Midnight Star

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Twelve: Meeting the Cullens

If someone asked me if I was worried about going to the Cullen house, then that would probably be the understatement of the century. I wasn't worried; I was panicked.

Oh, sure, I knew that they wouldn't do anything to hurt me . . . probably; that's not what I was freaked out about. What I was worried about was what they were going to think about me. I had never had a boyfriend before, so I'd never done the whole "meet the parents" thing. So even without the whole "my boyfriend is a vampire" thing, I would've been worried about it.

All right, maybe "boyfriend" was getting a little ahead of myself, since we hadn't really sat down and discussed everything, but considering that he kissed me in front of the whole school—okay, everyone who was in the cafeteria, but by now, it probably spread through the rest of the school—I think that it constituted as somewhere within the boyfriend realm.

So basically, all through school, I was nervous about what was going to happen afterwards, making me restless all day. More than once, one of the teachers had to ask me to pay attention to what they were doing and I had to force myself to focus on what was on the board even more than usual.

Edward noticed my distracted during science. "Relax," he murmured into my ear while Mr. Molina droned on. "Everything's going to be fine. You don't have to worry."

"Yeah, compared to fighting a Titan army, meeting a family of vampires is nothing," I murmured back, keeping my voice lowered enough so that nobody else heard what we were saying. His mouth twitched in amusement and he coughed back a laugh, his eyes twinkling.

If Mr. Molina noticed us talking, he either didn't care or was just simply ignoring us, but in any case, we went more or less unnoticed as we talked all through science and Edward snatched up my backpack before I could get it and escorted me out the door.

Ever the gentleman, he refused to even let me open the entrance doors by myself and only handed me my backpack back once I was settled in the passenger's seat of my car. Alice and the others were already gone, having left before us, probably to prepare themselves for their demigod visitor.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed that there was a familiar tune coming from the radio and I cocked my head. "Caribbean Classics?" I asked, looking towards him in surprise. Edward shrugged.

"They sounded interesting when you were talking about them yesterday, so I went out and bought one last night. You were right; they're pretty interesting."

With a smile, I leaned my head back, listening to the familiar tunes as Edward navigated his way through Forks, driving much faster than I would test my thirty-something year old truck and above the Forks speed limits, so we started moving outside of town not even five minutes later—for which I was grateful, because the short drive didn't give my nerves a chance to exhilarate.

It didn't take long at all before we rounded the corner and turned into the Cullens' driveway, moving towards the incredibly beautiful house.

"Wow," I breathed, staring up at it. My stepfather's a doctor, so those few years that I lived with him and my mom, we didn't exactly live shabby, so I've seen some pretty beautiful houses before, but this house put anything that I'd ever seen before to shame.

It was one of those old houses that still looks in prime condition, as though it had just popped out of another century, at least three stories high and painted white, with a porch that wrapped all around the main floor. I couldn't believe my eyes as I saw it, my mouth opening in awe.

Edward chuckled at my expression. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," I said, unable to hide my glee. "It's beautiful. I've never seen anything like it."

"It's the one place that we never have to hide," Edward told me as he moved around to my side, opening up the door and offering his hand to help me out. "Shall we?"

Taking a deep breath to calm my nervousness, I looked up at the beautiful house, which suddenly looked very intimidating and nodded. "Okay, let's go," I said. Edward lifted my hand to his lips and planted a gentle kiss on it, as though sensing my apprehension.

"Relax," he assured me, a playful look in his golden eyes, "we don't bite."

A snigger escaped from me at that comment and he laughed with me, leading me up the stairs and into the house.

If it were possible, the house was even more beautiful on the inside, but then again, I've always had a soft spot for old houses. If I lived long enough to have enough money, then I planned on buying a house like this, ancient and elegant and refined.

Already expecting us, Dr. and Mrs. Cullen were waiting the moment that we stepped inside. Like the rest of her "children," Mrs. Cullen was pale and golden-eyed and she had caramel hair that fell gracefully around her shoulders and a wide, open, motherly smile that immediately made me feel welcomed.

"Welcome, Susan," she said, greeting me as she stepped forward, warmly inviting me further into the parlour. "It's so nice to have you here. I'm Esme."

"Hi," I said shyly, but my nervousness was dying away with every passing moment as I took another look around the parlour. Dr. Cullen, too, was there, as Edward had promised, along with Alice and Jasper. Rosalie and Emmett were nowhere to be found. "You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh, thank you, and please, call me Esme," she assured me.

