Lots of surprised reviews that it was Rosalie who sent the letters. I had been trying to reply to all the reviews, but I'm struggling to keep up with them. If anyone has any specific questions, I will either l reply or address them in my author's notes.

A few people were worried about how Rosalie's actions could have backfired and they are right, they definitely could have especially since she didn't actually know what was in the letters. But I feel that's just a part of Rose's personality. She's not really worried about Bella, she hardly knows her, and even her worry about Edward is rooted more in how it is affecting her and the rest of the family to an extent. She's selfish and essentially her thoughts were 'how much worse can it get'. She also wasn't willing to hurt her own pride by helping Bella too much, which is why she didn't give her their location.


I awoke the next morning and for a few seconds I had no idea where I was. I looked bleary eyed around the strange room, before everything from the previous day came flooding back to me. I lay in the bed, thinking about the best nights sleep I'd had since I left Forks and luxuriating in the fact that there were no strangers shouting or banging doors in the corridor.

Yesterday had been a big day and I had fallen asleep quickly, not even remembering to call Leah before bed. I'm sure she was going mad not knowing what was happening, so I picked up my cell phone and dialled her number, despite the fact that it was still early. She answered on the second ring, so I knew I hadn't woken her.

"Finally!" she exclaimed, "I was waiting for a call last night."

"I know," I said, "I'm sorry. I meant to call you last night before I went to bed but I was so tired."

"So..." she said, "You actually found them?"

"Yeah," I said, "I bumped into Carlisle in the parking lot of one of the hospitals. I went back to the house with him and chatted with the rest of the family. No Edward, though I expected that. I'm not sure finding him is going to be that easy." I quickly caught her up on everything we had talked about last night.

"Rosalie sent the letters?" she gasped, "I thought you said she hated you?"

"That's what I thought," I admitted, "But apparently, she hated what us being apart was doing to her brother and the rest of the family."

"And they don't have any idea where Edward is?" she asked.

"I don't think so," I sighed, "Rosalie said last night that they didn't know where he is, but I didn't ask much about Edward. It was all too overwhelming and I needed a little bit of time before asking outright about him. I think they all understood that as they didn't bring him up much either. No more putting it off today though. Better get up and face the music now."

"You're still there?" she asked.

"Yeah, Esme insisted," I told her, "Besides, it's much nicer here than in that hostel."

I hung up after promising to call her again soon and keep her up to date with everything. I dressed quickly, before steeling myself to head out of my room. I could hear the rest of them moving around the house and when I opened the door the smell of bacon wafted around me. Following the amazing smell to the kitchen, I found Esme at the stove and a large selection of food spread out over the counters.

"Good morning, Esme," I said, "This isn't all for me?"

"Of course it is," she said, bustling around pouring me a cup of coffee and leading me to a seat at the table, "And don't you dare say you're not hungry. I know you can't have been eating properly whilst staying in a hostel."

"Actually, I am starving," I admitted, "Thank you. It all looks amazing."

I ate until I was so full I could barely move, while Esme sat with me and made small talk. She still didn't bring up Edward but I could see the sadness in her eyes that was caused by his absence.

"You really don't know where he is, do you?" I asked, unable to keep myself from asking any longer.

She looked up at me, her eyes filling with tears she could never shed, and slowly shook her head.

"If we knew, I would have gone and dragged him home by the ear," she chuckled once, without humour, "I don't even know why he left. He spent all day and night just lying in his bed, only moving when we dragged him out to hunt. I don't know what eventually made him move to leave."

"He said in his letters that he could see what his depression was doing to the family," I told her, tears welling up in my eyes, "That he was destroying your relationships and you would be better off without him." The tears spilled over and ran down my cheeks, as I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around me and I buried my face in Esme's shoulder, as we both sobbed for him.

When I finally looked up from Esme's shoulder, I realised we had been joined in the kitchen by the five other vampires in the house. Carlisle was standing at Esme's side, his hand on her shoulder, with a look of complete sadness on his face; a look that was mirrored on the other four faces that stared at us.

"Can't you see him?" I asked, looking up into Alice's eyes.

"I've tried. Believe me, I'm constantly trying to see him," she said, her eyes pleading with me to believe her, "He's not making any decisions. When he left the only decision he made was to go hunting. I was so happy he was going of his own accord, but he must have just kept going, without making any conscious decisions."

"I get the odd flash of him," she continued, "but all I can see is him lying in a room somewhere. There's nothing to give away where he might be. Jasper has been keeping an eye on his bank accounts etc. but there has been no activity on them."

"So he's spent no money in the time he's been away?" I said.

