Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, or Breaking Dawn. These books, characters, and associated materials are the property of Stephenie Meyer, and they are not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

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Chapter 3

Rosalie's POV

In this moment, I should feel fear. In this moment, I thought to myself as I stuffed another pair of socks into the open suitcase, I should feel uncertain. But I felt none of those things. As I walked across the room from where I had the suitcases open on the oak, four-poster bed to the walk-in closet to find some of Emmett's shirts—mostly purchased by Alice—I realized what it was that I felt instead: Resolve, Anger, and Confidence.

Confidence? I couldn't remember ever having felt true confidence before. I could remember feeling smug, prideful, vain, and even powerful, but never confident. Why would I feel confident now when there is so much that is uncertain about our futures, so many paths that Alice can't see the end of?

"It suits you well"

I looked up from the pile of pants I was sorting through to see the visitor, though I already knew who it was. Only one vampire could strut down the hall and speak with such calm—well—confidence.

"Jasper" I greeted him simply. My brother was a lot like me when it came to social graces, the less small talk the better. So why would he be stopping by to shoot the breeze now, at a time like this? I nodded to the open suitcases on the bed. "I take it you are all packed"

"I am. Not that you are surprised by that." He smirked a little before continuing, "I think you will find it surprising that Alice has also already packed."

"Well, that's just not possible!" I dropped the pile of pants with an undignified snort. How was Alice able to pack faster than I?

"Oh" I looked up at Jasper whose smirk was now a giant shit-eating grin. "Right, I guess I feel like the world's most gullible person now. Is she even a quarter of the way done?" I heard the sound of a zipper being opened upstairs and clothes being dumped out of a suitcase with an exasperated, "Really, Jasper?" as I finished my question.

"If that didn't answer your question well enough, no, she isn't. And now it sounds like I'm not packed anymore either." His expression was a mixture of amused and irritated as he looked up towards the ceiling, no doubt trying to picture his wife as she flitted around their upstairs bedroom repacking his suitcase in addition to her own. "When I left she was muttering to herself about rebellion, victory, and color schemes."

I unceremoniously kicked the pants I didn't need back into the closet, out of the two of us, Emmet was definitely the more organized. "Well as long as she doesn't show up looking like Marie Antoinette…"

"I'm hoping for more of a Lady Liberty theme."

"Topless, you mean?" I quirked an eyebrow at my brother, I could feel the corner of my mouth twitch.

"Exactly."

"Just don't give Emmett any ideas." I pictured Emmett trying to convince the whole family into going into battle topless and tried to hide my smile. A fruitless effort of course, seeing as how jasper didn't need to see my smile to know it was there.

"As I said before, it suits you, and it was a long time coming."

"And what exactly are you referring to?" I asked while I finished cramming a sweater on top of my pants. I may not need clothes to feel warm, but we had no idea where we might end up, and blending in was definitely a priority when we didn't want anyone, human or vampire, to take any special notice of us right now. I began to zip up the bag as I waited for his reply.

"Confidence. I haven't really felt it on you, at least not that strong, in…well…ever, I guess." He walked across the room to the window, taking one last long look out over the garden Esme had tended to with great care for the past three years. "I have no idea why a vampire with your commanding presence could ever doubt herself, especially as beautiful as you are. Vampires and humans practically worship the ground you walk on and quake in fear if you look at them with slanted eyes. Did you not know?"

"I knew." I replied quietly but firmly as I watched him watching the backyard, the sun shining through his golden curls, iridescent light spilling across his exposed neck into the bedroom.

"Then why are you self-conscious?"

I turned to Emmett's suitcase, as Jasper turned away from the window to face me. I finished packing in the last of his socks and began to zip the bag. I did not want to acknowledge Jaspers question, it brought too many painful feelings, thoughts, and memories to mind. It brought forth things I tried hard to bury deep within myself. Finally I stated the only answer that came to mind, an answer that seemed to burst forth from within where I had unknowingly buried it long ago.

"It didn't seem to make much of a difference before, so why would it make a difference now." I finished zipping Emmett's suitcase and faced Jasper once again. He looked as confused as I felt, where had that answer come from, had I really been thinking that all along, somewhere deep inside?

"Do you mean…Do you mean that in your human life, bad things happened to you despite the fact that you were beautiful and powerful?"

