Characters created and owned by Stephenie Meyer

A Minute Past Midnight

The little girl had her new dress on and it was her best dress and she had never felt so pretty, so much like a princess and she was going to be at a party, a real party, not just a children's one. Her dress was red velvet with a fitted bodice and a gathered skirt and a gorgeous sash around the waist, tied in a huge bow at the back. She had white stockings on and buckle-up black shoes. Her mother had brushed her long dark hair until her scalp tingled, and wound loops of it around a curling wand, letting it fall in fat loose ringlets back down over her shoulders.

"What time's Jacob coming?" the little girl asked, excited at the prospect of seeing her cousin.

"He'll be here, don't worry Bella, darling," her mother smiled indulgently.

"What time's Santa coming?" little Bella asked, cheeks aglow and eyes alight.

"I'm not sure, my sweet," her mother answered. "But it may be after you've gone to bed. Santa can be shy, you know. Sometimes he might be in a shop where you can sit on his knee for a photo, but when he's making his deliveries he doesn't like to be seen."

"But the reindeer are coming, aren't they? And the sleigh?" the girl asked. She skipped in sheer delight, humming to herself, doing a dainty circuit of the room, pointing her toes as she had seen ballet dancers do. Normally a solemn child, today was different. There was to be a Christmas party in her very own house this very night with all her family and their closest friends.

When the doorbell rang she threw an imploring glance over her shoulder at her mother, who nodded.

At the age of six, Bella was just able to open the heavy door.

A little boy stood there, proud and scrubbed, in a suit with a white shirt and a bow tie, his shiny black hair parted on one side and combed down flat.

"Jacob!" Bella squealed, standing aside to admit him. Behind him came a man in a wheelchair.

"A kiss for your uncle?" he asked, and Bella threw her arms around his neck, lips pressed fervently to his cheek.

"Uncle Billy, Uncle Billy, merry Christmas!" she chanted.

"Why don't you kids run along and play and your father and I will make sure everything's ready?" he suggested, and Bella happily took Jacob by the hand and made for the stairs to take him up to her room.

"Renee, that girl of yours is more beautiful by the day. Takes after her mother," Billy said as Bella's mother accompanied him to the living room.

Half an hour later the adults called the children downstairs and Bella and Jacob, faces shining and eyes bright scrambled into the living room where the adult guests were assembled drinking brandy and punch and mulled wine. The two had been speculating in Bella's room about what the presents were to be, but neither had had any idea of the splendor that awaited them. Under the huge Christmas tree, baubled and tinsled and starred and angel-topped in the living room was a wondrous castle, probably over three feet square, with little soldiers on the battlements and knights on destriers jousting in the courtyard; pages leading palfreys amongst cloisters and youths and maidens on the parapets.

"Father, this is perfect and beautiful!" Bella cried in rapture, and her father smiled indulgently.

"Don't thank me, darling, this was a present from your godfather Carlisle."

The children turned to Carlisle and each shook his hand to thank him, Bella sinking into her prettiest curtsey, and Jacob bowing formally from the waist as he had been shown how to do.

"I hope you enjoy the castle my dears," godfather Carlisle smiled, evidently pleased. "Isabella, have you noticed the prince? He is especially for you."

Bella picked up the little figure of a sparkling young man in a charcoal shirt and grey trousers, with tousled dark hair that was its own crown and a stern, beautiful face - obviously a hero with a poet's soul.

"Why does he look unhappy?" she asked, turning deep and concerned eyes to her godfather.

"He is the lost prince. He lives and dies for love," Carlisle answered. "And has yet to find his one true match."

"He is not lost. He is with me," Bella said firmly, hugging him to her chest.

"Ah," godfather Carlisle remarked approvingly, a light in his eyes.

"Love?" Jacob shouted. He grabbed the figurine. "Love is dumb! He should live and die for monsters and dragons!"

Jacob began to make the prince joust amongst the armored knights despite Bella pleading with him not to, and in no time at all the prince was injured.

"Oh, Godfather," she pleaded, "Look - his arm is nearly broken right off - it's hanging! He must be in pain. Can you fix him for me? What is his name?"

