AN ~ Wow it's been a while! (Again!) How are we all? Yes, I'm procrastinating, but really, who invented 11-week terms anyway?
btw can I just give a BIG thankyou to all my awesome reviewers, subscribers, favouriters and readers for sticking with me through this grand epic and all my rather lengthy gaps! I hope you enjoy this chapter :) & good news: I'm on holidays in a few weeks so I shouldn't be TOO long with the next one *touch wood*
Chapter Sixty Five: Growth
Carlisle:
After a short chase which for the rest of us swung between worrying and amusing, Bella lunged for Jacob with a fury built on years of frustrated feelings, her desire to protect her family from the wolf, and her unstable newborn state, set off by the rapid sequence of events of the last few minutes. At the last moment, Seth knocked his Alpha to the ground, taking the worst of Bella's attack on one sandy shoulder. The crack was spectacular, and for a moment it had all of us – even Rosalie, though she denied it immediately after – above the ground with panic.
I sprinted across the yard to where Seth lay, in his human form, groaning and trying to curl up around the pain. Beside him, Jacob was clambering to his feet, glancing rapidly between Bella and Seth, unable to fathom what had happened in the last instant and why he was not currently feeling the full force of Bella's rage flooding through him.
"Holy crap!" he exclaimed in summary, his eyes pulled back to Bella as she was tackled to the ground in an instant by Jasper and Alice; Emmett standing watchfully a few yards back. "Holy sh-"
I cleared my throat loudly, cutting him off.
"Help me carry him inside," I requested. Mind still boggled, Jacob obeyed.
.o.o.o.
I left Jacob to take his friend to the lounge, and fetched a brace from my office; by the time I returned, Seth was conscious and grinning: a reassuring sign. He batted away Edward's profuse apologies with admirable spirit, and shifted in his seat with barely a wince so that I could start applying the brace to his arm.
After taking a moment to pull herself together, Bella crept into the room like the dog who had bitten the baby – I smiled at my own irony.
"Seth, I-" she began.
"Don't worry about it, Bella, I'm totally fine," Seth assured her.
"Bella, love, no one is judging you. You're doing so well," Edward said at the same time. Bella grimaced. A moment later, when Seth winced again, she exclaimed yet more apologies.
"Don't freak, Bella," Seth said calmly. "I'll be back to normal in half an hour. Anyone would have done the same, what with Jake and Ness-" Seth cut himself off from that controversial path and quickly changed topic. "I mean, at least you didn't bite me or anything. That would've sucked."
Not the best choice of alternative.
Bella buried her face in her hands and shuddered at the thought.
"I'm a bad person," she moaned.
"Of course you aren't," Edward assured her. "I should have-"
"Stop that," Bella sighed, cutting Edward off. I remembered what I was supposed to be doing, and went back to my work when Seth decided to break the awkward silence.
"Lucky thing Ness- Renesmee's not venomous," he said. "'Cause she bites Jake all the time."
"She does?" Bella gasped, her hands dropping away from her face.
"Sure; whenever he and Rose don't get dinner in her mouth fast enough – Rose thinks it's pretty hilarious."
The telephone was ringing – again. I tried to ignore it, but it was difficult. I felt bad for keeping this from Charlie. It was different for Esme and Edward – they had no one left – and different again for Rosalie and Emmett, who had been taken far from their families to be changed, and then again for Alice and Jasper: we were the only family they knew. Bella's situation was hauntingly similar to my own in that our family – or rather, our fathers and closest friends – were close enough to touch…but also close enough to kill. I remembered standing at the edge of the graveyard, watching my father's funeral, and shivered. I brought myself back to the present, but not before I could imagine Bella standing in my place, watching the Blacks and the Clearwaters bury her father.
And worse, staging a funeral for Bella.
Edward gave me a little kick from the lounge, and I apologised silently. I gave Seth's arm a quick re-examination, which heartened me, and at last stood back.
"Well, Seth, I think that's as much as I can do," I concluded. "Try not to move for…oh, a few hours, I guess. I wish treating humans were this instantaneously gratifying. Stay still."
"Stay still," I insisted, before disappearing upstairs: it was almost time to measure Ness- Renesmee. I should get out of the nickname habit: she was Bella's daughter after all, and we really had no right to decide our own name for the child. If Bella minded enough to attack her best friend over it – granted, she was fairly angry already – it wasn't worth pushing the idea.
.o.o.o.
