A/N: This is a piece won in the last Support Stacie auction by Original Audience, who is lovely, lovely, lovely, and, as far as I know, looks nothing like Cousin Itt.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.


Osternest

The children woke her early, before the sun had begun its journey into the sky, sneaking into the room she'd slept in when she was about the same age as her littlest. They were such happy, boisterous children, not at all like the quiet, haunted girl she had been. Even when they interrupted her slumber, she was so grateful that they were exuberant, rambunctious. You couldn't be hyper and shrieking in delight unless all your needs were being met, and she felt proud and relieved she could give her kids that sense of security.

"Mama! Mama! When can we go get our baskets?" They jumped up and down on her bed, jostling her tiny body around. Even after two pregnancies, she still had the body of a teenage boy—the only difference now were the wrinkles on her stomach, the way she could pull her skin away from herself. When she woke up in the mornings, she often forgot, for a moment, that she was a mother now. She felt like a child more often than not, helpless, silenced. And as the last scraps of sleep fell away from her, she always remembered the night when everything changed, the night she lost her, yet gained so much more.

She stretched daintily and sat up. "What time is it?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

Tony bounced up and down on his knees. "It's time for Easter baskets!"

"You know better than that, Tony. Look at my watch. Where is the big hand? Where is the little hand?"

Tony screwed his face up in concentration. "Your watch looks like a line. The little hand is pointing straight down at the six, and the big hand is reaching for the top, at the twelve."

"So that means …?"

"Suh …. Six o'clock," Tony answered with hesitation.

"Good boy," she said. "And my goodness, that's even earlier than last year. Last year you gave me at least until half-past."

"I'm growing up, you know," he said, puffing his tiny little chest out.

"Of course you are, darling," she said, pulling him into a hug.

"Me too, me too!" said the chubby brunette who'd been sucking on her fingers.

"Come here, my sweetie Marie." Marie scrambled onto the lumpy part of the blanket where she was pretty sure her mother's legs were hiding.

"Let's let Grandpa Charlie sleep in just a little longer. We can have hot cocoa and pancakes in our jammies, and then we'll get dressed and drive over. How does that sound?"

"Pan-cakes! Pan-cakes!" Tony and Marie marched out of her room, pumping their arms in the air in time with their enthusiastic chanting. She hoped only that they hadn't woken her parents.

The pounding overhead and Doppler-effect squealing woke her father, who opened his eyes and smiled. His wife still slept, and he said a silent prayer of thanks that sleep was once again easy for her, a time for peace. Her face was unlined, untroubled in her slumber. God, she was still so beautiful. He considered getting up to say good morning to his grandkids, but he knew they'd be leaving soon enough. He understood that Easter mornings belonged to Grandpa Charlie. Over the last fifteen or so years he'd watched the bond between his daughter and the town's police chief—now newly retired—grow. Neither he nor his wife knew what had happened when their previously mute daughter had cried out in the dead of night in the worst February of their lives. Carlisle thought it wasn't right to pry; Alice would tell them the story if or when she felt ready to share. He could tell it was precious to her, the same way her memory of life before the Cullens was a private, sacred matter. Admittedly, sometimes he felt left out, but he respected secrets, and he knew Alice and the kids would be back for the family's Easter supper, as they always were. It was just a few hours on Easter morning—and he couldn't deny the chief the comfort his daughter seemed to bring. He's lost his heart too, Carlisle would think, and he'd fill with so much sorrow—his own and the chief's—that there was no room left for jealousy. Hell, at least he still had Emmett and Tanya and Alice, and all his sweet grandchildren.

The chief, however, had lost it all.

Let him have Easter morning with Alice and the kids.

He rolled back over on his side, put an arm around his wife, and tried to fall back asleep.

