Cullen Meeting

 Edward sat on Carlisle's right, and I sat next to Edward. As everyone else sat, I could see the lines forming.

 Rosalie sat directly opposite Carlisle, at the other end of the long table. Emmett sitting next to her, his eyes and thoughts wry. He would never go expressly against Rosalie; he would instead bargain and smooth-talk his way with her when they were at odds.

 Rosalie glared at Edward, never looking away.

 Alice and Jasper came in last and sat beside Esme. Alice rubbed her forehead as if she were suffering from a headache. Jasper placed his hand on her shoulder in comfort as he looked on worriedly.

 Edward took a deep breath and started off, "I'm sorry." He looked first at Rose, then Jasper and Alice, then lastly at Emmett. "I didn't mean to put any of you at risk. It was thoughtless, and I take full responsibility for my actions."

 Rosalie looked at Edward hostilely. "What do you mean 'Take full responsibility'? Are you going to fix it?"

 When I saw what she meant by fixing it, I let out a hiss of rage and glared at Rosalie. Her thoughts of killing Thomas and Bella enraged me beyond belief.

 Edward put a calming hand on my shoulder, one strong enough to keep me in place. As Rosalie looked at me in surprise. Unsure where my sudden hostility came from.

 He turned his eyes from me back to Rosalie. "Not in the way you mean." he said. I could tell he was struggling to keep his voice even. "I will leave now and stay away until they are gone."

 Esme reached over and grabbed Edward's hand, "No stay, please."

 "It will just be a few years." Edward comforted his mother.

 "Esme's right though," Emmett said. "You can't go anywhere right now. That would be the opposite of helpful. We must know what people are thinking more now than ever."

 "Alice and Edythe can catch anything major coming." Edward disagreed.

 Carlisle shook his head, "I think Emmett is right, Edward. They will be more likely to talk if you disappear. It's all of us leave, or none of us."

 "I think you all are trying to ride in the carriage before hooking up the horse," Jasper said. "Thomas's act, foolish as it was, most likely deflected any interest in how Edward arrived next to Miss. Bella."

 "All anyone at school talked about was him tackling a Van to save his sister. Many stories didn't even have Edward in it."

 Edward lifted his hand and brushed it through his hair. "Jasper is right, Bella's brother Thomas proved an excellent distraction from my actions. Besides, I do not believe Bella will talk about what she saw me do anyway."

"You don't know their minds," Carlisle pointed out.

 "I know this much. Alice, back me up."

 Alice stared up at me wearily. "I can't see what will happen if we just ignore this." She glanced at Rose.

No, she couldn't see that future, not when Rosalie was so decided against ignoring the incident.

 Rosalie's palm smacked down on the table with a loud bang. "We can't allow the human a chance to say anything. Carlisle, you must see that. Even if we decided to all disappear, it's not safe to leave stories behind us. We live so differently from the rest of our kind-you know there are those who would love an excuse to point fingers. We have to be more careful than anyone else!"

 "We've left rumors behind us before."

 "Just rumors and suspicions, Edward. Not eyewitnesses and evidence!"

 "Evidence!" I scoffed.

 "Rosalie, I looked the other way in Rochester because I felt that you were owed your justice. The men you killed had wronged you monstrously. This is not the same situation. The Swan girl is innocent, and Thomas was willing to sacrifice himself to save your brother." Carlisle said.

 "It's not personal, Carlisle," Rosalie said through her teeth. "It's to protect us all."

 There was a moment of silence while Carlisle thought through his answer. When he nodded, Rosalie's eyes lit up. She should have known better. Even if I hadn't been able to read his thoughts, I could have anticipated his next words. Carlisle never compromised.

 "I know you mean well, Rosalie, but...I'd like very much for our family to be worth protecting. The occasional...accident or lapse in control is a regrettable part of who we are." It was very like him to include himself in the plural, though he had never had such a lapse himself.

 "To murder blameless children in cold blood is another thing entirely. I believe the risk they present, whether speaking their suspicions or not, is nothing to the greater risk. If we make exceptions to protect ourselves, we risk something much more important. We risk losing the essence of who we are."

 Rosalie scowled. "It's just being responsible."

 "It's being callous," Carlisle corrected gently. "Every life is precious." Rosalie sighed heavily and her lower lip pouted out.

