Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable herein and I have no intention of profiting on my writing.
Beta: GeezerWench (she is awesome, any mistakes are on me)
A/N: I know this is more tell-y than show-y but I just couldn't get out of Bella's head
All information herein surrounding the Quileute tribe and their customs is completely made up, I tried researching but couldn't find the information I sought.
Bella
Five months and change later
Chapter 5 - formerly known as The Epilogue
Grease dripped from the tendrils of my hair onto the oil drip pan below where it sizzled and hissed.
The thick tortilla I was rolled up in, and the burner on each side, cocooned me in warmth. I wrapped my sliced green bell pepper around my bulging stomach, stretching the bread to make room for the sweet and spicy tomato salsa, rich and earthy black beans, and crumbly, seasoned ground beef.
My middle expanded to fit the extra filling until it burst, spilling sweet corn everywhere. Wide eyed, and split in half, I watched the kernels turn to popcorn in the heat. My mouth watered and I couldn't wait to get a taste.
This is a dream.
I was certain of it. Like it had been last time, and the time before that.I shoved a handful of warm, buttery popcorn into my mouth and chewed thoughtfully. I wasn't as sure of the times before that, but probably then, too.
Paul showed up and started to take bites out of my thighs, every time he bit into me my belly grew a size. I tried to tell him to stop, if my belly got any bigger it would explode. But all I got was a wolfish grin and he went right back to munching.
The burner to my right shifted and I started slipping, feet first. I tried to free myself from the tortilla, to stop my drop to a certain death, but it was too tightly wrapped around me. No matter how hard I struggled I couldn't get out.
Roaring like a lion I jerked awake, disoriented and starving. "Aaaaah, it buuuurns." I was later told it was all in my head, and it had sounded more like the squeaking of a mouse, which was just …. untrue.
Slightly disoriented, I pushed myself up to a sitting position, and looked around the room, having no idea where I was. Or where Paul was. I started hyperventilating, and my gaze darted around the room all crazy-like, trying to find anything that could give me a clue. Wooden walls, furniture worn with age, but lovingly cared for. "Oh, yeah," I garbled around the dream popcorn I still could feel stuck in my throat. I had spent the night at Sue's house. That explained the lack of the usual delicious soreness.
"Birdie!?" Paul's voice was panicked and high-pitched, scared by my scare. He yanked at the handle, and when it wouldn't open he pounded his large fist against the door. "What the fuck? Let me in! Birdieeeeee!"
"For the love of fucking," Leah growled and pushed herself up on her elbows. "She had a bad dream. Calm your nuts…or I'll do it for you." She poked a finger between my ribs, and I fell backwards, giggling when she hit a ticklish spot. "Tell him you're fine."
Before I had a chance to a hand crawled across my chest to Leah's side and grabbed onto her left boob.
At first, I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming or not, and when I realized I couldn't move, I drew a breath to let out another a high pitched yelp.
"You better not go anywhere near his nuts, Woman." The threat was halfway muted by the pillow Embry had his face pressed into.
I closed my mouth and blushed, just then noticing the heavy muscular arm attached to the hand in question. Oh, right.
No more Mexican food before bedtime.
The smile spreading over Leah's lips made her look like the cat who ate the canary. That made me snort. More like the wolf who lapped the cream.
Ugh. I threw up a little in my mouth. Don't think about Embry's cream.
"You can't tell me what to do." Leah purred. "And don't call me woman!"
"Birdie, what the fuck is going on? Say something!"
Instead of doing the smart thing and opening my mouth to tell him I was fine, I opened it to gape at what was happening in front of me. Leah's arm was no longer at her side, and while it wasn't as heavy as Embry's it still helped to keep me in place. I watched the blanket covering his privates move up and down in very distinct movements. It didn't take a genius to figure out where Leah's hand had disappeared to.
Christ. They're going to have sex with me right here if I don't stop them.
It was like watching a car accident. I could do nothing to stop it, not could I look away.
