THEN

Amongst all the panic and chaos there was one thing Caroline Southgate recognized immediately. Walking down the hallway from the bathroom where she'd huddled until the anxiety dimmed, this house she'd never seen was almost painfully familiar. She'd seen and lived in dozens of them throughout her childhood.

The Emissary houses were often different in style and location, but the insides were all lacking in charm and high in efficiency. Military housing had always been the same, Caroline knew. Rooms appeared larger due to lack in furniture and knick knacks. Voices echoed off bare walls and rugless floors.

The house itself was a nice one. The marriage of stone and wood suited the mountains and woods. Caroline couldn't help but think it was a location they would all enjoy under just about any other circumstance. The occupants were as stressed as she, though as she walked through the house the men and women she passed also held gratefulness in their eyes.

That was something wasn't it? That made the last hour worth it and less crazy.

She'd killed. The man she loved had killed. Her best friends had killed. With little hesitation but all the weight. Caroline couldn't shake her mind clear of it.

Entering the kitchen she avoided the wall of windows that showed the back deck and view of the fields beyond. The clean up would likely still be going on. She didn't need more of that sight seared into her memory.

"Ro." Ethan stood from the table in the dining room that was set up as a conference room of sorts.

"I'm fine." But she raised a hand before he could touch her. She wasn't ready to feel. She sat at the table with him and Cole.

"Where's Anna?"

"They have an infirmary setup, Sy is with her." Cole answered, rubbing his own leg.

Unable to resist Caroline kicked his shoe so he looked up at her. "Not your fault, quit it."

"No, I know." Cole shrugged. "That was….."

"Yeah." Caroline heard the clipped edge in her tone and rolled her shoulders. "Yeah" She repeated softer and looked around. "How many live here?"

"I don't know. Sylas was calling Jeff, I'm sure he'll get more details. But whoever does, they're giving us a wide berth." Ethan waited for Carolines eyes to meet his. Once they did and he saw what was in them his jaw tightened but he didn't press her.

The back deck door slid open and Esme Cullen hesitated before walking to the dining room.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to check that the rest of you are alright. I know Carlisle is seeing to Anna Jane's stitches."

"As good as we can be." Cole shrugged. "I uh, didn't realize Carlisle told you about us."

"After everything with the Volturi yes, he told Edward and I. Edward has shared with the rest of the family." Esme smiled warmly. "We were surprised of course but I can understand Carlisle's reasons for waiting."

"Mhm, so why didn't Edward come?" Caroline asked sharply. "No." She replied to Cole's mutter of her name. "That's his cousin, I don't care how many numbers are in front of it, they're blood. And we're more than likely going to get killed doing this, that's not the time to turn away from family when you can help them."

Caroline hadn't realized she had been standing, or that Carlisle, Anna, and Sylas had entered the room. She didn't see the lights surge as her voice raised. She didn't feel her breath coming in rags. The last hour, and the last four years seemed to blur together in a wave of anxiety that she rode as she turned from her friends and bolted for the front door.

Ethan rushed forward; he'd stood once Caroline had. But Sylas reached an arm out to block him.

"Let me." And Sylas followed after Caroline.

She didn't go far, sitting on the porch steps she shook her head when the door opened.

"You know, when I act the bitch your job isn't just to hold him back from coming after me, you're not supposed to either." She told Sylas when he sat down with her.

"When did we decide that was my job?" He nudged her side when Caroline rolled her eyes. "You weren't acting the bitch, you were acting the traumatized. I think we all get a bit of pass today."

"It wasn't mine to say though, Edward is Cole's business."

"What a crock of shit. We come to each others defense, and what you said was on the nose. We just all know it wasn't only on Cole's behalf."

Caroline took a deep breath. "It's always there. It just got magnified for a minute."

Sylas nodded. "I don't know how it hasn't burst out before now. Ethan has all the luck of the Irish with John and Cecelia. They're not perfect but they're unwavering when it comes to him. Cole has that, and I think the memory of them and their support is what keeps him even. Anj, she's used to being the adult in her life and not having traditional parent guidance. I'm similar at least in I've always known I was on my own. It doesn't even occur to me to vent to Dad about most of this. But it occurs to you."

