A/N: Hey, guys! Sorry about the delay getting chapter three up. Four is... in the works. I dunno. I'm kicking around POVs and trying to iron out plot holes. Hopefully it will get written soon. Thanks to the person who favorited, and a cyber-brownie to RoxyLo, who has reviewed both chapters. You're awesome. :) Now onto the chapter. Enjoy.
You are what you're born, always and forever. That's the understanding.
- A Great and Terrible Beauty
Chapter Three
Renesmee woke sometime before dawn. Claire's breath hit her neck in rhythmic puffs, and she struggled not to squirm under the ticklish sensation. She took her time opening her eyes, dreading waking up and having to get out of bed. Eventually the dull ache in her stomach became a pronounced burning and her eyelids lifted involuntarily. Her head was still clouded with snippets of last night's dreams, and she looked bewilderedly around the dark room, for a moment feeling strangely displaced.
It is safe here, in this Warmth that is so like the place where you came from. Strong arms curl around you and make you unafraid of falling.
Her eyelids already dropping, she whispered Leah's name in a raspy voice. There was no answer, and at her sister's tiny sigh she shifted back into the present. Her limbs were weak and shaking. She ignored the pulsing knot that had taken up residence at the base of her skull and tried to focus on slipping back into sleep, hoping for a few more hours of restless sleep before their mother's wakeup call.
Suddenly the bedspread was being yanked from her head. Rare sunshine filtered in proudly through the window. Renesmee blinked rapidly before remembering being half awake sometime before dawn and then passing out again in exhaustion.
A high, clear voice rang out through the small room. "Rise and shine, duckies! Hurry, sit up before the tray gets too heavy and I drop it on someone's head!"
Nessie groaned as Claire, in an attempt to put something between the morning light and their suddenly cover-less eyes, miscalculated her position on the bed and yanked at Nessie's nightgown. "Claire – I can't breathe."
Claire instantly relaxed her fingers. She made a soft, pitiful mewling sound and burrowed her head into the space between her sister's shoulder blades. "Ith's too urrrrly to get up," she whined.
"Guys, focus here! Twenty pound breakfast tray, lots of food, big sis's muscles atrophying by the moment? Any of this sound familiar to you?"
Nessie unsuccessfully tried to blow a trapped strand of hair away from her mouth. Her migraine pounded dully at her temples. "Ugh, I can't feel my legs."
There was a loud rattle as something was dropped on the clothes dresser and then the previously turned-back comforter was being yanked from the bed. Both sisters cringed against the sudden chill. A third, taller woman stood against the window smiling victoriously. She spread her arms grandly. "Well, what about my welcome? Did you miss me?"
"Good morning, Erin," Renesmee said dutifully. She tried to focus her bleary eyes on her oldest sister but found herself being yanked back when she tried to lift her head. "Ow, Claire! You're on my hair!"
Another pathetic sound vibrated against her back, and then Claire's weight left as she shifted on the bed and curled in on herself to conserve warmth. Nessie sighed gratefully and sat up. Her neck and back were stiff, and her bent legs ached severely when she tried to move them. "We're never sleeping together again," she announced, trying unsuccessfully to work the kink out of her neck with a long stretch.
"Did you grow again while I was gone?" Erin demanded. "You did, didn't you? Ugh, I can't even look at you." As she said this, though, she had walked over to the bed and thrown herself down on the unoccupied right side. Her short, choppy haircut swayed crazily as the bedsprings bounced. She turned to face them and propped her head up with one hand. The other immediately started playing with a loose string at the bottom of her shirt. Her brown eyes grew round and mournful. "I guess breakfast in bed was a bust, huh? I made hazelnut coffee and everything."
That mere mention of coffee instigated a sudden upset near the edge of the bed, and at a speed that would have impressed even Leah Clearwater, Claire was standing beside the abandoned tray and rifling through its contents in search of creamer and sugar. "You know, Claire, adding three spoonfuls of sugar and half a cup of creamer pretty much defeats the purpose. Does the caffeine even have time to work before the sugar buzz hits?" Renesmee snickered in amusement.
Claire looked coolly over at her sisters through the curtain of her tangled hair. "Well, Erin, if you don't think I should be drinking it then you shouldn't have brought any up."
Nessie rolled her eyes when Erin fell back into the mattress and threw quick, useless punches at one of the pillows. "How's the play going?" she asked.
Erin immediately perked up, her hands flying animatedly as a steady stream of 'theater talk' left her mouth. "Oh, it's absolutely great! We got the best fabric for the kitchen set, and one of the moms on the PTA said that she could get us a deal on paint at the local hardware store. I love small towns."
"And how are the stars of the show?" Claire asked, coming over to sit down at the end of the bed.
Her glowing smile dimmed. "Well, Sharon's wonderful. But Tim's voice has been cracking a lot over the past week, and it's making me twitchy. I will never forgive that child if his voice chooses now to change."
Nessie somehow doubted that there was anything a twelve-year-old could do about puberty if he hadn't even been able to escape auditioning for the winter play, but she decided silence was the most prudent response.
