The little girl linked hand with her two parents as they walked through the woods.
Renesmee wasn't afraid of the woods, she lived in a tiny cabin that was in the woods, her parent brought her hunting in the woods every other day but today something felt different to her.
It wasn't a bad different, not bad was going to happen for a long time according to her Daddy now that the bad men had been sent home. No this different was good different, exciting different. Renesmee was eager to get to her and her parents destination as they leisurely strolled through the woods.
"Remember when I had to carry you through here?" Edward, Renesmee's father suddenly said and her mother looked up.
"Yeah," Bella said nodding swinging Renesmee's hand a bit "It's a bit blurry but the memory is still there. Can you believe we haven't been here since the week before our wedding?" she asked.
"That was only a couple of months ago Love you sick of me already?" Edward asked and Renesmee giggled at his words.
"Never" Bella said with a flirtatious tone she knew her husband would love. "But with everything that's happened it does seem like an eternity ago" She added as they approached their destination.
"I suppose your right Love" Edward concurred aloud as they stopped at the edge of their destination. It was just before the beginning of summer and nature had turned this beautiful haven in an explosion of bright colours from the wild flowers.
Bella sighed as she saw it. It was their meadow, the place where they had admitted their love, where they had spent wonderful days together reading the classics and Edward recounting different events he had witnessed in his life as a vampire.
Edward remembered and loved this place for many other reasons. Had he not found this place of sanctuary he would have definitely fled Forks and what would have happened had he done that? He would never have met Bella and they wouldn't have this beautiful life together. It was also the place where Bella truly agreed to his marriage proposal, while she had said yes in his room back at the large Cullen house it was here she asked to wear his ring and truly accept their future together. Also if Edward allowed his inner teenage male to run the voice of reason it was the place where he had tried to seduce Bella after the fight with th new borns, an experience which was all to thrilling in itself.
"Daddy?" Renesmee asked pulling him out of his daydream of being able to seduce his wife in this meadow at some stage in the future, obviously not when their daughter was with them though. He looked down to see her beautiful brown eyes looking up at him "Where are we?" she asked.
Edward grouched down beside his daughter still holding hand but seeing the world from her level for himself.
"See this lawn before us here Sweetheart?" he asked and she nodded "This is a very special spot to Momma and I" He told her and smiled at her husband as Renesmee's eyes filled with wonder and curiosity.
Before asking the trademark question of all children
"Why?"
"Well this is where I took your mother the day we told each other we love each other" He explained "And we wanted to show a place that is very importance to us"
"Because you're important to us" Bella added kissing her little girl's forehead.
"Exactly" Edward said walking in between his wife and his daughter "So shall we ladies?" he asked holding his arm out to Bella lifting Renesmee up onto his hip.
"We shall" Bella said taking his arm as Renesmee giggled. Edward walked them to the centre of the meadow, once there Bella opened the backpack which had been on his back and pulled out a picnic blanket laying it down on the ground for Renesmee who sat down quickly and took out a thin little leather book, it turned out Renesmee had flair for art and loved to draw everything she saw. Bella and Edward loved spending time looking at their daughters creations and getting an even closer look inside her mind that what Edward and Renesmee's gifts combined could give them. Edward leaned his back against a bolder which he had moved to this spot on one of his and Bella's previous excursions to this place.
Bella sat in between Edward's legs and rested her head against his chest while Renesmee laid on her stomach propped up on her elbows ready to draw whatever took its fancy.
"Daddy?" she asked after a little while causing Edward to sit up a bit.
"Yes my little Love?" he said as he gently stroked Bella's hair lovingly.
"Where did you meet Momma?" she asked.
Bella smiled at the question while Edward twirled his index finger in her hair.
"I met your Momma at school" He answered his thoughts drifting to that first day, he felt the burn rise in his throat as he remembered coming in contact with his singer but sated it with knowing he had had her blood, savoured it even though the circumstances were dire he had savoured it to eternally satisfy himself.
"School?" she asked turning to look at him.
"Yes, school is where you go and learn things with a group of other people who are in and around the same as you. You have teachers who teach you different subjects like English, Maths, and Science..." Bella explained.
