[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] I feel like I always tend to get most creative when I'm feeling miserable. At least, my readers get to have something out of it. Can I get a hug? I really need one right now.

Today's update is dedicated to femslashfan and xXhiddenbeautyXP

**9**

The Hale's were a family that talked about everything. Yet they talked about nothing at all. Lucy Hale had done her best to raise her three children on her own after her husband's tragic death. She was strict, yes, but it was only for the kids own benefit. One day, they would be grateful for that.

"Don't put that much butter on your carrots, sweetie." She told her daughter. "That's unnecessary fat."

Rosalie dropped her fork. It annoyed her beyond words when Lucy used to make a comment about her eating habits. She was far from being overweight. So, it simply wasn't necessary to supervise every bite she made. It was unnecessary and she hated it.

Right now though, Rosalie felt like not eating anymore at all. She was too nervous. Inside her stomach was a tingly sensation that was impossible to ignore. Every time she thought about the kiss, well, the almost kiss with Bella, those tingles were there.

The problem was that Rosalie had no idea what she was supposed to make of this feeling. Would kissing Bella feel different from kissing a man? Would her mouth feel as soft against her lips as it had felt against her fingertip? Would she enjoy kissing Bella? And if she would enjoy it, what would that say about her. About, who she was?

"Now you killed her appetite, Mom." Jasper mumbled, lifting his glass to his mouth to take a sip from the water.

"It won't do any damage if she skips a meal or two." Lucy stated. "I'm sure she wants to look her best on her big day." When she said that, Lucy's eyes began to fill with tears. Her little girl had grown up and now she was actually going to get married. Married to a doctor on top of it, she added happily in her head. "I can't wait to see you in my dress."

Lucy would also have loved to see her daughter become a famous model or an actress. She had worked so hard for that goal. If Rosalie only hadn't been so terribly sullen as a child. Lucy was sure that her Rosalie would have made it at least to Miss Junior America. Oh all those missed chances. It was too sad.

Emmett coughed. "Yeah, Mom, you better make sure Rosie doesn't look fat or elsewise the Doc is going to make a run in the last moment."

With a swift movement, Rosalie smacked her older brother against the back of his head. "Stop laughing. It's not funny."

Lucy cleared her throat. "Your sister is right. I don't want any of that behavior at the rehearsal next Saturday."

A flicker of panic spread through Rosalie. For a moment she felt like she couldn't breathe. The wedding was getting closer. She knew that she was supposed to be happy. But she was just nervous. Maybe it was normal to be nervous as a bride to be. She was getting cold feet and she didn't like that feeling one tiny bit. Nervously she started playing around with her engagement ring. She didn't even like diamonds. Rosalie liked sapphires. Diamonds were cold somehow.

"Can I bring my Date to the wedding rehearsal?" Jasper asked, running his fingertip over the edge of his glass.

"You have a date?" Emmett asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Is it a he or she?"

"She," his younger brother answered giving Emmett a dirty look. "Rose, can I bring her?"

Rosalie nodded her head. "Sure, why not. We just need to tell the hotel how many people are going to stay overnight."

"I bring a date too, if Jazz brings someone. Usually I would hook up with one of the bridesmaids but as Vera is pregnant and Bella—"

"You'll stay the fuck away from Bella." Rosalie snapped. "She's not one of your sluts."

Emmett laughed and Lucy rolled her eyes. She knew her kids loved each other. The constant teasing was their way of showing it.

"It's so great that you've found yourself a nice girl, Jazzy." Lucy said, secretly relieved that her youngest son's gay phase seemed to be over now. "Where did you meet her?"

"Asylum." Jasper mumbled, stuffing some fries between his lips. "I met her at the asylum."

"Well, a chick must be crazy if she agreed to go out with you." Emmett chuckled.

"She's not a patient there." Jasper sighs. "Alice was there for Professor Hunter's lecture course just like I was. I poured coffee over her shoes accidentally. Did you know that there are shoes out there that cost over 300 bucks?"

"Good things are always pricey. Anyway, darling, I'm sure, she's a nice girl. I'm looking forward to meet her." Lucy stated. "Rose, sweetheart, why don't you help me with the dessert now?" she asked, standing up from her chair. "I bought some fresh pineapple."

Rosalie hated pineapple. The only fruits she liked were red apples and strawberries. She was sure that Lucy knew about that. Still, she forced her lips into a smile before she followed her mother into the kitchen.

"Mom, I'm getting really nervous about the wedding." Rosalie said, while she pulled out some plates. "Maybe we should wait until next year."

The knife Lucy was holding slide through the pineapple in front of her. Was Rosalie having second thoughts? If, yes she needed to do something against it.

"Darling, that's perfectly normal. Every bride feels like this before she gets married."

Rosalie held up the first plate so that Lucy could put a slice of pineapple on it. "It's so soon. Everyone says that."