"Birdie!?" Paul hollered. "Gah, that's fucking it. Say something or I'm coming in."
"No, no, no!" I jerked up but smashed into Embry's arm instead and bounced back onto the mattress with an oomph. I managed to choke out a string of strangled words before I lost my breath in a coughing fit. I pushed at Embry's arm, wheezing, "Off, off, off. Up, up, up."
Embry was lost in pornland with his fiancée, and had forgotten I was even there. "You know you like it." He growled and he pinched her nipple. "Otherwise you wouldn't get so wet when I…"
Oh, God. Help me!
The sound of glass breaking was followed by Paul's voice, much closer than before, "Birdie?" and I had a feeling Leah was short one back door.
That got the pervs to tear themselves away from each other, and by that from me, and glare at me. Oh, no. "Hey, this is not my fault. It's was you who suggested Paul sleep outside, instead of at home where he wouldn't hear every sound I make. This is on you."
When it had been decided, against my wishes I might add, that we spend the night apart Paul didn't want me to be by myself, or in Forks where he couldn't protect me… Jake wasn't even in the running, and neither were the Cullens. Sam and Em had their colicky baby to take care of and didn't need me bothering had left us kinda low on options, so when Leah, very reluctantly, offered to put up with me for the night, we accepted. What other choices did we have?
Since Embry had no more interest than Paul being away from his girlfriend for a night, he invited himself to our little slumber party, and I ended up sleeping between them on the livingroom floor, like the meat in some perverted wolf sandwich.
"Birdie?! Where the fuck are you?"
I gulped up some much needed air and after some struggling managed to push myself up to sitting position. "In here!"
He came flying around the corner. "Why didn't you answer?"
"Sorry, was a little distracted by your brother trying to have sex with my sister." I cringed even saying it. Yeah, a lot had changed over the last couple of months.
First came the revelation regarding Embry's parentage. When the Denali's came seeking revenge for Laurent, Embry had gotten hurt, and badly, too. The elders had dismissed Sam's request to let Tiffany Call in on the pack secret, stating she was hysterical and wouldn't have been able to handle the news.
Seeing her break down outside Embry's room at the Quileute Health Center had been one of the hardest things I'd ever had to watch, and when she crawled up to Paul, begging him to donate his blood so her boy could live… I cried so hard I made myself sick.
The wolf was pretty much out of the bag by then, but the pack joined forces to keep up appearances. Paul had pretended to give blood, and Sue had helped them hide Embry's quick healing from his mother, and kept him at the clinic longer than was necessary so she wouldn't become suspicious.
Paul had embraced his new brother like he did everything else—with a shrug and a couple of whatevers, it had been strange really. He called it a 'well duh' moment, but it was almost like as soon as we knew it became obvious, and no one was surprised that those two happened to be brothers.
On Valentine's Day, Charlie and Sue had surprised us with a trip to City Hall. We had barely found out they were even dating and then BAM, they were married. Seth, the sweetheart, had straight out asked if she was knocked up. I had tried to act scandalized, but we had all been thinking it.
They had moved to Forks after the wedding, to live in Charlie's house, and Sue gave the house to Leah.
Which moved us to the last new development: Leah and Embry. He had been in love with her for years, but since he didn't know who his father was he couldn't start anything that could result in two headed babies with webbed feet and six fingers on each hand. His words.
"Birdie, hey." Crunched down on his haunches, Paul snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Come back to me."
I blinked and shook my head, feeling a little dizzy. A feeling I was getting used to. "Hi." I looked up at him hovering above me and smiled. I had missed him more than I thought I would. "What are you doing here? I thought we weren't going to see each other until later"
"Pfffft," he said as if it was the most ridiculous thing ever. "Who gives a fuck? I've already seen all there is to see, so I'm pretty sure the traditions are a bust anyway. I mean," he gestured up and down my body, "look at you."
That reminded me. "I'm hungry."
Leah snorted. "You're always hungry."
"Shut up," Paul's glare was only half joking. "You know she gotta eat a lot to keep up with me. I got mad stamina, my girl needs to keep her strength up." He mimicked fingering me and smacking my butt as he… oh my.
