Without moving from the small bed, Bella blinked her eyes slowly, her gaze fixed on the bright lamps overhead. She sucked in a sharp breath of air and seemed startled by the sensation. I exhaled as she did, unaware until that moment that I had actually been holding my breath. I was vaguely aware of several similar exhalations behind me, and recognized that the rest of our family must also have been waiting for her to breathe before they did.
Bella continued to stare at the lights and the ceiling above her, her brow creasing slightly in reaction to the intense sensory overload I knew she would be experiencing. I wished yet again that I could read her thoughts, so that I could know exactly what she was seeing, hearing and smelling and help her through it.
With that wish, I realized that I was faintly disappointed. While I wasn't exactly surprised that her mind was still silent to me, in some remote part of my brain I had been hoping that her transformation would open it somehow and let me in. I supposed it made a kind of sense, though, that her thoughts, always tightly concealed in the past, would remain at least as tightly concealed with the change.
No one spoke. The family behind me were on edge, waiting with anticipation yet ready to defend themselves—and each other—if Bella were to prove uncontrolled and irrational, as so many newborns were. The possibilities as to what she would do next were limitless and utterly unpredictable. If she felt threatened, she might attack, or run. If she felt confused, she might react by tearing the room apart. If she caught the scent of blood, she could go crashing through the window in pursuit—or, worse yet, racing down the stairs to find the nearest source of fresh blood, Renesmee. None of us knew what to expect.
It was likely only a few seconds, but it felt as though an age had passed while Bella simply looked up at the ceiling without moving. Gently, tentatively, I squeezed her fingers, carefully trying to remind her of my presence. I was relatively confident that she would remember who I was, but couldn't be sure of it.
I saw her body freeze at the sensation of my touch, then watched as every muscle contracted and sprung into action. In what would have been a blur to human eyes, she propelled herself in a kind of a back flip off the tiny hospital bed, landing on the balls of her feet, her back pressed to the opposite wall. She crouched in a defensive pose with her eyes wide and turned upon us.
Her eyes! I had known they would no longer be the warm, human chocolate brown that I loved, and I had tried to brace myself psychologically for the change. I had seen them grow redder the past few days whenever Carlisle would lift her lids to check her pupils. But now, awake, staring at me in fright and confusion from across the room, I had to suppress a gasp. They were no longer Bella's eyes; they were the red of a newborn vampire, strange and foreign. I thought I had finished mourning the loss of my soft and fragile human wife, but with the sight of those red eyes, the loss felt fresh once again.
Carlisle knew what I was thinking. They'll go amber like ours soon enough, Edward. That's still Bella. She's scared. Help her.
Of course it was still Bella. The long, dark hair, shiny and full of reddish highlights...the full, slightly uneven lips...the curve of her delicate neck...her small hands and wrists...the lines of her lovely body, flattered by the cut and fabric of the silk dress she wore. It was still Bella. My Bella. But the transformation had taken her perfection and somehow made her even more perfect...utterly flawless. Her incomparable beauty was breathtaking, and I had to fight the urge to simply stand there and stare at her, absorbing it with the pride of an incredibly lucky husband.
Slowly, I took a step forward and reached a hand out to her across the hospital bed on which she had lain for the past several days.
Oh, Edward...look at her. She's gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Without looking, I knew Alice was grinning behind me, struggling to remain still and keep her enthusiasm under wraps so that she wouldn't startle Bella.
Bella's eyes darted over my shoulder to the family behind me, then back to my face. She stared at me for a long moment. I was relieved to see recognition in her expression, but it was tempered by the sense that she was seeing something for the first time and trying to assimilate the information her newly heightened senses were giving her. You look the same but different to her now, Edward. She sees so much more. Give her a moment, Carlisle thought.
I held my position even as I heard her gasp once again, then slowly straighten from the defensive posture she had reflexively assumed. She seemed to relax, although her eyes were still wide, drinking in each and every miniscule detail before her.
