He was relieved when he finally heard Jane's footsteps approaching his study.

He'd been sitting by his desk, staring into nothing, frozen.

How he'd managed to find his way here from the throne room was beyond him. Obviously, he'd managed somehow, but the memory of it–it was there but it almost felt as if it were someone else's memory. One of the hundreds of thousands of memories he'd stolen from other people.

Not something that had happened to Aro. Whatever Aro, this receptacle of thought and human history, even was at the end of the day.

If he'd been like this before, petrifying would have been a lot easier.

Jane appeared in the doorway, and she looked– perhaps not desolate, the way he felt, but something close to it.

Certainly, it was not a look he'd ever thought he would see on her sweet face.

Jane–Jane had done terrible things in the name of his kingdom. Alec had as well, of course, but Jane whose very power was to bring pain suffered more for it. Her very gift was the incarnation of Volterra's might and the terror it used to hold the vampire world in feared Alec, but Jane, Jane was a malign god with their name on her ledger.

He'd felt the occasional wash of disgust with himself for that, for creating two killing machines in children, and placing the burden of all the dirty work that needed to be done to uphold his empire on their small, thin, shoulders.

Jane was no stranger to awful acts, that was what was important. She had been to war before she was ready, before she even understood what war was. She had murdered those who looked like women, those who looked like children, even those who looked like little more than infants. She had killed those begging for mercy, for themselves and their loved ones, and she had killed those who had no understanding of what they had become.

But she had learned early on to distinguish between us and them, between the righteous and criminals, those who were slated for death and those who were people. Aro had taught her that.

And she had been a child when he found her, in a way she wasn't any longer, a damaged and traumatized little girl who had been hurt even worse by the burning of her transformation and the monstrous need to rip people apart for their blood. Her last human memories had been of betrayal and pain, and so, in the chaotic and nightmarish new life she found herself living, she had latched on to Aro, to the Volturi, to everything the Volturi represented as her safety and purpose in life.

She had given herself over to the Volturi entirely, and that was no small thing.

She'd always done whatever he'd asked, no matter how awful, and in time she'd stopped bothering to ask 'why'. Had Marcus simply voted no–he imagined Jane wouldn't have blinked at leaving Edward to his death at the Romanian's hands. Had Marcus voted 'no' the first time, when he'd left Bella those voice messages, then she wouldn't have blinked at his execution at her own hand.

Had Aro explicitly informed her that this was not a rescue mission but in fact an assasination–she wouldn't have said a word.

Instead, she had watched as Marcus had plotted Edward's death without even blinking. As he had pretended to rescue Edward, allowed him to reattach his limbs and give his final words, only to rip off his head.

Aro had seen, through Marcus, how in a matter of seconds her bond with him curdled from friendly curiosity, excitement, even, and trust, above all trust and loyalty for Marcus and all that he represented, into horror.

The loyalty was still there, but it was no longer a personal matter, only a loyalty to what Marcus represented. Marcus was the Volturi, and for that reason, and none other, Jane would still obey him.

But he terrified her.

He terrified her in a way that even Caius didn't.

She wordlessly moved towards Aro and, foregoing all respectful courtesy and polite restraint, she threw her arms around his neck and started weeping.

Through her cheek against his, he saw her torment.

To her, Aro's scandalous behavior, her feelings of betrayal and isolation at having so easily been forgotten, they might as well have been a lifetime ago. Japan itself, something she had been looking forward to–nothing more than a concept.

Now she was keeping a secret from Alec, she always would be. And he would never suspect.

Aro–he knew very well how that felt.

She hadn't even betrayed him, and yet as far as her feelings were concerned, that was exactly what she'd done. And she could never let him know why she was upset, or even that she was upset at all.

As the years went by, and Jane saw herself never quite becoming able to look Carlisle in the eye, never quite becoming able to rest easily around Marcus, this first, initial, lie about Edward's death would snowball into countless more, until there was a whole web of things that Alec didn't know about his sister.

And she could never even let him know that this had happened.

