Chapter 26. The Greatest Battle Part II.

Peter

AN: Lol. You might want to reread at the very least the last nine chapters before this if you don't feel like starting over. Thanks for reading.

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*P*E*T*E*R*

The greatest battle for me was not physical by no means. Not for me.

Never for me.

It was the psychological battle. It was trying to find a way to persevere through the maelstrom of nothing. The nothing was a feeling of emptiness so strong and infinite there was just nothing to compare it to. I never wanted to feel it ever again.

Time wasn't against me, nor was it on my side. I lost track of it. The moment I couldn't feel Bella in my heart anymore I lost track of that bitch, and I lost all to which I was desperately clinging to. I had lost the control the moment hell descended and crushed me. I lost the fight when she gave up.

The fear and the love was there. If I existed, it would always be there. The love for her was the universe, as it sat within my heart for twenty-one years. The binds were cut, my soul was no longer connected to hers, and all I had left was the memories of that love, the echoes of it, and what it felt like to be so full.

The moment she gave up, the moment she cut those bindings, I lost the fight and I lost the hope. The fear realized. I gave up on her. I just let go. My life was over. Her life was just fucking gone. I just wanted to be gone, too.

Faith in general, and faith that she was still alive was non-existent. For what I lost, I grieved. And it was black inside the hole, the hole being my heart.

The loss was profound.

Seth would tell me in the long run, I never lost one goddamn thing. I just always thought he was wrong.

Echoes sometimes fade away to nothing. Mine didn't, and it really couldn't, either. They wouldn't let it. In fact, they were damn fucking insistent on making sure it didn't fade away, at all, because they believed. And they were adamant about going through hell to get her back. For me, and for her. Because they had hope. They had faith. I lost mine the moment she was gone.

They saved our lives.

The demons within us telling us to give up when we have been pushed to the limit and when our hearts are ripped out can never be silenced for good. They must always give answers to the quiet and steady that refuses to give in. The quiet and the steady demand it.

He demanded it. His stubbornness and that goddamned gift of his wouldn't let him or I have it any other way. Jasper was a relentless and quiet form of steady; and the message he had sent to my heart on constant repeat helped me find my lost hope and fight. And God forgive me for ever thinking it, but a part of me wanted to kill him. A part of me at times wanted to kill everybody.

Courage. We're all suffering. Keep going. Keep fighting! Don't give up! She is still alive. Let me hold your heart, until she can.

It was a constant barrage that he enforced using himself and everyone around him. Especially that of which lay inside my son. Our son. The universe was endless; love and respect, limitless. It was okay for me to think of Seth in that way, because Bella said it was. He has such a good heart.

But that was the future.

The hope inside him became my own, but he had been the one to think about it. He had been the one that said it, and the reality of the matter is he couldn't have been more dead on.

"...Maybe she gave up. Maybe that's what cut it. Maybe when she decides to quit dying and start living, you'll feel it again. You know Bella better than any of us do. She'd take it to heart."

There were so many things said and done that night, it was difficult for me to reflect on any part of it for too long. The waves of panic I felt were so extensive, it threatened to pull me under at any given moment. And it did, plenty of times.

But it was just so hard to hold on to. That hope, and faith was just so hard to believe in. So much had happened.

Crashing a plane was nothing. If I had to do it to get her back, I would crash plane by plane into piece by piece until the world was just one big crater. Shattered, barren, and broken like I had felt for that tick in time. I would do it over and over again just so I could get her back.

None of those sons of bitches were ever getting on a plane with me again. When it came to Seth, it was understandable. And the regret I had for that was palpable.

Killing Maria was nothing. I couldn't even take real pleasure from it. It was an end to things and that was it. It was the only thing I would give to Charlotte, because she had lost everything else.

But part of me did die out there in the desert, and I did lie to Maria, just as I had lied to Bella. I didn't get to keep my heart. Not all of it. I might have had her back, and I felt her as I never felt her before. But the entire experience and life for me in general managed to teach me one thing. Nothing was definite, and you never knew what was going to happen next. Maybe whatever could happen would be for the worst, but hopefully it would be for the best. The fear would always be there, plaguing me for eternity.

Hope, faith, and fear. They were my weaknesses, right along with the rest of them. Them being my family.

It was hard after that. I was an immortal who had everything he could have ever wanted, and it was still hard. She understood that most of all. Without her I was nothing. Fear of the unknown just has a way of bringing you down. But for her, I tried.

And I succeeded at everything. She wouldn't have it any other way. And I really couldn't have had it any other way, either.

Of course, that was the future. As it stood when I left Bella on the edge of Boquillas Canyon, the only thing I succeeded in was not noticing that the jig was up.

The jig was really fucking up. She knew everything. Almost everything. The fine details would soothe her heart.

I had two goals. One of them was to find and catch that one-armed, motherfucker and beat the ever-living fuck out of him and turn that piece of shit to ash. His balls would burn and rot with the rest of him. She wasn't going to need that reminder, because the reminder would be in my eyes when she looked at them every day.

Bella would never be able to forget just like I wouldn't, and that fucker was going to feel everything she had felt and more. But she would move past it. She would go beyond it and throw herself into our future like a battering ram. No door, no feeling, no fear, would ever hold her back.

I made sure of it. Jasper made sure of it. Carlos was killed because we all demanded it.

Bella. She was in my heart and in my sight again. And I couldn't make sense of the reasons I could feel her like I had never felt her before. I didn't even try to make sense of them. Maybe if I would have, maybe I would have known what to expect when we arrived home.

Maybe I would have realized that Charlotte had been around for her, but not for me.

Maybe I would have given more thought to the why's and the how's when I thought I saw my sister.

But that was the thing. I was a fucking insane and homicidal lunatic who was too goddamn busy trying to crash a motherfucking jet.

Big ass funnel cloud traveling through skies it had no business being in. Natural phenomenon, my ass.

But even Charlotte would have known that any interference from her on my part would have been futile. I loathed her enough at the time that I hoped in some way God would smite her down from the heavens and back into the mortal coils of existence, just so I could kill her myself.

And I would have. I would have because I knew exactly why she had changed fate. Desire and greed were within in all of us, and all that bitch wanted was to be avenged.

Could I blame her for it? Yes. She had given me a gift. She had shown me a life and not once, not one goddamn time did I ever take it for granted or try to circumvent or change the future, just so I could have what I truly desired and needed. Not fucking once did I interfere with fate when it was not predestined. Of course, I blamed her for it. She had chosen to show me Bella when the path I was on was surely one that would have led to the death of Maria. I hated her for it.

I thought I had to. Only in the future would I think I had to, because I had to cut that minute bind. I had to let Charlotte go.

Bella was of course the other goal. Taking care of her and telling her the truth. In my heart I was going to give it all to her. I was going to show her the gift that I had been given with all my desire and thoughts laid to bare. We were both already broken and goddamn it, I had won every fucking ounce of her love. I earned it. I did that. No one else.

And then I was going to kill her. I was going to get her a new face and run into the wind with her, because life was over as we knew it.

Life was over as we knew it. I knew it then, and not one goddamn person had to tell me what the future held. The thought of the unknown terrified me, but not enough to make me not act on it. To always fight for her. It was just a matter of getting affairs in order, biting her goddamn neck, and getting the fuck out of dodge. Solitary fucking confinement was in order.

Alice knew it, and I knew she would have. That was the only thing I did know; and I knew as we passed her and Seth that she was already at work paving the path we would need to disappear.

That was the plan. Would I have done it when I first walked into that house? Would I have told her that truth?

Fuck, no.

Alice would later tell me it was never a future. Alice was brilliant.

I would have found more excuses, because the fear of losing her was mighty powerful. It had always been that way. Always.

I was still under the waves of devastation, the grief and the chaos still in my heart even though it was full. The scorching fire inside my throat was because I desired only one thing, and it was always her.

Every one of those bastards was in on it. Every one of those precious souls knew damn well what I was walking into. And when I think about it now, it was in Jasper's eyes. Jasper was set to do right by her. He never said a thing.

I could never hold it against him. So many times, I had tried to suck him under with me, because I didn't want to be alone. I did it twenty-one years ago, and I tried to do it again. And God, I had asked him for the impossible. I had asked for too fucking much to begin with and without even really asking.

But when I walked into that bedroom, and I saw the history laid bare and scattered across the bed, I died all over again.

And as she walked out of that bathroom bruised, battered, and broken, with destruction still set heavily on her face and still in her eyes, I really died all over again.

She was right. I had deserved at least that much.

Time was not on her side.

That there should have been the clue that I would have needed to prepare myself. In her eyes while she was in my arms in the desert was the truth. My eyes had seen and so had hers. Miracles. God. Whatever you wanted to call it. I just didn't realize it.

But there was no way to prepare myself for something like that. There was no way to ever be ready for it.

I just didn't realize it.

It didn't change anything. She wasn't walking out of that room. Even if I had to burn that fucking house down with the two of us in it.

Prelude End.

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*B*E*L*L*A*

"Should we clean up?" Seth asked, a little wearily.

I thought about it. "How much time, Alice?"

She shrugged. "About ten minutes."

God, would I be so cruel to leave it out and let him see it? Yes. Yes, I would. He deserved at least that. He feared this. He was going to face it, no matter what.

"Just leave it. Peter and I will put it away."

