A/N: This is mid-Eclipse through the end of Breaking Dawn from Edward's perspective. These characters are not mine and all belong to Stephenie Meyer. This is her story and much of her dialogue wrapped in my interpretation of Edward's narration.
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Shield (Breaking Dawn)
I watched as Nessie shared everything. The soft colors and gentle hums of the womb. Her violent birth, traumatic though punctuated by the adoration in my black eyes, the devotion in Bella's brown ones. Jacob. Jacob who was home itself. All of her family - aunts, uncles, grandparents; vampires, humans, wolves - swirling up around her into a beautiful tapestry. All through it, her reflection changing almost every time she caught sight of it. The hints of stress pulling at each of our features until the morning that changed it all. Now no one smiled anymore, not really.
Please, Nessie concluded. Won't you help us?
She dropped her hand and smiled at the total transformation in Carmen's posture. Nessie knew she'd gained another admirer, but more than that, she knew she'd done her part well.
"She really is your daughter, isn't she?" Carmen whispered, amazed eyes boring into mine. "Such a vivid gift! It could only have come from a very gifted father." The same brilliance and confidence... it's like I already know her.
Nessie had not held back her anxieties for her family, but she'd kept quiet about her self-doubt... to the point that her projected thoughts had, at times, bordered on cocky. The convincing, yet fragile front was familiar. Another thing she'd inherited from her father.
"Do you believe what she showed you?" I asked, drawing Carmen's thoughts, still bubbling with shock and awe, back to the central matter.
"Without a doubt," she vowed.
"Carmen!" Eleazar could feel the strength of Nessie's gift, the cerebral nature of it, but could not see its exact shape. While he detected no such flavor, he suspected her gift was something malignant. Mind control, manipulation, deception.
Carmen, ever patient, took Eleazar's hands. "Impossible as it seems, Edward has told you nothing but truth. Let the child show you." She released his hands and pushed gently on the small of his back, guiding him towards Nessie. "Show him, mi querida."
Nessie smiled at the doting tone of the unfamiliar endearment. Bolstered by Carmen's acceptance, Nessie pressed her fingertips unhesitatingly to Eleazar's forehead.
"Ay caray!" he shouted, pulling away.
"What did she do to you?" Tanya asked sharply, stepping closer. Kate moved in beside her. Their defensive stances sent angry tremors up Jake's arms.
"She's just trying to show you her side of the story," Carmen explained reassuringly.
"Watch, please," Nessie barked impatiently. My lip quirked up at her weak attempt at politeness.
Kate frowned at the brusque tone. Well, maybe she is his kid...
Eleazar hesitated a second more and Nessie sighed impatiently. Pursing his lips, he finally leaned into her fingertips. He shuddered, but held himself in place this time.
"Ahh," he breathed when several minutes had passed. "I see."
Nessie smiled at him - the expression a bit smug - and Eleazar smiled back in spite of himself.
"Eleazar?" Tanya eyed him.
He wasn't radiating the same ease as Carmen but he was no less convinced. "It's all true, Tanya. This is no immortal child. She's half-human. Come. See for yourself."
Nessie won over Tanya and Kate easily. A switch had flipped and now they could only see an adorable little girl.
I wondered if Nessie's gift wasn't more similar to Renée's than I'd originally thought. Just as was the case with Renée, those exposed to Nessie's thoughts seemed to bend naturally, effortlessly to cater to her.
Tanya brushed her fingers affectionately through Nessie's curls as she tried to connect the dots. It all felt much too familiar, calling up memories of her mother. "But there is the grave danger you warned us about. Not directly from this child, I see, but surely from the Volturi, then. How did they find out about her? When are they coming?"
"When Bella saw Irina that day in the mountains she had Renesmee with her."
Kate glared at me, hissing. In the second it took for her thoughts to organize, I mistook her reaction as outrage at me. "Irina did this? To you? To Carlisle? Irina?" Kate was less understanding than Tanya of Irina's grudge against us and Irina's long absence had done nothing to help the situation.
"No," Tanya breathed. "Someone else..."
I knew something of their pain, feeling my own raw wound.
"Alice saw her go to them." I was surprised to feel Bella's hand, soft on my back. No one else had noticed the brief twist of my features as I'd said Alice's name.
