A.N.: This is my first fic about Twilight! -
Dislcaimer: I do not own Twilight.
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Bella reached out to Renee. Her mother looked down at the slender fingers just inches from her purple silk sleeve and turned her eyes to her daughter.
"What?" Renee asked breathlessly. Her brow was furrowed in confusion and she shook her head as if to clear it.
"I'm dead." Bella repeated. "Mother--Renee."
Her daughter's use of her first name seemed to jolt her out of her confusion. Her eyes bore down on the young woman before her.
"Don't call me Renee. And don't you dare play this game with me. I know what you're doing. I come for a visit after so long and you want to play a little game to test me." She took Bella by the shoulders and pulled her closer. "Hon, of course I missed you. I thought of you everyday. I love you, you're my daughter."
Bella closed her eyes and sighed. She lifted her arm yet again, wrist up. "Mother, touch me. I'm cold as ice and I have no pulse. I'm certainly not alive anymore."
Renee stepped back as if from fire and glared. "You better tell me what's going on right now! I'm losing patience with this crazy game of yours."
The daughter took step after step until their noses nearly collided. "Look at my eyes, Mom. Don't you see they're a different color? Way darker than they used to be." Bella took her mother's hand in hers and Renee jumped. "See how cold I am? My skin is cold, but I feel nothing--just fine." She placed Renee's hand over her wrist. "No pulse of blood. I used to be warm and brown-eyed when I was human. Not anymore and I'm not sad at all."
Renee shook her head slowly than faster and faster. Side to side until she was dizzy. Bella kept a firm grip to keep her from falling. Renee lifted her head and took her daughter's face into her hands.
"My poor baby. What you must have been going through here in this nasty little town to make you turn out this way!" Her voice squeaked at the last word. Her breath shuddered through her body before continuing. "Don't worry, baby. I'm going to get you all the help you need. You'll have the best medicine, the best doctors possible to get that terrible idea that you're dead out of your mind." Bella's eyes widened when she realized Renee thought she was crazy--insane.
"Mom, mom...I'm not crazy. Remember Edward? Surely you remember the man I love?" She pushed Renee's hands away. "Mom, I know this is hard to understand, but he's a vampire. No, I haven't told Charlie about any of this yet. Look at me." Bella bared her teeth and willed the predator within her to rise. Her mother jumped and stumbled. Bella gripped her tighter. "He changed me."
"No, no! How could he be..?" It began to sink in and her mother turned to a different question. "NO, how could he do this to you? Make you into this...gasp, do you know what this means? You have to avoid sunlight, and-and you have no reflection! And you'll never age...oh, how will you survive?Oh..."
"Mom! It's alright, those are all wrong. I can't go into sunlight, not because I'll turn to dust, but because of my skin. We walk under the sun and we look like gemstones, sparkling statues...I've seen Edward. He's beautiful under the sun. And we do have reflections! How else would Rosalie be able to know how drop-dead gorgeous she is? And I know I'll never age and that is a reason why I changed." Renee's face turned to horror. "No, no! Yes, I chose this because I wanted to stay with Edward!"
Bella looked down at the ground to try and find another way to make Renee understand. "Mom, you love Phil, right?" Renee nodded mutely. "Well, don't you want to spend the rest of your life with him? To grow old together and be buried under the same soil. I can never have that. Edward was against it--this for so long. Imagine if you could stay the way you are forever! But Phil couldn't. Would you be able to watch him grow older and older as the years went by? What if Phil never aged, but you did? Would you be able to go through life first, as his girlfriend or wife, then as years pass, his mother, his grandmother?" Bella looked pleadingly into her mother's eyes. "Would you be able to stand that?"
Renee looked at the stranger before her, the monster before her. A monster, but her own daughter before her. She reached deep inside and found that she could accept this. Her daughter had made a choice and it was her job as mother to let her live with it.
"You'll be happy? This way?" Bella nodded, her eyes full of tears.
"Mom, you forgive me?" Renee chuckled and nodded herself. And a mother-daughter bear hug commenced.
"Mom, are you ready?" Renee gave her a puzzled look. "To meet the love of my life, my fiance." Renee's eyes widened and brought her hand to her lips. "Edward?"
Muffled footsteps through grass came from behind. Renee turned to see the handsome vampire. She took a deep breath and smiled.
"Hello, Edward."
"Good afternoon. May I call you Renee?" She nodded.
"My daughter just said you were her fiance. I wonder..." Edward smiled.
"It was our deal. She had to marry me or I wouldn't change her...into one of us." Bella tugged at his hand. "What? I think your mother deserved to know." He kissed the back of her hand and she blushed. "I don't understand how you can still blush so beautifully."
"Ah, she blushes at the littlest thing! I remember one time when Bella was about seven years old..."
"Mom!" Bella's voice was high with embarassment. Edward began to laugh and laugh. "Edward! Stop that!"
"Well, is there a ring? I don't believe I saw it. And when is the wedding?" Edward lifted their intertwined hands and showed the stone.
"Soon, very soon." He said to answer her last question. "My sisters Alice, Rosalie, and my mother Esme would love your help in planning it. I'm afraid Alice will go overboard. We just wanted it to be simple."
"Overboard. That's the perfect word for Alice. My birthday party? I said nothing and she got me everything. Flowers, cake, presents, you name it."
The rest of the time went swiftly until it was time for Bella to return to Charlie for her curfew. Edward sneaked throuh her window to spend the night as usual. They were lying next to one another under the coverlet when Edward remembered something unusual about his day.
"I saw Carlisle today. At the hospital." Edward pulled his cheek from her hair and frowned. "He said congratulations. His eyes were bright and cheery and he couldn't stop smiling at me. Do you know what that meant?"
Bella could feel her non-human blushes rise in her cheeks again. She sat up slowly and cleared her throat. Edward propped up his head on his hand and looked at her expectantly.
"Um...I'm pregnant." She looked shyly down at her 'boyfriend'. His eyes were wide with shock. "I wasn't feeling well today and thought I would ask Carlisle to see what was wrong with me. It was weird since I'm not human anymore. And apparently I'm carrying your child. Carlisle believes that I was still partly human when you and I..." She blushed harder. "A small part, but enough to get me pregnant."
Edward got up and stared at her. He took a breath and looked around the room before letting it out. "You're pregnant. With my child." He looked down and she followed his gaze to her belly. He smiled that crooked smile she loved and pulled her close. He wrapped an arm around her waist, his hand on her cheek, and kissed her.
"Now we're truely a family." he whispered. She smiled.