*Author's Note: This story really was done. I had my ending planned for months. What happens the moment I post it? This. This is what happens the moment I think it's done. Cue frantic writing frenzy and a whole mini-story I never planned on falling out of my head today. Agh! Now, it really is done. Complete. Fin. If you hate it, then ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist since the story was pretty much done, anyway. This is basically an after-story more than an epilogue. Hope you enjoy!

Epilogue: Part IV

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "

MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

John Donne

2650 A.D.

After they left Neverland, Darling and Peter travelled the world on foot. North, south, east, west, it didn't matter. Sometimes they stayed in a place for months at a time, if they liked it well enough. Other times, they simply walked through, not staying long enough to leave anything but footprints behind them. There was an untethered freedom in such a nomadic existence that neither had truly experienced before and which allowed them each to finally take notice of the world around them in a way they never had before. It was as much an introduction into the diversity of ways of being of humans as it was to the ecosystems they discovered in each locale. There were mountains to climb, glaciers to scale, and vast grassy plains to run through. Actually, it didn't matter so much where they went, so long as they were together (which they were). After five years of wide eyes and dusty feet, they unanimously agreed it was time to go "home."

"But where is home?" Peter asked.

"Chad, of course," Darling answered, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it was, if Augustine was to be believed. The old vampire only clicked his tongue knowingly and decried that he had not sired Darling himself.

"Then she would stay with me in Tunisia and not keep drifting back to the south."

"Stop clucking like an old mother hen. We'll visit often," Darling promised.

"Not often enough," he groused back.

She knew it was not only sentimentality that made him averse to having her far from him, though that was certainly part of it. Augustine would have welcomed Peter with open arms for no reason other than being Darling's mate. However, it was not long into Peter's recovery and search for Darling that the old vampire begrudgingly developed his own appreciation for Peter based on his own merit.

"If he can survive Darling, then his heart is made of iron," Augustine said and that was that.

Augustine was nothing if not shrewd and he had a healthy respect for the benefit of keeping Darling and Peter nearby - for their gifts as much as their companionship. Not only that. Augustine had harbored secret hopes that Darling would wish to take her place in the evolving world order, the increasingly complicated, dynamic, ever-shifting world of vampire-human affairs. Now that the ever-present reality of the supernatural was no longer a well-kept secret, the globe reeled with the implications and opportunities of it all. Thanks to Darling, Augustine had promoted himself to having a central role in the direction of the future and he longed for Darling and Peter and Slightly to assist.

"Think of all the good you can do! Think of all the harm you can prevent!"

Darling adamantly refused. "I think I've caused enough good and harm for my lifetime. I am retired."

Of course, where Darling went, Peter followed. And where both Darling and Peter went, Slightly followed. When Augustine heard that Slightly and Ifeh had relocated from Mali to Chad, he moaned all the more piteously.

"You could always move to Chad," Slightly teased. "I'm sure Darling would welcome you into her coven with open arms."

"Bite your tongue, boy," Augustine answered, as if the very suggestion of relocating was an insult. They both knew that nothing, save an apocalypse, would make the old vampire leave his beloved ksar and relocate anywhere else in the world.

The moment Slightly heard the news that Darling and Peter intended to settle in the Bourkou region of northern Chad, he did not waste a day.

"Ifeh, we are changing covens," he said.

She clicked her tongue at him and placed a hand on her hip. "And why are we changing covens this time?"

"Because Darling and Peter are back!" he said.

She clapped her hands together and she danced around the room, her exultant ululation drowning out all other sounds. Slightly might hide behind a façade of nonchalance, but she knew him. He had missed his coven and her ties to Mali were superficial at best – nothing compared to Slightly's relationship with his sire and friend. To him, they were family.

"Do they wish for company?"

"They are vampires. Why wouldn't they?"

Darling and Peter were never really given the option to refuse. Slightly and Ifeh were on their doorstep before they had even unpacked their bags. Darling was so used to Slightly's constant companionship that she never even considered sending him away. Peter gave each of the pair a warm, but solemn greeting and never once asked them if they were guests or permanent fixtures.

Ifeh's temperament proved the glue that held them all together. Humans, animals, and vampires alike were drawn to her like flies to sugar. She fairly oozed a contagious sense of calm, even without contact. She proved a necessary counter balance to Darling's rather frequent bouts of temper. Darling may have retired from ruling, but that did not mean she gave up acting as queen. The transition to being "part of a small coven" rather than "unquestioned ruler of a large coven" was not a fast process (and involved more than one instance of "dethroning.")

Ifeh's gift also proved invaluable. After the initial rush of relief and enthusiasm of being both freed and reunited, Peter and Darling realized they had a hundred and eighty-eight years of captivity to sort through. No one could go through such experiences unchanged, but neither had fully come to terms with just how they themselves had changed, let alone the other. Scars were both internal and external and while there were some that could heal, others were now permanent additions that would not be going away.

One consequence of their captivities was that both Darling and Peter had developed instinctive aversions to small, confined spaces. They couldn't so much as go into an elevator or basement without both of them nearly panicking. The sight of a set of handcuffs, even on a television show, was enough to send them both out the door. They both agreed that they were perfectly content to spend their time outside in the open and declared they were "making up for lost time" since they had spent so much of their lives underground.