"How could she do this thing?" Eleazar demanded.
"Imagine if you had seen Renesmee only from a distance," I murmured. "If you had not waited for our explanation." My defense of Irina burned like acid on my tongue, but I wouldn't be cruel to the rest of my cousins by speaking ill of her.
Tanya's eyes narrowed. "No matter what she thought... You are our family."
"There's nothing we can do about Irina's choice," I pointed out. "It's too late. Alice gave us a month."
A month? Tanya demanded.
What are they waiting for? Kate wondered.
"So long?" Eleazar questioned.
"They are all coming," I said calmly, anticipating a fresh round of denials. "That must take some preparation."
"The entire guard," Eleazar choked.
His reaction didn't help my frayed nerves. Few knew better what the Volturi was capable of than Eleazar.
Just holding onto my composure, I clarified, "Not just the guard. Aro, Caius, Marcus. Even the wives."
"Impossible," Eleazar objected weakly.
"I would have said the same thing two days ago."
Jake's heart leapt, reading the tension in each of their faces. Confirmation that what we were facing was every bit as hopeless as the Cullen's had conveyed it to be. Not Nessie, he thought. They'll never touch her.
"But that doesn't make any sense," Eleazar growled. "Why would they put themselves and the wives in danger?"
"It doesn't make sense from that angle," I agreed. "Alice said there was more to this than just punishment for what they think we've done. She thought you could help us."
Eleazar didn't miss the desperation in my voice. He wanted to rise to the challenge, but felt helpless to do so. "More than punishment? But what else is there?" He paced, his strides zipping him back and forth between us and the door.
Carmen watched him, confident he would figure it out.
"Where are the others, Edward?" Tanya asked. "Carlisle and Alice and the rest." How you've kept this a secret all this time... she eyed Nessie with a new curiosity, wondering just how old she was.
I hesitated a second, quickly deciding not to reveal the details of Alice's departure just yet. It would inspire fear and I didn't much want to hear their judgement, either.
"Looking for friends who might help us," I answered simply.
It's a lost cause. "Edward, no matter how many friends you gather, we can't help you win. We can only die with you. You must know that. Of course, perhaps the four of us deserve that after what Irina has done now, after how we've failed you in the past - for her sake that time as well."
Cowards, Jake grumbled internally.
I shook my head before Tanya finished speaking. "We're not asking you to fight and die with us Tanya. You know Carlisle would never ask for that."
"Then what, Edward?"
Nessie looked back and forth between Tanya and I. Whatever was coming, how could it be stronger than her mom, dad, and Jacob? Her aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Even with these new friends... She fought the moisture blossoming along the rims of her eyes.
"We're just looking for witnesses," I explained. "If we can make them pause, just for a moment. If they would let us explain..." I touched a hand lightly to Nessie's cheek. Her fiery fingers covered mine, holding them in place. "It's difficult to doubt our story when you see it for yourself."
It was too much pressure for one little girl. For her to hear it all laid out this way sounding as if everything was riding on her tiny shoulders. Unfortunately, so much of it was. Nessie was her mother's daughter and just like her mother, she would be forced to grow up all too fast.
Maybe that will help, but... "Do you think her past will matter to them so much?" Tanya asked.
"Only as it foreshadows her future," I offered. "The point of the restriction was to protect us from exposure, from the excesses of children who could not be tamed - "
"I'm not dangerous at all," Nessie interrupted eagerly, her soprano voice still jarring to the new members of her audience. "I never hurt Grandpa or Sue or Billy. I love humans. And wolf-people like my Jacob." She discarded my hand easily, reaching back to pat Jacob's arm.
Disturbed, Tanya and Kate shared a glance.
Her Jacob? Though Tanya tried very hard to stop her next thought in its tracks, the sentiment was clear: just like the parents, of course the daughter would love the wrong things, too.
I clenched my teeth, biting back the angry tirade I very much wanted to launch into concerning hypocrisy. I found myself defensive of not only Bella, but of Jake as well.
With a deep breath, I held my calm and lead us delicately away from the questions erupting in Tanya's mind over the obvious tie between Nessie and Jacob.
"If Irina had not come so soon, we could have avoided all of this. Renesmee grows at an unprecedented rate. By the time this month is past, she'll have gained another half year of development."