"Will I have to go to school?" she asked.
Bella looked up to Edward for that one, they had spoken about this before and had decided that Edward would act as Renesmee teacher until she stopped growing and then she would matriculate with the rest of them.
"You'll be going to a special kind of school Renesmee" Edward told her.
"Oh..." She said although her father could pick up from her mind she didn't quite understand.
"Other children don't grow as fast as you do Sweetheart so until you stop growing I'm going to be your teacher" He told her.
"Yay" Renesmee said and Bella shook her head at her child in amusement. "So you met in school?"
"We did" Bella said smiling at Edward.
"Did you love each other straight away?" the little girl asked and her parents looked to each other to explain that answer. Edward broke first, Bella had once told him he dazzled her, he thought she underestimated her own dazzling skills.
"Straight away?" Edward asked and Renesmee nodded eagerly "I knew your mother was different but I didn't know why. For one I couldn't read her mind because of her shield and it drove me mad and two; she was human at the time and her blood pulsed through her veins making me hazy with a blood induced craze"
"But Daddy we don't drink from people" Renesmee said sitting up on her knees.
"This is why it scared me how appealing Momma's blood was to me." Edward said but Renesmee didn't seem to get it.
"Why?" she asked.
"Why what Nessie?" Edward asked using the child's nickname.
"Why was Momma's so nice to you?"
"Oh" Edward said as he tried to figure out a way to say this without scarring the little girl. "Well for some vampires a person exists for them who has the sweetest blood possible. Other vampires may be able to smell that this person's blood is sweeter, but to a single vampire this person's blood scent is so over powering and strong it can almost knock you down. We call these people our singers. Your mother was my singer"
"Really? So you wanted to drink from Momma?"
"I did but I didn't." Edward told his daughter not wanting her to think he was a monster who just lunged on the poor human girl, even though Renesmee knew her mother was human before her birth her mind didn't really understand what that meant. "I ran away to our cousins in Denali for a little while, trying to will my thirst away. But while there I couldn't get your mother's beautiful brown eyes out of my mind."
"Like mine?" Renesmee asked before looking at her mother "I got my brown eyes from your side Momma?"
"Yes you did and I got them from Grandpa Charlie" Bella said crawling out of Edward's leg and pulling her daughter onto her lap.
"Wow, what happened next Daddy?" she asked as Bella played with the little girl's hair.
"I returned home, deciding I was stronger than I had acted. I had decided to just ignore your mother and her mouth watering blood."
"Ignore?" Renesmee asked looking at her mother.
"It means to act as if a person isn't there, like when Auntie Alice asks us do we want to go shopping and we pretend like we can't hear her so we're technically not saying no" Bella told her and Renesmee nodded.
"So if you were ignoring Momma how did you two end up married and with me?" she asked her father her smirked, his daughter's stubbornness to find out the truth at this moment was too similar to Bella's in her quest to figure out who and what he was not unnoticed by him.
"Because your mother is a very stubborn woman" Edward said and Bella eyed him.
"Am not" She answered as she idly braided Renesmee's hair.
"Are too" Edward said and Bella sighed knowing it wasn't an argument she was going to win today. "See even now your being stubborn"
"Oh you'll pay for that, won't he Ness" Bella said and the little girl nodded eagerly.
"How?" he asked and before he could even think Ness launched at him and was tickling him. "Agh" He called out as Ness tickled him quickly.
Bella joined in and he laughed loudly.
"I give, I give" He called through his fits of laughter.
"What do you say Daddy?" Ness asked him.
"That Momma isn't stubborn in the slightest, now come on Love call off your little tickle monster."
"At ease Ness" Bella said and Renesmee stopped, she was headed back to sit on her mother's lap when she felt her Daddy's arms surround her and pulled her toward him.
"Now I got you" He told her and she squealed as he threw her up in the air and she came back down to his hands.
