Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight Saga.

I thought I'd have a crack at how the imprintee's feel. Here we go!

Unspoken

…

Confessions of the imprints. We all know that for the wolves its unconditional love, devotion and adoration, but what about the objects of their affection? What reasons do the imprints have to love them? After all, imprinting is a selfish love.

…

EMILY

…

I looked deep into the mirror at the eyes who stare back at me, unsure if I know who she is or even, if we had the chance to meet, if I'd even like this person. It was not the face of the girl I had been, or the woman I hoped I would become. My face, with a perfect smile that could charm the coldest heart, was gone. A once beautiful face that is now morphed, disfigured and ugly but I was still thankful.

I felt guilty of course. I was raised to always be a people pleaser. I had snatched Sam away from one of the most important people in my life. My cousin, Leah. I felt guilty for taking away Sam in that way the love, the kisses, the flowers, the sex when I know I could have easily hadn't.

But I was jealous of what Leah had. The phone calls I would get where she would gush about the wonders of love and that level of intimacy with another person that I had never felt. Though happy for my cousin, I felt the cold hand of envy. I knew I could have accepted Sam's imprint as a friend, as a brother...

But I didn't.

Lying in that hospital bed, bandaged across half my body with Sam sitting next to me feeling the burden of what his deed had done I understood that I could no longer rely on my strongpoint, my looks, to find a soul mate. I wasn't like Leah, I didn't have a quirky personality. I was bland and boring and none-too-interesting. My pretty face was all I had, and it was gone, and I took Sam from her knowing that no one else would take me now. Knowing that the imprint forced him to care and love me unconditionally in any way that I choose.

I try hard, hoping that being the perfect wife and mother to the pack will make up for my selfish actions. Cooking and cleaning hoping to make some kind of contribution to feel like an unofficial part of them. Through all my efforts I still remain to be uninvolved in the inner circle of pack life. When anything werewolf-related is discussed, I'm glanced at a certain way and expected to wander to the next room. Safe and sound, away from the scary monsters of this world.

When Leah first phased and joined them, I felt that painful stab of jealousy again. I would never be one of the pack like she is, I would never see into Sam's mind like she does. Does he think of her sometimes? Does he miss her beautiful face, smooth and unscathed?

Thinking about it, I reached up a hand to brush against my old wounds.

Sam had come up behind me, fresh from the shower, kissing my neck and my scars, holding me.

"I love you," he whispered, as I watched distantly from the mirror and pictured him doing the exact same thing with Leah, who he'd loved without the need of an unbreakable bond. I'd do this sometimes let him catch me looking at my scars, knowing it makes him feel the deep shame all over again. I see it as a reminder for him to stay with me, to never leave me, because even though I'd never be part of the pack, I had Sam caught in a way no one else ever could.

I felt guilty, sometimes, too, looking at him hold me with such love. A love I had stolen. That he would never understand the selfish pleasure I take in his touch, in his glassy-eyed stare, in the way he looks at me like my skin was still as smooth and perfect as it once was.

That he will never know that it's the reason I love him unconditionally in return.

…

KIM

…

Jared is out on patrol tonight. Not that it's much of a surprise, really. He's later than usual though, but I'll wait up for him.

I'd never been the kind of person that someone else would ever take a second look at. I'd always been a bit of a Plain Jane or rather, a Plain Kim. In saying that, I was completely over the moon the day when Jared looked my way and was incapable of looking away since, like the love at first sight I'd always dreamt about. But I don't believe in that now.

I'd had a crush on Jared since I was a little girl; he would ride past my house on his bike with his friends almost every day. That moment in class when he looked at me and the gravity of the world shifted... I'd managed to gather up the guts to ask him if I could borrow a pencil, and the second our eyes met he blurted out 'Wow. I love you... um, what's your name again?' and I was too ecstatic to take offence of the fact that he'd been sitting next to me all year and still didn't know my name.

And then I learnt of the wolves, and the imprint, and I stopped believing in true love.

