BELLA'S POV

It was pretty much a typical day in the Cullen household. I was playing chess with Jasper, Alice was designing a new outfit of some sort on a computer in the next room, Rosalie and Emmett were on yet another honeymoon, Carlisle was at the hospital, and Jacob, Esme and Nessie were hunting. Edward was playing the piano, Tchaikovsky today. He smiled at me as he saw me watching him.

It was thirty-four years after the Volturi had left, and life was wonderful. We had, obviously, moved from Forks a while ago, and had several different lives since then. Right now, I was Esme's sister, living with her, her husband, and his adopted children. All of us except Carlisle and Esme were at high school, yet again.

Unfortunately, the fact that we were a good few states out of Washington, D.C. meant that Charlie, now 75, couldn't visit us as easily now: we were a long way away from Forks. This meant we were the ones visiting Charlie nowadays, not the other way around. And since not one of the ultra-fast vampires in the Cullen family could be bothered taking a car trip for that long, because we were so much faster than any car, we would often run the whole way to Forks. Which, as we all thought, was a pretty great arrangement. Of course, this freaked Charlie out a little, but he'd frequently been amazed by the Cullens; he was pretty much used to it now.

Speaking of running to Forks, I'd been planning to go to Forks today; it was Sue's birthday and I knew she would have wanted me to be there. She was my stepmother now, after all.

Deep in thought as I was, it wasn't much of a disadvantage for my vampire mind. I flicked Jasper's queen off the board with my knight.

'Checkmate.' I grinned.

'Damn. Well, that ties our scores up.', Jasper said, grinning back.

'An excellent place to quit,' I said.

'Agreed.'

Picking myself up off the floor with fluid grace as he swept the pieces back into the box, I started:

'Jasper, Alice, Edward? Today's Sue's birthday.'

'I know.', said Edward, suddenly next to me and holding my hand.

'Do you guys want to come with me to Forks? I was thinking of just going to the party for a couple of hours, singing, hugging, that sort of thing. It would mean a lot to the both of them, I'm sure.'

'Of course we'll come.', said Jasper from beside me. I didn't need a response from Edward: if I was going, then he would want to go with me.

Alice smiled. 'Well, I'd better come, seeing as how I've already got her a present!'

I rolled my eyes at her. Typical Alice - I didn't have her gift for seeing the future, but I probably should have known that one was coming.

'Brilliant. I'd better go and grab Ness, Jake, and Esme, then. They'll want to come too. See you here in a minute?'

'Great.'

I set off towards the forest.

One minute and forty-three seconds later, we were all running to Forks. Alice had a huge package - about three feet long and heavy-looking (for a human, anyway) in her arms, wrapped in bright colours with a gaudy bow. She was supporting it easily, of course. Everyone in the Cullen family except Carlisle (it was just past New Year: he was too busy at the hospital, though he said to pass on his good wishes), Emmett, and Rosalie, was coming. Alice and Nessie were probably the most excited of the group: Alice, because she loved parties and giving gifts, Nessie, because she loved seeing her grandfather.

We arrived at Forks nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds later, a little windswept. Returning to a human pace, Edward rang the doorbell. A short, dark-skinned girl with wild curly hair and blue eyes answered.

'Hi, Bella!'

I grinned. Alicia was my stepsister, Charlie and Sue's daughter; she was nearly twenty-eight, with a very bubbly personality. She had the slightly annoying habit of treating me like a younger sister - off by twenty-three years - but she was a lovely, genuine, energetic person on the whole, and she took a lot after Sue. She knew there was something up with us, of course, but she'd seen it all her life and it didn't really faze her.

'Hi, Alicia, how are you?'

'Good, thanks. Mum's in the kitchen making coffee, Dad, Seth, and Leah have gone out to get the cake: it wasn't like he was going to bake it himself!' Too true. 'Hi, everyone! Alice, do you want some help carrying that in?'

She said all of this very fast.

'No thanks, Alicia, I've got Jasper, he'll help me.' She added under her breath, so that only we could hear, 'I've carried this across a couple of states, I'm sure I could manage the front door.'

'Okay. Well, come in! Charlie'll be happy to see you.'

'Thanks.' Alice and Jasper, making a great show of manoeuvring the package onto the doorstep and over the threshold, entered, followed by the rest of us.

'Happy birthday, Sue!', said Esme as we entered, and we echoed her.

'Oh, hi, everyone. How are you?' Sue wasn't as comfortable around the Cullens as her daughter, seeing as she knew that there was something up with us - and she'd been married to Harry Clearwater, who wasn't exactly a huge fan of vampires (not that she actually knew that that was what we were). Edward had assured all of us long ago, though, that she was fine with it and was fine with not knowing. The fact that we were often accompanied by Jacob helped, too.

Charlie walked into the door then, carrying a huge cardboard box.

'Hi, everyone! Hi Bella! Was wondering if you'd show up!'

'Of course I did, Dad,' I said, hugging him. 'How are you?'

'Good, good. How's everything with the Cullens?'

'Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.'

He looked happy at that. Nessie walked up to him with a 'Hi Grampa!' and hugged him; so did Esme and Alice. Edward and Jasper shook hands with him.

Meanwhile, Seth Clearwater had ambled up behind his mother with a smile. He'd started aging again twenty years ago, and was now married with two children.

He was followed by his sister, Leah, who had never liked vampires and never really stopped giving us sideways glances, but had sort of accepted the Cullens' occasional presence. She'd imprinted on her yoga instructor a year ago and had recently 'de-wolfed', as Edward had told me she thought of it. She'd become a lot nicer in recent years, too.

After many more greetings, we'd all crammed into the kitchen and just talked for a while. When we'd all finished gossiping, we headed into the lounge and started to open presents. Alice had bought a beautiful new wooden coffee table, which Edward had heard in her mind she'd wanted, and then there were the usuals: chocolates, socks, a new raincoat (well, he did live in Forks), and a couple of bunches of flowers. Sue cut the cake and we ate it (it was a beautiful cake, but of course it looked disgusting to all of the vampires in the room. We all passed Jacob our portions under the table when no-one else was looking and he ate them all for us) and we sat, talking, for a while.

Edward was in the middle of talking about his life at university (a story that was true for approximately 70 years ago), when he suddenly broke off. I looked at him in alarm; he was staring at Alice, whose face was a familiar expression of complete blankness: she was having a vision of the future. I started to panic, but then stopped: we needed to keep up our human charade. I kicked Edward under the table.,

'Is it naptime already, Edward?' I said in a teasing tone, using a phrase that Edward himself had once used to bring Alice back down to earth.

'Sorry,' he said, and, with a slight grimace you wouldn't detect if you didn't know his features all that well, continued with his story.

I muttered to Alice, who had come out of her reverie, 'What did you see?'

She shook her head slightly. 'Later.'

I was instantly worried, but managed to make it through another half hour (26 minutes and 39 seconds: I had to count to keep myself sane) before we said our goodbyes to everyone and departed. We started running as soon as we were around the corner, and I immediately turned to Alice.

'What was it?'

She shook her head again.

'That bad?'

She nodded, and said no more.

Edward's face was full of pity and sadness. I was so worried. What would happen? What was so bad that Alice wouldn't just tell me?

There were so many things. I went through countless different scenarios in my head - thankfully we got back to the house quickly.

I flitted into the lounge and sat down. Jacob and Nessie needed to sleep; they would find out about whatever this was in the morning.