Though this chapter may not, truthfully, be the last (this story had a prologue, and I'm a sucker for symmetry) it is the one in which the wandering ends. It's the one where I feel the story reaches its conclusion and I would like to dedicate it to you. To all of you who have read this, and especially those who have helped me along this journey with your reviews. The kind words of all and each of you have kept me going, however slowly, and reminded me time and time again how and why I love to write.

I'd like to thank channtel22vzw (whose headaches I apologize for!) and who almost moved me to tears this morning when I read her amazing words and felt that I couldn't not finish this chapter today.

I want to thank all those who've stuck with me. Particularly, BellasExecutioner, Cullengirlatheart, FaithfullyTeamEdward and my BELOVED Zombie'RunThisTown. I know there's more I should remember and that I will kick myself the second I post this when they come flooding back.

So basically I want to thank you all for inhabiting this dark corner of the internet where a young lady like me can come and expose the inner workings of her mind in some form of fiction and have people, people like you, appreciate it and watch it grow and progress as I do.

I shall remember your kindness and it shall give me confidence and hope in everything I do in the future.

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!

Chapter 30: Alignment.

The smell punched at my stomach.

Twisting and stretching it in disgust so that my grip around my legs tightened to try and relieve the sensations.

I knew the smell; detested it, feared it and remembered it in equal quantities.

It was all the engineered substances humans pump themselves with to stay alive.

It was death.

And it was what I buried my face into every night as a child when I flew to embrace my Grandfather as he returned from work.

It was hospital.

Another nurse passed us. The squeak of her shoes ricocheting down the hall as we drowned in silence.

I could now tell anyone who asked the precise and most intricate detailing of the make up and pattern of the floor tiles; they'd been all I studied since I first dropped into a seat in this whitewashed waiting room.

Waiting room.

It definitely served its purpose well. It was all we'd done since we got here.

Once the panic was done and we were all only left with our thoughts and our time we each took up a position … and waited.

No tears clouded my vision despite the occasional quake through my frame that held a warning of them. No shriek passed from my tensed lips; no cry of despair. All that was being expelled through the fingers on my left hand. Jacob's were wrapped through mine and I squeezed them so tight, channelling every feeling without the use of my given ability. I held back to avoid inflicting surplus pain but there was no doubt that the price of keeping my stature as straight as the others' was some discomfort on Jake's part.

He didn't exhibit any though, only placing gentle, caresses in circles across the back of my hand with his thumb.

My fingers pulsed into a tighter clench around his when a sharp flashback shot across my vision. As Jake had carried my useless body from the cabin I'd caught sight of the moments it was finally engulfed entirely in flame. Through the largest hole in its exterior, one my body had created, I saw them.

I saw him.

A door opened down the hall, and the vision was wafted away. We all shifted slightly, sinking back into our positions when another nurse passed the window.

Oz stood in the corner, pressed against the wall. He stared deep into the pane of glass he rested his head on, not even looking up when someone passed it.

Cora and Brice were in the row of seats opposite us. Both sat perfectly upright, too upright …stiff.

The silence was painful, is crashed through my insides, shaking at the walls of my being.

All I could feel was the stillness and the silence. And the pain.

Pain had ripped through me as I stood beneath the trees and screamed; screamed until my voice ached, screamed because Sonny would not wake up.

My little brother.

Everything was a blur then, everything went very fast once my shrieks attracted the attention of the others, once the smell of Sonny's blood flooded the air, merging with that of Victor's demise.

I squeezed Jacob's hand again and pulled a breath through my nose to swallow back the tears. I sensed her approach the same time that Jake did, his hand squeezing mine as she came down the corridor. Brice and Cora turned in their seats. Oscar didn't move.

Leah turned the corner slowly, her eyes red and her hair matted as her fingers fondled at the sleeves of the sweater that was too big for her.

"He's awake. He's okay."

I buckled, dropped my head onto Jake's shoulder and sobbed. Relief spilled through me but it was painful, the kind of pain that makes your chest ache.

I looked up and saw Oscar drop his face in his hands, he looked up once at Leah, his expression one of turmoil before he left the room quickly and silently.

Brice moved to follow him but Cora caught his shoulder,

"I'll go." Leah stood frozen as Cora passed her, moisture flooding the base of her exhausted eyes.

Those eyes met mine as I lifted my head and tried to smile.

"He wants to see you."

