Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters 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. Stephenie Meyer created it all.

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Chapter 25: Edward- Moving on

I can't believe she fell in love with him, of all the men... Kate thought.

I wonder what will happen to Charlie and Bella's house in Forks now? Esme had wondered if Charlie had a will and who he might have left the house to.

How can we explain Charlie's death and keep the attention away from the fact he came to Alaska right before he disappeared? Carlisle worried about how things would look to the outside world.

As I took in the thoughts of those around me, I glanced down at this beautiful girl by my side. Silence. Even in the lowest of times, what I wouldn't give just to hear her. The thoughts inundated around me like a swirl of grief and darkness, this was why we were never in the house. And it wasn't like we buried Charlie yesterday, it had been a week and a half. Not that everyone should be over it by now, but the sad thoughts were repetitive and painful to hear .

She doesn't need me anymore.

I almost dared to contradict him, to tell him; look at how the light has left her eyes. I was glad that we had our chat on the back porch a few days ago, I really needed him to know that I would not take her away, not like that. In the days after our talk, Laurent had been tossing a few ideas around his head. He was seriously considering going to La Push. He thought Jacob would want to live there to be closer to his father and friends especially after what just happened. But he also feared that living so close would attract the attention of the Volturi to Jacob's family and tribe. I think Jacob would be agreeable to going, he constantly worried about how he felt that he was shirking his duties as a wolf.

I looked at Emmett when his thoughts took me by surprise, I stifled a grin. Rosalie noticed my attention and thought I swear if he's thinking about turning on the TV to watch football, I'll slap the shit out of him. I shook my head. The funny thing was that he wanted to do something nice for Bella, but couldn't really think of anything appropriate. He thought about going and getting her a grizzly bear, but it made him feel like a caveman. The mental image of him in a loincloth saying 'ugg' caught my eye.

Alice's thoughts flipped between worrying about Jasper and thinking about a new wedding plans. She was moving forward with the vision she had of us on the beach. After a while she got up to search for Jasper.

"Alice," she turned to look at Eleazar as the vision of what he was about to say played in her mind, "family meeting in an hour, please bring Jasper."

She tapped her temple and said, "I know."

We could be back in an hour... At first glance, Jacob seemed unaffected by Charlie's death but deep down he was hurting but only put on a front to try to stay strong for Bella, not that she would have noticed. Effectively, he was self-medicating using Laurent's body. Laurent just thought it was his insecurities that made him so handsy-feely.

I would always wonder if I should one day just tell people what's really going on in each other's minds. Yes, Rosalie. Emmett was actually listening to you and not thinking about sports. No, Alice. Jasper would not go back to Maria if for some reason you died. It was the one thing, everyone was quick to make assumptions about what other's were thinking and on a good day, it was funny to sit back and watch.

But today was not a good day to sit back or watch as everyone was grieving.

An hour later Carlisle was standing before us with Eleazar there as support. Carlisle addressed us all.

"I know that everything that happened was really hard on all of us, especially Bella and Tanya. For me, it goes against everything I believe in to see a human die of such unnatural causes. Ever since I woke from the fire, I have made a conscious effort to protect the lives of humans. I have created a family that follows my beliefs of their volition. I have always impressed upon everyone the number rule, the ultimate law of our kind: keep the secret. This death was completely preventable and I think that we all can accept a little blame, we all played a part. I'm not saying this because I want to blame anyone, I'm saying this because we can learn from it in the future. Every single thing we do with humans must protect them from our reality. We must be conscientious about our strength and speed and our heightened senses. We are not gods and it is not our job to interfere in this human world.

"In the future, I propose that if there ever comes a time where people begin to notice things, or begin to speculate, we will move on immediately. We will not take chances and we will never let it get this far and NEVER again get to the point that the Volturi are forced to intervene."

Truthfully it wasn't anything new and it wasn't anything we hadn't heard before but before it felt like a theoretical knowledge. Now, all hearts in the room felt it. Tanya and Kate did know this, to keep the secret, as practical knowledge. They lost their mother over keeping the secret, of course it wasn't at all their faults then; the never knew of their mother's sin until it was too late. What Tanya and Kate knew, we all now knew. We had all now lost someone due to living this life as a vampire. And so, the message hit home like never before.

Especially for me, not only had I told Charlie, I had been the one to tell Bella. It was at that moment that I realized that I could have just as easily and quickly lost Bella and not only that, I left her alone as I ran away from her to save her. I pulled her a little closer as I was very thankful that she was still here with me.

Eleazar had contemplated all day on whether or not to add to Carlisle's words. He wanted to suggest a self-imposed punishment of a period of starvation. A penance of sorts. But for now, he felt his words would be too harsh.

Around the room everyone reflected on where they would go from here. The Cullens would not return to Forks, probably not for another century and Carlisle was inclined to return to Ithaca although we had been away for the better part of a year now. Carlisle spoke softly to Esme about when they might return.

Esme only worried about where Bella and I would go. That I didn't know, but I did know that Laurent and Jacob would likely return to La Push for a while and Bella would like to be nearby.

