A/N: In the original plan this chapter didn't exist, but hey ho, these things happen. Chapter title shamelessly robbed from T.S. Elliot's Quartet No. 2: East Coker.

Disclaimer: Still not mine. I still don't have anything anybody else would want!

Human Nature

Where One Starts From

Ingratitude is monstrous
-William Shakespeare Coriolanus Act 2 Scene 3

We'd had to slow down somewhat as we approached the town, and Dad had been grumbling ever since Jasper had overtaken us on the final approach. I was struggling to get comfortable; after forty-eight hours even the Volvo's generous cabin space was beginning to feel a little cramped.

The house that Esme had chosen was perhaps two miles out of Houghton itself. Much like the house in Forks it sat at the end of a long curving driveway, surrounded by forest, but the forest was different here. Where Forks had been grey and grey and damp, Houghton seemed to be alive with colour. Dawn was breaking as we began to navigate the shale drive, and the weak incoming sunlight lit up the fall leaves and cst halos of pink mist around the tops of the nearby mountains. Dad turned a final sharp bend, and I gasped.

The house was, in a word, beautiful.

The trees encroached on it from all sides, but they couldn't hide it. It sprawled out into the woods, a duck-egg blue mansion that varied in height but not in beauty no matter what part I looked at. It was unutterably stunning, as was my mother's poor neglected Ferrari – sat by the front door.

My dad hissed a word I knew I'd have to pretend never to have heard.

"That conniving little minx!" he whispered, seemingly having momentarily forgotten my presence.

It didn't escape my attention that he didn't sound very annoyed about my mom's little-white-speeding-lie, and I found myself frantically wishing for a room as far away from them as possible. There are some things no child wants to know about their parents, no matter how young, beautiful, and frighteningly immortal they may be.

We piled out of the cars - me trying to stretch my aching limbs, exhaustion haunting my every movement, and Emmett huffing about his fourth place finish - so that Esme could lead us en masse up to the front door.

"Do you like it?" she asked us all, though she had eyes only for Carlisle, "I thought it was just charming, and it's so hard to find somewhere decent and secluded…"

"It's beautiful, Esme," said Carlisle, and she seemed to glow with happiness.

"Come on!" Alice pushed her way past my nauseatingly unaware parents, "I want to call dibs on the best room!"

Esme smiled her infinitely patient smile and flung the door open.

As we trooped in I found myself gazing around in gob smacked silence. The big house back home had been wonderful - a true testament to Esme's genius - but this place really was something else. Even Alice seemed shocked into temporary silence. Only Dad seemed to take it all in his stride, but then, I assumed, he'd seen it all before.

The door opened straight into a magnificent room with a ceiling that seemed to soar much higher than a single story. The walls were a rich hazelnut, with delicate white wall sconces arranged here and there to break up the monotony. Most of the furniture had been delivered from Forks, including Dad's beloved piano which stood, impressive and alone, on the room's right hand side. The fluffy white rug was new, though, and the open range across the back wall was crying out for someone to light a real fire. It wasn't as bright as the big house had been, but the tall leaded windows cast a warm, soothing light into the room, but the most impressive feature was the ornate, curving grand staircase that rose from the centre of the room to parts unknown. Esme stood on the bottom stair, practically vibrating with joy. In that moment she really could have been Alice's mother.

Emmett let out a low whistle.

I tried to pay attention as she gave us the guided tour, ohing and ahing in all the right places and forcing my eyes to stay open, but I was much too tired to put on a proper pretence.

"I think Nessie would like to see her room now," Jasper said as Esme and Rosalie finished a long, overly-complicated discussion about the choice of kitchen worktops, and I tried to give him a thankful smile, but it came out more half-yawn, half-grimace.

My mom giggled, and I found myself being half carried through the house, my bleary eyes just about registering enough of the upper floors that I knew I'd never find my way back downstairs without a map. The main staircase seemed to split in two, and then there were corridors, endless corridors, lined with white panelled doors hiding rooms I was too exhausted to care about. Eventually we stopped, and I tried to stagger upright long enough to find out which door was mine. Esme was looking particularly pleased with herself.