Both Alice and Seth just looked at me and frowned. Seth looked away and got up from the bed. No one said anything, but I got the sense that Seth really disapproved.

He looked around the room with eyes that were wide with knowledge, but he was frowning at the same time. Emotionally drained, and very tired. Mostly he just looked at the empty chest. The skin around both his shoulders was still bruised, and a bit swollen.

I methodically started to work myself off the bed. I was incredibly thirsty, my throat felt raw. The brain squeeze a set constant with each little movement it took. Pain shot into my neck in waves as I moved, but I ignored it as I thought about what I wanted to say to Peter.

Once I was up, I walked out of the room and down to the kitchen; opening my eyes just when I needed to.

They followed of course. Alice was on the other side of the refrigerator door as I opened it.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm thirsty."

I grabbed the pitcher of tea off the shelf with my good arm, but I nearly dropped it as I slid myself sideways to the counter. The tea went down on the counter hard.

Alice had flitted around me and had a glass already out of the cupboard. She poured as she talked.

"Listen, I'm going to take Seth with me, we're going to leave for a bit. You and Peter need some space. I'm leaving Jasper here, though. You might need him," she said, subdued.

She handed me the glass as I opened my eyes to look at her. In her eyes was knowledge. Knowledge of not just what she had seen and read, but knowledge of my future.

Her black hair was tousled, flat, and sticking out at points in had no business sticking out at. She was still wearing what was probably a designer tank that was torn, caked with venom, stained with blood. My blood. Her ankle had healed. Her jeans not much better that her shirt. Alice was a fucking mess. She just stared at me and gave nothing away.

"What are you hiding? What's going to happen?" I asked her. Space, yes. We needed it, but it didn't really make sense for her to leave without Jasper.

I don't know what I quite felt in that moment, other than just a slight sense of dread. Oh, it was all so wondrous, but a little terrifying at the same time. It was going to affect Peter, I just didn't know how.

Maybe it already was, if Jasper had given him that heads up.

She smiled sadly. "Everything that needs to happen. You need to talk to him, and I need to start working on making Debbie disappear," she hesitated, "along with you and Peter."

There it was, along with her eyes pleading for me to understand. A small thought I had somewhere along the lines, that turned into many after she said that.

Debbie was gone, and she would never return. And I could never return to my old life again, either. Debbie would have to disappear, and so would we. Our homes, our jobs, and Peter.

Peter had crashed his plane into a ridge in the canyon in Boquillas, and my truck was a mangled mess out in the desert, not too far from civilization. It could have already been found, for all that I had known. And Peter, well, there was no way he could have just 'walked' away from that crash, if he were a human.

Planes had GPS. Planes were tracked. He had to have filed a flight plan, right?

Fischer-Osterhoudt Architecture and Design was going to need a new owner.

Lies would have had to been told, and they were lies that were probably going to need to be told.

The worry, the thoughts, were tangible. She could see it on my face. What the hell were we going to do?

"We can't go back," I told her. "Alice..."

"Out of your league, Swan," she breathed out with buoyancy, but it was an act. "At least, for now. This is what we do best. You know that."

Something flashed inside her frowning eyes, besides worry, besides the truth that she was hiding.

"We'll talk about everything later. We'll have all the time in the world. The only thing you need to worry about right now is what you want to say to Peter. We're going to make everything alright again." she promised.

What could I do? I could do nothing but feed the lies. I could do nothing, but just disappear. I was physically and mentally incapable of doing much at that point and I had to put my faith in others.

No small part of me wanted to go back. But the future and what it held for us was a little bit scary, along with how it all was going to impact Charlie, and a few others in our lives.

Debbie had a brother in Vermont. They weren't that close, but she would be missed. The people we worked for, and with. We would be missed.

I just stared at her, as more tears stung my eyes and rolled down my face. And she just stared back, in sort of a pleading way, but there was more to it.

I said the only thing I could to her. I just wanted her to know how I felt about all the choices she had to make.

"I never really stopped loving you. I think I tried, but I don't think I ever really stopped. That's why it hurt so bad. Thank you, thank you for everything. I understand now, and I'll never throw anything about you leaving me in your face again."

Alice's face crumpled as she nodded furiously. She pulled me into her arms by my waist, but the hug was all awkward because of my arm.

It was over. All the discontent I had for her and Jasper and the choices they had to make was gone, because they had made the right choices, and because they had to suffer after their own.

I hoped that out there in the desert, that Peter had found his solace with Jasper, too.

"I love you, too. Always will," she told me, before she kissed my cheek and pulled away.

Something moving behind me got Alice's attention. She seemed to roll her eyes a bit, and I turned around. I had been oblivious to Seth's presence.

The freezer door was open, and he was standing there with an open container of Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked, and he had found a spoon.

He shoveled a load into his mouth as he looked at us. At me. Seth was probably starving, but he looked more exhausted than anything.

I just smiled up at him, and he smiled back, slurping and chewing the ice cream in his mouth, a little forlorn. He moved the spoon into the container and brought out a bite offering it up. I took it.

Cool and gooey decadence. It soothed my throat.

He raised and wiggled the container in his hand.

"You'll have to explain this sometime," he told me, seriously.

Alice snorted.

"I will."

And I tried to smile at him and smile at the past. Our past.

"Come on. Let's go, Seth." She kissed me on the cheek again and started to walk out of the kitchen.

Seth looked at Alice with hard eyes as she walked by, laying her hand on his arm to motion him. "You sure she'll be okay?"

Alice stopped just out of the kitchen as she headed to the alcove. She glanced at me. "She'll be fine. They'll be here in just a few minutes. We'll probably pass them on the road. Come on. They need some time alone."

She glanced at me again. "We'll be back."

Her face gave nothing away.

Seth was conflicted, but he jutted his chin out at me as he started to follow her. "See you soon."

"Okay."

He took the ice cream with him.

They walked down into the living room and through the alcove, and while Seth looked back, Alice didn't. I didn't hear the door open. I walked over to the alcove, only to realize there was no door. It had been pulled off its hinges and was laying in the alcove.

The molding around the door was busted and splintered on the floor. Light filtered inside along with some heat. Peter's doing, no doubt.

I heard the van start up, and I heard Alice pull out. I listened to the tires as they accelerated down the road.

They were gone.

The house was quiet, all for the exception of the tick, tick of the clock on the fireplace. For four minutes, I was alone.

I found myself back in the bedroom, looking at the past scattered all over the bed. Our past. Our miracle. There would be no gift he could ever give me that would ever compare to this.

When I could read the journals, I would. He might have had years to get used to the idea of us, but I had days. Days I didn't want to ever forget. Days I could never forget.

Days given to us by God. Oh, it might have been Charlotte's doing, but that control she was gifted was from God.

The drawings falling out of the piece of a construction paper I recognized were things I drew when I was a child. I couldn't see the folded-up piece of paper, but I knew it was a self-portrait, and a terrible one at that. He had probably stolen them out of the trash.

I went into the bathroom because I needed to go, and I needed to clean up my face. I worked my arm out of the sling and took it off, just to let it hang. It made my neck feel better.

I didn't think about much those last few minutes alone. It was all so overwhelming and wondrous, yet there was clarity. There was a heaviness on my chest, that I thought was just a physical manifestation of my discoveries, of my feelings. And at that moment all I could think about was when I was going to see him. And what the hell I was going to say to him.

I just didn't know. When I would see him, what was going to come out of me? What was I going to feel?

The anger, the fury in me was non-existent while I looked at the girl staring back at me. She was broken for sure, but only on the outside.

I needed a new face. I needed new eyes. The sclera on both my eyes were filled with blood. My left iris completely dilated to black. The right not much better. The indent in the skin of my right socket was mottled red, blues, and purple. My cheekbone looked like it was about to explode. A shattered nose, a busted lip. Burnt by the wind.

I stared at myself in the mirror, with eyes full of knowledge and blood, and a brain that was being squeezed repeatedly. I soaked in the calm before the storm.

My pupils started to constrict as the beat of my heart grew more vigorous with each passing second. It was so strong, it felt like it was going to burst right out of my chest. Someone was squeezing my brain again, but still, there was clarity.

Clarity and a sense of foreboding entered my senses like it hadn't before. Blinding light flashed inside my eyes, making me want to close them.

Searing heat licked up my spine, and it was so hot and furious, I broke out in an instant sweat.

I was going to die. I had thought that, right as I opened the door.

To walk towards the rock. To walk towards the key to my perpetual happiness. To Peter.

But I wasn't going nuclear, he was. I was just reacting to him…reacting.

For just a moment, time froze. He was home. Time wasn't on his side.

A second after seeing the truth laid to bare caused him to break all over again. But time was still on my side. At least I thought it was. Jasper was that quick.

One second. Maybe two.

Peter stood there, approximately eight feet away from the bed and about six feet away from me. He stood just behind the chest. It was almost simultaneous, me opening the door and the world exploding.

It was my destiny.

I registered the inhuman noise that came out of him as I opened the door, and it was not drowned out by the sounds of glass shattering, of walls breaking, and of wood splintering. But I had closed my eyes when the chest detonated, and he proceeded to lift the bed off the floor.

Lightning quick it had been, and there would have been no reason he couldn't have saved me himself when I jumped off that cliff in Boquillas. And this was exactly fucking why Jasper and I would eventually have a conversation.

