77. Saviors
The Irish coven, the next group to arrive after Peter and Charlotte, were the easiest to convince. Siobhan and Liam had only to look to Maggie for her verification that I spoke the truth. Almost unconsciously, Maggie nodded as I told our story, red curls bouncing with each statement I made. Meeting Bella and falling in love, getting married, our need for help, and finally the reason for it. Upon meeting our daughter, they reacted like we were a human family and they our distant aunts and uncles.
To introduce my daughter in such a way gave me an unparalleled pleasure. They cooed over her, never once flinching in fear or disgust. Seeing Nessie's memories was anticlimactic; they were already willing to stand beside us.
When the first of our nomadic friends showed up, providing proof that Emmett and Rosalie were able to find those they sought, I felt a sense of relief.
Not that I had doubted their success; Rosalie would do whatever it took to save Renesmee. In truth, the same could be said for all my family. It was still good to see Garrett loping across the lawn. He'd always felt the call to fight against the oppressive rule of an unworthy monarchy, but this time, I thought his willingness had as much to do with Kate as it did with Nessie and the righteousness of our cause. The nomadic life suited Garrett's adventurous spirit, but it was a lonely one, and Kate was no more subtle in her interest in him than Tanya had been with me.
I wondered if Kate would succeed where Carlisle had failed, and convince him to give up his diet of human blood. Laurent had not changed his ways for Irina, but maybe Garrett would.
How that would please Carlisle! Perhaps, in seeing the life my father had built for us, more than one of his friends would finally decide our way of living had its merits.
I could only hope.
With their red eyes and variety of accents and languages, Renesmee found each group of our guests as interesting as they found her. Bella seemed uncomfortable around our red-eyed visitors, and Jacob was just short of openly hostile on the rare occasion any of them spoke to him, but Nessie seemed to take it all in stride.
It wasn't until we were back at our cottage several nights after meeting Peter and Charlotte that Renesmee expressed any misgivings. Our friends were all heading out for a night of hunting, and we needed to tend to Nessie's thirst. As far as any of them were concerned, we were only feeding Nessie more of the human food she detested. They needn't be told of the supply of human blood we kept for her here.
Bella and I could have taken Renesmee hunting too, but neither of us dared to leave with the imminent arrival of more guests. We probably shouldn't even have retreated to the little cottage at all, but we both felt that keeping things normal was important, and besides, loving Bella in what time I had left was a need I couldn't deny.
Knowing they fed on humans was bad enough, but to know that our vampire friends would be returning to my family's home with blood on their breath and burning in their eyes after a night of murder turned my stomach. I already had enough innocent blood... or, well, not precisely innocent, but enough blood on my hands as it was. They would have killed someone somewhere, but because of us, they were killing here. I hated having to rely on these human hunters. Worse, I hated exposing my daughter to them.
And yet… I liked them. Despite myself, despite what they were, I understood why Carlisle considered them friends.
Some of them I had met before, of course, and I had liked them well enough then, but it was different now. Everything was different now. They were willing to risk their lives for me and my family - something which held quite a lot more significance to me since I became a father. How could I not like them?
Bella claimed to not trust herself to feed our daughter, so the privilege was mine.
To be capable at all was a miracle. It had been a relief to discover Carlisle was correct as usual. Feeding my daughter was much easier when I was not also thirsty.
As she curled herself up in a chair to read - or pretend to, but her eyes tracked Nessie and I as we settled onto the couch - a smug smile curved the corners of Bella's lips, making me doubt her supposed lack of self-confidence. I rather thought she was faking it for my benefit. Bella knew me so well, she knew how much pleasure I found in caring for the child I had given her.
The dichotomy was amusing. Though perfectly capable of bringing down a fully grown grizzly by herself, when it came to the human blood we gave her, Renesmee preferred to drink it while cradled in one of our arms, as if she truly was a three-month old child. It seemed none of us, not even Nessie herself, was in a hurry for her childhood to end.
Tonight however, Nessie ignored the blood I had fixed for her to press her little hands against my cheeks, evidence in itself of how our guests' feeding habits distressed her. She understood they were not newborns, and their eyes should have changed color by now if they fed on animals. Bella's had changed quickly. I realized she felt it would be in poor taste to show her repugnance over their diet when they were risking themselves to save her life, but Renesmee weighed the cost of even one human life against her own, and wished there were another way.
"So do I, sweetheart. But there isn't. Alice would have seen it."
But there is another way… for them.
Given our topic of conversation, it wouldn't be at all appropriate to laugh at the way her brow furrowed and her little chin jutted out stubbornly. She was so like her mother.
"Yes, and Carlisle has long tried to convince them to change their feeding habits, to no avail. They have no wish to live as we do."
