Disclaimer: If I owned Twilight, I would have written it different. See author's note for details.

A/N: Wowzas, you guys! You have no idea how happy you made me with the review count on that last chapter! Bluebird is still singing happily about it. Well done!

Sheesh, though, a lot of you were sure antagonistic about the Neddy nickname…deal with it, I like it….much better than "Eddie."

Okay, I also wanted to comment on the fact that almost every single review had something derogatory about Rosalie in it. While Rosalie is not my favorite character, I think she's given a worse reputation than she deserves. It's not easy to be awesome when your creator butchers your character. See, Eclipse was awesome. We finally got to see the reasons why Rosalie was the way that she was and to have a better understanding of her character. She was a tormented young woman that only wanted the best for the ones she loved and was willing to do whatever it took to maintain her safety. She'd been betrayed once. She'd be damned if she was going to let it happen again.

Then a crappy book happened and Rosalie the slightly bitchy but strong woman became Rosalie the psycho Baby Stealing Barbie Doll of Doom. Instead of a lovely ending book to a lovely series, we got a creepy ass excuse for a baby pulled out of SM's butt and a build up to a massive battle that never ended up happening but never had to have happened had the extensively wealthy Cullens merely invested in a few tactical missiles. Yay for Renfield! WAY better than a well developed plot. (Honestly, Renesmee? Seriously? I'm still wiggin' out about that one. Name the poor kid Elizabeth after Edward's mom for cryin' out loud.)

But I digress. My point is that Rosalie is a deep, layered character that wasn't treated kindly in the fourth book. You can disagree with me or not, it's your choice. However, this chapter is one of the ones I'm proudest of—I had an epiphany of my own. I hope you enjoy it. Rosalie is not nearly as much fun to write as Emmett is (gotta admit….I have a lot of fun with him later. It doesn't help that I'm from Tennessee, too…) but she's still worth exploring.

Don't look for another update until next Wednesday. My life is being eaten by papers. However, I'll update a day sooner if I get forty-five reviews. I'm also working on a couple oneshots, so that should be fun.

Enjoy! Review!

………………………………………………………………………………………………

I gazed at Rosalie in total surprise, my mouth open in shock. Was I hearing this right, or was Rosalie actually angered at the condition that Bella was in? Had the sky turned purple all of a sudden, to explain this drastic change in what I'd considered to be a firm, cast-iron viewpoint? Surely I was mistaken. Rosalie did not deviate from her thought patterns. She would hold onto an idea with all the strength she could muster, allowing it to strengthen or embitter her for as long as she possibly could. It was her way of remembering what it was to be human, the kind of human she'd been, anyway.

I knew, far better than anyone else could, that Bella and Rosalie were polar opposites. There could be nothing in the world that Rosalie would feel brought her and Bella together—so why was she suddenly so sympathetic toward Bella?

My adopted sister continued to glare at me from her crouched position. "You made us all leave Forks for Bella's own good, to protect her from what we are. Did you ever stop and think, Edward, that I might have agreed with you on that decision? Yes, I was pissed at you for making us all give up our lives there, but I thought it was ultimately worth the sacrifice. I guess I was too stupid to see what I should have. But you're smarter than me—you should have realized what the consequences of leaving would be."

"Where is all this coming from?" I demanded, bewildered by her fervor. "Since when have you ever shown even the slightest degree of caring toward Bella?"

"Don't you get it, Edward?" Suddenly, Rosalie looked close to tears, if that were possible for a vampire. She straightened up, towering over me as I knelt on the ground by Esme's feet. "I was once the innocent, human girl that was overtaken by something stronger than her. I was once a girl who knew nothing of darkness.

"But then everything I knew was shattered. I was left behind by a man who was supposed to take care of me, to love me no matter what happened. I was left for dead.

"You're no better than Royce and his friends, Edward," she spat out, not caring a whit that Esme and Emmett were hearing her in this vulnerable moment. "You took a beautiful young girl and you forced her to see all the cruelty of the world, and then to face the reality of that cruelty. And then you have the categorical arrogance to presume that a girl like Bella can look into that kind of darkness and remain unscathed!