***

"Are you buckled in, Tony?" Alice glanced in the rearview mirror. He weighed enough now for a booster seat, and he always dutifully pulled the belt out all the way until it snapped back, locking in place. Even so, she asked. She asked every time. He didn't want her buckling him in anymore, thought he was too old to be babied like that. But she asked because she would always be his mother, and she would always worry about his safety. It had been easier when she'd been pregnant, when she had known where the kids were at all times. She could feel them moving inside her and know they were safe. Now, there wasn't that direct, constant contact, so what could she do? She would ask him if his belt were buckled, even if he rolled his eyes and thought, for a second, that he hated her.

It was worth it.

The chief's house was an explosion of plastic and artificially bright colors. He always strung plastic eggs from the branches of the large tree on the front lawn. Those were empty, the kids knew, but scattered around were the good eggs, every one filled with some kind of chocolate surprise. No dud jellybean-filled eggs for these two. Grandpa Charlie wouldn't allow it.

Marie started kicking her plump legs in excitement. "Faster, Mama!" she cried out, tugging at her harness as Alice parked the car. Tony waited until he heard his mom turn the ignition off before he undid his belt and straightened his Easter suit.

"I'll unbuckle you, Marie," he said, and she stared at him gratefully and stopped struggling in her seat. Alice choked back a tear when she caught the exchange in the rearview mirror. She knew that look. She'd so often looked at her Eddie that way—he was always her hero, even when he didn't know it. Because they'd shared no genetic material, she was amazed at how much Tony was like her lost brother. He'd lose his temper with Alice sometimes—after all, he was just a kid—but he had endless stores of patience for his baby sister. He would never let anything bad happen to her, not on his watch.

I miss you, Eddie, she thought, and it struck her that this used to be the only way she could communicate with him, the thoughts swirling in her mind but her lips refusing to let them out. He'd still known, though. He always had seemed to know what she was thinking. She couldn't believe she'd now lived more of her life without him than with him.

Before she'd even slammed her door shut, Charlie came running out of the house, which was a bit chancy with his newly replaced hip. "Alice! And how are my sweethearts?" He held his arms wide as the kids ran to him, nearly knocking him over with the force of their tiny bodies.

"Grandpa Charlie! Grandpa Charlie!"

"Be careful, kids," Alice warned. "Your Grandpa Charlie is still recovering from his surgery."

"Nonsense, Alice," said Charlie. "I'm good as new. If I wasn't going to die on the table, I was going to be fine." He did a little hip jiggle to demonstrate the tiptop shape of his body.

She walked to him and got on her toes to kiss his dry cheek. She tried not to notice all the new gray hairs in his hair and mustache. She forced herself to ignore how she didn't have to stretch as tall as she had last Easter in order to reach his cheek. "Hey, Charlie. It's good to see you."

She wrapped her slim arms around his neck, and he squeezed her back so tightly that she had to struggle for breath. Ordinarily she would have jokingly complained, but she was too relieved that he was still strong, still wiry. He's just fine, she thought, and she felt like she could exhale for the first time since she'd gotten back to Forks for the holiday.

"All right, you two, who wants baskets?" Charlie asked, his mustache twitching in amusement.

"Me! Me!" Tony and Marie jumped up and down, the hem of Marie's Easter dress flying up in a most unladylike fashion.

He'd set the baskets down in order to hug everyone, and now he held them just out of the reach of their chubby hands. Marie tired of the game before Tony, but the moment her lower lip stuck out and began to tremble, Charlie stopped teasing. "Here you go, kiddo," he said, patting her head. "Now go get yourself some eggs!" She ran off shrieking, and Alice hoped his neighbors were either extremely early risers or hard of hearing.

Tony was more dignified with his basket, not wanting to rumple his good suit, and he knew there were plenty of tall hiding places where Marie couldn't reach. He didn't need to hurry. He marched along with purpose, concentrating deeply.

As the two scrambled around the front lawn, looking in the grass, under upside-down flowerpots, inside the enormous coil of the garden hose, Alice linked her arm with Charlie's, leaning on his arm. "How's everything?"

