Or the emotional pain if she doesn't? I suppose what happens to Bella no longer concerns you!" He spit the last word.

Renesmee pressed her fingers anxiously to my cheek, anxiety coloring the replay in her head.

Edward's words finally cut through Jacob's strangely electric mood. His mouth dropped into a frown. "Bella will be in pain?"

"Like you've shoved a white-hot branding iron down her throat!"

I flinched, remembering the scent of pure human blood.

"I didn't know that," Jacob whispered.

"Then perhaps you should have asked first," Edward growled back through his teeth.

"You would have stopped me."

"You should have been stopped-""This isn't about me," I interrupted. I stood very still, keeping my hold on Renesmee and sanity. "This is about Charlie, Jacob. How could you put him in danger this way?

Do you realize it's death or vampire life for him now, too?" My voice trembled with the tears my eyes could no longer shed.

Jacob was still troubled by Edward's accusations, but mine didn't seem to bother him.

"Relax, Bella. I didn't tell him anything you weren't planning to tell him."

"But he's coming here!"

"Yeah, that's the idea. Wasn't the whole 'let him make the wrong a.s.sumptions' thing your plan? I think I provided a very nice red herring, if I do say so myself."

My fingers flexed away from Renesmee. I curled them back in securely. "Say it straight, Jacob. I don't have the patience for this."

"I didn't tell him anything about you, Bella. Not really. I told him about me. Well, show is probably a better verb."

"He phased in front of Charlie," Edward hissed.

I whispered, "You what?"

"He's brave. Brave as you are. Didn't pa.s.s out or throw up or anything. I gotta say, I was impressed. You should've seen his face when I started taking my clothes off, though. Priceless," Jacob chortled.

"You absolute moron! You could have given him a heart attack!"

"Charlie's fine. He's tough. If you'd give this just a minute, you'll see that I did you a favor here."

"You have half of that, Jacob." My voice was flat and steely. "You have thirty seconds to tell me every single word before I give Renesmee to Rosalie and rip your miserable head off. Seth won't be able to stop me this time."

"Jeez, Bells. You didn't used to be so melodramatic. Is that a vampire thing?"

"Twenty-six seconds."

Jacob rolled his eyes and flopped into the nearest chair. His little pack moved to stand on his flanks, not at all relaxed the way he seemed to be; Leah's eyes were on me, her teeth slightly bared.

"So I knocked on Charlie's door this morning and asked him to come for a walk with me. He was confused, but when I told him it was about you and that you were back in town, he followed me out to the woods. I told him you weren't sick anymore, and that things were a little weird, but good. He was about to take off to see you, but I told him I had to show him something first. And then I phased." Jacob shrugged.My teeth felt like a vise was pushing them together. "I want every word, you monster."

"Well, you said I only had thirty seconds-okay, okay." My expression must have convinced him that I wasn't in the mood for teasing. "Lemme see... I phased back and got dressed, and then after he started breathing again, I said something like, 'Charlie, you don't live in the world you thought you lived in. The good news is, nothing has changed-except that now you know. Life'll go on the same way it always has. You can go right back to pretending that you don't believe any of this.'

"It took him a minute to get his head together, and then he wanted to know what was really going on with you, with the whole rare-disease thing. I told him that you had been sick, but you were fine now-it was just that you'd had to change a little bit in the process of getting better. He wanted to know what I meant by 'change,' and I told him that you looked a lot more like Esme now than you looked like Renee."

Edward hissed while I stared in horror; this was headed in a dangerous direction.

"After a few minutes, he asked, real quietly, if you turned into an animal, too. And I said, 'She wishes she was that cool!'" Jacob chuckled.

Rosalie made a noise of disgust.

"I started to tell him more about werewolves, but I didn't even get the whole word out -Charlie cut me off and said he'd 'rather not know the specifics.' Then he asked if you'd known what you were getting yourself into when you married Edward, and I said, 'Sure, she's known all about this for years, since she first came to Forks.' He didn't like that very much. I let him rant till he got it out of his system. After he got calmed down, he just wanted two things. He wanted to see you, and I said it would be better if he gave me a head start to explain."

