67. Once and Future Plans
Perhaps the most amazing thing about my life with Bella was how right she'd been - about everything. Her life had taken a different direction than it would have had we not met, but it hadn't changed all that much, and not at all in the way I had feared. Her vampire life was just as rich and full as her human one would have been, if not moreso. Family, friends, a husband and child, a bright, limitless future, it was all hers. In choosing a life with me, Bella had lost nothing except her mortality.
Her father visited us as often as his work schedule would allow. Her werewolf friends all but lived with us. After convincing Renee that she was on the mend, with a bit of help from Carlisle and Charlie, Bella even spoke with her mother regularly. Blaming her new voice on lingering affects of her illness, Bella assured Renee that she felt much better than she sounded.
Easily turning the conversation away from such dangerous subjects as her health, Bella told Renee what she could of our life together so far. If she were still human, her blush would have warmed the entire house when she talked about Isle Esme. The sandy beaches had been beautiful, and the clear waters, the fragrant flowers. The words were innocent enough, if the looks she shared with me were not.
It was amusing to hear her skirt so close to the truth about our lives, from the cottage to the time spent in Carlisle's library, without giving one hint that anything extraordinary was going on. Reading was good for convalescing, and with a resident doctor keeping close tabs on her, Renee didn't need to worry.
The little truths of our daily routines hid the bigger lie of omission. Not just Bella's vampire status, but our daughter's very existence had to be kept secret from Renee. Nothing would have prevented Bella's mother from flying out to meet her new granddaughter, adopted or not. One look, and she would know as surely as Charlie did that Renesmee was ours. If she ignored the evidence her eyes told her, she still would have felt the difference when hugging Bella's cold, rock-hard body, and she would have demanded answers to questions Charlie refused to ask.
Flighty, Bella had called her mother, a free spirit. I thought her mother was rather more observant than Bella gave her credit for. Renee's openness to trying new things was spurred on by an innate need to know, to experience, to understand. Upon seeing Bella and Nessie, she would never have been content following the rules Charlie had agreed to.
Secrets and lies not withstanding, Bella's mother, like her father, was a part of our lives, and would continue to be for some time to come. Avoiding her over the holidays would be difficult, but if we could put her off for long enough, she might even be made to believe that Bella's physical changes were due to college and growing up, or disguised beneath bulky sweaters and heavy jackets. It wouldn't be long before Renesmee would appear old enough that we could pass her off as a newly adopted sibling, at least for a short time.
The solution was also the heart of the problem.
Renesmee continued to grow far too fast.
With Renesmee's - albeit reluctant - willingness to drink animal blood, the pressure for Carlisle to provide human blood for her was eased. He took an extended leave of absence from the hospital to assist us in our search for a cure. Or failing that, a clue as to where we might find one.
Though our days and nights were peppered with other, more enjoyable activities, our whole family scoured the library for books we had not already read, or reread certain others looking this time for a way to preserve and extend Nessie's life. We didn't expect to find much. Having already gone through much of Carlisle's collection before she was born, we broadened our search to the accumulated lore of the rest of the world, accessible via the internet.
Esme, with Emmett and Jasper insisting on accompanying her as escort, even made a number of day trips to Seattle to visit the libraries there, but we all knew her efforts were likely to yield more of the same useless drivel as we found online.
Very little human lore regarding vampires was remotely close to the truth. There was even less information to be found regarding our offspring. How much of that was accurate remained to be seen. Renesmee was not the monster Kaure had believed her to be, but without drastic intervention, the pregnancy would have ended Bella's life, just as she'd predicted. If she knew that much, surely someone somewhere knew even more.
In order to find it, we needed to leave. The question was, where should we go?
The answer seemed simple enough to me. Why waste time searching for a reliable source of information when Kaure had shown us that the Ticuna were exactly that? Everyone had agreed our search would include Brazil, but as one stop among many they were planning, rather than the first - and perhaps last - that I thought it should be. Besides, I had another reason for wanting to return to Rio.
After Nessie lay down to sleep for the night, I leaned against the doorway to the living room to savor the sight of my beautiful wife curled up in a chair by the fireplace, immersed in her latest selection from Carlisle's library. I was familiar with the book, and knew exactly how ridiculously inaccurate it was.
She wouldn't mind if I interrupted, I was sure.
