Disclaimer: All the Twilight stuff belongs to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just playing in her sandbox.
Author's Note: I want to thank everyone that has reviewed and given me their opinion and thoughts on this story. I have something to ask of you. I want each of you to tell me the answer to a question, short, long, the more detail the better, but I need to know.
What should happen with Sam?
Do they kill him, does Edward? Does Jacob punish him? Is he sorry or is he hell bent on destroying the Cullen's. How does Emily react when she sees him? Do they just leave and go back to the res? Here's your chance. Someone gets to write this chapter, at least the idea for it. I have a few, but I just can't decide . . .
P.S. The story is not over, not by a long shot. Bella is still mortal, Tanya and Aro have not come to visit, and the twins that Alice saw in her vision . . . well, never ever bet against Alice! I have house guests coming this week, so I doubt thee will be another update till next Tuesday, but at least I'm giving you this chapter a day early!
Chapter 79 Masen Charles Carlisle Cullen
Rosalie POV
Edward spoke with Masen as though he was almost an adult, like he understood what was being said to him. "Masen Charles Carlisle Cullen, I'd like you to meet your grandfather, Carlisle," he told him. It was the first time I had heard his full name.
Carlisle carefully slipped his hands under Masen and lifted the baby away from Bella. He was the first one to hold him, other than his Mom or Dad, and I was green with jealously. Rationally I knew that he needed to make sure the baby was fine medically, but emotionally I just wanted to feel that baby in my arms. I had always longed for a baby and Bella had been wonderful at making me feel a part of the whole experience since the moment in Rio that I found out she was pregnant.
Everyone nodded and commented at how much they liked the babies name. Charlie looked like he was tearing up knowing that his daughter had named her son in part after him. In what seemed like a rare display of affection, he leaned in and kissed her cheek. It was fitting that he had both his grandfather's names along with Edward's.
I thought Bella was going to come off that bed when Carlisle suggested taking Masen to his room to clean him up. You could see the fear cross her face at the idea of being away from him, but she contained it. Edward's expression was just as distraught, but he followed her lead and said nothing, allowing Carlisle, Esme and I to leave the room with Masen in Carlisle's arms.
Masen had yet to cry, and he seemed quite content for his Grandfather to be holding him. Carlisle took him to the changing area that was set up in his bathroom. He laid him on the blankets there and unwrapped the blanket he was swaddled in, exposing him to our view. It seemed as though the baby was studying us just as intently as we were studying him.
He was tiny, just under seven pounds, and perfect to look at in every way. Perfect.
"Is he alright, Carlisle?" Esme asked, standing beside him and observing him poking and prodding here and there. She looked at the small nub that was left of the umbilical cord at his navel. "How will that fall off on him, Carlisle, if his skin is like ours? Didn't Edward have to bite through it?"
"Yes, he did. I have no idea how it will work. There are a great many things that we will just have to wait and see about on this young man, aren't there Masen?" Carlisle said, directing his question towards the baby. Masen stared intently at Carlisle, appearing to examine him as well.
"He appears to be absolutely fine, Petal He has a heartbeat as you can hear, and blood runs through his veins, though it seems to be a mixture of blood and venom. His heart rate is slower than normal, as though he really doesn't need the blood as much as a normal human would, and his skin is almost as hard as ours. His body temperature seems to be cooling off and I think it will be something less than a normal humans. I can't tell his eye color yet, they appear to be black right now . . . fascinating," he mumbled, "I think his eyes will change colors like ours do, reflecting hunger and emotion."
"His little fingers are long and slender, like Edward's," Carlisle said, "and his hair . . ."
"He has that same copper top of hair as Edward has, only a touch darker and curly!" I exclaimed as Esme rinsed the shampoo off his head.
Masen smiled, showing off his teeth to us for the first time as the warm water washed over him.
"He is just gorgeous," I said, unable to contain myself any longer.
