Book Two
CHAPTER SEVEN
I shut the car door and locked it behind me as we got to the airport. It was finally chirstmas break of my junior year at Bay High School. Cleveland was home now, and I liked it. The days were almost always overcast, but the town was much bigger than Forks will ever be.
We were headed back to Forks to visit Nessie, Jacob, and Eila, and it felt kind of weird to be going back. I couldn't believe that it had been almost two years since we had left. I was looking forward to seeing everyone though. Eila was about two-and-a-half now, and she was adorable. She said the cutest things.
Plus, since we had left, four of the eagles and four of the wolves had gotten married. Caleb and Mikayla, Jeremy and Natalie, Matt and Jocelyn, and Lucas and Amber had been married at a small backyard wedding about two months ago. Lyssie and Michael had gotten married about a year ago as well. We hadn't been able to attend either of the ceremonies, but we had seen tons of pictures. I couldn't wait to see everyone in person though. Especially Claire. She had started High School this year, and apparently she was starting to become less of a kid and more of an adult every minute. I was betting that Quil would pop the question in about four years. It was so exciting to watch their lives play out in front of me.
The plane ride there was fun, and upbeat. Everyone was incredibly excited about getting back to Forks. I was practically bouncing in my seat when we got there, and Zach was laughing at me. The flight attendant asked me if I was alright twice. It was pretty funny. We made it through security and luggage in record time, and that was with us going at human speed.
I found Jacob first; he was towering over the rest of the crowd by at least a few inches. Then I saw Nessie holding Eila. She set her down and Eila took off at a run that looked just a little too fast to be normal. She had the cutest little smile on her face, and she squealed when she got to Edward and he scooped her off of the ground.
And then we were to Nessie and Bella was holding her daughter, and I was pretty convinced that both of them were crying. Jacob was wearing the smile that I had seen on him since the first day I met him, and he looked happier than I had ever seen anyone. I couldn't help but smile.
"Hi!" Nessie said when she finally let go of her mother. Then she fell into her father's arms. He was holding her in one arm and Eila in the other. I was shocked by how much the three of them looked alike. Edward cradled his daughter to his chest.
"Hi guys," Jacob said. Edward put Eila down and she ran to her father. She clung to Jacob's leg, smiling shyly at us. Jacob put his hand on her head. "Go say hi," he told her. She cowered back a little bit. Alice knelt down to Eila's level. "See," Jacob said. "Alice is right there, she wants to see you."
Eila cautiously came out from behind Jacob's leg. She saw Bella and Edward every night over a video chat, but she was still a little shy around the rest of us. I thought it was adorable. Alice reached into her back pocket and pulled out a little toy wand that was sparkly and probably only worth a dollar at the store. Eila's little face lit up as Alice handed it to her. She grinned and gave Alice a hug. We all laughed. "What do you say?" Nessie asked Eila.
"Please," Eila said immediately.
"Wrong one," Jacob said.
"Thank-you," Eila said, changing her mind just as quickly.
I busted up laughing, as did most of the rest of my family. It was so cute. "You're very welcome," Alice told her, kissing her on the cheek.
Nessie looked at her watch. It was already nearing nine o'clock, and we still had the drive back to Forks from Seattle. "You guys ready to get going?" She asked.
"Yup," Carlisle said.
"Where's dear old Bryce?" Emmett asked Jacob teasingly. He thought it was hilarious that another member of the wolf pack had imprinted on Eila.
"He's waiting in one of the cars. He's learning how to drive, so the ride up here was pretty interesting."
Emmet chuckled. "Wow. I hope you were wearing your seatbelts."
"Oh yeah," Jacob said. "We ran off the road twice, almost hit a cat, blew a stop sign, and got flipped off by four people. And that was all before we got to the highway."
I was laughing now. "That sounds like me and Zach in drivers ed last year. Then again, we were doing our best to make the teacher pee his pants."
Jacob laughed. "Trust me, I was pretty convinced we were going to die."
