Bella and Carlisle were seated amongst the luggage, crammed in between two overly large pink suitcases, on a nine-hour flight from Seattle to Rome. Bella was surrounded by discarded bottles of Coca Cola and bags of Doritos. She was now on her last bag; they still had several hours to go.

It was just the pair of them.

Esme, Edward, Rosalie, Jasper—everyone else had stayed behind.

"You know," Bella said in the silence as they exited yet another round of turbulence, "We do have a passport that We never got to use. We applied for Renee's wedding, back when she wanted it in Mexico on a beach. It's a bit late now but just throwing that out there. We could have been in coach is all I'm saying."

"Then your father would start looking for you in Italy," Carlisle said, "At least now—he'll assume you disappeared in the woods. It will be a clean break. And, hopefully, it will protect him."

Hopefully.

Carlisle had had such ambitions.

They'd seemed small, in retrospect, small and harmless.

What was one game of baseball?

What was one, silly, little game of baseball where he could give Bella his contact information and advise her on how to best disappear from human society when the time was right? Even his family, as much as they'd wanted to, couldn't deny him that much.

He'd told himself that the worst of it would be watching his family grinning and bearing it, making little to no pretense of being polite, and then arguing over whose team would be stuck with Bella Swan until Carlisle finally gave up and agreed to be the referee in Esme's place.

He'd thought the worst would be how Edward had looked at him with betrayal when he realized Bella Swan truly was coming, the way he'd glared at Bella, with such venomous hatred—

He had thought the worst would be a few hurt feelings and Carlisle spending the rest of his life knowing that this was as far as his family could go in such things.

That was what he'd hoped.

What had happened was much worse.

"I'm—so sorry, Bella," he said, "For everything. If I hadn't invited you to the game, none of this would have happened, you would have years left with your family and now—"

And now Bella Swan was playing dead not only for her own sake but for her family's survival.

And Carlisle was taking her to the only place left to her, the only place he could think of that might spare her life and who had the fortifications to protect her. If, of course, they didn't simply decide to kill her first.

As it was, he didn't know what would happen. The Volturi were not bodyguards, their fortress was not a fortress intended to be any true stronghold, they were simply executioners of a single law. This sort of thing–they had never done it before, they would never consider it any other circumstance, and Carlisle imagined the very idea would be seen as an insult.

But Bella was a curiosity, she was something they'd never before encountered. Aro had thought he knew all the other inhuman, sentient, species. Many, he'd claimed, had disappeared or their numbers had dwindled to the point of barely being worth mentioning. Nevertheless, he'd thought that between himself and Demetri, they were all cataloged and accounted for, nothing left a mystery after three-thousand years. Bella would prove him wrong and then some. Aro would wish to study her, to learn where she had come from and if there were others, perhaps he'd even start investing in a space program. That meant Bella would stay in Volterra, as the immortal children had before her, and for all they wouldn't be guarding to her they would see that she wouldn't leave until evaluated and they'd certainly stop James from torturing and murdering her before then.

And otherwise–

If Bella was truly as immortal as he suspected, then the hunt would never end. She couldn't be turned into a vampire, at least he wouldn't want to try it. James wouldn't stop until he'd found her, Laurent and Edward had been clear on that. It would be an endless existence of running and hiding until something happened to James and Victoria

Volterra was Bella's only option, even if Aro decided on her death.

(But he didn't believe that. She had done nothing wrong, not a thing, had never killed either a human or a vampire, just a few cats—and he knew Aro's curiosity would win out before anything else.

Bella Swan would not be put to death for the crime of being neither a human nor a vampire. He didn't believe that.)

"It's okay," Bella said.

"It's not okay!" Carlisle said, "It's not—I have destroyed your life in a single afternoon and now I'm the only one who even—"

"That's okay too," Bella interjected, "Edward probably would have powered through and eaten us on the way out of sheer rage."

"He wouldn't," Carlisle said, but his words were hollow, and they both knew it.

