Five: Parent
After the briefest possible stop at the tanning barrels, Bella and I race back to the river. Without having to discuss it, we run right up to the water's edge and leap across side by side. Bella only errs a little on the launch this time, so she is carried barely a yard farther toward the house. The moment her feet touch down, she freezes, and then her head snaps back and forth between the two loud heartbeats on the adjacent side of the house and the two inside.
"That's Leah and Embry hiding in the trees," I explain, teasing them gently.
Her eyebrows twitch and Jasper senses surprise alongside her strongest feelings—currently anticipation, frustration, and apprehension. As ever, I want to know what she's thinking; right now, though, my own anticipation makes it fairly easy not to ask.
The glass doors on the first floor are all open, so I give Bella a moment to center herself, then lead the way inside. Renesmee emits a little squeal of joy as I walk into view, and then she sees Bella and her whole face lights up.
Bella's guarded expression breaks into a breathtaking smile as she marvels at our two-day-old daughter, who is almost ten pounds heavier and over seven inches taller than when she last saw her. When I usher her onward, she hesitates for a split-second; Jasper feels her impatience, which matches Renesmee's, but she is being careful—alert, as we all are, for the slightest shift in her mood or expression that might signal her amplified newborn emotions are at risk of taking over. I'm not the least bit surprised that there's nothing to see but the powerful love we all feel for Renesmee.
Our daughter, for her part, is gazing equally intently at Bella, thrilled to see her mother awake. It's a little disconcerting just how much our eager little bloodsucker admires the new red eyes, but I tell myself that she only shares one of my reasons for liking the vivid red; she will like Bella's golden eyes, too.
When we are a yard apart, Bella tilts her head to the side and I assume she's realized that the tiny fluttering beat is the sound of Renesmee's unique heart.
Seth (in wolf form for the sake of his pack) gives a soft chuckle that makes Bella's head jerk in his direction. He is a little unnerved by the darting movement, but it's mostly her eyes that make his heart rate increase. She gives him a rueful smile, and he responds with a toothy grin, relaxing once more.
Unlike Jacob, Seth can appreciate Bella's heightened physical attractiveness without also desiring her. He thinks her strong, beautiful soul is now fully on the outside for all to see. The four wolves seeing her through his thoughts also admire her enhanced beauty, though the changes are much subtler than they'd expected; she was almost pale enough to pass for one of us anyway, her luminous skin looked just about as perfect as it does now, and they already knew about the fierceness beneath her quiet exterior. In fact, for Sam in particular, given the drastic physical and emotional changes he and his fellow shapeshifters underwent during their own transformations, it is something of a shock how much the same she is.
Meanwhile, Jacob is struggling to adjust to his undiminished attraction for her. Rey's memories already had him worried about controlling his thoughts around me (despite all his practice at concealing his plans, he has only just begun attempting to curb his feelings around me), and seeing Bella is even more powerful than he'd anticipated. But the lustful thoughts and feelings, though irritating, aren't anything new—and I can't help genuinely enjoying his thought that Rosalie would be consumed with jealousy if she weren't so distracted by Rey. Because Bella is a real-life Snow White—the most beautiful girl in all the land, cursed princesses included.
When Renesmee reaches for her mother, eager to communicate on a deeper level, I pray with every fiber of my being that her gift will not be thwarted as mine is. Bella needs a little encouragement to lean forward, so Rey bursts out, "Mommy!"—giving voice to her impatience as confidently as if it were her millionth word instead of her first, and catching us all by surprise.
Bella gasps and freezes, while everyone else immediately praises Renesmee. I hold out my hands for our precious daughter, and Rosalie actually yields without complaint. Rey giggles and lunges toward me, so I give her a brief cuddle, then lift her up to reach Bella's cheek.
The moment their skin connects, Renesmee replays her precious memory of her mother from immediately after her birth, suffused with all the love she feels for us both and the joy she's feeling at our return.
Bella's eyes go wide and her already-intense emotions swell, reflecting and mimicking Rey's strongest feelings—instantly confirming she isn't impervious to our daughter's special gift.
