A/N It never rains in California…
Chapter 4
Edward sat on the leather couch in Carlisle's study, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to come up with a way of grabbing Bella and getting away from this situation, from the human waiting below, from the Volturi, from this damned family. A quiet "Hail Mary" was muttered to compensate for the curse.
"Don't go all emo on me," Jasper snapped, "You started this mess."
"How was I to know she'd actually take the stories I told her and turn them into a novel? Even more, how was I to know an unknown author would get picked up by a publisher?"
It was years earlier, in the early days of the internet and chat rooms and bulletin boards, when Edward had come across a woman in a writer's forum who seemed to have potential. Edward, both bored in his late-night isolation and trying to find a way to distract himself from the cries of orgasms filling the house, started to chat with her – calling himself her Muse. She had once complained to the group that she could find no inspiration in her suburban life and so Edward, thinking it was harmless enough, started emailing her – firing off ideas that he hoped would get her creativity going. Little did he know she'd take what he told her – which was literally about real vampires as opposed to the human myths – and turn it into a love story starring… him.
Now, Edward thought he had it all under control. Jasper's friend Peter, after decades of nomading his way around the country, had grown bored and so grabbed Charlotte and moved to Boston, taking a job with a publisher. After a century of two of living one tends to at least master their own language, so Peter's impeccable grammar and his ability to read at vampire speed made him a natural hire. As luck would have it, he heard about this manuscript floating around the industry and after he got over his surprise he contacted Edward.
Edward, with a look on his face that rivaled his shock in Breaking Dawn's pregnancy-discovery scene, contacted her agent and, under the cover of a shell corporation, tried to buy the manuscript. The publisher, who had been vacillating about putting money into an unknown author, perked up its ears and realized they may have more than they thought, and counter-offered. After weeks of bidding Alice approached Edward and told him to give up – they were willing to sell everything they owned to get the rights – and all Edward had left was damage control.
And so, this young first time author got the highest advance on royalties in the history of publishing. People who know how these things work still scratch their heads, wondering why.
When the first book was published the entire Cullen clan hid in a cave in the depths of the Denali National Forest in Alaska. It was a well-decorated cave, but a cave nonetheless. Carlisle, the only one who'd ever been to Volterra, and therefore the only one who could be tracked by the notorious Demitri, separated from his mate and distanced himself by visiting their cousins, which meant he spent most of his time fighting off the advances of the Denali sisters instead of practicing medicine. Esme spent her time searching for ways to sharpen her hard-as-steel vampire nails.
After a year of best-selling status (making the editor-in-chief at the publishing house crow over his impeccable powers of intuition) and no word out of Italy at all, the family finally regrouped and moved south, back to Forks where they'd lived before because hey… why not make it easier to find them?
Carlisle and Esme played the parents, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Alice, and the ever single Edward enrolled in High School. They all blamed Edward for this turn of events as they sat through, for the 25th time, a high school teacher's interpretation of Hamlet.
Carlisle had known the Danish prince. He was a bore.
And Edward blamed himself, which was fine with him. Self-loathing had reached the level of a dedicated hobby.
Meanwhile, back at the Italian ranch…
Aro was furious. If fury could have a name, it would be Aro. His first inclination was to fill caskets with earth from the basement of the castle, hop a ship and sail to the shores of Washington. When Caius reminded him that was already done by Stoker, Aro took a deep breath and spent his days pouting, trying to come up with something equally dramatic.
And then a funny thing happened. The entire, outrageous mess started working to his advantage.
You see, Volterra, along with the rest of the Italian economy, had been taking a hit. And the harder things became for the good people of Volterra the more those people started doing what those worldwide have always done when times got tough – they looked for a scapegoat. Now, in their case, they had one very handy. People stopped turning away from and actually started looking at the castle perched in the middle of their town. Mumblings started about the rich bastards in the gray-to-black robes who only came out at night and on cloudy days.
However, the Italian shit hit the fan one summer day when Anna Maria Castellano, a toothless octogenarian who still enjoyed overcooked calamari, was gumming her squid while leaning on a pillow-covered windowsill, watching the world go by and praying for a breeze. While fantasizing about the days she still had teeth she noticed one of the monthly tourist buses pulling out of the square and, as chance would have it, while Anna Maria was watching the bus hit a pot hole and the jolt caused a red-haired wig to fall off the head of a manikin sitting in one of the bus seats.
Anna Maria started, hitting her head on the top of the window when she shot to her feet, almost choked on the still-intact piece of calamari, and hobbled off screaming for her son, Joseph, rubbing her head and ranting about the ways of the world while cursing like a sailor. The mumbling in town grew louder and even reached the level of the old men sitting and drinking demitasse with anisette in their private club.
The private club was a pork store but everyone knew you didn't go in there to buy pig products.
It was the mumbling of these old men that started to worry Aro. Word reached him there was talk, after decades of keeping the police from entering their town to investigate the tourists that always seemed to go missing after their last stop in their lovely village, that they were finally going to let the cops through the gates.
This was bad – very bad. Aro had spent centuries living in that castle. He couldn't imagine the number of boxes he'd need for moving – even with his vampire brain.
And so, while Aro was distracting himself from the inconvenience of certain discovery by trying to come up with a suitably melodramatic way of offing the Cullen clan, a funny thing happened. Tourists that weren't on his dinner menu started flocking to Volterra, anxious to see the town, to see the clock tower where young Edward was supposed to step out into the sunlight, thereby exposing them all. Euros started flowing, eyes turned from the castle and Anna Maria - who had taken to standing in the middle of the square and screaming each day about the demons amongst them - had finally choked on one piece of calamari too many.
Aro paid for the funeral.
So the truth of the matter was, Aro was happy, and everyone was happy if Aro was happy. The only problem was, unbeknownst to the rest of the Cullen clan, including one soon to be Isabella Cullen, Edward had continued his correspondence with the author who started all the trouble and let it slip, through one of his "stories" of course, that Isabella Cullen, ne Swan, was a shield.
And while he was at it, he also let it slip that Jasper could read and influence emotions, Alice could see the future, and he could read minds.
Aro, knowing there was far more truth than fiction in this series of books, decided he wanted them all – as was his right as the self-proclaimed ruler of all Vampiredom. He'd start with the newlyweds. If Aro knew anything, he knew newly mated vampires. She'd be shielding nothing and he'd be reading nothing, for years, that wasn't the lines of her body. They were the easy target, and then he'd worry about the others.
All of this was the last straw for Rosalie, who grabbed Emmett by the ear, did her best to think nasty (i.e. lewd) thoughts at Edward, and headed off to Isle Esme to air out the house.
Their biggest advantage was gone. The guy who was as big as Felix was on another continent, which was why Dean was cooling his heels in the living room of the Cullen home, waiting for this story to return its focus to him.
A/N Yeah I know. I don't know where this came from but hey, here it is. Tomorrow… I rest.
