Shahrazád's Ghosts


Chapter 34: Darling (Bella) Part X


"I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,

To die upon the hand I love so well."

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2, Scene 1

William Shakespeare


2416 AD


Aro was too wise to allow Darling anywhere near his fortress in Volterra. She was not a willing subject and he did not want to discover just what chaos her shield could unleash within his guard, if given the motivation and opportunity. She would have gladly given him a demonstration, but her little displays during the helicopter ride to Volterra had been enough to keep her far outside the Volturi headquarters.

By the layers of steel and lead past the rock walls of her underground prison, she assumed it had once been built as a bomb shelter, but it happened to work conveniently well as a holding cell for vampires so unfortunate as to fall out of the Volturi's good graces. Aro had allowed a mockery of furnishings – much too fine for prisoners – but in indulgence to John's insistence that she be "treated like a queen." Cut off from all sunlight and the outside world, Darling was trapped with no company other than whichever minions the Volturi chose to send them and her "mate".

She was reminded, far too precisely, of Peter's critique of her treatment of Tiger Lily. No matter how many fancy dresses or fine furnishings she had been given, Tiger Lily remained trapped. She was a pawn in the larger workings of a game she did not even know she was playing. Darling may know the rules and her place on the chessboard, but it was not enough to ensure her victory.

Her original plan would have led to a quick and relatively painless victory with a direct confrontation. After a single battle, it would have all been over. John's actions had ensured that her battle was forced into the shadows and the background. She could still overthrow the Volturi, but it would take decades – centuries, even- and require a far greater expenditure of sacrifice on her part.

Aro did not bother with her, as long as "Master Pan" produced the results he wanted. Unfortunately, "Master Pan" did not always bear the fruit Aro wished for. It was Darling who had to deal with Aro's loss of temper. It was Darling who had to deal with the arrogant rants, undeterred advances, and constant attentions of "Master Pan" and she warned him, every time, that if he couldn't keep his arms to himself, then he wouldn't retain the privilege of keeping them. Really, she should have just taken his head and been done with it, but that would displease Aro.

"Not again. My Lady, can I have my arms back?" John asked.

Internally, Darling sighed. She rather hoped he would remain unconscious longer. Darling did not bother to look up from the book on her lap. "No."

John's answer was more of a whine than a groan. She turned a page and ignored him. She heard him struggle against the ropes binding him to the top of the table. Without arms, he didn't have much success.

"Will you at least untie me?"

"No."

He sighed. With a bit of maneuvering, he was able to topple the table forward. Ungracefully, he ended up standing upright with the table still bound to his back. His ankles, knees, and thighs were also tied firmly together so his following attempts at self-propelled movements ranged from a waddle to a hop.

Darling turned another page of her book. From the corner of her eye, she saw him consider smashing the table against the wall.

"Just think of all the creative ways I could use splintered wood, if you break my table," she said. "I'm surprised your master permitted you flammable substances in your 'guest chambers' at all. He must have greater trust in your sense of self-preservation than is really warranted."

John used all the limited range of motion his ankles provided him to fight against the ropes. They snapped easily and he moved on to his knees.

"What's holding you back. Go ahead and kill me."

"Oh, John, you would like that, wouldn't you?" she said. She put her book down on her lap and finally looked up to make eye contact with him. She allowed a wry grin to spread across her face. "Death is easy. It's living that is hard. I won't be the one to kill you."

"You are just going to make me as miserable as possible so that I wish to die."

"No, John. You are going to make yourself as miserable as possible so that you wish to die. It's you who has put yourself into an impossible situation." She set the book down on the small table before her to fix her attention only on him. "It's you who insisted on making promises to Aro that you cannot hope to fulfill."

John's eyes widened and he looked around the room. Neatly stacked against one wall was a tower of emptied black bottles, each balanced precariously against the others. Then his eyes travelled to the crates where his medicine had once been stored. They were empty.

"What have you done?" he asked, sudden terror flooding his face.

Darling snorted. She had considered dumping out his stockpile, more than once, during his various binges, but it had been easier to let him drink himself into oblivion than deal with him once he woke to find his wine gone. Besides, as long as he remained in Aro's good graces, the Volturi lord was only too happy to give him what he asked for.

Aro had been inconvenienced one too many times by John's "indisposition" and decided, rather dramatically, that he had had enough. It was unfortunate, really. Aro wished to find Master Pan conscious each time he arrived and he had much greater luck striking bargains with John's alter ego than John himself. However, Darling could not abide Master Pan, so if he chose to drink, she determined that he would not remain conscious any longer than she could help it. Thus, the wishes of Aro and Darling were at an impasse, as they usually were. Except it was Darling who would win. She made sure she would always win.

This time, Aro flew into a rage and emptied all John's crates of their medicine. He left regular bottled human blood for both John and Darling and promised to return in a week. It was another way of punishing Darling – Aro delighted in forcing her to drink human blood just as much as John had done. Thankfully, it was no longer Pirate blood, but that was only a marginal improvement. Knowing how Aro gloried in stealing away her will, her choice to do anything but what he wanted, sucked all the possible enjoyment she might have gained from her meals. Each time she saw Aro's smug appreciation of her red eyes, she internally cringed.

"I haven't done anything," Darling answered, "except read through all your books."

John closed his eyes and leaned back against the table, balancing it against the wall so it would support him. "What did I do this time?"

