Chapter 1: Party

I WAS NINETY-NINE POINT NINE PERCENT SURE I WAS DREAMING. My first clue was that even though I knew I'd never been here before, I recognized the candlelit stone room I was in. It was dim. The stones and the candles already suggested the place was old, but the six stone-carved thrones arranged on a curved pedestal at the far end of the room guaranteed this place was ancient. Oh, and the spider webs draping like curtains in every corner.

Five of the thrones seemed well used. The arms were worn away, smoothed down like rocks against the tide, eroded over years, maybe decades. Those five each had something decorating them, like a velvet cushion, or a flat pillow for footrests. The sixth throne had been restored at some point, replaced with marble. Instead of being empty and waiting, a woman of marble remained enthroned permanently. Her features were so life-like it was scary to stare into her blank eyes and not expect her to blink. But her smooth long braid that draped over her shoulder and down her side didn't moved when a cool gust came from behind me. Her skirt layers didn't shift. Her bare toes didn't wiggle once. Her noble posture didn't stir. If not for that breeze I might have watched her my whole dream—because for a second I thought I saw colour in the marble, maybe she'd had brown hair and dark eyes with rosy cheeks—but I turned around. A door behind me had opened.

It was a huge door. The room itself was huge too, large enough to host a crowd, maybe a school dance, if the dance had a medieval throne room theme. The door had large bolts that were rusted and the hinges creaked so terribly I'd had to cover my ears when the double doors parted. I hadn't seen who had entered. I heard a howl, from somewhere far away, outside the stone.

"Bella."

It was a voice I'd never heard before, but yet I knew him.

When I looked at the thrones, there were people there. I could see them but, because I was dreaming, they had no faces, no bodies, nothing that I could try to remember when I woke up. I only knew they weren't human.

"Bella."

This time, a familiar voice said my name. I opened my eyes.

Angie was staring at me, hovering above me. We both shrieked when we realized I was awake.

"Sorry!" Angie fell back and landed on the floor next to her bed, a step away from where my sleeping bag was laid out on the floor.

"I almost had a heart attack!" I sat up and unzipped the sleeping bag.

"You were mumbling and saying names I'd never heard and…I admit I started eavesdropping," Angie said bashfully. "I thought about waking you up. You didn't look like you were enjoying that dream."

It was the first week of June, and final exams were approaching at light-speed, which was why Angie and I had arranged weekly study sessions. Maybe it was unusual that Angie and I actually studied instead of using the excuse to watch movies or gossip, but Angie and I couldn't help but be good students. Sure we were boring but our grades were good. Jess had joined us a couple times, mostly because she was envious that Angie and I had suddenly become the kind of best friends that didn't automatically include her in our plans, but when she failed twice to turn our Study Saturdays into Girls' Night In, she decided to study on her own. Angie and I hadn't abandoned fun altogether. But Saturday night was reserved for late study nights, switching alternatively between our houses, taking turns providing snacks, background music, and entertainment for brief breaks. It was more fun than studying with Edward, who knew everything because he'd taken high school exams dozens of times and being an immortal vampire had allowed him to become a total know-it-all.

"What names?" I asked.

"I don't remember," Angie answered. She'd thrown a salmon-pink hoodie over her pajama shirt and used her fingers to comb her hair into a loose bun. "Like, Aro…Marcus…I don't know, Bella. But not names from around here. Although there might be a Mark Calvin. I think he was a few years ahead of us, in the same year as my brother."

Something I'd learned recently about Angie was that she had a half-brother six years older than us. He had graduated a year ago. He'd seen my truck once and offered to look at it if it ever gave me problems, but I had to politely refuse. Jacob was the only mechanic allowed to touch my beautiful rust bucket on wheels.

Oh, and her brother started working with my dad this month. He'd chosen to protect and serve Forks, the small, rainy town I now called home.

Forks hadn't always been my home. My parents split when I was young, too young to remember them being happy together once upon a time. I moved in with Dad before the start of the school year. My mom had remarried and we'd been fighting a lot. I'd wanted to get out of the way, give us some space to miss each other, and give both of us a fresh start. I got my fresh start. I made an effort. I shoved all my anti-social tendencies and timidity in a box in my head and made friends who didn't get tired of me after a month. I also met Edward, my vampire boyfriend who only drinks animal blood even though apparently my blood is the tastiest smelling blood in all of history. Edward's vampire family also thought my blood smelled delicious, but it was more than that to Edward. He'd almost killed me the first time we got close because it nearly impossible to resist. Thank God he did resist. Thinking about the transition from him wanting to devour me to being in love with me gave me a headache. All that mattered was that for four months no tragedies had occurred and he was beginning to act like an almost normal boyfriend. Things were good.

