Hey everyone! I have found a renewed passion for Fanfic since I started and finished the Twilight series. Try not to be too harsh…all my others have been Harry Potter ones. Constructive criticism welcome.
Disclaimer: I do not own Edward or any of the Cullens. All the imaginative work of Stephanie Meyers. And what wonderful work it is!
I couldn't believe that it had been almost seventy years since we had been to Forks. Seventy years in which I, my husband, daughter, and the rest of my family had traveled to far parts of the world. I had attended and finished college three times: once at Yale, then Harvard, and finally, making good on my promise to Edward, Dartmouth. Now, so many years later, it was finally safe to return to the small town where no one remembered the name of Cullen.
I smiled my dazzling smile at the cashier behind the counter at Newton's. From the look of it, he must have been Mike's great-grandson. The teenage boy gawked at me for a moment. "Here you go." The new hiking boots had merely been an excuse to come in and look at the place that I had once worked when I was human. It had changed so much…the walls that used to be filled with simple hunting and fishing gear had given way to much more sophisticated technology for those occupations. I watched in my peripheral vision as the young man continued to stare at me as I left the shop.
I stepped lightly over to my shiny, candy apple red Ferrari. It was the same make as the one Edward had given me after I became immortal. It was considered a classic now, what with all the newer models. It was one of very few left in the world. I felt Edward's glare as I climbed into the car.
"Did you really have to stop by? That boy is as incapable of sustaining inappropriate thoughts about my wife as was his great-grandfather before him." He growled in his velvet voice.
"Ah, so I was right about him being Mike's great-grandson?" I pulled my teeth back to show a set of brilliantly white teeth. He too pulled his lips up at the corners, but unlike mine, which was in a smile, his was the forerunning of a snarl.
"I don't understand why you even bother, love. He's so boringly…human."
"If I recall correctly, you never thought that I was just so boringly human." I told him.
"But you were anything but boring and ordinary," he commented, his amber eyes taking in my face. I sighed. Even after over seventy years together I still had not tired of even the slightest of Edward's touches. He pulled his hand away and checked his watch.
"We need to hurry. Carslile and Esme will be expecting us." I gave another longing sigh.
"Won't it be nice to be back in our cabin?" I said gleefully, my voice chiming like a bell. Then a thought struck me. "Will Renesme-"
"She'll want to stay in the other cabin on the premises. Esme had it fixed up to be livable for her and Jacob. Although I daresay that she'll add her own flair to the redecorations soon enough." Satisfied, I pulled slowly out of the driveway. After all this time, I had still never developed a habit for driving fast. If I wanted to enjoy the thrill of going fast I could always run. The car was for pleasure rides…and of course when we needed to keep up human pretenses. Edward impatiently tapped his fingers on the dashboard. He hated the fact that I had a car that was destined to go fast and yet still drove at what was, to him, a crawl. In other words, the speed limit.
We made it to the turn off where our home awaited just a few hundred yards away. The ground we trod on was still familiar to me, even though it had been nearly a century since I had been here. And the old white house seemed as though we had never left it, although I was sure that was all Esme. But even so, the Victorian style home seemed to hold a timeless charm.
We could see our relatives milling around in the house, undoubtedly awaiting our arrival. Renesme's warm brown eyes peered through the window, although she had probably heard us coming down the driveway. We pulled up and climbed gracefully out of the car. Edward politely held out his hand to help me out, and when I gave it to him, took my hand to his lips and brushed a soft kiss to my fingers. Then he chuckled. A moment later I understood why when the door was flung wide open.
"Ew. Can't you guys hold off on that until you're out of our sight?" My daughter looked at us disgustedly. I grinned sheepishly at her, sure that if I was able to blush that I would have been. Edward however, pulled me closer, and simply said, "Don't talk to your mother that way." This, even now, is still strange for me to hear.
"Or what?" she asked, now laughing. "You'll ground me for the next fifteen years?"
