Disclaimer: Not mine. S. Meyer.

A/N: Thank you guys for the kind words. Here's my reply.

I was quiet in the elevator down to the street, and Alice seemed to be perfectly comfortable, humming a tune under her breath. When the doors opened, she looked at me and made a gesture for me to go out first, and I shook my head, making the same gesture. "Aw, don't tell me you're going to be difficult when I'm trying to be polite," Alice groaned, rolling her eyes but not holding back the smile that lit up her beautiful face.

"Not difficult," I disagreed with a shake of my head, following her out into the empty hall. "My father is a gentleman, and he raised one, too."

Alice gave me a slow once over as we walked side by side to the doors that led outside. "Funny," she said lightly, shrugging. "You don't resemble a man to me."

I gave a glance down at her as I opened the door for her. "Yeah, I get that a lot," I said sarcastically as she passed, earning a giggle from the little pixie.

When we walked around the building to the parking lot, I realized where she was headed and I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at the machine she approached with my jaw on the pavement. She hit a button on her remote keychain, and the flashers on the sleek yellow BMW went off with an accompanying meep meep. When she realized I stopped, she turned around to look at me with confusion smeared across her features, and I just pointed at my beat up old Chevy sitting next to her car. It looked like it was ready for the scrap yard, sitting next to a car of this calibur. "What's wrong?" Alice asked me curiously, looking from me to the truck I was pointing at. "Would you rather take your truck, then?"

My mouth flopped up and down. That car was not cheap. Alice owned a nightclub. Her brother looked well-groomed, perhaps from money, with his golf shirt and loafers. C.J. certainly looked well taken care of. And not to mention the clothes she was wearing, despite the slacks being slightly wrinkled... it should have been obvious without me seeing her vehicle. Alice came from a well-to-do family.

I dropped my finger and shuffled towards Alice and her car with a defeated slump to my shoulders. How was this woman interested in me? She could probably have the world; why would she be in Seattle, wasting a breakfast date on me? "No," I said, shaking my head.

"Are you okay?" she asked me once we were in the vehicle and buckled in. I didn't look her way just in case my eyes betrayed me.

"Yes," I lied. She was too good to be true. Too good. And now I know that she's several steps ahead of me in life. I had started late on getting my ducks in a row, and now I was in the passenger seat of a BMW, the driver of which was a successful woman, who by some fluke in life had picked me. Needless to say, I felt a little inadequate.

"Hmm. I think you're fibbing to me, but I'm not going to press you. So! Tell me something about yourself, Bella," she said cheerfully, way too happy for it to be so early. It wasn't even nine, yet.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything," she said, and I looked at her this time. She had lost the chipper tone and taken on a soft, serious one when I asked. Her answer made my eagles flock again.

I sighed, touching my hand to my abdomen in attempt to subdue them, but it was too no avail. "My name's Isabella Swan... I'm twenty-two... my birthday is in September. My dad's name is Charlie, he's a cop, and he recently got married to a lady named Sue."

"Any brothers or sisters?" she asked me, and I shook my head.

"Not biologically, no. I grew up with a guy named Jacob, he's like my brother in a lot of ways. And Sue has two kids, a girl named Leah, who's my age, and a boy named Seth, who's only seventeen. How about you? Is Emmett your only sibling?"

Alice shook her head with a ghost of a smile. "Nope. Unfortunately, I have to claim Jimmy Neutron as my younger brother. I refer to him as Edward, though."

I laughed, shaking my head. "No way, he looks nothing like you!"

Alice shrugged. "He looks a lot like our mother's side. And Emmett and I look a lot like our dad. His hair was dark like ours when he was younger, but now that he's put on some age, its so silver it looks almost blonde."

"What about your eyes? Where do they come from?" The question had slipped past my lips before I could stop it, and I felt my face grow several shades darker as she glanced over at me with a tiny smile.

"My father," she affirmed with a nod.

"C.J. has them, too," I said softly, and she nodded again.

"I know," she replied just quietly, her smile stretching for a moment, but then diminishing. "But the rest of him comes from his father."

I didn't ask anything about him, figuring that if she wanted me to know, she would come forth with the information. "I see you in him," was all I said in reply, and she glanced at me again before nodding.

"Do you write your own music?" she asked, throwing me into a topic I was comfortable with. I gave her a grateful smile.

"Yes. But I love to sit back and play old rock and roll."

"Do you sing?"'

I laughed at the thought. "No," I told her firmly, shaking my head and still chuckling. "I can't carry a tune to save my life or yours."

Alice looked at me with a wry grin. "If I'm ever on my death bed, I'll know a serenade is out of the question, then."