"Which one?" I managed to mumble.

Esme pointed to the ceiling.

This was all just bizarre enough that I was starting to wonder if I'd already started dreaming, so I shook myself together and looked around me more carefully. We were stood in the centre of some kind of hallway, large and square, with a decent sized window on one wall and corridors running from either end. There were no panelled doors to be seen, so I decided to follow everybody else's example, and look up.

In the ceiling, surrounded by elaborate plaster moulding, was a trap door, a string dangling from one edge. I eyed it sceptically, and Dad, reading my thoughts for good rather than ill, reached up to pull it.

The trapdoor opened, and down slid a wooden ladder.

"I thought it might be nice for you to have your own space," Esme was buzzing with happiness again, "a sort of den!"

I reached over to touch her face, showing her the appreciation I was too tired to put into words, and her eyes immediately softened.

"Edward –," she began, but Dad was already lifting me into his arms and leaping through the hole in the ceiling like it was nothing at all.

The room was the same size and shape as the hall below us, with beautiful stained glass windows and all the things I'd insisted be brought from Forks already in place, but the only thing that held any interest for me was the big, white bed.

Someone must have put me in it. I was already asleep.

I woke up to the sun streaming through the windows, casting diamonds of dappled light across my bed and my eyelids.

For a moment I could only revel in the comfort of a proper bed, wriggling with gratitude that Esme always spent a ridiculous sum on my bed-sheets, feeling gloriously at peace.

But then, of course, reality came crashing down around my ears.

Yes the bed was comfortable, but it wasn't my bed. My bed was plain and narrow - a bigger, better, bed being one of the few things my dad constantly denied me – but this one was huge and opulent; I had the strangest feeling that I'd been set adrift on a carpet sea on some ridiculously gauzy raft. The room certainly looked vast compared to my little den in the cottage.

Shuffling to the edge of the bed and dangling my feet over, I felt a lot more human than I'd ever felt before. My breathing picked up, and I suddenly felt a hell of a lot more like I was five.

The only monster under there is me.

Jacob's voice echoed in my head, and I bit back the urge to burst into floods of tears.

Concentrating on controlling my uneven breathing, it began to dawn on me that the entire house was silent. I could tell by the amount of light pouring through the four massive windows that there was no way any of them could have safely gone outside, and, even if this house was as labyrinthine as I thought I remembered, my sensitive hearing should have picked up something from my family by now. They were all perfectly silent though, waiting and listening for me.

"I'm awake," I whispered.

Hardly a second passed before a hole opened up in my floor and Alice hopped lightly through it. She ignored the ladder.

"Come on sleepyhead, you missed almost the whole tour this morning. I'm here to guide you to breakfast!"

I tried to imagine a moose laid out on the over-the-top kitchen tabletop.

Alice held out a hand to me, and we leapt through the trapdoor together, Alice using the rope to latch it shut behind us.

"Esme thought the attic room would be good for you. Private, you know."

She winked, and I tried not to pull a face.

In recent months the whole family (with the exceptions of my amused grandparents and horror-struck parents) seemed to be delighting in filling my head with images and innuendo I could have happily lived without. Whether it was because I now at least looked like a teenager, or whether it was a side-effect of the experiment we'd now embarked upon I had no idea, but I didn't need to read minds to see the mortification on my dad's face every time they tried it. He might have done the impossible and keeled over with shame had he realised just how much about the birds and the bees I'd learnt through ill-timed interruptions. I forced the thought from my mind before Dad could catch wind of it, and thanked my lucky stars that he'd been too distracted to realise before. My awkwardness had been quite enough for poor Jasper to try and contain.

Alice chatted away as she led me through the endless corridors, describing the stunning view from her second floor room and her joy at the size of the wardrobe room Esme had presented her with.