Alice bounced forward as though she had just drunk ten gallons of coffee, pulling me away from Edward and further into the house. "Come on, Susan," she said excitedly, "we made some tea for you and Esme made some chocolate chip cookies that I know that you're really going to like," she added with complete confidence. I was instantly reminded of what Alice's gifts were and threw a glance back at Edward, who was shaking his head at his sister, but gave me a reassuring smile.

Evidentially, Alice is not someone that you ever want to place a bet against, because not only did she have my favourite kind of cookies—chocolate chip made with white chocolate chips and straight from the oven—she already had my tea made up the way that I like it.

It felt weird to be the only one eating, but I wasn't about to be rude and refuse since they'd gone through the trouble of making it. Plus, they were really good. For someone who doesn't eat, Esme was a really good cook.

"So Susan, tell us about yourself," Esme said warmly as we had taken places in the parlour. "Edward told us that you're from New York. That must have been exciting." She smiled at her daughter. "Alice drags us there every once in awhile to go shopping."

"Speaking of which, we should go shopping sometime soon there," Alice said, sounding excited, bouncing in her seat. "New York is the best place to do some serious shopping and I haven't done that in ages. We should make a weekend out of it," she added to me, "we can take off right after school lets out Friday and be back first thing Monday."

"Oh, I couldn't," I protested weakly.

"Nonsense," Alice said cheerfully. "We'll fly out there and—" She stopped suddenly, her eyes going vacant. In the seat next to me, Edward stiffened, his eyes growing dark. "Oh, that doesn't make sense."

"What?" I asked, looking at Edward.

"She's seeing the plane getting struck by lightning the moment that we take off," Edward told me, obviously seeing what she saw in her mind.

"Yeah, that's what I was about to explain," I said weakly, well aware that five pairs of golden eyes were watching me. "I can't fly; my uncle really doesn't like it when my brother and I go through his realm."

"Your uncle?" Jasper questioned.

"Yeah, Zeus," I sighed, glancing skyward. "He would blast me out of the sky the second that the plane took off and he specifically told my brother never to enter his domain again. The only reason that he allowed it was because Percy was doing him a favour at the time." I shrugged at their scandalous looks. "Zeus and Poseidon are each other's bitterest rivals; what can you do?"

Dr. Cullen cleared his throat, looking extremely interested. "It's extraordinary; I never considered that any of the Greek myths would have any merit to them. Tell me, are there many of your kind?" His golden eyes were alight with interest, craving knowledge.

"Yeah, there are hundreds of demigods in the world," I said with a shrug. "Most of them live at camp while others lead more or less normal lives and there are some that are pretty famous, like White House famous. Most of the historical figures are actually demigods."

"Fascinating," Dr. Cullen murmured, completely enthralled. "Absolutely fascinating."

My nervousness was slowly slipping away and I was getting more and more relaxed around the Cullens, although I suspected that this had more to do with Jasper than anything else, remembering what Edward had told me about his abilities.

Of course, with Alice there, it would be hard for anyone to feel ill at ease and within ten minutes, I was smiling and chatting with the Cullens, answering any questions that they had and asking questions of my own, which they readily answered.

Edward sat right next to me the entire time, his hand resting in mine, which was both reassuring and distracting. Half the time, I had to force myself to pay attention to what someone was saying, otherwise I'd get lost in the electric feeling coursing through my body and be completely oblivious to what they were saying.

Finally, Esme suggested that Edward take me on a tour of the rest of the house and shooed us away, a delighted smile on her face as she watched us go.

"I'm sorry about Alice," Edward apologised the moment that we had climbed up the stairs. "She's very . . . enthusiastic."

"Don't be," I laughed. "I like her. She reminds me a lot of Valentine; both of them can never resist turning down a shopping opportunity. It's actually nice to have someone like that around again." I smiled as I shoved my hands in my pockets.

As he led me down the hallway, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair poking her head around a doorway, along with a pair of hateful golden eyes that were fixed upon me.

Edward hissed and Rosalie vanished, the door slamming behind her and he looked at me, sighing.

