Cracked! chap 14: In the Garden of Eden

[chelleybell]

Title: Cracked
Fandom: Twilight
Genre: Humor/Satire/Drama
Rating: T
Main Pairing: Bella and Edward
LJ Chapter  1, 2, 3,  4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 
Also on ff.net

Summary: Welcome to an experiment in dark humor, with alternating emphasis on the "dark" and the "humor."  I've got messed up ideas of what's funny. Just roll with it.


Previously: Edward carried a faint Bella to the nurse’s office. It was romantic or some shit; there has to be SOME reason everyone’s pissed that scene wasn’t in the movie. Even though nothing important actually happened in that scene in the actual book…damn it…

Previously in my version: Edward carried a faint Bella to the nurse’s office. She looked in his eyes and realized either she was in love or she was still dizzy from lack of oxygen. And afterward, there was a conversation about cadaver dogs and the smell of blood and death (see chapter 1). Which probably passes for dirty-talk to a vampire.

In the Garden of Eden

“I’m not letting you drive home like this!” Edward protested. He almost grabbed the hood of Bella’s jacket to drag her to his car, but better sense prevailed, thus preventing him from getting cussed out drunken-sailor style.

“Like what?” Bella demanded. She even looked down at her body, as if there might be clues to her mysterious, heretofore unknown disability on her clothing. “I’m fine.”

Edward scoffed. “You fainted.”

“I’m still fine,” Bella shrugged.

“Please allow me to give you a ride,” he offered.

Bella shook her head vehemently. “Not a chance. There is no way I’m leaving my truck here.”

“Alice can drive it back,” Edward suggested.

Wow, Bella thought, he must think I’m really stupid. “I don’t know Alice. I’m not giving anyone the keys to my truck and my house, especially people I don’t know. For all I know, you’ll make copies without my permission and start sneaking into my house or something.”

It was with effort that Edward did not duck his head with embarrassment. Instead he offered a compromise. “May I at least follow you home so I can be sure you arrive in one piece without mowing down any pedestrians?”

Bella, noting how smoothly he sidestepped her mental landmine, and still not certain of what to do about it other than continue to feign ignorance of his nighttime activity, said, “If you insist.” It wasn’t like she could stop him.

She wasn’t sure what she expected to happen, letting Edward escort her like that. But whatever she may have imagined, it certainly wasn’t that Edward would shut off his engine in front of her house and climb into the cab of her truck faster than you can say ‘Dude, go home.’

“I was thinking,” he said without preamble, “that you might feel more comfortable having me as a friend if we knew a little more about each other.”

Staring at him for a moment, Bella replied, “You’re not going to do that thing where you say ‘We should start over,’ and introduce yourself by name are you? Because that only works in cheesy romantic comedies.” Also, technically he’d already done that once, only to proceed from friendly overtures to heroic acts to hostility.

“Absolutely not,” Edward promised. “We can’t forget what we already know.” He certainly couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Yet another curse of immortality. “All we can do is learn new things. Tell me about your mother.”

“That’s not a Freudian joke, is it?” Bella asked, earning a smile.

So they sat together and actually talked. Edward learned about Renee and Phil and Phil’s baseball career (which, he decided, was not nearly as interesting as the circus career she’d once joked about, but was still better than driving a truck for a living). Bella had no qualms about revealing these things-it wasn’t like Edward couldn’t just as easily Google her step-father’s name or find her mother’s old internet dating profile if he was of a mind to do so. (He hadn’t. Edward believed internet searches were unethical violations of privacy. Oh, the irony.) Edward also learned about Renee’s little eccentricities, like the time she and her friends formed an all-girl garage band. Renee could rock an electronic keyboard like nobody’s business-her rendition of ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ brought tears to the eyes.

Bella, meanwhile, learned the public version of Edward’s adoption. Or rather, she heard the public version for the second time. Except for the part about his biological parents being dead, and the obvious fact that he loved Dr. and Mrs. Cullen a great deal and called them by their given names, it was nothing she hadn’t heard before from her classmates. She did feel bad for him, losing his real parents, but it seemed to have happened so long ago that he was simply used to it. Which made her wonder: if it was really that long ago since his birth-parents’ passing, how was it that the Cullens were old enough to have adopted him when it happened?

Then again, since she was already convinced Edward and his siblings (and probably Dr. Cullen, now that she thought about it) weren’t human beings, and since she was sure Edward was older than he pretended to be, she supposed the adoption story was probably false, or at least parts of it were. So basically, she realized, when Edward said he wanted the two of them to know more about each other, what he really meant was that he wanted to know more about her, but he didn’t want her to know much more about him. No matter how much she liked him, no matter what kind of romantic epiphany she had earlier, there was only so much inequality she could take in one day.

