Renesmee

Nahuel found me sulking in the lab. He was dressed in a smart vest, a complimentary button-up shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and slim-fitting trousers that could have only come from one of Auntie Alice's makeovers. And now he was taking a slow, human-paced lap around the space, pausing every now and again to inspect a specimen or pick up a beaker.

"So this is your jungle," he observed. There was a mixture of emotions stamped all over his face. His brow was creased with surprise. His wide, eyes were impressed. His pursed lips and taut jaw were perhaps a little intimidated.

"This is my jungle," I confirmed with a nod, the place where I was most at home. Nahuel's body language, on the other hand, made it clear that he never felt further from home.

Giving me an appraising look, Nahuel frowned a little and told me, "You seem sad today. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly," I muttered.

He nodded a bit awkwardly, misunderstanding me. I unfurled my legs from where I was perched cross-legged on the edge of my lab chair and stood up. Crossing the room to stand in front of him, I explained "I said that I didn't want to talk about it, not that I didn't want to tell you." Then I cupped my hand around the warm copper skin of his cheek.

I replayed for him the confrontation I'd had with my dad that morning.

"Hey sweetheart," my dad courteously knocked on my open bedroom door before poking his head in the door. I was still in bed, just waking up from a long night in the lab, running some early trials. "Got a minute for your dear old dad?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure, Daddy," I told him, the words coming out partly as a yawn. I sat up on my newly upgraded bed, in my newly upgraded room which I could not have loved more. I mean, maybe I wouldn't have chosen the print on the comforter, but that mattered little. It was a much-needed olive branch that showed that he really saw me as the adult I was, not the little girl he wanted to hold on to.

He entered my room, sitting down on the edge of the bed while I was sitting up against the headboard.

"So I've noticed that you've been spending a lot of time in the lab the last couple of days," he prefaced. "It makes me happy to see that you're still making time for the things that are important to you even though you're Miss Popular, lately," he teased. "I know that can be tough to balance."

I shrugged a bit uncomfortably, not sure what to say, but very much wanting to avoid the topic of the male attention I'd been getting lately, because, well…it was my Dad.

Reading me like he always did, he threw up his hands. "Don't worry," he chuckled. "I didn't get you up to talk about boys," he laughed sheepishly. "I was wondering what you've been working on so hard over there. It must be really important," he surmised.

I narrowed my eyes. I wasn't trying to be argumentative, but I knew there was a 0% possibility that he didn't already have the information he was asking for.

"Dad, I know you talked to Grandpa. Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you."

He flinched a little, but conceded, "That's fair. But I'd still rather hear it from you," he added in a soft, gentle tone, clearly tip-toeing around the minefield of a conversation.

I softened a little. The very room I was sitting in was proof that he was trying to meet me halfway. I could afford to give him a little grace.

Sighing, I told him, "I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to use gene therapy to silence the expression of the wolf gene."

Dad's face remained carefully neutral. "That sounds…fascinating," he replied, though I don't think 'fascinating' was the word he really meant to use. "What have you found out?"

"Nothing good," I grumbled, my posture slumping a little where I sat. "Shapeshifters have an extra chromosome similar to people with Down Syndrome. Down Syndrome is not a disorder that doctors have been able to successfully treat with gene therapy because while the extra chromosome responsible for it can be targeted and deleted, the process would have to be replicated in every cell of the patient's body. And modern science hasn't found a way to do that. Yet."

Dad nodded his head thoughtfully. "You know, Ness, over the course of time…there have been people…scientists…leaders who have tried to help humanity by removing certain conditions from the gene pool, and it hasn't always gone so well. Iceland, for example, has nearly completely eradicated Down Syndrome because nearly all of the fetuses that test positive for Downs get terminated…

"I guess the point I'm trying to make is…why should any one faction get to decide who gets to exist?"

"I'm not trying to decide 'who gets to exist!'" I argued. "There are a lot of Quileute kids who don't want to join the pack, nor do their parents. Shouldn't they get to make that decision for themselves?"

