44. CONSEQUENCES

(Edythe's POV)

I dove.

And then I could hear the quiet sound of my teeth cutting into the side of his neck. To kill him one way in order to save him.

My husband's blood shrieked in red on the cold, dead-white of my hands as I clung to him, holding on to his shattered body. How often have I held onto him like this? So broken beyond repair? How many times had Death come running for him in the time he had known me, in the time we have loved one another?

"Stay with me, Beau, do you hear me? Just keep your heart beating… keep your heart beating." I begged it of him; prayed that he could hear me, that I could reach him in time before he left me for good. Please, please, please…

I waited for any sign of life; a breath, a twitch. For my venom to bring him back to me.

"Is it working?" Jules asked, desperate.

I could only shake my head. No, not yet. But it had to.

He's not going to make it. I heard the suffocating grief, not unlike my own, in Jules' inner thoughts; matched it to her reemerging outward sobs.

Why can't I see anything else? My brother, trying so desperately to search for another outcome but seeing only flashes of my husband's mangled body flipping through his mind like an automated rolodex.

He's dead. I can't believe he's dead. Lee, numbed with shock. His hatred for Beau, and my family, dissipating all at once.

He's gone. Beau, why? Sarah, crying within and without.

Their thoughts, dizzying, maddening, drowning me in a swirling sea of unending torment.

No heartbeat. Nothing we can do. Can't save him. Never coming back. Dead. Gone.

Dead.

"Stop it!" I screamed out in a sob. "Beau? Can you hear me? Please, wake up! Don't leave me… don't leave me…!" My shaking hands skimmed over his lifeless frame, from the white-red of his bloodstained face to the horrid gashes; wounds, etched deep into his skin.

His pulse was weak. Failing. Leaving.

Not one movement. Not one sound. Not even a twitch, one aching gesticulation of life; all of which my heart so desperately yearned for.

No. This will not be the end of our story. "You're not dead. Come back to me, Beau. Please, please, please!" I bit him again in the same spot and prayed for another outcome than the stillness of Death's grip which paralyzed him. But when I again saw nothing, my heart clenched up in my chest, coiling around itself with tremors of fast-approaching panic and a pang of realization that at once buried me under: that I was too late, and he was not coming back to me. I gasped then as a seeping physical pain, too, slowly spread inside me and I tried to breathe through it; through that strange burning which giving birth to our son had left me in, everything once vital to my existence as a human inside me grinding, moving, rearranging themselves like a puzzle of granite back into their original places; locations they had occupied for over a century before everything had changed. But the pain that had by all odds the most omnipotent superiority over that burning, was the shattering torment which destroyed me from the inside out - my husband's last breath sawing through me; consuming me bit by aching bit until there would be nothing left. Nothing left without him. His death on my hands. For so selfishly loving him in every possible way, for being unable to live without him, for being so incapable of letting him go. Yes. I had failed him.

"Don't you dare leave me, Beau! I can't… I can't…" I cried out, saving him my only possible absolution now.

"Come on," I did compressions again, the ache of despair impelling my every move and imbuing each one with massive voltages of strength. "Come on!" Over and over, again and again.

Nothing.

Only silence in the air save for my breaths and the splinter of his ribs with the force of my desperation against them. I couldn't allow myself to hurt him more, though I was certainly capable of such horrors with what I am. "Open your eyes, Beau. Can you hear me? Please, please, please…" I touched his still chest and then my own, the shaking tension making my fingers curl tight over the fabric of my dress bodice as if I can somehow keep my heart from shattering so completely through it. Think, think, think…

My frantic eyes found an empty syringe in my mother's medical bag. I snatched it up in a flash and took a vial of venom she'd packed in there as well; the same venom I had perused during my pregnancy to ease the pain and fix those cracks in my skin.

An idea struck me immediately. Perhaps…

Without another thought, I filled the syringe with my mother's venom and plunged it straight into my husband's heart, emptying it all into him; right to the source, hoping for it to mend him somehow as it had mended me. Surely, this had to work.

I watched. I waited.

Why was there only more silence?

I was losing the beat of his heart again. Frantically, I started compressions once more; tasted the blood on his lips.

Nothing happened.

I had to try something else.

