A/N: Okay. I want to apologize in advance for this chapter. It was a hard one because I had to do an overview of Bella and Edward relationship for the Kari. I know it will be long and tedious. I apologize in advance. Please forgive me. Once again, I apologize for the length and repetativeness.
KARI
I woke in Edward's bed. I looked around slightly frightened. I had no idea where he was or if he was still angry. I spotted him at his desk. He was leaning over, staring intently at something. I shifted myself slowly and quietly till I could see the corner of the album. I smiled. Maybe, he would be okay.
I was still curious about who the girl was. I didn't want to ask him outright. What if he got angry again? The curiousity, however, got the better of me. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
"Who is she?"
My voice came out a little more fearful than I intended. I was afraid of what he'd do if he didn't want to answer the question. I didn't need another broken limb. I wouldn't be able to hold my own as it was.
He turned to look at me. For the first time, in the month I'd been there, there was no anger in his eyes, only an intense sadness. I watched him as he pulled the book of the desk and walked to the bed. He sat on the edge of it. I had a feeling I was about to get what I've been searching for the whole month. I did the best I could, in my condition, to push myself up against the wall.Without say a word, Edward stack some pillows behind me and helped me to get comfortable.
Once we were both in a good position, he took a deep breath. I knew he didn't need it but it helped him to relax a bit more.I knew this was going to be a long painful story for him. For some reason, I was ready to comfort him if it got to be too much.
"Her name's Renesmee Carlie Cullen and she was my daughter." he finally said.
"And Bella's her mother." I said, my earlier thoughts confirmed. Edward nodded. "How is that possible?"
"It's too complicated to explain. However, only male vampires can get female humans pregnant." he answered.
I nodded. I did understand enough to know how that would work.
"The story I'm about to tell you is long and there are a lot of little stories that go along with it. Some parts aren't very pleasant." he explained. I nodded. "When I met Bella, she was only a human. I nearly killed her the first time I smelled her because her scent was the most amazing thing I've ever smelled in my life. I resisted the urge and somehow we fell in love. She wanted to become a vampire but I didn't want to let her. We went back and forth about it for months. Eventually, Bella decided to put it to a family vote. It came out with five votes in favor of making Bella one of us. I didn't have a choice."
"Why didn't you want her to do it?" I asked.
"Because I wouldn't wish this life on anyone." he answered. "I know it seems great but you have to live enternity with things you wish you could forget. I wanted her to stay human as long as possible."
I nodded in response and he continued,
"The original plan was for Carlisle to do it after she graduated. That was until I found out that she wanted me to be the one to do it. I told her I would so long as she married me first. She was reluctant at first but she eventually said yes with a condition of her own. We were never able to have a sexual relationship."
"Why not?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"Because she was a human and I was a vampire. She was so fragile if I made a wrong move, I could've killed her." he answered. "Yes, I'm a little less careful with the girls around here but I still have to hold back or we'd never be able to keep slaves. Anyway, she wanted to have an actual honeymoon. I promised we'd try. When ended up sleeping together twice. I didn't want to do it again after the first time. She woke up the next morning covered in bruises and there was a pillow that I bit instead of her. She is very persuasive, however, and she got me to do it the second time. It wasn't as bad but I still didn't like it."
I noticed it was getting harder for him to continue as he got further into the story. I could tell by the shaking of his voice. I wanted to reach out and touch him but I wasn't sure how he'd react. I kept my hand tucked safely under the blanket.
"Shortly after the second time, Bella got sick. At first, she just thought it was just some bad chicken that she ate. That was until she realized she had missed her period. When it clicked that she was pregnant, I called Carlisle because I didn't even know that it was possible. We had planned to get rid of it because we didn't know what it would do to Bella. I didn't realize until we got off the plane and met the family, that Bella and Rosalie had made plans of the own."
Bella did seem like the type to take matters into her own hands.
"It seemed odd to me that she went to Rosalie, they were never very close." he continued. "I thought she would've called Alice first. But, no, when Bella got off the plane, she ran straight to Rosalie's waiting embrace. After that, the two became inseperable, Rose wouldn't even let myself or Carlisle in a room alone with her. It was terrible. Then there was Bella's best friend, Jacob."
He swallowed hard ad he opened the photo album and pointed to the Native American boy in the first picture.
"He was a werewolf." Edward continued. "There was a rather large pack of them at the time."
Next he pointed to the one picture with the rest of the Native American boys and Renesmee. I noted how he used the past tense when speaking of them.
