A product of quarantine and the Twilight Renassaince.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, plot points, and backgrounds do not belong to me.
No excuses for the tardiness, but here we go.
"My mother was human," the girl said. "And my father was a vampire."
Edward had never seen Carlisle look as shocked as he did at that moment as the girl explained that she was the biological child of a vampire. The fact that this information came from the girl as she sat in a pool of her own blood only added to the macabre atmosphere. Esme had attempted to move the girl, but she'd refused. Not until this conversation is over, she'd said.
She proceeded to provide only the barest of details about her existence up to this point. She was born to a human mother almost 20 years ago. Apparently, her mother had fallen in love with a vampire, one who had been able to control his bloodlust long enough to have sex with her. That sex ended in the creation of the woman in front of them. Her father left, seemingly unaware that he had left the human pregnant. After an incredibly short pregnancy, her mother died in childbirth.
Edward couldn't read the girl's thoughts but he could read Jasper's. This is how he knew that while the girl spoke with no emotion in her voice or expression, she was radiating shame, pain. So much so that Jasper began to fidget.
She feels everything so intensely. Jasper rolled his shoulders, releasing some tension. He glanced at Edward. It took a lot of concentration to calm her down earlier.
Carlisle asked if her mother had known the true nature of her father.
"I was raised by my grandmother," the girl said. "And she said my mother had no idea."
"How did your grandmother know?" Carlisle asked, almost interrupting her. The girl – Bella, Edward reminded himself – narrowed her eyes.
Esme shot a glare at her husband. Cool it, Carlisle, she thought.
Carlisle held his hands up apologetically. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be inconsiderate. I am just curious as to how she figured it out."
Bella shifted, wringing her hands with the towel Edward had gotten for her. He watched her face, her eyes flashing from family member to family member with a surprising lack of interest. She was still giving nothing away from her expression. But she still couldn't keep what she was feeling from Jasper. At the moment it was a strange combination of fear and anger.
"I was just attacked by a member of your family," Bella said, staring impassively at Carlisle. "And you all didn't do very much to stop it until she was clawing into my leg. I think we've passed the point of being inconsiderate."
Edward winced. Rosalie had attacked the girl with almost no provocation, a scene so shocking that the entire family had frozen until it was too late. While Edward was also cautious of this girl, he recognized she couldn't fend for herself right now. Rosalie had acted with a callousness he hadn't seen in her before.
At least not directed at someone who didn't deserve it.
Carlisle frowned, his thoughts saturated with guilt. I should have kept Rosalie away from her until she had calmed down. "You're right, Bella. I'm sorry. I don't have any excuses for Rosalie's behavior." Or any explanation for why.
Bella held Carlisle's gaze. Edward tried yet again to focus his mind on her general direction, trying to hear something, anything close to a thought. It was futile. He couldn't hear anything. If she hadn't been speaking in front of him, he'd wonder if she had any thoughts at all.
Anything?
Edward glanced at Alice. His sister looked at him expectantly. They'd long perfected the art of silent communication, Alice able to see what Edward would say and Edward able to hear Alice's reply in silence. It infuriated Emmett.
Edward gave an infinitesimal shake of his head.
Alice quirked her lips. Interesting. Me neither.
Their attention turned back to the girl when she released an exhausted sigh. Her eyes were unfocused, no longer focused on Carlisle.
"The pregnancy made it obvious that whatever was happening wasn't normal. My grandmother only took my mother to one doctor, and they said she was insane. They said my mother had to be lying about when she'd gotten pregnant." The girl sighed again. "Gran didn't like to talk about the pregnancy with me, but I know enough. My mother found out she was pregnant and within two months I was born. My mother died almost immediately after I . . ."
Bella stopped. She seemed to gather herself before she continued.
"Because of what happened during the pregnancy my gran refused to take me to any doctors. She was a nurse, so she was able to take care of any major health concerns. Not that there were any. I was healthy. Too healthy, really. I slept through the night, never got sick, took to baby formula with ease, rarely cried, and I developed. But I was developing much faster than a normal child. I was like a toddler when I was six months old. At which point –" The girl stopped suddenly, scrunching her nose.
"At which point?" Carlisle urged.
The girl bit her lip. "As I said, I was like a toddler. So I was walking and grabbing and eating solid foods. And it was all-sustaining me fine, as far as Gran could tell. She knew something was different about me, something other, but she didn't know what. Since I was healthy and generally happy she decided she didn't care. But as I continued to grow at an abnormal rate I also had an abnormal appetite. I ate whatever was put in front of me and then asked for more. And then one day, I was alone in the living room and –" she paused. "Well. My gran had . . . a cat."
The room was suspended into a shocked silence. The Cullen's thoughts were the opposite, however, as they quickly put two and two together.
"You ate your grandmother's cat?" Edward asked, astonished.
"Edward!" Esme said.
"What?" He asked. His eyes found the girl. "Isn't that what you're saying? You ate your grandmother's cat?"
"Technically," Bella responded. "I just sucked its blood."
"Oh my god," Edward said, his voice giving way to laughter. He felt a wave of strange amusement wash over him. "Your grandmother found out you were a vampire because you ate her cat!"
"Edward!" Esme shouted. Stop laughing at her!
"Esme," Edward laughed. "She ate the cat!" He turned his gaze back to the girl. She was now glaring at him. It might have halted his laughter except that her irritated expression was tinged with guilt. It only made him laugh harder. "What was the cat's name?" He ignored Carlisle and Esme's loud mental scolding. "Well?"
The girl huffed. But after a moment, she muttered, "Patches."