{-}

I walked slowly, the corridor terrifyingly long as I headed to the door at the end. My fingers clung to the wall, grasping its flat expanse for some support.

When my feet stopped I stared down at the metallic door handle. My fingers hovered inches above it before I took a deep breath, a tear dripping from my eyes as I closed them.

A slow-burning flame of anticipation flickered inside me. My mind ran with a dozen imaginings of what I may see beyond this door. Every inch of my frame, every nerve, braced as the door handle met my fingertips.

The door opened slowly.

I peered my head into the room heavily. Took in the assault of pale green that coloured each wall. The stench of medicine. An odour of blood. Against the wall to my left was the room's only bed, and in it lay Sonny.

He was positioned slightly upright, making my view of him painfully clear.

His right leg was encased in white and propped slightly. Another unforgiving looking cast kept his right arm bent across his stomach, the other lay at this side; a couple of tubes flowing forth from where they lay embedded in his flesh.

The sound of his laboured, coarse breath scratched at my ears as I felt my lower lip crumble.

"Smee?" The sound was low, but with it I was weak no more. I closed the door behind me and crossed the room as I recalled the parallel situation in which Sonny and I had first met. I was the one in bed then. I was the one in pain and it had been he who had poked his young head through the door and attempted to deliver me from that pain.

I came to his side, let my hands fall on him as gently as they would. One wrapped through what part of his fingers poked through his casted arm. The other pushed back his wild, bronze hair, tracing the wounds that crept across his forehead.

His eyes were open, the right moreso than the left which was bound with bruises. He looked up at me,

"Do I look handsome?" I laughed, releasing a tear down either cheek.

"I think rugged might be a better word." He smiled slowly.

"Rugged. I can live with rugged." I smiled, but it was strained and proved too much for very long as heat washed over my guilty face.

"Sonny, I'm so sorry. This was all my fault. Everything is my fault." His head shook, his hand moving on top of mine, dragging with it the tubes secured to him.

"Don't be sorry. Shhh, please, Smee. Please don't cry. None of this is your fault." He pulled gently at my arm and I dropped to perch on the small space left beside him on the bed.

"Of course it is. Look at you! I did this, look what I've done! I did all of this … to you, and to them and - and to Al!" A sob tore from my lips and my whole body began to quake with it.

Alvar was dead. I'd seen it. As my unresponsive body was dragged into the woods I saw as, with a smile, Victor leapt from the flaming cabin at Alvar. I saw their fight; the fight Al would not, could not win, come to a head.

Sonny's weak hands pressed around mine as tears made their way down his wounded features.

He was silent for a moment but for the gathering of his tears through a few strained breaths.

"My brother's dead…" his face crumpled, his eyes squeezing shut as his hand left mine to wipe roughly across his face. His breathing was uneasy and I ignored my own tears to watch him.

He shook his head, taking deep breaths and staring up at the ceiling. When he spoke again it was staggered, the words catching on his breath.

"And - and nothing will ever …be the same" he shook his head again, his fingers squeezing at mine tighter. "Not without Al. I'll love him forever. I'll miss him everyday of my life and nothing can take that away. Not ever."

He took a few slow breaths before he spoke once more. "But I understand why he had to go. Why he did what he did. I understand now. He did it to protect me. He did it to protect all of us because he loved us more than anything in the world. And I know - I know now that I'd do the same thing if I had to. A million times over, I swear."

He spoke with such surety and knowing he seemed a new person when his gaze again met mine. "So don't you dare blame yourself. He did what he did because for him … for him any fate was better than seeing us hurt. It was his choice, Smee, his lastchoice. Please don't take that away from him by blaming yourself." He squeezed my fingers again. "Please."

I let his words rinse through me, and the sincerity in which they were delivered, and nodded. I raised his hand gently and kissed it. I kept our fingers intertwined as I leaned forward to lie beside him and placed my head at the crook of his neck.

I knew I too felt what Sonny now did, and what I had once learned Alvar had long since been sure of.

Some things are worth dying for. There are some fates far worse than death. I understood as I leaned in to catch a breath of Sonny's true scene, blocking out all the intrusions around him.

"I love you, little brother." He chuckled lightly and his forehead met mine,

"I love you too."

{-}

I exhaled through my open mouth, and watched the fog spread across the glass, creating a translucent barrier between the tiny shards of ice that adorned the other side and me. The mist faded, and I was again staring silently out of the window.