"Jules!" I cried out, willing my voice to be heard through her sorrow. Her desperate grief, and my own, had deafened me in an instant. "Please, would you… would you…" I could barely form the words cohesively out loud. She nodded once and, as if understanding all through my one despairing look, came to kneel beside me and took over where I'd left off as I made my way through and across the rest of Beau's mangled body. Jules continued those lifesaving compressions while I worked to save his life - save, as if I were not condemning him to Death all the same! - in my own, far more contemptible ways. I left one final kiss – a kiss of Life and Death – on his lips. "I'm sorry." I whispered again. I could never be sorry enough. Moving down, I saw the marks I'd left on him earlier and gave him another to match on the other side of his neck. His blood on my tongue awakened not the beast, that horrid monster who always so craved it, but another sort of thirst – a deep, desperate need as vital to me as it was so beyond my reach. He was fading away. I continued down the path of his body; followed it like a map. Blindly, selfishly, I brushed my lips over another angle of his neck, down the length of his arms and the curve which bent into the crease of his elbow, his wrists and his legs; biting straight through the bloody rags of his clothes. I could hear the lush tearing of his thin, fragile skin, so cold to the touch, nearly translucent with the loss of blood as my teeth sank into it again and again, desperately trying to force my venom into his system at as many points as I possibly can. It was all I could do.

Still nothing. Nothing at all.

Every muscle in my body felt as if they'd been paralyzed. "It's supposed to be working, it's supposed to be working…!" I sobbed out.

He didn't make it. Sarah, then Lee, thought at once, the horror of that truth burning me like an open flame.

"No, no, it will work…" I tried to think; tried to lie to myself for my own sake. "Please, Beau… please, please, please! Come back to me Beau, come back…" I sobbed, feeling every tremble in my voice shudder through me. "I can't… I can't do this without you."

If the venom was truly working, I knew he shouldn't be this still. Slowly, achingly, that horrific truth inundated me; took me under.

He was not coming back.

I threw my body over his. "I'm so sorry, Beau. I'm so sorry." I wept with no tears. It was over. I had failed him. I had killed him. Perhaps not directly, but just as well. He was dead because of me. With what I am, with the choice I'd made. That choice which by turns I could never bring myself to regret, for it brought me our son, too.

It tore me apart.

And then in the distance, a voice.

Is it truly over? The thoughts of that most wicked offender came nearer and nearer to me with every passing moment I could think to listen to it.

Sulpicia.

She was coming to see for herself the damage which she'd done. While all the Witnesses have been dismissed, the entire Volturi guard was with her every step she took. I heard her thoughts: she was wondering if she'd succeeded in eliminating myself and my child. My family along the way, too, if they had gotten in the way of her henchmen's one declared mission. And yet for all that, there was this haze; a deep, sorrowful sheet of regret filtering her thoughts, and, to my great surprise, fast-growing pangs of the deepest guilt.

But that guilt did not stop her from waging any amount of cruelty necessitated by her desire to protect what she loved most. And I, in turn, needed to protect all which I loved most. For that, my heart was pulled into two directions – my husband, right here beside me even in death, and our son. Our beautiful son. I had failed him, too, for I had taken his father from him.

Unwilling to break Beau any further - it was all I seemed capable of doing - I left him in the care of Jules, my son's whimpering cries compelling me to him in an instant. To protect him from that horrid voice; to hold on to him and never let go. He was all I had left of Beau, my last gift, woefully undeserved, from that incredible being which once was my husband. It started sinking in now, burying me deeper and deeper in my own sorrow. What had I done? Why had it come to this?

"Edythe." Royal gently reminded, his somber voice cutting through the cacophony of grief in my mind. He needs you.

With heavy steps, I made my way to my brother and took CJ into my arms, wrapping him tighter in his father's gray wool sweater to protect him from this cold, dead body of mine; the body of his wretched, monstrous mother. I did not deserve to touch him, did not deserve to possess him nor lay claim to him in any way a child can possibly be laid claim to; all the good in the world at once concentrated, in its purest forms and incarnations, in this one tiny being in my arms. So much of his father was in him - in his eyes, and his warmth, and the precious beat of his heart. He was all I had. And, as devastating as it was, I was all he had left, too.

I wiped his tears away with the tip of my little finger and kissed him. His cries softened to a low whimpering, and he nestled deeper into my chest as if searching for a warmth I knew he would not find there, his hands clutching the fabric of my dress. That he could possibly want me; that I as his mother could soothe him with so little as one touch… it was an honor which I did not deserve.

"I'm so sorry, my love." I held him tighter to me, his little body so warm it felt as if I were physically holding the brightest flame. Yes, I would live on – if you can even call it that – for him. As long as he needs me. And I, for my part, will always need him. That desire was not new to me. From the moment I found out he was growing inside me, my whole world had instantaneously shifted. I never imagined – never, never imagined – that such a precious gift could have ever been bestowed on such a creature as myself. And now, even with Beau gone, I had another reason to hold on - this baby boy in my arms, this tiny miracle of all miracles, the only one who can keep me here, now. Our child.

And I would fight for him.