Carlisle took the little doll. "Give me your hair ribbon as a bandage for his arm. I believe he will heal, dearest, if you will care for him truly. His name is Edward."

Bella crooned as Carlisle bound the doll with her scarlet ribbon, and she held and cradled Edward and mostly ignored Jacob for the rest of the night.

"My prince, my soldier, my poet," she sang. "Beautiful and brave, brave and beautiful you are," and the night grew late and it was time for guests to leave, and for children to go to sleep. Billy took Jacob home and Isabella's mother took the little girl up to her room to change into her pretty pink nightgown and make ready for bed. Tomorrow would be Christmas, and tonight, little Edward would lie on her pillow.

It was a long night, that night, between the eve and the day of Christmas itself. Isabella woke in the dark, finding herself unable to settle, and crept downstairs thinking she would watch the twinkling lights of the tree to soothe herself, get a glass of water, and sit awhile until she became sleepy. She took little Edward to accompany her.

To her surprise she wasn't alone downstairs. Godfather Carlisle was still at her house, though the other guests were long departed. Strangely though, he was sitting atop the Christmas tree, singing a little song. It wasn't a song she knew, but it appeared to be counting down the minutes until midnight. His arm had become unnaturally long and he had reached out all the way to the grandfather clock. He was turning the hands and the clock was chiming softly, incessantly, swift tones faster than her heartbeat, merging into one another, becoming a soft throb on and on. He didn't seem to even see her, intent on his weird, chanting tune.

As the clock struck midnight more than four thousand times, and the words of Carlisle's song became unintelligible, a series of strange things happened. Bella didn't know whether she had grown, or the house had shrunk. She suddenly loomed larger in proportion to the walls and the furniture and the Christmas tree. Carlisle disappeared, and she turned to clasp the Edward doll, only to find their relative sizes had changed. He was no longer a tiny little thing - he had grown to human size, man size, huge. And she had grown too. She couldn't possibly be six years old now, she must be three times that. She had never seen her reflection in the mirror over the couch unless she was actually standing on the couch because she wasn't tall enough. Tonight, the night before Christmas, the night of the castle and the prince and Jacob and godfather Carlisle, she saw herself in the mirror. What she saw amazed her.

She was taller than she'd been the night before - her waving hair still hung halfway down her back, but her waist was so much farther from the crown of her head now that her hair was longer than she'd ever though possible. She was in her little girl's night dress, but last night it had reached below her knees - now it floated high on her thighs, filmy and flimsy in fairyfloss pink - aureole pink. She had breasts, pushing the front of the fabric out, and tipped with a deeper, more cerise, rosy hue than her six year old nipples had been tinted. Bella stared.

And at her side, the Edward doll stood up and smiled at her.

"My arm feels quite recovered now," he said, but made no move to give her ribbon back. It was still bound about his wrist, resplendent, a transverse sash of bright blood binding his radius and ulna.

A sudden bang on the door interrupted their staring bemusedly at one another and he frowned.

The door was pounded on again, and it mustn't have been locked after the last guest because it burst open, admitting three men. They looked rough and aggressive, lurching drunkenly.

"We heard there was a party on, but there's not much happening here," one sneered, looking around him disparagingly.

"We can make our own fun," another said, blatantly staring Bella up and down.

"Put some music on, cupcake. Something sexy. You'll be my party," the third said, advancing on Bella.

Edward stepped in front of her. "Lock yourself in the bathroom and call the police," he urged over his shoulder.

"You're not welcome here, boys. The party was over hours ago. Why don't you just go home?" he said in an even voice, addressing the unwelcome arrivals.

The foremost man, a pony-tailed blond, turned the corners of his mouth up in an insolent grin. "A knight in shining armor," he jeered. "Who said the age of chivalry was dead? Now this is my idea of a merry Christmas. I get to have a fight and then a fuck. Thank you, Santa."

"James, let's go. There's no action here. Leave her alone - who cares?" one of the hoodlums said, heading back towards the door, but James shook his head.

"There's only this one fucking loser here, standing in between me and my Christmas present. We can take him," James responded.

