AN ~ phew I finally managed to fit some good humour in this chapter! just a bit though. Reviews are good I love you guys, I'm sorry updates are slowing down but the school year is starting again soon and I'm thinking of another ffic (Twilight/Doctor Who!) which I have to write to make sure it works b4 I start posting XD
Disclaimer: Eclipse is not mine, and yes, I got the frying pan idea from the Rapunzel-ish movie 'Tangled' ("Frying pans - who knew, right?" LOL)
Chapter Forty Five: The Old Drawing Board
Esme:
Carlisle came home from the Blacks' with a tight smile.
"Bella will be happy. Jacob's coming along well," he explained as I slipped his jacket off his shoulders. "He made it very clear he didn't want me back tomorrow."
"That's good to hear," I said with a smile. "The laundry will smell so much more inviting."
I kissed his cheek as I pulled the tie off his neck.
"EMMETT!" Alice shrieked from upstairs. "Step away from the door. Don't even think about it. Nobody sees the dress."
"Who gave Alice the frying pan?" Emmett shouted, flying down the stairs to escape the wrath of his little sister, who shot after him fiercely wielding her weapon of choice. Carlisle chuckled and shook his head pitifully as I took his bag.
"Hey Carlisle," Alice greeted with a nod as she darted back up the stairs to resume her post: guarding Bella's wedding dress and waiting for an order confirmation from the designer she had picked to create her bridesmaid dress.
"All is going well with Alice's dress then?" Carlisle guessed, pretending to block his ears against the loud, high-pitched squeal that announced the arrival of the confirmation email.
"Apparently," I nodded, hanging Carlisle's jacket and tie on their hooks by the door. "And all the invitations are written out, too. Poor Bella was exhausted when she left for work."
Carlisle laughed and gently pressed his lips to mine, taking my hands in his and holding them together in the smooth space between us. His fingers trembled.
"You're still worried," I breathed. It wasn't a guess; I had been around him long enough to know.
"RAWR!" Alice screeched, beating someone - Jasper, I imagined - with her frying pan. "What part of DO NOT OPEN do you lot not understand?"
"Alice, huh?" Carlisle laughed again and tried to slip his hands away. I held onto them and locked my eyes onto his.
"Carlisle," I demanded. "What are you worried about? Jacob? Bella?"
"It's the Volturi," he admitted quietly.
"Oh."
"I was thinking about it today while I was treating Jake," he elaborated. "I want to believe that Aro is the same strange, curious man that he once was, but I don't. I believe Edward and the others; I cannot deny it any longer. We have much for Aro to be envious of. I should have seen it coming long ago."
At that moment, we were interrupted by three swift knocks on the stairway banister. We both looked to the sound, and found Edward and Jasper standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"Sorry to interrupt," Jasper said, looking every bit like the experienced, respected military advisor he was, "but I think we all need to talk. This complication with the Volturi is getting dangerously out of hand."
.o.o.o.
"After the battle, when I was picking Jane's head for reasons why they didn't turn up earlier, she let slip that, after we came back from Volterra, Aro charged her with 'monitoring' this family," Edward explained. I gasped.
"So they know about the werewolves?"
"No, I don't think so. They are aware of the wolves' presence in the area, and they are aware that we are the only vampires with whom they are remotely civil, but they don't know the extent of our alliance, as far as I could tell."
I breathed a sigh of relief. The wolves didn't need to get caught up in this mess after all.
"Don't get your hopes up, Esme," Jasper warned as he tightened his arm around Alice instinctively. "The wolves may be home safe but we're still in danger. If Jane is smart - which she probably is - she and her assigned soldiers will have been watching our every move: especially Carlisle and, I wouldn't doubt, Edward, Alice and myself. Jane's power is built on others fearing her, and her devotion to her master. If Aro wants Edward and Alice, that's what Aro gets, as far as Jane is concerned."
"Well he's not getting them without a fight!" Emmett put in. "If they think they can step aside and let us get attacked by an army of newborns, that's fine with me, we'll show them who's boss. But if they think they can waltz in here and hand-pick us like fruit, they've got another think comin'."
"Emmett, cool it, will you?" Rosalie snapped. "I'd suggest ditching the girl, moving away and thus freeing ourselves of all this crap, but we've been there before and it didn't work. Taking that into account, I suggest we confront Aro about all this and see what he says. He's a puppeteer, like the Wizard of Oz: if we uncover his ulterior motives, he won't be nearly as confident to try and bring us down."
Alice's eyes went blank for a moment, and suddenly her fingers dug into Jasper's shirt.
"No, no," she shook her head, coming out of the vision. "We absolutely must not do that. I agree with your reasoning, Rose, but it would be far too dangerous. Having the entire guard nearby would be suicide - even with the Denalis and the wolves, they'd wipe us out in seconds."
"Wait, wait," Carlisle held up his hands. "Nobody has made a move against us yet. Confronting Aro will be too dangerous, anyway, and we have plenty to deal with on the home front. I think, before we rush off to deal with the Volturi - who, by the way, have the entire vampire world to run - we should deal with our domestic issues."
