Bella Pov

It was such a little mistake, not even vampire related, and yet Bella saw the potential for disaster easily and quickly after the words left her mouth. It didn't help that the moment of panic she felt had to be obvious, she struggled to calm down, even as she noticed both vampires giving her odd looks. "Charlie apparently comes by here once in a while." She gave what felt like a weak smile. "He also told me we have to visit the bookstore, it's huge."

"Alright." Alice looked at her a little like she was uncertain what to say, but Bella looked out the window at the familiar roads and reminded herself to be lost in this city, to not do that again. Out of the corner of here eye she could see Jasper's lips moving just barely and no sound. Bella sighed and found herself straining to hear what they were saying. It was just not possible to pick it up, but Jasper did give her a suspicious look and Alice had pleading eyes for a moment. Bella had screwed up, and her lie wasn't as convincing when Jasper could feel her nervousness about it. She had no idea how she'd fix this, but she'd have to at some point today. Trying right now might just make it worse. At least Jasper wasn't going to be with them much longer, Bella found him the hardest one to work around.

It was easy enough to find parking, since they were coming at the building from the back. They all got out, even though only Jasper was going into the show. They walked him to the front of the building and Alice talked with him about their plans for the day, before wishing him luck. He wasn't coming back in the BMW with them, apparently they were certain he'd get a car, but then again if he failed that he could always run home.

"So," Alice gave her a smile as they stopped just far enough away to not seem in line to go look at the cars. "There is a very good Saturday market here and there are a few nice stores."

"An arts and crafts market?" She asked and when Alice nodded Bella grinned a little. She did like shopping at booths, you could find a lot of good things for decorating at a good price if you knew what you were doing. "But is anything opened yet." Bella had to ask, even though she knew everything really started up at ten.

"The bookstore you were mentioning would have to be Powell's, it's huge and has used and new books. They are opened, we could start there." Alice then gently took Bella's hand and started to walk them in the right direction. Alice had a hand gently on her arm as well and leaned into her once in a while as they walked. Bella was aware they were getting a few odd looks, because Alice didn't know that her grip wasn't a best friend grip, it was how she would walk with Jasper. Perhaps teenage girls would walk with each other this way as well, fifty years ago or such, but now that 'gay' was in the dictionary they didn't. Bella didn't really care what other people thought of this, Alice was happy and smiling a lot, and it was more than enough reason not to say anything.

The familiar bookstore took up an entire Portland city block. Now Portland had some notoriously short city blocks, but it was still impressive looking. When she'd moved away from Portland, it had been the bookstore she'd missed. "Jasper likes this place too, maybe we'll come back sometime during the summer." Alice spoke and Bella noticed Alice giving her a small smirk. "Now I don't want to spend all day in just one store."

"At least one hour, maybe two?" Bella negotiated with a grin.

"Only if you're actually going to buy something." Alice spoke, but there was little concern about that. Bella was a lot better off than she used to be when her family lived here, Charlie had given her sixty dollars and told her she had to spend it all today. At the time she couldn't believe what she was hearing. It seemed wrong to take it, but she also didn't want to make Alice pay for everything, even though she knew Alice would do it, and she'd do it if it looked like Bella wasn't buying anything.

"I think I'll find a few things." She said in response.

A half hour later Bella wandered around a corner, away from where Alice was trying to find a gift for Jasper, and found herself in the parapsychology shelves. Normally it was just a fanciful idea if she flipped through these books, but looking at the titles now she found herself just staring for a stunned moment. Next to a book about precognition, which with the existence of Alice she knew was real, sat a book on reincarnation. Bella put the few books in her hands down as she studied the spines of the books in front of her.

Okay, every time she'd thought about, or heard about reincarnation, it was about someone who died being reborn as a baby and supposedly having access to memories from before. It was fiction that people never fully let go of. Even some religions subscribed to the idea. Her hand reached out to pull the book to her, but she was a little shaky as she read the first paragraph, which held the definition of reincarnation. It was "The rebirth of a soul or other non-physical aspect of human consciousness in a new physical body after death." It was simple, one sentence. Bella stared at it and finally realized there was a word for what happened to her. It was nothing like she thought it would be, but if she'd been irritated to wake up a teenager, she couldn't imagine how upset she would have been to open her eyes to see a doctor delivering her as a baby.

"Bella?" Alice called out and Bella quickly fumbled to shove that book back on the shelf, as Alice came around the corner. There was a clunk at the book hit the back of the shelf. Bella saw a concerned look on Alice's face as she looked at her and Bella wondered if it was her heart, that was pounding a bit harder now, or a vision that had Alice studying her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Bella was sure she was as pale as a vampire at the moment, because she felt like it. It would have been nice to come to this little epiphany when she was alone. She noticed Alice looking at her hand and Bella glanced at it, while pulling it off the books.

Alice asked softly. "You believe in that stuff? Precognition?" Of course Alice would pick the wrong book, see the one that related to her, and even that was too close.

