Chapter Summary: "Do you have a six?" I asked. Bella nearly glowed with pleasure as she handed me the card: "Yes! Go fish!" I got the card; so why do I have to go fish? Wait. It's upside down, and there are too many clubs on this card. ... Oh, no!

After a moment I shook my head and grimaced.

"What?" Bella asked.

"This rendezvous had started so promisingly," I complained, "and I promised myself I wouldn't try to push you, but here we are."

I shrugged my shoulders sadly.

Bella offered consolingly: "You can't blame yourself for trying."

"I can, too," I snapped back, "and now I've spoilt the whole visit!"

And I was so looking forward to our tryst, and now it looked like no sex with Bella for me for at least another two weeks. Damn it!

Bella smiled and shrugged. "The visit isn't over yet. Why don't we just cool off from all the heaviness?"

"And do what?" I asked, masking my sense of helplessness.

Conversations just seemed to devolve into this thing we couldn't get over: I wanted Bella back home, and Bella just couldn't see herself as anything other than being alone.

Bella pointed down to the sealed deck of cards in my hand. "Play cards?"

I smiled at Bella. I broke the seal and passed her the deck.

"Okay, ... whist?" I asked, agreeing easily.

"Nah," Bella said.

"What then?"

Bella smiled a private smile and shrugged.

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help smiling back.

Bella was right: doing a trivial thing like deciding on a game of cards did lighten the mood.

"Okay, then, Miss Mysterious, you shuffle, then." I handed Bella the deck as I said this.

Bella smiled, taking the deck, and then, shuffled the cards, expertly.

It was a joy watching the ease doing something that she would have blundered through as a human. Bella was right, here, too: she was an alien in her human body, as a vampire, or succubus, she fit easily in her frame. She was finally comfortable being what apparently she was meant to be. Watching something as simple as Bella shuffling a deck of cards and seeing the rightness of her doing it as she is now gave a really strong argument pro predestination.

Bella offered me the deck to cut, which I did, then she dealt five cards to each of us.

"Which game?" I asked. I thought we weren't playing poker.

"Go fish!" Bella smirked and put the deck between us.

I couldn't repress a quiet laugh. "'Go Fish'? Seriously?"

"Yes," Bella said, lightly, smiling happily, "seriously!"

I shook my head, smiling. A 'serious' game of Go Fish. Only Bella would want to play a 'serious' game of Go Fish.

I wonder if that will be the constant in our eternal relationship: her delightful surprises, even in the saddest of moments.

"And, well, five cards? So we aren't doing the full set, just pairs?" I asked in clarification.

We didn't have any wager on the game, but I had to make sure the rules were clear from the get-go.

"Yep," Bella said easily, "just pairs."

"And what's riding on this game?" I demanded.

Bella blinked in surprise, but then her look became crafty for her, which means she looked transparently silly.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Bella sang in mock innocence.

"Bella ..." I warned.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Rose, just go, huh?"

I looked down at my cards, and looked back up at her. "What if I want to put a wager on the game?"

Bella's eyebrows drew together. "Like what?" she asked curiously.

I looked down at my cards again. I had a pair of deuces already.

"Like," I said, "if I win this hand ..." then I paused.

Bella's look became concerned.

I pressed forward, "... you come home with me."

Bella's blow clouded with anger, so I added quickly, "Just for a visit, you know, Bella? Just to say hello to ... everybody."

Bella shook her head. "'Just for a visit,' huh, Rosalie? We know where that will go: 'Oh, Bella, now that you're here, and we have a room set aside all for you and and stay as long as you like as long as that's forever!'"

Bella growled angrily.

"No, Bella, it's not like that!" I defended, knowing full well that was what it would exactly be like — Esme would be unstoppable, being simultaneously torn between hugging Bella and not letting her go and totally destroying my room in her zeal to recreate it as our conjugal room — and I couldn't help thinking a bit spitefully at the thought of Bella staying: and that's bad because ...?