Dad opened his mouth to argue another point, but I beat him to it. "If there was some way to be human for mom, you would have done it, no matter the cost. That's what you always said. Why shouldn't the Quileutes have the same choice if one actually existed?"

My father's eyes grew wide, his nostrils flared, and his jaw snapped shut as he was forced to eat his own words. He didn't like that one bit, I could tell. But he exhaled and swallowed whatever sharp words he would have spat out if I was anybody other than his daughter.

"It's a good argument, Ness, but if that were possible, your mother and I wouldn't have had you. Our child would have been an ordinary human child. And any road that doesn't lead to you, Renesmee Carlie Cullen, was never meant for me.

"And furthermore," he continued in a firmer voice, "it really doesn't matter whether I agree with what you're doing or not. The fact of the matter remains you can't meddle with things like this, sweetheart."

Scooting closer to me on the bed so he could cup my cheek with his hand, he stroked my cheekbone lightly with the pad of his thumb. "You have some very valid and noble reasons for wanting to do this and that counts for a lot."

Dad dropped his hand from my face, taking my hand instead to deliver the next blow, "But I'm sorry to tell you this, regardless of your good intentions, there is not a single parent on that tribe who would sign their child up to take some experimental drug developed in a home lab belonging to a bunch of vampires. I'm sorry, it's just never going to happen. The enmity runs too deep."

I shook my head adamantly. "You're wrong."

"Then prove me wrong. Talk to your Grandma Sue and see what she says. She knows the women in La Push better than anyone. But don't be surprised when she tells you the same thing."

"And if she says that the tribe would be interested?"

"Then I won't object to further experimentation. But you said it yourself, the science doesn't exist yet for what you're trying to do. Not even for humans. You've only just started your research and you've already run into a major roadblock that most would consider insurmountable. There's no shame in admitting that you can't solve a problem that countless other experts in the field can't solve either. That doesn't make you any less extraordinary."

Then throwing my hands up in a fit of frustration, I growled, "What am I supposed to do, Dad?! I can see how much it hurts him, being a wolf without a pack or his tribe. His dad is not getting any younger; his health is deteriorating…What if something happens to him while Jacob is following us around? He'll resent me forever."

Answering through clenched teeth and clearly losing patience, Dad seethed, "Why do you think we live on this island–within spitting distance of the Olympic Peninsula, Renesmee? For the good schools?! Jacob is welcome to leave any time that he wants."

I growled again, feeling totally unheard. Cupping my hands around my mouth and speaking with deliberate slowness, I sassed with no small amount of condescension, "Earth to DAAAD, I had to run away to the AMAZON just for him to leave my side."

"Watch your tone, young lady," Dad warned icily. "And have you even asked Jacob what he thinks about any of this? Or did you just assume he'd let you take the blood right out of his veins?"

Dad clearly saw the guilt written all over my expression. Standing up from my bed so that he stood over me and with his voice filled with reproach, he thundered, "You have a lot to learn about ethics, little girl, before you have any business baking up vaccines in the basement and shooting up indigenous people with them!"

Feeling humiliated, I lashed out, "I thought you'd be a little more supportive considering the next best option is for me to move in with Grandpa Charlie so that I'd be closer to La Push," I threatened.

Dad's eyes grew huge and he sucked in a breath as if I'd knocked it out of him. "I've seen the way Charlie parents teenage girls. His own daughter ended up married to a vampire, for God's sake. Over my DEAD BODY are you moving to Forks!" And with that, he turned on his heel and fled.

I pulled my hand away from Nahuel's face after I played him the scene.

His eyes suddenly came back into focus and he returned his gaze to my face. I didn't understand the look he was giving me. It was as if I was as foreign to him as everything else in this lab.

"I'm sorry, minha linda, but I don't understand. I don't understand why you and your family care so much for this Jacob. A human. Less than human, even. A dog. So much so that you let it decide where you live? It's madness. Where I come from, when a stray dog won't leave you alone, you shoot it. You don't build him a house in the yard and keep him like a pet. Or I guess you could eat him since you Cullens like animals so much..." he snidely replied.

