A/N- This story is set seven years post Breaking Dawn and is about Renesmee, who now looks to be roughly the same age as her parents. Emotionally she's a teenager- she's working out who she is and what she's doing with her life and trying to understand how she fits into the world. It's way out of my comfort zone so I'm making no promises about how it's going to go!

I had a lot of issues with Breaking Dawn, to be honest, most of them surrounding Renesmee being born in the first place, everyone's reactions to her, and then the imprinting. However it also raised a LOT of questions for me about how Renesmee was going to grow up to view herself, her vampire family and Jacob. This story is pretty much me just playing with the characters and some potential answers to those questions.

Chapter 1- Prologue~

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly,

Into the light of the dark black night.

-'Blackbird', by Paul McCartney

Renesmee's Journal.

The time for change is coming closer. Carlisle's started looking at real estate again and Esme has stopped planning next season's planting for the garden.

Mom and Dad are oblivious, as always. Bella and Edward I mean, I guess I will have to get used to calling them by their names. Sometimes it's like they can't look past the bubble of their perfect love and relationship to see what's right in front of their eyes.

I'm not going to let them all decide my future for me this time. There is so much I want to do and experience and discover for myself! I've been thinking about it, and this time when they talk I'm going to make myself heard. I'm going to say what I want to do. I know they have the collected wisdom of centuries between them, but I want the chance to learn for myself.

I feel so bowed down under the weight of all their love and expectations. There are so many things that tie us all together as a family. Love, obligation, honour, blood, friendship, dreams, shared secrets…I can't even count the ways that I'm tied to all of them. I know they mean nothing but the best, I know how they all love me…but just because the cage is a golden one doesn't mean it doesn't entrap. I want to fly, and I don't even know how.

Jacob…god, I don't know what this will do to him. I don't even want to think about it. But I have to do this, I have to at least try, and I hope he can understand.

I don't want to hurt him, and I know I will. I don't see any other way.

Sometimes I hate them all.

"Hey Loch Ness!" Emmett bounds into my room. He's wearing camouflage combat trousers and a khaki t shirt and has a bandana tied around his head- I know what this outfit means and I feel the smile spreading across my face. "Come on Monster, put that shit away and come outside, it's paintball time!"

"Okay, hang on." I shut my journal and drop it back into the desk drawer and then duck into my wardrobe. I'm already wearing cargo pants (much to Alice's displeasure I only ever wear cargos and jeans) but my purple t shirt is way too bright so I fling it off and grab my old grey hoodie instead. "Who's playing?" I call to Emmett.

"Everyone!" he whoops. "Haven't seen your dog yet, but I guess he'll play if you are."

I back out of the closet, scowling at Emmett. "You're not allowed to call him that."

"Yeah, yeah, Monster, whatever…" Emmett huffs impatiently at me. "You're getting as uptight as your dad sometimes."

I glare at him, and he gives me his dimpled grin in return and reaches out and hugs me. "Okay Loch Ness, I'm sorry…how bout you and Jacob come on my team?"

I grin back. I can never stay mad at Emmett. No one can and he takes shameless advantage of that, saying and doing whatever comes into his head and relying on his dimples and repentance to get him out of trouble. Funny thing is that Rosalie is the only one it doesn't work on. "Okay, I'll go find Jake and we'll be outside in a minute."

Emmett gives a pretty good Scotch battle cry as he takes the most direct route to the yard by jumping out of my window, and I hear Jasper's answering Rebel yell from outside. Giggling to myself I run lightly along the hallway to Jacob's room at the end, knocking quietly.

"Come in Ness."

It doesn't surprise me that he knows it's me. The relationship between Jacob and I is so multi layered and complex, and yet at its heart it is very simple. Maybe we don't understand why, but in the end it doesn't matter- the imprint binds us and both of us are connected in ways that seem endless and inescapable.

I push open the door and go in to the room which is as familiar as my own. Jacob is sitting at the desk with the computer in front of him, but he swivels in his chair to smile at me. Unwillingly, I feel the slight shift in my body that always happens when I am close to him, the relaxation of a tension I don't even know I'm feeling until it's gone. Mine. Home.

Jacob has changed little since I was born. Unlike my vampire family he is capable of change- his hair grows, his skin tans and scars – but as long as he phases regularly he doesn't age so his skin is as smooth and brown and his hair as glossy and dark as it is in my first memories of him. He still looks a little older than I do, early twenties to my late teens, but it no longer raises eyebrows to see us together.

