It is Saturday night and my old Chevvy sputters down the Cullens' lengthy driveway. Emmett had called to say that Edward and Alice were going hunting together, so we would be able to have some fun without them ruining the mood. Naturally I hit the road as soon as humanly possible.

When I arrive I find that only Emmett, Rosalie and Carlisle are actually present. Upon seeing that Emmett would invite me over, Alice and Edward had insisted on dragging Jasper along on their hunt. Esme had followed to make sure the two would not give him too much of a hard time.

Soon we are all comfortably settled in the living room. Carlisle is reading an old 17th century medical textbook, shaking his head at the inaccuracies. Rosalie is scrolling through car parts on Ebay. Emmett and I are engrossed in an increasingly ridiculous game of 'would you rather' that we occasionally try to involve the other two in.

"Bella", Emmett starts very seriously, "For your first meal as a vampire, would you rather have a boring deer, or fight a grizzly bear?"

"What's the catch?", I ask suspiciously. I have an inclination that my answer to this question might come back to haunt me.

"The grizzly bear would tear your clothes apart so you have to do a walk of shame back to the house naked."

"Oh god I'll have the deer!", I exclaim, my face red. "Considering how Edward has been breathing down Jasper's neck lately I doubt he'll leave me alone for the whole of my newborn year."

Emmett guffaws. "Lover boy really blew his chances huh."

His question has inspired me to ask another though. "When you are put on newborn vamp babysitting duty", I ask him "would you rather have to team up with Edward or Alice?"

"Ugh I use my get out of jail free card.", Emmett mutters.

"This isn't monopoly!", I exclaim, but he has turned around to address Rosalie.

"Yo Rose, if you could only drive one car for the rest of your life, would you rather have Edward's Volvo or Bella's truck?"

Rosalie snorts. "If I get to fix it up nicely, then Bella's truck absolutely." We both cheer.

It is my turn again. "Carlisle, say you were going to the moon in a spaceship and could not bring live animals. Would you rather bring your food supply in blood bags like donated blood, or dehydrate it into powder?"

He stares at me contemplatively. I raise my eyebrows. He seems to be taking this question very seriously.

"Intriguing idea actually, to dehydrate blood. I have often considered the benefits of keeping a supply of blood in the house for when we cannot hunt inconspicuously. The summer is always a problem, because there are so many hikers out on the trails. We often have to run as far as Canada to find a truly deserted piece of forest. With our work and school schedules that means we sometimes have to go longer between hunts than is advisable. Like at your birthday party, when we had intended to go on an extra hunt the day before, but Alice saw that we would run into people. I do not mean to excuse what Jasper nearly did to you..."

"I do." I cut him off. "I do mean to excuse Jasper, that is. He is an empath who already shoulders your family's collective bloodlust, then Edward decides to breathe down his singer's neck in his presence at every god given opportunity and now I hear that on top of that Alice forced him to attend without having been able to hunt? Who on earth imagined that would NOT end in disaster!" I am positively seething.

When I calm down slightly I notice the three frozen vampires stare at me unblinkingly.

"Anyway, so why not keep a supply of blood in the house? Surely Jasper would have appreciated some."

"Well, that is the thing Bella.", Carlisle continues, back in lecture mode, "In its natural liquid state the smell of blood permeates through any container I could think to store it in, and it drives us mad with bloodlust. Even I struggle a bit when it is blood drive day at the hospital and all those bags and bags of blood are just lying there, willingly given. I wonder now if taking the liquid out would reduce the smell enough to keep some around."

"And if it tastes the same when you add water again.", Rosalie pitches in intrigued. "I think it's a fun challenge for us to build a machine for this."

Emmett looks slightly flabbergasted. He loves his wife, but she isn't one to take enjoyment from communal family activities. Had I ever heard her say the word 'fun' out loud before? I do believe she is actually smiling at me now.

"I have some old refrigerator parts in the back of the garage, I'm going to see what I can do with those."

Unintentionally, we get so wrapped up in our new project that we work through the night. It had already been late when we started, but we just couldn't wait. Carlisle stays home researching while Emmett, Rosalie and I drive over to the 24/7 Walmart in Seattle to look at what commercial food dehydration machines the humans have available. On the way there Rosalie studies blueprints on her laptop and Emmett and I debate the logistics of acquiring the animal blood to feed into the machine.

We leave the Walmart with one cart full of machinery for Rosalie, one cart full of jerrycans, tubing and assorted airtight storage containers, and several sets of overalls in all our sizes. The cashier gave us a funny look that probably meant they thought we are running a drugs lab. Emmett's jeep is so stuffed I have to sit on his lap on the way back while Rosalie drives. Awkwardly squished between his large frame, the roof, and an industrial sized box of disposable gloves I manage to catch a few hours of sleep.

Back home I help Rosalie set up the machinery while Emmett goes to collect blood and Carlisle goes along with Emmett to prevent him from causing any disasters.

In about two hours Emmett and Carlisle return with a large jerrycan full of deer blood. Carlisle thought that would be the best animal to start with, since the smell is not very appetizing. That would hopefully make it easier to process without driving the vampires into a bloodlust frenzy. Still, while Carlisle returned immaculately clean, Emmet's overalls were shredded and drenched in blood.

We start our first run. Rosalie estimates it will take six to eight hours to fully dehydrate the blood with our current setup, but thinks she can get it down to four with a bit more engineering. As the machine does its job, she diligently works on improving her design while I take another nap and Emmett cleans himself up.

The machine is still plodding along in the garage when the vampires hear footsteps coming up the driveway.

"Carlisle, explain yourself."

The man in question gulps and guiltily regards his wife.