Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Thanks so much to Lisa for all of her help;) And, as always, thank you for the incredibly kind feedback! Enjoy!

What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?

by Kristen Elizabeth

True to Marjorie's word, the steep and narrow path through the cavern opened up in the middle of the woods, almost half a mile away from the cliff. The weather had taken a turn for the worse while they were underground; storm clouds darkened the sky to a mottled grey and a biting rain that wasn't quite snow soaked them within minutes.

Edward retrieved the truck and they sent the humans, except for Marjorie, off in the general direction of the nearest road. Alice watched the truck until it disappeared into the winter forest. "I don't see any of them talking about this to anyone. They want to forget it. Just like they were told to."

"We'll still have to move," Edward said numbly. "I didn't recognize any of them from town, but Carlisle won't..." His throat closed up. "Carlisle won't take the risk."

Standing behind Alice, Jasper folded his arms around her body and drew her back against his chest, as if trying to keep her warm. "If anyone can walk away from the Volturi, it's him."

Edward turned his head towards the last remaining human, the girl who had started everything. "He shouldn't be in there. None of us should be here."

Marjorie squirmed under the power of Edward's glare. "I'm sorry," she whispered between chattering teeth. "I didn't know...it would go this far." Her plump face screwed up and tears collected in the corners of her eyes. "I just don't want to die, Alice."

"I can't tell you that it's all right." Jasper tightened his arms around Alice and she sighed. Forgiveness seemed easier when he was with her. "I don't remember being afraid of death, so I also can't say what lengths I would have gone to in order to avoid it." She paused. "I can't judge you for what you did, Marjorie. If that helps."

"I can," Edward snapped. "I remember dying. I remember lying in that hospital bed, trying to force my lungs to work, knowing in the back of my mind that they were going to stop soon." He took a step towards Marjorie. "I wasn't going to make it to eighteen, but I never would have traded someone else's life in order to save my own."

The girl rubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand. "That's not what I did," she feebly argued.

"The hell it isn't!" Too angry to worry about manners or cursing in the presence of women, Edward grabbed her shoulder. "What did you think was going to happen? If we'd agreed to go along with Silas and his insanity, did you think the Volturi would just throw up their hands and let us take over? Are you that naive or did Silas leave out a few steps in his master plan, specifically the part where we're outnumbered and then executed?"

"You all can't die!" Marjorie insisted. "You live forever!"

Edward snarled, "You don't know anything about..."

Jasper held up his hand to stop him. "We can die," he told Marjorie. "It's not easy to kill us, but it can be done."

"Did he tell you that they'd just imprison us if we failed?" Alice asked softly.

With fresh tears on her cheeks, Marjorie shook her head. "He said we wouldn't fail."

"He lied." Edward let go of her shoulder like she was poisonous. "And Carlisle could end up paying for your stupidity."

Edward. Alice shook her head ever so slightly. I know you're scared. I am, too. But she's not lying. You have to be able to see that in her thoughts.

Her brother plunged a hand through his bronze locks, all the answer Alice needed. With worried eyes, Edward looked back towards the cave.

"We should do what he told us to do," Jasper said, breaking the silence. "Get back to the house."

Edward lifted his chin. "I'm not leaving."

"It's what Carlisle wanted," Jasper reminded him.

"Stop talking about him like he's already gone," Edward hissed.

"Stop acting like your presence is all that's standing between him and death," Jasper shot back.

Edward took a step towards him, but stopped when Alice, a small, but formidable shield between them, shook her head at him. "Why not, Alice?" Edward asked, replying to the unspoken command he read not in her thoughts, but in her eyes. "He'd go back if it was us."

"We're not going back," Alice said quietly, but firmly. "Nothing good would happen if we did."

Jasper murmured in her ear, "You've looked ahead?"

"Enough to know that much." She turned around in his arms and looked up at him. "Carlisle's made up his mind to come back to us. So...we just have to trust that he can make it through this. He's earned that, hasn't he?"

"Yes." Alice closed her eyes as Jasper kissed her forehead. "He has."

Edward swore under his breath, but when Jasper flung Alice onto his back and began to run, he grabbed Marjorie's arm and followed suit, catching up to them only seconds later, despite his heavier load.

"I hate this," he yelled over the biting wind.

Alice tightened her arms around Jasper's neck and nestled her cheek against the collar of his shirt. "It's going to be all right," she heard Jasper tell him. She closed her eyes and let the wave of calm her lover projected wash over her. "Everything will be all right."