Another consequence was that they had an almost unhealthy fear of separation. If ever one was out of sight of the other, they were nearly overcome by terror until they could find the other again. It was more than the overwhelming pull of an early mating bond. Augustine suspected it was due to the unnatural separation they had experienced so early into a freshly established mating bond.

"I have seen something like it once before," he said, when Slightly asked him about it. "There was a vampire in Timbuktu who developed a mating bond with a human. Before she could turn him, he was stolen away during a slave raid. When she finally managed to locate her lost mate, far across the ocean, it had taken nearly twenty years. After that, she would not let her mate out of her sight, for any reason, even after she changed him and had stayed with him for a century."

Whenever Ifeh was informed that Peter or Darling was frozen in place or suddenly shouting in terror, she rushed to them. With her hands pressed against their skin, she flooded them with such an overwhelming sense of peace that they collapsed against her. She caught them and held them in place until they could speak calmly and rationally again.

"What did you see this time?" she asked, after it was over.

Gradually, they shared the fears and terrors they had each experienced during their time apart and sometimes it was heavy a burden that she had to simply rest against her mate for a time to recover after.

"You know, I can see what Peter sees," Slightly said. "And Darling can drop her shield. Why do you make them speak it out?"

"I'm drawing the poison out of the wound," she told him. "We need to keep their hearts from growing infected by the all wounds they carry. This will help them heal."

It did help. It did not help quickly, but over time, the episodes lessoned and there were fewer untold stories than there were shared ones. Slowly, like the melting of an icicle from a roof, the clenching fear around their hearts lessened and they could somehow breathe again. Ifeh could feel it when Darling finally stopped looking over her shoulder, everywhere she went.

They chose an isolated plot of land near the Tibesti mountains. There, they built simple stone rooms surrounding a large, open courtyard filled with date palms and a small pond. Darling tried to bring home a pet crocodile. Slightly and Peter refused.

Darling and Peter used their home more for storage than anything else. They spent the majority of their time in the courtyard or out in the mountains and wild spaces beyond where they did not feel so constrained.

While it was clear that Darling was the "official" leader of their coven, her role was more symbolic than anything else. She refused to deal with any external coven business and left it all to Slightly, since he remained as busy as ever. Slightly still oversaw the organization of covens involved in the production and exportation of bottled blood. He travelled often and dealt with most of their neighboring covens anyway, so Darling let him deal with any business involving their coven, too. It was agreed that once he came home, he was not permitted to talk about treaties and trade and coven politics - unless prodded. He was absolutely not allowed to bring any of his work home.

They were surprised, then, when they received a set of unexpected visitors at their door.

The pair of men were identical -both in their long, white beards, faded green eyes, and the clothes they wore. Ifeh stared at them in confusion before Peter rushed forward to greet them.

"Khalid? Kassim? Come in! Come in!"

"We heard stories. I see they are true," Khalid said. "You stay here, then?"

"Yes."

"Do you hunt?"

"No. There is no need."

He nodded, as if this pleased him.

The twins became regular visitors… such regular visitors that Ifeh suggested they add a second house behind their own. "Just in case they want to stay the night."

When one night turned into one week and then into one month, Darling simply asked them to stay.

"Do you have family?" she asked.

They considered this. "In a way, but we have been old much longer than our family has been young and memories are short."

"Our memories are long and we are family, too. Stay with us."

They all knew what she did not say. While long-lived, the twins were not invincible nor immortal. Age had crept up on them like a thief in the night. They needed the assistance of kin, but they had outlived every generation of family they had yet developed.

It was not long after Khalid and Kassim joined them that they received another set of visitors, though these were of a much more temporary variety.

"It's Bell and Michael!" Slightly said, surprised when he first caught the tenor of thoughts approaching them. "They were in the Ituri forest and decided to stop by here before going on to Djebel Babor."

"Someone has been avoiding me!" Bell said, as soon as she set foot into their courtyard. She leveled an accusing glare at Peter and would not relent until he had wrapped her in an embrace. "You disappear for nearly two hundred years and Alice wouldn't tell me anything except that you were fine and would come back someday. The next thing I know, she says you are out and about with Darling and won't be coming to see us."

"She hasn't forgiven you for that," Michael said. "She was quite put out."

"You should have come to us first!" Bell said. "I hear you are traveling the entire world and not once, not a single time, do you stop in to see me!"

"Yet, still you have found me!" Peter said with a booming laugh. He kissed the top of her head in apology. "I'm sorry for avoiding you, Love, but I needed to spend some time with my Darling."

Bell let out an irritated huff and crossed her arms. She leveled a harmless glare at Darling. "What if I don't like sharing?"

"You had your chance. You chose Michael. Peter is mine," Darling said. She said it so matter-of-factly and without any edge of jealousy or competition that Peter grinned and stretched out a hand to his mate.

"I do like the sound of that. Can you repeat that to each of our visitors, as soon as they enter our home? 'Welcome to our home… Peter is mine.'"

Darling laughed. "Whatever you wish, dearest."

"Oh, you. Stop that," Peter said.

"How long will you stay in Chad?" Slightly asked, addressing his question to Michael.

