Bella Pov

Bella took a deep breath and considered the mess she was in. "I can't answer that question easily, quickly." She glanced around the room until she found the clock. "Definitely not a twenty minute conversation."

"How long do you think you need?" Alice asked her and Bella grimaced.

"Until you actually believe me, maybe years." She could hear the whine in her voice and hated that. She struggled to rein that in, "I've never told anyone, no one would believe me."

"I think you'll find we're a bit more open minded. It isn't like this is all new to us." Rosalie spoke softly, gently, and gave a meaningful glance over at Alice as if she were an example. Bella knew her secret would be more complicated than Alice having a power, and perhaps even vampires wouldn't believe her.

"We don't have the time." Bella tried again to stall, to give herself time to think about how to even broach this topic. How much should she say? How could she explain knowing what she shouldn't know? She needed to keep the fact she already knew vampires existed to herself, and it would take so much work to edit that part out. "Charlie let me come over on a school night and I don't want to make him regret it." When in doubt, hide behind daddy, she thought with some disgust at herself.

"Bella, could you really focus if we went to school now?" Alice asked her flatly. "We need to talk, and nothing else is more important right now." Bella closed her eyes slowly and tried to calm her nerves. She wasn't getting out of this and she had no idea what to say. "We could have Esme call him. It wouldn't even be lying to say you needed to catch up on sleep, that you hadn't been well."

"You can trust us." Rosalie spoke softly, her hand moving to rest on Bella's shoulder.

Bella had to open her eyes and face the blonde vampire. "Okay." Bella nodded, but even she would love to know what she was going to say, it would make it easier to start. "If Charlie is okay with my skipping I guess we can do it today." She still held out hope he'd put his foot down, not a lot of hope, but some.

Alice slipped out of the room, as if she had to tell Esme to call. They wanted her secrets and they were still protecting their own. Bella would try and help them do that, or at least help them believe they were able to do that. At this point she preserved that 'ignorance' just for them, to make them feel safe, and in a way to keep them safe. Both would hopefully keep them around, Bella didn't want to lose them.

"Did you want the others to be here?" Rosalie asked while they waited for the phone call to be done.

"I don't mind what they know, but," Bella took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves some. "I don't think I can do this with a million questions coming at me from everywhere." Her voice cracked and Rosalie gave her a concerned look, before pulling her into a hug. The scent of the vampire helped to calm her. Rosalie's body gave off no heat, something that Bella used to notice much more when she first started being near vampires, but now that coolness was comforting was comforting to her, not just odd.

"That's fine, if that's what you need." Rosalie told her gently. "It'll just be the three of us." And the vampires hiding in the shadows, Bella thought to herself, but if they were hiding they couldn't mess up her concentration with questions.

"All set." Alice said as she slipped back into the room. She smiled victoriously. "Esme told him you fell asleep early and slept all night, but that you'd been so run down she was worried about you. He says you can stay and finish sleeping." Bella almost asked if she could go back to bed then, but knew better. She wasn't the teenager she looked like and those stalling techniques wouldn't work anyhow.

She was out of time and they stood around the dining table for a tense moment before Bella just sagged, and then took a seat, not looking at either of her friends. They were going to think she was crazy if she didn't share enough, but if she shared too much they might leave. She wasn't stupid, she knew that they were going to leave her at some point, but she was in no rush to see that happen. If she told them she knew, they might leave, or maybe it would be all that was needed to make them stay. It was too high of stakes, and she didn't like gambling.

Alice moved to sit across from her and Rosalie at the head of the table. They were close, they looked like they were waiting and Alice looked determined. Bella raised her hands and ran them through her hair, tugging a little, causing some pain and trying to kick start her brain, because it just wasn't working fast enough.

Faced with the real possibility of losing them, the Bella in the New Moon book didn't seen quite as pathetic to her. Of course, that Bella wasn't as close to as many vampires as this Bella was. That Bella was all about Edward, with some pain left over for the others, but this Bella never loved easily and she hadn't even noticed herself becoming so invested in the Cullens. She hadn't planned that, but she hadn't fought it when she noticed it was happening. She was so relieved to be happy for a change, and now it felt like her life was about to fall completely apart, and somehow it was worse than her death.

"I wish we could give you the time you need." Alice spoke softly, gently and there was a hint of her regret. "You don't even know what you're going to do or say, I know you're scared." Alice gently turned Bella to stare into her eyes. "If there wasn't an urgent need I wouldn't push you, but Bella," Alice shook her head.

"Don't threaten her." Rosalie spoke up quickly.

"She needs to know why she needs to talk now." Alice spoke and Bella felt like her heart stuttered in her chest as she realized this was it, someone was pushing the family to leave and this was the one chance she had to try and keep them. It had come early, but she was given a chance to try and stop it.

"What do you want to know?" Bella whispered and she swallowed hard, because she was starting to feel a little sick. Her words stopped the vampire stare down happening at the table. Apparently she didn't look well, because Rosalie reached out to take one of Bella's hands.

"First, just explain your powers." Alice spoke softly. Bella had to force herself to ignore where the others might be. For all she knew they were packing, and that thought made her a little sick. How fast was this going to be if they left her? Would she ever see them again after today?

"Oh God." Explain her powers? Like that was easy? Alice thought she knew things, she had no idea what was really going on. Bella couldn't sit here and talk about a mental shield, it was her power but it had nothing to do with any of this. No, it all came back to one thing, it always came back to that. "It's so confusing, it makes no sense. I didn't even want to believe it."

"The doctors don't know what really happened to me last summer." Bella knew she had to start there, but she wasn't sure how to prove a single word she said. "Yes, there was an accident, and I woke up by the side of the pool confused. It isn't amnesia though, but I couldn't tell them the truth or I'd be locked up forever."

