Daybreak

by GhostWriterGertrude

Bella has been without a mate for centuries, content to live with her family and enjoy the company of her human friends. That is, until Edward Masen moves to Forks. Edward and his sister have lived a hard life with a dark past, but from the moment Bella saw him, she knew she was his, and he was hers. Bella and Edward must navigate their own path to love while facing their pasts.

34. Full Moon: Another Party

So yeah, here it is. Sorry for the delay, I'm just not sure how happy I am with my writing which sucks because I can like see it all in my head. On the bright side, this is by far the longest chapter I've ever written. Or maybe that's not a bright side?

Just a quick note: if you're in the US, please make sure to vote. But don't just vote, because that's not enough. Volunteer in your community, get active in local politics and organizing, and make sure you always stand up for what you believe in. Read books, listen to people on the ground, and advocate for your neighbors, both locally and globally.

Also, happy spooky season

It had been hours- they might have even crossed the border over to Idaho by now. But I couldn't find the motivation necessary to move my feet as I solidified into a statue at our front steps.

I had carried Edward to the Jeep before the sun had even risen in the morning. He had barely opened his eyes, and sleepily curled up in the back seat when Emmett pulled away, promising they would be safe and home soon. His hair was getting long, and fell into his face like silk caressing an Adonis. Carlisle was cognizant of human comfort, and had the heat on in the Jeep and the volume of the radio turned down to a soft, dulcet tone so as to not disturb Edward.

It had been a nervous evening. Edward and I were both notably tense, and the silence was pregnant and enduring after we had settled. Edward had laid his clothes for the morning out, and I packed the last of his bags while he showered.

I shifted on the bed, waiting. First, I perched on the end, but that looked too… eager, so I laid down and cushioned my head on the pillow. But I didn't want to imply that he had to go to sleep right away by perhaps pressuring him to lay down with me. It would be smart for him to sleep, considering the early hour Emmett planned on leaving in the morning, but Edward could make his ow decisions.

There was nothing for me to do, though. I didn't have a desk or another place to sit and appear casual in my room, and, though the house was empty but for Carlisle and Esme cocooned in their room, I didn't want to make Edward come and find me in the house.

The door to the bathroom swung open while I was still agonizing over where to position myself, so I quickly compromised on the seemingly least offensive option and sat up on the bed, resting against the headboard and trying to look as casual as possible.

Edward seemed equally unsure. He shuffled over to the bed and rolled in, laying on his side to face me, but didn't say a word. His heart was a steady, if slightly elevated thrumming, and his gaze was cast down on the downy comforter as he fidgeted with the fabric.

"I d-don't h-have to go, if you d-don't want me to," Edward said quietly, breaking the silence.

"What?"

"I j-just mean that I know th-th-that… that being apart…"

"It's difficult," I agreed, scooting closer and rolling over to mirror his position, hand under my head and propping myself up on the pillow. "But I don't think you could not go. Emmett might actually drag you out of here." Edward laughed a velvety chuckle, and I added, "Besides, don't you want to go?"

"It's not that I don't want to go," he sighed, his warm breath fanning across my face as he leaned in to brush his heated fingertips across the apple of my cheek. "I just don't like leaving you."

"I don't like you leaving me," I smiled, holding his hand to my face so his palm cupped my cheek. "But you're going to have a great time. Emmett's been looking forward to this for decades."

"I haven't even been alive for decades," he laughed again, breaking out into my favorite crooked grin that quickly melted into seriousness. "But will you be okay? You can have time alone with Rosalie and Esme, and hunt, and do what you did before me."

I worried by bottom lip, waffling between being dramatically earnest, or keeping it light. In all honesty, what I spent time doing before Edward was drab and sad and isolating, and something I would never be able to return to. Just a few months ago, on a typical weekend I might tag along on a shopping spree with Rose or assist in a surgery with Carlisle, and then a night at the diner with humans.

"I doubt I'll have as much fun as you will, but we'll keep ourselves occupied."

"And Alice?"

"You really don't need to worry," I promised, pressing my index finger softly between his brows to smooth out the wrinkle there. "I'll let her take me shopping sometime this weekend, and we'll watch over her. Keep her safe."

"And you?"

"What?" I hummed, focusing on the softness of his hair through my fingers.

"You'll be safe too, right?"

"Edward," I laughed, pushing playfully on his shoulder, but he didn't budge. There was a stillness in his verdant eyes that pierced in earnest, and I cupped his cheek to hold him close to me. My infex finger nestled perfectly in the soft hollow of his cheekbone, and I traced my thumb along the outer edge of his full bottom lip, the rosy skin a satin heaven. He stretched his hand out to mirror me, placing the pa of his thumb on my lip and gently tugging it from between my teeth, which I hadn't even realized I had been doing. "You don't have to worry about me, either."

"I'm always worried about you."

"Why?" I asked, brushing the silky flyaway hair from his forehead, and with a smile adding, "It's not like I could trip off a cliff or something."

"If you were human, I wouldn't write that off as a possibility."

I groaned and rolled onto my back, my head sinking into the soft pillow. "I tell you the one story I remember and I won't live it down."

"How humiliating. You weren't perfect once five hundred years ago," he teased, then reverted back to his concerns. "It's just… the last time you left, when you came back... Being away from you in a situation like that wasn't easy, sure, but you're not invincible. Even I could feel the marks." My hand drifted to my side, where I could still feel the ghost of his warm touch on my then-fractured ribs. Edward's gaze flickered down to follow my movement, his eyes impossibly darkening to match the palette of an evergreen in the dead of night.

I slid closer to roll him onto his back and hover over him, cupping his face and holding him still to me. I could feel the steady pulse of his blood until his delicate skin, so close that his fragrance was particularly potent. "I promise that I'll be safe, too. I won't put myself in a position like that again."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," he said softly, twirling a lock of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. His pupils dilated and the black almost consumed his irises so only a rim of green was visible, and I could not only hear but feel his heartrate pick up.

