The Mother-Wound

Title: The Mother-Wound
Genre: Romance/Horror
Rating: T
Pairings: Rosalie/Emmett, all canon pairings
Warnings: stalking, gore, non-con, character death
Summary: Post-Breaking Dawn. When they realized the impossible was possible, Emmett and Rosalie decide that perhaps their happily ever after isn't as out of reach as it once seemed. They would sacrifice anything to have their forever family – including a few innocent humans. A short story exploring a darker impact that Nessie's birth and the Volturi's pardon could have had.

Part the First: The Edge of Desire

"I got luckier than I deserved. Emmett is everything I would have asked for, if I'd known myself well enough to know what to ask for. He's exactly the kind of person someone like me needs. And, oddly enough, he needs me, too. That part worked out better than I could have hoped. But there will never be more than the two of us. And, I'll never sit on a porch somewhere, with him gray-haired by my side, surrounded by our grandchildren." – "Unhappy Ending", Eclipse, pg. 96-97

December 2006
Sol Duc River
Clallam County, Washington State

"There is talk coming from Volterra about amending the Law as it pertains to immortal children."

Rosalie opened her amber-gold eyes abruptly, her eyes seeking out the familiar voice that had spoken the words she'd never imagined she'd hear in her eternal existence. From her perch in the massive evergreen tree in the backyard, she could see so much of their land, overflowing and rich with the verdant green flora they loved so much about the Pacific Northwest. Her gaze was sharper than an eagle as she searched for where the conversation was taking place –

And there, on the opposite bank of the Sol Duc River that lazily curled through their backyard, Eleazar and Carlisle stood together, joined within seconds by Esme.

Clearly, the group had returned from hunting and seemed to be about to join the rest of the coven inside the house. But, Eleazar's abrupt announcement brought them pause and they stood together seriously.

"An amendment of the Law – so soon?" questioned Carlisle, both thoughtful and worried. "I've never known the Volturi to be so swift in their stewardship of the Law. This is – interesting."

Eleazar nodded. "Indeed, old friend. It has been but two weeks since they've been gone from here, and I was under the impression that while they had ruled that the hybrids were no immediate threat, there had yet to be a formal ruling on the existence of hybrid vampires. Or, is it the existence of hybrid humans?"

Esme sighed heavily, and it sounded more than a little pinched. "And that's exactly why a formal ruling should take longer than two weeks. It has only been three months since Renesmee has been born, and we still have little idea of who and what she truly is. Whoever this Joham character is, Nahuel's father – we have no idea how extensively he has studied these children, what their full capabilities are, or what the intersection between human and vampire genetics really entails. Nobody can locate him and if Nahuel knows, he isn't being very forthcoming. There's no telling what he knows or what he can share with us about hybrids – and it's worrying to know that the Volturi appears to be making a formal ruling and we don't know what information they're basing this ruling upon."

"Much agreed, my Adored," Carlisle declared. There was no mistaking the hard edge of frustration in his voice, as he continued, "I've been trying to get Edward and Bella to agree to an official study of Renesmee, with you and I as the only researchers, Eleazar. But, they're completely against the idea. Bella, especially, is opposed to the idea of us making Renesmee a test subject, as she puts it."

Eleazar scoffed. "You would think that she would want us to discover everything there is about a child nobody has ever encountered before!"

"To be entirely honest, I think the children only ever cared to know whether Nessie was immortal as we were." Esme said, not unkindly. "Nahuel has come and proven that Nessie will have the same eternal life as we do and for them, that's all the answers they need about their daughter."

There was a tense moment of silence and when several minutes passed in thoughtful silence, Rosalie found herself leaning forward on the tree branch impatiently. These were the conversations that her coven parents purposefully did not have around her or her coven siblings. There were plenty of times where they went to hunt by themselves, their deliberate moments of alone time teasingly being dubbed by their coven children as a date night – and, apparently, these were the critical discussions they had when they were not in the presence of any of their coven children.

It was a rare stroke of luck that she happened to be meditating in the tree tops, determined seek alone time while their home was more crowded with vampires than usual, and in a position to overhear the most crucial conversation she'd known them to be having in years.