At Carolines small sob Sylas took her hand. "I know you had a good relationship with your mom and dad. I know you could have gone to them with your worries. And I hate that they're withholding that from you."

"It was a choice I made…."

"If you have to change who you are in order to get that support, a part of you that you were born with, then you never really had their support to begin with. It was conditional. I didn't have it myself so I know that parents are supposed to love and be there for their children unconditionally."

"They don't want me to get myself killed."

"If you truly believed that was reason enough then that outburst wouldn't have happened." Sylas offered a smile and wasn't worried to not see it returned, but felt the concern that there was no shove back or eyeroll. "Caroline you're not shooting yourself up with heroine. This, what we're doing, it isn't a reason to turn your back on your kid because they might get hurt. Your mom is an army nurse, you know all this.

"I can't feel it right now." Letting herself lean against Sylas, Caroline cried. "The logic parts. Or the pride parts at doing the right thing, I can't feel it anymore. All I feel is….fear."

Jaw tight Sylas pulled Caroline close, as if the fear was something he could absorb with his own.

"You four are all I have now and I'm terrified it'll be you all that gets lost in this and then what? I go back to the parents that couldn't stick out the tough parts of my life? And hear them say I told you so? I don't know what to do."

"None of us do. Not one of us. We're all taking this moment by moment and some of todays moments were hell. There's gonna be other hell moments and we'll throw them right back like we did today."

"And your dreams? You've had one where Anna was hurt like this. I woke up to you screaming once. I poked my head in and you were already tearing the covers off to look at her, like you were checking for a wound. She talked you down then, but I heard you today. You remembered the dream."

She tipped her face up. "Can you look me in the eye and say you don't believe you're losing her to this?"

Sylas didn't say anything, and he didn't have to. And maybe just in that, Caroline felt better. To be understood that despite all their efforts to live moment by moment and keep positive, they all had their fear. She could be sitting on that porch in any of their arms and feel that same certainty.

Caroline wished more than anything that it also helped this growing feeling that no matter what happened she was going to be alone.

A while later after the last of the sun winked out, they went back inside. Caroline made her apologies to Esme and kissed the top of Cole's head as there was never an apology needed to each other. She sat with Ethan, her back against his chest as she loved most.

Ethan knew Caroline would talk it out with him when she was ready. Though he sensed whenever she did, it would be the first time she held back from him. So when Sylas joined them and clapped Ethan's shoulder, Ethan reached a hand up to hold Sylas's there. Sylas gripped harder and nodded.

Anna watched the two of them and felt a lump in her throat. It was her reaction whenever the boys were particularly soft with one another. That vulnerability was rare she knew, and it was something she and Caroline often noticed and cherished in those three young men.

As Sylas made his way to hook an arm around Cole and sit next to him. The final bit of tension and worry faded from Cole's face at the touch, and in that moment Anna loved her husband more than anything.

Like Ethan, she felt a shift with her partner. The panicked way Sylas held himself while Anna was being stitched up had thrown her off guard. He'd shown that terror before of course, but it had been when he woke from one of the dreams. Anything that came up during their days, he was steady as a rock.

Anna knew that fear didn't change her ability to depend on him, of course not. But the way he kept just a little distant because of it would be an issue if it continued.

Once Jeff arrived he checked in with some people at the front of the house. All the residents were still keeping their distance, which was fine with the five. Carlisle and Esme took their queue to leave, with Carlisle pausing to tell Cole that Edward just needed time. Carlisle shook Jeff's hand as they left, whispering quickly something that made Jeff shake his head.

Looking at the five camped in the dining room, he leaned on the door jam and sighed.

"I want to give you all hell for this."

At Anna's snort Cole also rolled his eyes. "You could try."

"I already had one bitch fit, I can fit you in for a double." Caroline added.

Ethan jerked a chin at his arms. "Do not mistake this for me holding her back."

"As if he could." Sylas put in.

"There are kids here." Jeff said. He smiled grimly as that hushed the wise cracks. "I want to give you all hell for this….but there are kids here. Too young to have helped."

"Funny, I don't remember that being your thought when our ages were considered." Cole snapped, easing back when he felt Sylas nudge him.