 Emmett patted her shoulder. "It'll be fine, Rose," he encouraged in a low voice.

 "The question," Carlisle continued, "is whether we should move on?"

 "No," Rosalie moaned. "We just got settled. I don't want to start my sophomore year in high school again!"

"You could keep your present age, of course," Carlisle said.

"And have to move again that much sooner?" she countered.

Carlisle shrugged.

"I like it here! There's so little sun, we get to be almost normal."

"Well, we certainly don't have to decide now. We can wait and see if it becomes necessary. Edward seems certain of the Swan girl's silence, and Thomas seems to follow her lead." Carlisle bargained.

 Rosalie snorted. But despite that, she had given in.

 Suddenly Alice gasped, "Oh!!"

 Edward saw what was on her mind, and his mouth fell open with an audible gasp. I then looked into Alice's mind, and I was shocked, only vaguely aware that everyone besides Alice and Jasper was now eyeing me and Edward warily.

 It was clear as glass in her head: Alice, smiling, with her icy white arm around the girl's warm, fragile waist. And Bella was smiling, too, her arm around Alice's cold shoulders.

 The vision was rock solid; only the timing of it was unsure.

"But...Alice..." Edward gasped. I couldn't manage to turn my head to see his expression. I couldn't tear myself away from the image in Alice's head in order to hear his question.

"I'm going to love her someday," Alice said

I was still locked into Alice's thoughts. Where was Thomas in this vision?

"Ah," Alice sighed, their decision to let Bella live had cleared a new future. "See? Bella's not going to say anything. There's nothing to worry about with her."

The way she said the girl's name...like they were already close confidants...

"Alice," Edward choked. "What...does this...?"

"I told you there was a change coming. I don't know everything, Edward." But she locked her jaw, and I could see that there was more, Edward apparently saw the same. She was trying not to think about it; she was focusing very hard on Jasper suddenly. She did this sometimes when she was trying to keep something from us.

"What, Alice? What are you hiding?" Edward asked, no demanded.

I heard Emmett grumble. He always got frustrated when Alice and Edward had these kinds of conversations.

She shook her head, trying to not let us in.

"Is it about the girl?" I demanded. "Is it about Bella? Or is it about Thomas?"

She had her teeth gritted in concentration, but when I spoke Bella's name, she slipped. Her slip only lasted the tiniest portion of a second, but that was long enough.

"NO!" Edward shouted. I heard his chair hit the floor, and only then realized he was on his feet.

"Edward!" Carlisle was on his feet, too, his arm on his shoulder. Edward seemed barely aware of him.

"It's solidifying," Alice whispered. "Every minute you're more decided. There are only two ways left for her. It's one or the other, Edward."

Edward could see what she saw...but he could not accept it.

"No," Edward said again; there was no volume to his denial. He braced himself

against the table.

"Will somebody please let the rest of us in on the mystery?" Emmett complained.

"I have to leave," Edward whispered to Alice, ignoring him.

"Edward, we've already been over that," Emmett said loudly. "That's the best way to start the girl talking. Besides, if you take off, we won't know for sure if she's talking or not. Edythe can only read one mind at a time, you have to stay and deal with this."

 "I don't see you going anywhere, Edward," Alice told me. "I don't know if you can leave anymore." Think about it, she added silently. Think about leaving.

 I saw what she meant. Yes, the idea of never seeing the girl again was...painful for Edward. But he saw it as necessary. He couldn't sanction either future he had apparently condemned her to.

 I love her, too. Or I will. It's not the same, but I want her around for that.

 "Love her, too?" He whispered, incredulous.

 She sighed. You are so blind, Edward. Can't you see where you're headed? Can't you see where you already are? It's more inevitable than the sun rising in the east. See what I see...

Edward shook his head, a horrified look on his face. "No." He tried to shut out the visions she revealed to both him and I. "I don't have to follow that course. I'll leave. I will change the future."

"You can try," she said, her voice skeptical.

"Oh, come on!" Emmett bellowed.

"Pay attention," Rose hissed at him. "Alice sees him falling for a human! How classically Edward!" She made a gagging sound.

I scarcely heard her. What would this future bring to Thomas?

