Denali, Alaska

July 2010

Amelia

The car was slowing down. I was staring out the window so I easily spotted the large cabin ahead of us. It was nice to see something other than endless trees, which had grown boring after a while. Still, the view out the window was preferable to having to pretend to be interested in any of the conversations going on in the car. Harry sat next to me, and I was still furious with him because he was hiding something from me. Everyone seemed to know except me. I'd tried, repeatedly, to get him to open up to me, but nothing. Finally, I'd lost my temper and things between us had been cold ever since. It hurt me, not just because I was upset with him, but because I knew whatever it was he wasn't telling me was hurting him.

Five vampires arrived outside to greet us as our two cars pulled up.

"We'll just say hi to the cousins first before we go take our stuff to our home here," Carlisle said from up front. I had a feeling 'saying hi' was going to take a while. After all, the whole reason for this trip to Alaska was to find out what the hell I had done to Rosalie, who was still unable to speak. She hadn't spoken to me since, well, she hadn't spoken to anyone technically, but she was pointedly ignoring me. And her usually cheery husband wasn't exactly being friendly towards me either.

As I got out of the car, the five vampires looked at me with great interest. One of them seemed the most fascinated. I had to assume this was the one the Cullens had told me about, the one who could tell others talents. Eleazar.

"What is she?" he asked.

"We were kind of hoping you could answer that for us," Carlisle replied.

"She has a talent, but there's something else. That… thing," he said the word uncertainly, "you mentioned on the phone?"

"Can you really drink human drinks?" one of the females asked. I nodded in response.

"Yep. Do I have to do the freak show again?" I asked exasperatedly. As much as I appreciated my extraordinary ability, it sure got tiring to be constantly treated like a freak of nature.

"To be honest, I'd be more intrigued to see you manipulate someone's mind," Eleazar said. We all looked at him in shock.

"Do what now?" I asked. Is that what I do? Manipulate minds?

"You're here to find out what your talent is. You can manipulate minds." I was still just staring at him in shock.

"What exactly does that mean?" Harry asked on my behalf. Everyone turned their attention to him, giving me a chance to process what I had just been told.

I can control minds.

"How?" I asked. "I don't know how I did what I did and I can't seem to reverse it."

"You said it usually happens when you lose your temper?" Carlisle asked.

"Yes, but it's only happened twice. And the first time, with Esme, it didn't work. It gave us both a weird headache but I didn't … manipulate her mind," I said the last part uncertainly; the concept sounded so strange.

"That suggests there's some sort of natural shield around people's minds that your mind waves have to penetrate," Eleazar explained.

"So how did I get past Rosalie's shield?" I asked. This wasn't making any sense. I looked over at Rosalie; despite her inability to speak, I knew she was absolutely furious at me. Not that I could blame her, all things considered.

"Shields aren't permanent things, Amelia. Just ask Bella," Elezear told me softly.

"Have you tried simply telling Rosalie to speak again?"

"Yes," I snapped. I wasn't that stupid.

"Rosalie, perhaps you should try and let Amelia in," Carlisle suggested, and Rosalie glared at me.

There was a few seconds of silence and then.

Like I'm going to allow the stupid freak back inside my mind.

"Oh, so I'm a stupid freak, am I?" I snapped at her.

"She didn't say anything," Emmett replied to me harshly. "She can't speak remember, because of you."

O f course I didn't say anything. Because of you, you stupid bitch.

"Oh that's just uncalled for!" I shouted.

"What?" several voices chorused.

"She called me a stupid bitch!"

"No, she didn't," Harry told me gently. But the list of insults continued. How can none of them hear that?

"I can," Edward told me. "She didn't say anything out loud though."

"Come again?" I questioned. Several people gasped.

"You're reading her thoughts," Alice exclaimed.

"Her shield must be down then," Eleazar noted.

"But how can her shield be down? She was thinking about making sure it stayed up, not trying to take it down."

"Indeed," Edward agreed.

"Does it matter? Will you just give my wife her voice back, please?" Emmett requested testily.

Speak, I tried to think at Rosalie. Talk. Say something. Speak again. I could still hear her thoughts, but there was no surge of brain waves or whatever that funny feeling apparently was.

"I can't seem to do it," I exclaimed, irritated.

"Concentrate," Carlisle suggested gently.

Speak. Talk. Say something. Speak, Rosalie.

