The day had not been going well.

Carlisle's ordinarily level-headed daughter had not been the solution that Aro had been hoping for. He supposed he should have guessed it, the girl was from a very different time and culture than Aro or even Carlisle, but he'd underestimated her American sensibilities. Which meant that apparently they would have to move on to Carlisle's other son, Emmett who-

Well, Aro could only hope that Emmett wouldn't give into temptation and eat the girl. His record was a bit patchier than the rest of Carlisle's coven.

Then, of course, there was yesterday's whole debacle with Edward nearly murdering Bella and getting his head ripped off by Marcus, and the whole, awful, conversation Aro had had to have with Carlisle.

Which, of course, had been an unmitigated disaster in and of itself as Carlisle had naturally not believed a word Aro had said given Aro had no proof at all besides "Marcus doesn't like him either!"

All in all, the past forty-eight hours had felt less like two days, and more like being stuck in a burning airplane as it hurtles towards the ground with no sign of rescue.

Aro would know, he'd touched no less than twenty-one airplane crash survivors over the course of the past century.

Aro, in other words, was stressed.

He needed a break.

Unfortunately, Aro didn't get vacations or even breaks.

There was always something that needed doing, something that needed overseeing, and even if there hadn't been, Aro's was the face of an empire.

When he took the throne and became the world's clandestine emperor all those years ago, he'd known that this was a decision he could never unmake. Like shifting the burden of the world off of Atlas' shoulders and assuming it for himself, Aro had accepted what it would mean to be an eternal king.

He would stay here, in Volterra, on his throne, until the day he died, and when that day came, the world would burn with him.

(And in the back of his mind, there was always the thought that he had murdered his sister for daring to suggest she and Marcus leave. She had never promised that it was forever, that they would never return, and yet even the suggestion of a few years or a few weeks had been enough.

Leaving himself, even if it was only for a moment, only brought the memory of her eyes to the forefront of his mind. If Marcus couldn't leave, well, then neither could he.)

Which meant no vacations.

What Aro could do, whenever it got to be a little too much, was retreat to the baths for a few hours. Caius claimed it was the world's largest waste of money, and bemoaned the expense of heating them every year, but Caius had his outlet of huffing Corin. If Caius and the wives could have their tower, Marcus his endless grief, then Aro could have his goddamn baths.

Besides, it wasn't like the others didn't use them. Aro let the guard use them at their leisure. So yes, perhaps it was a luxury, but it was a generous luxury.

With that in mind, and with Kjempeviseslåtten playing at full volume in his headphones, he went into the changing room, undressed swiftly, and moved towards the door.

He idly noted Marcus' clothes on the bench. This was a bit unusual, but Aro supposed that he technically had forbidden Marcus' use of the garden during Bella's stay. It seemed Marcus was still hunting for a new place to park himself in between meetings and Bella's lessons.

There was also the strangest scent. Marcus' mixed with something else that Aro couldn't quite put his finger on.

He supposed it didn't matter.

He opened the door to the bath.

He closed it.

A long moment passed, and Kjempeviseslåtten faded. Now The International was playing.

His hand hovered over the door handle again, as if to open it against his will. He removed it as if he'd been burned and without another thought made his way out of the changing room to wait outside in the foyer.

Still in his bathrobe.

He stood there, waiting, distantly aware that his eyes were completely round and his mouth hanging ajar.

Over the sounds of the International, he could now make out distinct sounds coming from inside the bath.

He picked up his iPod, and tried to dial up the sound. Tchaikovsky's 1812 was very loud, if he skipped to the middle of it–

He still heard a series of splashes, a feminine shriek followed by a thud as someone slipped and fell, the sound of what had to be Marcus helping her to her feet, and some more wet shuffling as Bella walked like a penguin towards the changing rooms.

Aro turned off the iPod, and let the headphones fall to rest around his neck.

After what felt like an eternity, Marcus and Bella emerged from the male changing room. Marcus, in the clothes he'd left on the bench, and Bella in the jeans and sweater she'd been wearing this morning.

Bella's eyes widened at the sight of Aro, and she flushed a deep crimson.

For a moment, all three of them stood there, Aro watching his stunned, horrified, reflection in her eyes.

