A/N: First and foremost, so many thanks go out to my beta, jadedandboring... she is a wonderful woman who finds time in her crazy, busy life to fix all my mistakes [of which, there are many!]

The song for this chapter is the Sunstreak's 'Quinn'...

And don't forget to check out the forum!

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SM owns all things Twilight.

Chapter Two- Quinn

She slides her hand down across the chair.
She whispers these words, to ease his fears.
Invite sensation, ignore regret.
This complication will be the greatest yet.

Is this what you wanted or have you just lost control?
Fight the urge to make the greatest mistake of all.
When you've reached the bottom, know that I'll understand.

The entire ride back to Bella's house, Jasper kept a firm hand grasped over Bella's linked arms, trying to help her maintain a calm disposition. The later at night that Bella found her way home, the more likely it was that she would run into Renee and those meetings were never pleasant occasions.

Renee had always held complicated relationships with the rest of the Swan family. When she was home, which was an increasingly rare occurrence, Renee barely got along with anyone. Charlie tried his best to be a supportive husband, but when she began disappearing he found it harder and harder to stand beside her. She had been a free spirit since he had met her, going off on her own and doing things with little to no warning. Now, he had grown increasingly further apart from the woman he loved, barely recognizing the woman who woke up alongside him each morning.

Bella and Renee had not gotten along since early on in Bella's childhood. Bella was strong-willed and had no fear in saying what she wanted, while Renee was easily defensive and set in her ways. In Renee's world, Renee always came first, making Bella feel more like the mother than the child.

Alice was an easy-going individual, who got along with nearly everyone. While she didn't openly defy Renee, she silently backed Bella in everything that she did and said. Bella may have mistaken her younger sister as naïve and fragile, but in reality, Alice stood strong with her own sort of defiance, however silent it was.

Truth is, Alice had always looked up to Bella in every action and choice she made. Bella was the only female figure Alice had ever had in her life worth admiring and no matter how fucked up Bella was, or appeared to be, Alice admired her through and through.

As Jasper rounded the corner, Bella sticking to his back like he was her only lifeline, Renee was just getting out of a car Bella didn't recognize. Jasper inhaled sharply and Bella could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. "What's wrong, Jasper?" she asked as he came to a stop and cut the engine.

The mysterious car made a beeline from the drive; taking with it all evidence of the stranger Renee had been with that night. "It's nothing," Jasper gave her hands that were grasped tightly around him a reassuring squeeze.

"Save me?" she begged, hopping off the bike and giving him back the helmet that he kept with him just for her.

"As sure as I am that Mom would let you move in with no questions asked, you and I both know you should probably face this sooner rather than later," Jasper cocked his head to the side and smiled at her, his last effort to relax her.

"You know, for a douche, sometimes you can be incredibly sweet." Bella kicked some gravel and backed up onto the sidewalk.

"Does this mean you'll give me Alice's phone number?" he jumped the kick starter, and revved the engine of his bike.

"Not a chance. But dumbass, it's the same as mine. We live in the same house, stupid." Bella flipped him off, their customary goodbye gesture, and hustled to the front door of her house.

"I knew that!" he yelled behind her. Bella turned around to respond, but he had already sped half-way down the block and beyond hearing range.

She swung open the door, kicking off her Chucks before looking around for any sight of Renee. A light was on in the kitchen, so Bella tip-toed up the stairs as quietly as she could.

"Bella, come down here?" her mother asked, and she deflated, making her way back down the two steps she had actually climbed.

"Yes, Renee?" she asked tersely.

"You know, there was a time when you used to call me Mom," Renee shot back at her with a knowing glance.

Bella tried to avoid her mother's gaze in most situations, but at that moment she looked her square in the eye, and asserted herself. "Well that day is definitely not today." Bella turned on her heel, and as gracefully as possible ran up to her room, her mother yelling obscenities at her the entire journey up the stairs. It was only when Bella closed her door and turned the radio up so that Renee's shouts were drowned out by the sounds of her favorite bands.

