A/N: Thank you pogurl for sharing your mad beta-ing skillz! To everyone who has reviewed: you are fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time to not only read, but to let me know what you think.

Emmett's head rocked back to rest on the back of the couch so he could look at the ceiling. "What on earth are girls doing up there? It sounds like they have a herd of elephants in Bella's room!"

Emmett and Jasper paused the game they were playing—Edward had no interest in learning how to play video games quite yet, though he suspected he'd enjoy it, and already planned on buying one of each console system when he and Bella went back home—and Jasper and Edward emulated Emmett, resting their heads back to stare at the ceiling in confusion.

For a moment, Edward allowed himself to hate having the same reaction as Jasper. He didn't want anything in common with the man, and their synchronous head movement to stare at the ceiling annoyed him.

He missed being able to tweak the other man's emotions. He loved being able to connect to his Bella and love her as she should be loved, but now he needed a new way to vent the frustrations he was sure he'd encounter. He wondered who he could goad, now that he was limited to physical interactions. That would be a point of consideration for a later time.

He glanced over at Emmett. He was slightly shocked that Bella's brother hadn't made an earnest attempt at dismembering him as soon as the three younger men were left to their own devices. With the girls upstairs gossiping, Esme and Renee in the kitchen probably gossiping—who was he kidding, they were planning his and Bella's nuptials—and Carlisle and Charlie in the basement discussing fly fishing, Edward had fully expected his future brother-in-law to launch into him. Instead the big man had studiously ignored him.

This rather disappointed Edward. He had some affection for Emmett for all the years he'd taken care of Bella when he'd been unable to do so himself, starting with the day Bella was born and Emmett promised Charlie he'd always look after his baby sister. Edward wanted to get the machismo territory crap over with so he could enjoy his time here with Bella and relax into the trip. But no, Emmett was playing strong, silent, and intimidating. Great.

The noises from upstairs continued.

Jasper wrinkled his forehead. "Is that...ok, so it sounds like the headboard hitting the wall, or furniture being moved, or something like that." His head snapped down and he looked at the other two with what was a mixture of horror, disbelief, and fascination. "It doesn't really sound like the headboard, does it? Because, what could the girls be doing up there..." He trailed off. "You know what, I don't want to know. I'll just shut up now. Game, Emmett?" He gestured toward the paused game on the television screen.

Edward forced a casual, friendly smile. He wanted to rip into Jasper for even suggesting anything sexual about his Bella.

Pleasant mental image or not.

"Alice and Rose were taking Bella upstairs to interrogate her about me. Maybe they're torturing her?" He listened carefully. It really did sound like the headboard of Bella's childhood bed was hitting the wall behind it and like the legs of said bed were clunking down on the hardwood floor of her room. He didn't like to think about how he knew those sounds in this house he'd not physically been in before. And he couldn't think about how Jasper could identify those sounds, either, not if he were going to allow the other man to live.

Emmett looked thoughtful. "You know what it really sounds like? It sounds like it used to when Alice and Bella would jump up and down on her her bed. Man, Renee used to get so pissed! Watch this." He twisted around so that he was facing the door between the living room and the kitchen, where Renee and Esme were chatting over tea. "Hey MOM!" He bellowed.

Renee's voice came floating back to them. "Emmett, honestly. You could get up and come talk to me."

"Come in here for a minute!" He yelled back, not moving.

They heard the sound of chairs scraping across the linoleum and both women walked in with amused expressions on their faces. "What is it, Emmett? I really think that by now-" She cut off when she heard the ruckus from above them. Edward couldn't decide if Renee looked mad or amused. All he knew is that she huffed and headed for the staircase. Was Bella in trouble? Wasn't she too old for that? Jumping on the bed or not?

Emmett beamed. "Getting Bella in trouble with Renee never gets old."

"What are you, Em, twelve?" Jasper shook his head. "And it's not like Bella's going to get grounded or anything."

"Yeah, but I bet Renee will get her to drag the Christmas decorations out of the attic before she leaves us again-" At this point, Emmett scowled at Edward "-and you know how much Bella hates it up there. She's always terrified of the spiders."

Esme clucked her tongue and swatted Emmett on the top of his head. "Young man, you know full well the three of you will be in the attic with the spiders this weekend fishing out the Christmas decorations. And whichever of you isn't in the attic will be stringing the lights outside this house and ours."

"Aunt Esme!"

"Mom!"