Jacob had borrowed both Sam and his truck to help bring us home in. Jacob went in the car with Bryce, and Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper rode with them. Bella, Edward, Alice, Carlisle, and Esme rode in a old SUV Jacob had just recently fixed up for occasions such as this one. Nessie and Eila were in that car as well. That left Julia, Connor, Zach, and me to ride with Sam. It was snowing when we walked outside of course; it was Washington, in the middle of winter.
"Hi," I said, as I lead the way into the cab of Sam's truck.
"Hey," Sam said. "How have you guys been?"
"Awesome," Connor told him, sliding into the passenger's seat. "I'm a Junior. Again. And boy let me tell you, it is getting old. This is my third time in pre-calc and I'm about to die of boredom. The kid next to me is barely passing with a D."
"Nice," Sam said. "Are you actually learning anything?"
"I learned that signing up to be a P.E. leader for the freshman class was not one of my smarter choices."
"Nope," Julia said. "I'm officially in competition with about fifteen highly pubescent fourteen-year-old girls."
Sam laughed. "Sounds pretty intense."
"Oh yeah," Julia said. "I tie their shoelaces together and everything."
"How about you Zach?" Sam asked.
"I'm doing alright," he said. He smiled. "School is pretty boring, but I have four classes with Andrea, so not as boring as last year."
I laughed. "We spent a whole physics class throwing little paper balls at the teacher from the back of the room. No one even looked twice at us, it was hilarious. The guy thought it was these two girls in the front row."
"Fun," Sam said.
"So," I said. "How is your family?"
"Good," he said. "Ryan is three, and Jenny is going to be nine soon enough."
"Wow," Julia said. "Nine… fourth grade next year?"
"Yup," Sam said. He sighed. "She's one of the bravest kids I've ever met."
"Head strong?" I asked.
"Hell yeah," Sam said. "She's more of a feminist than Emily is."
I laughed. "That's good, no boy is ever going to take advantage of her."
Sam rolled his eyes. "They sure better not."
Connor laughed. "You're going to have your hands full with your two girls."
"Ah," Sam said. "Jeez, can you let me get them through the sixth grade before we start talking about that?"
"Sorry," Connor said.
Sam hit the brakes suddenly as Bryce swerved off of the road and back on again. "Oh my god," Sam said. "That kid is going to kill somebody."
"Nah," I said, waving my hand dismissively. "Trust me, I've pulled way scarier moves than that one."
Sam laughed. "I bet you have."
The rest of the ride was talkative of course; with me and Julia together, not much could quiet us down. Sam dropped us off at Nessie's house as she pulled in, and Bryce shakily manuevered the car to the curb. He turned the engine off, and Jacob gave him a look that said 'There is no way I'm ever doing that again.'
I saw the ice on the ground, and thought about how slippery it would be for all of the humans around. Nessie pulled a sleeping Eila out of her carseat, and Jacob let us all into their house.
The first thing I noticed when we entered the house is that Nessie and Jacob had finally bought a piano. Nessie played the piano for the schools in the area where she taught music, and she was probably going to start teaching Eila how to play. It didn't look like a very expensive piano, but I'm sure that it would do.
We talked just a little more quietly than we would normally, because we didn't want to wake Eila up. I sat down on the window seat in the living room, and Zach sat next to me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. He kissed my head, and glanced out the window behind us. "It's sort of beautiful," he said.
I turned to look outside. "You mean the snow?" I said.
"Yeah…" he trailed off.
"The snow you've seen a million times before?" I questioned, letting a little bit of sarcasm drip into my voice.
"Yeah," he said, turning to face me now. "But its not just the snow…" He was abesntmindedly stroking my straight blonde hair. "It's this whole scene… You here with me, in a room with people we love, watching the snow fall."
I cocked my head at him. "I see what you mean…" I said. I smiled. "That was very profound, Zach."
"Hey," he said, putting his hands up in surrender. "I have my moments."