I mean, before becoming a wolf he'd never even given me a second glance. Even then, he'd been a wolf for at least a few weeks before even making eye contact with me. If I'd never asked him for that pencil, I doubt Jared would have ever been interested enough to peer over and be given the chance to imprint.

When he is late home every night, and I sit and wait for him to return from a world I'm not truly apart of, my mind can't help but wonder. My mother had always drilled into me the unfaithful nature of men, ever since my father cheated on her and she turned into a bitter shell of herself. Part of me didn't want to think that Jared would do something like that, but another part of me was suspicious, nervous and even envious of all the time he spends away with me to be with the pack.

It took me a while to realise that I'd begun to grow resentful. Constantly guilting Jared for being away from me, leaving me alone or with the other imprints that I hardly knew or got along with, so he could run off and save the world one goddamn vampire at a time.

So I wait for him every night, even if I fall end up asleep on the couch, so that when he finally gets home and sees me curled up and cold, he can feel that shame, that guilt.

He'll never leave me now.

…

CLAIRE

…

I'm sick of being the child. Twelve years on, I'm fifteen years old, and they all still treat me like I play in the sandbox and stick pebbles up my nose. Quil is the worst of them all, sometimes. It's like he never wants me to grow up, never wants to see me as a young lady. He cried when he saw me buying tampons for the first time, then awkwardly avoided me for a day, which is a lot of time away from me for him.

My whole childhood is a confused mess. Quil has been there for as long as I can remember, and he hasn't changed or looked a day older than his overgrown, sixteen year old self, thanks to the wolf gene. Quil was my big brother, my first crush, my first everything. I knew nothing outside of our little, synched bubble.

My life was filled with Quil, Quil, Quil.

And after everything, everything him changing my diapers, teaching me to ride a bike and taking me to my first day of school how can we be expected to be anything else but that one day? How can we that turn that into something okay? Isn't it a little weird? At the rate we were going, our relationship looked like it would stay strictly platonic for another fifty years.

But Quil, after all, had been waiting for me for a very long time.

He'd been alone for a very long time. If I brought it up he'd laugh and say he was never lonely as long as I was around. But I was lonely. I spent all my time with him, and the rest with the pack, I hardly has any friends my own age. I felt invisible. In high school, I finally met my first and only two friends, Gina and Stephanie. Even they could see there was something strange between Quil and I. He would drop me off and pick me up from school every single day, never a second late.

They would joke that one day we'll get married, but I don't think they had any idea how real that possibility was, or of the actual age gap between me and my 'twenty-something study buddy'.

"Oh my god, Claire," Stephanie gushed, her jaw dropped as she whispered. "He's heading this way."

"Who?" Gina peered eagerly behind my shoulder. Her eyes lit up. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"

It was Jay Hunters. The most popular boy at our school. He was handsome, smart, athletic. All the girls swooned over him. And he was walking towards me.

"Hey Claire," Jay said, smiling that swoon-worthy smile. He flicked a lock of his hair from his face and gave me a cheeky wink. "I was just wondering if maybe I could take you out some time?"

My heart skipped a beat, and then I saw Quil's face. I don't know if I'd ever develop romantic feelings towards my life-long friend and imprint, but it felt wrong to accept Jay when my heart was destined to belong to someone else. Even if it was just friendship.

"Um, I'm sorry, Jay," I said, eyes on the ground. "But no."

"Oh," he looked shocked. Hell, why wouldn't he be? Someone that looks like him must have never been rejected in his life. Gina and Stephanie were staring at me, mouths agape. Eyes wide and begging me to obviously reconsider the words I'd just uttered. "Oh... okay then. Cool. See you around, I guess."

He turned and abruptly left. I had to block out the loud and outrageous exclamations of disbelief from my friends. They wouldn't understand. They could never understand what it's like to be an imprint. I couldn't stand the thought to tell Quil that I had a date, and watch his heart shatter.

As an imprint, I was obligated to say no to Jay, and to anyone else.

Even if we never develop into love. Even if I'll forever be just a kid.