"Renesmee can project her thoughts through her hands," I confirm (to the consternation of our family, who expected me to forewarn Bella). "She's showing you that she knows who you are."
Bella's eyes widen even further, perhaps taken aback by our infant daughter's flawless understanding not only of my explanation but also of her own skills, and then she beams at her. "I love you so much!"
Rey echoes the sentiment, raising her other hand so she can run both hands across Bella's face. Bella strokes a couple of fingers carefully through Rey's glossy curls, utterly entranced by her thoughts. She doesn't seem to care that our family is clustering even more tightly around them, forgetting, in their protectiveness of Rey, to give our other newborn a little space.
To remind them that this moment is about Bella and Renesmee, I turn my body ever so slightly, forcing the circle to expand, while Rey starts bombarding Bella with highlights from her life so far—meeting everyone in our family, playing Scrabble, examining Jasper's unique scars, watching Jacob and Seth phase from wolf to human and back again, playing with my hair, reading with Rosalie and Esme, dressing up in every sort of clothing imaginable, 'wrestling' with Emmett, learning Spanish with Jasper… and drinking Jacob's blood.
I immediately take a step back, breaking the connection between them. Bella freezes automatically, though she is amazingly calm and actually a little confused, in place of the momentary shock the memory had evoked. Rey doesn't resist either, though she also doesn't understand what's wrong.
"She was remembering… drinking blood," I explain tentatively.
Bella's lack of reaction quashes the nascent idea that she can't see all of Rey's thoughts. Apparently, she doesn't understand why it worried me because the memory hadn't increased her thirst!
"There's obviously nothing wrong," I say, chuckling as I retake my place by my amazing wife.
Jasper exhales sharply, struggling to reconcile Bella's newness with her complete lack of thirst-driven insanity. No longer torn between anxiety at my "overconfidence" and shame when comparing Bella's incredible composure with his own "weakness", he flees outside and across the river before I can stop him.
Alice doesn't need her gift to know what's upset him. She gives Renesmee a reassuring kiss on the head, then dashes off after him.
Bella looks to me, nodding to second Rey's desire to know what's wrong.
"Jasper is a little embarrassed," I explain. "He's worried about self-fulfilling prophecies—making something true because you think it is," I add, for Rey's sake. "If he'd expected more of himself, would he have gained better control of his thirst?"
Bella shakes her head. "He can't compare the two of us—my experience is unique."
"Alice is telling him that," I assure her. "When he comes home, we can, too."
She smiles, but if she intended to answer, she is interrupted by Jacob moving to take the space left by Jasper and Alice, his hand already part-raised toward Rey's nearest hand.
"Jacob?" Bella says slowly, enunciating each syllable with care, which makes her sound angry. I can't help enjoying his sudden anxiety; her face is blank, so he can't tell how she's really feeling.
"Hey, Bella," he replies nervously, wisely hesitating while he is still out of easy reach. "How ya feeling?"
"Good. You?"
"Yeah, I'm good," he replies, immediately relaxing as the anxiety morphs into amusement at the monumental understatement, which he assumes is true for Bella, too.
She is understandably confused by his genuine cheer, or perhaps it is the way his eyes keep reverting to our daughter that doesn't make sense. "Don't take this the wrong way," she says, still speaking more slowly than necessary (I spare a glance—and a grin—for Seth, who also finds it amusing), "but why are you here?"
While Jacob launches into the speech he has been preparing almost since he imprinted—about all of their problems being solved (because, thanks to Rey, he has fully embraced Bella becoming a vampire)—Rey shows Bella what she thinks about it. She actually replays the moment Jacob imprinted, because he has told her that the instant their eyes met, he knew she was the most special person in the whole world. I don't like the attachment she already feels for him in return, but her enjoyment of his blood is so bound up in it that it isn't really any stronger than her feelings for the rest of her family, and certainly not stronger than her love for Bella or Jasper or me.
Bella doesn't move for the entirety of Jacob's speech—a full 43 seconds. Without Jasper, I am as clueless as the others as to her emotional state. And then, after a second that feels like ten years, she laughs.
"Ironic," she quips.