Carlisle didn't believe that Edward would have eaten her but—he certainly had had no qualms over abandoning Bella and leaving her to a terrible death.

What had happened was this.

Halfway through the game, nomadic vampires traveling through the area had heard the noise and come to investigate. There'd been no time to get Bella anywhere else. For the first few seconds, Bella being so pale and wearing Carlisle's jacket, he'd hoped they wouldn't notice.

Then they had and—

"Is that—are you eating that?" the one who'd introduced himself as Laurent, who seemed to be the self-elected leader of the coven, asked in visible disgust.

"God that—where did you even find it?" Laurent asked, looking to his companions, Victoria and James for backup, "That is, I've never smelled a human so vile. What even is that? Opium? Liver failure?"

Victoria looked equally disgusted, looking Bella up and down for physical signs of whatever horrible malady had befallen her.

James though—

"Would you mind if we took it?" James asked, and there was a knowing look on his face, something shrewd and calculating in his red eyes and he looked first at Bella then at the Cullens.

And Carlisle had said, "I'm afraid we can't do that. Bella's a guest. We don't eat humans at all, actually."

And he knew right away he'd said the wrong thing.

The trio had quickly left but—Edward had been smiling, as they walked away, a small thing that he quickly dropped when Carlisle looked but—he'd been smiling. And then not ten minutes later, Laurent had been at their door warning that Laurent meant to go to war with their coven over the girl—that this was the sort of thing James and his lover Victoria enjoyed most in the world.

And that he would not stop until he'd killed the girl himself. Slowly, painfully, in a manner that was designed so that all who felt something for her would come after her in revenge.

And when Carlisle's family had refused to protect her—

Carlisle found himself on a plane to Rome with Bella Swan, making a mad dash to the only stronghold he knew that would take her, knowing that if James were made enough to spite the Volturi he would be swiftly digging his own grave.

And none of the others had come with him.

"We could have tried taking him," Bella said in the silence, "Garbage eating Dracula, we mean, we could have tried."

"I don't know if you'd win," Carlisle said, "You may be as strong and as fast but—that's not enough to win in a fight against a vampire. We don't tire, our strength never diminishes, and we'll always have our teeth and our venom."

"We won against you," Bella pointed out.

"I'm weak," Carlisle dismissed, "I'm weak, have no fighting experience, and I did not wish to kill you."

Bella looked unconvinced. She also, in his humble opinion, looked entirely too confident for someone who had only fought one vampire, taken him by surprise, and not realized it was a malnourished vampire at that.

"Perhaps there's a silver lining here," Carlisle said with a sigh, "This way—the law won't be hanging over your head, you won't have to find a way to slip out of the human world on your own, and you'll be safer than anywhere else in the world. From either my people, the government, or even—other aliens."

Of course, James could go after her mother or her father, he could track Bella's scent to the airport and attempt to guess which flight she took, he could confront Carlisle's family to try to find out Carlisle's plan…

And as much as Carlisle hated the idea of it, his family would quickly tell him everything he wished to know, because they had made it a point that they would not protect Bella Swan and certainly not at the risk of their own lives.

They shouldn't have to, that was asking a lot of them, but he still wished—

"You'll like Aro," he found himself saying instead, distracting himself, "He's a good man, or as good as one can be in his position, and he's fascinated by everything. I'm sure he'll grill you on all the details of your extraterrestrial partner. He'll find you utterly fascinating."

"It's been ages since I've seen him," Carlisle continued, this time more to himself than Bella, "Three hundred years, I never found a chance to visit before now."

He'd have preferred to visit under better circumstances, but apparently—

That wasn't going to happen.

Not in this universe.

"Well, we always knew we'd end up in an underground facility someday," Bella said with a sigh, "We just never thought it'd be run by vampires."

Carlisle winced, "And I am terribly sorry about that."

She didn't say anything.

Neither did he.

