Here you go!
Sorry it's been a while x
Still unedited... once all parts are up on YWS, I will edit. Promise x
*********************************
As soon as we were outside, Leah and Seth phased, and so the eight of us ran in companionable silence. After a while, however, I could sense the tiny bundle in my arms wanted us to rest, and so I called out to the others and we paused in the heart of a beautiful snow-covered forest. We were already part of the way to Anchorage, although Carlisle had revised our plans. We would stay with the Denali Coven for just two days, as he suspected – wrongly – that Doctor Goodwood would come after us.
Afterwards, Seth went a little way off and phased back. The snow around him melted instantly, and as he came and stood at my shoulder he created a sort of protective dome around us. He looked down at our daughter and smiled.
She had tufts of bronze-coloured hair, like me and Edward, and her skin was a beautiful tan colour, a cross, I supposed, between the pale colour of our skin and the deep brown of the Quileutes. Besides the colour, it held a strange luminescence, as Nessie’s did, which meant it seemed to glow softly. She smiled up at me with a mouthful of pearly white teeth, and I saw the colour of her eyes properly for the first time. They were green, bright, clear green, like Edward’s eyes, like my eyes. Tears welled, tears of pride, of happiness, of sadness, and I sat there, entranced, just staring into her perfect eyes.
We arrived in Anchorage much later that day. However, as we enlightened them to our situation, they politely – but firmly – told us they didn’t want any trouble again, and asked us to leave, and return to Forks. I wondered what they meant, and then Carlisle took me to one side and explained about Irina. I was shocked – how could the Volturi do that? She was wrong – so what? But we left anyway, when it became clear they were serious, and by midnight that night we were on a plane, headed for Seattle.
We arrived at the airport early the next morning, and piled into our cars – Carlisle, Edward, Seth and I into Carlisle’s black Mercedes, and Alice took Jasper and Leah back in her Porsche. The Cullens drove fast – even Carlisle – and we were home within an hour. My daughter had visibly grown since her birth, and she lay sleeping in my arms. Before we arrived, I deduced that Rose and Emmett were hunting, but as we opened the front door quietly, Bella and Nessie, who had been watching TV, looked up in surprise. Bella ran to Edward immediately, whilst I went to sit down on one of the cream couches near Nessie. She came and sat beside me, her head on my shoulder, and stared down at the baby. She looked at me, and placing her hand on my cheek she asked me a question. Was this baby her cousin, or her half sister? I frowned slightly. How did you know that? I asked her back, and she told me: I’m not stupid you know somewhat irritably.
“Well,” I replied out loud, “She is your half-sister, but because she’s going to be adopted – already has been – by Seth and me, she’s your cousin, OK?” She nodded. That was the thing with Nessie. She could keep up with even the fastest paced conversations. She smiled then, and held out her arms. I didn’t need to tell her to be careful. I watched her holding my daughter tenderly, and was dimly aware of someone coming to sit on my other side.
Esme. She put her arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into her. She beckoned for the baby, and gently I took her off Nessie and handed her over. It was almost heartbreaking to watch. I knew why Esme had almost died, why she’d been changed. Her baby had died, and she had jumped off a cliff in an attempt to join him in Heaven. So to see her holding my daughter, one minute almost crying, the next smiling with joy as the tiny child grasped her fingers was both sad and heart-warming. She likes you I told her silently, and then the tears flowed down her cheeks, tears of happiness, and tears of sadness too.
Carlisle moved to stand at her shoulder, one arm around her waist, and stared down at the child, smiling at his second – and last – grandchild. That’s when it came to me. “Mia.” I blurted. Everyone in the room looked at me quizzically. “Her name. It should be Mia. It’s like Amelia, and also like Leah. Plus, the “me” sound is kinda like in “Esme”” Esme smiled at me tearfully as I continued. “I think it should be Mia Susan – like Seth’s mom – Elizabeth – like my mom – Cullen. If that’s OK with you, Seth?”
He nodded.
“Mia Susan Elizabeth Cullen it is!” he verified, and as I looked down at my daughter – indeed, as everyone looked at her – I knew it fitted her perfectly.
