1901

BPOV

The baby in my arms whimpered quietly. I shushed him, waiting in the shadows for the policeman at the end of the street to move on. He turns the corner, and I slip out of the alley, and cross the street, up to the steps of the big house. I ring the bell, and the door is answered immediately, by a young woman with very green eyes. She ushers me into the hall, and there is a man standing it the darkness.

"I can't stay. I've named him. Edward Anthony. All I ask is that you keep those names. Announce him as your son. You've been away long enough for it to be a feasible story."

"Bella, it isn't too late -"Elizabeth began, in a gentle tone.

"Love him, won't you?"

"I know your heart no longer beats, Isabella, but you have more compassion and love than most humans I know," Elizabeth whispers. I pass the bundle over to her, and Edward begins to cry. She rocks him gently.

"It's all I have to give him. His safety is my gift."

PRESENT DAY

LPOV

Edward's hand was glittering in the sunlight. I stared at him.

"Walk away, or ask for a hug," I whisper, knowing he'll hear me.

"It's always going to be your choice, Lucas. Just remember that they'll love you no matter what you decide."

I ask her for that hug. I try and put everything I can't say into the hug. She hangs onto me tightly, muttering sorry over and over again. Jasper coaxes her away from me, and Alice takes her off somewhere, presumably to calm her down.

"She didn't think you were going to come back. She feels things so intensely. It's like living on a rollercoaster sometimes."

"And you wouldn't give that up for anything, would you?"

"I will die before I let her go."

"Technically, you're already dead." He rolls his eyes, and I laugh.

"You are so like your mother."

"She said I was like you."

"I take it back. You are exactly like your mother. Irritating, argumentative, and extraordinarily brave. There aren't many humans who could handle all this."

"I always felt like I didn't quite fit in." We pause, and I study his face. He might look young at a glance, but his eyes are like the eyes of old men who have seen the world change, nations and men rise and fall, and they are above it all. His eyes are the eyes of an old man - clever and slightly sad. He's seen too much. He is built like a soldier - lean, tall, muscular. He could do with a haircut, but it somehow suits him.

"There's still much to be explained, but it can wait. We can turn to it all tomorrow. I imagine you're tired?"

"You know perfectly well I'm exhausted, you're an empath." He gets up and wanders towards the door.

"Bella, your son is annoying me!"

"Excellent," Alice says, placidly. "But Bella is in your room, having the vampire equivalent of a tension headache. Carlisle's with her. Esme's making up a room for you - unless you'd rather go elsewhere."

"No, here is good. But, where do you guys sleep?"

"We don't. We've given you enough shocks for today. Any more, you'll explode. Get some sleep. Bella can make you breakfast. Don't worry about getting up early, whenever you want is fine."

I can't sleep that night, not for hours. I toss and turn in the strange house, in the strange bed. I can't think straight. I can hear faint voices on the floor above. I can't hear what they're saying, but the buzz is comforting. I fall asleep listening to that buzz.

JPOV

She doesn't relax until we hear his breathing even out, and slow. Even then, she's listening more to his heartbeat than to me. Alice comes creeping in at three-thirty.

"Bella, he will still be here tomorrow morning. And he will freak out if he wakes up and you're standing over him.

"I wasn't going to -" she trails off. Her shoulders slump. "Are we sure he's still -"

"Bella, he is still there, and he will still be there when he wakes up. Could you just relax? You're giving me a bloody headache!" I snap, losing it completely. Seriously, I think I replaced bloodlust with temper. Bella and I are single-handedly responsible for every broken object in this house. Esme did make us move out five years ago, when we broke her antique coffee table.

"Twenty one bloody years, excuse me if I think that he will change his mind and walk out."

"Uh-uh," Alice says. "You two start rowing again, I'll slap you both so hard that Lucas and Edward will feel it, you got that? He's been without you for twenty one years, do you really want him to see you arguing and hurling things at each other? And then do you really want him to have to sit through you making it up after?" Bella would be blushing if she could. I recognize that look on her face. Alice withdraws, and we hear them all leave.

She's very quiet. And then she kisses me.

"Sorry. I guess this isn't exactly easy for you either."

"It's OK. I guess I'll get over it, huh."

"I'm just scared he's going to leave. I've just got him back, and I'm so afraid he'll leave. I still think of him as my baby. I can't believe he's already twenty-one." She pauses. "He looks so exactly like you."

