) and about 120 pounds lighter made for an interesting adjustment period. Renee had a few yoga DVDs (at least, I assumed they were Renee’s), and I ran through each of them at least once. Jogging became a thing, too. My new body didn’t have the best endurance, though, so I was usually left gasping for air after just a couple of blocks. Something to work on. I was going to honor Bella’s request to take care of her body. Okay, so it was mostly selfish- I had been overweight to some degree from the age of four in my previous life. I was going to make the most of this.
The last week before Renee returned was spent lazing around a bit, with a little more studying thrown in for good measure. I had spoken with the woman on the phone twice a week since I woke up in this world, and it was easy to tell from those conversations that she was more than happy to be on the road with her hubby. I didn’t anticipate much pushback in convincing her to let me move to Forks so she could have some newlywed time. She made sure I (well, Bella) was safe, secure, and not in need of anything, but she didn’t express much interest in what I was doing with my time.
The day before Renee was due back, I had a conversation with Charlie, who was rather surprised to hear from his daughter. That kind of made me mad at Bella. There was no reason for her to ignore her dad. He wasn’t a bad man, and the main reason he wasn’t a larger part of her life was because she didn’t really allow it.
“Hey, Dad. I was thinking… Well, I needed to talk to you about it before I bring it up to Mom, because if you don’t agree, then there’s no point, really-”
“Whatever it is Bells, just ask.”
“Well, I was thinking I could finish high school in Forks, actually.”
There was dead silence on the other end for a solid 44 seconds (I counted).
“You want to finish school…”
“In Forks, yeah.”
“What brought this on?” I could tell he was holding back his hope.
“Well, part of it is I realized that Mom would be a lot happier if she could be on the road with Phil. But, mostly I just realized that I haven’t spent much time with you.” I could hear him take a deep breath, probably preparing to say something. “And that’s entirely on me!” I rushed to add. “I can’t turn back time and fix that, but I can try better from now on.”
“Is there any other reason?”
“Well… You know about my migraines, right?”
“Of course. Are they getting worse? Did they find out something?”
“Calm down, Dad. I had a really bad one about a week ago. The worst one yet, actually. I haven’t had another since then, but when it cleared, everything felt off. Like different things matter now. I don’t even like some of the same foods anymore. And I actually like math now. And I think it would be really helpful to be somewhere different while I figure out what all has changed.” I cringed. I definitely didn’t phrase that properly. He was probably going to panic.
“Have you told your mom about that?” Huh, only a mildly panicking tone.
“I’m going to tell her when she gets back. I’m sure she’ll want me to go in for tests again, and I know she’ll want to be with me for those.”
“Okay. Let me know what they say.”
“I will.”
“And I’ll look into what would need to be done to get you transferred to Forks for your junior year.”
“Really?”
“Now, I won’t promise anything, because this is up to your mom, too, but I’d be more than happy to have you here.”
“Thanks, Dad.”