1Thirteen

Remaining true to the season, Alice and I curled up on the couch in the living room to read A Christmas Carol for kicks after we were both mud free. I tried to read it aloud while she purposely blew cold breath into my ear at random points during the first few chapters, making me gasp and twitch with a slight blush every time, and she thought it was cute, which made the blush worse, making her laugh at me. Once I complained, she just smiled really big, fully dimpled. "You're slowing it down to a crawl, love, and my attention span isn't very long, you know that," she told me playfully, pecking my lips. Damn it all, she was so... adorable.

I scoffed and was pushing myself off her chest when I heard the rumbling motor of my daddy's truck pulling up into the yard, and I jumped up, forgetting that I'd wanted to have a sandwich made for him when he got back from helping Freddy. But then I glanced at the clock and realized it was only noon, and he had said he'd be back at two. I supposed they'd decided to call it an early day due to the weather, and went towards the kitchen to start making him a sandwich, anyway. I heard a loud noise on the porch as I crossed the room, and before I could react in anyway, Alice was out the door and then back, carrying my father, who looked as if he'd passed out. "Daddy!" I dashed over to him as Alice placed him on the couch where we'd just been sitting, and pulled the blanket we'd been using over him. "Daddy? What happened? Are you okay?" I asked, panicked.

His head rolled around at the sound of my voice and his eyes opened, but instead of focusing on my face, they searched the room around him. "Butterbean?" he called, as if he hadn't even heard me say anything, as if he was looking for me. Horror spread through me, from my chest to every nerve ending in my body.

"Daddy, I'm right here, look at me," I said, touching his scruffy cheek, but he still couldn't see or seem to hear me.

I looked at Alice desperately, and saw she was frozen, her eyes glazed as she looked at my father, but her phone was in her hand and the dialer was pulled up on the touch screen. I reached over and attempted to take her phone, but as I did she awoke and gasped, looking at me with terrified eyes, and my heart dropped with a splash into my stomach, knowing what she'd seen. "Butterbean!" Daddy gasped, and I looked back down at him as I heard Alice start talking on her phone. His eyes were finally focused on me, and I knew he was seeing me for the first time since Alice had brought him in.

"Daddy? Can you hear me?" I was beginning to sob, grief at the thought of him leaving me encasing me completely.

The twitch of his smile trying to come through told me he could. A surge of hope went through me, and I took one of his giant hands between both of mine. "Daddy, Alice has an ambulance on the way, you're going to be fine. You have to be, okay? I need you." I was sobbing hard, and I squeezed his hand and felt him weakly squeeze back.

"I love you, Butterbean," he told me in a light whisper, then Alice was off the phone and had taken his other hand between hers. His eyes shifted to her face, and he tried to smile again. "Alice, you tell her everything," he whispered, "And..." he was losing breath, getting weaker with every second that ticked by, but he sucked in a great deal of air and focused on Alice's face intensely. "Remember your word." These were the strongest words he spoke, and I was wondering what he was talking about.

"I promise, Thomas," she whispered beside me, and though my eyes never left my father's face, I registered that Alice understood perfectly.

"You have Alice now," Daddy said to me, smiling weakly, but his biggest one yet, and placing my hand on hers. I took the symbol for what it was, he was giving her my hand, therefore telling us he fully approved. "Wish I could be around to walk you to her when she marries you, Butterbean." I stared at him, terrified of life without him, sobs shaking me from head to toe. His eyes slid out of focus and his breathing stopped, and my heart stopped with his.

"Daddy? Daddy! No! I need you both, don't leave me! DADDY! DADDY! NO NO PLEASE NO! COME BACK!" I was screaming hysterically, and I threw myself across his wide chest, beating my fist into his still body, and when I heard the silence of his heart, and I wailed so high I lost my voice in it. Alice draped herself over me, holding me, petting my hair as I came apart beneath her, over my dead father's recently non-beating heart. He couldn't leave me, he couldn't. What would I do, now? I prayed as hard as I could that I was in a nightmare, and that I would wake up, but I knew my eyes were not closed to my world, my reality. And the harsh reality was I'd really just lost my hero. I was holding on to him for dear life, thinking about how there would be no more of his wisdom, his loud laughter, or his twinkling eyes. Gone were the days I could run home to South Carolina "when the going got tough", as he said. I could hear his baritone voice in my head telling me, "You know where home will always be, Butterbean." I lost my breath as I realized I would never hear that again, Butterbean. He was the only person in the world who called me that.

I felt cool hands pry beneath me and lift me up into cool arms, which wrapped around me firmly, protectively, and my hot, tear-stained face sought cool sanctuary in a secure nook, and I felt myself rocking softly. Then I heard wind chimes, or tiny bells, ringing beautifully in my ear as a cool breeze grazed it gently, comforting me. "Shh, I've got you, my love, I won't let you break. It's okay, Andie, it's okay, he's in a better place now. He's happy. I'm so sorry you're hurting," Alice whispered softly to me, pressing her lips against my hair as she rocked me, and I nuzzled further into her soft neck, breathing all that was my Alice to pull myself out of misery.

