EPILOGUE

July 21st, 2018

A few weeks had passed since Charlie and Sue's wedding. Everyone had decided it was best if they let them enjoy their honeymoon period before they tried to break the news to him. He had no idea that getting married meant he was going to learn some of the world's most well-kept supernatural secrets, and it was best not to dump it all on him right away.

Especially not while he was in the early stages of planning a move. Sue and Charlie had decided to sell their respective homes to buy a bigger house that would fit their larger family. They had three kids between them, and it didn't make sense for them to try to cram into either of their smaller homes. Bella insisted that she didn't mind, knowing that she could always slip away to the Cullen house, but Charlie insisted that there be enough space under their roof for everyone.

Therefore, instead of dumping a ton of sensitive information on the poor man who just wanted to live comfortably with his new family, they invited him to a cookout at Emily's, during which they would set around the fire and tell "stories". This method was supposed to ease him in slowly, let him figure out things on his own before they outright told him anything.

There was nothing grand about the event at all aside from the number of people in attendance. The cookout was doubling as a gift from Sam to the pack to thank them for all their hard work in the past year. The wolves had tirelessly run patrols and defended the land for months, and they deserved something in return for that. This was a terrible duty that they had been burdened with, and there was no way to opt out. The least Sam could do was buy a bunch of beer and good food and cook for them.

With the Cullens in attendance, it felt like a bit of a belated celebration of Lucrezia's defeat. There had been no grand parties immediately after the fact; the incident was, for lack of a better term, traumatizing to most who had witnessed it. Though relieved, everyone had remained tense and serious for several days after the Valenti matriarch's death. They all processed the event on their own time and took comfort in the fact that they were all finally able to relax.

Outside of the wedding, this would be the first time they had all gathered together. This would be much more private than the wedding, which was attended by many people who were blissfully unaware of the supernatural world and its goings on. Thus, before Charlie and Sue arrived, the pack and the Cullens relaxed and spoke freely, behaving as their true selves, unrestrained.

Bella and Edward got off their shift at Ateara's and headed straight to Emily's, changing out of their work shirts in the car after they parked in the yard.

Emily's house had always reminded Bella of the Cullen house, as it was so neatly tucked away within the woods, away from prying eyes. At the same time, it was the complete opposite. The Cullen home was a marvel of modern architecture, perfectly designed by Esme to suit their needs, with no rough edges. Emily's home, on the other hand, was clearly something that had been built and built upon over the years, a labor of love in a different way, with patched up parts and old wood meeting new wood at every turn. And if the Cullen home was a place for them to hide away from the rest of the world, Emily's home was a place for people to come and go as they pleased, the front door always open.

Bella and Edward went through that front door and walked straight out to the back porch and into the yard. There was already a fire in the fire pit, and Sam was already grilling burgers and hot dogs.

"Did you get everything?" he asked them.

"Two cases of Rainier, one case of PBR, and two 6-packs of Mike's Hard," said Edward.

"Start putting some of them in the cooler." Sam paused, thinking for a moment. "Please."

"Yessir," said Bella.

They got to work unloading the requested booze. As they did, Bella got a good whiff of what Sam was grilling. The scent of sizzling meat made her mouth water, but she would have to wait until everyone had arrived. Sam didn't let them eat early. There were no rules against having a drink or two, though.

One by one, people filtered in. Angela came with Leah, as this would be the first time she would properly hear the history of the pack. Bella had started spending more time with her as of late. They had a lot in common, and it was sometimes easier to talk to Angela, a human, than any of the others. She had gotten caught up in this mess without a choice just like Bella had, though she prayed things would go far better for Angela than they had for her.

Rosalie had yet to show, but she had texted Bella to let her know that she and Jacob would be running late after sending her a selfie of the two of them covered in grease—they would be running back to Black house to take a quick shower after work.

Edward got his guitar from the Volvo and sat down by the fire, plucking out tunes as he liked to do at these kinds of gatherings.

"Gonna play 'Wonderwall'?" asked Paul with a sneer.

