Edward nodded at the small human girl that Rosalie had given a thrashing earlier, picking up her name amongst the thoughts of the on-lookers. Bella. He felt pity for her, since he knew Rosalie could and would hold a grudge.

The girl blushed and ducked her face. "Why does he keep looking at me? Does he like me, no, well, he could, I hope he does-"

He ignored the continuing rant. Nobody from his family was in this class, Arts, he wasn't sure why he had chosen this subject, aside from the fact that the Volturi enjoyed it and he had learnt enough from them to ace it without even trying. As though trying to prove the point, the teacher took out 'Romeo and Juliet' and gave instructions that he followed without properly processing them. He had practically memorized the book, reading it again and again under Aro's orders.

"This sucks."

He agreed with the voice, nodding slightly, before realizing just which voice it was: his boy's.

He straightened, it had been a while. Two days, but it felt longer, far longer. Jasper had been calming him, while Alice gave these annoyingly knowing looks, which were quite disconcerting in their similarity to Jane's gazes at points. Esme had been worried, although she usually was about one thing or the other, while Carlisle adopted an aura of control, much like Marcus would have.

The parallels between his family in Forks and the one he had left at the Volterra startled him, sometimes.

Somebody yawned, and whether it was in his mind or an actual noise from one of the students he couldn't place. His boy continued, "School sucks. Long weekend should've been extended." Edward could practically hear the accompanying pout to the statement. He agreed, though.

"Mr. Cullen," the teacher said, and Edward's gaze jerked upwards.

He raised a brow.

"We're revisiting Act One, Scene Three, will you need help to catch up? I'm sure I can get one of the students here to help you out, just like how they're helping Ms. Swan," he smiled faintly at the girl next to Edward. The other students looked at him, and some seemed willing to volunteer, he could hear it, tendrils of "Pick me" and "Anytime" that he ignored.

He shook his head. "I am in need of any help, thank you," he said.

The teacher nodded. "Okay, then you'd be able to explain the joke that the nurse makes in this scene?"

"Yes," Edward agreed, and then tilted his head away.

The teacher blinked stupidly, and then frowned, acknowledging the subtle insult. "Ms. Swan, would you explain it, then?" Edward smirked.

The girl's eyes widened. "Er, yeah, well, the nurse is saying that when Juliet was younger," Bella bit her lip nervously, "she, fell forward and the Nurse's husband picked her up," her eyes flickered over to Edward. "He asked her if latter she'd fall back instead of in front, cause then, it's like," she blushed. "Well, when she's older, she'll have a husband and," she was stammering too hard for Edward to understand half of what she said. He grinned, hiding it with a hand as he pretended to cough.

In his head, his boy started laughing, although what he was laughing was beyond him.

The teacher shook his head. "What Ms. Swan means is-" and he stopped listening there.

The boy was still laughing, the sort of laughter that made Edward think of someone bending over, clutching their stomach, gasping for air at the end of it. "Man, I wish I could've been there to see her face." And then pictures moving at a speed he couldn't quite follow, snapshots, as if whoever had been watching had increased its speed.

Snapshots that he allowed themselves to flip through this time, as if they were photographs in a book for him to view.

The girl, the one he remembered faintly, Leah, he thought. Fighting with another one of those tanned boys; he looked younger than the others, though, there was more innocence in his face, or, as Aro would have poetically phrased it, more purity in his heart. Then, the boy's face hardened, with anger, with frustration that Leah refused to listen to him. Shouting, loud and awful – they were siblings then, Edward confirmed with a slight nod.

He moved quicker through the memory, watching as the boy, even Edward's thoughts faltered, "Changed." The word seemed to come from the boy, but Edward couldn't be sure of the difference.

It started from his head, as though the head morphed, nose sharpening, a muzzle forming in its place, ears lengthening into triangular figures to sit atop of the head of what was obviously a wolf. Eyes narrowed, but their color did not change.

