Another fanfic I've been writing on ever since Breaking Dawn stopped, and I've written about a hundred pages – it's far from finished! I know what's going to happen in it. It's going to be quite dramatic. Please read and review :)

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Winternight

First part

PREFACE

I hadn't expected my incredibly bad luck to follow me into immortality, though I should have known. Carlisle's theory about vampires pulling their traits into their new life, making it stronger, should have warned me. Since my clumsiness had not followed me, I hadn't figured my bad luck would.

I hadn't figured it could possibly be any worse. But it was, and once again, I had put my family in danger. Possibly for the very last time.

I watched with what I would believe to be a pale face, even paler than usual, as the moon stroked up from behind the mountains and buried everything in white.

EXPLAINING

It was snowing. A thick layer had already imprisoned the earth. My hand held my daughter's. Renesmee.

I smiled. After I had begun calling her Nessie, like everyone else, she had, by touching my cheek, told me that she didn't like it. She liked that I was the only one calling her Renesmee. It was a feeling she couldn't quite describe.

It had only been almost two years since the Volturi had decided to leave us alone – for now. She still clung to Edward and I like clue. She had been terribly heartbroken – like myself – that I had told her to leave me.

Edward, holding her other hand, suddenly hissed. I immediately looked warily at him, but he refused to look at me.

"What's wrong?" I asked deliberately.

Renesmee looked up at me, and I looked back into her eyes. There was something there, and I understood that it was her thoughts that had made Edward react like this.

"What's wrong?" I asked again, this time for my little girl.

She had really grown. She was almost on the size of a sixth year old girl now. Her hair, the color of her fathers, curled around her face, her neck. She was so beautiful.

She reached for me, but because she was unwilling to let go of Edward's hand, I had to bend down for her to touch my cheek. A picture of me and Edward, but not Edward and the vampire me, but the human me. I suddenly understood what she wanted, and I flinched away, like Edward.

She did have the right to know how it had all happened. But was she ready to know that the guy she cared for so much – Jacob – had once been in love with her mother in a whole different way than he should?

I stopped them both, reaching my left hand to my temples. I concentrated on pulling my shield together so that Edward could hear my thoughts. Though I had closed my eyes, I could feel his stare.

Is she ready? What with the whole Jacob thing?

I could hear him coming closer, so I opened my eyes, and the shield was in place again. I couldn't hold it back for long. It wanted to protect me, and therefore, it fought against me. That was good, but sometimes annoying, because Edward still was only starting to get used to sometimes hearing my thoughts, and he always reacted with kissing me, which made me lose it.

He bend over me, his lips at my ear. The sweet sensation of desire still hadn't gone – never would. It was still just as strong as when I pulled myself out of the fire that had changed me.

Though I never wanted to let go of this desire, I did wish I would soon be able to control it.

He whispered, too low for Renesmee's ears to hear. She was, after all, half human.

"We'll tell her the beginning. She can know the rest when she's old enough to understand."

I nodded seriously. I was suddenly aware of my daughter looking at us with a heartbroken look in her eyes. How could anyone not give her what she wanted?

Edward stepped back, loosening her hand, which made her even more confused. I immediately feared that she thought Edward was angry and would go. But I pulled her into my arms, and Edward was at my side at once, laying his arm around me.

I bit my lip and looked for Edward to begin. We started walking through the forest again.

"What about you told her? I'll fill in the holes," Edward suggested. Renesmee's face lit up with a smile as she understood that we would tell her.

I sighed. "Fine," I grumbled and gave him a dark look. He just smiled his crooked smile, which made me smile.

"Okay. Hmm." I thought about it. "Well, I had decided to come live with Charlie, Grandpa, to give Renée, Grand mom, the freedom to travel with her new husband, Phil, around to his football games.

"I never did like the cold or the rain, so Forks was some hard trial." I cringed. "My first day was terrible. I hated the people staring at me – "

"You still hate people staring at you," Edward corrected, and I rolled my eyes.