"You are a coward. You never should have started this thing with Bella in the first place, but once you started it, you should have finished it. You left her for dead, Edward, just like I was left. There was no one there to vote no for her—you forced your decision on her without a thought of the repercussions it would involve for Bella."

She glowered at me dangerously. "Look carefully at your reward, Edward. I hope you're happy with it—you certainly worked hard enough to get here. This life for yourself, for her, had better have been worth it."

Rosalie turned on her heel and swept away. A thoroughly bewildered Emmett stumbled behind in her wake, although he was shooting me worried glances on his way out—he was wondering just how he was supposed to calm Rosalie down now.

There was a deep silence as I was trying to work my way out of the shock of the strength and…and the truth of Rosalie's words.

"Oh, dear," Esme murmured.

I don't remember getting up. I don't remember doing anything. All I know is that a few hours later, I was in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness with no clear idea of what to do, with not an inkling of how to deal with all the emotions that were searing their ways through my body.

With the clarity offered by Rosalie's rage, I could see that I had become the thing that I had used to hunt. I was no better than the man that stalked a young girl down a dark alley. I was, in fact, far, far worse. The young girl that died in that alley died at the hands of a stranger. I had taken Isabella Marie Swan, a girl who was pure and selfless and undeserving, and had forced her into a fate infinitely worse than death. She had been shoved into that fate with the hands of a loved one—mine. They were the hands of someone that had held her close and cradled her face and had protected her from harm, the hands of someone whom she had trusted with her life.

I had sworn, time and time again, to keep her safe, to hurt myself if it meant giving her peace. I had taken that promise and perverted it into something grotesque.

A conversation that Bella and I had had back in those golden days in Forks came to me then as I tried to remind myself of the logic of my decision to leave, to hold on to the notion that I really had done the right thing. It was a conversation I'd based everything on—I'd thought it was infallible justification for my choices. "But I'm not saying good-bye," I heard Bella say softly, the cacophony of the school cafeteria a faint buzz behind her words in my memory.

"Don't you see? That's what proves me right," I'd told her, thinking it was a show of my higher intellect—not that she was unintelligent, of course. I just knew better than her in this instance; I'd lived for much, much longer a time than she had. "I care the most, because if I can do it…if leaving is the right thing to do, then I'll hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe."

She'd glared me, a sight I'd found distinctly amusing and endearing at the time coming from her gentle, heart-shaped face. Now I saw the passion behind the pitifully frail face, and did not underestimate it. "And you don't think I'd do the same?"

I'd declared arrogantly in reply, "You'd never have to make the choice."

But she had…I could see that now. I'd thought myself the braver, the stronger of the two of us because I had sacrificed myself to keep her safe. It was death, I'd told myself, leaving her behind. She was my life. There could be no worse fate. At least I was keeping her from knowing that fate.

But I was wrong—I hadn't kept her from that choice at all. Bella had made the decision for herself, long before I had, and I hadn't even realized it. She'd told me in the only way she could, quite clearly. I still had the letter to prove it.

I love you, she'd written, her handwriting weak and shaky. I am so sorry… I have to try. It may not work. I am so very, very sorry… And please, don't come after me. That's what he wants, I think. I can't bear it if anyone has to be hurt because of me, especially you. Please, this is the only thing I can ask you now. For me.

How simple, how utterly powerful were the words writing on generic stationary from a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. I'd kept her letter with me on my journey away from Forks, just to have something with me that she'd touched, a tangible piece of her. I didn't realize that I had been carrying around a relic of my Bella's love as well.

Bella had left us all behind in Phoenix that day to keep from hurting me. She'd given her life to keep me from getting hurt by James, to keep me from having to make that hard choice—and I'd never seen it. Her actions were proof of her love, the love she had not just for her mother, but also for me, and I'd never recognized it for what it was.

Yes, Bella had thought that James was holding her mother captive at the time, but she'd begged me, me, not to follow her, to keep on living because she thought that was the best thing for me. It had hurt her—I had been able to tell that much in her words. But it hadn't stopped her from acting in the way she thought right. No, Edward, don't! she'd screamed hysterically in the video tape, when James had asked her if she'd wanted me to follow him. She was in pain, facing death itself, and she was still placing her frail human life between me, a vampire, and harm.

She had hurt herself to keep from hurting me, to keep me safe….

She was willing to die for me….