"Carlisle, I don't think your children understand the paradigm shift they've created in our world. Nor do I feel they grasp the seriousness of being the creators of an anomaly that our kind scarcely knew was possible." Eleazar spoke in a low voice. "If they are going to protect their impossible hybrid, it is imperative that they understand their daughter better than anyone, especially her potential and her abilities, and not just love her despite them."

Carlisle was quiet for a moment but did not disagree when he spoke again. "You and I share the same concerns, old friend. I'm deeply, deeply worried that they're in denial about this life that they ended up creating. Or, if not in denial, they don't quite understand the seriousness of this."

"Denial is more like it," Esme declared unhappily. "Bella is so new to this life, so freshly Turned and barely more than a child when was Turned, I don't think she has the first idea of what this means. But, Edward is nearly into his first century of this life. Edward knows what the impossibility of Renesmee's birth means in our world, how rarely the core of our kind undergoes change, and how catastrophic that change can be for being so constant and eternal as we are. But, he refuses to accept that there are now very serious consequences of their decision to bring Nessie into this world. He refuses to face reality, and I'm beginning to be worried that when he does, it will be too late."

"It is already too late!" Eleazar declared coldly. "You speak of your created-son and his newborn mate refusing to accept the consequences – what about the pair of you? Are you ready to accept the consequences of failing to be responsible? Are you willing to face the consequences of the confrontation that is barely two weeks behind us?"

Carlisle and Esme were silent. The forest surrounding them was coming to live as dawn continued to creep over the horizon and somehow, everything sounded twice as loud in the painful silence offered up by her coven parents. Rosalie couldn't help but feel a hot lick of anger towards their cousin, leaning forward with a scowl that she knew he could not see. Carlisle and Esme were not perfect and there had been plenty of mistakes, as their coven had grown and come together to be the unbreakable family that covens so rarely were able to be. But, they were the best coven parents she could have, the only parents she desired to be the daughter of in this unending life of theirs, and to hear Eleazar speak so harshly towards them rankled her.

Esme spoke first and the chastened undercurrent to her voice made Rosalie even more irritated with Eleazar.

"Edward fell in love with her, Eleazar." Esme said simply. "Edward, whom I feared would never have a mate because his Gift makes love as much of a curse as it is a blessing, fell in love with Bella and that was all that mattered to us for a while, I think. You don't know how painful it is to see your child so isolated and alone, despite knowing that he is more intimately connected to people than any of us could be. The happiness and the connection that Bella brings him was enough to make us forget the consequences of it – and, we'll accept responsibility of that, however bad it makes us look."

"Oh, you haven't even begun to understand how deeply you are responsible for these coming consequences, as Edward's Creator." Eleazar scoffed. There was an edge of darkness in his voice that was so at odds with the quiet, peaceful sunrise they were amid. "I assure you, by now, word of our confrontation has spread like wildfire through our kind. As we speak, there are vampires who are looking at their human prey with an entirely different perception – and, I'm afraid, old friend, it is not your advocated perception of humans as our fellows and not our food."

Carlisle looked at Eleazar sharply, his Midas-gold eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Word is sure to spread that the kings of Volterra do not judge hybrids to be a threat to our kind. As I said to start with, I have heard rumors from my friends who are apart of the Court of Volterra that this judgement may soon become a formal ruling, and thus an amendment to the Law." Eleazar didn't bother to hide the plain fear in his voice as he declared: "Carlisle, you went to great lengths to prove that human women are the perfect incubators for the seed of vampires. I'm almost positive that at this very moment, somewhere a vampire is seeking a human woman to test and prove the wild claim that we can procreate a brand-new race at will. And, further than that – sooner than later, certainly before there can be any formal amendment of the Law, we will see a wave of hybrid children being born from this knowledge and who know how many human women will be slaughtered because of this."

"Slaughtered?" Esme was alarmed. "Nonsense, no human woman needs to die from birthing a hybrid. We know the process of a human carrying a hybrid child and will not have the problems Bella experienced, because we know better now. Surely, human women won't have to be slaughtered like cattle if – if this does come to pass."

