"Alice, what are you doing?" I asked, as I stepped through an open window and into my room.

Crouched in the corner with a pile of books next to her, Alice was digging through my bookshelves. Normally I would have been annoyed to find someone rummaging through my things, but I learned early on to let Alice do as she pleased, it was harmless, most of the time.

She replied, singing, "I'm planning a wedding!"

I kneeled next to my sister and tried to help organize the random stacks that continued to grow around her. The books came from an amalgam of subjects, art nouveau concepts, vintage gown catalogs, and french landscaping architecture to name a few. She definitely was planning a wedding.

"Here," I said, pulling out a dated flower design reference that might have already swung back into fashion. "I think you could use these."

She turned to check it and confirmed, "Good eye. Add those please."

I did as she requested and then scanned through the rest of my bookshelves, taking out fitting books from the mish-mash of genres I ordered according to my interests.

"Don't you have your own binders for this?"

Alice's own collection of wedding plans was extensive, one from each decade dating back to the 50's. It seemed like she renewed her vows with Jasper at least once every decade, if not more.

"It can't be that long since your last one, what was it, 2000? The wedding to start off the millennium?"

"I can't use those," she looked up and smiled broadly at me, delighted as if she had accomplished a large feat, "It's not for me."

"Who's it for then?" I could not imagine Carlisle and Esme entertaining the idea with the current situation we were in, and although Rose appreciated the extra hands, her vision was hers alone and sparingly needed an extra mind for inspiration.

"Bella said yes!" She said cheerily, but quickly morphed into a pout. "I barely managed to talk her out of that horrid Vegas elopement I saw they had planned. Can you imagine that, a cheap little chapel, plastic flowers, off the rack," Alice shuddered.

"Oh no, the horror," I responded in jest.

I was surprised, not only did Bella say yes, she had agreed to let Alice plan the wedding. Although I didn't blame her, knowing how relentless Alice could be. It was very hard to say no to her genuine enthusiasm even with years of practice. No doubt old fashioned Edward had probably also been relentless in getting her to agree to the union. It was rare these days, a woman of her age to get married so young.

"Huh," I murmured in question, from what little I knew of Bella, she never struck me as the marriage type. She was also stubborn, very much evident from the meeting she had held with us after the debacle Edward caused a couple months ago.

"What?" Alice reacted to my musing.

"How did he get her to agree?"

She looked at me with a smooth expression, but for a fraction of a second her eyes betrayed her and crinkled with the hint of a smile.

"Oh come on Alice, I'm sure you know."

Alice returned to her attempt at expressionlessness and tried to turn her attention back to the stack of texts and papers.

"Alice you do know, you know everything, almost," I goaded her. I needed to stroke her ego to a certain extent.

"There's a very... human reason behind her decision and that's all I'm going to say…," She quickly changed the subject, "By the way Jazz will want to see you, they're going through some strategy for tomorrow," she hummed, beginning to stick post it notes in random pages.

A very human reason? I decided to let her off easy. It was likely for the best that I did not learn more about this "very human reason".

"And you don't need to be there?" I asked while getting up to brush my windswept hair out with my hands, gathering loose brown curls into an easy bun. I had spent more time on that peak after Embry left, a little stunned at our interaction, and a little unsure of what to think as well.

Alice shook her head no. "I don't want to be there. I feel blind with all those wolves involved." She sniffed at me pointedly, raising a brow, but dropped it, which was very uncharacteristically not nosy of her; it's like we switched places in our conversation today. "Besides he'll clue me in later, and I need a head start on all of this," she motioned at the still growing piles of books and catalogs, "There's so much to do and I only have two months!"

I stifled a grin at Alice's apparent stress, which of course was all a show, she thrived in planning big ostentatious events. It also helped provide a distraction from her lack of vision regarding our future. I watched her frantic hands flip through the piles of books. Alice was anxious. It was not easy for her to live in a definite uncertainty, without being able to see even glimpses of possibilities.

"Two months is plenty enough time for you," I said, opening the door to the hall.

"It's never enough," she called out as I closed the door behind me.

Out of common courtesy and habit I knocked before entering Jasper's office.

Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett surrounded Jasper at his desk where he laid out a detailed map of the clearing and its surrounding area, using an assortment of chess pieces and desk knick knacks as markers. He nodded at me in acknowledgement before continuing to explain his thoughts and strategy.

I joined in with the rest of the family as they listened on, focused, but much more relaxed than the tense atmosphere we had in the week before. Ever since the help of the pack had been secured, the chances of all us surviving had exponentially grown, but that didn't mean Jasper wasn't still tense. Even with a (usually) psychic wife, he wasn't one to take chances. No matter how comfortable in this element he was, I'm sure that this ordeal had reminded him too much of his past. Although in a way I'd guess he was happy to be so essential to the family, with all of us relying on him rather than the other way around as it usually was.

"It'll be fourteen on our side, seven and seven each, since Edward won't be joining us," Jasper said, gesturing to the map. I had probably just missed them leaving to start on Bella's scent trail.

"What's new?" Rosalie quipped, "Like he's ever around when we need him."

I huffed in slight agreement. Not that Rosalie actually cared about Edward's whereabouts, she just couldn't help herself, and she wasn't wrong exactly. I didn't fault him for it, but in a short period of time our family has taken on more risk and faced more dangerous situations than we ever had before, and it was due to one person.

"As if you're any better," she sneered at me.

"What do you mean?" I asked, caught off guard that she had turned her attention at me.

Rose scoffed, "Can you smell yourself? Where have you been?"

