I started this story a while ago, and had gotten a few chapters into it when I lost inspiration. I am sorry to everyone who has read the first two chapters and then waited for so long for this one. Luckily (depending on how you look at it) my old laptop died, and took with it all of my chapters and plot for this story, so I've had nothing to post for a while, which led to me re-writing most of this story and I feel that the new direction is much better than my original plot. I working on more chapters now and I'll be updating this story regularly! Enjoy!

Also, just to clear this up. Marie is Bella's great niece, and little Isabella is her great great niece. Marie's mother is Bella's niece and the child of Bella's sister.

I do not own twilight.

My sister was a strong woman. Stronger than I as a human could have ever been. Where I dreamt of faraway cities, of art, of adventures and discovery, little Maggie set her sights, hopes and dreams on family. She longed for the pitter patter of little feet, of calls for mama in the night, a husband to stand beside as they watched their family learn, grow and begin anew.

In the end, she was granted at least part, of her dream.

How strangely ironic that of the two of us Swan sisters, it was I that continued to watch over our family line, right down to the little name sake before me.

Isabella Ann Swan.

Her mother sat close by, older now than I remembered she would be, and it only added salt to the wound. She would pass from this world, and take up her place with the rest of my kin, separate from me.

"I love it aunt Isa!" The little girl flashes a toothy, happy smile at me, thrilled with her present.

It is our tradition, she is allowed to open one of my gifts while I am here to enjoy her reactions. The others will wait until Christmas morning, when I have gone.

"What do you say sweetie?" Her mother, named after my own, Marie, waited patiently for her daughter to answer.

Which she did, in her own manner.

Little arms find their way around my seated waist, and a little head of brilliant dark blonde curls nestle against me while she mumbles out her thanks and love. I drop a single kiss on the crown of her head while breathing in her scent, and whisper my own feelings back.

She looks so much like Maggie did when we were girls.

Marie doesn't make any move to separate us, instead, she watches with affection, as she wishes her mother could have done.

My niece however knew the moment she laid eyes on me, that I was not natural. It took time, and patience on my end, to be allowed an active role in my family once more. I hadn't known my sister had kept my pictures, they had been removed from our family house shortly after my 'death'. I hadn't known that she'd told her children stories of us, nor did I know that she kept those pictures by her bedside, where my own niece used to sit and look at them, wishing for a sister like me.

Not long after our hug, little Isabella sways slightly against her pillows on the floor before finally giving into her drooping eyes and allows sleep to take her. The only change Marie makes is to add the blanket from the back of their couch.

"It is so nice to see you again Aunt Bella." She settles next to me, as if I really am her aunt, and not a vampire.

To her though, that's just what I am. Her vampire aunt. Once she was old enough to brush aside her mother's hesitations, that's just what she did. She sought me out, waiting for me at the family tomb, and calmly explained that she valued me, regardless of my present state of being.

That began our friendship. Over the years, it has blossomed into a beautifully strong connection to my family, and in it, a nurtured budding relationship with the next generation of Swans.

"I wish it could be more than once a year child, but I would not risk it."

She nods, with a sad resignation of that fact. Like her mother before her, she speaks of my place of in her life to no one.

"I understand Aunt Bella, I really do." She pats my hands, and just as swiftly as her melancholy appears, it vanishes with a bright smile. "I do have something for you though."

She's up and waving me back into her home office just off the living room. Her energy is one of her most endearing qualities to me, even when she was pregnant with little Isabella, it shined brightly through.

"Last year when you were here, we talked about the family tree, remember?" She's not looking at me while she speaks, but digging around her desk while her laptop starts humming.

I still nod before speaking. "Perfectly." I remember everything, as if it were happening right before my eyes.

She sits up with a folder that she hands off to me while she busies herself pulling up document after document on her computer.

"Well, back in college one of my projects was to research my family tree, since I already knew we'd been here for quite a while. Anyway, after you left, I went back and started to go through it all again and just like you said, there was another little boy. He was born a few years after you left."

She'd left that spot on her paper family tree blank, with nothing more than a question mark. A symbol to embody a sibling I'd never gotten meet. I vaguely lost myself to the musings of his childhood. Did my parents tell him about me? Did Maggie? Did he ever mourn the big sister he never knew?

"Aunt Bella?" Marie is watching me, concern in those big brown eyes. She's such a sweet girl.

"Sorry, I did not return for many years after my rebirth. I did not know there was another Swan child of my parents."

She nods sadly. "Well, I sort of hit a dead end back in college, I couldn't find much in the way of land deeds or anything for him in the area, but I got to thinking after you left, what if I expanded my search?"

I tense for a moment, but she throws her hands up quickly and grabs another file from her desk.

"I have a couple friends from school who helped me out with hard copies only. I remember you telling me that looking into our family history is fine, but digging too deep around your time could be dangerous if the wrong people were looking. So I just met up with a couple of my old friends and asked if they could help. Well one, Denise, she works as a historian and actually did help." She pulls a slip of paper from her file to hand to me. "This is a military service certificate, for one Thomas Charles Swan."

While I've never been threatened by the brothers, Italy remains a barely visited country. Whispers of my gifts have reached them before, when I was young and unaware of the allure I brought any vampire. I'd been warned by way of a sealed letter on century's old parchment that my bloodline held more than just I. Nothing ever came after that one letter, but it was enough to keep me paranoid for decades.

Now I'm only obsessively secretive with my human family.