And she had done it so simply I'd never even noticed. She'd been playing the part of the quiet martyr as she always had …. And she had done it all without denying our love …. as I had when I'd left her in my mistaken of idea of what was for her own good.

I collapsed on the ground, broken down under the weight of my own stupidity and selfishness. How had she ever justified sacrificing herself for me? How could I have missed the fact that she loved me enough to keep me living even when she couldn't live with me? I'd thought all this time that I was the stronger of our relationship, that I had been protecting Bella all along when I'd left her behind.

I was wrong.

A tiny, young, physically weak human girl was far stronger than I could ever hope to be. It was when I'd undervalued that love and devotion by throwing it in her face and leaving her behind that she'd finally snapped.

The world seemed utterly dark as I realized this. I remembered reading about something called "the dark night of the soul" and I knew that that was what I was experiencing now. And I, who had faced so much darkness in my lifetime, now found that I'd never truly known the night. I'd never known all the depth that the night could face. How could I possibly bear it now?

I was not alone for very long, though, as I faced my weakness and painful fallibility there on the hard ground. At some point, and I don't know when, a tiny body came and settled down beside me while a small hand slipped lovingly into my own.

Alice sat with me all through the dark, seemingly endless night. There were no stars, no moon. She was absolutely silent, but she was a constant comfort when I didn't deserve comfort at all.

When the morning dawned bright and beautiful, all the more beautiful for the former absence of the light, Alice pulled me gently from the ground and led me back to the house without asking a single question of me. The night had been long, but at least now I had faced my mistakes and stupidity honestly, and I was prepared to fix them as best I could.

Bella had asked me to keep on living as her last request once. I would do that for her, because I loved her enough to spare her even this hurt, whether she knew of my sacrifice or not. She may have been the first to make the choice, but I would use her as my guide through the coming days, come what may.

……………………………………………………………………………………………....

Throughout the following days, my new-found fortitude was tested but never shaken. I left Bella's side only to hunt or spend a few minutes with my family. I sat in a chair by her bedside, reading everything I could find on her condition. I also tried to evoke some kind… any kind… of reaction from her. I read aloud, I played her favorite movies on the flat screen TV Emmett installed for us, I made stupid jokes I would have been embarrassed to have anyone else hear me use. In the quiet, frightening night hours, I sang softly to her, always ending the little concert with her lullaby.

Carlisle, when he wasn't at work, was just as tireless as I was in his search to find something to help Bella. But nothing was working and Alice couldn't tell when or if that fact would change. It was with a heavy heart that I sent the nurse, Linda, the first report on Bella's condition. No change.

All of my family members were being more than kind to us both. Rosalie wasn't speaking to me at all, of course, which was somewhat of a relief to me, but she'd bought some silk sheets for Bella's bed. I once even found her softly talking to Bella about hair care products that might bring Bella's dark chocolate hair back to their former state again. She'd looked up contemptuously when I came in the room and found her like that, and she swept out immediately without giving me another glance.

I knew from Rosalie's thoughts that she was terribly uncomfortable with talking to the pitiful human girl on the bed, but she'd felt that it was the least she could do. After all, there was now that strange sense of fellowship that Rosalie felt toward Bella.

Besides, it was also evident that Rosalie was partly being kind in order to spite me, to remind me of my failures toward Bella. Her own strong, beautiful body served to emphasize Bella's weakness, and threw into sharper relief the choice that Rosalie felt I should have made. Her plan worked better than she knew, but I was just grateful that Rosalie wasn't taking her anger out on Bella.

Esme and Alice were my greatest helps during those days—both of them were willing to drop whatever they were doing at any time in order to bathe and dress Bella, or to stay with her if I had to go hunting or run an errand with Carlisle to visit doctors or libraries. Esme seemed to find some unusual kind of pleasure in caring for Bella—her total dependence on others reminded Esme of the few days she'd been able to care for her baby boy.

Alice did everything she could simply because she loved Bella. She was also hoping that the more time she spent with Bella, the more sensitive her visions would become. Maybe then she'd have an idea when Bella might awake.