"Meh," he said, shrugging. "Life gets to be pretty monotonous when you retire. I mean, it's great that I can go fishing whenever I want now, but even that gets boring. I guess it was more exciting when I had work staring me in the face the next day, because I knew there was a worse place I could be."

"Please don't tell me you watch 'Cops' reruns all day," Alice said, her eyes never leaving her children as they tore apart the chief's lawn for booty.

"Don't be ridiculous. There's also 'Reno 911.'"

"It's too bad 'Cop Rock' isn't on anymore."

"Alice, you can't even have been born when 'Cop Rock' was out. You're not allowed to be nostalgic."

"I'm an old soul," she sniffed. "And I like kitschy things. 'Cop Rock' is a little piece of kitsch heaven."

Charlie threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, Alice, why do you always have to go away?"

Alice didn't tell him the truth: that it was too hard to be in Forks all the time. Every tree, every storefront, every mailbox reminded her too much of the past. Everything in the town made her miss Eddie. She had known the town best when he'd been alive, with her. It had been hard enough when he'd left for college. At the time she didn't think she could miss him more, but he'd at least still existed on this plane. She could at least imagine if every soul on earth had a window, she could look through hers and eventually find his. There was still a part of him on the planet where she could feel his presence. Her soul could reach out beyond the borders of her house, her town, her state, and connect with his.

After the plane crash, he was gone. It didn't matter that they hadn't found the body right away; Alice knew. She could feel it in her heart that his window wasn't hanging there any longer. Or if it were there, it had been shuttered closed.

And then there was that night, the night everything changed. Bella. She gave up everything for Alice, and she hadn't even known it, not until it was too late for her to make the choice for herself.

When Alice dreamed, she still saw it, bits of the dream she'd had the night everything changed. She'd still catch glimpses of Bella's small, short life, the girl who had watched her, had loved her without knowing her, and had loved her Eddie enough to walk right off the earth and into the beyond because she'd thought it might save him. Some nights Alice would dream she was Bella, reliving her life. She'd see random memories of having breakfast with a younger, more vibrant Charlie. She'd look down and see Bella's pale arms instead of her own. It reminded her of that movie Being John Malkovich; when she slept, she became Bella for these brief periods of time.

None of the memories were new; they'd all rushed past her the night they found Eddie's body. They'd flashed by so quickly that she couldn't make out each individual scene, but she'd gotten the impression of a life lived simply, selflessly, sorrowfully, yet with so much love that every part of her ached even experiencing it secondhand. When she dreamed, even if she hadn't seen the each frame of the memory when it had flitted past, it still seemed somehow familiar. She wondered how Bella had done it, had flooded her mind with an imprint of her entire life in such a short time.

Tony and Marie had gathered all the eggs in record time. "If only we could train them to sniff out drugs or explosives—they'd be real useful at the border," Charlie joked. The kids were already running into the house, knowing their special Easter presents were inside. Charlie turned to Alice after watching the two climb up the stairs to the open front door. "Are you ready for your chocolate bunny?"

***

The first Easter after … Alice hadn't been sure if she should go see Charlie. Had he meant it, when he'd invited her over? She asked her parents if they thought it would be okay. "Really? He asked you to come over for Easter?" said Esme.

"He said it would be hard not to have anyone around, and would I like to come over," Alice said.

Esme was still getting used to Alice's voice. Since Alice had been silent for so long, Esme almost felt it would have been more natural for Alice to begin with babbling, blowing raspberries, like her two boys had slowly learned to talk. For her to go from silence to complete, complex sentences, even if she'd always communicated well with her notepad, well, it was a hard adjustment. She knew it was connected, somehow, to the death of the Swan girl—so strange for two students from the same class dying so young, in the same month, in freak accidents—but she didn't really understand. She'd phoned up the chief to ask. "Hello, is this Chief Swan?" she asked, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "I hope I'm not interrupting. You know my daughter Alice?"

There was silence on the other end. Esme was about to excuse herself and hang up, but she heard someone sigh heavily. "Yes," he said.

