Charlie was burning and Victoria was fascinated. She had found them a decades abandoned warehouse miles away from the closest humans so that no one would hear his screams. It was dusty and moldy. The floors were covered in debris, but it was the perfect hideout for them until he woke up thirsty. Then they would find the humans and he could drink to his heart's content, and so could she. They would feast and move on far away from here, away from everyone.

At first, Victoria was happy that she brought him along just for fun. But now, every scream or curse he let loose was like a knife being stabbed into her heart. She developed feelings for this man. Feelings that made no sense and that she wasn't sure she had the vocabulary to describe.

James had been her mate, so who the hell was this? What exactly is Charlie Swan to her, Victoria, a woman possibly ten times his age in her immortal years? Could she really be attracted to someone so tame? So simple? So innocent?

It didn't make the slightest bit of sense, and yet, it made all the sense in the world.

Emmett, Jasper and Carlisle confirmed that Charlie was unharmed and retreated out of the sight and smelling range of Victoria until Alice and her bunch could join them, not wanting to antagonize her until they had plenty of backup.

Rosalie and Esme were preparing the Canadian house as much as possible for supporting two newborns, now both Bella and Charlie, and keeping them far away from humans.

"Bella, I have to tell you something before we get there." Edward said, not wanting to break the comfortable silence in the car. They were getting too close to delay this part of the talk much longer. She looked up at him, terrified. He hated to keep hurting her, but this was necessary. "Think about how you feel about me…and how you would feel if something happened to me." Her expression changed and it nearly broke his heart making her so much as imagine it. "Even if they don't understand it yet, that's how Charlie will feel if something happens to Victoria. He'll spend the rest of his life miserable, feeling empty without his mate."

"We can't kill her…" Bella understood.

"We all want to, trust me. But it may be best if we don't, at least not until we see how your dad feels about everything when he wakes up."

"What do we do?"

"Alice?" Edward asked, completely unsure. He wanted to kill Victoria himself for threatening his mate, but harming Charlie in any way would be just like harming Bella himself, and he just couldn't do it. Not again. Not in any way.

"I'm not sure yet. The best plan so far seems to be to forcibly take Charlie with us so we can at least be who he sees when he wakes up and so we can help him calm down. She's not going to like it though. We'll have to let her see him or stay close by. She'll probably put up a fight, but odds are in our favor."

"Can I still use some of this newborn strength to kick her ass?"

"If you want!" Alice said.

"No!" Edward shouted.

Tanya laughed. "I like this kid."

"It won't change any of the outcomes." Alice insisted.

"Bella, you could get yourself hurt. It's not worth the risk. And what if you accidentally hurt Charlie?" Edward asked.

"Fine. I won't kick her ass near Charlie." Bella insisted.

"I'd be happy to help." Tanya added, laughing. "Sounds like she deserves it."

Edward huffed and looked out the window, angry, but still with his arm around his mate. No matter what they were about to face, from now on they would face it together. If it was her desire to fight with Victoria, then he would see to it that Bella wasn't harmed, fair fights be damned under these circumstances.

He hoped that eventually things would calm down and he could apologize to her properly, perhaps even take her on a vacation, just the two of them. They still had so much to learn about each other.

Alice parked beside Carlisle and the guys in the large parking lot where they were hiding. She shouted at them to follow her and then continued towards the warehouse. She then called their car and put everyone on speakerphone.

"Alright, the most successful outcome will be if we park out of her hearing range and run up to the building. Then, we'll want to each go in a different entrance, except Edward and Bella who can go together because I know he won't let me suggest otherwise, and sneak up on them. Emmett, Jasper, Carlisle, I want you three to immediately restrain Victoria. Don't kill her, just hold her.

Tanya will guard the closest entrances. I will keep the car running so that Edward and Bella can carry Charlie out and we can speed him away with us while you all get her handled."

"What should we do with her?" Emmett asked menacingly.

"Kick her ass." Bella whispered quietly, rolling her eyes, knowing that option had already been taken off the table.

