"Good morning, Bella! There's fresh snow outside!"
"And there's a cold breeze coming in." Bella grumbled, ducking under the covers.
"Why are you so grumpy if it's not Edward waking you up? Should I get him?"
"Come back in an hour."
"But Jazzy and Emmet and Rose came, too!"
"What?" Bella sat up, bewildered.
"They're outside, waiting for you to get up."
"Why?"
"So we can make a snowman! Silly Bella."
"That's Edward's line." Bella sighed, reluctantly getting onto the cold morning floor and turning to make the bed.
"I'll do that, go wash and eat." Alice commanded, getting to bed immaculate in several seconds. "We'll be at the door."
Bella mumbled something incoherent, trudging to the closet obediently.
"Woah!"
Bella stopped in her tracks as a large snowman, towering above her with a pebbly grin, met her at the door. Emmett grinned. "Finally, we get to see Bells trying to have fun in the snow."
"Edward's hunting with Carlisle." Jasper told her, picking up a handful of snow and throwing it at Alice. "He said to tell you that he should have made a gingerbread mountain lion. Or something."
He looked confused, but Bella giggled – and received a snowball on the side of the head.
"Ah! Cold, cold..." she shook her head quickly, trying to look angry at Alice who had already constructed a snowman about the size of her.
"I need something for hair." the vampire pondered, acting innocent. "And clothes."
She shrugged off her jacket and balanced it on the middle ball of the snow-Alice. "Bella, you need to make a snow-woman!"
"It's a snow-man, genius." Emmett called.
"I thought you said Rosalie was here." Bella remembered, glancing around. Emmett was making a line of snowmen along the drive, Alice trying to find black stones, and Jasper was helping her.
"She just went off for a sunhat." Emmett told her, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to do in winter.
"A...a sunhat?"
"She doesn't want her snowman to melt." he pointed at one right outside the living room window. I went over to it and couldn't help but laugh. A damp red leaf had been pressed into the top ball for a lipsticked mouth, and a pair of large sunglasses was balancing precariously. One stick, almost snapped halfway, was angled to look like it had its hand on its hip, and the other stuck out to steady a yellow parasol dug into the snow. Charlie would jump out of his skin when he looked out the living room window.
"I'll help you with yours." Jasper offered, walking over. I nodded gratefully.
He rolled up a large snowball with me, mainly supplying the strength but humoring me by holding back a little. He rolled it over to the side of the drive that Emmett hadn't filled, and lifted the one Bella rolled by herself onto the one they'd already done.
"I'll go get a hat and carrot." she volunteered, running into the house.
When she returned outside Jasper had put the head on, and stuck in a smiling face. He looked up eagerly as Bella stuck in an off-center carrot and balanced a dress hat she'd found in Charlie's room on the head.
"They'll all melt, eventually." Emmett drooped at his realization.
"Not mine." Rosalie appeared with a large, drooping sunhat. "Hi, Bella."
"Morning, Rosalie!"
The sunhat was fitted easily and the blonde made a round of everyone else's snowmen. Predictably, Bella's was the worse, but comfortingly human – the kind seen on the front of a Christmas card, especially once Bella unwound her scarf and steadied the neck with it.
"That's so cute!" Alice squealed, tugging out a camera from her jeans pocket. "Jasper, Bella, get beside it."
Jasper, used to posing with anything considered cute, stood behind it and peered over the top, just his gold eyes and above appearing over the hat. Bella sat in front of it with her legs stretched out, laughing.
Click.
"We're good. At ease." Alice shoved it back in her pocket. "Can I try that hat?"
Bella threw it over like a frisbee. She caught it neatly and dropped it on her head – it promptly covered her eyes, only a pixie nose and giggling mouth visible. "I think it's a little big."
"You could sleep in that, Alice." Emmett snickered.
Alice suddenly paused, mouth opening slightly. It was obviously she was seeing something, but with the hat like a flowerpot over her head it made her look gormless. Bella doubled up with mirth.
Alice beamed, and then looked confused. "I can't see!" she said, panicked. "Jazzy?"
Jasper plucked the hat off her head.
"Oh. OH, right!"
"What did you see?" Bella prompted.
"Oh, Edward opened the curtains and got freaked by Rosalie's snow-woman."
Rosalie snickered.
"I didn't know he could get startled."
"Oh, with things like that, sure." Alice confirmed. "He's just impossible to sneak up on. Actually, he's on his way over right now."
"Does snow taste bad to you?" Bella asked Alice, sticking out her tongue to catch snowflakes. The guys were sitting near the house, talking.
"Snow? That's water, yep. Not as bad as flavored food, but we can actually digest it if we have a tiny bit – so sometimes I catch snowflakes." Alice told her
"You can't digest human food?" Bella blinked. "But Edward had a bite of pizza, once – and sometimes you eat a little bit at school."
Alice shuddered. "No, it would be like you eating...paper, or bark, or something. Totally disgusting and you throw it up later."
She blinked. "You have to throw it up? I didn't even know you could throw up."
"We can't. Cough it
up would be the more appropriate word to use." Alice laughed at her
expression. "Hey, you did ask! Here comes Edward."
Before she
could turn around he was kneeling beside her, eyes a placid light
gold. "Lovely snowmen."
"And snow-women." Alice insisted.
"Why were you talking about coughing up food, though?" Edward looked confused.
Alice stared at him, obviously remembering the conversation.
"Ah. I see."
"What about that tiny bit of icing you had yesterday?" The human asked, leaning my head back to look up at him. "It was only a little."
Edward grimaced.
"Uck."
He laughed at the choice of words and stood. "Which one did you do?"
"The one with the top hat."
Edward walked around the line of soldier snowmen Emmett was so proud of, and looked at the Christmas-card snowman his love was so proud of. "It's a work of art. I expect Alice took a photo, to document a human experience?"
"Of course!" Bella made a face. "I don't photo well. I'll probably be mistaken for the snowman if anyone else sees it."
"Snowmen aren't beautiful." Edward replied immediately. "Wait, why are you blushing?"
"It's just the cold." Bella assured him. He glanced over at Jasper, who nodded to confirm.
"Let's get you warmed up, love." Edward held the door open for her. Bella kicked off her shoes and entered, taking off her coat and hanging it on the doorknob.
Alice giggled outside, and Bella remembered Rosalie's snow-woman. "Let's go to the living room."
Edward followed her in and smiled fondly as she collapsed on the sofa, blowing on her hands. A small thump came from the window.
Attention distracted, Edward went over to the curtains to see who'd thrown the snowball – drew them, and for the first time, Bella saw him – not frightened, but shocked. He fell – FELL – backwards with wide eyes (And somehow, he did it with the grace his human love wished she had) so he was propping himself up with his arms, growling.
After a few seconds, his expression became one of embarrassment, clearing his throat and looking back at Bella, who was in fits, as was the audience outside.
"You fall all the time." He defended himself.
"I didn't know you could fall! Much less at a snowman with sunglasses!" Bella choked the words out, gasping for breath.
"I fell on purpose. It would go for me, and leave you to...escape..." Edward muttered, realizing how ridiculous his words sounded now he said them aloud.
Bella got off the sofa and crouched over him, brown eyes gazing into gold ones. "I love you, you overprotective fool."
"I love you too, you clumsy girl with no sense of danger."