Mia was spoiled rotten. Each night, she would sleep in Esme’s arms, and she would spend each day with Rose or Esme or Alice or Bella or Seth or me. Esme had been forced to buy a new set of silverware, after Rose, in a fit of madness, had given her Esme’s best set, and Mia had proceeded to bend each and every item out of shape. Esme shrieked, then laughed, and I knew that in her eyes Mia could do no wrong. But Mia was a little confused – she couldn’t understand why Esme – whose arms she slept in, who she followed around like an adoring puppy – never seemed to sleep.
It was true. Whilst the others would occasionally escape to their rooms, which in Mia’s eyes meant they were sleeping, Esme never did. So one day, as Esme and I played with her, about three weeks after she was born, she reached out, gently patted Esme’s cheek – and Esme’s head lolled forwards and her eyes closed. I screamed. In an instant, Carlisle was by my side, shaking Esme, talking to her, but there was no response. I explained what Mia had done as he worked, and far from finding it terrifying, he seemed to find it fascinating.
“Incredible,” he murmured. “It would seem that as the human who bore Mia was drugged, Mia has picked up an ability to make people sleep… even vampires.” He smiled. “A rare gift indeed. We must do some trials, though, to ensure it is safe.” Reaching his arms out, he took Mia into them.
I loved the way he looked at her. He and Esme could never have a child of their own, and I knew that both Mia and Nessie were important to them. He looked at her like she was the only thing in the room, and I loved him for it. Tenderly, he lifted her up and asked her, gently: “Mia, can you make Esme wake up?”
Mia reached out and placed her hand on Esme’s cheek again. Esme stretched, yawned – yawned! – and opened her eyes slowly. “Where am I?” she asked in bewilderment, as Carlisle and I laughed with relief.
We decided to test Mia’s gift on Emmett, but not tell him until the actual test – I knew he wouldn’t mind, and even if he did, I was fairly sure I would be able to prevent another dip in the river.
So we gathered the whole family in the lounge that evening, pulling out a single armchair and placing it so it faced the other couches. Emmett came in and sat down, and then Esme came in with Mia. I kissed the top of Mia’s head, hugged Esme and then she handed Mia to Carlisle. “Earlier today,” he began. “We discovered that Mia has a very special gift. She made Esme sleep. So we decided to see the extent of her powers, and to do this, Emmett is going to be our guinea pig…” – Emmett looked alarmed at this point – “So, lets begin!”
In the course of an hour, we saw Mia send Emmett into a dreamless sleep, a natural sleep, a nightmare sleep and a “sweet dreams” sleep. Each time, Emmett would awake, and we would ask him to share details of the dreams he had experienced. He knew there was no point resisting – I’d just pick it from his memory – and so he described what it was like to sleep – and dream – for the first time in over seventy years: “At first, it was weird, like being shut in a dark room, blindfolded. Then it was like someone had switched on the lights, and taken off the blindfold, and I could see everything in bright Technicolor. And the dreams were so vivid – I dreamed of falling, and running, and fighting, and hunting. It was incredible – like being human again.”
I think that final line was why Rosalie did it. She snatched Mia from Carlisle’s arms, and told her – in a voice choked with tears – “Deep sleep” We could only watch in horror as she crumbled to the floor, as Mia landed on top of her and started to cry, as Esme scooped her up and bent down next to Rose: “Mia, please, please, sweetheart, make Rosalie wake up” she begged, and Mia touched Rosalie’s cheek over and over again, but to no avail. Rose stayed on the floor, felled where she stood, in her quest to feel mortal once more.
After an hour, Rosalie still wouldn’t wake, and as I explored her thoughts, I realized that she didn’t want to. Sleeping, and dreaming, was the closest she could get to being human again, and nothing was going to pull her out of it. As I told Emmett, I could feel the rage burning inside him, and so could Edward and Jasper, but before we could warn anyone, he was leaping forwards, trying to grab Mia, and I went for his throat. The others could only watch as we blurred around the room, as though we were performing some kind of violent dance, and then we were outside, in the meadow, and still he wouldn’t quit. Still he tried to go after Mia, and so, using the strength I had buried for so long, I wrenched his arms behind his back until they clicked, pushed him to the ground and knelt in the small of his back, my knee in the hollow at the base of his neck, my teeth mere millimeters from his throat.
