Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, and to everyone who has put this story on alert. I appreciate you taking the time to not only read this, but to give me feedback as well. Please review again and continue to enjoy Family Ties. :)

Thanks again, Mel Cooley :)

So Breaking Dawn comes out Friday. But probably no one here is going to see it, right? ;)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. If you don't recognize it, it's probably still not mine. Alex is mine. All things Twilight belong to Stephanie Meyer. Now on with the story!

Before:

In the course of one day, Carlisle had already done so much for me, and I had no idea what to say in return except,

"Thank you."

Carlisle smiled. "Think nothing of it. Now, you must be tired. I'll let Rosalie know we're done, I'm sure she'd love to drive you home. Unless you'd like to stay here. We have an extra guest room."

"Thanks," I said. "But I'd like to go home. I still have tons of unpacking to do."

Now:

I was hot. I kicked the sheets off of me.

Still not quite comfortable. I flipped onto my stomach.

Now I was cold. I flipped over onto my back and pulled the sheets back up to my chin.

Nope. Still not cutting it.

I sighed loudly, exasperated, and finally kicked off the covers one last time in defeat. I was way too wired to sleep. The events of the day had me feeling like I had to do something, anything, to keep busy. I had far too much excess energy.

I rolled off the bed and made my way downstairs, flipping light switches as I went. Maybe this would be a good thing. I still had a lot of unpacking to do, and wasn't due into my new job until just under 24 hours from now.

I stopped in the archway between the entryway and the living room, shaking my head. The room was filled with boxes, stacked halfway to the ceiling. At least the big stuff had been set up by the movers already, and the cable guy had come the day before. I moved to the TV stand and turned it on, flipping to Adult Swim for mindless background chatter, and then reached up to the nearest pile and pulled a box down.

Movies. Easy enough. I ripped open the top and began quickly filling the DVD racks, not bothering to hide my super speed. I was in my own home, after all, and if someone was peeping through the window, well, shame on them. Maybe one of those giant wolves would eat them.

Half an hour later, I'd put away all the movies, video games, and CDs, and hooked up the consoles. A whole corner of the room was clear. I picked another box from another pile and plopped onto the couch with it in my lap. Photos. I dove right in, again ripping the top open, but paused when I realized which album had been packed on top. It was the kind with a slot in the cover so you can put your favorite photo right on the front. This one was of Grandpa Richie and me. I looked about five, so really I was less than two years old. He was holding me up above his head, as though he were mid toss. We were both laughing. I remembered this day. We had gone to the Seneca Park Zoo and I had loved the Bornean Orangutan so much...

"Why don't you just marry him then?" Grandpa Richie had asked.

I looked up at his wrinkled face incredulously, but then seeing his eyes crinkle and his lips pull up, I knew he was just being silly.

"Silly Grandpa," I had said. "It's not ahim, it's aher! Look!" And I pointed at the sign with the Orangutan's name printed on it: Kumang.

Grandpa Richie had leaned closer, pulling out his glasses so he could read the small print.

"Ah," he'd said. "So sheisa her. Very good, Lexi."

I had stepped forward and began to read about Kumang.

"Look, Grandpa! It says she was born in England and just arrived here this year." I had paused and looked into the habitat where Kumang was housed. I could see her sitting behind a tree, shyly peeking out curiously. She looked so lonely.

"Do you think she misses home?" I asked after a moment.

"I don't know, kiddo," Grandpa Richie had answered. "Would you?"

I nodded solemnly. "Yes. Every day."

Just as I had started to feel sad for Kumang, she suddenly jumped up and grasped the bottommost branch of the tree and started swinging her way up toward the top.

"Oh wow, Grandpa, look at that!" Despite my somewhat advanced maturity for a toddler, I started jumping up and down and pointing. I looked up at Grandpa Richie to make sure he was watching. "Can I try that when we get home? I bet I could make it to the top of the big tree in front of our house!"

Grandpa Richie had laughed and bent down to pick me up. "I bet you could, too! You like the Orangutan, huh, sport?"

"I love her!"

