It's All Coming Back to Me Now

[Henry]

*I was sitting inside the huge living room, night had barely fallen and it was quiet but comfortable inside the Cullen home. My Mary Alice was off with Bella, Edward and Renesmee. Rosalie was sitting across from me, holding baby Ryder on her lap and wearing the look of a woman well content and at peace finally. Emmett and Jasper had just come by asking me if I wanted to take a run with them, if only for something to do since I didn't really need to feed anymore. I smiled, shaking my head but thanked them, saying I'd tag along next time. My time here in Forks was running out and I knew that soon I'd have to return to Volterra and fulfill my part of the bargain I'd made with Aro to keep this family safe from his vicious schemes and manipulations. A blur of movement caught my eye through the glass and I watched Jasper and Emmett clown around, shoving each other good naturedly before they raced off into the forest. Brothers under the skin, if not by blood.

But not all blood is thicker than the bonds of the heart. Although some start out that way and I could remember a time when my brother and had been as close as Emmett, Edward and Jasper. So long ago....*


Greece
1292 B.C.

"Not like that, adelfos. Like this..."

We were outside in back of our parents cottage, I was 8, Aro was 6 and the day had started out like any other until our very pregnant matera had let out a hoarse shout while we were in the fields near our home, picking herbs she needed for both medicinal and cooking purposes. Our father, a lean, tall man with dark eyes and thin hair had heard her from the home and came running to scoop her up and carry her home, yelling for me to run for Selene, the village midwife. I'd done as he said and both Aro and I had been told to wait outside and be good.

Be good.

We were children. It wasn't in our nature to sit still. But I had to keep Aro occupied. Every time our mama let out a scream during childbirth and it floated our way, he kept calling for her, trying to get to her. He was as devoted to our mother as I was. So now, I had him helping me to whittle some birch branches, trying to shape a toy for our new brother or sister, waiting to be born.

[Aro Volturi]

Aro sat next to his brother Henry, the one he looked up to and trusted. When he said everything would be okay, it would. Letting out a laugh as they tried to construct a new toy out of the branches.

"Mama...she will be okay, brother?"

Henry nodded, his bright green eyes shining in the dimming light of the sun. Aro's hazel eyes twinkled with pride. Waiting was the hardest. Aro hoped for a brother, someone he too could one day be looked up to. Someone he could be and make Henry proud of. Holding out some of the branches that he'd shaped into a wheel of sorts.

"Look adelfos, I did it!" He said proudly, holding it out for him to see and compliment. A last and final scream of their mother and then the cry of an infant. Silence bestowed their mother and Aro stood, looking panicky. All he could hear where the sounds of the baby crying. Soon their father emerged from the cottage, holding the child.

"Είναι ένα κορίτσι" {It's a girl}

Aro's interest dissipated and he searched his father's face filled with tears for news of their mother. Running inside to see her limp body laying on the bed, hand hanging over the side. She was no longer breathing or moving and all the blood that surrounded her loins made Aro drop to his knees.

[Henry]

*I knew the moment I saw our father's face that our mother was gone. He looked empty, a hollow shell of a man. A man who had loved his woman with all he was. Not that our pateras was a weak man, not that, never that. But our mother had been the one soft thing in a hard life. When he announced it was girl, I felt a tug in my heart. The Gods could be kind. Vicious at times, but also kind. Fate took our mother and gave us our sister. I vowed to look after her as I did Aro, I would be strong for them both. I'd be strong for us all. My mother had always called me her "Wise Titan", praising my strength and abnormal height and calm rational. I followed behind my young brother to see our mother's lifeless body and said a prayer up to the Gods we worshipped then, asking for a safe passage to the Underworld. She'd been a good woman and I knew she would be granted a place in the Elysian Fields for her deeds.

Poor Aro. He was shattered. On his knees know, at our mother's side, grabbing up her limp hand and pressing kisses against it, weeping for her to come back, to look at him, to speak to him, anything. Tears pricked my own eyes but I brushed them away and leaned over to lightly kiss her forehead before laying a hand on Aro's thin, shaking shoulder*

"Brother, come. She's gone and she is with Persephone now, watching us. We must be the men she wanted us to be."

