Hello! Welcome to my first foray into Mediator/crossover fanfiction (I've done Twilight twice already - check it out!)! I'm planning on a full story for this premise, but for the moment all I've had a chance to write is this little chunk, and only that because the idea came to me spontaneously and I didn't want to give it a chance to run away again.

To orient you for this little chunk of my story: Suze and Bella are sharing Bella's room, Suze and Jesse have already met but don't really like each other much yet, and Edward is already intrigued by Bella and over his overwhelming desire to kill her.

Disclaimer: the idea is mine, all mine, but he characters belong to Meg Cabot and Stephenie Meyer

Enjoy!

"Susannah?" Jesse paused, leaning nervously against the windowsill. I thought that we'd reached a reluctant truce in our unusual living situation, but he still seemed really uncomfortable.

"Yeah, Jesse?" I glanced back to the bright orange polish I was painting my toenails with. I know, it may sound a bit garish, but I really needed that little spot of brightness in this dreary town.

Whatever he had to say, it couldn't be all that important. I mean, the guy's dead. All he does is hang around my room all day – what is there to see?

"I may be in error, after all, social etiquette has altered quite considerably since the days in which I was alive."

I didn't look up (with the formal language Jesse used, it could be a while before he got to the point), but I guessed that he was again looking around my room, somewhat distastefully noting the rather short skirt I'd worn the day before. Well, Jesse would be happy to note that, thanks to the constant cold weather of my new hometown of Forks, I wouldn't be wearing that skirt again.

At least not until I could make a trip to Port Angeles for some cute tights.

". . . but is it customary for young men to climb through the windows of young ladies' bedrooms during the night to watch them as they sleep?"

Okay. Not what I was expecting.

"Jesse," I began, trying to keep my voice calm, but quickly failing, "are you trying to say that you've been sitting there, every night, just staring at me? Do you have any idea how creepy that is? Because now, in the twenty-first century, we have a word for that. Stalking. Or maybe you're a peeping Tom. Although I guess that phrasing is from your time more than mine. Whatever you are, it's bad. Not to mention creepy. Did I say that yet? Because it is. Creepy, I mean."

My voice kept rising as my (somewhat irrational) tirade continued. But what can I say? I thought we had a nice set up here, finally. We shared the room, we talked occasionally, he never bothered me when anyone else was around, and I changed clothes in the bathroom (Bella thought this was odd at first, but I think that at this point she's decided that I must just be a total prude (how she could still think this after seeing my wardrobe, I don't know, but whatever) and has started to change in the bathroom as well so as not to 'offend my tender sensibilities,' as Jesse would probably say. Although he was always gentlemanly enough to dematerialize whenever she changed clothes in the room).

But this was crossing the line. A lot.

Although I suppose I don't have much room to talk, given the amount of time I've spent admiring his oh-so-tight pants whenever he's occupied with one of my textbooks or one of the many classic novels Bella leaves lying around. God I love guys' fashion from the 1800s. Imagine. A whole world of men, all wearing those wonderful, wonderful pants. Sigh.

Okay. Back to reality. Or at least what passed for it in my life.

"You can't just watch a girl sleep!"

"Susannah."

"I mean, I understand that I'm pretty much the only girl you've been able to talk to in like, centuries, but don't get any ideas."

"Querida," Jesse started, but was unable to get any more words out before my increasingly fervent and high pitched voice cut him off.

"And quit calling me that! We're friends. Barely. In fact, we're only roommates, and even that isn't willingly."

"Susannah!" He shouted.

I shut up.

Jesse doesn't normally raise his voice. So far as I can tell, he's a pretty even-tempered kind of guy, except for when I'm doing something he finds idiotic. Then the angry Spanish muttering starts.

Finally, without the sound of my own voice clouding my hearing, I noticed the tentative tap on my – no, our – bedroom door. Oops. Screaming at nothing isn't a good way to get on good terms with a new stepsister.

"Suze? Can I come in?" I felt bad closing Bella out of what had been her private room until just a little while ago, but I couldn't just let her in without any plausible explanation for my recent argument with myself. It would be nice to not have to convince more people that my sanity is, in fact, intact, and no, I do not hear voices – at least not the kind they mean.

I quickly snatched up the pink princess phone my mom had bought for me, part of the 'welcome to your new room' decorating package. Thank God the phone was near; I can't remember how many times I'd used that technique to end any confusion when I've been found arguing with the walls. 'No Mom,' I would say, 'I've been on the phone with a guy this whole time, that's what you've been hearing.' No wonder she thinks I have a better social life than I really do, with all of the fake friends I've made up.

Now, if I only had a cell phone, people would stop thinking I make a habit of conversing with telephone poles.

"Come in!" I called, hanging up the phone once I was sure Bella had seen it in my hand. "I was just catching up with some friends in New York."

"Huh. I thought I saw your mom on the extension downstairs."

"Oh, um, yeah, that's because . . . it was my grandmother!" Hopefully I didn't say that too enthusiastically. "Yeah, I'm really close to her, almost as if we're just good friends, not grandmother and granddaughter." I laughed nervously, hoping Bella wouldn't notice.

