A/N: The next couple of chapters will include a lot of talk about parts of the original series. I always loved in New Moon when Bella and Jacob finally were both able to talk openly about all their secrets. And I always wondered what the conversations would look like of telling Renesmee about their history as well as Jacob hearing details he never knew before. So here's my take. Hope you like it!
Edward's POV
"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Renesmee pleaded, trying to keep her frustration under control. Bella turned to face her, taking both her hands.
"Renesmee, I am so sorry. I need you to know that we never wanted to hide anything from you. There were times in mine and your dad's lives that are harder to talk about. Do you remember when we told you about the time he…left?"
I grimaced as Bella's voice tripped over that word, forever the dumbest decision of my too long life. I walked over to crouch on the floor between the two of them, placing a comforting hand on Bella's thigh. Renesmee looked between us both and nodded, sad we were having to bring up this part of our story.
"And I told you about a friend who was there to help me?" Renesmee nodded again, starting to understand where this was going.
Oh, great. I can imagine the stories they told about me over the years. Jacob was working to keep his frustration under control as well.
"It wasn't like that Jacob," I corrected him. "Bella would never be that cruel."
"Then, why didn't she know about me? She didn't even recognize my name except as Billy's son." Bella and I shared a look, both grimacing and sharing similar feelings about the topic.
"I mean, Jacob, it was awkward! We rarely ever talk about those months that Edward left anyway, it was some of the hardest times of our lives. And you didn't want to be in my life anymore, I was trying to protect both of our privacy." Bella tried to explain.
"I guess that's…fair." Jacob wanted to be annoyed, but let out a breath.
"So Jacob, does that mean you're a werewolf too? Like Seth?" I was surprised to hear Renesmee was already expecting this answer. I moved over to sit next to Bella against the armrest to allow Renesmee to look at Jacob as they talked.
"Yes," Jacob admitted, nervously looking at his clasped hands. "Does that freak you out?"
"No," Renesmee answered without missing a beat. "I honestly assumed you were. Between how massive you are, you're from La Push, friends with Seth, your skin is as warm as his, it makes sense." She shrugged.
Now that was a Bella response if I've ever seen one. Jacob laughed. I had to agree, although I was less than thrilled to see, once again, the fearlessness my daughter had inherited from her mother.
"You also have that slight extra outdoorsy scent like Seth does, must be a werewolf thing." Now Bella and I had to laugh. Their scent clearly wasn't repulsive to Renesmee like it was to us but it was funny to see that even she could tell a difference. Jacob was a good sport, rolling his eyes.
Then Renesmee stayed silent, trying to reconcile the stories she had heard from us with her time spent with Jacob so far and the conversation she had with Bella's friends at the restaurant.
"Okay, wait, so did you two, like, date?" Renesmee asked, her face twisted in horror, looking between her mother and Jacob.
"No." They both reassured her. The last time I'd been within distance of Jacob's thoughts, he longed for that to be true. To hear him refuse it happily now was such a strange relief.
"Not like that. Jake was my best friend. A lot of people assumed we were dating, we spent a lot of time together, and held hands sometimes." Bella continued, embarrassed to be discussing this in front of her husband, daughter, and the man in question all at the same time.
"We've known each other since we were young, from Billy and Charlie. I came to see him a few months after your father left, I had some motorcycles I wanted him to help me fix." Bella continued.
"Motorcycles, mom?! You barely like to drive fast as a vampire. You were riding motorcycles as a human?" Renesmee struggled not to laugh.
Do I have to tell them why? Or will I sound too crazy? Bella silently asked me. I nodded to her. Full transparency tonight, that was the rule.
"Well yes, there are things I've never told you about those months when your father was away. They're not my favorite memories, as I'm sure you can understand. You see," Bella paused, meeting my eyes to gather her courage.
"During the last conversation I had with your dad before he left, he asked me to make him a promise and gave me one in return. He asked me to promise that I wouldn't do anything reckless, that I would stay safe. He promised that my life would go back to being as if he never existed. I agreed, although his promise was absurd; my life could never be as if he never existed.
"A few months into our time apart, I thought back on this and was enraged—how stupid for me to keep my side of the promise when his part was already broken? It had been almost 5 months since he left and I was struggling. One night I was out with a friend, Jessica, in Port Angeles. We happened to walk past a group of rowdy men outside a bar. You know the story of when your dad saved me from those men when we first met—I could've sworn this was the same group. I couldn't help it, I stepped towards them, curious. Almost immediately, I heard your dad's voice in my mind, crystal clear; he was angry and begging me to go back to Jessica.
