Disclaimer.All publicly recognizable characters, settings etc., are the property of their respective owners. The original characters, ideas and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. I only do this for fun.

The Chronicles of the Fallen

A/N:This story is written as a collaboration by both Xo Bella Italiana oX (my new pen name) and dramaqueen1917. If you have any questions or comments, post them in my reviews and I will answer them in my next Author's Note. We hope that you enjoy the story and look forward to reading your reviews. – B

Chapter 21
(Isabella's POV)

Jasper and I walked up the massive staircase when we got to the Cullen's house, my hand trailing along the satin-smooth rail. He held me hand, pulling me along when we got to the top down the long hall at the top of the stairs, which was paneled with a honey-colored wood, the same as the floorboards.

"I just love this house," I sighed as I took in the familiar décor. I never got tired of looking at everything around the mansion, because all of the decorations were collected throughout the vampire's long lives here on Earth.

Jasper smiled down at me. "Esme is the one who decorated everything. It's kind of a hobby of hers." He explained.

"Well, she's amazing." I complimented, to which I heard her say a appreciative 'thank you, dear' from one of the rooms downstairs.

I smiled behind me, but turned my head back to look in front of me, stopping dead in my tracks at the end of the hall, taken by surprise by the ornament hanging on the wall above my head. My hand raised automatically, one finger extended as if to touch the large wooden cross, its dark patina contrasting with the lighter tone of the wall. I didn't touch it, though I was curious if the aged wood would feel as silky as it looked.

"You can laugh," Jasper said as he came up from behind me. "It is sort of ironic."

"It must be very old," I guessed.

He shrugged. "Early sixteen-thirties, more or less."

I looked away from the cross to stare at him. "Why do you guys keep this here?" I wondered. Sure, I was an Angel, even if I was a part of the fallen, so it was not unusual for me to see a cross, but one like this in a vampires home somehow took me off guard.

"Nostalgia. It belonged to Carlisle's father."

"He collected antiques?" I suggested doubtfully.

"No. He carved this himself. It hung on the wall above the pulpit in the vicarage where he preached."

I wasn't sure if my face betrayed my shock, but I returned to gaze at the simple, ancient cross, just in case. I quickly did the mental math, the cross was over three hundred and seventy years old. I remembered that time period. Everything is so different now than it was then, especially the religious aspect.

"How old is Carlisle?" I asked quietly, still staring up at the cross thoughtfully.

"He just celebrated his three hundred and sixty-second birthday." Jasper said. I looked back at him as he continued. "Carlisle was born in London, in the sixteen-forties, he believes. I'm sure you remember that time wasn't marked as accurately then, for the common people anyway."

I nodded, remembering. "Yes, I believe that was just before Cromwell's rule, right?"

He nodded. "Yup," He paused, looking back up at the cross wistfully. "I wish I could remember like you do."

I sighed, knowing that I needed to tell him. "There is a way."

He looked back at me stunned. "There is?"

I nodded. "Yes. Your true mate – me – I would have to bite you over the bite that your sire changed you with."

His expression didn't change, he just continued to look at me stunned.

"But Jasper, remembering is not always a good thing. I would take some time to think about this before deciding, as much as I'd love for you to remember everything we've lived through together. I'll be more than happy to tell you more about our past before you decide."

He blinked, his expression clearing and he slowly nodded. "Alright."

I smiled and gave his hand a squeeze before bringing our attention back to the antique ornament. "Tell me more about Carlisle?"

Jasper smiled. "He was the only son of an Anglican pastor. His mother died giving birth to him. His father was an intolerant man. As the Protestants came into power, he was enthusiastic in his persecution of Roman Catholics and other religions. He also believed very strongly in the reality of evil. He leg hunts for witches, demons, werewolves... and vampires."

"I remember this. They burned a lot of innocent people – of course the real creatures that they sought were not so easy to catch." I sighed, shaking my head at the humans' actions when they realize that they are not at the top of the food chain like the think they are. It was why secrecy was so important.

