Esme Pov

Esme watched Bella, and took in the light flush of her cheeks and the shine in her eyes with some concern. Bella's fingers were clenching just a little and it was obvious, even without Jasper's gift that she was nervous now that her secrets were out. Still, it was hard to think of something to say, because the shock of realizing Bella always knew. "In the supermarket?" She found herself asking as she considered that first time she saw Bella.

"I knew who you were." Bella admitted quietly. "Part of me didn't really believe until that moment."

"But just seeing me made you believe?" Esme asked, as she tried to think of anything she'd done wrong in that store, anything that would have made her not seem human. It wasn't a good feeling to think she'd messed up there, when she only went there to keep up the charade.

"The eyes." Bella started to blush, "And you all look, well," Esme could hear Alice giggle just quiet enough that Bella wouldn't hear.

"That was enough?" Esme spoke up rather than force Bella to say something that would embarrass her.

"The story wasn't too descriptive of you, but it was enough for me to figure it out easily." Bella's fingers moved around her empty glass, but Esme got the sense she just needed to grab at something. "I didn't set out to be here, at first I just wanted to live in Forks. I was prepared to avoid all of you, to try and seem uninteresting and just blend in."

Bella's eyes were so expressive and Esme found her heart aching a little as Bella stared into her own eyes. "You all are so easy to care about though, and before I knew it I was here, pretending I didn't know so you wouldn't get in trouble and trying to help you hide your secrets from me. Taking cold showers after gym to try and keep my scent down, learning to look away when you pretend to eat, ignoring any awkwardness, pretending I don't know when you are talking too quiet for me to hear."

It was startling to hear what Bella was doing for them and they'd never noticed. Esme had always assumed that Bella was so focused, that she stared at things so long because she wanted to, but she was giving them time. When Bella stayed and had dinner with just Esme, it was Bella that found a way for Esme to still be able to hide her food. Bella did that to spare Esme having to actually eat it.

"How much do you know about us? You knew a good deal about Alice that we didn't even know." Jasper spoke up and Bella's heart started to beat just a little faster.

"You're the second oldest one here Jasper." Bella spoke quietly, her voice a little shaky. "Major Jasper Whitlock of the Civil war. You have an empathy power that somehow can get around my shield." Esme looked up at Carlisle when she said that, stunned at how much Bella knew about them, and apparently about her own immunity with Edward's power. She could see Carlisle was building up a long list of questions in his mind, she could see it in his eyes.

"What can you tell us about this shield?" Carlisle asked and Esme noticed that Bella didn't like the question. "How much do you know about it?"

"Aside from keeping Edward out of my head, it should work on anyone using mental powers on me, but Jasper being able to read me is something I don't really understand." Bella admitted and Esme felt her hesitation. It made her curious as to what and how she knew what she did about it.

"Any mental powers? How do you know it isn't just Edward?" Carlisle spoke more gently, and Esme didn't like the fact that for Bella to know she'd need to meet more vampires.

"The story." Bella grimaced. "That Bella met a good number of gifted vampires."

"Who?" Rosalie's voice carried down to them, it was stony and flat. Bella couldn't hear that though, so Esme spoke up and repeated the question.

The way Bella turned to stare at Alice, and the way Alice froze in a vision for a moment wasn't comforting, especially when Alice's eyes widened. Esme was a little irritated that Bella so quickly caught on to the way to talk with Alice without anyone hearing.

Alice opened her mouth hesitantly. "That other Bella met the Volturi. Aro and Jane's powers didn't work on her."

"That is not happening, that is never happening." Esme growled, the mere thought of Bella being exposed to the Volturi was horrifying.

"How did she end up meeting them?" Carlisle pushed and Bella's jaw clenched and her eyes hardened. Esme was surprised to see that expression on her face as Bella stared at Carlisle.

"I am not that Bella, and that little mishap she went through isn't going to happen to me. I'm not so stupid as to get on a plane to Italy and the whole mess that started it isn't going to happen, so let's not scare everyone with a ghost story that will remain just a story." It wasn't a request and Esme had never seen Bella so firm about anything. Even Carlisle looked taken aback and he didn't know her very well.

…..

