Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga is the property of Stephenie Meyer, says so in the Copyright. Plainly speaking, I do not own the characters, situations and plot of Twilight nor did I make any money from writing this fanfiction. Harry Potteris the legal property of J.K Rowling. I do not own the characters, settings plots and so forth from the series nor do I profit monetarily from this fanfiction.

Changed Perception

The demon that had bloodied and broke and stripped Bella of her livelihood was now curled into the curvature of Edward's arm, tiny feet kicking at his open palm. It was different; seeing her like that with her just-born wrinkly skin all clean and rosy from the slightly cooler air breezing through the open bay windows. She resembled a real child, one that lived and breathed and – God.

He was shaking, trembling from anxiety as he had previously seen the vampire do moments before and, he assumed, for an entirely different reason. He was trying; trying so damn hard to connect the memory of Bella, ribs cracked and poking against her skin, blotches of purple welling under the pale cream as blood clotted into bruises, skin tightened to the bones of her face from lack of health and weight – with the wiggling baby, clearly content and intelligent if the sparkle in her eye said anything.

And the way he looked at her…with such love that Jacob pitied the poor fool who caught her heart. Topaz, warm and liquid, set beneath rusted lashes were glued to the sight of his daughter's inquisitive but sleepy eyes. Looking closer he could see the ruby red wrapping around the edges of brown in ragged strips before finally meshing into deep burgundy circling her pupil.

Jacob traced over the ageless paths of Edward's face, absorbed in his thoughts. It's there in that face where I fell, not because of beauty, but the pain that spread its planes when he looked at Bella; almost as if looking away from her would bring him agony. And those eyes…tawny and shadowed with loneliness; they're so soft now, burning and overcome with love. How can I deny it any longer when it's plain in the longing of my heart to join them?

It'd be worth it to play the villain now and know that truth is what cuts his eyes toward mine. It'd be worth it, he thought, if the pain was the reaction of my love and not my lies.

Jacob could see her as if the veneer that had covered her was removed and the newborn baby revealed. The hate that had clung to his bones while he watched the life dim from Bella's brown eyes was replaced with love and it finally sunk in that it was Bella's will to bring this wonderful being to life; her selfless, faulting love that allowed such a gift to be present in their lives.

Renesmee was Bella in quietly flushed pale skin wrapped snugly in a pale yellow baby blanket, Bella in the peculiar shade of twinkling eyes squinting against the puffs of air emitted from Edward's relaxed mouth; Bella's pert nose and rounded cheek. In her mouth and direct gaze her father's blood could be told, but the rest was all her own; the way her eyes crinkled at the corners and pulled down a bit in fits of yawns and content, the constant jitter of her body (surely babies didn't move that much after just being born!) and the baby fine curls of rust.

His chest tightened as Res opened her little red mouth to let out a short stream of bubbles and a small squawk. His heart picked up a beat as a burst of affection shocked him. It boggled him that his opinion of the little tyke had changed so quickly; how she had so suddenly become a living, breathing beautiful baby girl from a thing. A thing that had so hideously strewn his world apart and strained the fabric that held his resolve to remain the act he had played since meeting the vampire. A thing that couldn't console the fear he'd be found out and lose the girl that he loved as a sister and the vampire he yearned to comfort and love and protect.

Calloused fingers ached to touch the delicate skin of rosy cheek; mouth trembled with the need to shower her plump faces with kisses of adoration. He wanted to hold her and be part of her life. The need inside him grew and spilled over until tears crested the corner of his eyes. How could he do exactly that when the pain had become too much for him to bear? The thought of separating himself from a special new life and the love he'd been denied was too much for Jacob to consider and so he didn't.

The selfish conviction took hold of him and for the first time Jacob understood the dilemma Bella suffered through when choosing between her love and her life. After a moment's thought he decided he didn't give one God given damn about it – he was staying. Nothing and no one would change his decision.

Breathing was easier to accomplish once his mind had settled down and his course determined. He blew out a sigh of relief as he noticed the missing leeches and then another one when he realized his opinion on the cursed beings hadn't changed because of his love. It proved to him that he still had mind enough to be rational and wait for further proof of their argued 'vegetarian' lifestyle and innocence in leaving humans alone before making a logical judgment of the forsaken; or at least the Cullens – you couldn't trust any damn leech as fast as they could take a life and he wasn't going to start thinking of the whole blood-thirsty race as a bunch of goody-two shoes.