"Oh, you promised your master the technology to reproduce his guard. You were very confident that it would not take you more than a few months."

"What's the problem? You used to create clones all the time?"

Darling rolled her eyes. "Yes. I used to make clones – not you. Tell me, what do you know of creating an entirely new individual that has never been made before?"

"So, you don't want to share your secrets and I promised that you would," John surmised. "That's easy enough. We can just have you do the initial blueprint and gene replication here and then you send him the prototype for growth and mass production in Volterra. Just like we did in Neverland. As long as you give him what he wants, you can keep your secrets."

"The problem, John, is that even if I were to share all my secrets with you, you still could not fulfill your promises to Aro. Your promises were based on assumptions and not on reality. Aro wants Jane. He wants me. He wants Alec. Aro wants to clone vampires. Not even I know the secret of cloning vampires."

"You knew how to make more Braves… and Tiger Lilies…," John began, but Darling interrupted him.

"From human DNA. Aro can have all the Pirates he wants. He can have as many humans as he wants. He doesn't want humans. I have only ever succeeded at resurrecting humans – or vampires who have some fragment of their human DNA in their possession."

"Oh," John said. "I never knew that."

"Of course, you didn't, but like an imbecile, you promised Aro you could make it happen. Now, he will only give your wine back when you have produced his desired results."

John closed his eyes and let even more of his weight sink into the table. "I've signed my own death warrant."

"Oh, death is too easy for you. Aro will assume you are intentionally holding back information and will torture you till he gets his way."

"We can delay it, for a while at least," John said. "Clone the ones you can… you can flood him with Pirates and Tiger Lilies and any other guard member you can. That should buy us a few years, right?"

"It is only postponing the inevitable. I doubt Aro wants for more Braves. I can no longer make Tiger Lilies."

"Why not?"

"My human DNA has been destroyed. All of it."

John whistled.

"Lucky for you, he also wants singers so he can bribe his guard. We can start there. It will give us at least five years or so."

"Five years? How long before Aro will give me back my wine?"

Darling shrugged.

"It's going to be a very long five years," John said, to himself more than to Darling.

She agreed.

Oooooo


"They are coming. Aro Caius, and two others," John told her later that day. He had barely spoken since he woke and his mood had not improved.

"Can you tell what they want?"

"Aro is conducting tests," John grit out through a deepening frown. "He wants to know if the mating bond is stronger than the call of singer's blood. He wants to test our bond."

She nodded. She rose from the chair and walked across the room until she stood directly across from the little window.

"Come here," she commanded.

"Why?"

She didn't explain. She waited till, with a sigh, he obeyed. When he was close enough for her to reach, she grasped his shoulders and shoved him up against the wall and so fiercely kissed him that he gasped as if she had struck him with her fist instead of her lips. With the sound of tearing fabric, she ripped a hole in the back of her dress so her bare skin was exposed to the sight of the window. Then she set his hands on her hips. He did not respond. He was still frozen beneath her when they were interrupted by the sound of the window opening. John tried to pull away, but she did not stop or even turn around, despite the sound of Aro clearing his throat or Caius' hiss of disapproval.

"Oh, please, do not bother stopping," Caius quipped with irritation plain in his voice. "It is only us."

"I do so hate to interrupt, but we have some business to discuss with you," Aro added.

She felt John's head swerve away from her, but her hand on his chin firmly kept his face fixed on her rather than their visitors. He stopped fighting, closed his eyes, and sighed.

"What do you want, Aro?" he asked, when Darling moved on to his neck rather than his face.

Aro and Caius flooded him with a series of inquiries, none of which were vital and all that belied their true purpose in coming. When they were finally gone, Darling released John immediately and placed half a room between them. She went to the sink to wash her face, casting an obviously derisive glare over at where John stood, still ramrod straight and unmoved from where she left him. She changed into an unblemished dress and then collapsed on the couch, as if she had never left it. She returned to her book without a word.

After a few moments, John let out a disgruntled cry and let his head fall into his hands.

"You are cruel, my Lady," he said.

"It's you who told Aro we are mates."

"You don't have to pretend."

"Don't I?"

"They already think I'm a lunatic… hell, I already think I'm a lunatic. You, on the other hand, take sick enjoyment out of my intentional torment. Is it any wonder I would rather spend my days out of my mind than have to endure your cruelty?"

"You deserve all of it," she said, though the weakness of her voice drew some of the poison from the statement.

"Do I? Has my anguish been enough to ease your own? How much more must I endure before it is enough for you? You hated me from the moment I first realized I was in love with you. Is that truly such a crime? Do you hate yourself so much that you would punish anyone who claims to love you?" John's eyes were wide and pleading, his fists tight against his chest, which heaved with the emotion he allowed to burst forth.

She wanted to tell him he was wrong, while all the while knowing he was right. It hadn't satisfied. It would never be enough. The more she sought to spill her anger and pain onto others, the more it overflowed and washed right back onto her, only increasing the misery of all. Her sire would never feel it. He was not turning over in his ashen grave somewhere, decrying all the worst of his decisions simply because of Darling's revenge-soaked hands. John's pain did not even solve Peter's. It only made him, and Darling, more miserable.

She tried to glare at him but the look of pure devastation on his face was enough to evaporate her anger. She closed her eyes instead and thought about his words. His words were so reminiscent of what Peter had once said of her that she was struck with a penetrating sense of guilt.