"It's not working!" I cried in frustration.

"Try saying it out loud as well," Harry suggested.

"Talk, Rosalie." Nothing. I took a deep breath, trying to focus all of my vampire concentration. "Talk again, Rosalie." This time my voice took on a strange, persuasive tone, and a now recognizable force pulsed through my mind to hers.

"Spare us the rant, please, Rosalie," Alice said before Rosalie could even speak.

"I can speak?" she said. I gave an excited squeal.

"It worked?" I exclaimed happily. "And I'm sorry about the whole, you know, taking your voice away thing. Would you believe me if I said I didn't do it on purpose?" Rosalie glared at me for a second before her face softened slightly.

"I suppose so," she agreed reluctantly. I was relieved that gaining her voice back had appeared to soothe Rosalie's frustration. Hopefully, relations between me and her and Emmett would improve again soon.

"Can you hear my thoughts still?" she asked uncomfortably.

"No," I said. "These shields are tricky things."

"I don't understand why Rosalie refusing to give Amelia access to her mind, did just that," Edward stated.

"That was odd," I agreed. "I mean, how do I get past the shields?"

"This is just a guess," Eleazar began cautiously, "but from what I've been told, and what I'm reading off you, it suggests that you can access people's mind if they're -what's the best way of wording this- being… malicious or … evil. So Rosalie's mind opened because she was trying to keep you out."

"That's so confusing," I complained. "But that does explain why I couldn't get past Esme's shield. She doesn't have an evil or malicious bone in her body."

"Um…thanks," Esme said.

"It's true," everyone in the room chimed in, causing her to smile bashfully.

"What does that say about me?" Rosalie snapped, and everyone looked away from her awkwardly. "Thanks, guys," she said sarcastically.

"You're welcome, Rose," Alice joked.

"So what else can I do?" I asked excitedly.

"Well, here, there's very little you can do, as I presume you can't get past anyone's shield ," Eleazar told me.

"Damn you all, being good people," I said jokingly.

"However, I think it might be possible for people to allow you in," he continued.

"You mean actually allow me in? Or try not to, therefore allowing me in?" I asked.

"Either would work, I think."

"Any volunteers?" I asked, looking around at everyone. "Well, don't all rush at once."

"I will," the other male Denali said. Garrett, I think his name was.

And suddenly I could hear him.

Can you hear me?

Yes. I was surprised when I managed to reply. I could communicate with other people via their mind. That was kind of awesome to be quite honest.

Make me do something then.

Like what?

I dunno. Jump up and down?

Jump up and down. The brain waves pulsed from me to him and suddenly he was jumping up and down, much to the amusement of everyone else around us. It was so much easier when someone let me into their mind.

Stop. Instantly, he stopped. There was complete silence for a few seconds.

"Oh my God, that is so fucking awesome," Emmett exclaimed. "What else can you do?"

"I think, as along as she can access someone's mind, she can do whatever she wants to them," Eleazar explained. I was still trying to process that. I could control people. I could take total control of them.

Suddenly, all my excitement drained away. I had accidentally taken Rosalie's voice away from her simply by losing my temper. What else would I end up doing to my family? Obviously, their shields wouldn't always protect them. Would I hurt them? Was I a risk to them? Why on Earth would they want me around if there was a chance I could harm them?

It was only truly beginning to impact on me how powerful I truly was.

The thought terrified me.

"I need a minute," I managed to say. Not caring what it looked like, I ran out of the room as quickly as possible. I hesitated for a second by the front door, before opening and fleeing the house.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized this was a strange paradox, but I simply didn't care. Once more, I ran from my family.

~o~ ~O~ ~o~

"Why are you sitting in a tree?" a voice shouted. I recognized the bell-like peal of Nessie's voice. She and Jacob had come along with us to Alaska, while Seth had returned home to La Push to spend time with his family.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. Silently, she clambered up the tree to join me. After all the preparation I had done to be able to attend Harry's graduation, it was no longer any effort to ignore her scent. Being around humans I still struggled with, but one little hybrid I could cope with.

Gently, she pressed her palm to my cheek. I saw my own shocked face just before I fled the house. She was obviously asking me what was wrong.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"I may still technically be a child, but even I'm not that naïve."

I sighed." I just don't want to talk about it," I told her, perhaps a little harshly.

"Did my family ever tell you what happened with the Volturi?" she asked gently.