"He's not wrong." Jeff shrugged. "Since the oldest of the kids currently hiding upstairs is nine though….sufficed to say it's a good thing you lot don't listen to me."

"We may not want to lead anything but if we can help we're going to." Caroline squeezed Ethan's arm and leaned forward. "Or is this their way of forcing our hand?"

"It seems like it was more about territory and the houses themselves. We thought they had been to your apartment, but they never made it that far. They're growing in number, it would make sense that they're looking for more spaces. The bonus is how many of us they could take. You all just made that number sixteen less than it could have been."

It was those little victories that would keep them going. After staying the night at that Emissary house it was harder to see those people as separate from them. The boundaries the five of them had set were blurring. And in their stead, another distance formed.

Where she'd once been animated and chatty, Caroline began to withdraw. She was there physically but it was as if she put up a defense emotionally and suddenly certain topics were met with a shrug or a change in subject. Though Ethan never felt pressure on his future with Caroline, the lack of planning for even weeks ahead began to wear on him.

After Christmas and then celebrating their first wedding anniversary, Sylas became especially keen to travel as needed to help the Emissary. At first it was around the times that Anna was busy with school and working at the campus gallery, so it didn't blip at her radar. Especially not when he spoke of it and all she could see was the eight year old boy wishing for his place. It was a feeling she knew well herself, and understood it was one of her own reasons for relenting.

After finding out there were more children than they realized in the Emissary, Anna Jane took on the role of visiting the ones close by when they were in their trainings during the weekends. She didn't work with training them herself. Jeff and his ilk were handling that. For Anna, and Cole who joined her from time to time, it was more important to give the children other outlets. There was a lot of knowledge being given to them, Anna could give them fun in turn.

So while Sylas threw himself into the fight, Anna hauled paints and crafts and even managed outings to theaters.

There were fissures in how the five spent their days together. Or rather, how they split. The words were left unsaid most of the time. The worries buried. Though there were moments where it was unavoidable.

Sylas's nightmares, while suddenly less frequent, were not lessening in horror. His worst by far happened in April.

He'd just begun feeling like he could quiet the thoughts he'd been having since Anna was hurt. He and Anna had spent a weekend just the two of them upstate two weeks before for his twenty first birthday. It had been one of those times where they didn't forget the others, but in being separate they felt truly married and spoke of plans for their future and those thoughts that losing would be inevitable started to feel like an overreaction to stress. They came back to the city lighter. Until the dream.

Even with it being his worst, Sylas didn't wake screaming. He didn't have enough breath for it. He couldn't even sit up or bring himself to turn his head to look at Anna Jane still asleep next to him. Sylas just reached for her wrist so he could feel the pulse. That steady beat slowed his own to a calmer rhythm until he could muster up the will to look at her. As he did the breath he couldn't catch whistled out.

Alive. Here. Unmarked.

In his nightmare, they'd been in one of their worst case scenarios. All five of them captured by Preservers. All certainly about to die. But the first is always her. And in this case it was Sylas who did it. The Preservers were known for their psychological torture, but if his nightmare was anything close to what they actually did to those they captured, Sylas found himself in a new level of pain.

As he got up, as though starting his workday, he thought maybe if he made steps towards the fallback plans he made during the dark moments, then maybe he could push past the thoughts clouding his mind. Maybe he could talk himself out of it as he often had in the last couple months.

Instead, the fallback plan became the primary.

Once resigned to it, unable to think of a way around it, Sylas saw that it was never going to be a good time to follow through, so he went with the hour that night that he and Anna would usually have the house to themselves. When Ethan and Caroline would already be at the bar starting their shift, but Cole wouldn't be out of his night class until nine. She'd only be alone for a short time.

Anna came in just after eight, bringing a takeout bag and her laughter.

"Bruan. You would not believe the evening I had. And because of it I blew our budget on takeout, so not much in the wifery department." She tossed the cartons of Chinese food on the narrow counter and made her way from the kitchen to their bedroom. "The gallery had an offer on Caroline's piece that I snuck in. I thought for sure I was in the shit but the offer came from the GD dean himself. If that doesn't cheer Ro up then…."