"I already promised you that I wouldn't let anyone lock you up." Alice told her gently, but Bella could see the confusion in her eyes. Apparently Bella wasn't making decisions, she had no idea what she was doing and so Alice was going to be really surprised.

Bella took a deep breath and stared into Alice's eyes. She was offering protection, which was sweet, but this was bigger than anything Bella ever considered sharing before. "This is going to get pretty far into the supernatural. Most people would say I was crazy." She warned them both, glancing at Rosalie as she finished saying it. Rosalie looked cautious now.

"This is not my body." Bella lowered a fist onto the table as she said that, her nails digging into her skin, and she stared at her own fist rather than see the looks she was sure she was getting. "I'm not Charlie's daughter." She took a shaky breath and ignored how the two vampires at the table were frozen like stone. "Reincarnation isn't just a fun thing to consider, something to debate. I died and they screwed up the paperwork in the afterlife, because they put me in here with all my memories still attached. They gave me the body of a fifteen year old girl."

Her words had been getting louder and Bella took a deep breath to try and calm down. "This is not my body. When I told the first doctor I could see that was a mistake, I learned to just shut up about it. Just hide it." Bella looked up and she could feel tears traveling down her face. Alice's eyes were wide and Rosalie had a hand over her mouth as she stared at her. "They lock people away who say they are someone else like this, but it's true. I couldn't even die right. Who fucks up on a reincarnation? How the hell?" Bella just shook her head, words she never risked saying out loud finally out there for her to hear it as well. She ran her right hand through her hair until it just sat on top of her head and she stared at the table, because the vampires were like statues. They all sat in silence for a while.

"I'm not claiming to be anyone famous, I'm not Napoleon." Bella continued more quietly. "I was just a regular person, nothing unusual, nothing extraordinary. I don't know why this happened to me. I was far from the only one that died in that accident, I watched them all fall before me. I don't know why I was given this chance. I don't even know what to do with it. I'm trying, though, I am trying." She could see some confusion in Rosalie and Alice's eyes and realized they didn't know how she died. Bella had left that out.

"My death was a surprise. I'd been having a great day up until that moment. My boss had hinted that there might be a promotion on the way, that I should prepare for it. I had been saving for years and I'd found the perfect house. I'd put in an offer that morning, and I was a little late to work because of it. I left work late, making up my hours, because I'd need every dime I could get to close on a house. I should have already been home, but I wasn't. The bridge collapsed, and so many cars fell into the water, so many. I tried to stop my car, I held the brakes as hard as I could, but mine went over the edge too. I don't remember actually dying, but that drop was very far and I'm sure I died on impact. I didn't get a chance to drown." Bella's words cracked and she shoved a fist hard into her mouth to try and muffle the whine of pain she could hear coming from her lips.

"aww, shhh," Rosalie whispered and pulled her into a hug. Bella hadn't even seen the vampire move, but now she was being pressed up against her stomach as Rosalie stood by her and hugged her while Bella was seated. Bella gripped hard at Rosalie, unconcerned with hurting her, she wouldn't be able to anyhow, and Bella buried her face into Rosalie's stomach as she tried to stop the sobs that just weren't ready to stop. Rosalie ran her hand over Bella's back soothingly.

"It's going to be okay Bella. Just breath, that's it, just breath." Rosalie whispered. When Bella was finally down to just sniffling, Rosalie's hand was moving in small circles on her back. Bella pulled away reluctantly and when she turned to see if Alice was still there, she saw the table had become occupied while she was crying. Esme looked like she could barely keep herself from pulling Bella into her own arms, and Emmett looked so helpless as he stared at her. Alice had her head buried in Jasper's shoulder and Bella felt unsure what she should do or say to the vampires waiting for something from her. Carlisle leaned forward just a little, but then clearly changed his mind, because he just shut his mouth.

"I see why you had those nightmares now." Emmett spoke up and a few vampires gave him a dark look, but Bella smiled just a little. It seemed like he believed her, she had wondered if they even would.

"If they were going to screw it up, they could have screwed it up even more. I got lucky, I know I did." Bella struggled with something to say that wouldn't make her cry. "But I could have done without having to repeat three years of high school."

Emmett chuckled politely at her attempt at humor, and Rosalie patted her hand on Bella's shoulder before moving to sit in the chair right beside her. Rose moved that chair closer, so Bella could feel her close by and it did kind of help with Bella's nerves.

"This is so big, how did I not know?" Alice whispered and Bella could see Alice was stunned. That vampire probably wasn't surprised often. "How did you keep this a secret?"

"I knew better than to ever say anything about it. I was never going to say anything, ever, about it. How could you know when I was so determined never to let anyone know? They called it amnesia, and it was the only way I was able to slip into this new life somewhat normally. No one expected me to know anything, it helped." Bella sighed and risked glancing around at everyone again, trying to gauge how her secret was being taken. It was a little hard to judge based on expressions that could be sympathy of what she went through or sympathy for her break with reality. "I'll admit that I made decisions to never, ever share my secrets so that you'd never see them Alice. I knew that was the only way to keep them secret." Alice looked like she thought she'd fail miserably at not knowing any of this had happened, and Bella had to step in and explain. She didn't like the defeated look in Alice's eyes.

"And this is why you never even considered talking about your problems to ease your nightmares." Esme spoke softly, slowly. Bella nodded, it was a huge part of that. "Oh Bella." It was a breathy sound of regret and Bella struggled to not tear up when she heard it.

"How do you know so much about Alice? Did you know her before?" Carlisle asked softly after the pause of silence. Bella felt her heart sink as she found she wasn't ready for these questions. How much truth was really necessary?