I listened to every word of the argument from down the hall. I was irritated with my dad for acting like such a child. Didn't both my and Alec's minds make it so clear? Of course it did. Dad just had such a hard time excepting it. If he was going to be this way about us forever, I loathed our marriage. Then I heard the words I had been looking for from Alec. And the impossible and irrevocable silence from my father as the response.
"So if I married Renesmee within a week, everything would be alright? I would." The words were beautiful, though they weren't meant to be. The best part was that there was not comeback from Dad. No heartlessly justifying those reasons with cowardice. The silence was amazing. Impossible. But present, and for that I was grateful.
There was not a sound for a minute. Finally, Alice, Rosalie and Carlisle let me out. Dad was at the stop of the stairs, looking at the ground hard. When I approached he looked up, his expression blank for a moment. Then, it broke into a sad little smile. I hugged him. He would never love Alec, but the respect of my decision was enough for me. After embracing him I ran down and hugged Alec. He pecked my cheek, though I don't think anybody noticed... except present mind-readers.
"...Do I wanna know?" Charlie asked finally. I looked up at Alec questioningly. He gave me a it's-your-choice look and I turned back to Charlie.
"Probably not, Grandpa," I said with a little smile. "But if you do wanna know after, we'll explain."
He nodded and then added, "Don't I get a hug?" I laughed and did. "So, was... wherever you were... was it that bad?"
"Not really," I said. "It would've been worse if I was alone."
"You weren't?" he asked.
"No. Alec was there," I said, eyeing my grandfather to see his reaction. His face wasn't angry or sad, thankfully, thought it wasn't exactly happy about it. "All it was was we were locked in a metal room and occasionally taken out for this doctor wanna-be to attempt to get 'samples' of anything he could get his bony hands on. Not too bad, really."
"Well, it definitely could have been worse, I suppose," Charlie said
I smiled again and looked out the open window. The clouds were moving fast and were dark. There was a storm coming. Baseball!
"Dad?" Mum asked, still looking out the window with a slight smirk on her face. "Would you like to play baseball with us tonight?"
"Sorry, Kid," Charlie said to Mum. "I have patrol tonight. Eddie had to go to North Dakota for his third cousin's funeral. The man's relatives die every other month! (R.I.P.)"
"Alright," she replied, looking at him now. "Just promise you'll come see sometime. Thunderstorms are the only time we can play."
"Why's that?" he asked with a startled look.
"It's better if the thunder of our power isn't heard around the world while it's sunny," Emmett said with a straight and falsely serious face.
"It can get a bit... loud," Dad said with a chuckle. When Charlie continued to look curiously at them all, he continued. "When the bat comes in contact with the ball... since it happens so fast..."
"It makes a booming sound," Mum finished for him. "Like thunder."
Charlie nodded his comprehension, but looked shocked, all the same.
"Well, I look forward to seeing a game, sometime," he said with a little chuckle. "I better get back to the station. I just needed to come and see Nessie safe for myself."
He gave me another swift hug, plus one for Mum, before making his departure. I heard the car door slam shut and the cruiser slowly drive off.
There was an awkward silence that followed, that was broken when Emmett seemed to resume the battle as he tackled Felix again. My mother and Esme returned to the kitchen and Carlisle, who had been watching from the top of the stairs while not watching me vomit, walked back down the hall to his office. Alice and Jasper went upstairs. Rosalie hadn't come down at all, so she stayed in her bathroom, probably looking in the mirror at her beautiful face. Yes, she was beautiful, but she was also very egocentric. My dad continued to stare with narrowed eyes, at Alec. I gave him a little dirty look for acting so immature, and then tugged at Alec's sleeve–an indication to follow.
We hunted for an hour or so. It was much more fun to be around Alec when my parents weren't breathing down his neck, waiting for him to make a false move. The thing was, he wasn't anything but a gentleman towards the rest of my family. Or towards me, for that matter. On no account did I dislike him around the rest of the Cullens! He just seemed more... free. He smiled as he watched me tackle my prey and looked worried after the bear took a swipe at me and I ducked. I giggled at his expression and almost got hit by one of the animal's large paws because of it. I finished the big grizzly off quickly.
Alec caught a fox. He wasn't very thirsty and enjoyed the hunt more for the sport of catching something fast and difficult. I won, catching a squirrel.
"Sometimes I forget you aren't of the same species as me," Alec chuckled as I plopped on a branch some twenty feet above him, licking my lips.
"I am," I said. "Half of me is, and half isn't."
"That's besides the point," he replied seriously. "You do have slower reflexes and aren't as powerfully built as the rest of us."
"It obviously doesn't effect my hunting skills," i said, nose in the air in mock affronted-ness. "I still win."
"...that is an argument that is impossible to win," he agreed with a smile. I beamed back and leapt down. Alec made a little wince as I landed on my feet on the cool forest floor. Yes, he knew I was a good hunter, but, as he explained before, I wasn't as fast or strong as other vampires, so I didn't exactly expect him to completely forget the fact I could get hurt if I didn't preform these sorts of actions carefully.
We walked back, rather than ran. It was a pretty day and once we got back to the house, I knew we couldn't be quite so... close.
"So," i said with a smile. "600 years old?"
"Maybe closer to 700 by now," he laughed. "I don't remember anymore. Or, it's more that I don't care to remember."