"Not necessarily," Jasper commented, "He probably had some cash on him. We usually have a substantial amount of cash on our person, but we also don't really need money. We don't need to eat or drink. We can survive without shelter. We know from Alice's visions that he is in a room of some sort, which he may have rented with cash or he could have broken in somewhere deserted. My bet is on the latter, as I think Alice would have seen him decide to rent somewhere."

"We've checked out all of our properties," Carlisle said, "But there's no sign he's been anywhere near any of them, plus Alice doesn't recognise the room he is in, which leads us to believe he's somewhere completely unknown to us."

My heart sank. If these vampires with their extra abilities and unlimited finances had no idea where Edward was, then I had no chance at all of finding him. My disappointment must have been obvious on my face.

"We won't stop until we find him, Bells," Emmett said, wrapping me up into another one of his bear hugs, "I promise."

"Thanks, Em," I said, breathing in his amazing woody scent, "But, if he doesn't want to be found, then it's going to be impossible and while you guys have eternity to search, I don't have that luxury."

"Do you still want to be like us?" Alice asked, as Rosalie stared daggers at the back of her head.

"I want Edward," I answered simply, "I want an eternity with him, to be his equal. I don't want immortality without him though."

We spent the next hour brainstorming ideas on how to find Edward. The Cullens had already done almost everything there was to find him, all to no avail, so at the end of the hour we didn't really have any new ideas. My heart sank at the thought of never finding him, of him out there in so much pain and me gradually growing older.

Eventually, Carlisle had to leave for work and the rest of the Cullens dispersed through the house. Esme was reading. Rosalie was in the garage tinkering with one of their many cars, Emmett following her to help out. Alice was flicking through fashion magazines, but the look on her face told me that she was still searching through the future for glimpses of Edward. I wandered over to the computer, where Jasper was trawling through websites.

"What are you doing?" I asked him. He turned to look at me, seeming surprised that I was standing next to him, talking to him. Clearly, he thought I might still hold some sort of grudge over the events of my birthday party last year.

"I'm hacking into websites to check if Edward has used any of his ID's anywhere recently," he explained, showing me the website he was currently looking through, "I've been doing this almost every day since he left."

"Wow," I exclaimed, "You can hack into government websites?"

"It's kinda necessary," he said, "We have to remain under the radar. I've taken it on myself to learn everything we need to know in order to make sure that there is no trace of us anywhere online. I need to be able to take down any photos of us that might end up online, even photos linked to our previous driving licences, passports etc. We can't have evidence like that anywhere, so I hack into the systems every so often to wipe photos like that from their databases."

"And using the same websites you can track Edward's ID?" I asked.

"IDs, plural," he said, "We have a few in different names, in case we need to disappear at short notice. I have a guy who sorts us out with everything we need, so I know all the IDs that Edward has so I'm checking for them all. No luck so far though."

"Thank you for trying," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, "I know you aren't doing it just for me, but I really appreciate you looking out for him. I just hope we can find him soon."

"We will keep looking, Bella, I promise," he declared, "At some point, he's gonna do something that catches Alice's attention. As soon as we have any idea where he might be, we'll be there looking for him. And as soon as we find him, I'm gonna knock some sense into him and make sure he never leaves you again."

"Thanks, Jasper," I smiled, putting my arms around him for a quick hug, "I've missed having my big brothers to look out for me."

The next few days passed uneventfully. I enjoyed spending time with the family, even Rosalie was courteous to me, but I really missed Edward. Spending time around his family without him there was hard and I spent a lot of time thinking about how much pain he was in. My heart still hurt a lot without him, but a small part of the hole was healed.

I was just finishing off a delicious lunch that Esme had prepared, since she still wouldn't let me cook for myself, when I got a frantic call from Leah.

"Bella?!" she exclaimed down the phone as soon as I answered.

"What's wrong, Leah?" I asked, worriedly, "Is it Charlie?"

"No, he's fine," she said quickly, "It's that red-headed vampire you told me about."

"Victoria?" I exclaimed, "What about her?" All the vampires in the house had gathered around listening to the conversation with apprehensive expressions on their faces.

"She was in Forks," she said, as my heart quickened in fear, not for myself, but for my family and friends that could be hurt or killed.

"We were out patrolling when came across a vampire scent that we didn't recognise," she continued, "We followed it and saw a red-headed vampire. We tried to catch her but she's crafty and was able to escape, diving into the water where we couldn't follow. Her scent is all over the town though, mainly concentrated around your house." The phone slipped from my fingers, thoughts of Charlie being harmed, or worse, flitting through my head. Carlisle picked up the phone, quickly explaining to Leah who he was and asking her to tell him everything she knew.

