Florence
"I can't believe you said yes to this." Will groans as we walk through the forest.
"Will just stop moaning." I said as I follow the map on my phone. "Okay so we turn left here and it's about 10 minutes up here I think." I put my phone in my pocket as we continue walking. I was slightly ahead of Will who was trailing back behind me on purpose.
"I mean he could've picked us up at least." I hear Will mumble. I look at him, pause until he gets to me and punch his arm. "I'm just saying, the dude has a car!" He explains. I roll my eyes and continue walking.
"Yeah well you don't need to say anything, and that dude is our Dad."
We finally approached the house and both of us were stopped in our tracks. It was huge, unbelievably huge. The front had huge glass windows with what looked like a pool or a fountain in what I assumed was the front garden. We approached the front door and saw Edward was already awaiting us.
"Florence, Will." Edward said, a smile creeping onto his face. "I'm so glad you're here." He moves to the side and gestures for us to come in.
"How did you know—"
"I heard you coming." He states. "Please come in."
"Thanks," I say.
Both Will and I couldn't believe the size of the place as we walked in. It looked and felt like some sort of museum, everything seemed to have a specific place and looked untouched. The sad part was it didn't feel homely, despite how beautiful it was.
"Your house is incredible." I say out of politeness, despite my thoughts.
"Thank you, we prefer being in the middle of nowhere for privacy, which means you find places like this hidden away."
"Must've set you back a bit." Will mutters, I tap his arm again. "What?"
"You can't say that." I whisper.
Edward laughs. "No it's okay, Will's right, but with us being as old as we are we're able to own places like this, we're grateful for that."
We both took our jackets off, Edward offered to take them and he hung them in a cupboard near the front door. I say cupboard, it may as well have been a small bedroom. As we approached the stairs I could hear music coming from whatever room we were heading to and excitable sounding chatter (I could feel the excitement too). We made our way up the stairs slowly, Edward was feeling nervous and was keeping quiet. We got to the door of what I assumed was the living room, the talking hushed suddenly. We entered the room to see six other people standing around the room in pairs.
One of the women stepped forward immediately, her bronze wavy hair bounced as she moved. "Florence, William, it's a pleasure." Her smile was ridiculously infectious. She had a motherly vibe about her that automatically made me feel comfortable.
"Florence, Will, this is Esme, my Mother - your Grandmother. You've met Carlisle." Carlisle smiled as Esme stepped back. Carlisle then put his hands on her waist and kisses her shoulder gently.
A smaller female jumps forward next, the excitement coming from her was also infectious. She looked at me for a moment and the excitement turned into what felt like sadness. She pulled me into a tight hug and then did the same to Will, who looked both confused and less than impressed. "I can't believe how much you look like your Mother." She says to me. She then looked at Will, then to Edward, then back to Will. "And you, you look so much like him but I can see Bella in your eyes."
Despite him trying to suppress any physical emotion whilst we were here, Will couldn't help but smile a bit.
"This is Alice, and her mate Jasper is just there." Edward said. Jasper, the blonde male, stood further back. He looked stiff and still like a statue.
I looked at Will as I suddenly felt anger coming from him. "Jasper? You're the one who… was it him?" Will asked aggressively.
"Not now." I pull away from Alice and step in front of Will. Edward also took a defensive stance, he'd seen Will when he'd lost it before so he knew what he was capable of, despite being in a room full of strong vampires.
"Flo he's the fang fucker who fucked everything up for Mom!"
The blonde female was standing in Will's face suddenly. "Shut your mouth about my brother, you child." She snarled at him.
"Child?" Will said with more aggression. Carlisle and a largely built male rush over and pull her away. Edward was now in front of Will, his hand pressing against his chest.
"Easy Rose." The male says to her, kissing her hand and pulling her back.
"This is Rosalie and Emmett." Edward says as he moves back to the side of Will. Emmett gave us both a subtle wave and a smile as he was still calming her down.
Talk about first impressions.
Carlisle steps forward. "I suppose now is best for some explanations and time to get to know each other." He gestures to the sofa for us to sit down.