The conversation trailed off, and I soon found my tongue in Edward's mouth as his fingers twisted through my hair into the early hours of the morning when he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. We had rolled over some time during our embrace, and Edward slept on me- though I still didn't understand how he could be comfortable. But he slept soundly with his head on the hollow of my collarbone and his chest pressed to my torso, and I had to physically roll him off of me and out of bed so he could shuffle to the bathroom.

He was particularly groggy, as the sun had yet to rise and only the faintest of glows dusted the night sky to signal its approach, and ended up collapsing back in bed once he had changed clothes.

I had kept him up late. It was my fault, not making sure he got to sleep in a timely manner, and no matter how many times I reminded myself of his human constraints, I wasn't adhering to them.

Rather than force him awake, I gently collected him in my arms. He was already in a light sleep again, and his head lolled forward before resting against my shoulder. He wasn't physically heavy of course, but there was a weight to him that was profound. The absolute trust in letting me carry him, the angelic softness of his sleeping face…

I was still warm from his body when I stood in the driveway and watched them leave. Emmett had been anxious to leave, and by the time I had Edward buckled in the backseat and tucked a pillow under his head, Emmett was ready to go. Esme had left to watch Alice after cooking a to-go breakfast and packing a week's worth of meals, which Emmett had loaded into the Jeep, and Rose wished Emmett a quiet goodbye before disappearing into her room. Everything was set and ready. Carlisle promised he would keep Emmett in line as Emmett rolled his eyes and quietly revved the engine, and then they were off.

I found myself cemented in place. There was no need to move, and as the sun rose through the hazy clouds the warmth seeped from my skin until only Edward's scent lingered on my clothes. The seconds ticked into minutes, which turned to hours, and the longer I stood in the steady rain, the closer I was to Edward coming home.

But no matter when they came home, it wouldn't be soon enough, and suddenly five hundred years seemed to be a fleeting moment in comparison to the slow eternity of four days.

Rain misted around me, my hair curling into tendrils around my face with the dampness, but still I kept my vigil. I couldn't be affected by any weather- my body was more than durable enough to lay under a blanket of snow in the furthest reaches of a northern tundra, and bask in the pounding heat of a desert sun. There was truly no point in moving.

It was almost a meditative experience. There was an ache in my head and a familiar burn in my throat, and the pressure in my chest was comparable to having my torso crushed by a newborn. But there was almost a clarity to being away from Edward. When I was with him, my senses were overloaded with focus on him. I was acutely aware of every pulse of his heart and the expansion of his lungs with every breath. My olfactory senses were overwhelmed with the heady smell of sunshine and honey and lilac that was uniquely Edward, and I constantly monitored the fluctuations of hormones and blood content to keep track of the state of his health. And most every thought was of coursed consumed by Edward.

The closest thing I could compare it to was inebriation, though I didn't exactly have a reference for that particular experience. But everything was so clear, standing in the steady drizzle of a typically overcast day. My consciousness was expansive, and I not only listened to the scurrying glide of a banded garden spider weaving its silky web and a fawn suckling at the dew collecting on a leaf of a Douglas maple, but I understood it. It was more than the awareness that natural phenomenon were occurring, it was a beautiful symphony of cacophony that I didn't want to isolate down to a single act or species because they were all interwoven and equally important in the delicate balance of life.

I stood still and bore witness to it all. Hundreds of creatures died, and hundreds more were born into this life- each had a purpose for their respective creation and demise. The decomposing bodies of every organism would be recycled back into their environment, and the younglings produced would function in their small niche in the ecosystem.

And even still, I was reminded of Edward everywhere. I could see his hair reflected in the golden glow of sunlight that forced its way through the stubborn clouds, and the complex depth of his eyes in every variation of green in our diverse foliage. His perseverance was in a stubborn ant carrying a heavy seed back to its colony, his selflessness in an unrelated finch protecting the squalling young of a breeding couple from predators in a profound show of altruism, his protectiveness in the wariness of a red fox giving me a wide berth as it travelled with its pup. It was all present here in this lush home of ours.

I hoped he was enjoying himself. The evening was nearing, and with the speed we drove I was sure they had arrived at the park.

We lived in Montana a few decades ago. In the northern reaches near the border of Canada, it was cloudy for much of the year which made it conducive to our lifestyle, and we took trips to Glacier National Park frequently. Much of it was untouched and inaccessible to humans, and in that it was ethereally beautiful. There are so few wild corners of the world left, which means there are so few places we can be ourselves freely and openly.

I knew Emmett would have plenty planned. Travel time would be negligible for them, so Emmett could pop the tent up and start their fun. He wanted to show Edward the wildlife- hopefully limited to herbivores, but knowing my brother that was unlikely. Carlisle would want to take Edward to the peak of a glacier, where the views were unparalleled and panoramic. They could roast marshmallows under a blanket of brilliant stars, and Carlisle would point out the visible constellations while Emmett would try out some of his cheesy scary stories. It would be the perfect boys' weekend, and an ideal test run for my impending departure.

"Are you going to stand out here all night, too?" Rose asked, stepping out of the house. For the first time, I blinked and turned around, breaking my statued state.

"It's a nice night," I shrugged in excuse.

"It's raining," she pointed out, arching a sculpted brow.

"What else do I have to do?"

"It's a Friday night, and we're two attractive young women."

"That's quite the subjective definition of 'young'," I laughed, thinking that if we aged, we would both be physically decrepit. Both luckily and unfortunately, though, we retained the maturity of the age we reached. Rose would also be a surly and conceited teenager, and I an unsure and uncertain twenty-something. Frozen in time and unchanging- Rose found it a curse, but especially now I considered it a blessing. It meant that not only had I found Edward, but we were on relatively common ground.

"If someone like Amun is old, then we're certainly young."

"Well, by that metric…" I trailed off, thinking that literally every being in existence would be young in comparison to the ancient Egyptian vampire.

"Bella," Rose warned, annoyed that I was ignoring her original point.