We turned back to face the rest of the room. Nessie had come back from lying Eila down, and she looked like she would probably make it another thirty minutes before she crashed. I looked at my watch, noticing that it was much later than I had thought. Jacob on the other hand looked like he'd probably be able to stay awake for another twenty-four hours. That guy could go the longest times without sleeping.
Nessie stretched her arms out above her head before she sat down next to Jacob on the couch. "Go to sleep," she told him.
I laughed at the de ja voo of the situation. This was practically the same thing that had happened the last time we had come for a visit. I guess some things just never changed…
"I'm fine," he told her. His thumb traced over her hand. "You on the other hand…"
She rolled her eyes and turned to us. "He is always trying to get me to sleep more."
I smirked, laughing at their old-married-couple charade.
"Well," Jacob said, sounding very much like his young-hearted self. "Maybe if you weren't so tired all the time, I wouldn't." He stuck his toungue out at her.
"Who says I'm tired?" Nessie asked.
"No one," Jacob said. "But the fact that you slept through your alarm three days last week does make me think certain things."
She shrugged. "Yeah…." She seemed to shake herself more awake and turned to face us. "So how is work going?" she asked Carlisle.
"Good," he said. "There's much more action there than there ever was here. I mean, there's a lot more pressure, and a lot more to do, but there's also a lot more doctors."
"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," Nessie told him.
"And how about you Ness?" Julia asked her. "How are all of the kids responding to music in their schools now?"
Nessie tilted her head side to side in a nonchalant way. "I mean, they're responding as well as I could expect them to react. The younger students are handling it as if nothing has ever changed, but that's just because they're young, and they're minds can mold more easily. But the older students are having more trouble with it. It's hard to teach the same basic skills to kids who are three, and then to kids who are seventeen. But each year will just get easier I figure. Lesson plans are still kind of hard for me to figure out amoungst all of the schools, but I'm working it out."
"When do you think you'll be able to start incorporating instruments?" Edward asked.
"Probably next year for the High School students. After their first year of music education they'll be able to grasp the concepts of playing an instrument quite easily I think. Once it gets to the point that the three-year-olds I have this year are about eight though, I'll probably be able to get them recorders or something."
"Good," Bella said. "Music is defintley something I wish I had had the opportunity to learn when I was in school. Especially when I was younger."
"Right," Nessie said. "That's what I was thinking about when I decided to try and introduce the idea of music education to the schools. Music was such an important part of my life growing up, I thought other kids should at least have the opportunity to learn about it."
"Is it mandatory for everyone to take it?" Jasper asked.
"Yes," Nessie said. "As of right now at least. But if other teachers need a period to talk to the students for some reason, I'm usually the first person they ask to pull the students from my class."
I nodded. "The music program at our school is really good," I said. "You'd really like to see some of the stuff we do."
I played the violin in the orchestra, and Zach played the string bass. We both loved it, but that was mostly because it was another hour we got to spend together during the day.
"Maybe we'll get to go down there sometime," Nessie said. "When is your next concert?"
"We have one every six weeks, and our holiday one was two weeks ago…. So a month from now," Zach said.
"Hm," Nessie said. "Maybe we could work something out."
She yawned again. "You know," Bella said. "Not to sound like your mom, but you really should go to sleep."
Nessie turned around and glared at Jacob. He was very obviously hiding back a smile. "She said it," he told her, holding his hands up in surrender and letting his smile slip out.
Nessie rolled her eyes. "Well fine!" she said. She stood up. "Goodnight."
She shut her bedroom door behind her. Jacob was still sitting on the couch.
"So," Alice said. "How have you been doing Jacob?" she asked.