"I propose we go on a second honeymoon. Our first one was cut far too short. How do a few weeks on Isle Esme sound right about now?"
I had waited until we were alone in our cottage to voice my desire to Bella. Emmett may have been constrained against mocking our sex life or deliberately thinking about it at me, but I couldn't hold him responsible for the thoughts I'd have to put up with if I was the one to bring it up.
Bella glanced at me from over the book she was reading. Her steady diet of animal blood had blurred the lurid red shade with hints of gold, giving me the impression she held the sunset in her eyes. She didn't return the suggestive smirk I felt creeping across my face, but scoffed at me and returned her attention to the book she was reading.
"We can't just, go on vacation. Renesmee needs us here."
"I'm not suggesting we leave her behind. She'd love the beach! We'll make it a working vacation. Take our search for a cure on the road. Carlisle has contacts in Brazil, and Esme thinks there must be other Amazonian tribes with similar legends to the Ticuna."
Bella lowered her book to eye me disbelievingly. "Some honeymoon. You want everyone to go? You wanna invite the packs along, too?"
"It's a big jungle; I'm sure we can find some privacy. The hunting is good there, too. You haven't lived until you've had a jungle cat."
"You're serious."
"Unequivocally. Kaure knew something, love. The best place to start looking for ways to help Nessie is Brazil. I'm certain of it. And while we're there..." I let my eyes travel the length of her, inhaling deeply when I met her eyes again, relishing the lack of an accompanying burn. "Hmm. We can make a little time for the two of us."
"And what does Alice see?"
"She - " I sighed, as frustrated as Alice was by the uselessness of her visions. "She sees us here."
Bella nodded sagely and went back to her book.
"But that'll change once we've decided where to go."
"It sounds like you already have. Yet we're still here."
"So agree with me! Then she'll see us there, and we'll go."
Laughing, Bella shook her head and continued to read.
I crossed the room to take the book from her and laid it aside so I could pull her from the chair and into my arms. She melted into my embrace, her hands against my back and her face against my chest. I took her silence as continued disapproval of my suggestion, but I didn't understand it.
"I seem to remember our time on the island as being so good, you were willing to stay human because of it. Now you don't want to go back?"
"No, I do, it's just…" She sucked in a deep breath and held it. A full minute passed, and then another.
Gone were the days when I needed to remind her to breathe, but I felt the urge to tell her to do so all the same, if just to get her talking again.
Even knowing it wouldn't work, I tried to hear what she wouldn't say. Going so far as to cup her face in my hands, as if my gift could somehow work like our daughter's, I reached out with my mind, and found nothing. As always, Bella's thoughts remained hidden from me.
"Bella," I groaned as her silence stretched.
Bella relented with a sigh, but her words were slow and halting. "I don't want Charlie to miss Renesmee's first Christmas."
"Oh."
Hanging unspoken between us was the knowledge that, unless we found a way to slow Nessie's growth and extend her life, she would not get many holidays.
"I understand," she mumbled. "I mean, I did before, but I do."
"Understand what?"
"Prom." She said the word without the usual derision in her voice. "College. Driving fast cars. Getting married."
"Bella," I half-laughed in exasperation. "What are you talking about?"
"All those little human things I didn't care about when it was me? It's not enough that Renesmee just exists. I want so much for her, but she's growing so fast. At this rate, she won't even have a chance to live before her life will be over. I've done the math, you know. An old woman by fifteen? When I was fifteen, I hadn't even met you yet."
Feeling a sob stuck in my throat, I clutched her against me. Bella was rigid and stiff in my arms, a sure sign of a vampire in distress. She wanted the same thing for our daughter as I had wanted for her: a normal life, a human life, and many, many years in which to live it.
Despite our utter and complete lack of any meaningful success so far, I was convinced we would find the solution to extend Nessie's life somewhere. I knew it, just as surely as I knew I loved Bella, I knew Renesmee's life would not be over within a few short years. I refused to believe otherwise.
Deliberately, I pushed away the knowledge that denial was only the first stage of grief. I wasn't grieving. And I wasn't in denial! I was ecstatic, elated, graced by the miraculous eternity ahead of me. With Bella by my side, we could accomplish anything. Anything. Renesmee would be fine!
