Hey guys! Thanks so much for the response to my first chapter! I'm glad ya'll like this idea, and I hope you like this chapter and that I'll continue to hear from all of you. It helps so much. Thanks. Enjoy!
Chapter 2
Within a couple of hours or so of running that didn't tire him in the slightest, whizzing past trees and creeks and fields and avoiding civilization, Daniel was back in the outskirts of Forks, Washington
Within a couple of hours or so of running that didn't tire him in the slightest, whizzing past trees and creeks and fields and avoiding civilization, Daniel was back in the outskirts of Forks, Washington. It was cloudy, as usual, and he didn't need to use much caution as he approached the Cullen home from behind, through the trees, and quietly let himself in through a set of the sliding doors into the living room.
He'd hoped that most of them would be elsewhere, but three of the four in the room when he entered. Rosalie was on the couch with her significant other Emmet, and Jasper was on the floor nearby. Jasper and Emmet were watching a game on the large widescreen television, but Rosalie was paying more attention to Emmet. Renesmee was in a nearby chair reading; she was the one that hadn't looked up.
Rosalie was the one that continued to look for him even as he made for the stairs. "Don't tell me you were hunting again. You were somewhere else, weren't you?"
"Hey, just because he's the new guy doesn't mean you have to keep harping on him," Emmet scolded gently, giving him an apologetic look.
He would have shaken it off himself, but Daniel immediately felt the calming effects of Jasper's ability to influence the emotions of those around him. He just shrugged. Rosalie threw a pillow at Jasper.
"You were the one attempting to anger people," he said calmly through a small smile, as he kept his eyes on the game. Emmet snickered.
When their attention was all focused on the game again, Daniel wondered over to Renesmee. Edward and Bella's daughter was an interesting character, to say the least. Then there was the fact that she had looked about eleven when he had first met her a year ago, and now she appeared to be more like fourteen. As half-breed of human and vampire, she grew quickly, but would stop in two or three years as a young adult; she would be just as immortal as the rest of them were.
"What you reading?" he asked, eyeing the large volume in her hands.
She reached up absently and brushed one hand on his cheek, her head still in the book. Immediately her unique brand of her communication that was her gift flooded his mind with images of ruined cities, ancient civilizations, and dig sites. "You have me interested, since you've been here. I'm only just starting now because I had a backlog of books I wanted to read," she told him, and then finally looked up and smiled.
"Well, you certainly have enough time," he noted. "But yeah, if you ever have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them."
"Great," she replied brightly, and then turned back to her book.
Anything to feel some connection with his human life. It bothered him to no end that this new state of being threw a haze in his mind over his human memories. He was still himself; he remembered what had happened. He remembered his friends…his family. But it wasn't as sharp as it once had been.
Or maybe it was just because everything was so much sharper since he had become a vampire. Well, at least he could think the word without cringing, now.
He knew that most of the others didn't remember much of their human life at all, and Alice remembered nothing. That was why he thought about his friends every day; he was afraid of ending up like that. He supposed that after several centuries, the memories might fade much more, but he supposed that by then it would be easier. Right now he still clung to those memories like life-lines.
And he lived day-by-day, still wondering how he was supposed to cope with living forever.
Sam wasn't looking for Vala to come into her lab that afternoon at all, much less for her to all but storm in. She looked confused and angry, and her simple ponytail was frizzy and mussed. She didn't say word when she came in; she only crossed to the nearest stool and sat down. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself.
She set down the gadget she was working on and looked in her friend's direction. "Vala? Are you okay?"
For a long moment she was silent. "It was a year last month," she said finally.
Sam froze momentarily, because she knew exactly what Vala meant.
She'd been trying to forget.
"I know," she admitted.
"Why aren't we still looking?"
"We had dozens of search parties all over these mountains for weeks; we still have feelers out over this entire planet. If anyone connected to us or the SGC in any way had seen him anywhere, we would know," Sam sighed. "I don't like it anymore than you, but there's nothing else we can do." It sounded good to her. It was what she tried to make herself believe, anyway.
