A/N: Hi, readers! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and exploring the family dynamic between Edythe, Earnest and her siblings, of course. I'm excited to share this one with you guys. No specific songs to act as inspiration for the chapter, but I did listen through "Bella's Lullaby" and "Heart and Soul" duets while writing. So if you want to reminisce a bit, go ahead and listen. I particularly like the cover of Bella's lullaby by Scott Bazzle (on Youtube). It's simple, but he puts his own sweet twist on it. See ya at the end!

(P.S. Though I hadn't received many questions on it, I often have Edythe's siblings refer to her nickname 'Edy'. Just for any confusions' sake, I pronounce it [Ee-dee].)

…

I jumped when the passenger door opened.

Ha! Gotcha! Eleanor enthused as she slid into the car, That's a new one. "Where were you today?" she added out loud.

My mood had turned sullen, as I'd sat there, waiting for my siblings to be released from their classes. I had let my imagination get away from me, imagining impossible things, wishing so badly that I could feel the warmth of Beau's skin on my face, my lips again, surprised at the desire behind it.

I didn't remember ever feeling anything like this during my human years. Surely this yearning would be a feeling I would remember, even through the cloudy, muddled filter of human memory.

"I was… Being a good Samaritan," I explained to El.

Her brow wrinkled. What?

"Caring for the sick…" I said, and giggled, "Or something along those lines."

What are you…? But then she caught the lingering scent in the car, and she understood. Oh. He does smell good.

The low, feral hiss slid through my teeth before I could reign my temper in.

"Easy," she warned, holding up a palm, "I'm just observing."

The others' arrival distracted me. Royal smelt Beau right away, and immediately disapproved. I ignored his glare as he slid into the backseat.

I wasn't a fan of Jessamine's reaction, either. Like El, she'd noticed the sweet fragrance of Beau's scent. Their desire didn't hold a candle to mine, but still. I didn't trust Jess all that much when it came to self-control.

Archie strolled to my side of the car and held his hand out for Beau's key.

"I only saw that I was. You'll have to tell me why later."

"This doesn't mean you can talk to him yet."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes, untroubled, "It won't be long anyway."

I sighed and passed over the key.

…

For the first time in a very long time, I did not run off to Seattle as soon as we got out of the car at home.

Instead, I went inside with my siblings and stood by the door while they all settled in to their various hobbies.

Royal flopped onto the sofa, flicking through twenty channels a second, not really interested in anything. He contemplated going out to the garage to tinker around on his BMW.

El and Jess had been in the middle of an extravagant game of chess when they'd left for school this morning. Eight chess boards had been pieced together along the back glass wall, and they settled back in where they'd left off easily. They'd made up their own complicated set of rules, and they wouldn't let me play. Archie was the only one who would willingly compete against me anymore. Usually, I won those games anyway.

Eleanor hated to see us play, because we'd both just sit there, staring at the board. Archie would foresee my moves, and I would read his moves in his thoughts before he made them. Finally, Archie would concede defeat and knock his king over.

Now, Archie went to his computer just around the corner from them, and I heard his monitors hum to life. He was working on a joint interior renovation project with Earnest.

And Earnest was out on the back porch, in the process of sanding down a part of the aforementioned project. It was a century old hutch of some sort.

Eventually, Archie leaned around the partition and started mouthing Eleanor's moves to Jess. Eleanor sat on the floor with her back to him, so she couldn't see what was going on. Smoothly and without expression on her face, Jessamine cut off El's last knight.

And I, for the first time in so long I felt embarrassed, went to sit on the smooth pearly bench in front of my grand piano just off the entryway.

I brushed my fingers tenderly along the keys, testing the pitch. The tuning was still perfect.

Outside, Earnest paused to listen, lifting his sanding paper from the surface of the wood.

I shut my eyes and brought to recall the tune that had come to mind in my car earlier today. I was pleased to find that it sounded better than I had imagined, and the next line came easily, effortlessly.

Edythe is playing again, Earnest noted happily, and he strode across the back porch to stand by the door.

