Chapter 2: Dinner Time

The sound of my phone ringing on the coffee table woke me from the light slumber I had fallen into while watching America's Next Top Model, a guilty pleasure of mine (okay, not so guilty! I love it!). Edward, the screen flashed. I groaned a little, I guess his means I'm late, I thought to myself.

"Hullo," I huffed as I hit the answer button and raised the phone to my ear.

"Alice you were meant to pick us up half an hour ago, where are you?" Edward said sharply. I looked at the TV and dully realised that some cartoon had begun playing, must have slept a little longer than I had thought.

"Sorry Eddy, I'll be there as soon as I can!" I hit the little red button before he could make some snarky comment.

I was already changed and ready to walk out the door, I had only sat down for half an hour to have a little coffee and a chocolate bar. I then absently noted that the coffee was half drank and the chocolate untouched, oops. I quickly rinsed out the dirty mug, flung on a coat, grabbed my keys and dashed for the door.

My red bug smelled of old coffee and stale doughnuts, people will start thinking I drive a cop car by the smell of it. I should buy an air freshener, one of those little ones shaped like a pine tree, I like them. The fates were kind once again and I got green lights all the way, not that it was a very long drive to Edward and Bella's little apartment. Ten minutes later I was knocking on their door.

"About time you got here!" Edward complained as the green door swung open. He was already wearing his coat and had a big umbrella in his hand. Bella was standing behind him looking amused.

"He's been in a mood all day!" She supplied. "Don't worry about it."

"I wasn't," I chirped happily. Edward walked past me motioning for Bella to follow; he locked the door behind her and made his way along the corridor. "Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," I mumbled as I walked after them.

Edward wouldn't stop moaning the whole way there. I swear if I wasn't driving I would have hit him. Sometimes I felt sorry for Bella, I can't imagine how horrific it would be to have to spend the rest of my life with that boy, living with him for seventeen years was torture enough!

Four hours later when we finally arrived at big old white house I was ready to strangle him, luckily dad was there to distract me.

"Hi sweetheart," he said as he gave me a quick hug. "Have a good drive?"

I gave a kind of annoyed grunt in reply and he looked confused for a moment before he spotted Bella and Edward getting out of the car and moved over to great them. I locked my bug and headed in to find mom. The kitchen was probably a good bet, the woman loved to cook, though she was a skinny as a rake. I was really looking forward to a good meal tonight though, I'd been living off half eaten takeaway and doughnuts for nearly two weeks, work had just been so busy I didn't have a free minute to cook anything. Not that would have cooked anything if I had a free minute; I was a bit of a damp squib in the kitchen.

The rich smell of tomato wafted from the kitchen door as soon as I had turned the handle, meatballs maybe? I loved mom's meat balls. "Oh Alice you're here!" Mom said setting down her wooded spoon on the counter. Defiantly something involving tomato sauce, I thought. Mom rushed over hugged me; hers lasted a little longer than dads though. "Are Edward and Bella here as well?" She asked.

"I should hope so, I drove them here!" I said, it always amazed me how much people asked questions they already knew the answers to, after all she knew full well that I was driving Mr Mope and his wife. She pecked my cheek quickly and rushed out the door.

"Good drive?" Emmett asked coyly, he was sitting on a stool at the island munching on a bread stick.

"Edwards in one of his moods," I humphed as I took up the stool beside him. Emmett gave his eye brow a wiggle and grinned. "You knew he was in a mood didn't you!" His grin grew. "Why didn't you warn me? Oh could have saved me three and a half hours of Moans Ville from Mr Mope!"

"I could have, but that isn't what older brothers are for!" He chuckled.

I hit his arm lightly, "Then what on earth good are you?" I scorned in mock rage.

Emmett only laughed, "Was he that bad? I was talking to him on the phone this morning, just after I called you, and he seemed pretty snippy."