The faces of the humans in her life flashed through Nessie's mind: Charlie, Sue, Billy, little Claire, every member of both wolf packs and any humans to whom they were tied, even strangers she'd never met, glimpsed briefly through the windows of passing cars.
Don't they know those people are somebody's family?
"Of course they do. But…"
How to explain away their actions? To justify the countless deaths without seeming to endorse the taking of those lives?
"It's hard for them to value something they don't remember," I finally said. "Most of them lost their human families long ago, and their memories of their own human lives as well. I think they found it easier to embrace their new lives by completely letting go of their old ones. And since that's how they have been living, they see no point in stopping now."
There was a tenor of outrage in Nessie's wordless thoughts. She remembered how I had shrugged casually when she'd asked about my childhood, and how I had explained that I didn't remember much of it. The loss of their human memories was no good excuse. I didn't require those memories to understand the value of human life.
"Well, yes," I agreed slowly, unwillingly. "I did lose my human memories too, but Carlisle helped me hold on to my humanity, I suppose you could say. He taught me there was another way from the beginning. But even so... I didn't always follow his path. There was a time when I lived as nearly all vampires do."
Nessie's eyes grew wide.
"Who am I to judge our friends? I'm no different. Aside from you and your mother, Carlisle is the only vampire - ever - who has never taken a human's life."
I flinched away from the image in her mind of myself, sporting red eyes. It was only a flash, there and then quickly gone, to be replaced by her memory of her first hunt and my insistence that she never bite a human.
You mustn't, I had said. Not ever. I had spoken from experience.
Nessie nodded solemnly. You did good, Daddy.
"When I killed people?" I all but snarled.
When you stopped.
"I, well, I didn't like the way taking human lives made me feel about myself." I shrugged, uncomfortable. She was too much like her mother, focusing on the wrong part of the story. It wasn't for the humans' sake that I had stopped. Even in this, in doing the right thing at last, I had done so for selfish reasons.
A little crease formed between Nessie's eyes, but she seemed only concerned for me, for the way I was feeling now. I wished I had never had to admit to my daughter that I had killed people, but I didn't belong on any pedestal. I was no saint. Bella didn't see me as the villain of the story, but I was, of course I was, and Renesmee needed to know it just as much as Bella did.
Bella wasn't pretending to read anymore, and if I'd been paying better attention, I could have anticipated her next words. "Edward, they were all bad - "
"Don't," I cut her off. "Just don't. It doesn't matter what they did. It matters what I did. Killing people is wrong. I knew it then, and I know it now, and nothing I do will ever make up for the lives I took."
"I bet the people you saved might feel different," Bella said matter-of-factly.
I scowled at her, but her gaze was steady.
"Would it have been better to let those women die?"
"Well… no," I allowed, "but I didn't have to kill to save them. I didn't when I saved you."
"Could you have? Without revealing what you are to them? 'Cause I think we both know how that would've turned out."
I studied her in silence, her calm smile, her peaceful eyes, my perfect recall conjuring every one of her unwavering assertions that we belonged together.
"Shall I get back to it then?" I said in a low voice.
Bella blinked at me. "Huh? Back to what?"
"You've always accepted what I did. Even now, you seem to think it was right. I'm sure there's someone out there right this very minute who needs saving. Should I...?"
"No." Bella huffed and rolled her eyes. "I understand why you did. That doesn't mean I think you should. And I'm not saying it was right. Just, it's not as black and white as all that. You saved lives. More lives than you took. I know you did."
How could she be so forgiving of the worst parts of me? The rampant murders of our guests bothered her, but mine did not. They never had. I sighed as I tried to understand her lopsided benevolence.
I didn't quite trust her judgement where my misdeeds were concerned, but if anyone would know how my victims' would-be victims felt, it was her. She spoke as though she remembered the men in Port Angeles as clearly as I. Cursing my perfect memory, I could recall precisely how Bella had looked through his eyes - frightened, defiant, stubbornly brave despite her obviously delicate frame - and though he was out of my reach, imprisoned and incapable of harming anyone ever again, the rage and the desperate need for his brutal death consumed me as if no time had passed.
Equally clearly, I could remember her explanation for what she had been thinking at that moment, and the sound of her voice as she growled out her plan to smash the man's nose into his brain.
Well, but that would have been self-defense. Quite different from my desire to hunt him down, once she was safely away. It was good that Carlisle had been able to make the women of Port Angeles safe from a monster of the human sort, much better than me becoming a murderer again, but there would always be a part of me that would wish I'd had the pleasure of slowly peeling the foul human apart for daring to threaten the girl I loved.
