Pocket of Forever (Axton and Clara future spoilers)

This is nothing to do with Diamond Legacies.

--or linked to it at all. Its just a small one-shot based way in the future as a snippet of Clara and Axton’s future life. After Diamond Legacies I’m gunna post a short story that spans a few decades filling in the gaps from when Esther first went under the spell in Axton’s pov to the war to them having their family but it’s so long that I’m leaving it until after I finish DL to edit.

 

Clara Cullen
2245

 

Kira, Ty, Anna, Levi, Asher, Solena, Estella.

Saying all their names together made me smile widely. Seeing them all in one room warmed my heart. I never thought I'd see the day where both generations of my family were together.

Was this how Renesmee felt when all her children returned to her? Was this how Bella felt having all four of her children in the same room?

I knew the clock was ticking. This may be the only time I see all seven of my children together, but it only made the moment so much more special.

I knew I wanted children with Axton but there was a feeling of dread surrounding every thought of our future offspring. I watched as Kira, Ty and Anna aged. I watched as they became frail and old and every morning I woke and my first thought was them, are they okay? Was today the day I was going to bury my child? Mortality was weighing heavier and heavier every day and I knew I needed to make the most of any moment I had left with my three human children before they were gone. The mere thought of losing any of them crushed me, it consumed my thoughts and made me feel guiltier and guiltier every day with how happy Axton made me feel. The prospect of starting a family with him when my first family was still living turned my stomach with nausea, but I wanted it more than anything. I wanted my first child to hold my last and for that picture to live on in my mind forever, because Kira wouldn’t.

Axton and I married in 2130, just four years after starting our relationship. We eloped, opting for a small, very small, wedding because we didn’t want it to distract from the events at the Volturi. We had our siblings, my parents, Edward, Bella and my three children. No one else. It was perfect for us really. I didn’t want a big wedding, I'd done that the first time. Our aim was to renew our vows in a few decades with a wedding party then, when the world was normal again. When the war was over, and Esther was back. The year we eloped was the year the war started. My new husband left me for a week and I had no idea if he was coming back or not. When he did, Esther was woken, and the world started to feel a little bit more normal again. Even with Esther woken, she was weak and not many people were allowed to see her. Axton started working more than ever to keep her safe and continue his work at court, so the first five years of our marriage were probably the hardest years I’ve ever had to live through. When Esther was strong again it was like a whole new world had been born. Axton and I moved out from the Volturi Mansion, and I was pregnant within a month.

This was when the dread started.

I couldn’t watch another child age and die. I hated the thought. I knew that if this child was human like my first three, it would be our only child. I knew I couldn’t live through this again. I couldn’t be waiting around in another eighty years for my children to start dropping dead.

When Levi Zachary was born, we had him tested, Carlisle was more than happy to take blood and investigate his DNA. An Immortal Warlock and an Immortal Human was new territory for the genealogists in the Cullen’s and as I held my newborn baby, Axton’s baby, I hoped to all the stars in the sky that he would be by our side forever.

Thankfully, he would be.

He had been born a warlock, which was no surprise to any of us really, but he also had the dormant wolf gene. Carlisle was fairly confident he would be able to choose when to stop aging as other Immortal Witches and Warlocks could, or at the very least the immortal gene Axton possessed was still there ready to be activated in the moon pool should our son decide he wanted to be like his father.

With this news Axton and I went on to have another, Asher Kharis two years later. My first three children had been named after my mother and my grandparents so after Levi had been given the middle name Zachary after my stepfather, we had run dry of family names to use. Asher was named after one of the wolves Axton had befriended early on in his life in La Push. He had died a few years before the demonic war started and asked if it was okay if we named our second son after his friend. I gladly agreed knowing our past was just as important as our future. Our relationship had been born on that fact.