"Yes," Jasper agreed. "When the pastor grew old, he placed his obedient son in charge of the raids. At first, Carlisle was a disappointment, he was not quick to accuse, to see demons where they did not exist. But he was persistent, and more clever than his father. He actually discovered a coven of true vampires that lived in the sewers of the city, only coming out by night to hunt. In those days, when monsters were not just myths and legends, that was the way many lived.

"The people gathered their pitchforks and torches, of course" - his brief laugh was darker now - "and waited where Carlisle had seen the monsters exit into the street. Eventually one emerged." His voice was quieter and any human would have had to strain to hear the words. "He must have been ancient and weak with hunger. Carlisle heard him call out in Latin to the others when he caught the scent of the mob. He ran through the streets, and Carlisle – he was twenty-six and very fast. He was the lead of the pursuit. The creature could have easily outrun them, but Carlisle thinks he was too hungry, so he turned and attacked. He fell on Carlisle first, but the others were close behind and he turned to defend himself. He killed two men and made off with a third, leaving Carlisle bleeding in the street."

He paused. I could sense he was editing something, though I didn't mind. I knew that the transformation wasn't something that a vampire liked to remember.

"Carlisle knew what his father would do. The bodies would be burned – anything infected by the monster would have been destroyed. Carlisle acted instinctively to save his own life. He crawled away from the alley while the mob followed the fiend and his victim. He hid in a cellar; buried himself in rotting potatoes for three days. It's a miracle he was able to keep silent, to stay undiscovered.

"It was over then, and he realized what he had become." I'm not sure what my face was revealing, but he suddenly broke off and, though I bit my lip in hesitation, he must have felt the curiosity burning in my emotions. He smiled. "I expect you have a few more questions, darlin'?"

"A few." I admitted with a shrug.

His smile widened over his brilliant white teeth. He started back down the hall, pulling me along by the hand.

"Come on," he encouraged. "I'll show you."

He led me back to Carlisle's office. He paused outside the door for an instant.

"Come in," Carlisle's voice invited.

Jasper opened the door to a room I had never been in before. The high-ceilinged room was tall, west-facing windows. The walls were paneled again, in a darker wood – where they were visible. Most of the wall space was taken up by towering bookshelves that reached high above my head and held books lining every space on the shelves.

Carlisle sat behind his huge mahogany desk in a leather chair. He was just placing a bookmark in the pages of the thick volume he held. The room was how I'd always imagine a college dean's would look from the movie's I'd seen – only Carlisle obviously looked too young to fit the part.

"What can I do for the two of you?" he asked us pleasantly, rising from his seat.

"I wanted to show Bella some of our history," Jasper said. "Well, your history, actually." He ammended.

"We didn't mean to disturb you," I apologized, eying the paperwork on his desk that read 'patient files'.

"Not at all. Where are you going to start?"

"The Wagoner," Jasper replied, placing one hand lightly on my shoulder and spinning me around to look back toward the door we'd just come through. Every time he touched me, in even the most casual way, I got butterflies and a tingling sensation fly through my body and my heart had an audible reaction. It was be really embarrassing, especially with Carlisle here, that even after for as long as I've existed and been with Jasper, that he could still do this to me.

The wall we faced now was different from the others. Instead of bookshelves, this wall was crowded with framed pictures of all sizes, some in vibrant colors, others dull monochromes. I searched for some logic, some binding motif the collection had in common, but I found nothing in my hasty examination, even with my enhanced supernatural brain.

Jasper pulled me toward the far left side, standing me in front of a small square oil painting in a plain wooden frame. This one did not stand out among the bigger and brighter pieces; painted in varying tones of sepia, it depicted a miniature city full of steeply slanted roofs, with thin spires atop a few scattered towers. A wide river filled the foreground, crossed by a bridge covered with structures that looked like tiny cathedrals.

"London in the sixteen-fifties." I noticed.

Carlisle nodded and sighed wistfully from a few feet behind us. "The London of my youth."

Jasper squeezed my hand. "Will you tell the story?" He asked. I twisted a little to see Carlisle's reaction.