Edward rolled his eyes and kept strumming, trying to find something in the random chords worth pursuing. He eventually sighed and stopped.

Bella looked at him curiously and asked, "Can I give it a try?"

Her first guitar lesson with Edward had been so long ago, in a time when she had no idea what he was or what would become of her. He had been sitting on top of that big rock by the Park, absentmindedly playing guitar and drinking Corona on a Thursday afternoon. Bella had thought him a burnout of some kind, probably skipping class and drinking like some of her old Phoenix friends used to do.

Edward had taught her a few chords and she had played a simple melody with them. It was nothing, but it had been the start of something new, something beautiful.

Since then, she had filled with the guitar every now and then, when she had time. Edward gave her more loose and fast lessons, and she got pretty good at it. She was sure his musical ability was rubbing off on her, someone who, prior to this, was rarely able to carry a tune in a bucket. Now, though, she could at least attempt to play songs and had started coming up with some of her own (though she found that writing lyrics was far harder than writing prose).

Edward passed her the guitar without question, curious to see what she would do.

She had a song in mind, one that she had actually practiced a bit on her own time, one that she had heard on a recent playlist of Edward's. It had stuck with her, resonated so deeply with her that she felt compelled to at least try to learn it.

The song's instrumental was a stripped down, bare piano melody that was deceptively hard for Bella to translate to guitar but very easy to play once she had it figured out. She looked at Edward, who nodded and smiled, encouraging her to go on and play.

Bella took a deep breath, and she began to sing.

"And it's hard to write about being happy 'cause the older I get… I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject… And there would be no grand choirs to sing, no chorus could come in about two people, sitting doing nothing…"

Edward recognized the song immediately and his crooked grin grew wider. Nervous, Bella let her voice hang in the air for a moment. Everyone waited with bated breath for her to continue. He nodded once more in a manner of saying "It's okay, you can keep going."

Bella found the right chord and strummed dramatically (a little too dramatically, if you asked her).

"But I must confess, I did it all for myself. I gathered you here to hide from some vast unnameable fear…"

Edward began to tap on the log they were seated on to help her keep time and count her into the next line. She smiled as she continued.

"But the loneliness never left me, I always took it with me, but I can put it down in the pleasure of your company."

The two of them nodded along to the beat together, Bella gaining more confidence in her impromptu performance, her shaky voice growing stronger as she sang.

"And there will be no grand choirs to sing, no chorus will come in, no ballad will be written, it will be entirely forgotten. And if tomorrow it's all over at least we had it for a moment. Oh, darling, things seem so unstable but for a moment we were able to be still…"

Bella kept the steady rhythm going on the guitar, a very simple pattern of repeating chords. Edward surprised her by doing the vocalizations in the song himself, albeit pitched down an octave for his lower voice. She focused on playing into the last chorus.

"And there will be no grand choirs to sing, no chorus will come in, no ballad will be written, this will be entirely forgotten…"

The song closed with a gentle, drifting vocalization that Bella improvised on as she made some other things up on the guitar, doing what she viewed as no justice to the swelling orchestral instrumental that was on the actual track.

Her hand strummed a final chord and fell limp. She was shaking a little from nervousness, but she felt good. And then everybody started clapping, and she wished that she was a turtle so she could retreat into her shell and hide from the world.

And then Rosalie's arms found their way around her neck, and a kiss was planted on her cheek, and Bella felt herself grow calm in the presence of her mate. Fresh out of the shower, her hair was a bit damp, and she smelled of Jacob's made-for-manly-men body wash.

"That was beautiful, babe," said Rosalie.

"Th-thanks."

Charlie and Sue had also arrived, and Sam was now allowing everyone to line up for food. The Cullens, of course, did not, though some of them opted to crack open a few more beers before gathering around the fire pit. Billy was patiently waiting for everyone to settle in. He kept his eyes on Charlie in particular, who was going about his day, no idea that his entire worldview was about to be irreversibly changed, for better or worse.

