Bella was staring at Aro, Aro was staring at Carlisle, and Carlisle was staring at the screen.
"Let me guess," Bella said after a beat, "I have cancer."
Carlisle opened his mouth, but no words came out.
"How long have I got?" Bella asked, taking in a deep breath and looking remarkably collected about the fact that she thought she was facing her own mortality.
"No!" Aro said, too brightly. "No, no, no cancer."
No cancer, just…
A lump of cells that shouldn't be there.
Which, by some definition, Aro supposed was what cancer was about. However, this was, well, it was an expected mutation of cells in a very unexpected circumstance. And in a very unexpected timeframe at that.
In Carlisle's mind Aro could see thousands of previous ultrasounds flicker by, both lived and from textbooks, as Carlisle tried to match what he was seeing in Bella's womb with something, anything, that he could explain.
Cysts, benign tumors, malignant tumors, deformities, anything.
The trouble was, at least to Carlisle, it was very clear what he was seeing. He just wasn't quite sure, for a number of reasons, how it was he was seeing it.
Carlisle's memories switched to flipping through the countless abortions and other removals he had done over the years, as he tried to think of anything that might resemble what he was seeing in Bella's uterus.
"By any chance-" Carlisle said distantly, "I'm afraid I must ask. By any chance have you had recent sexual relations with someone other than Marcus? Or have you slept with Marcus previously?"
Bella gave him a very funny look, she didn't say anything for a very long time, as if the answer should have been obvious. Then, motioning to herself, she asked, "Do I look like a girl who has sexual relations?"
Carlisle looked back at her, and Aro caught Carlisle's distant impulse to ask Aro to leave the room, as he had had to countless of times before when a young, female, patient was hesitant to talk about her sex life with her male doctor and the first recourse was, always, to ask her companion to step outside.
But Aro was not Bella's father, and something told Carlisle that Bella's answer had nothing to do with his presence.
So he tried again. "Bella, please tell me yes or no. Have you had sex within the past month? Say, three or four weeks ago?"
"No," she said, very clearly, and by the look on her face she seemed to think this was hilarious.
Carlisle threw Aro a despairing look. Aro found himself wishing he could present some kind of answer, any answer, that wouldn't be what they were both thinking.
"Guys, what's going on?" Bella asked after another long moment.
Aro turned back to her with a bright smile on his face. "Nothing, dear Bella, nothing at all. You're just fine, Carlisle just spotted a slight anomaly. I'm sure it's nothing."
He looked back to Carlisle, and his smile stiffened when he caught what was currently going through Carlisle's mind.
Carlisle, apparently, had been the doctor to one too many women who were either not allowed to make the final calls with their own health, or not allowed to know too much at all, their medical agency residing with their husbands or fathers.
Bella was a 21st century woman and her father was nowhere to be seen, and Marcus was not her husband, but all the same it seemed something struck too deep with Carlisle for him to let this go for even five seconds.
Aro could only close his eyes in silent dread as his old lover opened his lovely, but stupid mouth.
"You appear to be pregnant," Carlisle blurted, almost apologetic, as if this was his fault somehow and he'd failed her as a doctor. "I mean, possibly. I'm not sure that you are, it's not possible, except that you appear to be highly pregnant."
"As opposed to just a little pregnant?" Bella asked without missing a beat.
"No," Carlisle said, shaking his head lightly, "I meant that, given your circumstances and the, ah, timeframe you've given me-under ordinary circumstances I would say that you are not pregnant. However, per this ultrasound, you are quite pregnant. And have been pregnant for about a month."
Bella stared at Carlisle as if he were the dumbest man on the planet. It was truly amazing, the expressiveness of her face, Aro had thought as much before and had also despaired that despite her showing every emotion on her face-it didn't help him understand her at all.
Finally, very dully she said, "Congratulations."
Carlisle opened his mouth, closed it, then seemed to realize what Bella was getting at, "Ah, yes, congratulations! You-may be pregnant. With-someone's child."
Aro blinked. "Oh, hum, yes, sorry. Congratulations, Bella. Truly! Wonderful. Who doesn't love pregnancies? Especially the very surprising ones. Babies are a delight, I've always thought so."
The smile on his face felt so stiff, he was sure if he'd been human his face would have been cramping.
Bella did not seem particularly impressed by either Carlisle or Aro's baffled enthusiasm for her unborn-probably-non-existent child.
Bella rubbed at her temples with a sigh, looking markedly like Caius when he bemoaned that he was surrounded by hopeless fools, "No, I meant, congratulations to you guys."
Carlisle's face fell, he blinked, "I'm sorry, I don't follow."
"I see you're waiting for the DVD commentary," Bella said after a long pause, "Alright, fine, I admire your dedication. Bold of you, but I admire it. Know that when you go to your thesis board, or whatever it is you do, that in my humble opinion you should pass with flying colors."
For a long moment, Carlisle stared at her.
"Bella," he said very slowly, "are you feeling alright?"
Bella snorted. "Wow, you're just not dropping character, are you?"
Shaking her head, she jumped off the desk and pulled on her pants.
Then, oddly triumphant for someone who'd just been half naked with an ultrasound up her vagina in front of two almost strange men, she turned towards them and said, "I know you're not human. There, I broke character first, you guys won."
She spread her hands out with a grin, though Aro could detect a hint of annoyance in her eyes.
Aro, not for the first time, wondered if the reason he couldn't see into Bella's mind was not because she was, in fact, so odd he simply could not parse it. Perhaps there were things simply beyond his capabilities of understanding.
Carlisle and Aro, meanwhile, kept staring at her.
"I think we should do blood work," Carlisle said after a beat.
