Last chapter before the epilogue!
sniffs It's so sad : ( I realize that I could continue with a sequel, I mean there is so much more to say, but it's time to start anew. Time to put this story to rest.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight
Chapter 49: Recovery
Everything had changed, it was all so… different.
I could feel every fiber in the air, twisting and wriggling, acclimatizing themselves to the fresh circumstances.
It was calm, Quiet… But was it peaceful?
Was the tranquility and the silence an omen of peace? Or was it simply the eye of the storm? Would this be our final act of violence?
Surely not.
It seemed as though violence was an inevitability for this family, as if we were doomed to fight battles for the rest of our lives.
"You're confused…" Jasper said faintly, taking my hand in his.
I nodded softly, not really wishing to elaborate on my feelings at the present moment.
"Me too.." He whispered quietly.
I looked up to meet his eyes and he was smiling sympathetically, his face bathed in a soft morning light.
I brushed my hand along the smooth, alabaster skin of his cheek, stroking the marble stone texture while he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.
"I'm trying to rationalize it…" He continued quietly, leaning into my touch. "I'm trying to understand why, or how, this all happened. I could say that it was it was simply the triumph of good over evil, but…"
"They weren't the evil." I finished resolutely, "They were misguided and angry, but they weren't evil."
"Yes…" He replied hoarsely, rubbing a pale hand over his eyes and then over his mouth, staring of contemplatively. "The weather is changing…"
"Makes sense," I said faintly, "Everything else did…"
He laughed softly, holding me closer by my waist.
"I meant the season…" He whispered, chuckling deeply, "Winter's coming round quickly. I thought we'd have at least a month more of autumn, but I guess Seldovia never really was a weather reliant town."
This statement puzzled me. Winter only started in December, surely that wasn't any time soon. After all, it had only been…
I froze in my tracks, attempting to count back the weeks since my change. But I was empty, my mind blank. I had no idea how much time had passed. I knew light and dark, sun and stars, rain and snow, but I had absolutely no idea what day, week or even month it was. I could remember the wedding on the thirteenth of August, staying in France for a month -For which Edward was ecstatic as it meant I was technically nineteen when I was changed- But then everything after late September, I couldn't put a date to an event.
"It's November the twenty-sixth," Jasper informed me quietly, noticing my internal struggle.
I gasped loudly and threw a hand to my mouth. I couldn't believe it, I wouldn't. How could time have passed so quickly without my knowledge?
"I gather from that charming expression, that you thought it was earlier?"
I nodded slowly, flipping through my mental calendar. But there was nothing, just a big blank between late September and today.
I stared incredulously at Jasper, face scrunched together in a state of confusion. "Aren't you vampire's always complaining about how eternity takes forever?"
He released a low, throaty laugh, ruffling my presently disheveled hair and punching me lightly on the shoulder.
"For a newborn vampire, you remember an awful lot of insignificant details.."
"Lucky me," I replied disinterestedly, watching as the dark rain clouds loomed over the sky.
A moment of silence past as we walked quietly back towards the house. Even our footsteps seemed unusually quiet, dancing gracefully over roots and mud, never making a single slosh or crunch beneath our toes.
"What happens now?" I asked quietly, when the large stone house came into view.
Jasper sighed loudly and shrugged his shoulders, looping a hand around my waist.
"I don't know… Pack up, move on? Break apart, stick together? Choices don't mean what they used to.."
We didn't say anything else, we just bathed in the silence, the peace of the moment. It was the moment I imagined people felt post-war, the white flag silence, the moment that you knew it was over… finished.
We walked through the front door of the lobby, into a house of morose mourning.
As soon as the atmosphere hit me, I knew that some other ill-fated event had occurred. There was something other than the achy pain of death, a pain of loss and confliction.
My pace increased with my breathing as I raced around the corner of the stairs, desperate to find the cause of the emotion.
And there they were. The leftovers, the ones who had survived. I moved towards the patio, watching as they sat in near silence, murmuring soft words to each other.
Edward.
Alice.
Michal.
Rose.
Emmett.
Caterina.
Carlisle.
Esme.
Eleazar.
Carmen.
…Family.
But my mind soon connected the dots, watching as the drawing formed an incomplete star around the vampires sitting beaten and damaged on the patio tiles.
Where was Irina and Kate? Where were the other sisters of the Denali clan?
A horrible thought occurred to me and I shivered slightly at the entrance, wishing that it was not true. They had been sitting so close to the fire, sobbing at the lips of the flames… what if? I prayed it wasn't true. I prayed that suicide was not the way their minds were wired. But even so… I had to know.
I pushed past the large, glass doors and sprang into the patio, skidding over the moist floor.
Alice glanced up briefly to watch me, smiling at my rushed attitude.
But it wasn't funny. Something was wrong.
Carmen's head was resting softly on Eleazar's shoulder, her face pulled into a painful grimace. The combination of their emotions were crippling, they had lost so much through Tanya, I hated the fact that they had to suffer further.
