A/N: My apologies for continually misspelling Luca's name. Lucca is a town in Italy, where I have actually been lol xx Played about a little with Alistair's history, allowing him to save two members of his family, his father was a Baron, but which is not known. xx

The UK's turn to have place names mentioned, been saving them all for this story xx Alexis

Alistair was bored, he had never really been totally bored before, but he was now! It had all started, to him a handful of years ago. He had felt something change deep within his very soul and he was unsure what it was or what it meant for him. But from that day he started to feel there should be more to his life. He spent less time moving around and settled into renovating his family home. Something he had never been inclined to do before. If he'd really thought about it he might have come to the right conclusion. He was doing something his mother had once called nesting! Alistair was preparing his home for his mate; he just didn't know it yet. He had been on his own for so long and had very few friends, well maybe more like acquaintances really.

He really didn't suffer fools gladly and even less and less as time went by. Some he'd meet and think them to be decent people or vampires, only to be disappointed further down the line. His natural wariness, due to his human father's betrayal always reared its head at times, giving him more insight into what they wanted from him. After a couple of hundred years, he gave up trying altogether, so tired of being let down once again. Not to say he didn't know anyone, he had a network of other vampires he could share information with, just none he'd call true friends, but a couple came close. This was how he managed to gain the reputation of being a grumpy old curmudgeon and with the title; his persona seemed to gain many years! Those who didn't know him thought he was old and that couldn't be further from the truth.

Alistair was perhaps twenty-two or maybe twenty-three, he really didn't remember but it was in that range, no more and no less, he remembered being twenty-one and the party his mother threw. There were even a couple of vampires who called him a friend to others, but he was unaware of it and even less interested. One of these few was Carlisle Cullen, he after only two meetings declared Alistair to be a friend. As the years passed he spoke of him as a great friend, yet Alistair was unaware of the fact. Would he still think so in the future would remain to be seen? Alistair for his part thought Carlisle to be a pompous arse! The diet was one thing, but living as a human was another and to his mind totally ridiculous. Why would any sane vampire wish to act like a human?

It could gain you nothing; it would also have you curtail everything that denoted you as more! Yes, it was a bit of a bugger, finding yourself changed into what the humans saw as demons. But as the years passed it wasn't all bad, you could go anywhere, and learn everything you ever wanted. You could stand vigil over your family for all time, helping, guarding and quietly guiding too. All this while avoiding those damn fools in Italy, the self-proclaimed rulers of the vampire world! Alistair held no such loyalty to them and had refused on more than one occasion to work for them. It was much easier to avoid them in the beginning but became slightly more annoying once he had met Demetri. He was proclaimed the vampire world's best tracker, but that title if he'd ever wanted it, belonged to Alistair.

Whereas Demetri needed to meet you or just see you to get your essence locked into his mind, Alistair could find anyone or anything. This by touching something you had once regularly touched, once owned or if finding something you'd lost by touching you! So that was why the Volturi wanted him, he was not just the best, but the ultimate tracker. Demetri for his part rarely looked very hard for Alistair; he didn't want to be replaced, to be second best. Thus maybe once every ten years Aro would demand Demetri look for him and Alistair evaded their team every time. In his home, Alistair had a room which held items which once belonged to whom he saw as his enemies and he scanned over them every month making sure everyone was where they should be.

If they were untraceable he knew they were dead and he sold the object. One of the reasons he liked to be alone was the touching aspect of his gift. Just shaking hands with someone filled his mind with lost objects, lost loves, and lost friends. So much so that it wore him down. He had resigned himself to being alone for eternity and he had made what peace he could with this fact. Did he wish it was otherwise, hell yes, of course! But he felt this was his lot in this second life and had learned to accept it as so. Alistair had no idea that his future and his past would be crashing in on his semi-peaceful life within the next year or so. He just continues his renovations and doing the tour of his relatives, or was that his descendants. They had over the centuries spread across two of the four nations that make up the United Kingdom.

From the Isle of Skye, off the coast of Scotland to London, England's capital. He found it strange they neither ventured neither to Wales nor across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland. Not even Eire, which was now the independent part of Ireland! They were all truly beautiful in their own ways and he had spent time in all of them. Visiting occasionally with Liam and Siobhan in the beginning. But less and less when they tried to pressure him into being with Maggie. She was a nice enough girl, pretty too, but not his mate and he would never have moved in with them permanently as they wanted. There was still a large coven in London, the very ones who changed Carlisle Cullen. Why he didn't stay with them is a matter of speculation, but Alistair thought it was all about status, wealth and Carlisle's snobbery, but each to their own!