"Well, that is something we can certainly witness," Carmen vowed, speaking for herself and Eleazar. "We'll be able to promise that we've seen her mature ourselves. How could the Volturi ignore such evidence?"
"How indeed?" Eleazar, still pacing, passively accepted her pledge of his support. Of course he would witness, now knowing the truth. But he still couldn't understand what the Volturi was doing... He ran through a history of Volturi victories he'd witnessed or learned of from others, mining the incidents that most paralleled our impending visit.
With a nod from Kate, Tanya pledged, "Yes, we can witness for you. Certainly that much. We will consider what more we might do..." Her voice trailed off as she watched Bella, totally and completely absorbed in Nessie. For only a moment, no more than a fraction of a second, Tanya wondered if she could understand her mother's decision to create an immortal child. Abruptly the thought was gone, dismissed angrily.
And, she reasoned, that wasn't what Bella or I had done. We hadn't committed her mother's crimes. We were innocent and our innocence... well, wasn't that worth fighting for?
"Tanya, we don't expect you to fight with us," I promised her.
But she was only growing more resolved, more passionate about our cause. "If the Volturi won't pause to listen to our witness, we cannot simply stand by." She paused, looking to Kate sheepishly. "Of course, I should only speak for myself."
Snorting, Kate rolled her eyes. "Do you really doubt me so much, sister?"
Hundreds of years of companionship flashed through Tanya's thoughts. Hundreds of adventures - some less thought out and more reckless than others. Kate's favorites.
Tanya grinned at her sister. "It is a suicide mission, after all."
Kate's returning grin glinted with mischief. "I'm in," she said with a shrug.
"I, too, will do what I can to protect the child." There was no indecision. Utterly charmed, Carmen extended her arms toward Nessie. "May I hold you, bebé linda?"
I could hear Nessie's loud enthusiasm, see her reaching arms in the eyes of the others. It was Bella my eyes jumped to. I felt instantly guilty when I found only warmth and delight there. Sometimes it still caught me off guard how easily she'd taken to this life. I'd thought, given the tension still present in the room, given the relative unfamiliarity of Carmen, given Bella's possessiveness of Nessie... a typical 3-month-old newborn vampire surely would have had a hard time time with this. But Bella passed Nessie easily before leaning back against me. I tightened my arm around her waist.
"What is the werewolves' part in this?" Tanya asked. Her eyes danced over Jake with suspicious condescension.
Great. Barbie number two...
Jake glared but he spoke calmly. "If the Volturi won't stop to listen about Nessie" - he was met with four blank stares - "I mean Renesmee. We will stop them."
Though this was not news to me, I found comfort in his assertion. And something more. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
Tanya, on the other hand, thought him a fool. "Very brave, child, but that would be impossible for more experienced fighters than you are."
"You don't know what we can do," Jake answered unflinchingly.
"It's your own life." Tanya shrugged. "Certainly, to spend as you choose."
But it wasn't his life anymore. He was hers. Nessie's. How entirely I understood that feeling. I too had lost my life. Watched it pour out of me and wrap inextricably with Bella's. Under such tumult, I'd fallen apart. Made every mistake.
But not Jacob Black.
That's when it clicked. I realized I was... proud. Jake had grown into someone sure and steady. A leader who could set aside pettiness and stay grounded to the task. Just as the greater part of me believed in Alice's loyalty, I found I had faith in Jake's promise. That the wolves would not let the Volturi harm our Nessie.
Yes, difficult as it was to admit, I was proud of Jacob Black. I was proud of who he was becoming. I was proud that he was on my side, on my team.
Jake's eyes flickered towards Nessie - peppered with Kate's kisses where she rested comfortably in Carmen's arms - and Tanya didn't miss the anxiety there. What I'd expected to see in Bella's eyes was very much present in Jake's.
...they treated her like a cockroach a second ago and now you and Bella are totally cool with them putting their sharp little fangs right up in her face...
The aftertaste of my grudging admiration went sour.
Tanya noticed the slight hardening of my features. I'm missing something. There's some secret... "She is special, that little one." Tanya's eyes flashed to mine, probing tentatively. "Hard to resist."
I pretended I didn't notice the question behind her musings and focused on Eleazar's murmurs.