He was going to blame himself. It was an accident, but at the same time it was one of those, 'go figure' moments.

What was so devastating to me at that point in time and a few fractured seconds afterward, wasn't the fact that I had been in his line of fire, nor was it the fact that Jasper had pounced on him to shove Peter's body and face into the floor.

It was a piece of our history destroyed, along with a bedroom I had loved. But I did hate that chest because of what it represented, for him.

He had lifted and thrown that bed in an act of pure violence and had shoved it through the wall and the window. The posts would be found lodged in the ceiling and the wall, and everything on that bed was either floating down before me, or outside in the calm world that would go on and on for those lucky enough to live forever.

It was our life. It was his fear of the unknown. Oh, I should have put it all away. I had made another mistake, because of my own greed to make him face it. It was cruel to do so.

The chest had been kicked to pieces, to shrapnel.

It took Jasper a few fractured seconds to get a hold on Peter. How quickly he put his arms under Peter's from behind him. How blazingly fast he lifted Peter off the ground and slammed him down with him on his own back.

Peter was fighting him as they twisted and turned violently, because he had spiraled completely down within that second. But Jasper didn't teach Peter everything he knew.

He had Peter in his arms. Peter was in a choke hold, on his back, and Jasper was sitting on his ass with his legs bent and twisted inside Peter's thighs to keep him from kicking out, when Peter's eyes finally met mine.

The fear was a furious inferno in his eyes, and on his face. Oh, he had gone nuclear. Volcanic even.

Eyes still consumed with the blackest black. The light of them gone. Black globes of death and mayhem. He was sneering at me, at first, and I understood why. But it still broke my heart, even if it was only for just a moment or two.

He could not give me separation. He would resent me if I left him. His fear had been laid to bare, and he had expected the worse. Of course, I understood why.

He would not give me separation.

For him, no matter what I chose, it still meant death in some way. And I realized that the things that Alice had hid from me about those times he would have told me, well, they weren't that much different from this.

But there was one difference, and it was an important one.

This future wouldn't mean death. For either one of us.

But the inhuman scream and the cry of fury coming out of his throat cut off instantly, along with the struggle with Jasper, as soon as he looked at all of me.

A fracture of a second later, his head dropped just an infinitesimal bit, and I could tell he wasn't looking into my eyes anymore. The look of resentment shattered, and so did the rest of him.

They both sat there on the floor, in a befuddled, fucking mess, wilting a little bit more as time passed.

I followed his eyes-and Jasper's-down the front of me. To a piece of that ornately carved chest sticking out just below the tip of my sternum. It puzzled me at first, but then I had to laugh.

When I walked out of that door I instinctually brought my arms up to shield myself, so I started to let them hang, and I slowly sank down to sit on my shins.

I really couldn't feel it, at first. It was just there. Of course, it was just reaction to want to touch it, to put my hand in the blood that gave me life.

It was red. Red was good. And though it seemed to pour from the wound, time was still on my side. As long as no one pulled it out, I was good to go.

I wasn't going to go out like this. I wasn't going to die. Not like this.

Really, I knew I wasn't. I didn't go through everything I had went through to die from a mortal wound, and Alice wouldn't had let happen if the outcome had meant death. She and Seth were busy making me disappear along with Peter and Deb. And could I blame her for not wanting to be around for this shit? Hell, no.

Alice had known what was going to happen. I knew that. Just like at that moment I knew that this was the reason Garrett had left with Deb.

Of course, when I looked back up to Peter his entire demeanor had changed. Gone was the fury that had been licking up my spine. He had realized his mistake. A cool wisp of air blew by my face.

My heart thudded heavily with the horror and the devastation rolling out of Peter, and because I had an eight-inch-long shard of Ponderosa Pine sticking out of me.

I wasn't sure how much was in me, because I really couldn't feel it. Only when I took deep breaths did burning pain lick my lungs.

Laying about six feet away, Peter was full of dust, from head to toe. It was caked on his face, under his eyes, which were indeed permanently scarred. He was barefoot. His hair was disarrayed, it gathered in chunks. His mouth was agape in a look of sheer horror, and his face was so taut I had to wonder if it would break, or if he would ever smile again.

"No, no, no..."

His voice was unrecognizable, quiet, and thick, but I heard him just the same. Jasper still had him in a choke hold, and he was going to let him go.

"Jasper, don't. Don't let him go. Wait just a minute." And I held my good index finger up at Peter.

Jasper's face wasn't that much different from Peter's, but he still had his senses about him. He had a shirt again. A navy-blue t shirt I had packed into Peter's bag for Albuquerque. He was packing caked on dirt and dust just like Peter was.

And God, I had to give him some credit. He was still fucking counting. Even with this. Jasper blinked at me with eyes consumed with black, but he held firm.

Peter needed to wait just a second, because if what I needed him to do happened, it was going to be a while before I had my wits about me again, and he was going to have to take care of me.

Time was still on my side, but my eyes wanted to close because my head was thumping hard, right along with my heart.

Jasper held fast to him.

I looked around at the devastation for a second and listened to a song bird singing happily while flying by our new patio door, before I look back at Peter. And when I did, I spoke to his heart.

"I love you. No matter what you do, I will always love you. But I have some things I need to say to you. Can you hear me? Can you understand me? Because I thought you deserved at least this."

I really didn't know if he could. This had broken him, and a smart part of me knew he would never be the same again. His fingers were claws on and in Jasper's forearm. The wounds seemed to crumble, and seep venom.

The black globes of death had turned to oil, and this would mark him, too. He would forever be scarred. I could see the recognition and the fear inside them as each one of my words impacted him. But he just couldn't form the words.

I tried to smile at him.

"This isn't your fault. This isn't your fault, at all. I shouldn't have left it out. Don't blame yourself for this. Do you understand? I won't have it," I told him firmly.

It was gross, but at the precise moment I had stopped speaking, bile and blood rose in my throat, making me cough. I swallowed it back.

Peter's eyes widened even more, and Jasper was going to let go of him, his grip already loosening, his legs already relaxing, but I held my good hand up. Blood dripped and trickled down my arm.

They weren't going to wait much longer.

I licked the blood away from my lips. I wanted to throw up, but I pushed the feeling away, and I smiled again at Peter instead.

"I kept something from you, too, you know. You remember, don't you, that day at Marcy's?"

"Of course," he said, a voice thick and barely there, but there nonetheless.

"My mother was there, with Charlotte. She told me to help you help Marcy. My mother touched me. That's what happened. That's what I didn't tell you. Because if I would have told you, she might not have come back, and I wanted her to come back," I told him.

And the tears fell. His face fell even more in shock, and to wail silently with me.

I had to steel myself, because my heart wasn't going to last much longer, and crying just did a number on my head. I was really starting to feel tired.

"I dreamed about you, out there in the desert when Maria and Carlos took me. You caught me when I fell off the slide when I was a little girl. You picked me up in the forest that night and you took me home. There were others, too. But Charlotte showed me all of that. She's the reason I'm still alive right now."

You could see the horrific scream in his head on his face, but it twisted once I said her name. Oh, he was blaming her, and at that point he did hate her.

"She took me down into the hole. She told me everything. She gave you the gift to see my life, to help me. But you created our future, Peter, because you fell in love with me. She changed it because she hadn't wanted to die. She had loved you so much, and she still does. So, don't blame her for all of this."

But he still was, and he still would, to a point. I could see the conflict in him. He only confirmed it.

"She did this, Bella. She did this," he said, his face twisting.

"Jose Vasquez was Carlos' Great, Great Grandson," I told him, crying still, and I watched the shock slam into him again.

"And I made the choice to have Seth come visit, and I had made the choice to ask Deb to come with us. I did that. She deserved her vengeance, Peter. She might have cocked the hammers, but we had pulled the triggers."

I was going over with that. It was almost time to die.

A blink later, I was on his lap. His arm wrapped around my backside and bad arm, and it was pain. I had seen Jasper let him go and push him towards me when something squeezed my brain. It was becoming difficult to breathe, and my heart was thudding heavier, and slower. His hand covered mine, near the shard.

"Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." But his voice was garbled and sounded further away.

My head against his shoulder and the crook of his left arm, this is where I would start to die. He was broken, but the universe was in his eyes.

I could feel blood pulse into my hand. I felt pain like no other inside my chest as I breathed, and my esophagus burned.

His eyes were the universe, and it was slipping away. I could see and feel the determination inside him, but I had just a few more things I needed to say.

"I lied to you, too. I understand why you had to, and why you were so afraid to tell me. I was mad, at first. Really, really, mad. And I thought and said some things I'm not very proud of, but I understand now. I lied to you, too. Charlotte and my mother told me I had to jump. I got to hold her and say goodbye, and that's why I jumped. But I would have jumped to spare you if I would have had to," I cried.

Oh, the somewhat-fixed look of determination, haunt, and guilt broke in his face and it twisted in agony.

"Don't. Don't say anything else. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did this to you. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. I'm sorry I lied to you," he told me, but he was asphyxiating.

How he cried. I couldn't take it. This had broken him down. He had been smothered and squeezed by anxiety, fear, and the uncertainty of what was going to happen, even then, but Peter had always persevered. Always.

It had broken him down, but I would build him back up, eventually. I nodded at him, and smiled from ear to ear, no matter how much it hurt to do so.