Michael shrugged. "As long as Bell wants. She put up with five years of traipsing through forests for me so I agreed to seek out her Peter for her."

"You are welcome for as long as you want," Peter said, as warmly and sincerely as only Peter could truly muster. "Khalid and Kassim are here, too"

Bell clapped her hands and grinned. "Really? I thought they didn't like mingling with us predators?"

"They make exceptions. I'm sure they will be overjoyed to see you both again."

"The feeling is mutual. We haven't seen them since Mikie's wedding."

"How is Mikie?" Peter asked.

"Oh, well, he thinks he should be called 'Mike' now that he is a big man and taller than his father," Bell answered.

Mikie lived in Alaska for nearly eighty years before his wife finally died. Instead of falling into a bout of rebellion like Izzy had done, he followed Carlisle's advice and went to medical school. He worked at the same hospitals as Carlisle for a time, but as the world gradually opened up to the existence of the supernatural beings in their midst, this opened up vast new opportunities in the medical field.

Between researching the physiology of vampires to the transformation process to hybrids and interspecies reproduction, there was no shortage of new opportunities for research – and Mikie's background made him uniquely suited for the job. He had his pick of offers at universities around the world.

"He insists on staying in British Colombia, though we keep telling him to come back home," Bell explained.

"He doesn't have a musical bone in his body and he has an unnatural fascination with cats. He insists on keeping pet cats wherever he goes. I cannot understand it," Michael added.

"He likes them," Bell said, as if that was explanation enough.

Michael groaned and rolled his eyes. "I like trees. I don't keep them in the house."

"You would, if Esme would let you."

"That's beside the point."

Oooooo

Michael and Bell stayed for almost a month – just long enough to make sure Bell forgave Peter for his absence. They might have stayed longer - if not for the succession of phone calls that found them there.

The first was from their grown son.

"Mom, Dad, I just wanted to let you know that I've met someone."

"What do you mean?" Bell asked.

"He means he has a girlfriend," Michael clarified.

"I know that. I meant, 'give me details.'"

"Then why didn't you just say that?"

"Fine. I will. Mikie Muffin, tell us about her. Where did you meet?"

"We met camping in the Canadian Rockies. She loves the outdoors as much as I do. She's beautiful and brilliant and you'll love her."

"It's serious then?"

"We are engaged."

"Oh. Oh. Wow. That was fast… or was it? How long has this been going on? Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"Relax, mom. It was fast. I guess you could say it was 'love at first sight.' I've only known her a few weeks, but I knew from the moment I saw her that she was it for me."

"We've heard that before," Michael groused. Bell elbowed him in the stomach.

"Shhh. He can't help it if his first love died," she whispered. Then, louder, "I'm so happy for you, Mikie. I can't wait to meet her. When can we meet?"

"The next time you come home, I guess."

"Muffin, you should bring her here! We are visiting your Grandpa Peter and your uncles now. She'd love to meet them and you haven't seen them all in such a long time!"

"Yeah, maybe, Mom. That's kinda a long way, though. I won't have enough vacation time from the hospital to even make it there and back."

"Fine, fine. Hopefully soon then."

"Ok. I gotta go mom. The hospital is trying to call me."

"Ok. Love you, Baby!"

"Love you too! Both of you. Tell all the others 'hi.'"

It was only after they hung up that Bell frowned.

"I forgot to ask him her name… and if she's human… or not."

"Next time, Bell." Michael said.

She sighed.

Oooooo

The next call that came three days later, was just as important, but not as joyful.

"Bell… I'm afraid I have some bad news."

"What is it, Esme?"

"Are you with the others? Are Khalid and Kassim and Darling and Peter there?"

"Yes."

"Good. They will need to hear this, too. I'm afraid that Izzy didn't wake up this morning. You know how she was slowing down and her memory was already nearly gone? Well, Carlisle thinks she had a heart attack in her sleep."

The entire room fell into a hushed silence, each listening to every word coming through the speaker.

"Oh, Izzy!" Bell cried. "Isn't there something that can be done? Can't Carlisle help her wake up again?"

"No, dear. That's not how it works. She's dead."

"I thought our kind couldn't die like that."

"She was still half-human. She couldn't stay around forever."

"So, then, she's just gone? What happens now?"

"Well, we are organizing a funeral. It will be held at the castle and anyone who wants to come is welcome. We will gather together to remember her and help each other grieve. Then we will bury her."

"In the ground?"

"Yes, dear."

"Like an acorn," Michael whispered to himself from across the room where he held his head in his hands.

If there was one thing that Darling and Bell could agree on (other than their shared affection for Peter), it was their love for Isabella. The pair was distraught. Khalid and Kassim were even worse.

"No one, not even vampires, can truly live forever, even if we like to pretend that we can," Ifeh said. As the oldest of all them, she had seen more of the inevitable cycles of death than any of the rest.

"It's never long enough, is it?" Darling said. "I have fought against my own death for nearly five hundred years, and still I feel like it has all been stolen time, like I am racing against death and stealing out life that should not be mine. There's been so much wasted time."