Bella seemed to find that upsetting. "Guys, it's cool. I've known since… well, since right before I met you at the bus stop, in fact," she said, pointing at Aro. "You guys are aliens, and you're training to integrate yourself with us humans. That's what Marcus is in such an intensive program, isn't it? He's not very good at it."
Oh.
Oh no.
Carlisle turned to look slowly at Aro, his expression both confused as well as growing steadily irritated as he put the same pieces together that Aro was piecing together.
Bella knew.
Bella-oh, she was hilariously wrong about parts, but the point was that she knew, she'd known long ago. Long before he'd ever called Carlisle, begging him to help with a scheme to fool Bella Swan, who apparently knew full well that none of them were human.
Carlisle and his family needn't ever have come to Volterra at all.
And now Carlisle and Aro both knew it.
"Now," Bella continued, "I'm happy to help, really, I am. I wouldn't have come down here in the first place if I didn't. I care about Marcus, so I'll be happy to take his art classes for however long he needs to learn how to be a human - I've had him watching training videos, for god's sake!"
Which meant, of course, that Caius had been right.
Caius, damn him, had been right.
He should have walked up to Bella, told her, turned her, and thrown her at Marcus.
Now he had a furious Carlisle, a castle full of Cullens, and a pregnant Bella.
And Marcus had had sex with a human.
The horrible thought that this might have worked itself out normally, with Marcus making love to a vampire woman, struck Aro.
Was this what it meant to be Charlie Brown and realizing that you can never kick that ball?
Oh, oh and in retrospect she'd dropped so many hints. So many awful, terrible, hints both to Marcus as well as directly to him. "Mission accomplished!" she'd said with glee after having sex with Marcus, patting him on the shoulder in comraderie.
"However," Bella continued, "I've really gone above and beyond with that breeding program, which is fine - love to help."
Aro felt something like a record scratch in his brain, effectively shutting off all his other thoughts.
Breeding program?
Next to him, he saw Carlisle mouth the same words.
"But I didn't actually expect to get pregnant with a hybrid, at least not right off the bat. I haven't decided how I feel about that yet– but, guys, I think we've hit the point where we really ought to be honest with each other. I mean…" She held up a hand and waved. "Hello, pregnant."
"The breeding program?!" Carlisle finally asked, turning to Aro with utter outrage and fury. In his mind there was a strong feeling of having somehow been hoodwinked, used, that perhaps this was why Aro had so desperately needed his expertise because how could Aro have possibly not known that Bella apparently knew?
And oh, put like that, it sounded so very bad.
So very bad and oddly plausible were someone to consider Aro at his worst. That it was Marcus was-if there were a gift, a genetic line, that Aro were to try to extend then Marcus would surely be a contender.
The pressing need to have this random human be Marcus' art student, to have her in the castle itself and cut off from the human world, which in turn meant the Cullens absolutely had to come and help out– it was all so very contrived. And now, a sinister explanation that tied up all the loose ends had emerged.
"I-I–" Aro said, searching desperately for words. "I swear, I didn't know–" he turned desperately to Bella.
Bella was looking unimpressed. Right, she must still think he was playing a character.
He turned back to Carlisle, whose thoughts and expression were only turning darker.
"Carlisle, your cousins," Aro said in growing desperation, "They've slept with how many mortal men? You know that this doesn't happen, this never happens! Don't you think I would have brought it up had I known? We talked about immortal children for the gods' sake! You saw the immortal children, you know how long I studied them here! And what about your many friends? Wouldn't they have heard about it?! If this is even happening at all, that is, and both you and I know that it probably isn't despite all evidence to the contrary-"
He was rambling.
He felt Carlisle want to believe him, but he was nowhere near convinced, and the suspicion only grew deeper once he started replaying the conversation they'd had earlier in the pool, about Edward and Carlisle's family.
"Carlisle, trust me when I say that I had no idea, that-I am willing to go to utterly ridiculous lengths, beyond the pale, for even the hope that Marcus might not-that he might recover some of his sense of self. You do not understand, Carlisle, just how far I am willing to go for that."
"Creating a fake art program for a single American girl, asking for your help, that's nothing," Aro said, laughing to himself. The art classes themselves, god, centuries of them now even when they hadn't borne fruit. There'd even been idle musings of setting Marcus up as a tour guide somewhere, as this would at least force him to talk to people.
"There's very close to nothing I wouldn't do, Carlisle," Aro underlined, squeezing Carlisle's fingers.
Carlisle let out a slow breath, and looked up towards the ceiling.
"And-If it were just that-" Aro wondered if he should even say it, but forced himself to press on, "Carlisle, you and I both know that were it just for that, it would not be Marcus who would be the first-trial. It would be myself."
He cringed.
And he wasn't even done. Almost unwillingly, he continued, in a very small voice, "And not with such precious commodity as dear, gifted, Bella,"
"... I followed none of that but I appreciate being called a precious commodity," Bella said slowly, "I think. Marcus doesn't agree I'm gifted, though, remember he flunked me."
Carlisle started laughing, he pressed a hand to his face, and seemed unable to contain himself any longer. The suspicion, however, bled away from him. Aro's words had been horrifying and dark, but Carlisle agreed, because he was not a fool and could see through these things.
It would have been Aro sleeping with a very nameless, ordinary, human woman with very little pretense. Aro wasn't even sure if he'd have wasted a secretary on that, they deserved more respect than to be reduced to broodmares or, more likely, blood smears on Aro's sheets.
Carlisle would be brought in only after the act had occurred, if he were to be brought in at all, as they both knew that that would be the end of whatever good feeling there was between them. If it were a success, only then would Aro have asked for participation from Demetri and perhaps, if possible, Marcus.
(Though, in this hypothetical gruesome reality, Marcus would have refused as he always did. While the man seemed to have all but left the planet he still had his principles and this would offend him on such a level that it might very well cause him to shuffle out of Volterra despite himself.)
