"I didn't mean to startle you. Please accept my apologies."

Luned spun on her heel, gaping at the man who had somehow managed to be standing right at her back without her noticing a single thing.

He was considerably taller than she was, with olive skin and hooded dark eyes, his black hair slicked neatly back from his very handsome face, as though he had been bathing.

A face that did nothing for her at all, except for remind her of what she was missing.

She said nothing, just continued to watch the stranger as he watched her.

"I noticed you seemed upset." He continued in what many would consider a mesmerizing, low voice. "I only wish to know if there is anything I can help you with."

Luned said nothing.

"Do you speak English?" He asked, perplexed.

Feeling uncommonly rude, she only nodded.

The man smiled. "My name is Laurent, though most people call me Laurie. You are?"

Luned sighed, seeing no way to continue her silence without being any ruder than she already had been to the man in front of her. "Luned."

"How unusual. Luned." He tested the name on his tongue, his eyes watching every movement of muscle in her face. "Are you from around here? You seem lost." He smiled warmly.

"I am not lost. Just…" she waved her hand, indicating the surrounding buildings. "Just getting to know this place."

"But you aren't from around here?" His eyes sparkled. "A tourist then?"

"A tourist?" Luned repeated, frowning.

"A visitor from another place."

Luned snorted, laughing to herself at how right he was without even knowing it. "If that is what tourist means, then yes, I am most assuredly a tourist."

Laurent smiled wider, slipping one arm around Luned's shoulder. "Then let me escort you back to your hotel."

She shrugged his arm off. "I do not know what it is you mean by hotel. I am staying in Bella's apartment."

"Bella's Apartments?" One dark eyebrow rose and he looked down at her with amusement. "Is that what it is called?"

"I do not understand your meaning."

"Your hotel," he said. "Is it called Bella's Apartments?"

"No." Lunedlooked at him, confused. "I already said I was not staying in a hotel. I am staying with Bella. She has an apartment."

"Ah." His eyes lit with understanding. "Then allow me to walk you back to this Bella's apartment."

* * * * *

Bella paced her small living room, frowning and twisting her hands together. "Has it been long enough, yet, Alice? She doesn't know anything about this place."

"I'm sure country girl will be fine," Rose said airily, dusting an imaginary speck of dirt from her costume.

"She will be back before you know it, Bella," Alice nodded. "You worry too much."

"Alice," Bella said crossly. "You know as well as I do that everything around here is completely new to her. Who knows what kind of trouble she could end up in!?"

"Bella," Alice said calmly. "Trust me, won't you? When have I ever steered you wrong?"

Bella stopped pacing and frowned at her friend. "You dragged me to that fair."

"Yes," Alice said softly. "But are you telling me you wish I hadn't?"

Bella sighed and walked slowly to the window, staring down at the street below. "I don't know."

Everyone in the room remained silent; the only sound the tick of the clock Bella's father had given her before she had left home. Good old Forks. She hadn't been back there in the longest time.

She was still staring out of the glass when she saw what would be completely bizarre to anyone else, and clearly to the rest of the pedestrians was. Many of them were gawking at Luned as she walked past, her brown dress trailing on the sidewalk, the eyes of a painfully attractive man never leaving her face.

"Oh," Bella sighed in relief. "She's coming back. Someone found her."

Rosalind yawned, already well bored with the days drama's. Alice rose from the sofa and crossed to look out of the window with Bella. She stiffened noticeably.

"Alice?" Bella said. "Is something wrong?"

The woman beside Bella didn't say a word, just continued to stare, horrorstruck, out the window.

"Alice?"

"It's nothing," she said finally, shaking her dark head and smiling at Bella. "Really. Just a case of the stares."

"Hmm," Bella murmured. "Well, I'd better go down and meet Luned. She won't remember which number, I'll bet."

* * * * *

Bella was right. Luned had found the building with no difficulty, but when Bella pushed open the door at the bottom of the flight of stairs, holding it open so they could get in again, Luned was frowning at the list numbers and the little buttons next to each one.

"Are you sure you cannot remember?" The man beside her was saying quietly, a hint of laughter in his voice.

"No, just…"

"Luned," Bella said sternly, as though speaking to a naughty child. "I told you that you would get lost."

"I am not lost my…Bella," Luned said. "Merely…confused."

"Number eleven, Luned."

"Yes. Number eleven. I will not forget again."

"And you are?" Bella asked the man with Luned, knowing she was coming off as extraordinarily rude, but not caring at all. Enough was enough. She was tired, miserable and she had to baby-sit a medieval maid. Nope, not happy at all.