“You know what?” Bella said, trying for an inviting attitude instead of the snippy one she was actually feeling. “I think it would be nice if you told me something about yourself I don’t already know.”

“Dead parents not enough for you?” Edward smirked.

“Something I wouldn’t have guessed at by virtue of your adoption,” Bella clarified, “which is common knowledge, by the way.”

Edward thought very carefully before he spoke. “I kept the Superman Pez dispenser you gave me.”

Just like that, Bella’s heart was so full she didn’t think she could take it. This had nothing to do with dizziness or falling down-this was real, much too real, and more than she could handle after such an eventful afternoon. Without looking up at him, she whispered, “I need to get some things done right now. I’ll see you tomorrow, Edward.”

“Wait,” he stopped her, still trying to prolong his time with her. “May I ask you a question?”

“May I ask one in return?” she asked, still quiet but recovering her composure as quickly as she could manage.

“Yes,” he answered, though that part made him nervous. What on earth would this girl ask him?

“Okay then,” Bella agreed, wondering how personal his question might be.

What to ask her; Edward had not one question, but a million. What was she really doing next Saturday? What was that postal package on her doorstep? Did his keeping the Pez dispenser really mean that much to her? What did he smell like to her nose? Who in the hell was this ‘Consuela’ person she kept thinking about?

In the end, it was Edward’s old fashioned sense of social propriety that won out, but as far as he was concerned it was still a legitimately important question:

“Do you think your parents would approve of whomever you choose to be with?”

Bella correctly interpreted this question as: Do you think they would approve of me?

“My mother is very…accepting,” Bella said carefully. “She dated her fair share of losers before she found Phil, and I saw her through all of them. As long as I’m safe and happy, I think she’ll be happy.”

“And Chief Swan?” Edward persisted, though he was cheered by Renee’s open-mindedness, even if he didn’t actually expect it to extend to vampires.

“Charlie is an unknown at this point-we didn’t exactly keep him informed about my social life when I was living in Phoenix. But I don’t think he’d have a problem with making an unwanted boy…disappear,” she smiled devilishly.

Resisting the urge to laugh at the idea of a human making him disappear, Edward smilingly replied, “I’d expect nothing less from the chief of police where his only daughter is concerned.”

“I’m glad people feel that way,” Bella said, “because I’d rather not need him to actually step in.” Feeling that Edward might take that the wrong way, she added, “He’s never had an unkind word to say about you, and he seems to get along well with your father whenever I go in for urgent care. I think you’ll be fine as long as you’re respectful and you don’t break any laws.”

Edward stared at her for a moment, wondering at her emphasis. Because without being able to read her mind, he couldn’t take a freaking hint. Also, what was with Carlisle treating Bella at the hospital and not saying anything? Somebody was going to get interrogated when he got home from work this evening.

“My turn,” Bella insisted. “And this is important to me, so please be honest.”

It bothered both of them that she had to keep asking for his honesty. Realizing this, Edward nodded his head, promising himself to be as honest as he could without compromising his family secrets.

Bella almost said something about him sneaking into her room. Almost. But she didn’t expect to get a truthful answer, and even if she did, she had no way of knowing what would happen after that, if he’d just get embarrassed and stutter, or if he’d freak out and kidnap her for knowing too much or something equally Lifetime-movie-ish.

Instead she asked something else that had been bugging her since she caught him staring at her necklace with that crazy look on his face: “Does it matter to you that I’m Jewish?”

Of course, Bella was unaware that Edward had actually been staring at her jugular at the time, and he was unaware that he’d offended her because he’d been too busy fantasizing about blood and kissing her soft skin. What’s more, he was already deeply in love with her by now, and he doubted very much there was anything she could say, do, or be that would ever change that. So in thinking about her question, since he could only think of a limited number of highly unlikely circumstances in which her ethnicity or religion would make the slightest bit of difference to their otherwise dangerous, ridiculous situation, Edward merely shrugged. “Not unless it does to you.”

In point of fact, being a Jewish woman was very important to Bella, but she decided his answer was acceptable enough for the time being. There was plenty of time to teach him about her heritage later, and maybe learn more about his. “Are you coming to First Beach with everyone this Saturday?” she wondered. Part of her wanted to see him outside of school, just to talk. Another part of her wanted him where there were lots of people to keep an eye on him.