Jacob grins. "Tell me about it. My soul—"
"Stop," she interrupts sharply. "That subject is off limits for the foreseeable future."
While Jacob swears he's on his best behavior (as if that means anything), Rey tries to comfort her mother by offering to share his blood.
"Thank you," Bella replies, at a more naturally human pace, before making a face. "I don't know if I'm tempted or not."
"Let's go with not," Jacob jokes, after Rey shares her idea with him; he knows that Seth has already offered me his blood, but he wouldn't want anyone to make Bella the same offer for at least a decade.
Bella grins without taking her eyes off Renesmee.
"I didn't get that offer," I tease, liking the idea of Rey telling Jacob to share his blood with me, but she immediately thinks of Seth—that I can have his blood—even though she doesn't know of Seth's offer.
Bella laughs. "I'm out of it for three days—"
"Two days," I correct, realizing I've neglected to mention that.
Her eyes widen, and then she looks at Renesmee with new awareness. For a split second, she looks fearful, but Rey is asking her to go on, so she hides her concern; she even manages to recapture the amused tone she'd been using. "Two days, and you're already hooking up with Seth?"
She says that like it's news, Seth jokes, while I remark that Renesmee's similar sense of taste made me curious.
"Because you weren't already," Bella quips.
I give her a grin, and then change the subject. "While we're on the subject of Seth, he'd like to thank you for waking up today and not tomorrow—although he would've liked more than one day off school."
She laughs again at that, and Rey giggles with her; she enjoys Seth's complaints about school as much now as she had before she'd understood them.
"I'm with Sue," Bella tells him unapologetically. "School is important. And isn't it better that it's the weekend now?"
Seth tilts his head expectantly. Only if I can stay?
"Of course you can stay," I tell him, knowing Jacob will expect to stay, too—but that seems inevitable now. "I might even cook you something if Renesmee's interested."
Rey doesn't know why I think my cooking would interest her—as far as she's concerned, food is blood; anything else is a silly concept.
Bella chuckles at her bemusement. "Your daddy is amazing in the kitchen."
While Rey immediately thinks of her mother's and Jacob's blood—because nothing could be better than that—Emmett teases me that my cooking is obviously more pleasurable and memorable than my lovemaking.
Clearly, he taunts, all you did this morning was 'hunt' easy prey and play with each other's hair, making a joke in reference to Bella's new 'do and my somewhat rumpled locks.
It would be easier to ignore him if Rosalie and even Esme weren't thinking along similar lines. Before he comes up with a sexually implicit taunt he thinks he can get away with saying in front of the baby, I tilt my head in his direction. "Feel like showing Emmett he's currently not the strongest Cullen?" I ask my extraordinary wife.
"You wish!" Emmett cries, as eager as always for a physical contest—in stark contrast to the others' guarded responses.
Despite Bella's incredible self-possession, an hour-old newborn having the mental capacity to arm-wrestle still seems ludicrous. Esme in particular worries that it's too soon—that Bella's unfamiliar, violent instincts will turn the contest into a real battle—but she trusts Bella almost as much as she trusts that I'm not being reckless. (Her thoughts make me even more grateful to Alice for her discretion; if Esme knew how careless I'd been on Bella's first hunt, she would intercede this instant!)
Bella doesn't show any sign of having noticed their apprehension; she is grinning with Renesmee at her memories of Emmett and Jasper arm-wrestling while they waited for our return. (Unsurprisingly, Emmett won every time, even when Jasper tried to cheat.)
Emmett waits until the parade of his victories is complete, then waggles an eyebrow at Bella. "Are you ready now, or would you like a minute?"
"Are you ready to lose?" Bella shoots back.
"Lose what?" he taunts. "You're not a real newborn."
A frown flashes across her face, and I wonder if the jibe touched a nerve. Does she doubt her strength because of her incredible self-control?
"He's got no chance," I promise her, and Rey seconds me heartily, picturing Bella effortlessly pinning Emmett's hand to the rock while he struggles and complains just as Jasper had whenever Emmett didn't let go immediately.
Emmett sticks out his tongue at the "little traitor", which makes her giggle and respond in kind; then he gestures for us to follow him outside to the 'arena' he prepared earlier. The large rock is already sporting several gouges from his battles with Jasper, but the surface is still sufficiently smooth.
