May 2010

Astoria, Oregon

Harry

I didn't know where the determination had come from, but ever since her eyes had finally turned gold a earlier last week - a lot quicker than a normal vampire's would have, or so I was told by the rest of the Cullen - Amelia was determined to gain some self-control. Depsite her earlier lapse with Nessie, she was making amazing progress. She used her ability to drink human drinks to her advantage to help her supress her thirst.

We were currently sitting on the back seat of Carlisle's car. Amelia was seated in the middle, with me to her left and Alice to her right. Alice had been brought along to watch Amelia's future to make sure she wouldn't lose control. Carlisle and Esme were in the front seats. We stopped at the outskirts of town. I could sense Amelia's determination. Though the four of us barely noticed the distant scent of humans, Amelia's eyes blackened.

"I'm fine. I want to try getting out of the car," she insisted.

"Amelia, I'm not certain-" Carlisle began up front.

"It's fine," Alice said confidently. She got out of the car so that Amelia could get out as well. Feeling apprehensive, I got out too. I could remember what bloodlust felt like as a newborn. This didn't seem safe, especially considering that the last time we'd decided to test her self-control, she had tried to attack Nessie.

I was surprised to discover Amelia was emitting confidence, just like Alice.

"I'm fine," she insisted again. "I think all that time spent not killing Nessie has desensitised me. The chocolate milkshake helps as well." She took another swig from the bottle in her hand. She still radiated nothing but confindence.

"That's good," I told her. I gently took hold of her hand as I stood next to her. "But I have to ask why the sudden determination to test your control?" Up until a week ago she had been nothing but apprehensive towards the idea after the near disaster with Nessie.

"You'll see," she said with a secretive smile. I tried to dissect what her current personality traits were telling me but came up with nothing. What did I expect? This is Amelia. I'll never be able to predict her. That didn't really bother me as much as I once would have thought it would. Amelia's unpredictabilty was a part of the woman I loved. It was nice to be surprised for once, and I'm sure whatever Amelia was planning would leave me pleasantly surprised.

"Can we try actually going into Astoria?" Amelia asked. Determination was now coming off her in strong waves again.

"Another day," Carlisle said gently, though he was smiling, as was Esme. Intuition flared as I realized they knew whatever Amelia wasn't telling me.

"Tomorrow?" Amelia asked determindely.

"Maybe the day after," Carlisle said, glancing at his wife. He was being protective, of course. We all, aside from Amelia, knew what tomorrow was, though I had learned the hard way. None of us would mention it outloud, but the Cullen family had an unwritten agreement regarding what happened on the 28th May.

"Sure," Amelia shrugged.

We all got back into the car and drove home. Amelia sat with her head against my shoulder, and I couldn't help but hold her waist, despite the fact we were in a car with my adopted parents and sister.

Once we arrived home, we found Jacob, Seth, Nessie, Edward, and Bella on the driveway surrounding a car. Leah had decided she was going back to La Push. The seemingly cold young woman had always intrigued me. Just like Rosalie, she was actually a much nicer person beneath the surface - deeply protective and loyal for a start.

"Bye, Leah," Amelia said as she skipped over to the car.

"Bye, Amelia," Leah said, giving her a rare smile. Amelia had helped Leah to see she was not the onlt one who was abnormal even amongst the supernatural. We all waved as the car disappeared into the distance.

"I have to go get ready for my shift," Carlisle told us. He and Esme disappeared into the house.

"We're all off on a day-long hunt tomorrow," Edward told Amelia.

"We are?" she questioned. "Anyway, I thought you all hunted a few days ago." Amelia didn't miss the way we all traded significant looks.

"It's just a tradition for us to go on a day-long hunt on the 28th May," Edward explained. I knew he had picked up on my silent pleas not to tell her any more than that.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously. Persistent and stubborn, I knew she wasn't going to drop the subject. The scents I associated with people being sypathetic were coming at me from all sides, particularly from Rosalie, which might have surprised most people, but she could understand me, at least where this is concerned.

"Just come on the hunt with us," Rosalie insisted.

"OK. Everyone's acting really weird. What's going on?" Amelia's persistance and stubbornness didn't decrease in volume. She turned to me. "Harry? What's going on? What's so special about the 28th May?"

"It's the day the Cullen siblings go on their annual day-long-sibling-only hunt," I answered.

"Why the 28th though?" she asked.

"We just picked a date at random," Emmett said with a shrug. She scanned us all critically - she had now swapped to suspicious - before shrugging herself.

"Cullen sibling hunt it is then," she agreed. The scent of suspiciousness quickly began to decrease, as was Amelia's way. She never stayed any one way for too long, quickly move on to the next thing. "So, what are we doing now?" she asked.

"What's on the TV?" Emmett asked. He moved to sit in front of the TV, and Amelia and Bella followed. The others seemed to converge around me. I knew without asking they wanted to talk.

"Edge of the forest," Alice said. She most have seen my desire to be out of Amelia's hearing range.

Once we were there, all four of them turned to me with sympathetic faces.

"You have to tell her," Edward insisted.

"I know," I admitted glumly.

