Ephipany: A BD One Shot by AMusefan77
Okay, so I'm back (sort of). This is just a little one shot that has been fermenting in my head for quite some time now. In honor of the DVD release of BD1, I decided to write it down, only I didn't get it finished to my satisfaction before the DVD release. Big surprise. I'm the slowest writer ever. Anyway, this is all EPOV, as usual. I promise I really can write other stuff, but he's my favorite and I do this for fun. Plus, this sort of helped me get my mind back in the right place to work on Dark Matter.
To those people out there that are still with me, I apologize for my long absence from fic writing. I've been focusing on a lot of real life issues and an original story that I'm desperate to finish. The ending is written but it's still not where I want it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and while the story might be crap, it's my very own crap and I want to be satisfied with the finished product. But I digress…
Dark Matter is still something that I think about each day and it will be finished. I promise. But, I just can't justify taking too much time to write fics when my original stuff is so important to me. I hope you understand. Thanks so much for your patience.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy my little conversation between Jacob and Edward. It popped into my head when I was making notes on the EPOV of the tent scene in Dark Matter. Stephenie Meyer still owns all of this Twilight stuff. I'm not her, so it isn't mine. I'd like to think she'd approve of my canon interpretation if she ever read my stuff, but I've never had the chance to ask her. LOL.
Thanks so much to Rebadams7 for being kind enough to pre-read this for me.
EPOV
It had been seventeen hours, fifteen minutes and thirty seven seconds since my wife died giving birth to our daughter.
Bella wasn't dead, but her human life was over. I had managed to save her with my venom. She was changing, but she was still here.
She had to be here….
I could hear the rushing sounds of venom coursing through her body, changing it, repairing the fatal wounds she'd suffered while she carried our child. I could feel the hardening of her flesh on my hands as I ran the pads of my fingers over the cooling skin of her arm. I could smell the changes in her alluring floral scent as it grew sweeter.
But it was what I couldn't sense that frightened me.
No morphine.
There was no trace of the pain killer left in her body, so why was she so silent?
I had witnessed the change of three other vampires in person and I'd seen the memories of the experience in the minds of countless others. It was the same for all of us; excruciating torment.
Bella should be screaming in anguish right now; there was nothing to keep the burning pain from searing through her whole body like the fires of Hell. How could she endure the agony without a whimper?
Ever since I'd accepted the reality of Bella's change, I had imagined the pain I would be forced to live through when the time came for her transformation. I always knew it would be as painful for me to witness as it would be for her to endure it. I knew I should be grateful that she wasn't twisting and thrashing and begging me to kill her the way Rosalie and Esme had. But her silence frightened me beyond words.
What if I miscalculated the amount of venom it would take to complete her transformation? What if I really had been too late and she was dying in every sense of the word?
What if I lost her?
What if…
The sound of heavy footsteps and the pungent aroma of wet dog pulled me out of my anxious reverie.
Jacob.
I gritted my teeth in fury as he cautiously approached the door. He was the last person I wanted to interact with right now.
I knew I owed him for saving the lives of the people I loved more than once. Yet, I couldn't get past all the bitterness that I felt toward him for constantly inserting himself into my existence. I'd been keeping my hatred of him at bay for months by reminding myself over and over of the debts I could never repay.
The greatest debt of them all had been the countless times he'd protected my Bella. He saved her from Victoria when I foolishly abandoned her and kept her from drowning because of her misery. He'd also kept her sane.
Most recently, he'd changed the terms of the treaty to allow me to save her life without going to war with his tribe. He'd once said he'd rather see her dead than see her change, but when he'd fully understood what it would mean for her to be dead, he relented. It was this concession that allowed me to finally forgive him for his words. Yet even before I'd let go of my anger with him for that, I knew there was no way he loved her the way that I did. He couldn't possibly understand a love so powerful. He'd never felt anything close to what I did for her.
Until he set eyes on my daughter, and now I hated him all over again.
Ugh, I really don't want to do this, but I have to before Bella wakes up. God, she already stinks. I guess that means the change is working after all. He thought.
"Your thoughts aren't helping your case, Jacob." I muttered through gritted teeth as the door creaked open.
"Sorry," he replied in an uncharacteristically sheepish tone as he stepped over the threshold. "Can I come in?"
"You just did." I retorted as I wrapped a soft tendril of Bella's hair around my index finger. His manners were even worse than most modern teenagers.
"Uh, right," Jacob said. His voice was just as uncertain and anxious as his thoughts, and I couldn't help but feel a surge of pleasure at his discomfort.