It did not take more than an hour to decide they would all leave immediately for the funeral

"Family is important," Slightly said. "We are coming, too, even if it's just so Ifeh can hold everyone's hands and keep you all from blubbering like dying walruses on the beach."

Darling stopped sobbing long enough to punch his shoulder. "Ifeh can come. You are uninvited."

"He will cry worse than all of you, even if he never met your sister. Just you wait," Ifeh said.

She was right.

Oooooo

Michael Peterson, Jr. held the phone in his hand as if it were a venomous snake and his bottom lip quivered beneath his beard. That was the tell that showed her that he was anything but alright.

"Mike, what is it?" she asked. She came to kneel before him and take his hands in hers. They were calloused but so very warm. She pressed his palm against her cheek and tried to make him look at her. When his bright green eyes finally met hers, they were glossy with unshed tears. With a great heave of his shoulders, he sucked in a breath. When he released it, his tears came along with it.

"Oh, Baby, what is it? What has happened?"

"That was my Nana Esme. My aunt died this morning."

"Oh, Mike, I'm so sorry. Which one?"

"My favorite one. The one the most like me. Hold up a sec. My mom is calling. I need to take this."

He accepted the call and he stood so he could pace while he spoke into the phone. He always did this when he talked to his parents. No one else made him feel the need to move so constantly. She wondered if he did the same when in the same room with them.

He moved toward the other room, but he did not bother to lower his voice so she could still hear most of what they talked about. When he got off the phone, he came back to her and let her place her arms around him.

"So, Scotland, huh?" she asked. "Isn't that where you were born?"

"Exactly. I do mean exactly. They are burying her in the funeral plot in the same place I was born. It's our family castle."

"You have a family castle?"

"Yeah. My Nana likes to restore old buildings. She has been working on this one nearly my entire life. It was falling to pieces when she got it. Now it's a masterpiece. She likes it so much she decided to keep it."

"That's cool. I mean, when I envision a family of vampires living together, a castle seems like where they'd live."

"Not a cemetery?"

"Or that."

"I will need to leave first thing in the morning."

"Ok."

They both looked at each other and she saw the question in his eyes before he asked. "Do you want to come? I know it's not the best way to meet my family, but I'd really like to have you there."

"Ok."

OooooOooo

They sat on the airplane, each with an inflight magazine on their laps and microscopic cups of Coca-Cola on their tray tables. It would take another ten hours before they would land in Glasgow and plenty of time to prepare for the big "meet the parents" moment that she was secretly (or not so secretly) dreading.

It was a brave new world, now, or so everyone said. The supernatural was "out of the closet," so to speak, and vampires were just as "innocent until proven guilty," as anyone else. The days of "guilt by appearance and eye color" was supposedly a remnant of the unenlightened past, or so all the "education" programs had said. The propaganda flooding schools and television talk shows reminded her of the sharks in Finding Nemo - "fish are friends, not food." It seemed like she couldn't turn on the T.V. without some talking head reminding viewers not to try to shoot vampires and to call a special hotline if they suspect a neighbor of being an "unregistered vampire."

She was too old for this.

When she first saw Mike, he was camping by himself up at Joffre Lake. She thought she was alone, till she caught the scent of a campfire. Then she saw him. A tall man with a bright red beard and flannel shirt was roasting marshmallows over a fire. The remains of his fish dinner had been discarded into the fire and he let his entire marshmallow burn before he ate it. She would have cringed at the sight of it, if her entire world had not been turning over on itself. Just like all every sappy love song, she nearly tripped over herself and all she could see was him.

If she had a dollar for every cliché that ran through her mind, she could have bought herself a new car.

She'd follow him anywhere. She'd die for him. She'd live for him. She'd even make popcorn for him, and that was saying a lot.

Her first order of business was say "hi" and find out his name. Her palms got so clammy she could have sworn she was leaking and she hoped he remembered his name cause she sure as hell couldn't think of hers. Still, if she was to spend the rest of her life with him, then she needed to walk up and introduce herself.

In a moment of such profound grace and eloquence that only a poet could have imitated, she walked up to him, stuck out her hand (after wiping it on her jeans) and said, "hi."

He was startled, but he recovered quickly. He gawked at her for a minute and she wondered if it was because she smelled (and looked) like a campground or if it was because he was scared of strangers. Or, you know, he was immediately in love with her and worshipped the ground she walked on because that would really make everything so much easier.

Instead, he licked the marshmallow off his fingers and echoed her one word greeting. "Hi."

She didn't even care that he had just licked the hand he held out before her. If it meant she got to touch his hand, she'd have licked it herself. She shook his hand in hers and only realized a moment too late that she held onto it an awkwardly long time and then dropped it.

"Umm, you wanna marshmallow?"

"Yeah. I would."

"So, you, uh, like camping?"

"Yeah. Camping is great. I spend a lot of my time in nature. You know. Cause nature is awesome," she said. Then she kicked herself internally for not coming up with anything better to say.

He only nodded his head like she had just recited Plato or a Shakespearean sonnet or something and agreed. "Yeah. I like nature, too. I go camping a lot."

"You, uh, don't have anyone to go camping with?" She asked.

"My parents love camping. Sometimes I go with them. I have some aunts and uncles that enjoy it, as well. Right now, my parents are on kinda of a second honeymoon, traipsing around the globe studying forests. My dad is kinda a tree hugger and my mom, well, she'd go anywhere after him."

