A World Full of Strangers

Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use.

Chapter 8: Revisionist History

I am relieved when we have finally returned to our cottage. Renesmee has fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion and is now huddled in her little white bed clinging an old stuffed wolf pup that has been her comfort object since she was a small child. I turn to Edward who has the same worried expression on his face that I do. Normally at this time of night, there are no thoughts of conversation.

This is the time when we can give ourselves over to the endless rounds of lovemaking that only cease when the morning sun peeks over the horizon. But with my little girl's heart breaking in the next room, it is difficult to allow myself to indulge in pleasure for myself. Edward must feels the same way, because he leads me over to the comfortable sofa where we can curl up in each other's arms.

"I'm glad that Carlisle decided not to tell Jacob the news tonight," says Edward, as he thoughtfully strokes my hair. "I think that she has reached her limit for revelation and confrontation for one evening."

"I never realized that things might come to this," I admit. "In my own limited vision of time, I had no idea that we would be looking at Jacob's imprinting from the perspective of eternity. I had no idea of the limitations that it would place on all of our lives."

"I had the ability to understand the perspective," replies Edward. "But I chose to ignore it. I was so grateful that he and the packs were willing to risk their lives on behalf of our child that I didn't look forward to the longer term ramifications."

"I suppose that we could stay here with her," I offer. "And let the others go to Whitehorse without us."

"We can't go back on our word," he replies. "We agreed that if one goes, all go. If we separate from the family and try to permanently settle here, it would break up the coven. And that would break Esme's heart. I am very doubtful however that Rose would choose to leave Renesmee and Emmet would stay with her. Then the four of us could be miserable here, apart from our family, just to keep Jacob happy."

"And the others would be no happier," I sigh.

"The four of us are bound to Carlisle, even you, if only indirectly through me," he says. "Not only is he our creator, he has given us our entire philosophy of life. The only people who would be happy in this decision would be the Volturi. They would no longer see us as a threat, split apart, as we would be. But worse than that, they might look for another way to acquire you and Alice. Aro might even want Renesmee as a curiosity."

"What have you seen in Renesmee's mind?" I ask, ignoring the dark assessment that I did not wish to acknowledge as even possibly true. "Do you have any sense of how unhappy she would be if we left Jacob behind."

"At the present time, Renesmee's mind is a chaotic whirl of misunderstandings, misgivings, and impulsive thoughts," he replies. "She feels that she is caught in an impossible situation where someone that she loves very much will be hurt. But on another level, her emotions are no more or less chaotic than the average adolescent say of about twelve. I guess that you might say that tonight's conversation emotionally aged her, but only to the age of about twelve or so."

"In what way?" I ask.

"Well, in addition to my own observations of other children, I have been reading up on adolescent psychology," he explains. "She has passed the initial stage of child, where she listens to her parents and thinks that they are automatically right, to adolescence where she is testing boundaries and trying to figure things out for herself.

And no doubt there is a lot of pre-frontal lobe development going on. She's a little weak these days on her so-called executive functioning, at least where her emotions are concerned. But there is more to it than that."

"I'm afraid to ask," I say.

"Which means that you know what I am going to say next," he grimaces. "Until Carlisle started talking about genetics and breeding, she had never thought of herself as any kind of sexual being. He did his best to keep the talk as clinical as possible, but she was absolutely mortified at the implication that she might ever do it with him."

"What about the marriage talk?" I ask. "She had clearly been thinking about that."

"White dresses and orange blossom, and only in the distant future," he replies. "She knows about these things from books. It has never seemed very real to her because she perceives herself as the little girl that she is. All this talk about moving has forced her to look at herself in a new way, and it's scaring the hell out of her."

"So then her feelings for Jacob are purely platonic?" I ask hopefully.

"Yes," he says. "Not only platonic, but familial. She still thinks of him as a big brother. Her perception of him is quite similar to yours. You have always considered him family in that same sense. Only he was too dense to realize it. That same obtuseness also applies to this situation."