Even Emmett tried to be helpful in his own blustering way. One of the memories that hadn't faded from his human life was his mother's pet remedy for everything from influenza to a stomach virus—a swig of home brewed whiskey, or so the long-gone Mrs. McCarty had believed, could cure anything under the sun. Emmett suggested aloud only once that we get Bella drunk, advice that I had quickly vetoed, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it constantly. That irritation from him aside, Emmett was good about keeping Rosalie out of my hair, and about going hunting with me whenever I wanted (translation: needed and was forced by Carlisle by direct command) to go.

But Jasper…that was a different story. I knew how much Jasper really wanted to help, but he was incapacitated by Bella's emotions every time he "tried." He found her emptiness too devastating to be around for long during the day, and her keening at night was agonizing for him to experience on the multiple levels to which he was so sensitive. I knew that Jasper spent a fair amount of his time now out in the woods. I would have felt badly about forcing him out of his home if it hadn't been for the fact that I needed him so much and he was never there. It was maddening.

Bella's soft keening had never stopped—every time she went to sleep, she would begin her quiet death-ridden moaning. Nothing I did calmed her, and none of the members of my family could bear it for very long. I desperately wanted Jasper's help to calm her down, but he just couldn't handle it. Or said he couldn't.

Jasper could have brought her some peace, maybe even helped me identify Bella's emotions when she was keening. That could have helped me to discover what she was dreaming if anything, which might have provided clues to her recovery. But Jasper never did. My oldest brother brought me book after book from town to read to Bella and encouraged Alice to help me, but he never stayed around Bella long enough to discern anything from her emotions if he possibly could.

One day I was sitting in the living room at Esme's request, having a conversation with my family while Alice stayed with Bella. Esme was worried that I was losing touch with my family members, so she regularly pried me from Bella's side in order to have some semi-normal time with them. She often got my siblings and Carlisle on her side, and they would bait me into having arguments over meaningless topics, just to get my mind off of Bella. I knew what she was up to, of course, but it helped me. I was grateful for her, even though it was annoying at times.

I was therefore caught up in a heated debate with Carlisle when Alice came down the hall and stood in the doorway, looking both worried and harassed. "Edward, Bella's doing it again."

I knew to what she was referring—the keening—and felt the helpless look overtake my face as Alice talked.

"I can't bear this anymore," she said in frustration, stamping her small foot. "We've got to figure out what's causing it, or calm her down somehow. It's nothing less than cruelty to allow this to continue any longer. We've got to help her!"

"I'd like to do that, Alice," I said, glaring accusingly in Jasper's direction as he cringed against the cushions on the couch. "But unfortunately, I can't read her mind. There's nothing more that I can do—nothing I can do helps."

At my words, Alice turned and looked beseechingly at her husband. He gazed back at her with pleading eyes, no doubt pelting her with emotions that would make her go all soft and yielding and let him off the hook.

Alice remained unmoved. "Don't give me that, Jasper. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for, and we need your help now. I'm so over this."

With a lively roll of her butterscotch eyes, Alice strode over to Jasper and yanked him up unceremoniously by the arm. He was so surprised that he allowed the tiny vampire to propel him forcibly down the hall. I followed in their steps, feeling an insane urge to laugh that Jasper was probably not encouraging.

Alice really had reached the end of her patience—this could get interesting.

Jasper balked at the door to Bella's room, but Alice jerked him through the door with no qualms about the position of her husband's body, causing Jasper to hit his head on the doorframe. "Ouch!" he yelped, rubbing his head. "Was that really necessary?"

"Don't be such a baby," Alice told him scathingly. "You're a vampire, man! Act like it! Now get your butt over to that bed and start empath-ing already!"

Jasper turned around and sent her such a hurt, betrayed look that one of Alice's bell-like peals of laughter went wending through the room at the sight. I found myself smiling for a moment at the loveliness of her free expression of humor…and then I froze solid.

The rigid, moaning figure on the bed had turned her head minutely toward the sound of Alice's laughter.

Alice gasped. Jasper staggered. "T-t-there was s-s-s-something there!" he stuttered nearly incoherently. "For just a second, I felt something from her!"

I leapt to Bella's side in one bound, peering down at her intently. Her keening was silenced, and I could see and hear that she was sleeping soundly for the first time since I'd found her again. "Bella!" I shouted, desperate for a further sign. "Bella, can you hear me? It's Edward! Bella, I love you! Please, Bella, please, please, look at me!"