"I cannot bear it," she finally said. "Being second best, I mean. In all the days I have lived, there has only been one of you who has loved my life more than my blood. There has only been one who has refused to replace me with another. In his eyes, I am precious. I hated you because I was afraid and it was safer than the alternative."

John sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I haven't done much to prove myself, either."

"Not particularly."

"Aro plans to check on me every few days to see how I progress without my wine. He wants to know just how desperate I will grow for more. He is rather hoping my thirst will be stronger than the mating bond because the mating bond has proved very inconvenient for him, at times."

Darling grimaced and turned away from him.

"You agree with him," John said, carefully watching her expression. "You believe I'd sell out my mate for wine."

"You already did," she answered.

By the sharp jab of pain that crossed his face, she knew he had been about to argue with her but her words had stopped him short. She couldn't handle his professions of adoration any more than she could his remonstrations against her for wronging him. Instead of defending himself, he went quiet.

"Did you ever, even once, consider gaining our allegiance through plain loyalty? You know, maybe explaining who the Volturi are and why they should be overthrown?" John asked.

"You mean appealing to your rationality and better judgement?"

"Yes."

She laughed, a harsh, brittle sound even to her own ears. "You are presuming you have rationality and better judgement."

By his slightly wounded, exasperated expression she sobered. "John, when is the allegiance between any copy of you and any copy of me ever directed by rationality? We are a flame and powder, fire and water. When we are placed together, rationality flees and all that remains is an explosion, flames, and ashes."

"You have a point. I suppose, if it were anybody else, it might have worked."

"If it were anybody else, we wouldn't be here now, like this."

"True," he answered. "My Lady, far be it from me to criticize, but I think you need to reevaluate your methods of persuasion. Otherwise, I don't think I can survive you."

"You are right. I never tried to develop any other ways of exerting my influence. It is probably time I learned something new."

He barked a laugh. "What was that? I am right about something? I believe all Neverland just froze over."

"Don't let it go to your already overinflated head."

"How could it when I have you to keep me so very humble?"

"About that… while we are being honest… I think you need to reevaluate your coping mechanisms. If I ever have to spend another week with 'Master Pan' again, I might not give you back your arms."

"Fair enough. If Aro is to be believed, we both will have seen the last of 'Master Pan' for the time being. I know, I know, we will both miss him terribly and dream of him every moment of the day. However, for us each to work on our many weaknesses, it might just be for the best if he stays away."

Darling rolled her eyes at John's sheepish grin but that only made his grin grow wider. Then he grew serious again. "My Lady…," he began.

"Darling," she interrupted. "Call me Darling."

He tilted his head to one side and considered her. "Fine. Darling, I am not asking for you to like me. I am not even asking you to stop hating me. I have made my mistakes and they are many. I am not denying my weaknesses, either. However, I am still a man. I have a heart and soul. Don't treat me as a whetting stone for your anger or as the scapegoat for all your problems. I'm more than happy to own up to my mistakes, but there's something seriously wrong with you delighting in my anguish as much as you do."

She gave a long sigh and closed her eyes for a moment before she finally nodded. "I'll try."

She didn't speak again. Her shield did not fall. She gave him the gift of silence and for once, that was enough. He could not find his reprieve in the bottom of a bottle and so he sought it in the pages of a book instead. She did not approach him and he stayed away from her. They each fell into the sanctity of their own minds and let an unsteady peace marinate between them, for the moment.

Oooooo

Five days later, John's hands shook so hard he could no longer hold a book. He paced constantly, back and forth, along the floor of their shared prison. His thoughts were obviously turbulent, but he did not share them. Darling tried to ignore him, but she knew, the longer he went without his wine, the harder it would be to ignore him. Already, his eyes were darkening as quickly as her own and no deliveries of rations had come.

"My Lady?" he asked, stopping before where she sat, now on the armchair.

"What is it?"

He ran his hand through his short hair and then let it fall to cross over his chest and rest on his shoulder. "I need your help." He took a deep breath and failed to meet her eyes. "You, Aro, you are both fighting for my loyalty and I can only choose one side. Please, believe me when I say I want to choose your side. However, when my thirst grows, I don't know what I will do… fine, I don't want to know what I will do. I just… promise me, you will help."

She arched one eyebrow in response. "How am I supposed to help?"

"If Aro comes to test me, shield me. Flood my mind with thoughts of anything else. Remove my arms and tie me to the table again. Take my whole damn head if you need to."

With John's access to medicine entirely cut off, the mental and physical torment he endured was worse than anything the Volturi could concoct. Darling had to watch as he cried and pleaded and cursed at her like a wounded animal. He threw himself against the walls of his cell in agony and spent weeks rolling on the floor. He could not complete a sentence or a thought without his mind fracturing halfway through and he did not once remember to change his clothes or bathe. He did not seem to even notice that that Darling was even in the cell with him. He was trapped within the murky misery of his own mind and that was all that existed.

Aro watched his deterioration with a morbid fascination. It wasn't enough to watch through the window. He insisted on entering into their prison cell himself and testing John on a regular basis.

"Now, Master Pan, I have a proposition for you," Aro said, during his second observation. John's eyes were as black as pitch by then, but he refused any of the regular blood Aro brought. He huddled in a ball in the corner of the room and did not answer any of Aro's questions, mental or verbal. "I am willing to bring you as many bottles of your singer's blood as your heart desires…" Aro said, with all the temptation of the devil himself.

