**Re-posted 8/24/10 after being edited by my fantastic beta HollettLA

Prologue

Bella

"Mommy... um... I have a question," my four year old son said out of the blue one day while playing in his sandbox in our backyard.

"What's up, buddy?" I replied.

"How come you and Daddy are always so cold?" I froze in my place. I had known this, or another similar question, would come up eventually.

Edward and I had always known this would happen. We hadn't known when and we didn't know what his exact question would be, but we had known he would notice how different we all were someday. We had hoped Edward would hear it in his thoughts or Alice would see this coming. No such luck. Edward and Alice were hunting with Jasper, Emmett and Rose.

Regardless, Edward had never been able to hear our son's thoughts, much to his chagrin. Alice could see his future but if she had seen this on the horizon, she must not have had time to warn us. He must have just decided to ask. That's the thing about four-year olds. They are very unpredictable...even for a fortune telling pixie-like vampire.

"Um..." was my only response.

"Not just you and Dad," he went on to explain. "Auntie Alice is, too. Auntie Rose is even colder."

I couldn't help but chuckle. My relationship with my sister-in-law Rosalie had improved exponentially over the years. Still, I couldn't help but laugh at my son's observation. I absolutely adored Rose…now… and I could use many lovely words to describe her; warm just wasn't one of them.

"What's so funny?" My little guy asked.

"Nothing, sweetie. Well... how come you're asking me this today?" I didn't know how to answer his question. Where the hell is Edward? I couldn't and shouldn't answer these questions without my husband. We needed to tackle this together. We needed a story for him that we could both stick to; an explanation that would answer his questions and wouldn't confuse him too much.

We were always pretty careful with him. Edward and I didn't ever limit our physical contact with our son, but the rest of the family, although they were always close with him, tended to stay at arm's length.

"I was just wondering..." he responded vaguely.

"Well, I'd like to know what made you wonder this." I was stalling. I knew this and my smart little boy knew it, too. I just really didn't know what to say.

Edward and I had always figured we'd have a little more time to figure out the answers to these inevitable questions. From the time he was a newborn baby, we would sit there for hours and watch our little boy sleep and whisper to each other the questions we expected he would ask one day. Why, oh why, didn't we ever settle on a story to give him?

I guess as new parents our main focus had been just awestruck adoration and complete bewilderment at the little person we created together. No matter our unique situation, we'd still been a new mommy and daddy who'd wanted nothing more than to watch his little chest rise and fall with every breath he took and we'd grin like idiots at each other with each little sigh and coo he made in his sleep. Though most of my human memories were vague, I remembered every second of my son's life. Minus, of course, a certain three day vacation Edward and I took after I stopped breast feeding.

"Yesterday after we went swimming..." he began. The day before had been cloudy, but very hot and my little guy's skin had felt ten times warmer after getting out of the extremely warm swimming pool. He was always so warm compared to the rest of us of course, but when I'd picked him up, his skin had felt scalding to me. "Your arms were fr-fr-freeeeezing," he finished, adding a shiver for dramatic effect. Then he giggled, clearly proud of himself.

I smiled and decided to evade his question a little longer. "Maybe I'm coming down with a cold?" I answered.

He gave me his Edward-like crooked grin and no matter how many times I'd seen him do it, I still couldn't believe how much he looked like his beautiful father. He'd inherited my chocolate brown eyes and easy blush, but there was no question which parent he took after most.

"Mommy, I've known you my whole life," he said. "And you've never been sick."

Damn, my son was observant. We always knew how smart he was, but watching him figure things out before my very eyes was freaking me out.

I opened my mouth to speak then closed it, and then I did it again and again. I was speechless and caught completely off guard for the first time in a very long time...probably since I was human.

My son continued to stare me down, waiting with increasing impatience for an answer.

Thankfully, I could hear Edward running towards us. He was still about two miles away, but I knew he'd be here momentarily. I looked toward the trees and my little boy noticed where my gaze went.

"Daddy?" he wondered.

I smiled and nodded. He really was noticing everything all of a sudden. He couldn't see or hear his dad's approach, but he sensed just by my body language that my Edward was close.

I could hear Edward slow his pace so our little guy wouldn't see him appear out of nowhere or run through the backyard at an inhuman pace.

Finally, he walked up to the sandbox and sat down next to our son. I could tell by the look on his face that he had either heard part of our conversation or Alice had seen this coming; albeit a little too late. Edward briefly met my eyes with a quick look of panic. He calmed himself just as fast and grinned down at our son.

Edward patted his head and rumpled his hair and our little guy huffed. He'd inherited his dad's hair so there was absolutely no taming it, nor messing it up further, but he hated when anyone touched it.

"I know, I know, 'don't mess with the hair'," Edward mimicked our little guy. "Sorry, buddy."

Our baby boy laughed. "Its okay, Dad. Just don't do it again," he replied with total seriousness.

He was just so cute! My dormant heart would have raced if it could. Watching my son with his father never ceased to amaze me. I didn't think that it was possible for me to love Edward more than I already did, but seeing him with our little boy made my love for him grow in ways I'd never imagined.

Edward laughed. "I won't. So... what are you and Mommy up to this afternoon?"

"I asked her a question and I don't think she wants to answer me," he responded. "Mommy always answers my questions, so I know something is up."

Edward looked into my eyes and held my gaze for a long moment. I just shrugged.

"Our son is quite observant all of a sudden, isn't he?" I deadpanned.

Esme appeared at the backdoor just then and called to her grandson, "Chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven!" She smiled at him and said, "Too bad I don't know anyone who likes cookies..."

"Nana, you know I love cookies!" he yelled as he jumped up and ran towards the door. He stopped and looked up at her with a stern face. "You shouldn't mess with a growing boy and his food."

"Someone is spending too much time with Uncle Emmett," Esme said with a smirk as she led her grandson into the house.

I plopped down next to Edward in the sandbox and leaned my head against his shoulder.

"Knew this was coming... He's so damn smart... Should have been prepared... I'm over a hundred years old and my four-year old is smarter than me... shit..." Edward muttered to himself too low for a human to hear. He wrapped his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.

He kissed the top of my head and said, "Guess it's time to be responsible parents and figure out how to tell our human child that his parents are vampires."

.

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Thanks for reading!

Phoenix Fan1

August 3, 2010