“No,” he answered casually, though he felt bitterer than ever about the treaty that kept him from setting foot on La Push. His entire family was well aware that the Quileute council forbade its people from seeking emergency medical treatment or employment at Forks General Hospital from the moment Carlisle was hired. According to the hospital rumor mill, many of the younger parents of the tribe rebelled against this, claiming that it was wrong to deprive their children of proper health care or give up stable jobs just because of a four-generation-old grudge with “Dr. Cullen’s ancestor.” It appeared the generation who were actually present when the treaty was made had died off, the youngest generations didn’t really believe it was what their elders said it was, and there were no more “protectors” cavorting in the forests. Thus, Carlisle chose to remain in Forks instead of relocating to some other place, any other place, where they’d never had any kind of binding, perpetual, obviously-not-completely-forgotten agreement with any of the locals that they were still expected to honor. Edward thought it was a fairly stupid decision at the time.

Also, besides making Carlisle’s work environment a little strained, this arrangement was totally keeping Edward from spending the day with an interesting woman.

Well, that and the weather.

Thinking of the sunlight Alice had promised, Edward added, “Emmet and I are spending our weekend hiking in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, south of Rainier. We’re actually leaving tomorrow morning, so I won’t see you at school.” No one, not Edward, not Bella, not even future generations some three centuries hence who read the historical record of this conversation, knew why on earth he would volunteer so much highly specific, easily researchable, potentially damning information. Evidently Carlisle wasn’t the only one capable of making stupid decisions.

“Sounds like something you’ll enjoy,” Bella commented. “I hope you have fun.” Lord knew she wouldn’t be doing any hiking if she could possibly help it.

“I’m sure I will,” Edward answered. He generally had fun hunting with Emmett, mostly because hunting in the mountains brought out the Appalachia in his brother’s voice. While Edward didn’t laugh because he knew mountain people didn’t appreciate anyone making fun of their dialect, it was impossible not be both interested and frustrated. It wasn’t just about hearing the language-during a hunt, Emmett actually thought in Appalachian English, for which he neither apologized nor bothered to provide a translation. Even after knowing Emmett for more than seventy-five years, Edward still had to consciously interpret things like Let’s santer around in the laurel and see if we find any bear signs and Some peckerwood left a poke o’ candy a-back of them trees up yander.

Still, fun as that might be, it wasn’t the topic Edward found most fascinating at the moment. “So,” Mr. Subtle tried, “what are you doing next Saturday?”

“Goodbye, Edward,” Bella dismissed him, though she couldn’t help laughing when she said it.

Edward said his farewell and got into his own car. It was just as well that their conversation ended when it did-he was getting thirstier by the minute, sitting in the cab of that little truck with her scent everywhere. He resolved to go alleviate that problem before doing some internet research on Judaism, since it was a subject he knew little about. And after that, he was probably going to have to break down and ask Alice what Bella’s plans were for the day of the dance. It was driving him crazy.

Bella was glad he’d gone, too, so she could air out her truck. Edward’s perfume was starting to grow on her a little, but it wasn’t her favorite scent in the world. Yet.

After opening up the cardboard mailer on her doorstep (a hand-painted Mardi Gras mask from Renee, along with the note Thought you might like this for Purim!), Bella made herself a snack and was just about to sit down to start on her homework when she remembered that she’d forgotten to stop at the butcher’s shop after grocery shopping the day before. Not only did she need some meat for dinner, but she also needed to stock up for Charlie’s poker night. “Crap,” she sighed, closing her book and searching for her keys.

It wasn’t too long of a drive to Don Carlos, and it didn’t look like there’d be much of a wait. There was only one other customer:

Mrs. Nguyen.

xXxXx

After leaving Bella at home (she was right-she really didn’t need an escort, but he was glad he had the chance to talk to her alone) and stopping for a drink, Edward was late getting back to the school to pick up his siblings. There were only a few cars left in the parking lot, all belonging to faculty and staff, and his brothers’ and sisters’ thoughts didn’t seem to be there. He sniffed out their collective scent and realized they’d vanished into the woods and run home without him.

Rosalie was likely to be highly upset by this. She’d made a point of wearing her favorite pair of Christian Louboutin pumps today (Edward hated that he knew this much about women’s shoes, but he couldn’t help hearing Rosalie think about it all the damn time), so she probably wasn’t enthused about having to run in them. Why she couldn’t just take them off and run barefoot like a normal vampire was anyone’s guess. Privately, Edward believed she just liked finding excuses to be angry.

But as it turned out, Rosalie was pissed off for a completely different reason.

“My hand!” she shrieked at him the moment he walked in the door. Esme and Emmett were clustered around her, with Alice hovering nearby. “Look at what these oafs did to my hand!”

