A/N: Hi everyone! I'm back, at long last! I'm awfully sorry that it took me almost a month to post this chapter, but real life kicking... Anyway I'm on holidays at last! So I hope I'll be able to finish this fic during the coming week (crossing my fingers, toes and everything I can...)

Thanks a million for everyone favoriting, following, reading in passing, and most of all for my awesome and so very patient serial reviewers! Thank you so much traceybuie, fresh-BLOOD-was-drawn-2night, CoppertopJ, Shazzeer and Twi-Holic68! Thank you for your support that helped me to keep writing, one sentence at a time, in spite of everything happening around me. You can't know how much it means to me.

So... really, guys, brace yourselves for this one. It's the last regular chapter of this fic, and next is the epilogue. You can probably guess that there will be fighting, ugly things, and blood... Remember I promised an HEA, mostly. So take a deep breath, and I'll meet you at the end.

Enjoy, and please review!

Chapter 17

Bella

During our run back to Forks, I had to fight hard to keep my troubled thoughts deep down inside me. My shouting match with Edward had rattled me severely, and I wasn't ready to allow myself to think about it yet. But I would have to talk to Edward about it. I just didn't quite know when.

The Cullen house was a beehive when we got back, and excitement ran high when Alistair and I told everybody about our fight with Livius. Of course, concern rose too when they learned about Edward and I, but it wasn't our priority. We had to end Caius, and we all could feel that it was close. Leah was sure of herself about Caius' whereabouts, and Rosalie and Heidi were backing her up. So I put my worries about my mate on the backburner and focused on our plan to defeat our enemies.

As I listened to Jasper, Carlisle, Alice, Sam and Jacob debating on the best course of action, I couldn't help my wandering thoughts lingering on Charlie. I had seen Alice's vision, and I couldn't help the feeling of dread rising in me when I thought about him in Lindsey's and Caius' hands. He was only human among strong, uncaring immortals, and I was afraid that we would be too late to save him. And I had so much to tell him!

We'll do our best, love, Edward vowed solemnly, his fingers threading through my hair, giving me the comfort and reassurance I needed so badly. But brace yourself, just in case.

I know, I thought back, leaning into his embrace.

We wrapped our arms around each other, and I stopped paying attention to what was said around me. Only my mate mattered, and as long as he stayed by my side at all times, then I would go with the flow. I dimly heard Edward say at some point that the two of us would shield everyone and focus on Charlie, and Jasper agree, then I sank deep into my mate's love and warmth surrounding me. I was completely oblivious to what was happening around us, only listening to Edward's steady breathing and reveling into his soothing scent. I needed this closeness; I needed him so much.

Somebody called me, but I didn't answer. I was lost in my mate, or rather finding myself again. Our fight had really shaken me to my core, and the pain it had brought me had been so intense that for a brief, scary moment I had thought that I would die from it. And the sound of Edward's faint, ache-filled voice and the feeling of his blinding pain would haunt me for many years.

"Give her a moment," Edward's words reached me from far away, but still not bringing me back to the here and now. His grip tightened around me, and I felt his concern and protectiveness through our bond. I wanted to come back to the present moment, and be there for my family and friends, but I simply couldn't. It seemed that I had no strength left.

"Does she need blood?" Esme's voice rang softly, worry marring her tone.

"Probably," Edward said, his own voice filled with more concern. "Bella, love?"

"I'm all right," I uttered faintly, forcing myself out of my stupor. I couldn't afford to be a liability right now. My family and friends needed me. Edward needed me.

"You have to drink some blood," Alistair piped up unexpectedly from across the room, his eyes trained on me and memories flooding him. "You'll feel weak and out of it until you've had some. As you've probably already guessed, having a spat with your mate isn't good for you, at all."

I nodded faintly, my eyes drifting to Esme, who was running to me with a full pitcher of elk blood. "Here," she said without ceremony, giving me the thing without bothering with a glass. "Drink, Bella."

I wasted no time and dove into the delicious nectar, drinking half of the pitcher. Then I gave the rest to my thirsty mate, who would've suffered without a word in order for me to feel better. But he couldn't hide anything from me anymore. "Your turn, Edward."