Funny, even after all this, even now that Marcus–that he knew, that he had surpassed all Aro's expectations, surpassed Aro himself in all ways that mattered–he couldn't think of a word that might console her.

None, after all, had ever consoled him.

"I suppose there comes a time," he said quietly, "When we all must keep terrible secrets from one another."

"Perhaps through no fault of our own," he added as he stroked her back, "Perhaps for good reason, but all the same–I wonder if it is not inevitable, if you live long enough."

He fell silent for a moment, letting his thoughts wander as she continued to weep against him. When she quieted, he said, "You need not be–overly concerned regarding Carlisle, he will never suspect."

That made it worse.

As Aro said the words he realized how true they were. Not simply to Jane, who of all people was truly innocent in this, but of himself as well. He could drop every hint in the world, he could shout it from the rooftops and–he somehow knew that Carlisle would never suspect what had truly happened.

Not just because, in some other world, Vlad and Stefan very well might have gotten bored and set Edward ablaze before they could reach him, but because–this would become what he needed. It was a senseless, cruel, death. It was utterly pointless, unbearably tragic in that it all could have perhaps been prevented if they'd just–talked, but it had closure.

Edward was dead, but the Romanians were dead as well, any other party that had a hand in it was innocent. There would be no hunting down enemies, no acts of terrible vengeance, it was over before it began.

If Aro or even Marcus were responsible–then it wouldn't be. It would then never be over for any of them. And Carlisle–above all else he would want to be able to close this chapter of his life. Because what good ever came from hatred or vengeance?

"Jane," Aro soothed, "you are entirely without blame. You came to save Edward, and you did so flawlessly. You did as I told you, and you never intended to deceive anyone. If you feel guilty, you'll be assuming responsibility for Marcus' actions, and that belongs solely to Marcus."

Jane's arms remained locked around his neck in a vice grip.

"Jane–" Aro tried again, moving slightly so he could shift her into his lap. "For all your wisdom, for all your years spent on this earth– you are a child. We both know quite well what that means for you. Perhaps, this one time, you should remember that."

His words were not helping, for all that Jane craved to hear them, craved to hear his reassurances that she was innocent.

The problem was, she was still lying, and that wasn't innocent. Not in her eyes, not when it was to Alec.

Or even to Carlisle, who had looked so hollow when Marcus dared to give his condolences, as if he was sorry.

That had been the most perverse sight Jane had ever beheld in her life.

"Why did he do it?" Jane asked.

He'd told her why, she didn't want to hear it again. Even though Marcus–he'd meant every word of it. There'd been no embellishments, no after the fact justifications of his actions, he had only explained exactly why he had done what he did.

But to say it was that he had not trusted Aro–and not that he hadn't trusted him in that he thought Aro might betray him, but he hadn't trusted Aro's… constitution was perhaps the word. He'd held Aro against a scale and decided Aro simply could not do what needed to be done–and he had been right.

He couldn't say as much to Jane.

"Because he wanted Edward dead, and this was the most effective way of ensuring that outcome."

"He–to him, as he understood our vote, it was solely on whether or not we should expend our efforts to rescue Edward from captivity," Aro added, "Caius thought that the Romanians–would take care of Edward themselves, Marcus disagreed. However, there was no option in which we ambushed the Romanians with the purpose of killing Edward. So, he agreed to the rescue."

"But why lie?" Jane demanded, pulling away to see Aro's face. "If he'd said as much– Caius would have agreed, he wouldn't have to lie!"

"He did not think Caius would agree," Aro said quietly, "Caius–he believes that having attempted this operation at all–that it makes us vulnerable to future attempts. We showed our hand, we showed that we value–those who are beloved by Carlisle Cullen. Carlisle has two daughters and a son who survived Edward in the outside world."

"Then we could have made it a mission to kill insurrectionists," Jane argued weakly.

"I–did not put Edward on trial for insurrection," Aro admitted, his voice rough as he found himself thinking of the trial, of how he'd sighed upon receiving Jasper's news and realized how he must best frame this in order to win any chance of support from either Caius or Marcus, "I… explicitly removed such considerations from our discussion. Killing Edward for his crimes, in this circumstance, I did not put it to vote."