Bella got halfway through her cheeseburger before she started to get sick to her stomach from nervousness. Rosalie noticed her knee jumping, and she laid a hand on Bella's thigh to attempt to calm her a bit, but it didn't do much. She looked at Jasper and nodded her head towards Bella, and he gave her a quick hit of calming vibes, but not much. Truth be told, they were all on edge; he could feel it. Even Billy, who was going to have to admit that he had hid things from his best friend all his life.

Everyone got as comfortable as they could, encircling the flickering fire, a warm, orange glow dancing across their faces. It was time.

"There are so many fantastical stories about this land," Billy began. "Our people have passed down many such stories, but there are just as many modern myths being spread today. So many travellers come to this peninsula in search of hidden magic. If I had a dollar for every fool who'd come this way looking for Bigfoot…" He paused and smiled as everyone chuckled. "But everyone who lives here—in La Push, Forks, and beyond—we teach our kids not to go too deep into the forest on their own. Those travellers go missing more often than not. We know there is nothing glorious to be found in these trees."

Bella knew from past experience that what Billy said was true. A few of the pack nodded solemnly. The Cullens looked a bit sheepish; this introduction was at least partially about them.

"But there are those who walk this earth that were blessed with the ability to protect themselves from those unknown threats. Since the dawn of time, a battle has been fought between the Cold Ones, who hunt humans for their blood, and the wolf warriors, who were blessed with the gift to stand against them and defend their human kin."

Charlie smiled. This was not the first time he had heard Billy tell tales like this, and he assumed it was just another campfire story meant to entertain and thrill. He took a sip of his beer and nodded, not at all believing in the tapestry his friend was slowly weaving.

"We Quileutes were always lucky to have wolf warriors among us. In the early days, there were wolf warriors spread across the entire world, but over time, their numbers dwindled, surviving only in small, close settlements in the far corners of the Earth. They were always a threat to the Cold Ones. Perhaps, at some point, there was an intentional culling of their kind."

Carlisle closed his eyes and nodded, thinking of Caius. Though his vendetta had been against the Children of the Moon, the uncontrollable, flesh-eating progenitors of the wolf gene, many of the "wolf warriors" Billy spoke of were caught in the crossfire and slaughtered, greatly diminishing their presence.

Carlisle could remember a time when there were far more packs, and their territories were marked and well-known. Vampires dared not tread in certain forests in Germany, and they avoided the Eurasian Steppe like the plague. Wolves roamed the Himalayas and patrolled the Brazilian Highlands. One wrong step, and a nomadic vampire would be torn to shreds.

The tension between them kept the world in balance. They never launched full-scale attacks on each other. No wars were fought. Most packs kept to themselves and didn't form alliances with others.

That was, until Caius almost died at the hands of one of the lycanthropes, the vicious, mindless ancestors of the wolf shifters. The "true" werewolves.

The shifters were born with a gene that activated itself in the presence of vampires. It evolved from a necessity to protect mortal prey from their immortal predators.

Lycanthropy was a disease, a pathogen spread through biting (just as vampirism was, though no vampire would dare to call it that). It drove mortals insane and turned them into violent, anthropomorphic beasts that would blindly kill anyone in their way. They could be even more dangerous to vampires due to their unpredictable and uncontrollable nature. And Caius had decided that the threat they posed was too great.

What ensued was no war. There was no opposing force. The Volturi amassed a great army of vampires and methodically wiped the Children of the Moon from the face of the earth, taking out any wolf shifters that dared stand in their way. And Aro had justified it all by saying that it was for humanity's own good, and that the werewolves had threatened to expose both their own existence and the existence of vampires on a large scale that would threaten them all.

The supernatural world must remain in the shadows at all costs. That was what the Volturi believed.

This was a story Carlisle would have told, but this was neither the time nor the place.

Billy had continued to talk while Carlisle had grown lost in his thoughts, talking about the history of the tribe's own pack, and about his grandfather, Ephraim. Edward, who had been around to experience everything that was being talked about, instead focusing on Charlie's thoughts, trying to get a leg up on what his reaction was going to be like.

