This is just a little Christmas reflection featuring the men of Twilight.
It was a dreary December morning outside of Forks. A cold rain had been coming down steadily since dawn leaving every living creature cold and wet. School was already out for the holidays both in town and on the reservation so the only people out in town were the ones that had to be. The one exception to this rule would be the Cullens and their extended family.
Jake's shaggy form loped behind Nessie's gangly form as she jogged through the woods. It had only been recently that her Mother and Father had deemed it acceptable for Nessie to go this far into the forest without one of them accompanying her and Jake. His feelings might have been hurt if he had not known that their reluctance had little to do with him and everything to do with the events of last winter fresh in their minds.
Alice had had no visions of Aro and his gang of thugs for months but the sting of what almost happened would continue to be a warning to all of them to always be vigilant. And thus, Nessie was guarded like the treasure she was.
Today, almost twelve months to the day of that fateful visit, Nessie looked to be between ten and eleven years old. In recent months, her limbs had become longer, no doubt heralding another growth spurt on the horizon. She was quite talkative now, saving her gift for special occasions when it was needed. Her interests were wide and varied. She loved to talk about ancient history with her Uncle Jasper as much as she loved to watch SpongeBob with her Uncle Emmett.
The fact that she had somehow carved out a special niche in her life for so many people was another testament to how special she was. He recognized that the weight of so much adoration could actually be a burden to her so he did his best to give her times like these when she could just play in the forest by herself.
She stopped abruptly ahead of him, calling his name. He could tell from her tone that she had found something that she wanted him to see. He hoped it wasn't another creature she wanted to take home.
She gestured for him to be quiet so he walked softly on his paws, bending to see what she was pointing out. He wouldn't have been able to see what she was pointing to if he had not had superior vision as well. It was a Mountain Lion den, its' inhabitant sleeping away the morning warm in its home.
She leaned close to whisper in his ear, "glad we found him instead of Daddy" she chuckled.
Her laughter over such a potentially bloodthirsty fact was yet another example of how irreplaceable she was. She accepted so many incredible situations as if they were perfectly normal and perhaps to her they were!
She stroked his coat for another moment before taking off again to explore. He stayed behind her enjoying her from afar.
Jasper lay happily in his martial bed as he savored the fact that he had finally completed procuring his wife's Christmas gift. It wasn't easy surprising Alice to say the least and one could never be completely sure that one had even if she acted surprised. He knew this from his own pesky talent.
There were ways around her clairvoyance – not thinking about it when she around, using Bella's shield or having some else do the dirty work. This year, he used a combination of all three. And today would be the day; Esme would be redoing their entire suite while Rose, Bella and Alice went on an overnight girl's trip to San Francisco.
When Alice returned she would find a state of the art shower set up that was likely to be a gift that kept on giving for quite a while.
His lips smirked a bit as he recalled the foggy memories he possessed of bathing in a tin tub once a week as a boy. While there were hazards here in the future, there were also riches like he wouldn't have dreamed – hot and cold running water being one of them.
Carlisle sat in a meeting with the general surgery department. The group was reviewing a number of policies and procedures regarding the unit. The meeting was now well into its second hour and it was all he could do not to jump up and leave so quickly that it would be as if he had vanished.
He loved his work but the tedium of the health care system was often mind numbing. As a senior physician, he was obligated to attend and take an active part in such meetings but today, he found his mind wandering to family matters.
When his family moved back to Forks, such miraculous things had happened that Alice could not even have envisioned them. There had been many trials but through their love and loyalty the family had prevailed, even prospered - prospered to the point that they had to seriously look at moving on soon as not to draw unwanted attention.
Edward had spoken to him of hearing a number of thoughts from the townspeople of Forks over the past months that pointed to the need to move on. Nothing particularly troubling…yet but there were thoughts puzzling over the "work" that Bella had had done shortly after her marriage. And there was the grocery clerk who had seen Carlisle with Nessie in Seattle and secretly wondered if he had a child by a mistress. Yes, it was time.
There were ten Cullens if you counted Jake and you had to count Jake. And following Jake were always Seth and Leah…and then there were Charlie and Sue. And even further out were Bella's Mother and her husband. The human and wolf circles around them in turn warmed them and endangered them. These were the true concerns on Carlisle's mind as the rain poured.
Emmett pulled off from the small airport outside of Forks; the girls were leaving for an overnight shopping trip to San Francisco and he had driven them to their flight. It was the first time that Bella had left Nessie overnight but she really wanted to shop without her plus everyone encouraged her to let go of those apron strings a bit!
When Nessie came along, Bella went from sweet teenage girl to protective, fun-sucking vampire mother. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it for himself. Little Bella could be downright terrifying and a real buzz kill on top of that. It had to be Edward's OCD vamp blood inside of her, that's what he and Rose decided.
Poor Nessie, she was blessed with parents that would, potentially, end up looking younger than herself but who would eternally be breathing down her neck. He laughed harder as he thought about Jake's predicament – Edward? As a father-in-law? Now that was really the worst. He wouldn't miss it for the world.
Charlie checked out the clock in the station. It was still too early to head off to the diner to meet Sue for lunch. The weather was miserable and he worried about Bella flying to San Francisco in the muck and on one of those little commuters too!
He thought he would never stop worrying about Bella and all the general weirdness she had married into. He and Sue talked – they talked a lot about the "weirdness" as Charlie liked to call it. Well, correction, he talked and Sue listened. Sue was up on the whole Jacob thing and he got the impression that Jake's little problem was just the tip of the iceberg.
He didn't know what he would do without Sue. Certainly no one else could even begin to understand his life, much less offer him reassurance that things were really OK. Sue was great and that was an understatement.
The last time, Bella, Edward and Ness were over, Edward had asked him when he was going to pop the question. He was way past being surprised at anything that came out of Edward's mouth but sometimes he wished a secret could remain a secret around here. It seemed like everybody else had some pretty big secrets but he couldn't even keep proposing to Sue a secret.
He figured he better go on and ask her this weekend before Alice and Ness waltzed in with a wedding dress.
Edward found himself inside a quiet cottage happily playing Christmas tunes. All was right with his world and he was determined to savor it and not go looking for worry. All of his loved ones were safe and happy and once Charlie asked Sue to marry him there would be even more reason for celebration.
If he listened closely, he could hear Nessie and Jake heading back toward the house from their walk – if you could call a hundred mile run - a walk! Nessie was laughing and obviously riding on Jake's back. Jake was thinking about grabbing his clothes and then his lunch – in that order. Jake made no effort to disguise his love of Esme's kitchen and the delights there in.
There had been a time not too long ago that Edward wouldn't have dreamed of being able to take such joy in Jake's happiness; much less consider him a permanent fixture in his family but here it was. In Charlie's vernacular "general weirdness", that's what it was but it was their weirdness and he would take it any day of the week.