I added a harmonizing line, braiding in the central melody.

Earnest sighed contentedly and leaned against the side of the house. A new song. It's been so long. It sounds beautiful.

I followed the melody in a different direction, letting the singing emotions in my body lead me, trailing in the bass line.

Edythe is composing again? Royal thought, the note of resentment still in his thoughts, as his teeth clenched together.

In that moment, his resoluteness wavered, and I saw all of the underlying outrage in his thoughts toward me. I saw why he had been so ill-tempered with me in the last while; why he felt little to no remorse over the thought of killing Beaufort Swan.

With Royal, it was always about himself.

A sharp note of laughter escaped my mouth before I could stop myself, and I stopped playing, clapping a hand over my lips.

Royal turned his baleful, humiliated glare on me, his eyes sparking like fire.

Eleanor and Jessamine turned to look at me, too, throwing confused glances between myself and my oldest younger brother. Earnest came inside, and I heard his confusion too.

"Don't stop, Edythe," he encouraged after a moment.

I turned my back to Royal, fighting to reign in the wide grin on my face, and I began to play again. He rose from the couch and stomped from the room, the anger in his thoughts more apparent than the humiliation in this moment, but he was definitely that, too.

If you say anything, to anybody, I will hunt you down like the wild, twisted animal you are.

I muffled another laugh in the thick neck of my cowl sweater.

"Roy?" Eleanor called after him, "What's wrong?"

He didn't answer, his shoulders stiff as he headed for the garage. I laughed out loud again as he positioned himself underneath his car as if he could bury himself there.

Eleanor turned to me for answers. "What was that about?"

I clamped my mouth shut. "No idea," I lied.

Her eyes narrowed, clearly unsatisfied with my answer.

"Keep playing, Edythe," Earnest urged, for my hands had paused over the keys once more.

I did as he asked, and he came up behind me, laying a hand on my shoulder.

The song was gripping, but there was some part of it that was missing. I played with a bridge, but that didn't suit it.

"It's charming. Does it have a name?" Earnest inquired.

"Not yet."

"Is there a story behind it?" he asked, a smile in his voice. He was overjoyed by the fact that I was playing again, and guilt surged anew. It had been selfish of me to neglect my passions for such a length of time—long-standing depression aside.

"It's… a lullaby, I suppose," I said, and with the words, the bridge flowed easily. My hands began to move of their own accord once more, in telekinetic response to the magnetic, gravitational pull of the energy inside me.

"Hm, a lullaby," Earnest murmured to himself, intrigued.

There was a story behind the song, and once that became clear to me, the pieces of the puzzle came together perfectly. The story was a sleeping boy in a narrow bed, long legs and arms draped carelessly over the mattress, sheets twisted and snarled around his wayward limbs… Full lips parted slightly in slumber, thick, dark hair askew…

Archie came to sit beside me on the bench, throwing an arm around my shoulders as I continued to play. In his clear, perfect voice, he hummed out a wordless decrescendo two octaves below the melody.

"I like it," I murmured, "But what about this?"

I added his bit to the song, my hands flying over the keys with a mind of their own now, racing to add in the complexity of my feelings all at once, and the song began to take a new direction.

He caught on, and continued to sing his own version.

But I could see where this would end, where Archie was trying to take the song. What he didn't know was that the boy was exactly perfect where he was, sleeping in that small, narrow bed. Any difference, any shift, would be a tragedy, a wrongness. The song drifted toward that realization slowly, methodically, and Archie stopped singing now.

I played the last note, and hung my head solemnly over the keys.

Earnest tucked my hair out of my face, hooking it behind my ear. It's going to be fine, Edythe, he reassured me, This is going to work out for the best. You deserve happiness, sweetheart. Fate owes you that.

"Thanks," I breathed, wishing fervently that I could believe his words.

Love doesn't always come in convenient packages.

I laughed once without humor.

You, out of everyone on this planet, are perhaps best-equipped to deal with such a difficult quandary. You are the best and the brightest of us all.

