Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: This is much later then usual, and I apologize. You know when you're trying to come up with ideas for a story and ANOTHER one demands to be written instead? It's kinda like that annoying fairy in the Legend of Zelda that hovers around Link's head. Do you know the one? HEY. HEY. LOOK. LISTEN. Yeah, that one.

It was a challenge to get this out. My mind only has room for one story at a time, apparently. NO. This is not me saying I'm putting this story on hiatus, but that my updates will now be (hopefully) every one and a half to two weeks instead of the one that I was trying to stick to (and already unfortunately failed at with this story.) I hope that this chapter was worth the wait and that you're all still willing to stick with me afterwards.

Alice ripped open the dresser drawer, digging through the clothes she realized with dismay were incredibly unstylish. If she was in Bella's body, that could only mean that Bella was in hers. This was not good, it could destroy everything she had spent sixty years molding.

She needed to warn Jasper, to tell her family that an imposter was walking around wearing a (very attractive) Alice suit. She needed to...

"Don't."

Alice paused, her hands clenched around a (hideous) checkered shirt. Her gaze drifted up to the door, which she hadn't seen open and still remained closed. She whirled around clutching the shirt to her body like it was some protective shield.

If the color silver had a form, this woman would be it. Everything about her had a silvery sheen, from her eyes, to her hip length, pin-straight, off white hair, to skin pale enough to almost be translucent. Even the fabric draped over her lithe frame shimmered in the late morning sunlight that spilled in from the window she stood in front of.

She was extremely beautiful... in a slightly intimidating way and though Alice didn't have her vampire sensibilities about her, she knew without a doubt that this woman wasn't human.

"Wh- Who are you?" she stammered.

"It is of no importance."

Indignation quickly replaced fear. "Excuse me? I'm in someone else's body, wearing plaid pajamas of all things, and you don't think it's important?!"

She flinched when the woman leveled an icy glare, made even more terrifying by the ice like color of her irises, at her. "Very well. I simply have no desire to tell you." Rolling her eyes as Alice continued to gape at her after a few long, uncomfortable moments of silence, she finally conceded. "Fine, my name is Azial and that is all you need to know."

"What have you done to me?"

An amused gleam colored her eyes. "Why do you assume I have anything to do with this?"

"Don't play games with me!"

The amusement quickly darkened to ire. "You do not give me orders, vampire." A smirk tugged at her lips. "Though I suppose that title is not entirely accurate now is it?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Oh my dear, you know exactly why."

"I don't," Alice insisted.

"Hmm... Let me ask you this, your vampire memory allows you to recall every vision you've ever had, does it not?

Alice nodded reluctantly.

"Then tell me, what was your vision on September 13, 1987?"

"I don't-" Her gut clenched in fear when she realized the one she was referring too. "Bella," her traitorous lips whispered.

"Ah... so now you see."

"He's mine!"

"Is he really? Is it your non-existent mating pull that tells you that?" She clucked her tongue when Alice paled. "I have to admit, your silver tongue is impressive. You'd do well as an Irkling."

At Alice's confused look, Azial waved a dainty, disinterested hand. "A lower being. They hide in the shadows in whisper lies in people's ears to make them do terrible things."

"I'll tell everyone what you've done to me!"

"Will you? Please, do try."

Alice was puzzled. "What.. what do you mean?"

"Hmm.. A test perhaps. Please, say the words 'Jasper, I'm Alice.'" When Alice hesitated, her eyes darkened. "Say it." She ordered.

"Jasper, I-" Her throat closed up and her words cut off mid sentence. She tried again. "Ja-" she couldn't even get his name out this time. She tried another. "Car-" Nothing.

"A precautionary measure, I'm sure you understand. In addition to a barrier tuned into your essence being placed around your former residence, you can't speak it, you can't write it, you can't even think it. Though I suppose that part doesn't really matter now that the broody little mind reader isn't around."

"Did you have something to do with that too?"

"Well, I may have whispered something in his ear. Couldn't have him around, not with the suspicions that would come with him not being able to read 'Alice's' mind anymore." She cocked her head at the real Alice.

"You don't look surprised by that information. I suppose you already knew that he was unable to read her mind?"

The guilty look on Alice's face was enough to answer that question.

"It's why he hated her. It appears he enjoys being as intrusive on everyone else's life as you do."

Alice's mind began scrambling for solutions, finally ending up on a rather drastic one.

"Do not even think it!" Azial barked. "If I put measures in place to stop you from telling, don't you think the same would be done to prevent you from hurting her? You are a cruel, vicious person for even considering it."

"You can't do this to me!" She shrieked.

"Oh my dear, can't you see? I've already done it."

-oo-

Bella shut the bathroom door, leaning her head against it with a whimper.

What was she going to do?

Reluctantly walking over to the mirror, she hesitated before looking up at it. She knew what to expect, but the sight of short black hair, pale, marble-like skin and golden eyes still jolted her. She smashed the mirror, feeling satisfaction that her new strength and resilient skin had allowed maximum damage and completely shattered it. A few pieces broke off into the sink while the rest remained in a haunting spider-web of destruction. She eyed those broken pieces and briefly glanced at her wrist. The skin she had a second ago lauded, she now cursed.

"Don't be afraid, Bella." A lyrical female voice spoke.

Bella jerked her head back up to the mirror, her fingers closing hard around the sink and cracking the porcelain.

