~~ EPILOGUE ~~

"Dr. Cullen? Dr. Cullen?"

The mildly impatient female voice was distant at first and then became clearer as I shook myself out of my thick haze of memories and looked up.

"Yes, Dr. May?"

"Your sister is on line two." She smiled at my temporary loss of composure and winked at me.

I was midway through my shift at the hospital and had merely gotten lost in my mind as I stared at all of the patient monitors on the large touch-screen wall behind the nurse's station which served as a partition between the desk and the dictation cubicles. The wall had shifting windows of information that changed every second, informing the staff of the progress of the patients in the ICU.

"Thanks, Patricia." I smiled back, and then slid my chair over to the dictation area and tapped the nearest private communication monitor. "Hi, Alice."

Alice's pixie face grinned at me from the monitor, but her bubbly voice echoed only in my earpiece.

"Bella, another visitor will be arriving tonight from Volterra on the intercontinental jet."

My eyes narrowed slightly. "Does Aro know?"

Alice nodded. "Yes. Apparently he was also a messenger for the Volturi and simply decided not to return from his last assignment. Eleazar knows him and he and Carmen both vouched for him. Apparently, Esme knows him too."

"Is she going to be there when he arrives?" I asked.

"Yes, she is here now."

I glanced at the clock in the corner of the monitor. Fortunately, Edward's last solo practice session for the Saturday performance coincided with my rounds.

"We'll be home in two hours," I said.

"I know." Alice laughed and the monitor switched off.

Another visitor. This was the fourth from Volterra. The shift in the balance of power had begun. Zivon had implied that there would be an exodus but none of us really expected it to happen. Aro, however, was not hurting for recruits. He was actually adding to his numbers each year.

Volterra was bustling, but Eleazar and Carmen were even busier. Kate and Garrett were being run off their feet, Tanya and Zivon were planning to build a guesthouse like ours, and Esme was continent hopping to keep up with everything that was happening. She split her time between Spain and North America mostly. Edward and I held down the fort in Forks.

We had to remind Emmett occasionally that this was not a competition and our contact with Volterra was relatively open even if it was infrequent. We had only had one contact from Aro personally since Carlisle's death: an extravagant funeral wreath to be floated in the river behind our house where Edward scattered half of his remains.

We had a public funeral at the house. Carlisle's death shook the human, werewolf, and vampire world. Guests included his most recent medical school classmates and colleagues, vampires from around the world, all of the Quileute tribe elders and the werewolves, and a significant portion of the Forks community. The entire backyard of the house was filled and it was standing room only all the way down to the river.

Then the entire immediate family made their way to Denali and we had a private funeral. Esme scattered the other half of Carlisle's remains in Mirror Lake where they were married. We all stayed with Tanya and Zivon for several weeks after that and leaned on each other for support.

Carlisle's last will and testament included a large donation to refurbish the Forks Hospital, which had needed some renovations due to advances in the latter half of the 21st century. The new wing, which included an expanded ICU and an updated Emergency Department, opened just before what would have been Carlisle's 472nd birthday. I walked through the halls of Cullen Memorial Hospital to my last rounds before my shift ended.

When I entered the next patient's room I had to glance twice at the name. It was a young girl named Angela Johnson. I looked down at her and she had the same slim build and long dark hair as my old friend from high school.

"Miss Johnson? Where are your parents?" I said with concern looking down at the small, fifteen year-old.

She stared at me for a moment as she took in my magnetic vampire appearance, and then shrugged weakly.

"We just moved back here and dad had to go open the house for the moving van, and mom is in the cafeteria."

I nodded and looked at her chart. "Well, I think you're recovering from the appendectomy very well, so we'll move you out of the ICU today, and hopefully get you home soon. I bet you're sick of this place anyway, huh?"

She continued to look at me with awe, but then gave me a tiny smile and I smiled back at her.

"Can you tell your mother to call me if she has any questions?"

She nodded. I put a hand gently on her shoulder and she flinched.

"Wow, your hands are cold! I can feel it through my gown!"