A lump, thick and uncomfortable, rose in my throat again and I sighed. Every father thought the same of his daughter.

Earnest was still full of joy over the fact that my heart had been stolen after all of my time alone, no matter the potential for catastrophe. He had feared that I would never find love, that I would always be the lonely and melancholy girl who played sad songs on the piano.

He has to love you back. If he's bright. But I can't imagine anyone being so dull they wouldn't see the catch you are.

"Oh, stop," I chided, a shy smile turning my lips up at the corners, unbidden, "You'll make me blush, Dad."

He chuckled and smoothed his hand over the top of my head, his thoughts full of tenderness and love. His hope that everything would absolve itself garnered my own.

Archie laughed, too, and then he reached up and played out the top hand of "Heart and Soul". I smiled and joined in on the happy duet. Archie finished it up with his own little flourish, and we all laughed.

Archie lowered himself onto the floor and leaned back against the huge potted plant next to the piano.

"I wish you'd tell me why you were laughing at Roy." He sighed. "But I can see that you won't."

I grinned down at him, curling my legs up underneath me on the bench and rotating away from the keys. "Not a chance."

He glared sourly at me and mouthed an unpleasant slur.

"Be nice, Archie," Earnest chided.

He laughed. "But I want to know!"

I laughed at his petulant tone, and then swung myself around toward the keys again. "Here, Earnest." I began to play the piece I'd composed and played for them at their wedding.

"Ah," Earnest sighed, remembering the day as the music flowed, "Thank you, dear."

I didn't have to concentrate to play the familiar piece, and so I let my mind drift back to Royal as I tapped out the correct sequence of keys. Having just realized the potency of jealousy for myself, I felt a small bit of pity for him. It was an unpleasant way to feel. Of course, his jealousy was much more petty than my own, but still.

I wondered how Royal might have turned out differently if he had not always been so good-looking. Would he have been happier if his looks hadn't always been his main selling point? Less egocentric? More compassionate? However, I supposed it was pointless to think about, because he always had been the most handsome, and the past was the past.

It had always been that way for him, even in mortality. He'd always gotten by on his looks alone, people assuming he was better-equipped for tasks than he was, simply because he had the host of good looks. The attentions of the ladies had come with the utmost lack of effort

It was no surprise then, having had that assumption made of him most of his human life, that he would expect the same in his immortal life. So when I had not been immediately enamored by him—or at all, in fact—he had been quite offended. Not that he had had any desire for me himself—far from it. But it had aggravated him anyway, that I did not swoon over him, despite that. He was used to being wanted.

It was different with Jessamine and Carine—they were already in love—but I wasn't attached to anyone, I had no mate, and yet, I remained obstinate.

I had assumed those old feelings had been buried long ago. That he had long since moved past it.

And he had—until the day that I had found someone whose loveliness had touched me in ways his had not.

It bothered me some, the way he saw Beau. Royal actually thought the boy was less than average looking. How could he believe that? The idea was unfathomable to me. An affect of the envy, undoubtedly.

"Oh!" Archie said suddenly, breaking me out of my daydreams, "Jess, guess what?"

I saw what he'd just seen, and stopped playing.

"What, Archie?" Jess asked.

"Patricia and Charles are dropping by next week. They'll be in the neighborhood; so they'll stop in and say 'hi'."

"Edythe, what is it?" Earnest inquired from the living chair. He noticed the tension in my back.

But I didn't answer him. I turned my glare on Archie. "Patricia and Charles are coming to Forks?" I hissed.

Archie rolled his eyes. "Oh, chill, Edy. It's not their first time."

My jaw locked audibly. No, it was not their first time to Forks, but it was their first time here since Beau had arrived, and from recent experience, I was not the only one who found his sweet fragrance unusually desirable.

Archie cocked an eyebrow at me, sensing my anxiety in only the way a brother could. "They never hunt here. You know that."

But Jessamine's sister-of-sorts and her mate were not like us. They hunted in the conventional way, and as a result, they would not be trusted around Beau.

