Secret Beneath the Roses 12: The rose's growth is tentative

A/N: Will our heroes make it in time to save Bella?

Victoria's head fell to the floor with a satisfying thud. It bounced once, twice before coming to a standstill in front of Alice's feet. The rest of Victoria's body simply dropped where it had stood, the skin already flaking and falling to bits as her corpse decomposed.

"Fucking bitch is finally down," Edward muttered, wiping his mouth where the redhead had caught him before he had struck the final blow.

"About time," Alice said, feeling like a bit of the burden she carried had been lifted. "Now all we have to do is get to Bella and finish James off. You go first because he's expecting you, and not me to be there."

Edward nodded his head in understanding. "You don't have to tell me twice." A phone began to ring. Alice and Edward looked confusedly at each other. Where could it be coming from? It wasn't Alice's phone, the pixie checking it and finding it silent. That could only mean it was Victoria's. Alice located the source of the sound, the flip phone lying on a pair of rocks next to Victoria's body. Cautiously touching the device held by that vile redhead, Alice swallowed deeply when she saw who was calling. It was James.

"What do we do?" Edward asked Alice who was crouching on her haunches and holding the phone up with her forefinger and thumb. To make her decision Alice consulted her power. She flew into a vision immediately and back out, all in the manner of a second. She didn't like what she saw. "We run," she hissed and Edward needed no further prompting. They sprinted through the woods, smashing through whole trees, bushes, boulders, and not caring about the noise level or destruction they were creating. They needed to get to Bella and now!

"James is calling to check up on Victoria, but since she's dead she can't answer him. So by the time the phone finishes ringing he'll know that something is wrong and will have killed Bella. That's why we need to get to the house before the phone stops ringing!" Alice explained as they maneuvered the forest terrain around them.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Edward growled, his fury propelling him to run faster than Alice. In her hand the phone kept ringing, the vibration sending ominous shivers through her body. Please don't stop ringing, she pleaded as they finally cleared the woods and were next to Bella's house. That's when the phone stopped.

"No!" Alice whispered, voice full of terror in the same instant that Edward bellowed out a horror stricken "no!" of his own.

"Bella!" he cried out as a scream pierced the air. "I'm coming for you!" He smashed through the wall of the house, not even bothering to use the door, and skittered into the kitchen before he stopped. Alice who had followed after him and not expected him to stop, smashed into him with the sound of two boulders colliding with one another before she fell hard to her bum on the floor.

"Edward, what happened?" she asked tentatively as she stood back up to her feet again.

"Nice of you blood suckers to drop by," a gruff voice responded to her and she peered out from behind Edward's back to see Sam Uley in Bella's kitchen, naked and holding onto James decapitated corpse. "I thought you guys were watching over her and protecting her?" The two now human wolves behind him grunted in agreement and all Alice could feel was gratefulness flood her body. So Bella was safe...she was safe. And now James and Victoria were both dead.

"When did you guys get here?" Alice asked, as she saw that Edward was currently lacking the ability to talk. He was staring at James corpse as if he could burn it with his glare.

"Just a couple of minutes ago. We smelled nasty blood sucker scent in the woods around the house and figured that he must have been camping out around here. So we planned and then when we saw him enter the house, we attacked." Sam raised the corpse up as evidence and then dropped it to the floor, where it fell apart as it continued to decompose.

"Where's Bella?" Edward spoke up at last, his voice soft, his gaze finally lifting from the corpse.

"Upstairs," Sam jerked his thumb up to indicate where she was. "She's with Charlie. And Jacob." Edward's nostrils flared upon hearing the other boys name, but he said nothing as he turned on his heel and went to Bella.

"Thank you," Alice said in the quiet that followed. "We...let's just say it means a lot to me and Edward and the whole Cullen family that you were able to keep Bella safe."

"We didn't do it for you," Sam grunted, rolling back his muscular shoulders. "We did it to protect our lands from rogue leeches. We just happened to be on the same page for this fight. But don't expect us to come to your aid every time one of your 'acquaintances' goes feral." Alice smiled, too overcome with relief to be bothered by the man's harsh tone of voice.

