Epilogue: Twenty Years Later
Let me start by saying that most parents think that their children are the most special individuals in the entire world. But, for me, the statement is really true.
We assumed that they would either 1) phase like I did and turn into a vampire whenever they got angry, starting at the age of seven until they were fourteen and would slowly start changing into a permanent half-vampire or 2) phase like Sammy did when he was around fourteen and become a wolf who would stay young as long as they kept phasing like the rest of the Pack. The only other option that we foresaw was that they would stay human their entire lives and die at an old age like the rest of our family.
As the twins grew, they exceeded all of our expectations.
The first time Nessa phased, the twins were seven years old.
"Momma! Look at me!" Nessa smiled down at me from the tree she was hanging off of and enjoying our time together. We were having a girls day since Sammy had taken SJ to the doctor's office. So far, the children showed no signs of vamprism and if they were going to phase, they would remain fully human until they burst into a giant wolf in their teens.
"Get out of that tree, young lady." I said half-heartedly.
Nessa had always been very physically active. Not that SJ hadn't, but Nessa was a little gymnast: always climbing things or doing cartwheels or showing off her agility anyway that she could. Sammy and I had enrolled Nessa in gymnastics as soon as she showed such interest. Her instructor thought that she showed promise of going to the Olympics in nine years when she turned sixteen.
But when I looked back at my daughter, a gasp escaped my lips. Nessa's big brown Swan-colored eyes were the color of blood.
My first thought was: 'So much for her Olympic career; a vampire couldn't compete.'
My second thought was: 'At least my daughter will be with us forever.'
I guess that I should have been more worried about Nessa's safety, but I just couldn't fear for her when I had gone through exactly what she was experiencing right now. It was better than what my mother had to go through with me. Renesmee had no idea what was going on with me or when I would stop phasing or if I would live forever. With Nessa, I knew for sure.
"Momma, what's wrong with me?" Nessa asked, finally feeling the enhanced senses of her new phasing vampire status. She let out a whimper as the overwhelming senses freaked her out. Without meaning to, Nessa jumped from the tree branch and landed vampire-gracefully onto the grass beside me.
"Nothing is wrong with you." I said calmly, pulling her closer to me. "Your father and I talked to you and SJ about this possibility for the past few years."
"I'm like you now?" Nessa asked, putting two-and-two together.
"Yes, baby, you're like me." I admitted. "Like how I used to be when I was growing up. You will be able to phase into a Newborn vampire whenever you want to or, and this is usually the case, whenever you get really angry. Don't worry, Nessa, I'll help you through all of this. And when the time comes and you become a half vampire, I'll help you deal with that, too. You have nothing to be afraid of."
"I'm not afraid." Nessa said, looking every bit as young as her age. "I just wish that I had been normal like SJ."
"Normal?" I asked. "Honey, what's normal in this family?"
"He gets to be human!" Nessa complained.
"Nessa, we don't know what SJ will turn out to be." I said calmly. "He could phase tomorrow and be just like you. Or he could end up like your father and join the Pack one day. With my DNA and your father's, SJ's chances of staying human are very slim, honey."
"I just want to be normal." Though she had never been a brat, she was whining like one now. "I have to drop out of school like you did. I like my friends. I like this school. I don't want to quit gymnastics. I want to be normal!"
"Oh, honey. You won't have to quit school." I laughed. "That's one of the best things about living on the Reservation; everyone knows about what we are. You can choose to stay in your current grade or advance as your physical age does, which as long as you maintain your temper shouldn't be that much more advanced than your actual age."
"What about gymnastics?" Nessa asked, seeming to perk up a little bit at the prospect of getting to stay in school. I knew her best friend Sophia Clearwater-Call would be excited that she wasn't going to leave La Push Elementary. SJ, Nessa, and Sophia were the tightest group of friends. Though there were other kids at the school, Sophia was the only one that either of the twins cared about that much.
"That might be more difficult." I said sadly. "Your gym team isn't a bunch of kids from the Rez. They don't know about vampires or wolves."
"Please, Momma?" Nessa would have been crying if she hadn't been phased. "I don't want to quit. I promise I'll be good. I won't hurt anybody. I won't even phase! I'll be really good. Please Momma?"
"Oh, baby, it's not about being good. It's hard to control your natural instincts sometimes. Trust me, I know." I said, wishing that I could promise her something more.
"I'm not quitting gymnastics until I phase in front of a human." Nessa said stubbornly. "I can control myself, Momma. Please let me try to fit in."
