A/N: One chapter left!!!! The final chapter will take a few days to arrive, because I'm going to be polishing all my previous chapters. I will be doing a huge cleanup of all nine chapters, then write the tenth one, then clean it up, then publish it, and you will have a complete story. Yay! Once I am finished polishing chapters 1-9, I will publish an author's note asking you to go back and read the previous chapters again, as they will be improved. If you want, you can review on my improvements. I would like to apologize that this chapter is so short, but I just ran out of things to say. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight and or any of the characters that appear in the Stephanie Meyer books. However, the characters that do not appear in the books are of my own creation.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Marcus kneeled on the floor of his office, mourning his wife. His emotions rippled and overlapped so that with each passing second he felt differently about Didyme's death. He shook himself out of the never-ending cycle he was going through.

"The time for mourning is over, Marcus. We swore to avenge Didyme, and we must leave Volterra now to honour that vow." Trevor said. It had been almost a week since the battle against the Romanians, and now was the time to give chase against the last of the Romanians. Huge monsoons in Romania and its surrounds had hindered travel for even vampires, so Marcus and Trevor decided to seize the opportunity.

Marcus stood up from the cold stone floor. His sudden lust for revenge he had felt just after he had heard of Didyme's murder had by now mostly evaporated, and the sadness had reclaimed Marcus' mind. Trevor was similar, but they had made a vow in that moment, and they were going to keep it.

Trevor was confident. He had the entire expedition planned out. They would go out into Romania, deal with Lucian, and immediately disappear to this foreign, unsettled land to the south. He had formed the plan in his head, now he just had to run it past Marcus, to see if his master wanted to tie up any loose ends before the two of them departed Italy and left the Volturi behind.

"So..." Trevor said casually, diplomatically, "Do you want to tie up any loose ends before we leave Volterra for the last time?" Marcus shook his head sadly. "Good. Gather up anything you want to take with you to this southern land, and we'll store it in a hidden cache while we're dealing with Lucian. Then we can swim across the ocean and away from the Volturi."

"No, Trevor!" Marcus yelled, "You misunderstood me. We aren't leaving." Trevor looked confused.

"What- Why not?" he stuttered, which rarely happens with vampires.

"Didyme is gone. We can't go away to rest peacefully for few centuries after my wife's murder. It's not happening Trevor. I can't just discard her memory like an old cloak. Maybe, when I am at peace, we can leave the Volturi for a time. But I feel... tied to the Volturi and to Aro."

"What?" Trevor exclaimed, and lowered his voice to a whisper so he couldn't be heard by Aro or any other nearby vampires. "She died while under Aro's protection! Wait... Have you been near Chelsea recently?" Marcus looked furious.

"I have dedicated my entire life to the Volturi! How can I not feel loyal towards Aro and Caius, and all the others?"

"You dedicated your life to Didyme, not Aro!"

"And I failed Didyme! I let her die!" Marcus' voice cracked.

"Aro failed Didyme, and don't you forget it." Trevor growled quietly.

"Don't you forget it? Are you giving me orders now? Will you cast me down from my position as a leader of the Volturi? Will you betray your master, Trevor?" Marcus said quietly. There was a pause in the air.

"Father..."

"You are not my son! You have never been my son."

"I was Didyme's though." Trevor said sadly. There was silence, and Trevor bowed formally before leaving Marcus.

"Stay here and rot, father. Rot, or come out of the shadows and take Lucian down. Pull him down, and do not worry about the consequences. Farewell, Master." Trevor departed. He saw Chelsea outside Marcus' door, eyes closed tightly in concentration. She had been using her power the entire time, and neither Marcus nor Trevor had smelled her.

He was angry in an instant, and had to resist the urge to kill her there and then. She was taking his father away from him. Creating a gap between them, breaking their bond. He pondered for few seconds, weighing up the consequences such an action would have. Like Marcus, his conflicting emotions were plaguing his thoughts. He had just decided to kill her when she snapped her eyes open. Surprised at seeing Trevor, she immediately turned and walked quickly away, probably to report her success to Aro, thought Trevor.

Trevor paused, and walked back in to Marcus' chambers.

"Marcus. I'm sorry. Forgive me, but we must leave now! Even if we don't leave for this unknown land, we need to avenge Didyme now, if ever!" Trevor exclaimed, trying a different tact. This time, he was much more successful in the response he got from Marcus, maybe because Chelsea was no longer there to interfere.

"You are right. Now we must act. Act, or lose the opportunity. If we do not strike now, Lucian will build the Romanians up to new heights, and eventually will become unstoppable. We will go now, and then return to the Volturi, son," Marcus said, "Our place is with Aro. With your talent of speed, eyesight and revenge, you will soon be my equal and the equal of Aro and Caius as well."

"I do not want to be the master of others. After the deaths of so many Volturi, we need more followers, not more leaders. I want you as my father, and master, for a few centuries at least."

"I respect your decision, but there will come a time when you must embrace leadership. If I am killed, you must take my place. I may even someday step down and leave for the unknown land Didyme talked about. I will leave you to reign for a while, and then you can follow me. Who knows, Trevor, maybe by that time you will have a mate. But for now, the two of us must unite, lest we fall and never recover. United we stand, divided we fall." Marcus said softly.

Marcus, flanked by Trevor, sped out of Volterra for a sense of freedom, to cast his troubles away for a while, but most of all, for the very thing that had driven the conquest of the vampiric world: revenge.