Edward only had half a moment to glimpse at Rosalie’s left hand before she stuck the blackened inch of skin back into her mouth, but it was long enough for an accurate assessment. Her venom would heal her injury, but the results would take at least another hour, given the size of the burn (which Alice had already confirmed). Emmett looked on with worry, but while he clearly wanted to help, Rosalie was having none of it. So there was nothing for her husband to do but watch as she literally licked her own wounds. Edward reflected that, at moments like this, even the most refined of his kind were more animal than man.

“Tesla coil experiment didn’t go so well?” he guessed, handing his injured sister the extra cup of duck blood he had intended for his mother. She gave him quick but fervent thanks and slurped at it immediately, the better to increase her venom production. She didn’t even care that the blood was cold. As a bonus, everyone was too distracted by her situation to comment on Edward smelling like a human.

“Rosalie had sixth period physics,” Jasper explained from where he sat on the floor, laying out his chessboards. Edward noted that Jasper was actually keeping Rosalie much calmer than she normally would have been, but doing so in a way that left her just irritated enough that she didn’t suspect him of ‘toying with her emotions’ again. “By the end of the day Mr. Fontanier realized that the station we’d sabotaged was broken. He made her use Station Five instead of Six, and she didn’t have a legitimate excuse to leave class, so…”

“So she burned her hand when it discharged,” Edward finished. He certainly had sympathy for her-it had taken his hands and feet a whole 36 hours to heal after the Empire State Building incident. But then again…. “Which oafs do you say burned you, Rosalie?”

She didn’t speak, what with her hand in her mouth again, but he heard (amid a lot of swearing) the thought: Emmett, Jasper, and Alice, of course.

Raising an eyebrow, Edward asked her, “How is it their fault?”

Shit, damn, hell, they should have warned me, shit, ass, fuck…

“How were they to know?” Edward demanded, waving his arm at his brothers. “They have first period physics.”

“Don’t you dare blame me, Sparky,” Jasper sniped at Rosalie, though it wasn’t terribly vicious. “I did my job.”

Fuck, hell, ow, Alice should have been looking, but no, she was too busy worrying about you to remember your science class wasn’t the only one with dangerous potential-

“Shut up, Rosalie,” Edward said casually, unwilling to listen to yet another excuse for why the latest affliction that had befallen his sister was in no way her fault. “You’re a woman-you could have faked a female emergency and cut class. Or you could have been the note-taker in your group. But no, you proceeded with the experiment even though you knew you’d get burned, and now you’re screaming bloody murder for a wound that you won’t even feel by the time Ellen DeGeneres is over. You just enjoy being the center of attention.”

Everyone noticed the involuntary widening of Rose’s eyes, followed by her typical “wounded innocent” expression, and finally her “okay, you got me” sigh. With a collective groan, the family went back to their hobbies, though Emmett gave his wife a kiss before joining Jasper at Octo-Chess. Deflated, Rosalie kept her bad hand in her mouth and used the other to play with the remote control. Ellen was a rerun, Tyra was annoying (the woman was more concerned about responding to her weight-critics, hair-critics, and boob-critics than actually putting on a watchable show), and Maury was showcasing yet another large group of trashy, promiscuous cretins arguing over the paternity of their ugly offspring. Rosalie feared for the future of America, but not so much that she was willing to do more than change the channel.

When the family went back to largely ignoring him as well, Edward sat down in front of his grand piano and started his warm-up exercises. This gesture was appreciated-the right music was able to alter the family mood naturally, without forcing Jasper to absorb things that made him uncomfortable. Today’s selection sounded just a little off because it was originally intended for a different instrument, and Edward couldn’t quite sustain the notes the same way, but it was still particularly cheery for his audience. Emmett was the one who recognized the tune first.

“Is that…Iron Butterfly?”

“No…” Edward lied, though he couldn’t help looking sheepish. “Yes. I have this song stuck in my head.” In-a-gadda-da-vida honey…don’t you know that I love you…

Everyone enjoyed a good laugh before Edward moved on to a new melody, to the new melody. Esme in particular was especially happy, all full of maternal pride at her talented son. Nobody had the heart to remind her that his talent had absolutely nothing to do with either her genetic contribution or her nurturing influence, as he’d taken ten years’ worth of piano lessons prior to his transformation. Still, Esme was absolutely delighted by the new lullaby Edward was composing, even if it made Rosalie storm off in a jealous, humiliated huff, which in turn made Edward laugh and Jasper smirk.

Naturally, Alice tried to coax the full explanation for Rosalie’s reaction out of Edward. And naturally, he refused. And of course, Esme defended him. “Edward is trying to be a gentleman.”

This earned a disapproving snort from Jasper. “A gentleman does not visit a lady’s private quarters after nightfall, Esme. Why would Edward bother to conceal our sister’s jealousy, which we’ve all known about for months, but have no care for his human girl’s honor, welfare, privacy, or dignity?”