Emmett Pov

"Bella Bear, laying down the law." Emmett muttered as he overheard her refuse to answer a question. He sat on the bed, nearby, while Rosalie sat in the chair and stared out the window. Both of them were listening to the conversation that had been going on downstairs. The only time Rosalie had spoken was to ask a question and the only time she moved was when she got the answer. "She'll be okay." Emmett spoke softly, seeing the pain in Rosalie's eyes at the thought of Bella in Italy. "That other Bella had to go to Voltura for them to find her, our Bella's way smarter than that."

"She knew Emmett." Rosalie finally spoke to him. Emmett leaned forward, toward her from his seat on the bed.

"She did and she still let you hang all over her for those pictures." He gave Rosalie a little smile as he teased her again. It did make a lot of those poses a bit more meaningful now, knowing that Bella knew at the time that she was letting a vampire get that very close to her, in one it almost looked like Rose only needed to open her mouth to bite Bella. Jasper had been kind enough to give Emmett the full set of pictures and he'd seen them all.

"And she let you carry her." Rose spoke quietly, not responding to his teasing about the pictures at all. "And how many times has she been alone with one of us?" Rose glanced at the bed behind him. "She slept in our bed Emmett, she slept there. She slept in the car to Portland, Alice told me." Sleeping wasn't something that they did anymore, but Emmett was pretty sure you'd need to feel somewhat safe to do it. That was what Rosalie was stumped by, and Emmett didn't know how to explain it. Rose whispered so quietly it was hard to hear. "She knew I was there and she held onto me last night."

Emmett's eyebrows moved up as he stared at his wife. That hinted to a story, but he was pretty sure Rosie didn't do anything inappropriate to the sleeping human. Still, that sounded far too interesting and it was hard not to tease just a little. "Did Bella Bear hold anything interesting?"

He got a brief disgusted look at his teasing, but he could see last night was something to talk about. Rose stared at the bed again. "When I sat down on the bed to check on her, she grabbed my sleeve, and wouldn't let me go. I sat with her for a while." Rose sighed heavily. "She knew what I was when she did that Emmett, and she wouldn't let me go."

"Bella bear has really good tastes." He gave Rose a smile and barely got one in return. "When you walked away from her down there, I thought she was going to cry. She just stared after you, looking so sad and helpless." He admitted and watched a pained expression cross Rose's face, but she needed to hear this. "She's afraid you won't forgive her for not telling, but it was our secret and it wasn't like we were telling her either."

"She chose to be surrounded by vampires, how is that keeping her safe?" Rosalie's voice cracked. "She didn't even consider how she makes our throats burn, she was only concerned about Edward."

"Rose," Emmett sighed and looked at his wife with his eyes full of his love. "You carried me, bleeding, for miles so I could be turned before I died. I bled all over you, and you didn't bite. I think you can trust yourself with Bella, more than any of us." He shook his head. "You aren't afraid about biting her, you're upset because she accepts you just how you are, and you expected at least some trouble. She loves you Rose, you as a vampire, and she trusts you."

He'd expected it, but still he barely managed to brace himself in time as Rosalie launched herself at him, her tears would never come, but she sobbed into his shoulder and he held her. Maybe this was a good thing. Rose was so insecure about being a vampire; she didn't embrace it like Emmett did. The fact that Bella knew and didn't care might be a good thing for Rose.

"Maybe now that the secrets are all out we can find out more about her. She has a past now." Emmett muttered into Rosalie's hair. "We don't even know how old she is." He thought out loud, realizing that never came up. He looked out the window and asked hesitantly. "She died in a car, and she knows a bit about computers so it can't have really been that long ago."

Alice's voice came to them from downstairs. "Bella, what year was it when you died?" Emmett sighed as his question got asked.

"Time doesn't mean much in reincarnation." Bella spoke softly and Emmett felt Rosalie tense as she started to listen as well. "I died in 2012."

"Oh my god." Emmett felt Rosalie pull away from him and they stared at each other during the tense pause in conversation. They had almost eight years before 2012 hit.

"So you're alive somewhere else right now too?" Carlisle asked.