"That's sweet. My mom used to go fishing with my dad all the time. She hated fishing, but she loved my dad. She called it a compromise. In return, she made him watch the Hallmark channel with her during Christmas."

"See, that's how it goes. I applaud them for their resilience."

She laughed and began to relax, only the slightest amount. She let herself eat another marshmallow, carefully roasting it until it was the perfect shade of golden brown before she consumed it.

He lit his on fire again. Once again, she really should have cringed, but she was too busy awkwardly staring at his face to notice his marshmallow.

His eyes were green. She hadn't realized she liked green eyes, but they were suddenly the best color ever invented for eyes and she couldn't believe she had never known it until this very moment. She hadn't necessarily had a thing for gingers, either, or the whole lumberjack look, but she, too could be resilient, and flexible, and compromise. Apparently, her entire definition of the ideal for male beauty needed to be rewritten from start to finish. She could do that.

At least he liked nature. That was something, right?

"No special person in your life?" she asked. Too soon? Probably too soon, but she didn't care. She needed to know.

He gave a soft laugh, but it was lined with sadness. "There was, once, but she died."

"Oh, oh… I'm so sorry," she said. Then she felt like a jerk for even bringing it up.

"Don't be. It was a long time ago."

A long time ago? He couldn't be more than 25. Maybe they were high school sweethearts or something. Still, mourning a lost lover was better than being engaged to a living one. She'd take it, even if it meant she needed to be more patient than was her nature. After all, she was in love with him already. She hoped he'd make this easy on her and agree.

"And you?" he asked. "Why are you out here all by yourself?"

"My family is dead," she answered, much more bluntly than she meant to. She probably could have phrased that better. Hedged it more. Too late.

"Wow. That's terrible. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, well, it was a long time ago," she said.

Oooooo

No one could be perfect. It was too much to ask for everything in a single individual. Still, Dr. Michael Peterson was about as close to perfect as a man could get, in her mind at least. Not only was he freakin' brilliant and yet he still managed to be as down-to-earth, as if he hadn't gone to the best schools in the country and worked for the best hospital around. He had more than enough patience for the both of them and he seemed to intuitively sense the moods and needs of those around him, without making anyone feel uncomfortable.

It didn't hurt that he seemed as smitten with her as she was with him. He accepted everything she told him without even flinching, even down to the "I can't have kids" part.

"Neither can I. I guess that means we are perfect for each other."

It may have been love-at-first sight, but it was quickly turning into just plain old head-over-heels in love and she couldn't believe how uncomplicated the whole affair had been… till he dropped the bomb on her head.

The whole, "I'm only half-human" bomb.

"So, my parents met when they were both humans and they fell in love," he told her. "My dad was changed, against his will, and it was before there were protections for that kind of thing. When he was able to come back for my mother, they, uh, reconnected. Poof! There was me!

"They had a bit of an unusual childhood, you can say and so they didn't know where babies came from or anything so they were a bit of a mess. My grandpa helped connect them to the rest of our family so my mom and I could both live. My dad changed my mom cause he couldn't bear to live without her. They are kinda gooshy like that. So, now we are all one complicated, crazy, adopted family. That's me, in a nutshell."

He had been so nervous that night she was convinced he was going to confess to being a serial killer or an escaped convict or something. No, this was kinda worse. The whole "I was raised in a coven of vampires" story was not one she had ever, in a million years, been prepared for. It was kinda a big deal. It couldn't really be a deal-breaker, cause her heart told her head to "go to hell" the moment she first laid eyes on him, but it was still a deal.

What was she supposed to do? Especially as he told her about his life passion of promoting the rights and care of hybrids, like himself, and doing all he could to mediate peaceful vampire and human relations. It sounded all noble and amazing and, well, creepy. Really creepy. She just couldn't shake her innate distrust of the species, yet here he was- half vampire- and he was amazing.

And he ate cookies, not people.

Cue inner doldrum of self-reflection and paradigm shifting and prejudice bashing and a dash of decrying her fate, just for good measure.

Oooo

Here she was, engaged to marry into a family of vampires and she had no freakin' idea what to expect. What better way to meet them all than at the first funeral in how many centuries over the death of one of the few members of the family that could even die of natural causes? She'd hoped to ease her way into it. Maybe a walk through a crypt with one vampire here or a night in a bat cave with another vampire there, but nope. She was gonna meet them all at once. In a castle. Where they buried their family to keep them with them there, for all time. Perfect.

"So, my family tends to live in a great big extended family home in Alaska," he told her, while they flew over the Atlantic. "We are a little complicated with all the adoptions and marriages and children involved, so I can't even keep them all straight."

"Well, give me a brief overview, just so I have a fighting chance," she said.

"Well, you know about my parents and my nana and papa. My aunts and uncles will be there too, possibly some cousins from Alaska. Apparently, I have a set of grandparents coming in that I haven't seen since I was a baby. I guess they got in some kind of trouble with some 'big bad' vampires and spent time locked away or in hiding or something. It was kinda a big deal when they got out of wherever they were. My mom was really happy. She used to talk about grandpa all the time. He basically raised her. My grandma, well, I don't think they were together at the time and they kinda got together when they came out for my birth. As I said, I don't really know the full story, just the bits and pieces I can glean from the rest of the family."

