Disclaimer: All the Twilight stuff belongs to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: Remember, this story is the same as Heaven, Hell and Harleys - minus the language and sex. Quite a bit is lost, but you still have the basic storyline here! No Need To Read Both!
Continued thanks to each and every one of you that continue to PM me and review, the encouragement is working and I am totally getting back into the story, anxious to share my next thoughts with you! Thanks to all that continue to read and comment, I keep saying it, but it means more than you know that someone cares about the story and from some of your messages, you really do seem to care! I love it!
It's hard to write "Bella and Edward" in love since I am guilty of associating them with "Rob and Kristen".
My heart goes out to Robert and my prayers for God to help him find peace in this situation, with or without Kristen.
I found this quote, and I thought I would share it . . .
"'Mistakes are the doors of discovery', by James Joyce.
A similar one: 'A man can be destroyed but not defeated' by Ernest Hemingway.
Both remind me that our biggest mistakes are the experiences we learn the most from.
Hope to improving give everyone the desire to live the next day, doesn't it?"
- Robert Pattinson (about his favourite quotes)
Chapter 124 Masen
"Well, I don't particularly like mountain sheep
and I would rather stay here and play with Masen.
I haven't seen him in forever," Rose insisted.
~oooOooo~
Masen POV
But dad!
No, Masen. You have to stay here with mommy,
dad told me with no room in his thoughts for talking about it or changing his mind. It didn't matter though, I wanted to go with him.
But dad . . .
I love you, son, he told me for the millionth time. I heard him, exasperated at the number of times that emotion crossed his thoughts.
But dad, uncle Emmett said I could go with you when I got bigger . . . and I AM big!
I tried to make him see, standing as tall as I could, my face reaching well above the railing of my crib.
I know you're big, son. You're such a little sponge, everything I explain to you, you remember completely and even understand, don't you, my dad said, smiling down at me as he stroked my hair.
It's as though you were born with an adult mind, capable of understanding anything once the meaning of the words are explained to you. You're just going to have to wait till your body grows a bit and catches up, son, he continued silently as he bent down and kissed the top of my head.
My dad was going to get some of that same stuff they sometimes fed me in a bottle. I knew the feeling my dad was having, he was thirsty. I think that was the word he used to describe that feeling. I was thirsty, too. Mom gave me the warm stuff . . . milk?. . . yea, that was it. Milk. Mom gave me milk from her chest, and it was delicious . . . so warm and filling it made it easy to close my eyes and think of nothing. I was quiet and still when I felt like that and it seemed to make mom happy when I drank, then closed my eyes and was still. I liked making mom happy. I couldn't tell what she was thinking like I could everyone else, so I liked to do things that made her smile. I People smiled when they were happy. I wasn't very happy right now though. I wanted to go with my dad and my uncles and I wanted to drink, too.
"He's not very sleepy yet," aunt Rose commented, she and my mom sitting down to do something or other in the adjoining room. I wasn't interested in what they were doing . . . not even enough to pick it up from her mind. I just wanted to go with my dad!
Dad!
I tried to make him see that I really really wanted to come with him.
No, Masen,
he thought in answer to me one last time before he turned and walked over to my mom and kissed her. He was always doing that . . . kissing her or thinking of her like that, or having those feelings he described to me as "private between your mom and me".
Whatever.
I knew he loved me, he thought it all the time . . . and I loved him.
I just WANTED TO GO WITH HIM!
He didn't let my mom go, either. At least it wasn't just me. Mom seemed fine with it, not going with him that is . . . but I WANTED TO GO!
Dad never turned around, but pulled the door almost closed to the room he walked into with mom and aunt Rose. I thought about crying like dad had told me to do if I wanted something or needed someone to come to me, though I could just call their name now . . . But I didn't think it was going to work. My dad's mind had left no room for talking about it. He told me no and I wasn't sure how he would act if I cried and got someone else to come and give me what I wanted They wouldn't know what I wanted anyway . . . It wasn't like I could just nuzzle my moms chest and they could figure out that I was hungry. Auntie Rose looked in and saw that I was standing up though, and she got me. I had played with her and Uncle Emmett while my dad and mom went to get my mom some food but now she was making me lie down in my bed and covering me up, just like my dad did. I didn't want to sleep or even lie down. It wasn't like I ever needed to, they just seemed to like it so I did it to make them have the feeling . . . happy, they called it.
Now, I wanted to GO!
