There was around four minutes and forty six seconds until she said the magic words, so I went to tell Esme where I was going. After all, I didn't want her to freak out again and ban me from meeting Bella tomorrow. Or ban me from shopping. Shudder.

My mother was now cleaning Edward's room, taking advantage of his absence. Edward's room was his haven, his little piece of privacy, and he didn't like sharing it with anyone. I often wondered why he didn't install a lock, though I guessed since everyone knew not to come in, there was no point. He kept his room immaculately tidy which was seriously unnatural, in my opinion, since he was a teenage boy. Yes, yes, he was over a century old, but he was frozen at seventeen, and some elements of him would be forever seventeen. To be fair, he was acting more like a teenager now than he ever had before.

I ran up the stairs and down the hallway to the rare sight of Edward's open door. Esme was dusting her son's thousands of CDs, and was almost halfway through. I think she'd got up to the nineteen twenties, if memory served. It was an odd cataloguing system that Edward had implemented, and since he didn't need a cataloguing system at all (vampire memory, you know), it was a bit of a giveaway that Edward liked things in their proper place. Vampires were vampires, and humans were humans…

I bet they're in any old random order in under a month.

Esme glanced up. "What is it, Alice?" she asked curtly. She hadn't forgiven me yet, then.

"I'm just going to get Edward," I told her. "He's not intending to come home."

I could have laughed at the ridiculous mixture of annoyance and tenderness that she exuded. She loved the idea that Edward wanted to stay with Bella, but hated the idea that he wouldn't return to tell her exactly what had got me so hyped up earlier and every other tiny little detail of his day. The conflicting emotions battled for a moment before she sighed and nodded her head.

"He'll have to come to find out about your plans for tomorrow, I suppose. Alright, Alice, you can go. But please," she begged as I went to leave, "do it tactfully. Don't wake her up, don't say – or think – anything rude or suggestive, don't spoil his day, and—"

"Esme!" I interrupted, knowing how long this list would be. "I'm not an idiot. Or a child."

"I know, I know." Her expression softened. "I just want this to be perfect for him."

"I know," I echoed. "So do I."

We smiled, but both of us had a degree of sadness in our faces, because it wasn't perfect, and if Edward had his way, it never would be.

I lingered for a few seconds longer, then turned and went to retrieve my brother from his girlfriend's bedroom.

It was a short journey to Bella's house, and an easy one; even if I hadn't known where I was going, Edward's scent marked the way as clearly as a row of floodlights. You could tell he passed this way often from the thick layers of scent that prevented the smell from fading. If I looked closely enough, I could see where his path had flattened the moss and ferns, and branches had been snapped aside to make way. I wondered if he'd ploughed straight through them in his haste to see her, or whether he had deliberately removed them to save his clothes. It would have been pretty embarrassing to be discovered with a ripped shirt (or worse) in Bella's room.

Soon, two new scents caught my nostrils and I paused. One was faint, but unmistakably human. The other was my own. They were maybe four or five days old and I suddenly recognised the small clearing. This was where I had seen Bella deliberating over what to do about our being vampires.

I hadn't told Edward I had seen this, because I didn't want to be the one to tell him that she knew. Plus, I hadn't been entirely sure that she knew at all. I had only known that for three seconds, Bella had disappeared from Edward's future, and I had looked to the cause, seeing Bella sit here, with her head in her hands, thinking. As I said, that future only lasted for three seconds, and then it reverted back to what had actually happened, what was actually happening now, but it was enough to get me worried. I'd been in the vicinity at the time, so I'd come to check on her, check she wasn't in any danger. Edward hadn't returned from hunting, so I felt obliged to look after her for him. It made her sound like a pet cat, but that was the truth of it.

Anyway, I'd arrived here only a minute or so afterwards and was slightly surprised to see her still sitting there, with no apparent threat. I could only come to the conclusion that she herself had caused the change and not any outside factors.

But why? I had asked myself. What could have caused her to decide to leave Edward (and us)? The only answer I could come up with was the downright obvious one.

Because we were vampires.

And if I was right, that meant she knew. I hadn't known how, maybe she worked his out from him skipping blood-typing, but she knew. She knew, and the future had still reverted to her and Edward becoming closer, becoming 'an item'.

She knew, and she didn't care.

I had been silently working this through when I realised that Edward would be home soon. I had to leave before he got back to her. Maybe he wouldn't even bother to go home first, I had thought, and a quick glance into the future had told me I was right. I had melted silently away, planning a quick hunting trip of my own to clear my mind.

It had been difficult keeping this from Edward, as my thoughts naturally reverted to Bella whenever I saw him, but I got round it by thinking in the future tense whenever I could remember to. She will find out, rather than she has. I didn't want to give him false hope by telling him that she didn't mind when it might have been an utter lie.

