AN~Whoa. Sorry about leave you hanging on this. I've been working on my AroNess story. Almost done with the draft! Hooray!
6
Charlie's POV
I remember pain. Pain and the taste of sea water.
Sounds and images floated at me out of the darkness behind my eyelids. I saw two people I thought were my parents but my emotional connection to them was tenuous. I saw a petite woman who looked familiar and thinking about her was painful. I saw her floating face down in a swimming pool, an empty glass bobbing on the surface of the water next to her head. I saw a small town that was more familiar than these things. I knew it was my home but I couldn't recall the name.
I saw a vampire with long dark hair and I knew her to be my daughter. A vampire. That snapped many more things into focus. My house and the Cullen family and my granddaughter but most of all Aro. I saw his face clearly. I knew he was the reason I lived and had been living for some time. The feeling I had was more than love, it was need and want and an all-encompassing, desperate joy. I saw my life with him in striking detail. Our first kiss. Our last kiss. The feel of a new wedding band being placed on my finger. I heard his laugh. Felt his strange hands on my skin. I remembered everything about him. He was everything.
I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of our bedroom. I had been staring at that ceiling for more than twenty years but it was not the same ceiling I saw now. I had known it to have texture before but this was different. There were uncountable divots and holes and swoops in the paint on its face. I could have stared at just that for a very long time but I sat up. Everything in the room was the same way the ceiling was. All crystal clear at once but not overwhelming.
I knew I was a vampire intellectually but it didn't feel real. I stood and walked into the adjoining bathroom. Except I didn't walk, really. I flew or floated or just thought and I was there. I looked in the mirror and saw the evidence that I was a vampire at last. I had known I would be eventually but why it had happened now wasn't clear. I remembered going to bed last night. Was it last night?
My skin was as pale as the other vampires I had known now. And flawless . . . except for my arm. I lifted it and saw a shock white scar there. Or two, rather, two crescents facing each other. I thought I would lose all of the physical imperfections I'd had before. But I didn't have these before. I guessed it had been from changing me. Maybe the bites took a while to fade?
It wasn't the only odd thing about me either. My eyes weren't the bright red I had been told to expect when I was a newborn. They were a deep purple. They scared me and I wasn't sure why.
I wasn't wearing the pajamas I had worn to bed. I had on jeans and clean t-shirt. I ran my hand down my chest and found that the softness of middle age had vanished leaving smooth skin and muscle behind. I wasn't a body-builder but I wasn't scrawny either.
I hadn't really thought much about my looks before. I knew I wasn't ugly. I was attractive enough but I hadn't ever tried to define it beyond that. I didn't need to think about it now though. I was as perfect as the rest of them. Another otherworldly beauty. It was almost impossible to reconcile looking this way and I watched myself for what felt like a long time.
Then Aro again. The desire to find him took over my thoughts and I went into the hallway. I heard voices downstairs. I could understand them as clearly as if they were next to me but I didn't focus on them because none of them were him.
I waited and then he spoke, "Yes, the little world of Forks no longer revolves around you, Bella."
"No, it's all about you now," she responded bitterly.
"Well, I don't spend all of my time thinking I'm too good for it . . ."
"Did Charlie say that?"
"No, Edward did. This is my home now and since you never really wanted to make it yours it would be really nice if you stopped trying to make me feel like it shouldn't be mine."
Goody. Hoped I could look forward to listening to them cat fight for the rest of eternity . . .
I went to the top of the stairs. There were people sitting around our kitchen table but I only saw him. He was already out of his chair. He looked anxious. I jumped the banister and collided with him, pushing him back into the wall. I kissed him in a way that I had never kissed anyone, like I wanted to somehow make him a part of me.
When I pulled away he was smiling, that tiny, odd smile that had first made me fall in love with him. I kissed him again, lightly.
"You're soft . . ."
"Yes. And you're not so squishy now."
He pinched my side to demonstrate. I went to kiss him against but he glanced away nervously.
"Everyone's watching us . . . "
I turned to them and saw my vampire daughter. She had been pretty as a human and then stunning as a vampire but she was more beautiful now than I remembered. She looked wary though. My granddaughter was smiling, I could hear her heartbeat and see the subtle way her skin glowed with the blood underneath. And Jacob Black. His heart was slower and deeper than hers. His expression was somewhere between Bella's and Renesmee's. He looked relieved but also unsure.
They were all just staring at me and the silence was becoming awkward.
"I know. I'm awesome."
