Carlisle and Esme stared at each other with wide open eyes, having no clue what had just happened but being equally puzzled by the loud crashing sound that had disturbed their little, peaceful moment.

In search of the cause of the noise and assuming where it might have come from, they hurried over into the living room. The most vacated part of the house looked like it should, nothing unusual, but the sound had only come from this direction, not from this room.

They headed for the large French windows that opened up onto their patio, and even before they reached it and were able to look out to see what had happened, Carlisle felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Oh... oh, please no...

The trees outside were bending and swaying due to the gusts of wind that seemed to increase in violence; the howling even in here loud and threatening.

It was a good thing that real thunderstorms were a rarity in this part of the country, but that did not spare them from the occasional storms and strong hurricane-force winds they had to deal with right now.

The severe rain was still pouring down heavily and combined with the darkness outside, the reason for the crashing sound wasn't immediately visible – if you didn't know where to look.

But Carlisle knew.

He swallowed heavily as he stood there gazing out, a hand rubbing over his chin in a nervous and thoughtful way.

"Love...," he whispered with an uneasy voice, then cleared his throat. "Do you happen to know what Rose and Emmett's room looks like at the moment?"

Esme had been looking in the completely wrong direction, but her mate's question made her stop scanning the surroundings and turn to face him.

Frowning, she started to shake her head. "I haven't been upstairs yet... why?"

While the garage door pulled up to let them enter, Edward contemplated just getting out of the car now and run into the forest. No saying 'Hi' to his father, no carrying the stupid shopping bags inside... just climbing out of the car and taking off.

Come on, there was nothing weird about going on a hunt at night - he was a vampire with a healthy appetite, Carlisle should be glad that he took such good care of his needs... and if Carlisle had just come home, he maybe needed a moment to cool off and relax. Hospital work could be stressful and if he had already noticed that he hadn't done as he was told, it would be for the best if he'd give his father the time he needed to collect his thoughts and calm down.

But to be fair, it had only been the first warning! What kind of a father would only give one warning, and what kind of a son would jump up and do as told right then and there?

Carlisle would be so shocked, he might have a heart attack if they'd suddenly start doing things directly when they were told... and besides, you shouldn't spoil your parents. They'd only get used to it, and then they expect it every, single time.

This wasn't about him own hide, Edward was just concerned about his siblings... there was no way Emmett or even Rosalie would ever manage to do something immediately when they were told. Their stubbornness overshadowed their intelligence, and so he needed to watch out for them, for their own good.

Aww, the dark woods looked so inviting in the heavy rain...

While he was busy dreaming about a leisurely run through the forest, his sister's voice cut right through his musings and pulled him roughly from his thoughts.

"Edward," Alice tzked and turned in her seat to give him a disapproving look.

But Edward pretended he hadn't noticed it and instead glared at the garage door that was slowly being pulled up for them. He would prefer for them to park outside, behind their father's car maybe...

Jasper smirked and glanced at his wife, then steered the vehicle into the garage and parked it in its designated spot. The moment he turned the key to kill the engine, Edward felt... not good. A little nauseous maybe... sick to his stomach. Yes, that would be the right way to describe what he felt at the moment. He definitely needed to head for the woods, he was probably starving without knowing and that's why he was experiencing such unpleasant emotions.

And, oh look! Esme was home too...

"Please stop, Edward."

"Hm?" He snapped his head around and looked at his brother like he was surprised to see him here.

"I feel like I'm about to throw up, thanks to you," Jasper let him know before he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Please, just stop."

Edward knew why his brother was feeling assaulted at the moment. Wrought-up emotions were surrounding the poor empath, and they weren't just coming from him.

Well, Alice spared her mate, as she was more or less relaxed. She probably already knew what was going on at home and what was about to happen soon. But since she was always good and could do no wrong in their parents' eyes, she had nothing to be concerned about.

Heck, she actually wasn't always good, but she managed to convince their parents that she was, and so she never found herself in any kind of trouble with them. They didn't suspect her of having done anything she wasn't supposed to do, they didn't tell her to behave all the time and they didn't punish her after just one warning.

Sometimes Edward really wanted to be a girl... girls were spoiled beyond belief and could do whatever they wanted.

Rose was being horrible day in and day out, but was she in trouble because of it? No, of course not... all she ever got were a few words of reprimand or maybe a warning. But that's mostly about it.

It's just not fair...

Jasper walked around the car and opened the trunk a moment later, then grabbed a few bags of whatever Alice had decided to buy this time. With her purchases in hand, he nodded over to her, then slowly made his way to the door leading into the house. His face was unreadable and he didn't breathe - the emotions in the house were unpleasant and difficult to endure for him when it wasn't just one person feeling off.

