Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe.

A/N: I am truly humbled by the response you guys have given the story so early on. I cannot tell you how much it means to me. No long speech here, just a very heart felt "thank you" to all the EC groupies.

I think there was a certain someone that some of you were mad that we didn't get to see in the first 2 chapters. Let's see if this makes you a lil' happier.

See ya at the bottom.

Chapter 3-Home Sweet Home

BPOV

"Good lord, B! How many times can you play the same song without getting totally fuckin' sick of it?" Jasper drawled out in his easy twang, bringing my fingers to a halt over the keys.

"If it's so terrible, why don't you just leave, Brother Dearest?" I snarked back to him as I rested my elbow on the ledge of the piano, giving him what I sincerely hoped was a "go to hell" smirk.

"Oh screw you, you know what I mean."

"No, actually I don't know how that statement could be taken any other way," I teased him with a sly grin.

"I'll just leave you to your solitude then, ya little shit," he sniped back, a shit-eating smile plastered on his face. He turned to leave just as the phone on top of the piano began to vibrate.

I truly loved my brother, but damn, what was with him this weekend? He had been on overdrive for three solid days now. And now, his hovering in my studio only minutes after we had returned from his completely unnecessary but still requested hunting trip only confirmed my suspicions.

The Cullen clan had something up their collective sleeves. And the ring leader was none other than…

"Yeah," I asked as I answered the phone, Claire de Lune still playing twenty years later, my fingers automatically playing the same piece on the keys in front of me.

"Hey gorgeous," he purred into ear as I clutched the mobile tightly with my shoulder. Jesus, would I ever quit reacting to his voice like a school girl?

"Hey, sexy."

"Where are you?" he asked with a smile in his voice.

"The studio," I said as I looked around the immaculate gift he'd given me right after we'd moved in.

We hadn't all been in the house more than two weeks when he'd asked me to take a walk with him and check out one of the guest cottages. He had led me slowly to the furthest structure from the house with a secretive grin on his face. I, being a complete pervert, had assumed that this was his idea of a romantic walk that would no doubt end up with both of us naked on the floor of the small house.

My jaw had fallen open when he pushed the door ajar to a completely renovated fully equipped studio. The second floor had been ripped away so that the entire space generated the most amazing acoustics I'd ever heard. He'd had the space split into a small room with a sound board and several digital recording devices and a much larger area for the instruments. The bulk of the space was a sound proofed room completely outfitted with a drum kit, several guitars both acoustic and electric and his baby grand piano from the house in Forks as well as the old upright piano from Seattle. There were multiple microphones wired from the ceiling and hanging above each instrument as well as a sound booth for recording vocals.

It was magnificent and completely overwhelming, by far the most extravagant and appreciated gift he'd ever given me. He had created the perfect space for us to continue playing and recording together. He'd even thought ahead enough to equip the studio with several long leather couches and chairs, a phone line so that we weren't completely cut off from the rest of the world and a small area behind the house with a stone patio that resembled the porch of the club in Atlanta where we'd first reconnected. Only this patio had a large fire pit and small pond with a waterfall designed specifically to relax me. It was the perfect space as far as I was concerned, made that much more so because of the remarkable amount of thought he'd put into it.

Needless to say, we did end up naked on the floor that night.

And many many nights afterwards as we wrote, played, laughed, talked and loved together.

"You guys on the way home?"

"Yeah, we'll be there in an hour or so. When did you and Jasper get back?"

"Two hours ago," I pouted, my irritation with my brother's strange behavior returning. "He didn't even seem that thirsty! I don't know why in the hell we had to go out last night."

"Well, I'm sure he appreciated it," he said with a snide tone of voice. It confirmed that they were up to something. "You need anything from town?"

Yeah right. Like there was anything in town other than a post office for my sisters to retrieve their armies of Federal Express packages. The snort I let out wasn't very loud at all but it was loud enough to disturb the dog curled up on the floor beside my piano bench. He let out a little "woof" of disturbance at the noise and shifted his body slightly. I reached down and lightly ran my fingers through the soft hair on the top of his head. Without opening his eyes, he stretched his head in my direction and nuzzled my hand more forcefully.

"Ha! Town! Right," I laughed as Buddy's wet nose tickled my palm as he attempted to get me to scratch his nose. "That's classic baby, really. Oh! I know. Bring pushed his me a milkshake!"

"Very funny, love. Very funny. Okay baby, we'll see you in a little while. I love you."

I smiled into the phone at his words. All these years later and I still swooned every time he said those three little words. It still seemed like an unimaginably good dream that my life was actually mine. It was everything I'd ever hoped for. With the exception of…

"Uh huh, I love you too," I said quietly as I tried to banish the thought.

I laid the small black phone back on the lid of the piano and brushed my fingers over the keys. My piano had been my most constant source of relief for as long as I could remember. Certainly since I'd been reborn it was second only to Edward in terms of the sheer amount of time I spent with it and my remaining human recollections seemed to indicate that it had been that way for a long time.

I didn't have many memories left prior to the last five years of my human life. I remembered my mother but not any thing specific about her aside from the way she looked sitting on a shore with the sun in her hair. My dad I remembered much more clearly. I could still smell the fragrance of gun oil and sweat and fallen leaves that he always had when he came home from work. I could still see in my mind's eye the way his eyes would squint when he said or heard something he didn't like. And I could vividly remember the way it felt when he'd hugged me, even though I knew that hadn't happened as often as I had wished.

The bulk of my human memories surrounded three people. Edward, of course and my surrogate family the last years I was human.

