Disclaimer: I don't know if I put one of these in my last chapter, but I'm here to reassure you that I am in no way trying to usurp the Throne of Twilight, which is what I'm assuming SM sits on all day as she lords over her many, many minions.

Translation: I own nothing.

A/N: Okay, sorry for not updating, but I just started college and it's a bit overwhelming. I'll try to keep my updates more regular, but it's proving difficult. I'm sorry if this chapter isn't what you guys wanted, but I just have to work up to the big stuff, ya know? Also, I'd like to thank CyberAngelOne for the boost; you're the main reason that I finished this chapter today. And rest assured, I have every intention of finishing this story, 'cause I know how annoying it is when authors just stop in the middle of things.

Anyway, on with the story. It's a bit short, but its more like another filler. Don't hate me too much.

BPOV

It had started off as a simple little thing. A butterfly, actually.

I had seen the aforementioned butterfly sitting on one of the flowers at the other end of our rather large garden. It just so happened to be a yellow flower, a rose to be exact. That inevitably led me to think about Alice, seeing as yellow was her favourite colour, which in turn made me wonder about whether or not I should get her flowers for our date next Friday. I had never been on a date before and from watching TV, I knew that flowers were a common theme among new couples, as were chocolates, but those were off the table for obvious reasons. Then, I wondered if flowers were too common, too banal for someone as extraordinary as Alice Cullen. That got me thinking about alternatives to flowers, about gifts and about what I should do for the date, something that I would no doubt remember for the rest of my life.

All that thinking eventually led to me being tackled by Lee.

I slammed into the ground, my breath leaving my body as I skidded across the garden before coming to a stop, a dirty, grassless trail in my wake. Lee stood over me, a disapproving look on his face, while Jesse looked on amusedly from her spot on the porch.

I huffed from my place on the floor, looking at the dirt that covered me from head to toe. My snow white, lightweight hair was completely smothered in mud, something that irked me. The constant rain in Forks had made the ground wet and muddy and sparring with my older brother was never a thing to do while wearing nice clothes.

Flipping over, I stood up, brushing my muddy hair from my eyes and watched Lee cross his arms and tap his foot. "What?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Bella, you've been distracted all day, you haven't managed to pin me once and your entire form is off."

I frowned at him. "My form is just fine, thank you very much. And I'm not distracted, I'm just…preoccupied."

He sighed and uncrossed his arms, putting them up in a fighting stance, which I mirrored. "You're thinking about Alice and your date," he stated, matter-of-factly.

Crouching down, he sprung at me. I spun to the side in time to block his next blow and delivered one of my own. He dropped into a roll to avoid it, and then twisted to kick my legs out from under me. Jumping into the air, I flipped over him and swiftly kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling in the mud. I landed behind him silently, watching him carefully. "Yes, I'm thinking about her. When have I not been thinking about her for the last two days? Hell, for the last two weeks?"

Lee blurred to his feet, the weak morning light causing thousands of tiny lights to dance on his skin. It was five o'clock on Monday morning. I had slept for about three hours Saturday night, so I was well rested for about three or four days. Once my family had found out about my La Push trip, Lee had demanded that I spend the time leading up to it training. Of course, with Alice on my mind, that was proving more difficult than normal. I was faster than him, but he had more experience and his arms and legs were much longer than mine, which gave him better reach.

"You need to relax, Bella. Everything will work out fine." He lunged at me again, his leg flashing out as he aimed a kick at my shoulder. I brought up my hand and caught his foot. He smirked and pushed off the ground with his other leg. His foot connected with the side of my head and I was flung across the garden from the force of the blow. Flipping in midair, I rearranged myself so that my feet hit the huge boulder that Clare had placed at one end of the garden to add 'a little something'. I shook my head to get rid of the pain. Bending my legs so that the boulder wouldn't shatter I pushed off, flying horizontally across the ground so fast that Lee didn't have enough time to dodge. Slamming into his chest I pushed him backwards, sending both of us into the forest surrounding our house, leaving a trail of shattered tree-branches behind us. We tumbled to a stop, the two of us standing once again in less than a fraction of a second.