Uncle Emmett would let me. He went with my dad - I could just find uncle Emmett and he could get dad to let me stay with them on their . . . hunt. That's what they called it . . . they went for a hunt.
Someone always checked on me a little while after they left me alone in my bed, so I waited till aunt Rose came in and covered me with a blanket and left again, being careful to keep my eyes closed and my breathing kind of slow. They always noticed my breathing. Dad was the only one that could tell if my mind was quiet, he always knew - but he wasn't here and I only had to fool aunt Rose and maybe mom.
Mom.
I didn't want to make my mom upset, but she never felt upset when I was with my dad, so I didn't think it would upset her if I was with him . . . if I went and found him.
I climbed out of my bed making sure to hold on to my teddy bear. He would need to come with me. Mom and aunt Rose were laughing and talking about uncle Emmett, well, mom was laughing anyway. They were in the room that aunt Alice and my uncles had been in when they talked about going . . .
. . . around a mountain?
. . . through a mountain?
I wasn't really sure., they had said both. It was funny to them, though, and they got my dad to go with them so I knew it must be that they were going to have fun. They were all thirsty. Their throats were tingling just like dad's did when he was around mom, only not as much. I knew that tingling, I felt it when they gave me the gooey stuff from a bottle. My throat tingled when I wanted milk from my mom as well and my middle felt funny. I hadn't figured out the middle feeling funny part yet except that sometimes there was a rumbleygrowley noise from my mom's middle, so maybe I got that from her and the tingly throat from dad. Mom was always hungry when her middle growled. I could never figure out what she was thinking, but I knew her feelings. It was different when dad growled . . . purred my mom called it. He never wanted food when he made that noise, even if his throat was burning.
Well, if I was going to go find dad I had better get started while mom and aunt Rose were busy and talking to each other in aunt Rose's room. I had never gotten out of my crib by myself before, but I climbed over the rail and held on as I climbed down the other side, I would have just jumped but I knew that THAT would have been heard. My aunt Rose could hear every bit as well as my dad and I knew she was listening. I had to try and not get so excited so she wouldn't hear my heart start going fast and come to check on me. I would have to move quickly . . . so I did.
Running was so fun. It was just a short distance to the end of the car, I had listened to my dad when he left and knew that he had gone this way. When I got to the end of the car though and jumped to the other one, there was no familiar smell, not my dad or my uncles. I knew they had come this way though, so they must have jumped off the train. I knew this was coming and I wasn't worried . . . I could smell where they had been for days and I was sure I could find them.
So . . . I held bear tightly around the neck with my arm . . . and jumped.
~oooOooo~
BPOV
"Rose, please hurry!" I managed to get the words out in a strained voice, "I'm fine."
"You promise me you'll stay right here. Promise!" she checked again.
"Yes, Rose. Yes! Now GO!" I nearly yelled as I made an attempt to push her towards the door.
Once we had discovered, or once I had accepted, that Masen really wasn't on the train, and Rose had convinced me that there were no other smells near his - well, other than his aunt and uncles of course - I had called our porter and told him we would be getting off the train at the next stop, all of us, and to have the bags put out at the station.
Rose had been a little more difficult to convince. "Rose, there is NO WAY I am going to continue to move farther and farther away from my son. If he is off this train, then so am I!"
My new sister had her work cut out for her to convince me that it was a bad idea for me to climb on her back and go with her, as I was insisting that I should. She was going to head back down the train tracks and see where the hell my son had gotten off the train, and I had no intention of being left here.
But . . . convince me she did. All she had to do was explain that she could move faster by herself and explore heights and places that she could not go with me and I relented. Reluctantly, but I gave in all the same. She had stayed long enough for me to get checked into a hotel she was familiar with, Park Hotel in Liechtenstein. Vadus, Liechtenstein.. Had I even heard of Liechtenstein before, except maybe in books of fiction? The only time I had ever heard a name sounding vaguely similar probably involvied Transylvania and vampires., I chuckled to myself. Absolutely NOTHING was funny about the situation I found myself in yet I found humor. My life had become somewhat of a fairytale and this surely had to be one of the tales that the godmother told to scare the little children into obedience. The thought of my just over two month old, or anyone for that matter, voluntarily jumping from a train in the middle of the Alps was just ludicrous. Things around me seemed to stand still and I supposed I was still in shock over not being able to find my baby.