John whirled around so fast he knocked over a table and his dark eyes fixed on Aro. Darling could almost see the venom pooling in his mouth.

"There is one condition, of course," Aro continued. "I will grant you one bottle for each limb or appendage you remove from your mate."

John's eyes grew as wide as saucers and he swiveled his head between Darling and Aro. Yet, his answer was directed not at Aro, but Darling.

"Please," was all he said and he did not look away from her.

She understood. She covered him with her shield to drown out whatever poisonous promises Aro was dangling before him. Then she opened up her own mind. Without any other inspiration, she began to fill her mind with the words of the story she knew better than any other. Her own imagination provided the illustrations, full of colors and shapes and fantastical pictures.

"All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this..."

John closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. He did not move or make another sound. Aro watched in morbid fascination for a time after his successive bribes fell onto deaf ears. He could not rouse Master Pan again and so he left them in peace.

Darling recited the entire story twice through before she let her shield fall back into place. His dark eyes left their corner to meet hers and his quaking, quivering hand extended towards hers. She allowed him to take her hand in his.

"Thank you, Darling," he whispered. He placed a kiss on her palm. Then he hid himself back in the confines of his misery and did not speak again.

ooooo


For nearly three months, he was like a rabid, feral creature, without sense and without purpose, and Darling could not escape her role as unwilling observer of it all. She wished she could despise him for it, but the more he suffered, the more she only hated herself. He was, after all, her creation, and it was she who first put a cup of medicine in his hands.

But John had never lived exclusively on medicine. Save for the brief interlude during Darling's captivity and their few months with the Volturi after, he had never been able to engorge himself to the utmost without restriction. This, she credited, for preserving his sanity. After three months without a drop of medicine, he began to gradually quiet. He could still ingest regular blood and after a few months of appropriate rations, his strength and sense returned to him. She would have never believed it to be possible, without seeing it herself.

Sometimes, Darling read out loud to him - both to pass the time and help him concentrate on something other than his thirst. She quickly discovered that John had been an avid reader. When she read through each of his books four times, he began to recite others from memory. His taste in books quickly expanded her own.

They fell into an uneasy truce, of sorts. They didn't really have a choice. Trapped in an underground prison cell with the other ensured they had to either forge some kind of peace or continue in unendurable hostility. They were both caught in the same fate, with the same enemies, and so circumstances alone forced them together.

It probably helped that Darling ceased goading his weaknesses with her mind or body. She let him live his days in tolerable peace, as an ally rather than an enemy. In return, he did not invade the quiet spaces she wrapped around herself. He rarely sought her out with his eyes or words and he did not resurrect the long-simmering thorn of the mating bond. They simply existed in the same prison together.

Sometimes, she wished it was Peter trapped with her instead. She missed her mate so much her very bones ached with it and not a moment went by that she didn't wish to be reunited with him again. The thought of him was all the motivation she needed to make sure she lived through this till the end, whatever that end entailed, but the separation hurt worse than having a limb removed.

Despite her past mistreatment and utter rejection, John proved as loyal as a golden retriever, though he received nothing from her in return. He was even helpful, or at least his gift was. He could tell her everything that he could glean about the happenings around Volterra and among the guard. He would also warn her the true motivations and unfiltered thoughts of those who came to seek her out. Begrudgingly, she came to realize she was better off with him than she would have been alone.

More often, she was thankful all over again that it was John and not Peter with her. John's cynicism, his acceptance of the worst of people, and his own blatant pursuit of his own self-interest proved better suited for the harsh environs of Volterra. She didn't want to see what Peter would have had to endure in his stead. Peter was safe, at least she hoped he was still safe, and that was more than she and John could hope for.

Through John's gift, they could glean bits and pieces of news from the outside world. The blood reproduction plant inside Volterra grew and flourished until they were producing more blood than even their own guard could consume. It was needed, for Darling's army proved to be very thirsty, and they soon required full-time blood production to keep up with the demand.

"They are a sight to behold!" Caius informed Aro, once he had assessed their capabilities for himself. "An army of telepaths, each trained in the art of vampiric war! An army completely in tune with the mental commands of their master and able to coordinate their movements in perfect harmony with each other! With a single thought of their singer's blood, they obey my every command without question. With such a force, none in the vampire world could hope to ever cross us!"

Caius preferred to keep the Braves far, far from Volterra. They were stationed on the uninhabited Norwegian island of Kvitøya, deep under the ice in a series of glacial caves. They were far too isolated to be discovered and, in the absence of their Lady's protection, they were easily controlled by more traditional Volturi gifts.

Aro began to plot which of his enemies (and allies) he would attack first. And the news of Neverland, and Darling's, defeat spread across the vampire world.

Aro could not resist the temptation of her army or the call of singers' wine. Most importantly, and more alluring than both army and wine, was his unquenchable lust for power. One victory would never be enough. His guard could never be strong enough, powerful enough, to satiate his desires. His influence could never be sure enough. No, he wanted all Neverland's secrets to be his. He would not relent until the secret to true immortality was his…and he had broken the restraints of fragile individuality forever. He would have the secret to cloning. He would continue to reach for more than was within his grasp - until he destroyed everything he had worked so hard to build.