Jasper and Alice knew perfectly well that Rosalie was envious of Bella’s inexplicable allure (and not just to Edward, but apparently to three human boys with obvious vision problems as well). Until now the couple chose not to comment on it because they cared enough about their sister not to want to embarrass her. Emmett, who had heard Alice’s accusation of jealousy at the epic Family Meeting back in January, had written it off as a woman thing that would dissipate if he never, ever brought it up and if he told his wife how hot she was on a regular basis. Edward never thought about it at all, and because everyone else made a point of not thinking about it when he was around, he was allowed to go on with his own preoccupations none the wiser. Esme had wanted to reassure her daughter that she was the prettiest, but she knew Rosalie would never admit to any insecurities in the first place, and anyway, Rosalie was supposed to be a grown woman, not a four-year-old girl.

The idea that Rosalie was jealous of Bella was old news, this was true. Edward sneaking off to Bella’s house, and what that might mean other than him finally making an effort to pursue a relationship, was still very new. Apparently nobody had given much thought to the variety of interpretations his actions might have, or rather they’d not given voice to such things. But the time of silence was over, especially for Jasper, who had listened very closely to Edward and Bella’s lunchtime conversation and came away with much to be unhappy about, including a surprising number of issues that were not self-serving. Alice, foreseeing conflict, wanted to intercede, but she’d done quite enough of that where discussions about Bella were involved.

“Such human concerns,” Edward replied to his brother defensively, “for someone who left his human nature behind in the 19th century.”

“I find it ironic that you’d say that,” Jasper quipped. “Generally people use the phrase ‘human nature’ to justify their lack of discipline.” Certainly Jasper and Emmett had used it’s in our nature to explain themselves whenever they accidentally killed people.

“Discipline requires practice. How am I expected to acclimate to her scent,” Edward asked, “if I don’t spend as much time as possible around it?”

From the garage, Rosalie shouted, “You shouldn’t be acclimating to her scent! You shouldn’t be in love with her at all!”

“Acclimating to her scent? That’s your legitimate excuse for a home invasion?” Jasper challenged him.

“You’re blowing this out of proportion. I’m not holding her hostage,” Edward groaned. “She doesn’t even know I’m there. I don’t touch her or her things.”

Jasper only rolled his eyes. “Please don’t say that like it makes you into an honorable man. If any of us stood in your room and watched you all night, you would throw us out. When it was Tanya staring at you, even in her house, you made a point of locking your guestroom door so she’d understand that you resented the intrusion.”

“Tanya was in it for the conquest,” Edward countered.

“That’s not the point,” Jasper said easily. “We’re not talking about Tanya; we’re talking about you and the human.”

“You mean the one you were so keen to murder two months ago?” Edward reminded his brother, though he was really trying to remind everyone else.

“A threat I rescinded,” Jasper replied crisply. “She has nothing to fear from me anymore. I’m not the vampire stealing into the room of the girl you would have us all believe you love and respect. That’s her space, her refuge, and you have no right to be there.”

“I’m afraid I must agree with your brother this time,” Esme said, though the strictness that belonged there was missing from her voice. “I want you to have the love you deserve, son, but what you’ve done is not the way a gentleman behaves.”

“I will not have you all gang up on me,” Edward said steadily, rising from his piano seat. “Emmett, if you’re ready to get the weekend started, we may as well leave now.”

“That’s right, run away,” Jasper sneered, though he returned the bulk of his attention to his chess game, which he was determined to finish with or without an opponent. “That’s your answer to every problem. Can’t see that blowing up in your face. Bella Swan is such a lucky girl to have someone like you around.”

Emmett sighed and excused himself to say goodbye to his wife. Days like this, he really wished he and Rosalie could just move out already, or maybe give up the pretense of being “the children” and be “the in-laws who live a few miles down the road.” Carlisle had an impression that Rosalie and Emmett were naturally nomadic, and to some extent he was correct, but the truth was that after every three or four year period of confinement with their family, Emmett just wanted to enjoy a stretch of time without having to pick a side in yet another family squabble.

While Emmett went outside and Jasper went on playing chess against himself and trying to ignore his younger brother, Edward took a moment to ask Alice a question that had been bugging him all day. “What are Bella’s plans for the weekend of the dance?”

Alice blinked. “Seriously? You want me to look into the future for that? Why didn’t you just ask her or look at her day planner-” while you were in her room last night?

“It’s not like you don’t live for the moments when you get to tell the future,” Edward pointed out. “What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is you’re an ass,” she answered, mostly for Jasper’s benefit-he was her husband, after all, and she wanted to at least appear that she agreed with him. “I’m sure she has her reasons for not telling you.” Just sneak into her room again and check her calendar.

