A/N: This is the second of three chaps you'll be getting off me today - that's how much I'm loving this story! Hope your enjoying it too :)

Again my heart felt thanks go to Arabella Whitlock my amazing beta :) any mistakes are mine.

I own nothing except a crazy imagination.

Firework

Happy Family

I followed Alaric up the steps that led to the house, nerves gripping me tightly. It was beautiful, and obviously well cared for. A large porch wrapped round the front of the house, furniture dotted about on it, showing that it was used. Sitting outside in the warm air and sunshine might have been something I could get use to if the family let me stay for a while.

Alaric opened the door for me and motioned for me to head in first, with a nervous look at him I did. Inside was as beautiful as the outside, a large hallway greeted me with polished wooden floorboards and a light décor that made the house seem warm somehow.

"Hey!" Came a friendly voice from in front of me, a woman who I'd not noticed as I took in my surroundings was stood watching me from a doorway, a smile plastered across her kind and open face.

"Hi." I replied biting my lip as I did.

"I'm Jenna your uncles girlfriend, and you must be Bella! Welcome to Mystic Falls." The woman said enthusiastically. She was pretty, really pretty with long straight red hair and eyes which smiled with her face.

"Um.. Yeah, thanks?" I said, making it sound like a question somehow.

Jenna stood looking at me with her head tilted a little bit, as though trying to work me out, her smile never faltered though. "Where's the rest of your stuff?" She asked me as she came forward and took my small, battered suitcase from my hands.

"I... I.. This is it." I mumbled, embarrassed yet again.

"Really? This is all you've brought? You sure you're a teenager?" Jenna asked me playfully, her eyes lighting up.

"Pretty sure yeah." I smiled back at her, she was easy to like, that was for sure. I could see why Alaric was so in love with her.

"Okay then, you want me to show you to your room? I bet you've had a long flight?" She asked me.

"Um.. Sure?" Again I made it sound like a question, but I was really on edge here. What was the protocol for living with complete strangers?

"Follow me." Jenna said before heading up the stairs, with a quick glance at Alaric who nodded and smiled at me, I did as I was told and followed the surprisingly young woman up the wide staircase.

"So, that's Alaric's and my room, that's Elena's there, that's the guest room, Jeremy's is that one just there and this is your room." Jenna told me as we passed white wooden doors. Alaric had been right, the house was big. It would have fit two or three of Charlie's in it comfortably.

I stepped through the door closest to Jeremy's room and took in my surroundings. The room was huge. It was painted white, bright white with a dark wooden double bed in the middle and dark wooden wardrobe to the side, as well as a desk and vanity unit that matched. Other than that it was empty. The window which looked out on to the road outside was guarded by a comfy looking window seat, the perfect place to sit and read or just watch the world go by. It was a really nice room.

"So obviously it's a bit boring at the minute but you can paint or whatever, and this is your bathroom here." Jenna opened another white wooden door which revealed a small but clean and modern room. Got to say I was a fan of not having to share a bathroom again.

"I guess I'll leave you to it then." Jenna said while giving me a wide smile. I didn't understand it, how did she not mind opening up her house to a complete stranger? "Elena and Jeremy will be back for dinner tonight, so you'll meet them then, they're both out with friends, we weren't expecting you for a little while otherwise they'd have been here. If you need anything just shout and don't be afraid to come down, you don't have to stay locked up in here or anything. Unless you want to."

"Thank you Jenna." I smiled at her, trying to keep my tears at bay for just a few more minutes. "Really." I stressed, wanting her to know just how grateful I was to her.

Jenna just nodded at me before leaving the room, my room, and closing the door quietly behind her.

~0~

I'd been in the room, my room for an hour or so, unpacking all of my things and trying to make my surroundings into a home before showering and changing into clothes that weren't so travel worn. Alice would've been proud of me I thought with a sigh.

A knock at my door soon brought me out of my maudlin thoughts though. I quickly walked the seemingly large distance to see who was there.

"Hey, all settled in?" Alaric asked with a smile as his eyes took in my room which looked almost exactly the same as when I'd entered it, except for my laptop lying on the desk, charging my ipod up.