"But does she even have a crush on Jacob?" I ask.

"It's more like hero worship," he says. "She is very impressionable and he has told her the story of her birth in such a way that he casts himself as the guardian and protector of her life. She regards him as her savior and to a lesser degree yours. Now I will grant you, that while you were pregnant, until I was actually able to hear Renesmee's thoughts, I would also have destroyed her to save you.

"But Jacob didn't feel that way even after I had lifted her out of you. I loved her from the first tiny echo that said 'I love the sound of your voice,' from the womb. We communicated to the degree that when I first saw her curled up inside of you, I had an extraordinary sense of recognition. But even as I lifted her up to you so that you could see her, he was glaring at her with loathing."

"He felt a very deep sense of betrayal when I began to feel the same love towards our child as you did. In fact, until he imprinted, in his mind, he was still thinking of her as the creature. After she was born, he called her the murderer. His original intent when he went downstairs was actually to kill her. Of course, he regrets those thoughts now.

"And he has no idea that anyone else had heard him utter those wretched words. Neither of you obviously saw or heard the words that sent Rose to my side to take her. Renesmee's bond with Rose is powerful because she knew from the beginning that Rose had taken her to care for so that I could care for you.

"She truly didn't want me to have to make the choice between wife and child. I know this through Renesmee's own memories. She was thinking about it tonight. All the time that Renesmee was crying for you, Rose was comforting her by saying that I would save you and everything was going to be okay. Jacob was only interested in your life. He left the room before the change even began to take place."

"But you never gave up," I say.

"Never," he replies. "Even Carlisle said that he wasn't sure that he would have had the tenacity to save you. It is still a mystery to me how Jacob could have gone from hating our child so completely to obsessing over her safety in the blink of an eye. But after it happened, I was too focused on you to think about it."

"So if there is any hero in the story, then it is Rose," I state.

"Unequivocally," he says. "I'm ashamed to admit that if you had not run to her the minute that you got off the plane from Rio, chances are that I would have insisted on the abortion. Rose was very cagey in not telling any of them what you had told her about my intent and Carlisle's complicity.

"She knew that once she knew, Esme, who tried to take her own life when she lost her child, would wholeheartedly agree with her. Actually, Carlisle had been horrified of the idea of potentially killing his own grandchild. Esme provided him with the excuse that he was looking for not to do it. His continuous warnings to you about the danger that you were in were purely for my benefit. I was so beside myself at the thought of losing you that he didn't want to push me over the edge."

"And Rose was determined to keep both of us alive too," I say. "I think that somehow I always knew that, but I did not realize how strongly she felt about it."

"Neither did I," he admits. "I was so focused on saving you that I didn't even hear what she was thinking most of the time. And she must have been in terrible pain the whole time that she was cleaning up the baby. She hadn't hunted in weeks. But having fought for Renesmee from the beginning, she wasn't going to give up.

"I had a good view of her mind while she was talking about it right now. She loves you for the fact that when you returned home, you were prepared to give your own life for the life of your child. Even though it meant going against my wishes. She completely understands that sacrifice in a way that she never understood your desire to become one of us.

"Having suffered as you did to bring Renesmee into the world, she was determined that you would enjoy the motherhood that you had paid for with your human life. All of her resentment disappeared, the minute that you died and the decision to change was out of your hands. It put you in a position similar to hers when she was changed."

"Did she think at the time that I would 'share,' so to speak, Renesmee with her?" I ask curiously.

"She wasn't sure," he replies. "But her instincts were that you would. You knew her story, and also Esme's. You knew how deeply saddened they were when there was no longer any hope of motherhood for them. You also thought to call her first."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when you realized that you needed someone to protect you and your child, the first person you thought to call was her," he answers. "Even though you knew that her feelings about you were unsure, ambiguous at best you literally trusted her with both your lives. She, in turn, trusted that you would not begrudge her a little piece of vicarious motherhood if there was a happy ending if things turned out well for both of you."