Very carefully, keeping my movements as smooth as possible so they wouldn't surprise her, I began to step around the bed. I sensed both Emmett and Jasper tense behind me, readying themselves to spring to my defence if necessary. It was odd in the extreme to contemplate that I might need saving from Bella, small, clumsy, fragile Bella, but there was still no telling what she might do next.
"Bella?" I said, keeping my voice as low and even as I could. "Bella, love? I'm sorry, I know it's disorienting. But you're all right. Everything is fine."
Her mouth opened as though she wanted to say something, and I could see from her expression the torrent of thoughts that were probably racing through her mind as she tried to make sense of her new reality. Her mouth closed and then opened again, and when it closed for the second time, she caught her lower lip between her teeth.
My dead heart swelled with pure joy. That simple gesture was so Bella I wanted to laugh out loud and pull her into my arms, welcome her back as though nothing had changed. Instead, I fought to keep my expression even and slowly lifted my hand to her cheek, stroking her smooth skin with my fingertips. It felt somewhat unfamiliar, no longer noticeably warm in contrast to my coolness. But at the same time, it was as familiar as my own skin. We were the same temperature. We were the same.
For the first time, we were the same.
And not only that, I felt the oh-so-familiar tingle of electricity at the contact between us that had always been there, since the first time we had touched so many months before. It was the tingle of intense physical attraction, of recognition, of home. It was the tingle of acknowledgement that one half recognized the proximity of its perfect mate, together making the whole.
It was also the tingle of my body's innate desire for hers, sinking into my bones and setting all of my nerves on end. I felt it from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes, and it settled like a ball of fire in the pit of my stomach. I was glad for all the practice I had had suppressing those desires, and my rather painfully acquired ability to keep them from manifesting themselves physically in a way that would be entirely too inappropriate for the present occasion.
Still carefully, I let my fingers curl to the shape of her face, cupping her cheek against my palm. I quirked an eyebrow at her inquisitively, wondering if she would speak.
Instead, she launched herself at me, throwing her arms around my neck and pressing her face into my chest, clutching me against her body as though I were a life raft keeping her afloat in a heavy sea.
It took me a moment to recover from my surprise—and realize that she was squeezing me rather uncomfortably hard. If I had been human, she almost certainly would have cracked a few ribs.
I shifted gently, trying to hint that she should loosen her grasp. Her face turned up to mine, confusion and hurt written in her features.
"Um...carefully, Bella. Ow," I murmured. I kept my voice light, hoping she would understand that the issue was by no means rejection.
She yanked her arms away quickly and tucked them behind her back. She looked up at me sheepishly from under her lashes, mouthing, "Oops."
I couldn't help breaking into a grin. She was impossibly adorable, gazing up at me that way. "Don't panic, love." I lifted a hand to touch her lips. "You're just a bit stronger than I am for the moment."
Her brow creased into a frown as she considered that information. I moved to stroke her cheek again, looking for another fix of the delectable tingle of desire, even though I knew it meant another struggle with my body's automatic response to hers.
It didn't help with that when she slowly brought her right arm from behind her back and pressed her hand to my cheek, doubling the electricity coursing through me by mirroring my gesture with hers. She looked up at me again and struggled to find her voice. I heard someone—Alice, probably—suck in another breath in anticipation of what Bella's first words as a vampire would be.
"I love you." My heart and soul soared at her words at the same time as my ears revelled in the sound of her new voice, smooth and clear as the sound of a crystal bell.
Yes, she remembered me.
Another grin spread across my face. "As I love you." Without thinking, I gave in to my next impulse and took her face between my hands, leaning down to kiss her. Thankfully, it was still reflexive for me to be slow and gentle with this, as I had had to be when she was human. It meant that I avoided moving so fast as to startle her. Ever so gently, I brushed my lips over hers and then back again, pressing our mouths together softly.