"Yeah, thanks." I smiled up at him, feeling more relaxed now that my meger belongings were around me.

"Great. Well Elena and Jeremy are on their way back now, I thought you might want to come down and have a meal like a typical atypical family." Alaric grinned at me, the awkwardness from before now gone.

"Erm... Yeah, sure." I agreed, feeling the butterflies of nerves grab me once more as I shut my door behind me and followed my uncle back down the stairs.

I admitted to myself that I was terrified of meeting these two members of the family. I'd never been able to relate to people my own age, had found it hard to make friends. I was sure that I'd be just as awkward, find it just as hard to fit in here as anywhere else I'd been before.

"Hey Bella." Jenna greeted me as Alaric lead me into a pretty impressive kitchen, oh the meals I could make in here. "You get unpacked and settled okay?"

"Yes thanks, wasn't much to unpack luckily." I told her beaming in response to her open smile. Maybe living here wouldn't be too bad after all? If they let me stay anyway.

"Cool. Well we can go shopping or something tomorrow if you'd like? Get you some stuff to make your room more you, some clothes? Hey we could get some lunch too, invite Elena, make a real girls day of it!?" Jenna looked excited at the prospect of a girly day out. That worried me, I hoped that she didn't want to play Bella Barbie like others had done, cause that really wasn't me, and I'd pretended it was for too long with nothing good to come of it.

"Haven't you got a paper due?" Alaric asked the excitable woman with raised eyebrows and a smile.

"Oh yeah, crap! I guess I'm study bound tomorrow, sorry." Jenna looked annoyed but quickly perked up and went to grab some glasses from a cupboard behind her, as she did Alaric gave me a sly grin and winked at me.

I full on smiled back at him and mouthed 'thanks'. He just nodded and went to help his girlfriend.

I heard the front door open and heavy footsteps on the exposed wooden floor in the hallway. "Hey! We're home!" A girls voice came floating towards us sounding happy but tired. My heart beat started to pick up now, here it went.

"In the kitchen!" Alaric called back with easy familiarity, yeah these guys were defiantly a happy family alright, and here I was the interloper.

A girl I assumed to be Elena and a younger guy that I guessed was Jeremy walked into the kitchen, both with easy going smiles plastered across their good looking faces.

"Hey, guys. Hi, you must be Alaric's niece, Bella, I'm Elena." The girl addressed me, her face open with a wide smile. She was easily one of the prettiest girls I'd ever met, inhuman company included. Her face was flawless, with big brown doe eyes and long straight brown hair that shone. Already I felt out of place and plain stood next to her.

"Hi." I replied shyly.

"Hey, I'm Jeremy." The boy told me, his eyes flashing over me cautiously before he smiled as well. He was also really good looking, with hair as brown as his sisters and a smile that showed off a strong jaw line that would have girls flinging themselves at him.

"Hi." I repeated myself, feeling slightly stupid. Could I not think of a more original greeting?

"Smells good what's for dinner?" Jeremy asked Jenna as Elena turned her attention solely on me.

"So Bella, what do you think of Mystic Falls so far then?" She asked me as she leant against the work top, her friendly smile still in place.

"Erm... I haven't really seen any of it except for in here." I smiled shyly back. "But this is nice, and I'm preferring the weather already." There was something about this girl that put me slightly at ease, she was really friendly, without trying too hard.

"What's the weather like back in...?" Elena asked with an apologetic smile as she obviously couldn't remember where it was I'd got here from.

"Forks." I smiled right back. "It's rainy pretty much all the time, I swear in the eight months I lived there, there was only three sunny days."

"Well you'll love it here then! It's sunny like all of the time." Elena said while pushing herself off the counter and helping to take food to a table off to the side of the vast room.

Soon we were all sat around the table eating pizza and salad. Conversation was flowing like nothing strange had happened at all, like I wasn't someone intruding but part of things.

"So what's Stefan doing without you tonight Elena? He must be sat moping somewhere?" Jeremy teased his sister good naturedly.

"Nope, he's at the Grill with Caroline and Matt." Elena grinned while softly smacking his arm. It was nice to see. Nice but sad as well, as I remembered other siblings that got on just as well as these two, more inhuman though.