My eyes widened with rage and my nose wrinkled with disgust. "What is wrong with you? He's a person, not a stray dog! But I guess that doesn't matter to you since you'd rather murder innocent people than survive on animal blood that doesn't taste as good.

"Honestly, Nahuel, you and I may be the same kind, but we couldn't be any more different. I don't know why I ever thought you and I could possibly be something, but I think you should leave," I told him, pointing to the door.

"With pleasure. No woman is worth all this," he spat, gesturing broadly to his surroundings. And for the second time that day, a man stormed away from me in a fit of rage.

Stubbornly needing to have the last word, I yelled after him, "Try not to eat any of my human relatives on your way back to the jungle, you stinkin' cannibal!"

That's when Uncle Emmett ducked his curly head in through the door.

"You okay, Ness? Do I need to go after that guy?"

Tempted as I was to say yes, I answered somewhat petulantly, "No. He isn't worth it," as I crossed my arms tightly against my chest.

"Totally. Getting his face punched in would probably be overkill after the vicious things you said to him," he dryly replied. "'Stinkin' cannibal', Ness? Have your Uncle Jasper and I taught you nothing?" His deadpan expression finally gave way, revealing a teasing smile.

I reached for the nearest projectile, a spiralbound notebook with exactly nothing useful written in it, and chucked it in his direction. Snickering, he karate chopped the notebook, cleaving it into two equal pieces that were spiked into the ground with enough force that the metal spiral binding was pancaked flat.

Without any real venom in my voice, I called after him, "Stinkin' vampire!" Uncle Em boomed with laughter and retreated back up the stairs with the light footedness of a rhino stampede.

Edward

After the unfortunate confrontation with Renesmee, I went to lick my wounds at my parents' place; Bella and Esme were mostly sympathetic.

"Sometimes, with teenagers, you just can't win," Esme imparted kindly giving me a motherly pat on the arm. She would definitely be the authority on teenagers.

"Looks like she's on her way here," Bella announced, spotting our daughter's approaching figure out the window.

I cursed under my breath. Quickly reading Renesmee's mind, I groaned "She's coming back to work in the lab. I need to go cool off before I speak to her again. That cannot happen again," I sliced my hand through the air as if to underline the statement.

"That's probably a good idea," Bella agreed. "Why don't you go for a run? That always makes you feel better."

I nodded and gave Bella a parting peck on the lips, reminding her, "I have my phone. Call me if you need me to come back." I then quickly and quietly ducked out the back door.

I kept to the untouched land that enveloped Henderson Lake where a large grove of alder trees was densely packed together making it undesirable for hiking. It was times like these when I truly hated living on an island. If I were on the mainland, I could run for hundreds of miles without obstruction while the terrain changed beneath my feet.

From the soggy green wilderness of the Olympic Peninsula to the snow-covered peaks of the Northern Cascades to the interior plateau of British Columbia straight up to the tundra of the Northwest Territories if I were so inclined. But here on this Lilliputian island, I had to run in circles like a wretched hamster on a wheel.

When I strayed close enough to Nahmint in the east to regain a cell signal, I made sure that I hadn't missed any calls from home. I hadn't. But while I had my phone out and was out of earshot of Bella and the prying ears of the rest of my family, I scrolled through my contact list until I found my father-in-law's number and pressed the call button.

"Edwin," Charlie's familiar voice greeted me, clearly recognizing my phone number. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

You'd think he would have grown tired of amusing himself by calling me by the wrong name all these years. You'd think wrong.

"Charlie, hi. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you how sorry I am about Renesmee calling you like that the other day. That must have been just awful for you."

"She told you about that, did she?" Charlie muttered. I could hear what sounded like the callouses of his fingers scraping the stubble on his jaw.

"Carlisle did. He overheard the conversation and informed me about it. Anyway, I'm really sorry. It was wrong of her to put you in that position. When she's speaking to me again, I'll be sure to let her know that," I growled irritably.

"Speaking to you again?" my father-in-law repeated, his voice considerably more chipper. "What'd you do this time? Read Nessie's diary?" Then after considering that, he amended, "Huh! Well I guess you don't even need to do that, do you?" he mused as if considering that for the first time. Then he made a shuddering sound. "That must be a blessing and a curse."

