As before huge thanks go to my friends Nikki and Dani for reading through my draft chapters, encouraging me to carry on and also for humouring me while I bounce a LOT of ideas off them ;o). Also the fab peeps at Project Team Beta for taking the time to look through my writing for me and not making it too painful (so far!). Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it :o) x
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters, they belong to Stephenie Meyer.
Chapter 4
Nahuel POV
I heard the doorbell ring somewhere inside the house as I pressed the button then stood and waited. My mind was whirling at one hundred miles an hour and changing every split second about whether to just turn and run away instead. Before I could act on any of these thoughts though, the door suddenly swung open and I stood face to face with Carlisle. He regarded me, his lips held in a tight smile and I could tell that he wasn't surprised in any way to see me. With every second that passed now that I was actually here, I was increasingly convinced that I'd made a terrible mistake by coming to the house.
"Nahuel," Carlisle spoke first, being the most composed of the two of us, and offered me his hand to shake. "It's good to see you again." He briefly smiled more easily, before his eyes became serious. "You're a long way from home, I take it you didn't just happen to be passing?" I finished shaking his hand and, looking him in the eye shook my head nearly imperceptibly from side to side. As I looked at him I knew that, somehow, he knew why I was here. Then, almost as if to confirm it, he spoke again. "Huilen mentioned that we could probably expect to see you."
Huilen, of course. I shouldn't have been surprised that she'd warned them, she'd disagreed so strongly with me coming here. I felt guilty about the way things had turned out with my aunt, she had literally given her life for me when I ended my mother's. She'd raised me and cared for me, taught me about my mother and about a different life that I would never have known about without her.
My interest in the Cullens had grown at an unprecedented rate since I'd met them the first time; it seemed to me though that it was beyond my control. I did my best to curb it but it crept into every corner of my brain and the most seemingly unrelated things would remind me of them. Without my even realising it, my thoughts turned from just the Cullens in general to Renesmee in particular. In the back of my mind, I was aware all the time of what stage Renesemee would be at in her growth. This awareness built, then finally, at the time I knew she'd be fully mature, I was struggling to lead my normal lifestyle because of this preoccupation.
Huilen had noticed I was troubled and had confronted me about it. I was struggling so much with my emotions that everything came pouring from my mouth before I even had a chance to edit it to spare her feelings. She wasn't hurt, she was devastated, viewing my obsession with the Cullens as a family, as a rebuff to her. We talked things through and eventually she forgave me, although I was aware that she would never be able to forget what had happened, or allow the wounds it had caused to completely heal. She encouraged me make an effort and try to forget my obsession, for she was convinced that nothing but trouble could come of it.
I promised her I would and I did try for a while to forget, to try and undo the damage that I'd caused to my relationship with my aunt, but as time went on it all started to invade my head again, the constant thoughts and speculation. I tried to discuss it again with Huilen, to try and get her to see my point of view; that I needed to see the Cullens and meet Renesmee again. I could see it as the only way to get over this obsession that was eating away at me. We couldn't agree at all and in the end I could stand it no longer. I gathered my sisters, told them where I was going and managed to persuade them to accompany me north.
And now, here I stood on Carlisle and Esme's doorstep, so close and completely unsure of what lay ahead. I suddenly felt embarrassed for causing the scene between Malen and the wolf this morning and felt compelled to try and put everything right. My sisters had been right, this was the best path to take and I should have done so from the beginning instead of trying to spy on these people. I looked down at the ground, suddenly too self-conscious to meet Carlisle's gaze. I examined my shoe closely as I scuffed the toe against the wood of the porch beneath my feet.
"Carlisle, I am truly sorry for any trouble I may have caused your family with my approach to the situation this morning. I…" I paused, the words catching in my throat and my voice dropping so it was barely above a whisper. "I'd just really like to see Renesmee again; to see how she is. There's so few like us…"
I lifted my eyes and looked at Carlisle. He looked back at me, his face showing sympathy for my obvious desperation and discomfort. He opened his mouth and began to speak, his voice gentle.
"Nahuel, I'm really not sure that this is the best time."
A movement behind him caught my eye and my focus moved away from his face and onto the figure behind him; a slim young woman with long dark curls strode confidently towards us.
