The End – Epilogue

Part Two

Note: Haha! Sorry ya'll! I accidentally uploaded the wrong version of part one and didn't realize I still had the first paragraph of part two on there!

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Carlisle had to do triage every day at the hospital, but this was so much worse. He cared for everyone here like family. No strangers. He felt numb as he looked over the wounded and broken; Esme was doing what she could to help, but she wasn't professionally trained, though she had picked up a lot from him and Edward over the years. A fresh wave of pain ripped through his chest as he thought of Edward; his first, his friend, his confidant, his brother in some ways, and his son in so many others. Newly wed to his love forever Bella; only a newborn herself… He had to stop thinking about them or he was going to be overcome with his grief and he couldn't afford that now; there were too many injured to treat to break down now. There'd be time for that later. So with tremendous effort, he pushed his pain and loss to the back of his mind and tried to concentrate on his work.

It had been nearly impossible to keep going once he'd heard Esme's wails of pain at the loss of their 'children'; but once he'd helped her manage to get the initial shock under control, his training had kicked in and he'd put on his doctor persona once again.

He examined the scene with a cursory glance, looking for the survivors with the most desperate wounds first; trying as hard as he could not to give in to the overwhelming grief as he saw where the charred remains of his family lay. Sam was a broken and bloody mess, but after getting checked over he insisted that Carlisle tend the others first. As there were several others in immediate need as well, Carlisle merely nodded after a moment and continued on to the next patient.

Every now and then he would pass Esme and he would touch her arm in an attempt to offer some comfort as they exchanged deep panging looks.

The wolves quick healing was both a blessing and a curse. Those that hadn't received lethal blows stopped bleeding before it caused too much blood loss, but the broken bones were knitting together all wrong; some of them while still protruding through major organs, and knitting to random other bones in their effort to heal quickly. He would have to re-brake them and put them back together properly before they could heal right; and no amount of morphine was going to help some of them. The phasing was going to be a problem too; he needed to treat them now in their wolf forms, but they needed to heal in people form; it was going to be very tricky; and it was going to be a very, very long night.

Many of the 'surviving' vampires still needed to be put back together as well, so they could heal. Esme, Carmen, Maggie, and the least injured of the wolves were helping to find, identify, and put into piles their various allies that weren't totally lost; but only when they could be momentarily spared from medic duties.

As the snow started to fall more heavily, it helped to smother the raging flames that continued to lick at the forests edges.

"Ready?" Esme asked Carlisle softly. He was sitting at the dining room table of their house, staring randomly into space. The last three days had passed in a blurry haze. Alice and Jasper had returned only the morning previously. Alice's eyes had been as vacant as he now felt.

He'd been the one to finally call Charlie and Renee to tell them about Bella. His voice had sounded hollow even to himself. Understandably, they hadn't reacted well. Charlie was furious and was, according to Alice's visions, considering involving the FBI; but he hadn't decided anything for certain, mostly he was grieving. He'd known something strange was going on, but whatever it was involved Nessie, and he wanted to see her again, so he probably wouldn't do anything; not just yet anyway.

Renee had been very upset, but couldn't make it to the service due to another one of Phil's injuries.

Carlisle jumped in sudden alarm as a cell phone on the table unexpectedly rang. Alice was beside it before the first ring finished. "I can't see who's calling, which gives me a pretty good idea of who it is." Her soft voice trilled as she answered the phone. "Jake?" short pause, "No. They didn't." A dark haunting look flashed across her lovely face.

Even without hearing the other side of the conversation he could guess what Jacob had asked.

"The memorials are today … No, down at La Push …. This afternoon … Yes, Carlisle and Esme are ok, we'll be there… No, they didn't either….We'll discuss it afterwards… I know."

She hung up, and answered the unasked questions. "Jacob's heading back now; he'll try to make it in time for the memorials. He and Nes' are safe. He wanted to know who…" she broke off for a moment, having to compose herself, "…and who didn't." Her eyes were large with the pain and grief of what she'd meant to say, she didn't have to finish for him to understand.

"Yes, I'm ready to go. Alice? Jasper?" Carlisle answered Esme's question.

"Yes, we're ready too. It's a not for a few more hours though, should we wait for Jacob?" Alice asked.

