My favourite bad-ass bitch is back! This is going to be Rosalie's version of my All That I Am fic, which was Emmett's story of becoming a vampire and falling in love. Now we'll get to hear from Rosalie and find out what it was like for her to open up and let go of herself enough to love him.

Parts of this fic will be pretty much straight lifts from All That I Am (conversations etc) but with Rosalie's thoughts and feelings at the forefront, as well as other moments and events and conversations that weren't included in that. I also want to go into a bit more detail about Rosalie's human life, particularly her relationship with Royce, as a counterpoint to her emerging relationship with Emmett.

I love comments and messages and try to reply to all of them. This story is not, at this point, planned out in every last detail so if there's something you want me to write about or something you'd like to see happen, feel free to message me and suggest it- I make no promises, but I'll think on it.

Time wise, this story starts in 1935, a few months after the Cullens returned to the US from their European tour. This included a brief stay in Volterra, which I wrote about in Chapter 5 of Someone To Vote No- you don't have to have read that one for this to make sense, but it is referred to a little bit.

Chapter 1- All There Is.

"Rosalie?" Esme knocked gently on my door. "I have your laundry."

I rose to my feet and opened my bedroom door. "Thank you."

Esme stepped into my room and passed me a pile of folded clothes and underwear. As I placed them neatly in my drawers Esme took the dresses she was carrying on hangers over to the closet for me.

"I'll just hang these up for you," she said cheerfully. "Oh, your closet is getting a little over-crowded. Perhaps we should sort through it and donate some to charity? There are so many needy people in the district and you've a pile of things here in the corner that…"

"Don't touch those!" I slammed the drawer shut and lunged towards the closet, but I was too late. Esme had already gathered up the pile of discarded clothes and as she swung to face me there was a clatter and a sparkle of reflected light. Both of us froze as we stared at the exquisite ruby and diamond stitched gown that had been hidden in the far corner of the closet, and had now fallen from the bundle of clothes and lay on the floor between us.

"Oh Rosalie," Esme said softly. "I didn't realise you'd hidden…of course I wouldn't have gone into your personal things if I'd known." We both knew that it wasn't just a dress.

"It doesn't matter," I muttered. "I don't want it, I just didn't know what to do with it. Take it, by all means." I snatched the gown up and thrust it at Esme almost defiantly. That beautiful dress had been given to me by Aro in Volterra, but all the glamour and richness of it did nothing but remind me of violence and terror and I wanted nothing to do with it.

"It's a beautiful gown and you looked wonderful in it," Esme told me gently. "I know we don't attend the sort of events where you might wear it at the moment, but perhaps one day…"

I shook my head. "I won't ever wear it again." My voice was hard and brooked no argument.

Esme touched the fabric of the dress gently. "I'll take it and see what I can do. It can't go to charity with the jewels on it." She hesitated. "I know we live a very quiet life here Rosalie, and it's perhaps not what you would like. Socialising with humans can be difficult, but I'm sure if you wanted to go to any of the social events at college or in town Edward would escort you if you asked him. I know Carlisle would be happy to accompany you when he's not at the hospital. We understand that you might be a little bored and lonely here."

I played with the pendant around my neck and tried to smile at Esme. "That's thoughtful of you, but I would really rather not Esme. I'm fine as things are."

As a newborn vampire I had certainly complained long and bitterly about the lack of socialising and fun. In truth I still missed it, missed the laughter and flirtation and fun of my human world with a ceaseless longing, but I knew that attempting to recapture those feelings as a vampire would be futile. The ease of my human life, with my simple desires and straightforward ambitions and the seemingly never ending fulfilment of my wishes was irrevocably gone, and it caused nothing but hurt to pretend otherwise.

Esme looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about Rosalie? You've been very quiet recently…you're hardly even arguing with Edward," she finished with a teasing smile, I suppose hoping to lighten my mood.

I looked out the window at the forest, dark and dripping, and shrugged. "I'm okay."

Esme paused for a long moment, and then said slowly, "Well, I won't bother you anymore now, but you should feel free to talk to me at any time. Carlisle and I are always happy to listen, if you should need an ear."

