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Chapter 63

Debates

Edward

I heard Carlisle from a distance and went to the front door.

I quickly told him that David assumed I was just a classmate of the kids, but that he was very observant.

Carlisle nodded and greeted Bella and David.

I had been sitting on the sofa with Bella the whole time David had been working, so we joined back there again. A little closer together than before.

David began to give an account of his wife's health, where he concentrated so much so that we intertwined our hands behind the back of the couch and no longer just talked about trivial matters.

We had turned on some music, but it was playing quietly in the background. If David had wanted to listen to us, he would have been able to follow our conversations without any problem. But he was distracted by Carlisle now.

"And? What all did you hear with him?" Bella asked me cautiously.

"A lot of things ... He loves you in a very emotional way," I stated.

"Just like me him. He helped me a lot back them and I helped him when Daniel was born and he then - later with Daniel - he came to live with us. Jake and Leah were no longer babies by then, they were becoming toddlers. So, Renée was really fond of the little one," she told me, and I couldn't really imagine it.

I had never had anything to do with babies or toddlers. Was there a significant difference?

"Are you jealous?" she then asked with a smirk.

"The thought that you slept with him doesn't exactly make me cheer. But no. I'm not. I hear how much he adores Sonya," I said honestly, gently stroking over her cheek.

"I certainly wouldn't have told you," she admitted, blushing sweetly. "And what can we tell him?" she asked after a moment, while I was absorbed in the enchanting color of her cheeks, which unfortunately was already receding.

"I'm not sure yet," I considered. I had absolutely no clue how he would react and therefore had not made up my mind. David was a sincere person, if you left aside the 'little issue' of his son against Sonya. And he actually didn't keep a single secret from Bella. Therefore, he deserved at least part of the truth. "But I know how we can start and thus take away his natural rejecting attitude ..." I began to explain. With the thought of being able to save his Sonya should she lie dying in childbirth again, he would not close his mind to the supernatural realities from the start.

Bella sat down at the dining table as Carlisle was about to give his medical judgment. He saw no immediate danger to Sonya's life, but this could not be adequately supported without examination.

"And if there's really nothing left, there's still one last option," Bella said afterward.

Carlisle was not surprised; he had listened to us earlier.

He just found it generally questionable that Bella offered this man immortality to his wife. At the same time, however, he was also aware that he did not know David and therefore could not form a judgment about this person. We would not tell him about it without merit.

When David looked at the picture of me and Bella, he immediately knew who I was.

I was not necessarily angry about his reaction. It was only natural and rather instinctive. But the way he rudely yanked my fiancée up from the chair by her arm triggered my protective instinct.

No one was allowed to touch my angel so roughly!

I growled and reached for the arm he was holding Bella with.

He didn't even notice.

When he realized that this shot was almost twenty years old and that I still looked the same, his hand loosened. And I loosened mine.

After Bella explained that we were not human, David stormed outside. Bella immediately wanted to follow, but I pulled her back to me.

"Leave him alone with his thoughts for a moment. He tries to process the information he has in a meaningful way."

I took her tightly in my arms.

Finally, again! For far too long I had not felt them on me.

Her arms wrapped around me and I sucked in her delicate floral scent that slowly enveloped my soul.

Only when David's thoughts calmed down did I let Bella join him.

Carlisle asked who exactly David actually was and what we - or rather Bella - had to do with him.

I explained to him what had happened here in detail in the past twenty-four hours and I had heard everything in his thoughts.

He nodded in amusement, wondering how I had endured that time.

"Very bad. I felt threatened. Especially yesterday, when he showed up, he didn't have a single thought about his own family. Only the joy of being here again," I complained.

Carlisle smirked, mentally quoting an old maxim: 'Jealousy is a grievous passion that jealously seeks what causes grief.'

I rolled my eyes in annoyance.

"What's he thinking?" Carlisle asked me with concern. He was worried about secrecy, but I convinced him that David was quite capable of keeping secrets. He had years of experience with it.

"He's accusing Bella about being back together with me rather than being upset that we're not human," I said, which I took from the conversation between Bella and David.

