"Edward, please don't start a fight with Laurent," I begged.

He kept his eyes fixed ahead of us as we ran.

"Okay, but please put him back together afterward," I amended. "He doesn't deserve to die."

"Why are we beating up Laurent?" Emmett wanted to know.

"He tried to kill Bella," Edward growled.

"Very uncool," Emmett agreed.

"Was this when you were human?" Esme asked me, alarmed. "How did you survive?"

"I told him that if he ate me, Alice would see it, and you all would kill him." I summarized. "At the time, I thought it was just a bluff–but it worked."

Alice frowned. "I should have seen it anyway. If he decided to kill you, even momentarily, why didn't I get at least a flash of it?"

"The wolves were nearby," Edward explained in clipped tones.

"Ahh."

"So why don't you want him dead?" Emmett asked me. "It sounds like you narrowly avoided becoming an involuntary blood donor."

"We can't kill him after he decided not to hurt Bella. It's game theory 101," Alice cut in. "If you want to make a credible threat, you have to be willing to follow through on the threat, and you also have to be willing to spare the person if they cooperate. If Laurent thought we would kill him either way, then he would have had no reason to let Bella live."

"He's already decided to let Bella live, though," Emmett argued. "And it's not like he's going to make any future decisions based on how credible her threats are. He'll be dead."

"What if other vampires hear about this in the future?" Alice retorted. "When people make deals with the Cullens, we want them to know we'll follow through. We don't want a reputation of murdering anyone we don't like." This last bit was clearly directed at Edward.

"I never promised Laurent a thing," he objected, his voice still dark with anger. "Bella made a deal with him, and she's upheld it. I'm free to rip him into tiny pieces."

"Mates should always support each other's commitments," Esme counseled gently.

"If she wanted me to help uphold her deal, she shouldn't have lied to me about it," Edward spat.

I flinched. "First of all, Laurent made me swear I wouldn't tell you," I defended myself. "Second, I knew you would react like this!"

"Well, congratulations, you and Laurent both know me pretty well," Edward hissed. "It seems to me that he took a gamble on me not finding out, and he lost. Tough luck for him."

"If you would be reasonable about stuff like this, maybe I would be more likely to tell you things in the future!"

He stopped in his tracks and whirled to face me, eyes burning with anger. "You gave me this whole speech about seeing us as equals. And you were right. Since then, I've made a real effort to support your decisions, even when they terrify me. But all this time, you weren't treating me as an equal. You were lying to me about a major event in your life–including an unspecified favor you owe him!–instead of talking through what to do together."

My heart sank. "There hasn't really been a time to talk about this since that conversation," I justified.

"Were you going to tell me?"

"... No," I admitted. I felt guilty for hiding my situation from Edward, but breaking my promise to Laurent wouldn't have been right either.

"Then I suppose we have nothing more to say here." He turned and resumed running.

The rest of us followed. The miles flew by far too quickly for my liking. We were moving so fast that the scenery would have been a blur to a human, but my enhanced eyes took in the detail of every twig on the way to Alaska.

"Wait, you owe Laurent a favor, too?" Emmett asked me. "Just for not killing you? That seems unfair."

"For that matter, why didn't he ask for a hundred favors, while your neck was on the line?" Rosalie objected. "That's the problem with Alice's philosophy–if you always follow through on deals you made under duress, you end up giving someone whatever they want just because they threatened to kill you. You can't let people get away with that."

"The favor isn't for not killing me," I explained. "I traded it for a vial of vampire venom."

"So that's how you did it!" Emmett laughed, a booming sound that echoed around the forest. "Brilliant!"

"For the record, I agree you shouldn't let people extort favors by threatening you," Alice said. "Never negotiate with terrorists: rewarding them for violence would just incentivize them to threaten you again in the future. All I'm saying is that once you've come to an agreement, you should stick to it."

"Really?" Rosalie said, lifting one perfect eyebrow skeptically. "What if a crazy axe murderer shows up, waving his axe around, and insists you promise to give him a billion dollars tomorrow? Are you going to refuse, because you don't give into threats? Or are you going to say whatever he wants to hear, escape, and then renege the next day?"

"Point taken. I only advocate this strategy when you're dealing with someone rational enough to be part of society. In particular, someone who can reason about how you're likely to behave. In this case, Bella's deal with Laurent was mutually beneficial… but if he had predicted that she would tattle on him, they wouldn't have been able to strike the bargain in the first place. It worked in her favor that she's a generally trustworthy person."