Jacob felt tension gathering at the track of his thoughts and frantically searched for peace and found it several feet away in the direct gaze of scorching honey.

It was warm; the kind of warm where your body grows lax and you're pulled into that hazy void of being and everything intensifies. His hands were intertwined with another's whose fingers were strong and colored a dusky tan, thick and blunted at the tips. His own were lean and long, their tips rounded by years of stroking the ivory keys of a piano. The embrace of hands and the hot press of their palms sent shivers through his body, his nerves going in to overdrive to keep up with the delicious play of electricity manipulating his borrowed blood.

It was nice to feel his lover's body heat mingling with his own for once and he cringed at the memory of Bella's nonexistent heat or chilliness – hers was a temperature that did not affect his; his body, being dead, had an intense chill when struck against human skin. Yet to others of his kind there was a presence of warmth, not unlike what humans felt from other humans. As a result there was something missing from their intimacy; the simple act of brushing her bare arm with his fingers was devoid of physical reaction from him, but the call of her blood kept him chained in such a way that he hadn't noticed until a body held his in comparison.

As if his lover had heard his silent contemplations, soulful eyes of deep, dark brown turned to him, a smile lifting the firm, sensuous mouth set in the beautifully crafted face of his mate.

"You can be so impossibly cruel; especially when you try your hardest not to be."

The chuckle flew from his lips, but there wasn't any regret in the fire soft sound.

If there was regret, there was no meaning.

Edward met Jacob's eyes and understood.

When in tears there should be pain, the absolute joy of life bloomed; in his gaze, warm and effervescent, lay the acknowledgement that he would live on and conquer demons which others could not withstand. In his eyes were compassion and love – weapons to heal the earth.

Edward understood turning his back on his past and the unbridled simmering beneath the steel of his skin would ruin the passion for life that had overcome him with the birth of his beauty.

Edward would not turn back on his tears.

He knew then that the floodgates had been waiting for this declaration, for the promise he'd stay true to his heart and never again be taken under with self-hatred. They opened and released a torrent of locked away secrets, airing the long kept memoirs of encounters passed and he was filled to the brim so impossibly that he felt in awe that he could be filled with more. This is love, he thought, never waning and evermore.

Jacob's face changed before his eyes, each tiny detail cherished in this new place of freedom. The personality that had once annoyed him to bits was now endearing and lovely as it had always been in the locked away, but never quite forgotten place and he could finally appreciate the shifter's spirit in all of its fiery beauty. His husky voice, throaty laughter; all more and more loved as these slow human seconds passed.

When his warmth breached the vampire's skin, a comfortable heat after losing the burn of its fever from breaking through the harsh cold of his temperature, Edward became fascinated with the deep color of brown found in the boy's eyes, so beautiful and open. The lines that had seemed to be permanently etched into his tanned skin, gone and the tightness of his mouth relaxed and smiling. Tears were dried upon the curve of his cheek, but still glistened happy in his eye as he smiled.

It was in that open smile Edward found his love returned and knew that whether they withheld the trial that was sure to come from our newfound love together or not, their love would remain.

Those endless brown eyes crinkled at the corners, deepening in color and heat when he looked down at the wonderful girl nestled tight in Edward's arms.

"May I hold the beautiful girl in your arms?"

Alice sat at Bella's side watching the change with careful eyes. The venom was already starting to rework her biological composition, knitting her muscles into thick bands that showed in her slim limbs. It worked with the skin, thickening the pliable flesh to steel. The whole process was incredible to the seer who couldn't remember a single detail of her own recreation or the life beforehand.

The way Bella's body arched from the steel table was beautifully erotic, breathy cries rising from a throat exhausted from unconscious screams aroused the desire for her, complicated patterns unraveling to simplicity.

As a wrenching, throaty cry erupted from her chest, Alice placed her hands on newly hollowed cheeks and brushed lips with the pliant pair beneath.

"Soon, Bella, it will be as it should have been in the beginning."