I was startled to hear my phone ring. I had called Edward and the others almost non stop, and had not been able to get any of them on the phone. Surely it was one of them calling to see what was going on, but the mere ringing of the phone made me jump.
"Bella?" my dad's voice rang clearly over the phone.
"Dad. Dad. Hi!" I responded lamely, unsure as to whether to tell him what was going on or not. My contemplation ended shortly though as my dad continued.
"Bells. You okay" You sound . . . off."
"Dad, no . . . I . . . I just didn't expect to hear your voice is all," I managed to squeak out, my voice cracking.
"Well, the reason I called is . . .well, Bells the thing is. . . "
He continued to stammer along slowly, then speeding up as I heard Sue's voice in the background, "For heaven's sake, Charlie! It isn't a firing squad, just tell her."
"Dad?"
"What's wrong, Bells?"
He knew. How was it that he always knew? Was it just an inborn parent thing, something that came along with the baby like knowing when they were hungry or sick? I knew my dad and once he used that tone and started asking questions he would just never stop till he was satisfied that he had ALL the facts. I suppose that's why he was a cop, or was so good at it, he had those natural instincts for sniffing out when things weren't exactly as they should be.
"Dad," I all but sobbed into the phone, "Masen is missing."
~silence~
"What the hell do you mean, missing?" my dad asked, surprisingly calmly.
"He's gone!" I sobbed. Rose put him to bed in his crib, she was with me because Edward and Emmett went to hunt with Jasper and Alice . . . they were going to catch the train up by cutting off a corner around a mountain and anyway when we went to check on him to make sure he was still sleeping he was gone . . . just gone," i sobbed hysterically. I made little sense, I knew that, but in reality it was no small feat that he understood me at all between the sniffing and sobbing as well as my voice cracking.
"Now hold on, Bells. What train?"
I explained as best I could that we had been on the Orient Express, headed to London to meet Carlisle and Esme and that we had left Edward and my house in Bolzano and . . .
"House in Bolzano? Just where the hell is that, Bells?"
"Italy, dad. The train runs from Venice, Italy, to Paris, France, and it goes through Switzerland and the Alps on the way. Masen got off the train in the snow and Rose thinks he overheard Emmett talking about hunting and decided to follow them," I explained, now almost hysterical.
"Bells, calm down now, calm down, There must be some mistake, Masen is just an infant, now, and I'm sure there is some other explanation," my dad told me, sounding as though he thought i was crazy. I tried to explain to him . . .
"There isn't. Rose and I thought of them all. Rose didn't hear his heartbeat or smell him anywhere on the train except our cabin and down the hall to the exit between cars. Edward left the train by that same exit, dad. Masen must have followed him!" I told him, all but wailing.
"You say Edward isn't there with you? Where are you, I'm on the next flight."
"Liechtenstein, dad. I know, I know. I hadn't heard of it either, not really, It's between Switzerland and Austria, in the Alps. But dad," I insisted, "there is nothing you can do by coming here, Rose will find him . . . and even if she doesn't everyone else was supposed to be back on the train in just a few more hours. They were supposed to catch up with us before we reached Zurich."
"Bella, I want to be there. If my grandson is missing I have a right to be there, and to help find him," Charlie insisted.
"Okay, dad, okay. Just give Carlisle a call and plan on coming to London. By the time you get that far I'm sure Masen will be back with us and we will be headed there to meet you. Carlisle has a house there and he and Esme are supposed to be there already waiting for us. Alright?" I asked. Silence on the phone. "Alright? Dad!" I almost cried.
"Fine," he huffed out a breath as he finally agreed, "but I'm heading to London now, Bells. Right now."
"Okay, dad. I'll see you soon then," I said quietly.
"It'll be alright. Bella, do you hear me? It will be alright. That Edward of yours, soon as he finds out he'll move heaven and earth to get to that boy. You know that," he assured me.
"II know, dad. It's just that," I choked as I tried to speak, "It's just that he's so little."
There was a long silence on the phone before my dad spoke,"He may be little, Bells, but that kid is tough as nails. Takes after the men in his family, Edward and me. He'll be fine, you'll see, I'm getting off the phone , Sue is here and she can help me call the airlines and pack. You hang in there. I love you - always have, always will," he said just before he hung up the phone.
I disconnected the call, cradling the phone to me as though it were my baby, desperate to hear from Edward or Rose or any of them! I continued to ring all their phones, hoping that one of them would finally get a signal and check their messages or hear the ring . . .
