Ch. 11: How's Your Family?

Bella impotently thumped around in the trunk as Damon drove his car; Stefan and Nessie shared Stefan's car on the way back to the Salvatore Mansion. Damon glanced at the trunk in the rearview mirror he yelled back, "Dammit, Bella, if you break my trunk with your infernal sockhopping back there I'll pull this car over and make you regret it." The thumping stopped emanating from the trunk and muted ranting intermixed with sobbing replaced it. Damon pulled over the car and opened the trunk. Bella fell silent and looked up at Damon. "What's wrong with you, Goddammit, I know you don't like to be kidnapped, but why do have to antagonize me like this? Shut up, you're annoying me. Freak out quietly." Before Bella could respond, Damon shut the trunk on her. For the rest of the drive to the mansion, Bella was obediently silent.

In Stefan's car, Nessie sat shotgun. She spoke to Stefan, "What's your family like?" Stefan glanced over at her and saw that she was asking sincerely before returning his eyes to the road and answering.

"It's complicated. The other vampire who helped me with your mother is my brother Damon. He and I have a long history of sniping at each other, but now we're both making a concerted effort to work for each other's benefit."

"How long have you been a vampire?"

"I was turned with my brother shortly after the end of the Civil War. Our father was organizing a massacre of all the vampires in town, and in his quest for vampires he discovered that we were both having affairs with a vampire. We tried to help her escape the massacre, but our father shot us to death. We returned as vampires ourselves, and I killed my father in retaliation." Stefan gazed off into the middle distance and let his mind drift on thoughts of his family for a moment, before returning to the driving and the conversation in the present. "I also recently found out that my mother became a vampire and formed a new family of vampires without any of her old family members' knowledge." He glanced over at Nessie again. She was entranced. "So, how was your family?"

Nessie took a moment to collect her thoughts and said, "I was the centre of my family's attention, but not for reasons that I would keep liking. My grandfather Carlisle was fascinated by me as a doctor. He liked to investigate my nature as a half-vampire, half-human, and even though he had many scruples about how he could test and experiment with me, as soon as I was mature enough to reflect on such things I began to feel unloved for myself. His attention seemed more like the attention of a researcher to their pet project, and it soured on me, although nothing external changed. He eventually ran out of tests to do. My grandmother Esme very much followed his lead."

"My aunts and uncles are somewhat distant. They all love my mother and father deeply, but I think I'm too different from them for them to get me enough to really bond with me. My aunt Rosalie still feels satisfied that she was able to keep me alive despite the rest of the family's desire to abort me when my mother's pregnancy threatened her life. It turned out that she just needed to consume blood to stop me from draining hers from inside the womb. I make her feel like a winner, and as soon as I realized that about her affection, it was never the same."

"My parents always seemed to love me best. Then I found out that my father's first reaction to learning I existed was to attempt to arrange for my mother to abort me. I then clung to my mother as the parent whom I could trust with the treasure of my love. This lasted until an epiphany I had only about a month ago, when we were packing for our move here. I saw my mother and my two uncles, Bella was walking alongside my uncle Jasper, carrying boxes and casually talking. She was clearly enjoying his charm. My uncle Emmett was darting past them, back and forth, outdoing them by working much more efficiently. He took a great glee in the action, doing good for those he loved with simple, unadulterated physical acts. I saw her eye drift from the abstract, cultivated charm of her conversation with Jasper to gaze at the raw energy of Emmett." Once again, Nessie gathered her thoughts.

"My mother got everything she wanted from her family. She had everything to admire in a man in her husband and brothers-in-law. Edward had the ideal brain, Jasper the ideal heart, and Emmett the ideal of muscular strength. She got a father-in-law that was everything good in a patriarch that her own father wasn't, and a mother-in-law that was everything in a matriarch that her own mother wasn't. But the kicker was this," Nessie paused to steady herself, "Bella Cullen got a daughter who was much like her,but excelled in everything that she admired and desired for herself yet still struggled with. Where my mother has always been awkward and had difficulty connecting with people, I have always been eloquent and effortlessly make connections. Where Bella has the special ability to block out others' abilities, I have the ability to communicate in visions with anyone, yes, even with my mother through her shield. I am the perfect version of her, and that's why she loves me."

Nessie turned away to look out the window, clearly exhausted of the topic. Stefan didn't press.