Disclaimer: Let's see pink NLCA shirt, pink jeans, purple glasses, mid-back lightish brown hair, and 13 years old. Nope, fairly certain I'm not Stephanie Meyer or Rick Riordan. Thoughts are in italics.

Chapter One: Orphanages, Singers, and Water, Oh My!

Carlisle POV: (Summer Break)

"Carlisle?" said the voice of my Esme. The kids were all out hunting. "Yes?" I answered.

"Carlisle, I-I'd like to adopt a child, a human child."

"What?" I looked up startled.

"I'd like to adopt a human child" she repeated

"In a house full of vampires?" I frowned.

"I think we could do it. We could all hunt when we were even a little bit thirsty" she said earnestly.

"When did you decide all this, love?" I asked.

"Well, I was thinking last night and I want to be able to raise a child and actually watch them grow" she said smiling softly.

"All right, we'll try" I said. She smiled and hugged me sitting on my lap.

"I love you" I said quietly, kissing her hair.

"I love you too" She said raising her head to kiss me on the lips. When the children got home, Alice had told them about our conversation.

They were a mix of emotions. Alice and Emmett were excited, Jasper and Edward were worried, although Jasper would have sudden bursts of excitement as the others moods affected him, and Rosalie was torn between been very worried and very happy.

A few weeks and quite a lot of paperwork later, we were on our way to the orphanage to choose a child.

Edward POV

We were standing outside the door to the orphanage in Port Angeles and I was listening to my family's thoughts.

"We should get a boy so that I can teach him to play football," That was Emmett.

"We should get a girl so I can teach her about fashion" Alice, of course.

I hope I can control myself" Jasper.

"Someone should tell Alice that we're adopting a child, not buying a Barbie doll" Rosalie. I smirked at her.

"I hope Jasper will be all right" Carlisle.

I'm going to be able to raise a child" Esme.

We walked into the orphanage.

"May I help you?" asked the receptionist batting her eyelashes. Noting this, Esme, Alice, and Rosalie each put an arm around their mates. Alice pecked Jasper on the lips and Rosalie and Emmett shared a very passionate kiss. Jasper groaned from the lust coming off them. The girl looked disappointed then perked up. I growled quietly at her thoughts.

"We are the Cullens" said Carlisle. She went to get another girl to take us through the orphanage.

"What did she think to make you grow?" asked Esme. "

"She thought she should cheer me up because I was all alone." My siblings all laughed as Carlisle and Esme tried to hide smiles. Just then the receptionist came back with another girl who looked about seventeen. She was pale, although not as pale as us, with brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. When I tried to read her mind it was blank

"I can't read her mind" I whispered to my family. She noticed me staring at her and looked down blushing beet red. Then the fan blew her scent my way. Alice's face went blank and she gasped.

"Edward, hold your breath" she thought urgently.

"Edward, what's wrong?" asked Esme silently, looking concerned.

"That girl, she smells better than any human I've ever smelled" I whispered through clenched teeth.

"She's Edward's singer and he can't read her mind, interesting…" thought Carlisle.

I glared at the girl as if it was her fault she smelled that way. She noticed my expression and looked confused and a little bit frightened. She blushed again making mouth-watering color come to her cheeks. I imagined sinking my teeth into her snow white neck-

"Edward, snap out of it!" Alice thought as a vision of the girl lying lifeless on the ground flashed through her mind. I was surprised at the pain that went through me at that picture. Jasper raised his eyebrows. The girl walked up to us.

"Hi, I'm Bella Swan. I'm a new volunteer here"

"Are you Chief Swan's daughter?" asked Carlisle.

"Yes" replied Bella.

"I'm Carlisle Cullen and this is my wife Esme and our children Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper, and Alice" said Carlisle pointing to each one of us

"If you don't mind me saying this, you look to young to have teenage children"

"They're all adopted" said Carlisle smiling.

"And now you're adopting another one"

"Yes"

"Well, follow me" She led us through a door into the back of the orphanage.

We went down the hall and into a room. She started introducing us to children.

"This is Rebecca" she said as we came to a little girl about three. She had black hair and stared at us with big solemn dark brown eyes. She wore an old nightgown and clutched a teddy bear.

"Becca, these are the Cullens" she said gently.

"Rebecca's mother was sixteen when she was born and she just couldn't take care of her" Bella explained to us quietly. "They told me she's lived at the orphanage her whole life"

"Oh, poor little girl" sighed Esme in her thoughts.

"And this is Benjamin" A boy about five with brown eyes and blond hair that got darker at the top smiled shyly at us and waved.

