Chapter Five: Back in the Air

Edward

I growled at Alice.

"Three days," she repeated. "And even then you'll have to time it carefully…clouds and sun all day." She glared at me. "Don't blame me, Edward Cullen. If you've figured out a way to change the weather, I'm happy to hear it."

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Sorry. I know it's the best you can do. Can you give me an hour-by-hour for that partly cloudy day?"

She wrinkled her nose, concentrating. "Too soon to tell for sure…I think you get a block of cloud cover at the airport between ten and twelve. Just hire the plane for the whole day; then it won't matter."

"Right. Let me know if things change and we get anything sooner." Three days. Well, she had lasted three weeks already…

Which only made me more anxious to get to her as soon as possible. If it had been much longer than Alice's predicted three days, I would have changed my plans and done this at night; according to Jacob Nessie wasn't getting that much sleep anyway.

I didn't worry much about the cloud cover on the drive down. My windows were tinted, though not as darkly as Carlisle's; with his work as a doctor it was necessary for him to be able to go out even on sunny days.

I pulled over in front of Nessie's house and waited for a cloud to drift in front of the sun before getting out and hurrying up the walk to ring the doorbell.

"Daddy!" Nessie exclaimed in surprise.

But she couldn't be as stunned as I was. Jacob had said it was bad, but I hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected the dark circles under her eyes or the fragile edge to her thoughts. In an instant, I had her pressed to my chest; my little girl.

Sometimes I wondered if it had really been wise to let her marry so young. Oh, physically she was mature; mentally she had always been far beyond any human. But emotionally…

For the most part, her emotional maturity had kept track with her apparent physical age. But once in a while I had caught something that led me to believe there was some corner of Nessie's being that reflected her true age. Eight years old, now; still very much in need of a father's protection. Maybe I should have refused to let her marry until she was eighteen; at the very least insisted she and Jacob stay close by for a few years.

Or was that only my own selfishness? All humans had moments when their thoughts seemed childlike or even childish; was I just more sensitive to it with Nessie because I was aware of how young she really was? Was I truly thinking of her needs, or only my own reluctance to give up my little girl?

Either way…she needed me now.

"Come for a ride with me, baby?" I murmured into her hair.

"Okay," she agreed softly, slipping her hand into mine as we walked out to the car. She wasn't even all that curious about my unannounced visit on a partly-sunny day; she was tired.

I kept half an eye on the speedometer as I pulled away from the house. It was an hour to the airport at the speed limit; I didn't really think I'd need that long, but I did want to leave myself enough time to talk things over with Nessie before we got there.

"You look like the walking dead, Nessie," I said gently as I pulled onto the on-ramp of the highway. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Just-just a little tired, Daddy." She spoke aloud, making a pitiful effort to block her thoughts.

"Why; haven't you been sleeping well?"

"Oh…sure." But her voice faltered with the memory of her latest dream.

I reached out an arm to pull her against my side. "You don't have to lie to me, Renesmée," I said softly.

"Oh — Daddy!" she gasped, choking back a sob at the comfort of my embrace. One arm wasn't enough; pulling over, I cradled her against my chest, softly humming her lullaby as she cried.

I half hoped she would fall asleep, but after some time she pulled away. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she whispered.

"For what?" I asked bluntly, resuming my driving, but keeping my gaze mostly on Nessie. "Can you help your dreams?"

"I wish I could. Momma says she used to be able to control hers — a little — but I never know it's a dream until Jake wakes me. I hate airplanes, Daddy!" She said it on a growl, her hands balling into fists.

"It was a freak accident, Nessie," I said quietly. "More people die every day in car crashes than plane crashes…but you aren't scared now."

She shrugged. You're driving. She hadn't meant to reply at all; the thought wasn't put clearly into words.

"So…you trust me behind the wheel of a car, at twice the legal limit, when I'm not watching the road. Does that mean you'd trust me in the cockpit of a plane, Nessie?"

She stared at me, her eyes wide as she registered both my words and the sign for the airport that we had just passed. Oh, Daddy. No. No, don't make me. Behind those conscious thoughts was a question; was I really a pilot?

"Well, I'll admit my current license is a forgery," I told her, "but I can fly. You should have seen my barnstorming in the 1920s. Of course, I've flown planes more modern than that."

I pulled into a space in the underground parking garage, and Nessie curled up on the seat, facing away from me, doing her best to make her mind a blank.

I put a hand on the curve of her shoulder. "Renesmée," I said gently. "Listen to me, sweetheart. What you're really afraid of is losing Jacob — and he isn't with us."

"I don't want to lose you, either, Daddy," she whispered. An echo of something Jacob had said flashed through her thoughts: "If the plane bursts into flames, even your parents wouldn't be able to walk away."