"Anyway, I was with a girl called Jessica in the canteen when I saw them." Edward suddenly grinned hugely. He had made me show him this memory so many times, he knew it too well. Probably better than me.

"I was pulled into the curiosity at once. Why were they so pale? So beautiful?" I shook my head. "I asked Jess. She told me about them – the Cullens." Renesmee smiled, eyes wide with a thrill. I smiled back at her. "She told me their names. I stared at them some more. Suddenly, as Jess said their names, the boy with the bronze hair looked up." Renesmee shrieked. Edward laughed. "He caught me looking, and I immediately looked away, blushing."

"Such a lovely color," Edward murmured to himself, looking at me. If I wasn't a vampire, that would have made me blush, and he knew without reading my thoughts.

"Well, when the boy looked away, I asked Jess what the boy with the reddish-brown hair was called. She told me: 'Oh, that's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but he doesn't date.'" Edward burst into a loud laughter. I could hear Renesmee's heart going quicker. "A girl named Angela walked me to my next class. Biology.

"There was only one seat free. The one at Edward Cullen's table."

Before I could go on, Edward picked up the line. "I of course felt very sorry for the human girl who was forced to sit at my side. Humans didn't like to be close to us. But as she walked by, I felt my throat rip up with thirst. She smelled so good." We both cringed, and Renesmee looked from one to another.

"What happened?" she asked in a small voice.

He grinned. "I had never smelled anything so good. You can imagine what I wanted. But I simply couldn't do that to Carlisle. So I fought a whole hour against the thirst. You remember Tanya, Kate, Carmen and Eleazar, right?" She nodded. "Well, I took off to visit them. I wouldn't slip. I wouldn't kill the Swan girl."

I grinned. "I, of course, felt stupidly self conscious, unable to not feel guilty for Edward Cullen's absence. I wondered about how he could hate me so quickly. I remembered the dark glance he had sent me that first day in Biology. He didn't show up for a long time," I told her. "Then one day – he was there. He introduced himself. I felt stunned that he was talking to me. 'I didn't get the chance to introduce myself last time'." I send Edward a teasing look. "Of course you didn't." He grinned.

Renesmee looked fascinated at us. I touched her cheek with a smile.

"I tried to make small-talk with the girl," Edward continued the story. "But I found myself caught by her reactions, her immunity to my mindreading." He sighed and played with a stray of my hair.

"The next day, a van got out of hand and screeched over the parking lot towards me." Edward flinched. "Suddenly, Edward Cullen, who had surely been standing at the other end of the lot, was at my side, stopping the van, leaving a mark of his hands in the car's side." I shrugged. "He said I had hit my head pretty bad. Probably trying to make me think I was hallucinating." I send Edward a sour look, but I couldn't manage to hold it, and I grinned at him, once again.

"Dr. Cullen told me I was good to go. He seemed suddenly absentminded and busy when I mentioned how lucky it was that Edward had been at my side." Edward chuckled. I paused, listening to the fantastic sound of his voice. Surely, there could be no sound so beautiful. "I wanted to talk with Edward, but he didn't want to talk with me."

"Still, you seduced me to go with you," he sighed. I smiled triumphantly at him.

"He didn't want to tell me what had happened, told me I didn't make sense. Wanted to know why I wanted to know, when I told I wasn't going to tell anybody. He seemed to struggle to understand me …"

"Then, she asked me why I had saved her," Edward whispered, looking into Renesmee's eyes. "I told her I didn't know."

Renesmee seemed to really like the story. She reached for my cheek, and I willingly let her. A picture of how she emarginated it. Both Edward and I chuckled. In Renesmee's mind, we both looked happy, looked at each other like we loved the other one more than the world. It seemed she couldn't quite put it together with our story of how we reacted toward each other.

"Oh, but dear, you haven't quite got it right." She frowned, and I explained: "Well, back then, we didn't look that way at each other. I remember Edward looking rather angry, and, in the end, lost."