"Oh, you love her? Maybe you could go join her. How about I just toss you right in with her?"

"Grandpa, no, I want to go home with you!"

We were both laughing and he started to tickle my sides. I started giggling uncontrollably.

"Oh, now the little munchkin wants to come home with Grandpa Richie, huh?" he asked still tickling me. "How about you just go play with her a little while? How about that?" He tossed me playfully above his head, feigning a toss into the habitat. I knew there was no way he could have thrown me over the fence, and even if he could have, he wouldn't, but I shrieked anyway, and laughed again when I landed right back in his hands.

"Oops, I missed," he said. "Let's try again!"

"Grandpa!" I shrieked as I flew back into the air and back down again.

As I landed back in his hands, a flash went off in my peripheral vision. Both our heads snapped to it. We hadn't been aware anyone had been watching.

"Sorry," a woman with a stroller said sheepishly. "You two are just so adorable. I thought you'd like a picture."

She pulled the film from the Polaroid camera she held and held it out to Grandpa Richie. He shifted me to one arm and took it with his free hand.

"Thank you, miss," he said. "That was very thoughtful of you."

She smiled back. "Enjoy the zoo," she said as she pushed the stroller away.

Grandpa Richie turned back to me. "You ready to go look at the other animals?"

"I want to see the polar bears!"

I stared down at the old Polaroid not realizing that the water droplets now sitting on it were my tears until another one fell and splashed across the plastic covering.

"Shit," I whispered. I quickly dried the album's cover with my sleeve before any salt water could seep inside and damage anything. Once I'd dried the cover, I lost myself in the photo again. It was a cold Rochester winter. There was snow in the background, blanketing the ground. Both of our cheeks and the tips of our noses were a rosy red and our breaths expelled from our mouths in foggy clouds. Grandpa was in his black wool trench coat and old fedora with the brown feathers stuck in it, and I could barely make out a gloved hand holding me. My tiny self was bundled up in a thick, pink snow coat. I remembered that coat. I'd hated it. I had loved that blue hat with the earflaps and pom-pom on top, however, and the matching mittens.

The doorbell rang.

I paused what I was doing and looked toward the front door. My head swung slowly to the cable box to check the time. 1:37 am.

Who is ringing my doorbell at 1:37 am?

I set the photo album carefully aside on the sofa and put the box on the floor before going to the door. I peeked out the small window on the side and saw a flash of bright blond hair.

Rosalie?

I quickly wiped away any remaining tears from my face before I opened the door and met her gaze.

"H-Hi," I stammered. "What's up?"

She looked around her quickly before looking back at me. "May I come in?"

Barely thinking, I stepped to the side and closed the door once she'd stepped in.

She looked around her, taking in the entryway of my house before turning back to me.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

That caught me off guard. Emotionally I was a mess at the moment. Physically I was perfectly fine.

"You dropped me off almost three hours ago. What could have happened since then to make you think I wasn't okay?" I parried.

She hesitated. I was only going to get a half truth.

"I was passing by and I caught the scent of one of the wolves," she explained. "I saw your light on so I thought I'd check."

"Oh," was all I could think to say. Clever, Lexi, real clever.

Awkward silence ensued.

"So what are you still doing up?" Rosalie asked eventually.

I shrugged. "I couldn't sleep," I said. "So I started unpacking."

"Would you like some help?"

"Sure," I said. "That'd be great."

I led her into the living room and picked the box of photo albums up from the floor, setting it on the couch.

"I already did the movies and stuff," I said. "The movers just stacked everything in here, so there's still kitchen stuff and bedroom things in here."

Rosalie started toward one stack, but paused when she saw the album I had paused on. She looked at it for a moment before slowly moving to pick it up.

"Is this Richie?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "Back in '91. He had taken me to the zoo."

She looked up from the cover. "Do you mind?"

I shook my head. "Not at all, go ahead."

While she perused, I started to load the rest of the albums onto the bookshelves next to the couch, and then started on the books.

"You know, I remember when this zoo was only a pond and an aviary," Rosalie said after several minutes. "They didn't add the main building until a couple of years before..."