Slowly, Bella gave Aro a thumbs up, "Mission success."

She said nothing else, nor did she drop her thumb even as Aro gaped at her.

She then clapped him on the shoulder, and left. As always, despite her skin brushing his, there wasn't a whisper of a thought in her head.

Leaving Aro with Marcus.

Marcus stared at him for a moment, his gaze as empty and distant as always.

As if he hadn't just…

Then Marcus turned, and started walking down the foyer.

"Wait!" Aro said, reaching to pull him back only to stop just shy of touching him and-And Aro was not ready for that, not yet, he had to build himself up to that.

Marcus, thankfully, halted.

Aro walked around him so he could look into his face.

Marcus stared dully back.

"Marcus, what…" Aro began, but he couldn't get any more words out.

He took a deep breath, a hand coming up to his chest as he tried to summon words. And thoughts.

"No, first, I am-very happy for you," Aro forced out, "Engaging in sex is more-that has to be the most physical activity you've engaged in in two thousand years. I'm beyond ecstatic, brother."

Well, he would have been. He would be, soon, hopefully. Once he'd processed what had even just happened.

Aro flinched at the thought of even beginning to process what had just happened.

(And what in the seven hells was wrong with Bella? 'Mission success'?! Was that some sort of code?)

Marcus, for the record, did not look ecstatic or even vaguely happy.

"On the other hand, Marcus," Aro said, pausing in the middle of gesturing, and finally damning it all just let the words come out, "What the fuck?"

He hadn't dropped the f-bomb since… Gods, he didn't think he ever had in English. There had been the time Afton was trying to be a ninja and broke the last remaining vase Aro had from his homestead. Aro's grandmother had made it. However, French had been the lingua franca then (and one could argue that what Aro had said then had been far worse.)

Marcus actually blinked in surprise, apparently as shocked by Aro's foul language as Aro himself was. However, he offered no explanation either.

"Marcus," Aro pleaded, "Talk to me."

Marcus tilted his head in thought, appeared to be mulling over his words, realizing for once that touching Aro's hand was not going to suffice this time.

"About what?" he finally said.

God, Aro could just strangle the man.

"You-just had sexual relations with Bella Swan," Aro pointed out.

Marcus gave Aro a very dull look, as if Aro were being slow, "Yes."

Aro made a frantic gesture, because he would be damned if Marcus was going to make him elaborate on why exactly this was a problem.

After several seconds of Marcus continuing to stare, it became clear that Aro was in fact going to be damned.

"Don't you think this deserves a little bit of an explanation?" Aro asked in increasing desperation.

"What business is it of yours?" Marcus asked, then, with a tilted head and a funny look, he asked, "Were you hoping to sleep with her?"

Aro made a sound out of his nose like a steam horn. Surely, audible, to the entire goddamn palace. Even all the way up in the tower, Sulpicia would now be turning her head in askance despite Corin's haze.

Marcus frowned very slightly.

"Marcus, I– Bella is– look, I just want to know why."

And how.

And what?!

Marcus stared at Aro for a long moment, then said, "Bella Swan is the saddest creature on this planet."

Aro blinked. That was a bit harsh.

"She has no friends," Marcus elaborated, "No significant relationships of any kind. Hers is a world of desperate loneliness that she refuses to see clearly for the stark despair it'd give her."

Aro opened his mouth to point out that, according to Marcus, that was Esme Cullen as well. Aro hadn't touched her yet, but so far as Marcus could see, and from what Aro himself had observed so far, all that very much applied to Esme Cullen as well. And lots of people, really.

Yet there had for the past two thousand years been a distinct lack of Marcus going around sleeping with people because his gift told them they were lonely. If that had worked, Aro mused to himself, Marcus would have been sleeping away his grief ages ago.

"How-" Aro asked, "No, I don't understand. Marcus, how exactly does that lead to you bedding her? In the baths, no less."

"Nobody else was going to do it," Marcus said, before giving Aro a dull look, "Save, apparently, you."

Aro gave him a dull look right back, hoping it came close to Marcus' level of dullness. "Yes, very funny."

Also funny was the fact that just an hour earlier, Aro would have given untold riches to whoever could make Marcus start being smart with him.