"Renata?" Lenora's perpetually pale face seemed even whiter as she stared at the cloaked figure in front of her. "You're not...you're not dead."

Her sister's lips twisted into something resembling a smile. "At least not any more so than I was the last time we saw each other," she corrected her sister.

"I don't understand," Lenora whispered. "You've been alive all this time?" Renata said nothing. "All this time," she repeated. "And you never...never looked for me, to tell me..."

"For a long time, I couldn't," Renata told her. "And then when I could..." She stopped, her dark red eyes narrowing. "I didn't want to."

"What do you mean?" Lenora took a step forward. "I'm your sister."

"Yes. You were."

"Were?"

Renata's voice trembled with anger. "You were supposed to start over again. Jasper had left us. Maria wasn't there. Everyone else was dead. And I made it possible for you to get away." On the ground a few feet away, Silas grew still. "How do you think you escaped?" Renata spat. "I let you! I shielded you, made everyone forget you just long enough for you to run."

Lenora shook her head. "You're a shield?"

"If she wasn't, neither of you would be here," Jane interjected. "Her gift saved you both. Aro was quite pleased that instead of killing her, I brought her home with me." She smiled, still basking in the memory of his praise seventy years later.

"I gave you a second chance." Renata gestured around the cave. "And just look what you've done with it."

"For you." Blinking, Lenora reached for her sister's hand. "Everything I've done, I did for you! To make them pay!"

Renata chuckled as she tucked her hands deep into the folds of her robe. "Do I look like I need to be avenged?"

"You're my sister." Her eyes, though wide and sad, were not capable of producing the tears she needed to shed. "You're still my sister."

"Maybe," Renata admitted. "But I have new loyalties now." Ignoring the devastated look on Lenora's face, she sighed. "If you'd just stayed out of trouble, none of this would be necessary."

Carlisle stepped forward. "Perhaps none of it is necessary." He glanced down at Silas. "Their plan has failed. And although they did turn a child, I can personally vouch for Johnny's ability to control himself. He kept watch over a group of humans for several days without feeding. That's more than many of us are capable of."

"Those humans were to be an army that he would use to try to overthrow us," Jane snapped. "He never would have stood a chance of succeeding, but it's still not something we take lightly."

"If Aro is so convinced that I'm no threat to his autocracy, why didn't he come here himself?" Silas sat up on the cold, wet cavern floor. "Why didn't he face me personally?"

"You don't matter enough for him to have made the trip," Jane replied coolly.

Silas nodded. "Cowards always send their flunkies to do the dirty work." He looked down at his hands, his hair falling around his face, hiding it from view. "So...what happens now?"

"I think you know," Afton said, still bored.

Carlisle frowned. "Please at least consider..."

Jane's words were sharp enough to cut steel. "Be a saint, Carlisle. Not a martyr."

"Johnny has a talent!" Carlisle turned to Silas, expectantly. "Tell them what he can do for Aro!"

Whether it was to keep Aro from having yet another ace up his sleeve or just because he couldn't even muster the strength to try to save himself, much less the boy he'd doomed, Silas said nothing.

Carlisle glanced at the immortal child; he was frozen with fear, not completely understanding what was going on, but knowing deep down that he was in danger. "It doesn't have to always end like this, Jane. I can take Johnny. I'll personally see that he..."

Jane pointed to the entrance to the cave. "This is your last chance. Walk away and don't look back."

When he looked at the hooded figures of the Volturi, all Carlisle could see were the faces he loved. Esme, Edward, Rosalie, Emmett...and now Alice and Jasper. People who depended on him. His family. His life.

Upon looking back at Silas, he saw his old friend shaking his head. "Go," he told Carlisle dully. He attempted his old, slick smile, but it fell desperately short of the mark. "You know I would."

No path had ever seemed longer or harder to walk than the short distance to the cavern's mouth. The light from the outside world hit Carlisle at the exact same moment as Johnny's piercing, soul-shattering scream.

Without letting himself think or feel or mourn, he began to run home.

"It's sunset."

As they were the first words Esme had spoken in hours, both Rosalie and Emmett looked at her and then each other in surprise. Closing up the book she hadn't really been reading, Rosalie stood from the sofa and walked to the window where Esme was seated, staring out at the empty woods.

Kneeling down beside Esme's chair, Rosalie covered her mother's cold hand with her own. "We should hunt tonight," she said firmly, but not unkindly. "We all need to. Right, Emmett?"

