Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Anything I have borrowed is hers, and anything that sounds farmiliar to her stories is her brilliance shining as well. Clear? GREAT!


Who Pulled the Fire Alarm?

The minute they were outside and far enough from the swarms of students packed on the sprawling lawn, Jasper shook his brothers' restraining hands off. "I'm under control!" He growled, stalking off towards the car. "You don't have to hover anymore now that I've blown it!"

Edward sped in front of his brother, stopping Jasper from continuing towards the Volvo. "You haven't blown anything!" He reassured Jasper. "No one saw what happened, thanks to the fire alarm." Edward pushed him back a step, towards Rosalie, Emmett and Alice. "Now, if you're under control, don't make this anymore difficult! Stay with our group. There are going to be inquiries about who started the alarm and why there are mysterious red blood stains all over our table…"

"Taken care of," Alice informed Edward. "Rosalieand I cleaned up everything while you boys went outside."

Edward nodded his head, relieved. To Jasper, he continued, "We don't have to worry about the bloodstains, but it will look suspicious if you are suddenly absent. So if you're able to handle yourself now, then stay put!"

Jasper growled something obscene and spun away from Edward, moving as far away as he could. Alice hurried after him, and the two started conversing in low tones. Edward, standing at the edge of the cement and the grass alone, ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He knew from Jasper's thoughts that the vampire wasn't angry at Edward so much as he was at himself for losing control. And in front of plenty of witnesses! Jasper's mind was berating himself for being so weak, when strength and endurance was something Jasper prized and valued so highly. While it comforted, Alice's support and words still chaffed at his pride. Alice kept control, even after the blood spilled. Why couldn't he be as strong as her?

Edward shook his head, trying to ignore his brother's tormented thoughts. Edward himself was relieved all that had come of Jasper's losing control was a family drama. It could have ended in bloodshed and his family's secret being exposed. If it weren't for the fire alarm…

Edward lifted his head, his keen eyes narrowing in on the students mingling in their groups. There was someone he needed to talk to, and she conveniently didn't have a mind he could pinpoint. Where was that vampire?

From behind him, Edward heard a low, musical voice. "Have you heard the rumor going around, Cullen?"

Edward recognized the voice. Grimly, he turned around slowly, looking down into the deep golden eyes of the furious Bella Swanne. "No, actually," He lied, because he had been listening to the rumors buzzing around in students and teachers minds the minute the alarm had sounded. "What rumor has been spreading?"

Bella folded her arms, frowning deeply. "They think a student pulled the alarm on purpose in the cafeteria. Tell me, does your school usually experience this kind of delinquent behavior?"

"Not that I can remember," He replied. "Maybe it's the new students who've come that have started the trouble." He leaned closer, looking into her eyes intently. "Did you pull it?"

She blinked. "I never moved from my seat," she said simply. "They have security cameras. They'll see who pulled it."

He grinned, laughing at her with his eyes. "You, Bella, did not answer my question." But she'd lied anyway. She'd blinked. A bad liar always blinked.

"I told you this morning, you don't deserve my answers," she said icily. She stepped forward, her arms falling to her sides. "Look Edward, I didn't come over here to let you interrogate me. I'm just trying not to lose my temper here when your family is being so insulting."

She was wearing a long, dark blue sweater today. And her dark hair was wavy today, more natural looking than her straight hair from the day before. He had to take his mind off how beautiful she looked when she was angry. Edward frowned. "My family? Insulting?"

"Yes!" She tossed her head, eyes flashing in irritation. "The minute we arrive, you jump all over us about keeping in control, and not hunting your humans, and maintaining secrecy. The minute I apologize for MY behavior to Jasper, he turns around and loses it in front of 300 some students! So, Cullen, I would like you all to quit being all high and mighty and TRY to control the sadistic beasts inside you all. Honestly!" She spun, stalking off into the cement where she kicked a rock from her path. "Why are you all in a school setting at all, in society for that manner, when you can't even control yourselves!"

"That's enough!" Edward said strongly, stepping over to her quickly to grab her arm. "Kids are starting to notice your tirade!" Indeed, Mike was already wondering, jealously, why Bella was arguing with Edward Cullen over in the parking lot. If the weasel came over, Edward didn't know if he'd be able to refuse shoving the annoying brat into the cement.