Bella grabbed the phone from the table behind her and made to dash out into the hall through the living room door only to find it slam in front of her. James had taken a swing at Edward who was now fully occupied trying to fight him off and one of the others had gotten past him and stood obstructing her escape.

"I'll take that phone, darling," he said, hand out.

The other of the men was saying urgently, "Guys, let's get out of here. This is going too far. We've already broken about seventeen laws, let's just go."

"You know your problem? You're a fucking pussy," James grunted as Edward's fist collided with his jaw.

Bella was terrified. She'd been grabbed and was refusing to relinquish the phone, struggling and biting. The man yowled as her teeth sank into his arm and he let her go long enough for her to push past, running on panicked feet down to the bathroom, whirling into it and pushing the door shut behind her. Her trembling fingers found the emergency number and she panted her address to the operator, giving a brief description of the situation.

"Stay where you are, we'll have our boys there in no time," the voice from the call centre advised.

"But there's three of them. Edward's outnumbered and he's taking a beating," she cried.

"Honey, if you have no self-defense or combat training you're not going to be any help," she was told.

She couldn't just stay there, safe in a gleaming tiled fortress while Edward was being hit only yards away. Bella crept back down the hall and saw that her steel-capped doc martens were just inside the front door. She grabbed one up and returned to the living room.

One of the men had fled, the pussy, not wanting to get into any more serious trouble than he would already be in for trespass. One was doubled over, clutching his testicles, so Edward must have gotten in a well-aimed kick. The third, James with his back to her, was raining blows on Edward who was managing to block some while getting in a couple of his own. But it looked as though was James was used to this sort of thing, just as it looked as though Edward was not. When Edward opened his mouth to say something to her, probably to yell at her to retreat, Bella shook her head grimly and raised the boot with both hands. She brought it down as hard as she could square on James's head, the hard metal of its toe making a loud, dull thud against his skull.

He grunted and staggered, hands to his head, and Edward took advantage of his disorientation and got him face down on the floor, sitting astride him holding his hands behind his back.

"God, Bella, you shouldn't have come back in here, but I'm glad you did," he breathed and they heard footsteps rushing outside as the police arrived.

The next while passed in a blur, with the intruders being handcuffed and led away, and Bella and Edward being questioned for their version of events.

When the police had finally left, and she looked at the clock, it was only a minute after midnight. With the exertion and adrenalin of what had just transpired she felt edgy, nervy, excited and was unable to even sit down, instead pacing the room and fidgeting.

"Are you okay, Bella?" Edward asked, noting her agitation. His hair stood on end and gravity seemed unable to persuade it back down. She smiled.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just - I don't know - I feel like I'm racing. I need to do something, I don't want to just stay around here. Could we go out somewhere?" she said.

Edward shrugged. "Sure. I certainly don't feel like going home, and I don't feel like leaving you, either. My sister's at a dance party tonight and she left a couple of tickets for me. We could go there, if you like."

"Dancing?" Bella laughed. "You'd get the dubious honor of attending with the world's worst dancer. I'll be all over your feet."

Smiling, Edward said, "I'd better borrow your steel-caps then."

"I don't think so, Sasquatch, they're not going to fit you" she grinned back, looking at his feet.

Within minutes she was ready, having changed into her favorite dress. Red velvet, darker than a sigh, with a low fitted bodice and flaring from the hips to swirl around her upper thighs. She didn't remember it having been so short before, or her legs having been so long, but there it all was. Her hair was a jungled tangle, some hanging in black coffee ringlets rounder than her arm and some diving straight through them in chestnut and burgundy lines striving for her waist. She left it as it was, figuring if it got in the way she'd ask Edward for her ribbon back. He didn't say anything when he saw her, but he took her arm and they went outside.

A cab let them off at the theatre where the party was being held. Edward's sister was dressed as a fairy, wearing a tutu and with gossamer wings secured to her shoulders by glittering silver straps across her breasts. She was tiny and exquisite.

"Well, well, Bella," she whispered with a kiss to Bella's cheek. "My dear brother is normally far too Edward to ever come to something like this. You must be quite special! Thank you for bringing him."