As Emmett and Bella take their positions, I'm intrigued by the others' thoughts: Esme and Seth excepted, they can't help doubting her chances of winning. For me, the size differential is nothing compared to the steel in Bella's eyes. No trace of the misleading softness of her human body remains; this new body is as strong as her will has always been—which is to say, she is a newborn in strength only.
Emmett can see it, too, and although it takes him a little by surprise, it doesn't affect his confidence. He can't wait to test his might against hers. "Don't hold back, little sister," he teases, deliberately using the diminutive term.
"You might want me to," she retorts, seemingly undaunted.
He laughs and then places his elbow on the rock and waves her forward with an exaggerated curl of the hand. Her eyes follow the line of his thick bicep, betraying her nerves, and Emmett considers reminding her of their deal before deciding not to risk it giving her extra incentive.
She takes a little breath as she sets her elbow against the stone, then another as he wraps his big hand around hers.
"You can still change your mind," he teases as he tries to lock eyes with her; he's never needed the extra psychological advantage in the past, but staring down your opponent is an important element of the contest—and half the fun of it.
But Bella simply gives a little shake of the head without taking her eyes off their hands. "One, two—"
"Three," he grunts, interrupting in the same instant that he shoves against her hand with all his might.
But nothing happens. If the others couldn't see the heavy frown on Emmett's face, they wouldn't realize the match had already begun in earnest. Bella's expression, her pose, even her arm show no sign that she is holding back the force of a runaway freight train. She is utterly incredible.
Emmett pushes harder, calling up every last ounce of power inside himself, but it makes no difference. He can't move her a millimeter. The realization stuns him. He thought he knew what to expect, but Victoria's newborns didn't have a tenth of Bella's discipline.
After a second, Bella suddenly flexes her arm and Emmet loses an inch and three quarters. She laughs delightedly, while he marvels at the raw power in her arm. He finds the rush it inspires distracting, but fights to hold his concentration. He feels like he's seeing Bella for the first time; for so many months, she'd been the fearless girl whose clumsiness was a constant source of entertainment. There is nothing clumsy about her now. Although he'd expected her to take to this life at least as quickly as he had, he'd never thought about the specifics. He'd never believed she would be able to beat him, and he'd never seen her as physically attractive—until now.
His complicated feelings are startling, amusing, and infuriating all at once. I'm a split-second away from issuing a warning growl when Bella flexes again. This time, she gains two and a half inches.
"No jokes," she says firmly, reaffirming their deal without any prompting. "No allusions. No innuendos. No nothing."
And then she smashes his hand deep into the boulder. The deafening crack of the impact echoes off the trees. After she pulls her hand free, Emmett yanks his arm out through the rock, which was already fracturing.
Bella and Renesmee laugh as the rubble crashes to the ground at Bella's feet, and after a moment, I do, too. As unexpected and irritating as Emmett's internal struggle is, it's not as though I don't understand it—and my overriding sense of joy makes it impossible to feel angry for long.
Everyone else is too stunned to laugh. The wolves are shocked by Bella's strength—even Seth is a little taken aback—and the others are astonished by the one-sided nature of the contest.
Bella grins at Rey and me, then experimentally pushes a toe into the nearest shard of rock; her foot sinks through the hard stone like it's jelly. She laughs and then thrusts both hands into what's left of the rock, twisting her arms and making a cacophony of screeches as she drills deeper. The pure delight on her face warms my heart—she deserves to be this happy.
It feels all too familiar when Jacob's thoughts interfere with my enjoyment of this moment, despite the newly settled bent of his mind. He knows that, if he hadn't already imprinted, seeing Bella like this would make him long for her even more—but "having someone better" enables him to enjoy Bella's happiness without any accompanying heartache.
When I flash him a glare, he inexplicably assumes that I'm objecting to Rey being "better" than Bella, not the infuriating implication that our daughter is in any way his. Next time Renesmee goes to sleep, I'm correcting him—and when I do, I don't think I'll be the one throwing him out.