The wind picked up. I pulled a corner of the sweater tighter over the side of my son's face and looked to the dimming sky above. Perhaps we can escape. We'll bring Beau back home, that much I was certain we must see to. And-

You cannot run from this, Edythe. That horrid voice again. She was coming for us now, I heard the echo of her thoughts growing louder in my head until it manifested as actual sound one can physically hear, near instantly, across the field from us. Sulpicia and her shadows. The witnesses had gone, but now we were confronted with something far worse than that.

We were trapped.

Sulpicia stood at the head of the Guard, now perhaps fewer in number but equally dangerous just the same, and took in the sight before her: my husband, laying in a pool of his own blood, our shapeshifter friend over him continually trying to resuscitate him. My family, and our other shapeshifter allies, on their guard, taking up defensive stances in the snow littered with the bodies of her men. But perhaps the most perplexing sight of all was myself, holding a newborn infant in my arms which this wretched body of mine had conceived, carried, and delivered, looking at her with all the hatred in the world.

"My, my, my. Oh, Edythe." Sulpicia took a step forward, still yards and yards from me in this field but always somehow too close for my liking. "So you have at long last borne this fateful day a half mortal, half immortal child. Truly extraordinary, my dear." Her voice confounded me - it was nearly kind, endlessly agonized, and horrifically menacing all at once. It inspired in me fear, and trepidation, for even in reading her thoughts, so closely guarded as they were, I could so deeply feel the frenzied conundrum which they wrought in her – and in me. For the first time, I did not know – not truly, at least – exactly what it was she was thinking. Athenodora and Marcus looked on, their heartbreak on the other hand so plainly evident on their faces and in their thoughts. But I say they were just as guilty, too, for allowing Sulpicia to get away with such an atrocity as this.

And then in three bursts they came and stood before me.

Sulpicia's cruel gaze bore into mine and I felt fear, then anger, flare up inside me.

With a final shred of courage impelling my every move, I went to confront my enemy.

"Why did you do it?" I cried out, begging, pleading, for some kind of answer. "Why did you do this to us? You said we were free to go, you said-"

"I am doing what needs to be done to protect us, Edythe." Sulpicia's voice lowered then rasped into a snarl.

"Protect us? Or your own kin?"

"Do not speak of that-" She lurched forward; willed my silence. I jumped back, avoiding her outstretched arms.

"I will speak as much as I want." I answered, cold as ice. She did not deserve my courtesy. "Why, Sulpicia? Why?"

"Did you not see what I saw in your brother's vision?" Sulpicia whispered. I tried to see it in her head but she was withholding it from me, just outside my reach. Did it torture her so endlessly she could not bear to think of it? And what did it all have to do with my son? What could Sulpicia – and my brother – have possibly seen? Her fear… it scared me, too.

But in the end, of course, I knew none of it mattered at all.

Holding my son, his future so unknown, tighter to me, I took a step forward and spoke. "Nothing my brother sees is set in stone. We can always make the choice to change our futures even with the cards we have been dealt. You failed your niece. But I will not fail my son."

It was a promise I surely intended to keep.

And then from behind me, Archie gasped.

I heard their thoughts – and the absence of them – first. The swirl of thoughts of a being unlike myself – neither human nor vampire but a mix of both, just as my own child was – and, further away, a shield resisting me all the same. That voice and the silence, both familiar to me in their intensity, filled my ears. A princess and a Pontianak. So they too have at last arrived. But in the air, even further behind our allies, I sensed another murmured trail of thoughts entirely unfamiliar to me, most similar in texture to the first I had detected. My alarm came out of me in a breath. Could it be? Another like the princess; another like my son? I watched, waiting for the forest to bequeath unto me its strange secrets.

Out from the shadows of the decaying trees looming tall overhead emerged only a lone, familiar figure in a white dress.

I turned my gaze back to my enemy from across the field; watched as Sulpicia took a staggering step back – it was as if she had seen a ghost.

Perhaps she had.

"Adelaide." I whispered, eyeing once again the white-clad figure, so outstanding against the sea of black, from here.

With soundless steps she approached where we stood, her blonde hair blowing out behind her in the moaning wind.

And then her hands, as warm to the touch as my own son's skin was, were on my shoulders.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered and leaned down, touching her forehead to CJ's. "To you both."

And then she stood between her aunt and myself.

"Adelaide." That name, infinitely important to Sulpicia, shuddered out of her. "Is it truly…?"

"Yes, Auntie." Adelaide nodded once, body stilling, her clear blue eyes welling with tears I knew, in looking at the frenzy of her thoughts, she did not wish to shed. At those words, a murmur went up from the crowd gathered behind Sulpicia. Two voices, twin witches, cried out, at least within the security of their own thoughts, "Addie!" and everyone else was stunned into a silent stupor at the sight of that girl, that hybrid, the Volturi's own Prodigal.

