"How are you managing, Amelia?" murmured Carlisle, interrupting his conversation with Blythe to twist around in his seat. He struggled to resist the urge to laugh at the disgusted expression gracing his youngest daughter's face. She grimaced, but nodded.
"It's easier when I hold my breath," she stated.
"Doesn't it get uncomfortable being without your sense of smell?" wondered Esme, also twisting around in her seat to observe her 'youngest' daughters, who were sitting in the row behind them.
"It's not unbearable, but I have little desire to inhale too deeply," Amelia remarked drily. Blythe stifled a giggle and somewhere across the aisle from Amelia, Edward rolled his eyes at his younger sister's thoughts. Did you hear that, Eddie boy? she thought to him.
"Don't call me that!" he exclaimed. Amelia leaned forward in her seat to grin evilly at him, before allowing her newly-mastered shield to snap back into place, effectively protecting her mind from her elder brother's tiresome talent.
"Are we there yet?" bellowed Emmett from his seat next to Edward. Esme shook her head in disdain as a resounding smack, courtesy of Rosalie, was heard.
"Emmett, we took off an hour ago. We still need to get to Atlanta and catch our connecting flight to Italy," Esme reprimanded, "there is no need to bellow and disturb the humans."
"Yes Mom," he grinned innocently, before continuing his conversation with Rosalie as though he hadn't a care in the world. Jasper and Alice were quiet, pretending to sleep. Jasper had expressed concerns about losing his wife to the Guard – Aro would try to recruit Edward and Alice once more, and that all but guaranteed that he would try to take Amelia from them as well.
The resident empath was overwhelmed with his own emotions, as well as those of his family, and being on a packed aeroplane was not helping him in the slightest. One half of the passengers were desperately upset, having left family behind for whatever the reason may be, the other half were ecstatic to be going to their new destination. It was becoming too much to handle, so he was trying to tap into his youngest sister's rather calm and sleepy emotions in order to gain some relief from the emotional assault.
Nearly five hours of flying would take them to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport, whereupon the massive international departures lounge would hopefully entertain certain members of the family, namely Emmett. Georgia was notoriously sunny and warm during the summer months and with no cloudy days in sight, the Cullens were travelling at night to avoid detection. From there, a longer nine hour flight would take them to Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino Airport in Rome. That unfortunately did not include the four and a half hour wait between the two flights, which would be spent in the international departures terminal of the expansive airport in Atlanta.
"Tired?" queried Esme, observing Amelia attempting to stifle a yawn with little success. The unusual newborn vampire in question grinned sheepishly, before nodding self-consciously.
"A little," she conceded.
"Carlisle, swap with Amelia," the Cullen matriarch commanded drily, "that way you can continue your conversation with Blythe about whatever the topic is that you are discussing so eagerly and Amelia can get some rest."
"It's fine Mom, really," Amelia tried to reassure her mother, who merely arched an eyebrow in response and glared at her husband, who hastened to unclip his seatbelt and stand up. Amelia followed suit. Carlisle knew better than to argue with his better half, whose own emotional state was barely hanging on by a thread, fearful of what the next few days would hold. When the Cullen matriarch decreed something, everyone hastened to obey. Carlisle may be the leader of the Olympic coven, but Esme was undeniably the one who wore the pants.
"Much better," she commented when her husband and daughter had reorganised their seating arrangements, "you may continue with your discussion."
"Yes Esme."
"Yes Mom." Blythe's response received a small smile from Esme, who proceeded to turn around and fuss over the dark-haired vampire now sitting next to her. Amelia threw an unrecognisable glance at her father and sister, before allowing her mother to continue her ministrations.
The rest of the flight to Atlanta continued without incidence, the silence broken by Emmett's occasional "are we there yet?", and Carlisle and Blythe softly continuing their debate about a topic that Esme wasn't even going to attempt to understand. Instead, she spent a great deal of time marvelling at the contrast between their flight back in late January and their flight now – both had uncertain outcomes and the worry had not lessened in the slightest, however Amelia was a lot healthier now than she was on the previous trip. The last trip had been spent worrying about running out of oxygen, avoiding blood sugar level crashes and trying to keep a terminally ill teenager as comfortable as possible whilst bringing her to her new home. This trip would be spent hoping that they'd bring Amelia home at all and not lose her to the hands of the Volturi. Esme couldn't help but feel that this trip was going to be eventful in some regard – whether it would be positive or negative was anyone's guess.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport shortly. Please..." the rest of the message faded into insignificance as Esme snapped out of her musings and glanced next to her, where Amelia slept peacefully, a small crease between her eyebrows alternatively tensing and relaxing. She pondered briefly what her daughter was witnessing in her dreams.