"That night I decided, I wanted to break promises. I wanted to be reckless. I found these motorcycles that a neighbor was giving away. They were trashed but I knew Jacob was good with cars and hoped he could help. You're right in thinking that was out of the norm for me, I'd never ridden one before that. Your grandpa actually hates motorcycles from the years of accidents he has witnessed, so he always implored me to never touch one. But like I said, I wanted to break promises.
"Bella, really? That's what that was about?" Jacob was stunned. He was hurt to hear about her ulterior motive and wanted to laugh at his former self for not realizing how little of a chance he had with her.
"At first, yes, that's why I showed up." Bella braced herself as she continued, embarrassed to admit her line of thinking. "And I actually didn't know that those reckless situations would bring about hearing Edward's voice again. I felt delusional, but I didn't care. I did genuinely love hanging out with you while you fixed them. And learning to ride them. Once I learned what I was doing, his voice stopped showing up. I couldn't have gotten through that time without you." Bella turned back to Renesmee. "After we finished the motorcycles, we continued to hang out together. One night, somehow a group movie plan ended with just me, Jacob, and Mike Newton watching an action flick, Jacob started to feel sick." Bella motioned for Jacob to take over.
"That was the first night I phased into a wolf. It was the scariest thing I've ever experienced. Sam explained what was going on and that helped. At first, the truth of it all was hard to deal with—finding out all the legends were true, realizing there were actual vampires and that Bella had known the truth, and being told it was dangerous for me to see Bella until I could control my phasing. I had to be a real jerk to try to keep her away." He looked apologetically at Bella. "I wasn't allowed to tell her the truth. But, thankfully, I'd already told her the legends before I knew they were true. I snuck out to see her and was able to help her to figure out the truth. Once she knew, we were able to hangout again."
"Things were better then," Bella explained. "We were able to finally talk about this massive secret world I'd been hiding for so long. This is also when we figured out Victoria was trying to come after me. I spent a lot of time in La Push so the wolves could keep me safe. Things were better but…still hard." She reached over and squeezed my hand.
"Is that why you jumped off the cliff? To hear Edward's voice?" A lightbulb was going off for Jacob as he pieced the story together.
"Yes," Bella mumbled.
"You jumped off a cliff?!" Renesmee was taken aback, she couldn't picture her mother doing any of this.
"She doesn't know about that?" Jacob asked us. "Help me fill in the pieces here guys, I'm not trying to freak her out even more."
"I'm sorry Renesmee, we aren't trying to frighten you. I think you can imagine why we didn't share all these details when you were younger. I decided to go cliff jumping one day when I was in La Push alone, Jacob was out on patrol. Truly all I wanted was to hear Edward's voice, I missed him so much. The day I jumped, a storm was starting off the coast, so the water was an absolute mess. Jacob had come back to the beach looking for me and saw me jump, he swam to pull me out to safety."
I jumped in trying to ease some of the confusion in Renesmee's thoughts.
"Something we may have never told you before is that, just like Aunt Alice couldn't see your future, she can't see the wolves either. We didn't know this at the time. When I left, I asked her not to watch Bella's life, to leave her future alone. But an event as drastic as this cut through to her; she saw a vision of Bella jumping but was never able to see Jacob save her. From what she saw, she assumed Bella was dead. She rushed to Forks to comfort Charlie—she's always loved your grandpa. But Bella was here and she was fine. Unfortunately, Alice had told some of the family what had happened before she left. Alice didn't call me; she knew me well and could guess what my reaction would be. Aunt Rose had a different perspective and called me herself to pass along the news. All this time away from Bella, I had run away from the rest of our family too, it was too hard to be around anyone. Rose thought that by telling me this, I would come home and life could go back to normal. She couldn't have been more wrong. When I thought Bella had died, I wanted to die too. That's when I went to see the Volturi."
"And that's when mom saved you! And when you had to make the deal for her to become a vampire to be allowed to live. And why she had to go visit them after she was changed." Renesmee began to calm down as she understood the full story. Jacob shivered involuntarily at the reminder of that painful day. "Okay, back to Mom and Jacob, Mom just left to save Dad in Italy, I'm assuming you weren't happy about that?" She asked Jacob.
"No I wasn't. Not at all. I was convinced she would die or become a vampire that very week. But they all came back to Forks and jumped right back into their normal life. I couldn't believe she let him back in that way; I even ratted her out to Charlie about our motorcycles to try to get her grounded from Edward." Another apologetic look to Bella.
"So was that when your friendship ended?" Renesmee asked.
"No," Bella explained. "It was more difficult, with your dad back, but I wanted to stay friends. It took some time to come to an understanding," she looked over at me, grimacing as she remembered our arguments. "But I tried to spend time with Jacob like we used to, riding bikes or going to the beach."
I stared evenly at them both, knowing Renesmee's next question, determined to keep this conversation honest as much as it killed me to relive.
"Did you ever," she swallowed, "kiss?"