"Bella..." he started to protest, but I just shook my head. Don't you dare lie to me, my love. You need blood just as much as I do.

He sighed a little but released his hold on me and drank the blood without a fuss, and as I thought he felt instantly better. Now the two of us were ready to face what was coming.

"Better?" Jasper asked, eyeing us with concern. We nodded, and he did the same. "Good. Now, do you remember what you'll be doing?"

"Yes," Edward answered for us, and I was grateful that he at least had paid attention. "Bella will shield the vampires, I will shield the wolves, and we'll find Charlie and take him away from the fight."

"Right," our brother confirmed, a slight grin playing on his lips. "Just stick together, you two. Not that it'll be too hard."

"No, it won't," Edward agreed easily, his arms snaking around my waist again as I put my head on his shoulder. If I could stop the time, I'd stay like this on his lap, our arms around each other, for at least a month straight.

We'll take time for us, Bella, Edward silently promised me. A decade, at the very least. We need to get used to our new level of mating, and we need it. Not far from our family, but just the two of us.

I nodded, nuzzling his throat and sighing deeply. I wanted to sink back into him, only focusing on us, but I couldn't. We had a job to do.

"And we won't tell the Volturi?" Carlisle asked, bringing me back to the looming fight.

"No," Jasper decided, looking determined. "Better not risk a backstabbing. We don't know where they stand in all this."

"Okay," our head of coven nodded. "When do we leave? We need to hunt on the way."

"As soon as the wolves have their fill," Jasper said a little mischievously.

He eyed Jacob who was shoving a whole brisket into his mouth, froze then mumbled "What?", making us all crack up. It eased the tension instantly, and I knew that Jasper added subtle touches of his power, settling everyone's nerves. I shot him a grateful look, and he winked at me, making me giggle. I felt much better.

Soon the food was eaten, anticipation was running high, and we took off. On the way we vampires hunted, and Alistair won the lottery finding the only black bear in the vicinity. He very gallantly offered it to Tanya, who declined, saying that she was used to it, contrary to him, and that she preferred grizzly bears anyway. So she and Emmett drank their deer while comparing some past hunts, and I watched Alistair as he drained his bear, his eyes rolled back in bliss. He truly was enjoying his bear, now that he had written off humans for good, and found that hunting with his mate was a most pleasant experience.

Edward and I had found a couple of elks, and we enjoyed them too. The desire rising in me after our meal was powerful, but I forced myself to focus. We had to fight first, and I had to do my best for my father.

After our meal, our group ran swiftly towards the mine where our enemies were burrowed, and we kept mostly silent. Like a well-trained army, everybody knew what he had to do, and which enemies to fight. And we were set on winning. Losing was inconceivable.

I started to hear Caius' very unpleasant voice as soon as we came within our twenty-five mile range, and I winced. He was livid, and manhandling my dad, who was stoically staying upright, seeming unconcerned. "Your pathetic daughter will die!" Caius was shouting in his face, squeezing Charlie's arm too tightly.

I heard the bones from his wrist crack, but my dad barely flinched. He just shrugged. "You're wasting your time," he said, his voice deeper and more gravelly than I had ever heard. "Bella won't come for me. I've written her off years ago."

I could hear some regret tinging his voice, and coming from my now grey-haired, thinner father, it made me stifle a sob. Maybe we could mend some things, if we were allowed to.

"Don't be so sure of that," Caius sneered, letting go of Charlie's wrist which started to swell immediately. "They killed Livius. How?" he suddenly bellowed, rounding up on his goons who recoiled slightly along the rock walls of the mine, his voice echoing loudly in all the empty tunnels. "How have they overcome Livius? He could neutralize their talents!"

"Livius was a fool," Lindsey snorted in contempt, looking smug. "He didn't matter. We will kill them, Master."

She was feeling awfully confident, I thought, and her mind was only set upon revenge. She couldn't imagine losing, and that we could destroy her. She was too far gone. One of those vampires who live too long without balance in their lives, and end up killed by the Volturi or other vampires in their delusional frenzy. But she still had Charlie under her spell. And right now she was about to bring him under again, so I reacted. I created one of my shield bubbles, and enveloped my father within it. Edward shot me an alarmed look, knowing that I would reveal our presence, but I couldn't help myself. I had to protect my father.