"I digressed."

"Indeed."

I shook my hair out, water dripping down my clothes from the hours in the rain. If she did want to go out among humans, I would need to shower. "Did you have something in mind?"

"A run?"

I toed my shoes off eagerly and tossed them by the front door so I couldn't wear out the soles, happily surprised by her choice. I had pegged her request for some type of emergence in human life, and I wasn't sure I could muster the energy necessary to blend in at the moment. "Do we have a destination?"

"Wherever the wind takes us?"

"Esme's still with Alice?" I hadn't heard her since Emmett and Rose came back in the early hours of the morning, when she left to assume their post.

"She said she'd watch her as long as she was needed," Rose confirmed, twisting her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and launching forward into the night. I followed after her, pumping my legs with the excess energy I had retained from not moving the entire day. "I think it's very sweet how concerned Edward is about Alice."

I couldn't gauge her tone. Even after all these years, she tended to speak in a monotone that make it difficult to tell if she was being sarcastic or earnest. "Can you blame him?"

"Of course not. It wasn't a criticism, just a comment," she said defensively, looking over at me as we raced through the night. We stopped at a road, then quickly darted across to round over to the coast.

"He's protective of me, too," I said softly, "He kept asking if I would be okay this weekend, and that he would stay if I needed him to. And last night, I had to promise him that I would be safe."

"He does realize you're basically indestructible?" she laughed, crossing in front of me to playfully whip a tree branch at me. I ducked under it and raced after her, not able to keep up at her speed but fast enough that I wasn't left behind.

"He was worried when we went to Seattle, but he knew I was hurt when I came back-"

"That was your own fault," Rose interrupted, rolling her eyes and skidding along the very edges of the cliff bluffs. "You know you can't let a newborn wrap its arms around you, and then you refused to hunt afterwards."

"Both true, but the reality remains. I think seeing me hurt rattled him. And he's incredibly concerned about me leaving." I kicked pebbles over the cliffs, trying to distract from the sharp twinge in my chest from the thought of leaving.

"Do you think he's more concerned about your wellbeing, or about being apart?"

"I'm not sure," I sighed, following behind her. The water below us was dark and the sound of the crushing of the waves as they rolled into the rocks was soothing and melodic. "A combination of both, I'd imagine."

"And what about you? What are you more scared of?"

"After discussing it with Carlisle, I don't know how truly worried about the Volturi I am anymore. I've spent three hundred years keeping a low profile. It should be abundantly clear that I don't pose any threat to them, and I have no intention of using my shield against them in any form." I figured if I kept repeating it, it would eventually be true. I would will it into existence. I wondered if I should find Siobhan before heading to Volterra, and utilize the gift she didn't think she possessed to visualize an outcome and project it into reality.

"So you think you'll be able to just go in, tell them about what happened, and leave?" Rose asked, voice dry and skeptical.

"Do you think it will be more complicated than that?" I was genuinely curious. Rose tended to the negative, but she was generally an excellent judge of character because of her bluntness and skepticism.

"I don't know the Volturi beyond what you and Carlisle have told me," she excused.

"I still value your opinion."

"I just think it was peculiar, how they wanted you to see Aro when we saw them in Seattle. Like, I don't understand why you couldn't have told Jane, and then Aro touches Jane and sees and hears everything she did."

"I'd imagine it's a power play," I sighed deeply again, and Rose slowed to match my pace so we could run alongside one another.

"How so?"

"Having me fly halfway around the world for a five minute conversation that could easily have occurred exactly as you suggested is a display of dominance and control. They want to make sure I understand I still have to obey them," I speculated.

"That does make sense. Was that a common occurrence?"

"What, when I was with them?"

"Yes."

"In one form or another, yes."

Rose pursed her lips, seeing through my avoidance. "What does that mean?"

"What?" I stalled, kicking a rock.

"What are the other forms?"

"I don't think that's applicable."

"Bella…"

"More often than not, displays of power involved wiping a coven out, or more frequently destroying one member in front of their covenmates. But that was only when a crime had been committed."

"You've committed a crime. We all have."

"One the Volturi has no clue about, and never will."

"They'd have no other reason to do anything?"

"Aro and even Caius consider Carlisle to be a good friend. And I was the only vampire I know of that Marcus ever showed an ounce of interest in, which most definitely counts for something. I don't think they would jeopardize that relationship on me."

"So you're relying on good will, then?" Rose asked skeptically.

"It's not 'good will', per se. But Carlisle and I have a lot of friends. If Aro or Caius did something…" I breathed deeply, unnecessarily, "If they decided to get rid of me, it would cause more problems than I think they want. Most of us are nomadic, of course, but putting roots down as we do has led to us maintaining connections to more vampires than the Volturi would want to deal with. It would sew discord, and Aro prefers a genteel, elegant lifestyle to one in which he has to justify a decision or deal with scores of angered vampires."

"What if he doesn't try something outright? What if Felix just sneaks up on you and bam."

"I feel like we've really given you the wrong impression of the Volturi."

"You barely escaped when you left with Carlisle."

"It wasn't an escape. It's just… untraditional for someone to leave the Guard. But Eleazar left as well just a few years after us, and he did so without any gift shielding him from Chelsea the way I did for Carlisle. They're not dictators, and independence and freedom are the most sacred values our kind hold. I don't think the Volturi would risk any sort of backlash just to eliminate someone who clearly intends no threat."

Rose hurdled over a coursing river, launching up and elegantly tumbling on the other side. I pushed off and followed her, skidding to slow down before racing after her again.

The silence stretched on, and we skipped over weaving tributaries and further inland to avoid the coastal Makah reservation. "And what of the separation?" Rose asked finally.

"Now that I am scared of."

"It's going to be difficult," she agreed. "The fact that you're still so chaste is a testament to your control, though."

"But being away from him now is painful," I let a whine slip through in my tone, and my hand made its way to my chest of its own accord.

"It does even out."

"It won't for years."

