Chapter 38: Thinking Ahead
Alice POV:
Where did everything go so wrong? I thought we were having fun and then she shut me out. As much as I didn't want to leave, she asked me to and I didn't want to upset her more. So I left. I did not want to go home and face my questioning family at the moment, so I went hunting to distract me. It was not successful. I sat and cried most of the time.
"Alice? Is everything alright?" Apparently Edward had decided to hunt at the same time and our paths crossed.
"Please go away Edward. I'm not in the mood." Instead of doing what I asked, he sat down next to me.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. Especially not with you." He was quiet for a while, probably prodding my mind, and then rested his hand on my shoulder.
"Alice, I don't like being able to read people's minds all the time. Sometimes I wish I could turn it off, but I can't. But I want you to know that she loves you. Bella loves you more than anything in the world. I don't need to be able to read her mind to see that. I thought I knew what love felt like when I was with her. But what you have is real. Please don't doubt her." Great. I was already pretty emotional and his words brought on another onslaught of dry sobbing. Edward pulled me into a side hug to comfort. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."
"No it's fine. Thank you Edward."
"It's no problem Alice. I just want you both to be happy." We continued to sit for some time. Eventually day began to break and I wanted to get back to Bella.
"Alright. I'm going to head back now. Thank you again." He nodded and stood up with me.
"Good luck." I ran at a casual pace back to Bella's house and climbed up to her window quietly. My original plan was just to wait outside until she woke up, but when I peeked inside I saw that she was already up and silently crying in bed. I immediately opened the window and hopped inside to comfort her. She jumped up from her position in surprise, trying to pretend she wasn't upset. But I was too quick for her and enclosed her in my arms before she had a chance to move.
"Shhhhhhhhh. Just let it out." I cradled her head against my chest under my chin while she shook.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you to leave."
"Shhhhh. You don't have to apologize or explain anything to me ok. I love you so much." I told her while running my fingers through her hair gently. It had gotten almost to its full possible length since we started dating. I needed to give it a proper cut sometime soon.
After about an hour, her crying had subsided and she had faded to sleep in my arms. I continued to pet her head and hum softly. Bella woke up some time in the early afternoon looking beat.
"Hey."
"Hey." She croaked out painfully.
"How about, we just relax today? Maybe take a bath? And then maybe take a walk on that beach?"
"Alice I-"
"No. Bella I told you that you don't have to say anything. Ok?" She looked at me sincerely for a few moments and nodded.
"Ok. Thank you." I kissed her and pulled us both up.
"No need to thank me. Now, breakfast?"
Bella seemed a lot less tense after our bath and we had a pleasant walk on our favorite beach. Afterwards we went back to my place to hang out with the family. Edward gave me a heartfelt smile when we arrived and I thanked him internally.
"Bells you up for some Call of Duty?"
"Sure. If you're up to lose?"
"Haha. Let's go."
"Alright but you can't hog her too long Em. I'm cutting her hair later." I warned him as they got situated on the couch.
"Ooooo. Can you give her a mohawk? That would be so bad-ass."
"Alice if you give me a mohawk, I'm never sleeping with you again." I giggled and kissed the top of her head.
"I won't. I promise. A buzz cut's good right?"
"Alice!" She whined at me concerned for her head.
"Oh relax Bella. Do you really think I would give you a bad haircut? I probably care the most about what it's going to look like." She grumbled and ran a hand through her hair distractedly.
After Esme had fed my mate, I made Bella quickly shower so I could get down to the haircut. I kept running my fingers through it to check its evenness, so needless to say Bella was purring loudly by the end.
"Alright. All done!" It looked damn good if I do say so myself.
"Mmmmmmm…" Bella was practically asleep. I had pet my wolf to sleep.
"Yeah I think it's bed time." She mumbled an affirmative and crawled lazily into my bed. "Sweet dreams love." Bella passed out almost right away. I had positioned myself for the night comfortably against her chest when there was a light knock on my door.
