Notorious
In the face of our impending doom, I was torn between sitting downstairs and hashing out strategy with my family or staying with Bella and Thomas. Kitchen table with Jasper and Emmett vs. bed with Bella?
Ok, not such a tough choice, actually.
Plus, I decided that if I'm going to be a pile of vampire ash in the coming day, which might very well happen if Aro wants to hurt Bella or Thomas, then I want to spend my last hours on earth with my girl and my baby.
Additionally, I can hear the discussion from where I am, and being here and being forced to stay quiet so that Bella and Thomas could sleep kept me from yelling, "Really, Emmett? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!" several times during the night.
When Thomas woke Bella up in the middle of the night to eat, she asked me sleepily if I was all right.
"As well as could be expected considering what's going on." Yeah, I'm moping a bit. She looks at me tenderly and strokes my face with her free hand.
"We'll work something out," she says, snuggling back into the pillows. I wish I could have her faith, but instead I just have her to cling to in my anxiety.
We check the status on Aro's flight online – yeah, and that's not weird or anything - and estimate when they'll get here. When Bella and Thomas get up, I join the pow-wow in the kitchen. Alice and Carlisle are out hunting.
"It seems to me that putting on a big show of strength would be to our advantage," Jasper was saying.
"Or they will just perceive us as a bigger threat and charbroil all of us," Rosalie said.
"What does Alice say?" I asked, because, duh! Clairvoyant, right?
"It keeps changing based on whether we invite the wolves or not, but she just keeps saying to make sure we dress nicely." Emmett frowns slightly.
"'Dress nicely?' Like they are going to be less likely to rip off limbs if they have to tear my suit?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Do you need anything ironed?" Esme asks me. I just stare at her.
Bella comes in then. "You know, it must be so weird having vampire visitors. I mean, how do you show that you're a good host? You can't exactly offer them something to eat. They don't need to sit down and relax. You don't even have to make sure there's toilet paper in the bathroom. It's weird."
"No, you know what's weird?" I say. "The fact that you are freakishly calm about this. That's what's weird."
Bella calmly pours herself a bowl of cereal as my family tries to sneak out of the kitchen. Except Emmett, who wants to watch us argue but then gets pulled out by Rosalie.
"I think everything will be fine," she says, handing me Thomas so she can get out the milk. I bury my face next to his fuzzy head and mumble, "Your mom's freaking me out."
"Stop it, Edward," she says, her mouth half-full of Lucky Charms. "Don't say stuff like that to him. I don't tell him you're a stalker or that you ate Bambi."
"It's not like he understands me," I say, trying to fight off a smile.
"You don't know that. You can't read his mind." The teasing smirk suddenly leaves Bella's face and is replaced by a thoughtful look.
"What?" I say. Have I mentioned how furious her lockbox-head is to me?
"I just had an idea," she says, looking at Thomas thoughtfully.
Just then Alice comes in. I try to get into her head, but she's trying to figure out if she has to move the zipper on one of Rosalie's skirts to fit Bella.
"You're still thinking about clothes?" I ask, getting up. Thomas and I are going to blow this pop stand if someone doesn't start making a serious plan here.
"Yeah, clothes are an important part of Bella's plan," Alice says, winking at Bella. Bella raises her spoon in acknowledgement.
"Anyone going to fill me in? You know, so I don't freak out?" Bella looks at Alice, who shakes her head.
"No, it's better if you don't know," Alice says. "But you can go give Thomas a bath so I can get Bella ready."
I scowl at Alice. All of a sudden I'm like the vampire-nanny and not important enough to know what the hell is going on.
"Thanks, Sweetie," Bella puts her bowl in the sink and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
I guess I'm bathing the baby and not complaining about it. Much.
Thomas and I manage to get cleaned up and, since we are apparently just pawns here, we put on the clothes Alice and Bella put out for us; namely a suit for me and a navy blue baby bag-thingie for the squirmy one. You know, the ones that are like a dress but they pull closed at the bottom? I think about arguing for something more masculine for the sake of Thomas' pride, but he doesn't even have neck muscles yet - let alone a fragile male ego - so I let it go.
