Disclaimer: The Twilight saga and all characters therein are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No profit is being made from this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.


Chapter Two

Passions

My last class of the day was Programming, with a Mr. Zuchman, in Computer Lab 6. This was the only class I was actually excited about, for two reasons. First was that Jacob would be in it. Second was that I loved computers. When I was four, Emmett taught me video games, and from there I plunged into the online world of gaming, and then programming, and then blogging, and finally I went all-in and joined a "Dungeons and Dragons: New Generation" group.

Yeah, so I was a total geek.

Computers were what my family called my big interest: just like my dad's was music, my mom's literature, Esme and her architecture, Alice and fashion, Rosalie and cars, Carlisle and… being nice and helping people… that's the drift. Anyway, I was the computer nerd. It came in really handy with forging new identities and altering records to cover our tracks. I used facial recognition software to find photos of any Cullens, in any context: social networking sites, news articles, even government records, and then deleted them or tweaked them so we weren't recognizable. Jasper was especially pleased with my progress.

My handle was "Morphette" as a nod to the fictional hacker, Morpheus, from the original computer nerd film, The Matrix. Also, I was a morph, sort of: a genetic blend of vampire and human. Almost one of a kind.

My online identity had a lot of friends around the world. There was "Silvius" in the Ukraine, and "DeviDiva" in Bangladesh, and "PeuChen91" in Brazil. We were kind of an online gang, sharing information and technique with each other, and engaging in death match D&D games. I had no idea who they were, or what they looked like, and I enjoyed the same anonymity from them. But for a mind like mine – quick, easily bored – the Internet was the only place that could keep up with my hybrid brain. The place where I was free to be challenged.

To the world at large, I was Morphette the hacker, who had made the news ticker at Times Square read, "I am a Cookie Monster OM NOM NOM."

It had taken the cyberterror division of the FBI an entire day to make it go away. It was one of my proudest moments.

So, when I entered the darkened lab and saw the zig-zag rows of workstations, the pale glow of screens, I let out a sigh of contentment. Jake entered behind me and I could feel the heat of him warming the air around us. "Sit by me," I whispered.

"Of course," he whispered back, his breath tickling my ear. My hummingbird-quick heart beat a little faster.

"Greetings, class," said a voice from the front. "Please take note of my seating chart before you sit down."

Aw, man. Maybe it's alphabetical. B for Black, next to C for Cullen…

It wasn't. Mr. Zuchman had arranged us randomly. Jacob was all the way on the other side of the room, according to the chart.

Jake's mouth twisted to the side, disappointed.

I reached out and grazed the back of his hand with my fingers, sending him a thought. I'll text you during class.

He grinned, a white smile in the gloom, and I felt happy for making him grin.

I sat down at my assigned seat and rested my fingers on the keyboard – my instrument. I could type in my sleep; in fact, I often did, dreaming of new ways around firewalls, or new techniques to beat an unbeatable game. My superhuman reflexes helped.

Jake's head was just visible over the plastic divider walls. I pulled a rubber band from my bag and flicked it at him. A few seconds later, it came sailing back and smacked me in the forehead.

"Ahem."

I looked up at the girl standing in the aisle next to me. It was the popular blonde, Abby, her glossy lips shining in the cool dim light. I raised my eyebrows.

"That's my seat," she said.

I checked the number of the computer. She was wrong. "No, it's mine, console eleven."

"No, it's mine."

She was so wrong! But what could I say? I felt like she would get angrier when I turned out to be correct. I wasn't sure how to act around a stubborn human. "Why don't we ask the teacher?" I said. Maybe she'd blame him instead.

I glanced over at the chart and saw her name next to console twelve. Super. Right next to me.

Abby saw it too. She let out a huff and twirled on her heel, marching toward her seat.

At least the screens were at angles, with dividing walls, so that I didn't have to see her face. I was sure that she would be glaring at me. This was a new experience, this virulent dislike from a person I didn't even know. People (well, vampires, werewolves, and my human grandfather) all loved me. I didn't know how to endear myself to a strange human using only words, or looks.

