DISCLAIMER: All characters in the Twilight series as well as places, settings, and the whole kit and caboodle are property of Stephanie Meyers. Original posted 2009-2010. Reinstated due to reader requests. Post-BD story, with very slight evolution of/variations to cannon.

May 14

It was not the first time that I had this dream. It was the first time, however, when Jacob had not been there to wake me before I died.

I was in a cage, trapped, with an audience of several dozen vampires, with eyes sanguine and glaring. Through the dim room peeked the outlines of frescoes on the opposite wall and circling the ceiling. Behind the throng, Bella and Edward crouched, ready to strike. But strike at whom? Their black, hungry eyes suggested a trajectory that would bring them straight to my throat. Then, with a blood-curdling growl, they were on me. Just moments before their teeth sank into my flesh of my arms, the cage was gone and I was high over them. Not jumping, but flying. Below, the crowd parted, affording a view of my mother and father in agony. Their bodies aged decades in moments, deteriorating, their hair turning gray, their flesh softening and bones crumbling. The mob of red-eyed vampires allowed no mercy, ripping their frail cadavers to pieces. High above, immobilized, I wailed out, helpless. Then, I plummeted. I was going to crash, the floor was just inches away. I was going to die.

I was dead.

My silent scream caught in my throat as I surfaced from sleep. Covered in a cold sweat, I wondered that Edward and Bella did not rush into the room. Hadn't my father seen what had just run through my mind. Or weren't they concerned? I looked over at my alarm clock. 5:47 AM. I knew they were awake -I could hear their voices-so what where they doing?

I crept lightly to my door and pressed my ear against it. They whispered. That alone was suspicious. It wasn't like them to work so stringently on keeping me out of a conversation. And why didn't my father sense my spying? Suddenly, I realized: Bella must have be shielding him. This realization only brought on more questions. Shielding him from what? As I listened on, I could hear Alice's voice, too. Had she seen something coming? Is that why she was here in the wee hours of morn?

"But you say we won't do anything," Bella asked. "Then, why would we leave?"

"I didn't say we wouldn't do anything. I just said I couldn't see any of us doing anything. Sometimes the catalyst for a course of decisions isn't clear. You know what they say about butterfly wings, right?" Alice answered. "And, there are also my 'blind spots' to consider."

I could picture her in my mind throwing her head back accusingly to indicate my door.

"When and where?" Edward asked. "All of us?"

"I think so. I can't see Jacob with us, but I wouldn't, would I? Where, I still can't see exactly. Carlisle's been working on that recently. That's why I wanted to come talk to you. No doubt, Nessie's needs would be a prime consideration. I want to know what you think."

"What are our options?" Bella answered.

"There's a place in Maine he's discovered, where the school year weather is agreeable. But, he's also thinking of Scotland."

"Scotland?" both Bella and Edward asked, and Bella continued, "you mean, completely leave the country?"

Edward's footfalls suggested pacing. "Of course. Forks' climate has been very good to us. It makes sense to take that issue seriously under consideration for our next home. But, I don't think Carlisle will have considered what the cuisine in Scotland would be like."

Yes, I thought, no bears or lions. Just lots and lots of fluffy woodland creatures. Yuck.

In a blink, my father's stood on the other side of my door. My body temperature had cooled, and the sweat had started to evaporate. I was shivering. Not a moment had passed before I heard light tapping.

"Everything all right, Nessie?"

"I'm fine," I thought, testing if the shield was still on him.

His response suggested not. "Then what are you doing up this early?"

An image of me falling through my dream ran through my head before I was able to stop it. The door knob turned and immediately, his amber eyes found me.

"Don't worry about it, Dad. Just a dream. I've already forgotten what it was about."

He leaned over to me, smoothing my hair with a gentle, cool hand. By this time, Bella stood behind him, looking over his shoulder, her concern adding to his own.

"You're as bad a liar as your mother," he smiled, bringing me into his embrace, as though I were still a little girl needing her daddy. "And you don't forget anything."

Bella leaned down beside us, her porcelain hand outstretched to my hand. "Show me? Maybe I can make something of it?"

"Oh! Me too!" Alice leapt half way across the room, as though I was offering to read tea leaves at a discount. Her pixie figure assumed a reclined position next to my mother, her delicate fingers twittering out to me.

"Um, okay." I freed my arms from my father's embrace and took up their hands. I relaxed my consciousness, and let the mental fragments of memory flow through my hands into their minds. The warm sensation of ease that I always experienced during these mentographies belied the panic that I recalled at the end of my dream. After a few seconds, they withdrew their hands. No doubt my father was in the loop as well.

I had expected that their reactions to be swift and reassuring. Instead of a It's nothing to worry about, kiddo, they looked disturbed. But I had dreams all the time, which I'm sure my father had witnessed most of. Nothing had caused this reaction, not even the time I had dreamt that I hunted Jacob through the forest until I cornered him at a rock outcropping, broke his neck, and drank his blood.

Actually, Edward had been rather entertained by that one.

"It's only a dream," I tried to reassure them.

This seemed in reverse. I was the one with the bad dream. Shouldn't they be comforting me? Was it possible they were even whiter than usual?

Finally, my father's face broke into a comforting smile. "Of course, it's only a dream," he chuckled. "What are we all getting so upset about? You're okay, right? Go back to bed, darling."

I knew from their reactions, though, it was something. Something in my dream had upset them.

"No, that's okay," I said. "I'd have to get up a half hour anyways. Besides, the sun will be out today, maybe I should walk to school."

