The Flower Moon

Year Eight, Chapter Thirty-Three

Test Results

Jacob's Point of View

We were all sitting around in the living room, just waiting. Okay, we weren't just sitting, staring at a blank wall, or anything.

And it wasn't all of us.

All morning long David and Janet talked... and talked... and talked, while Carlisle tested, tested, tested.

David was currently upstairs with Janet, talking through everything that had happened, starting three weeks ago, when she was first bitten, and the reasons behind it - the necklace, Stefan and Vladimir's assumptions, and everything else through when she woke up yesterday, when David abruptly left.

They had started yesterday, as soon as I brought him home, but they were so tired, before long they both had fallen asleep before really getting into things. Once they woke up this morning, Esme brought them some breakfast and they continued their conversation from last night.

We could all hear, since Esme had tactfully left the door open, how David was gently explaining everything to her. He also told her how no one, not even Carlisle, was sure exactly what she was yet, but that no matter what, he would always love her. She knew about the Imprinting, and their bond, and understood how when he said "love" he meant how it was just a friendship based love... right now, at least.

Don't get me wrong. I was glad that they were talking. Janet needed to know what had happened to her, and David needed to figure out what was going on with his feelings for her, but this waiting was killing me.

And it wasn't just me. While the two of them talked, and Carlisle tested, Bella read Wuthering Heights; again! Jasper and Alice played game after game of chess, Rose and Nessie giggled over something in a magazine, Felicity and Edward played the piano, while Esme watched – she was so impressed by my daughters playing ability, even after so little time (everyone was, really). And Emmett and I mindlessly watched the TV that someone had turned on. There was a re-broadcast of a baseball game on. I'd seen it before but I couldn't tell you who was up, or what inning it was, if my life depended on it.

No one had seen Leah or Nahuel in a few days, but I caught their sent yesterday, while I was out looking for David, so I knew they were still in the area... somewhere, doing... yeah, never mind. I don't even want to think about that. Felicity was right. Too much PDA.

Carlisle was still in his office all these hours, conducting his tests on Janet's blood.

Finally, at 10:43am he entered the living room.

"Edward, Rosalie? Would you mind stepping into my office for a moment? I would like you both to double check my results."

Double check? Carlisle? Judging by the worried look on his face, I had a feeling the results were definitely not what we were hoping for. I prayed that it wouldn't be the worst result - that Janet was still changing, and she would eventually become a Full-Vampire.

Well, everybody else in the room probably wouldn't see that as such a bad thing. Possibly not Rosalie, and David surely would be upset by the news. He was the one I was most worried about right now. Him and Janet.

Eighteen minutes later the three of them returned.

Come on, someone, give me a clue. Smiles. Frowns. Scowls. Growls. Something! But they all wore the same, plastered on, emotionless masks.

"Okay, we have the results of Janet's blood tests," Rosalie began.

"So what's it, Doc?" I started in. I know Rose and Edward had gone to med school, multiple times, over the decades, but I wanted to hear it from him. "Is she a Vampire or not?"

"Not exactly. She's as I had first suspected, previously," he replied. "Every result, from every test I ran on her blood, the results were the same. Her cells seem to be caught in between Vampire and human, and they are not making any progress one way or the other. And to add to that, it seems that her need for blood is not going to end. The Vampire cells in her body appear to require it, but she also needs to drink and eat human food as well."

"So what are we gonna do? You can't exactly stay in Washington buying donated blood, from the hospital, for the rest of her life, which... wait, how long is that going to be exactly Carlisle?"

"That, at least, I do have good news for. She's continuing to age normally."

Well, that was some relief, I guess. But then again, if she'd become immortal, David would continue to live forever, just like his mother and I. I guess this means that some day he will grow old and die with his Imprint. Or would he? He was part Vampire as well. Damn! This was so confusing. What would happen to him if he stayed this age forever, and Janet grew older and died?

"We have some more good news," Edward spoke up. "As far as we can tell she should be able to drink, or be transfused with any blood type. It does not have to be the A-negative blood type that Embry has, so that gives us a few more options, at least."

"What about animal blood? I guess it wouldn't work for a transfusion, but couldn't she drink it?" Nessie questioned.

"I'm afraid not," Carlisle replied. "I have tested a number of animals local to the region, and none seem to contain enough of the nutrients that her body now requires. I'm afraid there is no substitute for human blood in her case."

"Could she drink from me?" Dave asked. Was he actually smiling at the idea? He'd been upstairs with Janet, but had poked his head around the top of the stairwell as we began talking. Of course we would have gone up there and told him all of this anyway, but he probably couldn't wait any longer.

