I tried to resist posting this until Sunday. If you guys haven't noticed, most updates come Sunday and Wednesday, but after so many reviews I couldn't resist. As soon as it hit fifty I decided to give you guys more. So, since I have twenty completed chapters at the moment, what I'm going to do is post a chapter when I finish a chapter that way I'll have exactly half of what I've written posted at all times. So, I'm curious though, is there anything you guys want to see more or less of? Any ideas for future family fluffy moments? Give me some feedback!
Chapter 10: To Build a Home
"What is home? My favorite definition is "a safe place," a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It's a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable."
― Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life
Where You Belong
Summary: AU, all human, Carlisle and Esme are set up on a blind date by their relatives and quickly fall in love but how will their five children blend together? Can the lovebirds build a family together or will something tear them apart? Will they learn where they belong?
Esme POV
It has been exactly three weeks since Thanksgiving and it is exactly two weeks and six days until Christmas meaning nineteen days until the wedding, nineteen days until I would be married to the man of my dreams. The house is completely ready, all the furniture is in it and the kids' rooms and bathrooms are complete. We had had a few sleepovers thanks to the couches with pull out beds that had been some of the first pieces of furniture delivered. Sulpicia, Carmen, and Didyme had been a huge help but Athenodora had been the biggest help of all. She supervised and told the others exactly what to do and the movers exactly where to put the furniture. They had even taken the liberty to decorate the house with trees in almost every room including the bedrooms. Even the bathrooms had little trees on the counters. They had put Marcus, Caius, and Aro to work on the outdoor lights on their day of hanging strips of golden lights and aiming spotlights at the house. They had left the main tree, the large nine foot live tree in the family room for us to decorate. They said it just wouldn't be right if we opened presents under a tree we hadn't decorated. The largest tree was in the foyer, ten feet to be exact decorated perfectly, not an ornament out of place sticking to a gold color scheme. So today is the big day, after we pick up the kids from school, we move completely into the new house taking all their remaining clothes, toys, video games, stuffed animals, and other personal items with us. Each of the children got a new bed and mattress with their redesigned bedroom so Carlisle planned on taking the old mattresses which were still in very good condition, to the local children's shelter to replace the old thin mattresses there.
It was currently 3:00 PM and I was chomping at the bit to get out of the office and pick up all five children and meet Carlisle at the new home. I heard a knock on my office door. "Come in." I called.
"Esme." Mike greeted. "Jessica just called to tell me she received your wedding invitation in the mail and I just wanted you to know that we will be honored to attend with all three of our little rascals who we will keep perfectly tame."
"You couldn't keep those kids tame if you tried." I heard Eric say as he came in the room. "We'll be at the wedding too and you won't have to worry about our two, they're angels."
"They must get that from Angela because I can't possibly believe they got it from you." I joked.
"You know, I told Carmen, my sister who also insists on being my wedding planner that I wanted a small wedding and she's gone and invited half the city." I sighed.
"I'm sure it isn't that many people." Mike reassured me.
"The entire law firm and their spouses and children were invited, the entire hospital staff and their spouses and children were invited, my friends from college, the people I graduated high school with, you name them she's invited them." I groaned.
"She invited our old high school class?" Mike asked.
"Well, most of them." I told him.
"Many RSVPs yet?" Eric asked.
"My phone has been ringing nonstop all day and Carlisle said almost every colleague he saw today confirmed they would be there, even a fourteen year old candy striper, a candy striper was invited to my wedding for God's sake." I told them. They both laughed at me. "It's not funny!"
"I'm sure Carmen just wants you to have what she considers a perfect wedding." Mike told me.
"Focus on the positives, isn't today the day of the big move?" Eric asked.
"It is everything's ready except for clothes and toys and such." I told my partners, my long time friends.
"Why don't you take the rest of the day off? Get the kids early and head home? It won't offend us or anything." Mike offered.
"It'll be our little secret." Eric promised.
"I've got all this paperwork to do." I told them staring at the stack on my desk.
"We'll do it." Mike told me.
"Seriously?" I asked shocked that they actually were going to do my paperwork, the worst part of being a lawyer.
