A/N: And here we are.
This is the last of the actual chapters.
The epilogues are getting out of hand, lol. There just doesn't seem to be any decent places to leave these people's stories, to feel satisfied that I've given themenough.
Actually, the epilogues don't really feel like epilogue's, just fast paced, quick moving time lines that show where each character ended up. And I guess that's as it should be.
So, I hope you enjoy this (short) chapter, and that you'll like the futures I've made for them all.
On Friday morning the girls stayed in bed – after a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt had been supplied by the boys – while the two guys went to town. Jasper to his meeting with Pete, Edward back to the music school to revisit with his former students.
Word got out fast that Edward was back on the mountain. Pete only grinned as he opened the music school to let the line of students in. eight in all. Dylan, Ellie and Chrissy were at the front of the queue, two younger bass players a guitarist and two new comers who had heard about Edward from Ellie and wanted in on the piano action.
Jasper and Pete stood and watched for a few minutes while Edward had his class do their warm up exercises and once he'd gotten them all settled at an instrument – Ellie at the miniature grand and the two girls who were new on either end of the bench in front of the upright – they made their way towards the pub.
Jasper orders coffee and toasted breakfast sandwiches for them both and then Pete asked what the meeting was about.
It was a short meeting. The two men had quickly reached an accord and the task of getting Edward to see the light was left up to his brother in law. Jasper felt sure that with the help of the two girls he could convince Edward to at least give the idea serious thought.
The women weren't idle that morning either, despite their late start. Mary Alice still retched and her sister still sympathised. They showered and dressed and then Mary Alice insisted they call a taxi to take them to camp for coffee with Rose. Bella is sceptical that the camp director will have time for a social visit but lets the thought slip away when the two girls are greeted warmly and Rose calls down to the dining hall for some brunch.
With only one more full day of their holiday to go Mary Alice knows she hasn't got long to plant the seed she's been tending in her mind. Her hasty and rather covert conversation with Rose the day before has given her the opening she needs. All she has to do is convince her sister.
"Any luck finding a replacement numbers guy?" Alice asks Rose, the vernacular still making her grin at its weirdness.
"Nothing yet," Rose says, trying to restrain her own grin as she passes Alice a cup of coffee. "I only need someone a couple of days a week and everyone is looking for full time."
"You need a student," Alice chimes in, already much farther along in her scheming than she should be.
"That's not a bad idea," Rose agrees, hiding the fact that she's already discussed that very notion with Alice. "An accounting or business student would only be able to work one or two days a week anyway and they wouldn't be pressing me for more hours all the time."
"They'd have to be local though, wouldn't they?" Alice asks innocently.
"That'd be more convenient," Rose agrees. "There's a campus in Burwood that's only fifteen minutes drive from here so I guess I could put the word out there for anyone in their accounting classes to see if someone's interested," she says just as innocently.
Bella, who's listening intently, watches the faces of the two women as they banter back and forth trying to sort out Rosalie's problem. The only person who ever called Bella stupid or dumb was her mother, everyone else assumed that because she was so shy and quiet that she didn't understand a lot of what was going on around her. They were the stupid ones. Bella missed nothing. And she didn't miss what was going on in front of her either. Her sister was plotting.
Edward is outside the real estate agents office skimming over the photos of run down farms and the odd gem in the sea of houses when Jasper catches up to him.
"See anything you like?" he asks as he approaches.
"Still gives me the creeps," Edward chuckles, nodding at the board with all the listings.
"What does?" Jasper asks, his stomach plummeting at the thought of his meeting with Pete being for nothing.
"Real estate," Edward replies, still running his eyes over the pictures. "Just the sight of the listings made me feel sick the first time I came to town," he admits.
"Ah, but that's all behind you now," Jasper says, hiding his relief that this unease was about his old life, not his new one. "Besides, you'll have to deal with a realtor at some point if you want to buy a home of your own."
"I guess so," Edward shrugs and turns away from the board. "Anything else you want to do here or are we headed back?" he asks as he shades his eyes from the sun so he can see his companion.