She waited for him to say something else, but that was it, just that one word. "Well, Alice says that you asked her over for Easter, and she wanted me to check with you if you did really want her to come over."

"I don't want to make her do something she doesn't want to."

Esme turned to her daughter, who was looking at her expectantly. She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, "Chief Swan wants to know if you really want to come over." Alice smiled widely and nodded. "Chief Swan? Yes, she really would like to, if it's no bother."

"Why would it be a bother?" asked the chief gruffly. He grumbled under his breath for a while. "Yes, tell her she can come by anytime she wants."

On Easter morning, Alice didn't know what to expect, but she felt herself being pulled toward Charlie. She owed it to Bella, for everything. "Mom?" she asked, scratching on her parents' bedroom door. "I'm ready if you are."

Esme came out a minute later, her hair half done, her dress buttoned crookedly. "All right," she said. Her eyes were tired and dull. Easter had been such fun when the boys were little. She couldn't even smell white vinegar these days without crying, the aroma immediately bringing her back to dyeing eggs with the boys. Alice hadn't understood the point of coloring eggs, so they'd skipped the rituals with her. And now she wanted to go to this stranger's house?

When they got to the chief's house, Esme wasn't sure if she should go inside or wait in the car. He's a stranger. Sure, he's the chief of police, but I don't knowhim, and what kind of mother leaves her daughter with a strange adult man? As awkward as she felt, she knew her duty as a mother. She walked with Alice to the door. Alice rang the doorbell, and it was so quiet that Esme thought maybe the chief had forgotten, or maybe hadn't meant it in the first place. But then the door opened, and there stood the chief, still unshaven but wearing a ridiculous pair of rabbit ears on his head.

"Alice!" His eyes lit up. "I'm so glad you're here." He nodded at Esme and invited them both inside.

Alice sat on the couch politely, her hands folded in her lap, as Charlie bustled around in the kitchen. She could hear cellophane crinkling, and he came back with the largest basket she'd ever seen. "Happy Easter, kid," he said, putting the basket on her lap. It felt like it was weighed down with a bowling ball.

"That's a really big bunny," Alice said, looking at the solid chocolate rabbit that stared back at her through the cellophane.

"It, uh, I'd bought it for …" Charlie trailed off.

"I know," Alice said. She turned to Esme. "Mom? Do you mind waiting outside? I need to talk to Charlie … about … Bella."

Esme nodded and stood up. "I'll just wait in the car." She nodded at the chief. "Chief Swan, it's good to see you. Thanks for being so kind to my daughter."

"Thank you for letting her visit me," he said, giving her a timid, one-armed hug. "It's … I mean, I guess you know how hard it is, missing …" He swallowed hard, unable to continue.

Esme squeezed his hand, her eyes full of tears. "I know," she whispered. "I wish I didn't, but I know."

Esme let herself out and sat in the car. She was glad, actually, that Alice had asked her to leave, because at least now she didn't have to try not to cry. She let herself sob until she was hoarse, pounding her fists on the dashboard, wailing. Why her beautiful boy? Her talented, perfect boy? The wave of grief passed quickly, like a snow squall, and soon she felt foolish and dug in her purse for a tissue. She dabbed at her face, glad she hadn't bothered to put on makeup this morning. The tissue smelled like mint, buried in her purse so long next to a pack of gum. She leaned her head against the cool glass and tried to remember the sound of Edward's laugh.

***

"I still see her in dreams," said Alice, afraid to look Charlie in the eye. "Sometimes she lets me be her for a while."

Charlie had never been one to believe in kooky New Age woo-woo, but this strange girl knew things about him, about Bella, that he knew neither had ever told anyone else. She knew about the donuts, about Longfellow graduation, the debilitating fear of flying. When she'd first come to him, she told him that Bella loved him forever, as deep as the ocean, as wide as the sky, harder than she could squeeze him. She told him the darndest thing, that Bella had died to save her. Bella had died in a fire on the other side of the country—what did that have to do with this odd little girl?