I only wanted to fit in when I was a child. I knew how much it meant to her because I had been there. Looking back on my own life, I had only phased a handful of times before I was thirteen. There was no way of knowing if Nessa would be like I was, but that was the difficulty with being the mother of a phasing vampire daughter. Every decision mattered to the human world around us. Would keeping her out of the sport that she loves so much injure her self-esteem more than keeping her in would potentially hurt one of her friends?
"I'll have to talk to your father about this." I said and Nessa just grinned.
She and I both knew that she had Sammy wrapped around her tiny little finger. Nessa was a "Daddy's girl" and SJ was a "Momma's boy" so far, though, with Nessa taking after me now I think that she would start to become closer to me as the years progressed and she wanted a hunting buddy.
"I love you, Momma." Nessa said, her black curls nearly covering her crimson eyes. She looked so much more like me in that moment than I had ever seen in one of my children since they had taken after Sammy a lot. I smiled, never feeling closer to my daughter than in that moment.
For the next few years, Nessa did her best to not phase vampire. She slipped up a time or two (nearly scared the crap out of her best friend Sophia Clearwater-Call when her eyes shone red for the whole tribe to see at recess in the fourth grade play), but she managed much better than I had. Nessa aged the same as her brother and continued to be on the gymnastics team like she wanted. I admired her restraint, though the few times that she did phase, I loved the time we spent together hunting.
Even when she wasn't phased vamp, Nessa seemed to draw closer to me. Just the fact that she felt like I was the only one she could talk to made me happy. I know it shouldn't have. But I was selfish. I loved that my daughter and I had a special connection. With the twins looking so much like Sammy, I felt self-conscious that maybe they wouldn't care about me as much. It was silly and stupid and childish, but I couldn't help it. I loved that Nessa wanted to get my help with things.
Sammy, of course, understood my desire to be closer to our children. It was a mother's goal to bond with her young, an instinct that I couldn't control. Just like with imprinting, I was overwhelmed with love for my babies even though they could no longer be considered babies. I was a Momma-bear who loved her cubs. I would die for them, I knew that much.
I just hated that they were growing up so quickly. I knew that it was as long as normal human mothers got with their children before they were adults, but I couldn't settle for eighteen years of watching them changing and growing right before my eyes. I also knew that once they stopped aging (assuming that SJ would eventually phase wolf), that I would have forever with them. Even that wasn't enough. I loved them that much.
They were just growing up too fast!
The first time that SJ phased, the twins were fourteen.
My son wasn't the only one that phased that day...because that was the first time since I was a teenager that the Volturi came to visit the Cullens again.
The New Volturi, that is.
When I was fourteen and the Volturi came to visit Aunt Rose, I was terrified for my family's safety. Now, when Aunt Alice had a prediction about them coming, I wasn't scared in the slightest. Though they still have all of the power, they don't abuse it like they did under Aro's leadership. Marcus, along with Vladimir and Stefan, are no longer a threat to the Cullens; the New Volturi was simply checking in on our progress.
Since the meeting was about checking up on the Cullen-clan after they visited Carlisle and Esme, they came to see my mother. We met the New Volturi at the border of the Forks/La Push boundries: Jacob, Nessie, Sammy, SJ, Nessa, and me.
The New Volturi seemed friendly, though they were clear that they were making sure that we haven't been creating an army with the wolves or more vampire children like Aunt Rose had tried to with Gemma oh-so-long ago. Rosalie had learned her lesson, though I knew that she still yearned for a child of her own. She was still in mourning over the loss of Gemma but I figured that in another sixty years or so she would eventually try again. I just hoped that the Volturi wouldn't find a fault in Rose's next creation.
They were surprised to find that I had reproduced. I think that if Aro had been around, he would have tried to kidnap me again or worse! tried to kidnap my twins to see if they would behave the same way that I did. But luckily Aro was dead and could no longer be a threat to my family.
SJ and Nessa were on their best behavior. Nessa didn't turn vamp, her eyes still brown, and SJ was still human...until Vladimir made an accidental insult towards the Pack and almost started a war.
"Don't you ever insult my family like that again." SJ growled, showing more aggression than I had ever seen in him. His hands were shaking with the tremors of a new wolf.
"I mean no insult, young Uley." Vladimir tried to breeze it off, clearly not understanding how short a wolf's temper was...especially a new wolf.