"Beautiful, powerful, and confident." I had it all once. It was taken away from me. From ME. I was—I thought I was—untouchable. I was near perfect, not vain, but I knew my worth. I was kind, I had volunteered regularly. My family was on the higher side of society and I had made the greatest of friends with my social skills. How could anyone not like me? How could anyone make a move to hurt me? I wasn't bitter as I am now, I wasn't….I didn't deserve…I thought I was untouchable.

And now, now I was here. An immortal monster. A fairytale, a joke! Doomed to replay what happened in my dying moments every day, how could I forget? How could I not think on it? That they would dare, that someone could dare—to do that to me. How could they? How could he? I thought I was special, important, worth protecting…Everyday my thoughts return to my death and every day my wounds tear open again, my self-worth destroying itself in an endless downward spiral, but once…once I was nearly perfect…once I had it all.

Jasper hugged me. My thoughts came to a complete screeching halt. Jasper was…hugging me? Despite my fondness for my brother and what I believed to be his fondness for me, we had never initiated any physical contact. Neither of us was really very touchy-feely, ironically for him, the empath. He released me slowly and held me at a distance, hands still on my shoulders, while he searched my face. I'm sure he found nothing but confusion there.

"I had a sister once, you know." I didn't know. Jasper never talked about his human life before the wars, I'd never even heard him discuss it with Alice, though maybe he had done so when they were in more private settings. I looked up into his eyes and found an incredible amount of pain entrenched there.

"She was like you. I don't remember much else, maybe few glimpses of my ma and paw, but I can remember her. She was strong, fierce, beautiful, and intelligent. It made life very difficult for her, as a woman in the south during those times. I loved her with every ounce of my being. My ferocious, frightening little sister." Jasper smiled warmly, his eyes glazed over and I knew he was picturing her. I could almost picture her too, a smaller female Jasper, trying to be at war with the world. Was she blonde like Jasper, green eyed and slim?

"She ran away and lied about her age to join with a nurse's regiment not long after I left the farm. I didn't find out until I received notice of her death. Union soldiers…they…" Jasper looked away from my eyes, finally dropping his hands from my shoulders, his eyes watching the last rays of sunlight from the setting sun through the window again. "I don't need to tell you the rest, it's a story you know well."

"I'm sorry Jasper." I reached for his hand and held it in both of mine. In that moment I felt comfort, I felt sorrow, I felt love, and I cherished my brother. Soon these feelings strengthened and I knew Jasper was using his gift to show me his own feelings as well. I returned thankfulness.

"Thank you for telling me about your sister. What was her name?"

"Rose." He smiled slightly, sadly before saying, "Her name was Rose. The coincidence of the situation has me pondering theories of reincarnation." He paused for a long time, as we listened to Alice shuffling away upstairs and Esme scurrying around the house, probably preparing dust covers for the furniture. I still held his hand in both of mine and watched him carefully as he watched the dust slowly fall—highlighted by the rays of sunlight streaming in through the window. "It's difficult to speak of her for many reasons, not the least of which is the way she died. I also have a deep seated paranoia and fear, a product I'm sure of both my occupation when I was changed and the lifestyle I lived after my change. But—" He looked pointedly at me. " I think it is time for both you and I to change. Not an easy task for our kind, but something we must attempt…for them." He glanced upward and to the east side of the house, where Esme could be heard dragging something across the living room floor.

Jasper lifted my hands, still clasped around his own, and placed his free hand on top as he turned his body fully towards mine. He whispered the next bit of conversation, so that only I could hear. "My best fighters, in all the years of war I've seen—human and vampire—have always been confident in their own ability." He looked pointedly at me and I felt a little hurt at the slight, "And they have always been confident in their surrounding team." I knew he was referring to himself with that statement. "If anything does happen—" his voice became even lower "I want both of us to as prepared as we can be. Everyone else needs practice fighting and they need to be prepared to do whatever it takes, but us? You and I are already prepared to do whatever it takes to save those we care about, we have the will to survive in spades, but what we don't have is trust. You don't trust yourself and I've never been good at trusting others. In the end, that could make all the difference."

Jasper gave a slight nod of his head, a soft squeeze to my hands and then turned and left the room. He sent me some final feelings of affection, confidence, and appreciation before he left as a token of goodwill. He believed in me. I believed in him. I hope he felt it. And I was thankful that he left me alone to process my thoughts for a while. Was he right? Jasper and I certainly were different from the rest of the family, was that what separated us from the rest-our issues? I didn't like to think of myself as broken. I was independent, free, and strong, wasn't I?