It was a bitterly cold day; I could tell from the sky. The trees in the woods were almost all stripped of their leafy garments but for the few, cast in autumnal shades that still held fast.

I ran through my head again the exact recollection of turning on the heating when I had woke up this morning. Though its effects were lost on me, it would be necessary for Sonny.

Sonny was coming home today.

I smiled at the thought, and dropped my head to rest on my elbow where it lay on the back of the couch. The emptiness of the Mausoleum had been haunting to me in the time Sonny had spent in hospital. I hadn't visited Sonny since I'd lay with him that first afternoon. Leah had hardly left his side so her presence in the house was minimal. Oz had taken a while to go in, it took all his strength and courage to face his injured little brother, but Cora had helped him. She and Brice too, had been Sonny's constant companions. While me and Jake were left to man the fort.

The silent, empty fort.

I breathed again against the pane as I heard the engine of the car cut out at the bottom of the hill. As Jake ran up it and passed the window he saw me and stopped; looking in and smiling. I smiled gently back, extending a finger and brushing a heart shape into the condensation I had created.

Jake smiled wider, and walked to the door.

I got to my feet and went to meet him, taking from him one of the two paper bags he held. He'd been out for supplies; volunteered to restock when I couldn't face heading out into the real world.

We unpacked in silence. A lot of mine and Jacob's time lately had been spent this way. What was left to be said? For now we were content to just be. We were content to just adapt and bask in being together once more. We were settling in, and it felt perfect. It fit.

I unwrapped two of the pizzas that had come home with Jake and shoved them in the oven and he sat on the counter and watched me as I threw together various elements I understood may construct a salad. I remembered hearing about how important it was to eat stuff like that to get healthy and stay healthy and figured that would be important for Sonny.

The timer beeped on the oven and as I removed my twin conquests their smell flooded the kitchen.

A sound escaped Jake's lips as he hopped to the floor and approached the pizzas, his hand outstretched.

"Ah!" My hand slapped the back of his and it was retracted, "You will be patient, Jacob Black."

He groaned, looking down at the steaming, doughy circles.

"You suck, Ness." I smirked, exposing my teeth and hissing. Jake laughed,

"Not what I meant."

I turned from him, opening a draw and fumbling inside it for the utensil that to me was just a surveyor's wheel gone aggressive. I found it, and turned back to execute its force on the pizzas.

Jake watched me as I cut them, leaning on the counter opposite me.

"Do you think you might ever want to go home?"

I stopped.

Part of me doubted he'd actually said it, defended my sanity as it faced the prospect of having to face up to such a question.

I looked up at him, his expectant gaze said yes, he did indeed ask, and he did truly want to know.

"I-" I shook my head, Jake's gaze changed as though he'd taken that as an answer. "I don't - no. No, I mean …not 'no' but… I don't know. I don't know, Jake." Still he watched me. He was not happy with my answer, and I knew he had right to be. There really was only one answer to that question, and I already knew it. I just hadn't been brave enough to face it yet.

"Yeah-" I had barely let the first syllable slide from my lips when the sound of the wind outside had the noise of an approaching vehicle wound through it. My gaze turned to the window, they had returned.

I turned back to Jake and as I moved to the front door he murmured under his breath,

"Saved by the engine, Ness."

{-}

I walked slowly to the bottom of the hill, watched as Oscar, Cora and Brice emerged from the trees having followed the car on foot. Leah climbed out from the front seat, smiling widely at me and back at Jake who was following slowly behind. She moved to the trunk, pulling out a wheelchair and folding it out with Cora's help.

I moved around the car, opening the rear door with a smile.

"Welcome home, Sonny." He waved unenthusiastically from where he slumped against the other door, his casted leg spread before him across the seat. I chuckled, his hands were covered in thick green gloves, his body in a dense coat and a furry trapper hat on his head.

"Smee, I don't know what's worse. This friggin' hat I've been forced to wear or how inhumanely cold it is in here."

"That hat is for your health, Sonny!" Cora's voice held reinforcement that suggested this was not the first time this argument had been had. "And as soon as Jake fixes the heating the car will be fine again."

Behind me Jake chuckled,

"I'll look into it right away." Oz came beside me, leaning into the car.

"Leah, put that chair away. I'll carry him up."

Sonny crawled back,

"No, Oscar! No carrying! I'm not a baby." Still Oz leaned in,

"Well then stop acting like one. Come here, Sonny!" Still Sonny protested, kicking his legs weakly at his brother.