He imagined, when they landed, he'd take a look at his phone. He'd either see a plethora of angry messages from Alice, Edward, and Rosalie or none at all. He didn't know which would be worse.

As they were leaving, when he'd taken a second to glance down when they boarded the plane with the luggage—there hadn't been anything.

Which meant that either they were in danger or that they'd chosen to let him leave without a word.

Edward had given him such an accusing look, when he'd realized what it was Carlisle had intended to do, and Carlisle's words promising he'd be right back the next day had died on his tongue.

As it was—he'd call when they arrived, when Bella was safe, but perhaps it would do some good to stay a few days. Let things with James be settled once and for all, as James realized his prey was well outside his reach and give him some time to both catch up with Aro and say goodbye to Bella.

And he just felt so—tired.

He needed a break, just a few days, and he would be fine.

"Do you remember what space was like?" he found himself asking.

"Cold and dark," Bella said without hesitation, "We—I—The other fell through for a very long time, longer that it knew how to count. They don't remember why they were even doing it, if there was a planet left behind, a society, just—the infinite darkness. The other always knew that the universe was an inhospitable place in a way that Bella Swan didn't, even though Bella Swan won the fight."

"The fight?" Carlisle asked.

Bella just gave him a look, "Bella wasn't supposed to keep the body."

Carlisle's head twisted to look at her at a speed that would have broken a human's neck. His mouth opened, closed, and he found himself picturing in horror just what Bella's–transformation must have been like.

He'd never thought of it, never even avoided the thought of it, because to him it'd seemed so obvious that Bella was whatever she was now. He knew there'd been a Bella Swan, an ordinary girl, before whatever had happened to her but his mind had convinced him that it was a painless, mutual, if baffling experience.

That Bella had just blinked at her new pet fish and it was over, just like that. Not something with no harm done, of course, but no harm than being something that ate a little too much red meat at a restaurant.

His mind now turned towards the agony of his own transformation, except, instead of venom in his system that he couldn't fight–it was a creature that had intended to destroy him from the inside out with him none the wiser.

"It's funny, she was so weak back then. The least athletic girl you'd ever met, and not one with very strong mental fortitude either. Bella Swan hated herself, she was a burden to everyone around her, but she fought just the same—she fought and she won the battle she was never meant to," Bella said.

It was–not the same as what had happened to him, not in the least.

He found himself thinking back to those early days just the same. When every day had been a battle of will, driving himself further and further into the wilderness, facing the agony of starvation and wondering if even that would kill him or if he would be doomed to suffer forever.

Perhaps happening upon that deer wasn't winning, it'd certainly been nothing he'd done, but it had felt as if he'd defied the fates then and stumbled upon a solution he was never meant to.

Like Bella's, it wasn't a battle he was supposed to have won and also like Bella–it'd made him all the more eccentric for it. He imagined, no he knew, that to many vampires Bella Swan with her strange habits, her strange smell, her odd way of talking was not so different from Carlisle whose diet and choices were utterly incomprehensible.

And maybe this was why he'd been so desperate to be friends with her, to have her integrate herself into his and his family's lives. In her, in a way he never had with Edward, Aro, or even with Esme–he sensed a kindred spirit he'd never thought to look for.

"We think, if we fought James, we'd win because of that. Not because we're stronger and faster, but because of whatever let Bella Swan win last time. And this Aro fellow—it'll be the same, we'll survive because of that buried human instinct that allows for nothing less."

She said nothing after that, just let Carlisle mull over her words for the next several hours, until they touched down in Italy and started their mad dash to Volterra like the hounds of hell were on their heels.

(Though Bella did insist, when they touched down, that he purchase five large pizzas for her at the airport. Just in case this was to be her last meal as she didn't want to die on an empty stomach.)

During the flight, no one had called, there wasn't a single new voicemail.

There was one text message though, from Edward, containing only the words "We're fine."

Author's Note: Thanks to Vinelle for betaing the chapter. Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight