A/N: A quick thank you to everyone who added this story in their alerts and/or added it to their favorite list. It truly means a lot to me.

Just a little snippet into their future lives…..Hope you like it, and thank you for reading!

Chapter 21- The aftermaths of a bite

Bella POV-

"So, what do you think?" I asked Charlotte, looking into the wall sized mirror in front of me. I waited for her response, raising my eyebrow when she had not replied even after a few long seconds.

She shrugged at me before replying. "It suits you, definitely. It is just that….. it is weird seeing you in a dress. I can't even remember the last time you wore one."

I nodded my head in agreement, making an hmm like sound, as I once again turned to look at myself in the mirror. My dress- one that I had reluctantly agreed to wear- was royal blue in color and graced a little over my knees. It was a beautiful A-line V-neck one with the prettiest Pleats I had ever seen on a dress.

Tanya did have a good taste in clothes, no second thoughts on that.

I had definitely not been very cooperative when I had been informed that as a bridesmaid it would be required of me to wear a dress. I had not worn anything other than jeans or comfortable sweats in more than a decade now- I was really not a dress person- and so my tantrum had been somewhat justified, but it is not every day that you attend your father's wedding, and so I had shut my mouth and agreed to do as was asked. After all, Charlie had agreed to wear a monkey suit when the time for my nuptials came due, and so it was only fair for me to complete my part of the deal.

"Have you and Jas given any thought to marriage?"

I rolled my eyes at her question, knowing well before hand that we would be asked this question on this visit of ours, several times by several people.

It was such an expected question.

"We have, but we don't want to hurry into anything." I said with a shrug.

She looked stunned by my response. "You have been together for fifteen years now!"

Yup, that's right. I had joined the world of the undead a little over fifteen years back.

"Exactly," I said with a nod. "It is such a less amount of time if you think about it. Jasper and I are going to be together for at least a thousand years…. give or take. What is fifteen years in comparison?"

She sighed at me. "You both are weird."

I rolled my eyes in response. We were not weird; it is just that the word 'marriage' had never really meant much to me. I loved Jasper, and he loved me. We were mated and completely serious about one another, so why need one piece of certificate, or an elaborate ceremony to declare our love for the other.

I am not saying that we were never going to get married. Never, was a very serious and definite word to use, but we were in no hurry to reach there.

We were immortal after all. It wasn't like we had a set target to achieve, dictated by society. There was no fixed cycle of graduation- job- marriage- kids- a life of working hard- and then retirement- in our future.

We were never going to have kids, or grow old enough to retire.

What was the purpose of sticking to the target then?

Marriage was for ourselves…. for our own happiness, and we would take the plunge when we felt the need for it, not because someone expected us to get married.

We were happy just being together till then…..

Charlotte giggled to herself, before replying. "I am surprised how come Charlie has not killed Jasper by now?"

I gave her a smirk before dissolving into my own set of giggles. "Well, being with a man who your father is afraid of, but proud enough to not openly admit it, does come with its own set of advantages."

Jasper had once told me of how he had felt fear come from Charlie when he had been around him. He had made me promise on my life that I would never let Charlie know that we knew about this irrational fear of his.

It was a secret I had to take to my metaphorical grave.

"But, on a serious note," I said once my fit of laughter had passed by. "I am an adult now, or at least would have been if I had stayed human. I would have turned what….. 32 this year? Charlie would definitely not have interfered in my life then, so why start now?"

She nodded her head in understanding. It was definitely a little surprising of how far Charlie and I had come after that discussion of ours- where I had demanded my independence and freewill. Charlie had taken to treating me like an adult, giving me his advice at times but not forcing it on me.

I knew that he was not very happy by this decision of ours to continue living together without marriage, but he also knew that it was not his place to comment. Jasper and I were both legally adults (I had legal documents that said so) and could decide for ourselves, also it helped- in his words- that there would be no out of wedlock children for us.

Whatever! I was just glad that so far nobody had decided to butt in and give us their unasked and unwanted opinion.

Also, it would have been a hypocritical on his part to comment. After all he was marrying his mate on the fifteenth anniversary of them first meeting, and so really could not pass out judgments on how soon one should get married.

"I am so glad that you both are here now, if only it took Charlie's wedding to get you back."

She smiled at me, making me smile back in response. Yeah, it was good to be back with friends and family.

In the fifteen years gone by, Jasper and I had more or less lived like a complete nomadic couple. We had travelled the country for a while before going overseas and continuing on with our journey of seeing new and exciting places and things….. from the Pyramids in Egypt to the London Bridge to the Taj Mahal in India and to the City of Singapore….. our travels had taken us wherever our feet landed.

Sure, whenever we felt the need for a bit of a break, we would rent a hotel room and kick back for a few days or weeks, and we had even made occasional plans of joining the others whenever they were visiting any country- city- or state near to where we were.

This was the first time, though, that we were back in the country since we had left almost eleven years back.

"I am glad, too." I said with a smile.

The relief of coming back home would always be present, no matter how much time passed in between. Also knowing that this was more than just a few days visit was enough to keep my spirits high.

"So, what plans after the wedding?" Charlotte asked, twisting her hair in the hairstyle that she had chosen for herself and was now perfecting.

I shrugged to myself. "Nothing is decided as such, other than we are not leaving directly after the wedding. Let's see how it goes." I stopped for a second before speaking again, my eyes wide in surprise and amusement. "Did you know Jasper laughed on my face when I told him that I was thinking of going back to high school to graduate?"

"What?" her face twisted in a grin. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," I shook my head in amusement. "He laughed for a full ten minutes before telling me that he would be waiting for me to come back after my first day in chosen high school to tell him that I was quitting."

She rolled her eyes at that. She knew, as well as me, that Jasper had sworn that he was never going back to anywhere where hormonal teenagers could be found. He would run away from them like one ran away from the plague.

I know, I know that high school and education really has no meaning for us as we can never get real, actual jobs that would require said education, and I had stuck by this thinking for the past decade of my life, but maybe I did want to experience that feeling of accomplishing something basic in life. I had not got to graduate the first time around and while it was not necessary- absolutely not for our kind- I could not help but wonder how my experience of the last two years of high school would have gone by- Prom, Graduation, the dances…the usual rite of passage that lets you know that you have grown up.

Anyway, it was not like I was too keen on keeping on repeating that journey over and over again. It would be just a one-time deal, if I went through with this crazy plan of mine.

Hmm, maybe I could convince Charlotte to join me. Even she had never got the chance to complete her schooling. It would definitely be more fun to have someone I knew around, now that Jasper had completely rejected my idea…..

"No way!" she glared at me, knowing beforehand what I was about to say. "Don't even think about it."

I rolled my eyes. It wouldn't be too hard to convince her. I just had to get Peter on my side- not a hard thing to do- he would make her do it for the fun element that he would derive out of it…

Hmm, so maybe Peter is a pretty inconsiderate husband to do so, but then again, Charlotte gives it as good as she gets. History was a proof that Peter Whitlock had to roam around without his privates for close to a month when his pranks had crossed the line.

Anyway…..

"Did you hear Esme is attending? I can't even believe that Tanya and Charlie would send her an invite?"

Charlotte fluently changed the topic to something that was definitely much more interesting and worthy of discussion, so no complaints there.

"Yeah, I heard. Kate told me as soon as we arrived. She needs people who she can trust around. The past decade has been tough on her."

Over the years a lot had changed in the life of Carlisle and Esme Cullen, and while I had never spoken to either of them directly, I knew that Jasper still spoke to them at times, and so from him knew of their whereabouts.

A year after the Edward Debacle- we had come to call it that- Alice Cullen had suddenly vanished in thin air, leaving nothing but a note for Carlisle and Esme saying that her time of living with them was up. Their roads from then on were different and so she was leaving. Nobody knew where she went, and nobody had seen her since. It was like she just disappeared, similar to her entry into the Cullen coven- came out of the blue and left out of the blue.

Jasper had tried to find her. She had been a good friend to him if nothing else, but one text message saying that she was happy where she was and did not want to be found was enough to make him stop. It was clear that she wanted to do nothing with her past life.

With her leaving the mated pair alone, a lot of problems had cropped up in the lives of Esme and Carlisle. Esme missed her children and would dry sob the entire day, resulting in her dislike and contempt for Carlisle and his ways increasing. Their fights would go on for days with them screaming at one another, and finally Esme had asked Carlisle for time apart, a break she never went back from. She had lived the first few months of her time apart with Emmett and Rosalie, who were living on their own as a mated pair with the surname McCarty, before she had gone on her own, to find her own place in this world.

As of now, though, she was living in Brazil with another vampire named Huilen, who too had her painful past to speak of.

As for Carlisle, he was back to where he had begun before he had changed Edward. He had briefly lived with the Volturi once again before settling down in London and starting again as a doctor in the hospital nearby. He kept moving every few years but never changed another human, no matter what their circumstances were.

Jasper had gone to meet him when we had been touring London, and the only thing that he had told me after their meeting was that he had never seen a man look this desolate before. Either way, he and even I wished that Carlisle would find someone he could trust again. No matter what had happened in the past, nobody deserved to live an eternity of misery and loneliness.

"What are you thinking about?" Charlotte asked, questioning my sudden silence.

I shrugged. "Just the years gone by…."

She nodded her head. "And to think this was all because of a bite."

I smiled at her. "A bite that I should be thanking my destiny for, imagine where we would have been if I had not been Edward singer, or if he had managed to control himself that day?"

"The possibilities are endless…." She commented. "Maybe, you would have lived out your life as a human and Jas and Alice would still be together, or maybe you would have still ended up with him, just with a different past."

I nodded my head in agreement.

"Do you often think about this?" she asked me.

I shrugged at her. "Not really. I can't change the past, and maybe I wouldn't- even if I could. I am happy with my life, so how does it matter."

She nodded her head. "Yeah, it really doesn't. We can ponder on this however long we want, but the fact of the matter still remains that we cannot change what is already occurred in our lives."

"True. So why waste time thinking about the past when you could think about the future?"

She grinned at me. "A bright future at that,"

I grinned back at her. "Definitely a bright future at that,"

Life had never been better for me. I had a mate I loved and cared immensely about, a father who was still in my life- despite of the circumstances that we had faced to reach here, amazing friends who we could trust with our lives…. and a future of happiness right in front of me.

What more could have come from one ill-fated bite?