It began, like so many important events in our lives, with a vision from Alice.

It was incredibly vague at first, and remained that way for a long time. We were planning a temporary move to Alaska, where we would stay a few months while Esme oversaw the renovation of our house outside Forks, Washington - the same house we'd lived in many years earlier. We had carefully deleted the identities we had assumed at our previous home, and were preparing to adopt new ones. It was something of a relief to me, because I'd been saddled with the mildly annoying given name of Kyle, on the grounds that it had been one of the most popular baby names of the year I'd supposedly been born, and therefore better able to blend into the crowd. None of the family names at that location had been favourites: For the past six years, Rosalie had been dubbed Brittany, Alice was Jennifer, Jasper was named Kevin, and Emmett was Ryan. Our alleged parents spent the time rejoicing in the purposely commonplace pseudonyms of Richard and Karen Petty. All very serviceable, but nothing to stir the poetic soul.

We were gathered together, making plans. I was trying to press for something more aesthetically pleasing this time around, especially since we hoped to make our stay in Forks a relatively long one, while Emmett was laughingly proposing Carlisle and Esme be given names apparently chosen by free-thinking parents raised on a former hippie commune, such as Rainbow or Freedom or Indigo or Sunshine.

"Who would be which?" Alice asked. Emmett frowned, not understanding. "Would Carlisle be Rainbow, and Esme be Sunshine? Or the other way around?"

"I think all those names are pretty solidly gender neutral," Jasper said, grinning.

Carlisle shook his head, amused but unimpressed. "They seem more suitable names for livestock. Of either sex, as you say," he added, smiling at Jasper.

Before we could move on to more practical suggestions, Alice froze and sat quietly gazing at the far wall, with the familiar blank expression that warned us of an incoming telegram from the future. We waited patiently, and I casually listened to her thoughts as the vision continued; but Alice's mind was surprisingly cloudy. As her eyes refocused, she frowned, then held up a finger in a 'just a moment' gesture, and sank back into her vision. It was odd; the image of the future seemed to express great significance, but was almost completely blank on details. There was some implication of change, of an encounter with others, but nothing remotely specific, not even the identity of the mysterious 'others'. I saw glimpses of a man in a police uniform, a generic classroom, a rocky beach, an old red truck, but nothing concrete. Only one facet of the vision had any clarity at all: we had to be prepared to provide our true identities.

"Our real names," she said when she came out of her second trance.

We all looked at one another. Carlisle turned to me, and I shrugged. The images I got from Alice's mind had been unclear to me. "'Scuse me?" Emmett replied.

"We should use our real names this time around," Alice said decisively. "All of us." Her thoughts showed a shadowy, constantly changing impression of the family facing someone, some person or persons, the only significant point being the exchange of names. Real names. It was very unlike Alice's usual precise, crystal clear predictions.

Rosalie looked confused, as did we all. "Why on earth?"

Alice seemed a little embarrassed. "I'm…not sure. But we should."

I looked at her. "It was so unclear. Could you really make anything of it?"

"Not much. Something important is going to happen. Something big - mostly good, but maybe some scary stuff too. Or maybe not." In Alice's typically colourful, rather metaphorical thought patterns, I saw an image of a blazing comet rushing to earth, aimed directly at our house in Forks. There was no real alarm associated with the image in her thoughts, however, only the sense of something massive approaching us - that, and the uncertainty about when it would arrive; and when it struck, it exploded in a shower of confetti and glitter and flower petals, not fire and brimstone. "Decisions are being made, but they haven't led wherever they're going, not quite yet. Only the first domino has been knocked over. The first of thousands." I looked at her, bemused, and she shrugged. "That's all I got for now, sue me!"

Carlisle studied her a moment, glanced at me for input, of which I had none, and said, "We haven't used our actual names publicly for a great many years, so there shouldn't be any paper trail to worry about. I don't see any security issues, do you?" None of us did. Besides, we trusted Alice's insights. "Very well. Since Alice finds it advisable, we shall establish identities using our original names. Does that include surnames, Alice?"

She grimaced uncertainly. "The last names don't seem as important."

"In that case, I suppose we can retain our planned cover story, including the varying surnames."

"Foster kids?" Jasper asked.

"Exactly. Jasper and Rosalie will be siblings, as planned, with the surname Hale, but with their own given names rather than whatever substitutes had been intended."

