Bella understood that Charlie couldn't have both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, it made sense. It still didn't comfort her. Just yesterday she'd sent her scent back to the Cullen house and now she was doing her best to stay in public, crowded places today. At this moment, even that didn't seem safe enough.

She stayed in the coffee shop until the crowd started to die down. She made her way to the next closest store with a good crowd and made her way down aisle of anime dvd's, games, and video game systems. People were getting presents and she could hear a lot of people didn't know what they were looking at. The salespeople were busy interpreting parent's confused ramblings about what game they'd been told was on the list.

Bella made her way down the console aisle trying to find something halfway interesting to look at for a while. She didn't have the money for a system, and almost regretted that at the moment. She needed something to do to on Renee's date nights after all. She'd prefer a job, a way to save up for the move she wanted, but she wasn't going to get that.

A chuckling boy on another aisle distracted her from glaring at the WII in front of her, or more precisely the pricetag on it. "Oh this is too good." He muttered and she shook her head and moved along to find the game aisle. Maybe even a cheap computer game would help her out.

Bella was reading the back of the Diablo 2 game, remembering that she'd liked the Diablo game she had for a while in her own life. It was mindless, simple, and yet she'd played it for hours at a time. An online version might be nice.

"That's old and crappy." A smooth male voice spoke up and Bella froze for a moment, because it was right behind her. "If you want a good online game, try City of Heroes."

She turned, and then had to shift her eyes up, because she was staring directly into a broad chest. Her eyes moved up to find a grinning pale skinned man with short brown hair and yellow eyes. He looked huge. Her eyes blinked, and she glanced around the game store and even without seeing him she should know which vampire would hang out here. They seemed to be lurking everywhere.

"I don't know." She muttered, but he was handing her the box to look at.

"No, see, this is killer here. You play online with other people and you create the hero you want to be." She had no choice but to look at the back panel of the box as he spoke, he was pointing out features he thought were cool. "Or you could play Villians now, I'm working my way through the City of Villians, I got it in October." And now she had another box in her hands.

"This says you need to pay a monthly fee too." She found herself complaining, but it felt surreal. "I don't have a job."

"Just get your parents to buy it for you." He shrugged and smiled at her as if that was all that needed to be done. Renee would just see this as more proof that she wasn't the same and it wouldn't be something she'd support. She might get offers of Ballet lessons if she was bored, she'd gotten that before. Apparently anything old Bella did, even if she did it poorly, was okay to try again. New things not so much.

"That's not as easy as you seem to think it is." Bella sighed and glanced at the side of the box with the pricetag. Hell, she couldn't even afford these games, let alone a fee. They were over fifty dollars, she was looking to spend less than twenty.

Emmett still hadn't introduced himself, but Bella got the feeling he knew who she was. She just couldn't admit the same. She looked up at him to see him looking at her thoughtfully for a moment, before he gave her a boyish grin again. "But if you got one, what would you want to be Heroes or Villians?"

"Well, Villians sounds good. Everyone plays the good guy." Bella allowed, it had sounded interesting when she first heard of the game.

"I know." He smiled and pulled the boxed from her hand, putting them back on the shelf. "I'm playing Major Buttcrack right now." Bella couldn't help it she had to laugh at the name. He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "He has super strength."

Bella shook her head, "Super strength is nice, I guess."

"It is." His smile was slightly mysterious looking, but she knew the joke. "Pansy powers like telepathy aren't any good in City of Villians."

"Probably not." Bella said non-committally, but she was glancing around to make sure Rosalie wasn't lurking in the store as well.

"What, you waiting for someone?" Emmett asked and glanced around as well.

"Ah, no." Bella brought her eyes back to him. "I'm Bella." She had to do it, clearly he wasn't going away.

"I'm Emmett." He told her and she glanced down at the box he still had in his hand. "Oh, my brother broke the controller on the playstation last night. Mom grounded him so I had to go get a new one."

Esme was grounding decades old vampires, that seemed odd and wrong, but Bella just nodded as if it were normal. There was way more to that story, she was sure. She was worried that it was a story she should know, that it was something to do with what she did last night to Carlisle.

"Save your money, Diablo isn't worth the box it's put in." Emmett told her. "You have a PC?"

"My mom does." Bella muttered and he nodded. She watched him head for the register. It was odd, but she guessed it was over. She started to look at the smaller games, the mahjong's, the word games, to see if there was something she could get.

"It's Christmas and everything." Emmett's voice startled her again and her back straightened, before she turned to see him holding out a bag for her. "I got you a card for 6 months free gaming too. Look for Major Buttcrack online, he'll show you around." Emmett glanced out the window and then just smiled at her while shoving the bag into her hand.

