Bella smiled as she unpacked boxes with Esme and Alice. Nearly ten years had passed since she'd been turned, and though the first year was weird (despite her new affiliation her hemophobia hadn't left - she had found that the thirst wasn't nearly as dramatic for her as it was for the others, probably because of this), she enjoyed her life with her new family... and Edward.
Being a vampire hadn't actually changed her much. Her always-pale skin sparkled in the sun now, of course, and her eyes had been earthy-brown-tinted-red for about a year and a half before turning gold. Her personality hadn't changed much, caring and accepting and stubborn and kind. She was still clumsy, but fast enough now to catch herself- most of the time. Occasionally, she was distracted by her thoughts and didn't realise what had happened until she landed. And, she'd been half happy, half annoyed to find, Edward still had the amazing power to dazzle her with a soft word or intense glance.
She had kept in contact with Jacob after she'd moved away, first through letters and then phone-calls. When she'd heard that he'd imprinted on a nice girl named Rhia, she'd been estatic for him and helped him blunder his way through courting her. She had actually met Rhia at the wedding, which she and Edward had been invited to- Bella didn't quite understand it, but Edward had given her a wry grin when he heard that Jake had sent them an invitation.
As she decorated the mantel of the fireplace with trinkets, her power kicked in. She saw the great forest a wooden sculpture had once been a part of; she saw Emmet struggling over a three-dimensional puzzle; she saw Jasper trying to squirm away from the camera as Carlisle, Edward, and Emmett forced him to stay still so Alice could take a picture. She saw Rosalie picking up the glass flower on a whim; she saw Alice agonizing over her choice between two ornamental vases- and getting them both, which made Bella's smile widen. She saw Edward and Carlisle arguing light-heartedly over the placement of the family pictures- Edward had thought they'd be better in the office, but Carlisle had prevailed and it had been packed with the family-room paraphenelia.
As the boys started to move the furniture to their various designations, Bella lightly ran her hand along the wall of the new house. Esme had decided not to repaint this room, though several others hadn't been so lucky- after her first attempts at painting, Bella had been banned and hadn't seen them since their mini-makeovers. The contact with the wall allowed its memories to well up, and she nearly laughed aloud. The escapades of a horde of young children filled her thoughts, and she sent them to Edward. That was something that had taken some time to perfect- she could open her mind to him at will, now, although she usually preferred not to. He stopped for a moment beside her, pausing in his moving duties, to kiss her cheek and grin. The he was wrestling a huge desk upstairs- his problem was more with the bulk of the object and the narrowness of the stairs than the desk's weight.
Bella Cullen and her family worked quickly; their house had been repainted and moved into in only fourty-eight hours (most of which had been used allowing the paint to dry). Bella's last treasure was set up in the room she shared with Edward, a photo album that lay upon the dresser. All the memories within it flooded her- times when she'd been human, times when she was vampire, good times, hard times, times of joy and fleeting times of sorrow. Much more love and laughter had occured than anything else, and to Bella, that overshadowed everything else.
The familiarity of the objects around her soothed Bella's frazzled nerves, though not nearly as much as Edward did as he pulled her into a tight, possessive hug.
This house did not yet feel like home. Even though Bella's gift of acute perception extended into the past rather than the future, she could tell that would change quickly.
Oro: This is disturbingly like fluff, Quill.
Quill: Don't look at me, you're the one who wrote it! Now get to work on your other stuff!
Oro: (salutes) Yes-SIR! Quill: (rolls eyes) She doesn't own Twilight. And review, this is the first time we've written something like this- we'd like to know how it went.
