A/N: I'm starting to run out of things to say... ah well, I doubt you lot care anyways. You're here for the story, so here it is!

Chapter Nine- Crazy Dreams

Carlisle POV

After my previous conversation with Esme I was sure Alice's vision of our family would come true. But I wasn't sure if I should hold a vote now, or wait until everyone gets to know them more. I knew that I wouldn't want any people other than our family around when we make the vote. And I definitely don't want Ari and Alec around; it would be painful for them.

Edward had come home earlier today and heard my thoughts, he had very quietly informed me that Ari and Alec were suited for our family too, he said wait until they're not around to vote. That for them it would be like waiting within hearing distance of heaven while the angels voted to let you in. Not the nicest thing you can do to someone. Especially when Ari and Alec have been through so much.

Alice came waltzing down the stairs, she turned to look at me, "I'm taking the children shopping, they've got like four outfits each, and that isn't enough. They need at least ten." I smiled; trust Alice to worry about clothes. I'd hold the vote now, but Alice wouldn't be here... it's kind of something she would need to be in on.

The expression on Alice's face turned grave, you would often forget that she sees things you couldn't, and that she was mature beyond her years because of her attitude. Then she'd get like this and you'd realize that she is very, very intelligent and very, very powerful. "Do it Carlisle, and I vote yes. I'm sure you'll find that it won't be necessary to hear my vote though." Her face got normal again, "Ari, Alec! Get in here!"

Ari and Alec appeared in the room. Alice looked at them. "We are going shopping." Her tone broached no argument, and Ari and Alec had both realized by now that arguing with Alice was bad for your health.

Well, mostly stopped arguing anyway. Ari looked at her, "Alice, in case you don't remember our earlier conversation with Rosalie. Me a big scary vampire, taking big scary vampire into shopping mall is a no-no."

"Alec, grab her hand. If she looks like she's about to kill someone then take her senses." Alec gave her a look; it was so eloquent you could practically hear what he was thinking. "I don't care that she's your mate. We. Are. Going. Shopping." She enunciated each word like a staccato, as if she was talking to two year olds.

"Yes Alice." They both sighed in unison.

She clapped her hands together. "Great! Get in the car, children! You need a lot of stuff." They threw me a look that said 'save us' I just waved goodbye. Ari gave a huge sigh and walked out the door, Alice shot her a huge glare. Alec was much better at schooling his expression. He didn't make it totally emotionless; I suspect that if Alec is looking at you with no emotion at that you are- or soon will be- dead. His face was vaguely interested, like he had seen an interesting bug on the carpet, Alice rolled her eyes and pushed him out the door.

"Bye guys."

I heard her car pull out of the driveway. I looked around the house. "Family meeting in the kitchen guys." It only took them a few seconds to arrive, soon Bella, Edward, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie and Esme were sitting at the table. I went and sat down with them.

"Has Alice told you anything yet?"

"Only that we should consider how we would feel with Ari and Alec as part of our family," said Rosalie. "Frankly, I would love to have them. I've missed having children around since Nessie left."

"They wouldn't exactly be children," murmured Edward, "Alec is over a thousand years old."

"You know what I mean Edward, Nessie wasn't exactly a child either. Having a real child in this kind of environment is impossible; we should settle for not hurting anyone and work with what we can have. Besides, Alec knows nothing outside of fighting and Ari is exactly how old she looks. They may be adults in their own right, but they are still children as well."

"I simply wished to make a point Rose; you know I agree with you too."

I nodded at them. "Alice said that her vote was yes. She's out buying them more clothes right now. I'd never have thought to see Alice dragging Alec shopping... My vote is yes to. They are kind and fit in with our family." Four votes yes, zero votes no.

Bella smiled, "I'm with Edward on this one. We need kids for our family to be complete. Alec and Ari may be running from Aro, but so are the rest of us. They just had the misfortune to be turned by him as opposed to you." She shot me a grin.

Jasper nodded, I wasn't sure of his vote, he was a soldier and Alec was of the former enemy, not willingly, but he was still the enemy at one time. "I vote that they join our family. He was stuck in a situation ten times worse than mine, no one should have to bear that. I say we protect them, let them join our family. No harm can come of it." I hadn't been expecting that, but I see his point.