“Oh, come on, Alice,” Edward cajoled her. “Save me from worrying about it all weekend.”

With a sigh, Alice checked, trying to pretend that she was really put out about it. Which wasn’t fooling her husband at all-it was silly of her to try when he knew perfectly well how much Alice wanted this thing with Bella Swan to happen, and attempting to be sneaky was only likely to cause friction in the marriage. Alice sometimes wasn’t big on that kind of forward-moving logic; she preferred reverse-engineered realities.

It was only a few moments later that Alice realized Bella’s future had gone crazy again. Nothing made the slightest bit of sense or came in any particular order. Bella in some kind of church building with other people, listening as a man read from a scroll. Bella taking a basket of fruit and cookies to some neighbors. A Mardi Gras mask. Children in…Halloween costumes? The same man who read the scroll dressed up as a pirate? Then it melted, and there was an airplane-no, a long drive in the dilapidated pick-up truck-maybe both? Suitcases being packed, unpacked, repacked, all without actually leaving the room. Bella sitting in a Miami hotel with a woman who appeared to be her mother. Bella in her father’s garage, opening up a cell phone and using tools on it. Bella sitting in a chair, clutching a cigarette lighter in one hand and a can of aerosol hairspray in another. Chief Swan standing over Bella in the local medical lab as she had her blood drawn. Bella following Edward into a in a sunny field of flowers-

“Alice, what the hell?” Edward shouted.

“I should ask you the same question,” she hissed back. “What did you say to her when you took her home today?”

“Nothing!” Edward swore. “We talked about her most of the time!”

“What’s going on?” Esme asked.

“Damned if I know,” Alice answered. “Edward, you had to have told her something.”

“Nothing, I swear!” he panicked. “I told her my birth parents died, I asked her what kind of dating restrictions her parents had, and I told her I wasn’t going to the beach this weekend because I was going hiking. That’s it!”

“That can’t be it,” Alice growled. By now everyone except Carlisle (knuckle deep in someone’s gall bladder surgery) had gathered around to listen. Even Rosalie had come back inside, eager to be part of any scene in which Edward was being dressed down or otherwise on display as the family idiot. “What else did you say?”

I told her I kept the Pez dispenser.

“I told her I wouldn’t be in school tomorrow. Now please, what did she do after I left her house?” Edward asked, desperate for any kind of explanation. Preferably something that didn’t involve Pez.

xXxXx

Mrs. Nguyen wasn’t a mean person-she was just set in her ways. Having unwillingly spent part of her life in a South Vietnamese re-education camp, her ways did not include the American need to be friendly all the time. This made it a little unpleasant for customers to deal with her at her flower shop, but fortunately her American-born children had taken over that part of the business long ago. Right now, though, her problem was with Don Carlos himself.

“What you mean, you run out!” she complained in accented (but perfectly clear) English. “How I make tiết canh without main ingredient? Who else buy but me?”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Carlos apologized. Again. “I sold it all. If I’d known you wanted some today, I would have saved it for you. How about goose instead of duck?”

Bella watched with minimal interest as the butcher disappeared into the back room-she had purchases of her own to select. She had two packages of Lil Smokies from the refrigerated shelf in her hand basket and was eyeing the chicken wings when Mr. Carlos came back, not carrying a slaughtered bird as she’d been expecting, but two large, plain white Styrofoam cups.

“Again, I apologize,” Don Carlos said to Mrs. Nguyen, not noticing Bella’s slight swoon as he carefully inserted the cups into a brown paper bag. “Normally you’re the only one who specifically orders duck blood, but one of the Cullen kids came by a little while ago and cleaned me out.”

xXxXx

“Now please,” Edward was saying, “what did she do after I left her house?”

“How should I know?” Alice retorted. “I see the future, not the past. Obviously I had other things to think about at the time, what with Benjamin Franklin over here rediscovering electricity.” This earned a growl from her sister, though the effect was somewhat lessened by the obstruction in Rose’s mouth. “The real problem is you, Edward! What the bloody hell are you doing, taking her to a secluded field-?”

“I haven’t taken her anywhere,” Edward yelled. “I haven’t yet convinced her to let me take her anywhere. For heaven’s sake, all I did was follow her home in my car! She wouldn’t even let me drive her to her house!”

“Then how do you explain all that weird shit I saw?” Alice screeched back.

“You see weird crap all the time,” Rosalie said gleefully, then stuck her hand back in her mouth.

“What exactly did you see?” Jasper demanded.

After Alice explained everything aloud (leaving out the bit about Edward being in the sunlight), Esme asked her son, “Did she happen to mention going out of town?”