"I don't see why not. I mean people do that all the time, that ones relatively common." She swallowed and focused on calming down. There were a lot of stories about precog episodes, people sensing loved ones in danger, people getting off the damned plane before it crashed, and she wasn't going to think about Alice as she talked about this, not at all, it might slip out if she did.

"Really? People see the future all the time?" Alice asked with a small smile, but her eyes were a little tense.

"Not everyone, and not all the time, but yeah." Bella wanted to get out of this conversation. "Nostradamus is just the big time guy, but some people just see enough to dodge problems. Haven't you heard about people who change up their daily routine based on a 'feeling' only to find out they would have died if they were on that bridge?" Okay, clearly she couldn't stop thinking about that.

"Okay, that could be precognition or clairvoyance." Alice spoke so matter of factly as she corrected Bella. "If they'd had a 'vision' and saw the bridge collapse and then changed their path it would be precognition, but if it was just a feeling, it could be either,"

This was a conversation way too close to home and Bella felt a nauseous talking about bridges and powers with a vampire as she stood in a body that she'd been 'reborn' into. "I need the bathroom." Bella interrupted and then swallowed hard and put a hand over her mouth as she found she was worse off than she realized. She rushed around the stacks and to the bathroom, she knew where it was and she was grateful to find an opened stall as she lost the junk food she'd eaten on the way into the city.

"Oh my god, Bella." Alice sounded panicked and Bella couldn't respond because she was going for round two. "Carlisle, Bella's throwing up!" Her voice was a little shrill as she said that.

Bella grabbed some toilet paper and wiped her mouth as she was kneeling in front of the toilet. She weakly flushed it. "I'll be fine." She reassured Alice, who was so sweet and just so lost in dealing with this particular aspect of humanity. In seeing what was in her stomach, it wasn't hard to come up with an excuse. "That was just too much sugar for me."

Bella started to tug on her bag, looking for her water to get the nasty taste out of her mouth.

"What do you need?" Alice was by her side in an instant. Her phone was set down on the floor and Bella could see Carlisle's name on it, along with the fact it was an active connection.

"Water." Bella glanced over at her, but made sure not to breathe on Alice. "Really, I'll be fine in a little bit." She then muttered more quietly, thinking about how sensitive Alice's sense of smell was, "Wish I had a toothbrush."

She didn't put the bottle to her lips, not wanting to get the smell on it. She rinsed her mouth out and spit into the toilet. When she went to stand up, Alice helped her, really helped her because that little frame shouldn't have had it that easy. Bella ignored it and went to the sinks to wet a paper towel and wipe off her face. "I'm sorry I scared you. We'll just buy some antacids and walk a little slower for a little while and in a half hour I'll be just fine." That was a rather dramatic way to end an uncomfortable conversation, but it wasn't like she'd planned it that way.

"Carlisle?" Was all Alice said as she picked up the phone, clearly checking if Bella was right. "Oh, okay." Bella sighed and mopped a little sweat off of her chest as she watched Alice in the mirror, putting the phone away. "Where do we get antacid?"

"Convenience store, grocery store, pharmacy, they might even have it here." Bella was starting to feel a bit better. "Gum, I think I want gum too."

"But that has sugar." Alice looked a little guilty and Bella turned to face her.

"This was not your fault." Bella spoke firmly. "I knew it was a bit much when I ate it, I should have saved half for the drive back. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't such a pig." Her excuse was not going to hurt Alice, make her doubt the nice things she's done, Bella was determined about that.

They made their way back to where Alice had left her stack of books and Bella grabbed her stack off the paranormal shelf where she'd put it. It wasn't hard to catch the studying look Alice was giving her, and the books that remained on that shelf, so Bella didn't grab any of the parapsychology books to add to her stack.

They got to the register and Bella watched as Alice looked over the collection of gums and candy, trying to see if they had tums or something like it. "We'll have to stop by another store, on the way to the market." Bella spoke up as she saw there wasn't anything here, but she did grab a gum.

"I'm buying those too." Alice said as she put her own books down to be rung up, pointing to what was in Bella's hand. Bella opened her mouth to protest. "You didn't keep what I bought you this morning, I'm buying you those." Even though Bella told Alice it wasn't her fault, it was clear she needed to do something. Bella sighed and let the little vampire buy her the books as an apology for something she never did wrong.

Alice was extra gentle with her as they got the antacid from a store, and made their way to the Market. Alice also carried all the books in a relatively full bag, and she gave Bella searching looks once in a while that made Bella feel like she'd just proved how very fragile humans were to the little vampire. She'd become something delicate to be taken care of. Bella was going to have to nip that idea in the bud as soon as possible, if it didn't let up, or she'd end up with Alice acting like that ass Edward did in the books, not letting Bella do anything that might hurt her.

Alice started to relax as they were looking at the booths and Bella was grateful for that. "What do you think of this?" Alice held a large scarf up to her neck, and it was colorful and airy.

"Do you have anything that would go with that?" Bella asked and Alice rolled her eyes at her and smirked. "Oh, so do you think you can buy clothes that you don't need that will go with that?" Bella changed her question.

"Of course I can." Alice pretended it was a ridiculous question, while grinning at her.