"It's time to wake up, Amelia," Esme shook her teenage daughter awake, only to be answered with a noise akin to Godzilla.
"Squirt, time to wake up!" boomed Emmett, bounding up the aisle and leaning across Esme to poke his little sister into consciousness.
"Em," Amelia groaned, swatting vaguely in the direction of the walking cacophony that was her middle brother.
"Emmett, go and sit down," Esme half-heartedly reprimanded him. He was entertaining to be around, although he could get on her last nerve without too much effort on his part. Now was one of those moments where she was starting to become exasperated with him and she shooed him away.
"I'm up," Amelia sighed, pulling herself into a sitting position and disengaging herself from her mother's hold. She rubbed her eyes and squinted at her watch to get an indication of the time.
"Atlanta is three hours ahead of Washington," Esme helpfully supplied, "I adjusted your watch for you whilst you slept."
"Thanks," she stifled a yawn, her eyes involuntarily shutting as she yearned to succumb to the heaviness of sleep that threatened to pull her under again.
"Do you need some coffee? An energy drink? Booze?"
"Emmett!" Half a dozen fed up voices chorused.
"You are not getting your sister drunk!" bellowed Carlisle.
"I don't think she can tolerate alcohol anyway," mused Blythe, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. They had discovered that Amelia could not tolerate food and had thus determined that it was habit that had Amelia pouring herself cereal on her first morning as a vampire, not hunger. Emmett grinned good-naturedly and started humming under his breath, ceasing when he caught side of Rosalie glaring at him.
"Are you alright?" Esme asked Amelia softly, observing her daughter holding her breath as the aeroplane started to descend.
"Yeah," Amelia exhaled loudly, "I had my concerns that it would be a repeat of last time, but I guess my new 'lifestyle' has its perks."
"Are you feeling alright, Amelia?" Carlisle interjected, poking his head between the seats. Amelia glanced at him and burst out laughing. The incredulous look on Esme's face told her that she was as surprised as Amelia was.
"Just peachy, Dad," she managed, before glancing away to compose herself.
"Excuse me Sir, but could you please sit down?" a flight attendant asked as she made her final checks of the first class cabin in preparation for the landing.
"Sorry," Carlisle apologised, obligingly sitting down and buckling up. Blythe grinned as she watched Amelia's shoulders shake with mirth.
"Hey Squirt, do you want to pig out on McDonalds with me? First one to puke is the loser!" Emmett hollered enthusiastically, bounding towards one of the three McDonalds restaurants that were housed in the airport complex. Amelia grimaced. Carlisle sighed. Esme shut her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten.
"No thanks, Emmett," Amelia called back, "Maybe we when get back home?"
"Aww! You're no fun!" Emmett's lower lip jutted out in mock disdain. Amelia managed a watery smile in his direction. As the distance between Seattle and Italy grew less, and the reality that they were leaving the relative safety of American soil for the uncertainty of European soil began to set in, Amelia was starting to grow fearful. Jasper shot her a wary glance, and she shook her head, wanting to be left alone to deal with her emotions.
"We're boarding through Gate C15 in three and a half hours. Can we agree to meet up at the gate in three hours' time?" Carlisle rallied the family together. Emmett grinned widely, his eyes darting between his father and the McDonalds restaurant that the family was conveniently standing in front of. Various murmurs of assent replied, before the Cullen family disbanded and went their separate ways.
"Come Mia," Blythe called, linking arms with her younger sister and pulling her off towards the map of the terminal, "where do you want to go?"
"Perhaps a book shop?"
"There's a Buckhead Books and a Simply Books. Both of them are on Concourse B."
"Any idea where that is?"
"I haven't the foggiest clue! Let's go explore!" Blythe stated with great aplomb, heading off in what she thought was the general direction of their destination, dragging Amelia along with her. Success was not their friend, and before long, they had turned around and were heading in the opposite direction, much to Alice's amusement, who kept a watchful eye on them through her visions.
"I'm worried, Dad," stated Emmett. The two of them had met somewhere in the middle of the terminal, leaving their respective wives to shop a little more. Immortal or not, they were still men who loathed shopping for no purpose. Hand them a shopping list and they would be fine, but dump them in the middle of a mall and expect them to browse for a long period of time? Forget it, and airport terminals were no exception to the rule either. Jasper had been incredibly grateful when the concept of online shopping had been developed – being married to the resident psychic shopaholic did have its drawbacks.
