[Disclaimer] All things Twilight belong to Mrs. Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] Another update of my little Twilight soap opera aka fan fiction, hope you'll enjoy.

This chapter is dedicated to secrets87 for telling me I'm awesome. It really made my crappy day so much better, so thanks a lot for it.

#FAQ#

*Benjamin's uncle Vlad is the brother of his mother, so he's Ali's uncle too. She's going to meet him in one of the next chapters.

*When are Carlisle and Esme going to overcome their stubbornness concerning the relationship between Ali and Bella?

I don't know, but something has to happen about that pretty soon for they're starting to annoy me…

**Chapter 59**

"Grandpa, is my hand broken? She asked him curiously while he studied the radiogram in front of him.

"I don't think so, sweetie." he mumbled, pulling her on his lap.

She looked down at the radiogram on his desk and pointed at it.

"My hand looks funny in the picture."

He chuckled slightly and planted a kiss on her forehead.

"That's because you can see all the bones in it. See there's your thumb and your fingers…and no fracture to see anywhere."

"But my hand still hurts." she stated, biting the fingernails on her left hand nervously.

"It's just sprained pretty badly. How did that happen? Did you fall down or something?"

"No, grandpa, I punched a boy in my class."

"Why did you do that?"

"He was mean to me and I hate him." She told Carlisle, her brown eyes narrowing into tiny slits.

"Lilly, you really shouldn't hit other kids."

Then he turned to me and Ali again.

"Make sure she keeps the brace on. Do you want some painkillers for her?"

I shook my head.

"We have something at home to give her….or we could put some more ice on it. Cooling it will help, I guess."

"Hmm,"

"Grandpa, can I keep the picture of my bones?"

"You can if you promise me not to hit anyone again."

"I promise."

She grabbed the stethoscope that was hanging around his neck and pressed the cold metal against her arm.

"What's that for?"

"Lilly, that's not a toy. It's to hear better what's inside the body."

He put one of the earbuds against the shell of her ear and placed the other end of the stethoscope on her chest.

"That's your heartbeat what you're hearing right now."

"Really?"

He nodded his head and put a wisp of her copper hair behind her ear.

She stood up from his lap and walked around in his office. Carefully she touched several of the books in the wooden shelf with her fingertips before she finally pulled one out and opened it.

"Grandpa, have you read all of these books?"

"Yes, sweetie,"

"I like your books better than daddy's. Yours have pictures in it."

"I know, Lilly."

"When I'm big I want to be a doctor too…"

A wide grin flashed over Carlisle's face while Ali next to me rolled her eyes. I wondered why she was reacting like that.

"But only for dogs," Lilly finished cheerfully.

"For dogs? Lilly, vets aren't real doctors. Don't you want to become a real doctor?"

"Maybe,"

"Don't get your hopes up high, Dad. She's too young to know what she wants to be. When she's older she's probably going to change her mind again."

"You mean like you who decided to waste all your talent with designing dresses?"

"Dad, I'm tired of having this conversation with you over and over again. You need to start accepting the choices I've made for my life."

"I would, if you'd finally choose to do something reasonable."

"Stop talking to her like that." I snarled at him, wrapping my arms around Ali's waist when I realized that her entire body started trembling slightly.

"Don't tell me how to talk to my daughter, Bella."

"Mommy, are you and grandpa angry at each other?"

"No sweetie, we're just talking. Can you, do me a favor and wait for me and your aunt outside the office?"

When the door closed behind her, I took a deep breath through my nose to calm myself down again.

"I know that you don't like the fact that Ali and I are together now."

"That's putting it mildly." he mumbled, running his fingers through his blond hair.

"But I assume that you want to see Lilly again. I mean outside the hospital."

"Of course, I want to see her. She's my only grandchild…well, at least until the twins…,"

"If you want to stay a part of Lilly's life you need to stop blaming Ali for everything that happened in this family."

"I'm not blaming her…"

"Oh yes, you do, Carlisle and I'm tired of it. You only see what you want to see, the mistakes that she made. Well, what you dare to call a mistake. For what you think of as a mistake is the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life."

"Bella, please, you don't have to do that." Ali croaked out and tried to pull me out of the office.

"Yes, I have to. Look, Ali, I hate to see how miserable you are because your parents keep treating you like crap."

I turned to Carlisle again, my voice cold as ice now.

"We're going to stay together, whether you like that or not. I love her and she loves me…"

"What about Edward?"

"What about him? We're divorced now. Maybe we shouldn't have got married in the first place."

"Don't say things like that. He's so miserable about what happened."

"He should be, Carlisle. He should be. Especially about the awful things he said to his sister…I mean half-sister and then he should be sorry that he almost choked me to death. I wonder how he would have explained that to our daughter later."

"Bella, don't be like that. He didn't know what he was doing."

"Don't start with the hearing voices crap again because I don't buy it. You're just trying to make excuses for his behavior."

"No, I'm not. He's sick and he needs help although he doesn't want to acknowledge that."

XXXX

I had just finished cutting the last tomatoes into the salad bowl when the doorbell rang.

"Hi, Bella," Angela greeted me cheerfully and planted a kiss on my left cheek.

