Catherine (J. Black)

Chapter Four

Rosalie and Catherine walk through the trees, having swapped out the heels for trainers, it's not really needed, they could both hunt in platformed stilettos without trouble but it's in case they cross human, this way they look like joggers. Emmett appears on Rosalie's side and wraps an arm around her as Jasper appears next to Catherine, he takes her hand and smiles, Catherine and Jasper are close, both have a difficulty around human blood, more so than the others. He kisses the back of his hand as they head through the trees.

"So how was New York?" Jasper asks, Rosalie frowns and looks to her sister.

"That's where you went?" she asks, Catherine shrugs.

"I knew you would argue about it but it was alright, I spent some time at the music school......mostly kept to myself" Catherine motions to her eyes. "Took a trip to the Hamptons....had an accident" she shrugs, Jasper squeezes her hand. "Can we just hunt? In silence?" Emmett huffs. "You can do the usual running commentary" She corrects looking to him. "Because you can't help yourself" Jasper chuckles and nudges her shoulder as they then zip at vamp-speed through the forest.

......................

"Catherine, wait!" Jasper snaps as she accidentally crosses the treaty line, and a great big black wolf lunges at her, Catherine screams and stumbles back over the line onto her backside, Rosalie grabs her and pulls her up.

"She didn't know" Rosalie snaps at the wolf.

"What the hell?!" Catherine shouts. "Why didn't one of you warn me?! If I had a heart right about now it would be giving in!" she looks to her sister. "Rose?"

"I thought you'd smell them..."

"Smell what?" Catherine asks. "I don't smell anything different"

"Really?" Emmett asks. "No wet dog smell" Catherine shakes her head.

"Should I?" she asks, the three other vampires share a look. Jasper looks to the wolf.

"It won't happen again" Jasper tells him, the wolf looks to Catherine before stalking away, Catherine fixes her hair and sighs.

"So the wolves are back?" she asks brushing dirt from her trousers.

"We should have said" Emmett tells her. "To be fair the stink is hard to miss...."

"I honestly can't smell anything" Catherine adds. Rosalie cocks her head.

"Do you remember when we were human and the neighbours dog got into the public pool?" Rosalie asks.

"Yeah...." Catherine asks. "It stunk up the street for days.....Oooh" she looks to Rosalie. "Really?" She asks, Rosalie nods. "Huh" Catherine shrugs and walks away. Rosalie looks to Emmett who shrugs and kisses her head.

................

Alice hands Catherine a crystal bowl, Catherine takes it and frowns at it.

"What the hell is this?" she asks looking to Alice.

"For the weddi..." Catherine lets go of it, Alice just catching it. "Cat!" Alice warns, Catherine looks to her.

"Not helping" she tells Alice. "Not touching. Not thinking. Hand me something do with it again. And I will slaughter a human...or turn one...haven't decided yet..." Catherine promises. "And I'll start with the Chief" She smirks and walks away, Alice looks to her surprised, Catherine was always the nice one, never thought about murder, or turning, or anything dark. Carlisle appears at Alice's side.

"She's still hurting...don't take it to heart" Alice looks to the crystal bowl. "If it had been a human marriage....would we have asked this of her?" Alice shakes her head.

"No...No, I know...I thought that if I got her involved, she would see how nice Bella is, how good she and Edward are together, that maybe it would help"

"It's only been 18 months" Carlisle points out. "That's nothing to us....she needs more time....but she needs her family more..." Alice shrugs.

................

Catherine lays her head in Jasper's lap as he reads, he threads his fingers into her hair, and brushes his thumb over her cheek.

"This was a mistake" she whispers to him as she looks out the window, below in the back yard of the house, most of the wedding preparations are under way, Emmett and Carlisle carrying benches for the wedding under Alice's instruction.

"You can't give up" Jasper tells her, stroking her cheek.

"That's the thing, Jaz" she corrects. "I already did" she sits up and stands moving to look out the window. The human tries to walk in heels, she stumbles a little, Catherine smirks and listens to Alice.

"You just have to break them in"

" I've been breaking them in. For three days. Can I just go barefoot?"

"No, absolutely not"

"Just thinking it's a little much, you know? The dress and the shoes, and all of this" the human states and catches sight of Catherine who glares, eyes still red, at the human who looks away.

"No, it's exactly enough. Tomorrow will be perfect" Alice tells the human. Catherine turns away and looks down, Jasper hugs her.

"I need to take a walk" Catherine tells him. "Away from here...." He nods and kisses her head, Catherine smiles sadly and walks away from him.

.................................

Catherine fingers a small white flower, part of the wedding bouquet, she turns away from it and starts for the forest.

"Catherine" Edward whispers catching her attention, she closes her eyes and turns, finding him watching her from the second floor, she cocks her head and sends memories at him, ones she thought were happy ones.

[Did it mean anything to you?] She thinks at him before walking away. The last image of a white flower, identical to the one she'd been touching, it had been the first flower he'd given her. She disappears through the trees.