After Forever (a Twilight Saga fanfiction: 10 years after Breaking Dawn)

21 ∘ Secrets: Part Two (BPOV)

September 20th, 2016

Charlie had been laughing for twenty seconds. Renesmee started to join him, not being able to help herself.

The rest of us were confused. I couldn’t ask Edward, either. He once told me that my dad’s mind was almost as difficult to read as mine was, because Charlie’s where I got it from.

“I’m sorry,” he cackled. “I’m sorry, what? Vampire?” After he calmed down from his hysterics, he sighed.

Edward nodded. “This definitely wasn’t the right way to tell you, but yes. We all are. Well, except for the mongrel.”

“Be nice, Dad. You know you love me.”

“Oh, my god.” Edward put his head in his hands. Jake knew how much Edward hated being called that, which is precisely why he did it.

Charlie looked at me. “Wait. You?” A few seconds passed, then I nodded. “How did that happen? When?”

“Well...” We all looked at Renesmee.

“He knows that part,” Edward informed.

“I know what part?”

“I wasn’t adopted,” Ness said.

“Oh, that. Yeah. I definitely don’t know how, but I always knew she was yours.”

“Grandfatherly intuition?” I chuckled.

“Kind of, I guess. She looks just like both of you.”

Renesmee smiled.

“But I don’t understand,” he continued. “What does that have to do with how you...”

“Changed.” I didn’t know how I was gonna explain this without sounding totally crazy. I mean, it was a crazy story. There was just so much going on in those two weeks. Besides, I barely remember most of it. It was all stored in my human brain. “I did choose it, but the timing wasn’t really my choice. It was a month after the wedding. That next night, I was pregnant with her. It took us two weeks to figure it out, then we were on the next flight back home... with different intentions.” Edward looked down when I said that. I probably shouldn’t have. Not for him, but for Nessie. She didn’t know.

“What do you mean?”

“He was so scared for me. He thought I was gonna die. Everyone did. Other than Rosalie, everyone tried to talk me out of it. It was unheard of. To most of the world’s knowledge, vampires couldn’t have children. She was growing too fast. My bones were breaking, I was malnourished... Until we figured out what I needed, I was dying. I would have, had it not been for Jacob.” All eyes were on him now.

“What did you do?”

He looked at Ness. “Well, I didn’t actually suggest it. But I was thinking about what you might need instead of her.”

“What was it?” Charlie asked.

I hesitated. “Blood. She’s half-vampire. Thinking back, I can’t believe it took so long for someone to say it. And especially coming from the only non-vampire.” I paused to look at him. “It helped. It’s the whole reason I survived.”

“She had a premature delivery because of an accident,” Edward continued.

“Clumsy Bella dropped her cup of blood,” Jake scoffed.

“Clumsy? I broke my spine, jackass. You were there. You heard it.”

“Well, okay, technically... she broke your spine.” He looked pointedly to Renesmee.