I'm glad this Chapter's finally out. This chapter brings to an end the first part of this story, after this all the FUN can start. (By fun I mean trouble)
Reviews = Love (And Goodies-See endnote)
I'd love to hear what you're all thinking about what Nessie's doing, and about the gruesome twosome (V&F) and Cora too.


Chapter Seven: Home Truths

Brave was the last thing I felt. I was terrified of what I'd just found out, and what was still to be discovered. I could feel my body shaking under Cora's cool grip, my legs were slacking, and my cheeks felt warm from the tears streaming down them. I hated myself for being the person who had taken away Jacob's freedom. What if I had been his Emily? What if he had a Leah? Somebody he'd loved truthfully and intentionally, someone who had lost him the same way Leah lost Sam, all because of me.

There was a little selfish part of me that was making its voice heard. The part that loved Jacob so unconditionally that it didn't care what bound him to me, as long as he was mine.

{--}

"Are you ready Renesmee?" Victor was so close that I felt his cold breath on my skin. Cora whimpered and gave his chest a shove, removing him from my personal space.

"No Victor, I think we've done enough." Francesca snarled again from her position hidden behind Victor. He straightened himself up, taking a deep, angry breath, his eyes burning into Cora's.

"Cora, we have come so far to visit Renesmee. We have each of us seen the wonderful person she is, how can we just ignore the wrongs that have been done to her by those who call themselves her family?" As Victor spat his words, Cora took her arm from my shoulder, and slid to position herself directly in front of me.

"I won't let you do this Victor." He took another deep breath ready to speak, but I cut in.

"Cora, it's okay. I want to know." She span quickly, placing her hands on my cheek. I could tell that the short time we'd known each other had taken a similar toll on her as it had me. Her eyes were filled with a caring concern, as she stroked my cheeks gently, before nodding and shifting back to her original position at my side. I gathered my strength through a series of shaky breaths. "I need to know. I need to know if there was someone before me, somebody he loved." I had to struggle to get the words out through the building sobs; I couldn't even bring myself to say his name. There was no answer so I raised my eyes to look around me. Cora's head was buried in my shoulder, and my words had caused her to start sobbing quietly. Victor was bent down to my level, one hand resting on my shoulder, a look of sympathy across his face. "There was, wasn't there. There was someone else."

He nodded slowly and I felt as Cora readjusted her arms to support me in place of my now increasingly weak legs. In my mind I ran through every memory I had of Jacob, trying desperately to recall anything that would pinpoint who she was. I ran through every face on the reservation, everyone he knew in Forks, but there was no sign of anything. Whoever she was, Jacob had shown no sign of missing her, left no clue to his previous feelings.

I felt dirty. I had caused this; my existence had caused some woman to be so callously shoved out of the way. I had taken her Jacob, and claimed him as my own.

"Show me." I looked to Francesca, who's wide, crimson eyes seemed to be glowing. She weaved past Victor and came to stand before me, placing her hand on my forehead once again, gently this time. I blocked out Cora's heavy breathing and closed my eyes as my stomach cramped, a sign of the many parts of me that did not want to see this.

{--}

There was no introduction this time; I'd already seen how the shadows built up. The scene appeared immediately. It was a clearing just on the edge of a mass of huge green trees. Just out of the image's peripheral vision I could make out what looked like a tent, shaking in the breeze. From somewhere not visible came a low growl, one I instantly recognized as a warning from a werewolf.

"It's just us, Seth." I felt my body shudder as Jacob's voice filled my mind. From behind the area to which my sight was limited came the sound of a human heart begin to race.

I was confused when my father emerged from the trees where Jacob's voice had come from, and even more confused when my clearly human mother walked towards him from the blind spot behind me. Seth approached him too, he was only a slightly smaller version of the wolf I knew, but I could still notice a difference My father spoke a few brief words to him about timing, Sam, Alice and schedules, all of which made no sense to me. I was too distracted by the boy facing the way he had just come. As my parents talked I kept my eyes on Jacob. I hardly even noticed when Seth and my Father left.

"I'm in a hurry Bella, Why don't you get it over with?" Hearing Jake's voice tugged at my heart, filling me with a wrenching need to be close to him.

"I'm sorry I'm such a rotten person. I'm sorry I've been so selfish. I wish I'd never met you, so I couldn't hurt you the way I have." My mother's voice was different; it lacked the melody I'd always known it to have, and her words sent an uncontrollable growl to rise up in my throat. The thought of anybody hurting Jacob, lit a fire of anger inside me. My concentration had wandered, and when it snapped back Jake was talking again.