"SJ, calm down." Jacob said, his Alpha tone making it clear that this was not an option. Though he couldn't actually stop my son if he was going to phase for the first time, he could try to make this not turn into a fight. A newly phased wolf around three ancient vampires was bad with a capital B.
"I'm sorry, Gramps." SJ said, shaking his head. "I can't stop this."
And, just like that, my gangly teenage son was a giant wolf (though smaller than both my father and imprint). His dark hair was now jet black fur (a shade darker than Sammy's), but his coal eyes were the same even in his transformed body. He didn't look fearful to be in his new body like wolves of the last generation were. He was just angry.
Samuel Jacob let out a growl, his voice shocking the New Volturi.
"Remarkable." Marcus said. "To see this transformation in person. Well, I never thought that I'd see it myself."
"Such strange creatures, indeed." Vladimir commented, only furthering to insult SJ's temper.
That was also the first time that Nessa phased as a wolf, too.
When her twin phased, she instinctively felt the shift with their weird twin-telepathy and within moments of SJ's phase, Nessa landed on her own set of giant paws. Her fur was a rich russet color like her grandfather's. She was smaller than most of the guys in the Pack but still larger than Leah.
"A she-wolf? Is that even possible?" Stefan asked, speaking up for the first time.
But I wasn't concerned with what the others replied to him. I was locked in on my daughter. My phasing vampire daughter had the ability to phase wolf, too? How was THAT even possible? We weren't prepared for that option. They would phase one way or the other, not both. I didn't know how to handle this. Did that mean that SJ had that option, as well? I didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad one.
The look of fear in her deep dark brown eyes terrified me. She looked so scared that I just wanted to comfort her. But when I took a step towards her, my vampire scent freaked her out and she backed away from me. My own daughter was afraid of me.
Since I could no longer phase with the Pack (what with being half vampire all of the time like my mother), Sammy and Jacob phased to try to calm the twins down. They went into the woods on the La Push side of the border. I could see the heads of a few other wolves in the treeline and knew that
My mother and I stayed and talked to the New Volturi until we could convince them to leave and go back to Italy, assuring them that the twins were fine and that this was normal. They had wolf blood in them. I was glad that my mother didn't mention the fact that Nessa could also phase vampire like I used to. Even though we didn't fear the New Volturi as much as we did the old ones, there was still no reason to trust them completely with a secret this powerful. Who knows what our enemies would do if they found out about it?
When my imprint returned, no longer in wolf form, he assured me that our kids were going to be fine but it might take a while to get them to phase back. I was happy but sad at the same time. It was hard to see my husband being the only one of us that was able to help them. I had always taken comfort in the fact that Nessa was like me and would always need to rely on my expertise. I was losing her...and I was helpless to stop it.
We found out later that both children had the ability to phase into a vampire or a wolf. They can't entirely chose which one is going to happen, but sometimes there are subtle signs that let us know which one will be the version of phasing that the twins do. Nessa is partial to phasing vampire since she has slightly more of my genetics and SJ is a tiny bit more like Sammy so he typically would phase wolf.
Our children really were special. Much more than even I was. They were a new breed: wolf/vampire hybrids that could phase either way. If the old tribal council was still in tact, they would have been outraged to find this out.
As different as they were from the rest of the Pack, they were accepted fully by all of the members. And, most importantly, they were loved. It wasn't because of who their parents were like I always assumed was the case with me. SJ and Nessa were really truly loved by the tribe which was exactly what any mother could ask for her children. I just wanted them to find love...and they did.
SJ imprinted when the twins were almost fifteen, two months after their first phase wolf.
I was sitting at the table with my parents and my husband when our world changed again. They came to visit their grandchildren all of the time since we lived within walking distance of each other. Jacob helped Sammy with Pack responsibilities, since my father was stepping down from Pack business for good in a few months and wanted to show my husband the ropes of running the Council. They were in a heavy conversation about it when SJ flew into the room.
"Say hello to your grandparents." I said, reaching out for SJ's arm before he could slip past us and into his room.
"Hello." SJ replied automatically, the word looking like it took all of his effort to say.
"Calm down, son. You look like you've seen a ghost." Sammy joked, taking in the panic in our teenage boy's eyes. SJ really did look like he had been startled so much that it pained him.
"She's going to kill me." SJ muttered.
"SJ! GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!" Nessa screamed from the front yard, her voice getting louder as she got closer to the front door.
"Your sister is mad at you?" Nessie asked in disbelief. The twins had always been so in-sync that it was hard to think of them ever having troubles with each other.