"Pretty snippy is an under statement! He wouldn't stop going on and on about stupid things, 'it's too warm in here', 'gees Ali are you trying to freeze me turn up the heater', 'you really should get a new car you know', 'I'm very busy at work and the last thing I need to drive for four hour in a car that smells like something died in it, the least you could do is buy an air freshener!' I swear Emmett I was ready to through him out the car by the time I got here!" I ranted on and on.

"Bella sure is a saint putting up with that boy." He said matter-of-factly.

"And then he asks if I can work another THREE hours! It completely absurd!" Edward's voice rang through the house as the front door softly clicked shut. Emmett and I looked at each other for a moment then bust out laughing.

"What's funny?" Mom gently asked as she walked back into the kitchen.

"Oh nothing," I said, she wouldn't have condoned the two of us 'ganging up on Edward' as she always put it.

"Oh well," she said. "You can both go and sit with in lounge with the rest of them if you like, I'm fine through here."

"No way mom," Emmett exclaimed. "I don't want to listen to those two talking doctor till dinners served, I guarantee you that Bella will be through here in ten minutes. Best leave the doctors alone!"

"Hey," I retorted. "I'm a doctor to you know!"

"Yes Ali, but you are a human being who happened to be a doctor; they are doctors who happened to be human beings." He explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Mom just kind of shook her head in dismay and I frowned at him.

"Sometimes I wonder is you're a human being at all." I muttered. Mom chuckled and Emmett just looked confused, but he didn't bother commenting.

"Mind if I join you," Bella's soft voice rang from behind me. "The two of them have launched into full scale medical jargon and I can't understand a word, something about Goble Cell-"

"Globoid cell Leukodystrophy," I stated. Three sets of eyes questioned me. "Hey, I'm a doctor too you know! You lot seem to keep forgetting that! Just because I don't go on and on about it the way dad and Mr Mope do! And they've been talking about it for weeks." There I go, I though to myself, ranting again.

"You two still call him Mr Mope?" Bella said quizzically.

"Yup," Emmett and I said in sync.

"It's a good thing he doesn't know about it!" She exclaimed. Oh Bella, I thought, even you don't know how right you are.

"Yup," We said again.

"Oh Esme what is that delicious smell?" She said quickly changing the subject, I'm not sure she liked our nick name for Edward either, though at least she could see the hilarity in it unlike a certain Mr Mope. It was the epitome of the statement 'funny because it's true'.

"Thanks Bella, I hope you'll all hungry I've enough spaghetti and meatballs to feed an army!" Mom quipped.

"Ah but the question is," Emmett interjected. "Have you made enough to feed me?" We all chuckled, it really amazed me the amount of food that boy could shovel down his throat. The light banter continued easily until dinner was finally ready and we sat down at the long wooded dinning table to stuff our faces. Well, all of us except Edward who just sat pushing his food around with a frown etched on his face.

"Mom," Emmett said as we started to clear away the plates, "that was truly amazing!"

"Why thank you honey," She said leaning down to give him a peck on the cheek.

"I vote we move to the lounge and have some coffee," Dad said, "All in favour?" We all raised our hands and Dad smiled.

"Could I have decaf please?" Bella asked softly.

"Decaf," Dad mused, "Yes I think I've heard of that!"

Emmett helped mom and dad out with the clear up and coffee while I sat in the living room with Mr Mope and a fidgety Bella. I couldn't help but let my mind wonder a little, maybe it was the background music Edward had put on (music always made me daydream). I couldn't help but think of Jasper, I see young sick people everyday, but there was something about him that stuck in my mind and it wasn't just because he was my first solo patient. And it wasn't just because he was gorgeous. He'd been sick for five years, hooked up to a machine twelve hours a week, but he still seemed… I don't know, bright somehow, chipper. I had only met him one time though so I couldn't really go around making assumptions. He was my patient after all, a patient and nothing more, that's all there was to it.

"Coffee time," Emmett announced as he walked in with four big mugs of Coffee closely followed by Mom and Dad.

"So kids," dad said sitting down with his coffee in hand, "give us the low down, the 411."

