Chapter 26- The Things We Lose.

Alice came speeding back into the room with her hands full. "Get out of the way," she snapped at Jacob.

Bella handed Ness to Jacob and turned to Edward with a look of panic on her face. He smiled reassuringly and stroked her face.

"You can do this. I know you can. I'll help you; we all will. If I didn't believe you could handle it, we'd disappear today. This very minute. But you can. And you'll be happier if you can have Charlie in your life," he said gently.

Bella nodded, and automatically caught the tiny box of contact lenses that Alice threw to her.

"These will irritate your eyes – they won't hurt, but they'll cloud your vision. It's annoying. They also won't match your old colour, but it's still better than bright red, right?"

Bella nodded and carefully pressed the contacts to her eyes, blinking at us with her newborn red eyes transformed to a more human looking brown.

"How do I look?"

Edward smiled. "Gorgeous. Of course-"

"Yes, yes," Alice muttered impatiently. "She always looks gorgeous. It's better than red, but that's the highest commendation I can give. Muddy brown. Your brown was much prettier. Keep in mind that those won't last forever- the venom in your eyes will dissolve them in a few hours. So if Charlie stays longer than that, you'll have to excuse yourself to replace them. Which is a good idea anyway, because humans need bathroom breaks." Alice shook her head. "Esme, give her a few pointers on acting human while I stock the powder room with contacts."

"The main thing is not to sit too still or move too fast," Esme said to Bella.

"Sit down if he does," Emmett interrupted. "Humans don't like to just stand there."

"Let your eyes wander every thirty seconds or so," Jasper suggested. "Humans don't stare at one thing for too long."

"Cross your legs for about five minutes, then switch to crossing your ankles for the next five," I offered.

"And blink at least three times a minute," Emmett instructed. He flipped on the tv and turned it to a football game. I suppose he felt he'd given Bella his best advice and now it was up to her.

"Move your hands too. Brush your hair back, or pretend to scratch or something," Jasper said.

"I said Esme," Alice complained as she returned. "You'll overwhelm her."

"No, I think I got it all," Bella mused. "Sit, look around, blink, fidget."

"Right!" Esme said approvingly.

Jasper frowned. "You'll be holding your breath as much as possible, but you need to move your shoulders a little make it look like you're breathing."

Edward hugged her. "You can do this."

"Two minutes!" Alice said. "Maybe you should start out on the couch. You've been sick, after all. That way he won't have to see you move right at first."

Bella took Renesmee on to her lap and sat down on the sofa. Edward took a seat beside her and looked Ness seriously in her eyes. "Renesmee, someone special is coming to see you and your mother," he told her. "But he's not like us, or even like Jacob. We have to be very careful with him. You shouldn't tell him things the way you tell us." Renesmee leaned over and touched his face, and Edward smiled. "Exactly. And he's going to make you thirsty. But you mustn't bite him. He won't heal like Jacob."

We all heard the sound of Charlie's cruiser turning off the highway and on to our driveway, approaching the house at the slow rate that everyone unfamiliar with the twisty dirt road drove along it. Suddenly realising how odd we would look all bunched around Bella we dispersed, trying to find something to do to make things look more natural. Emmett and Jasper sat down to watch the game on tv, deliberately keeping close to Bella in case they needed to avert a crisis. Alice and I sat at the table with the laptop and some magazines, and after a moment Esme joined us. Jacob, the only one who seemed even remotely relaxed, grinned at Bella from the corner as we heard the cruiser pull up out the front, and the heavy tread of Charlie's boots crossing the porch.

"Hello Charlie," Carlisle greeted him at the door.

"Carlisle," Charlie grunted, sounding less than happy. "Where's Bella?"

"Right here, Dad."

We all watched, as unobtrusively as possible, although I don't know how Charlie could have been unaware of the crackling tension in the room. Charlie didn't look at any of us though as his eyes sought out Bella and then froze, taking in the ice white, perfect beauty of the person who claimed to be the daughter he'd said goodbye to on her honeymoon only weeks ago.

