Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the plot and Aurora and Damien, and a few others to come.

Chapter Three: Siblings

Aurora's POV

It's all complicated, that's all I can say. Who I am, where I came from, how I came into existence even. The same for my brother. I've always known more then Damien though, and I've always kept it all from him. If only so I could be sure I at least had something to protect him from. Damien's always the one protecting me, my secrets at least made me feel useful. After all, Damien had always been a bit bitter about who we were, how we were so difference, how we were stuck in our teenage years forever. He had always been bitter that Bella would never tell us verbally where we came from, who our father was. And none of the Volturi would ever say a word about it other then vague verbal hints, while doing their best to keep their minds occupied around me, though every once and awhile someone would slip up, giving me just enough after awhile to piece it all together.

Damien though-- he never knew. Which was why now I was afraid for his reaction to knowing about it now. I'm not sure how to put it, but Damien, when he takes to things badly, he looks for the nearest person he can blame. Even if it's not their fault. He's only human after all, well sort of, and it's a very human way to deal with things. Bella, Aro, Jane, Marcus, Caius, anyone we've been around over the many years we've been alive can handle it. They can handle Damien pushing the blame on them, his yelling. Me? I can't, though I've never really had to. He wouldn't blame me for anything. I was forbidden territory when it came to that.

Though now, I wasn't so sure.

Rory. It was his voice practically yelling in my head, no matter how calm it was trying to sound. I looked away. I looked anywhere that wasn't his eyes. Rory, look at me! It was there, just pounding at my head. I never could block his voice out, no matter how hard I tried. Anyone else, I could at least some few times make their minds closed books to me. Just not Damien. And especially not if he was angry. Though he looked more in shock if you were watching him standing there. Portraying the look he knew everyone expected. Two hundred years gave you a lot of practice with covering things up when you didn't want people seeing your real emotions. Damien was angry on the inside, angry and confused.

I couldn't look at him though. No, because I would be able to see hurt in his eyes, and to be honest, I didn't want to see it. You knew, didn't you Rory? You knew for years, and you never said a word to me! I closed my eyes. Couldn't he just leave it alone?

"Aurora, I can't believe you!" he actually spoke aloud this time, shouting at me. The three older vampires around us jumped, I stayed stone still, just wishing that one my abilities was to disappear. "How long Rory? How long did you know?" I shook my head at the question. No, I couldn't even get any words out. Just a few moments ago he had been worried about a trance-like state of making Edward and Bella face each other, now, he was angry with me. Had so much really changed in just a few minutes?

Bella stepped between us, looking at Damien, though, being as small as she was, something I took after her in, she had to look up at my lanky brother who stood at six feet three inches. "Damien, don't you go getting angry at your sister. You know she can't control what she catches in her mind." She was standing 

up for me, thinking of only the fact that a fight with Damien would make me more reluctant to speak, to interact with others.

Her attempt to derail this didn't work though. "No secrets Aurora! You said that yourself!"

"I was trying to protect you!" that was all I could manage to get out, and that stopped Damien for a moment. He wasn't sure how to react to that, to the thought of me, little 4''11 fragile Aurora, trying to protect him, my tall, strong, brother.

He finally made up his mind on how to react though, and it involved pushing past Bella and I and leaving, not looking back. You have a fucking weird way of protecting me. Was the only thought I got yelled back at me. I closed my eyes again, trying to numb myself of that shaken feeling I had. I felt a hand touch my shoulder and I jumped away, opening my eyes to a curious looking Alice, watching me carefully; they all were, Alice was just the one standing closest to me. Bella may have murmured out a warning to her about being so close to me, but I wasn't there enough to actually hear it.

"Your future is so blurry." Alice murmured, and I could see flashes of it in my head. Wonderful. A fortuneteller, just what I wanted to be around. "It's there, but somewhere along the way it starts dropping off the map for such long periods of time." she was looking for my reaction to this, as if I would know the reason why. The future was ever changing, how was I supposed to know what choices I made that made what would happen to me so unclear in her inner eye?

Edward moved to step forward, but Bella put her arm out to stop him. "Don't go near her Edward." she said. She was trying to protect me, I could hear it in her thoughts. "If you hadn't showed up, this wouldn't have happened."

"What Bella? They wouldn't have gotten into a fight?" They were absorbed into their own conversation now, arguing while Alice still watched me. "They're brother and sister. Siblings fight, Bella. She's my daughter too."

"You barely know her! You barely know Damien! They don't fight Edward, ever. They never have." she had a point there. The closest Damien and I had ever gotten in a fight was ending up in a tickle fight. Why that was, I really wasn't sure, but it felt weird to know how aware of us and our relationship Bella had been over the years. I never really thought of her as watching us so much after we had stopped ageing it seemed at seventeen.