Emmett laughed his booming laugh. "It would be my pleasure lil sis." Bella smiled softly, though she was still terrified, at the fond term of endearment. She had always loved Emmett and his enthusiasm. She was happy to be a part of his family.

"Restrain her." Alice said. "Let her know that we won't harm Charlie, although I doubt she will ever question that knowing Bella is with us. Tell her that she isn't allowed near him until he's awake and asking for her if he asks for her. And make sure she knows we will be watching her every move. If she's OK with that, let her go. If she isn't, keep her hostage and bring her home with us. I'm sure we can keep her under guard until Charlie wakes up."

Everyone agreed. "Oh, and one more thing." Alice added. "Let her know now that she is starting to realize James wasn't her true mate, any attack on Bella, even in just her thoughts, will be met with the personal wrath of our entire family."

"Done!" Emmett shouted. Jasper and Carlisle agreed.

Everyone arrived at the warehouse and parked down the street. They closed their car doors softly and ran out as fast as they could, grateful there were no humans in the area. There were also no cameras since this part of town was mostly abandoned and left to rot.

Edward and Bella ran just a little behind everyone else, though Bella still wanted to smash through the doors and kill the bitch herself. It was Charlie's face in her mind that kept her focused on the mission.

Charlie's screams were louder as they got closer and each one nearly tore Bella apart. Edward squeezed her hand, trying to reassure her. He remembered the pain of his own change very well. Bella's was even more recent.

Emmett and Jasper had Victoria pinned up against a wall in seconds. She hadn't dared leave Charlie unprotected to try to run from them, making her an uncharacteristically easy target. "You bitch!" Emmett shouted. "How dare you want to hurt my little sister!"

Bella went straight to Charlie, who was still screaming in pain. "Dad." she said. "It's me, Bella. If you can hear me, it's going to be alright."

"Bella?" he asked softly, thrashing about and sweating profusely from the venom killing his organs from the inside out.

"I'm here. I'm sorry. We're going to take you home with us. It will be OK." She lifted him up in her arms, carrying him towards Edward without needing any assistance. Vampire strength had its advantages.

Edward held the doors for her and stood nearby in case she needed him as they got Charlie situated safely in the backseat of the car. Bella sat with him, his head in her lap. Edward sat up front. Alice sped away. The hard part over with much easier than they expected thanks to Victoria having her guard down.

Victoria wailed when Charlie was carried out of the building, trying hard to get away from her captors. She kicked and screamed and tried to bite, but Emmett had her grasped firmly.

Jasper used his emotional influence to make her incredibly lethargic, almost sleepy. "You had better listen to me, because I am not going to repeat this." Jasper said. "You don't deserve to live, not for threatening my family and hurting Charlie, who is as good as family too. Lucky for you, we know what he is to you. We would never hurt Charlie by killing you, no matter how much we want to, as long as you do as I say. Can you do that?"

She nodded, Emmett's grip on her throat making it hard to talk.

"Bring her with us." Carlisle said. Jasper looked at him oddly, but trusted his father more than anything, even if it meant slightly altering Alice's instructions.

"You will come with us. You can stay nearby, but you aren't to see Charlie until he's had a few days to understand his life and let his daughter explain things, not you."

She nodded again, although reluctantly.

"Bella is Charlie's daughter. Hurting her will be like hurting him. And she's my brother's mate, my sister. If you even think about hurting her ever again, and you know we can read minds and tell the future in my family, your ass is mine. You're dead. Understand?"

She nodded and Jasper motioned for Emmett to let go of her throat. She gasped for air. They still held her, not at all concerned with being gentle.

Carlisle pulled his car up to the building and they led her into the back of it where the brothers could keep an eye on her.

"Tanya, you coming?" Carlisle asked.

"I think I have some apologies to make in Denali. Call me if you need me." she said, blowing a friendly kiss in Carlisle's direction before running towards town to rent a car. Now that this whole mate thing made a little more sense, she wanted to try to be a comfort to Irina. She was confident that the Cullens could handle Victoria.