"It's starting," he murmured to our group, who glanced at me, but didn't comment. They knew that I had to act. We were five miles away now, and running like the wind. We would be on site in less than two minutes. "Bella's shielding Charlie."

"Everyone on me," Jasper ordered calmly. "We'll go in there and end them. No prisoners."

That I knew only too well. We wouldn't have any mercy towards such a horrific and ruthless enemy. I listened to our group's focused thoughts, Jacob's silent orders to his pack, and Caius. Lindsey was trying to put Charlie under her spell, but of course it wasn't working. "Sit down," she was saying for the third time.

"No, I don't feel like it," Charlie was stating, looking mildly interested. "So, can't make me do things against my will anymore?"

"Shit!" she cursed, looking at Caius. "Bella must be shielding him."

"Brace yourselves!" Caius shouted loudly, eyes frantic. "They're coming! I want them all dead in ten minutes!"

His voice echoed in my head, but also in the air around us. We had arrived. And it was Emmett who replied somberly with a sneer. "Not a chance, you loser."

We stormed into the tunnel, and I readied my shield bubbles around the vampires of our group. Charlie was still protected, but he couldn't go to us since Lindsey and two other vampires were blocking his path. She was still smirking even when the lead wolves tumbled down into the vast cavern our enemy was gathered in, and the fight began. Edward and I, while shielding our family and friends, were making our way around the fights towards my father when Caius, looking wild with fury and glee, screamed. "Lindsey! Now!"

"Come to me!" she barked with an evil grin, and a trio of vampires emerged from the back tunnel. I shuddered when I saw them.

"Oh God," Edward whispered. "Bella..."

We didn't have time to do anything before our acquaintances from Volterra Lewis, Henry and Charles, the triplets with the enchanting voices, looking dazed, started to sing in harmony, and Lindsey started to speak. It was like falling into a trance, being there but not fully, as if watching from behind a screen. All the fights stopped abruptly, and I sensed that my shield bubbles were the only things preventing us from being overpowered. "Surrender," Lindsey was purring, sure of her victory. "You'll feel better after we take care of you."

So this was why she and Caius had been preparing to defeat us. Her hypnotizing voice, coupled with the devastating power of the triplets, was threatening to breach my bubbles, and I felt its strength vibrating against my shields. I couldn't retaliate, and was barely withstanding their mental assault around us. My poor Edward, still not used to his newly-acquired shields, couldn't resist such a tremendous opposition, and his protection around the wolves dissolved. I hastily drew mine around them instead, but now I had twenty-three people to protect in addition to myself, and my strength was plummeting fast. My head was spinning, and I knew that it was a matter of time before my willpower crumbled. They were too strong.

"No..." Edward muttered, his slack grip on my hand tightening a little again. "Bella..."

His thoughts were slowed down, almost sluggish, as the song and Lindsey's suggestive orders to surrender were assaulting us, but he was still fighting. He had failed in maintaining his shields, but he was determined to help me in maintaining mine. Bella... he thought, his drive to end Caius and Lindsey intact. I'm... sorry... I can't... the shields... but love... I can... our connection...

He was panting in his struggle to push his thoughts towards me, as I felt like I was smimming upstream a most violent river. We would drown in less than a minute. No, I couldn't let them win, I thought.

No, he repeated, a little more assuredly as his love for me surged through us, making our bodies tingle with power. We can't... lose. We can't... die. Our family... Bella... I can't... lose you... again...

And that last sentence was what made all hell break loose. I couldn't lose him again either. I had once, and I had barely survived. Plus the thought of being separated from him, even for a second before our demise, was absolutely unbearable in the aftermath of our disastrous argument. My mind, my body rebeled against it so violently that an unstoppable force shot out of me when I let out a banshee-like screech, matched with Edward's loud bellow as he let loose his own gigantic wave of power.

