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 finished this way early, again (yea!) so I thought you might enjoy reading today rather than tomorrow! lots of people have been asking what was going on back home in Highlands, and with Jacob - so . . .

Chapter 112 Frank Discussions

Unbidden, Tanya answered in her most vile, acid tone, translating my words.

"He said, I love you my wife. You are everything to me.

I cannot exist without you. I have only ever been yours,"

just before she ran from the room.

BPOV

I was married to the sweetest, most loving man God ever created. Yes, I said God because this amazing man had the most beautiful soul.

I had managed to remain strong on the surface when the gorgeous strawberry blond vampire put her hand on my husband's neck and stroked him at the museum. I had even maintained my composure when she suggested that he ditch our son with me and go out clubbing with her. I had even managed to show enough confidence to step out of the jacuzzi in our suite naked and leave my husband, dressed only in a towel, to show her out. Well, kind of . . . stepping naked from the tub was forced because I needed to grab a towel for Edward. There was no way I as giving her the satisfaction of seeing him naked if he stepped out to get it himself.

It had been such a tumultuous day, and I had put on a confident front all day, determined not to let anything to do with another woman bother me as far as my husband was concerned. At least I was determined not to let it show. There would forever be nagging insecurities, it was in my nature and I knew that.

Jasper knew how I was feeling, of course. He had pulled me aside before joining the others when they were leaving the museum earlier and again at the club before Edward had gone up to sing and play. I felt the confidence and calm he was washing over me, and I loved him for it. That and the fact that he never gave me away, never mentioned to anyone else that I was anything but confident and secure - well, other than Alice. I assumed he told her everything.

I was secure. More secure than I had ever been, anyway. I had forced myself to keep it together all day the day Edward had left and took Masen with him. I kept telling myself that he would be at the train station like he said. He said he would meet me there that evening . . . and his had done exactly that, walking over to kiss my cheek when he first saw me there regardless of whether we were mad at each other or not.

I held him as he finished singing the last line of the song he had written, his voice husky and perfect as he sang into the mike that he held with his free hand. His other arm was encircling me, holding me to him as I stood there shaking with emotion, tears streaming down my face.

I had heard the words in his song, the ones telling me that he would never leave me, that he just had to walk away sometimes. I understood . . . I even felt the same way sometimes and just because I walked away never ever meant that I was leaving him. We truly would probably just lose our minds and fade away without each other - it had already happened when he left me before . . . and as close as we had become now, we could never ever exist without each other. We were the halves to a whole, neither being complete without the other. That was why I could be confident in the face of an absolutely stunning immortal trying to seduce my husband. It wasn't that I thought I was prettier or better . . . far from it. I was damaged goods, hideously scarred and forever plain - but none of that mattered.

He was mine . . . and I knew it.

Now he had blatantly displayed the love he had for me and his vow to never leave me in public, not just in front of family and friends . . . and the kiss that followed . . . well, it was as though we were alone in our bedroom.

She had come to sit by him in the lounge when we were with my family and then, unasked, she had acidly translated my husband's words of love to me from Italian to English before making her hasty exit. I had dealt with vampires that had it in for me before, wanting to torture and kill me as retribution, but this was different. It wasn't me that she wanted . . . she wanted Edward.

We returned to our seats in the lounge, our arms still around each other and my face stained with tears. Edward took out his handkerchief and wiped my face, kissing me softly, but Alice grabbed my hand and pulled me towards he ladies room.

"That, my sister, was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen my brother do," she said dramatically, as soon as the door closed behind us.

She had me wash my face in the basin while she unloaded the salon she carried in her purse onto the counter.

"He is the sweetest man alive, Alice," I whispered, holding on to the counter and trying not to shed any more tears.

"I have lived with him the last fifty years or so, Bella, and he has never been willing to play in front of anyone other than family, and at home. For him to have initiated that - playing in public - in front of a spotlight and microphone, that was nothing short of amazing," she trilled, "Did you love the song? I have never heard him do a song other than classical. Even the lullaby he wrote for you would classify as classical!"