Her husband ran his hands through his curls a couple of times before joining them at the window. "Sure," he agreed, trying to keep his tone light when all he really wanted to do was uproot a few dozen trees until the pressure that had been building in his chest ever since Carlisle told him to stay behind with the women subsided. "I'll share a bear with you, Mom. We'll wake one up and have a feast!"

That usually worked, but instead of putting a smile on her beautiful face, Esme merely closed her eyes like she no longer had the willpower to keep them open. "Where are they?" she whispered. "I can always feel them even when we're apart." Her long eyelashes lifted as she put a hand to the pearls at her throat. "I don't feel anything."

Catching Emmett's eye, Rosalie nodded her head in what she thought was an obvious indicator that he needed to say something comforting to their mother. He shook his own head, confused, and she rolled her eyes. It was only when she blatantly gestured at Esme's paler-than-usual skin and the dark purple shadows under her eyes that he caught on. "Carlisle wouldn't want you to worry," Emmett blurted out. "So...you know...you shouldn't."

"My husband and three of my children are out there somewhere, facing goodness only knows what kind of dangers." Esme shook her head numbly. "He'd never expect me not to worry."

"But he would expect you to take care of yourself," Rosalie reminded her, reaching around the chair to pinch her husband's arm. "Come on, Mother. Please?"

Esme turned her head to look at her first daughter. After a moment, she reached out and touched one of her blonde curls. "Children aren't supposed to look after their parents."

"Until they're old and gray," Rosalie corrected her. "Which you never will be."

"No," Esme agreed, letting her hand drop back into her lap. "That's true." She paused. "He gave me that."

Worry crept over Rosalie's perfect face. "Even if you don't want to hunt, you need to at least go out for a walk. The fresh air will do you good." She stood up and Emmett followed suit. Adopting her best haughty tone, Rosalie continued, "Unless you want Emmett to carry you out the door, you need to get up and..."

They all heard footsteps crunch through the snow-covered stone steps moments before the front door was flung open. Esme was on her feet instantly, tearing out of the living room in a blur of floral print skirts and caramel colored hair, with Emmett and Rosalie on her heels.

Alice and Jasper entered first, hand in hand, followed a moment later by Edward who was carrying an unconscious Marjorie.

Esme put her hand to her mouth. "Edward!" She ran to her son and cupped his face in her hands, looking him all over for injuries. "Thank god you're all right." She looked at Alice and Jasper before reaching out a hand to them which Alice gladly took. "All of you." But a cloud settled over Esme's momentarily joyful expression. "Where's Carlisle?" When they averted their eyes, she turned back to her son. "Edward? Where is he?"

Edward swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing heavily. "I didn't want to leave him." He forced the words out like they hurt. "He wouldn't let me stay behind."

"Stay behind?" Esme repeated. "Stay behind where?" When no one answered, her worry gave way to panic. "Is he all right? Is he hurt? Does he need me?" Without waiting any longer for answers no one was willing to give her, she started out the door and was only stopped by Jasper gently grabbing her shoulders and holding her back. "I have to go to him! Let me go...to..." Her words slowed; her body went limp in her newest son's arms. "Carlisle..." she murmured as she slipped into induced calm.

"Was that really necessary?" Rosalie asked Jasper. He merely gave her a long look.

"What's happened to Carlisle?" Emmett demanded. "He's not...?"

"No," Alice said with soft assurance. "He's not."

Rosalie snorted delicately. "Are you fixed now? Seeing things again, dear?"

"You have every right to be mad at me, Rose. I should have listened to you and I'm so sorry that I didn't." Alice looked the taller girl in the eye. "But I hope you can forgive me someday."

A moment passed before Rosalie sighed. "I suppose I'll have to. After all..." She lifted her shoulder. "You are my sister."

Biting her lip to hold back a smile, Alice nodded. "Yes. My sis..." She stopped short, frozen by an image of the future. She whipped her head around, scanning the line of trees just past the driveway, searching for something.

Still holding Marjorie, Edward stepped towards her, having seen what she saw in her thoughts. "Alice, are you sure?"

She didn't need to answer. A few seconds later, a figure appeared out of the forest.

Even through the fog of calm Jasper had weaved around her mind, despite the distance still between them, Esme recognized him. Jasper stepped back, allowing her to run into her husband's arms.

To Be Continued

To see Esme's dress, go to http : / img . photobucket . com / albums / v510 / belismakr / esme_dress . jpg