The music upstairs stopped and I heard two people buoyantly coming down the stairs. I was touched when Becky hugged me gently.

"Thank you very much, Edward," she said honestly, gently stroking over her new necklace.

It looked really enchanting on her.

"Don't thank me. Thank him. He found it for you," I replied, pointing at Jake.

"She already has," Jake smiled slyly and put his arms around Becky.

I knew how Becky had 'thanked' him, but today I had no problem staying in the living room with my gift.

"What's going on with those two?" Jake then asked when he saw Bella and David outside.

"David has just learned that neither you nor we are really human," Carlisle explained to him.

"Woah ..." he only said and tensely looked outside. "And what did he say about you getting married?" he asked after a moment, blithely.

"Excuse me?" asked Carlisle in surprise, and I heard it echoed again in his thoughts.

Carlisle slowly approached me and asked if it was really true.

"Yes. I asked Bella, she said yes, and Jake and Leah picked out the engagement ring," I said, reverently remembering that moment. Not only did Bella's response make me look back on it with surrender, gratitude, and overwhelming joy, but the twins' approval also made this moment special. As beautiful as this ring was on my angel's hand, she will still get my mother's ring.

Carlisle's face beamed with joy as he congratulated me on my engagement.

"But don't tell the others yet. We made a bet among ourselves when Alice would find out on her own," I smirked.

That's what the four of us had agreed to yesterday at the restaurant. Actually, we planned to drive over on Friday after work/school and tell them together. I was already really looking forward to it. Apart from the news itself, I was also amused by the fact that I could catch Alice off guard, since she usually ruined any surprise. But all too soon we were engrossed in amused speculation about how long Alice would be in the dark. So finally, a bet was made in which the losers would have to bring the others coffee in bed and fetch rolls for a week. I was sure that I would win. Alice would never find out on her own. The children somehow protected Bella and me from her gift. Fortunately, we had agreed on a time limit!

"So now I have grandchildren!" noted Carlisle enthusiastically, looking at Jake in a very sentimental way as he put an arm around his shoulders.

Jake, on the other hand, didn't quite know what to say to that or how to react.

Carlisle noticed it.

"And where is my granddaughter?" he asked, still moved.

Carlisle couldn't get the happy smile off his face as he pondered about how I would fit into this family as a stepfather. After all, I wouldn't be dealing with toddlers here.

"Upstairs, doing homework."

I gave Jake a played stern look.

He defended himself that the essay was not due until Monday.

"So that's from Edward!" I heard David say irritably.

I had listened to the entire conversation and David was anything but convinced that my intentions were honorable.

I could not resent him in any way for this absolutely negative attitude towards me. He had - despite the information that I was not human - no reason to believe that my decision had been very difficult for me in the past. That it made me suffer as much as her. That I believed I could do something worse to her than just leave her. He could only see what I had actually done to his friend.

Bella came back in and I took her in my arms.

She was sad that she didn't seem to get her best friend's blessing.

I gave her a loving kiss and then went outside myself.

"Do you also have the slightest idea what you did to her?" he promptly accused me once the door clicked.

"Yes, I do," I said directly, but he doubted it.

He searched for the nastiest words he could find to make me realize the magnitude of my guilt.

"I truly know, but I can't undo it," I began, but my words wouldn't be enough for him.

So, I told about the children's gift of mind reading in certain situations, which I didn't elaborate on, and that one showed you through that how Bella had really suffered at that time. It caused them physical pain to see that, which David thoroughly believed. Then I said that I had this gift omnipresent and had seen exactly the same images because Jake wanted to torture me with them. To prove the actual existence of my gift, which David rigorously doubted, I mentioned a few key points from his thoughts today. Sonya's accident on the evening of their first date, Bella's skyped cooking instructions, and Daniel's boarding school.

"... It made me say farewell to my father since it was Bella's right to have me destroyed. And I would have accepted that sentence," I ended, and David was still thinking things over.

I shook again at the fleeting images in my mind.

