A/N
Those familiar with Jessica314's Tale of Years will recognize the med school bit in this chapter, and if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? Her story-telling is fantastic, and much of my understanding of the Cullen family comes from having read her series. I've used her ideas in this chapter and elsewhere with her permission, of course!
Also, at this point in Jacob's book, he says Edward and Carlisle have a conversation concerning the fetus's genetics, a conversation of which he understood little more than his own name. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot of fun to write, and much less to read, but y'all know me and glossing over things ;)
Honestly, I find SM's universe to be fascinating and truly enjoyed exploring one of the many possibilities.
What I wouldn't give to actually have a medical debate with Carlisle... Sigh.
~L
39. Absolute Genetics
Attempting to keep the horrifying images in Jacob's mind from intruding into mine, I latched on to the comforting sound of my father's thoughts.
"Can you think of no other explanation for the thing she's carrying?" I asked Carlisle in a harsh voice.
"A few, but specious speculations will not answer our questions."
"Even the most erroneous hypotheses can lead to the truth."
"Only when there is a way to prove or, at the very least, test those theories."
Rose turned to stare at Carlisle with wide eyes. "You are not experimenting on Bella's baby!"
"Of course not," he agreed in an even tone.
"Even after he's born."
"Rosalie, if the child is harmless as Bella believes, then I assure you I mean it no harm. I make no promises apart from that, as I will not allow it to threaten any member of our family."
"In any event," I muttered, "we're not planning on taking it for testing, Rose; we're just discussing theories. Go back to your car show."
"You aren't the only one who's been through medical school."
"No," I agreed with a smirk. "Carlisle has graduated, too."
"Edward," he rebuked me.
"Um. Forgive me. What I meant was... Carlisle holds numerous degrees in a variety of medical fields."
Is that really necessary, son?
"Well, it isn't like she completed the program. Just because she attended doesn't make her qualified to practice medicine."
And did you graduate the first time?
Glaring at him because he knew the answer as well as I, I admitted, "Not the first time, no."
"I may not have graduated yet," Rose sneered, "but neither was I kicked out for killing one of my patients."
"I didn't kill him!"
"You got lucky," she said with a sniff.
Carlisle wished we truly were his children that he might send us to our rooms to stop the incessant bickering.
With Bella asleep, Esme thought now would be a good time to wash the cup she'd been using. She left the room with a parting thought of how human women were lucky because at least their children - even their adopted ones - would eventually grow up. We all breathed easier as the scent of blood faded from the air.
Attempting to prove that I was not a child, but an adult worthy of Carlisle's good opinion, I let the argument with Rosalie go and returned to the topic of the fetus's potential genetics. "Do you really think its rapid growth can be explained in such a way? Neither of us have the werewolf gene."
"No. You have vampire genes."
"But vampires don't grow. At all. You don't go from no growth to accelerated growth without involving some other variable."
"And we have one. Bella is a human, and you are a vampire. That changes everything."
"No," I argued. "It still makes no sense. I don't grow. The fetus's growth rate should be a human speed or perhaps even slower, but not faster."
"How deeply did your courses delve into genetics?"
I shrugged. "The human genome project had only just taken off my last time around. I've learned more from watching you read than what they covered."
"I guessed as much."
Slightly offended, I said, "Why?"
"The fetus would not have twenty-four pairs as Bella will only have contributed twenty-three. Any additional ones that it carries would be monosomes from you, alone."
I waved my hand dismissively. "Semantics. You know what I meant. You're suggesting the fetus's accelerated growth rate is because it has more chromosomes than a human?"
He chuckled and leaned forward in his chair to balance his elbows on his knees. "Humans may have finished mapping their DNA, but that hardly means they understand how all of it works. The smallest deletions or translocations can have catastrophic effects, or none at all. Even with the correct number of chromosomes all in their proper locations, alterations from the norm are noticeable. Did you see the article I read on silver foxes?"
I shook my head. I'd had other things on my mind than reading over the past year or so.
"Some humans have begun breeding them in the way they do dogs. It is remarkable how breeding an animal for one specific trait - a curly tail, or a certain colored fur, for example - would change many other physical traits in unexpected and seemingly unrelated ways. And even more remarkable was the speed at which those changes occurred. Within just a few generations, they became quite dog-like."