"Dad you totally can't pull that off," I snorted.

"Okay okay," he sighed. "So what's going on, I feel like I haven't seen you rag tag bunch in forever! It's news time!" Ah, news time, a Cullen family tradition, my parents started it when we were in school, their sneaky way of getting info out of us. Apparently 'fine' was not a good enough response to the question, 'how was school'.

"We'll start then," my mother interjected after half a second of silence. "Your father and I have hired an architect!"

"An architect?" Three voices questioned in unison.

"Yes!" She replied excitedly. "We just have so much land going completely unused that we decide it was about time we did something with it, don't you think? So we've decided to build a little cottage, nothing fancy just something cosy! We've been talking about doing it ever since you lot moved out so we finally just phoned up this firm in Seattle and hired an architect. He's a lovely young man, the architect, don't you think Carlisle? So young and keen, he's only been down once to have a look at the land but he keeps in contact. We'll probably be going up to Seattle to see him soon; we'll drop in on you and say 'hi'."

Mom liked to talk when she was excited, the rest of the time she was very refined, I'm just surprised she managed to wait this long to tell us. "So what are you going to do with it when it's finished?" I asked.

"We talked about renting it out," Dad said in slightly more subdued tone than mom. "Or maybe just using it was a holiday home; I hear the other end of the garden is lovely this time of year!"

"That sounds great!" Emmett said, "Good for you, finally doing something with the forest out the back door! I have some news of my own actually!" After a few seconds passed and none of us responded except for raising our eye brows he finally spilled the beans, though I pretty sure I knew what he was about to say. "I got a new girlfriend!" Yep, I was right. "We've only been going out for a couple of weeks but man she's great!"

"What's her name?" Bella asked smiling.

"Rose," he sighed. "Isn't that just a great name?" Haha, I thought, someone's smitten!

"That's' great news Emmett I'm so happy for you!" Bella smiled "You'll need to let us meet her at some time!" But before Emmett could comment she carried on. "Edward and I have some news too!" She looked over nervously at Edward who I think might have smiled a little, though it might just have been a trick of the light. "I'm Pregnant!" She announced.

There was a second of silence between us processing the information and showering them with congratulations, this at least did explain Edwards fowl mood. He was nervous! I was kind of cute. I told him as much when I gave him his congrats-you're-gonna-be-a-dad hug. He didn't look amused.

"I'm gonna be the cool uncle," Emmett grinned. "You know that one that they always want to spend time with because I let them stay up late and eat junk food."

"Okay let's scratch Emmett of the babysitting list," Bella laughed.

"Well that kind of puts my 'I got my first solo patient' news to shame doesn't it?" I joked.

"You did!" Dad said. "Honey that excellent, I'm so proud of you!" He gave me a quick hug and moved onto telling Edward the horrors of children. After that point the three girls and three guys kind of banded together. Mom was telling Bella all about pregnancy and what to expect and I could vaguely hear dad at the other end of the room talking about dirty diapers.

"Are you going to find out the sex?" I asked.

"No," she said instantly. "We both want to wait, let it be a surprise."

"That's what we did, with all three of them, you have no idea how happy I was when Alice was born and Carlisle said 'it's a girl'." Mom said. "Of course I didn't really mind what sex my children were as long as they were healthy but after having two boys… just have two names ready just in case, Alice would have been James and I think Emmett and Edward were going to be Victoria and Lauren!"

"We haven't decided on any names yet, I think Edwards still trying to process that whole pregnancy thing." Bella said softly.

"He always was a little slow," I added.

"Alice, don't be mean about your brother, he just takes his time, there's nothing wrong with that." My mom chastised me.

"Yeah, well I'm already three months in and I think this baby might be here before he gets his head round it!"

"Three months," My mom said astonished, "How long have you known?" Mom sounded a little hurt like they had just purposely not told her.

"Only a few days, it's not really that unusual for me to miss my period every now and then because of the stress at work, ER nurses don't get it easy you know! But when I missed so many in a row I started to get a little suspicious, I didn't even have any morning sickness!"