Bella distracts me from the pleasant thought of her hurling Jacob halfway back to La Push when she suddenly pulls her hands up through the shattered surface of the rock. Several pieces fly out in all directions, and she hastily apologizes even as Carlisle catches the only one that might've hit one of us.
Rey giggles and holds out her hand for her "funny" mother. Bella grins at her, then joins us as the tight huddle around Renesmee reforms. She takes Rey's hand and replies to her congratulatory thoughts as though it's the most natural thing in the world, as unassuming as ever after effortlessly defeating one of the strongest vampires in the world.
While watching Rey's response, Bella finally seems to notice that Emmett is still standing by the shattered rock, staring wide-eyed at her. "I didn't mean to hold back," she says, answering Rey's thoughts as much as the others' obvious awe, and sounding more than a little surprised herself, "but that was easy."
When Emmett doesn't counter with some cheeky retort, Bella tenses. I presume she's concerned about hurting his feelings; surely she'd never guess the real reason for his uncharacteristic silence. Before Rosalie guesses it—or I tell her—Emmett pulls himself together and wisely departs.
Bella turns to me. "I didn't mean to be a sore winner…"
"You weren't," I assure her, but my voice comes out a little rougher than I'd intended as her automatic, undeserved assumption of blame stokes my irritation with both Emmett and Jacob.
Rosalie growls, her suspicions confirmed, and races off after her flustered mate.
"What is it?" Bella asks innocently.
The others are just as curious—and just as bemused. For my own and Bella's sakes, I don't especially want to explain (right now, I don't care that the answer would violate Emmett's privacy), so I'm inclined to say I'll tell her later. But my hesitancy is making them jump to all sorts of conclusions, and Jacob and the wolves are well on the way to figuring it out. "Your beating him so effortlessly was unexpectedly thrilling," I murmur, trying to be subtle for Rey's sake. (For the first time, her insatiable curiosity scares me: how long can we protect her from 'adult' matters?)
Bella's eyes widen before immediately narrowing, and she scowls in the direction in which Jasper and Alice had departed earlier. "It's all Alice's fault," she rants, gesturing to her dress.
Her adorable lack of self-awareness chases away the lingering irritation even more effectively than Emmett's stuttering efforts to defend himself to his infuriated mate. "The dress is a factor," I allow, because there's no denying it showcases every inch of her gorgeous body, "but it was irrelevant in this case."
She purses her lips, clearly irritated, but I'm reasonably confident she's not annoyed with me; then her expression turns questioning. "You aren't mad at him?"
"I am," I counter. "But I can forgive him today—until he asks for a rematch." That earns me a smile, but Jacob's thoughts incite me to add, "I don't think I'll ever get used to it, though."
"With Emmett?" she blurts, clearly (and understandably) horrified.
"No, I mean in general—you'll attract at least as much attention as Rosalie."
"Why?" she asks, adorably mystified.
"You are the most enchanting creature anyone will ever see."
She scoffs at that, but seems pleased when Esme nods to second my claim—and then she tucks her head self-consciously when Seth nods, too. But the shyness only wins for a moment. "That can't be true," she jokes. "Renesmee is."
When Rey giggles, this time, everyone joins in.
Esme dares to rest a hand lightly on Bella's arm, seeking a closer connection to her beloved daughter despite her awareness that most newborns would not appreciate the contact. "You are incredible, Bella."
Bella's only reaction is to smile. "I feel incredible," she agrees artlessly. "And yet, I feel more like myself than I'd expected," she adds, in typical, self-effacing style. "Maybe because I was physically and mentally ready at the start of the change."
"How did it feel?" Carlisle asks eagerly, taking the tangential comment as an invitation to ask about her experience; he is impatient to know how the drugs and my novel mode of venom delivery affected her perception of the change.
Bella's eyes dart from him to me to Renesmee, who is listening expectantly for her reply—not because she particularly cares about the conversation, but because she is eager to hear more of her mother's voice. That wordless encouragement seems to convince Bella to answer. "I could feel the drugs in my system," she says carefully, "but I felt the venom, too, spreading much faster."