"Daddy" She squealed in delight and Bella beamed at the picture. Bella had only ever seen Edward content on a couple of occasions in their time together, their wedding day, their honeymoon, after the scene with the Volturi was over and the first time she had let him into her mind. But now watching her husband play with their daughter as her squeals of delight echoed around their meadow she didn't just notice his happiness she could feel it as it radiated off him. "Daddy stop I want to know what happened next!" she told him and he placed her back on the blanket between Bella and himself.
"Do you?" he asked and she nodded eagerly.
"I really want to know"
"Okay then well after a few incidents I decided I simply couldn't stay away from your mother anymore, while I was trying to ignore my blood lust I noticed things about her"
"Like what?" Renesmee asked kneeling up on her knees.
"That she was well read, mature, funny, and easy to get on with, ridiculously uncoordinated while being equally ridiculously beautiful" Edward told his daughter although he could hear his wife snort at the last one. "You need to start seeing yourself clearly Love" He added in direction of his wife who rolled her eyes.
"I see myself as clear as I need to Edward and that's all that matters." Bella said as she began playing with Renesmee's hair.
"I think you're the prettiest Lady in the whole wide world Momma" Renesmee said and Bella smiled leaning down and kissing her daughters cheek.
"Your sweet Nessie, you're the prettiest little girl in the whole world" Bella said as Edward lay down on his stomach.
"Yeah I like to think myself to be rather lucky with how I have the two prettiest girls in the planet as my wife and daughter" Edward said flicking Renesmee's nose.
"Daddy come on tell the story" She giggled at him and he nodded.
"Well what part do you what to know?" he asked.
"How Momma reacted when you told her you love her" Renesmee said like it was obvious in an exasperated tone, dealing with her father could be infuriating at best, he knew what she wanted to know why did he have to make everything longer and more thought out? Because he could. That's why.
"She called herself stupid" Edward said and Bella's jaw dropped.
"Edward" She said using his name as an explicative.
"What Love?" he asked with a smirk on his face.
"Don't say it like that you make me sound like a right idiot" Bella said as Renesmee watched her parents banter in interest; usually they agreed on everything with each other it was nice to see a difference. "And anyway you only alluded to loving me when I referred to myself as a 'stupid lamb'"
"Alluded?" he said in a shocked tone.
"Why were you calling yourself a lamb Momma?" Renesmee asked while Edward looked to his wife for the answer to his question. Bella opted to let him stew for awhile.
"Because when your Daddy brought me to this meadow he said 'so the lion fell in love with the lamb' which was a metaphor for us as the predator fell for its prey."
"So you called yourself a stupid lamb?" Renesmee asked "It wasn't stupid at all for you to fall in love with Daddy though"
"I know it wasn't and he knows it wasn't but at the time Daddy didn't want to believe we could have an eternity together, not in our wildest dreams did we considered having a child together would be possible never mind me getting pregnant with you" Bella said pulling her daughter onto her lap "So I encourage him and called myself a 'stupid lamb' just as he indulged me and my theory that Daddy could never love someone as plain and boring as me when he called himself 'a sick masochistic lion'" She went on to further explain but Renesmee's mind halted on a word.
"Maso...?" she asked and Bella realised her confusion.
"A masochist is someone who enjoys their own pain" Bella told Renesmee while Edward continued to ponder Bella saying he alluded to loving her.
"Oh... cause it hurt Daddy's throat to be near you?" she asked and Bella nodded.
"Exactly" Bella said when she turned to look at Edward "Figure it out yet?" she asked.
"No... I still don't get what you mean" Edward said resting his chin in his hand.
"You'll figure it out"
"Give me a clue?" he asked hopefully.
Bella stopped for a moment to think what clue she could give him that wouldn't be too obvious but would still be relevant.
"Harness" She said after a moment of thinking.
"Harness?" he repeated.
"Yup" Bella said popping the 'p'
"I have no clue how the word harness relates to me telling you I love you"
"As I said you'll figure it out" Bella said and Edward began to think again.
"Momma what's your favourite memory you have as a human?" Renesmee asked, now laying on her stomach her sketching book in between her arms as her brush daintily stroked the page.
