CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

A MOTHER'S LOVE

Alice picked her way through a dense patch of underbrush in near silence scanning ahead for possible snacks. I followed her gaze dispassionately, completely uninterested in hunting again. Mostly, this was an excuse to get away from the tension in the house. After Alice had dropped that bomb of a vision on us we were all more worried, try as she might to tell us it was probably nothing.

I sighed and hopped over a fallen tree branch.

"He doesn't mean it you know," she said into the silence that stretched between us.

"I know," I said. "I get it. I really do." Jasper's fury must have been similarly lingering in her thoughts, as he was the only one she could be referring to. Understandably, he was on high alert, furious with the prospect of a dalliance with the wolves, and convinced I'd walked the entire family into a fiery shit-storm.

On our way into the national park, Alice and I had stopped by La's house to make sure the dog had gone, only to find a mostly empty house containing one antsy woman stomping up and down the stairs. We'd left her pacing her bedroom, throwing the odd item into a bag - I assumed she was packing for our date and the thought made my stomach flip.

"It's harder for him," she continued. "He never had to pay much consideration to humans before coming to the family."

"You didn't either," I reminded her.

"No, I suppose not, but I have a built-in morality cheat code," she tapped her temple with a wink. "He's come a long way since that day in the diner, but he still mostly sees humans as a necessary nuisance. Falling in love with one is an alien concept."

This was a reference to the day they "met," though Alice had foreseen that meeting years before it actually happened. She described her first sight of Jasper as watching a desperate man burning on the inside, looking for a way to put the fires out.

"Trust me, this is not what I expected for my life either. I was perfectly happy being the handsomest of your bachelor brothers."

"I thought that was Edward," she tittered.

"He's too broody," I pointed out. "Anyway, Jasper would have fallen in love with you whether you were human or vampy. Being dead just made it easier for him."

She imitated Bela Lugosi's famous vampire walk and tinkled a laugh.

"I'm just glad Edward has come around," I chuckled. She gave me a glance through the side of her eye, provoking an amendment. "For the most part, anyway. At least he's not judging me anymore."

"Oh, he's definitely judging you," she doubled down.

"You're right. I probably won't live any of this down for a long time… Should La survive, that is."

"She's has to." Alice jumped onto a long, moss-covered, low-lying branch and climbed up to the one above it. "Esme already has your wedding planned and you can't disappoint her."

"You think? She seems too concerned with the danger I'm walking the family into to be planning anything."

"She is being cautious," Alice moved up another branch. "But she's happy for you. We all are."

I wasn't sure what to say to that so I continued along the path while Alice oohed at whatever had caught her attention high up in the tree. It occurred to me that I should spend some time with the matriarch of the family. She always found ways to put my mind at ease.

"Emmett?" Alice asked quietly.

"Munchkin?" I paused.

"Why are you stalling?"

I stepped back to the tree she was in and looked up at her. "With turning her?"

"What would be your ideal timeline?" she asked. "Realistically, I mean, if everything went exactly according to plan, when would be a good time to turn her?"

"I guess when she is fully aware of the impact," I said and threw my hands in the air to communicate how lost I was. "When she has come to terms with the fact she'll never see her family again. Never talk to her sister, never go to the beach with friends…."

Alice dropped out of the tree directly in front of me. "Okay look don't bite my head off, but Jasper has a point." She all but spat the words, speaking so quickly one word ran directly into the next. I looked at her blankly. "I don't think she's going to want to wait."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"My visions feel imminent."

"Your vision is imminently unsure she'll even be coming home from the meadow tomorrow," and if she didn't, Jasper's worry about the wolves would come much more quickly than I'd been considering.

"Fair point, but that's not what I mean." She motioned for us to continue walking and led the way down the deer path. "I'd say it's sixty-forty, maybe more, that she'll survive the meadow."

Those were better odds than I'd assumed.

"If you try to turn her yourself tomorrow you will absolutely fail, and there is no possibility of survival." Alice glared at me as if I would ever imagine trying to. "Still, the vision of her as one of us is the only way I can see her surviving long term. There's no getting around it. I know you're being responsible, I know you want her to be more sure of this than anything in the world before she chooses, and that's very admirable, but I'm starting to think she never had a choice, even before you met her, and now she definitely doesn't."

"Because of il Divenire?"

"Possibly," but she didn't seem sure.

"Don't you think that's more of a reason than any to give her as much of a choice as possible?" I asked, feeling hopeless.

"That would just be the illusion of choice," she answered cautiously. "And I think it means you're stalling because you're scared."

"What if I don't make it through tomorrow?" I relented.

Alice considered me. "Do you really think that's a possibility? After all this?"