"What if I don't want you to go away? What if I'd rather you stayed, selfish or not? Don't I get any say, if you're trying to make things up to me?" I knew my Mom had always been great friends with Jacob; so I was struggling to understand what could have happened that would make her feel the need to get away from him. I watched as the rest of the scene folded out, my attention fixed on Jacob's altering expressions. I knew his face and his emotions so meticulously that I could almost read his thoughts. I could tell he was in pain. But he also appeared anxious; though there was somewhere else he really wanted to be. I could hear sobs being battled with behind my Mother's words, but all I wanted her to do was go and comfort Jacob for me.

"There's a pretty serious fight brewing down there. I don't think it will be that difficult to take myself out of the picture." I felt my body jerk. I didn't understand the situation, but Jake's words combined with his frightening expression brought me to the brink of screaming his name, begging him to stop whatever he was planning to do. My Mother beat me to it though. She was frozen on the spot calling his name, begging him "No!" Her pleas grew louder as Jacob's expression didn't seem to alter.

"Jacob, I'm begging you, Stay with me!"

"And I can be your best man at the wedding?" The way he spat his words made me wonder. Was this what they wanted me to see? Jake's disapproval of my Father? If so then I was sure their effort was wasted, even humans are aware of the not so civil relationships between Vampire and Werewolf.

"I love you, Bella" I felt my breath catch violently in my throat. The words should not have bothered me. I'd heard him say them to so many people. Seth, Billy, Sue, even some of the members of my family; when he was either in a particularly good mood, or a particularly sarcastic one.

It was the way he said it though. Every part of his face and his voice mirrored the way he said it to me, and the way I said it to him. He loved her. She was his Leah.

{--}

The vision came to a dark end. I could feel a tugging under my arms, and realised that my legs had finally given in. I let Cora lift me up and leaned myself onto her, not trusting my feet to keep me horizontal anymore. My vision was blurred from the tears that swamped my eyes.

"Enough, Francesca! No more now, the rest can wait, right Victor?" The rest! What else could there possibly be? Nothing could be worse than this. My voice was little more than a shaky whisper.

"He was in love with her?" Victor bent down again, taking my chin gently between his fingers.

"Yes Renesmee, truly he was. And she was in love with him." I buckled further into Cora, who was snarling at Victor to stop, though he did not show any sign of noticing her. "After what you saw he kissed her for the second time, which was when she first came to realise the extent of her feelings for him" My temples began to throb. He kissed her. I remembered each kiss I'd shared with Jacob, and how I was always the one to initiate it, never him.

"Then what?"

"Renesmee no, don't do this to yourself." I shook my head at Cora, gathering my voice to a more aggressive tone.

"Then what?!"

"She broke him. She told him of her feelings, but that she would not be with him, because she chose your father." After Victor finished whispering, Francesca scoffed and spoke for the first time.

"Even I felt sympathy for the beast when I saw her do it. He'd been brutally injured, in a fight to protect her, and your precious Mommy chooses to visit him on his sick bed and dump him. Yeah, that was cold." I leaned further into Cora's tense body.

"He must have been so hurt."

"Yes Renesmee, he was." Victor was speaking again, and I preferred his gentle tone to the harsher one of his mate. "He left. Phased into his animal form and ran far, far away, desperately trying to forget her. He returned for the wedding of your parents, because he knew it would make her happy, despite the torture it caused him" The hatred I now felt for my Mother was second only to the hatred I held for myself. Cora's cold hands wiped away my tears as Victor continued. "His agony was so intense, that he slipped up at the party afterwards; causing his Pack to drag him away as his body tore itself apart due to his internal anguish. This obviously caused … further friction between the boy and your Father. But on the newlywed's return from their honeymoon, it seemed the two male points of the love-triangle found themselves uniting under one common goal." Though Victor's expression remained blank, there was a slight grin on Francesca's who was hovering at his side.

"What goal?"

"Victor, no please. Think what it will do to her, doesn't she know enough?" Nobody seemed altered by Cora's desperate plea. My eyes remained just as inquiring, and Victor just leaned closer, so that when he spoke, his breath tickled my ears.

"To destroy you."

Francesca slid closer; pure enjoyment in her eyes.

"I can show you if you'd like. I can show you how they plotted to tear you from the womb and do whatever was necessary to halt your existence." At this my crutch fell away. Cora's support disappeared as she leapt past Victor, clawing violently at Francesca. After she landed on her with a violent crash, Victor clamped her in his arms, throwing her back towards me and holding her shoulders down.

"Stop it Cora, she has a right to know!" Francesca's eyes were black, her grin taunting.

"Stop it! Stop it, you evil witch! I won't let you hurt her!" I ducked under Victor's arms, crawling into Cora's lap, placing my palm on her forehead. Calm Cora. I'm okay. Be Calm, I need you. Her eyes switched to mine as she wrapped her arms around my neck, sobbing into my hair and rocking me slowly.

