Disclaimer: None of the Twilight girls are together so no, I do not own Twilight.

A/N: Wow, guys. The sequel to Acceptance in hard times is finally making its way into cyberspace. I think I might cry (sniff). You guys have been so good to me so I just had to give you this chapter as fast as I was able to.

But anyway, enough of the fickleness that is my emotions. Let us move on to the good stuff. Shall we? (Sweeping arm motion)

P.S.: Remember that my characters don't necessarily look like the movie actors. So, you can imagine them however you want.

~ Chapter 1 ~

When life is empty

With no tomorrow

And loneliness starts to call

Baby don't worry

Forget your sorrow

'Cause love's gonna conquer it all

-That's the way it is by Celine Dion

[Bella] (Present)

All I could see was darkness. It was like a black void that was swallowing me whole.

What is this? What is this that I am feeling? There was nothing beneath my feet, this feeling of weightlessness, and the wind whistling past my ears… Ah, I know what this is.

I was falling.

As I came to this realization the rest of my senses slowly started to fade in. It was raining, I was soaked to the bone. There was also an uncomfortable pressure in my chest.

Taking in my surroundings I realize that I don't recognize this place. I do not recognize that tree or the building next to it. As I was contemplating where I was I recognized the feeling in my chest.

It was fear. I was scared yet not. It was a strange feeling, like I was a spectator in my own body. The thing was I wouldn't have been scared if I was falling from this height. I could have just phased and landed on my feet. Even if I stayed in human form the fall would not have done too much damage. It was like I was watching the events unfold before me while I had no effect over them, like I was watching a movie or watching from another's body.

Then movement from the building caught my eye. It was a girl, no a goddess. She was extraordinarily beautiful even as tears streamed down her face. Those tears and her sadness caused me pain. It was not just the body that I seemed to be in that was pained, I was pained as well. I would have done anything to cease that woman's pain. But before I could think any more on it the body slammed into the ground and pain rippled through its spine. And I was thrown into darkness once again with the last remnants of the feelings the body I was in was feeling.

Sadness, regret, failure, self-loathing, and acceptance.

I awoke to the ceiling of my own bedroom. I was panting heavily, sweating profusely, and I had a hand gripped to my shirt on my chest.

"Hey, Bells! You all right? Sounded like a bad dream." I heard Eva, one of my pride mates, called from down stairs. My pride has six people including me. Evangeline, Amber, Éclair, Connor, Ethan, and myself. Eva had long flowing black hair and blue eyes. Amber had long brown hair and green eyes. Éclair had long curly red hair and greyish eyes. Connor had short brown hair and green eyes like Amber. Ethan had short black hair and blue eyes like Eva. Amber and Connor are siblings as well as Ethan and Eva. We may be from different parents but we all take the same last name, Swan. Just like their parents before them and so on. It was like a big extended family.

"Yeah I'm fine. Just a bad dream." I called back. My head was telling me it was a dream. But something was telling me that it wasn't a dream. My feelings are usually right, but how could it have not been a dream?

"Honey, you need to hurry. Don't want to be late for your first day of school, do you?" Mom called from no doubt the kitchen. We just moved here from Phoenix. Life in the big city was great but we wanted to experience life in a small town with plenty of forest to run in.

"I'll be right down." I told her before heading to the bathroom for a quick shower.

When I finished my shower I came down stairs in tan cargo pants and a black long sleeve shirt, messenger bag on my shoulder. What? Simple and comfortable I always say.

"The boss has finally graced us with her presence! What an honor!"

Looking toward the kitchen I noticed that my pride was already seating at the table eating breakfast that mom made.

"Shut up Ethan. I have some things on my mind right now." I say as I take a seat and start eating.

"It's that dream isn't it? Is it that bad?" Amber asks from across the table from me.

