Hey, sorry about the wait! I know it's been about two weeks. School work is becoming increasingly demanding, as we only have a few weeks left before exams start and the teachers are trying to kill us with work. This is my final year, where the exams really matter, so I can't skirt my responsibilities on these ones! Otherwise, I may end up writing fanfic for a living (while that would be enjoyable, it wouldn't be the best source of income).

So, pretending that I actually do post on a weekly basis, for the foreseeable future, I cannot commit to any discernible posting schedule. Of course, I will still try to work to a chapter a week, but it might not always work out.

I just wanted to give you all a heads up on what's happening.

Again, a huge thanks to everyone how reads and favorites, especially those who review. Again, all the ladies on the thread, I love you all :). If you weren't all there, I think I would lose a lot of my motivation for writing this story. Thanks for vjgm, again. I think I'm still reeling the the fact that you picked this story to work with in the beginning.

Now, on to the chapter (finally!). Hope you guys like it.

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

Chapter 9

Alice sat, content in her stubborn fury, in silence. With an occasional sip from her coffee, she would wrinkle her nose first at the taste, close her eyes when she swallowed and then sigh, as if a large weight was being lifted from her shoulders.

Then she would return to glowering.

Under normal circumstances Edward would have been quick to deem this behavior as petulant, but not today, because he was doing the same thing.

Since her short and muttered "thank-you" when she got into the car, barely one word had passed between the brother and sister, except to order coffee.

Alice had even refused to surrender to voicing her opinion when Edward called Esme to tell her that they'd both be home late, without an explanation. Her mouth had twitched uncomfortably when he hung up the phone, but she still hadn't said anything.

When he kept driving all the way to Port Angeles, Alice persisted in keeping her mouth tightly shut. She nodded a few times when he pulled into the parking lot of a small cafe, showing that she knew exactly what Edward was doing.

Even though his plan had not been particularly stealthy, Edward still hoped it would be effective.

The waitress came over to their table again, refilling Edward's cup for a third time. He wasn't usually a heavy coffee drinker, but it gave him something to do while he waited for Alice to relent.

"Would you like another," the waitress offered Alice when she saw that her cup was also empty.

"No, thank-you," Alice said with a smile. She drew impatient circles around the top of the white, ceramic cup with her index finger. At this point, Edward knew he was going to have to initiate the conversation, if there was ever going to be one at all.

He swallowed his drink and placed the cup in the saucer with a steady hand; Alice's eyes followed his movement while her finger continued to makes rings around the rim of her cup.

"Don't make me do it." His voice was level, and too serious for his subject matter. It was what he was going for, and Alice responded accordingly. She sat up straight, shoulder's back and her chin lifted. But with all of these defensive moves came a tell-tale air of curiosity.

"Do what?"

Edward sighed for dramatic effect and leaned in closer, his arm on the table. "Don't make me succumb to listening to the sordid second-hand gossip that I heard during class, and please, tell me exactly what happened between you and Rosalie."

Her mouth curved, and a something between a laugh and a sigh escaped her lips. Lifting her hands to meet each other, she began to fiddle with the rings on her fingers.

"It's a pretty straight forward story," she said, the half-smile still playing on her lips.

"Humor me."

When Alice launched into her account of the eventful morning in Gym, Edward started to relax, but something was still wrong. While Alice was talking, her physical actions seemed restrained on some level.

Typically, any mention of Rosalie was accompanied by a narrowing of her eyes, any description of her retaliatory actions was marked by a smug lifting of an eyebrow and any derogatory comment about Coach Clapp's ineptitude was followed by an exasperated sigh. However, with each of these mannerisms, there was also an occasional drop of her shoulders, an aversion of her eyes or a downturn of her mouth.

"And then you both got equal punishment?" Edward supplied when Alice paused for a prolonged second.

"Yes, one detention." Alice rolled her eyes, and Edward knew she saw the sanction as nothing more than an annoyance.

"And was it worth it?" he asked, knowing the answer. He knew that the one genuine emotion he could pull from Alice at the moment was anger.

"Yes," she said definitively.

Edward laughed easily and leaned back in the booth. Yet another silence swept over them, as each knew exactly what needed to be said, but neither wanted to be the one doing the talking.

Not knowing just how to approach the situation, Edward summarized his thoughts of the day. Without Alice to talk to, there had been a lot of them.

