"Daddy! Momma!" My mother said, flinging herself down the stairs of the plane ramp. She was the first one to deboard so she was the first one to spot Edward Cullen standing by a green Jeep and saw Bella Cullen standing by the door of a blue mini-van. Jacob wasn't sure who was going to be picking us up so we were all on the lookout. It appeared that just my grandparents were here to lead us back to Rose and Emmett's home in London.
I couldn't believe that the young teenager in front of me was my mother. She was much more energetic than anyone else getting off of the plane. It was only at times like this when I truly remembered how physically young my mother would be for the rest of existance. Would I one day have a daughter who was thinking the same thing about me and my ageless skin?
We all scurried to catch up with her while keeping human strides. It wasn't that difficult for me since I was human anyways.
Which reminded me of my previous thought. Would I grow old and die? Would Sammy get to give up his wolf one day so that he could fulfil his imprint duties and die with me? Would my parents bury me next to Grandpa Charlie in Forks or on the Rez with Grandpa Billy when they both died? Would I even get a headstone since technically I'm not legally a citizen because my parents both had to lie about their identies when I was born? Would any of that matter?
Or, would I stop aging at some point and keep Sammy as my friend for literally forever? Would he hate me for it? Would my parents still be as kind and loving as they are now in a hundred years? Would I even want to be in the world hundreds of years from now? Would I be able to stay on the Rez, maybe help lead the Pack with Sammy? Would my presence keep generations of children burst into wolves for centeries to come?
I didn't know which one would hurt worse: knowing forever that I had kept Sammy as a wolf when he hates everything about it or the look on my parents' faces as they realized their one and only little girl was dying...
I was brought out of my thinking by the distinct growls from the three young Pack boys. I forgot that they had never come in contact with full vampires before. Though they liked to tell everyone on the Reservation about all of the vamps they'd taken down, the truth was that all of the patrols they'd ever done meant little to nothing for the amount of action they'd seen. My mother was the most vampire they'd ever encountered, except for me that one time I was phased around them.
Leah, Seth, and Embry automatically stepping in front of the three of them, effectively blocking vampires from young wolves. They stood five feet away from us and an equal distance away from my parents and grandparents. In case one of the boys lunged, they'd have enough reactioin time and space to phase without hurting anyone. It was smart, for sure.
"Just breath through your mouth." I advised, telling them the trick that my father had to master around the Cullens long ago. "You'll be fine. By time we head home, you guys will probably even be used to the smell and the instict."
They grumbled their responses, but all three slowly stopped shaking. I figured it would be best to keep them protected, though, so I gave Sammy a reassuring smile as I sidestepped the human blockade and joined the rest of my family by myself.
"Jacob, always good to see you." Edward said, nodding his greeting at his son-in-law. "Though, the current circumstances are unpleasant, of course."
"Of course." Jacob responded. "I understand. We were going to stay home, but Mary and Nessie were set on helping so I couldn't really say no."
"It surprised me when I got your phone call." Edward agreed. "Though, I really think it would have been less dangerous for the girls if they had stayed at ho-"
"Jake!" Bella interrupted him, disentangling herself from her daughter as she hugged her best friend. Mom instantly went into her father's open arms and buried her head against his chest as she showed him with her ability how much she missed him.
"Hiya, Bells." Dad answered, wrapping a giant arm around my grandma even though I had a feeling the smell was probably upsetting him after so long of not having to endure it.
I stood there for a minute while the old friends caught up, rubbing my toe in the asphalt as if that would make them notice me. Luckily, I had a mindreading grandfather to do it for me.
"And, who's that young woman over there?" Edward teased, releasing Mom from her hug and putting his hands on his hips like he playfully used to do when I was just a child. "It couldn't be my granddaughter. No, no. My little Mary is a tiny little thing! This girl is nearly a woman."
"Thank you, Grandpa." I said, and his lips twisted up into a smile at the mention of his title. I had outgrown calling Bella and Edward by anything but their names as I got older, but with not knowing how much time my whole family had left, I figured that any extra smiles I could put on their faces would be worth it. A frown flickered across his face at my thought, but I wouldn't take it back. The truth was, none of us knew for sure if we were going to be going home or not.
