I do odd bits of research as I write and as a point of curiosity I researched what the Twilight actors looked like when they were the actual vampiric age of their characters. The actor who played Edward, played Cedric in the Harry Potter movies when he really was 17. He looked so young most of Twilight suddenly seemed almost inappropriate. Edward was the baby of the Cullen family. He was 17 when he was turned, younger by 2 years than any of the others. Looking at him explains at least a little why he did such shockingly ill thought out things in the books. A brain frozen in development at 17 years old… Being stuck with that for nearly a hundred years and being clever enough to understand your own shortcomings, I can see why he would want Bella to give herself a chance to grow up a little.

Not that he was ever able to explain that to her. He really wasn't much of a talker or great at understanding people.

Hmmm… Now I'm thinking about gift origins and what direction I should go with Nora.

Jasper

According to the GPS, 40 hours separated New Orleans from Forks. Rosalie was driving. We couldn't afford to get pulled over so she stayed machine gun focused on 5 miles per hour over the speed limit and no faster. We drove that way for maybe 6 hours before Alice pulled herself together enough to start whispering.

"Faster here."

"No, there's construction, take the left."

"Speed trap in 8 miles slow down."

I kept running my fingers through her hair and trying my best to wrap her in comfort. I wanted 'Alice' present, not 'Alice's gift'.

She blamed herself. She'd thrown herself so far into her gift she was lost there. It brought to mind that horrible time just before the Volturi confrontation. The crushing weight of everyone's hopes and dreams focused on her to find a path to the future that didn't lead to the execution of her entire family. She held herself to impossible standards sometimes.

When we left, for a little while we were still near enough to feel the soul poisoning pins and needles of doubt that kept flickering through those closest to us. 'Did she abandon us? Is there no hope?' What stupid feelings from some traitorous hearts!

Alice would never give up on the people she loved. Only one bright spark, other than my own, stayed an unfaltering bastion of faith in Alice. There was a reason Bella was Alice's best friend.

I'm not really being fair. Doubt plagues everyone at one time or another. Bella was special. It was hard, …had been hard living up to that stubborn determined insistent faith of hers.

"No Jasper, you won't hurt me."

"No Jasper, one of the choices you made was to surround yourself with people who loved you enough to stop you when you wanted to be stopped. I don't blame you for what almost happened on my birthday, especially when you were part of the reason nothing happened."

Bella's definition of nothing was unique.

What would Alice do without Bella?

There had alway been a connection between Alice and Edward. He was the only one close to her who had ever really seen the burden of her gift. He'd glimpse her visions through her from time to time. She depended on him. That connection, his ability to help give voice to her visions, supported her. Both of them were singled out with gifts so powerful, so intricately woven into the lives of others, that the gifts were isolating even though as Rosalie sometimes put it, "those gifts put them, 'all up in other people's business.'"

Alice needed Edward. I couldn't be Edward for Alice. I couldn't be Bella for Alice. I could only be me. I felt woefully inadequate.

If I was drowning Alice in 'I love you, I love you, I love you,' right now, she didn't seem to mind. She pressed closer against me and took my scarred hand in her own smaller one holding on a little tighter than was comfortable. It wasn't tight enough. I needed to feel her presence sharply here and now.

I couldn't escape the bitter symphony of loss stifling me in this moving metal cage.

Rosalie loved Renesmee to pieces and a bond had developed between her and Bella through the trials of Renesmee's birth that had healed something long broken in Rosalie. She'd smiled more. She'd been able to look outside her own story and start living with joy again. Rosalie's grief felt like fury.

Emmett felt small. He was big and strong but for the first time in his life, loss was right in front of him and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Emmett likes making people smile. He was aching for a sense of purpose that he knew how to handle. Nobody wanted to smile right now. He didn't want to smile. If he was my soldier I would give him something to do; get him digging a ditch, chopping firewood, carrying supplies for the wounded. We are in a car with a very long drive ahead of us and Emmett is drowning and I can't think of a thing to do for my brother.

I couldn't seem to define my own grief except through everyone else's.

Charlie

They sent Carlise home. They took his keys and put him in a cab. They didn't think he should drive. I called Sue and told her I was coming home. She'd already heard by then. She just said, "Come home. I'll help you through this."

I'll call Renee when I get home. She's the one person I'm not sure I'm ready to talk to.

Funeral arrangements will be easier than talking to Renee. I'd have to talk to the Cullen's about the funeral particularly as there were complications I didn't know how to handle. Renesmee was six years old. She looked like she was maybe ten years older than that. Renee didn't know of her. Her growth and development rate had just slowed enough that she'd started high school and had started to make friends outside the small circle of her family.

If this had happened last year it would have been easier. There would have been two funerals, one public funeral for Bella and Edward and a secret private funeral for Renesmee. Despite the complications of her having entered public life there is no way I would have stolen that last year from my beautiful granddaughter. She was so happy this last year. Six years old is far too young to die.

Carlisle

Esme was waiting for me on the front step when the cab dropped me off.

Vampires can't cry. We are not biologically built for tears. Venom runs through the remains of our tear ducts in quantities just large enough to lubricate our eyes. Debris dissolves away rather than washes away.

She and I both flinched as we heard Jacob howling in the distance. I gathered her into my arms.

"I'm sad," whispered Esme.

I suppose to some it may have been a stupid, bluntly obvious thing to say but Esme was born into her second life having tried to take her life. I have long suspected that for Esme postpartum hormones had been a huge part of the difference between suicidal and heart breakingly sad but able to continue. Changing heals most ills and she'd been glad of her second life, but still mourning and weighted down by sorrow. She wanted tears but tears were gone and one of the ways Edward and I helped her cope was finding something to replace the tears.

"I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad..."

I hugged her letting the whispered mantra I had not heard in decades repeat quietly for a while before trying to find something to say.

"Edward was my son and loving him let me learn the treasure of family. It led me to you. He loved you so much Esme," I pulled her up and into the house and in an artless imitation, played the first few bars of the first song Edward had ever composed for Esme. I'm not very good at piano.

"Bella told me once that she loved her mother but you Esme, you inspired her to 'be' a mother through the love you share with all of us."

"Renesmee was too young and so dear. I can't bear it beloved but, but,... We got to share their lives. So, let's be sad for now because we'll miss them, and later, when we're ready, we can be happy because of all of those memories of love they gave us."

We sat at Edward's piano bench leaning together in silence for sometime.

The phone rang. I didn't want to answer the phone. Whoever it was, I probably didn't want to talk to them.

It was Renesmee's school. They'd heard. They wanted to be informed about arrangements.

After I hung up the phone, I turned to Esme.

"There's something I haven't talked to you about yet." She smiled at me sadly but hugged me to be supportive.

"The other family in the crash, the mother and father passed but their daughter was thrown clear in the explosion. She survived."

"The poor dear, does she have any other family?" asked Esme caringly.

"I don't know love but there's more." I rubbed my face in my hands not knowing quite how to lay out the problem. Eventually I just laid it all out. "She was contaminated by venom. I suppose in a way she's our soon to be born granddaughter because she's a child of Edward and Bella. Their venom made her."

"Even if she does have family, she can't go home." Esme exclaimed.

"She's ten but, according to the Voltori, in her case, she's old enough. To be honest I don't trust their determination. She may not truly be old enough but I can't in good conscience kill her on the weight of crimes she may one day commit."