"Right. Ok. Cool. Anyone else?"

"My uncles, the ones like me. They stay with my grandparents in Chad, I guess and so they are going to bring them out with them. They are even older than my aunt so they have to be really ancient. I saw them last at my wedding, but it's been awhile. They are pretty interesting. I think you'll like them. They dislike vampires even more than you, or at least they used to."

"But they are half-vampire."

"Yeah, go figure, right? I guess they had some issues with their bio dad that led to some major trust issues. That was all way before I was born and no one talks about it anymore so I don't know much about it."

Got it. Vampire families might just have as much drama and dirty secrets as human families. She still couldn't understand the whole "family" idea since as far as she knew, bloodlines were a little limited. Even with as much as technology had advanced, a human woman really couldn't survive more than one hybrid pregnancy without having major problems. How this correlated to Mike's "aunts" and "uncles," she didn't know. She'd asked, but Mike didn't know, either.

"They are family. That's all I know and all that's really important."

Oooooo

He hadn't been joking when he called it a "castle." It was the epitome of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, complete with drawbridge and its own little chapel with stained glass windows. When they parked the rental car within the first set of gates, they found they weren't the only car there and she tried to look around to see who would be meeting them first. She didn't have to wait long. Vampires poured out of every door and window. Literally. One came jumping off the roof to land perfectly on the roof of their car with a resounding thud. She was doubly glad they had opted for insurance.

She struggled to calm herself and catch her breath when a huge, massive bear of a man peered into the car from their roof. His arms engulfed the entire windshield.

"Mikie!" a voice boomed. "There's our boy! Look, guys, he brought home a girl!"

"So, that's my Uncle Emmett. You could probably take him….oh, I almost forgot. I should probably warn you that my dad can read your mind."

"WHAT?!" she shouted, turning on him.

"Sorry, sorry. Honestly, I forgot. It's just always been a thing so I forget my normal isn't everybody else's normal. Remember, I wasn't raised human."

She cursed under her breath and frowned. "Your dad is gonna hate me."

He laughed. "That's pretty much impossible. I don't think I've ever seen my dad mad at anyone in my life. He's pretty much the happiest guy I know, except for Uncle Emmett."

"Damn straight!" came Emmett's voice from outside the car and then the entire car was lifted from the ground, with them in it, and placed on the other side of the cobbled courtyard.

"Emmett, knock it off. Don't scare my girlfriend away."

"Just giving her the official 'welcome to the family'!" he said. "He never brings girls home!"

"I wonder why that is?"

"Oh, I don't know. Cause you've been a bachelor for the last century?"

"Widower. That's hardly the same thing."

"Whatever. You guys gonna come out or do I have to rip off the roof?"

By the time she exited the car, there were twelve vampires staring at her. Twelve. Their greedy, beady eyes all stared right into her soul as if they could drink it with their eyes.

Not really. That's what it felt like, but in reality, their expressions ranged from delight to curiosity to rapture, and that was far, far worse.

All their expressions changed the moment they laid eyes on her and she knew that this was the moment she'd been dreading. She'd tried to explain it to Mikie, but he didn't understand. He'd assured her it would all be ok, that they would be open-minded, too. She told him that instincts run deeper than "anti-prejudice" training and their gut reaction was going to be to attack.

Just like hers.

In a moment, all twelve vampires crouched in a defensive position and she instinctively put herself between Mikie and them.

"She's a wolf!" Alice spat in disgust. "Mikie, you can't be serious."

"Umm, hi?" Mike said, uncertainly. He pushed himself forward so he was the one in front of her and he took her hand in his. "Everyone, I want you to meet my fiancée. This is Leah Clearwater."

oooooooo

All the others had imprinted and decided to stop phasing, give up the wolf, and die like cowards. They only lived one lifetime, one generation, and that was that. They didn't have to worry about "climate change" and "international conflicts" and "treatises for peaceful coexistence with alternate forms of humanity." People could hire their own personal vampires as security guards for crying out loud. There were even rumors that the only reason the U.S.A. agreed to openly permit vampire residents was because it heard rumors of Russia hurrying to create their own wing of vampire soldiers for their army and the U.S. didn't want to be left behind. The world around her had changed more than she had ever believed possible.

That left Leah. The one single wolf. The one female. The only wolf still looking after everyone else. No other generation phased. For over six hundred years, she had been it. Brave new world or not, she still wasn't letting a Cold One near her people…even if she didn't even know most of them anymore… and they only knew her as the "Wolf" who kept watch over them from the forest.

Cause that's all she'd been. Ever since her great, great grandniece had died, she hadn't bothered to phase anymore. She just stayed as a wolf and chased away any "alternate humans" who came too close to her space. This path of life had worked well for her. She had purpose. She felt good about what she did, even if there were days she'd kill to have another wolf around.

Then she decided to wander through British Colombia and found a guy in a flannel shirt roasting marshmallows.

Stupid imprint.

Now she was facing down a dozen vampires who were supposed to be her in-laws and she wondered if there was ever a more awkward "meet the parents" moment than this?

