Chapter Text
Forks, Washington, is a dreary and unremarkable little thing. It’s overly green, too suburban, and home to a particularly large number of simple-minded fools. Dakota didn’t need to be mistaken as a tourist to know this. She didn’t need to read the Washington, Forks pamphlet.
Just knowing that the town had a pamphlet spoke volumes.
Still, the place grew on her like an obnoxious weed. A very wet and clingy weed that doesn’t let you have free weekends because of nosy neighbors, a proper eight hours of sleep because of an uncle who works from five to eight, or sanity of mind because of peculiar families moving to the po-dunk of nowhere.
It shouldn’t have shocked Dakota how easily loving the town and its people could be.
“What is a weed but something whose virtues have yet to be found?”
Unknown
Seconds before Uncle Callan chased her from the house, for being late to school and for hoarding the bathroom, Dakota had made a promise to her reflection. She’d spent three hours prior to him waking up and another half hunched and hurled in the sink staring into the mirror. Lecturing her reflection on remembering the importance of being a wallflower, of being normal (even if normal meant being boring) and not shoving herself into the business of others. How it wouldn’t do her any good to befriend the weird girl from Arizona (who wouldn’t be here for another year) or how punching Lauren in her face (again) on first eye contact wouldn’t change how she treated others.
She wouldn’t stare.
She wouldn’t think dangerous thoughts.
She’d be the perfect wallflower. A forgettable background character for the real background characters.
Dakota wasn’t a good wallflower, but the Dakota who’d owned this body two summers back had been. She’d been a crappy student with a semi decent attendance record. She’d been someone who didn’t do anything dangerous or thrilling, likely hadn’t smoked or drank before, and most certainly still been as pure as a newborn deer. Dakota wasn’t introverted, or awkward enough, to be like that when engaging with anyone or anything (lies - she could be very awkward). It’d been years since her self-confidence had been that low. Five or so years back when she’d been a highschooler -- back when things were different .
Pining over what she’d lost wouldn’t get Dakota anywhere, or into anything but depressive episodes and the tubs of ice-cream that never seemed to run dry in her uncle’s back freezer.
Perhaps her sudden identity crisis two years ago had been nothing but the result of a brain not getting the proper amount of rest it needed. Her body’s refusal to sleep often caused her to get a little strange at times.
She’d been in denial for a bit, and then some sort of acceptance had followed after a very odd talk with someone who’d look strikingly similar to Charlie Swan (it’d been Charlie Swan - the Charlie Swan ). Then, she’d bumped into Lauren at the local grocery store, and when snarky comments and a nasty stank eye had come her way Dakota had twitched one too many times and broke the teens nose.
That reaction had sparked a lot of people’s interest. A lot of nosy people who’d no business diving head first into her business. For nearly a week straight the townsfolk had showed up on her uncle’s front door with their worries. Comments and concerns of her sudden change in behavior. How ‘she’s never been violent before, quiet but not violent’.
Laruen’s mother had even asked Callan if he’d thought of getting Dakota into therapy. She’d brought pamphlets to his house and preached to him of the good it would do for a girl as troubled as Dakota. Dakota didn’t know what he’d told Mrs. Mallory, but the shock on her face and the way those fish green eyes had widened seconds before he’d slammed the door shut in her face would be something Dakota would never forget.
After that, and a short discussion with her uncle over hamburgers, a sort of acceptance settled over her. Whatever had been done was done, and as things stood nothing looked able to undo it. So, Dakota accepted that she now resided in some unfamiliar body with an unfamiliar name. That this was indeed Forks, Washington, from that series of cheesy movies..
Then, they’d moved in.
The Cullen's (and Hale's).
In the weeks before school started, before Dakota became a sophomore once more, she’d panicked so thoroughly that she hadn’t noticed the hole she’d dug herself into. Her panic drove her up a wall and her silently proclamations of the many horrid things that could occur kept her up for several nights. Daydreams and nightmares of being slaughtered, of the town being slaughtered, the Volturi arriving in the morning mist …. of nomads and red eyes. The possibility of -
Her conspiracies hadn’t ended, but they’d come to a final stand in her math class that Monday morning. Dakota’s head face down on her desk and her snores earning her a smack from Mrs. Dolton.