"I don't know why this is so funny," Carlisle said, more to himself than either Bella or Aro, "This is terrible."
"Right," Aro said slowly.
Then, with a frown, "Bella, are you saying you slept with Marcus because you thought it was all part of a breeding program? That aliens wanted you to have sex with one of their kind, so, naturally, that was the thing to do?"
Bella blinked and had the decency to look somewhat chagrined, "Look, imagine you're an ordinary girl for a second. You're from a small town, you're soon to have a BA in English, you've lived a very ordinary life. Then, suddenly, your art professor is an honest to god alien. Would you take the blue pill?"
As he took in her words, Aro felt something greater than respect for Bella Swan settle in his heart.
No, this was…
This was something akin to awe.
As he looked at her, Aro decided that Bella Swan was one of the most extraordinary people he had ever met in his very long life. She was right up there with Carlisle himself, Alexander the Great, or Joan of Arc (Aro cursed the bloody English for how that one turned out to this day).
There are some lights that shine impossibly brightly.
As it was, Aro supposed he had done something similar. Oh, his had been a very different world, but he had purposefully sought out immortality. He had gone searching for the red pill as it were, knowing that it would fundamentally change his entire existence, that he would have to leave all the trappings of his mortal life behind him. He'd done it anyway.
Bella, it seemed, had gone even further than that. At least Aro had had some inkling of what the gods were.
Carlisle, damn him, was still laughing, "That's the worst thing I've ever heard."
"It was also because I'm his friend," Bella said defensively, her eyes flashing. "He needed someone to teach him about love, and I didn't see any other humans who cared about him lining up!"
Carlisle looked at Bella, then at Aro, still giggling, "I'm-No, I'm not sure that's better. That might be even worse."
Because to Carlisle, Marcus was hardly even a person, and any hint that there was someone at home between those ears of his felt at times like a practical joke that Aro was trying to pull on him.
"Very funny, Carlisle," Aro said, "You're hilarious."
"Look," Bella said, "If there wasn't a breeding program, then why did Marcus agree?"
Aro stiffened.
Oh no.
Carlisle, who had been calming down, was set off again. He squeezed Aro's hand, the words "PITY SEX" clear as a bell in his mind. Carlisle, it seemed, had gotten over his shock of Bella's perhaps-pregnancy, his horror over the possible explanations for this circumstance and Aro's involvement, and was now delightfully entertained by the fact that Aro's life was falling apart.
This was, though Carlisle would never admit it out loud, in part because he was watching someone else's family disaster besides his own. Carlisle, who had just walked away from his poor wife and the shadow of Edward's banishment, was utterly delighted at Aro's Greek tragicomedy.
"-Because he considers you a friend," Aro said slowly, "And he, ah-assumed you were propositioning him."
Aro had no idea if this was the case, he assumed it, given the way events had transpired but given that he hadn't touched Marcus' hand, couldn't get anything from Bella, it really was a large mystery.
That, now that he was actually thinking about it, he had no idea how it could have possibly happened.
How could they both have just assumed the other was trying to get them to sleep with them? And without either realizing that it was a very large misunderstanding?
Aro wasn't going to ask for a play-by-play. It wasn't like Bella was likely to give it to him, and more importantly, he did not think he could get through a play-by-play of the time Marcus had sex with a human, from the human's point of view, with Carlisle ugly laughing right next to him.
Carlisle pulled his hand out of Aro's, and took several breaths to calm down.
"Alright, since we're being honest, apparently," Carlisle said, still shaking slightly, "I've been dying, just dying, of curiosity this whole time. I must know. How was it?"
Damn him!
Bella flushed, looked up at the ceiling, she pointedly didn't say a word.
"Good?" Carlisle ventured. Bella buried her face in her hands, and squeaked. The tips of her ears were impressively red.
"Bad?" Carlisle continued, and lit up when he saw Aro squirm as well. "Was it like… walking into the Galleria dell'Accademia and climbing on Michelangelo's David?"
"Carlisle, please, stop," Aro said, mortified on Bella, Marcus', and his own behalf for some unknown reason he couldn't even explain. He'd certainly had nothing to do with any of this.
"Fine, fine," Carlisle said, waving away both the rest of his questions as well as whatever answers Bella could have given, "If only because Bella doesn't deserve this. You, on the other hand, do."
Quite sadistically, Carlisle reached out to hold Aro's hand again, this time so that Aro could see all the other questions he'd come up with.
Not even limited to sex, at that, as Carlisle was utterly confounded at the idea of how Marcus and Bella could have possibly progressed to the point of even considering each other friends. That, after all, required one to have conversations.
But the sex questions, as well as girly gossip questions like "Do you think he's cute?" and "Are you going to try it again?" were very much there as well. And the worst part was, Carlisle really did want to know.
"Yes, thank you Carlisle," Aro said in exasperation, "Mea culpa."
Carlisle winked.
"So, am I still pregnant?" Bella asked, seeming to realize that this entire emergency meeting had gotten woefully off track.
"Yes," Carlisle said at the same time that Aro said, "No."
They looked at each other.
After a very long pause Aro looked at Bella.
"I am-very old and very knowledgeable," Aro decided to start with, "So far as I am aware, in more than three thousand years upon this Earth, our kind have never produced offspring through-traditionally human reproductive means. And many, and I do mean many, have tried."
Bella frowned. "Thought you said there was no breeding program."
Aro gave her a look. "There's not. In fact, our species are not supposed to have sex, we're not compatible."
"He means that we reproduce asexually," Carlisle corrected, "There's a-ah, venom."