"Yeah, right!" Bella snarled sarcastically.

"Bella, just a visit! Please!" I begged.

"Rosalie," Bella sighed, "drop it."

"Or else?" I asked, but then my breath hitched.

Bella folded her cards into her hand. "Or I drop these cards, right now, get up from this blanket, leave, and don't come back until we can have a conversation that's not loaded with all this pleading-clinging shit!"

Bella glared at me.

She had just delivered her ultimatum, and her look now? She looked serious, ... serious enough to make good on it.

But Rosalie Hale never backs down from anything.

Even losing Bella now, and possibly forever?

I dropped my eyes. I felt sick. I had just put Bella up to something, and Bella had just stood up to me, and, here I was backing down.

As I've always done.

God damn it!

Looking at my entire existence, this was the pattern, I would stand up for something, somebody would shoot it down, and instead of saying, 'to hell with you all, I'm going to stand by this, no matter what you say or do!' I would just say 'to hell with you all, go ahead and shoot me down.'

I realized, right now, right in this moment that I wasn't righteous at all, as I had seen myself. I realized, instead, that I was a sniveling little whiner, who always absolved herself of all consequences by saying 'Well, I did say ...' but who never took an unassailable stand for what she believed.

I just realized something about myself. I'm a sell-out. I sell out on my convictions, and not just now, but all the time. Every time.

Rosalie Hale, the sell-out.

The taste in my mouth was bitter.

So, now I had a choice. I really could spoil the rest of the visit by whining about not getting my way and being a petulant bitch about it.

Or I could back down, admit defeat, but at least try to do it gracefully.

Hard choice? Obviously not. Except that I had never chosen this before. I felt a piece of me die as I whispered, "Okay."

I looked at Bella's glaring, furious eyes.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," I said softly, then looked away. I looked back at her. "Did you still want to play?"

There was a hardness to Bella's eyes, a distrust. She still glared at me critically, then she came to a decision.

"Okay," she agreed, then clarified: "No bet on this hand, right?"

I nodded solemnly in confirmation.

Bella gave me one more hard look. We were on thin ice. Then her eyes softened, and she whispered gently, "Go ahead first, Rosalie."

I looked down at my hand. "Do you have a king?"

Bella smiled in forgiveness and pleasure, "Yep," she said, passing over the king, getting into the game.

She nodded to me to go again. "Do you have a six?" I asked.

"Nope, go fish," Bella said. She frowned in thought or disappointment.

I drew a card.

She looked at her hand.

"So," she asked, "how is everybody?"

"Fine," I said noncommittally.

If she wanted more, she'd have to ask more.

She sighed. "Do you have a four?"

I shook my head. "No, go fish."

She drew a card.

"Do you have a queen?" I asked.

Bella smiled slightly and passed me the queen of hearts. I rolled my eyes and she stuck her tongue out at me.

I chuckled lightly then asked if she had a jack. She pointed to the deck. "Go fish," she said.

She looked at her cards again.

This was a totally superfluous motion. She knew what cards she had. She was using this very human gesture to mask her obvious inner dialogue.

Eventually she asked, "How is Renesmee doing?"

"Oh, Bella, ..." I began, then paused, considering how to describe Ren, "She's just ... amazing! So beautiful!"

Then I stopped in embarrassment. "I mean ... well, she's ... maturing quickly, you know, so her physical age is twelve and ..."

"Twelve?" Bella gasped.

"Yes, and she is so, so smart, and sometimes she comes off a bit ... rebellious? But she is just so ..." I smiled with pride. Yes, that's how to describe her: "You'd be just so proud of her, Bella."

"Do you have an eight?" she asked out of the blue.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

Bella glanced down at my hand. "Oh," I recollected myself. I didn't need to look down at my hand, unlike Bella. "No, go fish."

Bella drew from the deck and then laughed. She showed me her draw, it was an eight.