"Ten fingers and ten toes have never looked so very perfect to me before," Carlisle mused as he held him up so that Esme could dry him. She took him in a towel, wrapping it around him and handing him to me. To me. I got to hold him. I touched the back of his knuckles that were grasping the edge of the towel. His skin was hard, yet so smooth . . . just like ours. He turned his hand over and his tiny fingers wrapped around my finger, and it was love at first sight. Aunt Rose would officially do anything for this little one . . . anything.
"Well, now that you've determined what we already knew . . . that he is perfect in every way, you can go and take care of my son. Edward's shoulder needs tending, Carlisle. I took bandages out in the kitchen, hoping he would let me take care of it but it would be better for you to have a look at it. It's bad. I know that the damage from teeth will heal, but the burns . . . I'm worried about the part of his arm that was burned. I don't know how he's using it, how he managed to deliver the baby with it like that. I couldn't see just how bad when I wrapped it at the fire, but I've had glimpses of it now and it's going to need some care to ever heal properly," Esme told him worriedly.
"Alright, Petal. I can see that I'm not wanted here, anyway," he teased. "You ladies need to play with the baby. Don't be too long, though. Bella was hesitant to let me take him at all and Edward only allowed it because she said nothing," Carlisle cautioned, leaving to go tend to Edward.
Alice met us in Masen's room as we came out of the ensuite. She was bubbling and bouncing up and down in typical Alice form having laid out the softest one piece sleeper in a powder blue. I looked at her in surprise, "Alice? No designer outfit, no little shirts and jackets with shoes and socks?"
"Please. Rose, don't be ridiculous. Of course he's not wearing a jacket and shoes, he's just born and he hasn't ever worn clothes before. I want him in something so soft and comfortable that he will like wearing them," Alice insisted, " . . .and it is a Louis Vuitton." We both laughed, it was just so Alice!
~oooOooo~
EPOV
"You sure you're okay, Bells?" Charlie asked as he gingerly sat on the bed beside her with Jake, Sue, Emily, Emmett and Jasper looking on.
"Fine, Dad. I'm fine now," she said squeezing my hand and pausing a moment to stare at me. I saw the slight wince that cross her face and excused myself to get her an ice pack, returning before they had realized I was gone, really.
Charlie looked at me, stunned to see the icepack in my hand so quickly, but Bella took it all in stride like she always did. I raised the covers on the side of the bed where I had been sitting opposite where everyone was standing and slipped the ice pack between her legs, pressing it against the stitches I had given her and feeling to see if the towel was soaked through yet. She was fine for now, and I tucked her covers around her, noticing the surprised look on Charlie's face out of the corner of my eye. I guess he was just not prepared to see me touching her so intimately, even though it had all been hidden by the covers.
"Don't worry Dad," Bella told Charlie, "Edward is just being my doctor right now, that's all. He knew that I was starting to get uncomfortable and needed ice for my stitches." Jacob chuckled as Charlie looked from Bella to me and back to Bella.
"Well, this Dr. Cullen is about to insist that my son let me tend to his arm," Carlisle declared as he walked into the room. "Once I examined Masen and found him to be absolutely perfect," he said, his eyes twinkling as he stared purposefully at Bella, "the ladies threw me out. They're finishing up his bath and dressing him."
"Dad, I don't want to leave Bella right now," I almost whined.
"Son, when do you ever want to leave her?" he smirked, but continued to insist, "You need to let me tend to you, you're hurt."
"Carlisle, can you do it in here with him sitting with me?" Bella asked, squeezing my hand.
My Dad's eyes softened, "Of course. I'll be right back."
He returned with supplies both from the bathroom and the kitchen and placed them on the night side table, noticing the large stainless steel syringe that laid there still.
"My venom," I said, by way of answering his unspoken question. He looked at me, wanting to know for sure that he had heard me right.
"The syringe is full of my venom, Carlisle. If something had gone wrong, if there had been a problem and she was not going to make it, I was prepared to change her," I told him.
Jacob's eyes went wide.
"Change her?" Charlie questioned, his mind showing that he had no clue what I was talking about.
"Yes, Charlie. If Bella was not going to survive the birth, I was prepared to change her into a vampire to keep from loosing her. Vampire venom can heal almost anything."