"I barely know them because you never gave me a chance to!" Edward was trying to keep calm. I could here it in his mind, I could hear him telling himself that he couldn't raise his voice to Bella, that he needed to understand why she did what she did, and not get angry. He was getting angry though. It was bubbling in the back of his mind, thoughts he probably wasn't even aware he was having.

I covered my ears and closed my eyes. I just wanted them to stop. They were practically screaming at each other in their heads, even if they didn't mean to. "Um, you guys." I heard Alice say aloud. She was probably still in front of me, gazing at me. "Guysss." she dragged out the word a few moments later, while Edward and Bella continued their bickering. I don't think they even know that they were doing it, that arguing that only two people who were still in love could do.

"Guys!" Alice said sharply now, tired of them both not listening to her.

"What?" they both asked irritably, looking at her I suppose. I don't know whether she gestured to me to point out that they were causing me a headache with all of their arguing, or if they just figured it out themselves, but almost instantly the yelling in their minds eased up greatly.

Didn't anyone ever help you learn to block out others thoughts?

These were Edward's words, gentle and quiet. I slid my hands from ears slowly and opened my eyes to look at him, shaking my head slowly. Bella looked between us, figuring out with ease that this was a strictly non-verbal conversation. She sighed, but held her hands up in the air. "I give up. Talk to her Edward. Talk to her all you want. You're right, she's your daughter too. I-- I need to go think or something." she said quietly, reaching out to touch my shoulder and give it a squeeze before she disappeared in that blink of a human eye, one of those limitations I had as only half vampires could, Alice disappeared with her.

It was Edward and I alone now, and I wasn't exactly sure how to handle that.

Edward's POV

Aurora crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself while she looked up at me. She didn't look sad really… more cautious then anything. She was so small, not more then an inch or so taller then Alice, and she seemed as if she would break much more easily then Alice ever could. This was probably true I guess, if being half human gave her limitations that compromised the indestructibility a vampire had.

"So, you knew who I was the whole time? Since before we showed up?" I asked her slowly, keeping my distance so that I wouldn't scare her.

She shrugged. "I found your name when I was fourteen." she said quietly. "Someone slipped up in their mind."

Who? I asked myself in my own mind, though I guess it sounded like a non-verbal question for her.

"Bella doesn't want you to know that." she said quickly, as if that was the end of the subject. "I figured out who you were to her when I was seventeen." she added after a moment, trying to skip over the fact that I wanted to know who had known about this while I hadn't. Who on earth had found Bella when she had left? Or who did she go to?

Aurora's mind was wandering just like mine was, I could see it in the eyes that glazed over as she stared at the ground. It was a look so similar to Bella's, it was a bit hard to look at. This… this was my daughter. That shouldn't even be possible. Of course, humans and vampires together shouldn't have been possible either, and that was what had gotten us here in the first place I suppose.

"Damien… isn't always like that." she said softly, crouching down under one of the trees, picking a daisy and twirling it in her fingers absently.

"He seemed angry." I said bluntly, watching her as she examined the daisy so carefully. Aurora shook her head as if to say I was wrong, that I had the wrong impression of her brother, my son.

"It's just he…" she trailed off, her eyes searching the daisy for the words she wasn't saying. I got the feeling that she wasn't used to saying so much, that she felt like she was revealing too much of herself. "Every few decades, he tries to find out where we came from. He's hurt that I've known the whole time and never said anything."

She was defending him. Because he was her brother. I didn't need to read her mind to know that.

I guess it was important to her that I knew that. She looked up at me now, her gaze hard, her jaw set stubbornly. To tell the truth, I suppose I would do just the same for my family, and we didn't have the added part of having blood relations. Granted, vampires don't actually have blood, but that isn't the point. "My brother loves me." she insisted, her eyes holding onto mine for another moment before she turned her eyes away once more, this time to the tree next to her, her free hand reaching out and touching the rough bark. Her words sounded like she was trying to convince not just me, but also herself. It was so frustrating to have to take guesses at what her words completely meant, instead of not just being able to see what her mind was saying through this all.

"It's more frustrating when you can't get rid of people's thoughts in your mind." she said, standing up now from her crouching position. I was taken aback, surprised she was getting every thought in my head. It was an odd feeling. "I can't stop it, and I don't want to hear it anymore." she said slowly, backing away now. As she got farther away, she turned her back to me, continuing to walk.

"Wait!" I called, starting after her, but stopping as I remembered what she had done when Alice had tried to hug me. This was not the time to see if she would do the same to me. Besides, there was no doubt I would be seeing her again soon.

A/N: Wow, after almost a year, I've finally got an update . Life kinda got crazy and I completely forgot about this. But this fan fiction is officially back now! Hopefully the next chapter will be here soon, I've already started on it!