"A very talented family," he muttered, still pacing. "A mind reader for a father, a shield for a mother, and then whatever magic this extraordinary child has bewitched us with. I wonder if there is a name for what she does, or if it is the norm for a vampire hybrid. As if such a thing could ever be considered normal! A vampire hybrid, indeed!"
I hardly registered that he had picked up on it, too - Nessie's shared ability with Renée to easily draw on others' sympathies - because he'd just dropped a bomb.
"Excuse me - what did you just call my wife?" I asked, stunned. I caught his shoulder, forcing him to focus back on that last thought.
Eleazar stared at me a touch confused, a touch superior. "A shield, I think. She's blocking me now so I can't be sure..." He trailed off, still reading my face. This can't truly be news to you?
"A shield?" I said the words back to myself trying to turn the silence - the painful frustrating lack that had always been in the place Bella's thoughts should be - into a... gift. Something present and substantial. A shield.
How interesting he'd be drawn to his foil, Carmen mused.
Eleazar groaned at my ignorance. "Come now, Edward! If I can't get a read on her, I doubt you can, either. Can you hear her thoughts right now?"
"No," I admitted. "But I've never been able to do that. Even when she was human."
Tanya appraised Bella again, considering this new information. She didn't like the envious direction her thoughts took, spurred by the awe in my voice, and returned her eyes to Eleazar.
"Never?" Eleazar waited for my contradiction but it didn't come. "Interesting. That would indicate a rather powerful latent talent, if it was manifesting so clearly even before the transformation. I can't feel a way through her shield to get a sense of it at all. Yet she must be raw still - she's only a few months old." He cast me a disapproving glance. "And apparently completely unaware of what she's doing. Totally unconscious. Ironic. Aro sent me all over the world searching for such anomalies, and you simply stumble across it by accident and don't even realize what you have." Eleazar shook his head. For Carlisle to not even have seen it... Though, I suppose he stumbled upon Edward, too. The man is a magnet for talent. I wonder...
...don't even realize what you have...
Those were the words that stuck with me because it felt both absurd and criminal that they should be true. I'd actually underestimated her...
"What are you talking about?" Bella demanded. "How can I be a shield? What does that even mean?"
Hmm... Eleazar examined her, head slightly cocked to the side. He considered the fact that maybe he'd been a bit too quick to judge. What stood out to him as vivid as any other sense was essentially invisible to the rest of us. We didn't see the world the same way.
"I suppose we were overly formal about it in the guard. In truth, categorizing talents is a subjective, haphazard business; every talent is unique, never exactly the same thing twice. But you, Bella, are fairly easy to classify. Talents that are purely defensive, that protect some aspect of the bearer are always called shields. Have you ever tested your abilities? Blocked anyone besides me and your mate?"
"It only works with certain things," she said quietly after a moment. I thought she looked a little nervous. "My head is sort of... private. But it doesn't stop Jasper from being able to mess with my mood or Alice from seeing my future."
Ah. "Purely a mental defense. Limited, but strong." She keeps out Edward, but perhaps other mental gifts -
"Aro couldn't hear her." My interjection sounded like a boast. "Though she was human when they met."
The eyes on Bella grew wider. All except Jacob's.
"Jane tried to hurt me, but she couldn't," Bella added shyly. "Edward thinks Demetri can't find me, and that Alec can't bother me, either. Is that good?"
Dios mío. How is it possible Aro didn't snatch her up right then? He must have been enthralled by her. I'm certain he still is... But when Eleazar finally figured out how to pick his jaw up off the floor, he said simply, "Quite."
"A shield!" I proclaimed proudly, shaking my head a little at the narrow and unappreciative way I'd always framed Bella's silence. "I never thought of it that way. The only one I've ever met before was Renata, and what she did was so different."
"Yes," Eleazar agreed. "No talent ever manifests in precisely the same way, because no one ever thinks in exactly the same way."
"Who's Renata? What does she do?" Bella fired quickly at Eleazar. There was a new light in her, her curiosity enough to temporarily evaporate the stubborn frown that had plagued her perfect lips so much lately.
Bella's intensity caught Nessie's interest like a flame. She stretched in Carmen's arms, angling for a better view of Eleazar.