As I headed downstairs again, I noted the unusually copious amount of equipment in my arms and wondered where Esme had disappeared to: it was unlike her to miss a measuring session. Recalling, however, that Alice had made some last-minute design instructions to Bella's gift, and that today was the grand reveal, I found my answer. Nevertheless, there was quite the crowd in attendance when I returned to the lounge: Rosalie and Jacob were in the doorway with Renesmee, Jasper at Bella's side, and even Leah sitting by the window with an expression preempting boredom on her face.
"Must be six," Edward murmured, for Bella's benefit though he flashed a lop-sided grin at me: I had maintained to-the-second precision in my measurements, determined that they be absolutely correct.
"So?" Bella wondered, staring at her daughter. She didn't approach.
"Time to measure Ness- Renesmee," I explained, gesturing to my armful of equipment.
"Oh. You do this every day?"
"Four times a day," I corrected, motioning the others into the lounge. Nessie- Renesmee, sighed. I think she even rolled her eyes at me. I smiled back at her.
"Four times? Every day? Why?"
I left Edward to explain and started measuring, my smile becoming more grim as he detailed the more serious aspects of Renesmee's growth: not least, the fact that should it continue – even as the rate appeared to be very slowly decreasing – she would be dead before Charlie. Bella would lose her daughter within thirty years – not to mention Renesmee would never get to see her own children grow up, if she had any, and would never get to live in one place for more than a few months, if that. I thought of Esme: frozen forever at twenty-six. She had tried to kill herself – and indeed would have died - at that age because she had nothing left to live for. Nessie would appear an old woman by that age: she may not have any other option.
"What do we do?" Bella whispered, horrified.
"I don't know," Edward replied, his voice strained.
"It's slowing," Jacob insisted, with the same attitude – optimism? Stubbornness? - he had maintained since our initial revelation.
"We'll need several more days of measurements to track the trend, Jacob," Edward pointed out. "I can't make any promises."
"Yesterday she grew two inches. Today it's less."
"By a thirty-second of an inch, if my measurements are perfect," I put in reluctantly, lowering the tape.
"Be perfect, Doc," Jacob almost threatened.
"You know I'll do my best," I assured him. He sighed.
"Guess that's all I can ask."
So much hope was resting on the slowing of Renesmee's growth. One thirty-second of an inch was too slow. But what could I do about it? Where did that leave us? How could we stand to just wait?
Suddenly, Jasper's teeth snapped together. Instantly the room was on alert.
"What did I do?" Bella asked, staring flatly at Edward from the confines of Jasper's restrictive embrace.
"She was remembering being thirsty," Edward muttered. "She was remembering the taste of human blood."
Jasper's arms tightened around Bella's.
"Yes," Bella noted. "And?"
Edward's face lightened, and his frown disappeared. He laughed once.
"And nothing at all, it seems. The overreaction is mine this time. Jazz, let her go," he instructed. Jasper let his arms drop, and Bella instantly reached out for her daughter. Edward handed Nessie over without hesitation, and Jasper grimaced. For an instant, like a clap of thunder, the mood of the room darkened.
"I can't understand." Jasper shook his head. "I can't bear this." He turned and disappeared out the back door, leaping effortlessly over the river and running, alone with his tumultuous thoughts, into the trees.
"He'll be back," Edward assured us. "He just needs a moment a moment alone to readjust his perspective on life."
"Is he mad at me?" Bella asked quietly.
"No. Why would he be?"
"What's the matter with him, then?"
"He's upset with himself, not you, Bella. He's worrying about…self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose you could say."
"How so?" I inquired.
"He's wondering if the newborn madness is really as difficult as we've always thought, or if, with the right focus and attitude, anyone could do as well as Bella. Even now, perhaps he only has such difficulty because he believes it's natural and unavoidable. Maybe if he expected more of himself, he would rise to those expectations. You're making him question a lot of deep-rooted assumptions, Bella."
"But that's unfair. Everyone is different; everyone has their own challenges." I sighed, wishing Jasper were here to hear me: he trusted me, looked up to me. Maybe he would feel better about himself if I could speak to him. My mind began to generate theories, and so I continued: "Perhaps what Bella is doing goes beyond the natural. Maybe this is her gift, so to speak."
"That's an interesting theory, and quite plausible," Edward murmured. "Have you ever seen an equivalent to self-control as a talent? Do you really think that's a gift, or just a product of all her preparation?" He tilted his head slightly to the side, examining my thoughts as I pondered his questions. For the benefit of everyone else in the room, I shrugged. The speculations rolled as, safe in the knowledge that Bella's attention was sufficiently occupied, Edward, Rosalie and I awaited Esme and Alice's return to celebrate Bella's birthday – hopefully having already dealt with the day's catastrophes.