Carlisle drove away.

"I wouldn't think about that if I were you." Jasper said flatly.

"You aren't the mind reader!"

"No, but as good as sometimes. You try to escape, and you're dead, Charlie or no Charlie."

"Fine." she growled. "What do you want with me? Why don't you just kill me?"

"We're not monsters." Carlisle said. "We wouldn't intentionally kill anyone that could be redeemed, let alone someone else's mate, especially not someone close to us." Ah. That's why he wanted to bring her. Jasper thought.

"How do you all know so much about us? He's not my mate."

"Isn't he?" Carlisle asked gently. "You risked your own life to protect him. You changed him rather than killing him when you had the chance. He's something to you."

"I'm nothing to him."

"Have you ever spoken to him?" Carlisle asked.

"Not exactly."

"That's always a good place to start."

Emmett laughed, almost annoyed by the silliness of the conversation.

"Just kill me." she insisted to him.

"Oh, trust me, I want to. I think Bella would like that too. But Charlie is a good man and I think it should be his decision." Emmett said.

"Why are you so protective of her? Wasn't she just a human pet?"

"She's my brother's mate."

"Humans don't mate." she scoffed.

"Some do. Do you believe in love?" Carlisle asked.

"Of course not. There's no such thing. Only familiarity and comfort."

"You're wrong." Jasper said. "I'm an empath. I've felt hundreds of types of love from all kinds of people."

"Why am I even talking to you!" she insisted, getting angry as she was no longer being influenced by Jasper.

"Because you're in for a very long ride." Carlisle said. "And I think you'd like to know more about what you're getting yourself, and Charlie, in to."

She trusted Carlisle more than the others. He had kind eyes and spoke in an almost fatherly way, something she had never experienced before, but it didn't dull her anger. She wanted to fight back, but found herself retreating into her instincts of trying to make herself as small as possible, trying to hide from her abusers as she had done her entire life.

Carlisle continued. "Edward and Bella love each other very much. The type of love that would make you do anything for it, fight for it, die for it. I love my wife, Esme, very much the same."

"Impossible." She snarled.

"No. Quite possible. In fact, now that Bella has joined us, our family consists of entirely mated pairs."

"I had a mate. Until you all killed him!" she growled, warring with her emotions.

"He wasn't your mate." Jasper said, carefully monitoring her reaction so he could keep her calm and restrained if needed. "You've started to realize that on your own."

"He protected me."

"Perhaps, but didn't he also regularly abandon you to go off on hunts with no care for your safety? Didn't he harm you several times when you tried to get in his way?"

"It was for my own good."

"Was it? True mates wouldn't dare harm their other half. It would be like cutting off their own arm. Besides, as far as I know he left you to go after two members of our family now, both Alice when she was human and Bella. He seemed more obsessed with our family than he was you."

"Stop it! Get out of my head!" she growled.

"Hey now." Jasper said, calming her with his emotional influence. "I'm not the mind reader. He's nowhere near us right now. I'm just telling you what I know." Jasper could tell that she had been hurt many times in her life. She was bitter, but not beyond caring, though she tried to project a hard exterior. Though he wanted to hate her for trying to harm Bella and at one point encouraging the murder of Alice too, he knew that she really wasn't evil, not deep down. She had always been under the thumb of an abuser. Carlisle must have sensed that too, no gift needed. Perhaps it was his centuries of medical work.

"It's pointless." Emmett said. "We should just kill her."

"No." Carlisle insisted. "Think about Charlie. And Bella."

"Fine." Emmett rolled his eyes and looked out the window, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

"Where are you taking him?" she asked.

"Home. With our family. So that he can wake up among familiar faces and with his daughter." Carlisle answered.

"Family?"

"Family."

"You mean coven?"

"Nope. Family." Carlisle insisted.