Charlie was stunned. He did not say or think a single thing, he just stared first at me, then at Bella and back to me. Jacob's mind was not so quiet. He had known, deep down somewhere, he had known I would save her that way if I needed to, but having it confirmed was hard for him.
"Well, if you don't mind, it will come in quite handy right now, son," Carlisle exclaimed. I moved to sit on the other side of the bed where he was now standing. He removed the bandages that Esme and Alice had put on my arm, revealing burnt pieces and oozing whitish areas. The normal skin covering was completely gone in places and the large tears that the wolf's teeth had left were starting to heal, but they still looked somewhat nasty and menacing as they showed where he had clamped down across my shoulder and onto my chest.
Sue turned her head and Charlie grimaced a little as the whole thing was laid open to view. Emily quickly ran out of the room, not wanting to be seen dealing with the emotion she felt for what Sam had done.
"That's fucking gnarly, bro. I bet that hurts like a mother!" Emmett exclaimed when he saw it.
Alice and Jasper had arrived moments before, Alice going immediately to supervise Masen's outfit while Jasper came to check on me. He had silently entered the room and stood, agreeing with Emmett. There was another emotion showing on his face . . . anger. Rage was more descriptive of what he was feeling. He had every intention of ending Sam before the day was over for doing this to me.
Bella reached to hold my other hand while Carlisle debrided the burns, placing the discarded pieces in the tray I had used for the surgical utensils and cleaning the arm and bite area. He used the syringe to coat the arm with venom, washing it over all the burned areas as well as the bites. It helped the bite marks immediately, the burns would take a bit longer to right themselves.
It had been the longest three days of my existence, and neither of us had come through it unscathed . . . but we had come through it.
Carlisle finished washing the last of the venom over the teeth marks and bandaged the area probably more to keep Bella from wincing at it than to actually help it heal. She was obviously having a very difficult time seeing me injured, and I understood. It killed me to see anything wrong with her. She ran her thumb over the back of my hand and continued to squeeze it the entire time Carlisle was tending to me.
"I think that's about it, son. I need to coat it in venom again in the morning, but I think it will heal relatively well, though you'll always have some scarring," Carlisle told me.
"Thank you, Dad," I said moving to stand. I know that Bella wanted to see each and every one of the people in the room, and they wanted to see her, to know that she was really safe and alright . . . but I needed to tend to my wife.
"Could you all excuse us for just a minute, please," I asked.
"I'll go and get you some food, Bella," Sue said, "Esme was making dinner for you, she thought you'd be hungry after all this excitement."
"Thank you, Sue. I am pretty hungry," Bella admitted.
I walked around to the side of the bed nearest where Bella was sitting, my brothers having said their goodbyes and told Bella they'd be back in just a little while. They had a hard time dealing with the thick smell of blood in the room and had needed to leave anyway. Charlie continued to sit stubbornly beside his daughter.
"Charlie, I need to change the padding under her and check on her stitches. You probably don't want to stay, but . . ."
Charlie cut me off, "Yes, well, shouldn't Esme or some one do that, Edward?"
"Dad! Edward just delivered our son. He stitched me up himself, and I can promise you he's seen more of me than . . ."
"Alright, shhhhhh! I get the picture," Charlie said, rising quickly to his feet and averting his eyes, "I'll be downstairs. Call me when you, er well, when you finish . . . okay?"
"You'll be the first one I call, Charlie," I said, amused at both of them.
I sat on the edge of the bed and kissed my wife. Really kissed her. It had been so long since we had shared a quiet moment without an impending crisis and she was here, really here and safe.
"I love you, sweetheart," I said against her lips as I held her, kissing down her jaw to her neck, inhaling the warm scent of her.
"I love you, Edward. I was so scared I would never see you again, that Masen might not make it, Edward. I have never been so afraid in my life," she said, clinging to me and tears streaming down her face, "I just love you so much more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone . . ."
"Well, you are here, and you're fine, love," I told her, kissing her again, "better than fine."