…

RACHEL

…

I was jealous when my twin sister Rebecca found her true love before me. I mean, she was married and moved to Hawaii before I even had my first serious relationship. I'd always dreamed of running away to a city far from La Push and falling in love and never looking back to this small town.

But, of course, it came back and bit me in the ass. It was hard to make it in the outside world. So I came home for my graduation, had a glance at Paul and poof, I'm here to stay for life.

After our mother had died and Dad had to be in his wheelchair, it seemed like my life consisted of constantly taking care of others, being told what to do. I had no control or power over my own existence. My sister and I cooked and took care of the house, with our father and younger brother along with it. When my sister left me to fend for us all alone, I was stabbed with a vicious anger. My scholarship to Seattle was my chance to flee.

Everyone knows that Paul likes to be macho, and I like that as his imprint, my word is final. We are a strange pair to behold with me being so... well, let's say like my brother. And Paul being so much like Paul. Our relationship pretty much is the definition of disaster with our clashing personalities. But with one click of my fingers, Paul will go out in the middle of the night to get me ice cream. It's pretty great.

But my fancy scholarship Law degree isn't worth dirt to me now.

I know all too well now how trapped Leah must have felt she wanted to escape the shackles of La Push more than I did. Things did work out badly for her, but I hadn't seen her as happy in many years as she had been recently.

This so-called relationship my brother Jacob had with Leah it was kind of offending to us imprints, though it scared me more than anything else. I felt the need to cling tighter to Paul, since Jacob had all but proven that Paul could be with someone else if he wanted to. But he couldn't possibly break the bond, the imprint, no, that was unfeasible, right?

It's hard sometimes, thinking of the life I could have had in the city, instead of scrubbing the permanent layer of sand encrusting the floor of my dad's house. Rebecca calls me in tears a lot, when her drunken husband doesn't come home from bars, makes bad investments and gambles away their savings. When this happens, I think of forcing Paul to go back to the city with me, and I feel content knowing that he would do whatever I said, whenever I said it.

I finally hold the power, and it's nice to be the one being taken care of.

…

RENESMEE

…

For as long as I can remember, our names have always been tagged together. I know that isn't necessarily the case when it comes to my Jacob―strictly speaking I've only been around for a fraction of his own diminutive lifespan―yet sometimes it seems as if it has always been that way. Renesmee and Jacob. Like we weren't even separate people. Jake and Nessie. As if together we were something different. Not an enhanced different, like two halves of the same whole, but something I wasn't quite sure how to live without, because our names have always been tagged together.

If I were to be honest with myself, I was tired of the game I knew I could never forfeit. Few things in life sparked my sympathy the same way something may spark my curiosity. I cared for little outside the contained world I knew, outside the people I loved.

My mother. My father. My family. My Jacob.

It was all I did know, all that was ever shown of me.

In my seven short years I held more knowledge than most people ever manage to grasp in a lifetime, and all without leaving the secluded existence we are forced to live. My family could never understand why I had begged to go to school whilst growing up―they would laugh and say I would outsmart the teachers―though I too knew that school would do little for my educated thirst, the opportunity held a very different appeal for me.

I made people uncomfortable. They were drawn-in by the vampiric charm in me, but I would have been a fool not to notice the way they cringed whenever I spoke. How they would shrink back from my gaze and of how I couldn't comprehend that I had been doing something wrong until Leah Clearwater had snapped at me that it was 'rude to stare'.

I didn't understand these peculiar human manners―so different to the ones I'd always known, vampires do nothing but stare―and clearly it was not something one could learn in a book.

My family said I was perfection, flawless, almost completely unique. They were more than familiar of me. They saw nothing out of ordinary when I was five years old with the body of someone twice my age, able to fluently read and write in three languages. It was some of the others that found it more difficult to pretend I was normal, like Grandpa Charlie and Sue. I was something stuck between the worlds of mundane and paranormal, with no place where I could fit.

And I was slowly suffocating.