"Consider it an early wedding gift." Eric told me.
"Well, in that case I'm getting out of here before you change your minds." I told them.
I gathered my briefcase and purse and made my way out of the office and to my car. I stopped at St. Paul's first seeing as it was closest to my office and Rosalie and Jasper quickly got in.
"Hey Esme." Jasper greeted.
"Hey guys, how was school?" I asked.
"Good I guess." Jasper told me.
"You guess does that mean something is wrong?" I asked.
"I had a hard math test but I think I did alright on it." He told me.
"What about you Rose? How was your day?" I asked.
"It was good; we got to watch movies in chorus and in my bible class." She told me.
"What movies did you watch?" I asked.
"Beauty and the Beast in chorus and Soul Surfer in bible, they were both really good movies." She answered.
We drove to pick up Emmett, Edward, and Alice next all telling us school was normal. I took Rosalie and Jasper to their home first to pick up the duffle bags and suitcases they had packed the night before, and then to my old house picking up our last items. It was a bittersweet moment, there were good and bad memories in the house, tears and laughter, joys and sorrows, but the excitement of the new home was enough to keep my emotions in check for now at least.
The houses go on the market tomorrow, not a single piece of furniture will remain in either of them, they will be empty, and they will become other people's homes. We will move on, we will have our family in one home.
We pulled up to the new house at the exact same time as Carlisle, parking in the garage. We took all the bags out of the car and carried them inside placing them in the correct rooms. This was it, this was home.
"This is nice." Carlisle told me as we sat on the loveseat in the den. The boys could be heard in the family room playing video games; Rosalie and Alice were in the living room watching a movie, Lady and the Tramp to be exact.
"Yes it is." I agreed.
"We're the talk of the hospital, the wedding. That's all I heard as I walked through the hospital, all I heard about from my nurses in surgery, all I heard in the cafeteria, I think I heard more about our wedding than patients." He chuckled.
"I should have specified when I told Carmen only family and friends. I didn't realize friends went as far back to my high school class." I sighed.
"It'll be a beautiful wedding." He promised.
We sat curled up on the loveseat until I needed to cook dinner. I made a Chicken casserole while Carlisle "helped". His idea of helping was making an even bigger mess and talking to me while I cooked. After the casserole was done we called the children down for dinner.
"After dinner we've got to finish unpacking." I told them all.
"But mom we were going to play the new Call of Duty." Edward whined.
"No buts, you all can go back to playing after we finish unpacking." He said firmly.
"Okay." He groaned.
"Oh, girls, we get to go dress shopping on Saturday!" I clapped.
"And boys, we have to tuxedo shopping Saturday." Carlisle sighed.
"We have to go shopping?" Emmett groaned.
"I hate shopping." Jasper added.
"How could you say that?" Alice asked. "Shopping is the most fun thing to do in the world!"
"Not for boys Allie." Edward told her.
"Hmph." She said in a prissy little voice.
Rosalie giggled. "Well I for one am excited to go dress shopping." She told me.
"Girls are weird." Edward sighed.
We all laughed and went back to eating. I made the kids help with their dishes, something Rosalie and Jasper were used to but my children had only done a few times, and then Carlisle and I went to assist them in unpacking. After a few hours we were finally done, everything was unpacked. It was only 8:30 and I decided it was the perfect time to decorate the large tree.
"Kids! Come down here!" I called from the family room. "Carlisle, can you get the boxes of tree decorations from the garage?"
"Of course my love." He told me as he left to go to the garage.
"What are we doing?"Alice asked as all five children made their way to me in the family room.
"I thought we could decorate the Christmas tree." I told them. "Carlisle will be back with the decorations soon."
Together, we decorated the tree with the more personal ornaments. The ornaments that the kids had at one point in their lives made, the ornaments handed down to us from our belated parents, ornaments with pictures of the kids on them. At the end, Carlisle stood on a step stool and lifted Alice up to put the star on. She could just barely reach the top as she put up the star that used to belong to my mother.
