To the tune of: The Line by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Jacob's POV

Carter remained in a state of unconsciousness for no more than ten minutes. It was only the severe pain that caused his supernatural body to momentarily relapse and Edward had mentioned something about it all being psychological. Carter hadn't expected the shock to be as bad as it did, so his brain convinced him that it was worse that it was in reality. It was all a bunch of technicalities that didn't interest me much, but I paid attention, nonetheless, considering Edward's voice was the only thing that kept me awake.

Time caught up with me around 6:00, just as we were pulling into my driveway. I was nodding off when Edward shook my arm and called my name.

"Get some sleep, promise me that much," He asked of me.

"Hmm?" I glanced over. "Yeah, man. It's been fun. Sad it's over."

"Me, too," He smirked as I stumbled out the door. "Jacob, I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do when I get home. So, don't be surprised if Bella interrogates you. I think I should tell Carlisle everything we've gathered. He only knows about Fred."

I chuckled tiredly. "I think he'll add things up when you bring him home."

I glanced in the backseat where Alice had her tiny little fingers constricting Carter's wrists like shackles. He was anxiously looking everywhere at once – out the window, then at Alice, then at me, then down at his hands, then away again. One thing I noticed was that he never dared look at Edward. God, I hoped I would be able to watch when Edward killed him. I was genuinely disappointed it hadn't happened already. I'd really been looking forward to it.

"Oh, I can hear Rosalie's criticism now," He rolled his eyes.

"'You took him hostage! You imbecile,'" Alice mimicked her sister in a furious whisper.

"To a 'T,' Alice," Edward looked over his shoulder at her.

"Well, I'll see you guys this afternoon." My shoulders dropped as I looked back at my house. I saw my dad at the window. I turned away automatically. "Looks like I've got some explanations of my own. We'll meet …?"

"It seems Carlisle and Sam have agreed on three or so," Edward's eyes left mine. "At the clearing beyond the ravine. And it's not an explanation your dad wants. It's something more along the lines of a verdict."

"What's he want that for?"

"Go talk to him." Edward reached over and pulled my door shut.

And then they were gone.

I'd meant to get back to the house slower, so that I could think through a few things, but I was apparently more eager to get to bed than I was first aware. Before I knew it, I was pushing open the door to find my father wheeling past me and down towards his bedroom. He seemed as if he was going to leave me without a word, at first, but then he stopped at the mouth of the hall and turned to face me.

"Why didn't you tell me?" His eyebrow rose.

I scratched the nape of my neck. It sure sounded like he wanted an explanation to me. "Edward and I didn't really want to tell anybody. We were just trying to keep it under the radar. And, then, Emmett and Alice found out, and now Edward figures we've got to tell everyone. We just wanted to do something for ourselves, dad. Private investigation …"

"Not that," He sighed. "This." He leaned over the arm of his chair to reach the counter, pressing the button on the answering machine.

"Hello, this is Autumn Kingsley. I'm calling to check up on the progress of Jacob Black. I met with him about a month ago and still have not received the forms that I gave him to fill out. I tried to find him on Thursday, but I was told that he's been absent since Wednesday. I really would love to talk to him when I get the chance, and I know that he's trying to avoid me." She laughed. "But I think he still has a lot to figure out about his future. All he needs is some persuasion. I'm up to the challenge to finding the best college for him. If he's present, I will sign a pass so that I can get him in my office on Monday to discuss his options. Thanks."

It took me nearly the entire message to figure out who it was, attempting hopelessly to put the name to a face. It wasn't until 'best college' that it clicked for me. My first thought was, is she still after me about that? I wasn't used to a teacher being so persistent about my future. She left a damn message on the answering machine, for goodness's sake. No teacher had ever called the home phone. Or tried to contact me, in general.

"Message left on … Friday, five-thirty-six P.M.," A mechanical voice said. "Save or delete?"

"You tell me," My dad intertwined his fingers on his lap. "Save or delete?"

