1. Bella Cullen: My Best Friend and My Daughter

As I stood peering out the window of our little cottage, I heard his footsteps behind and suddenly my husband's arms closed tight around me.

"What are you thinking, love?" his sweet velvet voice whispered in my ear.

But I couldn't think how to express my feelings in words. So I threw my shield to allow Edward to see my thoughts. His beautiful topaz eyes glowed in reminiscence and I understood what he was reliving for I was reliving it too. For the past few days I could think of very little except my baby, Renesmee. My memories focused mainly on the small time in which she was actually a baby, dependant on others for survival. Despite the shortness of that period in her life, my vampire memory could recount every second in perfect clarity. My mind raced and together Edward and I relived Nessie's first year: Her birth, her first sentence, her high frilly baby voice. The recap concluded with a memory of the confrontation with the Volturi, the night I realized that we were going to spend eternity together and I could feel the pure joy swell in me as if it were fresh news.

The trance was broken when Edward spun me around and crushed his lips to mine for only a brief minute before pulling me away with an empathetic expression.

"We both knew this was coming, Bells. Nessie couldn't stay little forever."

"Okay, but I would have settled for the regular amount of time," I whined into his chest.

We had always known Renesmee was special, not vampire, and still not quite a human, her rapid growth and her diet proved that, but tomorrow Nessie would stop aging forever. Tomorrow was her 7th birthday and Carlisle has calculated that at time her immortality would kick in. And I was not ready for that. I had no reason of course. It was just one of those maternal instincts. For some reason, I felt that when Renesmee stopped growing, we would lose her. After all 7 was still awfully young.

Renesmee was only biologically turning 7 my family had to keep reminding me. Technically she was only alive for 7 years, but if you calculate in her speedy growth, Nessie was a teenager, an exact age would be difficult to guess, but she looked only slightly younger than Edward and I. This scared me. My only daughter was almost an adult. Technically, tomorrow, she would be full grown.

"It's not like we're losing her," Edward reminded me as if he could still see the worry in my thoughts but then, it was probably written across my face, as well.

I tried to form an argument, but words escaped me once again, before I could regroup, Edward caressed my face, his hands warm against my lips.

"Bella, please, don't upset yourself over this. Nessie is fine," he said trying to comfort me. "She's perfect, she's happy and between us and Jacob, she's well protected."

The conflict between Jacob and Edward was long over. Jacob was now an established member of the family. Edward had referred to Jacob as brother many times, but I knew that Edward's feeling toward Jacob had become more fatherly since Jacob had imprinted on Renesmee when she was born, which seemed like yesterday to me. Jacob and Nessie were soul mates; I couldn't deny them that. But it was strange to watch the boy Jacob Black who I had been in love with, quite literally in another lifetime, fall in love with my daughter. And it was stranger yet to see my daughter return the affection. They were meant to be together. My body cringed at my thoughts. My best friend and my daughter.