A/N: I am so sorry for not updating in so long! But, surprise! I'm still writing! Who'd have guessed?! As always, the story is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own. The characters are not mine, everything you recognize from Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

Come Home, Chapter 4

The Major and I spent the next hour walking through the woods on the family's property, him trying to coax me into a discussion and me trying to say as little as possible while not being completely rude. It was extremely awkward.

"Don't think I don't know you're leading me back to the house. I recognize the trees." I accused. The Major sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Look... we've missed you. All of us have. And I know you don't remember being Bella and it's probably fucking scary having a whole group of people around you that do, but this ain't easy for us, either. I'm trying to make you feel comfortable, or at least as comfortable as circumstances allow, but I think the others should get a chance, too. I know they're anxious to see you, to get to know Marie. Even if all they can see is Bella."

I watched my foot kick some leaves while I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. Way to make me feel comfortable Major Whitlock. What was I supposed to say to that? So I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on towards the house. My walk with the Major had left me more confused than I was before and it had not really helped to clear things up in my mind. I was not unconvinced that the Yellow Eyes were currently all putting on a big show to collect me and my gift as well. On the other hand everyone just seemed so friendly. It was disconcerting. I kept on matching the information I had with the things I was seeing now and I was stumped. Something was not adding up. I knew they were dangerous, I knew they could be ruthless. For Christ's sake, once they hunted and killed a tracker because he dared to ask to play baseball with them. Or so I heard. Sick fuckers. And now they wanted me to come and sit down in their living room and play nice? I was nervous. And then the whole thing with Bella. I didn't doubt that there had once been a Bella. And maybe she even knew the Yellow Eyes. And I'll be damned if she didn't look like me. But still. Shouldn't I feel something, some connection or shit, that just made me know that yes, I had once been Bella? But since I didn't, who were the Yellow Eyes to insist that I was Bella? I had no clue who she was or what she had been like. I was Marie, I had always been Marie and that was all I knew.

When we reached the clearing in front of the house I noticed the curtains flicker again. I tensed, preparing myself for an attack. Amateurs. Never be so obvious when surveilling. It took 16 seconds and 23 of the Major's steps for him to notice that I had stopped following him. He turned around with his eyebrow raised in question.

"Are you coming?"

I nodded. It was incredibly hard to let go of years of training. If you knew you were being watched in the army, you were in trouble. Simple as that. Now I'm the weird one for being cautious. What a joke. I let my eyes sweep the clearing, listening for any sounds that seemed out of place before following the Major into the house. Inside Charlotte waited in the front hall, towels in hand. She handed one to the Major and one to me and smiled at me. She ran her hand through my hair and murmured "Go change clothes. Up the stairs, take a right, second door on the left." When I moved to go she stopped me. "Marie.. if Peter and I had known, believe me, we would have gone about this very differently."

I looked at her, my eyes widened a bit but I kept silent. When I was sure she didn't have anything to add, I nodded once and left to clean myself up. As I went up the stairs I passed several framed pictures of the family. Judging by the style of clothes most of them were decades old. I shook my head at this strange habit of theirs, keeping mementos like photographs when they had infallible memories. About halfway up the stairs they had hung a painting of a landscape. I stopped to look at it properly because it struck me as oddly familiar. The painting showed a meadow of sorts, or rather a clearing, filled with dozens of colorful flowers. The way the artist had used colors and brush strokes made me nearly think I could feel a slight breeze and sunshine on my skin. It was beautiful. But at the same time it left me with a nagging feeling, like an itch you couldn't scratch. There was just.. something about this picture, and I had no idea what it was. I scanned the painting for a signature and found a very slight E.C. in the lower right corner.

Shrugging my shoulders, I continued up the stairs and followed Charlotte's directions to the guestroom. And man, what a guestroom it was. It was huge, done in soft colors with dark furniture. A bed, of all things, stood against one wall of the room, and atop said bed someone had set my duffle bag. I opened one of the doors on the right wall, assuming it led to the bathroom, only to end up looking into an empty closet. I huffed in annoyance. Can't this day just end? I was ready for a fresh start.