I was afraid when these thoughts arose, careful not to think of it in a place where my father might overhear. The last thing I would want is my family thinking that they made me unhappy, when it was the restrictions that pinned us to the ground―hiding what they are, what I am―that had me feeling trapped.

"It's Claire's sixteenth birthday party tonight," Seth was speaking with my Jacob as we retired from a morning hunt in the forest. I was quite satisfied with the elk I'd caught and my Jacob was carrying me along on his back as I pleasantly dozed off, only somewhat listening to the hum of their voices. "Emily made this huge cake and we all know there's gonna be enough food to feed an army―you in?"

I heard Leah scoff. "Pfft, please. You think Emily's cake will be good? Wait till you try mine. My chocolate masterpiece will shit on her shitty little vanilla sponge, and then you'll know exactly why I never cook for you guys. Don't want to poor girl to look bad."

I felt my Jacob shaking from his silent laughter, always considerate not to wake me. "Leah Clearwater baking?" I could hear the smirk in his playful tone, and the husky manner it took on whenever he spoke to his Beta. "Good to know. Remind me to call the poison hotline in advance―"

"Oh shut the hell up," Leah told him. "I didn't hear you complaining last time you practically inhaled my food like you're sorry-ass had never tasted heaven on a plate before―"

Seth snickered.

"Don't let him get to you, Lee. He loves your food. I saw it in his head."

My Jacob swerved to knock shoulders with the younger wolf. "You little traitor," he muttered.

Then the three of them laughed.

It was such a natural and comfortable sound. I liked these moments. Not being the centre of attention, able to glimpse into another's idea of normality. I'd never cooked before. I'd never tasted cake. I'd never been invited to a birthday party. I sometimes wondered if through all I've gained if I'd managed to lose something important. Simple things―like falling off a bike, losing my first tooth. Momentous rites of passage that in turn shape a person to whomever or whatever they may grow up to be.

At seven years old I was an adult, technically more physically advanced than my own father. I'd never age another day. I'd spend eternity in this body.

Being what I am, I know I'm limited to little choice in my life. Like Grandpa Carlisle. He could be a great physician, renown by his superior sights and senses. But he works in small towns, dormant, unable to reach his full capacity. It hurts him to think of the good he could be doing if the world could accept us for what we were. For what we are.

My mother has always told me that she knew my Jacob would be with us forever―and when she said us, I knew she meant her. My mother and father were more in love than anyone I'd ever known, I would never doubt that, but there was something about my Jacob that had her not want to let him go.

My Jacob was a reminder to my mother of the life she could have had if she had chosen different.

A human life.

I could easily read it in her youthful face. She didn't hide her emotions as well as she thought. When I would walk through the doorway after my Jacob would take me out for a hunt, or bonfire with the packs, or whatever I wanted because what made me happy would make him happy, I knew she would be there waiting with a smile. Standing in the same place she had watched us depart as if she had never left.

"Did you have a good time, Renesmee?" she would ask me.

"Yes, of course," I would reply.

She would shift her stance subtly to glance behind me. "Where's Jacob?"

My response would differ. He went straight home to spend time with Billy. He had patrol. He was holding a pack meeting. He was with Quil and Embry fixing up some parts for his car. He was spending the rest of the day with Leah. It didn't matter. If he wasn't there, her face would fall ever so slightly.

It was difficult to speak with her sometimes. She wanted me to have the human life she didn't choose so badly I wondered if she even noticed some of the things going on around her, or if it clouded truth from her eyes that the rest of us could plainly see. Of how my Jacob treated me only like a child―a little sister, or a beloved daughter. Of how, over time, my Jacob spends less and less time with us. Of how my Jacob would visit in a particularly good mood, smelling strongly of sweat and sheets and Leah Clearwater.

They would judge me if I wasn't with him. I was obligated by the imprint to love him, yet still I felt nothing but the strong bond between siblings. My choices were limited. I couldn't love a human. To watch them wither and die as I remained strong and immortal. My Jacob seemed to everyone to be the most stable and logical option for me.