"Alright," he said. "I'm not nearly as busy as I was three years ago at this time," he told her. He sighed. "It was crazy before Eila was born. And it was pretty crazy after too…"
Alice nodded. "It really was…"
"Its really nice, having the eagles," Jacob said. "Sometimes it gets a little wild, but we manage. They can see so much more than we can, and they notice different things. But," he said. "Its hard to communicate sometimes. We try to discuss everything, but sometimes we forget stuff. The other day, I was running around and all of the sudden I could smell all of this blood. Turns out that some hiker had fallen and scraped themselves up pretty badly two days ago. I was freaking out, but Scott had already figured out what had happened and had forgotten to tell us."
"I can see where that would be a problem," Alice said.
Jacob looked at the clock and looked to his bedroom door for a second. "Well," he said, standing up. "Nessie's asleep now. Honestly, I'm exhausted, but don't tell her that. God only knows when she would go to sleep if I went first."
Jasper scoffed. "You guys are crazy," he said.
"Pretty much," Jacob agreed.
The next day was Christmas Eve, and we still had to buy gifts for everyone. So, while everyone slept that night, we started writing down names, and making a list of everyone we had to buy for. We were out the door by four thirty am, driving to Port Angeles, hitting it hard with all of the other Christmas Eve shoppers. I knew what I wanted to get Zach, so I bought that first. Seeing as how we got an early start, we were all finished by noon. We got back to Nessie's house and wrapped all of the presents for about an hour. With our super speed the scissors and tape were literally flying.
That night everyone was getting together for a christmas eve dinner at the big white house that used to be ours. We wouldn't be eating of course, but it would be nice to socialize and catch up. We got to the house around four, after driving through about half of a blizzard. The house was beautiful, all lit up and bright. The glass walls were shining against the snow, and the contrast was perfect. Zach grabbed my hand as we gently padded up the snowy steps to the house, and I smiled to myself.
We were greeted immediatley by the smell of cooking food, chatting people, and an incredible warmth that I could never seem to get over. The stench was also incredible, but I was slowly getting used to it. "Hi!" Leah said when we came in.
"Hey," Bella said. "How is everyone?"
"Awesome," Leah said. She was in the process of chasing her three-year-old, Paige around, making sure she didn't get into trouble.
Paige looked just like her older sister Alexis. They both had Leah's pretty face, with Joel's frighteningly unnatural electric blue eyes. Leah scooped up Paige and plopped her down with the rest of the younger kids. They were all being entertained by a highly competitive game of ping-pong being played between Adam and Corey.
"Merry Christmas," someone said from across the room.
"Merry Christmas," I immediatley responded back.
I always liked coming back to this house and seeing how much it had changed. You could tell that it was occupied by many more people now. I walked into the living room and saw that there were no empty seats, so Zach and I stood near the couch. Standing or sitting, it didn't make a difference to me.
Rosalie came up and stood beside me. Emmett was talking to Paul and Rachel in one of the corners of the house. "Wow," Rosalie said. She glanced around the room quickly. "I haven't seen this room so full in a long time."
She was right. The room was packed with familiar faces in every corner. People were sitting everywhere. The windowseat, the couches, the chairs in the kitchen, all of them were completley full. People were stretched across the floor and leaning against the walls. It was nice to see everyone so happy.
Several people were in the kitchen attempting to cook enough food for everyone, and I heard timers going off every few seconds. I jerked my thumb towards the kitchen and told Zach I was heading in there to help set up. The big kitchen table we had left wouldn't do any good in a house this full, so there were at least six big folding tables leading off into the living room and all the way to the foot of the stairs in the other direction. I knew that they had made sure that there would be enough chairs for everyone to be able to sit around the tables.
The massive garage had been turned into the serving area, and I helped bring all the food out onto the tables set up out there. There was so much, but I knew that all of it would be eaten. "Food's ready!" I called about thirty minutes later.
I heard everyone standing up in the other rooms, and I made my way to the back of the line with the rest of my family. Eila was with Jacob in line, but Nessie was toward the back of the line, with her parents. As I walked past, Eila grabbed my legs and looked up smiling at me. I smiled back at her. I picked her up and spun her around really fast. Her eyes were out of focus when I finished spinning, and she was laughing hysterically. I gently set her on the ground and bent down to her level. I held her hips so the dizziness wouldn't make her fall over.