Sulpicia ran over so quick she became a blur of light very nearly too fast for even my own eyes to capture.

And then her hands were on Adelaide's face; stroking down her cheeks, entirely disbelieving of, and yet so profusely wishing to believe in, the sight before her.

She pulled the girl tight to her with the embrace of a mother. And with that one touch, Sulpicia's thoughts bloomed for me like a moonflower in the night; radiant, and glowing. A rush of love, sorrowful and tender, infiltrated every crevice of her mind. Images played before me like an old movie on a projector screen. In that first thought, that first memory, I saw a beautiful woman with long blonde hair pressing a child to her chest, looking upon it with all the love in the world. And I knew, in that instant, it was the day of Adelaide's birth. Sulpicia came up to this woman - her sister, as I now knew - and knelt beside them both, brushing a kiss on the infant's forehead with a look in her crimson eyes not unlike my own when I looked upon my son. If the sisters had switched places, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference based on the pure love which filled both their eyes.

The memory glowed like embers of fire, flowing into a deluge of other images, dark and light, adjoining to illuminate to me Adelaide's childhood, and the infinite love Sulpicia held for her through those years even if those same years tormented the girl in their own ways. Even now, without needing to look into their thoughts, I knew how painfully it was they missed one another - it was in how tightly Sulpicia held on to her, the remonstrance and regret I saw clearly in Adelaide's head which she'd felt towards not only herself and her actions but for her aunt as well. And yet, they had her wanting to hold on to that woman, her only family, all the same for they had never stopped loving each other. And then that flame of hope rekindled in my heart; reignited some. For in the love they shared, I had seen a path to salvation for my own family, for my son.

"With that hair, you look all the more like your mother." Sulpicia tucked a blonde curl in behind her niece's ear. I saw Adelaide's mother again, Amaranta, in the images which shimmered in Sulpicia's mind; could easily see the truth in her words. It was like looking in a mirror. Which made her, I'm sure, all the more precious to Sulpicia.

But then, I saw something else, too: a man, black-haired, holding Sulpicia's shoulders. The memory shone a blinding white then dimmed just as quickly, turning darker and darker around the edges as it continued on. Both Sulpicia and that man, whom I knew from my mother's memories to be Aro, said in one voice these critical words:

"It must be done."

But Sulpicia's next words made me do a double-take.

"But you will not bring harm to them, Aro, surely? She is my sister!"

"Of course not, my love. You have my word."

I was certain then that Adelaide had in fact not known everything after all and I gasped.

So Sulpicia truly did not wish to harm Amaranta.

The memory continued, and I could hear Aro's urgent voice:

"For the first time in our history, a child born of such a union has come to us in the form of our precious Adelaide. Just think of how much she can teach us, Sulpicia! How much we can learn from her, understand through her, and, above all, how we can best protect her. Is that not so?" With the strange, pleading way he delivered those words, even I was nearly swayed by them. A short flash of another memory in the upper corner of Sulpicia's mind, like a computer screen split in two during presentation mode, showed me that Amaranta and Claudius had refused Aro's request to raise their daughter - and understandably so - only days earlier, and now he wanted to take Adelaide for himself under the guise of protecting her by forcibly taking her from her parents' custody just to see what he could do with her; what it was she could possibly do for him. Just as our fallen companions, Silas, Ares, and Alexander, have once said what seemed so long ago. Even I felt a stir of fury at the thought. My husband's death adds just one more to an already much-too-long list of casualties and I felt my heart breaking all over again.

"I never, ever wished to harm your mother, my dear girl." Sulpicia vocalized out loud, looking into Adelaide's trembling blue eyes.

"It's true." I spoke on that woman's behalf not because I wished to support her, but because Adelaide deserved to know the truth. "Aro, your uncle, wanted you, but promised he wouldn't hurt Amaranta. He lied."

Adelaide gasped and faltered back a step. The deluge of her thoughts tumbled out of her now - faster, quicker, swirling - and flowed straight into my own mind. It was, for the first time, easy for me to see it all in perfect clarity, which I knew spoke to the tempestuous turbulence, and intensity, of her emotions. Her walls had been knocked down. Not one sound could be heard now as the girl took a moment to grieve.

Then Adelaide took Sulpicia's hand; held it so tight in hers. Looking back at my son and myself, she pled on our behalf in the gentlest tones of desperate persuasion, "Even now more so than ever, they do not deserve to be punished for what it is I have done, Auntie. Please, just let them go."

"But I cannot, Adelaide! For your sake, you must know; you must know what it is that I saw!" she cried out, snatching her niece's hand up in both of hers.

And then, flashes of the vision broke through the darkest crevices of her mind.

Bodies, drained of blood. A floor seeped crimson red.