"You looked very much that way, too, you know," he assured me. I nudged him with my shoulder, glad, still, that I could make him sway. Renesmee frowned. She touched my cheek again. She still couldn't make it fit.

"Renesmee," I said, "we didn't love each other back then."

Edward hissed in disagreement.

"Oh, please!" I rolled my eyes.

"I did love you from the first moment."

"Sure you did."

"I'll prove it!" he mumbled.

"Bring it on!"

"When Jessica said 'He doesn't date', her thought wasn't the friendliest. I felt an urge to protect you from the thoughts that you couldn't hear."

I stared blankly at him. "Well, dang it!" I half grumbled, half shouted. Renesmee laughed, which made me in a better mood.

"Well, you were kind of caught up by me from the very first moment," he reminded me teasingly. I rolled my eyes. "But I'll agree that we didn't exactly behave as if we already felt that way."

I nodded. Renesmee sighed. She still couldn't follow.

I looked warily at her. "Maybe you aren't old enough to understand," I suggested, but she stiffened. She reached for my cheek after a few seconds of silence. I didn't really see anything this time, just felt. Felt that this question about her mom and dad's first time together had annoyed her for a long time.

I sighed. How to go on?

"I decided to ignore her," Edward helped me, smiling as Renesmee stared at him. I could see that she was glad she already knew what it would all end with. She placed her hand against my cheek again, and this time, I knew it for sure. She kept the hand there, sharing every thought and emotion with me. "I decided I couldn't bring my family in more danger. Emmet, Rosalie and Jasper agreed. They thought it was time to make sure she wouldn't say anything." He cringed. I felt shock and horror go through Renesmee's little body. And something else. I remembered back to the first day I'd been a vampire. She had showed me how she felt about Jacob, how she owned him. I felt that again – only it was my face this time. She pushed herself closer to me and looked around, as if some danger would come. I understood that she wanted to protect me, and that made both Edward and me laugh. She stared at us, confused, yet again.

"Alice and Carlisle was on my side. Esme said I should do whatever in course of me staying. The fight didn't end in Bella's dead," he shuddered, "but there was no way I could interfere with the human anymore."

I caught up the line as if I could read his thoughts. "Then, girl's choice spring dance was coming. Mike Newton asked me if I was going to ask him. I immediately made myself an alibi. I said I was going to Seattle."

Edward muffled a laugh. "Your mother wasn't too good on the feet back then," he told our daughter.

I ignored him. "Mike had asked me in Biology, and, of course, Edward had heard him. At the end of class, he said:"

"Bella?" he repeated himself from back then perfectly. I laughed.

"What? Are you speaking to me again?" My voice was exactly as it had been back then; petulance thick and clearly.

"No, not really," Edward said.

"Then what do you want, Edward?"

"I'm sorry. I'm being very rude, I know. But it's better this way, really."

"I don't know what you mean," I answered, still the perfect voice from back then – though now, my voice had that bell-like sound chasing every word. I would never have gotten peace from the boys in high school if I had had this voice.

"It's better if we're not friends. Trust me."

"it's too bad you didn't figure that out earlier. You could have saved yourself all this regret." As I said the words, I remembered too clearly the feeling from back then. The annoyance.

"Regret? Regret for what?" I wanted to laugh at the way his tone was exactly as confused as back then.

"For not just letting that stupid van squish me."

There was a pause – exactly like back then. With Edward saying all the words on his part, and me saying mine, it felt like a clearer memory.

"You think I regret saving your life?" he asked in that funny mad voice. Renesmee cringed, and I brushed her hair back.

"I know you do," I snapped.

"You don't know anything."

We both stopped talking for a second, long enough to remember what happened next. "I walked angrily for the door, wanting to sweep out the room dramatically." I sighed. "But, as the week and clumsy human I was, I tripped, and all my books were at the floor."

"I quickly gathered her books together before she could even bend down."

"'Thank you', I said. 'You're welcome'." I shook my head. "You really owe me for the next you did." I frowned.

He laughed, and Renesmee looked expectantly at us. Through her hand, I felt her curiosity.

