I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 31

Chapter 31 - I'll be home for Christmas

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.

Describing Bella's nightmare to Old Quil helped Josh work out exactly what had happened when she blocked him.

"The poor thing. She is much stronger than anyone thought," the old man said. "To have dealt with such things." He shook his head sadly.

"And to not go mad. I know. And she was alone for the last few years."

"So what are you asking?"

"She said the vampire gifts did not affect her."

"In the meeting, yes."

"What if she can expand that shield to protect others?"

"I see."

"In the dream, she protected me. What if she can do it in real life?"

"And protect you from the vampires-"

"Or maybe even the pack if we can tap into the alpha mind."

"It has possibilities. You felt as if she had put you behind a door?"

"That's what it felt like."

"I am certain there has been nothing like this before."

Josh and Old Quil spent a bit of time discussing Bella's shield ability and how it might work. They also tried to think what herbs or blessings could help accentuate it. They also thought about how they could work with her. If it was something she could do, like flexing a muscle, then she needed to work at it to make it stronger.

Embry liked living alone. Working at the tourist shop meant his mother, Tiffany often brought home trinkets and things that she thought were cute. It hadn't taken long for the house to look like an extension of the shop and the smell of hot glue gun made his nose itch.

Embry classified all of it as junk and it went in the trash.

He had a big clean up and fixed a few other things he had never agreed with plus, trashed quite a few more things. The house now looked Spartan. Just the way he liked it.

He drew up some lists and sketched out a few ideas on how he could improve the place. Repaint and so on. And then he got depressed when he thought about if he had a future. He had, up until recently imagined that his future would be with Leah. Not that they had been very public about being together. Now he wasn't so sure that any of them had a future.

He shook himself and headed over to the cabin to have dinner with Josh and Bella.

Bella snorted as she sprinkled Parmesan cheese on her pasta. "Ha! Look at me eating pasta. I was in Italy for a day and never got to eat any there."

Josh and Embry exchanged a look.

"All this talk of Italy keeps reminding me of things," she added.

"Uh huh," said Josh looking a little nervous.

Embry concentrated on eating.

"On the plane on the way to Italy, to rescue Edward, Alice offered to just change me herself."

"Into a vampire?" The fork stopped part way to Josh's mouth.

"Yes."

"And… I leapt at the chance. I wanted her to do it on the plane, right then and there."