Post # 100

So I'm doing a little dance because I'm actually up to post 100...

Now then, that is out of the way.

Below is a short lost moment from Archie's POV. This is something I swore I'd never do, simply because he knows too much, but this small scene allows you to have a tiny look into Archie's thought process and desperation as he realizes he messed up. 

A Death and Rebirth Lost Moment - Archie's Arrival

I was going to be too late to save Beau and I knew it, but I had to try because he was my brother, because I loved him, and because he was Edythe's mate. 

I'd stayed away, even after I realized our leaving was having lasting consequences for Beau, even after I'd watched him almost kill a camper and later a sales clerk in Seattle - in all honesty, I wouldn't have blamed him if the clerk had bit it. I'd watched as Edythe's future became more and more bleak, but still I'd done nothing, because I had known if I'd interceded than everything we'd worked so hard for would be a bust. 

It had to be Beau or Edythe who made the first move and not me. It simply had to be. 

Then I saw Beau's fight with Victor. I saw the pyre. So I'd boarded the next plane after telling Royal to keep his mouth shut until I confirmed everything. The visions had been far too immediate and I knew I was going to be too late, but I still had to try. After all, if Beau died than Edythe would surely follow. Losing even one of them would destroy our family permanently... and I didn't need the crystal ball that was my brain to know if we lost both than it would decimate everything. Earnest, Carine, Eleanor, Royal - they would all die one at a time, either a true death or an emotional one, if such an event occurred. And after they were gone, it would destroy Jessamine and I as well. So I had to try.

But, I was going to be too late.

Even as I got in Carine's Mercedes to drive from the airport to Forks, I could already see my future of looking into the sky and finding the purple billows. I could already see myself finding Beau's letter. I could see the last lines in it clearly stating he wasn't expecting to survive. I pushed the accelerator down even harder, trying to be faster than the future I knew I would find upon my arrival. 

Death and Rebirth Lost Moment

Did you ever what happened when Beau went to Seattle to rent that box for the season for his dad? This is just a little glimpse at what happened while he was in Seattle, but I thought I'd share.

A Trip to Seattle

The woman in front of me, sitting at the desk in the stadium's office, looked down at her paper with a small smile that looked positively patronizing before she looked back up at me.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think you understand how much it costs to rent a luxury box for an entire -"

"I assure that I'm aware of exactly how much it costs," I said, cutting the woman off. In all honesty, if all humans were this derisive to the Cullens then why did they let anyone live? If it weren't for the fact that both Julie and Embrianna would be quite put out if I returned to Forks with red eyes... well, let's just say it was tempting. 

"Then you must be aware that it is out of a -" she looked me up and down as if verifying an assessment she'd made when I first walked up to her "- a child's budget, such as yourself."

Yeah, that killing my first human vibe was getting stronger by the minute. I pulled the check out of my pocket that I'd written that very morning - along with the card I'd stopped at the bank and gotten from a personal banker - because I'd expected this.

"Go ahead and call the number on the card. He'll confirm that the check will most definitely clear my bank account."

She looked down at the check and her eyes widened slightly at the number on the check, before grabbing the phone off the desk and dialing the number on the small business card. 

Rebirth and Affliction Lost Moment

Someone Else's Tale

I groaned softly, the kick to my abdomen a sharp reminder of why I shouldn't be running. But I would die before I let myself be captured... again. 

I'd had plans - before a small chance of fate had allowed me to escape - to kill both myself and my unborn child. 

In spite of my immortal status... it was possible. There were ways for beings such as myself to die. In fact even as I ran with a destination of safety in mind, I was dying. The child I was carrying was killing me. Of course, that was the price for having his child. He was the oldest of our kind, and it was considered an honor to be mated by him, but the truth was that the blood of our species had been diluted over the generations... And I was over thirty generations removed from him.

When I'd gotten pregnant, more than five months ago, I'd known it was a death sentence. But still... for the first couple of months, I'd tried. I'd hunted in a religious way, eating the raw organs that would keep me the most healthy. But then I'd been captured. 

And for over three months I'd been imprisoned. I'd prepared to end my own my life in order to keep them from getting their hands on my child... Then a miracle had happened, there'd been an upset in the castle above the catacombs which I'd been locked in. It had caused the one guarding me to check on what was going on. I'd escaped the instant their heads were turned - and I wouldn't go back, no matter what. 

I ran even harder. If I could just make it to Siberia, I'd be safe. 

Archie's Note to Beau

In Chapter 6 - Friends of Death and Rebirth, Beau found a box that Archie left for him. Included in the box was a whole new identity for Beau, set up under the name of Geoffrey Beau McCarty. 

For the record, Beau's middle name was never mentioned in Stephenie Meyer's Life and Death, but his female counterpart's middle name was after one of her grandparents. I used this basic theme, and decided that Beaufort's middle name was likely Geoffrey, after Charlie's dad. 

As Beaufort was such a recognizable name, Archie had the paperwork with his first and middle name reversed. 

Beau did not go to the bottom of that box when he first found it. There were dozens of documents, pre-made, it included three different college degrees that he could choose from. Archie had tried to plan for every possibility. It wasn't until the two day gap after that, which was between the end of chapter 7 and the start of chapter 8, that Beau realized just how long ago Archie had made these plans. After he discovered that Archie had set up the bank account for him when he was still human, he sought out answers and found the note at the bottom of the box. The note was hand written on a single sheet of notebook paper and was folded into eighths.

At the time he read it, none of it had made any sense to him, so he'd pushed it aside and didn't think about it after he read it. In fact, it wasn't until he was standing in front of Sulpicia that one of the small notations made sense to him. The note then got an official reference in Chapter 22 - Flight.

Below, for your viewing pleasure, is the note that Archie left for him.

_____________________________________________________

Beau,

Yesterday you asked me if I would be honest with you, and I did tell you what you wanted to know with regards to how vampires are made. I have spent the last few hours debating whether to even write this. I don't know how much of this will ever effect you. I don't know if any of it will. I don't know if you'll ever actually get this note. If you'll be a human still or if you'll be a vampire. I don't know why I won't be there to warn you not to do this stuff in person... but for some reason, I don't think I will. That's not a prediction, just a strange feeling. 

I'm sure the following things will mostly seem like gibberish to you. I know they seem that way to me. I know I risk changing the future in irreversible ways by telling you this stuff, but I can't not warn you.  

- Do NOT get on the motorcycle with the chick in the leather jacket.

- Do not marry McKayla.

- Please don't jump off of that cliff.

- Tell your parents that you love them more often than you do.

- Stay in your house during the meteorite shower. Trust me.

- I like the red t-shirt. (I don't know why this is important, it just is).

- Yell at Eleanor for her inappropriateness after your honeymoon, not before 

- Only way we make it out of the castle alive is if you do what the one in black wants

- Avoid the one with purple hair. (... I have no clue).

- Would you just buy the truck already?

- Avoid Detroit.

- Edythe's and your future completely disappears in Russia. Don't go there. 

- Don't get married in January. Any month but January.

- Buy the white cake. (Don't ask me. I'm just the forecaster).

- This should go without saying, but fire and vampire skin don't mix. 

- I also see a lot of snow. (For whatever reason). 

Archie