A/N: So this is super awkward...this chapter has been sitting in my doc manager for a while and I just realized I forgot to post it. Whoops. My bad.

Chapter 9

"Rosalie! Emmett! Bella!" Alice called, waving her hand excitedly and bouncing up and down next to Jasper's car as the three pulled up in Emmett's jeep. She had a huge smile on her face, and for a second, Bella was sure she almost ended up in a tackle hug with the excited way Alice looked at her the moment Bella exited the jeep. "Wow you're late. For a second there I thought you were skipping."

Bella frowned, clearly confused. "What do you mean? It's still fifteen minutes until the first bell."

Alice sighed in dramatic exasperation, trying her best to ignore the way Rosalie was glaring at her even as she leaned against an uncomfortable Jasper to give him support. "Yes, but Rosalie and Emmett had some business to take care of. Thanks to them, I had to take care of it all by myself–which was a lot harder to do, by the way."

"What? Business?" Bella's brow scrunched as she tilted her head to the side, perplexed, and it was almost enough to distract Rosalie from her ire at Alice. Bella turned to Emmett, the safer of the options for Bella to look in the eyes, and said, "What business is she talking about, Em?"

"Emmett, do you mind taking Bella ahead? I have something to discuss with Alice." Rosalie had no problem with Bella knowing what they had done, but what she did have a problem with was Bella being adorably distracting when she was trying to be angry with Alice and Jasper.

"No prob. With me, Bells!" Emmett threw an arm around Bella's shoulders and started to lead Bella away. Bella went along easily enough, but she still glanced back at Rosalie. Rosalie's expression softened at the clear concern Bella held for her, and she gave Bella a reassuring smile and nod to show everything was okay–a smile that made Bella blush a dark red and her heart stutter in her chest. Rosalie's smile grew even wider at the display, but Bella was too busy ducking her head and pointedly doing her best not to trip up after being stunned to notice.

"You're so cute when you're with her, you know that?"

Alice speaking reminded Rosalie of the task at hand, and she turned on Alice and Jasper with a hiss. "Where the hell were you earlier? We had to deal with Edward and all of his stupidity when we could have used your support! Do you know how upset Esme would be if I had thrown Edward's head in the ocean?"

Alice and Jasper both looked so guilty that it gave Rosalie pause and stopped her from laying in on them even more.

"I'm sorry Rosalie, it's my fault we couldn't help you and Emmett," Jasper admitted, self disgust obvious in his voice.

"No it's not," Alice quickly interjected, taking Jasper's hand. "Jazz, I talked to you about my visions and what else could happen. You weren't the only potential problem." When she looked back over at Rosalie, she found the blonde arching her eyebrows in a clear prompt to continue. "Jasper would have been horribly affected by the volatile emotions if we were there, and in Emmett and your case, your emotions would be so strong and out of control Jasper wouldn't have been able to help calm you guys down anyway. Even if he could control himself, I saw way too many futures where thoughts slipped or words were said that caused way more chaos than if we had stayed out of it." Alice's eyes got wide, adopting that special puppy dog expression that always made it hard for Rosalie to hold her anger toward her, even if she still wanted to. "I'm so sorry Rose. I promise we were just trying to do what was best for you, Emmett, and Bella." She held two papers out toward Rosalie, and at a glance, Rosalie realized they were their new schedules so Rosalie and Emmett would have classes with Bella. "Forgive us?"

Rosalie softened. "Forgiven. For now." She took the new schedules, pleased to find all the changes had been accomplished. With the situation wrapped up as best as it could be, all she wanted was to go find Emmett and her Bella. Yet something made her pause, a twinge of intuition that made her ask, "Is there anything else either of you want to tell me?"

Alice and Jasper exchanged one of those infuriatingly indecipherable looks. Whatever they decided led to Jasper turning to Rosalie and saying, "Bella is experiencing a lot of guilt and confusion. Especially when you're involved."

"I know. Does this mean you know the cause?" It had been plaguing her all morning. Had Rosalie done something? Had Emmett? Was there something else altogether that caused Bella to react in such a way? Her mind had raced over what could be the cause since the moment she had felt Bella's emotional state in the jeep, yet she kept coming up blank.

"It should clear up by tonight," Alice quickly assured her. "Just don't be afraid to press Bella when the time comes even when she's clearly uncomfortable. Oh, and make sure Emmett isn't around when it happens, because Bella won't tell you if he is."

"You can't give me more?" At Rosalie's demand, Alice just shrugged.

"Not this time. Sorry Rose. Everything's going to work out. Well, as long as you don't harass her about it during school, anyway." The seer gave Rosalie a warning look. "Seriously; don't ask her about it in school." Then she took Jasper's hand, and they were gone.

"Perfect, just what I needed," Rosalie growled, only for the bell to ring, signaling that it was time to get to class. Great. Now she would have to wait until lunch to meet up with Bella; the day just kept getting better.

Rosalie kept her ears out for Bella's familiar voice to get her through her first few classes, relishing every word she spoke and sigh that escaped from wherever she was in the building. Even though it helped her get through the first half of the day, it also made Rosalie crave her more and more to the point she was out of her seat and striding down the hall moments before the lunch bell had even rung. Before Bella left her own class, Rosalie was waiting for her; and she wasn't the only one.

"A little desperate there, aren't you?" Rosalie teased lightly as she leaned against the wall opposite from Bella's classroom.

Emmett chuckled before grinning at his best friend. "Like you're one to talk; you got here before me."

"Unlike you, I didn't get to spend enough time with Bella this morning." Rosalie fished out Emmett's new schedule and handed it to him even though he already overheard about the change. The school's policy of having the teachers who taught the class they transferred into sign the slip of paper with their schedule on it was an annoying one, but it was even more aggravating if they didn't get it over with. "Now if you'll excuse me, Bella is about to leave and I want to be the first to greet her."