"Can Bella hear us?" Jacob asked as he took in her motionless frame from behind me.
"I don't know." I replied thickly, my eyes never leaving her frozen face.
She still looks dead. I guess technically she is anyway even if she's a vamp. Sam said once that sometimes it doesn't work if the person is too far gone…
"Don't even think it!" I hissed angrily. "She's going to be fine!"
"Sorry." He mumbled again.
"You're sorry!" I growled as I jumped up and whirled to face him. "I suppose it's easy enough for you to give up on her now that my daughter has replaced my wife as the object of your affection! "
"It isn't like that and you know it!" Jacob blurted indignantly.
Take it easy, Edward. You'll scare Renesme. I don't know how much she understands, but I'm certain she can hear you. Carlisle thought. He was down the hall in his study transcribing notes about Renesme's most recent set of measurements.
Renesme already had the entire family wrapped around her tiny fingers. She was a true miracle; living, breathing proof of Bella's extraordinary courage and her capacity to love.
The thought of my daughter tempered my anger, and in its place I could only feel a weary sense of resignation.
"Just say what you need to say, Jacob." I muttered as I returned to the chair I'd been occupying for the last several hours.
"You know I can't help what happened…"Jacob continued. "I didn't mean to…"
"I do know." I interjected. It was rude to interrupt, but I couldn't bear to hear some sort of defensive lecture on imprinting when all I really wanted was for Jacob to leave me alone.
"Then, why are you still so angry?" Jacob asked in a voice that was equal parts annoyed and petulant.
"Because she's my daughter!" I replied bitterly. "Mine and Bella's not yours and I'm tired of sharing every single important milestone in my life with you. You tried to take Bella from me even after she made her choice, you marred our wedding and then you laid claim to our daughter before we'd even spent a single moment together as a family."
Wow I never thought about it that way. No wonder he hates my guts. I'd hate me too. Jacob thought.
"I don't hate you." I said in response to his thoughts.
"You want to, though." Jacob replied sagely.
"Yes, I suppose I do, but I can't." I answered stiffly.
"Why?" Jacob asked.
I sighed heavily. "Because for every lousy and interfering thing you've ever done to me, you've done something good to offset it. I owe you too many debts that I'll never be able to repay. Plus, as much as I resent it, my wife and my daughter love you."
"Well, bloodsucker, you're an honest guy, I'll give you that." Jacob said as some of his usual bravado returned.
"I believe you came up here to ask me for a favor." I reminded him as I traced circles on the back of Bella's hand. Her body temperature had dropped another 2 degrees since Jacob had arrived.
"Right," Jacob replied, the doubt and discomfort returning. "Well, will you?" he asked.
"Will I what, Jacob?
"You know what I'm asking because you saw it in my head." Jacob replied impatiently.
He was right, I did know, but I wanted him to have the decency to ask me properly.
Plus, it was nice to see him squirm. I suddenly gained a better understanding of the satisfaction Charlie got from antagonizing me.
"Say it out loud." I said with a hint of satisfaction.
"Vampire," He grumbled, using the word as an epithet. You're really enjoying this, aren't you? I don't even know if I wanna ask anymore.
"Are you afraid?" I asked condescendingly. I could hear the apprehension in his thoughts even though he was trying to hide it.
"No." He lied indignantly.
I waited for him to continue without taking my eyes away from Bella's still form.
"Will you let me tell Bella about the imprinting?" Jacob implored. "I want to be able to explain it to her myself." She was pretty creeped out by Quil and Claire. She's going to be upset, and I need to make her understand. He thought desperately.
I didn't answer him; I was too consumed with my worry over Bella's wellbeing at the moment to have a great deal of sympathy or concern for Jacob Black's anxiety, no matter what I owed him. However, it had taken a lot for him to ask a favor of me, even though our relationship was much different than it had been twenty four hours ago.
"Please, for Renesme's sake I need to make this right." He begged. "She's the center of my world and if Bella sends me away…"
"You think that she'll take the news better if she hears it from you," I stated quietly as I caressed Bella's cheek with the pads of my fingers. Her temperature had dropped another degree.
"Don't you?" Jacob asked.
"I don't know." I admitted. "She's not going to take it well no matter who tells her, but her emotions will be unpredictable when she wakes. Young vampires are very volatile. Knowing Bella, she will handle things much better than other newborns, but it might be best to wait until she's had a chance to adjust."
"How long will that take?" Jacob asked impatiently. I don't want to wait to tell her. That would probably just piss her off even more and I'd rather just get it over with. He thought.