Heat blazed within me, raising my body temperature, eager to be released. My hand twitched and a small, dark blue flame sprang to life. I quickly quelled it. This exercise was about physical combat, nothing more. We did occasionally have training sessions to help me control my other power, but Lee couldn't help me as much in that aspect as he could in the martial arts. I pushed the heat back as he took a step forward. I could feel my eyes silvering, something that happened in my natural form when I was experiencing strong emotions or fighting. It didn't actually do anything other than express my mood, but it looked bloody impressive.

"Oh, I know that everything will work out fine, because I intend to make everything work out fine." I frowned slightly. "I just have no idea how I'm going to do that."

He chuckled, hand shooting out to clip me in the head. I jerked my head to the side and gave him an uppercut to the chin. He shot upward, coming to land twenty feet away from me. He raised his head from the ground, blinking to get rid of the daze in his eyes. "You could always take Jesse's offer of help." He jumped to his feet in one of those moves that you always see in Jackie Chan movies and spun, leg outstretched. His foot connected with a small boulder and it flew at me like a football. My eyes widened and I dove to the side, avoiding the missile. I gave him a look. He grinned. "Always know your terrain and use whatever you can from your environment."

"Of course. Look, I know that Jesse could think of something, but this is my date and I want it to be perfect. That means planning it myself." He shot forward again, aiming a punch to my chest. I dodged and brought my arm down, aiming for the space between his neck and his shoulder. He spun out of the way and kicked me in the thigh. I staggered slightly and he took the opportunity to kick my legs out from under me. I smacked into the ground, mud flying everywhere as Lee triumphantly pinned me. I let out a deep breath, thoroughly annoyed that he'd won again.

He grinned again and stood up, offering me his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. I scowled and he laughed. "Bella, you're only seventeen. I, on the other hand, am a ninety-nine year old vampire who's been fighting for longer than you've been alive. The fact that you manage to pin me some of the time is very impressive. You have the potential, you just lack the experience." He pulled a leaf from my face and turned me around, walking back towards the house. "Now, about this Alice thing. Don't panic. Just plan something special and from the heart and she'll love it."

I looked at him. "That actually works?"

He shrugged. "It does with Jesse."

I smacked him on the shoulder. "Like she's normal in the slightest."

He smiled fondly. "That's why I love her."

The house came in to view, Jesse no longer on the porch. Turning me around, he placed his hands on my shoulders. "Seriously, Bella. Don't let first date jitters get the best of you. Everybody is nervous on their first date."

"Even you?"

He laughed again. "Especially me. On my first date with Jesse, I got so nervous that I ended up drinking five deer the day before, one of which I accidentally chased off a cliff."

I laughed at the mental image that brought up. "Thanks Lee. You're so much better at pep-talks than Jesse."

He pulled me into a hug. "Bella, one of Micheal's marble statues is better than Jesse at giving pep-talks."

Our little brother-sister bonding moment was rudely interrupted by a stream of water slamming into us. We broke apart, arms shielding our eyes as we turned to face our assailant. Jesse stood there, calmly spraying us with the fire-hose. I blinked furiously, the water making the mud on my face trail down into my eyes, the force of the hose enough to send a human flying backwards. "Dammit, Jesse! What the hell?"

She turned off the hose and smiled sweetly at us. "I just thought you should get all of that mud off of you before you get to school." I scowled at her as she happily skipped off. "And I'm great at giving pep-talks," she threw back over her shoulder before walking into the house. Note to self: Do something nasty to that girl.

I turned to look at Lee. His long-ish black hair was plastered to his face, streaks of mud that the hose had missed lining his face. He was staring at the house. "We may have annoyed her."

I shook, droplets flying everywhere. "You think?"

After a thorough shower and a breakfast of a pretzel and orange juice (the food of champions), I made my way to the school, sad that neither Alice nor my siblings could attend today because of the sun. Glaring at the offending celestial body, I parked our car in one of the available parking spaces and turned off the ignition.