"What were they supposed to be going with?" Emmett asked, "just out of curiosity."

"Ashley and Austin," Jasper replied. At Emmett's gagging noises, he protested, "We're choosing the most common names of the era, remember? And people like to give twins alliterative names."

"People are morons," Rosalie muttered darkly. "Sometimes," she added, giving Carlisle a conciliatory glance. I gave her credit - a little - for making an effort.

"I'll get on the paperwork immediately," Jasper promised, and the meeting broke up.

We thought no more of the matter for some time, although I was intrigued by Alice's mysterious half-vision. We completed our usual packing, carefully erasing our bureaucratic and digital footprints and eliminating any trace of our existence before placing our few treasured material items in storage, and travelling to Alaska. Alice experienced only one recurrence of the strangely vague, subjective future vision, a few days later, just as we were concluding our packing and preparing to leave. She sank into a trance, returned from it, and sat a moment, deep in thought. "Weird," she mused.

"Well?" Rosalie urged impatiently. "Something big?"

"Pretty big, if I'm correct, but - sorry, still very short on details." Carlisle moved closer. "It's Edward. He's…I think he's going to meet his partner."

That caught everyone's attention, mine included, and we all gathered around. "His partner? Alice, do you mean…?" Esme asked.

"Yes. He's supposed to meet his mate. Fairly soon, I think, but the timeline is all jumbled. Too many variables." She frowned, clearly frustrated at the incomplete view of the future. Apparently it was very vague; I couldn't make out a coherent pattern from her thoughts. A great many variables, it seemed.

Esme clasped my hand excitedly. "If your vision is accurate, that truly is momentous," Carlisle said, speaking calmly, but his mind a riot of hope, relief, and exultation on my behalf. Some of his concern for my lone state, which apparently he'd tried to keep hidden, revealed itself. I was touched by his genuine concern, and Esme's, even though I found it hard to make the idea real to myself. I could not imagine myself with a mate, in the same circle of mutual affection the others shared. When I tried to picture a hypothetical mate, I came up blank. She didn't exist.

"Tanya?" Emmett asked eagerly. Only Emmett said it aloud, but I heard the same question in everyone's thoughts. I found their assumption a little irritating.

"No!" I said firmly. "Not Tanya."

Esme glanced apologetically at me. "Er…is it her, Alice?"

Alice scowled. "I have no ID at present. The whole thing is very patchy. I wouldn't usually have even brought up something this inconclusive, but it seemed too important not to mention."

We questioned her until she became annoyed, and we finally backed off; but she assured us she would keep us posted when it seemed appropriate. The others seemed excited by the prospect, but I found it hard to hold out any hope that her prediction would be valid. I felt even less optimistic when her vision of this outcome did not repeat itself; at least, she did not mention it again, not for a very long time.

Our plan was to stay in the vicinity of our friends - our 'cousins,' as Carlisle liked to call them - in a remote, perpetually overcast area north of Anchorage, inhabiting a nicely isolated property belonging to Tanya's coven, until we could make the more long-term move to Forks. It was a pleasant opportunity to socialize with a larger group of fellow 'vegetarians', and I looked forward to a broader range of conversation and perspectives. I knew that Carlisle, in particular, loved sharing Eleazar's learned views, and everyone enjoyed the company of the four females, lively individuals with diverse personalities. I was just a little nervous, however, following our earlier encounters with the Denali group, pleasant though they were in general. Bringing a sole, unpaired male into a gathering with three single females cannot help but cause speculation; and I could not avoid the awareness of that speculation in everyone's minds, discreet as most of them were. I also could not be unaware that, as time went on, Kate and Irina had, by some unspoken agreement among the three sisters, ceded the field to their leader, Tanya. I expected some uncomfortable moments during our upcoming stay in Alaska.

I ended up spending a fair amount of time with Tanya, and came to appreciate the level of expertise she had in the field of…what I tried to think of as simple flirtation, automatically bowdlerizing her history out of a, perhaps, misguided chivalry. While I could not say I truly respected her field of expertise - the sexual conquest of men - I could not help but recognize the well-honed skills she employed. She was adept at being provocative without obvious intent; at subtly nudging the conversation in a more personal direction; at managing the atmosphere; at using posture, facial expression, and gesture to delicately increase the intimacy of a situation; at picking up on tiny cues to determine a man's predilections and appeal to them. She was interested in me at least partly because I represented a challenge. There were few century-old vampire virgins, to begin with; and also very few males who did not easily succumb to Tanya's wiles. My resistance to her charms seemed to baffle her, and to stir her competitive spirit as well. I could have simply avoided her company, but in truth, I enjoyed our conversations, which she made sure were of interest to me; and I may, just possibly, have been entertained, and a little flattered, by her efforts. In time, she became frustrated and annoyed at my apparent immunity to her allurements. It made for some coldness between us by the time we were ready to leave Alaska.