Death was all around us, as was life. They went hand in hand. I'd miss her presence in our life more than anyone knew, but my mourning would always be a private thing to examine in the night or when I was alone. Turning as our father entered the room again, gazing blankly as the midwife handed him the swaddled bundling that was our baby sister. He looked as if he'd been struck dumb but then took her from the woman who scurried back to our mother's side, beginning to take care of the body, prepare it for burial.

"Didyme. We'll call her Didyme." Said our father, nodding to himself before he looked my way and handed her to me. Turning abruptly, he left me there and I knew in that moment, things had changed. I was a man much sooner than I'd thought to be. Peering down at the tiny package in my own arms, I was stunned when she opened her eyes and stared right back up at me with the bright green gaze our mother had, eyes I had. I fell in love there and then. It was that primal and that strong.

"Aro. Come away now. Let them prepare Matera. Come meet our sister.."

[Aro Volturi]

He shook her hand and begged her to speak to him, tears falling freely from his eyes. "Matera...Matera, please I'll be a good boy. I promise...please Matera.." The bitterness he felt for his sister was rising. She'd done this, she'd killed their mother. Images formed in his head of a girl who grew to laugh and run, something their mother could no longer do.

His eyes flashed with visions of things that often frightened him, but he never spoke a word of it. Continued to keep it to himself. The look on Henry's face, weakness. Blasphemy at how he looked at the child he held, the child who took his mothers life. With a cold and sharp tone he answered Henry, looking up at him with piercing lifeless eyes.

"No....Never."

He turned and ran for the fields he spend the day picking flowers with their mother. He'd become the man his mother always wanted to be. He'd become someone who decided who lived and who died. One day...

[Henry]

*Sighing, I let out a slow breath, watching my little brother's grief overtake him and mar the sweetness of his boyish face. He had looked at Didyme with hatred and revulsion and it broke my heart. Our matera would not have liked that. But, he was just a little boy who'd lost his mother. He needed time. I glanced at Selene as she moved around our mother's prone form like a pale wraith as she bathed the blood and birthing fluids from her flesh, grabbing a fresh gown and dressing her accordingly. My mother retained her secular beauty in death as she had in life. Didyme began squirming, her baby mouth puckering instinctually for a nipple..she was hungry. Selene noticed and took a moment to tell me to find and seek out her own daughter, Megara, she'd just given birth to a stillborn but her mother's milk was in and she could serve as a wetnurse for now. I nodded, thanking her and left her to go find my baby sister some sustenance.....*

1289 B.C.

3 years had passed. Didye was a delicate toddler. Her skin had the sheen of crushed pearls, her green eyes always glinting with mischief. Her sweet laughter was infectious and endearing. Not many could say no to her. Not even our father who'd come around and doted on her as badly as I did. The entire village was in love with her winsome ways. Everyone loved her.

Everyone but Aro.

The years had only seemed to harden his resolve to pretend she didn't exist. As a baby, she'd remained blissfully aware of his attitude but now it was obvious. He never looked at her, barely responded to her in any way even if Father or I called him on it. I know he was still mourning the loss of our mother, it ate at him like a cancer, a canker that only grew. I tried to divide my time between both Didyme and him, he still looked up to me somewhat and I wanted to always be someone he could lean on. He was sharp, smart and almost eerily reserved. Sometimes he could stare holes into you, as if he could read your mind. It was disturbing but then odd things has begun to happen to me and I was wondering why. Sometimes, I could "feel" things before they happened. Or I could manage to come up with solutions to almost any problem our village was having. I had a photographic memory and forgot nothing. And sometimes, when I was very upset...it would rain. It was very strange.

I was out back, brushing down Father's horse when Didyme came running up on her little legs, tears streaming down her face as she called for me. Stepping out and back so I was in her line of sight, I set down the brush and opened up my arms. She flung herself into them and bawled into my shoulder. I had no idea what had happened and she wouldn't tell me, but just then I saw Aro's dark head peek around the barn door and he was smiling that thin smile as he saw us*

"Aro? What happened to Didyme?" I swung her up into my arms now, holding her close, worried that she'd been hurt.*

[Aro Volturi]

He stood there with a cold smile plastered on his face. Dashing Henry, always there to save the day. He held his presence like a higher authority than his own father. Henry may be older, but Aro was wiser. In his eyes at least. Aro shrugged at his question and stepped forth with the coldest eyes.

"I told her the truth."

