Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Chapter 37 Cougars & Oysters & Bears, Oh My

BPOV

"Red." Rosalie snickers, holding her hand up for Garrett to high five it. "Do I know my brother or do I know my brother."

"What just happened?" Carlisle asks as Edward and Kate help Irina to her feet.

Irina, the drama witch, as Freya calls her, opens her mouth in preparation for a good screech but Kate stops her.

"That was rude Irina and you know it was. She's only young, you should be a little more careful. And considerate."

Irina snaps her jaw shut and stalks into the house.

"What happened?" I whisper to Carlisle.

"I didn't see." He replies. "Jasper?"

"I'll go after her, she'll be fine." He starts to turn away.

"Maybe I should come with you?" I offer, stepping forward.

"They'll be fine Baby Bells." Em informs me, slipping his arm through mine. "He knows just how to handle her."

"Are you suggesting my daughter is a handful?" I ask him, raising my eyebrow and fighting back a smile.

"I'm suggesting nothing." He chuckles and everyone starts laughing, tension broken.

"Come on." He says, taking me in his arms. "My turn to twirl you round the metaphorical dance floor for a bit."

I glance at Carlisle but he smiles and lets Em whisk me away.

"Am I missing something here?" I ask him suspiciously as everyone else couples up and starts dancing again.

"Nope."

"Humph."

"Jazz will bring her back. No harm done."

…..

"God." I huff, easing off my neck endangering high heels.

My feet aren't capable of hurting any more but it's a habit of years so I massage them for a bit anyway and then shove them in the cold still water of the lake.

I'm never going to another party again in my entire life. Ever.

Jasper and Freya came back after an hour, she still seemed a little wild to me but she shot me a look that clearly communicated that no mothering was needed, so I let her be. I should probably tell her off for attacking Irina but I hadn't liked the way she was mauling Jasper either, the poor boy looked like his head was going to explode.

I guess we all knew Irina wasn't going to let it go, the tension kept ramping up by degrees, eventually even I took a turn at trying to distract her.

Big mistake.

Huge.

Jesus but she's a fucking bitch.

The damage is done now though.

Of course I knew something was off between Carlisle and Edward, he'd told me in Pennsylvania that Emse's death had strained their relationship. And I wasn't surprised, how could I be, that Edward had left the family again when he found out I'd be joining them. In fairness to him he never once tried to hide the fact that he didn't want me to be a vampire. I felt bad, that I was driving him away, but I'd already decided to shoulder that guilt, for Freya, and it's not like it was going to be forever. He'd have been able to come back when we left to start a life of our own.

It freaked me out when he came home with Irina but he has a right to be with his family that I don't have. And I coped. Was coping. Freya and I had been doing so well, I was pinning all my hopes on our being able to leave earlier than I'd planned.

I knew Freya wouldn't want to leave but I was trying really hard not to think about it, eyes on the prize and all that. When we finally got around to talking about I had to woman up and face my issues.

I'm dead. Finally getting to be a vampire like I'd once wanted. Except I wanted an eternity of bliss with Edward, not an eternity of stepping round him awkwardly, hiding myself away from him, everyone. I know I shouldn't be hiding, I'm a big girl now, but I lived a whole other life after he left, pretending I was okay, and it's a hard habit to break. And no matter how much my head says I need to talk to him I don't have the guts to actually do it. I don't know why, it's not like it could get any worse could it? He already told me he didn't love me, that I was just a distraction to him, left me, even if he now decides to tell me I've got a fat ass and fish lips it's not going to hurt any more than it does already. And he's been polite, and mostly out of my way, since he came back. It's not like we hate each other or anything. I was even starting to wonder if forgive and forget would magically happen without me actually having to do anything.

That fucking bitch.

As if things weren't hard enough.

I don't need to know that Carlisle and Edward got in a fight over me. I don't need to know that Edward was mad at him for keeping my re-appearance in their lives a secret. I don't need to know that Edward punched him when he read in his mind that Carlisle's feelings for me had gotten to be a little more than friendly. I don't need to know that they went at it like tomcats, hurling recriminations and accusations at each other until Jasper and Em broke them up.

"I DON'T NEED TO KNOW THAT!" I scream in frustration.

"Whoa, Mom." Freya laughs, flopping down beside me and shoving her shoeless feet into the water with mine.

"Sorry." I sigh, deflating like a punctured tire. "Just needed to get that out there."

"I'm sorry too." She says. "I probably should have told you."

"No. You did the right thing, nobody should have told me. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss."

"She's a piece of work alright. I thought you were gonna rip her head off."

"So did I for a minute. I suppose I should be proud of the fact I didn't."

She bumps my shoulder and then settles her head on it.

There'd been a pregnant pause and I'd hoped, really hoped, that they were going to deny it and tell her that she was a shit stirrer extraordinaire. But they didn't. They looked at me. Then they looked at each other. Then they looked back at me. And I knew . . . .

