"Look, I solved a problem. You were leaving. What did you expect me to do?" Jacob defends our actions to Bella and Edward.
Bella's crimson eyes flicker from anger to fear and back, "You don't realize the danger you've put him in. The Volturi will kill anyone who knows about us."
"No, I didn't tell him about you. Just us. I only said you were different," Jake repeats, attempting to provide her comfort in the fact that he blatantly disregarded their feelings and wishes.
"And you let him?," Bella snarled at me, realizing the pronoun Jacob used.
I raise my hands in surrender, "He just had me expose myself to Charlie, something I was perfectly okay with keeping from him. I told him what he needed to hear and he chose to believe it. I even said Ness is your niece who you adopted."
"I mean, seriously, Jake, he's not just gonna let that go," Bella growled at Jake, knowing I would do anything to protect her and Charlie.
"Did you consider the physical pain he'll put Bella through? It'll be like sticking a white hot branding iron down her throat. And that's assuming she can control her thirst," Edward provides, scaring me for the encounter to come.
"Look, Charlie's been in hell. And I know you'll be much happier with him in your life," Jacob prompts, again justifying his passion driven impulses.
Edward looks at me, reading my minute facial expressions and seeing the anguish for having to tell my Uncle of my state of being, "Jacob, don't try and pretend you're doing this for anyone but yourself."
"Sorry you feel that way because he'll be here in 10 minutes," Jacob reveals, shocking the pair of vampires.
"What?" They gasp together before speeding into their home, leaving me behind with Jake.
When Jacob and I find the Cullen coven, we see the Cullens help Bella get prepared to meet Charlie. Alice places dark brown contact lenses on Bella's dark red eyes, "These will irritate your eyes at first."
Carlisle nodded, watching Bella shudder due to the lenses' presence on her eyes, "The main thing is not to move too fast."
"Try taking a seat. Crossing your legs," Esme suggests. Bella gets up to take a seat across the room, but she moves way too fast and slams herself into the seat. The only part of that action even remotely resembling her former self being the chair moving as she tried to take a seat. Esme chuckles, seeing the amusing dancing in my eyes, "Maybe a tad slower. Hmm."
"And blink at least three times a minute," Alice provides, cueing Bella to start blinking rapidly. Alice shares a concerned look with Edward, "Good."
"For a cartoon character," Jake and I snicker together, watching this unfold from the couch.
Carlisle smiles at us then back to the Newborn, trying to coach her through the pain to come, "Hold your breath. It will help with the thirst. Just don't forget to move your shoulders so it looks like you're breathing." Bella starts moving her shoulders up and down, mechanically and forced.
"And don't sit so straight. Humans don't do that," Rosalie advises Bella, suddenly making me very cognizant of my own posture. Jake rolled his eyes at my fixing myself, mentally reminding me of the time I balanced a Harry Potter book on my head while doing household chores.
Bella rolls down her shoulders to slouch as instructed, looking incredibly uncomfortable by the position, "Okay. I got it. Move around, blink, slouch."
We all turn toward the front of the glass house, hearing Charlie's car park outside. And with that everyone with the exception of Bella, Edward, Jacob and I left the room wishing Bella good luck before bringing Uncle Charlie inside. Carlisle leads Charlie up the stairs to find us sitting on the couch, "Bella?"
Bella looks up from her fair colored hands, meeting her father's worried dark brown ones from across the room, "Hi, Dad."
Charlie bum rushes her, engulfing her in his flannel covered arms, "Are you okay?"
Bella squirms out of his arms much like she would have before her transformation, but to us observing her it was very clear that she was holding her breath to not suck the life out of her father, "Never better. Healthy as a horse."
"You don't turn into an animal, too, do you?" Charlie cautiously asks, glancing at me and Jake. Bella smiles at his question and shakes her head playfully, cueing Charlie's sigh of relief. Clearly he was still shaken up from our visit earlier.
"She wishes she was that awesome," Jacob and I snicker together, lightening the mood with the one comment.
Edward lightly taps Jake's arm, nodding toward Carlisle and the door, "Let's give them some privacy."
After the three men leave the room, Charlie sits next to Bella and I on the couch, "Uh, Kota said that this... This was necessary. What does that mean?"
Bella looks between the two of us, then looking back down at her hands to avoid her father's curiously concerned chocolate brown eyes, "I really think it would be better..."
"I wanna know what happened to you," Charlie demanded, hearing the hesitation in her voice and knowing she was going to try and lie to him.
"I can't tell you," Bella whispers, trying to hold her breath as Charlie sat closer to her than he did me.
"I think I deserve an explanation."
I place my warm hand on my uncle's to comfort him, "You do, Charlie. But if you really need one, she can't stay here. It's not safe for you or her."
Charlie burst off the couch, giving me room to sit beside her to distract her senses from his blood onto my particular smell that repulsed her, "Oh, come on! No! No more going away!"
Bella got up cautiously, watching her father react, "Dad, you're just gonna have to trust that for whatever reason, I'm all right. I'm more than all right. Can you live with that?"
Charlie looks at her scoffs then to me, slightly retreating, "Can I live with that? Well, I don't know, Bella. I mean, I just watched my niece and her best friend turn into very large dogs. My daughter looks like my daughter. But doesn't."
"I'm still the same person," I whimpered, looking down at my converse as I realize that I should have told Jake no earlier and save myself from any pain that may come from Charlie knowing our certain skills.
Bella sets her cool hand on my bare forearm, seeing my smile fall as my green eyes concentrate on my mud covered sneakers, "Can you please just believe that I'll tell you anything that you need to know?"
Charlie looks between us, finally recognizing the pain Bella and I feel for him in regards to our secrets, "And I don't need to know this?"
"No. Really, you don't," Bella and I chorus together.
"Well... Not gonna lose you again. I can't," Charlie whispers, looking us both in the eye.
"Then you won't. I promise," Bella tenderly assures her father as he pulls us both into a tight embrace.
Charlie kisses the top of my head, then Bella's, "I missed you, Bells. So much."
"I missed you, Dad."
As Charlie squeezes us a little more, undoubtedly realizing we're two drastically different temperatures, Edward walks into the room with Renesmee giggling at the sight of us, "Charlie. This is Renesmee."
I see my niece, well she's technically my cousin but they call me Aunt Kota because Edward named me Renesmee's godmother if anything were to happen to their coven, and take her from Edward's arms, which he's come accustomed to knowing how much I love her. Charlie looks between the three of us and Renesmee, "Your niece?"
"Our daughter," Edward corrects, reassuring the story I told Charlie at the house.
Charlie nods remembering the cover story Jake and I fabricated, that Renesmee's "real parent" died in a car crash in Seattle and they adopted their newly orphaned child to keep her from going into the system, "Right. The adoption. Renee-semee? She's got your eyes, Bella. Need to know, I guess." Bella nods her head and smiles, watching Renesmee giggle in my arms.
"Hey Kods, you know I still love you right?" Charlie asks as I walk him out to his car after he announced that it was about time he went home.
Nodding, I through my lashes at my uncle, "I know. It's just a lot to take in. I get it, I was the same way at first when I Phased but Sam, Paul and Jake really helped me through it."
"Lahote, he loves you, doesn't he?"
Shocked by the words that escaped his mouth, I stopped dead in my tracks, "How do you figure?"
As Charlie climbed into his cruiser, he chuckles then shrugs, "Call it father's intuition but I figure if Sam approves and he makes you happy then I'm okay with it. Seeya Kiddo."
Damn he's psychic or something, there's no way he could have gotten that from me mentioning him in passing.