Alistair was the only nomad in the British Isles, but there were others in groups of two or three like the Irish Coven spread over the two largest Islands and some on the smaller ones too. He knew of a group of four on the Shetlands, but they were more Norwegian than Scottish. He had approached the group from the Inner and Outer Hebrides, as he had family in Portree on Skye. They, it turned out were basically animal drinkers, due to the abundance of wildlife. But still having the odd tourist as a treat now and then. Alistair had tried it in times of hardship but found the diet lacking and much less filling. He could go for almost a month between feeds, unlike animal drinkers who went hunting twice weekly. There were enough criminals for him and he rarely crossed paths with the other groups.

But let them know when he was in their areas as they did when near his in Exeter. Things had changed greatly since his death in the year of our Lord, thirteen hundred and nine, during the reign of Edward II. But unlike many Alistair had managed to adapt to each new era, following the humans changing styles and stopping himself from standing out in a rainy day crowd. His one and only tie to the past were his Falcons; he had bred them for centuries now and was mainly responsible for their continued presence in the UK. He had had to breed out the nervousness around his kind for his own hunting birds, but the others were as wary of him as they were humans.

He had worked so hard on the bloodlines, making his the strongest, fastest and most sought after. They more than anything were his solace over the many years of his vampire life. But very few knew these facts about the reserved and irascible Alistair, while his father the once Earl of Devon and older brother had been playing with fire in the political arena, he spent all his time with the falcons. Thus when his brother was executed for treason, his father sought to use Alistair as a vampire in his bid for power. But it all went wrong; Alistair accidentally killed the fool in a newborn vampire rage and then spent years trying to rescue his family from George or Astaroth, Prince of Hell as he dubbed himself. He was his sire to whom his father had sold them as payment for Alistair's change.

In the end, he only managed to free two, his youngest sister and brother and the rest as they say is history and it is their families he watches over through the generations. A whole family was ruined by one greedy man's fantasy and jealousy of his neighbour the then Duke of Cornwall. They lost everything, they became undesirables and with it went the titles and lands as they were wiped from the annuls of history. All that was left was his mother's ancestral home, which he purchased many years later and rebuilt to its former glory. Opening his Falconry and using that to start to make money for himself.

HLMWAINS

It wasn't until the moment it happened that the three, unknown to them former Cullens realised something was very wrong. The sudden movement of air and each feeling a tug at their neck or wrist. Before them stood Esme with their crests in her hand before she crushed them to dust in front of their eyes.

"Edward Masen, Rosalie Hale and Alice Brandon! You are all no longer members of the Olympic Coven.

I want all of you out of my house within the hour. You may each take one car, plus any personal items bought with your own money.

Oh, I forgot none of you ever worked or made any money, you just spent what other vampires made! Rosalie, you have a house in Rochester, Edward you have yours in Chicago and Alice, Jasper has generously given you the house in Biloxi, and it was too gaudy for his taste.

We will give you one million each and that's it, your old accounts are closed and new ones in your former names are being opened for you. I have already taken the liberty of removing all items either bought by us, Emmett or Jasper from your rooms!

I'm not heartless unlike you three, so Rosalie take your tools you may need them to survive. Edward you can take your music collection, you might want to sell it and Alice your original clothes collection, the ones you arrived with are vintage now, so they are probably worth selling!

Jenks will send on all and any paperwork to your homes!" Esme said in a cold and deadly tone they had never heard before,

Of course, Edward thought he could argue the point, that Carlisle would never do that to him! Only to look up and see Carlisle looking at him with loathing and disgust in his eyes and mind!

"You all disgust me! I stupidly trusted you, I believed in each one of you and this is how you repay Esme and me! Get out of my mate's home, I never want to see or hear from any of you again.

Don't make me call Volterra and tell Aro you are all free agents! Because I will Edward if you think to do anything in revenge. We've had enough of your usual stupid, infantile and petty behaviour!" Carlisle growled before turning and walking away,

That's when it all began to sink in; they were mateless, covenless nobodies due to their own greed and arrogance. Rose, of course, started to sob but was ignored and eventually told to shut up by Alice. She could see nothing because nobody was making any decisions beyond those just laid out by Esme.