Our love, a truly living force within us now thanks to our deeper connection, erupted around us like a blast from a nuclear explosion, shattering Lindsey's hypnotic power and breaking her control over the three brothers. My shield bubbles, reinforced with Edward's infused power, remained strong around our family and friends as my mate and I, speaking and thinking as one, shouted a single word. "Attack!"

We didn't wait for any reaction as we sprang into action, going for Lindsey first. But we didn't move. In perfect coordination, without words but with only one mind, we encased her within a thick bubble shield, and we shrank it like an origami, sqeeezing her into oblivion. She tried to fight and scream, but she couldn't win against us. We were one, and unstoppable. Edward's powers over the mind combined with my shields were too powerful, and she knew it. As we broke her body from within the bubble she ceased to struggle, and closed her eyes. Chelsea... she thought as our shield dismembered her, dispersing her body parts all around the cavern.

She had felt an unrequited love for Aro's lackey since many centuries ago, but we couldn't find any compassion for her. She deserved her end, and we couldn't wait to burn her remains. Still linked by our hands and our minds, Edward and I focused then on what was happening around us. The wolves and our family were almost done with the hostile vampires, and I noticed that Tanya and Alistair were facing Caius, backed by Jacob again.

Caius was pleading, his appealing voice speaking about Tanya's long hardships over the centuries, trying to convince her to spare his life. She wavered for a second, and shot a look at Alistair. But he wasn't fazed, and knew that a vile snake such as Caius couldn't truly repent and learn from his mistakes. He knew that they had to destroy him. Edward and I knew too, because Caius was indeed trying to trigger the soft chord of our peaceful vegetarian nature, but only out of self-preservation. He was already plotting for another way to end us.

"No, darling," Alistair finally stated, cutting Caius' wheezing rant. "He's not sincere."

"All right then," she decided, and that was when I knew that Alice had seen this moment. The decision that would save us all, the one that we couldn't interfere over. This precise moment when Tanya and Alistair took it upon themselves to kill Caius for good. Now we would be safe.

Forever, if all goes well, Alice's weary voice reached me. She was satisfied that it was the end of Caius, but also the end of her self-imposed and painful silence. The ordeal was over.

Thank you, Alice, Edward and I told her in sync through our shield, and she smiled at us.

Then we all watched as Tanya and Alistair, working in perfect harmony, tore a keening Caius apart until he fell silent, his body scattered around us. Silence fell as all our enemies lay in pieces around us, but then I felt pain through the shield. And heard a faint voice in my head. Bella...

"Charlie!" I yelled suddenly, remembering my father. I ran towards where he had been pushed away by Caius, but dread engulfed me. My father had been bitten, and was rolling around on the rocky ground, intense pain wracking him.

"How?!" I asked in anguish as I fell to my knees next to him, grabbing him and watching his gaping throat. Caius had obviously wanted to kill him, as his throat was open at least five inches wide, and bleeding profusely.

"He must have done it while we were almost overpowered by Lindsey," Edward said sadly as he helped me gather a thrashing Charlie in my arms. "Your shields almost disappeared, Bella. Maybe Charlie's one dissolved completely."

It must have happened that way, but now my father was changing. The blood flow from his gaping wound was already staunching under the action of the venom starting to spread in his veins. "He'll become a vampire," I said, appalled.

"No," Charlie choked, opening his eyes between two yells and riveting them in mine. "I don't... want to..."

"Dad," I said, my voice breaking as I took him in fully. He was too frail, and the blood pouring from his throat was flowing too quickly. He wouldn't survive. "If I suck the venom out... your wound..."

"I'll die," he nodded faintly as Carlisle, kneeling opposite us, applied his torn shirt upon Charlie's wound in a feeble attempt to delay the inevitable. "Bella... I want... to die... No vampire..."

"Are you sure?" I asked with a quivering voice, shaking under the onslaught of emotions coming from everyone around me.

I couldn't do it. I was drowning again. I needed to be there for my dad, but all the thoughts screamed from everywhere around us were too overwhelming. Then abruptly silence fell around me, and I only heard my dad, and Edward. He had felt my need, and was shielding us. I would thank him later.