So I continued. "After Gym I hurried to the parking lot. I sat in my car, ready to go home. Then, Edward swept out in front of my. His family was still at the cafeteria. Then Tyler came to my car. We were both captured behind Edward. 'Sorry, I'm stuck behind Cullen'." I shook my head. "It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for you," I accused.

He chuckled. "Of course it would."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, Tyler – the third person that day – asked me to the dance. After turning him down, I saw Edward laugh in the back mirror."

Renesmee suddenly turned toward her dad. "Why?" she asked blankly.

He bend down and smiled at her. "To see how your mother would react."

Bothe Renesmee and I shook our heads. Edward grinned. A new picture formed in my head. Renesmee was impatient to hear more.

Edward and I hesitated, knowing one detail would be missed. His first nightly visit.

"The next day, Edward told me he was giving up being good, and that he was breaking all the rules."

"The last part I said later," he corrected.

I shrugged. "Who cares?" Renesmee touched my cheek and answered me. I smiled at her. "Sorry, dear."

"I asked her to sit at my table at lunch," he said, but we both froze as Renesmee cried out her comment to this act. Through her hand, I felt her shock, the picture of me, suddenly sitting beside Jasper, Rosalie and Emmet – those who had told Edward to silence me.

"Edward and I didn't sit at their table," I whispered and kissed her forehead. Through her hand, she told me this was something we should have told her right away.

Edward smiled. "Well, Bella came to sit in front of me, though her friends was very much against it. Especially Mike." He sniggered. "At one point, I asked her what she was thinking. She answered; 'I'm trying to figure out what you are'. I was scared that she might have found out, but when I asked, she –" I snorted angrily, and he stopped. Then he laughed loudly. "Bella, you can't keep that from her!"

"Watch me!" I growled and got a good hold on Renesmee before I started running. I heard Edward laugh behind me, Renesmee shriek in my arms, the snow falling around me being lightly pushed in a new direction as I blurred on through the woods.

But Edward was quickly and caught up easily. I growled and got to a stop, turned around and ran in the other direction. Surely, that wouldn't work again, but it would hold my stupidity from my daughter just a little while longer. I knew Edward wouldn't tell her if it hurt me, and I knew Renesmee would beg for me to tell her.

And I would give in.

I sighed, and my running grew to an abruptly stop. Renesmee clung to my neck, shaking. She couldn't run this fast herself, and, usually, I didn't run like this – like a maniac. I sighed again, and then, Edward was at my side, his arms around me at once.

"Sorry, dear, I won't tell if you don't like me to," he whispered, and his lips were in my hair. I cringed as Renesmee with a low cry touched my cheek, as I had known she would, and begged me.

I tried to fight against it, but I couldn't. I just nodded once and gave her to Edward. Edward looked curiously at me as I turned around and ran into the forest. Renesmee cried again, this time a real one. I stopped only a hundred meters away. I could hear them – I just didn't want to see them. I was positive that my daughter would laugh when she heard what was coming.

Edward told her I was near. Then he answered the question I knew she asked through her touch.

Silence.

I turned around to go back, to see if something had happened. But then I froze. Renesmee babbled laughter, and soon enough, Edward laughed, too.

I growled and slowly came back. The second I was in view again, my frown clearly visible on my face, Renesmee pointed me out to Edward and laughed.

"Yea, I'm hilarious," I mumbled and stopped at Edward's side.

He bend down and kissed me urgently. "You are," he mumbled around my lips. I sighed.

Out of my eye, I saw Renesmee touch Edward's cheek, and he smiled widely at her, his white teeth shining in the light.

"They would be blood-typing in Biology, so I ditched class."

I sprang in front of Edward, my face near Renesmee. "Don't pick up that habit!" I told her warningly. She smiled at me, and I couldn't help smiling back. She touched my cheek, and I felt glad to know, that she felt a little sorry for laughing at me, and that she wanted to make up for it. She wanted me happy. I smiled wider.

Then her hand delivered impatience.