At first, Darling resisted, simply to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible. When Aro began to resort to more creative means of persuasion, she relented and gave him a trail of breadcrumbs. She did not give the Volturi the secret to cloning, but she agreed to reproduce certain individuals herself. She conducted the basic genetic mimicry from her prison cell and then allowed the clone to grow in the generation tanks on Volterra.

This had always been a lengthy process. Without her there in person to oversee the process from beginning to end, it was even more complicated. She knew it was only a matter of time before Aro insisted on prying all her secrets from her mind.

Aro was pacified by her production of a small handful of humans each year. The only humans who grew in those tanks of water were replicas of someone or another's singers. Once such individuals were cloned and their blood added to the library, it could be replicated in whatever quantities desired. Aro didn't mind this so much, as it made his guards very happy and more than ready to comply with his demands, but he wanted more than human singers. He wanted replicas of his guards.

"What good is it to create humans? We cannot know what gifts they have! I want Jane! I want Alec!"

"I can't do that," Darling insisted.

"Can't – or won't?" Aro said. "Perhaps you need more motivation."

"You can send all the motivation in the world. What you are asking is impossible."

He fell into a fury and he refused to send them any rations for nearly two months. Their eyes were so black by the time they finally drank that they could barely keep hold of their sanity or remember their own names. When Darling's answer remained unchanged, Aro decided he had waited long enough.

"Take her mate," Aro said to his guards. "Darling, I suggest you discover the means to clone vampires…immediately. I cannot be held responsible for how much remains…or does not remain… of your mate if you tarry… or fail."

Ooooo


Her prison cell became all the more barren when she found herself its sole occupant. She may not have liked John, but five years locked in a prison together forced her to come to a begrudging appreciation of him. Without his companionship, she was completely and utterly isolated from the outside world and their underground cell felt all the more like a prison.

She could not rejoice in the fate she knew he would find in Caius' hands. There was no limit to Caius' especially sadistic and creative means of torturing his prisoners. She knew, once Aro gave up using John, she would be next in line.

It was months later before he was tossed back into their prison cell. He was not the same as when he'd left. Scars which would never heal had bloomed across his pale skin. Burn marks mottled his back and abdomen, dark imprints of the Volturi efforts to pry information from Darling's shielded mind through his flesh.

That was only the first time. It would not be the last.

He may have not been her mate, but she couldn't be unmoved by the sight of it. The fury and fear that grew within her were exactly what Caius intended to foster.

True to her prediction, it was Darling who next felt the wrath of Volturi interrogations.

"Do you care so little for the fate of your mate that you would still hold your tongue, Darling?" Caius hissed. He had them both shackled before him, hung between guards, and a blazing torch in his hand shedding an angry blue flame into the room.

"I told you, it's impossible," Darling said. "Nothing you do to him or me will change that."

"Her reticence makes me doubt your claim, Master Pan," Caius said. As he spoke, he brought the torch within an inch of John's face so that his skin could feel the threat in its heat. "With so many identical vampires around, perhaps you mean nothing to her after all. Perhaps we are striking at the wrong door. Speak truly and I will release you from this misery. You can choose to join our guard and serve Aro faithfully. You can choose the relief of death. If you are not Darling's mate, speak it, then you can be released."

Darling hung her head. She knew what he would do, what he should do.

John did not waver from Darling's gaze as he answered.

"She is mine," he said. "I am hers and not even death will change that. I wouldn't choose to be released without her even if you gave me my unconditional freedom."

"Very well. You have made your choice," Caius answered. Then the guards took him away.

ooooo


"You are a fool! Why did you do that? Why did you say that?" she hissed at him, when they were finally reunited. It had been over a year since she had last seen him and she had been waiting that whole time just to chastise him for his stupidity.

This time, Aro set them into two separate underground cells, now absent all the finery and comforts of their old prison. These cells were meant for punishment and not simply to hold them in place for questioning. They could catch small glimpses of the other, but they could not reach easily through to the cell of the other. Aro knew this was as terrible a torture for a mated pair as any that Caius could concoct on their physical forms and settled in to gleefully watch them struggle. By now, Darling suspected Aro had given up all hope of cloning his guard and had given them over to Caius out of pure spite.

"You could have gotten out of here. Why didn't you leave?" Darling continued. She could hear the rustle of fabric as he shifted positions against the wall they shared, but she couldn't see him.

"You might betray your mate to save his skin, but would you betray him to save your own?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

"Darling, I don't know how else to explain it. There is only one way that I will be leaving your side and it's through my death."

"You could have had that! He offered to let you die!"

"You know, someone once told me that dying is easy, but it is living that is hard. I will not be the coward. I still have a reason to keep living and won't choose to die quite yet, even if the living is proving to be a bit difficult to endure at the moment."

By the depth of emotion in his words, she felt all the undeserved weight of his loyal devotion and it made her heart fall all the deeper into her chest.

"I am not worth it," she said.

"Yes, Darling, you are. I will be here with you, until the end."

"And what will that be?"

"When you can return to your mate and the lucky bastard is there to reap his justly deserved reward. I'd be jealous of him, but, you see, I'm here with you and he's not so it's hard to be that jealous."

"Jealous of torture?"

