Chapter Five: Scheming
"Oh. My. Carlisle. I just figured it out." Emmett said, still clearly in shock.
Just then, Edward pranced cheerfully in to the room. "I thought I'd make cookies, since we're all apparently so tense. But, as none of us can eat them, I'm going to take them to my darling Bella. Kisses dears!"
He continued his cheerful trip to the garage, leaving a stunned family behind.
--
"Emmett, what did you figure out?" Alice asked, just barely keeping her tone level.
"& 8 9! Like 7 ate- like the word ate!- 9! I finally understand it!"
"EMMETT!!" The rest of the family couldn't believe what they were hearing.
"Dear, not to be rude, but it's been thirty years since someone told you that joke," responded Rosalie, who was always expecting her husband to act like a moron with this situation not being an exception.
"Hehe...I know!" Not even Carlisle and Esme were able to resist the urge to roll their eyes.
"So you don't know anything useful?" Alice asked, hope and despair mingling in her voice.
"I didn't say that...,"Apparently he thought better of it and continued, "Well, it might not be worth while. Maybe Edward's trying to lull us into a false sense of security."
The looks of shock that were had were proof that no one, not even Alice, had seen that coming. Who would've ever guessed that the family idiot would be the first to get it.
"Wow, that actually makes sense," Jasper breathed. His shock was probably the sustaining factor for everyone else's.
--
(At Bella's house)
After Edward had made it out of the drive, he let his façade fall. He was amazingly angry with his entire family. How dare they make a mockery of his feelings, his thoughts, his very being. The audacity of it all was startling.
He drove at a break-neck speed to the Swan residence and was only slightly worried about getting caught. After all, he was the police chief's future son-in-law.
He smoothly parked his Volvo in his usual space and strode to the house and entered without knocking. He searched near frantically for Bella. He finally found her in her bedroom studying for some test that they undoubtedly had coming up. She looked up from the book as he entered the room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
"Edward, what's the matter?" He didn't answer right away which was enough to frighten her beyond all belief. Had the Volturri returned? Did one of the Cullens or the pack break the treaty?
"Really, please just tell me! If it's something I did, I want to be able to fix it!"
"Hush love. None of this is any fault of yours."
"Well then whose is it? From where I'm sitting, you're pretty mad. It's not like you to deny huge problems Edward."
"It's my family," sensing that she was only going to prod him more if she was met with silence, he continued, "We went to the Vampires Anonymous meeting, and things started well. One thing led to another and pretty soon everyone was calling me 'Emo Edward', whether in their thoughts or out loud."
"So? It's just a name that a bunch of meaningless vampires thought of."
"It wasn't just them. My family helped and wasn't quite condemning of it."
"It does sound like Emmett would get a kick out of it," Bella didn't quite manage to keep her giggles silent as she said this.
"Thanks for the support dear."
"I'm sorry, it just is rather funny. If you're so mad, why are you here? I don't mind the company, but shouldn't you be dealing with them?"
"I will, I just need a plan. I need to get them back so throughly that they won't even think to step out of line for the next few centuries."
"Alice'll see whatever you plan. It'll be useless if they know it's coming."
"Yea, that's true."
They both sat there, quietly scheming for several minutes. Many ideas were discarded before they could become suggestions at a rate that would give Alice a killer headache, if she was seeing any of it. Then the light bulb went off.
"Bella, darling, would you mind doing me a favor?"
"Of course not," she answered without hesitation, "Anything you need, I'll figure out."
Edward smirked evilly. "Good. Let's get those mongrel friends of yours involved." Upon hearing this, Bella's grin was a mirror image of Edward's.
--
The Cullens were sitting around the dining room table discussing the situation that was developing with Edward. The possibilities of him going insane, discovering that he was gay, and being completely love-struck were all brought up and given equal amounts of credit. After what they had seen today, all three options seemed reasonable. Emmett's idea was pushed to the back of their minds only because it scared them too much to think about it.
Then Alice had a vision.
The family looked at her expectantly as she began to speak. "It all just...disappeared."
--
(A/N)I know it's super short, but I was thinking it was better than nothing. I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, but school's been really stressful. We've got a band competition next week and Regents exams and finals are coming up. It probably won't get any better until the end of June.
I'd like to thank Kasey Elizabeth, Mystical Beckie, Xxb00kw0rmXXo, XxLuvAtFirstBitexX, pirate-princess1, DungeonQueen, Robyn-Enjolras, and Shikiangel CerEbow for reviewing the last chapter and for the awesome plot suggestions!