"Yes," I said perfunctorily, but then turned the idea over in my mind, focusing on the possibility of killing her. While I would be idiotic to go into this with any presumptions on success, the thought of hurting her was so repulsive it nearly outweighed the sweetness of her blood. I couldn't rely on that, of course, instincts could easily overtake any sentimentality. "It is a possibility, but maybe it's unlikely at this stage."

She pulled me into a tight hug, her head barely reaching my chest. I wrapped my arms around her slight frame and squeezed.

"I believe in you, Em. But no matter what happens tomorrow, I support you. We support you. You're not alone in this." She squeezed me back and let go to peer up into my face.

"I'll talk to her," I promised, though it made me feel sick. "Feel her out at the very least."

"Just remember that if you're going to let this be 'her choice,'" she put quotes around the last words with her delicate fingers. "Then you have to actually believe her when she makes it."

I broke into a run to relieve some of my nervous energy, leaping over crevices and fallen trees. Alice kept pace beside me, but didn't speak, leaving me to my thoughts. Alice made it sound so simple - just believe her! Everything is going to be great! But she wasn't there to hear La talk about her family, or about spending a day with her niece and nephew. It was all too easy for humans to get caught up in the excitement of something new and unexplored, to dive after the rush of a new interest and completely forget about the things they would be leaving behind.

This wasn't something that could be figured out later. She would be losing the people that meant the most to her in the universe forever. A decision of that scale shouldn't be made after only knowing someone over the space of a week. I needed more time. La needed more time and more information.

"Oooh," Alice cooed and switched directions vaguely south. I followed her automatically wondering what had caught her attention this time. We passed several herds of deer, a bobcat, and a family of coyotes before I finally picked up the scent she was after.

A small gift. A lone black bear, asleep in a bed of heather. I had been expecting to dine on herbivores this close to home, so this was a treat indeed.

"Thank you," I whispered to her so as not to wake the little bear. She inclined her head and took off toward her own quarry. Overwhelmed with internal battles, I didn't feel like waging one with my food - especially a meal I didn't even want. I snapped the bear's neck before it could wake, and fed quickly, already feeling bloated from over-indulgence.

As trepidatious as I was for the outcome of the next day, I was equally eager to see La that evening. We'd spent so much time talking over the last couple of days and I found myself excited just to be in her company, watch her tell stories, hear her laugh. For a moment, I forgot about her impending death and the sweetness of her blood, forgot how difficult the future might be and let myself get excited to see the woman I'd come to love.

"Finally!" Alice exclaimed, having recently rejoined me for the run home. Hanging out with her was often this way, half uttered exclamations and vague thoughts that only came out in bits and pieces. She did a little dance as we ran. "I'll take Jasper hunting tomorrow to be sure!"

"Of what, you annoying little pixie?" I tried to give her a playful shove but she dodged it.

"That he's not hungry on Sunday!"

"Uh-huh," I played along. "He's pretty impossible when he hasn't eaten."

"Yeah, and I want to make sure he has a great first impression with La."

I skidded to a halt. There's only one reason she would bring that bit of her vision up again so soon. She must have had a clearer view of the day after the Meadow Date.

"Does that mean…" I stuttered, ready to repeat my question from earlier. Hope flaring in my chest.

"No," she said happily. "But I'm now seventy-five percent certain that she will survive tomorrow, and if she does I'm ninety percent certain she'll be part of the family."

She swatted away my frown. "I'm still betting on you, Emmett, and when have you ever bet against me?"

"So I'm bringing her home on Sunday?" I asked. I didn't actually know how to feel about that. Ecstatic that her survival seemed surer, but terrified of bringing her home… to meet the family.

"Yep," she let the "p" pop and pulled me back into a run.

"I thought you weren't omniscient!" I called after her but grinned despite my growing dread.

"Whoever told you that?"

The steam from the shower was so thick even my vampire eyes couldn't cut through it. I'd turned the water all the way to hot and sat under the stream, head in my hands. This was an impossible place to be. I had fallen in love with a woman I was destined to kill. Even reminding myself that Alice was only twenty-five percent worried that kill would be permanent didn't stem the tide of hopelessness.

The grand picture wasn't about me, but I needed a moment to wallow in self-pity, to lament the death of a person that didn't deserve it, at my own hands. How would I ever forgive myself for taking away her future.

There was a light knock on the door. "Emmett, honey? You alright? You've been in there a while."

"Yeah, Ma," I called out to her.

"Come sit with me?"

I turned off the water and stared at the floor for a moment. Her footsteps padded softly away and a moment later there was a soft click from the latch on my bedroom door. I checked the time on my phone as I toweled dry - just after ten pm. La would only now be crawling into bed with a book. I still had some time before I could sit with her, so I considered my closet.