"Yes..." Charlie muttered as he felt tossed into scalding lava, his thin body trembling from the intense pain. "Please, Bella... don't let me... become like you."

He was in hell, but his mind was sound and resolute. He didn't want to become a vampire. I had to accept that, and let him die. Carlisle' sad thoughts confirmed it as Edward let him in our bubble. He won't survive, Bella. But you must respect his wishes.

Yes, I thought as I bent over my father, latched my lips on his wound, and sucked Caius' disgusting venom out. How much time...?

Two minutes after you're done, maybe, Carlisle answered my question. Will you be okay?

Yes, I said as I drank my father's blood tainted by the venom. I didn't relish it at all. Human blood had never been a temptation for me. On the contrary, I felt like I was drinking straight bleach. It was awful, but at least I wouldn't drain my father by accident. Around us, the wolves and the vampires had left, taking the bodies of our enemies outside to burn them and give me and my dying father some privacy.

Once I felt only blood on my tongue, I immediately stopped drinking and sat up, looking at my father. He was pale, his heart was beating much too fast but faintly, and he was panting, but his eyes were clear. He wasn't in pain anymore, and he was ready. My frozen heart broke, and only Edward's hand on my back prevented me from breaking down. "It's done," I said with a small voice. "Are you okay?"

"Thank you. I'm tired," Charlie said, his unwavering gaze on me. "Bella, I'm... I've wanted to tell you... for so much time now..."

"It's okay," I cut him, hearing his apologetic thoughts. He regretted having shunned me out, deeply. "I know."

"I..." he started to say as the little blood left in him came pouring out of his mouth, choking him and making him cough. I love you, he thought desperately, wanting to tell me before the end, as his hand clenched around mine.

"I love you too," I sobbed as I cradled him against me, watching him fade away fast. "I've always loved you, Dad, and I will never forget you."

His veiled brown eyes locked with mine a last time as his heart slowed down, then stopped. I love you, he thought faintly, somehow knowing that I could hear him. I'm sorry. Please... take care of Sue. I love her. But... I love you more... My Bella.

I love you, Dad, I projected as I felt the life escape from his old body in an almost silent last breath. I'll always love you.

I watched Edward's fingers tenderly close Charlie's eyes with a silent farewell of his own and the promise to always take care of me, but I was wracked with sobs as I cradled my father's body against my chest even more. I was feeling so conflicted. I felt so much better that I had made peace with him before he passed away, sad and aggravated that he had died, and bitter for all those years apart that I couldn't go back to. But at least I had told him what I had to, and he had told me that he loved me. I had needed it badly, and now I would go on, despite the fact that it would always be painful for me to remember his death, above all in such terrible circumstances.

Edward was staying silent, knowing that he couldn't do or say anything for me right now, but he was circling my waist, giving me his strength and support. And his love. It was healing my heart. I could feel it soothing my grief, like a salve on a deep scar.

I bent forward and kissed my father's forehead, then slowly got to my feet, holding him in my arms. Edward and Carlisle imitated me, but thankfully neither offered to carry Charlie. I wouldn't let anybody else do it. I glanced at Edward, whose face was reflecting his intense emotions. "Is it over?" I asked him softly.

"It is," he only said, listening outside as he lowered his shield around me. I could now dimly make out the sputter of a dying bonfire, smell the last remnants of burnt vampire flesh, and bits of subdued conversations ringing in the air. … so sad for Charlie... Sue will be devastated... done with this madman at last... freaky powers... tell the Volturi, and hope that Jane won't attack us... burial, but in Forks or on the rez?...

We have to go back, Edward told me silently with an apologetic tone. It's over here, but we aren't done yet.

I know, I thought, starting to walk towards the exit of the mine, still cradling my father's body as if he were sleeping peacefully. Let's go, then.

I can honestly say that I've written this whole fic just for this chapter. Closure. Bella needed it. Charlie needed it. And I needed it too. Now the circle's almost full. Only the epilogue left with some loose ends to tie, then an outtake that should be lighter. We somewhat need it, don't we?

Please leave me your thoughts, and take care!