Disclaimer: I wrote this story. But Stephenie Meyer came up with the characters in the first place. I wonder if she feels as bad about the amount of time she takes between updating as I do.

Thanks to my bestest beta EMCxo and speed-pre-reader Jaustenlover for their efforts with this chapter, as well as special 'boyspeak-beta' Lemonmartinis, plus and Karen and Alex, without whom this would be somewhat different. Dedicated to my mini-mortal who has learned the hard way that new laptops and OJ don't mix.

This alternative view is from the trip to Legoland.

Legos and logflumes

(Fandom Gives Back out-take)

~o0o~

From: AlexDanTheMan

To: ClearlySue

September 27

RE: re: re: London visit

Hey Sue, what's up? England is really cool. Been to Buckingham Palace, but Queen wasn't had tea at fancy place called The Ritz. Been to Harrod's and bunch of other stores...but big thing is I scored a pair of AirJordan 2009s. They are sweet.

The charity people are being real cool with us. They even got us tix to see Arsenal play Manchester United. We met some of the players - Wayne Rooney gave me his autograph. He's real famous over here, they say he's like LeBron James famous.

Mom was a bit pissed that Ronaldo's left for some Spanish team, she said she wanted to get a kiss off of him!

Anyway, we're on another trip today. They closed Legoland down and invited a whole bunch of us - no lines for the rides! I can't wait to try British junk food, since Mom won't let me try too much of their candy. I asked one of the adults if they had funnel cake and corn dogs at Legoland and she gave me a weird look so I guess they don't. You can't have it all.

So, I am supposed to be going to sleep now. I'll email later and tell you all what a land of Lego is like.

Say Hi to everyone from me

Alex

AlexPOV

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet..." five second pause... "Are we-?"

Reply in three... two... one...

"Alex! We will be there when we get there! Now hush and listen to some music or something!" Mom was SO easy to tick off like that.

I stared out of the car window as the city turned into countryside. I was amazed how quickly it went from grey to green in this country.

It was actually a quick trip from the hotel to Windsor. I didn't fall asleep and drool on my shirt like I usually did on road trips.

The parking lot was nearly empty when we stopped right by the entrance, excellent. Waiting around all day in the lines at Disney World was no fun.

There was a whole bunch of kids and adults at the entrance gates. Mom had her hands over her ears, trying to block out the yelling and screaming but I liked it.

I jumped as I felt a tap on the shoulder, spinning to see nobody behind me. I looked the other way and saw Mrs. C, giggling like she was one of the kids herself.

"Esme! You're here!" Mom was hugging her like they were sisters or something. It had been ages since we'd seen her, and I was happy to see her. She was pretty laid-back for an older lady. She was really old, about as old as grandma I guess, like 45 or something.

"Where's Dr. C?" I hoped he was around. He was kinda cool - for a doc. Last time we met he'd made a penny appear out of my ear. Not a British one, an American one.

"Parking the car," Mrs. C answered. She had a clipboard in her hand and was running her pen down the names. "Andrews... Davies... Daniels - ah, here you are, Daniels, Alex and Karen. You're on my list. You get to hang with us today."

Before the gates were opened Dr. C arrived. not looking at all like a doctor cause he was wearing jeans. Then I heard Mom gasp and felt her hand tighten around my arm.

She leaned in and whispered to me, "No way, Alex! That's Edward Cullen! Why's he here?"

"Really, Mom? You didn't know he was Dr. C's son? I thought you liked those war movies he's in," I was teasing. Really, I liked Waves too, but I'd preferred Avatar. Sci-fi was the thing for me, not sappy love stories. But the bombs exploding were kind of cool.

I hadn't met Edward before, but he saw Mom's face and realised she was a fan, so he kissed her on the cheek - she made the weirdest squeak - honestly, she was embarrassing. He ruffled my hair, which ticked me off to be honest. What am I? Five?

I un-ruffled my hair and glared at him. Mom was chatting away to him like she knew him for years. She obviously needed both her hands to talk to him. I saw her feel his upper arm for muscle. She let my hand go and I fell back a bit to walk with Mrs C.

She was talking to two youngish women; one about was tall as me with black, spiky hair; the other was bit taller and seemed shy. The shorter one looked at me.

"Hey, y'all must be Alex," she said in a southern accent. "I always find a fellow American in a crowd..." She grabbed me in a huge hug - she was strong for someone so small - then hooked her arm into mine.

"Hey, Bella, let's show Alex here how to have a good time," she said. "Alex, we have to show Bella here how hardcore these rides can be. And since my boyfriend had to work, you can be my date."