"Just don't lie to me. Ever again."

He wouldn't.

Oh, how he smiled through his grief. His fingers came up and he touched my face, the pad of his thumb ran across my lips. His hand all bloody, but it didn't matter.

"I love you. I'll always love you. You're in my heart, too," I told him.

The fractured seconds were difficult after that. My head flooded, and the sound of waves flooded my ears. But I smelled the most pleasant thing, and it was hard to describe.

Sweet earth, and the smell of wheat, after it had been cut.

"Pauline told me to tell you hello. Did you see her?"

I couldn't hear anything anymore. Not even myself. And at some point, I had closed my eyes. I opened them, at least I thought I had.

Everything smelled warm, but I felt cold. His face was the like the face in my dream, when I fell off the slide. Everything else around me was drowned out, as blinding light seeped in. But he was the only angel looking at me.

"I'm dying, Peter. I'm dying." But I wasn't sure if I got it out.

Everything went dark for a few moments after that, but even in the darkness there was light. Light so beautiful, every color in the color spectrum, it wisped and danced around in my vision. It took what breath I had away, and when I tried to suck another in, I couldn't.

The fifth time I tried for breath, I succeeded, and air filled my lungs. But something lingered. Something warm flowed into my head, and down the other side of my neck, and I wasn't feeling that cold anymore.

The colors went away first, and then the whitest light faded away, and his face came back into my vision. Black globes of grave death filled with the deepest love and sorrow, with just a strike of indifference on his face.

And blood on his lips.

"Yeah, you are."

He lifted my wrist this time, on my bad arm, and he sliced through the bandaged with his teeth, and tore through my skin as if it were made of paper.

He had done it.

My heart thumped heavily once and stuttered for just a moment, before it began to pound towards infinity.

I smiled and laughed as I began to boil. The magma throwing every molecule it consumed into a state of entropy.

My last moments of clarity was of him putting my head on Jasper's lap, as he pulled that shard out and ripped my shirt, to cauterize the wound. Jasper's own black eyes smiled down at me.

He would help me for those first few hours, until I could think around the burn. But only for a little bit.

Unparalleled agony would shape my existence into the forever I would have with Peter, but he would tell me later that I had only burned for two days.

There were simply no words. A few screams maybe, but no words.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

*S*E*T*H*

(Eight hours later...)

"Where? I don't see it."

"Behind the trunk, about four feet down from the top."

Peter flew into the pinion, snapping branches and needles as the letter fell out, but he snatched it up before it could get too far. The tree swayed back towards the rock face and he jumped again to the small outcropping I was on, finding his footing quick. We were only down about twenty feet, and we started to climb back up.

Lightning flashed southwest of the city. The storm was moving in, but part of the sky was still on fire with the last of the day's remaining light. It was going to rain soon and cool things off.

I had two of the journals that had flown over the edge of the ridge. They had lodged in next to each other in a crevice on the slope. Years Six and Ten. The covers were a little scraped up, but otherwise, they were fine.

Everything inside that chest was accounted for. Even that fucking teddy bear, that I luckily found in a bush seventy-five feet down from the house.

Year one would be going home with me.

The shit had hit the fan when Alice and I had left Bella, and Alice hadn't said shit to me about what was going to happen when we did. We had passed right by Jasper and Peter down at intersection leading up the road to the house, them in Peter's truck, us in that reefer-mobile, and we didn't stop.

Alice had spit everything out by the time we were on the highway heading back to Cerrillos Hills and Bella's truck to get everything identifiable out of it. And by then, it had all played out. Bella was already burning.

Money could buy almost everything when you needed to disappear. It could rent a wrecker service for no questions asked. It could buy two, shady yet discreet moving crews at short notice. It could buy fake ID's with the new names of women who were going to live forever, in some way.

It had been a busy and taxing day. Alice and I took care of getting Bella's truck taken care of, and that mangled piece of shit that couldn't outrun vampires would be compacted that day.

We stopped at a U.S Cellular, where she purchased two new cell phones, one for me and one for Jasper. We went to Bella's after that because I needed to grab all my stuff.

Alice arranged for me to take the first available bus out of the local Greyhound stop to head home. I was leaving at eleven thirty that night, a taxi was picking me up at ten thirty.

I was never getting on fucking plane again. I had a case of the night terrors, even though I hadn't really been able to sleep a good night. That early morning trip out of Texas had been plagued with nightmares about falling into dark pits, into the boughs of hell. It was what had woken me up in the first place.

I had no more rest that day. We needed to stay ahead, and I needed to talk to Charlie. I needed to tell him everything. I needed to tell him his daughter would no longer have a heartbeat, but she was still around.

I was never getting on a fucking plane again. It was going to take four transfers, but I'd get back to Forks within two days' time, and probably just in time for Charlie to throw up whatever he and Mom were having for dinner that night.

A part of me, a rather large part, didn't want to leave. But everyone was, and so would I. I didn't have a fucking clue on where I was going to start with Charlie. But he was going to get it all.

I had dropped Alice off at the airport with instructions from her to dump the van. I left it in a grocery store parking lot not too far from Peter's, and I had hoofed it back.

Alice was already flying up to Washington, securing that would be needed to help them disappear. They had a dirty lawyer who didn't ask questions and had connections. She had made it all sound so easy. She would be coming back early the next morning.

Peter and Bella would be leaving before I would.

And she hadn't wanted to say goodbye. A part of her had felt like she had betrayed Bella by keeping the truth from her, and goodbyes were rough anyway. But she would be back because the moving company would be at Bella's, and later at Peter's. She had to close out their lives. At least what she could. There were still those that would question just what had happened to the girls.

Alice also said it really wasn't goodbye. But her and I had parted with a kiss to the cheek, and she'd be giving me a call later.

Debbie would be presumed dead, but her body would never be recovered. Anyone who looked for her would find her house just as she had left it, minus a few things Alice and I had thought she might have wanted down the line.

She would be a victim of circumstance for the authorities when they came looking. No one else she had known had known about Garrett. Garrett would drive the car into Lake Champlain in Vermont.

Bella would also be presumed dead. Dead because of an accidental jet crash, but it would be a few days before their disappearance would be noticed. The authorities would assume that Bella and Debbie both accompanied Peter on the jet willingly, at least that's what the public would hear.

The reason why was because of the deviated flight plan, and any evidence they were able to gather at the crash site. Peter did intentionally change course into the middle of a hellacious storm. And he also deliberately broke his plane. Black boxes and shit like that.

There were people that knew about Bella and Peter, and Alice was having Bella's house emptied. Her house was up for sale, and a friend of sorts had been helping her sell it. There were those that might have put some thought into what really happened and try to connect them with some dark plot; but in the end, they would find no real answers. No dead bodies. No altercations. Just assumptions.

Peter's surface-to-air missile had crashed and been blown to smithereens into a canyon, his remains and any others unrecoverable, of course. The crash site by that evening had been found but not much else, according to Alice.

The authorities hadn't yet released his name, because they were still trying to locate his Next of Kin, and his Next of Kin was really fucking hard to get ahold of because he lived in Canada, and he wasn't home.

Peter had at one time needed a will drawn up due to a clause needed to insure parts of his international business and had left everything to some guy named Jasper Whitlock, who was Peter's brother.

Peter's company would have a new owner. It was what Peter wanted. It was all temporary of course, that was Jasper's only condition. When Peter and Bella were ready to join civilization again, it would all just transfer back, or Peter would ultimately decide what he wanted to do with it. Part of which Alice was securing was the documentation Jasper would need for the board of Directors to claim Peter's company.

Peter didn't know when or if, he'd make that choice. It wasn't a concern. The choice of course was when or if he'd come back to the land of the living. Peter and Bella were for all intents and purposes, going nomad.

She was going kill every fucking living heartbeat Peter brought her. I didn't know how to feel about that.

It wasn't Jasper's first choice. But it wasn't his decision-or mine-in the first place.

According to Alice, and in a few days' time when Deborah Conroy would be reported missing by her employer, the FBI would show up at Bella's. They would conduct a search at Peter's after tying one to the other, in a week's time. The bedroom would be repaired by then, both their houses emptied.

Peter was ahead of me when we got to the top of the ridge, and he swung himself up over the ledge, only to turn around to hold out his arm and hand to pull me up. I took it, but the ridge wasn't that steep.

He didn't look me in the eyes, though, and that was the thing. Peter hadn't been able to look at Jasper in the eyes, either.

Shame was putting the guy down pretty hard and I think Jasper and I both wanted to tell the dude, 'Snap the fuck out of it! You made a mistake, but it was a pretty damn good one to make.'

Seriously, at that fucking point it was probably better that he fucking bit her. If the goddamn shard wasn't the fatal blow, then she probably would have gone down with the aneurysm that had been put off for hours. And as far as her fate was concerned, Jasper could have stopped fucking counting and bit her when he caught her during her jump to freedom. Alice could have bit her on the way back home. Garrett when we first arrived back at Peter's.

Or fuck, Charlotte could have probably just snapped her fucking fingers. Presto, you're a vampire.

It was her destiny.

But Peter's entire demeanor had changed, and I was finally seeing some of the guy he used to be before life took a gigantic shit on him.