"Oh God." Leah made a gagging noise. "I think I just threw up a little in my mouth."
He flipped her off. "So Birdie, how about you tell me what was with the shriek and freak?"
I shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I had a bad dream, that's all."
"The Bellarito dream again?" Leah asked.
My cheeks burned and I regretted telling her about them in the first place. "It's your fault for being abnormally warm, and Sue's for making me eat Mexican before bed."
She arched one of her perfectly shaped brows. "Making you?"
"Yes, as in making the food and offering it to me. Besides, beans are good for me."
"For you maybe, but not for those around you." Leah did the universal gesture for 'something smells here'.
Ignoring her, I climbed up onto Paul's lap and laced my fingers together behind his neck. "Feed me."
Before Paul could come with a wicked, but not very fulfilling suggestion of what he could feed me, Embry opened his big mouth.
"Yeah, you go do that," he mumbled into his pillow while he returned to pawing at his girlfriend. "Some of us have a morning wood that needs taken care of."
I shuddered and hid my face against Paul's shoulder. "TMI Emb. Perv."
"Says the brotherfucker."
Scoffing, I turned and gave him my best crossed-eye-sticking-my-tongue-out glare . "He's not my brother."
Sue chose that moment to shuffle into the livingroom, her hair on end from just having woken up. "Who wants breakfast?"
I was off Paul's lap and halfway to the kitchen before she reached the end of the sentence. She followed me in a much slower pace.
Sue got started by cracking eggs into a large bowl, adding some milk, cheese and ham to make me an omelet. The smell made my mouth water. When we all sat down at the table she said, without looking up from the coffee cup in her hands. "Paul?"
"Yeah?" he answered around a mouthful of sandwich.
"I'll trust you'll pay for that," she said, nodding at the jagged hole in the window by the back door.
He swallowed his bite before answering, not even a hint of embarrassment in his eyes, or voice. "You know I'm good for it."
The way he said it made me wonder how many more windows he had broken. I would have asked, but the eggs were calling my name.
Watching Sue putter around her old kitchen, it occurred to me I had always been the one doing the puttering. It was comforting in a way, knowing that Charlie had her to take care of him after I had moved out to live with Paul. But I had to admit a part of me had had trouble letting go. I had taken care of people my whole life. First it was Renee and later, when I moved back to Forks, it had been Charlie. With Edward it had been the other way around, but still the same in that it had been one-sided. He took care of me but I never got to take care of him. I guess one-hundred-year-old virtually indestructible vampires needed to be cared for.
Paul plucked a piece of tomato from his omelette and fed it to me. It didn't matter that I knew he hated tomatoes, what mattered was that he knew I loved them and that's why he gave them to me instead of hiding them in his napkin. Or the fact that I always took my ham sandwiches without mustard, it wasn't because I didn't like it, I did. No, it was because Paul didn't, and he always ate the last bites of mine.
So much had changed. And I wasn't just talking about the fact that I was in a mutual relationship where give and take was a ...erh… given. He made me confident, I calmed him down, or so people told me. There wasn't a compulsion to be together, I didn't need him to breath, but I did need him to be happy. Paul felt the same. I knew because he told me. There were no lies, no pretenses, Paul was brutally honest and I loved that about him. I loved him, period, and in four hours we were getting married.
I'm getting married!
A grin big enough to put the Cheshire Cat to shame spread across my lips.
I couldn't believe it. Still. It just felt so unreal. I'd never pictured myself as the marrying type, because I hadn't been one. Not even when I was with Edward had marriage been something I wanted. It had only been something I was expected to do if I wanted forever with him.
But with Paul … I wanted it. The whole shebang. Marriage. Kids. Picket fence. And I couldn't freaking wait.
I felt heat rise to my cheeks and almost covered my mouth. I was up to thinking the f word, but it made me blush, which was admittedly, pretty weird. Maybe Paul hadn't rubbed off on me that much.