Whatever. I had Jake across the room, and I could hear the solid beating of his heart, a rhythm I would recognize anywhere. That was another cadence I heard in my sleep… typing, and the heart of a werewolf, my two most soothing sounds.

Mr. Zuchman broke into my appreciation of Jacob's heartbeat. "Everyone be seated and be quiet. Thank you. This is Programming Three. If you have not taken Programming Two, then you should not be in this class. The emphasis of this class is computer languages; we will be learning basic code linguistics, the definitions of Fortran, Basic, Cobol, the origins of linguistic agreements, the international variances…"

He went on, but I tuned out. My fingers were already moving, not over my keyboard, but over the keys on my phone. "Child's play," I texted to Jacob.

I heard his snort of amusement.

Now, Jake was not so much a computer geek as a motors geek. His thing was restoring old cars, classic cars, and he was taking Shop as one of his electives. It was strange that he and Rosalie didn't get along better, given their common passion for engineering. Bad blood (or as Rosalie would call it, stinky blood) died hard.

Smiling, I thought that he really was like Danny Zuko from Grease.

I could play a credible Sandy, given Edward's enforcement of my virginity rules. This turned my smile into a scowl. Did they care that I'd been a fully mature adult at the age of seven? No. My dad had convinced my mom that, since all of us had eternity, they could treat me like a child until I was technically eighteen. Just because they didn't want me to grow up… It was frustrating on so many levels.

I'd been ready to date boys for near on a decade, although I didn't know who I would want to date. No human boys, that was for sure… and that brought my mind closer to some great realization, like skimming the surface of a feeling that I couldn't name…

"Ruh-ness-mee? Ruh-ness-mee Cullen?"

Oh. Attendance. "It's… uh, I'm called Nessie, it's easier. I'm here." I smiled at Mr. Zuchman.

He scribbled on the sheet. "Ruh-ness-mee."

I turned back and rolled my eyes. Couldn't he get it right? How did this mediocre man get to be a teacher?

Our first assignment was to write a basic piece of code for a home page on the Web. I did it in approximately four seconds, which left me the rest of the class period to play around with the school's firewall system, testing its weaknesses, and then rout my signal through an untraceable server in Russia. That would set me up for the semester as long as we didn't change computers.

When class – and school – was dismissed, it was with a feeling of triumph that I walked with Jacob out to the parking lot. I'd survived the first day. Metaphorical, of course, since I was immortal.

To complete his look, Jake had a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, all black and silver. He set the helmet on his head; he hated wearing it, but it was the law, and not worth the trouble of me erasing his records should he be ticketed.

Edward shook his head as Jacob revved the engine.

You're such an old man, I thought at Edward.

His mouth quirked into a smile. An old man smile. Sheeeesh.

"See you at leech headquarters," Jacob said to me, flashing a sunshine-brilliant grin before he drove off fast on the growling Harley.

"Can't wait," I murmured, watching as he turned out of the parking lot.

"C'mon, kiddo," said my dad – I mean, Edward – slinging an arm over my shoulder. "Let's go home. I think we can beat him there."

I grinned. Nothing like a little friendly competition.


After school, it was Cullen family meeting time. We sat in the big living room, perched around on the pale brocade sofas and on the white carpet.

"How was it?" Esme asked eagerly, focusing on Bella and me, since it was our first time back in school, and in school at all, respectively.

"Nothing's changed," said Bella, "even being stared at as the new kid!"

"That's not why they're staring, my love," said Edward, his hand around her waist, his voice colored with tones of approval, pride, and protectiveness against the thoughts of teenage boys toward his wife.

"And you, Nessie? How did you like school?" Esme asked.

"It was… kinda boring," I said honestly.

This brought chuckles from around the room.

"See, you haven't been missing much," said Emmett.

"I recommend finding something to occupy that mind of yours during the slow hours," said Edward, "to keep you from going crazy."

He just didn't like how my thoughts always wandered to Jacob. He couldn't fool me.

The humorous creasing of his eyes revealed that I was right.

