AN: Again, your response to this is humbling and amazing. Thank you all :)

Also, thanks have to go to JosieSwan, who is always there and always supportive-even when I require a ridiculous amount of handholding.

Esme

I thought I'd experienced all the shocks I could in my life. Nothing, I was sure, could ever surprise me again.

After all, I'd lived through learning the man I loved was a militaristic terrorist hell bent on destroying the British Empire. I'd dealt with my son pursing every self-indulgent, self-destructive behavior that he could think of. Without him and without my parents, I'd grown a tougher shell and learned to live among the most judgmental people in the universe. I'd even taken the news of my sons' kidnapping by the Red Hands with aplomb—of course, that particular event was one that I'd been anticipating and dreading for his entire life.

Alice's nuclear bomb was something that I'd never expected, and I gaped at her. "The girl with Edward. Her mother is Renee Swan? I didn't realize she even had children."

"Oh, she'd prefer it if she didn't," Alice said sweetly. "But Bella is definitely her daughter, no matter how hard she tries not to be." I already didn't like this Bella; didn't she understand how much we as parents sacrificed to make our children happy? Of course, Edward was equally oblivious, and likely always would be, but I couldn't help but think of all his rejections over the years. Culminating in the misunderstanding that had ended with him taking a different last name.

"You don't mean the Renee Swan," Carlisle stuttered, clearly as taken aback as I was by the news that the woman he'd probably had pinup posters of during his formative years was not only a mother, but the mother of the girl with Edward.

"Oh yes," Alice said. "That Renee Swan."

The tension in my neck grew unbearable, the symptoms of all the years of containing the shocks and disappointments pushing me over an edge I hadn't known even existed. I snapped.

"She's not coming here. I won't have her here."

Everyone turned towards me as if I'd just lost my mind. Which might have been possible. "I don't care what you say," I said, only vaguely aware of my own hysterical voice, "I don't want her here. Not her."

"She's not all that bad," Alice said, and then apparently reconsidered her position. "Well, she is. But she's also Bella's mother. She deserves to be here." If I was in any other mental state, I could have appreciated the tiny girl's ability to stand up to me—a talent that almost nobody else had ever mastered, at least not since I'd grown into the Ice Queen—but I was too far gone to care.

"No," I repeated. "No." As everyone stared at me, looking like I'd just grown a second head, I knew I had to get away. Before I lost it even more. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I could only feel as twenty five years of shit fell on top of me.

I stood up so abruptly, the black Chippendale chair fell to the ground, probably chipping the carefully-restored finish, but I didn't even care. In fact, I decided it was only appropriate that the perfect centerpiece of my life—the house I had spent so many years perfecting—finally reflected the rotten, damaged core of its mistress. My feet flew as I rushed from the room, abandoning the open-mouthed stares of my guests, not caring for the first time in my life that I was being a terrible hostess. Nothing mattered except all the ways that I had failed me and failed my son.

Of course it was Carlisle who found me.

I had escaped to the back porch, taking a quick detour by the wet bar to pour myself the kind of drink that Edward would have appreciated. I stood on the wraparound wooden room, the breeze filtering through the screens, the atmosphere peaceful and lovely, and wanted nothing more than to scream. To cut through the oppressive air with the kind of cracks that were jaggedly spiking through me.

"I should have known it was all an act," he said, his footsteps distinct on the wooden floorboard. I could sense his presence approaching from behind and I stiffened. He was the very last person I wanted to see, which was no doubt why he'd sent himself.

"I don't understand why you care one way or the other," I told him bitterly, refusing to turn around and meet his eyes. I didn't want to see any more pity reflected there. It galled me, a bitter taste in the back of my throat, that he should pity me. I was Esme Platt, with the world in the palm of her hand. He was a washed up, aging rock star who'd never managed to hit the echelons of success he'd longed for. And yet, there was a peace about him that I had never managed to find. All the landscaping projects and antiques and paint chips and successful parties couldn't fill the holes that I hated acknowledging.

"Of course you don't. But I do all the same." Even though I couldn't see his eyes, I could hear the sympathy in his voice. He felt sorry for me, and I didn't know what to do with it. Or with any of the other turbulent emotions swirling through me.