"Who is everyone?" Lucy snarled. "If luck comes to you, you need to hold on to it and don't push it away."

She took a deep breath and sighed. "I wish your father would still be here. Seeing you getting married was his greatest wish."

It was right then that Rosalie knew she had no way out of the wedding. You can't disappoint your dead father like that, can you?

xxxx

Bella had spent a very boring morning and most of the afternoon scanning a never ending pile of old police records. The mindless work gave her too much time to think about things Bella didn't want to think about.

In her head, she replayed the scene again and again. Rosalie's soft caress on her lips, how her best friend had pulled her closer and then…nothing. And it was good that nothing had happened. Experimenting with your friends was something okay to do when you were still a teenager. But she and Rose were both adults. None of them had ever been interested in women. Bella couldn't imagine any woman to be prettier than her best friend. A shiver went down Bella's spine when she remembered how it had felt like to have her hands on Rosalie's breasts. They had felt soft and full and simply perfect.

The tripping of heels on the linoleum floor interrupted Bella's day dreaming.

"Can I help you, Ma'am?" she asked, looking up from her desk. The woman in front of her was pretty. Pretty, in the nerdy bookworm kind of way, not in the way Rosalie was beautiful. Rose, oh, why couldn't she stop thinking about her at all?

Pushing her white-framed glasses up a bit higher, the tall woman cleared her throat. "I'm here to press charges. Someone has smeared something all over my car."

Bella stood up. "I'm very sorry to hear that. Let me pull up the necessary form. It must be over here somewhere."

She pulled the sheet of paper out and started nibbling on the end of her pen. "I need your personal information first."

"My name is Angela. Angela Weber. Look, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come here. The kids probably didn't mean to do any harm. I don't want them to get into trouble."

"Kids?" Bella asked, scrawling down Angela's name on the paper. "You think some kids did it?"

"Being a teacher doesn't exactly make you popular." Angela stated with a embarrassed smile on her heart-shaped face. "Today was my first day. Maybe this was supposed to be a little welcome joke?"

"Damaging other people's property is not a joke." Bella said. "Did you bring the car here with you? I'd like to take a look at how bad it is."

Walking outside, Bella tried to remember if she had ever played any jokes to her teachers during her school years. She couldn't remember it.

"See," Angela mumbled, pointing towards the left side of her Toyota. "There it is. Coach Heartless. I've never been called heartless before in my life."

Bella couldn't suppress a giggle. It was highly unprofessional and she knew it. "I'm sorry. Let's take a picture for evidence and then we can try to get off the paint."

A few minutes later the red color that had been smeared on Angela Weber's car had been washed off without leaving any traces. Bella almost felt like she had known the shy, young woman all her life. Angela was the kind of person who tended to tell you a bit too much too soon. Bella had learned that she was divorced, saving up for a laser surgery to fix her eyes and had just moved to Forks to start over new. Starting over new was something Bella could rely to.

"I'm sorry. " Angela whispered. "I've been talking and talking, stealing all your precious time."

"That's what we are here for." Bella responded. Technically it was not the job of the local police to listen to people's life stories. Charlie had made it clear to her thought that sometimes talking was everything people needed to feel a little safer. "Let me know if something happens with your car again."

"I will. Thank you for everything, Officer Swan."

When Angela drove off, Bella walked back inside the police department. She sat down at her desk and connected the camera she had taken the pictures with to her laptop.

For a moment she hesitated. Then she opened a new email and typed. "I think that was for meant for you, Couch Heartless." She wrote. "PS: You owe the police of Forks a new can of paint remover. Hugs Bella. PS2: Take care of your sis for me. She's stressing herself with this wedding thing."

Bella hit sent and returned to her never-ending work of scanning and more scanning. Charlie owed her big for letting her do this stupid work. Grabbing the next envelope in the box, she realized it was empty. Great, now she would end up looking for missing files too.

Turning the envelope around to take a closer look, Bella's eyes widened. Officer J. Hale it said. Case closed, read the red seal on top of it.

Poor Hale family, Bella thought, searching through the box. Maybe the content of the envelope had fallen out. "There it is." Bella mumbled, grabbing the blue colored folder. There were pictures in it, several pictures that had been made with a Polaroid camera.

Bella could feel her stomach beginning to heave. Yes, she had seen pictures of dead people before. At the police academy they had gone through several interesting murder cases. She had never seen a man's head blown into pulp, though. Next to Jasper Senior's dead body was a bloody footprint. How much easier would it have made Charlie's work if they had found a fingerprint instead?

She scanned the pictures and sighed deeply. How much did Rosalie and her family know about Jasper's death, Bella wondered.

"Pearl-earring." The young police officer muttered. "The record states they've found a pearl-earring at the crime scene."

Looking down at the Polaroid of the footprint again, she shook her head. The footprint was definitely that of a man. "Why hasn't anyone noticed that before?" Bella called out in surprise. "There is no way this footprint and that earring belong to the same person."