Family Reunions

Bella

"Ouch! Oh shit!" I gabbed my foot, my back arching as thin fingers clamped around my injured small toe. Across form me—sitting innocently on the floor—was a small, but deceivingly heavy, box. I glared at it, sitting on the ground to start pulling off my sneaker.

"Bella, dear?" I heard a light, calming voice call to me, the tone unnaturally musical. "Are you alright?" Her question was phrased with an unsurprising amount of concern behind it. I sighed.

"Yes!" I all but groaned out—not in pain, mind you, but embarrassment. "I'm fine!"

Esme didn't buy my act for a second. "I'll be right there!" she called, her voice a traveling a little farther away. "I'll get the first-aid kit!"

I groaned out again, dropping until I was flat on my back against the ground. There was no point in moving now—Esme was unstoppable when it came her maternal instincts.

Not that I was her daughter. Biologically at least.

I was an employee. But we were closer than that.

I starting working at La Crique de Cygne almost a year ago, when I first moved to Chicago. I was fresh out of college—only a useless English degree to my name—and complete alone in this new city. After the first month here my debt starting filing up, my loneliness right along side it. At one point, it had gotten so bad that I even considered moving back to Forks, my home town, despite my reasons to stay far, far away…

One day I was walking home from another job interview gone array and it started to rain. Deciding to just wait it out, I ducked into Esme's shop. She saw me and smiled, welcoming me in like the loving mother I always wanted and the rest was history. Esme needed some help with the store and I needed a job.

After that moment, everything in my life seemed to click in place. I quickly met one of Esme's most loyal costumers, Alice Whitlock. As soon she her lithe body danced into the shop that first day, she pointed at my with unwavering confidence and declared that we were going to be closer than sisters. I was powerless to her charms. Sure enough, Alice and I meet up almost everyday now.

Soon afterwards, Esme introduced me to her eldest son, Emmett and his wife Rosalie—I had long since known her husband, the famous cardiologist, Dr. Carlisle Cullen.

I've never felt so surrounded by family before. I went from just me—alone and broken—and now I've got two brothers in Emmett and Alice's husband, Jasper. Two sisters in Alice and Rosalie, and the best make-shift parent I could dream of.

And yet, there was something missing from my new improved life. Even as wonderful as it was, I wondered if I would ever feel whole.

Esme, in the present, suddenly appeared before. Her middle aged face held all of the wisdom of old age, yet someone managed to retain all of her youthful beauty. Her kind eyes and cameral hair made her look soft and generous, while the emerald orbs in her stare gave the idea of power. She smiled warmly at me, seeming slightly amused at my grace troubles.

Lovely.

"Trip again, sweetheart?" she asked, kneeling down in front of my socked foot. Esme was one of the few people that didn't make endearments sound condescending.

"No!" I defended weakly. "I dropped the box on my toe."

She looked up at me curiously, beginning t pull the white garment off my foot. "What box?"

"The one with the books you wanted."

"For the Rosenberg shelf?"

I nodded.

She sighed, contently, probably relived that I hadn't managed to drop anything more important, but she didn't say anything else while she pulled off my sock as gingerly as possibly.

After it was completely off, the sight of my blue and swollen toe revealed to the room, she gave a low hum of worry. She pursed her lips worry, her emerald eyes darting to mine. I waited patiently for her to say something, only growing anxious when it she was silent for minutes longer.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, biting my lip. The small amount of pain in my toe was starting to throb. I held back a small groan.

"Bella, dear…" she hesitated, "I don't know if I'm going to be able to take care of this. Perhaps we should go see Carlisle."

I felt like pulling my hair out by the roots. This would be my third hospital visit this month. I was starting to suspect that the ER had a bed reserved for me. I wanted to argue with Esme, but I couldn't. She just looked so concerned.

"Alright," I sighed unhappily.

Esme's sigh, on the other hand, was out of relief. She took in one fluid, graceful movement that I could never accomplish and held a hand out for me.

I took it, and she tried to pull me up. As soon as my foot held the slightest bit of wait I hissed in pain, falling back to the ground with a thunderous thump.

"Oh, Bella!" Esme yelped in surprise. She fluttered her hands over me, trying to see if I had cause any other injures. After making sure I wasn't an worse off, she told me, her concern evident to a blind man, "I'm going to call Emmett."

She was out of the room before I could protest.

Emmett, always acting like the big brother I never had, found it extremely enjoyable to tease me for my obvious lack of coordination. I couldn't wait to hear his comment this time.

Sure enough, abut five minutes later, a large hummer could be heard pulling up n front of the shop. A large man, his curly head of hair and innocent dimples in sharp contrast to his burly form, appeared in the doorway to the storage room, a large smirk covering his face.

"How ya' doing Bella?" he asked, the mischievous grin growing by the second.