Adelaide, one among the dead.

And a child grown to my human age with eyes the most beautiful shade of blue overlooking the carnage at his feet, the only sign of life amidst that horrid valley of death.

I gasped.

But surely it was impossible, wasn't it? In my heart, I knew there was no way - no way - the conclusion which Sulpicia had drawn so erroneously, in my judgement, from those images, harrowing though they may be, combined could actually hold any semblance of truth. Because as his mother, I was certain that my child was incapable of harming another soul. And, as a mother, I also understood the horror which such a vision inspired in my enemy because it was her child – the closest thing to it, by all estimations – that was dead, and not mine. But how many ways; how many possibilities there were floating in its midst that could alter such a course and reflect such a path! Surely, there was far more at play in that gruesome vision which we have not yet seen to, and I wholeheartedly believed in that; believed in my child's innocence today, tomorrow, and for the rest of all time. And it was this belief, and the infinite love I had for my son, that made me fight. I needed to protect our child with every facet of my being. He was everything to me, all I had. Even in the blinding haze of my grief; of the horrors which had already befallen my family and shattered it so completely, that much had steadfastly remained all the while ever present in my mind.

And then Adelaide, still oblivious to the grim fate she could very possibly meet, spoke as if she saw it, and understood it, completely:

"If what you saw shall come to pass, Auntie, then so be it." she firmly declared. It struck me, for in her declaration were also nodes of atonement, and mercy, and a burning, stinging feeling which emanated from her thoughts and revealed all to me; that she very much believed she deserved that which played through her aunt's mind, and it hurt to see. "It is unjust, Auntie. Do not make them pay for the crimes which I myself have solely committed; for the sins which I myself have sowed. Do not make them suffer as both you and I have all these years for my actions, Sulpicia. Take me instead, and do with me what you will. All that I ask is Edythe and her family be set free and escorted home safely. At least grant me that much, Auntie. It is my only wish."

I heard the faltering; the grief in the minds of both aunt and niece. But neither spoke another word. Their thoughts swirled around in the air; fused together in projections only I can see and hear. And how little it was I could see in them! I was searching; scanning every thought that even so much as flickered in that aching mess before me for the only words I wished to hear; of acquittal, of mercy, of life instead of death. Adelaide's stance grew clearer now; more unshakeable in its vindication - she was on our side. Marcus and Athenodora were right there with her in both thought and physical proximity. But Sulpicia's decision, the only one that could possibly make a difference… remained unknown. And that cruel vacillation, that brutal indifference, burned me. How could sparing his life even be a question?

CJ startled in my arms and I worked quickly to soothe him. His eyes, pale blue, shimmered up at me.

Eyes just like his father's.

And then my heart could no longer take the injustice of her uncertainty. It burst with my loss, so overpowering in its way, drowning me, suffocating me in its choking grip. I never hated the woman before me more for doing this to us. I would never forgive her. And then every little piece of my broken heart; my grief, and sorrow, all came tumbling out of me in fractured bursts. To blame her, and hold her accountable, for the irreparable damage she had done to us; to me. It was all I could do for Beau now.

"My husband is dead because of you, Sulpicia!" I cried out, my voice a weeping echo which shuddered through the trees. "My child would have been dead too, because of you!" Every movement, every breath, every shaking step I took in my aimless despair burned, and it felt like I was falling. The burn of that invisible fire - my grief as it now stood, taking over me - was everywhere, in my head and in my lungs, in my legs and in my arms; pummeling right through and concentrating all at once in my broken heart. I fell into the snow at their feet. folding the gray sweater away from my son's face I showed him to them, imploring them all to see the light in his beautiful eyes, in the warmth of his little body, in the fast, fluttering beats of his heart. "You look at his face and tell me he doesn't deserve to live. Tell me!" I cried out, my own heart aching. There was nothing more I could do to protect my son now than to beg for his life. I prayed to any deity that could hear me to spare my child; spare him, and to let him live. His life will not end here. They may take me, and break me, and send me straight into the flames but not my child. No, they will not.

In the cold, numbing snow, I looked to Sulpicia alone, my eyes burning with desperate entreaty. "Please," that one singular word shuddered out of me a sob, "please don't take him from me, too."

The wind picked up. CJ whimpered and I stroked the bend of his flushed cheek, wiping his tears away with the edge of my thumb. "Hush, my love." I whispered down at him, smoothing out the little furrow between his brows with a kiss. He nestled his head deeper into my chest, his tiny fists clenching first at the fabric of my dress and then his father's sweater sleeves as if they were his arms around us both. Another whimper, and then he was at last succored. If only I could ensure his life just as easily. My child; my only reason to exist, now.