"I need to use the restroom," she told me shyly, and I threw back the covers and helped her to put her legs off the edge of the bed and slide down so that she was standing, holding on to me. I walked her slowly into the bathroom, and left her sitting on the toilet while I took care of the bed. I needed to get her some pads. Carlisle nor I had thought of it because we had never even considered a vaginal birth. She needed them now, though, as she was bleeding through the towels I had her sitting on and blood was never a good thing around vampires. I replaced them quickly and freshened up her pillows before I helped her back to the bed.
"Sweetheart, I need to press on your belly, well on your uterus for a minute. I'm sorry, it won't be comfortable, but it's important," I told her as I felt her abdomen. She winced and grabbed at the sheets, and it killed me to know that I was hurting her, but it was necessary to help the bleeding to stop.
"Edward, will I be able to nurse Masen, breast feed him I mean?" she asked as I covered her.
"Do you want to, love?" I asked.
"I would like to try, I mean . . . well . . . if he's part vampire, will it have a huge effect on him like it does you?" Her eyes were wide with the weight of the question she was asking.
"Well, I hardly think it will have the same effect on him that it does on me," I smirked, watching that gorgeous blush cover her face and drift down towards her chest. I tried to hide it, but I'm sure the furrowed brow gave me away.
"Edward?"
"Bella, I think Masen is venomous. I tasted it in his blood when I bit the umbilical cord. It's probably too dangerous for you to try and nurse him. He's amazingly intelligent, but he is just a baby. Any quick movement, a flinch, anything at all really and his teeth could cut you so quickly. I think, Bella, given your . . . cravings, that he might be . . . thirsty."
I was afraid of the reaction my wife would have, hearing that her newborn infant might want to drink blood, and I felt completely guilty that I might have passed that trait on to him. She didn't bat an eye, surprising me as she did at every turn.
"Alright," she said, not batting an eye, "I'll make him bottles of each, milk and blood and see which one or both he needs. Maybe when it's quiet and you're with me we can try letting him nurse from me. I just want to try."
"That's what we'll do then, love," I said, relief washing over me. She accepted the vampire portion of me completely, and she obviously felt the same way about our child. "Let me go get you another ice pack. Sue is heading up here with food, and Alice, Rose and Esme will be returning our son to us shortly," I told her.
I went to the kitchen, finding Carlisle there putting away some of the first aid supplies and assessing what he needed for my arm, as well as for Bella. He had realized, as I had, that we had none of the necessary feminine products that Bella would need.
"I'm going to go to the hospital and the pharmacy, Edward. Bella might need something for pain, and she needs some feminine items as well. I won't be gone long, besides, the folks at the hospital will think I'm checking up on how well my interns are handling the emergency and that's a good thing," Carlisle smiled.
"Thanks, Dad. Thanks for everything," I said, staring into the face of the man I admired most.
"Edward, I'm just so sorry you couldn't reach me when they took her. If I had . . ."
"Dad. Victoria would probably have killed her on the spot if we had confronted her. Everything is alright. I know you're there for me . . . for us, Dad. I love you," I said as I hugged him. I waited till I caught his eyes with mine before I spoke the next words to him. "I want you to know . . . I'm glad you changed me. Carlisle, if you hadn't changed me when you did all those years ago, I would have never met her. I would never have lived long enough for her to be born, and we were meant to be together. Thank you for that." For the first time in my life, I truly believe that if Carlisle could, he would have been shedding tears.
As he started to leave for the hospital, he considered taking some of the blood we had stored in the refrigerator back to the hospital. I interrupted his thoughts, "Carlisle. I'm not sure, but I think Masen may be . . . thirsty. Perhaps you should leave some of the blood, just till we see what he will want . . . or need."
I ran back upstairs with the ice pack, getting Bella situated just as Rosalie walked in carrying our son.