His eyes - despite their near-black color - were bright with interest and excitement. The field of medicine was vast and ever-changing, and all vampires craved new things, new experiences, new knowledge. Each medical discovery humans made was like a gift to the insatiable doctor's curiosity, and I never failed to get caught up in his excitement when we discussed his chosen profession.
Oblivious to my amusement, he continued, "Now, if what we are seeing is the result of additional chromosomes, I am forced to wonder just how many the venom contains. The vampire aspect could all be contained within a single additional chromosome, as Jacob's wolf gene appears to be, or it could require three or four or perhaps many more. Jacob has twenty-four pairs, yes, but true wolves have thirty-nine. Whatever coding causes the Quileutes' transformation would most likely be located solely on the extra set, but that is not to say their others do not differ from a human's in other ways."
"But all of his were pairs? What I mean is, Jacob's mother wasn't a wolf; his grandfather was. Great-grandfather. Whichever. Where did the other half of his wolf gene come from?"
"Do you know all the ins and outs of his family tree? Does he? Can you say for certain that Jacob's mother did not carry the wolf gene? Since Leah has changed, she is all the evidence we need that members of both sexes can carry and pass on the wolf DNA."
"From what I gather, there had never been a female wolf before. Apparently Leah's change was quite the surprise to them, but I suppose that doesn't mean the women didn't carry it; just that it had never activated in a female until now."
Catching Alice's thoughts, I turned toward where she was seated behind the couch.
"What does that have to do with anything? Oh. I see your point. But no, they aren't."
Carlisle inhaled slowly, trying to stifle the annoyance my siblings often displayed at my mind reading.
I started to explain, "Alice was just wondering - "
"If the pack was color-blind," she finished as she stood and moved into the middle of the living room, where she seated herself once more, this time where she could see me and Carlisle.
"Interesting," he said in surprise.
Alice shrugged. "Well, dogs are color-blind, right? But when it occurs in humans, isn't it just the men?"
"There are many sex related conditions, color-blindness among them. Most often seen in males, they can present in females if the mother is a carrier and the father has the trait."
"Like with Leah," she said with a nod.
"Even without the variable of a female wolf, there is nothing saying that Jacob's parents did not both carry the gene. The Quileute tribe is not all that large. They may all carry it, or it may be that only a few do. Does the transformation require genes from both parents? Could that have something to do with who has changed and who has not? There are more young men and women on the reservation than there are within the pack. Why is that? Why did some change and not others? Unless the tribe consents to genetic testing for all members, we will probably never know."
Alice glanced at Jacob, and a frown crossed her pixie face. I guessed she was uncomfortable with discussing him as though he wasn't there, but the wolf was not making any effort to involve himself in our discussion. After waiting a beat, she turned back to Carlisle and asked, "Is that why they imprint, do you think? 'Cause they've found their genetic matches?"
He lifted a shoulder and nodded. "Possibly. The drive to reproduce is one of the strongest instincts within the animal kingdom, and from what Edward has told me of the strength of the imprint, it could easily be based on genetic viability."
With the scent of blood no longer permeating the air, Emmett strolled into the living room to give me a broad grin. "See, Eddie? What'd I tell ya? Sex makes the world go 'round. Ain't that right, baby?"
Rosalie favored him with a look of love when he kissed her hand. He waggled his eyebrows at me and threw himself into the chair beside hers.
...but then, I guess you know that first-hand now, eh?
I grunted and looked away, trying to stifle the fierce jealousy and resentment that flared within me. Usually seeing the love they felt for each other didn't bother me all that much, but after nearly a century alone, to only have been granted two weeks to love my Bella just seemed utterly unfair.
He chortled, continuing to eye me and grin. ...that's your reaction after ending a hundred years of celibacy, maybe you need some pointers?
"Bite me, Em."
...oho! Touchy, touchy! Seems I hit a nerve...
"Emmett," I moaned.
...me an Rosie show you how it's done!
Carlisle said sternly, "Leave your brother be, Emmett."
"What? I didn't say anything!"
"Everyone knows you don't have to!" I snapped.
"Whatever." He snorted. "Fine. Be that way."
I tried my best to ignore Rosalie's smug look as she eyed her husband. After a moment of silence, Carlisle resumed his speculations.