"That's that bunch of Italian psychos nobody likes, right?"

"That's one way of describing them, yes. Shortly after I was born, the Volturi found out about my existence, but they were told I was an immortal child, something strictly forbidden by their laws. So they, along with their guard, came to kill us all." She paused then. As fascinating as what she was telling me was, I couldn't see how it was relevant to what had just been discovered about me.

"Anyway, we gathered a collection of friends for support, to give evidence that I was a hybrid, not an immortal, but at the end of the day, when they finally came, it was Mom that saved us."

"Because of her shield." I remembered Edward and Bella telling me about it a while ago, but I had been too preoccupied with trying to understand their so-called 'love story'.

"And we've always feared the Volturi will return," Edward's voice sounded from below me. He and Bella came to join us in the tree.

"I see Nessie found you," Bella said softly. "You certainly ran a long way."

"It wasn't that far," I defended.

"Amelia, you do realize we crossed the Alaskan-Canadian border a while ago," Edward told me.

"Oh. Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean to worry everyone."

"Well, you did, lil' sis." This time I recognized Emmett's booming voice. Soon he and Rosalie were in the tree as well, on the branches above us.

"Erm… how many vampires do you think one tree can hold?" I asked cautiously.

"Technically, I'm a hybrid," Nessie reminded me. Below us, a wolf howled.

"Jacob's here," Nessie squealed.

"Yes, we found her," Edward called down to the large wolf. "He's going to go phase back," he told us.

"How many people were looking for me?" I asked hesitantly.

"All of us," Emmett replied.

"That was really unnecessary," I told them forcefully.

"When are you going to realise your own importance to us?" This came unexpectedly from Rosalie.

"I thought you'd still be angry at me for the whole 'shutting up' incident," I said to her without thinking about it. I never did learn to keep my mouth shut.

"Oh, I am," she replied in a mock-threatening way.

The branches of the tree next to us began to shake, and suddenly Jacob's head appeared from within its leaves.

"Smooth, mutt," Emmett joked.

"Where's Harry?" I asked. His absence from this bizarre gathering of our family had suddenly hit me.

"Probably still looking for you," Edward replied.

"Nope, we found her!" Alice chimed below us. She and Jasper were here now, and I realized Harry was with them; I didn't know whether to be pleased about that or not.

"Alice, how were you not the first person to find me?"

"Hybrid and werewolf involvement," she grumbled. Two voices shouted apologies.

"How did you find me first, anyway?" I asked Nessie.

She shrugged. "Luck, I guess."

The three newest arrivals had joined us in the treetops, clambering up the tree just a little behind us, between us and Jacob.

"Why is everyone up trees?" Jasper asked.

"Ask Amelia," Emmett answered. Everyone turned their attention to me.

"I dunno," I replied with a sigh. "I just wanted somewhere to hide," I admitted.

"Why?" This was asked by Esme, who, along with Carlisle, had joined Alice, Jasper, and Harry opposite us.

"Why are we holding a Cullen family meeting up in the trees?" I asked, purposefully changing topic.

"Because you were hiding up one," several voices chorused. Damn, walked straight into that one.

"Are you upset by your talent, Amelia?" Carlisle asked gently. I didn't reply, though I knew the answer. Yes. Yes, I was. It was just the idea that I could control people… could I trust myself with that sort of power?

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely," I quoted out loud.

"But it's not absolute; you have to get past people's shields," Emmett pointed out.

"And to do so, they have to be thinking something malicious," Edward reminded me. "For example, do you think you could mind manipulate any of us right now?"

I tried to gain access to their minds, but it didn't work. Now I knew what I could do, I could, if I concentrated, feel the pulse of the brain waves, but they were closed off, inaccessible to me.

"No," I replied.

"Is it really such a bad thing to be able to stop people from being able to hurt each other?" Bella asked.

"I suppose not," I admitted.

"You know I believe that a person's talent occurs because they bring something over with them from their human life," Carlisle told me. "For example, Edward could read people as a human and Jasper was charismatic. Both Alice and Bella's talent were there as humans, and amplified by the change."

"I'm pretty certain I couldn't control people as a human," I replied, more sarcastically than I had intended.

No-one would ever have thrown me down a flight of a stairs if I could. In fact, most of the time I had felt powerless going through high school, watching all the bullying and other shit that happened there, and knowing there was nothing I could do to change things. That's just the way people are, and there was nothing I could do about it. And it wasn't just high school. After all, turn the news on any day and you're bound to find at least one story about someone who has murdered, or raped, or stole, or lied.