Emmett and Jasper whined to the quiet woman at the same time. Edward saw the tug of a smile on her face as she tried to look serious. He decided that the wiser course of action on his part would be to keep his mouth shut. He thought perhaps he ought to volunteer for the attic run to keep from exposing his ignorance on how to go about hanging lights on a house, but he could take care of that later, when the subject came up and duties were being divvied up.

Edward liked Esme. To the same degree that he was annoyed by the existence of Jasper, he admired and appreciated Esme. When Bella had been growing up, her aunt really had been a second mother to her, filling in the "mother" gaps that Renee missed. While Renee was excellent at crafty projects and planning excursions and field trips for the small fry and introducing them to new ideas and new ways to view the world, she had been abysmal at mothering duties that involved the PTA, cookies, or cupcakes.

With Esme and Carlisle living close by, the two women had more or less divided up some of those mom-type duties: whenever there was a school field trip for the three, Renee went. If ever they wanted to see the dinosaur bones at the Burke Museum in Seattle, ride the ferries, or make tipis in the backyard, Renee was the adult they asked. On the other hand, if they needed a plate of cupcakes to share for their class, a parent to keep abreast of the PTA's agenda and projects, or a snuggley afghan for their bed, Esme was their woman. They both mothered in different ways, and Edward was deeply grateful that his Bella had had the love of both women while she'd been growing up. He knew from hearing conversations between Bella, Emmett, and Alice, that the three of them agreed with his assessment; from the time they were old enough to write, all three had been giving both women mother's day cards on that holiday.

The noise from Bella's room stopped about the time Edward estimated Renee had made it to the top of the stairs. With nothing to distract them, Jasper nudged Emmett "Ready to go again? We have some Nazis to kill!" Emmett nodded his assent and the game fired back up.

Edward was back to boredom. He was doing his best to pretend Jasper didn't exist, Emmett was pretending, except for a scowl here and there, that Edward didn't exist, and Jasper had given up on being the peace broker. He wondered if Emmett was ignoring him for the same reason he was ignoring Jasper; that acknowledgment would necessitate violence. He allowed himself to grin. He did have limitations, funneling his energies into a human body, but he was far more durable than the average human. He looked forward to the seemingly inevitable confrontation with the big man. It could be fun.

Bella sighed as the men walked outside to string the lights on the outside of the house. Two days after the Thanksgiving feast, and no progress. The tension there was palpable, but nothing had happened (yet) so she couldn't take anyone to task. Still, it was painfully obvious that Emmett was only tolerating Edward's presence, and Edward himself wasn't doing a great job of trying to make friends with anyone other than Carlisle or Charlie, which only seemed to make Emmett think Edward was a brown-noser, sucking up the paternal influences. Poor Jasper just looked baffled at Edward's attitude. She was pretty sure this was the first time in his life that Jasper's natural charisma and ability to soothe people wasn't winning someone over.

If only Jasper knew why. She hesitated at that thought. She could tell Alice and maybe even Jasper that Edward knew about her and Jazz in high school, and had some ridiculous machismo retro-jealousy going. It might explain his attitude problem.

No, that wouldn't work. She'd just have to convince Edward to make an effort to befriend his peers in this family. She wrinkled her forehead. After her conversation with Edward, there would be no befriending of Jasper any time soon. As if it were Jasper's fault that she'd been curious as a teenager, and had sought out a friend she trusted and wanted to experiment with. She got that Edward had been tortured by that period in her life, she did. She understood that it'd ripped him apart to see her with Jasper over and over again as she learned about her body, and about a man's body with him. She understood. She also understood that the love of her life was being ridiculous about carrying out Jasper's "punishments" for so many years past the time of their actual arrangement. He and Alice had been together for ten years now; married for five of those years. And yet he'd continued to torment poor Jasper until the time she'd gone to Ireland seven months ago. It was too much.

Inhuman sense of justice, territory, and anger or not, Edward had carried his torment of Jasper too far. She knew that she'd probably never convince him he'd been out of line for the past ten years, but she still felt the need to impress upon him that she was half at fault for the inadvertent torture she'd put the man of her dreams through. He seemed bent on laying it all on the shoulders of her blond cousin-in-law.