I pulled her ear close to my mouth. "I have a secret ," I told her. She giggled at me. "I think that you are the prettiest little girl alive." She giggled even more severely. "And I love you very much."
She kissed my cheek, and her warm flesh only made my throat burn a little. She went back in line with Jacob, and hid behind his long legs. He absentmindedly stroked her hair.
I waved hi to several people on my way to the back of the winding line. Zach wrapped his arms around me when I got there. We took our seats when the line moved us into the kitchen. I sat with Zach on my left, and Ashley to my right. Wyatt was next to her. The sound of forks hitting plates and knives scraping against food was loud in my ears.
"Excuse me," Lyssie said from the other end of the table about halfway through the meal. Several people got quiet, and it was a domino effect after that. Everyone was looking at Lyssie within a minutes time. I saw Edward roll his eyes and he leaned his face against his hand. "I just thought you guys should know that I'm pregnant."
There was approximatley one beat of silence. I burst out laughing, and several people started cheering. Judging by the wide-eyed, eyebrows-up, open-mouth expression that Micheal was wearing, he hadn't known until just now. He wrapped her in his arms, and started laughing right along with everyone else. "You lied to me!" Leah said to Lyssie as the laughter quieted down. "I asked you if you were pregnant and you said no!"
"Yes," Lyssie said. "Yes I did."
"Yeah," Mikayla said. "And I lied to Lyssie." She cleared her throat. "I'm pregnant too."
A highly similar reaction occurred.
"Me too," Natalie said quietly, but I heard, and so did Jeremy.
"Me three," Jocelyn said in her loud voice.
"Me four," Amber said.
"Oh my gosh," Bella said, and she put her head on the table. "This is crazy."
I could barely hear her over the rucus, and that was saying something considering I could hear a pin drop during a tornado. I was laughing harder than I had laughed in a really long time, and so was Zach.
"So…." Carlisle said. "Five of you are pregnant?"
"So it appears," Lyssie said.
"Well," he said. He threw his hands up in the air. "Good luck with that."
Seeing as Carlisle was the only doctor in the world who wouldn't question the extremely high tempereatures the wolves and the eagles had, he had delivered every one of the children here. Well, he and whoever volunteered to help him. Bella and Edward had when they were working at the hospital, and Rosalie and Esme had stepped in when they needed extra help. This would be one of those times. Abbey, Seth's wife, was acutually the OB/GYN at the Forks hospital; she had just recently graduated from med school.
Edward had pulled out a small pad of paper that he kept in his pocket and was writing on it very rapidly. "Ok," he said a minute later. Most of the people at the table turned to look at him. The kids were either eating their dinner, or looking very confused as to what was going on. It was pretty funny. "So," he glanced at his paper again. "If I'm right, we're going to need somewhere between six and eleven volunteers."
"I'm in," Leah said.
Edward wrote her name down on the paper. Several other woman volunteered, and he wrote their names down too.
He put the pen down. "This is scary," he said.
"You're not supposed to say that," Lyssie told him.
"But hey," Bella said. "On the bright side, we've got nine months to figure this all out."
"Do we?" Carlisle asked.
"Yeah, you might want to make that more like eight months for me," Lyssie said.
"Yeah," Mikayla agreed.
Edward casually folded his arms across his chest. "How fast can you get an ultra sound machine?" he asked Carlisle.
"About an hour," Carlisle said. "But its going to involve me breaking into the hospital."
"Uh," Bella said. "No."
"Okay then," Carlisle said. "If I put it on rush," he said. "I might be able to get it here in a week."
"Really?" Edward asked.
"It's all about who you know," Carlisle said. "And I know a lot of people."
"So…" I said. "If we're lucky, we'll get it a couple of days before we have to leave."
"Yes," Carlisle said. "And, if my dates are correct, we'll need to fly back here at the end of July."
"Right," Lyssie said.