But Vala saw through it immediately, and scoffed at it. "Don't give me that. We're not really looking anymore. None of us has really had any hope for months." She swallowed visibly, and looked away as if out of shame. "Why did lose hope? Why did we give up on him?"
"We didn't—"
"Yes, we did."
Sam stared at her desktop; she couldn't say anything else to that.
"We shouldn't have," Vala said unevenly. "We should never give up on each other. We can't. It's not right; we're a team. We're friends. We would know if he was dead…" She was sounding dangerously close to tears when she finally stopped.
Sam looked up slowly, trying to think. "But he would have found a way to contact us by now, if he was alive…We know Daniel. We know he would have."
"Maybe we don't know him," she whispered.
"What?"
Vala shook her head. "No, nothing. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you. I'm….I'm just a little upset right now. I'll be fine." She got up to go, but Sam stood and went to her.
"Are you sure you're all right?" she asked gently, a hand on her arm.
Vala only nodded. "Thanks." Then she hurried out.
Daniel went for the stairs, just avoiding Alice as she shot down them. She went around Rosalie and Emmet on the couch and gracefully glided to a seat on the floor next to Jasper, her own mate. He would have gone on up then, but he heard Carlisle's car pulling into the end of the long driveway, home from work. Esme had already heard it too, of course, and she wasn't far behind Alice on the stairs, though the quiet woman didn't run. Though Esme was frozen at an age only a few years beyond the rest of the Cullens, who all appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties, she was a perfect match for Carlisle, the eternally 30-something head of the household.
Knowing the new desires being like this gave them in way of nourishment, the man still amazed Daniel. He had long since disciplined himself to stand the smell of human blood well enough to hold a long, successful career as a doctor.
Bella and Edward came in then, too, from the back as he had. Their bright amber eyes told that they had just come from hunting. Renesmee had once always gone with them, but once she had reached a size that appeared to be about thirteen, they had begun to allow her to go on her own if she wished.
"How's the book?" Bella called.
"Good," the girl answered shortly. She had never been one for talking much, as far as Daniel had heard. So far it had held true.
Bella just shook her head, and smiled—probably at the immensity of the book as well as the answer. She and Edward took great pride in their little girl. It was hard to believe that she was really only four-and-a-half years old; she matured even faster than she grew.
"You're back, too," Edward noted, looking at Daniel.
"Yea." He was careful not think in words of where he had been; Edward would have picked it up immediately. His ability was mind-reading, which made it difficult for Daniel. He couldn't actively think of his friends around Edward if the words he was remembering had anything to do with the stargate or the SGC, other planets…
When Carlisle came in, every member of the Cullen family was in the living room. They all lived here, too, though Edward, Bella, and Renesmee had a cottage out in the woods. Daniel was the odd one out here, though it had already been general decided that when he had enough self-control to be out in public among humans again, that he would be introduced as a cousin of Carlisle's.
He tried not to think about when he would have to decide that. He had no idea what he was going to decide.
Carlisle and Esme didn't stays downstairs long before going back up together. Emmet and Rosalie went up not much longer after that. Daniel had move into one of the chairs to watch the television absently, but soon he found the petite Alice standing over him intently, and realized that the living room was completely empty of the others that had remained moments ago.
"Yes?"
She didn't say a word; she grabbed his arm and lead him out the back door. "The others are busy in the house now; we need to talk," she said, and then lead the way a short distance away from the house—far enough away that none of the others could pick up exactly what they were saying no matter how hard they tried, and Edward could not read their thoughts. He wasn't intrusive, but much of it he couldn't help but hear.
When the trees alone surrounded them, Alice stopped and turned to him.
"I've already seen that I can't stop you from seeing her, but you have to promise me that you'll be careful."
"What…?" It was hard to forget that Alice could see the future, or possible futures, or likely ones…it was hard to remember just how it worked. But he did remember that it had something to do with reading from decisions someone had made. "But…how can you know that? I haven't decided whether I'm even going back yet."