We all stood back to admire the beautiful tree lit with multicolored lights. It was beautiful, perfect for our family. It was the first thing that showed how our family had blended together as one.
"Alright kids, it is getting pretty late, how about showers and then bed?" I suggested.
"But mom we're not even tired yet." Emmett said trying to hide a yawn. With one knowing look he changed his mind. "I'll just go get a shower and head to bed."
I laughed as he left the room. All the kids headed up soon after him and I could hear the sound of showers. We had made sure that the showers in the home worked so that as many people that wanted to could shower at the same time. Carlisle smiled at me as I sat with his arm around me on the loveseat horizontal to the tree.
"Our first night officially in the new house" I smiled at him "and our first Christmas tree decorated together."
"It feels nice doesn't it?" He asked.
"It does." I smiled. "The children's rooms look great."
"Athenodora wouldn't have had it any other way." He told me as he kissed the side of my head.
"Athenodora doesn't seem to partake in Cauis's whole distancing himself thing." I told him "The contrary really, she seems to enjoy being around family."
"Athenodora is the main reason Caius still comes around, she's been trying to reason with him for over twenty years that what we did, our father's arrest, was a good thing but he just won't have it. Athenodora doesn't have family besides her distant cousins in Italy, we are the closest family she has and she makes it appoint to be around us especially during the holidays. After Christmas, you won't see them as much around, you'll see Aro and Sulpicia and the twins a lot but not the others." He explained.
"You and Aro are closest, what made you guys that way?" I asked curiously.
"Aro and I were the closest in age for one seeing as he was only a year older than me, other than that, our personalities, our ambitions, we just had the same goals in life and both worked to achieve them. We understand one another." He told me.
"I suppose that's why Carmen and I are so close, our close ages and personalities at least." I agreed.
"I really enjoy their company and Rosalie and Jasper like their children." He told me.
"I'm just glad no one seems to have a problem with anyone." I smiled.
We kissed, things getting a tad to steamy, before I broke away. "What?" He asked.
"We're in the family room; pictures of our children are everywhere." I told him. "What if one of the children came down and saw us?"
"Should we move this to our new bedroom?" He asked.
"Yes, of course we should, but first, we've got to check on the children." I agreed.
We walked up the stairs, opening the first door of the hallway, Alice's room. She was already sound asleep in her new bed holding tightly to her teddy bear, the one she called Fluffy. I smiled at Carlisle and he smiled at me, she was just too adorable.
Next was Rosalie's room, she was sitting up reading a book. "Rosie, it's late." Carlisle told her.
"I just wanted to finish the one chapter." She told him.
" Okay, just this one chapter but then you need to try and get some sleep. You have school in the morning." Carlisle told her moving to kiss her forehead. "Goodnight Rosie."
"Night daddy." She told him. "Goodnight Esme."
"Goodnight Rose, I'll see you in the morning." I told her.
We left her room and moved onto the boys, all sleeping peacefully before we moved to our room for some much needed alone time.
In the middle of the night, a shout woke me. Carlisle and I ran upstairs and to the source of the noise, Emmett's room. I opened the door and raced over to him, trying desperately to wake him. He was sobbing by the time he was awake.
"Shh, baby its okay, I'm right here, you're safe." I told him rubbing his back taking him in my arms. "Sweet heart you're alright."
I could feel Emmett's heart pounding and accelerating just as I held him; it had been awhile since he had a nightmare this bad. "Momma." He sobbed.
I just held him tighter and closer to me, trying everything I could to calm him down. "Little one, it is okay buddy, you're okay I promise." I spoke to him.
He finally relaxed lying back on his bed. I stayed with him, Carlisle still watching from the door, humming gently to him as I played with his hair until he finally fell asleep.
Carlisle and I made our way back to our room and got back into bed. "Is it always that bad?" He asked sounding concerned.
I shook my head. "Usually he's not that torn up, that upset, or that hard to calm down."
"I hate that he gets nightmares at all." He sighed.
"He's a tough little guy, he can handle them." I promised.
"But he shouldn't have to." He sighed.
We laid together for a good twenty minutes before sleep finally won us over for the second time tonight.