EdwardPOV:
"I love Liz… but this is crazy! Seriously all this human love, it's just not right," Rosalie's thoughts whined as I paced the living room floor.
We were all awaiting Elizabeth's return, and correspondingly our next actions.
"She'll be home in three minutes," Alice said aloud for everyone's benefit.
"What's going to happen?" Bella asked, stroking Reneseme's hair.
"Do you want me to tell her? Or leave it to Liz to explain… I should tell though, Edward, the suspense is stressing her out," Alice thought.
"Fine," I replied, not really in the mood to argue with anyone.
"We're staying… She's going to tell us he has agree not to tell a soul, and he won't," Alice told Bella in particular, but everyone listened attentively.
Carlisle smiled as he took Esme under his arm and she kissed his cheek.
"Well, that's a relief. I'd hate to see her as depressed as when we found her…" he thought.
By then the front door opened and she stepped in, and her mannerisms reflected that she thought she was in trouble.
"Hello," she said timidly.
"They already know. Alice foresaw and has informed them a moment ago," I thought.
"So, there, it is all settled? No one here is going to beat me about the head for being so irresponsible…? For not recognizing the signs that were so blatantly in front of me the entire time…"
"What signs?" I thought, continuing our mental conversation as the others looked on in silence.
"Well, for starters that his love was far greater than normal infatuation. I know I should have come to you sooner… you have travelled this path successfully before…"
"I wouldn't quite call it successful. Bella was nearly killed multiple times and is only still here now as part of mere luck…" I thought, dragging up a few glimpses of those dark moments.
"Oh my," Liz thought, shuddering.
Japer raised his eyebrows. "What's going on here? Your emotions are really getting out of whack… wistful then shocked and then sad," he thought and I just nodded in response.
"You mentioned for starters… what other signs did you fail to see?" I thought.
"His eyes… apparently his great uncle was… my soldier."
Now that was an interesting little twist.
"Mcfate," her thoughts chuckled darkly, at the reference.
"That's certainly an interesting take on it, but I'd say your intentions are eternally purer than Humbert's," I said aloud and the others looked at me questioningly.
"So, I'm staying… we're staying, I should say. He does know what we are but it's along story… let's just say by some cruel twist of fate he was pretty much born for me…" she said, to explain.
"And when can we expect him over to visit?" Esme asked, brightly.
"Not too soon. I want to take this slowly… don't want him getting any ideas about becoming one of us…" she trailed off, eyes lingering briefly on Bella, though I knew she harboured no ill.
"We don't have to tell him we're the type to accept new additions… you should have him over," Carlisle encouraged.
ElizabethPOV:
Two days after that night, I asked Jon over to the Cullen residence, much against my best wishes. I went to pick him up in the Mercedes because of the sunshine. I pulled into the driveway and waited, not daring to get out of the car. The front door opened and he came out.
"Good morning," he said brightly opening the car door and leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.
"Sure you're ready for this?" I asked as I pulled out of the driveway.
"You bet. That is if you're ready?" he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
"I guess there's not really a choice. I mean, once the cat is out of the bag and you know that we're all bloody-thirsty vegetarian vampires… well you might as well meet the non-family," I said with a bit of sarcasm.
"I've already met most of them…" he said.
"True, but that's in public. We're a little more… umm direct and open with our vampire-ness in private," I laughed, knowing Emmett was likely to show off his strength to intimidate Jon.
"Oh, is it really all that different?" he asked sceptically.
"Can any humans you know go without breathing indefinitely? Run faster than some cars can drive? Take down grizzlies and cougars with their bare hands?"
"I guess not…" he said, his grin only widening. "I can't wait to see though…"
"You know I can read your thoughts, right?" I asked. Laughing.
"Yeash… vampires these days! Not happy with just being all mythical physically, no! They want to read minds and predict futures and control emotions and stuff, too… Where will it end?" he joked.
We pulled up to the garage and I parked inside; I had yet to tell him about the infernal sparkling. He stared out the window at the collection of fine cars and I believe he may have started to drool.
"An Aston Martin?!" he said, incredulously, staring at Edward's pride and joy.
"Yeah…" I said nonchalantly.