Athenodora's deep sorrow for my plight only grew, Marcus of similar disposition. Sulpicia's face however continued on as unreadable stone, her thoughts similarly disorienting in their heaviness; their darkness.

And then Marcus took Sulpicia's arm. In the most urgent whisper, he pled on my behalf. "Sulpicia, please. Just look at the poor girl! You cannot be this cruel."

"Have mercy, Sulpicia! Have mercy." Athenodora begged, taking Sulpicia's other arm.

Still, in Sulpicia's face I could not yet see the evidence of surrender which I so desperately sought. Her lip quivered down then up in a perpetual fervor of thought, her eyes moving over myself, her beloved niece, and then my son, assessing, I knew not what, as I pleaded for his life in the face of death. For to lose him, too, I knew I would surely perish.

In silence, Sulpicia took one scraping step closer to me.

And then her face came nearer and nearer to my son's. She lunged for him, and my heart was paralyzed with fear.

"No please, don't!" I shrieked, desperately pulling my son away from her only to be immediately halted by her two hands. No, no, no…!

And then Sulpicia's lips brushed against my son's forehead.

She released me, stroking my son's face as gently as I, his mother, would.

And I wept without tears.

"Rise with your son, Edythe." Sulpicia murmured, touching my face. "You, and your entire family, are free to go. I promise you this now."

The intensity of my relief shuddered through me; made my entire body shake. I ran the back of my hand over my son's cheek, flattened my palm against his warm chest and felt the fluttering beat of his heart move through me. He whimpered once, his feet kicking under his father's sweater. Those same beats and those same kicks which I'd heard and felt from when he was growing inside me; from within and now without, in my arms, this precious being. And he was going to live.

He was going to live.

"Thank you" seemed far too inferior a term. His life should have been a given, not the exception and yet, I was – and am – at this woman's mercy nonetheless. But all I wanted was to take my son home. And it was this notion, this sole desire of mine, which compelled me to my feet. I said nothing, but felt deep in my heart the stirring of a greater wave of relief through the pain, our deliverance, when we had been at last pardoned. My mother came to stand beside me and she along with my father and the rest of my family watched as Sulpicia, Marcus, Athenodora and the Guard disappeared in three bursts across the field taking The Prodigal, our true savior today, with them, her future as unknown as it was uncertain.

But at least my son's life was secured. It was all I could have asked for.

Fires burned all around us - the Volturi had cleaned up their mess. When they had gone, out from the shadows immediately stepped forth two figures – Nisa, and a man that was, as I'd sensed, another like my son.

"I'm going to go after her," Nisa wrung her hands, her faraway voice catching in her throat. She gave my son and I a hug and squeezed my hand. "Congratulations, Edythe. He's so beautiful. And I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." I spoke, trying hard to make my voice come out a clear, even sound. "You and your wife. Go to her. I have a feeling perhaps she may have some time yet." Sulpicia loved Adelaide. That much was certain, and it may just be enough. Adelaide was Nisa's mate, I didn't want her to lose her as I'd lost my husband, it would be too cruel. Not another loss, not another casualty for our hands were so stained already. Looking back at me one last time, Nisa ghosted across the field in the direction which the Volturi had taken their princess - and her wife.

"Adelaide told us not to come out unless it was absolutely necessary." The other figure, copper-skinned, as beautiful as any other of my kind with eyes that were neither red nor gold but a deep, rich brown stepped forward just as Nisa started to leave. A kind, generous man of great knowledge, Ticuna by blood and birthright and a beloved professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of São Paulo as I had seen in his head. He was what my son could grow to be; the very image of the bright future I had to believe he may have ahead of him despite what my brother had seen. It was an invaluable prophecy to me. "She was so worried her family would implicate us, too. But we were still going to interfere, anyways. Fortunately, at least in one sense on a tragic day as this for which you have my deepest condolences, it appears our services were rendered unnecessary."

"Thank you." I whispered. "So, you too are like my child." It was not a question. I felt it in the burning warmth radiating from his body; heard it in the rapid beat of his heart, so like my son's. Beats so precious to me I could weep.

"Yes." He nodded. "My companions have told me all about you, Edythe. My name is Nahuel. One day I promise I will tell all to you for your son's sake, but I must take my leave now and see what Nisa and I may be able to do for Adelaide." I had question upon question ready and waiting on my tongue; wished to know so much more about him, how he lived, his story up until this very moment he stood before me and what it was our son may be capable of in his future. But from that man's mind pulsed only images of imminent rescue, so set on changing the princess's course, and I sincerely hoped I could see them all again one day. He nodded one last time and with that, he too disappeared in the direction of the fading sun.