I exhaled, a long, exasperated sound. "I meant to tell you about the whole college thing, dad, but I actually kind of forgot myself."

"Aren't you supposed to have already applied? Junior year, right?" He looked at me inquisitively. To have him look at me like that – that look that wanted something of me that I did not want to offer – killed me. It made me so uncomfortable. Turns out I had an irrational fear of expectation.

"I don't know, dad," I looked away. "I wasn't planning on going to college."

"Well, why not?" He shook his head. "Your sister went to college."

"I'm not her," I protested.

"I'm not asking you to be her. I just want to know why you expect so little of yourself."

There was that word again. Expect.

"I'm self-confident, or whatever. I have ambitions, if that's what you're getting to," I sighed. "But college isn't one of them."

He stared at me for a long time. Only now he was anticipating the answers. He already knew them. Those wide dark pupils seemed to cut to holes in my stomach and, as suddenly as if he had already said it aloud, I knew exactly what he was thinking.

"… College isn't one of them," He said slowly. "But Renesmee is."

"Well, of course she is," I muttered. "I can't help that."

"And your pack."

"Yes …"

"And Bella is."

"I-I …."

"And …"

"I'm sorry," I interrupted him. It was literally painful for him to go on. "I'm sorry, dad. So sorry. But I'm not going to college. I need to be here. This is where I'm needed."

"But …"

"Can you honestly imagine me studying to have a job?" I groaned. "I mean a real job. Like a desk job, or a field job …. I mean, the farthest forward I can look is … bagging groceries or, maybe, busting tables. I'm not built to learn from a book. I'm all instinct. You know that."

"I do know that," He nodded. "You're a chief. It's in your blood to make change by doing. You set the example. And that means other can't set it for you."

There was a long gap of nothing but silence.

"I'm not going to college."

"And that's all I wanted to know."

"… A verdict."

"That's all I wanted."

Edward's POV

"I just don't see the point of it," Carlisle shook his head.

Carter's breathing skipped nervously at my father's words. He sat impatiently in the corner – knees together, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut – as he slowly came to the realization that his lifespan was a ticking time bomb. Carlisle mumbled something incoherent to himself as he walked gingerly around his desk to the window, indirectly requesting a few moments to himself before I said anything. I waited patiently in the armchair, staring at Carter with an unreasonable lack of emotion.

Carlisle's eyelids fluttered in the reflection of the window, as if he had just awoken from a dream.

I took that as my cue to speak. "Neither do I. But Jacob is smart. Perhaps he's thinking from a different perspective than we are."

"But we can't take the chance that it's a shot in the dark." Carlisle listened intently to a flock of geese passing overhead; the sound fascinated him. "Do you hear the geese?"

I closed my eyes. "Yes, I do hear them."

He brought his hands together, smiling, "I wonder where they're going."

I was honestly frustrated. The head of the Cullen clan chose the day of battle, of all days, to be abstractedly philosophical. Where he was getting at I couldn't tell, but I had to bear in mind the hell we were all about to dive into; pain is entirely subjective and is always handled differently by different sorts of people. Jacob was, quite possibly, not the only one thinking from an alternative perspective today.

Life is more successfully looked at through a single window, I thought.

"Tell it to me again," Carlisle asked for possibly the umpteenth time since I arrived with Carter in tow this early morning. My father was using a human tactic which was, or so I had learned after years of observance, the analysis of obvious fact in pursuit of answers or, at the very least, good news.

I exhaled deeply. "Well, we arrived at the warehouse …"

"… Where Fred and his mate, Ellie, were staying …" Carlisle added for his own benefit. Analysis. Good news.

I continued, "And we waited for the opportune moment. I entered first …"

"What was it you said?" He glimpsed over at me.

I smirked with little humor, looking up at him from under my brow. "'I have come to kill you.'"

He laughed noiselessly before composing himself and saying, "Then, Alice entered."