I felt him stop breathing, heard Esme cry out, heard Carlisle’s thought of She’s biting him. She beat Emmett in a fight and now she has her teeth in his neck. I let the thought spread amongst the others, and then I lifted my head slightly and called out: “I haven’t bitten anyone. I would never bite Emmett, not unless it was completely necessary, but I need one of you to go and catch a deer or something. Edward – you go – you’re fastest.”
All I could hear, mixed with the relief, was one word, over and over.
Why?
The reason was quite simple. I told Edward silently as he ran, and minutes later he was back, with a huge deer whose fur had patches of black in, and he brought it over to me. That was when I explained. “Rosalie doesn’t want to wake up, right? As a vampire she loved one thing and wanted another. She loved Emmett, and wanted mortality, so I figured that as she sort of has mortality, if I threatened Emmett, and showed her the threat, then maybe it would be enough to bring her back.” I silently told Emmett to stay where he was, in exactly that position, and set to work with the deer.
“I’m gonna cover my teeth in blood, and black fur, and then cover Emmett’s neck and hair in blood too. Just in case, I’m gonna start a bonfire and toss the deer carcass into it, in case “dead Emmett” isn’t enough.
“Do you trust me?” I asked, and watched happily as it sunk in that it was a good plan, and they did trust me, and they nodded. I continued.
“Carlisle, I need you to think of things to shout at me afterwards. Emmett is gonna have to hide somewhere, and Jasper and Edward are gonna have to pull me into the house, restraining me, and you’re all gonna have to shout, and scream, and sound like you’re preparing to kill me as well, or lock me up, or guard me, or whatever. Esme, Bella, Alice, I need you to cry, and say things along the lines of “Why would you do that?” and beg Carlisle not to kill me. Can you do that?”
Once more, they all nodded.
“Seth– I need you to gather wood and start the bonfire. You would be the one Rose would expect to help me. And everyone else – look distraught, and scream, and cry. I’m “killing” your son or brother, so look appropriately gutted.”
As I felt the heat of the flames on my back, I bit into one part of the now dismembered deer, careful to get fur on my teeth, and then, after silently warning him, covered Emmett’s neck and hair in deer blood. I could sense he was desperate to eat, and silently reminded him why we were doing this. When that was done, we continued our fight, and then, as we neared the forest, he ran. I sent a thought at Jasper. Attack me. He seemed bewildered, so I explained to him: I’m trying to kill your brother. You and Edward need to try to stop me, so both of you, attack me. I could hear him, seconds later, running after me, Edward by his side.
Then I was fighting them all at once, and Esme was screaming for real. Idiot, Jazz. You were meant to explain to her.
He thought back:
At least it looks real.
We fought carefully, and I tried not to tell Jasper and Edward what to do. Emmett had realized that if I really was trying to kill him he would be significantly weakened at this point, especially if I had bitten his neck, and so he ran back towards the house. Running after him, I felt Edward jump onto my back, shook him off, and then felt him grab my heels. I kicked backwards – not easy whilst running – and then we were back at the meadow. I knew Emmett had carried on, into the woods on the other side, and so I ran forward, seized the deer carcass and cast it into the flames.
As I laughed as evilly as I could, I danced around the flames. When Edward and Jasper caught up with me, they seized my arms and the next part of the act begun.
I could see Rose’s sleeping form as we burst into the house. I kept up my act, snapping and biting at Edward and Jasper, and aiming kicks at Carlisle ahead of me. Behind me, I could hear Esme screaming, and then she came into my line of vision. Tears were running down her cheeks, and I as I heard what she was about to do, I made sure I told her, silently, what I was about to do as well. She reached out and put her hand on my cheek, and I snapped at it, and snarled at her.