“No,” Edward replied. “She refused to tell me anything about that weekend.”

“Well then maybe instead of inserting yourself into her life, you should leave her alone and mind your own fuckin’ business,” Jasper seethed. “Because the only thing I see wrong in that whole series of visions is you.” It was more than that, though-Edward’s presence made everything else take on a different context, whereas if he hadn’t been a part of it at all, nothing else Alice saw would have bothered anyone except Edward in the least.

“Let’s just go,” Emmett said sensibly. “Last time this happened it took a few hours for the visions to settle down. Let’s get something to eat, and we can call Alice later and see what’s going on. If it all comes down to nothing, you’ll have lost nothing. And if it all turns into hell, you’ll already be out of town.”

Edward nodded, snatching up the away-bag his mother had packed for him and wondering what a Mardi Gras mask had to do with anything. Great, he sighed. Now I’ll never be able to enjoy my food.

Half an hour after he left Forks, he was already calling Alice.

“I don’t see anything concrete yet,” she said. “It hasn’t been long enough.”

Forty minutes after that, he called again.

“Would you cut it out? It’s all still vague and crazy.”

Twenty minutes later…

“Stop bugging me!”

An hour after that…

xXxXx

When Charlie got home from work at precisely 6:32, he was greeted not with dinner, but with the sound of the washer and dryer running, and the scents of all-purpose surface cleaner, furniture polish, and laundry soap in the air. He stopped short at the sight of his daughter pacing back and forth, occasionally wiping a picture frame or a table top with a rag that, from the looks of it, used to be his holeyest pair of underwear.

In the early days of his marriage to Renee, any time his wife felt stressed, even before the pregnancy and the nesting instinct, she rearranged furniture or painted walls and cabinets, which was how he wound up with the ugly yellow color scheme in his kitchen. Bella, Charlie realized, was an anxiety-cleaner.

“Something wrong?” he asked cautiously.

“Charlie,” Bella nearly shouted, hopping in surprise. For once she remembered to land on her right foot (the longer leg), the second-most important thing she ever learned from three years of ballet lessons. “I have a question, and I couldn’t find the answer online. It’s very important, so please think carefully.”

“Okay…” Charlie said carefully. He decided it would be best not to remove his gun belt just yet. “What’s your question?”

Bella took a deep breath. “Are there any hikers or hunters in the Goat Rocks Wilderness this time of year?”

xXxXx

“I thought it might firm up once her father came home from work, but it hasn’t,” Alice sighed. “Rosalie suggested that she’s thinking about going away for Spring Break. The dance falls on the same weekend the holiday starts, and everybody in Forks knows her mother lives in Florida, so it makes sense.” Although this wasn’t ideal for Edward-he couldn’t stand the thought of Bella being away that long-it was at least a normal enough activity that he was able to calm down. For a while, anyway. “All I can tell you with any degree of certainty,” Alice went on, “is what she’s about to do right now: have dinner with the Chief. Now will you please stop calling? You’re freaking Jasper out.”

Freaking Jasper out was code for making Jasper think he needs to get involved. Edward promptly hung up, fuming to himself about Bella going away and wondering if he could possibly find an excuse to be in Miami that week. He could pretend he’d had Spring Break plans of his own, and perhaps she’d allow him to spend time with her. With any luck, she’d even be happy to see him.

xXxXx

Charlie blinked. Goat Rocks? Why is she worried about a hiking trail in a public park? “Are you on medication I don’t know about?”

“Dad!” Bella groaned impatiently (and, Charlie didn’t think he was imagining it, more than a little fretfully). “Just answer the question! Are there people there?”

“Okay, okay!” Charlie replied, taking a step back and resisting the instinct to put his finger on his holster lock, like he normally did around crazy people.

xXxXx

“I knew we should have just run instead of driving,” Emmett complained. He wasn’t usually the complaining type, but Edward wasn’t particularly fun on this trip, and it was a four-hour drive from Forks to the little town closest to Goat Rocks. If they’d run, at least they would have been likely to enjoy themselves and snag a little snack on the way to dinner. Plus, the Jeep went through gas like a wino goes through a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck.

“Like it matters,” Edward said, rolling his eyes the way only an obscenely rich person who does not give two shits about rising gas prices can do. “You weren’t going to find a bear this early. This time of year is prime for mountain lions on the Peninsula, and we can’t hunt the ones in our own back yard because it’s cougar season for the human hunters in the Coastal Zone.”