"Yes, you have. You're going to go back, and you're going to see her."
"I—" But there was no use in denying it. "I don't think I can not go back, now that she's seen me. I can't leave her like that. I didn't mean for it to happen in the first place…But you're probably right," he sighed. "I'll have to go back, sometime soon. I have to try to offer some kind of explanation."
"I was afraid of that. I won't stop you; in fact, it would probably be better if you told her the truth, instead of letting her wonder and search and draw attention to herself. But you have to be careful about this. The Volturri—"
"I remember. You've all told me about them. I've heard the stories. Renesmee has even showed me the one she was alive to witness. Believe me; I don't want to get into anything with them any more than the rest of you do."
Alice nodded. "Then you know that no one can ever see you with this human woman, or even hear of it—not even the others here, if we can help it; just to be safe."
"I know…I had thought of that, too."
There was a moment of silence. "Is she the woman that was with you in the woods in Colorado before you were attacked?" He nodded. "That's her. I knew her for a few years, before I ended up here. Her name is Vala."
"Interesting name."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "We're vampires, and you're talking about a name?"
Alice sighed. "Just promise you'll be careful."
"I promise, really. I want her to be safe just as much as you want to keep the rest of your family safe."
She looked at him for a long moment. "I know you've felt awkward here, with no mate, and because you look older than all of us—but that doesn't mean that we don't count you as one of ours, now. Carlisle was serious when he said you could take our name, when you get to the point that you need a new identity. I agree with him."
Daniel smiled just a bit. "I remember. And thank you. Again. But I'm just not sure yet. True, there's really nowhere I can go, like this, but…"
"Your eyes are amber now; the red has been gone for months. All you have to do is reach a decent self-control level, and you could blend in with humans like we do. You could go anywhere. That doesn't mean we want you to."
"I'm sure Rosalie wouldn't mind," he smirked.
Alice shrugged. "She's like that with everyone."
"So I gathered." He paused. "Why aren't you being harder on me about this?"
"Because Edward found his soul-mate in a human. Granted, she's not human anymore, but maybe things will work out differently for you."
"W-what? No," he stammered. "It's not like that. We were just friends. She annoyed me more often than—why are you even going there? Did you see something else I don't know about?"
She shook her head. "No. It just seemed like the most logical explanation. Right now I don't know kind of relationship you two have, had, will have…and it's not important. It only bothers me that I can't see clearly yet whether any of this will lead to danger. You know how that gets to me."
"I'm sorry; I didn't mean for any of this to bother you…what am I saying? I don't even know what I'm going to do yet."
"You will soon." She looked at him. "So you'll be careful?"
"Of course."
"Good." She immediately became more animated. "Now that we have that straightened out, you can explain what you're wearing to me."
"What?"
She scowled at him. "I bought you a whole closet of clothes, and you're going to wear that?"
Money wasn't an object for the Cullens. Most of them, especially Carlisle, had had longer than a normal human to save it, and they didn't have to buy food and other things humans needed.
"What's wrong with this?" he asked, looking down at his t-shirt and jeans.
"It's simple. It's normal. You have the same problem Bella did—still does."
Of course, Daniel knew what Alice thought. She had told him many times, and with the steel trap of a brain he had now, that remembered perfectly everything that had happened to him since he had woken as a vampire, he remembered every one of them. Alice was the fashion guru of the family—or maybe it was more like the fashion police. They had money, and she made sure every single one of them was dressed appropriately.
Alice grabbed his arm again, and they streaked back into the house. She lead right up to the room he'd been given, left him there, went into the large walk-in closet and came out with a set of clothes on hangers.
"Here. If you want to be casual, at least be causal my way," she said brightly. "Besides; you want to look nice when you go out," she said, and winked at him.
Daniel winced. He glanced at the relatively comfortable-looking khakis and the collared shirt. He gave a martyred sigh and took them from her. "I guess it's the least I can do."