"We can stay here as long as you like, love." I pulled away from her to give her a gentle smile. "If you don't want to leave until after Christmas, or even after next year's Christmas, that's what we'll do, but… Renesmee will get to live her life. What she does with her years is more important than how many of them she gets."
"Yeah, but there's got to be more to her life than looking for a way to make it longer. And finding nothing for our efforts!" She gestured with an angry scowl at the book she had been reading.
"Oh, Bella," I laughed. "Don't you see? If we take her around the entire world in search of a cure, and never find a single thing to help her, do you know what we will have accomplished?"
"I don't guess you mean accumulating frequent flier miles."
"We will have shown our daughter the world. What parents can claim that?"
The frown line disappeared from between her eyes as a smile tugged at her lips. "Well, the world's gonna have to wait until after Christmas."
"Christmas," I agreed. Leaning close again, I whispered in her ear, "For now, it's a bit closer to Halloween, and there's a vampire in your house who has been eyeing you for quite some time."
Her high squeal of delight echoed down the hall as I chased her into our bedroom, though it was she who tackled me once we were there. It still felt odd to joke about what I was, what we were, but she took such pleasure in it that I was determined to follow her lead.
I didn't mention a second honeymoon again, but at least she had given me a time frame in which to make plans.
Christmas.
The time would pass quickly, and in the weeks between now and then, Nessie would grow the equivalent of anther year or two, which could work in our favor. An apparently older child might make travel a bit less complicated. Public officials were always nosy, and more private transport would take a bit of finagling.
Certain as I was that a solution would be found, I didn't neglect my part in its search. Carlisle and I debated the validity of various tales and the accuracy of historical accounts for hours on end. If the subject had not had such dire repercussions, we both would have immensely enjoyed ourselves, but we were fighting for the life of mine and Bella's child, and I knew that Carlisle, too, was painfully aware of that with every circular discussion.
We didn't spend all our time in the library. There was no need to wait to begin showing Nessie the world when we had a forested mountain range right in our backyard, teeming with wildlife and a wide variety of plants. There were things closer to home to appreciate as well.
As I'd predicted, Bella wasn't all that impressed with her after car, though her reason wasn't what I expected. It was fast enough, she guessed, but she would rather run. I'd found her clumsiness adorable, but it wasn't surprising that she preferred the sure feet of a vampire.
Following her first car ride, in which Bella pushed the car faster than most of my family could run, Nessie expressed a curiosity regarding what made it go. Her desire to have Jacob join her and Rosalie in the garage was essentially an open invitation for the rest of the pack to join in, too. Cheerfully ignoring my sister's dour looks, Jacob, Seth, Quil, and Embry crowded elbow to elbow with Rosalie and Renesmee under the hood of Bella's shiny, new Ferrari.
The werewolves' invasion of our garage didn't endear them with Rosalie, who considered the care of our fleet of cars to be her responsibility. She didn't particularly enjoy the idea of a gaggle of teenage boys enthusiastically clamoring over, under, and around any of her babies. To be fair, they held most of our cars in awe and would sooner have nicked the paint as harmed one of the imprintees, but Rose was convinced their stench would never fade from the leather seats.
My sister did, however, enjoy showing off her skills and knowledge. The lot of them, with Emmett acting as forklift, spent many afternoons under one car or another. Unfortunately for them, as she kept the cars in top condition, there wasn't much tinkering to be done. I flatly rejected Rose's suggestion that the Vanquish needed an overhaul. The image of my favorite car strewn about the garage in a million bits and pieces was horrifying, even knowing she intended to put it back together again, better than new.
It had been a long time since all of us had been home for such a protracted period. Had it been just the seven of us, with none of us in school and not even Carlisle working, we would quickly have gotten under each other's skin. But it wasn't just us anymore. The addition of Bella and Renesmee had also brought a boisterous pack of werewolves.
Our house had never been so full. Or, more surprisingly, so full of laughter.
Oh, we had been happy before, of course. Misery had not been my only companion over the past century. Our family loved one another, and we played games and laughed just like a human family would have. Jasper had found more peace with us than he would have believed possible prior to meeting Alice. But the quiet joy of decades past was like a burbling stream when compared with the ocean upon which he floated now.