"Your phone started flashing two hours ago," Angie said. She frowned and raised an eyebrow at me. "It woke me up. Hence why I got up and brushed my teeth already."

Taking the hint, I checked my phone. As expected, it was Edward.

Good morning, Bella.

It was a little funny that Edward was trying to be my alarm clock. Fool. I always turn off my phone to sleep.

It was annoying though, because Edward didn't sleep, and didn't care about when it was appropriate to text me. Vampires don't have to sleep. Edward frequently hung out in my room until late, long after I fell asleep (I couldn't play hostess all night, especially not on a school night) and he would let himself out sometime before I woke up. He was always ready with his car at the end of my driveway. He wanted every precious minute of my time, but I only allowed him so much, so he took everything I was willing to give. Saturday nights, for example, were forbidden to him, and that usually spread into Sunday mornings. He used to complain. Didn't I want to spend time with him? Don't normal teenage girls want to spend Saturdays with their boyfriends? Lately, I hadn't needed to remind him that normal teenage girls want to spend some Saturdays with their friends and that giving me some space was healthy for my poor mortal sanity.

Esme has asked if you would wish to join us for dinner this evening.

It wasn't the first time I'd stared at an invitation like this and wondered if Esme had invited me or if Edward had told Esme that he was going to invite me. Edward had proven to be creatively romantic, which I admitted I adored, but he liked creating excuses to keep me to himself and take me away from my human life.

Do you need a ride home from Angela's?

I quickly texted back one word: No.

It took less than a minute for the inbox to flash again with his response.

Ah, so my Sleeping Beauty awakens. Finally.

I rolled my eyes and tossed my phone onto the sleeping bag. Angie shook her head at me. Edward wasn't her favourite person. I didn't blame her. I'd been scared of Edward once, and I'd confessed a lot of my concerns about my relationship with her—without revealing Edward was a vampire—and she had strongly suggested that I tread carefully and not give him all of my heart until I was absolutely sure he wouldn't give into his darker side. Easy in theory, but harder in practice. I'd been through stuff with Edward. Serious stuff. Like when the vampire James, who had wanted to kill me, killed my mom instead. I'd thought I'd never speak to Edward again, but I'd forgiven him. It was a waste of energy to hate Edward and have my heartache whenever he was near me. I couldn't keep track of such opposing and strong emotions, so I settled for keeping my rich, immortal, prince of a boyfriend. He'd gotten better at resisting the urge to drink my blood and I was slowly training him to be less clingy, so it was working.

Dad didn't like Edward either. Whether it was because he was a cop or because he was my dad, he saw through the charm and gentlemanly manner that fooled everyone else. He saw the danger. Dad told me more than once he got a bad feeling whenever he saw Edward holding my hand and caught him kissing my cheek. I convinced Dad that it was his paternal instincts and that it was because I was his only daughter. Dad had no choice to agree. He didn't know there was a reason not to.

Angie and I went downstairs for breakfast. Her brother was on the couch playing a video game. I didn't recognize it, but it involved a coloured square and platforms that moved and obstacles to overcome. I watched occasionally while chewing Angie's homemade waffles—soft, fluffy, and so moist they practically melted in my mouth. Angie was a breakfast goddess. Angie's mom joined us at the kitchen table and read a few headlines from the newspaper. The wolf population was at an all time high. Apparently it was strange enough to warrant a specialist who had noticed a similar sudden rise elsewhere a few years ago.

Angie interrupted the wolf news to report a new text from Jess. Apparently Mike and Jess were over, again, and she was going to prom with a guy named Ian. Angie and I had been instructed to delete all photos of her and Mike and the Snowflake Dance and the Valentine's bowl-off (the teams all being couples, and, expectedly, Edward managed to take the dorkiness out of couples wearing matching shirt colours while bowling for the grand prize of nothing).

"That's the second time this month," I accused.

"Mike let slip he wasn't sick but purposely skipped the bake sale because he thought it would be boring," Angie grumbled. "It was boring."

"I remember." The sad part was that the bake sale was to raise money for new school uniforms, and Mike, being an athlete, had let his girlfriend do all the work. He couldn't bake, sure, but he could've showed up for moral support. Edward bought a bunch and he couldn't eat human food (not that anyone beside me knew that extra special detail).