Maybe it was as simple as this: I had spent the last twenty five years refusing to face the facts—I was lost, and didn't know how to be found.

I took a long swallow from the glass in my hand, and felt the liquid burn a path down my throat. It churned in my stomach and I didn't feel any better. Maybe I even felt worse; even more out of control than before.

"You need to sit down. To take a deep breath. To not worry. Let me do that for you." He was so gentle, so good. I wanted so badly to let him lift the burdens off my shoulders, but the lessons of my mother were too heavily ingrained into my consciousness to permit him.

"I'm fine," I said, aware that that semi-hysterical note was still present in my tone.

"You're not even close to fine. And what's more, it's okay that you're not. You need to realize that once in awhile it's alright to not be fine."

That did it. I was pissed now. How dare he come to my house, follow me when I clearly did not want to be followed, and then proceed to lecture me on how I should live my own life?

I turned slowly, the anger doing a slow burn in my stomach. Or maybe that was the vodka. I wasn't sure any longer; all I knew was that I was furious and Carlisle was the one standing right in front of me.

"And what do you know about it? What do you know about what I've been through?" I was vaguely aware of the fact that I might be yelling, but my voice seemed so very far away that I couldn't tell for sure.

He reached out and gently pulled my fingers, one by one, from the glass they'd been wrapped around. Sniffing it, he made a disgusted face, and then it set it down on a side table. "Esme, I don't. I don't presume to know. But I will say that your Ice Queen act doesn't work with me. For whatever reason, I seem to be the only person you've ever met that can tell that you're not fine. So please, for the love of God, stop pretending—at least around me."

Like a balloon being punctured, the air rushed out of my lungs, and my knees gave out. I sank to a long, narrow chaise lounge, and buried my head in my hands. My mother's voice was yelling at me, screaming, that I was doing something so completely wrong it was irreversible. Carlisle would never respect me now. But I was pretty damn sure that he didn't now, so I blocked her out and let the tears fall, feeling them seep into the palms of my hands.

"I've failed him," I wailed, in a very un-Esme like voice, full of all the pain and anger and disappointment and fear that I'd spent my life pretending didn't exist. "I came back here because I thought he would be safe. But I pushed him away, forced him into a lifestyle where it was inevitable that they'd take him."

"Esme," Carlisle said patiently, "you didn't fail. Edward knew. And I think he wanted to be taken. He. . .he's never been able to come to terms with who he is. And as much as I worry about him, I wonder if this won't be a much-needed wakeup call for him. What he's always wanted isn't at all what he thought it was."

"No," I sobbed. "I remember. . . .remember when I found out. I thought it was so damn romantic. Wild and crazy and wonderful." And terrible-but nobody knew that except for me. I lifted my head, to see Carlisle bent down towards me, his hands reaching out for mine. I let him take them, and felt the first edge of the hysteria fade.

"Eoghan, he tried to be a good man, but he was too deep. And he believed. Fervently."

"Sounds like the Edward I know," Carlisle said wryly. And I realized, looking at him through my watery eyes, that he didn't look like he was pitying me after all. The pity wasn't for me. It was for Edward.

"I tried to tell him," I hiccupped, my gasping breaths catching in my throat. "Always."

"But he wouldn't listen," Carlisle finished. "Again, that sounds exactly like the Edward I know."

"How do I live with this?"

"Well, first of all. You don't have to. You're not giving him up to them. And he won't give himself up either. Deep down, he knows what's right, and what's wrong. You have to trust in that, and trust that we can get him back."

Words failed me. I just sat there, gasping a little bit, and wondered how it was that I had never seen him like this. Carlisle had always been the same, annoying the edges of my consciousness with his kind eyes and penetrating analysis. But I had never stopped and looked at him before.

"Come on. We need to get stated. First things first, we need to call Renee Swan." He said it so matter-of-factly that I'd nearly forgotten that she was the reason that I'd fallen apart in the first place.

"Must we?" I couldn't believe I was deferring to him; I didn't think I'd deferred to anyone since my mother had passed twenty years ago. It was strange how natural it felt to do so when I felt so lost and he was so strong—like a wall that I could batter myself against.