"When?" My tone was still acidic.

He rolled his eyes, but he told me what I wanted to know. Monday morning. No one is going to hurt Beau.

"Right," I agreed, and then I turned away from him, "Are you ready, El?"

She was confused. "I thought we were leaving in the morning?"

I shook my head. "Change of plans. We'll be back by midnight Sunday. I guess it's up to you when you want to leave, though."

She pursed her lips. "Oh, fine then. Let me just so say goodbye to Roy first." She sprang to her feet and headed for the garage.

You're hopeless, she added.

"I suppose maybe I am," I muttered.

…

"Didn't your mother teach you any manners at all? Quit playing with your food!" I called to Eleanor, good-naturedly, for the most part.

She glanced over her shoulder at me, grinning. "Oh, hey, Edy!" The grizzly took advantage of her distraction, and lunged out with its huge paws, raking its claws across El's front. The sharp claws shredded through most of her shirt—miraculously sparing her brasserie—and squealed across her skin.

The bear snarled at the high-pitched sound.

Oops, Eleanor thought, glancing down at her ruined apparel.

Then she lifted her head and snarled back at the livid animal.

I groaned and slumped onto a nearby boulder. This could take awhile.

But it seemed she was almost finished, anyway. The bear roared again and tried to take off her head. Eleanor laughed as the blow sent the bear staggering backward. The bear bellowed, and Eleanor bellowed right back through her laughter. Then she sprang at the bear, who stood almost a head taller than her on its hind legs, and they tumbled into the bracken on the ground, snapping a mature spruce in half on their way. The bear's growls cut off with a gurgle as El sunk her teeth into its jugular.

A short while later, El skipped over to where I was sitting. Her shirt was destroyed, torn and bloodied, sticky with sap and the bear's blood and fur. Her dark curly hair wasn't in much better shape, and I reached up to unearth a couple of leaves.

"That was a strong one," she said as I combed my fingers through her tendrils, "I almost felt it when he clawed me."

"You are such a child, El," I tsked at her, but the insult was filled with loving tenderness. I pulled the elastic from my wrist and looped it around her hair.

She eyed my smooth, clean white linen shirt. "Did you get your hands on that mountain lion?"

"Of course. I just don't eat like a savage."

Eleanor laughed. "I wish they were stronger. More fun that way."

"No one said you had to fight your food."

"Yeah," she agreed, "But who else am I gonna fight? You and Archie cheat, Royal doesn't want to fight his wife, and Earnest gets all worked up if Jess and I really get into it. Besides, she's better at it than I am." She pouted.

"Life is hard, isn't it?"

Eleanor grinned at me and crouched low, the smile turning into a wide snarl. "C'mon, Edy. Turn it off for just a minute and fight fair."

I smirked. "It doesn't turn off, remember?"

She straightened. "Wonder how that human boy does it?" she mused, "Maybe he could give me some tips."

My good humor evaporated. "You stay away from him," I snarled, my top lip pulling back from my teeth.

"Touchy, touchy."

I sighed, and El came to sit next to me, squeezing me tight in a side hug for a minute.

"I'm sorry. I know you're going through a hard time. I really am trying not to be insensitive, but, y'know, since it is sort of my nature…"

She waited for me to laugh at her joke, and then made a face.

So serious all the time. What are you thinking about now?

"I'm thinking about him," I admitted, unable to look her in the eye, "Well, worrying, really."

"What's there to worry about?" She asked, laughing, "You are here."

I ignored her attempt at a joke. "Have you ever thought about how fragile they all are? How many bad things there are that can actually happen to a human?"

"Not really." Her brow furrowed slightly. "But I can see what you mean, I guess… I mean, I wasn't really much of a match for that bear the first time around, was I?"

She was picturing the memory, dull and unfocused through her human eyes… She'd been out picking blackberries for her mother—just off the back roads of their farm. The bear had wandered out from its habitat, hungry and in search of food…

"Bears," I groaned to myself, "That would be just Beau's luck to run across a stray bear in town."

