Chapter 17

Just a Little Bit of Faith

Carine and Earnest both looked absolutely dejected when they got back just before six in the morning. It was obvious by the way she drove, much slower than normal, that they had something very bad on their minds. Something they wanted to hide from everyone, including Edythe and Jess.

"So I take it that they aren't coming?" El asked as soon as they entered the house. She could just be so dense. I figured that by the way they looked without them needing to say anything.

Edythe all but glared at her. She looked super pissed right now, while Carine and Earnest both looked scared to death about what was going to happen in a few dozen hours from now. Sure it was true that Jess had drilled us as well as she possibly could in the week we had, but it still wouldn't be enough. Someone was probably gonna get hurt, maybe even killed. But Jess had said that unless they were able to burn us, then we could be put back together. More than likely, we'd be able to win and with the mixed signals that Archie had been getting, it was doubtful that the newborns would know that to destroy us, they'd have to burn us.

"No," Carine finally answered after an awkward 96 and a quarter seconds. "The Denalis will not be coming to our aid this time. And no other nomads we know are coming either. We've tried; we've contacted everyone that could possibly be here by tomorrow but it appears that were on our own."

"There's the wolves," I added, knowing that we weren't completely alone, which game me a small sliver of hope. "I mean, that's gotta help, right?"

Jess looked as worried as anyone. She had seen first hand in her early vampire years exactly what a gaggle of newborns were capable of. So did I, even if to a much lesser extent with my fooling around with Eleanor my first month or so to my new vampire life.

"Yes Beau," Edythe said answering my concern, "it will help. But still the wolves won't be able to over power the newborns. Even El won't be able to do that." Eleanor cursed under her breath. "Our best hope is that when the newborns see the wolves that they'll be so surprised by them that the newborns won't know what to make of them. A delay; that is all we can hope for from their help. As for us, strategy is all we can have as an advantage; that and experience." She instantly broke into field commander mode. "We'll be outnumbered, of that Archie is positive. But even the Spartans were able to hold off a much larger force of Persians at Thermopylae, if only temporarily. If the only advantage we'll have is skill," Jess shook her head, "that won't be enough. We'll need at least one other advantage. We must choose the field of battle carefully."

"What is she going on about?" Eleanor complained.

"Shhh," Archie chastised El. "Let her think."

"The clearing is open," Jessamine was thinking out loud, "which is helpful, but well need to disguise our forces. No doubt whoever is behind this will expect the whole of our coven to be there, and the wolves' stench will repel any vampire… well any vampire except for Beau."

A small irritated growl came from me but I instantly fought back the emotion, not that I think Jess was paying any attention to me at the moment.

"If only we could have gotten some help from anyone," Jess continued, "There isn't enough time for me to contact Patricia and Charles, even if I knew exactly where they were and I don't want Mario or any of the southerners within a thousand miles of this place. Tavar and his brothers would have been a huge help but that bridge has been burned."

"But aren't the Alaskans supposed to be almost family to you guys? Shouldn't they help regardless?"

Carine looked at the ground in shame. "We tried Beau, Lord knows we tried. Even Elena and Tavar were willing and they tried to convince Ivan to drop his condition that he insisted on, but it was to no avail. He desires revenge far too much."

"Well manage," Edythe answered. "Somehow."

I knew that Edythe could have been settling my fear better than she was but she knew I always valued truth above anything else. Edythe had learned that secondhand from Archie, picking through his brain about our time in the hotel together when I was supposed to be avoiding Joss. It turned out, that was the reason that Archie eventually sided with me over Edythe in telling me how someone became a vampire and also beginning to introduce me to the rules of this new life. At first, as Archie had predicted, Edythe had been super pissed but after a week she understood why he had told me. Archie hadn't intended to cross Edythe by telling me; I had nailed his reason that day. He knew that I was entitled to know about the mechanics of vampire conversion, even if me becoming one was only one of many possibilities, even if it was the most likely, with the timing being unknown.