The body was next, sandy fur erupting from his body, clothes shredded to bits even as his back arched, paws –not feet—hitting the floor. In the place of the boy that Edward had seen, less than a second ago, stood a wolf, larger than he had expected, long limbs awkward on the ground.

Leah blinked dumbly. "Oh- oh my fucking god, you're- oh," she said stupidly. The laughing continued, his boy breathing in deeply. "Didn't think Seth would Change so fast, pretty young, poor Sam had to give him the talk early, not that he didn't already know it or whatever. Sad for Leah, now she's actually got to watch that temper of hers or she'll have a wolf on her home, wouldn't want that, would we?"

The rambling thoughts of a teenage shape-shifter, Edward thought sardonically.

"Nice to have Seth in the pack, though, a new brother tagging along." His boy said it with a slight slang, one that Edward couldn't quite place, now that he thought about it.

"-do you understand, Mr. Cullen?" the teacher asked.

A slight focus allowed Edward to learn that they were on the same scene; the same joke. "Yes, I do," he said directly, and the teacher's brows furrowed further.

"Would you please pay attention in my class?" he snapped, he didn't seem to like Edward, he wasn't too sure why. He couldn't be bothered to find out either. He didn't even want to know the man's name.

"I am," Edward maintained a straight face – it was one of those things that they drilled into a person who lived at the Volterra for any amount of time.

The teacher's lips pursed. "If you are that sure of listening-"

"I am," Edward said confidently.

He could hear the teacher's mind, annoyance and frustration pouring out in a mess of words that included, "Fucking Cullens, one after another, Rosalie did it and now this boy, bloody pansy-" Edward didn't think teachers cursed this violently the last time he had been at school.

Then again, new words had been created; words that the Volturi members tended not to use.

They enjoyed larger words.

"Mr. Cullen," the teacher repeated, and Edward blinked dutifully.

"Yes?"

The teacher's eyes narrowed, and Edward felt like warning him that whatever it was that the teacher asked, Edward would know the answer. He felt a tad spiteful at the teacher, though, for interrupting the thoughts that he had had.

The teacher took in a deep breath, making the conscious effort to calm down. Edward didn't let his smirk show.

"I will speak to you after class has ended," he said firmly.

Edward nodded. "Of course."

He had a faint thought for Esme, whom he knew would be upset with this. He didn't need to get into trouble within a month of coming to the school. Carlisle would be disappointed, with that expression of his that didn't showcase his feelings, but rather, subtly displayed it. The rest of them probably wouldn't be bothered, although he could easily imagine Alice pestering him for a reason and Emmett patting his shoulder, as though Edward only properly joined the school after some trouble.

"Now, moving on to the next scene, Scene Four, featuring our hero with Mercutio and Benvolio, Mr. Gere, would you like to-"

A wolf running, body elongating with each stride-

"If the two of you would help him," the teacher pointed at two students near the front of the class. There was the scratch of the legs of the chairs striking the floor as they stood up. "Now, start-"

The same wolf, recognizable with its fair fur, blurring with the greenery, body striking only because of its color-

"And, to sink it in, should you burden love; too great oppression for a tender thing-"

The forest merging into a chaotic mess of color, erupting as green and black and brown and yellowish colors came from nature and its creatures-

"If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st-"

Creatures making low noises, deep and with treacherous undertones, growling as they clawed at imaginary enemies, practicing for the tangible ones that they would eventually face. The wolf from earlier-

"O, then, I see the Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than-"

Wolfs growling, leaping at each other with paws outstretched, teeth showing –sharp and glinting as the sun beat down on them—in a snarl that only grew as the two collided in a fantastic eruption of sound and movement. The wolf, yellowish brown thing, looked small compared to its counterpart, a-

"Which are children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind, who wooes even now the frozen bosom-"

A howl of pain as the only wolf that seemed familiar was knocked down, the other wolf biting its neck. The moment the sandy wolf hit the ground, and the jaw was removed, leaving no mark; nothing to show that a fight had even occurred. Another wolf edged closer, nudging the body with its snout, and the wolf stood on shaky feet, the two conversing in soft whining sounds, comforting in their tone of familiarity and understanding. Around them, the other wolves continued, teeth coming down harshly, bodies contorting violently, legs jerking in protest-

"Strike, drum."