"Damn, you really are desperate." But Emmett wisely let Rosalie go first despite his own desperation to greet Bella the moment she appeared.

When Bella did leave the classroom, Jessica Stanly was plastered to her side, but quickly peeled off and promised to meet with Bella later the second she felt Rosalie's glare. Bella looked both relieved and confused as the nosey girl's sudden departure, but forgot all about Jessica when her eyes landed on Emmett and Rosalie. A huge smile lit up her face that made Emmett and Rosalie feel like all of their suffering for the majority of the day was worth it.

"Hey! Sorry, if I had known you guys were waiting for me again, I would've hurried up. I hope I didn't make you wait long."

Rosalie was quick to slip her arms around one of Bella's, a small smile once again appearing on her face at Bella's immediate responding blush. "Don't worry, we just got here ourselves," she reassured the brunette as she started to lead Bella toward the cafeteria.

Liar, Emmett thought, but wasn't stupid enough to say it out loud. "We missed you Bells," Emmett said as he threw an arm around Bella's shoulders. "You excited for lunch? I heard today is taco tuesday, and I'm gonna stuff my face so hard–"

"Since when does it take tacos to give you an excuse to stuff your face?" Bella teased back. "Don't forget, you're the boy who ate wet dirt just because I packed it into a ball and claimed it was chocolate."

"Oh?" Rosalie's eyebrow arched at the new tidbit of information; it wasn't a story Emmett had told her before.

"I don't remember that!" Emmett protested. "There's no way that's true; I wasn't really that bad, was I?"

"You were! You definitely–" a loud bang cut her off, cutting Bella's reminiscing short as panic took over. A gunshot. It's dangerous, I need to protect–

Emmett and Rosalie tightened their grips on Bella, using their bodies to block her from the outside world on instinct as they felt her fear rise. They were so wrapped up in their need to protect Bella from whatever scared her that it took them a moment to realize there was no actual threat.

"It's okay Bella. We're safe," Emmett quickly reassured her, but his words only seemed to help so much. She didn't see an eighteen year old Emmett or the cafeteria, but the long hallway of an old house and a little boy she needed to protect. Her gaze was distant as she clutched at Emmett's hand, eyes darting around as if looking for a place to hide him.

Rosalie reached out and touched Bella's cheek, gently turning Bella's face to make the brunette focus on her. Seeing someone outside of her normal nightmares was jarring enough that the vision she once saw started to melt away. Rosalie's voice was soothing as she coaxed Bella further back into reality. "That's it Bella, there we go. Just focus on me." Her smile was that of an angel, golden gaze soft and understanding, as if she were a golden light leading Bella back out of the darkness. "That's my girl. Just like that."

The loud, gunshot like bang happened again, momentarily causing the panic to return, but Rosalie handled it as if she had been dealing with Bella for years. The blonde stroked Bella's face with her thumb, keeping her in the present with that simple touch while keeping Bella's eyes locked on hers. As she worked at calming Bella down, Emmett squeezed Bella's hand once, glaring at what caused the commotion; two metalheads who had decided to hit one of their trays with a drumstick. The scary look on the usually cheerful boy's face was enough to scare both kids into behaving.

Soon, Bella no longer found herself in that hauntingly familiar hallway, and the little boy she could have sworn was holding her hand and shaking like a leaf became Emmett. Around her, things returned to normal. But once Bella was calm enough, embarrassment came flooding like a tidal wave. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…I mean, sorry you had to see–"

Rosalie cut her off. "There's nothing to apologize for. We all have our demons."

After all that, Bella had no doubt that she was falling even more deeply in love with the blonde. Not good. Why can't I help myself around her? Guilt made her throat so tight it was hard for the girl to breathe as she glanced at Emmett. I already have two friends that mean the world to me. Why can't that be enough?

There's that guilt again. Rosalie almost asked her mate where that guilt was coming from when she remembered Alice's words from earlier; Rosalie wasn't supposed to ask Bella about why she was feeling such guilt at school. But god was it hard to keep her mouth shut.

Thankfully Emmett was there to change the subject.

"Hey Bells, you'll never guess what happened. Alice was so sure she was going to fail out of Gym that she begged the teachers to let her switch with me. Went on and on about how her body wasn't built for 'hard labor.' Isn't that hilarious?" Emmett asked with a genuine laugh; although that laugh came from knowing he now got to have a class with Bella for the rest of senior year.

"Huh?"

The confusion on Bella's face didn't deter Emmett in the slightest. "And get this; turns out there was a problem with Rosie's transfer documents from her first year at our last high school. If she didn't switch to Bio Two immediately, she'd be in danger of not being able to graduate. Amazing, huh?"

"I don't really see how…?" Still off kilter from her episode, Bella glanced between Emmett and Rosalie, hoping one of them would explain what Emmett was getting at.

Rosalie sighed. Could her friend have found a more awkward way of bringing up their schedule change? She knew he could lie better than that–apparently just not when it came to Bella. "What Emmett is saying is that I now have Biology II for fifth period, and Emmett now has Gym for last period. He switched with Alice, and I had to switch with my brother Edward." She only just managed to not spit Edward's name out like poison after what he had done last night.

Bella's eyes widened in realization. "Oka…oh. You mean with me." Bella was excited, but with that excitement came concern. She really didn't think it was safe for her to be alone in the same class with Rosalie…especially since she was likely taking Edward's place as her lab partner and desk mate.

Rosalie gave Bella a smile that made the brunette's heart stop. "I look forward to sharing a desk with you, Bella."

Yeah. This wasn't looking good for Bella's heart at all.