"One more thing," Jasper says and points across the road at the long abandoned warehouse directly opposite where they stand now.
"What's that?" Edward asks, unable to make out exactly what Jasper's pointing at as he looks into the sun.
"Opportunity," Jasper says, grinning. "Come on. I want to show you something."
They dart across the busy main road and run up the steps of the warehouse. There isn't much to see, just an empty, dusty disused shell of a building but Edward does as Jasper does and leans against a window and tries to see through the layer of dirt what Jasper's trying to show him.
It's as he thought. Just an empty building. What Jasper saw was anyone's guess.
"What do you think?" Jasper asks as he steps back and puts his hand to his brow so he can see the height of the building.
"I think it's filthy," Edward says because that's all he sees. Filth.
"It's in a good position though. Main road access, parking there to the side," Jasper points in the direction of the concrete strip to their left. "The listing said it had a mezzanine floor with offices and that all the utilities still worked even though they'd been shut off."
"Okay," was all Edward could say. He had no idea why he was standing in front of a warehouse discussing its merits.
"There's nearly fifteen thousand square feet altogether," Jasper tells him as though that's something significant. "It used to be a stock depot for a transport company but they closed down two years ago and it's just been sitting here empty ever since."
"Right," Edward said for want of anything better to say. "Why are we looking at it?" he finally asked. "You want to be a truck driver or something?" he laughed at the image of Jasper in a blue workman's vest with dirty hands.
Jasper laughed too as he made his way back to the windows to look inside again. With his hands still cupped over the dusty glass he began to tell Edward about an idea.
"Go with me on this, alright?" he started carefully, hoping that he wasn't about to upset the guy or make him angry for butting into his new found life and freedom. "You see there? By that pillar, those stairs there? They go up to the mezzanine. There's a rail all the way around it with a little porch sort of thing so you can walk all along the length of it and look down onto the main floor. Imagine standing up there, surveying your domain," he chuckled as Edward moved back to the windows and tried to crane his neck to the right to get a look at this porch 'thing'.
"Can't see it from here," Edward mumbled.
"It's there, the listing said so," Jasper continued, undeterred. "This whole building is virtually sound proof," he went on, hoping Edward would catch on soon what that meant. "It was all insulated because the transport company used to run forklifts day and night while they loaded trucks. The listing says you can't hear a thing from street level which is great for the businesses either side."
Edward stepped away from the window and looked at the supermarket to the left of the building and the newspaper shop to the right. "Lucky them," he mumbled again as he moved back to the windows.
"Yeah, it is," Jasper chuckled lowly. "See all the pillars that run down the centre?" he asked rhetorically because if he could see them Edward could. "They're all placed symmetrically so that pallets fitted between them four deep. You could section off each piece, between the pillars, and end up with fifteen separate spaces."
"Like a cube farm," Edward thought distastefully as the thought back to his father's offices and how his staff had to sit in a little impersonal cubicle all day.
"Sort of," Jasper agreed. "See how the pillars end halfway down the building? From there back there's three thousand square feet of perfect empty space. The mezzanine ends way before that so the whole back part is empty right to the roof."
Edward did see everything that was being pointed out to him but for the life of him he didn't know what the hell sort of point Jasper was trying to make. "Bit big for a law firm," Edward mumbled.
Jasper had to smile at that. "Yeah, bit big for that," he agreed as he made his way to beside his brother in law. "But perfect for a music school and concert hall," he said carefully.
Rose excused herself when one of the office girls came to the conference room to ask a question and that left Bella and Alice sitting across from one another with an empty coffee pot between them.
"Spit it out, Ally," Bella huffed.
"What?" Alice asked as innocently as she could.
"What's your plan?" Bella asked, sitting forward and staring at her sister who was trying hard to hide her excitement.
"It's not a plan, just an idea," Mary Alice insisted. "Rose needs an accountant and you need a job," Alice said sweetly as she raised her hand. "Don't say anything yet, just hear me out," she pled. At Bella's nod she began to put voice to her idea. "Deakin University is only fifteen minutes away and they run accounting and business courses there. You could study there and work here two days a week. You'd have to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road though," she giggled.