So far, Charlie was simply confused. He had started out thinking that the story being told was just that—a story. A scary story to be told around a campfire on a peaceful summer night. But things had gotten weird. Billy had started talking about real people, names that Charlie knew. Charlie had actually met Ephraim in real life when they were kids. He was still trying to follow along, to understand what Billy was getting at, but things weren't clicking yet. A bit of denial was starting to creep into his thoughts, forcing him away from grasping the direction that this was all going in.

Billy talked about the arrival of the Cullens, though he purposefully did not mention them by name, sticking to the appellation of "Cold Ones" to keep Charlie's brain from boiling over and leaking out of his ears just yet. The confusion was starting to show on his face, and Sue was holding his hand, occasionally giving it a gentle squeeze.

"I think it would be appropriate for Sam to continue telling this tale," said Billy, bowing his head towards the current alpha.

Sam smiled, though he looked just as tense as everyone else.

There was certainly no going back now.

"We did not know that the Cold Ones would return to this area, so it was certainly a surprise when I found myself burdened with the responsibility that Ephraim had shouldered generations before me. It was about two years ago, if I remember correctly, in the heat of the summer. My whole life changed. It was… challenging. But I rose to meet that challenge, with Jared and Paul by my side. But the threat we faced wasn't vampires," he said, using the explicit term for the first time tonight. "It was ghouls. Far worse, far nastier than the Cold Ones they came from. Horrible monsters drive solely by hunger. We made swift work of them, but we could never completely wipe them out, and we had no idea where they were coming from."

Charlie's mouth was hanging open slightly, and he was squinting in the way he did when he couldn't read something (Bella kept telling him he needed to get his eyes checked). Edward could tell he had moved into full denial, thinking that everyone had lost their minds, or that they were playing some kind of elaborate joke on him.

"It was only when Bella became involved that we began to understand that the Cullens were not our enemies, and that there were much worse forces at play. We would not have made it through the past year if we hadn't learned how to work together."

There it was. Sam had laid it all out in the open. He even paused for a moment, eyeing Charlie for his reaction, but the man didn't move. He remained in his lawn chair, holding his can of Rainier with such a tight grip that the metal was beginning to give way under his fingers, squinting, his pupils darting back and forth between everyone in front of him. His mouth was slightly open, as if he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what he should say.

So Sam continued. He talked about the ghouls, about the nomads, about the fight with James, about what had happened to Bella. He told what he knew of the Cullens' trip to Italy, of Lucrezia, of the agents she sent into their territory. He spoke of what had happened to Angela, and how they had mounted their final defense against the Valenti family, and how she was defeated.

"There is strength in numbers," said Sam. "Something even I was not able to see in the beginning, but I understand now. And even the weakest among us have shown immense strength in the face of evil." He looked at Bella when he said that, and she felt completely undeserving of his praise. "The Cullens are just as much protectors of humanity as we consider ourselves to be. They refused to let innocent people die to save themselves, and that is all I need to know to say that they are worthy of being considered our allies."

"Thank you, Sam," Carlisle said softly. "I truly appreciate your kind words."

Touching as their exchange was, those were the last words spoken, and everyone had to restrain themselves from turning to stare at Charlie, the only person in attendance who didn't already know about everything that had just been said. Everyone bit their tongue and sat still, waiting on a reaction.

When it was clear that they were done messing with him, Charlie sputtered like a fish out of water. It took him a moment to find the words he wanted to say, and he started laughing a little before he spoke.

"Is this… Is this some kind of hidden camera shit? Someone's gonna jump out and tell me I got punked, right? You all are great actors, that's for sure," he said, continuing to laugh, though he didn't even seem convinced that it was funny. "C'mon, guys. What the hell's going on?"

He searched their eyes for answers. No one said anything, and a few people were afraid to meet his gaze and looked away.

Charlie looked at his daughter.

"Bells? Come on now. It's a joke right? A prank?"

Bella, more nervous than anyone else, wrung her hands together before standing up and walking over to her dad. Trembling, she took his hand from Sue and put it on her chest, over her heart.