Even though Rey doesn't understand—because we haven't given her any details about the transformation—she listens without interrupting, cognizant of the more somber mood. Neither Carlisle nor Esme can decide if Bella's experience sounds better or worse than their own, but I suspect that it's much worse. I feel fresh awe for her self-control in restricting her screams to quiet whimpers that no one but me heard.
"Could you still feel the drugs after the venom had spread?" I ask, wondering if there's a connection with the point at which she stopped whimpering.
She nods. "I was trying to concentrate, and then I realized I couldn't feel your touch, even though I could still feel—" she pauses, either searching for a description that won't upset anyone or struggling to explain it in words. Although I'm impatient to know, what she has already said is thought-provoking enough. Had she not felt me changing her clothes? Then she says, "The morphine paralyzed me."
The horror of this news shatters my composure—because of me, her transformation had been infinitely worse! "I'm so sorry!" I burst out, alarming everyone. I grit my teeth to keep any further outburst in check, my guilt at having made every facet of Bella's experience worse vying with guilt for upsetting everyone now, and especially for causing Carlisle fresh pain (in the past, I have lied about the 'discomfort' of that aspect of my transformation in comparison with the others').
"You couldn't move either!" Bella exclaims, sounding oddly delighted; I suppose it pleases her that our experiences were more similar than either of us had expected. For myself, I am ashamed—but relieved and grateful for her… the closest word I can come up with is appreciation, because it eases our family's distress (especially Renesmee's), not to mention my own.
I kiss the top of Rey's head and murmur an apology, which she counters with an especially strong wave of love to comfort me, stroking my cheek with her little fingers. I can't not smile, and she joyfully claims the success.
Bella smiles, too. "You did everything just right," she insists, giving me as much credit as she always has (whether or not I deserve it). "I wasn't afraid. I knew you were there—so I couldn't be on fire. Because if I were, you would have put it out."
I feel a powerful swell of love for the trust she'd placed in me. I want to kiss her, but I hold myself in check, using Rey's thoughts to refocus my own; her attention is currently focused on Bella's reference to being on fire, wondering what it means—outside of illustrations, she has only seen (and, of course, touched) a small candle flame, so she can't conceive of it as a bad thing.
"I'm glad," Bella goes on, "I went through what you all did—I would've felt like a cheat if I'd just gone to sleep human and woken up a vampire."
None of us knows how to respond to that—except Seth, of course, who gives a snorting chuckle. Bella chuckles, too, and then reaches toward my face, perhaps to stroke the frown from my brow.
She pauses when her fingertips are two inches away. "I could hear your voice," she murmurs, her tone thankful. "I couldn't follow what you were saying, but I knew you were happy." She grins at my guilty twitch, and I'm not only grateful she's so willing to forgive me for selfishly taking pleasure from her agonizing transformation, but also comforted and relieved that it had actually helped. "Your humming helped almost as much as Renesmee's giggling," she adds, moving her hand to stroke our daughter's upraised cheek.
Renesmee is thrilled, and when she asks if she heard her xylophone playing, too, I remind myself that extra time with our daughter had been worth taking the risk of intensifying Bella's suffering—and gaining a whole extra day was a decent trade.
"I'm glad you made a xylophone rather than a crossbow," Bella remarks as we head inside to play it, and I'm pleased that she'd heard Emmett's proposal—maybe she'd been able to follow more of our conversations than I'd expected.
Rey agrees; Emmett's crossbow had sounded boring, with its one 'key' compared to her xylophone's 42. After showing off the special two-pronged mallet we made, our little prodigy rattles off her favorite scale (D major) and a couple of her favorite little exercises—the showiest ones, to best showcase her talent. Then she decides she'd like to play the tune I've hummed most frequently—Bella's lullaby. She asks me to help, with the notes and the performance, but she's a quick learner and already displaying her father's talent for music, so she only needs a few instructions to get the hang of recreating the main melody on the xylophone.
Bella listens in awe for over a minute, and then she bursts into a triumphant smile. I think I know what she's thinking—that Rey is exactly as perfect as she'd known she would be. I smile, too, but our focus quickly changes as we gaze into each other's eyes. I am the luckiest creature in existence.