"You have no idea," I confirmed in a dour voice.

"Did Bella ever tell you about the time she left out a decoy diary so that I wouldn't find the real one? She had a good ole laugh at my expense when I nearly had a heart attack over the scandalous things she wrote. Damn near sent her to a convent," he grumbled.

"How do you know it was fake? Maybe she just said that to avoid getting in trouble?"

"Well, you tell me. Did she really snort cocaine off your six-pack?"

I barked out in laughter. "Definitely not. As if I'd let her use cocaine," I snorted.

"You know, Edward, for all your many, many faults, you were a good influence on Bella. Not like Jacob who encouraged her to ride motorcycles and jump off cliffs. It's a good thing that girl of yours is sturdy, hangin' around riff-raff like that."

"Believe it or not, Jacob is more protective over Nessie than I ever was with Bella, and that's saying something. It's different for him, because of the bond. And also... I'm really sorry you feel that way."

"Why's that?" Charlie asked, confused.

"Because you might be seeing a lot more of him pretty soon. Renesmee threatened today to move in with you so that Jake could spend more time at La Push. Hope you've got a spare room handy," I laughed without humor.

"With me?" Charlie spluttered. "You know I love Renesmee, but she can't live with me. You better fix this, pal, because we just got rid of Seth. And if I go turnin' Sue's craft room into a hostel for runaway grandkids, the missus is gonna kill me."

"Don't worry. I told her she'd move to Forks 'over my dead body," I told him reassuringly.

"Christ, you did? Now she's definitely moving in," Charlie groaned.

Renesmee

Jacob came running when he heard all the shouting. Apparently, two legs weren't fast enough because he arrived on four. Once he ascertained that I wasn't in some kind of peril, he slipped off somewhere private to phase back into his human form.

Before he did though, my mom found me.

"I guess you heard all that, huh?" I sniffled tearfully. Mama drew me into her arms and gave me a fierce hug.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry it ended that way," she crooned, rocking me slightly from side to side as I blubbered in her arms. Nobody had ever spoken to me with such malice before. I was really shaken by it. And the worst part was that I really liked him and was finding it hard to just turn that off.

Mama pulled away just enough to look at me and wipe my tears away with the pads of her thumbs, she then drew me in for another tight embrace, and when we were cheek to cheek, the words she whispered in my ear were spoken so fast and in such a low voice that I had to strain to hear her.

"But listen to me, my sweet. No matter how sad you might be feeling about it, save those tears for me or Aunt Rose or grandma or your next brilliant piano composition. Take it from someone who knows… you mustn't let Jake see your grief. It wouldn't be fair to him."

I nodded in understanding. Of course, I must not cry for Nahuel in front of Jacob. And the insensitive jerk didn't deserve my tears anyway, I thought angrily.

Wearing nothing but a new pair of black sweats and a snug black cotton undershirt that we kept stocked in the storage shed off the back patio, Jacob found me in the spare bedroom, the one I usually stayed in when I spent the night at my grandparents. The same one that was recently vacated by Nahuel, so it still smelled like him I noted with distaste.

"Oh, hey Bella," Jacob flashed my mother a little wave from where he hovered in the doorway. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked courteously. "'Cuz I could come back," he thumbed the exit way over his shoulder. He knew better than to step on my mother's toes when it came to mother/daughter time.

"I was just leaving, actually," my mother said, withdrawing her arms from around me and taking a step toward the door. "Handle with care, Jake. She's had a rough day."

Jacob nodded gravely and stepped aside so she could pass, murmuring "I always do."

Once she was gone, I welled up with tears all over again and fell into his broad, open arms. "Oh Jacob, I'm so sorry." These tears weren't for Nahuel so I figured they were allowed.

"What's the matter, honey?" Jacob's breath tickled against the top of my scalp.

"I did something awful," I hiccuped, my face and my voice completely ridden with the guilt that racked me ever since my dad berated me for my lack of ethics.

"What did you do?" he asked in a nervous, uncertain voice.

