Chapter 1
First Meeting | Bella

The first time I saw her, I was five.

I was in Central Park with my mom, as we were visiting my Aunt Becky, mom's sister, in New York, and she'd insisted that it was somewhere we had to visit while we were in the city. We'd done the carousel and the zoo, and I'd tired myself out enough that we were walking back out of the park towards my aunt's apartment.

Mom had stopped at one of the vendors that had set up a table on the path –which I'm pretty sure was illegal–, and I'd gotten easily bored, five year-old attention span and all.

So I'd walked away a bit, not so far because Mom had said not to wander off, but still far enough that the sounds and voices faded slightly.

Back then, being only five, I didn't think of Alice as breathtaking. Didn't think of her as astoundingly beautiful. I did think she was pretty, but that wasn't what stood out to me.

She looked… otherworldly. Out of place with the surrounding environment which –while very vibrant in early June– had somehow seemed dull in comparison to her, sitting on a peeling green-painted metal benches off the path under the shade of one of the many trees.

Her short, wispy black hair shifted slightly in the breeze that blew through the park. Her skin managed to be more pale than mine was, which was an achievement unto itself, and almost looked like it was glowing slightly. Her arms were held close to her chest, hugging herself.

My first thought when I saw her wasn't to run away, like it probably should have been. It wasn't to go back to my mom and forget about ever seeing the odd, porcelain-doll like girl who could have been a marble statue on the bench.

No, my first thought upon seeing Alice was: She looks so lonely.

I walked closer, enchanted by how absolutely still she was, and was surprised when I saw that her eyes weren't closed, but open, staring off into the distance.

And… they were red. A bright, shockingly strong vermilion.

I gasped, and immediately her eyes darted over and landed on me.

I fidgeted uncomfortably, embarrassed to have been caught staring. "U-um. Hi!" I said quietly.

She smiled slightly, the edges of her lips quirking upwards. "Hello."

I inched closer to her, watching her, until I got to the bench and pulled myself up onto it, so that I was sitting about a foot away, still looking at her. Her eyes hadn't left my face for a moment.

"I'm Bella," I said, still shifting in place slightly.

"Hello, Bella. I'm Alice," she returned.

"…You're really pretty," I blurted. "Did you know your eyes are red?"

She laughed quietly under her breath. "Yes. Yes, I did. But thank you for telling me anyways."

I nodded, content in my child-logic that my part was now fulfilled.

"How old are you, Bella?"

"I'm five," I told her. "But I'll be six in three months!" She smiled again. "U-um. How old are you?"

"Old," she said mysteriously. "Very old."

My eyebrows scrunched together. "How old? You don't look older than my mom!"

Her smile changed a little to slightly mischievous, conspiratory. "Can you keep a secret, Bella?"

I nodded, my curiosity flaring at the hint of knowing something that other people didn't.

"I'm ninety-one," she whispered.

The breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, making the slight glow of her skin dance as I just stared at her.

"No way!"

She giggled. "Yes way."

"My gramma isn't even that old! That's… ancient," I said, proud at my use of vocabulary.

Alice nodded. "I know."

There was a short silence.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"My aunt Becky lives here. Me and Mom had to take a plane and everything. It was so big!"

"I see," Alice said, smiling. "But why are you sitting with me? Where's your mother?"

"She's doing other stuff. You looked lonely," I told her simply in explanation

Her smile became a little sad. "You're a very perceptive girl, aren't you, Bella?"

"What does per-cep-tive mean?" I asked, unsure if that was good or bad.

"It means you see things other people don't."

"Oh. …Is that a good thing?"

"It's not good or bad," she told me. "It just is."

"Oh," I said again, still not sure if it was good or not. I decided it was. "…You're really nice."

The smile became happier again. "Thank you, Bella."

"Bella?" a voice called from behind me. I turned around automatically. "Bella, where are you?" It was my mom.

"Mom?" I said.

"Bella!" my mom said, finally coming into view from around the corner behind one of the bushes along the walkway. "What are you doing?"

"Talking with Miss Alice," I said unabashedly.

My mother looked confused. "Who?"

"Miss Alice," I repeated, turning around to look at Alice.

But there was nobody there. I looked around, searching, but there was no sign of her.

"Come on, Bella. It's time to go."

I blinked, and then turned back around to my mom, climbing off of the seat to go over to her. "B-but I really was talking to her. She was there!"

My mom smiled in that way adults do when they're just humoring you. "I believe you."

I frowned. "She really was! Really, really!"

Mom took my hand, leading me back to the sunny walkway and the path out of the park. "I said I believe you Bella."

I looked back one last time, to see if she was there, but there was no trace of Alice, only the breeze and the shifting patterns of light and dark shade on the bench.

Somehow, though, I knew I hadn't imagined her.

A/N:

A very short intro chapter, written in about an hour. This is probably going to be a short story (gonna to try to keep this under 40k words, god help me), something light to work on between my numerous other stories. I wanted to do something sufficiently cute and fluffy, and was sad that there hasn't been much new Bellice lately, so… yeah. Have some adorable 5 year-old Bella.

In case you couldn't tell, this is AU. Alice had her first vision about Jasper, but before she got to the diner to meet him, her visions changed and she saw him meeting and being happy with somebody else. With no vision about the Cullens, nor any reason to search for an alternative diet since she has no memories of being human (and thus has no reason/way to empathize with humans) and only knowing being a vampire, Alice became nomadic, using her gift to avoid notice by other vampires and staying in large cities for a few months to hunt before moving on to another.

Transposition will have an update in the next week, and the next interlude segment of AFHB and (finally) a new chapter of Crimson will be after that.

Reviews, pleaaaaaseeee :)