"Paul, Embry," Sam jerked his head at them. "Grab the corpse and let's leave. Tell Jacob to get his ass down here too." The two wolves behind him nodded their head and set to work. Alice decided she was no longer needed down here and left upstairs, passing the Jacob boy as he was coming down. He had a sad look on his face but quickly erased it when he saw Alice there. He moved his arm to give her space to go up the narrow staircase, but other than that, there was no exchange between them. Was he sad, glad angry? Alice and Edward both knew that the Reservation boy held amorous feelings for Bella.

Alice found Edward sitting on Bella's bed and softly stroking her hair as she sobbed into his arms. "It's alright angel," he whispered. "He's gone now. Their all gone. They can no longer hurt you anymore."

Charlie was sitting on the bed a few inches away and he looked a bit confused as to what was going on. Poor man had probably thought that vampires and werewolves were fictional characters. Alice wondered how much he had seen. He looked up when he saw her enter the room, a questioning and horrified look on his face.

"Alice...are you one of those monsters too?" He provisionally asked and Alice winced at this. She knew she was his favorite of the Cullen's, and that the truth would break him, but she could no longer lie to him.

"I am a vampire, Charlie," she said and watched as he gave her a heartbreaking look, one of betrayal. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you Charlie. But it was for your own safety." She realized too late she had chosen her words incorrectly.

"Our own safety..." he trailed off before erupting angrily. "It did us more harm than good! I could have protected Bella if I had known better!" He jumped off the bed at this and Edward turned to glare at him, Bella too absorbed in Edward's chest to notice the outrage in her father.

"Charlie, you would've only gotten yourself killed if you had done so. Vampires are not things you can shoot down." Alice tried to remain calm as she said this.

"A gun can kill anything!" the man stated, adamant that he was right. Alice shook her head in exasperation. "Charlie come with my downstairs, I need to explain things to you."

"I'm not leaving Bella with...with that thing over there!" he pointed at Edward whose shoulder's tensed up at being called that.

Alice sighed heavily. This was going to take a while.


By the time she had finished, it was already dusk and Charlie looked totally in despair. There had been yelling, sobbing, denial, anger and childish behavior from both ends but finally the truth had been put out there and Charlie had to accept it. But that didn't mean he was taking it well. His hands were in his hair and he was looking down at the table he was seated at. He had been quiet for the past five minutes as his brain processed what it had just found out.

"I'm sorry for everything Charlie," Alice softly whispered as she touched his elbow in concern. "But now you know why we keep our existence a secret. It's much too much for a human to handle. I hope you can forgive us for this all."

When the man still didn't say anything, Alice sighed. This might take the man a while to get over, but hopefully Bella could help him through with it when she was done cuddling the shit out of Edward. "My brother and Bella will explain everything else to you, but now I have to go."

Alice sent a quick mental goodbye to her brother before exiting out the hole he had made earlier in the day. We have got to fix that, Alice thought with a hint of shame. Definitely not helping our case as 'the harmless and friendly Cullen vampires'.

Alice got home in a rush and ran up to her room to grab the necessities she would need. Namely money for a plane ticket.

"What are you doing?" Jasper asked, leaning on her door frame with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'm going." Alice resolutely responded back.

"Esme and Carlisle said you're not allowed to."

"That was hours ago. They've found her by now and I want to be there when they have the talk."

Jasper frowned at this, tightening the arms over his chest. "Did they find her already? Wouldn't they have called?"

"Well they haven't found her yet. But they will in a couple of hours and by the time they do, I will have taken the plane and flown to Italy and will be there to talk with her." Alice had never lied about a vision before, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Jasper seemed to have a hard time deciding if he should believe her or not. In the end he said, "regardless, I am not allowed to let you go to Italy by yourself."

Alice smiled at this. "Fine then. I won't go to Italy by myself. Because you'll come with me!"

Jasper opened his eyes wide as he realized he was caught. "No way!" he protested but it was too late. Alice had grabbed him by the arm and was leading him out. "Come on! This way you neither one of us will get in trouble. Because I won't be traveling by myself and because you won't have let me travel by myself."