"So," she continued, pleased, "do you have a ten?"

"Nope, not one of those either, try your luck again, Bella," I responded, smiling myself at Bella's pleasure in the luck of her draw.

Bella drew, then shook her head.

I asked for a seven, and fishing didn't give me one, either.

"So," Bella asked quietly, "does she miss me?"

I closed my eyes for a second. "Always, Bella, always." I whispered fervently. "How could she not miss her own mother?"

"You're her mother, too, Rose," Bella chided.

"Bella," I sighed, "you know what I mean! She fed at your breast; you can't break an attachment like that! She misses her birth mother. She misses you."

"Does she even remember me?" Bella snorted disbelievingly.

"Yes," I said, "she is a vampire, so she has perfect memory."

"And a heartbeat," Bella countered.

"Yes," I confirmed.

"And she's growing so fast," she added.

I nodded.

"So, any ideas about ... well, what will happen with her?" Bella tried to mask her concern, but she didn't mask it very well. "I mean," she continued, "a twelve year old body in three years? What if she just burns her body out by the time she's twenty-four? What if she's not immortal?"

I shrugged. "Carlisle did note that her growth was rapid but decelerating; he thinks she'll stop growing around seven actual years."

"And then what?" Bella asked.

I tried to smile reassuringly, but all I could offer was, "We don't know."

Bella nodded, thinking.

I tried to look right into her, but I had pressed too hard already. She knew Ren's time might be only a few more short years, me using this after all my other failed attempts to coerce Bella to come home? This was a drawn game, and we weren't even playing chess.

"Do you have a three?" she asked after a quiet pause, and then was pleased when I passed her the card.

"How about an ace?" she said.

"Wow, Bella, you are having quite the run!" I exclaimed and passed her that card, too.

"Yep, so you'll pass me a five, then, right?" Bella said confidently.

I smiled and shook my head.

Bella drew from deck and looked up at me waiting.

The next few rounds had no luck for either us, and the cards in our hands grew.

"You say she misses me?" Bella asked.

"Yes," I said, "she thinks about you all the time."

"When was the last time she asked about me?" Bella asked quietly.

I looked down at my hand. It had actually been over a year.

"And she thinks about me?" Bella accused into my silence.

"Bella," I sighed, "if the answers to the questions are always the same, you can't blame her for giving up on them, can you?"

Then I parroted Ren's questions to me and my answers: "'Mom, when's Mommy coming home?' 'I don't know.' 'Why she staying away from us?' 'I don't know.' 'Is it because she doesn't love me?'"

At that question Bella shook a little bit in her seated position.

I continued sympathetically: "'Of course she loves you.' 'But then why isn't she here?' 'I don't know.'"

"Bella," I said, looking at the girl/woman/mother so hurt as the words sunk into her, "a little girl, three years old, no matter her physical maturity and amazing mental toughness and capacity can only take so many 'I don't knows' so many times before she gives up."

"So she's given up on me?" Bella asked, and I didn't know in her despair if I heard a hope that Ren had actually done just that.

"Bella, no!" I said forcefully. "Ren will never give up on you! She loves you!"

Bella's eyebrows came together. "'Ren'?"

"Oh, yes," I said surprised, realizing that Bella wasn't familiar with her daughter's ways anymore, "that's what she's called now."

"By who?" Bella demanded.

I chuckled. Bella becoming an immortal hadn't improved her vocabulary any, 'By who,' indeed. English grammar teachers all over the world would be tsking in disappointment if they had heard her. I was sorely tempted to answer, 'by she,' but that would be just too deliciously naughty. So, instead I answered with the simple, "by herself."

"Hmmphf," Bella snorted with displeasure.

Bella was so funny about these things: she couldn't stand the name 'Isabella' for herself, calling herself by the nickname 'Bella' so much so that people thought that was her actual name, but for her daughter she could not abide nicknames, always addressing her as 'Renesmee' no matter what anybody else called her. And a girl with the name of 'Renesmee' was almost guaranteed to have a nickname.