She needed to talk to him about this, she knew. What she wanted to do was give him the cold shoulder. Punish him, a little, for hurting her friend over and over for so many years. What she'd done instead was round on him after they'd turned in for bed in her old room. She'd pointed to the maroon overstuffed recliner that had replaced her old rocking chair when Renee claimed this room as a sewing room. "I'll sleep on the recliner. I'm small enough to sleep on it comfortably. You can take the bed. I'm so disappointed right now, Edward. I can't even...how could you? How could you hurt Jasper for so long? Do you know just how miserable this holiday has been for him for the past ten years? Miserable for Alice? For me? Do you really understand how awful I felt whenever he'd get sick or anxious after we'd fool around in high school?" She saw his face tighten at that question."How is it right, when I sought him out in school? When I was half the reason we were doing anything at all. I don't understand." She'd thrown her hands up in frustration. "What the hell, Edward?"

He had walked forward and cupped her face in both of his hands. With the heat of his hands on either side of her face making her feel safe and loved and warm, it had taken all of her indignation and willpower not to just melt into him. She was mad, damn it. He wasn't going to get out of this with just one gesture. He had gently tilted her head up so that they were staring in each other's eyes. She was mesmerized by his eyes. "I was thinking that my wife was letting some child touch her in ways that only I should be able to touch her. I was thinking that this man-child you were experimenting with needed to earn the right to be with someone as amazing as yourself. Alice's feelings or his were not my concern. You were. Only you."

She could see the hurt in the whirling forest green eyes of his. The hurt broke her heart. She knew then he'd never understand why she was angry. She was fighting a loosing battle. "I know you won't agree when I say this. But to me, that only explains what you did to him when we were still fooling around. I still don't understand making him miserable so often when I was around him after he and Alice got together."

His lips touched her forehead briefly. "He still hadn't earned the right to have ever touched you." His face twisted. "He still hasn't. I'll do no more, though, because you request it."

She quirked her eyebrow. "Because you can't now, you mean."

He shook his head. "The manner of torment would only change, now, if I were to continue. I cannot twist his emotions or his gut, but it is still easy to make someone miserable in more conventional ways. I will not do that, however, because you ask that I stop."

She had allowed herself in lean into the comforting warmth of his big hands encompassing her face. She took a deep breath."For tonight, Edward, I'm sleeping on the recliner. I need some time to adjust to who you really are, what you think is ok to do, our differing senses of justice. I still have an idealized version of you in my head and I need to reconcile the two. I can't take that time to think while I'm wrapped around you in bed." Her hands had traveled up, to rest over his and to give a small squeeze. "I love you. I just need a few feet between us right now. For tonight."

Following through on her need for a little space and crawling into the recliner for sleep was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. With Edward just four feet away, in bed, face open and pained, watching her, she'd almost ignored her own need and slipped into bed with him to sooth his need. That was exactly what she would've done when she was younger. But she knew herself well enough to know that she'd been telling him the truth when she said she needed a some space to take all this in. She knew she'd be doing herself, and ultimately him, a disservice if she always sublimated her own needs for his. So she had pulled the lever on the side of the recliner that kicked out the foot rest, pushed the back as far down as it would go, pulled the afghan up around her, and closed her eyes to get lost in thought.

She knew she would be spending the rest of this life trying to wrap her head around his sense of justice. Would she suddenly understand it when Bella died and she was Cáer again?

She knew she would be spending the rest of this life loving and being frustrated by this god masquerading as a man.

She promised herself that she'd never take his love, a little over possessive or not, for granted; she'd been alone her whole life, had waited so long to kiss him, to be with him, to feel complete, to breathe. There was no way her irritation over his Jasper attitude could ruin it. Nonetheless, his cavalier attitude about so tormenting someone for over a decade bothered her. She kept having to remind herself that he wasn't born into her ideals and morals, and that - as a deity who was accustomed to getting what he wanted, had lived for eons and was insanely territorial, crafty, and mischievous - what he thought was justified would be what she thought overboard and cruel.

They'd be butting their heads over such concerns for decades, she was sure.

It was worth it. He was worth everything.

Neither of them had rested well that night; she had eventually drifted off and slept fitfully. When she'd woken up yesterday morning, she'd padded across the room and curled up in the bed next to him, her head on his shoulder in its customary place. She'd been immediately engulfed in the cocoon of warmth his body had created in the sheets, and had drifted off again for an early morning nap, his head tilted toward hers, his arm curled around her as best it could with her on it. He too had succumbed to sleep once she was in her rightful spot next to him and the peace found in that place of in-between soothed both.