"Well, I can't say he's that much better off. That was a pretty trick you pulled. Leaving him hanging like that. I mean, I doubt someone else showed up to rescue him, because then he would be here to pull some idiotic and overly noble attempt to rescue you. I haven't heard of him showing up on Aro's doorstep, so I assume he's still there, where you left him. You have sentenced him to essentially be tortured along with us… except he is alone."

"You knew? How did you know?"

"You remember how some of my memories improved, after Aro banished my wine? Some memories I'd rather have kept hidden in my subconscious… this might be one of them. I heard him, when we were leaving Neverland and you were gone. Fair warning, I might not have reacted… well. I'd say I was sorry about that, but considering the thoughts going through his head at that particular moment, I really am not that sorry. On second thought, it's probably good he was locked up as well as he was since I couldn't easily have a go at him, like I really, really wanted to."

"He… you..," then she groaned. "What did you do?"

"I might have given him a mental front row seat to all he missed out on, during those days we shared together."

"You are a terrible person."

"Says the one who strung up her beloved like a slaughtered cow."

"How will he ever forgive me? I couldn't think of another way. You would have killed him," she said, her stomach sinking even deeper in her mortification and shame.

She heard his chuckle and the sound of his feet as he shifted positions. "I can't deny it. I would have. I really would have. I might still, given the opportunity. He's trapped paying in blood for his place at your side, same as me, only I get the benefit of actually being with you."

"I thought I would find a way to go back to him. I tried to get a message to Augustine and Slightly…."

"But I turned off the communication system. I could have helped him out, too, if I was a more decent, noble soul."

"But you aren't."

He laughed again. "I am not."

"You are despicable," she said, in a tone of such warmth that he knew she didn't mean it. "How does Aro not know – about Peter?"

"First off, you have had so many Peters in your life, I don't think he has quite untangled them all from each other. That was brilliant, by the way. Also, he doesn't particularly like experiencing torture vicariously through others and has been avoiding my mind since about the time my mind cleared up."

She gave a sigh of relief. "I'm glad."

"This is why you hid him, isn't it? You couldn't bear it. If it was him in my place, you would have caved."

She gave a slow, careful nod. "I'm sorry, John. You don't deserve it, either."

They both fell silent for a time before John spoke again. "I would make you tell Petey that he owes me for this, but I rather think we are now even. I had you as mine, for a few days. I know you were not fully mine. I know you were only protecting him, but I don't care. You were mine."

" John, I owe you more apologies than I can possibly give for the ways I have treated you. You were right. I was cruel, heartless really, and it was uncalled for."

"Well, if it's time for apologies, then I'm sorry for, well, that's not a strong enough word. How can I really begin to apologize for my behavior? I was a villain - a perfect ass - back there at the end of Neverland. I am heartily ashamed of how I treated you."

"I deserved it."

"No, you didn't…ok, maybe you might have… but not from me. For me to claim you as mate in one breath, and then treat you as I did was the height of hypocrisy and is entirely unpardonable."

"You were not in your right mind."

"And that excuses it?"

"No, but it is my fault you were not in your right mind. Peter always warned me about the medicine. He said it was evil and did not benefit any of you and did you more harm than good."

"And you believed him, eh? That's like asking Thomas what he likes best about women or asking a Pirate about the best flavor of milk."

She barked a laugh. "Fine. So, you tell me your expert opinion. If you were to do it all over, would you have refrained?"

"Oh, what a question! My Lady, you are not fair!" He paused to consider. "Tell me, if you were to do it all over again, would you have given me a chance?"

"No. Probably not," she answered truthfully.

"See. Then the wine was inevitable to mourn my perpetually broken heart."

"Oh, John. How can I explain it? I could never have given any one a chance until I changed and let go so much of my anger and fear."

"And Peter was the stone that started the avalanche."

"Yes."

"It's the beard, isn't it? Or the music? You know, I used to compose quite the sappy sonnet, in my younger days."

Darling laughed again. "You'll have to recite your sonnets. I'd like to hear them."

"They are truly terrible. Maybe, now that I have so much spare time on my hands, I can compose some new ones."

"Please do… and John? I'm glad you are back. I think I would be running mad if I was here alone throughout all this."

"I think you would have run mad to… not that you were entirely sane to begin with."

She gave a soft laugh. "That's true."

"Your crazy, insidious plan is working, by the way," John said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

"Which one?"

He chuckled. "Only you would need me to specify which of your many insidious plans I am referring to… You truly are a villain at heart. The Volturi guards, the ones lucky enough to have their own singers' blood on file, are beginning to cause problems."

"It's about time. What happened?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. They are derelict in their duties, and wile away all their time around the blood production machines like pups waiting for scraps. Aro is furious. When he mentioned limiting their supply, they threw such a violent temper that Aro wondered if he was dealing with five-hundred-year-old vampires or toddlers."

"That is the best news I have heard in years."

"It gets better."

"Do tell."

"It turns out that your army is rather expensive to maintain. They served Aro well, for a time, but their rewards only made them thirstier and noisier. As long as they did their jobs, Aro gave them what they wanted, just to keep them quiet. That strategy is backfiring on him now. Their increasing thirst is nearly bankrupting Volterra – and making them nearly unfit for duty. He can barely get them to march across their ice hole of an island, let alone get them to stand and fight for more than an hour."

"There's a reason I gave them strict rations… even if you didn't agree with my reason."

"Oh, will you ever let that go? I don't believe I was entirely motivated by reason at that particular point in my life."