"She doesn't like me, does she?" I guessed, hardly surprised. Rosalie was someone that I pictured as unyieldingly obstinate and if her reactions every time that I caught a glimpse of her at school were any indication, then she wasn't exactly warm towards me, though I couldn't fathom the reason, because I hadn't done anything to her or her family to make her hate me.

"Rosalie has trouble with the idea that someone outside of the family knowing about us," he said, shrugging. "And you're human—well, half-human," he corrected. "She wishes that she was, too."

"So . . . she didn't choose this?"

"None of us did," he admitted. "Carlisle was changed by an unknown vampire in the 1640's, when he was leading a raiding party against a coven of vampires. I was the first one that he changed. He found me in a hospital in Chicago, dying of Spanish Influenza. I was all alone, my parents were already dead, taken by the disease, so no one would notice if I disappeared. Esme come into our family next; she'd fallen off of a cliff and was so close to dying that they didn't even bother taking her to the hospital, just took her straight to the morgue. And then Rosalie came," he said, "and then Emmett. Rosalie found him being attacked by a bear and she rescued him before bringing him to Carlisle so he could change him."

"What about Alice and Jasper?"

"They had a life outside of our family," he said, shrugging. "I suppose you could say that they were adopted into our family. Jasper came from a very different family." He met my eyes once and I understood; the family that he'd come from did not live as the Cullens did, but fed off humans. "Alice, on the other hand, has no idea what happened to her. She woke up as a vampire, with no memories of her human life or who turned her, but with her sight, she saw Jasper and went to go look for him and then they found us."

"Hmm." I frowned slightly. "Edward, how exactly does that work? The visions, the empathy, the mind-reading? How come some of you have powers and others don't?"

"No one really knows," he confessed, "but Carlisle thinks that we bring something into our new lives, one of our strongest human traits. For him, it was compassion; for Esme, her ability to love; for Emmett, his strength; and for Rosalie, it was stubbornness," he said, grinning over his shoulder and I heard a door slam nearby, making me suspect that Rosalie was listening. "He thinks that I must have had some form of mind-reading already and Alice had some form of precognition."

"Or clear sight," I murmured.

"What?"

I looked at him. "There are some humans that are born with the ability to see through the Mist. They can see things clearly; see monsters for what they really are, they can see celestial bronze—which is what our weapons are made out of—they aren't fooled by the Mist. I mean, some of them can see even better than demigods can. My mom was like that, though she ignores that sight now. And our Oracle at camp Rachel, she sees through the Mist. Maybe Alice had clear sight."

"Hmm." Edward considered that. "That's plausible. That would actually make some sense." He paused as he opened a door, the last one on the hall, allowing me to stop into the room behind it. "This is my room."

He had an amazing view, I thought as I stepped inside, overlooking the river and woods behind his house and the mountains were within view as I looked out.

As he didn't need to sleep, there was no bed, but instead, a very nice and expensive leather coach. All along one of the walls, there was thousands upon thousands of CDs of every era since the dawn of time, every genre that could have been invented, every artist that you could want. Even the music store in Forks didn't have this much selection.

"Your room is much cleaner than mine," I observed, causing him to laugh merrily.

"Well, I have had a hundred years to perfect that skill," he reminded me, smiling. "Now, I believe I promised you a dance lesson, didn't I?"

I looked at him, alarmed. "What? Right here?" I asked.

"No better time," he replied, shrugging as he picked up a remote, pointing it towards the stereo system, and music began to play.

As the gentle melody began to play, perfect for learning how to slow dance, Edward turned to me and bowed, offering me his hand. Hoping very much that I didn't step on his feet, I took his offered hand, stepping closer into his embrace. He lifted my free hand and placed it around his neck, causing my heart to hammer, and led me into a waltz.

We stepped together, with Edward in the lead, one hand around my waist and the other guiding me in the waltz, dancing softly in his room, with a sweet melody in the background, guiding us along. He was a lot better at it than I was, but he was patient, guiding me along to the music, swirling me around the room.

"My mom and my stepfather used to do this," I said after a long moment of dancing, filled with complete quietness that felt completely comfortable. "I used to sneak out of bed and watch them from the staircase. Mom never looked happier than when she was dancing with him. It was one of the few good memories that I have of her; she never looked like that whenever she was looking at me."

"Like what?"

I looked up at Edward. "Happy," I confessed. "Full of life and light. When she was like that, I could almost see the woman that my dad fell in love with, the woman who was supposed to be my mother."