Oh, no. This really couldn't be the worst of it. It could always, always, get worse.

"Leah? Daughter of Harry and Sue Clearwater from La Push?" came a voice to her left. She turned to see a tall, blonde vampire approach her.

A tall, blonde vampire she'd recognize anywhere.

"Carlisle Cullen. I can't say I expected to see you here," she said.

"How have you lived this long? Our last treaty with your people was negotiated with Sam Uley back in 2005."

"I phased that year and I never stopped phasing. Thus, I live forever."

Carlisle whistled. His posture was welcoming and not defensive and that helped, a little.

"Umm, so, Leah, I guess you've met my papa then," Mike said, obviously feeling as awkward as Leah.

"Well, that's nice," said a small female. She had short, bleached blonde hair and bright golden eyes. In the span of a breath, she had thrown her arms around Leah so fast she couldn't escape. "Our little Mikie could use a woman who lasts a little longer than the last one. She died so soon, he was heartbroken. Forever is much better."

"Mom, now is not the best time for that."

"Muffin, I am just looking out for you. I'm happy for you. Leah, welcome to the family. You are beautiful and if my little baby boy likes you then I do too!"

Leah stared at her as if she had seen a ghost. Her face was so familiar…if it wasn't so vampy, she felt like she should know her, but she didn't look like any of the other Cullens… which, now that she looked around, she recognized were all here.

Fantastic. Her in-laws were the Cullens. Their sworn enemies yet not mortal enemies. The kind of enemies you draw a line on the ground between and glare at from behind trees. Her packmates would have loved this. Over six hundred years since their presence in Forks triggered her change and she still couldn't escape them.

"Our little Mikie has a thing for an older woman," Emmett jeered.

"There's nothing wrong with going for an older woman, my boy," said another man, one with dark red hair and a slight beard. By the shade of his hair and the shape of his face, she knew it had to be Mike's father. "Your mother is two years older than me."

"Yeah, Dad. Two years and four hundred years is exactly the same thing."

"When you live for thousands of years it is. Carlisle is much older than Esme and they don't mind."

"Why are we even talking about this?" Mike said in exasperation. "Obviously, I don't mind. It's not an issue. It won't be an issue. I'm here, we are here. I don't care if she's a wolf or a donkey or a cow or whatever, she's my fiancée and I'm going to marry her. I don't care if she's a thousand or ten. I'm still going to marry her. Can we, uh, try to make this less painfully awkward, for everyone?"

"Of course," Carlisle said, coming to intervene with so much more grace than any other had yet even attempted. "Leah, you are a very welcome surprise. Allow me to introduce you to the rest of our family."

There were names and titles and more names and more titles and there was no way in hell she could keep them all straight without a dictionary or index or name tags or something. Some she'd be able to remember better than others. The original Cullens were no problem. She already knew their faces, names, and scents by heart.

Then there were the hybrid "uncles." Mike wasn't exaggerating when he had called them "old." Then again, in this crowd, "old" was kinda relative. Still, the pair were unmistakable for their hunched backs, white beards, and the wrinkles on their faces. If they were human, she would have assumed they would be at least in their eighties.

Then there were the "Petersons." She could remember them because, well, they were kinda important. That, and they never left Mike alone for more than two minutes at a time. It was obvious they adored him… and she understood even more why he had insisted on moving into his own place.

The others, well, she had no idea what to make of them.

"Umm, Mike, you never told me that your dad was a twin," she whispered, as she looked around.

"I never knew. I've never seen that guy before. I've never seen the African woman with him, either. I think they came with my grandparents."

"Yeah. About them. Why do they look like they are related to your parents… like actually related? Like not only does your dad have a twin, but he has an older brother, too?"

"I have no idea."

"Cool."

Their manner of dress, speech, and movement were all distinct, yet they were so very similar that it creeped her out. She was so busy staring at the three men that she nearly forgot about the women. At first she didn't notice it the similarities, until she looked closer. Mike's mom was the perfect picture of "suburban soccer mom" right down to her perfect make-up and bleached curls, but the other one? Beneath her middle-eastern getup, she had more battle scars than Jasper. While Mike's mom exuded the whole "let me bake you a pie and fetch you warm slippers and give you a hug," aura, this one screamed "serial killer who likes cats better than people."

Leah swallowed thickly when the woman turned her golden eyes straight on her and did not look away. That was when it clicked. Her hair, her facial structure… she had seen this woman before. As a human.

If she added a set of brown eyes over the gold and 'unvamped' her, she'd be the spitting image of Isabella Swan. The daughter of her father's best friend – the one who had mysteriously committed suicide, but no body had ever been found. Sam always blamed it on the Cullens. They never had any proof.

Until now.

"Isabella Swan?" Leah asked, not looking away from the vampire. "Is that you?"

Her brow furrowed and she looked away.

"That's not her," Carlisle said, quietly beside her.

"The hell it's not! What happened to her then? For someone who 'committed suicide,' she sure looks alive to me. Who broke the treaty?"

Carlisle took in a resigned breath. "My son, Edward."

"Where is he?"

"He's dead."