"It was so nice of you to invite me and Benjamin over for dinner." She told me as we entered the living room.

"Yeah, it was nice. You practically saved us from spending time with my stupid homophobic uncle."

"He's not that bad. You have to be a little more patient with him. I'm sure he'll get used to it."

"Wishful thinking, Ela…but we're not here to talk about Vlad the entire evening. Where's the little Boxer?"

"Lilly is upstairs, playing with the dog. I can't have him in the kitchen with me while I'm cooking. He keeps begging for food and I can't say no when he looks at me with those puppy eyes."

"I always wanted to have a dog too when I was a kid but my dad didn't allow it no matter how much I asked for it."

Ali chuckled slightly when she saw the expression on his face.

"If I'll have kids, I'm letting them have as many pets as they want to."

"Good luck with that." I mumbled and poured Angela a glass of wine.

"I'm serious, Bella. Animals are good for children. They help them to learn some responsibility."

"Do you want to have kids?" Ali asked him, sipping on the wine in front of her.

"Yes, of course. But it's not easy to do without a woman. Guess you're luckier on that part. All you girls need to do is to find someone who is willing to jizz into a cup…,"

"Yeah, probably." Ali whispered and stood up from her chair to walk into the kitchen to get the lasagna out of the oven.

"Is she okay?" Benjamin asked me when she was out of sight.

"Hmm, yes, just try to cool down on the baby subject."

"Doesn't she want any? She gets along so great with Lilly that I assumed…"

"She wants a baby, but the doctor says that she can't have one because of her heart condition."

"Oh, I see. And you don't want to have another child because you're afraid that it would ruin your great career possibilities in the Clearwater bookstore."

"You're impossible. I can't believe that I'm actually talking about our family plans with you. It's so none of your business."

"Don't take it personal, Bella. He does the same to me and Stefan too."

"Isn't making children the key point of heterosexual relationships?"

She rolled her eyes at that.

"The key point in any relationship is love."

The dog rushed down the stairs, leaving a trail of toilet paper behind him. Jeez, now he was starting to eat that too.

"Fido, come back!"

Lilly entered the living room and I realized that she had small pieces of paper all over her hair.

"Oh mommy, Fido is so stupid. He won't stand still when I tell him to."

"Lilly, what did you do with the dog again?"

"I want to make him a cast but it's not working for he moves around too much."

"Maybe he doesn't want to have a cast?" Benjamin assumed.

"I'm his doctor and if I think he needs a cast he'll get one."

"Oh, I see."

"You can be my assistant if you want to Benjamin." she offered generously.

"What does an assistant do?"

"Everything that I don't want to do…like cleaning up and giving injections,"

"That sounds pretty good and now that I've trained your mommy so well in the bookstore, I can quit my old job and start working for you."

He pulled a few pieces of paper out of her copper hair and she cringed slightly.

"Ouch!"

"Do you want to keep that stuff in your hair?"

"No, but you're not doing it right. My auntie Ali can teach you how to do it properly. She's really good at doing my hair."

Ali walked back into the living room and wiped her hands on the sleeves of her shirt.

"We should eat now as long as our dog is busy getting his cast off of his paw."

"Sweetie, I'll brush your hair out afterwards." she told Lilly as we sat down on the table.

"It'll be easier when everything is dry."

"Benjamin, can help you do it. He's my assistant now."

I filled the plates of the others with lasagna that made my mouth water before I put some salad on my own.

"Is that everything you're going to eat?" Ali asked me suspiciously.

I nodded my head.

"I'm trying to lose some weight for the wedding."

"What for? You know that I like you just the way you are now."

"Yeah, I know that Ali but I'd prefer it not to look like a fat whale wrapped in white silk when we get married."

"Bella, for the last time now, you're not fat and I don't want you to lose weight for the wedding. You're going to look lovely and when you would overcome these ridiculous issues that you have about me not making your dress…,"

"I don't want you to see it beforehand. It needs to be a surprise."

"Bella is actually right. Not about the losing weight thing of course. Crash diets are not really healthy. But about the dress."

"Ela, have you been shopping with this woman? She's always trying to hide her gorgeous curves behind some baggy clothes."

"I'll help her choose a dress for the wedding and don't worry it won't be baggy style."

"Sounds like a plan," I mumbled, taking a sip from my wine.

"Auntie Ali, when I'm going to get married you can do my dress."

"Thank you sweetie,"

"Whom, are you going to marry?" I asked her curiously.

"Jane from my class because everyone does what she wants and I kind of like that,"

"Hmm,"

"But that would mean that I had to see Alec every day and I really don't want that."

"Alec is the boy that you punched, isn't he?"

She nodded her head and frowned.

"I hurt my hand on his hard head."

"Maybe you should see that as a sign not to hit other kids in the future?"

"When I'm marrying Jane, she's going to punch him for me if I ask her to." she stated convincingly.

"What a romantic reason to get married," I whispered into Ali's ear.

She squeezed my hand under the table and started rubbing small circles all over my wrist.

"We can't all be romantics, can we?" she mumbled, blowing a gentle kiss over the back of my hand.

My face felt suddenly a lot warmer and I wondered if the magical-like effect she was having on my body would ever lessen or stay the same for the rest of my life.