"Is that the timeline you're working with?"

"I don't want to confine him to a deadline, even mentally." I didn't want to create some sort of timeline in my head and then force myself into disappointment if a setback was to occur. It simply wouldn't be fair to Edward.

"Do you know if he's working through this in therapy? The lack of intimacy is unusual in humans as well, you know."

I contemplated how much to divulge. There were typically no secrets in our home- I knew the sweet nothings they whispered to each other in the throes of passion, the quiet squabbles over minor details, the deep confessions in the dead of night. Edward was more private, though, and I didn't want to reveal anything without his consent. However, Rose was a useful resource, and the only person I could speak freely to who would understand the other side of my other half.

"He hasn't talked much about it in the past few weeks, but I know they were working on what he described to be cognitive therapy and trauma narrative, so he's been gradually recounting abusive events."

Rose nodded contemplatively and skimmed her hand across the water, not quite breaking the surface tension so the water looked like film under her fingertips. "In my experience, that's effective. But so is in vivo exposure."

"It's different to work through this as a human. We've already discussed not going any further until he's ready, and that's something he's working on."

"How could he be working on it, if he's doing it alone. This is a partnership, you know."

I stifled an instinctive growl at the criticism, but I couldn't temper my defense. "You don't know every detail of our relationship, Rosalie. We're working on this together, but some things he needs to conquer on his own first, and I understand that." I thought of that one blissful moment in our kitchen, before he panicked and withdrew. If we could figure out how to isolate the joy and have it exist without the memories, without the flashbacks…

Rose was thoroughly chastised, and seemed genuinely apologetic, though she would never verbalize it. We continued through the night, cutting into the park and rounding over the mountainous terrain.

We found our way to the other side of the state by the time the sun rose again, marking a whole twenty-four hours gone since I had seen Edward.

"It's never not beautiful," Rose said softly, looking over the valley below us. We had only been to the peak of Mount Rainier once before, when we lived in Washington when she and Emmett were both new to this existence. But few things rivalled the view from this height, where the new sun glistened in the soft, omnipresent snow and we could see for miles in all directions.

"One of the most beautiful things in the world," I agreed, digging my feet into the snowbank in the crater. Just below us was a system of ice caves that I had only read about, but they were said to be unparalleled and utterly unique. It was a shame we wouldn't have time to explore them, given that a group of climbers weren't too far from the summit.

"What are some others? Your list of the most beautiful things in the world?"

"Well, that's easy," I scoffed, and at the same time as me, Rose said, "Edward."

We both laughed, the sound reverberating down the slopes below us. "I'm a little obvious, I guess."

"I'm almost offended you didn't say me!"

"Last I checked," I started, scooping up a dense block of ice with my bare foot and sliding it to my hand, "You're taken. I wouldn't want to infringe."

"If you throw that snowball at me, so help me god I will throw you off this mountain," she said with a grin, turning her head and staring directly at the obscured ice in my hand. I chewed on my bottom lip as I weighed my options, but ultimately ended up crushing the ice so it fractured into tiny crystals. With Emmett, a threat like that would be a joke, but Rose was sure to actually follow through, and I didn't quite feel like tumbling down the side of Mount Rainier at five-thirty in the morning.

"Mine are Emmett, a sunrise from a mountaintop and a sunset from a beach, a silk crepe Romain Vionnet dress, the aurora borealis," Rose paused in her list and absentmindedly traced her finger in the snow between us, a soft smile on her scarlet red lips before finishing with, "And Henry."

I had never met the little boy Rose only spoke of on a rare, wistful occasion, but I wasn't surprised that she listed him among the most beautiful things she had ever seen. It was no secret that Rose treasured children above all else, and we all shied from the hypothetical that would result in Rose sacrificing her existence with us to become a human and have a child. But it was always little Henry that she returned back to, with the same dark curls and dimples that drew her to Emmett. She never mentioned it, but I knew that she had left her childhood friend Vera money, and her son Henry soon thereafter. Henry grew up comfortably, and followed in his father's footsteps in becoming a carpenter and leading an entirely normal life- exactly the kind Rose had always longer for herself.

"Should I give a top five as well?" I asked, breaking Rose's melancholy.

"It was top six, if you count a sunrise and sunset as separate moments of beauty."

"Edward, obviously," I started, drawing a genuine smile and an eyeroll from my sister, "Michelangelo's Peità, General Carrera Lake, the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, I'll have to add the northern lights as well, if you don't mind me copying you and," I raised my eyebrows suggestively and slyly added, "Heidi, of course."

"Oh please," Rose scoffed, flicking a shard of ice at me at the suggestion that the Volturi lure could be more beautiful than her. The comparison wasn't clear- they were both certainly the two most beautiful women in existence. But, underneath the ethereal exterior, Rose was more. There was compassion, kindness, empathy, and overall humanity that, though Rose kept it well hidden, was altogether absent in Heidi.

"I am a bit surprised that you picked a Michelangelo piece, given your devotion to da Vinci," Rose wondered aloud."

"If you mention it to Carlisle, I'll drag you back up this mountain to throw you off of it," I threatened with a laugh. "But I can't deny Michelangelo's brilliance, especially with sculpting. And the Pietà is a work of brilliance and," I twisted my fingers together, conjuring the image of a grieving mother cradling her dead child, "one that I can relate to."

"Bella," Rose said softly, the sympathy dripping from her voice, but I waved her embrace away. It was a private grief, the one I had for my long-gone family, much like how Rose rarely mentioned Henry or Vera. The children I had raised, and their children I had left behind when I quietly faked my death, were real and precious, but I couldn't mourn them in perpetuity.

"If you had to watch the sunrise off of one mountain, and the sunset on one beach, for the rest of eternity, where would you pick?" I changed the subject, pushing aside the memories of my human family and listening as Rose intently described a beach at a remote island in the Pacific that she and Emmett had honeymooned on and supposedly had the most beautiful sunset in the world.