I smiled knowingly. "Hospitals are always cold." I winked at her and she laughed uncertainly, and then I left.

I continued reporting and giving orders at each bedside without needing much forethought. The team following me took many notes. If only vampire medicine were so comfortably routine, I mused.

Renesmee and I were the only two who had pursued medicine, and we continued our work on expanding Carlisle's book of knowledge on vampire physiology. With our growing network of friends around the world we gathered everything from folk healing from the nomads to controlled scientific data from others working at the research centers in Egypt and Brazil.

Renesmee broadened her interests as she spent more time with the pack. She took a break from neurobiology and was currently working as a large-animal veterinarian. Renesmee and Jacob also maintained the treaty with the werewolf pack and were present on every conference call between our friends and representatives around the world. Jacob had started a search for other shape-shifters, and was trying to find any surviving Children of the Moon.

After I finished my rounds I changed and walked out to the parking garage as I checked my messages. I looked up to see my husband slyly leaning against the car watching me walk toward him. Edward had even more practice in medicine than I did from his education before I was born, but Esme encouraged him to continue to pursue his passion for music until he was healed from Carlisle's death.

I smiled when his lips turned up into a half grin and I slid the thin touchpad that was full of test results into my white coat. He leaned down for a tender kiss and then rested his forehead against mine and smiled.

I opened my mind to him. You feel calm today. It must have been a good final rehearsal.

Edward chuckled. "You are what calms me… and makes me crazy." He leaned in for another kiss and slid his hands down to the small of my back. I deepened the kiss, but then reluctantly pulled away.

"Let's continue this at home, shall we?" I lifted a brow and then kissed him lightly one more time.

Edward smirked again and then cleared his throat as he returned to business. He opened my door for me and I stepped into the car as he started relating random news.

"Emmett and Rosalie want me to help coach the disabled kid's league tomorrow, so I may not be able to pick you up."

I grinned. "Fine, then I get the Aston Martin."

Edward growled and slammed my door, then reappeared on the other side and slid into the driver's seat.

"Hmm, you are renegotiating. Fine, then I get Emmett on my team at our next vampire baseball game."

I gasped with shock. "But we are playing the Tokyo league in the next tournament! No way!"

Edward shrugged and tossed up his hands. "Then you get the other car, sorry." The "other" car was a brand new silver Volvo.

I stuck my tongue out at him. I was going to tell Emmett he was mine for the tournament anyway, so decided to let Edward think he'd won and I dropped the topic.

"Did Alice call you?"

Edward nodded and started the car. "I'm glad that our most recent guests left, I would like to have a chance to talk privately with our new visitor about what's happening inside Volterra right now. I really want to know what Caius is doing these days."

I frowned. "Eleazar has not been concerned about it, I don't think you should be, either."

Edward's brows came together. "I know, it's just, I was thinking about something Carlisle told me before he died about his last conversation with Alistair. He believed that if Didyme had succeeded in changing the Volturi before she was killed, that Caius would have eventually left because he would not change. And then Aro said in his thoughts that Caius had always resisted the effects of Carlisle's power, but Carlisle had no idea how successful Caius was at that resistance. So, I just want to hear from someone who has seen him recently, what is he up to right now?"

My frown deepened. I had always assumed that Aro would keep Caius in check. From the outside Volterra seemed as formidable as ever, but they had been relatively quiet, and they were gathering more vampires recently…

The phone rang in the speakers of the car and I tapped the view screen. Renesmee's chocolate eyes filled the monitor and I smiled.

"Auntie Alice wants you to know that she has already claimed Emmett for her team in the next tournament," Renesmee giggled.

Edward growled. "And she sent you as the messenger because she knew I would not be able to resist you!"

Emmett walked by behind Renesmee and leaned down to grin into the camera.

"Sorry guys, she's blackmailing me!" His booming laugh echoed in the room as he walked away.

"And Esme says that she will need you and Jasper to help with our new visitor," Renesmee said to Edward. Esme, Jasper and Alice had taken on the hard work of rehabilitating vampires who had been scarred emotionally by their centuries of torment.