I inhaled deeply. "What was the other thing he wanted?"

Jacob smiled. "You'll like this. His main request is that he be told as little as possible about all of this. If it's not absolutely essential for him to know something, then keep it to yourself. Need to know, only."

I felt relief for the first time since Jacob had walked in. "I can handle that part."

"Other than that, he'd just like to pretend things are normal." Jacob's smile turned smug; he must suspect that I would be starting to feel the first faint stirrings of grat.i.tude about now.

"What did you tell him about Renesmee?" I struggled to maintain the razor edge in my voice, fighting the reluctant appreciation. It was premature. There was still so much wrong with this situation. Even if Jacob's intervention had brought out a better reaction in Charlie than I'd ever hoped for...

"Oh yeah. So I told him that you and Edward had inherited a new little mouth to feed."

He glanced at Edward. "She's your orphaned ward-like Bruce Wayne and d.i.c.k Grayson." Jacob snorted. "I didn't think you'd mind me lying. That's all part of the game, right?" Edward didn't respond in any way, so Jacob went on. "Charlie was way past being shocked at this point, but he did ask if you were adopting her. 'Like a daughter? Like I'm sort of a grandfather?' were his exact words. I told him yes.

'Congrats, Gramps,' and all of that. He even smiled a little."

The stinging returned to my eyes, but not out of fear or anguish this time. Charlie was smiling at the idea of being a grandpa? Charlie would meet Renesmee?

"But she's changing so fast," I whispered.

"I told him that she was more special than all of us put together," Jacob said in a soft voice. He stood and walked right up to me, waving Leah and Seth off when they started to follow. Renesmee reached out to him, but I hugged her more tightly to me. "I told him, 'Trust me, you don't want to know about this. But if you can ignore all the strange parts, you're going to be amazed. She's the most wonderful person in the whole world.'

And then I told him that if he could deal with that, you all would stick around for a while and he would have a chance to get to know her. But that if it was too much for him, you would leave. He said as long as no one forced too much information on him, he'd deal."

Jacob stared at me with half a smile, waiting.

"I'm not going to say thank you," I told him. "You're still putting Charlie at a huge risk."

"I am sorry about it hurting you. I didn't know it was like that. Bella, things are different with us now, but you'll always be my best friend, and I'll always love you. But I'll love you the right way now. There's finally a balance. We both have people we can't live without."

He smiled his very most Jacob-y smile. "Still friends?"

Try as hard as I could to resist, I had to smile back. Just a tiny smile.

He held out his hand: an offer.

I took a deep breath and shifted Renesmee's weight to one arm. I put my left hand in his -he didn't even flinch at the feel of my cool skin. "If I don't kill Charlie tonight, I'll consider forgiving you for this."

"When you don't kill Charlie tonight, you'll owe me huge."

I rolled my eyes.

He held out his other hand toward Renesmee, a request this time. "Can I?"

"I'm actually holding her so that my hands aren't free to kill you, Jacob. Maybe later."

He sighed but didn't push me on it. Wise of him.Alice raced back through the door then, her hands full and her expression promising violence.

"You, you, and you," she snapped, glaring at the werewolves. "If you must stay, get over in the corner and commit to being there for a while. I need to see. Bella, you'd better give him the baby, too. You'll need your arms free, anyway."

Jacob grinned in triumph.

Undiluted fear ripped through my stomach as the enormity of what I was about to do hit me. I was going to gamble on my iffy self-control with my pure human father as the guinea pig. Edward's earlier words crashed in my ears again.

Did you consider the physical pain you're putting Bella through, even if she can resist?

Or the emotional pain if she doesn' t?

I couldn't imagine the pain of failure. My breathing turned to gasps.

"Take her," I whispered, sliding Renesmee into Jacob's arms.