"All my jewellery that Emmett bought me?" Rose wailed from her room,

"I will sell it all and return to him the proceeds. After all, he's not your mate so why should he have had to support you? This is his recompense for all those wasted years!" Esme sneered at her and Rose quailed,

Alice had the good sense to say nothing about her bag and shoe collection that Jasper paid for! Edward was fuming, but being a natural-born coward he said nothing to Carlisle's insult. But he was starting to plan some kind of revenge on him, not taking the warning to heart. He didn't seem to realise the Volturi wouldn't bat an eyelid if Carlisle terminated him today, he was his sire and it was his right to destroy him if he refused to follow the laws they, the vampire rulers had set forth! For a boy who can read every thought, he is rather picky about the ones he takes onboard. Usually, the wrong ones or ones that would advance his desires and not the most important. Life for him will be a struggle now, going from golden child to black sheep in the matter of one day!

All three had at least worked out that going to Alaska would garner them no help, knowing they would be turned away. If you have been abandoned by your coven, then your crime must be severe. Maybe not enough for death, but enough to be shunned! All three were going to find life outside the protection Carlisle had given them tough. With no one to fall back on Edward best learn to keep his mouth shut and his nose out of other's business. Rose's life of playing the princess is over; she's just another pretty face out there in the real vampire world. As for Alice, her flawed gift will not be so highly praised out there, seers were common and most saw more than she ever would or could. Yes, these three big-headed nobodies were in for a surprise.

They knew nothing about being real vampires and it would be a long and arduous route for them, if they are lucky they might find their mates, but they will never again have the life they had as a Cullen. But it could be the makings of them all, but I wouldn't hold your breath, one or more might just fuck it all up!

HLMWAINS

Alistair had been doing his six monthly rounds of his relatives. His first stop was Wellington, in Somerset the next county over. He saw them most often and a new baby was due there any day, so another generation was about to commence. Then on into Hampshire, first to Southampton and then up north to Basingstoke. His next stop should have been London, but he was leaving it until later as he needed to pick up stuff for the house, well the Manor actually. Now he was heading for Woodbridge, in Suffolk right over on the east coast of England. He was sad about this branch as they were about to die out because not enough children had been born over the years and now only three were left, the elderly parents and a childless son who cared for them.

The next leg was practically up the middle starting in Milton Keynes, in Buckinghamshire. He had even gone to *Bletchley Park near there when it opened to the public. In fact, there probably weren't any public and some private places Alistair hadn't been, well all but one! He wanted to go to the Happy Potter Experience, at Leavesden, but didn't want to go alone, it didn't feel like something you'd do alone, so he'd put it off every year. He had really enjoyed the books and the movies too. Liking the idea of magic and of course, dragons, he knew vampires and werewolves were real naturally. Alistair tried to keep abreast of the times, just in case he got caught in a conversation with a human or worse a human child! He had, had to learn to live side by side with them and as the UK wasn't big.

But for all that it was fairly densely populated in some areas, so it happened to him quite often. He was remembering several instances as he ran on towards Leicester in the East Midlands. It was the innate fear that he disliked because over the years he really had met a few good men, but they feared him too much to be anything more than acquaintances. Though he had a couple that he wrote back and forth with, in the days when penning an epistle was de rigueur and that helped him from being too lonely as the centuries passed and it was one of the things that helped him fit in more around humans. The weather being the other, more than your fair share of rain stopped him from being cooped up inside for great lengths of time. Those that thought Alistair to be a recluse couldn't be further from the truth. It wasn't people or vampires he didn't like just arseholes!

Most of Alistair's stops were quite fleeting, just checking in on them. He was so attuned to each family, he knew if anything had changed. So it was time to head for Winsford in Cheshire, he had planned this one to be in time to see the latest wedding taking place. Both his brother and sister had been given a new surname, but each was raised by a different family who were well paid by Alistair and they knew he was watching and would take offence if they were ill-treated. He couldn't chance them being raised together least someone make the connection to him or George find them. He himself had never used or spoken his late father's name since his change. When he needed a name it was an easy choice, he reinvented himself as Alistair *Falconer and that was the name he gave his siblings too.

He was happy to stay in the area for a while watching everyone enjoy themselves and celebrate with the young couple. It was at moments like this Alistair felt he belonged somewhere to someone even if they didn't know it. He could fit in at the reception, claiming to be a distant relation to the groom. After all, there was a distinct likeness between the two.

HLMWAINS

"Carlisle, sweetheart would you like to go to the island? Maybe a trip back to England would help you put this all into perspective!" Esme asked her unhappy mate,

She was so angry with those three; because of them, he blames himself for their behaviour. It wasn't his teaching at fault it was their inability to learn; it was they who couldn't see what was right from what was truly wrong! He just stared out the window barely listening to his mate.