Our son. I was a father. I was a hundred and ten, and completely sure that I was entirely too young to be a father. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Sure, I knew the medical side, what the text books said would happen with Bella's body and her emotions. I knew the physical needs of a child, well . . . a human child. I had no idea about Masen and I was tremendously grateful that he was able to communicate with me because, to some extent, he could tell me what he needed. All I could do was love him and my wife more than anything else in the world, and try. I would try and meet their needs, try to be there for them . . . try to be the best husband and father that I was capable of being.
Masen looked entirely different now as Rose placed him into Bella's arms. He had my thick head of untameable hair, just slightly darker and slightly curly. His skin was porcelain, just like mine though it had a somewhat different sheen to it and it seemed softer . . . of course that could just be because he was a baby. His skin was flawless and his eyelashes long and dark stretching out from his bright eyes. I had hoped he would have the beautiful heart shaped face that Bella had, but I stared into the eyes of a creature that looked, for all intents and purposes, just like me. It was as though I had cloned myself and added a tinge of Bella to the mix.
I wanted to see brown eyes looking at me, but they were black. He was hungry. I placed my pinkie in his mouth and he immediately started sucking on it without trying to bite. I pressed the tip of my finger against his teeth, however, and they cut my finger. Human teeth didn't have a prayer of doing that.
"He's hungry, Edward. I need to feed him," Bella said, looking at me for an answer.
"Sweetheart, his teeth are vampire," I said showing her what they did to the end of my finger, "and though we can tell him not to bite, and he can try not to bite, he has venom . . . just like I do."
"Then it's decided. I'll make him bottles like we discussed, sweetheart. I bought a breast pump as well, just in case. It's in his closet."
"I'll get it for you," Rose said. It was as good a reason as any to leave the room. None of my family, other than myself and Carlisle would be able to stay near Bella for long until the bleeding subsided.
Esme brought soup up to Bella and insisted she eat it, "I'll hold Masen for a bit, you eat. You need the liquids to replace the blood loss as well as to make milk for the baby, Bella." My Mother gathered the baby in her arms. Masen was only an hour or two old, so he wasn't in need of feeding right away and was perfectly content to stare at his grandmother and be played with by his aunts and uncles, not to mention both grandfathers. She headed out of our room and downstairs with him and I could hear them all downstairs making silly noises at him and commenting on just how beautiful he really was and how thankful they were that everything had turned out well.
Rosalie returned with the breast pump and I watched, fascinated as Bella seemed to know exactly what to do with it and in minutes had a small amount of liquid emptying into the attached bottle.
Carlisle returned from the hospital and brought the supplies to our room, leaving them in the bathroom. He came out and sat at the foot of the bed, neither of us embarrassed to be witnessing Bella expressing milk. Of course, she was pretty well covered now that Dad was here anyway. He held out a small plastic object that looked like a small funnel announcing that it was a nipple shield. Apparently human women sometimes used them when their babies had the habit of biting.
"It won't stop vampire teeth by a long shot, but it might help him to remember not to bite. I thought you might be interested in trying these," he said, leaving a box of them on the night stand. "Have you discussed how you plan to feed the baby?"
"I wanted to nurse him, Carlisle, but Edward said his teeth were like his Dad's and that it was too dangerous, so I was making him a bottle. And we weren't sure whether or not he might be . . . you know. Whether he might want to follow your diet."
"So you're not sure whether or not the baby will drink blood. Is that it?" Carlisle asked.
"Yes. I made him a bottle of what you had in the refrigerator, but Bella wanted to make him a bottle of breast milk. What should we do?" I asked as Bella finished pumping and put a nipple on the ounce that she had gotten out for him.
"Try the mother's milk first," Carlisle encouraged Bella, pointing to the bottle she had just expressed for him.
Neither of us had any idea if this would work, but it made sense that the milk his Mom had for him wouldn't hurt him at the very least . . . and maybe it would be just what he needed, despite the vampire in him.
"Esme, we need Masen," I said as though she were in the room with us, and she appeared at the door with the baby.
Bella took him, cradling him in her arms and talking to him. She looked up timidly at me as she gave him the nipple. He sucked greedily, making his Mom, Dad and grandfather smile as they watched him. We had Masen safely out with us, and maybe, just maybe we could do this . . .