"Perhaps that's where it came from then," Edward said. I looked at him, confused. "That desire to be able to do something. To want to change things. Now you can."

"Oh," was all I could say in reply. But I could see his point, perhaps there was a good side to all this.

"Do you remember what Nessie was telling you earlier?" Edward asked.

"Something about the Italian psychos trying to attack you all?"

Emmett snorted. "'Italian psychos', like it, lil' sis." I felt myself smile slightly, while everyone else playfully glared at him.

"One day," Bella said softly. "We all fear their return. And they know about my shield now; they'll find a way round it. But they can't make themselves good, and that's the only defence anyone could have against you."

"I can use this… thing to help keep them away?"

"It's a gift, not a curse, Amelia." I was surprised when Harry spoke for the first time.

"I think we should be heading back," Esme announced. Everyone started to leave when I heard Harry's voice.

Can we stay here? There's something I need to tell you.

I was shocked to realize it was his thoughts I could hear. He had let me into his mind.

Of course.

"I think I want to stay here a short while," I announced.

"I'll stay with you," Harry quickly added. The rest of our family quickly departed and Harry jumped across so he was sat next to me. But neither of us said anything. A short distance away we heard our family greet the Denali coven, telling them I'd been found.

"Wow, everyone really was looking for me," I murmured.

"You scared us," Harry said softly.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I didn't mean to worry anyone. It's just… I get worried. Begin to feel like I don't belong. Or with this, just so scared I was going to lose control and do something horrible to you all."

"But you won't. I'm sure you're sick of hearing this by now, but I'll repeat it once more. You are the nicest person I've ever met-"

"Yes, I'm so nice that you will barely speak to me," I spat out sarcastically. "I've managed to piss off pretty much everybody at one point or another, and let's not forget I tried to kill a little girl. And while we're on about things we can't forget, let's just remember… you say I'm so nice and special, that I'm worth something. What am I worth? My life is –was- so worthless it could be thrown away for the amusement of some bored drunks. Bored drunks, for the record, who were supposed to care about me. So excuse me if I don't believe you." I was crying by the end of my rant, because it was all true. My life was worthless, and I didn't know why anyone bothered to care anymore. I suppose they'd learn soon enough.

Carefully, Harry moved closer, taking both my hands in his and squeezing them comfortingly.

"You can't judge everybody on what… they did to you, or yourself, for that matter. If you're not worth anything then why did our entire family come looking for you? You have to believe me, Amelia, you are not worthless. I understand why you struggle with it; after all, you were changed in that state of mind." He paused then, as I allowed what he had to said to sInk in. Was it really all just in my head, a by product of what happened? Hadn't I been the one to say everything in life happened for a reason? And that you shouldn't concentrate too much on the past? Suddenly, and inexplicably, I began to laugh.

"Amelia? Are you OK?" Harry questioned cautiously.

"I really suck at taking my own advice," I said between giggles.

"Erm…" was all Harry could say in reply to that.

"Sorry, I don't blame you for being confused. I'm so all over the place. Learning I can apparently manipulate people hasn't helped. Do you really think I can use it for good?"

"I think the reason that particular talent chose to manifest itself in you, is because you want to use it for good."

"One annoying sister at a time," I added sarcastically in reference to what had happened to Rosalie.

"Amelia, since you became a vampire you've seen very little of the world outside our family. There will be a time, at some point in the nearby future, where you will be thankful you could change the course of things."

"Perhaps," I agreed reluctantly. "Is that all you wanted to tell me? You've given me my pep talk, shall we go home now?" It came out more snappy than I had intended, but I had just realised that this was the first proper conversation we'd had since his graduation.

"No," Harry replied softly. "I have something else I need to tell you. Something I've been holding back from telling you for a long time, because I've been scared how you might react. What you might think about me, and about us, once you know." He sighed as I waited patiently for him to continue, clearly whatever this was, it was a delicate topic for him.

"I've been postponing this conversation for so long. Yet when you ran away again, I worried that you might run too far, that something might happen to you, that I might never see you again, and I realized that I have to tell you. For us to ever have a chance at being together properly, I have to tell you."

"So what it is?" I whispered.

I want to be truly honest with you. Let me show you…

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