"Thank you," I said softly, still staring out the window and watching the rain fall through the trees. "But don't worry about me, I'm fine."

Esme looked unconvinced, but a few seconds later she vanished from my room, the door closing silently behind her as I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.

I wished for a moment I could talk to Esme. I wished that I could find words to explain this endless darkness inside me, this darkness of hate and rage and despair, and be able to find some comfort. I wished, with a kind of desperate hopelessness, that I could reach out to someone, anyone, who might assuage this deep loneliness. But I couldn't. There was no one that I could trust with the gut wrenching intensity of emotion I struggled against daily.

A year and a half after my human life had ended I had, at least outwardly, accepted what I had become. I hunted when I was thirsty, I attended a small, private liberal arts college nearby with Edward, I helped Esme with the house, I spent my spare time engaged in pursuing my hobbies and interests, and I did it all as quietly and decorously as I could. Oh, I snapped and snarled and argued with Edward, but I no longer fought against what couldn't be changed. After our brief time in Volterra I took my place as a member of this odd, makeshift family and accepted that this was what my life was going to be and I had to make the best of it. And if it wasn't what I felt in my heart…well, I had time in abundance to make it real and no other option but to learn how.

I sighed and turned away from the window, going back to the model aeroplane I was constructing. I enjoyed the delicate, intricate work involved and reminded myself as I did it to move slowly and humanly. Carlisle had been right when he told me that it was good practice to do things at a human pace even when no one was around to see, I'd spent so much time disciplining myself to ignore my vampire speed and act human that it that it was becoming almost second nature.

I heard Carlisle come home from work, talking briefly to Edward in the living room before he bounded up the stairs and into the room he and Esme shared. I ignored the murmured conversation from across the hallway as I focussed on building the second wing for my miniature Tiger Moth, smiling to myself as the delicate craft began taking recognisable shape. It was only when I paused for a moment, holding two sections together as the glue dried rapidly under my cold fingers, that I became aware of the change in sounds from Carlisle and Esme.

I tried to block it out. I had no desire to listen to the noises of their intimate time together, the tell-tale sighs and muted moans and rhythmic rocking of their bed that always left me either taut with embarrassment or shaking with revulsion over the memories it raised. But vampire hearing can't be turned off when it's convenient and my room was just too close to theirs, so after only a moment I left the pieces of my model on the blanket on the floor I worked on and dropped from my window to the grass outside. I went to the garage, the place I always went when I needed some space and solace.

Edward was already there. He was better at ignoring things than I was, I suppose nothing he could hear with his ears was anywhere near as disturbing as what he'd read right out of people's heads over the years, but he would often join me out in the garage at such times. I wondered occasionally if he did this more for my benefit than his, so that I wouldn't have to be alone with my tormenting memories. But thinking about that always made me uncomfortably aware of what Edward must have heard in my thoughts over the past year and a half and I refused to dwell on that.

Edward smiled at me from where he sat on the stool, a book held loosely in his hands. I perched on the workbench beside him with my legs dangling, and for a moment we both sat quietly, contemplating the dark, wet world outside our garage sanctuary.

"What are you reading?" I asked at last.

Edward shrugged. "Some music theory."

"Ah." Conversational dead end. I could play the piano, but not like Edward, and my knowledge of musical theory was sketchy at best, and my interest in it even less.

"Is it always going to be like this?" I asked into the lengthening silence, and I could have bitten my tongue off at the note of desperation in my voice.

"Like what?" Edward asked quietly.

"Like this," I said in frustration. "Them, up there together…you and I, down here…" I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. "Is this all there is?"

A ghost of a smile flitted across Edward's face. "Would you prefer that you and I were…?"

"No!" I kicked at him and gave a short laugh. "I don't think so! I won't ever…not with anyone." I snapped my mouth shut. Stupid to regret anything I said to Edward, he always heard so much more than just the words I spoke anyway, but I still resented him knowing all my secrets and didn't share with him easily.