"I had hoped to put my army to a more direct use, but if they are causing chaos for Aro, then they are doing what I made them to do."

"There's more. Aro's use of your army has not made him many friends. There are rumors of an alliance of covens rising up against the Volturi. Aro doesn't know what to do. His army is nearly useless and about half of his guard isn't much better. He is almost tempted to make some newborns as back up, but you know how reliable newborns are. He doesn't know if he will have enough time before this supposed attack comes."

"Do you think they would attack Volterra?"

"It's possible. Aro refuses to leave Volterra again, just in case. Here's the best part – the enemy alliance has been organized entirely by the covens of the Maghreb."

"Augustine!" Darling said, in a happy surprise. "Oh, I could kiss him!"

"His name wasn't directly spoken, but it was implied. I do believe some of your early work at building relationships between discontented covens is paying off – at least we can hope it will."

"I figured it would take at least a century before Volterra fell. It's been barely two decades."

"You… unbelievable. This was all part of your plan?"

"Why else do you think I agreed to clone their singers? Or let my army live? If I didn't want Aro to have my army, I wouldn't have let them wake."

"You have far surpassed me with your nefarious scheming, my Lady. I'm impressed… and slightly terrified."

"As I intended."

She could hear John's soft chuckle through the wall and she smiled to herself. There was still hope and she would cling to it with both hands.

Oooooo


With the rising tension around Volterra, Caius was all the more devoted to his aim of prying information from his captives. He was convinced they knew more about this alliance of enemies than they did and he worked all the more diligently to make them talk. Darling suspected it was a cathartic release of tension that he sought and not actual information. It didn't matter. The results were the same.

Deliveries of blood came less and less frequently and when it did come, Caius liked to mix it with some foul and unpalatable substance, just to punish them for the sin of eating. Darling had not been given animal blood since she arrived in Volterra and the taste of human blood would now forever be caught up in memories she would much rather not keep. John, on the other hand, had stopped receiving human blood and was sent the blood of the worst tasting animals that Caius could find. The capacity to clone blood meant that if he wished to feed them on nothing but hummingbird blood or mole blood, he could.

This time, Darling was surprised to hear the terrified squeal of a pig coming from John's cell. Apparently, Caius had decided to send him live food, this time around. She grimaced. John would have to be truly desperate to accept pig blood. She heard a series of clamors and curses fill his cell. After a time, she could still hear the pig, but the other sounds stilled. They were replaced by John's wracking sobs.

She had never, not once, heard him cry.

"What is it?" she asked.

He ignored her.

She managed to look through a crack in the floor, hoping she could catch a glimpse of him. He was slumped on the ground with his head on his knees while the pig ran freely around the cell, still terrified and very much alive. While his shoulders shook with his cries, there were no arms attached.

"John," she called again. "Where are your arms?"

"Reduced to ash in Caius' furnace," he answered.

She gasped. She didn't know what to say. Caius had left plenty of scars, but he had not gone so far as to remove any of her limbs. She knew it was all a matter of time.

"I'm sorry," John continued. "I just… I'm so thirsty… and they took my teeth, too."

"Oh, John," she cried, when he opened his mouth to show it was now entirely bare of teeth. Even if he managed to catch the pig without his arms, he would struggle to puncture the skin in order to drink from it.

"I can at least help with your thirst. Come here," she said. With her hand, she pushed away as much of the dirt as she could before settling her bottle of blood at the gap in their shared wall. When he unsteadily lay his head by the hole, she began to pour and let it dribble over to his side. It would be marred by whatever dirt it caught along the way, but he didn't protest. He drank greedily, almost desperately, but he stopped before the bottle was emptied.

"I can't take all of it," he said. "You need to drink."

"I'm fine. You take it."

It took some convincing before he agreed to finish it off.

"Thank you," he said, when there was no more left to give. Then he collapsed on the floor by their little window and leaned his back against the wall. She mirrored his posture completely, but on her own side.

There was enough space for one finger to fit through the opening and she could just reach his calf with her pointer finger. She held on to him, as best she could, through the wall.

"They plan to take my eyes next," he said. "What will I do, then?"

"Right now, worry about surviving."

"I can't. Darling, I can't even feed myself, now. How much more will they burn off of me before there's nothing else left?"

She closed her eyes and wished she could think of something to say. She couldn't.

"Darling, promise me something," John said.

"What?"

"If you ever find a way out, don't try to break me out of here. If you manage to free yourself, you run and don't you dare look back or even think of coming back for me. I want you to end me. I don't care if it's just a match through my cell door, promise me you'll do it. Do you promise?"

She tried to fight back the sobs which threatened to burst from her chest and she could not answer him until she had. "I promise."

They stayed as they were then for some time. The pig's squeals had calmed into gentle grunts and Darling wondered if Caius would leave the pig in with them to rot, simply to torment them with the smell. It seemed like something he would find entertaining.

"Darling?" he asked. She felt him move so it was his head rather than his leg beneath her touch. She could just barely run her finger around his short hair.

"Yes, John."

"Do you remember that night in Khartoum? It was that time we met the coven there with Augustine?"

"I remember. That was your first time meeting Augustine and attending such an event."

"You wore that gold dress that made you look like a daughter of the sun and I couldn't take my eyes off you all night. I was so nervous, I nearly forgot to stay in character and you were furious."