"It's for all of us really," she said without breaking stride as she veered right down another hallway, "but obviously I'll need to stock it up. There's supposed to be a decent mall somewhere downstate…"

She drifted off dreamily before pointing to a staircase that ran up to our right, "Oh, Rose and Emmett's room is up there, Esme thought it might be safer to keep them out of the main house. It is kind of old and she put a lot of work into it. You know it'll be really cold here this winter. I should look into vintage furs… Or faux, I guess, if it's quality…"

I'd stopped paying too much attention - sending, instead, a prayer of thanks that Rosalie and Emmett's room was far enough away from mine to give me the prospect of proper sleep - when Alice span round and threw her arms up in the air.

"Ta da!"

We'd reached the top of the grand staircase. I could see Emmett and Jasper already ensconced in front of the enormous TV with some computer game.

"Could you find your way back?" asked Alice.

"Yes." I lied.

She smirked and danced down the staircase ahead of me. I followed more slowly, taking in the room in a way I hadn't been able to last night – or this morning, technically – feeling much more awake and suddenly enthused by a smell that definitely wasn't partially desiccated herbivore, but that was accompanied by my mother's bell-like voice.

"I'm sure I used to be better at this," she sighed from the vicinity of the kitchen.

"You did," my dad answered, and his genuine laughter was enough to bring a smile to my face.

"Good morning!" I waved brightly at Jasper and Emmett.

"Good afternoon," called Jasper.

"Good luck," muttered Emmett darkly.

Neither of them looked away from the screen, both their brows furrowed in concentration.

"Bella, dear, is it meant to do that?" Esme was concerned.

The smell from the kitchen changed slightly.

"Damn!"

There was the sound of frantic flapping and a rumbling growl that I recognised. I decided to make my entrance before she started on the full blown expletives.

Mom was ineffectually wafting a cloth at a pan sat smoking gently on the stove, whilst Esme hovered anxiously over her shoulder with a glass of water. Carlisle sat at the granite table, his face buried in a local newspaper, Dad and Rosalie opposite him pouring over something that looked suspiciously like a car catalogue. Dad nudged Rosalie and she stuffed it out of sight.

"Good morning, beautiful," he said, coming forward to kiss me on the forehead, "Did you sleep well? Is the room to your liking?"

I spoke for Esme's sake.

"I slept fine, and the room's lovely."

It's just weird Daddy. But I'll get used to it. It'll get better.

His smile faltered infinitesimally, but he nodded.

"Your mom's made you breakfast, but it may have been more edible a moment ago."

"I'll make you in a minute," hissed Mom as she slid something slightly charred onto a plate.

"I told you so!" crowed Alice from the living room.

Mom's scowl deepened, so I put on the brightest smile I could manage.

"Wow Mom! That smells delicious!"

"You're a horrible liar," she said, placing the plate in front of me and tucking a curl behind my ear to kiss my cheek, "you get that from me."

"They're pancakes?" Rosalie offered from a safe distance.

"After a fashion" added Dad, and the newspaper at the top of the table wobbled in time to a muffled chuckle.

"I am a bit out of practice," admitted Mom; she was eyeing the plate with some trepidation herself.

"You did just fine," Esme soothed.

I was bitterly aware that she didn't have to eat the results herself. I wasn't sure I could be quite so supportive.

"No moose?" I asked, trying to keep the pleading to a minimum.

My dad tried to smother his snort of laughter with a cough.

No save, Dad. Mom's very well aware that vampires don't cough.

He did have the grace to look contrite, but that may have had something to do with the way Mom was wielding the spatula.

Carlisle folded his newspaper, and smiled encouragingly at me.

"Eat your breakfast – or lunch I suppose – it'll be good practice."

Rosalie crossed her arms and watched me cut off the burnt bits with a knowing look.

"Nessie doesn't have to eat all that rubbish, Carlisle. Why can't she just fake it like the rest of us?"

I threw her a grateful look as I chewed. Carlisle opened his mouth to reply, but my mom got there first.