I did have to wonder how much of that was due to Jasper enhancing what Bella naturally exuded. And not just Bella. Joy suffused the house. Every thought rang with it. It couldn't have been his doing alone. The feelings persisted during his infrequent absences.
Long has it been said that misery loves company, but what people often failed to understand was that happiness is a contagion. It spreads and multiplies, passing from one person to the next. Unlike the weeds of doubt, whose roots were nearly impossible to eradicate, joy must be nurtured. And Jasper was a natural gardener. As he soaked the good feelings in, he broadcast them back out, amplified. Whether he meant to or not, whether he was even consciously aware of it or not, I wasn't sure, and didn't really care.
Where once our lives had been a tedious monotony, forcing us to invent anything we could think of to pass the time, now there didn't seem to be enough hours in the day - or night. There was always something to do, a new thing Renesmee discovered, new clothes to be worn, new music to hear, and new games to play.
Jasper and Emmett brought out their eight board chess game and immediately began arguing over who got to teach Renesmee, which led Emmett to decide they needed to create some new third player rules so all three of them could play, with the full intention of leaving me out, as usual.
You cheat, Emmett thought when I protested the unfairness of my exclusion.
"I would never!"
You mean, you do always. You can't help it!
"This time I'll only be watching. Nessie will play. I'll just be her… advisor."
"You mean, her cheater."
"You don't accuse Jasper of cheating when he reads you."
"Thanks bro. Way to throw me under the bus." Jasper made a show of throwing a betrayed glare my way, but Emmett wasn't diverted.
"He doesn't pluck my entire strategy straight out my head."
Not for the first time, I suggested, "You could learn to think in a language I don't speak."
"What a waste of time!" Emmett snorted. "You'd hear me learning it, which would defeat the purpose!"
"I don't always live here anymore," I reminded him, grinning broadly at the reason. "You have time, you know."
Emmett grinned back. Yeah, but I got better things to do at night than study, and so do you - now! Like, oh, I don't know… "You could play with Bella."
"Now who's cheating? I'm quite certain I didn't miss you actually winning against Bella yet."
"What? I was talking about chess? What gutter was your mind in?"
"Yours."
"See? This is proving my point. You can't play, Edward."
"Look," Jasper said reasonably, "let Em and me hash out a few third player rules, then you and Bella can play Ness - "
"He'd still be able to read her," Emmett interjected.
"Yeah, but Nessie doesn't have your competitive drive - "
"Yet."
"- yet," Jasper agreed.
"Have it your way," I muttered. "But how about we teach Nessie regular chess before the two of you start in with your convoluted shenanigans?"
Besides, I would rather play with Bella.
Though I'd railed at Bella's hidden thoughts, it was exhilarating to play against her. They never let me play anyway, so I hadn't expected them to this time. Alice would play against me, but it was different with Bella, a true challenge. I had to study her moves, pay attention to her facial expressions and reactions as I moved my pieces, and guess at her strategy. When I won - which I very nearly didn't - I had the additional pleasure of rubbing Emmett's nose in the fact that I won without reading her mind, and he had yet to best her in any of the games he thought up.
Our lives flowed and ebbed around the rhythms of Renesmee's life. From her regular measurements to keeping her need for blood met, from playing dress-up to playing chess, from teaching her about the human world to teaching her the vital rules every vampire either learned to obey or died defying, she was going, doing, learning, playing as if trying to cram a lifetime of experiences into the few years we feared were all we would have - until suddenly she wasn't. In those quiet daylight hours while she napped, cradled in the arms of one member of our loving family or another, it felt like the whole world was on pause, waiting with baited breath for Renesmee to open her eyes and press play on some imaginary universal remote, bringing us all back to life.
Nightly rituals were important. Like most children, Nessie enjoyed being read to before bed. Unlike them, she did not demand endless repeats of tongue twisting children's books with their rhymes and bright colors. She quite enjoyed the rhythm and meter of the classics and absorbed our written language as easily as she had our speech.
Bella's voice was enchanting, and listening to it through our daughter's ears as she read to her was exquisite. I would have been content to do nothing for the rest of eternity but listen to the rise and fall of Bella's voice through the ears of our daughter. I supposed I shouldn't have been taken by surprise, but neither of us were prepared for Nessie to take the book from Bella and begin reading aloud for herself.