School was definitely an experience for me. I had never gone before this and my only information came from Jesse's 'crash course' and TV. The former was hardly reliable and the latter had turned out to be much too over-dramatic. In actuality, school was boring as hell. I had been homeschooled by vampires my entire life and had mental abilities well beyond that of a human. All of that combined to make my school day uneventful now that I didn't have my family to talk to or Alice to discreetly stare at.

The rain was no longer pouring, clouds noticeably absent from the sky. Everywhere I looked; people were enjoying the sunny weather, a few ambitious students actually wearing shorts.

Opening the door, I hopped out, grabbing my messenger bag and walking into the school.

I had managed to make it about five feet when I was accosted by Mike. He ran up and fell into step beside me. He was one of the ambitious, short-wearing students and his attire annoyed me for some reason.

"Hey, Bella. I heard that you were coming to La Push today and I thought that maybe we could hang out while we were there." He smiled at me, his expression a little less sure than last time, but still way too cocky for my liking. He put one arm on his hip and flexed slightly, trying to show off his non-existent muscles. If only he knew how much muscles didn't appeal to me.

How could I artfully turn him down without hurting his feelings? I mean, there was actually no reason that I couldn't spend some time with him, other than the whole 'not liking him' thing and I doubted that I should tell him that.

"Um, well…sure," I said slowly.

His grin spread like a poisonous weed across his face. "Great. I'm sure we'll have lots of…fun." I didn't miss the way his eyes skimmed my body before he said 'fun'.

Growling slightly, something that I had picked up by living with vampires, I forced a smile onto my face that I knew didn't reach my eyes and clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to pitch him forward slightly. He winced and my grin became less forced. "Sure we will, Mike. You can join Angela and I. We're going to build sandcastles and try and guess who the cutest boy in the class is. Then there's the various school dances coming up. She has this gorgeous dress picked out. We'll tell you all about it, okay? I'm sure you'll love it. Oh, and Jessica has something that she wants to ask you." As I walked away, I didn't miss the confused look on his face, or his quiet whisper; "What just happened?"

I laughed and went to my first class. Jessica didn't actually want to go with Mike, and vice-versa, but I figures they'd have at least one terribly awkward conversation over my comment.

The first half of my day was fairly entertaining. I made the mistake of pointing out a mistake in our Trig teacher's notes and he spent five whole minutes telling me that he was the teacher, I was the student and what he says goes. Of course, that didn't stop him from surreptitiously changing his answer when he thought no one was looking. During Chemistry, Mr. Jensen accused me of not paying attention, which I wasn't, and told me to go to the front of the class to do the experiment we were working on by myself. I did everything perfectly and he made me do it two more times to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Then came History, during which I spent another five minutes being yelled at because the teacher thought that I was cheating due to the fact that I got every answer correct in out test in record time. After he found out that he had made a mistake, he apologized profusely and told me I was doing a 'fine job'. Usually such a series of events would have tried even my vast patience, but I couldn't find it within myself to be in a bad mood now that my life had taken such a drastic turn.

When lunch finally came around, we all sat at the 'popular table' and Jessica tried to engage me in conversation, which always seemed to find a way back to Lee.

"So, Bella, I hear that your brother is going to that Brandon Flowers concert. I wanted to go myself but I have to help my mom out at the store." I wonder if she even knew who Brandon Flowers was, considering the fact that the concert she so desperately wanted to go to didn't actually exist. I pushed the fries on my plate around slightly before popping one in my mouth and chewing slowly. This stuff really did taste like crap.

Deciding to put my dear brother out of his misery and prevent Jessica from further embarrassing herself, no matter how funny it would be, I spoke up. "Yeah, Lee has been looking forward to going to this concert for a while now. He even brought his girlfriend along." Not technically a lie.

She froze, head turning towards me slowly. "His girlfriend. He has a girlfriend?" She was striving for disinterested and she failed miserably.