...they believe we are responsible for their transformation...
"Yes," I nodded toward Carlisle. "Bella said they think the change occurs when the wolf reaches a certain age and encounters a vampire."
"I am quite certain that I never met the young men in the pack prior to them joining us in the fight against the newborns. Had any of you? Or even if you never officially met, perhaps you may have run into one of them in town?"
The others indicated they hadn't with shrugs or shakes of their heads, but I nodded. "I met Jacob before his change, but I believe Sam had already shifted by that time, so I don't know if that means anything. It may be necessary for one of our kind to simply to be in the area. I'm not sure of the specifics, and I don't think they are either, but according to them, if we hadn't been here, none of the current pack would have changed. Whether it's true or not..."
He rubbed his thumb across his lips and stared at Jacob. "If their belief about us is correct, and the gene to transform is only triggered in the presence of a vampire, I wonder what it is about us that our mere proximity sets theirs into action?"
"Maybe it's not how close we are that does it." Alice's mind conjured an image of Jasper attempting to detect Bella's scent over that of Jacob's when we had been trying to hide her from the newborn army that spring.
"Huh," I grunted, impressed with her insight. "That's possible, I suppose."
Carlisle's eyes were steady on me as he waited for one of us to elaborate.
"Jacob stinks," I said, earning snorts and snickers from my siblings and a dirty look from my father. "Well, he does. But we smell bad to them, too. Their transformation wouldn't do much good in the way of protection for the tribe if they had to meet a vampire face to face for it to begin. The process isn't instant.
"Bella told me she watched Jacob's accelerated growth over several months before he finally shifted for the first time. If it required a physical meeting, what's the likelihood they would even survive such an encounter to change at all? But if it were triggered by our scent, not our proximity, they wouldn't necessarily have to meet us in person. They may have caught our scent trails around town or in the mountains, and then shifted."
"Pheromone induced transformations? Hmm." Carlisle conceded the possibility with a nod.
"I guess it doesn't really matter," I mumbled. "We're here, and they've already transformed. There's nothing we can do about it at this point, other than to not return once we move away."
"Our relationship with the pack aside, I do not think pheromones would have anything to do with your ability to sire a child when a traditional vampire who found himself in your position would have been prompted to feed from Bella the day you met, not mate with her."
"Yes, well, as that didn't happen, Bella and I are married now, and she is pregnant. But her condition is still inexplicable. There are no rapid aging syndromes, other than that which afflicts Jacob and his pack. Nothing about Bella's pregnancy makes sense. I shouldn't have even been able to get her pregnant, for starters!"
Not this again.
"No, Carlisle. Whatever else I am, one thing is certain: I'm frozen, unchanging. I'm not capable of mitosis and certainly not meiosis. You speak of vampire genetics, but they don't - they can't - exist!"
"I believe you have successfully proven the opposite to be true," he said with a glance at my sleeping - and very pregnant - wife.
"There has to be some other explanation."
"Why?"
"Because..." I cast about for an argument other than the one I had been using for the past century.
He smirked at my stumped expression. "What is it that made you a vampire?"
"Aside from yourself?"
He pursed his lips in disapproval. Yes. Aside from me.
"The venom, of course."
"How?"
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I said, "How am I supposed to know?"
"Exactly! We do not know how venom does what it does, but we do know that it changed us at a basic level. A cellular level. And apparently, a genetic level. We are not human any longer, though we were once. How would that be possible unless we had new genetic material to alter that which already existed within us?"
"There's no DNA in venom. A mouse won't turn into a snake when bitten."
"We are not snakes."
"Obviously. But shouldn't the same rules apply?"
"Why would they? Venom is simply the word we use to describe a secretion our bodies make. Snake venom is a toxin made of proteins and such, intended to paralyze or kill, but who is to say our venom does not carry some genetic material? Assuming they exist at all, from where else would the fetus's extra chromosomes have come? Genetic mutations naturally occur all the time, but not the spontaneous creation of entirely new genetic material."
"So," I said slowly, "that would make our venom more like an infection, like a virus."
