Hello again, everyone! How're you all doin'? Enjoying the story?
I still can't get over the amount of people adding TQ to their alerts etc...
I'd be suuuuuper happy if you'd drop me a little review, too...anything
over five words gets you an outtake of your choice :)

My little boy T saw an advert for a new train set on the tv today
and when I asked if he wanted it for Christmas or his birthday 'cause
he was staring at the screen he scrunched his face up and yelled no. I was
a bit shocked and asked him why. He shrugged and told me that he didn't want the scary lady that came with it and I couldn't stop laughing for ages. She actually reminded me of Jane if I'm honest.
Needless to say he wants it now I've explained that the woman isn't included XD

Anyways...on with the show :)

Thunderous Quiet

Chapter Five

~ Edward Cullen ~

My heart stops thumping because of Bells' proximity and starts hammering in something akin to fear. "Isabella Swan. Breaking Dawn's best and newest member." If I wasn't so petrified I'd be smiling at Bells' cocky -and all too true in my opinion- opening as she sticks her hand out.

The blonde's blood red lips are pulled tight in a smile, her icy blue eyes openly curious. "Oh I didn't know you were hiring someone else, Riley. I would have been more than happy to join them instead of you having to get an unknown in." Her voice is like nails on a chalk board and I only just manage to keep my expression neutral as she offends Bells without even knowing her or hearing her sing. I honestly don't know how she even is still an unknown with her talents in both singing and playing the piano. Em doesn't even try to hide his distaste and rolls his eyes behind her with his brow tight, angry.

"Pity. They've got me now, I guess. What did you say your name was?" Even from behind her I can tell that Bells isn't planning to be good friends with the newcomer, and her reply makes my lips twitch a little towards a smirk. She can be catty and still classy; it's a combination her 'opponent' has no experience with, as made evident by her dismissal a moment later.

"Jane Volturi." I watch in disgust as Jane steps to one side and completely blanks Bells' still outstretched hand. Her smile widens and she opens her arms to me. "Eddie, it's fantasticto see you again. You've been avoiding me."

"Um, you too, Jane. Good to see you. Hey, Riley, we're gonna be late. Shall we get goin'?" I scramble for an excuse to get the hell out of dodge and thankfully Ali throws me a bone by reiterating my point and ushering everyone out. The limo is already outside so we climb in; I can't explain my relief when Jane admits that she's got a car waiting and is driving to the studio instead of riding with us. Judging by the devious little smirk on Bells' face and the faux-innocent ones when Jane's looking...well, let's say having them in a confined space might not be best for one of them. I have no doubt that Bells can be as feisty as she needs to be. Of course Jane can be ridiculously so, but something about Bells screams fire and wit that can't be competed with. I almost hope for Jane to give her a reason to pull her claws out the quickly rescind the wish on account of the fact I'm pretty sure there's no way I'll be able to get Bells alone to show her how her reaction to Jane makes mereact.

"Ok, so we have a strict schedule to keep to as of tomorrow. Today you've got a pretty laid back set up so no complaining, please. That means you too, Emmett." I smirk at my brother across the limo, seeing his smile fall slightly. "You'll get a tour, there'll be someone from the production team there to talk you through a few things, my memo says you're organizing the shoot for sooner rather than later, Alice. Did you want me to talk to a few contacts?"

My sister huffs and crosses her arms, "no thank you, Riley. I've got a few of my own that are interested actually if you don't mind."

There are quiet chuckles all round when Riley shakes his head quickly and refuses to meet Ali's annoyed gaze. "No. No that's fine, Alice. You proceed."

Now she smiles, of course, pleased she got what she wanted. "I will."

Another nod from Riley the bobble-head. "Great. Perfect. Brilliant. Moving on." I listen with half my attention focused elsewhere. On the brunette between Jazz and Rose, to be exact. The girls are giggling and talking behind their hands so I can't hear them but it's probably not simple plans for drinks later if their now matching devious smiles are anything to go by. It made me nervous to think of what they might be cooking up in those pretty heads of theirs. When we pulled up outside a big building with the Starr Records' sign on the front of it I was finally distracted from Rose and Bells, excitement curling in my stomach.