As Leah explained everything to Carlisle, I sat with my head in my hands, breathing deeply, trying to calm myself. Victoria had come back for me. If I wasn't there, would she hurt my friends and family instead?

"I have to go back to Forks," I said, standing up, intending to head to my room and start packing immediately. Maybe if I was there when she came back for me, then she would leave my loved ones alone.

"Are you crazy?" Alice yelled, "You can't go back! She knows to look for you there. She has no idea where you are at the minute." All eyes were on me, looking at me like I was insane.

"If I'm there maybe she'll be satisfied and leave my loved ones alone," I cried, "What if she hurts Charlie? Or Leah? Or any of my other friends?"

"We know you're scared, Bella," Carlisle said, putting his arm around my shoulders. He had finished talking to Leah and hung up. "We won't let anything happen to Charlie or anyone else, but we need to think about this. Acting rashly could put you in danger."

"I will not have my daughter in danger," Esme stated, pulling me in for a hug, "You ran away on your own the last time and it didn't help anyone. We will talk this through and make decisions as a family."

Her tone was not to be argued with, so I just leaned into her motherly hug and breathed in her amazing scent that actually helped to calm me down, although I had a feeling Jasper had a hand in that too.

"Let's go into the living room," Carlisle suggested, "We have a lot to talk about."

Once we were all seated in the living room, Esme beside me holding my hand and Jasper nearby, I'm sure to try to keep me calm, Carlisle began to speak.

"Leah explained everything to me, Bella," he said to me before turning to the rest of them, "It seems that the wolves are back."

"You know about the wolves?" I said, surprise lacing my voice.

"They were around when we lived in Forks before," Carlisle explained, "Leah's great grandfather was one of them, I think. We have a treaty with them. We stay off their land and don't feed from humans and they let us be."

"The current wolf pack came across Victoria's scent. They followed her but lost her when she jumped into the water," he continued, "Her scent was all over Forks, but mainly concentrated around Bella's house. Charlie is absolutely fine, Bella, and the wolves are taking care of him. There will be someone outside the house or the station keeping an eye on him at all times."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing that my friends were protecting my father made me feel better, but I still worried about them getting hurt. I knew how strong vampires were and I worried for the wolves' safety.

"Alice, can you see Victoria coming back to Forks?" Jasper asked.

"No, but I didn't see her make a decision to come this time either," Alice complained, "I didn't see Bella deciding to look for us. I don't know what's wrong with me!" Everyone was quiet for a few moments, all wondering about the gaps in Alice's visions and what it could mean.

"Maybe it's the wolves," I suggested, "Every decision I made about looking for you guys, I talked about with Leah. The wolves were involved with Victoria in Forks. Maybe you can't see decisions the wolves are involved in."

"That makes sense," Carlisle said, "You can see vampires because you are one. You can see humans because you were one. You can't see the wolves because they are so unfamiliar to you."

"Great!" Alice groaned, "That's all we need! There's no way you can go back to Forks, Bella. I won't be able to see you there with the wolves. Maybe that's why I haven't really had many visions of you while we've been away. I thought it was because I wasn't really looking for you."

"Leah said the wolves have it covered in Forks," Carlisle said, "They would rather Bella stayed away for her own safety. They aren't all overjoyed that she's here with us, but Leah told them she was safe here with us and they trust her judgement."

"Okay, so we continue as we have been doing," Jasper said, "We stay here with Bella, since Victoria doesn't seem to know where we are. We make sure Bella is always with at least one of us at all times, just in case. We keep trying to find Edward."

Everyone looked at me, waiting to see if I agreed with that. I didn't know what to do. I was worried about the wolves and Charlie, but I knew that last time I had taken off by myself to face James alone, it almost hadn't turned out well. I had to trust that the wolves would keep my family and friends safe and that the Cullens would keep me safe while we looked for Edward.

"Fine," I said, "I'll stay here, but the second anyone gets hurt because of me, I can't promise anything."


I have also had a few reviews talking about how Alice didn't see Bella coming, I hope this chapter has helped with that. One of the hardest things about writing Twilight fan fic is working through how Alice's visions work, so bare with me on that score. It's hard to work out what she will and won't see and i suppose she isn't infallible so she is bound to miss one or two things.

Recommendation:

Nomad by Eibbil

The Cullens are a large clan of vampires living in relative harmony with the wolf pack in the nearby Quileute reservation and the humans in the town of Forks. Until a nomad comes to town and shakes everything up. Vampires, E/B, AU