"Carlisle, it's fine, I'd like to meet Nahuel again too." As she moved forward and spoke to her ridiculously young looking grandfather, she never took her eyes off me. My breathing became uneven. She had grown more beautiful than I could have imagined. I was dazzled by her. As I watched her approach, she smiled at me and, although it seemed to reach her eyes, I thought I also detected some sadness there. I truly hoped that I wasn't the cause of this. However, I knew deep down that I probably was.
Carlisle turned towards her, his face serious now and his eyes searching hers; he clearly didn't think this a wise move on her part. Still, he stood aside to let her pass, reading the determination in her movements as she stepped over the threshold of the house before she turned back to him briefly. "I'll see you later," then she turned and gestured with her head for me to follow her, before setting off down the porch steps.
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Nessie POV
We'd been walking steadily at a near-human pace through the woods for a full five minutes now without speaking a word. The beautiful stranger walking a step behind me intrigued me. I looked back at him often, every time he was looking directly back at me, his eyes full of something that looked almost like awe. My heart stuttered each time I caught his eye and I smiled shyly back. I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting from this man. His boldness in travelling so far from the south didn't fit with the quiet and hesitant looking person that was following me through the trees now.
Finally we reached the clearing that I had been heading for and I made my way over to the fallen tree trunk that lay off to the left where the trees met the small open space. I sat down on a shaded part of the trunk and Nahuel lowered himself down next to me, right where a shaft of sunlight angled down between the tall tree tops. It shone onto him; the effect nothing like as spectacular as when my full vampire family were touched by the sunlight, but the shimmering effect on his rich, brown skin was impressive enough to cause me to gasp quietly in appreciation. I found my eyes darting quickly down to where his shirt gently skimmed the well defined contours and I wondered how his chest would look in the sunlight. A wave of guilt washed briefly over me as I suddenly thought of Jake, waiting for me back at my grandparents' house. I fought to push it to the back of my mind, I was doing nothing wrong here, and it was unfair of Jake to protest about it. He had his pack brothers to relate to; I had nobody exactly like me close by. I had always been aware of that, even as loved as I was by my family and by Jacob.
I was aware of Nahuel shifting slightly as he spoke to me for the first time, his voice clear and lilting with hardly a trace of an accent. "Rensemee," a shiver ran through me as he said my name. These feelings were all new to me, there had only ever been Jake, always, and that love had grown and changed as I did. Jacob's very presence affected me completely, and when he wasn't close by I couldn't feel whole; but it was all comfortable and soothing, not the sparks and shivers that I was experiencing in the presence of this virtual stranger.
I looked up at him and could read the apprehension in his face. "I'd be lying if I said that I thought it was absolutely the right thing to do, coming here to find you." His eyes were scanning my face now, searching for some indication of my own thoughts and clues to the response he could expect. "But the past few years, I've not been able to get your existence out of my head. To know there was somebody the same as me out there has been at the centre of my thoughts for years now. I've tried to fight the urge to come here and disturb everything you have, believe me, but in the end I just couldn't resist it any longer." He swallowed and looked down. His voice was quieter when he spoke again and I could hear the note of regret in it. "I'm sorry if I've already caused you problems by coming here. I just felt I needed to know you better; to understand what you have here."
He lifted his face to the sky now and a bitter laugh escaped his lips. "You know, I used to blame myself for my mother's death. Huilen had told me so much about her, she was such an amazing woman," he inhaled deeply before continuing. "And I killed her, with my very existence, just by being born." He sighed deeply and raised his eyes to meet mine again. I noticed they were brighter and more alive and when he spoke again his voice had an edge of excitement to it. "When I came here and met your family, saw how you lived and how your parents loved each other; how they loved you, I realised that I wasn't the one that was to blame at all, my father was far more responsible for how the situation had turned out. I realise that I have my sisters now since my father's…demise, but really, although they're half immortal like us, they have only ever lived a similar life to me. There's something so compelling to me about everything you have here."
The shiver had run up my spine again as he'd spoken the word 'us' and I berated myself silently for allowing the reaction. Before I could recover fully, he had finished speaking and reached for my hand, taking it and holding it with both of his. My stomach fluttered at the unexpected gesture and I glanced down, the contrast between my pale skin and the deep rich red-brown of his reminding me again of Jake. As my eyes trailed back up to his though, all previous thoughts disappeared as I got lost in the brown depths gazing back at me. "Renesmee, if you'll agree I'd love to stay a while and get to know you." I opened my mouth to speak but an angry voice beat me to it.
"Like hell you will."