That's right. Daddy was right. I have Alice now and she is home. But that didn't make losing him hurt any less.

AlicePOV

I rocked Andie back and forth, something I'd seen mothers do for crying children, and I felt the need to have her against me, to shelter her from the on-setting sorrow that was cracking her. I refused to let her break. It seemed to help, as she stopped screaming and buried her swollen face in my neck as I began. I tried to comfort her best I could, telling her things I felt about how he'd chose to pass. He was happy when he gave up, he knew Andie would be happy, and it was enough for him. I'd surmised that much of Thomas's personality, that he would give his life for his little girl's happiness, and he did. I was lost beyond that, with inconsolable mate shaking in my embrace, and I could just hope that she would heal, because I could sense the scars forming over her heart as she cried. I could not fully sympathize with her, as I had no recollections of losing someone that close to me. The nearest thing I could imagine was the vision I'd had of her dead in my arms, feeling the pain that never was, and if I could help it, never would be. I wished I could cry with her, show her I was not immune to her pain from her loss.

Andie's eyes. Thomas's eyes. They were still open, merely staring at the ceiling. Fuck. What could I do? I'd promised Thomas I'd take care of her, and look at me, already letting her rip at the seams. But I had a feeling there was nothing anyone could do for Andie, except bring her father back, and she wasn't naive enough to believe it was possible. My arms tightened around her as I heard the ambulance coming sooner than I could have even predicted, tires on the dirt road. Andie looked up at my face as I stared expectantly at the screen door, and she sighed.

"They're going to take him," she whispered, and I looked down at her, pressing my lips to her forehead.

"It's okay," I whispered back, looking back at Thomas. The last thing he'd done was give me his daughter's hand, and tell her he wished he could walk her to me when I marry her. Marriage had not even crossed my mind, yet. It was just something I assumed would happen in due course. I felt the pressure of tears that would never fall as I slowly rocked my mate. He had loved her, she was everything to him, and he had given her to me.

I heard the truck stop in the yard and two doors slam, before there was a pair of thundering feet tearing up the fronts steps, and the screen door was slung open. "Did someone– oh, shit, it really is Thomas!" A scrawny young boy of no more than twenty-one rushed in the door and stooped beside us on the floor next to the couch, checking Thomas for a pulse that did not beat.

A second medic came in the door with a bag, but stopped short when the first guys shook his head slowly and withdrew his hand from Thomas's neck. "I gotta call my pop, they were friends," the skinny guy told his partner, and Andie peeked out of my neck to see him.

"Drew?" she asked blankly, sitting up in my lap as the boy's eyes shot over to her and his face lit up and fell all at once at the sight of her.

"Andie?" he said, partially anguished, and partially relieved. "God, I'm so sorry." He held his arms open for a hug, and I almost didn't let her go to him; I knew why when he closed his eye and smiled when he wrapped his arms around her a second later. This fucker had a thing for my mate! No no no, calm down, I told myself, taking a deep breath, willing it to actually help relax my instincts, because this guy was setting them loose as a threat. I whipped out my phone, trying to seem nonchalant as possible, while I fought to swallow the snarl rising in my throat. Andie's father died, and I'm lost. Anyone have any suggestions? I sent that as mass text to my entire family, Jacob Black included because he was as close to human as I had saved in my phonebook besides Andie herself.

"Pop and me will help with the funeral," Drew was whispering to Andie as he held her. "You won't have to worry about a thing." The second medic was opening the screen door to bring in the stretcher, and I tried to count his foot falls in the mud outside to distract me from the tone he was using to relay these words to her. "You can even stay with us until you go back to school," he offered, and I saw Andie stiffen at it as I bit back the string of growls and snarls of not-so-nice words I wanted to hurl at him, and then gently extract herself from him, moving a step back.

"I'll be fine here, Drew. Alice is with me." She looked over her shoulder and bade me come, and I moved to stand beside her, and she took my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. I saw his dark eyes flicker down at our hands, then he looked back up at Andie, his face void, as she introduced me. "Drew, this is my world, my existence. Alice, this is my friend, Drew," she said, and he nodded to me. "We grew up together."

I didn't say anything, lest I rip his fucking eyes out for even looking at she who belonged to me. Instead I leaned over and pressed my lips to her temple, showing her affection he couldn't mistake to physically show my territory, without taking my eyes from his. He saw what I wanted him to see, as he swallowed hard and took a step back, looking at the door as the other guy came back. "Don't worry, Andie," he said without looking at me again. "I'll take good care of him."