"But Marcus has a penis," Bella said slowly. "Wait, venom? You're not born like that?" Her eyes widened with realization. "Are you saying you used to be human?"
"Oh this is getting confusing, I see," Aro said, holding up his hands to stop her, "We are a sterile race. We cannot reproduce among ourselves nor can we… create another among ourselves on our own. To create another one of us, we inject venom into a live human."
Bella's eyes widened. "That explains the no kissing rule," she said slowly. "Unless the venom is someplace else?"
Oh, oh Marcus. Oh, Aro supposed he would be finding out soon enough but. Again, he wondered how in the hell this even happened.
Next to Aro, Carlisle seized upon that detail like a cougar.
(Which, really, Aro had so much dirt on Carlisle that he should practice at least some caution. Granted, much of that dirt was on Aro as well, but Aro wasn't afraid to throw himself under the bus if he had to protect Marcus.)
"Yes, yes it does," Aro said, for some reason unable not to acknowledge what Bella had just said. "More importantly, though, our species is not… asexual. We cannot reproduce sexually, but we retain our sex drives. We can, and do, have sex with one another."
He accidentally made eye contact with Carlisle.
They let go of each other's hands.
"We don't, though," Carlisle felt the need to say, and gestured between the two of them.
Well done, Carlisle, she'll never suspect now.
Of course, this being Bella Swan, she probably knew the exact status of their relationship already, long before Carlisle had even shown up. Of course, she'd be sure to have some strange, warped, detail in there of how this all related to the alien breeding program but some things were beyond Aro's ability to guess.
He had to wonder if, maybe, the girl had some gift for intuition as well.
Yes, she would be a very interesting vampire.
"Regardless," Aro said, "My point was that as a species many have had sex. Many of those with-how do I even say this? Biologically male genitalia have sex with those with female reproductive organs?"
God, he sounded like a high school textbook.
"Right, despite possessing all the traditional equipment, and despite many of our kind desperately longing for a biological child, I have never heard of one being produced. Ever." Carlisle supplied.
"Ergo," Aro said, motioning to Bella, "You are not pregnant."
"Except she is," Carlisle muttered.
"She's not, there's something wrong with the ultrasound," Aro corrected, "Even if she were pregnant, which she is decidedly not, then she has been pregnant for a month. And we all know that's not the case."
Carlisle only shook his head. "How about– how about we try to research this. There have been myths of demon babies, half gods, and incubi through the ages - maybe some of them were onto something."
Aro barked out a sharp laughter. "My friend, you forget I wrote many of those myths. And I have made a point to touch people of every culture I could get my hands on - literally - for three thousand years. I can assure you, most myths are humbug, demon baby myths particularly so. Really, if that's the route you're taking, my form of research will be rewatching Rosemary's Baby. Oh, and maybe Prometheus, have you seen it yet? It's a wonderful picture, Dr. Shaw's squid child is truly something."
Carlisle shook his head. "You saw my memories of Forks - of the werewolves there. You didn't know about them, yet here they were, a species that has thrived for centuries without your knowing about it. You're not omniscient, Aro, and Bella's pregnancy is an empirical fact. Is it really so impossible?"
"Excuse me," Bella said, holding up a finger, "Did you say Forks? Werewolves in Forks?!"
"What about the Denali?" Aro asked, ignoring Bella for the moment lest they get sidetracked again, "If anyone's getting pregnant slumming with the humans, then it's certainly them. They've been giving it their darndest for what? A thousand years now?"
"They can't, they're frozen. They can't gestate a baby, they have no menstrual cycle, their bodies would need to change. Aro, you know that," Carlisle said.
"Yes, I know that, which is why I'm saying that Bella is not pregnant," Aro explained.
Carlisle opened his mouth to say something more, but he closed it again with a frown.
Aro frowned back at him, and held up a finger, ready to use it to poke him.
"Alright, back up," Bella said, "First, no-we'll get on track, this is important. Who are the Denali?"
"I'm sorry, Bella, give us a few seconds," Carlisle said quickly. Then, turning to Aro, he asked, "Aro, how many vampire men have you met who made love to human women? Human women who survived after?"
Aro opened his mouth, closed it, he let his memories wander. Oh, there'd been a fair share who had done the deed, and been quite proud of it as well. Survivors though-now that was a different story.
Vampires did not, as a rule, associate with humans at all. In the times before the Volturi law, there had been those who stayed in touch with their families, but that tended to end with loss of control and a family massacre more often than not. If someone found a mate, they turned them, as Aro had. Though even that was rare as it required spending enough time with the human, or else somehow knowing them well enough, to be invested in their turning.
Friendships were… it was quite unheard of. Really, the closest thing to human-vampire friendships that Aro could think of, apart from Bella and Marcus, was what the secretaries had with their vampire colleagues. They were cordial, and in some cases the secretaries would get along particularly well with this or that guard member.
Even Carlisle, who pretended to be human and had no intention of eating them, had had no particularly close relationships with any human. He would sometimes grow fond of particular individuals, as he had Edward's mother, but that still wasn't a friendship.
"Human women who survived?" Bella repeated in dull horror. "Oh, that explains the other rules," she said slowly.
(Aro was not going to think about that right now. He just wasn't.)
"I… think it may just be your Denali," Aro said slowly, "The others-if they were attached to a particular human, they attempted to turn them first. If they were not then-then they took little care as to how long the human survived afterwards."
"And they are women who only sleep with men," Carlisle finished. "I mean, I have my suspicions about why Carmen and Eleazar live there with them, but even if Eleazar's participating, the humans are still male."
Oh yes, Eleazar. Well, Carlisle wouldn't want to hear it, but while Aro couldn't confirm those suspicions he could tell a tale or two that would give them credence. There had been more than one reason that Aro had been glad to see the back of Eleazar.