Odd, though, how… reluctant he was about Jacob, even after all these years. It was laughable, he acted almost like Jake was courting me, or some –

"Oh! I'm going to find Bella's Christmas gift on Ebay," Alice interrupted my musing. She looked around, wide-eyed. "Sorry."

Edward laughed softly at whatever was in Alice's mind, while Bella looked uncomfortable, as she always did with the idea of gifts. I couldn't understand it, but then I'd been spoiled with gifts all my life, and had learned to get used to them graciously.

I heard a crash in the kitchen as Jacob foraged for dinner, and then the flitting of Rosalie's outraged steps to find out what he'd broken, and their low argument about a ceramic bowl.

"It's cracked. You cracked it."

"I did not. That was there before. It's part of the design or whatever."

"No."

"Yes."

"No!"

"Oh, brother," Bella muttered.

Rosalie growled.

Jacob growled back.

I growled, just for the heck of it.

"Really, all of you!" said Esme, standing up and heading for the kitchen to supervise.

The house was quiet for a few minutes except for the low strains of a classical album (Rachmaninoff, it sounded like) from the music room. Edward and Bella were hip-to-knee against one another on the sofa, their faces holding a look we all recognized. It meant don't come knocking on their door later.

Alice laid out on the floor, arms outstretched, staring at the ceiling; she looked as though she were making a snow angel in the white carpet. Jasper, standing next to her, asked Edward, "What did they all think of us?"

Tearing his eyes away from Bella's face, Edward said, "It went very well. The usual. They think we're beautiful, standoffish, unapproachable, and too pale. No one came close to noticing us as inhuman. I think that Nessie and… well, Jacob… help with that a lot, actually."

I beamed. I liked helping to make things easier. I never forgot how much danger we'd all been in, once upon a time, after I was born. Because I was born.

"Good," said Jasper. "All good."

"All good," Alice agreed from the floor.

Jasper smiled down at her, the silvery scars on his skin creasing like folded tissue paper.

I heaved myself up from my stretched position on the other sofa. "Well, I have a chatroom in a couple minutes," I said, tapping at my watch.

"Nerd!" Jacob called from the kitchen.

"See you in my room, nerd accomplice!" I called back. While I was online, seated in front of my nefarious-looking tower platform and triple-screen configuration, Jacob would set his laptop next to me and check all the classifieds for old cars for sale. Although he'd never graduated high school (yet), he hadn't been spending the past sixteen years hanging around and eating the Cullens out of house and home. Well, not just that, anyway.

Jacob had started a sort of business where he bought dilapidated cars, fixed them, restored them with loving care, and then resold them to collectors. Sometimes they were just run-of-the-mill Mustangs and such; sometimes he found real treasures. Once there had been a 1930s Duesenberg, and another time a 40s Rolls Royce. I'm pretty sure Rosalie was jealous of his job.

He made good money, too, and with Jasper's help, had incorporated himself so that no matter where we lived or what alias he used, the company's name and reputation would be intact.

And then, after his father Billy died of pneumonia seven years ago in spite of Carlisle's best efforts, he'd needed some work to really throw himself into.

So, no matter how much he acted the wild boy on a motorcycle, I knew that Jacob's real calling was in a garage, restoring old glories piece by piece, all responsibility and care.

It was almost like how my father drove like a maniac by human standards (and by my mother's standards) but that was just a front. In truth he was crazy responsible.

I realized that I'd just compared Edward and Jacob. If my father was listening to my thoughts, he would be annoyed. Stubborn old man, that's what they say about eavesdroppers…

I could just hear his low chuckle.


It was amazing how fast a routine formed. School was boring as promised, and before I knew it, the first week was over and it was the weekend. I hadn't made any friends amongst the Brighton kids, since I had all of my classes with one of my family members or Jake. We sat together at lunch and there was no need to mingle.

On Saturday, it was sunny. If it hadn't been the weekend, all the Cullens would have skipped class, except lucky me. I didn't sparkle as badly as they did.