With that, he turned to help his partner, and Andie turned back into my chest to hide her face as it came back to her what was going on around her. Seeing Drew had shocked her out of reality momentarily, and now she began to succumb to a fresh batch of tears in my arms, and I gently moved her to the stairs, feeling Drew's eyes on us as I helped her climb them. I was going to lie with her in her room and let her cry, because I didn't feel it healthy to let her see them take him away like that. She had seen too much, too soon, already.

We lay in almost silence, her sobs and whimpers the only sound after Drew and his partner had taken Thomas and their leave. I assumed the vision of them going to the funeral home meant Drew knew his cause of death as well as I did, and needed no autopsy to know otherwise. I would tell Andie everything once she was rested, and calm, though I didn't really know how to say it. My phone went off in my pocket and I fished for it, knowing it was answers from my earlier question, and sure enough I had eight texts from the eight people I had asked.

Hold her and let her cry to you, let her vent it out, Bella said, and I told her I was.

Be there for her to talk to, don't leave her side, and god knows, Alice, don't be too brash with her, Edward replied, and I rolled my eyes as I texted him to bite me and of course she knew I was there for her and wouldn't leave her.

Is she going to change now? Rosalie, of course, true to form. Cold as her flesh. I didn't even reply to that, slightly disgusted, but Emmett's reply made me feel a little better.

Try to make her smile, Emmett suggested, and though I knew he meant well, I didn't think that one would be fruitful at this stage. It would have to come later. I told him so.

Remind her that he'll always be with her, and always watching over her, Esme advised, and I made note of that, as I hadn't told her so. I thanked Esme with all capital letters.

Tell her that she's family to us, even though we've never met, as she may feel orphaned at the moment, homeless, even, Carlisle told me kindly, and I smiled softly at his heart which matched the golden shade of his eyes. I thanked him his as well. Thomas would have loved him.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Tell Andie I'm sorry, and that I send my thoughts. I miss you guys, Jasper said, and I felt a pull for my compassionate best friend, but was secretly glad he wasn't here to feel Andie's sorrow with his potent empathetic gift. I couldn't handle them both hurting at this level. I told him I'd pass his message along.

Keep her comfortable and encourage her to cry, Jacob told me, then another text with his name showed up before I could hit the reply button. Nessie is offended you didn't ask her opinion. I am to enlighten you that you should kiss her tears away. And Ness misses you. I smiled at my little niece, who probably wasn't so little anymore, come to think of it. I hadn't been to Forks to see that part of the family for quite some time, maybe seven months, and she was the physical appearance of a twelve year old with the mind of an adult. She was three and a half years old. But that's what happens with human-vampire hybrids, apparently. I texted them back with my thanks and my love.

I missed my family very much, Rose included, although I was still a little miffed about her lack of compassion. A loud sniff pulled me out of my thoughts. I pulled the groggily sniffing girl in my embrace closer to me and she threw a leg over my lap to pull herself even closer. I buried my nose in her long dark hair, and she sighed heavily into my chest, pulling lightly at my shirt, surprising me, and I looked down at her. "Andie...?" Surely she didn't want...? How...?

She looked up at me with wide eyes, tears standing in them even though they were so dry from ones shed before. "Please Alice, I need you. Please," she said, nearly begging me, as she held back a sob, fiddling with the draw string on the pajama pants I was wearing, and I put a hand on hers to stop her, confused.

"Andie," I said gently, something clicking in my mind. She wanted to be close to me as possible. "Now is not the time for that, love. You need your rest. We have forever for that."

She gave up and laid her head back down on my chest, sobbing again, but she wasn't angry with me like I was preparing for. "You told me you'd never tell me no," she pouted from my chest a minute later.

I sighed heavily, not answering her, taking her bait for an argument. We'd gone a few hours without one, which was record for our bickering, and I wasn't ready to break it. When I never replied, she just huffed and rolled away from me, her back planted firmly a foot away from me in the double bed. God, why does she have to be so stubborn? I rolled over with her and tried to put my arm around her, but she shoved her elbow backwards into me, and though I knew it had to hurt like hell, she didn't even wince in the slightest. "Leave me alone. Go kill a deer or something," she said tonelessly, but it was like daggers through my heart. What did I do?

"Andie, please don't-"

"Alice! Just give me some space for a little while, since you don't want to not give me space."

I sat up, confused and irritated. "Really? Because I won't let you fuck me I'm being tossed out to- go kill a deer?"

"It has nothing to do with just fucking you, Alice! I just- I need- I want to be near you, I want to lose myself in you like I did this morning! I can't feel anything but sunshine when I'm with you, when we're close like that." She rolled over and looked at me, and I felt myself crumple in her eyes. "I don't want to feel this, anymore. I want some silver lining. I've lost my daddy... but I still have you."

A/N: As always reviews are appreciated, it gives me strength to continue... otherwise I just lurk around here doing nothing but nothing. Give me thoughts. Give me feedback. Personal opinions, something.