"Like I said," Carlisle said after a moment's pause, "Let's go do research."
Aro could only nod mutely.
"Hold up, fellas," Bella said. "What about the other planets?"
Aro turned to look at her, as did Carlisle, "The what?"
"The other planets," Bella continued, as if this were obvious, "I mean, sure, you're using the human suits infected with venom, but this can't be your first go around. It's too-well, no offense, but you're doing too good of a job here. What about version 1.0, what happened there?"
Aro looked at Carlisle, Carlisle looked at Aro.
Together, they turned back to Bella with resigned faces.
"We're vampires." Aro deadpanned.
"No you're not," Bella said without missing a beat.
"The sun rises in a few hours," Carlisle said.
"I know," Bella said, "I've seen Marcus, during the day, not sleeping in a coffin."
Aro let out a long sigh. "Come, sit," he said, and motioned towards the couch.
They all sat.
"You see, I am now currently reaping the rewards of my desperate need to be, and belief that I am, very funny," Aro said, "Because I made up vampires."
Bella blinked. "But you just said–"
"Vampires - we call ourselves vampires, just go with it - are a superior species on this earth. We are stronger and faster than humans, we feed on their blood, and we reproduce by biting them. Some of us have additional powers, with the more powerful groups of vampires being those who have the most superpowers. And as it happens, I am the ruler of the vampire coven in this world that has the most powers at hand."
It felt like the world's most reductive summary, but he had the feeling this was the only way to get through to her.
Bella was staring at him as if she was having a very hard time following, "Then why even call yourselves vampires? I mean, if it's just the blood drinking and the biting-that's like, one sixth of being a vampire."
"Because the blood drinking is the only important part. Bella, have you not asked yourself why these aliens haven't simply taken over the planet?
This isn't the time to regale you with what exactly we can do - though I'm more than happy to give you the full details later - but the important thing is, we could easily take over this world and enslave mankind if we so wished. A few thousand years ago, that was the world we lived in. However, we are ravenous, we kill humans and reproduce at an unsustainable rate. Do you know Malthus' theory of sustainability?"
Bella frowned. "That if you put reindeers on an island they'll run themselves extinct?" Her frown deepened before realization dawned. "Oh."
"Precisely," Aro said, though he hoped she hadn't just drawn the conclusion that the aliens were, in fact, reindeers. "We needed to be contained in some way. And that's where I come in. I was young, ambitious, saw the writing on the wall, amassed an army of powerful vampires and within a few centuries I had achieved world domination. At which point I enacted a law that would force vampires to be discrete, to feed only when thirsty, and not go around creating vampires willy-nilly. Of course, how was I going to word such a law?" he finished.
And it wasn't even a rhetorical question. Whenever he explained the law to a new creation, or to Carlisle, letting them deduce their way towards keeping vampires a secret from mankind was always his favorite part.
"And gods," Aro said, "I just realized that none of that had anything to do with whether or not you're actually pregnant."
Bella nodded slowly then, giving Aro a speculative look, "Well, since you brought up the vampire bit, know that you bring this on yourself-Am I supposed to be some sort of bride of Dracula?"
"No," Aro hastily corrected, "No, you are a-friend of Dracula. Who Dracula was never supposed to sleep with. Ever. And I am both awed and appalled that he did."
Bella shimmied into her seat. "Right."
"To wrap up about the vampirism - er, I wanted vampires to become a secret from mankind, and that in turn meant making up a bunch of lies about what blood-sucking demons even are. And I-may have a bad habit of trying to entertain myself when I take on these tasks. So now we flee in the face of garlic and turn into bats." He smiled tiredly and made jazz hands.
Carlisle only shook his head at him.
"I should probably also mention that you, Bella, appear to have a superpower," Aro continued.
Bella's eyes bugged out of her head. "Me? Seriously?"
"Yes, a very powerful one at that," Aro said, "Which, beyond Marcus liking you so much, was what caught my attention in the first place."
"Oh my god," Bella said, looking like it was every Christmas at once, "What is it? Please say fireballs."
"Not quite. Ah, you appear to be a shield of some kind."
Bella frowned, and looked down at her arm, as if expecting to see a shield attached to it.
"What do you mean, shield?"
"I can only speculate, as you are not yet a vampire. But, ah, it is my hope - and you have shown ample promise - that you will be a neutralizer of other gifts as a vampire. You see," he smiled at her, "all of the gifts I've tried on you so far, with the exception of Marcus', haven't worked on you."
Bella did not seem to realize what a devastatingly powerful and strategic ability this was. By the look on her face, though Aro could not read her mind, he could read the words "Well, that's lame".
"If it makes you feel better, I have no gift," Carlisle volunteered, "Most of us don't."
Aro couldn't help his grimace, pointedly looking away from Carlisle and hoping he didn't notice. That was a can of worms that Aro didn't think Carlisle could handle, especially not in the present circumstances.
It was a fact, though, that Carlisle was just a bit too– too charming, too well-liked, too persuasive, for Aro to be wholly convinced that his old lover was wholly ungifted. Of course, this was a gift with-implications, ones that Carlisle especially would not enjoy looking in the face or even admitting to himself.
It was something that was best saved for another time.
"Wait, did you say Marcus has a gift?" Bella frowned.
"Yes," Aro said, and almost said it.
Then, he realized what a wonderful opportunity that would be for Marcus and Bella to have a conversation. Oh, sure, the pair talked before, but now that the secret was apparently blown the hell they could actually be honest with each other. "It's best if you ask him, it's far better to see it in action than to have me explain it. Er, have him use it on Renata," he said.
Because the gods alone knew what would happen if Marcus used it on a Cullen.
