A/N: OMG! *cries* See Chapter 29 people, which is the next chapter!!

"It's not a word."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not. You can't use old English."

"Says who? It is not in the rules that old English is not allowed."

I frowned at Jasper, furrowing my eyebrows. 'When they wrote the rules, they didn't expect people with a hundred odd years to their name to play. It's not fair."

Jasper grinned from the other side of the table. "You're jealous, that's all."

I rolled my eyes. Jealous, I was not. Competitive? Most definitely.

Glaring at Jasper, I reached for the ancient leather bound dictionary that usually slept in Carlisle's office. It was the dictionary we had decided to use, as outlined in the rules. The only problem was, the dictionary was as old as Jasper, so there was every bit of a chance that 'nary' was in there.
As I carefully flicked through the pages, I grimaced, watching as Jasper sat opposite me, arms folded near his stand of four letters, all of which were now lying on the Scrabble board, over a triple word block.
'Nary, nary, nary," I muttered, using my finger to scan the page. I found the word, my face going blank. Slamming the book shut, I brought my face up, glaring at Jasper.

"I hate playing with you."

Jasper spread his hands out on the table, smiling. "I can't help it if I'm good."

I just glowered back at him as I scraped up the letters, dropping them in the velvet red bag.
I felt two light hands on my shoulders. "Don't worry," Alice said into my ear as she slid into the seat next to me. "You'll win the next one." She smiled, winking.
A plate with a large slice of chocolate cake was set down before me.
"Here, try this," Esme said, pulling off a black apron. "I think the bottom is a little burnt." She stared at me expectantly watching as I cut a piece of cake off.
She stared at me expectantly, watching as I chewed slowly. You had to be careful with Esme - she was like Charlie when it came to food.

"Mmmm…that's great!" I said through mouthfuls.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," I heard Robert say from the end of the table. I looked up into his smiling face. In any other time and place, I would have made the usual sarcastic comment of, "Would you like a taste? Oh, wait. I forgot. You can't eat." Not really the appropriate thing to say when you are in a room full of vampires.
I decided instead to stick my tongue out at him. Esme, satisfied that I was just saying her baking was good to please her, went back into the kitchen.

I surveyed the scene in front of me as I finished the rest of the chocolate cake. Sitting next to me, Alice had taken over my letter stand and was playing against Jasper in a game of Scrabble. Jasper, waiting for Alice to lay her next move on the board caught my eye and winked.

On the other end of the table sat Robert with Carlisle. They were surrounded by a mountain of heavy looking books, and Robert had a stack of papers in front of him. A pen in hand, he occasionally marked the pages while listening to Carlisle's words, nodding in all the right places.

Esme, back in the kitchen, was cleaning up from her day of successful baking. Determined to make Bella and I at home, she had recently stocked up on enough cookbooks to fill an entire library.

Emmett and Rosalie, who had been with us briefly that morning, were apparently upstairs studying for finals. Yeah, right.

As for where Edward and Bella had gone, I had no idea. Although they had joined us at the Cullen house briefly that morning, they had disappeared and hadn't yet returned, even though the sun was setting behind the dark grey clouds that filled the sky.

There was a feeling of calm spread around the Cullen house and it didn't have anything to do with Jasper. It was hard to believe that a little over a month ago, Bella and I had been attacked by a raging vampire. It was still all a bit too bizarre for Bella. As for me, I had been racked by a terrible case of the guiltiness ever since I had been discharged from the hospital in Phoenix. If it hadn't been for my selfishness, the Cullens would have found James and finished him off, minus Bella almost dying. Though all her cuts and bruises had healed, a faint crescent shaped scar on her arm served as a never-ending reminder of that day.

It was a strange and new feeling for me, this one. Of something complete, made whole. Maybe it was because I was a foster child, moved from family to family for the last nine years. I never had somewhere to call home. There was no real sense of family in my life until Forks. Living with Charlie, now my guardian, meant that I never would be shipped off to another home. It was the best thing, save for Robert , to ever happen in my life. And now there was the Cullens, acting as a surrogate family. Emmett, Jasper and Edward were like the boisterous, playful brothers I'd never had. Esme, with her natural kindness and compassion had become more of a mother to me that my own had ever been. Carlisle was more than a father - that was a role only Charlie could somehow fill. Though Alice was the girl everyone wanted as a close friend (you know the type - short, with the uncanny ability to predict your future), Rosalie was the splitting image to a foster sister I once had. Older, wiser and sexier, I'd idolized her. Not that I idolized Rosalie, but along the lines of the older sister you (don't) seem to want.

Then there was Robert. I watched him, studying his face as he talked to Carlisle. When he talked, it just wasn't his mouth that moved, it was his whole body. His mouth turned upwards at the sides if he was happy, if he was laughing. It turned down if he frowned, or was concentrating. Faint dimples appeared in his cheeks. His forehead creased with lines as deep as the ocean floor, marked by waves. His body was usually lurched in one direction or another. At the moment, he was talking to Carlisle animatedly. His body leant towards the doctor's his hands moving rapidly, skimming the surface of the table.