Because, otherwise, he had known that Marcus would have voted no. Just as he'd promised the first time.

Then, sighing, he continued, "It all goes back to Marcus, and his belief that this way was for the best. Edward is dead, but Volterra didn't have to kill him: Carlisle gets to mourn a son that didn't break the law in some egregious manner, as Marcus was convinced he inevitably would: and all it cost is our silence."

"I'm not saying he did the right thing," Aro said, before Jane could protest, "but this was how Marcus made his decision."

"And we'll just– stay silent? Just like that? Forever?"

She sounded disbelieving.

Up until this moment, a part of her had held out hope that Aro would– solve this, somehow, that he would find a way where she wouldn't have to carry this burden, and her life could go back to normal. She could return to her room and plan Japan, and she would look Alec in the eye and hold no secrets in her heart.

"Yes," Aro said, sealing his own fate as he said it, "The truth, Jane, is that Edward is dead. No matter how we argue it, no matter what we say, Edward will still be dead. That is, perhaps, the only truth that matters. If your brother were to find out, if Carlisle were to find out, what would it change? Edward would still be dead, only now he would be dead for crimes that Carlisle had assumed were pardoned–were only pardoned because he was Carlisle Cullen and Edward was his son. Marcus would still be king, Carlisle would still be bereft, the rest of us would still have failed to save him–nothing would change except that we would not be able to move on. None of us would ever be able to leave this behind us."

"Consider this a kindness to them both," Aro concluded quietly. "Even Alec. You will have to keep this secret from Carlisle, as will I, but we will find the strength to do so. Let Alec breathe free of that burden."

Jane's face crumpled, and she buried her face in Aro's neck again as she sobbed tearlessly.

But he felt her put together a shaky, reluctant, resolve to do as he said. She would seal this in her heart, and resent that corner for existing, but the seal would remain unbroken.

After a half hour, Aro heard the light, fast, footsteps of Alec approaching.

He nudged Jane.

Jane lifted her head wearily to stare blankly at the door. She took a deep breath and in her thoughts there was the pervasive feeling that this was it.

Here begins the rest of Jane's life. From now on, Jane and Alec would no longer be the same.

She was glad that it wasn't Alec in her place.

"Jane?" Alec said as he nudged open the door.

"I–failed the mission," Jane said after a beat, and jumped down to the floor, "I really–really thought we were going to make it."

Alec nodded in understanding. "It happens."

Jane smiled weakly at him, "Yeah."

Alec clapped his hands together. "Wanna play Super Mario on the Wii? I'll let you be Yoshi!"

"Gamecube's better," Jane said, but followed him just the same.

"You're just saying that because you're awful with the Wii remote," Alec jibed.

"And you only like it because you can somehow use the Wii remote," Jane responded.

They continued bickering their way down the hallway. As they moved, Jane's voice no longer sounded quite so jilted, quite so forced, and the flow of conversation began to feel more natural.

Aro smiled to himself.

She was going to be fine.

Perhaps not today, or tomorrow, but someday–she was going to be fine.

Now if only he could do the same thing.

He reached up his hands to bury his face in them, and groaned.

How could it come to this?

He felt as if–more than anything, he needed one of those ten-step improve yourself books. He'd never been a fan of them, had always thought that either you were what you were or you were not. Eating a healthy breakfast did not make you capable of great things, nor did telling yourself you were a winner.

He'd thought–

Didyme had been supposed to be it.

And at first. It had been strange, at first, because–he'd felt so many things but he remembered being proud. He had been proud, had felt not only righteous but–he had felt he had proved himself to some unknown audience. Look at what Aro was capable of, look at what he would do when the chips came down. He was worthy of kingship because he could sacrifice anything and everything at its altar.

It was only later that the pride faded, and he found himself living in a world that no longer held his sister because she was dead, slain by his hand.

All that power, all that glory– there had been a moment, a cursed moment, when he paused to ask himself if he'd done the right thing.