"Oh, you will," Edward said, looking at me with a combination of pity and affection that made me alternate between wanting to grin at him and wanting to strangle him. "I've no doubt that you'll find some vampire man who will be so entranced by you you'll convert him to our vegetarian ways and live happily ever after."

I snorted. "I wouldn't have thought you were such a fantasist, Edward." The idea of some mystery vampire man, well, the idea of any man touching me left me cold. I sighed and pulled my legs up on to the workbench to rest my chin on my knees, letting my hair fall forward to hide my face from Edward. "It's not that I want…that," I said after a moment. "What Carlisle and Esme have together is something I can't do."

"Rosalie…"

"Don't," I said bluntly. "Don't give me platitudes Edward…I know what I am and this is the way we live and that's that." I flipped my hair back and looked at him. "I guess this is all there is for me."

This is all there is. Hiding in the garage with Edward because I'm both jealous of the love Carlisle and Esme share and sickened by what they do and the things it makes me remember. I want so much more than what I have, and at the same time I wish Carlisle had just let me die…there's too much hurt and the contradictions of me are just too big!

There is so much hate, and anger and fear inside me, and I don't know how to change anything. I don't know how to change myself, and I don't know how to change my circumstances, and I can't take the risk of vulnerability by letting those who would help me in. It's an endless spiral and I don't know that I'll ever escape.

Edward's face was carefully blank as he looked outside, and I felt the familiar lick of resentment and anger that I couldn't have secrets from him. I hate you being in my head! Get out! I knew he meant nothing bad, I had to admit he was the soul of discretion and in the months since we'd returned from Europe he had done his utmost to pretend he heard nothing at all because it might make me happy, but even after a year and half it still made me feel violated to know that he heard all my private thoughts.

"Let's go for a drive," Edward said abruptly, rising to his feet and dropping the book on the stool he'd been sitting on. Moving preternaturally fast he took the keys from the board and tossed them across to me. "Come on Rose, drive me somewhere where I can watch the sunrise."

I rolled my eyes, but followed his lead and climbed into the driver's seat of the Buick, moving smoothly down the driveway. I didn't know whether Carlisle and Esme would even notice we were gone, caught up in being together as they were, but I pressed briefly on the horn anyway to let them know we were leaving. As soon as we were on the road I began accelerating, pushing the car faster, not really noticing where I was heading but just enjoying the sense of freedom that driving always gave me.

Beside me Edward wound down the window and the cold, damp darkness seemed to rush in with the wind. We didn't talk as we drove and I was grateful for his silence as the noise of the car and the roaring wind and the rain on the glass soothed my jangled nerves. As the sky grew almost imperceptibly lighter I began winding my way higher through the hills, eventually pulling over on the grass verge where the road crested the ridge.

The rain had stopped by then and the fierce winds were moving the clouds rapidly across the sky. I thought sourly that even the weather favoured Edward- he wanted to see a sunrise and damned if even the clouds didn't get out of his way so he could. All the same, as the sky began to be streaked with lighter grey and faint pinks and blues, I was glad I'd come with him. It was nice to be reminded occasionally that there were still bigger things in the world than me and my problems.

"I think about the old myths sometimes," Edward said reflectively. "Imagine if they were true and this sunrise was deadly to us…imagine how different it would be to return to the coffin every day, and never see the sun! It would be impossible to feel anything other than a creature of darkness in those circumstances."

I shuddered, although I don't know whether it was the images of coffins Edward's words conjured up or at the other thought that crept silently into my mind. At least that would be a way out. At least that would be an end to this.

Suddenly too restless to stay and play my role I pushed my way out of the car. Edward looked after me in surprise, but I tossed the key to him with a grimace.

"I'm going hunting," I said. "Can you take the car home?"

"Do you want company?" Edward asked, careful to sound neither eager nor reluctant. "I don't mind coming with you."

"No." I shook my head. "I'll be fine on my own. See you when I get back." Raising a hand in a brief farewell, I then turned my back on him and ran into the forest. I ran fast and hard, that effortless vampire run that ate up the miles and felt like flying, and as the forest whipped past my eyes I wished bleakly that I could only outrun myself as easily as I was running away from Edward.