"Already when I was human, I could smell blood. I didn't like the smell." She stared at me, like that was impossible. "Well, I felt really sick. Mike helped me down. Then suddenly Edward was there. He took over Mike's job – "

"Which Mike wasn't too happy about."

"– and brought me to the school nurse." I laughed at a suddenly clear memory among all the cloudy. To set of eyes stared curious at me. "All the way, I didn't think about anything but 'please don't let me vomit on him'." Edward laughed with me, and Renesmee quickly followed.

"You never told me," he accused.

I rolled my eyes. "Of course not."

"Then why now?"

"I didn't tell you. I told Renesmee. You just happened to be here." He smiled that crooked smile. I stopped breathing – funny that I had taken this habit with me to my immortal life.

"Mike held a get-together on the La Push beach," I continued, and Renesmee stared with wide eyes. I sighed. "Yes, Jacob was there." I smiled at her. "Jacob's sisters and I had spend a lot of summers together. I knew Jacob before moving permanently to Forks. One of the boys from La Push – they were a little party joining us – mentioned that the Cullens didn't come to La Push, because Laruen had teased me with Edward." I cringed at what I was going to tell my daughter now. "So I … Seduced Jacob into telling me." Renesmee stared at me, not understanding. I didn't linger. "He told me about the old legends from La Push. That the Cullens were supposed to be vampires, the so called cold ones."

Renesmee rested her head against my chest, wanting to hear more. "Later on, I left for Port Angeles with Angela and Jessica. They were supposed to find dressed for the spring dance.

"I wanted to find some books, since there was none in Forks. But I got lost." Both Edward and I frowned. After a second, Edward shortly shook, probably remembering something I didn't. "Four men followed me. They wanted to …" I send Edward a gaze from my eye corner. "Hurt me," I finished in one breath.

Renesmee gasped, deliberately clinging to my blouse, refusing to let go. I felt the horror shook her, and I held her closer. This story was too much for her, so I didn't tell anymore.

"Should we go home?" I asked Edward silently.

Renesmee sprang in my eyes, immediately touching me, telling me that she wanted to hear the rest. "But you're not old enough." I shook my head.

"It's not her age," Edward told me and held me closer. "She has this from her father. I don't like hearing this, either. Anything that hurt you should be erased in an instant!" Renesmee seemed to agree.

I sighed. "Fine, then. Edward came driving in his silver Volvo," I laughed, remembering how the sight of it had made me feel secure before I was even in the seat beside him. "'Get in!' he told me." I shrugged. "I obeyed."

"I was furious with the four men that had been intended on hurting her, so I drove us out of town. I tried to pull myself together."

"A few minutes later, we drove back to Port Angeles. We found Angela and Jessica, but they were on their way home. So," I grinned, "your dad asked me to dinner."

Once again, we both laughed.

"It was then he told me I was right about the mindreading. In the car, on our way back to Forks, I told him what Jacob had told me." Edward's eyes witnessed that he was no longer with us, but in the car, sitting by me, his hands knotted into fists around the wheel. "I told him I had searched on the internet on the subject, but it was all very ridiculous," I said, using the words from back then. "Then I told him it didn't matter."

Edward was with us again, grinning widely. "It sure didn't – to you. Any sane person would have stayed away. But I'm glad you didn't."

I smiled at him. "'It doesn't matter?' he half shouted. 'Not to me,' I answered. He asked me if I didn't care if he was a monster. I told him no. He told me I was insane. Then I asked if I was wrong again." Renesmee held her breath with huge eyes. "'That's not what I was referring to. 'It doesn't matter''." I laughed. I had quoted him perfectly. "'I'm right,' I gasped. 'Does it matter?' he asked." I laughed. Edward kissed my forehead with a smile.

"The next days I asked him all kinds of questions and he would answer most of them."

"I asked her if she would care to chance her plans the Saturday for the dance. She said no. So at Saturday, I would show her what I did when it was good weather."

I smiled, remembering. "He took me to a clearing in the forest." I shrugged.