"I went on a date with a guy named Ian once," Angie said.

"The Snowflake Dance." I had been trying to remember his name for a while, at last the mystery was solved and I could die peacefully with no regrets.

"Yeah," Angie said. "He was cute, but one-dimensional, you know?"

I nodded.

"He probably wanted a date because his friends all had dates and he'd be shamed if he was the only stag bro." Angie rolled her eyes.

I patted her shoulder. She smirked and shook her head at me. For once in my life I was the girl who already had a date to the dance or whatever occasion that called for a boyfriend. It felt fantastic to be on this end of the spectrum.

"I wish Eric would stop avoiding me," Angie said, her voice low, eyes watching her brother from the couch.

Her mom looked up from the newspaper. Her lips curled, but she lifted the paper again and moved from the table to the sink, to discard her dishes. She rinsed and arranged her plate and utensils in the dishwasher and remained somewhat out of hearing distance, to feign giving us a private moment. I stopped chewing and leaned in closer.

"When did you talk last?"

"When he tried to ask me out, tripped over the front steps of the school, and then excused himself unsuccessfully hiding his bruised ego and bruised…everywhere else," Angie recounted.

I hadn't witnessed the event, but Jess had, and she always laughed when she heard Angie tell it. Uncontrollably. It was her new favourite story.

"If he won't respond to texts, you have to walk up to him," I prescribed. "Ambush him at school, at lunch or something, so he doesn't have the excuse to hang up or have something better to do."

"I guess I have to," Angie said. "I'm not the kind of girl that likes to make the moves." She sighed.

It was so nice to have problems I could relate to and attempt to solve. Normal. That's what this was. Normal. It was a good counterbalance to the strange problems Alice tried to solve with my input. Not that she needed my input. The questions she asked me she answered herself as I opened my mouth. I never got a word in. She already knew what I would say. It saved time but it made my brain feel like it was running a marathon. Losing the marathon, but definitely still running.

I got dressed, packed up my notebooks and overnight bag, and then got in my truck. I was more than impressed that Edward had resisted showing up. He wasn't the possessive stalker I had once feared. He was patient and was even amused by the practice of pretending to be a normal human couple with human restrictions. Of course that didn't stop him from sometimes sending Alice to check in on me, as a cheat.

"Hiya!"

My hands jerked the wheel, but only half an inch, and Alice, being able to predict the future, wouldn't have let my unsteady hands divert me onto a dangerous path. She had slipped in sometime after I'd pulled out of the driveway. The window was down. Had she jumped in while the truck was moving? I was more worried about the damage her dramatic entrance might do to the truck, since she was damn near indestructible.

"Sleepyhead," she said.

"Humans need a certain amount of sleep," I reminded her.

She was wearing a glamorous spring outfit. Her jacket, a warm shade of light brown, had three-quarter length sleeves and was short, stopping at her waist. Her lacy off-white top was mostly sheer, tucked under a thick black belt with a green skirt with pink Hawaiian flowers dotted about the hem. Alice had been faking hair growth since January, and now her wig, made a real human hair (she claimed), was artfully wavy and hung over her shoulders by an inch.

"I know," Alice said. Her eyes widened. "It's just so damn fun to tease you!"

"Glad I could provide you with fun, Alice."

She giggled.

"Are you here because you want to be or because Edward had a mission for you?"

"I want to." She buckled her seatbelt. She frowned, swiped her fingers across the belt a few times, and then slumped. "Weird." She clicked the button and released it. Her whole posture rejuvenated. She often tried to conform to safety protocols to placate me, but she usually gave up quickly. Seatbelts, she often said, were like chains. It was good for humans, but it felt like a cage to her. No car crash would harm her, so why subject herself to imprisonment?

"I know graduation isn't for three weeks, but we're having a party," Alice explained. "A private party. Rosalie and Emmett are planning to get married again and have a honeymoon for a year, since there's nothing for them to do around here while the rest of us finish yet another last year of high school."

"How many times have they been married?"

"A few. Four. More. Not the point."

"How many times have you married Jasper?"

"Once in a church," she said. "Now it's a party with a cake, only for the show of it, but since you have human taste buds I thought you could make the cake and I could decorate it! We'll be a team!"

"Once in a church? So more than once somewhere else?"

