Chapter Twelve

Take My Whole Life Too

I mashed my hand to my face and shut my eyes. I took in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly.

It didn't help.

I was marrying Alice tonight and I couldn't remember ever being more panicked. Not because I didn't want this, no, definitely not. It was because I did and because of just how much I wanted this. I was suddenly afraid of... I could not put words to it exactly.

"Don't worry." Suddenly, Edward was at my side. That was how panicked I was. Someone had managed to sneak up next to me without my noticing.

I turned to Edward, confusion, I'm sure, radiating from me. We weren't exactly close, Edward and I. There wasn't any specific reason for it, but we weren't. He and Alice on the other hand... if Edward weren't so obviously not interested and if I wasn't absolutely without a doubt certain that Alice was my mate, I might have worried. "Who says I'm worried?" I tried to play it off like I wasn't, like he hadn't managed to sneak up on me, but it didn't work.

"Come on, man. I can't read minds or anything and even I can tell."

From behind me, Emmett laughed. I spun to face him, an annoyed look on my face.

"Really? Because usually you can't even tell your right from your left." As a response to this, Emmett simply shrugged. He wasn't denying it, but he wasn't agreeing either. I let out a legitimate laugh. Emmett was oddly good at sucking the tension out of any situation with the fewest words. He didn't really have any special talents, not in the way Alice or Edward or I did, but that particular skill came awfully close.

Emmett grinned and said, "Your tie is on crooked."

I grimaced and turned to face the mirror on the back wall. He was right, it was crooked. I let out another long sigh. With lightning quick speed I straightened it, then I stared at my reflection for several seconds and sighed again. Alice had, of course, picked out everything, right down to the matching ties we were all wearing. I felt ashamed to admit that the look she had chosen did not work on me.

That is not to say that Alice did not have good taste, god forbid anyone ever accuse her of that but that... today of all days I found myself unable to repress the thought that I just didn't look good enough.

It was an entirely stupid thing to focus on and something I knew didn't bother Alice at all for she'd told me exactly that at least a thousand times, and yet...

"Trust me. You're exactly what she wants," said Edward.

"Ugly war scars and all," added Emmett.

In a less than subtle motion, Edward smacked Emmett. And Emmett smacked him right back.

"I thought only I was allowed to do that," said another voice - Rosalie. We all spun to face her and said nothing. Edward and I because we simply had nothing to say, Emmett, I'm sure, because he was too busy picturing removing Rosalie's dress later. I shook my head.

They ruined more clothing than anyone I'd ever met. I couldn't help but think of how that made Alice happy because it meant she got to go out and buy more clothes, but angry at the same time because to her the only real sacrilege in life was to ruin good clothes.

"We're all ready, so anytime now..." Rosalie turned and walked gracefully from the room. Emmett looked over and winked at me before following her out.

"You ready?" asked Edward. I nodded. I couldn't think of any words at the moment. I felt a sudden, sharp sting of sadness coming from Edward just then, but didn't mention it. It was something we all knew but never discussed - how difficult it must have been for Edward to be the only one of us without a mate. I released a wave of peace, as much for him as for myself and headed outside.

It was a truly beautiful night. The full moon sat low in the sky and the stars were everywhere. Alice and I had decided to get married in Prince's Island Park in the center of the city. It had been, in the time we'd been in the city, one of mine and Alice's favorite places to go. So, when we'd finally decided to get married, it seemed only natural that we'd get married here. We'd also decided, much to Rosalie's dismay, to have a small wedding, with only the family present and Carlisle to marry us. Since we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves in the sunlight, we'd had to wait until the park was completely empty and that left us waiting until nearly midnight.

There was a song playing softly as I walked to where Carlisle was standing. I took my place in front of him and Emmett and Edward stood beside me. On the opposite side, Rosalie stood with Esme. The music grew a little louder and the melody of the song caught my attention. I hummed along to the song, the origin of which was very familiar to me. It was based on an old song from the Civil War, "Aura Lea.".

The song was "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley. I couldn't help but smile at how perfect the song was. Alice had picked it and she'd kept it a secret from me up until now.

And then she was walking towards me. There weren't words in any language to describe how beautiful she looked just then. The moonlight lightly reflected off her skin slightly, giving it a slight glow. She had the most radiant smile and I could feel nothing from her but the purest form of joy. And I couldn't believe that any of that had anything to do with me. It still stunned and amazed me every day that I had been allowed to be anything approaching this happy.

I smiled at her briefly as she stopped and stood next to me and she giggled in her usual way, like there was some joke I wasn't entirely in on.

We both stood completely still in front of Carlisle. He began speaking, saying a newer, modified version of the words I'd heard before. As he spoke, I couldn't help but pause for a moment to think about my life before this, to think of what my life might have been like had I not been turned. I might have died in battle, I might have survived the war only to die some years later by something either mundane or extraordinary. I might have lived to an old age - well, for a human, anyway - with a wife, several children and many grandchildren. Any number of things could have happened had I never met Maria and never been turned. I had always hated Maria for taking from me what I'd always thought was the most important thing - my humanity. But I knew now that I had been wrong. The most important thing was and always would be Alice. And if I'd never been turned, I never would have met her. I never thought I would, but somehow, even with all the years of suffering and every single scar, I was glad I wasn't human.

Alice smiled at me then and repeated the vows as Carlisle spoke them.

I'd originally wanted us to write our own vows but Alice had wanted to keep everything as traditional as possible in regards to the ceremony itself. As with everything else, she had no memories of ever seeing a wedding before and while we both knew that we would see Emmett and Rosalie get married many, many more times in the years to come, this would be our one and only wedding and she wanted this to be as close to what she considered a "real" wedding as possible. Of all of us, Alice had the most interest in the human world and I had no problem helping her feel like she was a little closer to that world whenever I could.

Next, it was my turn. I repeated the vows as Carlisle spoke them, holding Alice's hands in mine as I did so.

For the rest of the ceremony, I never let go of her hands.

When the ceremony was drawing to a close Emmett said, "You can kiss her now, you know."

In response to that, Rosalie simply rolled her eyes. Edward laughed. Esme blushed and Carlisle said nothing.

I looked over at them for the briefest of moments before turning back to Alice. I dipped my head, not wanting to admit that I was nervous to kiss her in front of everyone like this.

Sensing this as she had a habit of doing, she leaned forward and kissed me.

The kiss was brief - neither of us had ever been the public display of affection type - but when we broke apart we both had impossibly big smiles on our faces.

I knew that things would not always be as simple and as perfect as tonight had been. I knew there would be problems ahead of us. I knew there would be dark times. I knew, though I wished to deny it, that I would be the cause of some of those dark times and that she would be the cause of others. I knew there would be times when it felt, as it had before, like the world was trying to tear us apart just because it could. But I also knew that so long as we were together, we could handle whatever the world decided to throw at us.