"What do you mean?" Bella asked. "What's 'far too Edward'?"

"Oh, you know, po-faced and serious. Restrained. Worrying about his immortal soul," his sister laughed. Her voice was breathy and magical. "Have a candy cane," she offered, and Bella took the lolly. Edward had one, she noticed. He grinned wrily at her and they turned towards the stage where it seemed a concert was about to begin. Bands of dancers came out and performed steps of intricacy and intrigue in unbelievable costumes. The audience watched and danced themselves, caught in the sway of the music and the candy canes, which were perhaps enchanted. Bella was swept away entirely on a tide of mint and delight, watching everything, unself-conscious for once, uninhibited and twirling on the coltish legs she had only discovered tonight.

Edward's sister Alice even appeared on the stage, alone and pivoting in blue light that lit her like a butterfly, a dazzling ethereal sylph, tossed on soundwaves, so slight her feet barely touched the ground.

When Bella next looked at her watch it was a minute past midnight, though the night seemed to have lasted for days.

"Shall we go?" Edward murmured, not having left her side, and not having stopped watching her. She knew it.

When they arrived back at her house it was still one minute past midnight.

"Would you like a drink?" she murmured, the earthy intoxicating smell of pine in the air mingled with clove and orange from the pomanders she had made herself and hung from the tree, the soft Christmas lights strung from the picture rails glancing about the room turning things golden.

"Yes, I would like that," Edward answered, and she only realized then that they were holding hands because he let her go.

"Benedictine?" she asked, floating towards the liquor cabinet.

"Yes," he followed her.

She poured them both drinks and they moved back to the couch.

"I don't know anything about you," she said, over the rim of her glass.

"I was born in Chicago. I studied Portuguese at school and I've been in Brazil for a couple of years now, volunteering with Medicins san Frontieres in their aid program. I'm completely fluent, I'm pleased to say. I've come here to visit family and I'm going to complete my medical studies and specialize in exotic diseases. And you?"

"I just finished school," Bella replied. "I'm going to university next year to study child psychology."

Edward smiled as she refilled their glasses. "I am a Gemini, I like candy canes and liqueur and the color dark red, and I think I might like you," he said.

Bella blushed, not quite the color of her dress, but possibly the color of her nipples. She turned from him and her upper teeth clenched her soft lower lip, unknowingly drawing his attention there as she gazed elsewhere at the cards adorning the walls, at the baubles strung about, at anything that wasn't a steady, searching gaze.

She knew she would be alone in the house tonight. She couldn't quite remember where her father was, or what was going on, or indeed anything, but she knew she was on her own and she felt vulnerable, although James couldn't possibly come back. He was in a lock-up, downtown. Maybe she felt more vulnerable about who was here, right now.

"Would you stay tonight? I'll make you up a bed here on the couch," she said to Edward, and he nodded. What kind of crazy was she? More benedictine, the tiniest sip, but she wasn't getting drunk on the stuff, she was affected by something else. The green of Edward's eyes?

"Thank you for looking after me tonight," she began, to wrap up the evening in her fine confusion at a minute past midnight. "And thank you for taking me out."

"Thank you," he answered solemnly. "You were the one who stopped James from punching my lights out. And I wouldn't have gone to Alice's extravaganza without you, so thank you for that as well. She'll be eternally grateful."

"Can you help me with this?" Bella asked, standing up. Things were awkward now, difficult. She was a little tipsy, and he was a lot gorgeous. A prince, a soldier, a poet. The couch was one of those ones where the back folded down and made a double bed. Together they pulled it out from the wall and eased the back of it down, and she went and collected sheets and pillows and blankets from the closet in the hall.

"Head in the pines, or feet?" she asked him, standing uncertainly holding the pillows. They had already stretched the elastic sides of the fitted sheet around the edges of the couch, and draped the flat top sheet over it. The end of the couch was up against the tree, nestled in the ends of branches and the feathering needles.

"Which would you recommend?" he asked.

"Which would you prefer?" she countered, still standing.

"Bella," he said, and she threw the pillows down in the middle.

"One more drink? One for the road?" she asked.