"I just had to grab my things to go to work. I'll be gone in a minute."

As Bella bent to rummage through her nightstand, I turned to where Jesse still stood by the window, suddenly reminded of the awkward accusations Bella had interrupted. For someone who had just been called a stalking, peeping Tom, he looked way too calm. Actually, he looked kind of annoyed. And exasperated, an expression I was rapidly becoming accustomed to seeing on his face.

What right did he have to be annoyed with me? Wasn't he the one in the wrong?

I angrily mouthed, "what?" If only Bella had left; I still had so much more to say to my personal poltergeist.

"Now, Susannah, however flattered I may be by your mistaken conviction that I am content to while away eternity gazing upon you as you slumber, I assure you that, even after such a prolonged existence, I have plenty of preferable activities to occupy my time with," he responded tauntingly.

Oh, how I wished I could put him in his place, but as Bella seemed to have misplaced the keys to the godforsaken truck she insisted on driving, it might be a few minutes until I could speak my mind without being sent off to the loony bin.

And he knew it, too.

"Of course, your unfounded accusations have adequately answered my query, albeit in a roundabout manner. I garner that nighttime observance is a rather uncommon occurrence?" He raised one eyebrow inquisitively.

I nodded my assent, still unsure where this line of questioning was headed. I mean, I'd attracted my own fair share of glances from the male population of Forks High, but that was nothing unusual, and certainly unexpected. It's the price one pays for dressing fashionably. God knows hardly anyone else there bothers to – hasn't anyone ever told them that just because it's cold it doesn't mean you have to wear a huge, shapeless parka? I'd only ever seen a couple girls at the school wearing less than the requisite ten blocky layers, although they appeared as white as if they'd already frozen to death, so maybe the layers are a good idea after all.

Either way, I couldn't think of any guy who would be desperate enough to scale my wall just to watch me sleep. How could anyone find that entertaining?

Perhaps Jesse knew me well enough to follow my train of thought as I gazed pensively at the water stained ceiling, as if expecting it to show a catalogue of the few guys I could remember meeting around the school to help my mental search. I couldn't think of any of them I would want haunting my bedroom – one ghost was more than enough, thank you.

"Susannah," Jesse said, effectively bringing me back to the present, "excuse me, but I believe that you may have misunderstood my initial question."

"Huh?" I asked intelligently, causing Bella to glance my way as she searched for the match to a wool sock she was holding. I muttered a quick "nothing" before turning back to stare in confusion at the bookcase, or rather, the invisible man standing in front of it."

"He wasn't watching you sleep." Now this just kept getting more confusing. Why would he ask such an absurd, rhetorical question? Maybe after you live too long sanity starts to slip away.

Although, Jesse said 'he.' 'He' didn't sound rhetorical. Not at all. Which scared me a little bit.

"Not you. Her." He pointed at Bella. Innocent, shy, introverted Bella.

"Her?" Oops. I have got to get a hold of myself.

"What was that?" Bella looked at me inquiringly. Apparently, my one-sided conversation had not gone entirely unnoticed.

"Oh, I was just saying I hope you have a nice day at work," I said, plastering an exuberant smile on my face.

Perhaps too exuberant, if the look she gave me as she left the room was any indication.

Sadly, she was bound to look at me even more weirdly if I ever got up the nerve to tell her what my ghostly spy had just told me.

How can I say that tactfully? Oh, and by the way, Bella, a mysterious guy climbs through the window to watch you sleep every night. And how do I know this? Well, you see, the ghost of a rancher from the 1850s once died in our room and continues to haunt it, and he saw the guy. Sadly, if you want to press charges, I doubt his testimony would hold up in court, seeing as he's dead. Oh, and did I mention that I see dead people?

Oh yeah. That would go over really well.

So, the full fic is going to be under the premise of Suze's mom marrying Charlie and them moving up to Forks at the same time that Bella does. I considered transporting them all to Carmel, since I actually know about that area, but figured that it would be too sad since the Cullens would only be around in the morning before the fog goes away. Of course, since I can't bear to get rid of all of the Mediator characters (although some, regrettably, will be forever lost unless you all can review and tell me how to import them), I'm going to forcibly bring them to Forks (for example, since I can't picture Jesse as a plaid-wearing lumberjack, he's still a rancher, just Maria lived near Forks, and I think Paul's family will become avid hikers rather than tennis players - isn't he from Seattle?). However I get them there - I'm open to suggestions - rest assured they will end up there somehow.

I'd appreciate any reviews with advise regarding what I should do with the plot (I already have one idea, not the same as what happens in the first book for either series), how I can smoothly meld the two sets of characters (I really can't figure out how I can really work in Sleepy, Dopey and Doc. . .), and anything else you think I need to know (I think I overdid it on formalizing Jesse's dialogue, but I'm not sure).

Finally, thanks to my beta, Shelby, even if she didn't notice this in the attachment when I sent it to her :)

Jilliane