I knew going in that this wouldn't be easy, but Freya is worth facing all my old demons for.

But what did I do? What did I do to deserve this? Was I a despot? A mass-murderer? A telemarketer in a prior life? Did I get someone who was about to invent something life changing out of the tub before they could fully grasp their idea, damning mankind in some way?

What did I do that I got to fall so irrevocably in love all those years ago? That there was never really anyone else to compare to that experience? That fate decided to shove him back in my face, but not in a nice way, no, in a 'too late now baby' kind of way. And I can't escape, I've got a daughter who loves this family every bit as much as I did. And, and, and this is really taking the biscuit, I get to find out that Carlisle, Carlisle, is contemplating the horizontal tango with me!

"Why me?" I groan.

"You're kinda hot Mom." Freya giggles, apparently reading my mind.

Carlisle, the night of the great bank account debacle, said I'm meant to be here, that I was always meant to be here.

But I think he's wrong.

Maybe I was once meant to be there, in the past, but this is a different place.

Yes, on the one hand, being a vampire does seem to fit. I don't feel wild and out of control, well, not very often anyway. I still don't know if I wanted to crack open a nice tasty delivery man or if I just couldn't deal with Edward's thumb stroking my skin, the ghost of long forgotten love. But on the other hand, nothing is like it was supposed to be. This isn't my happily ever after, it's Freya's.

Maybe it was never meant to be me, always her.

I can't just leave though. Because I don't want to be a killer and I know I'm a long way from being trustworthy on my own. Because my daughter, who I love, doesn't want me to. And because, despite all of the above, I just can't imagine it.

I feel like that last piece of the jigsaw, you know the one, the bit that's clearly come from another puzzle but somehow, by mutual consent, you manage to jam in to complete the one you're on. The little black bit on the woman's smiling face. I don't know how to behave. Em insists on calling me Baby Bells and though I can't deny I like it, it feels wrong. I'm old enough to be his Mother. Hell, I'm old enough to be all their Mothers.

And that's not weird, at all, is it?

Maybe that's my place here? Momma Bear. And I don't mind. But, and call me selfish, it's not what I'd originally wanted out of my life . . . .

I groan again, flopping down on the ground so that Freya inadvertently falls on top of me, laughing as she snuggles into my side.

"What are you thinking about?" She asks.

"You really don't want to know." I sigh.

"You'll be okay Mom, everything will be okay."

She sounds so sure bless her young, naïve, heart.

But she's right in her way, I have to make everything okay, somehow . . . .

I've been over my every interaction with Carlisle, before and after he changed me, and it's there I realise. He's been my rock in this strange new life and I can't fault his behaviour at any point, but it's definitely there, I'm such an idiot not to have noticed.

And I'm even bigger one for caring how that makes Edward feel.

He left me, it shouldn't matter, to him or me. But I know that's not true . . . .

…..

Alaskan summer dawns as we lay there, turning us into glitter balls, an impressive spectacle I will never tire of watching.

I've mixed feelings about summer. Under normal circumstances I'd welcome the longer, warmer, sunnier days like the addict I am, but this summer means curtailed alone time for Freya and I, too dangerous to be left unsupervised when unruly tourists and other humans have no inkling they're traversing a predator's territory. The lack of privacy is going to be very hard just when I'm in need of as much Bella's Happy Time as possible.

And I can either spend the next months in a state of Awkward Bella misery or I can face it head on as Momma Bear and pretend I don't give a shit.

Option one is the path of least resistance but I won't be the only one that's miserable. Option two requires a pair of balls I'm not sure I have, but is probably fairer to everyone else.

Jesus but it sucks to be a grown up.

What could I possibly say that would make this problem go away?

Nothing.

Just because I knock their heads together and remind them that boat sailed a long time ago, on the sea of human age, it won't magic away what either of them are thinking, feeling, or the tension between them. Though of course they'll get over it in time, I never bought into Edward's crap about vampires never changing, if you think, you can change, if you want to.

Maybe that's the key, time, it's not like I'm anything special and the longer we all live together the quicker they'll remember that for themselves.

I just need to buy time.

I can do that. Carlisle doesn't want me to leave so he'll be supportive of maintaining the peace, avoiding the issue, and Edward's been doing everything he can to make this situation easier for me already, without me even knowing there was a bigger situation no one had told me about.

And then I can come up with a longer term plan, one that involves them changing their minds and forgetting about me, which is surely going to happen eventually. And actually I'm pretty sure I could help the process along . . . .

And if it doesn't work? Then there's every chance, sadly, that Freya won't want or need her Mom hanging around forever anyway. Renee and I have managed quite well over the years on intermittent contact, even though it wasn't always what either of us wanted . . . .

The world would be my oyster, right?

"Carlisle's coming." Freya observes, sitting up.

Of course he is.