Jacob met them in the woods on the way back.
He didn't even bother to phase back, he just ran straight to Renesmée, ignoring Carlisle as he sniffed her up and down and whined softly. There was a desperation to his movements.
Carlisle looked slightly awkward as Jacob did his sniffing inspection, and frankly, Renesmée felt the same way. It was one thing to have an affectionate best friend, but for reasons she couldn't put her finger on she felt ill at ease with Jacob doing this in front of Carlisle.
When Jacob finally phased back Carlisle shrugged off his jacket and held it out to him, carefully keeping his eyes averted.
Jacob pulled it towards him without thanks, and Renesmée, who had turned around, heard the shuffling sounds of him tying it around his waist.
«Carlisle,» Jacob said when he was done, «could you give Nessie and me a moment alone?»
Carlisle raised an eyebrow at him. «You're hardly decent,» he pointed out.
Jacob smiled thinly back. «A moment.»
Renesmée cringed.
Carlisle turned towards her. «Renesmée?» he asked.
She opened her mouth to say something like– 'sorry, Jacob, but she was tired, could they take this later', or 'she wanted to see her mother first–'
But judging by the look in Jacob's eyes, that mix of hurt and anger, she would only be delaying the inevitable.
She grabbed Carlisle's hand briefly, conveyed her desire to get the conversation with Jacob over with. He nodded in acceptance, and in a flash, faster than either she or Jacob could run, he was gone.
Leaving Renesmée with Jacob.
«Nessie,» Jacob said slowly, «what the hell?»
«I took a detour to the cottage,» Renesmée replied. «I ran into Carlisle, who'd found out his shift was double booked and he had the day off, and we decided to go on a hunt together. Grandfather-granddaughter bonding time, we don't often do that.»
Which was true, they didn't often go on hunts together. Oh, there were family hunts where they all went, but for the most part, if Renesmée was to hunt then it was with either Bella or Jacob, with Edward as an optional addition.
A solo hunt with Carlisle was… unprecedented, actually.
She didn't know if that made her story more or less believable.
«Right,» Jacob said slowly, his eyes narrowed.
Renesmée smiled up at him.
Jacob softened, the lines of anger in his face fading as he looked at her with that endless, hopeless, devotion she was so used to. «Do you have any idea how worried I was?» He asked.
Renesmée smiled again. «You didn't need to. We called,» she chirped, hoping her cheer would prove contagious.
«You were supposed to be there in fifteen minutes!» Jacob cried. «You didn't pick up when I called!"
Renesmée grimaced.
She contemplated, for a moment, making up some lie about her phone, about how she'd been out of coverage.
But, that would only invite more questions, and possibly he would decide to fix her phone.
«I'm sorry,» she ended up saying. «I'll call next time.»
Jacob still looked upset. «Next time?»
Renesmée blinked. «Impulse decisions? They happen.»
She began walking, past ready for this conversation to be over.
Jacob stood still for a few seconds, she could almost hear him thinking.
Then, the snow creaked as he started walking, his long strides catching up with her without him needing to run.
«Next time,» Jacob gritted out, «I'd like a warning. And to know where you were. Nessie,» he said, holding up his hands when she opened her mouth to protest, «I know you may feel safe, and yes, you have powers — there's nothing in the normal world that can hurt you. But, Nessie, you're Undesirable Number One to the Volturi. What if they send an assassin?»
Then Renesmée would expect to be held hostage, as her mother was the valuable one.
She'd given much thought to what the Volturi might do to her family, should they ever come back, and–
Well, the fear of having them show up one day to take her away had never gone away. Hadn't abated at all, in fact, she still had nightmares about the Volturi in their black cloaks and, for all that Carlisle's tale had tried its best to humanize them, she always would.
The Volturi were her terror.
Only, unlike most children, who could rest assured that their terror was something that would go away in the morning, once sunlight struck the dark corners of the room, Renesmée's terror was very real.
At any given moment, they could decide to destroy her family, and then what?
In her powerlessness, in her need to find some sort of certainty in a world where her nightmares seemed so terribly real, Renesmée had thought about how they'd go about it.
The Volturi wouldn't want Alice to know they were coming, that would give her time to gather the witnesses again. Which meant one of two things: one, they would hide behind Nahuel or his sisters. They'd been in contact, and with Chelsea, getting one of the four if not all of them should be child's play.
