Hi, so here is another chapter and we only have a few more chapters left! I hope you enjoy...the last one before the action starts and I am more than happy to have it out there. We only have five more chapters left, this one is more film based than the others so I hope that you enjoy.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And some trigger warnings for this and for the next chapter.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Chapter 23-Take Me Back To Hell.

In the clearing the Cullen's share a moment as they wait for the beginning of the end. The Volturi arrive and the battle lines are drawn.

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything" Albert Einstein

The night before they were due to come Benjamin lit a fire with his finger and the vampires sat around it and discussed war stories.

It didn't matter how many times you said it. Rosalie still thought it was one of the most bizarre turn of phrases that she had ever heard.

What was more impressive though was the stories. Sure Emmett had gone into great detail (aided and abetted by that Jacob who she was sure was embellishing things in a way that made the dogs look good) about their battles with the Newborns but the truth was other than that they had not really been involved in any kind of war. Jasper had his memories of the civil war but that had been that and he had never discussed his human perspective of warfare unless he could help it. Edward had been one year short of going into the service (something he had never been happy about), Emmett, Rosalie, Alice…they had all been transformed in times of peace. That twenty year period where the world had gone around on eggshells waiting for the next bomb to drop.

Rosalie remembered it well.

She remembered it all too well.

Garrett had gotten into a conversation with Liam about the difference between a rebellion and a battle, Kate half sat on his knee chiming in about Constantinople. Peter was talking with Emmett about the southern battles and Rosalie was tuning it all out staring at the fire and trying not to think about what was coming tomorrow. There was a sense that they were just passing the time, it was what vampires did after all, when you were immortal you lost sense of the time but the more that she sat there staring at the fire listening to everyone around them do a very good impression of making this whole thing normal she found that she was actually struggling. So much of her life had been fast paced since the wedding that she had not yet had time to calm down and consider taking a breath.

She caught sight of Bella and Nessie and Edward in their little tent. Nessie falling asleep with her parents who were watching her intently. Rosalie didn't know how much she knew about what was going to happen tomorrow. She suspected that Bella was hiding something because Bella was acting even odder than usual. It was very, very strange when Edward was the voice of optimism after all.

Emmett's hand was on her knee and she patted him on the shoulder standing up and jerking her head in the direction of Bella and Edward and little Nessie. She didn't know if he had seen her but he didn't get up and follow her and instead he allowed Seth Clearwater (the only one brave enough to come in human form—though Embry and Leah were curled up on the floor in wolf form no doubt listening to every word) to drag him into a conversation about what living through the Second World War was like.

She began to walk towards Bella and Edward but something pulled her back at the last minute her boots coated in snow. She didn't want to disturb that little moment. She wanted to be by herself, to be by herself and let the crushing fear hit her in the privacy of her own emotions but if she so much as stepped out of this clearing she would send everyone panicking, and the truth was she didn't know what was waiting outside this clearing.

For once she missed Alice and Jasper. She missed her chatty sister with everything she had. It occurred to her then that she had not put the past behind her with Alice as she had done with everyone else. They had never been the best of best friends but there had been a very comfortable sort of friendship (well as close as she could have had after Vera) and they had been the best of rivals. Alice had been her sister and her rival all at once in that confusing and contradictory way that they had been.

Bella had been the sister that Alice had always wanted. She was the one who had allowed Alice to use her as a blow up make up doll. She was the one who had allowed Alice free reign of her wedding (something that Rosalie had never allowed her to do) she had been the one who had been automatically the maid of honour. She had been the one who had been the most supportive of Bella's transformation. She had been the one who had constantly chided Rosalie for not trying hard enough.

For Alice, Bella was the perfect sister.

She and Rosalie had been sisters. But Bella and Alice were best friends. It was the natural way of things and if truth be told the only person in her life who had even come close to holding the moniker of best friend had been Vera.

Jasper had been her brother, her quiet brother. They had shared a surname sometimes to make things easier because they looked alike but they had been close too in their own little way. Certainly Jasper had been the one to lend her books and then steal hers in that contradictory way that brothers and sisters were. They read books and they watched TV shows and they existed nicely because with Jasper there was never a need to speak if you didn't want to.

And now they had ran off and left them to face this threat. So much for all that talk of family she thought. Rosalie had been faced with the same choice that they had and she had stayed. There was never even a question in her mind.

Maybe it was because of Aro but maybe…maybe Rosalie was just more attached. She had been created by Carlisle, she had been the one that had held Nessie, she had been the one that had fought for her. Maybe it was that simple.

"Rosalie?"

Shit.

She turned to see Carlisle watching her with that kind but concerned expression that seemed to be his default one these days.

"Yes?"

"Is everything alright?"

She stared at him wondering just how on earth she was supposed to answer that question. She supposed Edward had realised she had walked away from the group and then stopped staring into space with a…well…whatever her expression was she supposed and he had shot Carlisle a look and—

"Rosalie you are getting lost in your head again. Come on, help your old man out?"

And he offered her his arm. Rosalie laughed at the gesture, the simple gesture that was born of another time and she took it and felt his hand rest briefly on top of hers and suddenly she felt the sudden urge to cry. Her own father had never been this kind or this gentle with her. To be unkind her own father had whored her out for her own advantage like some high end pimp complete with the cane.