With that he looked at the horse and met his eyes, holding its gaze with sharpness. The horse neighed and retreated as if it had been startled by a snake. Turning back to face Didymos and Henry he walked a circle around the both of them.

"I just want you to know, I will get my revenge one day. For what she did to our matera. She was never supposed to live, mother was! She.killed.her."

He spat out the words like they didn't affect him, only wanting to pain the ones he directed them to.

[Henry]

*Didyme's tiny body shook, wracked with sobs. I could feel her tears wet my tunic at the shoulder and even stepped back myself at Aro's cool and hard response. Where had my little brother gone? The one who used to dance through the fields and sing at the top of his lungs? The one who always had to be first up in the morning so he could run out to the barn and milk the cow for our milk? He was always so happy to please others and be of good cheer, be helpful. I hadn't seen that boy since the our mother died and I realized I'd lost more than her that day.

Steeling my voice, I pierced him with a long look. "She's a child. Innocent. Harmless. You should make haste to the temple of Hera and pray for forgiveness. It's not our will, Aro, it's the will of the Gods to give and take. Saying matera died pointlessly is saying that Didyme is a mistake. And she isn't Mother would be disappointed in you, boy. Very much so."

I was 11 this year. Next year, I was eligible for conscription into the King's service and I'd planned on going off to fight wars, win trophies and chase down glory. Find a wife, a rich one so that I may properly care for my father, brother and sister. But now I was afraid to leave. Something about Aro was menacing and I wasn't sure I wanted to leave Didyme with no one but Father to look after her. She was still trembling in my arms, her tears spent now. I set her down and kneeled to her eye level, brushing aside her dark hair from huge gamin eyes and kissed both sodden cheeks, telling her to go inside and wash up for the noon time meal. Waiting til she did so, cutting a wide berth around Aro, I snaked out a hand and yanked his tunic, hauling him closer*

"What is wrong with you? How can speak thusly to a child like that? Mother wouldn't be happy you're acting like this, adelfos."

[Aro Volturi]

He looked up at his brother with a proud smile, none of his words or chastising affecting him.

"She.deserves.to.hurt."

Aro held power over Henry, that even Henry hadn't realized. It was his weakness of caring that held him back.

"I won't be trouble to you much longer, brother. I've been deemed eligible to the conscription. The one you talk so highly about, only I will rise to power. I will be feared and you will be no more than a helpless excuse of a caretaker to her."

Removing his fingers from his tunic with force, more forceful than usual for a boy of nine, a sadistic look on his face as he held his emerald eyes. All this time he'd always been in his brothers shadow, all his life he'd been just Aro the middle child, the one who would be just like Henry. No...he'd be just like Aro. One day he'd hold many prized things and Henry would be green with envy. Didymos was no threat to him, she'd beg for his mercy one day....one day.

[Henry]

*his grip was strong, cruel. But even more was the look of hatred on his face as he stared at me. The boy who used to fun around after me blindly, look up to me and take my side just so he could have my blessing..was gone. In that moment, I had a disturbing premonition of coming trouble and it was all centered around the pulsing, irrational hatred of my young brother. Watching him smooth down his tunic, smirking at me, I saw the battle lines were drawn. He was infested with a wicked bent I couldn't keen to. Had our mother's passing truly iced his soul so thoroughly? Danger was wafting from him in torrents. I stood back and assessed him, the manner of him, took his measure now as an enemy rather than as my flesh and blood.*

"Wherever we go, whatever happens. I will always be there to stop you, Aro. You were my shadow, now I'll be yours. Remember that, LITTLE brother."

And for the first time in my life, I mustered a layer of ice to my own voice, giving him a long look, inwardly saying goodbye to the little boy he was. I knew, somehow, in that moment, he was not just my nemesis..but one that would never cease in his machinations. I walked from the barn, into the house to find Father and Didyme, leaving him behind, always behind...

A noise caught my attention, tearing me from the past. A graceful blur in the starry night as my Mary Alice came dancing through the woods alone, back from her visit with Edward, Bella and Nessa. She saw me, watching her and raised a slender hand to wave, mouth curving into a smile. She was Didyme all over again, in her actions and her appearance. Delicate, sweet and generous.

I would die this time before I EVER let Aro destroy this one. And I would take him with me into perdition if I had to...*