"It's hard to forget," she said, now allowing warmth to surround the memory that before had been full of anger.

"I knew, then, I'd follow you straight through the fires of hell, if I had to. I, uh, didn't expect it to be quite so literal. It sounded much grander when it was a metaphorical exaggeration."

"You really have held to it."

"Too bad no one is writing an epic poem in my honor. I think I've earned it. You will remember me, though, when you get out?"

"Of course."

"And not just the bad and idiotic, right?"

"There are too many good stories. I think they outweigh the bad."

"I'm glad... Darling?"

"Yes, John."

"Can you tell me a story, now?"

"Of course."

ooooo


It might have been a day later or a year later. Darling didn't know. It had been so long since rations had come, that her sense of time, her sense of anything, was jumbled. The lack of rations also correlated to a lack of Volturi visitors and they were both relieved to have a reprieve, though neither expected it would last for long.

Neither moved from their positions on either side of their wall. John quoted his favorite play, so softly that if she wasn't so familiar with the words, she would not have caught them.

"For that It is not night when I do see your face,

Therefore I think I am not in the night.

Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,

For you, in my respect, are all the world.

Then, how can it be said I am alone

When all the world is here to look on me?"

"I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes…" Darling began to give the answering lines, but she was interrupted by John's sudden intake of breath and the rustle of movement, as if he changed positions.

"Darling?"

"Yes?"

"I hear Thomas."

"What?"

"Thomas… he is just outside Volterra…with your entire army, or what's left of it."

"What is happening?"

"They've come. All your allies…and their allies… who wished to see the end of the Volturi have decided it is time to act. They have descended onto Volterra from every side, planting bombs in the catacombs and sewage pipes and bursting the old fortress. They are planning to siege the city. At the first explosion, Aro summoned for the Braves to come to Volterra's defense. They are coming into the city now from the direction of the airport."

"And Thomas – he still commands them?"

"He does, my Lady," John said.

"Why would Aro be fool enough to bring them within range?"

"He's desperate. He believes Chelsea's bond and the control of medicine and the fear of Caius is enough to control them… and I don't think he quite realizes how great the range of connection between Lost Boys is. Would you, perhaps, like to send Thomas a message?"

Darling's grin spread across her face. "I believe that I would."

"I thought you might."

She had one shot at this. She dropped her shield so all her army could hear her mental voice and she gave them the command they had been created to follow.

Braves, Lost Boys of Neverland, this is your Mistress. It is time you fight for me. It is time you fulfill the purpose for which I created you.

Each stopped what they were doing and stood upright, listening. Each Brave knew the voice of the hand that first gave them medicine. Each knew the call of their mate, stronger even than Chelsea's bond.

"Check mate," she heard John say.

Then the entire army of telepaths marched on Volterra – joining in the ongoing fight. For once, Neverland's army worked in perfect obedience and precision together in battle…against Volterra.

The fight took them well out of the range of her shield, but their very numbers were enough to overwhelm the already dilapidated guard. John continued to relay how the battle progressed. It was obvious that Volterra would not last till sun rise.

John paused from his report from outside when it became clear they would soon have a visitor.

"It's Aro. He is desperate."

The clang of a door was followed by Aro's voice in John's cell.

"Darling," he hissed. "You will call off your army and have them fight to defend Volterra, or your mate dies."

By the grunt and the loud thud of a body against the floor, she could guess where John now lay. He was defenseless.

She extended her shield as far as she could around her, searching for any other pinpricks of life nearby. Their guards had fled, or joined the fight. This prison was just as remote as their first had been and she could not sense anyone, other than John and Aro. She knew she could not break through her cell walls. She'd spent years trying.

She tried to come up with a way to rescue him, or distract Aro, but she knew her time was too short.

"You wait too long," Aro said. "Decide." She could hear the fear in Aro's voice and John choked.

"Darling, you promised," came John's voice, muffled slightly by the floor on which he lay and interrupted by the pressure of Aro's foot on his neck.

She closed her eyes. She had promised.. but not like this.

"John, I…"

"Long live the Queen of Volterra," John said. She screamed when she heard the familiar sound of a cracking neck. The purple smoke filled Darling's cell before she could so much as protest.

Oooo


Author's Notes: Well, I totally could have split this one in half. It's a beast. However, we are so close to the end, I figured I'd just give you the whole thing this time.

What! Maembe, you have left all of our characters in major cliffhangers without any resolution- how could you? This doesn't seem happy at all and you promised happy!

Oh, have some faith. There is a very long epilogue which should tie up all our loose ends.

Next, this has been quite the epic journey. I would highly recommend rereading this entire story from the beginning, once we get to the end. There are loads of hints and double meanings and foreshadows that you won't have picked up on the first time around that you should the second time through (for example, chapters 10 and 30 intentionally parallel and complement each other. This chapter absolutely feeds off of and circles back to chapter 12.) I'd love to hear what sticks out to you the second time through, if you give it another read through!

Finally, this story has become my longest story ever written – and it is entirely due to you wonderful readers. Without your feedback and inspiration, there is no way this could have grown and evolved as it did. I am indebted to you for your part in this story. You made writing fun and I am so grateful for all your insights, questions, reactions, and brilliant ideas. Thank you all for being so very wonderful.

John quotes William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena, Act 2, scene 1

Darling quotes from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.