Bella pulled her arm violently out of his grasp. "I am not having a tirade!" She sniffed. "And if I am having anything, it's because your family is being the epitome of hypocrisy! How many more alarms am I going to have to set off this year to cover for your mistakes, might I ask?"

He grinned slowly. "I thought you didn't pull the alarm."

She bit her tongue, realizing her slip. "Technically, I didn't." She mumbled.

Edward chuckled, understanding. "Ah, I see. You used a little of your wind power to knock over the lever."

Her furious pout answered his question perfectly. Edward held up a hand, smiling more seriously now. "Look, you're right." Her surprise at his admonition pleased him oddly. "We slipped up, and because you were there to help, we got away with it." Edward looked to where Alice and Jasper still stood. "Jasper is…new at this kind of lifestyle. He's not good at controlling his urges perfectly yet. But he's trying. Soon enough he'll control himself as the rest of us do."

She looked over at Jasper, with eyes that were a little less accusatory. "I can understand that, I suppose." Her eyes swiveled over to Edward, suspicious again. "Just why did he lose control in the first place?" She inquired sweetly.

Edward winced, clearing his throat. "About that—" Slowly, and making sure no one was looking, he pulled her now empty black waterbottle from his coat and held it out to her.

She stared at it a moment without blinking, then blew out a breath. "Damn it," she breathed, taking it back. Her cold fingers brushed his, and as before in class, she stumbled back at the little shock that went between their skin. The waterbottle fell to the ground again.

Edward didn't move, just stood there, with his hand slightly out, frowning at her deeply. Bella stared at his outstretched hand for several moments, squeezing her hand tightly with the other.

"You know," Edward said casually, despite the churning emotions inside him, "We're going to have to address this." He raised his hand so she understood what he meant. "At some point."

She took a deep breath, then several more. She had her own emotions to expel. "I don't think so," Bella countered. "You just need to quit stealing my stuff. Bubble, Cullen." She motioned around herself in a circle. "Stay out of my bubble, and we'll be fine."

Edward imagined her bubble around her, and then could see himself poking it until it popped. If he did, would he be able to hear her thoughts? "Interesting theory," he mused. "But this bubble doesn't take into account we're chemistry partners everyday."

"Bubble." She repeated firmly, glaring. She bent, picking up the waterbottle, then began to step around him to get back to the human group. "Besides, we might not get to chemistry what with all the firefighters milling around."

He stepped right in her path, so that they were practically nose to nose. She drew in a breath at their closeness, uncomfortable with it again. "I need to know something," he told her quietly, low enough no one close or not a vampire would hear. "That blood in your bottle—it wasn't human blood."

She looked up into his eyes, unflinchingly. "No," she agreed. "It was goat's blood."

Her answer made his head pound with questions. He asked the first. "Why are you drinking that?"

The look she sent him would have made an army of warriors step back from her. "Because neither my sister nor I are filthy bloodsuckers like you Cullens." She twisted around him, barely keeping the movement natural and human.

As she walked away, he followed in her wake, intent. "You don't drink human blood at all?"

"NO!" She yelled, forgoing silent whispering completely. "Now leave me alone!"

The air around Edward thickened to the point he felt like he was walking through wet sand. In frustration, he stopped, watching her walk away completely. When she regrouped with Mike and Jessica and the others, the air around him returned to normal. Edward went back to stand with Emmett and Rosalie, and then with Jasper and Alice when they joined them once again. They watched the firefighters do their work checking the building, and were around when the police began to question teachers, and when the students were let back into the building for their classes.

Chemistry had not been canceled. Edward smiled, knowing Bella would be seething at the further contact she'd have to endure with him. Like it or not, Bella was going to answer his questions. Because suddenly, she was a vegetarian as well. The monster Edward had thought her to be this whole time had been expelled at lunch. He was curious and intrigued all at once. And despite her insistence about the bubble, they were going to have to address the odd physical pull between them.

"Bella is interesting, is she not?" Alice remarked to him, as she gathered her bag from the cafeteria. "I think I should pay more attention to her. She's messing up our families' future as we speak."

"Really?" Edward asked. He took a dive into her mind, frowning at the odd images that bordered on psychedelic.