He was moving perhaps a little too fast to leave, he didn't wait for a reply or a refusal, but Bella muttered a stunned thank you as she stared at her present. Emmett was obviously up to something, but he didn't have that evil plotting in his eyes that she'd seen in some of the students at her own school. She didn't think he was plotting something mean, or deadly, to her.

She went and sat in the busy diner, nursing a hot tea and reading the box again. With him spending what she determined must be over 75 dollars on this; she would be obligated to play with him. It actually looked like a cool game, she thought as she took another sip of warm tea, trying to counteract the cold. She sat staring at the game, she really needed to figure out what she was going to do with it. It would help if she knew what he was up to. One thing she did wonder was if she could use this game to get a peek into what was happening in the Cullen house. Is that what she needed to be doing? She was really not comfortable with her future depending on people she barely knew, vampires to make it worse.

…..

Emmett POV

Emmett grinned as he made his way to the front door. He'd made sure to return as soon as he left Bella, her scent was fresher that way. "I have a new BFF!" He yelled out as he opened the door. He glanced over to see Alice sitting on the couch again, this time leaning against Jasper while reading. "I do right, she'll play with me?"

Alice gave him a small smile, which was enough to have him pumping his fist in victory. "I have a new BFF!" He yelled out again and finally the family started to congregate towards the living room.

"What have you done Emmett?" Edward hissed out at him once he was close. His eyes had gone darker again, not pitch black but clearly he could smell Bella on him.

"Bella's my new video game buddy." He smiled. He liked that Edward wouldn't like it and from what Carlisle said last night the girl could use some fun.

"You're this excited that a human is going to play with you?" Rosalie's voice came from behind him and he turned to give her a boyish smile.

"She even met me first and Alice says she's gonna play." He liked that, the girl was odd, quiet, but then all humans were when he talked to them. She was going to play though, so she had some guts. He would clearly clobber her in that game once he trained her up.

"I don't think this is a good idea at all." Edward said and turned to look at the others in the room. He did that at times, did his best to be a buzz kill. Emmett turned his eyes to Esme, who was the one Edward was looking at.

"I like it." Esme said and Emmett's grin grew back. "This way if Bella's mother becomes more abusive she might tell someone. She has no friends, no one. This is a lovely idea. Thank you Emmett."

Edward growled and stormed out of the room in anger, but Emmett ignored that when Esme caught his eyes. It wasn't just fun and games anymore, he hadn't expected that.

"I'll help you." Rosalie whispered into his ear. "You've gotten into more than you expected again." He let out a huge breath in relief when she said that. He hadn't really been sure how she'd take this, Bella was a girl after all, but apparently she was a 'young' girl. That made a difference to Rose. Rose's next words proved he was doing alright understanding his wife. "This is your youngest friend yet, she's what, six months old?" They'd filled Rose and Jasper in on why Edward was so tense and Esme was watching him like a hawk when they'd come back from hunting this morning.

"She's still sixteen, even if she doesn't remember fifteen years of that." Alice muttered.

"Sorry." Rose muttered a rare apology.

…

Christmas morning Charlie got his fishing gear and gave Bella a gift card. He'd explained how he didn't know what she'd like and that stuff would be harder to bring back to Arizona rather apologetically, so she made claims to like being able to pick out things herself. She put it in her wallet and hoped that she could get to a mall without Renee, because the woman was too forceful in pressuring Bella in what to wear or buy, and Renee really wouldn't understand the sudden need for warm clothes, because that might be what she needed this money for. She'd save it until she knew for sure.

They'd gone to the Blacks for dinner and to her great relief she was reminded that Billy Black also had two daughters. She stuck close to them and managed to avoid spending any time with Jacob, other than polite requests to pass food over the table during dinner. The girls gave her some odd looks and occasionally tried to say something only to realize Bella wouldn't remember whatever they used to get up to as kids, but it was better dealing with that than dealing with the puppyish looks Jacob sent. It was clear his crush didn't start on that beach in the book and Bella was not pleased, not at all.

She'd have to figure out what she'd do about him if she moved here, but she left it alone for now. No need to start off on a bad foot she thought.

The day after Christmas Charlie had the day off as well and they went and saw another movie, had another dinner at the diner, and for the most part had an okay day.

She went two days without seeing a single vampire, so when she found herself alone at the diner finishing her lunch while Charlie went back to work, she wondered if she was going to make it three days or if she'd bump into one in a bathroom, or somewhere else that made no sense. She was already making her plans of how to stay in public, because if Edward was a problem her best bets were to be in public or to be around someone else in his family.

She went five days, five days with no sign of Edward or the others, and Charlie took her to the airport to return to Phoenix. It was the hardest flight she'd ever taken. She didn't have her answer about Edward, she didn't know what to do, but she needed to come up with something.

…..