"It's ok, Renesmee. I'll take care of you. I'm so sorry you had to know all of this." I kept my forehead leaning against hers, unable to speak through the sobs that were squeezing at my lungs.

"Is it true?" Her head shook against mine as she nodded,

"Yes, he wouldn't lie. I know it's true, and I'm so sorry." My insides tugged and I doubled over in Cora's lap; forcing my words out through pants.

"What happened, for them to want to kill me?" Cora began rocking me in her arms again, wiping the tear-soaked hair from my face. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her head shaking slowly. "Please Cora, tell me."

"I can't, I can't" Victor obviously didn't share her struggle, he came to kneel beside us, Francesca had vanished from the clearing. His voice was low as he placed one hand on Cora's shoulder, attempting to appease her protective anger.

"The pregnancy almost killed your Mother; I suppose you could say it actually did. As soon as your Father discovered her … condition, he had a discussion with his Father, and the two of them were set to remove you from your Mother before you had a chance to survive." My cries grew louder, and Cora pulled me closer to her. My Grandfather, my beloved Carlisle was in on it too. My head was shaking in disbelief as Victor continued. "They arrived home from their honeymoon, and you were protected by the two who wanted you to live, your Mother and your blonde Aunt." I didn't know why he wasn't using names. He either didn't know them, or was spearing me the pain of hearing them.

"Rose? Rose protected me?" Of course she did. Rose had been so fiercely protective of me since the day I was born, I was glad she was the same way beforehand.

"Yes, her plan was to take you as her own when your Mother died in childbirth." I coughed out another violent shriek. Was anybody in my family who I though they were, or were they all just monsters?

"As the pregnancy drew on your Mother grew more and more ill, as well as more insistent on the constant presence of the boy." It seemed there were there no limits to the torture my Mother felt the need to inflict on Jacob. "Your Father at this time was desperate. He was so worried he'd loose your Mother, he even asked Jacob to offer to Father her children if she would just give you up." An unfamiliar churning tore through my stomach. I'd never been sick before, but I was sure this is how it felt. That was the single most disturbing thing I had ever heard in my life.

Cora was growling again, though this time it was not at her companions. I could tell from the way she was looking down at me as she rocked me slowly in her arms that this new rage was directed at my family, and came from the anger she felt for everything I'd heard about them today.

My eyes were so fixed on Cora's that I jumped a little when Victor started to speak again. "When you were born, Jacob was present." This I remembered. The fact that Jacob Black was one of the first things I saw in this world used to warm me inside, now it triggered a very different feeling. "As your Aunt took you downstairs, setting her plan to keep you in motion, your Mother died. Her heart stopped and any hope of changing her vanished. Though your Father was only occupied by his desperate attempts to save her, the boy's intentions were fixed purely on revenge. Revenge for the death of the woman he loved." My insides clenched again, causing me to roll up tighter in Cora's arms.

I remembered my Father's face when the vision of my lifeless Mother had slipped through a few nights ago. The anger there had terrified me at the time, but now I understood where it had come from.

"You were with your Aunt when he came for you, his intentions set on killing anybody who stood in the way, anybody who would protect you."

"I wish he'd just done it." I truly did, every part of me was in agony, an agony I couldn't see ever going away. I'd brought such misery to everybody, I wasn't worth it. Cora lifted me higher in her arms.

"No Renesmee, you mustn't think like that. You are a wonderful, special girl. A legend, remember?" I did remember her calling me that. But the Cora then and the Cora now were two completely different people. The first one intrigued me; her clandestine presence meant she was an exciting mystery. This Cora, she was my rock, my protector. I could no longer imagine being without her.

"Why didn't he do it, Victor?"

"The imprint. When he saw you, it took over. Removing his free will, like I said."

"A prisoner." I could now only speak as a whisper. Everything was drained from me. I felt unable to think, to move, even to breathe, only able to recall what Victor had said earlier, "He is your prisoner Renesmee." "Not anymore. I can't go back there, not now."

Cora froze beneath me, her eyes fixed on Victor who was nodding slowly.

"Of course, Renesmee. I feel responsible. I am the one who put this on you; I feel I should be the one to care for you as you come to terms with it." I felt Cora's grip on me tighten, and Victor shot her a quick glance, the emotions behind it not clear. "Would you like to come with us, Renesmee? And we can take you far, far away from here." He ran his palm across my forehead; the cold soothed the throbbing pain caused by my tears.

"Yes."


Coming up: Chapter Eight: It will be as if I'd never existed (hmm, ring any bells?)
That chapters almost done, soooo a PREVIEW FOR ALL REVIEWERS!

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