Bella wasn't quite as stunned as Alice thought she should be at the idea. She just sat there and stared at her sister for a moment, not saying a word.
Alice leapt on the chance to elaborate. "I know you want to go to college and there really isn't all that much difference between college at home and university here. Jasper's checked out the courses and they're pretty similar. You won't have a problem getting a work visa or anything either because Jaz says he can help there and Rose said she knows quite a few ex-campers that have settled here, so it isn't impossible. And Jasper's talking to Edward about opening a music school right here on the mountain and it wouldn't be too hard to find a nice house here. Jasper says there's heaps on offer and some of them look amazing. And money isn't a problem now. Jasper says..."
"Jasper says, Jasper says," Bella screeched as she got to her feet. She rounded on her sister with eyes blazing and cheeks red like sunburn. "I've been free for exactly three weeks! I've been married for twelve days! I've got a husband who's only had access to his inheritance for less than a month and already someone else is planning what we should do with it!" she bellowed, making her sister wince. "If Edward comes to me and says he wants to open a music school on this mountain, in this country, then I'll think about it. Not a second before," she hissed.
Alice, horrified to have caused such a reaction ducked her chin and sniffed as quietly as she could. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I didn't mean anything by it, I promise. I just know the vague details of your long term plans and I can see how happy you both are here and I just thought..." she trailed off as her traitorous tears began to really flow.
"We are happy here," Bella conceded. At the sight of her sisters tears her heart melted. She knew Alice would never try to take over her life like their mother had, but it hurt that things sounded like they were being planned without her knowledge. "I'm sorry I yelled," Bella whispered as she took a seat beside her sister and took her hand. "I get scared when someone gives me advice," she admitted. "It frightens me when someone suggests something, makes it sound like it's all planned out. I can't help thinking that none of this is real, Ally. That someone will take it all away and that we'll wake up one day living someone else's plans again. But we've got plans, Ally. Plans of our own. We might not know exactly how to make any of those plans come about yet, but we do have plans. I know you weren't trying to interfere and I know you just want us to be able to realise our dreams, but we need to be allowed to do that for ourselves."
"I know," Alice whispers. "We just want you to be as happy as we are. It was just an idea, we went too far."
"I hope we're as happy as you two are," Bella agreed. "And I appreciate you wanting to help us get there. But unless it's Edward who says he wants me to think about living here it can only be just an idea. I don't mind where we live, I really don't. But I can't see him wanting to leave the States permanently, Ally. So it has to come from him because I know if I said I wanted to stay here he would. And he's got his mom there and that's so new and he'd move here just for me and end up resenting me for it. And then there's you and Jazz and soon a baby too. I'd hate to be so far apart."
"Okay," Alice agreed. "I'd hate that too. And I didn't stop to think about Edward's mom in all this. It was just an idea."
"It's okay," Bella said kindly. "Come on, we'd better be getting back to the house. We're due in the city to meet Emmett by six," Bella told her still sniffling sister.
That had to be the end of any talk like that because Bella was sure that Edward wouldn't entertain any such idea for the reasons she'd just given her sister. No matter that Bella thought it might be quite nice to make a life on the mountain.
Rose was sorry that she'd been called away during their visit but promised she'd be at dinner, at their little rented house, the following night so it wasn't a sad goodbye as the girls got into their taxi.
The boys weren't at the house when the girls arrived because they were still sitting in the pub with Pete talking about the possibility of turning an abandoned stock warehouse into a music school.
Edward was in shock, Jasper was animated and Pete was onboard.
"Just say you'll give it some thought," Pete begged as Edward stared at his beer silently. "That place has stood empty for two years already so I doubt you'll have to move very fast to snatch it up, but give it some thought."
Edward was already thinking about it. As soon as the words were out of Jasper's mouth it was all he could think about. That huge space going begging. The sound proofing already in place. The car spaces on the plot. The perfect location, the perfect ceiling heights, the mezzanine with the offices and the space for a concert hall was all already there. The backbone of a great music space was already there and Edward could picture it already.