Was he angry? Well, he had been this morning, that was obvious, but the more he thought about it, the more the doubt about Alice's motives ebbed.

Was he embarrassed? Ashamed? To an extent, he was both of these things. When he saw Bella chatting with Jasper outside the cafeteria, he couldn't prevent the foreign blush from rushing to his cheeks. He hurried past them, with a token smile in Bella's direction, only to sit by himself for the whole of lunch, wondering where Alice was.

Was he guilty? Yes.

There was no other way around it. It was clear to see from Alice's actions that there was something wrong with her, something on her mind. This was made manifest when Edward got wind of the fight with Rosalie. It was shocking, out of character, and an obvious sign that Alice was troubled.

When he cast his mind back over the last few days, trying to pinpoint any foreshadowing of Alice's erratic behaviour, the guilt really came down. Hard. Edward had not been paying any attention to Alice since the night of the party. The night she had helped him, the night she had prepared him for, the night she had come with him, just so he wouldn't have to face it alone. Even though it had been against her wishes to ask Bella to go, Alice stood by his decision, and listened to his reasons. She had understood.

"Edward, are you alright?" Alice looked concerned, even through her remaining resentment. She studied his face with worry, her eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "You look kind of... tortured." Her face smoothed, showing that her words weren't to be taken literally.

"I'm fine." Edward paused, unsure of where to take this conversation. He didn't want to get into anything really heavy while they were still sitting in this cafe. It wasn't very large, so the solitary waitress was quite close. "I feel... it's nothing big, I just... I don't know how to say-" Edward sighed loudly. Admitting that he had been wrong was much harder than he'd anticipated. His head hurt, and he massaged the bridge of his nose in a futile effort to clear his thoughts.

Alice folded her arms across her chest, Edward's pitiful attempt at reassurance failing horribly. The lines of concern were once again etched on her face.

The feeling of inevitable defeat championing him, Edward gave up on trying to voice his own feelings, and chose an alternative tactic.

"How are you? Good?" he asked.

Seeming to understand where he was going, Alice shrugged. "How good can I be? I just got into a fist fight with my mortal enemy and spent my lunch hiding in the library." She barely blinked when she stared him down again. Edward knew he could trust Alice to give him a direct answer.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that doesn't make much sense." Edward ran his hands through his hair, pulling at a few strands. He avoided Alice's eyes, the guilt once again consuming him. Leaning his head in his palm, his arm still propped up by his elbow, Edward pulled his coffee cup towards him, just for something to do in the silence. "Help me out here, Alice," he pleaded, still not meeting her eyes.

"Why should I?" Her voice was cold. Finally looking up at her, Edward saw her swallow.

"Because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing." He held his eyes steady with hers. The words he hadn't even known were true found their voice, and the realization of this made his stomach sink.

Thankfully, the look on Alice's face was no the pride he had been expected.

"Me neither," she said softly. "Honestly, there is nothing in this for me anymore." Edward just stared at her, dumbfounded. After a moment's waiting, Alice laughed.

"What?"

She smiled at him, her eyes whole demeanor much softer now. "I think I expected some tears, but apparently I'm all out today."

The laughter didn't stop, and eventually Edward joined in. Alice was shaking her head.

"How did we get ourselves into this situation?" she said, her giggles subsiding.

"It certainly wasn't intentional," Edward said truthfully.

"Really, though. We'd always been so good at avoiding this kind of drama before, but since we moved to Forks we haven't been able to avoid it! Now look at the mess we're in."

"One clueless, emotional girl," said Edward.

"And one blind, love-struck boy," Alice retorted. "We're like a living cliche."

Edward couldn't help but smile at the irony. For what had started as a broken, despondent group of people, to turn into a typical american family was no easy task. Pulling his wallet from his pocket, Edward threw the required payment on the table.

"Come on, sister," he said, with much more energy than he'd had all day, "let's go back to out stay-at-home mother, and over-worked father."

Alice smiled at him, and took his arm as he led her out the door.

The drama was by no means over. In fact, it was inescapable. But with two less players, something had to be easier.

The ride home was just as quiet as it's counterpart journey, but it was noticeably more comfortable.

"I was wondering when you two would make an appearance," Esme greeted them when they walked in the door. She was seated with Carlisle on the sofa, her feet up and a glass on wine in her hand.