"I like it for you." Bella finally gave in and Alice smiled and brought it to the vendor to buy.

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, they looked at all the booths, and Bella was stopped from buying booth food by a vampire very afraid of a repeat of the morning. They ate at a restaurant that served what Alice called good food, and apparently by that she meant unlikely to make you throw up. Bella went through great pains making sure Alice could hide her meal, because it was no space needle and Bella had to comment on every outfit people were wearing as they walked by, or something else about them, to create a believable distraction.

They made their way back to the car around three, because Bella was carrying all she could in bags and Alice couldn't carry more without it looking odd. As she stood by the car waiting for her turn at the trunk, Bella glanced around the parking lot distractedly.

"We've been shopping for six hours." Alice spoke up, which drew Bella's attention that it was her turn. She started to tuck bags into the trunk, and she patted the last one into place. "Perhaps that's enough for one day." It took an effort to not let her jaw drop at Alice saying that. Bella turned to look at the little vampire, and noticed the 'humans are fragile" expression Alice was giving her as she studied her back. It was only three, and this was supposed to be a full day out. It would probably disappoint Alice if they left any time before dinner, and did Bella really want to let Alice set the precedent of limiting Bella's activity because she was afraid it was too much?

"Okay, so what else do you want to do? Zoo?" Bella asked, before she thought. Would taking a Cullen to a zoo be like taking a human to a beautiful buffet and not letting them eat? "Anything else?" She added once she realized the zoo would be a horrible idea. "Gallery? Musuem?"

Alice chuckled. "You don't want to go?"

"Well, we drove three hours and it'll be three back, I think we should be here longer than the trip takes." Bella explained with a small smile. Her voice was softer. "I'm having fun with you." The 'with you' earned her a soft shy smile and Bella found her hand taken again as Alice leaned into her.

"Well, this is the land of no taxes, how about we buy a computer and video cameras for our summer class? We'll be starting it in six weeks if we take it, it will give us time to try and learn the software Jasper was telling us about."

"I can't afford," Bella started to say and Alice sighed and shook her head.

"I have a credit card, I can. I'll buy me a computer and a video camera and let you borrow it half the time to learn how to use it. We're going to be partners, this is both our grades." Alice spoke and it made sense. "Do you know much about computers?"

"Some, we need to find the software we need first and see what it requires." Bella moved to the passenger side of the car. "I'm thinking Best Buy."

"Alright, we'll find one." Alice slipped into the driver's seat, but she had to readjust it a comical amount, because Jasper and his long legs were in there last.

Bella helped Alice pick out the right laptop, and it was on sale. She helped her find the software and a good, quality, video camera. From there she had no idea what went wrong, but Alice had her hands on a second laptop.

"I don't want you thinking you have to buy my friendship. I like you a lot, you don't have to throw money at me." Bella spoke quietly, wanting Alice to understand.

"My family is very well off Bella, and the money you're trying to figure out how to earn will take you weeks once you have the job. I blow this kind of money on shoes I only wear once. It would mean more to me to use it to make you happy. I know you need a computer, and these are on sale."

Bella sighed heavily and looked at the laptop in question again. It would clearly mean a lot to Alice, and she needed one. Alice just wanted to help her friend, it was nothing to her and she knew it was something huge to Bella. Alice was her friend, and if she really meant it, then some walls needed to come down. "Okay." She whispered and Alice pulled her into a hug with a huge smile on her lips.

"I can't wait to tell Emmett you took the computer." Alice teased as they left the store, with the cart. They had two laptops, two video cameras, and a couple hundred dollars in editing software. Bella found some of her earlier nausea was back.

"Oh god, don't start that." Bella's eyes widened as she saw a competition coming. "If Charlie sees me taking gifts left and right I'll be banned from seeing you guys."

Alice faded out on her while they stopped by the car and Bella waited in the Best Buy parking lot for her to come to again. "Oh, that's not right. We have the money."

"And he doesn't want to raise a whore who takes it." Bella explained with a hint of a smile. "It'll look that way if I'm showered with gifts you know, especially if Emmett does it."

"Actually, since you're gay, I would think I'd be the suspicious one." Alice gave her a slow, teasing wink, while she unlocked the back seat.

"I don't know, if Emmett hands over a car I might find gender less important." Bella teased back.

With the price of the laptops in the car, Bella no longer felt like shopping. She didn't want to leave the computers unattended at all, actually. So this time they did get on the freeway to head back towards Washington. "Any idea what I should tell Charlie?" She asked while glancing back at the most expensive present she'd ever gotten, in any life she remembered.

"Once Gay marriage is legal in Washington, I'll make an honest woman of you, but until then you'll just have to be my whore." Alice teased and Bella almost hurt her neck jerking it back to see the little vampire laughing at her.

"Funny very funny, and I'm sure Jasper won't mind that he'll have to wait for polygamy to be legal for his shot?" Bella shook her head and sat back in her seat more normally, since she'd been leaning over to see the boxes.

"Naw, he won't mind living in sin." Alice told her with a nonchalant attitude.

…..