"Alice? Can I come in? Are you decent?" Jasper whispered through the door. I rolled my eyes at his decency question. Did he think we were having sex all the time or something?
"Yes come in Jasper." He quietly walked in, wary not to disturb my sleeping mate.
"Hey Alice can we borrow you for a little while? We're having a family meeting downstairs." I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. Was something wrong? And why were we doing this meeting without Bella? I thought we decided she was family. Last time we had a family meeting like this, it ended up in our leaving Bella. "Don't worry. You'll understand when you get downstairs." I nodded and carefully got out of bed, lightly kissing Bella's head, praying she wouldn't have any nightmares in my brief absence. I left the door slightly ajar so I could hear if she did.
"Did she give her a mohawk Jasper?" Emmett asked once we got downstairs. Jasper chuckled lightly.
"I'm afraid not Emmett."
"Damn."
"So what's this about? Is something wrong? Why are we doing this without Bella?" My eyes involuntarily wandered upstairs to where she was.
"No, nothing's wrong Alice." Carlisle took the lead of the meeting. "For a while now we have been discussing the future of the family. You all will be graduating soon, including Bella."
"Ok…" The subject was still making me uneasy.
"Alice about a month ago I got in touch with the agency Bella works for to see if they had any positions for doctor open. They did. I have been talking with her commander for some time now. So once you all graduate, we will be moving to D.C., as a family." My mouth fell open.
"What? When did-? Did you all-? Wait this is absurd. We need to talk about this as a family. I can't just make everyone go somewhere because I want to be with Bella."
"Actually sis, we've known about this for a while too. Carlisle asked us all first and we all want to go. No one had any issues with it. The only reason why we're telling you now is because Carlisle just got sent the official paperwork today." Emmett was smiling at me with Rosalie curled up on his side. They had been planning this for that long? Why didn't anyone tell me?
"We didn't want you to argue against it. Emmett's right. We wanted to only tell you when it was final and a done deal." Edward said from his position on the piano bench. My ability to speak had still not come back yet.
"Alice sweetie, is something wrong?" Esme was concerned from my lack of words.
"N-no. It's just I'm so surprised. And amazed. And grateful that you all would do this. Just- wow." Everyone smiled at me happily. "Wow." It was like everything in my life was falling into place. "I love you all so much!" Esme laughed and drew me into a hug.
"There is one condition Alice." Carlisle said while I went around the room hugging everyone.
"What?"
"We are not allowed to tell Bella until after graduation. Those are Colt's instructions, not mine."
"Oh. Um ok." I wasn't sure I could keep this secret from her. That put a little damper in my mood.
"It won't be that hard. Just say that you're following her after graduation. It's the truth, just not the whole truth." I nodded at Rosalie's words. No yeah. I could do this, she did have a good point about the truth thing.
"Alright. Yeah I think I can do that! Thank you guys so much! I can't believe you-" The rest of my sentence was cut off with the sound of Bella's panicked screaming from upstairs. I ran at full speed without a second thought. She was thrashing around, obviously still deep within a terrible nightmare. "Bella! Bella wake up!" I jumped on the bed and grabbed her face in an effort to wake her up. She did, and started hyperventilating heavily. "Hey hey. It's fine. You're fine. You're safe. Shhhhh. You're ok. We're ok." I pulled her into my arms and rocked her head against my chest like before, until her breathing went back to normal.
"Thank you. Sorry." Her heartbeat was still beating pretty fast.
"It's not like I sleep Bella. You didn't wake me up or anything. And like I said before, I'm just doing my job." She remained quiet as I continued to hold her. Esme came in about a minute later with a cup of tea.
"Thought you could use a little help going back to sleep dear."
"Thank you Esme." Bella and I said simultaneously.
"It's no problem at all." She smiled gently and walked back out closing the door behind her. Bella drank deeply from the mug and then took a long breath.
"Any good?" I asked trying to lighten the mood.
"Yeah. Esme's amazing as usual." She smiled at me and then set the mug down on my bedside table. She then settled herself back down against me and eventually fell asleep without any more problems.