"I'm afraid so," Carlisle sighed. "Though I admit, I'm looking forward to it as much as you are."

"Then why?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. I felt weak, forcing him to vocalize what I knew perfectly well.

"Because it's the right thing to do, which you know very well," Carlisle said with a small smile, as he helped me to my feet. I brushed the dampness from under my eyes and smoothed my hair.

We started to walk into the house again, but he stopped me, latching onto my arm and holding me back. "Wait. I want to say one thing." I turned to face him, surprised that his expression was so solemn. "When I first became Edward's manager, I didn't know the first thing about making hard choices or being the responsible one. I was probably only half a step ahead of Edward in terms of maturity. But watching you, Esme, it gave me a glimpse into the kind of person that I wanted to be."

For the second time today, I was completely astonished. I'd never guessed that Carlisle had ever been emulating me. "Thank you," I said softly.

He shrugged, as if what he was saying was nothing at all, when in fact, it was very nearly everything. "I've just always admired your fortitude. The way you unfailingly and unquestionably do what you believe is right. And that's why you need to call Renee Swan—because it's who you are."

In the end, it was Carlisle who called Renee.

I'd been wiling to, even going so far as to get her phone number from Alice. But in the process of doing so both Carlisle and I had noticed how suddenly exhausted the girls looked, and Carlisle had offered to make the call while I made arrangements for bedrooms and pajamas.

The staff at the house was used to me—most of them having been with my even more exacting mother before—and they were so quick that I was done before Carlisle was even off the phone. I glanced into the study, where he was pacing, his phone to his ear, and decided to make some calls of my own in my office while he finished up with Renee.

First, I made the executive decision that both Rosalie and Alice would be staying at the house with me and Carlisle until this whole thing ended—however it ended. They would need clothes and toiletries and everyday essentials. I called my shopper in New York and gave approximate sizes and a variety of occasions the girls would need to dress for. She promised me that the clothes would be messengered over by the evening. I hung up, and then reconsidered, calling her back, adding a separate, but mostly unnecessary list for Carlisle, dressing him not in the jeans and t-shirts he normally favored but sport coats and slacks and suits. As I told her exactly what to purchase, I felt myself growing curious what he would look like, in this wardrobe of my choosing, but brushed the thought aside. Carlisle was simply an ally, I told myself, not someone to play Barbie with. Even if he looked a little like I'd always thought Ken might if he was real flesh and blood instead of plastic.

The second call was to my part-time personal assistant, who I used only when I needed her. Unlike my mother, I liked to be in direct control of my own life, and I didn't feel demeaned by doing some basic errands myself. I gave Emily a list of what the three visitors would need, and let her know that she'd need to be more available in the coming weeks, as I would certainly need the help.

I had just hung up with Emily, the modern sleek phone clicking into its cradle when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see Carlisle walking in, the stress and exhaustion of the last twenty four hours beginning to show on his face. Or maybe that had just been the conversation with Renee. I had only met her a handful of times, but dealing with that sort of bullheaded tenacity was always unbearably trying.

"You know, I believe that you could run the world, if you wanted," he observed, sinking into a moss green padded chair across from the desk that I sat at. He must have been listening for longer than I'd thought, I realized. I really hoped he hadn't heard my phone call to the personal shopper regarding his new wardrobe, but he didn't mention it.

I blushed, taken aback by yet another compliment in my direction. I was used to running everything, and doing so with no appreciation, only the weight of incalculable expectations, but Carlisle didn't just notice what I did, he valued it. Which was completely unexpected. I glanced down at the burnished wood of the desk, strangely uneasy about this new accord we'd recently come to. Something had shifted between us, when he'd found me falling apart on the sun porch, and the ground felt uneven and treacherous—full of missteps that I couldn't foresee. So instead, I tried to move us back to familiar territory: me being the condescending, power-tripping Ice Queen and him being the man who'd steered my son into the kind of lifestyle that I could never forgive him for.

" I'm glad you think so," I said frostily, feeling the temperature in the room drop a few degrees as I raised my eyes and stared at him levelly. "We need to figure out what we're going to do."