"Is that you Bella?"

"Yes," Bella smiled tentatively. "It's really me…I'm sorry Dad."

"Are you okay?" he wanted to know.

Bella nodded fervently. "I am. Really and truly okay."

"Jake said that this was…necessary. This…change. That you were dying."

Bella hesitated. "Jake was telling you the truth."

"At least one of you was," Charlie muttered, staring balefully at Edward. I could imagine how much he resented the worry and stress he'd been put through during the last few weeks. But then his eyes caught on Renesmee, and his irritation turned to shock. "Oh…this is her."

"My niece," Edward said smoothly.

"You gonna make me a grandpa so young?"

Edward smiled. "Carlisle is a grandfather, too." I hid my grin.

Charlie snorted. "I guess that does make me feel a bit better. She sure is something to look at."

Renesmee, who had been half hiding in Bella's hair, leaned towards Charlie and smiled at him for the first time. He took in her face and her eyes- Bella's eyes- and all colour drained from his face and his hands started trembling.

We all froze, except Jacob. He went to Charlie and patted him reassuringly on his shoulder, leaning in to whisper, "Need to know, Charlie. It's okay. I promise."

Charlie swallowed, thinking hard. A moment he looked at Edward with hard eyes. "I don't want to know everything, but I'm done with the lies!"

"I'm sorry," Edward said softly. "But you need to know the public story more than you need to know the truth. If you're going to be part of this secret, the public story is the one that counts. It's to protect Bella and Renesmee as well as the rest of us. Can you go along with the lies for them?"

Charlie huffed and turned his face back to Bella. "You might've given me some warning kid." He grunted and knelt on the floor in front of Ness, who smiled at him engagingly. Taken aback by the mouthful of teeth, Charlie asked suspiciously, "How old is she?"

"Three months," Edward answered, adding slowly, "Rather, she's the size of a three month old, more or less. She's younger in some ways, more mature in others."

Renesmee waved at Charlie, very deliberately, her eyes sparkling. For a minute he looked nothing more than terrified, but then he smiled slowly and I saw him relax. Once again, Nessie seemed to have woven her magic spell, and although Charlie still didn't look comfortable he no longer looked like he wanted to run.

"Woo!" Emmett's deep voice broke the suddenly awkward silence. "Go Gators!"

Charlie jumped, and then looked at Emmett. He took in his massive size- even slouched on a sofa Emmett was formidable- and then his eyes took in the equally impressively sized flatscreen television and he took a deep breath and said casually, "Florida winning?"

"Just scored the first touchdown," Emmett answered. I saw him look at Bella with a mischievous grin. "'Bout time somebody scored around here."

If looks could kill….Bella hissed furiously at Emmett, but Charlie didn't even blink. He looked exhausted, well beyond noticing Emmett's sly innuendos. He lurched to his feet and fell into a vacant chair with a slight moan. "Well, I guess we should see if they can hold on to the lead."

After all of Bella's panic, after all the time spent discussing how to deal with the Charlie issue…that was it. Charlie Swan had caught a peek behind the door and into the shadow world inhabited by the monsters and the fey, and had willingly turned his back on it. Bella was welcome to join him in his human world and he would ask no questions about the rest of it. He loved his daughter enough that he was willing to accept that Jacob Black turned into a giant dog and that a three month old baby sat up and followed conversations with the eyes of his daughter, if that was what it took to keep her.

I watched, my heart aching, as Bella sat with her baby on her lap and her husband on one side of her and her father on the other. And I was jealous, with bitterness mixed in with an endlessly deep grief, for all the things that I had never, would never, have.

I left the room after a time, discreetly slipping away into the kitchen and then going out to the garage. My place. For once it didn't offer the same solace though- as despite the professional detailing I could still smell the tell-tale odour of vomit in my BMW; and Bella's new red Ferrari sat at the end of the row, silently mocking me for being jealous of her shiny new life. Morosely I sat on the workbench, my arms around my shins and my chin resting thoughtfully on my knees.