Edward nodded. "Of course. See you soon honey, I want to hear about your new horse breeding project tonight after we meet the new visitor."

Renesmee smiled again, "Oh he's here! See you in a few minutes."

"Nessie, we need to talk about the new information we got from Egypt, too honey."

Renesmee's smile faded. "OK, mom. Bye."

Edward shifted slightly, and his smile was gone. He knew that only one kind of research was going on in Egypt: the project exploring the degenerative condition that killed Carlisle. It was one of the studies that Esme was funding personally. Edward was silent for the remainder of the drive.

We pulled into the lower level garage holding fourteen of the family vehicles. Edward turned off the car, looked upward toward the main level of the house and smiled.

"Jasper is 'welcoming' our guest."

Jasper was conscientious in his role in family security. Emmett and I were also on security detail as we were needed. My shield continued to grow in strength and it constantly surrounded those I loved.

I could see Edward struggling again with his grief, and I could see the weight of his responsibility on his shoulders as he stared straight ahead and made no move to leave the car. I reached for his hand.

"He would be proud of you," I said quietly.

Edward turned toward me and sighed. "I was angry for a long time. And then I was ashamed of my anger because in the end I was really still angry with God, not Carlisle."

Edward sighed and shook his head. I already knew most of what he was telling me, but he still needed to say it.

"I know why he didn't tell us until the end. And he was right, damn him, he always was right," Edward smiled, and a corner of my mouth turned upward.

"He already knew that I would have this problem with God, because he knew me too well. We'd had ongoing theological arguments over the centuries. Some of his last messages to me were to help me with my spiritual problems. His final reflections weren't for himself, they were all to help us." Edward's voice broke and he took a moment to compose himself, then he looked back into my eyes.

"He told me in his thoughts that he had come to believe this – telling vampires about how they can reclaim their humanity – was the reason he was changed. He found peace as a healer for humans, and his gift has changed the connection between humans and vampires forever; but he felt that God's purpose for him was… to bring hope to vampires." Edward's eyes were so liquid gold it was easy to imagine they were full of tears. "And I believe him."

I stared at my husband for a moment because his face was truly peaceful for the first time since Carlisle passed. Then I smiled at Edward as my throat closed up, and squeezed his hand. Long ago, when I was a teenager at Forks High School, I thought we'd all be together, forever. And Carlisle was still with us.

"Let's go meet our visitor." I said with a smile.

We got out of the car and Renesmee opened the door to the garage and ran down the steps into Edward's arms. He sighed and he hugged her a little longer than ususal.

She looked up at her father with a perplexed expression. "What's wrong, Dad?"

Edward shrugged and he smiled at her. "We were just… talking about Grandpa again."

She smiled sadly up at him and put her hand on his face. Edward closed his eyes as he watched the images she sent him. Then, he looked down at our daughter.

"Carlisle was right, Nessie. You do have my mother's face." He hugged her close again. "Thank you."

I walked over to them and kissed them both on the cheek. "Where is Jacob?"

Renesmee pointed up toward the main level. "Waiting to talk to our visitor. He wants to ask him about rumors of the Children of the Moon migrating to China."

Edward turned his mind back to the people up on the main level and his brow creased slightly. Without a word he headed up the stairs. I shrugged at Renesmee and we followed him.

When we arrived in the foyer we saw that the former member of the Guard had long blonde hair past his shoulders and chiseled features that made him appear to have been cut from limestone. He was holding Esme's tiny pale hand and was just lowering it from his lips where he had deposited a gentle kiss a moment before we arrived. Edward's shoulders were tense and he glared at Alice who was smiling smugly.

Esme took the vampire's hand and walked over to Edward.

"Edward, this is a good friend I met when I was visiting Carmen and Eleazar. Etienne, this is Carlisle's son."

I smiled to myself as Edward forced himself to relax, and he shook Etienne's hand.

Etienne smiled at all of us and spoke with a thick French accent.

"It is an honor to properly meet the Cullen family."