"…They're gone.." I whispered softly, reading the answer in Eleazar's eyes.
He nodded his head slowly, a quiet soft strangling in his throat.
My body shuddered and collapsed beneath the weight of my emotions. I watched as the hard tiles loomed closer in my eyesight, promising immediate impact.
But it never came. And I should have expected that. What I didn't expect, was who would do the saving; It wasn't Jasper, nor was it Edward.
I saved myself.
My hands pushed out when I was not three centimeters from collision, pushing roughly through the tiles. I had been a vampire for months now, and that was the first time I had ever truly rescued myself from such a trivial thing such as falling. I was proud.
"You okay Bella?" Carmen asked quietly, her voice strained by no doubt her onslaught of sobs.
I nodded rapidly, not wishing to be the object of attention when something so ghastly had occurred else where.
"I'm so sorry.." I whispered, my voice raw with conviction.
Carmen squeezed Eleazar's hand and they both uttered words of thanks.
"I just wish we knew where…" Eleazar mumbled faintly, "Where do they think they'll find sanctuary?"
My eyebrows pulled together as I mulled over his words. Everyone else in the family look exhausted, drained from the battle, but not upset the way I imagined they would be, unless…
"They're not dead?" I asked slowly, matching the pieces together in my head.
Carmen stared at me shocked, her mouth agape in a stunned expression.
"No, heavens no!" She said quickly, holding a hand over her still heart. "If they too had perished in the flames, I don't know how I.. I mean…"
She threw her head against Eleazar's chest, muffling her cries into the torn fabric of his red shirt.
"They left," Eleazar informed me, stroking a hand along Carmen's back. "We came back here when Jasper was hurt, they stayed by the fire. We were all hurt because of Tanya's death, our family had been torn apart. But I never expected them to just… take off like that. Abandon Carmen and I as if the time we had been a family meant nothing."
Carmen pulled back from Eleazar and stroked her hand along his face, comforting his angered aura.
"I don't think they ever meant for it to be abandonment," She said softly, kissing the base of his throat. "But they were together for centuries before we joined them. They thought of each other as biological sisters, blood ties."
Eleazar closed his eyes and breathed softly against Carmen's cool flesh.
"Where will you go now?" I asked quietly, horrified by the idea of them sitting alone in the large, empty house.
"I don't know.." Carmen said honestly, "Where is home now? Home is with family and now they are gone… and we have no home."
Esme left Carlisle's arms and danced over to sit at the base of the couple's feet.
"Your home is here then.." She said decisively, resting her head against Carmen's knees. "If home is where family is, then your home is surely where we are."
"Esme, you are quite dear," She replied softly, her eyes filled with gratitude. "But your family is so large already, I would hate to make things uncomfortable."
"Nonsense," Carlisle interjected, moving to join Esme's ambush. "You have always been a part of our family anyway, It's about time you moved in.."
Eleazar stood from his perch next to Carmen and extended a long, pale hand to Carlisle.
Carlisle stared incredulously at the hand, his face mixed with confusion as he stared at the gesture.
"If you're going to be a Cullen, you should know that we only greet each other through very expressive grasps and hugs."
Eleazar laughed softly, and once again, a quiet sob ripped from his throat.
"Thank you…"
Carlisle smiled largely and pulled him into a tight grip, patting him roughly on the back as if to reaffirm the masculinity of the moment.
Esme took Carmen into her arms as if she were a new born child, cradling her softly in her arms and breathing quietly into her hair.
"I'm so sorry for your loss Carmen.." Esme whispered faintly, holding her newest daughter closer to her.
I smiled tenderly at the new comers to our family and watched as the others slowly stood, welcoming each in the way that families welcomed estranged members.
We were a coven of twelve now. A sure threat to the Volturi.
A part of me knew that fresh conflict would arise because of it. I knew that they would arrive, dark shadows in the night bringing new battles here. Into my home and into my family.
But for the first time in my entire existence, it didn't matter any more.
They would come prepared with armies, weapons and skills beyond measure. They would come and rage a war against the threat. They would come and start a battle that would surely never be forgotten…
But they would never win.
They would never break apart the family they so surely despised. Because despite our broken pasts, our shattered presents and our uncertain futures, we would heal again. We would heal and become once again, friends that embodied something more than just love. More than hope and more than peace.
We would be a family again.
And as I stared into the golden eyes of the man I so dearly loved, I knew that that that was everything that I could ever want.
And more than anything that I could ever need.
Still an epilogue!
Can anyone guess what the epilogue is sort of based around? I've known for ages what it was going to be lol! Big hint in chapter 19: 'Truth.' HUGE, ASTRONOMICAL hint! Hahahahahaha!
As I said, this story has so many future possiblitlites, and maybe after some time I will come back and write a sequel. Not all hope is lost lol J
X o x o x o x o x o x o x o x o x o X