She didn't even twitch.

Why had she reacted to Alice, and not to me? "Keep talking, Alice," I begged. "Say something, say anything at all, and see if it happens again!"

Alice looked stricken, but she started babbling on about trivialities that were only interesting to her. Between the comments on rising Asian designers and obscure visions of stock market trends, I waited to see if Bella would react again…but she never did. She slept on, but peacefully.

What could it possibly mean? Pushing back my anxiety (and hurt—I was selfish enough to want Bella to react to me, not Alice), I glanced back at Jasper. "What did you feel from her, Jasper? Was she waking up? What caused it to happen, now of all times?"

"It was Alice's laughter, I think," Jasper said carefully, trying to figure things out. "It was so quick, just a flash, really. I had trouble catching the emotions before they were gone again. There was recognition in there somewhere…trust…and what I'm pretty sure was love. But there was also a faint tinge of memory to it, though, like she thought Alice was just a memory and not reality at all. She was remembering Alice's laugh and how much she loved her." Jasper looked troubled, but also…something else. Furtive, maybe, but in a positive way. Apprehensive. He was trying desperately to keep from thinking something by concentrating on the specifics of the Battle of Galveston.

"I know that look on your face," Alice said, peering at her husband. Her hands went saucily to her hips. "You use it when you're trying to keep a surprise from me. You're not telling us everything, Jazz."

"No, he's not," I accused. "Stop trying to hide things from me."

"I'm sorry, Edward," Jasper apologized. "I just…I don't want you to put too much stock in something I felt for a tenth of a second."

I gritted my teeth, and spoke through them. "I'm going to put stock in what you say. It's all I have to hold on to. Just tell me, dammit!"

"All right, all right." He took a deep breath. "When she heard Alice's laugh, it seemed to me that Bella felt…hopeful. I'm pretty sure that was it. It was like waiting for the night to end, and the faintest crack of dawn appearing. She didn't believe in it too much, but it was as if Alice's laugh was a sign that the dream might end someday. Most of that is sheer conjecture." Jasper rushed to put a disclaimer on his words, so that he wouldn't be held liable. He couldn't bear to make a mistake now, when the stakes were so high. "I just can't be sure, Edward. Please don't hold me to it."

A smile so wide that I'm surprised my face was still intact sorely impeded my ability to speak. "Thank you, Jasper. It's not much, but it's the first piece of good news I've had in months." Unable to retain my feelings, I leapt toward Jasper and hugged him with all the strength I had. "Thank you!"

"Um, Edward?" Jasper quavered. "Would you mind if I asked you to stop attacking me now? I don't think Alice would like it much if you snapped me in half."

"Oh. Right. Sorry," I muttered, letting Jasper go immediately.

"Thanks." Jasper rubbed his chest. "I get the strength of your feelings without you actively expressing them, private." He called me "private" during happy times like this. It was because he had been a major in the army, and if I'd become a soldier as I'd planned to be in the Great War, I would have been a private. It made Jasper happy to remind me that he outranked me in some things, and I found myself actually mildly liking the nickname. It wasn't bad as nicknames went…unlike Emmett's pitiful "Eduardo" phase…

Alice grinned brightly, the light from the lamp on the bedside table reflecting off her teeth—she'd been standing silently, consulting the future. I knew as well as she did that nothing definite was there yet. "The future is still blurry, but there finally is a future. I don't know what it holds, but it's there.

"But I'm not like my husband," she said impishly. "I don't mind hugs." Alice leapt headlong into my arms, and embraced me warmly, burying her face against my neck. "It's the first step, Edward," she thought happily to me. "It's not much, but it's a beginning!"

I hugged my sister back. I would never forget the fact that it was Alice's laugh that had first given me a sign of hope.

After a moment, I gently pushed myself away from Alice and sat down in front of my laptop. It seemed that I had an email to write, and I was very much looking forward to it, when I thought of the happiness it would bring to the reader.

Dear Linda, I typed quickly, my eyes on Bella and not the screen. I have very exciting news to share with you. Bella moved today…

………………………………………………………………………………………………

A/N: SHE MOVED! What'll happen next? Only Bluebird and I know, muahahahaha! Review if you want to find out!