"What made Leah and Jake come to terms with you being with Bella?" he asked. If the children had indeed witnessed how badly Bella had been doing at the time, he could not understand this and considered them both too young to truly comprehend it.

"They saw me while I was watching Jake's memories. They took pity on me. I was more dead than alive at that moment. I didn't expect Bella to be so bad. She is a human. She should have forgotten about me quickly. I was very upset by the images ... They are not too young to understand. They met me with mistrust because they knew what I was from the first moment. But they see their mother a little happier every day since I knocked on this door ... Bella means everything to me. Even back then."

"Then how could you have just abandoned her?" he accused me.

"You know I'm not human. I'm pretty strong and I thought I was too dangerous to stay with her," I said.

He just compared both of our physiques and doubted my testimony. He doubted pretty much every word I said.

I went to a flower bed to pick up one of the small stones. I stood still in front of him, he looked at my hand and I squeezed without effort. Sand ran out of my hand after I opened it again.

David swallowed and frightened eyes looked at me.

It seemed I wasn't lying after all.

"In addition, I am basically dead. Once I was a normal person, but as such I would have died of the 'Spanish flu'. Carlisle took care of me and made me what I am today. Since then, I no longer change. I don't grow older, my hair and fingernails don't grow anymore, I never need to shave ... I could have kept Bella with me forever back then, which she also asked me to do several times, but by doing so I would have taken away her opportunity to live a human life. She would have stopped aging at eighteen with her mental and physical development. But the ups and downs of a person's life shape their character and make life worth living. Make it what it should be. In addition, there are things like that the blushing cheeks would have disappeared; no heartbeat, no soul, no warmth ..." I put my hand demonstratively on his arm, "... and no children. Our bodies are not capable of conceiving or bearing children," I said, looking with David at Jake and Leah, who by now were sitting together with Bella and Carlisle.

"She would have been miserable," David muttered to himself after a short time.

"She didn't care back then. Today she knows that I basically did her a favor by doing that. She even thanked me for giving her those children by leaving. Even if we both suffered the most hellish agony under that separation," I continued.

"'Spanish flu' ... Didn't it break out at the beginning of the last century? ... How old are you?" he asked, somewhat perplexed.

"I'm seventeen," I smirked. "But I have been so for over a hundred years."

His mouth dropped open in disbelief, he tipped his glass empty and lit yet another cigarette.

"Since when does Bella smoke?" I now asked somewhat suspiciously.

"She doesn't ... Not really. Just as others have a liqueur after a princely meal that's heavy on your stomach, she smokes one. My fault, unfortunately. She probably just wanted to keep me company before," he said almost apologetically, looking at the box and showing me its contents.

It was not even half empty yet.

"I guess this is the box from her birthday ... last year." He poured himself yet another drink from the bottle, capped it carefully, and set it aside. "Why are you here again? With her? ... I mean, were you looking for her?"

"No, I didn't look for her. I always trusted that she would forget about me and get over me pretty soon. As is to be expected with a human. That she would find a man who would make her happy, have a family, and she would live a long and satisfied life. That's what I had wished for Bella. Just for that I left ... We just happened to move to that exact town and I found out through Leah and Jake's thoughts then that, except for the kids, none of that seemed to apply. Otherwise, I would have stayed away, however hard it would have been for me."

"And if you had known she was alone? Would you have looked for her then?"

"I can't answer that with certainty ... because there's another detail as to why I, of all people, am dangerous to Bella," I continued. He was already amazingly close to our designation in thoughts. So, I confirmed it. "I am a vampire!" I said directly.

He involuntarily took a step back.

I waited a moment for his thoughts to allow for more information.

"Yes, I drink blood. And Bella's blood attracts me more than any other," I added, talking about my family's philosophy that we only hunted animals.

It calmed him down and he wondered how much truth there was in the books and films of this world and that it apparently had nothing to do with reality. We are too cultured for that.