Alice has actually shooed Laurent and the cousins away for the day, so I guess we are going for the "we are a small, innocent (blood-sucking) family" approach with the Italians.
Seriously, we look like we're going to church on Easter Sunday. Except that Emmett and Jasper aren't allowed in most of the churches in Forks anymore. Long story short: some of those big fancy windows are kind of fragile and with the singing of hymns, louder is not always better. And apparently people are willing to put aside religious differences when it comes to blackballing troublemakers. Who knew that Emmett could bring people together across denominational rifts like that?
I'm trying to keep the baby spittle off my suit and keep myself chill, and everyone else is just staying out of my way. Finally, I hear a car approaching. Emmett and I look out the window to see a nondescript silver minivan pull into the driveway. You heard me, the bad-ass Italian vampires rented a freakin' minivan.
"Is that a Windstar?" Emmett asks me, just as shocked as I am.
"That's a Windstar, Emmett," I respond.
The six vampires get out. I'm guessing that this is why they ended up in a minivan. Felix, who's bigger than Emmett, has been driving and he pushes the button on the key chain to lock it. It makes this weird triple beeping noise.
"Jane," he says. 'You didn't close the door all the way."
Jane, who was changed when she was like fourteen and has obviously been premenstrual ever since then, glares at him. "I closed my door. Talk to Demitri."
"Whatever, it's probably the back." Demitri walks around to the back door where Marcus, one of the brothers, has a bag he has pulled out of the mini-van.
"Children, are you going to bicker like this the entire time?" Aro addresses them, brushing off his I'd dark suit and looking towards the house.
"Not if Jane closes her door all the way, " Felix mumbles, trying to lock the car again and still getting a weird beep.
"No one is going to steal our minivan," Caius says to Felix, rolling his red eyes. "We're in the middle of nowhere, visiting a house full of vampires."
"We wouldn't be having this problem if you had reserved a decent vehicle for us," Demitri says to Felix, trying the other doors to see if they're ajar.
"The agency made the mistake. This was not my…" he's cut off by the screeching of the car alarm as Demitri opens the passenger door.
Aro and Marcus put their hands over their ears, thankfully, because Emmett and I are howling with laughter at the window.
"Felix! Stop that noise at once!" Caius barks at Felix, who is randomly pressing buttons.
Demitri grabs the keys from him and presses a button, shutting off the alarm. Then he smirks at him and Felix flips him off.
Carlisle steps out onto the porch and opens his arms to Aro warmly.
"Aro, Caius, Marcus. How good of you to come visit us." He ushers them into the living room, where Emmett and I have just barely managed to control ourselves.
Jane sees Thomas in my arms. "What's that?" she spits.
"It's called a baby, Jane," Felix says. "They turn into bigger people. Or not, in your case." She glares at him.
"You have a baby?" Marcus looks at me curiously. Marcus is a little odd and I'm not really sure he knows that I can't have babies.
"This is Thomas," I say. "He's…"
"He's my son," Bella's voice cuts me off as she comes into the living room. "You must be the three brothers I've heard so much about. But you'll have to tell me who's who." She laughs and introduces herself to Aro, who is standing the closest to her.
While I stand there with my mouth gaping open, the shy teenage girl I thought I knew introduces herself casually to the three brothers and then takes a seat on the couch.
"Edward?" I hear her say my name and I look over to see her patting the couch next to her. I take a seat obediently and there we are: a couple of pretty passive vegetarian vampires, a bunch of really old vampires who prefer human blood and regulating on folks, and a human teenager and an infant. Odd crowd, you know what I mean?
Bella gives Aro a warm smile and leans towards him. "Aro, it's so nice of you to come to visit. It saves us a trip to Italy with a baby. And trust me, flying with an infant is no fun." She laughs, and Aro, freakishly, laughs with her.
Listen," she continues. "I know that it's a violation of your laws for me to know about all this vampire stuff." Bella waves her hand around the room, I guess to indicate the substantial amount of vampire stuff she is surrounded by. "But the Cullens weren't the ones to tell me about it. And I'm involved with one of them, so it's not as if I'm going to tell anyone." She leans over to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
"I understand, Isabella," Aro says. "If I could just…" he reaches his creepy hand out to touch hers. Bella lifts her hand up to adjust Thomas' blanket and continues talking.