"As you know, we've done this sort of thing a lot," she continued without pause, "so the little party isn't the exciting part. It's really a test run."

"Did you marry Jasper and take the last name Hale, or Jasper's real last name?"

"One of many test runs. Because you're a part of our family."

A laugh escaped. My eyes left the road maybe a moment too long to study her face, unsure if she was trying to be serious. It wasn't always clear with Alice.

She was stunned. How could I laugh? Of course I was part of her family. Don't be silly, Bella. But since when? Rosalie hated me. She'd told me to split the first chance I got. Not to mention the Cullens had a diet that was lethal to me should they ever go too long between hunting and get hungry enough that I would start looking like a nice sirloin steak with a side of yum.

"Someday, Bella," she said softly, her hand touching my shoulder, "we'll welcome you into our family. It's what Edward wants. It's what we all want."

"All?"

"Rosalie will come around."

"All?"

"You'll come around too."

I shook my head. "I like being human."

"How can you say you like being human when you're on your period?"

I frowned and tried not to think about how she knew that. Were my cramps obvious? Maybe wearing light coloured sweat-pants had been a bad idea. Had there been a spot? No. It was definitely because Alice's vampire nose could smell blood. I was going to be sick if she even so much as hinted that it made her hungry. I looked over to study her eyes. Light, almost gold. She'd fed recently.

"Wouldn't you rather get rid of all that discomfort?" She clasped her hands together, like pleading with me would work today when it hadn't the dozen other times we'd had this conversation. "Vampires don't get sick either. Lady vampires don't get bloated once a month. We don't ever gain weight. We look like our most beautiful self forever."

"I am comfortable with how I look," I said. It was true. Most of the time. Not today, but most of the time.

"Forget comfortable. Try tickled pink. You'll be gorgeous and Edward won't be able to keep his hands off you." She made a claw with her hand and purred. She wagged an eyebrow, laughed at my concerned expression, and lowered her feline claw. "And, even better, Bella, dear, it's okay if you two want to get frisky. Because he won't have to hold back, since once you're immortal you'll lose all that fragility that makes it so dangerous for you to do anything more than kiss!"

"I like kissing."

"Life is not a Disney movie, Bella," Alice said with a growl in her voice. "There are better things to come after that kiss. Rosalie is always trying to convince me that her reason for remarrying Emmett over and over isn't to throw a party and buy a new pretty white dress—it's about the honeymoon. It's like they're in wedded bliss for the first time every time! If you want to get on Rosalie's good side, just wait until she comes back from her honeymoon. She's like a whole other person. A happy person. Tickled pink happy."

I sighed. My house was in view. Not that exiting the truck would end this conversation. Alice was determined.

"I'm not ready, Alice. For…that next step."

"Fine." She crossed her arms and slumped against the seat. "But you're missing out. And Edward isn't going to take the next step until your body is capable of withstanding sex with a vampire."

"Okay!" I parked the truck in the driveway. "That's enough of that." My face was hot. So what I was sixteen. So what other girls were fine losing their v-card at this age. I was not. Not not not. When I was ready, I would be ready, but I wasn't. I slammed the truck door—and regretted it instantly, since the old gal could only take so much abuse. I tenderly opened the door and took my bag from the seat. When I closed the door—this time with love and care—Alice was waiting beside me.

"I'm sorry for being pushy," Alice said, "but Edward is not a patient guy and you are a stubborn girl so I like to keep you two at peace. When you're at war, everyone suffers. Particularly Jasper, because Edward likes to use him to talk about you. And then I talk about you too. It makes Jasper feels used and a little jealous that no one comes to talk to him about him anymore."

"Poor Jasper." I shoved open the front door. "Dad, I'm home!" No answer. He'd gone to work. "Alice, maybe if you stop talking about me so much, you could focus on making Jasper happier. In fact, stop talking about me and I'll be happier too."

Alice groaned. She couldn't help herself. I was her doll and she had to play.

I made Alice wait while I refreshed myself with a shower. She had infiltrated my closet and pulled open my drawers. We'd talked about this before. Yes my wardrobe was boring, especially compared to her runway idealism, but this was the wardrobe of a girl who hadn't accumulated millions of dollars by living for decades.

Alice sometimes forced new things into my closest. It was annoying only because I felt guilty excepting her charity. It made it easier when I remembered she took more pleasure out of dressing me up than I ever could, so really it was more of a favour to her than myself. The only remaining problem was that my style was casual at best. Her vision for me was dresses and hairstyles I was too lazy to work out for myself.

