A/N: I'm feeling pretty generous today. Enjoy! ;)
Alice sighed as she scanned through the many sketches she had done in the past four and a half hours. It's been about 16,200 seconds since she last saw her little Bella, and even though the separation anxiety she had wasn't as bad as it used to be back when Bella was younger, Alice couldn't help but miss her tiny human terribly. Alice glance at the digital clock that was set on her work desk again in the family's art room that she mostly shared with Esme, and began tapping her black art pencil against the sketch work that she was currently working on. The digital clock declared that it was almost six in the evening. Alice let out another sigh as her eyes wander outside the window and now wishes that she'd gone shopping instead of working on the boring designs she's produced in the past hours. Almost too soon for her to grasp the moment of it happening, a vision hit her out of the blue and Alice fell into a temporary paralysis.
"Can I have the berry sundae too?" Bella pleaded with the doe-eyes she uses whenever she wanted just about anything. As always, it worked on everyone in the Cullen family and turned them into lovesick fools. Rosalie rolled her eyes at the child and shook her head in disbelief.
"You didn't have to bring out those eyes, Bella. I would've said yes to anything after you decided on that pair of mini loafers. Alice is going to be so jealous when she hears about this." Rosalie smiled wickedly.
Alice gasped immediately as the vision ended. She couldn't believe it. Alice could barely wrap her mind around the idea of Bella deciding on a pair of shoes. Bella hated shopping. She hated it with a passion unbeknownst to Alice and Rosalie, both that love shopping. Alice stood up and paced around the room before she became so frustrated that she had to let it out of her system.
"That little rascal!" Alice cried out into the empty room. The words echoed throughout the spacious chamber and within a few seconds, a round of deep chuckles could be heard downstairs by her heightened vampire senses. Alice stomped out of the room almost as soon as she heard the sounds and sped down the stairs too fast for the human eyes to even catch on. Almost a second later, she stood right before her family who were in the living room playing a card game.
"I can't believe her! How did she do it? I missed out on the first time Bella decided to purchase a pair of shoes! Gah! I knew it! I should've gone with the both of them!" Alice paced around in circles as her arms flung all over the place to get her point across. Everybody had the decency to hold in their laughs except for Emmett who guffawed rather loudly. Alice snapped her head around and glared at the brawny-looking man, and stepped towards him before she was almost in his face.
"This is all your fault! If you hadn't decided to wrestle with her yesterday, she wouldn't have lost and gotten so dispirited that she needed to go shopping. Then I wouldn't have to volunteer to let her take Bella with her. And if she hadn't taken Bella with her, I wouldn't have missed out on Bella's first time actually shopping for herself! You made me missed her first time!" Alice jabbed a pointing finger at his chest with each and every word without missing a beat. Edward was the first to crack and burst out laughing while the others joined in one after another, whereas Emmett just cowered back in the sofa and looked around the room for help. It was pretty clear that everyone was too caught up with Alice's amusing rant to care about the Herculean-built vampire.
"Alice, it's just shopping and – " Jasper decided to help as he felt Emmett's fear but Alice cut him off almost immediately.
"Just shopping? It's not 'just shopping' Jasper, it's an experience! One of the most important experiences in any girl's life!" Alice explained in a dead serious manner.
"Er… Well, uh, this may come as a surprise for you Alice, but we're all kind-of dead." Emmett joked. Alice whirled her head back in Emmett's direction and continued glaring at him once more.
"That's besides the point! Bella is still human! She's a healthy living, breathing, tiny human." Alice exclaimed as she flung her hands in the air.
"Alice, I think you're going a little bit overboard with this…uh, situation." Edward commented carefully.
"When does she ever not go overboard with any situation?" Emmett added before rolling his eyes.
"Boys, let's all be mindful of Alice here. Bella is her mate, and everything about the little child greatly concerns her. Although I must say, I believe we've all done quite a number on the little girl. Bella's brain development truly exceeds that of a four-year-old. I was honestly concern about it at first, but I'm starting to see how other variables in her life are affecting her human development." Carlisle spun a one-eighty on all of them. Even Alice's contorted expression of frustration and anger from earlier had dissipated and has now soften into that of a curious one.
"What variables are you speaking about, Carlisle? Why haven't you discussed this with me?" Alice voiced her concern.
"Well, as you all know, Bella's not like any other average child. It's almost as if…she has a gift." Carlisle revealed another one of his confounding theories. Everyone in the room gasped and they all looked around at one another.
"A gifted child? How long have you been sleeping on this, my dear?" Esme asked excitedly, and one could even tell the level of pride she had after discovering this newfound information about the youngest child in the family.
"Oh, my dear, we do not sleep." Carlisle chuckled as he wrapped his arm around his wife and pulled her closer.
"Oh come on love, it was just…an expression." Esme slightly pushed against him in a playful way. They both smiled at each other in adoration before hearing a cough from someone near them. Carlisle and Esme both turned their faces away from each other and then looked at their children again.
"You were saying about Bella's gift?" Alice questioned. Carlisle smiled, knowing full well that he had tested her patience enough and realized now was the time to continue.