"I'm not hitting the road. I'm not going anywhere," he answered and one of her long curls lay over her shoulder, skipping her collarbone and offering a lick and a promise to the neckline of her velvet dress before plunging off the cliff of her cleavage to an uncertain end, dangling like a slinky. He captured it in a long finger.

"Happy Christmas, beautiful girl," he murmured, her hair held to his lips and she took a step forward.

"Happy Christmas to you, too," she whispered, and she hadn't meant to kiss him, she didn't mean to, she wasn't going to, and it should have been impossible with him so tall and her so much smaller, but he must have bent his head and somehow her open mouth met his and she inhaled the taste of mint and sweet alcohol and something else - the taste of tongue, the wet and soft and slippery and smooth texture of sliding and exploring and she pulled back immediately because it was so raw and shocking and intimate and she didn't know anything about him. His eyes were closed and they stayed closed as she stared and she saw that he was waiting. His eyes opened then and she saw that he would wait. She saw what she needed to know. She saw that he was honest.

Movements unorchestrated, she pulled him down onto the couch, kissing him again. He returned the kiss, sighing and surging into her mouth, meeting and discovering, giving and receiving, tasting and taking. His hands slipped to her waist and then her hips.

"Bella, say stop, say no, is this okay, can we do this?" he said, one hand slipping down to slide up her thigh under the dark red, curving to cup her ass, moving to pull her to him but hesitating.

"Yes, yes," she whispered back and they were next to one another and she twisted, lifted a silken leg to put it over both of his, eliciting a soft moan from him, from the hot lips under hers and his grip on her firmed and he took her other hip to pull her onto his lap, her knees on either side of him and from two minutes ago when they weren't even touching to now, when her groin was pressed into his erection, was a startling compression of the way time had elongated all this night. Bella wanted their kisses to take longer, so she slowed it down, her fingers in his already tangled hair, her thumbs to his cheeks, holding his face so that she could savor him at her leisure, his eyelashes fluttering, his lips soft and pliable and doing anything she wanted them to do, his chin and jaws hers, his tongue chasing and licking and curling. He gave up on sitting, lying back and pulling her with him, and things changed then, his arousal achingly evident and his hands moving to her breasts. He caressed the sides of them, all he could reach with her lying flat on top, pressed to his chest, and he murmured again, "Bella, is this okay?"

"Yes," she whispered, the instigator.

"Can we take our clothes off?" he whispered into the side of her throat, sucking lightly. Then, "I don't have a condom."

"I'll get one," she whispered and he didn't want to let her go, he held her as she tried to sit up and they stared into each other until he frowned, smiling lightly and his hands released her. Was he afraid she wouldn't come back? He needn't be. She had to go upstairs and wondered briefly about simply tugging him up there with her, but she thought she might need an escape later. When her father came home she and Edward should be sleeping separately.

She was back in a flash and he seemed relieved, he kissed her as if he craved her mouth, he pulled her down longways on the sofa and the scent of pine was in her very hair as their hands roved restlessly.

"You're beautiful, you're brave, you're mad, you're funny," he whispered against her neck and throat and beneath her ear and his tongue kept up a barrage on her skin and she turned into him with a barrage of her own, tasting the slight saltiness inside his collar. His shirt was torn, presumably from the encounter with James, and when she explored the rip with her mouth she found his nipple and he gasped, trying to arch away from her but she wouldn't let him. It was such a tiny little bud between her lips - she bit him lightly then moved her tongue around, rewarded with his breath caught and released haphazardly, knowing she was affecting him.

She eased him out of his buttons then, all of them, shirt and trousers, and pushed all the fabric aside exposing the hair on his chest that ran down his torso to his navel in a line and beyond. She licked where the hair went, her tongue delving in the increasing wiriness of it until he stopped her, hands at her shoulders.

"Come here, come here," he said and pulled her up to his mouth and he found the zip at her back and pulled the crushed velvet off her shoulders, she wasn't wearing a bra, she was all open to him, her breasts tipped with the color of her lips, awaiting his mouth to flush them deeper, and his mouth did, holding her above him, lapping at the milky whiteness and sucking at the pink.