Why was I so unresponsive to Tanya's almost universally effective maneuvers? I overheard some of my family members wondering just that, speculating on my strangely un-vampiric continence in this area. Carlisle and Esme even worried that something had gone wrong during my transformation, something that rendered me largely asexual, and it made me wonder a little. But I also knew that there were several reasons Tanya's appeal was blunted in my case. For one thing, I could read her mind, and hearing the plotting and careful strategizing behind her apparently spontaneous words and actions certainly dulled their effectiveness. I felt less like a potential romantic partner and more like a grifter's latest mark, which certainly takes the sense of starry-eyed romance out of any encounter. For another - although I felt distinctly un-gentlemanlike in thinking this way - I was more than a little put off by the sheer volume of Tanya's sexual activity. I did not really apply my human-taught sexual ethics to vampire activity, at least not consciously; but for whatever reason, the hundreds, if not thousands, of notches on Tanya's metaphorical belt had a chilling effect. What would have been, for me, a unique and life-changing experience would be just one of many for Tanya. I once found myself idly wondering what my number would be, in the long list of Tanya's conquests, should I decide to let her persuade me, and I recoiled at the idea of becoming Male #1,427. Perhaps that was mere vanity, but I confess it repelled me a bit. Yes, it did cross my mind once or twice to give in to Tanya. I had been forced to listen to enough of my family's nightly rapture over the years to have some genuine interest in experiencing those delights for myself. Tanya, admittedly, did make those delights additionally interesting. But I could never quite get past my almost instinctive resistance to taking the final step.

While I never fully explained it to myself, I was clear that something held me back. Perhaps it was that I longed for a true and lasting love, such as my family enjoyed with their partners; and I did not love Tanya, nor did she regard me as a permanent fixture. She was a friend, an entertaining companion, and a charming female, but somehow she did not fulfill whatever requirements my psyche seemed to call for. It was as if I had a lock on my heart - or, as Emmett would probably put it, a lock on my invisible chastity belt - and Tanya simply did not possess the key. I admired her deftness at picking that metaphorical lock, sometimes half wished she would be successful, and even, deep inside, felt some faint stirring of life beneath the inflexible restraints, a slight loosening of the padlock's clasp, but somehow I remained unavailable to her. It was a little depressing. It made me wonder if my interminable position as third - or rather, seventh - wheel was to ever end; if it were even possible for it to end, Alice's foresight notwithstanding. I looked forward to our upcoming move in a frame of mind that was more melancholy than usual.

Arriving at the big, white house on the outskirts of Forks, newly restored under Esme's supervision, cheered me considerably. It was a familiar home, a place full of good memories, remote enough for privacy, and in a location whose climate allowed us to come and go almost as freely as humans, more than making up for living in a cultural backwater. We moved early in the summer, to give us a couple of months of free time before we had to begin the pretence of attending high school. Esme had restored the house and made some subtle but pleasing changes to the interior, and even being relegated to the smallest bedroom, up on the third floor, in what I cynically thought of as the bachelor's garret, only caused me a momentary flicker of sadness. We registered at Forks High School, giving ourselves the youngest age we thought we could carry off. Alice helped with the age aspect, dressing the alleged teenagers, me and herself in particular, in distinctly youthful clothing. It was a genuine talent of hers, and a useful one; and the wardrobe she chose for me, along with some subtle arrangement of my hair, gave me the look of a tall but callow and gangly fifteen-year-old. Alice could more easily pass for a freshman, although the need to wear such juvenile outfits irked her, and she often sighed when, on weekday mornings, she was obliged to put on yet another pleated plaid skirt with knee socks, yet another demure little white blouse with smilie-face buttons, complete with mary-janes and pink plastic hair band. "Two years," I reassured her, laughing. "Junior year, you can plausibly ease into the fashionista role again." She agreed, and relieved her frustration by giving Esme another clothing revamp.