Levi and Asher were best friends by the time Asher was two. They followed each other everywhere and never fought. Seeing their love for each other reminded me of Axton and his sister. Their bond was incredible, and I knew I was happy. Even though at this point my first three children were starting to reach their 70s I was content in knowing there was another ten years of seeing my children together. My oldest three came to visit as much as they could. Kira and Anna still lived in the city and when the boys were small, they were around nearly every weekend. Even in their 70s their little brothers put smiles on their faces that transported me back to when they were children themselves.

I would have been happy with two, our lives seemed to be perfect. Axton transitioned out from the Volturi and was an attentive father whilst I continued work from home. Axton loved being a dad and it was one of my greatest joys watching him with our sons, but I knew as time passed, he wanted more. He wanted a daughter and we had agreed if we had to have three children, we would have a fourth to keep the numbers even and make sure no one was left out. Axton, although didn’t live around here at the time, helped me a lot raising my first three. I leant on him in times where Elijah was no help in raising our three children, whether he was working or getting older, Axton was my saving grace. The problems that occurred with three children were not lost on Axton during those decades. He saw the struggles Elijah and I faced and told me long before we were even officially together, he wanted two or four children and nothing more or less.

We waited until Asher was five and starting school before having our third, Solena April. She had been named after our sisters, I took a page from Bella’s baby name book and combined Sophie and Alena to name our first daughter ‘Solena’. I knew after Solena was born we’d have our last one close to her in age so she had a sibling to play with as her older brothers did. Estella Iris was born two years later on the fifteenth anniversary of Esther’s return. Esther meant so much to Axton and the pair were closer than ever, she was more of a mother to him than he’d ever had before so naming our second daughter and final child after the woman that meant so much to everyone in our family, not just Axton, was the easiest decision we’d made when it came to naming our children. Her middle name Iris was after the flower, because her eyes had been the strangest shade of blue I had ever seen. They were almost purple. Genetics baffled me. Axton and I both had dark brown eyes, how did we have the most blonde-haired baby with the most unique eyes I'd ever seen?

“I think fate is laughing at you mom” Kira said as she held my newborn daughter in her arms. The violet eyed baby stared up at her older sister in curiosity. The pair were 80 years apart and yet it felt like yesterday she was as small as Estella. She was barely a week old.

“Why do you say that?” I asked from my rocking chair in the corner. I had barely got up from this chair in the week I had given birth. Even though there were healers at the Volturi that could easily make my post-partum experience disappear, I wanted to experience it all because I knew this would be the last time. At least for a very very long time.

“you’ve had six brown eye babies and your seventh comes out looking like a goddess with the most incredible lilac eyes I’ve ever seen.” She mused looking back down at the baby in her arms, Estella had drifted off to sleep.

“I agree, are you sure she’s Axton’s?” my son joked from the couch. He shifted in the soft seat uncomfortably. He’d had a hip operation only a week ago, right around the time I gave birth, but he insisted on coming to visit his new youngest sister.

“I’m positive” I laughed as Levi and Asher came running into the room making loud shooting sounds. “Boys” I scolded instantly. “What have I said about playing with guns?” I added frowning at my ten- and seven-year-old.

“Sorry momma” Levi said instantly but Asher wasn’t one to apologise. He was definitely a middle child, complete with the attitude. He reminded me a lot of Ty when he was that age.

“Calm down please, dinner will be ready soon I’m sure” I said knowing Axton was in the kitchen preparing a meal. I hated I wasn’t in there helping him, but Estella’s birth had been one of my hardest to recover from and Axton was more than happy being the domestic husband. He had spent so many years being a teacher and a guardian to Mia and then a guard member and Esther’s proxy at the Volturi. Being a stay-at-home dad, learning to cook and taking care of me was his favourite thing to do.

“I would say it’s not just her name she gets from Esther if that were even possible” Kira said with a smirk as she looked up at me.

“Asher has blonde hair, you did too when you were a child” I said watching my sons make their way over to the tv and put on their favourite cartoon.

“I know, but little Estella here certainly hit the genetic lottery that’s for sure.” She joked bending down to kiss the newborn lightly on her head. I noticed how weak she was as she bent down; her arm was resting on the pillow but even holding the newborn was wearing her down. I think Anna noticed too because she walked herself over to her sister and held her arms out.