I was brought back down to the bleakest reality upon us now – my own loss, my own tragedy. I turned towards Jules who was bent over my husband, grateful as I remembered the unending courage and bravery she had shown in the face of every hardship my family had dragged her into and against. This was her loss; her tragedy as much as it was my own. And I was so devastatingly sorry for her, and for myself, in every way imaginable.

My steps slowed as I came up to Jules. She was still pumping his heart, hopelessly, perhaps, but so steadfastly nonetheless wishing just as I did for a different ending than this. I knelt down beside her and looked over my husband's body. Not one movement, not one twitch. Not one possible sign of life, that he had come back to us.

So, he was truly gone.

"You fought well." I whispered, taking his cold hand in mine. I kissed it, feeling the sting of the tears I was unable to shed. Oh, but how freeing would it have been to cry! To feel that loss, and have it manifested so fully, so sonorously, as it would if I were human. And if I were human, how easy it would have been to join him, too…

No. I can't think like this.

I'll always be with you. I imagined Beau saying that in my mind. It was the one thought that could stop me from losing all my senses completely when he had already flown so far beyond my reach.

But I still could not let him go. Not yet. The hopelessness of futility fanned that fading flame of hope which I so desperately clung to, that aching desire to bring him back to me.

I won't give up on you.

Two last compressions. Jules, then myself.

And there was nothing. Nothing at all.

I looked to my husband's best friend and put a hand on her shoulder; willed my gratitude for all she did for us to flow straight into her with one touch. She had to know.

"You did all that you could. Thank you, Jules. I truly could never say that enough."

And then Jules collapsed against me. Broke down just as I was about to. Her grief soaked me through, her sobs wracked her body – and my own. She would cry enough for us both. I put an arm around her and held her to me. I wasn't sure if I'd done so out of a desire to comfort her – or for her to comfort me. Because I knew she understood this twisting, wrenching sorrow, the torment of my grief, even just a little bit. She loved my husband and my son. She buried her face in my chest and I let her cry straight into me, my own tearless sobs melding with hers so they were one in the same. As if he could somehow sense the tragedy in his little mind, CJ's cries soon joined ours. It was as if he knew, too. "Shh, shh. Oh, my love." My voice continued to shake. I held him to me and patted his back, willing my touches to soothe him because his despairing little sobs killed me, too. And for the tormenting fraction of a second, I felt a building, blinding anger towards my husband, pulsing right through the sadness which weighed me down. How could he leave me? His son? Us? The tragedy of my love for Beau, what it is I had done to him, seeped into the cracks of that once gilt-edged façade; drowned me in its volatile embrace over and under and all over my grief, pushing me down, pulling me out to sea until I was drowning. The darkest, deepest Sadness now touched the corners of every beautiful memory I ever had of my husband. Brief, fleeting glimpses of all those times before, imperfect and burning and painful though some were, which flash-forwarded to the beginning of this impossible journey, this fairytale that ended in the deepest throes of tragedy: our wedding, my eyes on his as I made my way down the aisle to him. His kisses and his hands on me, then in mine. The way his laughter chased away every storm cloud; how his voice put me at ease whenever the world got to be too much. When he touched my stomach and spoke to our child growing inside me for the first time, and every time after. How he saved me in every way he possibly could. How he came back from the Dead, for the briefest moment in time, just to be by my side as I brought our son into the world. But above all, it was how much he loved me – how much we loved each other - through every moment of our lives after they'd collided into one other, shattered so completely on both ends, and how those memories all lay in pieces at my feet. The grief, the anger, and the sadness stained them; turned them to blue-gray shadows like irradicable bruises on a once-perfect mosaic - Night and Day, Dark and Light. But now there was only the Night, and there was only the Dark. All the colors, all the light, had faded away.

Still on my knees in penance and in prayer, I took my husband's hand.

"Why, Beau? Your promised, you promised…" I looked to our son cradled tight in my other arm. "Why did you leave me alone?" The horrid truth of those words began to dawn on me; assaulted me like a thousand knives. I was utterly alone. My son would never know his father. My love, my life, had left me in the breath of an instant.

He was gone.

What would I tell Charlie? How could I have done this to him? His only child, gone because of me. My heart felt as if it weighed two hundred tons, crushing me from the inside out and making my throat feel tight, so tight it was as if I were physically being choked. This tragic Love, and the only ending it could have had. Beau was the one who paid the price and I, the brunt of the fallout when it all came crashing down. It finally began to feel real then, what our love had been up against all along. And so stupidly, so naively, I had believed in the delusion that we could overcome. But it was an impossibility. How blind I had been! There was no other ending than this. And it was all my fault.

But it too, brought me our son. The cruelest, most merciful blessing that I had ever known; the shining beauty of his familiar blue eyes aweing me just as it tormented me, this precious little life haunting as it was healing me. He was all I had to live for.