"Stop this Carlisle! Why should you carry the weight of their failure on your shoulders?" Esme demanded, hoping to shake him out of the morose mood he was in,

"It's not as if it was just one I failed, but three! So I must have let them down" he murmured,

"Two Carlisle, Alice is not your creation! She above all should have known should have seen. But those two were not your only changelings, Emmett and I heard you, listened to you, we still believe in you!" Esme whispered, making him look at her,

"Oh, my love. Yes, you are right, they failed us, not the other way around and I can't live on what ifs can I, it's not fair to you? We can go to England and maybe Italy too and then to the island for a break. I want to be the one to tell Aro, I know Edward will do something stupid eventually!" he said gathering his mate in his arms,

Esme sighed; this was the Carlisle she wanted, the strong dependable one. It would be a hard road, but she was sure they could come out the other side stronger and she swore nobody would hurt her mate again as that selfish boy had. Yes, she blamed all of this on him and for roping in the other two! He would have used whatever he saw in Alice's head to convince both her and Rose his way was best! But Edward was only ever interested in what was best for him. He might have pulled the wool over their eyes including Carlisle, but he had never quite managed to fool Esme, Emmett and most certainly not Jasper. Although she knew instead of avoiding his machinations for all these years, they should have called him out on them every time. Ah, well, as they say, you live and learn!

All the way across the country Emmett and Jasper had now reached Peter's place. But Emmett had no intention of staying too long, he had plans. But needed Peter's advice about investments and just wanted to relax and unwind for a few weeks. He was fully enjoying the drama-free life here, well except for when Peter got on Charlotte's nerves and she chased him around the homestead waving a cast iron frying pan at him. What on earth did she need a frying pan for?

"Goddamnit, Char! That hurts suga', I asked you not to do that to me" Peter whined as we heard the ringing of metal hitting stone,

"It doesn't really hurt as much as sends a ringin' sound throughout your whole body. It's very disorientin' let me tell ya. Sets your teeth on edge too!" Jasper says shuddering beside me,

I laugh since he's obviously talking from experience. That reminds me, Char asked me to do something in the barn for her earlier; I'll just get right on to that now I think.

HLMWAINS

Alistair was debating where to go next, when he had a feeling, one he'd had before and that decided him. I was like a tingle, then his gift kicked in and he knew which relative needed him now. The only way he could understand it was they were part of him, his family. So instead of touching someone else, his gift touched himself, his mind and he knew he was about to lose someone. He knew she was getting on in years and it wasn't unexpected by him or anyone else. Alistair hurried off, bypassing several of his stops to reach Martha. West he kept running west, ignoring all social norms as he flung himself into the water and started to swim. It was a short one but far faster than the ferry from the mainland. Running full tilt across the rugged landscape of Skye, Alistair saw none of it, intent on reaching Portree as quickly as possible.

"Callum, she's calling out to nobody! What should we do?" a young woman said as Alistair stared down from the roof of their home,

"Leave her be Mona, maybe she sees grandpa, It matters not" Callum replied pulling her away from his grandma's room,

"Are you there? Is it you? Are you my Falconer?" Martha whispered in a raspy voice,

Alistair although shocked, dropped silently into the room. Moving slowly forward towards the bed. He had a gentle smile on his face, as did she.

"Hello Martha, I didn't think you would remember me, you were but a babe when last we met," Alistair said bowing low over her hand and placing a kiss there,

"You were a most memorable young man and still as handsome, just like my John, God rest his soul" she replied a little breathless,

"Are you ready to meet him again Martha? It's been many a year since his passing" Alistair asked, but knew she was at peace with death, her imminent death,

"Yes, I'm ready and happy knowing you are here to watch over the family when I'm gone. How long have you been our watcher Falconer?" Martha quizzed,

"Ah, a long, long time. Since the thirteen hundreds and it's Alistair, Martha" he said with a sigh,

"Do you have someone to watch over you, Alistair? It's wrong to be alone for so long, you have been here for us. It's high time you were watched over!" Martha told him as her eyes fluttered shut,

"Oh, I wish there was" Alistair whispered and Martha's eyes shot open,

"Watch out for a Dark Swan, Alistair!" she stated before slipping away completely.

*Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. A British government cryptological establishment in operation during WW II. Where Alan Turing and other agents of the Ultra intelligence project decoded the enemy's secret messages, most notably those that had been encrypted with the German Enigma and Tunny cipher machines.

* Falconer Name Meaning Scottish: derived from (Old French fau(l)connier) an occupational name for someone who kept and trained falcons (a common feudal service).