AN ~ OMG JUST WATCHED BREAKING DAWN...INTENSE! I'll say nothing more...except that I can't believe we have to wait a whole freaking YEAR for the second half!

Disclaimer: Breaking Dawn is not mine. Three Pods left over from the movie are.

Chapter Fifty Eight: Shards of Serenity

Esme:

Edward relayed information from the wolves' conference to Carlisle, and Bella strained to watch them as I fussed with her blankets and monitors. I was in and out of the kitchen at the same time, making breakfast for the wolves – however many of them may want it.

"The La Push pack is going to wait for Bella to be…separated from the problem," I caught Edward saying to Carlisle as I tucked Bella's blankets around her. Simultaneously, as if they were the same being, their eyes flickered towards us and away again.

"What's going on?" Bella croaked, her voice almost right against my ear.

"Jake's going to phase," Edward continued, loud enough for Bella to hear. "Leah's circling the perimeter…Jared wants Jake to come home. He says no, he doesn't belong there any more. He says he's protecting those who deserve protection – us included…though he's not sure about Rosalie." He gave one dry chuckle, but Rose growled quietly and muttered: "stupid dog."

"Jared wants Seth back – Seth says no, he knows what he's doing. Leah's coming back…she won't leave her brother. Ouch – Jared pissed off Leah. She's expressing that she belongs where ever she expletive, expletive wants to be."

We could hear the yowls and snarls all the way from here. I felt a pang of guilt, thinking of the sacrifices they had made for us, all the fights we had caused, and shot into the kitchen to check the cinnamon scrolls and tell myself I wasn't a bad person.

I pulled the tray out of the oven and set it on the bench. I heard a few tiny cracks when the hot metal met the cold marble, and felt a sudden urge to check that my hands were not falling apart. I braced my arms against the bench, and took a deep breath of stuffy cinnamon air. I was trembling. I was weak.

I looked out the doorway to where Bella lay on the couch, black and blue and boney. I remembered, with a painful sting, when that had been me. A growl built up in my throat, and I felt the unfamiliar urge to do violence to something. Anything.

I squeezed the bench top, trying to control my rage. These random surges of negative emotion had not struck me so hard since 1941. I could not remember a time I had shared my house with Alice and Jasper and been this thirsty. Bella's cup lay on the sink. It had fallen over, and was letting precious blood spill away...drop by drop...

No.

If I so much as touchedthat, I would lose it. I would lose myself to the mind of a predator. Who knows; I may even forget it was Bella lying on that couch, or that she was Edward's whole world, or that Real Esme would rather die than kill someone who trusted her so. And I would lose the privilege, and the right, to call the wolves my allies and Carlisle my soul.

I shut my eyes, and tried to block out my other senses. It was easier underwater, to meditate like this. Instead, I felt the faintest puff of wind against my skin, tossing my skirt and hair just enough to stop my frozen form becoming a statue.

"Esme," his soft voice murmured in my ear. "Stay with me, sweetheart." I felt his hand on mine, easing my fingers off the marble and turning me around to face him. He hugged me right up against him, so that my nose was all but in the folds of his shirt.

I kept my eyes shut, but my growl ceased. My hands were no longer shaking. I felt solid inside my skin. I felt civilised inside my clothes. I felt like myself in Carlisle's arms. I sighed.

"I'm so sorry," Carlisle breathed against the top of my head, rocking gently from side to side.

"No, I'm okay," I mumbled back.

"You're not," Carlisle objected in a matching tone. He stroked my cheekbone with a finger, beckoning me to look up at him. I did so, and his hand fell to mine. My breath caught.

"Esme." His voice was scarcely louder than a breath, laden with a million emotions even Jasper could not untangle. "I know you will always be here for me. I believe that with everything I am...though sometimes I may forget it. Right now, I need you to tell me something."

"Anything," I vowed.

"Are you just as scared as I am?"

.

His question hung in the air. Breath shuddered out of me as I felt the weight of this conversation settle over us. We hadn't talked like this, so heavily open, since just after the battle with the newborns, and the death of Bree Tanner.

"Jasper's getting edgy," I warned him. My voice sounded more like a whimper. "Alice too. I don't know how Edward and Rose can stand it Carlisle. We're losing it in here. Just now, I thought I might...that I might..."

It was too horrible to mention. I physically could not force the words over my tongue.

"Shhh," Carlisle soothed. "This is not easy. Everyone is doing wonderfully. Actually, part of me wishes Aro was here, just so I could show him that we are no weaker than he is."

A shiver ran through me at the mention of the Volturi leader. I couldn't imagine their presence here. In a home of humans and werewolves and animal-drinkers. In myhome.

"You haven't told him about any of this, have you?" I asked.

"Only that Bella is married, and will soon be joining us," Carlisle confessed. We both looked towards Bella's lifeless form, her heartbeat strengthened a little by the blood, serving as a metronome to measure our silence.

"N-nothing about the wolves, right?"

"Never. Our warm-blooded sons are safe." Carlisle smiled sweetly down at me, and for a moment the happiness on his face, secure in the knowledge that he could make that promise to me, drowned out my thirst, my fear, my doubt. It felt like a dream...no, like a memory. A memory of when things were perfect between us and around us: before the danger and the fights and always being on our toes, ready and willing to die for Bella Swan.

But in this house, security is as fickle and short-lived as the life of a flower: one moment beautiful, the next shriveled and cracked.

Literally.

"Bella, what happened?" Carlisle was already headed for her.

"Give me a second, Carlisle," Bella panted.

"Bella, I heard something crack. I need to take a look."

Reality was back.