She trailed off, and I understood what she was referring to.

"Trout Pond," I said, more to break the tension than anything else. "Yeah, they didn't really start to add anything huge until the late '90's. But when he took me, they had apes and polar bears. And a petting zoo."

I sat on the sofa and watched the pictures flip by, most of my life crammed into one book.

"You two look so happy," Rosalie commented.

I nodded. "We were," I said. I took a breath, mustering the courage to say what I needed to next. She needed to know. I couldn't stand this unconditional acceptance if it was based on a lie. "We were," I repeated, "until I ruined everything."

Rosalie looked up from the photos with curiosity splashed across her face. I immediately stared intently at the floor. I couldn't keep eye contact while I confessed my darkest secret.

"When I was five," I began, "actually five, I looked like a tween. I guess like Renesmee does now. Grandpa Richie home schooled me, and he didn't really take me out too often. My body was changing too quickly, people would notice. He was afraid someone would start asking questions and he didn't want me taken away by some scientist to be tested. At least that's what he told me. I think he knew though. What I was. He had to have."

I stopped to take a breath. Aqua Teen Hunger Force drabbled on in the background and I was vaguely aware of a group of Mexican jumping beans putting on a musical show on the screen.

"So one day," I continued, struggling to control my voice, "he went out to the store. I was five, looked 13, but was far more mature. I'd never disobeyed him before. He had no reason to think..." I stopped abruptly and stifled the sob that was about to work its way out. I took a moment to compose myself. "I should have known better. I did know better. But it was snowing and it was so beautiful. I rarely got to go out and play in it. He was going to be gone for a while, and the snow was falling at such a fast pace, it would cover up my footprints. He'd never know. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right?"

I sniffled. I couldn't keep my voice from wavering anymore. I wiped my eyes and kept going.

"I put on all my snow gear and went out. I shouldn't have gone into the front yard. I shouldn't have gone out at all, but I should have at least had the sense to stay in the back yard. But I went to the front. The snowflakes were those huge, fluffy ones, you know? And it had already covered the ground. I wasn't out there long. I had caught a few flakes on my tongue and picked some snow up from the hedges. A girl was walking by. She looked about 13 as well. We looked at each other, natural curiosity. But then she walked over.

"'Who are you?' she'd asked. 'You don't live here.'

"'I do,' I'd answered. 'I live here with my grandfather.'

"'No, the old man lives here with some little kid,' she'd retorted. 'I've never seen you before. You're trespassing. I'm gonna tell my mom, and she'll call the cops.'

"Now I was starting to realize what a bad idea this had been. I was mentally kicking myself. How could I have been so stupid? I was about to ruin everything. So I turned and started back to the house. She didn't like that.

"'Hey, I'm not done talking to you,' she had called after me. 'Hey, freak, get out of their yard!'

"I was perfectly content to ignore her and keep going. I knew I was a freak. Grandpa Richie called me special, but I knew it was just a nice way to say that I was different. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to punch her in the face. But I knew it would just cause more problems. So I kept walking. Until the snowball hit me in the back of the head. That's when I stopped. I slowly turned on the spot to face her. She was already packing the next snowball together. I still didn't react, not yet. She wound up to throw.

"'You don't want to do that.' I'd tried to warn her, I really had. If she had just left me alone...

"'Why, what are you gonna do about it, freak?'

"She threw it. It hit me square in the face. I pulled off my gloves and dropped them to the ground. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, I know I was mad. I didn't even know if it would work with snow. She just had added the last straw and I needed to let it out, some how."

I sat for a moment. It was hard enough remembering, but this was the first time I'd retold this story, except for when I told Grandpa Richie.

"Alex," Rosalie said quietly. "What happened?"

I shook my head and hid my face in my hands.