Compromise was reached and Sonny lowered himself into the chair, moaning about it as Oscar pushed him up the hill.

"Sonny, remember what we said. If Professor Xaiver can own a wheelchair then you sure as hell can for a while" Leah said with a laugh, Sonny responding with a light-hearted scowl.

{-}

That night passed just as the one which followed did, and the one after that. As withdrawn from it as we tried to be; time continued to pass, and each coming day pulled us further and further from Alvar's death.

Time could pass all she wanted. Pour all the balm on the wounds of our loss that distance could muster and we would still fight her. I would always fight her.

We rejected the outside world, only existed inside our Mausoleum which now took its name and gave it a new life.

We tried to keep time froze inside our little bubble, clung our grief tight to our chests and held fast as time attempted to coax it free.

We were united under our grief. Bonds stronger than any other on this earth kept us together in the pain we wouldn't ever fully be rid of.

But time kept to her duty, sparing us no pity in the process.

Sonny's bruises vanished. The red lines of fissures across his skin faded to grey and his daily insistence that his casts were no longer necessary gained volume. He insisted he knew better than his doctors and that his leg and arm be freed. He of course, went ignored.

But normality must always seep through the cracks. And whatever normality were able to claim began to return to our lives in the few weeks since Victor's return.

Sonny was Sonny again. He had moments of sadness and reflections that I had never before been familiar with. But they were not on the same scale as the moments in which Brice would sink into silence; seeming to disappear from our presence entirely, leaving only his body behind. And, as of yet, nothing and nobody could reach Oz. He was a separate entity to himself now, even when he was with us …he wasn't really there.

It was on one of the mornings where routine, or at least our interpretation of such, seemed back as it had been before. Leah, Jake, Sonny and I sat at the kitchen counter around a pile of pancakes Cora had just prepared. Said Cora now passed us, arm in arm with Brice.

"Brice and I are heading out for the day. If you need anything then you know what to do." I nodded and smiled; aware the others around me were doing the same. Cora now took a little cell phone with her whenever she left us in case we need her. She had given one to Oz too, but that now lay in some miscellaneous draw in the kitchen; never used. I reached my hand out, letting my fingertips brush against the soft material of the bright red dress Cora now wore.

"Very pretty." She grinned, spinning slightly so that the material danced to life.

And then they were gone, and Oz too; as he had not been inside the house but to check Sonny had not tampered with his cast for three days.

We poked at our pancakes and Sonny was manoeuvred to the sofa with Jake's help (for he refused mine and Leah's) where he turned on the television and groaned at the prospect of another day sat in that exact spot. He hopped around the channels a few times before admitting defeat and dropping his head back.

"Monopoly anyone?" Each of us bore a smile over gritted teeth as we nodded. Bored games. Again.

As Leah kneeled before the coffee table and opened the box which had not yet even been put away from yesterday the phone rang.

I turned to look at it as though it was offensive. Calls were not frequent things in the Mausoleum, as the prospective contacts of its inhabitants were far from numerous.

But there it was, ringing nonetheless.

So I answered it.

"Nessie, quick! Please, they have Brice! Please, Nessie, help!" The phone was gone from my hand before I was through the door.

I propelled myself down the hill. Blind to what I was running towards. Deaf to the inquisitive cries of Jake and Leah from behind me. I was set only on the pain in Cora's desperate plea. Set only on stopping whatever was happening my feet threw furiously into the ground as I entered the woods. Both scents were left on the air until a reached the forest's heart. Then all disappeared, and I stopped.

I span, screaming Cora's name and tremoring in a maelstrom of mixed emotions.

The silence of the wood was penetrated by a name.

My name. Renesmee!

Whose voice it was I wasn't sure, I only knew the desperation in which it was shrieked as I threw myself in its direction. Through the trees appeared a red blur. As my mind worked to construct its shade, it's texture, it's movement I was reminded of the dress Cora wore as she left the house not long ago.

As I approached, the dress and its wearer were tossed to the ground and I had no time to take in the frame that loomed over her until it was too late. Until my body collided with it and it fell to the floor beneath me.

All the world fell still.

The body beneath me did not struggle, did not fight to escape the cage as I straddled it's chest, my palm at its shoulders.

A gasp was all it mustered.

As my eyes raised, the air within me all but escaped but for one solitary, patient breath that whispered the word it seemed intended to as I took in she that lay beneath me.

"Mom!"