"Renata is Aro's personal bodyguard. A very practical kind of shield, and a very strong one," Eleazar answered. "I wonder..." He imagined Bella striding up to Aro, Renata's talents worthless against her. "You see, Renata is a powerful shield against a physical attack. If someone approaches her - or Aro, as she is always close beside him in a hostile situation - they find themselves... diverted."
I allowed my attention to drift as Eleazar continued to explain, studying Bella's reaction, only to turn back to him suddenly, glowering, as he suggested. "...like the vast majority of our gifts, it takes place inside the mind. If she tried to keep you back, I wonder who would win?"
Bella didn't need any suggestions.
Eleazar didn't notice my reaction but Kate smirked.
"I've never heard of Aro's or Jane's gifts being thwarted," Eleazar mused.
"Momma, you're special," Nessie reminded Bella. The news of her mother's gift was interesting, but not surprising. Bella had always felt larger than life to her. She'd idolized Bella from the day she was born.
Jake rolled his eyes. Still not as cool as mind reading...
"Can you project?" Kate asked eagerly.
I pursed my lips, staring at Bella speculatively. What if this was it? What Alice wanted us to get from Eleazar.
Bella stared at her blankly. "Project?"
"Push it out from yourself. Shield someone besides yourself." Kate traced her palm absently with the fingers of her opposite hand.
"I don't know." Bella looked slightly off-balance as though she'd come to class unprepared. "I've never tried. I didn't know I should do that."
"Oh you might not be able to," Kate reassured her with a kind smile. "Heavens knows I've been working on it for centuries and the best I can do is run a current over my skin."
There was a slight awkward pause before I interjected. "Kate's got an offensive skill. Sort of like Jane."
Bella jerked backwards and Jacob tensed, his eyes locked on the small distance between Kate and Nessie.
Jane? Nessie looked at me questioningly, trying to make sense of Bella's reaction. The one Momma said tried to hurt her? I pretended to miss her inquiry, hoping she would forget and there would be no need to add to her nightmares.
Kate chuckled before promising Bella, "I'm not sadistic about it. It's just something that comes in handy during a fight."
Suddenly, faster than my eye could track it, Bella's hand was locked onto Kate's arm.
Fuck. Ow. Nearly simultaneous with the initiation of pain, current surged along Kate's skin.
"You have to teach me what to do!" Bella pleaded urgently. The edge to her voice reflected only desperation; she seemed entirely ignorant of Kate's defenses. "You have to show me how!"
"Maybe," Kate agreed, disgruntled and grimacing, "if you stop trying to crush my radius."
"Oops!" Embarrassed, Bella released her. "Sorry!"
"You're shielding, all right," Kate said with reluctant admiration. "That move should have about shocked your arm off. You didn't feel anything just now?"
Bella still did not entirely appreciate her own strength. With Nessie and Charlie she was extraordinarily careful and day to day tasks did not present a problem. It was with more impulsive situations that she seemed to forget herself - impulsive situations during which I was not really of a mind to point out her miscalculations. So the mistake was really mine - the result of poor feedback on my part.
But, regardless, Bella clearly had no malintent here.
"That wasn't really necessary, Kate," I quietly griped. "She didn't mean any harm."
Carmen patted my arm comfortingly. It's her instinct, an automatic thing when presented with pain. None of us bears any ill-will towards your Bella. I would tell you it gets easier - that one day you'll stop worrying so much. She glanced lovingly at Eleazar still pacing. But it only gets worse. You simply get better at pretending.
The corner of my lip turned up in bleak humor.
And you have two to worry about now... Carmen mused sympathetically, kissing Nessie's forehead.
"No, I didn't feel anything," Bella answered Kate as I listened to Carmen. "Were you doing your electric current thing?"
"I was. Hmm. I've never met anyone who couldn't feel it, immortal or otherwise." Humility could be a hard pill to swallow for our kind, particularly for those of us who were gifted. Kate took her dose with amusement.
"You said you project it?" Bella pressed. "On your skin?"
Nodding, Kate answered, "It used to be just in my palms. Kind of like Aro."
"Or Renesmee," I said thoughtfully, turning towards her. A smaller, softer version of my face stared back at me. Nessie grinned under my scrutiny, imagining Kate teaching her, too. She cast her brown eyes hopefully upon her palms.