"What?" Emmett said, startled. Then his booming laugh echoed through the room. "Is that what's been going on?" He laughed again. "Tough break, Edward."

 "Fall for a human?" Esme repeated in a stunned voice. "For the girl he saved today. Fall in love with her? Now all my children have someone?"

 What did she mean by that? Wasn't I one of her children, because I'm not in love with anyone?

 "What do you see, Alice? Exactly," Jasper asked softly.

 She turned toward him; I continued to stare numbly at the side of her face. "It all depends on whether he is strong enough or not. Either he'll kill her himself" -she turned to meet Edward's gaze again, he was glaring at her. As if she made the visions possible.

 "Which would really irritate me Edward, not to mention what it would do to you and Thomas." she faced Jasper again, "Or she'll be one of us someday."

 Someone gasped; I didn't look to see who.

"That's not going to happen!" Edward was shouting again. "Either one!"

 Alice didn't seem to hear him. "It all depends," she repeated. "He may be just strong enough not to kill her, but it will be close. It will take an amazing amount of control," she mused. "More even than Carlisle has. He may be just strong enough... The only thing he's not strong enough to do is stay away from her. That's a lost cause."

 I couldn't find my voice. No one else seemed to be able to either. The room was still. I stared at Alice, and everyone else stared at Edward.

 After a long moment, Carlisle sighed. "Well, this...complicates things."

 "I'll say," Emmett agreed. His voice was still close to laughter. Trust Emmett to find the joke in the destruction of Edward's life.

"I suppose the plans remain the same, though," Carlisle said thoughtfully. "We'll stay, and watch. Obviously, no one will...hurt the girl or her brother."

 I stiffened.

 "No!" Edward's voice was not a shout or a growl or a cry of despair, but some combination of the three. "No!"

 Edward's mind was in a panic, he wanted to leave, to be away from the noise of their thoughts, Rosalie's self-righteous disgust, Emmett's humor, Carlisle's never-ending patience...

Worse: Alice's confidence. Jasper's confidence in that confidence.

Worst of all: Esme's... joy.

Edward stalked out of the room. Esme touched his arm as he passed, but he didn't acknowledge the gesture.

He was running before he was out of the house. Clearing the river in one bound and racing off into the forest.

-(Edward POV)-

 The rain was back again, falling so heavily that I was drenched in a few moments. I liked the thick sheet of water, it made a wall between me and the rest of the world. It closed me in, let me be alone.

 I ran due east, over and through the mountains without breaking my straight course, until I could see the lights of Seattle on the other side of the Sound mountains. Stopping before I touched the borders of human civilization.

Shut in by the rain, all alone, I finally made myself look at what I had done. At the way I had mutilated the future of that poor girl.

 First, the vision of Alice and the girl with their arms around each other, the trust and friendship was so obvious, it shouted from the image. Bella's wide chocolate eyes were not bewildered in this vision, but still full of secrets, in this moment, they seemed to be happy secrets. She did not flinch away from Alice's cold arm.

What did it mean? How much did she know? In that frozen moment from the future, what did she think of me?

Then the other image, so much the same, yet now colored by horror. Alice and Bella, their arms still wrapped around each other in trusting friendship. But now there was no difference between those arms, both were white, smooth as marble, hard as steel.

Bella's wide eyes were no longer chocolate. The irises were a shocking, vivid crimson.

The secrets in them were unfathomable, acceptance or desolation? It was impossible to tell. Her face was cold and immortal.

He shuddered. He could not suppress the questions these visions brought, similar, but different: What did it mean, how had this come about? And what did she think of me now?

Edward felt he could answer that last one. If he forced her into this empty half-life through his weakness and selfishness, surely Bella would hate him.

But there was one more horrifying image-worse than any image I had ever held inside my head. My own eyes, deep crimson with human blood, the eyes of the monster. Bella's broken body in my arms, ashy white, drained, lifeless. It was so concrete, so clear.

I couldn't stand to see this. Could not bear it. I tried to banish it from my mind, tried to see something else, anything else. I tried to see again the expression on her living face that had obstructed my view of the last two weeks of my existence. All to no avail.

Alice's bleak vision filled my head, and I writhed internally with the agony it caused. Meanwhile, the monster inside me was overflowing with glee, jubilant at the likelihood of his success. It sickened me.