Her smile faltered when she came in and saw Sylas's set face. She recovered upon seeing his suitcase and backpack next to him.

"Oh, did Jeff call you? Anything I can help with? I can probably get away for a day or two."

"Anna. Come here." Sylas pulled her to sit down on the bed as he kneeled in front of her.

His tone set up another alert in her system. "What's happened?"

"Everyone is ok, geall."

Anna cupped his chin, studying those dark eyes of his. "But you're not."

"No, I suppose I'm not." Sylas took a breath. "I have to leave Anj."

"What are you talking about, leave?"

"I need to try it and see if it changes things. Changes my dreams."

"Sylas." Anna sighed and pushed back his hair. "We've been over this countless times."

"I know we have and I know all the reassuring and supportive things you can say but they don't stop Anna. They're clear as day and too many of them have come true to not be taken seriously. I'm there in all of them, my leaving is the only thing we haven't tried."

"And don't you think that's why they do this to you? To weaken us? What is it you think you'll be all on your own? Hey." She gave him a little shove as she stood with him. "Look me in the eye and tell me this will make you happy, this will make your life better, and I won't stop you. I'll throw something at you, but I'll open the damn door while I'm at it."

"If it means you stay alive, if it means they do, then yes it will make my life better."

"That is not all on your shoulders." She gripped them and then the sides of his head as if to transfer sense into it.

Sylas held up his hand, showing her his wedding ring. "Your life is part of my responsibility."

"That's not what that ring means." Anna shoved away with a growl. "Our lives together are your responsibility. That's what we vowed. It was supposed to mean you never turned away from me again. When you have before it was either out of your control, or you were too young to know what you wanted and go after it. This choice is within your control and you're choosing wrong."

"If I stay with you and if one of the nightmares come true, what is it you think that will do to me?"

"And if any one of them comes true and you're not there you think you'll be fine and dandy? You think I will if you're off all alone and one of them kills you?" The very thought freezing her down to her bones, Anna tried for calm and walked back to him, placing her hand on his chest as she so often had.

"Sylas you and I earned this. We're better together. Please hear me and don't do this."

They were quiet for a moment, or maybe it was an hour. Their breathing was in tandem and Sylas's hand over hers, keeping it against his heart. Then suddenly Anna felt Sylas turn rigid and cold, and she knew. Wanting to plead, wanting to yell, wanting to block him, all took a backseat. She couldn't bring herself to make anyone stay with her. Even him.

Something in Anna broke when Sylas dropped her hand and reached for his suitcase. Something in Sylas broke when he straightened and saw the pain in Anna's eyes.

"I'll keep in touch with the others so you'll know where to reach me if there's trouble. This doesn't change that I'll always help. I'll see if I can from the Emissary side in the meantime."

Feeling her control slip Anna didn't dare meet his glance or follow as Sylas left the bedroom. Her whole body began to shake and with it the lights faltered.

Hesitating at the door Sylas whispered "I love you" before leaving the best parts of him on the other side and closing it.

His sight was a blurry and his steps unsteady as Sylas hurried down the street. He barely recognized Caroline's voice as she called and sprinted towards him.

"Sylas? What's wrong, is it Anna Jane?" Caroline gripped Sylas's elbows.

"She's up in the apartment. I can't go into it….Ro…just get there. Cole should be there soon, but…."

Caroline looked down at the suitcase. "No."

"I have to. I'll call you or Ethan soon. I left…letters. For Cole, for you two."

She nodded blearily. "Alright Sylas."

Sylas gave in and tipped his head down to her shoulder. "I love her Caroline."

"I know you do." Caroline landed a half hearted punch on his arm. "So figure out how to come back."

"I will. I don't care how long it takes. But don't let her stop her life either."

"If you value yours, give Ethan and Cole some time and maybe only keep me updated on where you land. They'll knock you flat first chance."

"I expect nothing less." He straightened and tugged her hair. "Take care of you."

"Take care of you." Caroline repeated; her breath catching as he turned to walk down the street.

Watching until she couldn't see him anymore, Caroline was unsure what she hated most. Knowing how much pain they would all be in from Sylas leaving, or the certainty that their losses were only beginning.