Very soon, our months old daughter would be capable of joining us in our search for information. It wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest if she were the one to eventually discover her own cure, if she had been at all interested in doing so. Renesmee believed herself to be fine and felt we were wasting our time worrying. She tolerated Carlisle's regular measurements, but was unconcerned with his findings.
It was so hard to think of her needing a cure at all. Renesmee was so vibrant! She was the picture of health! She wasn't sick. There was no disease to be cured. All she needed was time - something not easily granted.
Yet, there was one obvious way to give Renesmee all the time in the world. Bella had demanded it for herself: immortality, at an age of her choosing. Bella had lamented growing even one year older than my apparent age. She had wanted us to match, as if I could ever be her equal.
The prospect of eternity as kids in love was doubly appealing now, having had a taste of it. I had to admit, I even looked forward to our next round of high school, since she'd be there with me.
Surely Bella had known it would be like this.
She had known I would save her. Save, not damn. She had been proven right time and again, why not this once more? If I had saved her, why not our daughter? Perhaps what we were was not a disease, but a cure, a salvation.
"You're right, as usual," I said abruptly. Carlisle and Alice glanced first at each other to see whose thought I was answering, only to find me smiling at Bella.
"About what?" Bella said after a pause.
"But I suppose we'll have to wait a few years."
"To do what?"
"To give Renesmee time to grow up."
"Er, Edward," Alice started. Her eyes darted toward Bella, and then back to me. I don't mean to be insensitive, but that's going to happen too quick as it is. Nessie doesn't have years to waste, waiting around to grow up.
"She does if she doesn't want to stay a child forever. Vampires don't age."
The silence in the house was absolute.
"It's the human half of her that's mortal. If we take that out of the equation…"
"You're talking about changing her," Bella said. "Making her… like us."
"Yes."
"No." The word was barely a gasp. I was sure I had not heard her properly.
"Pardon?"
"No!"
My air escaped me as if Emmett had landed a punch in my stomach. I sat back in my chair and stared at her in consternation. "Bella, you make me crazy. Do you not remember repeatedly begging me to change you? As early as possible? You - you weren't even willing to wait a full year, and your aging was not a problem. Renesmee's is."
"Yeah, but that's not the answer."
When I was rendered speechless by her inexplicable refusal, Carlisle said, "Our treaty with the Quileutes would preclude such a solution. However, given the circumstances, I cannot imagine they would protest."
"I can. Jake will never go for it."
"It's not his call," I growled.
"No. It's mine."
"And you're saying no."
"Yes."
"Bella - "
"Alice?" Bella turned to the one person whose authority she knew I would listen to.
Alice shook her head apologetically. "I can't see Renesmee at all. I can barely see us right now! Maybe after you changed her I'd be able to, but I can't see that, so I don't know," she trailed off in a miserable mumble.
Bella bit her lip and gave my sister a short nod. When she locked eyes with me once more, she shook her head, as unwilling to budge on this as she had been on everything.
She had rushed headlong toward being a vampire, unconcernedly brushing aside all of my objections. Having obtained what she wanted, she radiated happiness. She loved our life and her role in it; anyone could see it. I didn't understand why, now, she would protest the same fate for Renesmee as she herself enjoyed.
"I expected you to see that we had a ready-made cure right here, within us. Becoming a vampire has been your solution for every problem presented to you before. Now you object. Why?"
"Is there any way we could be sure it would work? I mean, can we be absolutely positive it wouldn't hurt her instead?"
"Why would it?"
"Well... I don't know. But that's kind of the point. We don't know. And trying something that, um, irrevocable, it's too risky."
"Risky," I repeated. "This. Coming from you. The woman who carried Renesmee on faith and stubbornness and little else."
Bella took an unnecessary breath and looked around the library as if as if, among the rows and rows of books, one of them would present an argument that would support her objections. "Look, I know you think we'll find evidence of other children like Renesmee. If not here, then somewhere. But most of what we are finding is wrong. I think we're better off going by our own experiences. We know other part humans already. The Quileutes. And you know what a vampire bite would do to one of them."
"She is not a werewolf. She's already part vampire. It's not the same."
"No, but she's more like them than she's like us."
"Like them!" I scoffed.
"Call it a mother's intuition," Carlisle said to forestall me from pushing her further. "Time may indeed be short, but there is no need to rush into a hasty decision. We are looking into any and all possibilities. As we continue our search for information, we shall keep this option in mind as one among many, yes?"