Alice nodded her head. "Oh, yes. Yours' especially changes so quickly all the time I don't know where you're heading." She looked at him carefully. "Does that bother you?"

Edward shrugged. "Not at the moment." Now that was a lie. "I'm going to talk to her some more in chemistry next."

Alice made a sound of acknowledgment, even as his future began to filter again in her mind. "I hope that clears some things up for me. It's bothering me that the future is so unknowing," she remarked, dancing off to her next class.

Edward sighed. "I hope it clears up some things for me, as well."


As he walked through the school, Edward had to listen to the excited students ponder the fire alarm. More rumors were spreading that the video cameras hadn't picked up anyone touching the fire alarm before or after it had gone off. Most strange. Creative minds considered the school haunted, while the more cynical figured it had to be the weather. Edward shook his head slightly at the nonsense. For him, the fire alarm hadn't been exciting or the interrupted school day. Jasper's lapse in control due to his stupid move of bringing the water bottle to their table had alarmed Edward. Bella had been right to chastise him and his family.

Edward wondered if Eileen knew what had transpired, if Bella had told her. He searched for her mind, and found her conversing heavily with Jessica in their French class. As he listened, she never revealed that she knew Bella pulled it. Eileen was having fun pretending to believe in romantic tales of vengeful ghosts.

Bella had obviously kept Jasper's incident a secret. And know one else would find out. Alice had picked their table in the cafeteria especially since it was out of the range of the school security cameras, so they didn't have to worry about any police seeing the vampires wrestle over a bloody spill.

Edward entered the warm enclosure of the chemistry room. Some students were already seated, mingling together. Edward looked down the aisle to his table, and was pleased to see Bella seated there in her seat already. She had been leaning into the table top on her elbows, but when she heard him arrive, she straightened her head to look at him. She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. "Hi," she said simply.

Wondering what she had been about to say, Edward smiled. "Hi." He sat, keeping his chair far away from her. He leaned forward on his elbows, mirroring her pose. No other conversation passed between them for several moments.

Then, Bella began to speak quietly. "Listen, Edward…about what just happened…I'm sorry."

He stared at her questioningly. "For what exactly?"

She shrugged. "The air. I made the air thicker so you couldn't follow me. That was rude of me. I shouldn't have exploited my powers that way….even though you were being invasive."

He shifted in his seat. "If you think you were justified, then why are you apologizing for it?"

She groaned quietly, and let her face fall into her folded arms on the table. "I don't know," she complained. "I talk more then I should around you."

Interesting, he thought, to think he had that kind of affect on her. For some reason, her admonition made him feel bolder. "On the contrary, you don't talk enough. Most the time, I have no idea what's going on in your mind. It's maddening."

She lifted her head slightly, her eyes peering at him critically. "That's normal to not really understand people's thoughts, if they don't voice them. And it's healthy to hold back much of what you think. Its safer."

What did she mean by that? He wondered. "So, you are not true to yourself? You act for other's benefit, what they'd prefer to see?"

She sat up, turning to face him more with her chair. "You do the same," she pointed out. "As vampires we have to pretend, if we want to live in the human world."

"Is that why you drink goats blood?" He asked, voicing one of the many questions he had. "To pretend?"

She seemed caught off guard by his question. She tilted her head, frowning at him. "I don't understand you."

Edward explained further, trying not to let his impatience be known. "If you were a real vampire, you'd give in, even accept the fact that hunting humans was how things were done. But you drink goats blood; are you pretending to not be a vampire?"

Bella's eyes cleared of confusion as she understood what he meant. She shook her head. "No, I accept I am a vampire. How could I not?" She held out her hand, stroking the marble skin with her finger. "I'm faster, I'm stronger, and I glow in the sunlight. Whenever someone touches me, they note my strong skin and cold feel." She let her hand fall to the table. "There's a difference between being a vampire and being a monster. I've accepted I'm the first, but I refuse to be the other. Simple as that."

"No, NOT as simple as that." Edward interjected when she would have turned back in her seat. He wasn't about to let this conversation die. "When did you decide to stop drinking from humans?"

She seemed uncomfortable again. "Are you interrogating me, again?" She asked, irritated.

