1,574Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns Twilight. All copyright infringement intended.
Ten years later
"Taller than me now, Dad," Bella smiled, laughing into the receiver at his response. "Not something you ever had to worry about."
Claire and Esme were engrossed in a swath of architectural paperwork, Alice peeking over their shoulders, chirping her own suggestions here and there.
"Yeah, new place. You'll come visit, right?...don't even start with that again, Dad. Come on." She rolled her eyes, mouthing "he wants to pay for his flight," at Edward, who walking into the room.
He smiled back at her, shaking his head, but it was Esme who held up her hand for the phone. Bella murmured, "hold on, Dad, Esme wants to talk to you."
"Hi Charlie," Esme said softly, "we're looking forward to seeing you. Don't tell me you want to worry Bella with spending your retirement savings on us?" She waited a moment, listening, "you just let us know when you want to come...anytime, really. Claire can't wait to see you. Neither can the rest of us."
That they'd held on to this part of Bella's human life was a joy to them all. A small thing to offset the necessary cutting out of so many other parts. Renee, and Phil included.
Edward and Bella had both 'died', tragically and unexpectedly, in a car accident a few years after their marriage. Before that, there had been visits from Renee and Phil in the short intervening years, rich with surprise at the adoption of a child. After meeting her the once, Claire was conveniently absent at some city specialist's appointments whenever Renee and Phil were in Forks.
Jasper had taken on the task of manipulating age appropriate images of Claire to share with them. Carlisle and Esme had adopted Claire for all human purposes, homeschooling in Carlisle's remote work locations, avoiding the possibility of personal visits.
After a modestly successful career, Phil had retired, and Renee resumed her teaching work again. They'd found a happy equilibrium in their respective busyness, burying their grief in the joy of a grandchild, far away as she was.
Done with massaging Charlie's will to comply with her own, Esme handed the phone back to Bella.
"You talk to mom, lately?" she asked.
"Course," he said, "forget your own birthday?"
"No," she said too quickly. She hadn't, but it didn't merit much notice anymore. "How is she?"
"Good. Taken up knitting, if you can believe it."
"Really?"
Renee's interests had always been varied, but they'd never really knelt in such domestic directions.
"Did you tell her she's finally acting her age?" Bella quipped.
"I'm not suicidal, thank you very much," Charlie replied.
Catching Edward's eye, Bella could see he was waiting for her. She wrapped up her phone call with Charlie, hands slipping together as they moved outside into the leafy forests upstate New York presented.
Their hunt finished, they rested on a large glacial erratic, appreciating the texture its rough edges presented, and the many hues the forest was dipping itself in.
"So different," she murmured. They'd moved far north after their faked deaths, but still on the western stretches of the continent, staying as close as they dared to Charlie, making his trips easier.
His retirement freed him to go further now, and they'd sought the safer distance of the eastern coast, hidden in one of the many untouched pockets of wildness the state still kept.
She snorted out a sudden laugh.
"What?" Edward asked, turning and smiling. She was as beautiful as ever, more so even, with time.
"Just still seems bizarre to be able to smell the syrup in the trees."
He chuckled. It delighted him to know her own discoveries. There were still so many remaining to them as she adapted to this life.
While he'd been beside himself with worry and fear, watching her take that final leg of the trip to Italy, to present herself to the Volturi, he'd been conversely awed at her return. Her mind remained silent as ever, but she painted her thoughts and memories with her words, her eloquence only increasing with the capacity of her immortal mind.
She wrote now, stories spun of her endless imagination, published under the carefully constructed guise of a reclusive artist located in the inaccessible Montana wilderness.
Charlie had laughed when she'd sent him one of her books. Then he'd read it, and phoned her back with serious congratulations.
"I'm sure you can invent a nice supernatural character to enjoy that experience," he smiled.
"Maybe," she said coyly. "Might want to keep that one close."
She'd avoided supernatural content.
Too dangerous.
"Want to head back?" he asked, fingers tangling with hers.
"Not really," she whispered, leaning over to find his lips with hers.
They were together in all the ways that mattered, time immaterial to their existence. It was a happy one. And it would be forever.
- The End -