He cocked an eyebrow and nodded slowly. It does seem to act that way, does it not? "Or perhaps like a retrovirus would be more accurate, given the speed of our change. When a virus enters a cell, it causes that cell to begin making more of itself, rather than daughter cells. Thus the virus replicates and is spread by the infected person's own body, something which they may become aware of in a very short time frame, or not for years, and our venom may work in a similar manor. It must replicate, but where else would it get the genetic material to do so if not from our own human cells? Of course," he mused, "the venom affected our entire bodies, whereas most viruses are site specific."
Alice cocked her head. "Like hepatitis is just a liver disease, right?"
Looking like a teacher who was pleased to see that his students had actually paid attention, Carlisle smiled and nodded. "Yes. Or those which cause the common cold attack the membranes that line the sinus cavities. Or HIV will only infect certain types of white cells, while the rest of the body remains largely unaffected despite the fact that the virus itself circulates within the blood."
"'Largely unaffected'?" Alice said doubtfully. "You are talking about something that's fatal, like, a hundred percent of the time, right?"
"Largely unaffected by the virus itself, yes. It does very little to a patient on its own, and if kept in check, the patient can live a relatively normal life. It uses and destroys a very specific type of cell - one that fights off other diseases. It is not HIV which kills a person, but other illnesses which healthy humans are easily capable of fighting off."
"But it's not just our skin and diet that are different," Alice argued. "We're not human, not anymore. It changed us completely."
"In our case, the venom is not restricted to one type of cell, though it definitely has an affinity for red blood cells. As Edward's genetics were passed on to create a new offspring, I am led to believe that which makes us us is still within our cells, but with the addition of whatever genes make up our venom. We are not human any longer; we are something else. Something new. A vampire."
What a lovely thought. It was bad enough to be a parasite as Jacob had often called me, or even to be a predator, but to be a disease?
...would have expected that to comfort him.
I scoffed and shook my head. "Being likened to a disease isn't exactly comforting, Carlisle."
"You and your absolutes. Your venom behaving like a virus does not make you a disease."
"A disease carrier, then."
Sighing through his nose with his lips pressed tight, he deliberately thought, You are surely the most stubborn creature on the planet.
"No," I said with a smirk. "That would be Bella."
He chuckled. Lord help you then, for your child will surely surpass you both.
My eyes widened in alarm. "Lord help us all, should that be the case."
"Aw, come on, guys!" Emmett moaned.
"My apologies, Emmett," Carlisle said with a nod toward him before cocking an eyebrow at me.
"Fine, fine," I grumped. "I'll try to wait until everyone speaks their thoughts."
...like that'll last...
"Though it would be nice if everyone actually spoke them," I snarled at Rosalie.
"Hmm." Carlisle leaned back in his chair and began to think of the texts he had studied on genetics. Not something he would need as an emergency room doctor, the subject had fascinated him nonetheless, and he had read everything about it that he could put his hands on.
...a virus is not alive in the way we consider most things to be...
Unable to stop myself, I interjected, "Neither am I."
...lasted all of ten seconds... must be a new record!
I ignored Rose's derisive sniff.
Picking up the thread of his thoughts, Carlisle said, "And yet, a virus is alive. Crystals - rocks which actively grow - are merely deposits of dissolved minerals. A virus evolves, reproduces, even if it does require the presence of a host to do so."
"Mindlessly. Automatically. With no direction or purpose. Sure it makes more of itself," I said with a snort, "but that's all it does. You could say the same thing of a fire or any kind of chemical reaction, for that matter. That alone doesn't make it alive."
"What are any of us but hosts for the electrical and chemical reactions that take place within us?"
"So which is it, Carlisle? Are we genetically altered humans, or a new species? A disease, or disease-ridden? The host, or the parasite?"
He chuckled humorlessly. "Again with the absolutes. Must it always be one or the other?"
"Well..." Needling him on purpose, I smiled innocently. "Yes."
"Would you call a mountain lion a predator? Most people would. And yet, when you hunt them, they become the prey. The lion did not change, only our perception of it. Nature is red in tooth and claw, my son, and all creatures must hunt or be hunted. Living things do not belong only to one category and then stay there forever. It is the natural order of things that change is inevitable."
"Now you're arguing my side!"
"Am I?"
"We don't change. That alone makes us unnatural."