Time after time I called as I paced and wore a hole in the expensive rug covering the wood floors in front of the patio doors. I could see the high snow covered peaks in the distance. I was facing east and looking at the mountains . . . somewhere out there were the two most important things in the world to me . . . Edward and Masen.
~oooOooo~
Alice POV
"Well, if you two are through marveling over the wonders of technology which, I might add, are not going to work till we get to the top or possibly around that mountain," I said pointing North of us, "we can find another snack before we head to the train."
We hadn't left the train but an hour or two before, finding a herd of sheep grazing on one of the lower slopes in a meadow before we even started our climb. The herd was gone now. Emmett just finished satisfying his need to tunnel under something by digging through the snow to the frozen earth below in a deep drift and shallowly burying the sheep we had dined on, leaving it so the predators could take advantage of the meat by simply uncovering the snow and small amount of dirt that hid the carcasses. I would swear that the sloshing noise I heard was Emmett, but he insisted he was still thirsty.
Jasper had occupied himself sitting out a rock outcropping with Edward, he appeared to be watching Emmett's antics, but it was Edward that caught his attention.
"Brother," Jasper said as he turned towards Edward, "I haven't felt you this totally lighthearted . . . well . . . come to think of it . . . ever." The look on his face was one of total amazement.
"I know, Jasper . . . I know. There are many things I should be worried about . . . where Bella is concerned and the pregnancy I mean, and I guess I should be worried about the Volturi, but brother . . . I just can't right now. I have just never been this happy," Edward replied, cocking his head to one side to try and hide some of the stupid grin that almost continually covered his face since Bella had come back into our lives. "I was just thinking of how much I will enjoy having Bella along on our hunting trips, once I change her, that is," he continued, absently tossing a snowball across the valley.
"Edward . . . you just spoke about changing Bella into a vampire without the least hesitation . . . In fact, you seemed to feel happy about it," Jasper said softly.
"Yes," He explained, uttering each word quietly and distinctly, "I want Bella to join us. I want her to be what I am, to live with me without worrying about growing older and our finally losing each other to age or mishap. I want her with me . . . and she wants me just the same."
No one moved, still as only vampires can be for the longest space of time . . .
"Come on," he chided, staring at me, "you all had to see this coming, especially you, Alice."
"I have always seen Bella as one of us, brother, I have just never seen you so accepting of it," I said slowly, marveling at the completely remade vampire sitting before me.
"Comfortable with the thought of it . . . completely," Jasper added.
Bella was my little sister and my very best friend. I had always realized the depth of her feelings for my brother, but now he realized it as well and had resolved to change her. I was stunned into silence as the visions running through my mind were almost endless and the joy . .
"Hell yea! About damned time," Emmett bellowed, "I'm tired of you denying me my little sister. She rocks, Edward. She even makes your uptight ass fun!"
Everyone laughed, Emmett was Emmett, but in this case he was right.
"Dudes, all this lovey dovey stuff is great and all, but I'm still thirsty and we do have to catch up with the train sometime, you know," Emmett insisted, rubbing his hands together excitedly as though he couldn't wait to get his hands on more dinner and taking off up the slope.
Edward and Jasper followed, acting like it was a race. Well, with them everything was a contest. I dusted off the seat of my somewhat bulky and unnecessary coat as I started to head out after them. I was enjoying the visions that played through my head, Bella and Edward with the twins, all of us on the lawn with Masen running and playing with a ball . . .
Oh God.
The vision that entered my mind was Rose. Rose was running, flying along a train track . . . alone. She was supposed to be with the baby, but this vision was a current one, I ws sure of it. What the hell was she doing running along the track instead of staying with Bella and Masen? Something must have happened.
I took off after my brothers with a speed I hadn't known I had, anxious to reach them . . . and the hope of phone reception at the top of the pass!
"Edward!" I called at the top of my lungs as I ran. He was faster than the rest of us and I knew I had no hope of catching him. If I called him, he would turn and come to me, knowing something was up. As I crested the next ridge he was there, waiting for me while Jasper and Emmett occupied themselves by hurling boulders off the edge, seeing who could throw them the farthest.
I guess the look on my face told him anything that the vision in my head didn't. He immediately took off towards the peak, phone in hand, leaving us all to follow. Playing through my head was the vision of Rose and Bella frantically looking everywhere for Masen, and then of Bella in a room somewhere off the train and Rose running . . .
~oooOooo~