A/N: First of all, I'm incredibly sorry for the long wait. But I have good news! I have a job as substitute teacher since October and then, on February 1, I'll begin my further education to become a real teacher (here in Germany you first have to go to university to study two subjects and then stuff like psychology, pedagogic and so on, and then, once you've got your degree, you'll go on to your preparation, which means that you'll be further educated to become a teacher in school by being a teacher. You have a mentor and tests and all that stuff that help you to become better, and this is what I'll start coming February.).

Second, I just loved your reviews! I was a bit worried about how you would react to Dawn's reaction and her story and I'm glad to you like it! I just hope you're still here with me, to read what's going to happen in rest of the story, starting with this chapter:

Vision

„And you're sure that you don't know this girl and that you have never seen her before?" Mr. Giles asked as he placed his glasses once again on the bridge of his nose and returned his attention to the small notebook in his hands.

"Other than in my dream the night before, no," I told him, and everyone else who was present.

It was around noon and we had been at the Cullen's house for not even fifteen minutes, and already I had had to recount the contents of that dream and the similar dreams I'd had before for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

When I woke up screaming because of the dream – a shudder still ran through me, when I remembered the ominous dark line and the girl's warning words – Edward immediately hugged me tightly against his chest, which effectively muffled my scream so that Charlie wouldn't wake up. My whole body was shaking, but he was rubbing gentle circles on my back and whispered soothing words into my ear, so that I quickly relaxed in his embrace.

Once I had calmed down enough I expected Edward to ask me what was wrong, but he surprised me by simply stating that it was just a bad dream and that I should go to sleep again. I wanted to protest, as I saw the extremely worried look on his face, but he just said that I could tell him about the dream later, if I wanted to. And then, before I could open my mouth again, he gently laid me back down on my bed and curled himself around me, all the while humming my lullaby so insistently that I couldn't help but relax further. My eyes closed almost on their own volition and I fell again into a fitful sleep shortly after. It was still dark outside, after all, and my exhaustion of the previous days still too great, so that not even a nightmare could keep me awake for long.

I hadn't known then that my dream would become the topic of a hot discussion just a few hours later.

After having fallen asleep again, I didn't dream again, but I remembered that I woke up every so often, until the light grey sky outside told me that it was day and probably later than I'd expected. Actually, if it hadn't been for the voices and noise from the hallway, added to the fact that Edward wasn't lying next to me, I doubted I would have woken up at that time.

Groggily, I climbed out of my bed and stumbled to the door. A quick glance to my alarm clock told me that it was almost eleven o'clock in the morning, which meant that all the stuff for the bathroom must have arrived already. And with this realization, I wasn't really that surprised to see Esme and Alice in full working gear standing in the hall outside my room, obviously already expecting me. Of course, only vampires could make a dark blue overall look like something that belonged on a catwalk. Edward was still nowhere to be seen, but I wasn't worried. My spider sense told me that he was near – downstairs to be more precise.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Alice chirped with a bright smile on her face. "I hope we didn't wake you."

"Morning," I mumbled, still a bit sleepily, effectively ignoring her unasked question, when both she and I knew exactly that they were part of the reason why I had woken up. "Since when have you been here?"

"Oh, for about an hour…" Alice replied grinning widely. "If we had worked at vampire speed, we would have been finished already, but this is just sooo much fun that we decided to do this just a tad bit faster than you humans would do it."

"Uh-uh," I just muttered again, marveling again at Alice's enthusiasm. "I-I think I'm just gonna get some breakfast. You two go ahead with whatever you've been doing."

"Of course, Bella," Esme said with a gentle smile. "You must be starving after having slept for so long. And I think we'll be finished before Charlie returns from work, so you two will have a brand new and fully functional bathroom by tonight."

"That'd be great," I told her with an appreciative smile, though I still felt a bit bad that they were doing this for us. After all, it had been me who had destroyed the shower, so it should be me who had to pay for the damage. But I just knew what the Cullens would say, if I told them this – that I was a part of their family and that their money was my money. So there was no way that I'd be able to persuade them to let me pay for it from my own money.