Will and I sit together opposite everyone. Rosalie was still giving Will daggers, but Emmett was rubbing her leg to calm her down - I could feel her calming down the more he did it, however she still had some anger lingering. Alice felt excited, however her demeanour said otherwise; she sat holding Jasper's hand with a face of concern as her gaze would swap between Will and Jasper. Esme and Carlisle felt calm and Edward the same. Will was also calm, however he was on edge slightly.
"So, Florence, Will, thank you for coming to our home." Carlisle smiles. "It really is an honour to meet you both properly this time."
"You too, we just can't get over how big this place is." I reply, looking around the modern living room. "It's beautiful."
"Well Esme is responsible for that." Carlisle looks at her lovingly. She smiles at him as he rubs her leg.
"Everytime we move to a new place I try my hardest to make each house feel like home. We don't have many personal belongings so most of the furniture and decor either comes with the house or we buy it ourselves."
"You move around a lot?" I ask.
"It depends." Carlisle says.
"Hm." Will scoffs.
I look at him and then back at Esme and Carlisle, giving them an apologetic look. They smile warmly in response.
"How's Forks?" Esme asks, swiftly changing the subject.
I look at Will and nudge him to speak. He shrugs. "Same old I guess, nothing changed whilst we were growing up so…"
"Who did you live with?" She asks.
"With our Grandfather, Charlie, but we spent most of our time with our Uncle Jacob and the… pack." Will looks at them cautiously.
Carlisle smiles. "It's okay, we know about the wolves."
"We spent a lot of time around them, it was nice actually, they helped us understand ourselves as much as they could through legends they had, although they were quite one-sided you can imagine. Charlie doesn't really know much about anything… supernatural, I guess." I say. "We felt it was best that he didn't know."
"What do you know about yourselves?" Edward asks.
"Apart from not being able to get drunk?" Will says with a humorous tone to his voice. Emmett and Jasper snigger. "Not much actually… we just know we're not full vampire. Flo can do this weird emotion thing too, can't you?" He elbows me gently.
"What do you mean?" Jasper asks as he sits forward.
I mirrored him and also sat forward. "I can feel people's emotions. I've learnt to block it out, however I can't just turn it on and off when I like and sometimes simply blocking it out doesn't work, like I'll walk in a room and feel everything in there when there's a lot of people. It can be quite overwhelming sometimes." I say, mainly looking at Jasper. He smiles slightly as if to say he knew the feeling, "Like now, I can feel Esme and Carlisle are quite calm, Edward too."
"I deal with emotions too." Jasper says. "I can manipulate them as well as feel them. I wonder…" He looks over at Esme, within seconds I could feel Esme's calm had changed to pure happiness. I looked at her and she was smiling. Jasper and I also exchange smiles.
"Pathokinesis." Carlisle says. "Interesting. What about you, Will?"
"Nope, I'm the boring twin." He says, leaning back into the sofa. Carlisle chuckles. "What else can you all do?"
"I have visions, subjectively." Alice's excitement increased.
"What does that mean?" Will asks. He was now sitting forward too. He seemed to have settled himself down and was getting more involved, it was nice.
"The future can always change, people change their minds all the time. I just see it before they do." She states. "I was keeping an eye on your Mom when we left, but I stopped being able to see her. I then started having visions again around when you both were born, however they were blurry and vague and eventually they stopped again.."
"Could you see us at all?" I ask.
"Sometimes you'd come through, but like I said it was blurry. Usually it's because I've not met someone when I can't watch their decisions, however because of your connection to Bella I assumed I would be able to see you, but with you being with the wolves so much that explains it."
The whole room felt more relaxed now, even Rosalie wasn't giving daggers to Will anymore. I looked over at Jasper who kept directing his gaze at different members, he definitely had something to do with the relaxed aura everyone felt.
"I can read minds." Edward adds. Will and I look at him. "I couldn't read your Mom's mind at all."
"Can you read their minds?" Carlisle asks. Edward looks at us both intensely for a moment. He then frowns. "No, nothing. Just like Bella."
"Interesting." Carlisle repeated.