The plane fight to Italy was a pain in the ass, simply said. Alice was incredibly antsy during the flight and Jasper was forced to use his gift on her to calm her down. But her anxiety would peak even through his gift and leave her squirming in her seat. She couldn't wait to go and find Rosalie and give her a piece of her mind. Or a kiss. Whichever one she could do first. She's wasn't exactly picky right now. And she had a bit of her hope still that Rosalie hadn't done anything rash because Alice still felt intensely for her, which meant the bond was in place. Alice only hoped Rosalie had forfeited the idea entirely. But it was most likely the girl had not, everyone knowing how stubborn she was. So Alice sat in her seat and tried to hold in her nervous energy, Jasper not at all too happy that he had been forced to come with her. No doubt Esme and Carlisle would be surprised to see them.

When the plane finally touched down, Alice could not be more ready to get off that plane. She was the first one out of her seat, and using vampiric speed she rushed out the plane door as soon as it was opened up, Jasper huffing in annoyance and following after her.

It was dusk now in Italy, the plane having taken them through the night, into day and now to evening again. Alice, on the plane, had forced herself to have a vision, and it had taken a lot of mental energy but finally she had gotten one of the blonde. Rosalie had been waffling back and forth the entire time she was here, worrying on how to attract the Volturi's attention properly. She had thought of revealing herself in the sun, but figured that would get her killed, and that was not what she wanted. So she had tried to look for the entrance to their hideout but that was way easier said than done. Despite asking a couple of vampires around town, she was no closer to her goal than she had originally wanted to be. So today, she was yet again trying to find the entrance and was wandering around the back alleys of Rome, hoping to find something, just a little clue that could help her.

And that's were Alice and Jasper were heading to find her. Alice slipped through the darkening streets of Rome, pulling up the hood on her hoodie to prevent her features from glowing in the afternoon sun. While the sun wasn't powerful enough now to burn her or to alert the nearby humans to the fact that her skin could glow, she didn't want to take any chances. Jasper did the same, pulling the hood tight over his pale features.

"Do you know where she is Alice?" he asked as they passed shoppers on the streets. Smells of dirt, food and sweat mingled in the air and Alice opened her mouth to draw in the one scent she was looking for. She knew the blonde was close by in this region, it was just a matter of which alley way.

"She's around here. Keep your nose trained on her," she responded back to the boy who was walking in back of her. They walked on for a couple minutes more before Alice's super senses picked up on something. It was just the faintest hint of rose but it was all that Alice needed to know that Rosalie was here. "Follow me," she ordered and both vampires blurred into the alley way. And there, like Alice had seen, was the blonde. She was walking around and inspecting the cobblestone of the streets, hoping to find some magical entrance to the Volturi coven. Alice felt a thousand different emotion erupt in her chest. There was love, anger, guilt, jealousy, despair, betrayal, happiness, relief and more that she couldn't name. Jasper who was standing next to her, was hit full force by the strength of her emotions. He stumbled back as he absorbed them and let out a soft cry of surprise. This alerted Rosalie to their presence and she turned around to face them.

"Alice. Jasper." The blonde softly whispered, her eyes wide in surprise.

"Rosalie," Alice choked out, taking a step closer and holding out her hand to the blonde, but the blonde only panicked. She speed away and Alice let out a frustrated growl. She was not going to get away! Not after all this time!

"Jasper, let's split up and corner her. She won't get away so easily," Alice said before tearing after Rosalie. Jasper nodded his head and ran after the blonde too.

The chase was on.

Alice kept the blonde always in her sights as she dodged speeding cars, people, buildings and other obstacles. Rosalie weaved and took sharp corners, and even took to the roof tops at one point, all in her bid to escape Alice. But the little girl was persistent if not anything else. At last she had chased the blonde into a dead end. Rosalie was forced to come into a stop and to finally face the pixie that had ran after her. Both girls were breathless from the chase, their chest heaving up and down from exertion. Jasper had gotten lost somewhere during it and Alice hoped that he would be able to find his way back safely to their agreed meeting point.