"Too bad. I'd have rather liked to have had the honors, for Charlie's sake. So, what? He turned her and left with her? We saw him around Forks after that, but we never saw her. What did you do with her?"

Carlisle closed his eyes. "She died that day. She was never changed."

"You had better have a hell of an explanation, then, for why you have a carbon copy of her wandering around your castle." As she said it, she realized with a jolt what had been unsettling her, since she met Mike's mom. "Strike that. Why you have two carbon copies of her wandering around."

"I don't think you'll like it."

Oooooo

So, when the man you love, the one you have waited all your life for turns out to be not only half-creature of the night, but also the son of a clone who is a clone of a clone of your childhood friend you thought dead, what can you really say? Creeptastic? Romance turned sci-fi horror? Welcome to the freak club?

"Well, that could have gone better."

"Leah, I swear I didn't know any of this. My parents never told me and they didn't let my aunts and uncles tell me."

"It's messed up."

"Yeah. It really is."

"And your uncles might actually be your brothers but they could also be your cousins."

"Pretty much."

"And your grandma was a genocidal maniac who tried to destroy the vampire world until she met your grandpa and fell in love. Heart-warming. They could make movies about it."

"I thought you'd like her. She's probably killed more vampires than you."

Leah snorted. "When you put it that way, I just might like her."

"This is kinda a lot to take in," Mike said.

"Yeah, it is."

"I wouldn't blame you if its too much for you. I mean, you don't have to sign up for this… for me. I'd understand if you wanted to run screaming in the other direction."

Leah sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "I'm a six hundred- and sixty-year-old wolf who eats vampires for breakfast. I might just be the perfect kind of screw up for this whole family circus of yours."

"I think you are just the right kind of perfect for me."

"Sap."

"You like it…even when you pretend you don't."

"You're right. I do. I'm serious, though. At the end of it all, I don't really care about all the screwed up ways you came into existence. You are here now and I adore you and that's what's most important to me. I'd put up with a whole lot more than your family for that."

She saw his face fall slightly and she knew she needed to phrase it better. She took his hand in hers and tried again. "Mike, you love your family. That's one of the first things I discovered about you. Your family is everything to you. I respect that. I will do more than 'put up' with them. I will try to love them, too. God only knows it's been a long time since I had family of my own, even an imperfect one. It would take more than a castle full of vampires and a crazy evil scientist great grandpa to scare me off from you."

"And that is why I love you."

"See. We got this."

"A match made in heaven."

"Don't push it. You are still half-Dracula."

"And you howl at the moon."

"Do not."

"Do too. I've heard you."

Oooooo

"I could see her. I could see Isabella Swan in Leah's mind," Peter said, much more excited by the novelty of it than he really should have been. At Darling's obvious indifference, he deflated. "I always wondered what she was like. I've seen so many different manifestations of you that seeing where you came from is absolutely fascinating."

"I'm glad you are entertained."

"You aren't curious?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because she's dead."

"But you aren't!"

"Exactly."

"Fine, fine. I'll find Slightly."

"Don't you dare."

"Why not? He'll love it! Besides, we met a shapeshifter. A real shapeshifter! Have you spoken with her yet?"

"No."

"Ugh. Darling, why are you in such a foul temper?"

"I am not."

"Yes, you are."

"If you forget, we are at a funeral. Margaret died. I never saw her again before she died."

"Oh. That's it."

"And I don't like feeling like an aberration."

"What do you mean?"

"Hearing me described as a 'science experiment' and Edward 'meddling with genes' makes me feel more like a mistake than a person. I've worked too hard to become who I am."

"You are jealous – of your predecessor, I mean. You are jealous of Isabella Swan for being the first and being more 'real' than you."

She cocked her head to one side in thought and then nodded. "I suppose so. I'm sorry. I am melancholy today and it bleeds over into all I think about."

"It's alright, Darling. As you said, we are here to grieve and it is perfectly acceptable to grieve over more than just Izzy's death."

Oooooooo

It rained on the day they buried Isabella Cullen and the black mourning clothes they wore matched the umbrellas they held over their heads. No humans attended the funeral, but at least three varieties of "unhumans" were present to grieve for the loss of the woman they had loved for so many years.

"She brought life back into our family," Rosalie said. "After we lost Edward, it was as if something in our family died. When Izzy came, she brought us all back to life again."

"It's true. For me, too," Darling whispered from her place where she clung to Peter's arm. "She gave me a reason to live."

"Isn't that what she did for all of us?" Khalid said. "She brought people together and reminded us that the most important part of life is family."

"It wasn't enough for her to bring us all together during her life," Rosalie said. Then with a sad smile she looked at each member of the eclectic circle of people gathered around the grave. "Look, here she is still doing it, after she's dead and gone. She'd be quite pleased with herself, if she knew."

"I think she knows," Darling said.

Perhaps she did. If she could still look down on her family that day, she would have seen so many intertwined hands and lives and hearts, all gathered together because of her. All their lives made better because of her.

The babe who had been born to an empty room in Barzakh, somewhere between the living and the dead, when given the choice, she chose to live.

That choice was contagious.

She wasn't the only one who made it.

...

"Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end."

J.M. Barrie. Peter Pan

ooooo

The End

(The Real End)

(Really)