"So you know," Carlisle said, staying in his reclined position, clearly refusing to take my bait, "Renee is flying in early tomorrow morning."

I couldn't hide the moue of distaste I made. "No doubt there will be a whole slew of paparazzi in tow."

"I already warned her—no publicity, no press. And surprisingly, she agreed."

"So you suspected what I did," I said. "That she somehow knew and planted Bella there to gain more press."

"She didn't," Carlisle confirmed. "She was hysterical when she found out that her daughter had been taken with Edward."

I wanted to make some sort of disparaging comment about Renee's inevitable reaction to the news, but considering my own meltdown was barely an hour in the past, I didn't think hypocrisy was really the best tactic to use. So I said nothing, just stared at him as he continued.

"I told her that we would set a plan in motion before she arrived, and she was fine with that."

I couldn't help it; after resisting the first time, I had to say the thought in my mind. "Renee wouldn't know where to begin, so naturally, she was fine with that. She's going to be a hysterical, high-maintenance dead weight."

Carlisle shrugged. He knew I was right, though pointing that particular fact out didn't get us anywhere. "She's willing to do whatever we think is appropriate. She even mentioned ransom money. She's willing to pay it."

"As am I. But unfortunately that isn't what they're going to want. Money isn't important to them—they want Edward."

"Yes," Carlisle agreed, "but they didn't want Bella."

"You're hoping that you can pay to get her out? No. It's both of them or neither." I knew it was irrational to make that kind of sweeping judgment but I refused to see Renee Swan's daughter safe while my son remained in the hands of those lunatics.

Carlisle nodded succinctly. "I don't disagree with you, actually. Bella is set free and we lose tactical ground with Edward. We'll get them both back. Together."

"I'm going to call my private investigator first," I said. "And I think we should also call the PI that Rosalie used. I believe his last name was Tyler? He dug up some more current information that I think I have access to."

"I'm surprised that you don't have a monopoly on every shred of information about the Red Hands," Carlisle said wryly. "You don't strike me as the 'sit back and wait for them to take your son' type of woman."

"I'm not," I snapped, annoyed at his assumption that I'd spent the last twenty five years not doing everything I could to protect my family from the Red Hands. "Edward is a grown man. To protect him, he has to both believe that he's in danger and let me do what I can to protect him. Neither of those has been true for a very long time."

He sighed. "I know better than you realize. And I want you to know that I have tried to control him, but you know Edward. The second he thinks you're trying to help him, he's completely unresponsive and intractable."

Of course I knew. I was his mother, and I'd spent the last twenty five years desperately trying to steer my son onto the right path and failing utterly. More than probably anyone else, I was aware of his stubborn, willful behavior. But admitting to Carlisle that I knew that he'd tried meant admitting that all the many times I'd blamed him for Edward's behavior were simply the product of a woman angry at a man and looking for an excuse to lash out.

I'd just wanted so desperately to find a reason to hate him the way I knew I should.

But instead of saying any of that, I changed the subject. "Who else should we call?"

Carlisle dug in his pockets for a piece of paper and slid it over the desk. I squinted, barely able to make out a messily-scrawled phone number and no name.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"His name is Marcus. Just Marcus. And he 'fixes' things."

My gaze narrowed. "You're going to have to explain how he 'fixes' things and what exactly we need to fix here."

"He can get Edward and Bella back. Best not to ask how, because no doubt he errs on the side of illegality," Carlisle explained. "There's rumors that he was Black Ops in the Army Rangers. But nobody knows for sure. All anyone could tell me was that he was the best-connected, best-equipped person to handle a job of this nature."

"If you're certain," I murmured, icy panic streaking through my stomach, leaving nausea in its wake. I hated the thought of calling in someone like this, but I also wasn't naïve enough to believe that Boston's finest or even the FBI could get Edward and Bella out of the Red Hands' clutches.

"I'm sure Emmett's taken them across the border. This way, you don't have to wait for the red tape of diplomacy. You can just get them back." Unspoken was the fact that probably none of the Red Hands would be left alive, and this, no matter how bloodthirsty, pleased me. I would kill them myself, but learning how to give garden parties or which fork to use in the fish course didn't exactly prepare one to be an assassin.