"Not very much. But most of our kind actually hunt people and are even more dangerous than the many movies portray. It's just that in my world, one is careful to be discreet. Also, those who make use of humans. We are rather the exception ... I can control myself with Bella because her life is more important to me than my needs. Because I love her. Carlisle has exceptional self-control and is even a practicing physician. This is not possible for me, nor for others of my kind. Blood defines our existence and we smell it. I had already smelled Bella's blood earlier when I came through the door. And yes, we heard Bella's scream and came into the house just for that ... On her eighteenth birthday, unfortunately, a mishap happened to her. She cut herself on wrapping paper and one of my brothers attacked her. That was the key experience that made me leave her. If it could happen to Jasper, to whom Bella was like a sister, why wouldn't it happen to me sooner or later. I was afraid that I would be to blame for her death myself if I had stayed."

"And today you no longer consider yourself life-threatening?" asked David attentively, not threatening or mistrustful.

"I am and remain fundamentally dangerous. I could control my strength and blood thirst already at back then, but I didn't believe in it lasting forever ... Today, things are a little different. I can't hurt her. I am physically unable to do this, because I can no longer exist without Bella. A realization I have only come to through our long time of separation and our reunion. However, this does not mean that I lose sight of the danger and become inattentive," I explained, and David thought about it.

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"I made a promise to Bella. I will do anything Bella will ask me to do! No matter what it will be and no matter how much I refused it before. Stay with her as long as it is her wish, change her, sex ..."

"Uh ... what?" asked David, confused.

"When I was with her in the past we didn't sleep together," I explained to his skeptical face.

"Why not? Why would you have refused that of all things?" he really didn't understand.

Sex, of course, was not more important than the feelings as such, but if you love each other, desire each other, after all, every way eventually led to bed. Especially since he knew that we had been together for a few months and that at seventeen one was already quite curious and eager to experience it.

I grabbed another of the stones from the flower bed and tossed it at David to remind him of the sand.

"Wanting something and doing something are two different things ... Twenty years ago, I had no sexual experience and thought I would lose control. One thoughtless gesture and I would have killed Bella. This is also a point for which I left Bella back then. She should experience love in its entirety ... If I had stayed, I no longer doubt that I would have given in at some point and she would have gotten her way in this regard."

We smirked together about how stubborn Bella could be.

"And by now you've slept with a woman, so you know what that's like?" continued David.

I nodded and briefly told him about Samantha.

"... Bella's heartbeat determines my entire existence. It is the most important sound of my life. Even if I sometimes mess up her heart."

David couldn't really do anything with the last sentence, which earned me a delighted smile, but he thought over all my previous words. Together with the few gaze and gestures he had seen between us.

"You really love Bella?" he asked quietly after some time.

"Yes. I love Bella. Ever since I met her in high school, my heart has belonged to her ... I haven't suffered any less from our breakup than Bella had. It was different, but no less intense."

"And if something went wrong with Sonya, you could make her a vampire and she would live forever?"

"Yes, we could," I confirmed.

He considered my answer for a moment and imagined it.

"I suppose it's all quite a mystery and accordingly I'll have to keep it to myself!" he stated seriously.

"That's it. In my world, people are not allowed to know about us, and Bella knows very well how important this ignorance is. Still, her first impulse was to tell you the truth because you have no secrets from each other. I respect that desire. She has left it up to me to decide what we will and will not tell you."

"So, in your opinion, I am worthy of keeping such a secret!"

"Well. At first, I was of the opinion that you should not learn anything if possible. Except about me, because I wasn't going to hide when you were here. Enlightening you isn't particularly necessary at first glance, either. After all, you're only here for a few days at a time ... But when you're here, you live in this house. All these secrets are not only about me and my family, but also about Leah and Jake. Besides, I have to admit that you know my three angels better than I do. Sooner or later, you would notice something that none of us could explain to you. If you then noticed it at the wrong moment, when the uninitiated are present or in public, we would have a much bigger problem than if only you were in the know and thus knew in advance why this or that was happening the same way ..."

"Like what for example?" he interrupted me.

He wanted to know which he would have to reckon with at all, not out of mere curiosity.

I smirked.