Edward flopped himself into a nearby armchair, grinning. "Poor Patches."
"To be fair," the girl said. "He was sixteen and ill."
"So you mercy killed the cat," Edward replied.
"Edward," Carlisle said aloud. "Bella, excuse my son."
The girl didn't seem to mind. "You could say that," she said. "When my grandmother found us she nearly had a heart attack." Bella smiled wistfully, despite the scene sounding like something out of a horror film. "But I wasn't hungry for three days after that. Still perfectly healthy, just not hungry. So my grandmother started doing some research and in the meantime, supplementing my regular meals with blood."
"Where did she get blood?" Carlisle asked.
"It wasn't human blood. People don't smell good to me. Probably another biological fail-safe, I guess. But animals?" The girl shook her head. "Animals were appealing. My grandmother was a new-age hippie, but she had been raised in the country by farmers. So she was a decent hunter. We moved around a lot, but always close to wildlife. She brought home whatever she caught." The girl's eyes got far away again, lost in her memory. "She figured out that I could still sustain myself on purely human food, but without blood, I needed a lot more of it. She also figured out I could sustain myself on only blood. Eventually, I lived on a diet of both. As I grew I hunted with her. Then I hunted by myself. But like you, I didn't need a gun to do it."
The room fell back into silence, but again Edward was bombarded with his family's thoughts. Carlisle's mind was reeling with new information. Jasper couldn't believe that somehow the girl was even stranger than they'd originally thought. Alice was only half-listening, most of her brain was dedicated to searching the future, trying to find one where she could see the girl. Esme's thoughts were all for Bella.
She's exhausted, Esme thought. The girl had been losing steam. It couldn't be easy, what she was doing. For all she knew she was surrounded by enemies. Rosalie's behavior had obviously only made that worse. She must feel so alone.
Esme's observation was true, Edward realized. The girl was alone. Alone in the woods when she happened upon Alice and Esme, and alone now.
"Where is your grandmother, now?" Edward asked.
Bella's eyes grew soft. Jasper sucked in a breath at the weight of a new emotion rippling out from the girl. Grief. It was so strong, this girl's feeling, that it was beginning to have an effect on Edward through Jasper.
"She died five years ago," she said. "When I was fifteen. It's just me now."
Esme gasped. "You've been alone since you were fifteen?" This poor child.
Bella's eyes narrowed. "My childhood normal," she said, her voice hesitant. Like she was avoiding something. "My growth slowed at some point, but I still reached physical maturity at fourteen. When she died I was more than capable of taking care of myself."
Carlisle looked at the girl with empathy. "That doesn't mean you should've had to."
The girl's shoulders lifted and dropped. Edward watched as she attempted to outstretch her injured leg. She sucked a breath in through her teeth, obviously in pain. Carlisle moved to go towards her, but the girl waved him off.
"My grandmother actually kept pretty detailed health records," she said tightly, face scrunched in discomfort. "Including my cognitive abilities. She kept journals my entire life and when she died, I saved them." She looked up at Carlisle. "You can have them if you'd like. They're in a storage unit in Arizona. It'd be a bit of a trip, but it might be helpful."
Amazing, Carlisle thought. If her grandmother documented her growth, I might be able to better understand her physiology better . . . Edward watched as his father flipped through all the possibilities this information would bring. Carlisle Cullen has always been curious about their kind, the scientific intricacies of their physiology. This girl presented a new window into that. Perhaps by understanding her, he could understand more about them. His understanding had already shifted with the girl's revelation that a vampire was able to procreate with a human. What else could he learn from this girl?
"Are you sure, Bella?" Carlisle asked.
"I can't leave like this," the girl said, gesturing to her leg. "I'm exhausted. I can barely walk by myself. I was bitten by a fucking werewolf and you are probably my best shot at healing as quickly as possible. I don't have much of a choice but to trust you, at this point. Even though one of you attacked me, by the way."
Carlisle opened his mouth with the intent of apologizing again, but the girl cut him off. "Don't. My life is in your hands one way or the other. You could kill me or heal me. You claim to owe me, but I am at your mercy. I might as well give you what I can. And honestly, I would rather not have to be interviewed anymore when those have answers to questions you haven't even thought to ask."
Then the girl shocked everyone by pushing up to her non-injured leg. She tried to straighten to a standing position but lost her balance. When she wobbled, Esme's arm shot out, stepping in the pool of blood to steady the girl.
The girl jerked, dodging Esme's outstretched hand. Only Jasper – and through his thoughts, Edward – felt the spike of fear that shot through the girl. Edward felt, for the first time, a true pang of sympathy.
She really must feel so alone.
"I'd like to go lay down if you don't mind. As I said, I'm exhausted."
Esme nodded, slowly lowering her hand. "Of course. Of course. You need to rest."
The Cullen's watched as the girl limped with great difficulty across the living room, back toward the guest room they'd placed her in. As she reached the hallway, she paused.
"Could you do me one favor?" She asked, turning her head slightly over her shoulder.
"Of course, Bella," Esme said. "Whatever you need."
The girl didn't say anything for a moment. She turned more fully to look at the family, all frozen where she had left them.
"I'm hungry," she said, her voice so very quiet. Something about this girl who'd been so determined to not show weakness suddenly become vulnerable caused Edward's stomach to twist unfamiliarly.
Oh, sweetheart. Esme ached to get closer to the girl at that moment, to comfort her. She refrained. "Of course we can get you something to eat, Bella."
The girl nodded, then continued into the guest room. The door swung shut behind her.
Once again, some characteristics about the kind of not-humans in this story I am altering because they didn't make sense to me in the books. Or just irritated me.
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