As I was thinking about all of this again, I didn't realize that most of the family had left the front room. Even with my enhanced vampiric hearing, they could still all walk almost undetected unless I was concentrating on listening carefully or paying attention to the smells of a room. Only Carine and Earnest stayed listening to a CD of Edythe's piano playing, despite the fact that they stood ramrod straight looking just as relaxed as if they were sitting on the couch. This was one of those things I still hadn't gotten completely used to; me no longer having any desire to fidget or blink or really anything else for that matter. I was perfectly comfortable no matter what I was doing. I could hear El and Royal plotting something, most likely their next honeymoon while Jess and Archie were in their room with Jess still strategizing.

Still, even after these three and a half months in this incredible new life, one thing bothered me. I thought it was really the last thing that the two of us needed to work out before I would be truly ready to marry Edythe. But it was something that was incredibly personal and despite how I felt around Archie and when Jess was around because of her gift, I still hadn't completely been able to let myself be competently honest and open with Carine and Earnest, but I was getting closer. That, I thought, had more to do with beginning to see them as parents. However at this time, it wasn't a discussion I really wanted in front of them too. But how to grab some alone time with Edythe in a way that wouldn't be offensive to our parental figures. Then it hit me.

"Hey Edythe?" I asked interrupting her in whatever she was thinking about.

"Yes Beau," she answered, her voice still stunning me just like it did that very first time when she started talking to me.

"I was thinking," I said as I looked right at Carine and Earnest standing perfectly erect; ramrod straight. This wasn't something that I really wanted to talk about in front of them; at least not right now. I was pretty sure that I'd get more used to not having that many secrets around everyone in the future. "How about we go for a run or something?"

She smiled, looking between myself and Earnest. No doubt Earnest would have picked up on why I wanted to talk to her.

We ran out about a mile from the house, leaping across the Sol Duc with ease. Every time I moved, it still surprised me how effortless it was in this body. It was almost automatic. If I wanted to move, it just happened. Granted, the newborn strength had waned a lot in the time since I was changed, but it was still incredibly easy for me to run and jump… and as I found out last night, even dance.

"So what's on your mind, Beau?" Edythe asked as we stopped just as we approached the boundary between our land and the Quileutte's. The scent of wolf was everywhere around here. And it had only grown more concentrated in the last few days as Jules and Sarah came and went pretty regularly.

"Just one thing that's really been bothering me, ever since- the day." That was what we just called it. The day, the day that I was, at least in Edythe's mind, stolen from humanity and turned into a monster. But I didn't think of it that way. I didn't feel like I had really lost all that much. Sure, being forced to remove myself from my parents' lives hurt, still I was hopeful that there would be some way that I could see them again, if somehow they were still alive; let them know that I was alive and good. And I did miss a couple of the guys from school, namely Allen and Becca, although a few of the guys, Jeremy mostly, it would be fun to scare the crap out of.

"Yes?" she asked, no doubt assuming it was much worse than it really was.

"Why was your first instinct to try and suck the venom out?" I just blurted it all out. There it was; my biggest question. Even though she had said that she would always love me and that she thought that she didn't deserve me, I still wondered why that was her first instinct. Granted, Carine had told me that she had only thought of it in passing. Apparently whatever Carine and Eleanor had talked about as they were trying to trap Joss in BC didn't change her mind completely on the topic of changing me. But from what Carine had told me, she was beginning to think it wasn't completely out of the question.

She looked incredibly guilty. So much so that it was unfair to her. I didn't mean to upset her like that but it was just the one last item that I needed to get sorted out before I was totally ready to marry her.

"If it's too embarrassing, you don't have to answer," I added trying to give her an out.

She shook her head. "It's not that," Edythe admitted, although the way she spoke made me wonder if this was something she hadn't even admitted to herself. Granted she had said that first night that the reason she didn't want me to be a vampire was that I was too special and deserved more. "Do you remember what I said on the day you woke up?" Of course I did, so I just nodded. "At that time, I had never known anyone who was changed while they were human. I could see through the others' minds the way they saw those they had changed- Carine with Earnest and Royal with El- although the latter, Royal didn't know El at all before he asked Carine to change her, but when I came back from hunting after hearing the mental cries of Earnest being changed, I also could see in Carine's mind the deep affections she already held for him from only meeting him for a few hours as she nursed him after a fall when he had broken a leg. The sheer admiration that she held for him was beyond belief… at least until the day that I discovered that I not only hungered for your blood but also you. That's when I understood the struggle that Carine felt the first time that she saw Earnest, not that her struggle came even close to mine."

