A/n: What sorcery is this? Two Updates? In the same month? Within a week of each other? Surely the world must be ending? Yeah, i know, get your expediency jokes out now, har har. I know. We Good? Excellent. Now, for a few notes on this chapter before you start reading:

First, some of the reactions in this chapter are going to seem a little weird. It's because of my personal head canons regarding Bella and her life before Forks. In my head, Bella wasn't always the ... uh ... girl we all know from the books. In my head, it's all lie for the sake of her father. Sorry. I made allusions to this earlier, when Bella finally came back to her senses waaaaaay back in the first several chapters. Maybe i'll do some oneshots from her teen years. who knows.

Second, this is the penultimate chapter. Next chapter will be the epilogue, and then this'll all be done. I know, shock and awe. I'm actually proud of myself, because I finished another one. It's been three years, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Lastly, Before you start asking questions, I haven't made any decisions on a sequel yet. I honestly don't know if I will or won't. I plan to leave myself room for one if I decide to come back to this later, but it depends on what the characters decide to do.

It's been a treat writing for you folks.

D/c: I don't own Twilight. I just warp it.

BPOV

As I left my ex-husband and former best friend lying in the dirt with their mates, I felt no remorse for what I had done. I knew that I would one day have to deal with the consequences of my actions, but I couldn't bring myself to care. They relied wholly on their gifts to function in the world, to deal with their actions, and now they would be forced to deal with it all as normal vampires, and that was the point. Actions had consequences. They would learn, especially when they attempted to contact Renesmee.

Jasper approached me from behind. I hadn't exactly been moving very fast. Part of my mind was still trying to figure out what I would tell my parents. Charlie would be fairly easy to deal with. Renee, however … I almost didn't want to deal with it.

He took my hand and smiled down at me. "Are you alright?"

I leaned into him and sighed. "Part yes, Part no." I replied. "I don't want to deal with this. Renee is going to freak. But I'm fine as far as everything else."

"We need to decide what we're going to tell them."

I sighed. "I know." We were approaching the edge of the field that we were using. I didn't want to deal with any more of the drama, but I knew that we would have to be back at some point. Peter had our numbers.

We came to the edge of the nearest town and I called Jake.

"Yeah?" He asked, sounding tired.

"Where are you guys?" I asked them.

"Ness used her card to check into a Motel 6 in Pahrump." Jake told me.

"We'll be there in five minutes." I replied. "Jake ..."

"Charlie is doing alright. He was fairly prepared for this bombshell. Phil is calm, probably a little in shock. Renee isn't doing the best, though, Bell. She's freaking out. Charlie and Phil are keeping her calm-ish."

"We'll be there in 5." I said. I hung up and turned to Jasper, who was waiting patiently for me.

"Are you ready for this?" He asked me.

"No." I told him. "I didn't want her to know anything. I wanted to keep her in the dark until I had to fake my death." I leaned into his strength and breathed in his scent, calming myself. "But I have to tell her now, don't I? How can we hide what happened to them?"

He pulled me close. "You know what telling them means, Bella."

"What else can I do?"

He pushed me out at arms length and his golden eyes bore into mine. "You're going to do what vampires have been doing for centuries. What you'll have to do for centuries. Lie through your fucking teeth."

I smiled at him. "You know, six years ago, this would have all seemed very surreal."

He shook his head with a chuckle. "Six years ago I wanted to eat you." he pulled me close and nipped at my shoulder. "In a couple different ways."

I pulled away and took his hand. "Lets go deal with my parents."

"It's about time I got to meet your mother." He told me. "And Charlie still doesn't know about us."

"Can we keep that quiet for a minute." I asked. "He's going to be having palpitations as it is because of the situation we were in."

He laughed as we headed for the motel. It was going to be an extremely long afternoon.

Finding them wasn't difficult. The kids had a rather strong scent, and it didn't hurt that Nahuel's sister Serena was waiting outside.

She looked up as we arrived and knocked three times on the door. "You're cutting it pretty close to sunrise." she commented.

"We just finished handing over power." Jasper replied. "We'll explain everything inside, once we've dealt with the humans."

Serena scowled. "Are you going to kill them? If so, this whole thing was pointless."

I snarled at her causing her to step back. "No, we're not going to kill them. Those humans are my parents, you insipid brat."