"Hmmm..." Bella said thinking "Well there blurry all of them..." She began before deciding "But I was pregnant with you at the time and Daddy was quite worried about me"
"Why?" Renesmee asked looking up.
"Because remember when you got too big and started kicking the wrong way?" Bella asked the little girl. Normally it would be stupid to ask a child her age to remember her pre birth memories but Renesmee remembered it all, from her conception to the day her father's teeth sliced through her mother's uterus and pulled Renesmee out of it. She remembered it all. Renesmee nodded in response to her mother's question "Well Daddy was worried I was going to get to sick and he wasn't going to be able to change me on time so I could be with the two of you forever. So one day we were all sitting in the living room when I felt you kick. I called your Daddy over to show him how beautiful you really were and you would never hurt me."
"And then Daddy touched your belly" Renesmee said remembering the cool touch of her father's hands coming through the protective layering her mother's body gave her.
"Yup and Daddy could hear your thoughts, he knew you were doing you very best to help me keep strong, I love that memory because I remember feeling we really joined together as a family that day the three of us."
"What about before me?" Renesmee asked.
"I'm sorry Sweetheart?" Bella asked not understanding the question.
"What about before you and Daddy knew about me? What's your favourite memory before that?" Renesmee asked.
"Probably during our wedding" Bella said and Edward's head snapped up. "Figured it out yet?"
"No..." He said "Let me out of my misery Love please? I'm an old man you shouldn't be pushing my brain to this type of limits."
"Daddy you're not old" Renesmee said looking at her father, he looked younger than her mother's Daddy and all the other Daddy's she saw on the television or when they were out shopping looked much older than Daddy.
"How old do you think I am Nessie?" Edward asked her.
"Older than Jakey but not as old as Grandpa Carlisle" She explained and Edward nodded.
"Well that is right but age wise?"
"Um... I don't know" She said looking up at him "How old are you Daddy?" she asked.
"Well physically I'm seventeen"
"But not physically?" she asked him sounded out the larger word.
"I'm one hundred and nine years old"
"Is that old?" she asked Bella who nodded "And how old are you Momma?"
"I'm stopped changing two days before my nineteenth birthday, so I'm nineteen right now." Bella explained.
"So physically you're older than Daddy by..."
"One year" Bella said.
"But not physically you're older than Momma by..."
"Ninety years" Edward stated.
"That's a lot of years" Ness said trying to count that high in her head while Edward turned to Bella.
"Have I suffered enough?" he asked and she smiled.
"You never said 'I love you' here on that day the first time you said it to me was after you took me out of the harness and I had told you about my fear of crashing into trees" Bella explained and Edward tried to focus on that memory.
"Well played Love" Edward said leaning over and sweetly kissing her lips. She gently touched his face as their lips met.
"Yuck" Renesmee murmured as her parents kissed. Bella giggled as she and Edward pulled away. Edward shook his head in amusement.
"I want you to keep that attitude until your thirty" Edward told her before quirking his eyebrow in thought "Five, thirty five, yeah that's a number I can deal with"
"Your silly Daddy" Renesmee said "Of course girls kiss boys before then Mommy was eighteen when she had me"
"And what does that have to do with anything?" Bella asked Renesmee curious as to what exactly the little girl knew when it came to babies and where they came from.
"Well Uncle Emmett was going to tell me where babies came from when Aunty Rosie stopped him. She told me when human girls want babies they wink at their husband, and he'll kiss and hug her and then they have a baby. Wait Momma you had me how do you not know this?" Renesmee asked while Edward buried his face into his wife's back to stop him from laughing at what could be there cover story for years for years to come if nobody blew the secret.
"See Edward and you thought we were safe with the hugging" Bella whispered and Edward lost it.
"What are you laughing at Daddy?" Renesmee asked him as he clutched his stomach with the laughter.
"Nothing little Love" Edward said sitting up still chuckling. Bella shook her head more discreet in her laughter. "Remind me to thank Rose for that" He whispered to Bella who nodded.
Renesmee shook her head at her parents' silliness when a question popped into her head.
"Momma?" she asked and Bella looked up.
"Yes Sweetheart?" Bella asked.