Edward tried to curb his impatience from his expression and voice. "I'm curious, Bella, why a vampire would drink goats blood and refuse to drink from humans." He understood why, and his family did.

Edward had never met another vampire in the world who had come to the decision to become vegetarian on their own. Yet here was one! He wanted to hear what she had to say. Because he couldn't have the answers from her mind easily, he needed to hear them from her own lips. But this vampire wasn't the talkative sort. He'd need to coax the answers out of her.

"Bella," he addressed her carefully, "I'm just trying to understand is all. What you are saying is phenomenal. I've never heard of your outlook in a vampire before."

She looked over at him, suspicious. "Phenomenal isn't what you mean. You really mean weird and insane."

He smiled. "Yeah, maybe. But, I'd still like to hear your reasoning."

She hesitated, then shrugged. "When Eileen and I met, I'd already come to the conclusion I wasn't going to allow the monster that had been born inside me to control my life. She agreed with me, and we've been training ourselves to ignore the beast in us ever since. Basically." She stopped speaking, looking away from him again.

Edward wanted to growl. "That's it?"

She chaffed at his tone. "You wanted to know—"

"You barely explained anything," He complained.

"Class is starting soon," she told him defensively.

"Later then—" He began.

"NO."

The teacher began to speak, telling them to pull out their books, interrupting any rebuttal Edward might have pulled on her. Edward watched Bella, analyzed her movements and her expressions in class. She tried to ignore him, but she kept looking at him at random intervels, sneakily. Since he was always watching her, he always caught her. Her eyes spoke so much, often Edward realized she said the truth with them and lied or hedged with her words. But he could only tell so much from her eyes. Edward knew that, if he wanted her to answer his questions, he'd have to gain her trust and convince her to want to tell him the truth with her own words. Interrogating her until she was angry wasn't working; Edward realized he'd have to try something he hadn't considered until now. Tact.

When the bell rang, Bella took her time deliberately getting her books together, giving Edward ample time to get out before her. Edward stood from his chair, but looked down at her bent head a moment.

"Goodbye, Bella," Edward said simply, as if they were merely lab partners, acquaintances by circumstance only. Before he went out the door, he looked back to see what her reaction had been.

She was watching him, a frown on her face. Nope, she hadn't been expecting him to leave her alone at all. Pleased at her confused expression, he walked down the sidewalk towards the Volvo. He wondered how Bella would take him giving her the space she and her bubble wanted. Secretly, he wondered how he'd long he'd be able to stand giving her what she wanted. Invading someone's space had never been so tempting until now.

As Alice and the others slipped into the Volvo, she turned to him eagerly. "Oh, by the way, Edward. What you're planning, its going to work."

Edward put the Volvo in gear and pulled out into the traffic leaving the school parking lot. "The future cleared up for you, did it?"

She nodded her head. "Oh yes! By sometime next month, I see Bella sipping a martini in our living room."

Emmett, his arm around Rosalie in the back seat, shared a confused look with his mate. "What?"

"Bella," Alice repeated, eager for what she saw.

"What?!"

Edward himself wasn't sure how his decision to give Bella space would result in the particular image in Alice's mind, but he wasn't going to argue the future.

Emmett leaned forward in his seat after a few minutes of their arguing. He still didn't understand what was going on, but he was reminded about something. "Hey Edward," he said, leaning between the middle space towards the driver. "We should go hunting sometime soon. I've heard some great bear attack stories up in this one hiking area."

Alice made a sound of excited pleasure. "Wow! The image just got stronger! Thank you, Emmett!" She grinned at Edward. "If you go hunting it will definitely lead to Bella in our living room!"

How could he argue with a psychic? As ridiculous as it all sounded. "Hunting it is then, Emmett." Edward agreed.


bnthridiot: There's nothing I love better then getting lovely reviews from people. Please, if you read any of my story, and you like what you're reading, please tell me so! And complain, point out mistakes. I'm really trying to start spelling 'told' correctly. Thank you to all who have reviewed, you keep my fingers a typin!

Next, Bella gets the space and the room she wanted from the Cullens, but finds herself more and more annoyed by the fact. Just what does she want when it comes to Edward? Why should it matter? And how long is Edward going to allow her to twist and wiggle on the hook he's got her on without reaching in and setting her free?