"You might want to sit down," I told him nervously.

"I think I'll stand," he quietly refused, setting his jaw as if preparing for a blow.

Sighing heavily, I couldn't bare to look at him when I told him about the plan I'd hatched to use gene therapy to develop a vaccine that would deactivate the wolf gene.

"You…what?" he gasped, and I shrunk back at the rising anger I heard in his tone. If Jacob stormed off on me today after the blowups I'd already had with my dad and Nahuel, I might never recover.

Rushing to explain myself, I told him that I'd gotten the idea when we were joking about "wolf control" when he took me to see the orcas. I couldn't get the idea out of my head that night, unable to sleep. So I left my parents' house late that night, with my parents' permission after I told them I wanted to go tool around with a few things in the lab.

"I got exactly nowhere with the idea. But my dad was right…I went into it taking for granted that you would just give me a sample of your blood if I asked you for one, and that wasn't right. I should have talked to you. I should have asked instead of just assuming you'd willingly bleed for one of my experiments. That was…monstrous of me and I'm so sorry, Jacob."

"Is–I mean…is that all?" Jacob stuttered in response.

"Isn't that enough?" I asked, taken aback. I had acted abhorrently and he looked somehow relieved.

"It's just…when you said you'd done something awful…" He shook his head as if trying to clear his mind of some visual he didn't want to think about. "I'm a guy, so the worst thing I could think of is if—if you slept with him." He took a deep breath then and ran a hand through his rain-dampened black hair.

"So to hear that you were only trying to develop some cockamamie vaccine that had no chance of working," he chuckled, though there was a nervous ring to it. "Well, you could say I'm relieved."

"Wow, thanks," I told him, feeling a bit stung by his words and lack of confidence in me. He'd always told me I could do anything I put my mind to. Was that a lie?

"Don't look like that. I just meant that if you'd bothered to talk to me about it, I would have told you not to waste your brilliant brain cells," he smiled widely. "My father would stand up out of his wheelchair just to wring my neck if I ever let you or anyone else mess with our tribe's bloodlines. So while you would normally be correct in assuming that I would willingly bleed for one of your experiments, I just wouldn't bleed for this one, so don't beat yourself up," he told me matter of factly.

"Well, I guess that's that," I sighed in defeat. I was feeling pretty stupid for someone that everyone frequently called 'brilliant.'"

"Wait, so what happened with Nahuel? Why were you shouting? Do I need to go rip that guy's throat out?"

"That's sweet, but no. He was just really rude and awful so I told him to leave."

A war of emotions seemed to play out behind Jacob's eyes. He eventually responded by wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest for a giant hug. "Oh Nessie, I wish I could say I'm sorry that he's gone. But I am sorry that he hurt you. Whether or not you choose me, you're way too good for that jerk," he growled.

"Oh, Jacob," my voice trembled and my stomach was in knots. I didn't know what to say. I didn't have answers for him anymore now than I did before Nahuel left. I just wasn't ready to make that kind of decision. "I–"

Placing two fingers over my lips, Jacob quieted me from saying another word.

"Shh. It's okay, Ness. I don't need you to make any declarations right now. You told that other guy to piss off. That's enough. Just know that when you're ready, I'm all in." And then he replaced his fingers on my lips with his own.

A/N Check me out! Two chapters in a week! Thank the gods, my New Moon-like funk seems to be behind me. But just to let you all know, I will be wrapping up this fic in the not-so-distant future because I just got the final batch of notes from my editor and will be putting the finishing touches on my original novel, "But Where Would They Live?"

It will be the first installment of my original series that will be (very) loosely inspired by my "She's My Blackberry Pie" fanfic and its sequel "Blood and Edward." If you haven't read them, I hope you'll check them out! (But beware, there's no Nessie in either of those fics.) I'll of course let you all know when "But Where Would They Live?" gets closer to release.

Thanks for reading and reviewing! And especially those of you who helped me realize that the love triangle isn't necessarily the most interesting aspect of this story. With that said, don't let the door hitcha on the way out, Nahuel, ya stinkin' cannibal.