Maybe they could help me with this. Or at least share in my confusion. I decided to just show them what I saw and felt, so I closed my eyes and opened my mind. They said nothing as I replayed my "dream" in my head. When I reopened my eyes they each had a contemplating look on their faces.

"I don't know what to say Bella. My guess is as good as yours." Connor was the first to speak.

"I understand what you're feeling but I have no explanation." Amber was the next one to say something.

Everyone else nodded their heads in agreement. A minute passed in silence until Éclair started to laugh with a huge grin on her face. We all turned to look at her.

"Damn Bells! If you have such hot girls in your "bad dreams" I really wanna see your good dreams" She said making quotation marks with her fingers. I was going to say a snide remark back but mom walked back into the kitchen and reminded us about school. We scarfed down the rest of our food before standing up and heading for the door.

"Were leaving now! See you guys later!" I called before walking out the door and to the garage.

There was a chorus of byes, see you laters, and see ya kiddos from all three floors. All of us lived in the same house: my grandfather's pride, my dad's pride, and my pride.

I grabbed my keys from the key rack and we all piled into my black Ford F-450 truck. Eva, Amber, and Éclair sat in the truck with me while Connor and Ethan jumped into the back.

(School)

We were only about a mile away from school when we smelt it. The wind shifted and the unmistakable scent of vampires was brought to us. Vampires don't smell bad to us like to other shifters, they smell really good and vice versa. We think it's because of the fact that we were cats. Vampires have cat-like qualities to them so we were kinda similar.

"I smell five different scents Bells." Ethan says in our heads from the pride connection. I drive really fast so we were pretty much at the school already. I drove into the parking lot. There was nothing we could do we were already at school and we couldn't just drive off since all the kids in the parking lot were already looking at us.

"Leave it. As long as they don't attack us we're fine. We're in a public place, they won't attack. Besides, they can't tell we aren't human. We just smell good to them." I told everyone as I parked the truck.

There were noises of agreement before we all got out of the truck. We grouped together with me at the front and then started to walk across the parking lot to the school entrance. Everyone was staring at us but something made me look across the parking lot to meet one particular stare. A sort of magnetic force made me look into golden eyes of a girl that was so familiar to me yet a stranger. I stopped walking immediately and just stared. The pride stopped behind me.

"Bells? What's the matter?" I heard a voice say but I ignored it. I was lost in a sea of gold.

When tears started to well up in the girl's eyes, I realized that I was crying to. Silent tears were falling to the ground and I had no idea why. I had no control of my tears.

"Bells?"

"Bella?" I could hear their voices of concern but that was when the pain started.

An unexplainable pain started to grow in my chest. My heart started to clench painfully as I grasped my chest. I didn't look away though. Her expression and posture mirrored my own. I held her gaze for a few more seconds but the pain was becoming unbearable and I collapsed onto my knees, breaking eye contact as well. I was panting from the pain now; it was the worst pain of my life. It felt like my chest was breaking open. I had no idea what was happening but what I did know was that if this pain didn't go away soon I would pass out.

And sure enough, I passed out with the sounds of shouting and panic in the back ground.

(Hospital: around 5 o'clock)

The first thing I noticed as I started to come back to the conscious world was the unmistakable smell of hospital. Arg, I hate hospitals. They were just so depressing. But the worst thing of all was the scent of death in the air. We have an excellent sense of smell. It is both a gift and a curse.

The next thing I noticed was that I wasn't alone. It seemed that my pride and my parents were surrounding my bed. They must have heard my heart speed up and knew I would wake soon. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. Mom was the first thing saw, she was leaning over me with an expression of worry on her face.

"I'm fine now. Don't worry so much." I said, smiling reassuringly.

She didn't say anything but push some hair out of my face and lean back so I could see everyone else. Everyone was smiling and had looks of relief and worry on their faces.

"Don't you dare worry us like that again bells. If you didn't wake up soon I was gonna bitch slap you awake." Éclair said from the foot of the bed. She had a playful smile on her face.

