Summary: [Takes place after New Moon. Alice never saw Bella jump from the cliff.] 10 years have passed since that fateful night alone in the woods. Bella's heart has healed the gaping wound Edward's absence left. Now, as a wife, mother, and teacher in a new school, Bella thinks she can handle anything. But what happens when the Cullens make an appearance in her life again? Will old wounds be re-opened? Or has she really moved on? Can Edward accept the consequences of his actions?
First Day of School
It was the first day of school and Bella was anxious to meet her new students. The first day of school jitters had her awake before her alarm had a chance to go off. Since going back to sleep seemed impossible, she decided to get a head start on getting ready for work.
Bella slipped out of bed as quietly as she could, careful not to wake her husband, and tip-toed into the bathroom where she proceeded to shower and get ready for the day. When Bella came out of the bathroom, she noticed that the bed was empty.
She followed the soft voices through the house and found her husband and two twin boys in the kitchen, making a mess. The scene brought a smile to her face. Clearly they were trying to make breakfast. From the looks of it, it looked like they were attempting to make waffles but it appeared that most of the batter ended up on the counter or on the three boys, and not in the waffle iron.
Bella giggled. Jake's keen ears picked up the nearly imperceptible noise and cocked his head in her direction. The sight of Jake's face brought a new wave of giggles to Bella and she snorted in an effort to keep them contained. It looked as though one of her little boys had decorated Jake's face with waffle batter. Jake tried to scowl, but was hard when he was too busy trying to contain his laughter as well.
"Mama!" said Josh. "We make breakfast."
"I can see that." replies a smiling Bella. "Mmhm. I'm hungry. When will it be ready?"
"Here, Mama." says the John, pointing to a plate on the counter with a few finished waffles.
Bella, after grabbing some plates and forks, sat down at the table and waited for the boys to finish. After the last of the batter had been poured into the waffle iron, Jake wiped up the messy boys and sent them towards their mother so he could wipe up the counters. It was sort of a tradition now, to eat breakfast together. Granted, usually it was cereal, but it was nice to come together as a family before everyone's days got hectic.
Biting into the first waffle, Bella smiled towards her boys. "Mmmh. These are yummy! Thanks for breakfast!"
The boys just smiled back, too busy stuffing their faces full of waffle to say anything.
"We were hoping we could send you off with a proper breakfast for your first day and all." says Jake.
"Thanks." Bella couldn't help but be filled with love, sitting there eating breakfast with her favorite men. It must have been one good breakfast too because everyone was too busy stuffing their faces with more waffles. The boys sure get their appetites from their father, Bella thought as she watched the boys reach for another section of waffle.
"Well," Bella says, glancing at the clock, "I guess I'm off to work than. I'm going to miss hanging out with you guys today." Grabbing her stuff she leans over to kiss the boys on their heads, "be good for your daddy today. I'll pick you up later at the sitter's, okay?"
"-Kay, Mama." the boys say in unison.
"Have a good day at work, babe." Bella says, leaning over to plant a kiss on her husband. "Love you."
"Love you, more." Jake says. Bella just smiled. It was an ongoing contest they had. When they first got married they used to get in a whole battle of who loved who more. Now it seemed to be their signature parting words.
Bella got to school in record time and spent the extra minutes pacing around her classroom, checking things twice, even three times, to make sure everything was ready and in order to teach her classes today. Each school year brought on a new experience for her. High school students always varied so much. Last year she was lucky to have many brilliant eager minds, which made teaching English Lit such a joy. She really hoped this next school year would be as rewarding. Glancing at the clock, it was 15 minutes till. Bella decided to go over the roll. There were always a name or two that took her a while to figure out how to pronounce and even then she always seemed to mess up at least one of them. Still, she tried to review the roll sheet to familiarize herself with them anyways.
The bell rings and chatty students start to pour in. Bella's at the door, smiling and greeting them as they come into her classes. Her smile freezes when she thinks she sees a face from her past. Alice? Bella thought. She gives herself a mental shake. That wasn't a name she allowed herself to think for years. It was probably just a student who looked similar.
The school day seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. The first day of school was always the most fun. It was a day Bella spent getting to know her classes. Before she knew it she was dismissing students and preparing for her prep period / lunch. After organizing her desk, Bella grabbed a stack of papers and purse and headed towards the teacher's lounge to relax and read for lunch.
Fumbling with all the stuff, she tried to move everything to one arm and lock the classroom with the other. Time can change a lot, but it apparently had no affect on Bella's grace. After awkwardly fumbling for a few minutes, everything seemed to tumble to the floor. Papers went flying everywhere. Sighing, Bella knelt to pick them all up.
Bella was too busy concentrating on berating her clumsiness to hear someone approach her, so she jumped in surprise when a hand shoots into her field of vision with a stack full of paper.
"Here you go," says the sweet musical voice that echoes with familiarity in Bella's mind.
Glancing up, Bella's mouth falls open in shock. "Alice?"
Alice smiles at Bella. "Hey, Bella."
"W-w-what are you doing here?" Bella's mind seemed to have frozen in shock. A million questions seemed to build in her head and she couldn't chose which to ask first.
"Helping you, of course." replies Alice, as though it should be obvious.
"Huh?" was Bella's intelligent response.
"I saw the need for a helping hand, so I asked for a bathroom pass, and here I am."
"You…" Bella pauses, her mind trying to work out everything. She glances around as though she expected the other Cullens to be standing there in the hallway watching them. "You go to school here?"
"Yup" Alice says, popping her lips on the "p."