And then–then what he'd done to Didyme had become not simply hard but unendurable.

And instead of pride, he'd told himself that that was the worst of it. Surely, it had been necessary, but just as surely he would never have to do it again. There was nothing worse in this world, nothing he had cherished more dearly, and that had to be the limit.

And as if to spite him, the gods had thrown this at his feet.

And oh, it wasn't exactly the same. Aro had not been with a Carlisle Cullen that he must, for some unspeakable reason where it was not Carlisle's fault at all, murder and lie about to the world. That–that thought alone would have given him heart palpitations were he human.

In letting Carlisle leave at all he'd thought–he'd thought he'd learned something. That he had avoided such cruel ultimatums and their outcomes.

And yet here he was, two thousand years after his sister's death, and the world was making it painfully clear that he could not outrun what he'd done to her, could not move past it, could never atone.

It was only ever going to get worse.

Marcus often thought, in his depressed daze, 'Didyme is dead.'

Aro, for all his gift, had never quite understood what this meant.

Sometimes, he'd thought it was Marcus failing to process a known fact. Some part of Marcus was still standing in a hallway, two thousand years ago, as Aro informed him that vandals had murdered his wife.

Other times, he'd thought Marcus might be trying to remind himself. That if he didn't think it, he'd forget and look for her, wait for her to return from the Alps or wherever it was she'd run off to without his leave. That it must be constantly repeated for fear he'd search for her in every shadow.

Only now did he realize that what Marcus had meant was only what he'd said. Didyme is dead. That was the truth and it was the only truth that had ever mattered to him in two thousand years. He had thought it so often because it was the only thought that had been worth having.

And Aro–finally understood what that meant.

He felt as if that should terrify him, as if by understanding such a notion he had reached a stage of enlightenment he was never meant to.

It was a myth that vampires could not die of old age. Oh, their bodies would not wilt, and their minds would not go– but just as they were not so far from humanity as they liked to think, they were not immune to the passage of time either.

Aro had seen countless of vampires give up, sickened by the burden of being alive, tired after too many years upon this earth, no longer seeing the point of it all.

Like with Marcus' reminder of Didyme being dead, Aro had never fully understood this either. It was one thing to wish for death out of depression, out of personal tragedy or other tangible reasons - but to grow tired of life merely because life itself had proven too wearisome, the act of merely existing too much of a burden, had seemed to Aro to be a sign of weakness. Not necessarily a moral failing, merely – weakness.

He'd thought that some people were not cut out for immortality, and should best have stayed human.

Now, though, as he saw the eternity ahead of him stretch out, holding only these burdens he could not endure–

He felt tired, exhausted, at the very idea of it.

As if summoned by those thoughts, he heard footsteps approaching his study.

Oh, oh he was not ready for this.

He had thought, he had hoped, that Carlisle would seek comfort in his family, in those who had known Edward best. There had been his wayward children to call, there had been his cousins the Denali, there had been everything in the world to delay this meeting.

The door opened, and Carlisle came through.

He looked like Marcus.

There was no other way to put it.

He looked old in the way that Marcus himself had always looked old. Marcus had been turned at nineteen, he confessed to Aro once that he had not yet been able to grow a full beard. Yet, when Didyme had died–the guard had always thought he was physically older than Aro. Only upon closer inspection would they ever realize just how young it was that Marcus appeared, and that it was only the dullness in his eyes that aged him.

Carlisle looked like that now, his youthful features somehow lined with grief, his whole figure seeming thinner, slighter, lesser than it had been moments ago.

And his eyes were brimming with pain and hollow, all at once.

He tried and failed to smile at Aro. His hand instinctively reached out only to fall back to his side, "I–didn't think you'd be this–torn up."

Because to Aro–Edward had at best been an annoyance. He'd been a thing to first get out of the way then a hopeless cause he tried and failed to warn Carlisle about. And what had that been worth, in the end? Edward had never had a chance to prove Aro right or wrong, had Aro known he would never have said a word to Carlisle deriding his character. Because whatever Edward had been, it didn't matter anymore.