I frowned.

"I'm great, Emmett. Fantastic. Practically on cloud nine."

He guffawed loudly at my sarcastic tone, walking over to me. He bent down low, slipping his muscled arms under me to support my light form.

He carried me out of the store—my face brighter than a ripe tomato—and carefully slipped me into the back seat of the hummer. His car—or truck as he insisted I call it—was up to my waist. If Emmett hadn't been helping me, I would have broken my ankle just trying to get in.

Esme slid lithely into the passenger seat. "Esme," I argued at once. "You didn't have to close the store just because—"

She shushed me with a dismissive wave of the hand. "The store can survive one day without me, Bella. Your well being in far more important."

I sat the rest of the way quietly, still embarrassed that I had managed to ruin yet another perfectly fine afternoon.

Thankfully, Emmett didn't have time to open his mouth because the trip to the hospital was relatively short. We made our way through the almost empty ER, finally stopping by the front desk. Esme asked the nurse to page Carlisle, and grabbed the hospital forms to fill out. Emmett sat me down in one of the comfortable hospital chair as we waited.

While we waited, Emmett struck up a conversation with Esme, his smile so large it almost filled his face.

"Hey mom," He said, his words slow, as if building the anticipation. "You'll never guess who called me this just before you."

Esme look slightly disinterested as she flipped absentmindedly through a quilting catalogue. "Who dear?" she asked her son.

"Jut a certain doctor who decided that he was getting tired of Africa."

And, though his hint sounded like absolute gibberish to me, I would have never expected Esme's reaction.

Her body bolted out of the hard plastic chair, the magazine dropping to the floor forgotten.

"He's…coming home?" She asked, her voice quivering. Her small frame was shaking, tears rolling down her face at a rapid pace. Emmett jumped up to, pulling his mother into a tight bear hug. Her tears were soaking both of them now.

Soon, his footsteps sounding as though he were running in a marathon, Carlisle appeared, his breathing hot and heavy. "I…is everything…alright?" he asked between pants, his accent slipping through. He braced himself on his knees, trying to regain composure.

As soon as he saw his wife—tearful, blotchy, and beautiful—he ran forward, checking her for injuries. "What's going—" he started to ask, but was cut off.

"Edward's coming home," she said, burying her head in his chest, sobbing loud tears of joy.

The doctors expression changed at once, going from horrified to euphoric in less than a heartbeat. He picked up Esme, spinning her around and kissing her in a way it made me embarrassed to look at.

Suddenly, I understood.

Edward, Esme and Carlisle's younger son, was a doctor who had been spending the better part of this year helping out camps in Africa. I had never met him—or even seen pictures—but I knew Esme worried about him more than anything else.

It brought me joy to see that the Cullen's were finally going to be complete again—to be whole.

Esme pulled away from her husband after a moment, walking back over to Emmett. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she demanded of him, the smile on her face making any anger in her voice disappear.

Emmett laughed loudly, ruffling her hair lovingly. " I wanted to see you reaction."

All three of the Cullens laughed heartily, and I joined along, unable to stop the pull of their joy.

"Bella!" Esme exclaimed happily. "You get to met Edward! I'm so—"he expression changed suddenly. Her eyes lit up brightly, and both she and Carlisle exchanged a significant look.

"Well, you just get Bella, feeling better, Hon." Esme said to her husband, not-so-subtly changing the subject. Then, another wide grin, "I should make a call to our long lost son."

"But I'm right here, Mom!" Emmett called out, causing all of us to laugh.

Carlisle pulled over a wheelchair, carefully setting me inside. "Bella and I will meet you at the house for dinner. My shift is over soon," he looked down to me for acceptance.

I nodded, of course.

"We'll see you later!" Emmett called loudly, as Carlisle pushed me through the ER doors.

H wheeled me over to an empty bed, helping me position myself on top of it before sitting down to examine m toe.

"How did this happen, Bella? Did you trip again?" He asked me a smirk in his tone. Sometimes, as different as they were normally, I thought Carlisle and Emmett could be ridiculously similar.

"I dropped a box of books on it." I answered a little unwillingly.

He chuckled lightly, shaking his head in exasperation.

We were silent for a few moment, until I built up the courage to speak again.

"So, you son, Edward, is coming home?"

I could see the smile in his check bones. He looked up at me. I saw in his hazel eyes that there was a fire, a spark, of something I hadn't seen before.

"He is." Then, his smile faded slightly, as though he had an inside joke. "I think you two will get along perfectly."

He saw my curious gaze, but neither one of us brought up the subject again.

Here's the end of chapter one, I hope you liked it. And, just to let everyone know, La Crique de Cygne means "The Swan's Cove", roughly, in French.

I really love reviews, by the way (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

--Bookworm