He yawned, loudly and wolfishly. "I'm tired."
I tutted and scratched my nails through the short hair at the back of his neck. "You wouldn't be if you slept in our bed."
He pouted, trying to look cute. He succeeded. Dammit. "I didn't want to be away from you."
Oh. Awwww. Wetness pricked my eyes and I fanned myself to keep from bursting into tears.
"Hey, hey, hey." Paul pulled me to his side and brushed his thumb over the apple of my cheek. "I didn't mean to make you cry."
"No," I pressed my lips to his knuckles. "It's … just … you know … this day …"
Leah snorted. "Riiiiight. Well, it's time to get ready for this day so Paul … get the fuck out of my house."
It was my turn to pout.
"Oh, get over it." Leah rolled her eyes and pointed to Paul and then the door. "Go. You're too sweet for this early in the morning. It makes me nauseated."
Paul grinned slyly. "Ya sure it's us making you sick and not …" he eyed Embry, then stared at her midsection through the table and waggled his brows.
Pushing her chair back and getting to her feet in one smooth motion that I couldn't help but envy her for, Leah practically threw herself over the table to get to Paul while, shouting. "Get the fuck ooooout."
He snickered then left, taking two egg sandwiches with him.
I watched out the window until I couldn't see him anymore, then turned to Sue. "Are there anymore eggs?"
A couple of hours later I was primped, plucked and prodded. I eyed a few of the devices Leah had placed in front of me with skepticism, and I kinda wondered if I was about to be probed as well. Color me relieved when she started on my hair instead. Some of the things looked like they could do some serious damage.
After curling the ends loosely, Leah brushed my hair away from my neck and bared the scar after Paul's bite, from the day he purposed. It was a pinker version of the one on my wrist, but where James' bitemark was cold to the touch Paul's was warm, hot almost. I reached up and traced the shape with the tip of my forefinger, feeling the touch in every nerve ending. As a wolf's mate, it was an honor to bare their mark and should be on display, or so I'd been told. I didn't mind. I was proud to be his, and to have him be mine.
We were ours.
I giggled.
It earned me an annoyed squint from Leah, but I didn't care. It was a giggling sort of day and I'd do it if I wanted to.
She waved the mascara wand in my face, and spoke with half a growl. "Be still or I'll poke your eyes out. Accidentally, of course."
"Of course." I nodded solemnly and tried the prim look, with hands clasped on my lap and everything, but the second Leah had her back to me I stuck my tongue out. That's how mature I was.
"I saw that."
Embarrassment from being caught warmed my cheeks as I met her eyes, a darker shade of brown than my own in the mirror. Her lips were smirking, but there was worry in her gaze. I knew what was bothering her. She was worried about me, for me, whatever… and for herself.
Imprinting.
It was the wolves' equivalent of Love Connection, if they used 'horse tranq roofies'—Paul's words, not mine—to match the couples. 'Cause apparently it was how it felt … at least according to the Lahote/Call brothers, and they should know as they had both been inside Quil's head when he imprinted ... on a two year old. His howl of despair as he took off into the forest had been deafening. Even I had heard him.
The collective yuck had been even louder and echoed all the way to Forks.
The next day, he showed up as if nothing happened. He was the same happy, goofy Quil as he'd always been, but something had changed. He stopped going out, or goofing around with his friends. Instead, he spent almost every waking moment around baby Claire and looked at her as if she was the sun and he'd been stuck in darkness for too long. Or as Paul had so eloquently put it, "One day he's chasing tail, his and others, and the next he's following that baby around like she's shitting bacon and cheeseburgers."
Before then, the pack hadn't known much about imprinting, and there wasn't much to find in the old journals, but what they had found had everyone nervous, especially the couples. Knowing that your boyfriend, or Embry's case girlfriend, could meet the eye of a total stranger and everything you had built together would be forgotten. I knew Paul thought about it a lot, especially at night when he thought I was asleep. He never discussed it, but I heard him pacing and muttering to himself in the darkness.