"It was beautiful, wasn't it Alice," I agreed as Alice applied some sort of goo to my face.

"Girl, you are so lucky," Rosalie announced as she entered the restroom with us, "Emmett would never show his feelings in public like that. I don't think he even has it in him for that matter."

"Rose, didn't you just love it?" I asked, still floored by the open display from my husband.

"Little sister, anything I ever said about you not joining our world, about you making a mistake . . . I was wrong. You belong with him," she said as she hugged me. "As for that bitch of a cousin of ours, wait till I get my hands on her," she steamed.

"Well, at least we had clothes on for the assault this time," I smirked.

"Clothes on? This time? What the hell?" Rosalie barked as she hopped up on the counter and sat down, both hands gripping the edge. She looked from me to Alice and back to me. "Okay, somebody spill," she demanded.

"Tanya went to their suite earlier this evening," Alice told her.

"And we happened to be outside in the jacuzzi. Naked."

"And Edward happened to be submerged, and only paying attention to the task at hand," Alice winked and smiled and I blushed.

"And Tanya happened to offer to join us and teach me how to please my husband."

"SHE DID NOT!" Rosalie almost yelled, astounded.

"She did," Alice nodded.

"So I stepped out and held a towel in front of Edward, so that he could get out."

"And? Go on . . ."

"And nothing. Edward growled so loud telling her to leave that he woke Masen. I went to take care of our son while my husband put out the trash," I snickered.

"Damn. I would have paid money to see that," Rosalie insisted.

"I liked that our little sister stepped out naked to get a towel and hold it for Edward. Could you imagine if Tanya saw the goods and could torment him with mental images of what she could do to the real thing instead of her imagined vision of him? Honestly. She is such a slut," Alice said shaking her hear as she artfully applied my mascara.

"I loved that you had the presence of mind to walk away telling her that you would leave your husband to put out the trash. Perfect, just perfect," Alice smirked.

"My sister actually came to your suite?" Kate asked, stepping into the ladies room with us.

"You heard everything?" Alice asked as I stiffened.

"Yes. I have to admit, I was straining to pick it all up from out there, the lounge is kind of loud. It just kind of peeked my interest when Rose came in. I am just so sorry about my sister's behavior, Bella. I hope you won't judge all of us based on her actions. She has always been kind of obsessive when it came to Edward," Kate offered sincerely, her hand touching my shoulder.

"He was the one she couldn't have," Irina added coming through the door as well, "and she doesn't consider a human to be anything other than a toy, certainly not a mate, regardless of the child you two have together. To her, Edward is still a free man since he isn't mated to an immortal. Tanya has been around almost a millennium, so she sees humans as passing fancies, nothing more."

She moved to stand behind Alice and look over her handiwork.

"I guarantee you, Edward is just as mated as he would be if she were already one of us. I'm not sure they could be any closer!" Alice insisted, somewhat incensed.

"Please, as my sister said, please don't judge us all harshly because of Tanya. Kate and I are both so very happy that Edward has finally found someone. I have never seen him like this, and I'm sure you're the reason," Irina said emphatically.

Alice and Rosalie nodded in response and I thanked them for their well wishes, assuring them that I only blamed Tanya for her actions and not the rest of the family. They looked relieved, genuinely relieved.

"Forgive us, Bella, but we just have to ask," Kate said, glancing at Irina, " It's possible for us to have sex with human men, but they could never hurt us. In fact, it took some time and trials to learn how to not kill them during sex. So I ask you, Edward manages to make love with you and not hurt you? "

"Yes," I answered, wondering if I really wanted to have this conversation, "Well, other than an occasional bruise."

"Makes love? Holy hell . . . they fuck like rabbits almost continually," Rose laughed.

"We do not," I said defensively. I paused, shaking my head before I looked up at her, "Well, not continually!"