"You can't move forwards with your relationship until you tell her," Alice informed me. "Trust me, I know."

"She deserves the truth," Rosalie said forcefully. "You know I understand, not as much as Esme does, but still I understand. But you can't hide something like that from someone you love."

"It's not exactly a cheery story," I said darkly.

"But who here does have have a cheery story," Jasper said to me. I had to concede it was a good point.

"How do I tell her though?" I murmured, more to myself than them.

"Have you told her any of it? Sophia? Cecilia?" Jasper asked. "Sorry," he added quickly. He must have felt the stab of grief when he said the last name.

"No," Edward and Alice answered for me.

"How do I tell her all of that though?" I asked again, despairingly. I simply couldn't imagine it.

"I don't know," Rosalie said softly. "You have to though," she added determinedly.

"I know," I agreed reluntantly. "Thanks," I said to them all, knowing they were genuinely only trying to help.

I rushed back into the room, bypassing the main room were the others were watching the TV. I went into my room and stood in front of the picture I had drawn. Drawings of a former life. I wasn't that person anymore. I looked at the pictures as memories blurred together. They were the clearest memories I had from my human years, memories I had clung to with all i had for I couldn't lose them. They were all i had left of the people who I had once loved so much.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I got my sketchpad out and began to draw. This was what I always did when my mind was rattled. The familiar action soothed me. It was only once I'd calmed down that I looked at what had begun to draw. I looked at the woman I had drawn and tried to decide who she was supposed to be. The only distinguishable feature I had given the drawing was wild, brunette curls. That didn't help me decide which one of them it was supposed to be. It was the woman I loved - but which one?

I threw the sketchpad across the room with force. It smashed a hole in the opposite wall. I would have to hide that from Esme. I wasn't going to drag my grief onto her again, not considering what day it was tomorrow.

Two faces blurred into one in my mind. This is what I had been so determined to stop from happening. I had to remember who was who. I couldn't allow them to blur together. Amelia was Amelia - no one else. She had to be something entirely seperate, not a replacement. The brunette curls may have been similar, but nothing else was. I had been so cautious to start of with. So afraid to even consider loving Amelia. Surely it was a betrayal. Betrayal of the three people I had once loved more than anything.

"Harry?" Alice's voice was timid as it drifted through from the other side of the door. I wondered how much of my breakdown she had seen. "We need to go. Carlisle will be home soon."

I walked out the room and followed Alice to where the rest of them were waiting. They were all sympathetic, except Amelia. She was persistent and determined again. I knew she was not going to stop until she knew the truth.

So why not give it to her?

I didn't even want to consider that possibility. It just seemed so implausible.

"Come on. We should go," Emmett said. "Time to catch some pairs." We all piled into the two cars.

Amelia and I were in the back of Rosalie's BMW. I knew Amelia still had questions, but she seemed to have decided to leave it for now. She talked with Emmett and Rosalie about trivial things while I stared out the window. Images flashed through my mind. Images from my past, both distant and recent.

I remembered what had happened this very same day three years ago. The day that had sealed my place as one of the Cullen children.

Forks, Washington

May 2007

I threw the meager possessions I had collected in the month I had stayed with the Cullens into the backpack. I couldn't stay here anymore with this sickly sweet 'family'. I heard the Cullen 'children' moving around in the rooms beneath me. Something about a Cullen sibling tradition. That they always hunted on the 28th May or some rubbish like that. I didn't care. I was not their brother. Being a brother to anyone had only ever caused me misery.

I suppose Alice and Bella seemed likeable enough. Even Rosalie had a decent side beneath her tough exterior. I just didn't want any more sisters. I'd had a family once and look what happened to it.

I had thrown everything else into the backpack with furious disinterest, but I picked up the last item with care. The only object I had not acquired over the last month, as it was the only thing I took into the cave with me. An object I'd had from the very beginning of my immortality. Sophia had rescued it from the house for me along with some other family photographs before she had helped to raze our childhood home to the ground.

I looked at the faces smiling up at me out of the century and a half old photograph. Despite how long we'd had to wait for it to be taken, our smiles had not faltered. Tenderly, my fingers brushed the glass of the frame, stroking each face individually. Three faces I would never see again.

I fought the temptation to throw the picture against the wall. I couldn't lose it. It was the only photo I had of them. It helped to keep the memories clearer because it showed me what they had looked like.

I hated this. This reignited pain. It was these people. They made it all worse. I would always be thankful to Carlisle Cullen for saving me, for now that I was in my rational mind once more,I understood that I could not have gone on like that forever. Something would have given first – either a human would have come past or I would have finally lost my mind (if vampires even could.) But no amount of gratitude was going to make me stay with this 'family' any longer. I scoffed at my own sarcasm. The Cullens really were a family; there was no denying it. That was why it hurt so bad to be around them. They reminded me of what I once had. What I could never have again.

"Aren't you coming with us?" I heard a voice say from the doorway. As always, that little girl's voice stung me. I forced myself to look up. To look at the hybrid child who always reminded me of Victoria. It was the curls that always did me. Renesmee's were a different color, but aside from that they were so alike, down to the chocolate brown eyes that always seemed wide with wonder.