Yesterday had been normal for them. Well, what she thought normal for them while surrounded by people. They couldn't fool around as they wanted, but they'd sneak in kisses and caresses between the boy's trips up into the attic and Esme and Alice's decorating instructions.

A Jasper and Edward friendship was a lost cause, she realized. There was an inkling of hope that over the years Edward would thaw out, but she wouldn't make any plans on that. Bella's goal now was to convince Emmett to accept the friendly overtures she was talking Edward into making. Emmett would be a tough sell, however. Her big brother had taken her aside yesterday and demanded she explain herself.

Why was she leaving the family? Why couldn't Edward move here? Was she aware of how fishy it sounded to him that she happened to bring home a man by the same name as the hero in her first book—was she even in love with Edward, or just the idea of him? How did she expect to be an active part in Austin and Chloe's lives all the way over in Ireland? That question had been a low blow. Did Edward have a job? He'd avoided directly answering that question up to that point, and so had Bella. Before coming to visit the family they'd decided to stick with simple: his family was independently wealthy, and he was an investor. In an earlier incarnation, he'd been a banker, and thanks to immense amounts of free time whilst flitting in and out of her head and hovering around her for thirty years, he had garnered some knowledge of modern business practices. As he had mentioned, "I went to college right along with you, and you were two credits shy of a dual major with Business Administration and Communication." With these experiences, he felt he could handle general questions about that aspect of business. Being independently wealthy would mean he wasn't a gold digger, attached to Bella because of the money she'd made from her books. That should assuage some of Emmett's fears.

Somehow, though, when the subject of his gainful employment came up, they'd both answered with joking answers. "Mah Lovah" had been her response to Alice—and it was true!—and "exotic dancer" had been his well-received (by the women in the family) answer to Renee's query. Apparently this joking attitude and lack of response had raised the red flag for her older brother, and he latched onto it.

Is that even his name, Bella? It's too convenient that his name is Edward, too, like your character. What did he do, stalk you at Drogheda and Newgrange to get your attention?Did he know who you were before he approached you? How does he expect to take care of you?

Emmett's questions and accusations had swirled around her, and she'd totally lost her temper. She regretted the things she'd said in response, digging up ancient history between them, accusing him of wanting to keep her twelve forever, for not loving her enough to let her grow up, of being too narrow-minded to see how happy she was. She could have, and should have, approached his questions in a totally different manner.

But she hadn't, and now they were barely being civil to one another.

For the time being, the "Emmett and Bella" relationship was...up in flames? Sunk like the Titanic? More damaged than the Lusitania? Bella tried not to be so melodramatic in her thoughts, but it was the biggest fight she'd had with her brother in her adulthood, and internal melodrama was hard to avoid.

Hard to avoid unless you had Esme for an aunt and Alice for a cousin. The two women were hell bent on having each house meticulously decorated for Christmas before Bella and Edward flew back to Ireland, which meant that the two small tyrants were running everyone ragged. Carlisle, Charlie, Renee, Rose, and Emmett all had regular full-time jobs to go back to come Monday, so Tyrant One and Tyrant Two had everyone busy over the weekend with the idea that the reduced work force of Bella and Edward had less to tackle in the coming week.

"Bella!" Her aunt successfully pulled Bella from her thoughts.

"Yes, Aunt Esme?"

"Come on, dear. Alice and Edward have finished up in the den. We're tackling the family room next, and we need all four of us in there to finish before dinner."

Bella followed her aunt into the other room and let herself get lost in the world of decorating tyrants, Edward, mistletoe, and seasonal decorations.

Edward noticed that Bella's eyes seemed unfocused. Her expression hadn't changed, she was still staring ahead, appearing to watch the movie with the rest of them, but it was obvious to him that she wasn't seeing what was in front of her at all. He watched her for almost a full minute before he bent over his beautiful Bella's head, cradled in his lap, and whispered in her ear. "Love?"

She blinked, and her whole body gave a small jerk. She felt almost as though she'd been startled awake, though she hadn't been sleeping. She'd been remembering.

Generally, she only had a few flashes here and there of the lives she'd lived with Edward. With Aengus. The only memories she had that were as clear as her own Bella memories were those of their first meeting, when he turned into a swan to join her, and that of her shock when she realized she was being reborn into a body that wasn't in Ireland. Everything else was snips and flashes and half-dreams. Just now, though, she'd relived several years of a life she'd not previously recalled. And it wasn't a particularly happy one.

Now she knew what happened when they were separated, once joined.