We made one rather cautious visit, a day before moving back into the house. It might be called checking in with the landlord, and there was some debate within the family about whether it was necessary; but Carlisle insisted. All seven of us went to the border of the reserve, a few miles outside Forks, at a time when some of the older residents were nearby, and our presence would be noticed. There we waited, until one of the men, an older gentleman named Harry, noticed us standing there and approached us. It was a strange conversation. Harry seemed to simultaneously recognize who and what we were, and to flinch from the idea that it was real. His thoughts constantly cycled around the clashing ideas, that the legends he'd heard at home were actually true, and that they could not possibly be more than myths. He stared at us, conflicted, before finally attempting a casual greeting. "Can I help you folks with anything? You looking for someone?"

Carlisle smiled reassuringly. "No one in particular. Anyone who can speak for the Quileutes. We were in the area before, some time ago, and thought it best to notify all of you that we had returned."

Harry swallowed nervously. "Some time ago?" he repeated.

"Many years. We spoke to the man who was your elder at the time. We had, if you recall, an agreement to peacefully co-exist."

"Um…" Harry looked from one of us to another, his mind starting the cycle over again, along with a flash of worry that he might be the victim of an elaborate punk. "Okay, and…?"

"We want to assure you that we will continue to abide by the agreement. We will avoid crossing your boundary, and obey the necessary restrictions." Harry seemed ready to prevaricate again, and Carlisle looked him firmly in the eye. "You know what I am referring to."

Harry gave up. "I…yeah, I know. I guess. Are you really…?"

"I'm Carlisle Cullen, this is my family." Carlisle extended a hand, and Harry hesitantly took it. As they briefly shook hands, the old gentleman's eyes widened, and I heard his thoughts finally accept the reality of the situation, as he felt the cold hardness of Carlisle's hand, took in our pale, smooth skin, our unnatural stillness.

Carlisle went on, "There are two more with me than last time," gesturing to Jasper and Alice, "but they will all follow the same rules. I'm a doctor, and will be working at the local hospital." This caused Harry's eyebrows to shoot up in alarm, but he said nothing. "We will be here for only a few years, certainly no more than eight to ten years, and will do no harm to anyone in the community - or anywhere else, for that matter. Will you advise those in charge, and remind them of the treaty? We want only to be left in peace - as you agreed."

Harry stared at us a moment more. "All right. I'll tell them."

"Thank you." Carlisle nodded to Harry, and we turned and left, Harry's astonished eyes following us as we walked away.

Our first day at school was as trying as I'd expected. Jasper, in spite of having hunted all weekend, and having spent a great deal of time in crowded areas to build up his resistance, was tense and uncomfortable, and we all tried to keep an eye on him without seeming to. I had been hearing scattered speculation about the 'new kids' all morning, but when we gathered in the cafeteria, it seemed to be coming from everywhere, both in the form of audible voices and thoughts. Who are they? came from several directions at once. "Here it comes," I murmured to the others.

"We've been noticed?" Alice asked.

"By nearly everyone. Any difficulties ahead?"

"Nope. Smooth sailing for now."

Forks High School was much like every other high school we had attended, which is to say, a constant mixture of crushing boredom and minor, sporadic crises. The atmosphere of gossip, personal feuds and competitions, bullying, highly charged mating rituals, and adolescent melodrama was slightly intensified by the small size of the student body, something I found unpleasant to be around, and Jasper found quite oppressive. It was harder to remain unnoticed in a small school as well, which meant we all had to stay on our toes. However, we found that, once a student was established in a handy category- like jock, nerd, princess, or what have you - it was very hard to shake that reputation, even by the most uncharacteristic behaviour. We were recognized, very early on, as the weird and antisocial but über-brainy rich kids who hung out almost exclusively with their siblings, and were thereafter left alone, apart from the usual cutting remarks made behind our backs. We were not invited to participate in school clubs or go to parties, and apart from a girl named Jessica, in a show of false bravado, asking me out on a dare, and one hyper-confident football player trying to woo Rosalie, we were left out of school social life almost entirely. That worked for us. We were impossibly well-behaved and maintained perfect grades, and so escaped the teachers' vigilance as well. We managed our high school life without giving more than a tiny fraction of our attention to it, using the otherwise wasted time to interact with one another, and depending on individual interests, to covertly read, compose music, flirt with respective spouses, write philosophical dissertations, design a fantasy baseball team, sketch a new fall line, or daydream, without much risk of interruption, either from teachers or other students.