"We need to talk," Alice said, edging closer to the blonde who only pressed her back against the wall, her eyes darting wildly as she looked for an opening. The walls around her where too smooth and tall to scale in a single vampiric leap, so the only chance of escape she had was to get past the pixie to the entrance of the alleyway.

"We have nothing to talk about," Rosalie replied, her fangs showing. "You said all you had to say in front of the whole family."

Alice cringed at this. "I was just mad. I never would have said it otherwise!"

"Yea right!" spat the blonde. "I bet you just couldn't wait to use that on me, to mortify me in front of everyone! I never did anything to you to deserve that!"

Alice felt her eyebrow twitch at this. The blonde had never done anything to her? "You are sorely mistaken if you think you never did me harm! All those years of loving you and you never once returned my feelings. And then when I told you, you only started to torture me with them! You claim to like me and have feelings back for me but it sure doesn't seem that way!"

"That's because you're extremely hard headed and can't see the simple truth in front of you!" the blonde insisted, coming off of the wall and towards Alice. Fires danced in her eyes and Alice could tell she was pissing off the blonde now. Good, let her be mad. The two growled at each other, mere inches away, bodies tensing as the inner vampires in them threatened to come out.

"I'm the stubborn one? Your actions make no sense! First you want to kiss me, then you don't. You chase me away and then even go up to the Volturi to try and end our mate bond so that we won't have anything between us. If you truly loved me you wouldn't do that!"

"It's because I love you that I'm doing this!" Rosalie insisted and Alice scowled. "Really? Tell me how that makes any sense at all."

The blonde was silent for a moment, her jaw twitching and her hands clenching and unclenching. "It hurts so much when I can't be with you," she said at last, her voice wavering and sounding entirely un-Rosalie like.

"When you told me about your feelings all those decades ago, I found them absurd. How could a female vampire have feelings for another female vampire? It was plain laughable and I did mock you relentlessly for having these emotions for me. But as time went by I slowly began to feel different. It was as if your confession to me had sparked something irreversible. I began to notice everything you did. The way you moved, the way you talked and the way you smelled. Like cranberries and vanilla." Rosalie gave a wry smile at this, and dropped her gaze to the floor, scuffing the cobblestones with her toe. Alice was silent, absorbing all this. The girl looked so vulnerable right now, the words spilling out of her. All her defenses had been dropped and she was baring everything to Alice; trusting her with it.

"I figured something was wrong with me, so I tried to keep the feelings down. But they only intensified. I couldn't deal with them. I couldn't deal with not touching you or being next to you, but I had rejected you. It was my own fault. There was no way to reverse time and to tell you, 'oh, hey. I actually like you. Sorry about being such a bitch to you before'."

Alice felt her heart clench at this. The blonde was confessing to liking her. While it wasn't an I love you, it was the closest that Alice had heard the girl declare her adoration right out loud.

"Still I yearned to be with you and I figured the only way I could do it was to tease you. To flirt with you. To egg you on in hopes that you would see through these motions and realize that I liked you and let me be with you. But I only made you more aggravated and confused with my teasing and flirtation. You grew farther away from me instead of closer. You closed up on your emotions; on our bond.

"And then that day all those months ago, the day you had that vision of me and left to go to the Denali's I had come to a choice. I was tired of this suffering and I was tired of hurting you. I was going to go all out and be honest with my feelings. I was going to confess to you. But then you ran away." Rosalie closed her eyes at this, taking a big shuddering breath. When she opened them, they glimmered with unshed tears.

"And then when you said all those things in front of the family I was so heartbroken. I panicked. I didn't want anyone to know I had feelings for you. I wanted it to be a secret between us." Rosalie still hadn't been comfortable with being in love with a female vampire. That made so much sense as to why she had panicked. It explained her behavior and made it easier to understand why it was so hard for her to grasp with her feelings for Alice.

