Chapter 21

Carlisle's POV

I was really starting to become worried.

Brooke and I were approaching our one year anniversary in mere months, and I still had not gathered up the courage to tell her the truth about my family and I. I knew she had to be told soon, or else the situation would just continue to become even more incredibly difficult than it already had shown to be.

Perhaps it would be easier on me if she wasn't so extremely positive about her fear of vampires. I would probably handle this a whole lot better if she had never even said the word "vampire" around me at all. Of course, she didn't know how much I actually knew about her fear. Edward tends to come in handy in these sorts of situations. She hadn't dreamt her usual nightmare that she usually had for quite sometime, until after her and Adam had fought. Now she was dreaming about it again, and it on top of everything else was becoming too much for her.

I had thought for a long time about when I would tell Brooke the secret I had been hiding from her for the past year. At first I had planned telling her just a few months after we were together. A few months became a few more months, and a few more months turned into even more months. I kept putting it off in order to avoid the entire situation.

But I couldn't avoid it. I had to tell her...it was something that could not be put off any longer. It was not fair to her to keep this secret from her. I was going to have to tell her, and I was going to have to deal with the consequences afterwords. I had kept telling myself that if she did indeed leave me because she was so scared, then I would try to move on, and assume we weren't meant to be.

However I knew the way I felt about her, and I was not ready to lose her now...after falling so madly in love with her.

I also knew that I had to tell her we were vampires, so that way she could fully understand how dangerous Viviene truly was to her. Viviene, of course, was a vampire herself, and if she ever found out about Brooke, I knew that Viviene would make certain to get rid of her. I had to let Brooke know that we weren't simply talking about an over-jealous girlfriend here...we were talking about an over-jealous vampire girlfriend.

So I had finally made up my mind that I was going to tell Brooke my secret not too long after she would arrive back from Alaska. If I could tell her sometime in early or mid June...that would work.

Even if by some miracle, Brooke did indeed accept the fact that I was a vampire, we still faced another problem. Viviene was going to be even more of a difficult situation to deal with. I really didn't like to think about killing her, but after thinking of so many other plans that wouldn't work...killing Viviene seemed like the only option I had left. And that was not going to be very easy to do.

I knew I could not kill Viviene myself. She was much younger than me, so she had much more strength and energy. Taking her all by myself would more than likely result in my losing the battle. And I certainly was not going to get any one of my children involved in a fight against her either...the risk was too much.

So what did that leave me with? Forever dating Viviene and Brooke? Juggling two women when I really only wanted one? I would never be able to let the public know that Brooke and I were together. And Viviene would still be present on this Earth...so there would forever be problems.

Brooke had recently been thinking about a lot of things, specifically stuff her and Adam had been arguing about. She thought about a lot of stuff that she hadn't told me, because she was afraid some of the stuff she knew and thought about would hurt me.

Edward told me that apparently Adam had asked Brooke to cheat on me with him, and Brooke had become utterly enraged at Adam for saying such a thing. Only then did she realize that she was dating me, and that I was dating someone else...and she willingly decided to date me even when she knew I was already seeing someone. She trusted everything I told her and took a major risk by giving her heart to me. I was beyond ecstatic that she was willing to take that risk. I didn't know too many other girls who would agree to be in a relationship with someone who already was in a relationship. But of course, everything I had ever told Brooke was true. It was her that I loved, not Viviene...and I most certainly did not want Viviene in my life any longer.

Well apparently Brooke decided to make up with Adam after that weekend, and he was asking a lot of questions about me. He wasn't exactly pleased when he found out that I was so much older than Brooke, and that I had five children. I would love to go up to Alaska and explain to him that I am really twenty-three, and I'm actually only three years older than Brooke, rather than eighteen. But oh well, let the boy think what he wants.

Then Brooke decided since Adam was her best friend, that she might as well tell him the full story. So she told him about Viviene, and then Adam became very angry. The two of them fought again, and Brooke didn't want to talk to him for the rest of the week. All she had told me was that her and Adam had had another fight...she didn't give me very many details.

I will openly admit that I was indeed jealous of Adam. He got to spend all of this time with my Brooke...while all I had to connect myself to her were her two or three daily phone calls, and random text messages throughout the day. And Brooke enjoyed spending time with him. I knew all she was doing with Adam was purely innocent and she wanted to be nothing more than friends. But Adam wanted to be much more than only friends.

However I was also very grateful to him, because minus this recent episode, he had been a very good friend to her. She really seemed to enjoy the time she spent with him. She was happy, and that was all that mattered.

Of course, I didn't know why she couldn't have just settled for a few nice girls as friends...but that's beyond the point.

It was the evening before the party Alice was going to throw for Brooke the following afternoon. I had just left work around five, and I returned home to help my children prepare for the party.