What I wasn't prepared for was the sudden amplification of the tingling electricity between us, doubling, tripling, and tripling again with a force that made me press my lips to hers again, stronger, fiercer this time. I completely forgot the place, the occasion and the audience behind me as I gave in to the sensation, tugging her lower lip between mine before sliding my tongue into her mouth tentatively, tasting her and breathing her in as though we'd never kissed before.
Truly, we never had kissed before, not like this. She was no longer my human, high-school aged girlfriend whose virtue I felt compelled to protect. More importantly, she was no longer glass in my hands, prone to shatter with the slightest wrong move or excess of pressure.
She was my vampire wife, my equal, able to receive everything I could give her and just as able to return it in an even measure. Not only that, I could feel her respond, melting into the kiss and curving her body around mine, her needless breathing accelerating. She had been so afraid that she would lose this as a newborn, her part of the overwhelming desire between us—yet it appeared to have been preserved. I wasn't sure which forces of heaven or hell to thank for it, but thankful I was.
Oh, for...we're still in the room, you know, Emmett thought as he cleared his voice loudly.
Bella quickly pulled back, releasing her hold around my neck and drawing her body away from where it was tightly pressed against mine. I chuckled at her clearly embarrassed expression, one that would have been accompanied by her characteristic blush when she was still human. I may never see that blush again, but her facial expression was still the same, still as reflective of her feelings as if she were an open book for me to read.
I wasn't ready to permit the loss of contact between us, and stepped forward with her, maintaining my grip around her waist. The feel of her body was as familiar as ever, but she simply felt more substantial somehow. More solid. More durable. My mind raced ahead with thoughts of what that was going to mean in terms of how I could touch her, and I selfishly wished it were night time and we were alone. I chuckled a little and felt a smirk draw the corners of my mouth up. Soon enough, soon enough...
Bella looked at me with her eyes slightly narrowed. "You've been holding out on me."
I laughed, knowing immediately what she meant. I had never before been able to put so much of myself into kissing her and holding her body against mine, always mindful of the possibility that I would crush her with the slightest mistake. "It was sort of necessary at the time," I told her. "Now it's your turn to not break me."
She frowned as she contemplated that, and the seriousness of her expression made all of us laugh.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Carlisle step around Emmett and walk toward us, confident but still cautious. Jasper was only a step behind him.
"How do you feel, Bella?" Carlisle asked her.
"Overwhelmed. There's so much..." She let her voice trail off, clearly concentrating on how unusual it sounded in her own ears.
"Yes, it can be quite confusing."
She gave a quick nod. "But I feel like me. Sort of. I didn't expect that."
I squeezed her gently, beaming. "I told you so."
Carlisle was still assessing her with his eyes. He had seen numerous transformations over his many years, interacted with countless newborn vampires. He was markedly impressed by how very well she seemed to be doing. "You are quite controlled. More so than I expected, even with the time you had to prepare yourself mentally for this."
She looked unconvinced. "I'm not sure about that."
Carlisle nodded as he looked at her. "It seems like we did something right with the morphine this time. Tell me, what do you remember of the transformation process?"
She hesitated briefly as I allowed myself a deep breath in, letting her new scent permeate my lungs. Not a trace of a burn in my throat now, I noted with satisfaction. I had become used to it, hardly noticing it anymore, but I could honestly say that was one thing I wasn't going to miss in the least. Breathing her scent now was...refreshing. Invigorating. Enticing...
I gave an almost imperceptible shake of my head, pushing that thought away for later. I was interested in her answer to this question; I hoped so much that it had not been too painful for her.
"Everything was...very dim before," she said finally. "I remember the baby couldn't breathe...."
She glanced up at my face inquisitively, and I knew I was beaming in response at the thought of our child. "Renesmee is healthy and well," I assured her in a quiet voice. "What do you remember after that?"
Again she hesitated for a fraction of an instant, choosing her words. "It's hard to remember. It was so dark before. And then...I opened my eyes and I could see everything."
