A/N: For the prompt "love," from the WFN Advent challenge! Also for Lupa_Barnes' challenge, Destroy Dic(tion) December.

Rose confronted Edythe when they left the hospital. "Why did you let her kiss you? It wasn't enough that you almost exposed us, no! You had to go and let her confess feelings for you and kiss you. You couldn't have dodged that?"

In a sense, Rose's confusion actually made this easier. Maybe Carlisle had thought the same thing! Maybe Edythe didn't have to deal with any feelings at all.

As though summoned by her hope, Alice called.

Shit.

"Well, she's a bit late!" Rose said crossly. Then, she said thoughtfully, "How did you resist eating her, anyway?"

"The same way I've been resisting," Edythe said, rolling her eyes. She answered the phone. "Alice, can we talk about this later? In private?"

Alice sighed. "Fine! But only because I can see that's the only way you'll talk to me. I'm waiting, so hurry home!"

She couldn't help but laugh. "Okay. See you."

Rose wasn't stonily staring out the window. Her thoughts made it clear that she was upset she was being excluded.

It wasn't that Edythe wanted to keep things from Rose, it was just...she wasn't sure she wanted anyone to know about this. Alice couldn't be stopped. "Sorry," she muttered.

Rose just sighed. "It's fine. You're freaked out by it. I understand."

She was freaked out, but she wondered if she was freaked out in the way Rose was assuming.

She supposed it didn't matter.

Yet, a traitorous voice in her mind whispered.

Alice didn't say anything when she came home, just patted her shoulder. "You have three paths ahead. They mostly end well."

Great.

"She gave me her number," Edythe whispers to Alice, outside of the school. "She wants to text about...I'm not sure if it's the kiss, or the vampire stuff." Edythe also wasn't sure which would be better.

Alice closed her eyes. "The kiss," she said. "At least at first. You haven't made a decision yet, so it's hazy after that."

Right. The decision about whether she would pursue the first person she'd had real feelings for in her life (longer than most), disconnect from her to protect her, or...eat her.

Well, at least she was pretty sure she wouldn't pick the last one.

On purpose.

Bella waved at them when she appeared, coming out of gym.

Edythe ducked her head. God. Maybe she did know what she would do.

"Hmm," Alice commented, nudging Edythe and waving back. "The future just got more solid. In a good way."

That's as solid a reassurance as there would be.

She pulls out her phone, types in the number she'd memorized the second she'd seen it, and typed out a text. "Hi." She hit send before she could worry about whether or not that's a good enough message. Now all she had to do was...wait.

It was hardly a wait. Bella texted back "Hello!" within ten minutes. Her next message was just a single emoji—a blushing smiling face.

It was charming.

Edythe closed her bedroom door and curled onto a couch. She stared at the phone, unsure what to say. I've never liked anyone like this before? I didn't know I was a lesbian? Kissing you changed my life?

Her phone lit up. "I didn't think this through," Bella texted. "I don't know what to say."

"We could talk about the kiss," Edythe suggested, because it was safer in at least one sense. Plus, it's what Alice said they would talk about.

"Ok. What did it mean?" Bella asked.

Edythe hesitated. She didn't know what it meant. She had just wanted to do it. And she wanted to do it again, given the opportunity. She typed that out. Then she erased the part about wanting to do it again. There was no reason to put all her cards on the table, at least not right away.

Bella sent back a shocked and blushing emoji. "I liked it," she added.

And—Edythe knew that. She'd heard Bella's breath quicken, seen how wide her eyes were after the kiss, had noticed the way she'd angled toward her in biology—but this message made her breath catch. Bella still liked her. Bella liked the kiss. So she typed, "I want to do it again." Cards all out.

She waited, not breathing, and suddenly Alice was projecting happy thoughts at Edythe so hard that she sat up with a shout.

Alice ran into the room, beaming. She picked Edythe up and spun her around. "The future is so good," she said.

She plucked the vision from Alice's head—she and Bella lying among flowers, a shared kiss, and a whisper from Bella. "I love you."

Edythe couldn't breathe. The vision ended there. "Do I say it back?" She'd be stupid not to!

But Alice shrugged. "That's where it's ended. I'm sure you do. You'd be stupid not to."

Edythe laughed breathlessly and hugged her sister. "I love you," she promised.

"I love you, too!" Alice looked wildly happy. "I get to have a new best friend, you know."

"Really? You're going to ditch me for her?" she teased. In reality, she was wildly happy herself. If Alice and Bella got close, it surely meant that Bella would spend more time with her family. And maybe that meant she didn't have anything to worry about from her siblings.

Not that she'd ever noticed her siblings being overtly homophobic, but the politics of humans didn't interest them for the most part. And it was different now that it was her, their sibling.

"What happens when's I tell everyone?" she asked.

Alice closed her eyes. "It goes fine. Some of us are upset, but it's because of the human aspect, not the...other thing."

Edythe's phone lit up, distracting her. Bella had texted.

"Me, too," Bella said.

So there were a lot of complications. Alice would support them, though, and...Edythe hadn't been so happy in ages.

Maybe her choice wasn't so hard.

A/N: This au is turning into "What if Edythe had a better relationship with her family and got swept up in the romance a little more?" I'm sure in the future she'll drag her feet more, but this moment in a relationship is always so incredible! Like hey oh my god the person I like likes me and and we have a future! What do I have to lose?

Later, Edythe is going to say, "Everything!" But right now she's just happy.

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