Hello again! I have just had the most hectic three weeks ever. I'm sorry for not updating, but just so you know, it might be less frequent for a while. Since it's my last year of school, I've got to study a bit harder that usual, so no hanging on the computer for hours…:D

I had to write this chapter again, I wasn't happy with it. I'm still not sure how it turned out, let me know if you like it, okay?

Thanks a lot for you reviewers: XxBlue-Eyed-BellaxX, gh, chloeeleanor, RUTryingToIrritateMeToDeath, twilight obsession

You keep me happy!


Chapter 9 - Germany

BPOV

Gare du Nord was packed! And I mean packed in the worst possible way. A train from Belgium had just arrived with a swarm of people rushing people emerging from it. The echoes of different announcements of departing trains and changes of schedule rang loudly through the high stone halls. And to top that all, dozens of pigeons wobbled around in people's feet, occasionally spurting up with their grey wings, frightening all passers-by. Alice was the only one of us, who constantly ducked at the sound of fluttering wings.

"Alice, they're pigeons, not missiles", I said after she had straightened out almost sending an elderly man toppling over due to her sharp movements.

She glared at me, adjusting her backpack. "Jeez, Bella. I wouldn't have figured that out by myself. But for your information, these things can poop on you, and that's almost as bad as a missile."

I quickly turned my head to the front, where Emmett was leading the way, making a good-sized path for us to follow and smirked at my pigeon-fearing friend. Of course Alice would be worried about her designer shirt she had just acquired. A full package of Alice's clothing was already on its way over the Atlantic Ocean to Forks, Washington. Her backpack could only hold limited supplies of clothes, after all.

We stopped in front of the gigantic board with arrivals and departures.

"If I'm reading this correctly", Emmett mumbled to himself, then turning to us. "And I'd like to think I am…Then our train would be leaving in twenty minutes. Platform seven." He turned to us with a mock-parenting expression. "Chop chop now, kids. Let's get a move on."

He grabbed Rose by her waist and pulled her with him to lead the way. Edward and I followed with Jasper and Alice, chuckling to each other. Edward leaned closer to whisper in my ear.

"Emmett is taking his authority very seriously…" His breath and the chuckle that followed tickled my neck.

I nodded at his comment and rolled my eyes at Emmett's charade. Edward had told me about his habit of acting like a big brother, especially on unsupervised trips, when truly he was the biggest goofball you could find.

Our train was already on standby when we arrived on platform seven. Since our Interrail tickets really didn't have assigned seats, we could avoid the hectic running-to-the-right-seat –rumble and so we stayed outside for a while.

When we only had about five minutes left, I turned to Alice and gave her a tight hug. She squeezed me back just as hard, with her hand smoothing my hair.

"Aww Bella, it's not like you won't see us again in a week or so. Besides…" She whispered quietly in my ear, "I bet you'll enjoy your current company just as much."

I huffed, feigning hurt, and swatted her shoulder before moving along to hug Jasper.

"You take care of her. I don't need to hear that Alice has been arrested for staying in boutiques over hours." I said loud enough for Alice's ears, earning a chuckle from Edward, Rose and Emmett, who were listening to our goodbyes.

"Always do, Bells", Jasper murmured, returning my hug.

During our dinner from the previous night, we had all unanimously agreed, that it was time we left Paris. A month is a too short a period if you want to see everything necessary, which meant that lingering should be kept to an absolute minimum. The destination however had been a struggle to decide. In the end, Emmett and Rose wanted to go through Central Europe, while Alice and Jasper wanted to see southern France, so it was inevitable that we couldn't travel as a group.

Edward and I neither had a solid plan as to where we wanted to go next. But when I said I wanted to see Central Europe as well, Edward tagged along with me. It was a relief, to be honest. Originally when we started planning this trip in April, I was supposed to see parts of Europe myself, but I felt so much more comfortable to have someone to travel with. I mean, all the things that could happen, especially to a young girl, when travelling alone...And for that person to be someone like Edward, who was probably the only one of our bunch who shared my cultural interests, was truly a streak of luck.

I turned towards the train, still a bit emotional from my goodbyes with my two best friends.

"We should probably go inside soon, it's about to leave. After clambering on board, I looked at Alice and Jasper, standing next to each other on the now nearly empty platform. I could feel my eyes tear up.

"Bella, enough with the waterworks", Alice teased me lightly, although her own eyes weren't completely dry either. "This is supposed to be fun! Go, and have a good time. We'll call on the way, and set up a meeting place."

I laughed and willed myself to get it together. "Sure thing. Bye!"

I stayed by the door, staring out, until we had efficiently left the platform. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Edward asked, concern in his voice.

I smiled and nodded. "Yeah, it's not like I won't see them again."

"That's what I though." Edward clearly saw through my cheerful charade, but thankfully thought it best to let it go. He led me towards the seats he, Emmett and Rosalie had chosen. A nice table spot in the middle of the carriage. The carriage was only three quarters full, so we could probably keep our seats for the entire trip to Cologne.

"Wow, nice seats" I commented, taking a seat on one of them.