"But after a lot of practice," Kate continued, "I can radiate the current all over my body. It's a good defense. Anyone who tries to touch me drops like a human that's been tasered. It only downs him for a second, but that's long enough."
...and the pattern is the same. What I saw with my own eyes. What's clear in the histories. Again and again and again. But that would mean... No. No, I refuse to believe -
"Can you think of even one exception, though?" I probed. Eleazar was to the heart of it now. The evidence of our suspicions were written in his memories.
Eleazar spoke through his teeth. "I don't want to think of them that way. If you're right - "
"The thought was yours," I interjected firmly, "not mine."
He raised his eyebrows in wary acknowledgement. "If I'm right... I can't even grasp what that would mean. It would change everything about the world we've created. It would change the meaning of my life. What I have been a part of."
"Your intentions were always the best, Eleazar," I objected.
"Would that even matter? What have I done? How many lives..."
Tanya reached out her hand to touch Eleazar's shoulder. "What did we miss, my friend? I want to know so that I can argue with these thoughts. You've never done anything worth castigating yourself this way."
"Oh, haven't I?" He muttered the challenge more to himself than to her as he pulled away from her touch. The tempo of his pacing left him only a blur as he ping-ponged back and forth across the living room.
He won't come out of this anytime soon, Tanya thought with a sigh. She turned to me. "Explain," she ordered gently.
"He was trying to understand why so many of the Volturi would come to punish us." I kept my eyes on Eleazar, still locked into his thoughts. "It's not the way they do things. Certainly, we are the biggest mature coven they've dealt with, but in the past other covens have joined to protect themselves, and they never presented much of a challenge despite their numbers. We are more closely bonded, and that's a factor, but not a huge one.
"He was remembering other times that covens have been punished, for one thing or the other, and a pattern occurred to him. It was a pattern that the rest of the guard would never have noticed, since Eleazar was the one passing the pertinent intelligence privately to Aro. A pattern that only repeated every other century or so."
"What was this pattern?" Carmen asked soberly, tracking Eleazar alongside me.
"Aro does not often personally attend a punishing expedition. But in the past, when Aro wanted something in particular, it was never long before evidence turned up proving that this coven or that coven had committed some unpardonable crime. The ancients would decide to go along to watch the guard administer justice. And then, once the coven was all but destroyed, Aro would grant a pardon to one member whose thoughts, he would claim, were particularly repentant. Always, it would turn out that this vampire had the gift Aro had admired. Always, this person was given a place with the guard. The gifted vampire was won over quickly, always so grateful for the honor. There were no exceptions."
Well, if you weren't linked as we are, like family, then... "It must be a heady thing to be chosen," Kate murmured.
"Ha!" Eleazar scoffed. Chosen. Chosen. Such a fool. An idiot. A monster. All along it was I who was doing the choosing, completely and moronically clueless as to what I was doing! And then, all it took was Chelsea to cement the acquisition into our establishment. To make him content, to make him loyal, all of his friends so easily forgotten...
What now? Tanya demanded, reacting to Eleazar's hysteria.
Maybe that's what Alice and Jasper are up to, Jacob thought cynically. Went off to get their pardon preemptively.
I tried to tune him out, focusing on the others. "There is one among the guard. Her name is Chelsea. She has influence over the emotional ties between people. She can both loosen and secure these ties. She could make someone feel bonded to the Volturi, to want to belong, to want to please them..." I recalled that wretched meeting with Aro, Caius, and Marcus. They'd denied me what I'd wanted most and sought instead to lure me into joining their guard. Chelsea's attempts were futile; I was already in the grave - nothing left in me to sway.
Eleazar stopped dead, suddenly remembering his audience. "We all understood why Chelsea was important. In a fight, if we could separate allegiances between allied covens, we could defeat them that much more easily. If we could distance innocent members of a coven emotionally from the guilty, justice could be done without unnecessary brutality - the guilty could be punished without interference, and the innocent could be spared. Otherwise it was impossible to keep the coven from fighting as a whole. So Chelsea would break the ties that bound them together. It seemed a great kindness to me, evidence of Aro's mercy."
I kept my face smooth, disguising my disgust.
"I did suspect that Chelsea kept our own band more tightly knit, but that, too, was a good thing," Eleazar admitted. "It made us more effective. It helped us coexist more easily."