"Seriously?! Why don't you drive that thing then?"
"Well, for starters, it's Edward's. Secondly, we like to keep as low a profile as we can when we're in such a large group. Personally, when I'm on my own I don't mind a little flash, but… Anyway, do you want to stare at cars all day? That can be arranged…" I offered.
"No, let's go. You're not getting off that easy," he said, peeling his eyes off the car and taking me by the hand.
"Don't say I didn't offer…" I muttered.
I lead him across the lawn towards the house, where I knew they would all be waiting. I cringed as the sunlight hit my skin. As if all the other aspects we're embarrassing enough… of course I'm sure the sparkle was worse for the guys. I mean, really, how flamboyant is a sparkling vampire… sparkly shimmering man-vampire... sparkling manpire… sparklepire. Oh, that was a good one. Jon looked and me and blinked. He did a double take.
"Um, Elizabeth are you sparkling?" "Or do vampire houses have magical abilities that make mortals see things…?"
"Yeah, I'm… shimmering. Side effect of the whole immortality thing and whatnot," I replied dryly while he looked over my skin.
"Seriously? That is definitely not something I'd expect…"
"Yeah, well at least I don't die in sunlight, right?" I said, and continued walking to wards the house.
"I'm sorry. Did I offend you? I'm really sorry…"
"No, it's okay, Jon. I just don't like the glitter-effect. It's one of my few sore points even some almost three hundred years later."
We were halfway to the house by then. It really took forever to get anywhere at human speed.
"Tell Jasper and Emmett that if they even think about it, I'll kill them both…" I thought to Edward, when a vision of them challenging Jon to an arm wrestling match with gambling came to my mind.
"Sure thing…" his thoughts chuckled back.
I opened the door, and there stood Carlisle and Esme, dressed in their best comfortable yet polished beige and eggshell.
"Welcome," Carlisle greeted from his spot.
"Good to meet you," Jon said, stepping forward to shake his and Esme's hands.
"The same to you, Jon," Esme replied warmly. "What a handsome young man… oh he'd look nice in a tuxedo… maybe at their wedding…"
I cleared my throat and looked at Esme. Was it really too much to ask that they not push me that far? I actually felt like a teenager; my parents wanted me to go the conservative routine and I was disagreeing strongly. Hmm, perhaps a typical teenage rebellion was on it's way… but how does a vampire rebel?
"So, where is everyone else?" Jon asked, looking about the room.
Carlisle chuckled.
"Oh, they're all here somewhere. I just told them to not rush you… Give you time to adjust and whatnot," Carlisle explained.
"Oh well, might as well dive in head first, I'd say…" Jon replied and I had to suppress and glare.
Not needing any more invitation, Emmett barrelled down the stairs at top speed, stopping suddenly at Jon's side.
"Boo!" he scared and Jon jumped.
Emmett laughed his echoing, booming laugh.
"Whoa, you caught me off guard there!" Jon smiled. "Holy crap! She wasn't kidding about the speed."
"Real mature, Em," I chided.
"Hey! You used to be fun," he mocked, punching my shoulder so hard that it make a large cracking.
Again Jon jumped. I uttered a low and fast threat to Emmett; for vampire ears only. He smiled slightly but stepped back, as Alice danced down the stairs with Jasper's hand in hers. He was nervous, I could feel it. Poor thing, apparently he still didn't trust himself entirely.
Alice hugged Jon and spoke to him while I stood next to Jasper.
"Not breathing?" I whispered.
He nodded. I reached over and squeezed his shoulder.
"You know I trust you. You will be fine. His scent isn't all that potent and he's nowhere near as clumsy as the memories I've seen of Bella…" I assured.
"I don't want to take any chances…" he whispered, inhaling a testing breath.
"See? Not bad, right?"
"Actually, you're right. Thanks," he replied, smiling very slightly.
"Anytime…"
A/N- Oh, yeah... that's right, Edward and Liz can have awesome non-verbal conversations! XD Also, the McFate and Humbert references are from Lolita. If you haven't heard of it or read it, well you probably won't get the sick joke... but basically she's saying her thing for Jon is almost pedophilia (because she is almost 300 after all!).