"I hear you have an amazing gift for reading minds, just like my Edward," she says to him and, I swear to God, it's the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but Bella is flirting with this crazy old –I mean even older than me - mind-reading, Machiavellian, evil-laugh-having vampire.
"My gift resembles Edward's," At this, Aro gives me a patronizing smile. "Except that I can see much more than he can. I can see everything; all your thoughts, all your experiences." I almost want to laugh because Bella is giving him this comically-fake impressed look. I can see Caius rolling his eyes and Demitri is thinking, "Here we go again! 'I can see everything! Aren't you afraid of me?' Whooooh!" But Aro is fixated on Bella, and he's holding his pale-ass hand out again to her. 'If you would permit me, my dear Isabella."
Bella smiles at him sweetly and she says, "But you can't read my mind, Aro," as she puts her hand in his.
Aro smirks like he's about to prove her wrong. He stares at her face and then frowns slightly. Then he gets this look of utter confusion when he realizes that she's right. He looks at her hand and then at her and then at her hand.
Caius snorts and then tries to disguise it as a cough and Felix turns quickly to examine one of Esme's vases. Aro looks annoyed as he looks around the room and realizes that everyone is watching him have zero success with reading her mind. I give him a sympathetic smile because, if anyone knows how he feels right about now, it's me.
"Maybe we should talk about this a little more privately," Bella murmurs to him.
"Perhaps we could show your people around a little," Carlisle says, standing up and gesturing for my siblings to do the same. "Rosalie has been restoring a beautiful 1960's Alfa-Romeo. Perhaps you'd like to see it?"
Demitri and Felix get up eagerly but Jane stays where she is, with her arms folded across her chest, just glaring at Bella. Like the adolescent that she is.
"Jane," Aro says, still staring at Bella. He waves his free hand at her and she makes a huffing noise and flounces out.
It's just Aro and his brothers and - truthfully, Marcus isn't really all there, if you know what I mean - sitting in the living room with Bella and I.
Aro stares at Bella for a minute longer, still holding her hand, and then looks at me. "You can't read her mind either?" I shake my head and give him a sympathetic smile. He looks back to Bella, who smiles at him again. Caius interjects then, since he can tell Aro has lost control of the situation. If he ever had it.
"Regardless of who told you, it's against our rules for a human to know what we are. You'll have to be changed or be destroyed." I want to tell him to "fuck off" or something but he hasn't really said anything I didn't expect. I start to say something that I hope won't buy me a head-ectomy, but Bella turns to me briefly and catches my eye. She smiles at me and then turns back to Caius.
"Edward is going to change me," Bella says calmly. I what? I look at her in surprise. She nods at me and continues. "We have to wait until Thomas is older, but Edward will change me. Have you ever done any research on early childhood development?" she leans in to ask Caius, who shakes his head. Aro has recovered from his shock and he is listening to her intently.
"Well," she continues. "The first five years of a child's life are really important in terms of building language skills, emotional and intellectual development and their ability to form relationships. We are going to wait until Thomas is five and in school to change me so we don't mess with his development." Hilariously, Aro and Caius are absolutely hanging on her words. I should have seen this, these guys are obsessed with knowledge and science, it's not like there's anything else that changes in the thousands of years they've been alive.
"If it makes you feel any better about my sincerity, we're getting married," Bella adds, shifting Thomas in her arms nonchalantly. This is also news to me, if anyone is keeping score.
"But what about when your boy gets older?" Cauis asks. Bella gets this really disingenuous look of surprise on her face.
"Oh, I almost forgot to show you!" She gets up and walks over to Marcus, who has been pretending to listen but has actually been thinking about butterflies. "Would you do me a favor, Marcus?" she asks sweetly. He suddenly realizes that she is talking to him and nods.