Once the nearest group of climbers approached, we descended, debating the best locales to watch the aurora borealis, though we settled in agreement that nothing could rival laying in the arctic tundra of the magnetic north pole in the dead of winter and watching the colors gracefully dance across the sky.

We had made it about halfway down the mountain when Rose skidded to a stop on a rocky bluff. I slowed my run and circled back, keeping my steps light on the snow. Even in the middle of summer, an avalanche was possible, and with such a heavy flow of climbers we were extremely cautious in our movement.

"Check this out," Rose said, snapping off an evergreen at the base of the trunk. It was a small tree, struggling in the oxygen-lite atmosphere, so Rose made quick work of her little project. She pulled it into two pieces and whittled it down to smooth, long boards. She put them on the ground, dug her feet onto the surface of the boards, and I couldn't help but laugh at the optics of my glamour sister in hand-carved skis.

I caught a mischievous glimmer in her golden eyes, and ripped my own small tree from the snowy ground. "You are so on," I said, sanding down the dense wood with my hand until it resembled a snowboard with two divots to anchor my feet on it.

"On my count," Rose said, crouching down as she readied herself to push off. I slid my crude snowboard around and shifted my weight forward, and as Rose began her count, I punched my left foot down and started rocketing down the mountain. Rose yelled behind me, calling me a cheater, but I just laughed in response and let the sloping snow propel me forward.

We flew down the mountainside, weaving around the snow and chasing each other. Rose fell behind, skis being slower than the single board I was on, but she crouched down and dug her hands into the snow to launch her forward, and soon I was scooping snow with my back foot like a skateboard trying to catch up.

In a particularly rocky area, we practiced flips and tricks all the way down until the snow melted and the forestry became dense, in which the already abused boards began to fracture and splinter on the hard ground. One of Rose's skis snapped in half, and she tumbled forward in a graceful summersault, collapsing into a fit of giggles as my board broke at the feet grooves and I also joined her in the dirt.

"I won," she proclaimed, jumping up and flicking each piece of her skis successively in different directions.

"No way, I was winning before we stopped to mess around," I argued, crushing my own broken board and returning the wood to the earth.

"Doesn't matter, I still beat you in the end."

"It's not about the destination, it's about the journey," I quoted the cliché, prompting Rose to shove me in the shoulder.

"Here comes the philosophy," she complained, and as Rose ran from me, I launched into a joking lecture about transcendentalism in the vein of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which seemed particularly apropos given the landscape we were traversing.

The sun was high and shining in the clear blue sky, and the world around us seemed especially beautiful in its untouched glory. The flora was lush and dense, leaves reflecting light and casting an array of verdant shadows in the air, and we followed the banks of a winding river to a small, crashing waterfall.

It reminded me of Nature- not the material definition, but Emerson's essay. "In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, - he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me."

It was not that I was at peace. With Edward hundreds of miles away, and of course the heavier weight of a separation of an unknown length, in addition to all the other anxieties I could entertain, I couldn't be wholly carefree and felicitous. But there was a weight lifted in this world, and a blanket of contentedness embraced me.

We took the long way home, running due west from Mount Rainier to the coast and darting along the bluffs and beaches back north to Forks. Night had fallen by the time we crossed into the Forks town limits, and Rose and I parted ways.

"I'm going to relieve Esme," I told her, and Rose kissed my cheek softly and then departed for home without a word. I veered east and skirted along the main road into town, climbing into trees to hide in the shadows from the evening traffic. I crossed through the brush behind the Swan house and to the edge of the backyard, and called out for Esme. Her scent hung heavy in the air, but she didn't answer, and I could hear only Charlie's steady heartbeat over the sound of a blaring sports program on the television.

I circled the yard and found the freshest trail of Esme's scent, and followed it north along the edge of roads, and within a minute I remembered why Alice wasn't home.

"Hello, dear," Esme called from high up in a towering maple tree. She dropped down gracefully beside me, a few maple leaves weaved into her hair and almost blending with the caramel coloring that I had always privately envied.

"It sounds kind of wild in there," I said, nodding towards the brightly lit two story home at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Dozens of cars were parked on the curb, and even more on the lawn, and groups of teenagers congregated in the front as music blared inside.

"Angela Weber picked Alice up, they've been inside for about an hour but I'm afraid it's difficult to hear what's going on inside through all the chatter and noise. Other than this, everything has been rather routine."

I chewed on my bottom lip and hummed in acknowledgement. I was mildly surprised that Alice had even been invited to this party, much less chosen to attend. As social as she was with me and even my family, she always seemed more out-of-place with the human crowd- a worrying fact I had chosen to ignore. I didn't want to think of the devastation she would experience when, or rather, if, Edward became a vampire and we had to feign his death and disappear.

"I'll watch over her now, if you have anything you need to do," I offered, brushing the leaves from Esme's hair. "I'm sorry to have left you for so long. Rose and I went for a run."

"Where did you girls go?" She asked, not an ounce of resentment in her voice. "Speaking of wildness, your hair looks absolutely untamed," Esme laughed, brushing her fingers through my hair until it settled easily.

"We went to Rainier," I said, then told her of the sunrise at the peak of the volcano and skiing down the mountainside. "I most definitely won," I recounted, "That makeshift snowboard was more ergonomic than two skis, and objectively faster. But Rose is going to tell you she won, I'm sure. She's lying to herself."

"You kids," Esme laughed, shaking her head and dusting the miniscule particles of dirt from her cream cardigan. "Everything is always a competition."

"I'll see you later," I said, and Esme twisted a lock of my hair and tucked it behind my ear in a familiar gesture that reminded me profoundly of Edward, and I tried to dull the pang of longing in my chest as I watched Esme melt into the night.