I wrinkled my nose at that - I didn't want to be anyone's 'date'.

Alice just giggled. "Kidding, kiddo, just kidding. I won't be kissing you or anything like that, so take that look off your face."

We followed the crowd into the park and got our maps and stopped at the Harbourside Express to endure a 10-minute "conversation" while Mom and Dr. C tried to tell us we needed to see things in order. At least I got a fresh-baked cinnamon roll - or two - while they made up their minds.

Alice, Edward and I all agreed we didn't care about the "culture", we wanted to eat junk food and go on rides.

Mom got out a pen and paper and started writing a schedule down.

"Mo-om," I said in my best bored voice, "I don't want to go see the mini world, that sounds really boring. I wanna go on the rollercoasters and eat food til I think I might puke."

I knew I had an ally in Alice.

"Alice, will you come with me?" I gave her my best puppy-dog look. It always got me a buck or two out of my grandma, and one time got one of the nurses to give me her own pudding from the staff fridge rather than the watery jello cup they offered me.

Alice fell for it like someone had pulled the rug out from under her. "I'll look after Alex for you if you want to see the houses and sh- um- stuff," she said. I resisted the urge to smirk. Her, look after me? Hah!

She got up and grabbed her purse. "Alex? Edward? Bella? You coming?"

Edward got up first. "Are you sure you old folks don't want to join us on the rides?" he asked.

Please say no, please say no, pleasepleaseplease...

"No, Edward. Thanks for the offer but I want to see the models, not lose my lunch on some twisty turny thing," Mrs C looked like she was going to hurl at the thought of it. Really, grownups are big cowards.

Alice looked at her watch. "We'll be back here at 12.30 for lunch," she stared at Dr. C, and he shrank back a bit. I think he was a bit scared of her.

I led the way through the mini world area to the rides. Alice was right behind me; Bella and Edward sort of hung out together behind us. He was talking really quietly to her and she was smiling. He was obviously making her laugh.

We alternated rides with food - well I did, anyway. Alice tried to keep up but she gave in after three rides. I had a hot-dog (the mustard wasn't the same as home), some cotton candy (which they call candyfloss even though they call candy sweets) and nachos (which the Brits say wrong).

We went on the dragon ride twice, the castle once, and then the log flume. I sat with Alice each time, and Edward and Bella sat with each other. She seemed scared a lot because she kept grabbing his shirt. He shared his ice cream cone with her, too. Yuck. You wouldn't catch me doing that with a girl.

The more I watched them the more I realised they were trying to hide something from Alice and me; every time I asked them something they moved further apart, but he kept right on watching her.

After I noticed that, I started playing a game in my head. When she whispered something into his ear I gave myself one point; two for her touching his arms, three for a chest touch.

By the time we headed back to the cafe for lunch I had 45 points.

The grown-ups were all talking about the models, and how much hard work went into making them. So after snarfing down the cheese and ham on whole wheat sandwiches and apple slices Mom insisted we bring so I had something healthy to eat, I agreed to go see them.

They were actually really cool, but I kept thinking about Godzilla for some reason. When I mentioned that to Edward he laughed and nudged Bella in the ribs before making a roaring noise and doing monster impressions.

The rest of the day flew by. We saw the models then I had a caramel apple, which almost sucked out a tooth. It was sad to say goodbye to Dr C and the others, because who knew when we'd see them again.

It was totally the best day of the whole trip.

I fell asleep in the car on the way home. It wasn't until I opened up the goodie bag the charity people gave us that I saw Alice had added a whole pile of candy and the picture of us on the log flume. The look Edward was giving Bella in the seat behind us put my final score at 116.

~o0o~

A/N Hi. Sorry for the huge delay and sorry this is not a full chapter, but as those of you who follow me on twitter know, it's been a crappy few months and writing's been the last thing on my mind. I hope posting this gives me the jump-start I need to get the rest of this story out of my head and onto a computer screen. I haven't given up on Dr Dan, I promise.

I am now on facebook if you want to look for me. I'm Afm Foolishmortal www(dot)facebook(dot)com/afmfoolishmortal

Recommendations? www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/6367276/1/Falling_Empire_of_a_Heart if you like Marian Zimmer Bradley and King Arthur etc this is for you.

AU: www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/7246449/1/Paradox Bella and Rosalie are vampires and Edward is a human cop looking into some weird killings. This is so under the radar it hurts.

And of course there's www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/7436213/1/Let_Me_Ride which I pre-read/British beta. Two words: The Stig.