Sunrise Sunset
Last time, Hermione had a migraine and stayed home from school, Laurent broke into Bella's room and took a shirt.
Chapter 13
When Hermione woke up from her afternoon nap, she was greeting by three pairs of eyes. She sat up right away, "Bella," she said, "how was school?"
"Eh, same as usual," Bella replied, "how is your head?"
"Better," Hermione said stretching as she sat up, "how long have you been watching me sleep?"
"A little while," Bella said leaning back into the chair she was sitting in, "I wanted to ask you if you noticed anything weird today?"
"I think you left your window open in your room," Hermione said with a worried look, "I heard a noise and went to check but there wasn't anyone there."
"That makes more sense," Bella said with a sigh, "there was someone in my room."
"What!" she all but yelled, "oh Bella, I should have actually gone in and had a better look around."
"It's not your fault Hermione," Bella said waving her off, "it's actually better that you didn't try to investigate. They were able to pick up a trail, the boys are working on it now."
"That's good," Hermione said with a sigh of relief," what did they take?"
"Just one of my T-shirts," Bella said with a huff.
"It could be worse,' Hermione said trying to cheer her up.
"Oh, and how is that," Bella asked in a semi clipped tone, mostly angry that she was going to be on a tighter leash.
"Well, they could have taken something intimate like oh I don't know your underwear or even that dragon that you sleep with at night that you keep tucked under the bed," she said not letting Bella's attitude bother her and raising an eyebrow and sending a crooked smile her way.
Bella barked a laugh, totally surprised that anyone knew about the dragon, "that's a low blow, you should know I sleep with a dragon, you sent him to me for Christmas 3 years ago."
"I did?" Hermione asked dumbfounded, "I totally forgot about it, sparky wasn't it?"
"You don't remember the Dragon?" Bella asked suddenly, of course it all makes sense she forgot about everything magical.
"A little I think," Hermione said rubbing her forehead, "It's a little fuzzy, I remember I think he was blue and gold spotted, and I named him sparkle but you decided that you wanted to name him Sparky."
"Hermione," Bella said in awe, this was good, maybe there was hope for her yet. Bella would have to go through everything that Hermione ever sent her to see if there was anything else that could spark her memory.
"What?" Hermione asked looking perplexed, "did I do something weird again?"
"No, I was just thinking about something else," Bella said trying to change the subject, she really needed someone to confide in about Hermione.
"Are you ok?" Hermione asked concerned.
"Yes, I mean I have Edward to keep me safe so, sure, I'm fine," Bella said trying to find the words to explain, "it's just I hate everyone being worried about me."
"Hey, we are in this together," Hermione said, moving to place her hand on Bella's arm, "everything is going to be ok, I'm sure of it."
"Alice, Rosalie," Hermione said breaking from her cousin to pay attention to the others in the room, "Please thank Esme for sending over the soup."
Bella sighed when she spotted Edward, Jasper and Emmet at the top of the steps, she stopped paying attention to her surrounding and more on Edward. Hermione caught her actions and smiled slightly before turning back to ask Alice a question.
"What about Saturday?" Hemione asked concerned, "surely we can find something to do at home. I promised Emmet another Video game session if he would still like to try and beat me at Mortal Combat."
"Why do we have to stay in?" Bella exclaimed loudly, "I'm tired of having to stay home, I need to go out and do something or I may go insane."
Hermione sighed, why must you be so difficult Bella, how else am I supposed to protect you if you insist in being reckless, this is what Edward heard her say in her thoughts, what she said was completely different. "Oh Bells," Hermione said in her usual tone, smiled, patted Bella on the shoulder, "we'll see what we can come up with."
Edward would have sighed, he sure knew how to pick them, why did she have to be so fearless. Emmet laughed but it was directed at Hermione's attempt to engage him in combat of the mortal variety. Ha-ha get it, combat of the mortal variety!
Edward heard Emmet's comment in his mind and had to shake his head. Emmet was a fun-loving guy, but it was always the simple things that made that boy smile.
"So, you have finally admitted that I am a worthy opponent," Emmet said bounding down the stairs and sitting in the chair adjacent to Hermione and Bella.
"I jury is still out on that on Emmet," Hermione said brightly with a smile, "I do believe that we may never find out unless we have another go at it."
"You're on," Emmet said grabbing her hand gentler than she was expecting and they shook on the agreement.