But not from her very stiff and proper mother ... named 'Bella.'

I wonder how Bella's 'absolutely no nicknames' policy for her daughter would stand against the defiance from her very own daughter.

I couldn't wait to see that confrontation.

Even for the simple reason of seeing Bella and Ren together. They both would be so, so happy in that reunion, if Bella ever got over her own shame enough to allow it.

I set my ruminations aside as our game continued. It ebbed and flowed. Bella seemed just as happy when I won a pair as when she did, and seemed just as sad when I guessed wrong as when she had to draw from the deck.

Bella was Bella: always Bella. She cared for herself less and couldn't care about her own happiness. I think she would be happier if I won the game or just as happy if I were happy doing something with her, no matter the outcome.

Strangely, I felt similarly. I was just glad to be with Bella, doing something as inane as playing a silly card game. Just being with Bella: that was the thing, and I was entirely with her, making pairs, drawing from the deck, ... looking at her, her brows drawn together in concentration, trying to guess what cards my hand had by staring intensely at her own hand. Bella couldn't read my mind to see what cards I was holding.

After all, Bella wasn't Edward, thank God!

We were down to just a couple of cards in our hands, the game was pretty evenly matched despite the wild swings in fortune to either player. I looked across to Bella.

"Do you have a six?" I guessed.

Her face could not mask the undisguised joy that burst forth from her like rays of the sun.

"Yes," she was absolutely glowing as she passed the card to me, then she nearly squealed with delight: "go fish!"

I took the card in utter confusion at the complete non sequitur of her conflicting statements. She had my card, but I had to go fish? I looked down at the card. She had handed it to me upside down, so I flipped it over. It was still upside down.

Then I counted the clubs on the card face, and burst out a surprised, "But Bella, this card isn't a six, it's a ..."

Then I put two and two together, putting her card next to my six.

And gasped an "Oh, no!"

Bella's face had transformed into one of delighted innocence to one of wanton lust.

"Oh, yes, Rose!" she purred and pounced.

She slammed, hard, into me, and we crashed onto the blanket. Cards flew everywhere.

"Oh, yes!" she snarled and her lips crashed into mine.

I saw the six in my hand fluttered down onto the ground next to the nine from hers.

Bella's need didn't let me see any more cards after that.

Chapter end notes:

[1] I like playing Go Fish, you know? It can be so much more fun than truth or dare or ... *ahem* certain kinds of poker. I found that out from one of my ... eheh-eheh-eheh ... well, um, somebody reading this may have a bit of a ... feeling of synchronicity, so I ask her: have you been been a good girl and doing your school work? Hm? *evil grin*

But then I have to be a very, very good girl when my nieces want to play that game with me when I'm babysitting, you know? "Do you have a six, Aunt Mel?" Me, looking down at my nine, blushing: "Um."

*blush*

[2] The next chapter, does it have smexing? Of course not! This is a 'T'-rated fic, after all, so I'll just pull a fade-to-black like Steph did in Breaking Dawn, and get right back in what you love to read from me: angst. I mean, anyway, who needs to have that yucky, gross smexin' when you can have your fill with all that sad, despairing angstin' that I'm so good at wr-...

Um, girls ... um, just kidding, okay? Now, put down those pitchforks and torches. Um, girls, um ... WHAT'S BEHIND YOU?

'phfina scampers off to the forest in a quick getaway from the crazed mob of readers.

[3] Okay, I'm back [checking to make sure the torches are extinguished and the pitchforks are stowed]. I have a question for you. Rosalie was embarrassed to describe Renesmee as beautiful. Why? I mean: what would ever embarrass the great Rosalie Lillian Hale? Hm.

[ooh, 'phfina! You're so mysterious! *readers roll eyes*]