His lips twitched, and his eyes danced with amusement. "Do we not? I submit that we do in fact change. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have spent the past century watching this family change and grow, including myself. It wasn't all that long ago that I was a homeless nomad, and now?" He spread his hands and glanced around at the large house our family called home.
"So your circumstances are different; that doesn't mean you are."
"Physically, you perfectly resemble the dying young man I first met, but mentally? Emotionally? No. You have grown, Edward, as have we all. It may take us more time to do so than it would a human, but time is something we have in excess."
I had been enjoying the debate with my father, had even allowed myself to forget what had sparked it, but his words brought me back to reality. "Four days is hardly what I would call an excess."
He looked at Bella and frowned. "But for her supply of blood, we are as ready for the birth as possible. Each day she carries it increases both of their chances of survival."
I nodded woodenly.
...changing now, as it must be in order to grow, but will it continue to do so once separated from Bella?
"I guess that depends on how much of it is human, and how much vampire."
"Hybrids do not necessarily display an equal halving of their parents' traits, any more than any child."
Emmett started snickering.
I groaned as my throat flared with renewed thirst. "Not now, Emmett."
Oh, yes, now. "Hey, Carlisle, you remember those ligers?"
Carlisle pressed his lips together, attempting not to respond to Emmett's laughter. "Yes, Emmett. I recall."
"Well," I said defensively, "you saw the size of those things! If you found out there was an elephant sized bear, no doubt you'd be the one pestering everyone to consider a new destination for our family vacation."
"Did I say I blame you? Who was it that found you the zoo's blueprints, eh?" Emmett tapped his chin and pretended to think. "Oh, that's right! It was yours truly."
"And as I told you both at the time," Carlisle said in a stern voice, "the humans would notice if any one of them went missing. There are, what? Six in existence?"
"I know! It's almost too perfect. They breed just one more, and there'll be one for each of us!"
"How wonderful, Emmett. Our family could wipe out an entire species in one feeding."
Emmett snorted. "Big deal. They can make more."
"That is not the point. I watched those videos you wanted me to see; those cats are like children to their handlers. You know full and well that they are not for us."
"And I'm still sayin' we should just breed our own! If the humans can do it, so can we."
Alice huffed. "Emmett, I've told you: no. That future ends badly every time you plan it."
"It is impractical in any case," Carlisle agreed. "We cannot stay anywhere for the length of time it would require to establish that kind of a sanctuary."
"And even if we did," Alice said to Emmett archly, "would you be able to resist killing the lions and tigers within it long enough for them to even breed the cats you two keep drooling over? And even then, someone would have to feed and tend to them as they grew, and it wouldn't be me, that's for sure."
"Hey, if Eddie can get Bella pregnant, I'd say anything's possible."
"This isn't helping," I muttered.
Trying to steer the conversation back onto the subject of the fetus, Carlisle said, "The liger is not the only hybrid animal species. The mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, for example, and there are many others. But you are not going to find a cat breeding with a dog, even in vitro. The two are not closely related enough to be viable mix. Which reinforces what I stated earlier. We used to be human, and there must be something within us which remains so." ...however, Emmett does have an interesting point...
"Holy mother of..." I stared at my father in horror. "Newborn vampires are vicious enough. You think this will be worse?"
"The liger is an interesting species in that they are an enhanced version of their parents. Stronger than either species, and bigger, by far. Becoming a vampire already enhances much that the human was, and Bella's fetus is clearly showing that potential with its accelerated growth and supra-human strength."
The immortal children had been bad enough; the thought of a vampire child that was worse was terrifying. Needing to deny that it was possible, I said, "Yes, but, the mule isn't an enhanced horse."
"There are no set rules when it comes to hybrids in general and certainly not with a combination that has never before been seen."
"Now you know how I feel," Alice muttered sourly.
Carlisle looked at her curiously and shook his head.
"Ignorance is frustrating. I hate being blind! I hate not knowing. It's awful."
"That's how us normies live every day, Alice," Emmett said.
"Poor you."
"Just think of it as an exercise in further developing your humanity," Carlisle said with a smile.
Emmett's dimples formed as he tried not to grin at our tiny sister. "Yeah. By the time it's old enough to develop a fashion sense, you two should be the best of friends. Imagine the fun of going on a shopping trip where you don't know what you're coming home with ahead of time!"
