A World Full of Strangers
Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use.
Time: Six and a Half Years after the end of Breaking Dawn.
Chapter 1: Proposal
All of the Cullens except Renesmee are seated around the "dining" room table for a conference called by Carlisle to make a decision about the future of the coven.
"We've been in Forks now for ten years," declares Carlisle, stating the obvious. "We really can't stay here any longer unless those of us who wish to remain permanently, go into complete seclusion."
We all look at each other uncomfortably. Renesmee will turn seven in a month in human years, however she already looks as though she fourteen or fifteen. The rest of us all look far younger than our supposed ages. Only a fool would look at Carlisle and Esme and believe that they are forty. Edward, Alice, and I can just barely pass the twenty-five that we are now claiming, while Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie look nowhere near twenty-six.
Because of this, several years ago, Jasper and Alice and Rosalie and Emmett began taking longer and longer trips. Rosalie hated being away from Renesmee, the child whose life she essentially saved, but Emmett was too restless to sit around Forks day after day hunting deer and other boring prey. And spending too much time around Forks was dangerous because anyone who had gone to high school with us looked older every year. Of course, we never aged. The differences were becoming more noticeable every year.
The time away from the world has had nearly no impact on Edward's and my lives. We have been so wrapped in each other, emotionally and physically, since I was transformed that we don't miss the company of others. And of course Renesmee has aged so quickly that we had to keep her out of the public eye as much as possible. She has never gone to school or even had friends her own age. We have taught her at home so well that she could probably have graduated from college by now.
But her interactions outside of the home have only been with Charlie and Sue, and occasional visits to the reservation. The children there, because of the tribe's own proximity to the supernatural world, accepted whatever the Elders told them about her rapid growth rate. But still, as she has continually outpaced her peers, her friendships never lasted long.
Carlisle gave up working in the hospital a couple of years ago after several of his colleagues started to make snide remarks about "plastic surgery." Esme has never had much interest in the world outside of home, but she has dreadfully missed her four children who are traveling now so much that they might as well be nomads. And they miss the family too.
Therefore, Carlisle has decided that it is time to make a decision regarding our present life situation and called everyone home. The other six were now all so unhappy that there was nothing else for it.
"I am proposing that we leave Forks and move to a small town outside of Whitehorse in the Yukon in northern Canada," he says. "I have done some research and there is a small high school in the city where you children could attend and a small regional hospital where I could work. The advantage would be winter days of only a few hours of dim sunlight. But even in the summer, the sun never rises very high in the sky."
"How young would we need to start out?" Rosalie groans. "Will we have to do three years of high school again?"
"Well, that would be the plan for you, Emmett, and Jasper," he replies. "Alice, Bella and Edward would be freshmen. If we do that, then we can probably squeeze out five years there. But because the human life cycle has extended itself so much in the last fifty years, it will probably be a century before we can return to Forks or somewhere else near there."
"How are we going to explain Bella?" asks Jasper, with a smirk that looked kind of like Emmett's. "She and Edward will never be able to keep their hands off of each other. There is no way they could be brother and sister. She certainly can't pass as a Hale."
"She would go as Bella Swan," says Carlisle. "She' could be another adopted or foster child. Thinking up a cover story won't be difficult."
"What about Renesmee?" Edward asks.
"The reason that we are holding this meeting without her, is that she is going to have to make a choice," he says. "She is at a point where she is old enough to decide whether she wants to come with us, if we decide to leave or stay here with Jacob. But we could get away with starting her off in middle school. Because of resemblance, she can easily pass as your little sister. Up there, no one will know that Bella once has dark brown eyes."
"She is not marrying Jacob at her age," says Edward definitively. "She may be physically full grown, but she does not have the maturity to manage that kind of a relationship. And while he is her best friend in the world, she does not view him as a potential mate. And I don't want to leave her here alone."
"Neither do I," say Rosalie and I together.
"She could also live with Charlie as his . . . niece maybe," Carlisle replies feebly. "And then marry Jacob when she is old enough."
"No!" shouts Edward vehemently.
"She is much too young," adds Rosalie with equal force. "Even though she only looks a couple of years younger than Alice, she still has a lot of growing up to do. Besides, how would her sudden appearance in town be explained? And at some point, someone will notice that she isn't aging either."
"If Jacob really wants to stay near her," I point out. "He can come with us. I don't know exactly how to explain him though. He looks older than any of us, including Esme, thanks to his wolf genes. And there's no way that humans will accept him as even a boyfriend of Renesmee. He looks at least ten years older than her."
"Yeah, but if he leaves the reservation, will he start to age?" asks Rosalie, who would be only too happy to leave Jacob behind.
"I've discussed the whole wolf phenomena with Billy Black and old Quil Ateara before he passed away. Unfortunately, the only written histories are those transcribed by Emily Uley, so there is no way to be sure," answers Carlisle. "But they seem to indicate that it doesn't matter if a werewolf lives on the reservation or not. As long as he keeps phasing, he remains the same age."
"So then we can bring him along as our pet dog," jokes Emmett.