From what I'd gathered in March, Eleazar's suspicions were more than valid. Chelsea wasn't the cushioning between the members of the Volturi or even the glue holding them together; she was the entire skeleton - without her the Volturi would fold in on itself.
"How strong is her gift?" Tanya looked anxiously from Kate to Carmen, back to Eleazar. Who was she without them? She didn't want to find out.
Shrugging, Eleazar explained, "I was able to leave with Carmen. But anything weaker than the bond between partners is in danger. In a normal coven, at least," he corrected quickly, noting the horror in Tanya's eyes. "Those are weaker bonds than those in our family, though." He looked, somewhat reluctantly, at Jake who wore his confusion plainly on his wrinkled brow. "Abstaining from human blood makes us more civilized - lets us form true bonds of love." Eleazar returned his attention to my cousin. "I doubt she could turn our allegiances, Tanya."
Thank God for that. Tanya nodded to herself. Kate took Tanya's hand briefly, squeezing it once.
"I could only think that the reason Aro had decided to come himself, to bring so many with him," Eleazar continued, "is because his goal is not punishment but acquisition. He needs to be there to control the situation. But he needs the entire guard for protection from such a large, gifted coven. On the other hand, that leaves the other ancients unprotected in Volterra. Too risky - someone might try to take advantage. So they all come together. How else could he be sure to preserve the gifts that he wants? He must want them very badly."
Fearing my voice would break, I spoke my thoughts in no more than a whisper. "From what I saw of his thoughts last spring, Aro's never wanted anything more than he wants Alice."
That must be it... Eleazar nodded grimly to himself.
What's this? Tanya was caught off guard by the heaviness, the hopelessness of my tone.
"Is that why Alice left?" Bella's voice caught. For a moment, I could read her face as easily as I had when she was human. Her grief was my own.
It made the most sense. It was the only rationale that rang true of Alice's character. I cupped Bella's cheek, answering softly. "I think it must be. To keep Aro from gaining the thing he wants most of all. To keep her power out of his hands."
"Alice has left?" Tanya murmured, disturbed.
"Oh, we're really in for it now..." Kate muttered. Leaning her head against her sister's.
Such a betrayal of her brother when they've been inseparable for so long, Carmen despaired. And to abandon Carlisle, though he took her under his wing so willingly...
But I paid them no attention, alarmed by the sudden terror in Bella's eyes.
"He wants you, too," she whispered gravely.
Yes. Secondary to Alice... but yes. My hand in Aro's increased his power exponentially, brought him that much closer to omniscience.
Bella didn't need to hear that, though.
I shrugged indifferently. "Not nearly as much. I can't really give him anything more than he already has. And of course that's dependent on his finding a way to force me to do his will. He knows me, and he knows how unlikely that is." I raised an eyebrow, my tight smile one of confidence.
Arrogance. Such arrogance. "He also knows your weaknesses," Eleazar reprimanded me, eyeing Bella meaningfully.
And that was the very last thing I wanted to be on Bella's mind. Imagining herself my protector. Imagining how she could put herself between me and Aro.
"It's nothing we need to discuss now," I said shortly.
Eleazar misread my discomfort, thinking it embarrassment or an inflated ego, and continued unapologetically - there was no time to tiptoe around the facts. "He probably wants your mate, too, regardless. He must have been intrigued by a talent that could defy him in its human incarnation."
God, could he spell it out any more plainly? The last thing I needed was Bella putting a price on her head, attempting to offer herself up in exchange for Aro's promises.
I rushed to change the subject. "I think the Volturi were waiting for this - for some pretext. They couldn't know what form their excuse would come in, but the plan was already in place for when it did come. That's why Alice saw their decision before Irina triggered it. The decision was already made, just waiting for the pretense of a justification."
What other way is there to look at it? "If the Volturi are abusing the trust all immortals have placed in them..." Carmen trailed off, picturing the radical consequences.
"Does it matter?" Eleazar demanded. "Who would believe it? And even if others could be convinced that the Volturi are exploiting their power, how would it make any difference? No one can stand against them."
"Though some of us are apparently insane enough to try," Kate complained. Alice's departure sat heavily upon her still. How could we possibly succeed when Alice - steady, brave, and reliable Alice - had bolted the moment the verdict came down?