Jasper had been able to leave Maria by just walking away and he had described how terrifying it was- Constantly looking over your shoulder, fearing that you would have to fight for your freedom, even with friends. With Alec it must have been a lot worse, he had no one to run with, knowing that he wouldn't be able to just walk away, that Demitri and Afton would catch him no matter what he did. And that once he was caught Aro would kill millions and make him watch, torture him, and make him kill too. No wonder Jasper said we should protect him and Ari.

Esme hissed, "They may be adults in their own right, but they are also children. No one should have to go through what they did. Especially children. Ari is twelve years old, almost thirteen; her birthday is in two weeks. We must protect them."

Emmett nodded. "I agree with that. I love the little gremlins and no one messes with my baby siblings."

"It's decided then? They join us, how do we ask them? Remember that they may not want to live with us after all."

"Somehow I doubt that," chuckled Edward, "but I guess that the only way to know is to wait and see what happens."

Arianna POV

Alice drove to the biggest mall she could find, it happened to be in St. Johns. Now normally this would have been a fairly long drive, but let's face it, this is Alice we're talking about. The words slow and driving are not words you're going to hear her say in the same sentence, not unless there's the word not somewhere in said sentence as well.

Alec looked at the mall with apprehension. "There were clothing stores all over the drive Alice, why did we have to come here?"

She threw him an incredulous look, "if I ever catch you two wearing anything from those stores, Then I'll burn your clothes. That's what I did with most of Bella's old sweatpants." Alec and I glanced at each other, he was trying not to laugh and I just shrugged.

Alice hopped out of the car and began walking to the mall. We started to follow her in. She shot between stores like a pixie on crack- literally. It was insane. Alec's eyes got really huge and he was looking around with his mouth open. "Don't swallow any flies now." I teased. His mouth snapped shut.

Alice dragged us into American Eagle and began piling the clothes into our hands. "Go try these on."

We walked to the dressing room, Alec was following me. "When was the last time you were in a mall?" I whispered; no human would be able to hear us over the loud music.

"I've never been in one. The only time I could get out of the castle is when I was on a mission, and the Cullens are the only vampires who frequent human shopping malls. It's rather big..." He went into one of the change rooms and started trying on the clothes.

There was nothing wrong with the clothes she got me, they were just really expensive. I stood outside of the change rooms with Alice. She had given him more clothes to try on. "Alice there's no way I can afford these clothes. I have no money remember?"

"I'm paying for it."

"But I'm not going to be able to pay you back." I hissed at her.

"We have more money than this in cash back at our house Ari, money is not an issue. Calm down." She looked at the humans around us warningly.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

Alice hugged me, "It's not your fault."

Alec walked out of the change room and slung his arm over me. Alice rolled her eyes. "Alec, no human boy your size is going to be able to carry all that with one arm." He shot her a glare and shifted the clothing so it looked like he was expending a little more effort, still managing to get a hold of my hand. Safety first after all, not massacring the mall comes before holding clothing with one arm.

We stayed in that store for only twenty minutes, but Alice dragged us to at least five other clothes stores (I lost count) two shoe stores and one store to get all the 'necessary' accessories.

Alice needs major therapy. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't possible to have just a little too much money.

Alice paid for all the clothing and led us around to about five other stores. Eventually- when the sum of money she was spending made both of us wince- we all piled back into the car with her, the bags in the trunk.

We got back to the house and things were strangely silent. The others still weren't back from hunting, it wasn't all that surprising. It takes a lot to feed ten or so vampires with two or three humans each.

The Denali's were off playing football in the back field. You'd expect the Cullens to be out there playing sports with them, they are all majorly competitive and it's not every day that there's another coven here playing a sport that they can join in on.

We went into the house and carried the bags into the spare room upstairs before throwing the clothes onto the two separate beds.

"Ari, Alec, can you come down here for a second?" Carlisle asked, it sounded like he was in the living room.

We waltzed down the stairs; there was something about the atmosphere of the house that made want to feel happy. "Yes Carlisle?" The rest of the Cullens were in the living room too, sitting in the chairs and couches.

Are we in trouble? Maybe I was right and Alice did spend too much on our shopping trip. After I thought that I could've sworn that I heard Edward laughing. He held up his hand. "Sorry Ari, it's just that no one can control Alice's shopping habits. You are most definitely right about some of us needing therapy."