I watched, as both Alice and Esme went back into the bathroom, before I went down the stairs and into the kitchen. Halfway down, I could already smell the delicious scents of breakfast – eggs, bacon and toast were just a few of the scents that I could make out. All those scents let my stomach grumble in anticipation. Esme was right – I really was starving. I hurried down the last few steps and I wasn't surprised that it was Edward who was standing at the stove, with Dawn sitting at the kitchen table, still in her pajamas. She was already munching on a piece of toast and the two of them were laughing about something.

"Good morning," I greeted them, much more cheerfully than I had greeted Alice and Esme upstairs. I skipped up to Edward, who was expecting me with a warm, but slightly worried smile. Hoping that he wouldn't touch the subject of my dream last night, I gave him a quick good morning kiss and then slumped down on an empty chair at the kitchen table and asked, "So, what's for breakfast? The human is hungry."

"I have eggs," Edward told me, as he handed me a plate filled with them and then joined us at the table. "Just as you like them."

"Thanks!" Hoping to appease my grumbling stomach – by now, even the non-vampires in this house could hear it – I began eating my eggs. Edward was right, they were just as I liked them. After having devoured the first few bites, I turned my attention to Dawn, who was finished with her breakfast and was now cradling her mug of hot cocoa in her hands. "Did you sleep well, Dawn?"

"Uh-hu," she nodded, grinning. "You were right. The couch is really comfy and it was nice not having to share a house with twenty other teenagers. And how was your night?" Dawn winked at me, which caused my face to heat up again immediately.

"I-uh…" I hesitated for a second, not really knowing if I should tell her about my weird dream. A dream which still caused me to shiver. "I didn't sleep that well. I had a nightmare."

"Ooh…" Dawn's eyes went wide, as she suddenly began to look slightly excited. "Was it a normal nightmare or of the Slayer dream variety?"

"Slayer dream?" Edward asked her, his voice sounding both curious and wary. His eyes immediately darkened, as he listened to Dawn's thought and I became slightly worried myself.

Nodding again, Dawn clarified, "Prophetic dreams. They're usually really cryptic and… weird. They're warnings to the Slayer about something that will happen. Buffy had a couple of those in the last few years and they usually foreshadowed nothing good. So, was it a normal dream you had, or a Slayer dream?"

I didn't know what to say, as both Dawn and Edward looked at me expectantly. None of them knew the contents of my dream and now, after I had heard Dawn's description of a Slayer dream, I wasn't so sure anymore, if I wanted them to know. Because all those things she said matched my dream exactly. Weird – check. Cryptic – double check. Prophetic – I didn't know, yet, but certainly hoped not. If it was, Dawn was right again, because whatever was advancing towards me in my dream wasn't good.

"Bella?" Edward's concerned whisper tore me out of my thoughts. He took my hand and entwined his fingers with mine. "What is it?"

I raised my head and looked into his butterscotch colored eyes. "Slayer dream." My voice shook in fear and immediately I felt Edward's strong arms around me, pulling me on his lap and holding me tightly against his chest. I hadn't wanted to believe it, but the moment those words had left my mouth, I knew them to be true. This dream was, as Dawn had put it, foreshadowing something that would threaten my family – again. When would it ever stop?

With my face buried in Edward's chest, I only heard the light footsteps nearly flying down the stairs and a hushed conversation much too quiet and quickly to understand for humans.

"Bella," Dawn's quiet voice caused me to look up again. Just as I had suspected, Alice and Esme had joined us in the kitchen, both of them looking extremely worried. "What was this dream about?"

My whole body was trembling, but Edward's supporting hold on me gave me the strength to tell them about the dream. "We-we were on the field… where you guys fought Victoria's army. And there were growls and a dark line… and a girl. She kept warning me that they were coming…"

"They? Who?"

"I don't know." I shook my head, answering Edward's question. "I really don't know."