"Not only are we all strong enough to make sand from stones. Our senses are many times more heightened than that of a human. Together with my gift of hearing everyone's thoughts, I react much faster to something you haven't even noticed yet. In addition, I am generally also supernaturally fast. So, it could easily happen that I want to save one of the three from a fall, catch something before the impact, am at the door before the doorbell has rung, answer without anything being said, show up without you seeing it ... I proposed to Bella yesterday, and she accepted enthusiastically. Therefore, I am at home here and will certainly - the longer it is my home - become more careless."

"How fast?" asked David, temporarily passing over our engagement.

I stood about two meters away from him leaning against the wall and now sat down vampirically fast next to him on the mural.

"This fast!", I said.

Startled, he turned his head in my direction. He swallowed and pulled the next cigarette out of the pack after emptying the glass.

"Ever measured it?" he asked with a smile.

"Just over a hundred miles per hour," I said with a grin. "There is another reason why I am willingly telling you all this," I then said in a more serious tone.

It lay very close to my heart to tell him this, because he was already getting lost in false hope in his mind.

"Immortality is a last resort for Sonya. But I will be honest. This is not an existence that I wish for anyone. I will also change Bella only if she leaves me no other choice ... If our roles were reversed and I had to make this decision for Bella in order not to lose her, I would be changing her against my better judgement. However, it is clear to both Bella and me what I am doing to her with this ... We are hostages to blood and after the transformation it can take months before we can think of anything else but blood. This can also be a problem later on and does not necessarily become easier when our time as a newborn is over. Bella would have to retire from the human world because she will no longer change. She will never be able to see her family and friends again. As she spends her immortality by my side, she will move cities every few years. She'll makes friends, set up a life, but will have to leave everything behind again and again. But Bella wouldn't be alone. She still will have a family even then. My family ... and each of them loves Bella in their own special way ... But what will you do with a vampiric Sonya? In your veins flows the blood that Sonya will want. In yours and in those of your children. No one can predict how she will cope with the thirst for blood. Perhaps her love for you can keep her from sucking you dry. But what about everything else. She will not get any older. How will you explain that to your children? She'll need to stay out of direct sunlight. She could hurt you with a thoughtless gesture ... Please, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to scare you; I'm just trying to make you aware of the facts. Facts that you need to be aware of before you really consider the transformation ... Don't look at this possibility as a chance to keep Sonya alive. Put more faith in Carlisle's abilities as a doctor."

"What about Jake and Leah if Bella becomes a vampire?" he considered.

I hung my head, because I had already thought about it.

"Bella would not have to separate from them because they know the truth. The two are no more human than I am. They have the ability to live forever themselves, but they won't," I said dejectedly. Whether Bella becomes immortal by my side or not, one day Leah and Jake will die, unfortunately there was nothing to change at it.

"Won't?" asked David in astonishment, not understanding why this should be so.

"In our world, there is the bond of a soul mate. It is indestructible and lasts forever. So, Bella is my soul mate, which is why I cannot leave her. However, Jake is also affected by it in his own way. He does not live in a rose-colored world that has nothing to do with reality, as you suspected yesterday ... He imprinted on Becky, which means that Becky is his absolute center of life. He is supernaturally bound to her. But Becky is human. She's going to get older. She's going to die. It's inevitable ... Jake will realize this one day, and then he will submit to the human aging process again."

I had said what I wanted to say and he took my words seriously. Therefore, I now tried to lighten both our thoughts again. I told him how I had gotten to know Bella, how she still resisted my gift, and how I was quite confused and surprised at how Bella kept reacting.

Just completely wrong!

It amused him, but found it typical of Bella!

Then he smiled at me roguishly.

"So, you can read minds ... Do I want to know what you've been thinking about me since I showed up so unexpectedly yesterday?"

"No. You don't!" I smiled back.

"Or what you were thinking this afternoon?" he drilled on, thereby thinking back to those times in college and when he'd been thinking about during dinner and what he hadn't told us about how he and Bella had really gotten to know each other.

"No. You don't!" I said again.

He laughed out loud.