Renesmee nudged my cheek expectantly, but I could only laugh, remembering my little nudger.

"All walls were down," Edward whispered and stroke my cheek, slightly touching Renesmee's.

In only a second, I forgot that Renesmee was there. "Everything was clear," I whispered back.

He smiled. "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb …" he murmured.

I felt the same thrill as back then, the same need to look away, to hide my eyes. "What a stupid lamb," I sighed, like back then.

"What a sick, masochistic lion."

I stared into his eyes, love overwhelming me. I lifted my hand to touch his cheek. I still couldn't get used to how soft it was.

A meadow, a human girl stroking the cheek of a vampire. I was suddenly aware of Renesmee. I got a better hold on her and smiled.

We continued through the forest. Renesmee frowned after a minute. She touched my cheek, and I sighed, knowing that she had figured out that there was more.

"You can always get this story," I whispered. "Later on, when you're older. I don't agree that age isn't a big part of this. You will have easier to comprehend the story in a few years."

She shook her head, and I sighed.

It was Edward that continued the story. "The next day, I took her with me home." Renesmee stiffened once again, the image of Rosalie, Emmet and Jasper, wanting to hurt me, in her head again. "No, Renesmee, they weren't like that when we came." He hesitated and I frowned. One had been.

"In the evening, there would be a storm. I had said yes to coming with them," I whispered, eyes staring away. Probably blank with memories.

"Then they came," Edward growled. Renesmee stared at us, grasping that it was this I hadn't wanted her to hear. Still didn't want her to hear. She was so smart. So her father.

"James, Laurent and Victoria," I whispered.

"They were nomads," Edward told our daughter. "They were coming toward us, hearing the game, too quick for us to hide Bella. We tried to make her look as a vampire as good as we could. But James smelled her."

Renesmee gasped and hid in my hair. I stroked her bag.

"He was a hunter, and he decided to hunt her," he continued, trying to ignore us, to make it easier, I guess. "After we had counseled with Alice and Emmet – "

"You mean reasoning with you," I teased, and he half grinned, half grimaced at me.

"Right. Well, Bella were to tell Charlie she didn't want to live in Forks anymore, that she was going home. We figured James would see that Bella would be with me, and therefore, we had to separate. So Bella left for Phoenix with Alice and Jasper while Emmet, Carlisle, Rosalie, Esme and I tried to confuse the others, to take them down."

"I called home to make sure my mom could check the answering machine to hear, that she were to stay away from Phoenix. Then we got a call from my mom, and I talked with her. Only it wasn't my mom – James had captured her, and to save her life, I had to come home to her house." Renesmee suddenly started shaking as she realized what I was telling her. She touched my cheek, as if she was trying to tell the me from the past to not go.

"I triggered Jasper and Alice and got home, where I was told to go to the dance studio. Here, James was waiting for me." I gasped as Renesmee started crying in wild sobs, holding me tighter than before. "Shh, shh, it's okay," I whispered. Edward was there, soothing her, too, humming her lullaby.

She slowly stopped shaking, though it didn't stop entirely. Now I was sure. I wouldn't tell her anymore.

But, apparently, Edward would.

"James taped everything," Edward continued, ignoring my hiss, begging him to not go further. "It had been a trick. He'd used tapes to fake the phone conversation with Bella – tapes where Renée's voice was in, every word from the conversation mentioned."

I decided I might as well tell the next. "I tried to run, but he caught me and swung me into the wall of glass. He broke my leg and – "I stopped. A sound I had never heard before had caught my attention. A low growl. Furious.

Renesmee were snarling.

I kissed her forehead again.

"He bit her, but we got there soon enough. I sucked the venom out of her."

We both cringed at the memory.

"That's it, I guess." She immediately recognized the lie and touched my cheek, but this time, nor Edward nor I would continue.

She sighed. "We'll tell you some day," I promised her, not sure if I could keep it. She was going to hold me to it.

"Let's get back," Edward suggested, and we turned around.