Jasper came silently out behind me, leaned against Emmett's Jeep with his arms folded and regarded me thoughtfully. I ignored him for a moment and then met his eyes defensively.

"I know…I'm a horrible bitch, you don't have to tell me."

Jasper smiled and tipped an imaginary hat to me. "Why must you always jump to conclusions Rosalie? I came out here to say no such thing."

I sighed as I felt the tendrils of calm emanating from him. Not enough to feel manipulative, but just enough that I relaxed a little and found myself saying, "It's just all working out for her, isn't it?"

Alice appeared at Jasper's side, wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head against his arm. She smiled at me sympathetically.

"It's not as though I want Bella to suffer," I said slowly, and then heard a slight chuckle- Emmett, padding out to jump up and sit beside me on the workbench, his long legs dangling. "I don't!" I protested indignantly. "Okay, maybe I did once, but not anymore!"

All three of them laughed in a friendly way, and I found myself grinning back. "It's not even about suffering really," I said. "I know the fact that I'm jealous is all on me and I can't blame Bella, or anyone else but myself, for the way I feel. But it's hard to watch her today with her father and daughter and realise that all those warnings, all that talk about how this life isn't a fairy tale, and that losing your humanity means losing so many, many things…none of it has been true for Bella. She hasn't lost anything. She has a baby, she has Edward, she has her father…even that stupid stinking Jacob Black is her friend and he's still here!" I gave a despairing laugh.

Beside me, Emmett slid a hand across my back and pulled me a little closer to him, pressing a kiss to my temple. "It didn't all come easy to her though," he said slowly. "That pregnancy was pretty brutal."

"A month," I said quietly. "I know how much Bella risked and I will always admire her for doing it, but as if I wouldn't have gone through ten times that, as if Esme wouldn't have…if we had had that chance too."

"You're not the only one," Jasper spoke up, a little reluctantly. "Bella's control is extraordinary, like nothing I've ever seen." He shook his head and went on stiffly. "It's difficult to accept. It's made me question all my own difficulties and failures and what flaws I must have that have made it that way."

Alice embraced him, murmuring something into his ears that I couldn't quite catch. "Carlisle thinks perhaps it is just a gift Bella has," she said then.

I shrugged. "Maybe. And I'm happy for her…really. But it still reminds me a little hurtfully of what I don't have, as well as what I didn't have when I was turned. We all came into this life with nothing but the clothes on our backs- I didn't even have that." I shuddered, and felt Emmett's hand tighten reflexively on my hip. "All of us lost family, lost possessions, lost innocence, lost everything that tied us to the human world, and it all happened in an instant. There was no mercy and no reprieve for any of us."

For a moment the four of us looked at each other in silence as we remembered. We all knew the stories. Jasper, turned by Maria to be used as a pawn in her ruthless military campaign, had lost almost all semblance of humanity and been forced to become barely more than a monster; Emmett had been torn apart by a bear and was bleeding to death when I took him home to Carlisle, and then lost his family, his parents and all his siblings whom he had loved and taken care of; I had been raped and beaten and brutalised and lost my innocence, my romantic heart and nearly all my girlish dreams for the future; and Alice…Alice had lost everything when she woke to this life with no memories at all, and then had to endure thirty years of loneliness before she found her way to Jasper and then at last to us, her Cullen family where she would finally belong.

"I don't wish she'd suffered more," I said quietly. "I've come to love Bella, and she's our sister now and forever- I can't wish hurt on her. But I do wonder how well she can understand or empathise, when her experience has been so different to ours."

"It won't always be easy for Bella," Jasper said into the silence, his voice low. "Keeping Charlie in her life is only delaying the inevitable- he is mortal and she is not, and one day she will have to say goodbye. Her mother too…I don't know what will happen there. And Nessie…" His voice trailed away.

I turned towards Emmett and pressed my face against his chest, the familiar feel of his hand moving through my hair offering little comfort this time. There was nothing to say…no one knew what was going to happen to Nessie, and it was not only Bella who would suffer if we lost her.