He swung himself up and through the hole that used to be a window. Every light inside and outside of the house was on because it had taken us some time to clean up the mess. The blood, the mayhem, and the chest. I climbed through right after him. There would be a repair and cleaning crew arriving the next morning to repair the roof, the wall, and the rest of the damage that Peter's maelstrom had caused.

The bed had taken out the entire window and part of the wall by the bottom of the window seal. Two of the posts had broken through the ceiling, and the other two had broken off in the wall. The headboard had been busted all to shit. The dresser that used to sit in front of the window had sort-of lived.

It was still a functional bed after Jasper and I did some quick redecorating by pulling the box spring and the mattress together though, and that was where she laid.

The edge of the carpet in front of the bed was stained brown, because Bella had nearly bled to death on the floor in front of it. It had fucked me up seeing it, when I got back to the house that day. It had fucked me up smelling it, because it had smelled like death.

With earth, wheat, and fresh cut flowers. It was fucked up.

Peter had been sitting with Bella in the tub with his clothes on and Jasper was sitting right beside them on the floor; keeping the peace as Peter cleaned her up. And that had fucked Jasper up, because Peter had been crying into Bella's hair as he washed it and as Jasper fed her some high-quality shit.

He still was, all day and into the night. Peter had put her in her night shirt and a pair of loose shorts, and Jasper sat against the wall and beside her on the bed.

But everyone had gotten a little time to shower, and into some fresh clothes, after we had done some housekeeping. The pieces of the chest that had flown down the ridge had to wait until darkness was approaching, because there were people walking on the trail nearby.

The bedposts were pulled out of the wall and the ceiling. The headboard removed and taken out back. I had vacuumed. Thank God for Shop-Vacs.

She just laid there and broiled. Her body violently trembled, and she was rapidly breathing and panting shallow and ragged breaths. Now and then she would cry out when Jasper got side-tracked, but it was nothing like Deb.

Bella was changing. Her fingers seemed longer, and so did her arms and legs. Every blood vessel in her body was at the surface, a grotesque map of free-flowing highways for blood lacing with venom. Her face was marred even more at first. Her eyes closed, her eyelids were still almost completely black, but the bruising was fading. Her nose had straightened back out about an hour prior, with a sickening bone crack that had caused her to wail. But then relief soon followed, and she had audibly sighed out.

Peter was looking a little bit more like the angel Jake had seen in the water that day, although this time he was dressed.

Even though there was some serious shit still happening in his eyes, they were not consumed with the fury or the drowning desire to slaughter every fucking soul in a one hundred-mile vicinity.

His eyelids were still scarred red, his eyes still black, but just his irises. His face for the most part that day was drawn in regret. He had taken a shower, he had washed his hair, and he had dressed himself in a pair of blue jeans, a white long sleeve t-shirt, and a dark blue flannel shirt over that. He even put a pair of hikers on.

He got down on one knee, put the letter-the last one he wrote Bella-back into the bag with the spare journal. The chest destroyed, we were sticking everything into a couple Rubbermaid totes he had gotten out of the garage. I gave him the journals I collected.

"Is that the last Piece? Here, you better put this in there." Jasper asked, from his lazy ass position on the bed.

He had been looking at one of the scrapbooks, the one Peter had made of himself working on the house.

"Yeah, we got it all." Peter answered, glancing up at Jasper before leaning out to grab it from him.

He lifted the teddy bear and stuck the scrapbook down in the tote giving it a push because it was packed full. He started to put the lids on the totes when he paused.

"I don't want these going into storage with the rest of our shit. I don't want..."

"Alice and I will take them home with us, don't worry." Jasper told him, and he told him in a way that truly meant 'don't worry'.

"Okay." Peter stared at the blue top of one of the containers and took a deep breath, sighing out again.

I imagined he would do that for the next one-hundred fucking years. Or probably forever.

He ran his right hand through the front of his hair, pushing and pulling it out of the way.

The whole time during this exchange, Jasper and I were in a battle with each other over side glances. Seriously, since the guy had told us what he was planning to do and where he was planning to go with Bella, we had been waiting for another bomb to drop, even though we kind of knew it wouldn't happen.

After a couple taps with his fingers on the lid of the container, Peter stood up and walked over to the closet, walking in and taking down a large capacity backpack from the top shelf. It was the type that had a separate compartment just for a tent, or a sleeping bag, and plenty of pockets to boot.

He grabbed a few pairs of jeans, a couple of shirts, and some other items of clothing from the dresser, packing them into the backpack.

He had already picked out some things for Bella, from the destroyed dresser. Pants, t-shirts, some of her intimates, and grabbed those off the top of the bed by her feet.

Bella made a painful little noise in her throat when he caressed her foot for just a couple seconds. Her eyes fluttered open, but just focused to the side for a moment before she closed them again.

He looked at Bella, with both deep-set worry, and wonder.

I was sure he thought it was amazing that they had survived, after all.

Compared to Debbie, Bella was handling it like a trooper. Maybe it was because of Jasper, keeping her under and hooked to a continuous drip of morphine, or maybe it was because she was just going with the flow of burning because it was what she had wanted with Peter.

Jasper had wormed around a bit to pull his cell phone out of his back pocket. He was texting someone at a ridiculous rate, and then he turned his phone off.

"If you got a universal charger, you better pack it. Take this." He tossed the phone to Peter, who caught it.

"All our numbers are already in there." Jasper told him, and he really wasn't fucking happy about it.

"Alright." Peter told him. He packed it into a front pocket of the backpack, while glancing at Jasper. He then ghosted completely out the room.

Jasper and I exchanged a series of looks and both of us shrugged our shoulders. I had to wonder if it was because goodbyes were always awkward to begin with, or if it's just because we both didn't want them to go anywhere into the unknown.

The unknown was some scary ass shit.

There were birds chirping outside to the days' remaining light. A hoot owl hooted to some lovely lady a few miles away with the coming night.

A car pulled out of the drive somewhere down the road, and thunder crashed a few miles away.

What's out there? What's going to happen to them now?

What's going to happen to me?

"I don't know." Jasper said, quietly, looking at me apprehensively. I only thought he was referring to Peter and Bella.

A moment later, Peter walked back in at normal pace, his hikers pounding out his intent. He had three books in his hand, a charger, and what looked like a few print outs.

Bella was fisting the bottom sheet of the bed in both her hands, and she started to move her legs around a bit. A painful moan boiled out of her throat.

One of the books Peter handed to Jasper. It wasn't really a book, it had a green cover, and looked more like a ledger or an accounting book.

Jasper's curiosity got the better of him, and he had been looking at the printout Peter had put on the bed for a moment. "What's that?"

I could only see the cover of one of the books he was packing, but it was some old classic novel. The other was just a paperback. He packed them into another pocket with the print out.

"A list of dead people walking. I don't think I'll be able to hit them for her just yet, I don't think I'm going to have a whole lot of fucking time." Peter told him, laughing short.

"I don't think you will either. It's going to be quick for her." Jasper told him knowingly.

"Good. That's good." Peter said smiling while looking down at the bed, at her hands trying to tear the goddamn sheet off the bed.

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, because I was dumb.

Peter looked over at me gravely, before looking back at the bed and shrugged his shoulders. "She's going to be blood thirsty for a bit. I'm just going to have to pick her out what I would consider the lowest bitter. I try to keep the good in the world, Seth. To hell with the rest."

I nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah. Alice told me. Yeah."

I mean, what could I say? We could have argued about it, I guess, but I didn't see a point.

I could have told him everyone makes mistakes. I could have told him everyone faced challenges. I could have told him everyone was human. I could have said that he and she should become vegetarians like the Cullens' were.

But the animal population was on a drastic decline. I couldn't even really make that argument. I could make no argument at all because it just wasn't a fucking choice I had to make.

"We could tell you that you couldn't possibly understand, but you do, don't you?" Jasper asked solemnly.

I shrugged.

"Yeah, I think I do." I looked at him. "What's the difference vampire, between a doe and a hooker?" I asked, because he'd know what I was thinking.

Jasper started laughing. "The difference is fucking great."

He quieted a bit and added, "But only up to a point, for me." Smiling somewhat kind of sadly.

Peter had chuckled and smiled sadly while glancing between Jasper, I, Bella, the bed, or nowhere in particular. The guy just couldn't hold his eyes still on anyone for too long.

Things might have calmed down, but in his mind, I had no doubt he was still a locomotive. At least he was finally on the rails.

A moment later, he sighed and looked around the room, his eyes landing on another intent.

He walked over rather briskly to oil painting by his dresser of some saguaro cactus in a desert with a canyon and a sunset in the background. Much like the canyon we had just been in. He took it off the wall.

Behind it was a safe, and he pulled out a rather stuffed manila envelope, a set of keys, and left it open. He walked back over next to me, at the end of the bed.

He threw the keys at Jasper, who caught them, and shoved them in his front pocket.

Peter opened the manila envelope and produced the booty of all booties, dumping it on the bed.

The doubloons, in paper form. Nice and crisp. The smell of new and greed wafted up to my nose. Stacks and stacks one inch thick. There was also a clear case of some old bills, that he also tossed to Jasper.

"Those are just some confederate pieces I picked up these last few years, I figured you'd might like them some day." He told Jasper, as he took three of those stacks of Franklin and shoved them in another front pocket of the backpack.

He tossed five more to Jasper, but they landed on the bed as Jasper started to get up.

