Seattle's grey skies mocked us as soon as the plane lifted from the ground. The wolves had never been on a plane before, and found themselves in a situation where their supernatural bulk wouldn't save them; they couldn't fist-fight gravity. Jacob's eyes were wide, the white showing completely around the abyss in the center, and he nearly broke my hand before I was able to make him relax a little. Even Leah, pale and sweating, didn't react well to the sudden storm.
"This is unusual for the area," Edward mumbled. His diamond studded skin looked strange and out of place against the stained upholstery of the seat. He'd bought all of us tickets, and sat with us in coach when Leah's pride interfered with allowing him to settle us all in first class. They were next to each other; it was supposed to have been an accident, and Leah certainly made a good show of looking longingly after her brother in a row further back, but I saw their hands graze as the turbulence made the plane buck. Edward was almost too nervous to notice. Almost. It certainly wasn't the shaking plane that had him pulling at his collar.
No one was as afraid as the little children of the moon, however. And unknown to myself, or her, a lie became true when I spent the majority of the early flight easing the tears and fears of the little alpha's tiny pack as we left the stormy west coast. None of them had ridden in a car, let alone an airplane.
The tiny alpha girl sat next to me, the smallest boy curled in her lap. I had another boy in mine while I held her hand, and the two middle boys burrowed in to Jacob's wide chest. She took deep, deliberate breaths, never crying out, and once I heard her growl. When the other small children were finally asleep as we sailed peacefully over Kansas, Jacob leaned across me slightly and looked at her.
"Tell me your name," he said. It wasn't the alpha command, but the power in him rushed across me like a hot wind. Fire and ice, I thought; the little girl stared back at him, almost as white as Edward and just as haughty.
"Why?"
"You are here because you said you wanted to settle with my people." Jake's broad brow was flat, his words solid, not scolding. It occurred to me that this was the first time Jake had acknowledged his status as head of the Quileute. "You can't expect to go in to battle with us as a stranger."
He was testing her. Maybe he saw as much as Leah; maybe he let us come because he knew there were things I couldn't tell him—things that would save his tribe. How would it feel, to have to balance the person you loved against the overwhelming responsibility of your birthright? I couldn't know, and I shuddered. He noticed, but instead of letting me peer in to his dark eyes, he turned them on the girl again.
"I'll tell you my name in battle," the girl said. Her brow furrowed. She was afraid he would command her.
"You'll tell me now," he said, his voice lowering an octave.
Her lip trembled. "I can't say it now." Her pale blue eyes darted towards me, and I suddenly realized she was ashamed. Her humanity hurt her, the way Jake's wolf side wounded him. "I can't say it while I'm human."
"You're human almost all of the time—"
"It's not who I am," she blurted out, then sat back abruptly, betraying her own falsehoods.
"If you can't be human, you can't fight," he sternly replied. I realized that all of the pack members sitting nearby were awake and listening to us, and almost instantly afterward I realized the little boy in my arms was awake also, quiet but alert.
"Humans are weak," snarled the girl. She clutched the child in her arms against her chest and his head wobbled on his thin neck. He stared out at me from the shield of her arms.
"Humans built this plane. They made the clothes you're wearing, and the food you've been happy to eat for the past week." Jacob was undaunted. "If you grow up and marry a human man, your children can be a part of the world. Don't you want that?"
"I don't know," the girl shot back. So fierce. "Humans become vampires. Even worse—they become prey for them."
"I want to be human," whispered the little boy in my lap. He reached out and touched her cheek.
"Me too," mumbled the sleepy boy she held. He wrapped a skinny arm around her neck and closed his eyes again, utterly content, holding back the ice storm that was his first alpha.
She ignored Jake and I, refusing to hold my hand again; I heard her sigh loudly when Leah joined in the conversation.
"Sarah," she said. Edward looked at her sharply, but Leah was leaning across the aisle, her thin hand splayed on Jacob's massive shoulder. "Call her Sarah."
Jacob looked at me, and I nodded. He pulled the sleeping children tighter against his chest and tucked his head down, and eventually his snores joined the rest of the packs, a gentle thunder echoing back and forth across the cabin. The rest of the passengers were mercifully exhausted as well, apparently. Within twenty minutes, none stayed awake but me.
Was it worth it?
What if Alice was wrong—what if everything was wrong? What if I'd stayed away from Forks, kept my quiet, dim life in the desert…what if I was the catalyst for everything that had happened? Victoria would have killed me in Phoenix. Nothing else would have followed but a sad, poorly attended funeral.
Don't be ridiculous Bella, I swore at myself. You're not the center of everything.
But I am, I protested. I am the Hunter's mate, the vampire's love, and human. The apex of three worlds…and a damn fool. If I'd only stayed away…
Then Jacob would have kept killing vampires until the Volturi killed him, I scolded myself.. The Cullens would never have helped the pack, and eventually there would be no Quileutes. There would be no haven for the refugees the Volturi left in their wake, there would be no chance at peace between any vampires and any wolves.
I'm not the apex of all of that, I thought to myself, and then wondered. What if I was? What if that was the real future Alice saw?
Alice didn't really care about the La Push wolves, even though she certainly didn't hate them; she had no great love for the children of the moon either. She was a modernist, a capitalist, and a vampire—her greatest loves were shoes and Jasper. And the rest of her family, I thought, and once upon a time, that included me. Maybe it still does…but what if…would Alice sacrifice me if it meant peace for the other two worlds—for her world? What if it wasn't really she, but I…she does it to save their lives…
To save their lives?….Edward. Please don't let him hurt himself doing some ridiculously noble, unnecessary thing…
Was Alice sending me in to see the Voluri with five children who were just as capable of killing me as the vampires as some kind of sacrifice?
I spun in my seat, suddenly remembering that there was at least one other passenger that never slept, never dreamed, never thought twice about doing ridiculously noble, unnecessary things.
Leah was curled against him, her long brown limbs slightly entwined with his, gold over silver. Her cut-off jeans were so short I could see the solid white scar where he'd sucked the venom out of her thigh, once upon a time, far, far away. He sat perfectly still, trying not to wake her, his eyes locked on her gently moving chest, so entranced by her breath that he didn't notice me staring.
It was the first time Edward hadn't noticed me. Ever. It didn't feel the way I thought it would.
It reassured me, just as much as the sight of Jacob with small children cradled against him did—one day, Jake would be a father. If I got to be a part of it…if I lived, so much the better; if I died making sure he lived—that Edward lived, with Leah, that the pack lived, with these strange children marrying their own and creating a whole new kind of wolf—it was alright.
I was doing the right thing. No matter Alice's version of the future, no matter her priorities, however veiled, I knew she loved me. She just might be making as big a sacrifice as I was. Love is like that, I remembered, and renegotiated the meaning behind the maxim; shamelessly asking more than we think we can give, brutally shattering our illusion of control. Love is unkind that way.
My eyes closed and I slept dreamlessly until I awoke in Rome.