Something was changing between us. All my life, it had always felt like we were united: Edward, Bella and Renesmee against the world. Something was shifting, and that something was rattling us. I wanted a little distance between my family and my life to sort that out. No luck, though.

"I'll walk with you," Bella declared, traipsing off to fetch her shoes.

"Mom, sun?"

Already the dawn was breaking. The sun would soon be overhead.

"I'll only walk as far the edge of town," she assured me, slipping on her boots. "We'll stay in the forest."

"Maybe I should come, too?" Edward queried.

"No, they need some girl time," Alice interrupted. As close was Edward and Bella were, nearly inseparable for more than a twenty minutes it seemed, Edward was not immune from the occasional misunderstanding of female behavior. "Besides, I think maybe we should talk to Carlisle before he leaves for work. Nessie, Jacob is coming over this morning to work on Rose's suspension. Do you want me to pass along anything?"

"When, exactly?" I asked, suddenly tempted to skip school. Edward flashed me a disappointed grimace, and I quickly abandoned the plot.

"Around eight," Alice answered.

"Ask him to pick me up this afternoon," I returned, rounding the corner of the bathroom to wash my face. "Better yet, ask him if he'll walk me home from school. Why not take advantage of the monthly ration of sunlight?"

I suddenly had a flash of walking side by side with Jacob, his brown skin soaking up the radiant heat of the midday sun, and I, somewhat luminous but not with the rest of my family's multihued brilliance, next to him… My breath caught for a moment in the back of my throat. Edward grimaced again.

"Mom, can you grab my bag from the foyer, I think I left it next to chaise."

"Got it."

"Bella, you'll be careful to stay in the forest, right?" Edward asked.

Bella nodded, and ran to kiss him a little too passionately. Alice looked away, as did I.

"Let's go, then?" Bella asked me. She was down the front stairs and 500 yards into the forest before I could throw my back pack over my shoulder.

Alice looked disapprovingly at me, shaking her head from side to side. "I see you inherited Bella's keen fashion sense."

My hoody, jeans, and baseball cap failed to impress, but they were sufficient deflectors to too much sun exposure.

"Like mother, like daughter," Edward stated before embracing me "and one of their most endearing qualities. Diamonds in the rough, the both of them."

I smiled up my father. I loved this man with a depth far beyond my years.

"I love you, too," he returned my sentiments. "Hmm, you're as tall as I am."

He was right. For the first time, I was looking nearly eye to eye with him.

"Go catch up with your mother now." Edward gave me a slight nudge towards the door.

I cleared the threshold and leapt into the forest, trying to gain on Bella. I could see her slowing ahead. No need to rush: school didn't even start for an hour yet. The challenge of being able to move so fast, was appreciating taking things slowly. After two minutes, we were walking side by side. We would cut across the back woods of Forks, avoiding streets and trails. After six years of hunting expeditions, I knew these parts well.

"So, what is it?" I queried, looking at her alabaster skin with a sideways glance.

"Am I that obvious?" She flashed the grin of someone whose ruse had just been called. "I guess that we're far enough that he won't hear us. Of course, he'll know all about this conversation as soon as you get home, so I better be careful what I say."

"I can try not to think about it," I volunteered. Keeping things from Edward was nearly, but not wholly, impossible. I had managed it once or twice. For example, the time Jacob had snuck me out of Charlie's house when I was supposed to be sleeping to go down to La Push and play in the sand.

"There's no need for that," she reassured me. "He and I have already discussed it. But I thought you'd like a chance to noodle this through without surveillance." She paused for moment, as if trying to determine the right words to start out. "You heard what Alice was saying this morning. I heard you wake up from your dream, but I wanted your father's attention to be on the topic on hand, so I blocked him out for a few minutes."

"Oh, so that's why," I commented. Bella nodded and continued.

"We've actually been talking about it for the last year or so. The family has been in Forks for nearly nine years now, these last few years for our benefit. As long as we stay out of town, everyone buys the story of the six of us being off at college. But even I have to admit that staying any longer would be… unwise."

It wasn't a surprise to me at all. From what I could gather, the average Cullen homestead project ran about 5-6 years. We had overblown that by a long shot. There had never been extended family before to take into consideration. Charlie and Sue, the Blacks, the wolves… even the sucky weather was a friend to us.

"So, we move," I agreed as a leapt over a tree that must have fallen in the last storm. "It's not like we won't be able to come back and visit."

"Actually," Bella corrected, a slight apprehension in her voice ",it is. We'd have to make a clean break. Charlie and Sue could visit of course, but now, without so much documentation of life, I'd be a long time – decades, maybe even a century- before we could resettle here."

"What about Jacob?" Is that what she was getting at? Jacob wasn't a Cullen, wasn't a vampire, but he was part of my family.

Bella smiled reassuringly. "Edward and I agree that Jacob should be invited to come with us. But, it will be his decision if he wants to leave his pack."

"So what you're saying is, Jacob has to choose between us or his pack?" That seemed unfair.

"He will have to choose between you and his pack."

"Me?"

Bella tenderness couldn't dampen the shock. I looked at the ground, trying to piece together the pieces of the puzzle that had been building in my mind for the last few months. Jacob was my friend. My earliest memories- and I remembered everything I had ever seen- included him. I couldn't imagine myself without him. But, could I imagine myself with him? Suddenly, the thought seemed more natural than breathing and more instinctive than hunting. Jacob was meant for me.

Then we heard the shot.

Bella and I turned towards town. Shots weren't unheard of in Forks, but only hunting rifles and only during the fall hunting season. This was no rifle: this was a revolver, and there was no reason for any hunters in town this late in the spring. There were only a few people who legally owned revolvers in Forks.

Among them was the chief of police.