She remembered what happened when Aengus, even reborn as one Seamus O'Brien, left his home for too long. She'd watched the body of Seamus/Aengus wither into nothing, riddled by disease when no one else around them was. She'd watched him struggle not to be a burden on their homestead in Oklahoma as she and their children got their home up, the livestock situated, the land sowed with crops.

She remembered that he'd become weaker on the long voyage from Ireland to their new country. Everyone had assumed it was seasickness. She remembered that his healthy, hale body seeming to shrivel before her eyes as they traveled west, to where the government was opening the new territory up for settlement. She remembered their daughter trying in vain to nurse him to health; remembered their daughter doing the same for her when she ceased to have any reason to live after his death.

Not knowing how long she'd been in her reverie, Bella glanced around to see Emmett and Rosalie still cozy in the giant recliner, Jasper and Alice curled around each other like cats on the couch, and her head still pillowed on Edward's lap on the love seat. No one had moved. An assessment of the movie told her that not much had happened there, either.

And yet she'd remembered a whole different life. She'd been a redhead in that life. Her name had been Maureen. Their children…

Their children. She gasped. She'd been a mother. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maureen had been a mother, not her, not Bella. It was the birthing pains experienced by Maureen that she recalled, not her own. Her own body had not gone through the trial and pain and joy of pregnancy and childbirth. Her own body had not experienced the devastation of a stillborn child or the joy of a child that survived a cruel world. But she knew these things all the same.

Edward watched the emotions on his heart's face as though watching a private movie. Clearly, she'd experienced something. She'd need to talk it out, he knew. He glanced outside. Still light out, still cold. But private. They could talk freely outside, with no concerned family members to eavesdrop on a conversation that couldn't possibly make sense to anyone but the two of them.

"My heart," he murmured close to her ear. "Would you like to go for a walk? Is it too cold?" He paused. "You look like you need to talk." He was unconsciously rubbing his hand back and forth along her arm, trying to comfort her from whatever it was that had her looking so shocked.

She cast her own look outside and around the room, and nodded. "I think that's a good idea."

They both got up, and at Emmett's frown and quizzical look, Bella offered, "I want to show Edward some of the old haunts, spend some time with him. We'll be back." She dismissed her brother, not giving him the time to challenge the idea or offer to come with them with a shake of her head. "Enjoy the movie, we'll be back before it gets too terribly late." Taking Edward's arm, she walked to the mud room by the front door to pull on her winter coat, gloves, scarf, and boots.

She couldn't help but drink in the sight of Edward bent over, sliding on his boots. The angle provided her with a stellar view of his perfectly formed rump, showcased nicely by the snug jeans she'd bought for him. She frowned to herself, wondering if she'd have to watch this body of his waste away, too, if they stayed away from the Emerald Isle for too long.

They walked slowly along a path she, Alice, and Emmett had long ago worn on the forest floor near her parent's house. She didn't know how to bring up what she'd dreamed. Remembered. It was almost too much, overwhelming her with memories and feelings and experiences she hadn't actually had. Except that she had, as a different person. Ugh. It was making her head hurt.

And truth be told, now that she was out from the watchful eye of her brother, she wanted to tackle Edward to the ground and let him kiss her worries away. Kiss, and caress, and stroke, and…she was letting her libido get the better of her. But who could blame her? She'd been searching for the person who could make her feel so exquisitely good her whole adult life. Now that she'd found him, she couldn't get enough, craving his touch mere seconds after their skin lost contact.

She shoved her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets and looked up at Edward, who was gracefully strolling next to her.

"I remembered Oklahoma," she said quietly.

A flicker of something passed over his face, and then it was calm and open again. "Oklahoma." He stated quietly. He turned his swirling field-green eyes on her.

"What about Oklahoma do you remember?"

"I remember emigrating from Ireland with you and our children. I remember you suffering what we all thought was seasickness on the voyage over. I remember us hearing about the land being opened up in Indian territory for settling." Her face flinched at this. Her past self, Maureen, had seen nothing wrong with that idea; modern Bella, however, having grown up with Charlie's friends on the Quileute reservation, felt residual guilt.

"I remember traveling west to get the territory in time for the land run." Her eyes grew huge with the memory. Thousands and thousands of people had gathered to stake a claim on land and a new life. When the canons had sounded at noon, and the mass of people and horseflesh had rushed forward the cloud of dust and the sounds of pounding hooves had overwhelmed her.