When I stop playing, Rey insists I keep going, and then she starts branching out (thinking I'm getting bored), trying out other melodies. But she isn't really satisfied with any of the new ideas, so she gives me her mallet and snuggles into Bella's arms. Unable to resist showing off, I use the two-headed mallet in addition to my own two mallets to play an embellished version of Saint-Saëns's Volière (the Aviary). It is thrilling to have their attention, but I'm glad I chose such a short piece; after accepting their praise, I switch to a quieter, less distracting melody so that Bella and Rey can concentrate on each other.
Rey wants to know absolutely everything about her mother, and I'm glad I already shared my sanitized version of our past with Bella when Rey starts asking questions. Bella gives such in-depth answers, carefully filtered for a young mind (which she is innately better at than I), that I am every bit as captivated as Rey. Carlisle and Esme feel equally privileged to hear them, too, making it easy for Carlisle not to interrupt when it's time to measure Renesmee again (in any case, a visual estimate is enough to confirm that she's still growing many times faster than a human baby).
Eventually, our half-human daughter wears herself out. The first sign is the fewer questions; then her thoughts begin to blur around the edges. "Sweet dreams, my lovely," I murmur, and she yawns widely then closes her eyes (adorably, she surrenders so quickly because she is sure that the sooner she goes to sleep, the sooner she'll wake up).
Bella smiles down at her, and then her mouth falls open as Rey's dream-thoughts begin. She looks up at me, eyes shining.
"She's dreaming," she breathes, awestruck. "Can we see everything you see?"
I nod, resisting the urge to remind her that I can't be certain of that in her case. "I'm sorry you missed the water rainbows—we'll have to ask her to show you."
"She remembers her dreams?"
"Most of them, some more clearly than others. Some she only remembers a scene or two from, but she has a few repeated dreams that get clearer and clearer, even though she doesn't really remember dreaming of them before, like they're only stored once—the most recent dream overwrites the earlier one."
She grins at the analogy, then gazes down at our precious daughter, who is currently dreaming of a xylophone with multiple rows of keys, so she can play half a dozen notes at once (without ever creating a discordant harmony). "She's even more perfect than I could imagine."
"Even I couldn't imagine her," I remark, "and I was picturing a girl."
"Because you were afraid a boy would be more like you," she teases without looking up. "As if that's a bad thing!"
Esme and Carlisle chuckle, while Jacob suddenly wonders if he would've imprinted on our son. The thought makes him shudder. I can't help thinking he wouldn't have (but I don't wish for a microsecond that we had a son instead). And yet, if the boy had had Bella's eyes… I stop that thought before it goes any further—pondering the myriad potential changes and consequences is a pointless exercise, and one that emphasizes Jacob's future designs on our baby.
"Adorable," Bella murmurs as Rey's dream shifts to focus on a little family of brown-and-white mice who live in her (imaginary) music box, playing 'mice' songs on the tiny mechanism.
"That's one of her recurring dreams—although there are more mice every time."
Rey's multiplying dream-mice make me smile, but the underlying implication seems to set off Bella's newborn urges, for her eyes suddenly flash with heat.
I don't think I need to read her mind to know what's uppermost in her thoughts now, and then she confirms it by offering our slumbering daughter to her grandmother. After carefully passing Rey into Esme's willing arms, she tips her head toward the nearest exit.
We move together, traversing the room and bolting outside in almost perfect synchrony. She laughs as we cross the clearing, but the sound cuts off abruptly the instant she looks up.
I know what she is seeing. The night sky is full of stars; despite the blanket of cloud, she'll still be able to see their twinkling points of light. Even the craters on the cloud-swathed moon, which is still almost full, will be visible to her new eyes.
"I can see everything," she breathes.
I can only marvel as she leaps across the river without once taking her gaze off the sky. Then her eyes lock on mine, and my plan to hunt first is forgotten as our passions overtake us both. She tackles me gracefully, sending us veering off course with only the slightest lurch, and then my back is pressed against a moss-covered tree trunk and my arms are full of my beautiful wife.
I can still hear the others' thoughts, but they've never been easier to ignore.