"Have you got a boyfriend you've left behind then Bella?" Jeremy smiled at me over the table, but everyone else immediately stopped talking and glared at him. Guess Charlie had filled them in on my drama.

"Erm... No." I mumbled looking down into my pizza, I hadn't left anything back home except my dad, everyone else had left me first.

"I'm meeting my friends at the Grill tomorrow evening, you should come Bella." Elena covered up the awkward silence at the table and smiled gently at me. It was an understanding smile, she'd obviously been left by someone she'd loved before as well. I had a feeling that if I wasn't too odd, I might just make a friend here. A real friend.

"Sure, that sounds fun." I said quietly with a nod.

~0~

It had been a nice night, everyone had obviously made the effort to stay in and get to know me, but they didn't make me feel like I was intruding or anything, more that I was being welcomed.

I still didn't get it, how they could welcome a stranger so openly into their home, but I did appreciate it. By the time I went to my room I felt almost happy.

After my shower I got dressed into my night things and curled under the covers, staring from my bed out of the window into the night sky. It was beautiful and relaxed me slightly. Maybe moving to Mystic Falls wouldn't be so bad after all? I thought to myself as the dull edges of sleep crept up on me.

~0~

"Bella!" A voice shouting my name, worried yet nervous and broke through my nightmare.

I jumped up in the unfamiliar room to see a girl standing over me. My heart rate started slowing down as I remembered where I was, as I realised it was just a dream. I wasn't there anymore. I was here, in Mystic Falls. I was okay, I was fine.

But Elena, she looked freaked out, I must have been screaming in my sleep again. "Are you okay?" She asked me with wide eyes.

"Yeah fine, had a nightmare that's all, sorry I woke you." I said, blushing as I did, could I be more of a spaz?

"That's okay, are you sure you're alright?" Elena asked again, the terrified look on her face slowly leaving her.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks." I smiled back slightly, well there went my chance at actually making a friend.

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. Night Bella." Elena said quietly before shutting the door on me.

I sank back into my pillows and groaned. When would these nightmares leave me? When would I be normal again? Or was I always doomed to this? To being a freak.

I realised I wasn't going to get back to sleep anytime soon, and I was getting slight hunger pangs, the type that only come at two in the morning. So I slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs, hardly daring to breath in case I woke anyone else up.

I reached the kitchen, surprised to see a light on and Alaric stood at the counter with a glass of what I assumed was whiskey clutched in his grasp.

"You okay?" Alaric asked me as he took in my appearance with a practised eye when I walked quietly to join him.

"Yeah, fine. I didn't wake you did I?" I asked as I poured myself a glass of water, while trying to hide the blush that heated up my cheeks.

"No, I was still up." Alaric told me, watching me carefully over his glass. "Charlie told me about your nightmares, I thought he was over-exaggertrating."

"I'm sorry." I mumbled, upset that here I was disturbing this kind family after only a day here. They'd probably ship me out in the morning, find someone else to take me in. I didn't blame them though, not at all, I'd kick me out in a heart beat.

"Stop saying sorry Bella, I'm guessing you can't control having nightmares." Alaric smiled gently at me. I shook my head, of course I couldn't, but I wished that I could. "Well then..." Alaric smiled again before going to the freezer and pulling out a tub of ice cream. "Now I'm told reliably that this helps all things."

Alaric handed me a spoon and pulled the top off the ice cream, he was right, it did help. After a few minutes of eating the ice cream together in silence Alaric once again broke it.

"I'm also told that talking about it helps. You wanna tell me about that nightmare of yours?" He asked me, gently though, there was no pressure.

My heart sped up a little, my hands started to sweat and a pit opened up in my stomach. Did I want to tell him about the nightmares that I still had? No. Should I? Probably.

"What did dad tell you?" I asked in just over a whisper, my shaking hand digging out some more ice cream and jamming it in my mouth despite the sick feeling in my stomach.

"That you're boyfriend and his family just upped and left you one day, that you got better when you made a friend but then he stopped seeing you and you reverted back. He said that you were near catatonic and that you had the worse nightmares he'd ever heard and he thought that a change of scenery would be best for you." Alaric was looking at me, but my gaze was firmly on the melting ice cream, I didn't want to see sympathy, or someone who wanted to know why I just wasn't over it yet.