"Well, he acts like you." She giggles, and snuggles close to my side. I haul her onto my lap and kiss her hair. She seems happier already, after twenty-one years of being so close, and unable to touch him.

"I know, I heard you earlier."

"Bella, who was Edward's father?"

"Honey, I can't tell you that, not yet," she says, seriously. She looks up into my eyes, sees me closing down. "I know I said no more lies, and I'm not lying, I swear. But it's Edward's right to know first, and he must know it first."

"Then why not tell him?"

"It isn't yet time. There will be one, and perhaps sooner than we think. There will be a time when I can tell Edward who his father is, and I damn well hope that he is proud of who his son has become. I can tell you that it defiantly wasn't James."

"What do we do in the morning?"

"Family conference. We tell him our stories. He can ask us any questions." She smiles, her eyes lighting up, glowing softly in the dark. "We have all eternity, after all."

"What about Alice? She can't tell her story."

"I'll find the answers for her one day. She deserves some answers, and I'll find them for her. Aro's bound to know. Maybe one day we'll ask him."

He falls out of bed the next morning, as opposed to getting out. For heavens sake, he's twenty-one. How long can a grown man sleep?

"When I was his age, I got up from bed, I didn't fall out of it." I say, and Emmett cracks up.

"Hey, Daddy, don't sweat. That was over one hundred years ago. Times have changed."

"Daddy," I begin, huffily, but Bella interrupts.

"You sounded so much like a father then," she says, smiling my special soft smile, the one that makes me want to kiss the hell out of her, possibly drag her off to bed. In this case, I get all of five seconds kissing her when there's a disgusted sound behind us. I put her down and turn around, and Lucas has his face screwed up.

"Just because you haven't brought me up," he begins, walking hazily towards the breakfast bar, tripping over the bottom of his pyjama pants, "doesn't mean it's any less wrong watching you kiss. You're my parents, you're both over a century old, and if that isn't too old, I don't know what is." Alice and Emmett howl with laughter, while Carlisle and Esme shake with silent laughter. Edward and Rose shake their heads at us, as if to say, "what a shocking example you both are." Bella clears her throat, casts the Glare of Death around the kitchen, and then adresses Lucas,

"Breakfast?"

"I don't eat breakfast."

"But - but - but breakfast!" Bella splutters.

"Bella, it isn't the 1850's anymore. If he doesn't want breakfast -"

"Seriously, have you guys been reading a how to parent manual?"

"No," Bella snaps. "Can I at least get you coffee?"

"Yes, I'd like that."

She makes him coffee at vampire speed. Aside from boiling the kettle, which she finds an ordeal. Lucas convinces her that it isn't broken, and she manages to make coffee, which he drinks with minimal wincing, credit to him. I dread to think what it tasted like. Bella went overboard with the milk and sugar, I think. She's trying very hard, and her antics with the kettle make Esme laugh. She knows how to do all that sort of thing, cook, make coffee, use a dishwasher, just to fit in. Bella is learning.

Alice asks Lucas if he wants to hear our personal stories. When and where we were born, how we were changed, the circumstances leading to our change. He agrees quite readily, and Carlisle begins.