Alice and Rosalie were laughing so hard I was afraid the entire lounge would hear them. Irina and Kate stared at each other, their eyebrows raised.

"Yea, we didn't know big brother had it in him," Rose laughed.

"He doesn't. He has it in her, usually at least half the day," Alice joked, gaining the laughter of all five of us at her joke.

"Edward really did get you pregnant? You gave birth to a half vampire child and lived?" Kate asked, her eyes sparkling with what appeared to be genuine amazement.

"That has only happened in rumors, and the tale is that the child rips its way out, so the mother never lives," Irina added.

"Edward reads minds. So does his son. They were able to communicate even before Masen was born and Edward talked him through the birth so that he let nature take its course and didn't bite his mom. Edward delivered their son at home alone, just the two of them, and it all went off splendidly," Alice shared.

"Well, that is just amazing. Is the child . . . ," Irina started to ask a question, but Alice cut her off.

"We don't know everything about how Masen will grow up. He has a heartbeat, that you can plainly hear, but it runs slower than a humans, and he is colder. Half of what runs through his system isn't blood, it's venom," Alice continued to explain, "and though he appears to be almost a toddler, he is only six weeks old."

"Six weeks old? He looks to be a year old at least, and he's so aware!" Irina commented.

"And his diet?" Kate asked.

"Right now he is being breastfed," I explained, staring at their shocked faces, "but he also enjoys bottles of blood and bits of human food."

"The child doesn't have vampire teeth then, I mean sharp like ours," Kate concluded, seemingly relieved.

"No, he does. Edward just tells him to be sure and not bite mommy, and Masen listens. He's really very careful with me, even with his grip. He's already much much stronger than I am," I told them, shaking my head.

Rosalie smiled . . . that look, the one where you just knew she was going to start something.

"Well, it's a good thing the child likes blood and human food so that he gets enough to eat. Edward steals the baby's food on a daily basis!" Rose laughed.

They stood still, not breathing for the longest time before everyone broke out in laughter.

"He does not!" Kate finally got the words out, shocked and laughing at the same time, "A male vampire, sucking milk from a human and not biting them?" Kate acknowledged that it was just amazing and congratulated us on how happy and thrilled we must be to have been able to have a child of our own.

"And you're trying to have another?" they asked, almost together.

"Yes. If it happens on this trip, then we'll have another baby. Otherwise, when we return home Edward is going to change me. We want our forever together," I admitted.

"This trip is only because Bella here wanted to taste human food from all over the world before she only wanted blood. She is kind of a food nut. She actually got all of us to taste different types of meat in a restaurant to see if we could tell what animal it had come from," Alice nodded, a disgusted look crossing her face.

Rose howled with laughter before telling them that I had managed to get Edward to eat balls . . . starting yet another round of laughter.

"Bella, you are going to make a fun addition to this family, I just know it." Kate laughed as Alice packed the salon back into her purse and we headed out to join the guys.

~oooOooo~

Carlisle POV

"We really do enjoy it here, Carmen. Hard to believe we're so far South and still have cloudy weather much of the time, but it's true," Esme explained as they stood, watching the sunset from the back deck of the cabin.

The kids had been gone for several weeks now, and my wife and I had enjoyed the alone time quite a bit - well, sort of alone. Jacob had returned to Highlands a couple of weeks after the council meeting. Apparently he was still determined to live and work here in Highlands, despite the reservations of the tribal council. He had gone ahead and broken ground for his new racing facility, and was even having the home next door to the business renovated.

The home he had purchased was far too large for just him . . . so we wondered what exactly he had planned as he spent his days working and supervising construction and his weekends at Clemson with Bree, or with Bree here . . . at Edward and Bella's.

Bella had asked Jacob to house sit while they were away, and Edward had agreed that it was a good idea to have someone there. None of us had expected, however, that Esme would adopt Jacob the way she had, insisting on preparing his dinner in the evenings and taking it there or having him stop by to eat here on his way home in the evenings. I had even found myself sitting in the living room on the sofa with my wife, enjoying a movie with Jacob as our guest. Who would have ever thought it possible.