"We're going to play paintball," I say. "Come play?"

"Sure." Jacob turns back to the computer for a minute. "I've just been messaging with my dad," he says over his shoulder. "He says hi." He types for a moment and then chuckles as he turns off the screen. "I don't know Ness, I finally get the old guy online so it's easier to keep in touch and check up on him that he's okay, and now he's addicted. Apparently he's always in football chats and on message boards, and he's filling up my inbox with cat macros and dirty jokes."

I laugh. I like Jacob's dad, although I know he's never been too sure about me. Jake's always taken such good care of him, I hope Billy will take care of Jacob after…I push the thought away and smile brightly at Jacob. I won't think about it now.

Outside the others are fighting about teams. You'd think after so many years together they'd have worked out some system, but no.

"You can't have Jasper and Alice and Edward," Emmett says, outraged. "That's stacking the deck!" He sees Jacob and I coming and waves us over.

"But Alice can't see Renesmee or Jacob so she's blind to half your team," Dad says. I know he doesn't care which team he's on, he just has fun winding Emmett up.

"Yeah, but we've got the dog," Rosalie says. "That smell gives us away from five miles." She grins evilly at Jacob who sticks his finger up at her with an amiable smile. The two of them throw the worst insults at each other, but I've learned not to react. They don't really mean any of it. From a very antagonistic start Rosalie and Jacob have grown to a kind of mutual understanding and respect that is closer to real friendship than either of them will admit.

"Look, are we going to play or argue all day?" Jasper, with what looks like a bazooka slung over his shoulder, looks impatient. "Rosalie, Emmett, Jacob, Ness…you take Edward. Then I'll have Alice, Carlisle, Esme and Bella." He kicks the open foot locker spilling over with weaponry that someone has dragged out of the garage. "Choose your weapons, soldiers."

I hang back. I'll likely lose an arm if I get in between Emmett and his weapon of choice and Rosalie is so competitive she's not much better. I don't have to worry though, Emmett grabs what he wants and then throws me one of the modified paint ball assault weapons that Rosalie and Jacob built. "Hey Loch Ness, catch! Jacob…here's yours!"

"We're pink!" Rosalie and I shout in unison, grabbing at the ammunition and laughing at each other as the rest of our team rolls their eyes at us.

Jasper orders his team to pick up the green ammunition and then gathers them in a huddle to talk strategy like the experienced soldier he is. He is insufferable when we're playing paintball, or any military-like game really, and I'm glad I'm not on his team to be honest.

I heft up my ammo vest and head off into the woods with the rest of my team. "So what's our strategy?" Dad asks, glancing backwards at the other team a little regretfully. He likes Jasper's organised approach to paintball, and he can't even shoot Mom with a paintball gun without having to make sure she's okay. She's been an indestructible vampire for seven years but he still hasn't gotten over her human fragility.

"Kick some ass," Emmett says cheerfully. "Show no mercy…you know, the usual. Remember, we're ruthless killers Edward!" He smirks at me and Jacob. "Well, some of us are, anyway."

"That's an unbeatable strategy, I don't think," Rosalie says disdainfully, and Emmett laughs and gives her a smacking kiss on her head.

"Okay then, my able Lieutenant, you tell us what to do," Emmett says teasingly, and the two of them, Dad and Jacob fall into an animated discussion. I trudge along behind them, not paying any attention. They'll tell me what to do.

Family paintball is a brutal, no holds barred affair. I always end up being the decoy, along with Jacob, since my heartbeat and slower movements and Jacob's scent (which doesn't smell to me at all, I really don't know what they're always going on about) makes us too easy to spot. If we draw the attention then the others can sneak up or plan an ambush. Which is all well and good for them, but pretty hard lines on Jake and I sometimes, especially considering we're the only two who bruise!

I find myself fleeing from an attack, escaping my pursuers and then scrambling along the riverbank, looking for the fallen hollow tree I know is there, figuring I can take a break in there and let my body heal the bruises before I attempt to sneak back to base and refill my ammo vest. I finally see the dimness of my hidey hole and dive in, only to realise I've been careless and there's already someone in there.

"Crap!"

"Don't worry, it's just me." Alice's golden eyes are gleaming at me in the dimness and I see her teeth as she smiles.

"You're not going to shoot me?"

Alice laughs. "Ness, Jasper's got me carrying round Rosalie's latest prototype…it's practically a cannon. If I shot you with that in here, you'd lose your head."

