This one's short and very angsty, but appropriately so. We tried to hold as much to the true characters as possible and tried to interpret how they would react if this were to ever happen. Read and Review!

Disclaimer: We don't own anything but Mila and Aurora.

Remembrance

Carlisle

Is there anyone who can stop the winds of time from blowing, renewing, reshaping, regenerating? Despite all we know, all we love, all we are, life does find a way to go on. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west, oblivious to the lives that rise and set with it.

Time is the cruel, unforgiving side of life. It would see a sole, pure and true, loving and kind, passionate and loyal, struggle through a century's worth of years alone. Would test it over and over until nothing remained but blind faith. It would tear a family apart for its own enjoyment and end a life that had barely begun.

Esme

Would the tearless sobs ever cease? How was it possible for one person to have to endure so much? I couldn't handle anymore, and everyone knew it. We were all the same. He pulled me into his arms and let me cry. He cradled me and whispered words of soothing comfort, though his own heart was no less turbulent. I found myself wondering when mothers received their mercy.

I was no stranger to grief. I knew what it was like to have loved and lost. Two sons and a daughter. How much more could they inflict upon an eternal soul than the pain of losing those you cared for? Of everyday watching over the beautiful baby they'd brought into the world and dwelling on what might have been?

Emmett

It didn't' feel right to not know what to say. The man with the comeback for anything, whether I should say it or not, rendered speechless. Throat too tight to dream of speech.

My big brother, by our standards, and my little sister. Gone. It was an impossible scenario to come to terms with, that we weren't as untouchable as we'd imagined. That I wasn't as strong as I'd led myself to believe. It was unfair that the one time I let myself slip up from my mantra to protect my family, it cost me one-fourth of it.

She was sitting in a chair a few feet away from the mahogany structures laden with flowers, oblivious to everything. Happy in herself. Was it wrong for me to find some measure of happiness in her, the innocent youth?

Jacob

She had rocked my world so many times before, but I never expected her to do this to me. To leave without a goodbye. We'd worked through our acceptance of not being able to be together. Her with marriage and motherhood and me with Mila, my own personal miracle.

It didn't make it any less difficult. Letting go isn't something I had ever planned to do, regardless of where the two of us ended up. Now I didn't have a choice, but I found it was next to impossible. I begged, bargained, pleaded and sobbed, wrenching heart and undry eyes, for me to have her back. My best friend. I moped, pined, and mourned. She's dead, Jacob, don't act like you are too! Her words cut through me. She was dead. Cold, pale, and unmoving.

The pixie sister who saw the future, Alice, she was called, motioned for me to occupy the empty seat on her left. I nodded to her, our eyes matching in unspeakable torment.

It wasn't about who we were today. Today we were the same.

Alice

I hope to never recall the last few hours of my life. The words of supposed closure, the last time we'll see the mahogany wood of their encasement. I hope, like the childhood memories, it will be blank in my mind. The moment I resolved to lock it all away, I was empty.

Of all thoughts save that I killed my brother and sister. I was responsible. Me and me alone.

I knew he had come and what he would do as soon as he did. He wasn't going to let me lock myself away. He pulled me close and wrapped me in his arms.

You don't have to be strong, he'd said before. There was a difference between not being strong and not being hysterical. He led me away, past the people with their running makeup, to our car where our whole family waited – I froze, not our whole family.

I crumpled like we both knew I would.

I put my face in his shoulder, not fighting down the ear-piercing scream that tore from my lips. My eyes squeezed shut though no tears came. No power of premonition could have prepared me for this.

Jasper

It was much harder than I would have thought possible to restrain from hopping the next plane to Italy. But my family needed me and I needed them. Controlling the emotions of others wasn't what I needed to calm the woman in my arms. The others cried, hung their petty heads to let the tears fall. She screamed, shrill and heartbroken, into my chest.

I couldn't comfort her. I wanted nothing more than to yell out, too, surrender to instinctive, gut reactions. How could these people murmur, look at us with pity in their eyes? Didn't they get it?

My brother was dead!

My sister was murdered!

I trembled, enough to draw her eyes to mine. She nodded, the ghost of the smile that would never be the same touched her lips. Of course she knew. She always knew. I wished with every fiber of my being that I knew what to do.

I needed Edward.

I needed Bella.

Rosalie

The car was the only place I could escape their pity and sympathetic stares. I didn't need them near me. I needed time with my thoughts. Time to realize how much my world had changed.

Be careful what you wish for. That's what they say. I wished. For a baby girl. And that's what I got.

The sun's light was dimming in the west. Another passing day didn't make things easier. I hid my face in Emmett's shoulder. Nothing was easy anymore.

Each moment was instilled in my mind forever. The initial way I'd treated her, the way I'd been harsh to him. This was my burden to bear, having to live everyday wishing I'd done things different, to know that goodbyes are inescapable.

Every time I see dawn, I think of dusk, forever looming on the horizon. For us, who are separate from all that the world was supposed to be, these times of day serve as memorials that help us tally each passing hour. The hearts of the humans around me beat and with every pulse, my chest aches.

For the little girl in my arms. Bronze-tinted hair, sparkles in her emerald eyes. She'll grow from baby giggles to skipping adolescence to rebellious flirtations. Knowing that she, too, will leave me is unthinkable. Gone. Fleeting. But very much a part of me.

How do you live forever when your world only lasts a day?

The next chapter is the epilogue. It sums up what we were hoping to accomplish with this story. We hope everyone has enjoyed the journey. We have!

Quote from the Epilogue:

Immortality is only found in death.