A/N - I do not own the Twilight characters, I merely appreciate the loan.
Challenge #9 – Finish It With...
Date Posted: 05/4/2013
Fandom: Twilight
Rating: M
Genre: Canon
Content Descriptors: Fluff
Character Pairing: Nessie/ Jake
Nessie's POV
The only drawback I could ever see to being a half-vampire was how young I looked.
My youngest child had been fully grown for twenty-five years, and I was a grandmother, but my husband and I still looked like teenagers. Well, maybe Jake could pass for early twenties as tall as he was, but no one was ever going to believe I was older than nineteen.
So every time we moved, we had to start over from scratch with cover stories based on our apparent ages. The earlier we started, the longer we could stay in a given place.
This time, Jake and I were going to move out on our own.
Traditionally, we'd stayed with our family in one big unit, but this time it would be just Jake and I, an eighth or ninth 'honeymoon' of sorts.
Unfortunately, that meant starting out in high school again. We explained that Jake's parents had died, leaving him the house on the reservation where he'd grown up with Billy. I had been in foster care and the foster care system until moving in with him. It would be too hard to hide my affection for Jake, and I wanted to avoid the whole dating question. So, according to our stories, we planned to finish high school then marry.
Aunt Alice and the rest of the family would arrive to help plan our second wedding, but for now they were in Hanover New Hampshire, right next to Dartmouth. Mom was finally getting to attend college.
Just before becoming pregnant with me, my Mom had struck some kind of deal with my Dad about attending Dartmouth. My father had held her to that bargain across all these years, and she was now enrolled there. They still had the house they'd bought just before their wedding, and the rest of the family found another house nearby.
Dad set up residency as a doctor. Grandpa was teaching at a nearby hospital, Grandma and Alice had opened a design company, and Emmett and Rosalie had opened a garage.
Our children were still in Volterra, overseeing the new Council. They had their work cut out for them, as it had been decided to try and move to an elected democracy. Things were not going smoothly. The Volturi had dictated their rule for centuries. People were having a hard time seeing why that system had to change. As long as there was someone else out there to protect the secret and do the work, it was thought that people shouldn't have to trouble themselves. We had tried to keep things in line for years, before finally handing the reins over to our children.
Jake and I enrolled at Forks High. Neither of us had attended there before. I'd been home schooled until I was enrolled in private school, and Jake had gone to the reservation schools then gotten his GED. Neither of us had ever attended college, but we'd both taken a few classes online.
Forks High was the school where my parents met, and all of my aunts and uncles had graduated from there. Luckily, though, it was long enough ago that I could pass as a relation.
Our first day there, we were surprised to find it dramatically changed from my Mom's descriptions. The cluster of buildings was gone, replaced by a large concrete block three-story structure. Hundreds of students poured through the doors. I didn't think I would need a map, but the halls inside twisted and turned back along each other, following the old outdoor porticoes.
The first thing I noticed upon entering the office was a nameplate. It read 'Ms. Cope.'
Could it be? I thought.
There had been a Mrs. Cope previously at Forks High during my family's time.
Checking the name plate again, I noted it wasn't Mrs. Cope. It was Ms. Cope. That probably meant the woman working here now was her daughter or granddaughter.
Sure enough, a young, cheerful woman came up to the desk. "May I help you?"
"Yes. My name is Vanessa Wolfe. Behind me is Jacob Clearwater. Today is our first day, so we need our schedules."
"Certainly, let me just get them pulled up for you."
Ms. Cope tapped away at her keyboard for a few moments, and then the sound of the printer filled the air.
"Vanessa, I see here you're an AP sophomore, and Jacob, you're a junior. You'll both have third period lunch and fifth period study hall."
I nodded. "We'll come back here if we have any questions. Thank you for your help."
Just then, two students entered the office. One was a blonde with long, curly hair and green eyes. The other had short, cropped brown hair and eyes hidden behind glasses so thick you could hardly see their color.
"We're here to take you on a tour of the school," the blonde said.
I looked up at her, then towards Jake. I swallowed back an unreasonable twingeofjealousy. Raising my hand to sweep my hair back out of my face, I made sure my engagement ring caught the light.
I looked the blonde directly in the eyes. "Thank you for the offer. I'm Vanessa Wolfe, and this is my fiancee', Jacob Clearwater."
The blonde stepped back a half pace at the challenge in my eyes. "I'm Rebecca Newton, and my companion is Wendy Townsend. We're from the newspaper and have become sort of the unofficial welcome wagon around here."
I grinned at her, and extended my hand to shake. She looked down at it as if it were a snake that might bite. She swallowed a few times, then finally accepted my extended hand.
I wound an arm around Jake's waist and leaned into his shoulder. "Lead on, we'll follow."
Rebecca turned with a bit of a sneer. I had probably just made my first enemy, but that was worth the smirk I saw on Wendy's face. She sensed I had taken the other girl down a peg and had done so deliberately.
Wendy murmured, "You'll have to watch out for Rebecca, but that was the funniest thing I've seen all week."
I smiled at her, and thought to myself You only live once, but high school politics are eternal.
Aloud, I said, "I wouldn't worry about it too much. I believe I'm going to like it here."