"What happened, sweetie?" I asked, hoping that he would tell his side of the story before either of the twins phased in their anger. Well, mostly I was worried that Nessa would. My daughter had her father's temper and when she was phased vamp it was harder to control her.
SJ nodded miserably. "I couldn't help it..."
"Couldn't help what?" Sammy asked, equally concerned. "What did you do?"
"Sophia came back today and we were all going to hang out like we usually do but then as soon as Sophia got there..." The ghost-look was off of his face, a scared grin on his face instead. "I couldn't help it, really I couldn't...I just didn't think it would be this strong...I probably shouldn't have kissed her, I just didn't know what to do."
"You kissed Sophia?" I asked, my jaw dropping. All of us knew about SJ's little crush on the Clearwater-Call girl, even Leah thought it was kind of funny, but I didn't expect him to tell her about it so soon. They were barely fifteen.
"How long has Sophia been staying with the Young relatives in Makah?" Jacob asked, his eyes drawn together as he thought something that the rest of us were missing.
"Two months." I replied for SJ. "She's been there all winter."
"Anything else happen two months ago?" Jacob asked, but the question wasn't for me. He was looking at his grandson.
"You weren't phasing when she left..." Nessie said, getting it as quickly as her husband meant us to.
"Oh, honey, you imprinted!" I said, throwing my hands around my son's shoulders. Since he started phasing, he shot past me in height so it was a little awkward.
"Don't hug him!" Nessa hissed. I had to look and make sure her eyes were still brown. They were.
"I know you're upset that your brother imprinted on your best friend, but this is a good thing." I said, trying to calm my daughter.
"It's not about that!" Nessa was still angry, though her fists weren't shaking so I knew there was a very slim chance that she'd phase in the kitchen.
"What is it about?" Sammy asked, unintentionally using his Alpha tone.
"I'm mad that you stole Sophia's first kiss from her." Nessa was yelling at her twin. "You ruined it for her with your stupid ambush! Do you know how long she had been planning the perfect first kiss? She might be our imprint, but she was still our best friend and now you ruined our friendship with that stupid kiss. She's never going to forgive us. She won't even speak to us."
It always amazed me when my children referred to themselves in the plural even though they only meant one of them. Carlisle was right when he predicted that the children would be super close growing up. Just like in the womb with synchronized heartbeats, they often did things like this.
"I can fix this. I have to." SJ looked like he might cry. "I can't have her hating me. Or you, for that matter."
"Go talk to Sophia and then we'll see about me forgiving you." Nessa hissed and SJ fled back out the way he had come.
When he returned twenty minutes later, he had a grin on his face and Sophia at his heel.
"Welcome to the family, Sophia." Sammy greeted the young ones, making our future daughter-in-law blush.
I watched their love bloom over the next four years until it was hard for them to contain themselves anymore.
Leah and Embry were happy for our children's imprint relationship as much as Sammy and I were. I thought that Leah might be upset at first, but she explained to me one day that now she knew her daughter would never have to go through what she felt with Embry every day. Though Embry never imprinted and probably never would, in the back of her mind, Leah always wondered if today would be the day that she lost her husband to another woman. Sophia would never have to deal with that with SJ.
The only other person that I worried about with SJ's imprint was my daughter. Nessa was a permanent third-wheel with the two of them, but SJ and Sophia didn't act couple-y unless they thought they were alone. They valued Nessa's feelings too much to do something like that in front of them. Other than the first ambush-attack kiss, I don't think that Nessa had seen them kiss once. I saw them once or twice, but it was usually to check that they weren't making me a grandmother yet. To my relief, SJ was as respectful to Sophia as Sammy had been to me.
She put up a good front, but I thought that my daughter was never going to be truly happy with the situation: always the third-wheel with an imprinted couple, one of which was her brother. Until SJ and Sophia's wedding day, that is.
The twins were eighteen when SJ married his imprint.
"Sophia Alana Clearwater-Call, do you take Samuel Jacob Cullen-Black to be your lawfully wedded husband?" As per usual, Carlisle conducted the ceremony. All of the Cullens were back on tribe land for this wedding event, and this time there wasn't even a fuss.
"I do." Sophia's eyes, the ones that looked so much like her mother's, sparkled with the glint of happy tears as she dedicated herself to her imprinter.