"My mother—my birth mother—was murdered in front of me," the girl had said. "I couldn't talk after. I never spoke again—until the night Bella died. She came to me. I didn't even know. I didn't know who she was, but she said she did it for me. I didn't understand, but then I heard the news about your daughter, and when I saw her picture in the paper, I knew it was the same, and she told me, she told me to come to you, that you would love me too."

Charlie had wanted to scream at her, to ask her what the hell gave her the right to mess with people who'd lost their whole reason to live, but when he looked into her eyes, he could almost imagine it was Bella staring back at him, and when she hugged him, it was like she absorbed some of his hurt and carried it inside her.

He chose to believe her, and hug her back, and weep into her hair. "I miss her so much," he'd said, and she didn't stop squeezing him.

"I know," she'd said again and again.

***

"Did you … remember anything else?" he asked once Esme had gone to the car as Alice had asked.

Alice was immediately more relaxed once it was just the two of them. "I used to see her dreams, I think," she said. "It was a beautiful and scary place, and she was so brave. You should have seen her," she said, her face shining. "She wasn't afraid of anything, not even of dying, in the end."

He hid his face in his hands. "Should I stop?" Alice asked.

"No, please, it does me good to hear about her."

"But other than that, she just wanted you to know how much she loved you. I see things, like when you'd drive her to school. She was embarrassed about the cop car, but she was still so sorry that she made you feel bad about it. She was disappointed in herself that she was ashamed of you, even for a moment. But she was proud, so proud, that you were her daddy."

"Why don't you open your basket?" Charlie said after he'd collected himself.

Alice wasn't too interested in the basket, but she unwrapped it because she felt that's what Bella would have wanted her to do. There was something rough and egg-shaped at the bottom of the basket—some kind of rock, maybe?

"It's a geode," Charlie said. "I was in Port Angeles on police business, and I walked by this thing three times in some mystical bullshit—pardon my French—shop I'd never even gone in before. I kept trying to leave that mystical bull—" He managed to stop himself in time. "Erm, so I kept trying to leave, and I wasn't even sure why I was there in the first place, but something told me that I wouldn't be able to go until I got it for you." He shrugged and scratched his head. "It's probably stupid."

"Oh," said Alice, looking at the purple crystals inside. "It's just like Bella. It's just like me."

"What do you mean?"

"We're all plain on the outside, and people think we're ordinary, but inside we are a whole universe, and no one would ever know."

"I knew," Charlie said. "I always knew she was special. She didn't see it. She never saw it, did she?"

"She saw it in the way you looked at her," Alice said. "Thank you for the rock. Eddie once got me a rock. Maybe he was the one who wouldn't let you leave."

***

"Mama, Grandpa Charlie got us more pretty rocks!" Marie shouted, tugging on her arm and out of her memory. The kids had a whole bookshelf in the living room just to display the various Charlie Easter rocks. Alice hoped they'd never grow tired of them, hoped that they'd always see something special about each rock he gave. There was a flat piece of agate that looked like a sunrise, a strange piece of pumice, huge but light enough for Marie to carry.

"I can't believe I shell out my social security for rocks," Charlie said, shaking his head. "I must be the biggest chump in the world."

Alice examined the most recent addition, a large, smooth piece of rose quartz. "You don't know how long these rocks have been around, how long they take to form. These rocks could be older than all of us, even an old coot like you."

"Watch it," Charlie said, holding up one finger. "I still can put you under arrest for impertinence, or sass."

Alice ignored him, holding the smooth stone up to her eye. "Who knows, maybe Bella or Edward once touched something that's in this stone. Or maybe a part of them is inside."

"Hmm," said Charlie, considering. He took the quartz from Alice for a moment and turned it this way and that in the light. "Hi, kiddo, if you're in there," he said. "Your daddy still misses you."

"Hi, Bella. Hi, Eddie," Alice said, waving a little at the rock cupped in Charlie's hand.