"Now that we have that settled, we should probably head out," Rosalie said to Hermione with a smile, "we were going to go hunting."
"I am glad you came to visit, and I wish you 'Happy Hunting'," Hermione made quotation marks around the hunting part and winked at Rosalie.
Rosalie laughed, and dragged Emmet towards the door, "We are going to head out as well," Alice said standing up, "Edward is going to stay until Charlie gets home from work. then we will see you in the morning. Please call if you need anything."
"We will," Hermione said standing to walk them to the door, "thank you for coming to check on me and for making sure Bella actually came home today."
"It was our pleasure," Alice said with a sincere smile, "we will see you tomorrow morning."
After everyone but Edward left, Hermione turned around to see them making moon eyes at each other and decided that she needed to leave the room. The rest of the evening passed with minimal activity, Charlie called to say he was going to be late and not to worry about cooking, he was going to stop and bring something home to eat. Only to get a call ten minutes later that Esme would be bringing food over and that they should eat without him.
"I guess Alice saw something," Edward said before turning his attention back to Bella.
…
Hermione laid on her bed looking at the ceiling, she was sure that she could her muffled talking. She concentrated very hard she could hear full sentences. She stood slowly and went to the window; the moon was bright and full. She opened her window and the muffled talking suddenly stopped, what she heard was a bird hooting in the distance.
Hermione leaned onto the windowsill, holding her chin in her hands as she gazed at the full moon. "Hello Mr. Moon," she said in a light voice, "you know from this angle you look very ominous and inviting. If you were able to speak, I wonder what it is you would tell me." She sighed and rubbed her temples, "I really wish that I could remember what it was that I seem to have forgotten."
There was no answer to her inquiry and so she just stood and stared up at the moon. She hummed quietly the nursery rhyme that her mother sung to her when she was little. Lavender's Blue, after she hummed it through, she said good night to the moon and goodnight to those she thought about and to the memories she could not recover and promptly fell asleep.
Just below the window, flattened to the outer wall, stood the vampire that had broken into Bella's room that morning. It was his voice that had brought her to the window in search of the sound. It was his voice she had been looking for. When she started to address the moon, he thought her a little childish, but then she started humming. Her hum sounded soft and sweet and he imagined that she would have a pleasing singing voice.
'Snap out of it!' he screamed in his head, 'you are on a mission to keep watch for those other vampires! Get it together man!" shortly after the girls window closed and he stepped away from the side of the house to look up at the window. She was gone, he could hear her soft snore from where he stood, 'It pays to have good hearing,' he thought changing his thoughts away from the girl.
He was gone before the sun came up.
…
Friday morning dawned cloudy but rain free. Hermione and Bella were awake and downstairs in time to bid Charlie good morning. "How is your head this morning?" Charlie asked pouring cream into his coffee.
"Definitely better," Hermione said with a smile, "I have no idea where it came from."
"Maybe it was the weather," Charlie said shrugging his shoulders, "just take it easy today."
"I will Uncle Charlie," Hermione said sincerely.
Alice picked the girls up as they were leaving the house, and the ride to school was filled with the usual carefree banter. And of course, Bella was bouncing in her seat, "it's Friday," she sang joyously. Hermione and Alice shared a look before they too joined in with Bell's signing about it being Friday.
To Bella's surprise and to Hermione's dismay school went incredibly quickly and then suddenly the last bell rang and it seemed that there was a long weekend ahead of them. Hermione shared a look with Rosalie that could only mean one thing, the feeling of impending doom.
…
…
…
~Saturday around lunch time
Alice sat with a blank stare as she contemplated the information in front of her. Alice and Edward were currently in the kitchen sitting at the table, they had just spent the past few hours going over all the possible situations, Bella was in Carlisle's office talking, about what they had no idea.
When Edward had tried to peek at Carlisle's mind he was gently chastised by Carlisle and was politely asked to find something better to do. So, he went to sit with Hermione and Emmet while Hermione tried very hard to not kick his ass too badly.
"Do you even know the moves?" Edward asked curiously at Emmet, "or do you just mash the keys?"
"Do you think you could do better?" Emmet challenged all but tossing the controller at him, "maybe you can beat her."
"Come on Emmet, you are doing pretty good," Hermione chimed in with a boost of confidence.
"I think it's time to take a break anyway," Emmet said with a laugh.
"Well I guess my thumbs could use a break," Hermione said handing him the controller, "if you don't mind, I think I might play the piano a little."
