Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter Six

1 Bella jumped out of the bath in a flash. Before she even knew it, she was at the bathroom door, ready to dash downstairs to see her daughter.

Alice, though, was quick on her feet and blocked Bella's way. "Wait!" She held up her hands, reached out, stopped short of grabbing Bella's bare shoulders. "Just...wait. Calm down. Be reasonable."

"Be reasonable? I have a daughter! I want to see her! I-" She heard them before she saw them: from downstairs, two different sets of feet sped up. They planted themselves right behind Alice; it was Jacob and Jasper.

"I got this, boys!" Alice chimed cheerily, not taking her yellow, repulsive eyes off Bella's. A very mechanical-looking, mask-like smile contorted her china-doll features. "Bella, be reasonable. You just had a little, uh...accident that left you rather unsettled. Self-control is not exactly your forte right now, wouldn't you agree?"

Bella blinked, focussed her sight, did all she could to see the surface of Alice's face rather than everything everywhere. "I...yes." She willed herself to stay where she was, to not think about pushing past Alice and the guys, to not think about just running downstairs and searching for her baby. It was so hard to think about doing something and not find herself engaged in that activity, already. Who had thought up the rules for vampire bodies? Her clumsiness was amped to the millionth degree, but at the same time, she was quicker than anything in nature was supposed to be.

Well, she wasn't a natural creature anymore, now, was she? She hadn't been one for over three months, now. It was time to come to terms with that simple, crushing reality.

"Besides, do you really want everyone to see you stark naked and dripping wet?" Alice put her tiny hands to her skinny waist and laughed that tinny, weird laugh of hers. It sounded affected as well as artificial. "Of course you don't. Now, why don't you march yourself back in there, dry off, get dressed, and then we can talk about Nes...I mean, Renesmee?"

That sounded reasonable. Bella's eyes flitted to where Jasper and Jacob were waiting in vigilant silence – the former smiling a little, the latter tense and glowering – and then she locked eyes with Alice again. Alice was her friend; Jacob had said so. She'd want what was best for Bella. She probably was a better judge of that than Bella could be, given the circumstances, too. It made sense to defer to her judgment. Besides, it wasn't as if Bella's decision-making hadn't landed her in a right bloody catastrophe earlier this day.

"All right," Bella said, and in a flash, she found herself standing by the bathtub again. She really needed to get a grip on her reactions. This could not go on forever. "What do I wear?"

The smile on Alice's alien face got more genuine. "Well, let me worry about that, honey, okay?" She raised a finger, said, "I'll be right back. Don't move," and dashed outside. Jasper and Jacob stayed where they were, though.

If Bella had thought that it would make any difference, she would've sighed with exasperation now. As it was, however, she just picked up the towel Alice had left folded on the toilet lid and started drying herself off. Maybe this day was not going to be a total loss, after all; she did manage to not force the others to wrestle her down right now. That certainly counted as a success.

2 Bella wasn't sure if wearing a beige cocktail-dress with a lop-sided skirt and uneven straps, as well as silvery stiletto shoes was appropriate for the context, but she decided to just roll with it and not ask every question ever about all the little things. Her new existence was bewildering enough as it was. There was no need to make things even more confusing than they already were.