Leaving Aro free to show up whenever he liked, with Alice none the wiser.
Except, Renesmée had been a central part of the proceedings when the Volturi came last time, the wolves had all been there too. And still Alice had seen the Volturi come. So, maybe, if it was her death and the deaths of the family at the hands of Volturi guards, Alice would still see it.
The other option, option two, was if Aro concentrated on Renesmée only.
She wouldn't be seen by Alice, there was no chance of that. If Aro decided to kill her, and only her, then he would easily be able to.
And as Alice couldn't see Jacob either, the hunts that were just Renesmée and Jacob were when the Volturi were most likely to strike.
Only, she had only realized this after going on many, many, hunts alone with Jacob. And when she realized this, a new question presented itself: why had the Volturi not done this already?
She'd pondered that for a good long time, eventually realizing that Aro did not know her hunting patterns. He had no Alice of his own, and no spies: Demetri would always know where she was, and who was with her, but he could not know this a day ahead, with enough of a margin of time that Aro could mount an abduction team to take Renesmée away before her family was with her again. That, and Aro was probably a bit mad. He was too old, too cruel, not to be.
This left Renesmée with the troubling conclusion that her greatest protection was the proximity of her family.
Should she ever go to Paris, to London, to Tokyo, on her own, anywhere that Demetri could get to her before she made it back to her family, then–
Well, then she would be handing herself over to Aro on a silver platter.
(Well, there might be some other, hidden, factor at play, something that Renesmée didn't know about. Her family didn't want her scared of the Volturi, so they didn't tell her much about what Aro's guard could do: it was quite possible that there was something else keeping Aro, something she didn't know about.
Perhaps it was this that had made her feel safe enough to go to Ireland. She would be with Carlisle, so Alice would see if he was attacked: and there was the not insignificant chance that Renesmée's theory about Aro's behavior was just guesswork, and reality quite different.
Her desperation to avoid Isle Esme had weighed heavily, too, she would admit. Very heavily.)
And then what?
She had at first assumed, had taken for granted, that Aro would want to kill her.
But– no.
No, if he ever got his hands on Renesmée, then she would only be the ticket to unraveling the rest of them. He would want to use her to get the rest of them. If he had Jacob as well, she could only imagine Jacob would be killed, to make an example, and to distress Bella.
Renesmée would be the hostage, and then Bella and Edward (and, depending on how low Aro would go, Carlisle as well) would come to him in surrender. And then, all three of them would be killed anyway, because Bella was a threat for as long as she lived, Aro had Edward's gift already, and Renesmée herself– well, she imagined her very existence offended him too much. She certainly didn't have anything to add to the coven.
After that, Aro would be free to do as he pleased, because no amount of witnesses could stand against Alec. Not if Bella was dead.
And so it was that the best thing Renesmée could do for her family, the way she could best protect all of them from the Volturi, was to stay close.
What Renesmée said was, «You're right, Jake. I'm sorry.»
Jacob smiled, finally seeming to relax. «It's fine, Nessie. Just— don't ever do that to me again, you hear? You can't go around disappearing on me.»
It took everything Renesmée had not to point out that Carlisle had very much called, and she had been perfectly safe with him, but she kept it in. She wouldn't get anywhere with it.
So she nodded, and then there was the tearing sound of Carlisle's jacket being ripped apart by Jacob phasing. He nudged her with his nose. With a sigh, she climbed up on his back, and he took her back to the house. Carlisle's jacket, torn into several pieces, was left behind on the snow-covered forest floor.
They were greeted at the house by Edward, and Renesmée did not miss the look passed between him and Jacob.
She spent the evening playing Skyrim with Jacob, and keeping her thoughts firmly trained on the game. Carlisle spent his time in the office, reading a book if the occasional flick of a page was anything to go by.
No word needed to be said between them: they both knew their conversation in the woods was a holy secret, never to be divulged with anybody.
Renesmée would keep the secrets she'd learned locked deep within her, so deep even Edward couldn't reach them, known but never acknowledged.
The next morning saw Renesmée waking up to her mother sitting on her bed, a smile on her face.
Renesmée sat up slowly, blinking blearily at the world around her.
She felt the cold imprint of her mother's hand on her cheek, and she frowned. Bella had listened to her dreams, then.
Renesmée struggled to remember what she'd dreamt about.
«Sweet things,» Edward supplied.