"And don't you think you're being a little insulting? She's not unattractive, in fact she's rather attractive for a human. I'm sure somebody-"

Aro cut himself off.

There were a few key facts that Aro wasn't sure Marcus had realized yet. Such that Bella wasn't here merely for the summer, but would hopefully soon be turned. As Bella became enfolded within the Volturi, her dating pool would shrink to the size of a puddle.

Even if she were to have relationships among the guard (and that was a very blurry, gray, line that Aro would have to give more thought) then that still was-well, it was pretty much limited to Demetri if he was feeling particularly daring and frisky.

Aro couldn't imagine anyone would knowingly sleep with a woman so close to Marcus.

Which left the rather chilling notion that Aro's entire plan was falling apart even worse than he'd feared, and Marcus had already seen through it.

His hand itched to touch Marcus'.

But– no.

He really wasn't ready for that.

(Unbidden came the memory of the first time he'd touched Marcus after Marcus had made love to Didyme.

Aro had, until then, thought theirs was merely a flirtation, that nothing serious would come of it. He'd walked over to Marcus and grabbed both of his hands, intending to tell him about a new marketplace he'd found where they made delightful little animal-shaped hairpins, and then…

Well, after he recovered from the sheer shock, the horror, of having to see something like that from the first person point of view, he'd cried because he felt so sorry for himself for having seen that. And then he'd spent two months avoiding both of them altogether, which was in part aided by Didyme desperately avoiding him.)

Marcus, however, was apparently not currently distracted by memories of Aro's sister, and instead said, "Bella Swan will never find what she's looking for."

Well, that was-

Bleak.

Very bleak.

Aro felt that on principle he had to refute it. He opened his mouth to do so, but nothing came to mind. He then wondered what else he could possibly ask but nothing came to mind for that either.

There was simply nothing to say.

Except…

No, there was one thing.

"How was it?"

Marcus just gave him a look, and Aro thought he detected some level of reproach in that stare.

That probably meant something, but Aro wasn't sure what. "Good?" he tried. No, it couldn't have been. "Bad? Squishy? Warm? … Yielding?"

Marcus only continued staring at him, that vaguely reproachful look only growing stronger.

Aro supposed it didn't really matter, he would be seeing the memory all too soon and then he'd have all the details he could possibly want from Marcus' point of view.

Just the same as Aro would never forget the feeling of making love to his little sister.

Renata had a theory that there's not a single gift that doesn't come with a downside, a terrible consequence that only the gift-bearer would ever truly know.

Aro thought that was a bit generalizing, most gifted vampires seemed purely happy about said gifts and certainly credited it to their survival, but there was no denying that Aro would… he would have preferred to have some level of shielding from people's thoughts.

Of course, then he would be Edward, and have only the illusion of knowing what went on in the hearts of men.

Aro forced his mind in a different direction. He instead thought of the myriad of beautiful women he'd attempted to supply Marcus with over the years. There'd been no shortage of volunteers, not with Marcus' position of power and material wealth, but not one of them had appealed to him. As it was, Aro had given up by the time Carlisle had come to Volterra, otherwise he probably would have tried to have him give it a go.

Carlisle probably would have agreed too, eventually. He'd agreed to Aro's wife, after all.

However, Marcus had had so little interest in sex that it was barely even a concept to him. It was something for other lifeforms to partake in.

Yet now, after two thousand years, at the drop of a hat he makes love to Bella Swan. Because he thinks she's sad.

Aro steeled himself to touch Marcus' hand, willing himself to find the strength needed to get through this. Didyme had been worse, after all, in every capacity.

However, before he could, the worst thing in the world happened.

The sound of Caius' unmistakable gait came down the stairs. There was no avoiding them, not at the speed he was moving, and in less than a second Caius appeared in the foyer right in front of Marcus and Aro.

Where Marcus smelled distinctly of mineral water, sex, and human.

"Petrifying?" he asked Aro and Marcus with a smirk.

Yes, Aro supposed they were standing there like a couple of shmucks.

He saw his own, wild-eyed, panicked reflection in Marcus' eyes in the second before he spun around to fully face Caius.