Bella looked as if she was about to ask more, perhaps why poor Renata was being thrown under the bus, when a phone rang. Carlisle, at first, looked towards his own pocket, but then his eyes moved to Bella's.
With some confusion, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
She frowned at the display, and turned it so Aro and Carlisle could read it. "You guys know this number?"
Carlisle, of course, was rather familiar with that number.
Terribly, awfully, familiar with that number.
Edward Cullen, you leave him alone for a few hours, and what does he do? They needed to leash that boy, honestly.
Aro could only imagine what Edward would be calling Bella for. No, that was the trouble, he could very easily imagine what Edward would be calling Bella for. And, of course, what would happen when this phone call did not produce the desired results.
Aro felt only grim resolve settle in.
Yes, he would have to prepare to execute Carlisle's son.
"Pretend he woke you up," Aro said.
"Him?" Bella asked in confusion.
"Edward," Carlisle said, pointedly looking towards the wall.
Bella looked down at her phone in confusion, then across at Aro in acute irritation, "You gave that asshole my number?!"
"No." Aro said, and something in his tone stopped Bella up short.
He looked into her eyes. "Edward was removed from this city because he is a danger to you. He craves your blood more than anything in this world."
"It's not his fault," Carlisle desperately cut in, "It's-The scent of human blood is a very powerful thing for us, extremely hard to resist. Yours, for Edward, was particularly potent."
Bella looked between the two of them, her eyes growing as the color left her face. "He's not going to hurt Marcus, is he?" she asked.
The phone continued its ringing. Unfortunately, Bella missed the chance to pick it up. However, Edward was a persistent fellow, and only a short beat of silence later it was ringing again.
Aro imagined that it would continue to ring until Bella finally did answer the blasted phone.
"No," Carlisle said at the same time Aro said, "Perhaps."
Carlisle shot Aro a furious glare.
"He may try," Aro amended, "However, he will not be successful in such an endeavor. And it would be-the height of foolishness for him to attempt it."
Bella looked at Aro, saying nothing, and he'd never seen a human resemble a prey animal quite so much.
"You have my word, Bella, he will never come near either you or Marcus," Aro assured her in a quiet voice.
"Aro!" Carlisle hissed before looking at Bella, "No, Bella, he has nothing against Marcus. Or, if he does, it's only because Marcus appears to have something against him."
Yes, the truth, which was a terrifying weapon indeed.
Aro shook his head.
"So then… do I take this call?" Bella asked, holding up the phone.
Aro sighed, "Unfortunately, I suspect you'll have to, or he'll just keep calling."
Even Carlisle, pained as he looked, did not refute that.
That, and he wanted to know what Edward had to say. This way, he would at least be there to hear it. Aro suspected, soon enough, Carlisle would wish he hadn't.
However, Aro had warned him.
Resolve yourself, he'd said.
Bella, too, seemed to resolve herself, as she squared her shoulders, and picked up the phone.
Aro truly was beginning to think that she was an extraordinarily perceptive girl. Despite only having spent thirty seconds in his presence, she seemed to have a much firmer grasp on Edward's true nature than Carlisle ever had.
"Hello?" she croaked, and squinted at the phone as if Edward could see her not-quite-convincing sleepy face.
"Bella. I'm sorry I woke you, but I had no other recourse. Listen closely, for we don't have much time."
Bella's eyebrows raised several inches, almost to her hairline.
"It's four in the morning," Bella pointed out in a whine.
"You don't understand, you have no time left, I'm sorry I had to wake you but you don't understand the serious danger you're in."
Oh dear, he was really going for it, wasn't he?
Aro felt Carlisle's thoughts take a turn towards cold, cold dread.
Right in that moment, there was nothing on this earth that Carlisle Cullen wanted to do more, than to knock that phone out of Bella Swan's hand and crush it into a thousand pieces.
Aro seized Carlisle's hands in both of his, and for once was grateful to Carlisle's hopeless diet. He wouldn't be able to interfere.
That, and he did not want his dear friend to have to listen to this conversation without someone holding his hand.
Meanwhile, Carlisle was increasingly lost in his own, desperate, thoughts. Oh, he assumed Edward meant well by this, that it was a shockingly noble, if naive, act. What Aro was doing with Bella (nevermind that it'd all apparently been pointless idiocy on his own part) had never sat right with Carlisle. His family had been-a little less concerned than he was, but they hadn't liked the idea either. He assumed that Edward had resolved himself to saving Bella's humanity, as if she were a princess locked in a tower and guarded by dragons. Edward, turned at seventeen and less than a century old, having lived a sheltered life without violence, still believed the world was a just place where good conquered evil and maidens should be rescued.
He did not understand, could not accept, that there was no saving Bella from vampirism (nor, even, that it wasn't necessarily a curse she should be saved from). Carlisle assumed that Edward's humiliation, combined with his naivete, had now galvanized him to challenge the very world order without a thought to what would happen next.
Carlisle was not entirely wrong in this, but of course, he wasn't entirely correct either.
"Danger?" Bella echoed.
"Bella, the people in this castle are demons. You must have noticed they're not human. Didn't you see how none of us eat during the meals? How ice cold, and hard our skin is, how the eyes around you are not quite brown, but red?"
Bella gave Aro a desperate, hopeless look, the question clear in her eyes. Did she let Edward know that the jig was up?
And that was-well that was a question, wasn't it? One he hadn't had time to think about.
On the one hand, what was the point? This whole charade was ridiculous, was a lot of effort, and apparently had never been all that convincing in the first place. Frankly, it was downright embarrassing and the sooner they all moved past this the better.
On the other hand, if Bella was pregnant after all-
Carlisle would have to stay. Aro would desperately try to get rid of the others, hangers on that they were, but Carlisle would have to stay. And he couldn't let the others know why Carlisle, alone, had to stay. He wasn't even sure he wanted the guard to find out.