"Like Renesmee, she now has venom in her system, but is not venomous. I suppose so," Edward mused, scratching his head, "but her teeth are not as strong as ours. She would need help."

"I could do that for her. Bite my own arm, or make a small cut on my neck, or something? And then she could, right? Like once a week or something? And that would be enough? She wouldn't go around attacking people?" He was frantic, trying to find a solution, blurting out ideas. Everyone could tell the mess he'd become from all of this, and his words reinforced that now. But his idea had potential.

"If she agrees to it, yes, that would be possible, I believe," Carlisle agreed.

Panic filled me now, as flashes of my own ordeal with Nessie and her bloodlust for me, went racing through my mind. I didn't want him to suffer the same fate that Nessie and I did.

"We'd stay long enough to make sure, before we leave, but I don't see Janet having the same problem," Edward tried to reassure me. "Janet is different than Nessie. She requires much less blood, she'd probably be fine, just requiring three or four mouthfuls, once a week. She wouldn't need to drain him like Renesmee did you. There should be no risk to David's life."

"What are you talking about?" David gasped. Oh, crap, here we go. His eyes were wide and his breath caught.

Nessie quickly went over to our son and grabbed his hand. Edward quietly told me, and everyone else in the room, that she was showing him with her gift exactly what had happened with her bloodlust when she'd finished aging. The worst of it. The parts I hadn't told him about, I'd explained the basic details, but had glossed over the risk to my life part.

"You're sure she's not gonna need that much," Dave stunned me by calmly asking Carlisle when she was done. "Even when she gets older? Bigger? Requires more to eat?" He was taking the news better than I'd thought he was going to. Was he in shock or was Janet's situation was putting things into perspective for him?

"Nothing can be certain, but I don't believe so. If you prefer like to eyer on the safer side, you may want to have the Pack with you when she needs to feed, in case they need to intervene."

"That means you will to have to be with her constantly, David," Jasper spoke up. "It will require you to relocate once again, to the Makah Reservation. Either that or the girl will have to move to La Push. Since she's only fourteen years old that would require you to convince her family to move as well; not the easiest of undertakings."

"Quil would be happy with that," I whispered to Nessie.

"But -" she started to say something back but Alice started talking so she never finished.

"I can't see her anymore, so she'll need to be under constant supervision, by you or another Wolf, for a while at least, until you can be sure she won't attack anyone."

"Alice is right. And unfortunately we won't be able to help. We shouldn't stay here any longer," Jasper continued. "We've already been here too long. It's not… safe."

"Well, unless you want a whole new Pack of Wolves, that is," Emmett chuckled. "Could be fun, get some new blood in here, to fight with. The ones out there have been Wolves too long, they're too controlled now."

"Don't worry, David. It's not like we're going to pack up and leave tomorrow," the Doc cut in, seeing the look of concern on my son's face. "But I agree that we should not stay in the area much longer."

They were right, of course. While the Cullens had stayed almost entirely in their old house, that had had to leave on occasion to feed. I know they were trying to limit their exposure to any un-phased La Push teens, but no one was sure exactly how much was enough to set off the change. And who knows where Nahuel and Leah were having... their activities.

"It might be wise to give her a test run though, before we go. She how she does around a few humans," Edward offered.

"What? Are you crazy? We can't risk -"

"Charlie is going to be stopping by soon anyway," Alice announced. "We can see how she does with him."

"He's coming here? I didn't know -" Nessie looked excited to see her grandfather for a second before her face fell. "Wait. We can't risk his life like that."

"No, it's perfect. He already knows our secret and we would all be there, or near enough to run a controlled test. Even if Janet did attack we could intervene in plenty of time. We'll all be here; she won't be able to lay a finger on him."

"If all goes well we should also have her attempt to feed on David while Charlie, or possibly Sue, or some other human, is in the room. See if his fresh blood sets anything off in her," Jasper added.

"We're going to have to finish this discussion later. Charlie's about to call," Alice chirped over to Bella.

"Why is he even bothering to call first? He knows he can stop by anytime."

"It's not about that, but he will be coming tomorrow. This call is for something else." We could all see that Alice was trying to make no big deal out of whatever he was calling about, which could only mean one thing... trouble.

"Is this the about Officer Dan again," Bella questioned her.

She nodded. "But don't worry. Everything's been taking care of. Mr. Jenks is already in the process of getting him a promotion." Alice said while making little air quotes with her fingers. "He'll soon be transferred to Nebraska. Unfortunately, I can't see any other way of getting him out of here and off of Charlie's back, than making him the new deputy chief of police there."