She pulled herself up to her own considerable height in an attempt to be intimidating, but Ness was suddenly in my arms and she deflated. Like everyone else, she had a soft spot for my daughter. Looking down at the mass of red curls in my arms, I softened as well. My girl …

"Mama, I'm so glad you're here." She wailed. "Grandma is..."

"I told you not to call me that!" I heard another female voice from inside. I looked up, suddenly remembering why I had all but cut ties with my mother in the first place.

"Mom." I snapped. I looked down at Ness. "Lets get inside before Jasper and I alert the whole world to what we are, shall we?"

Ness nodded and led me inside. Jasper stopped at the door and had a brief word with Serena before following. Serena stood at the door. Jasper nodded to the door as we stepped inside and Nahuel, Jennifer, and Maysun joined her. I was thankful that this would appear a family affair, even if it was only to my parents.

"Bells!" Charlie said, coming towards me. "I'm glad you're alright." he said, hugging me.

I smiled, taking in his familiar scent. "I'll tell you everything I can, when I can." I whispered to him. "But I can't tell Renee and Phil."

"I understand, Bells." Charlie whispered back.

"Isabella Marie Swan, you have a lot of explaining to do." Renee yelled, moving towards me. I really hope she didn't over-react and try to hit me. I would hate for her to break bones.

"If you'll sit down, calm down, I will." I told her, glancing at Jasper. He nodded almost imperceptibly and I felt his special brand of magic flood the room with calming waves. Hopefully this would help my mother settled down.

I couldn't be so fortunate. Renee, instead of calming down, went into a full blown rant. Jasper looked at me as if he'd never seen me before, probably wondering how I had been such a level headed teenager with this insane woman as my mother.

I let her burn herself out before I even tried to speak. Charlie and Phil shared a look and didn't say anything either. Nessie and the wolves just watched. Every so often Ness would glance between me and Jake.

One Renee had wound down, I cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Are you finished?" I asked.

Renee gaped at me looking like a fish in a bowl.

"Good." I said. "I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to tell you." I told her. "The people that kidnapped you were after Jasper and I because we refused to join them when Edward and Alice did. I'm not sure about the history, but it apparently has something to do with Carlisle's youth."

"Then how did you get us free?" Renee asked. "You called the Police, didn't you?"

"It wasn't necessary." Jasper said. "Nor feesable. Charlie, you know how this goes. They're simply too big for the police to touch."

"Then what did you have to do to get us back?" Charlie asked.

"That, I'm afraid, is information that I can't give you, Officer." Jasper told him pointedly.

Charlie nodded.

Renee looked between the two of us, her face pure panic. "Just what have you gotten into, Bella? You went to fucking Forks. What could you have possibly gotten into in mother fucking Forks?"

"I just told you that this is because of Carlisle and his past." I muttered to myself. "I don't know what the fuck he did before his family moved to fucking Forks."

Renee rose from her seat. "And are you going to explain to me why this Seventeen year old girl is calling me Grandma? You're not old enough to have a seventeen year old, Isabella Marie."

I winced, and glanced over at Ness. "Edward and I took her in several years ago. She looked up to us as parents instead of siblings. When I told her about you, she asked me if you were her grandmother, just like Charlie was her grandfather. I told her yes. Sue me."

"No." Renee said. "No, I'm not dealing with any of this. I can't deal with this. I'm done, Bella. I have to be done. I thought you moving to Forks would get you away from this bullshit that you always seem to get yourself into. I thought that maybe when you married Edward that things were finally changing and that you would finally settle down. Obviously I was wrong. I'm washing my hands of you." She got to her feet and, turned to Phil. "Lets go. I want to go home and put this behind us."

"So you're just going to abandon our daughter?" Charlie snarled, getting to his feet as well. "All because she's gotten into something that inconveniences you, you're just going to throw her out of your life."

Renee rounded on him. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Charlie, so don't tell me what to do here. You didn't deal with the first ten years of this bullshit. You think Bella getting into danger or getting into some kind of conflict is new? You're sorely mistaken. Maybe some day you should ask her about the real reason why we decided that Forks would be a better place for her." She looked at me. "Don't' contact me again, Bella. I'm through with all of this."

I didn't even respond to her as she turned and walked out the door. Phil stopped just before leaving and turned to me. "Don't worry, Bella. She'll come around." He followed her out, happy in his own delusions. I knew that this was the final straw for Renee.