"But if you've been listening to my thoughts, and I doubt even the smallest consideration has escaped you ..." he began and I nodded, "... then you know Bella is my best friend. No more. But also not less. No matter what used to be between us."

"Yes, I know that," I nodded affirmatively.

"Well, then ..." said David, stubbing out his cigarette and holding out his hand to me, "Here's to us becoming friends!"

"Friends!" I repeated as we shook hands.

We went into the house again.

Bella saw us, stood up from the sofa and came towards me with a worried gaze.

Now that David knew the truth, I was able to get back to normal with Bella.

I gently pulled her into my arms and kissed her unceremoniously and lovingly while one of her hands roamed through my hair.

David watched us. Skeptical for a moment and then smiling equanimously after taking note of the gleam in Bella's eyes benevolently. He held out his hand to her, Bella took it, and he immediately pulled her into his arms.

"Promise me something!" he demanded, and Bella looked at him mistrustfully. "I know what makes you tick. One day you'll be a vampire like Edward. Promise me that our friendship won't die together with your humanity. That you will show your face to me now and then, even if I can't tell anyone about it."

Bella nodded silently and the two embraced each other tightly.

"Congratulations on your engagement, Bella, I wish you find all the happiness you seek and deserve. You have already found your love, don't let it escape again!" he said sincerely and they held each other a moment more before he released Bella contentedly into my arms.

I kissed a small tear from the corner of her eye and tenderly stroked her cheek.

She was visibly moved that she had received David's blessing however.

"Do you have any surprises in store? I mean, while we're at it?" David asked smirking after a moment.

He could not imagine that anything would top this news. No matter what was yet to come.

"I haven't told him anything specific about the twins yet," I looked at my angel.

Bella turned a little in his direction and I saw a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"Jake and Leah are actually normal people," she began, and I was already chuckling.

David doubted that she meant it seriously.

Not humans, it echoed warningly in his head.

"Except for the little thing that they can phase into predators," Bella added casually, and David froze.

Everyone else, however, laughed vociferously.

"You're kidding me?" asked David after he found his voice again.

"No, she's not," Jake said, pushing David back out, onto the patio.

The latter had grabbed Bella's hand in fright and pulled her along with him.

"You're coming with me. I'm not playing alone in this!" he demanded roughly.

I heard a trace of fear in his tone of voice.

So now we all stood on the patio and watched Jake undress.

Bella had taught the children many things, but a basic sense of shame was obviously not one of them.

Jake sat back down on the floor. He grinned mischievously at David before he phased.

I stood behind David and held him by the arms as he began to sway.

"Oh, holy ..." he began, completing the sentence only in thoughts, 'shit!'

But he quickly regained his composure. Indecisively, he walked up to Jake, touched his head. Jake held a paw out to him until David finally stood beside him and scratched his fur.

No matter what kind of person was hiding under the wolf, apparently all wolves liked that. This one here, especially from small, gentle, Native American girl hands.

"With that shaggy fur ... do you guys have any problems with rabies or fleas?" asked David teasingly.

Ouch! Jake didn't find that amusing at all and growled at David.

He turned pale and relaxed only when we others laughed.

Becky climbed briskly onto his back.

She had apparently already done that more than once, I thought. It was already after ten o'clock and he would take her home.

Leah went to the garage and undressed as well. They would then run their usual round.

Carlisle also said farewell and the three of them ran together for a bit after David admired Leah.

Bella, David, and I were still talking in the living room.

Bella soon retired to the bedroom, but had taken her laptop with her. I soon followed and wished David a good night, who also headed towards bed.

I smirked as he arrived in the guest room mentally cursing.

There was still no sheets on the bed.

In the bedroom, Bella sat in her armchair. She looked frustrated, with her cute thinking crease between her eyes.

I sat down with her and she snuggled up to me.

Strictly speaking David had stolen a night with her from me. And a shower!

"I need your help!" she whispered after I asked what was bothering her.

I involuntarily looked at the laptop on the floor and let my head hang a little.

I would not be able to make up for the night or the shower.

Thank you for reading!