So it went, as the months passed, then another summer, then another. My real life, such as it was, revolved around our home, the big, white house, and my family. Weekdays, and the six hours spent at Forks High School, were the wasted hours, the shadowy period when we bided our time until we could return home and be ourselves. There, we were free to move at whatever speed was convenient without slowing ourselves to human ability; hold three or four conversations at once; play games at our actual skill level; talk openly about things that had occurred fifty or more years earlier; put off pretending to be siblings or foster children or, for that matter, juveniles. Blessed by the almost perpetually cloudy weather in the area, we were free to go outdoors, visit the attractions of the nearby large cities of Seattle and Port Angeles, and the far more minor attractions of Forks itself. Alice and Rosalie enjoyed browsing for new fashions, Carlisle checking out the used bookstores, myself looking for new music. We indulged in hunts, sometimes en masse, but more often in varying groups of two or three, making them social as well as purely practical events. The others had their mates, enriching their hours in a way I could read in all their thoughts; and I had my books, my music, my rambles through the nearby wilderness, and my studies - real studies, not the dull and elementary substitutions I endured in high school. I also had, of course, my place in the family, which remained a source of happiness. I was not, unavoidably, first in anyone's heart, but assuredly a close second in some. It was enough.

It was in my junior year that some interesting developments arose. There was news that a new student was enrolling in the school mid-year: the seventeen-year-old daughter of the local police chief, Charlie Swan. In a small-town school like this one, even an extra student was exciting news; besides which, Chief Swan was a well-loved figure in Forks, and his daughter, while known to exist, had not been to visit in years and was the subject of much speculation. There was some sporadic buzz about it even weeks before she was expected. We rehashed it while sitting at the cafeteria table together at lunch time, pretending to eat. "Jessica Stanley," I reported, "is spreading a rumour that the new girl is being sent to stay with her father while her mother is in rehab for heroin."

"The girl who asked you on a date?" Emmett asked, chuckling. "Meow!"

I grimaced. "She's often unpleasant. Very competitive."

"Really?"

"In here, she is," I said, tapping my forehead. Jessica was outwardly friendly, but inclined to see other girls as rivals by definition. For a while, she saw them as rivals for my affection, which led to weeks of thoughts from Jessica that were at once malicious and inappropriate.

"She's mostly insecure," Jasper said. "Her friend Lauren Mallory, that's a genuinely hostile person."

I nodded. Lauren's thoughts were often poisonous. "Speaking of Lauren, she's planning some sort of retribution against one of her teachers. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to intervene."

Alice raised her eyebrows. "Violate the Prime Directive?"

I snorted, and the others laughed. "True, I suppose we should let events take their course, unless there's a risk to us. But I hate to see Mrs Goff targeted for no good reason."

"I can keep an eye out, and sabotage the plan if it gets really nasty."

"Fair enough."

Emmett looked around the cafeteria. "Anything new on us, speaking of risks?"

"Not really. More plastic surgery speculation." He snickered, and Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Suspicions of cheating."

"Really?" Rose asked in surprise.

"Some of them find our straight A's a little too consistent. Otherwise, just the usual. Lots of chatter about the new student coming from Arizona in a few weeks."

Alice frowned, her eyes unfocusing for a moment. "I don't see her arriving."

Jasper turned to her. "Maybe she's delayed."

"Nope, I don't see her here at all. Not anywhere in the school building, not at any point."

"I guess her move gets cancelled after all." I said. The police chief would be disappointed. He'd apparently been telling anyone who would listen about his daughter, Bella, coming to stay with him. He'd cornered Carlisle at the hospital when he'd brought in an assault victim, and spent ten minutes relating the plan for Bella's extended stay in Forks, in his characteristic gruff, offhand manner that failed to completely disguise his delight at having his girl with him again. Carlisle had shown me the conversation in his mind afterward, finding it both amusing and touching. He was rather fond of Charlie Swan.

Rosalie glanced at the clock and rose to her feet, and we followed her out of the cafeteria, discarding the few, untouched items on our trays. I still felt odd about throwing good food away, even if it was necessary to maintain the cover story. I idly pondered ways around it, as I braced myself for another biology class spent pretending to learn things I'd known for decades.