"Hush… Everything will be alright," Edward tried to comfort me, as I saw Dawn get up from the chair and disappear for a moment in the living room, until she returned with her mobile phone to her ear just a few seconds later. "She's calling Giles. I think it's best if we went over to our house and talk about this in detail."

I nodded numbly, only vaguely registering Dawn's worried voice talking into her cell phone, as Edward was already lifting me effortlessly into his arms and carrying me upstairs. He must have done that at vampire speed, because one moment we were still in the kitchen and in the next, I was sitting on my bed, with Edward going through my closet, obviously trying to find something for me to wear.

Mortified, I immediately jumped up again, as he neared my underwear drawer. "I can do this!" I squeaked. Edward looked at me questioningly, and my face heated up. "You-you should go help Alice and Esme finish the bathroom… I'm sure they want to come, too."

Edward was still regarding me with a puzzled and worried look on his face. "Are you sure?"

Nodding eagerly, I replied, "Yes, I'm sure. I'll see you in a few minutes…"

"Alright." If it was possible for a vampire to move reluctantly, Edward was doing this at that very moment, as he slowly pressed his lips against my forehead and almost even more slowly left my room and closed the door behind him.

I breathed a sigh of relief, once he was gone, the blush still staining my cheek, as I thought about what Edward might have discovered in my underwear drawer. I had been on too many shopping trips with Alice lately, during which she had always bought me some sexy underwear that I would never wear. I really didn't want Edward to see it. It would be far too embarrassing.

And at least that moment had completely taken my mind of the matter at hand – the dream – which now came back at full force. I shook my head. Wallowing and despairing wouldn't help me. I was a fighter now, I had to act. And this would begin with getting a grip on myself and my emotions and get dressed.

Edward had already thrown my favorite pair of jeans onto the bed, along with a blue T-Shirt, which I put on after I had gotten dressed in clean underwear. A quick run with my brush through my hair and I pulled it into a knot at my neck. Now I just needed to brush my teeth and I was ready to go.

With my toothbrush in my hand, I rushed down the stairs to find Dawn already leaning over the kitchen sink with her own toothbrush in her mouth. When she saw me, she grinned slightly and moved to the side so that we both could use the sink. Just as we both were rinsing our mouth, my three vampires came down the stairs, not looking at all as if they had just renovated a whole bathroom within a couple of minutes.

"You're done already?" Dawn asked, stunned. At Alice's nod, Dawn brushed past me and ran up the stairs, only to yell, "Whoa! That's sooo cool! I mean, I knew you guys were fast, but this… wow!"

Even I was a bit surprised, although I knew that my vampires were really fast. But then again, I hadn't seen what Alice and Esme had already done before I had woken up. Curious, I followed Dawn upstairs – if we didn't have those few minutes, I was sure Alice or Edward would say something – and stopped dead in my tracks, once I was standing in the doorframe. This didn't look like our old bathroom at all.

Everything was new. The toilet, the sink, the cabinets and the shower itself of course. The shower looked so modern, with so many buttons and extras that I momentarily wasn't sure, if Charlie knew what to do with all of them. The tiles were white and light blue, making the whole room a lot lighter. I was sure that, once he had gotten over being overwhelmed by this, Charlie would like it.

"You've done a great job," I told Alice, Esme and Edward, who had followed us upstairs.

"Thank you, Bella… and thank you for giving us the chance to do this for you and for Charlie," Esme told me.

"Now, this is all really great," Dawn suddenly said, sounding urgent. "But I'd really appreciate it, if you'd give me some space."

The three vampires exchanged quick confused glances, until I mouthed 'human minute' to them with a grin on my face. Realization dawned on their faces and they at least had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "Honestly," I said with a mock grin, "one would think that having a human around most of the time would give you an inkling of what we need."

"We apologize, Dawn," Edward said, pointedly ignoring my grin, though his lips were also pulled slightly upwards. "Take all the time you need. We will wait downstairs for you."

Dawn nodded and closed the door directly in their faces. I chuckled and used the chance to take Edward's hand and pull him away from the bathroom and back downstairs into the kitchen.