I couldn't help wondering what she wasn't saying aloud. She was such a terrible liar, and apparently hadn't gotten any better at it with the transformation.
"Amazing," Carlisle murmured. "I want you to think—to tell me everything you remember." He was fascinated by how well she was doing, how calm she was in the face of everything that had happened to her and the group of vampires staring at her.
A slight grimace creased her features, and I felt a flash of concern. What was she remembering?
Carlisle, however, took it as a sign of her new body's physical need for sustenance. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Bella. Of course your thirst must be very uncomfortable. This conversation can wait."
Her left hand flew up to her throat, as if she were just now remembering that she was, indeed, burning with thirst. I knew the feeling; with age, I had become able to compartmentalize the thirst, to set it aside when other things required my attention. It was astonishing that already it wasn't the only thing dominating her every thought. The rest of our family were thinking the exact same thing as they watched her small gesture.
I let my arms fall from around her waist and reached for her hand. She may have been doing incredibly well, but there was no reason to tempt fate, or to prolong any discomfort she was feeling. "Let's hunt, Bella."
She looked shocked at the suggestion, her eyes widening. It was the look she once had on her face when I suggested dancing: fright, uncertainty.
I smiled. "It's quite easy, love. Instinctual. Don't worry, I'll show you." She stared back at me without moving, so I raised an eyebrow at her teasingly. "I was under the impression that you'd always wanted to see me hunt." The idea of sharing the thrill of the chase with her had me excited.
She laughed lightly and I reached for her other hand, gently pulling it from where it still rested against her neck. I couldn't resist letting the backs of my own fingers trace down the column of her throat, savouring the feel of her smooth skin under mine. "Shall we? I don't want you to be hurting."
"I'm fine," she murmured, and looked distracted. "Wait. First."
Carlisle gazed at her curiously. "Yes?"
"I want to see her. Renesmee." She withdrew her hands from mine and floated them down to her abdomen, flat now where it had been so grossly distended with her pregnancy a mere three days ago. She clutched at the silk of her dress as though searching for what had once grown inside her.
There was almost nothing I wanted as much as I wanted her to see our daughter, for our daughter to see her, now awake and no longer drenched in blood and sweat. I wanted to share that first moment with them both, and see my little nuclear family all together, safe and complete in my arms. I ached to give her that.
But it would be irresponsible to do it right now. Both Carlisle and Jasper shot me anxious thoughts along the same line, reminding me unnecessarily that I could not acquiesce yet.
Bella looked between my face and Carlisle's. "What?"
"Bella," I began, trying to keep a comforting tone in my voice. "That's not really a good idea. She's half human, love. Her heart beats, and blood runs in her veins. Until your thirst is positively under control...You don't want to put her in danger, do you?"
She frowned as she contemplated my words, but didn't seem inclined to argue. Instead, she cocked her head slightly to one side. Listening. "Where is she?"
I focused on the sounds from the floor below as she appeared to be doing, noting the sound of breathing and a quiet, quick heartbeat. Don't let her down here, Edward. She has to hunt first, Rosalie warned, as though I wasn't already quite aware of that fact. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes in irritation.
"Is Rosalie with her?" Bella asked.
"Yes," I told her, and reached for her hands once again. The sooner we could hunt, the sooner I could re-introduce her to our daughter.
"Wait," she protested again. "What about Jacob? And Charlie? Tell me everything that I missed. How long was I...unconscious?"
Yes. Jacob and Charlie. Both issues we were going to have to deal with soon enough, neither of them easy.
Later, Edward, Carlisle suggested silently. She'll be better equipped to deal with all of that later, when her thirst isn't distracting her so much.
Bella looked between my face and Carlisle's once again. "What's wrong?" she whispered anxiously.
