Shining Light
A/N: Happy Easter Everyone. Oh and once again I own ziltch :(
Chapter 01
The doorbell rang as Bella was lifting a batch of cookies out of the oven. She jumped and caught at the cookie sheet with her unprotected free hand as it tipped.
"Ouch! Fuck!"
She swore at the flash of burning pain. Setting the tray on the stovetop, she made a little hobbling dance of pushing the steaming oven door shut with a knee and turn on the cold water in the sink for her fingers.
They were an angry red but thankfully it began to heal as the cold water soothed them. She took a long breath enjoying the cold water, mentally debating whether some bepanthol would be needed or just some salt to avoid swelling. She hadn't eaten for the day so letting them heal normally was out of the question.
The bell rang again, longer this time. With a sigh Bella turned off the water and headed for the front hallway. Her fingers were still pink but not in pain except the thumb where the tip underneath her fingernail still throbbed. Sticking in her mouth she pulled the enforced steel door open. And then just about bit it off.
Stefan.
On her front porch.
Grinning with that wide, little-boy grin as if it hadn't been eight years since they'd last met. As if Bella hadn't done everything in her power to keep it that way.
There was laughter in Stefan's green eyes.
"Hey, Bella, still sucking your thumb?"
Bella yanked her hand out of her mouth milliseconds before she tore the burned skin off. For a moment she fought the impulse to slam the door shut – to just pretend she hadn't opened it and rewind to that last moment before the bell rang, when the worst thing that had happened today was a burned thumb. Not possible. She coughed and found her voice.
"Stefan! You?"
Stefan's grin was fading, and Bella realized she was standing planted in her own doorway, feet apart, eyes locked on him staring at Stefan like he was some kind of alien.
Which he very well could be as a visit from E.T. would be much more welcome and sensible.
"I mean, wow, come on in! So... what brings you to my neck of the woods?"
She bit the 'Without warning me first' that begged to snap out. Bella stepped back, pulling the door wide, and Stefan came inside, brushing past her, the grin restored with the invitation.
"You mean you don't think I came just to catch up on old times?"
Bella's dark chocolate eyes crossed violently, a memory of Stefan trying and failing to compel her into shutting her up before offering her to Damon to finish his transition flashed in front of her eyes. The brothers had snapped her throat when they were done, unknowingly changing her. The memory of her physical death brought a phantom pain and had her physically stopping herself from attacking.
For a few moments her dark eyes were locked on Stefan's green ones in silent challenge. Then the fight left her. It was Stefan, here, in her house, after all these years. Bella grabbed Stefan in a quick rough hug, and Stefan squeezed the stuffing out of her, lifting her off the ground, the years falling away.
"It's not the first time I've been on the west coast, you know. You've just never been around. You travel too damned much, and never out my way either."
And with a good reason. Bella was done with Mystic Falls and had been for a very long time and she had refused to set roots anywhere since. She liked to travel but the panic that filled her every time Stefan announced an impending visit had nothing to do with her love of travel and everything to do with this man whom Bella had a hopeless crush on for years.
Who, judging by the pounding of Bella's dead heart and the way she could hardly breathe for the sheer presence of the man, she still had a crush on. Not even death had taken it away... can you say pathetic?
They had been seventeen for one hundred and forty nine years, not that she counted, and before that they were thick as thieves for their entire lives bar one fateful spring plus one night and the next one hundred and forty one years.
And yet, just seeing him on her front door changed it all. Suddenly all of her bedmates and boyfriends in her long existence meant nothing. Including Edward, her attempt at being with someone immortal. Apparently it didn't matter. It was still Stefan Salvatore who could make her crazy just with a grin.
So she lied.
"Yeah, that's me, never in one place for long. But you're here now. Come on and sit down. We'll grab a couple of beers. You can tell me what's up with you."
"Sure."
Stefan sniffed the air before grinning even wider.
"Wow, what's that I smell? Don't tell me you still make those chocolate-chip orange-peel cookies?"
Bella replied with an equally unique smile
"Want one?"
