"What the hell Bella! I thought these vamps were veggies?" Eric says as he releases me.

"They are. He was fine until I walked in front of that fan! My blood must be doing something to him. Rewind until we walk down the corridor and tell me to shield myself, okay?" I say knowing I won't remember anything,

So we do it all again, Eric explains what happened and I make a note to read up on that phenomenon and this time Edward stays in his seat and is still smiling happily to himself. When I go to sit, he says,

"Hi, I'm Edward Cullen" and I nod before telling him my name.

Bob Banner has done his homework unlike the rest of us and we actually do a real class. The phases of mitosis or something like that! Edward seems to know this shit so I smile and say,

"Have at it buddy, I haven't got a clue!"

It doesn't take him long to write out the answers in lovely copperplate writing. I would have thought anyone trying to blend in would have attempted to dumb down a bit!

"Bella, Edward, have you finished already?" Bob asks and I smile,

"He's a whizz kid, Mr B, I didn't know one end from the other!" I said and he shook his head.

The day went quite quickly and lunch was a scream. Having to queue and eat weird looking human food had some people looking a little pasty. Tomorrow I think maybe they should magic our stuff to look like human food, but only to the Cullens and because they won't taste it they will never know the difference. I'll suggest it to dad tonight; otherwise, Julie Hammond will be inundated with patients wanting to see the school nurse.

She's not that kind of healer; really she's more of a spell reverser or spell remover witch. Everyone thought it would be safer to have her in the school than at the hospital, just in case, someone lost control. By the end of the day, I was tired, hungry and desperate to get home, before we all headed over to Lauren's place. I think I'll start packing my own lunch, they do that, humans don't they?

"You okay darlin'?" A southern accent asked me,

I knew it was one of them, okay I knew it was him Jasper Hale or Cullen or whatever his real name was,

"Just tired, didn't sleep to well last night" I lied, not knowing what to say.

"You just feel a little down," he said walking away, mumbling to himself,

How does he know how I feel, I've got my shield up and his power is blocked? I need to speak to dad about this, like yesterday! I've got serious trouble if he can. But how can he feel my emotions and no one else's? That doesn't make any sense. So that glance back last night must have been him feeling my relief. Plus that was a close shave with the younger one Edward; I'll seriously have to read up on that phenomenon.

These Cullens are going to be trouble I can feel it in my bones and so to can Jasper whatever his name is, apparently! I realise how ridiculous that sounds and start to giggle, but there is a touch of hysteria in it and I stop, looking around panicked to see if he's there. Thankfully I'm alone and I gather my thinks climb on my bike and head out. He was watching me as I drove past them and damn did he just wink at me?

Dad seems awfully calm about all this, says maybe he just saw how I looked and connected how it should feel to him normally. Like compensating for his missing gift, or maybe a residual sense that will go in time. I'm not so sure, but as he says only time will tell. I whip up a quick meal for dad and me to stave off that hunger I'd been feeling and changed into something else.

Waving my hand at the room, to put everything back where it should be I decide to walk over to Laurens instead of teleporting. We are having to dial back on the use of magic because they are fast and could see something they shouldn't before we're aware. It's time to get over there and do some homework on how to be fully human, oh, joy!

"Okay everyone, I've got a few but don't know if any are really going to help us," Laurens says shaking her head,

In front of her are several CDs and a player we got Mike to conjure up, he's doing the same for the boys. This is stuff we don't normally use but hey, we need help here. She's got,

Mean girls - Juno - Clueless - Sixteen candles - The breakfast club

"I've ignored any with magic and I don't think musicals will help much either! It might freak them out if we all broke into song every couple of minutes!" We all laughed at that; yeah we were weird enough without that,

"So let's get started, first we need to be in our nightwear. They call this a slumber party or a sleepover, but you try not to sleep! Next, we need lots of sweets and snacks to eat while we watch" she said wiggling her fingers ay us and we were all now in pyjamas and fluffy slippers,

Well thank goodness they aren't pink, I thought as I looked at my new purple get up. We all can do basic magic but everyone has a speciality as it were. Lauren can turn anything into something else; therefore our normal clothes now look like pyjamas, otherwise known as transmutation. Whereas with Mike he can conjure anything you want out of thin air.

They guys were all next door at Jess and Austin's house watching movies as well, though I doubt they will be any help either because their movies are really guy orientated.

Ferris Bueller's day off - The breakfast club - Risky business - American pie - Karate kid

"That's it human girls are plain weird! I can't believe we're meant to act like that? Now I've saved this one till last, it's a new vampire teen movie; I thought that might be apt. Who wants to see it?" Lauren asks and well in for a penny and all that.

So we settled in to watch the strangest, most unbelievable thing I've ever seen!