"That was so embarrassing!" I heard Esme mumble, as she and Alice walked behind us. "I can't believe I forgot something like this!"

"Don't worry, Esme," I reassured her. "I'm sure Dawn understands, what with you not having that… need."

"But what about you, Bella?" Esme's motherly side was now fully active. "Do you also need a human minute?"

Edward chuckled, as my face flamed red again and I shook my head. "No, I'm fine, thanks."

Thankfully, I was saved by Dawn, as she came back down, and we were ready to go, the mood around us suddenly turning much more serious again.

And that's how we came to sit in the Cullen's living room, Edward's arm around my shoulder and, surprisingly, Rosalie sitting on my other side, with me having told everyone what I remembered of the dream. It had been hard to remember the details, and I was sure that I had forgotten something, but it couldn't be that important, right? Twice, a strange girl with darker skin had appeared in my dream and the second time she had warned me that someone was coming. Twice, I heard growls in the distance and twice I saw a dark line approach. I had relayed all of this to Mr. Giles and the Cullens, but none of them seemed to know what it might mean.

Other than the fact that there might be someone out there, who will attack us.

"But," Xander finally broke the silence that had settled, after I had answered some questions, "I still don't get what this girl in your dream was talking about. Who is coming? What is it they don't like? And who will see what?"

It was Alice, who answered him, "I think I know what this dream wants to say with the last part. I guess I'm the one who will see… and what? I can only think of what will happen and who will come."

"That makes sense," Carisle mumbled in agreement. "At least a part of this riddle is solved. As for the others, I hope time will tell, if no one else has any idea what Bella's dream could mean."

"Before it's too late," Rosalie muttered next to me, loud enough for everyone to hear, just as she had apparently wanted it to be. Once every gaze was directed at her, my surprised one included, she said, "So you're basically saying that we have no other choice but to wait until Alice has her vision or something else happens? What if this… threat is suddenly on our doorstep?"

"Alice will see it before it happens," Carlisle tried to reassure her.

"You can't be sure of that," Rosalie contradicted. "We're dealing with something completely new here. Alice didn't see what happened to Bella, she can't see the dogs, so what makes you think that she can see this? Why don't we ask our guests how they usually deal with situations like this?" She looked pointedly at Mr. Giles, Willow and Xander, raising an eyebrow, as they didn't answer at once. "After all, if everything they've told us is true, they've been dealing with this quite regularly."

"Hey! Everything is true!" Willow spoke up indignantly. "And we always do some research. We're really good at research."

I almost smiled at Willow's tendency to babble when she was nervous, but the situation was too serious. And if I was honest, I was really interested in the answer to Rosalie's question. As much as I loved Alice, I knew that her visions weren't infallible, no matter how much we wished they were. The wolves were just one example of how her visions failed. And if Mr. Giles could somehow figure out, what we were up against, I'd be really grateful.

"Could you do that?" I asked hopefully. "Could you find information about this by researching my dream?"

Another nervous habit I had noticed among our guests was that Mr. Giles often cleaned his glasses, as he was doing again now, as he answered my question, "It might be possible. But your situation is, if I may put it that way, quite unique, so I can't say for sure, if there is something we can find out by doing simple research. There might, however, be a prophecy."

"A prophecy?" Edward asked and immediately his whole body tensed up against mine, as he obviously heard something in their thoughts that he didn't like.

I turned around in his embrace. "Edward? What's wrong? Tell me. What's this about a prophecy?"

"Nothing," he hissed through clenched teeth, but as I followed his gaze, I saw him glaring at Xander.

"Xander?" I asked immediately. Edward was getting overprotective again, but I needed answers. "What are you thinking?"

Shaking his head slightly, Xander said, "That nothing good ever comes out of a prophecy. Prophecies have told us more than once that the world would end and one even predicted Buffy's death. But until now, we have somehow managed to avert them. The world hasn't ended, yet, and Buffy is still alive."