"I've not been a great daughter to you or Esme" she said quietly. "I know I've been…difficult. I mean I've put you both through hell and I…I guess I just never could get over what I had lost but the truth is…I wouldn't have been able to have a life afterwards, after Royce, after…after all of it even if I had stayed human. You know what it was like back then, they would have said it was all my fault and I would have been ruined. I guess I took a lot of it out on you and it wasn't you fault. You saw something beyond that. I guess…I know what I've said but…thank you...because I did get some of the happy ending"

For a second Carlisle didn't speak and Rosalie opened her mouth to tell him that it didn't matter if he did or if he didn't because she had said all that she had needed to say on the subject but…

"I do love you Rosalie…you have been perhaps the most frustrating of my children but I have loved you nonetheless and I know I am not your father—"

"You are"

He stopped dead. Rosalie bit her lip feeling nothing. If she was human she'd be feeling blood in it but she was feeling nothing right now even though she was sure her long dead heart had come back to beat out of her chest at this moment.

If Edward was listening into this one then she was going to feed him to the Volturi eyeballs first.

She thought that she could hear him smile from the tent where he was with his wife and daughter. Bloody mind reading, insufferable, pompous twit. Way to ruin the perfect fucking moment.

Edward chuckled softly.

Arsehole.

"Rosalie…"

"It doesn't have to mean anything" she said turning back to Carlisle. "It doesn't honestly. I am not saying this out of fear or dying or whatever the hell…I am just saying it. I just…I needed to say it. Because my father sold me out to man who raped me and I…you would never have done that, the thought would never have crossed your mind and I just…I just wanted to say that. That your my father and…and I'm sorry that it took so long to get there"

She made to walk away but Carlisle gripped her arm for the length of a heartbeat and then he pulled her into his arms. Rosalie closed her eyes against the hard expanse of his chest and tried to say everything that she couldn't. Carlisle his hands rubbing gently on the small of her back looked for all the world like a father comforting a daughter.

"I love you Rosalie" Carlisle said finally. "And thank you for this…this gift. I have loved all of you like you were my own for a long time. It's always nice to hear it back."

She suspected that maybe…maybe for him there was more to say but there wasn't enough time and to be honest as she pulled back she felt like she had done all the emotional talks she could have done today.

"I never had to tell Esme." She said quietly. "She's always known"

"Yes well" Carlisle said shooting Esme a look in which the term loving seemed inadequate for. "Esme has always been smarter than me"

Rosalie opened her mouth but the look that Esme and Carlisle were sharing was more than a little gross. Honestly it was like seeing your parents make bedroom eyes at each other and she felt quite awkward being in the middle of it.

"Okay" she said pulling her hand out of his arm. "I'm gonna go and find Emmett now"

Carlisle wasn't even looking at her.

Rosalie would roll her eyes but he wouldn't even notice long enough to give her a rebuke.

Parents…couldn't even take them to a bonfire the night before their entire family were to be killed without them making a show of themselves.

"You alright angel?"

Emmett was there now and she nodded letting him wrap an arm around her. She rested her head on his chest and felt the warmth of the fire and…

"I love you, you know" she said quietly. "I really do love you"

Emmett's lips grazed the top of her head.

"I love you too" he said just as quiet.

And they stayed there until dawn broke the top of the sunrise and the fire was out and there was nothing to do but get ready to fight.

They came with a sense of majestic power Rosalie thought. In one line, with witnesses to boot because heaven forfend you slaughter an entire coven and not have an audience. They came with their dark cloaks and their darker appearances and she saw Aro slide his eyes down the line of them taking in their friends and their allies and the wolves who had staked their entire exsistance on this one.

She took sight of Aro and knew who he was looking for. She didn't need Edward to tell her that.

But her gaze was drawn to something else. Or rather someone else.

She would have recognised Felix even without asking Edward what he looked like. She would have recognised him the same way that she would have recognised Royce. He was easiest the most commanding in the room for a woman who was looking for the most commanding and intimidating man in the room. For her that was what she was looking for. Like Royce he had the air of a boy who knew that there was always going to someone cleaning up his mess. That there was always going to be a pay check ready in a draw somewhere that was ready to be paid out to a victim, a distant relative who could marry that victim. Anyone. Anytime. Anywhere. Any place.

Looking back now she was amazed that she had not seen it before.

But then again if she had seen the signs…would it have really mattered? When you see the car crash coming and nobody is going to help you stop it…does it matter if your killed or not?

Edward shot her a look probably listening into her mixed metaphor and he quirked an eyebrow in her direction and she caught his own topaz eyes and she smiled. He smiled back.

Brother and sister again it seemed.

She tore her eyes away from him and back to Felix. He was looking up and down the line and she could see the exact moment his eyes found her. She raised one eyebrow trying to show how utterly unaffected she was by his presence. She eyed him the way her mother would have eyed a homeless person on the street in 1930s New York. He pulled back his teeth in what she assumed once upon a time had been a smile and there was something so predatory in his gaze when he stared at her that despite the fact that she had promised herself she wasn't going to be afraid, fear licked down her spine like fire and she found her hand reaching out to grab Emmett's.

Their fingers tangled together and he ran his thumb over the back of her hand the growl rumbling in his chest.

"Not one step forwards" he muttered once before flashing her that dimpled grin that she had fallen in love with all those years before. His thumb came out and touched her on the end of her cheek running down her jawline.

"Let em come Rose." He said quietly. "Let em…I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you."

And Rosalie nodded. she couldn't say that she believed him but she could say that she was ready.

She looked at the line of vampires ready to kill her and she felt her face turn back into a snarl.

Let them try she thought gripping her husband's hand and feeling his grip on her.

Let them try.

She was ready.

And yeah, here we begin. Hope you enjoy this one and I will see you for the next time.

Next Chapter-The Volturi are here, explanations are given and a battle line is crossed as Emmett stands with Edward against the full wrath of Italy and the vampire world.