Annoyed with by brother's flippancy, I sneered, "Oh, yes, because buying clothes surely means it's human and not a vicious killer."
"Who said anything about buying clothes?" Alice asked. "We won't even bother bringing money. Just let the kid take care of the salesclerks and customers alike, and then grab whatever we fancy. Sounds like a blast."
"Has there ever been a bigger bunch of pessimists? Jeez, Edward, you're rubbing off on Alice if even the idea of shopping can't cheer her up."
"Stop pretending like it will behave like one when the fetus isn't human."
As he opened his mouth to tease Alice again, Carlisle pointedly cleared his throat and shot Emmett a warning look. Giving a low grunt, Emmett closed his mouth, crossed his arms, and leaned back in his chair with a disappointed grimace.
Without my brother to divert the conversation, Carlisle said, "It is not fully human, no, but Bella is human, and Edward used to be. The majority of its genetic material must be the same, but as we see with Jacob, even the slightest differences can change everything about a creature. It is human, yes, but it is also very much a vampire."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Which explains why it rejected all forms of nutrition other than blood."
He nodded. "And eggs?"
"Once she started getting sick, Bella couldn't keep those down either."
"She is eating normally now, aside from the blood."
"Yes. And the fetus is growing again. Inhumanly fast. Something which you have yet to explain."
"I may never be able to do so adequately."
"Speculate, then. Specious or otherwise."
"Alright. You contend that the fetus should grow at the same rate or slower than a human, but not faster. Is that correct?"
"Since apparently not at all isn't an option."
"Apparently," he agreed dryly. "How about you explain something to me, instead."
Eyeing him curiously, I nodded. "I'll try."
"How do you run so fast?"
"I don't know. I just do."
"'I just do' is not a sound scientific argument."
"The same way as anyone else moves, I suppose. Put one foot in front of the other and repeat. Just... faster."
"I think you have your answer."
I blinked at him. "You've lost me."
"We can move faster than a human can see and can speak faster than a human can comprehend. Do we do so differently? No. Only faster. You, in particular, are capable of doing so faster even than the rest of us, but your basic motions are still the same.
"The time it takes to change a fully grown human into a vampire is astonishingly short. A butterfly's metamorphosis takes months, and they are tiny in comparison with a human. The venom must have replicated itself at an enormous rate in order to change us in such a short time frame, especially when you consider the minute amount initially introduced.
"And then, once all the cells in our bodies were changed, we woke, ravenous for a new source of material for the venom to react with."
"Blood," I breathed.
"Quite."
"Before Bella began drinking blood, the fetus had stopped growing altogether. Now it's growing again, even faster than before."
"Mmm. Despite all that we had been trying to feed Bella, whatever it is in blood that a vampire needs, the fetus was not getting."
"Well, it is now," Alice muttered sourly.
Carlisle hummed in agreement. "And thus it is thriving once again."
We all looked at Bella's growing stomach.
"Newborns have an insatiable thirst," I said, "worse than a mature vampire's, no matter how bad that might be."
"Indeed."
Trying to work out what Carlisle seemed to be thinking, I said, "And you propose that that thirst is due to the venom reproducing at vampire speed?"
He nodded thoughtfully. "Without knowing more about our genetics, I can only assume that our venom is programmed to keep making more of itself under any circumstances. Just because the body has run out of raw material to convert does not mean its reproductive drive ceases to operate. After being surfeited with blood, it may take months - or a year? - for the venom's rate of production to slow to a pace that the vampire is able to readily accommodate."
"But the fetus had completely stopped growing before. Bella isn't anemic; it hasn't been draining her blood."
"It would be self-defeating for the child to be capable of killing its mother before it can survive apart from her."
"But, if we're basing its accelerated growth rate on the fact that it only takes three days to transform a human into a vampire, shouldn't it have been born weeks ago? Something else must be coming into play."
"Yes," he said quietly. "It is growing slowly because of its human heritage."
"'Slowly'?" I repeated, aghast.
"I speculate," he said with a quirk of an eyebrow, "that if vampires were capable of breeding amongst themselves, the pregnancy would take a few hours at most." ...gives new meaning to the term, 'newborn vampire,' does it not?
Jacob had mercifully fallen asleep, but not even his snoring could drown out the sound of Bella's struggling heart.