This had been my dream since I was a kid. Being a singer, a musician in a band, it was what I'd always wanted. My first instrument was a guitar when I was five and by the time I turned six I'd learnt every tune, song or chord in the twenty or so books Mom and Dad bought me. When I was in middle school I discovered my love for the keyboard or piano, excelling faster than anyone expected - although Mom would say she'd always known I'd be amazing at the piano too, of course. Now I was finally living the dream with my best friends around me to live it out as well. It was more than I could ever have logically hoped for, so to say I was happy would be a huge understatement.

Right inside the doors there was a desk with a tall, thin guy with a small smile on his face. "Ah, this must be Breaking Dawn. My name's Mick Richards. I'm the head of security and this building and everything in it is mine unless you walk through that door with it. You get me?"

Em chuckled, "we get ya, Mick. I'm Emmett, kick ass drummer extraordinaire. My bros, Eddie and Jazz, Alice is the pixie, Bells is our new girl and this is my Rosie."

Mick glanced at each of us as we were introduced, pausing on Bells slightly longer than I would have liked. Thankfully -for him- his gaze only seemed curious so I kept my mouth shut. "Nice to meet you all. C'mon through and I'll show you to studio one. That's where you'll be from now until you're done so don't forget the way. You get lost here and we might never find you." When he didn't smile or laugh after his comment I realized he was probably right. We'd already gone through God knows how many cross sections and turnings.

"I hope you're rememberin' this shit, Ed." Em hissed a few minutes later when we were still walking through corridors that all looked the-damn-same.

"Yeah, I'm not." He thumped me on the back and I only just managed to keep myself upright.

Shooting a glare at him -which he laughed at- I huffed and dropped back a bit so I fell in line with Bells and Ali. "You girls got this place memorised?"

Ali raised her eyebrows at my hopeful tone and giggled with Bells. "Yup. And no, we're not gonna bring you here every day so you don't get your stupid asses lost." She'd raised her voice so the others up ahead could hear her and Jazz, Rose and Em all turned to glare at her. Annoying little pixie didn't seem phased at all whilst Bells just roared with laughter.

"God, anyone'd think you guys couldn't read signs. Did you not notice the fuckin' massive numbered arrows?" She pointed at one just ahead as we walked past it and there were sighs of relief from me, Em, Rose and Jazz while Bells, Ali and Mick laughed at us. What-the-fuck-ever. Didn't help matters that the sly wink and giggle combo Bells had goin' on was making me hard as a rock. That shit should not happen anywhere near my little sister, big brother, his girlfriend and my best friend. No fucking way.

"There you are! I wondered where you got to, Eddie." And problem deflated.

I slumped a little and hung back so Jane could catch up on her spiky ass death traps. Fuckin' things were like ten inches high or some shit. If I didn't wait she'd only use her annoying high voice to bug the crap out of everyone 'til I listened to her. "What's up?"

She looped her arm through mine and squeezed my forearm; it made me want to throw a tantrum like a five year old. "I haven't seen you in aaaages, Eddie. You never called me." Glancing down I saw her pout and cringed, looking up at the back of Bells' head, close to Rose's as they whispered again. What are they up to... "-and I said you'd be too busy but he was really happy you would come and I-"

"Woah, come to what?" I tuned back into her rant just as we turned another corner, dread filling me to the brim.

Jane beamed up at me excitedly, "dinner with Daddy and your production team, silly. Haven't you been listening?"

"Ooh, dinner with Daddy! I can't wait! Where're we goin'?" I snorted at Em's fake enthusiasm as he bounded back to us, got in the middle and threw an arm over each of our shoulders.

"I don't think-" She began hautily.

"I've already heard from your father, Jane. We're all really looking forward to dinner, aren't we guys?" Ali piped up then, smiling cheerfully. My eyes narrowed on first her, then Rose and Bells who were all but fuckin' skipping along behind Mick. There were a few things that made me believe there was something going on. The first was that Ali was never cheerful when Jane-the-pain -a nickname Em spawned- was around. The skipping was a big clue, too, as was Em's weird buddy-buddy behaviour with Jane.

I smirked and returned Ali's wink as Jane stuttered that she had to make a call and stormed back the way we came. "Good fuckin' riddance." Em rubbed his hands together and patted my shoulder. "You sure pick 'em, Eddie boy. That girl's a loon."

Nodding, I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah." Just then Mick stopped with a huge grin on his face and reached out to open the door infront of him.