Eleanor laughed. "Hell, Edythe, you sound like a crazy person—you know that?"

I turned my gaze on her then, pleading with her to understand. "Just imagine, for one second, El, that Royal was human. And he could run into a bear… or get hit by a car… or struck by lightening… or fall down the stairs… or get sick—get a disease!" The words burst out of me like a torrent of gushing water. It felt good to release them. They'd been festering inside me like an infection all weekend. "Fires and earthquakes and tornadoes! Ugh! When's the last time you watched the news? Have you seen all the awful things that happen to them? Burglaries and homicides—" I was sure, that if I were human, I would be hyperventilating.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Chill out a second, girl! He lives in Forks, remember? I mean, the worst thing that could happen to him, is he gets a little rained on…" She shrugged, and then shook my far shoulder, rattling my head. "So what?"

"I think he has some serious bad luck, El, I really do," I insisted, a little calmer now, "Look at the evidence. Of all the places in the world he could go, he ends up in a town where vampires make up a significant portion of the population!"

"Yeah," El waved her hand flippantly, "But we're vegetarians. That makes up for something, doesn't it?"

"Except for the fact when I was ready to not be a vegetarian…" I murmured, knotting my hands together on my lap. The denim of my jeans was soaked through with rain, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

"Except that you've got some mad self-control skills," she noted.

"The van?"

"Freak accident." She shrugged.

"You should have seen it, El. It just kept coming for him, again and again—it was like he had some sort of magnetic pull." I shook my head morosely at the memory.

"But you were there. That was good luck."

"Was it? Isn't this the worst luck a human could ever have? To have a vampire fall in love with them?"

She contemplated this quietly for a moment, and then she was picturing Beau's face—stone white, eyes crimson red…

"No." My voice sounded choked.

"It would solve all your problems, wouldn't it?" she said. "Then you wouldn't want to kill him, you wouldn't have to worry about him anymore…"

"No," I repeated, harder. "I won't ruin Beau's life. Wouldn't you feel the same—if it were Royal?"

Eleanor mulled over that for a minute. She knew how much Royal resented what he was, how much he wished he could be human again.

You really… love him?

"I can't… I can't even describe it, El… It's like… He's my world, all of a sudden, my entire life. I don't see the point in anything else if he isn't around."

Then… Why don't you change him?

"I can't, I can't…" I shook my head mechanically.

"I mean, can you even touch him? If you love him, wouldn't you want to… Well, be close to him?"

Eleanor and Royal shared an intensely physical relationship. She had a hard time understand how someone could love, without that aspect.

I sighed. "I can't think about that."

She frowned. Wow… So what are your options then?

Hadn't this been what I'd been thinking so hard about for the past few weeks? My options? And still, I had come up short.

"I don't know." My voice was barely a whisper, and I leant my head sideways, needing El's shoulder for support, "I'm trying to figure out a way to… to leave him, but… I just can't figure out a way to make myself stay away…"

Eleanor sighed, sympathetic, but not empathetic, to my strife. She squeezed me closer, and rested her cheek on top of my head.

I realized, with a sense of self-righteousness, that it was right for me to stay… In this moment, anyway, with Patricia and Charles coming soon… He would be safer with me closer, rather than if I were gone. For the moment, I could be his unlikely protector.

The thought made me anxious; I wanted very badly to be back in Forks, to be able to fill that roll as long as possible.

Eleanor noticed the change in my mood.

What are you thinking about?

I sighed. "Right now, I'm dying to run back to Forks and check on him," I admitted sheepishly, "I don't know if I'll make it to Sunday night."

"No way!" Eleanor sat upright, "No way you're going home yet. This is our weekend! We've been planning this for way too long."

"I'll try," I told her.

"Besides," she reminded me, "Archie would call if there was anything to worry about. He's nearly as attached to this kid as you are," she joked, grinning once more.

"Fine," I relented, "But I'm not staying past Sunday."