Edward smiled at me and kissed my forehead gentle, drawing me closer to him. I laid my head into his shoulder, marvelling at the utter rightness that it felt, being here, in his arms, as though this was where I belonged.

"This wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be, was it?" he asked, switching the subject.

"Are we talking about being inside a house full of vampires or learning to dance?" I returned with a smile. He smiled back at me knowingly. "No, it's not. I like them; they're really nice. Alice isn't going to find some way to sneak me onto a plane, is she?" I asked anxiously.

"I wouldn't put it past her, but don't worry, I'll stop her before she tries anything," he promised me.

"Yeah, because Zeus really will blast me out of the skies if I go into his realm," I said, shaking my head. "Besides that, I'm deathly scared of flying. There's no way that you'll ever get me a plane."

"Have you ever flown before?" Edward asked curiously.

I shook my head. "No, before Mom married Jarrod, there was never enough money to go anywhere and I didn't stay with them for very long after she did marry him. Besides, the only time that they left was to go on their honeymoon and they weren't about to bring along a twelve-year-old on that. After I went to camp, Chiron warned me never to go on a plane, since there was a very slim chance that I would come back down."

"Chiron . . ." Edward mused. "Is he . . .?"

"The Chiron from the stories?" I asked. "Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yeah, he is. He's a centaur. Actually, he told me that he's met your family before, but he was probably in disguise when he was doing it. He has a magical wheelchair that he uses whenever he's looking over a potential demigod. It hides his centaur form."

Edward shook his head. "You would think I would remember something like that, but even with photographic memory, it doesn't ring a bell. But that's pretty unbelievable."

He suddenly dipped me, catching me off guard and I almost lost my balance were it not for his strong hands holding me reassuringly in place. I glared up at his twinkling golden eyes. "That was so not funny," I muttered, but with his vampiric hearing, he caught every word.

Chuckling quietly, Edward pulled me up. "You're a wonderful dancer," he informed me.

"You're biased," I informed him, shaking my head as I stepped back, away from him, grinning slightly.

"Biased, am I?"

"Yes," I agreed sweetly, "because you know that I'll whip your butt if you say otherwise."

I heard a guffaw coming from somewhere nearby, making me suspect that someone was listening—if not all of them were. Having as good as hearing as everybody here did, they probably didn't have much secrets. Add in Edward's mind-reading and Alice's visions, then it was probably a pretty good bet that they didn't have any.

"Oh, can you?" Edward was grinning now.

"Hmm . . . I wonder if celestial bronze works on vampires," I mused thoughtfully, dangling my necklace in between my hands thoughtfully, piercing my lips together.

"Good question," Edward agreed.

"Oh, well," I said, shrugging carelessly. "We'll just have to find out, now won't we?"

"Hmm . . ." Edward was suddenly looking at me slyly. "I have much better idea."

I shrieked in surprise as he suddenly tackled me, pulling me into his arms and onto his lap as I suddenly found myself on the touch, his arms circling around me, a mischievous glint in my eyes that I recognised all too well; it was usually one that my brothers have right before they're about to perform their "Tickle Susan to Death" game.

"Oh, no!" I protested before I could stop the words. "Don't you dare tickle me, Edward Cullen!"

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew that I never should have said them, because he immediately started tickling.

"Stop it!" I implored him while laughter erupted from me. That's something that I really hate; I'm extremely ticklish. "Oh, gods!" I laughed more freely than I have in over a year. "Please, Edward, stop it!"

Eventually, he did stop, but by then, we had company. Alice pranced in like a ballerina. "Sorry, Edward, but I'm going to have to steal Susan away from a minute," she said, grabbing hold of my arm and tugging on it, to try and pull me away from Edward.

"Go away, Alice," he complained, making a face at his sister.

"Well, I thought she might actually like some input as to what she's going to wear to the homecoming dance," Alice pointed out slyly. "And since you asked me to help with that . . ."

"It's okay," I said, allowing Alice to pull me away from Edward. "Besides, it'll give me ample time to plot some revenge against you for that."

Jasper laughed from the doorway, looking amused. "You better watch out for her," he told his brother, who chuckled. "She's bound to be more dangerous than all the Cullen women put together."

Alice grinned at her . . . mate? Husband? I wasn't sure on what the right term was as she pulled me towards what I presumed was her bedroom.