"So you think that, if we figure out what this dream means for me, we could keep it from coming true, or maybe fight it?" I wanted to know.

Xander just shrugged with a slight grin on his face. "It's what we do. So don't worry, Bella. We'll find a way out of this. I promise."

The sincerity in his eye and his voice helped me to relax a bit. "And what do we do now?"

To answer my question, Dawn jumped up from the chair she was sitting on and grinned at me brightly with an eagerness that was slightly scary. "We'll do some research."

"Yesss!" Emmett jumped up and pumped his fist in the air. "Finally some action around here. It was slowly getting boring."

"Uhm, Emmett," Jasper cleared his throat. "You do realize that you will need to read a lot of books to do research."

It was almost comical to watch Emmett's face fall at those words. "Oh nooo!"

And it wasn't just me, who was thinking this, as Dawn burst out laughing and walked up to him to pat his shoulder in pity. "Don't worry, Em… It isn't that bad to read through countless dusty old books, which are written in languages that most humans have never heard of. You'll get used to it and might learn something. Just take me as example – since I've begun to help with the research, I've become nearly fluent in Sumerian and some other ancient languages."

Emmett just looked at her as if she'd grown a third head, with wide eyes and an open mouth. I had never seen a vampire this flabbergasted and even though I was also stunned by Dawn's revelation – ancient languages, honestly? - , I couldn't help it any longer. I laughed with Dawn and soon the rest of the Cullens and Dawn's friends joined in. In the end even Emmett saw the humor in the situation and began to shake in raucous laughter.

After the decision to find out what my dream could mean by doing research, the next three days passed almost in a blur. Mr. Giles, Willow and Dawn went back to England through the portal and returned only a short time later with huge stacks of old books. My heart soared upon seeing that most of these books were at least one or two centuries old, if not older. My fascination was shared by Carlisle, who regarded each and every single book he touched with childlike wonder. I guessed that he didn't come across books that predated him very often.

The dining table at the Cullens' quickly became headquarters of research, with the every other room becoming subdivisions. Some of the books I even brought with me, when I went back to Charlie's each night. I cooked him dinner, we ate together and then I spent an hour or two with him in the living room, watching TV.

My time with Charlie was limited, after all, and I wanted to spend as much quality time as possible with him, especially now with this threat once again hanging over all our heads. I wanted him to be happy, so I was really relieved that he loved the new bathroom and had thanked Esme and Alice profusely for having done this. Right now, Esme tried to talk him into letting her redecorate the kitchen and the living room, but Charlie won't hear anything of it, yet. I, however, thought it would only be a matter of time until he surrendered.

After my quality time with Charlie, I went back to my room, where Edward was always waiting for me, and together we read some more in our ancient books – Edward being much quicker than me of course – before he urged me to go to bed sometime after midnight. I, and I just knew the others did too, had been kind of hoping that I would have dreams with more information about what was going to come, but my nights were really peaceful. No weird dreams, nothing. And then, after breakfast the next morning, I went back to the Cullens' house, under the pretense of being forced by Alice to help her with the wedding preparations.

However, on the third day of research, which, much to Emmett's relieve didn't just include books, but also the internet, I was getting antsy. With the Cullens' reading speed and having all night, they had gone through countless books and made notes on numerous pages about things that could be related to us, and yet, none of them, or others, had found anything.

Honestly? I wasn't feeling that I was helping much. And I was once again glad that Edward couldn't read my mind, when an idea slowly started to form.

I was a Slayer.

And if I were to go by the description of what a Slayer was made for, I could clearly say that she wasn't made for research.

For thousands of years, the Watchers had been the researchers, while the Slayers had been the tool to fight the forces of darkness.

I was a fighter. And my whole being screamed at me to do something more proactive than research.

My fingers were itching. My nights were getting restless once again. And the proximity of the vampires didn't help either.

I wanted, no, needed to go out and fight.

But first, I needed to know, how.