"Bella has a strong curiosity, Alice. She asks questions about everything and anything. Secondly, she demonstrates such a high level of language development and verbal ability at quite a young age. You've heard and seen it all. She has an extensive vocabulary and she's an avid reader. Thirdly, she has an unusual capacity for processing information. Well, fourthly, she learns quite rapidly. You can tell by her ability to think process information quickly. Fifthly, she's very good at reasoning by comprehensively synthesizing problems. Sixth, she has a heighten capacity to recognize diverse relationships and integrate ideas across disciplines. She reasons things out, comprehends meanings, and makes logical associations. Seventh, she has an early use of differential patterns in thought processing. Eighth, she's a keen observer and is very alert almost all the time. Ninth, her early learning ability is very rapid. Tenth – " Carlisle was about to go on before he was cut off by Emmett.
"Okay, we get it. Little human's a genius!" Emmett remarked. Carlisle chuckled and nodded as he looked back at Alice.
"Do you have any other questions, dear?" Carlisle thoughtfully asked.
"Well…is this a bad thing? Do you think she's like this because she's living with us? Is this going to affect her human development significantly? What if she comes home someday and blames me for her being like this? What if she'll leave me one day? I don't think I could… I can't be without her." Alice said all in one breath, even though it wasn't even necessary for a vampire to breathe at all.
"Oh Alice, that's never going to happen. That little girl loves you like no other. You need to – " Before Esme could finish, the front door swung open and in came the little lamb that everybody was talking about. They were apparently too immersed in the conversation to even hear Rosalie and Bella's arrival.
"Alice!" Bella shouted as she ran as fast as she could to her favorite vampire. Alice watched the slow motion of Bella running towards her as tears brimmed in her eyes. My Bella. Alice thought as the love of her life kept running with a smile on her face. Not too many seconds later, Bella ended up in Alice's arms and she lifted Bella up into the air and swung her around slowly before coming to a stop. Bella pulled back as Alice held Bella in her arms, and she pushed back a strand of her in Bella's face behind her ear.
"Hello my beautiful, how was paradise today?" Alice teased the little girl as she tried to calm down her overwhelming emotions.
"Well, Rosie had many, many people staring at her, and we went to lots of stores. Rosie was shopping like there's no tomorrow, Allie! Then we went into this store called Saks Fifth Avenue, and…look!" Bella wiggled her feet around beneath her, and Alice quickly glanced at the mini loafers that fitted Bella's feet quite nicely.
"New shoes?" Alice asked even though she already knew that they were. Bella nodded excitedly, and the fact that the new purchase made Bella happy caused Alice to smile.
"I chose them! Rosie said they were boys' shoes, but I remembered you telling me that labels were problematic, and Rosie said that 'Gender doesn't matter.' yesterday after she fought Emmy so I got them anyway." Bella grinned proudly.
"She also reiterated Carlisle's quote word for word about how 'The more we believe something is true, the more we are likely to act in a way that makes it come true.' I couldn't even believe for a second that a four-year-old human was reasoning with me using my own words against me, let alone Carlisle's." Rosalie added as she walked into the room and idly sat down on Emmett's lap.
"Well, we were just discussing about her gift." Carlisle commented in vampire speed that was too quick for Bella to hear, and then smiled proudly along with Esme at his youngest daughter.
"What gift? She's merely a little human." Rosalie asked in confusion, following suit and speaking too fast for Bella to listen in on their conversation.
"Oh, we all know she's more than just a little human." Jasper added quickly.
"We were talking about how she's a gifted child. You know, the ones with advanced cognitive characteristics." Edward decided to explain after reading Rosalie's confused thoughts.
"Oh. Well, wasn't that obvious?" Rosalie was still quite unsure why they seem overly concern about the child's cognitive abilities.
"Yes, but we were just discussing it. That's all." Alice decided to end the conversation, feeling guilty that they were keeping her mate out of the loop.
"Alright then." Rosalie deadpanned. The vampires' conversation hadn't even taken up thirty seconds of time, and the little human was staring at all of them curiously.
"Bella," Alice addressed the little girl now sitting in her lap. "I think you might've forgotten something the moment you walked through that front door." Alice gestured over to the entrance to the house.
"You mean this?" Bella asked but didn't even give Alice time to answer as she leaned forward and kissed Alice's cold button nose.
"Clever girl." Alice playfully stuck her tongue out at Bella.
"That's something Rosie's got to learn." Bella added. Everyone including Rosalie looked at the little girl curiously, wondering what was about to come out of the small human next.
"What do I have to learn? I know everything." Rosalie smiled conceitedly. Carlisle shook his head at her as he chuckled. If anyone, it was Carlisle who knew everything.
"No, you tried to get me to try on the girls' version of the shoes I wanted. That's not very clever, Rosie." Bella crossed her arms across her chest as she said this in a very serious manner. Everyone but Rosalie immediately roared with laughter, as the beautiful vampire's expression remained that of shock. Rosalie's jaw had dropped slightly and Alice couldn't help but to give Bella a kiss on her cute little button nose, already getting over how she missed Bella's first time shopping.
"Oh Bella…" Alice cooed as she nuzzled her face into Bella's warm neck.
"Allie! That tickles!" Bella giggled adorably as she tried to push Alice away from the sensitive spot on her neck. Rosalie tried her hardest to not give in at the cute little human but her restraint failed and she immediately forgave Bella for unintentionally ridiculing her in front of all the other vampires.
"Emmett, Edward, Jasper! Go unload the car!" she turned her attention to the boys in the room. The three vampires instantly groaned before standing up and running out through the front door. They all knew better than to mess with the ice queen. Everyone in the family knew that it was only Bella that could get away with anything.
"And there goes the three musketeers!" Bella joked in a singsong voice before everyone broke out into another round of laughter, even the boys were laughing outside as they began to unload the car.
Disclaimers: I do not own Twilight. That is all.