Author's Note: Edward obviously can't read minds in this story. That would make this a very short story if he could. It is Alternative Universe, so I don't follow every rule of canon.
When they came home from the trip, Cosette immediately phoned Marius to ask him on a date. She exclaimed that she had been separated from her beloved for far too long, and was suffering separation anxiousness. Bella realized that she missed Edward a lot too, so she called him to say she'd be coming over. She envied Cosette her clean consciousness.
She met up with Edward at Sang de la Vie, where she told him about the trip and that the Thenardiers hadn't gone rogue after all. The guilt of what she wasn't telling him was gnawing at the pit of her stomach like a happy mouse in a cheese factory, and she decided that she had to make it up to him somehow. She would do anything he asked her to in the future, anything. Perhaps short of murdering her own Dad, she didn't think she could do that.
Edward took her hand across the table, and started talking about the plans he had made. "I want you to come away with me," he said. "As soon as we've got enough evidence to make a citizens' arrest on your father, and your mother will be safe, I want to move up to the surface. I can pass as a human, I've lived like one for long periodes at the time, and I could teach you how to. Then we can infiltrate Paris and get information about the werewolves. If we could only find out where their head quarters are, we could blow it up!"
"Wouldn't that cause a huge explosion and kill a lot of humans?" Bella asked nervously.
"No, because we are going to use a controlled detonation," Edward said. "We will only use enough explosives to blow up their control room and equipement, and not ruin anything outside. It will happen in the middle of the night on a week day, when very few people will be about. They will think it was a gas explosion."
"Ah, OK," said Bella, feeling a little better.
"But if you want to come with me," said Edward, "and not feel guilty about leaving your family, then we need to get your father out of the way. I need you to tell me, or Carlisle, every suspicious thing he says or does."
"But I already do that!" said Bella.
"Good!" Edward replied. "For now, just pretend you have no idea that he is a werewolf. If anyone from outside the Resistance should suggest it, pretend to be insulted or just laugh like it is the most idiotic thing you've ever heard. If he should confess it to you - and this is very important Bella, because he may be trying to win you over to his dark side - just pretend you are totally OK with it."
"OK..." Bella said. She was feeling a bit nervous now. What if her Dad wanted her to become a werewolf to prove her loyalty. She voiced her concern to Edward.
"If that should happen, just pretend to go along with it," said Edward. "He can't turn you down here, because he needs to be in wolf form when he bites you. That can only happen during full moon, which we don't have down here. Just don't go outside with him anymore. He may not have any intentions of bringing you back until you are turned."
Bella shuddered. "But I have read that werewolves are only evil as long as they are transformed," she objected. "If he can't transform, he can't be evil, can he?"
Edwards eyes grew black. !Yes he can! That is lies, Bella. Propaganda. And it is all part of the Werewolf Agenda to win acceptance among humans, like vampires had before we were banished. They told horrible lies about us and had us exiled, to make themselves look like the good guys!"
Bella almost got a bit scared by how angry Edward looked when he talked about these things. She hoped he could be that dangerous in case he had to stand up to the werewolves.
"It will be OK, Bella my love," Edward said comfortingly, patting her hand. "One day it will all be over and we will be free with no regrets. We can't experience the glory of a revolution without going through some hard times first. Take comfort in that, my beautiful nightingale."
Bella stared mezmerized into his amber topaz eyes, drowning in the liquid butterscotch gold that was pooling up in the glorious ponds of golden sexiness. Edward was amazing, and she was so lucky to have such a beautiful, sexy, wonderful, amazing, sexy, glorious Romeo as her boyfriend. Not to mention he was sexy. She was about to lean over the table to kiss him adoringly on his perfectly shapen marble statue lips, when someone as usual came crashing in through the door, ruining their romantic moment.
Her eyes shot poison dart arrows at the intruders. It was Enjolras, Marius and a crying Cosette.
"Talk some sense into her, Cullen!" said Enjolras. "Now she refuses to believe that her father is a traitor after all!"
"What?" Edward exclaimed shockedly.
"I was wrong!" Cosette wailed, with tears flooding her pretty face. "I thought he was a werewolf, and thus a traitor, but he can't be!"
"Yes, and tell Mister Cullen here your excellent explaination for why that can't possibly be!" said Combeferre sarcastically as he entered the door.
"He took us all outside yesterday!" Cosette sobbed. "You should have been there to see how happy he was to be outside again! If he was against the revolution, assuming he knew about it, wouldn't he have been furious that people had dug a tunnel out of Paris?"
"Cosette," said Edward with a hand on her shoulder, "just because he is a werewolf that doesn't mean he is happy to be cooped up down here. Unable to see the moon, he can never reach his true, savage self. We have reason to believe that the only reason he endures his exile and hasn't abandoned you and your family yet is that he has a position of power as Chief of Police. That gives him a deep insight into everything that is going on everywhere, so that he can report to Javert and his cohorts."