I giggle. "Thanks."

Alice slaps me gently on the head and I feel the cool wetness of paint dripping down my hair as the paintball she has in her hand bursts. "Don't mention it."

"Jerk…I don't have any paint left," I say, stretching out beside Alice so I can see out of the narrow opening if anyone is coming. "I just came in here to heal the bruises for a minute and then I'll have to go and stock up again." I wipe my face where the paint is starting to drip down into my eyebrows.

"I just came in here to wait for you," Alice says. "I know you always come down to the river to hide out, and I thought I might get lucky."

I feel myself tense. "Why did you want me?" Something in her tone of voice alerts me to the fact that she wants me for some other reason that slapping paint in my hair.

"You know I don't see you in my visions," Alice says slowly. "I've never been able to. Well, that's not entirely true anymore…"

I freeze. It has always been one of the best parts of being me- that my life and future are not laid out like a picture book for Alice to look over at her leisure. Combine that with the latent shield talent I was born with, which although it is nothing like my Mom's I have been able to develop enough to mostly shield my father out of my thoughts, and I have more privacy of thought that anyone else in the family. Privacy that I have always treasured.

"I still don't see you," Alice says hastily. "Not really. But you're not just a blank spot anymore either. I don't know if it's just that I have been trying to see you for so long now and my own talent is developing, or if it's that your vampire side is becoming more dominant as you age, or if it's something else entirely. But whatever the reason, I'm starting to get feelings, and flashes…" She stops talking and regards me kindly. "Is there something you want to talk about?"

I shake my head dumbly.

"Jasper has felt your emotional turmoil recently too," Alice adds softly. "Adding in what I've been feeling too, and we're worried about you Ness. Something is going on." I can feel her eyes on me, before she adds abruptly, "I haven't mentioned any of this to Edward or Bella. I don't see anything clearly enough to make me feel as though I should, and I would talk to you first anyway. But I am seeing changes coming Ness, big ones…and Jasper's been sensing a lot of confusion and unhappiness from you."

I don't say anything, and after several minutes Alice sighs. "You're as stubborn as your parents, you know."

I flick a glance her way, and shake my head again. "I'm fine Alice, really…please don't try and look for me in your visions. I've got to go and get some more ammo." I squirm out of my hidey hole and run, careless of stealth, just wanting to get away.

My team loses in the end. Mom shields her team's minds so Dad can't hear them coming and Jasper gets everyone so calm and peaceful we can barely react as they ambush us up against the brick wall of the back garage and unleash on us. As soon as the barrage starts Jacob instinctively moves his body to cover mine and, shielded from the worst of it, I'm the only one not completely covered in green paint by the end of it.

As soon as the paint attack is over Jacob steps away from me. We don't touch each other anymore, not in the casual way of familiarity that we used to.

"Dirty cheaters!" Emmett bellows, spitting out mouthfuls of paint much to the mirth of the other team.

"All's fair in love and war!" Esme says to him teasingly. "And paintball- you know that Emmett!"

Carlisle moves towards Jacob, and I notice the streak of red running through the green paint on his back. "Jacob, let me see." My stomach clenches, the same instinctive, terrified reaction I have always felt to see my Jacob hurt.

"It's nothing." Jacob waves Carlisle away, embarrassed. "Just split the skin a little bit…it'll be healed in a second."

Carlisle frowns and looks reprovingly at Rosalie. "You need to be careful when you're building your weapons Rosalie. Remember that they may be used against Jacob and Renesmee and they're a little more vulnerable than the rest of us."

Rosalie rolls her eyes impatiently. "Jake's just as much part of building them as I am," she mutters. "Can I help it if he's a willing participant in his own destruction?" She makes a face at the green paint soaking into her long fair braid. "Thanks for the exercise in humiliation, family…I'm going to go and wash this paint out before it stains my hair green."

I move close to Jake and follow the trail of blood across his back to its origin on a small cut just beneath his hairline. It's already healing over.

Jacob is watching me over his shoulder, his eyes intent on my face. "It's fine Ness," he says quietly. "Like I said to Carlisle, it's just a little nick."

I nod, not meeting his eyes. "I just had to make sure," I mumble, turning away and busying myself gathering up the abandoned weaponry and tossing it in to the foot locker. I know both Jacob and Jasper are watching me, but I don't look at either of them as I finish packing up and begin to run back towards my room.