She’d woken to confusion, laughter, and a scowling teacher. She’d woken to a realization that it didn’t matter because Dakota wasn’t Bella Swan. The Olympic Coven of vampires wouldn’t interact with her, she doubted they’d even notice her existence, because humans weren’t something they mingled with on a common basis.
Dakota’s sophomore year hadn’t included a single class with any one of them in it (the whole three in her age bracket at least). She only really saw them in passing or during lunch, but never did they interact. Not a single glance in her direction. Not a single whisper.
She’d felt gloriously at peace, and partly offended.
Why? It wasn’t like this was some romcom. Dakota wasn’t going to seek out a friendship or romantic relationship with one of them. The mere idea of snuggling with someone cold and hard was the furthest sounding thing from appealing.
As a teen she’d obsessed over the movies, the books hadn’t been an interest until years later, and yes she did still get a kick out of watching them while being in her mid-twenties but that didn’t mean she’d ever had any desire to have her life magically uprooted so she could live within a third-rate reality.
Why couldn’t she have instead found herself in a world of handsome fae lords, in a land of hobbits and many meals, or somewhere with games and princes with deadly kisses? Dakota would have taken an apocalyptic world if it meant she’d have the opportunity to meet her favorite backwater archer.
The pencil dangling from her fingers tapped lazily as Dakota narrowed her attention on the board at the front of the room. Had it been drugs? An alcohol overdose? Mental break?
That was the million dollar question wasn’t it.
Just how could one blink and find themselves in another’s body? Where was the soul that belonged in this one? Was it in her body? Did it go by the name Nichole now?
She didn’t make deals with devils, Dakota never answered the door when Jehovah Witnesses knocked, and as far as she was aware she’d never gotten her hands on a genie’s lamp or a magical candle.
Had this been the result of the tarot deck she’d ordered but never receiv-she’d already considered that option.
If this was hell then maybe she could find the hidden button that would guide her to a help desk. Surely someone could explain this level of torture to her. Who in their right mind would want to go back through high school? Puberty and hormones were horrendous the first time, but a second?
“And, fifteen minutes begins now! Good luck, and no cheating. I will be watching for wandering eyes.” A woman in her mid, if not late, fifties wheezed from behind her handkerchief.
Dakota’s eyes twitched. There was nothing enjoyable about repeating high school. She didn't remember half the crud they were trying to teach her (and often wondered if it was because she’d graduated in 2017 and it was currently spring of 2004).
“Miss Grayson, is there a problem with your quiz?”
Knuckles turned white from how tightly Dakota was squeezing her pencil. “No, ma’am. Just got stare-stuck.” She was actually debating how to launch herself out the window to her right. There were only three students between Dakota and that unrealistic goal.
“Well, let’s just not have that happen again. Okay?”
Grunting she averted her gaze back down to what once had been the bane of her high school's self's existence.
Math.
And, it wasn’t even AP.
She’d have to thank whatever deity was out there for that. Even it seemed to know she wasn’t smart enough for anything above the average level of American education expectations.
Grumbling beneath her breath, Dakota spiraled as she read the first question. Asking her to find the square root of something with too many letters in it.
“I fucking hate math.”
“I don’t think many like it.” A voice all too familiar huffed from her right. She knew he was attempting to sound somewhere between pitiful and jokester, but all it did was make the fire in her veins flare brighter.
Not wasting a second more, Dakota glared at the mountain of a supernatural creature to her side. His bright amber eyes shining with mirth as she finally acknowledged his existence.
There must be irony in Emmet Cullen being her math neighbor, a joke in him wanting to talk with her. From day one of the new year he’d sought out every pathway available to poke and prod her into interacting with him.
Acknowledging him.
There was a retort at the tip of Dakota’s tongue. Something snippy, crude, and filled with everything a wallflower didn’t have but before she could suck in a breath to begin her assault her heart threatened to leap from her open mouth.