"You do look grown up." Bella said, grinning at me widely. "What's different about you, Mary?"
"I imprinted." I said automatically. Even though I was wearing makeup and had grown half an inch in height in the two months since I had seen them, I knew that it wasn't a physical thing that they were noticing.
"Ah, a boy." Bella asked, searching the three unintroduced faces. "Well, he's here, right? Which one is he?"
"The one on the left is one of Rachel's kids, right?" She asked Nessie when no one answered her automatically. Her vampire brain was thinking faster and her words were forming faster than we could respond to. "One of the Disciples' names, if I remember correctly." She looked between the other two. "The one in the middle looks like he's in pain, but a different kind than the one on the left. The one in the middle is also the spitting image of his father. God, I'd recognize a Uley anywhere." She turned to me, still talking a mile a minute, which was unusual for my shy grandmother. "So which one swept you off your feet? The Uley boy or the angry one that I don't recognize?"
"Sammy is my best friend, Grandma." I responded, a grin automatically finding its way onto my lips.
"And Sammy is...?" She prompted, though I had a feeling that she already put two and two together.
"Sammy Uley." I stated, pointing him out to my grandparents, though only Bella needed an introduction. "The 'angry one' is Gregory Abbott and that's my cousin, Peter Greene on the other end."
"Hello, boys!" Bella said and she started to take a step foward towards them but Mom stopped her.
"I don't think that they're quite ready to be around everyone just yet." Nessie explained.
"I'll have Esme set up an extra room just for the three of them." Edward suggested helpfully.
"It will have to be far away from the house the rest of us sleep in." Nessie spoke up at the same time Jacob said that it would be no inconvienence if they just phased and slept outside.
"Nonesense." Edward responded. "It's already all been taken care of."
"When you guys called and said you were coming, I had Alice and Emmett help me and Esme build a house for the wolves." Bella said excitedly. "It's the best we could do on twenty-four hours notice, but since it beats sitting around and fretting about the battle, it was the least we could do to make you guys feel more comfortable. Plus, it's about a mile upwind of our compound."
"Thank you so much." Nessie said, her eyes misting with tears of gratitude. I felt the same way she did. It didn't seem fair for the six, maybe seven if Dad chose to stay with his Pack, wolves to sleep outside when Mom and I got to stay indoors. This meant as much to us as it probably did to the Cullens that we were going to fight with them in a few days.
"It's seriously the least we could do." Bella said, smiling. "Besides, we did the same thing for Nahuel's people. Their house is on the other side of the compound, a couple miles in the other direction."
"Nahuel?" I asked. I was unfamiliar with the name, though it was tugging in the back of my mind. I tried to put a face with the name but it didn't ring any bells.
"The half-vampire who saved your mother the last time Volturi knocked on our doors." Edward explained, his eyes locked on my father's. "He came as a friend who wanted to help." He seemed to be telling Jacob it instead of me, though.
"Did he come alone?" Was Dad's only response. He appeared to not care and have asked it off-hand, but I knew him better than that. It bothered him that this Nahuel person was here for some reason.
"Huilen came, of course. And he managed to track down two of his sisters. They've taken to Gemma nicely and it really helps to have a few more numbers on our side." Edward explained, a look on his face that I did quite understand as he looked at me. "Ceciely and Maitlin...they're not like us. And Gemma struggles, as well."
My parents both snapped their heads to look at me and there was panic in my mother's eyes. I looked at my grandfather's golden eyes for answers, the question ringing loudly in my thoughts.
"They're not used to the 'vegitarian' life that everyone else you've met has adopted." Edward said slowly. "You're not a wolf, Mary, nor are you a vampire or a half-vamp like your mother or Nahuel and his sisters."
Then I finally understood the panic in my mother's eyes. I was human unless phased. Which meant that unless I was guarded around the clock, there was a chance that one of the three hungry red-eyes could try to make me into a snack. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come after all.