I turned away from Aro and swept my hand in the air down my side, beginning at the top of my head, like a girl on a game show presenting a newly revealed prize package from behind a curtain.
Aro giggled crazily and Renesmee bounced from her chair to embrace me. Bella came forward but didn't touch me. She was staring at my face.
"Not what you expected?"
"Your eyes . . ."
"Oh yeah. I thought they'd be red . . ."
Bella and Aro exchanged a nervous glance. They were hiding something.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Great. Why?"
"Do you—are you thirsty?"
"Um. What does that feel like?"
"Is your throat burning?"
As he said, I suddenly became aware of the sensation. It was uncomfortable but not terrible.
"A little bit . . ."
"A little bit?" Bella sounded alarmed.
"That's probably not bad . . ." Aro said but he sounded uncertain.
"Okay, what's going on?"
A wolf howl interrupted before anyone could speak though.
"I'm sorry, my love, but we really don't have time to talk here. The wolves aren't happy with your transformation, I'm afraid."
"Oh right. I thought we'd go somewhere else I guess."
"There wasn't time."
"Okay . . ."
"There's not time now, either, Dad, we have to run."
"Well I feel like running so that's good."
"Do you want to take anything?" Aro asked.
"Yup."
I slid my arm around his waist and pulled him back close to me. He smiled, giddy and we spun together towards the door.
"Let's go out the back . . ." Jacob said. "They're out front right now. You ready, Ness?"
"Always."
She followed Jacob through the kitchen to the back door.
"We should separate," Bella said. "We can divide them that way. One wolf can't do much to any of us."
"Or I can protect you."
I hadn't tested my strength yet but I knew that I could literally demolish this room without effort.
"Yeah. You guys should stay together at least. Especially while we're so close to humans . . ."
"You first," I said and she took another second to look over my face with that worried expression before disappearing out the back.
We stayed for a few seconds, looking around at our home.
"I wish we didn't have to leave . . ." he said. He sounded so sad it hurt me.
"At least we're going together . . ."
"Yes. I would have done this differently, I'm sorry."
"I'm not. I've been ready for years."
"I know."
We walked from the house, slowly, holding hands. I felt like I would feel sad about leaving later. Right now I was too excited about everything happening to feel sad. I wanted to run into the woods and see everything with my new vision and hear new sounds and . . . be with Aro. In every way possible. We couldn't be separated now. It was intoxicating.
I had been breathing the air of the pacific-northwest my entire life but it wasn't this air. I wanted to pause and inhale it more but Aro tugged at me, looking afraid now.
"We really do have to go. They'll be after me more than the others because I changed you."
"Let's go then."
We ran into the trees together and I realized I didn't know where we were going. Aro seemed to have a direction in mind though so I just followed him. We'd been running for maybe a minute when the first wolf came out of the trees. It lunged at Aro and a dark red fury unlike anything I had experienced in life overwhelmed me. I raced between them and batted it away. It felt like nothing and I saw it fly back into the trees. I tried not to think about which unfortunate Quileute youth I may have just injured or even killed. I knew it wasn't their fault that this enmity between our kind and theirs existed but while they were actively trying to hurt Aro, they would be in the path of destruction because I knew I would kill anyone who tried to harm him.
"Get on my back."
"Charlie, I'm quite fast . . ."
"It'll be easier for me to protect you this way."
I thought he would argue more because that's what he did but instead he uncharacteristically obeyed and as soon as his arms were around my neck securely, I took off again.
"Where am I going, by the way?"
"To Seattle, there's a safe house there."
I knew where I was in the forest somehow. Like a compass, I shifted direction slightly and headed in the straightest course to the city. Aro had his face pressed against my neck. I felt him draw breath against my skin.
"Did you just smell me?"
"Yes. You smell wonderful. And it's so nice not to want to eat you anymore."
"I thought I looked pretty tasty, actually . . ."
"You are."
He squeezed me and for once it didn't hurt. It just felt like a hug. I had to fight off the desire to stop there and start kissing him again. So much about my human life was blurry but I knew there had been some complicated feelings about him being male when we'd first met. It didn't make sense now. He was just him. Everything about my feelings felt natural. Loving him was easy and the sexual desire I felt was so potent it made me a little dizzy. I wanted to feel his new skin, or the new way his skin felt against mine. Then I silenced those thoughts because I was pretty sure that running at this speed, even as a vampire, would be uncomfortable with an erection.