Her still, quiet heart. No pulse to be found.

All the color left Charlie's face.

"Y-you…? Bella…?"

She could see tears starting to form in his eyes, and she felt a dull ache in her chest. She had lied to her father. They had all lied to him. His closest friends, his new wife, had lied to him about everything.

"This… this was the best way, dad. It was the only way. I didn't think you would believe any of us otherwise. It's so much, it's too much… It's… dangerous…"

"I… I can't believe it," he said, pulling his hand away. "This entire time… And I didn't notice a single goddamn thing. I always thought something was off, but… I never… I just ignored it. I thought it was nothing, that I was being ridiculous. I… I…"

Jasper tried to calm him down, but he was so overwhelmed by everyone else's troubled emotions and his own unease that he couldn't use his gift.

Charlie looked at Bella, then at Sue, then at Billy. His eyes passed over everyone but lingered on those three. Where he had initially been in denial of the truth, he now couldn't believe that the people closest to him had hidden this from him for so long.

He looked at Sue.

"Did… Harry know?"

Sue pursed her lips, closed her eyes, and nodded.

"All of you knew this? Everyone?"

Bella nodded.

Charlie rubbed his face with both hands and looked around the circle again.

"This was the only way, Charlie," said Sue, taking his hand again. "If we had tried to tell you before, you would have been in danger, life-threatening danger. I know it's a lot to take in, but… this was the only way."

"The only way, huh?" he said, his voice low. He remained pale, as if he had seen a ghost, but his expression was slowly turning to one of anger, one that he rarely ever wore. He was upset. He felt betrayed. "I… don't know what to say. I just don't… This'll take some time to process. I guess I just have to get used to it."

Charlie stood up and threw his hands in the air, as if he had given up. He turned and walked away from the fire pit, around the side of the house.

Bella slowly shuffled backwards, watching her father walk away from her. Rosalie shot up from her seat to comfort her mate, holding her close and whispering meaningless words of comfort into her ear.

Sue moved to follow Charlie, but Esme put a hand on her shoulder.

"Let me talk to him first. If that's okay," she said.

Sue was surprised by this, but she nodded and allowed Esme to go after him.

Esme couldn't claim to know everything about Bella, but she had watched over the girl for almost a year now. She had done little more than welcome her into her home and family with open arms and an open heart, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. She hadn't spent as much time with Bella as her children, or even her husband, but she had paid a lot of attention to her. She had grown protective of her.

Esme was well aware that Bella had not had an easy life, and things hadn't gotten that much better after she came to Forks. Charlie was rightfully upset, but he was hurting his daughter, who had suffered so much to get to this point, with his reaction. While no one had expected it to go smoothly, this was supposed to be a moment of relief for Bella. She was finally able to let her father know the truth, even if it hurt, as the truth was wont to do.

"Charlie," she said, finding him leaning against the side of the house, tossing back what was left of his beer.

"I don't wanna talk to you, you… bloodsuckers."

Esme was not hurt or deterred by the insult.

"Charlie, I understand that this is… a lot. But I don't think you've processed all of the information yet. I don't think you fully understand what all this means."

"I know what it means!" he yelled, and then immediately felt bad for doing so. He clenched his fist and shook his head. "It means I'm the idiot. I've always been the idiot. I've always been the one who falls for it. The one who gets played. And now I find out that, for my entire life, all the people closest to me, the people I thought I could trust, were playing me too. My own daughter!"

Charlie slid to the ground, letting his arms rest on his knees as his head fell. Esme understood why he was upset. She sat down beside him, at a comfortable distance.

"It's so much more complicated than that, Charlie. They didn't tell you because they couldn't. Because they didn't want you to know, because knowing the truth is… incredibly dangerous. They were keeping this from you to protect you. Even Bella. It wasn't that she wanted to hide this from you. She really wanted to let you know, but…"

Vampires belong in the shadows.

Esme thought about what Jane had said to them. She didn't believe that it was true, but it was the law.

"There are things out there, terrifying things that would kill someone like you just for knowing the truth," she said.