"Lucky you!" Mom exclaimed. "Emmett and Alice weren't too bad, but Edward! Dear lord I thought I'd never get my head out the toilet." Edward Cullen, I thought, making people want to vomit since before he was born! I'm petulant I know, but I'm his sister, it's my job. "And you know that if you ever need a babysitter we would be more than happy, though if you're still living in Seattle it might be a little difficult but all the same you can count on us!"

"Thanks so much Esme, I know I can. We've discussed living arrangement's, I mean a small apartment in Seattle isn't exactly the idea place to raise a family but of course we'll need to wait for Edward to finish his contract at the hospital in a years time."

Job, marriage, house and babies, I guess that's life. My brother seemed to have it all. Right? All I had was the first one, and didn't even completely have that because of course one does not simply become a fully qualified renal physician at the tender age of 23. I've only ever had one boyfriend, James. We had been together three years when he dumped me last year. Apparently I had been cheating on my job with him; he didn't want to be a home wrecker. How considerate of him. I didn't mind really, it gave me more time for work and study… and I love my job.

Jasper.

Why did I just think his name? Get a grip of yourself Alice he's a patient. Patient. Patient. Patient. And besides that I've only spent about 20 minutes with him and lets face it 'Hello I'm your doctor and I'm going to stick needles in your arm' and 'See you next session, let me just take those needles out before you leave.' doesn't exactly se the scene for future romance. I mean how many rom-coms have you seen that in?

Oh my gosh Alice when did you start thinking about Romance with Jasper Hale? I don't think about romance with anyone, ever. And now suddenly I'm thinking about staring in a rom-com with some guy you talked to for a few minutes? And who happened to be your first ever patient? I can't get romantically involved with a patient and that's the end of it, my career comes first, my career always comes first.

"Alice?" Bella's voice called bringing me sharply out of my inner monologue. "Hellooo paging Dr Cullen… Oh no not you two, I mean, um, I was talking to, oh never mind! Alice!"

"Yeah," I said cluelessly.

"So what do you think?" She urged.

"About what?" I stammered.

"About Edward and I selling up and moving back to Forks when his contract reviews up? Have you been listening to anything we've just said?" She said waving her hands in exasperation.

"That sounds great!" I answered. "There really aren't many opportunities for neurology in Forks though. And yes of course I was listing, I'm just…tired." It wasn't a lie exactly, I was tired.

"It's a good thong you're staying the night then." My mum said primly. She was always pleased to have all her family under one roof for the night. Maybe that's just how you get when your youngest is 23 years old and your about to become a grandmother, jeez that sounds weird! My mom…a granny!

"I guess it is pretty late," I say absently. "I might turn in for the night, thanks for dinner mom it was delicious." I said my goodnight to the family before heading up to my old bedroom. You know the kind of sleep you wake up from feeling like you've been out for weeks when it's only been hours? The kind of sleep you can only have when you're home. I like coming home to catch up on some sleep. But that wasn't the kind of sleep I had, my dreams were filled with him. Filled with Jasper Hale.

When morning finally came and light was pecking through the cracks in my shutters I rolled over and groaned at how tired I still was. I got out of bed just the same and brushed my teeth viscously to get rid of morning breath. There were a few streaks of red through the white foam I spat into the sink; I make a mental note to stop brushing my teeth so hard. It was an old habit of mine, one I remember dad lecturing me over when I was young, but old habits tend to sneak back into play when you have other things on your mind. Like Jasper Hale. No! Nothing like Jasper Hale, I am NOT thinking about Jasper Hale.

But before I could start thinking about Jasper Hale again the smell of waffles drifted past my nostrils (well technically molecules from said waffles diffused through the air reaching my nasal passages where they dissolved onto the mucus membrane covering my olfactory cells and a signal was then sent to my brain where it was processed to be the scent of waffles…but that statement isn't quite as poetic). I thanked my olfactory cells for the heads up before I had my way down stairs to stuff the waffles down my throat (that I mean literally).