"The house is really quiet," Claire observed. "Where are mom and dad?"
Erin waved her hand in the air dismissively. "They're out somewhere. As soon as they heard I would be around all evening to supervise Bee and Jake at the bonfire they grabbed their stuff and left."
Renesmee felt the familiar twinge of aggravated affection at hearing her sister's pet name for her. When she'd first been adopted, Erin was absolutely horrified that anyone would name their child something as hideous as Nessie, and had immediately set about finding a better sounding alternative. She'd eventually arrived at the nickname Bambi, after the orphan baby deer of the same name who shared her baby sister's large brown eyes. In a burst of annoyance at Claire she'd nicknamed her Thumper. Nessie's nickname had eventually been shortened to 'Bee', in the hopes that if enough people heard it it would stick. It was Claire's pet name, though, that had gained popularity with the adults. Nessie was still Nessie to everyone but Erin.
"Oh! I used a new muffin recipe this morning, Bee. I got it from the wrestling coach." Erin winked and propelled herself off the bed with a large bounce. Nessie and Claire scooted to the head of the bed to make room for the tray Erin was bringing back. "It's got all kinds of carbohydrates and proteins and stuff. You know, basically anything healthy with the label 'good fat' is in here. And supposedly it tastes like strawberries." She set the tray down with a gentle plop.
Nessie eyed the muffins doubtfully. They were an unnatural shade of grey and looked completely dried out. She picked one up with careful hands and took a small bite. It didn't taste much better than it looked, but a moment after she swallowed it settled solidly in her stomach. The throb behind her eyes lessened.
"Do we have a winner?" Claire asked. She'd smoothed her hair back, and her eyes were alert behind her coffee cup.
"Yep," Nessie announced cheerfully. She bit in again, grimacing a little at the taste. She swallowed quickly.
Erin squealed happily and settled back onto the bed. "Oh, good! I was hoping you would like them." She picked up a strand of Nessie's hair and rubbed it between her fingers. "I used to be so jealous of your hair. When you first came to live with us, I thought you had to be an angel. You didn't look like any white person I'd ever met."
Remembering last night's groggy conversation with Claire, Renesmee set down the empty muffin wrapper and looked at her sister nervously. "Erin, when mom and dad first brought me home, what was it like?"
She shifted into a more comfortable position, her black hair brushing against the fiery strands still in her fist. "Well, first of all, we didn't bring you home. Sam and Jake brought you to us."
Claire set down her mug on the bedside table. "Really?" she asked, her eyes burning with interest. "I never knew that."
"Oh, yeah," Erin nodded. "I remember that it was at some ungodly hour of the morning. Mae Walker's seventh birthday party was that day, so I'd gotten up before dawn to put my outfit together. The doorbell rang, and dad stumbled out of bed with a baseball bat – why he though a burglar would ring the doorbell, I have no idea – and when he opened it I heard someone talking. Mom got up, and I waited until she was downstairs and then went to sit at the top of the stairs.
"I knew everyone in the pack by then, and I could pick out Sam's voice immediately. He was talking really softly, though. Jake was standing beside him, with you in his arms. I'm not sure what they were saying, but eventually Jake gave you to mom. You were crying, but really quietly. Daddy looked angry, but mom was staring down at you and she was just completely taken. You could tell.
"The men all argued for awhile. I think Jacob probably wanted to stay, but Sam was trying to get him to leave. He kept on talking about a meeting and decisions that needed to be made. I don't know. I was half asleep when mom came up the stairs, and she told me to meet my little sister and then took me back to bed. The next morning Claire's old crib was set up in the corner of my room, and mom was asleep with you in the rocking chair."
Nessie fingered the edge of the gilded tray for a moment before looking up at Erin. "Was I sick when I was little? I know I had a lot of health problems once I got older, but was I always that way?" Asking the question made her feel awkward and uncomfortable, as if discussing what was an everyday conversation topic was somehow wrong. The usual embarrassment was tenfold now, and she had the urge to cross her arms over her chest.
Her sister leaned forward until their heads were touching. "I don't know if you were sick, but you cried a lot. You were quiet about it – you weren't a screamer like Thumper over here – but it was really rare to see you content, much less smiling. It was a tense couple of months for everyone. We still weren't sure if we were going to keep you."
She stiffened. Claire glared at Erin. "God, how can you say that to her? She wasn't some puppy we picked up off the street. This is our sister."
Erin's eyes were wide as she looked up at Nessie. "No, I didn't mean it like that!" she said earnestly. "Shit, you know that's not what I meant. But Jake had it in his head that he was going to petition the courts for guardianship, and Sam and Emily were considering adopting you, and we were kind of just in the middle of it all, with mom and Leah ready to rip apart anyone who even looked at you too closely. It wasn't like that at all. It was just the opposite. Everyone wanted you to themselves."
"I don't understand," Claire interrupted. "Jake wanted custody of Nessie? Why would anyone else consider adopting her, then? He's her imprint."