"Bella, how would you feel about moving to somewhere in the Olympic Peninsula? So that you can be near Laurent. There's Port Angeles, Sequim, Hoquiam, or we could live in a larger town like Olympia, what do you think?"

"I really don't know, do you think I can handle living in a larger town with all those humans around?"

"Yes, I really think you could."

~o~x~o~x~o~

R~W~M

~o~x~o~x~o~

Laurent

I didn't have anything other than some clothes and my boy. So it was the only things I took with my as I moved into Bella's old house. The house was left to Bella but as you can imagine there was a bit of bait and switch to actually get the house to Bella.

Jasper paid a visit to the family's forger in Seattle and arrangements were made so that the will was changed so that the house was left to a fictitious il legitimate child. When Bella was out looking in a book shop, she found a young woman on a street corner dressed provocatively, she looked as if she could be a sibling to Bella and was paid a rather large amount to show up at the court house to claim the house and then she signed to house over to Bella as discussed . Bella took a liking to the girl , Bree was her name. She only said that she felt a strange connection to her that she couldn't describe. Bree said one time that Bella saved her life by hiring her, she was able to take the money and continue her education. Bree had been kicked out of her house by her mother just a year prior and was about to resort to more unsavory ways of making money when Bella approached her shortly before hiring her to help. Bella could only laugh, "More unsavory than impersonating a false identity, perjury and basically committing fraud?"

So when the house was finally in Bella's name, she offered it to Jacob and me to live in while she and Edward moved to Olympia. They actually planned to move to Sequim as Bella feared living amongst so many humans, but after she met Bree she changed her mind so that she could be closer to keep an eye on her. Their relationship started as more of a protector and protected, but morphed to being good friends.

Bella and I continued to hunt together but not for the original reasons; now it was the only time we saw each other. I took a job at the hospital as a translator. I didn't spend a lot of time there so the blood didn't bother me much, I only came in if they needed me. In my free time I studied other languages and added them to my list of spoken languages at the hospital. Jacob (and his father) taught me the language of the Quileutes, which was my favorite except for when they laughed at my accent. Jacob returned to school on the reservation and returned to his schedule of running with the pack.

Jacob was out of patrol tonight so I planned on meeting up with Bella at our usual spot half way between Forks and Olympia.

When I got there she wasn't anywhere in sight but I could smell her floral scent. A minute later I heard her quietly giggling and I looked up to find her sitting high in the branches of a tree. I scaled the tree and joined her at the top and smiled because it was something that we hadn't done in a while.

"Remember when you were little and one day you came home after school and overheard your mother on the phone telling someone that she was fired?"

"No, I don't remember. What happened next?" She asked with a smile.

"You cried and ran into the kitchen where she was sitting at the table with the phone to her ear. Renee hung up and tried to dry your tears assuring you she would find another job and everything would be alright but you were still upset and finally you told her that it wasn't because she lost her job, it was because she was 'fired', 'mama,' you cried, 'I don't like the idea of people setting you on fire.'" We shared a laugh.

"Do you know how old I was?"

"No, you didn't say. Sometimes in your stories you can be so naive, and in others you are so wise."

We didn't really plan to hunt that night, so we stayed in that tree and just caught up.

"I talked to Edward about me finishing school and he doesn't think I should worry about it for now, after all, as he said, there will be plenty of time the in the future to spend in high school."

"So what are you going to do with your time?"

"I think I'm going to be a stay at home wife for a while."

"A wife, huh?"

"Well... Did you know that Carlisle bought Esme a whole island off the coast of Brazil?" She asked but didn't wait for me to answer to continue, "Anyways, Alice has been planning a wedding ceremony there and, of course, you and Jacob are invited but I wanted to ask you something."

"Anything," I answered easily.

"I don't know why but I feel nervous asking you," she took a deep breath. "Will you give me away?"

For a moment, I searched her but decided not to ask why she was nervous. "Of course." Maybe it was just wedding nerves.

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

"So, when is it?"

"In a month. We're going to head down there in another two weeks to just relax on the beach. You guys can come early, too, if you'd like."

"We'll be there."

"Hey, let's go to that tree over there," she said as she pointed to a taller tree in the distance.

We spent the rest of the night leaping to the next taller tree and talking about a whole lot of nothing.

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A/N: Big thanks to Chewie4370 for pre-reading this chapter for me. The way I see it, when Bella left Forks, Laurent nipped the newborn army in the bud before it really even had a chance to get started. The army never made it Seattle and Bree was never targeted, viola! In a roundabout way, Bella saves Bree and will never even know, only that she feels a strange connection to her that she can't describe.

The epilogue is most of the way written and will be posted soon, but there's still time to change and add things. I know when I finish a story and the epilogue leaves me wondering, I wish I could just ask the author ...what about this or that part? And often I do. So here's you chance to get involved: What are your questions? What loose ends would you like to see tied up? If you get your requests in by 9/3/10, I will try my best to be accommodating.

Thanks for reading my story and saving this story to your 'favorites' and 'alerts' list! Feel free to comment or PM. Also, as Run With Me winds to a close, I have plans to continue writing more stories so I invite you to add me to you 'author alerts' if you're interested.