The bell rang, and Edward could only sit in his seat as the rest of the class moved around him.

"Mr. Cullen," the teacher walked towards him as the last of the students trailed out, glancing back to stare at them. He sat on the edge of the table where Bella Swan had been seated and looked at him as though trying to read his mind. He almost laughed at the irony.

"Yes, sir?" he said politely.

He sighed, and then removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Edward sighed inwardly, and if he'd had glasses he would have mimicked the action. He knew what was going to come. "Edward, I know that you're new to this place, this class, and in your old school, you learnt all this?"

Edward nodded. "We completed all of Shakespeare's plays," he said.

The teacher's eyes widened. "Oh, I didn't know that."

Edward shrugged. "I didn't realize you'd still be doing the play." They had done poems and the like, Edward honestly hadn't bothered to find out what they would be doing later. "We did poems there, but not those that you analyzed with us," he explained.

"You've really done all the plays?" he sounded plainly skeptical.

"Romeo and Juliet was done, of course, Macbeth and Hamlet were completed concurrently," Aro and Caius had wanted him to take on those only a while after he'd met them. "After which we researched heavily into Julies Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra." Marcus had been reading those in the library, and he had made sure to know the book inside out so that he could speak to Marcus, who would reply with nods or shakes of the head or even –once every decade or so— make a passing comment.

"A Midsummer's Night Dream was also completed, with a play as well," Heidi had been utterly entranced by the romanticism of it all, forcing those at the Volterra to act out the parts. "Taming of The Shrew was a riot," he grinned at the memory, it was quite possibly the first time he had seen Demetri laugh with abandon. They had read it together, excerpts springing into his memory even as he remembered the incidences. "Merchant of Venice was another," because Felix had enjoyed the drama of it, enjoyed acting it out in life.

He looked up at the teacher, who looked bewildered by it all.

"But, to do all that would take years, at least, if you were completing the books as thoroughly as we do here," the teacher said, a tone of cockiness in his tone.

Edward smirked. "We actually did far more specific analysis than is practiced in this institution, we even took to watching plays, visiting areas mentioned in the plays, so on." Of course they had, Aro had known Shakespeare, met him, spoken to him even.

Aro gained pleasure from the arts; he had not executed William because of respect for his talent.

This teacher would never be able to capture the play's essence as those at the Volterra would, those who had lived during all of those times and experienced all of those emotions first-hand.

"Well," the teacher spluttered slightly before gathering himself. "Maybe you should be transferred to a higher class," he said. "Just for this subject, we can do that."

Edward shrugged. "It'd be nice, I guess."

Nice.

He snorted. It wouldn't be any different from this class.

"Well, I'll speak to the principal, we'll figure out a way of changing classes for you." The teacher nodded, "Anything to get you away from here, distracting everyone, thinking he's so good-"

"I can leave now, then?" Edward asked pointedly, cutting short his thoughts.

"Yes, yes," the teacher stood, and taking Edward's curve of lips as a smile, let him pass. Edward's smirk widened as he moved towards the cafeteria, where he could already hear the buzz of conversation.

He walked towards their table –meaning the table that everyone in the school acknowledged as the Cullens'—where the rest of his family was already waiting, Alice talking animatedly. Jasper's eyes flickered towards him, brow rising, and Edward wondered what Jasper was feeling. He murmured something, and Alice stopped talking, a hand hanging mid-air as she turned towards Edward.

"You got into trouble so quickly?" she said, as Edward was within listening distance, tables away from them.

Edward shrugged, moving nearer and sitting down. "The teacher was boring. He offered to allow me to-"

"Switch classes, I know," Alice said distractedly. "I didn't see you getting into trouble, I wasn't focusing on you, sorry, I would've warned you otherwise."