Bella was bombarded with a cornucopia of emotions. She was happy, excited to see them again, yet she was furious, hurt, and a bit scared. Her emotions seemed to be flip flopping so much, she couldn't decide what to even say to Alice. Thoughts were flying through her brain. Memories she hadn't allowed herself to remember suddenly resurfaced to her consciousness. After what seemed like ages, Bella finally seemed to decide to stick to the facts. They are students in this school. She was a teacher. Bella couldn't allow herself to think beyond those two facts, for now anyways.
"Thank you for your help, Alice. Now you better run along, back to your class before you get in trouble for being gone too long." I need to keep this strictly student/teacher professionalism, thought Bella. Bella tried to smile at Alice, but felt it was obvious it was a forced effort.
Bella thought she saw disappointment in Alice's face, but whatever emotion was momentarily displayed was quickly replaced with the perfectly happy mask.
"Sure. Ms…?"
"It's Mrs. Bella, in school. Anything else makes me feel old." Bella replies with a small smile. At least this smile was genuine. Alice seemed to know the difference, because she smiled in response as well.
"Alright, Ms. Bella. I guess I'll see you later." with that, Alice skipped off to class. Everything seemed to just be going a million miles an hour in Bella's mind. She needed to get out and think a little bit. It'd be pointless to go to the teacher's lounge now. Glancing at her watch, Bella made the decision to put the papers back on her desk, they could be graded later, and to just get out for a while. She had a 2 hour break with her prep period and lunch hour. She desperately needed to talk to someone and suddenly she knew just where she needed to be.
Bella pulled her car into the shop and headed for the garage. Embry was out front with a customer, and upon spotting her, he cocked his head in the direction he knew she needed to go. Silently and carefully Bella walked around to the back of the shop where she found a familiar pair of legs sticking out from underneath a car.
"Hey good looking," she said in what was her attempt at a sexy and sultry voice, "how much would it cost me to have you work underneath my hood."
Jacob rolled out from under the car with a huge smirk on his face. "Hey! What are you doing here?"
Returning his smile, Bella knelt down next to him. Was it totally weird how she found him extremely sexy when he was all grungy and dirty from working on cars all day? "I just needed you."
Jakes eyebrows crease in confusion. "First day of school not going good?" He knew her too well. On a perfectly normal day, Bella would use her lunch break to be grading papers or reading or something else totally productive and totally work oriented.
Bella's smile faltered. "They're back." she says.
Jake looks at her, his smile slowly melting from his face. He knew who she was talking about. There could only be one "they."
"What happened?" Jake asks cautiously and with growing resentment. Throughout the years of being with Bella he's learned to mask his true feelings for the stupid bloodsuckers, for Bella. He could kill them for what they did to her, all those years ago. But every time he tried to say something to Bella along those lines, it seemed to send her into a downward spiral. So, he's perfected the art of masking his anger and resentment towards them.
Bella takes a deep sigh, and sits down on the floor next to Jacob. "Oh, I was having a total "me" moment. I dropped everything in the hallway and had to pick everything up, and suddenly Alice was there helping me."
"What else happened?"
"Well, nothing." Bella finally looks up into his eyes, and cracks a half smile. "I kind of freaked. I had this total mental fart and everything. So, I treated her like every other student and sent her on her way."
Jacob returned her smile. "Well, that was probably for the best. What do you want to happen next?"
Now Bella furrowed her brows in confusion, looking off in the distance, thinking. "I don't know. When I first saw Alice, I was elated! My first thought was, my best friend was back." Then Bella covertly glanced back to Jacob. "Or um, my best girl-friend I should say. You know you're my very best friend."
Jacob returned her smile. "But?…"
"Well, I was happy. But then all these memories flooded back from the past. I spent so long locking them all up, and then they all came back like it was yesterday. Suddenly I'm hurt and mad all over again. And now I'm just scared."
"Scared?" this was all making Jacob scared too, although probably not the same reasons Bella was scared. Jacob was starting to get scared that their appearance would set Bella back to how she was in high school, and he was even more scared Edward might try to take Bella away from him.
"Yeah. I'm scared. I don't know what they want and I don't know if I can open my heart to them again because… because last time I let them in I got hurt." Bella's eyes showed how scared she was.
Jacob didn't even think about it. He suddenly just pulled Bella in for a hug. And this, thought Bella, is exactly why I needed to be here right now.
"It'll be okay sweets. Promise." Jake said into Bella's hair, kissing her head.
"I know. I just needed this. I needed you."
Finally, Bella pulled out of his embrace. "And apparently, I need to go find some of those extra cloths I stashed in your office." Black grease clung to her shirt.
Jacob smiled shyly. "That was why you put them there, wasn't it? Incase you couldn't resist the magnificent me and got dirty." Jake flexed his muscles and wiggled his eyebrows at Bella.
Giggling, Bella playfully smacked his arm. "Oh stop it." Jake grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a kiss. Sighing, Bella melted into his embrace once again and kissed him back with fervor.
Someone cleared their throats. "Now Jake, I thought we weren't taking those kind of payments for services rendered here in this shop." Bella blushed and pulled away.
"You guys want anything for lunch? I'm buying." Bella says, standing up. "Oh yeah!" The boys quickly start rambling off all the items they want. Bella eventually has to find paper and a pen to get everyone's orders. She spent the rest of her lunch break at the auto shop, hanging out with everyone there. When it was time to go back to work, Bella found she was ready to face the Cullens, if they happened to be in her class. She got what she needed during her lunch break - and emotional booster.