"Laurent doesn't know she's a trustworthy person, though," Emmett insisted. "He's met her, what, twice now? Unlike you, Alice, most of us can't foresee what someone will do when we make a one-time deal with them."

"All the more reason for Bella to follow through on her favor owed, so she can start building up a reliable reputation among vampires."

"I'm not doing this for my reputation, Alice," I cut in. "Laurent helped me become a vampire when I had no other options. I want to help him out in return."

"It does seem that we have reason to thank Laurent, in addition to reason to be angry at him," Esme observed with a pointed look at Edward.

"Shockingly, Mr. 'You should have stayed human' doesn't seem to see it that way," I grumbled.

"I don't think Laurent deserves much credit for helping Bella, if he only did it to gain a favor," Carlisle observed mildly. "But he doesn't deserve death, either. Judge him by his actions, and not by what he considered and decided against."

Edward remained silent, his footsteps pattering quickly against the ground. But I knew he was still listening to the rest of the family–for one thing, despite being the fastest, he hadn't run ahead of everyone else.

"You are better than this, son," Carlisle continued. "I know it's hard to think clearly when it comes to Bella's safety. But don't do anything in haste that you might regret for eternity. Let us decide on how to handle this as a family."

"The Denalis have come to care for Laurent," Esme added. "Would you risk alienating our cousins over this? Your actions affect all of us."

"Does that mean we get to have a vote?" Emmett asked. "I love when we hold family votes."

Edward growled softly.

"Well, my vote is that we should rough him up a little but not kill him," said Emmett with a toothy smile. "Helping Bella become a vampire was pretty great, so he gets partial credit."

Rosalie sniffed. "If it were me he had threatened, I'd kill him," she declared. "But Bella should get to decide his fate. If we're voting, I'll follow her lead."

"I vote that you all forget this ever happened," I answered quickly. "It worked out for the best, didn't it?"

Alice spoke next. "You know my opinion already. Laurent held up his end of the deal, so we should too."

"Making deals with people implies a certain measure of trust, though," Jasper disagreed. "Laurent joined our extended family. That comes with an implicit obligation not to try to kill any of us. He violated our trust when he threatened Bella; how can we treat him as family after this?"

"In his defense, it wasn't a deliberate choice to eat me in particular," I clarified. "He ran into me while he was out hunting."

"He can't have been fully in hunting mode," Jasper objected. "If he were, you would have been dead before you ever saw him. It sounds like he was in control of himself enough to stop and rationally consider whether to kill you. So it wasn't just a slip-up… he chose to betray us."

"Oh, come on, Jasper–like you've never made a bad decision while hungry." Emmett laughed.

The blond vampire scowled in response. "I would vote to kill him. But if we're leaving him alive, we need to discharge this favor quickly. I don't like him having a hold on Bella–in practice, a hold on our whole family."

"You know my vote," said Carlisle. "Violence is not the answer."

"I concur," Esme chimed in. "But Jasper's right too: I don't like being unable to trust one of our family. Perhaps if we explain the situation to the Denalis, they'll send him on his way."

Everyone looked at Miranda, who still looked a little surprised to be included. "This Laurent guy sounds like a jerk," she said finally, "but, still. Killing is bad. I vote against it."

Edward was still a couple steps in front of the rest of us. "This isn't a democracy," he warned us without looking back.

"Oh really?" Alice asked. "All in favor of tackling Edward if he tries to attack Laurent?" She raised her hand high.

Emmett snickered and raised his too–probably more out of amusement than philosophical agreement with Alice. Rosalie and I held our hands up as well. The others didn't deign to lift theirs, but the point was made.

For a moment I worried that Edward would simply speed up, outrunning the rest of us to Denali so he could avoid our interference. Then I realized that Miranda could easily slow him down. From the frustrated set of his shoulders, he knew it too.

"What's wrong, Rose?" I heard Jasper ask quietly from behind me as we ran.

My head swiveled around, and I saw that Rosalie's perfect face was contorted in frustration. Her golden eyes burned, and the purple shadows under them were more dramatic than ever. Not wanting to be caught staring, I looked forward again, but I couldn't help my curiosity.

"Joham," she growled.