"You saved Mommy," Renesmee said aloud, distracting me from my murderous thoughts. "When that vampire was after her? You killed him, and that was good. Now he can't hurt anyone else."
Though she spoke only of James, whom we had told her about, I nodded. In truth, she knew it had been my brothers who had killed James, not I, but I had got to Bella in time to save her from him. And even had it been me, that murder, at least, was defensible. And I had saved Bella, time and again. From James, from the foul human in Port Angeles, from Victoria and her army, from the van. Even from myself.
Renesmee looked back in the direction of the big house. "And they are here to save me. And you." She looked to Bella, and then back to me. "And you. And Carlisle and Esme and Emmett and Rosalie and Alice and Jasper. All of us."
I nodded a second time, but I didn't like her justifications. It was a difficult thing to reconcile, allowing the deaths of unknown people just to save herself and us, her family. I appreciated her struggle to come to terms with those humans' deaths, but it was a slippery slope, accepting that others had to die so that she might live. She was too reluctant to give up her diet of human blood as it was.
Renesmee cocked her head, considering. She thought of the Denalis' first reactions to her, and how I had convinced them to stay. If she had been a true immortal child, I would not have been successful. They stayed because I had told the truth, that we had committed no crimes, and because Nessie had shown them that she was not a creature to be feared.
A sudden, brilliant grin spread across my daughter's face. We have lots of time. A whole month! Carlisle tried to convince them… maybe we can try again? Maybe together, we can show them they don't have to hunt humans? There is a better way for them to live.
I laughed and planted a kiss on the top of her head. "If anyone can convince them, you can. Now, drink up. I have a feeling we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."
I passed her the cup, and Nessie snuggled against my chest with a happy sigh. Vampires who killed humans were coming here to save her life, and the lives of everyone in her family. Maybe she could return the favor, maybe not, but she would try. These killers who were our saviors were in need of saving too, even if they didn't know it. I was happier now that I only hunted animals again, wasn't I? I would not have returned to Carlisle and this life if it wasn't worth it.
And it was. She knew it was without having been told. We had love, family. What did they have? A tasty meal? Renesmee would rather eat nothing but human food than live as they did. Animals weren't that bad. In time, they might come to see it, if they had someone to show them the way. Carlisle had tried, but as Bella had said, Renesmee had a gift for explaining things.
I combed my fingers through her long curls and watched her eyelids grow heavy. Within seconds of emptying the cup, she slept. There was something about holding Bella's sleeping daughter in my arms, feeling her cheek warm against my chest, watching her dreams. It made me loath to move. Even without the Volturi's interference, the chances to hold her like this were few in number. I wanted to savor what opportunities I had.
She was so sweet, so good, so pure. So like her mother. I felt guilty for ever doubting her.
"I don't like it either," Bella murmured after a time. "Having them here. And Jake. He's really upset."
"He won't say anything. He would never do anything to jeopardize our one chance to save Renesmee."
"I know. And, I know they'd be hunting somewhere anyway, but… They're here because of us. We're responsible for whoever dies here."
I didn't want her to be unhappy, but I felt a small amount of relief that she was. Bella excused my own murders far too easily. Still, I felt a need to reassure her somehow.
"And whoever they would have hunted there... will live now, because they're here instead. It would be sophistry to say that makes up for these deaths in any way, but lives would be lost regardless. You're not responsible. It's not your fault."
"I guess." Bella shook her head and blew out a heavy breath. "I still don't like it."
"Good. You shouldn't. But what other choice do we have? Send our friends away and allow the Volturi to come and kill us all? If I were a normal human man, it's not a choice you would have ever been confronted with. I wish - " I could hear the bitterness in my voice and broke off. It did no good wishing for things that could never be, but oh, how I ached to be able to have given her a normal life! One that didn't involve the sacrifice of others' lives.
"If you were still human, you'd have died long before I was born. I'm glad you're a vampire. And I'm glad I am too. So don't go wishing you weren't."
She always made me smile. How did I ever get so lucky as to win her love?
"I don't," I assured her. "Not anymore."
Her eyebrows raised as if she disbelieved me.
"Honestly, Bella. I only wish I could offer you a better life."
"Well," she said with a little half-smirk, "that's not possible."
It seemed to me that she meant, not that I was incapable because of what I was, but that there was no better life to be had than the one we shared.
And truly, since meeting Bella, I was glad to be what I was. If not for Carlisle's intervention, I would never have met her. Spanish Flu notwithstanding, if he hadn't changed me, I would be dead or close to it by now. A doddering old man, grizzled and gray. Bella would never have looked at me the way she was right now, full lips pursed, their corners curved up in a smile, the liquid honey in her golden eyes, eyes that were shining with love for me, her breaths coming fast, as if we were already entwined and blissfully oblivious to the outside world.