I jumped in place and landed neatly on the same bough that Esme had been perched on before me. It hadn't rained at all during the day, and the night sky was still clear aside from a few soft clouds drifting along in the gentle wind. I gazed up and tapped my fingers along with the thumping beat of the music from the party, imaging Edward looking up at the same time and seeing the same twinkling stars and the shining glow of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from millions of miles away. We were connected in this, at least, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine that the caressing and warm summer's breeze was Edward's fingers along the planes of my face, and the smell of sunshine lingered in the air and was reminiscent of Edward's scent, though not nearly as complex, the floral and sweet notes absent and leaving me yearning.

I hadn't been sitting there for but an hour before I heard a familiar voice below. I creeped along the branch until I could see through the foliage, and spotted Angela on the front steps. She seemed steady and sober, unlike the clearly inebriated Jessica beside her who was stumbling down the pavement of the driveway. Her too-high heel caught a crack in the concrete, and she almost tripped face first if not for Angela setting her right and holding her up at the elbow as they stumbled to her car. Jessica was slurring and mumbling utter nonsense, and Angela strapped her into the minivan she was driving and drove away.

I scooted as close as I dared and peered below. Esme had said that Alice came with Angela, but Angela was gone and clearly had her hands full while Alice was nowhere to be seen. There was no way that she had left without me noticing, and the party below was getting particularly raucous and rambunctious. Some older teenagers from likely Port Angeles were playing a drinking game in the yard, and quite a few children had found themselves in the grass, purging the alcohol from their systems.

I debated for a few minutes whether to wait, but decided that there was no danger in just checking in. I had been invited, after all.

There was the small matter of attire to attend to. I hadn't been planning on interacting with anyone or being seen by a human, so I was still dressed the way I had been when Rose and I left. The light-wash jeans and muted blue T-shirt weren't inappropriate, but it was a bit casual, and my feet were still bare. I wasn't a thief, but I weighed my options and decided on the best course of action.

It was rare that doors or windows were consistently locked in such a small town. I hedged my bets and guessed that the clearly drunk children wouldn't be particularly observant, and wouldn't notice as I flashed across the yard and scaled the side of the house. The window slid open with ease- as I had guessed, it was unlocked, and the bedroom was empty as it had likely been blocked off from partygoers. I had lucked out, and it was the master bedroom with a closet full of women's clothes. Though a bit large, I found a suitable, plain white blouse with long sleeves that even the owner likely wouldn't recognize, though it was clear that there were no parents in attendance, and slipped on a pair of also too large black boots. I would return both, and I doubted Tyler would notice I was dressed in his mother's clothing.

Rather than climbing back down through the window, I slipped into the hallway and down the stairs and it seemed that I was right. The upstairs was blocked off my some chairs with a sloppily written sign that read Keep Out Or Else, and the entire downstairs was swamped with sweaty teenagers and stunk of alcohol and sweat. I swiftly descended, and quickly swung around the bannister, receiving only two glances and a raised eyebrow from an underclassman who wasn't quite as drunk as his peers.

Even through the sea of grinding bodies pressed against one another and the very pungent odor that was giving me the closest thing to a headache a vampire could experience, it didn't take me long to find Alice, and I was suddenly immensely glad I had come inside. Who knows what would have happened if I didn't.

She was on the couch in the living room, squished between a very drunk Lauren and a stoned Tyler. Her red-rimmed eyes were half-closed and totally glossed over, and her head hung half way until she jolted up, then sagged to the side again to rest on Tyler's shoulder. Her skin was flushed a bright red, her typically purposefully mussed black hair was tangled and sticking up at odd angles in a series of cow licks. Tyler held a joint to her lips, and she sucked in and then quickly coughed out the smoke before lifting her cup and throwing back the mix of liquors inside, forcing a swallow and then coughing more.

"Bella!" Lauren shouted, extending each syllable in her drunkenness. Alice's eyes popped open, her pupils unnaturally dilated to the point they consumed her iris, and her the whites of her eyes were alarmingly bloodshot.

"I knew you would come," she slurred, then leaned forward and tripped off the couch, falling right into my arms. I lifted her up to stand on her feet, but she slumped back into me so I was supporting almost all of her weight.

"Bella," Tyler said, clucking his tongue on the last syllable and smiling lazily. "Did you just get here? There's plenty of beer and stuff in the kitchen. My brother's home from college and bought the good stuff."

I declined with a forced polite smile, trying to conceal my rage. It wasn't fair for me to be angry at all. This was how teenagers behaved- reckless, irresponsible, consuming mind altering substances, though I was quite sure I had never done so myself, and I had assumed Alice was the same.

Alice groaned in my arms, her head rolling back and her skin paling even under the flush from the alcohol. "I need t'go ousside," she slurred, and I knew what was coming.

"Goodnight, everyone," I said, whisking Alice out of the living room and through the kitchen to the back door. I lifted Alice from the elbows and we crossed the threshold to the backyard just in time, as Alice fell forward and immediately vomited.

It was a process I was not unfamiliar with. Especially since meeting Edward, I had been eating human food at an unnatural frequency, and with each meal I had to force the greasy human food back up my throat. But this was different, and certainly more grotesque.

I placed her gently in the dewy grass so she could hold herself up on her hands and knees, and laid my hand on the back of her neck to cool the sweat that had collected there.

It went on for so long I wondered at how tiny Alice could have held so much liquor in her stomach. She was never one to gorge herself on any type of food, it was no wonder so much liquor had caused her to throw up.

"Stay right there, Alice," I told her, though I didn't think she would be capable of crawling five feet away, much less disappearing without me noticing. I stood up and went back to the kitchen to use the phone hanging on the wall next to the refrigerator, letting Esme know I needed her to come pick us up, though I doubted Alice would even notice if I ran her home given the state she was in.

She was laying in the grass, pool of vomit next to her with some of the liquid clinging to the short strands of her dark hair. Her eyes fluttered open, and she rolled onto her back to look up at me. "You look sssssso pretty in this light," she slurred before closing her eyes again.

Esme was smiling kindly as I loaded Alice into the backseat. I had to pick her up off the grass and carry her to the car, though luckily no one was paying attention and if they had been it would have looked as though I was just helping her walk.