"Ssh, ssh, I'm trying to listen to this," said Carlisle, increasing the volume on the television with the controller.

Esme rolled her eyes at him and whispered to Alice and Edward, "Your dinner's warming the oven."

Once they were sitting with their plates in front of them, Edward felt more free to speak opening with Alice.

"So, are we going to call an official ceasefire?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

"You know that's impossible," said Alice, her face deadpan. Edward nodded in agreement. "No matter what we say, there's no way they are going to give this up . Rosalie is much too determined. Besides, now her personal vendetta against me will be even more vindictive; I still have some of her hair on my gym shorts."

"And Jasper?"

The forkful of food Alice had been lifting to her mouth halted, and she set it back on the plate again. She pursed her lips, her expression thoughtful.

"Jasper. He had his own motives. Whether or not he likes Bella as a person is not the issue." She stopped, her eyes glazing over. Edward would have questioned this reaction, but he was just glad they were talking again. Blinking rapidly, she continued, "I meant what I said earlier, Edward. They're still going to treat this as a competition, where Bella is the prize."

Edward grimaced, remembering how he once saw Bella like that, too. Reduced to a trophy, he had actually believed she was nothing to him.

"Don't worry about it, things are different now," Alice said in her soothing, maternal tone.

"When did this all become so serious?"

Alice sighed and said with a heavy voice, "When feelings became involved."

When Edward looked up from his plate, Alice was still looking vaguely over his shoulder. Her shoulders dropped again in another sigh. She shook her head and rubbed the back of her short hair with her hand. Giving Edward a small smile.

"Maybe the only thing we can do it stop plotting? Let things take their course. Act like normal teenagers for once."

Edward raised a mocking skeptical eyebrow. "Do you think we can pull it off?" He smiled at her, lifting both of their plates from the kitchen table. Jumping out of her chair, Alice lifted a leftover piece of chicken from her plate and popped it in her mouth.

"It's definitely going to be a challenge," she said, lifting herself so she was sitting on the countertop. She swung her legs, watching while Edward cleared up.

"You don't feel like helping?" He knew he was pushing his limits today, asking her to help him.

"You owe me," she said simply, giving him a exaggerated smile. Edward admitted defeat and continued with his cleaning.

"So," Alice began just as Edward was finishing up. Her voice was cautious and Edward instinctively knew where this was heading. "Did you talk to her today?"

With no doubt as to who the "her" referred to, Edward's back stiffened as he put the place settings into the drawer.

"No, we were watching a video in Biology. I didn't get the chance," he said in a dull tone.

"What about lunch?" Alice persisted, and her genuine interest revived the guilt within Edward.

"You weren't the only one eating lunch alone today."

Alice looked at him, her eyes wide. As much as he had tried, Edward could not mask the disappointment in his voice.

"Oh, Edward, you cleaned up. Wonderful!" Esme entered the kitchen, and placed her empty wine glass on the table. She turned to face her daughter. "Edward, Carlisle wants to show you something in the other room."

Alice's eyes widened over Esme's head, begging from him to stay as understanding dawned.

"Edward, your father," Esme prompted with an air of warning. Edward shrugged helplessly at Alice. As he turned to leave, Alice shooting him daggers, he could still hear Esme. "I received a very interesting phone call from the school this morning, would you care to explain?"

When Edward walked into the living room, Carlisle was engrossed in the program he was watching. Laughing to him, Edward walked past him and up the stairs.

Reflecting on what he had discussed with Alice, Edward didn't know what he was going to do next. He wanted to follow Alice's advice; not to plan anything. However, for him, that just wasn't possible. Whether Edward followed his plans or not, he always felt more confident if he had one.

As he started on his homework, he couldn't stop himself from wondering what it would be like if the ridiculous rift between them and the Hales didn't exist. If Bella had just come into school, a normal girl, and Edward was just the normal guy. If they was no drama. If he could talk to her in class without worries of ulterior motives. If he could romance her the way he wanted, and not have to continually watch over his shoulder, waiting for Jasper to make a move.

His thoughts didn't take him every far, for, no matter how much he wanted to believe that he could have something with Bella, something devoid of drama, there was one common theme that governed each of his dreams, stopping him from believing that they could be reality.

End of Chapter 9

If.