He was powerful, more than willing to love and protect me if I just asked it of him, with ability equal to my family. He was a shapeshifter. Immortal unless otherwise decided. But I knew that spending forever drifting through each new century was not the place for my Jacob. He could never leave his pack behind that way, and I don't think I could ever dream of being so selfish as to ask it of him.

But one day, I must ask it of him.

Not for him, and certainly not for me, but for my mother.

What would she say if I told her I wanted to break the imprint? She would say nothing. She would say whatever makes me happy would make her happy. But we all knew it would crush her to lose my Jacob, and if my imprint with him was severed, then that's exactly what would happen. There would be nothing left tying him to me, which would mean nothing left tying him to her.

Whenever I'm with the pack I knew they had no choice but to blame me. They were the only ones that know exactly what's happening―they spend their day inside my Jacob's head―and though they are pleasant and kind to me, I don't hold them responsible for their harboured resent. Truthfully, I blame myself as well. For taking away my Jacob's freedom. For taking away the happiness he could have, if given the chance. Taking away the uncomplicated love and devotion he craves to share with Leah.

He could never give himself fully to her, and I know it hurts him more than he'll ever admit. The imprint prevents it. They could never promise anything to each other because their relationship dangles on such a thin thread, one tug from the imprint and it would fall apart. They could only live in the moment, take it a day at a time, since there's no telling what tomorrow would bring for them.

They can't be together, not in the way they both want, and that's my fault.

"Hey Ness, you seem really quiet today. You alright kiddo?" my Jacob asks me.

I turn to gaze at him, this being dubbed perfect for me by some higher power. I'm happy when I'm with him, so why can't I just turn that into something more? It would be easier the earlier I do it. Then he would have to stop seeing Leah and they can both move on instead of just prolonging their suffering. They must have known that it wouldn't last forever.

Though I hate to admit it, I've become somewhat envious of the two of them. Part of me doesn't like it because he is my Jacob and she had access to him in a way that I don't―and I doubt I ever will. It is stronger than the fact that she can see into his mind. They are so attuned, able to know what the other is thinking without a glance. Clashing personalities that should force them apart and even the most horrible of insults spat at each other does nothing but strengthen them. They know their faults, have seen their absolute worst, and still chose to go through the pain for just that one extra day together.

I could live for an eternity―I most likely will―and never find someone like that.

Someone to love me unconditionally. Without the need of an imprint.

I don't know what compels me to do it, but suddenly I'm pressing my mouth against his.

I knew that it was selfish. I knew it would be the last thing he'd expect. His lips were nice and soft but felt very unresponsive when merged with mine. It didn't last more than a second, and when he pulled away his face was stern as if he was trying hard to hide his thoughts because he feared they might hurt me.

And then I knew why I did it―it was a goodbye.

Better do it quick, Renesmee, I thought with a grimace. Before you chicken out.

"I'm sorry," I muttered slowly, my hands twisting nervously in my lap, a habit I apparently inherited from my human mother. I couldn't look at him, because I knew that there was a chance that I just might not want to let him go, too. "I just wanted to know what it would feel like, just once."

He seemed confused, but said nothing.

Jacob, I deny your imprint.

I wanted to say it, but the words got stuck in my throat.

"Jacob," I said, smiling a soft smile. "Go. I want you to go and be with her today."

It was a little disappointing. I wasn't strong enough to say the words yet.

But someday.

I will be strong enough someday.

His confusion was gone; he flashed me that bright smile and gave a grateful nod. It was a strange feeling watching him walk away from me without reluctance, since our names had always been tagged together. I sat there in the forest, staring ahead long after his figure had disappeared in the distance, and I wondered for the first time if maybe someday they wouldn't be.

I'd just be Renesmee, and he'd just be Jacob.

And we'd finally be free.

So, what do you guys think of this little oneshot? I've been working on it for a really long time, but just recently finished it. But don't worry, I'm working on some of my other stuff too, so hopefully we'll have a new chapter for my Leah-based story Stolen Child soon!

Please read and review!

Hazel-Buttafly