But the more Jasper and Pete enthused about the idea the less attainable a dream it seemed to Edward.
Alice was pregnant and Bella would want to be near for her sister through the pregnancy and after the baby was born she'd want to be a hands on aunt. He knew that about her because he felt the same. The excitement of being an uncle was powerful and Edward knew he didn't want to miss a minute of what that was going to feel like. Alice and Jasper's children were going to be the only chance he ever had to be an uncle and he knew, just as he knew it about Bella, that he didn't want to give up that chance.
Then there was his mother. She'd sacrificed so much and they'd only just begun to explore the possibility of a healthy relationship. Could he move to the other side of the earth and walk away from that possibility now?
And college. Bella wanted to go to college. It was her dream. How could he ask her to give up her dream so he could have his?
Then there was the problem of residency visas, the nightmare that would be buying a house that they'd have to undertake alone and learning to live in a culture that wasn't their own.
And what about when they had children themselves? They'd be alone then too. No siblings around them, no grandmother and no cousin for their own child to grow up with.
The lure of the warehouse was a powerful one but the obstacles in the way of it were powerful ones too and Edward didn't see a way to make any of them go away and so he couldn't really entertain the idea.
"It's impossible," he told Pete. "All the things that make it a great idea are hiding behind all the things that make it impossible," he mumbled. "You've already got a music school here. I'd be screwing you out of your livelihood if I set it up right here, not a hundred yards from yours."
Pete laughed then. "Please screw me out of it," he chuckled. "I don't have the patience for it and I certainly don't have the patience for the piano work. And between the music store and the bookstore I don't have the time to devote to it either."
"All the things you think make this impossible are all the things that make it worth it," Jasper told a suddenly edgy Edward. The guy was shaking. His beer was sloshing around in his glass and he'd run his hand through his hair a dozen times in the last ten minutes. "Hey," he said across the table, "It's just an idea. There's no pressure here. Just think about it."
Edward told them he'd think about it and they had to be satisfied with that. When it was time for the guys to head back to the house Pete went back to the bookstore and the two guys walked back down the road to wait for their cab.
Edward stood looking at the warehouse across the street and Jasper stood looking at the listings in the real estate window. Neither knew what to say but they were both thinking hard.
Nothing was said about what had happened during the day as the four of them made their way into the city to meet up with Emmett. Alice knew there wasn't time to explain what had been said at the camp and Jasper knew that if he told Alice how shaken Edward had been at the idea put to him she'd freak. Besides, Edward was already twitchy. Best to leave it alone.
Neither couple had spent any time in the city because they'd all been too tired to take in too much as they passed through it to get to the mountain. But now, as the cab made its way through the crowded streets they could pass comment on all the bright lights and the interesting sights.
The Arts centre with its huge lit up spire that towered over the city. The casino with its fiery towers that shot flames up into the night air along the banks of the river. The river itself with floating pontoons and groups of party goers drinking and laughing from their boats as they bobbed along. The beautiful cathedral that sat directly opposite the iconic glass and chrome sculpture of Federation Square and of course the people.
Thousands and thousands of people all moving about at a fast clip. Some coming in to the city for a night of festivities and some moving towards the trains and trams to make their way home after work. The streets were teeming and the pubs, cafes and restaurants were packed.
Jasper used Google maps to steer the group towards the pub Emmett had suggested and they found him there lounging back against a booth watching football on a television screen suspended above the bar.
"Em!" Edward shouted to his friend the instant he spotted him.
"Ed!" Emmett yelled back as he leapt from his seat and pulled his friend into a tight hug. "Man you look good," he told a beaming Edward. "Congratulations on your marriage," he said quietly and shook Edward's hand pointedly. "And girly, look at you!" Em crowed as he took in the sight of Bella before pulling her into another tight hug. "I'm so happy for you both," he told her sincerely.
"Thanks, Em," Bella said sweetly before turning and bringing Alice and Jasper into view. "Em this is my sister Alice and her husband Jasper. Guys this is Emmett."
Emmett shook Jasper's hand firmly and then planted a kiss on Alice' cheek. "So good to meet you both," Emmett told them as he waved to the booth. "Bella told me all about you both so I feel like I know you already."
