Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Chapter 25 Jackanory

FPOV

"That's an odd question." He hedges.

I shrug, not from where I'm sitting.

"How much do you know?" He asks eventually.

"I don't remember everything." I answer quietly, the understatement of the century. "But I've got this story floating around in my head. I think my Mom might have told me it."

"About us?"

I nod, worrying my lip. And about her.

"And some of the characters are missing?"

I nod again. Esme, Alice, Edward. Mom.

"Carlisle said she'd told you everything."

All I can do is shrug. She may very well have done. But it's not the telling I remember. It's the story.

"You remember Edward?"

The beautiful boy in the year below me at school? Yes. And the haunted wreck I can dimly recall staring hopelessly at my Mom across a crowded room? Also yes.

"We'd given up hoping he'd ever find a woman of his own, the eternal bachelor and spare prick at the wedding . . . . But then he met your Mom.

She was fucking . . . . sorry Freya . . . . awesome your Mom. The strongest person I ever met. And she loved us. She didn't care what we were, she just saw us for who we were.

Even me."

He stops for a moment, possibly having the same ghost chest pains I'm having.

"He didn't so much fall in love with her as plummet head first. It was kinda funny in a way . . . .

And she loved him. You didn't have to be an empath like Jazz to feel that. It was written all over her face. She's kind of an open book, your Mom."

I can't remember, I want to remember . . . .

"But Edward? Well, he has an over developed sense of right and wrong and very little by way of protective coloration. He loved her so much he didn't want to condemn her to the way we live. Moving on every couple of years, hiding, thirsty, monstrous, leaving every one you love behind.

He wanted her to be better than that. Happy. He wanted a you, for her."

My throat is congested all of a sudden, nagging flames doused by rocks.

"Did she tell you she tried to sacrifice her life to save ours? Renee's? His?"

I shake my head. I know about James, that Edward saved her . . . .

"I could never have been that strong. I'd have been relieved that someone else had changed her for me. But Edward. Despite her blood being like heroin to him he sucked James's venom out of her and saved her life.

He nearly left then. It was fucking . . . . sorry . . . . close. But he loved her so much . . . .

It was poor old Jazz that put the final nail in the coffin. At her birthday party. Though in fairness to the dude we were forming an orderly queue . . . .

Sorry, you've probably heard enough about that already . . . ."

No its fine. I can cope with hearing how you all wanted to kill a Mom I can scarcely remember . . . .

"He made us leave, he was a bit of a cu . . . . um . . . . git about it to be honest."

He rubs his bicep and I wonder . . . .

"We were all gutted but Alice and Esme the most.

Esme had already decided that your Mom was the daughter she needed to complete her family, and Alice, well, she couldn't remember her human life and your Mom was the little sister that completed her . . . .

I had little sisters of my own, as you know, and your Mom, she was the best that I remembered of all of them.

I would have slayed dragons for her.

Still would. I love her. And I miss her."

I swallow and the boulders in my throat are ground into sand. Opening the way for heat and thirst.

"Let me show you where the best meal is tonight." He offers and I nod.

…..

"He made us leave her and then he left us.

I guess he'd gotten past the point where he could cope with a house full of loving couples. We'd come here. As far away from everything as you can get. We have 'family' around here too but we haven't seen them for a while now . . . .

One of James's coven went there. Laurent. One of the family, the Denalis, got quite fond of him.

He left but none of us realised where he went until we found him in Seattle."

My face must be conveying my lack of understanding, this isn't in the story I've been remembering, and he allows himself a half smile.

"We explained about the Volturi?"

I nod.

"We'd been watching the news, tracking a really 'vicious' serial killer. There were definitely newborns in our territory. Seattle. We're the Olympic Coven. They were our problem, unless we were prepared to sit back and wait for them to be the Volturi's. Which we weren't, your Mom . . . . we would never risk them finding out about her.

There was a fight, we knew there would be."

He sighs and I wait.

"Did your Mom explain about Alice?"

I nod. She could see the future, I'd call crap but there's so much about my reality now that would get the same reaction.

"She saw that we'd win." He says in barely a whisper. "But we'll never know if she knew she'd die in the process. Esme, Mom, too . . . ."

Instinctively I crawl into his lap so we can hang onto each other.

This isn't my life, its Mom's. But not how it should have turned out.

"Esme sounds wonderful." I offer after a minute.

"She was." He sighs. "Carlisle says vampirism solidifies the gifts you were born with. Esme must have been the mother lode of Mom. She was fierce when she was protecting her cubs. That night, Goddess, she was in her element until they brought her down.

Alice too. The Jazzman taught her to fight, he was so afraid something bad would happen to her, she was a vicious little pixie witch in battle. But it all happened so fast . . . .

And ended so quickly.

Everything ended."

He's silent, rubbing my back.

"Rosie called Edward and he came home, finally.

Laurent was in Seattle with Victoria, James's mate. Edward thinks she was raising the newborns to get past the wolves and go after your Mom. A mate for a mate. His leaving hadn't made her safe at all. We were all pretty mad at him. Irina, she's the Denali who had the poor taste to fall for Laurent, she hasn't spoken to us since, she blames us for killing her mate."

"Christ what a mess." I mumble into his shirt.

"Yeah." He sighs. "It gets worse. Do you know about Edward reading minds?"

I nod, not bothered about the implications of what he might have read in mine at school. So not important in the grand scheme of things.

"Carlisle and Jasper, well, no one ever talked about it but I can't imagine what he must have heard in their minds afterwards. He loved and respected Carlisle and I know Carlisle doesn't really blame him but it must have come up, you know, nobody's perfect especially not in their heads. And Jazz? Alice was his whole reason for existing, how he hasn't . . . ."