"I never thought you would be calling me to pick you up from a high school party, smelling of beer and drugs. Do we need to have a talk?" Esme joked, pulling around the circle of the cul-de-sac the moment my door was shut. Once stopped at the red light at the main intersection in town, she asked, "Am I driving to Charlie Swan's house?"

"No!" Alice exclaimed, eyes still closed as she was sprawled out in the back.

"Alice, you need to go home. It's already late, and I'm sure Charlie's worried about," I told her, turning in my seat to look at my love's sister as she rubbed her face with her small hands.

"Told Charlie I was staying with you tonight. Said it was fine," she mumbled, unbuckling her seatbelt and curling up against the door with her head on the window. Her breaths fell heavy and her heart slowed, and we knew she was soundly sleeping.

Esme looked at me from the corner of her eye. "Did you tell her you were going to the party?"

I shook my head. "I didn't even know she was going to be there. And I declined the invitation when Jessica and Lauren asked me."

It was just another in a string of oddities about Alice, and I couldn't help but wonder. With Edward, I knew he had a keen sense of intuition, which I assumed was due to how he grew up. But Alice went beyond being able to read people, and suddenly I felt I had another reason to worry over the Volturi.

Not only did Edward know, breaking our central law, but the manifestation of knowledge while still human might indicate that Alice would be of particular interest to Aro in his pursuit of power and vampires with exceptional abilities. He had, after all, found Jane and Alec while they were still human, and bent his own rule of changing someone so young to be able to keep them.

Esme called Charlie to let him know that she had picked us up and we were safe at home while I helped Alice from the car and supported her weight as she stumbled up the stairs to my room, where Edward's scent still clung to every surface. I maintained the human façade, feigning weakness while helping her and continuing about the room slowly as I made the bed and helped Alice up into it. She had her eyes firmly shut and was half asleep, but it was better not to risk exposure given her sharp observations.

She slept like the dead- an analogy I don't make lightly, not even stirring when I tried to nudge her awake to drink water and swallow an aspirin. She was most definitely dehydrated, and I didn't envy her humanity in waking up with a hangover, which I had seen depicted in fiction and film often enough to know was horrific.

I was correct in that. I had retreated into the study and was perusing the academic papers Carlisle had left for me, and as I scoffed at one writer's position on the evolution of human fingers as being convergent with apes rather than inherited from a common ancestor, Alice rolled over and out of bed.

I sprung up, and Esme swiftly began preparing a tray of water, Gatorade, and toast to bring up.

"Do you need help?" I asked at the door, pushing it slightly open but closed off enough to give her the semblance of privacy.

"Bathroom," she croaked, voice dry and hoarse. I opened the door and helped her up off the floor where she had been sitting and into the bathroom, where she pulled her jeans off and used the bathroom before I had the chance to leave the room. She pulled her pants up, leaned forward and slid off the toilet and onto her knees to vomit again.

Her blood alcohol content was still far past the legal limit for an adult, and I wondered how many cases of alcohol poisoning might have occurred at that party. I stood with her, brushing her short hair back as she expelled the last semblance of liquid from her stomach, then helped her into the shower to clean up.

After forcing a slice of toast and a glass of water down, she climbed back into my bed, which Esme had changed the sheets on while Alice and I were in the bathroom. The sun was climbing and it seemed like it would be another sunny day- two in a row wasn't exactly usual, but with Alice in the state she was in I wasn't concerned about exposure. I clicked the blackout blinds closed, and it seemed Alice was prepared to sleep the day away.

I rolled her onto her side and covered her with the thick comforter to maintain her body heat, then departed down the stairs.

"Well that was unexpected," Rose commented, emerging from her room for the first time since Esme and I had come home with Alice.

"You're telling me," I sighed, collapsing onto the couch in the library in mental exhaustion.

"I mean, a drunk human, Bella?"

"What, should I have just left her there?"

Rose rolled her eyes resentfully. "No, of course not. But she has a home, she has a bed."

"She would have gotten in trouble, showing up in such a state at the chief of police's doorstep," I defended, closing my eyes and listening to the gentle rhythm of Alice's snores from the floor above.

"That's not your responsibility-"

"Alice is my responsibility," I snapped. "She and Edward shared a womb. And I promised him I would keep her safe. That includes not choking on her own vomit, or dying of alcohol poisoning."

Rose was silent for a minute, twirling a lock of her golden hair on her index finger. "I know I don't know her very well, but she doesn't seem like the type."

I sighed heavily again, trying to expel some of the anxiety that was sitting on my chest. It had been more than two days since I had seen Edward, and it would be another two until I would see him again. "I don't know. She's been different the past few months, since the last couple of weeks of school. Not sleeping well, more quiet than normal, more… isolated."

"But she's so chattery," Rose said, and I could hear the concern creeping into her voice. As cold and closed off as she tried to seem, I knew that Alice had grown on Rose. It was impossible for her to not to- no human had ever just walked right up to Rose and Emmett.

"Yes, but during the schoolyear she made such a point of tagging along when Edward and I would be doing something, and dragging me shopping when we were in Port Angeles. And lately, sure she'll dip into a few shops, but more often than not she just sits in the car and listens to music while we wait for Edward. And she disappears up to her room now, when she used to hang out and watch television with us, or with Charlie."

"Teenagers are especially fickle," Rose offered, though I could tell she also wasn't convinced.

"I guess."

I stayed in the library, flicking through manuscripts and scribbling notes for Carlisle to look over when he returned. Every couple of hours, I flitted upstairs to rouse Alice with another piece of toast and glass of water, and she fell right back to sleep.

It wasn't until the sun was nearly setting, the sky painted with brilliant oranges and pinks in the dusk, that Alice finally got up. She was in the shower again when I went upstairs, and steam billowed out of the bathroom and humidified the air when she emerged in the shorts and baggy T-shirt I had left on the bathroom counter in case she needed a change of clothes. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, and she looked tired with bloodshot eyes, but seemed otherwise healthy.