I couldn't imagine a life without Robert. Sure, I have lived eight years without him, but to call that a life? It was as if I had been born again, given a fresh start. He'd been with me for so many years. My protector, my shelter. The one that made me cry and laugh, the one who knew everything about me, even if I didn't tell him. He just knew. We'd had our ups and downs, that was definite. Even now, when he wouldn't properly explain about how he suddenly became visible - to everyone else, that is. That side of things made everything just that bit more complicated. If before, I complained about the trouble it caused to have Robert invisible to everyone but me, it was nothing like the annoyance of having him visible. Before I had to watch what I said, now I had to watch my every move. Our every move. Somehow though, it didn't phase me.

I soon grew bored of watching Robert. I wanted to know what he was up to. I hadn't been suspicious earlier on, but they had spent an entire afternoon, four hours, going over the books and papers in front of them. Pages and pages of marking and highlighted pieces of information. I left the third game of Scrabble (Alice had already won two) and the table, returning my dish to Esme's large kitchen. I grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge - neatly stocked for Bella or myself - and returned to the dining room, edging myself into the seat next to Robert, moving the chair as close to him as possible.

"Watcha doing?" I asked, trying to peer at the papers. Robert leaned to cover them, but Carlisle put his own hand over them.
"Excuse me a moment. Ally," Carlisle nodded at me before getting up from the table, heading in the direction of the kitchen. Robert, sighing softly but loud enough for me to hear, moved slightly to the left.
I looked at Robert suspiciously. "What are you doing?" I ran a hand through my hair, staring up at him.
Robert scrunched up his face. "I've decided that if I am going to be staying here, as Carlisle's nephew, then I need an excuse for being around all the time." I nodded my head, motioning for Robert to carry on.
"So, I've decided to put this college education I apparently have to good use. I'm becoming a doctor."
I froze, Robert's words running through one ear and going out the other. I'm becoming a doctor.

"You're kidding," was all I could say.

"No…"

I bit my lip, trying hard not to laugh. "You're going to be a…doctor? Ooooh! Are you going to have a blue police box and one of those pointy laser things?" I clapped my hands together in false delight.
Robert shook his head, rubbing the creases of his forehead. "I knew you would react like this. That's why I didn't tell you." He spread his right hand across his cheek, watching for my reaction through one eye.
I mirrored his actions, resting one palm on my left cheek and spreading my fingers so that I looked at him through one eye.

"So you are a doctor…like Carlisle?" I tried to keep my face serious.

"Medical intern is the right term," he said, straightening up the papers in front of him. "I'm in my third year at college - my placement year. My uncle - Carlisle - has invited me to work and study in his hospital. Which just happens to be Forks Memorial." He set the papers done in front of him, looking pretty proud with himself.
"You think way too much," I laughed.
Robert ruffled my hair. "You were the one who told Charlie I was Dr. Cullen's college nephew," he said. "So I had to come up with a cover story."
"Does everyone else know?" I asked, picking up some of the papers and taking a look through. It was all medical jargon to me.
"Of course everyone knows. You can't live with Pixie-head over there," he said, a Scrabble letter landing in his already outstretched hand. "without someone knowing something." He threw the letter back at Alice, her own fist curling around the letter before it hit her own head.

Ahh, families. You've got to love them.

Robert's cool breath was in my ear. "Let's get out of here and have some peace and quiet." I quickly agreed. Family love could only stretch so far, and all I wanted now was to have alone time - with Robert.

Picking my jacket up from the lounge room, we said goodbye to Esme and Carlisle before heading out to the most deserted place on earth.

---

When the sun sets, and twilight takes over, I find myself on the beach. There are clouds in the sky, colliding softly together. A slight chill makes the trees of the Hoh Forest sway gently, and the only sound is the soft crashing of the waves before they retreat back into the ocean. There are gulls in the air, breaking the silence in loud, squawking intervals. They bob on the ocean waves, once a grey swirling sea that has become a black never-ending pool.

On a large, exposed rock - the same large, exposed rock - I sat, pressed into a cool marble statue. It was far from cold, however. To me the cold was warm, a soothing, calming effect on my state of being. I fit perfectly into this statue, as if I was made for its curves and contours.

Or was he made for me?

Robert tightened his arm around my body, drawing me closer to him. I gladly obliged, moving so that I was now sitting in between his legs, my own stretched out against his. My head was tucked under his chin, his hands were over mine, resting lightly on my lower thighs. Wisps of my hair were picked up in the breeze, flying across my face as we just sat.

Robert sat ever so still. If it were not for him breathing into my hair every now and again, I would begin to believe that he was really a marble statue.

We didn't talk during the setting of the sun. There was no need for it; the moment alone spoke for itself. I was thinking about everything, from the last couple of days to nine years past. My life had changed dramatically over the years, both for the best and for the worst. I'd faced danger, heartache, trouble, more danger, love, friendship, more trouble before I finally made it to Forks. Even then, I'd battled through school life, building a relationship with Charlie when I could have been leaving for a new foster home at any moment. Bella's appearance had seemed to brighten things up, while making everything even the more complicated. I wasn't even going to mention the business with James…

When darkness took over and the clouds parted slightly for the moon to make an appearance, I finally broke the silence.

"What do you think will happen now?"

"Now?"

I nodded, my head forcing Robert's chin up and down. He was silent for a moment, thinking, contemplating. I moved my left hand out of his, tracing his cool fingers gently.

"Now we live."