"That's about it." I nodded.

"The nightmares?" Alaric pushed me.

"I dream that I'm back in the woods back home, and he's gone again, I can't find him. Then something... Something finds me." I don't tell him what, I can't. He wouldn't believe that I worried psychopathic vampires were after me, that they haunted my nightmares and sometimes my waking thoughts too. Hell, I told him that he'd probably have me taken away in a straight jacket.

"Break-ups suck." Alaric told me matter of factly.

"Yeah, they do." I replied, my eyes filling up with tears that I didn't want to shed.

"But they do get better eventually. That I can promise, not straight away, and you'll always have a scar from it. But one day you'll wake up and find yourself filling that hole with something else, and in time you find that it's actually gone." Alaric said, sounding like he had experience in that area. I looked up to him, wanting to believe him but knowing it wasn't true, I couldn't put the pieces of me back together long enough to even find where the missing bits should be, let alone fill them with something else.

"You remember your aunt Isobel right?" Alaric asked me.

"Yeah... Kind of... I met her with you that time." I said vaguely remembering a smiling woman who'd hung to his arm when I'd met him.

"She died a while ago, it took me a long time to make myself better, to feel again, but I did. And I'm glad I did. You'll get there, trust me." Alaric told me sincerely. And staring into the brown eyes that were so similar to my own I did believe him, and I did trust him.

"Now I'm gonna try and get some sleep. You should too." Alaric said flashing me a smile before heading from the room. "Night Bella."

"Night uncle Alaric." I repeated in a whisper.

~0~

The beeping of my phone woke me up, groggy and disorientated the next morning.

"Hello?" I yawned into it pulling it under the covers with me. It was bright in my room, really bright, late morning bright. I hadn't slept in this long since I'd met him.

"Hey kid." Charlie's warm voice echoed down the line to me, waking me up slightly.

"Hi dad, how you doing?" I asked sitting up in the comfy bed.

"Same as I was when you left yesterday Bells." I swear I could hear his eye roll down the line. "How are you kid? You liking Mystic Falls?"

"I'm good, everyone in the house is really nice, there making me feel very welcome." I said with a small smile, it was true.

"Good. Just wanted to check in, make sure that you're okay. What are your plans for today?" Charlie asked, sounding a little worried, but after how I'd acted in Forks I couldn't blame him.

"I'm er..." Crap I really had to think of something to do or he'd be straight on the phone to Alaric again. "I'm gonna decorate my room today and I'm going out with Elena tonight to meet her friends." I told Charlie, realising that it wasn't such a bad idea, well that's if I hadn't completely messed everything up with my stupid nightmare last night.

"That sounds good. Well have fun Bells, and ring your old man when you get a chance yeah?" He sounded happier now, now that he knew I wouldn't just be sat by myself all day, alone and catatonic.

"I will." I promised before hanging up on him, that was probably the longest conversation I'd ever had with my dad and I made a note to keep them up, I'd ring him everyday if I could.

~0~

"Morning! How are you feeling?" Elena was the only one downstairs when I'd got up and dressed, she had her smile pasted back onto her face. Not looking at me like a freak at all; the people in Mystic Falls were a lot more sympathetic than back in Forks, that was for sure.

"Yeah, I'm good thanks. Look about last night...?" I started, the blush that I couldn't hide making it's way back to my checks again.

"Don't even mention it. I've had crazy ass nightmares before too." Elena said while eating some cereal sat on the kitchen work top. "So what do you wanna do today then?"

"Er... I thought about painting my room. Jenna said yesterday that it was..." I started explaining that I'd been giving permission in case she thought I was being too forward but she cut over me with a smile.

"That's a great idea! Do you want some help?" Elena asked looking a little excited.

"Yeah, sure." I smiled back, determined to at least try and make a friend here.

"We've got some paint in the shed, or we can go out and get some, whatever. What colour were you thinking?" Elena was getting really excited about the makeover on the room we were planning and it rubbed off.

"Something bright!" I decided, I needed bright and light in my life now. Something that had been missing for too long.

Did you like it? I sure hope so! :) next chapter to follow quickly.