"He lost his family in a fire" whispered Bella.

Next, she led us to a little black boy about two with curly black hair and black eyes.

"This is Ephrem; I don't know what happened to his parents"

"Hi baby" cooed Esme.

"Hi-hi" he said.

"Aw, he's so cute" said Rosalie..

"Oh, I want to help all of them" thought Esme.

Next she led us to a girl about eight years old. She had blond hair and blue eyes. She wore a heart shaped locket around her neck.

"This is Cara"

"Hi" said the little girl

"Her father was abusive" Bella told us quietly but Cara must have heard her because suddenly she spoke up.

"Actually my father is a very kind man, he just has anger problems. Most of the time he was the best daddy you could ever hope for, but sometimes he'd get so angry and he'd beat me and then he'd calm down and realize what he was doing and he would hug me and tell me he was so, so sorry and he would cry" She looked like she was about to cry herself.

"And-and then they came and took me away and now this is all I have left to remember him" She said clutching her locket.

"And I'm tired of people talking about him like he's a horrible person!" she added in her thoughts remembering sitting on the lap of a big man as he read her a story. Then she remembered another time:

***flashback Cara POV***

Daddy was hitting me again. "D-daddy, please s-stop" I stuttered through my tears. "Shut up!" he screamed at me. Then he looked down at me and blinked the anger on his face slowly changing to horror. He sat down on the floor and pulled me into his arms. "Oh, Cara baby, Care Bear, I'm so, so sorry. Shh, shh, it's all right, its all right. I'm so, so sorry, sweetheart" Then he just held me in his arms for a long time.

***end flashback***

I shook my head at what I had just seen in the little girl's mind. Then Bella led us over to the last child in the room. He looked about two and had black hair and sea green eyes. "And this is Perseus, but we call him Percy. He only came here two weeks ago, his mother died in a car wreck. We presume his father is dead"

"Hi Percy" she said smiling at the baby. I noticed his blood smelled strange. Part of it smelled like other humans, but then there was something else a smell of the ocean and then a strange sharp, sweet smell I had no name for, it smelled powerful.

The boy smiled at Bella then toddled over to Rosalie and hugged her around the knees.

"Aaw" she cooed picking him up.

"Hi" he said looking around at all of us. He stared at Emmett for a minute.

"You big" he said, eyes wide.

"Yeah, I'm big" said Emmett chuckling.

"I gonna be big and stwong someday too" he announced. We all laughed.

Bella took us back out in the hallway.

We stood a few feet apart from her.

"So" said Carlisle, "We should take a vote, I personally think we should adopt Perseus" He looked at Esme.

"Percy" she said smiling, "Although, I'd like to find a way to help them all"

"Percy" said Rosalie "although that Ephrem kid is cute too"

"Percy" said Emmett, "that kid is awesome!"

"Percy" said Jasper.

"Percy" said Alice, "Ooh, I can't wait to decorate his room" we had bought some basic baby supplies but not knowing if we were going to get a boy or a girl had not decorated yet.

"Percy" I said. Somehow, we all loved the child already.

"Did you all notice his strange scent?" asked Jasper.

"Yes, I wonder why that is" said Carlisle frowning. We walked back up to Bella.

"We would like to adopt Percy" Carlisle told her.

"That's great!" she said smiling. She took us to the Heads office where Carlisle and Esme filled out more forms. We found out Percy's full name was Perseus Jonathan Jackson, now Perseus Jonathan Jackson Cullen, and that he was one year old about to turn two and his birthday was on August 18th.


We were back in the room where Percy and the others were. We walked up to him now.

"Percy" said Esme quietly. He looked up.

"How would you like to come home with us?"

"Yes!" He said happily running into her arms.


That seemed like a good place to end the chapter.

This is long, at least for me.

I made up Jonathan for his middle name. His real one is never mentioned although I saw somewhere it was Allen.

Looks: Rebecca: .com/moms/images/2008/12/19/missing_florida_girl_ (not exactly bit closest I could find except with black hair)

Benjamin: (Minus the tattoo)

Ephrem: he is actually based on a child my mom's friends adopted from Ethiopia. His picture is on my avatar half my family is crazy about the kid lol.

Cara: Her name means dearest because that's what she was to her daddy. ./i/pix/2008/11/28/article-1090132-0282C098000005DC-131_ (It's actually Connie Talbot)

You should already know what Percy looks like.

Please Review or you will be on Santa's naughty list. Reviewing is an automatic guarantee of the nice list. :P