"Samuel Jacob Cullen-Black, do you take Sophia Alana Clearwater-Call to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do." SJ said with such conviction that he nearly growled. You could hear the 'mine' clearly in his tone. Most wolves sounded like that when they were pledging their lives to their imprints.
"You may now-" Carlisle began, interrupted by SJ intensely capturing Sophia's lips with his. The crowd let out a joint laugh. "-kiss the bride."
With their union, four tribal families were forever intertwined. Their children, if they ever had any, would be such strong wolves that I wasn't sure the world was ready for it.
The only sad thought about their union was that I knew I couldn't have my son with me forever. Despite being a phasing vampire/wolf, he would give it all up for his human wife and imprint. Unless he bite her while he was phased vamp, there was no chance that Sophia would live as long as the rest of us would. I wished for a selfish second that Sophia had taken after her mother in the phasing gene but knew that this was how it was supposed to be.
This was a day of rejoicing, not of sadness.
That was also the day that Nessa found her own soul-mate.
"Hey, Nessa, there's someone that I want you to meet." Alice said, dragging my daughter away from me.
"Alice, get back here. I do not want you setting up my baby!" I said, though I knew that it was a mute point.
Alice had made Nessa her project and was constantly introducing her to any stray nomad that she could since she knew that Nessa had too much of a temper to be with a normal human. Alice was hoping that a vampire or hybrid would make a suitable mate. I think secretly, Alice was trying to steer at least one of her female relatives away from a wolf mate.
I followed behind my aunt and daughter, like I usually did when this happened. The guys were nice, but typically red-eyed nomads who were not interested in my mostly human/sometimes Newborn vampire/sometimes furry wolf daughter. I hated letting Alice put Nessa through this since it always made her sad for the next few days when she realized that there were even more guys in the world who didn't want to love her for who she was.
But, for the first time, when I saw Nessa shake hands with the man across from her, there was a huge grin on her face. He was tall, dark haired, and had dimples on his tan cheeks, though from back here I couldn't see the color of his eyes. He was handsome, I had to admit. And, from where I was standing, they looked good together. When Nessa reached over and touched the man's arm as she let out a flirty laugh, I pulled Alice aside and let the two of them be by themselves.
"Who is that?" I asked, a slight grin on my face. "Where did you find this one?"
"His name is Noah Rivers. I ran into him in a vision I had." Alice knew that she had done well. "Only, I saw what you're seeing now: Nessa flirting with him."
"How old is he?" I asked. "Dare I ask?"
"Oh, calm down, Mary." Alice laughed. "He's not much older than Nessa. He was born twenty-three years ago and stopped aging sixteen years ago."
"He's a half-vampire?" I asked, not believing it. The half-vampire breed was so rare. I hadn't met any that weren't Nahuel's sisters or my mother.
"Blue eyes not enough proof?" Alice rolled her eyes. "He never knew who his father was or his mother, for that matter. Unlike Nahuel who Changed his aunt, Noah was on his own until I went in search of him. I gave him a book of names and he finally had something to call himself after twenty three years on Earth. Luckily, his mother had gone to an abandoned cottage to give birth, not knowing what fate had in store for her, so he lived so deep in the jungle that he didn't even know that anyone else existed and he was forced to live off of animal blood and meat. He has remarkable restraint around this many humans, don't you think?"
My response got stuck in my throat as my daughter came over to us, her fingers intertwined with Noah's.
"Hey, mom, this is Noah." Nessa's grin was what made me put my guard down.
"Hello, Noah. I'm very glad to meet you." I said, extending my hand to the man that I knew my daughter now could not live without.
It wasn't imprinting, but it was definitely love for Nessa. From that moment on, the two were inseparable. She helped Noah with his English and got him adjusted to life with so many humans everywhere. She taught him to drive a car, to fish with a net, and to tie a tie. Anything that he needed help with or didn't understand, she was willing to help him with it. She was always patient with Noah because she wanted him to succeed.
It took two years for him to understand what marriage was or why it was so important to Nessa, but he finally popped the question. It was a little gesture for him since he hadn't been raised in this society, but he loved Nessa as much as she loved him and I knew he was only doing it to make her happy. In Noah's eyes, Nessa and he already belonged to each other.
The twins were twenty when Nessa married her soul mate and SJ's imprint had their first child.
I don't know what the rest of our lives have in store for us, but I do know that we will always be a loving family. My children brought me more happiness in the last twenty years than anything in my childhood did.
AN: Thank you all for sticking with this story and leaving me your feedback. I hope you grew to love Mary Black as much as I did.