In their efforts not only to avoid negatively impacting the environment, but also to avoid crossing the paths of humans in the wilderness, all the Cullens made a point of memorizing the annually published Big Game Hunting Season manuals and small game pamphlets for every state or province they hunted in, a daunting mental feat even for the brightest of minds. Hunting seasons varied by location, animal type, weapon type, whether or not hunting dogs were allowed, what to do if your pet falcon killed the wrong species out of season…basically it was a huge pain in the ass. It often limited the family’s dining possibilities in ways that even the staunchest dieters found inconvenient-you’d think that with a million acres of wildlife habitat in Washington, chasing down some actual wildlife wouldn’t be so damned complicated.

“No,” Edward continued, “we have to trek all the way out to the backcountry and look for wayward goats. Goats, Emmett. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m having a little trouble getting excited about it.”

“You suck,” Emmett informed his brother. “I wish you and this girl would start banging already so you’ll lighten the hell up.”

Edward didn’t reply to this scandalous remark for two reasons: 1) after Jasper’s comments on Edward’s behavior, Edward knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to moral outrage over a lack of propriety, and 2) he was beginning to wonder what ‘banging’ actually felt like. Hearing everyone’s thoughts when they had sex wasn’t quite the same thing; he was sure he was missing out. With a sigh, he gave up on conversation and spent the remainder of the drive thinking about her smile. Not to mention her bra strap. He wondered if her underwear matched-apparently that was a big deal. Other men’s fantasies nearly always featured matching undergarments, but Edward had never consciously thought about it until…well, until right now.

When night had fallen and Edward was tracking the scent of a diseased mountain lion who had wandered around hunting elderly herbivores, Alice finally called his satellite phone.

“What have you got for me, Alice?”

“Jasper’s decided to believe me when I say that human teenagers are prone to impulsive behavior,” she assured him, “and since most of what I saw before isn’t directly related to us, he agreed that it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with our secret. He accused the two of us of being reactionary and prone to hysterics.”

“Thank you for that,” Edward said gratefully. As far as Edward was concerned, Jasper could believe whatever he wanted to as long as Bella remained unharmed, never mind that Jasper was absolutely right about Alice’s and Edward’s personalities.

“I can’t see Bella’s plans for next weekend at all,” she continued. “She seems to have no idea what she’s doing, or even where she’ll be.”

“Okay,” Edward said, disappointed, “well, what can you see? Is she all right? She’s not hurt, is she?”

“She seems fine, but I can only see as far as tomorrow night,” Alice answered. Sometimes her psychic power was so conveniently, ridiculously accurate that it required near-religious explanations. Right now, however, her visions were vague, ephemeral, nonsensical…and downright infuriating. Clearly there was a serious Schrödinger’s Cat-like indeterminacy flaw that Bella was somehow unintentionally exploiting. That, or the universe was fucking with Alice now, too. “I see…a hound dog,” she said, confused and irritated. “And a card game.”

Wonderful, Edward groaned to himself. I take a girl home after she faints, and her life turns into one of those Cassius Coolidge “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings. “Christ, Alice, what happened?”

xXxXx

“My father took me hiking in Goat Rocks when I was a kid,” Charlie explained to his daughter, “but not in March. The trails aren’t even hikable until mid-July because there’s still too much snow, so the park shuts down until summer. And they don’t allow hunters because it’s part of a national forest.”

“What about poachers?” Bella demanded. “Is that a problem there?”

“Like I said,” Charlie answered slowly, “the trails cannot be hiked right now. I suppose, in theory, a poacher could snowshoe around up there, but parts of the trail are dangerous even in good weather. It would be too risky, and all he’d catch would be a bunch of wild goats.” And maybe a bear, he decided not to say-bears were still hibernating this early in the year anyway.

His daughter seemed visibly relieved by the information he’d given, which only confused him even more. “Are you going to explain what this is all about?” Charlie asked her.

“No,” she said, abruptly adding, “I didn’t cook supper, so we’re going to the diner tonight. You’re driving. Let me just go grab my purse.”

Charlie watched in extreme puzzlement as his daughter bounded up the stairs. First stun guns and police dogs, now hikers and hunters. “Women,” he muttered to himself.

In her room, Bella snatched up her purse and quietly shoved her partially-packed suitcase under her bed. There was still time to decide what to do, after she completely calmed down and had a chance to think rationally instead of letting herself get carried away with planning a variety of increasingly drastic measures. She might not need to evacuate to Florida after all.

A/N: Surprise! Goat Rocks Wilderness is part of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and is open to the public for hiking, camping, horseback riding, wildlife viewing, mountain biking, and motorcycle riding. I had to make up the part about being closed down for the winter-for all I know, it’s open for snowshoeing. Gee, if only Ms. Meyer had consulted the internet or a guidebook for something besides the average rainfall of Coastal Washington.