And didn't this all feel just a little too familiar amid Irina's estrangement? I never imagined Alice could be so disloyal to Edward, of all people. Whatever is coming... whatever it is that could break their bond -
"You're only here to witness, Kate," I reminded her as she spun out. "Whatever Aro's goal, I don't think he's ready to tarnish the Volturi's reputation for it. If we can take away his argument against us, he'll be forced to leave us in peace."
"Of course." Tanya sought to reassure me that they understood - we asked no more than their presence. But she knew herself and she knew Kate. If it came to it... to witness would not be enough. They would fight. And based on what she knew right now, they would die doing it.
Tires hit the gravel of the drive, turning off the paved highway and I froze.
"...terribly strange of her, though, don't you think?"
"Oh crap, Charlie," Bella mumbled. "Maybe the Denalis could hang out upstairs until - "
"No," I interjected, concentrating on the distant thoughts.
"What is Alice, if not terribly strange?" Peter chuckled. "I trust Jasper and I trust Alice... But if anything is amiss - "
"We run."
"Yes."
I focused on Bella again, half-smiling. "Alice sent Peter and Charlotte, after all. Time to get ready for the next round."
My smile grew wider. Alice was with us. Not in a way that was comfortable or obvious. But she was here, fighting alongside me as always.
I would not - could not - believe otherwise.
"Daddy?" Nessie's large eyes found mine in the small mirror she held as I combed her hair.
"Yes, little one?" I kissed the top of her head.
She set the mirror down on the orange rug and turned to scramble into my lap. I held her close.
"You've had a very long day," I murmured when she didn't say anything. Her thoughts, as they had all through her bath, continued to cycle through the day's ups and downs. Amid the excitement of new friends was a growing current of anxiety and doubt. Emotions she'd rarely and only weakly experienced before three days ago. It broke my heart that they reigned in her thoughts now. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"
Nessie looked up at me guiltily, almost frantically, for a long moment before her features crumpled pitifully and she hid her face. Her quiet sobs broke, muffled against my chest.
"Nessie, sweetheart," I cooed as I concentrated, trying to find the source of anguish among her many tangled thoughts.
...Bella is her biological mother. She conceived, carried, and gave birth to Renesmee while she was still human. It nearly killed her... My voice faded and she thought of Charlie. Jake told me this was... necessary. That you were dying...
"No, Nessie - "
"I'm sorry," she hiccupped. "I'm - "
"Shh. You have nothing to apologize for." I rubbed her back. "Your mom has wanted you from the very first moment she felt you. We knew it would not be easy, and your mom did not care because she is the fiercest creature on this planet." I smiled a little.
She blinked moisture out of her eyes and pressed her warm palm to my cheek, a question heavy on her heart.
I hesitated. I would not lie to her. After watching Bella and Charlie struggle to have the simplest of conversations for two years, I wanted nothing but openness between Nessie and I. As much as was possible now. So how to explain...
"Did I want a brave, intelligent daughter with her mother's eyes and her grandmother's pretty hair?" I smoothed a couple curls out of her eyes. "I was not even capable of imagining I could be lucky enough to have someone as precious as that. But had I been able to see her, my little Nessie..."
She smiled tentatively, hopefully.
"The problem is I don't have as good an imagination as your mother. When she was carrying you, all I could see was a scary little monster. Something more like me than your mom."
"But I look just like you. Uncle Emmett says I act like you, too," she pointed out, trying to comfort me now. "Plus, you're not even scary."
"So I've heard." I frowned at her with mock discontent, tapping my forehead.
"You're not even half as scary as momma."
"Oh, really now?"
She clutched her ribs, ticklish as ever, and her chiming giggles filled the air.
"Daddy," she whispered when she'd finally settled down, "I don't think we're monsters."
I had to swallow before I could speak. "You might be right about me, but I don't think you've seen the tangles in your hair. I can't tell you from Medusa."
She settled in front of me again and I finished combing her hair, pretending that this was just an ordinary evening. Pretending that nothing was coming for her - not time or mortality or monsters - and that we would have a thousand more evenings, just like this.
A/N: Up next... With most of the Cullens back home, Edward helps Bella with shield training and hosts a houseful of guests. Thanks for reading!