Today I allowed her to play. Any occasion at the Cullen house made me nervous. I'd been over almost a dozen times now, but that didn't change the meet-the-family combined with meet-the-vampires vibe. I wanted to be presentable, more presentable than my real self. The Cullens, even if they weren't vampires, emanated class and regality from every angle. I needed to up my game to feel comfortable around them.

Alice allowed me light blue jeans and a sleeveless fuchsia top with an eyelet floral design and a high collar. She insisted on curling my hair and arranging it in a high ponytail. She pulled a couple strands loose in front and then wound a pink ribbon around to disguise the hair-tie.

According to Alice, we had a few things to discuss before the dinner party, so she pulled out a dessert book and we flipped through until I found something I was capable of making and Alice was equally thrilled to decorate. Then we took my truck to the grocery store and picked up the ingredients. The cake wouldn't be needed until after exams, but Alice was convinced we needed a practice run.

The result was that our creation was my lunch. A rather sugary lunch, but, hey, I had no complaints. It was a success. Maybe Rosalie would glare at me less if I provided her grad celebration with cake. Doubtful.

The Cullens Victorian-inspired home was as much a living space as it was a work of art. The clean white outside, the sun-warmed porch, the wide windows—the mansion was a dream, welcoming and magnificent. Rosalie stood on the terrace on the second floor, one hand on her hip, glaring down at me. Her glare had softened over the months. She must have come to accept that Edward was going to keep me. Now she looked more annoyed and little less like she was planning new ways to murder me.

Edward opened my door the second I had parked my truck beside the Cullen's garage. Impatient. He made up for it with his good looks. Even though it was windy, his dark tousled hair didn't fall out of place. The sun shone making his place skin warm and picked out shades of red in his hair. His eyes were golden today. Since we were apart on Saturdays, he started using Saturday as hunting day.

"Pretty in pink," he teased. He offered his hand and closed the door after me. He kissed my forehead. He was really the perfect height for that. He pulled me into a hug, and my head could fit perfectly cradled on his shoulder.

Edward held my hand as we walked up the porch steps. Carlisle sat on a white wicker chair with a letter in hand. He smiled and placed the letter down on the matching wicker table and set a leather-bound journal over the letter to keep the wind from carrying it away.

"Bella," Carlisle said. "You look well today."

"Thanks. I feel well."

"I am glad to hear it." Carlisle lifted his leg to cross the other and let his arms fall on the arms of the chair. His usual easy manner was absent. Carlisle always had a gentlemanly power, and in the beginning he'd been intimidating, but ever since he saved my human life those many months ago I'd found it easy to be around him. But now that I knew him better I knew something was upsetting him. His eyes rested on the leather-bound book, on the letter held beneath it. Even my human eyes could see him debating the contents of the letter in his head.

Alice hopped onto the banister across from Carlisle. She wasn't worried. Whatever concerned Carlisle, Alice had probably see the possible outcomes and decided the best fate to follow. Seeing her so at ease with something that was clearly disturbing to Carlisle shoved an ice shard in my heart. I'd forgiven Alice, but I hadn't forgotten. Alice had seen multiple possible futures for what would happen after James kidnapped my mom. She'd told me she could've saved my mom's life, but the truth was even though she could she decided that the best future meant my mom had to die. I didn't envy Alice. The choices she made about the future she saw had to be definite and sure. She had to make the choice that was best for everyone, and that didn't always mean it was the safest choice, or the happiest in that moment. It would be a long time before I could blindly accept her advice the way her family did.

"If only the days could go on exactly like this." Carlisle had moved from the porch and stood in the sun, his hands in his pockets, eyes closed and head tilted back. "The simplest life is the happiest."

"I'm happy," Alice countered. "Definitely not simple, but happy."

Carlisle chuckled. "I suppose that's true." He opened his eyes. "We must always be grateful for the happiness life sends our way. Even if it is complicated. I wouldn't have met my family if it weren't for complicated circumstances." His eyes fell over the tree of us. Exactly as Alice had said, without my knowing, the Cullens had begun accepting me as part of their family.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Review/comment, please! I love it when you do!

As you know, Edward isn't a huge part of New Moon (if you haven't watched the movie or read the book, he leaves), so he's not a huge part of this story. He's definitely involved, but this fanfic will mostly feature Bella, Jacob, Carlisle, and Alice (because I can't help but love Alice and put her in everything). Enjoy.