Rosalie smirked. "Well, let's say the other claimers were a bit intimidated when Emmett here showed up." She gave an adoring glance at the buff guy sitting next to him.

Emmett was still chuckling when Edward sat down next to me. "Bella, I got you're backpack. Unless you wanted to leave it out there for someone to steal."

Even though I knew he was teasing me over my forgetfulness, I blushed bright red. "Edward I'm so sorry! I was supposed to get it, I don't know what happened. I promise to –"

Edward stopped my rambling by placing his hand over my mouth. A playful smile on his lips and with his emerald eyes sparkling, he spoke: "I know Bella. It's okay." He removed his palm from my face, leaving a warm sensation on them. Strangely, I found out, that my eyes were unable to move away from Edward. I watched him run his long fingers through his messy, bronze locks. I watched him remove his brown leather jacket, leaving him only in a black T-shirt and a pair of faded, low-riding jeans. I watched him talk to Emmett over something, and laugh loudly at something – something I didn't even register – they were talking about. I just kept on staring. A part of my brain was screaming at the dumb, staring part to stop, but nothing happened.

A loud snap in front of my face finally broke the weird staring session. "Bella, your ticket." Edward said – probably for the umpteenth time, considering his expression – and looked at me with questioning eyes.

"Oh, right", I mumbled before frantically going through my purse in search for the ticket. I handed it over for inspection. I glanced at Rosalie, who was looking at me with a smile. When her eyes met mine, she winked slyly. Of course she would notice me staring something, or someone, dumbly for ages. Most people would.

Thankfully Emmett wasn't one of them. He was concentrated on playing around with his seat and looking out the window. But had Edward noticed? Hopefully not. This wasn't really something I'd want to explain, even though I generally liked talking to him. How do you exactly tell someone that the larger part of your brain just malfunctioned terribly, causing you to stare at that someone's abs. Nope, I didn't really feel like sharing this time.

I dug trough my purse again, this time looking for my new Pride and Prejudice. My enthusiasm for books gave me the perfect cover to ponder things in peace. And prevent any further lapses of brain function. For the next few hours I buried myself into reading, hoping that it would pass of as me missing Alice and Jasper. The others were also otherwise engaged: Rose was flipping through the newest Elle, Emmett was reading Elle as well, leaning on Rose's shoulder and occasionally commenting on something he thought was absurd. Edward was reading a small book, with no title on it. The cover was dark red and looked old. He seemed absorbed in his reading, but there was no way of telling for sure. And so our train ride went quietly.

I laid my book down only after the train personnel had announced our arrival to Cologne. We started to gather our things together. When the train stopped, we were the first to step off.

"It's still early afternoon. What do you think about finding a place to stay quickly and then find something to do?" Rosalie suggested when we left the station. You could already see the huge cathedral rising from masses of stone houses. The other thing I noticed were the beautiful iron arches of the railway bridge. I couldn't wait to snap a memory stick's worth of photos, but that would have to wait until I didn't have my backpack weighing me down.

"That sounds like a plan to me." Emmett said, voicing everyone's obvious opinion.

"Yes, we still have available rooms. There's one room for four persons, and the other two are for six persons." An extremely fake-blond teenager said while twirling her hair and shooting flirtatious glances at Edward and Emmett, who were inquiring for available rooms.

"I guess we'll take one four person room, then." He turned to us. "Or what?"

We all nodded in agreement. This was the fifth youth hostel we had been to. Apparently rooms were desperately hard to get right now. There was some kind of a drinking fest coming up this weekend. Or at least, that was what the last few places had told us. And this looked like a decent-enough place to stay, even if the receptionist being what she was.

"Oh, and do you happen to know something a first time visitor could do in Cologne?" Edward asked when the girl, Tania, had given us our keys.

"Yeah, but something not too stressful." Emmett agreed. "We'll leave that for tomorrow."

Tania's face lit up, and the hair-twirling intensified by a hundred. "Well, if you want to relax, then a really good place is the water park nearby. My friends and I go there really often. It's a fifteen minute walk from here." She drew out a city map and started to show directions to Edward and Emmett, leaning forward in order to reveal what her low-cut shirt hadn't shown yet. Rosalie looked at me with a scowl on her face. "Who does she think she is? What a bitch!" I nodded, watching Tania toss her blonde hair, which had been blocking the view to her cleavage.

Tania's: "You know, I get off work in six hours", combined with a wide smile at Emmett's direction was the last straw for Rose. She neared the desk and wrapped her arms around Emmett.

"Thank you, Tania, I think we'll be able to find it. You have a nice work day." She spit the words out and started dragging Emmett towards our room. Edward and I followed them. He smirked at Emmett, who looked back at us with a 'you gotta love her' –expression on his face.

Once in our room, it took about ten minutes for Emmett to calm his girlfriend down efficiently enough for us to start making plans.

"I think the water park sounds like a good idea." Rosalie finally said from Emmett's lap. "As long as we leave before that twit or one of her stupid friends arrive." Her voice was almost menacing in the end. I saw Emmett roll her eyes at Edward, who chuckled silently.