TCHBTE

Meanwhile, at the Cullen house, a strange conversation was taking place,

"So how did your first day go?" Esme Cullen asked her children, who weren't hers or children,

"Well...!" Edward said,

"It was...!" Rose added, also leaving her sentence unfinished.

"It was crazy, no it was brilliant Esme. The kids are all weird, the teachers don't know anything about what they're teaching and everyone took one look at lunch and turned green! Like I said brilliant!" Emmett said happily flopping down in front of his new games console,

Carlisle and Esme looked at each other confused. He had yet to start at the hospital or he might have understood.

"All the teachers?" Esme squeaked,

"No the biology teacher was fine, a little dated but fine" Edward assured her.

"The Spanish teacher looks to be okay, she stopped me in the corridor and we have her tomorrow so it should be fine," Jasper said, totally distracted by the knowledge he could feel one person in the towns emotions,

"They all have no dress sense what so ever! They were even sticking together, Jocks, Nerds and Goths all hanging around with each other. It's not right, it's not normal!" Alice said almost hyperventilating with the lack of school hierarchy displayed today.

"How would you, a vampire know what's normal for this town?" Rose sneered at her; Alice without her all-seeing visions was beginning to annoy them all,

Had she always been this whiny? This bossy? This irritating? Yes, she had and they didn't like that she's been running their lives for so long by her standards.

"Oh, by the way, Alice, I'm dressin' myself tomorrow!" Jasper said leaving for his study to think,

"ME TOO" the other's all shouted at the same time.

"You can't, I've seen..." she started to say,

"Liar!" Rose yelled and she too left the room.

"Alice has your gift returned?" Carlisle asked,

"No!" she said sullenly.

"Then why did you say you'd seen something? Do you always just make it up when you don't?" Esme asked her voice ice cold in demeanour,

"I..., I..., not always," Alice said rushing out of the room, realising she'd outed herself.

Carlisle and Esme just looked at each other totally bewildered. What was going on in this town, the family had lost their gifts after arriving, the people were behaving strangely and Alice was showing herself up to be a not so nice young lady. Maybe tomorrow would be better, Carlisle was starting at the hospital and Esme intended to go into town shopping.

They couldn't help but see how much happier Edward was, Emmett too. Jasper seemed so much more relaxed, a little distracted but really relaxed. Rose seemed less bristly too, now that Edward wasn't in her head twenty-four seven. It was becoming apparent that forcing them all to live cheek and jowl in the same house was actually cruel. But letting Alice have free reign now proved to have been a mistake.

This move was becoming an eye-opener for them all. Without their gifts, two of the three had become happier. The strain between Edward and his siblings had lessened, now he couldn't hear their constant thoughts about things he knew nothing therefore disliked. In fact nobody had seen him smile so much and was that him whistling a new tune. He hadn't composed for years, finding it hard to concentrate around all their thoughts.

TCHBTE

The following day goes much the same, we look more like teenagers and try to not react weirdly to whatever is happening in our classes but the Cullens are all giving us strange looks. Go figure that the vampires would be more knowledgeable than us, we took note of the way high school cliques were formed and tried to adhere to them.

Even with humans amongst us we still don't have a clue, because they hadn't had to act normal in years. Plus the married couples are having difficulty ignoring each other or staying away from one another, this was all going to blow up in our faces I mused. Alice Cullen has decided for some reason my sense of style is not to her liking.

Why me, because she's been at me all morning, she's been suggesting, no, telling me about things I wouldn't be seen dead in! Pun intended,

"Alice..., Alice...!" I keep repeating her name but nothing shuts her up when she's on a roll obviously, I was this close to blowing her up. I could feel the fire building on my fingertips.

Jeez, who made her in charge of fashion in Forks, not me? I let rip with an ear-piercing whistle and she drops to the ground clutching her head. Her superior hearing making it unbearable for her.

"No! No! NO!" I say with barely restrained anger,

"But you must, I've seen it..." she starts to say when Edward hisses and drags her away saying,

"Sorry Bella, Alice has no understanding of boundaries, free will or personal space. She also has a tendency to make stuff up please just ignore her" he was hissing at her angrily as he pulled her away.

Then he did the damnedest thing he sniffed her hand which had grabbed my arm, shit she's got my scent on her. He looked around wildly before rushing himself as well as her outside. He was pulling out his cell at the same time and we all looked at each other. Good luck with that, phones don't work so well here. That's why we have landlines when needed.

"Well, she better learn quickly around here. We don't like strangers interfering where they have no business!" Lauren says from my side, the others are all around me nodding.