"Not around here. This isn't the world I came from." Bella sounded really reluctant to say it and Emmett just froze as he considered that there were other worlds. He thought he'd been shocked to learn vampires existed, but apparently they hadn't even scratched the surface of the universe.

"Does she mean she's from Mars?" Emmett whispered to Rose. She just focused harder on listening in and ignored his question because Bella was still talking.

"If this were my world, I'd be twenty seven now and I checked where I was working at twenty seven. I'm not there." Bella told Alice and Emmett started doing the math.

"So she was thirty five when she died." Emmett calculated out loud. He noticed Rosalie start to frown. "That doesn't matter does it? She's still the youngest of us." He grimaced as he considered that Rosalie might have only started to talk to Bella because she thought of her as 'young'.

"It doesn't matter." Rosalie said distractedly. He almost wished Edward was there to tell him what Rose was thinking about though, because she sure seemed distracted by Bella's age.

….

Bella Pov

Bella noticed that when there was an age to put to her that Esme gave her an odd look. The brunette vampire covered it up and smiled when she stood up to take Bella's plate back to the kitchen, but it unsettled Bella.

"Did you leave anyone behind?" Alice spoke softly and still the words stung hard.

"Dying young runs in my family." Bella admitted quietly. Esme was back at the table quickly after that. "I was the last one left, so they didn't have to go through the funerals like I did." Esme moved to sit beside her in that moment. Bella focused on her glass as she considered the question. "I was so sick of funerals. 'taken before their time' they always said that. It was always before their time. Dad had cancer, mom was attacked, and Danny OD'd, and I didn't even know he started doing drugs. It was four years from start to end and by the time I was twenty five I was alone in the world."

When Esme took her hand, Bella found herself gripping it tightly. Carlisle was probably listening, but he'd wandered off to the library when Esme told him not to ask questions when Bella was eating. Jasper was clearly paying attention, because there was a calm in her that never was there when she talked about this. It didn't mean it didn't hurt, but she was never able to finish saying any of it before.

"I dated for a while in college, but my life started falling apart when I was twenty one and I never really recovered it." She shook her head and sighed heavily. "I'm not good at dating." She just admitted it flatly. "My boss might miss me, but no one is torn up about it." Her throat ached, and she was tired of tears, but Esme pulled her into a hug anyhow and Bella did her best to not cry. She pulled away before Esme was willing to let her go, but she needed to. Esme would just make her cry. The brunette vampire continued to hold her hand and Bella squeezed it a few times, grateful it was there. She used her other hand to try and clear up the tears on her cheeks.

"With my death I think my family managed to cover every major death category, medical, homicide, suicide and freak accident." She gave a grim smile. "We're well balanced like that." She looked around the room and her eye caught the tv. "I'm sick of talking about death, do you think the TV will at least show a dvd or something?"

"Oh, um, yes." Alice looked a little uncertain about it. "I'm sure it's fixed." The little vampire nodded but she looked a little guilty and Bella chose to ignore it. The tv was clearly never really broken.

There was a blur and Emmett stood in front of the dvd cabinet with a few movies in his hand. "We have 'Back to the Future', 'Freaky Friday' and 'The Time Machine'." He smirked at her and Bella couldn't help but give him a grateful smile at his attempt at comedy. She walked up to him and gave him a hug.

"I was thinking we might watch some classic Batman." Another voice spoke up and Bella looked up to see Rosalie standing on the stairs, watching her. The blonde gave her a weak smile. "You need to learn to appreciate Julie Newmar."

It was like a stone had been pulled off of her chest and she could breathe again. Rosalie took the stairs so gracefully and she gently moved Emmett to the side to pull out VHS tape. "I recorded this off the tv ten years ago, but hopefully it still works. They really need to release this on DVD." The side of the tape just read Catwoman.

"Let's try it." Bella spoke softly and her heart stuttered at the apologetic smile and soft caress of her arm as Rosalie moved around her to start the show.

In five minutes even the floor had become a seat as everyone joined them for old show, and when Bella glanced over at Emmett he gave her a smile and wiggled his eyebrows before giving a meaningful glance toward Rose, who was watching the show, but had taken Bella's hand. Emmett was right, it was going to be okay.