"Do you remember your life... before?" I knew he'd understand what I meant. Before he was changed.
"Yes," he said. "A little. Jane was the one who changed me. My father was raising us. He wrote stories. They didn't really print. Sometimes they did, but it was rare and costed a lot, so he usually made just one copy. I remember him saying it was a waste of time to copy one story down and waste of money to print something twice, which could be accomplished with the former, which was a waste of time." He shrugged. "It didn't matter. He liked writing so much and had so many ideas, it didn't matter there was one of everything. Each one was just as good as the last, if not, better. Then Beatrice came. She was absolutely beautiful. She had hair that was in big curls. Her skin was as whiter than snow and her eyes were almost always black. My father wrote a story about her. Well, not her in particular, but a creature that lived in the dark. They didn't eat or sleep or drink. They didn't age and their eyes changed color based on their mood. They were women who lured men to be their slaves, or something like that. Light would make them invisible... the normal hocus-pocus. A few things he got right, but I think he took those from earlier myths. Lady Mystery he called it."
"You remember quite a lot," I commented.
"It's part of being a vampire. Some things you don't remember, but if you do, it's as clear as you just watch it happen," he laughed darkly, taking my hand as we continued to walk. "Beatrice was very smart so my father asked her to tutor Jane. Jane said the thirteenth day, Beatrice just lost control and bit her. Once she had enough blood to keep her head on straight, she stopped drinking. Jane had already lost about 70% of her blood, so it was close. Beatrice stayed with her only long enough to keep her as silent as possible in the town. Once her heart stopped and she stopped screaming, Beatrice left, leaving Jane in her office, still sitting in the chair. The first to look for her was me. Jane seemed to be staying where she was in shock. It was about a mile from the town square, so far enough for humans to be safe. But when I came looking, she smelled me and attacked. She seemed to have a little control and only bit me three times. The venom spread, and here I am. We killed everybody in the town (though there was only about 15 people). Luckily, my father was off selling some of his stories. On the downside, that very same day he was stabbed by a mugger. It's the most horrid luck. The one chance for him to live, and he doesn't because he wouldn't give up his stupid Lady Mystery." He growled the last sentence, irritated. "Wouldn't've made much of a difference, I suppose. He'd be dead in a few decades, anyways," he added coldly.
"How did you meet arrow?" I asked.
"He found us. Then, he hardly had any guard. He came along with Caius and another by the name of Jekyl. By then we found out what we were hungry for and that we had powers, but we still didn't know what we were. Many small mobs who had witnessed something supernatural about us chased with pitchforks and fire. And that was before we accidentally killed another small village. Jane and I were trying to live among humans like Beatrice did, but were unsuccessful thus far. Aro came waltzing in like he owned the world, his head held high. Then he was only a century old. He was impressed by the fact we had decided to rid the whole village of survivors because of 'exposure'. We were just worried we would be burned at the stake. We also showed him our power."
"And then he seduced you," I said sadly.
"He told us what we were and explained how the whole world was out to get ones like us and it was terribly dangerous to have two 'newborn nomads' running around. He said if we joined him, we'd be protected and we'd protect others of our kind at the same time. And you know the rest. It was nothing like that at all. No one had any idea what we were or that there was any kind of being that was superior to them. There would have been no threat to me and my sister! And there were armies of newborns running around and what did we do to help keep us secret? We didn't invite them into the guard. Why? They didn't have any powers, or relatively weak ones. Instead, we killed them all off. Hundreds. Maybe thousands over the years." We had stopped walking now and Alec was staring straight in front of him, anger written on his face. I put my hand on his cheek to calm him.
"Aro is a power-hungry, ego-centric, evil monster that took advantage of you when you were so young and vulnerable," I stated. "But it doesn't matter, anymore. You can have a whole new life, now. We can have a new life, now."
He looked down at me with sad eyes. I kissed him delicately and smiled up at him. He smiled back.
"So now, for you," he said, returning to the walk. "What's your story."
"Unbelievably short compared to yours," I laugh. "About more than four years, actually. For every month, I grew the equivalent of six months for a completely human baby. The first three months of my life were the most eventful... at least up till now. I learned that I was Jacob's imprint when I was about eleven. Well, physically and mentally eleven. Biologically, I was a little less than two. Before I was taken, my father was trying to get my mom to go to college. She had said she would, but when I came... it was a pretty big surprise so she hadn't gotten the chance. I've never been to school. I've learned Italian, French, German and some of Arabic from Alice. Science from my grandfather. Literature from my dad. And, amazingly enough, math from Jasper. The arts is covered mostly by Grandma and History switches off, though a good amount of it is taught by Grandpa, too, because he was actually there. The other smaller subjects are taught bye different people. My mother and Jacob are about the same age as me, mentally. I grew up there pretty fast, too." I tapped my temple. "I–"
I gasped as I felt a hard jolt in my abdomen knocked the breath out of me. This repeated once, the second time harder. The baby was moving. The second kick sent me doubled over. Alec bend beside me, holding me tightly.
"Renesmee?" he asked in a worried voice. "What's wrong? Are you sick again?"
"No," I replied in a weak voice. "Just some kicking. I think he's decided to play some soccer. I'll be alright in a moment. I just need to breath for a moment."
Without another word, Alec swept me off my feet into a cradle hold and carried me home.