I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 59

Chapter 59 - 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.

It was now the second week in January. Bella remembered the 14th was Jake's birthday. She told Esme and she promised to make an enormous cake for him.

"What kind of cake would he like?"

"Chocolate."

"Can I decorate it?"

"Do you know how?"

"I can study it." Esme adored watching cookery videos.

"Make him a truck cake."

"A red one!" Esme laughed.

"Perfect."

"Have you eaten?" Esme fussed.

"Not yet."

Handed a plate brimming with food, Bella made her thanks and headed out to one of the benches to eat. She noticed Emmett sitting alone so she parked herself next to him. "Hey," she said as she sat down.

"How's it going?" He glanced at her plate. "You will never eat all of that."

"I know. I will just feed it to some nearby wolf."

"Esme gave you a wolf serving size."

"She did."

"She loves it in the kitchen."

Bella looked around the room. Alice was chatting with Ellen about something.

"Makeup," Emmett supplied for her.

She pointed her fork at Jasper and Josh. They had their heads together over what looked like a map.

"Military strategy."

"Of course."

Carlisle and Edward were next.

"Medical stuff… using wolf blood to further human healing."

"I didn't know Edward knew about that stuff at the level Carlisle would be talking about."

"He did a medical degree once or twice."

She wondered why he didn't practice medicine like his father. Why the endless high school degrees?

"Huh," she said.

"What?"

"You've all just… fitted in."

Emmett glanced around. "We have, too. It's all the training sessions; the wolves have got very used to us."

"Just one missing. Where's Rose?"

"Don't tell Esme, but she's as happy as a clam in the grease pit of Jake's garage."

"I had forgotten that she loved messing about with cars."

"He had some vehicles that he hadn't finished working on. She wanted to help."

"So Esme doesn't approve?"

"She just thinks it is not very ladylike."

Rose had told her how the history of how she became a vampire, and a small amount of her life before that night. The horrific last night of her life as a human. "Is she okay, Emmett?"