"I'm sure Alice has already told you how old I am. I am, roughly, 380 years old. You lose track of exactly how old after some years. I was born some time in the early 1600's, in London. My father was an Anglican pastor. I was to follow in his footsteps. In the early part of the 1640's, we discovered a nest of vampires, living in the shadows of the city. I led the chase, the hunt. We took up position near where the vampires had been seen. Soon enough, one emerged. He was very old, and weak through lack of blood. I was t the head of the crowd. He turned on me, hunger too great. He had no time to kill me, but time enough t bite me. I crawled away, knowing that my father would kill me if he found out what become of me. I hid in a cellar during my transformation, which takes, on average, three days. I knew that I had to be quiet, although the pain was almost more than I could bear.
"I could barely comprehend what I was when I opened my eyes. I knew that, no matter what, I must not kill a human. I ran from London in the dead of night, ran to caves in Wales. I hid there. I tried very hard to kill myself. I leapt from great heights, and tried to die through starvation, as it were. I would not eat. There were no humans near me, the caves were inaccessible. One night, after what had perhaps been months, a herd of deer ran past the cave. I was so thirsty, I attacked, without questioning. The blood smelt so appealing, after so many months of thirst. I was shocked when I discovered that the blood soothed the burn, quenched my thirst. I realised that I did not have to hunt humans to survive. I could live off the blood of animals. I also discovered that carnivorous animals tasted better than the herbivores. It was a revelation. I moved back to civilisation, and began a task that took me over one hundred years to perfect. I began to make myself immune to the smell of human blood. I wanted to be a doctor. I knew that I would have to have perfect self-control to do so. So I lived among the humans, moving on before they could notice I did not age, never went out in the sunlight and the strange colour of my eyes. I went to France, and trained as a doctor after one hundred years of practice. Then I went to Italy, to the Volturi - and we will explain them in due course. I lived with them for a time. But they persisted in trying to change my way of life. They wished that I abandon my "foolish" pursuit. I refused, and I left them. I came to America, and began my life as a doctor.
"The next two hundred odd years were lonely. I began to crave companionship, somebody who would share my way of life, my beliefs about this life. And in 1918, I had my opportunity. The Spanish Flu outbreak filled the hospitals, and they nearly failed completely. Thousands died. I was in Chicago at the time. Then - quite by chance - I found Edward. He was alone, and he was very close to death. I had treated both his - parents." The pause is tiny, but all of us, including Lucas, notice it. "His father was dead, his mother had lingered longer than anyone expected. She was awake and alert until the hour of her death. She demanded that I save her son, and I said I would try. She said no. I was not to try, I was to save him. 'What they cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward." I felt at the time that she knew exactly what I was. Now I know that she did, in all likelihood, know exactly what I was. She alone would have recognized my cold hands, amber eyes and hard skin as the signs of what they were - the marks of a vampire. And so, I carried Edward to the mortuary. Nobody gave us even a second glance. The numbers of the dead were mounting. It was impossible to keep track. I stole him from the mortuary, carried him back to my home. Unsure of exactly how to go about making the change, I recreated the wounds I myself received all those years ago. I do wish I hadn't. It made the transformation that much more painful. When he opened his new eyes, he became my son. He had much to learn, but he tried very hard.
"Few years later, I met Esme. I say met, but that is slightly inaccurate. I will leave it to her to tell how her transformation came about. I changed her, and she was my soul mate. I knew it at once. I felt something I had never felt before. We've been together since. Then it was Rosalie, in 1928. Again, it is her story to tell. I found her dying in the streets, brought her back, changed her. I had hoped that she would be to Edward what Esme was to m, but as soon as they met, I knew it was not to be. She was his sister, nothing more. It was Rosalie who brought Emmett to us. It is his story, but she carried him back, bleeding, and asked me to change him for her. She had not the confidence to do it herself. I knew at once that they were destined. So I changed him, and Emmett became the fifth member of our little family.
"And then came a pair whom I had not changed, whom I did not know. They came one day whilst Edward, Emmett and Rosalie were hunting. The girls name was Alice, and she had had a vision of us all. She knew she was meant to be here. She brought with her Jasper, and Jasper's story is most certainly best left for him to tell. When Edward arrived home, it was immediately obvious that Alice and Edward were meant to be. Jasper remained with us, and both of them are most interesting characters. They each developed a conscience, as we call it, alone, with no outside help. In Jasper, it is even more remarkable.
"And then, twenty two years ago, Bella came to us. She too developed her own conscience, and her story is fascinating. She knew Jasper when they were children. She came and I knew, even if they did not, that they were soul mates. It was certainly an interesting year, but which of them will explain why?
"Everyone I changed had one thing in common, Lucas. All of them were dying when I found them. I changed them because it was that or death, and in each case, I had my own reasons. I will not change a healthy human unless it is their choice."

Esme is the next to tell her story.

"My story is not quite as long and fascinating as Carlisle's, so you needn't worry. In my human life, I was married. I had a little boy. And, as children so often did in those days, he died of an infection of some kind. My husband was a very cruel man, who thought I was there for two things: for sex, and for beating whenever he felt like it. After my little boy died, I gave it. I had nothing left to live for, certainly not my husband. I drove out to the coast. I stood on cliff, and I held a photograph of my little boy in my hands. I jumped. I wanted to die, in that moment. They took me straight to the hospital mortuary. They could do nothing for me. But then Carlisle came. I thought he was an angel." Esme smiles, and Lucas smiles too, although he looks close to tears too. "The angel came and carried me away, and then there were two angels. And then it was terrible pain. When I woke, Carlisle was right beside me, holding my hand, and he apologised. He may as well have spoken Greek, because the angel was still there. Then he explained what I was. My record is not as clean as Carlisle's, I am afraid. I have killed some people. Don't worry, I am not going to eat you."