Then again, what could it hurt, trying to fix myself; If I'm broken, then I end up fixed in the end, and if I'm not broken, no harm done. But how does one even go about fixing oneself? I tried to think of an obvious situation where I showed a lack of confidence. A situation that would have been handled better if I had believed in myself.

Seemingly unbidden, Bella Swan came to mind. Her pathetic, simpering smile, as she always tried to bend over backwards for anyone who even glanced her way, the marks she had left right under her bottom lip from nervously chewing on her own fucking face whenever situations became even slightly tense, and those overly large brown cow-eyes that made her look like she should be chewing cud and drooling out of the side of her mouth like a dumb beast of burden are the images that came to mind as I first thought of her name. Why would I think of her? It's not as if I had any control over that situation or that I could have handled it better, after all it wasn't as if I was jeal…

CRASH!

I stood up as I heard the deafening noise coming from the living room. It sounded as though Esme was trying to dismantle the whole house now. Was she going to try to put it into the back of her Escalade piece by piece? I sighed and decided it was time to help my mother. I could ponder my insecurities, issues, and Bella Swan—apparently—while helping Esme put the finishing touches on everything.

While I packed and sorted through our documents: fake ID's, passports, alternative banking accounts… I thought more about Bella. Did she ever get to live the human life I wanted after all? I could picture her finally finding happiness, meeting some guy who found that whole shy-naïve- personality-type sexy. I felt a burning, almost anger like, emotion rising within me as I thought about the possible life she might have lived after we left. Was this jealousy that I was feeling? Is that why I had truly been so bitter all that time? It would make a certain sense, I suppose. She was human after all and I wanted that more than anything. I would give it all away to become human, to be able be a mother, a doting wife…near perfect again. Like I was before. Untouchable.

I hear the sounds of fast footfalls in the backyard shortly followed by Emmett slamming the backdoor too loudly. I could hear Carlisle swoop Esme away from whatever task she had been working on downstairs to kiss and cuddle her, while Emmett's footfalls pounded loudly up the stairs to the door of the study where I was sorting documents. The door burst open and there he stood goofy grin and all, happy to see me without any reservations, like some big overly enthusiastic furry mut. God I loved that man. He was over to me in an instant. His arms were around me and swinging me around the room, knocking the sorted documents into a big smattered mess upon the floor while he smothered me with kisses and sang "Ring the Rosie around, Pockets full of sound!"

"Emmett! I just finished sorting those!" I shouted angrily as he continued to chant his nonsense and dance me around the room.

Maybe I was a bitter, jealous bitch who hate Bella for reasons I couldn't quite come to terms with yet. But even a bitter bitch couldn't stay mad at Emmett for long. Soon I was laughing with him. I could barely hear Alice trying to correct him from two rooms away "its ring around the Rosie, Emmett, you oaf!" My husband's psychotic dance soon turned into the average waltz, and we spun gracefully around the room, the dying light illuminating his strong masculine features, his smile showing me love, while his intense eyes showed me desire, strength, and feral instinct. In this moment I feel whole. Through the window I heard the crickets and frogs begin warming up their nightly chorus, I saw the first firefly give a testing flicker in the twilight. In this moment I feel love, appreciation, and wonder at the beauty of the world. In this moment I feel confident. I would go anywhere for Emmett, do anything for my family, I would give it all away to protect them and keep them by my side.

But didn't I just have those same thoughts about being human again? Our dance came to a shuttering stop as I gasped and grasped my chest. Pain burned through me as I thought about my dying moments again. Was I beautiful, independent, and strong or was I that girl lying on the ground. Blood on her garments, her dress being pulled up, and fingers shoved roughly into…

Was I healing, could I ever heal, or would I simply be doomed to break again every day? Did I want to be human or did I want my family and Emmett. Jasper was right, I do have unresolved personal conflict and if it was even possible, I needed to sort it out. Could a vampire even truly change, were we capable? Emmett pulled me into his chest and ran his fingers softly through my hair and in that moment I felt that I didn't deserve a wonderful man like Emmett or a wonderful family. Didn't deserve them like I didn't deserve what those men did to me.

"You are the best thing that has ever happened to me." Emmett whispered into my hair.

"How do you always know the right thing to say to me?" I whispered back into his chest.

"Because I have foresight like Alice!" Emmett laughed and I smiled against his chest.

A cell phone began ringing downstairs and we heard Carlisle pull away from Esme to walk across the living room to retrieve it from the kitchen counter.

"Carlisle Cullen speaking." A short pause followed and then, "Edward?"

"Well, shit my foresight didn't see that coming."