"Because Nessie isn't supposed to be faking anything, Rosalie. That's the whole point! The whole idea is that – "

"Well it's not going to work is it?" Rosalie waved her arm in my general direction, "We're faking everything! How old she is, who she is, what she is –"

"I thought you were being supportive Rosalie?" hissed my dad, now suddenly opposite her at my mom's side.

Rosalie threw up her arms in defeat, "I am!" she roared, and I felt the shift in atmosphere as Alice, Emmett and – crucially – Jasper appeared in the kitchen behind me. Her voice was calmer as she continued, "I want Nessie to be happy as much as anybody else, but we can't pretend that by making her eat such grotesque things it's going to make her human."

"Rosalie!" Esme scolded. I had a feeling it was in defence of the pancakes.

"What Nessie needs – " began Jasper, and I swallowed my last mouthful of pancake and pushed my chair away from the table with a purposefully loud scrape.

"Nessie," I growled, "is right here. And perfectly capable of speaking for herself thank-you-very-much."

Nobody quite managed to look me in the eye.

It had been like this for months; ever since I'd let my guard down and shown them just how miserable I'd been they'd argued over and over about what was best for me, about what would make me happy, or sad, or comfortable, and each one of them seemed determined to control my life in the way they thought best.

I'd been lonely. Cripplingly, agonisingly lonely, and for perhaps the first two years of my life I'd not really understood why I felt the way I did. I'd known that I wasn't quite like the rest of my family, nor was I really like my Grandpa Swan or any of his human friends. I wasn't even like Jacob, and that had perhaps stung the most in the beginning, but I'd accepted my mom's words about being special and I'd lived an existence so coddled that I didn't really know what I was missing. Then, the summer before my third birthday, we visited Nahuel and his family – his coven – and I realised what it was that I wanted; that I was missing.

Nahuel had been stand-offish and so much older than me that I was always a little awestruck in his presence, but when he had thawed out enough to talk to me I'd practically worshiped him. He'd asked me about having a mother, and I'd pitied him a little, but he seemed content with his existence, as, for a time, was I.

Then we'd left, and even the much longed for reunion with Grandpa and my Jacob hadn't been enough to fill the strange new ache in my heart.

If I'd been lonely before, now I was bereft. For six glorious weeks I'd had a friend of my own – not family, not pack – but a friend I could at least imagine I'd picked for myself, and now I was on my own again.

I was surprised I'd managed to keep it from Dad and Jasper as long as I had, but looking at the faces of my family now I thought I imagined I knew how I'd managed it. None of them wanted to believe something that made them feel so guilty.

Mom looked like she might have been crying, if she could, and I felt instantly contrite.

"I'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help."

"Yeah we are!" boomed Emmett, reaching round to pick a bit of pancake from my plate, "And I intend to be the most helpful of all."

He dangled the food over his mouth and wriggled his eyebrows at Rosalie.

"If Nessie wants human friends, human friends she shall have. Check me out, this human shit is easy."

He dropped it into his mouth and grimaced comically. Rosalie groaned.

"You're not coughing that up on me."

"Why would I cough it up?" Emmett was trying very hard not to sound queasy.

"Because eternity is better spent without a bit of charcoal floating around your insides?" asked Dad.

"Or because you're making me feel nauseous too?" Jasper grimaced, and Alice patted his arm comfortingly.

"I can see it, Em," she said with a bright smile, "you either cough that up now, or it'll make its reappearance at a much less convenient time."

"Oh, no chance!" Rosalie ushered Emmett out of the kitchen, "Now! Get rid of it now for the love of God!"

Mom threw down her spatula in despair, "I'm a good cook! I swear it! You do this to me on purpose!"

Carlisle winked at me, and returned to his paper, and Esme watched me, one eyebrow raised, until I returned to the now cold pancakes. The cloud that had fallen over us had dispersed for the time being, but I knew it wouldn't be too long in returning.

Monday, I was going to school.

I flicked the kitchen TV on to MTV, picked at my pancakes, and began my research.