"I have a question." I state, looking at all of them before looking at Carlisle. "Like we said, we don't know much about ourselves at all… and sometimes it's scary being in the dark, especially about who you are. Thing is… I have a boyfriend now and Will… Well you know what Will gets up to, but we want to know if we'll ever stop ageing or… will we eventually have to start drinking blood or… is there a chance we could ever accidentally turn someone into a vampire or… will we become a full vampire?"
Carlisle sighs. "I can understand your worries Florence, but there's very little to zero research or legends about hybrids like yourselves. When Edward first told us about you, I did as much research as I could but there was nothing I could find initially. However, I can run some tests myself if you like?"
I smile and nod. I look at Will who smirks, "The irony of a vampire running some blood tests, eh?"
Carlisle chuckles. "It wouldn't just be blood tests, if there is more to you then a simple blood test won't just be the answer, but we can start there."
"And I'm guessing there's not some special vampire hospital we can go to for this?" Will asks, still smirking.
"I have all the equipment I need for blood tests here, anything I need we can cross that bridge when we come to it." Carlisle says.
Alice then leans forward. I look at Edward who I see shifting in his seat as he nods to Alice. She looks at him with concern. Whatever she has thought of, Edward has obviously read it in her head and agreed with her. "Alice has a point, she mentioned the Volturi and what they would do if they were to learn about their existence."
The Volturi. George mentioned them, so they are real. I watched their expressions closely, the Cullens definitely feared them in some way.
"They never knew of Bella's existence, so I doubt they know anything of Florence or Will, however maybe it would be wise if you were to monitor their decisions Alice for the meantime." Carlisle suggests.
Alice nods. I look at Will who looks confused. "The who?"
I keep quiet and look at Carlisle. "They're what's considered our royal family, they make and oversee all vampire law, however they have no respect for human life. They ensure we don't make… spectacles of ourselves" He explains. It was weird hearing it from him after hearing George's theories, however they both make this Volturi lot sound like the nicest people.
"Fuck." Will says quietly.
The rest of the evening was spent with us all getting to each other and 'bond'. Will took to Emmett quickly which didn't surprise me as he was often close with the pack back home. I spent some time talking with Esme and Alice; Rosalie sat with us but she kept herself quiet. Edward spent some time chatting with Carlisle in his office - I was amazed he had an office despite being a doctor with an office at the hospital, the man never stopped. Edward and Carlisle then joined us all again. Jasper initially approached Will sheepishly after his reaction to him, but they seemed to get along pretty quickly. Edward and Carlisle joined them before Will and Edward spent some time together. For the first time in a long time I felt like we belonged. I always felt like we had a family back in Forks, but there was always something missing.
Carlisle had arranged for us to return in a few days for him to do the blood tests on us both, which would hopefully answer some of our questions. I was more keen on this than Will was, mainly because I wanted to know what kind of future I had. Although it had only been a few months, I was very much in love with Kai and I hoped we would have some sort of future together. I knew I would have to tell him about myself at some point, but I wanted to know what I was telling him and for him to know if he didn't want to be part of my little world then he had every right to walk away.
Before we left, we exchanged numbers and details. Esme insisted she cooked for us following the blood tests - she claimed that although she didn't eat herself, she enjoyed reading cook books and watching cooking shows which inspired her to experiment a bit with the stuff she saw and read. As we left, Edward walked with us down the road for a bit.
"That was nice." I say, smiling at him as he walked.
"Yeah it was actually." Will says. Edward and I looked at him. "Don't look so shocked, I like them, I like you."
Edward smiles. "I appreciate it, Will."
"But… you know that this isn't just an overnight thing, right?" Will says as he stopped walking.
Edward and I copy him. "What do you mean?"
"Well you're our Father, which is nice… at least we have one parent that isn't dead," Will says with a laugh escaping his lips. "But you're not our Dad overnight, if that makes sense? As in, I won't be calling you Dad anytime soon."
Edward nodded, "No, I understand. It's going to take a while for us to get to know each other and bond." Will smiled at him. "I don't expect you to call me Dad anytime soon either."