I see Jasper out the corner of my eye lounging against a pillar with a wicked grin on his face. He looks happy to see her being taken down a peg or two. I can see him much more clearly than a normal human would and wow, he's covered in scars. They don't frighten me, but you've got to wonder how he got them. We've heard of the Southern Vampire Wars and with his accent, I'm putting two and two together here.

Time for another little trip to the archives I think, so what do I know so far?

Texan - Check, Fighter - Check, Empath - Check,

Yeah, that should be enough. Shit, he's looking at me funny, I better get moving. Where the hell am I supposed to be? Oh yeah, Spanish. We can all speak Latin; we can all speak Quileute, some have even mastered the Mer tongue, but Spanish nope, not so hot. But it looks like they can, the Cullens I mean. We're in a mixed junior & senior class and they all speak it well enough if accented with where they were originally from.

But he, Jasper speaks it fluently and our pretend Spanish teacher, who's actually a diviner, like a tracker of anything, Ms Hernandez looks all aflutter. Mia Hernandez is a woman who looks thirty but is really one hundred and fifty-six years old. She can find anything anywhere just by touch. Like f she's looking for water if she touches a tree she can trace its water source.

On the other hand, she can find lost items by touching your hand and tracing it back to the last place you had it. But she can also trace magical bloodlines, by having a family touch each other and then her she by holding hands. She sees all the branches, breaks and side shoots. That's why she always wears gloves, so as not to read you without consent. I really should ask her about my shield one day, see if dad's right and it was a latent magic in Renee's family tree.

It's all in Jasper's cadence and rhythm of speech, it flows out of his mouth like honey and everyone is agog. Good heavens, that man has charisma, no use pretending he's a boy, because, he most certainly is not! How did human in other places believe they were high school age? As all the women and a couple of the guys heave a sigh when he stops talking,

I notice two things. Both Alice and I are pissed, her I understand, but why me? Also, he's staring at me in a knowing way; I don't care what dad says he senses my emotions! I try to strengthen my shield against him and he quirks an eyebrow, nope not working.

"Jazzie, Jazzie I'm talking to you!" Alice whines, trying to get his attention off of me,

"My name is Jasper, Mary-Alice. If you want an answer, use it" he says with a very low growl,

But while the other members of his family flinch, I'm intrigued. There is a darker side to him, I sense it now too. All everyone else got was her name and from now on we would be calling her Mary-Alice, why because it blatantly annoys her and since she has done nothing but be rude and annoying to us, why not? Looks like we've got the high school thing cracked after all.

Lunch was a better today, they didn't eat what they picked and we got what we wanted. I still brought mine from home as I needed high energy stuff to keep my shield up against Edward and over them to nullify their gifts. I decided it was pointless continually strengthening the one over Jasper as it didn't work anyway and he seemed happy to be only feeling mine and his own emotions.

"Damn, nobody turned green today," Emmett said quite disappointed,

"Well, I hate it here and I'm telling Carlisle we need to leave!" Alice said dropping down in her seat,

"Well we like it, so go if you want to, nobody's gonna stop you" Jasper drawled and the others nodded.

"No, we all need to go something is very wrong here" she snaps at them,

"The only thing wrong here is you Mary-Alice! Get over yourself" Rose spat and they all turned away from her.

This is not good if she leaves her gift will return and who knows what she'll do or say! No, she cannot leave just yet. We'll have to get dad to either memory charm her or Romain has to talk to Dr Cullen. Looks like I need to sneak out for a little while, thank god it's lunch. I head to the office to tell them I need to see the archives urgently. Shelley Cope is having a field day in there; the place looks like a bomb hit it.

"Hello dear, there's a message for you. A man phoned half an hour ago and he said, hell, here listen to it yourself, it was quite odd really. Almost like he knew something strange was going on here" she said replaying the message for me.

'Hello, would you please tell Miss Swan, no tell Bella to please not hurt my brother, he's the only one I have! The pixie bitch she can do what she likes with. My wife and I are on our way, tell her don't do anythin' rash suga'. The others would love to stay. Oh, yeah, I'm Peter Whitlock'

There it was again, I knew that name from somewhere. It was most definitely time to hit the archives; I've read so much over the years it's hard to keep it all straight. What did he mean don't hurt my brother? He's not the problem here; well he's mine but nobody else's so far. Guess this unknown guy doesn't really like Mary-Alice much either. Did he know that she, Bella could be a danger to them, especially her control of fire?

His voice indicated he too was a vampire, so one with a gift obviously! What did he mean they'd love to stay, here in Forks, permanently? I suggest to Shelley that the school should close early for a teachers meeting, a fire drill or something like that. It didn't matter but we all needed to get out of here sooner rather than later. I needed to call another meeting; Eric would have to freeze the Cullens too.