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Help him adapt to this life. From there, it's up to him. Although I doubt he'll want to be far away from his daughter. He's welcome to stay with us as long as he likes, as are you, so long as you keep your end of the bargain to not so much as plot to harm any of our family, including Bella. And you'll have to stay away from us for a short while until we get him acquainted with his surroundings and this life."

She closed her eyes and tried to make sense of her situation. Victoria was adept at avoiding detection, at escaping. She had only allowed herself to be caught one other time, by James, as she was fascinated by him. This was completely different and entirely terrifying.

Protecting Charlie had been her biggest mistake. She should have let them take him. She knew they would not harm him. Maybe then, she could have stolen him away at a later time. It seemed her fate was decided now. "If you think I'm going to drink animals like some kind of barbarian…"

"Not at all. You are welcome to continue your normal diet, so long as you don't bring attention on our kind or our family. Although, you'll discover that there are some benefits to a diet such as ours."

"Bullshit."

"You'll see."

"It isn't natural."

"The clothes you're wearing aren't exactly natural either." Carlisle chuckled. "Neither is this car. This road. This-"

"I get the point!"

"Very well." he said quietly, knowing he had started to win her over. Carlisle always preferred a non-violent approach to everything when possible. He waited patiently for her to speak again.

"What's your mate like?"

"She's wonderful. Kind, smart, loving. She lights up an entire room with her smile."

"What do you do when she needs to be put in her place?"

"I'm afraid you're mistaken. Any successful relationship is built on mutual respect. We disagree sometimes, but we are equals. We never fight or hurt one another. We do our best to talk things out or compromise if needed, although I don't think we've had a true disagreement in decades."

"And yours?" she asked Jasper.

"She's the most precious thing in the world. She's sassy, friendly, and fiercely loyal to those she loves. And she's the one that usually puts me in my place. I wouldn't dream of hurting her."

"Yours?" she asked Emmett, increasingly both annoyed and astounded.

"She wears the pants in our relationship." He laughed. "I'm just the muscle." He didn't like Victoria, not a bit, but he enjoyed that his answer would taunt her, and so he was honest.

"Unbelievable!" Victoria exclaimed. Carlisle smiled and quietly turned on the radio to an educational talk show, one of his favorites. He could tell that she was going to need some time to process all of this. He knew that Alice didn't want her too close to Charlie yet, but she had let herself be caught so easily and no one was harmed, other than Charlie being bitten. Carlisle had to try to save her.

Bella did her best to keep Charlie calm and comfortable on the long ride. She wished she had thought to ask Jasper to come with them for his emotional influence, but it was too late to dwell on that now.

"He's in a lot of pain." Edward said. "But he can hear you. He's calmer while you're talking."

"But don't try to explain yet. It won't make sense and it will scare him." Alice added.

Bella nodded, uncertain what to say. "It doesn't matter what you say. Just that you do. He's focusing on your voice. Are there any books you want to read now that you have more time?" Edward asked, helping her along. It was the least he could do, helping Bella comfort Charlie. This whole big mess was his fault.

"Well, I've been thinking about reading some more of the classics. I thought about trying to find some of the oldest English books out there to read for a challenge. People talk so much differently now than they used to, and I always have fun trying to figure out what some of the popular expressions or cultural references mean…"

Alice smiled, showing Edward a vision of Charlie waking up happy to see Bella at his side, although somewhat shocked by her changed appearance. Edward was at least reassured that he would get thorough his change alright.

Alice sped away into the night, trying to get them all home and settled as quickly as possible. She would see Jasper again in just a couple of hours!

Author's Note: Ooooh, cliffhanger! Just a mild one, I hope. Charlie wakes up in the next chapter. I considered a violent confrontation between Victoria and Bella, but Bella and Victoria were both more concerned with Charlie, for now anyhow 😉

I haven't read all the way through my Illustrated Guide yet, so I didn't realize until I Googled some stuff today that Victoria was frozen at (18!) years old. Let's pretend that she's closer to her mid-thirties here lol. Although, if it helps, she is technically over 500.

I have absolutely loved everyone's reviews so far and I hope you enjoy this update!