"He's not feeling too upset at the incident," Jasper said, letting a small grin flit across his face.

Across the room, someone screamed in her mind, and heads bent to discuss the moment where one of the moody Cullens actually smiled. Edward didn't wince, but shared a commiserating glance with Jasper, who did, at the sudden rush of emotion.

Alice laid a hand on Jasper's arm.

Across them, Emmett looked up from where he had been toying with strands of Rosalie's hair. "Not bad, man, took me three weeks to piss off a teacher, they kept laughing at everything I pulled," he said.

Rosalie's body dug into Emmett's in a silent demand, and his fingers returned to her hair.

Rosalie purred. "You know Esme's going to be annoyed. And Carlisle will give you The Look Of D and D."

"D and D?" Edward asked.

"Doom and Disappointment," Rosalie said. "You know, where his face just looks as though you did some great failure, even though you didn't, and he doesn't punish you or anything. But he'll give some annoying lecture on how you could do better for yourself and how you made the decision to come here, so you have to take responsibility for the actions that you take here. Then Esme'll join him because she's like that and you can't snap at them cause they look so damned pathetic together with that face."

The rest of the table stared at her.

She shrugged. "They give it a lot to me."

Alice shrugged. "Well, she's right."

Edward looked at her, and flashes of "Edward, I know that you're trying your best-" and "Maybe if you just worked a little more to integrate yourself into this society-" and"You've got to take responsibility for your actions-" hit him.

He groaned. "I hate it when they do that."

"They've never done it to you, though," Jasper pointed out.

"No, but Carlisle must've taught Aro, because he has. Caius doesn't, but sometimes Marcus does –he doesn't say anything, but he thinks things really loudly. Heidi does it too, kind of like a make-shift Esme," he said.

"Aro does it?" Rosalie looked amused. "He doesn't seem like the fathering sort."

Edward frowned; Rosalie had met Aro twice, neither had been pleasant experiences – the first time, Aro had stared at Rosalie longingly before asking her to join him, the second time hadn't been too different from the first. "Well, he's not that bad, really."

Rosalie snorted. "Yeah, he's just weird as fuck."

"Rosalie," Alice chided. "Aro has been kind to Edward-"

"Why's that, again?" Rosalie asked pointedly. "Why did Aro take Edward into his place in the first place?"

Edward's face paled further. "We never did anything, Rosalie, Aro wouldn't force himself on me," he said coldly.

"Wouldn't he?" Rosalie straightened. "Didn't he?"

Emmett put a hand on her shoulder, as though ready to pull her back if she should attack him physically instead of just verbally. Edward would have preferred an actual attack himself. "No, he didn't, none of them did. They acted just as much my family as you do," he snarled.

Rosalie seemed to be about to speak, but Edward continued swiftly. "In fact, they were better to me than most, they never asked intrusive questions when I specifically said otherwise, they never invaded my privacy as you seem inclined to do-"

"So now asking you if you were fucked by a man who only ever wanted to do that is something private?" Rosalie spat.

Edward scoffed. "No, Rose, of course I want the whole world and their mother to learn of my sexual exploits," sarcasm slid off each syllable.

"You left Carlisle for this man, just because he seduced you into thinking that-"

"That wasn't seduction," Edward retorted.

Alice stood up, making loud enough a noise to stop their conversation and that of those of the tables around them. "Both of you shut up," she said clearly.

Edward looked around, he had almost forgotten where they were. "You," she turned to Edward, "she's got a right to worry, we all have." Edward looked away; he should have known better than to argue with Rosalie, he knew what she was like, she would never admit concern. In the cafeteria too – although, they had both been speaking with quiet cruelty.

"And you," she turned to Rosalie, "If Edward doesn't want to tell us something, then we wait until he does, we wait until he's willing to talk."