Jasper listened patiently, waiting for her to elaborate.

"How is it fair that that bastard had five kids?! He was the worst of our kind. Abusive and cruel and narcissistic. And he had everything I've ever wanted, five times over.

"I used to think that infertility was the price for being a vampire–a trade we make, poor though it is, for our strength and beauty and immortality. But now I know the universe does not contain such justice. It's only the price for us women," she spat.

"I'm sorry," Jasper said softly.

"Emmett could have one," she added after a moment, her voice cracking. "Just not with me…. I'm holding him back."

The vampire in question dropped all pretense of not overhearing and jogged back to her side. "Rosalie Hale, you are all I need," he said seriously, taking her hand as they ran. "I'm not missing anything. My only regret is that you don't get to have the children you want. That sucks."

"It does suck," she agreed vehemently. "And you know what else? Those half-vampire girls? I bet they're completely fertile! They wouldn't have werewolves imprinting on them if they were genetic dead-ends. No, the universe has decided that there's just one class of people incapable of having kids: vampire women."

"It's our curse," Esme agreed.

I caught a glimpse of Carlisle's face to my left. He appeared to be thinking hard, but he didn't speak.

I frowned, trying to decide whether to join the conversation myself. I wanted to support Rosalie, but I couldn't think of anything reassuring to say. Nor could I properly empathize with her; I'd never given much thought to having kids, so it didn't feel like something I'd lost when I gave up my humanity.

Meanwhile, Edward and Alice were running ahead of us. They were certainly within vampire earshot, but they didn't seem to be paying any attention to our conversation. Nor were they speaking to each other. I supposed they were having a silent exchange: Alice would predict Edward's words, and respond in her thoughts before he ever said anything aloud. Or perhaps he was giving her the silent treatment while she argued with him mentally–it was impossible to tell. It didn't seem like a good idea for me to join that discussion either.

It was a good time for a chat with our resident time-warper, I concluded. There was no real privacy, of course, but I hoped the others would be preoccupied enough with their own conversations not to interrupt us.

"Miranda," I started hesitantly, "About the favor I owe Laurent…."

"Yes?"

"Well, he kind of already suggested a way I could fulfill it."

"Oh?"

"Laurent is courting Irina, but he has a rival of sorts. They're competing for her affection. Laurent thinks that if I could secretly help him beat the other guy in combat–"

"–by which you mean, I could secretly help," she inferred.

"Well, yeah."

"You want me to help kill someone." Her voice was flat.

"No!" I hastened to clarify. "Laurent doesn't need to kill him. Just publicly best him in a duel for Irina's hand."

Miranda snorted. "What, she's going to choose her suitor based on a fight, not anything about their personalities? How medieval."

I shrugged. "I've never met her. For all I know, she is from medieval times. Presumably she likes both of their personalities well enough to be content with either outcome, or she would have kicked one of them out by now."

"It still seems like he'd be better off finding a woman who… wait, I forgot I was talking about Laurent here. It sounds like they deserve each other."

"Great," I said brightly, "So you'll help me?"

"Not a chance," she said, grinning at me to take the edge off her words.

My shoulders slumped. "I'd really like to discharge this favor soon, if possible. The next thing he asks for might involve killing someone, or worse." I didn't want to pressure her, but I couldn't help adding, "You were the one who pointed out that, if I develop my power, it will become increasingly risky to let someone have a hold over me."

She crossed her arms. "First off, you're not fooling me–you just told Alice that you wanted to help Laurent succeed. You're doing this out of gratitude, not obligation. And I, for one, don't want to see him succeed; he sounds like a double-crossing coward. You can find your own way to be grateful without my power."

She had me there. "What's second?" I asked glumly.

"Second, it's preposterous for you to owe him a favor. This guy threatened to kill you. What is that, Stockholm syndrome?"

I opened my mouth to object, but she overrode me.

"And if you insist that you did owe him for the venom–well, you can tell him you repaid the favor by stopping Edward from killing him. I will help you with that part, if needed."

That seemed like the best I would get. I knew that autonomy over her power was very important to her. "Thanks, Miranda," I sighed.

2025-01-19 A/N: Thank you for all the kind wishes! I had a really great time on honeymoon.

I've got the remaining four chapters written and an epilogue in progress, so we should be wrapping up the plotlines soon. Hope you enjoy!