Title: Consequence

Rating: PG

Summary: Bella explains her choices to Charlie, Alice has a vision of the Volturi.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyers owns all mentioned characters

Safely back at the Swan residence, Edward helped me, again, out of the car. It seemed that he was not yet willing to let go of my former helplessness. I offered no objection as he scooped me into his arms and secured his lips to my own once more. Completely lost in the kiss, I did not notice that we were moving, although that could have been due to the inhuman grace with which he moved. He set me down on my feet in front of the door.

We had stopped to hunt on the way back to the meadow to prepare for my close interaction with Charlie. I could smell him already, and even though I was no longer thirsty, the smell was disgustingly tempting to my weak resistance. As we walked through the front door, the smell became overpowering. I wondered longingly how long it would take for me to be as indifferent to it as Edward, this was borderline torture. The smell had always been present in the house, but now that I had to come face to face with the very core of it, I was concerned.

"No worries." Edward squeezed my shoulders in encouragement as he felt me tense, "I'll be right there."

I nodded weakly and opened the door. Charlie sat stiffly at the kitchen table with Alice and Carlisle. He looked up at Edward and I as we entered. His eyes locked on to my own and grew wide as he surveyed the vivid red around my irises.

"Bella." He breathed.

"Hey dad, how do you feel?" I edged conversationally as I cautiously walked over to the table and took a seat, grimacing at the intense attraction his blood radiated.

" I feel…. Alive." He shrugged.

"Good, lets try to keep it that way." I joked mildly.

An awkward silence followed my statement, finally broken by Alice.

"Well Carlisle, these three have a lot to talk about, lets give them some privacy."

Carlisle nodded his agreement and they exited to the living room to stare vacantly at the morning news and tune in their sensitive ears to our conversation, no doubt.

I focused on not breathing as we continued to sit in the quiet.

"Bella, why didn't you tell me?" Charlie surrendered the silence.

"Dad, you saw what happened. There are rules when someone knows about the existence of vampires. When someone knows too much, they either have to become one of us…. Or…."

"Die." He finished. "Is that why then…." He gestured to me.

"Its part of it." I admitted, " It was also my choice though. I wanted this."

"So that young girl…. Well Carlisle said you don't age so she probably wasn't very young, was she…. But, that young looking girl was definitely here to kill me, then?"

"Yes."

"And you all saved me."

"No, Charlie," Edward stepped in, "Bella saved you."

Charlie nodded again, deep in thought.

"And there will be more…. After me…. Trying to kill me?"

"Not if we can stop it." I promised.

"But…. I'm basically doomed then, right?"

"No," Edward supplied, "We have a pretty decent idea that you will live a full human life and die when the time is right."

"How can you be sure…" He asked doubtfully.

"Well… We all have our different talents as vampires. Alice's talent happens to be the capability of seeing into the future." He elaborated no further into anyone else's talents. Probably, I guessed, because he didn't see it as necessary to explain his mind reading to Charlie.

"Oh, I see." He thought some more before raising another question. "So….the reason you guys left was because I couldn't know about Bella being a……" He struggled with the word. "A vampire?"

"Basically." I nodded.

"So now that I know…..you guys can move back, right?"

"Not exactly - I… we…" I stopped. Did Jake tell Charlie about the werewolves too, or did he just reveal the vampire part?

"There are others that would recognize Bella." Edward stepped in. "They would eventually realize that she was not aging…. It just can't happen." I threw him a grateful glance.

"Oh." Charlie acknowledged. Another long pause, then - "Do you really drink blood?" He was suddenly full of childlike curiosity.

"Only animal blood." Edward responded.

I winced and resumed my attention to my feet.

"Its our way of life." Edward continued, "We are few of the rare vampires in the world who resist human blood and leave it out of our lifestyle completely."I guess that's a good thing… otherwise my life would be in sever danger right now."

I winced again.

"Bella, being so new to how we live is still in the early stages of resistance, so its harder for her. It will always be hard, but it gets easier in time." He continued unnecessarily. I didn't want him to scare Charlie, but Charlie seemed entirely fascinated.

"So you're saying that my daughter is struggling to resist killing me right now?"

"Yes. But she is handling it very well." He beamed.

"Was It hard for you when she was human?" Charlie asked.

"Harder than imaginable." Edward nodded.

"Well, you must love her a lot then."

"With everything I am, sir."

I surely would have been blushing at this moment if I had been able to.

"Is there anything else I should know, Bella? Is your mom a witch or something?" He joked.

"No dad, I'm still the only freak of the family." I assured him.

He chuckled lightly and then frowned again, thinking hard.

"So now what?" He inquired.

"Now we deal with the people who sent Jane here." I sighed. "I'm sure they'll be looking for a chat sometime soon."

"Are you guys going to leave?"

"Soon," Edward nodded. "We'll leave soon."

It was nearly noon at this point.

"You want some breakfast dad?" I stood and began busying myself in the kitchen without waiting for his response. I had to do something to keep my mind off of the blood rushing through Charlie's veins and demanding my attention.