But no matter what Carlisle and Esme were feeling, the empath didn't seem like he wanted to change their emotions for them. He was too respectful for that, and figured they had a reason to be feeling less than happy at the moment.

Alice and Jasper disappeared in the house, and now it was only Edward in the garage, still sitting with his butt firmly pressed into the comfy back seat of Emmett's Jeep. He hadn't even unbuckled himself yet...

But there was no use in stalling...

Blowing out a puff of air, he grabbed the buckle and unfastened the seat belt.

Could he really run before Carlisle would notice what he was doing?

A wave of nervousness welled up inside of him, but he managed to suppress it a little by convincing himself that he had nothing to fear.

After all I'm a grown man who can make his own decisions, and I refuse to bend to anyone's will! Rose is a hag and Emmett doesn't count, and I can do whatever the hell I want, ha!

The nervousness became stronger again.

Okay... maybe it isn't entirely true and I cannot always do whatever I want.

Edward sighed.

Now with his siblings out of earshot, he quietly scrambled out of the car and slowly, very slowly, made his way to the door on the side - the one leading out into their back yard.

He grabbed the door handle to open the door, but just as quickly as the determination to make a run for it had come, it left him again and he all of a sudden didn't feel nervous anymore.

That feeling was completely gone.

Instead he felt confident that the problem would solve itself – Heck, what problem? - and that his parents would understand, even though he could clearly see in their minds what they were seeing at the moment and how they felt about it.

Oh, whatever! Who cares about that now? Have fun and enjoy your life to the fullest, man!

With a big, goofy, Emmett-y kind of grin, he dismissed the idea of taking off and spun around, then skipped over to the door on the other side of the garage that lead into the house.

The parents still stood by the window, gazing out with wide eyes like they were petrified or mesmerised – they bore a striking resemblance to deer caught in headlight.

But Carlisle was a slightly angry deer.

When Jasper and Alice entered the house, they were obviously still shocked and unable to move, because they didn't react to the sounds of the garage door being opened and the soft footsteps that were heading their way.

But it was also possible that they just didn't turn around because they knew that Edward had still not made his way inside.

"Hi Daddy," Alice greeted her father in her sweet, melodic voice and gave him a peck on the cheek when he leaned down a little. "I'm sorry your day at the hospital wasn't as good as you hoped it would be. Tomorrow is going to be a lot better, I've seen it."

"Hm-hm," he muttered and let his hand run through her short, black hair, his eyes however still fixed on the shed outside. "Thank you, sweetheart. Did you have fun today?" he asked absent-mindedly.

She cringed a little as vision after vision was trying to push itself into her mind, but she blocked them the best she could. "We went to Anchorage... it was nice," the girl let her father know while her eyes were roaming the room to distract herself from the uncomfortable atmosphere that made even more glimpses of the future assault her mind and that she really just wanted to ignore.

Hesitantly she added, "I'll put the things I got for you two on your bed, okay?"

"Sure, honey, thank you," Esme said now and reached past her husband to run a hand over her girl's arm in a way of thanking her. Her eyes, however, were also not moving from the spot that attracted her and Carlisle's attention.

Jasper was right behind his wife, his muscles all tensed up due to the unpleasant emotions invading him, rolling off of his dear parents. And his brother.

Alice looked at him over her shoulder, and he pushed all of the shopping bags he was carrying into his left hand to place his other one on her shoulder. Quickly he led her to the other side of the room just as their bronze-haired brother reached the foyer.

Edward was still looking like a kid on Christmas Day, all smiley and in an extremely good mood, when suddenly his father sensed his presence.

"Edward," Carlisle said in a low voice without turning around. He lifted his right hand and by curling two fingers he beckoned his son closer, knowing full well he was here and would see the little, unmistakably gesture.

The mindreader's heart sank to his boots, his smile and the buoyancy all of a sudden gone.

Oh, of course now Jasper would stop influencing him...

Thanks a lot, brother!

"Son, come here," he said a little stricter when his boy didn't immediately comply but just stood there, seemingly contemplating what to do.

Despite the warning undertone in his father's voice, Edward took his time to make his way over to his parents by the window. Little, excruciatingly slow steps that were eventually going to carry him over to them, but would still give him some time to check their thoughts and come up with a fitting explanation for what they were assuming had happened.

But the walk to where his parents were standing wasn't as long as he would have liked and so he reached them still way too soon despite the stalling technique he had chosen to use.

He came to a halt next to his mother, seeing as she was less likely to suddenly flip and yell at him, and even though he dreaded it, he lifted his head to see what his parents were looking at.

Shit.

"Son...," the leader said after having briefly cleared his throat, "I really, really hope that there was nothing in this shed anymore before it collapsed."