And with this thought in my mind, I approached Mr. Giles during one of the breaks on the third day of research. Everyone was lounging around, enjoying a quick snack or just the break from reading the whole morning. Xander was sitting on the couch, his head thrown back and his eyes closed, as he moaned pitifully and demanded doughnuts, which Willow immediately brought over.

Mr. Giles, however, was still absorbed in one of the text, so he looked up startled, when I cleared my throat. "Ah, Bella… what can I do for you?"

His question immediately got the attention of every person in the room, including Edward, whose gaze I could now feel burn into my back. I began to fidget slightly, but knowing that I needed to ask this, I straightened my shoulders and said, "Mr. Giles… I mean, Giles," I corrected myself. After all, he had told me several times over the past few days that basically no one of the younger generation ever called him Mr. Giles, after they had picked up the nickname the Scoobies had used for him since they were sixteen (and please, who called themselves after a cartoon group?). "I've been thinking."

I swore that I could hear Edward move on the armchair behind me, as he heard that I'd been thinking. "What about, Bella?" Giles asked, his voice sounding curious.

"I… I…" Come on, Bella, I berated myself. Spit it out. "I want to learn how to fight. No, I need to learn."

A split second later, I felt Edward's hard, protective arms around me, pulling me against his chest. "No, Bella," he whispered into my ear. "You don't need to fight. I can protect you. We can protect you."

With a quiet sigh, I gently broke out of Edward's embrace and turned around to look into his eyes. "Edward, please… Let's not argue about this. I need to do this. And I want to be able to defend myself."

"I don't like it," he mumbled.

"I know. And I know that you'll always protect me, but this is something that I have to do. I no longer want and have to be the damsel in distress. Please, just understand this and let me do this."

Finally, after endlessly long seconds, Edward closed his eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. I squeezed his hand and gave him a short and soft kiss, as I mumbled 'thank you' against his lips. Without letting go off his hand, I turned back to Giles and asked, "Will you teach me?"

"If you want me to, Bella, I will. Or we might even ask another, more experienced Slayer to help. After all, I'm not the youngest Watcher anymore and you Slayers have become a lot stronger thanks to the spell. I'm not sure, if I can keep up with you. But if you'd like me to, I'd contact another Slayer and ask her to train you."

I gave him a big grateful smile. "I'd love that." Training with a real Slayer! I couldn't wait! "When can we start?"

"I'll call her immediately and she could be here within the next hour, I'm—"

Whatever Giles wanted to say, was suddenly interrupted as one of Esme's priceless porcelain vases dropped to the floor. I spun around, wondering which Scooby had been so clumsy to break it, but my eyes went wide as I stared into Alice's wide and unfocused golden ones. She was having a vision.

And at the very same moment, looking into Alice's golden eyes, I finally remembered the most crucial part of my dreams. Golden eyes.

"Alice!" Jasper was at her side within a second, holding her tightly. "What do you see?"

"No!" Edward hissed in disbelief. I looked at him and almost recoiled. Every muscle was tense, his face contorted in a grimace of pain and horror. "No!"

"Edward? Alice?" Carlisle asked worried. "What's going on?"

"They're coming," Alice's feeble voice finally answered.

"Almost all of them," Edward finished Alice's sentence.

"Who?" Jasper wanted to know.

Edward and Alice exchanged one worried, pointed look, before Alice answered, "The Volturi. Almost the whole guard."

Esme gasped in shock. "The Volturi?", while Rosalie simply snarled, "No!"

"Why?" Emmett asked.

"When?" Jasper immediately added.

I could make out Xander's confused voice, forming the question, "Who?"

"Why?" Edward only repeated.

Golden eyes. They don't like what we are. "Because of me," I finally mumbled. The vampires heard me of course and their heads whipped around to me.

Carlisle just shook his head, obviously not understanding why his old friends would bring almost their whole guard to Forks. "But I've told them that the date is set. They can't come because of you, Bella. They know that I'll always keep my word."

I just smiled sadly at Carlisle, understanding his confusion. "But it's true. They're coming because of me. Because of what I am, and because of what I will become."