As it was, I woke up, got dressed in jeans and a light sweater, and wandered downstairs to make myself a nice breakfast omelette with raw steak. On the second floor hallway I passed my parents' suite of rooms. The door was open and Bella was in the sun-drenched room, straightening the bed. Why would she – oh. Rolling my eyes at my parents' antics – you'd think they were newlyweds – I asked, "Hey, Mom. Is Jake coming over?"

"Morning, hon! He's not here yet. You could ask… well, you could call him." Bella held a pillow in her hand and tossed it once in the air to fluff it. She stood with a ray of sunshine at her back, illuminating the shining red tones in her hair, creating a glittering edge around her skin. Her eyes were dark topaz, eyebrows in a curious arch. "Is everything okay with you two?"

"Yeah, of course!" It sounded unconvincing, even to myself.

"Come here and sit down. We can talk about it." Bella patted the top of the white bedspread.

"There's nothing to talk about." But I sat down anyway and clasped my mother's hand and let my thoughts pour out. It's just that he doesn't come by every day like he used to. It's hard being away from your best friend. Ever since we moved, things have been different between us, almost… self-conscious, or something. We had such a great life in Forks and now… I let go, unaware that I'd even been having these thoughts. They'd been subconscious until now, but I realized they were true. There was something different with Jake and me.

Bella gazed at me, and I could have been imagining things, but it was like there was a glimmer of awareness in her eyes. "I'm sorry, hon. I know moving is hard. It's hard for me too, but we had to leave Forks. People were definitely starting to notice… things."

Yeah. Things like not aging. I understood that. But still… I grabbed her hand again. I miss being a big family, with the pack and Charlie and Sue. I miss the woods and First Beach and the baseball meadow. And I think that maybe Jacob misses all of that even more than I do. What if he's lonely? He's stuck at that boarding house, pretending that he's not a werewolf. Everyone who understands him is on the other side of the country, besides us. He's the Alpha of his pack. The future chief of his entire tribe. I bet he's unhappy! And what if he blames me for drawing him away from all that?

Bella's face was full of sympathy. "I know. I've thought about this, too. But this is only for a few years. All the others, Seth and Leah and Quil and Embry and everyone… they'll still be there when we've got you all through high school."

And Charlie? And Sue?

Bella smiled. "Don't forget they're coming for Christmas, with Seth and Leah."

Maybe he misses Billy.

Bella's smile faded. "We all do. But Jacob's adjusted well. Once he gets into things here, finds some old engines to mess with, he'll be just fine. Don't worry. Nothing can get in the way of you two." She patted my hand.

That was an odd thing to say. You two. As if we were –

I heard the knock on the door downstairs, along with the beat of Jacob's heart, and I leapt up.

"See?" Bella said, laughing. "Let's get you some breakfast, hmm?"

I swung open the beveled glass door and saw Jacob on the front porch, bare-chested, just buttoning up his jeans. He phased into his wolf form for a long run every morning. It was his unique elixir of eternal life.

"Hey, Ness!"

"Hey, Jake!"

"I'm starving."

"Me, too. I was gonna make omelettes, you want one?"

"Do you need to ask?"

We were sitting at the big kitchen table, eating, when Esme glided into the room. "So!" she began brightly. "Who wants to help me at my house today?" Enthusiasm was all over her heart-shaped face and she grinned meaningfully at us.

"Uh… we do?" Jake offered.

"Excellent! Ness, I'll need you to help with the upstairs wiring. It hasn't been re-done since the nineteen-forties. Jacob, if you don't mind, the boiler needs some serious work on the valves. It's newer, but not maintained."

"Mmm!" Jacob nodded, his mouth full of omelette.

Esme's pet project was a big old house outside of town. It looked haunted, all gaping windows and dark paint and cobwebs. The lines were beautiful, Gothic Victorian, but the roof was falling in and one side had been destroyed by a fire.

The house had a dark history, too. According to the papers back in 1953, the fire fire had killed the family living there, a husband and wife and their teenage son.

We knew the truth. Esme had found the house through a local real estate agent and when she visited, beneath the dust and damp rot and neglect, she had caught a whiff of the unmistakable: a vampire.