She took a deep breath, and in the pause, Jasper sent out calm; a wave so strong that even Rosalie wilted in her seat, a soft smile turning up on her face. Edward was openly grinning, Emmett was laughing, his easy nature breaking out under Jasper's influence. Alice was giggling, Jasper pulling her onto his lap.

"Thank you," Alice said, still giggling.

Edward wondered what they must look like to the students; one moment ready to leap at each other in battle, and the next consumed by joy.

"Bloody strange, these Cullens." A sight of them, looking happier than they'd been since he'd joined them. "What is wrong with them? God, they should all go see the school psych. First the whole incest stuff and now this emotion jumping shit." Students gossiping, not even attempting to be quiet. "Everyone's going to be talking about those losers now, how annoying." Eyes following their every movement. "He looks so handsome when he smiles." A sigh. "Man, she looks hot. Wouldn't mind tapping that-"

There were some things he didn't want to hear.

"Seth's fun to fight with, definitely funny to watch Leah go batshit crazy on anyone who hurts him." Amusement was stark in his boy's voice, and Edward's own smile widened.

Alice's eyes widened slightly and her gaze jerked onto him.

"Edward," she said, "What are you-" she broke off.

Edward frowned. "What?"

She paused. "Nothing," she said, when it so obviously meant something.

Jasper looked at him strangely, but Emmett and Rosalie didn't seem to have sensed anything, kissing each other lightly on the lips. "Did you have a vision?" Edward pressed.

Alice shook her head. "Not exactly," she said sincerely. "Don't worry, if it's important, I'll tell you," she assured him. Edward believed Alice implicitly, he would never doubt her or her word. Jasper nodded, as though hearing the words –more like sensing the emotions—and moved closer to Edward.

He felt alone for less than a moment before the voice sprung up in his mind.

"Can't wait to get back to the forests, man, always fun to have someone new to fight with, all the others get so common, all the other styles get so common after a while. Wonder if Seth'll let me fight him without Sam or Leah that watching over us, yeah, then Quil could be judge."

Edward heard the plans in motion, meeting places and times, people who had to be there and people who needed to be distracted and far, far away, excuses that needed to be made and Plan B's –which Marcus used to warn him against; something about Plan A never failing.

"Edward, find out what that annoying creature of a girl is thinking," Rosalie barked, glaring at someone at the next table.

"Who? The blonde?" Edward asked, glancing back.

"Edward, you can't really be thinking of doing that," Alice chided.

Rosalie shook her head. "The bitch who spilled her filth on me," she said, cocking her head subtly at the black-haired girl, Bella, from Art.

"She?" Edward said skeptically. "You needn't bother, she's in a few classes of mine; she doesn't think about anything worth listening to." His boy did, though. "But, right now?" He focused. "Me, guys, sex, herself, me again, herself, nobody liking her, the blond girl annoying her, the guy annoying her, everyone talking about her too much, nobody liking her, me-"

Alice started grinning; Rosalie was smirking. "She can't honestly be thinking like that," Jasper said, although amusement tinged his voice.

Edward grinned.

There was a static of noise filling the room.

"Whatever it is," Rosalie continued, "If she keeps on sneaking looks at us like that-"

Alice interrupted. "Like the rest of the school does?"

"Yeah, but she's cursing me for Christ knows what-"

"Isn't it obvious?" Jasper said. "You're surrounded by us. Not to mention the fact that you look like you, of course she's cursing you."

Emmett nodded in thanks unobtrusively as Rosalie preened under the praise. She knew she was beautiful –beyond that; Edward didn't know the words, he didn't think writers could pen Rosalie's beauty without falling short in some aspect—but she still enjoyed hearing compliments.

Although she wouldn't admit it, hearing them from her family members meant the most to her.

Alice's eyes colored, clouding, and a moment later she smirked. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, she's going to exit the room in three, two, one, and-" They turned just in time to watch the girl in question rise, anger clear in the furrow of her brows and pursing of her lips, as she snapped something at a boy and walked off.

The boy blinked dumbly, only thinking to follow her a few seconds later, after the door closed behind her with a resounding slam.

