Broken Dawn
A Twilight Short Story
Chapter One
Morning Light
"Edward!" I said happily when he stepped through the door of the house we'd bought for appearances' sake. "How did it go?"
"Fairly well. Renesmee's registered at the school, but I couldn't help laughing when the receptionist asked about her dietary needs." His voice was just as irresistible as the first time I'd heard it, and the hint of a chuckle made me smile.
"What did she think? The receptionist, I mean." I knew that Edward had known exactly what the woman's opinion had been.
"She was too busy wondering how my voice would compare to an angel's to notice." He grinned dazzlingly.
"I know the feeling." I remembered only too clearly, though the merely human memories were cloudy in comparison to more recent ones. "That first year and a half, I was thinking more or less the same thing all day."
"And I've spent the last decade in your former position, Bella dear." Had my heart still been neating, I would have blushed. I'd never quite gotten used to my actually being as breathtakingly beautiful as Edward had kept trying to convince me I was. "In any case, our daughter will be starting school in a week."
"Where is Renesmee, anyway? I didn't smell her." I could distinguish between everyone's distinct aroma, and Renesmee's sun-roses-and-freesia perfume was conspicuously absent.
"She was thirsty, so Jacob took her hunting. When they left, he was wondering where they could find a mountain lion or three."
"Mmm, mountain lion. My favorite." My first meal as a vampire had been a mountain lion that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Mine, as well." Edward smiled. So did I.
"So we're all alone, then?" I asked hopefully.
"For a few hours, at least. Alice will be here at seven, to help us unpack." He sighed, the exhalation sending his delicious scent through the room.
"But we didn't bring anything!" I cried, mentally cringing at the thought of Alice being put in charge of decoration our empty house.
"I heard her thoughts yesterday. We may not have brought anything, but Alice will be." He sighed again. "Alice will be Alice, I suppose."
"True," I said mournfully. "But since we've got some time, shall we, hmm, balance our interests? You know Alice will keep us busy all night." Not that the time was a problem, so much as the plans I'd had for it.
"If she doesn't, I'm positive we could come up with something else to do. That sounds wonderful, Bella. Almost as wonderful as you." Edward was in my arms in a flash, kissing me in a way that shouldn't have been legal.
"We should probably move this to the bedroom." I said, quite a bit breathlessly a few minutes later. "What will the neighbors think?" It was a joke; the huge house was at least three miles from the next one.
"That you're the loveliest creature on the planet. I would know."
"You would," I agreed. I took his hand in mine, and we flew up the stairs together. We were unclothed and kissing again before a human would have had time to notice our departure.
Several hours - or days, or years; time was still negotiable when I was with Edward - later, I was smiling blissfully, wondering why I'd let Edward convince me to remain human for as long as he did.
"I don't suppose you'd care to share that thought?" He inquired, stroking my dark hair with one hand. Spoken out loud, it would have sounded hokey, so instead I concentrated very hard on the elastic barrier that protected my mind from him and most other vampires, and shoved it away from my body. Edward's curious talent of reading people's minds showed him what I was thinking, and he chuckled. His musical laughter distracted me, and the barrier snapped back into place.
"I realize this goes against the grain, but I agree. After all, it would be extremely difficult to do this if you were still so...breakable." He leaned over to kiss me - again - when we heard the purr of an expensive car's engine on the long drive. We both glanced to the clock on the wall. Three minutes to seven.
"Alice." We sighed together." "Damn."
We were dressed and downstairs in a flash, playing chess - rather, Edward played while I tried futilely to puzzle out his strategies. Alice saved me from defeat by skipping through the door a minute later. She took one glance at us sitting together, and giggled.
"So serious! Proper, even. I'm disappointed, Bella. I came prepared to wait." She giggled again.
"We're already terrified of what you'll do to our house. Why provide you with more time to plot?" I said teasingly. Edward smiled smugly, and I felt the beginning of a horrible suspicion.
"You thought I had a plan? Oh, you poor thing! It's much worse than that. Jasper, could you come here, please?" Jasper projected a sense of calm as he entered, which puzzled me, as I wasn't likely to attack Alice. I understood perfectly as he stepped through the front door, graceful despite the half dozen large boxes piled in his arms. He set them down, then went to stand by Alice, who said:
"No, silly! I brought choices. All of which come with my professional opinion, naturally. Letting Bella decorate unadvised would be almost criminal."