He nodded, concern wrinkling his forehead. He gestured to the others, and they all went to the far corner of the room. Seth and Jake slouched on the floor at once, but Leah shook her head and pursed her lips.

"Am I allowed to leave?" she griped. She looked uncomfortable in her human body, wearing the same dirty t-shirt and cotton shorts she'd worn to shriek at me the other day, her short hair sticking up in irregular tufts. Her hands were still shaking.

"Of course," Jake said.

"Stay east so you don't cross Charlie's path," Alice added.

Leah didn't look at Alice; she ducked out the back door and stomped into the bushes to phase.

Edward was back at my side, stroking my face. "You can do this. I know you can. I'll help you; we all will."

I met Edward's eyes with panic screaming from my face. Was he strong enough to stop me if I made a wrong move?

"If I didn't believe you could handle it, we'd disappear today. This very minute. But you can. And you'll be happier if you can have Charlie in your life."

I tried to slow my breathing.

Alice held out her hand. There was a small white box on her palm. "These will irritate your eyes-they won't hurt, but they'll cloud your vision. It's annoying. They also won't match your old color, but it's still better than bright red, right?" She flipped the contact box into the air and I caught it.

"When did you-"

"Before you left on the honeymoon. I was prepared for several possible futures."

I nodded and opened the container. I'd never worn contacts before, but it couldn't be that hard. I took the little brown quarter-sphere and pressed it, concave side in, to my eye.

I blinked, and a film interrupted my sight. I could see through it, of course, but I could also see the texture of the thin screen. My eye kept focusing on the microscopic scratches and warped sections.

"I see what you mean," I murmured as I stuck the other one in. I tried to not blink this time. My eye automatically wanted to dislodge the obstruction.

"How do I look?"

Edward smiled. "Gorgeous. Of course-"

"Yes, yes, she always looks gorgeous," Alice finished his thought impatiently. "It's better than red, but that's the highest commendation I can give. Muddy brown. Your brown was much prettier. Keep in mind that those won't last forever-the venom in your eyes will dissolve them in a few hours. So if Charlie stays longer than that, you'll have to excuse yourself to replace them. Which is a good idea anyway, because humans need bathroom breaks." She shook her head. "Esme, give her a few pointers on acting human while I stock the powder room with contacts."

"How long do I have?"

"Charlie will be here in five minutes. Keep it simple."

Esme nodded once and came to take my hand. "The main thing is not to sit too still or move too fast," she told me.

"Sit down if he does," Emmett interjected. "Humans don't like to just stand there."

"Let your eyes wander every thirty seconds or so," Jasper added. "Humans don't stare at one thing for too long."

"Cross your legs for about five minutes, then switch to crossing your ankles for the next five," Rosalie said.

I nodded once at each suggestion. I'd noticed them doing some of these things yesterday. I thought I could mimic their actions.

"And blink at least three times a minute," Emmett said. He frowned, then darted to where the television remote sat on the end table. He flipped the TV on to a college football game and nodded to himself."Move your hands, too. Brush your hair back or pretend to scratch something," Jasper said.

"I said Esme," Alice complained as she returned. "You'll overwhelm her."

"No, I think I got it all," I said. "Sit, look around, blink, fidget."

"Right," Esme approved. She hugged my shoulders.

Jasper frowned. "You'll be holding your breath as much as possible, but you need to move your shoulders a little to make it look like you're breathing."

I inhaled once and then nodded again.

Edward hugged me on my free side. "You can do this," he repeated, murmuring the encouragement in my ear.

"Two minutes," Alice said. "Maybe you should start out already on the couch. You've been sick, after all. That way he won't have to see you move right at first."

Alice pulled me to the sofa. I tried to move slowly, to make my limbs more clumsy. She rolled her eyes, so I must not have been doing a good job.

"Jacob, I need Renesmee," I said.

Jacob frowned, unmoving.

Alice shook her head. "Bella, that doesn't help me see."