"Nothing is wrong," Carlisle tried to assure her. "Nothing has changed much, actually—you were only unaware for just over two days. It was very fast, as these things go. Edward did an excellent job. Quite innovative—the venom injection straight to your heart was his idea." He gave me a proud smile, which I returned gratefully. I desperately hoped that it really had helped her. At least the duration of the pain had been lessened, if nothing else. "Jacob is still here," Carlisle continued, "and Charlie still believes that you are sick. He thinks you're in Atlanta right now, undergoing tests at the CDC. We gave him a bad number, and he's frustrated. He's been speaking to Esme." Yes, I had almost forgotten that Carlisle and Esme had handled the Charlie situation for me while I waited at Bella's bedside. I owed my adoptive parents so much, for all of this.
"I should call him..." she murmured, again frowning as she thought about her father. Could she call him? I still wasn't sure that would ever be a wise idea, but I didn't want to debate that with her now.
Her frown deepened. "Hold on—Jacob is still here?"
Carlisle and I exchanged another glance. Of course he was. If he could possibly help it, he didn't want to be more than five feet from Renesmee's side ever again.
Another topic I didn't want to discuss with Bella right now.
"Bella," I said instead. "There's much to discuss, but we should take care of you first. You have to be in pain...."
"But Jacob—"
"We have all the time in the world for explanations, love," I told her.
She hesitated only briefly this time. "Okay," she murmured finally, and I was grateful that she was going to cooperate. All of it would be so much easier for her to process when she had the thirst under control.
"Wait, wait, wait," Alice suddenly sang from near the door, and floated closer to us. I saw Jasper tense from the corner of my eye and take a step in her direction. She ignored his protective gesture. "You promised I could be there for the first time! What if you two run past something reflective?"
I realized what she was talking about and rolled my eyes. That hardly seemed to be a matter of significance at the moment, with everything else we were going to have to deal with in short order. "Alice—"
"It will only take a second!" she announced, and darted from the room to go find a mirror.
I sighed. It really was impossible to deter her once she was determined to do something, no matter how trivial.
"What is she talking about?" Bella asked, but Alice was already back with Rosalie's huge, gilt-framed mirror, carrying it easily despite the fact that it was twice her size. Jasper slid over again in her direction, eyeing Bella carefully. She seemed to really focus on him for the first time herself, and I felt her body tense. She was no doubt alarmed by his many, many battle scars. Every vampire who had ever met him for the first time had the same reaction, including myself.
"Edward gave me grief for not getting you to a mirror before the wedding," Alice sang cheerily. "I'm not going to be chewed out again."
I arched an eyebrow at her exaggeration. "Chewed out?"
"Maybe I'm overstating things," she murmured absently, focused on the process of getting the mirror in front of Bella, almost shivering in anticipation of Bella's reaction to her new physical appearance.
"And maybe this has solely to do with your own voyeuristic gratification," I muttered.
Alice merely winked at me. She has to see, Edward. She is so, so gorgeous!
Hmph, I thought to myself with irritation. She always has been. But I turned to watch her reaction anyway—no matter how many times I told her in the past how beautiful she was, I knew she remained fundamentally unconvinced. It would be interesting to see if she would now change her mind.
Her mind...God, how I wished I could hear her mind in that moment as she studied her reflection! She looked pleased...mystified...even slightly disturbed by what she saw, each reaction manifest on her face one after the other, then almost simultaneously. The rest of the family watched her with fascination.
"The eyes?" she whispered after a few moments. "How long?"
I knew what she was asking. They really were the most prominently different feature about her. "They'll darken up in a few months," I told her, trying to be reassuring. "Animal blood dilutes the color more quickly than a diet of human blood. They'll turn amber first, then gold."
"Months?" she repeated, clearly horrified by the idea. For the first time since she had awoken and taken that first back flip off the hospital bed, she seemed truly anxious. I saw Jasper step forward when he sensed it, wondering if the sight of her eyes would be the thing that caused an irrational, newborn vampire reaction. He was preparing himself to intervene physically if necessary, but also to exert his intangible influence to calm her.
