Morning Glory
Garrett never saw himself valuing human life above supernatural life, particularly his own supernatural life. He never even thought the two forms were equal in any way.
Meeting Kate changed many things for the centuries-old vampire, how much value he saw in the individual humans that surrounded him was just one change the blonde spitfire had brought about.
He thought a lot more, he was generally more conscious. For his first few months of being a "vegetarian", he found himself studying every human that entered his line of vision. As the thirst for their blood began to fade, slowly but surely, what replaced it was a curiosity. He was curious about what each of them considered their purpose in life. Having lived as long as he had, Garrett had been afforded many purposes. He had technically lived many lifetimes by the human standard.
Sometimes, this led to guilt. He didn't vocalize it often, and never in detail, but Kate knew enough without him saying anything. Garrett wondered how many purposes he'd taken away every time he'd fed for all of those centuries. He wondered if some of the brightest human minds had ceased to exist because of him.
These thoughts ran through his mind frequently, but it just made him all the more determined to stick to his new family's diet. Oh, and making Kate proud was an incentive in its own right.
Tanya had been the one to suggest the visit to the Cullens. She thought being surrounded by more vegetarians might quicken his assimilation into the lifestyle. The others agreed. Garrett saw the potentially positive outcome that could ensue with the visit, so he agreed. Tanya suggesting the visit made Garrett feel somewhat shamed of how little he was able to hide his struggles from the others. They'd been there, he knew that. But it was still difficult being alone in the process.
So they made the journey to Forks, and they were welcomed with open arms by the Cullens. Garrett enjoyed their company. He'd always liked Carlisle, it was why he was so eager and willing to help them against the Volturi. He'd also come to enjoy telling stories to Renesmee about his participation in American battles. Garrett was good with kids, Esme had always told him he would've made a good father.
Tanya and Kate had decided to feed in a different town that night. They didn't want the Cullens to face an off population balance because all fourteen of them were feeding in the same area.
Like he did back home, Garrett took a moment to walk amongst the humans, just to test himself. He always wanted to know if it had gotten any easier to be around them. Sometimes it had, sometimes it hadn't.
"You can't slip up here. We can't do that to the Cullens." Tanya hissed the reminder quietly. Her hands were stuffed in her coat's pockets, wanting to fit in with the humans that littered the street on the exceptionally cold night.
"I feel fine." Garrett assured her. He wasn't lying, he felt the same as he had for the past month or two. It was an effort to avoid feeding, even after just doing so in the middle of the woods ten minutes before. But it was no longer impossible to abstain. That gave Garrett hope that he could get past it, eventually. And that he could live a life -a comfortable life- with Kate, forever.
Still, his instinct to hunt had set in. Even though he'd learned not to act on it, Garrett still noticed more.
He noticed the man two blocks away, who was trying and failing to get his umbrella to open. He noticed an older woman had stepped out of her car and right into a puddle, and now she and her husband were seemingly heading back home, both in irritable moods. He noticed another woman outside of a small grocery store, who was sitting on a bench, on her phone, probably on break. This was the kind of human he would've made a meal out of, had it been a year ago. Distracted, alone, vulnerable.
Then he noticed a girl standing in an alleyway. Garrett figured she probably in high school, based on the sports uniform she was wearing under her light sweatshirt. Probably not the best attire for a human in the current weather. She was on phone, engaging in a combative conversation with a male on the other end of the line. Though he could hear both sides of the conversation, it was almost going too quickly for Garrett to keep up with.
Garrett had been so distracted that he hadn't realized that he'd stopped to listen to the conversation.
"Garrett, come on." Tanya urged. Her and Kate were five feet ahead of him now. He listened for a moment or two more before reluctantly walking forward.
"No, wait." Kate's walked toward her mate until her hand met Garrett's chest, pushing him back toward the alley. The blonde didn't have to say anything else. Tanya and Garrett knew.
"It isn't a Cullen." Kate spoke both softly and firmly, inhaling strongly through her nose. Tanya walked toward the couple, realizing they weren't going anywhere.
"What're the odds a nomad shows up the week we come?" Tanya said, her tone as hushed as Kate's had been. The temperature had seemingly dropped within the last few minutes, based on the mannerisms of the people that were walking by them. Tanya crossed her arms over her chest, feigning a reaction to the nippy winds.
Garrett didn't say anything else. His tall body slinked closer to the alleyway where the young girl still stood bickering on the phone.
That's when he saw. A pair of red eyes flicked around on the other side of the alley, behind one of the older brick buildings that the alley was situated between.
The eyes belonged to a male with hair so blonde it all but looked white.
Garrett knew.
"Fucking hell." The brunette said through gritted teeth. Stepping backward and rounding the corner to hide his physical presence.