"I still don't get it." And I wasn't referring to Carine and Earnest.

"Because I didn't know any of them really well when they were human, I didn't know in which ways, if any, they changed during their transformation. Sure, I knew of Royal by reputation while he was human, but I never spent any time with him because he was an arrogant, narcissistic-"

"I heard that!" Royal sang, sounding kind of joking almost. So apparently a mile wasn't far enough to keep something from any of them.

Edythe laughed, her voice peeling like bells. "As for the others, I didn't know them at all. I was scared-"

"I don't want you to be scared," I admitted, almost repeating her words on those early days when I was still human as we learned how badly we both wanted to be together.

Edythe frowned. I knew she was admitting something right now that shamed her immensely. "I was scared," she continued, "that you wouldn't be the same that you were before you were changed. Not only that you wouldn't love me like you did before but that you wouldn't be anything like you were."

"And?" I prodded. I still felt like me, granted with way more thrown in on top of what I was before, but still I was me.

"And now I know that Carine was right, at least when it comes to people like you who are changed." Her stare into my eyes was as if she was looking into my vey soul. The soul I knew I still had. "You're still the exact same that you were… just not as squishy and soft as before," her expression had morphed from being sad to showing a faint smile. "That was the one thing that Carine tried to instill in me when we were trying to hunt Joss. That I should have just a little bit of faith that things will work out in the best way possible. I really didn't think this was it at the time, but now I'm not so sure it isn't. It's not exactly fair because I got so much more than I deserve in you and you had a lot stolen from you. You've made me every day say a small prayer of thanksgiving to a God I thought had abandoned me. Now I know why Carine kept her faith for all of these years."

I looked at her like a confused dog again hoping she would elaborate. Luckily she did.

"Carine refused to believe that if The Bible was correct, that God the creator loved all of his creations, he could never condemn one like I thought we were."

There was another possibility that I had thought about the last few weeks. "I don't feel like I was cheated. And besides, maybe it isn't all about you," I said kind of joking.

"In what way?" Edythe asked, her head cocked slightly.

"Maybe I got exactly what I deserve or maybe you just don't see how actually good you really are?"

Her smile was dazzling yet again, no holding back anymore. "You're too good to me."

"I know," I answered, kidding slightly. "Do I smell different than I did before?"

"Somewhat," she admitted. "While the temptation of your blood is gone, there are other temptations that I'm only beginning to understand but we'll be able to quench those in a few weeks."

I smiled. So apparently, Archie had been getting way more planned that I had thought he had. Yeah, I knew he had my tux and her dress all taken care of, but this was different. The vision of our wedding would be something she'd be paying close attention to.

"Forty-three days," I said, counting down to how far we were to August 13th. "I think I can wait that long, if you can."

Her smile was slightly mocking. "I've waited for you for almost a century, so I think that I can wait a few weeks for our wedding before we get to experience physical intimacy."

I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her head into my chest. This was so easy now, not only for my reactions to our physical contact but also to the feeling of my new skin on hers. We felt so right together now and I still couldn't believe that she had feared this more than she desired for it.

"Is there anything else on your mind?" She asked as I slowly weakened my embrace although she didn't move herself. It felt unbelievably wonderful that she desired my physical contact as much as I desired hers.

"Well, only a couple thousand but for now, I only have two."

She nodded at me in encouragement to ask.

"So, you guys move around a bunch, right?" I asked and she nodded in answer. "And you think that when we all move, that I'll be able to go to school with everyone?"

She shrugged. "That will be entirely your decision, Beau," Edythe answered as her right rand mingled in my hair. "Whenever you believe that you are ready to re-integrate with humans, you may do as you wish."

I shook my head. That wasn't what I meant. Of course, I didn't want to hurt anyone, be them someone I knew or a complete stranger. The idea of starting high school all over again wasn't something that I was in a hurry to do but this time, with Edythe by my side, it probably wouldn't be all that bad.

"But there is no hurry," Edythe continued, no doubt knowing that I was wanting to ask her more than I had. "After all, I've been through high school twelve times and college seven." Her laugh and smile were absolutely infectious as I felt my face mirror the smile. "Heaven knows that I could use a break from it."