"I had freaked out and I ran. I thought you didn't love me anymore and I wanted to end this pain in my heart. So I did what I thought was a good idea and ran to the Volturi. To try and find them so that they could stop this silly soul mate bond and free me from my suffering. But I can't find them. I guess I failed even in that." Rosalie looked up at this, straight into Alice's eyes. The pixie maintained the eye contact before sighing. Everything made more sense now. Damn it. Why couldn't Rosalie just be more open about her emotions and thoughts? It would have saved them a whole lot of trouble. But no. She was as stubborn and secretive as ever.

With quick strides forward she approached the blonde, raised her hand and smacked her hard across the cheek. The blonde's head snapped back and she let out a gasp but she didn't flinch from the pixie's gaze on her, nor did she touch her reddening cheek.

"Rosalie, you are undeniably stupid, arrogant, self absorbed, a pain in the ass, crass, rude and hot tempered as well as stubborn above all rationality," Alice huffed and the blonde bit her lip worrying what the vampire would say next. "But I still care and love you. Don't you ever dare say that I have fallen out of love for you and don't you dare presume that you are the only one suffering. How dare you try to destroy what we have? A mate bond is a beautiful thing that I want to keep no matter how much pain it causes me. I was suffering the whole time but yet I still didn't want to break our mate bond. I am willing to work through all the kinks and bumps with you as long as you are too. And I don't want to hear any more 'I don't love you' nonsense because I know you do. We have a bond and no two people who have been bound together hate each other."

Rosalie was quiet this time, letting it all sink in. "I'm sorry," she said, softly and sincerely. " I never meant for it to escalate like this. I...I love you Alice," she said shyly, and would have been blushing if a vampire could. She looked away, afraid of Alice's reaction, even though Alice returned her feelings. Alice felt her heart swell with joy at the simple phrase.

She had finally said it.

It was official.

Alice wanted to tap dance, to scream at the top of her lungs, run a thousand miles and swim a thousand more but she did none of this. She felt incredibly free. Rosalie had stopped her foolish quest and was now going to come back home. And not only that, but they were going to work out on their relationship because Rosalie. Loved. Her.

Alice smiled a smile so wide she felt like it would split her face in half. Rosalie gave a hesitant one, still embarrassed by her proclamation. Alice tugged the blonde closer to her, and standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her cool lips against Rosalie's full ones. The kiss was brief but Alice could feel the mate bond vibrating throughout her whole being, reinforcing the fact that they did have an connection and filling her body with immense joy, so strong that it made her eyes a bit watery. When she pulled away the blonde had her eyes closed but cracked them open when the feel of Alice on her lips disappeared. Alice went back to her feet, satisfied that after months of uncertainty and arguing between them, they had fixed it somewhat. And they had finally kissed. Alice wanted to squeal like a teenage girl, but instead bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"Let's go back to the others. Carlisle and Esme are here too." Alice wanted to cuddle the blonde and kiss her more, but now was not the time. They had all of eternity to do that. Alice grasped the blonde's hand, loving the way their hands fit together and tried to tug her away but the blonde only pulled her close to her another time and kissed her once more. This kiss was longer but still chaste. It sent warm tingles up and down Alice's spine and made the monster in her roar, demanding more. Rosalie ended her kiss, straightening up, and licked her lips. Alice followed her tongue with her eyes, a low growl erupting from her lips. Rosalie was doing this on purpose. She had to be. She was challenging Alice to kiss her back.

Smirking, Alice rose to her toes, using Rosalie's forearms to support her. Their lips meet again, this time not as chaste. The other two kisses had been a simple touch of lip upon lip, but this kiss was full of passion, full of all their buried feelings now coming to the surface. It made Alice's head swim and her stomach clench with warmth. They moved their mouths violently against one another, growling as they did so. Rosalie's hands came to support Alice's face and the taller girl pressed her body hard against the other girl's. They would have kept going at it for who knows how long if someone hadn't interrupted them and brought them back to reality.

"If you two lovebirds are done over there," a rough masculine voice broke them apart and they both looked up to the top of the wall. A man was crouching on the wall edge, a smirk on his barely visible face. He was clothed in the unmistakable red robe of the vampire elite. "I believe you ladies were looking for the Volturi?"