"And, after which, Jacob came in wolf form," I leaned back in the armchair, sighing. "And, to be legitimately honest with you, I wished he had given me the chance to fool with them a little longer."

Carter scowled.

I glared at him.

"And was there resistance?" Carlisle brought my attention back to him.

"There always is," I shrugged. "Carter believed himself to be so remarkably loyal to the devils he kept his allegiance a secret. I doubted if Fred even knew what a 'Volturi' was."

"But, why?"

"Respect for Aro, I'd assume."

… Why? They shouldn't even have to ask that question, Carter thought reproachfully. The master would reward me for my audacity. He would forgive me for my fear, he would forgive me for my reluctance; I would be immortalized as the one who achieved the master's goal of domination. I captured her, so I deserve the credit. Telling Fred would compromise all of it …

"Interesting," I muttered. Then, I added for Carlisle's sake, "Not respect for Aro. But from him."

Carter's head thudded against the wall, cowering into the cold glass as if he were hiding his face in his mother's grasp. The sudden action captivated Carlisle for a few seconds; he stood there in silent awe, before looking back at me with an inscrutable look in his eyes.

"And then?" He said apathetically.

I humored him, but I knew this meant he'd already come to a conclusion. "After a threat or two, Fred handed Carter over. Ellie was his Achilles heel. And you know the rest …." I glowered, still regretting that I hadn't finished him off in that alley. Just another regret.

He nodded, sitting down at his desk with a long, loud sigh, and began to fiddle with a pen that had been lying across a manila folder. Carlisle often kept notes to himself, to keep track of the endless memories that filled his head; in that moment, I inanely wondered how much of Bella filled those folders – I would imagine she had a whole folder dedicated to her entire existence.

"We won't," He shook his head. "Not now." But that's just my opinion, he added mentally.

I was to my feet in an instant. "But this isn't a matter of opinion, Carlisle! I have to kill him!"

Carter winced.

Please, Edward. At least have the courtesy to refrain from saying 'kill' in front of him, for God's sake. "That's what we came here to discuss, isn't it?"

I slumped back down into my chair. "God isn't very partial to me anymore. So, I suppose, I have no further obligation to please Him."

And, with that, Carlisle stood. "Resorting to that kind of pessimism – the kind of atheistic mindset that you don't even have a belief system to live by – is not only self-incriminating, but entirely in vain. Now, I was not put on this earth for the sole purpose of telling you what to believe and what not to believe, but, as your father, I will not allow you, as my son, to damn yourself in such a disrespectful manner."

"My decisions aren't of any disrespect to anyone," I mumbled.

"They're of high disrespect to you," Carlisle was around his desk and in front of me in a flash. "Oh, Edward, I wish that you could see what I see. You follow my code of benevolence, but do you feel anything in it?"

I stood so that I was eye-to-eye with him. "Of course I do!"

"Then, change for the better," He exhaled, looking away from me forlornly, as if he had just thrown his life's work away. He whispered painfully under his breath, "'Mercy but murders, pardoning those who kill.'"

"But for the sanity of those who have been wronged," I snarled. "That is what I am fighting for. To regain the clarity that I lost all those years ago, so that my wife can – for lack of a better term – sleep easily, for once in her life." He glimpsed at me, unable to follow. "An eye for an eye, Carlisle!" I shouted desperately, yearning for his understanding.

"Or a mate for a mate, perhaps," Carlisle reminded me, sitting at his desk.

"I …." My anger fluctuated. "You know as well as I that Victoria's crimes were beyond me. I had no choice."

"There is always a choice. Always."

I clenched my fists, tremulous with rage. And, impulsively, I lifted the armchair and thrust it down onto the wooden floor, living an indent in the panels.

Carter was petrified.