I smiled happily. "Yes. They've only been together for a few months, but they're getting pretty serious."

Her attempt at disinterest was thrown out the window and she hissed under her breath, her voice full of venom. "I knew that little bitch was lying!"

My brow drew down in confusion.

She realized that she had spoken a little too loudly and glared at me. "Why didn't you tell me that that little Cullen freak was going out with your brother?"

Angela stopped talking to Ben and swiveled to face us.

"Jessica, what are you talking about?"

Jessica fumed and pointed a finger at me. "She didn't tell anyone that Alice Cullen was with her brother." She said Alice's name with such distain that my eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"What the hell is your problem?"

She scoffed. "I asked that little freak if there was anything going on and she said no."

A subsonic growl broke from my lips and I felt a flicker of heat inside my body. The instinct to defend Alice came out of nowhere, but it was strong and it had free reign over my mouth. Focusing on the sudden and surprising anger, I forced it back and kept my voice neutral. "I would appreciate it if you didn't call Alice a freak. She's not my brother's girlfriend, which you'd know if you didn't spend so much time with your head up you're ass." Honestly, where did this girl get this crap? And how could she possibly hate Alice so much?

Her eyes widened. "Why you little f—"

"Jessica!" Angela leaned in between us, hands raised in a soothing gesture. "Calm down. Both of you." She directed the last part to me, concerned look on her face.

I leaned back in my chair slowly. Glancing at my hand, I saw that I had crushed the little plastic knife that they expected us to eat with. I quickly put the pieces in my pocket.

Jessica stood up and looked at me with poorly veiled malice. "Whatever. I'm not gonna deal with this now. Come on Lauren." Like a faithful puppy, Lauren got up, glared at me and followed Jessica, who was storming away loudly.

The remnants of anger that I felt gave way to mild annoyance. Her obvious dislike of Alice was grating on my nerves, but also her assumption that Lee was romantically interested in her. Jessica's constant advances had been making him nervous and they had been pissing Jesse off to no end. She was very protective of 'her man' and I was very protective of her. My desire to get up and rugby tackle her notwithstanding; I dug my nails into my leg to keep from moving and went back to my food, poking at it with my fork because my knife had just been murdered.

For a moment, everything was quiet, and then Ben began to laugh.

It was slow at first, more of a chuckle. Then his shoulders began to shake slightly, his back hunched over slightly, choked off sounds coming from his mouth until he exploded into a laughing fit. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the table, howling with laughter. "Di…did you…s…see her…face? She…look…looked so…pissed!" Whatever else he said was cut off as he fell forward, only the table stopping him from falling to the floor. All around our table, lips twitched, everyone trying in vain to stem the giggles. Bens laugh seemed to be contagious.

I sat there, confused as to why they found this funny. He tried to compose himself, saw my face, and that seemed to set him off again.

Finally, Angela took pity on me. "Sorry Bella, it's just that she's been talking about Lee for weeks now, despite the initial rejection and it's been annoying us all to no end. We even had bets as to when she'd figure it out; we just didn't think that she'd get so angry."

Finally Ben had stopped laughing, although he twitched now and then. He flopped backwards in his chair with a gasp, gulping in much needed air. "Thanks Bella, I really needed that. So far it's been a crappy day but that brought my mood right up."

"Glad that I could amuse you so much," I said, the anger draining out of my system at the look of mirth on his face. His enthusiasm reminded me of Alice.

I sighed in annoyance. Not being able to see her until Friday put a crimp in my mood and to be honest, it was strange. I had met her a few weeks ago and had just recently let my feelings for her be known, but I already missed her presence. Sitting back in my chair, I absentmindedly looked around the cafeteria, seeing all of the faces surrounding me. By human standards, my feelings for Alice were stronger than they should be, but I wasn't human. Maybe this was natural for me. I mean, vampires had mates and werewolves had imprints, both of which made their feelings for their significant other much more potent. Maybe it was just something that supernatural beings did. I should ask Clare about it when I got home from La Push.