Everyone stares at him.
"What?" he asks.
Jasper rolls his eyes.
"We have to discuss this seriously," says Carlisle, ignoring Emmett's poor taste. "If you recall, the last time that we talked about leaving, he took the very drastic measure of bringing Charlie out to the house the day after Bella was transformed. If she had not been the most self-controlled newborn in vampire history, it could easily have been a tragedy. You know that if he feels that he has to, he will take desperate measures to stay near Renesmee."
"So let his drastic measure be moving with us this time," says Rosalie. "We've made enough compromises to keep Renesmee near him.
"Carlisle," says Esme. "You know how I feel about this. Renesmee needs to come with us. She is too young to make that choice on her own. And we still do not know at what point that she will stop visibly aging. When we visited Nahuel's sisters last year, they could hardly pass for sixteen. Even if Jacob never ages, he will always look at least ten years older than Renesmee."
"And those ten years," points out Edward. "Could appear to be the difference between statutory rape and marriage. But if we take Renesmee out of the equation, just for argument's sake, the issue is really only if we want to live as a family without completely isolating ourselves. If this is the case, then we have to move. At some point, Bella and I are going to have an interest in something other than each other."
Emmett opens his mouth, but I shut him down with a glare. We took that issue off the table seven years ago. Looking across the table at Esme, I see the longing in her eyes. I know that for the past year she has been desperately missing her four children and would do anything to bring them home. She also does not want to lose her only granddaughter.
Both Esme and Rosalie became deeply attached to Renesmee during her infancy. And because they were willing to stand by me when no one else would and protect her life, I have happily shared her with them. Whenever she calls Esme, Grandma, it brings her that same joy that I feel when she calls me, Momma. And aside from Edward and I, no family member is more special than her Auntie Rose.
When Jacob imprinted on Remesmee only hours after her birth, it had solved a world of problems with the Quileutes. The packs were even ready to sacrifice all of their lives to protect her from the Volturi. Throughout Renesmee's childhood, Jacob has been a daily visitor to the house.
However he wore out his welcome pretty quickly with the residents of the main house because he was constantly hovering while Renesmee had her lessons with Carlisle and the others. And his jealousy whenever she spent with Rosalie was very annoying. It appeared that he quickly forgot that without Rosalie, there would have been no Renesmee, not to mention all the disagreements that they had over that point. His initial offer to "share" actually meant on his terms. And he is very possessive. It took us several years to convince him to go back and finish high school.
Yet since then, because the house is so far away from town and the reservation, he has not developed any kind of career or even found employment. Officially, he still lives with Billy in their little house and they survive on Billy's disability checks. Until Esme finally put her foot down, she was sleeping on their couch very night.
Because our house is so small, Edward has refused to let him camp out there. I am on his side in that disagreement because I definitely do not want to give up our privacy to cater to his wolfy needs. Up until now, he has been content to run around the house in wolf form, guarding it. As if the two vampires inside are not perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and their child. A life without Jacob is beginning to look more appealing.
"I don't suppose that you can see anything, Alice," sighs Carlisle.
"You know that I'm blind where both Jacob and Renesmee are concerned," she says.
"What do you see for the rest of us?" asks Rosalie curiously. "Do we miss her?"
"Because no decision has been made to leave, I can't see that," she says. "But if you leave the decision to stay or go up to her, it will be too late by the time she makes it. Would you want to give her the choice and then rescind it if I see great pain for us?"
"I don't need Alice's vision to tell me that I would be miserable," says Rosalie emphatically. "And I am sure that at the very least, Edward, Bella, and Esme would agree with me."
"And if Rose is miserable," adds Emmett emphatically. "Then I will be too. Admit it, Carlisle. You would feel the same way about Esme."
"For once, Rosalie," replies Edward. "I have no problem with you speaking on my behalf."
Esme and I nod in agreement.
"Well, then I guess the next step is to make a decision," says Carlisle, moved by Esme's desire to keep the family together, including Renesmee. "But I don't want to be too hasty about anything. Let's sleep on it tonight and come back tomorrow and talk more and vote."
"Should we tell Renesmee?" I ask.
"No, you've all convinced me that she's not old enough to be a part of such a big decision," replies Carlisle. "In ten years or so, it will be more appropriate. But with her present level of very limited life experience, you are right, it will be up to us to decide for her."
"And Jacob?" asks Edward.
"Will have to make his own choices," says Carlisle. "But he won't play any games this time or take any more foolish risks. And he won't get any help from Charlie right now. The last time I spoke with him, Charlie was getting worried about the speed of Renesmee's growth and Bella's lack of aging. Remember, he still has to live his life in the human world and this is getting a little too weird for him.
"If even by accident he figures it out, the Volturi could be after him. He and Sue have been married now for five years and he is very happy and content. He also has realized that in the normal course of things, by now Bella would have gone away to college and started her own life outside of Forks anyway. I would also tell him that he and Sue have an open invitation to visit, at our expense, wherever we go."
"So then we meet here tomorrow?" asks Edward.
"Tomorrow," agrees Carlisle.