Her voice sank. "I remember how sick you were by the time we made it to Santa Fe station, and how stubbornly you were trying to hide it." She couldn't keep the quiver from her voice. Seamus had been a shorter, thicker man than Edward now was, with thick, curly medium brown hair that had been plastered to his face by perspiration. His sturdily built body had already been weakened when they'd reached the Santa Fe station with the other thousands of eager settlers. To keep himself in the saddle of the horse they'd bought, he'd lashed himself in.

"Guthrie."

Bella nodded. "Guthrie. I can't believe I—we--were there for that. It was empty prairie when the canons went off and the rush started. By the time we finally collapsed into our bedrolls, ten thousand people had stopped there." A deep, steadying breath, and Edward's warm arm around her shoulders kept her calm.

"We were part of the city that was founded and laid out and practically built in a day," she said with wonder.

Edward smiled down on her. His own memories of life as Seamus O'Brien were painful. His body's wasting away had started soon after leaving Ireland, starting just as queasiness and tiredness, and slowly progressing to a disease that whittled his body down to nothing over the course of months. When he'd finally died in Cáer's—well, Maureen's—arms, he'd weighed less than she had, and though hale, she hadn't been a large woman.

Even through his suffering, he'd been in awe of the new city of Guthrie, literally founded in half a day. The sea of tents that spread out across the prairie had been staggering. The smell of that many people and beasts of burden in one spot had sent his senses spinning. Even then, though, Maureen had filled his thoughts. He'd known when they staked their claim that he wouldn't survive to see the first harvest. Luckily, their son by that time was seventeen, more than old enough to work and help support his mother and sister, who was fifteen. They'd been one of the relatively few full families to take part in the first day of the rush; most had sent the husbands and fathers first, with the wives and children following the next day or week.

He squeezed Bella's shoulders, hugging her to him, grateful for his invulnerability in this form. His only fear now was that Bella's fragile human form would catch a disease or become profoundly injured.

"What else do you remember, a ghrá?"

She laid her head on his chest. They'd slowed to a near stop just inside the forest line near the spot where Emmett and Jacob had built a rickety tree house as children. "I remember volunteering to teach the children, being paid a little to do so by the other parents until official schools could open, with official teachers."

"I remember our children, Edward. We had children! I remember them. I wonder what happened to them after I died. After Maureen died, I mean."

Her brow furrowed in concentration and turned her face up to look at him. "Were our children half-gods, then, like Hercules, since you're..." she made a vague gesture towards him.

He grinned broadly. "Since I'm the love god?" He waggled his eyebrows at her as he said this. It inevitably made her roll her eyes, his references to being the god of love in the mythological cycles. And her standard response always included-

"Ok, Cupid. You're a love god. The love god, if you prefer. Stick to the topic and answer the question!"

Chuckling, he answered. "No, not half-gods. Remember, I was Seamus then, born into a human body just as you are, with no memories of who I am, not Aengus-in-a-physical form like I am now." His eyes slid sideways toward her. "Any children I might father now, with you, would indeed be half-human."

Her jaw dropped and she froze. "You want children?"

He brought his hands up to her face and gently tilted it so he could look in her eyes. "My heart, I wasn't making a suggestion. I was answering the question you asked, and the question I anticipated hearing next; all the children we had together when we were both reborn into human bodies were regular humans, no different than anyone else. I thought your next question would be to ask me what would happen now, since it is a different situation, and I'm not human this time. And in this instance, any children I'd father, as I said, would be half-human, half Tuatha Dé Danann."

Her brain was a whirl. She decided to focus on one thing at a time; doing more would bring on a headache and make her cranky. "All the children we've had? There were more than the two I remember from Maureen and Seamus?"

A huge grin split across his face. "Dear one, we've been reincarnating into humans for millennia. Generations and generations and generations. And it's only been recently that humans have successfully learned to control reproduction. You've been a mother many times over in many different families and situations." He pressed his lips to her forehead, and she could feel him smiling against her skin. "Frankly, my dear," he did a horrible Rhett Butler impression, "you and I, in all our incarnations, have had a huge impact on the populations of Counties Meath, Kildare, and Dublin."

By now Bella's eyes were huge. She was sure the gears of her mind were going to grind themselves right through her skull. "My family, on both sides, though mostly Grandma Swan's side, is from that part of Ireland! That's where my ancestors are from!" She paused. "Are you telling me I'm my own ancestor, and descendant?"

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