~*~

The next morning, Bella woke up to a small pixie shaking her shoulders. "Alice! What the hell?! I own an alarm." Bella used her morning spaghetti arms to try swatting her younger sister away.

"Bella, look outside!" Alice jumped up and down, moving aside so Bella had a clear shot of her window.

Immediately, she recognized the same sight that greeted her most of the days of her life, rain. "Big deal Alice, it rains every day." She glanced at her clock and shot Alice a death glare, "It is fucking 6:37 in the morning, if no one important has died, you better have a damn good reason that's doesn't involve the weather."

Alice stood her ground, hands on her hips. A lesson she had learned from observing Bella, she could be fierce if she just stood and asserted herself. "Isabella Marie, I am not that stupid. If it matters, I have probably been to class more in my lifetime than you have. I was just coming to tell you that it has been raining non-stop all morning and the roads are flooded so we don't have to go to school. Go back to bed, you ungrateful slime ball!" Alice huffed, sticking her tongue out at Bella.

Bella laughed maniacally. "Is that really the best diss you can come up with? Slime ball? That is so third grade… I mean, would it honestly kill you to just call me a cold-hearted bitch, or unappreciative slut, or even something simple like douchebag? I promise it won't hurt, just try it," Bella egged her on.

"If I didn't love you so much, I would. But instead, I think we should use this day to do something sisterly, like paint our nails or something. We used to do simple things like that all the time," Alice pouted.

When Alice pouted, Bella was powerless to her charm. "Can I at least sleep in a few more hours?" She made a last ditch effort for some sleep.

"Bellaaaaaaaa!" Alice whined.

"Gah, okay. I'll let you paint my nails or something." Bella couldn't say it without smiling, flipping the covers off from her legs, revealing her ghastly pale skin.

"You know Bella, you should really think about a spray tan," Alice recommended, flittering her way about the room and straightening things she thought were out of place. This was just another one of Alice's redeeming qualities, a knack for straightening everything that was out of place. It was also another one of the qualities that Bella couldn't help but be a little irked by.

"It's called porcelain Alice, and it's my natural hue, so you'll have to forgive me. Plus, we don't live in the sunniest part of the goddamn country, now do we?" Bella hopped out of bed, trying unsuccessfully to tame the matted and oily hair that was piled atop her head.

"The sun comes out every once in awhile, what coffin have you been hiding in?" Alice twirled around, coming to help Bella in her quest for manageable hair. "Bella, this would be so much easier if you just used the right shampoo and conditioner, your hair problems are curable. Just a second!" With that, Alice was out of the room in a flash, leaving Bella alone to change into a fresh set of clothes. As she pulled a shirt over her head, she heard the door open and Bella knew then that she was going to be prey to another one of her sibling's experimental beauty treatments.

~*~

"Now Bella, stop struggling. The more you struggle, the more product that's going to get in your eyes!" Alice chastised as she held Bella's head firmly under the steady stream of water. Bella was hanging over the side of the bathtub, as Alice scrubbed something into her scalp. She rinsed once more, and then let Bella up to breathe, wrapping a towel around her head. "Now go sit down at my vanity," Alice directed, gathering various things from the bathroom cupboards.

Bella obliged without much argument. It was not as if she had any way of leaving the house, and if it would placate her sister for even a small while, she knew that it would probably be worth the torture.

She sat down as instructed, in front of Alice's ridiculously over-sized vanity. Alice spent most of her time here, primping and prodding until she was perfectly presentable for every day. Bella sighed, realizing just how fundamentally different she was from her sister. She was the tom boy who never cared for attention, while Alice was the belle of every ball. "What has you looking so somber?" Alice asked, entering the room.

"Oh, nothing, I'm just pondering the suffering that I'm going to have to endure," Bella chuckled, folding her hands in her lap as Alice pulled the towel from her hair.

"You know that you're in the very best of hands," Alice grinned widely at her through the mirror, brushing through the thick chestnut locks of Bella's hair. There were quite a few snags, but Alice seemed to have a magical touch when it came to hair, always getting it to do precisely what she wanted it to do. In no time, silky curls rained softly down Bella's back and over her shoulders.