"Sure, be my guest," Edward said standing up, "I didn't know you could play."
"Oh yes, Mom, taught me all she knew," Hermione said as Edward directed her to where he kept the sheet music. As they talked about music, he forgot to think about Carlisle and Bella.
…
"I understand your concern Bella," Carlisle said with a sigh, "I will be honest with you, I do not look for her to ever remember. It's only been a short time since she has come here, so she still might make some progress, but I don't know what time frame we are looking at."
"It's just very nice to have someone who knows about her," Bella said rubbing her temple, "she says stuff occasionally and I keep forgetting that she has forgotten anything about magic."
"What kinds of things," Carlisle asked gently.
"Well she mentioned the toy dragon I sleep with, but she forgot that she was the one to send it to me," Bella said, "and then there are times where I think she is going to summon something to her only for her to get up and pick it up."
In return he told her about the words spoken to invoke a magical vow, but nothing happened. "It will come back to her hopefully," he had said before there a beautiful sound coming from the other room.
"that doesn't sound like Edwards playing," Carlisle said standing to go look.
"How can you tell?" Bella asked surprised at the observation.
"I don't recognize this as a song that Edward plays often, it sounds almost like a soundtrack from movie or something," Carlisle rationalized, then he reached for the door, to see Hermione sitting at the piano, Edward sitting next to her also playing, no sheet music in sight.
"I think you have met your match Edward," Carlisle laughed, "I don't think I've heard you try to out play anyone before."
'It was just chop sticks," he said with a laugh, "Bella plays it with me all the time."
"So, which of us plays it better?" Bella asked with an eyebrow raised.
"I don't know cousin," Hermione said with a laugh, "come let us show him how it's really done?"
"Oh goodness Hermione, I haven't play piano since we were 8 and we went to that ballet recital and I decided I wanted to be a ballerina," Bella laughed.
"And we all know how well that went," Hermione said with a sly grin.
"Yes, I am a graceless Swan," Bella said with laughing eyes.
~Meanwhile, somewhere in the forest….
"This weekend," The red head said as she paced back and forth by a tree in the forest, "we must do it this weekend.
"What must happen this weekend?" Laurent asked.
"We must capture the human," she replied, mostly to herself than to anyone else.
"Which one?" James asked, his curiosity was peaked now.
"The one that Laurent keeps daydreaming about," Victoria said snidely stopping in her steps and whipping herself around to stare at him.
"Why?" James asked at the same time as Laurent's question of "What?"
"So that her dear sweet delectable treat of a cousin will come and rescue her and then we can eat her," She said in such a confident manner that neither had a chance to object to her, "we can dig around in the girls records and find someplace that only she would know."
"I get where you are going with this," James said with a wicked smile, "So perhaps we can get lover boy over here to see if he can lure her into the woods. I am sure that you can think of something that would draw her attention."
"I see two problems," Laurent said holding up two fingers, "First, she isn't much alone, I don't know that I can lure her anywhere, and those other vamps, are the Cullen's."
"Then you had better come up with something," Victoria snapped at him, "or you can just go it alone."
"I assure you that I would be fine on my own, but are you sure that you want to take on the Cullen's over a couple of girls?" Laurent asked in an annoyed manner.
"If you do not want to be involved then leave, what care I if the other vampires in town are The Cullen's. Former member of the guard, please" Victoria said in a tone that would brook no argument, "Leave the area now and we'll forgive you your indecision and forget that we ever saw you."
"Then, we should finish talking about the plan so that we might come up with a plan B." Laurent said, this signed his death warrant with the Cullen's, however he had to be the one to capture the beautiful creature even if it meant he couldn't keep her.
The three vampires huddled together over a plot of dirt, Victoria made marks in the dirt, and she could be seen with a deranged grin and her red eyes turned to focus sharper on the rogue vampire in her and her mates company.
Laurent waved before he turned to tear thought the forest, he could not hurt the girl, but he did not know if he would be able to save her either.
TBC…
A/N: So, this has been an eventful chapter, we should have a conclusion to Bella's vampire problem next couple chapters. I combined this chapter and the next together. I wanted to cover more than in the first half of the chapter allows so the 3 sets of… mark the next chapter. I want to thank you for sticking with the story, I hope that the plot line has piqued your curiosity. How is the suspense coming along? Do you feel like you might die if I do not conclude the first part of the story next chapter? Review and let me know! I may be persuaded to make the next chapter extra-long for you…