I cleared my mind now, knowing Edward could hear me. I didn't want to spoil his surprise, so I started running through the royal family of France from a few centuries ago until the end of the French monarchy. He'd know I was blocking him, but that didn't matter.

There was less than twenty-three seconds until Bella sleep-talked (was that the right phrase? It sounded so clumsy. Much like Bella) so I followed Edward and Bella's scents back to the house.

Their paths divided when the small brick building came into sight; Bella had gone to the door, while Edward always went to her window. I could smell their combined scents from earlier, by the front door, but I ignored that and followed Edward's customary route to the gnarled, twisted tree outside Bella's room. Slowly (well, slowly for a vampire, anyway), I ascended the tree, leaping lightly and soundlessly from branch to branch like a ghostly cat. I found a branch that could bear my weight without creaking and settled myself upon it, watching through the window.

Edward couldn't see me since he was curled around Bella, with his back to the window, but I knew he could hear me, now going through the thirteenth century. I listened too, for Bella. Then I heard a muffled, sleepy sigh and I grinned in anticipation.

"I love you, Edward."

The words, when they came, were more like a breath than speech, as gentle as a caress. Edward's answering promise of love sounded harsh in comparison, even though technically his voice was far more beautiful.

Beautiful. Pah. As far as I was concerned, beauty was an entirely different thing to looking, or sounding, good. Most people would say Rosalie was beautiful but they never looked into her eyes, I don't think. The pride, haughtiness, arrogance and pain in her eyes stopped her physical features from meaning anything in my opinion. She was pretty, but she was only beautiful when she looked at Emmett. Jasper's scars stopped him from being conventionally beautiful, but he couldn't be anything but beautiful to me. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. I was sure Edward thought Bella was more beautiful than Esme, Rosalie and I combined.

"Quite right," he whispered.

I grinned, and hopped in the window. You know why I'm here, Edward.

Gently, he pressed his lips to Bella's hair before drawing away, taking such care not to wake her. He unwound his arms from her waist and slipped out from under the duvet.

"Yes, I should have guessed you wouldn't leave us in peace," he muttered, now lacing his trainers up.

I gave a little mental squeak at his casual use of the plural pronoun and he smiled.

Bella murmured something completely incoherent in her sleep and both of our heads snapped round. She hadn't done that earlier, in my vision, though the disturbance of Edward leaving her might have changed things slightly. I watched her curiously, properly seeing someone asleep for the first time.

"She's not a zoo exhibit," he breathed.

Oi! You spend enough time staring at her! I argued.

His eyes twinkled in the darkness. "I can't argue with that."

I smirked in triumph. Anyway, come on. Esme's waiting to interrogate you. I thought you should tell her about a certain kiss…

We jumped out of the window, Edward pausing to stroke her hair one last time before leaving, and took off running.

"I'm so proud of you!" I squealed as soon as I was sure we wouldn't wake Bella or her dad up.

Edward winced. "Would turning down the volume kill you, Alice?" he asked.

"Nope," I replied, popping the 'p'. "But it would spoil my fun."

He groaned.

"Seriously, though, how on earth did you keep from killing her?"

His eyes closed for a second; he didn't like being reminded of his status as a vampire, and hers as the human he most desperately desired to drink from.

Sorry. Bit tactless, I apologised.

It was quite normal for me to converse with Edward using both thought and speech, though an outsider would never understand what we were going on about.

"No, it's alright." There was a short pause. "And in answer to your question… I love her. I don't want to kill her. I'm just trying to keep up that mentality."

"You will," I said with certainty. "You'll be absolutely fine."

He smiled. "Thank you for your confidence. So tell me, please, what have you already told Esme?"

"Next to nothing," I promised, running over the day in my head. She got a… teensy bit worried when I left to warn you about, well, you know, but I think I managed to calm her down.

"No shopping?" he asked wryly, watching the memory. "She must have been stressed. We all know what you're like when you don't get your retail therapy. And…"

I quickly thought of that new Gucci line coming out next moth and the shoes I simply had to pre-order. Unfortunately, he'd already seen Esme's other threatened punishment from later. Damn multiple layers of thought. Ugh, this wasn't how I'd wanted to tell him about tomorrow's daytrip. Would this change his mind?

"You want Bella to come round to a houseful of vampires?" he said, his voice flat and low.

Edward! I chastised him. "We're just as safe as you!" Safer, even.

I grimaced at my own wayward thoughts. Sorry, I thought again.

"Don't apologise. It's not your fault I can hear your every thought. I know you'd never say it aloud."

"Thanks," I smiled. But Edward, she'll be as safe with us at home as she is at school. And Esme's never seen Bella, she's desperate to meet her. As you're about to find out, I added, getting a flash vision of Esme waiting on the porch steps.