"I threw all the snow at her. All of it. It was almost funny, until I realized that she was buried. Completely. All the snow from our yard and some from the neighbor's was gathered into one pile, completely covering this girl. And that was when Grandpa Richie pulled up. He'd seen the end of the confrontation as he was driving down the block. He jumped out of the car and dug her out. Needless to say, she really thought I was a freak then. That's all she was screaming as she ran home. Grandpa Richie sent me into the house so he could try to scatter the snow back around the yard. Sometime later, a couple of cops came knocking at the door. Grandpa explained to them that we'd just had a snowball fight, and that girl was mad that she was losing. They seemed to believe him and left. We moved a week later. Less than a month after that, he had a heart attack and died."

A moment of silence passed before Rosalie softly said my name.

"That sounds more like an unfortunate accident. You can't blame yourself. You didn't know what would happen."

"But I should have known what could possibly happen," I shot back. I'd had this argument with myself plenty of times. I was prepared with any answer. I turned slightly to face Rosalie. "If I hadn't gone outside, like I knew I shouldn't have, that never would have happened. We never would have had to move and Grandpa Richie wouldn't have had a heart attack."

"You can't know-"

"The house we lived in," I interrupted fiercely, "was the same house you grew up in. He didn't want to leave it. I think he felt like if he stayed, maybe you'd come back one day. And he didn't want strangers there if you did. He had the heart attack the day he closed on the house." I looked back at the floor. "I've never told anyone else this," I continued quietly, "but I feel like you need to know. And I understand if you never want to see me again."

To my utter shock, she laughed. "Why would I never want to see you again?"

My eyes snapped to hers in disbelief. "Because I murdered your brother?" I suggested slowly. I looked away again. "I caused his death just as much as I caused my mother's, even if not as directly. I'm a murderer."

"Alexandra." She was serious again. "Is that really what you've been thinking all these years?" I nodded. "Richie was your grandfather. He raised you. Do you think he would blame you?"

I thought for a moment. "He was too good a person for that," I finally said.

"You can't keep carrying all this guilt around," Rosalie insisted. "You were young, you made a mistake. From the sound of it, you were an all around good kid. He loved you. He wouldn't want you to blame yourself for his death. He chose to move. Only one person saw you, correct? And she sounds like a little bitch. Who would believe her?"

I shrugged.

"And as for your mother, she made the ultimate sacrifice so that you could live," Rosalie continued. "That's nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, that's more like an insult to her memory than anything. If I were able to have a child, I would do the same. I would give up my life for my baby if it meant he or she would live a full, wonderful life."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I kept quiet with my eyes fixed on the floor.

Rosalie stood and put the photo album onto a bookshelf with the others and then came to stand in front of me.

"I didn't come here to watch you mope," she said, pulling up on my arm. "Are we unpacking or what?"

The sun was just barely cresting the horizon when we finally put the last glass into the cupboard over the stove. The boxes were all flattened and tied, ready to go out with the recycling. I was officially moved in. We looked at each other and smiled.

"So you start work tonight, right?" Rosalie asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Midnight on the dot."

"How are you getting there? Carlisle told us about your car."

Oh right. My car. That I no longer had.

"I hadn't thought about that yet," I sighed. "I don't think my insurance covers pursuit by giant wolves."

Rosalie chuckled. "How about I give you a ride?"

I shrugged one shoulder. "Okay, cool."

"I'm going to come early, though. There's something we want you to try out. So I'll come by around seven?"

"Okay, sure," I said. "I'll be ready."

Rosalie smiled as I opened the front door for her, and then reached down to hug me. This was the most contact I'd had with any of them, and it was a little unnerving. It was like hugging a statue. A cold statue that moved.

She broke the hug and stepped out toward a red BMW that sat in my driveway.

"I'll see you tonight," she called over her shoulder.

I smiled and waved before closing and locking the door. I sighed a little more loudly than necessary and headed up the stairs. It felt good to be completely done unpacking. We had used our vampire and half-vampire speeds to our advantage. The only thing that slowed us down was that Rosalie had to keep stopping to ask me where I wanted things to go. And we had gotten the blackout curtains hung, so sleeping as the sun came up should be no problem.

Except, as I lied down on my warm, inviting bed, the doorbell rang again. Had Rosalie forgotten something? But I hadn't heard the car pull back into the driveway. Not wanting to go all the way back downstairs for a Jehovah's Witness, I went to the window, pulled back the curtain and threw up the glass pane.