"Laurent. Call me Laurie."

"Well, it's nice to meet you Laurent." Bella didn't sound as though she enjoyed the experience at all. "And thank you for bringing my friend back. She's from the country; all the noise and lights are a bit of a shock."

Laurent smiled widely, glancing down at Bella's attire. "You must be from the country, too. It seems to me you dress rather strangely there."

Bella looked down, huffing in irritation. She still hadn't changed her outfit. "There was a medieval fair; my friends dragged me…" she tailed off, wondering why she felt the need to explain anything to this stranger. "Anyway, I appreciate your help, but it's been a long day. Come on, Luned, I'll show you your bed."

Luned nodded, and Bella turned, not waiting for the other woman to follow as she strode back through the door.

The man called Laurent watched their retreating backs, smiling blandly.

* * * * *

Alice served up a dinner of ordered in Chinese for the four women. All of them sat around Bella's tiny wooden dining table, still in the costumes from the fair.

Luned picked up the chopsticks Alice had placed in front of her and turned them over in her hands frowning in confusion. "This is what we eat with? But where is the knife?"

"You don't need a knife for Chinese, Luned." Bella sighed. There were going to be so many things the Welshwoman didn't know. It weighed heavily on Bella, the knowledge that it would all be up to her, that the other woman would never be able to survive alone in this time. Bella hoped desperately that somehow, the same strange force that had brought them both back here would take Luned home. She refused to think about what that might mean for the Welshwoman, going home to nothing, the only survivor of a brutal violence that took the lives of her mistress and the Lord's sons. Refused to acknowledge that as the only suspect she would likely be killed, under the guise of justice.

Instead of acknowledging all this, Bella snapped her chopsticks apart and dug into the first box of noodles.

Luned watched Bella closely, studying the way she ate. After a few minutes, she attempted to snap her own chopsticks apart, becoming confused when they didn't budge at all. She tried again.

"Luned?" Alice said softly from her other side. "Do you need some help?" Luned nodded, passing the sticks to Alice who broke them apart with ease.

"They need to be snapped apart long ways," she said, handing them back.

"Thank you, Lady Alison."

A foot kicked Luned's leg under the table. "I mean, Alice."

Rose snickered. "And I thought you and I were into role play, Alice. This one doesn't give up."

"It's a comfort reflex," Bella said, digging at the noodles in her box.

"Uh-huh." Rose said skeptically.

"The big city would be terrifying to someone who spent their whole life in the country, Rose." Alice continued. "Be nice."

"I would not consider myself—" Luned began. A foot kicked her under the table again.

Her brow furrowed, but she remained silent. Some things were obvious no matter what era you were in. Secrets were one of them.

Bella continued to bury her face in her food.

"Bells," Alice said softly. "Do you want us to stay the night?"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "In case the drunkenness finally kicks in? Or in case country girl here wanders off again?"

Alice continued to stare unflinchingly at Bella.

"No, Alice." Bella sighed. "I think I can make it through the night on my own."

"I'm only a phone call away," Alice insisted. Bella nodded.

"Not me," Rose added. "Sorry, Bells, but Emmett's taking me dancing tonight."

Bella shrugged, smiled weakly. "Sounds like fun, Rose."

"It will be!" Her friend began rattling off what she planned to wear, giving Bella a chance to sit back and do nothing more than nod.

Alice watched Bella, saw the pain in her eyes, and worried for her friend. Not even with Jacob had she fallen so hard, suffered so much. It surprised her to find when she glanced briefly at Luned; the other woman's face had the same agonized expression.

Alice cleared the rubbish from dinner away thoughtfully as Rose showed Luned the room she would be staying in. If only there were some way she could help Bella, make things right or at least easier…but Alice had her own problems of late. She and Jasper had been an unshakable pair since high school, but now…something was amiss. When he kissed her, something was lacking, and when they were together, they'd lost much of that silent understanding they once had.

Maybe, Alice thought sadly, Bella and I will be crying on each others shoulders soon.

She returned to the living room where Bella was back at the window, staring morosely into the blackness outside.

"Did you ever notice how grey it is here, Alice? Like everything is dead. I feel like what's inside, in my heart, is all around me as well. Cold, grey, and nothing. I miss green and brown and real air." Bella sighed, turning her head to her oldest friend.

Alice and Bella had been friends since before they had even begun school. They had both been at La Push beach on a family outing with their respective parents when they met and ran off together, hiding from their parents for hours. From then on they had been firm friends, exploring the woods (although Bella of course had a tendency to hold things up with her constant falls), attempting surfing, gradually shifting to midnight gossips about which guy was the best looking, whom they planned to marry one day.