TCHBTE

At the hospital Carlisle was in a state of shock, there were no serious cases. The ICU was empty, the maternity wing was empty. He knew it was a small town, but no illness, no pregnancies that was unheard of. The staff were, well, in a word, bizarre. The wandered about looking lost and confused as if they had no idea where to go or what to do! This place was not normal at all.

They looked at the equipment as if they had no idea what it was or what it did. Where others might not have noticed, he saw many discrepancies in their clothes. The normal hierarchy was not in place, similar to the school he thought. One woman seemed to be more important than the others and she was the receptionist, Alina Octaff.

Retreating to his new office Carlisle set about thinking over the whole day so far. First, he realised they knew what he was because no one had reacted to his cold touch as they shook hands. Nobody had kept their distance as is normal and several people had been watching him with undisguised interest. Then used his superior hearing to listen to any conversations taking place and boy was that enlightening.

"Alina, do you think he noticed anything?" asked an unknown man in such a low voice, Carlisle strained to hear him,

"No, well, I don't think so Shaman Ateara. But he's a smart man, we need to be careful!" she replied, just as quietly,

"Okay, for safety sake let him treat any minor injuries that aren't obviously, your people's related illnesses. Send the serious to me at the reservation and any needing reversal or removal to the school for Julie to deal with. Maybe they'll get bored and leave" Shaman Ateara, otherwise known as Old Quill said,

"Yes Bella's worried, she is doing more research in the archives and says that Alice girl is becoming a problem," Alina told him,

"Charlie, told me about her near-miss with the youngest one, Edward yesterday. Drawn to her blood apparently, but only hers! I know they are supernatural like us, but the last thing Forks needed was vampires!" he replied in a whisper.

Carlisle was stunned; he knew exactly what was going on now. No wonder they always felt drawn back to Forks, it was a supernatural community. Every time they moved its name came up first. But what kind of supernaturals? He knew about the Quileute wolves from before, but what else was here? Something strong enough to block the gifts of his family and stop Edward attacking his singer. Of course, magic!

This was wonderful; it meant they never needed to leave ever again. A permanent home, Esme would be delighted, she loved it here, in fact, everyone but Alice did. So what to do about her, hmmm! Over the years Carlisle had learned many things and knew that there were many types of supernaturals and others in his world. Edward refused to believe this of course, but now here, at last, was proof positive. Time for a family meeting, then meeting the leaders of the Forks community.

TCHBTE

"Peter Whitlock" Bella murmured to the wall of books before her and several rattled but only two leapt forward and opened. One was the supernatural index; it listed all known persons no matter the species. Due to its magical properties, it updated itself on a daily, no hourly basis.

Peter Whitlock, real surname unknown. (Known as) Captain Whitlock. Human drinking Vampire mated to Charlotte. Sired in Texas by The Major in 1892 at age 23 during the Garza Revolution to fight in the Southern Vampire Wars. Escaped his coven with his mate after 48 years, due to his sire's help in 1939 and is now semi-nomadic. Undefined cognitive ability, explained by himself as 'I know shit!'

The second book that opened was one on covens and it made for so frightening and graphic reading. Bella's eyes kept returning to two words on the page, The Major. Her skin prickled and her senses knew it meant something important, something to do with her. Snapping her fingers at these two, they returned back in place.

"The Major" she barely whispered and the archives practically shook as book after book threw itself open before her.

Major Jasper Whitlock - (Known as) Jasper Whitlock -The Major - The God of War. (Known Aliases) Jasper Cullen - Jasper Hale. Animal drinking vampire, no mate. Sired in Texas by Maria in 1863 at age 19 during the American Civil War to fight in the Southern Vampire Wars. Escaped his coven and certain death after 80 years, with the help of Peter Whitlock in 1943. Semi-nomadic until joining the Cullen or Olympic coven in 1952. The defined ability of Pathokinesis or Empathy. He can both feel and manipulate the emotions of those around him.

Surrounded by a sea of books, books he had written, books that mentioned his heroic deeds as a human, books that detailed his alter-ego's many deeds good and bad. His name was mention in passing in some, others spoke of him directly, and some were from hearsay about him. But one thing stood out to Bella, this was a man many feared, whilst holding him in awe. Just as many spoke of him with respect, friendship and faint hero-worship.

Bella snapped her fingers and all the books disappeared once again. One phrase was running around in her head, one from so many years ago. Bella shuddered as she remembered that night,

"He will be supernatural, not like you at all and 'M' was an important letter in his life!"

Reminder who does what

Julie Hammond - Spell removal Healer

Mia Hernandez - Divining/finder

Garza Revolutionbetween Texas and Mexico (1891–1893)

Thanks to Idreamofeddy for her brilliant creations, making good characters great.