The trees changed as we got further from Forks. A large brown wolf came out of the woods to my right but my brain, now able to calculate my environment at a faster, clearer pace than ever before registered it as Jacob long before any base instinct would have caused me to impulsively attack. Renesmee was riding casually on his back like some sort of medieval princess on a loping, furry horse.
"Where's Bella?"
I didn't shout but they both heard me. Jacob shook his massive head and Renesmee turned hers back into the trees, looking worried.
"We should go back."
"No, Charlie! We're almost there."
"Jacob? Can you carry two?"
Then I got to see what a giant wolf looked like when they were startled because his jaw dropped a little bit and I waited for the request to sink in before grabbing Aro's arm and deftly flipping him off my back and onto Jacob's, behind Renesmee.
I heard her laugh and Aro yell, "No!" But he didn't let go.
"I'll meet you at the Space Needle, Meg Ryan!"
I watched his shocked little face disappear from view and spun back toward Forks and La Push. I paused, sifting through my memories for the smells in my house just after I woke up. I focused on detangling them and assigning them place. There was the smell of human food and soap and dust and cotton clothing and the paint and wood of the house and underneath all of this the smell of my companions. Jacob really did smell like a wet dog but it wasn't as terrible as other vampires had made it out to be. He smelled like a clean dog that had been in the clean rain of the unpolluted beaches of the Olympic Peninsula. Then a sweet, soft smell like lavender and melted brown sugar, that was Renesmee. Then Aro's familiar dark, heady smell, only intensified. Books and warm sunlight and a hidden feral musk that caused a rush of sexual desire to envelope me. That made me want to turn and chase him but I forced myself to stop and search for Bella. There, Bella's smell was sharper than the others. It had a heavy, forceful scent and suited her so perfectly I laughed a little. It was like a moody brand of strong liquor infused with sunflowers. It was an utterly unique smell. I inhaled and caught it coming from the west, I sped after it, following it as easily as I would have a blinking light ahead of me.
I heard wolves and I heard Bella shouting. When I got there I saw that she'd been cornered by three of them. They were small and I was pretty sure she could have taken them but she didn't seem to want to. I think her love for Jacob made it difficult for her to bring herself to harm a wolf especially since she knew the Alpha of this pack had helped protect her during her pregnancy. I swung into a tree and landed in the center of them.
"This isn't necessary, Leah, if you're here. I don't know what you look like as a wolf but we're obviously on our way out here. No humans have been hurt and everything is peachy keen, so me and my family are going to leave now and you know what, I'm probably going to come back here at some point and get what I want from my house and you're not going to stop me because as I'm sure you are aware, I am much, much stronger than all of you combined right now and fighting me will lead to a lot of unnecessary injury."
I demonstrated my strength by putting my hand on a nearby tree and pushing gently. My arm sank into the trunk past my wrist like the wood were made of shaving cream and I brought back a handful sawdust. I started to wipe it on my pants and then reached for the nearest wolf instead and brushed off the chips on its fur.
"Sorry, If I got that on these clothes my husband would kill me and he's much scarier than you three. Now, if you don't mind—" I caught Bella's wrist and flung her over my back, she made a startled yelp but hung on, "—we'll be on our way to let you all calm down enough for us to be buddies again. Don't let anybody touch our house, okay? We will definitely be back. My husband loves it here and he always gets what he wants . . ."
Then I bolted into the woods. They must have been surprised because it was at least twenty seconds before I heard them following us. I felt like they were just being perfunctory at this point though because they didn't come close to catching us and in another minute, we were back to the place I split up with the others. Bella was struggling against my hold and I dropped her. She hit the ground with a very un-Bella-like grace and kept pace with me easily.
"I was just holding them off so you guys could get ahead. I was fine."
"Well, we were ahead and you were gone. I know you're a big bad vampire, Bells, but you're still my baby and if you're lost in the woods, I will come find you."
I heard heard her mutter, "I wasn't lost," but she didn't try to argue more.
We crossed the water standing on top of a ferry. Its pace was uncomfortably slow after my run but the motion of the water and smell of the ocean were soothing.
"Never thought you would become a vampire . . ."
"Made sure of that by lying to me about it all."
"Yeah, well, ironically, if I had told you the truth, your future husband would have come and ripped all of our heads off."
"He does tend to overreact . . ."
"I still don't understand why you like him."
"And I still don't understand why you liked Edward."
"Edward was beautiful . . ."
"And angst-ridden . . ."
"Thoughtful."