"Are you kidding me?" Bella marveled, running her hands through her own strands repeatedly.

"Nope, no joke," Alice laughed in her sing-song way, bouncing happily.

"Why won't it ever do this for me?" Bella stared at herself in the mirror, perplexed by just how different she looked due to one small change.

"You like it don't you?" Alice beamed, reaching out her own hand to brush a stray hair back into place.

Bella straightened herself up, "You did a nice job. Now is Bella Barbie time done?" Her smile faded and her hands fell dead against her sides. She recognized the feeling, as the familiar wash of emotion flew over her, carrying away her temporary joy with its tide.

"Why do you do that? One minute you're my sister again, and the next you just disappear," Alice backed away, dejected and hurt.

"I'm sorry Alice," Bella reached out to touch her, and Alice took her hand, grasping it tightly.

"I know, Bella. I know." Alice stood on her tip-toes, giving Bella's hair a kiss soothingly before floating down the stairs and away from Bella.

Bella went across the hall, and back to her room. Out the large window, she could see it was still raining with absolutely no sign of stopping. Luckily, the Swans had no basement and their house was stilted to protect them from flooding. Many of the houses, particularly the ones in their area, had taken extra precautions against the rain, because they knew their homes were in one of the lowest areas of Forks. Down the street, Bella could make out faint red and blue lights, which signaled Charlie had been out on patrol, even through the storm.

She ran hurriedly down the steps, tripping only once on her way to the front door, hailing Charlie as soon as he entered the door, soaked head to toe. "Dad, what the hell!? Did no one tell you there's a flood going on out there?" She quickly helped him get out of his soaked coat and boots.

"No, Bells, they did not. Thank you for finally clueing me in," he smirked, taking off his socks and wringing them on the hard-wood flooring in the entryway.

"Dad! I do not need to be the one cleaning up your puddles," Alice sprung from the couch to grab the mop.

"She makes me sound like a puppy." Charlie laughed. "Can you throw those in the dryer while I go put on a dry set of clothes, Bells?"

"Yeah, no problem Dad." She picked up his wet clothes off the floor and carried them to the kitchen, where there laundry room was concealed as a pantry.

"Bella!" Alice growled.

"What?" Bella yelled back.

"You trailed water EVERYWHERE!" When Bella emerged to see her sister's look of indignation, she couldn't help but stifle her laughter.

"Pixie, it's just water. Water ruins absolutely nothing, except maybe Lauren Mallory. I swear if you threw water on her, that Wicked Witch would melt, fast," Bella mused.

No one on Earth could possibly annoy Bella any more than Lauren did. Well, perhaps her posse that also included Jessica Stanley and Tanya Denali. But absolutely no one else could cause near as much of Bella's fury as those three had. They had made her life a living hell from kindergarten on, and as soon as Bella found her voice in junior high, she had made it a point to verbally smack them whenever possible. To make matters even worse, all three of them had at some point decided to make Jasper their personal target. Each and every one was constantly trying to coerce him into a janitor's closet or corner him in the boy's locker room. Bella couldn't help but wonder what kind of classless girl would even have the nerve to walk into a locker room full of teenage boys, in search of their next peen fix.

"I wish to God that you would test your theory." Alice grabbed a bucket, going back to her task.

Charlie emerged from his room, completely dry except for the wet mop that still sat atop his head. "Here, Dad." Bella flung a dry towel at him, and he thanked her. "So how bad is the damage?"

"We probably won't know until the rain's stopped and we can see straight. Most folks around here know what to do in these situations, seeing as they happen at least two or three times a year, but I still saw a few dummies trying to drive their cars out," he shrugged, sinking into a kitchen chair.

"How many helpless civilians have you saved today?" Bella questioned, starting up a pot of coffee for her dad.

"Only a few. I gotta get back out there soon, I just came home to change." When the coffee was done, Bella poured it into a thermos and set it on the table in front of Charlie.

"Don't be home too late, I wouldn't want to have to send the authorities out after you," Bella teased, leaving the kitchen and trying to find a way to amuse herself.