He met my glance and smiled. "I would," he replied. "But I'm actually running a bit late. The hospital just called – the doctor on the night shift is taking a sick day. Besides, you know the stories as well as I do by now." he added, grinning at Jasper now.

It was a strange combination to absorb – the everyday concerns of the town doctor stuck in the middle of a discussion of his early days in seventeenth-century London.

After another warm smile for me, Carlisle left the room.

I stared at the little picture of Carlisle's hometown for a long moment.

"What happened then?" I finally asked, staring up at Jasper, who was watching me. "When he realized what had happened to him?"

He glanced back to the painting, and I looked to see which image caught his interest now. It was a larger landscape in dull fall colors – an empty, shadowed meadow in a forest, with a craggy peak in the distance.

"When he knew what he had become," Jasper said quietly, "he rebelled against it. He tried to destroy himself. But that's not easily done."

"I know. How did he try to do it?" I asked.

"He jumped from great heights," Jasper told me, his voice impassive. "He tried to drown himself in the ocean...but he was young to the new life, and very strong. It is amazing that he was able to resist... feeding... while he was still so new. All the newborns that I had dealt with in the wars were almost animalistic, in a sense. You're the only anomaly that I've ever seen in a young vampire your age. With normal newborns, the instinct is more powerful, then, it takes over everything. But he was so repelled by himself that he had the strength to try to kill himself with starvation."

"I didn't think that that was even possible?" My voice was faint and I quirked a brow at him.

"No, there are very few ways we can be killed. But I'm sure you already know all this."

I nodded. "Yes, dismemberment and then burning the pieces. Fire is the only true element that can destroy a vampire."

"Yes," he said somewhat distantly before continuing on with the story. "He grew very hungry, and eventually weak. He strayed as far as he could from the human populace, recognizing that his willpower was weakening, too. For months he wandered by night, seeking the loneliest places, loathing himself.

"One night, a herd of deer passed hi hiding place. He was so wild with thirst that he attacked without a thought. His strength returned and he realized there was an alternative to being the vile monster he feared. After all, had he not eaten venison in his former life? Over the next few months, his new philosophy was born. He could exist without being a demon. He found himself again."

"Didn't he think to feed from criminals or deathly ill?" I asked out of curiosity.

Jasper shook his head. "He believes that he doesn't have the right to make that decision, though he doesn't fault anyone who does drink from humans, as you know. He didn't want to be responsible for deciding who lived and who died. He believes that all life is precious. He is very self-righteous, as you've probably noticed."

He paused before returning to his story. "He began to make better use of his time. He'd always been intelligent, eager to learn. Now he had unlimited time before him. He studied by night, planned by day. He swan to France and - "

"He swan to France?"

"People swim the Channel all the time, darlin'." he reminded me patiently.

"That's true, I guess. It just sounded funny in that context. Go on."

He chuckled. "Anyway," He paused, getting back to his story. Reflexively, his eyes flickered to another picture – the most colorful of them all, the most ornately framed, and the largest; it was twice as wide as the door it hung next to. The canvas overflowed with bright figures in swirling robes, writhing around long pillars and off marbled balconies. I couldn't tell if it represented Greek mythology, or if the characters floating in the clouds above were meant to be biblical.

"Carlisle swan to France, and continued on through Europe, to the universities there. By night he studied music, science, medicine – and found his calling, his penance, in that, in saving human lives." His expression became awed, almost reverent. "I can't adequately describe the struggle; it took Carlisle two centuries of torturous effort to perfect his self-control. Now he is all but immune to the scent of human blood, and he is able to do the work he loves without agony. He finds a great deal of peace there, at the hospital..." Jasper stared off into space for a long moment. Suddenly, he seemed to recall his purpose.

He tapped his finger against the huge painting in front of us. "He was studying in Italy when he discovered the others there. They were much more civilized and educated than the wraiths of the London sewers."

He touched a comparatively sedate quartet of figures painted on the highest balcony, looking down calmly on the mayhem below them. I examined the group carefully and realized, with a startled laugh, that I recognized the golden-haired man.