Esme turned her head to gaze at her son standing next to her, but the boy settled for bowing his head instead of looking at either of them or even answering his father.

"Was it?" she prompted softly.

As he still didn't reply, a low growl could be heard, coming from deep within Carlisle's throat.

"Ssh, darling," Esme soothed him, then turned back towards her son. "Edward."

Having both of his parents stare at him and waiting for an answer was not in the least bit helpful for the mindreader as the nervousness that it brought somehow disabled his brainstorming abilities.

So instead of coming up with something witty or an explanation for why he hadn't been able to follow his father's orders, he let out an angry snort and yelled, "Come on, it's not my fault this happened! I didn't know there was a storm coming!"

In the blink of an eye, the atmosphere in the room changed from bad to worse.

Carlisle put his hands on his hips and turned to the side to fix his firstborn with a stern glare, and Edward immediately regretted having lost his temper.

Jasper took in a sharp breath and subtly seized his wife's elbow with his hand, quietly pulling her away from the scene. Soon the atmosphere would become unendurable, even though it was already extremely hard to endure, and he decided that they didn't need to be caught in the line of fire for whatever reason. Alice seemed to agree with him, because she didn't resist but instead picked up her pace an was now the one leading the way.

The garage door could be heard a moment later, and then the sound of a car being started.

Edward could have stomped his foot.

Cowards.

"It's not your fault?" Carlisle queried in a forced calm tone of voice.

"I don't make the weather!"

The coven leader ground his teeth at that exclamation and made to take a step towards the boy, but Esme quickly stepped in.

"Carlisle," she soothed her mate again, placing a hand against his forearm to tell him that he needed to stay calm and let her do the talking now. When he gave her a nod, she turned her head to meet her son's gaze and then tried to coax an answer from him.

"Edward, your siblings' furniture is not out there, is it?" she asked gently. "You brought it back inside like you were told, didn't you?"

"This was clearly an accident!" the boy retorted and pointed out of the window while his eyes were darting about like the ones of a wild, caged animal looking for a way to escape.

"You'd do well to answer the question, son," Carlisle reminded him, his voice resembling a low growl. He didn't like it when the children were willingly ignoring their mother.

"I... Mom, I didn't know it would collapse!" Edward was practically whining now. "You have to believe me!"

"Edward," she said and let out a sigh as she started to shake her head from one side to the other. "You know that we wanted to get rid of it because it's so old and rotten."

"Then why is it still there?" he asked angrily and motioned with his hand towards the ugly pile of wet planks in their backyard.

"Because Emmett likes to wreck things and this was his welcome home surprise."

And now he and Rose would get yet another welcome home surprise...

But wouldn't it be absolutely hilarious if he had started destroying the shed while their things were still in there?

The thought might have made him snicker if he wouldn't be standing in front of his parents who would rip him to shreds if he'd laugh in a situation like this now. They just wouldn't see the humour in it.

"Now, where is your siblings' furniture?" Esme asked.

Again, Edward contemplated not answering, but that would unfortunately not get his parents off his back. They were clearly expecting an answer and might lose their patience if he'd stall any longer.

Another thought struck him. He could say that it was back in Rose and Em's room... they would go upstairs and check, and in the meantime he could sneak out of the house and take a look at the damage or just run.

However, he had known Carlisle for quite a while now, and the man would just seize him by the scruff of his neck and drag him upstairs with them. And since Carlisle didn't like being lied to...

Oh boy.

Distorting his lips, Edward lifted one shaky finger and pointed it at the woodshed that had still resembled a shed earlier that day. His eyes, however, were firmly squinted shut.

Still, he could practically hear Carlisle's jaw clench and unclench, and Edward quickly lowered his hand back to his side and glanced at him, before he wisely took a step back.

And then another one.

"You will go out there right now and see how bad the damage is," Carlisle ordered, one hand on his hip while the other one was motioning towards the woodshed. "I hope for your sake that we can safe some of your siblings' things."

Edward really didn't like the idea. And he really didn't like that his father was serious.

"But it's raining and my hair-"

"Edward!" Carlisle bellowed, "what did I just say?!"

Taking another step back, the boy scrunched up his face. "But I didn't break it, it's not my fault...," he moaned, again trying to make them see reason or at least get them to take pity on him.

Before Carlisle said anything in return, he stared at Edward like he was trying to practice a death glare on him. The only effect it had however, was that Edward hung his head and bit his lip.

"We'll talk about that later, Edward."

I think I have to agree with Edward here... he doesn't make the weather ;) Tzk, silly Carlisle... after 300 years, the gears are starting to catch some rust, hm?

Thanks for reading and reviewing guys! Next chapter will be up soon, stay tuned! :D