We would be hiking to the meadow since I didn't think I was ready to carry her the whole way, and I needed to wear something that wouldn't cover all of my skin. I reached into the back of my closet and shifted through what felt like a thousand shirts that Alice snuck in when I wasn't around. There were dress shirts and sweaters and piles of suit jackets, none of which I'd ever worn. I opened a drawer and found a stack of perfectly folded sleeveless undershirts, no doubt for the shirt and jacket combos I never wore. I pulled one on then slipped a t-shirt over the top.

Esme waited for me downstairs on the sofa. The rest of the house was quiet, I could only guess my siblings had taken the opportunity to get out of the house and away from my personal dramas. She was fixing the cuff on one of Edward's shirts, needle moving rapidly through the fabric. I leaned down and kissed her cheek before taking a seat next to her.

She smiled up at me without pausing. "How are you, Em?"

It was then I realized she'd orchestrated the emptiness of the house. The effort she'd taken to be sure we could have this private chat showed how interested she was in a genuine response.

"I have no idea," I said after a pause. She set the shirt aside and focused her attention on me. "One minute I think I have a handle on it and I'm good, the next I'm sitting in a steaming shower beating myself up."

She nodded but didn't respond, content to let me tell the story in my time.

"I can't shake this guilt that I should have stayed away, that I should have left the country, or done something, anything that wouldn't condemn her to this fate."

"What do you mean, fate?"

"Alice's vision. That I'll either kill her for sustenance, or I'll kill her for selfishness. This ridiculous choice between types of death."

"Hmm," she considered me. "Do you blame Carlisle?"

I cocked my head at her, unsure where she was going with this. "No, not remotely."

"Do you blame me, then? It was me that decided you should join us."

"No!" I took her hands. "No, I wouldn't change any of this for the world. You gave me a chance at a life that I never would have known without you."

Esme gave me a level look.

"That's not the same thing." I shook my head vehemently. "I was dying."

"A choice between deaths…."

I stared at her. She met my gaze and swept a hand through my wet hair.

"Did I ever tell you why I asked Carlisle to change you?" I shook my head, again, mute, so she continued. "Carlisle heard you screaming first, you know, before me or Edward. But once I heard you it was like my whole world became focused on that sound. Carlisle knew I couldn't leave you, but I was worried about my ability to control myself around so much blood. I took care of the bear while he went to see if there was anything to be done about your wounds.

"I knew there was nothing - we were too late, and there was so much blood, Emmett. You wouldn't take your eyes off Carlisle, and you looked so scared and sad, you were grimacing through the pain and there was one dimple, there," she poked my cheek. "And I just said, 'save him.'"

"Are you saying I was saved by my dimple?" I smiled and scooped her into my side, putting my feet up on the coffee table. She batted at me to remove them.

"No, not just the dimple."

"Then what?" I asked.

She gave me a squeeze then pushed away and offered me a sad smile. I'd seen a very similar look on La's face. "I could see that not all of your wounds were from the bear and it made me angry for you. You were too young and you never even had a chance to live with respect or dignity or love. It didn't seem fair, especially not when Carlisle and I had an immortal lifespan of love to give."

As much as I appreciated the sentiment I could tell she wasn't giving me the whole story.

"I'm trying to say that you should stop blaming yourself for feeling things," she said. "Does she make you happy?"

"Very happy," I admitted. "Happier than I've ever been."

"Then all is well," she gave my shoulder a light tap with her fist.

"Just like that?" I asked, incredulously.

"You love her," she said. "The least you can do is try to be with her."

"Even if it's not in the best interest for her future?" I couldn't believe she could be so blasé about this. We were talking about the death of a whole person.

"The only person that can decide what is best for La's future is La. Not you, not Carlisle, not Jasper."

"There is no future if she's dead." I felt like I'd said that a million times in a million ways.

"The risk if things go wrong is worth the chance at the eternity of happiness you'll both have if they go right."

"So you're betting with Alice?"

"I would be a fool not to, my love," she grinned. "When all of this is over, I am going to be transcendently happy. Anyone who could win my son's heart must be a very special soul. I think I'm going to love her."

"Is that so?" I asked with a laugh. "Now you sound like Alice."

"You wouldn't be so cruel to your dear mother as to keep her from me, would you?"

"If Alice is to be believed you'll have your chance on Sunday."

Esme clasped her hands together. "I thought she was just poking fun at you! She wasn't so sure about that one last I heard."

"She has recently decided she is seventy-five percent sure La will be visiting the Cullen home this Sunday."

"See?" She said smugly. "I don't know why you would fight her on anything. She is as inevitable as a storm and has at least twice the accuracy of a weatherman."

I laughed. "I hope your faith in me is warranted. I hope I won't hurt her. Then we'll just need time for her to come to the decision on her own." I stood up and straightened my shirt. "Easy peasy."

"All things in due course, my dear." she told me as I left the house in a hurry to get back to La.