We thought the vampire, a probable nomad, had feasted on the family and then burned their bodies to cover his tracks. It was long ago, but Esme wanted to restore the house and give it back to the community, as a sort of amends. She was way past the statute of limitations on this one, but I could see her point. Besides, it gave her a challenging project to occupy her time. It would take several years at least.

In the car on the way over – Esme drove Carlisle's Mercedes – she chattered about her plans for the house. "I'm thinking it could be a parochial school. It's such a lovely setting, and for young children, with that big lawn… or perhaps a home for orphans. The foster system is terrible, and kids need a happy place to grow up without being shifted from one family to another…"

In the back seat, Jacob and I smiled at one another. Esme was so sweet. Vampire cover stories notwithstanding, Carlisle and Esme were just the types to adopt a bunch of kids. And isn't that what they had done?

I was glad to help her, and besides, I had my own plans for the wiring. No matter what happened to the house after it was done, it would need a good internet connection. I'd hacked into the municipal electric company's maps of the area, and found a fiber-optic connection running a hundred yards away from the house. I could easily jump-wire onto it, without anyone noticing.

The gravel crunched under the tires as we pulled up the drive. The house looked straight out of a horror film, a gap-toothed monster of a building. "Wow," said Jacob. He hadn't seen it before.

"Such a tragedy," said Esme, turning off the engine. I wasn't sure if she meant the fate of the family, or the waste of such a beautiful house. Probably both.

The front door hung off the jam and we squeezed through into a musty front hall. There were a few pieces of furniture covered by ghostly white cloth. The dust was inches thick and the floorboards seemed to creak with every breath of wind. I took a deep sniff of the air. Yep, vampire, I thought, touching Jacob's elbow.

He made a face, agreeing.

"The boiler is in the basement," said Esme, leading us through. I could see that the house had once been beautiful. The moldings were delicately carved and the banister on the big staircase had a gorgeous neoclassical newel post. "Be careful on the stairs, there are rotten places. I've strung work lamps all the way in."

I smiled at Jacob again. Esme had ushered Jacob under her motherly wing just like the rest of us. I think Jacob's heartbeat made her nervous; it was a little too vulnerable.

Esme seemed to float down the stairs. I followed, and Jacob's clunking footsteps made the floorboards groan.

"Careful!" she said again. "I don't want you hurting yourself… these rusty nails…"

"Esme," Jacob said. "I heal in, like, point-two seconds."

"Hmmph," she said.

"Besides," I said, "with our feverish temperature, normal bacteria don't survive in the bloodstream."

This was true. Years ago, Carlisle and Edward had taken our blood and done a ton of experiments on it. Shapeshifters were immune to the viruses and bacterial infections of humanity. Vampire venom was unfortunately fatal to them, however.

As for me, I was also safe from infection, but vampire venom would transform me into a full-on vampire, something I knew Jake would hate.

"Here it is," said Esme, sighing in the direction of the boiler. It hunched in the corner of the room like a mechanical ogre. Jacob was beside it immediately, shaking his head at the state of the pressure joints and the bolts. "It sure does need work." He flicked on the bright workman's light on the string overhead. "Tools?"

"Over there," Esme pointed.

"Cool, thanks." He was absorbed.

"No, thank you! Nessie, I'll show you the wiring supplies. I ordered them a couple days ago, they're still coiled up…"

I spent the morning ripping out decayed wire. I used tape to mark the points of entry and to know where to replace my connections. The walls needed to be refinished, but the bones of the house were solid and well-constructed. It was sturdy and undamaged beneath the creepy façade. By noon, the entire second story was creatively wired with state-of-the-art carbon nanotube connections. I could hear Jacob in the basement, tightening the last few bolts. Esme had ripped up the ruined dining room floorboards and replaced them with temporary plywood.

"We're done for today!" she called up to me. "It's sunny and you two should get some fresh air for the afternoon."

We drove back to the house with the back windows rolled down. Jacob stuck his head out like dog. I laughed at him.

When his head was turned, I glanced down at his large, capable hand resting on his knee. Unable to repress the urge, I touched him, sending him my wish to go for a run.

He looked into my eyes, his happiness warming my face.


Thanks for reading and reviewing!!!