"Solimena was greatly inspired by Carlisle's friends. He often painted them as Gods," Jasper chuckled. "Aro, Marcus, Caius," he said, indicating the other three, two black-haired, one snowy-white. "Nighttime patrons of the arts."

"The Volturi," I whispered, recognizing the other vampires with Carlisle in the painting.

Jasper turned to me. "I forgot you knew of the Volturi."

I nodded. "They're still there, as they have been for who knows how many millennia. Carlisle knows them?"

"Yes," he answered. "Carlisle stayed with them only for a short time, just a few decades. He greatly admired their civility, their refinement, but they persisted in trying to cure his aversion to 'his natural food source', as they called it. They tried to persuade him, and he tried to persuade them, to no avail. At that point, Carlisle decided to try the New World. He dreamed of finding others like himself. He was very lonely, you see.

"He didn't find anyone for a long time. But, as monsters became the stuff of fairy tales, he found he could interact with unsuspecting humans as if her were one of them. He began practicing medicine. But the companionship he craved evaded him, he couldn't risk familiarity.

"When the influenza epidemic hit, he was working nights in a hospital in Chicago. He'd been turning over an idea in his mind for several years, and he had almost decided to act – since he couldn't find a companion, he would create one. He wasn't absolutely sure how his own transformation had occurred, so he was hesitant. And he was loath to steal anyone's life the way his had been stolen. It was in the frame of mind that he found Edward. There was no hope for him; hew as left in a ward with the dying. He had nursed Edward's parents, and knew he was alone. He decided to try."

"Has Edward always stayed with Carlisle, then?" I wondered.

"Almost always." He put his hand around my waist and pulled me with him as he walked through the door. I stared back at the wall of pictures, wondering if I would ever get to hear the other stories of the family members I've grown to care for. So hearing this about Edward and Carlisle was fascinating.

Jasper didn't say any more as we walked down the hall, so I asked, "Almost?"

"Well, he had a typical bout of rebellious adolescence – about ten years after he was changed or created, whatever you want to call it. He wasn't sold on his life of abstinence, and he resented him for curbing his appetite. So he went off on his own for a time."

"Really?" I was intrigued.

He could tell. I realized that we were headed up the next flight of stairs towards his old room, but I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings.

"From the time of Edward's new birth," he began. "He had the advantage of knowing what everyone around him was thinking, both human and non-human alike, just like me with emotions and you with your gift. That's why it took him ten years to defy Carlisle – he could read his perfect sincerity, understand exactly why he lived the way he did.

"It took him only a few years to return to Carlisle and recommit to his vision. He thought he would be exempt from the depression that accompanies a conscience. Because he knew the thoughts of his prey, he could pass over the innocent and pursue only the evil."

"But as time went on, Edward began to see himself as a monster. He couldn't seem to escape the debt of so much human life taken, no matter how justified. His conscience was getting the better of him. So, he went back to Carlisle and Esmé. They welcomed him back like the prodigal. He always felt it was more than he deserved. Edward has a tendency to be hard on himself, but, then again, which of us don't have that tendency?"

I shrugged. "True."

We made our way into Jasper's study, which connected to his old room. We spent the rest of my time there talking and reading, sharing a book and taking turns reading a page. It was relaxing and I loved doing this with Jasper again. It had been so long since we were able to share a book just to hear the sound of the other's voice take us to an alternate reality.

However, I briefly wondered how Annabelle was doing and what was happening with Jake and Billy back at Charlie's.

A/N: Bella now know's Carlisle and Edward's stories! She's getting to know Jasper's vampire family while wasting time while Billy and Jake at with Annabelle and Charlie. Jasper also now knows that he can get his memories back! But what will he decide? Will he get his memories back?! Any idea what's happening there?! What did you think of the stories?! Review!

If you have any questions or comments, post them in my reviews and I will answer them in my next Author's Note!

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If you enjoyed this story so far, check out some of my other stories on my FanFiction page! Also, I am still accepting Stories that need beta'ing. I will accept OC characters as well as other Fan Fiction stories aside from Twilight depending on the other lead character. PM me for details!
- Bellisma -
Xo Bella Italiana oX