The blond girl glared at both of them.

The Cullens looked at each other. They grinned. "I feel better now," Rosalie said contently.

Edward laughed.

-

Edward was having a dream.

He knew that it was a dream.

He tried to figure out which part of this entire situation was the most disturbing: that he could dream at all, since he hadn't in too long a time, that he knew it was a dream, because he didn't think it was the normal turn of events, not that he would know, or that he recognized that it wasn't his dream.

Or, alternatively, the fourth option: that he instinctively knew that it was his boy's dream.

Belatedly, he wondered if his body was resting now, he had closed his eyes while lying on the couch what seemed only a moment ago, and if he could wake himself up if he pinched himself, like Alice, from the movie Alice had forced them to watch.

He didn't want to wake up, though, not just yet.

Edward was in a forest, which was quickly becoming familiar territory to him; about that fact, he couldn't decide whether he was more pleased or upset. His mind –or was it his heart?—pushed him to trust in the former. He listened to the sounds of the forest, quiet, crickets, the grass, branches creaking-

A scent, wafting through the air, and Edward was running.

That was when he realized he wasn't running as he normally would either. For one, he had four legs instead of two. He hardly noticed the fact though, because another sensation entered his consciousness – heat.

Heat as he hadn't felt in too long. The heat that human bodies felt and emitted without once appreciating it comprehensively, the heat that he longed for while in the cold buildings at the Volterra, heat that he could not feel as he wanted to because he was too entrenched in cold.

If he could have, he would have made some sort of a pitiful noise of pleasure.

"There's food near, blood, an animal, not deer- not elk- rabbits-" Another voice interrupting what seemed to be Edward's thoughts even though they came in his boy's voice. "Rabbits? I like rabbits, they taste the best so far, not that I've tried so much-" His boy cutting through. "Seth, you haven't tried enough to decide that rabbits taste the best."

Edward was confused, a state he wasn't in often. There was a clutter in his mind –was it his mind? Was it his boy's? Were they one? Was he his boy?—that he wasn't accustomed to feeling.

"Food, good food, I'm hungry, got to have something to eat before I die some horrid death-"

"You just ate, Jake-"

"I'm a growing boy, can't I be hungry?" And Edward felt genuinely hungry, which was strange, because he shouldn't have needed to feed so soon – he knew he could last another week easily without feeling the pull. "You aren't one to talk, Paul, who ate the last cake that Em made?"

"That was you?" A voice he recognized, finally, the female one, Leah. "I didn't get to have a goddamned slice of the thing."

"Not my fault she only made one, right after my training with Sam too."

"You selfish bastard."

"How come you get to curse and I don't?" A whine from the youngest one, Seth.

"Because I'm older than you and bigger than you and I'm in charge, so shut up and stop whining or snapping or whatever it is you keep doing these days before we have you for dinner instead."

Laughter, from him. Him meaning his boy or him meaning himself, as Edward –he stressed his name to himself lest he forget it in the chaos—he couldn't quite decipher. "Listen to your sister, Seth," he teased.

"Shut up," Seth snapped. All in his mind.

It felt like Jane and Renata had somewhere had a child with both their abilities, tormenting him through confusion.

"Didn't your sis just say you couldn't snap at us?"

"No, she said I couldn't snap at her, she didn't say I couldn't do it to you," said smugly.

A snort from somewhere else. "You do realize that since we can all hear you, snapping at any one of us means that you're technically snapping at her too?"

"No, it doesn't, Leah doesn't mind when I insult you guys," Seth said confidently.

A soft hum of consent.

He was laughing again.

He, whoever it was that he was right now, laughed more Edward usually did.

And then, the scent again, and this time there was a confirmation of rabbit before too much noise and clatter and too many voices filling his mind at once, control over his mind falling into threads as they hadn't since before he had joined the Volturi, and Edward was screaming in his mind because he couldn't think and his mind was the only thing he had control over and he wanted out, out-

"Out, out-"

Someone was screaming, and there were hands on him, pulling him and tugging him and someone continued to scream as Edward slowly opened his eyes and understood that that someone was actually him.