"Do you mind holding Thomas?" She extends her arms to Marcus slowly and helps him place his arms carefully around the baby. I am kind of freaking out here because, yeah, Marcus is a total fruitcake, but he's also a two thousand year old vampire who does eat people. When he can remember that they exist, I guess.
"Aro, you can read Marcus' mind, right?" Bella asks Aro.
"Yes. Of course." Aro gets a little huffy about this, I guess because he lost a little face not being able to hear Bella.
"Do you mind trying now?" she asks. Aro frowns slightly as he walks over to Marcus, who is starting to do that goofy face thing that adults do with babies. Aro reaches out to touch Marcus, and the same thing that happened with Bella happens with Marcus. But this time Aro gets this amazed look on his face. He glances back at Bella.
"Can you shield people by touch, too?" She shakes her head.
"No, only he can do that. He can also block our empath." Bella brags like the proud mother she is, but instead of talking about her baby saying words or tying his shoe and stuff she's bragging about his ability to block mind-readers and other miscellaneous freaks.
Aro hold his hands out to Marcus. 'Let me hold him." Marcus looks at Aro with irritation.
"I'm holding the baby. Wait your turn." Bella smiles at Marcus indulgently.
Aro huffs at him and sits back down and looks at Bella with a smile. "Isabella, this is fascinating. But surely your fiancé has mentioned to you that we like to invite people with special talents to come join us." I am freaked out by where Aro's mind is going now, and I am really tempted to ask Bella what the hell she was thinking.
Bella nods at him as if he hadn't just told her something relatively ominous. "I know, Aro. But then I realized that the last people you are going to want to force to join you are the people whose minds you can't read, right?"
"She has a good point there," Caius says.
Bella gets back up and takes Thomas from Marcus with a smile. She hands him to Aro, again, carefully showing him how to support his neck. She sits close to Aro, arranging the blankets around Thomas. It looks pretty cozy and domestic and I'm tempted to be all jealous and stuff, but I realize that Bella is just trying to encourage Aro to see Thomas with affection. It looks like it's working because Aro is staring at him with an odd combination of curiosity and amusement.
"So, I propose that Thomas be given the choice, when he comes of age, to become like you," Bella says to Aro. "In exchange for your lenience, we will agree to study Thomas' gift, as well as mine. We'll bring him to see you in Italy, or you may come here."
"It's unheard of, for him to be allowed to know about us and be given a choice," Caius says. Aro is looking at Bella thoughtfully. Then he nods.
"Yes, Caius, and this is a very special situation." He looks back at the baby in his arms. "If he reveals our secret, he'll be changed." Bella nods. "I think it's worth the risk, Caius, for what we can learn."
Bella smiles at Caius. "Would you like to hold him?" I swear, she's a genius, because asking Caius that makes him realize that, if he holds Thomas, his annoying brother can't read his mind. Which is like the ultimate sibling revenge in his head.
"I would love to, Isabella," Caius nods his head to her respectfully and she takes Thomas from a reluctant Aro and hands him to Caius.
"Marcus, is this amenable to you?" Bella asks. I should have warned her that he was totally not paying attention. He jolts himself out of his reverie about the in-flight movie and smiles at her patiently.
"I'm sorry, dear?" he asks, like the senile vampire he is.
Caius snorts and says, "Bella wants to know if you want to be Thomas' godfather." He even says it kind of overly loud, like when you talk to an old person.
"Oh, it would be a pleasure, Isabella," Marcus says, smiling at her.
"That's very apt, Caius," Bella says. "You guys can be godfathers."
The brothers all smile and Thomas' eccentric family tree gets a little bit bigger.
a/n: The patient and kind Betham betas this and never even yells at me for my gross inconsistencies.
"The Red Eye" has been nominated for a Giggle/Snort award! Go check out the nominations! I have been getting tons of new reading material there! http : / bit (dot) ly / isSQnM (Remove my dots and spaces).
Also, if you like your vampires a little less insecure, I have a four part story: "Persephone." You know, if you want to read something that doesn't drag on for a bazillion chapters and doesn't have babies in it.
Thanks for reading and reviewing! I was review-reply-fail this time but I thought you guys would rather have an update than a banal message from me. xoxo JuJu