"He'll cost you, though," Carlisle warned, and I brushed his concern aside.

"I don't care. Whatever it costs."

Carlisle chuckled humorlessly. "There's the Esme Platt I know."

I permitted myself to give him a sly smile. "Oh, don't worry. I'll be billing Renee Swan for her half of the rescue."

"And that's the Esme Platt I love," he said cheekily, standing to his feet and flashing me a brilliant Ken-like smile before disappearing out my office door with the phone number—leaving me stunned and unmanned in his wake.

What had he meant? The Esme Platt he knew and loved? He couldn't have possibly meant—no, I ordered myself to believe, that was both fundamentally impossible and completely insane. Carlisle Masen didn't love me; it was completely beyond the realm of possibility. It had just been an expression, a carelessly flung phrase that he hadn't considered beyond the humor of the moment.

If only I could be truly sure I was right.

Rosalie

Even though I was totally exhausted, I couldn't fall asleep after Esme showed Alice and I to our rooms. Mine was decorated in white and a relaxing light turquoise, but I'd spent at least a few hours staring up at the ceiling, worrying about Emmett. Was he still in one piece? Would we ever be together again? Would he end up in jail, or even worse—dead?

But after tossing and turning, I'd finally managed to fall asleep, and when Esme came into my room a few hours later to wake me for dinner, I felt a little better.

"I had some clothes and toiletries sent over," Esme said, turning away to unpack. Her hands went from the open bags to the dresser without once looking at me. I sat up in bed, brushing my hair away from my face. I knew it wasn't coincidence that Esme couldn't meet my eyes—after all, the guy I was involved with was directly responsible for her son being kidnapped by the Red Hands of Ulster.

"Thanks," I said self-consciously, all too aware that the reason I was here was to both help get Edward and Bella back and to make sure that I didn't lose Emmett for good. "That was thoughtful of you. I could have just sent Santiago to get some of my things from my penthouse in Boston."

Esme shrugged a little. "It was no trouble. After all, I had to send for clothes for Alice and Carlisle."

I slid from the bed, my feet hitting the cold wooden floorboards. "I'm sorry for earlier," I said quietly. "Edward has his issues, but he didn't deserve what happened to him. I should never have said what I did."

Esme turned then, her eyes bright and surprisingly glassy. I had seen Esme face down rude society women, obnoxiously drunken party guests, and even nasty putdowns by her son all with aplomb and not a shred of expressed emotion. Today had been the very first time I had ever seen her visibly upset, and now, if I wasn't mistaken, she was close to tears.

"The first time you met him, I . . ." she paused, collecting herself before continuing. "I wanted to tell you to stay away. Edward's father, he was just like Edward is. Irresistible, charming, but so dangerous. I knew it would end this way, and I wanted something different for you. Something better. So I can't be mad that you've found it. I'm only mad that he took my son." She laughed a little self-consciously, and I took her hand in my own.

"We'll get them all back," I said with as much confidence as I could muster.

"Yes," Esme said, pulling her hand away, the mask reappearing over her features. "We'll get them back. Dinner's in an hour. I'll see you then."

The door shut lightly behind her, and I looked up in the mirror over the dresser. I looked the same as I'd looked the day before, and the week before that, but I felt different, as if everything inside me was shifting and morphing. It seemed wrong somehow that my hair was still blond and long and straight and my eyes were still the exact same blue.

A knock on the door broke my silent contemplation of my reflection. I looked away from the mirror, straightening the midnight blue silk pajamas Esme had loaned me as I turned the doorknob and opened the door to Alice.

"Hello," she said shyly. "I wondered if you could talk for a moment."

"Sure," I said, opening the door wider to let her in.

"Esme came to wake me," Alice said, twisting the bottom of her matching pajamas. But though mine were a shade too small for my tall frame, Esme's baby pink pajamas drowned her. "She brought all kinds of clothes for me to wear and . . ."

I knew where she was going with this and interrupted her with a smile. "They aren't knockoffs," I told her. "They're the real deal."

"They are," Alice exclaimed breathlessly.