I grinned back. "Well, you never know... maybe you'll ask me to sing so I could put you out of your misery," I returned with a casual shrug, looking back out of the windshield as she drove us through the perpetually wet streets. "Where are we going to eat, anyway?"

"My mother's restaurant. It's got the best Belgian waffles in Seattle."

Her mother's restaurant? "Um... okay, but..."

"Don't worry, Bella, she's not there," Alice said with a grin, slipping on a pair of designer sunglasses. Probably a five or six hundred dollar pair. "So, speaking of mothers, you didn't mention yours..."

Oh, yeah. I forgot about Renee. "My mom left us. I was very young. Dad raised me for the first few years after, then he started dating Sue when I was fourteen. She was around for all my crazy teenage crap I put my poor Dad through." I winced at the memory of being brought home so drunk I couldn't walk by his deputies. He had been so embarrassed, furious with me and Leah, who was just as shit-faced as I had been. Parties at Quil Ateara's sometimes got a little nuts.

"I never really went through that," Alice said with a deep sigh. "The craziest thing I did was get drunk at a prom after party... that's how C.J. came about," she added quietly, not looking at me, and I saw her hands tighten on the steering wheel.

"A blessing in disguise?" I asked quietly, and she gave a dry chuckle.

"You know it," she answered with another nod. "He's probably the biggest motivation I have to succeed at everything I put my mind to. I don't want him to witness me fail, you know?"

"He's a really cool little kid, Alice," I told her, and she relaxed her stiff position in the driver's seat. "He's very smart, and very polite. I can't believe he is as calm as he is, only being six."

"He's my world," Alice answered. "I can't take all the credit for his good behavior, but I think between me and my family, he's gonna be all right."

"Where is he, now?" I asked, and she laughed, looking over at me with that eyebrow arched.

"Bella, did you agree to this date so you can be my son's new best friend?" she teased, and I rolled my eyes. If she only knew the feelings that stirred in my chest when she said my name, or laughed, or even spoke a syllable. I wished that I wouldn't sound like I was stalker-obsessed if I were to tell her I wanted to constantly reach over and touch her. I wondered if she could hear my heart pound when she looked into my eyes too long, or smiled this certain grin I was starting to pick up on. It was a 'come and get me' kind of grin, and it drove me up the wazoo with the feathery chaos it set loose in my tummy. "But to answer your question, Emmett and Rosalie went to my house last night to relieve my babysitter, and watch him for me this morning, while I took care of you."

"You didn't have to do that," I said, blushing at her sacrifice. She was missing him right now, and I knew it.

"No, I know I didn't," she replied easily, reaching over and taking my hand, and there was no disguising our mutual gasps when that feeling happened. "I wanted to take care of you, Bella," she continued, looking at me as we came to a stop in front of a red light. "It just seemed like you had been brought back to me by fate, because if I were honest... I'd been thinking about you since C.J. and I left Volturi Music."

Hearing that come from her mouth while she looked directly into my eyes made my throat go dry, and I felt something magnetic in her gaze, something that refused to let me go, and held me still. I was locked in this stare down with her, and neither of us noticed the light changed until the car behind Alice tooted the horn in impatience. Alice let go of my hand, which felt ice cold without her touch, and returned her hand to the steering wheel as she started forward again. "I'm sorry if that seems too much, too soon," she blurted a second later, mistaking my silence for a negative reaction. "It's just that I don't do this kind of thing, Bella, and I don't know how to take you because you are so different! I haven't had the attraction for someone that I harbor for you in two years, and that's just speaking physically! As for this unknown emotion I get in my chest when you look at me, Bella- I've never felt it. Not even with Jasper, and he was the only one I ever loved, out of the three people I have been with."

"Alice... I was at your club, trying to pick up girls, because... well, because I was trying to fuck away the memory of you. Your eyes and smile had been on my mind since I looked up and saw you standing there, watching us. I see pretty girls all the time. But there hasn't been one that has overtaken my thoughts quite the way you did yesterday. It scared me." I didn't look at her to gauge a reaction from her, too afraid that maybe I was saying too much. But I had to get it off my chest, at the same time. "You literally took my breath away, Alice." I heard her exhale sharply and I did look at her. "I apologize if that's too cheesy or if it sounds like a pick up line. But I honestly forgot to breathe when I saw you standing there, looking at your son with the amount of love I saw in your eyes... I wish my mother had loved me as much, and maybe that's why I found it so beautiful."

I never noticed we had arrived until she turned the car off and her hand paused when she made to pull the key out of the ignition. "Oh, Bella," she sighed quietly, looking at me with her head cocked to one side. "I can't understand how she could have left you."

I blushed, and she cleared her throat. "Okay, we've gotten a little deep with each other, but is that so bad?" she asked, and I looked at her worried expression.

"You're not going to scare me off, Alice," I reassured her, and she gave me a small smile as she opened her door.