Renata was almost inevitable, and he trusted her implicitly, but this news would get around and-
People would want to create their own hybrids. It wouldn't even matter if Carlisle was right and Bella actually was pregnant. People would try, and that would mean dozens, if not hundreds or more human women being raped, and kept alive for god knows how long.
It would be inhumane, grotesque, a form of villainy that turned Aro's stomach.
And it would threaten the secret. Gods, how that would threaten the secret. Missing people were one thing, that was inevitable. But beautiful women (because they would be beautiful) being snatched away from their families by the scores, vampires having their way with however many women it took before they successfully inseminated one - assuming it was even possible–
And even if he were to preemptively ban it-There was Marcus' perhaps child to consider. If he were to outlaw such actions, but keep Marcus' child alive...
All his old enemies in search of gifts. All those desperate, unhappy, people who so longed for children in their lives. If they had even the slightest glimpse of hope-
Aro, still holding Carlisle's hands in place, desperately shook his head back and forth. This secret went to the grave, which meant Carlisle needed a reason to stay that wasn't Bella's sudden onslaught of pregnancy, which meant that Bella couldn't know.
He hurriedly wrote down on his book about Iceland, so fast Bella didn't even see him move until he was holding it up for her, "DON'T LET HIM KNOW YOU KNOW".
Bella gave him a thumbs up and in response to Edward's questions gave a very unconvincing, "No?"
Edward hissed in frustration. "Bella, I understand it's difficult to take in, but– just trust me when I say, these people are dangerous to you. That's- that's why I was expelled. They found out I was going to tell you, and they couldn't let that happen. Bella-"
"Look, I think you have the wrong number," Bella interrupted, and after a beat, "And the wrong Bella. Thanks for calling, I'm going to sleep."
Bella hung up on Edward's protests.
Only to immediately be faced with a ringing cellphone, "Son of a bitch!" Bella exclaimed, "Well, we're just going to block that number."
She quickly pressed a few buttons.
There was a moment of silence, it couldn't have lasted more than thirty seconds, then her phone resumed ringing.
She closed her eyes, let out a deep sigh, and let the phone continue rigning, "How many cellphones does he have?"
Before Aro or Carlisle could even answer, she pressed a few buttons, causing the phone to become blessedly silent.
Aro sighed. "I'll get you a new phone. You can tell your father you dropped yours in a fountain."
Carlisle however, looking as if he wanted to cry, shook his head, "Aro, he-He probably got her number from Alice."
Aro's eyes widened. Yes, that would explain it.
What a delightful gift that girl had. Delightful and, in this present moment, unbearably obnoxious and invasive.
"Who's Alice?" Bella frowned.
"My daughter," Carlisle sighed. "My psychic daughter. For the record, Edward is my son," Carlisle explained, "And Esme my wife, and Rosalie and Emmett also my children. Yes, we've known each other for years and us pretending to have just met was ridiculous. I'm sorry you had to sit through that."
Bella was gaping. "But- but-" she gestured towards Carlisle. "B-but you- young!"
"Asexual reproduction," Aro reminded her, "We don't do it the old fashioned way. When Carlisle says son, here, he means that he bit Edward in 1918."
Bella gaped. "1918?" she asked quietly.
Carlisle nodded. "Yes, though I had been a vampire for centuries by then. Ah, I was born in 1640."
Bella's eyes were hopelessly wide. "But that makes you-"
Carlisle turned to Aro. "God. Isn't it 370 now? I forget when my birthday was, but…" he shrugged. "I suppose 369, 370, same difference. Though I found the former very mathematically satisfying."
"Try when they keep changing the calendars on you," Aro quipped.
At this point, his own estimate of his age was just vague hand waving and "Oh, it's around thirty-five hundred or so."
He had tried to count the number of sunsets he remembered seeing, because there are only so many things to do when trying to petrify, but that got difficult when he thought about the many times he'd ran across vast continents and effectively made days longer and shorter.
Not to mention Pompeii, gods, the sky had been so black and it'd thrown off his count for weeks.
Of course, in retrospect he should perhaps not have gone straight to Pompeii after the disaster because he was so curious about volcano eruptions, but that was neither here nor there.
"How old do you guys get?" Bella asked quietly.
"Who knows?" Aro said, "I've never met anyone who's died of old age. We tend to kill each other first."
Amun, of course, was still kicking, so apparently four and a half millennia was not the upper limit. Though beyond that, if there was anyone left older than even him and Kebi, then they had done a very good job keeping out of Aro's sight.
The Sumerian pantheon, Aro distinctly remembered, had long since been vanquished by the newer gods when Aro himself had been turned.
"And how old are you?" Bella asked.
"Wanna guess?" Aro grinned.
"... a thousand years old?" Bella asked, and it was clear she thought she was highballing it.
Oh very well done, of course, she had to be treating Carlisle as a lower limit but he liked that she was throwing out the big numbers. Of course, she was still hopelessly wrong, Aro was considered ancient by 1000 A.D.
"Older," Aro encouraged.
"Fifteen hundred years old?"
"Keep going," he said, motioning with a hand.
"Oh my god," Bella muttered. "Two thousand?"
Aro continued the motion with a wide motion. "Further. Much further, actually."
"Three thousand." Bella said, and by now she was looking pretty skeptical, like she thought Aro was having her on.
"Close!" Aro crowed, and clapped his hands. "I confess it would be unfair to continue our little game, as I've lost count. It's somewhere around three thousand five hundred. Not four thousand for another few centuries, though I suppose I'll have to make up a date so I get to throw a proper party."
"Holy cow," Bella whispered.
"You, of course, would be invited," Aro said with a wink.