I sat at the opposite end of the porch, brought back from my musings by Eleazar asking me yet another question about Edward.

"Carlisle, is Bella not Edward's la tua cantante?"

"She is. Her blood sings for him . . . but he says he got over it, "I told him. watching his eyebrows lift as a surprised expression settled on his features.

I understood that look . . . it must have been similar to the one on my face when Edward first tried to explain it to me.

"Got over it? How is that even possible?" Eleazar asked, stunned almost to the point of being unable to speak.

"Edward ways that being away from her for the better part of a year, and the pain that caused him to not have her in his life, makes him shy away from anything that would cause him to loose her - including drinking her blood," I explained. "Eleazar, he cared for her in the hospital with her blood draining into a bag and wiped her weeping wounds. He even gave her mouth to mouth at the site of her motorcycle crash with her blood covering his lips while putting tourniquets on her to stop the obvious bleeding. I have no idea how he did it . . . but he did."

"Well, that's just unheard of. The boy has control the likes of which I have never seen before, even as old as I am!" he laughed, "Of course, he had to have immense control not to harm her having sex with her, especially enough times to get her pregnant!"

"I think they were going for quantity," I laughed. "They had no idea they could get pregnant . . . I had told Edward that he could not father a child and, since they were both virgins, there was no change of her getting any kind of infection from him or anything else."

He sat, apparently pondering the situation for some had gone over and over the details of the birth, of course, and all I knew of Masen's physiology - what few facts we were sure of and those we suspected. He was as amazed as I was that Edward had actually managed to deliver the child naturally without Bella being harmed.

"The connection between Masen and Edward must be very strong, Carlisle, for any of that to have been possible," Eleazar insisted, "The child's mental power must rival that of Edward's even now, as young as he is. I suspect the vampire qualities that he inherited are at full strength from day one, not growing with him as a human grows into their abilities."

"Well, from what Edward has told me over the phone, Masen continues to learn at an amazing rate," I added. "Of course, Edward works with him for hours and hours each day. He hesitates to keep the child up at night, but insists that Masen seems delighted with any knowledge he shares with him and is full of questions all the time. He and I think that Masen just sleeps to appease us, that he may not actually require sleep . . . or very little of it."

"Have you done any tests on his skin, Carlisle?" he asked.

"No. Neither Edward nor Bella would allow that, even if I wanted to. Edward did have to tear the amniotic sac with his teeth as well as having to bite through the umbilical cord. I have noted that there have been no bruises or scrapes of any kind, like you would expect to see on a small child that crawls the floor. Edward was telling me that Masen quite effortlessly tore the harness that held him in a stroller they bought for him, you know, the shoulder harness things that humans have to keep small ones in place . . . like seat belts for infants? Well, anyway, apparently Masen silently ripped his restraints, got out of his stroller and climbed up a statue at the Louvre!" I laughed.

"Carlisle!" he exclaimed concerned, "Did anyone see him?"

"No, no. Thankfully," I assured him, "Edward and Bella were only noticing each other as they stood in an embrace beside the stroller. Edward grabbed him quickly, before he was noticed. No one had thought to tell him that the straps were there for a reason and that he wasn't allowed to break them or get up without permission."

I smiled at the thought, I could just see the scene in my head as he had described it.

"That was when Edward took explaining each and everything to Masen much more seriously. He describes in intricate detail the habits he expects Masen to portray and the activities that are human and those that are . . . not," I explained.

"What do you mean?" my friend asked.

"Well, drinking blood from a bottle is not a human thing to do, and now Masen knows that and is quite sly about it if his grandmother comes in. His strength, of course, is an issue but Edward addressed that with him the first time he grasped his mother too tight and left a bruise. They are both quite protective of Bella," I revealed.