"Well guys and girls, this is studio one. Your studio for the next four months at least." He announced happily.

The anger and annoyance I'd been feeling because of Jane's presence disappeared as we all filtered through first into a large control room and then through another door into the studio. I stood in the middle and grinned so hard my cheeks started to hurt. The room was pretty damn big compared to the one we'd rented for twenty dollars an hour back at home. There were two keyboards, a drum set, two big couches and numerous other instruments on the walls and spread around.

The first thing I noticed though was the gorgeous baby grand in one corner. Without thinking I strolled right to it and sat on the bench, running my fingertips over the lid that covered the keys. It'd been years since I played a piano. I had two keyboards and a couple of guitars, but I was the the frontman and didn't get to play as much as I'd like.

My eyes slipped shut, I remembered the last time I'd played a piano like this one. I'd been seventeen years old, about to head off to Dartmouth after graduating high school a year early. My parents were so proud, especially Dad. Even though he'd never said it everyone knew he wanted me to go to the same college as him and become a doctor like he did. Out of respect for my parents and everything they'd done for me, I would. I'd go to the pretentious school, study hard and become the doctor my parents wanted me to be. I'd come back and work with Dad at his practice in Seattle, find myself a great apartment nearby and settle down. Just. Like. Him.

Not even eight months later I was back at my parents' house having dropped out of Dartmouth and decided to start the band me and Em had always talked about. He was here anyway, graduating at the same time as me even though he's a year older and taking a year to figure out what to do with his life. We worked our butts of with Dawn, and now we're here. In LA. Recording our debut album after hitting the top twenty with our first single, Candy. Sometimes I have to catch my breath 'cause this all seems to have happened so fast.

"Hey Mozart, think you can join us or what?" Bells calls from her spot on one of the couches and I turn to face her with a small smile, startled out of my memories.

"Wouldn't wanna damage my rep, now would I?"

She, and the others, snickered. "Rep? Geesh, Edley, gansta much."

Em chuckles louder then, "Edley? That's awesome, Bells."

At that I roll my eyes and join them, taking the only open spot which just so happens to be between the arm of the sofa and Bells. Coincidence? I hope not. "Shut up, Em."

"Are you done acting like kindergarteners or can I brief you so you can get started?" Riley tapped his foot frustratedly and I had to stifle a chuckle. What's with the guy always reminding me of a little kid?

"You can proceed." Bells waved her hand and smirked when I turned my head to grin at her.

Riley wasn't quite as amused and rushed through his little speech so he could get out. Then our sound guys arrived and we all got acqainted a bit. Jai and Kyle both seemed cool and admitted to being fans of our music, which got them in Em's good books right away. After that we all got ourselves used to the layout and the running of things, although we mostly used it as an excuse to play around on the instruments. It was amazing how different some of our music sounded of good quality stuff compared to the old we'd had to make do with.

"You got any stuff you're almost done with? We could record it and see what it sounds like, give you a feel for what it might sound like later on." Kyle asked around eleven. I glanced over at Em and he nodded with a grin, twirling his lucky drumsticks like batons. He'd declared them lucky because they were the ones he'd been using when we recorded our demo that got us signed with Starr Records.

"Hell yeah. It's a cover but we fuckin' rock it." Em announced gleefully. If we could help it we didn't like to do covers and our demo had been solely material we'd written.

Kyle shrugged and headed into the sound booth with Jai, "that's fine. It'd just be good to get a feel for it, for you and us." Once they'd closed the door I spun on the stool and grinned at Bells. She cocked an eyebrow curiously.

"You'll know it as soon as Em starts. Join in if you want, it's ok if you just want to listen in for a while." It wasn't until a couple of days before we left that we all realized Bells would need to learn all our material so we'd been working on that during our free time. Now we were here it'd be much easier and she admitted that she picked things up pretty quickly. Time would tell, I guessed.

"Okey dokey." She nodded with a small smile, shifting her legs. I stifled a groan and moved over to the keyboard, getting myself comfortable whilst Jazz picked up a particularly beautiful bass, Rose grinned and got comfy with her guitar and Em tapped out a quiet warm up beat on the drums.

"All right, go ahead whenever. Try and be still though or the mic's will pick you up. We haven't got the instruments hooked up yet." Kyle's voice came through a speaker and we all nodded our agreement, getting into the mindset needed to play one of Europe's finest masterpieces.