I stared back at her, shocked, with nothing of substance to throw back. My mind was blank and my stomach twisted. Rosalie, again, wasn't wrong exactly. What was I doing while my family prepared to protect each other.

"Rosalie," Carlisle tried to appease her, "Please leave Vera be, we are to support whatever decision she makes. As for Edward, he's doing as much as the rest of us, this has been stressful for him as well, perhaps more so for him than the rest of us."

"If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be constantly risking ourselves for a human." She crossed his arms and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Human or not, Bella is our family now, and as a family we protect each other no matter the circumstance." Carlisle nodded at me, echoing the words in my head. He was gentle, but final and with a grimace Rosalie held her tongue.

Emmett wrapped his arms around her waist in an attempt to disrupt the friction, "Come on babe, it'll be fun, we never get to do stuff like this."

She huffed and turned her attention back to Jasper who had waited patiently for their exchange to end.

"Twenty one total? We can take them," Emmett scoffed, a wide smile plastered across his face. He was clearly excited. He only ever had to deal with the occasional stray nomad, never an army of this size.

"Yes, last time Alice checked, they were down to twenty one. If they can control themselves between now and tomorrow, we're going to split it ten and eleven," Jasper answered, motioning to the map. It looked like our coven was represented by an assortment of kings, queens, and bishops. The other seven that were placed in the woods adjacent to the field were all pawns.

"They only have seven?" I wondered out loud as my shock subsided, I remembered ten total from the first night.

"Two of the wolves will stay at the reservation, and one will be with Edward and Bella during the battle to provide a link." Jasper said, brows furrowed as he moved to readjust the pawns to the clearing.

Not to my surprise he didn't relish in working with the wolves. Not that my siblings didn't share his distaste, but it was especially hard for him to provide them with the knowledge necessary to win this battle. Of course I was glad to have an ally, the enemy of our enemy was a friend now, but they were also now more equipped with the skills to kill their original adversary, my family.

Maybe I was just too heavily influenced by Carlisle (the eternal optimist he is), or it was because I was not there for our first encounter with the Quileutes, or perhaps I just had a death wish, but their newfound knowledge didn't particularly bother me. Their very existence was brought upon by the need to protect themselves from danger, from predators, from us. I was never the one to disparage our existence as animals on top of the food chain. We were dangerous. They were too.

"That just leaves more for me," Emmett grinned further, tightening his grip on Rosalie, who couldn't help but smile with him. His genuine enthusiasm was unfortunately infectious.

Jasper quietly chuckled, although his serious expression on his face remained, "We all have to be careful, no matter what we think the outcome looks like. Remember to keep moving, think smart...Emmett."

I curled into one of the old armchairs that Esme planned to reupholster as she dug through piles of folders. Just outside, the sound of the ever flowing creek babbled through the open french doors. Tucked into one of the many acres that surrounded our home, Esme's workshop was a place of comfort.

I tended to not dwell in my immortality. Or at least I rarely did. Tangible things like the lovely homes Esme created for us still awed me. I grew up with very little. Disregarding the worth of her collection, everything was put together with purpose. Warmth. Love.

Esme was as much a mother to me as my own who I still loved as much as I could bear. She did what my mother would have done if she had been around longer. She taught me about beauty; to create, comprehend, and even just how to see for it. I owed everything I had to her.

The afternoon light was soft in this familiar space as it landed on the various antique furniture that lay waiting for Esme's skilled hand. Dust motes swirled around as I inhaled the smell of paint and clay around me, another comfort.

"You know Rosalie is just worried about you right?"

I turned around to respond and Esme was still digging through her different papers and projects.

"Is she?" I considered it. Esme was always the peacemaker.

"She is." She still had her back turned to me. "She's protective of you."

"I'll have to take your word for it then," I said.

I turned back around and stilled, unsure of what to say. There were many moments I felt for Rosalie as a true sister, but there were also moments like today where her piercing glare was directed at me. They were few and far between and I never knew what to do, but wait until she looked elsewhere.

"Are you worried?" I asked.

Esme finally found what she was looking for and walked past me to set a stack of blueprints on her drafting table. She patted the stack and looked at me. "I'm going to need help with these later."

She offered me a small smile that reached her warm eyes and went to sit on the small ottoman next to me.

"Should I be worried?" Esme placed a gentle hand on mine.

"No."

"Are you sure about that?" She smiled again as she quirked her head.

"I don't know," I admitted.

She laughed lightly and grasped my palm, "I'm not worried. If anything, this is an opportunity for you."

I squeezed her hand back in disbelief. "Opportunity? The imprint, is an opportunity? You're not worried? I'm worried. I could be putting the family in danger and I know this and yet I'm still entertaining this whole," I struggled for the word and waved a hand around, "thing. Imprint, or whatever this is. And here we are actually in danger right now and we are discussing…," I recalled the word Bella had used in the clearing, "my soulmate?"

There was a rush in my head as I realized how real this all was. It was absurd.

I tucked my face behind me and pressed into the cushion of the chair. "You should be with yours right now instead of sitting here with me."

"Vera, honey," Esme reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear, "There's so much about you that has changed from when we first met, but one thing has not. Your life, you had been backed into a corner too many times, and instead of finding a way out or fighting back, it's like you make the corner your home. You adapt and adjust, which is in itself not a bad thing, but I want this to be an opportunity for you to not just let something happen, but for you to make a decision."

I clenched my jaw and thought of what my life had been, what it could have been. Esme was right of course, I just never saw it that way. Immortality had its drawbacks, there was definitely something wrong with perpetually being 19. I had been afforded 64 years to remain stagnant.

I needed to start deciding.