Rosalie jumped out of Emmett's lap and grabbed my arm instead. "Okay then, let's go swimming!" She said in a happy voice. "Bella, bathroom, now!"

Even though it was way past noon – the hottest time of the day – the water park was pretty full. It was a large area with a few pools. One was for kids, one for pro-swimmers and one for lounging around, with swirls, waves, caves and slides. Then there was a group of whirl pools and a cold water tub. All this was placed in a beautiful, luscious park with huge trees.

We managed to find a relatively quiet place near a gigantic oak tree that had branches reaching out, creating a lovely, cool shade if needed. Emmett and Edward took out the blanket we had borrowed – as a payback, in Rose's opinion – from the hostel and placed it on the ground.

Because Rose and Emmett wanted to go swimming immediately, we decided to eat later. I wasn't too keen to go swimming to be honest. I mean, I liked to swim. And I knew how. I just…wasn't too sure about the bikini Alice had forced me to pack, and Rose had forced on me today. I had grown to hate showing off my body during all those high school gym classes, where girls were terribly conscious about themselves and especially over others. Even though Rose had convinced me that I could easily wear the navy blue bikini, I wasn't quite comfortable with the fact yet, so I sat down on the blanket, keeping my blue tank top and light denim shorts on.

"Bella? Aren't you going swimming?" Edward's smooth voice asked from behind me.

I blushed lightly. "No. Not yet at least. I think I'll just relax here for a bit and watch our stuff. But you can go if you want to."

Edward eyed me for a short while. It was as if he knew something was up, but once again, decided not to pester me about it. "I think I'll stay out here for a while too." He said with a smile. "I can't count on you keeping our stuff safe, now can we?"

I raised an eyebrow. "By all means, stay and protect our possessions with your out of this world muscles."

Edward laughed loudly and sat down next to me. "Out of this world, huh?" He looked at me from under his eyelashes, making me blush again.

Edward reached out for his bag and took out the same book he had been reading in the train. I looked at it with curiosity.

"What are you reading?" I motioned to the book in his hand.

"Oh this one? I wasn't actually going to read, I just had it as a prop, just like your Austen over there, but…Would you like me to read for you?"

I looked Edward in his emerald eyes. "Sure, I'd like that."

Edward smiled and then lay down on the blanket, his head propped up against his bag. "Come on, lay down with me."

I did, and closed my eyes, waiting. Edward's velvety voice spoke his words floating in a mesmerising way.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I was quiet. Then I opened my eyes, only to see his looking at mine.

"Shakespeare, huh?" I asked.

"Yes", Edward's voice was still calmer than normally. "I got the Sonnets as a birthday present a few years back. This one has always been one of my favorites."

"I loved it."

We continued laying there, our conversation picking up once we got over the poetry session. After about an hour, Rose and Emmett returned. They were both drenching wet, and also extremely hungry. I pulled out some juice, water, chicken salad, various fruit and some bread from our bags so we could start eating. Emmett gave his 'professional view' on the water park while we were munching down the food.

"Quite good. The water is almost perfect temperature-wise. Sure, the swirls were a bit tame, and the waves lacked some height. But it was cheap as hell so I'm not complaining."

"And is there some place we should steer clear from?" Edward questioned his brother with a meaningful look, which made me wonder at first. But when Rosalie blushed red and Emmett suggestively told Edward to 'might want to stay away from the caves', I understood his concern. I guess living with Emmett taught you to be prepared.

"Aren't you guys going swimming at all?" Rosalie asked us after she and I had cleaned up our trash.

"Hell yeah! I'm dying to try out the cold pool thing. I bet I can last longer than those wimps that tried out a few minutes ago."

"That's nice Em, though I wasn't really talking to you, but to Edward and Bella." Rose turned to look at us.

"I guess a try at the 'tame' swirls couldn't hurt", Edward pondered. "Do you want to join me, Bella?"

I bit my lip. The bikini question was still unanswered in my mind.

"You should go, Bella. I'm going to stay here anyway, to watch our stuff and dry out." Rosalie quipped in.

Oh, what the heck. This whole summer was an adventure, right? "Okay, I'll come."

Edward smiled and then pulled off his white T-shirt, leaving him only in a pair of blue surfer shorts. I quickly reached out for my own clothes, so Edward wouldn't see me staring his toned abs. With Rosalie smiling cheekily from behind her sunglasses, we made our way towards the pools. I saw Emmett already standing next to the pool full of freezing water, checking out if anyone was watching his upcoming stunt. Then I felt Edward's hand in mine. I turned my head to face him, and found his face closer than what I had expected.

"Bella…" Edward smiled crookedly.

"Yeah?" I asked. He was still walking, but I was mesmerized by his eyes. I had no idea where we were headed.

"You really look perfect"

Then, with a rough tuck, Edward jumped into the pool, pulling me with him.

Perfect. It was the only thing I could think of when water surrounded me in tickling bubbles, making everything impossibly blurry and hard to follow. Perfect.