Once Charlie's breakfast had been made, he sat gratefully at the table and ate while I joined the rest of the family in the living room to discuss the matter of our seemingly doomed fates.

"I've been monitoring the Volturi." Alice began, "And I must say that I honestly don't see anything to worry about."

"Do they know that we killed Jane?" Rosalie frowned.

"Well… no." Alice admitted.

"Obviously then you can't know if we're safe or not." Emmett pointed out.

"Okay, I'll give you the basics of what I understand so far." She settled herself into a comfortable position on the couch and began a very detailed description of her visions of the Volturi.

"My visions are basically centering around Caius and Aro. They have been doing a lot of private talking lately. From what I can comprise out of it all, Michelle let slip to them about the army of Zombies Jane asked her to create and they were very displeased. Now, I don't know why they wouldn't know about it…"

A confused murmur ran through her intently listening audience.

"Something, I don't know what yet, but something else was going on with Jane that had the whole of the Volturi on edge. They began sending her on suicide missions, trying to dispose of her without technically getting their hands dirty. When they found out about Jacob, they saw a perfect opportunity. What better way to get rid of a vampire by sending her after a member of a very large pack of werewolves?"I found myself nodding with the rest of them as I took it all in. It made sense.

"Well, Jane was smart enough to not take a chance with the group of werewolves, I guess.."

"That could have something to do with the fact that her mind torture didn't work on them." Rosalie stepped in.

We all turned to look at her.

"Oops. I guess I forgot to mention that." She shrugged, "When I went to talk to Jacob, I also had a brief word with the leader of them, Sam… I think. Anyways, he said that Jane had come around once and then screamed about some kind of inconsistent and inconvenient resistance and took off running.. They basically though she was mad and ignored it, but I guess it must have meant that they could resist her just like Bella could."

"Oh, so when she realized that her existence was in danger by this mission she hired some help." I thought out loud.

"Yes," Alice nodded, "That must be it. But how does that explain Charlie? Aro and Caius never instructed her to get rid of him."

"I can put that puzzle piece in place I think." Edward offered, "When we first entered this house, her thoughts were not centered around getting rid of Charlie, they were focused on getting rid of us. I believe that Charlie was her bait to get us here, that way she thought she could take care of all of us and then have another go at getting rid of Jacob once we weren't there to save him."

"She wasn't banking on Bella beating the shit out of her though." Emmett chuckled.

"Why wouldn't she just give up?" I shook my head in confusion.

"You don't give up when you're a member of the Volturi. You either succeed in your duty or you die trying."

I grimaced. "Why on earth would that appeal to anyone?"

"Bella, most vampires don't have a respectable lifestyle and a family to depend on like us. Most are nomads that just run around killing humans, to them… the Volturi is an appealing group to be a part of."

I shuddered at the thought.

Alice suddenly stiffened.

"Vision." We all murmured.

She continued to sit abruptly still with her eyes closed for about 20 long minutes until Charlie walked in unknowingly.

"Hey, gu-" He stopped short when he caught sight of the eight silent and still focusing figures in he had interrupted. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

Alice's eyes flew open. "Well they know now."

"Sorry?" Charlie looked confused.

"No, no, not you Charlie." She waved him off with a smile. Turning back to us she continued. "They know that Jane is dead now.""And?" The question came from Rosalie.

"And they are on their way to have a chat with us." Alice flinched uneasily.

"Damnit." I groaned.

"I don't think it's a bad thing." Edward soothed, "I think its just a routine 'Why did you kill a fellow vampire' kind of visit."

"They didn't seem the slightest bit upset about her death." Alice shrugged. "But even so, we don't want them coming here. We'd better get home."

Charlie's eyes fell. With a pang of guilt I realized that he was lonely here, and he was enjoying our company.

"Charlie," Alice turned to him apologetically. "You are in no more danger. I will keep my eye on you to be sure, but everything should be fine now." She promised.

"I'm sorry about all this, Dad." I said softly.

"It's alright. At least this way you will be able to visit me now and then, right?"

"Yeah." Edward replied. "But it would be best to wait for at least half of a year until she is better at resistance."

I nodded in agreement. I had been struggling silently with my instincts and impulses all day long. It made me sick to think about the things that my body was telling me to do. My mind kept screaming no the whole time though, I had a killer headache from the effort.

"Bye dad." I said as we all stood. I felt obligated to give him a departing hug at least, but I knew that I couldn't do it.

He seemed to understand. He shook Edwards hand and gave me an acknowledging nod. "Bye Bella. You practice that resistance thing and, um…… yeah." He fumbled with his words. "Later, I guess."

"Take it easy, Charlie, you hear?" Alice chimed as she gave him a brief hug. "See you soon."

And with that, we departed. Out to the cars and back to the house that I was not yet comfortable calling a home.

The ride was silent. Edwards hand was wound firmly around my waist and through my belt loop and his lips rested casually on the top of my head. I tried not to think about what awaited us back in Denali, I tried to focus on how peaceful life would be after the turmoil of these past few days had passed. I focused on the angel sitting beside me who I would get to spend the rest of forever with….

……….. no matter how short that forever may be.