Her head snapped to the left, and found him seated in her room as well, on her desk chair.
He smiled warmly at her, though she caught the edge of concern in his eyes. «Your dreams are always pleasant to listen to. Tonight…»
«Tonight you dreamt of Carlisle wandering through bookshelves,» Bella supplied, her voice thoughtful. «It was a bit suspenseful.»
«Oh,» Renesmée breathed.
Yes, that was right…
She'd dreamt of her grandfather in an old, dark library, beckoned forwards like the pied piper awaited him at the heart of that library that was something more sinister than a library. Carlisle had followed, the shelves growing ever taller, ever darker, around him, until they resembled people shrouded in black looming over him.
That was all the dream had been, just Carlisle walking, but—
She kept her mind carefully blank.
Still, her parents had to have seen how badly she wanted to shout, how badly she wanted to scream for Carlisle to run, only when she opened her mouth no words came out.
All she could do was watch.
Edward gave Bella a look, and Renesmée just knew that her mother had her shield lowered.
They were talking about her, only not being as subtle about it as they thought.
Edward smiled to himself. «You're as observant as your mother. Alright, Renesmée, that was a slightly concerning dream.»
Bella said nothing, only looked at her daughter.
Edward leaned forwards in his chair, a gentle frown on his face. «Nessie, we've been thinking,» he said softly, «about last Christmas.»
«Oh?» Renesmée asked.
«About how you missed out on Isle Esme,» Bella continued for him, her hand coming forwards to cover Renesmée's.
Renesmée let her mother wind her fingers through hers, and looked at their entwined hands.
It used to be that Renesmée's hands were dwarfed by Bella's hands, even Alice used to have bigger hands than she did.
Now, though, her hands had grown, much like the rest of her, and she had her father's long piano fingers. She was taller than her mother, too, and slim but not rail thin the way her mother was.
It had been a strange day, not too long ago, when they were both getting dressed for one of Alice's parties, and Renesmée realized she would soon look older than her mother. Perhaps not quite yet, not with her soft and round cheeks and the lack of those under eye bruises that made all vampires look so very tired, and in turn older and wearier than they were, but it would happen.
She was catching up with her mother, and if what Nahuel said about her having another year to grow was correct, then the distance between them would only grow.
What would there be then to make Bella her mother?
«Here now, Nessie,» Edward said, and in a flash he was seated by the bed as well, putting an arm around her. «You'll always be our little girl.»
Bella's eyes widened, her eyes boring into Edward's.
Renesmée focused on her parents' scents, trying to clear her mind.
«Right,» Bella breathed after a moment, «we were thinking Isle Esme. You, us two, and Jacob. For Valentine's Day, to make up for how you missed Christmas. How's that sound?»
«I thought we were going to wait until next Christmas,» Renesmée pointed out.
«Christmas is a long way away,» Bella retorted, a small grin on her face. «No time like the present.»
Renesmée turned her head around to get a proper look up and into Edward's face. «You've already bought the tickets, haven't you?»
«Yep,» Edward replied, popping the 'p'. «We're leaving on Friday, and we'll be back the Friday after.»
«One week,» Renesmée chirped, or, tried to chirp. «On Isle Esme.»
«You'll get to use your scuba gear!» Bella said, and got off the bed, pulling at Renesmée's hand to make her come up as well. «And there's a tiny chance that—»
«No, no, no!» Edward protested. «That part is a surprise!»
«Right,» Bella laughed, and threw her arms around Renesmée, squeezing her lightly.
«Alice bought something?» Renesmée guessed.
«I'm not saying anything,» Bella sang, and swung Renesmée from side to side.
Over her shoulder, Renesmée could see Edward holding a finger up before his mouth, mouthing 'shush'.
Right.
As Alice appeared at the cottage a half hour later to drag Bella and Renesmée along on a shopping trip, and Renesmée started receiving texts from Jacob featuring cool waterski tricks he thought they should try together, plainly giving away that the surprise was a speedboat, Renesmée felt realization dawn upon her.
The saying «All roads lead to Rome» wasn't about geography. It wasn't even about how some places are really easy to find, allegorically. It was about how some things can't be avoided. No matter where you walk, no matter how clever you think yourself for going off to Ireland instead of Rome, those damn roads will get the better of you in the end.
Isle Esme was Rome, and Renesmée had been a fool to think she could avoid it.