I sighed as I thought of Chip and then immediately smiled as I thought of JP. I missed them both terribly, if in very different ways. I missed Chip's unconditional acceptance and love. Even after I'd been changed, he'd never once shied away from me or shown me anything but love. Every time I hugged Carlisle or Esme, I thought of my other parent. It wasn't that my new family wasn't enough…God only knew how much I adored them all. I was happier with them than I'd ever imagined I could be. But apparently I was an incredibly selfish person. I wanted it all.

JP on the other hand, I missed because of the "pull no punches" attitude and ridiculous humor he'd brought to my life. He was every bit the brother that Jasper and Emmett were to me. I missed his barking laugh and his bizarre antics that never failed to make me laugh. But above all, I missed the connection that we'd had musically.

My music hadn't been discovered with my introduction to JP but it had absolutely been shaped and honed by it. He was the one that showed me how to pour my emotions and fears and love into the notes. The unspoken conversations we'd had with our instruments were some of my most vivid memories from my past life.

I looked down to see my hands playing of their seemingly own accord. Every time I got lost in missing Chip and JP, I seemed to go to another place in my head. The song I was playing wasn't actually a song at all, just a melody that had been in my head for a long time. But I had never been able to nail down anything other than the basic chords.

Writing with Edward was simply amazing. We had spent countless hours together, both here in the studio and in various rooms we'd set up at our homes over the years. And every experience had been special in its own way, whether because of the song we'd written or the bond that had grown or tightened between us. But the music we wrote together was very different than what I'd written with JP. The subjects were overall much darker but the music itself had a different vibe to it. Not as edgy.

And if I was honest, not as real.

Our life together was simply to wonderful for it to have the honest grit that made my EverClear music so special. It was the same way with playing and performing with EverMore. It was a fabulous way to keep the performer in me alive but not one of our performances ever felt as charged as even the tamest performance I'd given with JP and the rest of the guys.

Edward and I had discussed it several times, usually after sneaking in to see an EverClear show. He never said anything negative about the music I wrote, although deep down he had to agree with me about its authenticity. What he was vocal about was that, in his opinion, the music that EverClear had produced since I'd left wasn't the same as when the original lineup had been in place. According to him, if "Bring Me to Life" or "My Immortal" was the figurative "ten", then the music since I'd left was a seven or eight. It wasn't that he was being negative, and truly he loved the shows as much as I did; it was just that he didn't feel the raw power or limitless potential of the musicians was ever reached.

The jingle of the phone pulled my attention away from my inner monologue. I realized that somewhere lost in my memories, I'd started to play "My Immortal". The incoming text message popped up with a picture of Edward smiling at me from the tiny screen.

Your presence is requested at the main house Beautiful

I grinned back at the digital photo as I picked up the phone and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. I closed the lid on the keys and stepped over the bench. With a quiet look around the room that was my solace from my own mind, I cut the lights and headed for the front door to the cottage.

"Come on, Buddy," I said as I patted my leg.

The sweetheart of a dog looked toward the noise I made and slowly rose from the blanket he was curled up on, stretching first his front legs and then his back much like a cat would. Lord, I had to be the only vampire in history to keep a dog as a pet. But the moment those big brown eyes looked toward me, actually it was four inches away from what he thought he was looking at, and the sound of his pitiful whimper hit my ears, I'd melted. I was completely in love with the little thing. My brothers saw him as a constant source of ridicule and torture but thankfully limited the teasing to me. Emmett had learned the hard way just how protective of the little mutt I was when he'd tried to confuse him by pulling his tail and running the other way. It had taken him three days to convince me to return the fingers I'd ripped from his hand and only then after he'd sworn to never harass Buddy again.

I walked down the path that wound its way around the cottages at a slow pace. The air was clean and fresh, a hint of game in the air. The slight breeze that was blowing mixed the scents into a calming fragrance of home and love.

And diesel?

"What the hell is your Daddy up to Buddy?" I asked, almost expecting him to answer me.

Diesel fuel could only mean that my husband had found yet another vehicle that he just had to have. I chuckled as I made my way through Esme's garden behind the main house, whispering instructions to the dog at my heels on how to avoid the shrubs and trees as we wound our way together through the mass of fall flowers that bloomed as beautifully as a watercolor painting. As we neared the edge of the garden that lead to the path that would wind its way around the side of the house to the wide porch on the front , a scent that had no business being in my nose or my head hit me like a wrecking ball.

"What the…" I said quietly to myself as I sped up.

I rounded the side of the house and stood in the shadow of an ancient oak tree. I scanned the area with wide eyes; nearly afraid of not seeing what I knew logically wouldn't…no, couldn't be there. Edward was standing by the passenger side door of his BMW beaming and Alice was worming her way out of the back seat. And coming up the driveway very slowly was an extremely old bus. I registered my parents and siblings all standing on the covered porch watching as the ancient vehicle rolled the last hundred feet up the gravel.

"Where's my Bitch?" a voice I knew well said from inside the car as the driver's door opened.

I gasped, my had flying to my open mouth, as I watched JP unfold himself out of the car, a large red bow tied on his head. He was smiling a mile wide and had his arms extended out inviting a hug. Only he was looking toward the porch rather than the shadows on the corner of house where I hid.

"Bitch! Get you ass out here!"

I couldn't be seeing him here, at our home only moments after I'd been thinking about him. It simply had to be a figment of my imagination. My eyes immediately found the gentle and vibrant eyes of my husband, even as the fingers that still covered my lips started to tremble. He stared at back at me, a look of pure love coloring his beautiful face.

"Happy birthday, Baby," he whispered as the bus pulled to a stop behind him.

Chapter Notes: Okay guys, so now we have all the players in place. Well, at least most of them. You can imagine that the next chapter is the reunion we've been waiting for.

Has everyone heard the new album? If you take the time to review (and you guys all know that nothing makes me purr louder or edit faster), drop me a line with your opinions.

See ya next week