"The werewolves were our enemies, at least, they were until Bella came along. But that's a different story. Years ago, we made a treaty so that we could live in peace. As long as we didn't bite humans or go on their land then they would leave us alone and not expose us. Well, the whole pack knew that Bella wanted to be turned. They knew that I would do it eventually. So when Jacob found out we were back but Bella was sick, he came to see if we broke the treaty. After finding out that Bella was pregnant and trying to convince her to give it up, he went back to the pack to tell them. Their leader, Sam, wanted to attack immediately. He said the should kill Bella to kill the thing inside of her and anyone who got in their way. Jacob refused, in fact, he broke away from the pack, along with two others, and came to warn us. Then he and his two friends, Leah and Seth, kept a look out for an attack from the others."
I nodded. This story was more complex than I though. I was surprised that I was keeping up so well.
"The others, however, decided to wait until after the baby was born. To see if it was dangerous. That way they wouldn't have to kill an inoccent human. Well, the pregnancy only lasted a month with the way the fetus was developing. It was the worst month of my life. The fetus would reject every bit of human food we tried to give. Bella was quickly dying of malnutrition. It wasn't until I caught one of Jacob's thoughts that it got better. He thought of the possiblity that being half vampire, the fetus craved blood. We gave Bella blood to drink and that helped. She was able to keep human food down better as long as she kept drinking the blood."
"I don't understand something." I cut in.
"What?" he asked without the tiniest bit of impatience.
"If the baby was your daughter, why do you keep talking about her like she is an insignificant thing?" I said.
He took another deep breath he didn't need. I could see more pain flash across his face. I felt bad for bringing it up.
"Because that's how I felt about her while Bella was pregnant with her. All I saw was this thing that was hurting the love of my life. And I hated it. I wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. That was until, I heard her thoughts. The most dominant was the love she had for her mother. Now, at the time, I could never hate anything that hated Bella. That was how much I loved her. Hearing my child think that she loved her mother, proved to me what Bella had been trying to tell me all along, everything was going to be alright. The next day, Renesmee was born. Bella died after the delivery but I was able to get enough venom in her to save her."
I nodded as he went on.
"Now, werewolves do this thing, it's called imprinting. The easiest way to explain is that they literally find their soul mates. Well, Jacob imprinted on Renesmee. Now, I know that sounds crazy because of the age difference but werewolves can choose when they get older. Jacob coul've stayed seventeen for the rest of his life. And Renesmee, we found out later, be a fully grown adult by the time she was seven. That's really not all that important, though.Back to the point, with the imprinting, Jacob's pack had no choice but to not hurt Nessie. It would've destroyed Jacob, who was like their borther. Jacob spent the first eight years of Nessie's, the nickname Jacob gave her, life being like a best friend and big brother. The soul mate feelings didn't start to erupt until shortly before things started falling apart. But I'm getting ahead. Are you okay? Anything you don't understand?" he asked.
"I'm keeping up pretty good." I answered.
My head was spinning with questions but I wanted him to finish before he found that he couldn't. I waited a month to unmask the mystery that is Edward Cullen, I wasn't about to slow down the process.
"Okay, then, we thought things would be fine after Bella's transformation worked out. Well, with the exception of being unsure how fast Nessie was growing or when she would stop. That was until, a family friend, Irina, who had a grudge against the werewolves we were now on good terms with us, saw Nessie and reported her to the Volturi for being an Immortal Child."
He paused and saw the confusion pass across my face.
"An Immortal Child is a child who was turned into a vampire. The Volturi was like our government, for lack of a better phrase. They deemed immortal children to be unsafe and an exposure risk. They declared that anyone who was caught with one would be executed, along with the child and any witnesses. Irina went to them and told them we had made an immortal child. Alice saw it all coming. She left to see if she could find another child like Nessie. The Volturi were the type of people who punished first and asked questions later. We had to find some way to make them listen to our story,"
He pointed to the picture in the album with all the vampires.
"We gathered all the friends we had to bear witness for us. Some we didn't even know ended up coming, too. We had a decent bunch of witnesses with us. The Volturi came and listened to us plead our case. The had an agenda against my family, though, and kept trying to find reasons to punish us. When Alice came back with the other boy like Nessie, there was nothing else to be said. They left and we thought we were off the hook."
"There's more." I asked slightly astonished.
Edward nodded sadly.
"And the worst has yet to come." he said. "Eight years went by and we didn't hear a thing from the Volturi. Then Jacob's father, Billy, died. Due to the treaty, Nessie was the only one of us allowed to attend the funeral. The pack made her an exception to the treaty so that she could go see Jacob. Bella and I fought about letting her go that. Bella had a bad feeling about it but I knew she'd be safe with Jacob. I also knew that if we tried to tell her no then she'd just find a way to go. We told her she had to be back by eleven."
I could tell he was getting to the worst part. He had to keep stopping to get his composure back. He paused and closed his eyes for a long time. When he opened them again, I saw the torture written all over his face. Once again, I fought the urge to comfort him.