He stopped abruptly.

His throat felt hoarse, his eyes smarted from the light of the room compared to the darkness of the forest from earlier, and his limbs were contorted, legs drawn up to his chests and palms covering his ears protectively. There were hands on him still, gentle and soothing, and he unfurled himself slowly.

The rest of his family stared at him, even Rosalie looking slightly concerned.

Esme was the first to speak, Carlisle laying a gentle hand on his shoulder to straighten him on the couch. "Edward, are you okay?" The question was so deceptively simple, and Edward very badly wanted to be able to nod and leave it at that, but he couldn't. They deserved better than his lies.

"I-" his voice cracked slightly, and he cleared his throat. "I'm not sure," he said, which was the closest he could get, because he wasn't sure what he was.

He knew who he was now, though –Edward Cullen—and that, at least, was an improvement.

"Edward, what happened?" Alice asked, and she looked a cross between frightened and worried, even Jasper not able to calm her down properly, and Edward shook his head.

"I think I might've dreamt," he said slowly. "But, not as me."

Confused expressions met his statement.

"Christ," Rosalie breathed. "You've been at that place for so long that you've lost it."

Edward broke into a reluctant smile. "No."

"Well, you're sure as hell not making sense," Emmett interjected. Carlisle frowned slightly in his direction, and Emmett shrugged. "What? It's true, he's not."

"We're encouraging Edward to speak to us, Emmett, so let's hear him out," Esme said soothingly.

They looked at him expectantly.

"Well, I don't know what to say," Edward started awkwardly.

"How about with what was in the dream?" Alice asked.

Edward frowned. "You didn't see this," he said. Statement, not a question.

Alice closed her eyes. "Remember when I said that I'd tell you what you needed to know?"

Edward nodded.

"You don't need to know yet."

Edward's muscles tightened in argument, but Jasper sent him a warning look.

Carlisle frowned at them both. "Trust your sister, Edward," he said, and Edward wanted to say that Alice wasn't really his sister. But, no matter how much anger he might have felt then, he wasn't willing to hurt her like that just as yet. She was toeing the line, though.

Carlisle nodded in understanding.

"Do you want some time to yourself?" he guessed.

Edward nodded, "I'd like that."

Carlisle nodded again, and then turned, gesturing towards the door. Alice looked like she wanted to protest, but Carlisle silenced her with a glance, and they trooped out in a line. Esme hesitated, then said, "Edward, we do love you," and closed the door behind her.

Edward laid down again, breathing deeply, unnecessarily.

"Well." He was reduced to talking to himself. "Fuck." He didn't curse often, but he thought that the moment called for it.

He went through the memories of the –not his, not his boy's, because he couldn't tell—dream, and then paused. He went back, remembering each detail. One word stood out.

"Jake."

His boy had a name.

"Jake." He whispered it; he didn't want his family to overhear. He liked the name. It rolled off his tongue, it sounded right. "Jake," he said again, because he could, because now he could put a name to the voice in his mind, and that made him feel less insane.

"Jake, Jake, Jake," because he wanted to.

He frowned then. He suddenly wasn't sure if it was dream. It had felt too real, and he knew now, he just knew, that Jake was his boy's name. Which meant that it was real. That was troubling, to say the least.

He sighed.

Edward needed assistance, and the sort that one could only gain from the Volturi. He was hesitant to involve his friends, though, not completely sure why, but trusting the instinct in his gut.

If it was real, then he had tapped into Jake's mind without even realizing it, he had entered the other boy's consciousness without searching for it. At a moment of weakness, Jake's thoughts had not only been in his mind, but he had been in Jake's.

He shivered, but he wasn't cold. He couldn't feel.

He remembered heat.

Edward closed his eyes. "Jake."

Then again, his dreams might actually just be the children of an idle brain.