Carlisle was indifferent. "Yes, always. Yet choice is not a matter of responsibility, in most cases, but a matter of nature. Had the nomads' paths never crossed with ours, would you still have had the compulsion to kill them? If they fed as mercilessly as they did, if they still killed unjustly, but never threatened you, would you still have gone to the lengths you had? Still have fought? Would you have cornered them the way you had in the name of what was right …? Or would you have let sleeping dogs lie if Bella's life was not endangered? Answer me honestly, Edward."

"I-I …." I stammered once more.

"Not a trick question," Carlisle leaned against his desk. "Not rhetorical."

I lifted my hand to my face, hiding my eyes from further scrutiny.

"No, you would not have," Carlisle said slowly. I opened my eyes. "You have to choose now. Not physically here in my office at" – he checked his wristwatch – "6:53, but in the next few hours, I mean. You must change your own perspective, so that, when the time comes, you kill for revenge, for your own sanity, or you kill for what is right."

I exhaled.

"After four hundred years, give or take a few, I have found that it's much less productive to spend your time guessing what is behind closed doors rather than simply opening them."

I lowered myself hesitantly back into my chair, staring forward into distant space, murmuring, "'Life is more successfully looked at through a single window.'"

"F. Scott Fitzgerald," He smiled.

"D-do you know," I put out my hand as if I wanted to reach out and grab something out of nothing. "That after Daisy incidentally flattened her husband's mistress, her first reaction was to speed up and her second … was to cry …." My voice dwindled with my confidence and, then, it picked up again. "And, then, she was so terrified of what was to come that she requested Gatsby wait in the bushes outside her house all night long – and she would flicker her bedroom lights if she needed him."

I paused for what seemed like ages.

"Carlisle," I shook my head, hardly able to get the words out. "Bella is flickering the lights for me."

His expression softened for a long moment before he pushed off the wood face of his desk and returned to his methodical position at the window.

"I was going to say," He chuckled. "You of all people know what it's like to wait at someone's window. And, if I may be so bold, you looked through that single window so successfully that you are now a married man. A married man determined to love his wife. A married man … determined to find his daughter."

"I know where she is," I sighed. "All that's left to do is save her."

"And you will," he nodded. "But keep your priorities in check."

I slouched. "I'm attempting."

"Go home, Edward," He turned to face me. "Emmett was kind enough to keep Bella from pouncing on you as soon as you stepped through the door. Thank him on your way to the cottage, would you?"

"How much does she know?" I wondered desperately.

"With a perceptive mind like hers," He shrugged. "I'd say she's figured out all of it."

I was at the door in an instant, my fingers stiffly clutching the doorknob, but I rigidly turned to look to my left. Carter was staring up at me with large, bewildered eyes – he knew that he was not in the clear for long.

"What about him?" I growled.

"Hmm," Carlisle's chair creaked as he sat. "It's begun to snow."

The frustration returned. "Carlisle," My eyes met his.

"This is not my battle, Edward," He replied. "Therefore I'm in no place to steer the course of things. This afternoon, I want you to be the commanding officer. I will be by your side, at your immediate aid, but it is your job to finish this."

My eyes widened. "But … aren't you worried that I may not have a clear enough head for this?"

"I haven't any concerns about that," He smiled tiredly. "Why else would I be sending you to Bella?"

"But …." I tried, but all my excuses seemed to evaporate into thin air.

"When the battle has begun, you have free reign, Edward. If you think it best to act the way you've planned, then do so. I encourage it. Some advice, though – don't second-guess yourself, and allies aren't simply for strength in numbers."

I nodded, pushing open the door.

"And, Edward," Carlisle lifted his hand. I turned to look. "I trust you. But some people are only honorable in certain lights. Promise me that you'll prove me wrong on that, would you?"

I stood idle in the doorway for a long while, wondering whether I should answer or not. And, in that hiatus, I came to a final conclusion, a conclusion that had taken me this long to decide. So, I looked back at my father and resolutely vowed, "I will try my best to negate that theory. And I trust you, too, Carlisle."