"Bella, please. This is important," he gasped, addressing her breasts. "I want you, but we can wait. Tell me," and she could feel his heart against her own, his breath matching hers. If their breath and their hearts met, surely that boded well for intimate compatibility?

"I don't want to wait," she murmured. She had tiny little panties on, scraps really and his hands took her buttocks, squeezing and pulling her to him, holding her firm as his hips moved into her and his mouth forgot to kiss. She wriggled, spreading her legs, angling to get him where it felt best and his mouth slid off hers altogether with a wet moan. If they kept going any longer they would finish before they had started. She rolled off him and helped him with his pants in the soft light, he helped her pull the dress over her head and watched silently as she peeled off her underwear, swallowing deeply. She tugged his boxers over his thighs, knees, ankles and finally feet, grinning when he was free. She kissed his face and distracted him while he was rolling the condom on and he nuzzled into her cheek and mouth, kissing her back, and she reached down and ran her fingers over him as he warned her to be careful. Daringly, she slipped lower, beyond the shaft to his sac, and cupped and squeezed it lightly, feeling his teeth at her earlobe.

"We can stop," he said, poised above her, palms on either side of her upper chest and thighs between hers, penis nudging at her, eyes very dark.

"No. Don't you dare," she growled, and reached between them. He was so hard he didn't need guiding, didn't need helping, she showed him the spot then took her hand away and curved her pelvis upwards and the two of them negotiated the primal encounter, the closest contact, the deepest kiss. Bella could see the clock from where she lay, and with Edward's first penetration she saw the hand move, she saw time start again and move to two minutes past twelve, and then she stopped looking. She wished they didn't have the condom, having seen that he was uncircumsized - she wanted the whole thing, the whole experience, his foreskin stopped at her entrance and his head moving in and out as her muscles held his skin tight. She arched to take him more fully and felt him grow harder, felt the stiffening and groaned in wonder as his movements found hers, their natural rhythms in time with one another, their advances and retreats in synchronicity. It had never happened for her quite that way before.

"God, Christ, Jesus, Bella," he muttered, and she was deified, filled and oscillating in tinily ever increasing sweeps to and fro, until it was unbearable. He didn't even have a hand on her and that had never happened before either, she concaved and stilled and whimpered and he kept moving above her and in her, doing exactly what he had been doing to bring her to such a state and he wasn't far behind, grunting wordlessly, head thrown back in sharp relief beneath the lights of the tree as he pushed the hardest into her that he had so far, pulsating so strongly she could feel it.

He fell into her neck damply and her hands slid down over his back, not letting him pull away, clenching and pressing at the base of his spine to keep him even as his erection subsided and he smiled regretfully.

"Bella, the condom, I have to pull out of you before it gets to the point where it leaks," he muttered and she let his hips move then, though one hand moved swiftly up to the back of his head so that even as he left her below with that curious sensation of his cock slipping out and the full condom dragging slightly behind as he held the rim of it, her lips claimed his and her teeth were at his teeth, his tongue making up for her loss.

"Sweetheart, gorgeous, you should go to your own room. I'll go home in the morning, and I'll see you as soon as I can, and - Bella, does this mean something to you? Because it does to me," he said, hand in her hair, the ribbon on his wrist standing out in contrast.

"Yes, yes it does. Call me. I'll call you. We'll call each other. Can I have my ribbon back?" she asked.

"No," he said.

In the morning she crept downstairs to find the couch neatly made up, the sheets and blankets disappeared, and no trace of him. She hadn't even gotten his number, and hadn't given him hers. She didn't know how she could find him. She paled, devastated, and couldn't even speak, and her father couldn't get out of her what was wrong.

At eleven though, the doorbell rang.

"Charlie," Carlisle's voice said as she sat dazed on the couch, unable to move. "I've brought someone to meet you, and Bella too. He's been away a while in South America, but he's home now. My son, Edward."

Bella flew to the door, hopeful and eager, smiling at the tall boy with a ribbon around his wrist.

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This is based on the story by E T W Hoffman called the Nutcracker and The Mouse King.