Aro wondered if Carlisle had expected Aro to privately be relieved at Edward's passing.

Perhaps, in another world, he would have been. He'd been on this way there, perhaps, it was difficult to tell when the memory of those precious moments when he didn't yet know were overshadowed by what had happened after–

But that was not this world.

He attempted to find a partial truth, the first of many he'd have to give, "I failed you, Carlisle, and for that I am–so dreadfully sorry."

Carlisle shook his head slowly, his dull eyes on Aro's. "It doesn't matter."

"I suppose it doesn't," Aro agreed somewhat madly, "But all the same–I know that I gave it my best effort, I want you to know that but–it wasn't good enough. And I am, beyond words, I am sorry for that."

Carlisle gave a half-smile, a mechanical thing. "I didn't come here to talk, Aro. I don't think I can bear to talk."

Then, without further ado, he crossed the room, pulled Aro out of his chair, and kissed him.

Carlisle's bottomless grief, his attempts to contact his children met with failure, his desperation to find some way to quickly pull himself from the quagmire so that he could be what Esme, Jasper, and Bella would so desperately need crashed over Aro.

Aro pulled back, unable to stop himself from shaking his head, "Carlisle, it's–it's too soon. I'm not ready for this."

Carlisle blinked in surprise, for a brief moment looking like himself before the overwhelming sorrow dragged him back down. "Aro, my options are– I can't bear to sit in silence, or to talk, or to do anything at all that involves– involves thinking. It's going to be this, Corin, or– or this and Corin."

Aro laughed, shaking his head, "You make a very compelling argument but–For what it's worth I am–learning how to cope with the rest of my life as well. I know that he was not my son and that I–was never particularly fond of him, but I am coping."

He rested his forehead against Carlisle's, "Would you give me five minutes?"

With a sigh, Carlisle sunk into Aro's chair, where his gaze fell on Aro's computer.

God, Aro wished he hadn't googled those self-improvement books right about now.

"I–have decided to become a better person," Aro explained, "It may be a couple of thousands of years too late but–I suppose there's no time like the present when it comes to self-improvement."

Carlisle stared dully.

Right, he probably didn't care.

What was it that Carlisle truly needed from him?

Aro–He was not culpable, Marcus was right about that much. Of course, in lying he would be, but–if Aro were to reject him, were to avoid him from now on, who did that help? That wasn't for Carlisle's sake, it would only be for his own.

It would be a way to make Aro feel better about himself. To make him feel as if, for once in his life, he had become a moral man when he had taken great pride in never pretending to be any worse or better than he truly was.

He gave up the right to be a good man when he killed his sister.

But what did Carlisle need?

He certainly didn't need Corin, and Carlisle knew as much, he'd come to fear as much not too long ago. Carlisle saw where that path might lead him and he shuddered at the thought of it while he still had the strength to resist it.

He needed time, but that wasn't something Aro could give him.

Right now–making love to Aro was a desperate attempt to cling to something. It was a quick fix, one he knew wouldn't work, but something to allow him to work through his grief when Esme herself was drowning.

It would distract him from his overwhelming grief, give him a raft when he was struggling to stay afloat at all. And that–that might give him the time he needed to collect some of the pieces of himself. Enough, at least, to take him the next lifeline of aiding Bella Swan, which he hoped might carry him to shore.

If Aro wanted to pretend to himself that any of this was for Carlisle–then he could not allow himself and his own failure to get in the way.

He sighed.

Then, he held out his hand to Carlisle and forced himself to remember how to smile, "Let's do some laundry."

Carlisle snorted, the noise sounding as if it'd escaped despite himself, as if he'd had no idea how to laugh and would have been shocked to hear he was capable of such a thing.

"You won't believe how nice my tapestries are," Aro continued.

Carlisle didn't waste a moment, rather than standing, he pulled Aro down onto the chair he was occupying. It, of course, collapsed beneath their combined weight and the force with which Carlisle had pulled him into it.

But there were other chairs in the world, Aro would just have to make do without this one.