Suddenly, Bella remembered something. "The shirt!" she said. "It was all ripped up, and that's how we discovered he must be a werewolf or the Hulk. But if he can't transform, then that's not proof anymore, is it?"
"Don't you start, too!" Enjolras said with frustration. "He can have gone outside to transform. The new tunnel is not the only exit from here, you know. There is also the main entrance that we came down through ten years ago, which is guarded by werewolves. Not to mention the two smuggler exits that he surely must know of. Being a good mate of Guillaume Noir and probably Javert himself, he has free passage past the guards. So he gets out into the moonlight, has time to remove most of his clothes before transforming - after all, your mother would probably be pretty angry if he came home naked - but doesn't get his shirt off. Rippage ensues."
"It sounds very plausible to me," said Marius, stroking Cosettes golden tresses as she cried against his shoulder.
"But if Dad knows about the smuggler exits," Bella argued, "why hasn't he tattled?"
"Because that would mean no more market," said Edward logically, "and he doesn't want that. And besides, Javert isn't interested in petty smugglers. He wants the big guys."
"I don't believe you!" said Cosette angrily. "How do you even know that he is a werewolf?"
"He simply has to be," said Enjolras. "There is no other explaination for his friendship with Noir."
"Not to mention there were several other candidates for the position of Chief," Combeferre interrupted. "All of them more competent and experienced than the Werewolf-licker!"
"That's enough!! Cosette exploded. "I will not sit here and listen to you a$$holes talking $hit about my Dad!" She stormed out and slammed the door.
"Go after her!" Combeferre shouted. "She is going to rat on us!"
"She won't," said Bella. "I'll talk to her."
She ran down the street after Cosette, and caught up with her at a corner a couple of blocks from their house. "You musn't tell Dad about this," she said. "If you do, there is no way back for us. Even if he is innocent, Marius and Edward are never going to want to speak to us again out of principle, because we are traitors." A stab of guilt went through her when she realized she was one already. "Come on, let's go back to the café. Marius is probably wondering if he can still call himself your boyfriend."
She put her arm around Cosette's shoulder and led her back to Sang de la Vie. "It's alright," she told the men, "She has calmed down now. We're not going to tell Dad anything."
"I knew you would see sense," Enjolras said, smiling. Bella had to admit he was incredibly handsome. Good thing Edward couldn't read her thoughts!
"You do realise that we have to go and report this incident to Carlisle?" Combeferre said in a stern voice. His nerdy little glasses made him look like a school teacher when he was mad.
"I'll make sure he understands that Cosette meant no harm," Edward assured her.
"Come," said Marius, taking Cosette's hand. "I'll walk you home."
Bella decided to give them some privacy, despite them having ruined her perfect moment half an hour earlier, and walked very quickly while they fell behind. When she got home, Charline was out, leaving a note saying she had gone to a friend's house. René was still working on his new bedroom, which he had decided was going to include a "man cave" where he could watch football and Animal Planet. It sounded very unclassy, so Bella was glad he was going to do it out of sight.
She plopped herself down in the comfy living room sofa, and started watching the latest two episodes of True Blood, which she had recorded and forgotten to watch due to being a busy member of a secret resistance movement. Glory had its price.
Suddenly there was a furious knocking on the door. She went to open, and saw that it was the Thenardiers. Yvonne and Jean Luc looked ready to murder someone. Eponine and Gavroche were standing sheepishly in the back.
"Is your father in?" Yvonne shouted. "We need to talk to him urgently!"
"I'll... get him!" said Bella. She ran into René's room. "Dad, you need to come. Something terrible has happened to the Thenardiers!"
René followed her to the door. "What's amiss?" he asked, looking at the mad and anxious faces of the family outside.
"You need to go over and talk to Esme Cullen!" Yvonne insisted. "She has kidnapped most of our kids!"
"What?" René gasped in shock. "When did this happen?"
"While we were out," Jean Luc explained. "We came home and they weren't there."
"Only Gavroche was," Yvonne elaborated. "I came in and he was playing his computer games. So I asked him where is Eponine, she was supposed to be in charge. He said 'I don't know'. Then I asked him where is Alice, and he said that she moved out and got married! And then I ask him where are Pierre and Sebastien, and he casually reveals that Esme Cullen took them with her when she came over to collect Alice's things! Because apparently they had been abandoned! I went over to get them, and thank Mrs. Cullen for looking after them while I was gone. But then she refuses to let me have them, saying she rescued them from a neglectful home and that they are Cullens now! Do something!"
"I'll go and talk to them," said René. "Seing as you have turned up, the children were never truly deserted, and she can't keep them."
"I'm coming with you," Bella said. "I know this family, and I can explain the situation. They'll listen to me."