Edward takes his turn.

"I grew up in Chicago. It was happy, and when the war broke out in 1914, I was all ready to have joined up. My mother forbade it, possibly because I was only thirteen years old at the time. When I was seventeen, the Spanish Flu broke out. Suddenly, soldiers who came back from the trenches were dying of something as simple as flu. We had no way to stop it. Within just two weeks, four of my friends were dead. Within a month, every family in the neighbourhood had lost at least one member. Finally, eight weeks after the outbreak began, my father fell ill. I was beginning a fever, and my mother was ill too. She packed us up, and took us both to the hospital. She had to virtually carry my father part way. My father died the next day, but my mother and I lingered on. I remember precious little of the next few days. My mother was dead long before anyone noticed. And then Carlisle came. He carried me away. I told him that I was still living, and he said that he knew. He promised that he would save me.
"And then, there were three days of fire. I felt like I was burning. My heart was racing. I was convinced I was dead, and I'd been sent to Hell. I have never prayed so hard as I did then. And then I woke up, and there was the angel. The doctor from the hospital, explaining the impossible so very calmly.
"I went through a period of teenage rebellion, almost, about ten years after I was changed, born, whatever you want to call it. I resented Carlisle for curbing my natural instincts. I was convinced I would be so much stronger and better if I fed in the normal way for us. I hunted the scum of the cities. I saw it thus: if I followed a murderer down an alley, where he stalked a young girl, surely then, I was a better person? Satisfying my needs - and saving a life by cancelling out one that was worth nothing."

"What made you come back to Carlisle?" Lucas asks. He hasn't run away, although with Edward's brutal honesty, I think he's paler. Now he's really coming to terms with the words 'we're vampires'.

"I didn't want to be a monster. I still felt terribly guilty. After about a decade, I came back. I got a better welcome than I deserved."

Alice takes up now, and we all look fascinated.

"I am afraid I don't have a story to tell you. You see, I remember absolutely nothing of my human life, nor of my transformation. I don't know who changed me. I don't know why he or she wasn't there when I woke up. It isn't at all normal to remember nothing of your human life. However, upon opening my eyes, I had a vision of Carlisle, and his family with the yellow eyes. I quickly established my eyes were red. I knew that to obtain yellow eyes, I must hunt only animals. And then, in 1945, I met a man in a diner in Philadelphia. I had been waiting for such a long time for him. He was late. He was on edge, and I could practically feel the thirst, the fear, the nerves radiating off him. I hopped down and glided over to him. I said 'You've kept me waiting,' and he said, like a good Southern gentleman, 'I'm sorry, ma'am.' And we left together, to find Carlisle and his family. In doing so, I found my Edward, and Jasper, after some time, found his Bella. I would like, one day, to find out my story."

I take my turn next. Lucas has reached out at some point. He's holding Bella's hand. Or she's holding his. He's scared, and nervous.

"Lucas, we can stop -"

"No, I need to hear all this."

"But you don't have to hear it all right now. Hell, I need a lie down after Edward," Bella says, gently. "We can do this tomorrow, or after lunch."

"I'm cool with later."

"I can feel you're relieved. We get that this is quite huge. We get that this is scary big. You need a nap, or you need to get out of the house for a while?" Bella continues, holding his hand.

"I need out for a bit."

"Emmett, Rose, why don't you take Lucas to the garage? Introduce him to the cars. Alice can maybe take him shopping later -" Carlisle breaks in.

"Carlisle, we're trying to give the poor guy time to recover, not feed him to the wolves." I joke, before I realise what a tasteless joke that was. Lucas goes green. Bella puts her head in her hands. He dashes to the toilet, and Bella hisses with rage.

"My God, for an empath, you can be tactless."

Lucas is hustled out by Emmett and Rose, who are so far, neutral territory, and taken into town to get lunch. Assuming he can keep it down.

A/N: Look, this was getting far, far too long. I was getting depressed, and so here we go! Nice long update! Please review, my darlings, I love you all muchly!