Everyone looked back at Carlisle. Carlisle took that as a cue and began to speak, the words were slightly hesitant, but for anyone who isn't a vampire it wouldn't have shown.

"We were wondering if you'd like to join our family?" I felt like I had been hit in the face with a board, I looked over at Alec who looked pretty much the same way I did. "I know it's really fast," Carlisle continued quickly when neither of us said anything, "but it normally is. We knew Rose by sight only when she joined us, and we'd never seen Emmett before. You don't have to; it's your choice and your choice only." You could tell he was beginning to think we'd say no.

Alec spoke then, "I think you're misunderstanding why we're quiet." His eyes were glowing with happiness, I know mine were too. "We'd love to, we really would Carlisle. So yes, we'll join your family."

Esme bounced off the couch and wrapped us in a hug. "It's about time you two had a family." Eventually all the Cullens joined into a huge group hug. Everyone was so happy; I could understand why the Cullens weren't afraid to stand out at school, to be different. When you have a family like this the opinions of others don't matter.

The nomads walked through the door then. Zafrina started laughing, "I'd have thought it would have taken at least a week for Alice's vision to come true about your family Carlisle, but it's been only two days!"

I know I should probably cared what Alice vision was about, but I trust Alice enough to figure that if it was something that I would need to know that she'd tell me. And surrounded by the congratulations and happiness of the moment I couldn't really find enough negative energy to worry about it.

I didn't even think about my human family, back home and mourning. They would get over me, go on with their lives. I can be happy without doing my sister's chores for her. If I thought that they were in danger I'd go and help them.

And the inconvenient truth was that I had been with the Cullens- as Zafrina said- for two days and my bond with them was already stronger than it had been with my human family. I managed that in two days, and I had been with my human family for twelve years.

Despite all the new people I was friends with though, as I travelled around the room my hand never left Alec's, some types of love do truly triumph over all.

Emmett pulled out a few board games that we played with them. My earlier assumption they were insanely competitive was correct, they threw things at each other as distractions, and they got Zafrina to take away peoples sight. It got pretty intense- the other vampires in the house were cheering and yelling. The hilarious thing though is watching Carlisle like that. Alec and I are both competitive enough to fit in easily. Carlisle is just so laid back; you'd never guess that he's just as insanely competitive as the rest of the family.

We spent the rest of the night laughing and talking, I've never had more fun in my life.

One leader got tired of the UN saying that the happiness of people was based on money and welfare. He decided to take a simple poll, asking three hundred thousand people around the world if they were happy. The richest nations, like the USA and Canada said that they weren't happy while the poorer ones said that yes, they were very happy, even in the middle of civil wars and famines, they were happy. They were grateful for what they had.

The Chinese called the need the richer nations felt 'the hungry ghost' constantly wanting more stuff, more money.

Our house felt happy, we may not live to see tomorrow with the Volturi angry at us, and we'll probably all die very slow deaths, but we're grateful for the time that we had- That although we may die tomorrow we should make the most of life until then, be happy.

I know that my old family wouldn't have been able to just be happy, they would have whined and complained.

Then again, they've never been near a slow and painful death either.

Family is a good thing to have. Many vampires travelled alone, I guess what had happened was they hadn't been able to use all the new stronger emotions, so they had killed all their emotions and turned them into a black abyss that made them act like monsters.

I realized what Alec had meant when he said that there was no chance of me turning into a monster. I would never shun off emotions the way Jane did to make myself stronger. I would embrace the new emotions; turn them positive, as opposed to killing them. That would protect my mind and stop me from turning into a monster.

I suppose all vegetarian vampires did this to an extent, when they cling to their humanity they make it easier to love. It's why we can live in such huge families happily.

I've always been subconsciously calling myself a monster, but I know differently now.

There are human serial killers ten times more monstrous than your average vampire. It's not what you are that makes you a monster. It's what you do. I know Edward thinks vampires are eternally damned for what we are. I think he's missing a few key points in that assumption. Can you see Carlisle or Esme or Alec or any of this family in hell?

Neither can I.

I held Alec's hand tighter, even hell can be bearable with someone you love, but being in heaven all alone, without Alec, would not be something I could bear.