I turned to Charlie, who was staring at the door, shocked. I sighed and took in the other faces around the room. Jasper's was contorted in a mask of rage that I couldn't even begin to describe. Ness looked like she was about to cry. My sympathy, I found, came from the wolves. They understood exactly what had just happened, having dealt with it themselves.

Oddly enough, I wasn't mad, upset, or even disappointed. This meeting with my mother had gone exactly how I'd expected it to go. It wasn't Renee's fault that she couldn't handle me, no more than it was my fault that I was a damn danger magnet.

Sighed and sat down on the bed that my mother and her husband had vacated. "Guys, relax." I told them, looking up at Jasper with pleading eyes. He flooded the room with another wave of calm before joining me on the bed. Charlie resumed his seat on the other one and looked at me.

"I'm sorry about her, Bells." he said.

"Don't be." I told him. "Maybe one day I'll tell you the full story. This wasn't unexpected. I'm just sorry that you guys got drug into our war."

"When Edward showed up on my doorstep, I knew something was wrong." Charlie sighed. "I didn't even have time to call for one of the boys that had been guarding my house since you came through before I couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel..."

"I'm sorry." I whimpered, sliding to the floor and laying my head in his lap. "So sorry, Dad. I didn't want you to be a part of this. I wanted to keep you safe, and as far from the fighting as possible, so I didn't tell you anything. I tried so hard to stay out of trouble, but I just couldn't do it. Then they came and everything that I'd tried to suppress so that I could be the good girl came flooding back into me and I just had to protect everything. You, Ness, the wolves, you were all in danger because of me and ..."

I lost it. The next several minutes were completely incoherent for me. Jasper told me that my mind just shut down and I folded. When everything came rushing back, Charlie was rocking me in his lap, comforting me like I were a small child again.

I realized that I was clinging to him a mite too tightly, but he didn't complain. When I loosened my grip on him, he kissed my forehead and let me slid out of his lap, and onto the bed beside him, but he didn't let me go completely.

"You don't have to protect me, Bells." Charlie told me. "I know that there are certain things that you're not going to be able to tell me, but you have to understand that I'm as well protected as everyone else in Forks and La Push. Sam's boys come by my place regularly to check up on me, More so now that Sue and I are talking about moving in together."

I looked up at him and smiled. "Move to La Push."

"Bells ..."

"It would make us all feel better, Charlie." Jake threw in. "We worry about our parents, and knowing that you were on the Rez, keeping an eye on them … It'd let us all sleep a little better."

Charlie cocked an eyebrow at Jake, and we knew he wasn't buying it, but he nodded. "Alright, alright. I suppose you're going to put me on a plane now, send me home."

"That's exactly what we're going to do." Jasper replied. "Because quite frankly, Charlie, you're a liability here. We need to know that everyone involved's head is in the game, and with you here, Bella will be worried."

"You mean this whole thing isn't over?" Charlie asked.

"Not even close." Jasper replied. "The worst of it is, but we've got several days before we'll be able to leave here. Forks will be our first stop. I'm going to purchase some property and set the pack up on, and then Bella and I are taking a long vacation."

Charlie nodded. "Alright."

I tuned out while Jasper, Charlie, and Jake started discussing the finer points. It was times like this that I really wished that I could sleep still. There was never anything in the manual about emotional and mental exhaustion. I closed my eyes and I felt Jasper's hand run over my knee, and my mind blanked again.

The next thing I knew, Charlie was gone and night had fallen. I found Jasper sitting at the table with Peter, and Jake and Ness were curled up on the other bed, and the other wolves and damphir were nowhere to be found.

Had I actually slept?

"Nice of you to rejoin us." Peter said with a smirk. "Jasper thought you needed the break, so he knocked you out."

I blinked and looked at Jasper. "You can do that?"

"Works just fine on humans, why wouldn't it on vampires?" Jasper asked, not looking up from his paperwork. "Did you know that you still talk in your sleep?"

"But I didn't..." He looked up at me with a grin and slid the paperwork towards Peter. I sighed and shook my head. "Nevermind. What did I miss?" He didn't respond for a second, in which time I could hear the distinctive breathing of each of my kids, and the other four Damphir in the rooms around me, calming my nerves.