"Of course I wouldn't," I murmur. "It really is a shame that it turned out to be Jacob who begrudged her time with Renesmee."

"It was about as ironic a situation as you can find," he muses. "And to think that she has gone all these years without revealing that she knew all about the 'throw the baby out the window' remark."

"It sounds like it was more than a remark," I observe. "Why didn't you say anything, especially when he was getting so annoying?"

"Once I realized that Renesmee somewhat reciprocated his feelings, I was afraid that it would hurt her too much," he says. "It is even more amazing that Rose has said nothing until now. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it was for Renesmee's sake rather than his."

"So you let that pass," I comment.

"Once I knew that the baby was safe with Rose and Esme," he says. "And Carlisle was taking care of her medical needs, my entire focus was on you. I refused to leave your side. I was hardly aware of the imprinting until you were almost awake.

"Rosalie regularly brought me Renesmee to hold. Now that I know her mind completely, I realize that she was determined that Renesmee feel a connection to us, even though I was, at that point, only interested in you. If she wanted to, Rose could have created a connection that was stronger towards herself, than to us. I never knew how great the gift was that she gave us. I thought that she was standing up to Jacob for her own sake. Now I understand that it was on behalf of us as well."

"I am worried about something however," I say.

"What?"

"If Jacob really decides to push Rose's buttons or even push her too far, it is entirely possible that she will reveal the 'throw the baby out the window' statement to Renesmee," I reply. "It would completely shatter her trust in him. If she is confused now, imagine how awful knowing that would be for her. It would be as if her whole relationship with Jacob up to this point has been a lie."

"And it hasn't," he says. "He truly loves her. But I am starting to wonder about the secret that he is going to tell her on her birthday."

"What secret?" I ask surprised. "She didn't say anything about her birthday."

"She didn't say it," he replies. "But she thought it. All the talk of marriage churned it up in her thoughts for a few seconds. She is afraid that he is planning to ask her to marry him because she will be 'full grown,' so to speak."

"This just keels getting better and better," I groan. "Poor Renesmee! Why is he doing this?"

"I think that he just doesn't know any better," he replies. "No offense, honey, but Jacob was never the sharpest knife in the drawer. It's almost as if he was the one frozen at his first phasing. But that can't be normal since all of his brothers have grown up and matured. And he's stubborn as all get out, even worse than you."

"And that's pretty stubborn," I say. "Do you think that it is about staking a claim?"

"Possibly, but not in the way that you think," he replies. "He is very proud to be Renesmee's 'wolf-boy.' In his mind it would be a declaration of love for her, of he asked her to marry him, even if he had to wait a few years. He doesn't realize that in Charlie's mind such a move would be cause for great alarm. Who marries a seven-year old. And there is no way that Sue could explain it to him without revealing everything."

"But Charlie was extremely disappointed when I chose you over Jacob," I say. "Wouldn't that be a factor?"

"You are Jacob were roughly the same age," he says. "Jacob is old enough to be her father, at least in Charlie's eyes. And that, from Charlie's point of view, is cradle robbing. And that's a euphemism for what he would really think."

"What do you think will happen when we tell Jacob tomorrow?" I ask nervously.

"Honestly, love," he answers. "I have no idea."

And so we settle ourselves on the couch to wait for the dawn of the day that could redefine our beloved child's whole existence. I am glad that Edward cannot see into my mind, because he would see the conflict raging between my love for him and my family and the gratitude to the man who was instrumental in saving us all.

However we do not owe that man the life of our child. Carlisle has made so many excellent points tonight about the sheer necessity of keeping Renesmee with us that I can't help but think that when Jacob learns of them he will agree. But I doubt that any imprinted wolf has ever faced such a dilemma. It is a pity that he must be the first.