"Exactly," Erin said acidly. "You might trust those mutts to keep their paws where they can be seen at all times, but do you really think everyone thought that it would be a good idea to let Bee's soul mate live with her without outside supervision? Besides, how much would it have confused her to find out that her father was going to be her husband someday?"
The receding ache in Nessie's head came back with a vengeance. "But you said that Sam and Emily were considering adopting me, too? Why wouldn't they have tried to keep me in La Push? And how does Leah fit into all of this?"
Claire was leaning forward, frowning in curiosity. Erin looked between the two of them in disbelief. "You honestly don't know anything about this, do you? Either of you. Damn. Well, after Jacob realized how devastatingly stupid it would be to try to raise you himself, Emily and Sam were his first choice. Sam was ready to take you home as soon as possible, but I guess Emily froze up or something. She loved you to death, though, which was the weirdest part. I understand, though. I mean, she would have to have been even younger than I am now. As for Leah…" She bit her lip, gazing at Nessie uncertainly. "Leah claims that you were willed to her."
You sleep for a long time. Days, maybe. Your tiny ear presses against an expanding and contracting chest so that even in your dreams you can hear the steady bump-bump, bump, bump-bump-bump of life. You cling to that sound, wishing you could curl up inside of it.
Renesmee felt her heartbeat falter. She blinked past the half-formed thought at the edge of her mind. "I was willed to her? Leah knew my birth parents?" She was suddenly aware that her hands were shaking, and she twisted them together in her lap.
Erin nodded slowly. "I think so. But from what I understand, there was never any kind of legal agreement. It wasn't even your parents that she talked to – it was your godmother." Regret was filtering into her features, as if she was just now realizing how quick she'd been in supplying this information.
"I don't… I don't understand," she croaked. Claire slid a comforting hand around her own clenched ones and Erin brushed her hair back from her shoulder.
"By werewolf standards Leah would still have been relatively young. I'd guess that no one wanted to risk her phasing and hurting you after what happened to Emily," Claire supplied quietly.
She stared unseeingly at her sister. "They knew my parents. They all knew my parents." Her mouth continued to move wordlessly.
She bit into her bottom lip, hard. It wasn't her mother who had intended for her to go to Leah but her godmother. What did that mean? Was everyone in her extended biological family dead? How could they have all died so closely together that she'd never known any of them unless they'd died at the same time? But if they'd died together then Leah's claim didn't make any sense.
Claire's eyes were pained. "Oh, Nessie. I'm so sorry. I never would have suggested talking to mom and dad about all this if I knew…"
Erin puffed up in irritation. "Don't be ridiculous. Maybe it's not important to her to find out right now, but someday it probably will be. She deserves to know, even if it's not necessarily pretty."
"I'm… I'm going to go take a shower," Nessie murmured. She shifted off the bed, her exhaustion a palpable weight.
"Are you sure you don't want another muffin?" Erin asked anxiously. "Or maybe some coffee?"
"No," she shook her head, "I'm just going to go get ready. Emily and Kim should be here soon." And Leah. Her sisters' eyes burned holes in her back as she left the room.
She moved across the hall and pulled the bathroom door shut behind her. As she pulled her tank top over her head she turned toward the mirror and paused. Her fingers went lax around the material as she studied herself woodenly. Her eyes moved over the familiar – the brown eyes Jake loved so much; the bright hair that seemed to defy being classified as any one specific color; the dark rings above her ghost-white cheekbones – and then moved to the newer developments. Over the summer she'd had another painful growth spurt, and this time she'd grown breasts. Her figure wasn't as rounded as Erin's, but in comparison with her protruding ribs and stick-figure legs, her chest seemed fuller than it actually was. Much to her mother's protests, she'd cut her hair to just above her collarbones this past fall. For the first time she realized that it was already threatening to brush reach her elbows.
Erin's earlier words nagged her. "When you first came to live with us, I thought you had to be an angel. You didn't look like any white person I'd ever met." It was true, too. She obviously wasn't Makah, but even with her Caucasian features she looked somehow foreign.
Nessie wondered which of her biological parents she favored. Whose full, slightly unbalanced lips had she inherited? Why couldn't she walk in a straight line without tripping, and why did she spend so much time living in her own head and observing other people? Had she been cast from the same mold as her other set of parents, or would she still be the one who didn't quite look like they belonged in family portraits if they had survived to raise her?
DO you belong?
She fingered the bracelet on her wrist. "I belong with Jake," she whispered. Her voice sounded raw in the tinny acoustics of the bathroom. If nothing else, she thought fiercely, if I never belong anywhere but with him, I belong with Jacob.
She stared challengingly at the grim reflection in the mirror. This person, she thought, had always been Jake's, even when she was too young to recognize him as anything but a brother. Regardless of Erin's rants about free will and Claire's quiet insistence that imprinted relationships were a choice, she clung to her fated bond to Jacob with both hands. On the nights she woke from dreams about dark woods and tearful voices, it wasn't her family's claim of belonging that comforted her. It was Jacob's.
Nessie had always belonged to Jacob. And now, staring at the hollow-eyed girl in front of her, it quelled her instinctive fear of abandonment in ways she couldn't begin to describe to know that she always would.