"Do you have to be married to wink at a boy for a baby?" she asked.
"Yes" Edward said rather quickly and Bella hit his arm.
"Nowadays not so much but some people still think it's proper to be married first before any winking takes place" Bella said putting emphasis on the key words such as proper and winking.
"Oh okay... like Grandpa Charlie?"
"Why would you think Grandpa Charlie?" Bella asked her daughter.
"Because you were married to Daddy"
"Well that was more Daddies' insistence than anybody else's." Bella said as Edward wrapped her arm around her waist where they sat.
"Why was that Daddy?" Renesmee asked wanting to know everything she could.
"Because that was the way I was brought up Sweetheart, when a man knew he was in love he requested her hand in marriage even if they were young" Edward explained to his daughter.
"Even though you only knew Momma a year or two?" She asked sitting up on her knees.
"Some of the young men I would've grown up with would've been engaged to their future wives after only meeting them once or twice" Edward said and Bella looked at him. "What Love?" he asked her.
"Are you serious?" she asked.
"There was a war going on Love, if you felt a hunch or you vaguely got on with someone they were marrying you off, you got your wife pregnant and then you shipped off not knowing would you come home, which most of them wouldn't have. Most of those girls then would've remarried as widows with their children from their first marriage following them"
"Wow" Bella said as Edward tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear so it didn't obstruct the view of her face. "So when we were dating?"
"It would've been considered a fairly long courtship, a bit too long actually. Your father probably would've approached me and requesting I become engaged with you sooner rather than later or he would revoke my permission to court you" Edward stated.
"Like Charlie had any say in ours" Bella laughed.
"Daddy what did Grandpa says when you asked him could you propose to Mommy?" Renesmee asked. That made Edward stop
"Well see here's the thing Sweetheart" Edward began when Bella interrupted him.
"He didn't"
"That's blunt Love"
"Like she needs a long explanation" Bella said as Renesmee stared at her father in shock. "What's wrong Nessie?" Bella asked and Renesmee stood up and put her hands on her hips.
"Wow she looks scarily like you when she does that" Edward said as Renesmee stared him down.
"What do you mean 'he didn't' Momma?" Renesmee asked.
"Daddy didn't ask Grandpa could he marry me"
"I don't think that was how you were brought up Edward Cullen" Renesmee said folding her arms across her chest.
"You do realise your mother would've killed me had I?" Edward asked Renesmee who was giving him her stern face.
"That's beside the point"
"Renesmee it took me at least six times proposing to your mother before she agreed to it and she only did after I agreed to..." Edward trailed off stopping himself before deciding on an appropriate term "Winking."
"I think that's beside the point" Renesmee said while Bella looked at her husband in shock.
"You make me sound like I'm all about the winking" She said pushing him on his side.
"You two are picking on me" Edward stated and Bella laughed.
"Why did it take so long for you to say yes Momma?" Renesmee asked "Don't think I'm letting you off the hook mister" She added in direction of Edward.
"Because I wasn't brought up the same way as Daddy, people don't get married until their much older these days but I'm glad I did" Bella said running her hand along Edward's thigh.
"Come up with a good answer yet?" Renesmee asked her father who gulped.
"No" He said shaking his head "But we did get Grandpa's blessing"
"It will do" she said sitting down on the ground.
"What are you drawing Sweet heart?" Bella asked peering over her daughters shoulder.
"Us" Renesmee stated proudly and there in the centre of the page on a checked picnic basket with wild flowers all around them sat a young family of three. The father lay on his back while the mother rested her head on his stomach. His finger wrapped in her hair while her eyes were closed in contentment.
Beside them sat a little girl on her knees a notepad sketched on her knee, he curls falling to her waist.
It was a still of the moment they were in and the little girl's parents cherished it. Tomorrow she would be a little bit taller, her face a little less round and her features would become that much older. But in that little notebook they had image of them.
An image of them in the place where all of it began
A place of Importance
THE END
Okay so that was a little weird to write because it was all in the third person.
Please review I would love to know what you all think of this.
Love The Irish Cullen.