"I agree," I put in. "If the Volturi do act against us in the future, we'll need all the allies we can get. The wolves could be valuable ones. It would be foolish to lose them over Bella's change if we can help it...and if we can't, we still need to make sure Bella is as safe as the rest of us."
"Valuable allies?" Rosalie drawled, raising an eyebrow cynically. "Puh-leeze, Esme. They were only helping us to save Bella, the fragile little human. The second she becomes one of us, those fickle mongrels are going to go right back to hating us. Just the way it should be."
"Actually, Rose," Carlisle spoke up, "there may be a way to handle this without too much animosity between us at all."
"I'm listening," Jasper declared.
"You're crazy," Edward muttered.
"One werewolf in particular is the key, actually - Jacob Black."
"Jacob?" I frowned, recalling the juvenile, rusty-coated wolf who had given Bella a huge, childish lick at training. He and Edward had enough animosity between them to start a forest fire. What could Carlisle possibly be planning?
"Like Rose said," Carlisle continued, "the main reason the wolves helped us was to help Bella. If you may recall, it was Jacob Black who made the offer in the first place."
"Yeah," Rose said after a moment. "So what?"
"So, he got the entire wolf pack to meet with the world's second largest, second-most-powerful coven of vampires because he asked them to."
Jasper nodded slowly, thoughtfully.
"So the pack obeys him sometimes," Emmett shrugged. "You guys obey me sometimes. I could say 'hey, let's go to Africa and hunt cheetahs for a week' and off we go. That doesn't mean you'd all go kill werewolves for a week if I said it sounded like fun. The treaty is a powerful force. Nobody messes with it except Carlisle and Sam. That's what the treaty says, and you don't mess with it, man."
"Ah, you see, that's where you're wrong," Carlisle objected. "The treaty doesn't specifically name myself or Sam Uley. In fact, Sam wasn't born until many decades after the document was signed."
"Who does it name, then?" Edward frowned. Slowly, his eyes widened. He looked at Carlisle incredulously. "Really?"
Emmett cleared his throat loudly.
"The treaty only refers to the leader of the coven and the Alpha of the pack," Carlisle explained for the rest of us. "I didn't know how big our coven might be in the future, but I wanted to make sure that, if say half of us returned to the area, someone could claim leadership for the treaty purposes."
"You were going to abdicate!" Edward cried, jumping out of his seat accusingly. "Don't deny it."
"I was considering it," Carlisle admitted. "Your ability and...uh...lack of emotional attachment at the time meant that you would be a better leader than I was."
"Lack of emotional attachment?" Jasper interrogated. Carlisle shifted his weight uncomfortably.
"Edward was the only one of us without a mate at the time. His focus would be more easily generalised to concern the whole family rather than a single entity."
Everyone - including me - stared at him in shock. He sighed.
"Look, I was never expecting this to come up again. It was badly thought through and-"
"'Badly thought through'? You were going to hand leadership over to him?" Rosalie snorted, pointing at her brother in disbelief.
"Calm down, everyone. I wasn't going to do anything. I was merely keeping the possibility open. It doesn't matter now anyway - can we please focus on the mission at hand?"
"Sorry," Edward said. "Continue. The treaty only refers to the leader of the Cullens and the Alpha of the pack..."
"Which is Sam," Emmett put in.
"At the moment, yes, but officially, no," Carlisle explained. "Ephraim Black was the Alpha when the treaty was signed, and the position is hereditary. Jacob Black is the rightful Alpha."
"Oooh, the plot thickens," Emmett grinned. "Looks like you've got competition in high places, lover boy." He winked at Edward.
"There's no competition," Edward muttered, far more serious than he was letting on. I eyed them both before Emmett could formulate a comeback, and cleared my throat loudly, suggesting that they kindly return their attention to their father.
"I propose that we merely install Jacob Black into his rightful position," Carlisle announced. "He cares about Bella more than he detests us: when he's the Alpha, we can convince him that Bella's only two options are changing or death - it's true, Edward - and he'll have to let us change her because he couldn't live with the knowledge that she was dead when he could have prevented it. No blood, no war, nobody dies. We could quite happily visit the Volturi, present the new Mrs Cullen, and then leave and they have no reason to come after us."
"Except the werewolves," Jasper grumbled.
"They make no business with werewolves. They won't get involved. In fact, I think Jane will be sleeping soundly with the knowledge that we have a pack of large, resentful predators nearby to tear us apart if we mess up," Edward grinned.
"Jacob Black solves the treaty problem. Bella's change solves the secret problem. The Volturi's prejudices solve the werewolf problem. That relieves a lot of the pressure. You learn well, grasshopper," Jasper praised, bowing in Carlisle's direction like a Sensei master.
The phone rung in the kitchen, and Rosalie disappeared to answer it.
"Yes, this is the Cullens," she said. "Wow, really? I mean, uh...sure you can talk to him. Just a second."
She stuck her head into the living room, her expression distinctly victorious.
"Carlisle - you might want to start thinking of a Plan B right about now," she suggested. "Jacob Black is missing."