“Me next” she said with a smile and Kira nodded as Anna bent to pick up the baby.

Anna didn’t look 75. She didn’t act like it either. She was fit in her old age, and it made me happy to know she was probably going to last another twenty years. Kira wasn’t so lucky. She’d had a plethora of health problems in the last five years that were only piling up. I worried every time I saw her it would be the last time. I had been more grateful than ever that she had retired to Chicago. Knowing how close she was to the Cullen doctors made me feel safer in the knowledge she would get a few more years of life with me than if she didn’t have the best doctors in the world at her feet.

I hoped she would last long enough for Estella to remember her.

“Dinners ready!” Axton called out from the kitchen across the house. Anna carried the sleeping baby from the room, my two sons ran past her on the way out racing each other to the dining room. Ty shifted slowly as he tried to get out of the chair. Kira beat him and began walking slowly out the room. I walked over to Ty, a little weak myself but far stronger than the old man in front of me. As I looked down at my son, his head was down and his wrinkled hand on the arm of the chair and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

If I wasn’t sure otherwise, I could have sworn I was staring at my first husband in his old age.

“Here” I said swallowing back the sudden emotion that hit me. I held out my hand and he huffed as he took it. Exactly like his father.

“You just had a baby” he said straightening himself up to stand in front of me. He was tall like his father but other than his mannerisms and the angle from above all I saw was myself in my son. He did look like Elijah around the eyes a little and he definitely had his father’s personality, but my son’s face was my own. It felt like staring into a future I would never have. I smiled at him and looped my arm in his.

“We’ll waddle together” I said as he gently patted my hand and we walked slowly, one step at a time to the dining room.

When we got there, my elderly daughters were already seated and waiting patiently. I could see Anna was itching to help Axton, I already knew that she had asked him, but he had refused her help and insisted as our guest she should sit down. Kira knew better than to offer, she was more aware of her ailments than she liked to admit. My newborn daughter was sleeping peacefully in her little basinet in the corner, my two-year-old daughter Solena was in her highchair smacking her hands on the table watching her father busy himself around the table placing food and condiments for us all. My two boys were sitting side by side and their toy cars were crashing into each other on the wooden table as they made ‘broom’ noises with their mouths.

Ty, the gentleman that he was pulled out a chair for me to sit on, but I shook my head and gently pushed him to sit down instead. He sighed but did as he was told, and I made my way to the side of the table opposite him to sit on the other side of my toddler at the end of the table. Axton came over to sit next to me with a wide grin on his face.

“Sit down honey” I laughed when I saw his eyes go back over the table making sure everything was in place.

“Just checking I got everything”

“This is amazing Axton, thank you” Kira said, and my other children nodded in agreement, responding with their own thanks as we all tucked into our meal.

I will never forget that day.

It was one of the best days of my life and I took far too many pictures and videos than I probably should have to remember each and every detail I could.

Whilst I didn’t have a completely human memory, I didn’t have a vampire memory either. I wanted to make sure this was a core memory I would never forget.

Seeing my older children laugh and talk with my youngest whilst they still could gave me a warm fuzzy feeling that would last for weeks.

Solena didn’t understand they were her siblings but Levi and Asher did. They were at the ages where they knew their parents weren’t like normal parents. They had been developing their abilities with lessons from their father and had already begun using magic in their day to day lives. We didn’t have to hide here, I didn’t have to pretend my children were my grandparents, I didn’t have to remind Levi and Asher to hide their magic like they had to in school, I didn’t have to pretend or worry in this moment.

We just existed, for a moment, in a pocket of our forever.

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Clara and Axton’s son Asher is dedicated to Ryan Lamar (Antona 45) as I’ve used the middle name Kharis of your choice to honour your love for my stories.

Solena’s middle name is to honour April who comments on every single chapter of my stories without fail, thank you for your support it means everything to me.

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