"There's no rush," she reminded me, "Archie said it's going to be sunny until Wednesday… Patricia and Charles know how to behave themselves."

"I don't care," I snapped. "With Beau's luck, he'll go wandering off into the forest at exactly the wrong moment, and—" I flinched, cutting off the words when the images in my head got too clear. "Patricia isn't known for her self-control. I'm going back Sunday."

Eleanor sighed. Exactly like a crazy person.

…

Beau was sleeping soundlessly—for now—when I climbed through his bedroom window early Monday morning.

I could tell by the way the blankets were situated that he'd had a more restful sleep this night. He lay on his side, one arm over his face. He wore a t-shirt tonight. I could hear his breath passing in easy movements between his slightly parted lips.

It felt amazingly relieving, to be here again. Like a salve to a wound, like padding to the mind. I found that the anxiety was entirely forgotten about, now that I was here. I realized I was never truly at ease unless I was close to him. Nothing was right when I was forced to be apart from Beau.

Not that everything was right, per se, when I was with him, however…

The fire raked my throat, as piercing as always, maybe even more-so. I'd been away from him for too long, I realized. I had, to some extent, annulled myself against the fire in the week prior. But now, it had returned with a vengeance.

One of Beau's hands twitched, opening and closing softly, and I noticed the shallow, nearly-healed scrapes on the palms of his hands. He'd been outside this weekend, and as he rolled, his arm falling away from his face, I noticed the vague shadows under his eyes. He looked tired. Had he been out this weekend…?

I was surprised by the jealousy that lanced through me at that thought. So what if he'd gone out this weekend? I didn't have any claim to him… And then I was saddened by the thought. No, he was not mine… But I was completely and entirely his.

I wondered how he'd come about the scrapes on his hands, and judged, according to the location, that he must have tripped. I wondered if he'd had fun on the beach outing with his friends. It comforted me to know I would be able to ask him about that, later, about how his weekend had gone. I would wonder, but not ask, about how much he'd missed me… If he'd missed me at all, and if it had compared to a thousandth of the portion of my own heartache in my absence.

As I settled into my usual place in the rocking chair, I tried to imagine Beau, in the sun at the beach, how the light would touch his hair, and warm his skin… How he would squint in the sunlight… But the picture was incomplete, because I didn't know what First Beach looked like firsthand.

A tremor of unease ran through me when I thought of the reason why I had never been to the picturesque little beach just a few minutes' run from my home. Beau had spent the day at a place I was forbidden to go, by treaty. The land of the Quileutes was off-limits for our kind, for they knew our secrets, they believed the stories the elders had taught them.

I shook the anxiety off. I had nothing to worry about. The Quileutes were just as bound by their treaty as I was. Even if he ran into one of the old storytellers there, they could reveal nothing. And why would he ask, anyway?

When the sun rose, I felt angry, remembering I would not be able to sate my curiosity for a few more days.

I sighed and ducked out his window, intent on getting to the shade of the trees before anyone could see me here. But I was surprised when, upon stepping into the fringe of trees, I found his fresh scent.

I followed it without thinking, the anxiety growing as it trailed deeper and deeper into the thick foliage. What had he been doing so far out here?

The trail stopped abruptly, in the middle of nowhere. I followed it just a few steps off the path, through a wall of ferns, where the scent was slightly more potent on that of a fallen tree trunk—which he'd touched, possibly sat on?

Why would he have come here, to sit alone, in a damp and murky forest? It made no sense, and unlike my other curiosities, it could not be answered in casual conversation. I could not ask him about this…

I would never know why he'd come to sit here, alone, and suddenly, the image I'd described for Eleanor didn't seem so far off. Beau, walking alone in the forest, easy prey to anyone, or anything, who wished to track him…

I groaned. Not only did Beau attract danger, he pursued it.

…

A/N: I figured, being sisters, El and Edythe would share more of a physical relationship than Emmett and Edward ever did. However, Em/El's buoyant, carefree mood is the same across the board ;) Sorry for the short one this time, folks. Stay tuned for more!