I was going to say something back when a handsome man walked into the room. He had blond hair and the same golden eyes as the girl I saw in the school parking lot. When he moved to the side of the bed to look me over his smell hit me. This man was a vampire but his eyes where gold. Before another thought crossed my mind a voice started to talk in my head.

"Don't worry Bella. Your dad told us that his gold eyes signal him as a vampire that drinks from animals. We let him look after you because we were too worried about you to care." Amber told me. Hm, that's interesting. "We also think that he is part of the vampire group we saw earlier." She continued.

"Hello Ms. Swan, I'm Doctor Cullen. Everything seems to be normal, but I can't figure out what happened to you this morning at school." He said in a polite voice with confusion and slight frustration.

I looked at him for a minute and decided something. I wanted to find out what had happened between that girl and I. I was sure that the same thing happened to her. Maybe the elders would have an answer. We need to talk to the vampires anyway about their life style.

"Doctor Cullen, I think it would be wise for you and your clan to come and visit us tonight. In a couple hours would be good. The same thing that happened with me happened to your clan mate and I would like to find out why. Besides, there are other things we must discuss. Our scent should be easy for you to follow." Before he could reply I swung my legs over the bed and headed for the door. The rest of the family followed me out.

"Does everyone agree with my decision?" I asked.

"We want to find out what happened too Bella." Eva responded for the pride.

"I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact I was going to do the same thing if you didn't do it." Dad told me reassuringly.

"Good. Let's get home; I want to talk to grandfather and the elders before they come." I said as Connor threw me my keys. The pride piled into my truck while mom and dad got into their Dodge Avenger. We started up the cars and started to drive home.

(Home: around 6 or 7 o'clock)

When we got home I called an entire pride meeting. We had a clearing at the back of our house so we were using it as a meeting place. I told everyone what had happened and what I was feeling from the dream all the way to the hospital.

It was silent as the elders had a conversation via pride connection. We couldn't hear what was being said because they had tuned us out. Our pride connection was kinda different from other shifters. We can connect our minds with all of the pride but we can select who we what to talk to. We can block people out. I think our connections evolved because we viewed each other as a family, we had a deeper connection.

It seemed that they had come to a conclusion because they were nodding their heads. Grandfather turned his head to look at me.

"Isabella we have come to a common conclusion but we cannot be completely sure until we hear what the other child has to say." He said to me in a voice that held knowledge and wisdom.

"They should be here soon grandfather, I told them to come in a couple hours. I really want to know what's happening to me grandpa." I only called him grandpa when I was emotional or when an emotion was strong.

"We'll figure it out, my beautiful swan. Everything will be fine." He said to me with a smile. I smiled as well, that was his name for me when I was a little kid.

"They're coming up the road Bells." Ethan said as he walked to stand beside me. Right when he said that I heard seven pairs of feet speeding toward us. They slowed down as they got to the tree line across the clearing from us.

Dr. Cullen walked out first with a beautiful vampire with long brown hair that looked to be in her twenties. Then the five vampires we smelled at school walked out closely behind the two. My eyes immediately looked toward the pixie-like vampire with short black hair. Instead of the pain coming back something else took me over. A strong feeling of happiness washed over me. It was that kind of happiness you get when you see a loved one after a long time has passed. It was that happiness of looking for something everywhere and finally finding it. I was also filled with a sense of wholeness. Like I was complete and everything was right with the world.

Who was this vampire to me? What was it about her that made me feel content?

A/N: All right guys! Chapter one is finished! (Jumps for joy)

Thank you guys for continuing on to the sequel! You know I love you guys right?

Please forgive any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors.

Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated. :)

P.S. : If you notice that a sentence seems to be missing a word or two, like it was just cut off, then that's not me. Fanfiction likes to do something to my documents when I update. It's fine on the original document but when I live preview it, it's missing a word or two out of nowhere. So, please bear with me. When I catch the error I'll fix it.