No, I think it's okay, Jazz, Alice thought, even though he wasn't the one who could hear her. She was gazing at the wall as she concentrated, trying to see if some kind of incident with Bella were about to occur. I don't see anything...she's upset, but mostly she's just surprised.
Bella drew in a breath that was unnecessary but nevertheless seemed to settle her. "No, I'm fine," she murmured, glancing from Jasper to Alice to me and back to her reflection in the mirror. "It's just...a lot to take in."
Amazing, Jasper was astonished as he watched her. Of any of us, even Carlisle, he had the most experience with newborn vampires as a result of his time in the southern wars. He had been certain she would snap in some way sooner or later—but it still hadn't happened. How in the world is she keeping such control?
"I don't know," I murmured aloud. But one thing I did know—I couldn't possibly have been prouder of her than I was in that moment.
Bella frowned but continued to gaze at her own reflection in the mirror. "What question did I miss?"
I grinned. "Jasper wonders how you're doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Controlling your emotions, Bella," Jasper answered. "I've never seen a newborn do that—stop an emotion in its tracks that way. You were upset, but when you saw our concern, you reined it in, regained power over yourself. I was prepared to help, but you didn't need it."
"Is that wrong?" she asked, concerned.
"No," he murmured, but with some trepidation. He was still finding it very difficult to believe that the reactions he was expecting wouldn't manifest themselves eventually. As far as he was concerned they had to. It was impossible for them not to.
I reached out and rubbed her arm to comfort her. "It's very impressive, Bella, but we don't understand it. We don't know how long it can hold."
Alice was still concentrating, and still didn't see any kind of incident on the horizon. For the immediate future, all she saw was a hunting trip, and a successful one at that. As a result, she was impatiently looking for Bella's reaction to the most pressing matter at hand as far as she was concerned: Bella's new physical appearance. "But what do you think?" she asked Bella, rocking onto her heels impatiently, pointing at the mirror.
"I'm not sure," Bella answered uncertainly as she focused again on her reflection. She seemed to be finding more than just her eyes difficult to get used to. I tried to remember my own reaction to my 'revised' physical appearance after my transformation, and I vaguely recalled thinking I didn't look much like my human self. Because I'd witnessed Esme's, Emmett's and Rosalie's transformations, however, and found their appearances enhanced but not that much different from their human selves, I'd come to believe that to some degree it was in the eye of the beholder; vampire eyes were just so much better able to really see.
Besides, there was no doubt in my mind that Bella had never been able to appreciate her own incomparable beauty. I wished again that I could hear her thoughts now and discover that she could finally see herself the way I did. The inability to do so made me sigh lightly.
Bella turned from the mirror and looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "Disappointed?"
I laughed at the idea that there was anything about her that could ever disappoint me, but I admitted what I had been thinking anyway. "Yes."
Her face fell instantly and Alice snarled. Edward! Jasper leaned forward again, wondering if this would be what caused Bella to react.
I chuckled and reached out to pull my wife into my arms once again, leaning down to press a kiss against her cheek. "I was rather hoping that I'd be able to hear your mind, now that it is more similar to my own," I told her. "And here I am, as frustrated as ever, wondering what could possibly be going on inside your head."
Her expression cleared as quickly as it had clouded over in the first place. She actually looked quite relieved, and I was sure that that relief was twofold. "Oh well," she shrugged slightly. "I guess my brain will never work right. At least I'm pretty."
I growled at her. She still insisted on underestimating herself. "Bella, you have never been merely pretty."
Jasper had relaxed again once Bella had, but he was still anxious for her to hunt and take care of her thirst. In his experience, it was the all-encompassing thirst above all else that pushed newborn vampires past the edge of reason. "All right, all right," I sighed again.
"What?" Bella asked.
"You're making Jasper more edgy by the second. He may relax a little when you've hunted."
She glanced at Jasper and nodded. "Okay. Let's hunt." She stepped out of my grasp but took one of my hands in hers, ready for me to lead her on her first trip into the forest as a vampire.