I didn't need to hear Leah pacing to know she was terrified, she didn't play it as cool as Paul and every emotion was written on her beautiful features. She had already lost so much from the Cullens' presence triggering the wolf gene: her fiancé, her father, even her reproduction ability. She wouldn't survive losing Embry, too. I might not know her as well as I wished, not yet, but that I was sure of. It was all over her face every time she looked at him.
I hadn't really been … around … for what happened between her and Sam, but the rumors had spread all the way to Forks, so I heard about it as soon as I came out of my zombie state, and then, after Paul and I got together, he told me the real story.
The two of them had been together for years, and were engaged to be married. One day he was regular old Sam, quiet, caring, with a surprisingly dark sense of humor, and madly in love with his fiancee, and the next he appeared to be a completely different person.
He hit a sudden growth spurt and seemed to grow almost a foot taller over night. He became short tempered and impatient, and would snap at his friends and family for the smallest things. Then the fever hit. He had been over at the Clearwaters for dinner when his temperature spiked. Leah had sent him back home with a bowl of her mother's famous mulled wine, said to cure even the biggest ailment, and told him to get some sleep, and to see the doctor in the morning. But he never made it home that night.
Leah knew immediately that something was wrong, but no one would believe her, not even Sam's own mother. Cold feet, they said, some more snidely than others. By the time Charlie got involved so much time had passed that the search parties had been instructed to look for a body, instead of a live twenty-year-old.
Four months. Sam had been gone for four months when he just showed up, out of nowhere, as if nothing had happened.
Relieved chuckles followed by several 'I told you so's' echoed throughout La Push, but Leah was furious. She demanded to know where he'd been and he had just shrugged it off, and refused to talk about it. So she did the most girly thing in the world, according to Paul, manipulating him to try to get her will done, in that case it was breaking up with him unless he told her the truth. If it had been solely on Sam, he'd have come clean to her right there and then but since he wouldn't, couldn't tell her what happened to him, he let her walk away, even though it killed him.
I think Leah thought they would get back together eventually, that she just wanted to let Sam see that his actions had consequences. Maybe she convinced herself that his disappearance had been nothing more than cold feet. But the days turned into weeks, which turned into months, and then Emily came to stay for the summer. Watching her former fiancé fall in love with her cousin did something to her. Something I think even Embry's love wouldn't fix. Now she felt as if she were being punished, by being in Sam's head and having to experience his relationship with Emily through him, because no matter how many times she cursed the whole wolf thing for her broken relationship, she knew she was the one to blame.
So yeah, there was the chance of imprinting, while incredibly rare, it was possible. Not taking a chance because of it was stupid when there were so many ways a relationship could meet its end. But the way I saw it, we could wake up tomorrow and not be in love anymore. We could cross the street and get hit by a car. Actually, Paul would probably walk away with just a few scratches, if even that, but I wouldn't, and he risked his life every time he came across any vampire that wasn't protected by the treaty the wolves had with the Cullens. Even if we had been normal people with normal troubles, we weren't guaranteed a happily ever after. One of us could have dropped dead from a heart attack, like Harry Clearwater. No, even if I knew for certain that I'd lose him to imprinting tomorrow, I would still go through with the wedding. One day with him was better than none at all, and I wasn't going to give that up with the chance that I could lose him.
Besides, according to one of the wive's journal, it sounded as if marking could override it. If it happened, we'd deal, but I wouldn't worry until then.
The babies chose that moment to do a summersault inside my belly, as if they were agreeing with their mother. I was a little over five months along. Turned out Paul's wolf was more effective than clearblue and knew way before we did, at least that was the theory of the Council. They figured that Paul's wolf had been the one in control when he took me against that tree, which was more than a little disturbing, not gonna lie.
He told me a month later, after we had taken a test to confirm my condition, that I had smelled like us both almost from the start, but he had thought that was because we fucked a lot. It wasn't. Pregnant. Twins. There was no stopping the smile that spread across my half painted lips. Leah growled impatiently. I flipped her off, laughing.