"But, they will be," Carlisle mumbled, numbly. "They will be disproportionately hunted and preyed upon, because of their abilities to carry hybrids. They will be slaughtered like cattle, because the vampire who is seeking to create a hybrid will likely not care to Turn the human before her hybrid is born. Human women will be targeted like they've never been before, and we're responsible for that. We're responsible for it because we made it so publicly known!"

Esme made a soft noise of anguish, the same anguish that was so clearly overwhelming Carlisle. "Oh. Oh, what have we done?"

"You weren't responsible, family, and your lack of responsibility quickly spun out of control," Eleazar said flatly. There was neither comfort nor condemnation in his words, only the facts. "There's nothing that can be done now that your created-son has so violently dragged immortality into an impossible intersection with humanity. Nothing except prepare for the coming lawlessness that always accompanies such a violent, abrupt shift of paradigm."

Rosalie wasn't the only one who was frozen with the shock of Eleazar's grim prediction – but, not for the same reasons as her coven parents.

The seed of an idea had taken root in her mind, dark and forbidden and in the exact spirit that Eleazar was warning against. A wild seed of an idea, which spoke to her deepest desire and created a spark of hope within her, despite the absolute taboo of it.

Human women could be incubators for vampire children. Vampires could father children on human women, who'd give birth to beings who were the perfect cross between humanity and inhumanity. Dhampir children didn't have the insatiable curse of being an eternally bloodthirsty predator – but neither would they be as fleeting and fragile as humans, who lived too briefly and could die so suddenly.

If Rosalie had breath in her immortal body, it would have been stolen from her chest, as the seed became roots and an impossible but potential future bloomed in her mind's eye.

She and Emmett could have children. Dhampir children who would be the humans they used be, while still being the vampires they were, and would forever more be. Dhampir children who would be born swiftly, grow like a lightning strike, and live as eternally as she and Emmett would as their parents. Dhampir children who were more enduring than humans but not as accursed as vampires. Dhampir children who would be children, pure and perfect and divine babies, who would not be the accursed, mindless terrors that Turned children were.

Edward and Bella had their daughter, their eternal child who they would never have be separated from and who were equal parts of their love and devotion to one another – and Bella's humanity, her human womb, was what had gifted them with such an impossible miracle.

Rosalie leaned forward, a touch desperately, wanting to hear the remainder of the discussion, wanting to know everything possible about this unbelievable opportunity – but, in the few seconds that she'd been distracted with the impossibility of her thoughts, Eleazar and Carlisle and Esme had moved on. They must have finally gone inside, leaving her alone with the trees and the river, once more.

If it were for the perfect recall of their limitless mind, Rosalie would have thought she'd imagined the brief but intense discussion she'd overheard. But, their words were replaying in her mind like an unbroken record, and the more she turned over each word, the deeper her mind spiraled into the realm of the possible.

If she could get a human woman and if she could have Emmett agree to this forbidden plan, after all these decades of regret and loss, she would finally have the one thing she would easily give her soul in exchange for.

She would be a mother and she would be a mother for the rest of eternity.

(Author's Note: This story was born from a rereading of Breaking Dawn and the realization that if the Volturi pardoning the existence of dhampirs, what impact would that have on the future of the Twiverse? Especially in a world where the human-vampire hybrid doesn't seem to have been seen before, despite dhampirs being a part of vampire literature for centuries. So, this will be story will be a shoutout to classic vampire horror stories, with romance as the centering genre because The Twilight Saga itself is YA Romance.

I must make it clear that though it won't become evident for a few more chapters - this story is absolutely a horror story and if horror isn't your thing, you might not like the direction this story is heading in, starting in chapter four. I don't use chapter warnings because I feel they are backhanded spoilers, so just know that The Mother-Wound is a romantic horror and proceed accordingly.

I look forward to your thoughts and reviews. Next chapter is told from Emmett's POV and the POV will continue to alternate until the last chapter and Epilogue.)