"And I'm only allowed to know now because I married Sue, and my step-kids can turn into giant wolves. But not because my daughter by blood, is… is… turning into…"

He couldn't bring himself to say it, screwing his eyes shut and slamming his fist against the ground.

"Bella has had… a lot happen to her. None of it was her choice. She always wanted to do things differently, but… that's not how things work. It's important that you understand that, despite everything that she has been through, she is still your daughter, and she still loves you. She has had to change, she will have to change more, but she won't change so much that she becomes someone else. She will always be your daughter."

Charlie raised his head and looked at Esme. He had never stopped to consider just how young she looked. She couldn't be older than thirty, no matter what she told people. All of the Cullens were like that, now that he thought about that. All of them looked so, so young, but so old at the same time.

Despite her physical appearance, there was something so innately motherly about Esme. She was speaking to him from the place of a fellow parent, of someone who had watched her own children and his child go through a cavalcade of horrors in the past year alone. And not just supernatural ones; he remembered what had happened when Renee and Phil had shown up for Christmas unannounced, trying to force their way back into Bella's life.

Charlie thought about how Phil had punched Esme square in the face, and how she had taken the blow without flinching, and how much that made sense to him now. In the moment, that hadn't mattered as much. He was too busy realizing he had let his only child live with that waste of skin for years, how he had probably hurt his daughter time and time again, and Charlie, unaware, had done nothing to stop it.

Here he was, finding out that, once again, his daughter, his only daughter, had been suffering at the hands of others, and he hadn't known, and he did nothing.

Charlie put a hand over his eyes.

"I'm a failure of a parent. All this time, and I could never do anything to help her…"

"You're not, Charlie. You're really not. Even if you had known, there was… nothing you could have done."

"There was something, there had to have been something. God, I'm just a complete idiot."

Esme gave him a few gentle pats on the back.

"You're not. You've been doing your best. It's not perfect, but none of us are." She sighed and stood up. "Bella loves you. A lot. Every time something happened, she was more scared for you than she was for herself. At every turn, she made sure someone was watching over you, keeping you safe. She hated hiding this from you. Don't turn away from her now that you finally know the truth."

Esme walked away, leaving him alone. Sue came around the corner shortly thereafter to check on him, but he was already on his feet, walking back to the firepit.

Bella was tangled up in Rosalie's arms. Charlie thought they fit together perfectly. His daughter looked up as he approached and split from her girlfriend, who stepped away as he approached. Charlie inhaled and exhaled slowly, his shoulders rising and falling with the dramatic breath. He looked Bella in the eyes, trying to form an appropriate apology.

Instead, his lip quivered, and he started to cry.

Bella did not hesitate to hug him so tightly that it almost hurt. He hated to cry in front of other people, but there was no hiding it now. He put his arms around her and cried.

"I'm sorry," he said through the tears. "I promised you that I would protect you. I promised that I would keep you safe, and I was never able to. First Renee, and now all this. I'm so sorry."

Bella dry sobbed into her father's chest.

"It's not your fault," she said. "It never was."

They stayed like that for a while, and everyone respectfully gave them space. When they calmed down, they returned to sitting by the fire, and Bella talked with Charlie for a long time, telling him in detail about everything Sam had failed to elaborate on. Charlie was amazed and horrified by all the things she had done, but he also found himself feeling a little proud of his daughter for braving all of it.

As they talked, everyone else relaxed. Sue sat down next to Charlie and listened to their conversation, occasionally talking about Leah and Seth and her own struggles with supernatural parenting. Esme and Carlisle sat across the fire, sharing stories of their own adopted children and (with careful discretion) how they had come to join the family. Billy listened to all of them, silently absorbing all their stories and filing them away for future use.