Leaping backwards, she feigned shock, but still continued to beg and plead with Carlisle: “Please… Carlisle… don’t send her away… don’t send her to her death…don’t condemn her… please… she’s our daughter… already lost Rosalie… not two in one day…” Carlisle turned, and taking her face between his hands, he told her:
“Esme, she killed Emmett. We have to take her to the Volturi. They’ll deal with her, kill her for us. I don’t want to kill her myself. Her blood should not be on any of our hands.”
Esme was fantastic at this point, screaming now: “If you send her to them, you are killing her. Her blood will be on your hands!”
Edward and Jasper continued dragging me upstairs.
I knew what was about to happen, and prepared myself. I heard Esme, holding Mia, sobbing next to Rose’s unconscious form. I heard Carlisle say the words: “Rose, Emmett is dead. Aimee attacked him, and he… died” as solemnly as he could, and took it as my cue. I sent her images of what had happened, making them as malicious as possible, showing her the blood, me on his back, him running, fighting Edward and Jasper, dancing around the fire, Esme crying, Esme and Carlisle screaming. Then, as I continued with the images, Mia reached out, and placing her hand gently on Rosalie’s face, she told her to wake up.
Which she promptly did.
And then she screamed, a long, angry, but heartbreaking sound, and spat the words: “Where is she? I’ll kill her!” and leapt to her feet, as Emmett casually walked into the lounge from the hall.
“Hey, Rose. Good to see you’re awake, babe.” He told her, and she could only seethe inwardly as he put his arms around her and kissed her.
When they came up for air a few moments later, she spluttered: “But… you… dead… Aimee… gonna kill her… what?” And as I descended the stairs, I felt her tense, ready to spring, and I showed her what really happened. And as she looked daggers at me, we all laughed, just happy that she was back.
It took weeks before we’d even let Rosalie near Mia again. It took even longer for Rosalie to stop hating me, to get over the fact I had pretended to kill the man she loved just to wake her up. In effect, I had ruined her dreams, in every sense.
She had only just stopped ignoring me when the news came. Seth hadn’t been around for the past few days, and eventually, Edward called his mom, Sue, on the reservation, and she told him curtly that Seth had gone to stay with his Uncle Kris in England for three months, a spontaneous visit which was her idea. She said something else too, but Edward wouldn’t tell me what, kept it from his thoughts.
I couldn’t believe Seth was gone.
I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me.
In those first few days, the pain was there, a strange kind of numbness that started at my waist and consumed my upper body. It was always there, but I could easily push it away, bury it amongst other, stronger feelings.
The pain didn’t come to a head for four days. Then, one Friday afternoon, it boiled over, when the house was empty except for me and Alice. Bella, Edward, Nessie and Mia had gone to see Bella’s dad, Carlisle was at work, and everyone else was out, hunting. Alice was sat downstairs, redesigning my summer wardrobe.
I had confined myself to my bedroom, and was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, with tears running down my cheeks, when I caught sight of the framed photograph of Seth and me on the wall.
That was when the first wave of pain struck. It started, as the numbness had, at my waist, and shuddered through my body, making my muscles clench and shudder. It felt as though my body was falling apart, and after the pain had gone, I curled into a ball and tried to hold myself together. I didn’t scream, or cry out, that first time, but then the waves of agony became more intense and with each one, as I curled up, I could only cry out in agony. I tried to bite down on my lip, and that quietened the sound a little, but still I cried out.
I needed to call Carlisle – he would know what to do – but my cellphone was on my dressing table – a good two and a half feet away. I could have just stood up, and got it myself, but I felt that if I left the bed, I would surely fall apart, and so desperately, painfully, I reached one arm out, reaching, reaching, and then, as my fingers brushed the blue plastic of the case, I overbalanced and crashed to the floor.
I lay there and cried out again. I tried to get up, but my arms didn’t seem strong enough to push myself up, so I simply called one word with my ever-decreasing strength: Alice! Alice! Alice! Ali –There my strength gave out, but I knew it was OK. I could hear Alice’s footsteps on the stairs, and as she crashed through the door my mind seemed to sing with relief.
****************************
Part Four Coming soooooooooooooooooooooon x
Gender:
Points: 7040
Reviews: 78