I was surprised when I reached the kitchen to find it was not the professional hand of my mother making such wonderfully smelling molecules but was in fact Mr Mope himself. "Your up early," I stated as I perched myself on a stool and started racking my fingers through my hair to make it look slightly more like hair and slightly less like a cat.

"Couldn't sleep, to many things going through my head," He said glumly as he dusted icing sugar over a pile of freshly made waffles.

"So you decide to cook me breakfast?" I questioned. "Heck I'm not complaining, hand me other the goods!"

"Well I didn't cook them for you specifically but since you asked so nicely…" He laughed as he handed me a plate and set the tray of waffles in the middle of the island counter. "You're up early yourself!"

"Well I smelled the waffles!" I lied. Edward raised his eye brows at me; I suppose he knew me to well to buy that sorry attempt at a lie. "They smelled good!" His eye brows went up a bit further. "Okay okay, I couldn't sleep!" I relented, man I crack to easily. "I just couldn't stop…thinking, you know? Just about things. Nothing compared to what you need to think about of course, a wife, a baby on the way, an uncompleted residency in a highly competitive field. I don't know how you're gonna manage it!" His face darkened and I knew immediately that I had over talked again.

"I was thinking about, maybe, moving out of the city. Maybe quitting Neuro and becoming a GP like dad." Okay this was good, he was talking. It's good to get Edward talking! But oh I really want to eat that waffle while it's still hot. No. No! Forget about the waffle that's not important listen to your brother he needs you're help. Now I'm talking to myself franticly inside my head, a sign of either craziness or extreme sleep deprivation. I vote for the later.

"But Ed you've always wanted to do Neuro, I know having a baby changes things but you shouldn't give up something you've wanted your whole life, you'd regret it." I said easily, the right things to say just flowing from my mouth. Maybe I should have been a psychiatrist? Na.

"See that's what I thought!" He continued. "But then I sort of realised something…I don't think I…I mean I don't…it's just…" He took a deep breath before going on. "I don't like my job! Not being a doctor you know I love that. It's Neuro! I hate all the long hours and the constant competition for jobs, I hate having to prove myself to my bosses when the only people I should be proving myself to is my patients. Patients are just treated like things in Neuro, like walking illnesses and injuries. That's not what I became a doctor for. It'd rather look after whole families, give people ibuprofen for their headaches, tell mothers their kids cough is nothing to worry about, tell people they have the cold and prescribe them some coco. I'm starting to think that this baby could be the best thing that's ever happened for so many reasons and maybe he/she is coming at just the right time, before I took my life down a path that I couldn't come back from and that I didn't even enjoy." He was smiling at me now; I could see a light in his eyes that hadn't been there all of yesterday. Maybe telling someone what was in his head was just what the doctor ordered (geez, that's cheesy! I must try and get some sleep!). He picked up a waffle and sunk his teeth in, his mouth curling up at the sides. It's was nice to see him look happy, he hardly ever did, always so serious all the time.

"GP's can prescribe coco? All I get to prescribe is EPO and Fosrenol!" I Complained.

"That's what you look from that?" He said in genuine disbelief.

"Just kidding around Eddy! I'm happy for you, and for Bell's. I can't wait to mean my new nice or nephew." I chuckled.

"I can't wait either. Well I mean maybe I can wait a little while, got to get some major things sorted our before they arrive!" He laughed. "We better start eating these waffles before Emmett wakes up!"

"Couldn't agree more!" I giggled picking one up with my bare hand and munching half of it off in one bite.

"You're such a delicate eater Alice. Truly it's astonishing!" He ridiculed. I scowled and then burst out laughing as I hurled a hot waffle right his head. It nearly hit him too. It was nice to have a bit of fun with him again, I liked seeing him happy. I liked seeing him laugh. Maybe this was going to be the best thing to happen to him; maybe it was at just the right time. And maybe, just maybe, it was for me too.