"Now, she made sure to pull mass records while she looked, I think she liked learning to be honest, and helping me was just an extended bonus, but anyway, I've been working since then to find what I can. Now according to his records, he served his time and was honorably discharged, but did not settle here after with the rest of your family. Best I can figure is he had a falling out with your parents, because there is no connection to the Chicago Swans after he left. None."

She is right. It's all right here in her carefully compiled notes. I cannot help the pride that swells at her findings, nothing is taken from the internet, there are some copies of local newspapers, but nothing that holds any of her personal information or any connection directing back to her or her daughter.

"I did find a marriage certificate too. It's for Oregon, I wrote it all down, but didn't print it or anything. From there, it looks like they had one child, a son, and he has a son, who still lives in the Pacific Northwest." Next she pulls out a screenshot of Forks police academy graduating class of 1986. "One Charles Swan Jr., he lives in his hometown Forks, Washington."

She's quiet now, letting me finger through everything before flipping back to the picture of a young man who never knew any of us. He's smiling in his picture, he looks young, and those eyes piercing out of photo at me remind me so of my father's.

"So this is what became of my youngest sibling."

She nods and turns back to her laptop. "I have this all on a thumb drive, but I looked up things here and there. Nothing is saved directly from those sites or files so I can't give you exactly where some of these tid bits came from but it looks like he was married once when he was young. They aren't together anymore. He was made chief of police a few years back. He's active in his community, and the neighboring Native American reservation. Forks has a community letter on their page, and the most recent thing I picked up off of it is that he and a woman from the reservation are recently engaged, a widow with two of her own children. She lives with him now in Forks. Her name is Sue Clearwater, of the Quileute tribe."

I bit my lip to keep from frowning. Native Americans. This complicates things.

While in my time they were already declining, they were a strong people, with an active oral history, including as I later found, legends of varying degrees on vampires. Garratt was most helpful on explaining just how little the first vampires in this land paid mind to keeping their existence from the locals. I have no idea if this tribe has those legends, the western United States rapidly became a boon of gold mines and then the fastest growing economy in later years for humans. Today California is the greenest state in the country, with a still growing economy while farther north boasts a lucrative fishing an import industry. Before this events however, it wasn't much more than land for Europe to lay claim to, mostly Spain, at least, that was how we were taught. Then again, as silly females who's main focus was supposed to be centered around a husband and home, we weren't taught much in the way of anything in a 'man's world'.

"Thank you Marie. You've done wonderfully."

She beams under my praise, and it pulls me back to the eager little girl who used to sneak past her mother and wait under the stars in their backyard garden for my arrival.

"You just looked so sad last time, like the idea of one of our family was out there possibly alone was crushing you. I wanted to help the best I could. I really just got lucky with that military service record, but I knew it could be a lead and well, yea, I got lucky."

While her mother always reminded me so much of my own, Marie has always left me with the sense of having my little sister in the room with me. Family matters to her above all else. Which is how I know, this next request will be hard for her to abide by.

"I need you to promise me something Marie."

She nods again. "Anything."

Though breathing is not necessary for me, nor has it been for well over a century now, I still find myself doing just that in moments like these. Some pieces of human nature never leave us I suppose.

"I do not wish for you to contact Charles Swan." Her faces blurs into confusion and a slight bit of hurt, so I hurry on. "At least, not until I've been able to determine that he is indeed our family, and it is safe for you and little Isabella. I cannot tell you why I must ask this of you, and I know that it is unfair. You deserve family outside of me."

I hate that my words twist her guilt onto herself so quickly, because she would of course put my own happiness above her own, but in years of being this creature, I have found that human emotion is so easily used to suit my own ends. This will keep her as safe as I can make her, what with my constant involvement in her life, for now, and that, above all else, is my priority.

"You have always been so good to me Aunt Bella, please don't think that I don't treasure having you as family." She steps forward and without thought I wrap my arms around her. "I understand you can't tell me everything, so I will wait. I promise I won't make contact, besides, I don't even know what I would say."

Much like her daughter, I only smell family when I bury my nose in her hair. The idea of taking a human life so deeply tied to my own repulses me.

"Then we will have to work on what you can say, when I return."

She pulls back and gives me a watery smile. "Ok."

I brush away the salty tears, allowing myself to enjoy the warmth underneath her cheeks.

"I must leave tonight, and I ask that you destroy all but the most vital pieces of these notes. Hide them somewhere, not in the house. Someplace safe. Can you do these things for me?"

She nods again, looking much happier than only a few moments before.

"Yes, I already have a safe place in mind."

This time I nod, pleased that through our years together, she has come to acknowledge that even the small bit she knows of the world beyond her own, is dangerous.

We go about gathering everything, and she, true to her word, only leaves a small pile with nothing more than a handful of papers, to the side while we burn the rest of the fire that little Isabella is sleeping by. After she's slipped that pile into a folder and hidden it away again with the promise to hide it, we say our goodbyes at the door.

"You're going tonight, to him, aren't you?"

I nod. There's no point in lying to her when she already knows the truth.

"I must. I will be paying you another visit before long though, I promise."

She brightens a bit at that news. "Bella and I would love that."

I drop one last kiss on my great niece's forehead. "Be safe child."

In the blink of an eye to her, I am gone. Nothing more than a whisper of a dream.

I only pray her dream never turns into a nightmare because of me.

Forks is up next! As always, I love to hear from you.