He trails off and I wonder if he's thinking what it would be like to lose his Rosalie. His muscles tense and then relax.

"Whatever happens I'll always be your Mom's big bother little Goddess, and your Unky Em. It'll be my pleasure and my duty to look after you for eternity."

"Em . . . ." I choke out.

"For my brother. My Mom, and my little sister. I swear to God nothing will ever hurt you."

…..

"Where is he Em?"

"He went to visit friends in Europe."

"Why?"

"It's polite?" He chuckles, raising an eyebrow at me.

"He finally found my Mom again, the alleged love of his life, and then went on vacation? Please . . . ."

His chuckle morphs into a belly laugh.

"We all thought, and Alice always said, that he wouldn't be able to stay away from your Mom forever. Jazz and I even had a book running on how long it would be before he came to his senses and went back for her. I had my money on when she started college, all those virile young men? I couldn't see Edward's imagination standing that for more than one semester."

I giggle, that had been precisely what I'd been looking forward to about college . . . . well that and the whole learning thing, obviously . . . .

"But he didn't come back for her."

"No. He forbade any of us to look for her or interfere in her life. Even made Alice promise not to use her gift on her. Of course we ignored him. While he was away, before Seattle, we kept tabs on her. So we knew about you. Well, not you specifically, just that she'd had a daughter.

I think the little hypocrite had been watching out for her too because Alice said he wouldn't be going back for her any time soon, she had the full human life he'd always wanted for her."

I sigh and push myself off his lap, stretching out on the cold hard ground to stare up at the stars.

Complicated.

"Does he still love her?"

"Yeah."

"Then why isn't he here?"

"It's complicated."

"I think I can keep up."

"He was pissed that Carlisle had hidden your Mom from him. Really pissed."

"Because Carlisle broke his rules?" I ask, wondering why it would still matter after so long and when so much had changed.

"Kinda."

"Em." I growl, I'm really starting to love the growling thing, it has possibilities.

"Really? Goddess you strike me as being quite observant, why do you think he was pissed?"

I frown up at the night sky. His rules were broken? He could have seen Mom a whole lot quicker if he'd known they were in the same town? Hardly seems likely considering he's run away, again. Must be hard for him though, if he loves her. It's not like he'll ever forget her, or any even one tiny second of any time they spent together, the vampire brain would never allow it. Must sting like a bitch. Must have been hell to watch from a distance like that. To know she had Dad, Jake. Yeah, he was lucky she wasn't a serial dater and he wasn't around to read their minds . . . .

"Holy shit!" I scream as a new memory clicks into place. "I was right, well, part right . . . ."

He raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to enlighten him.

"Carlisle's got the hots for Mom!"

He laughs, nodding furiously and then sobers, looking guilty.

"What happened?" I ask in a small voice.

"There was a fight. They were really going at it. Jazz and I had to break them up. Twice. Some things were said that probably shouldn't have been and Edward left."

"But, why?"

"You have to remember that Edward, well, he's a good guy. The best. And he blames himself for everything that happened. For Carlisle, all of us, losing Esme. She was just as much a Mom to him as she was the rest of us. And Alice, she and he were like twins, it was freaky how well they fit together. And vampires, we don't change much, it usually takes some earth shattering event, so we don't get over things, the way humans do.

He doesn't believe that he deserves to be happy, that he was ever good enough for your Mom, thought that she'd see through him eventually and realise it for herself."

"I don't get it."

"I think, in Edward's world of honour and logic he's acknowledging his mistakes."

"I still don't get it." I admit.

"I said he was a good guy, not a genius." He chuckles sadly. "Way back in the day, before it all went wrong, Alice's visions of the future used to change all the time. How he resisted your Mom's blood I'll never know, but he did, over and over again. Though he was always literally shitting a brick that he'd slip up and bite her, or break her by just giving her a hug."

I shudder in understanding. I can crush a rock just be sitting on it too quick, just imagine trying not to break a human? How Carlisle and Rose can work as Doctors I can't even begin to imagine.

"In some versions of the future Alice saw your poor Mom did indeed end up dead. But in a lot of them she was one of us. A Cullen. Edward's wife."

The skin on the back of my neck prickles, I can almost see it, the way it was meant to be, even though I've no idea what Alice and Esme looked like.

"I think he was afraid to want that and now he believes that fear has ruined eternity for the rest of us, and her. Do you remember Charlie, your Grandpappy?"

"A little."

"He was at your house that night. Edward didn't say much about it but he would have read everyone's minds and I get the distinct impression that your Mom wasn't, um, very happy when he, we, left her."

I shrug. I still don't remember her properly, outside the story, but I don't think she was always as happy as she made out.

And then I start to fidget, cursing my inability to concentrate.

Em notices and his eyes warm in sympathy.

"Anyway." He says. "To cut a long story short. Edward thinks he's screwed everything up beyond all fixing with his decisions and actions and so he's bowing out, removing himself from the playing field."

"What playing field?"

"The one where Carlisle gets to romance your Mom."

"Ew!"

"Yeah." He chuckles. "That one's gonna take some getting used to."

"He wouldn't, would he?"

"I doubt it. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Edward learned a lot of his values from Carlisle. And the old man still loves Edward as a son, he's not gonna put the moves on his woman."

My throat is getting hotter and hotter. Nasty, dry, scratchy heat.

"Is that why, she, Mom, isn't here with us too?"

"Ah Goddess." He sighs, reaching down to ruffle my hair. "That really is complicated and something you're definitely gonna have to ask Doctor Dazzle about."

I can't keep still much longer, I really need to hunt . . . .

"Em?"

"Hmm?"

"I've got another question."

"Shoot."

"What happened to Christmas?"