Alice was head decorator, and she also instructed everyone else on how to do their jobs. Emmett appointed himself as "Co-Head Decorator Dude." The two of them hung up balloons and streamers. Well...Alice hung up balloons and streamers...Emmett stood on the ladder and tried to see if he could hit the balloons hard enough to make them pop.

He could.

Edward and Jasper were the Official Sanitation crew....in other words they ran the sweeper and cleaned the house...which took them all of two seconds. Bella sat on the floor and blew up balloons, only to have Emmett pop them. According to Emmett...I was officially deemed Doctor CC...meaning Doctor Carlisle Cake. Translated...I baked the cake.

Rosalie was head of sitting-on-my-butt-and-starring-at-the-tv-in-a-ticked-off-manner. Otherwise put, Rosalie wanted no part in the event.

I was just very glad to be in the kitchen by myself, because I did not want to go out into the living room and see how many popped ballons were now laying on the living room floor. I heard a loud "Pop" almost every five seconds.

Alice had informed me that Brooke liked white cake with white icing...something plain and simple. She had already bought a tube of aqua colored frosting, and she had told me to write "Happy Birthday Brooke." on the cake in with it. I had only baked a cake once before, so I knew this was going to prove to be interesting.

"How's it going in there Doctor CC?" I heard Emmett call. Pop.

I laughed. "Just fine Emmett. What's going on in there? It sounds like a war zone."

"No matter what they tell you....I most certaintly am not popping half the bag of ballons." Pop.

"Of course you're not Emmett." I replied, frowning as I discovered our milk was over a year old."Do any of you kids know if we have any more milk besides this really questionable looking gallon?"

Pop.

"I don't think we do Carlisle." I heard Edward shout as Rosalie turned up the TV.

"Rose can you turn that down please." I called. The TV quieted. Pop.

I heared footsteps coming toward the direction of the kitchen, and Edward appeared in the doorway. Alice started yelling at Emmett for busting too many ballons.

"Do you want me to run into town and get some more milk?" Edward asked.

"That would be quite helpful." I said, dumping the remains of the old milk down the sink. "I think we need eggs too."

Edward opened the fridge to check. Pop. Jasper and Bella started laughing insanely, I could even here Rosalie laugh.

"What's going on in there?" I asked Edward as he turned to me with a smile on his face.

"Ahh nothing, Emmett just popped a ballon right in Alice's face and it about scared her to death...if that was possible."

"Ha! Bet you didn't see that one coming physcic girl!" I heard Emmett yell.

"Yeah and I bet you won't see it coming when I pop the tires on your jeep!"

Besides another loud "Pop" Emmett was silent.

"That's what I thought." Alice said, and then went back to instructing Jasper on how to properly hand her the roll of streamers.

Edward and I laughed. "I'll get those few things for you Carlisle." He said, leaving the room quickly.

In the meantime I hung around in the kitchen and listened to the sounds of my children, and of course the sounds of poping ballons.

Edward arrived back about fifteen minutes later with my nessacary supplies.

"Bella was human not too long ago, you'd think we'd still have some ediable food in this place somewhere." I said, as I went back to making the cake.

"Yeah you would think so..wouldn't you?" Edward said, leaning against the counter and looking out the window.

I heard Emmett swear in the other room.

"What's going on in there?" I asked, not even bothering to lift my eyes up from the directions on the box of cake mix.

"It didn't pop." Was the simply response Emmett gave me.

"Guess what Carlisle." Edward told me, walking over to my side.

"What?" I asked.

"Alice told me that she had a vision of the Volturi accepting a new member."

This caught my interest, and I stopped what I was doing to look at him. "Really? Tell me about it."

"She said it wasn't too detailed...just that the Volturi is accepting this new member sometime soon."

"What's so special about them that makes the Volturi want them to join?"

"Alice says that this particular vampire is female...a young one to be exact. She guessed she wasn't any older than nineteen. She said in her vision that she had long blond hair and that she was fairly beautiful."

"The Volturi simply wanted her based on her physical appearance?" I asked.

"No, Alice said that her vision showed that this girl has an extrodinary power. Apperntly she is able to grant one thousand wishes in her existance." He paused. "The Volturi think that she will be handy in any extreme cases. She'd be a very quick solution to a very large problem."

"Interesting." I said, turning my eyes back to my work. Pop.

He laughed. "I probably should go back out there."

"Yes please, try and keep everyone sane."

"Haha, I will try Carlisle, but I can't gurentee anything."

"It's ok." I said. "At least you're willing to try."

"I give you mad credit for wanting to live with all of his." He said. Pop. "Especially Emmett."

I laughed. "Who else would have been crazy enough to take in you five?"

Edward shrugged. "True...true." He said, before departing to the living room.

I smiled and shook my head. If Brooke wanted to be a part of this family someday...I wished her all the luck in the world.

Pop.

Thanks for reading...please shoot me a review with what you think so far!

~Hazl~