As usual Em threw himself into the intro whilst the rest of us filtered in when needed, me on vocals and Jazz taking back-up. The Final Countdown had been one of best crowd pleasers during gigs and it didn't seem to disappoint here either. When we finished Kyle and Jai cheered through the speakers and Bells clapped enthusiastically with a beaming smile on her face.

"That was fuckin' awesome! I loved the original but that was just...out of this world." She got up and plonked herself on the keyboard seat beside me, playing a quick tune with just one hand. I smiled down at her and started one half of chopsticks to see if she'd take the bait; she did. I chuckled when she trailed off and jazzed it up a bit with her other hand, adding a little tune with a cheeky giggle and wink tossed up at me. I ignored the way my chest clenched and embellished her tune with one of my own and we eventually ended up playing a random mix up of chords and melodies. It wasn't until Em let out a loud guffaw that I remembered we weren't alone and looked up at the others. Jai was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, one fingertip scratching his red almost-beard thoughtfully as he watched us.

"How long have you two known each other?" He asked randomly.

I frowned and reached up to rub the back of my neck, "few weeks. Why?"

"And you've been playing together since then?"

What's he getting at here? "No..." I trailed off, trying to figure out where he was going.

"That was the first time we've played together. Actually, I didn't even know for sure it was Edley that played the keyboard."

Jai and Kyle shared a look I wasn't completely comfortable and Em laughed again. "I think he's hinting that you two were damn-fuckin'-good. Shit, Ed, I've never heard you play like that. And you were only playin' half!"

I swung my legs round to face Em, not realizing until too late that it would put Bells between my thighs with her own tucked neatly beneath her on the padded bench. I forced my eyes to stay on my brother. "I play all the time. That was just...goofing off."

He rolled his eyes and flipped his sticks up in the air, catching them neatly without even glancing away from me. "Edward, Edward, Edward, that was some good shit. Goofin' off or not. You and Bells-" he waved one drumstick at us, "got somethin' good."

"For once the meathead's right, you know." Ali piped up, hopping to her feet and joining me and Bells at the keyboard with a wide, all-too-knowing grin. "Edward, you know that song Jazzy wrote that we couldn't work out 'cause you said we needed someone else to play against you and none of us could?"

My mind immediately went back to the piece me and Jazz wrote a year or so back. He hadn't been with us that long but we'd been messing about on the piano at Mom and Dad's. We'd come up with a duet of sorts, but none of the guys were good enough on piano to play so we'd put it away without another thought. With Bells though...she clearly had talent. I grabbed and turned her body excitedly, ignoring the potentially awkward position that put us in with her legs now draped over my thighs and her hands in mine. "We can play it. I can teach you and we could use it on our album! None of the other can play well enough to do the accompaniment, but you can."

We all seemed to be waiting with baited breath on her answer, no-one more so than me. I'd been really bummed out that we had to leave off the piece but if Bells said yes we could learn it and use it on our album. I knew it could be amazing if there was just the right people playing it. I knew it mostly by heart -although it'd need tweaking for sure- and if Bells was as good as she had been when we'd just been improvising we could definitely make it even better. She just had to agree.

Bells cast her eyes round the room, taking in the hopeful faces before landing on mine. I couldn't read her, which bugged the shit out of me.

Then her eyes seemed to sparkle as her far too bitable lips turned up into a small smile, "d'you know what? That sounds great, Edley. Of course I'll learn your song and play it with you."

Without thought I stood, grabbed her in my arms and swung us both around to the cheers of our band-mates, Kyle and Jai, so overwhelmed with excitement that the piece would finally get to be heard to consider that it'd mean a lot of practice time one-on-one with Bells on top of all the time we'd need to spend rehearsing with the others.

Ah well. Couldn't be that hard, could it?

So...what did you think of the arrival of Jane? D'you hate her as much as I do yet?

As we all know Stephenie Meyer is God, I'm just a pawn in the grand scheme of things who loves playing with her characters. Edward especially, not gonna lie. As I've mentioned before, Candy belongs to Robbie Williams and I take no credit, and Europe are indeed responsible for the awesomeness that is The Final Countdown.

Thank you thank you thank you to my little elves for inspiring me and having me as your Mama. T and JJ - Mama loves youuuu!