"Thanks, but I don't need your money. I've got enough of my own. And now your company." Jasper told him, severely, while sticking his hands in his pockets.

He threw me a glance and it was a bit of an alarming one.

Peter shook his head. "Just take it. Buy your wife something nice." He said quietly. He packed the rest of stacks of doubloons back into the envelope.

And then he turned to his right side and thrusted it out to me. While giving me a look like I was taking it or getting my ass kicked.

"I don't want your money, either, vampire. No, no way, man." I told him. Jasper came down to the foot of the bed, sort of standing behind Peter.

"Seth, you're going to take this, and if you don't take it, Jasper and I are going to kick your ass. This is a gift. This is for getting…me back. This is for helping me get Bella back." He paused, and somewhat shuddered as his voice cracked.

"This is because you are her brother and that in turn makes you mine, and we take care of our own. This is for keeping my other brother safe. You saved our lives, Seth. All of them, I truly believe that. Now, you take this goddamn money and you go to school. You buy yourself the car of your dreams…You just take it." He said.

And he shoved that envelope into my chest so hard, I had no choice but to grab it.

Peter looked back down and started zipping up pockets on the backpack.

I still had to voice my opposition, even though it wasn't a strong one. "Man, this isn't right."

But I just wasn't talking about the fact that I was filthy, fucking rich.

"Oh, it's right, wolf. You deserve a shot in the ass of some easy. You take it, or I'll kick your ass." Jasper said, like he would.

Immediately though my mind went to Leah and Daniel. To the baby we didn't yet know she'd be capable of having. I voiced it, out loud.

"Leah's pregnant. I could buy the kid a nursery."

Peter's head shot up and over to me. "What?"

"Leah's pregnant. She's not that far along. We don't know yet if it'll work out."

Peter smiled broadly, with some teeth. It was only a little creepy with his scarred and black eyes.

The guy was beautiful, even with the fucked-up mess. Ethereal yet hardened by time and experience. And it was so amazing, because they were two people who hadn't ever met. Yet he probably knew a lot about her.

"That's…wonderful. That shouldn't be possible." Peter said, his face falling a little.

"She hasn't phased for over a year. I don't know if Bella told you, but she imprinted on another Quileute that had moved out of La Push when he was a kid. Daniel." I told him.

Peter smiled again. "She did. I'm happy for your sister. You're probably going to be an uncle."

It was in that moment, that we said goodbye. Though no one actually said it.

It was more like, 'see you later'. But I didn't know that.

Peter had put his right hand up to the left side my head and gave me a little bro hug with his hand, before ultimately just grabbing me outright to pull me in for a full-on bro hug. It was just natural to want to hug him back, even though he felt like a solid brick shithouse.

Jasper's face as I looked at him in Peter's bro hug was a ménage of all the emotion filling the room, and I was fucking drowning in it. Pain. Fear, Happiness, love, and loss. Above all, loss.

"Thank you."

It was whispered in my ear and it only sounded like he was choking back what was going through that room. Altogether, all those emotions were just bittersweet, and it fill my throat, and my fucking tear ducts.

That's when we heard a little moan, and Peter pulled back.

Bella had turned somewhat on her left side, and her knees had drawn in somewhat. One of her legs jerked, and she was wiggling her feet and toes.

But the most amazing part was that her eyes were open, and she was staring at us. Blood red met my brown for just a second. She was smiling softly, before she closed her eyes again.

She had all of Peter's attention, and he was smiling right back at her before he went back to his zippers. I had dropped the envelope on the floor when he had grabbed onto me. I leaned over to pick it up while wiping my face.

He cleared his throat. "Jasper's going to set you up with a bank account, too. Charlie won't take our money but you're going to. Anything he ever needs, anything you ever need. If you ever need help, you call me or Jasper. I won't keep the phone on, but you call us both."

Peter wasn't going to let me say no, and he didn't even wait for a response before he turned to Jasper, who only nodded out the fact that I would have a bank account to take care of my family and myself. And back up, in case I ever needed it.

I couldn't see Peter's face, but I imagined it was soft, like his voice was as he spoke with Jasper.

Jasper looked worried, and critical. But there was a sadness crushing down on the guy's skull.

He sighed, albeit rather resignedly. "Where are you going first?"

"Denver, for just a little bit. Then maybe over to Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri. We'll stay central." Peter told him.

Jasper didn't say anything. That weight was crushing down, turning his black eyes to oil. He sighed through his nose while biting down for just a moment.

"You know you come home with us. You know we could help you…" But Peter didn't let him finish.

"I need to be alone with her for a while. We can't fix us if it's just not us." Peter told him quietly.

"Alice and I need to fix things with her, too. And you." Jasper told him, somewhat pitifully.

"You already have. I told you that. It's done. We love you and we will miss you, too."

If Alice had been there she would have been fucking melting and turning in a puddle of goo.

All the same, Jasper kind of melted and just let the crushing loss take him somewhere in the middle, to a bubble of acceptance. He sighed again, looking down for a moment.

"You know you're going to have your hands full with her. And she still might have some things to say. She might try to take a piece out of you." Jasper warned.

Peter laughed. "Yeah, I can't wait."

The look on Jasper's face was of sadness and joy.

Peter laughed a little more before he looked down, like the greatest weight was settling on his shoulders. Jasper caught it immediately.

And caught him. He stepped forward and raised his hands to grab the sides of Peter's head to shake some sense into the guy.

"You stay strong. Like you said, it's done. It's only going to get better from here. You're going to take care of her, and she's going to take care of you. You're going to make it right. Right?"

"Right." Peter nodded, but I imagined it was kind of hard to do with his head sort of in a vice grip.

The not-goodbye after that little exchange was given a little privacy by my eyes, only because it made sense to give the adult father holding his adult son a little space.

I kind of imagined Jasper had in the early years, taught Peter how to survive, how to deal with challenges. And even though he didn't want him to face it alone, he was letting go because he knew Peter would face everything that came at him, or Bella.

Peter was trying, but at the same time, he didn't seem to have that much faith in himself anymore. Maybe Maria had ripped something out of him after all. Maybe Bella could set him right again.

I was leaking. My heart was heavy. It wasn't goodbye, but it sure as hell felt like it.

Everything kind of went cloudy after that, and it only made sense afterwards that there was a gigantic, heavy cloud that had been hanging over the room as Peter had packed their things.

It was goodbye. For now.

We watched Peter rub his hand across his face so hard, it's a wonder he didn't wipe his face off. We watched him pick up the backpack, throw one arm through a strap hole and then the other.

We watched him walk over to Bella's side of the bed and pick her up, and he paused only a moment, so I could kiss her cheek. He wouldn't look at me again.

She squirmed around only a little bit in his arms. We watched them walk out of bedroom and listened as he walked out the front door. It was the only sound to be heard.

And then it was silent.

Then it wasn't.

"Seth? You okay?" Jasper asked, and he seemed concerned. I wasn't quite sure when he had moved to stand in front of me, but he was there.

Just like that, the cloud was gone. But at some point, it had started to rain. Big heavy drops were hitting the roof, splattering on the ground outside.

"Yeah, I'm good. That kind of sucked." I told him.

He gauged me for a second all critical like. "Yeah, it did. Come on, let's go into the kitchen. Your stomach's been growling. You're hungry, right?"

I rubbed my hand across my face. "Yeah. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am."

Jasper was studying me softly, when I finally looked at him again. Which I was having a hard time doing.

All of it had broken my heart, but it also healed it too. I just looked at him and laughed quietly, while making my feet move forward and out the bedroom door.

At that point in time I just tried to focus on the task at hand, which was fucking eating. And he was right, I was starving. The last time I ate was when I snagged Bella's ice cream out of the freezer, and when Alice and I had literally run for the fucking hills.

I wanted prime rib, I wanted steak, a big, fat juicy cheeseburger, French fries, mac and cheese, and a goddamn cheesecake with strawberries and chocolate.

And there was leftover steak in the fridge, I had spied it when I was looking for something to drink earlier in the day. But when I walked into the kitchen, threw open that fridge door, I knew I wouldn't be able to really eat shit.

I checked the clock on a wall by the kitchen, it would be an hour and forty-five minutes before the taxi would show up to take me to the bus stop.

I settled for taking a container of butter out of the fridge, a few slices of fake cheese out of a deli drawer, a loaf of bread and a can of tomato lard out of a cupboard.

It didn't escape my notice that Jasper was lurking about, watching me collect shit for my grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. And I knew the fucker was all up in my head and in my heart, but there really wasn't much for me to say anymore.

I had issues. I had problems that I was going to have to face. I had a future I needed to start planning and implementing.

And I didn't know how the fuck to go about anything yet.

Still, I grabbed a knife out of the silverware drawer and turned to the island to start buttering my bread. Jasper had cleaned up earlier too, putting on a pair of blue jeans and a red thermal, long sleeve t shirt. His hands were interweaved between the pockets, and his thumbs were belt looping it. He was standing on the other side of the island waving about on his feet.

He had this fucked up grin, like a Cheshire cat but with no teeth, his eyes aloof as he stared at me.

I just looked at him. "What."

He silently laughed through his nose, short. "What are you eating?"

"Grilled cheese, motherfucker. You want one?"

He laughed a little and looked down. "No. but um…"

"But what?"