"Well, let's go in so I can treat you to the sweetest thing that will ever touch your tongue," she said, and I nearly choked on the next breath I tried to take as my mind perceived that as a total dirty suggestion. Alice gave me a look as I composed myself outside of her car, and when I finally cleared out my throat, she gave me her 'come and get me' grin. "Well... maybe not the sweetest thing," she teased, and I thought I was gonna die. She was so... Alice. I barely knew her, only I could see that this was true parts of personality she was showing me. And I was thoroughly thankful for the chance she was giving me.

Breakfast went by as innocently as it could with our admissions in the car, and I found out some things about Alice, herself. She was a business major, but had been a dancer before she decided that it was too flimsy a profession for her to have some stability for C.J. She opted to buy a nightclub so she could still dance when she was hit with the urge, and that had made me giggle at her. It was adorable that she had a child-like quality to her face when she talked about her dancing vocation, but was so serious when she talked about her business. She skated around the subject of C.J.'s father when she talked about her high school years on the dance team, but I knew with time she would open up about it. I had a feeling that he was the Jasper fella she had mentioned in the car, but I did not ask her. Her favorite colors were blue and yellow, but she didn't get my joke when I asked her if she were a Michigan fan, so that told me she had zero interest in sports. She loved music, her all time favorite band was Pink Floyd, and she had seen The Wall the year before, with Emmett and C.J. She loved art. She spoke French fluently, and had spent a summer in Paris when she was sixteen, studying dance under some famous French instructor with a name I couldn't pronounce.

I told her about me and my guitar, and she laughed heartily about who I named my first one after. I explained about Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain being my inspirations to even pick up a guitar as a kid, and told her that I dropped acid for the first time when I was thirteen. I told her that I smoked marijuana on a regular basis until I moved away, and still would smoke it if I could find a dealer in Seattle. I told her that it'd been four years since I'd done any drug other than marijuana, but I did have to spend three weeks in rehab to get me started on the track I was currently walking. I was honest with her, told her that I wasn't always the person that sat across from her now. And she surprised me. Alice reached across the table and put a hand on top of mine when I was rambling on about being a burn out with no direction, and I shut up automatically with the burst of tingles. "Bella," she said firmly, clearly. "I don't care." And then she gave me a comforting smile, which I returned happily. Wow. Everything I just told her, and she still wasn't taking off at a sprint for the exit.

"Thank you. You know, for not judging me," I said shyly as we rose to our feet to leave, and she waved a hand at me.

"Everyone has a past, Bella," she said in a supremely wise way, that made me chuckle. "The past is the past, and it's better left there."

"I couldn't agree more," I sighed, thinking about Forks.

"I had a really good time this morning. Well, aside from the wake up call you gave me," she said, and I blushed again.

"I'm sorry about that," I said truthfully. "It's just that... you know, with you on my mind so much yesterday, and then not remembering last night, and waking up to you..."

Alice blushed this time, ducking her head a bot as I allowed her to open the car door for me. "Maybe you won't be so averse to waking up to me one day," she said in barely more than a whisper, and I felt my heart sink with her words.

"I didn't mean it like that, Alice. And I won't be. Averse, I mean." I shut my mouth before I could embarass myself further and got into the car, leaning my head back against the seat as Alice shut the door and walked around.

She was silent as she started the car, and for the first few minutes of the ride. I felt almost like I was supposed to say something, and she was waiting for it. But what could I possibly say that she would be waiting to hear...? I thought about it hard for a few minutes, going over the last bit of conversation. She'd said she'd had a good time, but... Oh. "Alice?"

"Yes?"

I squirmed a little in my seat, feeling my blush creep up my neck and take over my cheeks. "Would you like to-er- maybe go... out with me? You know, on another date? My treat?" I was aware of the on-coming verbal diarrhea, and I shut my mouth again before it could start.

Alice looked over at me with a contented smile. "I thought you'd never ask. Yes, Bella, I would love to. When would you like to do this?"

"Maybe... Saturday night? I close on Fridays, but on Saturdays all I have is C.J.'s lesson in the morning."

"I could do that," she said slowly, thinking. "So, what time are you going to pick me up?"

"Um, I'll have to get back to you on that. Could I have your number so I could text you later, maybe?" I bit my lip as I asked and she giggled, turning red again.

"It's already in your phone. I put it in there last night," she admitted sheepishly, and I grinned. That was sweet. "But I didn't take yours," she added quickly. "I figured if you wanted to call, you would."

I reached over and caught a wisp of her hair that was tickling her temple and brushed it back, and she shivered slightly with the touch. "Thank you," I said with a smile.

I felt better than I had in years.

A/N: Still not my best... but it's getting there. Thanks again, guys.