Forever or Never?

“Catie, Brooke will be here in ten minutes. Are you ready to meet your cousin?” Alice asked Catie. We were waiting outside Bella’s old house.
“Yeah. I think so.” Catie said. We talked for ten minutes and watched a red minivan pull into the short gravel driveway. The side door opened and a short, black curly haired girl stepped out. She took a deep breath and walked around as her parents climbed out of the front seats. She opened the trunk and started pulling suitcases, pillows, and blankets out.
Her parents walked to the back and grabbed a suitcase each and walked to the front door. The male took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. They walked in and the black haired girl followed them up the steps and into the house. A few minutes later a light came on in an upstairs room. The girl poked her head out of the window after opening it.
“Ready?” I asked. Alice and Catie nodded and we walked out of the woods next to the house. I rang the doorbell and the man turned around to look at us. His jaw dropped.
“Catie?” The man asked astounded. “Sorry. I’m Derrick. Derrick Smith.”
“I’m Mateja Luhmann. This is Catie Stern-Ateara, and this is Mary Cullen.” I pointed to each of us as I said our names. Derrick grabbed Catie in a tight hug.
“Catie. You’re here. How? When? Why?” Derrick stumbled over his questions. “Nicole, come here! You too, Brooke!” He called over his shoulder. The two girls came down the stairs. The older of the two grabbed Catie away from Derrick and hugged her tightly.
“Catie?” She asked, sounding as amazed her husband. She let go of Catie and Catie stepped back in between Alice and I.
“Nicole, this is Mateja, Alice, and Catie.” Derrick said to his wife. “This is Nicole and Brooke, my wife and daughter. Come in, come in.” He waved us into the living room and asked us to sit. “Catie, how did you wind up in Forks? Last we knew your parents were living in St. Louis.”
“Well, my parents were abusive, and I was adopted. When Mateja introduced me, She introduced me as Catie Stern-Ateara. I was adopted by Quil and Claire Ateara. They’re part of the Quileute tribe over in La Push.”
“So you were upped and moved from St. Louis to La Push?” Brooke asked.
“Yeah.”
“So, Mateja, how did you wind up in Forks? And how did you meet Catie? And know her to be my neice?” Derrick asked multiple questions.
“My dad got a job in Seattle, but he can work from home, and my mom is more comfortable in small towns, so we moved to Forks just over a month ago. I met Mary at school, and then I was invited out to La Push and met Catie. We didn’t know you were related, we were just coming to welcome the new members of Forks.” I smiled, lying through my teeth.
“I see.”
“What do you do as a living?” I asked, just to keep the conversation going.
“For the last sixteen years my husband and I have worked in Antarctica. We’re biologists and we were studying penguins. We moved right after Brooke was born, and our grant just ended, but we now have another grant to study whales up here, so we got moved.” Nicole explained.
“And they didn’t give you a choice of where to live? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to move to Seattle?” Catie asked.
“Well, we’ve been so secluded for the last 16 years we figured we should probably give Brooke a better chance of growing up. We both grew up in small towns, so it’s nothing new and we wanted to live in a small town for Brooke’s sake instead her first high school experience being in a city.”
“That makes sense. Well, we should probably get going so you can unpack and get settled. If you need anything call any of us, we’ll be around to help.” I smiled. I stood with Catie and Alice. We said our goodbyes and Catie got hugged again from her family. We left the small house and Catie climbed on my back. We ran through the forest until we got to the Cullens’ house. Jordan pulled Catie off my back and picked her up in a hug.
“How was the family?” He asked, smiling, the events of the last weekend forgotten, or at least put to the back of our minds. Carmen and Eleazar had gone back to Denali and Jordan enrolled at Forks High School. Catie waited until we were all in the house before explaining.
“Good. I didn’t know I had any family left. I thought that since I had been adopted outside of family and the courts couldn’t find any blood relatives I didn’t have any left. But I did. Derrick, Nicole, and Brooke have lived in Antarctica for sixteen years. The courts either didn’t know about them or would prefer me to stay in the States so they could watch over me closer.”
“Eh, I have something to say to that.” I smiled innocently. Catie looked at me accusingly. “I told the courts about Derrick, Nicole, and Brooke, but I also told them I would prefer you to stay somewhere in the States. Since I claimed a close family friendship, they listened to me. I asked them that when you went to court for it, not to mention me. You didn’t need to know about me yet. I wasn’t ready for you to know about me, and they granted my request. They didn’t mention my name during the entire process. Whenever they had to mention me, I was always a close family friend.”
“You were the suspicious close family friend. Lovely. So now what do I do? Doesn’t my blood family have more claim to me than Quil and Claire do?” Catie asked, scooting forward to the edge of the couch where she had sat down next to Jordan.
“No. They don’t. Quil and Claire are your legal parents, so they have more control of you than Derrick and Nicole.” Carlisle said, coming into the conversation from where he was standing with his arm around Esme. “Unless you go back to court and say that you would rather be under Derrick and Nicole’s guardianship, you will stay with Quil and Claire. It is possible, however to cheat both sides and say that you want to be Quil and Claire’s adopted daughter, but live with Derrick and Nicole, and as they are blood related, the courts will allow it. It now depends on you and how you want to continue.”
“Then I think I want to wait and get to know them, and talk it over with Quil, Claire, Derrick, and Nicole as a group.” Catie told us, sliding back under Jordan’s protective arm.
“That’s probably the smart thing. Oh, hang on.” I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, pulled it out and looked at the screen. “Why is Alec calling me?” I muttered under my breath. I felt the air in the room tense as I connected the call. “Hello?”
“Hello, Mateja, this is Aro. We have something to talk about.” The voice of the leader of the Volturi came smoothly through the phone.