"Yes, that's a good idea; he'll probably need some clothes." Esme answered thoughtfully.

Maggie stayed behind when they left later for the services as she was still new to the 'vegetarian' lifestyle and didn't trust herself to be around so many people just yet.

They drove slowly the short way down to La Push. In honor of those who had given their lives, werewolf and vampire, the council had decided to have a memorial built near the beach atop of one of the high cliffs. The memorial would have all of the names of those lost carved on it; a reminder of their unlikely allegiance and the sacrifices on both sides.

Carlisle, Esme, Alice, and Jasper had already made markers for Edward, Bella, Rosalie, Emmett, and their friends and placed them near the river behind their home. Esme had built a small garden to surround them; a small tribute. Their houses however, were left untouched.

Long into the night after the memorial service, and after Carlisle had checked on his patients, Jacob and Nessie followed them back to the house.

"So what are we going to do? Ya know, about Nessie?" Jacob asked, obviously tired, but still sounding worried. Nessie was sleeping curled up in his lap.* They still had to find out anything they could about Nessie's future, if that was possible.

"I still have several patients healing over at the reservation, but they should be fine in a little over a week." Carlisle answered him, looking to Jacob a whole lot older than the twenty – three years he'd died at. "After I'm certain that they'll be fine we'll leave for South America. I suppose in about ten days…" he was cut off by Alice coming down the staircase.

"Twelve days, Tanya will be here by then; she'll come with us." She looked like a ghost of her former bubbly self, Jacob thought.

Kachiri had agreed to guide them in their quest as best she was able, but had left earlier, not being comfortable staying where she had lost her sisters any longer; they'd meet up with her later.

"Then what?" Jacob asked.

"We'll do what we were going to do before all this started." Carlisle tried to paste on a semi pleasant face for Jacob's benefit, but he didn't doubt that he saw through it. "Pursue those legends about people like Nessie; see if we can't turn up anything."

Jacob nodded solemnly and looked down at Nes', she'd had a hard day, having to run with him all the way from Mexico in such a short time, so they could make it to the memorial services; seeing Charlie and how upset he was, and finding out that her parents and aunt and uncle were never coming back. He was filled with sorrow remembering when she asked him by touching his face and showing him what she wanted when they got back, 'Where's mommy and daddy?' He'd stared at her for a moment then sent a frantic look at Carlisle. She didn't understand at first, she'd thought it was a game, 'maybe she had to find them?' It had broken his heart to watch her squirm out of his arms and run through the house, then to and through her parents cottage looking for them when he told her as softly as he could, 'There not coming back, honey. They can't come back.' She'd finally walked slowly back to him after looking everywhere she could think of, looking the picture of sorrow and sadness, her huge watering eyes staring at him with silent horror, the beginning of realization that it wasn't a game, she really would never see them again. She'd stopped right in front of him, looked up, and whispered 'I can't find them.' Then the torrent of tears came flowing down her face and he'd picked her up and let her cry herself to sleep. She was tossing now, having a nightmare probably, he held her closer and rocked her back and forth trying to soothe her.

Charlie almost hadn't let him take her back, but Jake had managed to put him at some ease by promising him that he wouldn't leave her. As if he ever would, he'd thought, especially now when she needed him more than ever.

Carlisle's prediction of when the last of the wolves would be healed was right on target. Ten days later they were preparing for their upcoming journey packing their hiking gear and double checking to make sure they had necessary provisions for Jacob and Nessie. Maggie was nearly Alice's size, so she used her spare equipment, and Alice had already bought and packed gear for Tanya when she arrived.

Two days later, "She's here!" Alice's voice called down the stairs. Jake was already in the living room with Nessie so he answered the door before Tanya even knocked.

"Oh! Hi, I thought I smelled dog," she said without any heat and the hint of a smile.

"Get used to it bloodsucker," Jake smiled back.

"Use to it? Why would I need to do that?"

Just then Carlisle came around the door, "Tanya, good to see you again."

"Hi Carlisle, I was wondering," she was cut off.

"Of course you can stay with us Tanya, any time, you know that. We'll be leaving tonight though, but we've already got a bag packed for you."

"How did you…?"

"Alice."