"Keep pushing your luck and I just might." He said, although without any real conviction in his voice. And of course the slight crooked smile spreading across his face left his threat very empty. Renesme guffawed and tossed her long, curly brown hair over her shoulder. I gazed at her momentarily.
It was strange to think that in just a few days time we would all be enrolling in high school together, and we would be posing as cousins. And the incredible part was that anyone who wasn't a direct member of our little family wouldn't even know the difference. Renesme had stopped growing and looked no older than maybe seventeen or eighteen. Frozen forever, just as her father and I were.
Jasper and Rosalie were keeping their last name as were Edward, Alice and Emmett. Renesme and I were going to use the last name that I was going to give to her the day the Volturi showed up. So we were enrolled as Isabella and Renesme Wolfe, and we were all due to start school the following week for the new semester. Jacob, who looked about twenty five, was obviously too old looking to attend school.
But Nessie had insisted on being a part of the school where her I and Edward had met. I think, honestly, that even though she's grossed out by our physical contact that the thought of us falling in love while I was still human was appealing to her. She seemed almost as excited about the prospect of returning to Forks as I had been. Jacob confided to me that Renesme had talked about it nonstop to him almost every night before they went to sleep.
Having Jacob as a son-in-law wasn't as awkward as I had once thought it would be. He was as good of a person that I could have ever hoped Renesme would find, and his unconditional love for her was one that no other person could have given her. They had been married for almost thirty years, and still seemed as though they were newly weds. Thinking of that made me realize again about the cabin that they would be sharing now that we were back.
"So have you guys walked out to the cabin yet?" I asked, turning to Jacob.
He shrugged. "Not yet. We were waiting on the both of you to get back; figured you might want to see it."
"Well that was thoughtful of you." I said, taken aback. It wasn't normally like Jacob to be so thoughtful.
"Sure, sure." He said waving me off. Edward's eyes narrowed.
"Jacob, I don't think this is a good idea." I turned, startled, towards him.
"What isn't a good idea?" I received no answer. Jacob was looking pleadingly at Edward.
"Come on man, you know that if we hadn't done it then Alice would have." Alice sniffed haughtily in the corner.
"And I would have done a better job too." Then she sighed. "But I'm certain Bella will love it Edward. She might as well go." I was the one with suspicious narrowed eyes now. I quickly did a mental math calculation and came up with a dreaded day in my mind. It was, technically, my 88th birthday.
"Jacob," I whined in my wind-chime voice. " You didn't." He grinned at me sheepishly. I sighed, but followed Jacob and Renesme out of the house. The rest of our family followed us. It wasn't long before we reached the quaint little cabin. Renesme covered my eyes.
"You're gonna love it Mom!" she trilled. I knew that Alice had said the same thing, so I would just have to put my faith in both of them. I heard a door being flung open and then feet shuffling inside. My daughter's hands disappeared from my eyes. I gasped as I took in my surrounding.
The whole room was covered in blown up pictures. There were all sorts of pictures. Pictures of Rensme, Edward and I. Pictures of me and Alice. Pictures that I had taken of me and Edward when I got the camera and scrapbook for an eighteenth birthday present. Pictures of my friends in high school. Then there were ones that I didn't even know still existed. Like pictures of Renee holding me when I was a baby. Or Charlie ruffling my hair out on the boat, when I was making a face that clearly said I didn't want to be there.
It was so strange to see the old me. Or at least that's how I thought of it. There was a distinct difference between that life…the one that these pictures held proof of….and my new immortal life with my new family and husband. If I was able of tearing up, I would have.
"Thank you." I whispered. No normal human could have heard me. But everyone here wasn't exactly normal. Renesme gave me a hug from behind. I was speechless for a few moments. Then I cleared my throat.
"I really appreciate this, guys."
" Well we know that you're normally adverse to material gifts." Jacob told me. I laughed a little.
"You have no idea how much this means to me." Edward brushed his lips softly against my cheek.
"I love you."
So what did you guys think? Hopefully you enjoyed…promise that it isn't going to be just fluffy stuff…just give me time to work the plot in. Please review!
Meghan