"About Amelia?" Carlisle guessed. Emmett almost never referred to Carlisle as 'dad', 'pops', or any other paternal term of endearment, the exception being when he wanted something, was trying to cover his tracks when he'd caused trouble, or when he was worried about something.
"Yeah," the giant teddy bear sighed, then proceeded to launch right into the voicing of his concerns, "what if we lose Squirt?"
"Emmett, this trip is about learning more about Amelia's uniqueness, and how to manage it. Think of it like that first aid course you took a few months ago when Amelia came to live with us – do you remember how you wanted to make sure that you could handle any crisis that involved Amelia?"
"Yeah."
"It's the same concept. You read up about Cystic Fibrosis. You found journal articles about possible new treatments; you did more research about a single topic than I have ever seen you do before. You made sure that you knew how to take care of her because heaven forbid something happen to her on your watch."
"Uh huh."
"We're going to Italy to find answers, because your little sister is not like you, or me, or Rosalie, or any of the others. She should be stronger than you, she should be faster than everyone, she should be hunting every single day and overwhelmed with thirst. For a newborn less than two weeks into this lifestyle, she should not be parading around the airport with her sister by her side, making small talk with the barista in Starbucks. She should be wanting to drain every human in this airport dry, not wrinkling her nose up because they smell bad."
"I'm scared that they try to take her from us," Emmett sighed.
"Amelia will not go down without a fight - that I can guarantee you," Carlisle tried to reassure his son.
"I know. It's just," he paused, trying to put into words his fears for his beloved littlest of sisters, "what if we get there and they tell us that Amelia's going to die or something? That she's too powerful but too weak, and that changing her was a mistake, and that we should have let her die?"
Emmett's voice was flat and broken. The muscular eternal teenager, who wrestled bears for fun, put his head in his hands, defeat written so clearly in his posture. His shoulders shook as he tried to grasp his emotions. Carlisle, at a complete loss as to how to comfort his son, placed an uncertain hand on Emmett's shoulder. For the first time since he had become a vampire, Emmett McCarthy Cullen was scared. For the first time in his existence, both mortal and immortal, his happy-go-lucky attitude failed him.
"You're not going to get rid of me that easily, Emmy Bear."
Carlisle smiled warily as Amelia approached her elder brother, Blythe hot on her heels. They had heard the whole conversation from the coffee shop that they had been seated at. Emmett glanced up and caught his sister's gaze head on. She grinned rather cheerfully at him, before engulfing him in the tightest hug she could manage. He reciprocated the gesture.
"Can't breathe, Emmett," Amelia choked out when Emmett's grip became too tight.
"Sorry," he loosened his hold immediately, checking her for cracks.
"I'm still in one piece, big guy. And I'll be on that plane ride home with you. Save me a seat next to you, won't you?"
"Aren't you scared?" he wondered in bewilderment. Amelia had done a total 180 since their arrival in Atlanta. She was upbeat and optimistic, a far cry from earlier.
"Not anymore, no. When I was people-watching with Blythe earlier, I realised a few things. I'm not afraid of dying, Em. I want answers just as much as everyone else does, but I'm not afraid of the cost. If I am destined to die, be it at the hands of the Volturi or by 'natural'," she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, "causes, I am alright with it. If it's not meant to be, then it's simply not meant to be. My biggest fear? It's leaving you behind, leaving Mom and Dad behind, the others. That is what I am scared of. That is what keeps me up at night, so to speak."
"I don't want to lose you," Emmett stated softly.
"You won't, Em. Not if I can help it. Now, what did you say about a McDonalds pig-out?"
Author's Note
Hi guys! My humblest apologies for taking so long to update. In the few weeks since the last update, I finished off my patients, graduated (yes, we actually managed to graduate in spite of the student protests) and moved to the opposite end of the country. I never quite appreciated just how hard it is to pack up 24 years of your life and relocate 1600km away. I start working on January 3rd, so it's quite scary to transition from the student life to the 'adultier' adult life.
Many thanks to a good friend, affectionately dubbed 'Mama B', for all of her assistance on this chapter. I literally googled flight plans and sent her a short list of connection destinations. Apparently Atlanta won because it is pretty massive - wise words from a seasoned traveler. You rock, Mama B.
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year. May 2017 be a prosperous one, and may it be everything that you hope for.