"Not much." Jasper replied. "I only had you out for a couple hours. Charlie understood. He'll be safely back in Forks by now. Char flew with him, and she'll fly back. Apparently, the newly formed Volterra Council, as they've decided to call themselves, is working out quite nicely. Everyone is already beginning to scatter. The only ones sticking around are the ones we're close too, and the WarLords. Apparently Maria wants to talk to me, and the lot of them have decided to use the new council to their advantage and have them mediate."

"Sounds like everything is going to plan, then." I replied, moving towards him. He pressed his face into my stomach as he wrapped his arms around me. I drug my nails over his scalp, causing him to purr. It was an oddly domestic gesture foreign to us. A

"Sounds like it." Peter said. "I still can't believed you volunteered me for this shit."

"You'll love it." I told him.

Peter nodded and signed the last of the paperwork. "So, apparently, you weren't the only ones pissed off at 8-Ball and Mind Fuck."

"Oh?" I asked as Jasper pulled away. I guess he hadn't been privy to this gossip either, yet.

"Yeah." Peter said. "From what I gather, they've made themselves a handful of enemies each over the decades, and of course Maria and Tanya wasted no time in spreading word of what they did to you two and Ness. You're not going to believe what happened."

"Then quit being a dick and tell us." Jasper said.

Peter was grinning like Cheshire Cat from the Alice in Wonderland movie. "You know that little 'pire that helped Bella out? Sky? She paralyzed them before anyone else could get to them. Took down the Witch Twins, too, so that the two had no defense."

"And?" I asked impatient.

"Katie got them first." Peter replied. "Loaded them both so full of electricity that they were still twitching when she let them go. I was with Marcus when it all went down, so I didn't actually see what happened, but apparently everyone with mental power bore down on them, giving them their own little brand of Hell. Neither one of them will have anything to do with that Zafrina from the Amazon. Kachiri said that we were better off not knowing what it was that she showed them."

I was speechless. Jasper wasn't doing much better. I thought I had given them the perfect punishment, for myself, for Ness, when I took their powers away. I had been satisfied with that. To hear that others had disagreed... it blew my mind.

And then I remembered that we hadn't told anyone what it was we were going to do to them. I frowned and looked down at Jasper, who seemed indifferent.

"We ended up stopping it all when Maria decided that she was going to put her two sense into it." Peter went on. "And you know how that song and dance goes." He looked up at me. "What is it, exactly, that you did to them, Bella?"

"I took their powers from them." I told him. He blinked and looked like he wanted to back away. "Not the way you think. Remember when we went to Volterra, how I managed to lock up yours and Jasper's memories about what we were doing? I'm able to do it with anything I want. So I locked their powers. Maybe when they realize what it was they did, I'll undo it. Until then, they can live with out that most precious thing."

Peter nodded. "Not bad. Underkill, I think, but not bad." He rose from his seat and took the paperwork with him. "I'll let you two be for now. I need to go meet up with the council and get a few more things taken care of. When the kids wake up, come back down to the gorge."

Jasper nodded and pulled me closer. Peter walked out and I looked down at my mate. "It's really over now." I said.

"Yes it is." Jasper agreed. "So, Miss Swan, where would you like to go for your vacation?" he asked leaning back in his chair.

I smiled. "The options are pretty endless, aren't they?"

"As long as it's on planet Earth." Jasper quipped.

"I don't suppose you have some private tropical Island somewhere." I murmured, sliding into his lap. "Only accessible by a boat, so we'll know the second anyone is coming and we can swim away. Explore the reefs as deep as we want. Not have to worry about looking like walking diamonds."

"Edward spoiled you Isle Esme, didn't he?" Jasper asked with a chuckle.

"I was human for that." I replied, threading my fingers into his hair. "Limited."

He smirked at me. "How about I go for the next best thing. I have a ranch just outside of Huston. Massive fenced in yard. Couple hundred acres. No one around for miles, and all of the comforts of home. We can spend a few months there, no kids, no Coven. Just you and me, getting to know all kinds of things about each other."

I smirked. "Sounds like heaven."

Jasper grinned bright enough to light the room. "Sounds like a plan to me, then."

He held me, the rest of the night, as I listened to the breathing of my kids on all sides of me.

This must be what peace feels like.

A/n: There you have it, the final blowout with the parents. See you all next chapter, ya'll. it's been real.

leggy freak003