I was certain no one had ever loved another more than I loved her. Not in the entirety of human or immortal history. And if this worked, if our friends were able to save us, we would be together forever.
Were those humans' lives worth more than our eternity? More than our daughter's limited years?
It shamed me, but the answer was a resounding no.
Ah, I was such a selfish creature.
As the days passed, our house grew crowded with our red-eyed friends.
One group after another, as our visitors arrived, they heard our story and witnessed Renesmee's memories. And in the end, their reactions were always the same. Whether initially afraid like Tanya or more curious like Charlotte, they each came to accept what their senses were telling them - that Nessie lived - and they saw the proof of her life in the memories she shared.
And one after the other, they vowed to stay, to witness Renesmee's growth, and to stand with us before the Volturi to proclaim our innocence. And like our cousins, they considered what else they might do, should proof of our innocence not be enough.
Thankfully, they were all willing to respect our request that they not prey upon the local population. Spreading out their kills also ensured they didn't create a pattern the humans would recognize. The last thing we needed was to add blatant, noticeable killing sprees to the Volturi's list of grievances.
My offer of unlimited use of our fleet of flashy cars didn't hurt. Our friends didn't often take the chance to acquire such toys for themselves. Running was faster, but there was something to be said about the purr of an engine that had been built for speed, even before Rosalie's aftermarket modifications. I asked only that they keep to the posted speed limits until they were well out of town as it really wouldn't help matters if they got pulled over. What if it was Charlie who made the stop?
Bella's father had been none too pleased when she phoned him to say that our house was once again off limits. Only the promise that she and Renesmee would visit soon appeased him. Whether or not he believed her lie that everything was fine, I couldn't be sure.
How I detested telephones!
It was bad enough that his thoughts were so hard to make out, but not to be able to see his face or glean what impressions I could was worse. I wanted to hear his intention to stay away. I supposed I would just have to rely on the fact that he had not come to our house when Bella had been quarantined during her pregnancy.
Bella did go so far as to tell her father the truth in one respect: We had out-of-town relatives who had come to meet our daughter, and while they adored Renesmee, they weren't the friendliest bunch. It was best that he stay away. He grumbled over his self-imposed need-to-know policy, but aside from attaining Bella's promise to come see him soon, he asked no further questions.
It was more vital than ever that he remain in the dark about what we were, and not because he might fall prey to one of our red-eyed guests. I was sure they had the restraint necessary to let him come and go as he pleased. They weren't my concern, no.
The Volturi were coming.
If our efforts paid off and we were able to get them to stop and speak with us, I had no doubt it would be Aro questioning us.
Or rather, Aro would be questioning me, seeing my thoughts, and through me, everyone else's. Which meant, he would see Charlie's. I had to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Charlie knew nothing concrete about us or he would be facing the same fate Bella had: change or die. His knowledge that we weren't human was dangerous enough.
Bella had wanted to be like me, but she did not desire the same thing for her father. He was already more involved in the supernatural than he wanted to be. It was a fine line to walk, allowing him in our lives while keeping him out of our world, a line I had failed to adhere to with Bella, but this time, it was the only way.
While our guests got along with each other, it wouldn't have been accurate to say they got along with Jacob. Mostly, they ignored him, which was surprising enough, I supposed. I had expected open hostilities. Jacob hovered close by Nessie when introductions were made, silently scowling at the floor more often than not, but his human form was not threatening to them.
Once Nessie shared her memories of Jacob, they saw him more or less as her pet, unfriendly to strangers, protective of his charge, but not inherently dangerous if left alone. I claimed him as our brother in every introduction, but then, people always regarded their dogs as members of their family. They chalked up our friendship with the werewolves as just another of our many weird quirks, no different from hunting animals, or Carlisle working as a doctor.
If anything, they were surprised by Jacaob's willingness to risk his life for vampires. Werewolves and vampires were historically enemies. In her shared memories, Nessie showed his assertion that if we couldn't stop the Volturi, the packs would. It was only in her memories that they saw any of the rest of the wolves. Jacob had decided it was in everyone's best interests for his pack to merge with Sam's until the Volturi showed.
I approved of his decision. Their absence helped to lessen our guests' defensive instincts. One werewolf in his human form was quite different from having half a dozen of the monstrous, smelly creatures prowling our property. Maybe nothing would have happened, but why take chances?
Every one of our guests knew, as I did, that the more of us there were to stand together against the Volturi, the greater the likelihood that they would pause long enough to listen to us. Not a one of them were willing to do anything that would lessen Renesmee's chances. Even if that meant fraternizing with werewolves.