"Especially with such talent nearby, yes?" Edward chimed in, clearly amused. They were both lucky that, what with Jasper's influence and my comfortable position in Edward's lap, I felt much too nice to give them the beating they deserved.
A notebook appeared in Alice's small hand, and she seated herself on the edge of the sofa, one hand perched thoughtfully under her chin.
"We'll start with that box, I think." She said, pointing her notebook imperiously at the topmost one. "The wallpaper for this room. I thought ice-blue, with cream trim. For Bella's skin, you know?"
"Alice, as much as I - as we - appreciate this, you don't have to..." I began half-heartedly, knowing I wouldn't finish.
"It's no trouble at all! I haven't had this much fun since your wedding, sister dear. How could I miss such an opportunity? Besides, this is a new experience for me. Esme wouldn't let me decorate your cottage." I reflected that, considering the architectural felonies she was guilty of, that was probably a good thing.
"Alright, Alice, We don't mind." I soothed, trying to alleviate the devastated pout her angelic face had scrunched into. Edward seemed to be having trouble containing his mirth.
"Mm. Oh, and Jacob and Renesmee will be back in seven minutes, thirteen seconds. I wonder what Renesmee will think of the curtains I brought for her room?" Likely because she'd known Alice from birth, my daughter wasn't horrified by the lengths to which her aunt could cheerfully go in the name of high fashion.
"I thought you couldn't see either of them." I said, confused. By some mental quirk, both Renesmee and Jacob were hidden from Alice's uncannily accurate predictions of the future.
"Yes, but I can't see us past that point, either." She frowned; Alice had never liked being reduced to being "normal".
"Poor Alice," Edward said, his voice falsely tragic. "Muddling along with only her superior fashion sense for guidance." Alice's face lit up in a sudden smile. Jasper grinned.
"Why, yes. That's the idea."
Over the next week, Alice usurped Edward's traditional place as head of the household. When he pointed this out, in between coats of paint in the living room (ice-blue; neither of us had the stomach for arguing with Alice), she informed him that yes, he was correct, and that "Any further objections may be addressed to the complaints department." At this point, Jasper had raised a hand and smirked wickedly, highlighting the dozens of battle scars on his jaw and face. Edward and I shut up and obeyed Alice.
On Renesmee's first day of high school, I had to admit that Alice knew what she was doing. Where previously our house had had an unfinished air, it was now enticingly colored in shades of cream and blue, with Alice's idea of art hung on the walls. It was a very nice look.
Renesmee was undergoing none of the stress I'm sure most of the children her age were in the other households in town. She, unlike every other teenage girl I'd ever known and no doubt thanks to her association with the human-looking Quileute pack of werewolves, had no delusions that she was pretty; as Edward had once put it, to be called merely pretty would have been an unforgivable insult. She was, at the very, very least, beautiful, and she knew it.
Edward had given her his silver Volvo; despite the car's age, Rosalie had cheerfully kept it running in better-than-perfect order. Also, as he'd observed when I asked him why, my own red Ferrari went much faster and smelled like me. He was losing nothing and gaining his daughter's happiness. Renesmee had inherited my distaste for gifts, so Edward had cheerfully hauled out an excuse I remembered from my human days.
"It's a hand-me-down, Renesmee. I've given cars to your mother and your Aunt Alice, so this is clearly not a big deal in any way." His eyes were wide and innocent, but staring at the eight-colored rainbows my vampire eyes caught sparkling off the huge diamond he'd given me with the same argument, it was impossible to believe them. He smiled at me warmly when she left the room.
"Like mother, like daughter, I suppose. Why are you two so much trouble to pamper?"
So Renesmee drove to school in style, secure and confident. Altogether quite unlike myself on the same day more than a decade ago, when I'd wrestled my ancient truck into the parking lot of Forks High School, worried sick about finding a Bella-sized niche to hide in, never dreaming that I'd find Edward instead.
I sighed. My mother had been right; I'd always suspected that I was getting more middle-aged with each passing year, the nostalgia merely proved it. Then I turned to Edward, and caught my reflection in his topaz eyes, and knew it wasn't true. I was forever frozen at eighteen, the better to spend eternity with an angel.
Author's Note: This is a story I wrote for a friend, as part of a competition to see who could write the best Twilight vignette. If people like it, there will be more.