I'm getting married today.
Rose texted me at a quarter to six, letting me know that the sun had set and everything was ready, and they were just waiting for me. Mom had arrived just an hour ago, she stopped by to say hello before heading to the border. Phil's schedule hadn't worked with ours, and they hadn't been able to take an earlier plane. But she promised to spend a couple of weeks with us after the babies were born. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
"Leah-ah-ah-ah?*" my voice went up in a high pitched falsetto when I called out for my … sister … in-law … to-be? "It's tiiiiiiiiime." I used my butt to push away from the wall I had been leaning against for the past hour, too afraid to sit down not wanting to risk not being able to get up or ripping the tight skirt trying. When I realized I just as easily could have gotten caught on something on the wall and ripping a bead or tearing the seams that way, I nearly had a conniption. After chasing my tail for a minute too long, I called out for Leah again and had her inspect my behind for damages.
"Hmmm," she hummed, bending at the waist over to get a closer look.
I twisted my neck in an odd angle to try to look over my shoulder and down my back." Do you see anything?" I asked anxiously.
She gasped, and I almost died. "Oh, shiiiit."
"No,no,no,no." Tears stung my eyes and the only reason I succeeded in holding them back was to keep from ruining my makeup as well. I did the whole tail chasing act again. "What am I gonna do? They will kill me."
They were the ladies of La Push. Every woman from the ages 4 to 94, the eldest being Mrs. Ateara, Old Quil's mom, had had a hand in making my wedding dress. I didn't know the exact time, and frankly I didn't want to. Every time I moved, I was terrified of ruining it in some way. Those who knew me knew what a challenge remaining on my feet was for me.
Mrs. Arteara had told me next to nothing about the custom that was 'as old as the land'. Whenever there was a wedding, the females of the Quileute tribe gathered to hand sew the dress by hand, and by this, sharing their wisdom, their strength, their knowledge with the young bride. It didn't matter that I was a ho-quaht, my children would be born Quileute and that was good enough for them.
The dress was a work of art, in one of those not-really-white whites. My skin had burned when Mrs. Arteara joked about having to let out the middle, she cackled gleefully and several of the older generation followed. By the time they were through telling me the stories of why their dresses had to be let out, I was convinced the blush was permanently burned into my skin. The lace had been hand stitched, as well as the gazillion or so beads on the bodice and hem of the skirt, and now I had destroyed all their hard work all because I was a horrible clutz.
The first tear trickled down my cheek.
Leah burst out laughing. "Ahhhh, you should have seen your face," she sputtered between loud guffaws. "Priceless."
If looks could kill … "I hate you."
Leah blew me a kiss, and with gentle fingers, took a hold of the crook of my elbow to keep me steady while I slipped my swollen feet into a pair of flats, the same kind of not-quite-white as the dress. My hand was surprisingly steady when I placed it above my belly.
"Let's go marry Daddy."
Charlie had a disgruntled look on his face as we walked, sloooowly, to the part of the border were the wedding was being held. Walking the whole way wasn't one of my brightest ideas, but my decision to not sit in the dress made the squad car out of the question, and it wasn't the walking that crawled up his butt anyway, but the wedding itself. Or more specifically, the groom. Thanks to Jacob Black, Charlie had formed his opinion about Paul before he met him and nothing anyone said seemed to change that.
Having to take care of his disabled father had done nothing for Jacob's maturity level. I didn't care what Charlie said, because while Paul goofed around a lot, when it came down to it, he stepped up like the man he was. Jake, on the other hand, acted like a child, and he had proven it by running to Charlie, and wanting him to tell me I couldn't see Paul anymore, saying he was a bad influence on me, turned me into a whole different person, making me do things I wouldn't normally do, and say things I wouldn't normally say.
He had been the one to change, not me. At least I hoped he had, I didn't want to have been that wrong about him. He did apologize, eventually, making the excuse I had broken his heart and he had lashed out the only way he knew how, but our friendship just wasn't the same. He had moved in with Edward, to a one-bedroom cottage located on Cullen land.