Five thousand, Aro was thinking, would be truly spectacular. There was just something about having been alive for five thousand years that sounded very impressive.
Bella, it seemed, was finally starting to realize that Aro was in fact serious about being an immortal bloodsucking vampire.
Or else she was giving him a stunned look for another reason. Aro would not claim to understand this one.
"Aro," Carlisle said quietly, "Not to interrupt but-Edward."
"Ah, yes," Aro said, his mood falling as he returned his gaze to Bella's temporarily silent phone. Yes, Edward, what were they going to do about Edward?
No, it was more than that, what were they all going to do now? The rug had been pulled out from underneath Aro's feet, but that did not mean the game had ended. Far from it.
"I think first on the agenda," Aro said, "We pretend all is normal. No one outside this room knows about the pregnancy, or about the– the sex. We keep it that way."
Carlisle gave Aro a very dull look but didn't disagree.
"Obviously, Carlisle and I will be working to discover if there is, in fact, a pregnancy," Aro continued, "Though I imagine that will make itself obvious without our help soon enough."
Carlisle continued to look unimpressed, thinking of the hours of surreptitious research that would have to be conducted, apparently kept secret not only from his family but even his poor wife. Something he felt was only deemed necessary because Aro was paranoid when it came to these matters.
"Carlisle," Aro said slowly, "What do you think happens if the vampire world finds out that humans can get pregnant? If there's even a suspicion that humans can get pregnant?" He squeezed Carlisle's hands. "There will be… attempts."
Carlisle drew in a sharp breath, and Aro watched as his thoughts took the same turn his own had earlier. Within the second, Carlisle was just as determined as Aro to keep the possibility of Bella's pregnancy a secret.
However…
"What about Caius?" Carlisle asked with narrowed eyes.
Aro sighed, "You're right, yes, Caius will also be told. As will Renata because I imagine she will be invaluable-And of course the wives will have to know which means Corin will know, but dammit, Carlisle, they can hold their tongues and you know it!"
In part because none of the aforementioned had what one would call wide social circles. Oh, Renata and Corin were well loved in the guard, Renata in particular made friends wherever she went, but her priority in life was Aro, to the point where she did not see much point in slumming it with Demetri and Santiago when she could be slumming it with Aro.
"My family can be trusted, Aro," Carlisle insisted.
Oh, Aro wanted to laugh, he very badly wanted to laugh at that.
Thankfully, he didn't even have to resort to the awful truth, "They are close with the Denali, Edward is currently staying with them. Esme will want to tell Edward what's happening, reassure him why you can't return home, or perhaps to consult Alice and see how this turns out. What do you imagine happens next?"
Carlisle pursed his lips.
He did not like it, but he understood.
He would keep his silence.
"Alice may find out anyway," Carlisle pointed out.
"And then there will be nothing I can do about that but hope she also sees that spreading rumors has unfortunate consequences," Aro said with a cold smile.
Bella's eyes widened at that.
"So then… tomorrow, or later I suppose, I go down to the meal hall and… have meals? Like everything is normal, and I don't know anything? Then to art class?"
"Yes," Aro said blithely.
Bella nodded slowly.
Then, "Does this mean art class can be just Marcus and me again? Or would that be stretching it?"
Aro opened his mouth to let her have her way - god knew the Cullens wouldn't question it - but then he remembered what exactly Marcus and Bella had done in that damned Roman bath.
Marcus, and Bella, alone in a room where he took off his clothes?
"Renata will still be there," he said, with the most unassuming smile he could muster.
Bella pouted.
Yes, well, iniquity has its consequences, dear girl.
"Why, anyway? What's the deal with Renata?" Bella asked.
Aro smiled. "She has a power. She's there for your protection."
And, of course, to be the world's greatest wet blanket. However, none of them needed to know that. Renata, of course, upon finding out that Marcus and Bella had slept together, would just die. She'd just die.
Bella pressed her lips together, but nodded.
"I should probably also mention that we have inhumanly sensitive hearing," Aro added. "Do not assume that a closed door is enough to keep your conversations private."
And then, remembering Edward and that damn phone, he added, "And Edward will undoubtedly try to convince you to leave the city of Volterra. Under no circumstances should you ever leave this city. No matter what he says to you or what he threatens."
Carlisle sent Aro another look, but he let his thoughts, stressed and unhappy about all of this, speak for themselves.
"Anything else?" Bella asked.
"Nothing that comes to mind, no," Aro said, and smiled lightly. "Now! You'll want to return to your bed, I imagine," he said, and stood up.
Carlisle and Bella followed suit, Bella flinching slightly.
Unasked, Carlisle swooped her up into his arms. "Wanna see how fast I can run?" he asked, mustering a smile on his face.
"No!" Bella squealed, and seized in terror.
Carlisle's face fell slightly, but he nodded.
They walked to her room in silence.
Once the door was closed with Bella inside, Carlisle turned to Aro and asked the question he hadn't dared in front of Bella, "What about Edward?"
"Considering we beat him to the bunch, or rather, Bella beat us to it, he did not break the law," Aro noted, "For all his best efforts. Of course, the matter will be discussed with Marcus and Caius, but I will vote and argue in his favor."
Carlisle nodded grimly, and without a word of warning he'd pulled Aro in for a quick hug.
It was very platonic, and over before Aro could start contemplating his chances for (and the ethics of) copping a feel, but it was nice.
Nonetheless, ringing through Carlisle's head was that sense of dread from earlier, which had never dissipated. Listening to Edward blatantly disregard the secret as well as Aro's earlier prophecy, "Resolve yourself to his execution."
Now, it did not sound quite so outlandish to Carlisle.
It was all Aro could do to clap his old friend on the shoulder as he left him standing in the hallway.