Disclaimer: none of this has been mine and never will be

Disclaimer: none of this has been mine and never will be. Lets all thank Ms Meyer for making all of this possible though. With out her I would have never found my passion in writing or reading…I'm sure its similar for a lot of you too…

A/N: Apart from the Epilogue this is now the last chapter. I may do a sequel—that's up to you, you have to let me know. I'd like to thank everyone who has read Crescent End and reviewed. Please pass it on to those you think will like it. …

Chapter 27

Nobody after that stopped the fight; I don't think anybody after that actually wanted to stop the fight. Though the outcome was nothing near what any of us could have predicted. Something unforeseen—even by Alice—happened that tilted everything into our favor. It wasn't even that we couldn't have won without this unforeseen circumstance; it just helped us gain the upper hand without obtaining even a scratch.

The Volturi had turned up.

Aro, Jane, the lot. What trouble we would be in if none of this year had happened.

By the time that they had arrived all of us had gotten involved and had relocated the 'battle' from our driveway into the little area of woodland that surrounded the house. I wouldn't have expected it to take this long, being that the numbers were in our favor—eight on three—but the wolves put up a good fight. I didn't particularly want to hurt any of them due to the reality being that they were the people who helped me out—a lot—when I had nobody. They were my friends, people I loved and my enemies all at the same time and I couldn't see a way around it. I knew where my alliances lay and I wasn't about to turn my back on them—I didn't want to—but I still could go whole heartedly into murdering my friends. So, because of all this I probably wasn't the most helpful of all of us. Alice wasn't herself either—being that we were fighting against the one thing that stopped her from being able to see, therefore losing her upper hand.

I hadn't seen Esme, Carlisle or Rosalie since it all kicked off, that was until all of us froze—including the werewolves—turned to our left to see the Volturi advancing on us from the direction of the house. Lucky for them their trip had just got more interesting; seeing as they don't respect treaties made with werewolves, it looked like they'd just stumbled across us at the right moment.

At first they were highly amused and Carlisle wasn't bothered about letting them dig their jaws in either. When it came down to the final wolf—which just happened to be Jacob—it was I who was face to face with him. I had everyone behind me, Jake reeling on the floor in pain and me to give the final shout. How could I do it though? Yes, he had ruined a lot for me over the past year but he was hurting inside. He was still just a boy, a boy I loved. I couldn't do it—I ran.

Running without looking back—I could believe that I was running away again. One difference this time, Edward was trailing behind. His speed—better than the rest—was still no match for mine. I didn't want to loose him so I slowed up and went to find refuge under a large moss covered tree. I closed my eyes in hopes of removing the images of the last twenty minutes that were scarred in the back of my mind.

Arms wrapped around me and pulled me up. Edward placed me in him lap and laid my head against his chest where he comforted me from the horror of what we had just witnessed. After all the trauma of this year it was silly of me to expect things to run smooth for at least a little while; so if I'm honest with myself all of this is that much bigger a blow due to my own faults and expectations. If I hadn't pretended that everything had been fixed after I found Edward then I wouldn't be so broken right now. Edward may be thinking that all of these tearless sobs are for Jacob but they're not. Jacob's only a little part of the pain that I feel right now; the majority of it was myself. I let myself hope. Had none of the things that happened this year taught me anything? I thought least of all I would have learnt not to hope, not to dream because in the end you just get let down.

I didn't want to go back to the house, where the Volturi were waiting for Edward and I. I didn't want to walk pass the space where they would have done to Jake what I couldn't. I didn't want to move from Edward's embrace. But inevitably it started to rain and we had some packing to finish—we had to leave tonight. Edward sensed my distress and carried me back to the house—an alternate route to where we had came from—in the comfortable and comforting silence that we had obtained. It wasn't until we reached the door that Edward spoke for the first time.

"Bella, I'm sorry about all of today. I'm sorry that you were the one left standing against Jacob; I'm sorry that it had to come to that; and I'm sorry that you had to be there. From the moment that we drive away from this place tonight I promise that we are going to work to forget all of this. We're going to make a new life together and it's going to be just what you want. You know I want you to have anything and everything so I'm going to work on making all your dreams come true. We've made it this far, we've out smarted the Volturi; we've lasted each other; we've over come every obstacle that we've been faced with, hell we've even survived Alice!" We both let out a little giggle. He tilted my face up so that my eyes would meet his before continuing "Bella, my love, we've made it and there's nothing that's going to stop us now. Together, forever, just as I promised."

Our lips joined as we sealed our new fate. We really had made it through hell and back and there actually was nothing that could stop us now.