"Do you think that's a good idea?" I asked, nervous again. "I mean being away from the rest of the family?" I still didn't see us like the majority of our kind did. We were a family in every sense of the word except for by blood, but we were a family by our choice. We were not just a coven, our bond was so much deeper.

"We don't have to be that far away from the rest of them and its not like Archie is gonna not be paying attention to you, even if he could."

I nodded. So apparently Archie and I were going to indeed be the best of friends. I had wondered at first when he told me everything in the hotel if he was being honest or just trying to make me feel better. I was slowly learning that he was a hundred percent truthful that time and had been ever since. While he did try to keep a couple things from me, he never lied after I asked him about it and if he didn't know what something meant, he said it.

"And what is your second concern?" Edythe asked interrupting my thoughts.

"Well, it's just that you and Archie and El are all Cullens, and Jess and Roy go by as Hale," I said hoping she'd get the hint of what I wanted to know but she didn't. Sometimes the fact that my thoughts were muted to her was such a pain.

"And?" Apparently she didn't get where I was trying to go.

"You know how you told me not to get caught up in antiquated gender roles?" I asked referring to our first date, even though I knew she did, to which she nodded. "Well, it always had been that the wife took the husband's name but I don't see how it'll work if were both Swan's?

"Oh," she gasped in understanding.

"And I don't think that I'd fit in as a Hale," I only half joked.

But then she shook her head with a nervous chuckle. "I think you'd make a fine Hale, but that will be entirely your decision. Jessamine took Royal's name because it made life easier on her document procurer, if he just thought that the two of them were indeed related and adopted together. But I can see your point."

"Can't I just stay plain old Beau Swan?" I asked more out of trying to speed things up than anything else.

"You can be whoever you want, Beau," Edythe answered, her smile absolutely stunning. "And I'll be with you as long as you want me."

"Forever?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Vampires were almost unchangeable and when we did change as Edythe did when she realized that she was as in love with me as I was with her, she would never be able to change back to how she was before.

"If that's what you want."

"I know it."

"Now may I have just one?" Edythe asked to which I of course nodded. "Why all the hesitation in getting married? I feel through Jess your apprehension every time that you hear Archie even talking about it."

"Well, there's a couple of reasons," I had to admit. "The biggest one is that I'm worried that after a while you won't love me the way you did when I was human."

Her answering laugh was like a peel of bells. "You're being ridiculous," she still laughed out. "Beau, I told you about this," her voice had returned to being solemn. "I told you this during your transformation. The best description for vampires are unmoving stone. We don't change often, but when we do it is always a permanent shift. And once we find our mate," I had been trying to convince her to stop using that term but to no avail, "we never wish to find anyone else. I will love you for the rest of my existence."

"Ditto Edythe," I replied.

"And you other reasons?"

"There's a part of me that regrets not being able to share any part of this with my parents. But now that their either dead or whatever, that regret has passed a little. Don't get me wrong, I miss them a ton and I probably always will, but that's really what I hate the most about it. Not being able to share getting married with them."

Edythe looked hopeful. "We don't know they're dead. Archie's lost your father for the most part, that's true, but with the flashes he's been able to see of him, it's possible he's still alive. And with your mother, Archie didn't know her at all, none of us did. It's entirely possible that they're just fine but we don't know about it. Maybe you should have just a little bit of faith too."

My face fell. I didn't want to get my hopes up. Sure, I knew Archie couldn't see the wolves at all, but I was pretty sure that Charlie wasn't with them.

"Well, let's not worry about that right now," she said. "Right now, we need to get to the clearing. The wolves will be there in a few minutes."

I was shocked. Had we really been here for almost an hour? But I couldn't worry about that now. There'd be more than enough going on tonight to keep my mind preoccupied, especially trying to keep anything from coming to actual violence between Jules and Edythe tonight.

AN: I know it's been a long time since my last update. Believe me I hat leaving these cliffhangers with everyone in suspense of the teases I've set up but I think the payoffs towards the end of the story will be more than worth it. I'm hoping that I find a little more motivation/removal of writer's block in the near future with the weather starting to turn in Chicago. But anyway, TTFN.