I Believe- Carlisle Cullen Twilight fanfic

Alistair Leaves, Christmas Comes, and We Throw the Biggest Party Ever

I was more than ready for Christmas. Christmas had always been my favorite holiday, even as a kid. And I loved it all the more that it would be my kids first Christmas. My first Christmas that I would get to spend with Carlisle.

But of course, there were a few things that would come along with that.

The first was that after Bella came back from taking Renesmee to Charlie's, she came back looking disoriented.

No one else seemed to notice. Edward was to busy talking to Renesmee in his arms. Carlisle was sitting on the couch, wearing a hoodie again as he talked to Eleazar, perched on the arm of the sofa. Garrett and Kate were in the background, talking in a corner. Marcel and I were talking strategy in another corner, Emmett listening in, but not contributing.

As Bella left the room I waited a few minutes before making an excuse to go and check on my kids, finding Bella in an almost empty room.

She was sitting at the loveseat, writing hurriedly on a piece of stationary. A manila envelope was by her side. I realized I probably shouldn't be seeing this, something that she wanted to hide from Aro, and even knowing that she wanted to hide it from Aro was dangerous for me to know.

I quickly darted back out of the hallway, nearly bumping into Alistair, who I realized had also seen Bella writing at the table.

Alistair remained leaning against the wall as Bella continued to write, watching her. I lingered in the hallway to overhear.

"It's a romantic notion, isn't it? That a right just few can defy a great evil." Alistair spoke. "I must admit you. . . even had me believing. . . for a moment. Well, good luck. You gonna need it." I heard him set something down, a clink of metal on metal and then he said, "Cheers."

He walked out of the hallway, giving me a glance over as he stopped walking to stand in front of me. "You ought to get out too it looks like. I care about Carlisle a lot. Take him and your kids and get out."

And with that, he was gone.

I closed my eyes, feeling a faint pressure of annoyance. Why hadn't Bella done the letter in her bedroom? Somewhere private? Why out in the open where anyone could've come along and seen that she had given up hope?

I went upstairs to the kids room, watching them all sleep. I counted mentally in my head.

Marcel, Esme, Carlisle, Emmett, Bella, Edward, Bree, myself.

Because of all of the new vampires had come in we now had sixteen werewolves.

Zafrina and Senna.

Eleazar, Carmen, Kate, Tanya.

Amun, Kebi, Benjamin, and Tia. But if it came to a fight, Amun and Kebi would not.

Maggie, Siobhan, Liam.

Stefan and Vladimir.

Garrett, Mary, Peter, Charlotte, Randall, Charles, Makenna, and Toshiro.

We had forty-five fighters. Forty-seven witnesses. Surely we could make a stand against the Volturi?

There were only fifteen of them. Three of them including Caius, Aro, and Marcus. I couldn't imagine Marcus or Aro getting involved in a fight. Uncaring Marcus. Wacky Aro.

I knew that Alec would be more dangerous than Jane. Jane could only target one person with immense pain. Alec would incapacitate us all.

Then there was Felix and Santiago, both of them splendid fighters.

And then Demetri. I knew he would fight on the Volturi side, but did I have to worry about him attacking me?

Of course, there was also the witnesses. Exactly how many vampire witnesses would they be able to find? And how many others had they killed because they hadn't come to us in time? If only Alice and Jasper hadn't stolen Kachiri away from Zafrina and Senna. An extra hand would be helpful. Not to mention Jasper being an excellent fighter.