In the bathroom I stared at my reflection for a very long time. I tried to see if something had changed. Maybe if I stared long enough Bella would stare back? But all I noticed where the splatters of mud on my face, the tear in my shirt and a lone twig in my hair. Drying off alone wasn't going to cut it – I needed a shower. I undressed quickly and wanted to step into the shower when I remembered my bag and shower supplies were still in the room. Sighing, I stepped back out and walked back into the room to my bag. Of course today of all days I was so lost in thought that I had completely forgotten to close the door to the hallway. And of course the Mind Reader had to walk by the guest room right now. We stared at each other for a moment before I started screaming and he started apologizing. He was averting his eyes and repeating "I'm sorry! I'm so so sorry! I didn't mean.. I.. I mean I wasn't.. I.. I'm sorry!". I quickly slammed the door shut and sank down against it.

"I'm so sorry Marie. I swear, I was only passing your door! I never intended for this to happen. Again, I'm so so-"

"Just.. just forget about it… Edward. No hard feelings, ok?"

"Ok."

Sighing, I got up, grabbed my duffle bag and walked into the bathroom. I locked the door and turned on the shower. I noticed a small radio in the corner by the vanity and switched it on, turning the volume up as high as it would go. Then I stepped into the shower and started to cry. This day had been too much. All this information, whether it was true or not, was weighing on me and I didn't know how to handle it.

After stalling in the shower – there are only so many times you can wash your hair after all – and again when getting dressed – taking 5 minute breaks between each sock is totally ok, right? – I finally ran out of things to keep me busy in the guestroom. Quietly I walked down the hall and stopped at the top of the stairs, just listening to the others. They had split up into smaller groups. From the living room I could hear Peter and Jasper talking about car insurances of all things. Somebody else must have been in the room with them, judging by the steady breathing and soft tap on plastic every few seconds.

Charlotte and the Mo.. Esme were in a room nearby, shuffling papers and I heard different pens and pencils scratching on paper.

"See, if you knock down this wall right here, it would open the space right up."

"Oh! Then the fireplace could go here!" More scratching. "What do you think?"

There was a dull rattling sound in the background, almost like a sewing machine coming from somewhere deep in the house. Maybe a basement? Whatever it was, I assumed the Witch and the Sire.. Alice and Rosalie were having great fun with it. Going by their animated chatter and laughter. I listened for the other two, but couldn't place them in the house. Oh, who was I kidding? I stopped stalling in the guestroom, that didn't mean I wasn't stalling now. With another deep breath I started walking down the stairs. Peter didn't stop talking when I walked past the living room, but his eyes never left me either. I only nodded at him and gestured towards a door down the hall where I heard Charlotte and Esme talking about color palettes. I paused in front of the door to gather my courage before knocking. Esme's soft voice asked me to come in and both women looked at me expectantly when I entered the room.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked.

"No, not at all." Charlotte beamed at me and gestured for me to come closer. I

flitted to her side, keeping Charlotte and the table between Esme and me. I felt much safer standing next to Charlotte.

"Esme renovates and decorates houses. We're just going over some possibilities for her next project." she explained and I nodded, looking at the floor plans they had spread out. They were talking about a small two-bedroom house by the looks of it. I listened to them discussing the pros and cons of several colors for the sitting room when I picked up a stack of papers to shuffle through.

"Do you mind?" I asked Esme, nodding at the papers.

"Oh no, go ahead" she smiled. "Tell me what you like best." I nodded at her again and examined the stack. Kitchen plans, oh great. What does a vampire know about kitchens? I looked at cabinet styles, paint swatches, counter top suggestions and studied the pictures of several different appliances. I tried to figure out which fridge would be most suitable for a human by comparing specs. Who was I kidding? I had no idea what to look for.

"So, what do you think?" Esme asked. I was not paying full attention to her, still comparing energy efficiency and freezer volume when I answered.

"Yellow. Kitchens should be yellow." I mumbled. "Hey, Esme, this fridge seems pretty good, don't you think?" and I pointed to one that looked pretty fancy to me. When she didn't answer I looked up, to see what was the matter. Her eyebrows were raised, eyes wide and her mouth hung open slightly. She recovered quickly though, shaking her head and smiling again.

"Which one dear?" I raised my eyebrow at her, giving her a quizzical look but she ignored my silent question and we talked about appliances instead.