I touched his little chest; felt his quick, fluttering heartbeats and committed that exquisite sound to memory. And I realized, even knowing this is how it would have ended all along, I would have done it all again just to hold our son even once in my arms.

Even if it meant the devastation of this Loss, the one with the power to destroy, and to obliterate, I knew I could never regret choosing to love Beau.

His death will not have been in vain. I looked to my son. His tiny fists clutched at the air and he whimpered, the little furrow between his brow back again, and reached his arms out towards the direction his father lay.

Yes. I would tell this beautiful little being all about his father, the man who lived and died for him. About the love he and I shared. About the joys and the sorrows; the lightness and darkness of our story. He will know him through me. At least I could promise Beau and his son this much.

Then CJ fussed in my arms – in his head, I easily saw that he was cold. Of course, being the monster I am, my body could do so little in the way of providing him – my own child! - with the warmth he so desperately sought out. "Jules?" I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. She was to me as quick as she possibly could and took CJ into her arms, pulling him to her chest. His thoughts instantly relaxed in the warmth of her embrace. One part of my heart secured and succored in his way, I turned towards the other, broken and bled out as he was.

I put my hand on Beau's still chest, right over his heart as if I could physically reach through all that brokenness and make it beat again. I laid down beside my husband and kissed his bloodstained cheek. My thoughts swirled an aching storm in my head. Why did you leave me? Why did you have to go? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. If only… If only…

And then, right there under my hand, I heard one murmur, then another. Slow, aching, but enough to catapult me from the pitch-black depths of despair and straight into the brightest light. It was dawn breaking over the darkest night; the sun reasserting itself as the true guardian of our sky. It was Hope, that gorgeous, miraculous thing, resurrected in an instant. It was so real, so raw, so powerful that perhaps, deep inside, I never stopped believing in it in the first place.

"Do you-?" I whispered, breathless.

Jules, my son still in her arms, put her ear against Beau's chest the way I so often did in my own time. Those heartbeats, always so precious to me, took on new meaning now.

Because they meant that my son was going to meet his father.

I pumped and pumped his chest for another minute and then, pulling back, we watched, and listened.

That slow, defiant thrumming once again pierced through the cold air.

His eyes were still closed, and there was no movement. But his heart, as slow, as quiet, as scattered and stretched thin the rhythm of his pulse was, now beat on its own nonetheless.

And I hoped, with everything in me, that that meant it was working.

"Oh, Beau." I kissed him again; trailed my hands over his face and his lips imagining the rush of my venom, and my mother's, repairing him from the inside out and carrying him back home to me. I pulled him to my chest; braced his body against mine. My tearless sobs came in an instant, broke free in the deluge of my reawakening relief. It was like my heart had been built up just as it had been broken down in an instant and reinforced tenfold.

"Thank you, Beau. Thank you, thank you, thank you." I kissed him everywhere my lips could touch and held him tighter to me.

Thank you for coming back to me.

"It's time for us to go home." Carine took my shoulders from behind and kissed my cheek. I took Beau very gently in my arms and rose with him. Jules was there in an instant, covering Beau with all our jackets. CJ whimpered once in her arms, pulling the edges of his father's sweater tighter over himself and Jules tucked the corners in around his exquisite face. My family, whole. As one, we turned back in the direction which we came to leave that dreadful place behind, watching as the field of white faded from view behind us.

Hi everyone!

It's finally here, lol. I apologize once again for this super late update, I was stuck on this one for the longest time due to life stuff and also just how difficult it was to craft Edythe's "voice", which proved to be extraordinarily challenging for me. I was desperately flipping through my copy of "Midnight Sun" to try and get a better sense of Edythe's thought processes through Edward's and hopefully I was at least semi-successful in that! They really think a lot, don't they? XD It was difficult in that "voice" to get to the bottom of what happened to Adelaide's parents and why Sulpicia wanted to eliminate Edythe for the second time, as well as having Nahuel make an appearance (which is important for a later chapter) without compromising the emotional impact of Edythe's grief and the very real possibility she faced of losing Beau and navigating a world without him in it as a new mother to boot. It was just so all over the place, and I pretty much destroyed my original outline for the chapter nearly beyond recognition lol. After some extensive revisions though, I finally got this!

Also, I've got some exciting news - I'm planning my own, totally original sequel to this story! That vision Archie, Sulpicia, and Edythe saw is a key element in that piece, which takes place seventeen years after when this fic takes place and will be narrated by a high-school age CJ, who'll have this huge mystery he needs to solve which threatens to shake the foundation of the Volturi and all they stand for. Of course, Beau, Edythe, and Jules will be a part of that too, so the Cullens' adventures do not end here ;)

Thank you again for your patience and for all the support, you guys are truly the best! Until next time :)