“Miss Greyson, eyes on your own paper.” The old hag had thrown a ball of rubber bands at them. The blasted thing had been mere inches from colliding with Dakota’s nose. “Mr. Cullen, please do not talk during the quiz. Socialization can occur after class.”
“Jesus!”
“Miss Greyson!”
“What the hell was that for?!” Dakota snatched the paper from her desk, the ball of bands from the floor, as she shoved the chair she’d been sitting on backwards.
“You will not use such lang-“
“I fucking will when your throwing shit at my head!” Dakota cut in, hissing between grinding molars, as she stormed to the front of the room. Stopping only when she’d reached the hag’s desk. “If you ever throw something at me again, I’ll shove it so far down your throat that you’ll be shitting it for weeks.”
Silence.
Dakota could tell that her old-fashioned math teacher wasn’t used to being spoken to like this, at least not to the face and not before an audience.
“How dare you-“
Dakota barked a laugh, dry and humorless, before slamming the ball of bands before her. “Dare I say I have, and I most certainly will again.”
“Office!” Mrs. Dalton screeched; her cheeks rosier than the blouse she’d dressed herself in for the day. “Now.”
“Gladly.”
Dakota took the steps two at a time.
She wondered if Shelly Cope would still have that bowl of candy out. If the woman would watch her with those small beady eyes the second Dakota stepped into the front office. If the space would smell still of snowberry from a constantly burning winter candle.
Would she be told to wait till Principle Rupprecht returned from wherever he’d slipped off to, or that they’d been warned of her incoming visit from Mrs. Dolton. She could already see Miss Cope shaking her head in disapproval and hear the door to the principal's office clicking shut as he went about ignoring her in favor of waiting for the bell to ring. Their silent understanding that once it goes off Dakota will inevitably wander off to her next class.
In a manner, Dakota supposed the front office had become another classroom for her. The sort where she either got ignored or lectured. Where half the time someone tossed a slip of paper at her for her uncle to sign.
The second half of the semester had barely started and she’d already been asked how she expected to make it in the real world if she couldn’t sit through a singular class. Shockingly it hadn’t been either the receptionist of the principle but the new history teacher Mr. Sheldon. He hadn’t liked her response, frowning down at her in disappointment before shaking his head and walking off.
Mr. Rupprecht had simply patted the man on the back as he left, and said. “You’ll enjoy having her in history. Miss Greyson likes history.”
Dakota wasn’t sure if it was because of that, or the way she’d been acting, but from then on Mr. Sheldon taken to calling on her for answers and readings and thoughts.
It only occurred to Dakota later on at home that he hadn’t pressed the importance of college after high school. He hadn’t tried to make her feel belittled or stupid. He’d only expressed his worry over her future.
Turning the corner, Dakota stumbled as she flung herself down another set of stairs. Her feet sliding on the steps but not sending her flying down them.
She pondered the idea of avoiding the front office and just ditching for the day, but then the school would be obligated to call her uncle. She didn’t want to put more on his shoulders, not when work had him stressed out so badly lately. Dakota instead opted for the hope of talking her way out of a detention.
Detentions always came into the picture when Mrs. Dolton sent her to the office.
“I’m good at talking. I can talk my way out of nearly anything.” It wasn’t like she’d been in the wrong. The old hag hadn’t had any right to throw something in her direction. What if she’d actually hit Dakota? What if she’d made her bleed? The last thing Dakota needed was to be bleeding in a school with vampires in it. She didn’t care how much self control they claimed to have. Three of the five re-attending high school had at one point or another dined on things that weren’t cute and fluffy.
“Violence is never the answer.” Dakota mused. “She could have simply used her voice.”
Seeing Lauren entering a bathroom on the ground floor caused all sorts of devilish violent ideas to begin sprouting as Dakota rounded and shoved open the door to the front office.
“Morning Shelly! How was your winter break?!”
“It’s Miss Cope, Dakota. You know this.” The tapping of a keyboard reverberated through the small room. It did not smell of winterberries but cheap lavender. "You should also know it's barely the beginning of the spring semester. If you keep this up you’ll be beating your own personal record before this year's first teachers in-service day.”