"Whiny."
"Brave."
"Kind of stupid. At least about you . . ."
"I guess that's true."
"And there, we've just pretty much described my husband too so I guess you do know. Except mine is way smarter and funnier."
"You didn't really know Edward though."
"Yeah. Kind of hard to really know a person when you don't even know what they are . . ."
"Did you have feelings for Aro before you knew?"
"Yes. I mean, I knew he wasn't human right away. I knew he was like you guys. But I didn't know he was a vampire until after I was in love with him already."
"Who said it first?"
She'd acted like she'd rather drink rat blood than talk about him before.
"Do you actually want to know about this?"
"I'm asking . . ."
"Well, he did. Sort of. He told me I was in love with him."
She snorted.
"Were you?"
"Yes. But I was 'confused'. I went to a therapist!"
"What? You what?"
"Yeah. Almost more shocking than falling for a dude."
"Wow. How long did you do that for?"
"I only went twice. I'm not a super complicated guy. I figured out how I felt and I went and told him and that was that."
"What happened to Sue?"
"We broke up."
"After you . . .?"
"Yeah. She kind of knew already though. She said it was a 'Swan thing' to fall in love with vampires."
I was surprised when she laughed. Not just a little but hysterically and I had to tell her to be quiet so the people under us didn't freak out.
"I guess it is . . ."
"I don't feel good about Edward being gone, you know. I'm just now comprehending how difficult that must be."
"Thanks, Dad."
She slid closer and put her head on my shoulder and we watched the light of Seattle draw very slowly closer as our paths did the same. We were on the same team now for maybe the first time in our lives and other than the day Aro "proposed" to me and day Bella was born, it was maybe the happiest moment of my life so far.
Bella was concerned that I hadn't hunted yet since we were in a city full of tasty humans now but it didn't bother me. It was like passing restaurants while walking somewhere while you're late. I could smell them and it was nice but I didn't have time to stop and eat so I just ignored it. Maybe I was too practical to be a good vampire . . .
Or not because I was really doing it so I could get to Aro faster. Or as fast as I was allowed to move here. Walking at human speeds, even with the little short cuts we managed when no one was looking took nearly twenty insanity-producing minutes.
They were easy to spot even while Jacob wasn't a giant dog. I was relieved to see he was dressed in regular clothing and not those cut-off shorts he'd been running around in for months before they all disappeared. Renesmee was wearing a backpack so I assumed they'd planned ahead on all of this. Aro was scanning the crowd, looking anxious and I stayed Bella so I could watch him for a second. His concern for me was adorable. From what I knew, it would be pretty hard to do me any harm right now but he was still worried. I had a vague desire to do something affectionately violent to him and I appreciated him not crushing me to death now.
I looked at Bella and grinned.
"Mine's hotter too . . ."
I heard her make a disgusted noise but I was already halfway to them. When we were spotted he looked relieved and then replaced it with boredom, I think so he didn't look as vulnerable.
He smiled when I picked him up to kiss him though and looked a little shaky when I set him back on his feet.
"You know it was the Empire State Building, not the Space Needle . . ."
"I know, you made me watch that movie like twelve times."
"You liked it."
"I liked you."
"Okay. Gross. Can we go now?"
It was Bella who'd spoken. Jacob was smirking at her and Renesmee had her head to the side making an "aww" face.
"Where are we going, anyway? You said something about a 'safe house'?'"
Aro grinned in a way that told me he'd been hiding something. But not a bad thing, like a surprise. He took my hand and pulled me back to the street. We got some looks but I wasn't sure if it was because we were men or because we were vampires. I assumed vampires because it was Seattle but Aro was giving out defensive looks that made me wonder.
We got to a very swanky apartment building and Aro strolled straight past the doorman and typed a four digit code into a keypad. I had never been here before and I was pretty sure he didn't have time to have a second secret life but he seemed to know right where he was going. We got into an elevator and he pressed the button for the seventh floor and then turned left out of the doors when they opened and stopped in front of apartment 712.
He knocked and I heard footsteps and a human heartbeat and caught a smell that was just barely familiar. Then the door opened and I knew exactly where it was from: The incense Melany Greenstick burned in her office.
I would have expected her to have looked more surprised at seeing me but she just eyed me for a second and then looked at Aro and said, "You little liar."
He laughed, delighted, and led us straight past her into the apartment without an invitation.
END NOTES: Charlie Swan is my fave vampire of all now.
His husband's still aight I guess . . .