"Just a deputy police chief, Alice?" Bella smirked.

"Well, I couldn't very well have it be believable, making him the actual chief of police. He's relatively new. I had to stay within reality on this. Just tell Charlie to hang in there, when he calls, and not to worry. Officer Dan will be gone in a few days. Jasper even threw Jenks a little extra money to have him arrange to get some guys to move all of Officer Dan's stuff, just to get him out of here even faster. You're welcome by the way," she playfully scowled.

"Thanks Alice. What would I ever do without you," Bella chuckled over to her, knowing that Alice wasn't really mad at her.

"You're welcome. Now answer your phone. Charlie is already stressed out enough as it is; there is no need to add to it." She smirked this time.

Half a second later Bella's phone rang.

The next day Charlie came over and Janet passed all of her tests with flying colors. He wasn't too happy to be used as a guinea pig, but agreed, after we explained exactly what was going on. It was only fare, since he was the one who would be risking his life. Okay there was really no chance of him actually dying at Janet's hands, or even getting hurt in the slightest, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. And we wanted to prepare him if Janet did move to attack. She didn't seem to gain any additional strength in her partial transformation (besides the stronger bones), so her muscles were that of an average human's.

After Carlisle finished his blood tests yesterday, he spent the remainder of the day testing to see what Vampire traits Janet did inherit. It seems she was split pretty evenly down the middle, unlike Nessie who just had a weaker version of everything her parents did. Janet's Vampire traits included the need to drink blood, her bones were hard as granite, her body temperature was colder than normal and her heart rate was slower, (though those were not exactly the same as the Cullen's it was close enough in my book, and then there was her hearing and vision. It seems that she'd gained the ability to hear and see everything near or close to nearly as well as a Vampire, or Wolf. And her speed, while not nearly as fast as the Cullen's, was far faster than a normal humans, which we pretty much had known when she managed to get the blood bag out of the Doc's hands the other day. She didn't acquire any added strength though, and was no match for a Wolf, Vampire, or Half-Vampire.

While on the other hand her human side retained the ability to eat food and age. Her skin wasn't impermeable and her brain seemed to work similarly to what it had before – as far as Carlisle could tell, that is. No multi-layers of thinking, no perfect recall, no... whatever else they could do. And she didn't seem to possess any special gifts, like Edward's mind reading or Bella's shield, none that we knew of, anyway.

Charlie was coming back on Tuesday, and bringing Sue with him. If she did fine with them in the room, while Dave attempted to feed her, with his own blood, again then she was going to be allowed to go home. She'd gawked at the idea of drinking from him at first but he didn't give her a choice, biting into his arm, her bodies instincts took over and she practically leapt on him. She quickly (oddly) grew accustomed to it once she stopped fighting her own repulsion.

"She thinks that Dave's blood is even better than a Double Fudge Chocolate Sunday," Edward explained to me. He seemed confused, having probably never had one, but it cleared up her sudden change of heart, for me.

It would be almost an entire month since her parents had seen her. I knew they must have been going through hell. Quil had done what he could. The entire Pack had. Claire was much better now that she'd seen her sister, though not since we found out about Janet's thirst for human blood. Quil had kept her up to date on her recovery, but I know it was still hard on her, not being able to see her sister, or talk to her parents about it.

They had been kept in the dark, up until yesterday.

Alice saw Officer Dan go to them and tell them that we were keeping her here. With all of the Wolves around their house, she'd found out too late for us to stop him.

The Young's believed, as everyone else did, the story Billy had come up with, that Dave was my half-brother (the result of an affair Billy had years ago, and was given up for adoption, but had found us after years of searching). Quil, and the other Wolves there, instantly tried to deny it, but the Young's were desperate. None of the other leads had panned out. They wanted their daughter back and believed him since Janet already had a connection to David, and by association me, and the Young's knew that I was with the Cullens.

We had to come up with a plan. Blatant denial clearly wouldn't work. After much discussion it was decided that we needed to come clean. The Young's had two daughters who were Imprinted on by Wolves. They probably were going to notice something was up eventually, anyways.

Tomorrow we would be going to the Makah Reservation – Carlisle, Edward, Nessie, me, David, and Janet. The rest of the Cullen's would be staying put, not wanting to frighten Janet's parents. Quil assure me he would already be there with Claire. And Charlie said he would go as well. He needed to explain his part in all of this, thanks to Officer Dan's meddling.