"You too," Jasper admitted. "They both talk about you all the time."
Emmett grimaced, "Yeah I can imagine," he chuckled. "What's everyone drinking then?" he asked as the two girls slid into the booth with the guys right behind them.
Edward and Jasper went for beer, Bella for white wine and Alice asked for juice after telling Emmett she was expecting. That launched Emmett into another flurry of congratulations and then he was off to the bar to get the drinks.
He was soon back and both Edward and Bella noticed he had a glass of juice for himself too.
"So tell me everything," Emmett led with and that set off the night perfectly.
It was as though they'd never been away and as if Alice and Jasper had been a part of the group forever.
After the whole story had been told Emmett congratulated his friends once again. He really was proud of them and told them so over and over. When Bella asked what he'd been up to he smiled wide and told them all about his course and the little house he'd found to live in with Mrs Carstaires.
Edward already knew all the details because he'd been in contact with his friend often but it was all news to the other three and they hung on his every word. Emmett was a great story teller, even sober, and they spent a good hour laughing along with the stories he told of his course where it was okay to blow things up.
With Emmett's tale done talk turned to what the other four were going to do now that their lives had changed so dramatically.
A 'look' was shared between Edward and Jasper at the same time as a 'look' was passing between Alice and Bella. Emmett, good with body language, noticed.
"Spill," he told Edward pointedly.
"Nothing to spill," Edward said carefully. "We'll go home and find somewhere to live I guess," he shrugged.
"What about you?" Emmett asked Bella.
"I'll apply to as many schools as I can and hopefully I'll get lucky," she said timidly.
"You?" Emmett asked Jasper.
"Find another job I guess," he shrugged.
"You're pregnant so I know what you're gonna do," Emmett chuckled as he turned to Alice.
"What's that?" she giggled.
"You're gonna buy baby stuff. Shit tonnes of it," Emmett laughed. "You're gonna buy baby furniture and maternity clothes and freak out about stretch marks and getting fat."
"Probably," Alice trilled. "I can't wait to do all that," she admits.
"You I believe," Emmett says, tipping his glass in Alice' direction, "but you three? You're all full of shit."
Edward chokes on his drink, Jasper looks anywhere but at anyone else and Bella lowers her eyes. Alice, unsure what to say or do, decides then and there that she loves Emmett. "I agree," she says timidly and nods her head at Em.
"Alice," Bella hisses at her sister. She scowls at her too but Alice is undeterred.
"No," she says firmly. "Emmett's right. Well, he's wrong too, but mostly right. Sorry Em, but I'm full of shit too even though I do want to buy baby stuff and start freaking out about stretch marks. But we're all full of shit just the same."
Emmett, enthralled by whatever chain reaction he started sits back and puts his arm over the back of the booth behind Bella. "So, if you're all full of shit, despite the baby stuff and the stretch marks," he nods in Alice' direction, "what are we all full of shit about then, huh? Tell Uncle Emmett," he laughs. "Who's going to be brave and go first?"
At the mention of the word brave Edward stiffens. That day that felt so long ago now, back at the hotel the day his mother came to tell him the lies about his life, Bella said he was brave and that he made her brave too.
"Me," Edward says firmly. "I'll go first."
"Good man," Emmett says encouragingly.
Edward took a long drink from his beer bottle and then set it back down on the table before turning in his seat to face Bella a little. He takes a second to look over at his brother in law but can't read anything in his expression. "Right," he says more to himself than to his wife. "There's a warehouse on the mountain..." he begins and Bella begins to smile.
A/N: So there we go.
Obvious? Certainly. Contrite? Probably. Cliche? Yeppers.
But, it's still how I saw it all unfolding.
As I said above the epilogue's are long and crammed full of information about where this group finally ends up.
I hope to have the first one, Emmett and Rosalie, ready to go for tomorrow. It's written, I just need to edit it.
Thank you to all of you who read and reviewed this story. I appreciate it very, very much that your enthusiasm for this band of whacky campers never waivered.
See you at the epilogues!