"Who is it?" I called.

I heard some shuffling from the porch below, and then footsteps thundered down the stairs and finally I saw who had rung my bell as he stepped onto the walkway and looked up at me. He looked to be somewhere in his twenties or so, tanned skin, short, dark hair and matching dark eyes. But what struck me the most was his outfit. He wore white sneakers, Nikes maybe, and ripped denim shorts. His shirt, you ask? Oh, he had no shirt. November in northwestern Washington state, and this kid had no shirt. Not that I was complaining, it was a nice view. I hoped this wasn't some prank, that one of my new colleagues hadn't sent a Strip-O-Gram to my house. I looked around for his car, maybe it had an ad on the side, but there were no vehicles in sight.

"Can I help you?" I asked out the window.

"Hi," he said cheerily, with a big dopey grin on his face. "Um, I'm sorry to bother you so early."

"It's fine," I said. "What do you want?"

"My name is Seth, Seth Clearwater," he said. "We met yesterday, but there was a slight misunderstanding and I didn't have a chance to introduce myself."

I was confused for a moment. What misunder-

Oh.

"You were part of that welcoming committee yesterday?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah," he answered sheepishly.

I nodded, completely calm. "I'll be right down."

As I pulled back to close the window, I swear I saw his face light up like I'd just told him he'd won a new shirt.

I made my way downstairs, not bothering with keeping up the appearance of putting a sweater on. I went out the door and saw Seth Clearwater still standing on my walkway, still grinning like an idiot. As I approached, he held out his hand and opened his mouth to say something. But before he could, I made a fist and popped him straight on the nose.

"Ow!" he shrieked. His hands immediately flew to his face as blood spurted out between his fingers. I heard a crack as he reset his broken nose.

"What the hell was that for?" he shouted. "I came to apologize!"

"Because of you and your pack of filthy," I shoved him in the chest and he stepped backward, "stinking," I shoved him again, "flea-bitten mutts,"another shove, "my car is totaled!" One last shove, just to make my point. I put all my strength into that one, and he stumbled back, barely catching himself before he fell.

Normally, shoving someone that hard may have landed them in the street. I didn't take it personally though. If he was a werewolf, we probably had similar strengths.

"Do you understand what that means?" I asked, calm again. "It means that I have no car. And since I've just bought a house, I have no money to buy a new car. And since my insurance doesn't cover run-ins with the supernatural, somebody owes me a car."

He finished wiping the blood from his face and wiped his hands on his shorts, smearing them with it.

"Look, I'm really sorry about your car," he said. "As soon as I saw you, I tried to get Sam to back down, but he wouldn't hear it. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. We just had to make sure you weren't a threat."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "You could have asked."

Seth nodded. "I really am sorry that it happened like that. Can I make it up to you?"

"You gonna buy me a new car?"

"I would if I could," he said quietly. He put his hands in his pockets and suddenly found my driveway very interesting. "I was wondering, could I maybe take you to dinner sometime?"

I stared at him for a while, not moving. I stared so long that I could see he was getting uncomfortable and he eventually looked at me again.

"Please?" he added.

I shook my head in disbelief and walked back into the house, making sure to lock the door behind me.

A Brief Note From the Author: So once again, I apologize that updates are so far and few in between. Real-life grown up stuff likes to interfere. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It got a teensy bit emotional, but I felt that using flashbacks was the best way to bring out a good chunk of Alex's past. I hope Rosalie stayed in character :-/

What did you think of Seth? Did you get the hint?

What could the Cullens have planned for Alex?

Giraffe: And I like your new name ;)

Emmettlover4everandalways: I'm glad you're still liking it!

McFoster: Thank you very much! I hope you enjoyed this chapter too, and the next one isn't far away!

4MeJasper: Thank you so much for the reviews! I am so glad you're enjoying my craziness, and I hope this chapter was up to par for you!

For everyone else who is reading but didn't review, thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you are also enjoying the ride.

As always, please leave a review, even if you hated it, but especially if you loved it!

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Read on!

Ren