Alice's amazed awe was endearing and I couldn't help smiling with her. "Can I ask where you got yours? They were so good that if I hadn't been so familiar with the original versions, I wouldn't have known the difference." I walked over to the dresser and opened the drawers, and then glanced in the closet, trying to decide what to wear as I talked to Alice.

"I made them," she confessed.

"You made them," I stated, glancing back at her. She looked scared, and had twisted the bright silk hem of her pajamas again. "Without any help?"

"Oh, I had the original to copy," Alice said briskly. "Bella's mother, of course. She was forever sending Bella clothes that she refused to ever wear. So I copied them, and made some extras—just for some friends at first. And then friends of those friends saw them, and wanted versions in their own size or in a different color. We started selling them. And the business just grew from there."

I couldn't help but feel a little impressed. "So you're saying that you make your living creating knockoff designer clothes." I pulled a tunic dress from the closet and laid it on the bed.

Alice nodded. "I was anyway. Bella and Renee had a huge argument right before the Athair concert, and we knew there wouldn't be any more clothes."

Why Bella had been with Edward in the first place was beginning to make more sense. She hadn't struck me, at least from Alice's descriptions, as the sort of girl who typically behaved like a groupie, but then neither had I—until Edward had come along.

"Bella's had a Boston music blog for years," Alice explained, "but it's never been popular. Her only entry that got any kind of feedback whatsoever was a skewering of the last Athair album, so she got into her head that she needed to interview him, to get some sort of new perspective so she could turn her blog into something that advertisers wanted to be part of. We needed an income, and she was desperate."

"Desperate enough to go to Edward, dressed as a groupie," I concluded, almost to myself, as I opened the door to the connecting turquoise and white bathroom. "This is beginning to make a lot more sense."

"She was never going to have sex with him," Alice clarified, as if I cared who Edward had slept with. He'd never been exactly faithful to me, and even if he had slept with Bella, I couldn't exactly be pissed off about it because I'd been with Emmett.

I shrugged. "Edward and I had been over emotionally for awhile. I just hadn't told him."

"I know I shouldn't, but I have to say that you doing this for Emmett is so romantic."

"Acting as his advocate?" I clarified as I pulled a brush through my hair. Alice leaned against the doorframe and nodded, her gray eyes suddenly a bit calculating.

"You love him, don't you?" she questioned.

I wanted to say no because love had been that sick, twisted, co-dependent, unhealthy obsession that I'd had with Edward. I didn't want to think that what I felt for Emmett was anything similar. "I'm not sure," I confessed. "I do know that I'm so worried about him. Worried about what's going to happen to everyone."

"But you're worried enough about him that you're here, protecting him."

"You don't know Esme," I said, trying to inject a little humor into this increasingly melodramatic conversation.

"Like I said before; romantic. I've got to take a shower. I just wanted to. . .I don't know. . .gloat maybe, over the clothes. I would normally tell Bella—she's my best friend, and really my only family, so not having her here is weird. I just wanted someone to talk to, and Esme. . ."

She didn't have to finish that sentence; Esme wasn't the most approachable person I'd ever met. Impulsively, I reached out and hugged her quickly. "It's an unorthodox situation. I don't think that any of us really know to act, even Esme, and that's saying something. So feel free. . .come find me anytime you want to gloat, or even if you don't want to gloat. I don't want you to think I'm the enemy because I care about Emmett. He's not the bad guy."

"I know," Alice said. "And I wouldn't ever think he was. He just caught up in a bad situation. But, you're Rosalie Hale, and as much as I'm trying not to be, I'm kind of starstruck." She laughed self-consciously. "Here I am, rambling on about real Dior and Chanel and Versace in my room, for me to wear, and you have closets full of the real deal."

"You know, I remember the first time I walked into Bendel's," I told her. "It never gets old. It's special every single time. So please, whenever you feel the desire to fangirl over designers, come find me. We need to stick together." I smiled as reassuringly as I could.

"Alright," Alice said. "I can do that. Now I'll let you put your armor on. Dinner with Esme is going to require it."

As she left, I couldn't help but think that Alice was learning faster than any of us realized.

AN: Several people have asked how old Edward and Bella are. Edward is 26. Bella is 25.