"I'm never drinking again," she said with resolve, perching on the edge of the bed.

"That didn't seem fun," I agreed. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, now. A bit of a headache, but it doesn't feel like I swallowed battery acid anymore. I'm a little hungry, do you have any food? If not, I could go for a pizza," she pushed up off the bed, and I followed her to the hall and down the stairs as she resumed her normal prattling, "Or something else greasy. I hear that works, the grease. Or Mexican food. At least, that's what I've seen in movies. I thought it would be more like that, you know? Like Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or one of those American Pie movies, just without the sexual objectification of women overall, but someone's mom especially. I can't believe they made three of those movies, by the way. Like, I understand the market for dumb movies, but three? The line has to be drawn somewhere."

While Alice rambled, I called the only pizza shop in town and gave detailed directions for the delivery driver. Esme had left to hunt in the late afternoon, leaving us to our own devices for food, and I didn't much feel like cooking. Alice was more than fine with it, requesting a list of toppings before continuing on with her film critique soliloquy that paused only when the pizza was delivered by a spooked teenage boy.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked softly during a rare pause while Alice chewed on a slice of pizza. I had to consciously mask my disgust at the slimy grease of cheese, and the smell of preserved pork was beyond potent.

"Last night?" she asked, not making eye contact while staring with undue concentration at her plate.

"Yeah."

"I don't know if I can explain it," she started, rubbing her eyebrow and scratching at her hairline, the towel on her head almost coming undone. "I've never done anything like that. Drink, party, let loose. Normal things like that. And I just wanted to experience it, just once."

I smiled in understanding. It was exactly as I had supposed- teenage indiscretion was to blame, and not some sort of psychotic break or instigating event. "You have plenty of time to let loose. One more year of high school and you'll be off to college, right? You can live your best Animal House life," I said reassuringly, warming my palm on my mug of tea before patting her hand.

"Animal House?" Alice asked curiously, tilting her head as she polished off her second slice.

"You've never seen Animal House?" I gasped in mock appall.

"She needs to watch that movie," Rose said, making her presence known from the kitchen.

"Yeah, talk about a cult classic. Does Emmett have the DVD?" I asked, and Rose nodded and disappeared down the stairs to grab the DVD and set up the television. Alice discarded her plate in the sink and bounded after Rose, settling down on the couch with a can of soda while I wrapped up the leftover pizza and cleaned the counter.

Alice was enamored with Animal House, and near-demanded Rose show her her own favorite movie, since Rose had mentioned that Animal House was one of Emmett's. With Heathers on, Rose pulled the towel from Alice's hair and began to plait her hair down into miniscule braids, taking care to be gentle with her sensitive scalp and weave her fingers at a deliberately human pace.

"It's a heatless way to curl your hair," Rose explained, tying off a braid.

"Do you think it'll work? My hair is an absolute disaster- it's why I keep it so short. My mom had to cut it all off when I was a little kid because Edward stuck bubblegum in it, and then… well, she was gone after that and every time I've tried to grow it out it just sticks up in all directions and looks like a complete mess."

"I'm braiding very tightly, and your hair is still a little damp, so I think it should curl," Rose assured when Alice paused for a breath. "Besides, you have the face for short hair. Not everyone can pull that off."

When Esme returned, she called Charlie to check in with him and make sure he was okay with Alice staying another night, and he was more than accommodating. I could hear him from the other side of the phone, quietly telling Esme that he was glad Alice had found friends, and that she probably needed a woman's presence in her life, which Charlie couldn't provide.

Alice lolled to sleep only a few minutes into Esme's favorite, Bringing Up Baby, but we stayed in the living room to watch the rest of the movie. It felt like we were in a teen movie. Alice, Rose and I were curled up on the couch together with me in the middle and a thick woolen blanket over Alice. Rose had tucked her feet to her side and rested her head on my shoulder, and I curled my arm around my sister and enjoyed Esme's soft recitation of each of Katharine Hepburn's lines.

I nudged Alice awake when the credits rolled and followed behind her as she trudged up the stairs and collapsed into bed face-down. I couldn't believe that she had slept as much as she had in the span of a day, but I supposed alcohol could suck the energy from any human, much less one as small as Alice.

She tossed and turned a bit in the early hours of the night, but her sleep wasn't nearly as disturbed as it had been the past few months, and she settled into a deep slumber soon. I lounged on the couch in the office and continued marking the papers Carlisle had left for me, tapping my finger to the beat of Alice's steady breathing.

It was actually a well-researched thesis juxtaposing the intensity and religiosity of Marguerite de Navarre's writings with the bawdiness and crude satire of Rabelais. I was actually chuckling at a particularly uncouth joke when the house phone rang, a quiet trill echoing throughout the house.

It was unusual, getting a phone call at all. Our number was unlisted, and given the late hour it was especially unlikely a telemarketer was calling. It was only our cousins in Denali who had our phone number, and a handful of nomadic friends I didn't think likely to ever call, given that the only interactions they had with humanity were predatory. My questioning was answered when Esme picked up the phone, and Carlisle's clear voice greeted her warmly.

"Is Bella there, dear?" he asked, and I could feel my dead heart squeeze in my chest. I knew Carlisle almost as well as I knew myself. We had spent centuries together, often each other's only companion. The willfully disguised worry in his voice was clear as day to me.

I shot out of the room and darted down the stairs, holding my hand out to Esme for her to give me the sleek black phone.

"What's wrong?" I asked sharply. I had no patience for niceties when I was imaging Edward at the depth of some ravine, or ravaged by some wild animal- or worse, and I hated myself for thinking so, my brother.

"Bella, it's Edward," Carlisle started, and his next words sent an icy chill over my entire body. "Something happened."

I have the next chapter written, but idk. I feel like it's poorly written- more so than usual. I just can't nail the dialogue. So I may just say fuck it and post it in a couple of hours, or I need a few days to mull over what the hell I'm doing wrong. End rant.