That grin was back and he just stared at me for a moment. "I uh, I need to go hunt. Before I go visit the neighbors. I won't be gone long, I'll be back before you leave."

It wasn't what I was expecting him to say, but I really didn't know what he would say, either.

Jasper's eyes were dark. I wouldn't say they were black, but there definitely was no signs of amber or butterscotch.

"Oh, well…okay. Go ahead then. Stay away from the neighborhood dogs. And don't go visit the zoo. What the hell are you going to eat?"

Because I honestly wanted to know. We were in partial desert, partial forest.

He shrugged. "Maybe mule deer. Rabbit. There's no wolves down here." And he looked upset about that.

"You're an asshole."

He laughed quietly while he wavered on his feet a little bit more, while motioning with his head towards the door. "I'll be back."

"Alright, see ya."

He smiled like that cat again. "Yeah. I'll be back before you leave."

I watched him walk towards the alcove and the door, that we reattached earlier that day. Something was up but I wasn't going to question it.

The next hour and forty minutes were spent in a daze. It was all so strange, being in that house, and the silence after he left was intimidating.

No voices, no people. No nothing, except for the quick downpour that settled into a steady sprinkle. The only comfort I could find was the slight smell of wet earth, seeping in from outside.

I ended up walking over to the living room, finding a tv remote on a table, and turning on the TV just for some noise; while I cooked up three grilled cheese sandwiches, and a sauce pan full of soup.

I watched Law and Order while I ate in a wearing down, brown rocker recliner. I did my dishes because my mother wasn't there, and I cleaned up my mess.

Whether I was just in a deep daze or had fallen asleep was something I could not be sure of. But whatever it was, it was broken by the heavy pounding of fist knocking at the door.

"Hello!"

Another pound.

"Hello!"

I glanced at the clock. It was ten twenty-seven. Maybe twenty-eight.

"Hold on a sec!" I called out to the pounder, and I made my way to the alcove and the door.

On the other side of that door when I opened it was a larger, Latino man, with a buzz cut and mustache. He was sweating like a motherfucker in a blue, oversized t-shirt and looking a little more than aggravated. It had stopped raining, and it was humid as hell.

"You call for a taxi?"

"Yeah, yeah. That's me. Can you give me a minute?"

"Yes, I'll be in the car." He motioned with his thumb over to the driveway, where there was a taxi sitting behind Peter's truck.

I closed the door and looked around the living room and the kitchen. No one was there. No one I could hear.

"Jasper? Hey Jasper, you here?"

There was no answer.

I contemplated what to do for just about a second, and I walked over to the island where my new cell phone was sitting. I called Jasper's number, but it just rang five times before going over to his voicemail that was not set up yet.

I tried again, while looking at my suitcase and backpack. Still no answer.

I had a bus to catch, but I worried for a few seconds about why he wasn't answering his phone. I thought about maybe going to look for him, but it would most likely mean missing the bus, even if I could scent the bastard pretty quick.

But Jasper was a guy that could take care of himself. And maybe he was having a hard time finding something to slaughter. Maybe he had to travel farther out for game. I didn't know.

Maybe he was a son of a bitch that didn't want to get wrapped up in another goodbye.

I stood there looking at my suitcases for a good minute, trying to decide what to do.

A part of me wanted to stay. Stay there in Santa Fe, but the only reason was because I didn't want to go home to face my mother and Charlie's wrath, after I told them about my fantastic trip. After I told Charlie his daughter was now a vampire.

And that wasn't even the worst part.

Bella and Peter weren't coming back, and the reality was, it was no place for the likes of me.

I pocketed my phone, grabbed my wallet off the island, and the envelope that would help put me on the path to my future. I put it in my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, picking up my suitcase.

I took one more look around the house, before I walked out the door.

I was riding in that cab when I started to solidify my future, and it really hadn't changed all that much from what I had decided before. I was just going to move up the time.

I would go home and tell Mom, Charlie, and Leah everything. I would tell them exactly why I had made the choices I made, I would tell them I couldn't be a great protector of just my people. I was a protector of all good things.

I was still a wolf, but I wouldn't be the same anymore. I would just go out into the world and do what I thought was best for myself, and for my family.

I would give Leah some of the money, so she could get only the best for that baby. I'd go to La Push and tell Jake everything too, face to face.

I was a lone wolf, and it really wasn't going to be so bad.

I'd visit my father's grave and put flowers on it. I'd talk to him like he was still around, because he was.

I'd say goodbye.

I'd leave for Boulder after a week. Maybe sooner, if things didn't go well with Charlie.

I'd go home and visit for the holidays, I would work my ass off through college. I'd get a part-time job, and a sweet ass place to stay.

I would hope to talk to Bella and Peter sometime. I'd call Jasper just to make sure he wasn't sucking down dogs or giving old ladies orgasms, just so his wife could steal their rides.

The local Greyhound stop was just south of Santa Fe. It was a fifteen-minute drive from Peter's house and next to a huge subdivision. There was a Texaco sitting across from it and a local pizza joint.

With just a little less than forty-five minutes to spare, I went to the Texaco first, and loaded up on some snacks, a big bottle of water, and one of those super-size cups full of Coke. I got a couple of deep-dish slices of pepperoni in a to-go box.

The rain had stopped, but the concrete was still wet, and water dripped from a large overhead awning. Heat lightning flashed in every direction, and it was still humid as hell.

There were five other people waiting for the bus. There was hardly anyone about on the highway.

The bus had pulled in fifteen minutes before I was scheduled to leave. It had come from Las Cruces and needed to fuel up. Five people were waiting for the all clear to board.

I was sitting there drinking my Coke, not thinking about anything when an obnoxious exhaust and the distinct purr of a 355 V8 came up the road behind and to the side of me.

My head turned automatically, just to see what it belonged to.

The truck sporting that engine was chromed out with custom grille. It sat just a tad low to the ground but not too low. The hood rim had been sanded out making it look smoother, and sweeter.

The bulbous sides held old school rims that were chromed out with white rimming around the lug nuts. The exhaust had been extended, only to give a classic like that a little flair.

I noticed the burgundy paint job was picture perfect, both matte and glossy as it pulled into the bus stop. And the bulbous cab and pickup bed had probably been redone too.

I never really cared for it. I was into Ford. But it was beautiful. It was a monster. So was its occupant.

The trucked pulled into the spot just in front me, its headlights blazing right into my exhausted eyes, and I shielded them, only just to confirm what I already knew.

Jasper was laughing from his spot behind the wheel.

He hit the gas just for effect, and that exhaust's echo rumbled only a little underneath the awning. He turned off the truck and got out.

I relaxed in the bench seat, stretched out my legs and crossed my arms over my chest.

It was in that moment that I figured out that I would be the lone wolf, but I would still have friends.

I felt better right away.

"Bella is going to fucking kill you. That's her truck, you know."

He laughed, as he walked up casually, and took a seat beside me, stretching out his legs, and crossing his arms.

"Yeah, she might try. I'm looking forward to it. Besides, Peter told me to take care of her. He said she's his."

"Did you know Peter broke the fucker when she got down here? He shredded the clutch and the tranny. She said it was hers."

Jasper smiled. "Alice said she thought he had. Either way, she can't stay here no more."

"Yeah, that's true."

Jasper and his fucking grin lead me into my next question. Though I did notice his eyes were a nice shade of butterscotch.

"I thought you bailed on me. Didn't want to say goodbye or some shit like that. What are you doing here, vampire?"

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at the truck, or beyond it.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back to the house. I needed a few minutes alone. You needed it too. I know it wasn't goodbye forever, but it was a goodbye just the same. Things are changing, things have changed. It's both good and bad."

We were both pretty much feeling the same goddamn things. I took comfort in that. I didn't like feeling like such a pussy.

It wasn't just about simple life choices, or simple feelings, we had both been exposed to something so wonderful and tragic that it would affect us for the rest of our lives.

"Yeah, you're right. It has. It will."

I could see him turn his head towards me, I was also looking at the truck, and looking beyond it.

"What happens to you now, wolf?" He asked me softly.

I laughed silently. He wasn't calling me dog anymore, and I wasn't calling him bloodsucker.

I was sure that I still would, only when he'd say or do something stupid. And I was sure he'd do the same.

"Well, I get on this bus and I go home, and I tell Charlie, my mom, and my sister everything. I'm going to tell Jake everything, too. Then I buy a nice truck, I pack my shit, and I move to Boulder." I told him with nothing but finality. He didn't need the finer details.

He smiled at me, but you could see the question in his eyes, and something else too.

"Why Boulder?"

"It was in my master plan to begin with. I got a scholarship for the University of Colorado. I want to go into conservation someday. I'm hoping I can get accepted into Montana's Canis Lupis program after I get my bachelor's. But I don't know. Maybe I might do something different. Maybe I'll minor in spiritualism and become a goddamn priest."

Jasper doubled over in laughter for a moment, before he stretched his legs back out again.

"I'm pretty confident that's not going to work out too well for you," he told me.

"You don't think so?" I asked him, I was laughing a little bit too.

I wasn't being serious. Though I probably would give God just a little bit more attention in the future.

Jasper was still laughing quietly, and he took a moment to answer. There was just something in his eyes, and I wasn't imagining it.

"No. Don't think so. It is interesting, though, about your plan to go into conservation." He said, wondering.