"And . . ." my friend hesitated, "does Aro know of this?"

"Not directly . . . no. He knows about Edward's burned arm, I called him for council, and that indirectly led us to discuss the fact that Edward had taken a mate. He presumed she would be changed, or was already, and I told him no different. They had planned to change her the beginning of this year anyway, and they were just waiting to wean Masen off of breast milk."

"Yes. Amazing, you told me of the healing that ingesting breast milk caused in Edward . . . and the effect the milk has on him."

I hesitated, not really wanting to know the answer to the next question, but having to ask , "Does Aro still . . . collect gifts?"

"If you mean does he still send people like myself out searching for vampires or humans with gifts, then the answer is no, I don't think he does," Eleazar smiled, "I think that ended when I resigned the position of chief procurer."

We both laughed and puffed on our cigars, pausing for a moment to enjoy the night air. It was an uneasy quiet, though, and my friend finally said what we were both thinking, "That doesn't mean he doesn't still want them, though. And the fact that the child is a hybrid, a Dhampyre . . . well, that might just be too much for him to resist."

"Carlisle, Dhampyres supposedly have all of our abilities, and none of our weaknesses . . . making them something sought after by those who want power. They are supposed to be extremely adept at detecting and killing vampires, and unusually intolerant of them. That being said, did I hear you tell me that the child was protective of his mother?"

"Yes, very," I confirmed.

"And Edward?"

"Masen has just this week, in the last few days shown himself to be very protective of Edward," I laughed," it seems that the rest of your family ran into them in Venice yesterday.

"Oh my!" Carmen said, she and Esme coming over to sit with us, "I hope Tanya behaved herself. you know what a crush she has always had on Edward."

"Yes, well . . . she didn't behave well, apparently . . . but that's beside the point. With regard to Masen's attitude toward his father, it seems that Edward was holding Masen when Tanya put her hand on his shoulder and started massaging his neck . . . in a museum when he was standing with Bella and the others."

"Oh, no! She did it inappropriately, didn't she?" Carmen deduced.

"Yes, but what I was getting at is that apparently Masen, who was in Edward's arms at the time, picked up Tanya's hand and dropped it from his father's neck," I related the story as Edward had related it to me.

Esme smiled, as did I.

"How cute is that that he is so protective of his father!" Carmen giggled.

Eleazar was not so easily deterred, "It could simply have been that he sensed that Tanya's hand there was upsetting his mother . . . or he read something in Tanya's mind that he didn't like. You did say he read minds, correct?"

"Yes. Well, he senses his mothers emotions well, but we are unsure if he can read her mind fully. Bella's mine is closed to Edward completely," I explained.

"Well, let's hope for all of our sakes that the child does care for his father, though he is a vampire. The legends are just that, legends, but you know there is usually some truth to the ones that vampires pass down, one way or another. Since vampires have been caring for him since birth, perhaps the disdain his species is supposed to have for them has been abated. It's not like there are any other known living Dhampyres to compare him to."

"Who has disdain for other species?" Jacob asked as he walked up and entered through the back screened door greeting everyone warmly and even hugging my wife, referring to her as ma.

We had introduced him when our cousins had first arrived and they had met a time or two since, but Eleazar and Carmen were still somewhat wary of him and they found it difficult not to react negatively to his . . . odor.

"We were just discussing Masen," I told him.

"So now he gets to be a separate species, huh. I'm not the only one?" Jacob laughed.

"No Jacob," I retorted, trying to hold back my laughter, "You are not the only one out there with 24 chromosomal pairs!"

"Well, regardless of whether I'm becoming one of a crowd or not, I'm hungry," he fussed.

Esme stood and started toward the kitchen door as he continued, "I thought if you guys were hungry, I could have leftovers. I'm feeling like a run tonight!"

"I think that might be arranged," I said, moving to put my cigar in the ash tray and stand. "Carmen, Eleazar, would you care to hunt?"

~oooOooo~