The pack wasn't happy about that development.
He had almost stopped phasing, and spent more time with his new family than with his brothers.
I hadn't seen him in weeks. That was how long it had been since he last visited his father. I didn't even know if he was coming to the wedding or not.
Charlie was mad enough about the wedding, the taking up all of his wife free time didn't help. I could only imagine his reaction when she told him she would sleep in her old house, to be there in the morning to make sure I ate properly, and to help me into the dress. It was strange, how I still saw it as Sue's house. I had been there more since she left it to Leah, than I had before she married my dad. I was grateful for her help, the buttons were the size of pin heads, and Leah might be great in every other sense, but her sausage fingers were not up to the task.
Being married to the wedding planner had not warmed him up to the idea of my upcoming nuptials. I had been in Port A with Leah and Sue to look at flower arrangements when the pack drove to Forks to pick up the last of my things, and hadn't been able to work as a buffer between my two favorite men. Paul swore Charlie hadn't pulled a gun on him, but if he had I wouldn't have been surprised. It wasn't as if he kept his disdain for his future son-in-law a secret.
Charlie released his breath in a loud gush. "Just 'cause you made a mistake don't mean you gotta get tied down to some no good son of a bitch. Don't let this ruin your life, Bells"
If I hadn't been balance-deficient, I would have let go of Charlie right then and there and walked the last few feet by myself. Hearing Charlie call my babies a mistake hurt, even though I knew he was looking forward to becoming a grandpa, so I shut the rest of what he was saying out and focused on what was appearing in front of me. It was the first time I had seen the place I was getting married since they began decorating.
The aisle had soft sawdust packed down until smooth, making it easier for me to walk. Most of the guests came from the La Push side, but three rows with two chairs each was placed on the Cullen side.
I gave myself a second to wonder if they had removed the chairs Edward and Jake would have been sitting on, or if they never bothered to add them. Maybe Alice had seen something, but then I decided that it didn't matter. Everyone Paul and I cared about was there and that was all that mattered.
It had actually been Paul's idea to invite the Cullens. Maybe it was an empty gesture, because he knew they couldn't set foot onto tribal land, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I had appreciated the look on his face when Sue suggested we'd have the ceremony right at the border so that they could attend, even more. She had been a godsend with the whole planning. I'd only had to be involved with the three Fs. Food, Flowers and Footwear. She had even had lengthy phone sessions with Rose to help coordinate on their side.
The chair next to Emmett was empty, and I spotted Rose taking her seat in front of the old upright piano Sue had found in the basement of the Community Centre—it looked to me as if it had come out of an old western movie, whiskey rings and all.
The notes to Mendelssohn's Wedding March filled the air; I let go of Charlie's arm and walked the few steps towards the aisle by myself, using the breathing exercise Old Mrs. Ateara suggested to pace my step so I didn't sprint to the front where Paul waited for me. My heartbeat stuttered when my eyes met his.
"I love you," he mouthed and I had to force myself to remain standing until my cue came in the change of the melody.
My breathing was steady. I had never been so sure of anything in my life. I lifted my right foot to take my first step towards the man soon to be my husband when Charlie's fingers curled around my wrist, keeping me in place.
"Sorry kiddo," he grumbled. "I trust you."
His hand trembled as he gently placed mine in the crook of his elbow and started leading me towards my happy ending.
Thank you for reading
Author's Note: This was supposed to be the epilogue, and it could be. It has a nice 'The End' to it, but I decided to let Paul get a few more words in before I hit complete on this fic.
Hopefully it won't take too long
*Bella was totally channeling the way Mark in Empire Records is yelling shoplifteh-eh-eh-eh-r when she yelled Leah-ah-ah-ah. (It's on youtube if you haven't seen it. shoplifter and empire records)
Ho-quaht means non Native. I chose to write it as it's spoken instead of how it's spelled which is Hókwat...ish. It's as close as my keyboard allows me to spell it anyway