"Eleven-thirty came and she didn't come home or call. That wasn't like Nessie at all. We called her but she didn't answer. So we called Jacobe but he didn't answer either. FInally, we called Sam's wife, Emily. She said that the pack and Nessie went of into the woods after the funeral. Jacob needed alone time with his family. When I told Emily that Nessie was past curfew and hadn't called, Emily freaked. Everyone knew how responsible Nessie was. She always made sure we knew where she was. Emily got the elders together and got a search party started. She also got my family permission to go on there land and help search."
He stopped again trying to pull it together.
"We split into groups of two." he continued his voice shaking. "The mere thought of the smell and sight of the clearing we found them in still turns my stomach. There bodies were a mangeled bloody mess. We could still recognize all of them, though. It broke my heart to see Bella's face when she found Jacob's body. She dropped to her knees and tried to force out the tears she could no longer produce. We informed the others of what we found. I had a good idea who did it. In fact, I was on my cell phone booking tickeyts for the next flight to Italy when Bella found their note in Jacob's shirt."
He reached into the back pocket of the the album and pulled out a blood stained piece of paper. He handed it to me. I unfolded it with shaking hands.
Dear Cullens,
We need to talk. We have taken the half blood to insure that you will come alone and without hostility. You will get on the next flight to Italy and meet Jane in Volterra. She'll then bring you to where we have the half blood. If you don't come, she will die. I'm sure you don't want that.
It wasn't signed but they knew it didn't need to be. Even I knew who they were. I handed the letter back to Edward.
"What did you do?" I asked my voice shaking.
"We got on the next plane to Italy. When we got into Volterra, Jane was waiting for us, with sixteen guards, to for each of us. We were taken to a forest. We walked for what seemed like ages before I started hearing the frightened thoughts of my daughter. When we stepped into a clearing, I saw her tied to a tree. Her dressed was ripped and she was covered in scars from bites. Jane commented on how good the blood tasted. I strugled to free myself from the guards but they were too strong, even for me. Then I heard the thoughts of the others. They did some horrible things to her before we got there. I wanted to kill them all. How dare they do those things to my baby?!"
"But you were helpless?" I whispered.
"They thought of everything that day. Not even Emmett, who was the strongest of all of us could get free of his guards." Edward said. "They told us that they had evidence that she was dangerous, and that they were going to get rid of all the half bloods. The only reason we were there was because they thought it was right that we be able to witness her execution. They burned her alive without even showing us there evidence. I struggled against the men holding me as I tried to block out my baby girl's screams."
He stopped and clenched his fists. He was trying to fight with the anger. I could tell. I prayed he'd win the battle. At the same time I wanted to wrap my arms around him again. He looked so unEdward like and vulnerable that this time I couldn't resist. I sat forward and wrapped my arms around him. He sat there, frozen, for a moment as if stunned by my action.
"I'm sorry." I whispered. "No parent should out live their child."
I tried to keep my voice from cracking but it didn't work. I couldn't help but think of the five kids who were like my children for three months. After a minute I felt him wrap her arms gently around me too. Then he pushed me back.
"Why?"
"Why what?" I asked.
"Why are you comforting me? After everything that I've done to you. You should be appalled by me. Not sympathetic." he said.
"Anyone can make mistakes, Edward. In fact, everyone does. But it takes a special person to be able to forgive, even when the offenses seem unforgivable." I told him.
"But how could what I've done possibly be forgivable? I've destroyed your family, I hurt you every other day for things that you didn't do, and I took your inoccence away from you. How can you forgive me?"
"Because you are trying to change. The only human blood you've had in a month has been mine and I gaive it willingly. You feel regret and a need to apologize after you hurt me. And Alice told me you haven't touched any of the girls, like that, in a week. You are trying to be the good man you were once and it's a tough journey. You're bound to make mistakes but they are all forgiveable because you are trying to be a better person."
"Who taught you to be so understanding?" Edward asked. I could tell by the look on his face that he still didn't believe what I was telling him.
I thought about the answer to that question. My mom's face appeared in my head. I choked back a sob and prayed the tears weren't apparent in my eyes. I didn't want to show him a weakness. I still didn't have the complete measure of him.
"My mom, I guess." I replied.
I felt one tear threatening to fall and reached up to wipe it away. He had a hold of my wrist before it even touched my face. My breath hitched and my heart started pounding. I didn't know what he was about to do. He didn't look like he usually did when he was angry. Then again, Edward wasn't very predictable.
As I felt a shiver run down my spine, he simply pulled me into an embrace. I started sobbing into his chest. I cried for him, for myself, for my mother, and for my family. He just held me tight making shushing noises while stroking my hair and rubbing my back.
A/N: What do you think of this chapter? Do you want to see it from Edward side? I have been playing around with the idea of doing an aside chapter of an in depth of what happened to Nessie that day. Is that something you guys would want to see? I hope this one turned out good because it was hard not to do too much detail but have it be understandable at the same time.