"Ha-ha! Right, Alice, how could I forget?" Tanya laughed. "Where are we headed?"

"South America; Edward," Carlisle sucked in his breath at the name, then quickly composed himself, "had met someone down there whose people had legends about people like Nessie. We're going to see if we can find out anything, about her possible future." His eyes darkened as he finished and glanced over at Nessie now playing with Jake in the living room.

"Ah."

"Of course we would never just assume that you would join our little quest. I was going to ask you. You don't have to," now it Tanya's turn to interrupt.

"Of course I'm coming! I could use something to do anyway…" her voice trailed off, and turned her eyes to stare at the carpet, sadness twisting her features.

"We'd love to have you," Esme's gentle voice floated over to them as she approached. "Now you should check your bag and make sure Alice and I didn't forget anything, dear."

As twilight set in, they left the house; some of them perhaps, for the last time.

"We'll be keeping to the back roads and forests," Carlisle said as they started. Carlisle and the other Cullens had no intention of coming back any time soon.

Depending on what they found out about Nessie's immediate future, assuming she could come back, the current plan was to let her visit with Charlie when Jacob came back to visit his family and pack.

So as the dusk set in dark and damp, the little hodgepodge party left on their quest, wondering if they might find some healing for the past, some hope for the future; some of them never to return, or at least not for a few centuries.

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* - To keep this from being so creepy, I'm going with 'my' definition of the whole 'impression' thing. That is to say that my very first impression (sorry ) of impression was actually something quite different from what the 'storyteller' meant it to be, though by the time I finished reading the books, and read some of the comments from the darksiders, I realized my first impression was inaccurate of what SM had intended. So to keep myself from being traumatized, I blocked that from my mind and stuck with 'my' version; I'll try to explain it here.

Impression is not sexual. Impression is a realization or even a recognition. When people see that other person for the first time, what happens is they realize instantly that that person is their soul mate. In some cases, maybe they are recognizing each other from a previous lifetime. When they realize or recognize, as the case may be, they form an instant unbreakable bond with that person. Now, this bond does include love, platonic love, respectful love, brotherly love, and sometimes with some persons, it can lead to the realization of sexual love. Example: Sam and Emily; when they saw each other their instant bond was so deep, and they'd never felt anything that deep or any connection that solid before, they mistook it for 'love at first sight.' They did love each other, and it grew into sexual love (obviously there was instant sexual attraction, but something entirely different), but that is not what it started as. Now we know that he was already 'in love' with Leah, but if you read Memya's 'Leah's story' (email me for links), it says, and I believe it, that their love was only a thing of teenage passion, a crush, intense, yes, but not as deep as it could be (I think I got that right). Now in there case, Sam and Emily were both legal aged consenting adults, and ONLY when that is the case (I choose to believe) does the couple sometimes become involved and have the relationship grow into sexual love and marry and all that. Soul mates do not always marry. Sometimes your soul mate is your sister, your brother, your best friend, who you love, but you don't marry, you don't have sexual feelings for. I choose to believe that when Clare and Quil, or Clare anyway, is older, and when Nes is older, it is very possible that they will just be bff's with Quil and Jacob, respectfully. They may even fall in love with other people and get married to other people. However, it is doubtful that they will marry anyone else, even if they only ever love each other like family, you see, in marriage, your spouse comes first, but with 'imprinted' couples, their 'imprintee' always comes first, so that would make things complicated. Their partners would have to be extremely understanding. So right now, while their 'imprintees' are so young, all they have is over protective, friendly, brotherly, respectful love for them. Nothing inappropriate. It is possible that they might (once old enough only) become attracted to one another and form sexual love, but I think the younger one would have to start having those feelings first for the older one to get them at all. Then since they already have a deep unbreakable bond, it would only make it stronger, and well, like it said in the book, 'they'd be perfect for each other.' Hopefully I explained that well enough, I'm not always very good at explaining; but I know some people (IMW) think that Jake got the short end of the stick, and I'm just saying that if we pretend it's not what 'she' said it was, it's not quite so bad. (Not that there is anything wrong with complaining about it, but my including it in my story of them upset some people and I just wanted to let them know that I prefer not to see it that way.)

Does that make any sense?