Edward got his guitar out again, playing an upbeat but peaceful original melody that put everyone at ease. Emmett, Paul, Jared, and Jasper tossed around a football on the other side of the yard, the two wolves calling fouls whenever the two vampires would move faster than they could keep up with. Jacob talked with Quil and Embry about their plans for the future all while hanging out by the grill to snatch up the remnants of what Sam had cooked. Kim, and Angela sat together at the picnic table while Leah tussled with Seth over something trivial and inconsequential. Emily spoke with Alice in hushed tones about her wedding planning skills, sneaking glances at Sam all the while, who was busy picking up trash that his ungrateful pack had left lying around the yard.

After a while, Bella had said all she had to say for the night, and Charlie let her slip away from him with Rosalie, who pulled her out into the center of the yard and forced her to dance to the tune Edward was playing. Bella stumbled over Rose's feet and her own, but she just laughed at herself as she was spun around in circles.

Charlie looked across the dimming fire at Carlisle and Esme and said, "Thank you two for keeping Bella safe when I couldn't. I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

Carlisle raised both hands. "No, no, you don't owe us anything. Bella has become an integral part of our family, and we always take care of our own, no matter what."

Charlie had noticed the leather bracelet on Bella's wrist, the one with the silver Cullen crest embedded on it. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that yet, but he was at least happy to know that she was in good hands with them.

He looked to Billy, who had been quite this whole time, and asked, "So, how do you deal with your son turning into a giant dog?"

"It was something I had anticipated but prayed would never happen. In the right set of circumstances, that could've been me when I was his age. It was something I always dreamed about, but it never happened. When I had kids… I realized I didn't want it to happen to them. It meant that they would be in danger. But…" He shrugged. "Nothing I can do about that now. It's hard to watch, to know that he's risking his life, but Jacob… He's made me proud. As much as I wished he had been able to live a normal life, he has done well with this responsibility. I just hope he can find some time to relax and be happy now that the worst of it is over."

Sue nodded, having said something similar about her own children earlier in the night.

"I have to admit that even I worry about my kids sometimes," said Carlisle, laughing softly. "And I worry that I'm doing something wrong, that maybe I'm not raising them right. Which is, of course, ridiculous. I mean, my eldest is over 200." Everyone laughed. "I think that all of us always try to do our best to take care of our children, but there are always things that are out of our control."

"You're right," said Charlie, taking a swig from a fresh can of Rainier. "We can't stop the world from turning, as much as we wish we could."

Charlie looked over his shoulder at his daughter, who was finally starting to get in rhythm with Rosalie. They danced and laughed, and he thought that they looked just like normal teenagers goofing around on a Saturday night.

Knowing what he knew now, Charlie was finally able to truly see the bond between them. It was in their eyes, in the way that they looked at each other, in the way that they moved around each other, not perfectly in sync but still in tune.

The universe was pulling them together, keeping them in each other's orbit.

But it wasn't just them. As Charlie scanned the yard, looking at everyone who was there, he began to see connections between everyone. He imagined a web of bonds connecting all of them to each other. It was a messy, complicated web, but a strong web that held tight nonetheless.

In some strange, strange way, they were all one big family.

THE END


friends... thank you so much for making it all the way to the end with me. i said this before, but whether you've been reading since 2017 or you just started binging this last week, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Addiction was a self-indulgent project that i didn't expect anyone to read. it ended up being the most successful fic i've ever written, and the response to it over the years has blown me away. i would not have kept working on Addiction for so long if so many readers hadn't told me that it meant as much to them as it means to me. it is by no means perfect, and i am WELL AWARE of it's many inconsistencies and other issues, but it's a complete fic now, and that's MINDBLOWING to me! this is the first piece of longform writing that i've ever finished, and it's way longer than most novels! that's baffling to me!

i cannot say thank you enough! working on this fic has really boosted my confidence in regards to my personal writing projects, and finishing this fic has shown me that i can actually finish something when i start it. maybe one day i'll actually finish one of the original stories i'm working on! who knows!

i wanna drop a little reminder here to go check out Withdrawals, a companion piece to this fic with some short one-off stories that take place in this AU. there's not many, but i may update it yet...

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THE SEQUEL HAS BEEN POSTED! PLEASE GO CHECK OUT THE FIRST CHAPTER OF HUNGER!