I shook my head in answer to the girl's question.

"Come on, sweetheart. We have to go," Edward picked his daughter up. He shot me a worried look. He was sympathetic, but that only made things worse. Then he disappeared down the stairs.

Gently, I placed the framed photograph at the top of the backpack and zipped it up. Though I could no longer see her in the picture, Victoria's face still swam in my mind with those curls so like Renesmee's. So like her mother's.

The Cullen household was now silent. I assumed the others had all left for their traditional 28th May hunt.

With a sigh, I picked up the backpack. I was doing exactly what I'd said I would do. I had stayed with the Cullens until I understood the basics of their vegetarian diet, and now I was leaving them. So why did a part of me want to stay? Why did some small part of me wish I could have been a part of their family?

I laughed darkly to myself at the thought.

There was no need to leave a note or anything explaining. I was sure Edward and Alice already knew. They hadn't even tried to stop me - didn't that just show how much I didn't belong here?

I had got to the top of the staircase when a noise made me stop. Apparently, I wasn't the only one left. I took a deep breath to see whose scent it was. I only caught one main trait nearby, loving. It was Esme who was still at home. Her current minor traits were bizarre though. There was maternal and caring, which was fairly standard for her, but also self-doubt and self-pitying.

I realized the noise I could hear was her sobbing. With a sigh, I put the backpack down. I couldn't leave a sobbing woman alone, particularly not one as kind and sweet as Esme.

"Mrs. Cullen?" I called as I knocked on her bedroom door. Cautiously, I opened it. She was sat on her bed with a small blue blanket clutched in her hands.

"Oh, hello, Harry," she said, trying to make her voice sound normal but unable to avoid giving a small sob.

"Mrs. Cullen, are you alright?" Even as I said the words, I realized how stupid a question that was.

"Fine," she clearly lied. I tried to guess what was wrong with her. Going off the personality traits currently strongest in her scent, I would have guessed something had happened to one of her children, but what? They had all seemed fine a while ago.

"Is everyone OK?" She nodded. I didn't know what else to say, but I couldn't just leave her when she was so visibly upset.

"What's that?" I asked, indicting the blanket in her hands.

"Do you know how I became a vampire?" she asked. I shook my head, wondering where on Earth she was going with this. "Carlisle found me in a morgue, after I'd jumped off a cliff."

"Why?" I asked without thinking. She held up the blanket in her hand.

"My son died."

"I'm sorry," I muttered, at a loss at what else to say.

"You probably think I'm stupid. Crying over something that happened eighty-six years ago."

"No. No, I don't think you're stupid."

"It's just Nessie. Having a child around. I'm so glad she's here - such a little blessing. I never thought I would ever have children again after what happened to William. I'm so blessed, with my husband, and my children, and my granddaughter. So why am I sitting here dry sobbing into a blanket?"

"Because something like that never goes away completely," I told her. "Losing a child. No matter what happens. You love them unconditionally, even after they're dead. You wonder what they would have grown up to be. Would they have been like you?" I shook my head. "You never can forget them. Never. So no, I don't think you're stupid. The very opposite in fact. You've moved on with your life, but you haven't forgotten your son. You haven't clung to a life that's now over, but accepted it and grieved for it, and then moved on." Esme was looking at me, her eyes widening with realization. I began to sense sympathy coming of her as well.

"What happened?" she asked me. A part of me wanted to spill everything out to this kind heartened woman, but I couldn't do it.

"It's a long story," I said bitterly.

"I've got time. Carlisle should have been home by now, but surgery's running late. Not his fault, of course. I know he hates the idea that he had been forced to leave me alone today of all days." Suddenly, I realized exactly what the traditional 28thMay hunt was about. To give their mother some privacy as she mourned what I could only presume was the anniversary of her son's death.

I shook my head at her. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"OK. But if you do decide you'd like someone to talk to, you know where to find me. It's nice to know that you're not the only one. Thank you for that, by the way." I was only half listening to her words. I was thinking about how she'd turned her life around. She hadn't allowed what she'd lost to prevent her from enjoying her new life. From loving a new family.

"You're welcome, Mom." The last word slipped out unbidden. She looked at me in shock. Where had that come from? I had been so determined that I would not allow the Cullens to become my family. But maybe that was exactly what I needed. To allow myself to attempt to enjoy this life. To let people in again. To have a family again.

One thing was certain; I didn't feel like leaving anymore. In fact, the idea horrified me. The thought of being alone with nothing to think about but the past. I had done that for the last decade in the cave; I had to stop torturing myself.

Esme's phone rang. I gathered from the conversation that Carlisle would be home soon. I walked toward the door.

"My son died of a lung infection," she told me as I was leaving. I knew she was hoping to get more information from me.

"My family were murdered," I replied, and then I left her room. I knew I shouldn't have said that. I would have to explain everything soon – that was if Edward hadn't already told everyone anyway.

I picked up my backpack from where I had abandoned it at the top of the stairs and went back to my room. I wasn't leaving now.

Apologies again for the delay, more Beta issues. Hopefully, everything is all sorted out now.

So a (rather big) part of Harry's past has been revealed there. I'd love to hear your thoughts :)