"I suppose that's true," I said slowly, "but only if there's no warning. If I have even a second's notice, Nessie, I can get us out of there." I wouldn't say it — the thought of Jacob losing her might be almost as unbearable to her as the thought of losing him — but if something happened that I couldn't walk away from, she certainly wasn't going to survive to lose me. If I had time to push her out, I'd have time to jump myself. "But that's beside the point, Nessie; we aren't going to crash." I got out of the car and walked around to open her door for her, lifting her out and setting her gently on her feet.

The man who met us to check my pilot's license and show us to the Cessna was young; maybe around twenty-five, with his dark hair gelled into sharp spikes.

"Russell Terrence," he introduced himself. He turned to Nessie with a leering grin. "But you can call me Rusty, babe."

Nessie snarled, her lip curling back from her teeth, and I growled faintly as I wrapped an arm around her to pull her to my side.

"I'm not your 'babe,' Mr Terrence," she said coldly.

"Oh…ah…right," he stammered, slightly shaken.

But only slightly; his thoughts as he completed the necessary preliminaries were still far from appropriate.

Daddy…what was he thinking? Nessie ventured as I gave her a hand into the plane.

I shook my head, climbing into the seat beside her. "I can't tell you, baby; if you let it slip to Jacob he'd have to come down and kill the poor boy."

Nessie managed a small smile. That bad?

I gave her a lopsided grin. "Let's just say only Jacob has the right to think about you like that…and even he usually refrains in my presence."

Yet as much as I had wanted to tear the boy's throat out for thinking of my little girl like that, I was glad for the encounter; it kept Nessie's mind occupied so that she barely noticed as I did a quick pre-flight check and began taxiing down the runway.

Sunlight streamed into the cockpit as I leveled off, reflecting off my hand as I reached to adjust a dial. Nessie stared at it, as if realizing for the first time how carefully I had had to time things to do this today. Daddy…

"Now, Nessie," I said, heading off the thought before it could form, "how would you like to fly the plane?"

"Oh, but, Daddy, I'd crash it!"

I snorted. "Planes don't crash that easily, Nessie, and you're forgetting my vampire reflexes. Any mistake you make, I can correct before we even see the effect."

O-kay. Her thoughts were still doubtful, and for an instant I considered pulling her into my lap and letting her "fly" the way fathers sometimes let small children steer a tractor. But instead I began showing her the basics of piloting.

By the end of an hour, she was hooked, grinning widely as she flew the plane as well as I could. When I told her it was time to go back to the airport, her thoughts were disappointed. Just a few more minutes, Daddy?

"Sorry; I don't have much time. Any longer, and we'll be stuck up here until sundown — and we don't have fuel for that."

She sighed. "All right. Can I land it, Daddy?"

"Better not; I didn't forge an instructor's license." I took over the controls for a perfect landing.

"I only have fifteen minutes before I have to get under cover, Nessie," I warned, jumping out and holding up my arms for her. * I glanced at the sky; the cloud currently shielding the sun seemed hardly big enough to last for fifteen minutes. But I'd never known Alice to make a mistake with weather, and her predictions today had been correct within seconds.

"Have a good flight?" Russell Terrence asked, grinning; any fright we had given him seemed to have worn off.

"Yes," I said shortly.

He held a scrap of paper out to Nessie. "Here's my number, babe — in case you change your mind."

Nessie stared at it blankly, her thoughts a dazed whirl. Then she stepped forward and with calm deliberateness slapped him on the cheek. She stopped short of breaking any bones, but he was going to have a hand-shaped bruise to explain for at least a week.

I had seen the intent of her thoughts in plenty of time to stop her, but I only watched with a small smile; the boy had it coming.

oOo

"I'm not afraid of flying," Nessie said slowly, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. "I…don't think I ever really was. After all, it could have been anything… He risked himself to save me, Daddy, and I wouldn't even have been hurt!"

"It takes a lot to kill a werewolf, Nessie."

"It takes even more to kill a half-vampire!" she insisted stubbornly.

I sighed. "We don't actually know that, Renesmée." He had been willing to risk even more than she knew; while she thought he had been risking his life, she didn't actually believe he had realized it when he jumped. But I had heard his thoughts after the accident; knew that he had known full well he might not survive.

But there was one other point Nessie seemed to be overlooking; Jacob had jumped to save himself as much as her — though at the time he thought only of Nessie. Breaking her fall might have increased his risk a little, but not by that much.

But I didn't bother trying to correct her; I knew as well as she did that if it had been a choice between protecting her and walking away uninjured, he would have saved her every time.

"Nessie," I said gently, "I understand how you feel, but…how would you feel if he wasn't willing to protect you? Could you be sure of his love if he cared about his own life more than yours; if he wasn't willing to risk everything for you?"

* Illustration for this scene can be found on my DeviantArt account.

Next chapter coming next week!

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