"The garden! Please, Alec! A spring wedding in the garden would be so gorgeous!"
"There won't be room, Nes. We could have the reception in the garden if you would like." Alec offers.
"I wish Alice was here." I grumble. I need her! She can get anyone to do what she says, and she would see how perfect my wedding in the garden idea is.
It has been two weeks since I first got out of bed. My eyes are still flaming red because I am still on the bagged blood, but I have free move of the castle now. I haven't switched to vampire, but Aro thinks it is only a matter of days.
"Did someone order an extra adorable big sister with tons of taste on top?" a high soprano tinkles as the iron doors to the throne room suddenly burst open. Alec and I, both caught off guard, jump and turn to see a group of black cloaks leading Jasper and Alice in.
"Ohmigosh!" I gasp, totally wondering if I am dreaming. I haven't had any contact with my family over the past few weeks, not since my call to Jake. What the hell is Alice doing here?
"Well don't just sit there! Come give me a hug!" she laughs. I leap up from where Alec and I were sitting on the marble floor like love-struck losers and run over to her. My new speed obviously startles her, but I could care less right now. I constrict her tightly in a hug.
"Ouch." she mutters and I relax my grip.
"Oops, sorry. Not used to the new strength." I giggle. "How are you here?" I ask, wondering what kind of mission they're on.
"As far as the family knows, we're on a honeymoon in Fiji." she smiles slyly. "Bella would kill me if she knew I was here!"
"It's still that bad with her?" I frown. I thought maybe her hatred had eased a bit in my absence.
"No, no. I didn't mean it like that. Your mother has all but forgotten why she was so mad in the first place. She had a long talk with Jake privately, and I think most of the clouds have cleared. She just feels that this is her situation that should be dealt with in her way, but she is just too stubborn to deal with this kind of thing so I thought the duty fell to me to pick up her slack and fix all of this." she explains cheerfully. I laugh. Typical Alice.
"I can't even believe you're here." I hug her again much more softly.
"Well like I was going to let my baby sister get married without my expertise." she scoffs.
"I was just discussing that particular matter with Alec here." I throw him a look to which he chuckles.
"Already talking like a Volturi." she smirks.
"I'm engaged to a thousand year old man. It rubs off." I shrug casually.
"Thanks for a lovely mental image." she says sarcastically. I laugh. It is so easy to talk to her. It has always been that way between us, so relaxed and comfortable, up until about half a year ago. When I met Alec, and the space-time continuum became altered, Earth's magnetic field reversed itself, and a supernova occurred. Well, not really, but it sure seemed like it. It felt as the whole universe was suddenly flipped upside down.
"No problem. But how exactly is you angering my mom even more going to solve the issues at hand?" I ask with a raise of one eyebrow.
"Actually, it isn't. But you coming home is." her pixie-like features twist into an impish expression. I stare at her blankly, wondering if she could possibly be serious.
"I'm sorry, Nes. I knew me coming in the flesh would be the only way to get you to come back. You can't just let the problems with your family go by! Yeah, you're going to live for eternity. Yeah, that is a long time to fix it. But the longer you go with an unresolved problem the harder it is to fix. Trust me. And the more time you spend apart from your family, the bigger the gap is going to get. By the time you decide it is necessary for you to patch it up, your relationship with us could be completely altered. Awkward silences, brief small talk. Nothing like what we're used to. I know you don't want that."
"Of course I don't want that! Why would I ever possibly want that? But I'm not going back there. You saw what she did. She kept me from the world. Watched me like a hawk. I could never get away again." I don't elaborate on who "she" is. Who else could it possibly be but my oh so lovely mother?
"I give you my word that if things go bad, I will get you out of there and back here." her sincere gaze tears into my soul. I squeeze my eyes closed, considering it.
"You can do whatever you want, Nes. Take as long as you want. I'll always be here waiting for you." Alec whispers in my ear.
And suddenly, the most brilliant idea in the history of ideas comes to me.