"Why's that?"

"Well, because Alice and I started buying up land a couple years back. Large but still small parcels, compared to available sustainable land mass, I guess you could say. Carlisle and I have started to help fund nature preserves. Deforestation and the culling of some animal and plant species is getting out of control." He told me.

He knew what he was talking about.

"You're right. In a couple hundred more years, you guys could run out of food, and so could the rest of humanity. The world's lost more than fifty percent of its animal population since 1970," I told him.

"If the population keeps expanding like it has been, maybe less than that," he added.

But Jasper also paused, because he seemed a little surprised at my response.

I had done the research and the work in high school. I had kept my grades perfect. Which was why I had won a scholarship in the first place.

"But do you know what else is so interesting about that?" Jasper asked.

"What?"

He sighed, and took just a moment, to think.

"Well, it just so happens that last year-about this time, Alice and I purchased a nice hunk of land and had a house built in Wheelman. Wheelman's about fifteen minutes from Boulder. Up in the mountains, by a small creek off Boulder Creek. We were going to move there this Fall."

I knew I gave him that 'get the fuck out of here' look, because that's what I ended up saying.

"Get the fuck out of here. No shit?"

Jasper widened his eyes exaggeratedly and nodded his head. "No shit."

"Huh. Isn't that something."

"Yeah, it is."

We were both quiet for a moment, staring ahead at the grille of the truck.

The intercom squelched out over the intercom and echoed underneath that overhead awning.

"Now boarding for Flagstaff, Arizona."

Flagstaff was my first stop. We both spoke at the same time.

"Well, maybe I'll see you and Alice sometime."

"Seth, I had an idea."

I gave him look. "You had an idea?"

A middle-aged woman with a bob haircut wearing a pair of Crocs was walking by us, and Jasper made an inconvenient face as he waited for her to pass.

"Yeah, earlier. And I already talked to Alice. But let me ask you this. How are you planning on telling Charlie about Bella? About his daughter?"

I just looked at him and gave him the only answer I had at that point in time.

"I have no fucking idea. I mean seriously, how the fuck do I actually start that conversation? Do I start with the journal, and, Behold! The Power of God!" I told him, in a God voice.

"Or do I start with 'Charlie, your daughter is dead, but it's all good, she's immortal now. She can't come home to visit right now, she might try to fucking kill you. You know he has lots of guns, right? I could still die."

Jasper was laughing and cringing in pain at the same time.

I kept talking.

"I suppose I'll just tell him what happened when I came down here, and everything else afterwards. But not before I tell him that's she still alive and kicking it. Or killing it. I don't fucking know."

I sighed out while still kind of laughing, because Jasper's humor my situation was a bit contagious.

I was severely fucked, and he knew it.

"So, what do you mean you had an idea and you already talked to Alice?" I asked him, just as the overhead squelched again.

"Your attention please, the bus for Flagstaff is leaving in five minutes."

He turned serious in an instant and looked at me with some damn extensive conviction.

"You're not getting on that bus, Seth. You're getting in that truck with me, and I'm taking you home. You're not going to shoulder that burden on your own. Your shoulders have been through enough shit already. And both Alice and I think things will go better if we're with you."

He had a point. My shoulders still ached. And while I had not expected that, I felt the greatest relief.

I knew what my answer was right away, but he kept talking.

"And you know, after that, you should come back to Ontario with us for the rest of the Summer. It's beautiful up there. Plenty to see and do. We can head down to Boulder early enough for you to get all your school shit worked out."

That I was not expecting.

"Are you serious?"

He just looked at me like he was. I took a moment to think about that.

"I've got to find a place to live. That's why I was going down early. That and to get a job."

He glowered at me. "Then get a job. You'll have a place to live with plenty of room and plenty of privacy to lick your balls when you feel the need to phase. And if you decide after the fact that you can't stand living with us, we'll help you find a place. I don't think your completely grasping the reality of your situation."

I was going elbow the bloodsucker after the ball-licking comment, but I let it slide. I didn't know what he meant with that last part.

"What is the reality of my situation?"

He shrugged. "You're kind of family now. Maybe not by blood or species, but family nonetheless. We've witnessed and have been a part of something miraculous."

Jasper sighed, he was troubled.

"There were reasons we were all brought together, and we might discover more. It could be for the best, but it could also be for the worst. Either way, I don't think any of us should be alone for it. If there is more."

"Yeah, but you're talking about life. You're talking about living and where it takes us. Everybody's got to live with the good and the bad," I told him.

Jasper grinned.

"Yeah, but it can be so much better to have some friends around. Or family. However you want to look at it," he said.

"True." I told him.

I sat there thinking. Contemplating, I guess. It would be completely unconventional, it would go against the grain.

But I already had. I already was. Even if I would have gotten on that bus and went with my original plan.

The bus was just to my left side, and the driver was standing on the bottom step looking out, looking at us, and kind of aggravated. Jasper noticed it too.

"So, what do you say? Should we get going?" He asked.

I guess you could call it my Megan Fox moment. I didn't have think long and hard about it at all though.

I was already breaking the ground for the path of my future, the only thing that changed though was that maybe, I wouldn't be completely alone.

"If someone would have told me on the day I left Forks for Santa Fe that I'd end up shacking up with two vegetarian bloodsuckers, I would have told them they were full of shit." I told him while standing up and grabbing my backpack, my Coke, and my pizza.

"If someone would have told me I'd be inviting a mutt who trots like a fucking Shih Tzu and smells like he rolls around in his own dog shit into my home, I would have told them they were full of shit," he told me, while standing up and grabbing my suitcase.

He was still a bloodsucker.

"Motherfucker, you didn't tell me I'd have to run uphill in fucking mud that was two feet deep. That shit sucked me in. I'm still planning on biting you in the ass for that."

He laughed it off quietly while not looking at me, but he also seemed kind of sad. He shook it off though.

"Come on. Get in."

I walked over to the passenger side while he walked over to the drivers' side and slung my suitcase into the bed of the truck. His black duffel, and Peter's Rubbermaid was already strapped in.

I opened the door and slung my backpack over to the middle.

The upholstery had been completely redone with black and cream leather, and the seat cushion was indented so you wouldn't slide around when you turned. The dash was the same glossy and burgundy red on the exterior.

I wormed myself in, stretching my legs out as far as I could over the floorboards. It was going to be one hell of an uncomfortable ride.

That's when I thought about Alice.

"All three of us aren't going to fit in here." I told him as he was getting in and turning over the ignition. The engine purred to life.

He glanced at me as he put in reverse.

"She's going to finish up everything here and fly back to Sea-Tac. She'll meet us at Charlie's. We'll stay at our place in Forks while you take care of everything you need to take care of."

It was strange how it was all worked out. But I didn't give it much thought.

Jasper turned right on the highway and headed towards Albuquerque, and the interstate west.

Alice would stay in Santa Fe just the next day. Just long enough to get Peter and Bella's house fixed and to get all their shit packed and gone. Jasper didn't need to hang around at all because there wasn't a body he could identify.

We would talk for the next three days about things that had happened and things that would happen. We would stop overnight in California and Oregon, so I could sleep in a bed and Jasper could go hunt.

That's when I would really start to have nightmares, about that plane crashing, and paralyzing feelings of falling.

They both would be with me when I had that conversation with Charlie, my Mom, and Leah. Charlie wouldn't take it well at all.

There was denial of course, denial because we had talked about angels, devils, miracles, and the past and future combined. About leaps, falls, and crashes. And everything in-between.

But the denial turned to fear, and a certain kind of acceptance when we let Charlie and Mom read the journal.

Leah didn't need to. She believed. She had seen Peter the day our father died and had thought he was an angel too.

The truck would stay at Charlie's. He had paid for it, fair and square. Bella had disappointed him, but he loved her no matter what. He'd give it back to her someday.

Jake would stay in a state of denial for the rest of his fucking life. Only when God would call him to Heaven would he discover the truth. My bond had been cut, so it wasn't like I could show him.

According to him, I was abandoning my family, my brothers, and the pack. I was abandoning the promise, to keep the tribe safe.

I was banned from the reservation. Ostracized from my heritage. I would never be able to visit my father's grave again.

Which was why I had gone there first. It had been during the ride home to Forks that I had put some thought into how Jake would react. I had made my choices. They were still the right ones.

Bella was not a Cullen. If she or Peter were caught in Forks they would be killed.

Jake broke my left leg, but it was a clean break that healed up in no time. I shattered his right, and he was the one that had to go to the hospital.

Alice had insisted on Jasper showing me a thing or two before I had gone to La Push. She hadn't seen the fight go down, just hints of the potential aftermath. Alice was brilliant.

I went to Ontario, and some other parts of Canada. It was a land so beautiful and peaceful, I almost hadn't wanted to leave.

But that was all in the future.

By the time Jasper hit the border to Arizona, I was out.

I dreamed I was treading in the water, off the cliffs of First Beach. It wasn't as vague as the first dream I had about the girl, but she was there.

Naked and a brunette, her eyes matched the red in her hair. When our eyes met, and she smiled, I floated towards her.

My heart would find her someday.

AN: Yes. There will be an epilogue. I hope. It'll be a doozy. Hopefully I haven't left too much unanswered. But when it comes to the girl in Seth's dreams, no comment.