"Oh, how wonderful, Caius," Aro cried, forcing a too-wide smile on his face, "I invited Carlisle down as well, he should be down any second now. We can catch up on old times, I know he's been longing to speak with you."

"Fuck," Caius said, and turned around and left.

Aro's knees felt weak with relief and dread.

"Alright," he breathed. "Alright, alright. Alright, Marcus, here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna go to the modern bathrooms - take a shower - change into new clothes - don't mention this to anyone. I'll clean the bath and change out the water."

Marcus eyebrows raised every so slightly. However, he offered no word of protest, and instead turned on his heel and began to ever so slowly make his way back to his quarters.

Aro's knees felt even weaker when he realized what he had to do next.

Caius would be waiting to go down again, as he wouldn't have left the tower in the first place if he didn't want that bath.

Which meant that Carlisle very much had to be down here, so Caius could catch wind of his scent, and make sure to steer clear until Aro had successfully covered Marcus' tracks.

Aro wasted no time.

In a flash, he had run past Marcus, and was darting through the hallways until he was outside Carlisle and Esme's room.

He gave one immediate, frantic, knock, and then calmed himself down enough to make the following raps calm. Like he didn't have a care in the world, he was just knocking on a door, as one does.

Carlisle opened the door with a bewildered expression and-oh, oh no.

Aro had almost forgotten about the earlier events of the day and the week. Carlisle and Esme, naturally, had not.

Esme was seated on the sofa, looking utterly despondent, her and Carlisle clearly having been in the middle of a very emotional discussion (which Aro was willing to bet was about Edward's exile).

"There's an emergency," he said, too flustered to waste time on coming up with something more natural. "I need you in the Roman baths."

Carlisle's eyes widened, and he looked away immediately, a thousand expressions flickering across his face, all of them some level of horrified, before they darted up to his face.

"Aro," Carlisle said, pointedly keeping his eyes trained on Aro's face, "I'm-I am a happily married man, which you know, and I'm quite sure you didn't mean to say what I think you just said."

Aro blinked.

Aro then realized that he'd appeared in the middle of the night, in a bathrobe, demanding Carlisle come with him to the Roman baths. No, saying the words "I need you in the Roman baths".

Shit.

"You're right, I didn't," Aro said.

"Great!" Carlisle replied, looking morbidly embarrassed by now, and moved to close the door.

Behind him, Esme was frowning.

(And Carlisle should know better, Carlisle had forced Aro to be very unsubtle in the beginning, much to Aro's embarrassment, but Aro had always been at the very least witty about it. There was nothing charming in 'I need you, take me, lover'. Had Aro meant that in any seriousness then Carlisle should have slapped him across the face for sheer secondhand embarrassment, and he would have been right to.)

"No," Aro said, and held the door.

Carlisle pulled at it.

"I mean it, there's an emergency, and not what you think."

Carlisle tried and failed to smile, "Well, if it's all the same, I'm afraid Esme and I were just in the middle of something-"

Seeing no other recourse, Aro blurted in Japanese, "Mākasu-kun wa Bera-san to sekkusu shimashita!"

Because damn it all, Aro had nothing against Esme, but this was confidential.

Carlisle blinked.

Aro could see him processing the information, first soaking in the Japanese, and then realizing exactly what the words meant. Then, of course, everything that came along with what those words meant.

"Like I said, Carlisle," Aro said through clenched teeth. "Emergency."

Carlisle wasted no time. There was clearly not a second thought for his stunned wife as he began tearing through his luggage for the disturbing amount medical equipment he'd brought with him.

"Who's with her?" Carlisle asked, "Are they keeping pressure on the wounds?"

Esme blinked, a hand going to her mouth in horror, "Oh no, what's happened?"

"Nothing!" Aro smiled, too brightly, before switching to French. "Rien, elle va bien, le problème c'est que- "

"Elle va bien ?!" Carlisle balked, "She is not alright, Aro!"

"Just come with me!" Aro hissed, and went down the hallway, knowing Carlisle would follow.

Carlisle followed.

"Am I doing stitches?" Carlisle asked, running to catch up with Aro, "What about a stretcher?"

"Ssh!" Aro said, furiously gesturing with a finger before his mouth, and dashed down to the baths.