"You know him?" Kate asked, joining him with her back pressed up against the building.
Garrett peered around the corner slowly, only to find that the man was not aware of his presence, but was rather focused on the teenage girl.
"I'd anything I'm why he's here." Garrett said honestly. The three watched as the blonde began to stalk the oblivious mortal. Garrett had stopped focusing on the girl's conversation, though her gestures and tone seemed to indicate that she was still fighting with whoever she was on the phone with.
"He's gonna kill that girl." Tanya stated. The coven leader's voice had a tendency to showcase the emotions she was feeling. Right then, it was obvious that internally, she was trying to come up with a way to stop the inevitable.
The three watched, horrified as they saw terror cross the girl's face when the man appeared in front of her, seemingly out of nowhere. Her phone had clattered to the pavement.
"I couldn't help but overhear your troubles. I'll make them go away." The Denali girls noticed that the man had a thick German accent. They also noticed the girl's heart rate picking up quickly.
Garrett remembered the countless times it had been him to make a human's heart rate race so instantly.
And it suddenly occurred to him that this girl probably had a family. A family that was expecting her home. A family that had probably gone to her sports game that night. A family that didn't deserve to lose their daughter or their sister or their niece or whatever she was to them.
By the time he'd thought all of it through, he was watching the blonde vampire's teeth sink into the young brunette's arm.
Garrett didn't have time to think now, that was the only thing he could think.
Before he knew it, he'd pushed himself forward and yanked the girl away from the man, throwing her across the alley, her head hitting the wall of bricks.
"Garrett!" Kate's voice held a panicked confusion as she ran toward the girl, Tanya not far behind her. Garrett knew he had created a mess of things, but there wasn't much he could do about it now.
The blonde man dusted off his olive-colored peacoat, straightening himself up before looking Garrett in the eye. A sly smirk ran across his face, and it was that smile that made Garrett remember why he'd made an enemy out of him all those decades ago in the first place.
Without much hesitation, Garrett lunged forward, pinning the man up against the building behind him. Garrett turned back to Kate, who had her right hand behind the girl's head, propping her up.
"She's unconscious from hitting her head but the change is happening. What the hell are we gonna do?" Kate examined the fragile life's every slight move as she relayed her frantic words.
"We still have time, we just need to get her to Carlisle." Tanya was usually much more prone to becoming frazzled than Kate was, but everything about Garrett's change in diet and keeping him steady on the path to assimilating in her family's ways made Kate a wreck. She'd had a hard time with it from the beginning, but she couldn't hide any part of her emotions right then. She almost felt human as she stayed knelt down in that alleyway, the first time she'd felt that close to human since she'd watched the Volturi execute her mother.
"Take her now." Garrett said quickly, struggling to keep the man pinned against the building.
Just like that, the sisters were gone. Garrett finally let up on the man, running a hand through his scruffy beard as he thought of the complications his newly found mindset had caused him and the others, including that girl.
"All that to save the life of a human you don't know?" The man said, taking a step toward Garrett, laughing to himself. "It seems your heart has softened." Garrett looked around, relieved to see that most of the humans had gone home, out of the rain. Garrett's newly amber eyes narrowed as he stepped forward.
"Still hard as stone when it comes to you." Garrett shoved the German man into the brick wall once again. The man still smirked. He was always smirking, even when he was losing. Garrett had known that for as long as he'd known him. The man knew it almost always messed with his opponent's head.
"You don't think I came here for that useless teenager, do you? I've been watching you, Garrett. For months I have. Ever since I heard about your confrontation with the Italians. I know you're what, a vegetarian now? You grow weaker by the day, Garrett. It's sad to see you let yourself go like this." The man chuckled. Garrett was at least a foot taller than the sinister nomad. He was stronger, wittier, but apparently the man was more observant than Garrett.
He tried to hide the fact that he was slightly thrown by the man's admittance to months of stalking. Garrett knew it would all come to a head one day with the German, he just thought he'd end up having more choice in the matter of when and where it happened.
"Animal blood weakness is a myth, Aldrich. And, in case you didn't notice five minutes ago, you're outnumbered." Garrett had a dry way of speaking, part of his wit. It made people think nothing ever bothered him. But things did bother him, especially right then.
"Not always." Aldrich looked around the lonely, cool street. As if he was reminding Garrett that he was currently alone.
"You will pay for what you did. We both know that you will." Garrett didn't do anything but glower at this remark. "Good luck with that newborn your soft heart lead to the creation of, by the way. I'll see you… around." Was the last thing Aldrich quipped before flitting off into the bitter, rainy night.
Garrett sat with the words for a moment before heading off in his own direction, wanting to know if Aldrich's assumption about the young girl's fate had come to fruition.