Her eyes frantically scanned the damaged glass, but it was impossible to make out any sort of image. "You know me?" She demanded, panicked. "What is going on?"

"You are being given a chance."

"A chance for what? To see what I don't have, what I can't be?" Venom stung her eyes. "Why would you be so cruel?"

"No, you misunderstand. This is a chance to make him see; make him see what he could have. What he could have with you."

Bella laughed hysterically. "And you needed to switch our bodies to show him that? What is this a damn Disney movie? How could you possibly think that this would be the way to do it?"

The temperature in the room dropped.

"Did you believe your way was working any better? Allowing him to ignore you? Ignoring him?"

"I..." She turned away, ashamed. "What does it matter anyways?"

"You know the reason to that, Bella. Somewhere inside of you, you know that he is yours and you are his."

"If that were true, why would he ignore me in the first place?"

"You have the one you now possess to blame for that. She has twisted him with her lies and her false promises."

Bella was starting to get angry again. "And you decided the best way to deal with that would be to stick me in the body of the one that lied to him?"

"He needs to feel the difference."

Bella was confused. "Feel? I don't... What if I just tell Jasper?"

"Why didn't you? You had many opportunities in the bedroom."

Bella sputtered. "I had just woken up in a new body, I panicked."

"You were certainly calm enough to act like Alice though, weren't you?"

Bella fell silent as she considered her words.

"You will have two days, to achieve your goal."

Two days, what the hell can I do in two days! What can Alice to my body in two days! She thought hysterically.

"You'd be surprised. They say the world was created in six days, surely you can accomplish a lesser feat in two. And you have nothing to fear, Alice is not able to harm your body in any way."

That eased Bella's panic, but only slightly.

"But know this; it is not only a chance you are given, but a choice. Though I found it necessary to place precautions on Alice, I have not done the same to you. The spell will end in two days at the exact same time it begun. Any longer and it could be in danger of becoming permanent. But should you chose to end it earlier, then all you have to do is approach Alice. Your souls will immediately 'jump ship' as you say and return to their proper places."

Bella's stomach clenched in fear at the thought of it being permanent. But you'd have Jasper forever. A small, traitorous part of her mind whispered.

"If you choose to do this, then you really could have that."

"Stay out of my mind!" Bella shrieked.

The voice was amused when it answered. "Just like the last time, you spoke those words out loud. I am unable to read your mind, but that is not of import. All that is important is choice, Bella." The voice began to fade. "Choose wisely."

-oo-

Curled up back on the floor in the bedroom (she couldn't bring herself to lay on that monstrosity of a bed, not after she realized that the pleasant scent of Autumn Spices mixed in with the overpowering stench of expensive perfume on the sheets was Jasper's) she still hadn't come any closer to making a choice.

For the third time, she eyed the object on the table next to the bed. The woman had said she couldn't go near... not that she couldn't call.

Crawling over to the cell phone, which was obviously Alice's if the bejeweled case was anything to go by, she flipped it open. Her hand shook over the numbers before pressing down lightly and dialing the number of her own cell phone. The one she kept on her dresser.

It rang twice before a harsh voice answered. "I know who this is, you bitch! I recognize my own number!" It was a bit unsettling to be called a bitch by... well yourself. "How dare you use my phone... my body! Do you really think this will change anything? Jazzy will never love you. You're a worthless, pathetic human and when I get my body back, I guarantee you will never see him again."

Shaken to the core, Bella pressed the disconnect button.

Crushing the phone in her hand, Bella stared unseeingly at the small, metallic bits in her hand. Seconds, minutes, hours later, she heard a door open somewhere in the house, and a hesitant voice call up the stairs.

"Alice?"

What to do?

-oo-

Walking down the stairs in the plainest outfit Alice had owned, and by plain she meant the lightest shade of pink, she watched as Jasper gave her long, semi-confused once over.

"Are you feeling any better, Alice?" He tentatively asked.

"I'm not," Bella paused, remembering all the times Jasper had avoided her. The way his face would contort whenever he was near her. The way he never failed to leave a room when she entered. Recalling Alice's words, she realized she was right. Jasper would never love her, but he did love Alice and she'd take whatever she could get... no matter how long that was.

"I'm not sure why I made such a big deal out of it. This just means I can go shopping again." As she clapped her hands giddily together, Bella wondered it was possible for vampires to be sick.

-oo-

Tearing out of her bedroom after Azial had disappeared, she headed towards what she hoped was Charlie and Jill's bedroom.

Though Azial had told her she was unable to tell her family, she had mentioned nothing about Bella's and was praying that it would prove to be some sort of loophole she hadn't considered. Crashing open the door, she was dismayed to find it empty.

Turning, she ran down the stairs, two at a time, and ended up stumbling down the last few and falling to her knees. She cried out at the pain, a sensation she hadn't felt in years. Kneeled on the floor she was able to scan the living room. Empty. Jumping to her feet she limped to the next room. Kitchen. Empty. Pulling at her hair in aggravation, Alice spotted a slip of paper attached to the fridge with a magnet. Bella was messily scrawled on the front. She ripped it off and unfolded the letter, tearing it slightly in her zeal. She skimmed over most of it, her eyes instead focusing on the words 'long weekend', 'trip', 'cabin' and final rereading the last sentence. Again and again and again. 'Be back early Monday morning.'

She howled in frustration.

Upstairs, a phone rang.