I gritted my teeth at his egocentric mentality.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have the patience of a gnat with attention deficit disorder?" I snapped.
Jacob snorted. "That was pretty funny, bloodsucker. I didn't know vampires had a sense of humor."
"You know, you might want to consider addressing me in a more respectful manor, Jacob; I am Renesme's father. I can send you away just as easily as Bella can."
The instant that the words left my mouth, I heard his heart rate increase. His thoughts shifted into a mess of incoherent, wild panic.
"You can't! Please! Renesme wants me here…I can't…I'd…I know you don't understand, but…"
"Don't I, Jacob?" I said quietly.
The truth was, I understood exactly how he felt. I knew from what I'd seen in the minds of the other Quileute wolves that imprinting is strikingly similar to vampire mating. However, the wolves are still mortal creatures, and as such, their mating was not quite as powerful.
"You heard Sam and Jared thinking about Emily and Kim." Jacob replied. "I did too, but reading it in someone's thoughts is totally different that actually feeling it."
I understood that, too. For nearly a century, I had lived with three sets of mates. I'd heard their tender and all-consuming thoughts of love and devotion for years, but I'd never fully understood the power and intensity of the love between two mates until the night I'd heard Bella speak my name in her fitful sleep.
The night I'd realized I loved her. That epiphany changed every frozen cell in my body, my heart and my mind. She was everything.
I placed a soft kiss on Bella's cooling forehead before answering him.
"I admire you in many respects, Jacob Black," I said as I continued to twist my fingers through Bella's soft curls. "But your greatest shortcoming has always been your inability to comprehend the feelings of others."
"What is that supposed to mean, Bloo- um, I mean, Edward," he stammered, trying to keep the indignation out of his voice. It was no use, of course.
"You know what I mean, Jacob," I replied. "Perhaps I'm not being entirely fair to you, though," I added as an afterthought. "Maybe you just can't sympathize with vampires because until quite recently, you never thought of us as people."
"I get that you're a person," Jacob grumbled. "What does that have to do with you letting me tell Bella?"
"It has everything to do with it," I replied. "She is my mate, and while I no longer despise you, Jacob, your well-being means little to me by comparison."
"Mate," Jacob repeated. "How does that work, anyway? Do you all always mate for…um…life? I know vampires get angry when you kill their mates, but…"
"They get angry?" I echoed incredulously. "Tell me, Jacob; how do you define angry? Would you say that Victoria was merely angry when she created an entire hoard of newborn vampires and attempted to destroy a whole coven to avenge the death of her mate?"
"Did she have a death wish like you did?" Jacob blurted. He was remembering the conversation we'd had in that wretched tent the night before the newborn battle. I scowled at the memory. It had been one of the worst nights of my life. Almost as bad as the tearful night that followed.
"No." I whispered quietly. "At least, she didn't when we were fighting, but I firmly believe that she would have later on if she'd survived. I think Victoria's…anger was the only thing that kept her from being consumed by her grief. I truly believe that if she had won, it would have been a hollow victory for her in the end. The obsessive desire for revenge is merely a temporary reprieve from that kind of pain."
Victoria had truly loved James, even if he had been incapable of loving anyone besides himself.
I wouldn't want to live if I lost Renesme. Jacob thought. I recognized the change in the adrenaline levels in his body and the faltering rhythm of his heart.
"Vampire mating is the same thing, isn't it?" He whispered as he remembered more details of our tent conversation.
"Yes." I said thickly as I smoothed Bella's hair unnecessarily. "It's not always as…instantaneous as imprinting, but as I told you before, love creates a permanent change. I've never met a vampire that wanted to live after the loss of their mate. Granted, I've only ever encountered two of them, but in both cases, the vampire was just a shell of their former selves. Life had no meaning for them."
"I get it now." Jacob said.
"I know." I replied, smiling a little as I heard my daughter's soft coos from downstairs.
"I need to get back to her."
"I will allow you to tell Bella about the imprinting." I said, still staring unerringly at Bella's still form.
"You will?" Jacob exclaimed, his voice full of boyish happiness.
"I do have one request in return, though." I said with a small smirk.
"Bring Renesme in to see her mother."
AN:
Well? What did you think? I always wanted to know how Edward really felt about Jacob imprinting on Renesme. We all know that he came to terms with it and eventually he planned to rely on Jacob to care for her when he was sure he and Bella were going to die at the hands of the Volturi. But I've always been convinced that he must have been pretty upset at first. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. It sort of helped me get back into Edward's head as I tried to start writing Dark Matter again.