"I already said we'd have to wait a few years," I muttered. "Of course we'll keep researching while we wait."
Bella nodded, but the slight frown that remained on her face told me she would be a hard sell. Would we have to find living proof, meet a full vampire who had once been like Renesmee, before she would agree? As if such a creature existed.
Therein lay the problem. Without another to hold up as an example, it was all speculation. Conjectures as wild as the theories we had tossed about before Nessie's birth were as helpful now as they had been then.
And we had been wrong then! Bella had always been right. Always. About me. About us. About our daughter. Her objections, baseless as they were, carried more weight than perhaps she knew.
I blew out a heavy sigh as I studied her worried eyes. "Just when I think I've got you figured out."
Throwing my hands into the air, I abandoned the useless computer and moved to stand by one of the windows. Down below, I could just make out the glint of the river through the trees and the shape of a huge wolf's body as Jacob paced beside it. I couldn't see Rosalie or Renesmee, squatting by the bank to watch the minnows swimming in the shallows, but I knew she was safe in their care.
But... she was not safe. If vampire venom was not the solution, was there anything that could protect her from the passage of time? A tendril of doubt wound through my certainty. Everything I had ever known to be true beyond a shadow of doubt, Bella had proven to be false.
Here I was, certain once more, while she worried.
Looking at Renesmee, even through another's eyes, I couldn't bring myself to believe anything else. Such perfection could not be an accident. She was given to us for a reason. That reason could not be to simply die. It couldn't! Therefore, Bella's child had to live. A long and full life. There was no other option.
Soft hands crept around me. I held them in place against my chest as Bella pressed her forehead against my back.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know how hard it must have been for you to suggest that."
"Then that should impress upon you how strongly I feel about this."
"Yeah."
"But you think it wouldn't work? Or are you worried about the pain? We'd sedate her, of course, so she won't feel a thing."
I felt her freeze against me and turned around to cup her face in my hands. Her expression was inscrutable, and how I wished I could see what she was thinking! I didn't have the courage to ask if the morphine had worked or if she was truly that strong.
"It's not that," she finally said. "There's just too much we don't know."
"There's time," I reminded her. "We'll simply wait until we do know."
Bella nodded, agreeing to that much, at least.
Laughing as I tucked her head under my chin, I said, "Who would have thought you would be the one advising caution, asking me to wait?"
"Yeah," Bella laughed. "That's different, huh?"
"Different is good."
Heaven was Bella's arms wrapped around me, the scent of her, the feel of her hair against my face, her body flush with mine. Her sweet bouquet filled my senses, and no longer was there an accompanying burn. She was simply perfect. I wished we didn't have obligations. I wished I could pretend I didn't know Carlisle was only feet away, smugly aware of the comfort we gave each other.
Alice, at least, was more interested in checking on Jasper as he returned with the others. She might have trouble seeing the bigger picture with Nessie and the wolves in our lives, but she could always find him. Based on the angle of the sun hitting the car's windows, they would be home soon.
In the meantime, I'd had enough of fruitless research, and a song was haunting me.
I sat down at my piano, knowing that within the first few keystrokes, Nessie would streak across the lawn and into the house. From across the room, she gave a little jump and landed, delicately, on the tiptoes of one foot on the bench beside me. She seated herself, swung her feet back and forth, and gave me one of her brilliant smiles. For now, she was content to listen and watch, but I had little doubt that when she felt she was ready, she would simply start playing, the way she had walked and talked and read.
Until such a time, I did love playing for her. Renesmee moved to sit on Bella's lap when she joined us, with one hand reaching up and behind her to share her thoughts. One of her earliest memories was of me singing, something she had shared with Bella several times before. If for no other reason but this, I was lucky that she had not inherited her mother's silence. Making music was its own reward, but to play for such an appreciative audience was deeply satisfying.
With the need for secrecy, I could never take my music to the masses, but all I needed was this: Bella beside me, our daughter on her lap, the glint of a gold band as my fingers danced across the keys, surrounded by our family as they engaged in pursuits that made them happiest, and even the family dog flopped into a nearby chair with a wide yawn. Whatever the future held, in this moment, I felt my life was perfect.