"OK, go get in the car," her father said. "The Police Van, not the truck." What, was she stupid or something? Of course she realized that he was going to make a big ruckus out of things and have a full blown police operation to "liberate" the Thenarder kids. He drove fast through streets with the Thenardiers' mini-bus in tow.
"Cullen, she said," he mused, as he tossed the van around corners that would have been impossible for a human to manouver at that speed. "Isn't that the house where you went to a party on Friday?"
"Yes," Bella admitted. "The kids are friends of mine. They are a very respectable family, Dad. I'm sure Esme didn't kidnap Sebastien and Pierre. She probably just volunteered to babysit until Yvonne got home, because Eponine is not a very good babysitter."
"We'll see what explaination she gives," her father replied. "But I can't let them take the law into their own hands just because they happen to be friends of my daughters. That would make me a bent copper."
Bella wondered if being a werewolf could be concidered bending, but she couldn't say anything. René knew a different way to the Cullen's street, down a long hill, to avoid the staircases. He pulled up in front of their door and rang the bell, which was shaped like a lion's head.
Carlisle opened the door. "An official visit from the long arm of the Law," he exclaimed. "This must be serious business."
"I would say that removing children from their home without their parents' knowledge or permission would be concidered serious," René said seriously. "And refusing to return them to their rightful parental guardians is bordering on kidnapping. I know that you are keeping two children, aged 6 and 8 in psysical years, and a girl of 15, at your home and has refused their mother to have them back."
"This is a misunderstanding," Carlisle explained. "A misrepresentation of facts."
Esme appeared in the doorway. Bella could see to her pleasant surprise that Esme was well and truly pregnant. Althoug the process didn't go as fast as it had for Jessique, she was already in what appeared to be 7th or 8th month.
"Esme!" Bella shouted, jumping out of the van. "You are going to have a baby! How wonderful!"
"Thank you, darling," Esme said hugging Bella. "She should be born around noon tomorrow. You can come by to see her when I have gotten her cleaned up."
"Mrs. Cullen," René said, interrupting their happy moment, "I have to ask you to let the Thenardier children go home."
"Chief Aberforce," Esme replied, "Those two children are the siblings of my youngest daughter. They had been left hungry and alone in the care of an irresponsible teenager by still more irresponsible parents, who had hit the town with the explicit plan of getting §hitfaced and feasting on human blood. According to my daughter, there was reasonable doubt that they would ever return, and she was concerned for their welfare. I only did what any responsible person with half a heart would have done!"
"Well, as the situation stands," René said,"there has not been any cannibalism comitted on the Thenardiers' part. Their eyes are not red. And they did let their eldest daughter know that they would be home late, and to look after the kids. I cannot arrest a 16-year-old for being a bad babysitter. So please, Mrs. Cullen, let the children go home to their real mother. As for Alice..."
"What proof do we have that she won't do this again?" Esme asked.
"None," said René. "But we can't punish people for what they might do wrong in the future."
Gah! He was so stupid sometimes! Bella felt like hitting him, but that was probably not a good idea, because he might not let her see Edward if she did. She sent Esme sympathetic looks to make her realise she was on her side.
"As for Alice," René picked up, "her parents are allowing her to stay. She is old enough to make that decision on her own. She has the brain of a nearly adult person and almost 200 years of life experience. The kids are another matter, they still think as kids and followed a nice lady home because she gave them cookies. Now they probably want to see their Mom."
During the exchange, the whole Cullen family had turned up to see what was going on. Bella smiled to Edward, hoping her Dad didn't think of it as anything other than a friendly acknowledgment.
The kids actually did seem happy to see their parents, who also seemed happy to see them. Bella wasn't convinced, though. Children could be stupid, and feel an unreasonable loyalty to their parents, even when they treated them badly. Was that what was going on with Cosette? She had been 14 when she turned vampire, almost as old as there was no way she was ready to go and live with Marius just yet. Bella sighed. It had been a very long day.
"That was Edmund, wasn't it?" René asked. "Edward," Bella corrected him. "I said his name was Edward." There was no point in lying to her father, who could just look him up in the records now that he knew his surname, so she lied about having lied. "He's actually from New York," she explained. "It's only Carlisle who is English, that's why he has that accent. Esme and all the kids are American."
"Do you know them well, then?" René asked.
"Well enough, I guess." Bella said, telling half a truth. "Rosalie, the blond girl, is my friend. And of course I've known Alice for ever."
"She was pregnant," René said after a while. "Mrs. Cullen, I mean. Has she taken that potion Jessique accidentally drank?"
"Yes," said Bella. "Carlisle makes it, he is a very good doctor. Why? Are you and Mom thinking of having babies?" Please, no. Pretty please, no!
"Nah," said René. "Not while we live in this cramped space. "Maybe when we get out of here. I knew we should have signed that treaty!"
Bella sighed, and sank down into the car seat. It had been a very long day!