Speaking of, my eagerness to go to the beach had been dimmed slightly and I briefly wondered if I should go at all. It was werewolf-infested and I lived with vampires. So not a great combination.

Then again, their Alpha had said I'd be tolerated. But, if he thought about it while he was away from me and my animal-friendly vibe, maybe he'd changed his mind.

"What's got you thinking so hard?" I turned to look at Angela, who was sitting with her arm tucked in with Ben's.

I smiled at her. "Just looking forward to the beach trip."

APOV

Bella smiled. "Just looking forward to the beach trip."

I jerked forward from my place on the couch, surprise plastered across my face. That had been Bella.

"Whoa, Alice. What happened?" Emmett leaned towards me, concern clear in his eyes.

Both of us had been spending our day off lazing around in front of the television, him paying attention to what was going on, me thinking about my impending date with a certain brunette. That had been the third vision that I had had since the first one with Carlisle and it was the only one that had Bella in it and it had definitely been the longest.

"I just had a short vision of Bella," I said, still staring at the screen of the television but not really seeing it. After months without them, the few visions that I had been having were coming as surprises.

He grinned. "That's great, there're finally coming back. So, what was she doing?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

I smacked him on the arm, smiling slightly myself. "For God's sake, Emmett. It's not like she was in the shower or anything."

Rosalie chose that moment to walk in. "Alice has been spying on Bella in the shower?" She mock glared at me. "Shame on you. Give the girl some privacy." Pecking her mate on the cheek, she sat down on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Besides, I'm sure you'll get to see her naked at some point in the future."

"You're both vulgar, vulgar people," I stated in outrage. Not that the idea didn't appeal to me…

"Get your head out of the gutter, Alice!" Edward yelled from upstairs and I tried, unsuccessfully to block out the snickers of my siblings.

"Ok, seriously, what was happening in your vision?" Rosalie pressed.

"Nothing. It was just Bella talking to a friend," I lied, not wanting to go into detail.

Edward trotted down the stairs, grin firmly in place and Jasper trailing behind him, "That was so not the case. Jessica was insulting Alice and Bella took offence and proceeded to give her a thorough tongue-lashing. In an insanely polite way, of course."

"Awww," Emmett and Rose cooed in unison.

"Oh, shut up," I tried for annoyed but I was too happy about seeing Bella defend me like that to be anything other than elated. She was cute when she was pissed…

"Oh, here we go," Edward muttered, looking terribly amused.

I scoffed. "Please. You were way worse than me when you first met Jasper. If I remember correctly, you and he-"

"Alice!" He leaned in and stage-whispered dramatically. "We agreed to never speak of that again."

Emmet chuckled. "You were such a corny nerd and Jazz wasn't much better. Remember the time he paid that pilot to spell out Eddie's name in gold smoke because," his voice changed in pitch until it was dreamy and his eyelashes fluttered, "'it was the exact colour of your eyes'."

Edward flipped him off and pressed his lips to Jasper's. "Well, I thought that it was romantic."

Rosalie glanced at me. Speaking of romantic, do you have any idea what Bella has planned for this weekend?"

I sighed. "Not a clue. I don't know if it's because she hasn't made up her mind or if it's because my visions are still screwed up."

She smiled. "I'm sure whatever she thinks of will be equal parts nerdy and corny, just as I'm sure you'll love it." Wrapping an arm around me, she pulled me into her side. "Besides, your visions are finally coming back. Be happy about that."

I snuggled into her side, once again thankful that I had such a great sister who could be both supportive and insulting at the same time. I knew that she was right, but however happy I was that my visions were returning, I couldn't help but wonder why. Why did they leave in the first place, why were they coming back now and why did I have the nagging feeling that it was all to do with Bella?

A/N: Once again, I'm sorry if this isn't what you had in mind. I know that most of you want the big reveal and their date, but I need to build up to it. Also, to answer a question that was asked a while ago, there will be a villain and we will be seeing some danger soon, but right now it's about our two leading ladies. Hope it was okay and we'll see La Push next chapter.

R&R.