Alice had been determined from day one that there was none other for her than Jasper. First day of school, when another, extraordinarily rude boy had pushed her to the ground and called her a freak, Jasper had come to her rescue, had followed her around the playground for the next week, making sure no one else dared say anything again. Jasper had been a leader, right from the start, and Alice had always loved him.

When Bella had met Jacob, during a disastrous attempt at surfing, Alice had been there, dragging her by one arm, while Jacob pulled the other, both of them fearful she had managed to drown herself.

The two women had been through it all together.

Eventually so had Rosalie, who was Alice's cousin, and had been immediately accepted as part of the group for that fact alone, gradually becoming important in her own right, the only one of them who would fight tooth and nail to have her way. At the same time she would barge through anyone making any attempt to hurt a friend. She was pig headed, and vain, but unfailingly loyal and caring.

However, not someone Bella could express her misery to.

Alice, though. She never questioned.

"I miss him so much, Ali," Bella sobbed softly. "If only you could have met him. You would have loved him too."

Alice crossed the room quickly, wrapped her arms around her friend. "I bet you're right."

"It's so unfair, Ali. He was a good man…" Bella sobbed uncontrollably into her friend's shoulder.

"It always is the good ones."

Bella's sobs intensified. "I can't keep going, Alice. I just can't."

Alice pulled away from her friend sharply. "I know it's raw, Bella, but you have to. How will you ever find something like that again, if you don't let yourself try?"

Bella nodded, miserable. "But it hurts so much, Alice."

"I know, honey." Alice wrapped her arms around her friend again. "I'm here. You'll be alright."

With one final squeeze, Alice stepped away. "We should go. You will probably want to sleep."

Bella nodded. "Sleep would be good."

She said goodbye to her friends and stumbled past her tiny guest room, peering in on Luned, who was fast asleep, her gown hanging over a chair.

Bella walked slowly to her room and stripped off the blue gown. She fingered the material of her shift underneath, the only tangible thing she had brought back with her, before removing that too and carrying it into bed. She slept in her underwear, the ones Edward had loved so much, and pressed her face to her shift and the lingering scent of 12th century England.

She woke in the night, her face wet with tears, to find Luned curled up at the end of her bed, her face streaked with evidence of her own agony.

In that moment, Bella's grief lightened slightly, a burden shared and all that.

She fell back into a deep sleep, filled with green eyes that danced.

* * * * *

"I'm taking you to Forks," Bella said, pouring cereal into two bowls for herself and Luned.

"Forks?" Luned looked skeptical, both at the idea of 'Forks' and the food Bella was preparing.

"Yep. Where I grew up. I think you need some green as much as I do, and there is nowhere I know of that is as green as Forks." She slid a bowl towards Luned, who stared in distaste at the contents.

"Are you certain this is safe to eat, my lady?"

"It's Cheerios, Luned. No one died from eating Cheerios."

The other woman looked doubtful, but raised her hand to grab some anyway.

"Gee, Luned, I remember seeing spoons in your time."

The maid flushed, accepted the spoon Bella was holding out. "I was not sure they were the same, things are so different here—"

"Don't worry, we still use spoons."

"It is easier, I am sure, than those sticks we ate with last night."

Bella sniggered. "Chopsticks take some getting used to."

"Clearly," Luned frowned.

"Anyway," said Bella, rinsing out her bowl and laying it on the dish drainer, "before we can go to Forks, you need something other than that dress." She indicated the brown dress Luned had put on again this morning.

"Something like these would be good." She nodded down at her jeans. "I think you'll like them."

"But won't I look…" Luned flushed again. "Like a common whore?" she said in a quiet rush.

"Is that how I look to you?"

"Well, ah…"

Bella giggled. "Luned, you will look like a normal modern woman. Stop worrying so much."

Luned still looked wary.

"Come on, let's go shopping. I'll bet that's an experience you'll love."

Thirty minutes later the women left, Luned still in her gown as she had refused to accept anything Bella had shoved her way. "Not until you prove it is normal," she had insisted.

As they left the apartment building, dark eyes watched their every move, and quiet footsteps followed them on their way.

Okay, I'm sure a lot of you are scratching your head, going 'where's all the action from A Faire To Remember'? It will come, it just feels important that Bella and Luned are given time to adjust...

These early chapters are background, setting the scene.

Then the fun will begin, I promise =)